Thomas S. Grimke', 1786-1834, an eminent lawyer and scholar, was born in
Charleston, South Carolina, graduated at Yale in 1807, and died of cholera
near Columbus, Ohio. He descended from a Huguenot family that was exiled
from France by the revocation of the edict of Nantes. He gained
considerable reputation as a politician, but is best known as an advocate
of peace, Sunday Schools, and the Bible. He was a man of deep feeling,
earnest purpose, and pure life. Some of his views were very radical and
very peculiar. He proposed sweeping reforms in English orthography[1], and
disapproved of the classics and of pure mathematics in any scheme of
general education. The following is an extract from an address delivered
at a Sunday-school celebration.
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[Transcriber's Footnote 1: Orthography: Spelling using established
usage.]
It is but a few years since we beheld the most singular and memorable
pageant in the annals of time. It was a pageant more sublime and affecting
than the progress of Elizabeth through England after the defeat of the
Armada; than the return of Francis I. from a Spanish prison to his own
beautiful France; than the daring and rapid march of the conqueror at
Austerlitz from Frejus to Paris. It was a pageant, indeed, rivaled only in
the elements of the grand and the pathetic, by the journey of our own
Washington through the different states. Need I say that I allude to the
visit of Lafayette to America?
But Lafayette returned to the land of the dead, rather than of the living.
How many who had fought with him in the war of '76, had died in arms, and
lay buried in the grave of the soldier or the sailor! How many who had
survived the perils of battle, on the land and the ocean, had expired on
the deathbed of peace, in the arms of mother, sister, daughter, wife!
Those. who survived to celebrate with him the jubilee of 1825, were
stricken in years, and hoary-headed; many of them infirm in health; many
the victims of poverty, or misfortune, or affliction. And, how venerable
that patriotic company; how sublime their gathering through all the land;
how joyful their welcome, how affecting their farewell to that beloved
stranger!
But the pageant has fled, and the very materials that gave it such depths
of interest are rapidly perishing: and a humble, perhaps a nameless grave,
shall hold the last soldier of the Revolution. And shall they ever meet
again? Shall the patriots and soldiers of '76, the "Immortal Band," as
history styles them, meet again in the amaranthine bowers of spotless
purity, of perfect bliss, of eternal glory? Shall theirs be the
Christian's heaven, the kingdom of the Redeemer? The heathen points to his
fabulous Elysium as the paradise of the soldier and the sage. But the
Christian bows down with tears and sighs, for he knows that not many of
the patriots, and statesmen, and warriors of Christian lands are the
disciples of Jesus.
But we turn from Lafayette, the favorite of the old and the new world, to
the peaceful benevolence, the unambitious achievements of Robert Raikes.
Let us imagine him to have been still alive, and to have visited our land,
to celebrate this day with us. No national ships would have been offered
to bear him, a nation's guest, in the pride of the star-spangled banner,
from the bright shores of the rising, to the brighter shores of the
setting sun. No cannon would have hailed him in the stern language of the
battlefield, the fortunate champion of Freedom, in Europe and America. No
martial music would have welcomed him in notes of rapture, as they rolled
along the Atlantic, and echoed through the valley of the Mississippi. No
military procession would have heralded his way through crowded streets,
thickset with the banner and the plume, the glittering saber and the
polished bayonet. No cities would have called forth beauty and fashion,
wealth and rank, to honor him in the ballroom and theater. No states would
have escorted him from boundary to boundary, nor have sent their chief
magistrate to do him homage. No national liberality would have allotted to
him a nobleman's domain and princely treasure. No national gratitude would
have hailed him in the capitol itself, the nation's guest, because the
nation's benefactor; and have consecrated a battle ship, in memory of his
wounds and his gallantry.
Not such would have been the reception of Robert Raikes, in the land of
the Pilgrims and of Penn, of the Catholic, the Cavalier, and the Huguenot.
And who does not rejoice that it would be impossible thus to welcome this
primitive Christian, the founder of Sunday schools? His heralds would be
the preachers of the Gospel, and the eminent in piety, benevolence, and
zeal. His procession would number in its ranks the messengers of the Cross
and the disciples of the Savior, Sunday-school teachers and white-robed
scholars. The temples of the Most High would be the scenes of his triumph.
Homage and gratitude to him, would be anthems of praise and thanksgiving
to God.
Parents would honor him as more than a brother; children would reverence
him as more than a father. The faltering words of age, the firm and sober
voice of manhood, the silvery notes of youth, would bless him as a
Christian patron. The wise and the good would acknowledge him everywhere
as a national benefactor, as a patriot even to a land of strangers. He
would have come a messenger of peace to a land of peace. No images of
camps, and sieges, and battles; no agonies of the dying and the wounded;
no shouts of victory, or processions of triumph, would mingle with the
recollections of the multitude who welcomed him. They would mourn over no
common dangers, trials, and calamities; for the road of duty has been to
them the path of pleasantness, the way of peace. Their memory of the past
would be rich in gratitude to God, and love to man; their enjoyment of the
present would be a prelude to heavenly bliss; their prospects of the
future, bright and glorious as faith and hope. * * *
Such was the reception of Lafayette, the warrior; such would be that of
Robert Raikes, the Howard of the Christian church. And which is the nobler
benefactor, patriot, and philanthropist? Mankind may admire and extol
Lafayette more than the founder of the Sunday schools; but religion,
philanthropy, and enlightened common sense must ever esteem Robert Raikes
the superior of Lafayette. His are the virtues, the services, the
sacrifices of a more enduring and exalted order of being. His counsels and
triumphs belong less to time than to eternity.
The fame of Lafayette is of this world; the glory of Robert Raikes is of
the Redeemer's everlasting kingdom. Lafayette lived chiefly for his own
age, and chiefly for his and our country; but Robert Raikes has lived for
all ages and all countries. Perhaps the historian and biographer may never
interweave his name in the tapestry of national or individual renown. But
the records of every single church honor him as a patron; the records of
the universal Church, on earth as in heaven, bless him as a benefactor.
The time may come when the name of Lafayette will be forgotten; or when
the star of his fame, no longer glittering in the zenith, shall be seen,
pale and glimmering, on the verge of the horizon. But the name of Robert
Raikes shall never be forgotten; and the lambent flame of his glory is
that eternal fire which rushed down from heaven to devour the sacrifice of
Elijah. Let mortals then admire and imitate Lafayette more than Robert
Raikes. But the just made perfect, and the ministering spirits around the
throne of God, have welcomed him as a fellow-servant of the same Lord; as
a fellow-laborer in the same glorious cause of man's redemption; as a
coheir of the same precious promises and eternal rewards.
NOTES.--Armada, the great fleet sent out in 1588, by Philip II. of Spain,
for the conquest of England, was defeated in the Channel by the English
and Dutch fleets. After the victory, Queen Elizabeth made a triumphal
journey through the kingdom.
Francis I. (b. 1494, d. 1547), King of France, was taken prisoner at the
battle of Pavia, and confined at Madrid, Spain, nearly a year.
Austerlitz.--See Note on p. 150.
Lafayette (b. 1757, d. 1834), a French marquis, who served as major
general in the Revolutionary War in America, which terminated in 1783.
Lafayette revisited this country in 1824, and was received throughout the
land with the greatest enthusiasm.
Robert Raikes (b. 1735, d. 1811), an English printer and philanthropist,
noted as the founder of Sunday schools.
Howard, John (b. 1726, d. 1790), a celebrated English philanthropist, who
spent much of his life in the endeavor to reform the condition of prisons
in Europe.