Recollections of a Long Life: An Autobiography

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[Illustration: THEODORE LEDYARD CUYLER]

RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

BY THEODORE LEDYARD CUYLER, D.D., LL.D. Author of "God's Light on Dark
Clouds," "Heart Life," Etc.

1902.

CONTENTS

I

BOYHOOD AND COLLEGE LIFE

II

GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO Wordsworth—Dickens—The Land of Burns, etc.

III

GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO (Continued) Carlyle—Mrs. Baillie—The Young Queen—Napoleon

IV

HYMN-WRITERS I HAVE KNOWN Montgomery—Bonar—Bowring—Palmer and others.

V

THE TEMPERANCE REFORM AND MY CO-WORKERS

VI

WORK IN THE PULPIT

VII

EXPERIENCE IN REVIVALS

VIII

AUTHORSHIP

IX

SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE ABROAD Gladstone—Dr. Brown—Dean Stanley—Shaftesbury, etc.

X

SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE AT HOME Irving—Whittier—Webster—Greeley, etc.

XI

THE CIVIL WAR AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN

XII

PASTORAL WORK

XIII

SOME FAMOUS PREACHERS IN BRITAIN Binney—Hamilton—Guthrie—Hall—Spurgeon—Duff and others.

XIV

SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS 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 Bishop Haven—Dr. Schaff—President McCook.

XVI

A RETROSPECT

XVII

A RETROSPECT (Continued)

XVIII

HOME LIFE

XIX

LIFE AT HOME AND FRIENDS ABROAD

XX

THE JOYS OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY A Valedictory Discourse Delivered to the Lafayette Avenue Church, April 6, 1890.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

THEODORE LEDYARD CUYLER

DR. CUYLER WHEN PASTOR OF THE MARKET ST. CHURCH

DR CUYLER AT 50

LAFAYETTE AVENUE CHURCH

DR. CUYLER AT 80

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 written by Jared Sparks. When General Ledyard came to Aurora some of the Cayuga tribe of Indians were still lingering along the lakeside, and an 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 grandfather, 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 afterward 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-grandfather was the Rev. Dr. Timothy Johnes, the pastor of the Presbyterian Church, who administered the sacrament of the Lord's Supper to General Washington. 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 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 modern 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 stagecoach 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 Commandment 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 afternoons. 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 years 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 Westminster 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 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 nineteenth 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 impression 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 loving but thorough; she never bribed me to good conduct with sugar-plums; she praised every commendable 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 dedicated 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 Brooklyn (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 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 righteousness, 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 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 acknowledged king of American scientists. When, soon 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 distinguished 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, and Edward W. Scudder brought to the Supreme Court Bench of New Jersey, legal learning and Christian consciences. Richard W. Walker became a distinguished man in the Southern Confederacy. 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 University, closed his noble and beneficent career on the 10th of April, 1901. I delivered the memorial tribute to him soon afterward in the Second Presbyterian Church in the presence of the authorities 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 Insurance Company. He is still a resident of that State. During the past three-score years it has been my privilege to deliver between sixty and seventy sermons 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 morning. 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 & Minturn Line. Captain Joseph C. Delano was a gentleman 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 instructions 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 Liverpool 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 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 biography. 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 ("Christopher North"), who, unfortunately, was absent in Edinburgh. We hired a boatman to row us through exquisitely beautiful Windermere, and in the evening 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 out 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 himself," and sure enough it was. For, when I inquired 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 he was partly dependent, prevented the undertaking. 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 still 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 preserve 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 century I know of but one other living American who has ever visited Wordsworth at Rydal Mount.

After passing through Keswick, where the venerable 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 answered to Washington Irving's description, pointed out to me Netherby Hall, the mansion of the Grahams, 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 biography. 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 subscribe to the opinion, expressed by Tennyson, that 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 birthplace 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 transformed, as now, into a crowded museum. On reaching a slight elevation, since consecrated by the muse of Burns, there broke upon the view his monument, his native cottage, Alloway Kirk, the scene of the inimitable Tam 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 Coilsfield. One of the volumes contains, in Burns' handwriting, "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 "Tam o' Shanter." He showed me the chinks in the sides through which the kirk seemed "all in a bleeze," and he pointed 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. I 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 reverence; and a well dressed, but very old, woman welcomed 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 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 Edinburgh 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 pathetic 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, had died but a few years before; and when a certain 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, I am the only relic of Robert Burns."

I 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 benefactors. 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 I 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 singularly 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 handsome he was then! With his deep, dark, lustrous 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 forgotten 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 connection
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.

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 scurrilously satirize all societies formed for the promotion 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 infidelity, 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 difference 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 lionized, 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 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 underground. 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 brawvest 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 Dutchmen 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," 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 laboring folk are so happy is that you have a vast deal of land for a very few people." In this racy, picturesque 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 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 "Tam 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 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 piercing, and a bright hectic spot of red appeared on each of his hollow cheeks. His hands were tremulous, 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 comparison 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 occasionally gave showed that he was talking about as much for his own amusement as for ours. He was terribly severe on Parliament, which he described as "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 minutes; but I tell ye, he was the only mon in Parliament 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 detestable 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 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 listened and laughed accordingly. As we were about parting from him with a cordial and tender farewell, 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 himself 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.

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 exceedingly 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 entertained 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 pronounced 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 expressed much admiration when I gave her some quotations from the picturesque eloquence of our sons of the forest.

Every American who visited London in those days felt a laudable curiosity to see the young Queen, who had been crowned but four years before. I went up to Windsor Castle, and after inspecting 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 waiting 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 captivating young husband that I have ever seen. By his side sat his young wife, dressed 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 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 Princess 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 monument just completed were careful not to turn their backs upon Her Majesty. I observed that when her children bade her "good morning" they kneeled and kissed her hand. She remained sitting in her carriage for some time, chatting and laughing with her daughter Beatrice. Her countenance had become 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 American Embassy, in the absence of his father-in-law, General Lewis Cass, our Ambassador, who had returned 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 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 Invalides. 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, surrounded 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 railing 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 containing 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 you at Austerlitz?" "Oui, oui," they said. "Were you at Jena?" "Oui, oui." "At Wagram?" "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 forward 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 extraordinary 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.

CHAPTER IV

HYMN-WRITERS I HAVE KNOWN

Montgomery—Bonar—Bowring—Palmer and Others

Hymnology has always been a favorite study with me, and it has been my privilege to be acquainted 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 producing many popular hymns; while the greatest hymns have been the compositions either of ministers 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 Montgomery, whose pupil he had been during the short time that the poet conducted a school. Mr. Vickers 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 simplicity 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 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 produced 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 barriers. 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 satisfaction 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 winsome in his manners. He had been famous as the editor of the Westminster Review and quite famous in civil life, for he was a member of the British Parliament and once had been the Governor 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 missionary 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 introduced to him, for I was an enthusiastic admirer of his hymns, and I had a personal affection for his 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 anything but the old Scotch version of the Psalms in church worship. During my address to the Assembly 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 continued: "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 magnificent 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 Chillingham Castle, Lady Tankerville said to me: "Our dear Bonar is dead." I left the next day for Edinburgh and reached there in time to bear an humble 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 countrymen, 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 representative 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 requested 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 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 American 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 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 afterwards, 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 devoted 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 passing 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 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 Episcopalian, 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 commanded attention everywhere by his genial face and hearty manner of speech. I used to meet him at the anniversaries of the Five Points Home of Industry. Everybody loved him at first sight. All the world knows he was the founder of St. Luke's Hospital 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 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 bachelor 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 contradiction 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 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 Burmese 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, 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 Seminary. 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 became 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, benevolent 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 dismounted, 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 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 persons 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 fellow-men to throw off the despotism of the bottle. After delivering my maiden speech I hastened back to Edinburgh with the deputation from "Auld Reekie," and I never saw Father Mathew again. He was, unquestionably, the most remarkable temperance reformer 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 immediately 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 influence. 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.

[Illustration: DR CUYLER AT 32 (When Pastor of the Market St Church, New
York)]

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 conversion 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 consented 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 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 married. 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. Edward N. Kirk received Mr. Gough into the Mt. Vernon Street Church, just as many years afterwards he received Mr. Moody to the same communion table.

Of Mr. Gough'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 Philadelphia, 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 messenger met him where every true warrior may well desire 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 Prohibition. 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 government and it was promptly passed by the legislature. 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 temperance millennium. An invitation was extended to him to a magnificent public meeting in Tripler Hall, New York. At that meeting a large array of distinguished 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 correspondence 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 legislature of New York, who passed a law of prohibition very soon afterwards. A forceful, magnetic man was General Dow, thoroughly honest and courageous, with a womanly tenderness in his sympathies. I have been permitted 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 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 before had repealed the law. In the five States which retained it on their statute books its salutary enforcement 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 meeting 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 promotion 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 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 Shaftesbury 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 construction. 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 military 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 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 hospitalities 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 succeeded 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. Bailey, who is at present the head of the organization. The society has done a vast and benevolent work, receiving and expending a million and a half dollars, publishing many hundreds of valuable volumes, 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 delivered 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 organization. It is of vital importance that the young should be saved, and therefore I have urged temperance lessons in the Sunday school and the early adoption of a total abstinence pledge. The temperance 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 conscience, 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 before 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 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 attempt 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 I agreed to pay ten per cent premium to all the employees on my Scottish estates who would practice entire abstinence from intoxicants." The experience of three-score 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 Temperance 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 graduated 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 Philadelphia, 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 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 Seminary were full of joy and profit. I made it a rule to go out as often as possible and address little meetings 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 sermons 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 attendants 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 ministry did me a world of good. I was invited to 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 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 extemporized sermons. My own observation and experience 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 premeditated 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 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 discarded 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 prepared 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 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, theological, 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 minister tries to palm off an old sermon for a pretended new one by changing the text, but this shallow device 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 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 instruction 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 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 beloved 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 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 business 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 illustrated 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 congregations relish incidents and stories, when they are "pat" to the purpose, and serious enough for 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 congregation, 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 interested in that story last evening; it clinched the sermon. Our ministers in Cincinnati used to introduce 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 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 before 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 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 something 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 undoubted fact that pulpit fervor has been a characteristic of almost all the preachers of a soul-winning 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 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. Chalmers read every line of his sermons with thrilling and tremendous effect. So did Dr. Charles Wadsworth 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 extemporaneously. 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 produce but little impression, yet the same sermon at another time and place may deeply move an audience, and yield rich spiritual results. Physical condition 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 tremendous realities. They emphasized the heinousness and the desert of sin as a great argument for repentance and acceptance of Jesus Christ. A lapse 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 instructors, 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.

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 emphasized; 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 persuasive 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 saying 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 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 auditors 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. Edward 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 eloquence!

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. 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 Alexander 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 preparation of their sermons and for thorough personal visitation of their flocks. They were not importuned so often to serve on committees and to be participants 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 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 ambition for the "seen things" increasingly blinds men to the "things that are unseen and eternal." Wealth and worldliness unspiritualize thousands of professed Christians. The present artificial arrangements 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 newspapers.

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 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 thankfulness 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 venerable 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 theologians, 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 Hebrew and Old Testament literature. Urbane, old Dr. Samuel Miller, was the Professor of Ecclesiastical History. Those wise men taught us not only to think, but to believe. All education is atmospheric, and the atmosphere of Princeton Seminary was deeply and sweetly Evangelical. At five o'clock on 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 Presbyterian 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 character. 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 discouragements. 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 congregation together, and when I got to her house it was packed to the door. I have attended thousands of prayer meetings since then, but never one that had a more distinct resemblance to the Pentecostal gathering in "the upper room" at Jerusalem. The atmosphere seemed to be charged with a divine electricity that affected almost every one in the house. Three times over I closed the meeting with a benediction, but it began again, and the people lingered until a very late hour, melted together by "a baptism of fire." That wonderful meeting was followed by special services every night, and the Holy Spirit descended with great power. My little church was doubled in numbers, and I learned more practical 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 especial 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, (from 1853 to 1860), I was out one afternoon making calls, and I discovered that in two or three families 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, followed 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. Lamphier, 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 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 people, 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 Presbyterian 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 refreshing shower of the Divine Spirit. Six years after my installation as pastor, God blessed us with an extraordinary downpour. The first drops were followed by an abundance of rain. That revival began where revivals often begin,—in the prayer meeting. It was on the evening of the 8th of January, the first evening of the "week of prayer," which is generally observed over the land. The 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 Endeavor. What a fearful bitter night was that 8th of January! Through that stinging Arctic atmosphere 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 useful 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 electrified; 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 two evenings during the week, when two fervid, discreet neighboring pastors preached for me. Commonly, 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 Sabbath, and on two evenings in the week, I preached as clearly and pungently as I could; sometimes to awakened souls, sometimes to backsliders, sometimes 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, immediate acceptance of Christ and the joy and power of an useful Christian life. During a revival, sermons 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 exhortation, conducted by our laymen. The praying women met on one afternoon; the girls by themselves on another afternoon, and the boys on another. During each week, from eleven to twelve, different meetings were held, and in so large a congregation, these sub-divisions were necessary. After 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 visitation 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 number 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 effect 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 minister 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 acquaintance, but whom I since have honored and loved with my whole heart, said to the superintendent of our Mission Chapel: "What a nice place this is to hold some meetings in." He was cordially invited; and at the end of a week about twenty persons had been mustered together on the sharp winter 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 collect 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 handful 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 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 Britain. 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 educational and benevolent enterprises were subordinate to this one great sovereign purpose. Neither one of them ever entered a college or theological seminary; yet they commanded the ear of Christendom. 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 controversy on the slavery question, in the columns of our county newspaper; and, in the same paper, published a series of letters from Europe, in 1842. During my course of study in the Princeton Theological 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 Monthly," a Princeton College publication, which still exists 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 long as you live," and I have obeyed his injunction. Within a year or two I began to write for the "Presbyterian" 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 contributions to the press never hindered my work as a minister, for writing for the press promotes perspicuity in preparing for the pulpit.

In the summer of 1853 I was called from the Third Presbyterian Church of Trenton to the Market 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 urgent 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 survives. 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 lubrications. As I was preparing one of my earliest articles, I happened to spy the blossoms of 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 stenographer, some statistics of the number of my articles, and the various journals in which they had appeared 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 production 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 inmates 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 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 1867 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 condolence, 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 people 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 under similar circumstances. Dean Stanley read it 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 exquisite marble medallion of the childface,—by the sculptor, Charles Calverley,—which adorns the monument.

Fourteen years afterwards, in the autumn of 1881, "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 comfort 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. Let me add that I have published a single volume of sermons, entitled "The Eagle's Nest," and a volume 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 glorious Gospel with the types that out-reach ten thousand 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 Society," which has given a wide circulation to many of my books—including "Heart-Life," "Newly Enlisted; 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.—Shaftesbury, 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 Commons, 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 Gladstone," whispered Lord Kinnaird. Mr. Gladstone 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 brilliant and powerful leader that the British Liberal party has ever followed. As an orator he is ranked 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 "Alabama 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 suggested 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 attachment 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 amicable settlement of the Alabama controversy. Mr. Gladstone appeared to be puzzled about a recent belligerent speech delivered by Mr. Charles Sumner 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 Empire 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, slender lady, whose only claim to beauty was her benevolent countenance), about the schemes of charity in which she was deeply interested. At the breakfast 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, and den I 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 parlor, 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 always been a matter of thankfulness that I should have been with the greatest of living Englishmen when his warm heart was relieved of the apprehension 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.

[Illustration: DR CUYLER AT 50.]

My next meeting with Gladstone was a very brief one, in the summer of 1885. He had lately resigned his third Premiership; his health was badly impaired, 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 Empire depends upon your throat." He hoarsely whispered, "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, resumed 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 celebration of his golden wedding. He was occupying, temporarily, a house near Buckingham Palace. 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 grandchildren, 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 facilities of divorce that sap the sanctities of domestic life. It was during that conversation that Gladstone tittered 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 imperial 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 orator, a great political strategist, a great scholar, a great writer, great statesman and a great Christian. 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 unrivalled 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, 1862, he called on me at the Waverly Hotel and invited me to breakfast with him. He had the fair Saxon features of Scotland, with a smile like a Summer 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 Haddington, the eminent commentator. Its history was curious: 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 Testament. 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 Testament 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 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 productions 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 General Assemblies, I was so constantly 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 following 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 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 subject 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. It is the attribute of true genius that it can do great things easily, and can accomplish its feats in an incredibly 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 acquaintance 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 asked me to give the company some account of a remarkable discourse, which, he was told, Bishop McIlvaine, of Ohio, had recently delivered in my Lafayette Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, on "Christian Unity." In the discourse, Bishop McIlvaine had said: "The only difference between the Presbyterian 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 pulpit; 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 divine 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 attending 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 England. The Dean stopped and chatted about Macaulay, 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 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 Deanery. 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 frequently 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 kindly 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 surprised 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 invitation to come on the next Sabbath to the Deanery before 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-pew, which was close against the pulpit, and within arms' length of the Dean. His sermon was a beautiful 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 human 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 characteristic 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 mentioning 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 doctrine, 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 autumn 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 Greenwood 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 Schaff 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 lower part of the Bowery, near the junction of Chatham 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 entering the Greenwood Cemetery he requested me to drive him to the spot where my little child was buried, 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 horseback or on my camel; it was my constant guide book."

Three years afterward, on my arrival in London, from Palestine I learned that Stanley was dangerously 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 august funeral service took place in Westminster Abbey. 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 Gladstone, 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 followed 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 slumbering. Greater than all his books or literary achievements 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 addresses, in behalf of this institution, in my own country and abroad. In June, 1857, the New York organization honored me with what was then a novelty in America—a public breakfast, and commissioned me as a delegate to the original parent association 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 welfare of young men. The President of that first organized London Association was the celebrated philanthropist, 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 Shaftesbury 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, ragged schools, shoe-black brigades, and other organizations 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 fraternity." The last time that I saw the venerable philanthropist was just before his death (at the age of eighty-four years). He was presiding at a convention 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.

Irvin,—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 "Waverly." 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 accepted 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 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 summer 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 upper 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 enjoyment of his own popularity. For example, one day when he was going with a young relative up Broadway, which was thronged with omnibuses, he pointed 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 inevitable 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 edification 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 excursion 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 neighbors 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. 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 gladdened 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 headquarters of orthodox Quakers. I was thrown much into the society of their most eminent people, and very delightful society I found it. The venerable 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 editor 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 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, temperance and other moral reforms; and I went home with something of the feeling that Walter Scott says he had after seeing "Rabbie Burns," Whittier 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 inquired 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 association of New York at my house the next afternoon, I invited him to come and sup with them. He cordially consented, and it may be supposed that the "Chi Alpha" was very glad to put aside for that evening all other matters, and listen to the fresh, racy and humorous talk of the great poet. Underneath his grave and shy sobriety, flowed a most gentle humor. He could tell a good story, and when he was describing the usages of the Quakers in regard 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 resolution: "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 assemblies, nor in certain prayer gatherings that I wot of. After the circle broke up I told him that in addition to the kind and characteristic 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 autographs. "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, 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 moonlight was very delightful. On the way I told him that not long before, when I quoted a verse of Bryant's to Horace Greeley, Mr. Greeley replied: "Bryant 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 addressed me the following letter, which, believing it to be his last, I framed and hung on the walls of my library:

OAK KNOLL, 12th month, 17th, 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; and, my friend, I wish I was more worthy of the kind and good things said of me. But my prayer is, "God be Merciful 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 birthday 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 figure, physically and intellectually, in American politics, was Daniel Webster. I well remember when I first put eye upon him. It was when I was pursuing my studies in the New York University Grammar 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 Webster; 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 specimen 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 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 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 aperture long remained as a memorial of Lewis's curiosity to witness 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 applause 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 exclaimed: "The world knows the history of Massachusetts by heart. There is Lexington, and there is Bunker Hill and there they will remain forever,"—the group of Bostonians seated in the gallery before 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 Senator Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire. This representative of Webster's native State had supplied Colonel Hayne with a quantity of party pamphlets 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 scavengers;" 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 Miltonic prose at the heat, without some deep premeditation. It is well known now that Mr. Webster afterwards 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 afterwards was to be waged on the soil of Gettysburg 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 monument in Central Park the last sublime line of that sentence: "Liberty and Union, now and forever: one and inseparable." Mr. Webster's power in sarcastic 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 controversy 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 convivial habits which rather grew upon him in advancing years. On several public occasions he gave evidence 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 eloquent 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 statement 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 article. 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 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 October, 1852, he went to his Marshfield home to die. His spirits were broken and he was sore from political 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 unbelief." 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, yet when I remember his intellectual prowess and his magnificent services in defense of the Constitution, 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 college student at Princeton, I went with a friend to the office of the Log Cabin, a Whig campaign newspaper 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 rustic 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 before me, has been often described as a man with the "face of an angel, and the walk of a clod-hopper." 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 was: "I hope to drink coffee, madame, in heaven, but I cannot stand it in this world." After supper 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 probable 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 affectionate 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 Chappaqua 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 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 preparing 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 Cattaraugus. 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 native 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 merchant 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 deadhead. I pay for my own Tribune every morning."

From my old friend's theology I strongly dissented, 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 applause. When temperance meetings were held in 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 Universalist 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 emphasize the authority of God. A letter in his characteristic hieroglyphics, the last one he ever wrote to me, 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.' Episcopalians 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 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 reminiscent, have been written about our Civil War, which, both in regard to the number of combatants engaged, and the magnitude of the interests involved, and its far-reaching consequences, was the most colossal conflict of modern times. Before presenting 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 people 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 Southern wings of our venerable Presbyterian Church reunited; 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 destruction 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, Ill., in June, 1858, that "A house divided against itself cannot stand; I believe this government cannot endure 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 delivered, 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 Broadway 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 organized by that noble and godly minded patriot, George H. Stuart, of Philadelphia, and I went on to Washington to preach to our soldiers. I found Washington 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 government, and the old Calhoun theory of 'State rights' will be dead. We shall have an inflated currency—an enormous debt with a host of tax-gatherers, and huge pension rolls. What is most needed now is wise statesmanship, and the first quality 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 confident 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 Professor Henry's prognostication proved true, and nothing more true than his estimate of Lincoln at a time when there was too much disposition to distrust 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 marvellous man that this country has produced in the nineteenth 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 affectionately, "Uncle Abe," was at the Tremont House in Chicago, a few days after his election to the presidency. 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 touched my soft spot when he said: "I have kept 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 towering 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 afterwards, 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 mention this as an illustration of his marvelous memory; he never forgot a face or a name or the slightest incident. My mother was with me at the Smithsonian, 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 Presidential 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 committed, 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 Secretary, 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 discipline 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?" inquired 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 Commission, once said to him: "Mr. President, I am 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 telegraph 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 company. She was under the command of Captain James Anderson, who was afterwards knighted by Queen Victoria for his services in laying the Atlantic cable, and is better known as Sir James Anderson. 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 seasickness and heart sickness it was the toughest experience of making a spread-eagle speech I ever had. After landing at Queenstown I went to Belfast 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 until midnight with the editor of the Mercury, helping 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 attended the great prayer meeting in the Free Church Assembly Hall, and Sir James Simpson was to preside. There was a crowd of over a thousand people 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 appeared 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, denouncing that "bloody Presbyterian minister from America."

After a hurried run to Switzerland I reached Paris in time to witness the celebration of the imperial 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 inscribed: "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 Confederates 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 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 reluctant to acknowledge a new slave-owning government. 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 compassionate 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 address on the next Sunday evening in Plymouth 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 Friday morning we opened our papers and read President 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 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 ovations by its people.

Our party went over to Fort Sumter in a steamer commanded by a negro, who was an emancipated slave, but very soon became a member of Congress. The broken walls of Sumter, brown, battered and lonely in the quiet waves were hopelessly 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 impressive prayer, and the oration was delivered by 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 platform 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 description. We grasped hands and shouted and my irrepressible 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 rainbow 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 invitation 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 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 childlike 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 President 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, clergymen, judges and distinguished civilians walked on foot through streets, shrouded in black to the house tops. The whole journey to Springfield, Ill., 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, 'Where the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together,'" His innumerable jests contained more wisdom than many a philosopher's maxims, and underneath his plebeian simplicity, dress and manners, this great child of nature possessed the most delicate instincts of the perfect gentleman. The only just scale by which to measure 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 Hamilton never read the future more sagaciously. He made no pretension to Webster's magnificent oratory; 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 sceptical 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—contained some of the best illustrations of his fondness for balanced antithesis and rhythmical measurement. 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 imperishable 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 mould 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 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 Christendom 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. Instead of this precipitate legislation, it would have been wiser to restrict the suffrage to those who acquire a proper education, and perhaps also a certain 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 educating, 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 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 inseparable; what the Providence of God and good common 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 who knew every sheep in the flock. The importance of all that portion of a minister's work that lies outside of his pulpit can hardly be overestimated. 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 intellect as through the affections. This is an encouraging 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 sermons (for every minister is guilty of such occasionally) will be kindly condoned, and he can launch the 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 intercourse 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 close intercourse 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 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 narrative gave me a fresh insight into McCheyne's wonderful power. His ministry was most richly successful, 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 celebrated 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."

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 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 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 disappointment; 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 myself 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 perfectly 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 Sabbath services, and the truths preached, and the influences 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 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 commendable occupation everything else was laid aside. 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 command. 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 illness when the presence of even the most loving pastor 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 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 beneficial. On some occasions, when I have found a sick room crowded by well-meaning but needless intruders, 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 infused 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 parishioner, 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 opportunity 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 deeply 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 twenty years. In the case of this eminently effective 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 London, in early September, 1842, the two ministers most widely known to Americans were Henry Melvill 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 most carefully were exceedingly popular in those days, and even yet they are well worth reading as superb specimens of lofty, devout and resonant oratory. 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 prodigiously large. Binney had a kingly countenance, and a most unique delivery. His topic was Psalm 147th, 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 unfolded 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 consolations 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 very 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 certainly a rare pulpit power that could fasten a discourse 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, when I came in, a Psalm from the old Scotch Version. 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 delivered 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 incarnate 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 Hamilton'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 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, Livingstone 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 impressive preachers were men of most cheery temperament 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 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 Tam" (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 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 difficulty of the heart, and returned to Scotland, and lived but a short time afterwards.

Sly 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 public 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 invited him to preach in the House of Representatives; he delivered an address to the Bostonians on Bunker Hill; and every denomination, including the Episcopalians 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 Negro Emancipation, and a memorial to International amity. The love that existed between my brother, Dr. Hall, and myself was like the love of David and Jonathan. The letters that passed between us would number up into the hundreds, and his epistles had the sweet savor of "Holy Rutherford," 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 possession 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 myself 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 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 numbers 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 Garment," was a gem of spiritual beauty. He generally maintained an even flow of evangelical thought, but sometimes he rose into a burst of thrilling eloquence, as he did in Mr. Beecher's church, when he made his noble appeal for Union between England 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 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 Stonehenge, 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 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.