Dr. Sprague, of Albany, has added to the literature of our country
two large octavo volumes, containing biographical accounts of the
Congregational clergy of New England, from its earliest settlement until
the year 1841. The book has been for the most part compiled from letters
furnished by different individuals, who, either through personal
knowledge or through tradition, had the most intimate acquaintance with
the subjects of which they wrote.
The characters here sketched, though perfectly individual, are in so
great a degree the result of peculiar political influences, that it
would be difficult to suppose their existence elsewhere than in New
England. We have therefore chosen this book as a kind of standpoint from
which to take a glance at the New England clergy and pulpit.
The earliest constitution of government in New England was a theocracy;
it was the realization of Arnold's idea of the identity of Church and
State. Under it the clergy had peculiar powers and privileges, which,
it is but fair to say, they turned to the advantage of the Commonwealth
more than has generally been the case with any privileged order.
A time, however, came when the democratic element, which these men
themselves had fostered, worked out its logical results, by depriving
them of all special immunities, and leaving them, like any other
citizens, to make their way by pure force of character, and to be rated,
like other men, simply for what they were and what they could do.
It is creditable to the intelligence and shrewdness of this body of
men that the more far-sighted among them received this change with
satisfaction; that they were such uncommonly fair logicians as to be
willing to accept the direct inference from principles which they had
been foremost to inculcate, and, like men of strong mind and clear
conscience, were not afraid to rest their claim to influence and
deference on the manfulness with which they should strive to deserve
them.
Dr. Sprague's book contains pictures of life under both the old _régime_
and the new. The following extract from the venerable Josiah Quincy's
recollections of the Rev. Mr. French, of Andover, is interesting, as an
illustration of the olden times.
"Mrs. Dowse, my maternal aunt, has often related to me her pride
and delight at visiting at the Rev. Mr. Phillips', her paternal
grandfather's house, when a child; which was interesting as a statement
of the manners of those early times in Massachusetts, before the sceptre
of worldly power, which the first settlers of the Colony had placed in
the hands of the clergy, had been broken. The period was about between
1760 and the Revolution. The parsonage at Andover was situated about two
or three hundred rods from the meeting-house, which was three stories
high, of immense dimensions, far greater, I should think, than those of
any meeting-houses in these anti-church-going, degenerate times. It was
on a hill, slightly elevated above the parsonage, so that all the flock
could see the pastor as he issued from it.
"Before the time of service, the congregation gradually assembled in
early season, coming on foot or on horseback, the ladies behind their
lords or brothers or one another, on pillions, so that before the time
of service the whole space before the meeting-house was filled with a
waiting, respectful, and expecting multitude. At the moment of service
the pastor issued from his mansion with Bible and manuscript sermon
under his arm, with his wife leaning on one arm, flanked by his negro
man on his side, as his wife was by her negro woman, the little negroes
being distributed according to their sex by the side of their respective
parents. Then followed every other member of the family according to age
and rank, making often, with family visitants, somewhat of a formidable
procession. As soon as it appeared, the congregation, as if moved by one
spirit, began to move towards the door of the church; and before the
procession reached it, all were in their places.
"As soon as the pastor entered the church, the whole congregation
rose and stood until the pastor was in the pulpit and his family
seated,--until which was done the whole assembly continued standing. At
the close of the service the congregation stood until he and his family
had left the church, before any one moved towards the door.
"Forenoon and afternoon the same course of proceeding was had,
expressive of the reverential relation in which the people acknowledged
that they stood towards their clergyman.
"Such was the account given me by Mrs. Dowse in relation to times
previous to my birth, and which I relate as her narrative, and not
as part of my recollections. The procession from the parsonage, the
disappearance of the people on the appearance of the procession, and
that their pastor was received with every mark of decorum and respect,
I well remember, but of their rising at his entrance and standing after
the service until he had departed, I have no recollection; my time was
almost twenty years after that narrated by Mrs. Dowse. During that
period the Revolution had commenced."
Some might think it an advantage, if more of the decorum and reverence
of such a state of society had been preserved to our day; for this
respect paid to the minister was but part of a general and all-pervading
system. Children were more reverential to their parents, scholars to
their teachers, the people to their magistrates. A want of reverence
threatens now to become the besetting sin of America, whether young or
old.
The clergy of New England have, as a body, been distinguished for a rare
union of the speculative and the practical. In both points they have
been so remarkable, that in observing the great development of either of
these qualities by itself one would naturally suppose that there was no
room for the other.
Generally speaking, they were rural pastors,--living on salaries so
small as to afford hardly a nominal support; and in order to bring up
their families and give their sons a college education, it was necessary
to understand fully the practical _savoir faire_. Accordingly, they
farmed and gardened, and often took young people into their families to
educate, and in these ways eked out a subsistence. It is related of the
venerable Moses Hallock, that he educated in his own family, during his
ministerial lifetime, three hundred young people, of whom thirty were
females. One hundred and thirty-two of these he fitted for college;
fifty became ministers, and six foreign missionaries.
Some of the clergy gained such an acquaintance with the practice of
medicine as to be able sometimes to unite the offices of physician of
the body and of the soul; and not unfrequently a general knowledge
of law enabled the pastor to be the worldly as well as the spiritual
counsellor of his people. A striking case in point is that of the
venerable Parson Eaton, who resided in a lonely seafaring district
on the coast of Maine, and preached to a congregation who lived the
amphibious life of farmers and fishermen. The town of Harpswell, where
he ministered,--
"is a narrow projection of ten miles southward into Casco Bay, on both
sides of which it comprises within its incorporated limits several
islands, some of them of considerable size and well inhabited. In his
pastoral visits and labors, the clergyman was often obliged to ride
several miles, and then cross the inlets of the sea, to preach a lecture
or to minister comfort or aid to some sick or suffering parishioner.
In addition to his clerical duties, Mr. Eaton, having experience and
discernment in the more common forms of disease, was generally applied
to in sickness; and he usually carried with him a lancet and the more
common and simple medicines. If a case was likely to baffle his skill,
he advised his patient to send for a regular physician. His admirable
sense, moreover, and his education fitted him to render aid and counsel
in matters of controversy; so that he often acted as an umpire, and
very often to the settling of disputes. Seldom did his people consult a
lawyer; and it is even said, that, at the time of his death, most of the
wills in the town were in his handwriting."
It is a singular thing, that the preaching and the bent of mind of a
set of men so intensely practical should have been at the same time
intensely speculative. Nowhere in the world, unless perhaps in Scotland,
have merely speculative questions excited the strong and engrossing
interest among the common people that they have in New England. Every
man, woman, and child was more or less a theologian. The minister, while
he ground his scythe or sharpened his axe or laid stone-fence, was
inwardly grinding and hammering on those problems of existence which are
as old as man, and which Christian and heathen have alike pondered.
The Germans call the whole New England theology rationalistic, in
distinction from traditional.
There are minds which are capable of receiving certain series of
theological propositions without even an effort at comparison,--without
a perception of contradiction or inconsequency,--without an effort at
harmonizing. Such, however, were not the New England ministers. With
them predestination _must_ be made to harmonize with freewill; the
Divine entire efficiency with human freedom; the existence of sin with
the Divine benevolence;--and at it they went with stout hearts, as men
work who are not in the habit of being balked in their undertakings.
Hence the Edwardses, the Hopkinses, the Emmonses, with all their various
schools and followers, who, leviathan-like, have made the theological
deep of New England to boil like a pot, and the agitation of whose
course remains to this day.
It is a mark of a shallow mind to scorn these theological wrestlings and
surgings; they have had in them something even sublime. They were always
bounded and steadied by the most profound reverence for God and his
word; and they have constituted in New England the strong mental
discipline needed by a people who were an absolute democracy. The
Sabbath teaching of New England has been a regular intellectual drill as
well as a devotional exercise; and if one does not see the advantage of
this, let him live awhile in France or Italy, and see the reason why,
with all their aspirations after liberty, there is no capability of
self-government in the masses; put the tiller of the Campagna, or
the vine-dresser of France, beside the theologically trained, keen,
thoughtful New England farmer, and see which is best fitted to
administer a government.
Another leading characteristic of the New England clergy was their great
freedom of original development. The volumes before us are full of
indications of the most racy individuality. There was no such thing as a
clerical mould or pattern; but each minister, particularly in the rural
districts, grew and flourished as freely and unconventionally as the
apple-trees in his own orchard, and was considered none the worse for
that, so long as he bore good fruit of the right sort. Thus we find
among them all stamps and kinds of men,--men of decorum and ceremony,
like Dr. Emmons and President Edwards, and men who, aiming after the
real, despised the form, kept no order, and revered no ceremony; yet all
flourished in peace, and were allowed to do their work in their own way.
We find here and there records of pleasant little encounters of humor
among them on these points. Parson Deane, of Portland, was a precise
man, and always appeared in the clerical regalia of the times, with
powdered wig, cocked hat, gown, bands. Parson Hemmenway went about with
just such clothes as he happened to find convenient, without the least
regard to the conventional order.