University of Virginia Library

58. CHAPTER LVIII
EARLY IMPRESSIONS—1832-1851

WHEN the colonists from New England came into central and western New York, at the end of the eighteenth century, they wrote their main ideas large upon the towns they founded. Especially was this evident at my birthplace on the head waters of the Susquehanna. In the heart of the little village they laid out, largely and liberally, "the Green''; across the middle of this there gradually rose a line of wooden structures as stately as they knew how to make them,—the orthodox Congregational church standing at the center; close beside this church stood the "academy''; and then, on either side, the churches of the Baptists, Methodists, and Episcopalians. Thus were represented religion, education, and church equality.

The Episcopal church, as belonging to the least numerous congregation, was at the extreme left, and the smallest building of all. It was easily recognized. All the others were in a sort of quasi-Italian style of the seventeenth century, like those commonly found in New England; but this was in a kind of "carpenter's Gothic'' which had grown out of vague recollections of the mother-country. To this building I was taken for baptism, and with it are connected my first recollections of public worship. My parents were very devoted members of the Protestant Episcopal Church. With a small number of others of like mind, they had taken refuge in it from the storms of fanaticism which swept through western New York during

the early years of the nineteenth century. For that was the time of great "revivals.'' The tremendous assertions of Jonathan Edwards regarding the tyranny of God, having been taken up by a multitude of men who were infinitely Edwards's inferiors in everything save lung-power, were spread with much din through many churches: pictures of an angry Moloch holding over the infernal fires the creatures whom he had predestined to rebel, and the statement that "hell is filled with infants not a span long,'' were among the choice oratorical outgrowths of this period. With these loud and lurid utterances went strivings after sacerdotal rule. The presbyter—"old priest writ large''—took high ground in all these villages: the simplest and most harmless amusements were denounced, and church members guilty of taking part in them were obliged to stand in the broad aisle and be publicly reprimanded from the pulpit.

My mother was thoughtful, gentle, and kindly; in the midst of all this froth and fury some one lent her a prayer-book; this led her to join in the devotions of a little knot of people who had been brought up to use it; and among these she found peace. My father, who was a man of great energy and vigor, was attracted to this little company; and not long afterward rose the little church on the Green, served at first by such clergymen as chanced to be in that part of the State.

Among these was a recent graduate of the Episcopal College at Geneva on Seneca Lake—Henry Gregory. His seemed to be a soul which by some mistake had escaped out of the thirteenth century into the nineteenth. He was slight in build, delicate in health, and ascetic in habits, his one interest in the world being the upbuilding of the kingdom of God—as he understood it. It was the time when Pusey, Newman, Keble, and their compeers were reviving mediæval Christianity; their ideas took strong hold upon many earnest men in the western world, and among these no one absorbed them more fully than

this young missionary. He was honest, fearless, self-sacrificing, and these qualities soon gave him a strong hold upon his flock,—the hold of a mediæval saint upon pilgrims seeking refuge from a world cruel and perverse.

Seeing this, sundry clergymen and influential laymen of what were known as the "evangelical denominations'' attempted to refute his arguments and discredit his practices. That was the very thing which he and his congregation most needed: under this opposition his fervor deepened, his mediæval characteristics developed, his little band of the faithful increased, and more and more they adored him; but this adoration did not in the least injure him: he remained the same gentle, fearless, narrow, uncompromising man throughout his long life

My first recollections of religious worship in the little old church take me back to my fourth year; and I can remember well, at the age of five, standing between my father and mother, reading the Psalter with them as best I could, joining in the chants and looking with great awe on the service as it went on before my admiring eyes. So much did it impress me that from my sixth to my twelfth year I always looked forward to Sunday morning with longing. The prayers, the chants, the hymns, all had a great attraction for me,—and this although I was somewhat severely held to the proper observance of worship. I remember well that at the age of six years, if I faltered in the public reading of the Psalter, a gentle rap on the side of my head from my father's knuckles reminded me of my duty.

At various times since I have been present at the most gorgeous services of the Anglican, Latin, Russian, and Oriental churches; have heard the Pope, surrounded by his cardinals, sing mass at the high altar of St. Peter's; have seen the Metropolitan Archbishop of Moscow, surrounded by prelates of the Russian Empire, conduct the burial of a czar; have seen the highest Lutheran dignitaries solemnize the marriage of a German kaiser; have sat under the ministrations of sundry archbishops

of Canterbury; have been present at high mass performed by the Archbishop of Athens under the shadow of Mars Hill and the Parthenon; and, though I am singularly susceptible to the influence of such pageants, especially if they are accompanied by noble music, no one of these has ever made so great an impression upon me as that simple Anglo-American service performed by a surpliced clergyman with a country choir and devout assemblage in this little village church. Curiously enough, one custom, which high-churchmen long ago discarded as beneath the proper dignity of the service, was perhaps the thing which impressed me most, and I have since learned that it generally thus impressed new-comers to the Episcopal Church: this was the retirement of the clergyman, at the close of the regular morning prayer, to the vestry, where he left his surplice, and whence he emerged in a black Geneva gown, in which he then preached the sermon. This simple feature in the ceremonial greatly impressed me, and led me to ask the reason for it: at which answer was made that the clergyman wore his white surplice as long as he was using God's words, but that he wore his black gown whenever he used his own.

Though comparatively little was said by Episcopalians regarding religious experiences or pious states of mind, there was an atmosphere of orderly decency during the whole service which could hardly fail to make an impression on all thinking children brought into it. I remember that when, on one or two occasions, I was taken to the Congregational church by my grandmother, I was much shocked at what seemed to me the unfit dress and conduct of the clergyman,—in a cutaway coat, lounging upon a sofa,—and at the irreverent ways of the sturdy farmers, who made ready to leave the church during the final prayer, and even while they should have been receiving the benediction.

I thus became a devotee. Of the sermons I retained little, except a few striking assertions or large words;

one of my amusements, on returning home, was conducting a sort of service, on my own account, with those of the household who were willing to take part in it; and, from some traditions preserved in the family regarding my utterances on such occasions, a droll sort of service it must have been.

In my seventh year the family removed to Syracuse, the "Central City'' of the State, already beginning a wonderful career, although at that time of less than six thousand inhabitants. My experience in the new city was prefaced by an excursion, with my father and mother and younger brother, to Buffalo and Niagara; and as the railways through central New York were then unfinished,—and, indeed, but few of them begun,—we made the journey almost entirely on a canal-packet. Perhaps my most vivid remembrance of this voyage is that of the fervid prayers I then put up against shipwreck.

At Syracuse was a much larger and more influential Protestant Episcopal church than that which we had left,—next, indeed, in importance to the Presbyterian body. That church—St. Paul's—has since become the mother of a large number of others, and has been made the cathedral of a new diocese. In this my father, by virtue of his vigor in everything he undertook, was soon made a vestryman, and finally senior warden; and, the rectorate happening to fall vacant, he recommended for the place our former clergyman, Henry Gregory. He came, and his work in the new place was soon even more effective than in the old.

His first influence made me a most determined little bigot, and I remember well my battles in behalf of high-church ideas with various Presbyterian boys, and especially with the son of the Presbyterian pastor. In those days went on a famous controversy provoked by a speech at a New England dinner in the city of New York which had set by the ears two eminent divines—the Rev. Dr. Wainwright, Episcopalian, and the Rev. Dr. Potts; Presbyterian. Dr. Potts had insisted that the Puritans

had founded a "church without a bishop and a state without a king''; Dr. Wainwright insisted that there could be no church without a bishop; and on this the two champions joined issue. Armed with the weapons furnished me in the church catechism, in sundry sermons, and in pious reading, I took up the cudgels, and the battles then waged were many and severe.

One little outgrowth of my religious intolerance was quickly nipped in the bud. As I was returning home one evening with a group of scampish boys, one of them pointed out the "Jew store,''—in those days a new thing,—and reminded us that the proprietor worshiped on Saturday and, doubtless, committed other abominations. At this, with one accord, we did what we could to mete out the Old Testament punishment for blasphemy—we threw stones at his door. My father, hearing of this, dealt with me sharply and shortly, and taught me most effectually to leave dealing with the Jewish religion to the Almighty. I have never since been tempted to join in any anti-Semitic movement whatever.

Meanwhile Mr. Gregory—or, as he afterward became, Dr. Gregory—was fighting the battles of the church in many ways, and some of his sermons made a great impression upon me. Of these one was entitled "The Church not a Sect,'' the text being, "For as to this sect, we know that it is everywhere spoken against.'' Another sermon showed, especially, his uncompromising spirit and took yet stronger hold upon me; it was given on an occasion when Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists were drawn in large numbers to his church; but, disdaining all efforts to propitiate them, he took as his subject "The Sin of Korah,'' who set himself up against the regularly ordained priesthood, and was, with all his adherents, fearfully punished. The conclusion was easily drawn by all the "dissenters'' present. On another occasion of the same sort, when his church was filled with people from other congregations, he took as his subject the story of Naaman the Syrian, his text being, "Are not Abana and

Pharphar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the rivers of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean?'' The good rector's answer was, in effect, "No, you may not The Almighty designated the river Jordan as the means for securing health and safety; and so in these times he has designated for a similar purpose the church—which is the Protestant Episcopal Church: outside of that—as the one appointed by him—you have no hope.''

But gradually there came in my mind a reaction, and curiously, it started from my love for my grandmother—my mother's mother. Among all the women whom I remember in my early life, she was the kindest and most lovely. She had been brought as a young girl, by her parents, from Old Guilford in Connecticut; and in her later life she often told me cheerily of the days of privation and toil, of wolves howling about the cottages of the little New York settlement in winter, of journeys twenty miles to church, of riding on horseback from early morning until late in the evening, through the forests, to bring flour from the mill. She was quietly religious, reading every day from her New Testament, but remaining in the old Congregational Church which my mother had left. I remember once asking her why she did not go with the rest of us to the Episcopal Church. Her answer was, "Well, dear child, the Episcopal Church is Just the church for your father and mother and for you children; you are all young and active, but I am getting old and rather stout, and there is a little too much getting up and sitting down in your church for me.'' To the harsh Calvinism of her creed she seemed to pay no attention, and, if hard pressed by me, used to say, "Well, sonny, there is, of course, some merciful way out of it all.'' Her religion took every kindly form. She loved every person worth loving,—and some not worth loving,—and her benefactions were extended to people of every creed; especially was she a sort of Providence to the poor Catholic Irish of the lower part of the town. To us children she was especially devoted—reconciling us in our quarrels,

soothing us in our sorrows, comforting us in our disappointments, and carrying us through our sicknesses. She used great common sense in her care of us; kindly and gentle to the last degree, there was one thing she would never allow, and this was that the children, even when they became quite large, should be out of the house, in the streets or public places, after dark, without an elderly and trusty companion. Though my brother and I used to regard this as her one fault, it was really a great service to us; for, as soon as dusk came on, if we were tempted to linger in the streets or in public places, we returned home, since we knew that if we did not we should soon see her coming to remind us, and this was, of course, a serious blow to our pride.

When, then, I sat in church and heard our mediæval saint preach with ardor and unction, Sunday after Sunday, that the promises were made to the church alone; that those outside it had virtually no part in God's goodness; that they were probably lost,—I thought of this dear, sweet old lady, and my heart rose in rebellion. She was certainly the best Christian I knew, and the idea that she should be punished for saying her prayers in the Presbyterian Church was abhorrent to me. I made up my mind that, if she was to be lost, I would be lost with her; and soon, under the influence of thoughts like these, I became a religious rebel.

The matter was little helped when our good rector preached upon retribution for sin. He held the most extreme views regarding future punishment; and the more he developed them, the more my mind rejected the idea that so many good people about me, especially the one whom I loved so much, could be subjected to such tortures,—and the more my heart rebelled against the Moloch who had established and was administering so horrible a system. I must have been about twelve years old when it thus occurred to me to question the whole sacred theory; and this questioning was started into vigorous life after visiting, with some other school-boys, the Presbyterian

church when a "revival'' was going on. As I entered, a very unspiritual-looking preacher was laying down the most severe doctrines of divine retribution. In front of him were several of our neighbors' daughters, many of them my schoolmates, whom I regarded as thoroughly sweet and good; and they were in tears, apparently broken-hearted under the storm of wrath which poured over them from the mouth of the revival preacher. At this I revolted entirely, and from that moment I disbelieved in the whole doctrine, utterly and totally. I felt that these kindly girls, to whom I had looked with so much admiration in the classes at school and in our various little gatherings, were infinitely more worthy of the divine favor than was the big, fleshly creature storming and raging and claiming to announce a divine message.

Some influence on my youthful thinking had also been exercised by sundry occurrences in our own parish. Our good rector was especially fond of preaching upon "baptismal regeneration''; taking the extreme high-church view and thereby driving out some of the best "evangelicals'' from his congregation. One of these I remember especially—a serene, dignified old man, Mr. John Durnford. After he left our church he took his place among the Presbyterians, and I remember, despite my broad-church tendencies, thinking that he was incurring serious danger by such apostasy; but as I noted him, year after year, devoting himself to the newly founded orphan-asylum, giving all his spare time to the care of the children gathered there, even going into the market and thence bearing provisions to them in a basket, I began to feel that perhaps his soul was safe, after all. I bethought myself that, with all my reading of the Bible, I had never found any text which required a man to believe in the doctrines of the Protestant Episcopal Church; but that I had found, in the words of Jesus himself, as well as in the text of St James regarding "pure religion and undefiled,'' declarations which seemed to commend, especially, labors for the poor, fatherless, and afflicted, like those of Mr. Durnford.

But still more marked was the influence on my thinking of a painful clash in the parish. It came on this wise. Our rector was one day called to attend the funeral of a little child but a few weeks old, the daughter of neighbors of ours. The father was a big-bodied, big-hearted, big-voiced, successful man of business, well liked for his bluff cordiality and generosity, who went to church because his wife went. The mother was a sweet, kindly, delicate woman, the daughter of a clergyman, and devoted to the church.

It happened that, for various reasons, and more especially on account of the absence of the father from home on business, the baptism of the child had been delayed until its sudden death prevented the rite forever.

The family and neighbors being assembled at the house, and the service about to begin, an old maiden lady, who had deeply absorbed the teachings of Dr. Gregory and wished to impress them on those present, said to the father, audibly and with a groan, "Oh, Mr. —, what a pity that the baby was not baptized!'' to which the rector responded, with a deep sigh and in a most plaintive voice, "Yes!'' Thereupon the mother of the child burst into loud and passionate weeping, and at this the father, big and impulsive as he was, lost all control of himself. Rising from his chair, he strode to the side of the rector and said, "That is a slander on the Almighty; none but a devil could, for my negligence, punish this lovely little child by ages of torture. Take it back—take it back, sir; or, by the God that made us, I will take you by the neck and throw you into the street!'' At this the gentle rector faltered out that he did not presume to limit the mercy of God, and after a time the service went on; but sermons on baptismal regeneration from our pulpit were never afterward frequent or cogent.

Startled as I was at this scene, I felt that the doctrine had not stood the test. More and more there was developed in me that feeling which Lord Bacon expressed so

profoundly and pithily, in his essay on "Superstition,'' when he said:

It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of Him; for if the one is unbelief, the other is contumely: and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity. Plutarch saith well to that purpose: "Surely, I had rather a great deal that men should say there was no such man at all as Plutarch, than that they should say that Plutarch ate his children as soon as they were born;''—as the poets speak of Saturn: and as the contumely is greater towards God, so the danger is greater towards men.

The "danger'' of which Bacon speaks has been noted by me often, both before and since I read his essays. Once, indeed, when a very orthodox lady had declared to me her conviction that every disbeliever in the divinity of the second person in the Trinity must be lost, I warned her of this danger and said, "We lately had President Grant here on the university grounds. Suppose your little girl, having met the President, and having been told that he was the great general of the war and President of the United States, should assert her disbelief, basing it on the fact that she had formed the idea of a much more showy and gorgeous person than this quiet, modest little man; and suppose that General Grant, on hearing of the child's mistake, should cruelly punish her for it; what would you think of him? and what would he think of you, were he to know that you asserted that he could be so contemptibly unjust and cruel? The child's utterance would not in the slightest offend him, but your imputation to him of such vileness would most certainly anger him.''

A contribution to my religious development came also from a very different quarter. Our kitchen Bridget, one of the best of her kind, lent me her book of devotion—the "Ursuline Manual.'' It interested me much until I found in it the reasons very cogently given why salvation was confined to the Roman Catholic Church. This disgusted

me. According to this, even our good rector had no more chance of salvation than a Presbyterian or Baptist or Methodist minister. But this serious view of the case was disturbed by a humorous analogy. There were then fighting vigorously through the advertisement columns of the newspapers two rival doctors, each claiming to produce the only salutary "sarsaparilla,'' and each named Townsend. At first one claimed to be "the Dr. Townsend,'' then the other claimed to be "the Dr. Townsend''; the first rejoined that he was "Dr. Jacob Townsend,'' whereupon the other insisted that he was "Dr. Jacob Townsend''; to this the first answered that he was "the original Dr. Jacob Townsend,'' and the other then declared that he was "the original Dr. Jacob Townsend''; and so on, through issue after issue, each supplying statements, certificates, arguments, rejoinders ad nauseam. More and more, then, the various divines insisting on the exclusive possession of the only remedy for sin reminded me of these eminent sarsaparilla-makers,—each declaring his own concoction genuine and all others spurious, each glorifying himself as possessing the original recipe and denouncing his rivals as pretenders.

Another contribution to my thought was made one day in the Sunday-school. While reading in the New Testament I had noticed the difficulties involved in the two genealogies of Jesus of Nazareth—that in Matthew and that in Luke. On my asking the Sunday-school teacher for an explanation, he gave the offhand answer that one was the genealogy of Joseph and the other of Mary. Of course it did not take me long to find this answer inadequate; and, as a consequence, Sunday-school teaching lost much of its effect upon me.

But there was still one powerful influence left in behalf of the old creed. From time to time came the visitation by the bishop, Dr. DeLancey. He was the most impressive man I have ever seen. I have stood in the presence of many prelates in my day, from Pope Pius IX down; but no one of them has ever so awed me as this Bishop of

Western New York. His entry into a church chancel was an event; no music could be finer than his reading of the service; his confirmation prayer still dwells in my memory as the most perfect petition I have ever heard; and his simple, earnest sermons took strong hold of me. His personal influence was also great. Goldsmith's lines in the "Deserted Village,''

accurately pictured the feelings of many of us as we lingered after service to see him greet our fathers and mothers.

As to my biblical studies, they were continued, though not perhaps as systematically as they might well have been. The Protestant Episcopal Church has for a youth at least one advantage in this respect,—that the services including Introits, Canticles, Psalter, Lessons, Epistles Gospels, and various quotations, familiarize him with the noblest utterances in our sacred books. My mother had received instruction in Bible class and prized Scripture reading; therefore it was that, when I was allowed to stay at home from church on Sunday afternoons, it was always on condition that I should read a certain number of chapters in the Bible and prove to her upon her return that I had read them carefully,—and this was not without its uses.

Here I am reminded of a somewhat curious event. One afternoon, when I had been permitted to remain at home, on the usual conditions, my mother, returning from service, said to me that by staying away from church I had missed something very interesting: that there was a good sermon well given, that the preacher was of fine appearance, dignified,—and an Indian; but that she would never have suspected him to be an Indian were it not for his words at the conclusion of his sermon, which were as follows: "And now, my brethren, I leave you. We shall probably never meet again in this world, and doubtless

most of you will forget all the counsels I have given you and remember nothing save that you have to-day heard a sermon from an Indian.'' The point of interest really was that this preacher, Eleazar Williams, though he gave no hint of it on this occasion, believed himself, and was believed by many, to be the lost Dauphin of France, Louis XVII, and that decidedly skilful arguments in favor of his claims were published by the Rev. Mr. Hanson and others. One of the most intelligent women I have ever known believes to this hour that Eleazar Williams, generally known as a half-breed Indian born in Canada, was the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and that his portly form and Bourbon face were convincing additions to other more cogent testimonies.

At various times I sought light from new sources, and, finding on the family shelves a series of books called the "Evangelical Family Library,'' I read sundry replies to Hume, Gibbon, and other deists; but the arguments of Hume and Gibbon and those who thought with them seemed to me, to say the least, quite as forcible as those in answer to them. These replies simply strengthened my tendency to doubt, and what I heard at church rather increased the difficulty; for the favorite subjects of sermons in the Episcopal Church of those days, after the "Apostolical Succession'' and "Baptismal Regeneration,'' were the perfections of the church order, the beauty of its services, and the almost divine character of the Prayer-book. These topics were developed in all the moods and tenses; the beauties of our own service were constantly contrasted with the crudities and absurdities of the worship practised by others; and although, since those days, left to my own observation, I have found much truth in these comparisons, they produced upon me at that time anything but a good effect. It was like a beautiful woman coming into an assemblage; calling attention to the perfections of her own face, form, and garments; claiming loudly to be the most beautiful person in the room; and so, finally, becoming the least attractive person present.

This state of mind was deepened by my first experiences at college. I had, from my early boyhood, wished to go to Yale; but, under pressure from the bishop, I was sent to the little church college at Geneva in western New York There were excellent men among its professors—men whom I came to love and admire; but its faculty, its endowment, its equipment, were insufficient, and for fear of driving away the sons of its wealthy and influential patrons it could not afford to insist either on high scholarship or good discipline, so that the work done was most unsatisfactory. And here I may mention that the especial claim put forth by this college, as by so many others like it throughout the country, was that, with so small a body of students directly under church control, both the intellectual and religious interests of the students would be better guarded than they could be in the larger and comparatively unsectarian institutions. The very contrary was then true; and various experiences have shown me that, as a rule, little sectarian colleges, if too feeble to exercise strong discipline or insist on thorough work, are the more dangerous. As it was, I felt that in this particular case a wrong had been done me and charged that wrong against the church system.

I have been glad to learn of late years that the college just referred to has, since my student days, shared the upward progress of its sister institutions and that with more means and better appliances a succession of superior instructors have been able to bring its students into steady good work and under excellent discipline.

Much was made in those days of the "Christian evidences,'' and one statement then put forth, regarding the miraculous, produced a temporary effect upon me. This statement was that the claims of the religions opposed to Christianity did not rest upon miracles; that there was, at any rate, no real testimony to any except Christian miracles; and that, as a rule, other religions did not pretend to exhibit any. But when I, shortly afterward, read the life of Mohammed, and saw what a great

part was played by his miracle at the battle of Beder, during which, on his throwing dust into the air, there came to his rescue legions of angels, who were seen and testified to by many on the field,—both by his friends and by his enemies; and when I found that miraculous testimonies play a leading part in all religions, even in favor of doctrines the most cruel and absurd, I felt that the "evidences'' must be weak which brought forward an argument so ill grounded. Moreover, in my varied reading I came across multitudes of miracles attributed to saints of the Roman Catholic Church,—miracles for which myriads of good men and women were ready to lay down their lives in attestation of their belief,—and if we must accept one class of miracles, I could not see why we should not accept the other.

At the close of this first year, for reasons given elsewhere, I broke away from this little college and went to Yale.