SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS.
_The Alexanders.--Dr. Tyng.--Dr. Cox.--Dr. Adams.--Dr. Storrs.--Mr.
Beecher.--Mr. Finney and Dr. B.M. Palmer_.
The necessary limitations of this chapter forbid any reference to many
distinguished American preachers whom I have seen or heard, but with
whom I had not sufficient personal acquaintance to furnish any material
for personal reminiscences. In common with multitudes of others on both
sides of the ocean, I had a hearty admiration for the brilliant genius
and masterful sermons of Phillips Brooks, but I only heard two of his
rapid and resonant addresses on anniversary occasions, and my
acquaintance with him was very slight. I heard only one discourse by
that remarkable combination of preacher, poet, patriot and philosopher,
Dr. Horace Bushnell, of Hartford,--his discourse on "Barbarism the Chief
Danger," delivered before the "Home Missionary Society." His sermon on
"Unconscious Influence," was enough to confer immortality on any
minister of Jesus Christ. I never was acquainted with him, but after his
death, I suggested to the residents of New Preston, that they should
name the mountain that rises immediately behind the home of his
childhood and youth, _Mount Bushnell_. The villagers assented to my
proposal, and the State Legislature ratified their act by ordering that
name to be placed on the maps of Connecticut. In this chapter, as in the
previous one, I shall give my recollections only of those who have ended
their career of service, and entered into their reward.
During the six years that I spent in Princeton College and in the
Seminary (between 1838 and 1846) I came into close acquaintance with,
and I heard very often, the two great orators of the Alexander family.
Dr. Archibald Alexander, the father of a famous group of sons, was a
native of Virginia--had listened to Patrick Henry in his youth; had
married the daughter of the eloquent "Blind Preacher," Rev. James
Waddell, and even when as a young minister he had preached in Hanover,
New Hampshire. Daniel Webster, then a student in Dartmouth College,
predicted his future eminence. The students in the Seminary were wont to
call him playfully, "The Pope," for we had unbounded confidence in his
sanctified common-sense. I always went to him for counsel. His insight
into the human heart was marvelous; and in the line of close
experimental preaching, he has not had his equal since the days of
President Edwards. He put the impress of his powerful personality on a
thousand ministers who graduated from Princeton Seminary.
In his lecture-desk and in the pulpit he was simplicity itself. His
sermons were like the waters of Lake George, so pellucid that you could
see every bright pebble far down in the depths; a child could comprehend
him, yet a sage be instructed by him. His best discourses were
extemporaneous, and he had very little gesture, except with his
forefinger, which he used to place under his chin, and sometimes against
his nose in a very peculiar manner. With a clear piping voice and
colloquial style he held his audience in rapt attention, disdaining all
the tricks of sensational oratory. Twice I heard him deliver his
somewhat celebrated discourse on "The Day of Judgment;" it was a
masterpiece of solemn eloquence, in which sublimity and simplicity were
combined in a way that I have never seen equaled He used to say that the
right course for an old man to keep his mind from senility was to
produce some piece of composition every day; and he continued to write
his practical articles for the religious press until he was almost
four-score. What an impressive funeral was his on that bright October
afternoon, in 1851, when two hundred ministers gathered in that
Westminster Abbey of Presbyterianism, the Princeton Cemetery! His ashes
slumber beside those of Witherspoon, Davies, Hodge, McCosh and Jonathan
Edwards.
Among the six sons who stood that day beside that grave, the most
brilliant by far was the third son, Joseph Addison Alexander. Dr.
Charles Hodge said of him: "Taking him all in all, he was the most
gifted man with whom I have ever been personally acquainted," In
childhood, such was his precocity that he knew the Hebrew alphabet at
six years of age (I am afraid that some ministers do not know it at
sixty); and he could read Latin fluently when he was only eight! Of his
wonderful feats of memory I could give many illustrations; one was that
on the day that I was matriculated in the Seminary with fifty other
students, Professor Alexander went over to Dr. Hodge's study, and
repeated to him every one of our names! When using manuscript in the
pulpit, he frequently turned the leaves backward instead of forward, for
he knew all the sermon by heart! His commentaries--quite too few--remain
as monuments of his profound scholarship, and some of his articles in
the _Princeton Review_ sparkled with the keenest wit.
Oh, how his grandest sermons linger still in my memory after
three-score years--like the far-off music of an Alpine horn floating
from the mountain tops! His physique was remarkable, he had the ruddy
cheeks of a boy, and his square intellectual head we students used to
say "looked like Napoleon's." His voice was peculiarly melodious,
especially in the pathetic passages; his imagination was vivid in fine
imagery, and he had an unique habit of ending a long sentence in the
words of his text, which chained the text fast to our memories. The
announcement of his name always crowded the church in Princeton, and he
was flooded with invitations to preach in the most prominent churches of
New York, Philadelphia, and other cities. One of his most powerful and
popular sermons was on the text, "Remember Lot's Wife;" and he received
so many requests to repeat that sermon that he said to his brother James
in a wearied tone, "I am afraid that woman will be the death of me."
There may still be old Philadelphians who can recall the magnificent
series of discourses which Professor Alexander delivered during the
winter of 1847 in the pulpit of Dr. Henry A. Boardman, while Dr.
Boardman was in Europe. The church was packed every Sabbath evening,
clear to the outer door, and many were unable to find room even in the
aisles. Dr. Alexander was then in his splendid prime. His musical voice
often swelled into a volume that rolled out through the doorway and
reached the passerby on the sidewalk! During that winter he pronounced
all his most famous sermons--on "The Faithful Saying," on "The City with
Foundations," on "Awake, Thou that Sleepest!" and on "The Broken and
Contrite Heart." It was after hearing this latter most original and
pathetic discourse that an eminent man exclaimed, "No such preaching as
that has been heard in this land since the days of Dr. John M. Mason." I
enjoy the perusal of the rich, unique, and spiritual sermons of my
beloved professor and friend; but no one who reads them can realize what
it was to listen to Joseph Addison Alexander in his highest and holiest
inspirations.
Was Albert Barnes a great preacher? Yes; if it is a great thing for a
man to hold a large audience of thoughtful and intelligent people in
solemn attention while he proclaims to them the weightiest and vitalest
of truths--then was Mr. Barnes a great ambassador of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He combined modesty and majesty to a remarkable degree. He had a
commanding figure, keen eye, handsome features, and a clear distinct
voice; but so diffident was he that he seldom looked about over his
congregation and rarely made a single gesture. His simple rule of
homiletics was, have something to say, and then say it. He stood up in
his pulpit and delivered his calm, clear, strong, spiritual utterances
with scarcely a trace of emotion, and the hushed assembly listened as if
they were listening to one of the oracles of God. His best sermons were
like a great red anthracite coal bed, with no flash, but kindled through
and through with the fire of the Holy Spirit Bashful, too, as he was, he
denounced popular sins with an intrepidity displayed by but few
ministers in our land. In the temperance reform he was an early pioneer.
For Albert Barnes I felt an intense personal attachment; he was my ideal
of a fearless, godly-minded herald of evangelical truth; and he had
begun his public ministry in Morristown, N.J., the home of my maternal
ancestry, and in the church in which my beloved mother had made her
confession of faith. When our Lafayette Avenue Church was
dedicated--just forty years ago--I urged him to deliver the discourse;
but he hesitated to preach extemporaneously, and his sight was so
impaired that he could not use a manuscript. At the age of seventy-two
he was suddenly and sweetly translated to heaven. Over the whole
English-speaking world his name was familiar as a plain teacher of God's
Word in very spiritual commentaries.
A half century ago Dr. William B. Sprague, of Albany, was in the front
rank of Presbyterian preachers. His fine presence, his richly melodious
voice, his graceful style and fresh, practical evangelical thought made
him so popular that he was in demand everywhere for special occasions
and services. He was a marvel of industry. While preparing his
voluminous "Annals of the American Pulpit," and conducting an enormous
correspondence, he never omitted the preparation of new sermons for his
own flock. With that flock he lived and labored for forty years, and
when he resigned his charge (in 1869) he told me that when removing from
Albany, he buried his face and streaming eyes with his hands, for he
could not endure the farewell look at the city of his love. When I first
heard him in my student days I thought him an almost faultless pulpit
orator, and when he and the young and ardent Edward N. Kirk stood side
by side in Albany, no town in the land contained two nobler specimens of
the earnest, persuasive and eloquent Presbyterian preachers.
When I came to New York as pastor of the Market Street Church, in 1853,
the most conspicuous minister in the city was the rector of St. George's
Episcopal Church on Stuyvesant Square. Every Sabbath the superb and
spacious edifice was thronged. It was quite "the thing" for strangers
who came to New York to go and hear Dr. Tyng. Even on Sunday afternoons
the house was filled; for at that service he preached what he called
"sermons to the children"--but they were not only sprightly, simple and
vivacious enough to attract the young, they also contained an abundance
of strong meat for persons of older growth. He was an enthusiast in
Sunday school work--had 2,500 scholars in his mission schools, and
possessed an unsurpassed power in nailing the ears of the young to his
pulpit.
Dr. Tyng was the acknowledged leader of the "Low Church" wing of
Episcopacy in this country, both during his ministry in the Epiphany at
Philadelphia, and in St. George's at New York. He edited their weekly
paper, and championed their cause on all occasions. He was their
candidate for the office of Bishop of Pennsylvania in 1845, and the
contest was protracted through a long series of ballotings. It was
urged, and not without some reason, that his impetuous temper and strong
partisanship might make him a rather domineering overseer of the
diocese. He possessed an indomitable will and pushed his way through
life with the irresistible rush of a Cunarder under a full head of
steam. His temper was naturally very violent. One Sabbath evening he was
addressing my Sunday school in Market Street, and describing the various
kinds of human nature by resemblances to various animals, the lion, the
fox, the sloth, etc.: "Children," he exclaimed, "do you want to know
what I am? I am by nature a royal Bengal tiger, and if it had not been
for the grace of God to tame me, I fear that nobody could ever have
lived with me." There was about as much truth as there was wit in the
comparison. His congregation in St. George's knew his irrepressible
temperament so well that they generally let him have his own way. If he
wanted money for a church object or a cause of charity, he did not beg
for it; he demanded it in the name of the Lord. "When I see Dr. Tyng
coming up the steps of my bank," said a rich bank president to me, "I
always begin to draw my cheque; I know he will get it, and it saves my
time."
His leading position among Low Churchmen was won not only by his
intellectual force and moral courage, but by his uncompromising devotion
to evangelical doctrine. He belonged to the same school with Baxter,
John Newton, Bickersteth, Simeon and Bedell. In England his intimate
friends were the Earl of Shaftesbury, Dr. McNeill and others of the most
pronounced evangelical type. The good old doctrines of redemption by the
blood of Christ, and of regeneration by the Holy Spirit were his
constant theme, and on these and kindred topics he was a delightful
preacher.
Strong as he was in the pulpit, Dr. Tyng was the prince of platform
orators. He had every quality necessary for the sway of a popular
audience--fine elocution, marvelous fluency, piquancy, the courage of
his convictions and a magnetism that swept all before him. His voice was
very clear and penetrating, and he hurled forth his clean-cut sentences
like javelins. A more fluent speaker I never heard; not Spurgeon or
Henry Ward Beecher could surpass him in readiness of utterance. On one
occasion the Broadway Tabernacle was crowded with a great audience that
gathered to hear some celebrity; and the expected hero did not arrive.
The impatient crowd called for "Tyng, Tyng;" and the rector of St.
George's came forward, and on the spur of the moment delivered such a
charming speech that the audience would not let him stop. For many years
I spoke with him at meetings for city missions, total abstinence, Sunday
schools and other benevolent enterprises. He used playfully to call me
"one of his boys." At a complimentary reception given to J.B. Gough in
Niblo's Hall, Mr. Beecher and myself delivered our talks, and then
retired to the opposite end of the hall. Dr. Tyng took the rostrum with
one of his swift magnetic speeches. I leaned over to Beecher and
whispered, "That is splendid platforming, isn't it?" Beecher replied:
"Yes, indeed it is. He is the one man that I am afraid of. When he
speaks first I do not care to follow him, and if I speak first, then
when he gets up I wish I had not spoken at all." Some of Dr. Tyng's
most powerful addresses were in behalf of the temperance reform; he was
a most uncompromising foe of both of the dram shop and of the drinking
usages in polite society. He also denounced the theatre and the
ball-room with the most Puritanic vehemence.
Dr. Stephen H. Tyng's chief power, like many other great preachers, was
when he was on his feet. He should be heard and not read. Some of the
discourses and addresses which enchained and thrilled his auditors
seemed tame enough when reported for the press. In that respect he
resembled Whitfield and Gough and many of our most effective stump
speakers. The result was that Dr. Tyng's fame, to a great degree,
perished with him. He published several books, of a most excellent and
evangelical character, but they lacked the thunder and the lightning
which make his uttered words so powerful, and probably none of his many
books are much read to-day. The influence of his splendid and heroic
personality was very great during a ministry of over fifty years, and
the glorious work which he wrought for his Master will endure to all
eternity.
To have heard Dr. William Adams of New York at his best was better than
any lecture on "Homiletics"; to have met him at the fireside or in the
sick room of one of his parishioners was a prelection in pastoral
theology.
The first time that I ever saw him was fully fifty years ago; he was
standing in the gallery of the old Broadway Tabernacle at an anniversary
of the American Bible Society, and Dr. James W. Alexander pointed him
out to me saying--"Yonder stands Dr. William Adams, he is the _hardest
student_ of us all." It was this honest incessant brain work that
enabled him to sustain himself for forty years in one of the conspicuous
pulpits of the largest city in the land. He always drew out of a full
cask. Let young ministers lay this fact to heart. It was not by trick or
happy luck, or by pyrotechnics of rhetoric that Dr. Adams won and kept
his position in the forefront of metropolitan preachers. The "dead line
of fifty" was not to be found on his intellectual atlas. One of the last
talks with him that I now recall was on an early morning in Congress
Park, Saratoga. He had a pocket Testament in his hand, and he said to
me, "I find myself reading more and more the old books of my youth; I am
enjoying just now Virgil's Eclogues, but nothing is so dear to me as my
Greek Testament."
All of Dr. Adams' finest efforts were thoroughly prepared and committed
to memory. He never risked a failure by attempting to shake a sermon or
a speech "out of his sleeve." His memory was one of his greatest gifts.
Sometimes when his soul was on fire, and his voice trembled with
emotion, he rose into the region of lofty impassioned eloquence. His
master effort on the platform was his address of welcome to the
members of the "Evangelical Alliance" in 1873. How the foreign
delegates--Doctors Stoughton, Christlieb, Dorner and the rest of
them--did open their eyes that evening to the fact that a Yankee-born
parson was, in elegant culture and polished oratory, a match for them
all. Dr. Adams' speech "struck twelve" for the Alliance at the start;
nothing during the whole subsequent sessions surpassed that opening
address, although Beecher and Dr. Joseph Parker were both among the
speakers. He closed the meeting of the Alliance in the Academy of Music
with a prayer of wonderful fervor, pathos and beauty.
One of his grandest speeches was delivered before the Free Church
General Assembly in Edinburgh--in May, 1871. Dr. Guthrie told me that he
swept the assembly away by his stately bearing, sonorous voice and
classic oratory. The men whom he moved so mightily were such men as
Arnot and Guthrie and Rainy and Bonar,--the men who had listened to the
grandest efforts of Duff and of Chalmers. I well remember that when I
had to address the same assembly (as the American delegate) the next
year I was more disturbed by the apparition of my predecessor, Dr.
Adams, than by all the brilliant audience before me.
Dr. Adams was gifted with what is of more practical value than genius,
and that was marvelous _tact_. That was with him an instinct and an
inspiration. It led him to always speak the right word, and do the right
thing at the right time. Personal politeness helped him also; for he was
one of the most perfect gentlemen in America. That practical sagacity
made him the leader of the "new school" branch of our church, during the
delicate negotiations for reunion in 1867, and on to 1870. He knew human
nature well, and never lost either his temper or his faith in the sure
result. To-day when that old lamentable rupture of our beloved church is
as much a matter of past history as the rupture of the Union during the
civil war, let us gratefully remember George W. Musgrave, the pilot of
the "old school" and William Adams, the pilot of the "new."
The last sermon that I ever heard Dr. Adams deliver was in my Lafayette
Avenue Church pulpit a few years before his death. His text was the
closing passage of the fourth chapter of Second Corinthians. The whole
sermon was delivered with great majesty and tenderness. One illustration
in it was sublime. He was comparing the "things which are seen and
temporal" with the "things which are not seen and eternal." He described
Mont Blanc enveloped in a morning cloud of mist. The vapor was the
_seen_ thing which was soon to pass away;--behind it was the _unseen_
mountain, glorious as the "great white throne" which should stand
unmoved when fifty centuries of mist had flown away into nothingness.
This passage moved the audience prodigiously. Many sat gazing at the
tall pale orator before them through their tears. The portrait of Dr.
Adams hangs on my study wall--alongside of the portrait of Chalmers--and
as I look at his majestic countenance now, I still seem to see him as on
that Sabbath morning he stood before us, with the light of eternity
beaming on his brow!
In the summer of 1845 I was strolling with my friend Littell (the
founder of the _Living Age_), through the leafy lanes of Brookline, and
we came to a tasteful church. "That," said Mr. Littell, "is the Harvard
Congregational meeting house. They have lately called a brilliant young
Mr. Storrs, who was once a law student with Rufus Choate; he is a man of
bright promise." Two years afterward I saw and heard that brilliant
young minister in the pulpit of the newly organized Church of the
Pilgrims in Brooklyn. He had already found his place, and his throne. He
made that pulpit visible over the continent. That church will be "Dr.
Storrs' church" for many a year to come.
Had that superbly gifted law student of Choate gone to the bar he would
inevitably have won a great distinction, and might have charmed the
United States Senate by his splendid eloquence. Perhaps he learned from
Choate some lessons in rhetoric and how to construct those long
melodious sentences that rolled like a "Hallelujah chorus" over his
delighted audiences. But young Storrs chose the better part, and no
temptation of fame or pelf allured him from the higher work of preaching
Jesus Christ to his fellow men. He was--like Chalmers and Bushnell and
Spurgeon--a _born preacher_. Great as he was on the platform, or on
various ceremonial occasions, he was never so thoroughly "at home" as in
his own pulpit; his great heart never so kindled as when unfolding the
glorious gospel of redeeming love. The consecration of his splendid
powers to the work of the ministry helped to ennoble the ministry in the
popular eye, and led young men of brains to feel that they could covet
no higher calling.
One of the remarkable things in the career of Dr. Storrs was that by far
the grandest portion of that career was after he had passed the age of
fifty! Instead of that age being, as to many others, a "dead line," it
was to him an intellectual _birth line_. He returned from Europe--after
a year of entire rest--and then, like "a giant refreshed by sleep,"
began to produce his most masterly discourses and orations. His first
striking performance was that wonderful address at the twenty-fifth
anniversary of Henry Ward Beecher's pastorate in Plymouth Church, at the
close of which Mr. Beecher gave him a grateful kiss before the
applauding audience. Not long after that Dr. Storrs delivered those two
wonderful lectures on the "Muscovite and the Ottoman." The Academy of
Music was packed to listen to them; and for two hours the great orator
poured out a flood of history and gorgeous description without a scrap
of manuscript before him! He recalled names and dates without a moment's
hesitation! Like Lord Macaulay, Dr. Storrs had a marvelous memory; and
at the close of those two orations I said to myself, "How Macaulay would
have enjoyed all this!" His extraordinary memory was an immense source
of power to Dr. Storrs; and, although he had a rare gift of fluency, yet
I have no doubt that some of his fine efforts, which were supposed to be
extemporaneous, were really prepared beforehand and lodged in his
tenacious memory.
Dean Stanley, on the day before he returned to England, said to me: "The
man who has impressed me most is your Dr. Storrs." When I urged the
pastor of the "Pilgrims" to go over to the great International Council
of Congregationalists in London and show the English people a specimen
of American preaching, his characteristic reply was, "Oh, I am tired of
these _show occasions_," But he never grew tired of preaching Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. The Bible his old father loved was the book of
books that he loved, and no blasts of revolutionary biblical criticism
ever ruffled a feather on the strong wing with which he soared
heavenward. A more orthodox minister has not maintained the faith once
delivered to the saints in our time than he for whom Brooklyn's flags
were all hung at half-mast on the day of his death.
All the world knew that Richard S. Storrs possessed wonderful brain
power, culture and scholarship; but only those who were closest to him
knew what a big loving heart he had. Some of the sweetest and tenderest
private letters that I ever received came from his ready pen. I was
looking over some of them lately; they are still as fragrant as if
preserved in lavender. His heart was a very pure fountain of noble
thought, and of sweet, unselfish affection.
He died at the right time; his great work was complete; he did not
linger on to outlive himself. The beloved wife of his home on earth had
gone on before; he felt lonesome without her, and grew homesick for
heaven. His loving flock had crowned him with their grateful
benedictions; he waited only for the good-night kiss of the Master he
served, and he awoke from a transient slumber to behold the ineffable
glory. On the previous day his illustrious Andover instructor, Professor
Edwards A. Park, had departed; it was fitting that Andover's most
illustrious graduate should follow him; now they are both in the
presence of the infinite light, and they both behold the King in His
beauty!
Fifty years ago one of the most famous celebrities in the Presbyterian
Church was Dr. Samuel Hanson Cox, famous for his linguistic attainments,
for his wit and occasional eccentricities, and very famous for his
bursts of eloquence on great occasions. He was at that time the pastor
of the First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn, and resided in the street
where I am now writing (Oxford Street); and the street at the end of the
block was named "Hanson Place" in honor of him. His large wooden mansion
was then quite out of town, and was accordingly called "Rus Urban," In
that house he wrote--for the _New York Observer_--the unique series of
articles on New School Theology entitled "The Hexagon," and there he
entertained, with his elegant courtesy and endless flow of wit and
learning, many of the most eminent people who visited Brooklyn. The boys
used to climb into his garden to steal fruit; and, as a menace, he
affixed to his fence a large picture of a watch-dog, and underneath it a
dental sign, "Teeth inserted here!" The old mansion was removed years
ago.
In 1846 he was the moderator of the "new school" Presbyterian General
Assembly. It was during the sessions of that assembly that the famous
debate was waged for several days on the exciting question of negro
slavery, and when some compromise resolutions were passed (for those
were the days of compromise salves and plasters)--Dr. Cox rose and
exclaimed, "Well, brethren, we have _capped Vesuvius_ for another year,"
But "Vesuvius" would not stay capped, and in a few years one of its
violent eruptions sundered the "new school" church in twain.
Dr. Cox was a vehement opponent of slavery, and his church in Laight
Street was assailed by a mob, and he was roughly handled. In 1833 he was
sent to England as the delegate to the British and Foreign Bible
Society, and at their anniversary meeting he delivered one of the most
brilliant speeches of his life. He came into the meeting a perfect
stranger, while Dr. Hamilton, of Leeds, was uttering a fierce invective
against American slavery. This aroused Dr. Cox's indignation, and when
he was called on to speak he commenced with exquisite urbanity as
follows: "My Lord Bexley, ladies and gentlemen! I have just landed from
America. Thirty days ago I came down the bay of New York in the steam
tug _Hercules_ and was put on board of the good packet ship
_Samson_--thus going on from strength to strength--from mythology to
Scripture!" This bold and novel introduction brought down the house with
a thunder of applause. After paying some graceful tributes to England
and thus winning the hearts of his auditors, he suddenly turned towards
Dr. Hamilton, and with the most captivating grace, he said: "I do not
yield to my British brother in righteous abhorrence of the institution
of negro slavery. I abhor it all the more because it was our disastrous
inheritance from our English forefathers, and came down to us from the
time when we were colonies of Great Britain! And now if my brother
Hamilton will enact the part of _Shem_, I will take the place of
_Japhet_, and we will walk backward and will cover with the mantle of
charity _the shame of our common ancestry_," This sudden burst of wit,
argument and eloquence carried the audience by storm, and they were
obliged to applaud the "Yankee orator" in spite of themselves. I count
this retort by Dr. Cox one of the finest in the annals of oratory.
Several years afterwards he visited England as a delegate to the first
Evangelical Alliance. It was attended by the foremost divines, scholars
and religious leaders of both Britain and the continent; and a brief
five-minutes' speech made by Dr. Cox was unanimously pronounced to have
been the most splendid display of eloquence heard during the whole
convocation.
He owed a great deal to his commanding figure, fine voice, and graceful
elocution. His memory also was as marvelous as that of Dr. Storrs or
Professor Addison Alexander. One night, for the entertainment of his
fellow-passengers in a stagecoach, he repeated two cantos of Scott's
poem of "Marmion"! I have heard him quote, in a public address before
the New York University, a whole page of Cicero without the slip of a
single word! His passion for polysyllables was very amusing, and he
loved to astonish his hearers by his "sesquipedalian" phraseology. A
certain visionary crank once intruded into his study and bored him with
a long dissertation. Dr. Cox's patience was exhausted, and pointing to
the door, he said: "My friend, do you observe that aperture in this
apartment? If you do, I wish that you would describe rectilineals, very
speedily."
I could fill several pages with racy anecdotes of the keen wit and the
varied erudition of my venerable friend. But let none of my readers
think of Dr. Cox as a clerical jester, or a pedant. He was a powerful
and intensely spiritual preacher of the living Gospel. In his New York
congregation were many of the best brains and fervent hearts to be found
in that city, and some of the leading laymen revered him as their
spiritual father. Sometimes he was betrayed into eccentricities, and his
vivid imagination often carried him away into discursive flights; yet
he never soared out of sight of Calvary's cross, and never betrayed the
precious Gospel committed to his trust.
The first time that I ever saw Henry Ward Beecher was in 1848. He was
then mustering his new congregation in the building once occupied by Dr.
Samuel H. Cox. It was a weekly lecture service that I attended, by
invitation of a lady who invited me to "go and hear our new-come genius
from the West." The room was full, and at the desk stood a brown-cheeked
young man with smooth-shaved face, big lustrous eyes, and luxuriant
brown hair--with a broad shirt collar tied with a black ribbon. His text
was "Grow in Grace," and he gave us a discourse that Matthew Henry could
not have surpassed in practical pith, or Spurgeon in evangelical fervor.
I used to tell Mr. Beecher that even after making full allowance for the
novelty of a first hearing, I never heard him surpass that Wednesday
evening lecture. He was plucking the first ripe grapes of his affluent
vintage; his "pomegranates were in full flower, and the spikenard sent
forth its fragrance." The very language of that savory sermon lingers in
my memory yet.
During my ministry in New York--from 1853 to 1860--I became intimate
with Mr. Beecher and spoke beside him on many a platform and heard him
in some of his most splendid efforts. He was a fascinating companion,
with the rollicking freedom of a schoolboy. I never shall forget an
immense meeting--in behalf of a liquor prohibition movement--held in
Triplet Hall. Mr. Beecher was at his best. In the midst of his speech,
he suddenly discharged a bombshell against negro slavery which dynamited
the audience and provoked a thunder of applause. For pure eloquence it
was the finest outburst I ever heard from his lips. Like Patrick Henry,
Clay, Guthrie, Spurgeon and other great masters of assemblies, he was
gifted with a richly melodious voice--which was especially effective on
the low and tender keys. This gave him great power in the pathetic
portions of his discourses. Of his superabounding humor I need not
speak. It bubbled out so naturally and spontaneously that he found it
difficult to restrain it even on the most grave occasions. Sometimes he
sinned against good taste, and I once heard his sister Catherine say
that "Henry rarely delivered a speech or a sermon which did not contain
something that grated on her ear." His most frequent offenses were in
the direction of flippant handling of sacred themes and Scripture
language. This he inherited from his illustrious father.
Mr. Beecher is generally regarded as an extemporaneous preacher. This is
a mistake. He prepared most of his discourses carefully, and full
one-half of many of them were written out. Among these written passages
he interjected bursts of impromptu thoughts; and these were generally
the most effective passages in the sermon. While he repeated himself
often--especially on his favorite topic of God's love--yet it was always
in fresh language and with new illustrations. Abraham Lincoln said to
me, "The most marvelous thing about Mr. Beecher is his inexhaustible
fertility."
During the Civil War he was at the acme of his power. He was then the
peerless orator of Christendom. It was his intention (as he once told
me) to resign his pastorate at the age of sixty and to devote the
remainder of his life to a ministry at large. But the tempest of
troubles which struck him about that time forbade his cherished design,
and he continued at his post until the touch of death silenced the magic
tongue. Nearly thirty years have elapsed since I sat by him on the
crowning evening of his career, at his "silver anniversary," in 1873. As
to his later utterances in theology, and on some questions of ethics, I
dissented from my old friend conscientiously, and I expressed to him my
dissent very candidly,--as becometh brethren. I am convinced that if
there were more fraternal frankness between the living, there would be
less hypocrisy over the departed.
Charles G. Finney was the acknowledged king of American evangelists
until Dwight L. Moody came on the stage of action. They resembled each
other in untiring industry, unflinching courage, unswerving devotion to
the marrow of the Gospel, and unreserved consecration to the service of
Christ. The secret of Finney's power was the fearless manner with which
he drove God's word into the consciences of sinners--high or humble--and
his perpetual reliance on the immediate presence of the Holy Spirit in
his own soul. Emptied of self, he was filled with the Holy Spirit. His
sermons were chain lightning, flashing conviction into the hearts of the
stoutest sceptics, and the links of his logic were so compact that they
defied resistance. Probably no minister in America ever numbered among
his converts so many lawyers and men of intellectual culture.
Soon after commencing his law practice he was brought under the most
intense conviction of sin; and the narrative of his conversion--as given
in his autobiography--equals any chapter in John Bunyan's "Grace
Abounding." After light and peace broke into his agonized soul, he burst
into tears of joy, and exclaimed: "I am so happy that I cannot live," He
began at once to converse with his neighbors about their souls. When a
certain Deacon B. came into his office and reminded him that his cause
was to be tried at ten o'clock that morning, Mr. Finney replied,
"Deacon B., I have a retainer from the Lord Jesus Christ to plead His
cause, and cannot plead yours." The deacon was thunderstruck, and went
off and settled his suit with his antagonist immediately.
From that time a law office was no place for the fervid spirit of
Charles G. Finney, and he resolved at once to prepare for the ministry.
Revivals followed his red-hot discourses wherever he went. At Auburn he
declares that he had--during prayer in his own room--a wonderful vision
in which God drew so near to him that his flesh trembled on his bones,
and he shook from head to foot as if amid the thunderings of Sinai! He
felt an assurance that God would sustain him against all his enemies;
and then there came a "great lifting up," and a sweet calm followed
after the agitation. Such extraordinary spiritual experiences occurred
quite often during his career as a revivalist, and they remind one
strikingly of similar experiences of John Bunyan--to whom Finney bore a
certain degree of resemblance. At Rochester many of the leading lawyers
were attracted by his bold and logical style of speech; and among his
converts there was the distinguished jurist, Addison Gardner. It was
during his ministry in New York that he delivered his celebrated
"Lectures on Revivals," which were reprinted abroad and translated into
several foreign languages. Of all Mr. Finney's published productions,
these lectures are the most characteristic. Often extravagant in their
rhetoric, and sometimes rather reckless in theological statements, they
contain a mine of pungent truth which every young minister ought to
possess and to peruse very often. I shall never cease to thank God for
the inspiration they have imparted to my own humble ministry; and they
have had a place in my library close beside the "Pilgrim's Progress,"
and the biographies of Payson and McCheyne, and the soul-quickening
sermons of Bushnell, Addison Alexander and Dr. McLaren.
After his extended evangelistic labors in various cities, Mr. Finney was
appointed to a theological chair in the newly organized college at
Oberlin, Ohio. From this post, his irrepressible desire to kindle
revivals and to save souls often called him away, and he conducted two
famous evangelistic campaigns in Great Britain. He was the first man to
introduce American revivalistic methods into England and Scotland; but
his labors were never as wide, as influential, and generally acceptable
there as the subsequent labors of Messrs. Moody and Sankey. Forty years
of his busy and heaven-blessed life were spent at Oberlin, where he
impressed his powerful personality on a multitude of students of both
sexes; few religious teachers in America have ever moulded so many
lives, or had their opinions echoed from so many pulpits.
With all my admiration of President Finney's character, I could not--as
a loyal Princetonian--subscribe to some of his peculiar opinions. It
was, therefore, with great surprise that I received from him a letter in
1873 (two years before his death) which contained the startling proposal
that I should be his successor in the college pulpit at Oberlin! He
wrote to me: "I think that there is no more important field of
ministerial labor in the world. I know that you have a great
congregation in Brooklyn, and are mightily prospered in your labors, but
your flock does not contain a _thousand students_ pursuing the higher
branches of education from year to year. Surely your field in Brooklyn
is not more important than mine was at the Broadway Tabernacle in New
York, nor can your people be more attached to you than mine were to me."
This letter--although its kind overture was promptly declined--was a
gratifying proof that the once bitter controversies between "old school"
and "new school" had become quite obsolete. When I mentioned this letter
to my beloved Princeton instructor, Dr. Charles Hodge, a few weeks
before his death, he simply remarked that "his Brother Finney had become
very sweet and mellow in his later years." And long before this time
the two great antagonistic theologians may have clasped hands in heaven.
The closing years of President Finney's useful life were indeed mellow
and most lovable. In the days of his prime he had a commanding form, a
striking face and a clear, incisive style of speech. Simple as a child
in his utterances, he sometimes startled his hearers by his unique
prayers. For example, he was one day driven from his study at Oberlin by
a refractory stovepipe which persisted in tumbling down. At family
worship in the evening he said "Oh, Lord! thou knowest how the temper of
Thy servant has been tried to-day by that stovepipe!" Several other
expressions, quite as quaint and as piquant, might be quoted, if the
limits of this brief sketch would permit. What would be deemed
irreverent if spoken by some lips never sounded irreverent when uttered
by such a natural, fearless and yet devout a spirit as Charles G.
Finney. He retained his erect, manly form, his fresh enthusiasm and
intellectual vigor, to the ripe old age of eighty-three. On a calm
Sabbath evening--in August, 1875--he walked in his garden and listened
to the music from a neighboring church. Retiring to his chamber, the
messenger from his Master met him in the midnight hours, and before the
morning dawned his glorified spirit was before the throne! His is the
crown of one who turned many to righteousness.
While I am writing this chapter of ministerial reminiscences, I receive
the sorrowful tidings that my dear old friend, Dr. Benjamin M. Palmer,
of New Orleans--the prince of Southern preachers--has closed his
illustrious career. To the last his splendid powers were unabated,--and
last year (although past eighty-three) he delivered one of his greatest
sermons before the University of Georgia! His massive discourses, based
on God's word, were a solid pile of concinnate argument, illuminated
with the divine light, and glowing with the divine love shed abroad in
his heart. In the spring of 1887, Mrs. Cuyler and myself visited New
Orleans, and I cared more to see Dr. Palmer than all the city besides.
He cordially welcomed me to the hospitalities of his house, and of that
pulpit which had so long been his throne. I do not wonder that the
people of New Orleans--of all classes and creeds--regarded him not only
with pride, but with an affection that greeted him at every step through
the city of which he was the foremost citizen.
As my readers may all know, Dr. Palmer, through the Civil War, was a
most ardent Secessionist, and as honestly so as I was a Unionist. He
spent much time in preaching to the Confederate soldiers, and he
narrated to me an amusing incident which illustrated his calm and
imperturbable temperament. On a certain fast-day (appointed by the
Confederate authorities) he was to preach in a rural church within the
Confederate lines. The Northern army was lying so close to them that a
battle was imminent at any moment. Dr. Palmer had begun his "long
prayer," when a Federal shell landed immediately under the windows of
the church and exploded with a terrific crash! The doctor was not to be
shelled out of his duty, and he went steadily on to the end of his
prayer. When he opened his eyes the house was deserted! His congregation
had slipped quietly out, and left him "alone in his glory."
Soon after my visit to New Orleans, my old friend was sorely bereaved by
the death of his wife. I wrote him a letter of condolence, and his reply
was, for sweetness and sublimity, worthy of Samuel Rutherford or Richard
Baxter. As both husband and wife are now reunited I venture to publish a
portion of this wonderful letter--both as a message of consolation to
others under a similar bereavement and as a tribute to the great loving
heart of Benjamin M. Palmer.
He says: "Truly my sorrow is a sorrow wholly by itself. What is to be
done with a love which belongs only to one, when that one is gone and
cannot take it up? It cannot perish, for it has become a part of our own
being. What shall we do with a lost love which wanders like a ghost
through all the chambers of the soul only to feel how empty they are? I
have about me--blessed be God! a dear daughter and grandchildren; but I
cannot divide this love among them, for it is incapable of distribution.
What remains but to send it upward until it finds her to whom it belongs
by right of concentration through more than forty years."
"I will not speak, my brother, of my pain--let that be; it is the
discipline of love, having its fruit in what is to be. But I will tell
you how a gracious Father fills this cloud with Himself--and covering me
in it, takes me into His pavilion. It is not what I would have chosen;
but in this dark cloud I know better what it is to be alone with Him;
and how it is best sometimes to put out the earthly lights, that even
the sweetest earthly love may not come between Him and me. It is the old
experience of love breaking through the darkness as it did long ago
through the terrors of Sinai and the more appalling gloom of Calvary. I
have this to thank Him for, the greatest of all His mercies, and then
for this, that He gave her to me so long. The memories of almost half a
century encircle me as a rainbow. I can feed upon them through the
remainder of a short, sad life, and after that can carry them up to
Heaven with me and pour them into song forever. If the strings of the
harp are being stretched to a greater tension, it is that the praise may
hereafter rise to higher and sweeter notes before His throne--_as we bow
together there._"