(. JAMES MARTINEAU JAMES MARTINEAU ' A BIOGRAPHY AND STUDT BY A. W. JACKSON, A.M. LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON AND BOMBAY * 1900 Copyright, /poo, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY rights reserved UNIVERSITY PRESS JOHN WILSON AND SON CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. TO HORATIO STEBBINS. Dear Friend, whose noble presence fails to show The regal grandeur of thy inner plan, Patrician mien, but an IMPERIAL MAN, / link thy name with that of Martineau. He sage ; thou prophet. His the orient glow Of one who all surveys from peak of Darien; Thine, to call back dead souls to life again, Isaiah's flame, the tones of Cicero. He is the Phosphor of the coming day j Awakener thou of those who dwell in night. Through him men see the heights, through thee adore; And they who write your epitaphs should say Of him, " He touched the mountain crests with light; " Of thee, " He thrilling witness to its glory bore." 2066566 PREFACE THOUGH the plan of this volume may be manifest in its pages, it may yet be not amiss to state it. Of course I could have prepared the narrative of Dr. Martineau's life and followed it with an analysis of his teaching, intent upon nothing more than a just account of his labors ; and this is what I contemplated when I set about the task. As I meditated, however, the thought occurred to me that I might make the volume not only an account of Dr. Martineau, but also an utterance of my own mind ; and these two aims have ruled my labor. In saying this, I hope I do not need to say that, save in love and rever- ence, the disciple does not place himself beside his master. I only imply that the disciple is other than his master, and interprets him from his own mind and heart. This twofold aim may explain to some a frequent feature of the page, a mingling with exposition of much that is extra-expository. There is another feature, too, of which it is the explanation. In dealing with the problems of thought, it made necessary the treatment of them at first hand. This necessity brought me to the study of Dr. Martineau in his teachers, the masters of Tubingen, the great moralists, the great philosophers, who appear some- what conspicuously in the perspective of these pages. viii PREFACE Conceiving my task thus, I was happily, in the general bias of my mind, fairly well prepared to execute it without controversy with my master. Indeed I am not sure that my thought has not been too accordant with his for the best result of a critical study of him. His admonition to me, " Be sure that you do not spare me," has sometimes come back to me almost as a reproof for not finding more in him to dissent from. However, the Empirical type of philosophy, never more than a tentative in my mind, long ago ceased to be. even that; and Utilitarian ethics had always seemed to me at best to provide only rules of con- duct, never standards of character. Thus on the one hand. On the other, the latter-day Idealism, though taught me by a teacher whom I must always revere, and met in books altogether admirable, had never laid a spell upon me. Accordingly, I was prepared to receive as they came the Types of Ethical Theory and the Study of Religion; and, coming at length to the discussion of their problems, I found their cardinal teachings my own working convic- tions. In the domain of Christian Theology, too, Dr. Martineau had long been a leader whom I was well content to follow, while his peculiar ecclesiasticism was an ideal of my mind before I met it in his pages. When I came to the Seat of Authority in Religion, the cardinal features of his New Testament criticism were too familiar to be disturbing; and, though I had long wished for ample assurance that John wrote the Fourth Gospel, my studies had made me more and more doubtful if he could have done so. On the Messianic question, however, I was thrown for a time into an attitude of dissent: Dr. Marti- neau's contention that Jesus did not claim to be the Messiah PREFACE IX for a time seemed incredible, and I girded myself for something like a debate with him. Collating, however, the Synoptic texts which bear upon this problem, I soon found that my own affirmative position was not without difficulties; and at length, meditating the great declara- tion at Caesarea Philippi, the general truthfulness of Dr. Martineau's theory was irresistibly borne in upon me. Thus I have toiled on, as serenely satisfied with Dr. Mar- tineau as was John Fiske with Herbert Spencer when he wrote the eloquent volumes of his Cosmic Philosophy. A work like this, dealing with a teacher of so vast a range, must necessarily be selective in its character : it can deal with but few of the themes that invite consideration. In the present volume even of the themes selected and studiously treated, by no means all are offered. Among other discarded manuscripts my mind turns regretfully to a lengthy and toilsome discussion of the Types of Ethical Theory. My publishers, undoubtedly wiser than I, conceived that it were better to compress the two volumes I had prepared into one, and so this was left out because it could be spared. My thanks are due to Longmans, Green & Co., of London, for their kind permission to quote according to my need from the Seat of Authority and the Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, of which they are the publish- ers. The like grateful acknowledgment is also due the Clarendon Press of Oxford for their permission to use in like manner the Study of Religion and the Types of Ethical Theory. I gratefully remember, too, a group of ministers in Boston in the smile of whose sympathy and most cordial helpfulness my task has been performed; X PREFACE also the children of Dr. Martineau for the valuable assist- ance they have given me. There are others who have variously aided me ; they will doubt not that I remember their kindness, though I do not name them. The labor that here closes has been the happiness of many hours and the comfort of some pain ; and I send it forth in the hope that it may draw some to the further contemplation of the great intellect and soul to which it is devoted. A. W. JACKSON. CONCORD, MASS., Feb. 20, 1900. CONTENTS THE MAN CHAPTER PAGE I. ANCESTRY, FAMILY, EARLY HOME . . ..... i II. EDUCATION ............... 12 III. MINISTRY IN DUBLIN ........... 35 IV. MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL ....... ... 50 V. MINISTRY IN LIVERPOOL (continued) ...... 72 VI. LONDON ................ 88 VII. LATER PUBLICATIONS ; A REMARKABLE TESTIMONIAL 107 VIII. His INTELLECT ............. 123 IX. PERSONAL FEATURES ........... 135 230ofc HE THE RELIGIOUS TEACHER I. THE PREACHER ............. 142 II. THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN ........ 162 III. THE NEW TESTAMENT CRITIC ........ 221 THE PHILOSOPHER OF RELIGION I. KNOWLEDGE .............. 279 II. GOD AND COSMOS ............ 299 III. GOD AND CONSCIENCE ........... 358 IV. His CRITICISM OF PANTHEISM ........ 401 V. FREEDOM AND IMMORTALITY ........ 423 INDEX 449 JAMES MARTINEAU BOOK I THE MAN CHAPTER I ANCESTRY, FAMILY, EARLY HOME LOUIS XIV. conferred incalculable benefit upon other nations by acting the tyrant within his own. The Edict of Nantes, their Magna Charta of religious privilege, had given the Protestants within his realm a legal if precarious exercise of their worship. The Revocation of this Edict in 1685 made Protestantism an outlaw. The horrible detail of persecution that followed, the demolition of churches, the separation of children from their parents, the galleys, the Dragonade, need not be recounted here. The inevitable result was a flow of emigration which the severest penalties and a ubiquitous police could not check. The refugees went, availing themselves of every favorable circumstance, in every manner of disguise, the arrest of some only leading others to plot more skilfully ; and with them went the bravest manhood, the sturdiest intelligence, the most profitable industry. They recruited the armies with which France was soon to be struggling, and carried French manufactures into countries wherewith France was competing. More than this, they carried the latent intelligence that was destined to unfold in children and i 2 JAMES MARTINEAU in children's children, that should have added to the triumphs of French art and letters and statesmanship and philosophy. Among these refugees was one in whom we have a special interest, a certain Gaston Martineau, son of Elie Martineau of Bergerac. There is also a tradition that makes him a surgeon of Dieppe. Bergerac, as we know from general history, was one of the places visited by the Dragonade, and the Martineaus may therefore have wit- nessed, perhaps experienced, its atrocities. After the Revocation of the Edict, this Gaston, a young man and a surgeon, came into England. On the ship that bore him across the Channel was a family of Pierres, also refugees ; and one of these, Marie Pierre, became afterwards his wife. They settled first in London, afterwards in Nonvich, where were already a considerable number of Huguenot exiles, and here he practised his skill and reared his family. Eight children were born to him. What was his age when he came into England, or the date of his coming, it is impossible to say; but the records of the Walloon Church in Norwich, in which he and his immediate descendants worshipped, show him to have been the father of two children in 1695. This is all that can now be told of one the full record of whose life we should be so glad to know. 1 Of the children of Gaston Martineau, the third was named David. He adopted the medical profession, and blessed Norwich by walking in his father's footsteps. To him was born a son, also named David, who became a surgeon likewise. Though he died at the early age of thirty-seven, he left seven children. The oldest of these, Philip Meadows Martineau, fulfilled the family expectation of a surgeon, and in the practice of that noble science i Since writing the above I have learned that he was married at Spital- fields in 1693, an d that his first child was baptized there in 1694. ANCESTRY, FAMILY, EARLY HOME 3 advanced the family fame. The youngest of the seven, Thomas, born after his father's death, became the father of him whose life and work now engage our studious in- terest. Of Thomas Martineau little need be said. He settled in his ancestral Norwich, and engaged in the manu- facture of bombazine, a species of cloth much in use in those days, of which Norwich was the chief source of sup- ply. From a notice of him published several years ago, the impression has gone widely abroad that he was also a wine-merchant. This is an error. His customers in other countries would sometimes send him wine in recognition of some business favor or from friendly regard. His wine was consequently often of choicer flavor than that of his neighbors and friends, who would therefore sometimes ask him to secure a pipe for them. This he would do, though not as business, but as accommodation. Thomas Martineau married Elizabeth Rankin, of New- castle-upon-Tyne, a woman of hardy Northumbrian stock, vigorous, affectionate, and capable. She bore him eight children. Of these the sixth was Harriet, born in 1802, with whom the world has become well acquainted through her large intelligence, broad sympathies, and heroic work ; the seventh was James, born April 2 1, 1805, the lion of this tribe of Judah. The other six sustained, perhaps not less worthily, their less conspicuous part. Of these Eliza- beth, the first born, and Ellen, the last, married each a surgeon, and so imported into the fifth generation a native product of the preceding four. Rachel never married, and for many years conducted a boarding-school in Liverpool. There were three brothers, Thomas, Henry, Robert. The latter was a prominent manufacturer in Birmingham, and at one time mayor of the city. His eldest son afterwards twice held the same office, and in 1887 was knighted by the queen. Ellen left also a son, who is now a noncon- formist minister. Of this large group James was for many years the sole survivor. It was his fortune to enjoy far more than the customary period of earthly life, and to be vigorously em- ployed at an age when most must rest. It was not till January II, 1900, then a little less than ninety-five, that he put off mortality. Of the early home life details are scanty, though such as we have afford a tolerable picture. The father was a man of fine taste and kindly spirit, and, as we shall see further on, of unbending integrity. He was, however, immersed in business, and his part in the home could be hardly more than a wholesome and cheerful influence. The manage- ment of the family, therefore, fell mainly on the mother. A mother with eight children may be as a sun in the domestic firmament, that shines on all alike ; but though they may severally have all her love, they must of necessity divide her care, and so early learn the useful lessons of self- dependence and mutual helpfulness. It was thus in this household. A portrait of her, taken in old age, shows a strong and self-reliant character ; and her gifted son speaks of her sympathies as " open and flexible to new admirations, to new thoughts, to new virtues." He also tells us that " Burns was the poet of her heart," and that " she would repeat his lines with a mellow and racy simplicity, whose tones ring in my memory to this hour." 1 She was, too, a woman of large executive ability, also of unbending con- scientiousness, braced and softened by religious sensibility. As respects the general flow of family intimacy and affection, it is fair to remember that this family were of the early part of the present century, when ideas and standards were very different from now. Dr. Martineau himself says : " In old nonconformist families especially, the Puritan tra- dition and the reticence of a persecuted race had left their austere impress on speech and demeanour unused to be i 1884. ANCESTRY, FAMILY, EARLY HOME 5 free ; so that in domestic and social life there was enforced, as a condition of decorum, a retinue of language and de- portment strongly contrasting with our modern effusive- ness." He adds: "In the process of change to more genial ways, that Norwich home was in advance of the average movement rather than behind ; and in few others have I found the medium better observed between . . . bidding high for profession of enthusiasm and quenching its reality by coldness and derision." From this we get a clear impression of a gentle hand that guided firmly, a love less marked by profuseness of endearment than by constancy of parental service. 1 The religious discipline of the home was probably graver than is the wont in like households now. The traditions of Puritan ancestry had not then had time to relax their hold, as they since have done, and we can imagine the compulsory Bible-readings, the severely decorous Sabbaths. Yet, that the severity of that home was less than might be looked for at that date, the following anecdote may show. The mother, going to church one evening, left the children at home alone with direction to read the Bible in her ab- sence. On her return she asked James what he had read. His answer was " Isaiah." " Why, no, you cannot have read the whole of Isaiah." " Yes, mother, I have, skip- ping the nonsense." Many of us whose birth was of later date took our Bible as it came, not daring to skip the nonsense or even find it. Further, in the bias of religious opinion, the family had departed widely from the Calvin- istic standard of their Huguenot ancestry ; indeed, they represented the liberalism of the day. Their church stood 1 See two very interesting letters by Dr. Martineau in the London Daily News, December 30, 1884, and January 8, 1885. These letters were drawn out by some reflections on his mother by Mrs. Fenwick Miller in her biog- raphy of Harriet Martineau. These reflections, as well as certain intima- tions in Miss Martineau's Autobiography, should for all time be discredited by his most finely tempered word. 6 JAMES MARTINEAU for English Presbyterianism, the root whence English Uni- tarianism sprang. A cardinal principle with English Pres- byterians was the requirement of no creed, adopting for their rule the maxim of Chillingworth, " To the Bible and the Bible only the Christian shall subscribe." In the earlier years the father prospered in business; and though the family maintained no extravagant stand- ard, their circumstances were very comfortable. There came, however, an evil day of which, for the sturdy honor and self-sacrifice it called forth, it is pleasant to tell. In 1823 France threw her armies upon Spain, which received them almost without resistance. New commercial arrange- ments were dictated to the advantage of France, but to the grievous loss of England. Thomas Martineau's bomba- zines had long gone to Spain in exchange for Spanish silks. This trade was now cut off, and, despite his bravest efforts, his business rapidly declined. At length his affairs reached such a degree of embarrassment that he could honor- ably keep silence no longer, and he laid them before his creditors. They found his liabilities in the neighborhood of 100,000, his assets not far from ^"75,000. Fifteen shil- lings to the pound could have been paid, and thus release secured. Fifteen shillings, however, could not pay a pound, according to Martineau standards ; nor could war or any other disaster release from an obligation that any toil or sacrifice could cancel. Confident of his ability in time to pay all, his creditors suffered him to undertake the struggle. It was a long struggle, lasting beyond his life, and carried on by his family. At length the goal was won ; the debt, a maelstrom that had sucked in all their family fortune, was discharged, and the family could face the world with poverty and honor. Rachel and Ellen must needs take service as governesses, and Harriet incur the hardships of her brave early career, but no indulgence was purchased with an unpaid debt. ANCESTRY, FAMILY, EARLY HOME / That this achievement left a legacy of pleasant memory we may well believe ; and testimony is not wanting. In the memoirs of Lord Brougham is a note which he once addressed to Lord Grey, soliciting a pension for Harriet Martineau, whom he felt to be overworked and much de- serving. In it he referred, innocently enough, to her father's failure, meaning, of course, the catastrophe that swept away his fortune. On the appearance of the book Harriet wrote to the London Daily News with the intensity with which she might have repelled an insult : " My father did not fail" Dr. Martineau also, in a later writing, speaks of the " imputation " (of having failed in business) erro- neously cast upon his father " in Lord Brougham's auto- biography." Some years later still, speaking of this event with the present writer, he said with a satisfaction his mod- esty could not conceal : " There was no failure ; twenty shillings to the pound were paid." If there had been fail- ure, surely, according to the judgment of men, there had been no dishonor. The war was none of Thomas Marti- neau's, and he was powerless to avert its consequences; and not a few may find at the root of his conduct an exag- gerated sense of honor. Here, however, is the austere ethics of such emergencies, as his son in later years pro- claimed them : " Whatever be the practice of society with respect to the insolvent, surely it is a mean perversion of the natural moral sense to imagine that his temporary in- ability, or length of delay, can cancel one iota of his obliga- tion : these things only serve to increase its stringency ; tardy reparation being a poor substitute for punctual fidelity. I am far from denying that circumstances of special and blameless misfortune may justify him in accepting the voluntary mercy of friends willing to ' for- give him all that debt.' But whoever avails himself of mere legal release as a moral exemption, is a candidate for infamy in the eyes of all uncorrupted men. The law 8 JAMES MARTINEAU necessarily interposes to put a period to the controversy between debtor and creditor, and prohibit the further struggle between the arts of the one and the cruelty of the other : but it cannot annul their moral relation. Obliga- tion cannot, any more than God, grow old and die : till it is obeyed, it stops in the present tense, and represents the eternal now. Time can wear no duty out. Neglect may smother it out of sight: opportunity may pass and turn it from our guardian angel into our haunting fiend : but while it yet remains possible, it clings to our identity, and refuses to let us go." x Beyond the home, the surroundings, if not the best con- ceivable, were by no means unfavorable. Norwich was, indeed, no Athens of poets and philosophers ; and neither was she a Nazareth from which no good thing was to be expected. Though a manufacturing city, it had in the early part of the century an intellectual life which was considerable, and with it the Martineaus were in touch. William Taylor lived there, and was then doing his work, which, if not great, as viewed in relation with the ages, was yet not without value to his time. To the periodicals of the day, he was a toilsome contributor on subjects of foreign literature. He was among the first to introduce German poetry to English readers. He translated the Nathan der Weise, and gave a rendering of the ballad of Ellenore which found favor in the eyes of Longfellow, and from which Sir Walter Scott derived some inspiration. 2 He also wrote an Historic Survey of German Poetry, and a work on English synonyms. His style was quaint, in- volved, harsh, no mortal could read him now; but the fact stands that he was read, and not without profit, then. There was also a Dr. Frank Sayers who abandoned medi- 1 Sermon : Christian Doctrine of Merit, Endeavors after the Christian Life. a Mrs. Barbauld wrote him : " Do you know that you made Walter Scott a poet ? He told me the other day. It was, he says, your ballad of Lenore that inspired him." Three Generations of English Women, Janet Ross. ANCESTRY, FAMILY, EARLY HOME 9 cine for literature. He wrote Dramatic Sketches of Ancient Northern Mythology; he brought out a volume of poems; he was the author of a volume of Disquisitions, Metaphysi- cal and Literary. None of these works reached the standard that insures fame, yet they served their day. There was like- wise a Dr. Rigby who wrote very elaborately on subjects of medicine and agriculture ; also a Dr. Alderson, who wrote on agriculture and geology ; and several others whose names are recorded, and whose works the curious may still find, not stars, yet very serviceable candles. There were two others who stood in a somewhat different category : Amelia Opie, whose novels, though not great, were yet wholesome, and gained a popularity that lasted beyond her day ; and Anna Laetitia Barbauld, intelligent, gentle, pure, who fell a little short of popularity and just missed of fame. The latter did not live in Norwich, but was a frequenter there, and an occasional visitor in the Martineau household. Indeed, the Norwich of Mr. Martineau's boyhood might have filled an alcove of a public library with the works of her contemporary authors. Besides, the city was not without a record of strong men in whose paths the growing boy must tread. There was John Taylor, 1 teacher, author, and Presbyterian divine, who wrote many works of a theological character, A Hebrew Concordance, A Scheme of Scripture Divinity, The Scripture Doctrine of the Atonement, A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistle to the Romans, A Free and Candid Ex- amination of the Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin. The latter was honored with a polemic cannonade both from Edwards and John Wesley. Reaching somewhat farther back, there were Archbishop Parker, Thomas Legge, 1 Born at Lancaster, 1694. Ordained by " dissenting ministers " at Derby- shire in 1716. He moved to Norwich to become the colleague of another minister in 1733. In 1754 he laid the first stone of the famous Octagon Chapel, described by John Wesley as " perhaps the most elegant one in all Europe," and too fine for the " old coarse gospel." 10 JAMES MARTINEAU Bishop Cosin, Bishop Pearson, all Norwich born; also Erpingham, Bishop Hall, and, best known of all, Sir Thomas Browne, had found here their home. It was surely no empty panegyric on the part of Lord Houghton, when he said in an address at Norwich, not many years ago : " I know no provincial city adorned with so many illustrious names in literature, the professions, and public life ; those of Taylor, Martineau, Austin, Alderson, Opie, come first to my recollection, and there are many more behind ; and there is this additional peculiarity of distinc- tion, that these are for the most part not the designation of individuals, but of families numbering each men and women conspicuous in various walks of life." 1 In this period, too, flourished a somewhat famous school of landscape painting, distinguished by the works of Crome and Cotman and Vincent, far enough from Gainsborough and Turner, yet awaking some admiration and enkindling some incentives in their day. Norwich is a venerable town, with its heirlooms of tradi- tion and its historic monuments, a more marked feature in the first quarter of our century, perhaps, than now. In the first quarter of the eleventh century it was the home of Canute ; in the first quarter of the twelfth century Henry I. gave it a charter. Here are traces of the ancient wall, which in the first half of the fourteenth century sur- rounded whatever of city there then was, a circuit of four miles. Here is a Cathedral, a Norman structure, some- what more than four hundred feet in length, with a spire of three hundred and fifteen feet. Here, too, is a Benedic- tine monastery, completed before the middle of the twelfth century. Here are numerous churches said to antedate the discoveries of Columbus; and here is the Walloon Church in which Mr. Martineau's ancestors worshipped. Mrs. Chapman, in her Memorials of Harriet Marti- 1 Three Generations of English Women, Janet Ross. ANCESTRY, FAMILY, EARLY HOME II neau> writing of Norwich, speaks of its " uninteresting antiquity." The antiquity may have been uninteresting to Harriet, very likely to Mrs. Chapman. To James, how- ever, who was of another order of mind, it may have been not only interesting but profitable. Now it were pleasant to tell how as a youth he explored crypt or churchyard, or was lost in reverie as he gazed on some venerable pile; of his thus doing, however, there has come to us no tale. But from our knowledge of the man we may come at least to some divination of the boy; and from this we may be sure of a sensibility to which these traditions and these associations had meaning. Silently, and perhaps unconsciously, he must have received their influence. James and Harriet were children of the same mother ; yet the contrasts of their ruling characteristics were very marked, and here we meet one of them. Harriet was a child of to-day, who bravely looked to the future for whose weal she toiled. She had, however, little reverence for the past ; she was wanting in the sensibility by which she should have seen that through the toils and strug- gles of other generations had been handed to her the very torch she bore. The institutions, the ideas, the faiths of other times she was apt to treat as the dry stalks and decayed herbage of her spring-time garden, which she cleared away to give space for the fresh summer blossoms. James, too, is a child of to-day, yet a Janus that looks before him and behind, to the future with prophetic hope, to the past with eye clear to the deep meaning of its endeavors. His is the historic sense that finds in to-day the unfolding of yesterday, and in yesterday the interpretation of to-day. In his garden he is not so much mindful of the dry stalks and decaying herbage as of the hardy root from which they sprang, and from which each season comes another and, by some miracle, a different flower. CHAPTER II EDUCATION AMONG the useful institutions of Norwich is a grammar school, a foundation of the fourteenth century. To this school James Martineau was sent from eight to fourteen years of age as a day-scholar. The school was not without reputation. It had had among its pupils not a few who had won distinction ; Dr. Samuel Parr was at one time at its head. When James was in attendance, Edward Valpy was head-master. As a classical scholar Valpy had reputation, nor is he yet forgotten. Before James entered the school, he had published Elegantics Latincz, a text-book for such as would teach an elegant Latinity, which he used. Some- what later he brought out editions of the Greek Testament, the Septuagint, and the Iliad. Under a teacher of such marked classical accomplishment, the emphasis of the school was naturally upon classical studies, and in these James made rapid progress. He also learned the French language. Mathematics, however, then as ever after a favorite study, he was not permitted to pursue to an extent commensurate with his abilities and his desires. In a public school of two hundred and thirty pupils rude elements are to be looked for ; and the sensitive boy who has endured well, should have a tolerable martyrdom put down to his credit. James was this kind of boy. He had also a moral sensibility to which the hazing and hectoring were moral affronts of serious proportion. Of course, therefore, he was not entirely happy there. EDUCATION 13 The way opened for his transfer to another school. His sister Harriet, who had been visiting in Bristol, brought home glowing accounts of Lant Carpenter, who was both minister and teacher there. She does not speak of him reverently in her Autobiography ; but her representation of him then led her parents to place James under his care. His school was a boarding-school; therefore it was not large. It was intended to be, and doubtless was, select. No proper account can be given of Dr. Martineau that does not embrace an account of Lant Carpenter. Dr. Martineau has never been stingy in his recognitions of the friends of his intellect or spirit; but to no other of his helpers has he confessed a debt so large as to him. Har- riet Martineau speaks of him as " superficial in his knowl- edge, scanty in ability, narrow in his conceptions." His influence upon her brother, of which, after seventy years, he kindled into eloquence when telling, makes her judg- ment incredible. Writing of him in 1841 he said, and never after saw reason to unsay : " So forcibly, indeed, did that period act upon me, so visibly did it determine the subsequent direction of my mind and lot, that it always stands before me as the commencement of my present life, making me feel like a man without a childhood; and though a multitude of earlier scenes are still in view, they seem to be spread around a different being, and to belong, like the incidents of a dream, to some foreign self that became extinct when the morning light of reality broke upon the sight." If further testimony be needed, it may be drawn from the action of the University at Glasgow in which he studied. When yet but twenty-six years of age, forecasting authorship, he conceived that the degree of Master of Arts might be helpful to him ; and wrote to his Alma Mater respecting it. The Faculty without dis- senting voice sent him, not an M.A., but an LL. D. in- stead. Was it thus that the Glasgow University treated 14 JAMES MARTINEAU young men of " superficial knowledge and scanty ability and narrow conceptions " ? Again, the class of minds on which he acted, together with his ever-extending and lasting in- fluence, makes the acceptance of this estimate impossible. There are those, indeed, who mistake twinkle for star ; but the wise navigators of life's ocean speedily detect the dif- ference. Yet again, here are his writings, not wise with the wisdom the last fifty years have gathered, but surely reflecting the scholar's mind, the thinker's insight, and, before all else, the Christian heart. Grant that he had less than the large and solid erudition of Arnold, less ability, also, to mould the opinions of his pupils after the fashion of his own, a thing he would have religiously shrunk from doing, we yet feel that we are here dealing with one of those instances in which Miss Martineau's early impressions were truer than her later retrospects. 1 Finally, 1 There is a view of Harriet Martineau, entertained in very high quarters, which, in consideration of some of the judgments contained in her Autobi- ography, seems in its nature charitable. She was an invalid a large portion of her life ; she suffered from, extreme deafness, which is almost sure at last to leave its trace upon mind or spirit. Besides, she experienced a spiritual transition from a faith the most confiding, to a scepticism the most ultra. The view is that she threw back, as it were, her later and poorer moods, and so saw her past in the discoloring light of her present. An illustrative instance is told at Oxford by a gentleman in very high standing. In earlier life, as is well known, Miss Martineau wrote a book of a devotional character. In later life, after she had become, as she supposed, an atheist, she was visited one morning by a lady whom she took into her garden, then profusely in blossom. Waving her hand over her flowers, she said, " Who would n't be grateful for blessings such as these ? " " Grateful to whom, Miss Martineau, on your theory ? " " Ah," said she, with a smile, " you have me there." " Do you know," said the friend, " it has always been a matter of great surprise to me that one who wrote those beautiful prayers should have become an atheist ? " " What prayers ? " " Why, those you wrote." " / never wrote any prayers." " Why, certainly you did, Miss Martineau, and I have the book and prize it very highly." Miss Martineau still persisted that there must be some mistake about it ; so the friend called again the next morning and placed the volume in her hands. " Well," said Miss Martineau, " I suppose I must have written it, but I had forgotten all about it ; and I do not see how I could have done it." Forgetting the authorship of a book seems an extraordinary lapse of EDUCATION 15 while it is true that a Marcus may be the father of a Commodus, and that to a John Shakespeare a William Shakespeare may be born, still in these days a permanence of high characteristics in a family is a suggestive circum- stance. It seems in point to remember that Lant Carpenter was the father of Mary Carpenter, also of William B. Car- penter, whose fame two continents have proved not large enough to hold ; that the latter became the father of Prof. J. Estlin Carpenter, who promises to add to the lustre of his line. In his mental outfit he was not a specialist, nor yet a congeries of specialisms, as that of the modern scholar is apt to be. He knew the classics well, mathematics well, the sciences well, mental and moral philosophy well. He was also, by education and training, a theologian. His knowledge, however, was an organism in which all parts had vital relation. He had therefore the primary qualifi- cation for imparting knowledge, a balanced appreciation not likely to depreciate in one direction or exaggerate in another. Indeed, so far as he went, he answered to Dr. Martineau's own idea of an educator, as given in his address on retiring from Manchester New College. Gently criti- cising the tendency to specialisms by which the student is handed along from master to master, he likens a mind so formed to a ship put together in " water-tight compart- ments " which is " not really at home in the element it traverses, but treats it as an enemy against whose surprises it must guard." On the other hand, he maintains that a " learner of many subjects from one mind sees them in their analogies and unity ; for they cannot well lie apart from one another, unaided by agreement, unconscious of memory ; and it is difficult to help feeling that the inability to see how she, the atheist, could have done it, in part explains the phenomenon. The inci- dent compels us to feel that, however zealously she may have been pressing on to the things that were before, it is necessary to receive with caution her testimony as to the things that were behind. 1 6 . JAMES MARTINEAU contradiction, but must necessarily share the unity of the personality they occupy." Of course this presupposes the one mind, not large necessarily with the largeness of Bacon's, but possessed of a certain assimilating and organ- izing power, Baconian in character. Such a mind was Lant Carpenter's. He was, however, something more than a well-rounded scholar; he was a well-rounded man. He was deficient, his pupil tells us, in aesthetic sensibility; of art he had no due appreciation. His moral sense, however, was of the noblest order: if he could not adequately appreciate Phidias' statues, he could enter into Aristides' justice ; and if clouds and sunsets did not appeal to him, he knew the look of Duty, and was responsive to her frown or smile. Not that he was an austere man ; on the contrary, he was a very gentle one. For religion too dwelt within him, and softened into a Christian the stoic he might otherwise have been. His one conspicuous departure from moral fair- ness was probably in dealing with himself; he wore him- self out in the pursuit of an exaggerated duty. Then, the smile he could so freely give he could not appropriate. He would turn from his toils, when perforce he must, not with self-approval for the much he had done, but depressed by a torturing consciousness of what he had failed to do. Such a toiler we would have see in the skies he looks into a considerateness equal at least to his own, and in his nightly musing take account of the diligence with which he has climbed as well as of the height he has not gained. There was, too, a largeness in his view the want of which has brought disaster to many a man of like austere con- scientiousness. Detail and minutiae he required ; but he saw through them, and made others see, the principle that ennobled them. The order of his school-room was heaven's order brought down to earthly relations ; and the triviali- ties of behavior, or what we call such, were as snow-flakes EDUCATION I/ or grains of dust in which the whole law of gravitation is manifest. As a theologian he was involved in much controversy ; yet his zeal for the faith never supplanted his religious tolerance ; a Protestant of Protestants, he could yet toil for Catholic emancipation; a nonconformist of the Uni- tarian type, he lifted religion out of all relation with sec- tarianism. His convictions were reasonably intense ; yet so far did he put by religious partisanship that parents of the severer schools of religious opinion would place their children under his tuition, that they might receive the benefit of his religious instruction. He was greatly helped in his work by a charm that young people found in him. He could enter into their sympathies and take hold of their affections. No mere charmer, however, will leave the enduring impression that he left; his work was guided by an aim which only a great teacher and a holy man could realize. All are familiar with the criticism of Montaigne upon the education prev- alent in his day, that it made men learned, not good and wise, taught how to decline virtus, not to love virtue ; and the criticism would most likely apply to education in its general scope in any time. With Mr. Carpenter the aim was the reverse of this : his pupils should meet the commu- nication of truth with answering reverence ; he grasped the idea of a symmetry of culture in which intellect, the con- science, and the heart should be nurtured together. To this end he brought to bear upon them his stern and lofty ideals, his intense and burning enthusiasm. The econo- mies of time, the punctilios of behavior, were taken out of drudgery by being lifted into moral relations. As for re- ligion, it was as the sunshine and atmosphere, an element in which they lived, a stimulus, a consecration, and a joy. "There was something in his voice," writes his pupil, " mellowed by the spirit within, that made the 1 8 JAMES MARTINEAU reality of God felt; something that broke through the boundary between the seen and the unseen, and opened the secret place of the Almighty, whence sanctity descends on all human obligations." Such was the teacher to whom young James was com- mitted. That the progress in his studies was rapid hardly need be told. The value of tuition from such a teacher, however, must be estimated, not in terms of measurable attainment, but of immeasurable impulse. If in Dr. Car- penter was the genius to give, in his pupil was the genius to receive ; and under that stimulus his whole nature was aroused. It was as dew and sunshine upon rich and fal- low soil in which are germs of multifarious use and beauty. In his long life of toil there was probably no period in which he would not have confessed the still-abiding in- fluence of his Bristol school-master. Two years only of this high privilege were allowed him, and with their termination he supposed his school-days to be ended. His father had decided on his career ; another was to be added to the many attempts, some of them mournfully suc- cessful, to make Apollo a farm-hand for Admetos. He was to be an engineer, and was sent to Derby to learn his profession. He was employed there in the works of- Mr. Fox, and for a year was kept at the lathe or the bench of the model-room. He had a positive liking for the work, and ever after preserved a taste for mechanical construction. Several circumstances were soon conspiring against this mistaken enterprise. First, his master, in many ways a capable man, was yet not able to give him that instruction in mechanics which an accomplished engineer should have ; and he found himself an apprentice learning a trade rather than a pupil being taught a science ; and he was dissatis- fied. Further, the spell of Lant Carpenter was upon him, and powerfully influenced him. Again, the death of a EDUCATION 19 distant kinsman, Henry Turner, a not highly gifted but saintly young minister, deeply moved him. 1 Yet again, and more significant than all other circumstances, the vocation whereto he was called, while Henry Turner yet lived,, and before he knew Lant Carpenter, was declaring itself within him. At length the conviction took form that iron and steel were not the materials in which he was to work, but thought tempered in the fire of spirit. The announcement of his desire to become a minister brought disappointment to his father, who saw an exchange of a profession that promised a comfortable livelihood for one which, outside the Establishment, meant the crust of well-nigh irremediable poverty. Too wise, however, to attempt to thwart the wishes of his son in such a matter, he offered to incur the expense of his needful education. The year at Derby we may well believe not without value to his future work ; the Pontifex Maximus who will throw his arch from this world over to the other may be helped by experience of terrestrial bridge-building. It was, too, of great significance to him personally. He boarded in the family of a dissenting minister, Rev. Ed- ward Higginson, who had a daughter of about James' age. The rest is the old story that is always new. They took the situation somewhat too reasonably for ideal lovers. Too young, as was thought, for engagement, they agreed to leave the matter as it was, not seeing each other, or corresponding save at distant intervals, until ' the years of study were completed. Then, if their present mind continued, all should be according to their hearts' desire. The years of waiting only proved their constancy, and their hope for each other was fulfilled in marriage. At the time when James Martineau decided on college training preparatory to the ministry, the great historic uni- 1 In his address on the occasion of his leaving Manchester New College he speaks of " Henry Turner, whose death was my conversion." 2O JAMES MARTINEAU versities of England were closed to such as would not sign the articles of the Church of England. The expense, too, of attending one of them might have been too severe a tax upon the family exchequer. The college chosen was the Manchester College, then at York. Historically this col- lege succeeds the famous Warrington Academy, that Priestley served, but which expired after a brief and bril- liant career of twenty-nine years. These were the days of heroic and disheartening struggle for " free learning " in England. 1 Six institutions, succeeding one another, had in less than a century borne aloft the torch ere Warrington took it ; 2 and now Warrington had let it fall. With a faith in the principle which defeat could not vanquish, the friends of " free learning " founded at once the Manchester College, or Manchester Academy, as it was at first called ; which for more than a century has borne the torch success- fully. This College, however, has been remarkable for its peripatetic tendency. It received its first class at Man- chester in 1786. In 1803 it was moved to York. Thence it was returned to Manchester in 1840. In 1853 it was moved to London; and in 1889 to Oxford. Here we will hope that its peregrinations are over, and that it may long diffuse its light. 3 1 The phrase "free learning" occurs very frequently in occasional ad- dresses at this College, and it has a meaning to our English brethren which we in America can scarce appreciate. It has tacit reference to the persistent opposition of the State Church to whatever " university learning " she did not foster and direct. And, as the enjoyment of this implied subscription to her creed, her attitude meant the ban of ignorance upon such as could not gather within her fold. The struggles for " university learning " in Eng- land in the face of this opposition constitute one of the heroic chapters of English history. 2 See a very interesting and instructive speech by Rev. Alexander Gor- don on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the College; also an address by Dr. Martineau on the same occasion. Both may be found in the volume entitled Theology and Piety Alike Free. 8 In its various changes the College has undergone corresponding changes in its official designation. In its first Manchester period it was EDUCATION 21 In all these various stages it has been true to one cardi- nal principle, that of absolute religious freedom. Of creed subscription as a condition of university learning it ha,s left to the State institutions an ungrudged monopoly. 1 The purpose of the College, as quoted in an address of its first Principal, was " to establish a plan affording a full and systematic course of education for divines and pre- paratory instructions for the other learned professions as well as for civil and commercial life." It was thus a college of divinity and of general culture in one. The number the College has educated has never been large ; in its earlier years the number that took courses in Theology was very small. Yet not only has it filled a most important place as an institution of learning in which the higher problems of thought could be traversed without predetermined con- clusion, but its record is a proud one. In a roll-call of its students not a few of honored name and laurelled brow should answer. In its professors it has had some of the fairest ornaments of England's learning. In its theology the freedom of its spirit has forbidden it to be stationary. In its first Manchester period, under Thomas Barnes, it represented the later development of English Presbyterianism, mildly looking towards Arianism. In the York period, under Charles Wellbeloved, we per- haps may say that it accomplished the transition to the older type of Unitarianism. In the second Manchester period it represented that type of thought in its completer unfolding. When the College reached London, it came under the principalship of John James Tayler, and, follow- simply Manchester Academy. At York it was Manchester College, York. On its return to Manchester it became Manchester New College, Manchester. At London it became Manchester, New College, London, and at Oxford, Manchester New College, Oxford. Later its official designation was changed to Manchester College. 1 Oxford and Cambridge have abandoned creed subscription save for the theological professor. 22 JAMES MARTINEAU ing the lead of his large thought and learning, it took on Unitarianism of the more modern type, which anon under Martineau it further unfolded, and now under Drummond reflects in its fullest development. In its lecture-rooms for many years Unitarianism as such has had but an incon- spicuous place in truth's large inclusiveness. It is a school of Divinity, not the arsenal of a. sect. It was in the York period that young Martineau, in the year 1822, sought admission. The course was five years; the first three devoted to studies of a general character, the last two to Theology. Hebrew was taken through the entire course. The college work was pressed with great earnestness ; John Kenrick twice mentions his pupil's " intemperate study; " also he speaks of his " care of research " and of his " minute accuracy." He worked by a theory, oftener com- mended than adopted, of which he spoke in later years. " I remember," said he, " thinking that the use of educa- tion was to correct the weakness of nature, rather than to develop its strength, which would take care of itself; and so I gave double time to whatever I disliked, and reserved my favorite studies for spare moments of comparatively tired will." The College did not have the facilities deemed indispen- sable in such institutions now. He found in it, however, two essentials to rapid progress, to such a pupil the only two, studies equal to his powers, and guidance equal to his need. He was taught the Calculus by the fluxional rather than the differential method, which he afterwards had rea- son to regret ; and Hebrew without the vowel pointings, which must have added to the toil of learning. 1 However, 1 A note from John Kenrick begets the suspicion that tracts of learning were sometimes traversed rather than explored. He thought a year at Got- tingen, where they went through only one evangelist, one prophet, three or four epistles, or three centuries of ecclesiastical history, not equal to a year at York, where Wellbeloved was in the habit of going through the Old or EDUCATION 23 at the end of five years he stepped forth into life with thoroughly disciplined faculties, together with a store of mathematical and physical science, of classical languages and literatures, of history, logic, philosophy, theology, that gave him firm footing as an educated man, and ample equipment for entering on his chosen career. This summary, however, hardly conveys the full signifi- cance of his college years. Like all deep natures, his was, then and ever after, extremely susceptible to personal in- fluence; and in college, as in the school at Bristol, he was most fortunate in this. The number of students was small, there were ten only in his class, and he had but three comrades in Divinity; so that the pupil enjoyed a closeness of contact with his teachers which a thronged lecture-room makes impossible. The closeness of this relation was further provided for by the smallness of the number of teachers. Many years later, contrasting the Manchester New College from which he retired as Princi- pal with the Manchester College in which he studied, he mentioned the fact that the subjects taught at the later date by fourteen teachers were taught by three at the earlier; and he was clearly of opinion that the advantage is not wholly with the more extended division of labor which is now prevailing. Then was the " pluralist " teacher, now the " specialist; " and, for purely educational advantage, he found much to urge in favor of the pluralist. Another advantage, however, which he did not mention, but which he surely would have recognized, is this : Where now the student receives his instruction from many teachers, and so meets them at but a single point, and feels their influence but slightly, he then, in receiving his instruction in many subjects from few teachers, met them at many points, and so experienced from them the full weight of their intellect the New Testament. On this basis of comparison modern views of learning would certainly give to Gottingen the preference. 24 JAMES MARTINEAU and character. Where the intellect was great and the character was high, this was a circumstance not to be re- garded lightly. Such were the intellect and character of two of Dr. Martineau's teachers, John Kenrick and Charles Wellbeloved. John Kenrick, in the largeness of his attainments, must have stood high among the first scholars of his day. Cer- tainly in his line there was no institution in England whose fame he would not have advanced, and any congress of scholars would have applauded his erudition. His studious and uneventful life has not called forth a biography, and the encyclopaedias have for most part passed him by; so that his record, save in the affectionate memories of those who were near him, is somewhat dim. Nor had he the genius for prolific book-making, such as charac- terizes, for instance, Max Miiller; and so he failed of that falat, sometimes rather cheap, which a voluminous author- ship may win. Yet his volumes, though few, entitled him to the student's gratitude and the scholar's admiration. He was the translator of Zumpt's Latin Grammar ; he was one of the earliest to undertake the preparation of popular manuals for Greek and Latin study, which have made the approaches to those languages in these modern days so much more easy and delightful. He published two vol- umes on Egypt, Egypt of Herodotus and Ancient Egypt under the Pharaohs, of which the worst that can be said is, that they are not enriched with the results of investiga- tions that have followed them. He published a volume on Persia, which for forty years has held its place without serious challenge. His more important books were the outcome of his college work; and it was the cause of learning they were designed to serve, not popular favor they were put forth to win. So, while written in a style singularly clear and forcible, his matter is offered without dilution or condiment, the solid meat of learning in EDUCATION 2$ which healthy appetite may rejoice, not the beef-tea which feeble stomachs can receive. He studied theology with thought of the ministry, but from this the needs of Manchester College drew him aside. From such religious writings as he left, it seems clear that in him a great theologian was sacrificed to a great pro- fessor in another field. As already indicated, his special lines of study were classical and historical. His ability to enter into a language, to grasp its details and absorb its spirit, was of the first order. When a young man he had the privilege of a year in Germany, and availed himself of an opportunity to practise Latin conversation with Zumpt. Zumpt afterwards remarked of his German that it differed from a native's only in its extreme purity, " correct literary speech without a trace of local colouring." l A student of language must deal much in the minutiae of learning ; and for this reason the classic tongues have been a field in which pedantry has prospered. Professor Kenrick, however, brought to them the patient research of the in- vestigator, together with the broad view and deep insight of the philosopher. His was the order of mind to which Comparative Philology owes its being; and, had not his work led him in a somewhat different direction, it is hardly to be doubted that he might have stood with the Schlegels and Wilhelm von Humboldt among the leaders of that noble science. The same order of ability he brought to the study of history. With untiring patience in the scrutiny of details he combined the clearest perception of the forces by which history is ruled. For this reason his books, even when they need the correction of more recent knowledge, are yet profitable : they are the kind of books from which we gather wisdom as well as learning ; they are unambitious in aim, modest in pretension, but wearing on every page the impress of a master mind. 1 Martineau's Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. i. p. 404. 26 JAMES MARTINEAU He was a sun that^did not need a solar system in which to shine; for thirty-five years the little class-room at Manchester College was his field of toil, and there is no evidence that he was ever haunted by the consideration whether his influence reached beyond or no. Mr. Mar- tineau thinks that of his title to be heard in the high debates of European scholarship, he could not have been unconscious. He was, however, one of those rare souls whose satisfaction in simple duty makes a small place large ; and the " last infirmity of noble mind " was ever far away from him. His great pupil bears witness to him as " above ambition, incapable of pretence, eager to see things as they are, and assured that, through the darkness that sometimes enfolds them, the only guide is the un- swerving love of truth; and, accepting life for service, not for sway, he never measured his sphere to see whether it was small or great, but deemed it enough to bear his witness where he stood, and help, as he might, the com- panions of his way." This will do for him ; but there is another aspect of the matter respecting which satisfaction is not so easy. How came it that he was so little known ? That his name is not written beside the names of Boeckh and Lachmann is easily explained : he did not measure himself against their problems ; at any rate, did not par- ticipate in their discussions. That his reputation, however, was hardly insular suggests some fault in his environment. To be sure, he had no Eiffel Tower from which to shine ; but neither was his candle hidden under a bushel ; and its pure white beam shone clear. The explanation at once suggested, it is to be feared, is too obvious: he represented that nonconformity which to English church- dom is a Nazareth out of which no good thing is expected, yet out of which how frequently have the best things come. When Matthiae's Greek Grammar, very celebrated in its day, after a considerable growth through several EDUCATION 27 editions in Germany, needed a revise^ and complete Eng- lish translation, the Bishop of London, who had the task in hand, settled upon Professor Kenrick as one to be intrusted with the labor. Accordingly the work was published under his editorial care. The printer sent proof not only to Professor Kenrick, but to the Bishop as well ; and in it the editor's name appeared, " Rev. John Kenrick." The Bishop erased the " Rev.," and at the same time wrote to the printer explaining that it was impossible to concede that title to one not in Holy Orders. 1 The Rt. Rev. could see the scholar, but a nonconformist Rev. was impossible. It is to be feared that the spirit that cannot see the nonconformist Rev. will, save in rare exceptions, fail also to see the nonconformist scholar; at least, will but dimly discern his merit and stingily measure off his fame. As to the order of his mind, he was little speculative, perhaps too little. The classic poets and orators and historians stirred his enthusiasm, but not the classic phi- losophers in like degree. A page of Demosthenes was more congenial to him than a page of Aristotle, and the Histories of Tacitus than the Disputations at Tusculum. In all his investigations in whatever field it was objective evidence he sought, and with which alone he was satisfied. On one side this may imply limitation ; it was limitation, however, that afforded the negative value of protection. It saved him from illusions to which the theorizer is ever liable, and spared his pupils the brilliant vagary. Whether in the realm of myth, or legend, or ancient inscriptions, or laws, or institutions, it was with feet he walked, never with wings he flew. He was one, therefore, from whom to derive solid erudition. Likewise he was one to set the example and instil the spirit of patient, slow-footed, and toilsome investigation. 1 Martineau's Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. i. p. 410. 28 JAMES MARTINEAU As to his conduct in the class-room, we have hints here and there, and Dr. Martineau has borne suggestive testi- mony. There must have been something of severity in his general tone ; possibly too little tenderness for strug- gling stupidity ; for shiftlessness and laziness the manifest impatience or the biting sarcasm that was their due. His professor's chair was doubtless something of a judgment seat to the student who had been undutiful. Yet one of his pupils tells of a " courtesy that bent to every intel- lectual need, a sympathy that went half-way to meet every genuine intellectual aspiration." 1 He was a man of the severest literary taste, and the bubbles the ambitious student might bring him were sure to be delivered of the wind that had blown them. To indelicacy of language he was sensitive, and a strained and foolish pedantry was certain to meet a summary judgment. Mr. Martineau tells of a student who, in read- ing from Tacitus an account of some German tribes who wore braccas, stopped at the word. "Well, what does braccas mean?" The student blushingly replied, "A species of habiliment for covering the lower part of the body." " Humph, Mr. B., commonly called breeches" Thus under his criticism was language ever brought down to the dimensions of things and made correctly to name them. With respect to his instruction Mr. Martineau's own testimony had best be quoted. Speaking especially of his classical instruction, he says : " In Mr. Kenrick's treat- ment of every subject, there seemed to be one constant characteristic, a comprehensive grasp of its whole out- line, with accurate scrutiny of its separate contents. Noth- ing fragmentary, nothing discursive, nothing speculative, broke the proportions or disturbed the steady march of his prearranged advance. His prolegomena to every classical text furnished a compendium of its literary his- 1 Rev. Charles Beard. EDUCATION 29 tory, and reproduced the conditions of ancient life, civic, legal, domestic, personal, under which it arose. The read- ing of it in class was marked by a similar completeness : nothing was allowed to slip by without coming into the full focus of elucidation: grammatical construction, textual criticism, archaeology, dialect, geography, dates, graces or defects of style, all were brought into distinct view; yet without inducing any tedious slowness in the progress, or killing out the spirit of the piece." His testi- mony to his instruction in ancient and modern history is not less emphatic. It seems not strange, therefore, that fifty years after he left the class-room he should be able to testify that he brought thence a " standard of philologi- cal accuracy, of historic justice, of literary taste," that had directed his " aspirations ever since." The features of Charles Wellbeloved are less easy to outline, though the materials at hand are sufficient to show what manner of man he was. During the York period of the College, a period of thirty-seven years, he was its Principal. All this time he was pastor of a church to which he gave the long ministry of fifty-four years. 1 Per- haps he was not a man of Olympian mould, yet from the magnitude of his work and the quality of his influence one not to be passed indifferently. Mrs. Catharine Cappe in her Memoirs speaks of his " humility, his disinterestedness, his varied talents, his de- sire for knowledge, especially religious knowledge, his freedom from prejudice, and his manifold piety." Thus he impressed her when, a young man of twenty-three, he came to York to assist her husband in his pastoral office. 1 The ministry of his predecessor, Mr. Cappe, was forty-six years. John Kenrick very well remarks : " It is not common to find a pastoral connec- tion lasting even the shorter of these terms ; that two in succession should fill up a century must be a very rare occurrence." Memoir of the Late Charles Wellbeloved, p. 228. 30 JAMES MARTINEAU She also quotes her husband, himself a saint and scholar, as saying : " This, my dear, is the very young man I wanted ; he will be eminent in his day." John Kenrick, also, writing of him after his death and from many years of intimate acquaintance, says : " The characteristic feature of Mr. Wellbeloved's mind was benevolence. It beamed in his eye; it spoke in his voice; it diffused itself over his manner, which was kind and courteous to every one, of whatever rank or condition, with whom he had intercourse. It might truly be said of him that he was a ' man made to be loved.' " l We learn from the same writer of an official relation which he held with the York Lunatic Asylum. He says of him that " his benevolence led him to feel a lively interest in those who were suffering from this griev- ous affliction; he was convinced of the power of gentleness and kindness to remove what severity only tended to aggravate. He felt none of that undefinable terror of the insane which affects many persons of stronger nerves and greater physical courage, but mixed freely and fearlessly among them. His voice and manner were peculiarly suited to soothe a troubled mind and win confidence, and his sagacity pointed out to him how their delusions were most effectually to be dealt with." 2 These touches bring before us a man of peculiarly gentle mould, of sympathetic nature, of winning grace. So constantly were these fea- tures manifest, that those near him did not know until his lips confessed, that he was naturally of a choleric temper of which only through long and patient watchfulness had he gained the mastery. Such, however, was only one aspect of the man. Under his soft glove was a hand that was capable of a grasp that was strong ; he was ruled by the finest and most exacting moral sense, to which no services were to be declined 1 Memoir of the Late Charles Wellbeloved, pp. 244-245. 2 Ibid. pp. 139-140. EDUCATION 3 1 because onerous, and trifling duties were sacred. They were taken, too, without apparent consciousness of aught deserving in them, and with a modesty that looked upon his best and utmost as the least that fidelity could render. It may be doubted if students ever had before them a more marked example of methodical and tireless and con- secrated industry. In the earlier years of the College it was not the teacher's privilege to have a single province of learning over which he presided ; and we find Mr. Well- beloved with one assistant, who rendered some service in the classical and mathematical departments, doing the entire work alone. That work embraced the work of an ordinary college together with the courses in Theology. Applying for an extra tutor, he writes : " I have, therefore, seldom delivered less than four, generally five lectures a day, each lecture occupying an hour. It is to be recol- lected that the preparation for most of the lectures cannot be made in so short a time as is occupied in their delivery. The labour, therefore, which I have undergone, since the Academy was removed to York, has been greater than is consistent with other duties incumbent upon me as a min- ister and as the father of a numerous family, and also with a regard for my health." J With this labor he must con- join the multifarious cares which the office of Principal devolved upon him, and answer the calls of his church, reserving only Saturdays for the preparation of his ser- mons. Yet with this vast amount of routine work, he managed to devote to tranquil study a daily period of time which many a modern minister, with only his pas- toral office, finds impracticable. This may be taken as a sample of his devoted and strenuous life. Probably he was not a scholar in the august sense in which John KenrSck was ; yet his ready mind, through its unrelenting application, gathered a stock of erudition that 1 Memoir, etc., p. 91. 32 JAMES MARTINEAU was large. He read with ease the Greek and Latin classics; he had a thorough acquaintance with Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac ; he had a considerable acquaintance with Arabic ; knew French and Italian well ; and " under- stood German," his biographer tells us, " so far as to be able to avail himself of translations and commentaries in that language." Of course he was widely read in theol- ogy; he was an accomplished botanist and an archaeolo- gist of fame. Notwithstanding his life was so crowded, he found time to enrich his mind with more genial letters. His work done mainly in the first half of our century, it goes without saying that he represented a type of theology not now widely prevailing, and a certain vigor of theologi- cal interest not common in his theological descendants. Yet under his guidance the school was for nothing more remarkable than for the breadth of its instruction. He made it an institution of theological learning, not an arsenal from which to draw the weapons of sectarian war- fare. John Kenrick speaks of his theological lectures as critical and philological, not dogmatic. In his curriculum, indeed, one finds no dogmatic theology. The various subjects of theology were laid upon, difficulties shown, differing attitudes stated, copious references given, and then the student was left to shape a conclusion for himself. So he went forth from the school with conclusions he had formed, not opinions he had learned. He was taught to investigate ; and, to the end that he might more surely do so, his teacher laid upon his mind no fashioning influence. From this reserve on the part of the teacher there is reason to suspect that there was sometimes discontent on the part of those who wanted a judgment rather than data from which to form one. It is easy enough to imagine the complainings of the student whose indolent mind asked a dogmatism rather than that supreme respect for his intellect that made dogmatism impossible. Which, how- EDUCATION 33 ever, on the whole must be productive of the nobler results, and which was practically wiser for a mind like Mr. Martineau's, we need not pause to consider. Many are the notices scattered here and there of this modest scholar and devoted instructor, whom the world so little knows, and whom no university ever honored itself by honoring; and their testimony is unanimous to the richness of his intellect, the candor of his judgment, the saintliness of his character, the nobleness of his aim, and the success of his endeavors. One of these notices, that of Dr. Martineau himself, there can be no error in quoting. In an address at Manchester New College, soon after Mr. Wellbeloved's death, he said: "Well do I re- member the respectful wonder with which we saw, as our course advanced, vein after vein of various learning mod- estly opened out; the pride with which we felt that we had a Lightfoot, a Jeremiah Jones, and an Eichhorn all in one, yet no mere theologian after all, but scarcely less a naturalist and an archaeologist as well ; the impatience with which, out of very homage to his wisdom, we almost resented his impartial love of truth in giving us the most careful epitome of other opinions with scarce the sugges- tion of his own. Many of us have found the notes taken in his lecture-room our best Cyclopaedia of divinity during the first years of our active ministry, when books were forced aside by other claims; and when at last some leisure for independent study has been won, and the entrance of the theological sciences upon new phases has taken us into untried fields, then most of all, if I may gen- eralize from my own experience, have we been thankful for our training under a master of the true Lardner type, candid and catholic, simple and thorough, humanly fond indeed of the counsels of peace, but piously serving every bidding of sacred truth. Whatever might become of the particular conclusions which he favoured, he never justi- 3 34 JAMES MARTINEAU fied a prejudice; he never misdirected our admiration; he never hurt an innocent feeling or overbore a serious judgment; and he set up within us a standard of Christian scholarship to which it must ever exalt us to aspire." l Such was Dr. Martineau's education; in intimate rela- tion with such minds did he receive it. From the contact, too, came by far the most important part of it, the incen- tives, not the lessons. The dryest pedantry that ever criti- cised a text, and the dullest mechanism ever misnamed a school would not have been able permanently to repress an intellect so earnest ; but through this contact a quick- ening had been given him, a standard had been shown him, his possibilities had been revealed to him. The opportu- nities he enjoyed have a meagre look when compared with those of England's older universities, and for his depriva- tion of these we may detect in him now and then a quiet sigh, the utterance, we may believe, of his casual, not his habitual mood. To President Garfield, to sit on a log with Mark Hopkins was to attend a university; Mr. Martineau had had intimate relation with three Mark Hopkinses. He had received guidance equal to his need, and inspirations such as only great and consecrated minds can give ; and we see not how he could have been better trained for the career that now opens before him. 1 Essays, Reviews, and Addresses, vol. iv. p. 54 CHAPTER III MINISTRY IN DUBLIN IN 1827 Mr. Martineau, aged twenty-two, completed his college studies. He was " admitted to preach," but did not at once enter upon the clerical office. His friend and former teacher, Lant Carpenter, in consequence of over- work, was obliged for a time to suspend his labors, and for a year Mr. Martineau took his place in the Bristol school. It was a year of excessive toil for one so inexperienced. Not only must he conduct the school, but he must assist in the church in which Dr. Carpenter was wont to minister. The pulpit was nominally supplied by a venerable clergy- man ; but by reason of infirmities he was unequal to the task of regular pulpit ministration, and Mr. Martineau was called upon frequently, often at short notice, to take his place. At the close of the year, Dr. Carpenter's health not being equal to the two offices of preacher and teacher, Mr. Mar- tineau was asked to take the school. He had admirable qualifications for a teacher, the relation would have been pleasant and fairly remunerative, and the offer was in a measure tempting. His mind, however, had been fixed upon the ministry, and happily this had the stronger drawing. Erelong the Eustace Street Presbyterian Church in Dublin invited him to the co-pastoral office. The pas- tor, Philip Taylor, grandson of the Dr. Taylor of Norwich fame, after fifty years of service, while enjoying the ameni- 36 JAMES MARTINEAU ties of his office, was to devolve its burdens upon younger shoulders. On going to Dublin he was attended by his sister Rachel, who superintended the establishment of his home. He planned to take pupils, and a house equal to his needs could not be rented ; so, with the aid of a friend, he pur- chased one at an expense of seven hundred pounds. A few months later, at Christmas time, he crossed over to England, and Helen Higginson returned with him his wife. Anon another came to bless them, a baby Helen, an angel visitant that stayed not long. Erelong a son, Russel, was born to them, destined to the scholar's quiet toils and hon- orable success. 1 In due time there was another daughter, Isabella, now Mrs. Leyson Lewis, 2 of East Farleigh in Kent County. Such, in brief, is the domestic story of those Dublin years. It was on Sunday, October 26, 1828, that he received ordination. The service was according to Presbyterian usage ; it was as a Presbyterian that he began his work. His Presbyterianism, however, was English, not Scotch, a distinction which, however apparent in England, needs to be pointed out in America. In America the name Presby- terian suggests John Knox and the Assembly's Catechism ; while in England for the last three hundred years there has been a Presbyterianism that writes its history from the days of Baxter, whose broad and tolerant spirit it has re- flected. A ruling principle with it has been, that there shall be no binding dogma. With respect to creed sub- scription its sentiment was voiced by Chillingworth, "To the Bible only should a Protestant subscribe." It has 1 He was for several years professor of Hebrew in Manchester New College, and for many years Assistant Keeper in the British Museum. He was an Orientalist of fame and a user of twenty languages. He was also, as is testified by those who knew him, and was apparent to those who met him, one of the most modest, the most conscientious, and most lovable of men. He died December 14, 1898. 2 Died January 5, 1900, after the above had been put in type. MINISTRY IN DUBLIN 37 sought, that is, to build on the religious sentiment while leaving opinion free. Dating from the times of Baxter, it hardly needs to be said that it has reflected the sterner types of doctrine ; but by virtue of its ruling principle it has been ever reaching forward to more liberal views ; until Unitarianism came there was to be found within its rank the best advance upon the standards of orthodox opinion in England. Indeed it is the antecedent of English Unitarianism ; and a large number of the Unitarian churches in England to- day, and nearly all those of Ireland, are Presbyterian in their history. In the pamphlet in which are preserved the services of Mr. Martineau's ordination, printed in 1829, is a note which tells of the " same spirit of religious freedom " among the Unitarians of Boston and the Unitarians [Pres- byterians] of Dublin. One year later suit was brought against certain of the Unitarianized Presbyterians, indi- rectly implicating all of them, to recover from them the chapels and trust funds their expansive views were believed to have forfeited. The church, then, that ordained Mr. Martineau, although Presbyterian, stood for the heresy of the day. It interests us to come into the atmosphere of that ordination to learn something of the spirit of that heresy. The sermon was preached by Rev. Joseph Hutton ; and, aside from a slight Presbyterian coloring, there was nothing in its prevailing tone to distinguish it from the ordinary type of orthodox discourse. His subject was " The Character, Duties, and Privileges of Christians," which he illustrated not with far- reaching thought, but in a spirit of most fervid loyalty to his Master. " To be Christ's, implies that we have enlisted under the banners of the cross that we are soldiers and servants of the Lord Jesus that we have taken the oath to be faithful to our Great Leader, the Captain of our Sal- vation that we will perish rather than desert his standard, 38 JAMES MARTINEAU or betray his cause that we have renounced the world, and willingly forego its pomps and vanities, and pride and pleasures, to be with Christ." " To be Christ's, is to call no man master, spiritually speaking to acknowledge no authority in religion, but the Bible ; no master but Christ." " To be Christ's, we must adhere to him alone ; alone, I say, for he admits no copartnership, nor hath substituted any authority in his place." " And further, we must take the holy Gospel, and search for ourselves, to find its hidden treasures ; which we shall doubtless find, if we search with humility, and sincerity, and faith." What must have been the orthodoxy to which this was heresy? But further, " I beseech you, brethren, examine for yourselves often and closely, whether ye be in Christ. Is your piety that of him, who passed whole nights in com- munion with his God in prayer? . . . Consider, again and again, the illustrious example of every virtue, which he hath set before us ; and let it be our daily prayer to God, that he would assist us by his divine grace to imbibe more and more freely of this heavenly temper, . . . that so we may be Christ's here, and his for ever." These passages fairly illustrate. The sermon sounds no depths and soars to no heights ; but it is charged with a sentiment in the exuber- ance of which the most stalwart orthodoxy of to-day would find superabundant proof of Christian discipleship. Following the sermon, a long discourse was delivered by Rev. James Armstrong on Presbyterian Ordination. This was natural and appropriate in a Presbyterian church, flanked on the one side by Episcopacy and on the other by Congregationalism. There was no effort to show, as would be shown to-day, that Presbyterianism is useful, jus- tified by experience, a fair and practicable means to an end that is most desirable ; it was rather shown to be of divine appointment, which makes consideration of expedi- ency a superfluity and an impertinence. He who said, MINISTRY IN DUBLIN 39 " Let there be Light," also decreed, Let there be Presby- ters. " We maintain," said he, " not only that the Bible is an unerring rule of faith and conduct, but, also, that it con- tains such regulations for order, and directions for worship as are adapted to every state of the church. Therefore, whatever is not either positively directed by the word of God, or clearly warranted by the practice of our Blessed Lord and his Apostles, we feel ourselves compelled to re- ject as the invention of fallible uninspired men." He then goes over the familiar ground of debate as to the meaning of 7rpe