RHODE ISLAND.
Sail up the Sound--Burning of the
Lexington--Providence--Meeting of old friends--Mr.
Emerson--Transcendentalism--Westerly.
_Seneca, August 1._
In my last I was principally occupied in giving you some account of the
picturesque grounds of Green Wood Cemetery. It was on Tuesday afternoon,
the thirtieth of June, at five o'clock, that we started in the well-built
and beautiful steamer MASSACHUSETTS, on our way upon an excursion to Rhode
Island. The scenery along the East River and up the Sound presents
evidences of higher cultivation, but possesses features of less native
picturesque wildness and rural beauty, than that which opens to view along
the pathway of the Hudson. The atmosphere we encountered on our way to the
steamboat issuing from every street of the great metropolis we had just
left, was like the heat from a burning furnace. In delightful contrast with
this, was the cool refreshing breeze that played around the bow of our
advancing steamer, as we tracked our way up the river and along through the
whirlpools and breakers of Hurlgate, a pass far more formidable, and
requiring vastly more nautical skill than the famous Straits of Pelorus
with Scylla on one side and Charybdis on the other. The evening was
beautiful, and our sail up the Sound proved truly delightful. The last rays
of twilight were beginning to fade away, and the countless stars studding
the arched firmament, to twinkle with unwonted brightness, when we reached
the spot where we were told the ill-fated LEXINGTON met her disastrous end.
I could not but contrast the scene around me at the moment with the events
of that awful night. We were sailing along over the tranquil and starlit
bosom of the Sound, with the balmy breath of a summer evening fanning us:
with no alarms within,--no raging tempest without. But on that fearful
night, and aboard that ill-fated vessel, what a scene was exhibited! What
amazement and terror and dismay must have seized every heart when the
conflagration broke forth in all its fury! What added exceedingly to the
excitement, and no doubt tended greatly to bereave many of all
self-possession and presence of mind, was that the fire burst out in the
central part of the steamer, cutting off all communication between those
occupying the forward and the hinder part of the boat. Thus, in this moment
of awful peril, husbands and wives,--parents and children, brothers and
sisters were suddenly separated from each other by a wall of fire, and
deprived of each other's counsel when most they needed it: and thus they
were filled with increased alarm, not only for themselves, but for each
other. Alas! this was an hour when no man could help his brother,--when the
parent could neither save himself nor his children. If they remained on
board the burning vessel, they must be consumed. If they plunged into the
roaring waves they would sink into the depths beneath, and find there a
watery grave: or if they should escape the fury of the waves by clinging
to a bale of cotton, or some floating part of the wreck, the chill winds of
winter, and the icy waters that dashed over them, would soon stagnate and
freeze to the very fountain the warm current of life. Thus all the elements
of nature were armed against them, flame, and flood, and frost, and they
could not escape. No imagination can conceive the horror or agony of the
scene! I leaned over the side of our steamer, as we passed the spot where
this awful scene occurred, and tried to picture to myself some of its
outlines. Even the picture which rose before me was too awful to
contemplate.
What a lesson that disaster ought to teach us of our entire dependence upon
God for safety while travelling by land or by sea! What an admonition ought
it to sound in our ears to be always ready for death! We know not the day
nor the hour in which the Son of Man cometh! Our death may be as sudden,
and as unexpected, as that of any of those on board the Lexington, though
it occur in our own dwelling, and in the bosom of our family. If we are
truly the Lord's people, and our names are in the Lamb's book of life, it
matters little _when_, or _where_ death meets us: for then the grizly king
becomes the friendly porter that opens to us the golden gates of paradise.
The more usual course that passengers now pursue to Providence and Boston
is to stop at Stonington, and take the railroad cars from that point. By
this means they reach Providence and Boston several hours earlier than they
were accustomed to by the old route. But as the steamboat arrives at
Stonington long before morning, we were not disposed to leave our quiet
berths for the sake of reaching Providence some three or four hours earlier
than we otherwise should, and therefore kept on in the old course around
Point Judith touching at Newport.
The time that we spent at Providence in the midst of our old friends, I
need not tell you, was passed most delightfully. The church where I once
preached the reconciling word, the lecture-room where I saw countenances
that called up with thrilling emotions the memory of days and scenes that
will be fresh in my recollection through all eternity,--the private circle
where cordial greetings, and more than Highland welcomes met us, all these
and the countless associations they awakened, seemed to throw around us
such a circle of enchantment, that, when the time had elapsed which we had
designed to spend there, we still lingered from day to day, as though
unable to pass that circle. If there be one draught of enjoyment more
delicious than another which a Christian minister is permitted to drink
this side of heaven, it is, when after years of absence, he returns to
visit the flock from whom in the providence of God he was removed, and with
whom his labours were once greatly blessed, and finds those for whose
salvation he laboured, and whom he was instrumental in introducing into the
fold of the Redeemer, "standing fast in the Lord," and exhibiting "the
fruits of the Spirit;" or learns that those who are gone, and are numbered
with the dead, departed in the triumphs of Christian faith. St. John could
say, "_I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the
truth._" And St. Paul, "_For now we live if ye stand fast in the Lord._"
The highest zest of the pleasure I enjoyed in this visit to the scene of my
former labours, arose from what I saw and heard of the stability, and
increased spirituality of a people with whom I hope to sit down one day,
in company with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God.
You are familiar with the whole topography of Rhode Island, and therefore I
need say nothing of the interblending of rural scenery and retirement, with
city embellishment and comfort, which so eminently distinguish not a few of
the neat and elegant residences in Providence. There is one feature in the
moral character of this city, which distinguishes it from most other New
England towns. In almost all New England the great mass of mind is
educated, and the people upon all subjects think for themselves. Generally,
however, especially in the interior, the descendants of the Puritans,
cleave in religious matters to the faith of their forefathers, and are
opposed to all change. But in Rhode Island, there has always been a more
liberal, and free-thinking spirit on the subject of religion than in any of
the other New England states.--It was here that Roger Williams fled when
his Puritan brethren would not tolerate him in the Bay state. It was
through his influence that a more enlightened feeling in reference to
religious toleration was made to pervade the community settling at
Providence, than was found at that period in any other New England town.
And probably there is no place in our country, where, at this time, a more
kind and catholic spirit, or a greater freedom from the influence of
narrow, sectarian feeling prevails, than here. This tolerant spirit,
however, in some minds, manifests a strong tendency to latitudinarianism.
Hence, perhaps, there is no community in the world where a new religious
sect would so soon gather intelligent adherents as at Providence, and no
where, where more sound and able, and fearless advocates would rise up to
defend "the faith once delivered to the saints." I have been led into this
train of reflection, from encountering a greater prevalence of the
transcendental spirit, at Providence, than I have anywhere before met in
our country. This offshoot of German neology, issuing from the same parent
stock with Socinianism, finds a congenial soil in a Unitarian community.
You are aware that the Rev. Mr. Emerson, formerly a Unitarian minister at
Boston, has embraced transcendentalism in all its heights and depths.
Whether he be actually deranged, as some suppose, or not, matters very
little, since multitudes, and some who desire to be classed among the
_elite_ of the land, are ready to gather around him and receive the law of
their belief from his mouth. He has recently made a visit to Providence,
and developed by means of lectures and conversations, his peculiar views.
He is spoken of as a man of genius, and wonderfully attractive. He is a
thorough pantheist. He believes that every thing in nature is a part of
God--that good men are incarnations of Deity, and that it was in this sense
alone, that God is said to be "_made flesh_" in the person of Jesus Christ.
He places Socrates, and Zoroaster and Jesus in the same category, and
considers that they differed from each other only in the degree of
inspiration which they had. He thinks that the writings of Socrates and
Plato, and Zoroaster should be bound up in the same volume with the Bible,
and that they are entitled to more confidence, and marked with deeper
wisdom than some portions of our present canon of Scripture.
During Mr. Emerson's stay at Providence, having advanced some crude idea,
he was referred to a saying of the Saviour, which contradicted his
position: when he very deliberately replied, "_Jesus was mistaken_." On
another occasion speaking of the Saviour, he said: "Jesus was a very good
man, I wish he had been better: he had no fun, no humour in his character,
in this respect he was imperfect." Such are some of the specimens of gross
infidelity, which the abettors of transcendentalism in New England, openly
put forth. The charm of this transcendental scheme consists partly in the
metaphysical mystification, the sentimental namby-pambyism,--the crazed
poetic inspiration, with which the masters of this school speak and write.
Then there is much to soothe and flatter the pride of the human heart, in
the idea which they would have every man take up that he is a pure
emanation of Deity,--a bright scintillation from the divine mind, and that
all he has to do, is to follow the lofty inspirations of his own mind, and
then he will sparkle forth along the track of being, an incarnate God. One
very truly remarked in relation to transcendentalism, that it was no new
doctrine,--that it was taught as long ago as when man was in the garden of
Eden: even then, the father of lies, said to our first ancestors, eat the
forbidden fruit, and "_ye shall be as gods_."
In the midst of abounding iniquity and multiplying error, it behoves the
friends of truth to stand on the watch tower and give the people timely
warning. I felt greatly refreshed and truly delighted in various interviews
with the clergy whom I met in Rhode Island. My mind naturally reverted to
the scenes of former days, when I was so pleasantly associated with them,
and when we used to meet at the monthly Convocations as a band of brothers,
having one heart and one mind, and labouring together for one simple
object, the upbuilding of the Saviour's kingdom and the glory of God. Great
changes since that period have taken place. Some of these brethren have
gone to the north, and some to the south--some to the east, and some to the
west; and yet the character of the Rhode Island clergy continues the same.
Take them all in all, I know of no set of men more thoroughly evangelical
or more truly devoted to the best interests of the Church of Christ; or
occupying a more elevated stand for piety and learning and talents, than
the clergy of Rhode Island.
I passed a few days at Westerly, and could not but remember with gratitude
my first visit to this place some six years ago. As I saw the beautiful
church--the neat parsonage house--the respectable congregation, and the
multiplied tokens of true piety around me, I could not but say, "_What hath
God wrought!_" Never can I doubt that the power of God is connected with
_Revivals of religion_, while I remember the scenes of Westerly--while so
many "fruits of the Spirit" remain, of consistent, devoted, exemplary
followers of Christ, brought to a knowledge of the truth in a revival.
Because men get up imitations of the work of the Lord, as the magicians did
of the miracles of Moses, it does not invalidate the Lord's work any more
than those magical attempts did the truth of his miracles.
I have room only to add, if the Lord permits, you will soon hear from me
again.