SKETCHES OF MINISTERS--_continued_.
The weapons which your hands have found
Are those which Heaven itself has wrought,
Light, Truth and Love;--your battle-ground
The free, broad field of thought.
WHITTIER.
Rev. Josiah Gilman was another of the sturdy mechanics who came from
the forge, and after his best endeavors to gain a tolerable
preparation for the ministry, entered it, if not with much mental
culture, yet with a heart full of love of the new faith into which he
had grown out of that theology which one of the Beecher sisters has
said evinces "an awful mistake somewhere." He was always alive with
his theme. His work in the pulpit was as strong and as faithfully done
as any which he had wrought out upon the anvil. He was a useful
missionary. No one could have been more conscientious than he
respecting the religious qualifications of a Christian minister. His
own character was the best illustration he could give of his ideal.
That was above reproach.
Mr. Gilman had a stentorian voice when excited in speaking, but was
often slow in speech, and to some hearers might seem at times wanting
in animation. It is related that while preaching in a country place in
New Hampshire one hot summer afternoon, a part of his audience being
hard-working haymakers, his discourse became somewhat quiet in its
manner, so that an evident drowsiness had taken hold of some of the
listeners. The speaker, perceiving it, suddenly paused for some
seconds, and then bringing his clenched hand down quite loudly upon
the desk before him, exclaimed good naturedly, "Come brethren, wake
up! and let us take another view of this subject." The call was
effective, and both speaker and hearers were in sympathetic
wakefulness to the end. The good man departed this life in Lynn,
Mass., in 1858, aged 67.
Another comer from the anvil, a strong, cheery, blunt, warm-hearted
man, deeply in love with the truth of the Gospel, and running over
with zeal in his advocacy of it, was Rev. EMMONS PARTRIDGE. He was
superintendent of the Sunday school in the First Universalist church
in Providence, R. I., while Rev. David Pickering was its pastor. He
entered the ministry with but little scholarly preparation for it; but
somehow, by divine grace, he did quite an acceptable work as a
missionary and as pastor of a number of societies. God chooses his own
instruments in his work, and this minister was one. Without the graces
of oratory, he was a plain and often instructive preacher, because he
was usually highly charged with his subject and eager to declare it to
his hearers. If his illustrations were sometimes homely, they were
usually to the point, and if they excited a smile carried a
conviction. He was ready in expedients, if these were necessary, to
win the good will of his neighbors who might be strongly prejudiced
against his theology. "I had hard work," said he, "to get the kind
attention of one man. I tried many ways: but at last, as we were both
very much interested in raising rare kinds of poultry, I opened his
heart towards me by occasional exchanges of choice eggs with him!" He
could meet pulpit embarrassments coolly and more successfully than
others might have done. Lecturing one evening in his pulpit at
Watertown, Mass., he came to a place in his manuscript where the
matter was confusedly mixed. The leaves had been wrongly stitched
together, and he vainly tried to put them in order. Despairing of
this, he quietly and quaintly remarked, "Well, this is strange. I
thought I put these leaves in as they ought to be, but they are so
mixed that I can't make anything out of them. I think I will say the
rest without the notes!" and he did, to the satisfaction as well as
amusement of the audience. He died somewhat advanced in years, highly
esteemed by all who knew him.
Rev. WILLIAM I. REESE began to preach in Central New York, in Onondaga
County, and was ordained at the session of the Cayuga Universalist
Association in 1824. For a few years he was the minister of the
Universalist societies in East and North Bloomfield, and then of the
church in Portland, Me. He went to Buffalo on call of the church there
in the early spring of 1834, and there in the succeeding summer his
earthly ministry suddenly came to a close. It was the second year of
that terrible visitation, the Asiatic cholera, and the city to which
he had only just removed was awfully ravaged by the sweep of the
dark-winged pestilence. Unfalteringly at his post of duty in all those
dark days, devoting himself to loving ministries among sick and
suffering and dying people, showing himself everywhere an angel of
mercy and consolation, he fell a victim at last to the desolating
scourge, and in the prime of his grand manhood, the good fight fought,
the faith kept, the course finished, he passed on to receive his
crown, and to be enrolled among the brightest and most faithful of
ministering spirits.
Rev. ALBERT A. FOLSOM, an active and devoted minister, was born in
Exeter, and passed his early life in Portsmouth, N. H. He had
settlements in Maine and Massachusetts, and departed this life, aged
39, at Springfield, Mass., in 1849, after a ministry there of five
years. He was very acceptable to his congregations, in all his
pastorates. He had a rich voice, subject to a wise control, was a
ready speaker, and could acquit himself in a most happy manner. He
often had texts handed him when entering the church, which he
discussed to the evident satisfaction of his hearers. He was social
and companionable, and his views of life and Providence were very
hopeful. In his home he was a light and blessing. No minister ever had
warmer friends than he.
WILLIAM CUTTER HANSCOM, a sincere and zealous young man, a clerk in a
prominent dry goods store in Portsmouth, N. H., left his secular
pursuits to prepare himself for the ministry in the study of the Rev.
T. F. King of that town. He was soon known as an acceptable preacher,
and, receiving ordination, was called to two pastorates, the first at
Newmarket (Lamprey River village) N. H., the second at Waltham, Mass.
He had much mental ability, was a vigorous and rapid writer, and an
energetic and enthusiastic speaker. He was greatly beloved by a large
number of friends, and his pastorates were a joy to him and of much
profit to the churches. He was an evangelist in the true sense of the
word. His career was short, as he was cut off by consumption, at
Cambridgeport, and was buried at Waltham, in 1838. But his pathway was
an illuminated one, and its light lingers in many memories. He
departed at the early age of twenty-three.
Rev. MERRITT SANFORD, born in Readsboro, Vt., and religiously educated
in the Methodist church, became by attentive reading and much anxious
thinking a believer in that divine goodness which will bring all souls
at last in conformity to its will. With but ordinary means of
education in country schools, he grew, by close mental application to
study, to be a scholar of very considerable acquirements, and entered
the ministry at the age of twenty-three. He was minister in New
Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. He was a quiet but
forcible preacher, because of the soundness, strength, and aptness of
his discourses. He was continually growing mentally and spiritually,
was deeply conscientious and devout, and left a fragrant memory
wherever he sought to do his work. He closed his earthly life after a
short illness, in Warren, Mass., in May 1849, aged 37.
Rev. ALEXANDER R. ABBOTT, who was somewhat advanced in life when he
gave himself to the ministry, was a native of East Livermore, Me. His
early life was that of a hard toiler, his advantages for obtaining an
education were limited, but his thirst for knowledge overcame his
early deficiencies. With little if any aid from others, he became
proficient in French and Latin and the mathematics, and for many years
was successfully employed in teaching. His first sermon was preached
while residing in Lowell, Mass., in 1844, and his ordination took
place in the following year. His first settlement was in Bath, N. H.
For a time he was employed as a missionary, to preach in destitute
places within the limits of the Boston Association. Afterwards he was
settled successively in Newburyport, Mass., Pawtucket, R. I.,
Gardiner, Me., South Dedham, Mass., Hudson, N. Y., and Rockland, Me.
He was an indefatigable student, and a clear, strong preacher. No
useless verbiage encumbered his discourses. He grappled with the
hardest questions in theology, and brought light out of them. His last
sermon before the Maine Convention is remembered as a clear and
masterly treatment of one of the problems which has greatly occupied
the religious thought of the day. He stirred the consciences of his
hearers. He was outspoken as an anti-slavery man, when to be so was to
incur the hostility of men of both political parties, and endanger his
success in the places of his settlement. The temperance cause always
found in him a firm, consistent, and able advocate. And while he was
thus efficient in performing the more rugged duties of his calling, he
was equally well-fitted, by the tenderness of his heart, for the more
sympathetic offices of the ministry. The death of Mr. Abbott, at
Rockland, Me., in 1869, was occasioned by disease of the heart,
aggravated by the fracture of a limb. He was conscious and composed to
the last.
Rev. HENRY C. LEONARD came into the ministry at Haverhill, Mass.,
where he had studied under the direction of Rev. Henry Bacon. He was
born in Northwood, N. H., April 25, 1818, and died at Pigeon Cove,
Mass., March 7, 1880. His earliest labors were on Cape Ann, at
Gloucester and in other neighboring places. He was afterwards settled
four years in East Thomastown (now Rockland), Me. He then removed to
Orono in 1847, where he remained about eight years, and then went to
Waterville, in 1854. At the breaking out of the war, in 1861, he
closed his labors in Waterville, and accepted the position of chaplain
in the Third Maine Infantry. He was afterwards transferred to the
Maine Eighteenth Infantry, and then to the First Maine Regiment of
Heavy Artillery, where he remained, greatly beloved by officers and
soldiers, till his term of service expired in 1864. He was publicly
pronounced by Gen. Howard the most faithful chaplain he ever saw.
In 1865 he took charge of the Universalist Society in Albany, N. Y.,
where he remained three years. He moved to Philadelphia in 1869, and
was pastor of the Lombard St. Church two years. He then returned to
his home at Pigeon Cove, Mass., intending to remain there permanently.
But he was called to be pastor at Deering, Me., and was Professor of
Belles-lettres at Westbrook Seminary at the same time. His last
pastorate, at Annisquam, Mass., began in December, 1875. He preached
for the last time Sept. 28, 1879. He was for a time editor of the
"Gospel Banner" and of the "Universalist." He published a volume of
sermons entitled "A Sheaf from a Pastor's Field;" also a little work
called "Pigeon Cove and Vicinity."
Mr. Leonard was a writer of rare accomplishments. Had he chosen
literature for a profession, and cultivated more fully his rare poetic
gifts, his name might have been prominent among the writers of the
country.
He was an enthusiastic lover of nature, and delighted to dwell in her
outer temple. He had a sunny nature, and wherever he lived, won hosts
of friends by his geniality and radiant joyousness of heart. The
truest, most cultivated and intelligent of all denominations welcomed
him to their companionship, and recognized the purity of his life, the
elevation of his thought, and his rare intellectual endowments.
Rev. ABRAHAM NORWOOD began preaching in Annisquam, Mass., and was
ordained in 1833. He had been a student with Rev. Sylvanus Cobb, in
Malden. He was a member of the Congregationalist Church in early life;
but, finding himself dissatisfied and troubled with his theology, he
gave much attention to the study of the Bible, and became thereby a
firm believer in Christian Universalism. He had a clear and vigorous
intellect, and great aptness in setting forth his opinions. He was
settled in South Dennis and Marblehead, Mass., in Fiskville, R. I., in
Canton, Mass., and in Salisbury, from 1845 to 1855. He then went to
Meriden, Conn., and acted as State missionary, with rare fidelity, for
six years. He was widely known in Connecticut, and, after the close of
his regular ministerial labors, served the town of Meriden in several
positions of trust. He was warmly interested in education, and a
faithful and devoted laborer in the Temperance cause. Besides his work
as a preacher and pastor, he wrote and published two books,--"The Book
of Abraham," and "The Pilgrimage of a Pilgrim." While marked with the
quaintness of the author, they are direct and telling in their setting
forth of Christian truth.
Rev. CHARLES SPEAR was a remarkable man; a printer by trade, a
philanthropist by nature, a self-sacrificing Christian by divine
grace. He was quiet and unostentatious, but persistent as fate in his
work. He was a Massachusetts man. He commenced life in humble
condition, and his constant liberality to every object and form of
distress kept him poor. His high religious zeal and strong
philanthropy forced him into the ministry, and into ministrations
especially connected with human degradation and suffering: the
abandoned, the outcast, the down-trodden, the intemperate, and
especially the prisoner, were his parishioners. His absence of mind,
forgetfulness of self, and disregard of (if not inability in)
pecuniary matters, often subjected him to painful embarrassments when
from home; but that Providence on which he relied for aid as for
guidance, always provided friends and means to deliver him. Mr.
Spear's work on Capital Punishment, and his larger one on the "Titles
of Jesus," are readable and valuable books. Besides these, his
literary labors produced "Voices from Prison," and a periodical called
(like himself) "The Prisoner's Friend," extended through several
years. Had he belonged to almost any other denomination than the
Universalist, he would have been much more widely known and more
highly praised during life, and his death would have been announced
and his funeral attended with greater eulogy and higher honors.
Previous to his death he had been chaplain in the St. Elizabeth
Hospital in Washington, D. C., where he died in April, 1863. His wife
was a faithful helper in his hospital work. His funeral services in
Washington were attended by a Presbyterian (Dr. Sunderland). The body
was removed to Boston for burial.
Rev. JAMES W. PUTNAM, who died in Danvers, Mass., where he had been a
beloved and successful pastor, was a man of admirable qualities. He
was just past forty when he departed. Rev. Dr. Miner said of him, in
an address on the funeral occasion, that he had known the deceased
twenty-four years before, when a pupil in New Hampshire,--a boy in
years, but a man in character:--
"As a pastor for sixteen years in one parish, where he constantly
grew in strength, in the affections of his people, in the
opportunities for public usefulness, serving not only his parish,
but the town, the sure test of his worth is to be seen. His
character was so well rounded, so complete, so efficient in all
particulars, that no one trait seemed to predominate over another.
He was very modest and unassuming. When Tufts College conferred an
honorary degree upon him, it was so unexpected that, though he saw
the statement in the papers,--saw his own name,--he did not suspect
that it meant himself, but some other person! He had given the
highest evidence of his hold upon his people. Twice he represented
the town in the legislature, an experience which often breaks the
pastoral relation and sows the seed of disaffection. But he came
back from that official service to a united parish."
His settlement in Danvers was his only one. Calls to other parishes
with strong financial inducements were declined. He felt that the
pastoral relation should be broken as seldom as possible, a
consideration which, if more generally regarded, would be of great
blessing to many churches.
Rev. JAMES W. DENNIS was pastor in Stoughton, Mass., for ten years. He
was justly and highly esteemed. Much afflicted with a painful and
fatal disease, he had great conflict of mind because of his inability
to meet all his duties as he desired; the sympathies of his people
were strongly enlisted in his behalf, and they shared with him in some
measure his trials. He died in the triumphs of the unfailing hope of
the Gospel, and was buried by his friends of the church in the
cemetery which his own words had helped to consecrate. "It was an
affecting sight," writes one, speaking of his funeral obsequies, "and
a sure testimony of the profound esteem in which he was held. Little
children, tearful women, and strong men were bowed in deepest grief. I
shall never forget the appearance of one old patriarch who approached
the coffin with tottering steps, laid his hand upon the head of the
deceased, and then placing it upon his own forehead, turned away with
an expression of the deepest sadness, as though he had lost a treasure
never to be replaced in this world. I saw him again at the cemetery,
standing at the door of the sepulchre, with eyes suffused, his gray
hairs fluttering in the wind, and his head bowed in the attitude of
prayer." Mr. Dennis died in 1863, aged thirty-eight.
Rev. HENRY B. SOULE was of Dover, Duchess Co., N. Y. He was another
instance of "the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties" in his
youthful days. He was determined to educate himself, and through much
anxiousness and privation and toiling he found his way in 1835 to
Clinton Liberal Institute in New York, where he was afterwards a
tutor. The next year he was encouraged to prepare for the ministry by
his kind and honored friend, Rev. S. R. Smith. His first work as a
pastor was at Fort Plain, N. Y. He was subsequently at Troy, Utica,
and in 1844 removed to Boston and became assistant pastor with Rev.
Hosea Ballou. Here he proved himself adequate to his position. His
sermons were forcible, well arranged, and calculated to convince the
understanding and enlist the affections. A year's pastorate in
Gloucester was a happy one. Then he was minister in Hartford, Conn.,
where his first sermon was preached to forty-one, his second to
sixty-four hearers, and his last to a crowded house. In 1852 his
ministry in Lyons, N. Y., commenced. At the end of its first month he
had suddenly departed,--a victim of that fearful disease, small-pox.
But his bright life shed its radiance back upon many souls who had
been blest by his ministries, and his name has since been an honored
one in our churches. His widow, who survived him, has won an honorable
reputation in our church by her literary publications, and by her
devotion to our missionary interests under the auspices of the Woman's
Centenary Association, of which she was the first president, and in
whose employ she has for three years labored faithfully as a
missionary in Scotland. An interesting biography of her husband was
prepared by her and given to the public in 1852.
Rev. OBADIAH H. TILLOTSON, of New Hampshire, was an active worker in
the ministry; a successful pastor in Worcester, Mass., Hartford,
Conn., Northfield, Vt., and in other places. He departed this life in
1863. He was a ready speaker, and was ardent and resolute in his
ministerial work. "His ability," writes a friend, "as a public debater
was signally shown in a protracted discussion (in Worcester) with a
religious opposer who was put forward to defeat him if possible. Four
nights the contest went on, and the result was a complete success. He
more than met the expectations of his friends, and the opponent
afterwards acknowledged that of all his contests (and he was a
gladiator) Mr. Tillotson was the strongest opponent he had ever met.
There was much of sunshine in his soul, and it beamed out upon others
in his social life. For a time he studied and practised law, but his
old love for the ministry returning, he entered it again with renewed
zeal, and continued earnest and faithful in its work unto the end."