OF A LON 
 
 THEODORE L 
 
 HMnBU
 
 f L ; 
 
 | >AN DIEGO i
 
 THEODORE LEDYARD CUYLER.
 
 RECOLLECTIONS 
 OF A LONG LIFE 
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 BY 
 
 THEODORE LEDYARD CUYLER, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 Author of "Help and Good Cheer," "Gad's Light 
 
 on Dark Clouds," " The Emfty Crib," 
 
 tc., Etc. 
 
 NEW YORK : THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO. 
 33-37 EAST I7TH STREET, UNION SQUARE NORTH
 
 COPYRIGHT, igoa 
 
 BY 
 THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO. 
 
 Published September, 1902 
 
 PRINTED BY THE 
 
 KAY PRINTING HOUSE 
 
 66-68 CENTRE ST. 
 NBW YOEK CITY, U. S. A.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I 
 BOYHOOD AND COLLEGE LIFE 
 
 II 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO .... 12 
 Wordsworth Dickens The Land of 
 Burns, etc. 
 
 Ill 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO (Continued) 23 
 Carlyle Mrs. Baillie The Young Queen 
 Napoleon. 
 
 IV 
 
 HYMN-WRITERS I HAVE KNOWN 37 
 
 Montgomery Bonar Bowring Palmer 
 and others. 
 
 V 
 
 THE TEMPERANCE REFORM AND MY CO- 
 WORKERS 49
 
 vi CONTENTS 
 
 VI 
 WORK IN THE PULPIT 61 
 
 VII 
 EXPERIENCE IN REVIVALS 82 
 
 VIII 
 AUTHORSHIP 93 
 
 IX 
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE ABROAD 99 
 
 Gladstone Dr. Brown Dean Stanley 
 Shaftesbury, etc. 
 
 X 
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE AT HOME 1 18 
 
 Irving Whittier Webster Greeley, etc. 
 
 XI 
 THE CIVIL WAR AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN . .138 
 
 XII 
 PASTORAL WORK 159
 
 CONTENTS vii 
 
 XIII 
 
 SOME FAMOUS PREACHERS IN BRITAIN . . . 170 
 Binney Hamilton Guthrie Hall 
 Spurgeon Duff and others. 
 
 XIV 
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS . . . 190 
 The Alexanders Dr. Tyng Dr. Cox 
 Dr. Adams Dr. Storrs Mr. Beecher, 
 Mr. Finney and Dr. B. M. Palmer. 
 
 XV 
 
 SUMMERING AT SARATOGA AND MOHONK . . 224 
 Bishop Haven Dr. S chaff President 
 McCosh. 
 
 XVI 
 A RETROSPECT 243 
 
 XVII 
 A RETROSPECT (Continued) 273 
 
 XVIII 
 
 HOME LIFE . 288
 
 vii; CONTENTS 
 
 . . .312 
 
 XX 
 
 THE JOYS OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY . . 325 
 A Valedictory Discourse Delivered to the 
 Lafayette Avenue Church, April 6, 1890.
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 THEODORE LEDYARD CUYLER . . . Frontispiece 
 
 DR. CUYLER WHEN PASTOR OF THE MARKET 
 
 ST. CHURCH , Facing page 5 
 
 DR. CUYLER AT 50 .... Facing page 100 
 
 LAFAYETTE AVENUE CHURCH . Facing page 298 
 
 DR. CUYLER AT 80 .... Facing page 318
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF A 
 LONG LIFE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MY BOYHOOD AND COLLEGE LIFE 
 
 WASHINGTON IRVING has somewhere said that 
 it is a happy thing to have been born near some 
 noble mountain or attractive river or lake, which 
 should be a landmark through all the journey of 
 life, and to which we could tether our memory. I 
 have always been thankful that the place of my 
 nativity was the beautiful village of Aurora, on the 
 shores of the Cayuga Lake in Western New York. 
 My great-grandfather, General Benjamin Ledyard, 
 was one of its first settlers, and came there in 1794. 
 He was a native of New London County, Ct, a 
 nephew of Col. William Ledyard, the heroic martyr 
 of Fort Griswold, and the cousin of John Ledyard, 
 the celebrated traveller, whose biography was writ- 
 ten by Jared Sparks. When General Ledyard came 
 to Aurora some of the Cayuga tribe of Indians 
 were still lingering along the lakeside, and an
 
 2 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 Indian chief said to my great-grandfather, "General 
 Ledyard, I see that your daughters are very pretty 
 squaws.'' The eldest of these comely daughters, 
 Mary Forman Ledyard, was married to my grand- 
 father, Glen Cuyler, who was the principal lawyer 
 of the village, and their eldest son was my father, 
 Benjamin Ledyard Cuyler. He became a student 
 of Hamilton College, excelled in elocution, and was 
 a room-mate of the Hon. Gerrit Smith, afterward 
 eminent as the champion of anti-slavery. On a 
 certain Sabbath, the student just home from college 
 was called upon to read a sermon in the village 
 church of Aurora, in the absence of the pastor, 
 and his handsome visage and graceful delivery 
 won the admiration of a young lady of sixteen, 
 who was on a visit to Aurora. Three years after- 
 ward they were married. My mother, Louisa 
 Frances Morrell, was a native of Morristown, New 
 Jersey ; and her ancestors were among the founders 
 of that beautiful town. Her maternal great-grand- 
 father was the Rev. Dr. Timothy Johnes, the pastor 
 of the Presbyterian Church, who administered the 
 sacrament of the Lord's Supper to General Wash- 
 ington. Her paternal great-grandfather was the 
 Rev. Azariah Horton, pastor of a church near 
 Morristown, and an intimate friend of the great 
 President Edwards. The early settlers of Aurora 
 were people of culture and refinement; and the
 
 MY BOYHOOD AND COLLEGE LIFE. 3 
 
 village is now widely known as the site of Wells 
 College, among whose graduates is the popular 
 wife of ex-President Cleveland. 
 
 In the days of my childhood the march of mod- 
 ern improvements had hardly begun. There was 
 a small steamboat plying on the Cayuga Lake. 
 There was not a single railway in the whole State. 
 When I went away to school in New Jersey, at 
 the age of thirteen, the tedious journey by the stage- 
 coach required three days and two nights; every 
 letter from home cost eighteen cents for postage; 
 and the youngsters pored over Webster's spelling- 
 books and Morse's geography by tallow candles; 
 for no gas lamps had been dreamed of and the 
 wood fires were covered, in most houses, by nine 
 o'clock on a winter evening. There was plain 
 living then, but not a little high thinking. If books 
 were not so superabundant as in these days, they 
 were more thoroughly appreciated and digested. 
 
 My father, who was just winning a brilliant 
 position at the Cayuga County Bar, died in June, 
 1826, at the early age of twenty-eight, when I was 
 but four and one-half years old. The only distinct 
 recollections that I have of him are his leading me 
 to school in the morning, and that he once punished 
 me for using a profane word that I had heard from 
 some rough boys. That wholesome bit of discipline 
 kept me from ever breaking the Third Command-
 
 4 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 ment again. After his death, I passed entirely 
 into the care of one of the best mothers that God 
 ever gave to an only son. She was more to me 
 than school, pastor or church, or all combined. 
 God made mothers before He made ministers; the 
 progress of Christ's kingdom depends more upon 
 the influence of faithful, wise, and pious mothers 
 than upon any other human agency. 
 
 As I was an only child, my widowed mother gave 
 up her house and took me to the pleasant home of 
 her father, Mr. Charles Horton Morrell, on the 
 banks of the lake, a few miles south of Aurora. 
 How thankful I have always been that the next 
 seven or eight years of my happy childhood were 
 spent on the beautiful farm of my grandfather! I 
 had the free pure air of the country, and the simple 
 pleasures of the farmhouse; my grandfather was 
 a cultured gentleman with a good library, and at 
 his fireside was plenty of profitable conversation. 
 Out of school hours I did some work on the farm 
 that suited a boy ; I drove the cows to the pasture, 
 and rode the horses sometimes in the hay-field, and 
 carried in the stock of firewood on winter after- 
 noons. My intimate friends were the house-dog, 
 the chickens, the kittens and a few pet sheep in my 
 grandfather's flocks. That early work on the farm 
 did much toward providing a stock of physical 
 health that has enabled me to preach for fifty-six
 
 MY BOYHOOD AND COLLEGE LIFE. 5 
 
 yeare without ever having spent a single Sabbath 
 on a sick-bed ! 
 
 My Sabbaths in that rural home were like the 
 good old Puritan Sabbaths, serene and sacred, with 
 neither work nor play. Our church (Presbyterian) 
 was three miles away, and in the winter our family 
 often fought our way through deep mud, or through 
 snow-drifts piled as high as the fences. I was the 
 only child among grown-up uncles and aunts, and 
 the first Sunday-school that I ever attended had 
 only one scholar, and my good mother was the 
 superintendent. She gave me several verses of 
 the Bible to commit thoroughly to memory and 
 explained them to me; I also studied the West- 
 minster Catechism. I was expected to study God's 
 Book for myself, and not to sit and be crammed 
 by a teacher, after the fashion of too many Sunday- 
 schools in these days, where the scholars swallow 
 down what the teacher brings to them, as young 
 birds open their mouths and swallow what the old 
 bird brings to the nest. There is a lamentable 
 ignorance of the language of Scripture among the 
 rising generation of America, and too often among 
 the children of professedly Christian families. 
 
 The books that I had to feast on in the long 
 winter evenings were "Robinson Crusoe," "Sanford 
 and Merton," "The Pilgrim's Progress," and the 
 few volumes in my grandfather's library that were
 
 6 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 within the comprehension of a child of eight or ten 
 years old. I wept over "Paul and Virginia," and 
 laughed over "John Gilpin," the scene of whose 
 memorable ride I have since visited at the "Bell of 
 Edmonton." During the first quarter of the nine- 
 teenth century drunkenness was fearfully prevalent 
 in America; and the drinking customs wrought 
 their sad havoc in every circle of society. My 
 grandfather was one of the first agriculturists to 
 banish intoxicants from his farm, and I signed a 
 pledge of total abstinence when I was only ten or 
 eleven years old. Previously to that, I had got a 
 taste of "prohibition" that made a profound im- 
 pression on me. One day I discovered some 
 "cherrybounce" in a wine-glass on my grandfather's 
 sideboard, and I ventured to swallow the tempting 
 liquor. When my vigilant mother discovered what 
 I had done, she administered a dose of Solomon's 
 regimen in a way that made me "bounce" most 
 merrily. That wholesome chastisement for an act 
 of disobedience, and in the direction of tippling, 
 made me a teetotaller for life; and, let me add, that 
 the first public address I ever delivered was at a 
 great temperance gathering (with Father Theobald 
 Mathew) in the City Hall of Glasgow during the 
 summer of 1842. My mother's discipline was lov- 
 ing but thorough; she never bribed me to good 
 conduct with sugar-plums; she praised every com-
 
 MY BOYHOOD AND COLLEGE LIFE. 7 
 
 mendable deed heartily, for she held that an ounce 
 of honest praise is often worth more than many 
 pounds of punishment. 
 
 During my infancy that godly mother had dedi- 
 cated me to the Lord, as truly as Hannah ever 
 dedicated her son Samuel. When my paternal 
 grandfather, who was a lawyer, offered to bequeath 
 his law-library to me, my mother declined the 
 tempting offer, and said to him: "I fully expect 
 that my little boy will yet be a minister." This 
 was her constant aim and perpetual prayer, and God 
 graciously answered her prayer of faith in His own 
 good time and way. I cannot now name any time, 
 day, or place when I was converted. It was my 
 faithful mother's steady and constant influence that 
 led me gradually along, and I grew into a religious 
 life under her potent training, and by the power of 
 the Holy Spirit working through her agency. A 
 few years ago I gratefully placed in that noble 
 "Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church" of Brook- 
 lyn (of which I was the founder and pastor for 
 thirty years) a beautiful memorial window to my 
 beloved mother representing Hannah and her child 
 Samuel, and the fitting inscription : "As long as he 
 liveth I have lent him to the Lord." 
 
 For several good reasons I did not make a public 
 profession of my faith in Jesus Christ until I left 
 school and entered the college at Princeton, New
 
 8 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 Jersey. The religious impressions that began at 
 home continued and deepened until I united, at the 
 age of seventeen, with the Church of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. As an effectual instruction in righteous- 
 ness, my faithful mother's letters to me when a 
 schoolboy were more than any sermons that I heard 
 during all those years. I feel now that the happy 
 fifty-six years that I have spent in the glorious 
 ministry of the Gospel of Redemption is the direct 
 outcome of that beloved mother's prayers, teaching, 
 example, and holy influence. 
 
 My preparation for college was partly under the 
 private tutorship of the good old Dutch dominie, 
 the Rev. Gerrit Mandeville, who smoked his pipe 
 tranquilly while I recited to him my lessons in 
 Caesar's Commentaries, and Virgil; and partly in 
 the well-known Hill Top School, at Mendham, N. J. 
 I entered Princeton college at the age of sixteen 
 and graduated at nineteen, for in those days the 
 curriculum in our schools and universities was more 
 brief than at present. The Princeton college to 
 which I came was rather a primitive institution in 
 comparison with the splendid structures that now 
 crown the University heights. There were only 
 seven or eight plain buildings surrounding the 
 campus, the two society-halls being the only ones 
 that boasted architectural beauty. In endowments 
 the college was as poor as a church mouse. There
 
 MY BOYHOOD AND COLLEGE LIFE. 9 
 
 were no college clubs, no inter-collegiate games, 
 thronged by thousands of people from all over the 
 land; but the period of my connection with the 
 college was really a golden period in its history. 
 Never were its chairs held by more distinguished 
 occupants. The president of the college was Dr. 
 Carnahan, who, although without a spark of genius, 
 was yet a man of huge common sense, kindness of 
 heart and excellent executive ability. In the chair 
 of the vice-president sat dear old "Uncle Johnny" 
 McLean, the best-loved man that ever trod the 
 streets of Princeton. He was the policeman of the 
 faculty, and his astuteness in detecting the pranks 
 of the students was only equalled by his anxiety 
 to befriend them after they were detected. The 
 polished culture of Dr. James W. Alexander then 
 adorned the Chair of the Latin Language and 
 English Literature. Dr. John Torrey held the 
 chemical professorship. He was engaged with Dr. 
 Gray in preparing the history of American Flora. 
 Stephen Alexander's modest eye had watched Orion 
 and the Seven Stars through the telescope of the 
 astronomer; the flashing wit and silvery voice of 
 Albert B. Dod, then in his splendid prime, threw 
 a magnetic charm over the higher mathematics. 
 And in that old laboratory, with negro "Sam" as 
 his assistant, reigned Joseph Henry, the acknowl- 
 edged king of American scientists. When, soon
 
 io RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 after, he gave me a note of introduction to Sir 
 Michael Faraday, Faraday said to me : "By far the 
 greatest man of science your country has produced 
 since Benjamin Franklin is Professor Henry." 
 With Professor Henry I formed a very intimate 
 friendship, and after he became the head of the 
 Smithsonian Institution I found a home with him 
 whenever I went to Washington. 
 
 Our class, which graduated in 1841, contained 
 several members who have since made a deep mark 
 in church and commonwealth. Professor Archibald 
 Alexander Hodge was one of us. He inherited 
 the name and much of the power of his distin- 
 guished father. Also General Francis P. Blair, 
 who rendered heroic service on the battle-field. 
 John T. Nixon brought to the bench of the United 
 States Court, andEdwardW.Scudder brought to the 
 Supreme Court Bench of New Jersey, legal learn- 
 ing and Christian consciences. Richard W. Walker 
 became a distinguished man in the Southern Con- 
 federacy. Our class sent four men to professor's 
 chairs in Princeton. My best beloved classmate 
 was John T. Duffield, who, after a half century of 
 service as professor of mathematics in the Univer- 
 sity, closed his noble and beneficent career on the 
 loth of April, 1901. I delivered the memorial 
 tribute to him soon afterward in the Second Pres- 
 byterian Church in the presence of the authorities
 
 MY BOYHOOD AND COLLEGE LIFE. n 
 
 of the University. Another intimate friend was 
 the Hon. Amzi Dodd, ex-chancellor of New Jersey 
 and the ex-president of the New Jersey Life Insur- 
 ance Company. He is still a resident of that State. 
 During the past threescore years it has been my 
 privilege to deliver between sixty and seventy ser- 
 mons or addresses in Princeton, either to the 
 students of the University or of the Theological 
 Seminary, or to the residents of the town. The 
 place has become inexpressibly dear to me as a 
 magnificent stronghold of Christian culture and 
 orthodox faith, on the walls of whose institutions 
 the smile of God gleams like the light of the morn- 
 ing. O Princeton, Princeton! in the name of the 
 thousands of thy loyal sons, let me gratefully say, 
 "If we forget thee, may our right hands forget their 
 cunning, and our tongues cleave to the roofs of our 
 mouths !"
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 >'' "' 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO 
 
 Wordsworth Dickens The Land of Burns, etc. 
 
 THE year after leaving college I made a visit to 
 Europe, which, in those days, was a notable event. 
 As the stormy Atlantic had not yet been carpeted 
 by six-day steamers, I crossed in a fine new packet- 
 ship, the "Patrick Henry," of the Grinnell & Min- 
 turn Line. Captain Joseph C. Delano was a gen- 
 tleman of high intelligence and culture who, after 
 he had abandoned salt water, became an active 
 member of the American Association of Science. 
 After twenty-one days under canvas and the in- 
 structions of the captain, I learned more of nautical 
 affairs and of the ocean and its ways than in a 
 dozen subsequent passages in the steamships. 
 
 On the second morning after our arrival in Liver- 
 pool I breakfasted with that eminent clergyman, 
 Dr. Raffles, who boasted the possession of one of 
 the finest collections of autographs in England. He 
 showed me the signature of John Bunyan; the 
 original manuscript of one of Sir Walter Scott's 
 
 novels; the original of Burns' poem addressed to 
 
 12
 
 GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO. 13 
 
 the parasite on a lady's bonnet, which contained 
 the famous lines : 
 
 "Oh wad some power the giftie gie us 
 To see our sel's as others see us," 
 
 besides several other manuscripts by the same poet, 
 and also the autograph of a challenge sent by Byron 
 to Lord Brougham for alleged insult, a fact to 
 which no reference has been made in Byron's biog- 
 raphy. From Liverpool, with my friends Professor 
 Renwick and Professor Cuningham, I set out on a 
 journey to the lakes of England. We reached 
 Bowness, on Lake Windermere, in the evening. 
 The next morning we went up to Elleray, the 
 country residence of Professor Wilson ("Christo- 
 pher North"), who, unfortunately, was absent in 
 Edinburgh. We hired a boatman to row us through 
 exquisitely beautiful Windermere, and in the even- 
 ing reached the Salutation Inn, at the foot of the 
 lake. My great interest in visiting Ambleside was 
 to see the venerable poet, Wordsworth, who lived 
 about a mile from the village. I happened, just 
 before supper, to look put of the window of the 
 traveller's room and espied an old man in a blue 
 cloak and Glengarry cap, with a bunch of heather 
 stuck jauntily in the top, driving by in a little 
 brown phaeton from Rydal Mount. "Perhaps," 
 thought I to myself, "that may be the patriarch him- 
 self," and sure enough it was. For, when I in-
 
 14 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 quired about Mr. Wordsworth, the landlord said to 
 me, "A few minutes ago he went by here in his 
 little carriage." The next morning I called upon 
 him. The walk to his cottage was delightful, with 
 the dew still lingering in the shady nooks by the 
 roadside, and the morning songs of thanksgiving 
 bursting forth from every grove. At the summit 
 of a deeply shaded hill I found "Rydal Mount" 
 cottage. I was shown, at once, into the sitting- 
 room, where I found him with his wife, who sat 
 sewing beside him. The old man rose and received 
 me graciously. By his appearance I was somewhat 
 startled. Instead of a grave recluse in scholastic 
 black, whom I expected to see, I found an affable 
 and lovable old man dressed in the roughest coat 
 of blue with metal buttons, and checked trousers, 
 more like a New York farmer than an English 
 poet. His nose was very large, his forehead a lofty 
 dome of thought, and his long white locks hung 
 over his stooping shoulders; his eyes presented a 
 singular, half closed appearance. We entered at 
 once into a delightful conversation. He made 
 many inquiries about Irving, Mrs. Sigourney and 
 our other American authors, and spoke, with great 
 vehemence, in favor of an international copyright 
 law. He said that at one time he had hoped to 
 visit America, but the duties of a small office which 
 he held (Distributer of Stamps), and upon which
 
 GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO. 15 
 
 he was partly dependent, prevented the undertak- 
 ing. He occasionally made a trip to London to see 
 the few survivors of the friends of his early days, 
 but he told me that his last excursion had proved 
 a wearisome effort. His library was small but 
 select. He took down an American edition of his 
 works, edited by Professor Reed, and told me that 
 London had never produced an edition equal to it. 
 When I was about to leave, the good old poet got 
 his broad slouched hat and put on his double purple 
 glasses to protect his eyes, and we went out to enjoy 
 the neighboring views. We walked about from one 
 point to another and kept up a lively conversation. 
 He displayed such a winning familiarity that, in the 
 language of his own poem, we seemed 
 
 " A pair of friends, though I was young, 
 And he was seventy-four." 
 
 From the rear of his court-yard he showed me 
 Rydal Water, a little lake about a mile long, the 
 beautiful church, and beyond it, Grassmere, and 
 stil! further beyond, Helvelyn, the mountain-king 
 with a retinue of a hundred hills. I might have 
 spent the whole day in delightful intercourse with 
 the old man, but my fellow-travellers were going, 
 and I could make no longer inroads upon their 
 time. When we returned to the door of his cottage, 
 he gave me a parting blessing; he picked a small 
 yellow flower and handed it to me, and I still pre-
 
 16 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 serve it in my edition of his works, as a relic of 
 the most profound and the most sublime poet that 
 England has produced during the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. I know of but one other living American 
 who has ever visited Wordsworth at Rydal Mount. 
 
 After passing through Keswick, where the ven- 
 erable poet Southey was still lingering in sadly 
 failing intelligence, we reached Carlisle the same 
 evening. From Carlisle we took the mail-coach 
 for Edinburgh by the same route over which Sir 
 Walter Scott was accustomed to make his journeys 
 up to London. The driver, who might have an- 
 swered to Washington Irving's description, pointed 
 out to me Netherby Hall, the mansion of the Gra- 
 hams, on "Cannobie lea," over which the young 
 Lochinvar bore away his stolen bride. We passed 
 also Branksome Tower, the scene of the "Lay of 
 the Last Minstrel," and reached Selkirk in the early 
 evening. The next day I spent at Abbotsford. 
 The Great Magician had been dead only ten years, 
 and his family still occupied the house with some 
 of his old employees who figure in Lockhart's biog- 
 raphy. I sat in the great arm-chair where Sir 
 Walter Scott wrote many of his novels, and looked 
 out of the window of his bedchamber, through 
 which came the rippling murmurs of the Tweed, 
 that consoled his dying hours. I heartily sub- 
 scribe to the opinion, expressed by Tennyson, that
 
 GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO. 17 
 
 Sir Walter Scott was the most extraordinary man 
 in British literature since the days of Shakespeare. 
 
 After reaching Glasgow I made a brief trip into 
 the Land of Burns. At the town of Ayr I found 
 an omnibus waiting to take me down to the birth- 
 place of the poet. At that time the number of 
 visitors to these regions was comparatively few, 
 and the birthplace of the poet had not been trans- 
 formed, as now, into a crowded museum. On 
 reaching a slight elevation, since consecrated by the 
 muse of Burns, there broke upon the view his mon- 
 ument, his native cottage, Alloway Kirk, the scene 
 of the inimitable Tarn o' Shanter, and behind them 
 all the "Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon." I 
 went first to the monument, within which on a 
 centre table are the two volumes of the Bible given 
 by Burns to Highland Mary when they "lived one 
 day of parting love" beneath the hawthorn of Coils- 
 field. One of the volumes contains, in Burns' hand- 
 writing, "Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt 
 perform unto the Lord thy vows," and a lock of 
 Mary's hair, of a light brown color, given at the 
 time, is preserved in the treasured volumes. A 
 few steps away is Alloway Kirk. The old sexton 
 was standing by the grave of Burns' father, and 
 described to me the route of "Tarn o' Shanter." He 
 showed me the chinks in the sides through which 
 the kirk seemed "all in a bleeze," and he pointed
 
 18 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 out the identical place on the wall where Old Nick 
 was presiding over the midnight revels of the 
 beldames when 
 
 "Louder and louder the piper blew, 
 Swifter and swifter the dancers flew." 
 
 After the old man had finished his recital, I asked 
 him whether he had ever seen the poet. "Only 
 aince," he replied. "That was one day when he was 
 ridin' on a road near here. I met a friend who told 
 me to hurry up, for Rabbie Burns was just ahead. 
 I whippit up my horse, and came up to a roughly 
 dressed man, ridin' slowly along, with his blue 
 bonnet pulled down over his forehead, and his eyes 
 turned toward the groond." "Didn't you speak to 
 him?" I said. "Nay, nay," replied the man, in a 
 tone of deep reverence, "he was Rabbie Burns. / 
 dare na speak to him. If he had been any other 
 mon I would have said 'good morrow to ye.' " 
 Beautiful and eloquent tribute, paid by an unlettered 
 peasant, not to rank or to wealth, but to a soul 
 a mighty soul though clad in "hodden grey" like 
 himself ! 
 
 The most interesting object was yet to be visited 
 the cottage of his birth. I entered it with rever- 
 ence ; and a well dressed, but very old, woman wel- 
 comed me in. "This is the room," she said. I 
 looked around on the rough stone walls and could 
 not believe that it ever contained such a soul ; for
 
 GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO. 19 
 
 the cottage, with all its subsequent repairs, was 
 hardly equal to the generality of our early log 
 cabins. The old lady was very affable. In her 
 early life she had been connected with an inn at 
 Mauchline, and had seen the poet often. "Rabbie 
 was a funny fellow," she said ; "I ken'd him weel ; 
 and he stoppit at our hoose on his way up to Edin- 
 burgh to see the lairds." I asked her if he was 
 not always humorous. "Nae, nae," she replied, 
 "he used to come in and sit doun wi' his hands in 
 his lap like a bashful country lad; very glum, till 
 he got a drap o' whuskey, or heard a gude story, 
 and then he was aff! He was very poorly in his 
 latter days." Those closing days in Dumfries, 
 steeped in poverty to the lips, forms one of the 
 most tragic chapters in literary history; and I 
 know scarcely anything in our language more pa- 
 thetic than the letter which he wrote describing 
 his wretched bondage to the dominion of strong 
 drink. An old lady of Kilmarnock told my friend, 
 the late Dr. Taylor of New York, that when a 
 young woman she had gone to Burns' house to 
 assist in preparations for his funeral, and stated 
 that there was not enough decent linen in the house 
 to lay out the most splendid genius in all Scotland ! 
 When I was at Ayr, a sister of Burns, Mrs. Begg, 
 was still living, and I am always regretting that I 
 did not call upon her. His widow, Jean Armour,
 
 20 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 had died but a few years before; and when a cer- 
 tain pert American who called upon the old lady 
 had the audacity to ask her: "Can you show me 
 any relics of the poet?" answered with majestic 
 dignity : "Sir, / am the only relic of Robert Burns." 
 1 went abroad on this first visit to Europe keen 
 for lion hunting, and with an eager desire to see 
 some of the men who had been my literary benefac- 
 tors. On my arrival in London, having a letter of 
 introduction to Charles Dickens, which a mutual 
 friend had given to me, I resolved to present it. 
 Charles Dickens was an idol of my college days, and 
 1 had spent a few minutes with him in Philadelphia 
 during his recent visit to the United States. He had 
 returned from his triumphal tour about a month 
 before I landed in Liverpool. I called at his house, 
 but he was not at home. The next day he did me 
 the honor to call on me at Morley's Hotel, and, 
 not finding me in, invited me up to his house near 
 York Gate, Regents Park. It was a dingy, brick 
 house surrounded by a high wall, but cheerful and 
 cozy within. I found him in his sanctum, a singu- 
 larly shaped room, with statuettes of Sam Weller 
 and others of his creations on the mantelpiece. 
 A portrait of his beautiful wife was upon the wall 
 that wife, the separation from whom threw a 
 strange, sad shadow over his home. How hand- 
 some he was then! With his deep, dark, lustrous
 
 GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO. 21 
 
 eyes, that you saw yourself in, and the merry mouth 
 wreathed with laughter, and the luxuriant mass of 
 dark hair that he wore in a sort of stack over his 
 lofty forehead ! He had a slight lisp in his pleasant 
 voice, and ran on in. rapid talk for an hour, with 
 a shy reluctance to talk about his own works, but 
 with the most superabounding vivacity I have ever 
 met with in any man. His two daughters, one of 
 whom afterward married the younger Collins, a 
 brother novelist, were then schoolgirls of eight 
 and ten years, came in, with books in their hands, 
 to give their father a good-morning kiss. After 
 parting with him, when I had reached his gate, 
 he called after me in a very loud voice, "If you see 
 Mrs. Lucretia Mott, tell her that I have not for- 
 gotten the slave." His "American Notes" appeared 
 the next week. There were some things in that 
 hasty and faulty volume for which I sent him a 
 cordial note of thanks, and I speedily received the 
 following characteristic reply, which I still prize as 
 a precious relic of the man : 
 
 i DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, 
 REGENTS PARK, Oct. 26th, 1842. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR: I am heartily obliged to you for your 
 frank and manly letter. I shall always remember it in con- 
 nection with my American book; and never believe me 
 save in the foremost rank of its pleasant and honorable 
 associations. 
 
 Let me subscribe myself, as I really am 
 
 Faithfully your Friend, 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 Mr. Theodore Ledyard Cuyler.
 
 32 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 I hold that Dickens was the most original genius 
 in our fictitious literature since the days of Walter 
 Scott. As a social reformer his fame is quite 
 as great as it is as a master of romance. His 
 pen was mighty to the pulling down of many a 
 social abuse, and from the loving kindness of his 
 writings has been got many an inspiration to deeds 
 of charity. But how could a man who went so far 
 as he did go no further? How could the reformer 
 who struck at so many social wrongs spare that 
 hideous fountain-head of misery in London, the 
 dram-shop? And how could he descend to scur- 
 rilously satirize all societies formed for the promo- 
 tion of temperance? A still greater marvel is that 
 so kind-hearted a man as Mr. Dickens, who sought 
 honestly the amelioration of the condition of his 
 fellow-men, could utterly ignore the transforming 
 power of Christianity. He did not cast contempt 
 on the Bible, and never soiled his pages with infidel- 
 ity; neither did he ever enlighten, and warm and 
 vivify them with evangelical uplifting truth. Only 
 a few feet of earth separate the grave of Charles 
 Dickens from the grave of William Wilberforce. 
 Both loved their fellow-men; but the great differ- 
 ence between them was that one of them invoked 
 the spiritual power of the Gospel of Christ, which 
 the other lamentably ignored.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO (Continued) 
 
 Carlyle Mrs. Baillie The Young Queen 
 Napoleon 
 
 ONE of the lions of whom I was in pursuit was 
 Thomas Carlyle. Very few Americans at that 
 time had ever seen him, for he lived a very secluded 
 and laborious life in a little brick house at Chelsea, 
 in the southwest of London; and he rarely kept 
 open doors. His life was the opposite to that 
 of Dickens and Macaulay, and he was never lion- 
 ized, except when he went to Edinburgh to deliver 
 his address before the University, years afterwards. 
 I sent him a note in which I informed him of the 
 enthusiastic admiration which we college students 
 felt for him, and that I desired to call and pay him 
 my respects. To my note he responded promptly: 
 "You will be welcome to-morrow at three o'clock, 
 the hour when I become accessible in my garret 
 here." I found his "garret" to be a comfortable 
 front room on the second floor of his modest home. 
 It was well lined with books, and a portrait of 
 Oliver Cromwell hung behind his study chair. He 
 
 23
 
 24 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 was seated at his table with a huge German volume 
 open before him. His greeting was very hearty, 
 but, with a comical look of surprise, he said in 
 broad Scotch : "You are a verra young mon." I 
 told him of the appetite we college boys had for his 
 books, and he assured me at once that while he 
 had met some of our eminent literary men he had 
 never happened to meet a college boy before. 
 "Your Mr. Longfellow," said he, "called to see 
 me yesterday. He is a man skilled in the tongues. 
 Your own name I see is Dootch. The word 
 'Cuyler' means a delver, or one who digs under- 
 ground. You must be a Dutchman." I told him 
 that my ancestors had come over from Holland a 
 couple of centuries ago, and I was proud of my 
 lineage; for my grandfather, Glen Cuyler, was a 
 descendant of Hendrick Cuyler, one of the early 
 Dutch settlers of Albany, who came there in 
 1667. "Ah," said he, "the Dootch are the braw- 
 vest people of modern times. The world has been 
 rinnin' after a red rag of a Frenchman ; but he was 
 nothing to William the Silent. When Pheelip of 
 Spain sent his Duke of Alva to squelch those Dutch- 
 men they joost squelched him like a rotten egg 
 aye, they did." 
 
 I asked him why he didn't visit America, and 
 told him that I had observed his name registered 
 at Ambleside, on Lake Windermere. "Nae, nae,"
 
 GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO. 25 
 
 said he, "I never scrabble my name in public 
 places." I explained that it was on the hotel 
 register that I had seen "Thomas Carlyle." "It 
 was not mine," he replied, "I never travel only 
 when I ride on a horse in the teeth of the wind 
 to get out of this smoky London. I would like 
 to see America. You may boast of your 
 Dimocracy, or any other 'cracy, or any other kind 
 of political roobish, but the reason why your labor- 
 ing folk are so happy is that you have a vast deal of 
 land for a very few people." In this racy, pictur- 
 esque vein he ran on for an hour in the most 
 cordial, good humor. He was then in his prime, 
 hale and athletic, with a remarkably keen blue 
 eye, a strong lower jaw and stiff iron gray hair, 
 brushed up from a capacious forehead; and he 
 had a look of a sturdy country deacon dressed up 
 on a Sunday morning for church. He was very 
 carefully attired in a new suit that day for visiting, 
 and, as I rose to leave, he said to me : "I am going 
 up into London and I will walk wi' ye." We sallied 
 out and he strode the pavement with long strides like 
 a plowman. I told him I had just come from the 
 land of Burns, and that the old man at the native 
 cottage of the poet had drunk himself to death 
 by drinking to the memory of Burns. 
 
 At this Carlyle laughed loudly, and remarked: 
 "Was that the end of him? Ah, a wee bit drap
 
 26 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 will send a mon a lang way." He then told me 
 that when he was a lad he used to go into the 
 Kirkyard at Dumfries and, hunting out the poet's 
 tomb, he loved to stand and just read over the 
 name "Rabbert Burns" "Rabbert Burns." He 
 pronounced the name with deep reverence. That 
 picture of the country lad in his earliest act of 
 hero-worship at the grave of Burns would have 
 been a good subject for the pencil of Millais or 
 of Holman Hunt. At the corner of Hyde Park I 
 parted from Mr. Carlyle, and watched him striding 
 away, as if, like the De'il in "Tarn O'Shanter," 
 he had "business on his hand." 
 
 Thirty years afterwards, in June, 1872, I felt an 
 irrepressible desire to see the grand old man 
 once more, and I accordingly addressed him a note 
 requesting the favor of a few minutes' interview. 
 His reply was, perhaps, the briefest letter ever 
 written. It was simply: 
 
 "Three P. M. 
 
 T. C." 
 
 He told me afterwards that his hand had 
 become so tremulous that he seldom touched a 
 pen. My beloved friend, the Rev. Newman Hall, 
 asked the privilege of accompanying me, as, like 
 most Londoners, he had never put his eye on the 
 recluse philosopher. We found the same old brick 
 house, No. 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, without the
 
 GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO. 27 
 
 slightest change outside or in. But, during those 
 thirty years the gifted wife had departed, and a 
 sad change had come over the once hale, stalwart 
 man. After we had waited some time, a feeble, 
 stooping figure, attired in a long blue flannel gown, 
 moved slowly into the room. His gray hair was 
 unkempt, his blue eyes were still keen and pierc- 
 ing, and a bright hectic spot of red appeared on 
 each of his hollow cheeks. His hands were trem- 
 ulous, and his voice deep and husky. After a few 
 personal inquiries the old man launched out into a 
 most extraordinary and characteristic harangue on 
 the wretched degeneracy of these evil days. The 
 prophet, Jeremiah, was cheerfulness itself in com- 
 parison with him. Many of the raciest things 
 he regaled us with were entirely too personal for 
 publication. He amused us with a description of 
 half a night's debate with John Bright on political 
 economy, while he said, "Bright theed and thoud 
 with me for hours, while his Quaker wife sat up 
 hearin' us baith. I tell ye, John Bright got as 
 gude as he gie that night" ; and I have no doubt that 
 he did. 
 
 Most of his extraordinary harangue was like an 
 eruption of Vesuvius, but the laugh he occasion- 
 ally gave showed that he was talking about as much 
 for his own amusement as for ours. He was ter- 
 ribly severe on Parliament, which he described as
 
 28 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 "endless babblement and windy talk the same 
 hurdy-gurdies grinding out lies and inanities." 
 The only man he had ever heard in Parliament 
 that at all satisfied him was the Old Iron Duke. 
 " He gat up and stammered away for fifteen min- 
 utes; but I tell ye, he was the only mon in Parlia- 
 ment who gie us any credible portraiture of the 
 facts." He looked up at the portrait of Oliver 
 Cromwell behind him, and exclaimed with great 
 vehemence: "I ha' gone doon to the verra bottom 
 of Oliver's speeches, and naething in Demosthenes 
 or in any other mon will compare wi' Cromwell 
 in penetrating into the veritable core of the fact. 
 Noo, Parliament, as they ca' it, is joost everlasting 
 babblement and lies." We led him to discuss the 
 labor question and the condition of the working 
 classes. He said that the turmoil about labor is 
 only "a lazy trick of master and man to do just as 
 little honest work and to get just as much for it 
 as they possibly can that is the labor question." 
 It did my soul good, as a teetotaler, to hear his 
 scathing denunciation of the liquor traffic. He was 
 fierce in his wrath against "the horrible and detest- 
 able damnation of whuskie and every kind of strong 
 drink." In this strain the thin and weird looking 
 old Iconoclast went on for an hour until he wound 
 up with declaring, "England has joost gane clear 
 doon into an abominable cesspool of lies, shoddies
 
 GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO. 29 
 
 and shams down to a bottomless damnation. Ye 
 may gie whatever meaning to that word that ye 
 like." He could not refrain from laughing heartily 
 himself at the conclusion of this eulogy on his 
 countrymen. If we had not known that Mr. Carlyle 
 had a habit of exercising himself in this kind of 
 talk, we should have felt a sort of consternation. 
 As it was we enjoyed it as a postscript to "Sartor 
 Resartus" or the "Latter Day" pamphlets, and lis- 
 tened and laughed accordingly. As we were about 
 parting from him with a cordial and tender fare- 
 well, my friend, Newman Hall, handed him a copy 
 of his celebrated little book, "Come to Jesus." Mr. 
 Carlyle, leaning over his table, fixed his eye upon 
 the inscription on the outside of the booklet, and as 
 we left the room, we heard him repeating to him- 
 self the title "Coom to Jesus Coom to Jesus." 
 
 About Carlyle's voluminous works, his glorious 
 eulogies of Luther, Knox and Cromwell, his vivid 
 histories, his pessimistic utterances, his hatred of 
 falsehood and his true, pure and laborious life, I 
 have no time or space to write. He was the last of 
 the giants in one department of British literature. 
 He will outlive many an author who slumbers in 
 the great Abbey. I owe him grateful thanks for 
 many quickening, stimulating thoughts, and shall 
 always be thankful that I grasped the strong hand 
 of Thomas Carlyle.
 
 30 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 One of the literary celebrities to whom I had 
 credentials was the venerable Mrs. Joanna Baillie, 
 not now much read, but then well known from her 
 writings and her intimacy with Sir Walter Scott, 
 and to whom Lockhart devotes a considerable space 
 in the biography. Her residence was in Hampstead, 
 and I was obliged, after leaving the omnibus, to 
 walk nearly a mile across open fields which are 
 now completely built over by mighty London. The 
 walk proved a highly profitable one from the society 
 of an intelligent stranger who, like every true 
 English gentleman, when properly approached, was 
 led to give all the information in his power. When 
 I reached the suburban village of Hampstead, after 
 passing over stiles and through fields, I at last 
 succeeded in finding her residence, a quiet little 
 cottage, with a little parlor which had been honored 
 by some of the first characters of our age. "The 
 female Shakespeare," as she was sometimes called in 
 those days, was at home and tripped into the room 
 with the elastic step of a girl, although she was 
 considerably over three score years and ten. She 
 was very petite and fair, with a sweet benignant 
 countenance that inspired at once admiration and 
 affection. Almost her first words to me were: 
 "What a pity you did not come ten minutes sooner ; 
 for if you had you would have seen Mr. Thomas 
 Campbell, who has just gone away." I was ex-
 
 GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO. 31 
 
 ceedingly sorry to have missed a sight of the author 
 of "Hohenlinden" and the incomparable "Battle 
 of the Baltic," but was quite surprised that he was 
 still seeking much society ; for in those days he was 
 lamentably addicted to intoxicants. On more than 
 one public occasion he was the worse for his cups ; 
 and when, after his death, a subscription was 
 started to place his statue in Westminster Abbey, 
 Samuel Rogers, the poet, cynically said, "Yes, I 
 will gladly give twenty pounds any day to see dear 
 old Tom Campbell stand steady on his legs." It 
 is a matter of congratulation that the most eminent 
 men of the Victorian era have not fallen into some 
 of the unhappy habits of their predecessors at the 
 beginning of the last century. Mrs. Baillie enter- 
 tained me with lively descriptions of Sir Walter 
 Scott, and of her old friend, Mr. Wordsworth, who 
 was her guest whenever he came up to London. 
 She expressed the warmest admiration for the 
 moral and political, though not all of the religious, 
 writings of our Dr. Channing, whom she pro- 
 nounced the finest essayist of the time. She also 
 felt a curious interest (which I discovered in many 
 other notable people in England) to learn what she 
 could in regard to our American Indians, and ex- 
 pressed much admiration when I gave her some 
 quotations from the picturesque eloquence of our 
 sons of the forest.
 
 32 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 Every American who visited London in those 
 days felt a laudable curiosity to see the young 
 Queen, who had been crowned but four years be- 
 fore. I went up to Windsor Castle, and after in- 
 specting it, joined a little group of people who were 
 standing at the gateway which leads out to the 
 Long Drive and Virginia Water. They were wait- 
 ing to get a look at the young Queen, who always 
 drove out at four o'clock. Presently the gate 
 opened and a low carriage, preceded by three 
 horsemen, passed through. It contained a plump 
 baby, nearly two years of age, wrapped in a buff 
 cloak and held up in the arms of its nurse. That 
 baby became the Empress Dowager of Germany, 
 the mother of the present Kaiser and of Prince 
 Henry, who has lately been our guest. In a few 
 minutes afterwards a pony phaeton, with two 
 horses, passed through the gate and we all doffed 
 our hats. It was driven by handsome young Prince 
 Albert, dressed in a gray overcoat and silk hat. 
 To this day I think of him as about the most capti- 
 vating young husband that I have ever seen. By 
 his side sat his young wife, dresed in a small white 
 bonnet with pink feather and wrapped in a white 
 shawl. Her complexion was exceedingly fresh and 
 fair. Her light brown hair was dressed in the 
 "Grecian" style, and as she bowed gracefully I 
 observed the peculiarity of her smile that she
 
 GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO. 33 
 
 showed her teeth very distinctly. This resulted from 
 the shortness of her upper lip. "A pretty girl she 
 is too" was the remark I heard from the visitors 
 as the carriage went on down the drive. That was 
 my first glimpse of royalty, and I little dreamed that 
 she was to be the longest lived sovereign that ever 
 sat on the British throne, and the most popular 
 woman in all modern times. 
 
 Thirty years rolled away and I saw the good 
 Queen again. The Albert Memorial, erected to the 
 handsome Prince Consort, whom she idolized, had 
 just been completed, and one morning the Queen 
 came incognito to make her first private inspection 
 of the memorial. Through the intimation of a 
 friend I hurried at once to the Park, and found 
 a small company of people gathered there. Her 
 Majesty had just come, accompanied by Prince 
 Arthur, the Princess Louise and the young Prin- 
 cess Beatrice; and they were examining the gorgeous 
 new structure. The Queen wore a plain black silk 
 dress and her children were very plainly attired, 
 so that they looked like a group of good, honest 
 republicans. The only evidence of royalty was that 
 the company of gentlemen who were pointing out 
 to the Queen the various beauties of the monu- 
 ment just completed were careful not to turn their 
 backs upon Her Majesty. I observed that when her 
 children bade her "good morning" they kneeled
 
 34 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 and kissed her hand. She remained sitting in her 
 carriage for some time, chatting and laughing with 
 her daughter Beatrice. Her countenance had be- 
 come very florid and her figure very stout. The last 
 time that I saw her driving in the Park her full, 
 rubicund face made her look not only like the 
 venerable grandmother of a host of descendants, 
 but of the whole vast empire on which the sun 
 never sets. Last year the most beloved sovereign 
 that has ever occupied the British throne was laid 
 in the gorgeous mausoleum at Frogmore beside the 
 husband of her youth and the sharer of twenty-two 
 years of happy and holy wedlock. All Christendom 
 was a mourner beside that royal tomb. 
 
 From London I went on a very brief visit to 
 Paris, at the time when Louis Phillipe was at the 
 height of his power and apparently securely seated 
 on his throne. Within a half a dozen years from 
 that time he was a refugee in disguise, and the 
 kingdom of France was followed by the Republic of 
 Lamartine. My brief visit to Paris was made more 
 agreeable by the fact that my kinsman, the Hon. 
 Henry Ledyard, was then in charge of the Ameri- 
 can Embassy, in the absence of his father-in-law, 
 General Lewis Cass, our Ambassador, who had re- 
 turned to America for a visit. The one memorable 
 incident of that brief sojourn in Paris that I shall 
 recall was a visit to the tomb of Napoleon, whose
 
 GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO. 35 
 
 remains had been brought home the year before 
 from the Island of St. Helena. Passing through the 
 Place de la Concord and crossing the Seine, a ten 
 minutes' walk brought me to the Hospital des In- 
 valides. I reached it in the morning when the 
 court in front was filled with about three hundred 
 veterans on an early parade. Many of them were 
 the shattered relics of Napoleon's Grand Army 
 glorious old fellows in cocked hats and long blue 
 coats, and weather-beaten as the walls around them. 
 After a few moments I hurried into the Rotunda, 
 which is nearly one hundred feet in height, sur- 
 rounded by six small recesses, or alcoves. "Where 
 is Napoleon?" said I to one of the sentinels. 
 "There," said he, pointing to a recess, or small 
 chapel, hung with dark purple velvet and lighted 
 by one glimmering lamp. I approached the iron rail- 
 ing and, there before me, almost within arm's length, 
 in the marble coffin covered by his gray riding 
 coat of Marengo, lay all that was mortal of the 
 great Emperor. At his feet was a small urn con- 
 taining his heart, and upon it lay his sword and the 
 military cap worn at the battle of Eylau. Beside 
 the coffin was gathered a group of tattered banners 
 captured by him in many a victorious fight. Three 
 gray-haired veterans, whose breasts were covered 
 with medals, were pacing slowly on guard in front 
 of the alcove. I said to them in French: "Were
 
 36 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 you at Austerlitz ?" "Oui, oui," they said. "Were 
 you at Jena?" "Oui, oui." "AtWagram?" "Oui, 
 oui," they replied. I lingered long at the spot, 
 listening to the inspiring strains of the soldiery 
 without, and recalling to my mind the stirring days 
 when the lifeless clay beside me was dashing for- 
 ward at the head of those very troops through the 
 passes of the Alps and over the bridge at Lodi. It 
 seemed to me as a dream, and I could scarcely 
 realize that I stood within a few feet of the actual 
 body of that colossal wonder-worker whose extra- 
 ordinary combination of military and civil genius 
 surpassed that of any other man in modern history. 
 And yet, when all shall be summoned at last before 
 the Great Tribunal, a Wilberforce, a Shaftesbury, 
 or an Abraham Lincoln will never desire to change 
 places with him.
 
 HYMN- WRITERS I HAVE KNOWN 
 
 Montgomery Bonar Boivring Palmer 
 and Others 
 
 HYMNOLOGY has always been a favorite study 
 with me, and it has been my privilege to be ac- 
 quainted with several of the most eminent hymn- 
 writers within the last sixty or seventy years. It 
 is a remarkable fact that among the distinguished 
 English-speaking poets, Cowper and Montgomery 
 are the only ones who have been successful in pro- 
 ducing many popular hymns; while the greatest 
 hymns have been the compositions either of min- 
 isters of the Gospel, like Watts, Wesley, Toplady, 
 Doddridge, Newman, Lyte, Bonar and Ray Palmer, 
 or by godly women, like Charlotte Elliott, Mrs. 
 Sarah F. Adams, Miss Havergal and Mrs. Prentiss. 
 During my visit to Great Britain in the summer of 
 1842, I spent a few weeks at Sheffield as the guest 
 of Mr. Edward Vickers, the ex-Mayor of the city. 
 His near neighbor was the venerable James Mont- 
 gomery, whose pupil he had been during the short 
 time that the poet conducted a school. Mr. Vickers 
 
 37
 
 38 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 took me to visit the poet at his residence at The 
 Mount. A short, brisk, cheery old man, then 
 seventy-one, came into the room with a spry step. 
 He wore a suit of black, with old-fashioned dress 
 ruffles, and a high cravat that looked as if it choked 
 him. His complexion was fresh, and snowy hair 
 crowned a noble forehead. He had never married, 
 but resided with a relative. We chatted about 
 America, and I told him that in all our churches 
 his hymns were great favorites. I unfortunately 
 happened to mention that when lately in Glasgow 
 I had gone to hear the Rev. Robert Montgomery, 
 the author of "Satan," and other poems. It was this 
 "Satan Montgomery" whom Macaulay had scalped 
 with merciless criticism in the Edinburgh Review. 
 The mention of his name aroused the old poet's ire. 
 "Would you believe it?" he exclaimed, indignantly, 
 "they attribute some of that fellow's performances 
 to me, and lately a lady wrote to me in reference to 
 one of his most pompous poems, and said "it was 
 the best that I had ever written!" I do not wonder 
 at my venerable friend's vexation, for there was a 
 world-wide contrast between his own chaste sim- 
 plicity and the stilted pomposity of his Glasgow 
 namesake. Montgomery, though born a Moravian 
 and educated at a Moravian school, was a constant 
 worshipper at St. George's Episcopal Church, in 
 Sheffield. The people of the town were very proud
 
 HYMN-WRITERS I HAVE KNOWN. 39 
 
 of their celebrated townsman, and after his death 
 gave him a public funeral, and erected a bronze 
 statue to his memory. While he was the author of 
 several volumes of poetry, his enduring fame rests 
 on his hymns, some of which will be sung in all 
 lands through coming generations. Four hundred 
 own his parentage and one hundred at least are in 
 common use throughout Christendom. He pro- 
 duced a single verse that has hardly been surpassed 
 in all hymnology : 
 
 "Here in the body pent 
 
 Absent from Him I roam, 
 Yet nightly pitch my moving tent, 
 
 A day's march nearer home." 
 
 Hymnology has known no denominational bar- 
 riers. While Toplady was an Episcopalian, Wesley 
 a Methodist, Newman and Faber Roman Catholics, 
 Montgomery a Moravian, and Bonar a Presbyterian, 
 the magnificent hymn, 
 
 "In the cross of Christ I glory," 
 
 was written by a Unitarian. I had the great satis- 
 faction of meeting its author, Sir John Bowring, at 
 a public dinner in London during the summer of 
 1872. A fresh, handsome veteran he was, too 
 tall and straight as a ramrod, and exceedingly win- 
 some in his manners. He had been famous as the 
 editor of the Westminster Review and quite fa- 
 mous in civil life, for he was a member of the 
 British Parliament and once had been the Cover-
 
 40 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 nor of Hong Kong. He produced several volumes, 
 but will owe his immortality to half a dozen superb 
 hymns. Of these the best is "In the cross of Christ 
 I glory"; but we also owe to him that fine mis- 
 sionary hymn, 
 
 "Watchman, tell us of the night." 
 
 He told my Presbyterian friend, Dr. Harper, in 
 China, that the first time he ever heard it sung was 
 at a prayer meeting of American missionaries in 
 Turkey. Sir John died about four months after I 
 had met him, at the ripe age of eighty, and on his 
 monument is inscribed only this single appropriate 
 line, "In the cross of Christ I glory." 
 
 The first time I ever saw Dr. Horatius Bonar was 
 in May, 1872, when I was attending the Free Church 
 General Assembly of Scotland as a delegate from the 
 Presbyterian Church in the United States. A warm 
 discussion was going on in the Assembly anent 
 proposals of union with the U. P. body, and the 
 Anti-Unionists sat together on the left hand of the 
 Moderator's chair. In the third row sat a short, 
 broad-shouldered man with noble forehead and soft 
 dark eyes. But behind that benign countenance was 
 a spirit as pugnacious in ecclesiastical controversy 
 as that of the Roman Horatius "who kept the bridge 
 in the brave days of old." I was glad to be intro- 
 duced to him, for I was an enthusiastic admirer of 
 his hymns, and I had a personal affection for his
 
 HYMN-WRITERS I HAVE KNOWN. 41 
 
 brother, Andrew, the author of the delightful "Life 
 of M'Cheyne." Although Horatius had won his 
 world-wide fame as a composer of hymns, he was, 
 at that time, stoutly opposed to the use of any- 
 thing but the old Scotch version of the Psalms in 
 church worship. During my address to the As- 
 sembly I said : "We Presbyterians in America sing 
 the good old psalms of David." At this point Dr. 
 Bonar led in a round of applause, and then I con- 
 tinued : "We also sing the Gospel of Jesus Christ 
 as versified by Watts, Wesley, Cowper, Toplady and 
 your own Horatius Bonar." There was a burst of 
 laughter, and then I rather mischievously added: 
 "My own people have the privilege, not accorded to 
 my brother's congregation, of singing his magnifi- 
 cent hymns." By this time the whole house came 
 down in a perfect roar, and the confused 
 blush on Bonar's face puzzled us whether it 
 was on account of the compliment, or on account 
 of his own inconsistency. However, before his 
 death he consented to have his own congregation 
 sing his own hymns, although it is said that two 
 pragmatical elders rose and strode indignantly down 
 the aisle of the church. 
 
 In August, 1889, when I was on a visit to Chil- 
 lingham Castle, Lady Tankerville said to me : "Our 
 dear Bonar is dead." I left the next day for Edin- 
 burgh and reached there in time to bear an humble
 
 42 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 part in the funeral services. On the day of his 
 obsequies there was a tremendous downpour, which 
 reminded me of the story of the Scotchman, who, 
 on arriving in Australia, met one of his country- 
 men, who said to him: "Hae ye joost come fra 
 Scotland and is it rainin' yet?" But in spite of the 
 storm the Morningside Church, by the entrance to 
 the Grange Cemetery, was well filled by a repre- 
 sentative assembly. The service was confined to the 
 reading of the Scriptures, to two prayers and the 
 singing of Bonar's beautiful hymn, the last verse of 
 which is 
 
 "Broken Death's dread hands that bound us, 
 Life and victory around us; 
 Christ the King Himself hath crown'd us, 
 Ah, 'tis Heaven at last." 
 
 As I was the only American present I was re- 
 quested to close the service with a brief word of 
 prayer ; and I rode down to the Canongate Cemetery 
 with grand old Principal John Cairns (who Dr. 
 McCosh told me "had the best head in Scotland"), 
 and Bonar's colleague, the Rev. Mr. Sloane. On 
 our way to the place of burial Mr. Sloane told me 
 that Bonar's two finest hymns, 
 
 "I heard the voice of Jesus say," etc.. 
 and 
 
 "I lay my sins on Jesus," etc., 
 
 were originally composed for the children of his 
 Sabbath school. And yet they are the productions
 
 HYMN-WRITERS I HAVE KNOWN. 43 
 
 by which he has become most widely known 
 throughout Christendom. The storm-swept streets 
 that day were lined with silent mourners ; and, 
 under weeping skies, we laid down to his rest the 
 mortal remains of the man who attuned more voices 
 to the melodies of praise than any Scotchman of 
 the century. 
 
 Our own country has been very prolific in the 
 production of hymns. The venerable and devout 
 blind songstress, Fanny Crosby (whom I often 
 meet at the house of my beloved neighbor, Mr. Ira 
 D. Sankey), has produced very many hundreds of 
 them none of very high poetic merit, but many 
 of them of such rich spiritual savour, and set to 
 such stirring airs, that they are sung by millions 
 around the globe. By common consent in all Amer- 
 ican hymnology the hymn commencing 
 
 "My faith looks up to Thee, 
 Thou Lamb of Calvary," etc., 
 
 is the best. Its author, Dr. Ray Palmer, when a 
 young man, teaching in a school for girls in New 
 York, one day sat down in his room and wrote in 
 his pocket memorandum book the four verses which 
 he told me "were born of my own soul," and put 
 the memorandum book back into his vest pocket 
 and for two years carried the verses there, little 
 dreaming that he was carrying his own passport to 
 immortality. Dr. Lowell Mason, the celebrated
 
 44 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 composer of Boston, asked him to furnish a new 
 hymn for his next volume of "Spiritual Songs" for 
 social worship, and young Palmer drew out the 
 four verses from his pocket. Mason composed for 
 them the noble tune, "Olivet," and to that air they 
 were wedded for ever more. He met Palmer after- 
 wards, and said to him : "Sir, you may live many 
 years, and do many things, but you will be best 
 known to posterity as the author of 'My faith looks 
 up to Thee.' " The prediction proved true. His de- 
 voted heart flowed out in that one matchless lily that 
 has filled so many hearts and sanctuaries with its 
 rich fragrance. Dr. Palmer preached several times 
 in my Brooklyn pulpit. He was once with us on a 
 sacramental Sabbath. While the deacons were pass- 
 ing the sacred elements among the congregation 
 the dear old man broke out in a tremulous voice and 
 sang his own heavenly lines: 
 
 "My faith looks up to Thee 
 Thou Lamb of Calvary, 
 Saviour Divine." 
 
 It was like listening to a rehearsal for the celestial 
 choir, and the whole assembly was most deeply 
 moved. Dr. Palmer was short in stature, but his 
 erect form and habit of brushing his hair high 
 over his forehead gave him a commanding look. 
 He was the impersonation of genuine enthusiasm. 
 Some of his letters I shall always prize. They were
 
 HYMN-WRITERS I HAVE KNOWN. 45 
 
 the outpourings of his own warm heart on paper. 
 He fell asleep just before he reached a round four 
 score, and of our many hymn- writers no one has 
 yet "taken away his crown." 
 
 It is quite fitting to follow this sketch of one 
 noble veteran with a brief reminiscence of an 
 equally noble one, who bore the name of an Episco- 
 palian, although he was very undenominational in 
 his broad sympathies. Dr. William Augustus 
 Muhlenberg was one of the most apostolic men I 
 have ever known in appearance and spirit. His 
 gray head all men knew in New York. He com- 
 manded attention everywhere by his genial face and 
 hearty manner of speech. I used to meet him at 
 the anniversaries of the Five Points House of In- 
 dustry. Everybody loved him at first sight. All the 
 world knows he was the founder of St. Luke's Hos- 
 pital in New York, and the extensive institutions of 
 charity at St. Johnsland, on Long Island. Of his 
 hymns the most popular is 
 
 "I would not live alway," etc. 
 
 It was first written as an impromptu for a lady's 
 album, and afterwards amended into its present 
 form. 
 
 In his later years he regarded the tone of that 
 hymn as too lugubrious; and in a pleasant note to 
 me he said : "Paul's 'For me to live is Christ' is far 
 better than Job's 'I would not live alway.' " My
 
 46 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 favorite among his productions is the one on Noah's 
 Dove, commencing, "O cease, my wandering soul" ; 
 but the man was greater than any song he ever 
 wrote. As he was a bacfielor he lived in his St. 
 Luke's Hospital; and once, when he was carrying 
 a tray of dishes down to the kitchen and some one 
 protested, the patriarch replied: "Why not; what 
 am I but a waiter here in the Lord's hotel ?" When 
 very near his end the Chaplain of the hospital 
 prayed at his bedside for his recovery. "Let us have 
 an understanding about this," said Muhlenberg. 
 "You are asking God to restore me, and I am asking 
 God to take me home. There must not be any con- 
 tradiction in our prayers, for it is evident that He 
 cannot answer them both." This was characteristic 
 of his bluff frankness, as well as of his heavenly- 
 mindedness he "would not live alway." 
 
 In July, 1881, I was visiting Stockholm, and was 
 invited to go on an excursion to the University of 
 Upsala with Dr. Samuel F. Smith. I had never 
 before met my celebrated countryman about whom 
 his Harvard classmate, Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
 once wrote: 
 
 "And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith 
 Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith; 
 But he shouted a song for the brave and the free 
 Just read on his medal 'My Country of Thee.' " 
 
 The song he thus shouted was written for the
 
 HYMN-WRITERS I HAVE KNOWN. 47 
 
 Fourth of July celebration, in Park Street Church, 
 Boston, in 1832, and has become our national hymn. 
 When I met the genial old man in Sweden, and 
 travelled with him for several days, he was on his 
 way home from a missionary tour in India and 
 Burmah. He told me that he had heard the Bur- 
 mese and Telugus sing in their native tongue his 
 grand missionary hymn, "The Morning Light is 
 Breaking." He was a native Bostonian, and was 
 born a few days before Ray Palmer. He was a 
 Baptist pastor, editor, college professor, and spent 
 the tranquil summer evening of his life at Newton, 
 Mass. ; and at a railway station in Boston, by sudden 
 heart failure, he was translated to his heavenly 
 home. He illustrated his own sweet evening hymn, 
 "Softly Fades the Twilight Ray." 
 
 Among the elect-ladies who have produced great 
 uplifting hymns that "were not born to die" was 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Payson Prentiss, the daughter of 
 the saintly Dr. Edward Payson, of Portland, Maine. 
 Her prose works were very popular, and "Stepping 
 Heavenward" had found its way into thousands of 
 hearts. But one day she in a few hours won her 
 immortality by writing a hymn, beginning with 
 the lines, 
 
 "More love to Thee, O Christ, 
 More love to Thee." 
 
 It was printed on a fly-sheet, for a few friends.
 
 48 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 then found its way into a hymn-book, edited by my 
 well-beloved friend, Dr. Edwin F. Hatfield, and 
 then it took wing and flew over the world into many 
 foreign languages. I often met Mrs. Prentiss at the 
 home of her husband, Dr. George L. Prentiss, an 
 eminent professor in the Union Theological Sem- 
 inary. She was a very bright-eyed little woman, 
 with a keen sense of humor, who cared more to 
 shine in her own happy household than in a wide 
 circle of society. Her absolutely perfect hymn for 
 such it truly is was born of her own deep longings 
 for a fuller inflow of that love that casteth out all 
 fear. This has been the genesis of all the soul-songs 
 that devout disciples of our Lord chant into the ears 
 of their Master in their hours of sweetest and 
 closest fellowship. Mrs. Prentiss has put a new 
 song into the mouths of a multitude of those who 
 are "stepping heavenward."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE TEMPERANCE REFORM AND MY CO-WORKERS 
 
 As stated in the first chapter of this book, I be- 
 came a teetotaler when I was a child, and I also 
 stated that the first public address I ever delivered 
 was in behalf of temperance. When I made my 
 first visit to Edinburgh in 1842 I learned that a 
 temperance society of that city was about to go 
 over to Glasgow to greet the celebrated Father 
 Theobald Mathew, who was making his first visit 
 to Scotland. I joined my Edinburgh friends, and 
 on arriving in Glasgow we found a multitude of 
 over fifty thousand people assembled on the green. 
 In an open barouche, drawn by four horses, stood 
 a short, stout Irishman, with a handsome, benevo- 
 lent countenance, and attired in a long black coat 
 with a silver medal hanging upon his breast. After 
 the procession, headed by his carriage, had forced 
 its way through the densely thronged street, it 
 halted in a small open square. Father Mathew dis- 
 mounted, and began to administer the pledge of 
 abstinence to those who were willing to receive it. 
 They kneeled on the ground in platoons ; the pledge 
 was read aloud to them; Father Mathew laid his 
 
 49 -;-.
 
 50 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 hands upon them and pronounced a benediction. 
 From the necks of many a small medal attached to a 
 cord was suspended. In this rapid manner the 
 pledge was administered to many hundreds of per- 
 sons within an hour, and fresh crowds continually 
 came forward. 
 
 When I was introduced to the good man as an 
 American, he spoke a few kind words and gave me 
 an "apostolic kiss" upon my cheek. As I was about 
 to make the first public speech of my life, I suppose 
 that I may regard that act of the great Irish apostle 
 as a sort of ordination to the ministry of preaching 
 the Gospel of total abstinence. The administration 
 of the pledge was followed by a grand meeting of 
 welcome in the city hall. Father Mathew spoke 
 with modest simplicity and deep emotion, attributing 
 all his wonderful success to the direct blessings of 
 God upon his efforts to persuade his fellowmen to 
 throw off the despotism of the bottle. After deliv- 
 ering my maiden speech I hastened back to Edin- 
 burgh with the deputation from "Auld Reekie," 
 and I never saw Father Mathew again. He was, 
 unquestionably, the most remarkable temperance re- 
 former who has yet appeared. While a Catholic 
 priest in Cork, a Quaker friend, Mr. Martin, who 
 met him in an almshouse, said to him, "Father 
 Theobald, why not give thyself to the work of 
 saving men from the drink?" Father Mathew im-
 
 DR. CUYLER AT 32. 
 
 (When Pastor of the Market St. Church, New York.)
 
 THE TEMPERANCE REFORM. 51 
 
 mediately commenced his enterprise. It spread over 
 Ireland like wildfire. It is computed that no less 
 than five millions of people took the pledge of total 
 abstinence from intoxicating poisons by his influ- 
 ence. The revolution wrought in his day, in his 
 own time and country, was marvellous, and, to this 
 day, his influence is perpetuated in the vast number 
 of Father Mathew Benevolent Temperance Societies. 
 Second only to Father Mathew in the number of 
 converts which he has made to total abstinence was 
 that brilliant and dramatic platform orator, John B. 
 Gough. When he was a reckless young sot in 
 Worcester, Massachusetts, he had owed his conver- 
 sion to a touch on his shoulder by a shoemaker, 
 named Joel Stratton, who had invited him to a 
 Washingtonian temperance meeting. Soon after 
 that time he owed his conversion, under God, to the 
 influence of Miss Mary Whitcomb, the daughter of 
 a Boylston farmer in the neighborhood. He 
 formed her acquaintance very soon after he signed 
 the temperance pledge in Worcester, and she con- 
 sented to assume the risk of becoming his wife. In 
 the summer of 1856 I visited my beloved friend 
 Gough at his beautiful Boylston home to aid him 
 in revival services, which he was conducting in 
 his own church, then without a pastor. He was 
 Sunday-school superintendent, pastor and leader of 
 inquiry meetings all in himself. One evening he
 
 52 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 took me to the house of his neighbor, Captain Flagg, 
 and said to me: "Here, in this house, Mary and I 
 did our brief two or three weeks of courting. We 
 didn't talk of love, but only religion and about the 
 welfare of my soul. We prayed together every 
 time we met ; and it was such serious business that 
 I do not think I even kissed her until we were mar- 
 ried. She took me on trust, with three dollars in 
 my pocket, and has been to me the best wife God 
 ever made." When they went to Boston, Dr. Ed- 
 ward N. Kirk received Mr. Gough into the Mt. 
 Vernon Street Church, just as many years after- 
 wards he received Mr. Moody to the same com- 
 munion table. 
 
 Of Mr. Cough's extraordinary platform powers I 
 need not speak while there are so many now living 
 that sat under the enchantment of his eloquence. 
 A man who could crowd an opera house in London 
 to listen to so unpopular a theme as temperance 
 while a score or more of coroneted carriages were 
 waiting about the door must have been no ordinary 
 master of oratory. As an actor he might have been 
 a second Garrick; as a preacher of the Gospel he 
 would have been a second Whitefield. My house 
 was his home when visiting our city for many years, 
 and he used to tell me that my letters to him were 
 carried in his breast pocket until they were worn to 
 fragments. His last speech, delivered in Philadel-
 
 THE TEMPERANCE REFORM. 53 
 
 phia, displayed much of his early power, and the 
 last sentence, "Young man, keep a clean record," 
 rung out as he fell stricken with apoplexy, and the 
 eloquent voice was silent forever. God's messen- 
 ger met him where every true warrior may well de- 
 sire to be met in the heat of the battle, and with 
 the harness on. 
 
 My acquaintance with Neal Dow began in the 
 early winter of 1852. He had been chosen Mayor 
 of Portland in the spring of the year, and then he 
 struck the bold stroke which was "heard round the 
 world" and made him famous as the father of Pro- 
 hibition. He had drafted a bill for the suppression 
 of tippling houses and placed in it a claim of the 
 right of the civil authorities to search all premises 
 where it was suspected that intoxicating liquors 
 were kept for sale, and to seize and confiscate them 
 on the spot. It was this sharp scimitar of search 
 and seizure which gave the original Maine law its 
 deadly power. He took his bill to the seat of gov- 
 ernment and it was promptly passed by the legisla- 
 ture. He brought it home in triumph, and in less 
 than three months there was not an open dram 
 shop or distillery in Portland! He invited me to 
 visit him, and drove me over the city, whose pure 
 air was not polluted with the faintest smell of 
 alcohol. It seemed like the first whiff of a temper- 
 ance millennium. An invitation was extended to
 
 54 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 him to a magnificent public meeting in Triplet Hall, 
 New York. At that meeting a large array of dis- 
 tinguished speakers, including General Houston, of 
 Texas ; the Hon. Horace Mann, of Massachusetts ; 
 Henry Ward Beecher, Dr. Chapin and several other 
 celebrities, appeared. On that evening I delivered 
 my first public address in New York, and have been 
 told that it was the occasion of my call to be a 
 pastor in that city two years afterwards. A gold 
 medal was presented to Neal Dow that evening. 
 He went home with me to Trenton, and from that 
 time our intimacy was so great and our correspond- 
 ence so constant that if I had preserved all his 
 letters they would make a history of the prohibition 
 movement from 1851 to 1857, the years of its 
 widest successes. With him I addressed the legisla- 
 ture of New York, who passed a law of prohibition 
 very soon afterwards. A forceful, magnetic man 
 was General Dow, thoroughly honest and cour- 
 ageous, with a womanly tenderness in his sym- 
 pathies. I have been permited to know intimately 
 many of the leaders in great moral reforms on both 
 sides of the ocean ; but a braver, sounder heart was 
 not to be found than that which throbbed in the 
 breast of Neal Dow. 
 
 On his ninetieth birthday the hale veteran sent 
 my wife his photograph. She placed his white locks 
 alongside of the photograph which Gladstone gave
 
 THE TEMPERANCE REFORM. 55 
 
 her, and she calls them her duet of grand old men. 
 The closing years of General Dow's life, like the 
 closing years of Martin Luther, were clouded with 
 anxiety. He saw the great movement which he 
 had championed checked by many difficulties and 
 suffering some disastrous reverses. Some States 
 which had enacted total prohibition forty years be- 
 fore had repealed the law. In the five States which 
 retained it on their statute books its salutary en- 
 forcement was dependent on the moral sentiments 
 in the various localities. In his own, beloved 
 Maine, his own beloved law had been trampled 
 down in some places; in others made the football 
 of designing politicians. These reverses saddened 
 the old hero's heart, and he sent to the public meet- 
 ing in Portland which celebrated his ninety-third 
 birthday this message: "That the purpose of my 
 life work will be fully accomplished at some time 
 I do not doubt, and my hope and expectation is that 
 the obstacles which now obstruct us will not long 
 block the way." The name of Neal Dow will be 
 always memorable as one of the truest, bravest and 
 purest philanthropists of the nineteenth century. 
 
 The most important organization for the promo- 
 tion of temperance in our country is the National 
 Temperance Society and Publication House, which 
 was founded in 1865. I prepared its constitution, 
 and the committee which organized it met in the
 
 56 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 counting room of that eminent Christian merchant, 
 the late Hon. William E. Dodge. I once introduced 
 him to the Earl of Shaftesbury at a Lord Mayor's 
 reception in London in these words : "My lord, let 
 me introduce you to William E. Dodge, the Shaftes- 
 bury of America." To this day he is remembered 
 as an ideal Christian merchant and philanthropist. 
 With him conscience ruled everything, and God 
 ruled conscience. He was one of the founders of a 
 great railway and cut the first sod for its construc- 
 tion. Long afterwards the Board of Directors of 
 the road proposed to drive their trains and traffic 
 through the Lord's day. Mr. Dodge said to his 
 fellow directors: "Then, gentlemen, put a flag on 
 every locomotive with these words inscribed on it, 
 'We break God's law for a dividend.' As for me, I 
 go out." He did go out, and disposed of his stock. 
 Within a few years the road went into the hands of 
 a receiver, and the stock sank to thirty cents on the 
 dollar. 
 
 During the Civil War, General Dix and his mili- 
 tary staff gave Mr. Dodge a complimentary dinner 
 at Fortress Monroe. General Dix rapped on the 
 table and said to his brother officers : "Gentlemen, 
 you are aware that our honored guest is a water- 
 drinker. I propose that to-day we join him in his 
 favorite beverage." Forthwith every wine-glass 
 was turned upside down as a silent tribute to the
 
 THE TEMPERANCE REFORM. 57 
 
 Christian conscience of their guest. When the 
 whole Christian community of America shall imitate 
 the wise example of that great philanthropist it will 
 exert a tremendous influence for the banishment of 
 all intoxicants from the public and private hospitali- 
 ties of society. Mr. Dodge was elected the first 
 president of the National Temperance Society, and 
 served it for eighteen years and bestowed upon it 
 his liberal donations. He closed his useful and 
 beneficent life in February, 1883, and he was suc- 
 ceeded in the presidency of the Society by Dr. Mark 
 Hopkins of Williams College, by the writer of this 
 book, by General O. O. Howard and by Joshua L. 
 Baily, who is at present the head of the organiza- 
 tion. The society has done a vast and benevolent 
 work, receiving and expending a million and a half 
 dollars, publishing many hundreds of valuable vol- 
 umes, and widely circulated tracts. 
 
 The limits of this chapter will not allow me to 
 pay my tribute to the venerable Dr. Charles Jewett, 
 Dr. Cheever, Albert Barnes, Dr. Tyng and the great 
 Christian statesman, Theodore Frelinghuysen, Miss 
 Frances Willard, Lady Henry Somerset, Joseph 
 Cook and many others who have been prominent 
 in the promotion of this great Christian reform. It 
 has been my privilege to labor for it through my 
 whole public life. I have prepared thirty or forty 
 tracts, written a great number of articles and de-
 
 58 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 livcred hundreds of addresses in behalf of it, and 
 preached many a discourse from my own pulpit. 
 I have always held that every church is as much 
 bound to have a temperance wheel in its machinery 
 as to have a Sabbath school or a missionary or- 
 ganization. It is of vital importance that the young 
 should be saved, and therefore I have urged tem- 
 perance lessons in the Sunday school and the early 
 adoption of a total abstinence pledge. The temper- 
 ance reform movement made its greatest progress 
 when churches and Sunday schools laid hold of it 
 and when the total abstinence pledge was widely 
 and wisely used. The social drink customs are 
 coming back again and a fresh education of the 
 American people as to the deadly drink evil is the 
 necessity of the hour, and that must be given in the 
 home, in the schools and from the pulpit and from 
 the public press. I have become convinced from 
 long labor in this reform that the ordinary license 
 system is only a poultice to the dram seller's con- 
 science, and for restraining intemperance it is a 
 ghastly failure. Institutions and patent medicines 
 to cure drinkers have only had a partial success. 
 The only sure cure for drunkenness is to stop be- 
 fore you begin. Entire legal suppression of the 
 dram shop is successful where a stiff, righteous, 
 public sentiment thoroughly enforces it. Otherwise 
 it may become a delusion and a farce.
 
 THE TEMPERANCE REFORM. 59 
 
 The best method of prohibition is what is known 
 as "local option," where the question is submitted 
 to each community, whether the liquor traffic shall 
 be legalized or suppressed by public authority. Of 
 late years friends of our cause have fallen into the 
 sad mistake of directing their main assaults upon 
 liquor selling instead of keeping up also their fire 
 upon the use of intoxicants. Legal enactments are 
 right ; but to atempt to dam up a torrent and neglect 
 the fountain-head is surely insanity. The fountain-- 
 head of drunkenness is the drinking usages which 
 create and sustain the saloons, which are often the 
 doorways to hell. In theory I always have been, 
 and am to-day, a legal suppressionist ; but the most 
 vital remedy of all is to break up the demand for 
 intoxicants, and to persuade people from wishing to 
 buy and drink them. That goes to the root of the 
 evil. In endeavoring to remove the saloon, it is 
 the duty of all philanthropists to do their utmost 
 to provide safe places of resort as the Holly- 
 Tree Inns and other temperance coffee houses 
 for the working people. And another beneficent 
 plan is for corporations and employers to make 
 abstinence from drink an essential to employment. 
 My generous friend, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, when 
 he recently gave a liberal donation to our 
 National Temperance Society, said to me: "The 
 best temperance lecture I have delivered was when
 
 60 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE, 
 
 I agreed to pay ten per cent, premium to all the 
 employees on my Scottish estates who would prac- 
 tice entire abstinence from intoxicants." The ex- 
 perience of threescore years has taught me the 
 inestimable value of total abstinence; the benefit 
 of the righteous law when it is well enforced, 
 and also that the church of Christ has no more 
 right to ignore the drink evil than it has to ignore 
 theft, or Sabbath desecration, or murder. Let me 
 add also my grateful acknowledgment of the very 
 effective and Heaven-blessed work wrought by that 
 noble organization, the Woman's Christian Tem- 
 perance Union. As woman has been the sorest 
 sufferer from the drink-curse, it is her province 
 and her duty to do her utmost for its removal.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 MY WORK IN THE PULPIT 
 
 DURING the first eighteen months after I grad- 
 uated from Princeton College I was balancing 
 between the law and the ministry. Many of my 
 relatives urged me to become a lawyer, as my father 
 and grandfather had been, but my godly mother 
 had dedicated me to the ministry from infancy, 
 and her influence all went in the same line with 
 her prayers. With the exception of my venerated 
 and beloved kinsman, Dr. Cornelius C. Cuyler, 
 Pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Phila- 
 delphia, who died in 1850, no other man of my name 
 has stood in an American pulpit. During the winter 
 of my return from Europe to my home on the 
 Cayuga Lake, one of my uncles invited me to go 
 down and attend an afternoon prayer service in the 
 neighboring village of Ludlowville. There was a 
 spiritual awakening in the church, and the meeting 
 was held in the parlor of a private house. I arose 
 and spoke for ten minutes. When the meeting was 
 over, more than one came to me and said: "Your 
 
 talk did me good." On my way home, as I drove 
 
 61
 
 62 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 along in my sleigh, the thought flashed into my 
 mind, "If ten minutes' talk to-day helped a few 
 souls, why not preach all the time?" That one 
 thought decided the vexed question on the spot. 
 Our lives turn on small pivots, and if we let God 
 lead us, the path will open before our footsteps. I 
 reached home that day, and informed my good 
 mother of my decision. She had always expected 
 it and quietly remarked, "Then, I have already 
 spoken to Mr. Ford for his room for you in the 
 Princeton Seminary." My three years in the Semi- 
 nary were full of joy and profit. I made it a rule 
 to go out as often as possible and address little meet- 
 ings in the neighboring school-houses, and found 
 this a very beneficial method of gaining practice. 
 A young preacher must get accustomed to the sound 
 of his own voice; if naturally timid, he must learn 
 to face an audience and must first learn to speak; 
 afterwards he may learn to speak well. It is a wise 
 thing for a young man to begin his labors in a 
 small congregation; he has more time for study, a 
 better chance to become intimately acquainted with 
 individual characters, and also a smaller audience to 
 face. The first congregation that I was called to 
 take charge of, in Burlington, N. J., contained about 
 forty families. Three or four of these were wealthy 
 and cultivated, the rest were plain mechanics, with 
 a few gardeners and coachmen. I made my ser-
 
 MY WORK IN THE PULPIT. 63 
 
 mons to suit the comprehension of the gardeners 
 and coachmen at the end of the house, leaving the 
 cultivated portion to gain what they could from 
 the sermon on its way. One of the wealthy atten- 
 dants was Mr. Charles Chauncey, a distinguished 
 Philadelphia lawyer, who spent the summer months 
 in Burlington. Once after I had delivered a very 
 simple and earnest sermon on the "Worth of the 
 Soul," I went home and said to myself, "Lawyer 
 Chauncey must have thought that was only a camp- 
 meeting exhortation." He met me during the 
 week and to my astonishment he said to me: "My 
 young friend, I thank you for that sermon last 
 Sunday ; it had the two best qualities of preaching 
 simplicity and down-right earnestness. If I had 
 a student in my law-office who was not more in 
 earnest to win his first ten dollar suit before a 
 Justice of the Peace than some men seem to be 
 in trying to save souls I would kick such a student 
 out of my office." That eminent lawyer's remark 
 did me more service than any month's study in the 
 Seminary. It taught me that cultivated audiences 
 relished plain, simple scriptural truths as much as 
 did the illiterate, and that down-right earnestness 
 to save souls hides a multitude of sins in raw young 
 preachers. 
 
 Another instance that occurred in my early min- 
 istry did me a world of good. I was invited to
 
 64 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 preach in the Presbyterian Church at Saratoga 
 Springs about two years after I was licensed. My 
 topics were "Trusting Jesus Christ" in the morning 
 and "The Day of Judgment" at the evening service. 
 The next day, when I was buying my ticket at the 
 railway station to leave the town, a plain man 
 (who was a baker in the village) said to me: "Are 
 you not the young man who spoke yesterday in 
 our meeting-house ?" I told him that I was. "Well," 
 said he, "I never felt more sorry for any one in my 
 life." "Why so?" I asked. His answer was: "I 
 said to myself, there is a youth just out of the 
 Seminary, and he does not know that a Saratoga 
 audience is made up of highly educated people 
 from all parts of the land ; but I have noticed 
 that if a minister, during his first ten minutes, can 
 convince the people that he is only trying to save 
 their souls he kills all the critics in the house." I 
 have never ceased to thank God for the remark 
 of that shrewd Saratoga baker, who, I was told, had 
 come there from New Haven, Connecticut, and 
 was a man of remarkable sagacity. That was one 
 of the profoundest bits of sound philosophy on the 
 art of preaching that I have ever encountered, and 
 I have quoted it in every Theological Seminary 
 that I have ever addressed. If we ministers pour 
 the living truths of the Gospel red-hot into the 
 ears and consciences of our audiences, they will
 
 MY WORK IN THE PULPIT. 65 
 
 have enough to do to look out for themselves and 
 will have no time to level criticisms at us or our 
 mode of preaching. Cowards, also, are never more 
 pitiable than when in the pulpit. 
 
 I will not enter here into the endless controversy 
 about the comparative merits of written or ex- 
 temporized sermons. My own observation and ex- 
 perience has been that no rule is the best rule. 
 Every man must find out by practice which method 
 he can use to the best advantage and then pursue 
 it. No man ever fails who understands his forte, 
 and no man succeeds who does not. Some men 
 cannot extemporize effectively if they try ever so 
 hard; there are others who, like Gladstone, can 
 think best when they are on their legs and are 
 inspired by an audience. During the first few 
 years of my ministry I wrote out nearly all of 
 my sermons. The advantage of doing that is that 
 it enables a young beginner to form his own style 
 at the outset by careful and systematic writing. 
 Spurgeon, often when a youth, read some of his 
 sermons, although afterwards he never premedi- 
 tated a single sentence for the pulpit. Dr. Richard 
 S. Storrs was a most fluent extemporaneous speaker, 
 but for twenty years he carefully wrote all his 
 discourses. My own habit, after a time, was to 
 write a portion of the sermon and turn away from 
 my notes to interject thoughts that came in the heat
 
 66 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 of the moment and then turn to my manuscript. 
 This was generally the habit of Henry Ward 
 Beecher. After thirty years in the ministry I dis- 
 carded writing sermons entirely and adopted the 
 plan of preparing a few "heads" on a bit of note- 
 paper, and tacking it into a Bagster's Bible. Dr. 
 John Hall wrote carefully, leaving his manuscript 
 at home; and so does Dr. Alexander McLaren, of 
 Manchester, who is to-day by far the most superb 
 sermonizer in Great Britain. The eloquent Guthrie, 
 of Scotland, committed his discourses to memory, 
 and delivered them in a torrent of Godly emotion. 
 
 In preparing my sermons my custom was, after 
 taking some rest on Monday, to get into my study 
 early on Tuesday morning. To every student the 
 best hours of the day are those before the sun has 
 reached the meridian. Then the mind is the most 
 clear and vigorous. I have never in my life pre- 
 pared sermons a dozen times after my supper. 
 Severe mental work in the evening is apt to destroy 
 sound sleep; thousands of brain workers are 
 wrecked by insomnia. To secure freedom from 
 needless interruption I pinned on my study door 
 "Very Busy." This had the wholesome effect of 
 shutting out all time-killers, and of shortening 
 necessary calls of those who had some important 
 errand. Instead of leaving the selection of my 
 topic to the risk of any contingency, I usually chose
 
 MY WORK IN THE PULPIT. 67 
 
 my text on Tuesday morning, and laid the keel 
 of the sermon. I kept a large note-book in which 
 I could enter any passage of Scripture that would 
 furnish a good theme for pulpit consumption. I 
 also found it a good practice to jot down thoughts 
 that occurred to me on any important topic that 
 I could use when I came to prepare my sermons. 
 By this method I had a treasury of texts from 
 which I could draw every week. Let my readers 
 be careful to notice that word "Text." I have 
 known men to prepare an elaborate essay, theolog- 
 ical, ethical or sociological, and then to perch a 
 text from the Bible on top of it. 
 
 "Preach my word" does not signify the clapping 
 of a few syllables as a figure-head on a long treatise 
 spun out of a preacher's brain. The best discourses 
 are not manufactured; they are a growth. God's 
 inspired and infallible Book must furnish the text. 
 The connection between every good sermon and its 
 text is just as vital as the connection between a 
 peach-tree and its root. Sometimes an indolent min- 
 ister tries to palm off an old sermon for a pretended 
 new one by changing the text, but this shallow de- 
 vice ought to expose itself as if he should decapitate 
 a dog and undertake to clap on the head of some 
 other animal. Intelligent audiences see through such 
 tricks and despise them. "Be sure your sin will find 
 you out." When a passage from the Holy Scripture
 
 68 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 has been planted as a root and well watered with 
 prayer, the sermon should spring naturally from it. 
 The central thought of the text being the central 
 thought of the sermon and all argument, all in- 
 struction and exhortation are only the boughs 
 branching off from the central trunk, giving unity, 
 vigor and spiritual beauty to the whole organic 
 production. The unity and spiritual power of a 
 discourse usually depend upon the adherence to 
 the great divine truth contained in the inspired 
 Book. The Bible text is God's part of our sermon ; 
 and the more thoroughly we get the text into our 
 own souls, the more will we get it into the sermon, 
 and into the consciences of our hearers. To keep 
 out of a rut I studied the infinite variety of Sacred 
 Scripture; its narratives and matchless biographies, 
 its jubilant Psalms, its profound doctrines, its tender 
 pathos, its rolling thunder of Sinai, and its sweet 
 melodies of Calvary's redeeming love. I laid hold 
 of the great themes, and I found a half hour of 
 earnest prayer was more helpful than two or three 
 hours of study. It sometimes let a flash from the 
 Throne flame over the page I was writing. 
 
 To me, when preparing my Sabbath messages, 
 God's Holy Word was the sum of all knowledge, 
 and a "Thus saith the Lord" was my invariable 
 guide. I found that in theology the true things 
 were not new, and most of the new things were not
 
 MY WORK IN THE PULPIT. 69 
 
 true. I remember how a visitor in New Haven 
 was looking for a certain house, and found himself 
 in front of the residence of Professor Olmstead, 
 the eminent astronomer, whose stoves were then 
 very popular. The visitor inquired of an Irishman, 
 who was working in front of the house, "Who 
 lives here ? " The very Hibernian answer was, 
 "Shure, sur, 'tis Profissor Olmstead, a very great 
 man; he invents comets, and has discovered a new 
 stove." In searching the Scriptures I used the very 
 best spiritual telescopes in my possession, and gladly 
 availed myself of all discoveries of divine truths 
 made by profounder intellects and keener visions 
 than my own ; but I leave this self-styled "advanced 
 age" to invent its own comets, and follow its own 
 meteors. 
 
 In one respect I have not followed the practice 
 of many of my brethren, for I never have wasted 
 a single moment in defending God's Word in my 
 pulpit. I have always held that the Bible is a self- 
 evidencing book; God will take care of His Word 
 if we ministers only take care to preach it. We 
 are no more called upon to defend the Bible than 
 we are to defend the law of gravitation. My be- 
 loved friend, Dr. McLaren, of Manchester, has 
 well said that if ministers, "instead of trying to 
 prop the Cross of Christ, would simply point men 
 to that Cross, more souls would be saved." The
 
 70 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 vast proportion of volumes of "Apologetics" are 
 a waste of ink and paper. If they could all be 
 kindled into a huge bonfire, they would shed more 
 light than they ever did before. It is not our busi- 
 ness to answer every sceptic who shies a stone 
 at the solid fortress of truth in which God places 
 His ambassadors. If Tobiah and Sanballat are 
 challenging us to come down into the plain, and 
 meet them on their level, our answer must ever be : 
 "I am God's messenger, preaching God's word and 
 doing God's work. I cannot stop to go down and 
 prove that your swords are made of lath." 
 
 To my younger brethren I would say: "Preach 
 the Word, preach it with all your soul, preach it 
 in the strength of Jehovah's Spirit, and He will 
 give it the victory." 
 
 I found the effectiveness of my sermons increased 
 by the use of every good illustration I could get 
 hold of, but I tried to be careful that they illus- 
 trated something. Where such are lugged into the 
 sermon merely for the sake of ornament, they are 
 as much out of place as a bouquet would be tied 
 fast to a plough-handle. The Divine Teacher set 
 us the example of making vital truths intelligible 
 by illustrations, when he spoke so often in parables, 
 and sometimes recalled historical incidents. All con- 
 gregations relish incidents and stories, when they 
 are "pat" to the purpose, and serious enough for
 
 MY WORK IN THE PULPIT. 71 
 
 God's house, and help to drive the truth into the 
 hearts of the audience. During my early ministry 
 I delivered a discourse to young men at Saratoga 
 Springs, and closed it with a solemn story of a 
 man who died of remorse at the exposure of his 
 crime. The Hon. John McLean, a judge of the 
 United States Supreme Court and a prominent 
 man in the Methodist Church, was in the congre- 
 gation, and the next day I called at the United 
 States Hotel to pay my respects to him. He said 
 to me, "My young friend I was very much inter- 
 ested in that story last evening; it clinched the 
 sermon. Our ministers in Cincinnati used to in- 
 troduce illustrative anecdotes, but it seems to have 
 gone out of fashion and I am sorry for it." I 
 replied to him, "Well Judge, I am glad to have the 
 decision of the Supreme Court of the United States 
 in favor of telling a story or a personal incident in 
 the pulpit." There is one principle that covers all 
 cases. It is this: Whatever makes the Gospel or 
 Jesus Christ more clear to the understanding, more 
 effective in arousing sinners, in converting souls, 
 in edifying believers and in promoting pure honest 
 living is never out of place in the pulpit. When 
 we are preaching for souls we may use any and 
 every weapon of truth within our reach. 
 
 Those who have sat before my pulpit will testify 
 that I never spared my lungs or their ears in the
 
 72 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 delivery of my discourses. The preaching of the 
 Gospel is spiritual gunnery, and many a well-loaded 
 cartridge has failed to reach its mark from lack of 
 powder to propel it. The prime duty of God's 
 ambassador is to arouse the attention of souls be- 
 fore his pulpit; to stir those who are indifferent; 
 to awaken those who are impenitent; to cheer the 
 sorrow-stricken; to strengthen the weak, and edify 
 believers. An advocate in a criminal trial puts 
 his grip on every juryman's ear. So must every 
 herald of Gospel-truth demand and command a 
 hearing, cost what it may; but that hearing he 
 never will secure while he addresses an audience 
 in a cold, formal, perfunctory manner. Certainly 
 the great apostle at Ephesus aimed at the emotions 
 and the conscience as well as the reason of his 
 hearers when he "ceased not to warn them night 
 and day with tears." I cannot impress it too 
 strongly on every young minister that the delivery 
 of his sermon is half the battle. Why load your gun 
 at all if you cannot send your charge to the mark? 
 Many a discourse containing much valuable thought 
 has fallen dead on drowsy ears when it might have 
 produced great effect if the preacher had only had 
 inspiration and perspiration. A sermon that is but 
 ordinary as a production may have an extraordinary 
 effect by direct and fervid delivery. The minister 
 who never warms himself will never warm up his
 
 MY WORK IN THE PULPIT. 73 
 
 congregation. I once asked Albert Barnes, of 
 Philadelphia, "Who is the greatest preacher you 
 have ever heard?" Mr. Barnes, who was a very 
 clear-headed thinker, replied : "I cannot answer your 
 question exactly, but the greatest specimen of 
 preaching I ever heard was by the Rev. Edward 
 N. Kirk before my congregation during a revival; 
 it produced a tremendous effect." Those of us that 
 knew Kirk knew that he was not a man of genius 
 or profound scholarship; but he was a true orator 
 with a superb voice and a sweet persuasiveness, 
 and his whole soul was on fire with the love of 
 Jesus and the love of souls. 
 
 It is not easy to define what that subtle some- 
 thing is which we call pulpit magnetism. As near 
 as I can come to a definition I would say it is the 
 quality or faculty in the speaker that arouses the 
 attention and strengthens the interest of his auditors 
 and which, when aided by the Holy Spirit, produces 
 conviction in their minds by the truth that is in 
 Jesus. The heart in the speaker's voice sends that 
 voice into the hearts of his hearers. It is an un- 
 doubted fact that pulpit fervor has been a char- 
 acteristic of almost all the preachers of a soul-win- 
 ning Gospel. The fire was kindled in the pulpit that 
 kindled the pews. The discourses of Frederick 
 W. Robertson, of Brighton, were masterpieces of 
 fresh thought, but the crowds were drawn to his
 
 74 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 church because they were delivered with a fiery 
 glow. The king of living sermon-makers is Dr. 
 McLaren, of Manchester. His vigorous thought 
 is put into vigorous language and then vigorously 
 spoken. He commits his grand sermons to memory, 
 and then looks his audience in the eyes, and sends 
 his strong voice to the furthest gallery. Last year 
 after I had thanked him for his powerful "Address 
 on Preaching" to a thousand ministers in London, 
 he wrote to me: "It was an effort; for I could not 
 trust myself to do without a manuscript, and I am 
 so unaccustomed to reading what I have to say that 
 it was like dancing a hornpipe in fetters." Yet 
 manuscripts are not always fetters; for Dr. Chal- 
 mers read every line of his sermons with thrilling 
 and tremendous effect. So did Dr. Charles Wads- 
 worth in Philadelphia, and so did Phillips Brooks 
 in Boston. In my own experience I have as often 
 found spiritual results from the discourses partly 
 or mainly written out as from those spoken ex- 
 temporaneously. While much may depend upon 
 the conditions in the congregation and much aid 
 may be drawn from the intercessory prayers of our 
 people, the main thing is to have a baptism of fire 
 in our own hearts. Sometimes a sermon may pro- 
 duce but little impression, yet the same sermon at 
 another time and place may deeply move an audi- 
 ence, and yield rich spiritual results. Physical con-
 
 MY WORK IN THE PULPIT. 75 
 
 dition may have some influence on a minister's 
 delivery; but the chief element in the eloquence 
 that awakens and converts sinners and strengthens 
 Christians is the unction of the Holy Spirit. Our 
 best power is the power from on high. 
 
 I would say to young ministers look at your 
 auditors as bound to the judgment seat and see the 
 light of eternity flash into their faces. Then the 
 more fervor of soul you put into your preaching 
 the more souls you will win to your Lord and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 
 As I look back over the last sixty years I think 
 I discover some very marked changes in the methods 
 of the American pulpit since the days of my youth. 
 In the first place the average preacher in those 
 days was more doctrinal than at the present time. 
 The masters in Israel evidently held with Phillips 
 Brooks that "no exhortation to a good life that 
 does not put behind it some great truth, as deep 
 as eternity, can seize and hold the conscience." 
 Therefore they pushed to the front such deep and 
 mighty themes as the Attributes of God, the Divinity 
 of Jesus Christ, the Nature and Desert of Sin, the 
 Atonement, Regeneration, Faith, Resurrection, and 
 Judgment to come, with Heaven and Hell as tre- 
 mendous realities. They emphasized the heinous- 
 ness and the desert of sin as a great argument for 
 repentance and acceptance of Jesus Christ. A lapse
 
 76 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 from that style of preaching is to be deplored; for 
 as Gladstone truly remarked, the decline or decay 
 of a sense of sin against God is one of the most 
 serious symptoms of these times. 
 
 Charles G. Finney, who was at the zenith of his 
 power sixty years ago, bombarded the consciences 
 of sinners with a prodigious broadside of pulpit 
 doctrine; and many acute lawyers and eminent 
 merchants were converted under his discourses. 
 No two finer examples of doctrinal preaching 
 once so prevalent could be cited than Dr. Lyman 
 Beecher and Dr. Horace Bushnell. The celebrated 
 sermon by the former of these two giants on the 
 "Moral Government of God" was characterized 
 by Thomas H. Skinner as the mightiest discourse 
 he had ever heard. Henry Ward Beecher hardly 
 exaggerated when he once said to me, "Put all of 
 his children together and we do not equal my father 
 at his best." Dr. Bushnell's masterly discourses 
 with all their exquisite poetry and insight into 
 human hearts were largely bottomed and built on 
 a theological basis. To those two great doctrinal 
 preachers I might add the names of my beloved in- 
 structors, Dr. Archibald Alexander and Dr. Charles 
 Hodge, of Princeton, Albert Barnes and Professor 
 Park, Dr. Thornwell, Dr. Bethune, Dr. John Todd, 
 Dr. G. T. Bedell, Bishop Simpson and President 
 Stephen Olin.
 
 MY WORK IN THE PULPIT. 77 
 
 Has the American pulpit grown in spiritual power 
 since those days ? Have the churches thriven whose 
 pastors have become more invertebrate in their 
 theology ? 
 
 Another characteristic of the average preacher 
 sixty years ago was that sermons were generally 
 aimed at awakening the impenitent, and bringing 
 them to Jesus Christ. The evil of sin was empha- 
 sized ; the way of salvation explained ; the claims of 
 Christianity were presented ; and people were urged 
 to immediate decision. Nowadays a large portion 
 of sermons are addressed to professing Christians; 
 many others are addressed to nobody in particular, 
 but there is less of faithful, fervid, loving and per- 
 suasive discourses to the unconverted. This is one 
 of the reasons for the lamentable decrease in the 
 number of conversions. If ministers are set to be 
 watchmen of souls, how shall they escape if they 
 neglect the salvation of souls? 
 
 I think, too, that we cannot be mistaken in say- 
 ing that there has been a decline in impassioned 
 pulpit eloquence. There is a change in the fashions 
 of preaching. Students are now taught to be calm 
 and colloquial ; to aim at producing epigrammatical 
 essays ; to discuss sociological problems and address 
 the intellects of their auditors rather in the style 
 of the lecture platform or college class room. The 
 great Dr. Chalmers "making the rafters roar" is as
 
 78 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 much a bygone tradition in many quarters as faith 
 in the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. I have 
 often wished that the young Edward N. Kirk, who 
 melted to tears the professors and students of 
 Yale during the revival there, could come back 
 to us and teach candidates for the ministry how 
 to preach. There was no stentorian shouting or 
 rhetorical exhortation; but there was an intense, 
 solemn, white-heat earnestness that made his audi- 
 tors feel not only that life was worth living, but 
 that the soul was worth saving and Jesus Christ 
 was worth serving, and Heaven was worth securing, 
 and that for all these things "God will bring us 
 into judgment." If Lyman Beecher and Dr. Ed- 
 ward Dorr Griffin and Finney did not possess all of 
 Kirk's grace of delivery, they possessed his fire, and 
 they made the Gospel doctrines glow with a living 
 heat that burned into the hearts and consciences 
 of their auditors. 
 
 May God send into our churches not only a 
 revival of pure and undefiled religion, but also a 
 revival of old-fashioned soul-inspiring pulpit elo- 
 quence ! 
 
 It is rather a delicate subject to touch upon, but 
 I am happy to say that in my early ministry the 
 preachers of God's Word were not hamstrung by 
 any doubt of the divine inspiration or infallibility 
 of the Book that lay before them on their pulpits.
 
 MY WORK IN THE PULPIT. 79 
 
 The questions, "Have we got any Bible?" and "If 
 any Bible, how much?" had not been hatched. 
 When I was in Princeton Seminary, our profoundly 
 learned Hebrew Professor, Dr. J. Addison Alex- 
 ander, no more disturbed us with the much-vaunted 
 conjectural Biblical criticisms than he disturbed us 
 with Joe Smith's "golden plates" at Nauvoo. For 
 this fact I feel deeply thankful; and I comfort 
 myself with the reflection that the great British 
 preachers of the last dozen years Dr. McLaren, 
 Charles H. Spurgeon, Newman Hall, Canon Liddon, 
 Dr. Dale and Dr. Joseph Parker have suffered no 
 more from the virulent attacks of the radical and 
 revolutionary higher criticism than I have, during 
 my long and happy ministry. 
 
 Ministers had some advantages sixty or seventy 
 years ago over their successors of our day. They 
 had a more uninterrupted opportunity for the prep- 
 aration of their sermons and for thorough personal 
 visitation of their flocks. They were not importuned 
 so often to serve on committees and to be partici- 
 pants in all sorts of social schemes of charity. 
 Every pastor ought to keep abreast of reformatory 
 movements as long as they do not trench upon the 
 vital and imperative duties of his high calling. 
 "This one thing I do," said single-hearted Paul ; 
 and if Paul were a pastor now in New York or 
 Boston or Chicago, he would make short work of
 
 8o RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 many an intrusive rap of a time-killer at his study 
 door. 
 
 I have noted frankly a few of the changes that 
 I have observed in the methods of our American 
 pulpit during my long life, but not, I trust, in a 
 pessimistic or censorious spirit. God forbid that 
 I should disparage the noble, conscientious, self- 
 denying and Heaven-blessed labors of thousands 
 of Christ's ministers in our broad land ! They 
 have greater difficulties to encounter than I had 
 when I began my work. They are surrounded with 
 an atmosphere of intense materialism. The ambi- 
 tion for the "seen things" increasingly blinds men 
 to the "things that are unseen and eternal." Wealth 
 and worldliness unspiritualize thousands of pro- 
 fessed Christians. The present artificial arrange- 
 ments of society antagonize devotional meetings 
 and special efforts to promote revivals. On Sabbath 
 mornings many a minister has to shovel out scores 
 of his congregation from under the drifts (not very 
 clean snow either) of the mammoth Sunday news- 
 papers. 
 
 The zealous pastor of to-day has to contend with 
 the lowered popular faith in the authority of God's 
 Word; with the lowered reverence for God's day 
 and a diminished habit of attending upon God's 
 worship. Do these increased difficulties demand a 
 new Gospel ? No ; but rather a mightier faith in the
 
 MY WORK IN THE PULPIT. 81 
 
 one we have. Do they demand new doctrines? 
 No; but more power in preaching the truths that 
 have outlived nineteen centuries. Do we need a 
 new revelation of Jesus Christ? Yes, yes, in the 
 fuller manifestation of Him; in the more loving, 
 courageous and consecrated lives of His followers. 
 Do we need a new Baptism of the Holy Spirit? 
 Verily we do need it; and then our pulpits will be 
 clothed with power, and our preachers will have 
 tongues of fire, and every change will be a change 
 for the better advancement and enlargement of the 
 Kingdom of our adorable Lord.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 MY EXPERIENCE IN REVIVALS. 
 
 I HAVE always counted it a matter for thankful- 
 ness that I made my preparation for the ministry 
 at Princeton Theological Seminary. The period 
 that I spent there, from September, 1843, to May, 
 1846, was a golden period in its history. The ven- 
 erable Archibald Alexander, wonderfully endowed 
 with sagacity and spiritual insight, instructed us in 
 the duties of the preacher and the pastor. Dr. 
 Charles Hodge, the king of Presbyterian theolo- 
 gians, was in the prime of his power. His teachings 
 have since been embodied in his masterful volume 
 on "Systematic Theology." Dr. Joseph Addison 
 Alexander, who, Dr. Hodge said, was, taking him 
 all in all, "the most gifted man with whom I was 
 ever personally acquainted," was in the chair of He- 
 brew and Old Testament literature. Urbane, old 
 Dr. Samuel Miller, was the Professor of Ecclesiasti- 
 cal History. Those wise men taught us not only to 
 think, but to believe. All education is atmospheric, 
 and the atmosphere <H Princeton Seminary was "' 
 
 deeply and sweetly Evangelical. At five o'clock on 
 
 82
 
 MY EXPERIENCE IN REVIVALS. 83 
 
 the morning after I received my diploma, I was off 
 for Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania, the Arcadian 
 spot made famous in the volume of Campbell's 
 "Gertrude of Wyoming." I spent five months there 
 supplying the pulpit of the Rev. Mr. Mitchell, who 
 was absent to recruit his health. In the Autumn 
 I received an invitation to take charge of the Pres- 
 byterian Church of Burlington, N. J., founded by 
 the princely and philanthropic Dr. Cortland Van 
 Rensellaer, son of the Patroon at Albany. It was 
 the very place for a young preacher to begin his 
 work. The congregation was small, and, therefore, 
 I obtained an opportunity to study individual char- 
 acter. It was a very difficult field of labor, and it is 
 good for a minister to bear the yoke in his youth. 
 My work at first was attended with many discour- 
 agements. I preached as pungently as I was able, 
 but no visible results seemed to follow. One day 
 the wife of one of my two church elders came to me 
 in my study, and told me that her son had been 
 awakened by the faithful talk of a young Christian 
 girl, who had brought some work to her husband's 
 shoe store. I said to the elder's wife: "The Holy 
 Spirit is evidently working on one soul let us have 
 a prayer meeting at your house to-night." We 
 spent the afternoon in gathering our small congre- 
 gation together, and when I got to her house it was 
 packed to the door. I have attended thousands of
 
 84 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 prayer meetings since then, but never one that had 
 a more distinct resemblance to the Pentecostal gath- 
 ering in "the upper room" at Jerusalem. The atmos- 
 phere seemed to be charged with a divine electric- 
 ity that affected almost every one in the house. 
 Three times over I closed the meeting with a bene- 
 diction, but it began again, and the people lingered 
 until a very late hour, melted together by "a bap- 
 tism of fire." That wonderful meeting was fol- 
 lowed by special services every night, and the Holy 
 Spirit descended with great power. My little church 
 was doubled in numbers, and I learned more prac- 
 tical theology in a month than any seminary could 
 teach me in a year. 
 
 That revival was an illustration of the truth that 
 a good work of grace often begins with the personal 
 effort of one or two individuals. The Burlington 
 awakening began with the little girl and the elder's 
 wife. We ministers must never despise or neglect 
 "the day of small things." 
 
 Every pastor ought to be constantly on the watch, 
 with open eye and ear, for the first signs of an espe- 
 cial manifestation of the Spirit's presence. Elijah, 
 on Carmel, did not only pray; he kept his eyes 
 open to see the rising cloud. The moment that there 
 is a manifestation of the Spirit's presence, it must 
 be followed up promptly. For example, during my 
 pastorate in the Market Street Church, New York,
 
 MY EXPERIENCE IN REVIVALS. 85 
 
 (from 1853 to 1860), I was out one afternoon mak- 
 ing calls, and I discovered that in two or three fam- 
 ilies there were anxious seekers for salvation. I 
 immediately called together the officers of the 
 church, stated to them my observations, instituted 
 a series of meetings for almost every evening, fol- 
 lowed them with conversation with enquirers, and a 
 large ingathering of souls rewarded our efforts and 
 prayers. I have no doubt that very often a spark 
 of divine influence is allowed to die for want of 
 being fanned by prayer and prompt labors, whereas, 
 it is sometimes dashed out, as by a bucket of cold 
 water thrown on by inconsistent or quarrelsome 
 church members. It was to Christians that St. Paul 
 sent the message, "Quench not the Spirit." 
 
 In 1858 there began a marvelous work of grace, 
 which extended not only throughout the churches 
 in New York, but throughout the whole country. 
 The flame was kindled at the beginning of the year 
 in a noon-day prayer meeting, instituted by that 
 single-eyed servant of Christ, Jeremiah C. Lam- 
 phier, who had once been a singer in the choir of my 
 church. The flame thus kindled in that meeting 
 soon extended to my church in Market Street, and 
 presently spread over the whole city. The special 
 feature of the revival of 1858 was the noon-day 
 prayer meeting. It was my privilege to conduct 
 the first noon meeting in Burton's old theatre in
 
 86 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 Chambers Street, and in a few days after, a similar 
 one in the Collegiate Church in Ninth Street, and 
 also the first prayer meeting in a warehouse at the 
 lower end of Broadway. It is not too much to say 
 that often there were not less than 8,000 to 10,000 
 of God's people, who came together at the noon-tide 
 hour with the spirit of supplication and prayer. 
 The flame, having spread over the city, then leaped 
 to Philadelphia, and Jayne's Hall, on Chestnut 
 Street, was thronged by an immense number of peo- 
 ple, led by George H. Stuart. And so it went on 
 from town to town, and from city to city, over the 
 length and breadth of our land. The revival 
 crossed the ocean and extended to Ireland. On a 
 visit to Belfast I saw handbills on the streets calling 
 the people to noon-day gatherings. 
 
 I began my ministry in Lafayette Avenue Presby- 
 terian Church, Brooklyn, as its first pastor, in April, 
 1860. From the start I struck for souls ; and when 
 our new edifice was dedicated we were under a re- 
 freshing shower of the Divine Spirit. Six years 
 after my installation as pastor, God blessed us with 
 an extraordinary down-pour. The first drops were 
 followed by an abundance of rain. That revival be- 
 gan where revivals often begin, in the prayer 
 meeting. It was on the evening of the 8th of Jan- 
 uary, the first evening of the "week of prayer," 
 which is generally observed over the land. The
 
 MY EXPERIENCE IN REVIVALS. 87 
 
 meeting was held under the direction of our Young 
 People's Association, that same body of young 
 Christian workers which gave the Rev. Francis E. 
 Clark both the inspiration and practical hints for 
 the formation of his first society of Christian En- 
 deavor. What a fearful bitter night was that 8th 
 of January ! Through that stinging Arctic atmos- 
 phere came a goodly number with hearts on fire with 
 the love of Jesus. The prayers that night were well 
 aimed; and a man, who afterwards became a use- 
 ful officer of the church, was converted on the spot. 
 On the Friday evening of that week our lecture- 
 room was packed, and when the elder requested that 
 any who desired special prayer should rise, two 
 very prominent men in this community were on 
 their feet in an instant. The meeting was electri- 
 fied; every one saw that God was with us. There 
 was no extraordinary excitement; the feeling was 
 too deep for that. We felt as the ancient Hebrew 
 prophet felt when he heard the "still small voice 
 from heaven," and went out ready for action. I felt 
 at once that a great work for Christ had commenced. 
 I called our officers together at once, and, to use 
 the naval phrase, we "cleared the decks for action." 
 As the good work had begun in our own church, 
 without any external assistance, we determined to 
 carry on the work ourselves ; and. during the next 
 five months, I never had any pulpit help except on
 
 88 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 two evenings during the week, when two fervid, dis- 
 creet neighboring pastors preached for me. Com- 
 monly, every church should do its own spiritual 
 harvesting just as much as every pair of young 
 lovers should do their own love-making, and wise 
 parents their own family training. Looking outside 
 is a temptation to shirk responsibility. If a preacher 
 can preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ faithfully, 
 and the Lord God is with him, why rob him of 
 the joy of the harvest by sending away for any 
 stranger ? 
 
 My plan of action was this. Twice on each Sab- 
 bath, and on two evenings in the week, I preached 
 as clearly and pungently as I could; sometimes to 
 awakened souls, sometimes to backsliders, some- 
 times to the impenitent, sometimes to souls who 
 were seeking salvation. I spoke of the great central 
 truths: personal guilt, Christ's atoning work, the 
 offices of the Spirit, redemption, the claims of the 
 Saviour, the necessity of immediate repentance, im- 
 mediate acceptance of Christ and the joy and power 
 of an useful Christian life. During a revival, ser- 
 mons make themselves; they grow spontaneously. 
 On the Monday evening of each week our young 
 people had the field with their regular gatherings, 
 and new converts were encouraged to narrate their 
 experiences. On three other evenings of the week 
 the whole church had a service for prayer and ex-
 
 MY EXPERIENCE IN REVIVALS. 89 
 
 hortation, conducted by our laymen. The praying 
 women met on one afternoon; the girls by them- 
 selves on another afternoon, and the boys on an- 
 other. During each week, from eleven to twelve, 
 different meetings were held, and in so large a con- 
 gregation, these sub-divisions were necessary. Af- 
 ter every public service I held an inquiry meeting. I 
 invited people to converse with me in the study 
 during the day, and I made as much pastoral visita- 
 tion from house to house as possible. 
 
 "So built we the walls . . . for the people had 
 a mind to work." For five months that blessed work 
 went forward, and as a result a very great num- 
 ber were added to the church, of whom about one 
 hundred were heads of families. Our sacramental 
 Sabbaths were holy, joyous feasts, and the sheaves 
 were brought in with singing. Some of the new 
 converts banded themselves in a new organization, 
 and to perpetuate the memory of that glorious 
 spiritual outpouring, they called it the "Memorial 
 Presbyterian Church." It now worships in the 
 beautiful edifice on Seventh Avenue, and is one of 
 the most flourishing churches in Brooklyn. The ef- 
 fect of that work of grace reached on into eternity. 
 One of its first effects, on the writer of these lines, 
 was to confirm him in the opinion that the living 
 Gospel, sent by the Holy Spirit, is the one only way 
 to save sinners ; that a church must back up a minis-
 
 90 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 ter by its personal efforts, and when preacher and 
 people work together only for God's glory, He is 
 as sure to answer prayer as the morrow's sun is to 
 rise in the heavens. 
 
 It has not been my practice to invite the labors 
 of an evangelist; but in January, 1872, Mr. Dwight 
 L. Moody, with whom I had as yet but a slight ac- 
 quaintance, but whom I since have honored and 
 loved with my whole heart, said to the superintend- 
 ent of our Mission Chapel : "What a nice place this 
 is to hold some meetings in." He was cordially in- 
 vited; and at the end of a week about twenty per- 
 sons had been mustered together on the sharp win- 
 ter evenings. "This seems slow work," I said to 
 him. "Very true," replied my sagacious brother. 
 "It is slow, but if you want to kindle a fire, you col- 
 lect a handful of sticks, light them with a match, 
 and keep on blowing till they blaze. Then you may 
 heap on the wood. I am working here with a hand- 
 ful of Christians, endeavoring to warm them up 
 with love for Christ ; and, if they keep well kindled, 
 a general revival will come, and outside sinners 
 will be converted." He was right; the revival did 
 come. It spread into the parent church, and over 
 one hundred converts made their public confession 
 of Christ before our communion table. It was in 
 those little chapel meetings that my beloved brother, 
 Moody, prepared his first "Bible Readings," which
 
 MY EXPERIENCE IN REVIVALS. 91 
 
 afterward became so celebrated in this country and 
 in Great Britain. A few months afterward I met 
 Mr. Moody in London. Coming one day into my 
 room, he said to me : "They wish me to come over 
 here and preach in England." I urged him at once 
 to do so; "for," I said, "these English people are 
 the best people to preach to in the world." Moody 
 then said, "I will go home, secure somebody to 
 sing, and come over and make the experiment." He 
 did come home, he secured my neighbor, Mr. 
 Sankey, returned to England, and commenced the 
 most extraordinary revival campaign that had been 
 known in Great Britain since the days of Whitefield. 
 I cannot dismiss this heaven-honored name without 
 a word of honest, loving tribute to the man and his 
 magnificent work. D. L. Moody was by far the 
 most extraordinary proclaimer of the Gospel that 
 America has produced during the last century, as 
 Spurgeon was the most extraordinary in Great Brit- 
 ain. Those two heralds of salvation led the column. 
 They reached millions by their eloquent tongues, 
 and their printed words went out to the ends of the 
 earth. The single aim of both was to point to the 
 cross of Christ, and to save souls; all their educa- 
 tional and benevolent enterprises were subordinate 
 to this one great sovereign purpose. Neither one 
 of them ever entered a college or theological sem- 
 inary ; yet they commanded the ear of Christendom.
 
 92 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 The simple reason was they were both God-made 
 preachers, and were both endowed with immense 
 common sense, and executive ability.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 PRINTERS' ink stained my fingers in my boyhood ; 
 for, at the age of fifteen, I ventured into a contro- 
 versy on the slavery question, in the columns of our 
 county newspaper; and, in the same paper, pub- 
 lished a series of letters from Europe, in 1842. 
 During my course of study in the Princeton Theo- 
 logical Seminary, I was a contributor to several 
 papers, to Godey's Magazine in Philadelphia, and 
 to the "New Englander,*' a literary and theological 
 review published at New Haven. I wrote the first 
 article for the first number of the "Nassau Month- 
 ly," a Princeton College publication, which still ex- 
 ists under another name. Up to the year 1847 all 
 my contributions had been to secular periodicals, 
 but in that year I ventured to send from Burlington, 
 N. J., where I was then preaching, a short article to 
 the "New York Observer," signed by my initials. 
 This was followed by several others which, falling 
 under the eye of my beloved friend, the Rev. Dr. 
 Cortland Van Rensellaer, led him to say to me: 
 "You are on the right track now; work on that as 
 93
 
 94 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 long as you live," and I have obeyed his injunction. 
 Within a year or two I began to write for the "Pres- 
 byterian" at Philadelphia. Its proprietor urged me 
 to accept an editorial position, but I declined his 
 proposal, as I have declined several other requests 
 to assume editorial positions since. I would always 
 rather write when I choose than write when I must, 
 and I have never felt at liberty to hold any other 
 position while I was a pastor of a church. My con- 
 tributions to the press never hindered my work as 
 a minister, for writing for the press promotes per- 
 spicuity in preparing for the pulpit. 
 
 In the summer of 1853 I was called from the 
 Third Presbyterian Church of Trenton to the Mar- 
 ket Street Reformed Church of New York City. 
 As a loyal Dutchman, I began to write at once for 
 the "Christian Intelligencer," and have continued in 
 its clean hospitable columns to this day. At the ur- 
 gent request of Mr. Henry C. Bowen I began to 
 write for his "Independent," and sent to its columns 
 over six hundred articles; but of all my associate 
 contributors in those days, not a solitary one sur- 
 vives. In May, 1860, My first article appeared in 
 the New York Evangelist, and during these forty- 
 two years I have tested the patience of its readers by 
 imposing on them more than eighteen hundred of 
 my lucubrations. As I was preparing one of my 
 earliest articles, I happened to spy the blossoms of
 
 AUTHORSHIP. 95 
 
 the catalpa tree before my window, and .for want 
 of a title I headed it "Under the Catalpa." The tree 
 flourishes still, and bids fair to blossom after the 
 hand that pens these lines has turned to dust. I need 
 not recapitulate the names of all the many journals 
 to which I have sent contributions, many of which 
 have been republished in Great Britain, Australia 
 and other parts of the civilized world. I once gave 
 to my friend, Mr. Arthur B. Cook, the eminent sten- 
 ographer, some statistics of the number of my arti- 
 cles, and the various journals in which they had ap- 
 peared in this and other countries. He made an 
 estimate of the extent of their publication, and then 
 said to me : "It would be within bounds to say that 
 your four thousand articles have been printed in at 
 least two hundred millions of copies." The produc- 
 tion of these articles involved no small labor, but 
 has brought its own reward. To enter a multitude 
 of homes week after week ; to converse with the in- 
 mates about many of the most vital questions in 
 morals and religion ; to speak words of guidance to 
 the perplexed; of comfort to the troubled, and of 
 exhortation to the saints and to the sinful all these 
 involved a solemn responsibility. That this life- 
 work with the pen has not been without fruit I 
 gratefully acknowledge. When a group of railway 
 employees, at a station in England, gathered around 
 me to tender their thanks for spiritual help afforded
 
 96 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 them by my articles, I felt repaid for hours of extra 
 labor spent in preaching through the press. 
 
 My first attempt at book-making was during my 
 ministry at Trenton, New Jersey, when I published 
 a small volume entitled "Stray Arrows." This was. 
 followed at different times by several volumes of 
 an experimental and devotional character. In the 
 spring of 1868 one of our beautiful twin boys, at the 
 age of four and a half years, was taken from us by a 
 very brief and violent attack of scarlet fever. We 
 received a large number of tender letters of condo- 
 lence, which gave us so much comfort that my wife 
 suggested that they should be printed with the hope 
 that they might be equally comforting to other peo- 
 ple in affliction. I accordingly selected a number 
 of them, added the simple story of our precious 
 child's short career, and handed the package to my 
 beloved friend and publisher, the late Mr. Peter 
 Carter, with the request that they be printed for 
 private distribution. He urged, after reading them, 
 that I should allow him to publish them, which he 
 did under the title of "The Empty Crib, a Book of 
 Consolation." That simple story of a sweet child's 
 life has travelled widely over the world and made 
 our little "Georgie" known in many a home. Mrs. 
 Gladstone told me that when she and her husband 
 had read it, it recalled their own loss of a child 
 tmder similar circumstances. Dean Stanley read it
 
 AUTHORSHIP. 97 
 
 aloud to Lady Augusta Stanley in the Deanery of 
 Westminster; and when I took him to our own 
 unrivalled Greenwood Cemetery he asked to be 
 driven to the spot where the dust of our dear boy is 
 slumbering. Many thousands have visited that 
 grave and gazed with tender admiration on the ex- 
 quisite marble medallion of the child face, by the 
 sculptor, Charles Calverley, which adorns the mon- 
 ument. 
 
 Fourteen years afterwards, in the autumn of 
 1 88 1, "the four corners of my house were smitten" 
 again with a heart-breaking bereavement in the 
 death, by typhoid fever, of our second daughter, 
 Louise Ledyard Cuyler, at the age of twenty-two, 
 who possessed a most inexpressible beauty of person 
 and character. Her playful humor, her fascinating 
 charm of manner, and her many noble qualities drew 
 to her the admiration of a large circle of friends, 
 as well as the pride of our parental hearts. After 
 her departure I wrote, through many tears, a small 
 volume entitled "God's Light on Dark Clouds," 
 with the hope that it might bring some rays of com- 
 fort into those homes that were shadowed in grief. 
 Judging from the numberless letters that have come 
 to me I cannot but believe that, of all the volumes 
 which I have written, this one has been the most 
 honored of God as a message-bearer to that largest 
 of all households the household of the sorrowing.
 
 98 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 Let me add that I have published a single volume 
 of sermons, entitled "The Eagle's Nest," and a vol- 
 ume of foreign travel, "From the Nile to Norway" ; 
 but all the remainder of my score of volumes have 
 been of a practical and devotional character. Of 
 the twenty-two volumes that I have written, six 
 have been translated into Swedish, and two into the 
 language of my Dutch ancestors. Thanks be to 
 God for the precious privilege of preaching His glo- 
 rious Gospel with the types that out-reach ten thou- 
 sand tongues! And thanks also to a number of 
 friends, whose faces I never saw, but whose kind 
 words have cheered me through more than a half 
 century of happy labors. I cannot conclude this 
 brief chapter without expressing my deep obligations 
 to that noble organization, the "American Tract So- 
 ciety," which has given a wide circulation to many 
 of my books including "Heart-Life," "Newly En- 
 listed; or, Counsels to Young Converts" and 
 "Beulah-Land," a volume of good cheer to aged 
 pilgrims on their journey heavenward.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE ABROAD. 
 
 Gladstone. Dr. Brown. Dean Stanley. Shaftes- 
 bury, etc. 
 
 IN a former chapter of this volume I gave my 
 reminiscences of some celebrities in Great Britain 
 sixty years ago. In the present chapter I group 
 together several distinguished persons whom I met 
 during subsequent visits. The first time I ever saw 
 Mr. Gladstone was in August, 1857, when Lord 
 Kinnaird kindly took me into the House of Com- 
 mons, and pointed out to me from a side gallery the 
 most prominent celebrities. A tall, finely formed 
 man, in a clear resonant voice, addressed the 
 House for a few moments. "That is Glad- 
 stone," whispered Lord Kinnaird. Mr. Glad- 
 stone had already won fame as a great financier in 
 the role of Chancellor of the Exchequer; but was 
 at this time out of office, occupying an independent 
 position. He was already beginning to break loose 
 from Toryism, and ere long became the most bril- 
 liant and powerful leader that the British Liberal 
 party has ever followed. As an orator he is ranked 
 
 99
 
 ioo RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 next to Bright ; as a party manager, he was always 
 a match for Disraeli, and as a statesman he has won 
 the foremost place in British annals during the last 
 half century. 
 
 In June, 1872, I happened to be in London at the 
 time of the great excitement over the famous "Ala- 
 bama difficulty." The Court of Arbitration was 
 sitting at Geneva ; things were not going smoothly, 
 and there was danger of a rupture with the United 
 States. At an anniversary meeting at Exeter Hall 
 I. had made a speech in which I spoke of the cordial 
 feeling of my countrymen, and their desire to avoid 
 a conflict with the mother country. It was suggest- 
 ed to me that I should call on Mr. Gladstone, who 
 was then Premier; and my friend, Dr. Newman 
 Hall, who had always had a warm personal at- 
 tachment to Gladstone, accompanied me. The 
 Premier then occupied a stately mansion in Carlton 
 House Terrace, next to the Duke of York's column. 
 We found him in his private sitting room with a cup 
 of coffee before him and a morning newspaper in 
 his hand. Fifteen years had made a great change 
 in his appearance. He had become stouter and 
 broader shouldered. His thin hair was turned gray, 
 and his large eyes and magnificent brow reminded 
 me of Daniel Webster. He received me cordially, 
 and we spent half an hour in conversation about the 
 difficulties that seemed to be obstructing an arnica-
 
 DR. CUYLER AT 50.
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE ABROAD. 101 
 
 ble settlement of the Alabama controversy. Mr. 
 Gladstone appeared to be puzzled about a recent 
 belligerent speech delivered by Mr. Charles Sum- 
 ner in our Senate chamber, and I was glad to give 
 him a hint or two in regard to some of our eloquent 
 Senator's idiosyncrasies. What impressed me most 
 in Gladstone's free, earnest talk was its solemn and 
 thoroughly Christian tone he was longing for 
 peace on principle. On my telling him playfully 
 that the time which belonged to the British Em- 
 pire was too precious for further talk, he said: 
 "Come and breakfast with me to-morrow morning, 
 and we will finish our conversation." The next 
 morning Dr. Hall and myself presented ourselves at 
 ten o'clock in Mr. Gladstone's parlor. We had a 
 very pleasant chat with Mrs. Gladstone (a tall, slen- 
 der lady, whose only claim to beauty was her be- 
 nevolent countenance), about the schemes of charity 
 in which she was deeply interested. At the break- 
 fast table opposite to us were the venerable Dean 
 Ramsey, of Edinburgh, and Professor Talbot, of 
 Oxford University. The Premier indulged in some 
 jocose remarks which encouraged me to tell him 
 stories about our Southern negroes, in whom he 
 seemed to be much interested. He laughed over the 
 story of the eloquent colored brother who, when asked 
 how he came to preach so well, said : "Well, Boss, I 
 takes de text fust; I splains it; den I spounds it,
 
 102 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 and den / puts in de rousements" Gladstone 
 was quite delighted with this, and said it was about 
 the best description of real parliamentary eloquence. 
 He told us that one secret of his own marvelous 
 health was his talent for sound, unbroken sleep. "I 
 lock all my public cares outside my chamber door," 
 said he, "and nothing ever disturbs my slumbers." 
 While we were at breakfast a package of dispatches 
 was brought in and laid beside Mr. Gladstone's 
 plate. He left them quietly alone until the meal was 
 over and then, taking them to a corner of the par- 
 lor, perused them intently. I saw that his face was 
 lighted up with a pleasant smile. Beckoning me 
 to come to him he said, with much enthusiasm: 
 "Doctor, here is good news from the arbitrators at 
 Geneva. The worst is over. I do not pretend to 
 know the purposes of Providence, but I am sure that 
 no earthly power can now prevent an honorable 
 peace between your country and mine." It has al- 
 ways been a matter of thankfulness that I should 
 have been with the greatest of living Englishmen 
 when his warm heart was relieved of the appre- 
 hension of the danger of a conflict with America. 
 After entering our names in the autograph book on 
 the parlor table, we withdrew, and at the door we 
 met the Duke of Argyll, a member of the Premier's 
 Cabinet, who was calling on official business. 
 My next meeting with Gladstone was a very brief
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE ABROAD. 103 
 
 one, in the summer of 1885. He had lately resigned 
 his third Premiership; his health was badly im- 
 paired ; his splendid voice was apparently ruined by 
 an attack of bronchitis, and the world supposed that 
 his public career was ended. I called at his house 
 in Whitehall Terrace, and the servant informed me 
 at the door that the physicians had forbidden Mr. 
 Gladstone to see any one. I handed in my card, 
 and said to the servant: "I leave for America to- 
 morrow, and only called to say good-bye to Mr. 
 Gladstone." He overheard my voice (not one of 
 the feeblest), and, coming out into the hall, greeted 
 me most warmly, but in a voice almost inaudible 
 from hoarseness. I told him: "Do not attempt to 
 speak, Mr. Gladstone ; the future of the British Em- 
 pire depends upon your throat." He hoarsely whis- 
 pered : "No, no, my friend, it does not," and with a 
 very hearty handshake we parted. My prediction 
 came true. Within a year the marvelous old man 
 had recovered his voice, recovered his popularity, re- 
 sumed the Liberal leadership, and for the fourth 
 time was Prime Minister of Great Britain. 
 
 I supposed that I should never see the veteran 
 statesman again, but four years afterward, in July, 
 1889, he kindly invited me to come and see him, and 
 to bring my wife. It was the week before the cele- 
 bration of his golden wedding. He was occupying, 
 temporarily, a house near Buckingham Palace.
 
 104 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 Mrs. Gladstone, the good angel of his long life and 
 happy home, received us warmly, and, bringing out 
 a lot of photographs of her children and grandchil- 
 dren, gave us a family talk. When her husband 
 came in, I was startled to observe how much thinner 
 he had become and how loosely his clothes hung 
 upon him. But as soon as he began to talk, the old 
 fire flamed up, and he discoursed eloquently about 
 Irish Home-Rule, the divorce question, (one of his 
 hobbies), and the dangers that threatened America 
 from plutocracy and laxity of wedlock, and the fa- 
 cilities of divorce that sap the sanctities of domestic 
 life. It was during that conversation that Gladstone 
 uttered the sentence that I have often had occasion 
 to quote. He said : "Amid all the pressure of public 
 cares and duties, I thank God for the Sabbath with 
 its rest for the body and the soul" One reason for 
 his wonderful longevity was that he had never 
 robbed his brain of the benefits of God's appointed 
 day of rest. After our delightful talk was ended, 
 the Grand Old Man went off in pursuit of an im- 
 perial photograph, which he kindly signed with his 
 autograph, and gave to my wife, and it now graces 
 the walls of the room in which I am writing. 
 
 Many men have been great in some direction: 
 William Ewart Gladstone was great in nearly all 
 directions. Born in the same year with our Lincoln, 
 he was a great muscular man and horseman ; a great
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE ABROAD. 105 
 
 orator, a great political strategist, a great scholar, 
 a great writer, great statesman and a great Chris- 
 tian. The crowning glory of his character was a 
 stalwart faith in God's Word, and in the cross of 
 Jesus Christ. He honored his Lord, and his Lord 
 honored him. Wordsworth drew a truthful picture 
 of Gladstone when he portrayed 
 
 "The man who lifted high 
 Conspicuous object in a nation's eye, 
 Who, with a toward or untoward lot, 
 Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not, 
 Plays in the many games of life, that one 
 Where what he most doth value must be won; 
 Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, 
 Nor thought of tender happiness betray; 
 And while the mortal mist is gathering, draws 
 His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause." 
 
 Who has not wept over the brilliant and beloved 
 Dr. John Brown's unrivaled story, "Rab and His 
 Friends," and been charmed with his picture of "Pet 
 Marjorie" ? What student of style will deny that his 
 "Monograph" of his father is the finest specimen 
 of condensed and vivid biography in our language ? 
 When his "Spare Hours" appeared in America I 
 published an article in the "Independent" entitled, 
 "The Last of the John Browns," several copies of 
 which had been forwarded to him by his friends in 
 this country. On my arrival in Edinburgh, July,
 
 io6 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 1862, he called on me at the Waverly Hotel and in- 
 vited me to breakfast with him. He had the fair 
 Saxon features of Scotland, with a smile like a Sum- 
 mer morning. Not tall in stature, his head was 
 somewhat bald, and he bore a striking resemblance 
 to our ex- President, Van Buren. He showed me in 
 his house some choice literary treasures; among 
 them a little Greek Testament, given to his great- 
 grandfather, the famous John. Brown, of Hadding- 
 ton, the eminent commentator. Its history was curi- 
 ous: Brown of, Haddington, was a poor shepherd 
 boy, and once he walked twenty miles through the 
 night to St. Andrews to get a copy of the Greek Tes- 
 tament. The book-seller at first laughed at him and 
 said : "Boy, if you can read a verse in this book, you 
 may have it." Forthwith the lad read the verse off 
 glibly, and was permitted to carry off the Testa- 
 ment in triumph. You may well suppose that the 
 little volume is a sacred heirloom in the Brown 
 family, which for four generations has been famous. 
 Of course, the author of "Rab and His Friends" had 
 several pictures of the illustrious dog that figured 
 in his beautiful story, and I noticed a pet spaniel 
 lying on the sofa in the drawing room. A day or 
 two after, Dr. Brown called on me, and kindly took 
 me on a drive with him through Edinburgh ; and it 
 was pleasant to see how the people on the sidewalk 
 had cheery salutes for the author of "Rab" as he
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE ABROAD. 107 
 
 rode by. We went up to Calton Hill and made a 
 call on Sir George Harvey, the famous artist, whom 
 we found in his studio, with brush in hand, and 
 working on an Highland landscape. Sir George 
 was a hearty old fellow, and the two friends had 
 a merry "crack" together. When I asked Harvey 
 if he had seen any of our best American paintings, 
 he replied "No, I have not ; the best American pro- 
 ductions I have ever seen have been some of your 
 missionaries. I met some of them ; they were noble 
 characters." On our return from the drive Dr. 
 Brown gave me an elegant edition of "Rab," with 
 Harvey's portrait of the immortal dog, whose body 
 was thickset like a little bull, and who had "fought 
 his way to absolute supremacy, like Julius Caesar 
 or the Duke of Wellington." 
 
 When in Edinburgh ten years afterwards, as a 
 delegate to the Genera! Assemblies, I was so con- 
 stantly occupied that I was able to see but little of 
 my genial friend, Dr. Brown. I sent him a copy of 
 the little book, "The Empty Crib," which had been 
 recently published, and received from him the fol- 
 lowing characteristic reply: 
 
 25 RUTLAND STREET, 
 EDINBURGH, May 25, 1872. 
 My Dear Dr. Cuyler: 
 
 Very many thanks for your kind note, and the little 
 book. It will be my own fault if I am not the better for
 
 108 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 reading it. I have seen nothing lovelier or more touching 
 than the pictures of those twin heads "like unto the angels" ; 
 even there Georgie looks nearer the better world than his 
 brother. There is something perilous about his eyes with 
 their wistful beauty. With him "it is far better" now, and 
 may it be meet for Theodore to be long with you here. I 
 hoped to leave with you a book of my father's on the same 
 subject, entitled, "Comfortable Words," but it is out of 
 print. If I can get a copy, I will send it you. There are 
 some letters of Bengel's which, if you do not know, you 
 will enjoy. 
 
 I send you a note of introduction to John Ruskin, and 
 I hope to hear you to-morrow in Mr. Candlish's church. 
 
 With much regret and best thanks, yours very truly, 
 
 JOHN BROWN. 
 
 P. S. I was in Glen-Garry the other week, and quite 
 felt that look of nakedness, and as if it just came from the 
 Maker's hand; it was very impressive. 
 
 During the closing years of the Doctor's life he 
 was often shadowed by fits of deep melancholy. One 
 day he was walking with a lady, who was also sub- 
 ject to depression of spirits, and he said to her: 
 "Tell me why I am like a Jew?" She could not 
 answer and he replied: "Because I am sad-you- 
 see." Tears and mirth dwelt very closely together 
 in his keen, fervid, sensitive spirit. It is remarkable 
 that one who devoted himself so assiduously to his 
 exacting profession should have been able to master 
 such an immense amount of miscellaneous reading, 
 and to have won such a splendid name in literature.
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE ABROAD. 109 
 
 It is the attribute of true genius that it can do great 
 things easily, and can accomplish its feats in an in- 
 credibly short time. He affirms that the immortal 
 story of "Rab" was written in a few hours! The 
 precious relics of my friend that I now possess are 
 portraits of his father and of Dr. Chalmers, and of 
 Hugh Miller, which he presented to me, and which 
 now adorn my study walls. 
 
 While I have always dissented from some of his 
 theological views and utterances, I have always had 
 an intense admiration for Dean Stanley, in whose 
 character was blended the gentleness of a sweet 
 girl with occasional display of the courage of a lion. 
 Froude once said to me : "I wish that Stanley was a 
 little better hater." My reply was: "It is not in 
 Stanley to hate anybody but the devil." My acquaint- 
 ance with the Dean of Westminster dates from the 
 summer of 1872. The Rev. Samuel Minton, a very 
 broad Church of England clergyman, was in the 
 habit of inviting ministers of the Established church 
 and non-conformists to meet at lunch parties with a 
 view of bringing them to a better understanding. 
 One day I was invited by Mr. Minton to attend one 
 of these lunch parties, and I found that day at his 
 table, Dr. Donald Frazer, Dr. Newman Hall, Dr. 
 Joseph Parker, Dean Stanley and Dr. Howard 
 Wilkinson, afterwards Bishop of Truro. Stanley 
 felt perfectly at home among these "dissenters," and
 
 no RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 asked me to give the company some account of a re- 
 markable discourse, which, he was told, Bishop Mc- 
 Ilvaine, of Ohio, had recently delivered in my La- 
 fayette Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, on "Chris- 
 tian Unity." In the discourse, Bishop Mcllvaine 
 had said : "The only difference between the Presby- 
 terian denomination, and Episcopal denomination, is 
 their difference as to the orders of the ministry." 
 The Dean was delighted with my account, and said : 
 "Just imagine the Bishop of London preaching 
 such a sermon in Newman Hall's or Spurgeon's pul- 
 pit; it would rock the old dome of St. Paul's." In 
 all of his intercourse with his dissenting brethren the 
 Dean never put on any airs of patronage, for though 
 a loyal Episcopalian, he recognized their equally di- 
 vine ordination as ministers of Jesus Christ. 
 
 A few days afterwards I went up to get a look at 
 Holly Lodge, the residence of Lord Macaulay, in a 
 side street just off Campden Hill. I met the Dean 
 just coming out of the gate. He had been attend- 
 ing a garden party given by Lord Airlie, who then 
 occupied the lodge. It was a pleasant coincidence 
 to meet the most brilliant ecclesiastical historian at 
 the door of the most brilliant civil historian of Eng- 
 land. The Dean stopped and chatted about Macau- 
 lay, of whom he was very fond, and then said : "Just 
 beyond is Holland House." We went a few paces 
 and got a glimpse of the famous mansion in which
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE ABROAD. in 
 
 Lord Holland had entertained the celebrities of 
 America and Europe. One of the best hours I ever 
 spent with Stanley was at his own table in the Dean- 
 ery. He was the most delightful of hosts. Lady 
 Augusta Stanley, daughter of the Earl of Elgin, 
 had been a favorite Maid of Honor to the Queen, 
 and the Dean had accompanied the Prince of Wales 
 on his tour to the Orient. The Queen quite fre- 
 quently slipped away from the palace for a quiet 
 chat at the Deanery with this pair whom she so 
 loved. A marble bust of Victoria, by her daughter, 
 the Princess Louise, stood in the parlor, a gift of the 
 Queen. If the Dean was very broad in his theology, 
 his cultured wife was as decidedly evangelical in 
 hers and her religious influence was very tonic in all 
 respects. After lunch that day the Dean very kind- 
 ly took me into the famous Jerusalem chamber and 
 showed me where the Westminster Assembly had 
 sat for six years to give birth to our Presbyterian 
 Confession of Faith and Catechism. I was sur- 
 prised at the small size of the room that had held 
 seventy or eighty commissioners. 
 
 As I was very desirous of hearing the Dean 
 preach in the Abbey, he sent me a very kind invita- 
 tion to come on the next Sabbath to the Deanery be- 
 fore the service, and on account of my deafness 
 Lady Augusta would take me into a seat close to his 
 pulpit. Accordingly she stowed me in a small box-
 
 112 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 pew, which was close against the pulpit, and within 
 arms' length of the Dean. His sermon was a beau- 
 tiful essay on Solomon and great men, and in the 
 course of it he said : "Such was the greatness of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ." I felt so pained by what he 
 did not say that I ventured to write him a most 
 frank and loving note, in which I expressed my deep 
 regret that when he referred to the "greatness" of 
 our Saviour he had so entirely ignored what was 
 infinitely His most sublime work, that of our hu- 
 man redemption by His atoning death on Calvary. 
 The dear Dean, instead of taking offense, accepted 
 the frank letter in the same spirit in which it was 
 written. A day or two after he sent me a charac- 
 teristic note, whose peculiar hieroglyphics, after 
 much labor, I was able to decipher; for it has been 
 often said that the only reason why he was never 
 made a bishop was that no clergyman in his diocese 
 would ever have been able to read his letters. 
 
 THE DEANERY OF WESTMINSTER, 
 
 July 22, 1872. 
 
 DEAR DOCTOR: Pray accept my sincere thanks for your 
 very kind note. I quite appreciate your candor in men- 
 tioning what you thought a defect in my sermon. It arose 
 from a fixed conviction which I have long formed, that 
 the only chance there is of my sermons doing any good is 
 by taking one topic at a time. The effect and the nature 
 of the death of Jesus Christ, I quite agree with you in 
 thinking to be a most important part of the Christian doc-
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE ABROAD. 113 
 
 trine, and Christian history. But as my sermon was on a 
 different subject that of the right use of greatness I felt 
 that I could not speak, even by way of allusion, to the 
 other great doctrine on which I had often preached before. 
 
 I sincerely wish that I could come to America. Every 
 year that passes increases the number of my kind friends 
 in the New World, and my desire to see the United States. 
 
 Farewell ; and may all the blessings of our State and 
 Church follow you westward. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 A. P. STANLEY. 
 
 When Dean Stanley visited America in the au- 
 tumn of 1878, I met him several times, and he was 
 especially cordial, and all the more so because of 
 my out-spoken letter. The first time I met him was 
 at the meeting of ministers of New York to give him 
 a reception, and hear him deliver a discourse on Dr. 
 Robinson, the Oriental geographer. He recognized 
 me in the audience, came forward to the front of 
 the platform, beckoned me up, and gave me a hearty 
 grasp of the hand. I arranged to take him to Green- 
 wood Cemetery on the morning before he sailed for 
 home, and after breakfasting with him at Cyrus 
 W. Field's we started for the cemetery. Dr. Phillip 
 SchafT and Dr. Henry M. Field met us at the ferry, 
 and accompanied us. When we entered the elevated 
 railroad car, Stanley exclaimed : "This is like the 
 chariots on the walls of Babylon." With his keen 
 interest in history he inquired when we reached the
 
 ii4 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 lower part of the Bowery, near the junction of Chat- 
 ham Square: "Was it not near here that Nathan 
 Hale, the martyr, was executed?" and he showed 
 then a more accurate knowledge of our local history 
 than one New Yorker in ten thousand can boast! 
 That was probably the exact locality, and Dean 
 Stanley had never been there before. Before en- 
 tering the Greenwood Cemetery he requested me to 
 drive him to the spot where my little child was bur- 
 ied, whose photograph in "The Empty Crib" I have 
 referred to in a previous chapter. When we reached 
 the burial lot he got out of the carriage, and in the 
 driving wind, of a raw November morning, spent 
 some time in examining the marble medallion of 
 the child, and in talking with my wife most sweetly 
 about him. I could have hugged the man on the 
 spot. It was so like Stanley. I do not wonder that 
 everybody loved him. We then drove to the tomb of 
 Dr. Edward Robinson and the Dean said to us : "In 
 all my travels in Palestine I carried Dr. Robinson's 
 volume, 'Biblical Researches,' with me on horse- 
 back or on my camel; it was my constant guide 
 book." 
 
 Three years afterward, on my arrival in Lon- 
 don, from Palestine I learned that Stanley was dan- 
 gerously ill. On the door of the Deanery a bulletin 
 was posted : "The Dean is sinking." That night the 
 good, great man, died. On the 25th of July the au-
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE ABROAD. 115 
 
 gust funeral service took place in Westminster Ab- 
 bey. Outside the Abbey thousands of people were 
 assembled, for the Dean was loved by all London. 
 From a small gallery over the "Poets' Corner" I 
 looked down on the group, which contained Glad- 
 stone, Shaftesbury, Matthew Arnold, and scores of 
 England's mightiest and best. After the "Dead 
 March," began a long procession headed by Stanley's 
 lifelong friend, Archbishop Tait, of Canterbury, 
 and the Prince of Wales (his pupil), and fol- 
 lowed by Browning, Tyndall, and a long line of 
 bishops, and poets and scholars moved slowly along 
 under the lofty arches to the tomb in Henry VII. 's 
 Chapel. A fresh wreath of flowers from the Queen 
 was laid on the coffin. Many a tear was shed on 
 that sad day beside the tomb in which the Church 
 of England laid her most fearless and yet her best 
 beloved son. I never have visited the Abbey since, 
 without halting for a few moments beside the chapel 
 in which the Dean and his beloved wife are slumber- 
 ing. Greater than all his books or literary achieve- 
 ments was Arthur Penryn Stanley, the modest, 
 true-hearted, unselfish, childlike, Christian man. 
 
 Soon after I had begun my pastorate in New 
 York, I became a member of the Young Men's 
 Christian Association, which was one of the first 
 that was organized in this country. Since that 
 time I have delivered more than one hundred ad-
 
 ii6 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 dresses, in behalf of this institution, in my own coun- 
 try and abroad. In June, 1857, the New York or- 
 ganization honored me with what was then a nov- 
 elty in America a public breakfast, and commis- 
 sioned me as a delegate to the original parent as- 
 sociation in London. I there met that remarkable 
 Christian merchant, Mr. George Williams, who was 
 the founder of the Association, and who had got 
 much of his first spiritual inspiration from reading 
 the writings of our American, Charles G. Finney. 
 He is now Sir George Williams, my much loved 
 friend, and I do not hesitate to say that there is not 
 another man living who has accomplished such a 
 world-wide work for the glory of God and the wel- 
 fare of young men. The President of that first or- 
 ganized London Association was the celebrated phil- 
 anthropist, the Earl of Shaftesbury, a man whom 
 I had long desired to meet. My acquaintance with 
 him began in Exeter Hall, at a Sabbath service held 
 to reach the non-church going classes. With one or 
 two others we knelt together in a small side room 
 to invoke a blessing on the service in the great hall, 
 and he prayed most fervently. The Earl of Shaftes- 
 bury was not only the author of great reformatory 
 legislation in Parliament, and the acknowledged 
 leader of the Low Church Party in the Established 
 Church. He was also a leader of city missions, rag- 
 ged schools, shoe-black brigades, and other organ-
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE ABROAD. 117 
 
 izations to benefit the submerged classes in London. 
 He once invited all the thieves in London to meet 
 him privately in a certain hall, and there pleaded 
 with them to abandon their wretched occupation, 
 and promised to aid those who desired to reform. 
 He was fond of telling the story of how, when his 
 watch was stolen, the thieves themselves compelled 
 the rascal to come and return it, because he had 
 been the benefactor of the "long-fingered frater- 
 nity." The last time that I saw the venerable phil- 
 anthropist was just before his death (at the age of 
 eighty- four years). He was presiding at a con- 
 vention of the Young Men's Christian Association 
 in Exeter Hall. In my speech I said: "To-day I 
 have seen Milton's Mulberry Tree at Cambridge 
 University, and the historic old tree is kept alive 
 by being banked around with earth clear to its 
 boughs ; and so is all Christendom banking around 
 our honored President to-night to keep him warm 
 and hale, and strong, amid the frosts of advancing 
 age." The grand old man rewarded me with a bow 
 and a gracious smile, and the audience responded 
 with a shout of appreciation.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE AT HOME. 
 
 Irving. Whittier. Webster. Greeley, etc. 
 
 WASHINGTON IRVING has fairly earned the title 
 of the "Father of our American Literature." The 
 profound philosophical and spiritual treatises of our 
 great President Edwards had secured a reading by 
 theologians and deep thinkers abroad; but the 
 American who first caught the popular ear was the 
 man who wrote "The Sketch Book," and made the 
 name of "Knickerbocker" almost as familiar as Sir 
 Walter Scott made the name of "Waverley." During 
 the summer of 1856 I received a cordial invitation 
 from the people of Tarry town to come up to join 
 them in an annual "outing," with their children, 
 on board of a steamer on the Tappan-Zee. I ac- 
 cepted the invitation, and on arrival found the boat 
 already filled with the good people, and two or 
 three hundreds of scholars from the Sabbath schools. 
 
 To my surprise and delight I found Washington 
 118
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE AT HOME. 119 
 
 Irving on board the steamer. The veteran author 
 had laid aside the fourth volume of the "Life of 
 Washington," which he was just preparing, to come 
 away for a bit of rest and recreation. I had never 
 seen him before, but found him precisely the type of 
 man that I had expected. He was short, rather 
 stout, and attired in an old fashioned black sum- 
 mer dress, with "pumps" and white stockings, and 
 a broad Panama hat. As he was no novelty to his 
 neighbors I was able to secure more of his time; 
 and, like the apostle of old, I was exceedingly 
 "filled with his company." He took me to the up- 
 per deck of the steamer, and pointed out a glimpse of 
 his own home "Sunnyside" which he told me 
 was the original of Baltus Van Tassel's homestead 
 in the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow." He pointed out 
 the route of poor Ichabod Crane on his memorable 
 night ride up the valley, and so on to the 
 Kakout, where his horse should have gone 
 to reach "Sleepy Hollow." Instead of that, 
 obstinate Gunpowder plunged down over that 
 bridge where poor Ichabod encountered his fatal 
 and final catastrophe. The good old man's face was 
 full of fun as he told me the story. Irving was so 
 exceedingly shy that he never could face any public 
 ovation, and yet he had a great deal of quiet enjoy- 
 ment of his own popularity. For example, one day 
 when he was going with a young relative up Broad-
 
 120 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 way, which was thronged with omnibuses, he point- 
 ed out one of the old "Knickerbocker" line of stages 
 to the lad and said: "Billy, you see how many 
 coaches I own in this city, and you may take as 
 many rides in them as you like." 
 
 After refreshments had been served to all the 
 guests on board, we gathered on the deck for the in- 
 evitable American practice of speech making. In 
 the course of my speech I gave an account of what 
 was being done for poor children in the slums of 
 New York, and then introduced as many Dutch 
 stories as I could recollect for the special edifica- 
 tion of old "Geoffrey Crayon." As I watched his 
 countenance, and heard his hearty laughter and saw 
 sometimes the peculiar quizzical expression of his 
 mouth, I fancied that I knew precisely how he 
 looked when he drew the inimitable pictures of 
 Ichabod Crane, and Rip Van Winkle. When the ex- 
 cursion ended, and we drew up to the shore, I bade 
 him a very grateful and affectionate farewell, and 
 my readers, I hope, will pardon me if I say to them 
 that dear old Irving whispered quietly in my ear, "I 
 should like to be one of your parishioners." Three 
 years afterwards, Irving was borne by his neigh- 
 bors at Tarrytown to his final resting place in the 
 old Dutch churchyard at the entrance of Sleepy 
 Hollow. 
 
 Twenty years afterwards my dear friend, Mr.
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE AT HOME. 121 
 
 William E. Dodge, drove me up from his summer 
 house at Tarrytown to see the simple tomb of the 
 good old Geoffrey Crayon, whose genius has glad- 
 dened innumerable admirers, and whose writings 
 are as pure as the rivulet which now flows by his 
 resting place. 
 
 The pleasant little town of Burlington, N. J., in 
 which I spent my earliest ministry, was the head- 
 quarters of orthodox Quakers. I was thrown 
 much into the society of their most eminent people, 
 and very delightful society I found it. The ven- 
 erable Stephen Grellet, their apostle, who had held 
 many interviews with the crowned heads of Europe, 
 resided a little way from me up the street ; and I saw 
 the good old man with broad brimmed hat and 
 straight coat pass my window every day. Richard 
 Mott lived but a little way from the town, and on 
 the other side resided the widow of the celebrated 
 Joseph John Gurney. The wittiest Quaker in the 
 town was my neighbor, William J. Allinson, the ed- 
 itor of the "Friends Review," and an intimate friend 
 of John G. Whittier. One afternoon he ran over to 
 my room, and said: "Friend Theodore, John G. 
 Whittier is at my house, and wants to see thee ; he 
 leaves early in the morning." I hastened across the 
 street and, in the modest parlor of Friend Allinson, 
 I saw, standing before the fire, a tall, slender man 
 in Quaker dress, with a very lofty brow, and the
 
 132 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 finest eye I have ever seen in any American, unless 
 it were the deep ox-like eye of Abraham Lincoln. 
 We had a pleasant chat about the anti-slavery, tem- 
 perance and other moral reforms ; and I went home 
 with something of the feeling that Walter Scott 
 says he had after seeing "Rabbie Burns." Whit- 
 tier was a retiring, home-keeping man. He never 
 crossed the ocean and seldom went even outside of 
 his native home in Massachusetts. During the 
 summer of 1870 he ventured down to Brooklyn 
 on a visit to his friend, Colonel Julian Allen. On 
 coming home one day, my servant said to me, 
 "There was a tall Quaker gentleman called here, 
 and left his name on this piece of paper." I was 
 quite dumb- founded to read the name of "John G. 
 Whittier," and I lost no time in making my way 
 up to the house where he was staying. When I in- 
 quired how he had come to do me the honor of a 
 call, he said : "Well, yesterday, when I arrived and 
 my friend Allen drove me up here, we passed a 
 meeting house with a tall steeple, and when I heard 
 it was thine, I determined to run down to thy house 
 and see thee." As I was to have the "Chi Alpha," 
 the oldest and the most celebrated clerical associa- 
 tion of New York at my house the next afternoon, I 
 invited him to come and sup with them. He cor- 
 dially consented, and it may be supposed that the 
 "Chi Alpha" was very glad to put aside for that
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE AT HOME. 123 
 
 evening all other matters, and listen to the fresh, 
 racy and humorous talk of the great poet. Under- 
 neath his grave and shy sobriety, flowed a most gen- 
 tle humor. He could tell a good story, and when 
 he was describing the usages of the Quakers in re- 
 gard to "Speaking in Meetings," he told us that 
 sometimes the voluntary remarks were not quite to 
 the edification of the meeting. It once happened 
 
 that a certain George C. grew rather wearisome 
 
 in his exhortations, and his prudent brethren, after 
 solemn consultation, passed the following resolu- 
 tion: "It is the sense of this meeting that George 
 
 C. be advised to remain silent, until such time 
 
 as the Lord shall speak through him more to our 
 satisfaction and profit." A resolution of that kind 
 would not be out of place in some ecclesiastical as- 
 semblies, nor in certain prayer gatherings that I 
 wot of. After the circle broke up I told 
 him that in addition to the kind and char- 
 acter* 'ic letters he had written to me I wanted 
 a scrap of his poetry to add to those which Bryant 
 and others had contributed to my collection of auto- 
 graphs. "What shall it be?" he said. I told him 
 that, while some of his hymns and devoutly spiritual 
 pieces, like "My soul and I," were very dear to me, 
 and while "Snow Bound" was his acknowledged 
 masterpiece, yet none of his verses did I oftener 
 quote than this one, in his poem on Massachusetts.
 
 124 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 He smiled at the selection, and accordingly sat 
 down and wrote : 
 
 "She heeds no skeptic's puny hands, 
 
 While near the school the church-spire stands, 
 
 Nor fears the bigot's blinded rule, 
 
 While near the church-spire stands the school." 
 
 Our walk to his place of sojourn in the moon- 
 light was very delightful. On the way I told him 
 that not long before, when I quoted a verse of Bry- 
 ant's to Horace Greeley, Mr. Greeley replied : "Bry- 
 ant is all very well, but by far the greatest poet this 
 country has produced is John Greenleaf Whittier." 
 "Did our friend Horace say that?" meekly inquired 
 Whittier, and a smile of satisfaction flowed over 
 his Quaker countenance. The man is not born yet 
 who does not like an honest compliment, especially 
 if it comes from a high quarter. In the course of 
 my life I have received several very pleasant letters 
 from my venerable friend, the Quaker poet; but 
 immediately after his eightieth birthday he ad- 
 dressed me the following letter, which, believing it 
 to be his last, I framed and hung on the walls of 
 my library : 
 
 OAK KNOLL, 
 I2th month, I7th, 1887. 
 My dear Dr. 'Cuyler, 
 
 I thank thee for thy loving letter to me on my birthday, 
 which I would have answered immediately but for illness ;
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE AT HOME. 125 
 
 and, my friend, I wish I was more worthy of the kind and 
 good things said of me. But my prayer is, "God be Merci- 
 ful to me." And I think my prayer will be answered, for 
 His Mercy and His Justice are one. May the Lord bless 
 thee. Thy friend sincerely, 
 
 JOHN G. WHITTIER. 
 
 This note, so redolent of humility, was written a 
 few days after he had received a most superb birth- 
 day ovation from the public men of Massachusetts, 
 and from the most eminent literary men in all parts 
 of the nation. 
 
 In the days of my boyhood the most colossal fig- 
 ure, physically and intellectually, in American pol- 
 itics, was Daniel Webster. I well remember when 
 I first put eye upon him. It was when I was pursu- 
 ing my studies in the New York University Gram- 
 mar School in preparation for Princeton College. I 
 was strolling one day on the Battery, and met a 
 friend who said to me : "Yonder goes Daniel Web- 
 ster; he has just landed from that man-of-war; go 
 and get a good look at him." I hastened my steps 
 and, as I came near him, I was as much awe-stricken 
 as if I had been gazing on Bunker Hill Monument. 
 He was unquestionably the most majestic speci- 
 men of manhood that ever trod this continent. 
 Carlyle called him "The Great Norseman," and 
 said that his eyes were like great anthracite furnaces 
 that needed blowing up." Coal heavers in London
 
 126 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 stopped to stare at him as he stalked by, and it is 
 well authenticated that Sydney Smith said of him, 
 "That man is a fraud; for it is impossible for any 
 one to be as great as he looks." 
 
 Mr. Webster, as I saw him that day, was in the 
 vigor of his splendid prime. When he spoke in the 
 Senate chamber it was his custom to wear the Whig 
 uniform, a blue coat with metal buttons and a buff 
 waistcoat; but that day he was dressed in a claret 
 colored coat and black trousers. His complexion 
 was a swarthy brown. He used to say that while his 
 handsome brother Ezekiel was very fair, he "had 
 all the soot of the family in his face." Such a 
 mountain of a brow I have never seen before or 
 since. I followed behind him until he entered the 
 carriage of Mr. Robert Minturn that was waiting 
 for him, and as he rode away he looked like Jupiter 
 Olympus. Although I saw Mr. Webster several times 
 afterwards, I never heard him speak until the closing 
 year of his life. The Honorable Lewis Condit, of 
 Morristown, N. J., was in Congress at the time 
 when Webster had his historic combat with Senator 
 Hayne, of South Carolina, and was present during 
 the delivery of the most magnificent speech ever 
 delivered in our Senate. He described the historic 
 scene to me minutely. 
 
 Before twelve o'clock on the 26th day of January, 
 1830, the Senate chamber was overflowing into the
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE AT HOME. 127 
 
 rotunda, and people were offering prices for a few 
 inches of breathing room in the charmed enclosure. 
 Senator Dixon H. Lewis, from Alabama, who 
 weighed nearly four hundred, became wedged in 
 behind the Vice President's chair, unable to move, 
 and became imbedded in the crowd like a broad- 
 bottomed schooner settled at low tide into the mud. 
 Being unable to see, he drew out his knife and cut a 
 hole through the stained glass screens that flanked 
 the presiding officer's chair. That apperture long 
 remained as a memorial of Lewis's curiosity to wit- 
 ness the greatest of American orators deliver the 
 greatest of American orations. The place was 
 worthy of the hour and of the combatants. It was 
 the old Senate chamber, now occupied by the United 
 States Supreme Court, the same hall which had 
 once resounded to the eloquence of Rufus King, 
 as it afterwards did to the eloquence of Rufus 
 Choate, and which had echoed the bursts of ap- 
 plause that once greeted Henry Clay of Kentucky. 
 On that memorable morning the Vice-President's 
 chair was occupied by that intellectual giant of the 
 South, John C. Calhoun. Before him were Van 
 Buren, Forsyth, Hayne, Clayton, the omniverous 
 Benton, the sturdy John Quincy Adams, and, in the 
 seething crowd, was the gaunt skeleton form of 
 John Randolph of Roanoke. 
 
 Mr. Condit told me that when Webster ex-
 
 128 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 claimed: "The world knows the history of Massa- 
 chusetts by heart. There is Lexington, and there 
 is Bunker Hill and there they will remain forever," 
 the group of Bostonians seated in the gallery be- 
 fore him, broke down, and wept like little children. 
 Quite as effective as his eulogy of the "Old Bay 
 State," was his sudden and awful assault upon Sen- 
 ator Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire. This 
 representative of Webster's native State had sup- 
 plied Colonel Hayne with a quantity of party pam- 
 phlets and documents to be used as ammunition. 
 Webster knew this fact and determined to punish 
 him. Turning suddenly towards Woodbury, he 
 thundered out in a tone of indignant scorn, as he 
 shook his fist over his head: "I employ no scaven- 
 gers;" and the poor New Hampshire Senator 
 ducked his bald head as if struck by a bombshell. 
 The closing- passage of that memorable speech 
 could not have been extemporized. No mortal man 
 could have thrown off that magnificent piece of Mil- 
 tonic prose at the heat, without some deep premedi- 
 tation. It is well known now that Mr. Webster af- 
 terwards pruned, amended and decorated it until it 
 is recognized as one of the grandest passages in the 
 English language. I take down my Webster and 
 read it occasionally, and it has in it the majestic 
 "sound of many waters." That great passage is the 
 prelude of the mighty conflict which thirty years
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE AT HOME. 129 
 
 afterwards was to be waged on the soil of Gettys- 
 burg and Chickamauga. It became the condensed 
 creed, and the battle-cry of the long warfare for 
 the nation's life. Well have there been placed in 
 golden letters on the pedestal of Webster's monu- 
 ment in Central Park the last sublime line of that 
 sentence: "Liberty and Union, now and forever: one 
 and inseparable." Mr. Webster's power in sarcas- 
 tic invective was terrific. After he had made his 
 angry and ferocious rejoinder to the charges of Mr. 
 Charles J. Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania, the witty Dr. 
 Elder was asked, when he came out of the Senate 
 chamber: "What did you think of that speech?" 
 Elder's reply was: "Thunder and lightning are 
 peaches and cream to such a speech as that." 
 Mighty as Webster was in intellectual power he had 
 some lamentable weaknesses. He was indeed a 
 wonderful mixture of clay and iron. The iron was 
 extraordinarily massive, but the clay was loose and 
 brittle. He had the temptations of very strong 
 animal passions, and sometimes to his intimate 
 friends he attempted to excuse some of his 
 excesses of that kind. There has been much con- 
 troversy about Mr. Webster's habits in regard to 
 intoxicants. The simple truth is that during his 
 visit to England in 1840 he was so lionized and feted 
 at public dinners that he brought home some con- 
 vivial habits which rather grew upon him in advanc-
 
 130 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 ing years. On several public occasions he gave evi- 
 dence that he was somewhat under the influence of 
 deep potations. I once saw him when his imperial 
 brain was raked with the chain-shot of alcohol. 
 The sight moved me to tears, and made me hate 
 more than ever the accursed drink that, like death, 
 is no "respecter of persons." 
 
 I heard the last speech that Mr. Webster ever 
 made. It was a few months before his death in 
 1852. The speech was delivered at Trenton, N. J., 
 in the celebrated India rubber case, Goodyear vs. 
 Day, in which Webster was the leading counsel for 
 Goodyear, and Rufus Choate headed the list of elo- 
 quent advocates in defense of Mr. Day. In that 
 speech Webster was physically feeble, so that after 
 speaking an hour, he was obliged to sit down for a 
 time, while Mr. James T. Brady made a new state- 
 ment with regard to a portion of the evidence. At 
 that time Webster was broken in health. The most 
 beautiful passage in his speech was his tribute to 
 woman, and at another point he indulged in a very 
 ludicrous description of the character of the first 
 India rubber, which was offered as a marketable arti- 
 cle. He said : "When India rubber was first brought 
 to this country we had only the raw material, and 
 they made overshoes and hats of it. A present was 
 sent to me of a complete suit of clothes made of this 
 India rubber, and on a cold winter day I found my
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE AT HOME. 131 
 
 rubber overcoat was frozen as rigid as ice. I took 
 it out on my lawn, set it upright, put a broad brim 
 hat on top of it, and there the figure stood erect, and 
 my neighbors, as they passed by thought they saw 
 the old farmer of Marshfield standing out under his 
 trees." Some of his sarcastic attacks upon Mr. Day 
 were very bitter, and when he showed his great, 
 white teeth he looked like an enraged lion. 
 
 A few months after that Trenton speech in Octo- 
 ber, 1852, he went to his Marshfield home to die. 
 His spirits were broken and he was sore from polit- 
 ical disappointments. His last few days were spent 
 in a fight by his powerful constitution against the 
 inevitable. The last time he walked feebly from 
 his bed to his window he called out to his servant 
 man : "I want you to moor my yacht down there 
 where I can see it from my window; then I want 
 you to hoist the flag at the mast head, and every 
 night to hang the lamp up in the rigging; when I 
 go down I want to go down with my colors flying 
 and my lamp burning." He told them to put on his 
 monument, "Lord, I believe; help Thou my unbe- 
 lief." In the final moment he started up from his 
 pillow long enough to say: "I still live." He does 
 live, and will ever live in the grateful memories of 
 his countrymen. 
 
 While no one can deplore more than the writer 
 the weaknesses and mistakes of Daniel Webster,
 
 132 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 yet when I remember his intellectual prowess and 
 his magnificent services in defense of the Consti- 
 tution, and the integrity of our national union, I am 
 ready to say : "Let us to all his failings and faults 
 be charitably kind and only remember the glorious 
 services he wrought to the country he loved." 
 
 During the summer of 1840, when I was a col- 
 lege student at Princeton, I went with a friend to the 
 office of the Log Cabin, a Whig campaign news- 
 paper then published in Nassau Street, New York. 
 It was during the famous Tippecanoe campaign, 
 which resulted in the election, of General Harrison. 
 I was introduced to a singular looking man in rus- 
 tic dress. He was writing an editorial. His face 
 had a peculiar infantile smoothness, and his long 
 flaxen hair fell down over his shoulders. I little 
 dreamed then that that uncouth man in tow trousers 
 was yet to be the foremost editor in America, and 
 a candidate, unwisely, for President of the United 
 States. Horace Greeley, for it was he, who sat be- 
 fore me, has been often described as a man with 
 the "face of an angel, and the walk of a clod-hop- 
 per." Ten years later I became well acquainted with 
 him, and from that time a most cordial friendship 
 existed until his dying day. He visited me as a 
 speaker at our State convention in Trenton, N. Y. 
 I had him at my house at supper when my mother 
 asked him if he would take coffee. His droll reply
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE AT HOME. 133 
 
 was : "I hope to drink coffee, madamc, in heaven, 
 but I cannot stand it in this world." After sup- 
 per I informed my guest that it was customary for 
 my good mother and myself (for I was not yet 
 married), to have family worship immediately at 
 the close of that meal and asked him whether he 
 would not join us. He cordially replied that he 
 would be most happy to do so, and it is quite prob- 
 able that I may be one of the few, perhaps the only 
 clergyman in this land who ever had Horace 
 Greeley kneeling beside him in prayer. He attired 
 himself in the famous old white coat, and shambled 
 along with my mother to the place of meeting. He 
 quite captivated her with a most pathetic account of 
 his idolized boy "Pickie," who had died a short time 
 before. Mr. Greeley was one of the most simple- 
 hearted, great men whom I have ever met ; without 
 a spark of ordinary vanity he was intensely affec- 
 tionate in his sympathies and loved a genuine kind 
 word that came from the heart. He relished more a 
 quiet talk with an old friend in his home at Chap- 
 paqua than all the glare of public notoriety. "Come 
 up," he often said to me, "and spend a Saturday 
 at the farm. The good boys do come and see me 
 up there sometimes." Probably no man lived a 
 purer life than Horace Greeley. He was the most 
 devoted of husbands to one of the most eccentric of 
 wives. His defenses of the spiritual sanctity of
 
 134 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 marriage in reply to Dale Owen are among the most 
 powerful productions of his ever powerful pen. It 
 were well that they should be reproduced now at 
 a time when the laxity of wedlock and the wicked 
 facilities for divorce are working such peril to our 
 domestic life. 
 
 John Bright once said: "Horace Greeley is the 
 greatest of living editors." He once told me that 
 he had written editorials for a dozen papers at one 
 time. He also told me that while he was prepar- 
 ing his history of the "American Conflict" he was 
 in the habit of writing three columns of editorials 
 every day. His articles were freighted with great 
 power, for he was one of the strongest writers of 
 the English language on this continent. They were 
 always brimful of thought, for Mr. Greeley seldom 
 wrote on any subject which he had not thoroughly 
 mastered. Speaking of a certain popular orator, 
 who afterwards went as our minister to China, he 
 
 said to me: "Mr. B. is a pretty man, a very 
 
 pretty man, but he does not study, and no man ever 
 can have permanent power in this country unless he 
 studies." 
 
 Mr. Greeley prided himself upon his accuracy as 
 an editor, but one day, when writing an editorial, 
 in which he denounced some political misdemeanor 
 in the County of Chatauqua, by a slip of his pen he 
 wrote the name of the adjoining county Cattarau-
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE AT HOME. 135 
 
 gus. The next morning when he saw it in the paper 
 he went up into the composing room in a perfect 
 rage and called out, "Who put that Cattaraugus ?" 
 The printers all gathered around him amused at 
 his anger until one of them pulling down from the 
 hook the original editorial showed him the word 
 "Cattaraugus." "Uncle Horace," when he saw the 
 word, with a most inexpressible meekness, drawled 
 out : "Will some one please to kick me down those 
 stairs ?" 
 
 He abominated mendicancy and, although his na- 
 tive goodness of heart often led him to give to the 
 hundreds who came to him for pecuniary aid, he one 
 day said to me: "Since I have lived in New York 
 I have given away money enough to set up a mer- 
 chant in business, and I sometimes doubt whether I 
 have done more good or harm by the operation. I 
 am continually beset by various clubs and societies 
 all over the land to donate to them the Tribune. I 
 always tell them if it is worth reading it is worth 
 paying for. The curse of this country is the dead- 
 head. I pay for my own Tribune every morning." 
 
 From my old friend's theology I strongly dis- 
 sented, but in practical philanthropy he gave me 
 many a lesson and still better stimulant of his own 
 unselfish example. He was always ready to work 
 in the cause of reform without pay and without ap- 
 plause. When temperance meetings were held in
 
 136 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 my church he very gladly lent his effective services, 
 refusing any compensation, and there was no man 
 in the city whose evening hours were worth more 
 in solid gold than his. It is said that he was once 
 called upon, in the absence of his minister, in a Uni- 
 versalist Church, to go into the pulpit. He did so, 
 and delivered a very pungent sermon on the text, 
 "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God." 
 The strongest points made by Mr. Greeley in the 
 best of his printed essays are those which empha- 
 size the authority of God. A letter in his character- 
 istic hieroglyphics, the last one he ever wrote tome, 
 and which now lies before me, was in reply to one of 
 mine, criticising the Tribune for speaking of Dr. 
 Tyng's as a "church" and of Dr. Adams's house 
 of worship as a "meeting house." I told him if one 
 was a church, then the other was equally so. He 
 replied: "I am of Puritan stock, on one side, in 
 America since 1640, and on the other since 1720. 
 My people worshiped God in a meeting house ; they 
 gave it the name, not I, and they called the body 
 of believers who met therein 'a church." Episcopa- 
 lians speak otherwise. It is a bad sign that we do 
 not seem disposed to hold fast the form of sound 
 words." 
 
 I am not aware of any Scriptural authority for 
 calling a steepled house "a church." 
 
 The last evening I ever spent with him was at a
 
 SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE AT HOME. 137 
 
 temperance meeting of plain working people, to 
 which he came several miles through a snow storm. 
 He spoke with great power, and when I told him 
 afterwards it was one of the finest addresses I had 
 ever heard from him he said to me : "I would rather 
 tell some truths to help such plain people as we had 
 to-night than address thousands of the cultured in 
 the Academy of Music." As he bade me good-night 
 at yonder corner of Fulton Street, I said to him: 
 "Uncle Horace, will you not come and spend the 
 night with me?" He said, "No, I have much work 
 to do before morning. I am coming over soon to 
 spend a week in Brooklyn with my brother-in-law, 
 and I will come and have a night with you." Alas, 
 it was not long before he came to spend a night in 
 Brooklyn, that night that knows no morning. On 
 a chilly November day, towards twilight, I was one 
 of the crowd that followed him to his resting place 
 in Greenwood, and I always, when on my way to 
 my own plot, stop to gaze on the monument that 
 bears the inscription, "Founder of the New York 
 Tribune."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE CIVIL WAR AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 AN enormous quantity of books, historic and rem- 
 iniscent, have been written about our Civil War, 
 which, both in regard to the number of combatants 
 engaged, and the magnitude of the interests in- 
 volved, and its far-reaching consequences, was the 
 most colossal conflict of modern times. Before pre- 
 senting a few of my own personal recollections of 
 the struggle, let me say that when the struggle was 
 over, no one was more eager than myself to bury the 
 tomahawk, and to offer the calumet of peace to our 
 Southern fellow countrymen and fellow Christians. 
 Whenever I have visited them their cordial greeting 
 has warmed the cockles of my heart. I thank God 
 that the great gash has been so thoroughly healed, 
 and that I have lived to see the day when the peo- 
 ple of the North feel a national pride in the splendid 
 prowess of Lee, and the heroic Christian character 
 of Stonewall Jackson, and when some of the noblest 
 tributes to Abraham Lincoln have been spoken 
 by such representative Southerners as Mr. Grady, 
 of Georgia, and Mr. Watterson, of Kentucky. I 
 had hoped ere this to see the Northern and South- 
 ern wings of our venerable Presbyterian Church re- 
 138
 
 , CIVIL WAR AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 139 
 
 united ; but I am confident that there are plenty of 
 people now living who will yet witness their happy 
 ecclesiastical nuptials. Terrible as was that war 
 in the sacrifice of precious life, and in the destruc- 
 tion of property, it was unquestionably inevitable. 
 Mr. Seward was right when he called the conflict 
 "irrepressible." Abraham Lincoln was a true 
 prophet when he declared, at Springfield, 111., in 
 June, 1858, that "A house divided against itself 
 cannot stand ; I believe this government cannot en- 
 dure permanently half slave and half free." When 
 in my early life I spoke to my good mother about 
 some anti-slavery addresses that had been deliv- 
 ered, she said to me, with wonderful foresight, 
 "These speeches will avail but little ; slavery will go 
 down in blood." That it has gone down even at 
 the cost of so much blood and treasure is to-day as 
 much a matter for congratulation in the South as 
 it is in the North. 
 
 My first glimpse of the long predicted conflict 
 was the sight of the Seventh Regiment, composed 
 of the flower of New York, swinging down Broad- 
 way in April, 1861, on its way to the protection of 
 Washington, amid the thundering cheers of the 
 bystanders. Before long I offered my services to 
 the "Christian commission" which had been organ- 
 ized by that noble and godly minded patriot, George 
 H. Stuart, of Philadelphia, and I went on to Wash-
 
 140 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 ingtou to preach to our soldiers. I found Wash- 
 ington a huge military encampment; the hills 
 around were white with tents, and Pennsylvania 
 Avenue was filled almost every day with troops of 
 horsemen, or with trains of artillery. While I was 
 in Washington I lodged with my beloved college 
 professor, that eminent Christian philosopher, 
 Joseph Henry, in the Smithsonian Institution, of 
 which he was the head. One night, after I had 
 been out addressing our boys in blue at one of the 
 camps, and had retired for the night, Professor 
 Henry came into my room and, sitting down by my 
 bed, discussed the aspects of the struggle. His 
 mental eye was as sharp in reading the signs of the 
 times as it had been when at Albany, thirty years 
 before, he made his splendid discovery in electro- 
 magnetism. He said to me: "This war may last 
 several years, but it can have only one result, for 
 it is simply a question of dynamics. The stronger 
 force must pulverize the weaker one, and the North 
 will win the day. When the war is over, the country 
 will not be what it was before ; the triumph of the 
 union will leave us a prodigiously centralized gov- 
 ernment, and the old Calhoun theory of 'State 
 rights' will be dead. We shall have an inflated cur- 
 rency an enormous debt with a host of tax-gath- 
 erers, and huge pension rolls. What is most need- 
 ed now is wise statesmanship, and the first quality
 
 CIVIL WAR AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 141 
 
 of a statesman is prescience. In my position here, 
 as head of the Smithsonian, I cannot be a partisan ! 
 I did not vote the Republican ticket, but I am con- 
 fident that by a long way the most far-seeing head 
 in this land is on the shoulders of that awkward 
 rail-splitter from Illinois." Every syllable of Pro- 
 fessor Henry's prognostication proved true, and 
 nothing more true than his estimate of Lincoln at a 
 time when there was too much disposition to dis- 
 trust him. 
 
 As I have had for many years what my friends 
 have playfully called "Lincoln on the brain," let 
 me say a few words in regard to the most marvel- 
 lous man that this country has produced in the nine- 
 teenth century. His name is to-day a household 
 word in every civilized land. Dr. Newman Hall, of 
 London, has told me that when he had addressed 
 a listless audience, he found that nothing was so 
 certain to arouse them as to introduce the name of 
 Abraham Lincoln. Certainly no other name has 
 such electric power over every true heart from 
 Maine to Mexico. The first time I ever saw the 
 man whom we used to call, familiarly and affec- 
 tionately, "Uncle Abe," was at the Tremont House 
 in Chicago, a few days after his election to the pres- 
 idency. His room was very near my own. I sent in 
 my card, and he greeted me with a characteristic 
 grasp of the hand, and his first sentence rather
 
 142 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 touched my soft spot when he said: "I have kegt 
 up with you nearly every week in the New York 
 Independent." His voice had a clear, magnetic 
 ring, and his heart seemed to be in his voice. Three 
 months afterwards I saw him again, riding down 
 Broadway, New York (thronged with a gazing 
 multitude), on his way to assume the presidency 
 at Washington. He stood up in a barouche holding 
 on with his hand to the seat of the driver. His tow- 
 ering figure was filled out by a long blue cloak, and 
 a heavy cape which he wore. On his bare head rose 
 a thick mass of black hair the crown which nature 
 gave to her king. His large, melancholy eyes had a 
 solemn, far-away look as if he discerned the toils 
 and trials that awaited him. The great patriot- 
 President, moving slowly on toward the conflict, 
 the glory and the martyrdom, that were reserved for 
 him, still remains in my memory, as the most august 
 and majestic figure that my eyes have ever beheld. 
 He never passed through New York again until 
 he was borne through tears and broken hearts on 
 his last journey to his Western tomb. 
 
 I did not see Lincoln again until two years after- 
 wards, when I was in Washington on duty for the 
 Christian Commission. It was one of his public 
 levee nights, and as soon as I came up to him, his 
 first words were : "Doctor, I have not seen you since 
 we met in the Tremont House in Chicago." I men-
 
 CIVIL WAR AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 143 
 
 tion this as an illustration of his marvelous memory ; 
 he never forgot a face or a name or the slightest in- 
 cident. My mother was with me at the Smithso- 
 nian, and as she was extremely desirous to see the 
 President I took her over to the White House late 
 on the following afternoon. In those war times, 
 when Washington was a camp, the White House 
 looked more like an army barracks than the Pres- 
 idential mansion. In the entrance hall that day were 
 piles of express boxes, among which was a little lad 
 playing and tumbling them about. "Will you go 
 and find somebody to take our cards?" said my 
 mother to the child. He ran off and brought the 
 Irishman, whose duty it was to receive callers at the 
 door. That was the same Irishman who, when the 
 poor soldier's wife was going in to plead for her 
 husband's pardon of a capital offense he had com- 
 mitted, said to her: "Be sure to take your baby in 
 with you." When she came out smiling and happy, 
 Patrick said to her: "Ah, ma'am, 'twas the baby 
 that did it" 
 
 The shockingly careless appearance of the White 
 House proved that whatever may have been Mrs. 
 Lincoln's other good qualities, she hadn't earned 
 the compliment which the Yankee farmer paid to his 
 wife when he said: "Ef my wife haint got an ear 
 fer music, she's got an eye fer dirt." When we 
 reached the room of the President's Private Sec-
 
 144 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 retary, my old friend, the Rev. Mr. Neill, of St. 
 Paul's, told me that it was military court day, when 
 the President had to decide upon cases of army dis- 
 cipline that came before him and when he received 
 no calls. I told Neill that my mother could never 
 die happy if she had not seen Lincoln. He took in 
 our names to the President, who told him to bring 
 us in. We entered the room in which the Cabinet 
 usually met and there, before the fire, stood the 
 tall, gaunt form attired in a seedy frock-coat, with 
 his long hair unkempt, and his thin face the very 
 picture of distress. "How -is Mrs. Lincoln?" in- 
 quired my mother. "Oh, said the President, "I have 
 not seen her since seven o'clock this morning ; Tad, 
 how is your mother?" "She is pretty well," replied 
 the little fellow, who was coiled up then in an arm 
 chair, the same lad we had seen playing down in the 
 entrance hall. We spent but a few moments with 
 Mr. Lincoln, and when we came out my mother 
 exclaimed : "Oh, what a cruelty to keep that man 
 here ! Did you ever see such a sad face in your life ?" 
 I never had, and I have given this account of my 
 call on him in order that my readers may not only 
 understand what democratic customs then prevailed 
 in the White House, but may get some faint idea 
 of the terribly trying life that Mr. Lincoln led. 
 
 Dr. Bellows, the President of the Sanitary Com- 
 mission, once said to him: "Mr. President, I am
 
 CIVIL WAR AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 145 
 
 here at almost every hour of the day or night, and 
 I never saw you at the table; do you ever eat?" 
 "I try to," replied the President; "I manage to 
 browse about pretty much as I can get it." After 
 the long wearing, nerve-taxing days were over in 
 which he was glad to relieve himself occasionally 
 with a good story or a merry laugh, came the nights 
 of anxiety when sleep was often banished from his 
 pillow. He frequently wrapped himself in his 
 Scotch shawl, and at midnight stole across to the 
 War Office, and listened to the click of the tele- 
 graph instruments, which brought sometimes good 
 news, and sometimes terrible tales of defeat. On 
 the day after he heard of the awful slaughter at 
 Fredericksburg, he remarked at the War Office : 
 "If any of the lost in hell suffered worse than I did 
 last night, I pity them." Nothing but iron nerves 
 and a dependence on the divine arm bore him 
 through. He once said : "I have been driven many 
 times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction 
 that I had nowhere else to go ; my own wisdom and 
 that of all around me seemed insufficient for the 
 day." We call him "Our Martyr President," but 
 the martyrdom lasted for four whole years ! 
 
 The darkest crisis of the whole war was in the 
 summer of 1862. I slipped away for a few weeks 
 of relaxation to Europe, sailing on the Cunarder 
 China, the first screw steamer ever built by that
 
 146 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 company. She was under the command of Captain 
 James Anderson, who was afterwards knighted by 
 Queen Victoria for his services in laying the At- 
 lantic cable, and is better known as Sir James An- 
 derson. There was no Atlantic cable in those days, 
 and our steamer carried out the news of the seven 
 days' battles before Richmond, which terminated 
 in the retreat of General McClellan. We had a 
 Fourth of July dinner on board, but between sea- 
 sickness and heart sickness it was the toughest ex- 
 perience of making a spread-eagle speech I ever 
 had. After landing at Queenstown I went to Bel- 
 fast and thence to Edinburgh. I found the people of 
 Edinburgh intensely excited over our war and the 
 current of popular sentiment running against us like 
 a mill-race. For instance, I was recognized by my 
 soft hat on the street ; a shoemaker put his head out 
 of the door and shouted as I passed : "I say, when 
 are you going to be done with your butchering over 
 there?" The Scotsman was hostile to the Union 
 cause, and the old Caledonian Mercury was the 
 only paper that stood by us ; but it did so manfully. 
 On the day of my arrival a bulletin was posted in 
 the newspaper offices and on Change that McClellan 
 and the Union army had surrendered. The baleful 
 report was received with no little exultation by all 
 who were engaged in the cotton trade. I sat up un- 
 til midnight with the editor of the Mercury, helping
 
 CIVIL WAR AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 147 
 
 him to squelch the rumor and the next morning 
 expose the falsity of the news in his columns. 
 
 Dr. John Brown, the immortal author of "Rab 
 and His Friends," had called on me at the Waverly 
 Hotel, and that morning I breakfasted with him. At 
 the breakfast table I made a statement of our side 
 of the conflict and Dr. Brown said: "If you will 
 write up that statement, I will get my friend, Mr. 
 Russell, the editor of the Scotsman, to publish it 
 in his paper." I did so and sent it to the care of Dr. 
 Brown. On the following Sabbath afternoon I at- 
 tended the great prayer meeting in the Free Church 
 Assembly Hall, and Sir James Simpson was to pre- 
 side. There was a crowd of over a thousand peo- 
 ple present. Simpson did not come, and so some 
 other elder occupied the chair. During the meeting 
 I arose and modestly asked that prayer might 
 be offered for my country in this hour of her 
 peril and distress. There was an awful silence! 
 In a few moments the chairman meekly said: 
 "Perhaps our American friend will offer the prayer 
 himself." I did so, for it was evident that all 
 the Scotchmen present considered our cause past 
 praying for. 
 
 On the morning of our departure my letter ap- 
 peared in the Scotsman accompanied by a long and 
 bitter reply by the editor. Within a week several 
 of the Scotch newspapers were in full cry, denounc-
 
 148 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 ing that "bloody Presbyterian minister from 
 America." 
 
 After a hurried run to Switzerland I reached 
 Paris in time to witness the celebration of the im- 
 perial birthday and to see Louis Napoleon review 
 the splendid army of Italy with great pomp, on the 
 Champs des Mars. It was a magnificent spectacle. 
 That day Mr. Slidell, the representative of the 
 Southern Confederacy, hung on the front of his 
 house an immense white canvas on which was in- 
 scribed : "Jefferson Davis, the First President of the 
 Confederate States of America." Our ambassador, 
 Hon. William L. Dayton, was a relative of mine, 
 and I had several conversations with him about the 
 perilous situation of affairs at home. Dayton said : 
 "Our prospects are dark enough. All the monarchs 
 and aristocracies are against us ; all the cotton and 
 commercial interests are against us. Emperor Louis 
 Napoleon is a sphinx, but he would like to help to 
 acknowledge the Southern Confederacy. If he does 
 so Belgium and other powers will join him; they 
 will break the blockade; they will supply the Con- 
 federates with arms and then we must fight Europe 
 as well as the Southern States. Our only real 
 friends are men like John Bright, and those who 
 believe that we are fighting for freedom as well as 
 for our National Union. Mr. Lincoln must declare 
 for emancipation and unless he does it within thirty
 
 CIVIL WAR AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 149 
 
 days, I have written to Mr. Seward that our cause is 
 lost." 
 
 I returned to London with a heavy heart; all of 
 our friends there with whom I conversed echoed the 
 sentiments of Mr. Dayton. One of them said to me : 
 "Earl Russell has no especial love for your Union, 
 but he abominates negro slavery, and is very reluc- 
 tant to acknowledge a new slave-owning govern- 
 ment. Prince Albert and the Queen are friendly to 
 you, but you must emancipate the slaves." 
 
 My return passage from Liverpool was on board 
 the Asia, and Captain Anderson commanded her 
 for that voyage. When we reached Boston, we 
 heard the distressing news of the second Battle of 
 Bull Run, and our prospects were black as midnight. 
 Captain Anderson remarked to me, in a compassion- 
 ate tone: "Well, Mr. Cuyler, you Yankees had 
 better give it up now." "Never, never," I replied to 
 him. "You will live to see the Union restored and 
 slavery extinguished." He laughed at me and bid 
 me "good-bye." A few years afterwards, I laughed 
 back again when I met him in New York. 
 
 On Sunday evening, September 7, I addressed a 
 vast crowd in my own Lafayette Avenue Church, 
 and told them frankly, that our only hope was in a 
 proclamation for freedom by President Lincoln. 
 Henry Ward Beecher invited me to repeat my ad- 
 dress on the next Sunday evening in Plymouth
 
 ISO RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 Church. I did so and the house was packed clear 
 out to the sidewalk. At the end of my address Mr. 
 Beecher leaned over and said: "The Lord helped 
 you to-night." When the meeting closed Mr. Henry 
 C. Bowen, said : "Will you and Mr. Beecher not 
 start for Washington to-morrow morning to urge 
 Mr. Lincoln to proclaim emancipation?" We both 
 agreed to go before the week was over, but could 
 not before. On the Wednesday of that very week 
 the Battle of Antietam was fought, and on the Fri- 
 day morning we opened our papers and read Presi- 
 dent Lincoln's first Proclamation of Emancipation. 
 The great deed was done; the night was over; the 
 morning had dawned. From that day onward our 
 cause, under God, was saved ; but that proclamation 
 saved the Union. No foreign power dared to 
 oppose us after that, and Gettysburg sealed the 
 righteous act of Lincoln, the Liberator, and decided 
 the victory. 
 
 At the beginning of this chapter I described the 
 thrilling scenes at the opening of the conflict; let 
 me now narrate a still more thrilling one at its 
 termination. The war began by the surrender of 
 Fort Sumter by Major Anderson, April 13, 1861 ; 
 the war virtually ended by the restoration of the 
 national flag by the same hand in the same Fort, on 
 April 14, 1865. 
 
 I joined an excursion party from New York, on
 
 CIVIL WAR AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 151 
 
 the steamer Oceanus, and we went down to witness 
 the impressive ceremonies in Sumter. We found 
 Charleston a scene of wretched desolation, and 
 General Sherman, who had once resided there, said 
 he had never realized the horrors of war until he 
 had seen the terrible ruins of that once beautiful 
 city. At the time of my writing, now, Charleston is 
 crowded every day with visitors to its industrial 
 Exposition, and the President is received with ova- 
 tions by its people. 
 
 Our party went over to Fort Sumter in a 
 steamer commanded by a negro, who was an eman- 
 cipated slave, but very soon became a member of 
 Congress. The broken walls of Sumter, brown, 
 battered and lonely in the quiet waves were hope- 
 lessly scarred, and all around it on the narrow beach 
 lay a stratum of bullets and broken iron several 
 inches deep. 
 
 The Fort that day was crowded with an immense 
 assemblage. Among them were the Hon. Henry 
 Wilson, afterwards Vice-President, and Attorney- 
 General Holt, Judge Hoxie, of New York, William 
 Lloyd Garrison and George Thompson, the famous 
 member of the English Parliament, who had once 
 been mobbed for his anti-slavery speech in this 
 country. General S. L. Woodford was in command 
 for the day. Dr. Richard S. Storrs offered an im- 
 pressive prayer, and the Qra.tion ,was delivered by
 
 152 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 direction of the Government, by Henry Ward 
 Beecher. When the speech was completed, Major 
 Anderson drew out from a mail bag the identical 
 bunting that he had lowered four years before, and 
 attached the flag to the halyards, and when it began 
 to ascend, General Gilmore grasped the rope behind 
 him, and, as it came along to our part of the plat- 
 form several of us grasped it also. Mr. Thompson 
 shouted, "Give John Bull a hold of that rope." 
 When the dear old flag reached the summit of the 
 staff, and its starry eyes looked out over the broad 
 harbor, such a volley of cannon from ship and shore 
 burst forth that one might imagine the old battle of 
 the Monitors was being fought over again. 
 
 The frantic scene inside the Fort beggars descrip- 
 tion. We grasped hands and shouted and my irre- 
 pressible old friend, Hoxie, of New York, with tears 
 in his eyes, embraced one after another, exclaiming : 
 "This is the greatest day of my life !" In the rain- 
 bow of those stars and stripes we read that day the 
 covenant that the deluge of blood was ended, and 
 that the ark of freedom had rested at length upon 
 its Ararat. 
 
 On the next day I addressed a thousand negro 
 children, and when I enquired, "May I send an invi- 
 tation to the good Abraham Lincoln to come down 
 and visit you ?" one thousand little black hands went 
 up with a shout. Alas, we knew not that at that
 
 CIVIL WAR AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 153 
 
 very hour their beloved benefactor was lying cold 
 and silent in the East room at Washington! At 
 Fortress Monroe, on our homeward voyage, the 
 terrible tidings of the President's assassination 
 pierced us like a dagger, on the wharf. Near the 
 Fortress poor negro women had hung pieces of 
 coarse black muslin around every little huckster's 
 tables. "Yes, sah, Fathah Lincum's dead. Dey 
 killed our bes' fren, but God be libben; dey can't 
 kill Him, I's sho ob dat." Her simple child-like 
 faith seemed to reach up and grasp the everlasting 
 arm which had led Lincoln while leading her race 
 "out of the house of bondage." 
 
 Upon our arrival in New York, we found the city 
 draped in black, and "the mourners going about the 
 streets." When the remains of the murdered Presi- 
 dent reached New York they were laid in state in 
 the City Hall for one day and night, and during that 
 whole night the procession passed the coffin never 
 ceasing for a moment. Between three and four 
 o'clock in the morning I took my family there, that 
 they might see the face of our beloved martyr, and 
 we had to take our place in a line as far away as 
 Park Row. It is impossible to give any adequate 
 description of the funeral whose like was never 
 seen before or since when eminent authors, clergy- 
 men, judges and distinguished civilians walked on 
 foot through streets, shrouded in black to the house
 
 154 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 tops. The whole journey to Springfield, 111., was 
 one constant manifestation of poignant grief. The 
 people rose in the night, simply to see the funeral 
 train pass by. I do not wonder that when Emperor 
 Alexander, of Russia (who was himself afterwards 
 assassinated) heard the tidings of our President's 
 death from an American Ambassador, he leaped 
 from his chair, and exclaimed, "Good God, can it be 
 so ? He was the noblest man alive." 
 
 Thirty-seven years have passed away, and to-day 
 while our nation reveres the name of Washington, as 
 
 . the Father of his Country ; Abraham Lincoln is the 
 best loved man that ever trod this continent. The 
 Almighty educated him in His own Providence for 
 his high mission. The "plain people," as he called 
 them, were his University; the Bible and John 
 Bunyan were his earliest text-books. Sometimes 
 his familiarity with the Scriptures came out very 
 amusingly as when a deputation of bankers called 
 on him, to negotiate for a loan to the Government, 
 and one of them said to him : "You know, Mr. 
 President, where the treasure is, there will the heart 
 be also." "I should not wonder," replied Lincoln, 
 "if another text would not fit the case better, 
 
 1 'Where the carcass is, there will the eagles be 
 gathered together.' " His innumerable jests con- 
 tained more wisdom than many a philosopher's 
 maxims, and underneath his plebeian simplicity,
 
 CIVIL WAR AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 155 
 
 dress and manners, this great child of nature pos- 
 sessed the most delicate instincts of the perfect 
 gentleman. The only just scale by which to meas- 
 ure any man is the scale of actual achievement; 
 and in Lincoln's case some of the most essential 
 instruments had to be fabricated by himself. 
 
 The first account in the measurement of the man 
 is that with a sublime reliance on God, he conducted 
 an immense nation through the most tremendous 
 civil war ever waged, and never committed a single 
 serious mistake. The Illinois backwoodsman did 
 not possess Hamilton's brilliant genius, yet Hamil- 
 ton never read the future more sagaciously. He 
 made no pretension to Webster's magnificent ora- 
 tory ; yet Webster never put more truth in portable 
 form for popular guidance. He possessed Benjamin 
 Franklin's immense common sense, and gift of terse 
 proverbial speech, but none of his lusts and scepti- 
 cal infirmities. The immortal twenty-line address 
 at Gettysburg is the high water mark of sententious 
 eloquence. With that speech should be placed the 
 pathetic and equally perfect letter of condolence to 
 Mrs. Bixby of Boston after her five sons had fallen 
 in battle. With that speech also should be read 
 that wonderful second Inaugural address which 
 even the hostile London Times pronounced to be 
 the most sublime state paper of the century. This 
 second address his last great production con-
 
 156 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 tained some of the best illustrations of his fondness 
 for balanced antithesis and rhythmical measure- 
 ment. There is one sentence which may be rendered 
 into rhyme : 
 
 "Fondly do we hope, 
 Fervently do we pray 
 That this mighty scourge of war 
 May soon pass away." 
 
 Terrible as was the tragedy of that April night, 
 thirty-seven years ago, it may be still true that 
 Lincoln died at the right time for his own imperish- 
 able fame. It was fitting that his own precious 
 blood should be the last to be shed in the stupendous 
 struggle. He had called over two hundred thousand 
 heroes to lay down their lives and then his own 
 was laid down beside the humblest private soldier, 
 or drummer boy, that filled the sacred mold of 
 Gettysburg and Chickamauga. In an instant, as it 
 were, his career crystalized into that pure white 
 fame which belongs only to the martyr for justice, 
 law and liberty. For more than a generation his 
 ashes have slumbered in his beloved home at 
 Springfield, and as the hearts of millions of the 
 liberated turn toward that tomb, they may well say 
 to their liberator: "We were hungry and thou 
 gavest us the bread of sympathy; we were thirsty 
 for liberty and thou gavest us to drink; we were
 
 CIVIL WAR AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 157 
 
 strangers, and thou didst take us in; we were sick 
 with two centuries of sorrow, and thou didst visit 
 us ; we were in the oppressive house of bondage, and 
 thou earnest unto us;" and the response of Chris- 
 tendom is : "Well done, good and faithful servant, 
 enter into the joy of the Lord." 
 
 In closing this chapter of my reminiscences, I 
 may be allowed to express my strong conviction 
 that our Congress, impelled by generous feeling, and 
 what they regarded as a democratic principle of 
 government, committed a serious error in bestowing 
 the right of suffrage indiscriminately upon the male 
 negro population of the South. A man who had 
 been all his life an ignorant "chattel personal" was 
 suddenly transformed into a sovereign elector. In- 
 stead of this precipitate legislation, it would have 
 been wiser to restrict the suffrage to those who 
 acquire a proper education, and perhaps also a cer- 
 tain amount of taxable property. This policy would 
 have avoided unhappy friction between the races, 
 and, what is more important, it would have offered 
 a powerful inducement to every colored man to fit 
 himself for the honor and grave responsibility of 
 full citizenship. At this time one of the noblest 
 efforts made by wise philanthropy is that of educat- 
 ing, elevating and evangelizing our colored fellow 
 countrymen of the South. To help the negro to help 
 himself, is the key-note of these efforts. The time is
 
 158 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 coming yea, it has come already when to the 
 name of Abraham Lincoln, the grateful negro will 
 add the names of their best benefactor, General 
 Samuel C. Armstrong (the founder of Hampton 
 Institute) and Booker T. Washington.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PASTORAL WORK. 
 
 THE work of the faithful minister covers all the 
 round week. On the one day he teaches his people in 
 the house of God, on the remaining days he teaches 
 and guides them in their own houses and wherever 
 he may happen to meet them. His labors, therefore, 
 are twofold; the work of the preacher and the 
 work of the pastor. The two ought to be insepa- 
 rable ; what the Providence of God and good com- 
 mon sense have joined together let no man venture 
 to put asunder. The great business of every true 
 minister is the winning of souls to Jesus Christ, and 
 to bring them up in godly living. In other words, 
 to make bad men good, and good men better. All 
 this cannot be accomplished by two sermons a week, 
 even if they were the best that Paul himself could 
 deliver; in fact, the best part of Paul's recorded 
 work was quite other than public preaching. As 
 for our blessed Master, He has left one extended 
 discourse and a few shorter ones, but oh, how many 
 narratives we have of His personal visits, personal 
 conversation and labors of love with the sick, the 
 sinning, and the suffering! He was the shepherd
 
 160 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 who knew every sheep in the flock. The import- 
 ance of all that portion of a minister's work that 
 lies outside of his pulpit can hardly be overesti- 
 mated. The great element of power with every 
 faithful ambassador of Christ should be heart-power 
 and the secret of popularity is to take an interest in 
 everybody. A majority of all congregations, rich 
 or poor, is reached, not so much through the intel- 
 lect as through the affections. This is an encourag- 
 ing fact, that while only one man in ten may have 
 been born to become a very great preacher, the other 
 nine, if they love their Master and love human souls, 
 can become great pastors. Nothing gives a 
 minister such heart-power as personal acquaintance 
 and personal attention to those whom he aims to 
 influence; especially his personal attention will be 
 welcome in seasons of trial. Let the pastor make 
 himself at home in everybody's home. Let him go 
 often to visit their sick rooms and kneel beside their 
 empty cribs, and comfort their broken hearts, and 
 pray with them. Let him go to the business men of 
 his congregation when they have suffered reverses, 
 and give them a word of cheer ; let him be quick to 
 recognize the poor and the children, and he will 
 weave a cord around the hearts of his people that 
 will stand a prodigious pressure. His inferior ser- 
 mons (for every minister is guilty of such occasion- 
 ally) will be kindly condoned, and he can launch the
 
 PASTORAL WORK. 161 
 
 most pungent truths at his auditors, and they will 
 not take offense. He will have won their hearts to 
 himself, and that is a great step toward drawing 
 them to the house of God and winning their souls 
 to the Saviour. "A house-going minister," said 
 Chalmers, "makes a church-going people." There 
 is still one other potent argument for close inter- 
 course with his congregation that many ministers 
 are in danger of ignoring or underestimating. 
 James Russell Lowell has somewhere said that 
 books are, at best, but dry fodder, and that we need 
 to be vitalized by contact with living people. The 
 best practical discourses often are those which a 
 congregation help their minister to prepare. By 
 constant and loving intercourse with the individuals 
 of his church he becomes acquainted with their 
 peculiarities, and this enlarges his knowledge of 
 human nature. It is second only to a knowledge of 
 God's Word. If a minister is a wise man (and 
 neither God nor man has any use for fools) he will 
 be made wiser by the lessons and suggestions which 
 he can gain from constant and c lose intercouse with 
 the immortal beings to whom he preaches. 
 
 In Dundee, Scotland, I conversed with a gray- 
 headed member of St. Peter's Presbyterian Church 
 who, in his youth, listened to the sainted Robert 
 Murray McCheyne. He spoke of him with the 
 deepest reverence and love; but the one thing that
 
 162 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 he remembered after forty-six years was that Mr. 
 McCheyne, a few days before his death, met him on 
 the street and, laying hand upon his shoulder, said 
 to him kindly : "Jamie, I hope it is well with your 
 soul. How is your sick sister? I am going to see 
 her again shortly." That sentence or two had 
 stuck to the old Christian for over forty years. It 
 had grappled his pastor to him, and this little narra- 
 tive gave me a fresh insight into McCheyne's won- 
 derful power. His ministry was most richly suc- 
 cessful, and largely because he kept in touch with 
 his people, and was a great pastor as well as a great 
 preacher. 
 
 I determined from the very start in my ministry 
 that I would be a thorough pastor. A very cele- 
 brated preacher once said to me : "I envy you your 
 love for pastoral work, I would not do it if I could, 
 I could not do it if I would ; for a single hour with a 
 family in trouble uses up more of my vitality than 
 to prepare a sermon." My reply to him was : "That 
 may be true, but, after all, the business of a minister 
 is to endure these strains upon his nervous system 
 if he would be a comforter, as well as the teacher 
 of his people.' 1 
 
 My practice was this : I devoted the forenoon of 
 every day, except Monday, to the preparation of my 
 discourses. My motto was: "Study God's Word in 
 the morning, and door-plates in the afternoon." I
 
 PASTORAL WORK. 163 
 
 found the physical exercise in itself a benefit, and 
 the spiritual benefits were ten-fold more. I secured 
 and kept a complete record of the whereabouts of 
 all my congregation and requested from the pulpit 
 that prompt information be given me of any change 
 of residence, and also of any case of sickness or 
 trouble of any kind. I encouraged my people to 
 send me word when there was any case of religious 
 interest in their families or any matter of importance 
 to discuss with me. In short, I endeavored to treat 
 my flock exactly as though they were my own 
 family, and to be perfectly at home in their homes. 
 I managed to visit every family at least once in each 
 year and as much oftener as circumstances required. 
 As I had no "loafing" places, I easily got through 
 my congregation, which, in Brooklyn, numbered 
 several hundreds of families. 
 
 Spurgeon had an assistant pastor for his immense 
 flock, but he made it a rule to visit the sick or dying 
 on as many occasions as possible. He once said 
 from his pulpit : "I have been this week to visit two 
 of my church members who were near Eternity, and 
 both of them were as happy as if they were going to 
 a wedding. Oh, it makes me preach like a lion when 
 I see how my people can die." 
 
 It was always my custom to take a particular 
 neighborhood, and to call upon every parishioner in 
 that street, or district, but I seldom found it wise to
 
 164 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 send word in advance to any family, that I would 
 visit them on a certain day or hour, for I might be 
 prevented from going, and thus subject them to dis- 
 appointment ; consequently, I had to run the risk of 
 finding them at home. If they were out I left my 
 card, and tried again at another time. In calling on 
 my people unawares, I found it depended upon my- 
 self to secure a cordial welcome, for I went in with 
 a hearty salutation and asked them to allow me to 
 sit down with them wherever they were, regardless 
 of dress or ceremony, and soon I found myself per- 
 fectly at home with them. No one should be so 
 welcome as a faithful pastor. I encouraged them to 
 talk about the affairs of our church, about the Sab- 
 bath services, and the truths preached, and the in- 
 fluences that Sabbath messages were having upon 
 them. In this way I have discovered whether or 
 not the shots were striking; for the gunnery that 
 hits no one is not worth the powder. 
 
 Fishing for compliments is beneath any man of 
 common sense, but it does cheer the pastor's heart 
 to be told, "Your sermon last Sunday brought me 
 a great blessing; it helped me all the week." Or 
 better still, "Your sermon brought me to decide for 
 Christ." In a careful and delicate way, I drew out 
 our people in regard to their spiritual condition, and 
 if I found that any member of the family was 
 anxious about his or her soul, I managed to have
 
 PASTORAL WORK. 165 
 
 a private and unreserved conversation with that 
 person. It is well for every minister to be careful 
 how he guards the confidence reposed in him. The 
 family physician and the family pastor often have 
 to know some things they do not like to know, but 
 they never should allow any one else to know 
 them. 
 
 This intimate, personal intercourse with my flock 
 enabled me more than once to bring the undecided 
 to a decision for Christ. In dealing with such cases, 
 whether in the home or in the inquiry-room, I aimed 
 to discover just what hindrance was in the path of 
 each awakened soul. It is a great point also for 
 such a one to discover what it is that keeps him or 
 her from surrendering to Christ. If it be some 
 habit or some evil practice, that must be given up ; 
 if some heart sin, that we must yield, even if it be 
 like plucking out an eye or lopping off a right hand. 
 It was my aim, and ever has been, to convince every 
 awakened person that unless he or she was willing 
 to give the heart to Jesus and to do His will there 
 was no hope for them. We must shut every soul 
 up to Christ. 
 
 I requested my people to inform me promptly of 
 every case of serious sickness, and I could never be 
 too prompt in responding to such a call. However 
 busy I might be in preparing sermons or any com- 
 mendable occupation everything else was laid aside.
 
 166 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 For a pastor should be as quick to respond to a call 
 of sickness as an ambulance is to reach the scene of 
 disaster. I sometimes found that a parishioner had 
 been suddenly attacked with dangerous illness and 
 even my entrance in the sick room might agitate the 
 patient. At such times I found it necessary to use 
 all the tact and delicacy and discretion at my com- 
 mand. I would never needlessly endanger a sick 
 person by efforts to guide or console an immortal 
 spirit. I aimed to make my words few, calm and 
 tender, and make every syllable to point toward 
 Jesus Christ. Whoever the sufferer may be, saint 
 or sinner, his failing vision should be directed to 
 "no man save Jesus only." It is not commonly the 
 office of the pastor to tell the patient that his or her 
 disease is assuredly fatal, but if we know that death 
 is near, in the name of the Master, let us be faithful 
 as well as tender. 
 
 There are many cases of extreme and critical ill- 
 ness when the presence of even the most loving pas- 
 tor may be an unwise intrusion. An excellent 
 Christian lady who had been twice apparently on 
 the brink* of death said to me : "Never enter the 
 room of a person who is extremely low, unless the 
 person urgently requests you to, or unless spiritual 
 necessity absolutely compels it. You have no idea 
 how the sight of a new face agitates the sufferer, 
 and how you may unconsciously and unintentionally
 
 PASTORAL WORK. 167 
 
 rob that sufferer of the little life that is fluttering in 
 the feeble frame." I felt grateful to the good 
 woman for her advice, and have often acted upon it, 
 when the family have unwisely importuned me to 
 do what would have been more harmful than bene- 
 ficial. On some occasions, when I have found a sick 
 room crowded by well-meaning but needless in- 
 truders, I have taken the liberty to "put them all 
 forth," as our Master did in that chamber in which 
 the daughter of Jairus was in the death slumber. 
 
 A great portion of the time and attention which 
 I bestowed upon the sick was spent on chronic 
 sufferers, who had been confined to their beds of 
 weariness for months or years. I visited them as 
 often as possible. Some of those bedridden 
 sufferers were prisoners of Jesus Christ, who did 
 me quite as much good as I could possibly do them. 
 What eloquent sermons they preached to me on the 
 beauty of submissive patience and on the supporting 
 power of the "Everlasting arms !" Such interviews 
 strengthened my faith, softened my heart, and in- 
 fused into it something of the spirit of Him who 
 "Took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses." 
 McCheyne, of Dundee, said that before preaching 
 on the Sabbath he sometimes visited some parish- 
 ioner, who might be lying extremely low, for he 
 found it good "to take a look over the verge." 
 
 In my pastoral rounds I sometimes had an oppor-
 
 i68 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 tunity to do more execution in a single talk than in 
 a score of sermons. I once spent an evening in a 
 vain endeavor to bring a man to a decision for 
 Christ. Before I left, he took me up-stairs to the 
 nursery, and showed me his beautiful children in 
 their cribs. I said to him tenderly : "Do you mean 
 that these sweet children shall never have any help 
 from their father to get to Heaven ?" He was deep- 
 ly moved, and in a month that man became an active 
 member of my church. He was glued to me in 
 affection for all the remainder of his useful life. 
 On a cold winter evening I made a call on a wealthy 
 merchant in New York. As I left his door, and the 
 piercing gale swept in I said, "What an awful night 
 for the poor !" He went back, and bringing to me a 
 roll of bank bills, he said : "Please hand these, for 
 me, to the poorest people you know of." After a 
 few days I wrote to him, sending him the grateful 
 thanks of the poor whom his bounty had relieved, 
 and added : "How is it that a man who is so kind 
 to his fellow creatures has always been so unkind to 
 his Saviour as to refuse Him his heart?" That 
 sentence touched him in the core. He sent for me 
 immediately to come and converse with him. He 
 speedily gave his heart to Christ, united with, and 
 became a most useful member of our church. But 
 he told me I was the first person who had ever 
 spoken to him about his spiritual welfare in nearly
 
 PASTORAL WORK. 169 
 
 twenty years. In the case of this eminently effec- 
 tive and influential Christian, one hour of pastoral 
 work did more than the pulpit efforts of almost a 
 lifetime.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SOME FAMOUS PREACHERS IN BRITAIN. 
 
 Binney. Hamilton. Guthrie. Hall. Spurgeon. 
 Duff and others. 
 
 IN attempting to recall my recollections of the 
 eminent preachers whom I have known, I hardly 
 know where to begin, or where to call a halt. I 
 shall confine myself entirely to those who are no 
 longer living, except as they may live in the memory 
 of the service they wrought for their Divine Master 
 and their fellow men. When I first visited Lon- 
 don, in early September, 1842, the two ministers 
 most widely known to Americans were Henry Mel- 
 vill and Thomas Binney. Melvill was the most 
 popular preacher in the Established Church. His 
 place of worship was out at Camberwell, and I 
 found it so packed that I had to get a seat on one of 
 the steps in the gallery. He was a man of elegant 
 bearing, and rolled out his ornate sentences in a 
 somewhat theatrical tone, but the hushed audience 
 drank in every syllable greedily. The splendid and 
 
 thoroughly evangelical sermons which he orated 
 170
 
 SOME FAMOUS PREACHERS IN BRITAIN. 171 
 
 most carefully were exceedingly popular in those 
 days, and even yet they are well worth reading as 
 superb specimens of lofty, devout and resonant ora- 
 tory. On a very warm Sabbath evening I went into 
 the business end of London to the "Weigh House 
 Chapel" and heard Dr. Thomas Binney. He was the 
 leader of Congregationalism, as Melvill was of the 
 Church of England. On that warm evening the 
 audience was small, but the discourse was pro- 
 digiously large. Binney had a kingly countenance, 
 and a most unique delivery. His topic was Psalm 
 I47th, 3d and 4th verses. "God is the Creator of 
 the universe, and the comforter of the sorrowing." 
 He thrust one hand into his breeches pocket, and 
 then ran his other hand through his hair, and began 
 his sermon with the stirring words : "The Jew has 
 conquered the world!" This was the prelude to a 
 grand eulogy of the Psalms of David. He then un- 
 folded the first part of his text in a most original 
 style, made a long pause, scratched his head again, 
 and said : "Now then, let us take some new 
 thoughts, and then we are done." The closing 
 portion of the rich discourse was on the tender con- 
 solations of our Heavenly Father. 
 
 Thirty years afterwards Dr. Binney was invited 
 to meet me at breakfast at the house of Dr. Hall, 
 with "Tom Hughes," Dr. Henry Allon and other 
 notabilities. The noble veteran chatted verv
 
 172 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 serenely, and offered a most majestic prayer while 
 he remained sitting in his arm-chair. His physical 
 disabilities made it difficult for him to stand; and 
 very soon afterwards the grand old man went up 
 to his crown. When I was spending two delightful 
 days with Dr. McLaren, of Manchester, I described 
 to him Binney's remarkable sermon. "Were you 
 there that night?" inquired McLaren. "So was I, 
 and though only a boy of sixteen, I remember the 
 whole of that discourse to this hour." It was cer- 
 tainly a rare pulpit power that could fasten a dis- 
 course in two different memories for a whole half 
 century. 
 
 Do many of the Londoners of this day remember 
 Dr. James Hamilton, the pastor of the Presbyterian 
 Church in Regent's Square? They should do so, 
 for in his time he was the most popular devotional 
 writer of both sides of the Atlantic ; and during my 
 visit to London, in 1857, I was very happy to form 
 his acquaintance. He was a most cordial and 
 charming man, slender, tall, with dark eyes and 
 hair, and a beaming countenance. When one 
 entered Hamilton's study he would hurry forward, 
 seize his hands, and taking both in his, reply to your 
 "How do you do, sir," with "Come in, come in ; I 
 am nicely, I assure ye." Would that all ministers 
 were as cordial and approachable. When I attended 
 his church in Regent Square they were singing,
 
 SOME FAMOUS PREACHERS IN BRITAIN. 173 
 
 when I came in, a Psalm from the old Scotch Ver- 
 sion. The choristers sat in a desk below the pulpit. 
 The singing was general through the church, and 
 excellent in style. Dr. Hamilton preached in a 
 gown, and, as the heat grew oppressive in the middle 
 of his sermon, threw it off. The discourse was de- 
 livered with extremely awkward gestures, but in a 
 voice of great sweetness. The text was : "My soul 
 thirsteth for the Living God." He described an 
 arid wilderness, hot and parched, and down beneath 
 it a mighty vein of water into which an artesian 
 well was bored, and forthwith the waters gushed up 
 through it and swept over all the dry desert, making 
 it one emerald meadow. "So," said he, "it is the in- 
 carnate Jesus flowing up through our own dusty, 
 barren desert humanity, and overflowing us with 
 Heavenly life and grace, until what was once dreary 
 and dead becomes a fruitful garden of the Lord." 
 The discourse was like a chapter from one of Hamil- 
 ton's savory volumes. Five years afterwards, I dined 
 with Hamilton, and the Rev. William Arnot (who 
 afterwards was his biographer), and I went to his 
 church to deliver the preparatory discourse to the 
 sacrament on the next Sabbath. 
 
 On my way up to London, I halted one night at 
 Birmingham, and while out on a stroll, came upon 
 the City Hall, which was crowded with a great 
 meeting in aid of foreign missions. The heroic
 
 174 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 Robert Moffat, the Apostle of South Africa, was 
 addressing the multitude, who cheered him in the 
 old English fashion. Two years before that, Robert 
 Moffat had met a young man in a boarding house 
 in Aldersgate Street, London, and induced him to 
 become a missionary in Africa. The young man 
 was the sublimest of all modern missionaries, David 
 Livingstone. Two years after that evening, Living- 
 stone married Miss Mary Moffat (daughter of the 
 man to whom I was listening) , in South Africa, and 
 she became the sharer of his trials and explorations. 
 After Moffat had concluded his speech, a broad- 
 shouldered, merry-faced man, with thick grey hair 
 rose on the platform. "Who is that ?" I inquired of 
 my next neighbor. With a look of surprise that I 
 should ask such a question in Birmingham, 
 he said: "It is John Angell James." He 
 was the man whom Dr. Cox wittily described as 
 "An angel vinculated between two Apostles." He 
 spoke very forcibly, in a hearty, humorous vein, and 
 I could hardly understand how such a jovial old 
 gentleman could be the author of such a serious 
 work as "The Anxious Inquirer." But I have since 
 discovered that many of the most solemn and im- 
 pressive preachers were men of most cheery temper- 
 ament who could laugh heartily themselves when 
 they were not making other people weep. Mr. 
 James looked like an old sea captain ; but he was an
 
 SOME FAMOUS PREACHERS IN BRITAIN. 175 
 
 admirable pilot of awakened souls, whom thousands 
 will bless through all eternity. 
 
 Dr. Thomas Guthrie, of Edinburgh, was once 
 pronounced by the London Times to be "The most 
 eloquent man in Europe." Ruskin, Thackeray, 
 Macaulay, and other men of renown joined in the 
 crowd that thronged St. John's Church when they 
 were in Edinburgh ; and a highland drover was once 
 so excited that in the middle of a powerful sermon 
 he called out : "Naw, sirs, heard ye ever the like o' 
 that?" My good wife made a run to Edinburgh 
 while I was stopping behind in England, and on her 
 return to me almost her first word was, "I have heard 
 Guthrie ; I am spoiled for every one else as long as 
 I live." Guthrie, "Lang Tarn" (as the toughs on 
 the "Cowgate" in Edinburgh used to call him), was 
 built for a great orator. He was more than six feet 
 high, and would be picked out in any crowd as one 
 of God's royal family. I once said to him : "You 
 remind us Americans of our famous statesman, 
 Henry Clay." There was a striking resemblance in 
 the long-armed figure, the broad mouth and lofty 
 brow, and still more in the rich melody of voice, 
 and magnetic rush of electric eloquence. "There 
 must certainly be a personal likeness," replied the 
 Doctor, "for not long ago I went into the house of 
 Mr. Norris, who came here from America, and said 
 to myself, 'There is my portrait on the wall/ but
 
 176 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 when I came nearer I espied under it the name of 
 'Henry Clay.' " He used to say that in preaching 
 he aimed at the three P's: Prove, Paint and 
 Persuade. His painting with the tongue was as 
 vivid as Rembrandt's painting with the brush. 
 When I went to Edinburgh, in 1872, as a delegate 
 to the two Presbyterian General Assemblies, Dr. 
 Guthrie invited me to dine with him, and the gifted 
 Dr. John Ker, of Glasgow, was in the company. 
 After dinner, Guthrie literally took the floor, and 
 poured out a flow of charming talk, interspersed 
 with racy Scotch anecdotes. Among others told was 
 one about the old Highland woman who said to 
 him : "Doctor, nane of your modern improvements 
 for me. I want naething but good old Dauvid's 
 Psalms, and I want 'em all sung to Dauvid's tunes, 
 too." On the evening when I addressed the Free 
 Church Assembly, I was obliged to pass, on my way 
 to the platform, the front bench, on which sat the 
 veteran missionary, Alexander Duff, Principal 
 Rainy, William Arnot, Dr. Guthrie and two or three 
 other celebrities. I have not run such a gauntlet 
 on a single bench in my life. When I had finished 
 my address, Guthrie, clad in his gray overcoat, 
 leaped up, and kindly grasped my hand, and I went 
 back to my seat feeling an indescribable relief. Dr. 
 Guthrie a short time after attempted to visit our 
 country, but was arrested at Queenstown by a diffi-
 
 SOME FAMOUS PREACHERS IN BRITAIN. 177 
 
 culty of the heart, and returned to Scotland, and 
 lived but a short time afterwards. 
 
 My personal acquaintance with Newman Hall 
 began during the darkest period of our Civil War, 
 in August, 1862. Up to that time I had only known 
 him as the author of that pithy and pellucid little 
 booklet, "Come to Jesus," which has belted the 
 globe in forty languages, and been published to the 
 number of nearly 4,000,000 of copies. When our 
 Civil War broke out, Dr. Hall (with John Bright 
 and Foster and Goldwin Smith) threw himself 
 earnestly on the side of our Union. He made pub- 
 lic speeches for our cause over all England, and 
 opened his house for parlor meetings addressed by 
 loyal Americans who happened to be in London. 
 He invited me to address one of these gatherings, 
 but the necessity of my return home prevented my 
 acceptance. Two years after the close of the war 
 he made his first visit to the United States. He 
 was received with enthusiastic ovations. Union 
 Leagues gave him public welcomes, Congress in- 
 vited him to preach in the House of Representatives ; 
 he delivered an address to the Bostonians on Bunker 
 Hill ; and every denomination, including the Episco- 
 palians and Quakers, opened their pulpits to him 
 everywhere. But the crowning act of his unique 
 Americanism was the erection of the "Lincoln^ 
 Tower" on his Church in London, as a tribute to
 
 178 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 Negro Emancipation, and a memorial to Interna- 
 tional amity. The love that existed between my 
 brother, Dr. Hall, and myself was like the love of 
 David and Jonathan. The letters that passed be- 
 tween us would number up into the hundreds ; and 
 his epistles had the sweet savor of "Holy Ruther- 
 ford." When he was in America, my house was his 
 home ; when I was in London, I spent no small part 
 of my time in his delightful "Vine House," up on 
 Hampstead Hill. The house remains in the posses- 
 sion of his wife, a lady of high culture, intellectual 
 gifts and of most devout piety. One reason for the 
 close intimacy between my British brother and my- 
 self was that we were perfectly agreed on every 
 social, civil and religious question, and we never 
 had a chance to sharpen our wits on the hone of 
 controversy. Our theology was all from the same 
 Book, and our main purposes in life were similar. 
 Many of my American readers heard Dr. Hall 
 preach during some one of his three visits to the 
 United States. What marrowy, soul-quickening 
 sermons he poured forth in a clear, musical voice, 
 and with a most earnest persuasiveness. Preaching 
 was as easy to him as breathing. Including the 
 Sabbath, he delivered seven or eight sermons in a 
 week. Undoubtedly he delivered more discourses 
 than any ordained minister during the nineteenth 
 century. Peers and peasants, scholars and dwellers
 
 SOME FAMOUS PREACHERS IN BRITAIN. 179 
 
 in the slums alike enjoyed his preaching of God's 
 message to immortal souls. His favorite theme was 
 the sin-atoning work of Christ Jesus ; and the num- 
 bers converted under his faithful preaching were 
 exceedingly great. One of his discourses in this 
 country on "Jehovah Jireh," was especially helpful, 
 and one on "Touching the Hem of Christ's Gar- 
 ment," was a gem of spiritual beauty. He gener- 
 ally maintained an even flow of evangelical thought, 
 but sometimes he rose into a burst of thrilling elo- 
 quence, as he did in Mr. Beecher's church, when 
 he made his noble appeal for Union between Eng- 
 land and America. From his youth he was fond of 
 street preaching. I have seen him gather a crowd, 
 and hold them attentively while he sowed a few 
 seeds of truth in their hearts. 
 
 I wish I had the space to describe some of the 
 foregatherings that I have had with my twin brother 
 in the Gospel. We visited Italy together, preached 
 to "the Saints that are in Rome," and went down 
 into that room in the sub-basement of St. Clement's 
 where Paul is believed to have held meetings with 
 them that were of Caesar's household. We roamed 
 out on the Appian Road, over which the great 
 Apostle entered the Eternal City. So conscientious 
 was my brother Hall in his teetotalism that though 
 tired and thirsty, he never would touch the weak, 
 common wine of the country, lest his example might
 
 i8o RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 be plead in favor of the drinking usages. We once 
 went up to Olney and sat in Cowper's summer 
 house, and entered John Newton's church, and the 
 old sexton told Dr. Hall that he had been converted 
 by "Come to Jesus." We went together to Stone- 
 henge, and as we passed over Salisbury Plain we 
 recalled Hannah Moore's famous shepherd who 
 said: "The weather to-morrow will be what suits 
 me, for what suits God, suits me always." We 
 spent a very delightful couple of days in rowing 
 down the romantic river Wye, stopping for lunch 
 at Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey. In his home he 
 was a hospitable Gaius, with open doors and hearts 
 to friends from all lands. He had the merry 
 sportiveness of a schoolboy, and when our long 
 talks in his study were over, he would seize his hat 
 and the chain of his pet dog, and cry out : "Come, 
 brother, come, and let us have a tramp over the 
 Heath." He was a prodigious pedestrian, and at 
 three score and ten he held his own over a Swiss 
 glacier, with the members of the Alpine Club. He 
 had hoped to equal his famous predecessor, Rowland 
 Hill, and preach till he was ninety ; but when he was 
 near his eighty-sixth birthday he was stricken with 
 paralysis, and never left his bed again. Those last 
 two weeks were spent in the "Land of Beulah," and 
 in full view of "The Celestial City." When asked 
 if he suffered pain, he replied : "I have no pain, and
 
 SOME FAMOUS PREACHERS IN BRITAIN, i&i 
 
 nothing to disturb the solemnity of dying." On 
 the morning of February fourteenth he passed 
 peacefully over the river, and, as Bunyan said of 
 old Valiant- for-the-Truth, "The trumpets sounded 
 for him on the other side." No monarch on his 
 throne is so to be envied as he who now wears that 
 celestial crown. 
 
 Can anything new be said about Charles H. 
 Spurgeon? Perhaps not, and yet I should be 
 guilty of injustice to myself and to my readers if 
 I failed to pay my love tribute to the most ex- 
 traordinary preacher of the pure Gospel to all 
 Christendom whom England produced in the last 
 century. 
 
 I heard him when he was a youth of twenty-two 
 years, in his Park Street Chapel; I heard him 
 several times when he was at the zenith of his vigor ; 
 I spent many a happy hour with him in his charm- 
 ing home. On my last visit there I had a "good 
 cry" when I saw his empty chair in its old place in 
 the study. I did not form any personal acquaint- 
 ance with him until the summer of 1872, and it 
 soon ripened into a most warm and cordial friend- 
 ship. On each of my visits to London since that 
 time I have enjoyed an afternoon with him at his 
 home. His first residence was Helensburg House 
 in Nightingale Road, Clapham, a Southwest District 
 of London. That beautiful home was his only
 
 i&a RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 luxury ; but he spent none of his ample income on 
 any sort of social enjoyment, and what did not go 
 for household expenses went for the support of his 
 many religious enterprises. On my first visit to him 
 he greeted me in his free and easy, open-handed 
 way. I noticed that he was growing stouter than 
 ever. "In me," he jocularly said, "that is in my 
 flesh, dwelleth no good thing." We spent a joyous 
 hour in his well filled library ; he showed me fifteen 
 stately volumes of his printed sermons which have 
 since been more than doubled, besides several of his 
 works translated into French, German, Swedish, 
 Dutch and other languages. The most interesting 
 object in the library was a small file of his sermon 
 notes, each one on a half sheet of note paper, or on 
 the back of an ordinary letter envelope. When I 
 asked him if he "wrote his sermons out," his answer 
 was : "I would rather be hung." His usual method 
 was to select the text of his Sunday morning 
 sermon on Saturday about six or seven o'clock, and 
 spend half an hour in arranging a skeleton and put 
 it on paper; he left all the phraseology until he 
 reached the pulpit. During Sunday afternoon he 
 repeated the same process in preparing his evening 
 discourse. "If I had a month assigned me for pre- 
 paring a sermon," said he to me, "I would spend 
 thirty days and twenty-three hours on something 
 else and in the last hour I would make the sermon,
 
 SOME FAMOUS PREACHERS IN BRITAIN. 183 
 
 and if I could not do it then I could not do it in a 
 month. 
 
 This sounds like a risky process, but it must be 
 remembered that if Spurgeon occupied but a few 
 minutes in arranging a discourse he spent five days 
 of every week in thoroughly studying God's Word 
 in thorough thinking and in the perusal of the 
 richest old writers on theology and experimental 
 religion. 
 
 He was all the time, and everywhere filling up 
 his cask, so that he had only to turn the spigot and 
 out flowed the pure Gospel in the most transparent 
 language. A stenographer took down the sermon, 
 and it was revised by Mr. Spurgeon on Monday 
 morning. He told me that for many years he went 
 to his pulpit under such nervous agitation that it 
 often brought on violent attacks of vomiting and 
 produced outbreaks of perspiration, and he slowly 
 outgrew that remarkable sort of physical suffering. 
 
 Twenty years ago Mr. Spurgeon exchanged 
 Helensburgh House for the still more elegant man- 
 sion called "Westwood" on Beulah Hill, near 
 Crystal Palace, Sydenham. It is a rural paradise. 
 At each of the visits I paid him there, he used to 
 come out with his banged-up soft hat, which he 
 wore indoors half of the time, and with a merry jest 
 on his lips. On my last visit, accompanied by my 
 brother Hall, I found him suffering severely from
 
 184 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 his neuralgic malady, but it did not affect his buoy- 
 ant humor. When I told him that my catarrhal 
 deafness was worse than ever, he replied: "Well, 
 brother, console yourself with the thought that in 
 these days there is very little worth hearing." He 
 took my brother Hall, and myself out into his 
 garden and conservatory and down to a rustic arbor, 
 where we sat down and told stories. There were 
 twelve acres of land attached to "Westwood,"and he 
 had us into the meadow, where we lay down in the 
 freshly mowed hay and inhaled its fragrance. Mrs. 
 Spurgeon, a most gifted and charming lady, had a 
 dozen cows and the profits of her dairy then sup- 
 ported a missionary in London; and the milk was 
 sent around the neighborhood in a wagon labeled, 
 "Charles H. Spurgeon, Milk Dealer." After our 
 return, the great preacher showed us a portfolio of 
 caricatures of himself from Punch and other pub- 
 lications. At six o'clock we took supper and then 
 came family worship all the servants being 
 present. Mr. Spurgeon followed my prayer with 
 the most wonderful prayer that perhaps I have ever 
 heard from human lips, and I said afterwards to my 
 friend Hall, "To-night we got into 'the hidings of 
 his power/ for a man who can pray like that can 
 outpreach the world." In the soft hour of the 
 gloaming we took our leave, and he went off to pre- 
 pare his sermon for the morrow.
 
 SOME FAMOUS PREACHERS IN BRITAIN. ^85 
 
 Spurgeon's power lay in a combination of half a 
 dozen great qualities. He was the master of a 
 vigorous Saxon English style, the style of Cobbett 
 and Bunyan and the old English Bible. He pos- 
 sessed a most marvelous memory it held the whole 
 Bible in solution; it retained all the valuable truth 
 he had acquired during his immensely wide read- 
 ings and it enabled him to recognize any person 
 whom he ever met before. Once, however, he met 
 for the second time a Mr. Patridge and called him 
 "Partridge." Quick as a flash he said: "Pardon 
 me, sir, I did not intend to make game of you." 
 He was a man of one Book, and had the most im- 
 plicit faith in every jot .and tittle of God's Word. 
 He preached it without defalcation or discount, and 
 this prodigious faith made his preaching immensely 
 tonic. His sympathies with all mankind were un- 
 bounded, and the juices of his nature were enough 
 to float an ark full of living creatures. Joined to 
 these gifts was a marvelous voice of great sweet- 
 ness, and a homely mother-wit that bubbled out in 
 all his talk and often in his sermons. Mightiest of 
 all was his power of prayer, and his inner life was 
 hid with Christ in God. As an organizer he had 
 great executive abilities. His Orphanage, dozen 
 missionary schools and theological training school 
 will be among his enduring monuments. The last 
 sermon I ever heard him deliver was in Dr. New-
 
 186 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 man Hall's church on a week evening. He came 
 hobbling into the study, his face the picture of 
 suffering. He said to me, "Brother Cuyler, if I 
 break down, won't you take up the service and go 
 on with it?" I told him that he would forget his 
 pains the moment he got under way, and so it was, 
 for he delivered a most nutritious discourse to us. 
 When the service was over, he limped off to his 
 carriage, wrapped himself in the huge cushions, and 
 drove away seven miles to his home at Upper Nor- 
 wood. That was the last time I ever saw my be- 
 loved friend. 
 
 It seems strange that I shall never behold that 
 homely, honest countenance again; and since that 
 time, London has hardly seemed to be London with- 
 out him. It is a cause for congratulation that his 
 son, the Reverend Thomas Spurgeon, is so success- 
 fully carrying forward the great work of his sainted 
 father. If my readers would like a sample taste of 
 the pure Spurgeonic it is to be found in this passage 
 which he delivered to his theological students: 
 "Some modern divines whittle away the Gospel to 
 the small end of nothing; they make our Divine 
 Lord to be a sort of blessed nobody ; they bring down 
 salvation to mere possibility; they make certainties 
 into probabilities and treat verities as mere opinions. 
 When you see a preacher making the Gospel smaller 
 by degrees, and miserably less, till there is not
 
 SOME FAMOUS PREACHERS IN BRITAIN. 187 
 
 enough of it left to make soup for a sick grasshopper, 
 get you gone with him! As for me, I believe in an 
 infinite God, an infinite atonement, infinite love and 
 mercy, an everlasting covenant, ordered in all 
 things, and sure, and of which the substance and 
 reality is an Infinite Christ." 
 
 I once asked Dr. James McCosh, who was the 
 greatest preacher he ever heard. He replied, "Of 
 course, it was my Edinboro Professor, Dr. Chal- 
 mers, but the grandest display of eloquence I ever 
 listened to was Dr. Alexander Duff's famous Plea 
 for Foreign Missions, delivered before the Scottish 
 General Assembly at a date previous to the disrup- 
 tion." I can say Amen! to Dr. McCosh, for the 
 most overpowering oratory that I ever heard was 
 Duff's great missionary speech in the Broadway 
 Tabernacle during his visit to America. In the 
 immense crowd were two hundred ministers and the 
 foremost laymen of the city. When the great mis- 
 sionary arose (he was then in the prime of his 
 power), his first appearance was not impressive, for 
 his countenance had no beauty and his gestures were 
 grotesquely awkward. With one arm he huddled 
 his coat up to his shoulder, with the other he sawed 
 the air incontinently, and when intensely excited, he 
 leapt several inches from the floor as if about 
 to precipitate himself over the desk. All these 
 eccentricities were forgotten when once the great
 
 :88 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 heart began to open its treasures to us, and the 
 subject of his resistless oratory began to enchain our 
 souls. In his vivid description of "Magnificent 
 India" its dusky crowds and its ancient temples, 
 with its northern mountains towering to the skies; 
 its dreary jungles haunted by the tiger; its crystal- 
 line salt fields flashing in the sun ; and its Malabar 
 hills redolent with the richest spices, were all spread 
 out before us like a panorama. 
 
 When the Doctor had completed the survey of 
 India, he opened his batteries on the sloth and sel- 
 fishness of too many of Christ's professed followers -, 
 he poured contempt upon the men who said : "They 
 are not so green as to waste their money on the 
 farce of Foreign Missions." "No, no, indeed," he 
 continued, "they are not green, for greenness im- 
 plies verdure, and beauty, and there is not a single 
 atom of verdure in their parched and withered up 
 souls." Under the burning satire and mellowing 
 pathos of his tremendous appeal for heathendom, 
 tears welled out from every eye in the house. I 
 leaned over toward the reporter's table ; many of the 
 reporters had flung down their pens they might as 
 well have attempted to report a thunder storm. As 
 the orator drew near his close, he seemed like one 
 inspired ; his face shone as if it were, the face of an 
 angel. Never before did I so fully realize the over- 
 whelming power of a man who has become the em-
 
 SOME FAMOUS PREACHERS IN BRITAIN 189 
 
 bodiment of one great idea who makes his lips the 
 mere outlet for the mighty truth bursting from his 
 heart. After nearly two hours of this inundation of 
 eloquence, he concluded with the quotation of 
 Cowper's magnificent verse, 
 
 "One song employs all nations," etc. 
 
 With the utmost vehemence he rung out the last 
 line: 
 
 "Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round." 
 He could not check his headway, and repeated the 
 line a second time, louder than before, and then 
 with a tremendous voice that made the walls rever- 
 berate, he shouted once more : 
 
 "Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round!" 
 and sunk back breathless and exhausted into his 
 chair. "Shut up now this Tabernacle," exclaimed 
 Dr. James W. Alexander. "Let no man dare speak 
 here after that."
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS. 
 
 The Alexanders. Dr. Tyng. Dr. Cox. Dr. 
 
 Adams. Dr. Storrs. Mr. Beecher. Mr. 
 Finney and Dr. B. M. Palmer. 
 
 THE necessary limitations of this chapter forbid 
 any reference to many distinguished American 
 preachers whom I have seen or heard, but with 
 whom I had not sufficient personal acquaintance to 
 furnish any material for personal reminiscences. In 
 common with multitudes of others on both sides 
 of the ocean, I had a hearty admiration for the bril- 
 liant genius and masterful sermons of Phillips 
 Brooks, but I only heard two of his rapid and reso- 
 nant addresses on anniversary occasions, and my 
 acquaintance with him was very slight. I heard 
 only one discourse by that remarkable combination 
 of preacher, poet, patriot and philosopher, Dr. 
 Horace Bushnell, of Hartford, his discourse on 
 
 "Barbarism the Chief Danger," delivered before 
 
 190
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS. 191 
 
 the "Home Missionary Society." His sermon on 
 "Unconscious Influence," was enough to confer 
 immortality on any minister of Jesus Christ. I 
 never was acquainted with him, but after his death, 
 I suggested to the residents of New Preston, that 
 they should name the mountain that rises immedi- 
 ately behind the home of his childhood and youth, 
 Mount Bushnell. The villagers assented to my pro- 
 posal, and the State Legislature ratified their act by 
 ordering that name to be placed on the maps of 
 Connecticut. In this chapter, as in the previous one, 
 I shall give my recollections only of those who have 
 ended their career of service, and entered into their 
 reward. 
 
 During the six years that I spent in Princeton 
 College and in the Seminary (between 1838 and 
 1846) I came into close acquaintance with, and I 
 heard very often, the two great orators of the Alex- 
 ander family. Dr. Archibald Alexander, the father 
 of a famous group of sons, was a native of Virginia 
 had listened to Patrick Henry in his youth ; had 
 married the daughter of the eloquent "Blind 
 Preacher," Rev. James Waddell, and even when 
 as a young minister he had preached in Hanover, 
 New Hampshire. Daniel Webster, then a student 
 in Dartmouth College, predicted his future emin- 
 ence. The students in the Seminary were wont to 
 call him playfully, "The Pope," for we had un-
 
 192 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 bounded confidence in his sanctified common-sense. 
 I always went to him for counsel. His insight into 
 the human heart was marvelous ; and in the line of 
 close experimental preaching, he has not had his 
 equal since the days of President Edwards. He 
 put the impress of his powerful personality on a 
 thousand ministers who graduated from Princeton 
 Seminary. 
 
 In his lecture-desk and in the pulpit he was sim- 
 plicity itself. His sermons were like the waters of 
 Lak^ George, so pellucid that you could see every 
 bright pebble far down in the depths ; a child could 
 comprehend him, yet a sage be instructed by him. 
 His best discourses were extemporaneous, and he 
 had very little gesture, except with his forefinger, 
 which he used to place under his chin, and some- 
 times against his nose in a very peculiar manner. 
 With a clear piping voice and colloquial style he 
 held his audience in rapt attention, disdaining all 
 the tricks of sensational oratory. Twice I heard 
 him deliver his somewhat celebrated discourse on 
 "The Day of Judgment;" it was a masterpiece of 
 solemn eloquence, in which sublimity and simplicity 
 were combined in a way that I have never seen 
 equaled. He used to say that the right course for 
 an old man to keep his mind from senility was to 
 produce some piece of composition every day; and 
 he continued to write his practical articles for the
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS. 193 
 
 religious press until he was almost four-score. 
 What an impressive funeral was his on that bright 
 October afternoon, in 1851, when two hundred 
 ministers gathered in that Westminster Abbey of 
 Presbyterianism, the Princeton Cemetery! His 
 ashes slumber beside those of Witherspoon, Davies, 
 Hodge, McCosh and Jonathan Edwards. 
 
 Among the six sons who stood that day beside 
 that grave, the most brilliant by far was the third 
 son, Joseph Addison Alexander. Dr. Charles 
 Hodge said of him : "Taking him all in all, he was 
 the most gifted man with whom I have ever been 
 personally acquainted." In childhood, such was 
 his precocity that he knew the Hebrew alphabet at 
 six years of age (I am afraid that some ministers 
 do not know it at sixty) ; and he could read Latin 
 fluently when he was only eight ! Of his wonderful 
 feats of memory I could give many illustrations ; 
 one was that on the day that I was matriculated in 
 the Seminary with fifty other students, Professor 
 Alexander went over to Dr. Hodge's study, and 
 repeated to him every one of our names ! When 
 using manuscript in the pulpit, he frequently turned 
 the leaves backward instead of forward, for he 
 knew all the sermon by heart ! His commentaries 
 quite too few remain as monuments of his pro- 
 found scholarship, and some of his articles in the 
 Princeton Review sparkled with the keenest wit.
 
 194 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 Oh, how his grandest sermons linger still in my 
 memory after three-score years like the far-off mu- 
 sic of an Alpine horn floating from the mountain 
 tops ! His physique was remarkable ; he had the rud- 
 dy cheeks of a boy, and his square intellectual head 
 we students used to say "looked like Napoleon's." 
 His voice was peculiarly melodious, especially in 
 the pathetic passages ; his imagination was vivid in 
 fine imagery, and he had an unique habit of ending 
 a long sentence in the words of his text, which 
 chained the text fast to our memories. The an- 
 nouncement of his name always crowded the church 
 in Princeton, and he was flooded with invitations 
 to preach in the most prominent churches of New 
 York, Philadelphia, and other cities. One of his 
 most powerful and popular sermons was on the 
 text, "Remember Lot's Wife;" and he received so 
 many requests to repeat that sermon that he said to 
 his brother James in a wearied tone, "I am afraid 
 that woman will be the death of me." 
 
 There may still be old Philadelphians who can re- 
 call the magnificent series of discourses which Pro- 
 fessor Alexander delivered during the winter of 
 1847 m the pulpit of Dr. Henry A. Boardman, while 
 Dr. Boardman was in Europe. The church was 
 packed every Sabbath evening, clear to the outer 
 door, and many were unable to find room even in 
 the aisles. Dr. Alexander was then in his splendid
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS. 195 
 
 prime. His musical voice often swelled into a vol- 
 ume that rolled out through the doorway and 
 reached the passerby on the sidewalk ! During that 
 winter he pronounced all his most famous sermons 
 on "The Faithful Saying," on "The City with 
 Foundations," on "Awake, Thou that Sleepest!" and 
 on "The Broken and Contrite Heart." It was after 
 hearing this latter most original and pathetic dis- 
 course that an eminent man exclaimed, "No such 
 preaching as that has been heard in this land since 
 the days of Dr. John M. Mason." I enjoy the peru- 
 sal of the rich, unique, and spiritual sermons of my 
 beloved professor and friend ; but no one who reads 
 them can realize what it was to listen to Joseph Ad- 
 dison Alexander in his highest and holiest inspira- 
 tions. 
 
 Was Albert Barnes a great preacher ? Yes ; if it is 
 a great thing for a man to hold a large audience of 
 thoughtful and intelligent people in solemn attention 
 while he proclaims to them the weightiest and vital- 
 est of truths then was Mr. Barnes a great am- 
 bassador of the Lord Jesus Christ. He combined 
 modesty and majesty to a remarkable degree. He 
 had a commanding figure, keen eye, handsome fea- 
 tures, and a cleai distinct voice; but so diffident 
 was he that he seldom looked about over his con- 
 gregation and rarely made a single gesture. His 
 simple rule of homiletics was, have something to
 
 ig6 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 say, and then say it. He stood up in his pulpit and 
 delivered his calm, clear, strong, spiritual utterances 
 with scarcely a trace of emotion, and the hushed as- 
 sembly listened as if they were listening to one of 
 the oracles of God. His best sermons were like a 
 great red anthracite coal bed; with no flash, but 
 kindled through and through with the fire of the 
 Holy Spirit. Bashful, too, as he was, he denounced 
 popular sins with an intrepidity displayed by but few 
 ministers in our land. In the temperance reform he 
 was an early pioneer. For Albert Barnes I felt an 
 intense personal attachment; he was my ideal of a 
 fearless, godly-minded herald of evangelical truth; 
 and he had begun his public ministry in Morris- 
 town, N. J., the home of my maternal ancestry, and 
 in the church in which my beloved mother had made 
 her confession of faith. When our Lafayette Ave- 
 nue Church was dedicated just forty years ago 
 I urged him to deliver the discourse; but he hesi- 
 tated to preach extemporaneously, and his sight 
 was so impaired that he could not use a manuscript. 
 At the age of seventy-two he was suddenly and 
 sweetly translated to heaven. Over the whole Eng- 
 lish-speaking world his name was familiar as a plain 
 teacher of God's Word in very spiritual commen- 
 taries. 
 
 A half century ago Dr. William B. Sprague, of 
 Albany, was in the front rank of Presbyterian
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS. 197 
 
 preachers. His fine presence, his richly melodious 
 voice, his graceful style and fresh, practical evan- 
 gelical thought made him so popular that he was in 
 demand everywhere for special occasions and ser- 
 vices. He was a marvel of industry. While prepar- 
 ing his voluminous "Annals of the American Pul- 
 pit," and conducting an enormous correspondence, 
 he never omitted the preparation of new sermons for 
 his own flock. With that flock he lived and labored 
 for forty years, and when he resigned his charge 
 (in 1869) ne told me that when removing from Al- 
 bany, he buried his face and streaming eyes with his 
 hands, for he could not endure the farewell look 
 at the city of his love. When I first heard him in 
 my student days I thought him an almost faultless 
 pulpit orator, and when he and the young and ar- 
 dent Edward N. Kirk stood side by side in Albany, 
 no town in the land contained two nobler specimens 
 of the earnest, persuasive and eloquent Presbyterian 
 preachers. 
 
 When I came to New York as pastor of the Mar- 
 ket Street Church, in 1853, the most conspicuous 
 minister in the city was the rector of St. George's 
 Episcopal Church on Stuyvesant Square. Every 
 Sabbath the superb and spacious edifice was 
 thronged. It was quite "the thing" for strangers 
 who came to New York to go and hear Dr. Tyng. 
 Even on Sunday afternoons the house was filled;
 
 198 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 for at that service he preached what he called "ser- 
 mons to the children" but they were not only 
 sprightly, simple and vivacious enough to attract 
 the young, they also contained an abundance of 
 strong meat for persons of older growth. He was 
 an enthusiast in Sunday school work had 2,500 
 scholars in his mission schools, and possessed an 
 unsurpassed power in nailing the ears of the young 
 to his pulpit. 
 
 Dr. Tyng was the acknowledged leader of the 
 "Low Church" wing of Episcopacy in this country, 
 both during his ministry in the Epiphany at Phil- 
 adelphia, and in St. George's at New York. He 
 edited their weekly paper, and cbampioned their 
 cause on all occasions. He was their candidate for 
 the office of Bishop of Pennsylvania in 1845, an d 
 the contest was protracted through a long series 
 of ballotings. It was urged, and not without some 
 reason, that his impetuous temper and strong parti- 
 sanship might make him a rather domineering over- 
 seer of the diocese. He possessed an indomitable 
 will and pushed his way through life with the irre- 
 sistible rush of a Cunarder under a full head of 
 steam. His temper was naturally very violent. One 
 Sabbath evening he was addressing my Sunday 
 school in Market Street, and describing the various 
 kinds of human nature by resemblances to various 
 animals, the lion, the fox, the sloth, etc. : "Children,"
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS. 199 
 
 he exclaimed, "do you want to know what I am? 
 I am by nature a royal Bengal tiger, and if it had 
 not been for the grace of God to tame me, I fear 
 that nobody could ever have lived with me." There 
 was about as much truth as there was wit in the 
 comparison. His congregation in St. George's 
 knew his irrepressible temperament so well that they 
 generally let him have his own way. If he wanted 
 money for a church object or a cause of charity, 
 he did not beg for it; he demanded it in the 
 name of the Lord. "When I see Dr. Tyng coming 
 up the steps of my bank," said a rich bank president 
 to me, "I always begin to draw my cheque ; I know 
 he will get it, and it saves my time." 
 
 His leading position among Low Churchmen was 
 won not only by his intellectual force and moral 
 courage, but by his uncompromising devotion to 
 evangelical doctrine. He belonged to the same 
 school with Baxter, John Newton, Bickersteth, Sim- 
 eon and Bedell. In England his intimate friends 
 were the Earl of Shaftesbury, Dr. McNeill and 
 others of the most pronounced evangelical type. 
 The good old doctrines of redemption by the blood 
 of Christ, and of regeneration by the Holy Spirit 
 were his constant theme, and on these and kindred 
 topics he was a delightful preacher. 
 
 Strong as he was in the pulpit, Dr. Tyng was the 
 prince of platform orators. He had every quality
 
 200 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 necessary for the sway of a popular audience fine 
 elocution, marvelous fluency, piquancy, the courage 
 of his convictions and a magnetism that swept all 
 before him. His voice was very clear and penetrat- 
 ing, and he hurled forth his clean-cut sentences like 
 javelins. A more fluent speaker I never heard ; not 
 Spurgeon or Henry Ward Beecher could surpass 
 him in readiness of utterance. On one occasion the 
 Broadway Tabernacle was crowded with a great au- 
 dience that gathered to hear some celebrity; and 
 the expected hero did not arrive. The impatient 
 crowd called for "Tyng, Tyng;" and the rector of 
 St. George's came forward, and on the spur of the 
 moment delivered such a charming speech that the 
 audience would not let him stop. For many years 
 I spoke with him at meetings for city missions, total 
 abstinence, Sunday schools and other benevolent 
 enterprises. He used playfully to call me "one of 
 his boys." At a complimentary reception given to 
 J. B. Gough in Niblo's Hall, Mr. Beecher and my- 
 self delivered our talks, and then retired to the op- 
 posite end of the hall. Dr. Tyng took the rostrum 
 with one of his swift magnetic .speeches. I leaned 
 over to Beecher and whispered, "That is splendid 
 platf orming, isn't it ?" Beecher replied : "Yes, indeed 
 it is. He is the one man that I am afraid of. 
 When he speaks first I do not care to follow 
 him, and if I speak first, then when he gets up I
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS. 201 
 
 wish I had not spoken at all." Some of Dr. Tyng's 
 most powerful addresses were in behalf of the tem- 
 perance reform; he was a most uncompromising 
 foe of both of the dram shop and of the drinking 
 usages in polite society. He also denounced the 
 theatre and the ball-room with the most Puritanic 
 vehemence. 
 
 Dr. Stephen H. Tyng's chief power, like many 
 other great preachers, was when he was on his feet. 
 He should be heard and not read. Some of the dis- 
 courses and addresses which enchained and thrilled 
 his auditors seemed tame enough when reported for 
 the press. In that respect he resembled Whitfield 
 and Gough and many of our most effective stump 
 speakers. The result was that Dr. Tyng's fame, to a 
 great degree, perished with him. He published 
 several books, of a most excellent and evangelical 
 character, but they lacked the thunder and the 
 lightning which make his uttered words so power- 
 ful, and probably none of his many books are much 
 read to-day. The influence of his splendid and 
 heroic personality was very great during a min- 
 istry of over fifty years, and the glorious work 
 which he wrought for his Master will endure to 
 all eternity. 
 
 To have heard Dr. William Adams of New York 
 at his best was better than any lecture on "Homi- 
 letics" ; to have met him at the fireside or in the sick
 
 202 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 room of one of his parishioners was a prelection in 
 pastoral theology. 
 
 The first time that I ever saw him was fully fifty 
 years ago ; he was standing in the gallery of the old 
 Broadway Tabernacle at an anniversary of the 
 American Bible Society, and Dr. James W. Alex- 
 ander pointed him out to me saying "Yonder 
 stands Dr. William Adams; he is the hardest stu- 
 dent of us all." It was this honest incessant brain 
 work that enabled him to sustain himself for forty 
 years in one of the conspicuous pulpits of the largest 
 city in the land. He always drew out of a full cask. 
 Let young ministers lay this fact to heart. It was 
 not by trick or happy luck, or by pyrotechnics of 
 rhetoric that Dr. Adams won and kept his position 
 in the forefront of metropolitan preachers. The 
 "dead line of fifty" was not to be found on his in- 
 tellectual atlas. One of the last talks with him that 
 I now recall was on an early morning in Congress 
 Park, Saratoga. He had a pocket Testament in his 
 hand, and he said to me, "I find myself reading more 
 and more the old books of my youth ; I am enjoying 
 just now Virgil's Eclogues, but nothing is so dear to 
 me as my Greek Testament." 
 ; All of Dr. Adams' finest efforts were thoroughly 
 prepared and committed to memory. He never 
 risked a failure by attempting to shake a sermon or 
 a speech "out of his sleeve." His memory was one
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS. 203 
 
 of his greatest gifts. Sometimes when his soul was 
 on fire, and his voice trembled with emotion, he rose 
 into the region of lofty impassioned eloquence. His 
 master effort on the platform was his address of 
 welcome to the members of the "Evangelical Alli- 
 ance" in 1873. How the foreign delegates Doctors 
 Stoughton, Christlieb, Dorner and the rest of them 
 did open their eyes that evening to the fact that a 
 Yankee-born parson was, in elegant culture and pol- 
 ished oratory, a match for them all. Dr. Adams' 
 speech "struck twelve" for the Alliance at the start ; 
 nothing during the whole subsequent sessions sur- 
 passed that opening address, although Beecher and 
 Dr. Joseph Parker were both among the speakers. 
 He closed the meeting of the Alliance in the Acad- 
 emy of Music with a prayer of wonderful fervor, 
 pathos and beauty. 
 
 One of his grandest speeches was delivered before 
 the Free Church General Assembly in Edinburgh 
 in May, 1871. Dr. Guthrie told me that he swept 
 the assembly away by his stately bearing, sonorous 
 voice and classic oratory. The men whom he moved 
 so mightily were such men as Arnot and Guthrie 
 and Rainy and Bonar, the men who had listened 
 to the grandest efforts of Duff and of Chalmers. I 
 well remember that when I had to address the same 
 assembly (as the American delegate) the next 
 year I was more disturbed by the apparition of my
 
 204 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 predecessor, Dr. Adams, than by all the brilliant 
 audience before me. 
 
 Dr. Adams was gifted with what is of more prac- 
 tical value than genius, and that was marvelous 
 tact. That was with him an instinct and an inspi- 
 ration. It led him to always speak the right word, 
 and do the right thing at the right time. Personal 
 politeness helped him also; for he was one of the 
 most perfect gentlemen in America. That practical 
 sagacity made him the leader of the "new school" 
 branch of our church, during the delicate negotia- 
 tions for reunion in 1867, and on to 1870. He knew 
 human nature well, and never lost either his temper 
 or his faith in the sure result. To-day when that 
 old lamentable rupture of our beloved church is as 
 much a matter of past history as the rupture of the 
 Union during the civil war, let us gratefully remem- 
 ber George W. Musgrave, the pilot of the "old 
 school." and William Adams, the pilot of the "new." 
 
 The last sermon that I ever heard Dr. Adams de- 
 liver was in my Lafayette Avenue Church pulpit 
 a few years before his death. His text was the clos- 
 ing passage of the fourth chapter of Second Corin- 
 thians. The whole sermon was delivered with great 
 majesty and tenderness. One illustration in it was 
 sublime. He was comparing the "things which are 
 seen and temporal" with the "things which are not 
 seen and eternal." He described Mont Blanc en-
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS. 205 
 
 veloped in a morning cloud of mist. The vapor was 
 the seen thing which was soon to pass away; be- 
 hind it was the unseen mountain, glorious as the 
 "great white throne" which should stand unmoved 
 when fifty centuries of mist had flown away into 
 nothingness. This passage moved the audience pro- 
 digiously. Many sat gazing at the tall pale orator 
 before them through their tears. The portrait of Dr. 
 Adams hangs on my study wall alongside of the 
 portrait of Chalmers and as I look at his majestic 
 countenance now, I still seem to see him as on that 
 Sabbath morning he stood before us, with the light 
 of eternity beaming on his brow ! 
 
 In the summer of 1845 I was strolling with my 
 friend Littell (the founder of the Living Age}, 
 through the leafy lanes of Brookline, and we came 
 to a tasteful church. "That," said Mr. Littell, "is 
 the Harvard Congregational meeting house. They 
 have lately called a brilliant young Mr. Storrs, who 
 was once a law student with Rufus Choate ; he is a 
 man of bright promise." Two years afterward I 
 saw and heard that brilliant young minister in the 
 pulpit of the newly organized Church of the Pil- 
 grims in Brooklyn. He had already found his place, 
 and his throne. He made that pulpit visible over 
 the continent. That church will be "Dr. Storrs' 
 church" for many a year to come. 
 
 Had that superbly gifted law student of Choate
 
 206 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 gone to the bar he would inevitably have won a 
 great distinction, and might have charmed the 
 United States Senate by his splendid eloquence. 
 Perhaps he learned from Choate some lessons in 
 rhetoric and how to construct those long melodious 
 sentences that rolled like a "Hallelujah chorus" 
 over his delighted audiences. But young Storrs 
 chose the better part, and no temptation of fame or 
 pelf allured him from the higher work of preaching 
 Jesus Christ to his fellow men. He was like Chal- 
 mers and Bushnell and Spurgeon a born preacher. 
 Great as he was on the platform, or on various cere- 
 monial occasions, he was never so thoroughly "at 
 home" as in his own pulpit; his great heart never 
 so kindled as when unfolding the glorious gospel of 
 redeeming love. The consecration of his splendid 
 powers to the work of the ministry helped to en- 
 noble the ministry in the popular eye, and led young 
 men of brains to feel that they could covet no higher 
 calling. 
 
 One of the remarkable things in the career of Dr. 
 Storrs was that by far the grandest portion of that 
 career was after he had passed the age of fifty ! In- 
 stead of that age being, as to many others, a "dead 
 line," it was to him an intellectual birth line. He 
 returned from Europe after a year of entire rest 
 and then, like "a giant refreshed by sleep," began to 
 produce his most masterly discourses and orations.
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS. 207 
 
 His first striking performance was that wonderful 
 address at the twenty-fifth anniversary of Henry 
 Ward Beecher's pastorate in Plymouth Church, at 
 the close of which Mr. Beecher gave him a grateful 
 kiss before the applauding audience. Not long after 
 that Dr. Storrs delivered those two wonderful lec- 
 tures on the "Muscovite and the Ottoman." The 
 Academy of Music was packed to listen to them; 
 and for two hours the great orator poured out a 
 flood of history and gorgeous description without a 
 scrap of manuscript before him ! He recalled names 
 and dates without a moment's hesitation ! Like Lord 
 Macaulay, Dr. Storrs had a marvelous memory ; and 
 at the close of those two orations I said to myself, 
 "How Macaulay would have enjojed all this !" His 
 extraordinary memory was an immense source of 
 power to Dr. Storrs ; and, although he had a rare 
 gift of fluency, yet I have no doubt that some of his 
 fine efforts, which were supposed to be extempora- 
 neous, were really prepared beforehand and lodged 
 in his tenacious memory. 
 
 Dean Stanley, on the day before, he returned to 
 England, said to me : "The man who has impressed 
 me most is your Dr. Storrs." When I urged the 
 pastor of the "Pilgrims" to go over to the great In- 
 ternational Council of Congregationalists in London 
 and show the English people a specimen of Ameri- 
 can preaching, his characteristic reply was, "Oh, I
 
 208 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 am tired of these show occasions." But he never 
 grew tired of preaching Jesus Christ and Him cruci- 
 fied. The Bible his old father loved was the book 
 of books that he loved, and no blasts of revolution- 
 ary biblical criticism ever ruffled a feather on the 
 strong wing with which he soared heavenward. A 
 more orthodox minister has not maintained the faith 
 once delivered to the saints in our time than he for 
 whom Brooklyn's flags were all hung at half-mast 
 on the day of his death. 
 
 All the world knew that Richard S. Storrs pos- 
 sessed wonderful brain power, culture and scholar- 
 ship ; but only those who were closest to him knew 
 what a big loving heart he had. Some of the sweet- 
 est and tenderest private letters that I ever received 
 came from his ready pen. I was looking over some 
 of them lately; they are still as fragrant as if pre- 
 served in lavender. His heart was a very pure 
 fountain of noble thought, and of sweet, unselfish 
 affection. 
 
 He died at the right time ; his great work was 
 complete; he did not linger on to outlive himself. 
 The beloved wife of his home on earth had gone 
 on before; he felt lonesome without her, and grew 
 homesick for heaven. His loving flock had crowned 
 him with their grateful benedictions ; he waited only 
 for the good-night kiss of the Master he served, and 
 he awoke from a transient slumber to behold the
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS. 209 
 
 ineffable glory. On the previous day his illustrious 
 Andover instructor, Professor Edwards A. Park, 
 had departed; it was fitting that Andover's most 
 illustrious graduate should follow him; now they are 
 both in the presence of the infinite light, and they 
 both behold the King in His beauty ! 
 
 Fifty years ago one of the most famous celebrities 
 in the Presbyterian Church was Dr. Samuel Hanson 
 Cox, famous for his linguistic attainments, for his 
 wit and occasional eccentricities, and very famous 
 for his bursts of eloquence on great occasions. He 
 was at that time the pastor of the First Presbyterian 
 Church of Brooklyn, and resided in the street where 
 I am now writing (Oxford Street) ; and the street 
 at the end of the block was named "Hanson Place" 
 in honor of him. His large wooden mansion was 
 then quite out of town, and was accordingly called 
 "Rus Urban." In that house he wrote for the 
 New York Observer the unique series of articles 
 on New School Theology entitled "The Hexagon," 
 and there he entertained, with his elegant courtesy 
 and endless flow of wit and learning, many of the 
 most eminent people who visited Brooklyn. The 
 boys used to climb into his garden to steal fruit; 
 and, as a menace, he affixed to his fence a large pic- 
 ture of a watch-dog, and underneath it a dental 
 sign, "Teeth inserted here!" The old mansion was 
 removed years ago.
 
 210 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 In 1846 he was the moderator of the "new school" 
 Presbyterian General Assembly. It was during the 
 sessions of that assembly that the famous debate 
 was waged for several days on the exciting ques- 
 tion of negro slavery, and when some compromise 
 resolutions were passed (for those were the days of 
 compromise salves and plasters) Dr. Cox rose and 
 exclaimed, "Well, brethren, we have capped Vesu- 
 vius for another year." But "Vesuvius" would not 
 stay capped, and in a few years one of its violent 
 eruptions sundered the "new school" church in 
 twain. 
 
 Dr. Cox was a vehement opponent of slavery, and 
 his church in Laight Street was assailed by a mob, 
 and he was roughly handled. In 1833 he was sent 
 to England as the delegate to the British and For- 
 eign Bible Society, and at their anniversary meet- 
 ing he delivered one of the most brilliant speeches 
 of his life. He came into the meeting a perfect 
 stranger, while Dr. Hamilton, of Leeds, was utter- 
 ing a fierce invective against American slavery. 
 This aroused Dr. Cox's indignation, and when he 
 was called on to speak he commenced with exqui- 
 site urbanity as follows : "My Lord Bexley, ladies 
 and gentlemen ! I have just landed from America. 
 Thirty days ago I came down the bay of New York 
 in the steam tug Hercules and was put on board of 
 the good packet ship Samson thus going on from
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS. 211 
 
 strength to strength from mythology to Scrip- 
 ture!" This bold and novel introduction brought 
 down the house with a thunder of applause. After 
 paying some graceful tributes to England and thus 
 winning the hearts of his auditors, he suddenly 
 turned towards Dr. Hamilton, and with the most 
 captivating grace, he said: "I do not yield to my 
 British brother in righteous abhorrence of the 
 institution of negro slavery. I abhor it all the more 
 because it was our disastrous inheritance from our 
 English forefathers, and came down to us from the 
 time when we were colonies of Great Britain ! And 
 now if my brother Hamilton will enact the part of 
 Shem, I will take the place of Japhet, and we will 
 walk backward and will cover with the mantle of 
 charity the shame of our common ancestry." This 
 sudden burst of wit, argument and eloquence car- 
 ried the audience by storm, and they were obliged 
 to applaud the "Yankee orator" in spite of them- 
 selves. I count this retort by Dr. Cox one of the 
 finest in the annals of oratory. Several years after- 
 wards he visited England as a delegate to the first 
 Evangelical Alliance. It was attended by the fore- 
 most divines, scholars and religious leaders of both 
 Britain and the continent ; and a brief five-minutes' 
 speech made by Dr. Cox was unanimously pro- 
 nounced to have been the most splendid display of 
 eloquence heard during the whole convocation.
 
 212 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 He owed a great deal to his commanding figure, 
 fine voice, and graceful elocution. His memory also 
 was as marvelous as that of Dr. Storrs or Pro- 
 fessor Addison Alexander. One night, for the en- 
 tertainment of his fellow-passengers in a stage- 
 coach, he repeated two cantos of Scott's poem of 
 "Marmion"! I have heard him quote, in a public 
 address before the New York University, a whole 
 page of Cicero without the slip of a single word! 
 His passion for polysyllables was very amusing, and 
 he loved to astonish his hearers by his "sesquipe- 
 dalian" phraseology. A certain visionary crank 
 once intruded into his study and bored him with a 
 long dissertation. Dr. Cox's patience was exhausted, 
 and pointing to the door, he said: "My friend, do 
 you observe that aperture in this apartment? If you 
 do, I wish that you would describe rectilineals, very 
 speedily." 
 
 I could fill several pages with racy anecdotes of 
 the keen wit and the varied erudition of my vener- 
 able friend. But let none of my readers think of Dr. 
 Cox as a clerical jester, or a pedant. He was a pow- 
 erful and intensely spiritual preacher of the living 
 Gospel. In his New York congregation were many 
 of the best brains and fervent hearts to be found in 
 that city, and some of the leading laymen revered 
 him as their spiritual father. Sometimes he was 
 betrayed into eccentricities, and his vivid imagina-
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS. 213 
 
 tion often carried him away into discursive flights; 
 yet he never soared out of sight of Calvary's cross, 
 and never betrayed the precious Gospel committed 
 to his trust. 
 
 The first time that I ever saw Henry Ward Beecher 
 was in 1848. He was then mustering his new con- 
 gregation in the building once occupied by Dr. Sam- 
 uel H. Cox. It was a weekly lecture service that I 
 attended, by invitation of a lady who invited me to 
 "go and hear our new-come genius from the West." 
 The room was full, and at the desk stood a brown- 
 cheeked young man with smooth-shaved face, big 
 lustrous eyes, and luxuriant brown hair with a 
 broad shirt collar tied with a black ribbon. His text 
 was "Grow in Grace," and he gave us a discourse 
 that Matthew Henry could not have surpassed in 
 practical pith, or Spurgeon in evangelical fervor. I 
 used to tell Mr. Beecher that even after making full 
 allowance for the novelty of a first hearing, I never 
 heard him surpass that Wednesday evening lecture. 
 He was plucking the first ripe grapes of his affluent 
 vintage ; his "pomegranates were in full flower, and 
 the spikenard sent forth its fragrance." The very 
 language of that savory sermon lingers in my mem- 
 ory yet. 
 
 During my ministry in New York from 1853 to 
 1860 I became intimate with Mr . Beecher and 
 spoke beside him on many a platform and heard him
 
 214 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 in some of his most splendid efforts. He was a fas- 
 cinating companion, with the rollicking freedom of 
 a schoolboy. I never shall forget an immense meet- 
 ing in behalf of a liquor prohibition movement 
 held in Tripler Hall. Mr. Beecher was at his best. 
 In the midst of his speech, he suddenly discharged 
 a bombshell against negro slavery which dynamited 
 the audience and provoked a thunder of applause. 
 For pure eloquence it was the finest outburst I ever 
 heard from his lips. Like Patrick Henry, Clay, 
 Guthrie, Spurgeon and other great masters of as- 
 semblies, he was gifted with a richly melodious 
 voice which was especially effective on the low 
 and tender keys. This gave him great power in 
 the pathetic portions of his discourses. Of his su- 
 perabounding humor I need not speak. It bubbled 
 out so naturally and spontaneously that he found it 
 difficult to restrain it even on the most grave occa- 
 sions. Sometimes he sinned against good taste, 
 and I once heard his sister Catherine say that 
 "Henry rarely delivered a speech or a sermon which 
 did not contain something that grated on her ear." 
 His most frequent offenses were in the direction of 
 flippant handling of sacred themes and Scripture 
 language. This he inherited from his illustrious 
 father. 
 
 Mr. Beecher is generally regarded as an extem- 
 poraneous preacher. This is a mistake. He pre-
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS. 215 
 
 pared most of his discourses carefully, and full one- 
 half of many of them were written out. Among 
 these written passages he interjected bursts of im- 
 promptu thoughts; and these were generally the 
 most effective passages in the sermon. While he 
 repeated himself often especially on his favorite 
 topic of God's love yet it was always in fresh lan- 
 guage and with new illustrations. Abraham Lin- 
 coln said to me, "The most marvelous thing about 
 Mr. Beecher is his inexhaustible fertility." 
 
 During the Civil War he was at the acme of his 
 power. He was then the peerless orator of Chris- 
 tendom. It was his intention (as he once told me) 
 to resign his pastorate at the age of sixty and to de- 
 vote the remainder of his life to a ministry at large. 
 But the tempest of troubles which struck him about 
 that time forbade his cherished design, and he con- 
 tinued at his post until the touch of death silenced 
 the magic tongue. Nearly thirty years have elapsed 
 since I sat by him on the crowning evening of his 
 career, at his "silver anniversary," in 1873. As to 
 his later utterances in theology, and on some ques- 
 tions of ethics, I dissented from my old friend con- 
 scientiously, and I expressed to him my dissent very 
 candidly, as becometh brethren. I am convinced 
 that if there were more fraternal frankness between 
 the living, there would be less hypocrisy over the 
 departed.
 
 2i6 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 Charles G. Finney was the acknowledged king of 
 American evangelists until Dwight L. Moody came 
 on the stage of action. They resembled each other 
 in untiring industry, unflinching courage, unswerv- 
 ing devotion to the marrow of the Gospel, and un- 
 reserved consecration, to the service of Christ. The 
 secret of Finney's power was the fearless manner 
 with which he drove God's word into the consciences 
 of sinners high or humble and his perpetual re- 
 liance on the immediate presence of the Holy Spirit 
 in his own soul. Emptied of sell he was filled with 
 the Holy Spirit. His sermons were chain light- 
 ning, flashing conviction into the hearts of the 
 stoutest skeptics, and the links of his logic were 
 so compact that they defied resistance. Probably 
 no minister in America ever numbered among his 
 converts so many lawyers and men of intellectual 
 culture. 
 
 Soon after commencing his law practice he was 
 brought under the most intense conviction of sin; 
 and the narrative of his conversion as given in his 
 autobiography equals any chapter in John Bun- 
 yan's "Grace Abounding." After light and peace 
 broke into his agonized soul, he burst into tears of 
 joy, and exclaimed: "I am so happy that I cannot 
 live." He began at once to converse with his neigh- 
 bors about their souls. When a certain Deacon B. 
 came into his office and reminded him that his cause
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS. 217 
 
 was to be tried at ten o'clock that morning, Mr. 
 Finney replied, "Deacon B., 1 have a retainer from 
 the Lord Jesus Christ to plead His cause, and can- 
 not plead yours." The deacon was thunderstruck, 
 and went off. and settled his suit with his antago- 
 nist immediately. 
 
 From that time a law office was no place for the 
 fervid spirit of Charles G. Finney, and he resolved 
 at once to prepare for the ministry. 
 
 Revivals followed his red-hot discourses wher- 
 ever he went. At Auburn he declares that he had 
 during prayer in his own room a wonderful vision 
 in which God drew so near to him that his flesh 
 trembled on his bones, and he shook from head to 
 foot as if amid the thunderings of Sinai! He felt 
 an assurance that God would sustain him against 
 all his enemies ; and then there came a "great lifting 
 up," and a sweet calm followed after the agitation. 
 Such extraordinary spiritual experiences occurred 
 quite often during his career as a revivalist, and 
 they remind one strikingly of similar experiences of 
 John Bunyan to whom Finney bore a certain de- 
 gree of resemblance. At Rochester many of the 
 leading lawyers were attracted by his bold and log- 
 ical style of speech; and among his converts there 
 was the distinguished jurist, Addison Gardner. It 
 was during his ministry in New York that he deliv- 
 ered his celebrated "Lectures on Revivals," which
 
 2i8 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 were reprinted abroad and translated into several 
 foreign languages. Of all Mr. Finney's published 
 productions, these lectures are the most characteris- 
 tic. Often extravagant in their rhetoric, and some- 
 times rather reckless in theological statements, they 
 contain a mine of pungent truth which every young 
 minister ought to possess and to peruse very often. 
 I shall never cease to thank God for the inspiration 
 they have imparted to my own humble ministry; 
 and they have had a place in my library close beside 
 the "Pilgrim's Progress," and the biographies of 
 Payson and McCheyne, and the soul-quickening ser- 
 mons of Bushnell, Addison Alexander and Dr. Mc- 
 Laren. 
 
 After his extended evangelistic labors in various 
 cities, Mr. Finney was appointed to a theological 
 chair in the newly organized college at Ober- 
 lin, Ohio. From this post, his irrepressible 
 desire to kindle revivals and to save souls 
 often called him away, and he conducted two fa- 
 mous evangelistic campaigns in Great Britain. He 
 was the first man to introduce American revivalistic 
 methods into England and Scotland ; but his labors 
 were never as wide, as influential, and generally ac- 
 ceptable there as the subsequent labors of Messrs. 
 Moody and Sankey. Forty years of his busy and 
 heaven-blessed life were spent at Oberlin, where he 
 impressed his powerful personality on a multitude
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS. 219 
 
 of students of both sexes ; few religious teachers in 
 America have ever moulded so many lives, or had 
 their opinions echoed from so many pulpits. 
 
 With all my admiration of President Finney's 
 character, I could not as a loyal Princetonian 
 subscribe to some of his peculiar opinions. It was, 
 therefore, with great surprise that I received from 
 him a letter in 1873 (two years before his death) 
 which contained the startling proposal that I should 
 be his successor in the college pulpit at Oberlin ! He 
 wrote to me : "I think that there is no more impor- 
 tant field of ministerial labor in the world. I know 
 that you have a great congregation in Brooklyn, and 
 are mightily prospered in your labors, but your flock 
 does not contain a thousand students pursuing the 
 higher branches of education from year to year. 
 Surely your field in Brooklyn is not more important 
 than mine was at the Broadway Tabernacle in New 
 York, nor can your people be more attached to you 
 than mine were to me." This letter although its 
 kind overture was promptly declined was a grati- 
 fying proof that the once bitter controversies be- 
 tween "old school" and "new school" had become 
 quite obsolete. When I mentioned this letter to my 
 beloved Princeton instructor, Dr. Charles Hodge, 
 a few weeks before his death, he simply remarked 
 that "his Brother Finney had become very sweet 
 and mellow in his later years." And long before
 
 220 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 this time the two great antagonistic theologians may 
 have clasped hands in heaven. 
 
 The closing years of President Finney's useful life 
 were indeed mellow and most lovable. In the days 
 of his prime he had a commanding form, a striking 
 face and a clear, incisive style of speech. Simple 
 as a child in his utterances, he sometimes startled 
 his hearers by his unique prayers. For example, 
 he was one day driven from his study at Oberlin 
 by a refractory stove-pipe which persisted in tum- 
 bling down. At family worship in the evening he 
 said : "Oh, Lord ! thou knowest how the temper of 
 Thy servant has been tried to-day by that stove- 
 pipe!" Several other expressions, quite as quaint 
 and as piquant, might be quoted, if the limits of this 
 brief sketch would permit. What would be deemed 
 irreverent if spoken by some lips never sounded ir- 
 reverent when uttered by such a natural, fearless 
 and yet devout a spirit as Charles G. Finney. He 
 retained his erect, manly form, his fresh enthusiasm 
 and intellectual vigor, to the ripe old age of eighty- 
 three. On a calm Sabbath evening in August, 
 1875 he walked in his garden and listened to the 
 music from a neighboring church. Retiring to his 
 chamber, the messenger from his Master met him in 
 the midnight hours, and before the morning dawned 
 his glorified spirit was before the throne ! His is the 
 crown of one who turned many to righteousness.
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS. 221 
 
 While I am writing this chapter of ministerial 
 reminiscences, I receive the sorrowful tidings that 
 my dear old friend, Dr. Benjamin M. Palmer, of 
 New Orleans the prince of Southern preachers 
 has closed his illustrious career. To the last his 
 splendid powers were unabated, and last year (al- 
 though past eighty-three) he delivered one of his 
 greatest sermons before the University of Georgia! 
 His massive discourses, based on God's word, were 
 a solid pile of concinnate argument, illuminated with 
 the divine light, and glowing with the divine love 
 shed abroad in his heart. In the spring of 1887, 
 Mrs. Cuyler and myself visited New Orleans, and 
 I cared more to see Dr. Palmer than all the city be- 
 sides. He cordially welcomed me to the hospitali- 
 ties of his house, and of that pulpit which had so 
 long been his throne. I do not wonder that the peo- 
 ple of New Orleans of all classes and creeds re- 
 garded him not only with pride, but with an affec- 
 tion that greeted him at every step through the city 
 of which he was the foremost citizen. 
 
 As my readers may all know, Dr. Palmer, through 
 the Civil War, was a most ardent Secessionist, and 
 as honestly so as I was a Unionist. He spent much 
 time in preaching to the Confederate soldiers, and 
 he narrated to me an amusing incident which illus- 
 trated his calm and imperturbable temperament. On 
 a certain fast-day (appointed by the Confederate
 
 222 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 authorities) he was to preach in a rural church 
 within the Confederate lines. The Northern army 
 was lying so close to them that a battle was immi- 
 nent at any moment. Dr. Palmer had begun his 
 "long prayer," when a Federal shell landed imme- 
 diately under the windows of the church and ex- 
 ploded with a terrific crash ! The doctor was not to 
 be shelled out of his duty, and he went steadily on to 
 the end of his prayer. When he opened his eyes the 
 house was deserted! His congregation had slipped 
 quietly out, and left him "alone in his glory." 
 
 Soon after my visit to New Orleans, my old 
 friend was sorely bereaved by the death of his wife. 
 I wrote him a letter of condolence, and his reply 
 was, for sweetness and sublimity, worthy of Sam- 
 uel Rutherford or Richard Baxter. As both hus- 
 band and wife are now reunited I venture to pub- 
 lish a portion of this wonderful letter both as a 
 message of consolation to others under a similar be- 
 reavement and as a tribute to the great loving 
 heart of Benjamin M. Palmer. 
 
 He says : "Truly my sorrow is a sorrow wholly by 
 itself. What is to be done with a love which be- 
 longs only to one, when that one is gone and can- 
 not take it up ? It cannot perish, for it has become a 
 part of our own being. What shall we do with a 
 lost love which wanders like a ghost through all the 
 chambers of the soul only to feel how empty they
 
 SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS. 223 
 
 are? I have about me blessed be God! a dear 
 daughter and grandchildren; but I cannot divide this 
 love among them, for it is incapable of distribu- 
 tion. What remains but to send it upward until it 
 finds her to whom it belongs by right of concentra- 
 tion through more than forty years. 
 
 "I will not speak, my brother, of my pain let that 
 be; it is the discipline of love, having its fruit in what 
 is to be. But I will tell you how a gracious Father 
 fills this cloud with Himself and covering me in it, 
 takes me into His pavilion. It is not what I would 
 have chosen ; but in this dark cloud I know better 
 what it is to be alone with Him ; and how it is best 
 sometimes to put out the earthly lights, that even 
 the sweetest earthly love may not come between 
 Him and me. It is the old experience of love break- 
 ing through the darkness as it did long ago through 
 the terrors of Sinai and the more appalling gloom o r 
 Calvary. I have this to thank Him for, the greatest of 
 all His mercies, and then for this, that He gave her 
 to me so long. The memories of almost half a cen- 
 tury encircle me as a rainbow. I can feed upon them 
 through the remainder of a short, sad life, and after 
 that can carry them up to Heaven with me and pour 
 them into song forever. If the strings of the harp 
 are being stretched to a greater tension, it is that the 
 praise may hereafter rise to higher and sweeter notes 
 before His throne a? we bow together there."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 \ 
 
 SUMMERING AT SARATOGA AND MOHONK. 
 
 Bishop Haven. Dr. Schaff. President McCosh. 
 
 To the laborious pastor of a large congregation 
 some period of recuperation during the summer is 
 absolutely indispensable. The cavalry officer who, 
 when hotly pursued by the enemy, discovered that 
 his saddle-girths had become loose, and dismounted 
 long enough to tighten them, was a wise man, and 
 affords a good example to us ministers. 
 
 It was my custom to call a halt, lock my study 
 door (stowing away my pastoral cares in a drawer) 
 and go away for five or six weeks, and sometimes 
 a little longer. A sea voyage was undertaken dur- 
 ing half a dozen vacations, but during a portion of 
 forty-two summers I "pitched my moving tent" in 
 salubrious Saratoga, and a part of twenty-one sum- 
 mers was spent on the heights of Mohonk. 
 
 As this volume is issued in London as well as 
 in New York, I will mention some things in this 
 chapter for my British readers with which many 
 of my own fellow-countrymen may be already fa- 
 miliar. There were several reasons that induced 
 224
 
 SUMMERING AT SARATOGA AND MOHONK. 225 
 
 me to select Saratoga early in my ministry as the 
 best place to spend a part of the summer vacation. 
 It is the most widely known the world over of any 
 of our American watering places and is an exceed- 
 ingly beautiful town. Its spacious Broadway, lined 
 with stately elms, is one of the most sightly avenues 
 in our land ; and some of the superb hotels that front 
 upon it fulfill the American demand for "bigness." 
 The most attractive spot to me has always been the 
 beautiful park that surrounds the famous Congress 
 Spring, and to which every morning I made my very 
 early pilgrimage for my draught of its sparkling 
 water. 
 
 The park covers but a few acres, but it is a con- 
 tinuous loveliness. When its rich, soft greensward 
 worthy of Yorkshire or Devonshire was spar- 
 kling with the dew, and the fountains were in full 
 play, and the goodly breeze was singing through 
 the trees, it was a place in which to chant Dr. Ar- 
 nold's favorite hymn: 
 
 "Come, my soul, thou must be waking; 
 Now is breaking 
 O'er the earth another day: 
 Come to Him who made this splendor, 
 See thou render 
 All thy feeble strength can pay." 
 
 The second reason for my choice of Saratoga was 
 the variety of the wonderful medicinal waters, and
 
 226 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 their renovating effects. "I can winter better," 
 said Governor Buckingham, "for even a short sum- 
 mer at Saratoga," and my experience was quite 
 similar. I honestly believe that those waters have 
 prolonged my life. In addition to the many health 
 fountains which have been veritable Bethesdas to 
 multitudes, the dry, bracing atmosphere is perfumed 
 and tempered by the breezes from the pine forests 
 of the Adirondack Mountains. While some are at- 
 tracted to Saratoga by the waters and others by the 
 air, I found both of them equally beneficial. As 
 far as its social life is concerned, there are, as in all 
 summer resorts, two very different descriptions of 
 guests. One class are devotees of fashion, who go 
 there to gratify the "lust of the eye, and the pride 
 of life." They drive by day and dance by night; 
 but some devotees of pleasure have yielded too 
 much to the ensnarements of the gaming table and 
 the race course. There is another and a more nu- 
 merous class made up of quiet business men and 
 their families, clergymen, college professors and 
 persons in impaired health, who go for recreation 
 or recuperation. From this latter class, and in some 
 measure indeed from the former also, the churches 
 of the town attract very large congregations. It has 
 been my privilege to deliver a little more than two 
 hundred sermons in Saratoga, and there is no place 
 in which I have found that a faithful and practical
 
 SUMMERING AT SARATOGA AND MOHONK. 227 
 
 presentation of the "word of life" is more eagerly 
 welcomed. It is no place to exhibit a show sermon 
 on dress parade, but it is the very one in which to 
 press home the word on hearts and consciences, to 
 arouse the impenitent, to give tonic truth to the 
 weak and the weary, to afford the word of comfort 
 to the sorrowing and soul-food to the many who 
 hunger for the heavenly manna. I have already 
 narrated some of my pleasant experiences in preach- 
 ing at Saratoga, and I could add to them several 
 other interesting incidents. 
 
 For about thirty summers, and occasionally in 
 the winter, I found a happy home at Dr. Strong's 
 "Remedial Institute" on Circular Street. This is a 
 family hotel during the summer, and a sanitarium 
 during the remainder of the year. Every morning 
 the guests assemble for worship, and the intolerable 
 trio of fashion, frivolity and fiddles, has never in- 
 vaded the refined and congenial atmosphere of the 
 house. My host, Dr. Strong, is an active member 
 of the Methodist Church in that town, and naturally 
 a large number of ministers of that denomination 
 are his summer guests. This was very pleasant for 
 me, for, although I am loyally attached to my own 
 "clan," yet I have a peculiarly warm side for the 
 ecclesiastical followers of the Wesleys, and am some 
 times introduced in their conferences as a "Metho- 
 distical Presbyterian." At Dr. Strong's I met many
 
 228 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 of the leading Methodist ministers, and was exceed- 
 ingly "filled with their company." I met, among 
 others, the sweet-spirited Bishop Jaynes, who always 
 seemed to be a legitimate successor of the beloved 
 disciple John. If Bishop Jaynes recalled the 
 apostle John, let me say that the venerated father 
 of my kind host and the founder of the Sanitarium, 
 the late Dr. Sylvester S. Strong, was such an imper- 
 sonation of charming courtesy and fervid spirit- 
 uality that he might be a counterpart of "Luke 
 the beloved physician." He was an admirable 
 preacher before he entered the medical profession. 
 Bishop Peck was a very entertaining companion 
 and most fraternal in his warmheartedness. He 
 was a man of colossal proportions, and it was 
 quite proper that he was appointed to the charge 
 of the churches in the wide regions of Cali- 
 fornia and Oregon. When he came thence to the 
 General Conference, he presented his protuberant 
 figure to the assembly, and began with the humorous 
 announcement, "The Pacific slope salutes you !" On 
 that same "slope" I discovered last year that 
 Methodism has outgrown even the formidable pro- 
 portions of my old friend Dr. Peck. 
 
 At Saratoga I first met the eloquent Apollos of 
 American Methodism, Bishop Matthew Simpson. 
 Those who ever heard Henry Clay in our Senate 
 chamber, or Dr. Thomas Guthrie in Scotland, have
 
 SUMMERING AT SARATOGA AND MOHONK. 225 
 
 a very distinct idea of what Simpson was at his 
 flood-tide of irresistible oratory. He resembled both 
 of those great orators in stature and melodious 
 voice, in graceful gesture, and in the magnificent 
 enthusiasm that swept everything before him. Like 
 all that type of fascinating speakers to which even 
 Gladstone belonged he was rather to be heard than 
 to be read. It is enough that a Gospel preacher 
 should produce great immediate impressions on his 
 auditors ; it is not necessary that he should produce 
 a finished and permanent piece of literature. Bishop 
 Simpson was the bosom friend of Abraham Lin- 
 coln, and on more than one occasion he knelt beside 
 our much harassed President and prayed for the 
 strength equal to the day of trial. 
 
 Among all the guests there was none to whom 
 I was more closely and lovingly drawn than to 
 Bishop Gilbert Haven. None shed off such splen- 
 did scintillations in our evening colloquies on the 
 piazzas. Haven was not comparable with his asso- 
 ciate, Bishop Simpson, in pulpit oratory, for he was 
 rarely an effective public speaker on any occasion, 
 but in brilliancy of thought, which made him in con- 
 versation like the charge of an electric battery, and 
 in brilliancy of pen, that kindled everything it 
 touched, he was without a rival in the Methodist 
 Church or almost in any other church in the land. 
 Consistently and conscientiously a radical, he always
 
 230 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 took extreme ground on such questions as negro 
 rights, female suffrage, and liquor prohibition, and 
 he never retreated. Underneath all this impulsive 
 and impetuous radicalism he was thoroughly old- 
 fashioned and orthodox in his theology as far 
 from Calvinism as any Wesleyan usually is. He did 
 delight in the doctrines of grace with his whole 
 heart, and it is all the more grateful to me, as a 
 Presbyterian, to pay this honest tribute to his deeply 
 devout and Christ-like character. I knew him when 
 he was a student in the Wesleyan University at 
 Middletown somewhat rustic in his ways, but a 
 bold, bright youth hungry for knowledge. In 1862 
 he published a series of foreign letters in the New 
 York Independent, which Horace Greeley told me 
 he regarded as most remarkable productions. Dur- 
 ing the summer of that year I was watching the sun 
 rise from the summit of the Righi in Switzerland, 
 and was accosted by a sandy-haired man in an old 
 oilcloth overcoat who asked for some explanation 
 about the mountain within our view. At the foot of 
 the Righi I fell in with him again, and was struck 
 with his original and vigorous thought. The same 
 evening he marched into my room at the "Schweit- 
 zer-Hoff," dripping with the rain, and introduced 
 himself as "Gilbert Haven." We ministered to the 
 few Americans whom we could find in Lucerne, and 
 held a prayer meeting on the Sabbath evening in
 
 SUMMERING AT SARATOGA AND MOHONK. 231 
 
 Haven's room for our far-away country in her dark 
 hour of distress. On that evening began a friend- 
 ship which waxed warmer and warmer until death 
 sundered the tie for a little while; the same hand 
 that sundered can reunite us. 
 
 I am under a strong temptation to give my 
 reminiscences of many notable persons whom I was 
 wont to meet at Saratoga, such as the urbane ex- 
 President Martin Van Buren, and that noble Chris- 
 tian statesman, Vice-President Henry Wilson, and 
 the cheery old poet John Pierpont, and the erudite 
 Horatio B. Hackett, of Newton Theological Semi- 
 nary and the level-headed Miss Catherine E. 
 Beecher, and the gifted Queen of the great temper- 
 ance sisterhood, Miss Frances E Willard, and 
 General Batcheler, the able American Judge, at 
 Cairo, and that extraordinary combination of 
 courage, orthodox faith, and brilliant platform elo- 
 quence the late Joseph Cook, of Ticonderoga. I 
 would like also to attempt a description of the 
 gorgeous "Floral Festivals," which are celebrated 
 in every September, when the streets of the town 
 blaze with processions of vehicles decorated with 
 flowers, and the sidewalks and house-fronts are 
 packed with thousands of delighted spectators; but 
 if "of making many books there is no end," there 
 ought to be a proper end in the making of a book. 
 In the course of my life I may have done some very
 
 232 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 foolish things, and quite too many sinful things, but 
 I have always endeavored to avoid doing too long a 
 thing, if it were possible. 
 
 During the last twenty-three years I have spent a 
 portion of almost every summer at Mohonk Lake 
 Mountain House, a hostlery equally celebrated for 
 the culture of its guests and charms of its scenery. 
 It is situated on a spur of the Shawangunk Moun- 
 tains, about six miles from New Paltz, on the Wall- 
 kill Valley Railway. Its discoverer and proprietor is 
 Albert K. Smiley, who was for many years presi- 
 dent of a Quaker Ladies Academy in Providence, 
 R. L, and is a gentleman of fine scholarship and 
 varied attainments. He is quite equal to discussing 
 geology with Professor Guyot (from whom one 
 of the highest hilltops near his house is named), or 
 art with Huntingdon, or botany or landscape garden- 
 ing with Frederick L. Olmstead, or theology with 
 Dr. Schaff, or questions of philanthropy with Gen- 
 eral Armstrong or Booker T. Washington. 
 
 The distinctive character of the house is that there 
 is a notable absence of what is regarded as the chief 
 attractions of some fashionable summer resorts. 
 Neither bar nor bottles nor ball-room nor bands are 
 to be found in this Christian home; for a home 
 it is in its restful and refining influences. The 
 young people find no lack of innocent enjoyment in 
 the bowling alley or on the golf links, in the tennis
 
 SUMMERING AT SARATOGA AND MOHONK. 233 
 
 tournaments or in rowing upon the lake, with fre- 
 quent regattas. Instead of the midnight dance the 
 evening hours are made enjoyable by social conver- 
 sation, by musical entertainments, by parlor lectures 
 and other interesting pastimes. The Sabbath at 
 Mohonk realizes old George Herbert's description 
 of the 
 
 "Sweet day so cool, so calm, so bright, 
 The bridal of the earth and sky ;" 
 
 Not a boat is loosened from its wharf on the lake ; 
 not a carriage is geared up for a pleasure drive, and 
 many a guest has learned how a Sabbath spent with- 
 out the introduction of either business cares or fri- 
 volities may be a joyous refreshment to both body 
 and soul. The spacious parlor is always crowded 
 for the service of worship on every morning during 
 the week and also on the Sabbath. I can testify that 
 on the three-score Sabbaths when I have been called 
 upon to conduct the services, I have never found 
 a more inspiring auditory. 
 
 It is no easy thing to put the external beauties 
 of Mohonk upon paper. The estate covers four 
 thousand acres, and is intersected with about fifty 
 miles of fine carriage drives. The garden, which con- 
 tains a dozen acres, is ablaze during the most of the 
 season with millions of flowers many of them of 
 rare variety. As the glory of Saratoga is its springs, 
 of Lake George its islands, of Trenton Falls the
 
 234 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 amber hue of its waters, so the glory of Mohonk 
 is its rocks. The little lake is a crystal cup cut out 
 of the solid conglomerated quartz. Its shores are 
 steep quartz rocks rising fifty feet perpendicularly 
 from the water. The face of "Sky Top" is heaped 
 around with enormous boulders some thirty feet in 
 diameter. In among them extend rocky labyrinths 
 which can be explored with torches. On every hand 
 are immense masses of Shawangunk grit hurled to- 
 gether over the cliff as if with the convulsions of an 
 earthquake. Upon these acres of rock around the 
 lake grow the most luxuriant lichens and the for- 
 ests in June are efflorescent with laurels and azalias. 
 The finest point of vantage is on Eagle Cliff ; I have 
 climbed there often to see the sun go down in a blaze 
 of glory behind the Catskill Mountains. The 
 three highest peaks of the Catskills Hunter, Slide, 
 and Peekamoose were in full view, in purple 
 and gold. Beneath me on one side was the verdant 
 valley of Rondout; on the other side the equally 
 beautiful valley of the Wallkill. In the dim distance 
 we could discover the summits of the mountains in 
 Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut and Mas- 
 sachusetts. 
 
 When I took Newman Hall, toward sunset, to a 
 crag or cliff overlooking the lake, he said to me: 
 "Next to Niagara I have seen nothing in America 
 equal to this."
 
 SUMMERING AT SARATOGA AND MOHONK. 235 
 
 Mohonk has been a farvorite summer resort of 
 many of the most distinguished people in our land. 
 The Honorable Rutherford B. Hayes, after his re- 
 tirement from the presidential chair, loved to find 
 recreation in rowing his boat on the lake, and in 
 making the ascent of Sky Top. President Arthur 
 came there during his term of office ; and the widow 
 of General Grant, after spending a fortnight there, 
 pronounced it the most fascinating spot she had ever 
 seen on this continent. Among all the guests who 
 made their summer home there, none contributed 
 more to the intellectual enrichment of the company 
 than my revered Christian friend, Dr. Philip 
 Schaff. No American of our day had such a vast 
 personal acquaintance with celebrated people. Dr. 
 Schaff was the intimate friend of Tholuck, Neander, 
 Godet, Hengstenberg, and Dorner ; he was one day 
 in familiar conversation with Dean Stanley in the 
 Abbey and another day with Gladstone ; another day 
 with Dollinger . in Vienna, and another day with 
 Dr. Pusey at Oxford. The promise, "He shall stand 
 before kings," was often fulfilled to him. The vet- 
 eran Kaiser William had him at the royal table, and 
 gave him intimate interview. The King and Queen 
 of Denmark came on the platform to congratulate 
 him after one of his eloquent speeches, and the 
 Queen of Greece was one of his correspondents. He 
 shook hands with more ministers of all denomina-
 
 236 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 tions, and of all nationalities than any man of this 
 age. He was as cordially treated by Archbishop 
 Canterbury as he was by Bismarck at Berlin or the 
 old Russian Archpriest Brashenski. Dr. Schaff was 
 a prodigy of industry. During half a century he 
 was the foremost church historian of this country; 
 he led the work of the Sabbath Committee, and was 
 the master spirit of the Evangelical Alliance. He 
 edited a volume of hymnology, and wrote catechisms 
 for children ; he filled professors' chairs in two semi- 
 naries and lectured on ecclesiastical history toothers. 
 He published thirty-one volumes and edited two 
 immense commentaries; he was the president of 
 the Committee on Biblical Revision, and he crossed 
 the ocean fourteen times as a fraternal internuncio 
 between the churches of Europe and America. His 
 prodigious capacity for work made Dr. Samuel 
 Johnson seem an idler, and his varied attainments 
 and activities were fairly a match for Gladstone. 
 
 To those of us who knew Dr. Schaff intimately, 
 one of his most attractive traits was his jovial hu- 
 mor and inexhaustible fund of anecdotes. When I 
 made a visit to California journeying with him to 
 the Yosemite his endless stories whiled away the 
 tedium of the trip. How often when he sat down 
 to my own, or any other table, would he tell how his 
 old friend, Neander, when asked to say grace at a 
 dinner, and roast pig was the chief dish, very
 
 SUMMERING AT SARATOGA AND MOHONK. 237 
 
 quaintly said : "O, Lord, if Thou canst bless under 
 the new dispensation what Thou didst curse under 
 the old dispensation, then graciously bless this leetle 
 pig. Amen!" 
 
 Another eminent scholar who was wont to seek 
 recreation at Mohonk was the venerable President 
 McCosh, of Princeton University. Since Scotland sent 
 to Princeton Dr. John Witherspoon to preside over it, 
 and to be one of the signers of the Declaration of 
 Independence, she has sent no richer gift than Dr. 
 James McCosh. For several years before he came 
 to America he was a professor in the Queen's Col- 
 lege at Belfast. Passing through Belfast in 1862, I 
 looked in for a few moments at the Irish Presbyte- 
 rian General Assembly, which was convened in Dr. 
 Cook's church, and said to a man : "Whom can you 
 show me here ?" Pointing to a tall, somewhat stoop- 
 ing figure, standing near the pulpit, he said : "There 
 is McCosh." I replied: "It is worth coming here 
 to see the brightest man in Ireland." What a great, 
 all-round, fully equipped, many-sided mass of splen- 
 did manhood he was ! What a complete combination 
 of philosopher, theologian, preacher, scholar, and 
 college president all rolled into one! During the 
 twenty years of his brilliant career at Princeton he 
 displayed much of Jonathan Edwards' metaphysi- 
 cal acumen, of John Witherspoon's wisdom, Sam- 
 uel Davies' fervor and Dr. "Johnny" McLean's
 
 238 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 kindness of heart; the best qualities of his prede- 
 cessors were combined in him. He came here a 
 Scotchman at the age of fifty-seven, and in a year 
 he became, as Paddy said, "a native American." 
 
 To my mind the chief glory, of Dr. McCosh's 
 presidency at Princeton was the fervid interest he 
 felt in the religious welfare of his students. He 
 often invited me to come over and deliver sermons 
 to them, and occasionally a temperance address ; for 
 he was a zealous teetotaler and prohibitionist, and 
 I always lodged with him at his house. As I turn 
 over my book of correspondence I find many brief 
 letters from him. In the following one he refers 
 to the remarkable revival in the college in the winter 
 and early spring of 1870: 
 
 COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY, 
 
 PRINCETON, Jan. 9, 1873. 
 My dear Dr. Cuyler: 
 
 In the name of the Philadelphian Society, and in my 
 own name, I request you to conduct our service on the 
 day of prayer for colleges, being Thursday the 30th of 
 January. It is three years, if I calculate rightly, since you 
 performed that duty for us. That visit was followed by 
 the blessed work in which you took an active part. May 
 it be the same this year ! The college is in an interesting 
 state: we have a great deal of the spirit of study; there is 
 a meeting for prayer every night except Friday; the class 
 prayer meetings are all well attended, in some of the classes 
 as many as sixty present ; but we need a quickening. I do 
 hope you will come. Our habit is an address of half an
 
 SUMMERING AT SARATOGA AND MOHONK. 239 
 
 hour or so at three P.M. in the college chapel, and a sermon 
 in one of the churches, especially addressed to students, but 
 open to all in the evening. Of course, you will come to my 
 house, and live with me. Yours as ever, 
 
 JAMES McCosH. 
 
 To hundreds of the alumni of Princeton this letter 
 will stir the fountain of old memories. They will 
 hear in it the ring of the old college bell ; they will 
 see the lines of students marching across the campus 
 to evening prayer and into the chapel. Upon the 
 platform mounts the stooping form of grand old 
 "Uncle Jimmie," and in his broad and not unmelo- 
 dious Scotch accents he pours out his big, warm 
 heart in prayer. With honest pride in their Alma 
 Mater, they will thank God that they were trained 
 for the battle of life by James McCosh. 
 
 The limits of this narrative do not allow me to 
 tell of all my delightful "foregather ings" with that 
 venerated Nestor of American art, Daniel Hunt- 
 ington ; and with General James Grant Wilson with 
 his repertoire of racy Scotch stories; and with my 
 true yoke- fellows in the Gospel, Dr. Herrick John- 
 son, Dr. Marvin R. Vincent, and Dr. Samuel J. 
 Fisher and with a group of infinitely witty women 
 who regaled many an evening hour with their merry 
 quips and conundrums. The unwritten law which 
 prevails in that social realm is : "Each for all, and 
 all for each other."
 
 240 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 Mr. Smiley had been for some years a member 
 of the United States Indian Commission, and his 
 experience in that capacity had awakened a deep 
 interest in the welfare of the remaining Aborigines, 
 who had too often been the prey of unscrupulous 
 white men who came in contact with them. About 
 nineteen years ago he conceived the happy idea of 
 calling a conference at Mohonk of those who were 
 conversant with Indian affairs and most desirous to 
 promote their well being. His invitation brought 
 together such distinguished philanthropists as the 
 veteran ex-Senator Henry L. Dawes, General Clin- 
 ton B. Fisk, General Armstrong, the founder of 
 Hampton Institute; Merrill E. Gates, Philip C. 
 Garrett, Herbert Welsh, and that picturesque and 
 powerful friend of the red man, the late Bishop 
 Whipple of Minnesota. The discussions and deci- 
 sions of this annual Mohonk Conference have had 
 immense influence in shaping the legislation and 
 controlling the conduct of our national government 
 in all Indian affairs. It has helped to make 
 history. 
 
 The great success of this conference, which meets 
 in October of each year, led my Quaker friend, 
 Smiley, eight years ago, to inaugurate an "Arbitra- 
 tion conference" for the promotion of international 
 peace. It was a happy thought and has yielded a 
 rich fruitage. About the first of every June this
 
 SUMMERING AT SARATOGA AND MOHONK. 241 
 
 conference brings together such men and women 
 of "light and leading" from all parts of our coun- 
 try as ex-Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont, 
 the Rev. Edward Everett Hale of Boston, the Hon. 
 William J. Coombs, the Hon. Robert Treat Paine, 
 Dr. B. F. Trueblood, John B. Garrett and Joshua 
 L. Bailey, Colonel George E. Waring, Hon. John 
 W. Foster, Chief Justice Nott, Warner Van Nor- 
 den, and a great number of well known clergymen 
 and editors have read able papers or delivered in- 
 structive addresses on that ever burning problem of 
 how to turn swords into plowshares, and spears into 
 pruning hooks. 
 
 I especially sympathize with the spirit of this Ar- 
 bitration conference, not only because I abominate 
 war per se, but because I firmly believe that among 
 the grievous perils that confront our nation is the 
 mania for enormous and costly military and naval 
 armament and also the policy of extending our 
 territory by foreign conquests. The high mission 
 of our Republic is to maintain the fundamental prin- 
 ciples initiated in our Declaration of Independence 
 that all true government rests on the consent of 
 the governed. It is an impious profanation of our 
 flag of freedom to make it the symbol of absolutism 
 on any soil. In the conflict now waging for true 
 American principles, I heartily concur in the views 
 of the late Benjamin Harrison, who was one of the
 
 242 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 most clear-sighted and patriotic of our Presidents. 
 Just before his death I addressed to that noble 
 Christian statesman a letter of heartfelt thanks for 
 the position he was taking. With the following 
 gratifying reply which I received, I conclude my 
 chapter on peace-loving "Smiley-land" : 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS, Dec. 26, 1900. 
 My dear Dr. Cuyler: 
 
 I can hardly tell you how grateful your letter was to me, 
 or how highly I value your approval. My soul has been 
 in revolt against the doctrine of Congressional Absolutism. 
 I want to save my veneration for the men who made us a 
 nation, and organized the nation under the Constitution. 
 This will be impossible if I am to believe that they organ- 
 ized a government to exercise from their place that ab- 
 solutism which they rejected for themselves. The news- 
 paper reports of my Ann Arbor address were most horribly 
 mangled, but the address will appear in the January num- 
 ber of the North American Review. Allow me, my dear 
 friend, to extend to you the heartiest thanks, not only for 
 your kind words, but for the noble life which gives them 
 value. 
 
 With all good wishes of the Christmastide, 
 
 Most sincerely your friend, 
 BENJAMIN HARRISON.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 A RETROSPECT. 
 
 WHEN I entered upon the Christian ministry 
 fifty-six years ago, there was no probability that I 
 would live to see four-score. My father had died at 
 the early age of twenty-eight, and several of his 
 brothers and sisters had succumbed to pulmonary 
 maladies. My mother was dangerously ill several 
 times, but had a wiry constitution and lived to 
 eighty-five. That my own busy life has held out so 
 long is owing, under a kind Providence, to the care- 
 ful observation of the primal laws of health. I have 
 eschewed all indigestible food, stimulants, and in- 
 toxicants; have taken a fair amount of exercise; 
 have avoided too hard study or sermon making in 
 the evenings and thus secured sound and sufficient 
 sleep. In keeping God's commandments written 
 upon the body I have found great reward. From 
 the standpoint of four-score I propose in this chap- 
 ter to take a retrospect of some of the moral and 
 religious movements that have occurred within my 
 memory in several of which I have taken part 
 and I shall note also the changes for better or worse 
 243
 
 244 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 that I have observed. If as an optimist I may some- 
 times exaggerate the good, and minimize the evil 
 things, it is the curse of a pessimist that he can 
 travel from Dan to Beersheba and find nothing but 
 barrenness. 
 
 The first change for the better that I shall speak 
 of is the progress I have seen in church fellowship. 
 The division of the Christian church into denomi- 
 nations is a fixed fact and likely to remain so for a 
 long time to come. Nor is it the serious evil that 
 many imagine. The efficiency of an army is not im- 
 paired by division into corps, brigades and regi- 
 ments, as long as they are united against the com- 
 mon enemy ; neither does the Church of Christ lose 
 its efficiency by being organized on denominational 
 lines, as long as it is loyal to its Divine head, and 
 united in its efforts to overcome evil, and establish 
 the Kingdom of Heaven. Some Christians work 
 all the better in harness that suits their peculiar 
 tastes and preferences. Denominationalism be- 
 comes an evil the moment it degenerates into bitter 
 and bigoted sectarianism. Conflicts between a dozen 
 regiments is suicide to an army. When a dozen 
 denominations strive to maintain their own feeble 
 churches in a community that requires only three 
 or four churches, then sectarianism becomes an un- 
 speakable nuisance. 
 
 I could cite many instances to prove the great
 
 A RETROSPECT. 245 
 
 progress that has been made in church fellowship. 
 For example, my early ministry was in a town in 
 which the Society of Friends had a large meeting 
 house, well filled by a most intelligent, orthodox 
 and devout congregation. But its members never 
 entered any other house of worship. I had the 
 warmest personal intimacy with some of its leading 
 men, but they would say: "We would like to hear 
 thee preach on First Day, but the rules of our so- 
 ciety forbid it." I have lived to see the day when 
 I am invited to speak in Friends' meetings, and I 
 have rejoiced to invite Quaker brothers, and sisters 
 also, to speak in my pulpit. When I visit London, 
 the most eminent living Quaker, J. Bevan Braith- 
 waite, welcomes me to his hospitable house, and we 
 join in prayer together. I wish that the exemplary 
 and useful Society of Friends were more multiplied 
 on both sides of the sea. 
 
 During the early half of the last century sec- 
 tarian controversies ran high, especially in the 
 newly settled West. It was a common custom to 
 hold public discussions in school houses and frontier 
 meeting houses, where controverted topics between 
 denominations were presented by chosen champions 
 before applauding audiences. Ministers fired hot 
 shot at one another's pulpits; churches were often 
 as militant as mendicant, and all those polemics were 
 excused as contending most earnestly for the faith.
 
 246 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 Both sides found their ammunition in the same 
 Bible. When I was a student in the Princeton Sem- 
 inary, a classmate from Kentucky gave me a little 
 hymn-book used at the camp meetings in the fron- 
 tier settlements of his native region. In that book 
 was a hymn, one verse of which contains these 
 sweet and irenic lines: 
 
 "When I was blind, and could not see, 
 The Calvinists deceived me." 
 
 Just imagine the incense of devout praise ascend- 
 ing heavenward in such a thick smoke of sectarian 
 contentions ! All the denominations were more or 
 less afflicted with this controversal malady; and I 
 will venture to say that in Kentucky and Ohio and 
 other new regions, the Presbyterians were often a 
 fair match for their Methodist neighbors in these 
 theological pugilistics. I might multiply illustra- 
 tions of these unhappy clashings and controversies 
 that have often disfigured even the most evangelical 
 branches of Christendom. What a blessed change 
 for the better have I witnessed in my old days! 
 Among the foremost efforts of denominational fel- 
 lowship was the organization of the American Bible 
 Society, the American Tract Society, and the Amer- 
 ican Sunday School Union. Later on in the same 
 century came those two splendid spiritual inven- 
 tions The Young Men's Christian Association, and 
 the Society of Christian Endeavor. Sir George
 
 A RETROSPECT. 247 
 
 Williams, the founder of the one, and Dr. Francis E. 
 Clark, the father of the other, should be commem- 
 orated in a pair of twin statues of purest marble, 
 standing with locked arms and upholding a standard 
 bearing the sacred motto : "One is our Master, even 
 Christ Jesus, and all ye are brethren." To no man 
 are we indebted more deeply than to the now glori- 
 fied Mr. Moody who made Christian fellowship the 
 indispensable feature of all his evangelistic endeav- 
 ors with Brother Sankey leading the grand chorus 
 of united praise. Union meetings for the conversion 
 of souls and seeking the descent of the Holy Spirit 
 are now as common as the observance of Christmas 
 or of Easter Day. Personally I rejoice to say that 
 I have been permitted to preach the Gospel in the 
 pulpits of all the leading denominations, not except- 
 ing the Episcopalian ; and I once welcomed the no- 
 ble and beloved Bishop Charles P. Mcllvaine of 
 Ohio to my Lafayette Avenue Church pulpit, where 
 he pronounced a grand discourse on "The Unity 
 of All Christians in the Lord Jesus Christ." If I 
 lived in England I should be heart and soul a non- 
 conformist. But I can gratefully acknowledge the 
 many kind courtesies which I have received from 
 the clergy of the Established Church. Once, when 
 in London, I was invited to the annual dinner given 
 by the Lord Mayor to the archbishops and bishops, 
 and I found myself the only American clergyman
 
 248 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 present. The Archbishop of Canterbury, when 
 Bishop of London, did me the honor of presiding 
 at a reception given me at Exeter Hall, and when- 
 ever I have met the venerable Dr. Temple I have 
 been cheered by his warm-hearted and "democratic" 
 cordiality of manner. In return for the kindness 
 shown me by my brilliant and scholarly friend, 
 Archdeacon Farrar, I was happy to preside at a re- 
 ception given him in Chickering Hall. He had a 
 wide welcome in our land, but it was as the untir- 
 ing champion of temperance reform that he was 
 especially honored on that evening. He and Arch- 
 deacon Basil Wilberforce are among the leaders in 
 the crusade against the curse of strong drink. Amid 
 some evil portents and perils to the cause of evan- 
 gelical religion, one of the richest tokens for good 
 is this steady increase of interdenominational fel- 
 lowship. For organic unity we need not yet strive ; 
 it is enough that all the regiments and brigades in 
 Christ's covenant hosts march to the same music, 
 fight together under the same standard of Calvary's 
 Cross, and press on, side by side, and shoulder to 
 shoulder, to the final victory of righteousness and 
 truth and human redemption. 
 
 Another change for the better has been the en- 
 largement of woman's sphere of activity in the pro- 
 motion of Christianity and of moral reform. As 
 an illustration of this fact, I may cite a rather unique
 
 A RETROSPECT. 249 
 
 incident in my own experience. During the winter 
 of 1872 I invited Miss Sarah F. Smiley, an eminent 
 and most evangelical minister in the Society of 
 Friends (and a sister of the Messrs. Albert and 
 Daniel Smiley, the proprietors of the Lake Mohonk 
 House) to deliver a religious address in my pulpit. 
 The discourse she delivered was strong in intellect, 
 orthodox in doctrine and fervently spiritual in char- 
 acter; the large audience was both delighted and 
 edified. A neighboring minister presented a com- 
 plaint before the Presbytery of Brooklyn, alleging 
 that my proceeding had been both un-Presbyterian 
 and un- Scriptural. The complainant was not able 
 to produce a syllable of law from our form of gov- 
 ernment forbidding what I had done. Long years 
 before, a General Assembly had recommended that 
 "women should not be permitted to address a pro- 
 miscuous assemblage" in any of our churches; but 
 a mere "deliverance" of a General Assembly has no 
 binding legal authority. 
 
 In my defense I was careful not to advocate the 
 ordination of women to the ministry in the Pres- 
 byterian Church, or their installation in the pasto- 
 rate. I contended that as our confession of faith 
 was silent on the subject, and that as godly women in 
 the early church were active in the promotion of 
 Christianity (one of them named Anna having pub- 
 licly proclaimed the coming Messiah), and that as
 
 850 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 the ministry of my excellent friend, the Quakeress, 
 had for many years been attended by the abundant 
 blessings of the Holy Spirit, my act was rather to 
 be commended than condemned. The discussion be- 
 fore the Presbytery lasted for two days and pro- 
 duced a wide and rather sensational interest over 
 the country. The final vote of the Presbytery, 
 while withholding any censure of my course under 
 the circumstances, was adverse to the practice of 
 permitting women to address "promiscuous audi- 
 ences" in our churches. Two or three years after- 
 wards, a case similar to mine was appealed to the 
 General Assembly and that body wisely decided that 
 such questions should be left to the judgment and 
 conscience of the pastors and church sessions. When 
 the news of this action of the assembly reached us, 
 the old sexton of the Lafayette Avenue Church 
 hoisted (to the great amusement of our people) the 
 stars and stripes on the church tower as a token of 
 victory. It has now become quite customary to in- 
 vite female missionaries, and other godly women, 
 to address audiences composed of both sexes in our 
 churches ; the padlock has been taken off the tongue 
 of any consecrated Christian woman who has a mes- 
 sage from the Master. I invited Miss Willard and 
 Lady Henry Somerset to advocate the Christian 
 grace of temperance from my pulpit ; and if I were 
 still a pastor I should rejoice to invite that good an-
 
 A RETROSPECT. 251 
 
 gel of beneficence, Miss Helen M. Gould, to deliver 
 there such an address as she lately made in the 
 splendid building she has erected for the "Naval 
 Christian Association." 
 
 Foreign missions were in their early and vigorous 
 growth eighty years ago. I rode in our family car- 
 riage to church with Sheldon Dibble and Reuben 
 Tinker, who were just leaving Auburn Theological 
 Seminary to go out as our pioneer missionaries to 
 the Sandwich Islands. The Missionary Herald was 
 taken in a great number of families and read with 
 great avidity. Many of the readers were people 
 who not only devoutly prayed "Thy Kingdom come," 
 but who were willing to stick to a rag carpet, and 
 deny themselves a "Brussels," in order to contribute 
 more to the spread of that Kingdom. Wealth has 
 increased to a prodigious and perilous extent; but 
 the percentage of money given to foreign missions 
 is very far from what it was in the day of my child- 
 hood. It is a growing custom for ministers to utter 
 a prayer over the contribution boxes when they are 
 brought back to the platform before the pulpit; I 
 suspect that it in too many cases should be one of 
 penitential confession. 
 
 While I was a student in the Princeton Seminary 
 we had a visit from the veteran missionary, Levi 
 Spalding, who sailed from Boston to Southern In- 
 dia in the very first band which invaded the dark-
 
 252 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 ness of Hindooism. He was as nearly like my con- 
 ception of the Apostle Paul as anyone I ever beheld. 
 He told us that when he was a youth and his heart 
 was first drawn to the cause of missions, he told his 
 good mother that he had decided upon a missionary 
 life (which was then thought equivalent to a mar- 
 tyrdom), and she was perfectly overcome. He said 
 to her : "Mother, when you gave me as an infant to 
 God in baptism, did you withhold me from any 
 service to which I might be called ?" She assented 
 in a moment went to the old chest from it she 
 took a half-dollar (all the money she possessed in 
 the world), and, handing it to him, said: "Levi, 
 you may go, and this starts you on your education." 
 On his way over to India his preaching converted 
 all the sailors, including the ship's carpenter, "whose 
 heart was as hard as his broadaxe." That was the 
 stuff our first missionaries were made of. The 
 tears flowed down our cheeks as we listened to 
 Spalding's recital, and the result of his visit was 
 that more than one of our students volunteered for 
 the work of foreign missions. 
 
 It was also my great privilege during that 
 Princeton course to put eye upon a man who, by 
 common consent, is regarded as the king of Ameri- 
 can missionaries. On my way from Princeton to 
 Philadelphia in the Christmas week of '45 I found 
 among my fellow passengers a gentleman with a
 
 A RETROSPECT. 253 
 
 very benign countenance, and to my great delight I 
 learned that he was Adoniram Judson, who was on 
 his final and memorable visit to his native land, and 
 was received everywhere with the most unbounded 
 and reverent enthusiasm. He had begun his work 
 in Burmah in 1813, but under great difficulties. 
 During the first six years he made no converts; 
 he defied the demon of discouragement and labored 
 on with increased faith and zeal, and then came an 
 abundant harvest. The colossal work of his life in 
 Burmah was the translation of the Holy Scriptures 
 into the Burmese language. To this work, which is 
 likely to endure, he added a Burmese-English dic- 
 tionary. At length the toils and exposures broke 
 down his health and he was obliged to take several 
 voyages in adjoining waters. Soon after I saw him 
 he married Miss Chubbuck and returned to Burmah 
 in the following year. The old conflict between the 
 holy and heroic heart and failing body was soon 
 renewed. He resorted once more to the sea for re- 
 lief, but died during the passage, on April 12, 1850. 
 When crossing the Atlantic in the summer of 1885 
 I spent much of the time with that noble minister, 
 Rev. Edward Judson, of New York. A funeral at 
 sea occurred, and as the remains were disappearing 
 in the water Mr. Judson said to me, with solemn 
 tenderness : "Just so my beloved father was com- 
 mitted to the deep : his sepulchre is this great, wide
 
 254 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 ocean." That ocean is a type of his world- wide in- 
 fluence. Not only in the priority of time as a fear- 
 less pioneer into unknown dangers, but in profound 
 and patient scholarship, and in the beauty of a holy 
 and lovable personality, Adoniram Judson still 
 hold the primacy among our American missionary 
 heroes. 
 
 The progress which has been made in Christianiz- 
 ing heathendom during the last century (which 
 may well be called the century of foreign missions) 
 is familiar to every person of intelligence. The 
 number of converts to Christianity is at least two 
 millions, and several millions more have felt the in- 
 fluence of Christian civilization. The great mass 
 have not been suddenly revolutionized, as in 
 Luther's time, but one by one individual hearts 
 yield to the gospel in nearly every land. As a seri- 
 ous offset to these glorious results the commerce of 
 nominally Christian nations is often poisonous. 
 Britain carries opium into China and India; Amer- 
 ica and other civilized nations carry rum into Africa. 
 The word of life goes in the cabin, and the worm of 
 death goes in the hold of the same vessel ! The sail- 
 ors that have gone from nominally Christian coun- 
 tries to various ports have often been very far from 
 acting as gospel missionaries. It is not only for 
 their own welfare, but that they may become rep- 
 resentatives of Christianity that the noble "Ameri-
 
 A RETROSPECT. 255 
 
 can Seamen's Friend Society" has been organized. 
 The work which that society has wrought under the 
 vigorous leadership of Dr. Stitt entitles it to the 
 generous support of all our churches. If toiling 
 "Jack" braves the tempest to bring us wealth from 
 all climes, we owe it to him to provide him the an- 
 chor of the gospel, and to save him from spiritual 
 shipwreck. 
 
 To no other benevolent society have I more cheer- 
 fully given service of tongue and pen than to this 
 one. An honest view of the foreign mission enter- 
 prises to-day reveals the laying of broad foundations, 
 and the building of solid walls, rather than any com- 
 pleted achievements already wrought. Blood tells, 
 and God has entrusted his gospel to the Anglo-Sax- 
 ons and the other most powerful races on the globe. 
 The religion of the Bible is the only religion adapted 
 to universal humanity, and in the Bible is a definite 
 pledge that to all humanity that religion shall yet 
 be preached. 
 
 Among the great spiritual agencies born 
 within my memory, none deserves a higher 
 place than The Young Men's Christian Association. 
 When my beloved brother, Sir George Williams 
 (now an octogenarian) started the first association 
 in London on the 6th of June, 1844, he "builded bet- 
 ter than he knew." The modest room in his store 
 overlooking Paternoster Row in which he gath-
 
 256 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 ered the little praying band on that day is already 
 an historic spot. My own connection with the 
 Young Men's Christian Association began in New 
 York when I joined the association there in the sec- 
 ond year of its existence, 1854. We met in a room 
 in Stuyvesant Institute and the heroic Howard 
 Crosby was our president. We had no library, or 
 reading room, or gymnasium, or any of the appli- 
 ances that belong to the institutions of these days. 
 After several migrations, our association found its 
 permanent home in the spacious building on Twenty- 
 third Street, to which Morris K. Jesup and Wil- 
 liam E. Dodge were among the foremost contrib- 
 utors. The master spirit in the operations of the New 
 York Association for thirty years was Mr. Robert 
 McBurney, who, when he landed from Ireland, was 
 only seventeen years of age. He was among my 
 evening congregation in the old Market Street 
 Church. During my seven years' pastorate in that 
 church I delivered a great many discourses and 
 platform addresses on behalf of the association, and 
 through all of the subsequent years it has been a 
 favorite object on which to bestow my humble ef- 
 forts. Here in Brooklyn a host of young men have 
 found a moral shelter, and many of them a spiritual 
 birth-place, in the fine structure, reared largely from 
 the munificent bequests of that princely Christian 
 philanthropist, the late Mr. Frederick Marquand.
 
 A RETROSPECT. 257 
 
 It is not permitted to every good man or woman 
 before they die to see the glorious fruits of the trees 
 they planted, but to the eyes of the veteran George 
 Williams the following facts must seem like a re- 
 hearsal of heaven. The Young Men's Christian As- 
 sociation now belts the globe with half a million of 
 members, and ten times that number in some direct 
 connection with the organization. It is housed in 
 hundreds of solid structures which have cost be- 
 tween thirty and forty million dollars each one 
 a cheerful home a place for physical development, 
 manly instruction and training for Christ's service. 
 
 It has brought thousands of young men from im- 
 penitence to Christ Jesus, and made thousands of 
 young Christians more like Jesus in their daily life. 
 The most effective lay preacher of the century, D. L. 
 Moody, confessed that in his training for spiritual 
 work he owed more to the Young Men's Christian 
 Association than to any other human agency. It has 
 molded the students of colleges and universities ; it 
 has been the salvation of many a soldier and sailor ; 
 it has led many into the gospel ministry; it has 
 taught the whole world the beauty and power of a 
 living unity in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit has 
 set the Divine seal of His blessing on its world-wide 
 work, and to the triune God be all the praise and all 
 the glory. 
 
 As I witnessed the birth of the Young Men's
 
 258 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 Christian Association, I also saw the birth of a kin- 
 dred organization, the "Society of Christian En- 
 deavor." Many years ago an absurd and extrav- 
 agant statement was widely afloat, claiming that I 
 was the "grandsire" of this society. The simple 
 truth was that Dr. Francis E. Clark, its heaven- 
 directed founder, had seen in some religious jour- 
 nals my account of the good work wrought by the 
 Young People's Association of the Lafayette Ave- 
 nue Church, and he recognized the fact that its chief 
 purpose was not mere sociality or literary advance- 
 ment, but the spiritual profit of its members. He 
 examined its constitution and reports, and when he 
 constructed his first Christian Endeavor Society in 
 the Williston Church of Portland, Maine, he adopt- 
 ed many of its features; and my beloved brother 
 Clark, in his public addresses, has generously ac- 
 knowledged such obligation as he was under to our 
 Young People's Association (now in its thirty-fifth 
 year of prosperous activity). It has always been a 
 source of grateful pride that it should have fur- 
 nished any aid to the origination of one of the fore- 
 most spiritual instrumentalities of the century. As 
 any attempt to describe the sublime grandeur of 
 Niagara would be a waste of time, so it would be 
 equally futile for me to describe the magnificent ex- 
 tent of the Christian Endeavor Society's operations 
 and the immense spiritual results that have flowed
 
 A RETROSPECT. 259 
 
 from them. There is no civilized speech or lan- 
 guage where its voice is not heard ; its line has gone 
 out to all the earth, and its words to the ends of the 
 world. It has done more than any other single 
 agency to develop the life and to train for service 
 the energies of the youthful members of the 
 churches. It has yet still wider possibilities before 
 it, and when the hand that planted this mighty tree 
 has turned to dust its boughs will be shedding down 
 the fruits of the Spirit on the dwellers in every 
 clime. 
 
 One of the most striking improvements that I 
 have witnessed has been in the sanitary condition, 
 both physical and moral, of our great cities. The 
 conditions in New York, when I came to the pas- 
 torate of the Market Street Church almost fifty 
 years ago, would seem incredible to the New York- 
 ers of to-day. The disgusting depravities of the 
 Fourth Ward, afterwards made familiar by the re- 
 formatory efforts of Jerry McCauley, were then in 
 full blast, defying all police authority and outrag- 
 ing common decency. The most hideous sink of in- 
 iquity and loathsome degradation was in the once 
 famous "Five Points," in the heart of the Sixth 
 Ward and within a pistol shot of Broadway. At the 
 time of my coming to New York public attention 
 had been drawn to that quarter with the opening of 
 the "Old Brewery Mission," and by the first plant-
 
 260 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 ing of a kindred enterprise which grew into the now 
 well-known "Five Points House of Industry." The 
 brave projector of this enterprise was the Rev. L. 
 M. Pease, a hero whose name ought not to be for- 
 gotten. As my church was just off East Broadway, 
 and within a short walk of the Five Points, I took a 
 deep interest in Mr. Pease's Christian undertaking, 
 and aided him by every means in my power. His 
 wife became a member of my church. The "Wild 
 Maggie," whose escapades described in the Tribune 
 gained such public notoriety, became also, after her 
 reformation, one of our church members and after- 
 wards held the position of a school teacher. After 
 the resignation of Mr. Pease and his removal to 
 North Carolina, his place was taken by one of our 
 Market Street elders, the devout and godly minded 
 Benjamin R. Barlow. In order to keep awake pub- 
 lic interest in the mission work at the Five Points, 
 and to get ammunition, in its behalf, I used to make 
 nocturnal explorations of some of those satanic 
 quarters. I recall now one of those midnight forays 
 of which, at the risk of my reader's olfactories, I 
 will give a brief glimpse. In company with the su- 
 perintendent of the mission and a policeman and a 
 lad with a lantern I struck for the "Cow Bay," the 
 classic spot of which Charles Dickens had given 
 such a piquant description in his "American Notes" 
 a few years before. Climbing a stairway, from
 
 A RETROSPECT. 261 
 
 which the banisters had long been broken away for 
 firewood, we entered a dark room. There was only 
 a tallow candle burning in the corner, and in the 
 room were huddled twenty-five human beings. 
 Along the walls were ranged the bunks one above 
 the other covered with rotting quilts and unwashed 
 coverings. Each of these rented for sixpence a 
 night to any thief or beggar who chose to apply for 
 lodging no distinction being made for sex or color. 
 As the lad swings the lantern about we spy the rows 
 of heads projecting from under the stacks of rags. 
 In one bed a gray-haired, disheveled head cuddled 
 close to the yellow locks of a slumbering child. 
 While we are reconnoitering, something like a 
 huge dog runs past and dives under the bed. "What 
 is this, good friend ?" we ask. "Oh, only the goat," 
 replied a merry Milesian. "Do the goats live with 
 you all in this room ?" "To be sure they do, sir ; we 
 feeds 'em tater skins, and milks 'em for the babies." 
 Country born as we were, we have often longed 
 to keep a dairy in this city, but it never occurred 
 to us that a bedroom was sufficient for the purpose. 
 Truly, necessity is the shrewd-witted mother of in- 
 vention! Opposite "Cow Bay" was "Cut-Throat 
 Alley." Two murders a year were about the average 
 product of the civilization of this dark defile. The 
 keeper of the famous grog shop there, who died 
 about that time, left a fortune of nearly one hun-
 
 262 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 dred thousand dollars. In city politics the keeper of 
 such a den is one of the leaders of public opin- 
 ion. We climbed a stairway, dark and dangerous, 
 till at length we reached the wretched garret 
 through whose open chinks the snow drifted in 
 upon the floor. Beside the single broken stove, the 
 only article of furniture in the apartments, sat a 
 wretched woman wrapped in a tattered shawl moan- 
 ing over a terrible burn that covered her arms ; she 
 had fallen when intoxicated upon the stove and no 
 one had cared enough to carry her to the hospital. 
 She exclaimed, "For God's sake, gentlemen, can't 
 you give me a glass of gin ?" A half eaten crust lay 
 by her and a cold potato or two, but the irresistible 
 thirst clamored for relief before either pain or hun- 
 ger. "Good woman," said my friend, "where's 
 Mose?" "Here he is." A heap of rags beside her 
 was uncovered, and there lay the sleeping face of an 
 old negro, apparently of fifty. In nearly every gar- 
 ret we entered practical amalgamation was in fash- 
 ion. The superintendent told me that the negroes 
 were fifty per cent, in advance of the Irish as to so- 
 briety and decency. Descending from the garret we 
 entered a crowded cellar. The boy's lantern shone 
 on the police officer's cap and buttons. A crash was 
 heard, and the window at the opposite end of the 
 cellar was shattered and a mass of riddled glass fell 
 on the floor. "Poor fool!" exclaimed the police-
 
 A RETROSPECT. 263 
 
 man, "he thinks we are after him, but I will have 
 him before morning." From these sickening scenes 
 of squalor, misery and crime what a relief it was 
 for us to return to the House of Industry, with its 
 neat school room and its capacious chapel and its 
 row of little children marching up to their little 
 beds. It was like going into the light-house after 
 the storm. 
 
 I have drawn this pen picture of but a part of 
 the shocking revelations of that night, not only that 
 my readers may know what kind of work I often 
 engaged in during my New York pastorate, but 
 that they may also know what kind of city I labored 
 in. New York is not to-day in sight of the millen- 
 nium ; it still has a fearful amount of vice and heath- 
 enism; and the self-denying men who are conduct- 
 ing the "University Settlement," and the Christ- 
 serving "King's Daughters," who are giving their 
 lives to the salvation of the poor in the Seventh 
 Ward are doing as apostolic a work as any mission- 
 ary on the Congo. Nevertheless it is true that a 
 "Cow Bay," or an "Old Brewery," or a "Cut-Throat 
 Alley" is no more possible to-day in New York than 
 the building of a powder factory in the middle of 
 Central Park. The progress Jn sanitary purification 
 has been most remarkable. 
 
 This narrative of the sanitary and moral reform 
 wrought in the Five Points reminds me of another
 
 264 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 good man whom the people of this city and our 
 whole country cannot revere too highly as a public 
 benefactor. I allude to Mr. Anthony Comstock, the 
 indefatigable Secretary of the "Society for the Pre- 
 vention of Vice." I knew him well when he was a 
 clerk in a dry goods store on Broadway, and when 
 he undertook his first purifying efforts, I little sup- 
 posed that he was to achieve such reforms. It was 
 an Augean stable indeed that he set about cleans- 
 ing. Fifty years ago our city was flooded by ob- 
 scene literature which sought no concealment. The 
 vilest books and pictures were openly sold in the 
 streets, and an enormous traffic was waged in what 
 may be called the literature of hell. Such a cour- 
 ageous crusade against those abominations and 
 against the gambling dens, by Mr. Comstock even 
 at the risk of personal violence and in defiance of 
 the most malignant opposition entitles him to a 
 place among our veritable heroes. At a time when 
 deeds of military prowess receive such adulation, 
 and when the "man on horseback" outstrips the man 
 on foot in the race for popular favor, it is well 
 to teach our young men that he who takes up 
 arms against the principalities and powers of 
 darkness, and makes his own life the savior of 
 other lives, wins a knightly crown of heavenly 
 honor that outshines the stars, and "fadeth not 
 away."
 
 A RETROSPECT. 265 
 
 The most unique organization that has been 
 formed in our time for the evangelizing of the 
 lost masses is the "Salvation Army." When I was 
 in London, in the summer of 1885, I attended one 
 of their monster meetings in Exeter Hall. There 
 was an enormous military band on the platform be- 
 hind the rostrum. Their Commander-in-Chief, Gen- 
 eral Booth, presided a tall, thin, nervous man, who 
 looked more like an old-fashioned Kentucky reviv- 
 alist than an Englishman. His bright-eyed and 
 comely wife, Mrs. Catharine Booth, was with him. 
 She was a woman of remarkable intellectual force 
 and spiritual character, as all must acknowledge 
 who have read her biography. Her speech (on the 
 Protection of Young Girls) was finely composed 
 and finely delivered, and quite threw into the shade 
 a couple of members of Parliament who spoke from 
 the same platform on the same evening. When she 
 made any telling point that awakened applause, her 
 husband leaped up, and gave the signal: "Fire a 
 volley!" Whereupon his troops gave a tremendous 
 cheer, followed by a roll of drums and a blast of 
 trumpets. The chief agency which the army em- 
 ploys to gather its audiences is music whether it 
 be the rattling of the tambourine, or the martial 
 sound of a brass band. Some of their hymns are lit- 
 tle better than pious doggerel, and they do not hes- 
 itate to add to Perronet's grand hymn, "All hail the
 
 266 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 power of Jesus name," such a stanza as the follow- 
 ing: 
 
 "Let our soldiers never tire, 
 
 In streets, in lane, in hall, 
 The red-hot Gospel's shot to fire 
 
 And crown Him Lord of All." 
 
 Grotesque as are some of the methods of this 
 novel organization, I cannot but admire their zeal 
 and courage in dredging among the submerged 
 masses with such spiritual apparatus as they can 
 devise. They are doing a work that God has hon- 
 ored, and that has reached and rescued a vast num- 
 ber of outcasts. Their chief weakness is that they 
 appeal mainly to the emotions, and give too little 
 solid instruction to their ignorant hearers. Their 
 chief danger is that when the strong arm of their 
 founder is taken away he may not leave successors 
 who can hold the army together. Let us hope and 
 pray that the period of their usefulness may yet 
 be protracted. 
 
 While an abnormal agency, like the Salvation 
 Army, may do some useful service among the occu- 
 pants of the slums, the greater work of reaching and 
 evangelizing the immense mass of plain, humble 
 working people must be done by the churches them- 
 selves. What do the dwellers in the by-streets and 
 the tenement houses need ? They need precisely what
 
 A RETROSPECT. 267 
 
 the dwellers in the brown stone houses on fine ave- 
 nues need a sanctuary to worship in, a Sunday 
 school for their children, a preacher to give them 
 the Gospel, and a pastor to visit them and watch 
 over them in short, a spiritual home. As for 
 bringing the poorer class of the back streets into 
 the elegant churches on the fashionable avenues it 
 is an absurdity; both geography and human nature 
 are against it. The plainly dressed laborers of the 
 back districts could not come to the fine churches 
 on Fifth Avenue, or similar streets, because these 
 edifices are already occupied by their regular pew 
 holders; they would not come, for they would not 
 feel at home there. Since the humbler toiling 
 classes will not come to the sanctuaries occupied by 
 the rich, the only true Christian policy is for the 
 rich churches to build and maintain plenty of at- 
 tractive auxiliary chapels in the regions occupied 
 by those humbler classes. Not mean and unattract- 
 ive soup-house style of chapels should they be, 
 either they ought to be handsome, cheerful, well- 
 appointed sanctuaries, manned by godly pastors 
 who are not above the business of saving souls that 
 are clad in dirty shirts. And that is not all : the 
 members of the wealthy churches which rear the 
 auxiliary chapels should personally go and attend 
 the services and Sunday schools and weekly meet- 
 ings in the chapel not go in costly raiment that
 
 268 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 touches the pride of God's poor, but in plain clothes 
 and with a hearty democratic sympathy in their 
 whole bearing. To reach the masses we must go 
 after them and then stay with them when we get 
 there. If broadcloth religion waits for poverty and 
 ignorance to cross the chasm to it, then may they 
 at last come to be a menace to the safety of society 
 with imprecations on it for criminal neglect. Chris- 
 tianity must build the bridge across the chasm, and 
 then keep its steady procession crossing over it with 
 bright lamps for dark homes, and Bibles for darker 
 souls, and bread for hungry mouths, and, what is 
 best of all, personal intercourse and personal sym- 
 pathy. The music of a Christmas carol would be 
 very sweet in poverty's garret; the advent of the 
 living Jesus in the persons of His true-hearted fol- 
 lowers would be a "Merry Christmas" all the year 
 round. 
 
 Brooklyn is not a city of slums, nor does it abound 
 with the sky-scraping tenement houses, like those 
 in which the myriads of New York live; but we 
 have a large population of wage-earners of the hum- 
 bler class. These mainly occupy streets by them- 
 selves. In order to do our part in giving the bread 
 of life to these worthy people, Lafayette Avenue 
 Church has always maintained two, and sometimes 
 three, auxiliary chapels. Of these, the "Cuyler 
 Chapel," built and supported entirely by our Young
 
 A RETROSPECT. 269 
 
 People's Association, is a fair representative. It 
 has an excellent preacher, who visits the plain peo- 
 ple in their homes; it has a well-equipped Sunday 
 school prayer meetings, kindergarten its own So- 
 ciety of Christian Endeavor, and King's Daughters, 
 its penny savings bank and its temperance society 
 in short, every appliance essential to a Christian 
 church. Many others of our strong Brooklyn 
 churches are working precisely on the same prac- 
 tical, common-sense lines. If all the wealthy 
 churches in New York would illuminate the darker 
 quarters of that city with a hundred well-manned 
 light-houses, well provided with the soul-saving 
 apparatus of the poor man's Gospel they would do 
 more to silence the cavils against Christianity, and 
 more to bridge the chasm between the rich and the 
 poor than by any of the superficial methods of the 
 "Humanitarians." What a poor man wants is not 
 only a clean shirt, a clean home, and a clean account 
 on Saturday night; he wants a clean character and 
 a clean soul for this world and the next. Christianity 
 makes a sad mistake if it is satisfied to give him a 
 full stomach, and leave him with a starving soul. 
 
 In recent years we have heard much about the 
 "Institutional Church" as the long sought panacea. 
 It is claimed by some persons that the churches can- 
 not succeed unless they add to ordinary spiritual 
 instrumentalities, various useful annexes, such as
 
 270 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 reading rooms, kindergartens, dispensaries, and 
 certain social entertainments. But it is a note- 
 worthy fact that the chief pioneer in "Institutional" 
 methods was the late Charles Haddon Spurgeon, 
 and he was the prince of old-fashioned gospel 
 preachers. He never thought of his orphanage, and 
 other benevolent adjuncts of the Metropolitan Tab- 
 ernacle as substitutes for the sovereign purpose of 
 his holy work, which was to convert the people to 
 Jesus Christ. He subordinated the physical, the men- 
 tal, and the social to the spiritual ; and rightly judged 
 that making clean hearts was the best way to secure 
 clean homes and clean lives. I have no doubt that 
 a very strong, well-manned and thoroughly spirit- 
 ually managed church may wisely maintain as many 
 adjuncts, such as reading-rooms, libraries, dispen- 
 saries, kindergartens and other humanitarian annexes 
 as it has the means to support. An illustration of this 
 is seen in the successful and Heaven-blessed Bethany 
 Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, founded and 
 maintained and guided by that hundred-handed 
 Briareus in the service of Christ my beloved 
 friend, the Hon. John Wanamaker. The aim of that 
 great church and its well-known Sunday School, is 
 to make people happy by making them better, and 
 to save them for this world after saving them for 
 another world. When a church has the spiritual 
 purposes and spiritual power of the London Tab-
 
 A RETROSPECT. 271 
 
 ernacle and the Bethany Church, and is guided by 
 a Spurgeon or a Wanamaker, it may safely become 
 "institutional." But some experiments that have 
 been made to establish churches of that name in this 
 country have not always been conspicuously suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 In taking this, my retrospective view at four- 
 score, I have noted many heart-cheering tokens of 
 social and religious progress, and many splendid 
 mechanical and material inventions to make the 
 world better and happier. Yet I have also seen 
 some painful symptoms of decline and deterioration. 
 All the changes have not been for the better ; some 
 have been decidedly for the worse. For example, 
 while there is an increase in the number of the Chris- 
 tian churches, there is a lamentably steady diminution 
 of attendance at places of religious worship. Care- 
 ful investigation shows a constant falling off in 
 church attendance both in the large towns, and 
 in the rural districts. In spite of the blessed influ- 
 ence of the Sunday School, the Young Men's Chris- 
 tian Association and Christian Endeavor, there is 
 an increasing swing of young people away from the 
 House of God, and therefore from soul-saving in- 
 fluences. The Sabbath is not as generally kept 
 sacred as formerly. One of the indications of this 
 sad fact is a decrease in church attendance, and an- 
 other is the enormous increase in the secular and
 
 272 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 godless Sunday newspapers. Materialism and 
 Mammonism work against spiritual religion, and 
 the social customs which wealth brings are ad- 
 verse to a spiritual life. As one illustration of this 
 a distinguished pastor said to me: "Forty years 
 ago my people lived plainly, were ready for earnest 
 Christian work, and attended our devotional meet- 
 ings; now they have grown rich, our work flags, 
 and our weekly services are almost deserted." 
 Half-day religion is on the increase almost every- 
 where. Sporting and gambling are more rife than 
 formerly. What is still worse, the gambling ele- 
 ment enters more largely into transactions of trade 
 and traffic. Divorces have become more easy and 
 abundant, and, as Mr. Gladstone once said to me: 
 "This tends to sap one of the very foundations of 
 society." All these are deplorable evils to which 
 none but a fool will shut his eyes and by which 
 none but a coward will be frightened. God reigns, 
 even if the devil is trying to. The practical ques- 
 tions for every one of us are : how can I become 
 better? How can I help to make this old sinning 
 and sobbing world the better also?
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A RETROSPECT, CONTINUED. 
 
 As I look over the changes that half a century 
 has wrought in the social life of my beloved coun- 
 try, I see some which awaken satisfaction others 
 which are not so exhilarating. The enormous and 
 rapid increase of wealth is unparalleled in human 
 history. In my boyhood, millionaires were rare; 
 there were hardly a score of them in any one of our 
 cities. The two typical rich men were Stephen 
 Girard in Philadelphia and John Jacob Astor in 
 New York; and their whole fortunes were not 
 equal to the annual income of several of the rich 
 men of to-day. Some of our present millionaires 
 are reservoirs of munificence, and the outflow builds 
 churches, hospitals, asylums, and endows li- 
 braries and sends broad streams of charity 
 through places parched by destitution and suffering. 
 Others are like pools at the base of a hill they re- 
 ceive the inflow of every descending streamlet or 
 shower, and stagnate into selfishness. Wealth is a 
 tremendous trust ; it becomes a dangerous one when 
 273
 
 274 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 it owns its owner. Our Brooklyn philanthropist, 
 the late Mr. Charles Pratt, once said to me : "There 
 is no greater humbug than the idea that the mere 
 possession of wealth makes any man happy. I never 
 got any happiness out of mine until I began to do 
 good with it." 
 
 To the faithful steward there is a perpetual re- 
 ward of good stewardship. No investments yield 
 a more covetable dividend than those made in gifts 
 of public beneficence- When Mr. Morris K. Jesup 
 drives through New York his eyes are gladdened 
 in one street by the "Dewitt Memorial Chapel" that 
 he erected ; in another by the Five Points House of 
 Industry, of which he is the president, and in still 
 others by the Young Men's Christian Association 
 and kindred institutions, of which he is a liberal 
 supporter. 
 
 Mr. John D. Rockefeller is reputed to have an an- 
 nual income equal to that of three or four foreign 
 sovereigns ; but his inalienable assets are in the uni- 
 versities he has endowed, the churches he has 
 helped to build, the useful societies he has aided, 
 and in the gold mines of public gratitude which he 
 has opened up. 
 
 Many of our most munificent millionaires have 
 been the architects of their own fortunes. It is 
 most commonly (with some happy exceptions) the 
 earned wealth, and not the inherited wealth that is
 
 A RETROSPECT. 275 
 
 bestowed most freely for the public benefit. The 
 Hon. William E. Dodge once stated in a popular 
 lecture that he began his career as a boy on a sal- 
 ary of fifty dollars a year, and his board part of 
 his duty being to sweep out the store in which he 
 was employed. He lived to distribute a thousand 
 dollars a day to Christian missions, and otherwise 
 objects of benevolence. 
 
 There are old men in Pittsburg (or were, not 
 long ago), who remember the bright Scotch lad, 
 Andrew Carnegie, to whom they used to give a dime 
 for bringing telegraph messages from the office in 
 which he was employed. The benefits which he 
 then derived from the use of a free library in that 
 city, have added to his good impulse, to create such 
 a vast number of libraries in many lands that his 
 honored name throws into the shade the names of 
 Bodley and Radcliffe in England, and that of Astor 
 in America. The mention of this latter name tempts 
 me to narrate an amusing story of old John Jacob 
 Astor, the founder of the fortune of that family, and 
 a man who was more noted for acquiring money 
 than for giving it away for any purpose. Mr. Astor 
 came to New York a poor young man. His wealth 
 consisted mainly in real estate, which he purchased 
 at an early day. When the New York and Erie 
 Railroad was projected (it was the first one ever 
 coming directly into New York), my friend, Judge
 
 276 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 Joseph Hoxie, called on Mr. Astor to subscribe to 
 the stock, telling him that it would add to the value 
 of his real estate. "What do I care for that?" said 
 the shrewd old German, "I never sells, I only buys." 
 "Well," said Judge Hoxie, "your son, William, has 
 subscribed for several shares." "He can do that," 
 was the chuckling reply, "he has got a rich father." 
 It is a fair problem how many such possessors of 
 real estate it would take to build up the prosperity 
 of a great city. 
 
 There is one temptation to which great wealth 
 has sometimes subjected its possessors, which de- 
 mands from me a word of patriotic protest. It is 
 the temptation to use it for political advancement. 
 No fact is more patent than the painful one that 
 some ambitious men have secured public offices, and 
 even bought their way into legislative bodies, by the 
 abundancies of their purses united to skill in man- 
 ipulating partisan machines. This is a most serious 
 menace to honest popular government. It is one of 
 the very worst forms of a plutocracy. I often think 
 that if Webster and Clay and Calhoun and John 
 Quincy Adams and Sumner and some other giants 
 of a former era could enter the Congressional halls 
 of our day, they might paraphrase the words of 
 Holy Writ and exclaim : "Take the money-changers 
 hence, and make not the temple of a nation's leg- 
 islation a house of merchandise."
 
 A RETROSPECT. 377 
 
 Foreign travel is no longer the novelty that it 
 was once, and many wealthy folk spend much of 
 their time abroad since the Atlantic Ocean has been 
 reduced to a ferry. This growth of European travel 
 has brought its increment of information and cul- 
 ture; but, with new ideas from abroad, have come 
 also some new notions and usages that were better 
 left behind. A prohibitory tariff in that direction 
 would "protect" some of the unostentatiousness of 
 social life that befits a republican people. No young 
 man or woman, who desires to attain proficience 
 in any department of scholarship, classical or scien- 
 tific, need to betake themselves to the universities 
 of Europe. Those universities have come to us in 
 the shape of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell and 
 our other most richly endowed institutions of learn- 
 ing for both sexes. 
 
 Quite too much of the social life of our country 
 is more artificial than formerly, and one result is 
 the growing passion for publicity. Plenty of am- 
 bitious people "make their beds in the face of the 
 sun." Many things are now chronicled in the press 
 that were formerly kept behind the closed doors 
 of the home. The details of a dinner or a social 
 company at the fireside become the topics for the 
 gossip of strangers. I sometimes think that the 
 young people of the present day lose much of the 
 romance that used to belong to the halcyon period
 
 278 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 of courtship. In the somewhat primitive days of 
 my youth, young lovers kept their own secrets, and 
 were startled if their heart affairs were on other 
 people's tongues ; but now-a-days marriage engage- 
 ments are matters of public announcement not in- 
 frequently in the columns of a newspaper ! It seems 
 to be forgotten that an engagement to marry may 
 not always end in a marriage. The usage of 
 crowned heads abroad is no warrant for the new 
 fashion, for royalty has no privacies, and queens 
 and empresses choose their own husbands a pre- 
 rogative that the stoutest champion of woman's 
 rights has not yet had the hardihood to advocate. 
 
 It has always required but never more than now 
 no small amount of moral courage on the part of 
 newly married couples, whose incomes are moder- 
 ate, to resist the temptations of extravagant living. 
 As the heads of young men are often turned by the 
 reports of great fortunes suddenly acquired, so the 
 ambition seizes upon many a young wife to cut a 
 figure in "society." Instead of "the household mo- 
 tions light and free" that Wordsworth describes, the 
 handmaid of fashion leads the hollow life of "keep- 
 ing up appearances." If nothing worse than the 
 slavery of debt is incurred, home life becomes a 
 counterfeit of happiness ; but any one who watches 
 the daily papers will sometimes see obituaries there 
 more saddening than those which appear under the
 
 A RETROSPECT. 279 
 
 head of "Deaths;" it is the list of detected defaul- 
 ters or peculators or swindlers of some descrip- 
 tion often belonging to the most respectable fam- 
 ilies. While the ruin of those evil-doers is some- 
 times caused by club life or dissipated habits, yet, 
 in a large number of cases, the temptation to fraud 
 has been the snare of extravagant living. 
 
 In my long experience as a city pastor I have 
 watched the careers of thousands of married pairs. 
 One class have begun modestly in an unfashionable 
 locality with plain dress and frugal expenditure. They 
 have eaten the wholesome bread of independence. 
 I wish that every young woman would display the 
 good sense of a friend of mine, who received an of- 
 fer of marriage from a very intelligent and very 
 industrious, but poor young man who said to her: 
 "I hear that you have offers of marriage from young 
 men of wealth; all that I can offer you is a good 
 name, sincere love and plain lodgings at first in a 
 boarding house." She was wise enough to discover 
 the "jewel in the leaden casket" and accept his 
 hand. He became a prosperous business man and 
 an officer of my church. As for the other class, 
 who begin their domestic career by a pitiable craze 
 to "get into society" and to keep up with their "set" 
 in the vain show, is their fate not written in 
 the chronicles of haggard and jaded wives, and 
 of husbands drowned in debt or driven perhaps
 
 28o RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 to stock-gambling or some other refuge of 
 desperation ? 
 
 In another portion of this autobiography I have 
 uttered a prayer for the revival of soul-kindling elo- 
 quence in the pulpit. In this age of dizzy ballooning 
 in finance and social extravagance, my prayer is : 
 "Oh, for the revival of old fashioned, sturdy, 
 courageous frugality that 'hath clean hands and 
 a clean heart, and hath not lifted up its soul to 
 vanity !' " 
 
 "Do you not discover a great advance in educa- 
 tional facilities and in the enlargement of means 
 to popular knowledge?" To this question I am 
 happy to give an affirmative reply. Schools and 
 universities are more richly endowed and our public 
 schools have been greatly improved in many direc- 
 tions. Among the educated classes, reading clubs 
 and societies for discussing sociological questions 
 are more numerous, and so are free lectures among 
 the humbler classes. Books have been multiplied 
 and at cheaper prices to an enormous extent. In 
 my childhood, books adapted to the reach of children 
 numbered not more than a score or two; now they 
 are multiplied to a degree that is almost bewilder- 
 ing to the youthful mind. Newspapers printed for 
 them, such as the Youth's Companion and the Na- 
 tional Society's Temperance Banner, were then ut- 
 terly unknown. The sacred writer of the ecclesias-
 
 A RETROSPECT. 281 
 
 needs not to tell the people of this generation : 
 "That of making many books there is no end." 
 
 It is not, however, a matter for congratulation 
 that so large a portion of the volumes that are most 
 read are works of fiction. In most of our public 
 libraries the novels called for are far in excess of 
 all the other books. Let any one scrutinize the ad- 
 vertising columns of literary journals, and he will 
 see that the only startling figures are those which 
 announce the enormous sale of popular works of 
 fiction. I am not uttering a tirade against any book 
 simply because it is fictitious. Our Divine Master 
 spoke often in parables ; Bunyan's matchless allego- 
 ries have guided multitudes of pilgrims towards the 
 Celestial City. Fiction in the clean hands of that 
 king of romancers, Sir Walter Scott, threw new 
 light on the history and scenes of the past. Such 
 characters as "J en m e Deans" and her godly father 
 might have been taken from John Bunyan's portrait 
 gallery; Lady Di Vernon is the ideal of young 
 womanhood. Fiction has often been a wholesome 
 relief to a good man's overworked and weary brain. 
 Many of the recent popular novels are wholesome 
 in their tone and the historical type often instruc- 
 tive. The chief objection to the best of them is that 
 they excite a distaste in the minds of thousands for 
 any other reading. Exclusive reading of fiction is 
 to any one's mind just what highly spiced food and
 
 282 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 alcoholic stimulants are to the body. The increas- 
 ing rage for novel reading betokens both a famine 
 in the intellect, and a serious peril to the mental and 
 spiritual life. The honest truth is that quite too 
 large a number of fictitious works are subtle poison. 
 The plots of some of the most popular novels turn 
 on the sexual relation and the violation in some 
 form of the seventh commandment. They kindle 
 evil passions; they varnish and veneer vice; they 
 deride connubial purity; they uncover what ought 
 to be hid, and paint in attractive hues what never 
 ought to be seen by any pure eye or named by any 
 modest tongue. Another objection to many of the 
 most advertised works of fiction is that they deal 
 with the sacred themes of religion in a very mis- 
 chievous and misleading manner. A few popular 
 writers of fiction present evangelical religion in its 
 winning features ; they preach with the pen the same 
 truths that they preach from the pulpit. Two of 
 the perils that threaten American youths are a licen- 
 tious stage and a poisonous literature. A highly 
 intelligent lady, who has examined many of the 
 novels printed during the last decade, said to me : 
 "The main purpose of many of these books is to 
 knock away the underpinning of the marriage rela- 
 tion or of the Bible." If parents give house room 
 to trashy or corrupt books, they cannot be surprised 
 if their children give heart-room to "the world, the
 
 A RETROSPECT. 283 
 
 flesh, and the evil one." When interesting and 
 profitable books are so abundant and so cheap, this 
 increasing rage for novels is to me one of the sinis- 
 ter signs of the times. 
 
 Within the last two or three decades there has 
 been a most marked change as to the directions in 
 which the human intellect has exerted its highest 
 activities. This change is especially marked in the 
 literature of the two great English-speaking na- 
 tions. For example, there are now in Great Britain 
 no poets who are the peers of Wordsworth, Tenny- 
 son and Browning; no brilliant essayists who are 
 the peers of Carlyle and Macaulay, and no novelists 
 who are the peers of Scott, Dickens and Thackeray. 
 In the United States we have no poets who are a 
 match for Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier and 
 Holmes ; and no essayists who are a match for Em- 
 erson and James Russell Lowell no jurists who are 
 the rivals of Marshall, Kent and Story; and no 
 living historians equal Bancroft, Prescott and Mot- 
 ley. These facts do not necessarily indicate (as 
 some assert) a widespread intellectual famine. The 
 most probable explanation of the fact is that the 
 mental forces in our day exert themselves in other 
 directions. This is an age of scientific research and 
 scientific achievement. It is an age of material ad- 
 vancement, and in those lines in which the human 
 mind can "seek out many inventions." The whole
 
 284 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 trend of human thought is under transformation. 
 In ancient days "a man was famous according as 
 he had lifted up axes upon thick trees." The man 
 is famous now who makes some useful mechanical 
 invention, or explores some unknown territory, or 
 bridges the oceans with swift steamers, or belts the 
 earth with new railways, or organizes powerful 
 financial combinations. If the law of demand and 
 supply is as applicable to mental products as it is 
 to the imports of commerce, then we may readily 
 understand that the realm of the ideal, which was 
 ruled by the Wordsworths, Carlyles and Longfel- 
 lows, should be supplanted by a realm in which the 
 master minds should be political economists, or ex- 
 plorers, or railway kings, or financial magnates, or 
 empire-builders of some description. The philosoph- 
 ical and poetical yield to the practical, when "cui 
 bonof" is the test question which challenges all 
 comers. This change, if it be an actual one, may 
 bring its losses as well as its gains. We are thank- 
 ful for all the precious boons which inventive gen- 
 ius has brought to us for telegraphs, and tele- 
 phones, and photographic arts, for steam engines 
 and electric motors, for power presses and sewing ma- 
 chines, for pain-killing chloroform, and the splendid 
 achievements of skillful surgery. But the mind has 
 its necessities as well as the body ; and we hope and 
 pray that the human intellect may never be so busy
 
 A RETROSPECT. 285 
 
 in materialistic inventions that it cannot give us an 
 "Ode to Duty," and a "Happy Warrior," a "Snow 
 Bound," and a "Thanatopsis," an "Evangeline" and 
 a "Chambered Nautilus," a "Pippa Passes" or a 
 "Biglow Papers," an "In Memoriam" or a "Locks- 
 ley Hall." 
 
 One characteristic of the present time is the rad- 
 ical and revolutionary spirit which condemns every- 
 thing that is "old," especially in the realm of re- 
 ligion. It arrogantly claims that the "advanced 
 thought" of this highly cultured age has broken with 
 the traditional beliefs of our benighted ancestors, 
 and that modern congregations are too highly en- 
 lighted to accept those antiquated theologies. No 
 pretentions could be more preposterous. Methinks 
 that those stalwart farmers of New England, who 
 on a wintry Sabbath, sat and eagerly devoured for 
 an hour the strong meat of such theological giants 
 as Jonathan Edwards, and Emmons and Bellamy and 
 Dwight, would laugh to scorn the ridiculous as- 
 sumption of the present day congregations, many 
 of whom have fed on little else during the week but 
 novels and newspapers. This revolutionary spirit 
 is expert in pulling down; it is a sorry bungler at 
 rebuilding. Nothing is too sacred for its assaults. 
 The iconoclasts who belong to the most extreme 
 and destructive school of "higher criticism" have 
 reduced a large portion of God's revealed word ut-
 
 286 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 terly to tatters. King David has been exiled from 
 the Psalter ; but no "sweet singers" have yet turned 
 up who could have composed those matchless min- 
 strelsies. Paul is denied the authorship of the 
 Epistle to the Romans ; but the mighty mind has not 
 been discovered which produced what Coleridge 
 called the "profoundest book in existence." The 
 Scripture miracles are discarded; but Christianity, 
 which is the greatest miracle of all, is not account- 
 ed for. The "new theology" which has well nigh 
 banished the supernatural from the Bible pays an 
 homage to the principle of "evolution," which is 
 due only to the Almighty Creator of the universe. 
 Spurgeon has wittily said that if we are not the 
 product of God's creating hand, but are only the 
 advanced descendants of the ape, then we ought 
 to conduct our devotions accordingly, and address 
 our daily petitions "not to our Father which is in 
 Heaven, but to our father which is up a tree." 
 
 I do not belong to that class which is irreverently 
 styled "old fogies," for I hold that genuine con- 
 servatism consists in healthful and regular prog- 
 ress ; and it has been my privilege to take an active 
 part in a great many reformatory movements; yet 
 I am more warmly hospitable to a truth which has 
 stood the test of time and of trial. There are many 
 things in this world that are improved by age. 
 Friendship is one of them, and I have found that it
 
 A RETROSPECT. 287 
 
 takes a great many new friends to make an old one. 
 My Bible is all the dearer to me, not only because it 
 has pillowed the dying heads of my father and my 
 mother, but because it has been the sure guide of a 
 hundred generations of Christians before them. 
 When the boastful innovators offer me a new system 
 of belief (which is really a congeries of unbeliefs) 
 I say to them : "the old is better." Twenty centuries 
 of experience shared by such intellects as Augus- 
 tine, Luther, Pascal, Calvin, Newton, Chalmers, 
 Edwards, Wesley and Spurgeon are not to be 
 shaken by the assaults of men, who often contradict 
 each other while contradicting God's truth. We 
 have tested a supernaturally inspired Bible for our- 
 selves. As my eloquent and much loved friend, Dr. 
 McLaren, of Manchester has finely said : "We de- 
 cline to dig up the piles of the bridge that carries 
 us over the abyss because some voices tell us that 
 it is rotten. It is perfectly reasonable to answer, 
 'We have tried the bridge and it bears.' Which, 
 being translated into less simple language, is just 
 the assertion of certitude, built on facts and experi- 
 ence, which leaves no place for doubt. All the 
 opposition will be broken into spray against this 
 rock-bulwark: 'Thy words were found, and I did 
 eat them, and they are the joy and rejoicing of my 
 heart/ "
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 MY HOME LIFE. 
 
 ONE of the richest of the many blessings that has 
 crowned my long life has been a happy home. It 
 has always seemed to me as a wonderful triumph 
 of divine grace in the Apostle Paul that he should 
 have been so "content in whatsoever state he was" 
 when he was a homeless, and, I fear, also a wifeless 
 man. During my own early ministry in Burlington, 
 N. J., my widowed mother and myself lodged with 
 worthy Quakers, and realized Charles Lamb's truth- 
 ful description of that quiet, "naught-caballing 
 community." On our removal to Trenton, when I 
 took charge of the newly organized Third Presby- 
 terian Church, we commenced housekeeping in what 
 had once been the residence of a Governor, a chief- 
 justice, and a mayor of the city; but was a very 
 plain and modest domicile after all. My new church 
 building was completed in November, 1850, and 
 opened with a full congregation, and I was soon 
 in the full swing of my pastoral duties. As I have 
 
 already stated in the opening chapter of this volume, 
 288
 
 MY HOME LIFE. 289 
 
 my father and mother first saw each other on a 
 Sabbath day, and in a church. It was my happy lot 
 to follow their example. On a certain Sabbath in 
 January, 1851, a group of young ladies, who were 
 the guests of a prominent family in my congrega- 
 tion, were seated in a pew immediately before the 
 pulpit. As a civility to that family we called on the 
 following evening, upon their guests. One of the 
 number happened to be a young lady from Ohio 
 who had just graduated from the Granville College, 
 in that State, and had come East to visit her relatives 
 in Philadelphia. The young lady just mentioned 
 was Miss Annie E. Mathiot, a daughter of the Hon. 
 Joshua Mathiot, an eminent lawyer, who had repre- 
 sented his district in Congress. That evening has 
 been marked with a very white stone in my calen- 
 dar ever since. It was but a brief visit of a fortnight 
 that the fair maiden from the West made in Tren- 
 ton; but when she, soon afterwards returned to 
 Ohio, she took with her what has been her inalien- 
 able possession ever since and will be, "Till death us 
 do part." My courtship was rather "at long range ;" 
 for Newark, Ohio, was several hundred miles away, 
 and I have always found that a man who would 
 build up a strong church must be constantly at it, 
 trowel in hand. On the i/th of March, 1853, the 
 venerable Dr. Wylie conducted for us a very simple 
 and solemn service of holy wedlock, closing with his
 
 *9> RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 fatherly benediction, one of the best acts of his long 
 and useful life. The invalid mother of my bride 
 (for Colonel Mathiot had died four years previous- 
 ly) was present at our nuptials, and for the last 
 time was in her own drawing-room. Mrs. Mathiot 
 was a daughter of Mr. Samuel Culbertson, a lead- 
 ing lawyer of Zanesville, and was a lady of rare re- 
 finement and loveliness. She had been a patient 
 sufferer from a painful illness of several months' 
 duration, and peacefully passed away to her rest in 
 September of that year. 
 
 Of the qualifications and duties of a minister's 
 wife, enough has been written to stock a small 
 library. My own very positive conviction has 
 always been that her vows were made primarily, not 
 to a parish, but to her own husband; and if she 
 makes his home and heart happy ; if she relieves him 
 of needless worldly cares; if she is a constant in- 
 spiration to him in his holy work, she will do ten- 
 fold more for the church than if she were the man- 
 ager and mainspring of a dozen benevolent societies. 
 There is another obligation antecedent to all acts of 
 Presbytery or installing councils the sweet obliga- 
 tion of motherhood. The woman who neglects her 
 nursery or hej*-housekeeping duties, and her own 
 heart-life for any outside work in the parish does 
 both them and herself serious injury. If a minister's 
 wife has the grace of a kind and tactful courtesy
 
 MY HOME LIFE. 391 
 
 toward all classes, she may contribute mightily to 
 the popular influence of her husband ; and if she is a 
 woman of culture and literary taste, she can be of 
 immense service to him in the preparation of his 
 sermons. The best critic that ministers can have is 
 one who has a right to criticize and to "truth it in 
 love." Who has a better right to reprove, exhort 
 and correct with all long suffering than the woman 
 who has given us her heart and herself? There are a 
 hundred matters in the course of a year in which a 
 sensible woman's instincts are wiser than those of 
 the average man. There is many a minister who 
 would have been spared the worst blunders of his 
 life, if he had only consulted and obeyed the instinc- 
 tive judgment of a loving and sensible wife. If we 
 husbands hold the reins, it is the province of a wise 
 and devoted wife to tell us where to drive. 
 
 It is very probable that my readers have suspected 
 that this portraiture of a model wife for a minister 
 was drawn from actual life; and they are right in 
 their conjectures. In the discourse delivered to my 
 flock on the twenty-fifth anniversary of my pastorate 
 was the following passage, to whose truth the added 
 years have only added confirmation, "There is still 
 another sweet mercy which has been vouchsafed to 
 me in the true heart that has never faltered and the 
 gentle footstep that has never wearied in the path- 
 way of life for two and thirty years. From how
 
 292 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 many mistakes and hasty indiscretions her quick 
 sagacity has kept me, you can never know. If you 
 have any tribute of thanks for any good which I 
 have done you, do not offer it to me; go carry it 
 down to yonder home, of which she has been the 
 light and the joy, and lay it at her unselfish feet" 
 On that occasion (for the only time) I heard a mur- 
 mur of applause run through my congregation. 
 
 About the time of our marriage, I received a call 
 from the Shawmut Congregational Church of Bos- 
 ton, and soon afterwards overtures from a Presby- 
 terian Church in Philadelphia, and from the First 
 Presbyterian Church of Chicago. All these attract- 
 ive offers I declined ; but within a few months I ac- 
 cepted a call from the Market Street Dutch Re- 
 formed Church of New York a far more difficult 
 field of labor. My ministry in Trenton was one of 
 unbroken happiness, and the Church were profusely 
 kind ; but at the end of nearly four years I felt that 
 my work there was done. The young church had 
 built a beautiful house of worship without a dime of 
 debt, and it was filled by a prosperous congregation. 
 I was ready for a wider field of labor. 
 
 The Market Street Dutch Reformed Church, to 
 which I was called, was down town, within ten 
 minutes' walk of the City Hall, and was beginning 
 to feel the inroads of the uptown migration, when 
 my excellent predecessor, Dr. Isaac Ferris, left it to
 
 MY HOME LIFE. 293 
 
 become the Chancellor of the New York University. 
 Although most of the well-to-do families were mov- 
 ing away, yet East Broadway was full of boarding 
 houses packed with young men and these in turn 
 packed our church on Sabbath evenings. Of the 
 happy spiritual harvest-seasons in that old church, 
 especially during the great awakening in 1858, I 
 have written in the chapter on Revivals. I was as 
 eager for work as Simon Peter was for a good haul 
 in fishing, and every week there, I met on the plat- 
 form the representatives of temperance societies : 
 The Five Points House of Industry, Young Men's 
 Christian Associations, Sunday schools or some 
 other religious or reformatory enterprise. These 
 outside activities were no hindrances to either pulpit 
 or pastoral work; and, like that famous English 
 preacher who felt that he could not have too many 
 irons in the fire, I thrust in tongs, shovel, poker and 
 all. The contact with busy life and benevolent 
 labors among the poor supplied material for ser- 
 mons ; for the pastor of a city church must touch life 
 at a great many points. Our domestic experiences in 
 early housekeeping were very agreeable. The social 
 conditions of New York were less artificial than 
 now. Pastoral calls in the evening usually found 
 the people in their homes, and I do not believe there 
 were a dozen theatre-goers in my congregation. 
 After a very busy and heaven-blest ministry of half
 
 294 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 a dozen years, I discovered that the rapid migration 
 up town would soon leave our congregation too fee- 
 ble for self-support. I accordingly started a move- 
 ment to erect a new edifice up on Murray Hill, and 
 to retain the old building in Market Street as an 
 auxiliary mission chapel. A handsome subscription 
 for the erection of the up-town edifice was secured, 
 and the "Consistory" (which is the good Dutch 
 designation of a board of church officers), convened 
 to vote the first payment for the land. The new site 
 was not wisely chosen, and many of my people were 
 still opposed to any change ; but the casting vote of 
 one good old man (whom I shall thank if I ever en- 
 counter him in the Celestial World) negatived the 
 whole enterprise, and it was immediately abandoned. 
 A few weeks before that decision, I had received 
 a call to take charge of a brave little struggling 
 Presbyterian Church in the newer part of Brooklyn. 
 I sent for the officers, and informed them that if 
 they would purchase the ground on the corner of 
 Lafayette Avenue and Oxford Street, and pay for it 
 in a fortnight, and promise to build for me a church 
 with good accoustics and capable of seating from 
 eighteen hundred to two thousand auditors, I would 
 be their pastor. Instead of turning purple in the 
 lips at such a bold proposal, they "staggered not at 
 the promise through unbelief" and in ten days they 
 brought me the deed of the land paid for to the
 
 MY HOME LIFE. 295 
 
 uttermost dollar ! I resigned Market Street Church 
 immediately, and on the next Sabbath morning, 
 while the Easter bells were ringing under a dark 
 stormy sky, I came over and faced, for the first time, 
 the courageous founders of the Lafayette Avenue 
 Presbyterian Church. The dear old Market Street 
 Church lingered on for a few years more, bleeding 
 at every pore, from the fatal up-town migration, and 
 then peacefully disbanded. The solid stone edifice 
 was purchased by some generous Presbyterians in 
 the upper part of the city, who organized there the 
 "Church of the Sea and Land," which is standing 
 to-day, as a well-manned light-house amid a dense 
 tenement-house foreign population. The successful 
 work that is now prosecuted there is another confir- 
 mation of my favorite theory that the only way to 
 reach a neighborhood crowded with the poorer 
 classes, is for the wealthy churches to spend money 
 for just such an auxiliary mission church as is now 
 thriving in the structure in which I spent seven 
 happy years of my ministry. 
 
 This portion of Brooklyn to which we removed in 
 1860, was very sparsely settled, and Rev. Henry 
 Ward Beecher said to me : "I do not see how you 
 can find a congregation there." He lived to say to 
 me : "You are now in the center, and I am out on 
 the circumference." Brooklyn was then pre-emi- 
 nently a "city of churches," and, though we had not
 
 296 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 a dozen millionaires, it was not infested with any 
 slums. In a population of over three hundred 
 thousand there was then only a single theatre, and 
 when one of our people was asked : "What do you 
 do for recreation over there?" he replied, "We go 
 to church." 
 
 Certainly no one was ever attracted to our own 
 modest little temporary sanctuary by its beauty ; for 
 it was unsightly without, though very cheerful with- 
 in. Soon after we commenced the building of our 
 present stately edifice the startling report of cannon 
 shook the land from sea to sea. 
 
 "And then we saw from Sumter's wall 
 The star-flag of the Union fall, 
 And armed hosts were pressing on 
 The broken lines of Washington." 
 
 Every other public edifice in this city then in proc- 
 ess of erection was brought to a standstill; but 
 we pushed forward the work, like Nehemiah's 
 builders, with a trowel in one hand and a weapon in 
 the other. To raise funds for the structure, required 
 faith and self-denial, and in this labor of love, 
 woman's five fingers were busy and helpful. One 
 brave orphan girl in New York gave, from her hard 
 earnings as a public school teacher, a sum so large 
 that the announcement of it from my pulpit aroused 
 great enthusiasm, and turned the scale at the critical
 
 MY HOME LIFE. 297 
 
 moment, and insured the completion of the struc- 
 ture. Justly may our pulpit vindicate woman's 
 place, and woman's province in the cause of Christ 
 and humanity, for without woman's help that pulpit 
 might never have been erected. 
 
 On the 1 6th of March, 1862, our church edifice 
 was dedicated to the worship of Almighty God, Dr. 
 Asa D. Smith, of Dartmouth College, delivering the 
 dedication sermon, and in the evening, my brilliant 
 and beloved brother, Professor Roswell D. Hitch- 
 cock, gave us one of his incisive and inspiring dis- 
 courses. The building accommodates eighteen hun- 
 dred worshippers, and in emergencies, twenty-five 
 hundred. It is a model of cheerfulness and conveni- 
 ence, and is so felicitous in its acoustics that an or- 
 dinary conversational tone can be heard at the op- 
 posite end of the auditorium. The picture of the 
 Church in this volume gives no adequate idea of the 
 size of the edifice ; for the Sunday School Hall and 
 lecture-room and social parlors are situated in the 
 rear, and could not be presented in the photo- 
 graphic view. I fear that too many costly 
 church edifices are erected that are quite unfit 
 for our Protestant modes of religious service. It is 
 said that when Bishop Potter was called upon to 
 consecrate one of the "dim religious" specimens of 
 mediaeval architecture, and was asked his opinion of 
 the new structure, he replied: "It is a beautiful
 
 298 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 building, with only three faults: you cannot see in 
 it you cannot hear in it you cannot breathe in it." 
 I need not detail the story of my happy Brooklyn 
 pastorate; for that is succinctly given in the clos- 
 ing chapter of this volume. Our home-life here for 
 the past forty-two years has been a record of per- 
 petual providential mercies and unfailing kindness 
 on the part of my parishioners and fellow towns- 
 men. Brooklyn, although removed from New 
 York ( for I cannot yet twist my tongue into calling 
 it "Manhattan") by a five minutes' journey on the 
 East River Bridge, is a very different town in its 
 political and social aspects. New York is penned in 
 on a narrow island, and ground is worth more than 
 gold. It is therefore piled up with very fine apart- 
 ment houses for the rich, or tenement houses for the 
 poor to more stories than the ancient buildings on 
 the Canongate of Edinburgh. Here in Brooklyn 
 we have all Long Island to spread over, and land is 
 within the reach of even a parson's purse. A man 
 never feels so rich as when he owns a bit of real 
 estate, and I take some satisfaction in the bit of land 
 in the front of my domicile, and in the rear, capable 
 of holding several fruit trees and rose-beds. Oxford 
 Street has the deep shade of a New England village. 
 We come to know our neighbors here, wnich is a 
 degree of knowledge not often attained in New 
 York or London. The social life here is also less
 
 THE LAFAYETTE AVENUE CHURCH.
 
 MY HOME LIFE. 299 
 
 artificial than at the other end of the bridge. There 
 is less of the foreign element, and of either great 
 wealth or poverty; we have neither the splendor of 
 Paris, nor the squalor of the by-streets of Naples. 
 The name of "Breucklen" was given to our town by 
 its original Dutch settlers, but the aggressive New 
 Englanders pushed in and it is a more thoroughly 
 Yankee city to-day than any city in the land out- 
 side of New England. My old friend, Mayor Low, 
 urged the consolidation of Brooklyn with New York 
 on the ground that its moral and civic influence 
 would be a wholesome counteraction of Tammany 
 and the tenement-house politics. For self-protec- 
 tion, I joined with my lamented brother, the late Dr. 
 Storrs, in an effort to maintain our independence. 
 Ours is pre-eminently a city of homes where the bulk 
 of the people live in an undivided dwelling, and 
 I do not believe that there is another city either in 
 America, or elsewhere, that contains over a million 
 inhabitants, so large a proportion of whom are in a 
 school house during the week, and in God's house 
 on the Sabbath. 
 
 One of the glories of Brooklyn is its vast and 
 picturesque "Prospect Park," with natural forests, 
 hills and dales and its superb outlook over the bay 
 and ocean. 
 
 I hope that it may not be a violation of propriety 
 to say that the Park Commissioners in this city of
 
 300 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 my adoption bestowed my own name on a pretty 
 plot of ground not far from my residence; and its 
 bright show of flowers makes it a constant delight 
 to my neighbors. Last year some of my fellow- 
 townspeople made an exceedingly generous proposi- 
 tion to place there a memorial statue ; and I felt com- 
 pelled to publish the following reply to an offer 
 which quite transcended any claim that I could have 
 to such an honor: 
 
 176 SOUTH OXFORD STREET, 
 
 JUNE 12, 1901. 
 MESS. JOHN N. BEACH, D. W. McWimAMs, AND THOMAS 
 
 T. BARR: 
 My Dear Sirs, 
 
 I 'have just received your kind letter in which you ex- 
 press the desire of yourselves and of several of our promi- 
 nent citizens that I would consent to the erection of a 
 "Memorial in Cuyler Park" to be placed there by volun- 
 tary contributions of generous friends here and elsewhere. 
 Do not, I entreat you, regard me as indifferent to a 
 proposition whose motive affords the most profound and 
 heartfelt gratitude; but a work of art in bronze or mar- 
 ble, such as has been suggested, that would be creditable 
 to our city, would require an outlay of money that I can- 
 not conscientiously consent to have expended for the pur- 
 pose of personal honor rather than of public utility. Sev- 
 eral years ago the city authorities honored me by giving 
 my name to the attractive plot of ground at the junction 
 of Fulton and Greene Avenues. If my most esteemed
 
 MY HOME LIFE. 301 
 
 friend, Park Commissioner Brower, will kindly have my 
 name visibly and permanently affixed to that little park, 
 and will direct that it be always kept as bright and beau- 
 tiful with flowers as it now is, I shall be abundantly 
 satisfied. I have been permitted to spend forty-one su- 
 premely happy years in this city which I heartily love, 
 and for whose people I have joyfully labored; and while 
 the permanent fruits of these labors remain, I trust I 
 shall not pass out of all affectionate remembrance. A 
 monument reared by human hands may fade away; but 
 if God has enabled me to engrave my humble name on 
 any living hearts, they will be the best monument; for 
 hearts live on forever. While declining the proffered 
 honor, may I ask you to convey my most sincere and cordial 
 thanks to the kind friends who have joined with you in 
 this generous proposal, and, with warm personal regard, 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 THEODORE L. CUYLER. 
 
 I cannot refrain here from thanking my old 
 friend, Dr. St. Clair McKelway, the brilliant editor 
 of the Brooklyn Eagle, for his generous tribute 
 which accompanied the publication of the above 
 letter. His grandfather, Dr. John McKelway, a 
 typical Scotchman, was my family physician and 
 church deacon in the city of Trenton. Among the 
 editorial fraternity let me also mention here the 
 name of my near neighbor, Mr. Edward Gary, of the 
 New York Times, who was with me in Fort Sum-
 
 302 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 ter, at the restoration of the flag, and with whom 
 I have foregathered in many a fertilizing conversa- 
 tion. Away off on the slope above beautiful Stock- 
 bridge, and surrounded by his Berkshire Hills, Dr. 
 Henry M. Field is spending the bright "Indian 
 summer" of his long and honored career. For forty 
 years we held sweet fellowship in the columns of 
 the New York Evangelist. 
 
 The experience of the great Apostle at Rome, who 
 dwelt for nearly two years in his "hired house," 
 has been followed by numberless examples of the 
 ministers of the Gospel who have had a migratory 
 home life. My experience under rented roofs led 
 me to build, in 1865, this dwelling, which has housed 
 our domestic life for seven and thirty years. A true 
 homestead is not a Jonah's gourd for temporary 
 shelter from sun and storm, it is a treasure house of 
 accumulations. Many of its contents are precious 
 heirlooms ; its apartments are thronged with memo- 
 ries of friends and kinsfolk living or departed. 
 Every room has its scores of occupants, every wall 
 is gladdened with the visions of loved faces. I 
 look into yonder guest chamber, and find my old 
 friends, Governor Buckingham, and Vice-President 
 Wilson, who were ready to discuss the conditions of 
 the temperance reform which they had come to ad- 
 vocate. Down in the dining-room the "Chi- Alpha" 
 Society of distinguished ministers are holding their
 
 MY HOME LIFE. 303 
 
 Saturday evening symposium ; in the parlor my Irish 
 guest, the Earl of Meath, is describing to me his 
 philanthropies in London, and his Countess is de- 
 scribing her organization of "Ministering Children." 
 In the library, Whittier is writing at the table; or 
 Mr. Fulton is narrating his missionary work in 
 China ; out on the piazza, my veteran neighbor, Gen- 
 eral Silas Casey, is telling the thrilling story of how 
 he led our troops at the storming of the Heights of 
 Chapultepec; up the steps comes dear old John G 
 Paton, with his patriarchal white beard, to say 
 "good-bye," before he goes back to his mission 
 work in the New Hebrides. 
 
 No room in our dwelling is more sacred than the 
 one in which I now write. On its walls hang the 
 portraits of my Princeton Professors, and those of 
 majestic Chalmers and the gnarled brow of Hugh 
 Miller, the Scotch geologist, the precious gifts of 
 the author of "Rab and His Friend." Near them 
 is the bright face of dear Henry Drummond, look- 
 ing just as he did on that stormy evening when he 
 came into my library a few hours after his arrival 
 from Scotland. I still recall his reply to me in 
 Edinburgh, when I cautioned him against permit? 
 ting his scientific studies to unspiritualize his active 
 ties. "Never you fear," said he, "I am too busy in 
 trying to save young men ; and the only way to do 
 that is to lead them to the Lord Jesus Christ." In
 
 304 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 former years this room was my beloved mother's 
 "Chamber of Peace" that opens to the sun-rising. 
 Her pictured face looks down upon me now from 
 the wall, and her Bible lies beside me. In this room 
 we gathered on the afternoon of September 14, 
 1887, around her dying bed. Her last words were: 
 "Now kiss me good night," and in an hour or two 
 she fell into that sweet slumber which Christ gives 
 His beloved, at the ripe age of eighty-five. Her 
 mental powers and memory were unimpaired. On 
 the monument which covers her sleeping dust in 
 Greenwood is engraved these words : "Return unto 
 thy rest, O my soul ; for the Lord hath dealt bounti- 
 fully with thee." 
 
 This room is also hallowed by another tenderly 
 sacred association. Here our beloved daughter, 
 Louise Ledyard Cuyler, closed her beautiful life on 
 the last day of September, 1881. On her return 
 from Narragansett Pier, she was stricken with a x 
 mysterious typhoid fever, which often lays its fatal 
 touch on the most youthful and vigorous frame. 
 She had apparently passed the point of danger, and 
 one Sabbath when I read to her that one hundred 
 and twenty-first Psalm, which records the watchful 
 love of Him who "never sleeps," our hearts were 
 gladdened with the prospect of a speedy recovery. 
 Then came on a fatal relapse ; and in the early hour 
 of dawn, while our breaking hearts were gathered
 
 MY HOME LIFE. 305 
 
 around her dying bed, she had "another morn than 
 ours." Why that noble and gifted daughter, who 
 was the inseparable companion of her fond mother, 
 and who was developing into the sweet graces of 
 young womanhood, was taken from our clinging 
 arms at the early age of twenty-two, God only knows. 
 Many another aching parental heart has doubtless 
 knocked at the sealed door of such a mystery, and 
 heard the only response, "What I do thou knowest 
 not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." Upon the 
 monument that bears her name, graven on a cross, 
 amid a cluster of white lilies, is inscribed : "I thank 
 my God upon every remembrance of thee." The 
 lovely twin brother, "Georgie" (whose sweet life 
 story is told in "The Empty Crib"), reposes in our 
 same family plot, and beside him lies a baby brother, 
 Mathiot Cuyler, who lived but twelve days. As this 
 infant was born on the twenty-fifth of December, 
 1873, his tiny tomb-stone bears the simple inscrip- 
 tion : "Our Christmas Gift." 
 
 During all our seasons of domestic sorrow the 
 cordial sympathies of our noble-hearted congrega- 
 tion were very cheering; for we had always kept 
 open doors to them all, and regarded them as only 
 an enlargement of our own family. In our house- 
 hold joys, they too, participated. When the twenty- 
 fifth anniversary of our marriage occurred, they 
 decorated our church with flags and flowers and sus-
 
 306 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 pended a huge marriage-bell on an arch before the 
 pulpit. After the President of our Board of Trus- 
 tees, the Hon. William W. Goodrich, had completed 
 his congratulatory address, two of the officers of the 
 church in imitation of the returning spies from 
 Eshcol marched in, "bearing between them on a 
 staff" a capacious bag of silver dollars. A curi- 
 ously constructed silver clock is also among the 
 treasured souvenirs of that happy anniversary. 
 
 In April, 1885, the close of the first quarter-cen- 
 tury of my ministry was celebrated by our church 
 with very delightful festivities. Addresses were de- 
 livered by his Honor Mayor Low, Dr. McCosh, of 
 Princeton, Dr. Richard S. Storrs, and the Hon. 
 John Wanamaker, Post-Master General. A duo- 
 decimo volume giving the history of our church and 
 all its activities was published by order of our 
 people. 
 
 From such a loyal flock in the full tide of its 
 prosperity, to cut asunder, required no small exer- 
 cise of conscience and of courage. When the patri- 
 archal Dr. Emmons, of Franklin, Massachusetts, re- 
 signed his church at the age of eighty, he gave the 
 good reason: "I mean to stop when I have sense 
 enough to know that I have not begun to fail." 
 In exercising the same grace, on a Sabbath morning 
 in February, 1890, I made before a full congrega- 
 tion the following announcement: "Nearly thirty
 
 MY HOME LIFE. 307 
 
 years have elapsed since I assumed the pastoral 
 charge of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian 
 Church; and through the continual blessings of 
 Heaven upon us it has grown into one of the largest 
 and most useful and powerful churches in the Pres- 
 byterian denomination. It has two thousand three 
 hundred and thirty members; and is third in point 
 of numbers in the United States. This church has 
 always been to me like a beloved child : I have 
 given to it thirty years of hard and happy labor. It 
 is now my foremost desire that its harmony may re- 
 main undisturbed, and that its prosperity may re- 
 main unbroken. For a long time I have intended 
 that my thirtieth anniversary should be the terminal 
 point of my present pastorate. I shall then have 
 served this beloved flock for an ordinary human 
 generation, and the time has now come to transfer 
 this most sacred trust to some other, who, in God's 
 good Providence, may have thirty years of vigorous 
 work before him, and not behind him. If God 
 spares my life to the first Sabbath in April, it is my 
 purpose to surrender this pulpit back into your 
 hands, and I shall endeavor to co-operate with you 
 in the search and selection of the right man to stand 
 in it. I will not trust myself to-day to speak of the 
 pang it will cost me to sever a connection that has 
 been to me one of unalloyed harmony and happiness. 
 It only remains for me to say that after forty-four
 
 3o8 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 years of uninterrupted mental labor it is but reason- 
 able to ask for some relief from the strain that may 
 soon become too heavy for me to bear." 
 
 The congregation was quite astounded by this 
 unexpected announcement; but they recognized the 
 motive that prompted the step, and acted precisely 
 as I desired. They agreed at once to appoint a com- 
 mittee to look for a successor. In order that I might 
 not hamper him in any respect, I declined the gener- 
 ous offer of our church to make me their "Pastor 
 Emeritus." 
 
 As my pastorate began on an Easter Sabbath, in 
 1860, so it terminated at the Easter in 1890. Be- 
 fore an immense assemblage I delivered, on that 
 bright Sabbath, the Valedictory discourse which 
 closes the present volume, and which gives in con- 
 densed form the history of the Lafayette Avenue 
 Church. 
 
 Our noble people never do anything by halves ; 
 and a few evenings after the delivery of my valedic- 
 tory discourse they gave to their pastor and his wife 
 a public reception, for which the church, lecture- 
 room and the church parlors were profusely 
 adorned ; and were crowded with guests. Congratu- 
 latory addresses were delivered by Dr. John Hall of 
 the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, 
 by Professor William M. Paxton, of Princeton 
 Theological Seminary; and congratulatory letters
 
 MY HOME LIFE. 309 
 
 were read from the venerable poet, Whittier, the 
 Hon. William Walter Phelps, Mr. A. A. Low (the 
 Mayor's father), General William H. Seward, 
 Bishop Potter and Dr. Herrick Johnson, besides a 
 vast number of others renowned in Church and 
 State. On behalf of the Brooklyn pastors an ad- 
 dress was pronounced by the Rev. Dr. L. T. 
 Chamberlain, which was a rare gem of sparkling 
 oratory. In his concluding passage he said : "Nor 
 in all these have I for an instant forgotten the dual 
 nature of that ministry, which has been so richly 
 blessed. I recall that in the prophet's symbolic act, 
 he took to himself two staves, the one was 'Beauty,' 
 while the other was 'Bands.' In the kingdom of 
 grace and in the kingdom of nature, loveliness is 
 ever the fit complement of strength. Accordingly, 
 to her, who has been the enthroned one in the heart, 
 the light-giver in the home, the beloved of the 
 church, we tender our most fervent good wishes. 
 For her also we lift on high our faithful, tender 
 intercession. To each, to both, we give the renewed 
 assurance of our abiding affection. God grant that 
 life's shadows may lengthen gently and slowly! 
 Late, may you both ascend to Heaven: long and 
 happily may you abide with us here!" The report 
 of the proceedings of that evening says that at this 
 reference to the "dual" character of his ministry, 
 "the veteran pastor sprang to his feet and, seizing
 
 310 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 Dr. Chamberlain's hand, exclaimed: 'I thank you 
 for that; and the whole assembly's applause re- 
 vealed its heart-felt sympathy." I had declined 
 more than once, for good reasons, the kind offer of 
 my generous flock to increase my salary, but, when 
 on that evening that crowned my thirty years of 
 labor, my dear neighbor and church elder, Mr. John 
 N. Beach (on behalf of the congregation), put into 
 my hands a cheque for thirty thousand dollars, "not 
 as a charity but as a token of our warm hearted 
 grateful love." I could only say with the Apostle 
 Paul: "I rejoice in the Lord that your care has 
 blossomed out afresh" (for this is the literal read- 
 ing of the great apostle's gratitude). 
 
 The proceedings of that memorable evening were 
 closed by a benediction by the Rev. Dr. Charles L. 
 Thompson, then Moderator of our General Assem- 
 bly and now the super-royal Secretary of our 
 Board of Home Missions. The proceedings were 
 afterwards compiled in a beautiful volume entitled 
 "A Thirty Years' Pastorate," by the good taste and 
 literary skill of my beloved friend, the late Jacob L. 
 Gossler. 
 
 In justice to myself, let me say that I have given 
 this narrative of the closing scenes of my pastoral 
 labors, not, I trust, as a matter of personal vain 
 glory; but that good Christian people in our own 
 land and in other lands may learn from the example
 
 MY HOME LIFE. 311 
 
 of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church how 
 to treat a pastor, whose simple aim has been, with 
 God's help, to do his duty.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 LIFE AT HOME AND FRIENDS ABROAD. 
 
 A FEW months after my resignation, the Lafay- 
 ette Avenue Church extended an unanimous call to 
 the Rev. Dr. David Gregg, who had become distin- 
 guished as a powerful preacher, and the successful 
 pastor of the old, historic Park Street Church, of 
 Boston. He is also widely known by his published 
 works, which display great vigor and beauty of 
 style, and a fervid spirituality. When Dr. Gregg 
 came on to assume his office, I was glad, not only 
 to give him a hearty welcome, but to assure him 
 that, "as no one had ever come up into the pilot 
 house to interfere with the helmsman, so I would 
 never lay my hand on the wheel that should steer 
 that superb vessel in all its future voyagings." From 
 that day to this, my relations with my beloved suc- 
 cessor have been unspeakably fraternal and delight- 
 ful. While I have left the entire official charge of 
 the church in his hands, there have been many oc- 
 casions on which we have co-operated in various 
 
 pastoral duties among a flock that was equally dear 
 312
 
 LIFE AT HOME AND FRIENDS ABROAD. 313 
 
 to us both. Recently the Rev. George R. Lunn, & 
 young minister of exceedingly attractive qualities 
 both in the pulpit and in personal intercourse, has 
 been installed as an assistant pastor. The divine 
 blessing has constantly rested upon the noble old 
 church, which has gone steadily on, like a powerful 
 ocean steamer, well-manned, well-equipped, well- 
 freighted, and well guided by the compass of God's 
 infallible word. Last year the church rendered a 
 signal service to the cause of Foreign Missions by 
 erecting a "David Gregg Hospital" and a "Theo- 
 dore L. Cuyler Church" in Canton, China. They 
 are both under the supervision of the Rev. Albert A. 
 Fulton, who went out to China from our Lafayette 
 Avenue flock, and has been a most energetic and 
 successful missionary for more than twenty years. 
 My ministry at large has brought a needed rest, 
 not by idleness, but by a change in the character of 
 my employment. Instead of a weekly preparation of 
 sermons, has come the preparation of more frequent 
 contributions to the religious press. Instead of 
 pastoral visitations have been the journeyings to 
 different churches, or colleges, and universities and 
 Young Men's Christian Associations for preaching 
 services. I doubt whether any other dozen years 
 of my life have been more crowded with various 
 activities. To my dear wife and myself have come 
 increased opportunities for travel, which have been,
 
 314 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 during the almost half century of our happy wedded 
 life, a constant source of enjoyment. We have 
 journeyed together from Bar Harbor, in Maine, to 
 Coronado Beach, in Southern California. We have 
 traversed together the Adirondacks, the White 
 Mountains and the Catskills, the prairies of Dakota 
 and the orange groves of Florida, the peerless parks 
 of Dei Monte on the shores of the Pacific, and the 
 "Royal Gorge" in the heart of the Rocky Mountain 
 Range. Our various trips to Europe have photo- 
 graphed on our hearts the memories of many dear 
 friends and faces, some of whom, alas! have van- 
 ished into the unseen world. In the summer of 
 1889, when we were at Ayr, the late Mr. Alexander 
 Allan, came down for us in his fine steam yacht, the 
 Tigh-na-Mara, and took us up to his hospitable 
 "Hafton House" on the Holy Loch, a few miles 
 below Glasgow. For several days he gave us yacht- 
 ing excursions through Loch Goil, and the Kyles of 
 Bute, and Loch Long, with glimpses of Ben-Lomond 
 and other monarchs of the Highlands. When we 
 saw the gorgeous purple garniture of heather in full 
 bloom, we no longer wondered that Sir Walter 
 Scott was quite satisfied to have his beloved hills de- 
 void of forests. 
 
 Another memorable visit of that summer was to 
 Chillingham Castle in Northumberland, from whose 
 towers we got views of Flodden Field and the
 
 LIFE AT HOME AND FRIENDS ABROAD. 315 
 
 scenes of "Marmion." The venerable Earl of 
 Tankerville (who was a contemporary and sup- 
 porter of Sir Robert Peel in Parliament), and his 
 warm-hearted Countess, who has long been a leader 
 in various Christian philanthropies, entertained us 
 delightfully within walls that had stood for six cen- 
 turies. In a forest near the Castle were the famous 
 herd of wild cattle which are the only survivors of 
 the original herd that roamed that region in the 
 days of William the Conqueror. They are beautiful 
 white creatures, still too wild to be approached very 
 nearly; and Sir Edwin Landseer, an old friend of 
 the Earl, has preserved life-sized portraits of two 
 of them on the walls of the lofty dining hall of the 
 castle. When the servants, gardeners and other 
 retainers assembled for morning worship in the 
 chapel, the handsome old Earl presided at the 
 melodeon, and the singing was from our American 
 Sankey's hymn-book, a style of music that would 
 have startled the belted knights and barons bold 
 who worshipped in that chapel five centuries ago. 
 
 While at Dundee, as the guests of Mr. Alexander 
 H. Moncur, the Ex-provost of the city, I had the 
 satisfaction of preaching in St. Peters Presbyterian 
 Church, whose pastor, sixty years ago, was that 
 ideal minister, Robert Murray McCheyne. The 
 Bible from which he delivered his seraphic sermons 
 was still lying on the pulpit. When I asked a plain
 
 316 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 woman, the wife of a weaver, what she could tell me 
 about his discourses, her remarkable reply was : "It 
 did me more good just to see Mr. McCheyne walk 
 from the door to his pulpit than to hear any other 
 man in Dundee." A fine tribute, that, to the power of 
 a Christly personality. A sermon in shoes is often 
 more eloquent and soul-convincing than a sermon 
 on paper. I spent a very pleasant hour with sturdy I 
 John Bright, and he told me that he had more rela- 
 tives living in America than in England. His reason 
 for declining the invitation of our government to 
 visit the United States was that he knew too well 
 what our enthusiastic countrymen had in store for 
 him. The separation of Bright and Gladstone on 
 the question of Irish Home Rule had a certain tragic 
 element of sadness. When I spoke of this to Mr. 
 Gladstone, the old statesman of Hawarden tenderly 
 replied: "Whenever I think now of my dear old 
 friend, I always think only of those days when we 
 were in our warmest fellowship." Among the many 
 other recollections of foreign incidents I must men- 
 tion a very delightful luncheon at Athens with Dr. 
 Schlieman in his superb house which was filled with 
 the trophies of his exploration of the Troad and My- 
 cense. I found him a most genial man ; and he told 
 me that he had never surrendered his American 
 citizenship, acquired in 1850. It was very amusing 
 to hear him and his Grecian wife address their
 
 LIFE AT HOME AND FRIENDS ABROAD. 317 
 
 children as "Agamemnon" and "Andromache'* 
 and I half expected to see Plato drop in for a chat, 
 or Euripides call with an invitation to witness a 
 rehearsal of the "Medea." Athens is to me the most 
 satisfactory of all the restored cities of antiquity; 
 every relic there is so indisputably genuine. My 
 sunrise view from the Parthenon was a fair match 
 for a midnight view I once had of Olivet and Geth- 
 semane. 
 
 I cannot close these recollections of foreign 
 friends without making mention of the late Mr. 
 William Tweedie and his successor the late Mr. 
 Robert Rae, the efficient Secretaries of the National 
 Temperance League (of which Archbishop Temple 
 has long been the President). They rendered me 
 endless acts of kindness, and at their anniversary 
 meetings I met many of the most prominent advo- 
 cates of the temperance reform in Great Britain. It 
 gives me a sharp pang to recall the fact that of all 
 the leaders whom I met at those meetings, the 
 gallant Sir Wilfred Lawson and Mr. Caine are 
 almost the only survivors. 
 
 Returning now to the scenes of our happy home 
 life I should be criminally neglectful if I failed to 
 give even a brief account of the gratifying incidents 
 connected with the recent commemoration of my 
 eightieth birthday. Reluctant as I was to quit the 
 good Society of the Seventies, the transition into
 
 318 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 four-score was lubricated by so many loving kind- 
 nesses that I scarcely felt a jolt or a jar. During 
 the whole month of January a steady shower of con- 
 gratulatory letters poured in from all parts of the 
 land and from beyond sea, so that I was made to 
 realize the poet Wordsworth's modest confession : 
 
 "I've heard of hearts unkind kind deeds 
 
 With coldness still returning, 
 Alas, the gratitude of men 
 Has oftener left me mourning." 
 
 In anticipation of the event Mrs. Houghton, the 
 editor of the New York Evangelist, to which I have 
 been so long a contributor, issued a "Birthday Num- 
 ber" containing the most kindly expressions from 
 representatives of different Christian denominations, 
 and officers of various benevolent societies, and from 
 representative men in secular affairs, like Mr. 
 Andrew Carnegie, Mr. Jesup, General Woodford, 
 the Hon. Mr. Coombs, Dr. St. Clair McKelway, and 
 others. On the afternoon of January Qth, the Na- 
 tional Temperance Society honored me with a recep- 
 tion at their Publication House in New York, which 
 was attended by many eminent citizens and clergy- 
 men, and "honorable women not a few." Letters 
 and telegrams from many quarters were read and 
 an eloquent address was pronounced by Mr. Joshua 
 L. Baily, the President of the Society. The eve-
 
 DR. CUYLER AT 80. 
 From a photograph, January, 1903.
 
 LIFE AT HOME AND FRIENDS ABROAD. 315 
 
 ning of my birthday, the loth of January, was spent 
 in our own home, which was in full bloom with an 
 immense profusion of flowers, and enriched with 
 beautiful gifts from many generous hearts. For 
 three hours it was the "joy unfeigned" of my family 
 and myself to grasp again the warm hands of our 
 faithful Lafayette Avenue flock, and of my Brooklyn 
 neighbors who had for two-score years gladdened 
 our lives, as the Great Apostle was gladdened by his 
 loyal friends at Thessalonica. 
 
 On Saturday evening the nth, the "Chi Alpha" 
 Society of New York, the oldest and most widely 
 known of clerical brotherhoods, gave me their fra- 
 ternal greetings at the residence of the venerable 
 Mrs. William E. Dodge, now blessed with unim- 
 paired vigor, in the golden autumn of a life pro- 
 tracted beyond four-score and ten. The walls of 
 that hospitable mansion on Murray Hill have prob- 
 ably welcomed more persons eminent in the relig- 
 ious activities of our own and other lands than any 
 other private residence in America. Brief speeches 
 were made; a beautiful "address" was presented, 
 which now, embossed and framed, adorns the waits 
 of my library. After this the Rev. Charles Lemuel 
 Thompson, an Ex-moderator of our General Assem- 
 bly, and now the Secretary of the Board of Home 
 Missions, read the following ringing lines which he 
 had composed on behalf of my fellow voyagers on
 
 320 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 many a cruise and in many a conflict for our ador- 
 able Lord and King. My only apology for introduc- 
 ing them here is their rare poetic merit which en- 
 titles them to a more permanent place than in the 
 many journals in which they were reprinted. I 
 ought to add that "Croton" is the name of the river 
 and the reservoir that supply New York with its 
 wholesome water: 
 
 OUR CAPTAIN. 
 
 Fill fill up your glasses with Croton I 
 
 Fill full to the brim I say, 
 For the dearest old boy among us, 
 
 Who is ten times eight to-day. 
 
 It is three times three and a tiger 
 It is hand to your caps, O men ! 
 For our Captain of captains rejoices, 
 In his counting of eight times ten. 
 
 Foot square on the bridge and gripping 
 
 As steady as fate the wheel, 
 He has taken the storms to his forehead, 
 
 And cheered in the tempest's reel. 
 
 He has seen the green sea monsters 
 
 Go writhing down the gale, 
 But never a hand to slacken, 
 
 And never a heart to fail. 
 
 So it's Ho ! to our Captain dauntless, 
 Trumpet-tongued and eagle-eyed,
 
 LIFE AT HOME AND FRIENDS ABROAD. 321 
 
 With the spray of the voyage behind him, 
 And the Pilot by his side. 
 
 Together they sail into sunset 
 
 Slow down for the harbor bell, 
 For the flash of the port, and the message 
 
 "Well done" It is well It is well. 
 
 So it's three times three and a tiger ! 
 
 Breathe deep for the man we love; 
 His heart is the heart of a lion, 
 
 His soul is the soul of a dove. 
 
 It is Ho! to the Captain we honor, 
 Salute we the man and the day, 
 
 On his brow are the snows of December, 
 In his heart are the bird songs of May. 
 
 The Scripture passage from which I discoursed 
 on the next Sabbath morning, January I2th, in our 
 Lafayette Avenue Church pulpit "At evening time 
 it shall be light" seems especially appropriate to an 
 autobiography penned at a time when the life-day is 
 already far spent. There are some people who 
 have a pitiful dread of old age. For myself, instead 
 of it being a matter of sorrow or of pain, it is rather 
 an occasion of profound joy that God has enabled 
 me to write in my family record "Four score years." 
 The October of life may be one of the most fruitful 
 months in all its calendar ; and the "Indian summer" 
 its brightest period when God's sunshine kindles
 
 322 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 every leaf on the tree with crimson and golden 
 glories. Faith grows in its tenacity of fibre by the 
 long continued exercise of testing God, and trusting 
 His promises. The veteran Christian can turn over 
 the leaves of his well-worn Bible and say: "This 
 Book has been my daily companion; I know all 
 about this promise and that one and that other one ; 
 for I have tried them for myself, I have a great pile 
 of cheques which my Heavenly Father has cashed 
 with gracious blessings." Bunyan brings his Pil- 
 grim, not into a second infant school where they may 
 sit down in imbecility, or loiter in idleness ; he brings 
 them into Beulah Land, where the birds fill the air 
 with music; and where they catch glimpses of the 
 Celestial City. They are drawing nearer to the end 
 of their long journey and beyond that river, that has 
 no bridge, looms up the New Jerusalem in all its 
 flashing splendors. 
 
 In a previous chapter I have told the story of our 
 bereavement when God took three of our precious 
 children to Himself; but to-day we can chant the 
 twenty-third Psalm, for the overflowing cup of 
 mercies that sweeten our home, and for the two 
 loving children that are spared to us. Our eldest 
 daughter, Mary, is the wife of Dr. William S. 
 Cheesman, an eminent physician in the beautiful 
 city of Auburn, the County-seat of my native 
 County of Cayuga. It is the site of one of our prin-
 
 LIFE AT HOME AND FRIENDS ABROAD. 323 
 
 cipal Theological Seminaries, from which have 
 graduated many of the foremost ministers in our 
 Presbyterian denomination. One of the earliest 
 professors of that institution was the revered Dr. 
 Henry Mills, who baptized me in my infancy. 
 Auburn' is also well known as the residence of our 
 celebrated statesman William H. Seward, who was 
 Secretary of State under President Lincoln. In 
 the social and intellectual life of Auburn, my daugh- 
 ter takes a prominent part; and she is greatly be- 
 loved for her untiring activities in labors of benevo- 
 lence. Our only living son, Theodore Ledyard 
 Cuyler, Jr., the surviving twin brother of "little 
 Georgie," fills an honorable position as an officer 
 of the Postal Telegraph and Cable Company 
 in New York. Since the death of his lovely 
 young wife, several years ago, he has resided 
 with us, and his only son, "Ledyard," is the joy 
 of his grandparents' hearts. The sister and niece 
 of my wife complete our household and our 
 happiness. 
 
 My journey hence to the sun-setting must be 
 brief at the farthest. I only ask to live just as long 
 as God has any work for me to do and not one 
 moment longer. I do not seek to measure with this 
 hand how high the sun of life may yet be above the 
 horizon ; but when it does go down, may my closing 
 eyes behold the bright effulgence of Heaven's bless-
 
 324 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 ings upon yonder glorious sanctuary, and its faithful 
 flock. After my long day's work for the Master is 
 over, and this mortal body has been put to sleep in 
 yonder beautiful dormitory of "Greenwood" by the 
 sea, I desire that the inscription that shall be written 
 over my slumbering dust may be, "The Founder of 
 Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church."
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE JOYS OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 
 
 A Valedictory Discourse Delivered to the Lafayette 
 Avenue Church, April 6, 1890. 
 
 I INVITE your attention this morning to the nine- 
 teenth and twentieth verses of the second chapter of 
 Paul's Epistle to the Thessalonians : 
 
 "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? 
 Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 at His coming? For ye are our glory and joy." 
 
 These words were written by the most remark- 
 able man in the annals of the Christian Church. 
 Great interest is attached to them from the fact that 
 they are part of the first inspired epistle that Paul 
 ever wrote. Nay, more. The letter to the Church 
 of Thessalonica is probably the earliest as to date 
 of all the books of the New Testament. Paul was 
 then at Corinth, about fifty-two years old, in the full 
 vigor of his splendid prime. His spiritual son, 
 Timothy, brings him tidings from the infant church 
 in Thessalonica, that awakens his solicitude. He 
 325
 
 326 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 yearns to go and see them, but he cannot ; so he de- 
 termines to write to them ; and one day he lays aside 
 his tent needle, seizes his pen, and, when that pen 
 touches the papyrus sheet the New Testament be- 
 gins. The Apostle's great, warm heart kindles and 
 blazes as he goes on, and at length bursts out in this 
 impassioned utterance: "Ye are my glory and 
 joy!" 
 
 Paul, I thank thee for a thousand things, but for 
 nothing do I thank thee more than for that golden 
 sentence. In these thrilling words, the greatest of 
 Christian pastors, rising above the poverty, home- 
 lessness, and scorn that surrounded him, reaches 
 forth his hand and grasps his royal diadem. No man 
 shall rob the aged hero of his crown. No chaplet 
 worn by a Roman conqueror in the hour of his 
 brightest triumph, rivals the coronal that Pastor 
 Paul sees flashing before his eyes. It is a crown 
 blazing with stars; every star an immortal soul 
 plucked from the darkness of sin into the light and 
 liberty of a child of God. Poor, is he ? He is mak- 
 ing many rich. Despised is he? He wouldn't 
 change places with Caesar. Homeless is he? His 
 citizenship is in heaven, where he will find myriads 
 whom he can meet and say to them : "Ye, ye are my 
 glory and joy." Sixteen centuries after Paul 
 uttered these words, John Bunyan re-echoed them 
 when he said :
 
 THE JOYS OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 327 
 
 "I have counted as if I had goodly buildings in the 
 places where my spiritual children were born. My heart 
 has been so wrapt up in this excellent work that I ac- 
 counted myself more honored of God than if He had 
 made me emperor of all the world, or the lord of all the 
 glory of the earth without it. He that converteth a sinner 
 from the error of his ways doth save a soul from death; 
 and they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the 
 firmament." 
 
 Now, the great Apostle expressed what every 
 ambassador of Christ constantly experiences when 
 in the thick of the Master's work. His are the joys 
 of acquisition. His purse may be scanty, his teach- 
 ing may be humble, and the field of his labor may be 
 so obscure that no bulletins of his achievements are 
 ever proclaimed to an admiring world. Difficulties 
 may sadden and discouragement bring him to his 
 knees; but I tell you that obscure, toiling man of 
 God has a joy vouchsafed to him that a Frederick 
 or a Marlborough never knew on the field of bloody 
 triumph, or that a Rothschild never dreams of in his 
 mansions of splendor, nor an Astor with his stores 
 of gold. Every nugget of fresh truth discovered 
 makes him happier than one who has found golden 
 spoil. Every attentive auditor is a delight; every 
 look of interest on a human countenance flashes back 
 to illuminate his own. Above all, when the tears of 
 penitence course down a cheek and a returning soul
 
 328 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 is led by him to the Saviour, there is great joy in 
 heaven over a repentant wanderer, and a joy in 
 that minister's heart too exquisite to utter. Then 
 he is repaid in full measure, pressed down, running 
 over into his bosom. 
 
 Converted souls are jewels in the caskets of 
 faithful parents, teachers and pastors. They shall 
 flash in the diadem which the Righteous Judge shall 
 give them in that great day. Ah ! it is when an am- 
 bassador of Christ sees an army of young converts 
 and listens to the first utterances of their new-born 
 love, and when he presides at a communion table 
 and sees his spiritual off-spring gathered around 
 him, more true joy that faithful pastor feels than 
 "Caesar with a Senate at his heels." Rutherford, of 
 Scotland, only voiced the yearnings of every true 
 pastor's heart when he exlaimed: "Oh, how rich 
 were I if I could obtain of my Lord the salvation of 
 you all ! What a prey had I gotten to have you all 
 caught in Christ's net. My witness is above, that 
 your heaven would be the two heavens to me, and 
 the salvation of you all would be two salvations 
 to me." 
 
 Yet, my beloved people, when I recall the joy of 
 my forty-four years of public ministry I often shud- 
 der at the fact of how near I came to losing it. For 
 very many months my mind was balancing between 
 the pulpit and the attractions of a legal and political
 
 THE JOYS OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 329 
 
 career. A single hour in a village prayer-meeting 
 turned the scale. But perhaps behind it all a be- 
 loved mother's prayers were moving the mysterious 
 hand that touched the poised balance, and made 
 souls outweigh silver, and eternity outweigh time. 
 Would that I could lift up my voice this morn- 
 ing in every academy, college and university on this 
 broad continent. I would say to every gifted Chris- 
 tian youth, "God and humanity have need of you." 
 He who redeemed you by His precious blood has 
 a sovereign right to the best brains and the most 
 persuasive tongues and the highest culture. Why 
 crowd into the already over-crowded professions? 
 The only occupation in America that is not over- 
 done is the occupation of serving Jesus Christ and 
 saving souls. I do not affirm that a Christian can- 
 not serve his Master in any other sphere or calling 
 than the Gospel ministry; but I do affirm that the 
 ambition for worldly gains and worldly honors is 
 sluicing the very heart of God's Church, and draw- 
 ing out to-day much of the Church's best blood in 
 their greedy outlets. And I fearlessly declare that 
 when the most splendid talent has reached the lofti- 
 est round on the ladder of promotion, that round 
 is many rungs lower than a pulpit in which a conse- 
 crated tongue proclaims a living Christianity to 
 a dying world. What Lord Eldon from the bar, 
 what Webster from the Senate-chamber, what Sir
 
 330 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 Walter Scott from the realms of romance, what 
 Darwin from the field of science, what monarch 
 from Wall Street or Lombard Street can carry his 
 laurels or his gold up to the judgment seat and say, 
 "These are my joy and crown?" The laurels and 
 the gold will be dust ashes. But if so humble a 
 servant of Jesus Christ as your pastor can ever point 
 to the gathered flock arrayed in white before the 
 celestial throne, then he may say, "What is my 
 hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing. Are not even 
 ye in the presence of Christ at His coming?" 
 
 Good friends, I have told you what aspirations 
 led me to the pulpit as a place in which to serve 
 my Master; and I thank Christ, the Lord, for put- 
 ting me into the ministry. The forty- four years I 
 have spent in that office have been unspeakably 
 happy. Many a far better man has not been as happy 
 from causes beyond control. He may have had 
 to contend with feeble health as I never have; or a 
 despondent temperament, as I never have; or have 
 struggled to maintain a large household on a slender 
 purse ; he may have been placed in a stubborn field, 
 where the Gospel was shattered to pieces on flinty 
 hearts. From all such trials a kind Providence has 
 delivered your pastor. 
 
 My ministry began in a very small church. For 
 that I am thankful. Let no young minister covet a 
 Jarge parish at the outset. The clock that is not
 
 THE JOYS OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 331 
 
 content to strike one will never strike twelve. In 
 that little parish at Burlington, N. J., I had oppor- 
 tunity for the two most valuable studies for any 
 minister God's Book and individual hearts. My 
 next call was to organize and serve an infant church 
 in Trenton, N. J., and for that I am thankful. Lay- 
 ing the foundation of a new church affords capital 
 tuition in spiritual masonry, and the walls of that 
 church have stood firm and solid for forty years. 
 The crowning mercy of my Trenton ministry was 
 this, that one Sunday while I was watering the 
 flock, a goodlier vision than that of Rebecca ap- 
 peared at the well's mouth, and the sweet sun- 
 shine of that presence has never departed from the 
 pathway of my life. To this hour the prosaic old 
 capital of New Jersey has a halo of poetry floating 
 over it, and I never go through it without waving a 
 benediction from the passing train. 
 
 The next stage of my life's work was a seven 
 years' pastorate of Market Street Church in the 
 city of New York. To those seven years of hard 
 and happy labor I look back with joy. The congre- 
 gation swarmed with young men, many of whom 
 have risen to prominence in the commercial and 
 religious life of the great metropolis. The name of 
 Market Street is graven indelibly on my heart. I 
 rejoice that the quaint old edifice still stands and 
 welcomes every Sabbath a congregation of landsmen
 
 332 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 and of sailors. During the year 1858 occurred 
 the great revival, when a mighty wind from 
 Heaven filled every house where the people of God 
 were sitting, and the glorious work of that 
 revival kept many of us busy for six months, night 
 and day. 
 
 Early in the year 1860 a signal was made to me 
 from this side of the East River. It came from a 
 brave little band then known as the Park Presby- 
 terian Church, who had never had any installed 
 pastor. The signal at first was unheeded ; but a 
 higher than human hand seemed to be behind it, 
 and I had only to obey. That little flock stood like 
 the man of Macedonia, saying, "Come over and 
 help us," and after I had seen the vision immedi- 
 ately I decided to come, assuredly concluding that 
 God had called me to preach the Gospel unto them. 
 
 This morning my memory goes back to that chilly, 
 stormy April Sunday when my labors began as 
 your first pastor. About two hundred and fifty peo- 
 ple, full of grace and grit, gathered on that Easter 
 morning to see how God could roll away stones 
 that for two years had blocked their path with dis- 
 couragement. My first message many of you re- 
 member. It was, "I determined not to know any- 
 thing among you save Jesus Christ and Him cruci- 
 fied." Of that little company the large majority 
 has departed. Many of them are among the white-
 
 THE JOYS OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 333 
 
 robed that now behold their risen Lord in glory. Of 
 the seventeen church officers elders, deacons and 
 trustees then in office, who greeted me that day, 
 only four are living, and of that number only one, 
 Mr. Albion P. Higgins, is now a member of this 
 congregation. I wonder how many there are here 
 this morning that gathered before my pulpit on 
 that Easter Sunday thirty years ago? As many of 
 you as there are present that were at that service 
 thirty years ago will do me a favor if you will rise 
 in your pews. 
 
 (Thirteen people here stood up.) 
 
 God bless you ! If it hadn't been for' you this ark 
 would never have been built. 
 
 Ah! we had happy days in that modest chapel. 
 The tempest of civil war was raging, with Lincoln's 
 steady hand at the helm. We got our share of the 
 gale ; but we set our storm-sails, and every one that 
 could handle ropes stood at his or her place. Just 
 think of the money contributions that small church 
 made during the first year of my pastorate $20,000, 
 not in paper, but in gold. The little band in that 
 chapel was not only generous in donations but val- 
 iant in spirit, and it was under the gracious shower 
 of a revival that we removed into this edifice on the 
 T6th of March, 1862. 
 
 The subsequent history of the thurch was pub- 
 lished so fully at the notable anniversary five years
 
 334 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 ago that I need only repeat the chief head-lines in 
 a very few sentences. In 1863 Mr. William Wickes 
 started a mission school, which afterward grew into 
 the present Cumberland Street Church. In 1866 
 occurred that wonderful work of grace that resulted 
 in the addition of 320 souls to our membership, one 
 hundred of them heads of families. As a thank- 
 offering to God for that rich blessing the Memorial 
 Mission School was established, which was soon 
 organized into the Memorial Presbyterian Church, 
 now on Seventh Avenue, under the excellent pas- 
 torate of my Brother Nelson. During the winter 
 of 1867 a conference of gentlemen was held in yon- 
 der study which set on foot the present Classon 
 Avenue Church, where my Brother Chamberlain 
 administers equally satisfactorily. Olivet Mission 
 was organized in 1874. It will always be fragrant 
 with the memory of Horace B. Griffing, its first 
 superintendent. The Cuyler Chapel was opened on 
 Atlantic Avenue in March, 1886, by our Young 
 People's Association, who are maintaining it most 
 vigorously. The little Corwin Mission on Myrtle 
 Avenue was established by a member of the church 
 to perpetuate his name, and is largely sustained by 
 members of this church. 
 
 Of all the efficient, successful labors of the Lafay- 
 ette Avenue Temperance Society, the Women's 
 Home and Foreign Missionary Society, their
 
 THE JOYS OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 335 
 
 Benevolent Society, the Cuyler Mission Band, the 
 Daughters of the Temple, and other kindred or- 
 ganizations. I have no time or place to speak this 
 morning. But I must repeat now what I have said 
 in years past, that the two strong arms of this 
 church are its Sunday School and its Young Peo- 
 ple's Association. The former has been kept well 
 up to the ideal of such an institution. It is that of 
 a training school of young hearts for this life and 
 for the life to come. God's blessing has descended 
 upon it like the morning dew. Of the large num- 
 ber of children that have been enrolled in its 
 classes 730 have been received into membership 
 with this church alone, and to the profession of 
 faith in Christ to say nothing of those who have 
 joined elsewhere. Warmly do I thank and heartily 
 do I congratulate our beloved brother, Daniel W. 
 McWilliams, and his faithful group of teachers, 
 and the Superintendent of the primary department 
 and her group of assistants, on the seal which God 
 has set upon their loving work. They contemplate 
 the long array of children whom they have guided 
 to Jesus; and they, too, can exclaim, "What is our 
 joy or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the 
 Lord?" 
 
 If the Sunday School has rendered good service, 
 so has the well-drilled and well-watered Young 
 People's Association. The fires of devotion have
 
 336 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 never gone out on the altar of their Monday eve- 
 ning gatherings. For length of days and number of 
 membership combined, probably it surpasses all 
 similar young people's associations in our country. 
 About three thousand names have been on its mem- 
 bership roll, and of this number twelve have set 
 their faces toward the Gospel ministry. Oh, what a 
 source of joy to me that I leave that association in 
 such a high condition of vigor and prosperity! No 
 church can languish, no church can die, while it 
 has plenty of young blood in its veins. 
 
 What has been the outcome of these thirty years 
 of happy pastorate? As far as the results can be 
 tabulated the following is a brief summary: Dur- 
 ing my pastorate here I have preached about 2,750 
 discourses, have delivered a very large number of 
 public addresses in behalf of Sunday Schools, 
 Young Men's Associations, the temperance reform, 
 and kindred enterprises for advancing human wel- 
 fare. I have officiated at 682 marriages. I have 
 baptized 962 children. The total number received 
 into the membership of this church during this 
 time has been 4,223. Of this number 1,920 have 
 united by a confession of their faith in Jesus Christ. 
 An army, you see, an army of nearly two thousand 
 souls, have enlisted under the banner of King Jesus, 
 and taken their "sacramentum," or vow of loyalty, 
 before this pulpit. What is our crown of rejoicing?
 
 THE JOYS OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 337 
 
 Are not even they in the presence of Christ at His 
 coming ? 
 
 It is due to you that I should commend your lib- 
 erality in gifts to God's treasury. During these 
 thirty years over $640,000 have been contributed 
 for ecclesiastical and benevolent purposes, and about 
 $700,000 for the maintenance of the sanctuary, its 
 worship, and its work. Over a million and a quar- 
 ter of dollars have passed through these two chan- 
 nels. The successive boards of trustees have man- 
 aged our financial affairs carefully and efficiently. 
 The architecture of this noble edifice is not disfig- 
 ured by any mortgage. I hope it never will be. 
 
 There is one department of ministerial labor that 
 has had a peculiar attraction to me and afforded me 
 peculiar joy. Pastoral work has always been my 
 passion. It has been my rule to know everybody in 
 this congregation, if possible, and seldom have I 
 allowed a day to pass without a visit to some of 
 your homes. I fancied that you cared more to have 
 a warm-hearted pastor than a cold-blooded preach- 
 er, however intellectual. To carry out thoroughly a 
 system of personal oversight, to visit every family, 
 to stand by the sick and dying beds, to put one's self 
 into sympathy with aching hearts and bereaved 
 households, is a process that has swallowed up time, 
 and I tell you it has strained the nerves prodigi- 
 ously. Costly as the process has been, it has paid.
 
 338 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 If I have given sermons to you, I have got sermons 
 from you. The closest tie that binds us together is 
 that sacred tie that has been wound around the 
 cribs in your nurseries, the couches in your sick 
 chambers, the chairs at your fireside, and even the 
 coffins that have borne away your precious dead. 
 My fondest hope is that however much you may 
 honor and love my successor in this pulpit, you will 
 evermore keep a warm place in the chimney-corner 
 of your hearts for the man that gave the best thirty 
 years of his life to your service. 
 
 Here let me bespeak for my successor the most 
 kind and reasonable allowance as to pastoral labors. 
 Do not expect too much from him. Very few min- 
 isters have the peculiar passion for pastoral service 
 that I have had; and if Christ's ambassador who 
 shall occupy this pulpit proclaims faithfully the 
 whole Gospel of God and brings a sympathetic 
 heart to your houses, do not criticize him unjustly 
 because he may not attempt to make twenty-five 
 thousand pastoral visits in thirty years. House to 
 house visitation has only been one hemisphere of 
 the pastor's work. I have accordingly endeavored 
 to guard the door of yonder study so that I might 
 give undivided energy to preparation for this pulpit. 
 
 You know, my dear people, how I have preached 
 and what I have preached. In spite of many inter- 
 ruptions, I have honestly handled each topic as best
 
 THE JOYS OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 339 
 
 I could. The minister that foolishly runs races 
 with himself is doomed to an early suicide. All that 
 I claim for my sermons is that they have been true 
 to God's Book and the cross of Jesus Christ have 
 been simple enough for a child to understand, and 
 have been preached in full view of the judgment 
 seat. I have aimed to keep this pulpit abreast of all 
 great moral reforms and human progress, and the 
 majestic marchings of the kingdom of King Jesus. 
 The preparation of my sermons has been an un- 
 speakable delight. The manna fell fresh every 
 morning, and it had to me the sweetness of angels' 
 food. Ah, there are many sharp pangs before me. 
 None will be sharper than the hour that bids fare- 
 well to yonder blessed and beloved study. For 
 twenty-eight years it has been my daily home one 
 of the dearest spots this side of Heaven. From its 
 walls have looked down upon me the inspiring faces 
 of Chalmers, Charles Wesley, Spurgeon, Lincoln 
 and Gladstone; Adams, Storrs, Guthrie, Newman 
 Hall, and my beloved teachers, Charles Hodge and 
 the Alexanders of Princeton. Thither your infant 
 children have been brought on Sabbath mornings, 
 awaiting their baptism. Thither your older children 
 have come by hundreds to converse with me about 
 the welfare of their souls. Thither have come all 
 the candidates for admission to the fellowship of 
 this church, and have made there their confession
 
 340 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 of faith and their allegiance to Christ. Oh, what 
 blessed interviews with inquirers have been held 
 there! What sweet and happy fellowship with my 
 successive bands of helpers, some of whom have 
 joined the general assembly of the redeemed in 
 glory. That hallowed study has been to me some- 
 times a Bochim of tears, and sometimes a Hermon, 
 when the vision was of no man save Jesus only. 
 And the work there has been a wider one for a far 
 wider multitude than these walls contain this morn- 
 ing. I have written there nearly all the hundreds of 
 articles which have gone out through the religious 
 press, over this country, over Great Britain, over 
 Europe, over Australia, Canada, India, and New 
 Zealand. During my ministry I have published 
 about 3,200 of these articles. Many of them have 
 been gathered into books, many of them translated 
 into Swedish, Spanish, Dutch, and other foreign 
 tongues. They have made the scratch of a very 
 humble pen audible to Christendom. The conse- 
 crated pen may be more powerful than the conse- 
 crated tongue. I devoutly thank God for having 
 condescended to use my humble pen to the spread 
 of his Gospel ; and I purpose with His help to spend 
 much of the brief remainder of my life in preaching 
 His glorious Gospel through the press. 
 
 I am sincerely sorry that the necessities of this 
 hour seem to require so personal a discourse this
 
 THE JOYS OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 341 
 
 morning; but I must hide behind the example of 
 the great Apostle who gave me my text. Because 
 He reviewed His ministry among His spiritual chil- 
 dren of Thessalonica, I may be allowed to review 
 my own, too standing here this morning under 
 such peculiar circumstances. These thirty years 
 have been to me years of unbounded joy. Sorrow I 
 have had, when death paid four visits to my house ; 
 but the sorrow taught sympathy with the grief of 
 others. Sins I have committed too many of them ; 
 your patient love has never cast a stone. The faults 
 of my ministry have been my own. The successes 
 of my ministry have been largely due under God, to 
 your co-operation, and, above all, to the amazing 
 goodness of our Heavenly Father. Looking my long 
 pastorate squarely in the face, I think I can honestly 
 say that I have been no man's man; I have never 
 courted the rich, nor wilfully neglected the poor; I 
 have never blunted the sword of the Spirit lest it 
 should cut your consciences, or concealed a truth that 
 might save a soul. In no large church is there a 
 perfect unanimity of tastes as to preaching. I do 
 not doubt that there are some of you that are quite 
 ready for the experiment of a new face in this pul- 
 pit, and perhaps there may be some who are lusting 
 after the fat quail of elaborate or philosophic dis- 
 course. For thirty years I have tried to feed you on 
 "nothing but manna." Whatever the difference of
 
 342 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 taste, you have always stood by me, true as steel. 
 This has been your spiritual home; and you have 
 loved your home, and you have drunk every Sunday 
 from your own well; and though the water of life 
 has not always been passed up to you in a richly 
 embossed silver cup, it has drawn up the undiluted 
 Gospel from the inspired fountain-head. To hear 
 the truth, to heed the truth, to "back" the truth with 
 prayer and toil, has been the delight of the stanch- 
 est members of this church. Oh, the children of 
 this church are inexpressibly dear to me! There 
 are hundreds here to-day that never had any other 
 home, nor ever knew any other pastor. I think I 
 can say that "every baptism has baptized us into 
 closer fellowship, every marriage has married us 
 into closer union, every funeral that bore away your 
 beloved dead, only bound us more strongly to the liv- 
 ing." Every invitation from another church and 
 I have had some very attractive ones that I never 
 told you about every invitation from another 
 church has always been promptly declined; for I 
 long ago determined never to be pastor of any other 
 than Lafayette Avenue Church, 
 i What is my joy or crown of rejoicing? Are not 
 even ye ye in the presence of Christ at His com- 
 ing? Why, then, sunder a tie that is bound to every 
 fibre of my inmost heart ? I will answer you frank- 
 ly. There must be no concealment or false pre-
 
 THE JOYS OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 343 
 
 texts between us. In the first place, as I told you 
 two months ago, I had determined to make my thir- 
 tieth anniversary the terminal point of my present 
 pastorate. I determined not to outstay my fullest 
 capacity for the enormous work demanded here. 
 The extent of that demanded work increases every 
 twelve months. The requirements of preaching twice 
 every Sunday, to visit the vast number of families 
 directly connected with this church, attending fu- 
 neral services, conferring with committees about 
 Christian work of various kinds, and numberless 
 other duties all these requirements are prodigious. 
 Thus far, by the Divine help, I have carried that 
 load. My health to-day is as firm as usual; and I 
 thank God that such forces of heart and brain as He 
 has given me are unabated. The chronic catarrh 
 that long ago muffled my ears to many a strain of 
 sweet music, has never made me too deaf to hear 
 the sweet accents of your love. But I understand 
 my constitution well enough to know that I could 
 not carry the undivided load of this great church a 
 great while longer without the risk of breaking 
 down ; and there must be no risk run with you or 
 with myself. I also desire to assist you in trans- 
 ferring this magnificent vessel to the next pilot 
 whom God shall appoint ; and I wish to transfer it 
 while it is well-manned, well-equipped, and on the 
 clear sea of an unbroken financial and spiritual pros-
 
 344 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 perity. No man shall ever say that I so far 
 presumed on the generous kindness of this dear 
 church as to linger here until I had outlived my 
 usefulness. 
 
 For these reasons I present to-day my resignation 
 of this sacred, precious charge. It is my honest de- 
 sire and purpose that this day must terminate my 
 present pastorate. For presenting this resignation 
 I alone am responsible before God, before this 
 church and before the world. When you shall have 
 accepted my resignation, the whole responsibility 
 for the welfare of this beloved church will rest on 
 your shoulders not on mine. My earnest prayer is 
 that you may soon be directed to the right man to be 
 your minister, to one who shall unite all hearts and 
 all hands, and carry forward the high and holy mis- 
 sion to which God has called you. He will find in me 
 not a jealous critic, but a hearty ally in everything 
 that he may regard for the welfare of this church. 
 
 As for myself I do not propose to sit down on the 
 veranda and watch the sun of life wheel downward 
 in the west. The labors of a pen and of a ministry 
 at large will afford me no lack of employment. The 
 welfare of this church is inexpressibly dear to me 
 nothing is dearer to me this side of heaven. If, 
 therefore, while this flock remains shepherdless, 
 and in search of my successor, I can be of actual ser- 
 vice to you in supplying at any time this pulpit or
 
 THE JOYS OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 345 
 
 performing pastoral labor, that service, beloved, 
 shall be performed cheerfully. 
 
 The first thought, the only thought with all of us, 
 is this church, this church, THIS CHURCH. I call 
 no man my friend, you must call no man your friend 
 that does not stand by the interests of Lafayette 
 Avenue Church. It is now called to meet a great 
 emergency. For the first time in twenty-eight years 
 this church is subjected to a severe strain. During 
 all these years you had very smooth sailing. You 
 have never been crippled by debt; you have never 
 been distracted with quarrels, and you have never 
 been without a pastor in your pulpit or your homes 
 when you needed him. And I suppose no church 
 in Brooklyn has ever been subjected to less strain 
 than this one. Now you are called upon to face a 
 new condition of things, perhaps a new danger 
 certainly a new duty. The duty overrides the dan- 
 ger. To meet that duty you are strong in numbers. 
 There are 2,350 names on your church register. Of 
 these many are young children, many are non-resi- 
 dents who have never asked a dismission to other 
 churches ; but a great army of church members three 
 Sabbaths ago rose up before that sacramental table. 
 You are strong in a holy harmony. Let no man, no 
 woman, break the ranks! You are strong in the 
 protection of that great Shepherd who never re- 
 signs and who never grows old. "Lo! I am with
 
 346 RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE. 
 
 you always ! Lo ! I am with you always ! 
 Lo! I am with you always!" seems to greet 
 me this morning from every wall of this sanc- 
 tuary. I confidently expect to see Lafayette Ave- 
 nue Church move steadily forward with unbrok- 
 en column led by the Captain of our salvation. All 
 eyes are upon you. The eye that never slumbers or 
 sleeps is watching over you. If you are all true to 
 conscience, true to your covenants, true to Christ, the 
 future of this dear church may be as glorious as its 
 past. And when another thirty years have rolled 
 away, it may still be a strong tower of the truth on 
 which the smile of God shall rest like the light of 
 the morning. By as much as you love me, I entreat 
 you not to sadden my life or break my heart by ever 
 deserting these walls, or letting the fire of devotion 
 burn down on these sacred altars. 
 
 The hands of the clock warn me to close. This 
 is one of the most trying hours of my whole life. It 
 is an hour when tears are only endurable by being 
 rainbowed with the memory of tender mercies and 
 holy joys. When my feet descend those steps to-day, 
 this will no longer be my pulpit. I surrender it back 
 before God into your hands. One of my chiefest 
 sorrows is that I leave some of my beloved hearers 
 out of Christ. Oh, you have been faithfully warned 
 here, and you have been lovingly invited here ; and 
 once more, as though God did beseech you by me,
 
 THE JOYS OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 347 
 
 I implore you in Christ's name to be reconciled to 
 God. This dear pulpit, whose teachings are based 
 on the Rock of Ages, will stand long after the lips 
 that now address you have turned to dust. It will 
 be visible from the judgment seat; and its witness 
 will be that I determined to know not anything 
 among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 
 To-day I write the last page in the record of thirty 
 bright, happy, Heaven-blessed years among you. 
 What is written is written. I shall fold up the book 
 and lay it away with all its many faults ; and it will 
 not lose its fragrance while between its leaves are 
 the pressed flowers of your love. When my closing 
 eyes shall look on that record for the last time, I 
 hope to discover there only one name the name 
 that is above every name, the name of Him whose 
 glory crowns this Eastern morn with radiant splen- 
 dor, the name of Jesus Christ, King of kings, and 
 Lord of lords. And the last words I utter in this 
 sacred spot are unto Him that loves us and delivers 
 us from sin with His precious blood ; and unto God 
 be all the praise and thanks and dominion and glory 
 for ever and ever. Amen.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Adams, Dr. William, 201-205. 
 
 Albert, Prince, 32. 
 
 Alexander, Archibald, 82, 191-3. 
 
 Alexander, Dr. James W., 9. 
 
 Alexander, Dr. Joseph Addison, 82, 193-5. 
 
 Alexander, Stephen, 9. 
 
 Allen, Mr. Alexander, 314. 
 
 Allison, William J., 121. 
 
 American Seamen's Friend Society, 255. 
 
 American Tract Society, 98. 
 
 Anderson, Captain James, 146, 149. 
 
 Armstrong, Samuel C, 158. 
 
 Astor, John Jacob, 273, 275-6. 
 
 Aurora, birthplace, i. 
 
 B 
 
 Baily, Joshua, 57, 318. 
 
 Baillie, Mrs. Joanna, 30-1. 
 
 Barnes, Albert, 195. 
 
 Batcheler, General, 231. 
 
 Beecher, Henry Ward, 150, 152, 213-15, 295. 
 
 Beecher, Miss Catherine, 231. 
 
 Binney, Thomas, 170-172. 
 
 Blair, General Francis P., 10. 
 
 Bonar, Dr. Horatius, 40, 42. 
 
 Booth, Mrs. Catherine, 265. 
 
 Booth, General, 265. 
 
 Bowring, Sir John, 39-40. 
 
 Bright, John, 27, 134, 316. 
 
 Brown, Dr. John, 105, 109, 147. 
 
 Brooks, Phillips, 195. 
 
 Burns, Robert, 12, 17-19, 26. 
 
 Bushnell, Horace, 190-1. 
 
 Byron, Lord, 13.
 
 350 INDEX. 
 
 Campbell, Thomas, 31. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 23-9. 
 
 Carnaham, Dr., President of Princeton, 9. 
 
 Carnegie, Andrew, 59-60, 275. 
 
 Cary, Edward, 301. 
 
 Cass, General Lewis, 34. 
 
 Channing, William Ellery, 31. 
 
 Chauncey, Charles, 63. 
 
 Cheeseman, Dr. William, 322. 
 
 Chi Alpha Society, 319. 
 
 Christian Endeavor (See Young People's Society of, etc.). 
 
 Clark, Rev. Francis E., 87, 247, 258. 
 
 Comstock, Anthony, 264. 
 
 Cook, Joseph, 231. 
 
 Cox, Dr. Samuel Hanson, 209-13. 
 
 Crosby, Fanny, 43. 
 
 Cunningham, Professor, 13. 
 
 Cuyler, Benjamin Ledyard, Dr. Cuyler's father, 2; died, 3. 
 
 Cuyler, Glen, 2, 24. 
 
 Cuyler, Louise Ledyard, 97. 
 
 Cuyler, Dr., ancestry, i, 2; childhood, 3; farm life, 4; early 
 religious training and reading, 5; preparation for col- 
 lege, 8; college memories, 9-11; visits England and 
 France, Wordsworth, Dickens, Carlyle, Mrs. Baillie, 
 the Young Queen, Napoleon, 12-36 ; first public address, 
 1842, 49, 50; visits Stockholm, 46; delivers his first 
 address in New York, 54; President National Tem- 
 perance Society, 57; views on temperance, 58-59; 
 chooses the ministry, 61 ; at Princeton Seminary, 62; 
 first pastorate, 62, 83 ; preaches at Saratoga, 64 ; methods 
 of preaching, 64-73 ; changes in pulpit methods, 75-81 ; 
 preaches five months at Wyoming Valley, 83, 84; work 
 in New York, 85, 86; Lafayette Avenue, 1860, 86; 
 methods of church work, 87-90; first literary contri- 
 butions, 93; origin of "Under the Catalpa," 95; extent 
 of literary labors, 95; first book, 96; inspiration of 
 "The Empty Crib," 96; inspiration of "God's Light on 
 Dark Clouds," 97; visits to famous people abroad,
 
 INDEX. 351 
 
 Gladstone, 99-104; Dr. John Brown, 105-109; Dean 
 Stanley, 109-115; Earl Shaftesbury, 116, 117; interviews 
 with famous people at home Irving, 118-121 ; Whittier, 
 121-125; Webster, 125-132; Greeley, 132-137; Civil War, 
 138; services to "The Christian Commission," 130; at 
 Washington, 131; first meeting with Lincoln, 142; to 
 Europe in 1862, 145-149; at Edinburgh, 146-147; at 
 Paris, 148; address on Emancipation, 149-150; trip to 
 Charleston, Fort Sumter, 151 ; views on pastoral work, 
 159-169; British pastors Binney, 170-72; Hamilton, 
 172-3; Guthrie, 175-76; Hall, 177-181; Spurgeon, 
 181-86; Duff, 187-89; reminiscences of Princeton Sem- 
 inary preachers, 191 ; reminiscences of famous Amer- 
 ican preachers Phillips Brooks, 190; Horace Bushnell, 
 191-2; Archibald Alexander, 191-3; Joseph Addison 
 Alexander, 193-5; Albert Barnes, 195; Dr. William 
 B. Sprague, 196-197; Dr. Stephen H. Tyng, 197- 
 200; Dr. William Adams, 201-5; Samuel Hanson 
 Cox, 209-13; Henry Ward Beecher, 213-15; Rev. 
 Charles G. Finney, 216-220; Dr. Benjamin M. 
 Palmer, 221-223; summering at Saratoga, 224-232; 
 meets leading Methodists Bishop Jaynes, Bishop 
 Simpson, Bishop Peck, etc., 227-8; Bishop Haven, 
 229-31; summering at Mohonk, 232; Dr. Schaff, 235; 
 Dr. McCosh, 237-9; Mr- Smiley, 240; Indian Confer- 
 ences at Mohonk, 240 ; "Arbitration Conference," 240 ; 
 letter from President Harrison, 242 ; preservation of 
 health, 243 ; growth of church fellowship and diminu- 
 tion of sectarianism, 244-9; exchanging pulpits, 246-9; 
 women in the pulpit Miss Smiley, 249-50; foreign 
 missions, 251-254; Young Men's Christian Association, 
 2 55-57; Christian Endeavor Society, 258; missionary 
 work in New York, 260-268; missionary work in 
 Brooklyn, 268-272; views on the modern novel, 281- 
 82; views on the new theology, 285-87; ministry in 
 Burlington and Trenton, N. J., 288; marriage, 289; 
 his wife, 289-292; Market Street Dutch Reformed 
 Church of New York, 292-294; calls to various
 
 352 INDEX. 
 
 churches, 292; Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, 
 294; Brooklyn, 298; house, 302-303 ; death of his mother, 
 304 ; death of his daughter, 304-5 ; celebration of quar- 
 ter century of ministry at Lafayette Church, 306; 
 resignation from the church, 307-09; travels, 314-317; 
 commemoration of Both birthday, 317-20; valedictory 
 sermon, delivered at Lafayette Avenue Church, 325-46. 
 Cuyler, Theodore Ledyard, Jr., 323. 
 
 D 
 
 Dayton, Hon. William L., 148. 
 
 Delano, Captain Joseph G, 12. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 20-22. 
 
 Dix, General, 57. 
 
 Dod, Albert B., 9. 
 
 Dod, Hon. Amzi, n. 
 
 Dodge, Hon. William K, 56, 57, 275. 
 
 Dow, Neal, 53-55. 
 
 Drummond, Henry, 303. 
 
 Duff, Dr. Alexander, 187-89. 
 
 Duffield, John T., 10. 
 
 Faraday, Sir Michael, 10. 
 Farrar, Archdeacon, 248. 
 Finney, Rev. Charles G., 76, 216-220. 
 
 Girard, Stephen, 273. 
 
 Gladstone, William E., 99, 104, 272. 
 
 Gough, Hon. John B., 51-53. 
 
 Gould, Miss Helen M., 251. 
 
 Greeley, Horace, 132-137. 
 
 Gregg, Rev. Dr. David, 312. 
 
 Grellet, Stephen, 121. 
 
 Gurney, Mrs. Joseph John, 121. 
 
 Guthrie, Dr. Thomas, 175-176.
 
 INDEX. 353 
 
 H 
 
 Hackett, Horatio B., 231. 
 
 Hall, Rev. Newman, 26, 177-181. 
 
 Hamilton College, 2. 
 
 Hamilton, Dr. James, 172-3. 
 
 Harrison, President Benjamin, letter to Dr. Cuyler, 242. 
 
 Harvey, Sir George, 107. 
 
 Hatfield, Dr. Edward F., 47. 
 
 Haven, Bishop, 229-31. 
 
 Hayes, President R. B., 235. 
 
 Henry, Joseph, 9, 10, 140. 
 
 Hodge, Archibald Alexander, 10. 
 
 Hodge, Dr. Charles, 82. 
 
 Hopkins, Dr. Mark, 57. 
 
 Howard, General O. O., 57. 
 
 Hoxie, Judge, 151, 152. 
 
 Huntington, Daniel, 259. 
 
 I 
 
 Irving, Washington, 118-121. 
 
 James, John Angell, 174. 
 Jaynes, Bishop, 227-8. 
 Jesup, Morris K., 274. 
 Judson, Adoniram, 253. 
 
 K 
 Kirk, Rev. Edward N., 73. 
 
 L 
 
 Ledyard, General Benjamin, Dr. Cuyler's grandfather, I. 
 
 Ledyard, Hon. Henry, 34. 
 
 Ledyard, Mary Forman, Dr. Cuyler's grandmother, 2. 
 
 Lewis, Senator Dixon H., 127. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 141-146, 152-157, 229. 
 
 Little, Mr., founder of the "Living Age," 205.
 
 354 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Livingstone, David, 174. 
 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 24. 
 
 M 
 
 Mandeville, Rev. Gerrit, 8. 
 
 Marquand, Frederick, 256. 
 
 Mason, Dr. Lowell, 43, 44. 
 
 Mathew, Father Theobald, 49-51. 
 
 Mathiot, Annie E., Dr. Cuyler's wife, 289. 
 
 Melvill, Henry, 170. 
 
 Miller, Dr. Samuel, 82. 
 
 Moffat, Robert, 174. 
 
 Mohonk, 224, 232-42. 
 
 Mohonk Lake Mountain House, 232-242. 
 
 Montgomery, James, 37-8. 
 
 Montgomery, Satan, 38. 
 
 Moody, Dwight L., 90-91, 216, 247. /toMU/T$ */ & 
 
 Morrell, Charles Horton, 4. 
 
 Morrell, Louise Frances, Dr. Cuyler's mother, 2. 
 
 Mott, Richard, 121. 
 
 Muhlenberg, Dr. William Augustus, 45-6. 
 
 McBurney, Robert, 256. 
 
 Mcchyne, Robert Murray, 315. 
 
 McCosh, President of Princeton, 237-9. 
 
 McSloane, Bishop Charles P., 247. 
 
 McKelway, Dr. St. Clair, 301. 
 
 McLaren, Dr. Alexander, 66, 73, 172. 
 
 McLean, "Uncle Johnny," 9. 
 
 N 
 
 Napoleon, Grand Army of, 35. 
 
 Napoleon's Tomb, 35-6. 
 
 National Temperance Society and Publication House, 55,57. 
 
 Nixon, John T., 10. 
 
 Palmer, Dr. Benjamin M., 221-223. 
 Palmer, Dr. Ray, 43-5.
 
 INDEX. 355 
 
 Park, Edwards A., Professor, 209. 
 
 Pease, Rev. L. M., 260. 
 
 Peck, Bishop, 228. 
 
 Phillipe, Louis, 34. 
 
 Pierpont, John, 231. 
 
 Pratt, Charles, 274. 
 
 Prentiss, Mrs. Elizabeth Payson, 47. 
 
 R 
 
 Raffles, Dr., 12. 
 Renwick, Professor, 13. 
 Robertson, Frederick W., 73. 
 Rockefeller, John D., 274. 
 Roe, Robert, 317. 
 
 Salvation Army, 265-7. 
 
 Sankey, Ira D., 91. 
 
 Saratoga, 224-26. 
 
 Schaff, Dr. Philip, 235-7. 
 
 Schlieman, Dr., 316. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 16, 17, 30. 
 
 Scudder, Edward W., 10. 
 
 Seward, William H., 323. 
 
 Shaftesbury, Earl, 116-117. 
 
 Sloane, Rev. M., 42. 
 
 Simpson, Bishop Matthew, 228-9. 
 
 Smiley, Mr., Indian and Arbitration Conferences, 240-1. 
 
 Smiley, Miss Sara F., 249. 
 
 Smith, Dr. Samuel F., 46-47. 
 
 Society for the Prevention of Vice, 264. 
 
 Southey, Robert, 16. 
 
 Spalding, Levi, 251. 
 
 Spurgeon, Charles H., 181-86. 
 
 Spurgeon, Rev. Thomas, 186. 
 
 Sprague, Dr. William B., 196-197. 
 
 Stanley, Dean, 109-115.
 
 356 INDEX. 
 
 Stitt, Dr., 255. 
 
 Storrs, Dr. Richard S., 205-209. 
 
 Strong's, Dr., Remedial Institute at Saratoga, 227. 
 
 Temple, Dr. 248. 
 
 Thompson, Rev. Charles Lemuel, 319. 
 
 Torrey, Dr. John, 9. 
 
 Tweedie, William, 317. 
 
 Tyng, Dr. Stephen H., 197-200. 
 
 Valedictory Sermon, 325-46. 
 
 Van Buren, President Martin, 231. 
 
 Van Rensellaer, 93. 
 
 Vickers, Mr., 37-8. 
 
 Victoria, Queen, 32-4. 
 
 w 
 
 Walker, Richard W., 10. 
 Wanamaker, John, 270-1, 306. 
 Washington, Booker T., 158. 
 
 Webster, Daniel, 125-132. 
 
 Wells College, 3. 
 
 Whitcomb, Miss Mary, 51. 
 
 Whittier, John G., 121-125. 
 
 Wilberforce, William, 22. 
 
 Willard, Frances E., 231. 
 
 Williams, Sir George, 116, 246-7, 255. 
 
 Wilson, Professor, "Christopher North," 13. 
 
 Wilson, Vice- President Henry, 231. 
 
 Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 60. 
 
 Wordsworth, William, 13-16. 
 
 Young Men's Christian Association, 246-7, 255. 
 
 Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, 246-7, 258.
 
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