Trip to New Haven--Captain Stone and his Tender Feeling--Arrival in New
Haven--A Call from Dr. Bacon and the Rev. Mr. Dutton--Newspapers--The
Centre Church and Standing Order--The North Church and Jonathan
Edwards, junior.
Now for an excursion to New Haven. We leave by the steamer "Traveller,"
Captain Stone, at 61/2 A.M. Wrap yourself up well; it is piercing cold,
being the 30th of March. This boat is altogether different from the
boats on the Mississippi. It seems to belong to quite another species.
It is, however, admirably adapted for its purpose,--that of running
along a stormy coast. In the gentlemen's cabin are three tiers of
berths, one above another like so many book-shelves. The engine works
outside, like a top-sawyer. We shall pass "Hell Gate" directly; but
don't be alarmed. You would not have known it, had I not told you. The
Hog's Back, the Frying Pan, and other places of Knickerbocker
celebrity, are in this neighbourhood.
Let us go to the ladies' saloon. Well! I declare! There is a coloured
woman, and allowed to remain unmolested! Things improve as we approach
New England, and are much better even there than they were a few years
ago.
But here comes the captain muffled up. He brings with him a poor
sickly-looking woman, begs the ladies' pardon, and bids her sit down by
the stove and warm herself. He then tells the passengers her painful
story. The night before, in New York, this woman came on board, from
one of the Philadelphia boats, bringing with her a bed and a child. On
being spoken to by the captain, she informed him that she was on her
way from St. Louis to her home in Massachusetts,--that she had been
fifteen days upon the journey, and had two children with her. On being
asked where the other was, she replied, "There it is," pointing to the
bed, where, clad in its usual dress, the little sufferer, released from
the trials of life, lay extended in death. It had caught cold, and died
in her arms in New York. She was friendless and penniless, and wanted a
passage to New Haven. The captain had obtained a coroner's inquest over
the body, purchased for it a little coffin, had it decently laid out,
and gratified her maternal feelings by allowing her to bring it with
her, that it might be buried in her village-home in Massachusetts. All
this he had done without money and without price, had also given her a
free passage to New Haven, and was about to forward her home by railway
at his own expense! Captain _Stone_--"what's in a name?"--at the close
of this statement had to take out his pocket-handkerchief, and wipe
away a few manly tears from his weather-beaten cheeks, as he added, "I
have met in my life with many cases of distress, but with none that
came so much to my heart as this." His object, in introducing the woman
and her case, was to make an appeal to the passengers on her behalf. He
did so; and the result was a subscription amounting to about five
pounds sterling, which was handed over to her. Captain Stone's was a
deed worthy of a golden inscription!
It is half-past 11 A.M., and we are now at the landing-place in the
harbour of New Haven, having accomplished the distance from New York,
about 80 miles, in five hours! We have a long wharf of 3,943 feet to
travel; and then we set foot for the first time on the soil of New
England. We have been invited to make our abode here with the Rev.
Leicester Sawyer, who makes his abode at Deacon Wilcoxon's, corner of
Sherman-avenue and Park-street. Thither, therefore, let us go. Mr.
Sawyer, whom we had before met in New York, is the author of several
books, comprising two on Mental and Moral Philosophy, and was also
lately the President of the Central College of Ohio. Deacon Wilcoxon
and his wife are plain, homely, kind Christian people. They make you
feel at home as soon as you have crossed their threshold.
Soon after our arrival the Rev. Dr. Bacon and the Rev. Mr. Dutton, the
pastors of the "first" and "second" Congregational Churches in this
city, honour us with a call. This is brotherly, and more than we could
have expected. Dr. Bacon regrets that he is going from home, and cannot
have us to spend a few days at his house. Mr. Dutton, however, presses
us to accept of his hospitality. We promise to do so in a day or two.
Dr. Bacon is one of the great men of New England. He is a living
encyclopaedia,--a walking library. He keeps fully up with the
literature and sciences of the day. I have not met a man, either in the
Old World or in the New, that so thoroughly understood the state of the
British West Indies at the present time as he does. He might have spent
years in that part of the world, and devoted himself to its exclusive
study. His position at home is high, and his influence great. The
estimation in which he is held in New England may be judged of by the
fact, that when, in August 1846, Dr. Theodore Dwight Woolsey had to be
installed as President of Yale College, Dr. Bacon, living within a
stone's throw of that institution, was the man chosen to preach the
inauguration sermon.
In the middle of the afternoon, my friend Mr. Sawyer presses me to
preach in his place of worship--the Howe-street Church--this evening. I
consent. By-and-by I observe him very busy with some slips of paper;
and I ask him what he is doing? "I am sending," he says, "notices to
the evening papers, to make it known that you are going to preach this
evening!" What a people the Americans are for newspapers! New Haven has
only a population of about 18,000; and yet it has six daily papers--all
having a weekly issue besides, two monthly periodicals, and two
quarterly ones! The daily papers are, I believe, none of them more than
5 dollars (a guinea) a year, or 2 cents (one penny) per number. No
paper duty, and no stamp. At the service in the evening several
ministers and students were present.
The next day snow to the depth of six inches cover the ground. Let
_us_, however, turn out in the afternoon. We will go and see the
central square,--or the Green, as it is commonly called. This is a
large open space like a park, surrounded on all sides with rows of
stately elms, and is considered one of the most beautiful spots in the
United States. And now we are in a position to take a full view. Three
churches, arranged side by side on this open space, at a few rods from
each other, stand before us. The central one has the most imposing
aspect. It is a large Grecian building; having a portico, supported by
four massive columns, from which rises a lofty bell-tower, ending in a
spire. The combination of the belfry or spire with the Grecian style is
a violation of propriety; but _I like it_. This is the "first"
Congregational Church--that in which Dr. Bacon ministers. That
church--not the building--is coeval with the colony, and can trace back
its history for more than 200 years. It was formerly a State Church.
Congregationalism was for ages the "standing order," or the established
religion, in Connecticut! All the people were taxed for its support;
and no man could have any share in the administration of the civil
government, or give his vote in any election, unless he was a member of
one of the churches. It was not till forty years after the separation
of Church and State in Virginia, where the establishment was Episcopal,
that the example was followed in Connecticut. Happily, however, in 1816
all parties that differed from it--Episcopalians, Baptists, Methodists,
Universalists, &c., combined together, gained a majority in the
legislature, and severed the connection between Congregationalism and
the State! There are old men now living who then anxiously and piously
"trembled for the Ark of the Lord." They have, however, lived to see
that the dissolution of the union between Church and State in
Connecticut, as in Virginia, was to the favoured sect as "life from the
dead." The Congregationalist of the one, and the Episcopalian of the
other, would alike deprecate being placed in the same position again.
But this is a digression.
We are still looking at these churches. The church on our right, which
is about the same size and of the same architectural character as the
other, though not quite so showy, is the "second" Congregational
Church, commonly called the North Church--that in which Mr. Button now
ministers. This church originated in the "great awakening" in 1740, was
formed in 1742, and has a history of more than a century in duration.
It arose from dissatisfaction with the ministry of a Mr. Noyes, a
contemporary of Jonathan Edwards, but one who had no sympathy in
Edwards's views and spirit. This man was, indeed, greatly opposed to
the "awakening," and refused George Whitfield admission to his pulpit.
The originators of this second church, therefore, separated from the
original parent, availed themselves of the Act of Toleration, and
became Congregational Dissenters from a Congregational Establishment!
They had of course no State support, nor were they "free from taxation
by the society from which they dissented." "The foundations of this
church, my brethren," said its present gifted pastor, in a sermon
preached at the centenary of its formation, "are love of evangelical
doctrine, of ecclesiastical liberty, of revivals of religion. Such ever
be its superstructure."
Here, for a quarter of a century, lived and laboured Jonathan Edwards
the younger. Perhaps you have never before heard of him; neither had I
till I came to New Haven. If you won't think it too long to be detained
here standing in front of the church, I will tell you a few facts
respecting him. He was the second son and ninth child of the celebrated
Jonathan Edwards of Northampton. His mother, too, was an extraordinary
woman. You will smile at the impression she made on the mind of good
old George Whitfield. He had spent two days at Mr. Edwards's house in
Northampton; and he says, "I felt wonderful satisfaction in being at
the house of Mr. Edwards. He is a son himself, and hath a daughter of
Abraham for his wife. A sweeter couple I have not yet seen. She is a
woman adorned with a meek and quiet spirit, and talked so feelingly and
solidly of the things of God, and seemed to be such a helpmeet to her
husband, that she caused me to renew those prayers which for some
months I have put up to God, that he would send me a daughter of
Abraham to be my wife. I find, upon many accounts, it is my duty to
marry. Lord, I desire to have no choice of my own. Thou knowest my
circumstances."
In quoting this, an American writer adds, "He had not yet learned, if
he ever did, that God is not pleased to make such 'sweet couples' out
of persons who have no choice of their own."
Mr. Edwards, junior, or rather Dr. Edwards, was (like his father) a
great scholar and a profound divine. He was frequently invited to
assist at the examinations in Yale College. On those occasions he used
frequently to display his strictness and accuracy by calling out,
"_Haud recté_" (not right). This procured him the _sobriquet_ of "Old
Haud Recté," by which he was afterwards known among the students. Some
time after his resignation of the pastorate of this church he became
the President of Union College. His works have recently been published
in two large octavo volumes. There is a striking parallel between the
father and the son. They were alike in the character of their minds and
in their intellectual developments. The name, education, and early
employments of the two were alike. Both were pious in their youth; both
were distinguished scholars; both were tutors for equal periods in the
colleges where they were respectively educated; both were settled in
the ministry as successors to their maternal grandfathers; both were
dismissed, and again settled in retired places, where they had leisure
to prepare and publish their works; both were removed from those
stations to become presidents of colleges; both died shortly after
their respective inaugurations, the one in the 56th and the other in
the 57th year of their age; and each of them preached on the first
Sabbath of the year of his death from the same text--"This year thou
shalt die!"
But we must not dwell too long on these historical incidents. I have
told you something about the Centre Church and the North Church. That
Gothic building on our left is an episcopal church. That white building
immediately in the rear of the Centre Church is the State House,
completed in 1831. It is constructed of stone and marble, and forms a
prominent ornament of the city. It presents one of the best copies of a
Grecian temple I have seen in the States. In the rear of the North
Church, quite at the remote corner of the Green, stands a plain
barn-like Methodist chapel. And, behind the whole, peeping through the
elm-trees, you see the long range of buildings which constitutes Yale
College. Take it all in all, a view more interesting than that from the
spot on which we now stand I have never beheld.