Julian M. Sturtevant. An autobiography

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LIBRARY

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THE URBAXA FREE LIBRARY

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(Not for circulation)

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Gift of the
Urbana Free Library

niP!i^f^?.^t^isui?vrf

lULIAN MONSON StURTEVANT
Late President of Illinois College

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Julian M. Sturtevant

an Butobiograpbg

EDITED BY

J. M. STURTEVANT JR.

-^i^i

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York .-. Chicago .-. Toronto

Pttblisliers of Eiaitgclical Literature.

Copyrighted 1896, by FLEMING H. Revell COMPANY.

f^s^

PREFACE.

The following j)ages were written during the fall
and winter of 1885, During the previous summer,
while visiting in Cleveland, my father was persuaded
to recommence an autobiography, at which he had
made a beginning with mother's assistance, some
years before. His son=in4aw, Mr. James H. Palmer,
soon became his amanuensis, and they labored togeth-
er until the work was suddenly interrupted January
4th, 1886, by illness and death. My mother was
called to her heavenly rest January 17th. Mr. Palmer
followed her February 1st, and my father joined them
on the 11th, of the same month. A few days before
his death he requested me, at my convenience to
revise the first draft of this work for publication.
The work of revision, though much delayed by cir-
cumstances over which I had no control and by the
exa. ^ duties of my profession, has been a labor of
lov e autobiography is my father's own work,

ah together in his own words. I have ventured

tc m the concluding chapter, a brief sketch of

th -art of my father's life of which he was not per-
mit 1 to make a record, with some incidents illus-
trati:.g the character of my parents.

The Editor.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAP. I. BiKTH, Paeentage and Childhood 13

Ancestry — District School — Freeman's Meeting — Warren
Church — Preaching of Lyman Beecher — Early Religious Im-
pressions— Uniting with the Church.

CHAP. II. A New Home 37

Financial Crisis following the War of 1812 — Migration to
Ohio — Richfield — Frontier Communion Service — Tallmadge
— Log»Cabin — Lost in the Forest.

CHAP. III. A Staktling Suggestion 54

Preparing for College — A Swarm of Bees — A Revival —
Building a Church — Plan of Union Discussed — Leaving
Home — Owen Brown's Prayer.

CHAP. IV. The Pilgeimage 73

"Ride and Tie" — In Warren Again — First Sight of Yale
College — Examination — College Commons — What Yale did
for us — A Struggle with Poverty.

CHAP. V. Life in College — 91

College Prayers in 1822— Methods of Instruction — A Math-
ematical Problem — Religious Influences — College Disor-
ders— Horace Bushnell's Window — Explosion in the Chapel
— "The Blue Skin Club " — College Honors — Pneumonia

CHAP. VL Impeoved Finances 106

An Opportunity — A Morning Walk — Final Examinations —
Graduation— Rev. Samuel H. Cox — Revival in New Canaan
— " Coelebs in Search of a Wife" — Elizabeth Maria Fayer-
weather.

CHAP VII. Theological Seminaey 121

Dr. Nathaniel W. Taylor— Freedom of the Will— Theory of

6 COXTEXTS

Moral Obligation — " Self Love " — Penalty — Atonement — Bi-
ble Stadv.

CHAP. VIII. Plans foe the FxrrrBE 133

A Field Soaght — Theron Baldwin's Essav — Miss Caroline
Wilder — " The Illinois Band" — An Opening Found — A TiVo-
man's Consent — Signing the Contract — The American Home
Missionary Society — Ordination,

CHAP. IX. Westwaed Ho 143

A Wedding Journey — Stage and Canal — Niagara Falls — A
Woman's Courage — Tallmadge Once More — The Ohio River
— " The Father of Waters" — St. Lotiis — A Hack for Jackson-
Tille — Widow Gillams — An Adventure — Jacksonville at Last
—Rev. John M. Ellis and his Wife.

CHAP. X. Feeble Begixxtngs 1.57

Jacksonville in 1S29 — A Rude Church — Shocking a Western
Audience with a Manu.-cript — The Conflict of Sects — Peter
Cartwright — A Remarkable Sermon — Illinois College.

CHAP. XI. Peogbess 166

Opening of the Institution — Early Schools in Illinois — Ex-
pository Preaching — Becoming a Presbyterian — A Home —
A Vacation on Horseback — A Serious Illness — Hon. Sam-
uel D. Lockwood and his Wife — The First President of the
CoU^e.

CHAP. XII. The Deep Snow 178

Difficulty of Securing a Charter — Mr. Beecher"s Dangerous
Journey — A Hard Winter — A Great Sorrow — Old and New
School — Preaching from an Outline — How Sectarianism has
Hindered Christian Education.

CHAP. Xin. Enlabgeieests 190

New Professors — A New Building — Preaching in the Chapel
— The Principles of Church Government — Laymen talk of a
Congregational Church — The Plan of Union — Tried for
Heresy.

CHAP. XIY. Othee Evests in 1833-S4 201

The Cholera — A Visit to Cincinnati — Harriet Beecher Stowe
— Congregational Church Organized in Jacksonville — New

CONTEXTS 7

England Again — Called to Account — Dr. Wisner — Dr. Joel
Hawes — Amherst.

CHAP. XV. The Negbo 214

Slavery in Illinois — Abolitionism — Elizur Wright — Murder
of Love joy — Excitement in Jacksonville — Anti=Slavery Sen-
timent in College — Dr. David Nelson at Quincy — Kidnap-
ping at Jacksonville.

CHAP. XVI. A Beight Pkospect Ovebclouded. . . . 231
Rapid Growth of Illinois — Increased Endowment-^Mania
for Land Speculation — Crisis of 1837 — Competition — Char-
ter Secured — Function of the Christian College.

CHAP. XVII. Gbeat Changes 239

Great Sorrows — Explorations of Messrs. Baldwin and Hale —
Monticello Seminary — Communing with the Disciples — Or-
ganization of the College Society — Conference with Dr. Ly-
man Beecher — Second Marriage— The Law of Marriage — Re-
moval of Edward Beecher — -Returns East — A Brilliant Circle.

CHAP. XVIII. New Relations 2.55

Unjust Reports — Election to the Presidency — Meeting of
the American Board — A Long Stage Ride — Dr. Joseph P.
Thompson — A New Haven Club — An Interesting Discus-
sion.

CHAP. XIX. A Cbisis. 267

Sacrifice of the College Real Estate — Burning of the Dor-
mitory— Additional Professors — Brooklyn Address — -With-
drawal from the Presbyterian Church — Increase of the Col-
lege Endowment.

CHAP. XX. The Peogbess of Libeety. 277

Uncle Tom's Cabin — The Republican Party — Effect of the
Mexican War — The " Free Soil " Policy — Difficulty of Or-
ganizing in Southern Illinois — Richard Yates — Abraham
Lincoln — Correspondence with Governor Yates.

CHAP. XXI. A Visit to England 302

An Invitation — English Sentiment — A Breakfast — ^ Sir
Richard Cobden — Aristocracy — English Abolitionists — A
Visit in Scotland — Heury Ward Beecher — Mr. Joseph Warne

8 CONTENTS

—Bristol — Lay Preachers — Abington Beeks.

CHAP. XXII. The Closing Yeaes 328

Return Home — Death of Abraham Lincoln — Sermon before
the Boston Council— The Sturtevant Foundation — Death of
James Warren Sturtevant — Letter from Mr. Gladstone —
Colorado— Retirement — Eightieth Birthday— Cleveland and
Tallmadge— Death of Mrs. Sturtevant— Tribute to her
Memory — Last Days— Funeral— How he appeared to His
Children. .

INTRODUCTION.

I begin to write this autobiography on the ninth
day of October, 1885. I am an octogenarian, having
completed my eightieth year on the twenty sixth
day of last July. I am perfectly at leisure. My life
has been consciously to myself a busy one. In my
thirteenth year I commenced a course of study prej)ar-
atory to entering college, with the intention of devoting
myself to the Christian ministry. Very soon that pur-
pose became so absorbing and controlling that even
in youth I was never idle, my business being always
pressing. It was, first, to prepare myself for college,
then to enter college, then to accomjplish the college
curriculum as thoroughly as possible, and then to
obtain a theological education. Before completing
my studies for the ministry, I had committed myself
to my life work in Illinois, and by that covenant I
was bound till the first of last June, when I resigned
all connection with Illinois College, after fifty=six
years of service.

I spent most of the summer in visiting friends at a
distance, and returned to my old home a week ago, to
experience for the first time in my long life a sense of
leisure. I have for the remnant of my days no master
but God, and I hope the loving Father has still a
little work for my hitherto busy hands.

I am in good health and have yet considerable en-
ergy, and I must not be idle. I shall be idle unless I

9

10 INTRODUCTION

set myself some task to which my hours shall be de-
voted till it is accomplished, or till my Master calls me
home. What shall this task be? There are many
things I have desired to do which I have not done,
and some are so dear to me that I cannot leave them
unaccomplished without deep regret, esi^ecially since,
had I been more scrupulously industrious, I might
have completed most of them. But there is one
thing which my most intimate and judicious friends
have often advised me to undertake, and at which
I have made some unsatisfactory efforts in times
past. That undertaking now presents itself to my
mind with more interest and hopefulness than ever
before. It is to write an autobiography.

My life seems to me to have been one of more
than ordinary thoughtfulness. I have not only
thought much, but I have thought independently.
Some of my friends have undoubtedly imagined that
so much independent thinking in some measure
disqualified me for the sphere of action from which
I by no means wished to withdraw.

The truth is I have thought intensely on many sub-
jects, not particularly because I wished to do so, but
because circumstances forced these topics ui^on my
attention, I have a strong desire before I die to show
the relation which has always existed between my life
of thought and my life of action. To me the former
has always seemed an inevitable outgrowth of the lat-
ter. One of the best of Dr. Horace Bushnell's pub-
lished sermons has for its subject, " Every Man's
Life a Plan of God." I accept this conception as a
very serious truth, and religiously believe that it ia
true in my own life.

INTRODUCTION 11

Our natural endowment is the gift of God, and He
places us in an environment, which will develop our
natural powers and help us to accomplish His plan
respecting us.

It is always a iDrofitable and in old age a very agree-
able occupation devoutly to study the relations of
those providential arrangements which have shaped
our lives to the development of our powers, the forma-
tion of our characters, and the accomplishment of
whatever we have been permitted to achieve.

In my own case, certainly, what I have thought and
what I have done have been most intimately related.
Had I been a mere theorist and not a man of action,
or had I been a servant of personal ambition, my
thoughts would have taken very different channels;
or had I been forced to become interested in the
same subjects which have engrossed me, I should
doubtless have reached very different conclusions. I
cannot divest my mind of the conviction, that if some
of the wise and devout men of my cotemporaries, who
earnestly resisted my oi^inions or refused to admit the
necessity of those ecclesiastical reforms for which I
pleaded, had been taught in the same school of ex-
perience through which I providentially passed, their
views would have been greatly modified. They might
at least have understood how I came to believe that
the Christian peoj)le of the past generation were
attempting the evangelization of our country under
conditions so unnatural and unfavorable as to render
any satisfactory degree of success impossible. I shall
lay down my life in the full faith, that the work so
important to the world, will in God's good providence

1-2 INTRODUCTION

be accomplished when a different conception of the
Church shall prevail. I wish to place it in the power
of fair=minded, devout men to understand the way
in which Providence has led me. I know not that
those who are succeeding me will ever feel any
particular interest in my history.

Yet, it seems to me, that an honest, religious man,
who in the beginning of his manhood consecrated his
life to the work of home evangelization, on what was
then the frontier, and who has spent fifty=six years in
endeavors to lay the foundations of the Church of
Christ on the borders of the wnlderness, must have
learned lessons in the school of experience worthy
of thoughtful consideration. But however that may
be, I can perha^DS make no better use of the remain-
ing months or years, if my life should be prolonged,
than to spend them in placing an outline view of my
life on record.

J. M. S.

JULIAN M. STURTEVANT.

CHAPTER I.

BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND CHILDHOOD.

I am no aristocrat. All that I know of my ances-
tral history shows me to be allied to the lowly and
not to the great of this world. Yet I do believe, that
ancestry is an important element in everyone's his-
tory. A year or two ago, as I was entering the lobby
of the church in which I usually worship, one Sab-
bath morning, I met a girl, with whom I have been
acquainted from her infancy, and whose ancestors I
have personally known as far back as her great=
grandfather. As our eyes met, I detected an expres-
sion which, like a flash of light, brought to my mind
the features of a daughter of her great=grandfather's
brother, whom I had known well in my childhood. I
had not seen that relative in more than half a cen-
tury, and it is probable that I had not thought of her
for more than forty years.

On reflection, I discovered that the same family re-
semblance could be traced in many individuals scat^
tered through the five generations. The exx^ression
is quite unmistakeably, a family type, and in this case
the transmission was entirely in the male line, though
the two extreme links of the chain were both fe-
males. The whole number of links was seven. The
number (five) of intervening links, corresponds with

13

14 JULIAN 31. STURTEVANT

tlie number by which the iDersons, born in the early
part of this century, find themselves connected with
the first settlers of New England in the early part of
the seventeenth century. Here is positive proof that
types and personal peculiarities are difPused by he-
redity over lines as long as that from the fathers of
Plymouth, Boston, Hartford, and New Haven, to the
men and women whom we have personally revered
and loved. Any one of us may reasonably be ex-
pected to resemble in temperament and character, and
even in features, our honored ancestors, the original
settlers of the Atlantic coast. Some characteristic
traits are certainly inherited from them. Still more
imijortant does ancestry appear when, to the influence
of heredit)^ are added transmitted opinions and habits
of thought and action. Thus the earnest joatriots and
devout Christians, who laid the foundations of our
civil and religious institutions, in the early part of the
seventeenth century, have left their impress upon the
whole line of their descendants. It can be obliter-
ated only by a persistent violation of their principles.
Earnest, God=fearing men, transmit to distant pos-
terity their deepest convictions and most intense pur-
l)oses. He who despises genealogical inquiry might
surely be wiser than he is.

I was born in Warren, Litchfield county, Connecti-
cut, on the twenty=sixth day of July, 1805, thirty
years and twenty^wo days after the Declaration of
Independence. My parents were Warren and Lucy
(Tanner) Sturtevant, both born in that part of Kent
which was afterward erected into the town of War-
ren, my father in the year 1779, and my mother in
1782, both during the Revolutionary war, but both

BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND CHILDHOOD 15

of them too late in the progress of the war to have
retained any remembrance either of the British rule,
or of the great contest. Mj' father was descended
from Samuel Sturtevant, who was a resident of the
town of Plymouth, Mass., in 1642, and who had sev-
eral children. The farm on which he lived was
known as the Cotton farm. His son, Samuel, was
deacon of the Church of Plympton. He, also, had a
numerous family. In our line of descent he is suc-
ceeded by his son Nehemiah, and he, by his son Ne-
liemiah, who married Fear Cushman, lived for a time
in Halifax, Mass., and then emigrated, in the year
1749 or '59, and settled first in Lebanon, Conn., from
which place he removed the next year, to that part
of Kent which is now \Yarren. He and his wife,
Fear, had two sons and several daughters. Both he
and his wife were laid in the old Kent burying^
ground, where I am told their gravestones still stand.
Their two sons were named Peleg and Perez; the
latter was unmarried. Peleg married Abigail Swift,

daughter of and Abiah (Tupper) Swift, of the

adjacent town of Cornwall, and had by her, children
as follows: Fear, who married Arnold Saunders;
Isaac, who married Lucy Hoj)kins; Warren, who
married Lucy Tanner; Lucy, who married Cyrus
Tanner; Abiah, who married Rev. Reuben Taylor;
and Bradford, who married Sally Carter.

Peleg and Abigail Sturtevant of the last paragraph
were my grandparents, and Warren and Lucy Sturte-
vant were my jDarents. Through Fear Cushman I am
descended from several of the Pilgrims of the May-
flower and other well known members of the Pilgrim
band. My great^grandmother, Fear (Cushman)

16 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

Sturtevant, was lineally descended from Robert
Cusliman, the agent of the Pilgrim band, who pro-
cured for them the Maj'flower and the Speedwell,
and himself took passage in the latter vessel, but was
obliged to put back on her proving unseaworthy, and
who came out to Plymouth the next year in the For-
tune, bringing with him his son Thomas. After a
short stay he returned on business for the company?^
to England, where he soon after died.

His son, then but a lad, remained with Gov. Brad-
ford, in whose care he had been left by his father.
He was afterward married to Mary Allerton, daughter
of Isaac AllertoD and his wife Mary, and who had
been a passenger with her parents on the Mayflower.
One of the children of this marriage was Rev. Isaac
Cushman, first minister of Plympton, He married
Rebecca Rickard. One of their children was Lieut.
Isaac Cushman, who married for his second wife
Mercy Freeman, widow of Jonathan Freeman, and
daughter of Major John or Jonathan Bradford and
his wife, Mercy Warren. The oldest of the children
of Lieut. Isaac and his second wife, Mercy, was Fear
Cushman, who became the wife of Nehemiah Sturte-
vant, the father of Peleg Sturtevant mentioned above.

On the death of Gov. Carver, in the first year of
the Plymouth colony, William Bradford became his
successor in office. Kone of the Pilgrim band are
better or more favorably known than he. His wife
met her death by drowning just as they were landing
on the shore of the New World. His son was Dep-
uty Gov. William Bradford, who was followed in the
line of succession by William, his son, and Maj. John
or Jonathan Bradford, his crrandson, who has been

BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND CHILDHOOD 17

mentioned as the husband of Mercy Warren and the
father of that Mercy who married Lieut. Isaac Cush-
man and was the mother of Fear Cushman. It thus
apioears, that Fear Cushman Stnrtevant was de-
scended from William Bradford, second Governor of
the Plymouth colony, and his wife, who was also one
of the Pilgrim band. It is also a highly probable
tradition that she was descended through her grand-
mother, Mercy Warren from the Warren family of
the Mayflower.

It is worthy of remark that all my ancestors, as far
back as the founding of the colony, were adherents of
the religious faith and simple polity of the Pilgrim
fathers. All in the direct line and most of those in
collaterallines were farmers. It is also just to say
that I have never made the genealogy of my family a
study. Had I done so I should doubtless have satis-
fied, in some degree a curiosity, which greatly in-
creased after most of those from whom I couW have
gained information were beyond the reach of my
questionings. Most of the meager details given
above were furnished by the kindness of friends, es-
jDeciall}^ by John Tillson, a friend and benefactor of
Illinois College in its beginning and till his death in
1853 a trustee of the same, and his noble and excel-
lent wife, Christiana (Holmes) Tillson, both of
whom were descended from the same Pilgrim ances-
try as myself. They immigrated to this State from
the town of Halifax, in the old colony, soon after its
admission into the Union. The people of Illinois»in
coming generations will never know how much they
are indebted to them for many of the blessings they
enjoy.

18 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

Of my mother's ancestry I have sought in vain to
obtain information. Her father, Ephraim Tanner,
was the proprietor of quite a large farm and carried
on the trades of tanner and currier, being a tanner by
trade as well as by name. He also did a considerable
])usiness as a country merchant. His house, which
was a very good one for that period, still stands di-
rectly opposite the Congregational meeting house in
Warren. He was a man of great activity and pub-
lic spirit, and died in 1801 at the age of forty-seven.
His tombstone still stands in Warren graveyard. He
left the following children: Cyrus, who married Lucy
Sturtevant; Cinda, who never never married; Lucy,
who married Warren Sturtevant; Marvin, who mar-
ried his cousin, Cornelia Tanner; Lydia, who married
Silas Beekley; Joseph Allen, who married Orra
Swift; Mirnada, who died in infancy; and Patty, who
married Dr, Ralj)li Carter. It is said that grand-
father and his five brothers all served at the same
time in the Revolutionary army. His brother Eben-
ezer was long a deacon in Warren, where some of his
descendants still reside. Trial, another brother,
settled and reared a family in Canfield, Ohio. Of
my great-grandmother I only know that her name
was Esther Newcomb. My ignorance of my mother's
family is quite shocking, considering what means of
information must at one time have been accessible to
me, and here I enter my solemn j)rotest against the
indifference to family history which then prevailed,
an"d to a considerable extent still prevails in New
England. It robs the family of that dignity which
belongs to it in the divine plan and tends to barbar-
ism.

BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND CHILDHOOD 19

Both my father and mother were reared in that
competency which the New England farmer of those
times derived from his own acres by the incessant
and severe labor of himself and each member of his
family. They did not know poverty, for their wants
were supplied from steady and nnfailing resources.
They were not rich, for their supplies were derived,
not from the accumulations of the jDast, but from
daily industry and frugality. One article in the
creed of those New England fathers certainly en-
joined industry and economy. No " idle bread " was
eaten in their houses. My grandjoarents on both
sides had large families, and when the paternal es-
tates were divided th'ere was but a small portion for
each. The education of my parents was confined to
that furnished by the common schools of Connecti-
cut, and even in these my father had but limited op-
portunities. He was a good reader, wrote a fair
hand, spelled with unerring accuracy, and, though
he had never studied grammar, seldom fell into a
grammatical error. He was a sober, thoughtful,
amiable, religious man, of eminent common sense
and sound judgment.

My mother's education Avas a little better. She
was fond of reading, and had a decided taste for fic-
tion and poetry. She seems to me to have been an
excellent judge of preaching and preachers, and most
keenly enjoyed those higher examples of X3ulf)it elo-
C[uence which she had the opportunity of hearing.
In my childhood Dr. Lyman Beecher was jiastor in
the adjacent town of Litchfield, and she always heard
him with great delight. Mr. Beechers predecessor
in Litchfield was Mr. Huntington, the father of the

20 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

present Bishop Huntington. He was also an eloquent
man and she greatly admired him. He afterwards
became a Unitarian. Dr. Joseph Harvey, of Goshen,
and the celebrated Samuel J. Mills, the father of the
missionary of that name, were lights that often shone
in our humble pulpit. The natural ability of both
my parents seemed to me such as might have shone
in a far different sphere if they had been educated
for it. Beside their graves and those of others whom
I knew in my childhood I am reminded of Gray's
familiar words:

" Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstacy the living lyre."

Those who toil in obscurity all their lives, receive
too little sympathy from the more pros^oerous, and
what is worse, they receive far less respect and honor
than they deserve. Those who fail to shine in con-
spicuous i^ositions, only for lack of culture, are not
altogether like the diamond forever concealed in the

"Dark, unfathomed caves of ocean."
There is an important function for high natural en-
dowment in the places of obscurity. Dark and mis-
erable indeed would be the condition of the toiling
masses if all who possessed any extraordinary gifts
were at once lifted out of the associations to which
they were born, and left the masses that remained
behind, to unmitigated dullness, uncheered by one
spark of genius, one flash of wit, or one gleam of
native wisdom. Obscure genius transmits the high-
est forces of civilization and the best thought of every
generation to the multitude by which, in the provi-

BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND CHILDHOOD 21

dence of God, it must ever be surrounded. No
scheme can be devised which will relieve all the best
minds of each generation from the sphere of obscure
toil. The necessity of securing men of power and
culture for some important positions, which, never-
theless, promise no high rewards or honors in this
life, may make it needful in exceptional cases to offer
special facilities to those who are preparing for these
positions. But as a rule it is obvious that the divine
constitution of society requires that the i^lace anyone
is to occupy shall depend, not only upon his talents,
but also upon his pluck and energy of will. Any
social adjustment which interferes with this law is
bad economy and worse philanthropy. It is unjust
to those who are rising along nature's own rugged
path, and injurious to society, whose places of high
trust should be reserved for those who have proved
their fitness under the natural forms of trial and dis-
cipline.

It is the order of Providence that the toiling multi-
tude, that must always constitute the great mass of
any people, should be the store-house from which the
supply of the cultured and influential must continu-
ally be recruited. It is not, as a rule, in the homes of
wealth and luxury and social and professional emi-
nence that the sturdiest manhood can be produced,
It is often the product of many generations of hum-
ble virtue. Nor am I at all sure that the man who
rises to servo his generation in a conspicuous position
has a more desiral^le lot than that of his obscure
ancestors.

Religious principle was preeminent above all other
characteristics in my parents. They had been edu-

22 JULIAN M. STVBTEVANT

cated in the Calvinistic faith of the New England
fathers, and learned the Shorter Catechism in child-
hood, and diligently tanght the same to their chil-
dren. It was the form in which they had received
the faith; yet it was not the standard of their faith
nor its object. They did not regard it as infallible.
Of the statement there made, " No mere man since
the fall is able j)erfectly to keep the commandment
of God," they did not hesitate to say that they re-
garded it as incorrect, and to give their reasons. The
only object of their faith was God in Christ, and its
only standard was the Word of God.

I wish it were possible to convey to the reader a
true conception of the little community into which I
was introduced at my 1)irth. It was in many impor-
tant respects unlike anything which now exists in our
country, or, ^Drobably, in the world. Of the political
changes which have come over the whole nation since
I was ten years of age I do not intend here to .si)eak
at length; I see their magnitude not without alarm.
Then, the annual " Freemen's Meeting," held uni-
formly on the first Monday in April, was a gathering
of the legal voters of the town, to provide for the
maintenance of social order and the general welfare.
Personal rivalries there doubtless were, but neither
state nor national politics had much influence in the
government of the town. How greatly things have
changed in this respect I need not inform the reader.
At the present time the question which has prece-
dence in the political action of the smallest town in
Connecticut has generally little or no reference to the
management of their local affairs, but to national and
state politics. It is whether the support of that little

BIRTH. PARENTAGE. ASD CHILDHOOD 23

community shall be given to the one or the other of
the two great parties that are in perpetual conflict for
the possession of the national government.

Nor has the religious life of New England experi-
enced less imj)ortant changes. The modern division
of the Christian Church into many sects, each striv-
ing to extend its ecclesiastical jurisdiction, often to
the detriment of every other, was for the most i^art
unknown to the New England of my boyhood. We
had Baptist, Ejaiscopal and Methodist churches, but
they were far too few in number to seriously impair
the unity of the New England church life. The
Baptists were numerous only in Rhode Island. Both
they and the Methodist societies that were beginning
to be organized here and there, usually sought loca-
tions remote from the Congregational places of wor-
ship and thus rarely came into competition with them.
The world was then broad enough for all. There was
no crowding. The consequence was that the church
in any particular town was not regarded as the repre-
sentative of some distinct denomination, but simply
as a branch of the Church of Christ, " the Church
Universal." We thought of ours as the " Warren
Christian Church." If in my childhood I had heard
our place of worship mentioned as Congregational I
would have needed to ask an explanation of the un-
usual term. Such was the vantage ground of the
Connecticut churches at the time of which I am
speaking, and the same thing might be said of the
larger portion of Massachusetts and also of a consider-
able part of Vermont and New Hampshire. I call it
vantage ground, not, however, to Congregationalists
as a religious denomination, but to Christianity.

2i JVLIA^ M. STURTEVAnf

There existed a network of Christian churches, cover-
ing every foot of the soil of the state, and bringing
the opportunities of religious instruction and
Christian worship within the reach of every inabitant.
So complete a provision for the spiritual care and
culture of a whole x)eople has never existed elsewhere.

Such was the Warren church. On Sabbath morn-
ing the congregation gathered from every hillside and
valley along the highways and byways, to the one
very homely, and in winter very uncomfortable,
" meetingdiouse " — a hallowed sjjot, however, for
which almost all the population felt more or less
attachment. Through the worship there conducted
each family was bound to every other, and a feeling
of mutual responsibility was awakened quite in con-
trast with the spirit prevailing in too many churches
to=day. Often at the close of the Sunday service it
would be announced from the pulpit that serious ill-
ness had visited some home. The benediction was
not pronounced until volunteer nurses had been sup-
plied for every night in the week. The same provis-
ion would be made on each succeeding Sabbath till
the necessity had ceased. We deposited the sacred
dust of our dead in " God's Acre," near by the hum-
ble temple where they had worshipped.

To the beneficent influence of such a church the
district school was a most jDowerful auxiliary. It was
not at that time absolutely free, though very nearly
so, and care was taken that no child of any nationality
or complexion should be excluded. A rudimentary
education was secured to all. The entire territory
was divided into a convenient number of school dis-
tricts, and provision was made for sustaining a school

BIHTH, PAIiEXTAGE, AND CHILDHOOD 25

in each. The iDastor of the church, who had ahnost
invariahly received a collegiate education, was
regarded as the special guardian of the schools in his
parish. He often visited them and gave relig-
ious instruction, especially in the Shorter Catechism.
These visits greatly encouraged and iDromoted the
good cause of education. The winter term of the
school continued about three or four months, and was
usually taught by a man; the summer term for about
the same period, was generally in charge of a woman,
the former receiving as salary about sixteen dollars a
month, and the later about one dollar and a half a
week. Board was free to teachers who were willing
to live by turns in the families from which their
puj)ils came, the length of time at each place being
determined by the number of children attending
school from that home. I remember well what a
treat it was when it came our turn to have the school-
mistress board with us, and accompany us to and
from school.

To the care of this school I was committed as soon
as I reached the age of five or six years, although our
home was a mile and a quarter from the schoolhouse,
and I must often encounter in going and coming the
fierce storms and formidable snowdrifts of one of the
bleakest hilltoiDS in Connecticut. We were all so
familiar with such hardships that they did not much
ax^pall either my parents or myself. One of my earli-
est teachers was jNIr. Homer Curtiss, who is still living
at Waverly, in this state, at the remarkable age of
ninety-seven years. Another of my teachers in that
same school in very early childhood was Orra Swift,
afterwards the wife of my mother's brother, Joseph

26 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

Alien Tanner, who emigrated in 1835 from "Warren to
Waverly, where he died in 1838, leaving the wife of
his youth a widow, with one grown son and two
grown daughters, and an infant son of their old age,
Edward A. Tanner, D. D., now the president of Illi-
nois College. Dea. Joseph A. Tanner was one of the
noblest contributions that Connecticut ever made to
the valley of the Mississippi, thoughtful, intelligent
in the Christian faith, tranquil in temper and wholly
consecrated to his country, to the Church of Christ
and to God,

In that school I continued for the most part, win-
ter and summer, till the end of the year 1815, In it I
learned to read and spell, and began to write, I also
committed the Shorter Catechism, which I should
have learned equally well at home had I not been in
school. There I yielded as easily and cheerfully as
the average lad to the will of the teacher. How im-
portant to young and old that obedience to prof)erly
constituted authority should be enforced. Much more
than this I could not have learned with any advantage
in any school, unless I had stored ^ly memory with
hymns and other poetic selections and simple historic
narrative. As I compare the school experiences of the
first eleven years of my life with what I should have
enjoyed in the costly and much lauded public schools
of the present day, I must frankly confess that I
greatly prefer the schools of seventy years ago to those
now found in most of our large cities. The old New
England school, however, could have been much im-
proved. The tasks in reading and spelling might
have been with great advantage varied by hymns, bal-
lads, select paragraphs from classic authors, or even

BIRTH, PAREXTAGE, AND CHILDHOOD 27

fiction. The parables of Jesus or other delightful
Scrii^ture selections might have been substituted for
the Catechism, for, though I acknowledge the excel-
lence of many things found in it, I by no means regard
that work as wefl adapted to the mind of average
childhood. It abounds in certain metaphysical dis-
tinctions and subtle generalizations far beyond a
child's capacity. A child can commit the words to
memory but cannot master the thought.

I do not believe it would have been better to have
substituted for the rude and simple arrangement of
the Connecticut district school of 1815 a little arithme-
tic, a little geography, a little diluted and simplified
physical science, and a little of almost everything else,
administered in the manner of modern times. Such
treatment of childhood is well fitted to impress upon
youth the wise man's declaration, "Much study is a
weariness of the flesh, and of the making of many
books there is no end."

A child of ten or eleven cannot, as a rule, learn to
any great extent either grammar or x3hilosophy. It is
almost violence to his nature to imj^ose such tasks
ujpon him. If not time lost, it is time misused. He
can appreciate and enjoy simple poetry; can become
familiar with pure English in speech and composition,
and can acquire foreign languages by the same pro-
cesses w'hich gave him the command of his mother
tongue, I am confident that I finished the first twelve
years of my life sounder in mind and purer in morals,
and more robust for future mental acquisition, than I
should have done had the last five of those years been
spent in a modern graded school with all the "latest
improvements."

28 JTUAX 31. STURTEVAXT

But the district school was only the first round of
the ladder in the Connecticut system of education.
In the times of which I am speaking no community
in the world was giving a collegiate education to a
larger proportion of its sons than was the state of
Connecticut, Such an opportunity was oj^ened not
only to the sons of the wealthy, but to those in mod-
erate and even in straitened circumstances. Acad-
emies and high schools of various degrees existed in
many of the larger towns., where a more extended ed-
ucation could Ije secured by the brighter puj)iL3, after
graduating from the common schools, and where those
whose parents desired it, could Ije prejjared for college.
In this way the colleges exerted a constantly increas-
ing influence on the pupils of the lower schools, and
the whole community was imbued with the .si)irit of a
higher education. To secure to children such an ed-
ucation as their talents and tastes required was the
earnest desire of the jjarents. If in the public schools
any boy manifested more than ordinary mental capac-
ity it was sure to be noticed, and he was encouraged
and helped to seek a collegiate education.

I now come to a very peculiar experience of my
childhood that exerted a powerful, perhaps I ought to
say controlling influence over my after life. It is
difficult to present the facts wisely and truly, so as to
afford the reader a faithful picture of the surround-
ings. Let me anticipate by mentioning that my
parents had three sons and one daughter. Of these,
Efjhriam Tanner, older than myself by two years,
died in December, 1881, at Cleveland, Ohio. My sis-
ter, Hulda Monson, was five years younger than my-
self. She died at Beardstown, Illinois, in 1860. Mv

BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND CHILDHOOD 29

youngest brother, Christopher Cornelius, who still
lives in Minneapolis, was eight years younger than
myself. The two younger children were therefore not
sufficiently mature to understand the events or sym-
l^athize with the religious experiences which I am
about to relate. My older brother and myself were
accustomed to attend public worship regularly. Be-
tween the morning and the afternoon service there
was only an hour's intermission, and as a fire was
never kindled in the meeting house, however cold the
weather, we often spent this interval at the house of
my maternal grandmother, directly across the street
from the church, whither we went with many others
to warm ourselves and get lunch. I am not aware
that the ordinary exercises of public worship had in
my childhood any marked influence upon my mind.
Rev, Peter Starr, who was pastor of Warren church
for more than fifty years, was an excellent, practical
Christian, but, as far as I remember, he never arrested
any particular attention by any of his pulpit utterances.
He was a good man, and was greatly revered as a
preacher by my parents, and their reverence inspired
the same feeling in me, but he was not a brilliant man.
If I am asked whether it is probable that a more elo-
quent preacher would have exerted more influence upon
one of my age than this godly divine, I can in reply only
refer to the powerful impression produced upon my
mind by the eloquent preaching of Dr. Lyman
Beecher, who often exchanged with our pastor; for in
those days the most eloquent preachers illustrated the
parity of the clergy by exchanging pulpits with their
less gifted brethren.

I do not suppose that I comprehended the vast

30 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

sweep of Mr. Beecher's intellect as he held his con-
gregation almost spellbound on some great Christian
theme, or that I fully understood all his lofty generaliza-
tions, but I felt the power of his fervent enthusiasm and
the glow of his magnificent imagination. It is truly
a great delight to remember how I heard that noble
man, who was then a mighty power through all the
region around his parish and a blessing to multitudes
who saw him only in the pulpit. I do not wnsh to
be understood, however, as saying that the ordinary
exercises of public worship, had no molding influence
on my childhood. They brought religion to the fore-
ground, and gave me habits of reverence for God,
His Church and His holy Word. But the direct influ-
ence, that impressed my mind and heart more than all
else, came from the home life and from family wor-
ship, my parents always giving to religion the prefer-
ence above all other interests and themes. It was on
the Sabbath that the power of our family religion
was especially conspicuous. On returning home
from the second service, worship followed imme-
diately after our dinner, when parents and children
gathered around the family hearth. The Shorter
Catechism was first recited, each one repeating in his
turn the answer to one question, the older children,
however, being expected to repeat, at the proper time,
the whole. This being finished my father read a
portion of Scripture, occasionally accompanying it
with a few remarks, and then we all rose and
remained standing while he offered a short but fer-
vent prayer. It was then generally sunset, and, in
accordance with the early custom of New England,
our Sabbath was ended.

BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND CHILDHOOD 31

It is difficult to convey an idea of the strength of
the imx3ressions sometimes produced by these domes-
tic experiences, but I will record one incident. On
a certain Sabbath after finishing the Catechism at
family prayers, my father turned to the twenty fifth
chapter of Matthew and read the judgment scene,
commencing " But when the Son of Man shall come
in His glory," without comment, and then immedi-
ately offered prayer as usual. A sense of the awful
majesty of that sacred j)icture came over my mind
with such power as to almost overwhelm me. The
thought flashed upon me with unspeakable vividness:
I myself shall be there — one of those to be judged.
The impression of that moment has never left me. It
will be as lasting as my existence. The exercises be-
ing ended I hastened to some diversion to relieve my
mind from a thought so overwhelming. If I be
asked whether I now believe that scene will ever be
witnessed in reality, I answer that the question seems
to me of little importance. Doubtless the magnifi-
cent drapery of the scene had a powerful influence on
my mind. Whether that tragedy will ever be liter-
ally enacted by us all in one scene, I do not know;
but the imagery is fitted to impress on the mind a
truth grander and more massive than any which
science has ever taught; the truth that every man
shall be judged according to the deeds done in the
body, and in consequence of ihat judgment be
assigned to an eternal destiny. This truth is so
deeply rooted in the moral intuitions of the soul that
even childhood resj^onds to its presentation. The
power of Scriptural imagery over the mind of youth
is a very striking proof of the divine energy. I

32 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

could not have been more than eight years of age
when this incident occurred. My parents were
neither poets, artists nor orators. Surely I was im-
pressed only by the divine power garnered in the
holy Scriptures.

I do not remember the exact chronology of the ex-
perience I am recording. It must have been but a
few months after the occurrence just related that
another event haj^pened which exerted a far greater
influence over my life. One afternoon my brother
Ephraim and I were left alone. We were engaged
in such plays as are usual with children, when I
became most painfully impressed with the thought
that I was a great sinner before God, and alarmed at
the thought of His displeasure. Greatly distressed
in mind, I could not continue play. My brother was
also much affected in sympathy for me. The thing
which moved me most was, that really profane
thoughts often came into my mind, thoughts which,
though not uttered or entertained, would again and
again intrude themselves. When mother returned
she found us in great distress. She did what any
wise. Christian mother would have done. She
soothed us with the assurance that God is very merci-
ful; that Christ came, suffered and died to save sin-
ners, and that for His sake God would forgive all our
sins, and Jesus would be our Savior forever. Her
words reassured us and we retired for the night as
cheerful as usual. The impression did not, however,
leave us. After that we were far more thoughtful
and religiously inclined. Our pastor visited us and
gave much the same counsel as that bestowed by our
mother. It was not a period of unusual excitement

BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND CHILDHOOD 33

or religious effort in the community, but after some
months of serious reflection it was suggested to us
to unite with the church.

To receive into a religious body persons so young
as ourselves was then a great innovation. But the
facts in the case seemed to our parents and friends to
justify the step. We both readily accepted the pro-
IDOsition, feeling that participation in the Lord's
Supper was greatly to be desired, and supposing, as
everyone else around us did, that communion with-
out church membershii) would be imj)ious. Accord-
ingly, a little before an api^roaching communion
season, we appeared before the church and applied
for examination and admission. The examination, in
consideration of our tender years, was short and very
simple. We were accepted, and on the next Sabbath
our names were given out from the pulpit. On the
communion Sabbath we presented ourselves, in ac-
cordance with custom, in the broad aisle in the pres-
ence of the congregation, and gave our assent to the
creed and covenant and were accepted as members of
the church in full standing. I was not yet ten years
old. If I am asked what I now think of what was
then regarded as my conversion, I answer that one
thing in resi^ect to it is certain beyond any question.
It was honest and natural, the spontaneous out-
growth of my own nature and the religious influences
around me. There was in it no stage effect. No
pojDe, priest, or Jesuit, either papal or Protestant,
IDulled the wires or worked the machinery. No one
had said or done anything to me either fitted or in-
tended to produce artificial results. The experience
of us two brothers was entirely out of the ordinary

34 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

course of things, and was treated by the church with
cahn and deliberate good sense and practical wisdom.
I recognize those conversions as the work of the
Spirit of God. How the Spirit operates on the hu-
man heart I know not. Through all the ages of
Christian history, God has employed His Word in a
way precisely analogous to this in producing great
and beneficent changes in the lives of multitudes.
The Scriptures seem to represent the power by
which these changes are wrought as being the Spirit
of God. It is the same power that conceived and
portrayed the judgment scene in the twenty^fifth
chaijter of Matthew. As such I accejit it.

That experience has exerted a very important, and
as it seems to me. most beneficent influence on my
whole life. Fourscore years have i3assed, and yet I
can truly say that what occurred subsequent to these
events, was but the carrying out of my sincere com-
mitment of myself which I then made to the Chris-
tian cause. My heart rejoices in the step then taken.
I have never regretted it. Never has the Christian
life seemed like bondage, neither has it imposed any
painful restraint. I was not held to it by fear, but
by a hearty approbation and a deliberate choice. My
conversion did not in any disagreeable way separate
me from the companions of my childliood and youth.
On the contrary, I had in after years great joy in
welcoming large numbers of them to a religious life,
and in consequence of it friendships were formed
which have been most precious and enduring. If I
have ever done any good in the world my early con-
version and identification with the Church have been
in great measure the cause of it.

BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND CHILDHOOD 35

I imagine, however, that a critical inquirer asks
with a sharp emphasis: " Do you think you really
understood that creed and gave an intelligent assent
to it?"' I have no embarrassment in answering: I
neither understood it nor intelligently assented to it.
On my part the transaction meant uniting myself
with the Church of Christ. I neither knew nor
thought whether or not I understood the creed. The
church offered me the creed, and I accepted it be-
cause she offered it. It was the Church of Christ
and not the creed which I acce^Dted, If I still be
asked whether I think it is wise and right to require
candidates for admission to the church to assent to a
creed which they cannot be supposed to understand,
again I have no embarrassment in answering: No.
The practice is absurd and a great deal worse than
useless. I do not know that the rule requiring per-
sons to assent to a prescribed creed as a condition of
admission to the church prevails elsewhere than in
the Congregation&l churches of this country, and in
such Presbyterian churches as have borrowed it from
their Congregational neighbors. It was not the
custom of the early Congregational churches. Can-
didates formerly made the confession of their faith in
their own language. It is greatly to be desired that
we return to the wiser usages of our fathers, and that
our Presbyterian friends who have imitated our aber-
rations, be reminded that it is not always wise to fol-
low even Congregational examples.

I was never taught, however, either by i^recept or
example, that the church creed or the catechism was
a standard of faith. They were always held as sub-
ject to correction by the Word of God, and as being

36 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

of no force or validity except as they agreed with it.
Neither I nor my fathers before me have ever recog-
nized any church authority which had the right to
dictate in the matters of faith to any disciple. I was
always taught to regard both creed and polity as open
to all the reforms which truth might require. I can
have no doubt of the j)i'opriety of allowing even
childhood to commit and consecrate itself to Christ
and His Church. We cannot attach ourselves too
soon or too firmly to those profound certainties which
even extreme youth is capable of discerning in the
simple Gospel of Christ. My moral nature did early
lay hold on those certainties, and for this I shall
thank God forever. I believe that early commitment
did much to hold me fast to that moral and spiritual
truth which, like the nature of God, is everlasting,
while on the other hand it has hel^Ded to make me a
bold and ffee, yet reverent, advocate of all such re-
forms as are needful to bring the Church into full
conformity with the divine j)attern. .It was my pur-
pose before closing this account of my early child-
hood to have given some incidents indicating the
peculiar severity of the life of New England farmers
in the early part of the present century. But I find
that my space will not admit of it. I must hasten
into the more advanced periods of my history.

CHAPTER II.

A NEW HOME.

During the period of which I have been speaking,
difficulties were thickening around our humble home
which soon resulted in a very great change being
wrought in the scene and the conditions of our lives.
Very soon after my birth, my father had disposed of
his interest in the Sturtevant homestead, and had
purchased a farm much nearer to the church and to
the best school in the place. The amount of his pur-
chase considerably exceeded his patrimony, and he
was obliged to mortgage the farm for the remaipder
of the purchase money. My parents were young and
strong, and hoped soon by their own industry to
cancel this mortgage, and to spend their lives and
rear their children on that spot. But an irresistible
necessity was laid upon them ere long, to abandon
their home and remove to regions far away. Their
farm was at the best rugged and barren, and under
the most favorable circumstances their task would
have been very arduous. These difficulties were im-
mensely increased by changes which were coming
over the country. At that time the industries of
New England were almost wholly restricted to agri-
culture and commerce, and these industries were mu-
tually dependent. The wars growing out of the
French Revolution and the career of the first Napo-
leon, were then agitating the whole civilized world.

37

38 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

England was not only the mistress but the tyrant of
the seas, and her unscrupulous exercise of her su-
premacy, seriously crippled the commerce of all neu-
tral nations. From the beginning of Jefferson's ad-
ministration onward, the policy of our government
had been to resist English aggressions by discrimina-
tions against English commerce, till finally in 1812,
during the first term of Madison's administration,
war was declared against England. The effect of
these measures ui3on the industry of New England
was to drive her commerce from the ocean, and to ut-
terly prostrate her agriculture. Of the justice or ex-
pediency of all this I have now nothing to say.

Just or unjust, the result was the same. Thousands
of farmers were rendered entirely unable to pay the
interest on their debts, and at the same time support
their families from the products of their farms. Out
of this grew an immense emigration, especially from
Connecticut, to that tract in the northeastern corner
of Ohio, known as the Western Reserve, then famil-
iarly called New Connecticut. The demand for a
change came upon my father with a pressure which
could not be resisted. There was no sympathy in his
nature with the spirit of the adventurous fortune
seeker. The insecurity of our western frontier as
long as the war lasted, rendered any removal of his
family to the new lands quite out of the question.
As soon as peace was restored (in 1815), he began to
arrange his plans for such a change, In the fall of
that year, accompanied by his brother, Bradford, he
made the journey to Ohio on foot to see the country
for himself and to choose a situation. He returned
with a favorable report, and he and my uncle ar-

A NEW HOME 39

ranged as fast as they could to remove their families
to the new western home the next spring. Both my
parents deeply regretted this necessity. To my
mother it was a source of life=long sorrow. It was,
as it seemed to her, to separate her for the rest of her
life from all her kindred and to debar her from those
religious priviliges and facilities for the education
of her children which were so precious to her and
important to her family. She, however, yielded un-
complainingly to the admitted necessity. How much
there has been of such heart sickness in connection
with those migrations that have at last caused the
wilderness to rejoice, and the desert to blossom as
the rose, is known only to Him who knoweth all
things. De Toqueville, in his American Democracy,
intimates that as a people we have no love for home,
no natural patriotism. He could not have proved
that assertion by the history of our family. Neces-
sity made us emigrants. Surely those who trans-
plant the home affections and all that is best in the
institutions of their fathers, into the depths of the
wilderness give the highest proof of natural patriot-
ism. The financial disasters which came upon the
people of New England from the causes mentioned,
and from the competition with the West which soon
began, would have reduced almost any other j)eople
to extreme want. With that breadth of intelligence
and energy of character for which they were distin-
guished, they so met the various crises that real pow-
erty has been almost unknown among them. They
learned trades, established manufactures, became
prosperous merchants in our cities, and migrated by
tens of thousands to those cheap and fertile lands

40 JULIAN M. STUETEVAXT

whose comiaetitive iDroductiveness was ruining their
New England farms, and were everywhere among
the most jDotent elements of our extending civiliza-
tion.

All through the winter of 1815-16 preparations
for our removal were in constant progress. By us
children it was regarded with a curiosity that implied
no appreciation of the importance to all our future, of
what was going on. To our parents it was sad work.

Yet, sadly as that winter passed in the home we
were about to leave, there was one very bright spot.
On a bitter cold day in mid=winter, my father and
mother, and my mother's sister, Patty, together with
my older brother and myself, attended the annual
meeting of the Litchfield County Foreign Missionary
Society. His Excellency John Cotton Smith, pre-
sided. I had never seen a live governor before, and
it was truly a great sight. The chief speaker was
Dr. Lyman Beecher. Of course he greatly stirred
our hearts by such a presentation of the then fresh
theme of missions' to the heathen, as no man but he
could make. It would be long before we should hear
that eloquent voice again. Our hearts were so
warmed by what we had heard that we scarcely felt
the extreme cold while homeward bound.

On the afternoon of May 28, 1816, we bade adieu to
the home of my childhood and went to the home
of my maternal grandmother to pass the night. The
next morning we commenced our journey westward.
When our caravan was assembled it consisted of two
wagons, each drawn by a yoke of oxen with one
horse harnessed before them. The wagons were
strongly built for rough roads, and were covered with

A XEW HOME 41

canvas stretched upon wooden b(jws, leaving the front
end oijen. The party consisted of my uncle, with his
wife and two children, my father, mother and four
children, a brother and sister of my uncle's wife, and
a young man who attached himself to our family; six
children and seven adults. In the wagons were our
beds and bedding, such provisions as we could carry,
our wearing api^arel, and other necessaries for the
journey. Our progress was of course slow, and for
the most part the men and the larger boys were on
foot, and sometimes even the women also. At night
we expected to secure a room in which we could
spread our beds. Our meals were i^repared from the
resources which we carried with us, with such addi-
tions as we found it necessary to xjrocure by the way.
As we had chosen that season of the year when
pleasant weather could be for the most part expected,
our position was not very uncomfortable. Yet most
people, accustomed to civilized life, would not have
regarded it as a pleasant journey.

Our route was from home to Fishkill Landing, on
the Hudson; thence across the Hudson in a saihboat
to Newburg; thence through portions of the states of
New York and New Jersey to Easton Pennsylvania;
thence through Bethlehem and Reading to Harrisburg;
thence through Carlisle to Strasburg, at the foot of
the Alleghanies; thence over the mountains through
Bedford and Greersburg to Pittsburg. At Pittsburg
we crossed the Alleghany River and followed the
right bank to the Ohio, along the route now taken by
the Cleveland and Pittsburg Railway, to the mouth
of Beaver Creek. Thence we traveled to Canfield,
Ohio, where we passed a Sabbath in the hospitable

42 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

home of Trial Tanner, a brother of my grandfather,
Ephraim Tanner. From that i^oint it was a short
distance to Talhnadge, Summit County, Ohio, where
we passed a few days among hosts of old acquain-
tances, emigrants from Warren, before going to
Richfield, Summit County, Ohio, where we considered
our long journey ended. It was destined to terminate
the progress of my westward migration for the next
thirteen years. The distance jDassed over was more
than five hundred miles, and the time required for
making it was more than four weeks. It now requires
less than twenty = four hours.

Little space can be given to describing this journey.
To such a boy as myself, just under eleven years of
age, it was an event of great importance. To a mod-
ern traveler, shut up in a railway carriage, perhaps in
a sleeping berth, it is a matter of very trifling conse-
quence. But as we traveled largely on foot, in the
open air and sunlight, at the rate of less than twenty
miles a day, and as new scenes occupied the mind
almost wholly for a month, it furnished the best lesson
in geography I ever learned. It gave me definite
ideas of distances and magnitudes, and afforded me
accurate and vividly^remembered concej)tions of the
meaning of the words " mountains, rivers, plains and
forests." It conveyed to me a new idea of the magni-
tude of the world and particularly of our own country,
taught me to observe the xjhysical features of our
planet, and did much to translate my knowledge of
geography from the abstract into the concrete.

An incident will illustrate this. Somewhere be-
tween Easton and Harrisburg we reached a little
stream called Swatara too deep to be forded with

A NEW HOME 43

safety. A scow was lying at the bank, but no ferry-
man was at hand and we were obliged to wait an hour
for his return. The tranquil stream fringed with
willows, in " leafy June," and skirted with fields of
wheat and grass, filled me with a peaceful delight.
The boy became for the moment almost a poet, and a
vivid picture of the scene remained with me. Forty^
eight years afterwards, on a journey to New York, I
found myself one afternoon taking the train at Har-
risburg for New York by what is known as the Allen-
town Line, extending from Harrisburg to Easton. It
was the old route over which I had not passed since
my youthful journey with the emigrant party. I nat-
urally took a seat near the window and looked for
familiar objects. When after a time we crossed a
bridge over a little stream I was confident that I
recognized again the Swatara, and my fellow passen-
gers assured me that I was not mistaken. The whole
scene of forty=eight years ago was before me. The
intervening years were annihilated, and I was a boy
again in the company of emigrants.

Eastern Pennsylvania was at that early day a well
cultivated and highly productive country. The im-
mense stone barns which were seen on almost every
farm excited our wonder. Though there was at that
time a very considerable trade over the mountains
between Philadelxjhia and Pittsburg, carried on in
immense wagons each drawn by four horses, no road
had yet been built. A good turnpike was in process
of construction, but only five miles of it had been
opened to traffic. The trail by which we crossed the
mountains was exceedingly rough and difficult. The
wheels of our wagons went bounding along from one

44: JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

boulder to another, much as in a cart=path in some
out-of-the-way place on a New England hillside.
Almost the only vehicles we met were the immense
wagons already spoken of. The size, strength and
docility of the horses, and the skill and good nature
of the drivers, excited our admiration. Our passage
over Laurel Hill, the last mountain we crossed, is
vividly remembered.

We had not proceeded far in the ascent when it be-
gan to rain. The air was chilly and very disagreea-
ble. My mother, fearing to ride over a road so hor-
rible, was on foot. On the toj) of the mountain there
was a house at which travelers were kept, but my
mother insisted on proceeding, because the house
had no enviable rei3utation. So we continued our
journey and descended the rocky slope, mother still
preferring to walk. On reaching a place of some de-
gree of comfort we were soon warm and dry, and for-
tunately no harm was experienced from the exposure.

At the time of which I am writing Pittsburg bore
little resemblance to the great manufacturing city
which now stands at the confluence of the Alleghany
and Monongahela. We rested for our midday lunch
amid cultivated fields which lay between the city and
the. Alleghany. A bridge was in process of construc-
tion across that stream, but we crossed by boat.

The region traversed after entering the state of
Ohio was mostly covered by forests of gigantic
growth. We sometimes traveled miles through these
woods without seeing a single human dwelling. On
one such occasion, about midday, a thunder-storm
broke upon us. The wind blew violently and the
thunder rolled and reverberated through the forest.

A NEW HOME 45

Trees, and branches torn from their trunks, fell
crashing around us. This was a terrific experience
for the women and the children, to whom such for-
ests, even in nature's mildest moods, were strange
and awe-inspiring. Such a migration is capable of
exerting a i^owerful influence on the character.

At Richfield, Ohio, my father and uncle had pur-
chased jointly a small tract of land, with five or six
acres of clearing, on which was a log house contain-
ing but two rooms, one above the other, with no
means of gaining access to the upper room except by
a ladder. At this house the goods were to be unload-
ed, and the two families were to commence house-
keeping. It seemed a rather heart-sickening end of
so long and wearisome a journey, but here we re-
mained several weeks, doing what we could to make
ourselves comfortable. It was midsummer, and we
did not suffer from the cold, and were sheltered from
the rain. The two brothers were a good deal unde-
cided in relation to their future plans. The place
was new and seemed so strange. Nearly all the few
inhabitants were recent immigrants like ourselves.
We had no church, no school, no roads. All these
were to be constructed.

Our Sabbaths came and went as of old, but they
brought with them little except memories, which
taught us how " blessings brighten as they take their
flight." From those days onward the 137th Psalm
has always possessed for me a peculiar charm. '"'By
the rivers of Babylon there we sat down, yea, we
wept, when we remembered Zion." At last a report
came that on the next Sabbath public worship was
to be held in a log house at Brecksville, a church was

46 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

to be organized, and the Lord's Supper observed.
The officiating minister was to be Rev. Wm. Han-
ford, of Hudson, one of the most indefatigable mis-
sionaries then laboring in that part of Ohio. Brecks-
ville is now almost a suburb of the great city of
Cleveland. It was then a little new settlement in the
woods. Between us and the j)lace, which was four or
five miles distant, lay a literally trackless forest. I*t
was, however, almost instantly resolved that my fath-
er, uncle, brother and myself would attend church
Sabbath morning. After an early breakfast we start-
ed, taking with us a pocket compass as a guide. The
place of worship was a humble log cabin home.
After a sermon, in which all were profoundly inter-
ested, some fifteen persons united themselves by mu-
tual covenant as a Christian Church. That organi-
zation, if I mistake not, still exists. The Lord's
Supper was then observed. It mattered little to me
that the bread was distributed from a common din-
ner plate, and the wine poured from a common earth-
ern pitcher into glass tumblers. At no time in my
life have I enjoyed a Sabbath more intensely. The
two boy communicants attracted the notice of Mr.
Hanford, who came after service and conversed with
our party. The acquaintance thus begun had an im-
portant influence upon the future of my brother and
myself. That Sabbath was a bright day in the re-
cord of my life; a day in which my Christian faith
had been much confirmed, and in which, though I
had then no such thought, it had become nearly cer-
tain that I would obtain a collegiate education and
devote my life to the Christian ministry.

It is not to be wondered at that my parents were

A NEW HOME 47

very reluctant to make Eiclifield their home. Its
utter lack, for the time, of schools and church privi-
leges seemed an insuperable objection to a perma-
nent stay. Accordingly, my father soon arranged his
business interests by surrendering all his rights in
the Richfield property to his brother, and purchased
a small piece of excellent land in Tallmadge, on
which b}^ the toil of his hands a farm could be made;
for the virgin forest still covered it all.

We soon removed to Tallmadge and prepared for
the erection of our new home. I find no words that
can do justice to the hospitality so generously ex-
tended to us while our cabin was in xjrogress of erec-
tion, by the immigrants from Warren who were al-
ready in the town, esj)ecially by Deacon Salmon
Sackett and his family. The preciousness of Chris-
tian brotherhood is often touchingly illustrated amid
the hardships of a new settlement. Winter was
almost upon us before our rude cabin was ready for
occupancy. Well do I remember the day we took up
our abode in it. It was the 29th of November, 1816.
The undergrowth only had been removed, leaving the
giants of the forest, some of them more than a hun-
dred feet in height, towering far above our frail shel-
ter. Our chimney was constructed by cutting away
a portion of the logs on one side of the cabin and
building in the opening thus made a fireplace of
stones laid in clay, and projecting outside of the
wall. Above the stone=work, raised only high enough
to avoid contact with the fire, the chimney was fin-
ished with sticks daubed with clay. The fireplace
was very large, and I often stood partially within it
and looked up the chimney at the tree tops which

48 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

were waving far above it. Primitive as that habita-
tion was, its rudeness was not its worst feature. It
was entirely inadequate to protect us from tlie sever-
ities of such winters as those we found in northeast-
ern Ohio. This was especially true of a house fresh
built from green logs. That was a long and dreary
winter. The rheumatism with which my father suf-
fered and the colds of my mother an d the rest of the
family are painful to remember.

Though the cold was often intense and the school
was a mile and a quarter distant, we boys were seldom
absent or late. Punctuality and regularity were en-
forced upon us. Ours was one of the best teachers I
ever had. She enabled me at eleven years of age to
study English grammar with j)leasure and much pro-
fit. She was herself a product of the New England
common school. When the spring opened in that
year (1817) other and graver matters than school re-
quired our attention. The forest was to be converted
into fruitful fields from which the support of a family
must be derived, and that could be done only by the
combined labor of one man and two boys. As soon
as the winter school was closed father, brother and
myself all gave ourselves with such strength as we
possessed to that work. To the unpracticed eyes of
my mother, and the children, it seemed almost impos-
sible, without crushing the cabin, to fell those trees
that still surrounded it. When the time came for
cutting one immense tree that stood near the house,
my mother, with her two younger children, took a posi-
tion beyond the reach of the tallest limbs and waited
for the catastrophe. After many hard strokes of the
murderous ax the top was first seen to waver and then

A NEW HOME 49

to move steadily, and then to rush to the ground with
awful force and a thundering but harmless crash. I
do not wonder that the great Mr. Gladstone even in
the dignity of his old age is fond of felling trees. It
is grand sx3ort even for British statesmen. Not more
than ten rods from the cabin we found lying upon the
ground a chestnut tree which must have fallen several
generations before the woodman had begun to invade
those forests. As it lay there the trunk measured
more than six feet in thickness. The time since its
fall could only be conjectured from its state of partial
decay, but the durability of chestnut timber, even
when exposed to the weather, almost surpasses belief.
Visiting that spot a few months ago, I was convinced
that the very rails split in the years 1817 and 1818,
from freshly fallen chestnut trees l^y my father's hand,
I in a feeble way assisting, still formed the boundaries
of the old fields. I could see no reason to doubt that
they would last fifty years longer.

That old trunk was surrounded by a little forest of
tall, sturdy hickories which had doubtless grown from
nuts accidently dropped there, after the ancient trees
had ceased to shade the ground. The immense log
was so water=soaked that it was scarcely combustible.
We cleared away the huge mass by cutting the hick-
ories, heaping them against it and firing the -pUe.
Thus little by little we dried and consumed it. Many
a weary day did we toil around that fallen monarch.
So is it ever. Accumulations of rottenness and cor-
ruption can only be removed by long and patient toil.

I shall close this story of our first season in the
great Ohio forest with an incident. As w^e had no
fenced fields the two or three cows on which we large-

60 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

ly depended for our living were pastured in the open
forest on the west border of which our cabin was situ-
ated. It contained from thirty to forty square miles
unbroken by a single farm or cabin. The searching
for our cattle in that great wild pasture was not with-
out serious perils to those unaccustomed to the woods.
Even persons of considerable experience were liable
to be lost in that trackless forest.

One beautiful Sabbath evening in October, during
our first season in the cabin, after dinner and family
worship, father and mother started out together to
drive home the cattle, the cow bell being within hear-
ing. The four children were left behind. In the
dusk of the evening the cows came home, but
father and mother were not with them. As we
learned afterward, they had walked carelessly on in
tlie direction from which the sound had been heard,
without noticing the bell. When next they stopped
to listen for it the sound had ceased. Conjecturing
that the belbcow had laid down, they walked on in
the same direction. Just as they had concluded that
they must have passed her they came to a swamp, the
situation of which was well known to my father.
But he was unable to assure himself whether he was
on the east or west side of it. In the meantime the
wind had risen and the heavens were overcast with
clouds. Soon a light was seen through the clouds
near the horizon, which they assumed to be the eve-
ning twilight; but it was the light of the newly risen
moon in the east. Supposing they had discovered the
proper points of the compass they were reassured and
set ofiP, as they thought for home, but really toward
the southeast into the heart of the great forest. Soon

A XEW HOME 51

the sky was overcast with heavier clouds, and the
wind rose to alarming violence. After rambling for
a time, while the wind was roaring and the trees were
falling around them, my father realizing that they
were lost, suggested that they should stop in as com-
fortable a place as could be found, and wait for the
morning. To this my mother utterly objected. "If,"
said she, " we stop we certainly shall not get home to
the children; if we keep going, it is possible that we
may." This was decisive. So they pushed on, avoid-
ing obstacles in their way by going around rather
Ihan through them, as one direction was as likely to
be right as another.

We children at home soon became very anxious,
and used every means at our command to make a
noise in the hope that we might thus guide their be-
wildered way. We pounded on the end of a log with
the head of an axe. We climbed to the roof of the
cabin and hammered upon it, but all in vain. At
length daylight was quite gone, and we were in de-
spair. The nearest neighbors were half a mile away,
and to search for our parents in that great forest in
such a night was hopeless. We retired to the cabin,
kejit the fire and lights burning, and with many tears
sat down to wait for what might ccme.

After wandering for hours, father and mother came
suddenly uj^on what my father's i^racticed eye recog-
nized as an opening in the forest where a tree had
been cut. He examined by the sense of feeling and
soon found the stump. In the original survey of the
lands a township five miles square was first marked
off. Its boundaries were indicated by a line of blazed
trees. This square was then divided into four equal

52 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

parts by public roads extending north and south and
east and west tlirough its center. These roads were
indicated by two lines of blazed trees, and by the
letter " H," carved on any tree which was found to
stand exactly on the line of either side of the road.
My father conjectured that the stump which he had
found marked a familiar spot in the road which ex-
tended along the south side of our farm. This road
was indicated in the survey, but was not open for use.
By feeling the neighboring trees, the two sides of the
road were found, and also a tree marked with the letter
" H." This assured them that they were on the east
and west road, and probably only a half mile from
home. But how to get there was the question. It
was not very difficult for two persons to follow one of
these blazed lines in total darkness. One would re-
main near a blazed tree till another similarly marked
could be found, which in turn was kept till the next
was discovered, and so on. It yet remained for them
to determine in which direction home lay, since a
wrong course would carry them yet deeper and deeper
into the forest. After traveling as it seemed a long
distance they came again upon the swamp. There
father left mother by a blazed tree until he had satis-
fied himself by examing the edge of the swamp for
some distance that they were on its western side.
They had traveled half a mile in the wrong direction
and were now one mile from home. They then re-
turned by the same slow process, feeling their way
from tree to tree until they reached home about mid-
night, to the great joy of all.

That same night, an excellent yoke of oxen which
my father had recently sold had been left in a field

A NEW HOME 53

where the great trees had been girdled to facilitate
clearing of the land. In the morning both were found
close together dead, with a fallen tree lying across
them. This incident bears testimony to the terrors
of that stormy night.

CHAPTER III.

A STARTLING SUGGESTION.

During that year a suggestion found its way to our
humble cabin which was as surprising to us all as
though it had been si^oken from out the voiceless for-
ests around us. It came from Rev. William Hanford,
our ministerial acquaintance of that bright Sabbath
at Brecksville, and grew out of the great lack of min-
isters of the Gospel in that new country. New as
Tallmadge was, it had an incorporated academy of
which Elizur Wright was then princii3al. Mr. Han-
ford was his son-indaw, as was also Rev. John Seward,
an efficient missionary settled at Aurora. The prop-
osition was that my brother and myself should enter
on a course of study in preparation for college and
the Christian ministry. Mr. Seward strongly sec-
onded Mr. Hanford's suggestion and Mr. Wright
offered us free tuition. Nothing could well, seem
more absurd. How could our father spare us from
the work of the farm and the forest? Should his
natural helpers forsake him now that they were just
beginning to be helpers indeed? True, I was in re-
spect to muscular strength but a feeble boy, and
could be spared with very small loss, but it seemed
out of the question for him to do without my brother
who was now fourteen, and for his age unusually vig-
orous and helpful. Besides, the resources of the
family were so narrow that my parents could not

54

A STARTLING SUGGESTION 65

afford any assistance to their sons in pursuing a col-
lege course.

To us lads the plan seemed utterly impracticable,
and we expected and even wished our parents to re-
ject the proposition. I was especially averse to. it,
for the idea of going far from home among strangers,
under circumstances so peculiar and so remote from
the life to which I was accustomed, a^Dpeared intolera-
ble. I appreciated the generosity of our friends, but
thought I had no wings for so ambitious a flight.
Unexpectedly to us the suggestion was favorably en-
tertained by both our parents. First of all earthly
things they desired a superior education for their
children, and their highest ambition was to train
their sons for the Christian ministry. Our advisers
assured them that there were no insurmountable ob-
stacles, and that funds were contributed to aid deserv-
ing young men in preparing for the ministry. My
vague and unreasoning dread was not removed, but
my conscience was appealed to and the appeal pre-
vailed. When the winter of the academy opened we
were both on hand with our Latin grammars.

It was fortunate for me that my i^arents had chosen
Tallmadge for their place of residence. The town
was remarkable for certain laeculiarities in its mode
of settlement, which had originated in the mind of
Rev. David Bacon, the father of the distinguished
Leonard Bacon, D. D., of New Haven. A graphic
account of his father's life published some years ago
by the latter in " The New Englander " will furnish
the curious reader with the details of this plan. Kev.
David Bacon had made arrangements with the origi-
nal proprietors of the town that they were to sell

56 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

farms to such persons only as he approved. His ob*
ject was to form a settlement composed of select men
and women, so homogeneous in their religious be-
lief that they would easily coojjerate and form one
Christian church. It is true that after a time some
of the saints whom Mr. Bacon had gathered around
him proved themselves less than saintly, and a quar-
rel obliged him to leave his charge before his plan
was fully carried out. But enough had been done to
secure in a great measure the end at which he aimed.
A character had been given to the town which at-
tracted such emigrants as Mr. Bacon had desired,
and repelled the opposite class. The consequences
of such a good beginning appear in Tallmadge to this
day. When my father came the church organized by
Mr. Bacon seven years before was already strong and
efficient, having a settled pastor and regular worship,
and a large congregation. Tallmadge was at that
time as purely a Congregational community as that
in which I was born, although we did not recognize
the church where we worshiped as Congregational,
but only as the Church of Christ. The confusion of
tongues had not yet reached it. In the providence of
God I knew nothing through all my childhood and
youth of that strife of tongues which sectarian divi-
sions always produce.

It was a part of Mr. Bacon's plan to found a col-
lege at Tallmadge, but unfortunately after his re-
moval that idea was relinquished. The academy
however, did good service for many years. To it,
and especially to its excellent principal, I am under
life=long obligations. Under his gratuitous instruc-
tion in the fall of 1817 I commenced the study of

A STARTLING SUGGESTION 57

Latin. To a boy of twelve years, having little book=
knowledge besides that contained in the Bible, the
Shorter Catechism and the schoobreaders, and with
the unphilosophical modes of teaching Latin then in
use, the beginning of the study was neither interest-
ing nor encouraging. The winter was spent in com-
mitting to memory Latin paradigms, the use of
which I did not know, and rules which I could not
comprehend, and translating a few j)ages of the His-
toriae Sacrte. The whole winter was spent toiling as
if in a dark hole where I could neither see what I
did nor fully know what I was trying to do. Of
course I seemed to myself to have accomplishea
nothing. Doubtless we now have better methods of
teaching Latin, though they are still far from per-
fect. We should teach language first and grammar
afterward. To reverse this is to begin at the top of a
chimney and build downward, or to harness the cart
before the horse.

Spring came and the school closed, not to be re-
sumed till the following autumn. It was indispensa-
ble that we should return immediately to the forest
and the farm, for our services were imperatively
needed there. Not that anyone supposed that I
could accomplish much, for I really could not, yet I
did as well as I could, and it was not particularly
aggreeable that my efforts were habitually ridiculed.
Almost every day I heard

" Little strokes
Fell great oaks."

Nevertheless my feeble efforts did fell many trees.
Meanwhile I found little comfort in the thought of a
life of study. As we toiled through the summer the

58 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

future presented little of hope or cheer, though I was
not consciously unhappy. I thought as I looked
back that my generous teacher and kind friends must
have had enough of trying to teach Latin to so poor
a scholar, and I had no desire to return to that dark
hole. I was mistaken, for when the winter term
opened both our parents and teachers expected us to
resume our classical studies and we reluctantly com-
plied with their wishes. Happily discouragement
did not long continue. Light soon began to break
in, for before the season closed, I was convinced that
I could learn Latin, and that I had a better chance
of success as a student than as a farmer and forester.
I began to look forward to college with hope instead
of aversion. My father's removal to Ohio, which
would have seemed the worst thing for a boy like
myself, considerably hastened the progress of my ed-
ucation. Perhaps indeed I should never have gone
to college had it not been for the Tallmadge academy
and the great demand for educated ministers in the
West.

I must now go back a little in my story, to men-
tion a seemingly trivial incident which had neverthe-
less an important bearing upon our plans for secur-
ing an education. Before the completion of our
cabin in Tallmadge, and while we yet remained in
the hospitable home of Deacon Sackett, a swarm of
bees came out from one of his hives at the end of
August. This was an unusual occurrence. The
deacon hived the bees and gave them to my brother
and myself, saying, "They will not survive the cold
winter, but may furnish you a little honey for the
winter's use." They did, however, survive the win-

A STARTLING SUGGESTION 59

ter, whether by reason of unusual industry or because
they had robbed one of the Deacon's hives, which
from that time ceased to flourish, I cannot teU. They
were carried to our forest home and soon so multi-
plied as to be of considerable importance.

My brother and myself had the sole care of the
bees, or perhaps I should have said my brother had,
for I was only a humble assistant. They required
much attention, for we were without books or instruc-
tion in bee=culture and were left to the resources of
our own ingenuity to devise methods for their man-
agement. That summer we made almost as much
progress in our studies as we should have done in
school, although we gladly assisted when necessary
on the farm. Our increased interest and added hope-
fulness led us to improve our spare moments, and
while we were watching the bees we read Virgil and
Cicero.

I am convinced by many years of observation as a
teacher that I make no disgraceful confession when
I acknowledge that we used translations whenever
they could be obtained. When we were about to
commence a book of Virgil's JEneid we borrowed a
copy of Dryden's Virgil and read the book together.
We would then, dictionary and grammar in hand,
take up the Latin. We did not expect to rely on the
translation for the exact construction of sentences.
It gave us only the general course of thought. In
this way we could read the book from the Latin in
much less time, and, as we thought, with equal thor-
oughness. In this manner we read Virgil and Cice-
ro's Orations, no translation being required either for
Caesar's Commentaries or Sallust, when at a later day

60 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

we read the latter's works. Our method of study
seems to me a rational one. We learned the lan-
guage first and its grammar afterwards, as children
do, and made much more rapid progress than we
could have done with oidy the grammar and diction-
ary. During the winter of '19 and '20 we made good
progress in both Greek and Latin. The summer
found us again at our books, farm work and bee=cul-
ture, and life was full of joy that was greatly aug-
mented by the fact that during that summer and the
following autumn Tallmadge was visited by a season
of quickened religious feeling and activity such as is
commonly called a revival of religion. How came it
to occur? I can give but one answer: — "The wind
bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and
whither it goeth." The i^astor of the church was a
good, true man, without any special gift by which
such a popular movement could be artificially pro-
duced. Its occurrence was as unexi^ected to him as
to anyone else. He had no assistance from other
ministers. There were individuals in the church who
had unusual earnestness in jDrayer for the gift of
God's Spirit, and the devout had for weeks previous
often met in each other's houses to pray for this
blessing; but these meetings were entirely j)rivate
and unostentatious in their character, just such
meetings as people honestly believing in the efficacy
of prayer would naturally hold and enjoy. Religious
meetings of a public character were not appointed with
unusual frequency till it became known that an un-
wonted interest in religious things existed in many
minds in different parts of the town. This was not

A STARTLING SUGGESTION 61

a mere transient excitement, for it continued many
months. During much of this time the imstor was
himself absent, but public worship was held on the
Sabbath as usual, a sermon being read by some mem-
ber of the church. Two or three religious meetings
were appointed each week, at 5 o'clock P. M. in dif-
ferent parts of the town, either at schoolhouses or
at private dwellings. My brother and myself, with
other members of our family, usually attended
these meetings. Our farm work was carried on with
no less energy and success than in other years. Ris-
ing early in the morning, we husbanded all our time
so that when the hour of meeting arrived our day's
work was practically accomplished. In two or three
instances, in the course of our pastor's absence, pas-
tors of neighboring churches spent a few days with
us. Visits from house to house by the deacons and
other zealous members of the church were frequent
and there was much jDersonal conversation.

Among the persons deeply moved by this religious
revival was one whom I ought to mention by name,
as he sustained for several years a very intimate rela-
tion to my life, and especially as he has been by no
means unknown to fame, Elizur Wright, Jr., the son
of the principal of our academy. He was about a
year older than myself, and my classmate. He pro-
fessed to be converted, and with much appearance of
earnestness united among many others with the
church. I was already intimate with him and loved
him. He had enjoyed much better advantages than
myself, and I regarded him as my superior both in
natural talents and in acquisitions. I greatly re-
joiced in his conversion, and was for several years

62 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

more intimate with him than I have ever been with
any man who was not a relative. Through all those
years I found him a faithful friend, ready and sym-
pathetic in my hours of need. It gives me great
l^leasure to make this record of him.

As a result of this revival changes were wrought in
the opinions and characters of many individuals,
which affected for the better their whole subsequent
lives, and lasting impressions for good were made up-
on whole families and in fact upon the entire com-
munity. The number added to the church was not
far from one hundred, and among them were found
almost the whole circle of young persons with whom
my brother and myself had been associated. Our
relations to them during this season of revival were
very delightful to ourselves and perhaj)s beneficial to
them. For myself, I find that the bonds of affection
then forged still bind me closely to the people of that
beautiful town. In all these more than sixty years
no place has been dearer to me than Tallmadge. I
revisit it with peculiar delight, and still find among
the living some who allude to that season as the
beginning of their religious life.

There was no intermixture of sectarian rivalries in
that revival. No union meetings were agreed upon,
leaving to the future the division of the converts
among the different denominations. We had no de-
nominational jealousies to guard against, no sectarian
interests of our own to be guarded. Our union was
natural, spontaneous, and we supposed permanent.
The great transaction in which we were so deeply
interested knew but two parties: Christ and the
world He died to save. In Christ all of His follow-

A STARTLING SUGGESTION 63

ers are one, and nothing in the religious organization
of our community tended to mar our perception of
that oneness. Surely that was the natural and prim-
itive condition of the Church. Nor can it be denied
that its present divisions obscure the fact of its unity
and narrow our conceptions of Christian brotherhood
and CO operation. I need not assure the reader that
there was great moral power in such a complete unity
of Christian people.

During all these years Tallmadge had no church
building. An academy was built and used both as a
schoolhouse and a plRce of public worship. After
its destruction by fire it was rebuilt, and the church
was still longer delayed. It was inconveniently small
for our congregation. In almost all our services some
were compelled to stand, and this sacrifice, in accord-
ance with the code of politeness of the period, fell
especially upon boys like myself. In the fall of
1820 it became an evideiit necessity to provide a
church adequate to the necessities of the congrega-
tion. This was not an easy thing to do, for that por-
tion of Ohio bordering on Lake Erie, though rich in
agricultural resources, had absolutely no market for
the surplus of its productions. The Erie canal was
hardly yet projected. It was often difficult for the
prosperous farmer to raise sufficient cash to pay his
taxes. The best of wheat could not command ten
cents a bushel. How then were the farmers of Tall-
madge to build a church? It was possible only in
one way. The house must be built of timber cut
from their own forests, or of stones quarried from
their own hills by the hands of their own mechanics,
and paid for from the products of their own fields.

64 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

Fortunately they had an excellent architect of their
own number, Lemuel Porter, from Waterbury, Conn.
He drew a church plan and provided the specifica-
tions. The building committee then called a public
meeting at which the x^lan and the specifications were
accepted and every man was requested to state what
he would furnish. Provision was soon made for
every stick of timber. A day was appointed some
time in the early winter on which all this timber was
to be brought to the site selected for the sanctuary.
As the time drew near, signs of prei)aration were every-
where visible, and it was evident that there w^ould be
few Tallmadge men who would not participate in the
happy event. To stimulate ambition the chairman
of the building committee, Reuben Beach, from my
owai native town, made a public offer of a gallon of
whiskey to the man who on the designated Monday
morning should "land the first stick of timber."
Many teams were on hand very early. In fact, it was
yet in the small hours when the prize was claimed
and x^romptly given. Only a few months ago I saw
the wooden gallon bottle in which it was delivered.
Those men are not to be judged by the standard of
the present. That was before the i)hrase "total ab-
stinence " was coined, or the loractice of it accepted
as a rule of morals. The enthusiasm of that occasion
was not the boisterous mirth of a bachanalian revel,
but the rational earnestness of men wdio w^ere deter-
mined to erect an edifice in wdiich they and their
children might assemble for religious instruction and
worship. I co=operated in the raising of that church
in 1822. It stands to-day in excellent order, a model
of country church architecture. Its shingles were all

A STARTLIXG SUGGESTIOX 65

made from a single chestnut tree and have never
needed renewal. A part of the tree not wrought into
shingles is now lying where it originally fell. On a
recent visit to the place, I brought away a fragment
as a relic.

At this point, it is proi^er to mention a discussion
which gave me my hrst impressions of those ecclesi-
astical divisions which have since caused me so much
sorrow. Almost all of the churches of the Western
Reserve were originally Congregational, being chiefly
comiDosed of emigrants from New England. A few,
however, were Presbyterian, connected with the Synod
of Pittsburgh, having been organized by emigrants
from western Pennsylvania. It was a favorite idea
of almost all the ministers, whether of Presbyterian
or Congregational origin, that it was desirable to com-
prehend within one organization both the Congrega-
tional and the Presbyterian churches in the United
States. It was difficult and sometimes impossible to
persuade these churches to renounce the polity of their
fathers for the Presbyterian form of church govern-
ment. During my residence on the reserve the Presby-
terian churches of that region were erected into the
Presbytery of the Western Reserve, and to facilitate
the comprehension of the Congregational churches un-
der the same jurisdiction, that Presbytery was permit-
ted to frame for itself a constitution supplementary to
the constitution of the Presbyterian Church, contained
in its book of discii^line, granting to Congregational
churches coming under the jurisdiction of the Presby-
terian Church the privilege of conducting their internal
affairs according to the usages of Congregational
churches. Most of the latter adopted the plan without

66 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

much hesitation. Some of the leading men in the
Talhnadge church were, however, strongly averse to the
scheme, and raised objections which caused much delay
and debate. Several committees of the Presbytery vis-
ited the church and endeavored to remove objection and
secure acquiescence. As the constitution j^rovided
for changes in the organic instrument, several amend-
ments were from time to time made to obviate objec-
tions raised in the Tallmadge church. Finally it
came to this: that as the constitution was amendable,
it was feared that the jjarticular article extending to
Congregationalists the enjoyment of their own mode
of church government, would, after a time, be abol-
ished. This fear was reported to the Presbytery, and
to remove it a clause was introduced into the consti-
tution providing that this particular article should
never be amended.

This change silenced the opponents for a time, and
the amendment was adopted by a majority of the
church against tlie judgment of some of its most
influential members. Though I was a minor and
therefore not a voter, I was an attentive listener
during all these animated discussions. I did not
fully understand the difference between the two sys-
tems, and had imbibed no strong preference for one
or the other. I could not symphathize with or com-
prehend the zeal of the ministers in recommending
the merging of Congregationalism in Presbyterianism,
and did not clearly see our need of the good care
which they promised us, or discover what they could
do for us. Neither did I understand why they could
not co-operate with us as we were, as well as if we
were comprehended in the Presbytery. On the other

A STARTLING SUGGESTION 67

hand I did not quite see why those among ns who
were opposed to the union were so intense in their
opiDosition. Time showed me, long afterwards, that
the question had bearings I did not then appreciate,
and which were imperfectly understood by those to
whom I listened. The plan of union in one respect
wrought injury to Presbyterianism. The compre-
hension of large numbers of Congregational churches,
with their separate church government, within the
pale of Presbyterianism, was the principal cause of
the great disruption that came a few years later;
an event which all must feel to have been a very sad
chapter in the religious history of our times. The
shock of that disruption caused a large portion of the
churches formerly Congregational to return to the
simpler church system of their fathers. The plan of
union was also unfortunate for Congregationalism.
It did not, as its friends had hoped, prevent the
division of the Western Reserve between the two de-
nominations. But by it, the Presbyterian party
was greatly strengthened and the Congregational
party greatly weakened.

During the winter of 1820-21 we were given to
understand that in the judgment of our teacher we
might be j)repared to enter college the following
autumn. He was a much better Latin than Greek
scholar, and in this resjiect his pupils were like their
teacher. We had read more Latin than is now re-
quired for admission to any of our colleges. Pursu-
ing our studies to a considerable extent without a
teacher, we generally read our Latin authors several
times over. We often wrote out the translation of an
oration of Cicero or a book of Virgil entire. I be-

68 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

came so familiar with the ^iieid, the Georgics and
the Bucolics of Virgil, that in later years I some-
times amused my friends by promising that on hear-
ing two consecutive lines from either of them read in
Latin, I would without fail immediately tell from
which book they were taken, and give the train of
thought or narrative accompanying them. This
familiarity with the Latin authors has been a great
advantage to me.

In Greek I was much less fortunate. We had no
access to Greek authors. I had only the "Grseca
Minora," a rather meager selection from various
authors, and the Greek Testament. Through my
preparatory and collegiate courses I had access to no
Greek dictionary except the Schrevellii Lexicon. It
was never intended to be a thesaurus of the lan-
guage, but only of Homer and the Greek Testament,
and the meaning of Greek words was given only in
Latin. These very limited appliances for study had
the advantage of throwing me upon my own resources.
When unable to grasp the meaning of a Greek word I
taxed my memory to recall other passages in which I
had met it before, and from the collocation of the
word 4 in those passages I determined the exact sense
in which the word was used. I was thus forced to go
back of the dictionary and emi3loy the methods by
which dictionaries are made. But from defective
preparation I labored under difficulties in Greek
through my whole college course and my subsequent
life.

Where shall we go to college, how shall we raise
money enough to get there, and how shall we live
when there? These three questions had now come to

A STARTLING SUGGESTIOlSr 69

the front. As to the first of them, our friend Wright
had decided to go to Yale, and my brother and I were
also bent on accompanying him. But the question of
ways and means would have troubled more experi-
enced financiers than ourselves; indeed it would have
troubled them more than it did us. They would have
insisted on a definite solution, but we were inclined
to act on the maxim, " Never cross a bridge till you
come to it." If we could find a way to reach Yale
College, we determined to trust for the means of
living there to the resources that might develop them-
selves on the spot. It may appear strange that our
parents should consent that two sons, one of whom
had not reached the age of seventeen while the other
was scarcely nineteen, should trj^ their fortunes at
Yale with absolutely no resources to depend upon.
It was a venture which nothing could excuse but
their firm trust in Providence. It must also be re-
membered that we had a grandmother and an uncle
and aunt living only forty miles from New Haven to
whom we could go in case of necessity.

We at once addressed ourselves to the problem of
raising the money for our journey. We naturally
took our friend Wright into our counsels. So far as
ready money was concerned, he was in almost the
same predicament as ourselves, for although his father
had considerable property it could not be sold for
cash. Without him I know not how we could have
solved the problem. Our beehives were our only
resource. Beeswax was one of the very few things
that met with ready sale, and a little of our delicious
honey could sometimes be sold for cash. At first it
seemed impossible to make our little capital suffice

70 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

for the long journey. Yet a way was found. Wright
obtained from his brother^n-law, Rev. Wm. Hanford,
to whom we had been indebted for so many acts of
kindness, a horse, which though too old to be of much
use in his missionary journeys, was quite adequate to
the trip we proposed to take. We were able to pro-
cure, by selling j)roperty which we felt able to spare,
a onediorse vehicle which, though worn and unsightly,
was thought to be safe for^the purpose. Another young
man who, though not a student, wished to join us in
an inexpensive trip to New England, was permitted to
do so on condition of his sharing equally in the out-
lays. In the wagon were stored such provisions as
could be carried, ready cooked for use by the way,
and our necessary wearing apparel. Besides the
boxes which contained these supplies there was room
for a seat for two persons. Thus equipped, we consid-
ered ourselves ready for the journey.

I regret that I have lost the exact date of that
eventful start, the outset of my new life, but it was
doubtless in the month of June, 1822. -

I well remember the events of that morning and
the call we received from Mr. Owen Brown of Hud-
son, father of the famous John Brown of the Harper's
Ferry raid. He was a tanner by trade and one of the
worst stammerers I ever knew, but known in all that
region as a conspicuously religious man. I remember
well my distress when once sent to his house upon an
errand, and obliged by certain circumstances to
remain there for the night, at the thought that I must
listen to the reading of the Bible and the offering of
prayer by one who stammered so badly. I need not
have been concerned. He read the Scriptures almost

A STARTLING SUGGESTION 71

without hesitation, and when we rose according to the
custom and he began to pray, his voice became per-
fectly clear and distinct and his utterance free and
flowing. I have seldom joined in a prayer of equal
freedom, aiDjDropriateness and fervor. His son, after-
wards so celebrated, was present, being at that time
in business with his father.

But I return to the day of our departure from home.
It was a day long anticipated with ardent hope and
yet painful apprehension. In the six years that we
had lived in that cabin the aspect around it had
greatly changed. Much of the forest had disappeared.
Not only upon our farm but on the neighboring
acres, it had given place to cultivated fields. The
cabin, however, remained the same, except that
another room had been added. As we saw our enter-
prise that morning there was much in it that was
distressing. It seemed hard and cruel to leave as we
did our parents and the two young children. For
ourselves the journey seemed adventurous, perilous,
and even chimerical,

I do not wonder that after breakfast that morning
when we gathered once more for family prayers and
my father read for our parting Scrii^ture lesson the
twenty=seventh Psalm, which begins: " The Lord is
my light and my salvation ; whom shall I fear ? The
Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be
afraid? " — I say, I do not wonder that when he came
to the tenth verse, "When my father and mother
forsake me, then the Lord will take me up," his voice
became utterly choked and he could proceed no
further. We were weejping in silence together when
Mr. Owen Brown providentially came in. He com-

72 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

prehended the situation at once, took the Bible from
my father's hand, read the Psahn, and offered a prayer
full of fervor and pathos. The prayer ended, we said
our farewells, and drove from that humble but dear
abode to which as my home I was to return no more.
The i^lan to leave it was not my own. Only by a long
and painful discipline were my feelings brought to
accept it. That was a sad morning to us all, yet far
away in the future we discerned a region bright with
hojDe. Only twice after our departure for college, and
then for only brief visits, did I return to that spot
endeared to my heart by such a multitude of tender
associations.

CHAPTER IV.

OUR PILGRIMAGE.

That eventful journey need not occupy in this nar-
rative a space in proportion to the labor and the
anxiety it cost us. The peculiar character of
that outfit might well have caused some speculation
in the minds of those whom we met by the way.
Few would probably have guessed from our appear-
ance that we were a company of youth on our way
to drink at those fountains of knowledge ojjened by
our ancestors in the land of our birth, five
hundred miles away. Our mode of traveling was
not new, and it already had the name "ride and tie."
Our wagon could only furnish seats for two, and our
horse must not be overtaxed. Two of us drove three
or four miles, tied the horse by the road side, and
walked on. The others walked till they came to the
horse and in their turn rode three or four miles, pass-
ing the first two on the way. Thus the days passed.
There was not much danger that the horse and vehi-
cle would be stolen; for tramps were rare in those
days, and besides, our turnout was not very tempt-
ing to thieves. The first Sabbath was spent in Erie,
Penn. We passed through the site of Buffalo with-
out suspecting that the mouth of that little creek
marked the future location of a beautiful city. The
second Sabbath we rested at Geneva, N. Y., where
my mother's brother, Cyrus Tanner, resided.

73

74 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

Though our coming was a surprise, he and his
family received their "backwoods" cousins very
kindly. We attended with them the First Presby-
terian Church, a beautiful structure, and greatly en-
joyed the preaching of their pastor, Rev. Dr. Axtell.
We spent the third Sabbath at Canaan, N. Y., only
a short distance from Canaan, Conn., from which
place friend Wright's father had emigrated to Ohio,
and where also Silas Beckley, the husband of my
mother's sister Lydia, resided. As we stopped on
Monday at my aunt's door our vehicle and its pas-
sengers excited no small wonder; and though our
coming was not entirely unexpected we were not at
first recognized by our relatives. On giving our
names we were joyfully welcomed, and there we re-
mained several weeks before continuing our journey
toward New Haven. My uncle and aunt, gravely
questioning the wisdom of our plans and doubting
whether two boys just from the back woods could really
be fitted for college, proposed to place us for the two
months and a half intervening before the opening of
the fall term under the instruction of their pastor, a
graduate of Yale, that he might assist us in supply-
ing deficiencies. We distrusted ourselves, and glad-
ly accepted the proposition. Our studies were re-
sumed immediately and continued till within two or
three weeks of the opening of the term.

Our vehicle then conveyed us to Warren, which
was about twenty miles on the direct road to New
Haven. The emotions that filled my heart on return-
ing to the scenes of my youth can never be forgotten
or described. I lived my childhood over again
that day. That Friday afternoon (the next Sabbath

OUR PILGRIMAGE 76

being the communion) was the time for the "Pre-
paratory Lecture." As we drove along the principal
street of the town we recognized nearly all the faces
of those returning from the lecture. Even those who
had changed much, like ourselves, we knew by their
family resemblances. We were recognized by no
one. We were like j^neas entering into Carthage
under the cloud in which Venus had involved him.

" Infert se septus nebula, mirabile dictu.
Per medios, miscetque viris: neque cernitur uUi."

We drove directly to what had been from my ear-
liest recollection the home of my grandmother, where
my loved uncle, Joseph A. Tanner, then lived.

We were admitted as strangers, and though every
face was as familiar to us as those we had left at the
cabin home, no one recognized us till we made our-
selves known. Then we were received as lost sons
returned. To have left a childhood home at eleven
years of age, and to return to it after distant wander-
ings at seventeen, is an impressive experience. The
vivid recognition of familiar faces and objects fills
one with a strange delight. Every hill and valley,
every stone by the roadside, is charged with some
sweet memory of " long, long ago," and of the loved
ones who hallowed those years.

The past seemed to have taken possession of the
present, and we were boys again. To this almost
perfect restoration of the j)ast, there was one very
striking exception. While the minutest objects were
recognized and everything seemed set in its true re-
lations, the scale of the whole scene was greatly re-
duced. Nothing was so long or so broad or so high
as imagination had conceived. What was seen was

76 - JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

but a miniature of wliat was remembered. The hill
had been dwarfed. The plain at its top had been
shortened. The bowlder had been diminished in size.
All our ideas of distance and magnitude are relative.
To an infant, the journey across the room seems long.
When he can walk all over the house his first impres-
sions are corrected. When we have only ranged the
streets of our native town, and have climbed its hills
and explored its valleys with the short steps of early
boyhood, our conceptions of its extent are in har-
mony with the mental vision of childhood. But with
larger observation the horizon expands, and hills,
mountains and plains are judged by a new standard.
A similar change takes place in our estimate of time.
How slowly the moments come and go in our child-
hood. The middle age days are as hours. To old
age years are as months, and the world grows small
as we prejDare to leave it. The distance from the
earth to the planet Neiitune may, in some future
time, appear to us no greater than that from New
York to London does now.

The short interval before the opening of the
term was spent in visiting dear friends, and in mak-
ing pre^jaration for our new life. My warmdiearted
uncle Josejih, gladly furthered our plans and under-
took to convey us to New Haven in his own vehicle.
When at last we were on our way the three boys were
under no ordinary excitement, and my staid and
sober uncle was almost equally moved. Such a load
he had never before carried to New Haven, The
day was fair and the hills and valleys of Connecticut
were radiant with soft October sunlight. Well do I
remember our first view of salt water, and the feeling

OUR PILGRIMAGE 77

it awakened, as suddenly on reaching the top of a
ridge we caught sight of Long Island Sound
stretching far away in the distance. Just as the
evening shadows were beginning to fall we drove
down Elm Street, turned into College Street, and
passed in front of the row of buildings somewhat
resembling barracks, which then furnished a home
for Yale College. Excitement rose to fever heat.
That was our Mecca: our pilgrimage was ended We
turned down Chapel Street and took our lodging for
the night at a very unpretending " Inn" on the left
hand side of Chapel, just below the corner of
Church Street. My uncle saw the good, fatherly
President Day that evening and told him what sort
of a load he had brought to market. The president
gave him kindly encouragement, and directed us to
Ijresent ourselves for examination at nine o'clock the
next morning.

The examination proved that we really did know
something of the Latin and Greek languages, but
the test did not seem to us very severe. It lasted
perhaps an hour, and then we were informed of our
admission to the Freshman class. We were happy
lads. Having learned the dining hours, and by what
door to enter the dining hall, we were admitted to
such provisions as Yale supplied both for soul and
body. As all the college rooms had been engaged,
we found a small room not far away which we could
occupy till a vacancy should occur. My uncle depos-
ited our few effects in our room, and now, as he had
seen us fully entered as college students, he left us
with a light heart. If, as I believe, the petitions of the
devout avail with God, I owe much to that crood uncle's

78 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

prayers. If it should seem to any of my readers that
my enthusiasm to obtain an education at Yale Col-
lege was excessive, my reply is that the institution
proved all that I had fervently anticipated. There
is nothing in my life to which I look back
with more entire approbation than the journey thus
ended at New Haven. Yale, or some other college
very much like it, was an indisi^ensable condition of
my entering any career in which I could have used
for the good of my fellow=men the talents, great or
small, which God gave me.

As I have intimated, my first college experience
was eating dinner. I was about to say it was in the
old College Commons. That would have been a mis-
take, for in the language of the time it was at the
New College Commons. The old one was a one
story building which had become too small for the
purpose and was now used as a laboratory by Profes-
sor Benj. Silliman. The New Commons was a rather
comely edifice, the upper story of which long con-
tained the "cabinet of minerals." It consisted of
two large dining halls, with a stairway between them,
leading down to a large basement kitchen. The
Seniors and the Sophomores occupied the south
room, and the Freshmen and Juniors the north room.
Three times a day these two halls were densely
packed with about three hundred students. At the
ringing of the old college bell at one o'clock I joined
the crowd that was pressing toward the door leading
to the Freshman tables. For a day or two each one was
allowed to find his own seat. On a platform against
the wall, and raised high enough to overlook us all,
was a small table at which two or three persons look-

OUR PILGRIMAGE 79

ing not much older but a great deal more dignified
than the rest of us, took their seats. They were tutors-
Soon one of them struck two or three smart blows on
the table with the handle of his knife, and at the signal
all rose in their places while a tutor invoked the di-
vine blessing in a few words. We then took our
seats again, when a wonderful clatter of knives and
forks began. What a contrast this was to dinner in
the dear old cabin at home. There was a sudden
pause in the clatter, followed by a loud outburst of
laughter. A tall figure of very singular appearance
had just entered the door. He was as youthful as
the rest of us but his hair was as white as the driven
snow. His complexion was also wonderfully white,
until astonished at the sensation he had caused, he
blushed deeply as he hastened to a vacant chair.
His dress indicated that he was from the country,
though the costume was not half so rustic as my
own. That man bore the now long-honored name of
John P. Cowles. He had his revenge upon us for
that rudeness, for on the day of our graduation he
delivered the valedictory.

That group of students was a strange medley. The
families of merchant princes of New York, Boston
and Philadelphia; of aristocratic cotton planters; of
harddianded New England farmers; of Ohio back-
woodsmen, and even the humblest sons of daily toil
were there, sitting at the same tables. However dis-
tasteful this might be to many, there was no help for
it. Those who wished to be educated at Yale, the
Alma Mater of so many distinguished men, where
the name of John C. Calhoun of South Carolina was
still held in honor as a favorite pupil of Dr. Dwight,

80 • JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

were compelled to accept tliis indiscriminate inter-
mingling of the rich and the poor. Yale College in
1822 was the most democratic portion of American
society.

A question will here naturally suggest itself. How
was I, with my confessedly meager resources, to be
admitted at once into such a boardingdiouse? Our
venerable mother Yale, had some peculiar ways in
dealing with her numerous family of boys. She took
into consideration the iDeculiar conditions and
needs of each student, and did not treat all exactly
alike. She kindly permitted me to enjoy the good
things of her dining rooms and her halls of instruc-
tion with the full understanding that I would pay my
way as fast as I could. None of her bills were due
till the end of the term. I was then expected to pay
what I could and give my note for the rest. From
those students who had abundant resources a bond*
with responsible endorsement was required, covering
the full amount of the indebtedness each would be
likely to incur in the whole four year's course, while
from those who, like myself, had no money and in a
business way no credit, no security was required but
a personal note with evidence of a disposition to pay
as fast as possible. In further evidence of Yale's
liberality I will mention that I several times found
credit in my term bills which rejDresented no pay-
ments by myself into the treasury. This very un-
usual and liberal system seems to have worked well
in my case. It enabled me to continue in college,
which would otherwise have been impossible. And
in the end I paid all charges made against me on
the college books, both principal and interest. The

OUR PILGRIMAGE 81

generous treatment received from the Yale author-
ities I shall hold in lifelong grateful remembrance.

I will not pass without honorable mention the aid
received from the American Education Society. I
made early ax^plication for its assistance, and quar-
terly appropriations were kindly forwarded during
the first three years of my life in college. My college
course would scarcely have been possible without it.
During the most of my Senior year, and throughout
my seminary studies, I voluntarily dispensed with
Society aid, though not without a severe struggle. I
felt so keenly the difficulties inseparable from a proper
administering of charitable funds, and the complica-
tions which often arise in distinguishing the worthy
from the unworthy, that I chose to be independent.
But who will ever know what that declaration of inde-
pendent cost in personal sacrifices? Perhaps the
''perfect system" for aiding young men and young-
women in preparing for the life struggle has not even
yet been discovered. It is sometimes said that " We
weaken Christian character by bestowing too much
aid." No such mistake was made in my case. The
aid generously given me was not too abundant. All
that I received from that source was not sufficient to
pay my board. It is certainly very difficult to so bestow
aid upon struggling humanity as not to pauperize it.
We are trying to solve this problem on an immense
scale in our public school system. May that attemjpt
not prove a sad and disastrous failure! With the un-
bounded kindness and generous assistance received,
my whole college and theological seminary life was
one long struggle with the "res angustae domus." Yet
I am by no means sure that that struggle was not

82 JULIAN M. STUETEVANT

eminently salutary, or that it could have been made
less severe except to my disadvantage. I have great
faith in that divine Providence which adapted the con-
ditions of my training to the work I was to do. Surely
the conditions of my childhood and youth were well
fitted to train me for a life of patient endurance. I
might have been quite willing to have dispensed with
much of that discipline, but my heavenly Father an-
derstood the case better than I did.

CHAPTER V.

LIFE IN COLLEGE.

A picture of that assemblage at prayers on the first
evening of my college life might perhaps interest more
recent graduates. We were gathered in the old, old
Chapel, not the one which was abandoned when Bat-
tell was consecrated, but the still older one that must
have come down from Revolutionary times and was
abandoned in 1824. It occupied the lower stories of
the building since known as the Athenseum.

The pulpit, situated on the west side of the room,
was very high and was hexagonal in shape, as was
also the sounding=board over it. The room was en-
tered from the front by a single door. The seats were
in parallel rows fronting a central aisle, which ex-
tended from the door to the pulpit. The ground floor
was occupied by the Seniors, the Sophomores and the
Juniors, the Freshmen being accomodated in the gal-
leries that projected from three sides of the room.
Yale had at that time about 850 students. When all
were assembled the little chapel seemed densely
packed from floor to ceiling. While the last bell was
ringing the president entered, when all arose and the
Senior class, occupying the seats fronting the aisle,
bowed resiDCctfuUy, and the bow was very gracefully
returned. I cherish in pleasant memory these mani-
festations of respect to persons rendered venerable by
age or honored by official station, and regard their

83

84 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

gradual disappearance from American life with pro-
found regret. At evening prayers, a tutor briefly
invoked a blessing, read a short portion of Scripture,
announced a hymn to be sung by the excellent choir,
and then offered prayer. This simijle service being
ended the president descended from the pulpit, the
students remaining quietly in their places till he
passed down the aisle, he receiving and returning the
obeisance of the Senior class as on entering, Then
the crowd closed behind him, and the students re-
paired to the dining'hall for supper. The study hours
were from seven till nine, during which period every
student was expected to be in his room deeply engaged
in work, an expectation, however, not always realized.
Morning prayers differed from the evening service
only in the absence of singing. In this service, the
tutor of the day read the Scri^Dtures, and the presi-
dent offered the prayer. Morning prayers and the
recitation which immediately followed preceded
breakfast. It is wonderful that this monastic cus-
tom survived so long in our American colleges. I
was always punctual in attendance u^Don these early
exercises, but it was impossible for me to derive any
benefit from them. It was simply a matter of endur-
ance.

The course of instruction in Yale from 1822 to
1826 would now be regarded as very faulty and inade-
quate; yet it did exert a great and salutary influence
over the student. It accomplished admirably certain
ends in the development of mind, and those ends can-
not be ignored in our present improved methods with-
out irreparable injury. Its power lay in its fixed and
rigidly prescribed curriculum, and in its thorough

LIFE IX COLLEGE 85

drill. For the first three years of the course the work
of instruction was chiefly done by the tutors. These
were generally recent graduates who had attained
high distinction in their several classes, and had not
yet entered on the professional careers to which most
of them were destined. Each class was separated by
lot into two or three equal divisions, each under the
care of a tutor. My own class was the first one
thought large enough to require three divisions.
Each tutor generally met his division three times
daily. Of course if the tutor were thoroughly capa-
ble it was no misfortune to pursue all the several
branches under one instructor; but if he were incom-
petent or inefficient his pupils suffered correspond-
ingly.

The tutors were, however, generally excellent drilh
masters. They could hardly be said to teach at all,
their duties being to subject every pupil three times
a day to so searching a scrutiny before the whole
division as to make it apjDarent to himself and all his
fellows either that he did or did not understand his
le.csons. In the course of the recitation the tutor
would furnish needed explanations and put those
who were trying to improve in a way to do better
next time. It was considered no part of his duty to
assist his jjupils in prej)aring for recitation. In that
task the pupil was expected to be entirely self=reliant.

Soon after entering college I made an experiment
which showed my ignorance of this system, and
taught me a salutary but not very agreeable lesson.

One of the studies of the first term was arithmetic,
the text book being exceedingly difficult and ab-
struse. In our examination for admission arithmetic

86 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

was not mentioned, and I knew very little of it,
having taken it np only at odd intervals by myself,
as curiosity prompted. One day I found my lesson
utterly ineompreliensible, and in great trouble I went
to the tutor for help. He bowed me out of his room,
telling me that it was not customary in Yale to help
a student in his lessons until after the recitation.
You may be sure that I never again tried that exper-
iment. My friend Wright was already an arithme-
tician, and as soon as he knew my perplexity he very
kindly gave me his assistance. But when he ac-
cepted an ofifer to teach a New London school for
three months, that prop fell out from under me.
While accompanying him to the stage=ofRce, I told
him very seriously that I should probably not be in
college when he returned on account of my miserable
scholarship. His ridicule did not insi^ire me. Still
I thought it advisable to make one desj)erate effort to
walk alone. I did so, and finished arithmetic with
credit.

Let me say here that I do not regret the limited
time given to arithmetic in my early childhood. I
understood arithmetic far better when I had finished
that treatise at Yale than I should have done had it
been jDart of my daily bread for seven years of my
boyhood, in accordance with our j^resent public
school system. In these days i)upils are often
wearied with arithmetic before the process of mental
development has rendered it possible for them to \\i\-
derstand it, and similar abuses exist as to many other
branches. We exhaust the youthful energies by im-
pertinent interference with nature's processes, and
waste the resources of the taxpayers by legislative

LIFE in COLLEGE 87

appropriations to meet the requirements of a "sys-
tem" directly at variance with the laws that govern
mind. A child's mental development can no more
be hurried than that of growing corn. If the sugars
corn in my garden is not ripe enough for the table,
I discover the fact after I have torn open the husks
in a few cases and examined the kernels, and I leave
it to grow. We are less wise with our children, and
excuse our folly by claiming that we cannot wait till
they have reached twelve or fifteen years of age
before teaching them the science of numbers. Time
is just as indispensable in developing the ideas of
number and quantity as in bringing to perfection the
kernels of corn. The idea of unity is a profound ab-
straction and cannot be imparted until the mind
reaches a certain stage of development.

The stern discipline of Yale College was of great
importance to us all. It made us feel the necessity
of bringing our full strength to our daily tasks. It
increased the zeal and earnestness of the diligent,
and made the strong stronger. It comj)elled the slow
and inert to j)ut forth all their energies. If they
failed to do so, or lacked the capacity necessary to
master such a curriculum, it soon taught them what
it was important for them to learn as quickly as pos-
sible, that college was no place for them. There can
be no greater mistake than to suppose that everyone
who is to fill an imxDortant place in the world should
be sent to one. There are millions who are capable
of living eminently honorable and useful lives to
whom a collegiate education is neither desirable nor
beneficial. Colleges should afPord the best possible
preparation for those adapted to a professional or

88 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

literary career. It is desirable that the preparatory
school or the college should weed out those pupils who
are not adajDted to pursuits demanding the j)ower of
sustained and independent logical thinking. For their
own good they should be led by another road to other
callings, equally honorable and not less important to
the welfare of society. Our children should be
trained for the pursuits to which they are adapted.

I cannot forbear giving an incident which illus-
trates, from my own experience, the effect of college
discipline. When we had finished arithmetic and
commenced algebra, I resolved never again to be
caught napping. My other tasks were easy and
consumed but little time. Determined to succeed in
algebra, I kept considerably in advance of the class
that I might have time to wrestle with special diffi-
culties. This custom I maintained through my whole
mathematical course. I was nearly a month in ad-
vance of the recitations, when I came upon a very
difficult problem to which I resolved to appropriate
the next Saturday halfdioliday. Immediately after
dinner that day I was seated at my table, problem in
hand, and during the whole afternoon I toiled without
making any perceptible progress. The sun went
down. That was the signal for laying aside all secu-
lar studies for at sunset Sabbath commenced. Algebra,
slate and pencil, were laid aside, and the usual arrange-
ments made for employing the evening religiously.
But the problem had taken full possession of me. Do
what I would, read what I might, thatproplem assert-
ed itself. My conscience protested and rebelled in
vain. That problem would not down. There it was
in the foreground and in the foreground it would stay.

LIFE IX COLLEGE 89

At the usual time I extinguished my light, retired and
slej)t, but only to dream of the problem. Saljbath
morning came and I prepared to spend the Sabbath
as usual, religiously, but there was nothing in my
mind but that jDroblem. At the customary hour I
repaired to the chapel to engage in public worship
and hear one of the always able and often brilliant
sermons of Prof. Eleazar T. Fitch. But for me, se-
verely as my conscience was condemning it, nothing
was interesting but algebra. In the course of the
sermon the solution ^3 resented itself as clear as sun-
light. I was at ease and lighthearted for the rest of
the day, for I was sure that so clear a solution could
not escaj)e my memory. As soon as the sun set, Sab-
bath was over, and I committed my solution to writ-
ing, though I was far enough from being satisfied
with my Sabbath work.

The severity of this drill was in some degree relaxed
during the Junior year. The more severe parts of
the course in mathematics were completed during the
first two years, and a portion of the time of the third
year was given to an excellent course of exp)eri mental
lectures on mechanics and physics, and to the lec-
tures and other*instructious of the j)rofessor of rhet-
oric. During the Senior year the class was entirely
under the instruction of the j)resident and the pro-
fessors. It is in this part of the course that the
greatest improvements have been made in these latter
years. So far as the knowledge of chemical science
then extended, the lectures on chemistry by Prof.
Benj. Silliman, Sr., could hardly have been better. I
have said that the tutors could scarcely be said to
teach. Prof. Silliman was pre-eminently a teacher.

90 JULIAN M. STUR TEVANT

Step by step he led us to irresistible conclusions,
demonstrating the truths of his utterances by emi-
nently successful experiments. He quickened thought
and stimulated investigation.

Certainly the Yale of that day was far from being
all it might have been. The tutors were good drilh
masters, but they often lacked culture and the true
literary spirit. They did not bring their students as
they might have done into sympathy with classic
authors as models of literary excellence. The jDrofes-
sor of the Latin and the Greek languages, Prof. James
L. Kingsley, seldom lectured, but often instructed his
classes in certain favorite authors. He once taught
our class, and at the end of the lesson as he closed
his book, he said, " Young gentlemen, you read Latin
horribly and translate it worse." In another instance
he astonished us while closing a series of readings of
Tacitus Agricola, by saying, " Young gentlemen, you
have been reading one of the noblest productions of
the human mind without knowiiig it." We might
justly have retorted to these severe and perhaps de-
served rebukes, "Whose fault is it?" In mental,
moral and social science our instruction was far from
satisfactory. Nor am I sure that we have very greatly
improved upon it since then. It seems to me that
we yet lack any treatises on these subjects which at
all meet the demands of the present time for philo-
sophic inquiry. I confess that I resign my own hum-
ble connection with instruction with a painful con-
sciousness of a great unsupplied want. No justice has
yet been done to the intuitional nature of the rational
soul. In a word, in sxoite of drawbacks, I am forced
to say that from 1822 to 1 826 Yale was probably do-

LIFE IN COLLEGE 91

ing better work than any other college in our country.
It had an excellent system of drill, which it ought
never to relinquish or relax unless it resigns that j^art
of a liberal education to some other equally able and
thorough institution. But the Yale of 1S26 would by
no means meet the present demand for liberal culture
and acquisition.

The moral and religious influences to which I was
subjected in college were in some respects strongly
analogous to the intellectual, as I have just described
them. The pupil, often young and inexperienced
and surrounded by conditions of life so strange that
he hardly dared think for himself or to speak above a
whisi^er, was thrown at once upon his own moral re-
sources with scarcely any help from without, He
would thus acquire great moral strength or be over-
borne by the current of evil. One of the greatest
faults of Yale at that time was the absence of any so-
cial relations between the instructors of all grades and
the students. Professors and tutors held themselves
aloof from the students and met them only in an
official capacity. For the most part a student could
hope for sympathy and help in his moral and religious
struggles only from his fellow students. Something
like half of the undergraduates were j^rofessing Chris-
tians, and a very large proportion of these were firm
and consistent in that profession. Among those who
had little conviction or feeling, I am happy to say
that a considerable number were always pure in their
morals and free from sympathy with vice. It must,
however, be owned that a considerable number were
dissipated and licentious, and that those whose moral
convictions were feeble were in circumstances of great

92 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

temptation. There was a perpetual conflict between
forces in alliance with virtue and those in sympathy
with vice, and in res^Dect to certain individuals it long
seemed doubtful whether good or evil would prevail-

Preaching has always been a power for good in
Yale. At this time Eleazar T. Fitch was Professor of
Divinity and College Preacher. For the most part
he had no personal intercourse with the students, but
as a preacher he had great influence. The statutes
of the college required that he should in the course
of each successive four years deliver to the students
in the chapel a full course of lectures on theology.
These occupied onehalf of each Sabl^ath. It must
be admitted that such lectures had not much tendency
to edify a body of young men like those who made
up his audiences, but the discourse for the other half
of the day was practical, and these ever served to
strengthen the religious convictions and moral j^ur-
poses of the students.

Preaching was not confined to these Sabbath
services. Practical discourses of great value were
occasionally delivered on other evenings of the week.
Though attendance upon these was voluntary, the
chapel was usually well filled. There were three men
whose discourses on these occasions left on my mind
a strong and delightful impression. They were Prof.
Nathaniel W. Taylor, D. D., of tlie department of
Didactic Theology, Prof. Chancey A. Goodrich,
of the department of Rhetoric, and Rev. Thos.
H. Skinner, D. D., who, though he did not reside
at New Haven was a frequent visitor there. When
I call to mind what preaching did in my time
for the students at Yale I cannot help thinking that

LIFE IN COLLEGE 93

any educator whose views of religion furnish nothing
that can be used in the way of preaching to strengthen
students in the paths of righteousness and guard
them from the seductions of vice, ought to suspect
that there is more in religion than he has yet seen.
A religious system which cannot be used for the
salvation of young men amid the temptations of
college life, is shallow and false. It is a religion from
which the Lord has been taken away. A few months
before Dr. Skinner's death I had the pleasure of
meeting him at the house of Dr. Thayer at Newport,
R. I. and of telling him how precious the memory of
those sermons had ever been to me.

During the whole of my life in college the Friday
evening i3rayer=meeting was kept up and was gener-
ally well attended. It was indisj)ensable to the
maintenance of our religious life. In it we recorded
each week our adhesion to Christ, and revived our
consciousness of religious obligation and of the sacred
fraternity which bound us together. Here, as in all
the previous conditions of my religious life, I knew
nothing of sect. The college church with which most
of us were connected was to us only the Church of
Christ in Yale College. It represented to us only the
great brotherhood of Christ. There was no general
religious awakening in college during my student
life, though many individuals were converted and
publicly professed their faith in Christ. Few of those
among my classmates who were borne down by the
current of vice lived to reach middle life. Of those
who passed that goal, there were very few who did
not before that time become decidedly and openly
Christians. Our class gatherings in these latter

94 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

years, though well attended, have been as devout as
prayer=meetings. We sing together with almost equal
fervor patriotic songs and evangelic hymns.

During my college life there was a period in which
the government and internal discipline of the institu-
tion were in a state of singular disorder; I might even
say of anarchy. Hazing and all its attendant mean-
nesses were astonishingly prevalent. The evil seemed
to threaten the very foundation of the institution.
One Saturday evening in November we heard above
the noise of a very violent northeast storm a sharp,
shrill whistle, the ordinary signal for mischief, and
the next instant a crash accomjpanied by the abundant
ring of broken glass. My roofn was in South Middle
College, south entry, front side, corner room. We
hastened down stairs and found all three windows in
the middle suite of rooms below completely demol-
ished, both glass and sash entirely gone. One of the
occupants of the rooms, thus violently thrown open
to the storm, was Horace Bushnell, since well known
to fame. His birthplace was on the hills of Litdifield
County, only a few miles from our own, and he ac-
ceiDted our freely-offered but rather scant hospitality
for the Sabbath . The rascals escaped in the darkness
and storm, and were, as far as I know, never detected.

The fall term of the college year, 1823-24 was
marked by great disturbances and many deeds of
violence, as well as by the notorious fact that a con-
siderable number of the students were dissipated and
licentious. The acts of violence were no doubt the
work of a very few, while a much larger number had
more or less sympathy with them. As I think of it
at this distance, it seems almost incredible that the

LIFE IN COLLEGE 95

body of the students should have been so deeply
imbued with the spirit of hostility to the college
government. This was largely owing to the fact I
have stated of there being no bonds of j)ersonal
affection between the instructors and the students.
In this state of things it was easy for the dissolute
and the wicked to maintain a public opinion which
regarded it as in the highest degree dishonorable to
give information against any fellow student, no
matter what crime he might commit or what evil
consequences might result from his vices. The per-
petrators of all this mischief governed the college
with a terrorism seldom surpassed. I knew nothing
that I could have communicated to the authorities if
I had desired to do so. The rogues were not likely
to admit me into their counsels. But I felt that the
wicked bore rule, and my soul had a longing for tran-
quillity and social order which no words could express.
My brother preferred to sjDend the vacation of two
weeks which occurred about Christmas at college. I
gladly availed myself of an opi)ortunity, and spent a
delightful fortnight in the tranquil homes of my loving
kindred at Warren. The days passed all too soon, and
I must return to the turmoils of student life. Reach-
ing my room in the early evening twilight I found
there my brother and my friend Wright. I dropped
into a chair and almost without saying a word gave
vent to my feelings in an outflow of tears, more
suitable to my childhood than to that manhood for
which I had need to gird myself. A few moments
passed in that unmanly way relieved me, and I
returned to my usual cheerfulness and devotion to
study.

96 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

Our room was separated from the chapel only by a
narrow, open space. One night we were startled
from our slumbers by a frightful explosion. At six
o'clock on a chill, cloudy, winter morning, the bell
summoned us to prayers in the chapel. But what a
wreck did we behold ! The exj^losion had been produced
by a large package of gunpowder wrapped in a strong
paper and tightly wound with twine. A small bel-
lows=nose had been inserted for the touch-hole, and
this connected with a fuse, which on being fired
would leave time for the escape of the villains from
the building. The powder was placed between the
communion table and the pul^Dit. Every pane of
glass in the chapel was shattered. The white pulpit
was blackened with smoke to its very top, and the
communion table was reduced to kindling wood.
The chill winter air rushed through the room without
obstruction. The last bell was ringing, and the Pres-
ident entered. His demeanor on that occasion was
most characteristic. From the moment he entered
the chapel till he left it no one could have discovered
by any word he spoke, or any gesture or move-
ment of a muscle of his face, or even any tremor of
his voice that he was conscious of what had hap-
pened. Services were performed in every respect
just as usual. It was perfect self=government. To
my youthful taste, however, it was self government
misapx^lied. I would rather have witnessed a little
thunder and lightning on the occasion. I thought
it was called for.

Immediately after prayers four persons met at our
room: the two occupants of the room, our friend
Wright, and Wyllys Warner, afterwards treasurer of

LIFE IN COLLEGE 97

the college. We were of one mind. This could be
endured no longer There was a term of reproach
and ignominy which was freely applied to anyone
suspected of reporting to the authorities. It was the
custom to call him a " Blue Skin," and no one who
was not in Yale College at the time, can have any con-
ception of the peculiar sting which the term carried.
We decided to disarm that scorpion. We solemnly
pledged ourselves to each other to communicate to
the authorities every violation of the order of the col-
lege of which we could get any information. We
called our league " The Blue Skin Club." With
such a name and such an aim, we determined to in-
crease the membership as fast as possible. We com-
municated our plan first to those of whose approba-
tion and co-operation we were sure. Thus we widened
the circle cautiously but rapidly, till in a short time
we had about a hundred pledged to co=operation,
without having communicated our plan to anyone not
in sympathy with us.

Then the secret came out, and the whole institu-
tion became a boiling caldron. But the work did
not stop, for in a few days a large majority of the
students were members of the Blue Skin Club. The
minority resolved on vengeance. One evening three
ruffianly fellows visited our room with the pur-
pose of chastising us. Their plan was known to our
friends who assembled in neighboring rooms in suffi-
cient numbers to protect us from harm, and as soon
as the altercation began we outnumbered the mis-
creants three to one. A heavy cane raised by one of
the enemy was quickly seized from behind by a
friendly hand, and the ruffians were ordered peremp-

98 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

torily to leave the room. Hesitating, they were fol-
lowed to the stairs by many feet, and warned that un-
less they hastened their steps their descent was likely
to be inconveniently accelerated. The outrage was
immediately reported to the authorities, and the of-
fenders were summoned before them and summarily
dismissed from the college. A meeting was called to
express the sympathy of the class for our fellow stu-
dents under censure from the " tyrannical govern-
ment " of the college. A stormy scene followed, but
the verdict was overwhelmingly on the side of right.
In that meeting no tongue was more potent than that
of Elizur Wright. His remarkable i")ower of sarcasm
and ridicule was effectively employed in behalf of
righteousness.

In a very few days the excitement died out,
and tranquillity reigned. The moral and Christian
principle of the students saved the college. Yet it
was several weeks before the apprehension of further
outrages sufficiently subsided to make it safe in our
judgment to suspend the oi:)eration of our organiza-
tion, or omit the nightly watch which we had
maintained during the struggle. One result of those
experiences was that a band of men who have since
stood shoulder to shoulder in many a moral conflict,
learned to trust each other. Most of them have now
passed from earthly battlefields to the triumphant
host on the other side of the " dark river."

One other circumstance ought not to be omitted.
On the SabT)ath following the great outrage at the
college chapel, Prof. Fitch i^reached his celebrated
sermon from the text: " Have no fellowship with the
unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove

LIFE IN COLLEGE 99

them." Napoleon's address to his troops at the bat-
tle of the iDyramids was not more thrilling and ef-
fective than that sermon. Its impressiveness can
hardly be understood without some further explana-
tion of the x^eculiar atmosphere which surrounded us.
The lack of personal intercourse between instructors
and students in those times now seems almost incred-
ible. When we met a professor or a tutor in the
open air we were required to raise our hats, but any
attempt to address him would have been accounted
an extreme rudeness and would have been sternly re-
pulsed. There was one tutor who would sometimes
take a student as a companion in his walks, but it
was well understood that his exceptional course was
distasteful to his fellow tutors and not apx^roved by
the professors. On the other hand, a student seen in
any such unusual intimacy, would l^ecome an object
of suspicion to his fellows. Of course the college
government could have no student allies.

In the time of which I am writing, Yale was the
favorite college of the southern planters. From the
days of John C. Calhoun, almost to the war of the re-
bellion, the number of southern students was large,
though it greatly diminished in the latter part of that
period. I would not speak harshly of these gentle-
men as a class. Among them were men of gentle-
manly accomplishments and pure morals, but it must
be admitted that the atmosphere of a southern planta-
tion was not favorable to the training of youth in
habits of self government. Southern students often
showed, that the close relations with the sons of small
farmers and mechanics in which they found them-
selves, were very distasteful to them. Another liter-

100 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

ary society had recently been added to the two al-
ready existing: the " Linonian," and " Brothers in
Unity"; which two, dating back to Revolutionary
times, had formerly divided the students nearly
equally between them. This third society " left New
England out in the cold," being composed mostly of
Southerners, and admitting none from north of New
York City. It naturally exerted some influence to
separate southern and northern students and to
create a feud among them. To us, it seemed that the
southern faction disliked especially, that part of the
northern students who made no secret of the fact
that their resources were limited, they being in some
cases paid for waiting on their fellows at the
table, and for ringing the college bell to summon
them to early prayers. It was hard for them to rec-
ognize these northern men as equals, and to see
them frequently bear otf the highest college honors
was almost too much for human endurance. Of
course these haters of honest toil were a unit against
the college government, and almost indiscriminately
they condemned the poorer students as its servile
tools.

In the series of events just recorded, the facts
seemed to justify their prejudices. The insurrection
against that terrorism by which they and their north-
ern allies were threatening the very foundations of
the college, had originated with the " Mudsills " of
northern society. This circumstance greatly inten-
sified the contest, and drove the defeated party to
desiDeration. Were not the events here described
premonitions of the Great Rebellion ? Even in
1824 no student in Yale College could make an utter-

LIFE IN COLLEGE 101

ance against the wrongs of slavery in a college essay
or oration without incurring the risk of insult and
even of violence.

The cities of New England were at this early time
.much corrupted and domineered over by the arrogant
spirit of slaveholders. Schools and colleges, manu-
facturers and merchants, were bidding for southern
patronage. Hotels and boarding houses sought sum-
mer boarders from the sunny South. Parents of
beautiful and well educated daughters were glad to
see them married- to planters. All these things in-
creased southern pride, and made Yale College a dif-
ficult place for one like myself. How necessary to
our country, and to civilization as well, was the ex-
termination of African slavery in America. It was
not an easy thing for the liunil)le and obscure trio who
had left Tallmadge in circumstances so unpromising
about a year and a half before, to occupy such a j)o-
sition as we did in that conflict. We did not thrust
ourselves into it. We were placed there by our
principles and the providence of God. He placed us
in it and sustained us in it, and to Him be the praise.

The rivalry for college honors, which was very in-
tense in those days, had great influence on my col-
lege life and on the formation of my character. I
have often doubted whether it was on the whole for
good, but my conviction now is that it was decidedly
beneficial. It was, however, like almost everything
else which I encountered in college, a severe proba-
tion to me. It called my powers into more perfect
exercise, and strengthened my moral principles by
temptation overcome. I think, by the grace of God,
that I did keep my excited ambition in subjection to

102 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

my j)rinciples. The desire for college distinction
took stronger hold upon me because, previous to en-
tering college, my inferiority in all contests with
those of my own age had greatly discouraged and de-
pressed me. Here, in the pursuit of those highly
dignified and honorable ends which had called us to-
gether, I could maintain a fair equality with the fore-
most comx^etitors. I had entered a new world in
which I need not be a weakling, and it is not to be
wondered at that a fresh element of hopefulness came
into my life, and that I devoted myself to my studies
with an ardor which was in some degree exceptional.
I felt that success would promote my future useful-
ness. Heretofore, I had been outdone by everyone
and I resolved that hereafter I would not, if I could
help it, be outdone by anyone. The first assignment
of college honors w^as then made at the close of the
first term of the Junior year. It only designated fif-
teen of the class, five from each division, as forming
the highest grade of honor, and I was satisfied and
greatly encouraged to find my name among the fif-
teen, out of our class of more than one hundred. In
accordance with the universal custom of the time, my
brother and myself celebrated the event by placing
brandy and wine before the numerous friends who
called to ofPer their congratulations. Not to have done
so would have been universally regarded as at least un-
social; so greatly have times changed. We naturally
thought our conduct innocent, for in those days the
college servant regularly carried to the retiring=room,
adjacent to the examinationdiall, a store of choice
liquors, for the use of the instructors and the minis-
ters wdio conducted the examinations.

LIFE IN COLLEGE 103

I was not destined to pass through college in un-
interrupted peace. In February and March, 1826,
my classmate and dear friend, Reuben Hitchcock,
also from the Western Reserve, became very ill with
pneumonia. My brother was absent, having taken a
school at Goshen, Connecticut, and a considerable
share of the responsibility for the care of the invalid
fell upon me. An eiDidemic pneumonia was prevail-
ing in the city and in college. One evening I took my
X)lace by his bedside with gloomy forebodings. One
student had already died of the disease, and I feared
that my friend would be the next victim. I was
quite inexperienced in nursing, and felt almost totally
unfit for the charge I was to assume for the next
twenty^four hours. It was a terrible night. My
classmate was delirious, and constantly sought to es-
cape from the bed. The morning brought little re-
lief to him or to me, but I remained at my post till
evening, when I returned to my solitary room in a
violent chill. This was followed by a high fever,
and that by a drenching perspiration. In the morn-
ing I was found very ill with pneumonia, and was re-
moved to the home of three maiden sisters, Miller by
name, and attended by Dr. Eli Ives, the father of the
family of physicians of that name. Better nursing
and medical care were impossible. Several days
passed, of which I have no recollection except that of
distressing dreams. My life-long friend, Theron
Baldwin, in spite of roads blocked with snow, brought
my brother to my bedside. But they were obliged
to travel on horseback, and did not arrive until the
crisis had passed.

Upon the seventh day of the disease Dr. Ives, on

104 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

leaving for the night, told my friend Wright, who re-
mained by me with all the fidelity of a brother, not
to send for him if I was worse before morning, as he
could be of no use. During the night a crisis came,
with a favorable turn. Such, however, had been the
violence of the attack that for several days there was
but faint hope of my recovery. Convalescence once
established, my restoration was more rapid than could
have been reasonably exx^ected. That illness enlisted
a degree of sympathy from both instructors and
classmates that deeply affected me. Among my
classmates the bitter hostility which had contin-
ued in some minds as a result of the conflicts of 1824
was laid to rest; and some, who had been particularly
unfriendly, expressed the warmest sympathy and an
earnest desire for my recovery. By a spontaneous
movement my classmates presented me a consider-
able sum of money to lighten the pecuniary burdens
of my illness. Prof. Denison Olmstead, who had
recently succeeded to the chair of mathematics and
natural i:)liilosoi)hy, made vacant by the death of
Prof. Dutton, exhibited a deep interest in me, and a
life-long friendship was established between us. I
ought also to mention that my friend Hitchcock
speedily recovered.

Before I was able to return to my studies the spring
term ended. The beginning of my illness virtually
closed my student life in college. When the final as-
signment of college honors was made, I was permit-
ted to retain my position among the first fifteen.
Whether I should have obtained one of the three
highest honors had my sickness not interfered, of
course I cannot tell; but I was assured that I stood

LIFE IN COLLEGE 105

verj^ close to those who did obtain them, and I was sat-
isfied and thankful.

My illness conspired with several other circum-
stances to bring ujDon my brother and myself that
s^jring a financial embarrassment such as we had
never before experienced, and to create the necessity
for immediate efforts for relief. Our credit was not
impaired, but during nearly four years we had been
to some extent mortgaging the future to supply the
needs of the present. We must begin to meet these
obligations. After the May vacation of four weeks,
the summer term continued only about six weeks be-
fore the final examination, and the remaining six
weeks of the term were given, very unwisely, as I think,
to the Seniors as a time in which to prepare for
commencement. We had both hoped to secure
schools before the first of May, and to be absent from
college six weeks of the term, returning only for the
examination, as was frequently done. In this we
were disajDpointed, but Providence provided for us
better than our hopes.

CHAPTER VI.

IMPROVED FINANCES.

My illness had prevented me from seeking a situa-
tion at the most favorable time. Even when May
came, I was too weak to accept an ofiPer, had one
presented itself. When the term opened we were
both without situations. We had given up our
room in college, and had taken temporary lodgings
outside. On the first day of the term we sat in our
room depressed and very anxious. Little did I real-
ize how sunny a place Providence was preparing for
me, or how essential that place was to my future hap-
piness and usefulness. Well was it for me that I was
unemployed. As we sat looking each other in the
face, too much discouraged to form plans, and quite
destitute of material out of which to form them, a
fellow^ student entered the room with an open letter
in his hand. It was from the principal of the acad-
emy at New Canaan, Conn., stating that he found his
health quite inadequate to the work of the school,
which he had taken on the first of May. He com-
mitted to our friend, under the authority of his em-
ployers, the responsibility of securing a successor, and
mentioned five persons to whom the place might be
offered, my name being the last of the five. Three
had already declined; the fourth was not in town, and
therefore the offer came to me. The place was an ex-
cellent one, both as to respectability and compensa-

106

IMPROVED FINANCES 107

tion. My immediate predecessors in it were Milton
Badger, long the honored secretary of the A. H. M. S.,
and Theophilus Smith, afterwards pastor at New
Canaan.

It may be guessed that I did not hesitate. At two
o'clock that afternoon, with a light heart I took the
stage=coach for my destination. From New Haven
to Norwalk is thirty^one miles, in those days a jour-
ney of five hours. The stage fare was $2.50. That
same journey is now made in less than an hour at a
cost of seventy-five cents. I spent the night at an
exceedingly comfortable hotel, and in the morning
walked to New Canaan, five miles back from Norwalk.
The heartsease and youthful joyousness of that morn-
ing walk in June in the cool, tranquil air, under smil-
ing skies, over swelling hills, through green valleys
and fragrant forest resounding with the songs of birds,
beside crystal brooks murmuring in their pebbly
channels, are delightful even in the dim pictures of a
far^ofP memory. It was not so much hope for the
future as enjoyment of the present that brought hap-
piness. It was the response of a young and sensitive
spirit to the sweet influence of nature and nature's
God; a most fitting introduction to what was before
me.

I found my school a serious affair. It was unusual-
ly and unexpectedly large that summer. The pupils
were of various ages, from seven years up to maturity.
That was before the days of graded schools. Most of
the pupils were boarding scholars from the neighbor-
ing city of New York. I was the only teacher. It
was yet two months before I should be twenty-one,
and I was without experience as a teacher. Though

108 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

five feet ten inches in height. I was very slender and
pale, partly from my recent illness, and as beardless
as a maiden. I did not appear to be more than eight-
een years old. My employers must have wondered
tliat my name was even the last on the list of candi-
dates recommended for a position so important.
However they made no objections. The incumbent
kindly consented to remain two or three days, and
then I assumed entire charge. I was soon convinced
that it was impossible for a single teacher to instruct
and goverii such a school, and said so frankly to my
employers. To my great joy they at once authorized
me to procure an assistant. I sent immediately for
my brother, and in a few days had the pleasure of
welcoming him to New Canaan. He was two years
older than I, and in a^Dpearance much more than that,
and though two inches shorter, he was stronger and
more robust. He had had some exj^erience in teach-
ing, and was easy and self=possessed, while I was
timid and bashful.

It was therefore very natural that he should soon
seem the j)rincipal rather than the assistant. This
gave me increased confidence, since my ambition was
only by our joint efforts to control the school and pro-
mote the best interests of all. We were soon assured
of success. The school became so large that the pro-
prietors were fully convinced that the employment of
an assistant was a necessity, and that I had procured
an excellent one.

Memory delights to linger among those halcyon
days. My labors, though arduous, did not exhaust
me. Our debts seemed no longer formidable. My
brother drew me into society, and I was better pre-

IMPROVED FINANCES 109

pared to enjoy it than ever before. I rejoiced in the
present like a singing bird, and was full of trust and
hope for the future.

When the time arrived for the Senior examinations,
we were permitted to suspend the school for two or
three days. Taking a chaise, we drove through the
beautiful villages that lie along the Sound; passed
our examinations; heard our Latinized names read as
recommended for the degree of A. B.; and partici-
pated in the festivities of Class day, which then
occurred six weeks before the Commencement.
These festivities consisted of an elegant dinner in
the Commons Hall, with the Corporation and faculty
of instruction and government, and an oration and
looem delivered by members selected by the class.
Leaving New Haven about sunset, we drove back
over the same lovely road in the bewitching light of
a full moon, and reached our lodgings in the small
hours of the morning. How buoyant we were in
spirit they only can know who remember the joyous-
ness of youth. Such was the summer that followed
that dark and frowning spring.

New Canaan was then a country town, almost
without a village. Yet it carried on a considerable
l)usiness in the manufacture of shoes. It was as
purely a Congregational community as any in which
I had lived, the Episcopal church which had existed
there being for the time in a state of suspended
animation. Most of the people attended the Congre-
gational church, which on Sabbath morning was
filled almost to overflowing. The membership did
not, however, correspond at all with the size of the
congregation. The church had very few communis

110 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

cants under forty years of age, and yet the number of
young people in the congregation was unusually
large. This spectacle greatly moved my heart. I
deeply felt that those multitudes of youth and young
married peox^le ought to be brought to Christ.

My brother and I soon found other praying per-
sons who sympathized with us in that feeling. We
privately instituted a series of weekly meetings at
private houses, to pray for "the consolation of Israel,"
and to be continued until the blessing should appear.
At that time the only week=day service held by
public appointment in the town was the conference
that met at private houses in the different neighbor-
hoods. We were also present there as often as pos-
sible, but seldom found more than eight or ten of
the older members of the church in attendance. In-
stead of being a prayer meeting, the time was de-
voted to the discussion of the most abstruse doctrines
of Calvinism. This bill of fare was neither satisfy-
ing nor spiritually nutritious. The Rev. William
Bonney was the j)astor; a devout, good man, but at
that time quite destitute of fresh thought, and with
scarce any power to awaken the thoughts and move
the hearts of the peox)le. Those who attended church
did so chiefly from a sense of duty or as a matter of
form. I keenly felt that such an order of things, if
continued, must bring that church into desolation,
and leave the people without God in the world.
What could we do but pray for our Father's help
in such a time of need. Experience abundantly
demonstrates that the power of the Gospel over a
community cannot be maintained without a living
ministry; a ministry, capable of interpreting the

IMPROVED FINANCES 111

gospel in the language of the present, and applying
it to the wants, the dangers and the delusions of the
jjassing generation. A minister that repeats the
words of a doctrine, in the unvitalized forms of the
past is as powerless as the senseless parrot. Our
little praying circle was regularly attended, and in it
we often experienced a season of great religious fer-
vor; but for a long time there was no cloud visible
even from the top of Carmel.

Our Yale Commencement was held on the second
Wednesday of Sej)tember, and we of course sus-
pended school for a few days to attend it. The most
important event to me during those days was a ser-
mon by the Rev. Samuel H. Cox, on " The Educa-
tion of Young Men for the Christian Ministry." He
was the most brilliant among the rising pulpit
orators of the time. I had never before heard such
an overwhelming torrent of eloquence. His words
had nothing in common with the superficial sensa-
tionalism that so often curses the modern pulpit.
Profound sincerity was his most characteristic qual-
ity. He affected my mind, by the truthfulness and
grandeur of his conceptions, the fitness of his diction,
and the magnificence of his imagery. He had a most
jorofound grasp of his subject, and the keenest per-
cejition of all the analogies by which it could be
illustrated. My admiration of his genius was great;
but the most powerful effect of the sermon upon my
mind was the confirmation of my faith in the Gospel
as a means of renovating human character and win-
ning back human society to its proper allegiance to
God. It made me exult that I was a Christian, and
increased my ardor to fill some position, however

112 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

lowly, in the Christian ministry. It did not excite
my ambition. The standard of puli)it oratory which
it set before me was so high that it no more sug-
gested the thought of my becoming a great pulpit
orator, than the reading of Milton's finest passages
inspired me with an ambition to become his equal as
a x^oet. Like Niagara or an Alpine landscape, it
affected me with a simple wonder, and filled my soul
with admiration and delight. Samuel H. Cox was
not always eloquent, but he spoke at times with
almost supernatural inspiration. He afterward be-
came Dr. Cox, and it will be remembered that at first
he rejected the title almost scornfully, calling the two
D's "semidunar fardels," but after reflection he
apologized for his reply as savoring more of pride
than of Christian humility, and accepted the honor.
Whether his first or second thought was the wiser
I am not sure.

A Yale Commencement in 1826 differed very
greatly from a similar occasion in the present. It
was to the students and the outside public much
more exciting and imj)ressive. Then, as now, it was
held in the Center church. There were both morn-
ing and afternoon sessions, with the Commencement
dinner between. At each session the house was
crowded to its utmost capacity, and many half=fledged
orators were heard, or rather they spoke, for few of
them could be heard. My own subject was trite, and
my little effort had no other merit than that of a di-
rectness and force that came from earnest thinking.
In the few moments allotted for conversation before
dinner I was greatly astonished to receive a few words
of kindness and commendation from the admired

IMPROVED FINANCES 113

preacher of the evening before. This was the begin-
ning of a long=continued and agreeable acquaintance
with Dr. Cox.

Commencement is passed, and the pilgrims to Yale
in 1822 are alumni of Yale in 1826. How changed
was I ! Yale had fulfilled all the promises she made
even to my imagination. The trio of the pilgrimage
is now to be dissolved. My friend Wright, who had
engaged in teaching at Groton, Mass., and there en-
tered with all his enthusiasm into the Unitarian con-
troversy as a co=worker with the Rev. John Todd,
afterwards the honored pastor at Pittsfield, Mass.;
and my brother, who left our school in October in
order to permit the proprietors to employ a cheaper
assistant when the school was usually smaller, both
left my side. Until then I had lived in the society
of two comi)anions older and stronger than myself.
Now I was left alone, to meet the storms of life, if
storms came, single handed. My brother and I
had been almost inseparable from infancy, and had
possessed almost a common personality. We were
generally thought of and mentioned together. My
responsibility in the school would henceforth be
greater, and my work more difficult, but the studies
were familiar, and I had so gained experience and
confidence that I was no longer anxious about the
discii^line. It was a great blessing that such a season
of tranquil happiness was granted me before the
struggles which were to come.

Early in the autumn the Sabbath evening prayer
and conference^meetings were resumed for the sea-
son. They were generally held at private houses in
different parts of town. I always attended these meet-

114 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

ings, and took more or less part in conducting them.
Before long an unusual interest in religious things
was manifested, which soon became quite general,
and many were seeking the Lord. One or two addi-
tional meetings were appointed each week, and
all were crowded. This state of things continued
throughout the winter and even until late in the
spring, when a large part of the young iDCople had
committed themselves to a Christian life. Within a
year from the first manifestation of increased spirit-
ual interest, more than one hundred were added to the
church, and both the religious and moral aspects of
the place were greatly changed. To have enjoyed
and participated in that great movement of God's
Spirit I count one of the great felicities of my young
life. Those delightful religious experiences recalled
the great revival in Tallmadge, and bound me for
life to New Canaan with ties of religious affection no
less precious and enduring than those by which I
was already bound to Tallmadge and my dear, native
Warren. Each of these places has been home to me
all my life.

I revisited all three of them in 1883, and in each re-
ceived a welcome which made my heart glad. The
dear fathers and mothers were indeed gone; but their
children and grandchildren received me in the name
and in the spirit of those who had jDassed beyond the
river. If you wish to form enduring friendships, you
must bind them by religious and spiritual ties.

Certain marked characteristics distinguished this
revival and the one in Tallmadge, Ohio, previously
mentioned, from all others which I have y^itnessed.
These differences are, I think, chiefly traceable to a

IMPROVED FINANCES 115

single cause; the absence of church rivalry. In com-
munities situated as those were, Christian people can
afford to sow good seed and wait patiently for the
harvest. Through the gift of the Spirit the ingather-
ing will surely come, and will continue so long that
no part of the precious harvest need be lost. It M-ill
not be necessary to multiply meetings beyond the
obvious needs of the hour, or to push the instrumen-
talities of religious excitement to the point of either
physical or mental exhaustion. Under the baneful
influence of church rivalries revivals lose much of
their natural and spontaneous character, and such
scenes as I have described become impossible. A
religious movement in which the several churches of
a large village are each seeking to rival the others, is
vividly pictured in Bayard Taylor's " Hannah Thurs-
ton." Unfortunately the author of that story fails
entirely to recognize the honorable motive lying at
the bottom of such meetings, and sees only the rival-
ry which mars and imi^airs their spiritual power.
Nevertheless, any Christian man may read that pas-
sage with f)rofit. " Fas est etiam ah hoste doceri.''''
We treat the ingathering of souls, much as we do the
harvest of wild blackberries, when we hastily pluck
them before they are ripe, lest in the multitude of
pickers we lose them altogether. I have often wit-
nessed the spectacle of several village churches, all
holding daily meetings for weeks in succession, with
audiences so small that their combined numbers
would not have filled the largest church building in
the town, until each attendant wore an expression of
weariness and discouragement painful to Ijehold.
The effort exhausted the Christian force of the place

116 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

instead of augmenting it. What we regard as our
denominational necessities are largely to blame for
such a siDectacle. We try to take the whole matter
of revivals into our own hands, and expect to create
them to our order. It is but a few days since I saw
the announcement in a daily paper that on such a
day a certain church would " commence a series of
revival meetings." In the same spirit as that which
I have narrated in another chapter, an eminent pre-
siding elder said of one of his brethren, "He has
kicked up quite a revival ! " By such means revivals
lose their sacred character as the work of the Divine
Spirit.

The religious work of that winter, together with
severe labors in school, impaired my health. Even
school duties alone became too heavy a burden. In
the later fall months I often reached home at night
with a feeling of utter prostration. I sought to rem-
edy the evil by exercise. This might have afforded
some relief if I had used it in moderation. I often
walked three or four miles before breakfast, return-
ing quite exhausted. I had so much faith in exer-
cise as a restorative from the effects of confinement
and mental strain, that I persisted in it in spite of ex-
cessive fatigue and daily declining strength. Had I
not at last become convinced that this method of
treatment was ill adapted to my case it is probable
that I should have entirely broken my constitution.
I ceased my long walks, and treated myself more ten-
derly, and was thus enabled to perform my school
work without interruption until I was quite restored,
as I thought, by the spring vacation. But under the
severe labors of the summer term I again became so

IMPROVED FISASCES 117

enfeebled that I was compelled to employ a substi-
tute for two or three weeks, which I sj^ent in a quiet
farmdiouse at Rockaway, L. I. In that delii^htful
spot, sea air, sea food and surf loathing quickly re-
stored my appetite and brought back my former
vigor. Since that experience I have never favored
college exercises, religious meetings or athletic sports
before breakfast. I am sure that severe labor, eitlier
mental or physical, before taking food in the morn-
ing has always been injurious to me.

Such a mixed school as was mine at New Canaan,
though it enjoyed a very high rejaulation as a place
in which to prepare for college, ought never to exist.
Some of my pupils were ec[ual in ability to any I
have ever taught. Their standing on entering col-
lege and their subsequent career proved this beyond
a question. But it was impossi])le to do them all
justice. For example, in teaching Cicero, I was able
to hear them read only a few of the most difficult
passages in the long lessons which they had prepared.
I had no time to inspire them with enthusiasm or to
cultivate in them an appreciation of Cicero as an
orator and a man of genius. Most of the day was
spent in dealing with classes of every variety of age,
capacity and industry, in arithmetic, algebra, geogra-
phy and English grammar, to which must also be
added history, rhetoric and logic.

I do not think that the faults of that school could
be altogether remedied by our modern system of grad-
ing. The tnjuble was to a considerable extent due to
errors in which we have even exceeded our fathers.
"VYe have gone beyond them in urging a great variety
of studies upon minds too immature to do them

118 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

justice. In spite of the enormous expense of our
systems of education, it is a question whether we have
studied the wants of our children as zealously as we
have tried to carry out our own theories.

In New Canaan I first met and loved the woman
who soon became my wife. This was by far the most
imxDortant event of my life there. Before telling
frankly, as I mean to do, the story of our acquaint-
ance, I wish, at the risk of evoking a smile, to acknowl-
edge my obligation to a certain old-fashioned book.
That volume is Hannah More's "Coelebs in Search of
a Wife." I read it before I was seventeen years old
and was greatly charmed not only by its simple and
sprightly style, and its pictures of character and
society and of tranquil English country life, but
especially by the exalted conception of womanhood
which i)revades and adorns it. It inspired me with
reverence for the true woman and for marriage. The
cultivated classes in English society, in honoring
Hannah More as they did, greatly honored them-
selves. I cannot help thinking that a comparison of
Hannah More with George Eliot is more creditable to
the last century than to the present.

It must be confessed that what is called love at first
sight is not always an exj)ression of our higher na-
tures. Yet I confidently believe that the impression
made on me at our very first acquaintance by Eliza-
beth Maria Fayerweather was largely the result of
Hannah More's influence. The merry girl of twenty
unconsciously revealed in many ways a womanly
character which M'as fitted to impress one whose mind
and heart were already filled with a high idea of
womanhood. From the first I keenly enjoyed her

IMPROVED FINANCES 119

society; but instead of seeking]; to excite in her a cor-
responding feeling, I put myself under great restraint
lest I should disclose to her my feelings. I did not
yet sufficiently know her character, especially her
moral and religious principles. It was my solemn
and deliberate purpose not to unite my life with
that of any woman who was not in perfect sympathy
with me on religious subjects, however agreeable to
me she might be in other respects. In fact I was
sure that no one whose sentiments were not in har-
mony with my own could long be a very agreeable
companion. I was resolved that unless I was fully
satisfied upon those points I would, at whatever cost,
part from her hand=free, the tender feelings she had
inspired being known only to myself.

I saw her occupying a conspicuous place in the so-
ciety, which from the necessity of my j)osition I much
frequented, and surrounded by young men who seemed
to me more likely than myself to win her regard. My
life plans demanded that I should be married. It
was only when, after nearly a year, I had become fully
assured of her Christian character and her interest in
the cause to which I had given my life, that I made
known to her the secret of my heart. Then I found
that my reserve had created the impression that I did
not think much of her, and she was as much surprised
at my declaration as if I had revealed my feelings at
our first interview.

I regard my acquaintance with that noble woman
as among the most kindly provisions of God's provi-
dence in my behalf. It seemed as if heaven had or-
dained that we should meet. She was a little less
than a year younger than myself, but much riper in

120 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

character, and had received an excellent education
under my able predecessors in the school at New
Canaan. Her mother was a sister of Rev. James
Richards, D. D., then at the head of Auburn Theolog-
ical Seminary. At the home of another uncle, Mr.
Abraham Richards of New York, (one of the firm of
A. & S. Richards, well known in the commercial world
and doing business at New York, Liverpool and Sa-
vannah) she had silent considerable time, and had thus
added to the simple habits of her country home some-
thing of the larger ideas and cultivated tastes and
manners of the city. She was eminently qualified by
sound and cool judgment and by her first=rate com-
mon sense to be my wise adviser amid the perplexing
questions with which I was soon to be surrounded, as
well as to be the head and ornament of my home.
Deeper and better than all, her heart was an inex-
haustible fountain of affection. Most graphically
did the wise man draw her portrait, "She openeth
her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law
of kindness."

I was exceedingly anxious to return to New Hav-
en, in October 1827, and devote myself entirely to
the study of theology. But insufficient resources
obliged me to continue the school for another term.
The winter school, however, was always less crowded
and heterogeneous than the summer term, and I was
able to return to theological study on the first of the
following April in e xcellent health. There I found
the task before me a severe one, because I was obliged
by lack of money to teach an hour or two daily in a
school for young ladies.

CHAPTER VII.

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.

Nothing could well have been more agreeable to
my tastes than my surroundings during my theologi-
cal studies at New Haven. I was encircled by culti-
vated minds whose tastes and aims were in harmony
with my own. I had much to enjoy and as little of
the disagreeable to endure as we have any right to ex-
pect in this world. It must be confessed that the in-
terest of the theological department of Yale was at that
time chiefly concentrated in one man, Nathaniel W.
Taylor, D. D., professor of Didactic Theology. He
had a wonderful magnetic jiower over young men eager
to understand religious truth. When I became his
pupil he was in the midst of his celebrated course of
lectures on moral government. I believe that Dr.
Taylor was raised up to furnish what the theological
world at that time greatly needed, a lucid and dis-
criminating statement of those intuitions which lie at
the foundation of all religion, morality, authority,
government, society and civilization. I had thought
enough to have become quite conscious of the diffi-
culties which environ the subjects, and was prepared
to receive Dr. Taylor's clear statements with enthusi-
asm and to appreciate the light they shed upon prob-
lems which before had seemed encompassed with
obscurity. Those lectures had in them nothing of
the spirit of negation. They held the mind fast to
those fundamental truths on which all moral and re-

121

122 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

ligious obligations must rest. No one who really com-
preliended them could have become a skeptic. He
convinced us that the ideas of duty and authority rest
as securely on the certain and inevitable intuitions of
the soul as the sciences of geometry and physics. He
rescued our minds from the innumerable fallacies
which originate in vague thinking and confused modes
of exj)ression, and shari^ly distinguished between the
fundamental principles of theology and those indefi-
nite speculations with w^iich they are often com-
mingled. Dr. Taylor gained the full confidence of
his pupils by the positive assurance that we may know
and impart truth, and by the faith which is inspired
in the impregnable foundations of our Christian
hope. It is not my jDurpose to appear as a critic
of Dr. Taylor as a theologian. It is, however,
appropriate for me to state as clearly as I am able, the
influence which he exerted on my own theological
thinking. That is a jDart of my history. I shall, how-
ever, attempt to trace his influence only in respect to
a few fundamental questions.

On the "Freedom of the Will," he did little to re-
lieve my difficulties. He always professed to be a
disciple of Edwards; yet I was unable to reconcile
many of his teachings with those of that great meta-
physician. Under his instruction I failed to reach
the conception that the mind itself is the cause of its
own volitions, an idea which I now regard as funda-
mental to the whole subject.

Though it is true that there can be no choice with-
out the iDresence of two objects, each of which is in
the soul's view more or less desirable; that is, the soul
cannot choose without a motive; yet it has the power

THEOLOGICAL SEMIXARY 123

to make either of the two opposite choices in all pos-
sible states of the motives.

The desire for one of the objects may be very
strongly excited, and for the other very feebly, yet
the soul has the power, under the pressure of moral
obligation or a conviction of permanent advantage, of
choosing that for which desire is most feeble and
of rejecting that for which desire is strongest. If
this be not so, then desire and not the will is the con-
trolling power in the hearts of men, just as it cer-
tainly is in the lower orders of animals, and man has no
more moral nature than the brute. Though Dr. Taylor
was far from teaching this last doctrine, yet he failed
to prove clearly to my understanding the absolute as-
cendency of the will over all forms and degrees of de-
sire, and therefore failed to make plain the distinc-
tion between a moral and an irrational nature. Give
us this fundamental conception and the doctrine of
the will is short and simple. To this conclusion I
came long afterwards by carrying out those very
lines of thought which Dr. Taylor had originated in
my mind.

Dr. Taylor was very severely criticized for teaching
that all sin is voluntary. His position on that ques-
tion brought complete relief from difficulties wdiicli
had greatly perplexed me, and afforded similar deliv-
erance to thousands of honest minds. If we in.sist
that God condemns men for evil inclinations which
lie back of all choice on their own part we shall fail
to vindicate our theology before men of candid and
discriminating minds. I can never be too grateful
for the light Dr. Taylor afforded on this important
subject.

124 JULIAN M. STVRTEVANT

Another theme on which his teachings were much
criticized, and in respect to which there is still an
honest difference of opinion, is the theory of moral
obligation. On this question my mind was always
much interested, and I heard him with earnest atten-
tion. I think he has been wrongly judged because
his phraseology was not altogether felicitous, for I
fully accepted at the time the view which I under-
stood him to teach, and which I have since held with
entire confidence.

He did not agree with Paley, in teaching that the
notion of right is the result of mere association, edu-
cation and custom, but held that it originated in an
intuition. He did not, however, use that phrase.

If Dr. Taylor had enjoyed the clearer light which
has been shed by the definitions of later scholars up-
on the phraseology which describes the intuitional
function of the intellect, he would have been under-
stood as holding to the intuitional origin of the idea
of right as truly as Dr. Wayland or Bishop Butler.
Dr. Taylor differed from these distinguished men not
in debating whether right is an intuition, but upon
the question what it is which the mind discerns by
intuition.

Those two writers held that right is an ultimate
idea intuitionally discerned. Dr. Hopkins has shown
the fallacy of this in his "Law of Love." The system
which I supposed myself to have received from Dr.
Taylor teaches that the soul intuitively discerns that
the idea of the greatest good, on the whole is the
universal and only antecedent of the idea of obliga-
tion.

If, with Dr. Wayland, we hold that right becomes

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 125

an ultimate intuition, we are placed in the same rela-
tion to moral as to esthetic questions. " Do giisfibus
non est dispiitandiim.'''' There is no room for argu-
ment about the beautiful, not because there is no
difference of opinion about it, but because beauty is
an ultimate intuition. If riglitness is an ultimate
quality of moral actions, which is intuitively dis-
cerned without a known standard by which actions
are to be tested, then the " non est disjJutanduni "
applies also to morals. Dr. Wayland evidently feels
this difficulty when in the same section he makes the
will of God as manifested in natural and revealed
religion to be ultimate and not the intuition of right.
Doubtless the manifested will of the Creator is decis-
ive so far as it relates to the character of an action;
but that surely does not account for the origin in the
human soul of the idea of right, which was the par-
ticular point at issue in Dr. Wayland's paragraph.
Dr. Taylor taught that the soul intuitively recognizes
its obligation to do that which will promote the great-
est good; Revelation teaches what actions will have
that effect.

Our professor was very sharply censured for the
position in which he placed " self dove or the desire
of haj)piness " in relation to moral choice. I think
no philosophic term in the English language has
caused so much confusion or widespread discussion
as the word selfdove. Dr. Taylor always intended to
use it as synonymous with the desire of happiness;
but his use of it occasions much perplexity and mis-
understanding. The word love is used in philosophi-
cal treatises in two quite different senses. It is some-
times a mere impulse implying no act of the will. At

126 JULIAN 21. STURTEVANT

other times it is used to express a choice of one thing
in preference to another; a deliberate purpose. In the
term selfdove it should be understood to imj^ly a
mere impulse, or rather the generic impulse. Each
appetite or desire is self==love acting in some specific
direction. It would obviate much confusion to dis-
pense with this term altogether and employ in its
stead the desire of good, or of happiness.

When a writer speaks of the love of one's neigh-
bors and almost in the same sentence of self dove, he
will confuse his hearers and perhaps himself, if by
love in one case he means a deliberate choice, and in
the other a mere impulse to seek happiness. Yet
writers and speakers err at this point. Self-love and
the love of one's neighbor are not in contrast. The
wicked man is not one that has too much selfdove.
He is his own worst enemy. The virtuous man has
not less self dove than he. The wrong=doer is persist-
ently destroying his own haj)piness. The good man
is ever securing his own highest welfai'e. Let us call
that desire of good by which all human activity is
impelled, the desire of hapj^iness. Let us place it at
the root of all our active powers and recognize it as
the one generic impulse comprehending in itself all
specific impulses. We shall then see clearly that the
virtuous man is he who subordinates this and all the
impulses comprehended in it to the deliberate pur-
pose to promote with all his powers the highest good
of all, while he only is truly the wicked man who
refuses to control his life by this law of love. We
shall then tell the wicked man to his face that he is
his own worst enemy, and the virtuous man not that

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 127

he loves himself less than others do, but that he is
securing his own highest welfare.

We shall then be prepared to understand the first of
that remarkable series of resolutions which President
Edwards invariably read once each week: " Besolred:
that I will do whatsoever I think most to God's glory
and my own good, profit and x^leasure on the whole,"
etc. President Edwards saw clearly enough that the
purpose to do whatsoever is " to God's glory " is per-
fectly in harmony with the resolution to do wliatso-
ever is " to my own good, i)rofit and pleasure, on the
whole." The imrpose to secure those rich blessings
for myself will lead me to follow precisely the same
line of action as the i^urpose to do what is most for
God's glory.

The system of which this is a faint outline I re-
ceived from Dr. Taylor. The phraseology is my own.
According to this system the selfish man is the man
who is determined to secure his own happiness with-
out regard to the welfare of others; while the benevo-
lent man is he who deliberately determines to seek
his own highest good by promoting the greatest good
of the whole.

Dr. Taylor's teaching respecting the penalty for
disobedience of law under a perfect moral government
was very original, and it strongly arrested my atten-
tion. He held that the function of penalty is to make
upon the subjects the strongest i^ossible impression
of the moral governor's abhorrence of sin, and that
no penalty can be adequate to this purj^ose short of
the greatest amount of suffering which the ruler can
inflict and the guilty subject endure. This suffering

128 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

must, of course, be endless. His argument was de-
rived a priori from the nature of moral government,
but was confirmed, as he claimed, by the Scriptures.
At the time I could not reply, and therefore received
his teachings as valid. Subsequent reflection, how-
ever, began to shake my confidence in his position
and finally deterred me from using it in the puljjit.
I think there is a fallacy in the a priori argument.
It is not intuitively evident that the extremest possi-
ble severity in punishing violators of his law is the
only method by which a moral governor can manifest
his supreme regard for law and his abhorrence of its
violation. He can make this manifestation quite as
much by the effort he makes to win back and restore
to allegiance any who may have revolted from his
authority. The infliction of penalty is one, and only
one, of the ways in which a moral governor may man-
ifest his regard for his law. The employment of suita-
ble agencies to reform the guilty is as truly essential
to the maintenance of his authority as is the j)unish-
ment of the incorrigibly rebellious.

It is impossible to properly treat this subject with-
out viewing it in connection with the subject of the
atonement. It has long seemed to me a great defect
in our theology that we seem to assume that a moral
governor may rightly administer his government by
mere rewards and punishments without a iDroper rem-
edial system. There is nothing either in the Scrip-
tures or outside of them to justify such an assump-
tion. The authority of any moral governor over his
subjects depends on the confidence which he inspires
that his M'hole heart and character are in harmony
with a righteous law. It is quite as necessary in

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 129

order to such coiitideuce that he should devise and
carry into execution appropriate measures for reform-
ing- the faHen as that he should show his displeasure
against the incorrigibly guilty. The idea of a gov-
ernment administered over a race of fallen subjects,
propagated through unnumbered generations aud yet
not hopelessly beyond the reach of reform, without
any reformatory system is to my mind utterly revolt-
ing. A government so administered cannot insiDire
the confidence of its subjects in the perfect rectitude
of the governor.

Our theology seems almost to have overlooked this
principle, yet it seems to me intuitively evident. We
all know that the higliest, the crowning excellence, of
the Christian character is manifested in self^^^sacrific-
ing effort to bring sinners to repentance. The man
who lacks that one element of Christlikeness, can
hardly be recognized as a disciple, however fault-
less he may be in other respects. The sacrifice of
His only Son on the cross to save sinners is admitted
to be the very highest manifestation of God's right-
eousness. How can He so impressively exhibit His
abhorrence of sin in any other way? Does a parent
best exhibit his preference of virtue to vice by the
severity with which he punishes bis erring child, or
by the earnestness and expensiveness of his efforts to
reclaim the fallen? The untutored human heart an-
swers without the least hesitation.

Dr. Taylor taught the governmental view of the
atonement. I do not know that his method of stat-
ing it was j)articularly novel or attractive, but at the
time I accepted his views without a doubt. It was
not till endeavoring to emiDhasize his idea in preach-

130 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

ing that I found an insurmountable difficulty. Ac-
cording to that theory, God is supi^osed by the atone-
ment to have made a manifestation of His abhorrence
of that sin which is the transgression of His law as
great as He would have made by the infliction of the
full penalty on every transgressor. To this statement
I soon began to feel a very perplexing objection. I
was entirely unable to see how the death of Christ
did make such a manifestation. Therefore Dr. Tay-
lor's view of the atonement seemed to me shorn of all
power to move the soul. In view of this objection I
was obliged to fall back on wdiat is substantially Bishop
Butler's view of the matter. The Holy Scriptures
teach that the death of Christ on the cross was a
necessity in order that God " might be just, and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus."

Surely the preservation of moral authority has two
indisiDcnsable conditions: the infliction of an adequate
penalty on the persistent and incorrigible ofPender,
and such an administration of the government as will
provide the most effectual possible means for the
reformation and restoration of the fallen. If the gov-
ernment either refused to pardon any, however peni-
tent, or pardoned with easy indifference those who,
self=moved, might repent, while it made no painstak-
ing and self=sacrificing efforts to secure the reforma-
tion of transgressors, its subjects would have little
faith in its moral rectitude. Such a ruler would not
seem to love righteousness supremely or to hate sin
with a perfect hatred. This requisite of a perfect
moral authority the mediatorial system supi^lies. The
atonement expresses God's supreme desire to reclaim
the perishing and restore the lost to holiness and the

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 131

hapi)iness wliicli virtue insures. It is the effort of
the Heavenly Father to bring His lost children home.
In this way the Cross manifests most impressively
God's supreme righteousness.

Two tilings are to me inconceivable. One of them
is that such a being as our God can ever be propitious
to an impenitent sinner. The other is that such a
being can under any conditions be uni)roi)itious to a
truly i)enitent sinner. Between these two inconceiv-
ables there is amijle room for the redemptive system,
without which the Gospel is no gospel. The eternal
punishment of the wicked appears to me just as cer-
tain as the existence of incorrigible sin. And I do
not see how a sober minded man can doubt the reality
of either. There is a fatal stage of moral disease
toward which every imiDcnitent sinner is constantly
tending. So far from there being any reason why he
should encourage himself with the hoi^e of a proba-
tion in future life, he has the greatest reason to fear
that he may terminate his own probation long before
his soul leaves the body.

I have given so much space to Dr. Taylor's theology
because no other mind has exerted so great an influ-
ence on my thinking as his. He did not teach us to
follow his instructions blindly, or to accept anything
upon his authority, l)ut cultivated in us the habit of
self-reliance. He had arrested my attention, awak-
ened my enthusiasm, and impressed his system indel-
libly upon my mind. His teachings became the start-
ing point, not the end of my religious thinking, and
they greatly assisted me in constructing the theologic
house in which I have since lived. This house has
undergone many changes, having been limited here

132 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

and extended there, but it is still the same house, and
here I shall abide till the end, ever thankful to God
for so long a lease.

I can hardly sufficiently deplore the lack of impulse,
given to Bible study at New Haven in my time. No
study of theology in its technical form can be so use-
ful to the student and the preacher, as familiarity with
those concrete teachings which are the glory of the
Scrij^tures. The knowledge of a theological system
is by no means a substitute for the truth expressed in
the living language of the imagination and the pas-
sions. To gain command of this for the purpose of
popular utterance, we must know the glowing imagery
of the poets and prophets of old, the very words of
Christ Himself and feel the holy enthusiasm of these
who saw the Lord and heard Him speak. I am grate
ful to the Theological Seminary for what it did for
me; it might have done much more.

CHAPTER VI II.

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE.

It is neither possible nor desirable to confine the
attention of a group of theological students exclu-
sively to that course of jDreparatory study on which
they are engaged. They should view the broad field
and ascertain for what peculiar form of labor they are
best fitted, being ready to go into whatsoever part of
the world the Lord may call. The minds of my fel-
low^students were always open to such inquiries, and
in our social devotions these questions were [)romi-
nent themes. It gives me great pleasure to saj^ that
the spirit manifested in the seminary was admirable.
If there was any disposition toward j)lfice=seeking for
worldly advantage it was so overborne by a spirit of
consecration to the Master's service that it was sel-
dom expressed. A large number of the aljler men
among us were really attracted toward distant mis-
sionary fields rather than toward wealthy congrega-
tions near us.

Our own country at that time presented considera-
tions to candidates for the Christian ministry in some
resi)ects novel and striking. The people of the
United States, then chiefly limited to the Atlantic
slope, had just begun to realize that our population
would ere long cover all the vast region of unequalled
natural resources lying between the AUeghanies and
the Rocky mountains, and fill it with prosperous states.

lo3

134 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

To the Christian patriot, this promise of the near
future was a stimulus to greater activity in the work
of home evangelization than had been before attained
or even conceived. It was a stimulus both to hope
and to fear There was hope that if churches and
schools kept pace with the tide of migration, and
these vast solitudes were presently filled with an
intelligent and Christian population, our country
would become a blessing to the whole earth. There
was reason for fear lest, without the institutions of a
Christian civilization, these coming millions would
be given over to the superstitions of all grasjjing
Rome or to the horrors or a godless infidelity. There
was a great awakening to the urgency of home evan-
gelization.

Nowhere was this new impulse more powerfully
felt than in our theological seminaries. In ours it
became in a measure absorbing. The " Society of
Inquiry " held monthly meetings at which we were
edified by papers and addresses from our own mem-
bers, or from others who could give us special infor-
mation about the various departments of home and
foreign missions. These meetings were occasions of
much interest and great devotional fervor. At the
meeting of the society held in December, 1828, a pow-
erful and highly stimulating essay was read by Rev.
Tlieron Baldwin, of whom mention has already been
made.

My lifedong intimacy with this noble man began
on that evening. He was already in a measure jjledged
by a providential event to a missionary life. His
elder brother, Abraham Baldwin, had labored with
signal success among the French in Canada during

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE 135

the last part of his very short hut useful iiiiuistry.
He died among kind Christian friends, but far from
his kindred. At the time of his death he was affi-
anced to Miss Caroline Wilder, of Burlington, Vt., a
lady of culture who was in thorough sympathy with
the missionary cause. My friend, Theron Baldwin,
went at the urgent solicitation of his relatives to the
scene of his brother's late labors, to learn the story of
his last illness and take charge of his effects. On the
journey it was his good fortune to become acquainted
with" Miss Wilder, whose charming character and
heroic Christian devotion subsequently won his heart.
On his return she accom^Danied him to his father's
house, and her influence doubtless increased the spir-
itual power of the essay which so impressed me on
that eventful evening.

Returning to his room, after the meeting that night,
Mr. Baldwin fell in with his college classmate, Mason
Grosvenor, who was also my friend. In the conversa-
tion that followed, Mr. Grosvenor suggested the out-
lines of a plan which not long afterward became the
germ of an a.ssociation. This organization among
the Yale theological students was, in the hands of
Divine Providence, the princijoal agency in founding
Illinois College. Mr. Grosvenor's plan was to form
an association of theological students, known to each
other and bound by mutual ties, for the purpose of
co-operating in the work of home missions. A front-
ier state, or territory likely soon to become a state,
was to be selected as a common field of labor. It was
proposed to establish there an institution of learning,
and by the united efforts of the association to foster
its growth and efficiency, while the members strength-

136 JULIAN M. STUUTEVANT

ened each other's hands in the use of all evangelical
instrumentalities. By this means they hoped to
secure co=operation, which is often so difficult to ob-
tain among the scattered population 'of the frontier,
and to avoid that peculiar isolation which is among
the greatest disadvantages of a home missionary on
the borders of the wilderness. The concej)tion was
certainly felicitous. It awakened great interest in
the minds of my two friends, and led not only to the
organization of the Illinois band, but to the formation
of other bands of theological students destined for
the West. The most famous of these was the Iowa
band, which was organized in Andover Seminary in
1842, and which has been a most efficient agency in
the evangelization of a great state.

In consequence, probably, of my early frontier ex-
perience I was soon taken into the counsels of those
most interested in this jolan, and I co-operated with
great enthusiasm in its development. Very shortly
after Mr. Grosvenor's suggestion a communication
appeared in the "Home Missionary" from the pen of
Rev. John M. Ellis, a minister in the employment of
the American Home Missionary Society, then sta-
tioned at Kaskaskia, Illinois, but expecting soon to
remove to Jacksonville. In this communication, Mr.
Ellis gave a sketch of a seminary of learning projected
by himself and a few friends in that state to be estab-
lished at Jacksonville, and invited the help of eastern
friends. Mr. Grosvenor immediately wrote to Mr.
Ellis informing him of the plan of our organization
and suggested that the association might be disposed
to choose Illinois for its field, and assist in the estab-
lishment of the proposed seminary, should its aims

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE 137

and j)urposes be fcjuiul in harinoiiy with our plans
To convey a letter to Illinois and receive an answer
would at that time require about two months instead
of four days as at j)resent. In the meantime a number
of earnest young men were considering the question
of entering into such an association. It was with all
of ns the grave problem of a life investment. The
more it was considered, the more it grew in favor.
My personal knowledge of the urgency of the work
of home evangelization made the question compar-
atively easy. With the wants of the frontier so
distinctly before me I could not think of going to a
foreign field, or of seeking a settlement in any of the
churches in the older states. I felt that Providence
had selected the valley of the Mississippi for my
home, and I dared not desert it in the emergency
which I felt was upon it. I highly apx^reciated the
advantages of the proposed association, for I dreaded
the isolation of the frontier. It is proper also to
state that my associates told me from the beginning
that they would need my services as teacher in the
new institution. This plan suited my tastes much
better than entering the pastorate.

Long before Mr. Ellis' reiDly was received the asso-
ciation had taken form and i^ersonality, though we
had not yet affixed our signatures to any written
obligation.

Some of us wished before doing that to wait for
Mr. Ellis' letter, so that the i)i'oposed plan might be
rendered more definite. The answer came in due
time, inviting us to select Illinois as our western
home and placing the constitution of the proposed

138 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

seminary in our hands to be modified to suit our
wishes.

In my own case it may readily be supposed that as
the happiness of two persons was involved, both were
to be consulted before the decision was reached. The
whole subject was laid frankly before Miss Fayer-
weather, and without the least attempt to conceal the
trials incident to the location of our home five hun-
dred miles west of civilization. She was far from
being a romantic girl. At twenty two years of age
she was a woman of rare thoughtf ulness and sobriety,
and, judging correctly of the future, cheerfully ap-
proved the plan. I signed the compact, and that
signature bound me to a lifework that continued
while great states were born and nations rose and
fell. *

* The document here mentioned is still preserved with the
signatures appended, and a cordial and complimentary endorse-
ment from President Day and Professors Taylor and Gibbs.
It is as follows:

Believing in the entire alienation of the natural heart from
God, in the necessity of the influences of the Holy Spirit for its
renovation, and that these influences are not to be expected
without the use of means; deeply impressed also with the desti-
tute condition of the Western section of our country and the
urgent claims of its inhabitants upon the benevolent at the East,
and in view of the fearful crisis evidently approaching, and
which we believe can only be averted by speedy and energetic
measures on the part of the friends of religion and literature in
the older States, and believing that evangelical religion and
education must go hand in hand in order to the successful ac-
complishment of this desirable object; we the undersigned
hereby express our readiness to go to the State of Illinois for
the purpose of establishing a Seminary of learning such as shall
be best adapted to the exigencies of that country — a part of us

PLAXS FOR THE FUTURE 139

to engage in instruction in the Seminary — the others to occupy —
as preachers — important stations in the surrounding country —
provided the undertaking be deemed practicable, and the loca-
tion approved — and provided also the providence of God permit
us to engage in it.

Thekon Baldwin, John F. Brooks,
Mason Geosvenob, Elisha Jenney, William Kieby,

Julian M. Stuetevant, Asa Tuenee, Je.
Theological Department Yale College, Feb. 21, 1829.

Mr. Ellis' vep]}' being satisfactory, the organiza-
tion was speedily completed. A plan for the i^roposed
institution was drawn under the supervision of Pres-
ident Day of Yale and several other eminent profes-
sors, and was forwarded to Mr. Ellis with a pledge
that as soon as the constitution was formally accepted
we would procure $10,000 with which to commence
the work, and remove to Illinois. As soon as the
facilities of those " slow times " permitted, we received
a formal acceptance of our offer. According to the
constitution proposed the institution was to be con-
trolled by ten trustees, seven of whom were to be men
composing the association at Yale College, viz: Theron
Baldwin, John F. Brooks, Mason Grosvenor, Elisha
Jenney, Wm. Kirby, Julian M. Sturtevant and Asa
Turner. The remaining three trustees were to be
elected by the subscribers to the fund of two or three
thousand dollars, which had already been raised in
Illinois. With these funds the beautiful site on
which Illinois College now stands was obtained,and a
beginning made by erecting a small two story brick
building.

These arrangements and the public expectation
which had been awakened created an unlooked-for
necessity, which was that the institution should

140 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

commence operations at the beginning of the next
year, 1830. No time therefore was to be lost. I was
ahnost immediately dispatched to New York to lay
our plans before the officers of the American Home
Missionary Society, and to consult with other friends
of home missions in that city. This was to me a
grave responsibility, considering my youth and
inexperience. But how could I decline? This was
my introduction to Rev. Absalom Peters, then the
only secretary of the American Home Missionary
Society, and to his assistant, that truly good man,
Eev. Charles Hall. Dr. Peters received me with all
the kindness with which I can conceive of Paul
receiving his son, Timothy, and Mr. Hall seconded
all our plans with an enthusiasm equal to our own.
They invited such friends and directors of their
society as were accessible to meet at the Home Mis-
sionary office to hear the statement of our plans, and
to give such counsel as might seem advisable. The
principal persons present at that meeting, besides the
secretary and his assistant, were Rev. Gardner Spring,
D. D , the honored pastor of the old brick church,
then in the full vigor of manhood, and Rev. John
Matthews, D. D., Dutch Reformed, Chancellor of
the University of New York, Matthias Bruin, and
Rev. Erskine Mason, the last two much beloved and
honored Presbyterian pastors in the city. At that
time, no Congregational minister held any public po-
sition in New York or its vicinity. The American
Home Missionary Society was then the trusted organ
of the Congregational, Presbyterian and the Dutch
Reformed churches in iDromoting home evangelization
in the newer parts of our land. The three churches

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE 141

together included a large part of the population of
New York, New Jersey and New England. This
noble fellowship of the Christian people of the Atlan-
tic seaboard in the work of home missions is one of
the brightest memories of the past.

Before this body of representative men I presented
our plans and asked for hearty support, especially
through the American Home Missionary Society,
Our plans were unanimously approved. The Home
Missionary Society gladly agreed to send us to our
chosen field and to provide as far as was necessary for
our support. They also j^ledged their endorsement
and countenance to our educational plans.

It was now apparent that two of our number must
commence work in Illinois the following autumn.
This was a disappointment, as at that time none of us
would have finished his theological course. Having
been already designated as a teacher it was necessary
that I should go, as the institution was to be opened
at the beginning of the following year. Mr. Baldwin,
who was nearer the completion of his divinity studies
than any of his brethren, was selected to accompany
me. Though very reluctant to lose one year from his
course of study, he consented, it being his determina-
tion to return and finish his course in the future, but
this he never found time to do. I had less regret at
this abridgement of my course, because my work was
to be in the professor's chair rather than in the puli)it
Could I then have foreseen that I should preach at
least one sermon a Sabbath for nearly the whole of
my life, I might have regarded the matter very differ-
ently.

142 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

With the assistance of Mr. Ellis, who came east for
the purpose, the $10,000 which we had pledged was
raised with little difficulty. On Thursday, August
28th, 1829, Mr. Baldwin and myself were ordained to
the Christian ministry at Woodbury, Conn., the
charge being given by Rev. Matthias Bruin of New
York, as a representative of the American Home
Missionary Society. In this charge I distinctly
remember a sentence which at the time gave me some
pain. " Do not " said he, " shock the prejudices of a
western audience by the sight of a manuscript."
That, thought I, may be good advice, but if so, all the
worse for me, for it seemed as if I could never follow
it. I was destined to experience no small trouble on
that subject. The voice that delivered that charge,
so full of enthusiasm in the cause of home evangeli-
zation, was in less than three days silent in death.
Mr. Bruin was stricken down in his x^ulpit the follow-
ing Sabbath morning. Mysterious and unsearchable
are the ways of Providence. On that morning,
August 30th, I preached my first sermon in the dear
old church at New Canaan to a large congregation,
most of whose faces had become in the last three
years as familiar as though they had been the com-
panions of my childhood. They heard me with great
indulgence, for I cannot think that the deep interest
manifested could mean more.

CHAPTER IX.

WESTWARD HO!

The mornincf following the Sabbath mentioned at
the close of the last chapter, I awoke to a train of
very serious reflections.

That morning, even before breakfast, I was to meet
a small party in the parlor, to be united in marriage
with the woman who had been for more than three
years the object of my constantly increasing attach-
ment. Our nuptial day had come, yet I thought
anxiously and sadly of what was before me. for I
never jiass through one of life's great changes without
experiencing, temporarily at least, a painful recoil;
the result of the weak conservatism of my nature. In
view of the future, that was truly an anxious hour.
How dare I in my youth, and with such a pros^Dect
before me, take the responsibility of the care, support,
and protection of the noble woman who had consented
to leave her loving kindred that morning and intrust
her all to me? How dared her friends intrust her to
my care? Thus I queried with a feeling almost of
guilt for proposing to make her my associate in an
enterprise so full of uncertainty, self-sacrifice and
peril. But the appointed hour had come, and I must
go on trusting to the deliberate judgments of calmer
hours, and resting on the care and protection of God.

The excellent mother of my bride was not with the
small circle of relatives. Six months before we had

143

144 JULIAN M. &TURTEVANT

followed lier remains to their long resting place.
Previous to her death she had lovingly ajjproved our
intended nnion.

I found the bride dressed for a journey; the begin-
ning of a new life^journey for us both.

The solemn marriage vows were exchanged, and we
received the loving congratulations of the few friends
present, only seven of whom remain; one of these
being my lifedong friend, Rev. Flavel Bascomb, D. D.,
of Hinsdale, Illinois. After an excellent breakfast,
taken joyfully in the midst of expressions of love and
tenderness never to be forgotten, we said good^by
and departed for a round of short visits. First we
stopped at Warren, the dear old home of my grand-
mother, and where my uucle, Joseph A. Tanner, and
other dear relatives, still lived. Afterwards we visited
in New Canaan, at the house of my uncle, Silas Beck-
ley, and my mother's sister, Lydia, and then at Glas-
tonbury at the home of my mother's sister, Patty, the
wife of Dr. Ralph Carter. Reaching New Haven I
was in season for Commencement, and found many of
my classmates assembled to celebrate the third anni-
versary of our graduation. With others I received
the Master's degree. My boyish dream of college life
was an accomi)lished fact. Its influence had been
wrought into the very texture of my being.

From that day I was a student of Yale no more. I
had embarked on the great ocean of life, intrusted
with a cargo of incalculable value. Who can tell
what hopes had been formed and what fervent
prayers had ascended in behalf of the sacred cause of
home missions, as represented in the enterprise for
which I was in the future to be held largely responsi-

WESTWAIW HO! 145

ble. It seemed unfortunate that interests so momen-
tous should be committed to one so young and inex-
perienced. Only seven years had passed since the
farewell, so sad and seeminglj' so hopeless, at the ob-
scure log=cabin in Tallmadge at the beginning of our
" ride and tie " pilgrimage. It was not possible that
the boy of 1822 could possess the wisdom necessary
for the resiDonsibilities of 1829. . After spending three
or four days at New Canaan, completing arrange-
ments for our long journey, we bade farewell to New
England, now no less dear to me than if I had never
had a home elsewhere, and turned our faces toward
the setting sun.

I can mention only a few incidents of that journey.
At that time most of the i:)assenger traffic between
Albanj' and Buffalo was carried on by two stage lines
One of these corporations was long established and
wealthy, but it utterly ignored the Sabbath. The
other, known as the "Pioneer Line," was undertaken
and managed on strictly Sabbath=keeping principles,
and for that reason it was patronized by many con-
scientious peoi^le. We traveled from Schenectady to
Utica by canabboat, and then took the Pioneer Line
to Buffalo. Reaching Rochester early Friday morn-
ing we rested one day, laartly because we greatly
needed rest and jjartly for the purpose of calling on
an acquaintance. On Saturday morning we again
took the stage and drove rapidly to Lewiston, where
we ferried across the Niagara, and were driven thence to
the Falls. We surveyed the stupendous cataract from
Table Rock, and were ferried across the boiling flo( d
in a skiff. We ascended the bluff on the American
side by the stair=case, and then visited Goat Island.

146 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

For the rare pleasure of this first view of the Falls
we were indebted to the shari^ comxDetition of the
two stage lines, and particularly to what was then
called in derision "the holy line." Thence we drove
along the left bank of the river, then on to Black
Rock, and crossed over to BufPalo, where we passed
the Sabbath.

From Butfalo to Erie we went by steamboat, and
thence to Cleveland by stage. The last part of that
journey, taken on a moonless night and over the hor-
rible roads for which that regi(ni is famous, was suf-
ficient to test the courage of a bride on her first trip
west. And I can bear witness that if you do not
find bravery in a young wife following the husband
of her choice to some new home in the wild West,
especially when both are animated by a high moral
aim, you are not likely to find it . anywhere. I once
heard a clergyman say in a lecture: "Heroism has
become extinct." I was sure he could have had little
acquaintance with the wives of home missionaries.

Our next stopping place was Tallmadge. I had
visited the dear old home only once since leaving it
seven years before. That was in the fall of 1825. At
that time the first cabin, rendered more comfort-
able by the addition of a single log room, still re-
mained. I now found, greatly to my satisfaction,
that the log cabin was no more. A small adjacent
tract of land had been purchased on which was a
frame house, affording some degree of comfort and
convenience. It was a great pleasure that I had been
able to meet part of the expense of this purchase.
The reader need not be told that there was a joyful
meeting. All felt how empty I had gone out, and how

WESTWARD HO! 147

loaded with the gifts of God I had returned. I had
received a great deal more than I had exi^ected or
sought. God had answered our prayers in enabling
me to prepare myself for future service to His cause;
but He had given me personal prosj^erity and hojDes of
happiness even in this life. Of this I had no dream;
it had in no way entered into my thought.

I found many changes. My brother Ephraim,
had in the fall of 1837 accepted a tutorship in the
then newly established Western Reserve College at
Hudson, Ohio. From this position he retired after
one year, married, and became principal of the Tall-
madge Academy. Our friend Wright had also ac-
cepted the chair of mathematics and natural philoso-
phy at Hudson, and was already married. How hap-
l)ily and rapidly the three or four weeks at Tall-
madge jDassed, reviving old acquaintances and friend-
shix^s and revisiting the scenes of my early youth.
That place was as dear to me as it could have been
had I never known a New England home. It
would have been a great delight, had the call of duty
permitted, to have made the Western Eeserve my
home and the field of my life work.

When our time was expired we again bade adieu
to the loved ones at home. Alas ! it was my final
adieu for this world to my beloved mother. We
were driven by my father to Wellsville on the Ohio,
where we hoped to find a steamboat bound down the
ri ver. But no boats were running and we were
obliged to take the stage for Wheeling. Here we
embarked in a j^oor craft, the best to be had in the
low water of autumn. The Ohio, at that time, lay
low down between its high and heavily timbered

148 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

banks, with only here and there an insignificant vil-
lage on its shores. We waited a few hours at the
landing in Cincinnati, then the growing metropolis
of the West, and claiming a population of twentyfive
thousand. At Louisville we were obliged to change
boats, and there we spent the Sabbath.

We were rejoiced to find a steamboat advertised to
leave for St. Louis at nine o'clock Tuesday morning
From our hotel to the landing was more than two
miles, and an early start seemed necessary lest, miss-
ing that boat we should have to wait long for another.
I hurried my dressing, hurried my wife, hurried
breakfast, and hurried the hackman, all the time won-
dering at the coolness of those around us. Little I
knew of the ways of the western steamboats. We
found the boat with no steam up and no signs of
speedy departure. And there she remained, as my
friend Dr. J. P. Thompson once said, "Lying all day."
Night was upon the river before we were off. After
considerable experience I confess that traveling on
rivers in low water is a very serious discipline,
Sand=bars occur in most unexpected places, and once
aground it is impossible to foresee when you can pro-
ceed. Sometimes the captain seems waiting for a
rainfall to raise the stream.

At length, having traversed nearly the whole
course of the Ohio, we reached the spot where Cairo
now stands and began to feel the stronger current of
the Father of Waters. Just at that moment our
captain, standing on the bridge of the boat and iDoint-
ing down the Mississippi, cried out, " There is the
high-road to New Orleans." The thought thrilled

WESrWAIiD HOI 149

me, for with that great river system I felt that the
experiences of the rest of my life were to be identi-
fied. In our long journey by water there was little
scenery of particular interest. At what is called the
" Grand Tower," where the Mississippi breaks through
the Ozark mountains, the scenery becomes for a short
distance romantic and impressive. At that point the
river bluffs rise from the water's edge on both sides,
and the tower is a rock= island rising peri^endicularly
from the stream as high as the adjacent bluffs. Geo-
logicall}' speaking, the sx3ot is of great interest.

An incident of the voyage illustrates the disadvan-
tage I experienced in those days from my youthful
aj)pearance. Soon after taking passage on one of the
boats I was met on the deck by a youth apparently
not more than seventeen years old, who ajiproached
me very confidentially with the remark, '" We shall
have to keep very straight; there is a minister on
board." By "' the minister," he must have meant my
friend Mr. Baldwin, who was our traveling compan-
ion. Later in the voyage, when we had religious ser-
vices on board, he must have been surprised to find
that it was I who preached.

Steamboat traveling in those days was very slow.
Sometimes our speed did not exceed two and a half
or three miles an hour. Before we reached St. Louis,
another Sabbath had passed. At last with great joy
we found ourselves safely landed in that city; for we
had begun to realize a danger of which we had not
thought when we planned our journey — the danger
that winter might render navigation very slow and
very dangerous, or even suspend it altogether. Be-

150 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

sides, we were glad to think that we were now only
one hundred miles, as the roads ran, from our future
home.

Our reception in St. Louis deeply afPected us. We
had been expected by good Christian friends, and
were received not as strangers, but as loved kindred
" of the household of faith." We were hospitably
entertained as guests, and received courteous atten-
tion from Rev. Wm. S. Potts, pastor of the only
Presbyterian church in the city, and from other ex-
cellent Christian families. We were already being
welcomed to our new home, which no longer seemed
far off among strangers, I long ago ceased to won-
der that the New Testament so strongly insists on
the duty of Christian hospitality. Its value to early
evangelical work in the valley of the Mississippi is
beyond computation.

It was no easy matter to accomplish the little rem-
nant of our journey. Jacksonville is only about
twenty miles from the Illinois river, but as yet that
stream was navigated only by an occasional steam-
boat, and it was not probable that another would
make the voyage before spring. There was no stage
line, the weekly mail being carried on horseback.
The only feasible plan was expensive. We must
hire a team and driver to convey us. That problem
was made comparatively easy by an unexpected meet-
ing with Mr. James G. Edwards, a gentleman from
Boston who was on his way to Jacksonville with his
wife and her sister for the purpose of establishing a
newspaper. We made their acquaintance by some
accident which I have now forgotten. They were
Christian people and had been attracted to Jackson-

WESTWARD HO! 151

ville by a knowledge of the very movements of which
we were a part. Such meetings, stranger than fiction,
have not been unusual when immigration was con-
centrating at some point in the West.

Mr. Baldwin wished to procure a horse and leave
St. Louis fully equipped for his missionary work.
He always " meant business." We hired a hack
which would carry four persons, in which the three
ladies accompanied by myself were to proceed to
Jacksonville. Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Edwards remained
behind until the former could purchase a horse.
With this and a wagon which Mr. Baldwin was to
return to St. Louis while on some early missionary
tour, they followed us to Jacksonville. For many
years afterward that excellent riding horse, lean and
raw-boned, but hardy and easy-going, was almost as
much identified with home missions as its rider.
Never were master and horse more perfectly fitted to
each other.

On Thursday of the week after our arrival in St.
Louis I crossed the Mississippi about midday with
two ladies fresh from their native Boston and my
wife, — all utter strangers to frontier life. I expected
to be amused by some things which they might con-
sider serious. Our driver informed us that we were
to stoj) for the first night at widow Gillam's, a most
comfortable place on the left bank of the Mississipj)i,
directly opposite the mouth of the Missouri. The
great river has since then so encroached upon the
bank that the widow's farm and the site of the house
where we spent the night are now in the middle of
the stream. It proved as our driver had said an ex-
cellent place in some respects. There was plenty of

152 JULIAN M. STUUTEVAKf

clean wholesome food, but on asking for two rooms I
was told, as thono-li I had made a strange and unrea-
sonable request, that they could give ns Imt one
room for the party. This was decidedly a new and
trying experience to the ladies. Nor did the dancing
flames in a great open fire place that rendered our
room so light and comfortable on that chilly night
greatly increase their satisfaction. But the food was
acceptable, the beds were clean, and the linen was as
white as could be found in our own homes.

The next morning we started early and took break-
fast at Alton, now Upper Alton. The j^resent city
was not then in existence. The scanty breakfast was
hardly a fair specimen of what might be expected in
a frontier log house of entertainment, but the bill
was very moderate. Our journey lay through thinly
scattered white oak forests and over j^rairies vanish-
ing in the dim distance like the horizon at sea.
AVith these prairies which imagination easily covered
with the dress of spring and converted into a beauti-
ful park, the ladies were greatly delighted. The
ground was covered with a light and melting snow,
which made traveling slow and tedius. I longed
to ascend some mountain and view the landscape, but
the plain extended far and wide in all directions. At
Hickory Grove, where the prosperous city of Jersey-
ville now stands, we found a single house and a little
farm. Our hotel for the night was Squire Pickett's
log house, now in the heart of the prosperous village
of Kane. Alas! what trouble my three ladies had
that night. I confess that the beds and board were a
little too much for me. An early ride through the

WESTWAHD 110 1 ISS

forest took us to a very comfortable breakfast at Car-
rolton, already a considerable village.

The ride into Jacksonville was not so easy as was
expected. Our way followed the course of the pres-
ent Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Kailway. Little
we knew of railroads then. We passed over the
sites where now stand the towns of Whitehall,
Roodhouse, and Murrayville. Just as the sun was
setting, our driver exclaimed: " I swear I. seed a wolf."
I was doing my best to quiet the frightened ladies,
when suddenly our carriage plunged into a deep hole,
from which the driver and his team were utterly una-
ble to extricate it. It would be impossil)^e to pro-
ceed further that night. It was idle to blame our
driver, for the uidjridged mud hole extended the en-
tire width of the road. It was Saturday night, and
rapidly growing dark, and Jacksonville was seven
miles away. No house could be seen. Happily the
wolves were also out of sight, although to the excited
fears of the ladies they seemed to be all around us.
Presently the bark of a dog revealed the proximity of
some settler's cabin. The driver soon found the
house, and returned with the word that the inhabit-
ants would entertain us for the night. The cabin
proved to be one that contained but a single room, fin-
ished in the most primitive style of log cabin archi-
tecture, and it was the humble abode of a father and
mother with several children, one of them a woman
nearly grown. Yet we were kindly welcomed, with
no sign of reluctance. We were very hungry, but a
few questions showed that the resources of the cabin
were very scanty. They had no bread, milk, meat

154 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

coffee, tea or flour. A chicken was taken down from
its roost in the corner of the great chimney, and its
neck was wrung before our eyes. We were sure it was
fresh. Mrs. Edwards, with that rare tact which is a
fine substitute for experience, came to the rescue.
Said she to our hostess: " I know you are tired, let me
get the supper." She dressed the chicken, and in the
one cooking dish jarepared first the chicken, then the
corn bread, and then tlie sage tea. The table was a
rough plank swung up by the side of the wall. An
iron spoon containing lard and cotton rags for a wick
with its handle stuck in a crack between the logs, af-
forded light. My wife and I had between us one
spoon and one fork. The Boston ladies had a sin-
gle knife and a fork. A neighbor dropped in while
we were at sujoper, and humorously alluded to our ex-
cellent appetites. Such is life on the frontier.

After supper, the moon having risen and now shin-
ing as brightly upon us as over ancient cities and
marble palaces, the driver summoned all hands to
extricate the carriage from the mud. By the help of
our host and his good-natured neighbor this was
soon done. In one corner of the room was what
passed for a bedstead. The hostess having learned
by a whispered question addressed to Mrs. Edwards
that I was a minister, announced that the preacher
and his lady should have the "stead." The rest of
the company, including the family of our host and
the driver, were forced to sleej) on the floor. How
ardently the ladies wished themselves back at widow
Gillam's! Before retiring Mrs. Edwards, with the
wolves still in her mind, secured from our hostess a
promise that the door should be fastened. In the

WESTWARD HO! 155

morning it was found to have been made secure by
rolling a large pumpkin against it.

By daylight we were on our way toward Jackson-
ville, and on our arrival were driven at once to the
house of Mr. Ellis, where we had been expected the
night before. The house, like others around it, was
very small, but the inmates of a palace could not
have received us with a heartier welcome. The
western words of greeting, "alight! alight!" were
never more heartily uttered. Soon the whole party
with all their effects were stored in the little rooms,
and very quickly we were partaking of a hearty
breakfast that seemed all the more enjoyable on ac-
count of the discomforts of the long journey. " Haec
qnoque meminesse juvihat.^'' During the repast,
greatly to my surprise I was informed that an ap-
pointment had been made for me to preach that
morning in place of Mr. Ellis, who was still at the
East. I must begin at once the work for which we
had undertaken this wearisome journey, and accepted
a home on the frontier.

Kev. John M. Ellis was one of the first mission-
aries of the American Home Missionary Society. He
came to the borders of the Mississippi in 1826, and
had labored mostly at Kaskaskia, an old French town,
and then the capital of the state. Perhaps more pru-
dent than I, he had gone out unmarried. A French
Protestant lady of excellent education, unaffected
piety, and great vivacity, was the woman who was
disp)ensing his hospitality that Sabbath morning.
Mrs. Ellis was in every way worthy of her husband,
and was an excellent helper in his work. In that lit-
tie home she opened a school for young ladies, some

^^<^ JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

of^ whom were her boarders. Such women accom-
plished ill the frontier settlements what would have
been considered impossible elsewhere. Alas! how
soon her work in this world was to end!

CHAPTER X.

FEEBLE BEGINNINGS.

Jacksonville was then a village of onlj^ two years'
growth from the naked prairie. We had sometimes
met those who had seen it, and had curiously asked
Mhat sort of a place it was. The almost invariable
answer had heen: "It is a beautiful place." Evi-
dently our informants did not mean that a beautiful
town had actually been built there, but that the spot
possessed exceptional surroundings. The great
prairie here breaks from its usual monotonous level
into a variety of swelling hills, found nowhere else in
the state. In two cases the hill tops were adorned
by very beautiful natural groves, which gave to the
region a most unusual charm.

On the east side of one of these groves, and on a
crest one mile west of the village center, was the site
selected for Illinois College, and there it stands to=
day. The village itself was very unattractive. The
people generally without capital, could yet show few
signs of thrift, and good lumber was beyond the
reach of any but the very wealthy. There was no
scarcity of timber, but it was hard wood, mostly oak,
unfit for finishing lumber. M(jst of the houses were
covered with boards split from oak logs four feet in
length, and nailed on without shaving. Many roofs
were covered in the same way. Small houses and
many log cabins were built in hope that better lum-

157

158 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

ber would soon be accessible. The census of 1830
gave Jacksonville a population of a little over 600.
This was the little town that we saw in its somber
autumn robes on that Sabbath morning, November
15, 1829.

When breakfast and family worship were over it
was time for church. Neither the ladies nor the
minister needed a change of garments. A hasty
toilet was entirely siifficient. My young wife was
never more beautiful than in the traveling hat and
habit in which she had met me at the nuptial altar
and she wore these that morning. Mrs. Ellis took
her baby boy, about a year old, wn-apxjed warmly, and
led the way, the rest following as best they could
over the soft ground from which the snow had lately
melted. There were no sidewalks in those days.
She ran, rather than walked, the entire distance, more
than a quarter of a mile, though picking her way like
ourselves to avoid the mud, and we kept her in sight
only by stepping briskly. I carried my Bible, hynin^
book and manuscrij)t sermon.

The church was a room about eighteen or twenty
feet square, built of unhewn logs, the floor being
made of split logs called " puncheons," with the split
side U13. There was no pulpit and no special place
for the preacher. He must sit where he could, and
lay his books either in his lap or at his side. The
seats were a little ruder than I have ever since seen
in a jjublic f)lace. " Horses," like those used by me-
chanics to support staging, but of a suitable height
for a seat, were placed in rows across the room, and
on these were laid common split fence rails, ujDon
which the congregation were seated. Yet these un-

FEEBLE BEGINNINGS 159

comfortable sittings were filled by serious and atten-
tive people, and some were compelled to stand about
the open door. Indeed I am convinced that every-
thing about this worshiping assembly was better than
the sermon. I did " shock the prejudices of a west-
tern audience " by a very full sight of a manuscript,
not because I desired to do so but because I could
not help it.

I stood before that congregation, rising just where
I happened to be seated and read from a manuscript.
I could see from their countenances that many of
them were thinking, " I wonder if that young man
calls that preaching." No disrespect however was
shown and no criticism of my effort ever reached my
ears. It was not necessary. I was sufficiently dis-
satisfied. The congregation being dismissed, a few
friends gathered around us and we began our ac-
quaintance with our neighbors. Dr. Hector G. Tay-
lor and his wife invited us to dine, with them, and
their hospitable house proved to be our home for the
winter.

I had been anxious lest the hard external features
of our new life should distress my young wife. I
was surprised to find her less disturbed than myself.
She had expected to encounter the rudeness of the
frontier, and was prepared to meet whatever it might
bring. She never uttered any lamentations, or in my
sight shed any tears. She was cheerful and spright-
ly and often made herself merry over the oddities
which we encountered, though she was careful never
to wound the feelings of others by an untimely dis-
l^lay of amusement. I, on the other hand, was
greatly distressed. I had expected the rough exter-

160 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

ior, but had not realized my own unfitness for the
new situation. The manuscript sermon and the
problem of preaching in such a community caused
me great perplexity and distress. Mr. Ellis would
be absent yet for several weeks, and I was expected
to supply his pulpit and render other pastoral servi-
ces till his return. As I had little else on my hands,
this gave me time to wrestle with the problem. I
tried preaching from manuscript once more, but with
increasing disgust. I then began to commit my ser-
mons to memory, and finding after a few trials that
I could do that ^with great ease, I followed that
method for some time with considerable satisfaction.
But the relief was temporary. The question how I
should preach soon returned, and for months, and
even for years, it occasioned me much anxiety.

But the most distressing and perplexing isroblem
which confronted me in my new field was the discord
which prevailed among Christians. I wish to speak
with all charity of the men who are gone, and of the
churches which, modified not a little by the broader
views of our times, still remain. But I shall no
doubt do the best service to the truth by relating
events just as I saw them. Those were crude times,
and the introduction of New England ideas of educa-
tion and theology in a community largely southern
in its opinions and prejudices, and accustomed to an
uneducated ministry, could not have been accom-
X^lished without some pretty sharp conflicts. There
was, however, one special cause of alienation and
discord which was and is a great evil in Christendom.
In Illinois I met for the first time a divided Chris-
tian community, and was plunged without warning

FEEBLE BEGINNINGS 161

or preparation into a sea of sectarian rivalries which
was kejDt in constant agitation, not only by real dif-
ferences of opinion, but by ill judged discussions and
unfortunate personalities among amijitious men.

At the time of which I am writing the only congre-
gations sustaining regular Sabbath services in Jack-
sonville were the Presbyterian and Methodist Epis-
copal. The Methodists, who were far the more
numerous, worshiped in a large private house. The
third Sabbath after my arrival the Presbyterians
expected to use the court house instead of the school-
house then undergoing repairs. The Methodists
generally occupied the court house for their quar-
terly meetings. Hence there arose a collision of
appointments for which no one in particular was to
blame. On Sabbath morning I found the court room
in which I expected to j)reach already occupied by
the celebrated Peter Cartwright and a large congre-
gation of Methodists. Of course I had no alternative
but to take my seat with the congregation and join in
the worship. As it was a quarterly meeting the
Lord's Supper was to be observed after the discourse.
Under such circumstances one would naturally have
expected a tender evangelical sermon, full of those
truths which commend themselves to every Christian
heart. Judge my astonishment at hearing instead a
bitter attack upon Calvinism, or rather a caricature of
that system, held up now to the ridicule and then to
the indignation of the hearers. It must have been
known that there were many Presbyterians present.
Mr. Cartwright could hardly have been ignorant of
the fact that the man who had come here to lay the
foundations of a college was one of his congregation,

IG2 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

and yet he took particular pains to ridicule collegiate
education, repeating the alread}^ stale and vulgar
saying: "I have never spent four years in rubbing
my back against the walls of a college." Mr. Cart-
wright himself must have greatly changed his views
when, thirty years later, he accepted with apparent
satisfaction the title of D. D. and was generally
called Dr. Cartwright.

I left the court house at the close of the service
with many sad thoughts. Is it true, I asked myself,
that in the field where my life is to be spent the
Church of Christ is a house divided against itself?
Am I to find the bitterest enemies of my work in a
separate caraj) of the Lord's i^rofessed followers?
Here where ignorance is so prevalent am I to find
eminent ministers of the Gospel disparaging and
ridiculing my humble efforts in the cause of edu-
cation?

The same somber religious aspects presented them-
selves wherever I turned my eyes. The community
was ^perpetually agitated by sectarian prejudices and
rivalries. It was deemed wise to omit our service on
a certain Sabbath for the accommodation of a few
Cumberland Presbyterian families who desired to
hear a minister of their own order. Of course I was
in the congregation. The speaker was not "apt to
teach." He was without even average intelligence or
culture, and commenced his sermon with much hesi-
tation and evident uncertainty. After s^Deaking
fifteen minutes, without any trace of connected
thought, so far as I was able to perceive, certainly
with no distinct propositions, he suddenly began to
rant. His words were spoken so rapidly and in so

FEEBLE BEGINNINGS 163

high a key that few could be iindevstood. Nothing
seemed clear but the frequent repetition of cant
words and phrases void of connection, all accompa-
nied by a vehemence of tone and gesture that aston-
ished and distressed me. He suddenly ceased, an-
nounced a hymn, prayed and dismissed the congrega-
tion. The house being densely filled and the air
stiffling it was an inexpressible relief to escape into
the open air. To my amazement I was assured on
the way home by a lady of our own congregation,
from whom I had hoped for better things, that we
had heard a most excellent sermon. My cup was
full! Was this woman a fair tyj)e of the people
among whom my future life was to be spent? Was
sect so strong that in order to prevent our commu-
nity from being further divided religiously we must
listen on Sabbath morning to such a shower of
emptiness and stupidity? These were queries, how-
ever, to be communicated only to the one who could
perfectly sympathize with me.

No words can express the shock which my mind
experienced. The transition from those harmonious
and united Christian communities in which my life
had hitherto been passed, to this realm of confusion
and religious anarchy was almost overpowering. Is
this, I asked myself, the proper relation of Christ's
disciples to each other? As large a proportion of the
l^eople around me in Jacksonville were members of
Christian evangelical churches as in the other com-
munities in which I lived; but here every man's hand
was against his brother. The possibility of Christian
co=operation was absolutely limited to these little
cliques into which the body of Christ was divided.

164 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

For the first time I was forming an acquaintance
with the Church under the influence of sectarian prej-
udices. And now after fifty years I still feel that I
did not attach too much importance to the manifes-
tations of divided sentiment among Christians around
me, or overestimate the evil tendencies of sectarian
divisions. This condition of the Church was not tem-
IDorary or local. In all the valley of the Mississippi,
during the infancy of society, when moral forces
were weakest, and when the bonds which held civil-
ized society together were subject to the greatest
strain through immigration, the conservative power of
the Christian religion was greatly enfeebled by just
such sectarian conflicts as those I witnessed in Cen-
tral Illinois.

Even at this day, though the aspects of denomina-
tionalism have been greatly modified, and though the
courtesies of Christian life are far better observed
and the external relations of the different sects are
far more fraternal, it is true, as it was fifty years ago,
that different denominations exhibit too much of the
spirit of rivalry and too little of the spirit of co-ope-
ration for the upbuilding of God's Kingdom in this
world. It is even now impossible to secure the fel-
lowship) of all the religious people of Illinois in any
work of faith and charity, however obviously impor-
tant to the general welfare. The opinions then
formed of the tendencies and the inevitable results of
the sect system have been constantly confirmed.

During all these experiences my friend and fellow^
laborer, Mr. Baldwin, had been absent at Vandalia,
then the capital of the state, having chosen that as
his field of labor, and I had been left to navigate the

FEEBLE BEGIXNIXGS 165

tnmultuous seas as best I could, alone. He came to
Jacksonville in December to attend a meeting of the
western subscribers to the college, called to elect
three trustees according to the jjlan before agreed
upon. I was greatly encouraged and helloed by his
wise and sympathetic counsels. At this meeting a
resolution was passed (certainly without any consul-
tation with me) bestowing upon the institution the
name of Illinois College. At the first meeting of the
Board of Trustees held immediately after the election
mentioned above it was ordered that the institution
be opened for the reception of students on Monday,
January 4, 1830, and that I should take entire charge.

CHAPTER XI.

PROGRESS.

As soon as jDossible after it was known that the
association of young men in Yale College would co*
oj)erate in founding an institution of learning, the
erection of a small two story brick building had been
commenced on the beautiful site chosen for the col-
lege. That building was far from comx)letion on
Monday, the 4th of January, 1830, but one large room
was ready for use. In it I found on that morning
nine pupils assembled for instruction. It was the
day of small things, but its insx)iration was drawn
from faith in God and the future. After reading
from the Bible I briefly addressed the young men.
The very sjjirit of our enterprise was expressed in my
first sentence. " We are here to=day to open a foun-
tain where future generations may drink." I then
offered prayer committing the whole enterprise for
the present and the long future to the care and pro-
tection of God.

Three or four of the pupils had already made some
progress in the acquisition of the Latin language, and
were looking forward to a collegiate education and to
the Christian ministry. One or two more manifested
a desire to commence classical study. The rest
wished to pursue rudimentary branches only. Of
the thirty or forty students received during the first
year, very few had plans beyond a limited English

166

OUR PROGRESS 167

education. This was not surprising, for there was
then no school in the state at which a youth could
have prepared for college. We had no public school
system. The few log schoolhouses found in those
portions of the state where settlements had been com-
menced had been built as cheaxoly as possible by a
few neighbors at their own expense. They were ex-
pected to serve only a temporary purpose. Any man
who found himself out of employment felt at liberty
to seek the neighborhood of an unoccux^ied school-
house, circulate his prospectus, and obtain subscrip-
tions for a three or four months' school. If the
X^ledges were satisfactory he oxDened his school and
conducted it in his own way. No board of education
interfered with him. He was a law unto himself.
In most cases the ijarents had absolutely no guaran-
tee for his moral character or his fitness to teach.
The state had a school fund, the interest of which
was distributed to such schools as complied with the
conditions of the statute. There were, however, no
l^rovisions for permanent school districts. Of course,
under these circumstances, we could not reasonably
expect to receive from the community around us
l^upils who had made any considerable progress in
study. In two or three years the increased reputa-
tion of the college began to attract young men more
or less advanced in classical study, who wished to
acquire a collegiate education.

I now found myself leading a very busy life. From
nine o'clock in the morning until four in the after-
noon I was steadily employed at the institution,
which was a mile from my boarding place.

My time out of school was fully occupied in caring

168 JULIAN M. STURTEVANf

for the general interests of the college and in conduct-
ing its correspondence. After Rev. Mr. Ellis returned
I became Superintendent of his Sabbath-school, and
devoted much of my time to its interests, for Mr.
Ellis kept himself and all his co=workers busy. I
was frequently invited to preach for him, and having
no time to commit my sermons to memory my old
troubles returned. I was certainly in no danger of
" shocking my audience by the sight of a manuscript, "
for I had no time to prepare one. I must either i^reach
unwritten sermons or not preach at all. Making the
best preparation I could, I would go before the au-
dience with an abstract of the sermon I intended to
deliver, but invariably with the same result. I was
mortified and often disgusted because I had not
carried out the intended line of thought. Many
unguarded expressions painful to remember had been
uttered, and my discourse seemed to me to have been
rambling and illogical. After every such effort I
felt I could never again speak extemporaneously. I
seemed to be losing the power of close and logical
thinking. Apparently others did not so judge, for I
was constantly importuned to preach. After resist-
ing as long as possible I invariably consented to try
again, with the same result as before.

After a time I w^as invited to occupy each Sabbath
afternoon with an expository lecture on the Sunday-
school lesson. In this I found great benefit and re-
lief. The intimate association between the words of
the text and the comments I proposed to make held
me to the intended line of thought, and I retired at
the close of each address with some degree of satis-
faction. In these expository discourses I learned to

OUR PROGRESS 169

"think on my legs." If my experience is worth any-
thing, expository preaching, with thorough prepara-
tion and a faithful adherence to the spirit and mean-
ing of the sacred text, furnishes the best training for
the extemporaneous preacher.

Other grave and unexpected questions began to
arrest my attention. When I received my commission
from the American Home Missionary Society, strange
as it may seem I had absolutely no opinions about
church government. I wished to form none, for I
entertained almost contempt for the whole subject.
Dr. Taylor's very able lectures in respect to it did not
produce the slightest impression on my mind. I felt
that I must attend to weightier matters,- such as
preaching the Gospel, and leave the tithing of mint
and anise and cummin to those who had more faith
in such things. I could not live in Jacksonville
in the midst of such scenes of religious conflict with-
out seeing my mistake. Did Jesus intend that His
followers should live in such unhappy relations with
each other? The whole subject of church organiza-
tion and church government became invested with
the highest religious importance.

When I was ordained by a Congregational council I
supposed, as did all my fathers in the ministry, that
on reaching my field of labor and presenting my
certificate of ordination I should be immediately
received into the Presbyterian Church. At my ordi-
nation it was not asked whether 1 accepted the doc-
trines of the Westminster Confession of faith, nor
are candidates for Congregational ordination now
asked that question. The simple truth is that at
that time I had never read that confession. My

170 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

parents who taught me the Shorter Catechism did not
treat it as infallible, and gave their own reasons for
objecting to some of its doctrines. They regarded
the Word of God as the only standard of orthodoxy.
They were no theologians; but if the Westminster
Confession had been placed before them they would
certainly have exercised their right of private judg-
ment in discussing it, as freely as they did in respect
to the Shorter Catechism or a published sermon.

I had deemed it unnecessary to study that confes-
sion before presenting myself for admission to the
Presbytery. At a very early day, however, curiosity
led me to examine a copy which accidentally fell into
my hands. In the form of church government accom-
panying the Confession I found substantially the fol-
lowing questions j)roposed to all candidates for ordi-
nation either as ministers or elders: "Do you accept
the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms of the
Presbyterian Church as containing the system of doc-
trine taught in the Holy Scriptures?" " Do you ap-
prove of the government and discipline of the Presby-
terian Church in the United States?"

Assuming that these questions would be propound-
ed to me whenever I should apply for admission, I
felt comiDelled to examine that Confession of Faith
and prepare myself to answer the "constitutional
questions" intelligently. I had not pursued the sub-
ject far before it became evident that I could not
answer in the affirmative without violating my con-
science. Mr. Ellis, who was my trusted counselor,
bade me fear not, as those questions were never pro-
pounded to ministers coming with clean papers from

OUR PROGRESS 171

Congregational bodies. He also said that no person
was expected to make those affirmations in such a sense
as to imi^ly his belief in every jaroposition contained
in the Confession of Faith and the Catechism. They
were to be accepted only "for substance of doctrine."
This statement was not altogether novel, but to this
day it has never given me any satisfaction. It has
always seemed to me an indefensible violation of good
faith for a man formally to accept a doctrinal state-
ment which he can only make his own by doing vio-
lence to the obvious meaning of some of its phrases.

The declaration that I receive the Westminster
Confession of Faith as "containing the system of doc-
trine taught in the Holy Scriptures " is literally un-
true. That some of the doctrines taught in the
Scriptures, perhaps most of them, are contained in
that confession, would be readily admitted; but cer-
tainly all of them are not. For example, the doctrine
that under all conditions God will as surely forgive
a penitent sinner as a loving father will receive a
penitent prodigal son, is most clearly taught in the
fifteenth chapter of Luke. Certainly this truth is not
recognized in the Confession, and the fact that it is not
has been for ages a source of controversy, perplexity
and confusion. I was, however, relieved for the time
by the information that I .should not be called upon
to assent to "the constitutional C[uestions."

The reader must not infer from the space here given
to ecclesiastical cpiestions that my chief energies at
that time were expended upon them. Far from it.
Those questions were intimately connected with my
work, and suggested great practical problems which

172 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

called on every lover of God and .men for a solution.
But I had no time for connected study and reading
upon such themes.

My chief energies must be given to the school. I
sought not only to secure satisfactory progress in those
branches which my jjupils were pursuing, but to ex-
cite their curiosity and inspire them with the love of
knowledge. I spent considerable time in making
choice selections from English literature, which I read
to my XDupils, thus cultivating their literary tastes and
filling their minds with noble thoughts and stimulat-
ing imagery. It seemed to be an excellent method
with pupils such as mine were. The circumstances
were not very inspiring to my own mind, but my zeal
for the enterprise called out my best efforts. The
Saturday holiday was generally fully occupied in pre-
paring for the Sabbath. Meanwhile we were busily
planning for the completion of our building, for
which we felt great need. This was accomx^lished in
the early spring. One day I showed my wife a vacant
house of hewn logs which occupied the very spot
where now stands the principal building of Illinois
College, and suggested to her that the serious incon-
venience of our present narrow quarters and of living
so far from my work might possibly be avoided by
repairing the old house and making it our temporary
home. The whole asj^ect of the f)lace was most re-
pulsive, and I did not wonder that for the first time
she met a suggestion of hardship with a burst of
tears. But she soon recovered her composure and
agreed with me that we should really be more com-
fortable by making the change. We made such im-
provements as were practicable, and about the middle

OUR PROGRESS 173

of March began housekeeping on College Hill. Our
home was very humble, but very happy, and neither
of us have ever had an earthly home far from that
spot.

In the same month of March the Presbytery of Illi-
nois, then attached to the Synod of Missouri and in-
cluding all the Presbyterians in Illinois, met at
Si^ringfield. I could not leave my work, and Mr.
Ellis suggested that I should send my letter and make
application for admission. I doubted the proj^riety
of becoming a minister of the Presbyterian Church
without having given assent to the constitutional
questions prescribed by that body to all her officials.
My friends and associates whose theological views
did not differ from my own felt no such difficulty. I
must either enter by that door or quit the field and
relinquish my enterprise. Finally their view pre-
vailed with me. I sent my letter and became a
Presbyterian minister. In May of the same year the
General Assembly passed a regulation that ministers
coming from Congregational bodies should in future
assent to the constitutional questions. So quickly
was the door closed by which I had entered.

In our April vacation I visited my friend, Mr.
Baldwin, at Vandalia, about eighty miles distant.
Leaving Jacksonville after dinner on a little Canadian
pony, I passed few human habitations until I reached
a log cabin at the head of Apple Creek, twenty miles
from home, where I spent the night. It was a ''hard
place " then, but is now the flourishing and beautiful
town of Waverly. The next morning a ride of twenty
miles over an utterly uninhabited jorairie took me to
the head of Macoupin Creek, where I paused to re-

174 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

fresh myself and the pony. About twenty miles more
over another perfectly wild i)rairie brought me to
Hillsboro. In the middle of that plain a drenching
shower accompanied by a high wind struck us directly
in the face and my pony in spite of all my efforts turned
his head away from the storm, and refused to proceed
until the gale had subsided. At the close of the short
temj)est I rode on to the house of Mr. John Tillson.
He, with his beautiful and excellent wife, Christiana
Tillson, have ever since held their places among my
choicest friends. In that beautiful home the hum-
blest missionary was sure to find himself surrounded
by all that is charming in Christian civilization. Of-
ten since then their walls have sheltered me and their
greeting has cheered me.

The next morning I pursued my journey twenty
miles further to Vandalia, where nearly a week was
spent with Mr. Baldwin discussing plans for the fu-
ture. He was boarding in the hospitable family of
Hon. James Hall, afterward a resident of Philadel-
phia, and well known for his graceful and si^irited
contributions to periodical literature.

Returning, I generally followed my former route,
but leaving Apple Creek cabin in the gray morning
and following the directions of my host I swept away
over the trackless prairie, around the head of Apple
Creek and the Mauvaisterre and found no timber until
I crossed the last named creek, a mile east of Jackson-
ville. Far out upon the prairie that morning I dis-
covered at no great distance a large brown wolf of the
most dangerous character. He, however, made ofp
without showing any disposition to attack me. Re-

OUR PROGRESS 175

turning from such a journey I found my house of logs
a very delightful home.

In the summer term following, the school had so
greatly increased in numbers and in the variety of
studies pursued that I gladly accepted the offer of a
young lawyer by the name of Stone, then spending
the season at Jacksonville to assist me. He was an
excellent scholar and an amiable and interesting asso-
ciate.

June came bright and joyous to all the world, and no-
where more so than on College Hill. On the 7th a dar-
ling boy came to our arms and hearts, but with him came
great anxiety and apprehension. The season was ex-
ceptionally stormy and the frequent showers were
accomj)anied by high winds that drove the rain into
the crevices between the logs, and drenched the interi-
or until the water ran down upon the floor. My wife
took cold, and had a feverish attack, followed by pro-
tracted complications which rendered her illness long
and critical. I was inexperienced in the care of the
sick, and felt by no means competent to minister to
the wants of my wife and child. Under those trying
circumstances I know not M'liat we should have done
had it not been for the kindly assistance of Mrs. Ed-
wards, of whom I have i)reviously spoken, and Mrs.
Lock wood, wife of the Hon. Samuel D. Lock wood of
the Supreme Court of the state. A sister or a mother
could not have been more sympathizing or assiduous.
Through the watchful care of these friends, and the
kindness of a gracious Providence, health came at last
to mother and son and our home was again full of

joy-

176 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

Justice and afPection demand that more should be
said of Judge and Mrs. Lockwood. They came to
make Jacksonville their home almost immediately
after our arrival. It was through the kind offices of
Judge Lockwood that the college obtained the beautiful
site on which it now stands. He had contemplated
building his own house on that spot, but made it a
free gift to the college on condition that the institu-
tion should be located there. His name deserves
most honorable mention, and among the faithful, per-
sistent, and efficient benefactors of Illinois College.
He was one of the first to whom Mr. Ellis communi-
cated his project for an institution of learning.
When Mr. Ellis i^roposed to make a tour of observa-
tion through the counties of Greene, Morgan and
Sangamon, then lying on the northern frontier of the
peox)led j)ortion of the state and beginning to be rap-
idly occupied by settlers, Judge Lockwood proposed
that his clerk, Thomas Lippincott, afterwards an
efficient and beloved minister of the Gospel, should
accompany him and furnished a horse and all the
funds necessary for the expedition. This tour proved
to be of great importance to our future. Many pat-
riotic and Christian men became thereby acquainted
with the project and greatly assisted the undertak-
ing.

During the summer and autumn of 1830 much cor-
respondence took place between the trustees already
residing in Illinois and those who were still at New
Haven, in relation to the selection of a president for
the institution. In the autumn Kev. Edward Beecher,
then pastor of Park Street church in Boston, was
elected to, and accepted, that position. I already knew

OUR PROGRESS 177

him well and had great confidence in him, and my
heart rejoiced that the leading responsibility of the
institution was soon to pass into the hands of a man
so competent, so strong and so devoted.

CHAPTER XII.

THE DEEP SNOW.

It was to be yet a year and a half before Mr. Beeclier
would enter upon the work of in.struction. He, how-
ever, visited us in December, I80O, for the purpose of
becoming acquainted with the situation of the enter-
prise and its needs, and to qualify himself to speak and
act for it in the eastern and middle states. Almost
immediately after his arrival he was summoned to
Vandalia, where the legislature was in session and ef-
forts were in progress to obtain a charter for Illinois
College. The opportmiity of meeting the lawmakers
of the state and learning their views in that early day
was not lost, but after weeks of trial the bill was de-
feated and the hope of obtaining a charter postponed
to a time in the indefinite future. The prejudices
that defeated it were so absurd that we can hardly
realize the i^otent influence they then possessed. The
most prominent argument was the alleged discovery
that Presbyterians were planning to gain undue in-
fluence in our politics, and were proposing to control
the government of the state in the interest of Presby-
terianism. There were only a few hundred Presby-
terians at that time in the entire state.

Mr. Beecher did not remain at Vandalia till the end
of the conflict, but returned during the Christmas
holidays to Jacksonville. Simultaneausly with the
commencement of his journey occurred the historic

178

THE DEEP SyOW 179

"deep snow," and he found himself weather = bound at
Hillsboro, but at the hospitable home of our dear
friends Mr. and Mrs. Tillson. There he met Mr.
Charles Holmes, a noble friend and benefactor of Ill-
inois College. He was an unmarried brother of
Mrs. Tillson, and resided at Quincy. He was very
anxious to return home at once, by way of Jackson-
ville, but such a journey now seemed impossible.
Snow covered the entire country to the depth of at
least three feet on the level. The storm ended in
rain, which freezing as it fell formed a coat of ice not
quite strong enough to bear a man's weight. On the
top of this there fell a few inches of fine snow, as
light as ashes. When the storm ceased and the bright
sun beamed down upon the landscape a fierce north-
west wind arose, and for weeks swept over the prai-
ries, filling the air with drifting snow so blinding and
choking in its effect that it seemed impossible for a
man to make headway against it. It was not like a
storm among the hills of New England, where the
light snow is presently dejiosited beyond the reach of
the wind. In this level country, with no forests and
no fences, there were no sheltered spots, and the
drifting continued till the surface was softened by
the sun, or till the wind ceased. Both Mr. Beecher
and Mr. Holmes were accustomed to the stern winters
of Xew England. The former was reared on Litch-
field Hill in my own native county. They were not
very likely to be frightened by a snow storm. Mr.
Holmes owned a powerful horse, and harnessing him
to a temporary sleigh constructed by the joint inge-
nuity of the two gentlemen, they undertook and
accomplished the perilous task of crossing the forty=

180 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

mile prairie tbroiigli that body of snow and in the
face of the blizzard.

On arriving Mr. Beecher found us contending with
the effects of the storm upon our rude^ inadequate
log house. The blast had forced the drifting snow
through every crevice and rendered the house utterly
untenantable. We were obliged to take shelter for
the remainder of the winter in some of the new and
imperfectly finished rooms of the college building.
Mr. Beecher also occupied one of the rooms and
remained with us till March, aiding in the work of
instruction whenever his assistance was necessary.
One whose life had been silent in southern New Eng-
land can form little conception of such a winter. It
was impossible to break out snow paths in the New
England fashion. On driving a team through the
snow the track behind it would be almost immediately
obliterated by the wind. From College Hill to the
village a path was at last obtained only by driving in
the same track until the snow was rounded up like a
turnpike. The newness of the country greatly
increased the hardships of that winter. Our fuel was
yet in the forest, and even much of our food supj)ly
remained still in the fields covered by the deep snow.
The j)opulation around us was almost wholly from
the south and had no conception of such a winter.
They were well nigh paralyzed by the task imposed
upon them.

No morning dawned upon us for many days when
the thermometer registered less than twelve degrees
below zero. For three weeks it scarcely thawed even
on the sunny side of the house. The biting wind was
incessant. Had our railroads then been in existence

THE DEEP SNOW 181

I fear they would have proved for the time useless
The deep cuts would have filled with drifts, and even
modern api3liances could hardly have kept them open.
For nine weeks this snow covered the gTound for liun
dreds of miles in every direction. What a welcome
visitor was returning sj)ring.

As soon as traveling became practicable Mr.
Beecher returned to the East, taking with him Mr.
Baldwin, for the i)urpose of raising as large a sum as
possible for the college. For several years we were
almost entirely dependent for our resources upon
friends at a distance. The early settlers of this
entire region were poor. Wealthy emigrants from the
south crossed the " Free State," as Illinois was then
somewhat contemptuously called, and located in Mis-
souri where they could retain their human chattels.
Those who had no slaves preferred to settle in Illi-
nois where their labor would not be degraded by the
companionshiiD of the enslaved negro. From these
settlers little help could be exiDected in the erection
and the equipment of a college. Furthermore, sectar-
ian divisions would have been effectual in depriving
us of helj) from our own community, had the people
been far more wealthy. The Presbyterians, from
whom alone we could exiDCct co=operation, were but
a feeble band. The first of these obstacles time raj)-
idly removed, but the second still hinders the union
of the entire community in college building.

Spring came, and with it a great sorrow. Our dar-
ling boy suddenly sickened and died in our arms after
an illness of but a few hours. Xothing remained for
us but to tenderly bury his loved form in a grave sur-
rounded by a little wooden enclosure on the lone

182 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

prairie, and go on with our work. My wife's heart
was almost broken. She never recovered the full
buoyancy of her spirits, though several years of
happy married life still remained to us.

By this time we were beginning to feel the early
vibrations of that religious earthquake which a few
years later divided the Presbyterian Church into two
rival bodies of nearly equal strength. That agitation
from its commencement exerted a disastrous influ-
ence upon our community. One of the principal
causes of alienation was the rise and progress of the
controversy about Taylorism, or the New Haven The-
ology. The Presbyterian Church west and south,
was composed of two classes of x^eople sej)arated by
very marked characteristics. One class was of New
England origin. It had been to a great extent
brought into the Presbyterian Church under the plan
of union between Congregationalists and Presbyter-
ians, negotiated between the General Assembly and
the General Association of Connecticut, near the be-
ginning of the present century. The other class was
largely of Scotch origin, and adhered very closely to
the church of John Knox and the original from
which it was copied, the church of John Calvin.
These Presbyterians had never been in full sympathy
with the "iDlan of union," and regarded religious
ideas imported from New England with i^eculiar dis-
trust. This suspicion had been greatly intensified by
the controversy then in progress in New England.
It was perceived that the newly awakened zeal of the
East for home evangelization was rapidly swelling
the numbers and increasing the influence of the New
England party. Active efforts were made to arrest

THE DEEP SNOW 183

the progress of these ideas and to strengthen the
bands of ecclesiasticism against their encroachment
njjon tlie Church.

The American Home Missionary Society, with
headquarters in New York City, represented in a
measure the movement from New England. The
advocates of a stronger ecclesiasticism carried on
their home missionary operations through the Assem-
bly's Board of Missions which had its seat in Phila-
delphia. These two missionary organizations, though
both endorsed by the Presbyterian Church, w^ere soon
brought into sharp rivalry. There is no doubt that
the Assembly's board sharply watched those who
were commissioned by the Home Missionary Society,
and in certain instances made strenuous efforts to
abridge their influence. Nor can it be denied that
what was transpiring at Jacksonville was regarded
with suspicion at Philadelphia.

The brethren misjudged us. We were not propa-
gandists of Taylorism or of anything else save the
Gospel of Christ. We were not seeking to gain an
influence in the Presbyterian Church. Our only pur-
pose was to do an earnest and honest work in laying-
foundations for the kingdom of God. Most of us had
then no thought of ever organizing Congregational
churches in Illinois. We had no fear that Presby-
terians would oppose such plans as ours. On the
contrary we took it for granted that we should have
their sympathy and help.

Rev. Wm. J. Frazer, who was sent from Philadel-
phia to a pastorate near us, assumed the duty of
watching us and counteracting our errors. He
proved to be a very unscrupulous man, as was shown

184 JULIAN M. STUETEVANT

by his being, a few years later, deposed from the
ministry. Is it not wonderful how great an influence
for evil a coarse, bad man can exert, when he plays
upon ecclesiastical passions and prejudices? We
immediately felt a disturbing element in our com-
munity. He influenced a few students, and induced
them to bring evil reports against us and to misrep-
resent our actions and teachings. All this was im-
mediately reported at Philadelphia. There were in
the state Presbyterian ministers, some of whom were
men of influence and popular power, who encouraged
him in his efforts to suppress " heresy." Party lines
were drawn, and Jacksonville became the bone of
contention. Our ecclesiastical jiosition became ex-
ceedingly galling and uncomfortable, and our good
work was sadly hindered.

In the summer of 1831 I began to find relief from
my troubles about iDreaching topical sermons without
a manuscrii^t. That summer Mr. Ellis had obtained
the assistance of some of the neighboring ministers
in holding a few daily meetings. One afternoon he
came to me saying that a sermon must be preached
on a certain topic, and that the other clergymen con-
curred in the request that I should deliver it. I
earnestly begged to be excused. I could not bear to
read the carefully written discourse I had on the sub-
ject. Abstracts had invariably failed to help me. If
I looked at my outline I lacked the sympathy of my
audience, and soon became confused. If I kept my
eye on my audience and neglected my abstract, I
wandered from my subject. Finally I determined to
try one more experiment. I prepared a brief abstract
and left my manuscript at home. In that effort I

THE DEEP SS'O \V 18S

somehow discovered the art of preaching from notes.
To my great relief I found that I could construct an
outline that would perfectly represent to my mind a
topical sermon and guide me in its delivery. I after-
wards found that I could by a little study recall the
suggestions of an outline and preach from it sub-
stantially the same sermon I had delivered
months or even years before. From that time I
think that my discourses from carefully prei^ared ab-
stracts were more logical than those I had previously
written. I once heard Dr. Samuel H. Cox speaking
to the theological students at Andover, and answering
the objection that unwritten sermons are apt to be
verbose and illogical, exclaim with a most characteris-
tic intonation: "The Lord deliver us from extem-
poraneous written sermons ! " Amen !

After that, it was my rule to accept, unless j)re-
vented by other engagements, all invitations to
preach. My seemingly insurmountable problem was
solved, and I have preached much without interfering
in the least with my duties as an instructor. If I
had plenty of time for preparation I improved it. If
I had less it was still possible to make the most of it,
and trusting to the stimulus of the truth, the
l)resence of an audience and the promised help of the
Holy Spirit, to preach as best I could.

My enlargement as a preacher had, however, an-
other cause which ought to be mentioned. During
these years the method of my religious thinking was
undergoing a very important change. At first I
viewed religious questions chiefly from the theological
standpoint. I was trying to j)reacli the theology
learned at school. I soon began to see that the tech-

186 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

nical dress of thought is not that which is best fitted
to influence the majority of listeners. If we would
convince the j)eoj)le we must present the truth not
in the abstract, but in those concrete forms through
which the intercourse of the world is chiefly carried
on. I remember having said to my wife at dinner,
in the early days of our married life, when she and I
comfjosed the entire dinner party, '" One thing I am
resolved to do in preaching, whatever else I may fail
in; I will translate whatever religious ideas I possess
from the technical terms of the schools into the pop-
ular language of everyday life."

During all these months, in spite of bitter and
groundless attacks, the school made steady progress
in the number and quality of its pupils. In our im-
mediate vicinity the number who sympathized with
Mr. Frazer constantly diminished. Our unaggressive
efforts to found a college and to preach the simple
gosj)el of repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus
Christ, gave little advantage to our enemies where we
were known. Of course we could not i^revent injury
being done to the good cause by one who was cajja-
ble of sowing the seeds of suspicion and distrust
among those who were in a large measure ignorant of
us and of our work. No doubt these misrepresenta-
tions did considerable harm, and aided in driving the
wedge that finally produced a division in the Presby-
terian Church.

It seems my duty to record another incident that
strikingly illustrates the condition of ecclesiastical
affairs around us, although I am not certain of the
year of its occurrence. The anniversaries of certain
religious societies in which Presbyterians co=operated

THE DEEP SNOW 187

. were held in Vandalia in December, and duriui^ the
sessions of the Suiireme Court and the Legislature.
Many leading ministers of this denomination partici-
pated. On the occasion in question the delegates
had been invited to a dinner jjarty just outside the
city limits. While walking thither an able and re-
spected defender of strict ecclesiasticism surprised
me by saying in the hearing of others: " Brother
Sturtevant, I have a ijroposition to make by which it
seems to me we can all work together in harmony.
It is that you and your friends should co=oj)erate with
us through the Assembly's Board of Missions in
drawing the pastors of our churches and our home
missionaries as far as may be from the west and
south, and in return, we will co-operate with your
college." The x^roposition shocked me exceedingly.
I felt it to be a personal insult to suppose me capable
of entertaining it for a moment. I replied in sub-
stance that if our college were good and worthy he
could not afford to opj)ose it; if it were bad and un-
worthy its character and influence would not be im-
proved by the agreement which he proposed. Of
course, the chasm between us was widened. Was it
my fault? I knew not how to conciliate men who
a.sked and expected me to act on such jirincixjles.

Such experiences convinced me that the Presby-
terian Church was then composed of incongruous and
incomx^atible elements which could not co exist
under such a constitution without unceasing strife.
I found it impossible in the midst of such conflict-
ing elements to live a life of tranquil consecration to
my work. Our efforts to build up an institution of
learning were greatly obstructed and embarrassed. I

188 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

felt that freedom from my ecclesiastical connection
would be far preferable to the relations in which we
stood. My friends, Beecher and Baldwin, recognized
with me the great disadvantages of onr position, but
advised patient waiting for the relief that was sure to
come in the disruption of the Presbyterian Church.
Mr. Beecher once ventured the remark that we could
construct from the fragment of the Presbyterian
Church then known as " New Schoor' an ecclesiasti-
cal system far better than either Presbyterianism or
the Congregationalism of New England. I urged
that no change in the organization of either branch
was likely to follow their separation, as then each
party would be more zealous than ever in its adher-
ence to the old constitution, and since each wtnild be
anxious to be considered the true Presbyterian
Church. Perhaps no immediate deliverence from
our troubles was at that time j)ossible. Being the
youngest of our fraternity, I could only submit to the
policy of bearing "the ills we have" in hope of
providential deliverance in the near future.

I cannot leave this painful subject without pointing
out one disastrous result of these ecclesiastical and
sectarian conflicts which continues to this day.
Public opinion in this region was then almost unan-
imous in favor of intrusting the higher education to
institutions established and controlled by religious
people, rather than to those founded and governed by
the state, or by any other political body. In this
respect, the principle upon which our institution was
based met almost universal approbation. Had the
Christian j)eople of Illinois then united to sustain it,
or any other college established on like principles,

THE DEEP SNOW 189

they could easilj' have given it so much of strength
and iDublic confidence that it would have been above
the competition of all non Christian institutions. It
was, then, these ecclesiastical and sectarian rivalries
which prevented the religious part of the community
from aquiring a controlling influence on the higher
education. After a time intelligent and patriotic
men, seeing the denominations entirely incapable of
uniting for a great undertaking and even weakened
by internal dissensions, began to despair of colleges
founded on the voluntary principle, and to turn
toward the state as the only hojDe for great and well=
equipped seats of learning. We still look to our
Christian colleges for an expression of those moral
and religious convictions in which many churches
agree. It is a great misfortune that an opportunity
was lost and faith in the voluntary princij)le even
temf)orarily weakened. It was these divisions, and
not any defect in our religion, which left us like
Samson shorn of his strength.

CHAPTER XI 1 1.

ENLARGEMENTS.

The mission of Mr. Beecher and Mr. Baldwin to
the east in the spring of 1831 for procuring an en-
largement of the resources of the College was quite
succesful. It is probably impossible to ascertain now
how large an amount was actually brought into the
college treasury. Large subscriptions were obtained
that were to be paid in annual installments, but
before the time for payment arrived commercial dis-
aster overtook many of the subscribers, and our losses
in consequence were large. The funds collected
how^ever, seemed, to justify the trustees in reorgan-
izing the institution in the spring of 1833 on a consid
erably enlarged scale. The distinction between the
college proper and the preparatory department was
clearly defined. Four classes were formed, and as
many departments of instruction were provided for.
The department of Mental, Morafand Social Philoso-
phy was assigned to President Beecher; that of Latin
and Greek to Prof. Truman M. Post, now Rev. Dr.
Post of St. Louis; that of Rhetoric and Oratory to
Prof. Jonathan B. Turner; and the department of
Mathematics, Natural Philosophy and Astronomy to
myself.

In the previous year a large building had been com-
menced, 104 feet long, 40 feet wide, and four stories
high, with a basement for a boarding establishment.

190

ENLARGEMENTS 191

It had also two wings, each two stories high, designed
to be occupied by President Beecher and myself,
with our families. The situation of the college, a
full mile from the village, rendered these additional
accommodations a necessity. Unfortunately the
building was jpoorly planned and imperfectly built.
Good material at that time was very scarce, and it
would have been difficult for any one to build well.
But I keenly felt that had I jpossessed more exper-
ience it might have been somewhat better than it was.
It was not an ornament to the beautiful site, a fact
that occasioned much sorrow in after years. Every
room was however speedily occupied. As many
students as could be accommodated within a conven-
ient distance apjolied for admi.ssion, but they were
very diverse in their attainments and aims. Far less
than half were fitted to enter any of the college classes
The rest were provided for in the preparatory dej^art-
ment, some ultimately to enter college, and others to
pursue the various branches of a purely English
education. One teacher was constantly engaged in
this preparatory and miscellaneous department. The
president and the professors also bestowed upon it,
in addition to the onerous duties of their own depart-
ments, much labor.

The instructors were all religious men, and
thus far all of New England birth and educa-
tion. This would certainly have been inexpedient
had it not been unavoidable. The case reminds
me of a correspodence between the Rev John M.
Peck, a distinguished and very able Baptist mission-
ary in this state, and myself. Mr. Peck wrote sug-
gesting the possibility of the Baptists endowing a

192 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

department of instruction in the college, provided
they could retain the right to designate the incum-
bent. I replied, warmly approving of his proposition
and added that if the imcumbent should be a western
or a southern man it would be all the better. Mr.
Peck thanked me for the fraternal spirit of my letter,
but reminded me that, "the West and South produced
the raw material, and were not yet manufacturing
regions." That M^as exactly the condition of that
part of the country, yet it annoyed many of the people
around us that all the professors were " Yankees."

It was deemed important by all the teachers, that
some method should be devised whereby the Sabbath
should be used by the students as a day of religious
instruction and culture. The young men represented
all classes, and various religious opinions, and we
had no wish to introduce among them influences of a
sectarian character. We earnestly desired to teach
them the great universal truths of Christian faith and
morality. I see nothing to regret but much to rejoice
over, as I now review the position then assumed by
the instructors in relation to the religious training of
our students. The time will never come when
teachers will not be under sacred obligations to pro-
vide for the moral and religious training of their
pupils. Religion and morality are and ever must be
fundamental in the formation of character, and can-
not be dispensed with in the formative period of life.
The churches of the town were so remote that it
seemed necessary to provide some religious instruction
in our chapel on the Sabbath, but the college re-
sources were inadequate to pay for the services of a
special instructor. Therefore Mr. Beecher and I

EXLARGEMENTS 193

consented to preach alternately morning and afternoon
each Sabbath, and for many successive years this
arrangement was continued. It is delightful to
remember that the fraternal co=operation of President
Beecher and myself in that labor of love was never
disturbed by the slightest jar. Great blessings came
to the students through those services. Many were
won to Christ and a religious life, not a few of whom
devoted themselves in the various denominations to
the Christian ministrj'. Those labors, though severe,
were richly rewarded, for in sx^ite of conflict and con-
fusion without, the college was a scene of tranquil,
earnest religious life.

The organization of the Congregational church in
Jacksonville brought to me some perplexing jiroblems.
As early as 1832 it became very apparent that I was
not alone in my dissatisfaction with the Presbyterian
Church in its then agitated condition. It seemed
to lack the essentials of a spiritual home for persons
of New England birth and training. Others beside
myself were inclined to sus^Dect that the agitations
were largely due to the constitution of that church,
The controversy about the " New Haven theology ''
had originated in New England, and might reasonably
have been exj^ected to produce there its most disaster-
ous results. Yet it had there expended its utmost
force without manifesting any tendency to disrui)t
religious society. But as soon as the agitation crcssed
the Hudson and extended itself in the domain of the
Presbyterian Church it began to threaten a great
division. Immigrants from New England exi^ecting
to unite promptly with the Presbyterian Church
hesitated in the presence of so much strife. As I

194 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

have already said, I came to this state with no definite
opinions about church government, but the experience
of the first three years had compelled me to reflect,
with painful earnestness and deep solicitude, upon
the foundations of the church. The more I thought
upon the matter the more evident it seemed to me
that the divided condition of our religious community
was the result of man's assumption of authority over
the Church, for which the New Testament gave no
warrant whatsoever. At first I knew so little of the
subject that I had no idea whither these principles
might lead me. I was so strongly repelled by all rig-
id and complicated systems of church government
that I feared for a time lest my new convictions
should ultimately exclude me from all existing forms
of church organization. I was in a honor of great
darkness lest my conscience should compel me to
stand alone. But words cannot express my surprise
and delight when farther study showed me that the
simple forms which seemed to me wholly Scriptural
and practical were really identical with those already
described in the teachings of our Congregational
fathers.

It was natural that I should talk much on this sub-
ject with intimate friends. I saw Mr. Baldwin only
occasionally, and believe that at that time he regarded
the matter as one of little practical importance. But
in our daily intercourse Mr. Beecher and myself
discussed all questions with the utmost freedom. He
deemed the Congregational system of church govern-
ment theoretically sound, but thought its introduction
into the valley of the Mississippi at that time impract-
icable and undesirable.- He told me that he had ex-

ENLARGEMEXTS 195

pressed the opinion in New England that independ-
ency of the local church was an element of the
millennium, and that he regarded the time not yet
ripe for its introduction among us. It would occasion
a division in the already feeble ranks co operating
with us which would leave him utterly discouraged
about the work which he had undertaken. I keenly
felt the force of his view. But neither of us could
prevent the division which he deprecated.

Some time during that winter Eliliu Wolcott and
Dr. M. M. L. Reed requested a private interview with
Mr. Beecher and myself, and we appointed an even-
ing to receive them. Their object was to inform us
that thirty or forty residents of the town had resolved
to organize a Congregational church, and to invite us
to unite in the organization. Mr. Beecher listened but
uttered not a word of sympathy with Congregational-
ism. He expressed his conviction that the attempt to
establish a Congregational church in Jacksonville at
that time would result only in weakness and disaster,
and kindly entreated them to desist from their pur-
pose. I assured the gentlemen of my growing attach-
ment to the principles of Congregationalism, and my
belief that the time for the organization of such a
church in our town was not many years distant, yet I
joined with Mr. Beecher in deprecating immediate
action. It was obvious that a sanctuary in which all,
whether of Presbyterian or Congregational affinities,
might assemble for worship had become an urgent
necessity to the Christian cause. Subscriptions were
already in circulation to secure such a building, and
a site had l)een selected. I earnestly urged them to
remain with the Presbyterian church and assist in

196 JULIAS M. STURTEVANT

meeting this great present want of the community.
I expressed the oi^inion that the rajDid growth of the
church would soon justifj" the formation of a second
church, which could be made Congregational, and
that thus their purpose could be accomplished with-
out serious loss to the Master's cause. I assured
them that I would then unite with them in the
organization. At the close of the interview they
again assured us that their object had not been to
consult us with reference to the propriety of the step
they were about to take, but to invite us to go with
them, and that the organization would none the less
be effected without us.

In reviewing the conversation of that evening in
the light of the present, it seems to me very difficult
to decide with certainty what really was the jDath of
wisdom. It then seemed to me a duty to define the
ground of principle on which I stood. I saw, or
thought I saw, the necessity of introducing among
the religious discords of that community the Congre-
gational conception of the church. I hold now that
the more intense sectarian divisions become, the
greater the need of introducing that true element of
order. My faith in "denominational comity in home
missions " is not unlimited. Denominational rivalries
sometimes reach a point where Congregationalism
alone can afford even temxwrary relief.

The fact that Jacksonville had more churches than
were needed was no proof that a Congregational
church was not an urgent necessity. It has seemed
to me ever since that if all the New Haven Associa-
tion could have been induced to retrace their steps
and stand firmly on Congregational principles, the

ENLARGEMENTS 197

history of the college and of the great enterprise of
evangelization with Mhich it was connected might
have been more tranquil and more prosperous. But
it is unlikely that any human influence could have
united us in such a policy. Besides, we should have
lost the countenance and support of the American
Home Missionary Society, as such a step would have
shocked and utterly alienated our New England
friends and supporters.

The leading minds in the New England churches at
that time fully believed in the plan of union, and ac-
cepted the fruits which it was i)roducing. They con-
sented to the limitation of Congregationalism to New
England, and surrendered with little regret the vast
territory west and south of the Hudson to Presby-
terianism. They would have rebuked our rashness
and withdrawn their confidence. It still seems to me
that if the brave band of laymen who formed the Con-
gregational church at Jacksonville could have been
induced to wait for a more propitious time it would
have been better, but on that point I am not positive.
Perhaps, since I could not re^jress my convictions or
by any means avoid some obloquy from their expres-
sion, it would have been better to have attached my-
self at once to the unpopular cause. Let the right-
eous judge. The wide divergence of opinion on this
jjarticular subject never in the least disturbed the
kindly intimacy between Mr. Beecher and myself.
His position, however, gave great satisfaction to that
party in the Presbyterian Church who had hitherto
cooperated with us, while my own created a certain
measure of suspicion and distrust.

It would be difficult now for one not familiar with

198 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

the details of the struggle to form any conception of
the intense hostility by the New School party in the
Presbyterian Church toward the spread of Congrega-
tionalism west of the Hudson. They regarded New
England immigration as the chief means by which
their numbers and injfluence in the church were to be
augmented and considered the organization of Con-
gregational churches a violation of good faith. They
held that the compact between the General Assembly
of ihe Presbyterian Church and the General Associa-
tion of Connecticut was a solemn league and covenant
between competent powers, whereby New England
was permanently guaranteed to Congregationalism,
and the whole region west, "even to the going down
of the sun," was consecrated to Presbyterianism.
They failed to see that the subjection of Congrega-
tional churches or individuals to such a compact made
by others was a denial of the fundamental principle
upon which Congregational church government is
founded. Under these circumstances the position
which I felt it my duty to assume was exceedingly
uncomfortable and undesirable.

Events shortly occurred which tended to confirm
the Congregationalists in their course, and at the same
time to enlist the public sympathy in behalf of the
professors in Illinois College. Early in the year
1833 Mr. Frazer manifested a determination to push
matters to an extremity. He j)referred before the
Presbytery charges of heresy againt President Beech-
er. Rev. Wm. Kirby, then a teacher in Illinois Col-
lege, and myself. In the early spring we were placed
on trial before the Presbytery assembled at Jackson-
ville. When a trial for heresy was added to all the

ENLARGEMENTS 199

other elements of unrest then existing among us, I
felt that I was indeed navigating a stormy sea, but I
did not fear the result. I felt assured that if Mr.
Frazer should succeed in ejecting us from the Pres-
byterian Church, New England would sustain us, and
that our work would be helped rather than hindered
by the change. But the trial itself was a great an-
noyance to me. It shocked my tastes and humiliated
and disgusted me. President Beecher was first ar-
raigned. He listened to the charges, plead "Not
guilty," and in a calm, scholarly, courteous and Chris-
tian manner, offered his defense.

As we were walking home together that evening, I
told the president that his plea was excellent, but un-
der the circumstances I should pursue a somewhat
different course; that the community needed to dis-
cover how bad a man our prosecutor was, and that I
thought it right to induce him to show his real char-
acter.

The next morning I was arraigned before the Ec-
clesiastical Court; a "Court of Jesus Christ," as it
was solemnly affirmed to be. I refused to admit that
any human tribunal had a right to try me for my re-
ligious opinions. I told them that the charge was
two=fold, "that I held doctrines contrary to the stand-
ards of the Presbyterian Church," and "doctrines
contrary to the Word of God." To the former I de-
clined to make any plea whatever. I acknowledged
that I had never formed my opinions with reference
to the standard of the Presbyterian Church, and that
I never would. I stated that I had never given my
assent to those standards, and that I did not intend
to do so. Whether I was constitutionally a minister

200 JULIAN M. STURTEVANt

of the Presbyterian Church or not, I left it for thenl
to decide, I myself having nothing to say on the sub-
ject.

As to the charge that I taught doctrines contrary
to the Word of God, I plead '' Not guilty," and pro-
ceeded to defend myself, and did not hesitate to make
my defense convey a pointed criticism upon the the-
ology of my prosecutor, I did him no injustice, but
before I had sx)oken long he broke out, as I expected
he would, in a storm of angry passion which so re-
vealed his own character and sx^irit as to render a
long defense on my part unnecessary.

Mr. Kirby followed briefly, and we then submitted
our case. The Presbytery, by a large majority, voted
us " Not guilty."

From the known composition of that body we felt
it could not have been otherwise. Our prosecutor
immediately gave notice of an appeal to the Synod,
which did not however meet till the following Octo-
ber. When in due time this body assembled Mr.
Beecher and myself were absent, both unfortunately
having been detained because I was prostrated by an
attack of intermittent fever while we were traveling
l^y stage from Louisville to St. Louis. For reasons
never explained to me the case was not prosecuted
before the Synod. Had it been, it is x^robable the
decision would have been against us, and that we
should have been under the necessity of defending
ourselves before the General Assembly. Though Mr.
Frazer continued to enjoy the favor of his party for
some time longer, he seemed after that trial to have
lost his power to disturb and annoy Illinois College.

CHAPTER XIV.

OTHER EVENTS IN 1833-34.

Just at the close of the year 1832, the apartments
in the new building which had been appropriated for
the use of myself and family were finished, and M'e
took possession. For nearly twenty years afterward
they were our home — a home of many joys, and, alas!
of some great sorrows.

Early in the summer of 1833 Jacksonville was vis-
ited by the cholera After the first fatal case the
disease spread with alarming rapidity. In the twi-
light of the same day on which we had heard that
the terrible scourge had reached our town, my wife
and I were returning from a ride, when we were in-
formed that the family of Kev. J. M. Ellis had been
attacked, that Mrs. Ellis was already dead and that
the oldest child was in the final stage of the malady.
The next morning we buried mother and son in the
same grave, and within forty=eight hours the remain-
ing child and a niece of Mrs. Ellis were also among
the dead. It was many days before the sad intelli-
gence reached the husband and father, who was in
Indiana whither he was preparing to remove.

Before this terrible calamity the school taught by
Mrs. Ellis had given place to the female academy of
which Miss Sarah Crocker was principal. We
brought Miss Crocker, who had been with Mrs. Ellis
and who was already suffering with alarming premon-

201

202 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

itory synitoms, to our own house. By prompt medi-
cal attention she escaped, and was soon afterward
able to go to New England. For six weeks the pest-
ilence raged around us. Most of those who could do
so fled from the town, and in a few days not more
than four or five hundred people remained. Of these
more than one in every ten fell a victim to the
disease. The Presbyterian pulpit was at that time sup-
plied by Rev. Lucian Farnham, a young minister from
Andover, who had joined the Association of Theologi-
cal Students at New Haven and had come west with
his wife, an esteemed acquaintance of Mrs. Sturtevant
and myself. One of the last victims of the pestilence
was Mrs. Farnham. President Beecher and myself
performed the sad funeral services, and with our
wives followed her remains to the grave. A few
hours afterward both our wives were attacked. But
the pestilence seemed to have sjpent its energy, and,
though both were very ill they speedily recovered.
It seems remarkable that, though prevailing around
us on several occasions, cholera has never again been
epidemic in Jacksonville.

I must add one more sad incident to those already
mentioned. Dr. Aldis S. Allen, and his estimable
wife, Eliza Weeks, a native of Jamica, Long Island,
arrived from Bridgeport, Conn, just at the outbreak
of the disease. Dr. Allen was a Yale graduate of the
class of 1827 and was known to President Beecher,
James Berdan Esq. and myself, but he was stricken
down with the epidemic before he had time to make
his arrival known to any of us. Mr. Berdan and his
friend and roommate, Pierre Irving, a nephew of
Washington Irving, and since then his biographer,

OTHER EVENTS IN 1833-34 103

first discovered Dr. Allen and sent word of his alarm-
ing condition to President Beeclier and myself. We
found him in the collapsed stage of the disease and
evidently near his end. In sj)ite of our best effoits
he died in a few hours and was laid in the college
burying ground. His bereaved wife remained with
Mr. Beecher's family and mine until she could find
an opportunity to return to her friends in the East.
Her sister was the wife of Rev. John Blatchford,
D. D., who soon afterward became well known here and
who was subsequently pastor of the First Presbyter-
ian Church of Chicago. Our long and haj)py
acquaintance with the Blatchford family began with
this sad incident.

When the pestilence had passed and those of the
community who had been returned to their usual
vocations, President Beecher and myself visited Cin-
cinnati for the purpose of attending a teachers' con-
vention. By this time the facilities for travel were
greatly imjDroved and we made the journey mostly by
stage, taking the daily line from Jacksonville to St.
Louis, and thence riding day and night across South-
ern Illinois and Indiana, to Louisville. Thence we
traveled by boat to Cincinnati. The week spent
there in the hospitable family of Dr. Lyman Beecher
was a wonderful rest after the cares, anxieties and
sorrows of the j)revious months.

The sessions of the convention were very interest-
ing, and it was a great jileasure to exchange views
with the noble men and women there assembled.
Here I first became acquainted with Harriet Beecher
who was then about twenty-one years of age. She
was not beautiful, but possessed attractions with

204 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

which no mere beauty could have invested her. She
seemed quite unconscious of her rare gifts, yet her
ordinary conversation sparkled with gems such as
genius alone can produce. The impression I then
formed of her dramatic power was scarcely exceeded
by that which was afterwards produced upon me by
her brilliant story, " Uncle Tom's Cabin."

I could not then afford the long and expensive
journej' to the home of my parents at Tallmadge, yet I
have ever since regretted that limited resources and
the demands of my work prevented me from doing so,
for in the following November my dear mother died.
It was during our stage ride home, that President
Beecher and myself were detained by the attack of
intermittent fever, mentioned elsewhere. We reached
home just in time for Mr. Beecher's inauguration as
president of the College, which was to us all a most
joyful occasion.

Very soon after this important event the Congrega-
tional church of Jacksonville was organized. Its
founders were moved in their action by a deliberate
conviction of duty, and were influenced by such con-
siderations as the followijig:

They distrusted the Presbyterian Church be-
cause of its distracted condition and suspected that its
division were in part the result of its very constitu-
tion. This suspicion might have been confirmed had
they known the history of Presbyterianism, especial-
ly in Scotland. It was also doubtless strengthened
in their minds by the recent ecclesiastical trial.

They felt, and I certainly concurred with them,
that the sect system often placed Christian peoj)le in
false and mischievous relations to each other. Seek-

OTHER EVENTS IN 1S33-34 205

ing a remedy for this intolerable evil, they found
none save in such a constitution of the Church as
would recognize no condition of Christian fellowship
except Christian character. This led them logically
and irresistibly to Congregationalism. Other organi-
zations might welcome all without questions or
pledges, but they exacted conformity to their view of
an ordinance, or demanded from their teachers the
acceptance of a formula of belief which was not from
God. The constitution adoj)ted by the Church at its
organization and still remaining in force contains
these among other articles: —

Article III. Candidates for admission to this church shall
have liberty of conscience as to the mode and subjects of bap-
tism, and no qualification shall be required as a condition of
membership but credible evidence of Christian character.

Article IV. This church regards divisions and contentions
among professing Christians as unsanctioned by the Word of
God, and injurious to the cause of true religion; and it enjoins
upon all its members to watch against in themselves, and dis-
countenance in others, all sectarian and party feelings and pre-
judices, avoid as far as possible religious controversy, and en-
deavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace with
all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.

Their organization did not mean to them the organ-
ization of a new sect in Jacksonville, but the empha-
tic assertion of a principle which carried out would
put an end to our divisions.

They probably saw with more or less distinctness
another reason for their organization which had to me
great force. It was the wrong of enforcing the ac-
cei^tance of such a creed as that of the Presbyterian
Church by ecclesiastical censures and penalties. If
any one replies to this that the creed is imposed only
" for substance of doctrine," I reply that the (qualify.

206 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

ing phrase surely cannot make the act of subscription
mean less than a declaration that the creed is an em-
inently felicitous statement of Christian doctrine.
How many of us are prepared to accept the standards
even in that sense?

Surrounded as we then were by sectarian controversy,
it was most unfortunate that we should be required to
defend not our real opinions but the " ipsissima
verba " of standards which contained what we felt to
be unfortunate statements of the truth. When our
shrewd adversaries attacked the creed which we were
supposed to have endorsed, we could not deny that
we fully accepted it or use the better statements of
later students without seeming to deserve the impu-
tation of insincerity and double dealing. He who
publicly commits himself to a form of words which
he does not in his heart believe, wrongs himself and
the community in which he seeks to exert an influence.
History demonstrates the utter futilily of any attempt
to hold men to a system of belief by requiring their
assent to a verbal statement. Few errors can be more
harmful than the insincerity involved in a solemn
utterance made with a mental reservation. The liv-
ing children of God will certainly in time outgrow
the most careful statement, and your creed will re-
main a monument to the vain effort of the past to im-
pose its thinking upon the future. Our only guaran-
tee for the permancy of our opinions is their truth.

Providence gave me a much nearer relation to the
organization of the Congregational church of Jack-
sonville than I had intended to assume. Rev. Asa
Turner, pastor of the newly organized Congregational
church at Quincy, who had been relied upon to pre-

OTHER EVENTS IN IS 33-34 207

side and preach the sermon on that occasion, sent
word a few days before that he conld not be present.
Rev. Wm. Carter, a licentiate and a member of our
Yale Association who had just arrived from Connect-
icut, consented to preach the sermon. The organiza-
tion was to take i^lace on the Sabbath. On the
Friday evening previous, as a last resort, application
was made to me to take i^art in the service, and
receive the members of the new organization into
covenant relations as a church — a service which was
regarded as belonging only to an ordained minister.
Knowing the disfavor such an act would meet from
those who had sent me to Illinois, and the displeas-
ure it would cause in many whose sympathy and help
the college sorely needed, I regarded the invitation
as very unfortunate. I took twenty=four hours for
consideration, and sought counsel of Him in whom
alone I could hope to find wisdom. On Saturday
evening I consented to comply with their request.
The novelty of the occasion had drawn together a
congregation that completely filled the Methodist
Episcopal church, the largest house of worship in
town, kindly loaned for the occasion. After an ex-
cellent sermon I began the formal service of organi-
zation by saying that some might think it strange
that a minister of another denomination should offici-
ate at the organization of a Congregational church.
I stated that I had two reasons for doing so: — first,
that it was my custom to unite with any Christian
body in appropriate acts of worship, and I saw no
reason why the present occasion should be an excep-
tion; second, that I cordially apjjroved of the princi-
ples of church government which these brethren were

208 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

about to adopt. I thought it an excellent opportu-
nity to declare my indejjendeuce and assert my con-
victions, and though there were, as I foresaw, some
painful consequences, I have never regretted it.

At that time the church of Jacksonville had
no nearer neighbors than eastern Ohio, except
the four churches at Princeton, Mendon, Quincy,
and Naperville, all but the first organized during the
year.

Nor had we then any reason to expect that other
churches of this denomination would be soon orga-
nized in that region. Those three churches were the
first evidence of open revolt against the operation of
the " Plan of Union." At the time of which I write
most of the Congregational churches in New Jersey,
north-eastern Pennsylvania, northern Ohio, and
Long Island were under the guardianship of the
General Assembly and were rajiidly becoming ab-
sorbed in the Presbyterian body. Had not some
stand been made against this movement Congrega-
tionalism would soon have become extinct in all parts
of the United States except New England. From
the Congregational Year=Book of 1885, it ajjpears
that there are in New England 1,481 Congregational
churches, and west and south of the Hudson 2,602.
Within fifty years a greater number of Congrega-
tional churches have been established in the west
and south than ever existed in New England. It
should also be stated here, with emphasis, that the
reason why our fathers had consented to limit Con-
gregationalism to the East was the fact that they had
lost sight of the fundamentally anti=sectarian princi-
jDles of their system. They unwisely consented not

OTHER EVENTS IN J 833-34 209

to propagate it westward in order to restrict the num-
ber of sects in that great region, when they should
have remembered and enforced the broad scriptural
rule of Christian fellowshiiJ wherever they establish
their homes, and held it sacred as the only solvent by
which all Christian sects can become one in Christ
Jesus The Congregationalism of to-day is not half
conscious of this, its only right to be.

Until our denomination can become more fully
aware of its mission its progress will be slow. Unless
it adheres to its one great function; that of uniting
men in the Gospel which teaches " repentance toward
God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ," and puts
no other yoke upon their necks; it will ultimately be
absorbed into the great religious bodies bound to-
gether by the strong but unscriptural bands of eccle-
siastical authority.

In the spring of 1 834 it was deemed expedient that
I should go east, principally to look after the collec-
tion of funds i^reviously subscribed. The journey
afPorded my wife an opportunity to revisit the home
of her youth, and allowed me to pursue some studies
in my own department of instruction. On the way
we were delayed over a Sabbath in St. Louis, where
we were again the recix^ients of most delightful
Christian hospitality. I preached twice in the First
Presbyterian church, and once in the newly organized
Second church, Rev. Edwin F. Hatfield, pastor,
afterward the well known Dr. Hatfield of New York,
long the genial Clerk of the General Assembly.

Various events delayed our return till the follow-
ing spring. The year had proved very valuable to
me. It gave me opportunity for intercouse with

210 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

many cultivated minds, and greatly broadened my
mental vision No man can think safely unless he
understands the thought of his day and generation.
Although eastern people naturally cared little for
events occurring at a place so remote and obscure as
Jacksonville, I soon found that my action in helping
to organize the Congregational church had not been
overlooked by the Home Missionary Society. Call-
ing early at the New York office, my heart full of joy
in the hope of a pleasant interview with the officers, I
received a very fraternal welcome from the secretary.
Rev. Dr. Peters and his assistant, Eev. Chas. Fall.
But the former soon began to call me to account for
the countenance I had been giving to Congregational-
ism in Illinois. I was astonished to find that neither
a straight=forward narration of the circumstances,
nor any other vindication I could offer availed to allay
his displeasure. In the presence of one so much my
superior in age and reputation I was overawed and
silent as he proceeded to administer the rebuke which
he deemed the case required. Deeply distressed and
almost heart-broken, I left the office. It seemed to
me that I must abandon my field of labor. At last,
however, after days of mental darkness, wdiile sitting
alone reviewing the whole subject and seeking de-
voutly for wisdom from on high, I seemed to find
relief when lifting my hand I brought it down with a
forcible gesture, exclaiming, " I can not do other-
wise, so help me God." I dismissed the painful con-
versation from my mind and did not report it and it
never troubled me again, and never disturbed my
kindly relations with Mr. Peters. This was by no
means the only incident in which I found that my

OTHER EVENTS IN 1S33-34 211

conduct in that matter was disapproved by men
whom I honored and revered.

After the meetin,<jj of the General Association of
Connecticut that year, I had the good fortune to form
the acquaintance ef Rev. Dr. Wisner, Secretary of
the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions, we having met in the stage and traveled
together from Hartford to Boston. That was a day of
delightful sunshine, not less within than without our
conveyance. The overflow of his great soul in utter-
ing high and noble Christian thoughts, his loving
sym[)athy with all the wants of humanity, his keen
appreciation of the beautiful in nature, and his bril-
liant wit and sparkling humor, made the entire jour-
ney a great delight. His life was to irradiate earth
but for a brief space. Though already in the middle
of life he died suddenly the next winter with scarlet
fever.

I visited Amherst, Mass., during the following
winter for the purpose of examining the new philo-
sophical apparatus which the college had just le-
ceived. When the stage sto^jped in the early morn-
ing twilight at Hartford, Dr. Joel Hawes of the Center
Church took his seat beside me, and I soon learned
with great satisfaction that we had the same def-tina-
tion. While a student in college I frequently heard
him preach, and greatly admired his vigorous style.
I had recently been strongly impressed by reading
his tribute to the memory of the Pilgrims. My hope
was that I should now obtain much light on that sub-
ject. Leading the conversation in that direction, I
soon succeeded in opening a fountain of delightful
thought and feeling. He hardly knew the condition

212 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

of the soil on which he was sowing broadcast wi ch a
liberal hand.

He greatly confirmed me that day in my determin-
ation to adhere to the broad ijrinciples of Congrega-
tional fellowship). At one i^oint in the conversation
he exclaimed with a very significant and characteristic
gesture, " I tell you, sir, there is no power in the
Church of Christ but the power of truth and love."
Tliose words I shall never forget. God grant that I
and my children and my children's children may ad-
here to them forever!

At Amherst I met a most interesting literary circle.
It included among others Professor, afterward Presi-
dent Hitchcock, Prof. Snell, Miss Mary Lyon and
her friend and associate, Miss Caldwell, since well
known as Mrs. John P. Cowles of Ipswich, Mass.
The ladies were at that time much absorbed in found-
ing the Holyoke Seminary. Both of them were
sprightly and vivacious conversationalists. Miss Lyon
impressed me as a remarkable woman. She had
thought on many subjects and on all of them her
thinking was fresh and suggestive. She had, how-
ever, one fault, shared almost equally with another
woman for whom I had an equal admiration. Miss
Catherine E. Beecher. This common fault was that
in the earnestness with whicii they would pursue an
argument when the conversation had become spirited
and controversial, they led me to forget that I was
conversing with a woman, and tempted me to forget
that courtesy ever due to the sex. I have no know-
ledge of having given ofPense to either, but I re-
proached myself more than once on their account.

Words cannot express the pleasure I experienced

OTHER EVENTS IN 1833-34 • 213

that season in the natural scenery of New England.
Its hills and valleys, its clear brooks running over their
pebbly bottoms, its bays and rivers, the magnificent
prospect revealed on every hand by the inequalities of
its surface, its villages lovely in their neatness even
when architectural adornment was wanting, were in
striking contrast with the monotonous levels, the tur-
bid rivers, the muddy brooks and the unfinished towns
of the region where I had spent the j)revious five
years. Time and travel have taught me how to ap-
preciate my Western home. Landscape gardening,
especially the judicious use of trees, can make any
country beautiful; and our prairie soil is unequalled
for the growth of trees. Many of the most admired
portions of England do not surpass our Illinois home
in natural advantages.

We returned to Jacksonville the following spring,
thoroughly invigorated and much instructed and en-
joyed with a keen relish our hearty welcome home.

CHAPTER XV.

THE NEGRO.

To those who have reflected little on the subject, it
may seem strange that the "negro question" should
bear any important relation to an enterprise that
proposed only to preach the Gospel and to found
a college in a state from which slavery was excluded
and where very few colored i^eople were to be found.
Its bearing on our enterprise would be obvious to any
one familiar with the relation which negro slavery has
sustained to American freedom and civilization. We
could not possibly have escaped our share in the con-
flict. Of all assaults upon our enterprise, the most
unavoidable, the most violent, and the most jirotract-
ed, concerned this subject. This was not because I
and my associates gave ourselves at the beginning es-
pecially to the cause of emancipation. We did, how-
ever, recognize the obligation to face that and every
other moral and social question, and to give our votes
and personal influence on the side of truth and right-
eousness. If the advocates and sui^porters of slavery
had allowed us to do this we should have pursued our
work without molestation or hindrance. This neither
we nor any other friends of freedom were x^ermitted
to do. Hence the force of the storm beat upon us
just in proportion to the conspicuousness of our po-
sition and the weight which men attached to our in-
fluence. That a certain degree of animosity existed

214

THE NEGRO 215

from the first between the peoi^le of the South and
those of New England, admits of no denial. The
root of this antipathy seems to extend back to the
times of the conflicts between the Cavaliers and the
Roundheads in old England. If, however, this an-
tipathy had not been intensified by a difference in the
institutions of these two portions of our country, it
would have produced no serious consequences, and
in the course of a few generations would have entirely
disappeared. Unfortunately, the system of slavery
which was early introduced in the South and, being
favored by the climate and by the hereditary ideas of
the peoi^le, rapidly extended itself there, while it
gradually died out in New England, produced such a
difference of institutions as would naturally perpetu-
ate and increase the unfriendly feeling.

The population of Illinois in 1880 was very largely
of Southern origin, and its attitude towards this sub-
ject was quite peculiar. Many Southern emigrants
had chosen this state for a home because slavery was
not tolerated here. They were jDoor and wished to
find a spot where their labor would not be degraded
by contact with the negro either in freedom or slav-
ery. They wished to live in a free state, but were de-
termined not to labor with emancipated negroes as
their equals before the law. They hated the aristo-
cratic slaveholders, the free negro, and above all j)er-
sons who were susi^ected of favoring emancipation.
Nowhere did the idea of freeing the slaves and per-
mitting them to dwell as equals among the whites ex-
cite more violent opposition than in southern Illinois.

The existence of slave4iolding States on the south-
ern and much of the western border, separated from

2l6 JULIAN M. STURTEVANt

US only by great rivers also greatly excited the pas*
sions of the pro=slavery party. St Louis, then the
only mart of extreme western commerce, was the
intensely heated focus of hostility to Abolitionism.
Every hint of a popular movement, every newspaper
paragraph looking toward emancipation, aroused in-
tense indignation and created strong suspicion against
all believed to possess northern sympathies. It is not
difficult to perceive that this wretched state of affairs
greatly retarded educational progress in general and
our college in particular.

The beginning of the anti-slavery agitation as led
by Mr. Garrison very nearly coincided in time with
the beginning of our work in this state. From the
first there was in our institution itself a tendency
toward a manly denunciation of slavery. Among our
students were a number of young men of marked tal-
ent and promise from Bond County. Several came
from Ripley, Ohio; a community whose earley anti=
slavery history was exceptional. Others w'ere reared
in eastern Tennessee within the limits appropriated
to slavery, yet so isolated among the mountains that
they never had become pro=slavery. It was certain
therefore that strong utterances in behalf of emanci-
pation would meet a hearty res^Donse in the college
itself. All material necessary for the " irrepressible
conflict " were present with us; intense opposition to
slavery within the institution, and intense sympathy
with it outside.

No one could have had a greater love for equal
rights than myself, for anti=slavery sentiments had
come down to me from honored ancestors. But up to
the period of which I am speaking my oj)inions on

THE NEGBO ^11

the subject differed little from those generally enter-
tained in the northern states. I was opposed to
slavery, but had not thought of an effort to abolish it
in the United States as a XDractical undertaking. It
seemed to me and to others around me an intolerable
evil fastened upon us by our past history, but one
which admitted of no immediate remedy. Our
fathers had so framed the Constitution of the United
States as to permit its continuance, and I found no
provision granting the right to abolish it. As soon
as Lloyd Garrison and his co^laborers began to de-
nounce slavery as a sin against God which ought to
be put away by instantaneous repentance I admitted
its sinfulness, and as a patriot trembled in view of
the righteous vengeance of God in consequence of it,
but these denunciations seemed to me barren of any
practical results. How could the nation be brought
to repentance? The president and his cabinet could
not abolish slavery. The courts had no power for its
removal; Congress could not do it. The agitation
which produced so much distress proposed nothing
practical.

I by no means affirm that these agitators never pre-
sented practical issues. In many cases they certainly
did. When Wendell Phillips made his sj^eech in
Faneuil Hall in defense of the individual rights of
citizens which had been invaded in the person of Mr.
Garrison, who had been led through the streets of
Boston with a halter around his neck for no other
offence than denouncing negro slavery, he spoke to a
very practical issue, and the better class of peoj^le not
only in Boston but throughout the North were in sym-
pathy with him. But when anti^slavery orators de-

218 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

nounced the Constitution of the United States as " a
covenant with death and a league with hell," without
suggesting any i^ractical steps towards its ammendment,
that was unpractical declamation. True the Constitu-
tion protected slavery; but it also i^rovided for its own
amendment, and it was the function of a true reformer
to point out how that very Constitution should be
used in abolishing slavery and defending the rights of
the negro.

When those zealous orators defended the rights of
fugitives from slavery and urged upon the citizens of
the free North their obligation to protect and defend
in every possible way these aspirants for freedom, all
human enactments in the Constitution or outside of
it to the contrary notwithstanding, they acted the part
of true and practical reformers; for there are times
when good citizenshij) has no higher expression than
the loyal acceptance of a penalty for breaking a law
which conscience forbids one to obey. But when, as
was often the case, an orator addressing a northern
audience expended his fiery eloquence in denouncing
slavery as a sin against God and calling upon his
hearers to put it away by immediate reioentance, he
was as " one who beats the air." Such oratory tended
rather to irritate than to convince men. This state-
ment in part explains the attitude of many good men
at the North toward the agitators of those years. They
answered such utterances by saying " We are not
guilty of the sin, and cannot put it away by repen-
tance. We are no more responsible for it than for
polygamy in Turkey. You should go south with
your denunciation." True, those things could not
have been said in those days at the South, but that

THE NEGRO 219

was no reason why the righteous indignation of the
abolitionists should exjjend itself upon those who
were in no way responsible for the wrong.

The true statesmen of the anti=slavery revolution
were the men who thought out and advocated those
practical lines of political action which were within
the limits of the Constitution and commended them-
selves to all thoughtful and candid men. When legit-
imate and practicable modes of action against slavery
were suggested they attracted immediate attention,
and their supporters multiplied with great rapidity.
When John Quincy Adams, " the Old Man eloquent,"
on the floor of the House of Representatives vindi-
cated the right of petition as the inalienable jjosses-
sion even of the meanest slave in the land, the nation
listened with reverence and awe. To all righteous
men his words were " as water to the thirsty soul."

Let Mr. Garrison and his early associates have all
the honor which their bravery and their self sacrific-
ing devotion deserve; but the impartial future will
hardly give them credit for that wise insight and
sober thoughtf ulness which are essential to the great-
est reformers. Those who stood aloof and regarded
them with dread and aversion were not all poltroons
and cowards. They were not imbeciles or bigots, for
many of them would have rallied to the standard of
emancipation sooner than they did had not wise and
sober-minded leaders been wanting.

One of the earliest converts to the intense aboli-
tionism of Mr. Garrison was my long tried friend
Elizur Wright. From tlie time of our graduation we
maintained a very active correspondence, often writ-
ing to each other weekly. This continued for five or

220 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

six years, and I greatly enjoyed his racy and incisive
letters. Our views often differed, but each tolerated
the other's opinions and defended his own as well as
he could. For instance, his position on the subject
of total abstinence w^as much more extreme than my
own. After a time, to my great delight, he was ap-
pointed i^rofessor of Mathematics and Natural Phil-
osophy in Western Reserve College, a position he
was well qualified to fill. Before long, however, he
with two other officers of that institution, President
Chas. B. Storrs and Professor Beriah Green, became
ultra abolitionists, and plunged with characteristic in-
tensity into the controversies which were nowhere
more intense than on " the Western Reserve " in
Ohio. Disastrous convulsions in the college soon
followed, and Professor Wright and Professor Green,
who was also a very able man, resigned. Both of
them were among the founders of the Anti=Slavery
Society, and Mr. Wright vras one of its secretaries.

President Storrs was as yet a young man, but he
exceeded in effective eloquence most, if not all, of
the public speakers I have heard. No man ever
moved me so profoundly. The terrible energy of
his mind and the passionate intensity of his soul
stirred to its depths by a theme so absorbing and ter-
rific, was too much for a feeble body. He was at-
tacked with consumption, and died before he reached
his prime. Up to the time of Mr. Wright's connec-
tion with the an ti ^slavery agitation our correspond-
ence had continued, and on my jjart was very highly
valued. His letters, bristling with anti=slavery sen-
timents, did not displease me though I freely criti-
cised what seemed to me his untenable positions. At

THE NEGRO 221

first he continued to reply, but soon bis letters
ceased. While I have been writing these pages, the
mournful intelligence of his death has reached me.
I will utter no word of reproach against Elizur
Wright. We loved each other, and he acted the part
of a firm and faithful friend in many a scene of trial
and sorrow.

Since his death a writer signing himself " Temple-
ton" has given a sketch of his life in the Boston
Herald. He professes to have received his knowl-
edge from Mr. Wright himself. He once mentions
quite incidentally my own name, but in a spirit
which I am reluctant to believe Mr. Wright would
have sanctioned. Few events in my life have pained
me more than this alienation from the friend of my
early years, especially in view of the suspicion that
its cause was his utter defection from the Christian
faith, once as precious to him as to myself. " Temple-
ton's" effort to make the impression that Mr. Wright
was never in active sympathy with the Christian
Church is unworthy of one who professes to be a
friend of the truth. During the four years of our
college life no student of Yale was more thoroughly
identified with the Church than he. I have no spe-
cial knowledge of the cause of his defection. To his
own master he standeth or falleth.

A trifling incident which occurred during the last
months of my correspondence with Mr. Wright will
illustrate to my readers the volcano over which we
felt ourselves to be living. A neighbor asked me
very seriously one day, " Do you keep any abolition
documents in your house"? I thought of Mr.
Wright's letters which I had carefully filed, and of

222 JULIAN M. STUETEVANT

other free utterances of my libertj'^loviiig friends,
and answered that I certainly did. He very solemnly
admonished me to burn all such dangerous docu-
ments at once. I disregarded his advice, not because
the possession of such a private correspondence
really carried no danger with it, but because that
peril seemed small among the many that sur-
rounded us.

Providentially, Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy became the
prominent representative of abolitionism in that re-
gion, because he was the editor of the St. Louis Ob-
serv^er, in which anti-slavery sentiments were frankly
expressed, not in the violent j)hraseology of Garrison
and Phillips, but in mild, temperate, and gentle-
manly language. We often entertained Mr. Lovejoy
at our house. Bold and fearless, he was nevertheless
an amiable, afPectionate, and lovable man. When
driven by the mob from St. Louis he unwisely, as I
thought, established his ipaper at Alton, only twenty-
five miles distant by steamer. In and around Alton,
in spite of the excellent character of that commu-
nity, there was a rough and vicious element easily
controlled by unscrupulous agitators, and certain to
be influenced and, in a time of excitement, reinforced
by the mob at St. Louis. My fears were soon real-
ized, and Mr. Lovejoy's printing press was thrown
into the river.

This brought sharplj' before Mr. Lovejoy and his
friends the question whether to retire to some safer
place or to make a determined stand at Alton, and l)ring
another press and defend it at all hazards. Just at
this crisis, in Nov. 1837, the Presbyterian Synod of
Illinois, with which body almost all the clerical ad-

THE NEGRO 223

herents of Mr. Lovejoy were identified, met at
Springfield. The most earnest of these were invited
to meet one evening to discnss the sitnation. I was
present at that meeting. The more moderate and
cautious view of the situation had no advocate in tliat
assembly but myself. I argued that the bringing
of another anti slavery press to Alton would produce
nothing but disaster. Experience had shown that
the press could not be defended in that community.
I advised them to retire from the field, after making
a solemn protest against the violence which had been
there done to the cause of freedom rather than to ex-
pose life and property to farther violence. One speaker
replying to my argument said with a tone of ineffable
coutemj)t: " Slavery is like an old lion that has lost
both teeth and claws, and can only growl." Of
course my position was not popular. I went too far
against slavery to win the favor of its advocates, and
not far enough to gain the approbation of its as-
sailants.

An anti-slavery convention was to be held at Alton
the next week after the meeting of the Synod. All
Mr. Lovejoy's friends were urged to be present, and
President Beecher had resolved to attend. I was
strongly inclined to go, and should have been jDres-
ent but for two reasons It was inconvenient for two
members of the college faculty to be absent at the
same time, and I had jiromised to j)erform a mar-
riage and could not well break the engagement.

President Beecher has himself given a graphic ac-
count of that convention in his " Alton Riots." In
the sessions of that body he was a prominent figure,
and perhaps more than any other individual was held

224 JULIAN M. STURTEVAXT

responsible by the public for its action. After the
adjournment of the convention, while the public
mind at Alton and St. Louis was still quivering with
excitement, it became known that the new press was
hourly expected. Mr. Beecher lingered a little to
await the result. The press arrived by boat in the
night, and Mr. Lovejoy and President Beecher went
at once to the landing, saw the press stored in the
warehouse, and stood guard till morning. At day-
light the president took the stage for Jacksonville.
The night following, abundant symptoms of danger
being apparent, Mr. Lovejoy and a number of his
friends armed themselves and repaired to the ware-
house to defend their property. I need not relate the
rest of the sad story. Before morning Mr. Lovejoy
was shot by the mob and instantly killed while vainly
attempting to defend his press from destruction.

If Mr. Lovejoy *s friends were right in advising him
to imperil his precious life in defense of that press,
did not consistency demand that another press should
be procured and yet more desperately defended? If
I was cowardly to advise before Lovejoy 's death the
abandonment of a paper at Alton was it not also cow-
ardly to al^andon the Alton Bluff after the noble man
had there made a martyr of himself? I have never
been ashamed of the counsel given at Springfield.

The events just recorded placed Mr. Beecher and
his immediate friends at Jacksonville in imminent
jDeril. Our friends far and near were greatly alarmed.
There was evident danger that a ferocious mob would
make an immediate attack u]X)n the head of the institu-
tion and upon the college buildinsg. For me and the
other instructors only one course of action was now

THE NEGRO 225

possible. Though President Beecher was the imme-
diate object of hostility, all of us were threatened,
and the very existence of the college was endangered.
It was no time to discuss the action of the conven-
tion, the death of Mr. Lovejoy or the expediency of
Mr. Beechers course. He had committed no crime,
and had only advocated the freedom of the press and
exercised the right of free speech which belongs to
every citizen of a free country. It was our duty to
stand by him at whatever hazard. In this we were
unanimous. Threats were abundant but no actual
violence was attempted, and the excitement gradually
subsided. But it left in many minds a feeling of
intense hatred, not only toward Mr. Beecher but
toward us all. And it should be borne in mind that
these hostile feelings were not confined to such per-
sons as generally composed the mob, but affected
many individuals of wealth and social standing and
even of religious reputation.

This feverish state of the community was a great
obstacle in the way of the college. It greatly limited
the number of our students. The secular newspapers
of St. Louis were widely circulated in all the south-
ern portion of Illinois, and were intensely hostile in
their utterances concerning us. The prejudices thus
excited could not be argued away, though in the prog-
ress of a generation they have been lived down. For
many years we were constantly exposed to annoyances
in the immediate vicinity of the institution.

As has already been intimated, there was much
anti= slavery sentiment among the more thoughtful
and earnest of our students. At our public exhibi-
tions, which occurred two or three times a year, the

226 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

young men were often disiDosed to give free utterance
to their convictions on such subjects, and neither our
tastes nor our principles permitted us to repress them
by any stringent restrictions. On the other hand
these exhibitions were generally supervised by certain
men of ruffianly habits and pro^slavery prejudices
who wished to act as the self^constituted guardians
of the moral and social proprieties of the occasion.
The consequence was that the trustees of churches
not otherwise unfriendly were reluctant to grant the
use of their places of worship for our exercises, lest
these gentlemen might express their feelings in such
a way as to injure the buildings. The history of our
town in those years is a sad story. " My soul hath it
in remembrance and is humbled."

Jacksonville was not worse in that respect than
most towns in that region. It might have been bet-
ter. In some towns a different state of things pre-
vailed. Quincy was not better off in respect to the
character of the i^opulation in and around it than
most of its neighbors, but it possessed a band of reso-
lute, patriotic men who from a very early period
defended the right of free speech. When a pro=
slavery mob drove Dr. David Nelson from eastern
Missouri and j)ursued him to Quincy with the intent
of wreaking their vengeance on him there, those noble
men successfully defended him. Some of them were
abolitionists, but some were simply good men and
good citizens. John Wood, afterwards governor of
the state; Joseph T. Holmes, then engaged in secular
business in Quincy but subsequently a highlydion-
ored Congregational minister ot Griggsville, Willard
Keyes and others who stood with them, deserve to be

THE XEGRO 227

held in everlasting remembrance. Similar things
might have been done in other towns had such men
been there to do them.

I select one out of many incidents which might il-
lustrate our unhappy condition in those years.
About the year 1834 a family of wealth, historic rep-
utation and high social position immigrated to this
state from Kentucky, and selected Jacksonville as
their home. They brought here two of their slaves,
a man and his sister, under a contract that they should
be free at a certain age, perhaps it was twenty=five.
After a time these colored people were told that they
were already free according to law as their master had
brought them into a free state. Seeking legal advice
they were told that such was really the fact and were
urged to take immediate steps to i^rocure the recogni-
tion of their rights. In order to do this they were ad-
vised to withdraw from their master and mistress
without permission and to take charge of their own
affairs, and in accordance with the counsel of their
attorney they left home. Soon afterwards the man
was seized by four armed men while engaged in cut-
ting wood near the house of a negro family with whom
he boarded, who gagged him, tied his hands Ijehind
him and hurried him through the streets to the house
of his late master. There he was forced into a car-
riage, driven to Naples on the Illinois river whence he
was shipped on a steamboat bound southward, and
thereafter all trace of him was lost. The whole pro-
ceeding was without the slightest pretence of legal
formality. A bill of indictment for kidnapping was
found against the leader of this gang, and nothing
could be more obvious than his guilt under the laws

228 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

of the state. The trial was held in Jacksonville under
all the recognized forms of law, but resulted in a ver-
dict of acquittal.

" Then I, and you, and all of us, fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourished over us."

The shock to the whole community occasioned by
this outrage is beyond description. Its immediate ef-
fect was a horror so great as to produce paralysis.
The very life blood of society seemed to pause. All
readers of Uncle Tom's Cabin must have noticed the
power with which at several points Mrs. Stowe de-
picts the tendency of hopeless oppression to produce
atheism in the public mind. When after the terrible
whipping on Simon Legree's plantation Uncle Tom
spoke to Cassy of his faith in God, she quickly
replied: "There's no God here." The effect of that
outrage on the people of Jacksonville and its vicinity
was a striking illustration of the same tendency. EfPort
to resist the tyranny that was over us seemed utterly
hopeless.

If the hearts of men had expressed themselves in
words they would have said in relation to slavery:
"God no longer governs; Satan is enthroned." This
utter paralysis did not, however, long continue. When
the immediate shock was over and men had time to
reflect, anti=slavery sentiment was greatly strength-
ened and the conviction that slavery must be over-
thrown began steadily to win converts on all sides.
Nothing else in our local history did so much to
weaken the i^ro^slavery party. The leaders in this
transaction were the men who had held the bludgeon
of slavery over us for many years. Aside from their
political sentiments they were men of respectable

THE NEGRO 229

standing in the community, but as a result of this
kidnapijing they and all others in sympathy with them
or who in any way sustained the outrage suffered
permanent loss of influence. I ought also to say that
great efforts were made to obtain possession of the
girl who was claimed for slavery, but she fell into the
hands of friends who bravely, skilfully and success-
fully i^rotected her. She was soon taken into the
family of Elihu Wolcott, who already occupied a
leading position among the abolitionists of Jackson-
ville and of the whole state. He brought suit for her
freedom and finally obtained for her free papers under
the seal of the supreme court of the state. In her
case the law was vindicated. It would have been
equally so in the case of her brother, had he not been
robbed of his liberty by that deed of open violence.

The events just related occurred in 1838. From
that time onward there was in our community a slow
but steady progress of the anti=slavery sentiment.
The number those who openly entertained it increased,
and the asperity with which they had been regarded
sensibly diminished from year to year. The obstaclt s
which our college had experienced from that source
were no longer of any serious magnitude.

To the small though steadily growing Congrega-
tional church, organized as we have seen amid so
much obloquy, the credit of the steady x^rogress of
anti=slavery sentiment must in no small degree be at-
tributed. To it the i^ersecuted slave woman just
spoken of owed her safety and ultimate deliverance.
In it the negro, however persecuted and despised
elsewhere, was recognized and treated as a brother.
From its very organization it was known as the "Abo-

230 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

lition Church," and those not willing to extend Chris-
tian fellowship to all of God's children, whether white
or black, rich or poor, would not seek membership
there. It has always stood forth in bold relief as the
representative of freedom, intellectual, personal and
ecclesiastical. This spirit has not greatly promoted
its growth in members and wealth, but has made it a
power for good wherever its influence has been felt.

CHAPTER XVI.

A BRIGHT PROSPECT OVERCLOUDED.

The period extending from the early settlement of
Chicago, about 1831-1837, was marked by great pros-
perity in the states of Illinois and Missouri. Previ-
ous to this immigration was mostly from the south
and the southeast, the settlers coming across the
country in emigrant wagons, or reaching their desti-
nation by way of the great rivers. With the founding
of Chicago a great immigration began to flow from
the east and northeast by way of the lakes. In 1831
northern Illinois was almost an unbroken wilderness
excepting the small settlements which had gathered
around the rich lead mines in its north=^western
corner. A wonderful change now took place. A
remarkably enterj^rising and intelligent population
poured through the northern gate and quickly over-
flowed the prairies, till the streams of immigration
from the north and the south met far to the north of
Jacksonville. Central Illinois was also gaining rap-
idly in wealth and population. Agriculture was
greatly extended, flourishing towns and cities were
multiplied, and the eager immigrant saw nothing
b3fore him but a prospect of unlimited wealth and
prosi)erity.

To those intrusted with the management of Illinois
College this seemed a favorable time for establishing
it on a firm foundation by an ample endowment. In

231

232 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

those days a great many citizens of the state already
in their own estimation and that of their friends,
possessed great and rapidly increasing fortunes. At
first the college was practically without competition.
The broad field from the Ohio to Chicago and Galena
was all its own, and the outlook was certainly very
encouraging. President Beecher was in great measure
released from his duties as instructor that he might
devote himself to the work of endowment. For some
time the success of the undertaking equaled our most
sanguine expectations. Large pledges were cheer-
fully made with cheering assurances that the college
should never lack funds. In a few months subscrip-
tions deemed good for the amount of 175.000, had
been obtained. As it was also a time of great finan-
cial i^rosperity in the east, President Beecher
extended his efforts there, and we were soon led to
the comforting conclusion that financially the future
of the college was secure.

These cheerful prospects affected the financial
management of the institution. Larger expenses
were incurred and arrangements were made for the
future in accordance with our promised increase of
income. I did not deem the plans of the trustees
extravagant or unwise in view of our large exjjecta-
tions. Their only mistake lay in the fact that, in
common with the entire community, they assumed
that the apparent wealth upon which their subscrip-
tions depended for their value was a jDermanent
reality. It soon became apparent that in this as-
sumption not only the West, but the whole country,
was under a fatal delusion.

The present generation can scarcely conceive how

.1 BRIGHT PROSPECT OVERCLOUDED 233

great that delusion was. Every village with the
smallest prosiject of growth, and even some uninhab-
ited spots in the wilderness, had a large area staked
off into towndots and platted in a highly ornamented
style for the information of j)urchasers. And those
lots were actually sold at stiff city prices. The larger
towns were already great cities on i^aper. Alton, with
a population of four or five thousand, had staked off
all the sorrounding bluffs. A short time before his
death Mr. Lovejoy had predicted in the Alton 01)-
eerver, that in ten years the city would contain 50,000
inhabitants. From Peru to Ottawa, about sixteen
miles, the whole Illinois bottom and even the top of
Buffalo Rock was platted for a continuous city. Even
in Jacksonville, then containing a population of not
more than twelve hundred, speculation was so active
that a man could hardly keep pace with the real
estate transfers in the vicinity of his own dwelling.
The sale of these western " city lots " was not confined
to the western market. Land titles came gradually
to form a part of the circulating medium in New
York, Boston and Philadelx)hia.

The year 1837 brought an unprecedented financial
crisis, and the delusion vanished like a dream. The
inevitable pay day had come. Every creditor de-
manded payment, and few debtors had anything
wherewith to pay. In a few months almost all the
banks from the Mississippi to the Atlantic suspended
specie payment. Unoccupied city lots were no
longer assets, for they could no more be sold than a
milliner's stock when it is years behind the fashion.
Men who a few months previous believed themselves
to be worth hundreds of thousands, now found them-

234 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

selves hopelessly bankrupt. Perhaps so great a collapse
was never before experienced in the financial world
as that which occurred in the states of Illinois and
Missouri. In these states the crash affected not only
city property, but immense tracts of government
land which had been entered on speculation, and in
which millions of dollars had been invested. For a
period of ten years these lands found few buyers.
Many despaired of ever again finding a market for
them, and thousands of acres were sold under the
hammer for the payment of taxes.

The reader does not need to be informed what
under the circumstances became of the magnificent
subscriptions to Illinois College. Most of them
proved utterly worthless. Little either of principal
or interest was ever paid, and we were confronted
with an almost overwhelming disappointment. The
college found itself with increased debts and expend-
itures surrounded by a disheartened and poverty^
stricken community. In the older portions of the
country where capital is abundant and exists in stable
forms the recovery from such a collapse is often
rapid, but in our region there was little real capital.
Our supposed wealth had no solid basis. It was a
creature of the imagination; a palace in the clouds.
Under such circumstances the progress toward recov-
ery was very slow. From 1837 to 1847 it was scarcely
perceptible. Unoccupied town lots, and to a consid-
erable extent unimproved lands, were not projjerty in
its true sense. They produced nothing but taxes.
This was the darkest period in the history of Illinois
College. To conduct it safely through that trial was

A BRIGHT PROSPECT OVERCLOUDED 235

the most difficult task its trustees and faculty ever
encouutered.

A new obstacle to the j)rogress of collegiate educa-
tion in this state had grown up during the last years
of our supposed prosj)erity, in the excessive multipli-
cation of institutions of learning. A mania for col-
lege building, which was the combiijed result of the
prevalent speculation in land and the zeal for denom-
inational aggrandizement had spread all over the
state. It was generally believed that one of the
surest ways to promote the growth of a young city
was to make it the seat of a college. It was easy to
approj)riate some of the best lots in a new town site
to the university, to ornament the plat with an ele-
gant picture of the buildings " soon to be erected,"
and to induce the ambitious leaders of some religious
body eager to have a college of its own, to accept a
land grant, adopt the institution, and pledge to it the
resources of their denomination. These arrange-
ments were entered into righteously, inconsiderately
and ignorantly. The righteousness was largely on
the side of the land speculator, the religious men en-
gaged in the enterprise having little conception
of the resources necessary to found a college worthy
of the name, or of the broad co=operation indispen-
sable to its success. They had neglected to count
the cost.

It has already been stated that our first application
for a charter was defeated. In 1835, the legislature
passed a bill chartering four colleges, of which ours
was one. This bill, though in other respects satis-
factory, contained two illiberal limitations, one for-

236 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

bidding the corporations to hold more than 620 acres
of land each, the other prohibiting the organization
of theological departments. Both these restrictions
were subsequently repealed. After the passage of
this act similar charters became very abundant.

This multiplication of colleges was exceedingly
disastrous to the interests of liberal education.
Every denomination must have its own institution.
The small sums of money which could be gathered in
a new community for educational purposes and the
very limited number of students prepared to pursue
the higher branches were distributed among so many
so=called colleges that it was impossible for any to
attain a position worthy of the name. The far=seeing
friends of learning became discouraged in attempting
to found institutions in communities so divided. If
any fundamental principles have been established by
the history of democratic institutions, one of them is,
that it is better to rely on voluntary action than on
state intervention, whenever the former is adequate
to the attainment of the end. The history and the
present condition of Harvard, Yale, Williams, Am-
herst and many other seats of learning both in New
England and out of it, afPord the most complete dem-
onstration that the voluntary principle will accom-
plish far better results than can be attained by insti-
tutions under political control, and limited in their
religious teachings, as such schools must always be.
In the valley of the Mississippi we have failed to at-
tain equal success because of our denominational divis-
ions, and have thus unwittingly consented to divorce
the higher education from religion. We wisely sep-
arate the Church from the State, and then foolishly

A BRIGHT PROSPECT OVERCLOUDED 237

give over into the hands of the latter the control of
our institutions of learning. This is one of the most
bitter fruits of our sectarian divisions — a result whose
final consequences no man can foresee.

We never sought for Illinois College any ecclesias-
tical control, and would never have submitted to it.
We always desired to place it in the hands of patri-
otic, religious men, that it might be managed not for
a sect in the Church or a party in the State, but to
qualify young men for the intelligent and efficient
service of God both in the Church and the State. It
was never intended to be a Presbyterian or a Congre-
gational institution, but a Christian institution
sacredly devoted to the interests of the Christian
faith, universal freedom and social order. W^ould
that the Christian people of the state could have
united with us in giving it such a character and such
a far reaching influence that no institution founded
by the state could have equalled it in strength and
efficiency.

If any one asks why I did not resign my position
when obstacles were so multiplied around us, I an-
swer, it was because I had an abiding conviction that
an institution such as we were seeking to establish
was a jjermanent necessity in the center of this great
and wealthy state, and I believed that in some way
and at some time the means would be found whereby
our conception could be realized. It seemed wrong
to abandon the field and sacrifice results already
achieved. I thank God that He has given me some
tenacity of purpose. It has always been very hard
for me to abandon an enterprise which I have delib-
erately undertaken.

238 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

Under the long continuance of these depressing
circumstances we were compelled to ask help from
our eastern friends. The work of solicitation fell
chiefly upon Mr. Beecher, though it was to him a
great and oppressive burden, It exhausted his vital
energies in a kind of labor which under the most fav-
orable conditions would have been distasteful to him,
but which at that time was encompassed with spec-
ial difficulties and embarrassments. It diverted him
from the sphere of instruction in which he delighted,
and almost excluded him from those literary and
theological pursuits to which he was intensely de-
voted.

To myself this was a time of abiding quietly at
home and patiently enduring hard labor performed
under little stimulus of hope. Still I was not un-
happy. I loved to teach, and was fond of my depart-
ment of instruction. I met my classes from day to
day with the enthusiasm of one full of his theme, and
was able to inspire the enthusiasm of my pupils. No
man need ask a happier home than I had, though
the ^^ res angusfce do))nis^'' were sometimes incon-
venient, and I suspect more inconvenient to my wife
than to myself. But she bore the inconvenience
bravely and with a cheerful buoyant spirit. We
were happy in each other and happy in our growing
family of children. My reputation, and for the most
part my influence, were confined within a compara-
tively limited circle. That did not trouble me. I
was not as yet, certainly, ambitious of a wide rei^uta-
tion.

CHAPTER XVII.

GREAT CHANGES AND GREAT SORROWS.

Before the summer of 1839 we had no reason to
complain that the climate of Jacksonville was insalu-
brious. Malarial fever in those days had not been
supi^oscd to be prevalent in our region, although I
had one sharp attack and a few other cases had oc-
curred. My health had been better than I had ever
expected to enjoy, and my endurance in the line of
my pursuits was greater than that of most men, al-
though I was still of feeble muscle. In August,
1839, my wife was seized with this terrible fever.
The attack was severe, and in accordance with the
custom of the time powerful remedies were freely
employed. After long and watchful nursing the
fever was arrested, but complete recovery did not
follow. When at last she was able to resume her ac-
customed place in our home she continued to be very
feeble. I was anxious, but the physician spoke of
no danger. Immediatly after our cheerful Christmas
dinner I was obliged to leave for Springfield on im-
jjortant college business.

On New Year's day I received intelligence that she
was worse, and hastened home as sj^eedily as i3os-
sible. I found her still able to sit up, but her
deathly joallor and exhausting cough alarmed me.
Her physician gave me little encouragement. On
the 29th of January another son was born to us, des-

239

240 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

tined however to follow his mother to the silent
grave when only six months old. Hope for the
mother flashed across my mind, but it was only a
dream. In a very few days, on the 12th of February,
while a bright sun was shining, she called for a cup
of tea, and observing the joy I manifested at her
being able to swallow, she said with a glow of affec-
tion as bright as that of the days of our earliest love:
" I thought it would comfort him." A few moments
afterwards her lovely features passed into the rigidity
of death, and I saw my Elizabeth no more. In
dreams I have often seen her since, and once in \}^v-
ticular, in aspect so radiant that I cannot forbear
relating the incident.

More than forty=one years after her death I had
been a little ill, but had so far recovered that I had
preached that evening, and without unusual fatigue
had retired to rest. In my dreams Elizabeth stood
before me with a countenance of ineffable brightness
and glory, unearthly in her beauty, yet her identity
was as perfect as when we dwelt together in the
flesh. She called to me, and then said distinctly:
" I never loved you so much before." She then ap-
proached and embraced me. I tried to answer, but
in the intensity of my effort I awoke and the bright
vision had vanished. I found myself in a state of
most intense excitement, and a trembling had seized
my whole body. It was several minutes before I re-
covered my comiaosure. I build no theory on all
this, for it was but a dream and as a dream I let it
i^ass, yet it made uj)on my mind an ineffaceable im-
jjression, and left with me an abiding hope that
when I am no longer able to look upon this world

GREAT CHANGES AND GREAT SORROWS 211

with bodily senses, I shall meet her in like angelic
brightness, and with like assurances of undying
affection.

When she left me, however, there was no such an-
gelic vision. I was oppressed with unutterable sorrow.
The brightness of that winter day quickly passed
like all earth's joys. The sky was overclouded, rain
and sleet followed in the night, and the moaniiigs
of the temijest without were in solemn harmony with
the sorrows within my soul. Two days afterward, in
the face of a cutting wind and under frowning skies,
we laid her to rest uj)on the snow clad prairie beside
the little infant whose death she had mourned so ten-
derly. I wonder if most persons in the first agony of
such a sorrow experience the same difficulty as my-
self in appropriating to themselves the ordinary relig-
ious consolations. I was told, for example, " You
should rejoice for her sake. Your loss is indeed
great, but great as it is, her gain is far greater." My
sober judgment told me that this was true, but I
found it imj)ossible to draw consolation from it. I
could not then conceive how she could be happy any-
where far awaj' from her lonely and sorrowing hus-
band and children. Ultimately my mind accepted
that view; but for the jaresent there was only one
consoling thought. It was the assurance of the un-
failing kindness, wisdom and love of a Heavenly Fa-
ther. I opened not my mouth because God had
done it.

My cup of sorrow seemed full, but another great
affliction was in store for me. My oldest surviving
child bore the name of her dear dejjarted mother, and
was as beautiful in person as she was gentle and lov-

242 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

iiig. She was the light of our home, and I may say
of the neighborhood. She was scarcely eight years
of age when her mother died, and though childlike in
bearing and spirit she was mature in character. Noth-
ing could give her so much happiness as to do some-
thing to cheer and comfort her father. A little more
than nine months after her mother's death, during
which time she enjoyed perfect health and grew daily
in loveliness, she was taken ill while her aunt was
preparing her for church. The progress of her dis-
ease was rapid and irresistible, and on the next Thurs-
day, after much suffering she followed her dear
mother to the unseen world.

How i^recious after they are gone, is the memory
of such dear ones so full of health and life and beauty,
of wisdom and tender love. When reason ultimately
triumphs over the first agonies of bereavement we
devoutly thank God that we have loved and been
loved by dear ones, so bright, so pure and so true.
Such loveliness cannot die. It is only transplanted
to the garden of God. My heart moves me to attempt
a pen portrait of the noble woman who for more than
ten years was the joy of my heart and my home, my
ever trustworthy helper and adviser. She was worthy
of the " monumentum oereperennius.'''' But no words
of mine can do her justice. God will take care of her
precious memory and her still more precious self. In
my view her noble crown of perfected womanhood
far outshines all the honors ever won by the achieve-
ments of genius and eloquence.

My friend Mr. Baldwin, having accomplished his
mission for the college at the east, married the Miss
Wilder who has already been mentioned in these

GREAT CHANGES AND GREAT SOBBOWS 243

pages and returned, in 1832, to this state and to the
work of exploration and church=building in the serv-
ices of the American Home Missionary Society.
In this work he was assisted by our mutual friend
Rev Albert Hale, also one of the New Haven Band
and well known for many years as the devoted and
successful pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church
of Springfield, only thirty^five miles from Jackson-
ville. The missionary tours of these two brethren
extended from the Ohio river to the northern bor-
der of the state, and their good results continue to
this day. About the year 1837 or '38 that generous
l^hilanthropist Benjamin Godfrey of Alton, erected
in the neighborhood of that city the welbknown
Monticello Female Seminary, and invited Mr. Baldwin
to become its x^rincipal. Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin were
admirably adapted to the work which was thus opened
to them, and entered into it with great enthusiasm.
He continued to be a trustee of Illinois College, and
freely employed his time and gave his wise counsel
in its interest. We maintained an active correspond-
ence, in which all questions of public interest were
freely discussed. But one thing deters me from
drawing largely upon that correspondence in prepar-
ing these iDages. We freely discussed persons as well
as measures and the letters are therefore in many
instances too personal for the public eye.

Almost from the beginning of my life in Illinois
the disastrous divisions of the religious community
had forced upon my attention the subject of church
government. At first the subject was not often
mentioned in our correspondence, because I was
aware that it did not weigh upon his mind as it did

244 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

upon my own. But as time passed, my convictions
on this subject grew more and more intense. The
proverb, " Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth
speaketh ? " is as true in my case as in that of most
men, and a theme of such deej) interest and practical
importance naturally influenced my conversation
with my friends. After a time many tongued rumor
spread abroad the insinuation that my thinking was
wild, erratic and dangerous. Many of my friends
became alarmed for me, and my enemies, of whom I
had some new ones since the organization of the
Congregational church in Jacksonville, thought that
they had found an occasion against me. The story
soon reached Mr. Baldwin's ears. He did not hesitate
to rejDort it back to me at once and to warn me very
kindly of the danger to which he thought me exposed.
His fears were excited not so much lest I should fall
into dangerous error, as that I should weaken the
confidence of the public in my soundness and injure
the reputation of the college. His letter opened the
whole subject in our correspondence.

In the course of the corresi^ondence I proposed to
meet all criticism by publishing a full and frank state-
ment of my ecclesiastical opinions, but Mr. Baldwin
wisely urged that such a statement at that time would
be misunderstood and misrepresented. I therefore
prepared a careful and candid statement for his use
and requested him to show it to some judicious friends
both here and at the East. I am glad to be able to
say that the views so stated were so satisfactory to
him and to other friends that all apprehension on
their part was allayed and my intimate friendship

GREAT CHAXGES AND GREAT SORROWS 215

with Mr. Baldwin was placed upon a sure foundation
for the rest of our lives.

While this corresi3ondence was in progress I was
unexpectedly called to take part in a transaction
whose results seemed to be far more important than
any of the particij)ants suiDposed.

From a very early period in the history of Jackson-
ville the people known as "Disciples," the followers
of Alexander Campbell of Bethany, Virginia, were
very active. They were then regarded with much
distrust by other denominations, and in fact were
scarcely considered an evangelical body. Having
occasion to sx)end a night a few miles from Jackson-
ville, at a house of entertainment kept by a prominent
member of this body, I was invited by him to i^reach
on some Sabbath before long, in the church near his
house. As it was my practice to embrace every
opportunity to preach the gospel I accepted the invi-
tation, leaving it to him to fix the day. After some
delay the appointment was announced. On reaching
the place on the appointed day I found a large meet-
ing of the Disciples in progress and several of their
prominent preachers in attendance. The great
congregation gave close attention to my discourse.
It would appear that my utterances on that occasion
were orthodox, since Dr. Lyman Beecher after
listening to the same sermon, delivered two or three
years later in his church in Cincinnati, cheered
me at its close by exclaiming in his characteristic
manntr, "That's right!''

When I promised to preach for the Disciples it did
not occur to me that the question of joining with

246 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

them in the communion service was also involved.
But since it is the invariable custom of that denomi-
nation to follow the Sabbath morning discourse with
the observance of the Supper, I i)erceived the moment
I entered the church that I must face that question.
There was not much time to think. Nor did I see
much reason to hesitate. These people had been
listening with profound and reverential attention to
what I believed to be the gospel. I saw no reason to
doubt that they received it intelligently and sincerely,
and I could not refuse to join with them in breaking
bread in the name of the Lord. And I am bound to
say that I have seldom witnessed a more reverent and
devout observance of that rite. At the close of the
service strong men with whom I was acquainted in
business relations but whom I had never before met
in Christian worship, sang " Rock of ages cleft for me,"
with tears rolling down their cheeks. I could say
with Peter, " I perceive that God is no respecter of
persons." God taught me that day to beware how I ■
called any body of professed Christians "common or
unclean."

The report of my doings on that Sabbath startled
the community, the story could not have been circu-
lated with greater rapidity or repeated with more
emi^hasis had I committed an infamous crime. A
few defended my action, but most of my good neigh-
bors were shocked, and especially those who had
been offended by my sympathy with the Congrega-
tional movement. I had no remedy but to wait till
Christian' common sense should revive and reassert
itself. I had not long to wait. In my judgment, no
other event ever did so much to break down in this

GREAT CHANGES AND GREAT SORROWS 247

community unchristian barriers around the Lord's
supper. Men soon began to understand the true
meaning of Paul's words: " Let a man examine him-
self, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of
that cup." By a providential coincidence the tables
were soon turned in respect to my relation to the
Disciples. Among our early preachers in that vicini-
ty were some whose teachings seemed to most of us
to justify the severe things which had been said of
the denomination. Not long after the incidents just
related a man of this character became consijicuous
among them. Many of his utterances seemed to
sober-minded Christian peojile really horrible. Some
peox^le were, of course, so absurd as to assume that
because I had recently " communed " with members
of that denomination I could be held in some sense
responsible for his teachings. Partly for this reason,
and partly impelled by my own horror of his almost
blasphemous doctrines, I began openly and earnestly
to preach against his views, and endeavored to expose
them by fair and lucid arguments. These discourses
were received with enthusiasm.

Before many weeks an invitation came to hold ser-
vice in a neighborhood a few miles distant where I
had never preached and where the Disciples were
numerous and aggressive. I knew the meaning of
the invitation, and without the least hesitation
accepted it. I found it convenient to spend the Sat-
urday night previous to filling that api)ointment with
an acquaintance in the same neighborhood, a member
of a distant Presbyterian church. In anticipation of
my coming he had appointed a prayer-meeting for
that evening at his house. Among the persons who

§48 JULIAN M. STUBTEVANT

assembled came the erratic preacher whose strange
teachings had aroused all this storm. Perceiving
that he would probably be among my auditors on the
morrow I asked myself the question, " Shall I go on, as
Iliad intended, to assail his shocking doctrines? " I
felt that I ought to do it and to make as thorough work
of it as jjossible. The meeting next morning was held
under the shade of overhanging trees and a great
multitude, consisting mostly of Disciples, Methodists
and regular Baptists listened with what seemed to me
remarkable attention to my argument which lasted for
two hours and a half. I saw no sign of impatience at
its length. Perhaps the most attentive auditor was
the preacher of " strange doctrines," and when I had
finished he gave notice that he would reply at the
same place in the afternoon and invited me to be pres-
ent. I said that it would be impossible for me to do
so, as a i)i"evious engagement obliged me to return
home immediately. As might have been expected
that man rapidly declined in influence among his
former supporters. Nor did the transaction XDermanent-
ly disturb my own most friendly relations with the
Disciples, which have continued till this day. It is
my belief that no portion of the religious community
around us has grown in grace more rapidly than that
denomination. If my efPorts have in any degree con-
tributed to that end I am thankful. I ascribe their
remarkable progress to the fact that from the begin-
ning they have consistently held that, " The Word of
God only is the rule of our faith."

From 1837 onward the financial embarrassments of
the college increased. Both the impoverished condi-
tion of the community and our religious divisions

GREAT CHANGES AXD GREAT SORROWS ^4d

rendered it impossible to secure much aid in our
own neighborhood. If relief came at all it must come
from distant friends. Under the circumstances the
thought occurred to Mr. Baldwin that the work of
raising funds for collegiate education in the West
might with advantage be committed to an association
or committee residing in the East. This suggestion
seemed the more timely and important since five other
institutions of learning in the West were in conditions
painfully similar to our own. Indeed the greatest
difiiculty in raising funds east at that time arose from
the seemingly rival claims of sister institutions. In
April, 1848, a meeting of the representatives of West-
ern Reserve, Marietta, Wabash, Beloit, and Illinois
Colleges, and Lane Theological Seminary, was held
at the last named institution for the i^urpose of decid-
ing on the expediency of forming such an association.
At that meeting I represented Illinois College. Most
of the institutions sent delegates, and the formation
of such an organization was after free and full discus-
sion unanimously approved. All the institutions ulti-
mately acceiDted the arrangement. The Society for
Promoting Collegiate and Theological Education at
the West was dulj^ organized, and Mr. Baldwin was
invited to become its secretary, to reside in or near
New York. He accepted this position after long and
painful deliberation, though at a great sacrifice to
himself and family.

I spent the week during the sessions of this body
of delegates in the family of Dr. Lyman Beecher.
In addition to his duties as Professor of Theology in
Lane Seminary he was pastor of the Second Presby-
terian Church of Cincinnati. Owing to illness he

250 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

was unable to preach the following Sunday, and I
was i3ersuaded to remain and supply his pulpit. On
Sabbath he accompanied us to church, telling me
however that I must preach and also administer the
Lord's Supper, as he was unable to speak. Before
dismissing the congregation I asked him in a low
tone if he felt able to say a few words. Arising as if
relieved by the opportunity, he poured forth from
his overflowing soul for nearly half an hour, the
most magnificent strain of evangelic eloquence I
have ever heard.

During the evening of that day I had a long and
very familiar conversation with the venerable patri-
arch, in the course of which I ventured to ask how
he acquired that perfectly easy and natural tone that
invariably characterized his delivery. He replied in-
stantly, "I didn't acquire it, for I always had it."
Just so; " poeta nascitur nonfit.^'' To me it is an oc-
casion of devout gratitude that I have known such a
man so intimately. During all his residence in the
West he favored Presbyterianism. Several times on
meeting him after a long separation almost his first
question would be: "How are you getting on with
those rabid Congregationalists in Illinois?" My
ready reply, " We should get along well enough with
the rabid Congregationalists if it were not for the
rabid Presbyterians," was always received with the
utmost good nature. After he returned to the East,
he had little difficulty in finding out where he
belonged. His great heart was with the freedom of
Congregationalism.

Other great changes took place on College Hill.
One of them was in my own house. As the reader is

Hannah Richards Sturtevant

GREAT CHANGES AND GREAT SORROWS 251

already informed, the same sad year which removed
from me the wife of my youth removed also two of
our children. There remained two sons, one six
years old and the other four, and a daughter of two
years. I did not then, and still less do I now, sub-
scribe to the doctrine that a man thus loainfully be-
reaved at the age of thirty=four best honors the mem-
ory of the departed by remaining unmarried. The
sweet remembrance of years of conjugal happiness is
not a preparation for a life of loneliness.

Hannah Richards Fayerweather, the youngest sis-
ter of the dej)arted one, had been a constant member
of my family from a i^eriod prior to the birth of my
eldest surviving child. She had shared with her
older sister the cares and burdens of rearing them
all, and from the time of their mother's death had
taken, as far as might be, the mother's iDlace. It
seemed that nothing could be so well for me and my
children as that she should become the wife and the
mother. Accordingly on the third of March, 1841,
we were married, and experience has abundantly jus-
tified the wisdom of the step.

A discussion which arose in connection with this
marriage introduced me to a new field of public ac-
tivity. At that time, and I believe even now under
the rules of the Presbyterian Church, the limitations
of inter^marriage are the same for persons whose con-
nection is by affinity as for those who are connected
by consanguinity. This rule is understood to pro-
hibit marriage with the sister of a deceased wife.
When I informed my friend President Beecher that
I wished him to officiate in such a marriage he inti-
mated that he had no objection to the proposed ar-

252 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

rangement if my conscience was clear on it, but that
he regarded such a marriage as contrary to the scrip-
tural rule. He stated his reasons for that opinion
and I, after taking time for reflection, replied to
them. After reconsidering the matter he cheerfully
consented to perform the ceremony. I had from the
first no doubts on the subject.

Only two or three months after our marriage the
celebrated McQueen case came, by appeal from the
lower courts, before the General Assembly for final
adjudication. The trial was long and tedious, and as
it seemed to me the argument for the prosecution
was utterly weak and fallacious. Neither my con-
science nor my social relations were in the least dis-
turbed, but I keenly felt that in deposing McQueen
from the ministry for marrying the sister of his de-
ceased wife the Assembly had committed a great and
cruel wrong, and that he had been unrighteously
prosecuted and very weakly defended. I was confi-
dent that it could be triumphantly shown that what-
ever the Presbyterian law might be, there was no di-
vine law against him. I wrote out my argument in
the case and published it in the Biblical Repository,
then edited by the Rev. Absalom Peters D. D., for-
merly secretary of the American Home Missionary
Society. The general favor with which that article
was received greatly encouraged me to contribute to
the periodical j)ress, and my contributions have since
been almost voluminous; to the Biblical Repository;
The New Englander; The Congregational Review;
The Continental Monthly; The Princeton Review,
and several of the leading religious weeklies. Pre-
vious to writing the article mentioned I had little

GREAT CHANGES AND GREAT SORROWS 253

ambition for authorship. I cannot dismiss this topic
without remarking how powerless among intelligent
Protestants is ecclesiastical law when clearly shown
to be unsustained by the Word of God. About the
time of the McQueen case some of the ablest and
most influential men in the Presbyterian ministry
notoriously violated that law without their action
ever being called in question.

In the spring of 1842 President Beecher found the
pressure upon the college finances so severe that,
with the consent of the trustees, he determined to
remove to the East with his family in the hoi^e that,
being constantly on the ground, he might find there
some effectual means of relief. This step proved the
beginning of a very great change. President Beech-
er and his family had been for ten years a very im-
portant factor in the life of the college and in the so-
ciety of Jacksonville. It was largely owing to the
presence of that family that there had existed about
the college a social circle which might well be called
brilliant. Our style of living was plain and frugal,
and nothing of the brilliancy associated with fash-
ionable gayety and extravagant folly attached to our
circle. Genuine culture enlivened by eminent x)ow-
ers of conversation we did have. Music and spon-
taneous outbursts of wit and innocent mirthfulness,
accompanied by refined tastes and a love for the beau-
tiful, gave an unusual charm to those days. To this
the frequent and sometimes protracted presence with
us of different members of the " Beecher family "
very largely contributed.

To this day I can almost hear the ringing laugh of
Catherine E. Beecher I am still refreshed by the

254 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

quickness and pungency of her wit and her charming
voice in song. Her gifts could be fully appreciated
only by those who had been favored with her intimate
acquaintance. In social life her words were winged
arrows of gold. The man who ventured to debate
with her on any question on which she had thought,
and she never would debate on any other, needed to
be well equipped. No one will ever forget 'Charles
Beecher, who mingled in those scenes, or his violin.
Thomas K. Beecher spent several years with us as a
student and received his diploma at my hands. But
there were others in our faculty who had contributed
their full share to the charm of those days. Truman
M. Post, Jonathan B. Turner and Samuel Adams
were men who would call out the brightest and best
thoughts of any circle in which they mingled. The
removal of President Beecher and his family was an
irreparable blow to Jacksonville both socially and
religiously.

CHAPTER XVIII.

NEW RELATIONS.

The events which followed Mr. Beecher's change
of residence were of great importance both to him
and to the college. The muchneeded iDecuniary aid
for the college could not be obtained at once. He
liecame more and more interested in the literary and
theological inc^uiries towards which his attention had
long been directed, and felt the need of the libraries
of the East in the pursuit of his studies. He could
not hoije to do justice to himself in bringing the re-
sults of his investigations before the public while he
continued to carry the great burdens of the strug-
gling college. Accordingly, in the spring of 1844,
having received an invitation to the pastorate of the
Salem Street Church, Boston, he sent his resignation
to the trustees and accepted the call.

The selection of President Beecher's successor
proved a difficult problem and occasioned something
akin to a collision between the ecclesiastical and re-
ligious parties nearest the institution. It is needless
to say that the use of my name in connection with
the position was not the result of any effort on my
part. The correspondence between Mr. Baldwin and
myself was maintained at this time with even greater
frequency and freedom than usual, and was not in
the least disturbed by the fact that both our names
were urged for the position. I believe the under-

255

256 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

standing between us was perfect, and that each felt
sure that there was no selfish ambition in the other's
heart. I repeatedly assured him that I was quite
content to serve the college in the position I then
held, and should be well pleased with his election to
the presidency I was the more ready to take this
position because I wished to avoid an occasion which
would call into active expression any opposition
which individuals might fgel to my suj^posed relig-
ious views and principles. If my opinions about the
Church, the Lord's Supper and kindred toxDics were
again brought before the community I must be true
to my convictions and defend myself. But I wished
to avoid controversy. I desired to preach, in the col-
lege and out of it, with whatever power I jDossessed,
" rej)entance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus
Christ," and if possible, to avoid discussions which
would disturb the water in which I sought to fish for
men.

The July meeting of our Board of Trustees, after a
discussion of candidates, adjourned till the last week
in November without taking any definite action. The
postponement seemed unfortunate, since it left room
for those personalities which I had deprecated. Re-
turning late in November from New England, where
I had been busy for four months in the interest of
the college, I found our community in a state of un-
usual excitement.

At the October meeting of the Synod of Illinois
attention had been called to the alleged prevalence of
transcendental opinions in Illinois College, and to
the rumor that some of the professors were responsi-

NEW RELATIONS 257

ble for it. The persons accused were not present,
and I, though a member of Synod, had received no
notice of the intended attack. The Synod, although
no ecclesiastical body had ever been invited to exer-
cise visitorial powers in the institution, appointed a
committee to attend a meeting of our board and in-
quire into the truth of these rumors. The committee
consisted of Rev. Hugh Barr, of Carrolton, Dr. A. T.
Norton, of Alton, and Dr. J. J. Marks, of Quincy.

At the November meeting the two first named came
before the board bearing a list of the rumors in circu-
lation to the detriment of the college, prepared by Dr.
Marks. They were courteously received and it was
arranged that they should meet the faculty in the
jjresence of the l)oard. At that meeting frank state-
ments were mude by the professors, and questions
were invited and freely asked. At the same time the
professors were requested to prepare careful accounts
of their theological and ecclesiastical views for the use
of the Prudential Committee. These statements were
copied and sent to Mr. Baldwin, and through his kind
efforts were reviewed by some of the leading thinkers
of New England. I have now before me the com-
ments of Dr. Bacon, of New Haven, and President
Hopkins ui)on those documents, each of them heartily
endorsing the western professors.

The friends of the college were not well j)leased
with the subsequent action of the Synod of Illinois
in respect to these rumors. When that body met at
Springfield in 1845 the Committee on Illinois Col-
lege had no report to make. Considering the cur-
rency given to injurious reports by their appoint-

258 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

ment, and the abundant facilities for investigation
furnished them, we felt that we should have been
either vindicated or condemned.

After a long and painful discussion in which I was
constrained to bear some part, the Synod unanimous-
ly adopted the following minutes:

"Whereas, the committee appointed to make certain inquiries
relative to Illinois College have made no report, and whereas
we are informed that the matters in question are engaging the
attention of the trustees of the college, therefore

Resolved, that the Synod dismiss the subject, while they wish
it understood that the Synod have preferred no charges and
they do not endorse any of the rumors unfavorably affecting the
college,

Resolved, that the Synod have reason to believe, and do most
earnestly pray that the board of trustees and faculty in their
united capacity may and will go forward in the great work of
literary and Christian education to which they are called to the
full satisfaction of the friends of education."

But I must return to the November meeting of the
Board of trustees. On the day following the confer-
ence with the Synodical committee the board (one
member having been excused at his own request
from voting) unanimously elected me to the presi-
dency of the college. At that time there were only
three Congregationalists in the Board, and one of
them, Rev. Asa Turner, was absent, having sent in
his resignation. My election was not therefore the
triumph of one church over others.

The delicacy of the situation had of course pre-
vented me from conversing with the students about
the election of a president, and I was not aware that
there was any general enthusiasm for my election
among them. But soon after dark that evening the
college bell rang merrily and I was summoned to the

NEW HIlLATIOSS 259

front of the building, to find every window brilliantly
illuminated. The lights in the fourth story had been
ingeniously arranged to s^Dell my name, the fourteen
windows giving just room for a window to each letter
and the two periods after the initial letters J. and M.
The slope between the college and the town and the
very wide i)rairie beyond was then almost devoid of
trees and the illumination could thus be seen for a great
distance. I was greeted with a great burst of applause
and returned to my house astonished, bewildered and
humbled. I felt myself utterly unworthy of such
demonstrations. After carefully considering the
matter for about two weeks I determined to accept
the ijosition; for while the difficulties of the situation
arose before me in appalling magnitude, and I was
almost overcome by the conviction of my own insuf-
ficiency for the trust, I did not dare in view of all
the known factors of the j)roblem to refuse.

The trustees had elected me to the presidency with
the understanding that I would with it undertake
the professorshiij of Mental and Moral Science, in
place of the chair I had previously occupied.

This arrangement was entirely satisfactory to me;
for though I had greatly enjoyed teaching mathemat-
ics and j)hysics, I had also a growing interest in the
new department, and entered upon it with zeal and
hoj)efulness. If my new position had not involved
such great burdens with respect to the finances of
the institution it would have been all that I could
have desired. Even with that drawback it has
brought me great happiness for many years. Even in
my old age I have resigned the work of teaching
mental and moral science with great regret.

260 JULIAN If. STURTEVANT

111 one respect my financial responsibilities brought
substantial advantages. Between the years 1835 and
1844, with the exception of a few visits to St. Louis,
Chicago and other places in the region, made for the
purpose of performing ministerial services, my life
had been almost wholly confined to " College Hill."
When in the latter year I was called East, words can-
not express how bright and beautiful the outside
world appeared to me, and especially Xew England
where I spent the summer and Autumn. Xine years
among the monotonous scenery of Illinois, not then
adorned as it now is by the work of the architect and
the landscape gardener, prepared me to revisit, with
great delight, the varied scenery to which I had been
accustomed in my childhood and in my youth
Traveling that summer along the valley of the
Connecticut and across the southern part of Xl-w
Hampshire, and spending some time in the charming
suburbs of Boston, my enthusiastic sight^seeing must
have amused my feUow travelers who had spent all
their lives in New England, The sight of clear
streams, grand and venerable mountains, or even of
hillside pastures covered with granite boulders filkd
me with irrepressible delight. After many long
drives in the black mud of the j^rairies it was a
pleasure to travel by stage in the rain over the hard
roads of the East. I contrasted the snow=white foam
in the wake of a steamer on Long Island Sound with
the yellow water of the Missouri. Xatural scenery
seemed to act on me in those days like a gentle stim-
ulant. My spirit was cheered and my health was
greatly improved. I was also grateful to discover
that my communications to the periodical press had

NEW RELATIONS 261

made many friends in i^laces where I supposed I was
an entire stranger.

This journey also brought me much heli^ and en-
couragement in the study of religious questions
Hitherto my thinking had been to a great extent sol-
itary, without books or time to read them. My
views, when expressed, had so often been received
with suspicion and even with obloquy, that I was be-
coming timid in my intercourse with men. I was
eager to learn the opinions of others, but shy and
cautious in ex^jressing my own. I sometimes suf-
fered from the apprehension that there might be
something distorted in my mental development
which, if I fully disclosed myself, would shock my
acquaintances.

Of all this I was rapidly relieved. From day to
day as I formed new acquaintances and learned the
views of the men I met, I found that in my western
residence I had not grown out of sympathy with the
fathers and brothers of New England but into it, and
that as I disclosed the results of my own thinking,
first cautiously and then with freedom, my opinions
did not shock and rei3el, but attracted attention,
excited interest and won friendship and confidence.

During that year I attended for the first time a
meeting of the American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions. I take great pleasure in record-
ing the impression which was made ui^on me by that
meeting. As it advanced and I grew in symiwthy
with the sweet religious spirit pervading it, the im-
pression that I was in a holy place deepened, and
I recognized in my own soul that fundamental con-
ception of the gospel, " The field is the world."' As I

262 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

left that meeting I felt in the very depths of my
being that whatever difficulties and perplexities I
might encounter amid the labyrinths of theological
speculation or ecclesiastical inquiry I would never
cut myself loose from the x^ractieal communion with
saints which I had enjoyed on that occasion. I knew
that the ark of God was there and that in the fellow-
ship of faith and good works I had found the true
Church of God.

" For her my tears shall fall,
For her my prayers ascend,
To her my cares and toils be given,
Till toils and cares shall end."

From that purpose I have never wavered, and I
have spent my subsequent life in laboring to the
utmost of my power to break down the human devices
which hinder this only true Christian fellowship. It
was almost immediately after this meeting that I
returned home to take my part in the events and
experiences connected with my election to the presi-
dency of the college.

About the first of January, 1845, it became neces-
sary again to go east and cooperate with Mr. Baldwin
in an effort to obtain pecuniary assistance for the
college. I imagine that many of my readers have
very little conception of what a winter's journey from
central Illinois to New York City then meant. In
my case it was a stage ride pursued night and day
from Springfield, Illinois to Cumberland, Maryland.
Before we reached Terre Haute the mud had become
so deep that the stage-coach was exchanged for a mud=
wagon, that is, a common lumber wagon with a canvas
cover stretched over bows of oak, and no springs
except the small ones attached to the seats. The

NEW RELATIONS 263

short seats, intended for two, frequently held three,
and brought heads and bows so near together as to
threaten us every moment with concussion of the
brain as the vehicle lurched from side to side. In
spite of the greatest diligence we did not make more
than sixty-five or seventy miles in twenty=four hours.
One look at the hovels opened for the entertainment
of travelers reconciled me to ride on in discomfort
rather than to try to rest in such places.

About midnight on Saturday night the stage stopped
for the night, and I for the Sabbath, at a very com-
fortable place in Richmond, Indiana. How charming
was the refreshment of that day of rest! On Monday
morning, to my great satisfaction, the mud^wagon
gave place to a fine Concord coach which carried us
in comparative comfort at the rate of seven or eight
miles an hour over the macadamized national road.
The road had been projected to run as far west as St.
Louis, but the scruples of our statesmen about the
limitations of the constitution had caused it to stoj)
at Richmond. Some politicians are very conscien-
tious in the interest of their party. Unfortunately
they did not think so much of limitations in some
matters less imjoortant for the peoijle. Our past
fatigues were now almost forgotten as we sj)ed on to
Dayton, Columbus and Wheeling. Then came the
magnificent scenery of the passage across the Alle-
ghauies, until at Cumberland, Maryland, we took the
railroad train which carried me to my friends in New
York before another Sabbath.

Of the various labors I encountered, the successes
which delighted and the failures which disheartened
me in the efPort to build np the finances of Illinois

264 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

College, it would be tedious to speak. In February
or March I spent a fortnight in New Haven. The
severe labors of that period were wonderfully light-
ened by the delightful companionship in which I
there found myself. My old friendship with Doctors
Bacon and Dutton was renewed and strengthened.
I made the acquaintance of Dr. Josej)h Thompson,
then pastor of the Chapel Street Church and after-
wards widely known in connection with Broadway
Tabernacle in New York. For the precious inti-
macy enjoyed with those three men through all the
rest of their lives I desire devoutly to thank God.
Surely the joy of such friendships with the conse-
crated and hallowed servants of God's kingdom is
among the greatest joys of his children here on earth,
and abundantly repays them for any sacrifices they
may be permitted to make in the service of that
kingdom.

I was invited to spend an evening at a club com-
jaosed of the men I have named, and others of a kin-
dred spirit. When the comi^any were assembled Dr.
Dutton surprised me by saying: "I suggest that in-
stead of the regular order w^e hear from Brother
Sturtevant his views of the relation of the Lord's
Supper to the government and discipline of the
Church." I protested that I could not speak before
such a company on such a subject without a mo-
ment's preparation. But my objections were over-
ruled with the kindly assurance that all present were
brethren, and that they desired to ask questions and
have me answer them. Accordingly the evening un-
til a late hour was spent in a deeply interesting dis-
cussion of the subject suggested. Drawn out in part

NEW RELATIONS 265

by their questions, I stated my belief that the Lord's
Suj)per is designed to be a Christian ordinance, but
not an instrument of church power; that it belongs
only to the Church inorganic and universal; the
Church which has no government save that which
Christ himself exercises by his word and his Spirit.
I denied that the rite sustains any relation to the
government of the local Church, or was ever intended
to enforce its discipline. I affirmed that whenever
men assumed the right, at that table to which the
Lord invites those who know in their hearts that they
love Him in sincerity and truth, to admit or exclude
their fellows, they acted without any warrant in the
Scriptures and committed a usurpation in the house
of God. I contended that the purity and sanctity of
the service needed no protection but the moral forces
of truth and love, and that a minister had no func-
tion at the table but that of a presiding officer ap-
Ijointed by his brethren, to whom he did not adminis-
ter the rite since all united as brethren with joyful
concurrence to celebrate it.

These oi)inions were very earnestly discussed, some
questioning, some combating, and some defending
them, but no one appeared to discover in them any
alarming divergence from the foundations of the
Christian faith. My own conviction of the truth and
the importance of the principles enunciated thr.t
evening has steadily increased ever since, as I have
had time to think and read more widely on the sub-
ject. I have traced those i^rinciples into a much
wider circle of logical relations and seen more fully
their illustrations in ecclesiastical history, and now I
believe that before the conflict of sects comes to an

266 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

end, and tlie divisions of Christendom are healed, the
doctrine of " the power of the keys," as it was under-
stood by the reformers of the sixteenth century and
by their Catholic opponents, must be renounced.
This doctrine assumes that whatever grace of God
comes to His people through x^^rticipation in the
Lord's Supper is locked in a sacred chest, of which
the organized Church alone holds the key. This doc-
trine was held alike by John Calvin, John Knox, and
Poi^e Gregory VIP. in the plenitude of his s^^iritual
despotism. It leaves room for endless disputes about
the possession of the true key, and always gives the
advantage to the hierarchical churches. Substitute
for this the sim^Dler teaching that the ordinances be-
long to the Church universal, to be used freely by all
as expressions of faith and fellowship, and the causes
of division will to a great extent have passed away.
Nothing then will hinder the union of the multitude
of the disciples around the Christ of the New Testa-
ment, the Christ of the miraculous conception, the
crucifixion, the resurrection and the ascension. At
last we shall understand what our Lord meant when
he said, " My kingdom is not of this world."

CHAPTER XIX.

A CRISIS.

The aid of the " Society for Promoting Collegiate
and Theological Education at the West " brought
partial but by no means adequate relief to the col-
lege. Our heavy debt incurred during the financial
crisis of 1837 was a burden so grievous that for a
time it threatened the very existence of the institu-
tion. Our large amount of real estate, the gift of our
friends, now oppressed us, since all excejot the build-
ing site was subject to taxation. In 1846 the finan-
cial agent of the college urged that it was impera-
tively necessary to relieve the Board of these bur-
dens. In order to accomplish this he proposed that
all the property of the college except the buildings,
the land reserved for a site, the library, and the
chemical and philosophical apjDaratus, should be of-
fered for sale at a price barely suflB.cient to lift our
debt. Thi§ I opposed as an unnecessary sacrifice.
I had already secured liberal subscriptions for tlie
payment of the debt, conditioned on the whole sum
being pledged, and I believed that by patience and
zeal the trustees could pass the crisis. It seemed
certain that at no distant day the property would in-
crease greatly in value.

I suggested another plan which appeared j^ractica-
ble and easy. The bonds of the State of Illinois
were selling at that time in Wall Street at the very

267

268 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

low price of 16 or 17 i)er cent, of their face. My
proj)osition was to offer the disposable property of
the college in exchange for State bonds. I doubt-
ed not that in those depressed times w^e could sell
our lands for as much in State bonds at their
face value as it would bring in cash in prosperous
times, and I had full faith that our state bonds would
in due time be worth their face. Several of the fore-
most financiers of the State were present in the
Board of Trustees, and such was the general deiores-
sion that they received my proposition with a storm
of sarcasm and ridicule. Would I sell the rich lands
of Illinois for dishonored bonds not worth the paper
on which they were printed and on which not one dime
would ever be paid? After hearing them, I said,
"Gentlemen, you are financiers and ought to know
about such matters. I am but a preacher and a stu-
dent and supposed to be ignorant of them. But please
remember my words. The bonds of the State of Il-
linois will be paid to the last dime, jjrincipal and in-
terest. If ten successive legislatures repudiate them,
the eleventh will be sure to j)rovide for their i)ay-
ment.

"Go, gentlemen," said I, "and select any piece of
land in the state which you would like to purchase,
learn from its owner the price, and then estimate the
whole share of the state debt which lies against that
IDiece of land and add that to the price asked for it,
and the united sum will not be found to be more than
one quarter or one half the price which the land is
sure to command in a few years."

I believed moreover that if a communication were
made to the legislature of the state, that seventy-five

A CRISIS 269

or a hundred thousand dollars of the bonds of the
state (for that was about the sum I expected to raise)
were held by Illinois Colles^e and jjerpetually devoted
to educational interests, the legislature would make
the interest of those bonds a part of the annual ex-
penses of the state and that thus our property could
be converted into a substantial productive fund at
about its real value. My argument availed nothing,
the Board naturally deferring to the financiers. With
unspeakable heart-sickness I saw the proi^osition of
the financial agent accej)ted and arrangements made
for sacrificing the property. This was perhaps the
only important measure in respect to which I was in
a minority of the trustees while at the head of the in-
stitution.

Immediately after the adjournment of the trustees
I wrote to Mr. Baldwin, predicting the results which
might be expected from this action. Some eight or
ten years afterwards, when iDrosiDerity had returned to
the country, Mr. Baldwin sent me a copy of that let-
ter that I might see how events had fulfilled my pre-
dictions. Those predictions were made in sorrow,
and I saw their fulfillment with still greater sorrow.
Financiers, however shrewd, sometimes stand too
near the questions at issue to form correct judg-
ments.

The finances of the college now presented a very
simple problem. We must keep the finances of the
institution within the income provided for it, and ap-
peal to the public, not now for the payment of an old
debt or of taxes on unproductive land, but for a per-
manent endowment. In the year 1819 an effort was
commenced which laid the foundation of the i^resent

270 , JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

permanent fund. It was begun very timidly, but
with an earnest purj)ose. At the annual meeting of
the trustees that year I projiosed that we should begin
with an effort to raise a fund of ten thousand dollars
none of the subscription to be valid until the full sum
should have been pledged. Before the meeting ad-
journed the X3lan was j)ut in form and two subscriptions
of $1,000 each and several smaller ones were recorded.
My own subscription of one thousand dollars was to
be i)aid in ten equal annual installments, but the
amount was at least equal to one=fourth of all my
worldly possessions. It was also agreed that as soon
as the first ten thousand dollars was subscribed we
should at once attempt to secure another ten thousand
upon the same terms. Rev. William C. Merritt, a
graduate of the college, was employed to prosecute
the work, which prospered rather beyond our expec-
tations. It was not long before the sum of thirty
thousand dollars had been secured, and since that
time the college has had a permanent fund.

And here I anticipate somewhat by mentioning a
serious disaster which befell us about the last of De-
cember, 1852. Just at the close of the holiday vaca-
tion our largest building was burned. It was four
stories high, the fire was in the roof and therefore
difficult of access, and Jacksonville had then no fire
department. Nothing of the building was saved ex-
cei3t the south wing where my family had resided for
twenty years, and from which we had removed to our
j)resent home only a few months before. Our small
college library was in that building. With great dif-
ficulty the books were saved in a somewhat damaged
condition. The worst is yet to be told. An insurance

A CRISIS 271

policy of several thousand dollars had been allowed to
expire only a few weeks previous — through whose
carelessness it is not worth while to inquire — and only
three thousand dollars of valid insurance remained.

When the students returned for the winter term
they found only the ashes of their college home. A
few left the institution, but most of them sought
board in town and proceeded with their studies. Our
chapel, and recitation and lecture rooms, were not
destroyed. For my own part I had felt so keenly the
evils to which students living in college dormitories
were exposed both in my Alma Mater and in Illinois
that I was in no haste to rebuild. Those evils were
somewhat increased by the fact that we were obliged
to receive so many young men almost entirely desti-
tute of previous discipline. I was weary of enforcing
police regulations, so imperative in securing good or-
der in and about the premises and yet alwaj^s to some
extent ineffectual, and longed to put the young men
under the restraints of life in private families.

Subsequent experience and reflection have, however,
convinced me that college dormitories possess on the
whole certain advantages and cannot well be dis-
pensed with. If student life, for any reason, does not
center within the college buildings, the unity of the
institution and its power for good are greatly im-
paired. Students living outside the walls have less
of that home feeling which does so much to make
them loyal to their Alma Mater. It is esj)eciall)^
easier to carry out a system of moral and religious
training where there is at least a nucleus of the stu-
dents living togelher in the college. Such religious
influences are worth more than anything else in the

272 JULIAN M. STURTEVAKT

formation of character. Without them the best police
regulations are futile.

I was not alone in thinking that new dormitories
might well be deferred for a time. Meanwhile it
seemed important to take immediate steps for the
erection of a really good building for instruction.
We were obliged to proceed slowly and more than
four years passed before the structure was completed.
At the opening of the fall term of 1857 we took pos-
session of the ample and jDleasant rooms now chiefly
used for the public purposes of the college.

I return to an earlier period that I may record im-
portant changes that occurred in our faculty before
the fire. These resulted from our successful efforts
in obtaining funds in 1849 and 1850, and from the
previous resignations of Professors Turner and Post,
the latter to accept a j)astorate in St. Louis, and of
Rev. William Coffin, who had succeeded me in the
department of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy.
Prof. Rufus C. Crampton had succeeded Prof. Coffin,
Prof. Nutting had taken the place of Prof. Post, and
Prof. William D. Sanders that of Prof. Turner; the
last two being chosen as Presbyterians in order to
meet the wishes of our Presbyterian friends in the
Board of Trustees and outside of it.

Up to this time, while we had been careful that our
teachers should be earnest, religious men, they had
been chosen without much regard to denominational
bias. Liberally educated young men were not then
numerous in our state, and we had naturally gone for
teachers to New England where the supply was
most abundant. In the interest of harmony therefore
I and others exerted ourselves to find suitable Pres-

A CRISIS 273

byterian candidates for the vacant chairs, and the
unanimous choice of these two professors was the re-
sult. The new arrangement was highly acceptable to
our Presbyterian friends and caused no displeasure
among Congregationalists. We had an able and, as
we believed, a jDopular faculty. The religious divisions
of the college seemed to be past and we felt that an
era of peace and good feeling was before us.

In 1855 I still retained my connection with the
Presbyterian Church. I had tried to be fully under-
stood by my brethren of that denomination. My lan-
guage had invariably been: "I am not a Presbyterian.
I came among you as a Congregationalist, and as such
I have continued with you. My connection here is
fraternal rather than ecclesiastical. For years I have
uniformly excused myself from voting upon questions
of ecclesiastical politics. If with this understanding
it is desirable that I continue with you, I shall seek
no change." I had, however,- always maintained my
unrestrained liberty of free utterance on all subjects,
religious and ecclesiastical ones not excepted.

Early in that year I received an invitation to de-
liver an address before the American Congregational
Union at its anniversary to be held in May in the cit_y
of Brooklyn. As that was the first opportunity I had
ever had of giving utterance before a fitting audience
to my views of the constitution and order of the Chris-
tian Church I accepted the invitation. No man has a
right to occupy a position which forbids him to speak
his convictions on such a theme. I regarded my
opinions on that subject as the result of the teaching
providences of God, and I felt sacredly bound to speak
what I knew and testify what I had seen. To have

I ^ Jbil^MlC^t»^

274: JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

been silent through fear of giving offense would have
been, in my estimation, treason to the cause of truth
and righteousness.

The Church of the Pilgrims, of which Dr. Kichard
S. Storrs was and still is the honored pastor, was se-
lected for the place of meeting. My theme was,
"The Unsectarian Character of Congregationalism."
The discourse occupied an hour and three-quarters in
delivery, and was repeated by special request without
abridgement the next Sabbath evening to an audience
that crowded the Broadway Tabernacle in New York.
It was also published in pamphlet form by Draper of
Andover. No one who had not found his way alone
to what seemed to him the truth, and who had not
experienced years of loneliness and opposition, can
understand the joy which filled my heart at the recep-
tion given to my utterances by those great assemblies
of intelligent Christians. It gave me special pleasure
to be informed that my old friend Dr. Absalom Pet-
ers, who had so severely rebuked me in 1834 for the
countenance I had been giving to Congregationalism
in Illinois, said to his friends as he left the Church of
the Pilgrims: "Hitherto I have been a Presbyterian.
Henceforth I am a Congregationalist." That great
and good man afterwards expressed himself to the
same effect more than once in my presence.

It soon became evident that the college needed a
much larger endowment, and the trustees proposed to
raise a fund of fifty thousand dollars. The subscrip-
tions were conditioned uj)on the entire amount being
pledged before the first day of June, 1858. Prof.
Sanders, an earnest and very efficient man, consent-
ed to assist me in procuring pledges. Our denomi-

A CRISIS 275

national difPerences seemed to have mostly disap-
peared. I had withdrawn from the Presbyterian
Church because my connection with it no longer
seemed to promote harmony and facilitate coopera-
tion, and the change had been made so far as I could
judge without any interruption of good feeling.
Neither Prof. Sanders nor myself were withdrawn
from the work of instruction while raising the endow-
ment funds. The labor was great and success some-
times seemed almost impossible. As the first of June
drew near the pressure greatly increased, and when
less than a fortnight remained and we lacked several
thousand dollars of the needed subscriptions it be-
came apparent that this deficiency must be supplied
by the i^eople of Jacksonville and its vicinity.

At this crisis a very influential member of the
Board of Trustees, having sought a private interview,
assured me of his great interest in our success, and
suggested as a means of securing it that I should an-
nounce that I would not hereafter engage in ecclesi-
astical discussions such as my recent address before
the Congregational Union. He asked if other college
presidents of known wisdom and prudence, such men
for exami^le as Dr. Hopkins of Williams College, did
such things. In rej^ly I told him that at the close of
my discourse in Broadway Tabernacle Dr. Hopkins
had sought me out, thanked me and assured me that
he thought my address would do much good. I told
him that the trustees could have my resignation at
any moment but that I would remain at the head of
the college only as a free man, at perfect liberty to
speak and publish at my own discretion.

We toiled on, and before the first day of June ar-

276 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

rived the full amount had been pledged. I announced
the good news to Mr. Baldwin in New York by refer-
ing to Psalm 126: 1-3; " When the Lord turned again
the caf)tivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.
Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our
tongue with singing: Then said they among the
heathen, the Lord hath done great things for them.
The Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we
are glad."

It now seemed to us all that the prosperity of the
college rested on an assured foundation. Presbyter-
ians and Congregationalists and patriotic public spir-
ited men who were connected with neither denomina-
tion were cooperating in making its foundation
broader and stronger, and yet the liberty of its in-
structors had been maintained.

CHAPTER XX.

THE PROGRESS OF ANTl SLAVERY.

In the study of revolutions such as the overthrow
of slavery in the United States, we are apt to overes-
timate the forces which appear in oj)en conflict, and
to undervalue the more tranquil influence of thought
guided by the providence and the Spirit of God.
The progress of anti=slavery opinion in the state of
Illinois was like the sunshine. It came as the King-
dom of God always comes, and no one had reason to
exclaim: " Lo here, or, lo there! "

Since the martyrdom of Lovejoy, two notable events
have been the waynnarks of our progress. Both were
national in their influence and character. One of
them was the publication and wide circulation of
'• Uncle Tom's Cabin." Up to that time, in those
portions of the Northern states peopled by immigra-
tion from the South, anti=slavery sentiment had never
been fully emancipated from the ban under which
Southern oj)inion had placed it. Personal violence or
open insult no longer prevailed, but such sentiments
were treated with contemi3t, and those who uttered
them to some extent forfeited social position. In
most of the churches such utterances were frowned
upon, and the preachers who indulged in them were
made conscious that i:)ublic odium rested upon them.
The charge of favoring the freedom of the slave in-
jured the reputation of any man or institution to
which it attached.

277

278 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

Uncle Tom's Cabin seemed to end as if by magic
this unnatural siDell upon men's freedom of utterance.
The book sold with astonishing rapidity, and was al-
most universally read. A few incorrigible devotees of
slavery were full of anger, but they were quite over-
powered by the tide of x^ublic opinion, and were soon
glad to retire in moody silence. The poj)ular heart
was stirred, and old prejudices were forgotten, and
convictions long repressed were freely uttered. Mrs.
Stowe's pictures of slavery and its influence on indi-
viduals and society were so grax^hic that those who
knew slavery best could not help recognizing their
truth. The book became the chief theme of conver-
sation in all social circles, until people were ashamed
to confess that they had not read it. For the first time
in our history abolitionism became popular. I have
never witnessed any other such revolution in i)ublic
sentiment.

The philosophy of the marvelous influence exerted
by that book merits the x)rofoundest investigation. It
was not the efl^ect of genius alone, though without
genius it could not have been produced. The vivid-
ness of its j)ictures, its accurate delineation of charac-
ter and especially of the negro character, the touches
of wit and mirthfulness with which even the most
sorrowful scenes were intermingled, were all efifective.
But deeper than these was the profound aim; to paint
a great national crime in all its enormity and if pos-
sible to eliminate the horrible system from our civili-
zation. Without this holy purpose which pervades
every page of the book its publication would have
produced no marked results. Of course the wave of
popular enthusiasm gradually subsided, but its influ-

THE PROGRESS OF ANTI-SLAVERY 279

ence was permanent. It was no longer a crime to utter
anti^slavery sentiments. The domination of slavery
north of Mason and Dixon's line bad passed away
forever.

The other great landmark in the progress of liberty
was the organization of the Republican party from
1854 to 1856. And here I must say a few words
about my own political history, though it may seem
to some of my friends absurd or even discredital)le.
In the first Presidential election after reaching my
majority I was not able to participate because of a
recent change of residence. In 1832, I had been but
three years in Illinois, and had so little sympathy
with the two parties then contending for the control
of the state that my conscience would permit me to
vote with neither. When the slavery question began
to agitate the public mind my unwillingness to ally
myself with either of the great i^arties M'as much in-
creased. I regarded slavery as the foremost national
issue, and utterly distrusted both parties with respe( t
to it. Yet no statesmanlike or even intelligible line of
political action was suggested by others. In fact my
first vote for a President was cast for Martin Van
Buren in 1849. Then it was not the candidate Init
the i)latform that won my support. I had as little
respect for the career of the nominee as the most zeal-
ous of his opponents, but I recognized the Free Soil
[)rinciples of the Buffalo jjlatform as expressing the
only issue upon which, at that time, any considerable
portion of the American jieople could be brought to
concerted action against slavery. I not only accepted
the platform with enthusiasm, but I had hope that
under the lead of ex=President Van Buren a new

280 JULIAN ^r. STURTEVANf

party might be organized with sound anti^slavery
principles, which would rapidly attract adherents.

In this, however, I was disappointed. In 1852 I
saw no reasonable hope that anything of importance
would be accomplished by the Liberty party, and I
regarded the other two parties with constantly in-
creasing distrust and aversion. In what was known
as the compromise of 1850 the two had united in
such action as was intended and expected on both
sides to render any further jDolitical action against
the- system of slavery impossible, and thus to render
the bondage of the enslaved race and of the nation
perpetual. I cannot even deny that the iron had
entered my own soul until I was almost tempted to
say about God what Cassy said on Legree's plantation
"He is not here." It was to my mind the most
hopeless crisis of the great conflict. I could not vote
for a Whig or Democratic administration. I saw no
hope in any other direction. The Divine resources
are infinite, but when the Republican party was or-
ganized it seemed to us the only method by which
deliverance could possibly come to the nation. And
even that method would have been seemingly impos-
sible if the way had not been opened for it, as the
way of Providence is so often opened, by the mad-
ness of its enemies.

When in 1820 the Missouri Compromise was
accepted, most northern peojile believed that it would
be faithfully adhered to, and that slavery would there-
by be confined within comparatively narrow limits. If
anyone will take the trouble to trace on the majD the
line which then separated us from Mexico he will see
that this expectation was seemingly well founded,

THE PROGRESS OF ANTI-SLAVERY 281

But the accession of Texas and the immense terri-
tory acquired by the Mexican war, gave the South
room for vast expansion south of the line fixed by
the Missouri Compromise, as the permanent bound-
ary between freedom and slavery. Even with this,
however, the South was not satisfied. In coopera-
tion with its numerous adherents in the North it soon
openly avowed its purpose to trample on the Missouri
Compromise and to extend the system of slavery to
all parts of our unorganized territory, wherever mas-
ters might choose to migrate with their human chat-
tels. Southern leaders were evidently determined
not only to maintain that equilibrium in the
United States Senate between freedom and slavery,
which had been so jealously guarded since 1820, but
to secure for slavery a perpetual ascendency. The
institution which at first asked only for a tolerated
existence, next claimed full equality with freedom,
and now clearly revealed to thoughtful men its pur-
pose to hold perpetual sway in the councils of the
great republic.

It is not strange that the discovery that such an
issue was upon us filled patriotic men at the North
with alarm and horror. Just at this crisis the Free-
Soil jjolicy advocated by the James G. Birney wing
of the abolitionists and most clearly and distinctly
announced in the BufPalo platform of 1848, began to
be ojaenly and eloquently championed by many of
the able and most influential statesmen of the North.
Men from all parties were drawn as by a common im-
pulse toward the new banner. It became evident
that upon that issue alone the North could be rallied
to defend itself against the alarming encroachments

282 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

of the slave-power. The disintregration of the Whig
party became inevitable. Old line Whigs as they
were called, abolitionists who under the lead of Bir-
ney remained faithful to the Union, and a great mul-
titude of Democrats, found themselves standing
shoulder to shoulder in the determination that sla-
very should not be naturalized, and therefore should
not be x^ermitted to encroach further upon the
national domain. An absolute necessity created a
new jDolitieal organization to express the general sen-
timent. The madness of the slavery propagandists
had created the Republican party. "Whom the
gods will destroy they first make mad."

The organization of the Republican party in cen-
tral and southern Illinois was, however, no easy task.
The Whig party had been strong here, but its ad-
herents were very largely the followers of Henry Clay,
and they still regarded him with implicit confidence.
When, therefore, it became evident that the Whig
party throughout the North was breaking uj), it
became a very serious and doubtful question what
course the Whigs of this region would take. Most of
them did not desire the further extension of slavery.
They desired to establish freedom, not slavery, in
the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska. They
M'ished to create no more slave states, but they were
not abolitionists. They did not wish to convert the
slave states in which they were born and reared into
free states. They were ready to resist any effort to
give freedom to the negroes in the midst of their
masters. They therefore regarded with susj^icion
and aversion any party which seemed to favor eman-
cipation. Here, therefore, the situation was exceed-

THE PROGRESS OF ANThSLA VERY 283

iiigly critical. In noriherii Illinois the Republican
party organized itself, but in central and southern
Illinois it was a grave question whether an organiza-
tion could be effected.

The only prominent politician in the neighborhood
upon whom we could depend as a leader was Richard
Yates, the first man who received the degree of A. B.
from Illinois College, delivered to him by myself in
the absence of President Beecher. He had already
served one term as a Representative in Congress,
having been elected by the Whig party, and had
there shown a greater degree of sympathy with anti=
slavery princix^les than was generally expected either
from a Whig or a Democrat. The open violation of
the Missouri Compromise had filled him with an in-
dignation which he had not been slow to express.
To him anti-slavery men naturally turned for leader-
ship. He hesitated. It was not strange that he
should, for he had bright political prospects, and his
future career was at stake. At this juncture I had
a long interview with him. He was frank, warm=^
hearted and generous. I entreated him to become
our standard-bearer and assured him that he would
not lack for followers. He jiromised to do what he
could, and well was that promise redeemed.

He was a good leader, and rapidly succeeded in in-
spiring his old Whig associates with his own enthu-
siasm. Wise and politic, he assured them that they
were organizing not an abolition but a Free=Soil party,
whose sole object it was to prevent the further exten-
sion of slavery over territory hitherto free from its
blighting influence. He f>roposed to leave slavery
undisturbed in the states where it already existed,

284 JULIAN M. STVRTEVANT

saying to the accursed thing: "Hitherto shalt thou
come but no further." I did not then, neither do I
now, regard the KeiDublican party as the less worthy
of confidence and honor because it guarded against
attacking the "peculiar institution" in the slave states.
Without that limitation it could not have been organ-
ized at all in this region. The leaders of the party
wisely proposed to do what they could, not what they
could not, accomplish. They assailed the institution
just where it could be successfully attacked. If the
abolitionists had been as wise and discriminating
from the very beginning of the agitation they Would
have gathered many more adherents. Society would
have been far less violently convulsed, and perhaps
slavery would have been more speedily abolished, and
with far less sacrifice of blood and treasure.

That period brought into striking prominence an-
other man who was destined to become even more
famous than Governor Yates. That man was Abra-
ham Lincoln. Nothing ever seemed tome more won-
derful or more obviously providential than the raising
uj) of Mr. Lincoln for that great crisis. The times
called for one born and reared in the midst of slavery
and the i^overty and ignorance which it produced
among the poor whites — one who could meet people
of Southern birth and move them by a style of elo-
quence that should go straight to their hearts, but one
who was nevertheless imbued with the highest con-
ception of moral obligation and was able to grasp
those great principles which underlie the whole fabric
of free institutions. He must be a statesman capable
of viewing social and political questions from the
highest moral standpoint. I have known but one

THE PROGRESS OF ANTI SLAVERY 285

man in whom these combinations existed, and that
man was Abraham Lincoln.

There is one view of the conditions of Mr. Lincoln's
early life in relation to which it is very difficnlt for
any of ns to do him justice. We have other examples
of men who have made their way from penury and
obscurity through all the difficulties which their po-
sition involved to high intellectual culture and the
broadest and most liberal statesmanship. Mr. Gar-
field was such a man. But there is one great differ-
ence between the career of Mr. Garfield and that of
Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Garfield was born and reared in a
community in which the advantages of an elementary
education were oj)en to all, and in which the whole
people were imbued in a greater or less degree with
the spirit of liberal learning. In those elementary
schools the advantages of which he enjoyed, friend-
ly eyes were watching and friendly hands were
laid upon him in affectionate encouragement. Edu-
cated men sought him out and advised him to seek a
liberal education. In 1880,, during the Presidential
canvass, the widow of the Rev. John Seward of Au-
rora, Ohio, wrote a letter to Mr. Garfield reminding
him that her husband had thus encouraged him in his
early struggles. . Mr. Garfield replied and very grate-
fully acknowledged the fact. It was from that same
Rev. John Seward that I received at an earlier date
much of the inspiration that induced me to enter col-
lege.

But Mr. Lincoln was lifted up towards higher at-
tainments by no such surrounding atmosphere of in-
telligence. No such pervading spirit of culture stim-
ulated him. No common school blessed his childhood.

286 JULIAN 31. ST URTEVANT

The sphere of his activity and his culture was limited
to the hard toil and coarse fare of the log cabin, the
forest and the corn field. He had actually reached
man's estate before he acquired the first rudiments of
an education. That in spite of the extreme disadvan-
tages of such a position he should have attained the
culture, the knowledge, the wisdom and the stirring
eloquence that fitted him for his great destiny and for
the eminent services he was to render to liberty, to
our country and to civilization itself, was an achieve-
ment without a parallel. Long before he was thought
of as a candidate for the Presidency, I knew him in-
timately. He stood in the foremost rank among the
most truthdoving men I have ever known. Whether
at his law office, in the drawing-room, at the bar, in
the halls of legislation, or on the rostrum, he was in-
capable of sensationalism. His constant aim was to
express truth in its own simple naked impressiveness.
If you could reach the very center of his mental ac-
tivity you would always find there some moral truth
from which everything radiated. He was a true and
righteous man. This was the Moses whom God had
raised up to lead his people out of Egyptian bondage,
and yet he never had the advantage of the arts of civ-
ilization taught in the palace of Pharaoh. To have
known Lincoln I esteem one of the greatest blessings
of my early settlement on what was then the frontier
of our civilization.

It was only with the uprising of new political is-
sues that we began to realize Mr, Lincoln's power or
to appreciate his character, although as a law.yer and
as a politician he had already acquired a high reputa-
tion, having served one term as a Whig in the nation-

THE PROGRESS OF ANTI'SLAVERY 287

al House of Representatives. In the conflicts which
followed he seemed to have found his element and
entered upon the work for which he was born. I re-
member the first speech I heard from him on this
great issue as though it were but yesterday. He ad-
dressed an audience of not less than two thousand
peox^le gathered from Morgan and the surrounding
counties. He, like Yates, spoke guardedly, propos-
ing only to confine slavery within its existing limits.
But that did not hinder him from striking terrible
blows at slavery itself. He. sought to move his audi-
ence to prevent the further extension of slavery. It
was therefore perfectly legitimate to show that slav-
ery was a very bad thing. And this he did with tell-
ing force. No man ever knew the hearts of his hear-
ers more perfectly than Abraham Lincoln. He was
perfectly familiar with all their passions, j)rejudices
and hatreds, and yet was able so to construct his ar-
gument as to avoid offending their prejudices, and to
so convince them that they received his utterances
with clamorous applause. That day I first learned
that Abraham Lincoln was a great man. In a meta-
phorical sense he commanded the winds and the
waves and they obeyed him. He even drew his argu-
ment from the deeps of natural theology. " My
friends,'" said he, " we know that slavery is not right.
If it were right, some men would have been born
with no hands and two mouths, for it never was de-
signed that they should work, but only eat. Other
men would have been Ijorn with no mouth and four
hands, because it was the design of the Creator that
they should work that other men might eat. We are
all born with a mouth to eat and hands to work, that

288 JULIAN 31. STUETEVANT

every man may eat the products of his own labor and
be satisfied."

It is impossible fully to estimate the beneficent in-
fluence on the people of central and southern Illinois
from the great political agitation which followed the
organization of the Republican party. It was more
than a great political movement. It was a great
moral" upheaval. Previous to that time, at least since
the year 1824, the moral element had been scarcely
discernible in our politics. From that time onward
to the close of the war the moral element seemed to
be almost the leading one in public affairs. In Mr.
Lincoln's sjieeches it was always paramont. His ap-
peal was to the moral convictiofls of his hearers. In
that respect it would be difficult for anyone not fa-
miliar with our previous political condition to form
any adequate conceiDtion of the change wrought
among us by the presidential canvas of 1856. In
our j)art of the state the newly organized party was
still greatly in the minority, but it was evidently the
growing aggressive force.

The contrast between the two great party leaders,
Mr. Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, was very
remarkable. The latter was then in the zenith of his
popularity. He was a perfect master of all those
artifices by which men win their way to the hearts of
the multitude. Men whom he had once met he never
forgot, and he knew how to greet them with a certain
ajjpearance of cordiality which made the imjDression
of great and affectionate regard. Each man was
made to feel that he was the very one that the great
leader particularly desired to meet. Yet Mr. Doug-
las' power was by no means limited to these vulgar

THE PROGRESS OF AXTI-SLAVERY 289

arts. He was very strong as a i^opular orator, but
the source of his power was in great contrast with
that of Mr. Lincohi. He knew all the jjassions,
tastes and prejudices of the masses he expected to
win as well as Mr. Lincoln did, but he employed that
knowledge for a very different purpose. While Mr.
Lincoln used his familiarity with human nature for
the puriDose of finding access for the truth to the un-
derstanding and heart, Mr. Douglas employed the
same knowledge with consummate adroitness to ac-
complish his own ends, whatever they might be.
Mr. Lincoln's truthfulness was unquestioned. Mr.
Douglas' success as a lawyer lay largely in his utter
indifference to the line that separates truth from
falsehood. If he could but win he did not hesitate
about the means. Mr. Douglas was perfectly confi-
dent of his own power of so arraying ^aopular passion
and prejudice against the party he oj^posed as to
overwhelm it. Mr. Lincoln was equally confident
that under the government of the Supreme Ruler of
the universe, truth would prevail and righteousness
would triumph. The influence of the two men upon
their followers corresponds precisely with this con-
trast.

An instance once occurred in an audience which
Mr. Douglas had just been addressing. Immediately
after he ceased an enthusiastic admirer in the crowd
declared that he believed that Douglas was a greater
man than Jesus Christ. We may be sure that Mr.
Lincoln never left such an impression. His admir-
ers always regarded him as the minister of truth and
righteousness. He made them feel that the truth
which must ultimately prevail is not a matter of hu.

290 JULIAN M. STUBTEVANT

man opinion, but is the expression of immutable
principles and accords with the law of God. This
contrast explains, at least in part, the moral revolu-
tion which Mr. Lincoln and his co-laborers intro-
duced into our politics.

The success of the Republican party in its first
Presidential campaign was very remarkable. The
obstacles to be encountered were gigantic; the pre-
judices to be vanquished seemed insurmountable.
Though through the division of the Whig element
between the Republicans and the Know Nothings the
Republicans were defeated on the national issue, still
we elected our state ticket by a handsome majority.
Jacksonville itself, notwithstanding the large pre-
ponderance of the Southern element in our popula-
tion, was carried for the Rejpublicans by a consider-
able plurality. If I had formerly been remiss in the
duties of a citizen I did what I could to atone for it
in that canvass. I must confess, however, that as in
1848 my enthusiasm was not inspired by the can-
didate. I endeavored at the outset to create in my-
self some zeal by reading the life of General Fre-
mont, Ijut I soon found that my fervor was more
likely to be chilled than to be intensified by the
process. I therefore said and thought little of the
candidate, but rejoiced to do what I could to advance
the righteous j)rinciples embodied in the j)latform.

The most important conflict in which Mr. Lincoln
was ever engaged in this state was a series of debates
between him and Mr Douglas, in 1858. Many con-
sider his speech delivered near the beginning of
that contest in the representatives' hall at Springfield,
the greatest effort of his life. With great pleasure I

THE PROGRESS OF ANTI-SLAVERY 2'Jl

recall its impressive opening. Outside were the
noisy demonstrations of a great Democratic parade.
The room was filled to its utmost capacity with grave
and thoughtful men. I shall never forget my emo-
tions as the tall form of our leader rose before us
and he gave utterance to the memorable words : " A
house divided against itself can not stand. I believe
this government cannot endure permanently half
slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to
be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall; but
I do expect that it will cease to be divided. It will
become all the one thing or all the other. Either
the opponents of slavery will arrest the further
spread of it, and place it where the public mind
shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate
extinction, or its advocates will push it forward until
it shall become alike lawful in all the states old as
well as new, North as well as South." This was new
doctrine for the latitude of Springfield, yet never did
a statesman choose the ground he was to stand upon
more wisely or define it more boldly, or defend it
more irresistably. I know that some of the old-time
abolitionists present were startled and alarmed at
the frankness of Mr. Lincoln's position. One of them
intimately known to myself, one of Mr. Lincoln's
greatest admirers, sought an interview with him the
next day and entreated him to modify his language,
assuring him that on the issue he had made our de-
feat was inevitable. Mr. Lincoln heard him with
respectful attention, but replied with kindly firmness,
" I will not change one word. I have rewritten that
paragraph again and again. It xjrecisely expresses
the position on which I will make the fight." It was

292 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

not long before the doubter fully concurred in the
wisdom of the decision. There is reason to believe
that Mr. Douglas himself ^Yas entirely confident that
on that issue Mr. Lincoln could be easily and utterly
routed. Mr. Douglas was no judge of the x^ower of
truth, while Mr. Lincoln fully believed in his heart
that no arts of a demagogue could stand before it.

During the progress of this campaign I happened
to be at our railway station one day when the train
arrived and Mr. Lincoln emerged from one of the
cars. He was on his way to speak at the town of
Winchester, a few miles from Jacksonville. As we
walked together to the hotel, a quarter of a mile dis-
tant I said: "Mr. Lincoln you must be having a
weary time." " I am," said he, " and if it were not
for one thing I would retire from the contest. I
know that if Mr. Douglas' doctrine x^revails it will
not be fifteen years before Illinois itself will be a
slave state." So keenly did he feel that slavery
must be arrested before it subjugated the whole nation.
It was this conviction that impelled him. He, of all
men, deserved to be called the Father of EmanciiDa-
tion in the United States.

In that contest for the Illinois senatorship Mr.
Douglas was destined to win one more victory and
his oi^ponent to experience one more defeat. But
that contest left Mr. Lincoln on the highway to the
White House. It made him known to the nation as
the statesman whom God had raised up to lead the
host that fought under the banner of liberty.

As an orator, Mr. Lincoln had one remarkable
characteristic. His perfect candor invariably won
the confidence of his hearers at the outset. He was

THE PROGBESS OF ANTI SLAVERY 293

always careful to disentangle liimself from any fallacy
into which the advocates of his own cause might
have fallen. His friends would often be astonished
at the magnitude and importance of his concessions.
He seemed to be surrendering the whole grouml of
the debate, leaving not a square foot upoiv which his
own argument could rest. Yet in the sequel he made
it gloriously apparent that the rock foundation of his
cause was left, where no man could overthrow it. He
forced even his bitterest opponents to l^elieve that he
was at least candid and sincere. I am inclined, how-
ever, to think that in his varied practice in the courts
his candor may have sometimes stood in the way of
his success. One eminent lawyer said of him after
his cruel assassination, " Mr. Lincoln was an excel-
lent supreme court lawyer, but he was too candid not
to sometimes damage a bad cause." I fear that few
eminent lawyers lay themselves liable to that criti-
cism.

Mr. Herndon, Mr. Lincoln's law partner, has been
at great pains to assure us that Mr. Lincoln was not
a Christian, but an unbeliever. Mr. Herndon was a
very incomx:)etent interpreter of the mind and the life
of his partner. He had no correct discernment of
the real line that separates the Christian from the
infidel. How does he interpret the golden words ad-
dressed by that great man to the crowd assembled
around the railway station to witness his departure
from Springfield for Washington? What was the
meaning of the seemingly earnest request for the
prayers of that great multitude? He recognized
the greatness of the task before him and declared that
without Divine hell) he should certainly fail. Were

294 JULIAN M. STUETEVANT

those the words of a devout believer in God and in
prayer, or of an infidel and demagogue, i)rofessing a
devotion which in his heart he despised? We can-
not accept Mr. Herndon's theory of Mr. Lincoln's
character. There is nothing surprising or difficult of
exi3lanation in the fact that Mr. Lincoln had not
hitherto openly professed his faith in Christ by unit-
ing himself with some Christian church. Up to this
time, and still later, there must have been in his
mind something of the same confusion of ideas under
which Mr. Herndon still labored when he pronounced
his distinguished partner an unbeliever. Alas! How
many there are still among us whose minds are in-
volved in the same confusion. Mr. Lincoln had not
then, it seems to me, learned to distinguish between
Christianity as set forth in the life of Jesus Christ
and in the clear concrete form in which He taught it,
and the Christianity of the modern creed of technical,
metaphysical theology. He regarded the latter as
the Christianity of the Church, and believed that in
uniting himself with a church he professed implicit
faith in all the statements of its creed. He was too
candid, too cautious, too conscientious to make such
a profession till he found his own mind in assured
harmony with it. He took the Church at her word
and thought that to be a Christian he must believe
all that the Church teaches. He felt that for him to
j)rofcss such a faith tin Christianity would be hypoc-
risy, and conscientiously forebore to do it. In after
years and through deeper and sadder experiences he
understood better the real meaning of faith in Christ,
and though to the hour of his violent death he never

THE PROGRESS OF AXTI-SLAVERV 295

joined the Cliiircli, lie did very openly declare himself
a Christian. He confessed Christ before men.

I must say that it seems to me the Church might
learn wisdom from the experience of such a man as
Abraham Lincoln. Do we bring before the minds of
the multitude before whom we are witnesses for
Christianity a just, i^ractical, concrete conception of
the Christian character and life? Not one of us be-
lieves that the acceptance of the whole system of the-
ology set forth in Calvin's Institutes or in the Thirty^
nine Articles is necessary to a true and living faith
in Christ. Why then do we insist on the reception
of theological systems in such a way as to make upon
the minds of thousands of thoughtful men the im-
pression that nothing short of the declaration of a
belief in them, whole and entire, can justify any man
in professing his faith in Christ? Christianity is not
a system of metaphysical philosophy. It is "reiaent-
ance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus
Christ."

Surely we should make the practical conception of
Christian character and life so prominent in all our
constitutions and methods of procedure, and in all
our pulpit utterances that men will no longer con-
found the acceptance of metaphysical statements with
that living faith that forms character and saves the
soul. If we preached the theology of Jesus more
and that of the schools less, our hearers would under-
stand the gospel better and be more readily persuaded
to confess Christ before men.

It is not necessary to j^rolong the consideration of
the great political struggle which placed Mr. Lincoln
at the head of the nation, and thus furnished the

l'~*-r-f^-emC ■* ■•^•^,,3 »■ ».»iifc.^t><.- ■■Sfjfc-O ,Ti »• tk m I ' m m, mt m '9-

296 JULIAN M. STURTEVANt

South with the utterly groundless pretext for the re-
bellion by which he was at last compelled to issue
the proclamation of emancipation. It was a military
necessity, else with his views of the Constitution he
never would have issued it, but to his heart it was
also a precious opportunity. The agitation of the
ocean by the fiercest gale is no adequate illustration
of the Presidential canvass of 1860. The hurricane
only stirs the surface of the ocean. That j^olitical
excitement moved the community to its very depths.
The mighty passions that affected millions of hearts
simultaneously, the elevation of men's souls with pat-
riotic fervor, the hoj)es of many for the speedy tri-
umi^h of righteousness, alternating with inexpressible
horror at the thought of its defeat, the x^rofound ad-
miration with which the defenders of the right were
regarded, and the unspeakable aversion excited
against those who were seeking to exalt opj)ression;
all these conflicting elements mingling in our own
streets and around our own firesides rapidly formed
and intensified iudividual and national character. It
is in such convulsions as this that princij)les are
tested, and by them the course of civilization for long
future ages is determined. In the progress of the
great struggle that followed I had good reason to
know by personal observation that other nations had
scarcely the faintest conception of the magnitude of
the events transpiring in the United States.

The war of the rebellion has passed into history.
It is worth while, however, to observe how differ-
ently the election of Mr. Lincoln was regarded by the
great mass of American citizens who composed the
Republican party on the one hand, and the adherents

THE PROGRESS OF ANThSLAVERY 21)7

and advocates of slavery, in the 8 )uth, and all over
the world, on the other. Tiu» former had no ex-
pectation, most of them hardly a fear, that a war
would result from Mr. Lincoln's election. With
them it was not a declaration of war, but a
peaceful yet emphatic assertion of their opinions, in
strict accordance with the laws and the Constitution
of their country, and they could not believe that their
brethren in the South were rash and wicked enough
to raise an armed insurrection because they had been
defeated, in a lawful way, at the polls.

On the other hand Southern statesmen and their
sympathizers in the North did expect that the elec-
tion of Mr. Lincoln would be the signal for the out-
break of a gigantic armed rebellion. When the news
of Mr. Lincoln's election arrived in Jacksonville, a
great ecclesiastical convention was in session here.
On hearing the announcement, a very prominent
member of that body, an enthusiastic adherent of Mr.
Douglas, wept like a child, " Now," he said, " there
will be war." While we of the North scarcely be-
lieved the conflict possible, and while Mr. Lincoln's
sagacious secretary, Mr. Seward, was saying: "The
contest will be over in ninety days," it was perfectly
understood throughout the British empire that there
would be a great civil war in the United States. The
South already i^ossessed sufficient influence in
EuroiDe to produce a general conviction that if the
EejDublican party carried the election the dissolution
of the Union and civil war were inevitable. Nothing
can be more certain than that during all the tremen-
dous excitement of the canvass, war and bloodshed
were far from the thought of the Republican leaders

298 JULIAN M. STUBTEVANT

and the great mass of Republican voters. They
believed in liberty and were determined to vote for it
within the limit of the Constitution. The one party
meant peace and liberty for the long future, the other
meant slavery and the shedding of as much blood as
should be necessary to perpetuate it.

[The following extracts from my father's corres-
pondence with President Lincoln and the dis-
tinguished " war governor " of Illinois will illustrate
what has been said in this chapter. — Ed.'\

Springfield, Sept. 27, 1856.
My Dear Sir:

Owing to absence yours of the 16th, was not re-
ceived until the day before yesterday. I thank you for your
good opinion of me personally, and still more for the deep
interest you take in the cause of our common country. It pains
me a little that you have deemed it necessary to point
out to me how I may be compensated for throwing myself in the
breach now. This assumes that I am merely calculating the
chances of personal advancement. Let me assure you that I
decline to be a candidate for congress, on my clear conviction .
that my running would hurt and not hel}} the cause. I am wili-
ng to make any personal sacrifice, but I am not willing to do,
what in my own judgment, is a sacrifice of the cause itself.

Very Truly Yours,

A. Lincoln.
Springfield; 18th September, 1862.
My Dear Sir:

I steal a few moments from the more immediate
duties to say a word to you. ... I have only time to say
that I leave here for Chicago on Saturday morning, and from
thence go to attend the Governor's meeting at Altoona, Pa. I
wish, before I arrive at that meeting, to hear from you respect-
ing your views of the present state of the country. We are
passing through a terrible crisis. No one can look a day ahead,
or tell what a moment may reveal. Disasters, political and
military, have led to speculations regarding military despot-

THE PROGRESS OF ANTI-SLAVERY 299

isms, and looking to the dismemberment of our once free and
glorious government, and the general upheaval of the founda-
tions of society. As for myself, I have to act day and night and
have but little time to think or ponder upon the great historic
events of the hour. I therefore request your assistance and
cooperation. I know you have the country's welfare at heart.
You have time to scan the signs of the times. Your heart beats
responsive to all true progress, and your views will have weight
with me and assist me in determining my course. . . .

Hoping to hear from you at length I remain, with high
respect,

Yours Truly,

Richard Yates, Governor.

Illinois College, Sept. 20, 18G2.
My" Dear Sir:

Yours is just received. . . . My mind is of late
most solemnly impressed with the unwavering conviction that the
war is an inevitable, a logical necessity of our history. The
Constitution was intended to guarantee and perpetuate freedom
— freedom of thought, utterance and action — the individual
moral freedom of every man. The system of slavery is, in all
its spirit and jirinciples, contradictory to this. So it has always
shown itself in all our history. The most precious and funda-
mental provisions in the Constitution, always have been utterly
inoperative in all those states in which slavery is dominant
What freedom of speech was there ever in South Carolina?
When did a citizen of Massachusetts enjoy all the privileges of
citizenship under the constitution in that state? Witness the
case of Mr. Hoar at Charleston. When could the mail regula-
tions of the United States be executed in the Slave States? How
much force has there been for years past in our laws against the
slave trade? The most fundamental provisions of the Constitu-
tion have always been resisted and rendered inoperative wher-
ever slavery reigns. And this resistance has been growing more
intense year by year, till it has culminated in the present
rebellion. . . .

The semblance of union between the free principles of the
Constitution and slavery is now no longer possible. The advo-
cates of slavery are thoroughly aroused. They see with vivid

300 JULIAN 31. STURTEVANT

clearness the contradiction between the glorious personal, moral
freedom of the Constitution and their system. They will never
consent to reunion on the old terms. The only union which
they will not resist to the death is the union of Valandigham,
which regards freedom of utterance against slavery as not less
treasonable than armed rebellion.

How then can the nation be restored to peace and unity
again? Not by compromise between the two contending forces;
that has been sufficiently tried. One of three things must
happen. Either (1) Freedom must bear universal sway, or (2)
The whole nation must be subjected to a relentless slaveholding
despotism, or (3) We must plunge into the unfathomable deep
of dismemberment. Between these three the nation must make
its choice. The second is, I trust in God, not only inadmissable
but impossible. There are millions who will resist it till all our
rivers run blood.

I believe the third to be impossible. I have no hope that any
attempt to divide our territory and our resources between the
forces of freedom and slavery so that each shall, in peace, enjoy
and develop its own, can result in anything but generations of
conflict and blood. I think we are shut up to the first as our
only hope of peace and prosperity.

If this conclusion is admitted, then the Union has but one
enemy. That is not Jeff. Davis; not even the Southern Confed-
eracy. It is slavery. Against that we must earnestly, openly
direct all the storm and fury of war. We must hasten to make
known in every slave cabin in the South, and in the mansion of
every master, that the Federal Government invites the slave to
frsedom, and to put forth his own efforts in vindicating it
against the unrighteous claims of his oppressor. So far as
loyal masters can be reconciled to this policy by compensation,
we must compensate them. . . .

I pray the God of our Fathers to give to that noble band of
executive chief Magistrates of these loyal states, wisdom to dis-
cern the path of the nation's safety, and holy energy and cour-
age to pursue it, in the face of all difficulties and dangers, till
freedom triumphs, and a peace is established on the durable
foundations of justice to all men. If my voice could be heard
in their presence, I would say: 'In the policy which I have

THE PROGRESS OF ANTI SLAVERY 301

pointed out, I see, if not a certainty, at least a hopeful possibil-
ity of peace and freedom to our dear country. I cannot discern
even a possibility of such an outcome from any other line of
policy.'

Yours very respectfully and affectionately,

J. M. Sturtcvant.

CHAPTER XXI.

A VISIT TO ENGLAND.

The eflPect of the war upon all the institutions of
learning in the valley of the Mississippi was very
disastrous, and for two reasons: First, it drew the
choicest young men of the country from the i)eaceful
walks of learning to the camp and the battle-field.
For a time many of the colleges were almost without
students. In that respect the effects of the war were
for the last three years of its duration nearly as dis-
astrous as was the French Kevolution to France.
Again, the depreciation of the currency which resulted
from the Legal Tender Act shattered our finances.
The salaries of the teachers had been very moderate
before the war, and when reduced in value by a
depreciation of the currency to less than fifty cents
on the dollar they became entirely inadequate to the
support of the teachers and their families. The in-
stutitutions had no resources from which to draw for
any increase of salaries. For these reasons the period
of the war was one of great depression and embarrass-
ment to Illinois College.

In the winter of 1863 the Senior class broke down
entirely, not a single member being left. My duties
as instructor were entirely with that class. In this
state of things my friend Eliphalet W. Blatchford, of
Chicago, a graduate of the class of 1845, proposed to
pay my expenses to England on condition that I

302

A VISIT TO ENGLAND 803

would go abroad as a representative and advocate of
tlie Northern cause. It was regarded by him and
many others as exceedingly imjjortant that no pains
should be spared on our part to correct the false im-
pressions then prevailing in England and Scotland
respecting the principles involved in the war and its
relations to the freedom of the negro. I could not
hesitate to accept the i^roi^osition, though I feared at
the time that my friend had greatly overestimated
my ability to render any valuable service on such a
mission. Had I known before leaving home the
state of British sentiment toward America as I found
it during the first fortnight of my stay in England, I
should never have consented to undertake the journey.
Between the date of Mr. Blatchford's proposition
and the sailing of the steamer there was an interval of
scarcely ten days, but at the time apj)ointed I was on
the deck of the " City of Washington " bound for
Liverpool. During those ten days I had a painful
recurrance of my inborn aversion to great changes.
I had no sooner accepted Mr. Blatchford's generous
offer and begun in earnest to prepare for the voyage
than I was filled with a most unreasonable dread of
placing the Atlantic ocean between me and my native
land, and engaging among unfamiliar scenes in a serv-
ice which seemed to me so difficult and important.
\Yhile on the way to the pier it would have been an
unspeakable relief to have turned my face homeward.
But T have never yielded to those morbid impulses.
On board I found my dear friends Colonel and Mrs
C. Gr. Hammond of Chicago, who were to be my fel-
low passengers. When the steamer was well under
way down the harbor my unreasonable depression

304 JULIAN M. STURTEVAXT

vanished, and I felt as light and cheerful as a bird on
the wing until I succumbed to a malady that spares
neither light hearts or strong wills. When we crossed
the bar off Sandy Hook and felt the first swell of the
ocean, without the slightest warning I was smitten
with a desiderate seasickness that kept me a close
prisoner several days. One morning the genial cap-
tain sent a delegation, among whom was Col. Ham-
mond, to my state=room to bring me on deck. After
much hesitation, persistent trials and many failures
with the help of a strong man on either side I was
taken before the smiling commander, and was finally
left by my friends in a comfortaljle spot to breathe
the fresh air and sleep. From that time I gradually
recovered, and was able to greatly enjoy the latter
part of the voyage.

Two sights in the last half of our trip particularly
impressed me, the first being an iceberg which,
though seen from a long distance, plainly revealed
the beautiful green color of glacial ice. The second
was a burial at sea. The deceased was an English-
man who had been among the early immigrants to
California, where he had amassed a fortune by many
years of toil. He was returning to England, where
he exj)ected to enjoy the fruit of his labors. Grreatly
prostrated by the voyage, he died in mid=ocean.
Nothing could dissuade the captain and sailors from
their determination to bury him in the sea. Accord-
ingly the body was placed in a rough deal box heavily
weighted at the foot, and born to the gunwale, upon
which it rested till the captain with uncovered head
reverently read the burial service. At the words
" dust to dust and ashes to ashes " the sailors standing

A VISIT TO ENGLAND 305

with uncovered heads pushed the coffin outward. It
assumed a vertical position in the air and instantly
disappeared beneath the nii<>hty waters. Meanwhile
the enu:ine that was proj)elling us rapidly onward
missed not a single revolution. The scene left a most
painful impression upon my mind.

The length of ocean voyages has been consider-
ably abridged since 1863. On the afternoon of the
12th day we sighted the Irish highlands and about
sunset off Cape Clear the pilot came aboard. During
the same evening we transferred the mails for Queen-
stown and continued the voyage. That was a beau-
tiful moonlight evening, and I shall never forget the
enthusiasm with which my fellow passengers and I
listened to American patriotic songs rendered by
excellent singers on the deck. We were on British
waters, but our hearts were in the beloved land on
the other side of the sea. Rising betimes next morn-
ning I found the vessel skirting the Irish coast so
near, that fields and dwellings could be distinctly seen.
The beautiful mountains of Wales were soon in view,
and we turned northward into St. George's Channel,
In the dusk of the evening we entered the Irish Sea
and headed directly for the mouth of the Mersey.

When I awoke next morning we were safely docked
at Liverpool, and a bright dream of my childhood had
been realized. On landing we were amused at our
futile efforts to secure a two- horse carriage to convey
Colonel and Mrs. Hammond and myself, with our
" luggage," to the Washington Hotel. We then
learned that there were no such carriages for hire in
Liverpool.

We had not been long upon the streets before we

306 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

were shocked by the discovery that the whole city
was in a state of high excitement and seeming exul-
tation over certain reports of serious reverses to the
Union army, which had come over on the same
steamer with ourselves. Although in the mother
country and hearing on every hand the mother tongue,
we constantly listened to expressions of sympathy
with the enemies of the Union cause. We could
hardly believe our ears. This painful experience
which continued, though with cheering interruptions,
as long as I remained on British soil, filled me at
first with discouragement, but a few liberal meals in
a good British hotel and a night's lodging in a good
English bed restored in some degree my cordial
feeling toward my English cousins, and I was j)re-
pared to enter with good courage and good temper
upon the patriotic undertaking which was before me
Few experiences of my life have astonished me
more than the representations made by eminent
Englishmen with respect to British public sentiment
at that time. In adresses that have been quoted in
our jDeriodicals, and in speeches I have myself heard,
these distinguished men have evidently intended to
represent that the great majority of the English
common people were during the war decidedly in
favor of the Union cause. I am sorry to say that I
have never conversed with an observant friend of our
cause from this side of the water who was in England
in 1863 without finding a witness to the incorrectness
of such statements. I x)urpose in this chapter to give
from my own observation some illustrations of the
symioathy entertained in Great Britain for the South
in that crisis in our national history.

A VISIT TO EXGLAND 807

Almost immediately upon my arrival I be<2;an to
present letters of introduction, with which I had been
kindly furnished, to Ensj^lishmen of hii^h standing and
known sympathy with the Union. One of these was
addressed to David Stuart Esq., a prominent mer-
chant of Liverpool, and brother of George H. Stuart
of Philadelphia, the well known patriot and philan-
thropist. My reception was most cordial. Having
been invited to preach on the following Sabbath at
the United Presbyterian church of Birkenhead,
where Mr. Stuart resided, I accomiDanied the family
home to dine. When the couA'ersation at the table
turned toward American affairs, I felt warranted by
the pronounced and intelligent Union sentiments of
my host in expressing myself with joerfect freedom.
I was not a little surprised to find among the mem-
bers of the family jiresent some who were as intense
in their Southern sympathies as was the host in his
adherence to the North. I encountered similar div-
ision of sentiment in the homes of several other well
known English advocates of the Union cause. Such
facts magnify America's debt of gratitude to those
w^ho were her friends in those dark hours.

I arrived in London during the May Anniversaries,
and a few days later was invited to a soiree at New
College, London, an institution under the control of
the Congregationalists. Here as everywhere the
general topic of conversation was the " Great Ameri-
can Conflict,'' for that was then almost as universal a
theme in England as in America. During the
evening, in the presence of several leading ministers,
the famous Newman Hall, well known and always
higly honored in America, uttered these words: "I

M» ■!■ HH ■» -

308 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

am for tlie North by all means, but I well understand
that you are only fighting for a boundary line. The
restoration of the Union is impossible." And he
strongly emphasized the last word. I answered, "You
perceive, gentlemen, that I cannot reply on such an
occasion as this. I need time to define and explain."
John Graham, one of the party, at once invited all of
the group to breakfast at his house on the next day
but one, saying: "We will hear this thing out." All
were present at the aj^pointed time exept Mr. Hall,
who excused himself on account of an unexpected call
to the country. My conversation with him was
unfortunately never resumed.

Breakfast was served at 9 o'clock. After two hours
at the table we retired to the parlor, where the con-
versation was continued till after 2 P. M. My posi-
tion was that we were indeed fighting for a boundary,
but that boundary was the original one, and it would
be far easier to reestablish that than to draw across
the continent a line that should mark the limits of
two separate nations. Such a permanent separation,
I contended, could be accomplished only by foreign
intervention a method that would prove surprisingly
difficult and expensive to any nation possessing the
temerity to attempt it. I urged that without foreign
intervention, the war must go on till one party or the
other was exhausted, when the victor would restore
and govern the Union.

There was one special reason why the English
could not, at that time, understand the issues of our
war. I was taught from childhood to venerate
England. I love her and her scenery and many of
her institutions still seem to me as parts of my dear

A VISIT TO ENGLAND 309

native land. But to sjieak the plain truth, deep down
in the heart of every Briton there is the assumption
of a political sagacity to be found nowhere outside of
Albion. DeTocqueville says of us Americans that
we are not far from having reached the conclusion
that we belong to a suj)erior race of beings, because
in our hands alone democratic institutions have
proved successful. But, wutatis niufdiKlis, the re-
mark would apply with still greater pertinency to the
English. They have established and so maintained a
limited monarchy as to secure under it a high degree
of prosperity and social order, while nearly all other
experiments in the same direction have proved signal
failures. In the time of which I am writing a major-
ity of the Queen's subjects enjoyed the comforting
assurance that they alone understood the i^rinciples
of free government.

Englands liberty is unique. It's like never has ex-
isted and never can exist outside of that emj)ire. I
admire England's institutions. I venerate her states
manship. The conflicts of the past have brought
about in her a marvelous balance of forces. The
monarchy, the aristocracy and the jpeople have each a
place in the system, and the strong conservative ten-
dencies of an old and wealthy community are har-
monized with the j)rogressive impulses of a singularly
energetic race. I believe that the attempt to trans-
plant the English idea of a limited monarchy to other
lands will alwnys ])rove a disastrous failure.

At the time of my visit an American was con-
fronted on every side by the claim of political superi-
ority. He was really deemed incapable of under-
standing or discussing politics, having never been

310 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

taught in the English school. Forgetting England's
many civil wars, our cousins assumed that the war of
the rebellion proved the essential weakness of our
whole system. "The bubble has burst" exclaimed a
noble Lord in the English Parliament. " The Great
Republic is no more," echoed the London Times, and
millions of English voices reiterated the sentiment.
Americans argued against this prejudgment almost
in vain until our cause had been vindicated by the
God of Battles.

At an early day I presented a letter of introduction
from my much esteemed friend, Dr. Joseph P.
Thompson, to Sir Richard Cobden. He received me
with every mark of kindness, and ajjpointed an early
day to welcome me to breakfast at his house. It was
perfectly "unceremonious, none being present except
himself, his wife and his daughter. This was precise-
ly what I desired. Few conversations in my life
have equalled that one in interest and instruetiveness.
Mr. Cobden in a conversation of two hours in length
exhibited no trace of the prevailing national preju-
dice. He placed me perfectly at my ease, and an-
swered all my inquiries with the utmost i^ossible
frankness and fairness. Greatly to my own astonish-
ment he confirmed all the impressions I had thus far
formed respecting the attitude of the English people
toward the American conflict. I begged earnestly
that he would explain it. He replied nearly as
follows :

"There is nothing unaccountable in it. We are
governed by an aristocracy and a State Church.
These institutions stand at the head of society and
are able to make their influence penetrate far down

A VISIT TO EXGLASD 311

into the lower strata. You are governed without an
aristocracy and a State Church, aud those who are
interested in jjreserving these institutions fear that
if you continue to prosper as you have done, the com-
mon people will be led to conclude that we also may
dispense with these expensive luxuries. They there-
fore rejoice to see you in trouble, and those larg^
portions of the English people over whom the aris-
tocracy and the State Church are able to extend their
influence sympathize with their leaders.'

I parted with Mr. Cobden with i^rofound feelings
of gratitude for my own and for my country's sake,
and full of admiration for his character and his ca-
reer. England should be held in everlasting honor
for having produced such a statesman. His acquain-
tance with the whole history of our struggle and all
the princix^les which it involved was most comprehen-
sive, accurate and thorough. Xo American knew us
better than Richard Cobden.

As I was taking my leave he followed me to the
door, and looking out upon the street he noticed that
it vras sloppy from recent rain. Alluding to the fact
he added, " But you will not mind English mud.
You are from Illinois." He had previously visited
Jacksonville, having come to investigate the affairs
of the English colony west of the city, and had
floundered in Illinois mud. The soul sunshine of
that morning seemed to banish all the shadows that
had gathered on my pathway in England, and was
worth all the trouble of my transatlantic voyage.

I was at first greatly astonished at Mr. Cobden's
representation of the influence exercised by the Eng-
lish aristocracy upon public opinion. But subse-

312 JULIAN M. STURTEVANf

quent observation fully confirmed his views. It is
nearly as difficult for an American to understand the
position of the British aristocracy as it was for an
Englishman to comprehend that Congress had no
power to abolish slavery in the United States, a fact
that not a dozen English subjects with whom I con-
versed could grasp. The circumstance in relation to
the nobility which caused me the greatest x>ei"ple'xity
was the influence it exerted over the lower classes,
and especially over that portion of the common
people whose wealth and influence placed them near-
est to it in rank. It is my impression that I was not
very unlike other Americans in supposing that a
commoner, independent in fortune, and a Congrega-
tional dissenter in his religious connections, would
regard the aristocracy with all its numerous peculiar
privileges much as we would regard a privileged class
among ourselves. If such sentiments exist in Eng-
land they are certainly of very recent origin. While
conversing with some of the most intelligent and lib-
erahminded Congregational ministers I found it nec-
essary to be exceedingly cautious not to indicate in
any way my anti^aristocratic feelings, lest the conver-
sation should be diverted from American affairs.
Any disparaging utterance with respect to the aris-
tocracy w^ould at once rally all hearers to its defense,
and thus for the time at least exclude America from
the discussion. At a delightful social gathering in
Bristol I was betrayed into the assertion that England
is the most aristocratic country in the world. The
earnest but good=natured protest of the entire com-
pany soon forced me to retreat as gracefully as cir-

A VISIT TO ENGLAND 313

cumstances would permit, although none well versed
in English history will dispute the proposition.

Aristocracy must be seen and studied to be under-
stood. Americans often said in tho.se days: "It is
not the English people who are against us, it is the
aristocracy." Had they understood the problem bet-
ter they would have known that if the aristocracy
were against us the great body of the English Church
would also oppose us, and the Church and the aris-
tocracy combined would carry the British Enii^ire
with them. Mr. Cobden's remark was strictly true.
The influence of the aristocracy and the State Church
penetrate to the lowest stratum of society. We often
erroneously divide English society into two great
clas.ses. There is Ijut one word that can explain the
social order of Great Britain. That word is )'(()ik'.
But there are not simply two ranks, there is an in-
definite number of them, each quite distinctly and
permanently marked. Ancient laws and immemorial
usages have created and maintained the privileges of
the aristocracy. Custom has done the rest. It has
separated the social pyramid into an indefinite num-
ber of parallel planes, each stratum rejDresenting a
distinct class.

Hence it came to pass that the Independents with
whom I had most frequent association, some of them
occupying i^ositions second only to the aristocracy it-
self, seemed more anxious to maintain their own su-
periority over the ranks below than to encroach upon
the single rank above them. They regarded their
superiors with peculiar reverence and affection, and
some even cherished the hope of gaining admission to

314 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

the highest rank, if not for themselves at least for their
children. This is the only key which can unlock the
social problem of England. Reverence for rank holds
English society with all its extremes together, and
seems to unify the whole.

In my numerous conversations on the American
conflict I often attempted to confirm the opinions
which I expressed upon cognate questions by the au-
thority of Mr. Cobden. I found it, however, of little
use, for I was almost sure to meet the same reply, em-
phasized by a sneer: "Cobden isn't English." True,
Mr. Cobden was the father of that system of free
trade in which every Englishman then gloried as an
honor and blessing to his country, but it was well
known that he was not an advocate of the j)erpetuity
of the aristocracy and the State Church, and had not
the least symjDathy with the Southern rebellion, and
therefore even Independents of eminent intelligence
were willing to charge him with having abjured his
nationality.

My excellent friend, President Porter of Yale Col-
lege, had given me a letter to a bookseller in London,
saying that he was an original character whose con-
versation would greatly interest me. In one of our
interviews he gave me his history. Just after reach-
ing his majority he was left with the care of a wid-
owed mother and several brothers and sisters. In or-
der to meet their necessities, he cut short his education
and immediately became a bookseller. He prospered
and educated his younger brother at Oxford and fitted
him for the Church. " Now," said he, " that brother
will not visit me. He says that I ought not to expect
it because I keep this bookstore. It would not be

A VISIT TO ENGLAND 315

proper, as we are not of the same rank. One day,"
he continued, " not long since, as I was on the street,
I saw him apiDroaching arm in arm with the Bishoi)
of Oxford. Just before we met I heard him say to
the Bishop, ' will your Lordship excuse me for a mo-
ment while I sjDeak to my bookseller?' He stepj)ed
aside and held a brief conversation with me and then
rejoined the Bishop. The worst of it," he added, "is
that his statement was false, for I am not now and
never was his bookseller." Subsequently the same
man said to me: " I attend church, and after the con-
gregation is dismissed while yet in the church ray ac-
quaintances will recognize me in a very friendly way,
but afterward on the street they meet me as an utter
stranger." I asked him if he attended the Estab-
lished church. He replied that he did. "That,"
said I, "seems very strange, for the Established
church is the key=stone of the arch under which you
are crushed." He saw the inconsistency but ofPered
no apology. I fear that by attending the Established
church he won and retained customers. In reflecting
upon this conversation his statement seemed almost
incredible. I therefore embraced an early opportun-
ity to ask i^ersons familiar with the usages of Eng-
lish society whether such things could really be true,
and was invariably answered, " Nothing is more j)rob-
able." This story may shed some light on the con-
dition of English society.

In addition to that particular cause for English
sympathy with the rebellion which Mr. Cobden had
so clearly pointed out, there was another lying nearer
the surface and to which my attention was more fre-
quently called, as it greatly influenced the commer-

316 JULIAN M. STUHTEVAXT

cial classes. I can best explain it by relating an inci-
dent. At Charing Cross. London, there was a geo-
graijhical bookstore kept by ]\Ir. Wilde, a parishioner
of Kev. Newman Hall. I often called at this store
for American papers, and almost invariably found the
proprietor ready for a chat about the great rebelliun.
He was a good natured but very j^lain siDoken man,
who never hesitated to call things by what he thought
to be their appropriate names. In one of these con-
versations, he said: "I will tell you the root of the
whole difficulty. You are too strong over there and
carry yourselves with too high a hand. If we get into
any difficulty with you. you must have it all your own
way to keep the peace. We think you would be more
manageable were you divided into two confederacies.
We would then make such commercial arrangements
with you as would more largely promote English
prosperity." "That," said I, ''in western phrase is
'acknowledging the corn."

I heard similar sentiments again and again. High-
minded and religious men, even abolitionists, seemed
willing to aid in dissolving the American Union at
the risk of establishiug a slaveholding republic over
its territory. At the time of the American Eevolu-
tion England valued her colonies chiefly because they
consumed her jDroducts and afforded a more extended
field for her commerce. I was previously disappoint-
ed to find indications of the same spirit in 1863. In-
stead of that loving interest in her scattered children
as representatives of English liberty and English
Protestantism which I had exi^ected to find in the
mother country, I often found an alhabsorbing devo-
tion to the interests of British trade. When Enuiand

A VISIT TO ENGLAND 317

acknowledged the independence of the United States
she by no means relinquished the hope of retaining
her commercial supremacy on this side of the Atlan-
tic, and that hope, still lingering in her heart, explains
her attitude in 1863.

"A friend of the North," whom I met at a hotel
table in Callander, Scotland, said in very soothing
tones, "Oh, I am very friendly to your country, but it
is vastly better for you to be divided." I assured him
that I appreciated such friendliness at its full value,
and, though some such friends were afterwards hon-
ored as if they had proved our staunch defenders, it
ought to be remembered that we do not owe it to
them that America is not cursed to=day with a slave-
holding confederacy. All honor be given to the Prince
Consort, and to every other true British friend who
stood by us at the critical moment when English and
French intervention seemed imminent.

Strange as it may seem, English and Scotch aboli-
tionists, who had fought the battle of freedom in the
British Colonies, opjjosed the Union cause. To illus-
trate: One bright afternoon while tarrying a few
days in Edinburgh, as the sun was hanging lazily
above the northwestern horizon, seeming to an eye
unfamiliar with such a spectacle to be about "to go
around," as Tacitus has it, and not set, I took a long
walk into that portion of the city lying west of Salis-
bury Crag, which I had not previously visited. On
my return about nine o'clock, as the shadows of even-
ing were just beginning to settle down uijon the city,
I found myself in front of Holyrood Palace. Though
I had visited that place before, I felt doubtful as to
my most direct route to my lodging o^^posite Sir

318 JULIAN 31. STURTEVANT

Walter Scott's Monument. I inquired the way of a
gentleman of resi^ectable appearance walking near me.
As lie M^as going in that direction and was familiar
with the region, he offered to accompany me. He
said, "You are a stranger?" "Yes," I rej)lied, "an
American." As I had hoped, the conversation imme-
diately turned to the American conflict. Said my
comrade very sharply, "They are a set of rascals on
both sides." I instantly stopped and turned my face
toward him. He as quickly halted and eyed me
sharply. Said I, " Sir, for you to speak thus of my
country in the hour of her trial is a sin against God."
He was silent. We paused a moment longer and
then walked on. He reopened the conversation in a
more tender and gentle spirit, and gave me an oppor-
tunity to explain the attitude of Mr. Lincoln and the
dominant party toward slavery. We conversed in
this strain till we reached the bridge which spans the
deep chasm dividing Princess Street from the Old
Town, just at Scott's Monument. Here our ways
parted, but we lingered and continued the conversa-
tion for a long time. He proved to be a prosperous
paper manufacturer, and a life long abolitionist. Be-
fore we parted he asked me if I would present my
views to a j)ublic assembly, and upon being assure I
that I would gladly do so, promised to do his best to
gather an audience and find some one to preside. I
heard afterward of his earnest efforts, which however
were unsuccessful, perhaps for want of a suitable
chairman.

The difficulty with this man was that he had be-
lieved, with most British abolitionists, that there was
no honest hostility to slavery in the Republican par-

A VISIT TO ENGLAND 319

ty. Their ideas were logically deduced from the
teachings of Mr. Grarrison and his associates. " Slave-
holding," Mr. Garrison had said, "is a sin against
God, and is therefore an evil removable only by im-
mediate repentance." It was not believed that Mr.
Lincoln or any of his party had ever really rexjented
of the sin of slavery, therefore they could by no
means be admitted into the charmed circle of Eng-
lish abolitionism. Had these men known Mr. Lin-
coln better they would have realized that he was no
more unregenerate in regard to the sin of slavery
than was Mr. Garrison himself. If he had ever been
in sympathy with slaveholding he had certainly ex-
perienced a change of heart, and so had millions of
his fellow Republicans.

Another incident will further illustrate this sub-
ject. I had accepted an invitation to breakfast at the
house of a prominent Indei^endent minister, who was
not su^jposed to favor the Northern cause, and was
seated at the right of my hostess. The host, being at
the other end of the long table did not for some time
address me, but finally ojaened the conversation with
the remark: "That Mormonism in your country is a
very horrible system." "Yes," I replied, "but not
half so horrible as the system of slavery we are strug-
gling to destroy." " Ah," continued he in a tone that
seemed to lack sincerity, " if you were only opposing
it (IS slavery." Said I, " If anyone will only help de-
stroy such a system I will not stop to ask him as to
wJiat he opposes in it." The conversation termina-
ted there. It was delightful, though somewhat rare,
to meet those who were in thorough sympathy with
the practical opposition to slavery which was the im-

320 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

pelling force in our great struggle. Notable among
these were Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel of London,
James Douglas of Cavers, Scotland, Rev. John
Brown D. D. of Dalkeith, Scotland, with a circle of
excellent peojjle who surrounded him, Rev. David S.
Russell and Rev. John Batchelder of Glasgow. All
these and a few more that might be mentioned un-
derstood us ijerfectly. They knew our history, our
principles and our aims, and had no less confidence
in the result of the struggle than we had ourselves.
But they were by no means popular men in Britain
at that time. They were like the witnesses of the
apocalypse that proi^hesied in sackcloth.

The few days passed in the hosiaitable home of
James Todd, Esq. of Dalkeith, were a sunny spot in
my sojourn in Britain. It was there I learned to
love and honor a Scotch religious home. Had I
been a brother or a father they could have done no
more to make my stay delightful. Two sons just ap-
proaching manhood vied with their i^arents in con-
tributing to my enjoyment.

My visit of a few days with James Douglas of Cav-
ers was exceedingly pleasant and instructive. I had
made a little speech at the dinner of the Congrega-
tional Union of England and Wales, being a delegate
to that body from the American Congregational Un-
ion. At the close of the banquet Mr. Douglas intro-
duced himself to me and extended an invitation to
visit him whenever I should be in Scotland. On my
way from Edinburgh to his house I found opportu-
nity for a brief visit at Melrose and Abbotsford.
The memory of those scenes will be precious as long
as I live.

A VISIT TO EXGLAND 321

At Hawick I was met by Mr. Douglas with his
carriage and driven to his residence three miles dis-
tant. Most of this journey was through his own es-
tate. Only one who had spent his life in the new
world, and much of it on the frontier, can appreciate
my impressions as we drove foi- half a mile through
that ancient jjark, and paused at last at that mediae-
val castle, for such, though modenuzed and im-
proved, Mr. Douglas's mansion really was. My re-
ception was most courtly and yet very cordial. The
family consisted of Mr. Douglas and his estimable
wife, and a young gentleman, her brother. A so-
journ of four days afiPorded me a delightful impres-
sion of British country life. One of the days was
spent in a drive with Mr. Douglas to Jedburg. My
accomplished host invested the beautiful scenery of
the Tweed country with new interest, through his fa-
miliarity with all its many historic and literary asso-
ciations, and enlivened our excursion by snatches
from Scott, both in poetry and prose, illustrating the
scenes through which we were passing. These he
recited with the greatest fluency and appropriateness.
We rambled about the ancient abbey, and visited the
quaint dwelling where Mary Queen of Scotts was
compelled for a time to hold her little court

During my stay at the Douglas mansion I preached
at Hawick on the Sabbath, and once on a week day
delivered a lecture on the American conflict, at which
Mr. Douglas himself presided. The address was well
received, not however without some dissent, frankly
though good-naturedly expressed to me after the
audience had retired.

I gladly embraced every oj^portunity while in Great

322 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

Britain to speak publicly in behalf of my country.
The truth is that during the war of the rebellion few
Americans were granted a public hearing on that sub-
ject. Henry Ward Beecher, thanks to his great re-
nown, was heard by many thousands, and wherever
he spoke the matchless power of his eloquence and
the force of his indomitable will swept everything be-
fore him. The triumph of his genius has no parallel
in modern history, and even to this day his fellow
citizens cannot fully appreciate the greatness of his
achievements at Liverpool and Exeter Hall. The
storm of angry questions which assailed him expressed
the very heart of the English masses at that time. An
American who had met precisely the same questions
in drawing^-ooms, hotels, railway carriages, and in
crowded streets, can better than most men appreciate
Mr. Beecher's victory. That Mr. Beecher should
have been able in those times of excitement to hold
his position and control those great crowds by the
vigor of his thought, the quickness, appropriateness
and sharpness of his replies, and at last to overwhelm
his hearers by the fervor of his emotions and the re-
sistless tide of his eloquence till he stood before his
assailants an unquestioned conqueror, proves him the
peer of any man who has ever come to the rescue of
his country in the hour of her greatest danger.

I preached in a few dissenting pulpits, never, how-
ever, with any reference to politics in America or slav-
ery in the abstract, and delivered a number of lectures
in different joarts of the United Kingdom. In these
lectures, and in very many personal conversations, I
sought to accomplish as much as possible for a better
public sentiment on American aflPairs. No other part

A VISIT TO EX(;LAXD »23

of my life has svirj)assed those months in mental
activity. I saw much that was both interesting and
instructive, but through it all I could never f()r<^et the
conflict that imperiled the very life of my beloved
country. After my return home I prepared and de-
livered in several places in this and adjacent states a
lecture on the relations of British opinion to the
great rebellion. It was x^ublished under the title of
■' Three Months in Great Britain." I sent a copy of
it to Mr. Cobden, at whose suggestion it was repub-
lished in England by Thomas B. Potter Es(p, who
upon thedeathof Mr. Cobden succeeded him in Parlia-
ment. Mr. Potter placed upon the title page Burn's
couplet,

"Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see ourselves as ithers see us."

I bore several letters of introduction to Joseph
Warne of Oxford, who was for many years the Eng-
lish correspondent of the New Yorli Indei3endent,
and had thus become widely known among the read-
ers of that Journal. An American consul could hardly
have exceeded him in helpful offices to our countrymen.
He possessed the highest equalities both of mind and
heart. He was a faithful and intelligent Christian, a
pillar in the little Bajitist church which had an ob-
scure and almost unrecognized existence in Oxfcjrd.
He had never been connected with the University,
but by his own efPorts had attained a scholarship and
an independence of thought that won respect even in
university circles. A man of modest demeanor, sim-
ple habits and unpretending manners, he had been
for thirty years, notwithstanding the changes of ad-
ministration, the postmaster of Oxford, a ijosition

324 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

that far exceeds in imj)ortance and dignity that which
is conferred by the same office in mnch larger towns
in America. He not only had charge of the city
office but also of the minor offices in the adjacent dis-
trict, with the ijower of appointing and removing his
subordinates. In politics he was a quiet and unob-
trusive man, but always an advanced liberal. In
reference to the American conflict he was as intelli-
gently American in his sympathies as Mr. Cobden
himself. It confers no small honor on the British
goverinnent that so able and liberal a man should be
able to hold such a position undisturbed through so
many political changes.

Very soon after my arrival in Liverpool I forwarded
my letters of introduction to Mr. Warne and men-
tioned that I intended to visit Oxford before long. I
received a prompt reply inviting me to come at my
earliest convenience. A letter to F. Eastman Esq.,
then American consul at Bristol, elicited a similar
response. After attending the May Anniversaries in
London I made arrangements to visit first Bristol and
then Oxford.

My circle of acquaintances so widened at the
meeting of the Congregational L^nion of England and
Wales at London that I received more invitations to
visit difPerent parts of Great Britain than the duties
connected with my mission permitted me to accept.
Allow me to say in passing that the most i)owerful
address at that meeting was delivered by the famous
Dr. Vaughn, long the editor of the British Quarterly,
and one of the rei^resentatives of English Congrega-
tionalism at our National Council at Boston in 1865.
Dr. Vaughn was a man of unquestioned eloquence

A VISIT TO ENGLAND 325

and literary ability, but it was very apparcnit when I
met liim in London that lie had no sympathy with
the North in our great struggle. Rev. George Smith,
pastor of the Independent Chapel at Poplar, London,
was Secretary of the Congregational Union. Though
always civil in our interviews, he never failed to give
unmistakable indications of his aversion to our cau.se.
He also was a delegate to the Council at Boston. He
came to America, but hastened at once to Canada and
never reported at Boston. I did not w^onder, for in
the interval between our meeting in London and the
asseml)ling of the Council at Boston the Southern
Confederacy had collapsed, and the Union had been
reestablished, so that his position in Boston might
have proved uncomfortable. I have not seen him
since he declared his belief that the restoration of the
Union was impossible, and when reminded of North-
ern victories, recently reported, replied that the truth
of those rex3orts was very doubtful and that should
they subsequently prove true it would be all the
worse for Unionists in the end.

I greatly enjoyed the generous hospitality of Mr.
Eastman, our consul at Bristol, and was charmed by
the natural scenery of the quaint old town, and
esiDCcially by the ancient cathedral whose half ruined
walls yet show the marks of the attentions it received
from Cromwell's Ironsides. I preached in the Inde-
XDcndent Chapel where Mr. Eastman and his family
attended worship, and subsequently attended a small
social gathering of the congregation. I was happy
to find among them some lay preachers who honored
the Lord as tradesmen during the week, and rendered
good service in pulpits on the Sabbath. The results

326 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

accomplished in England by these lay=preacliers
suggest useful lessons to American Congregation-
alists. Not a few of the lights of English Independ-
ency have found their way to the pulpit and to high
influence in the Christian ministry by this very route.
Such men often render invaluable services to feeble
and pastorless churches.

I accej^ted an invitation to preach at Abington
Berks, where I was to enjoy the hospitality of a j)rom-
inent manufacturer. At dinner soon after my arrival
I met a brilliant company of ladies and gentlemen,
all strangers to me except the pastor of the church at
which I was to preach. I found that my fellow
guests, though very good-natured and courteous
people, were mostly Southern sympathizers. Eager
to make on such a circle a favorable impression for
my country, I was watching with keen interest the
lively conversation that turned almost wholly on
American affairs, when a gentleman, as though he
had something of more than ordinary importance to
say, remarked: " I have long wondered that the South
does not abolish slavery for the sake of procuring
from England and France the acknowledgement of
their independence. I then laid down my knife and
fork and said: " I too have long wondered that Satan
does not make up his mind to serve God," A laugh
followed, and my neighbor after a minute's pause
said: " I am answered." I then explained that the
primary object of the South was the perj)etuation of
slavery, not the independence of the Southern Confed-
eracy, which they valued only as a necessary condi-
tion for the enslavement of the negro. I am quite
sure my hearers comprehended at that moment what

A VISIT TO ENGLAND 327

they had not understood before. A very good
audience gave excellent attention to my sermon in the
evening. I have never since met any of the acquain-
tances formed on that da v.

CHAPTER X'Xri.

THE CLOSING YEARS.
[BY THE EDITOR.]

The last chapter stoj^s just where the writer and
his amanuensis rested at the close of a certain day,
with no premonition that their work was ended.
Serious illness jorevented its resumption, and in about
three weeks all the hands that had been busy with
the book had ceased forever from labor.

I take it for granted that the reader will wish to
know something of the unfinished story. My father
made a short trip to the Continent after his tour in
England, and returned home early in September much
refreshed and greatly delighted with his journey.
He at once resumed his college duties and his Sab-
bath afternoon discourses in the chapel. During the
following months many congregations listened to a
lecture in which he gave his imjDressions of England.
In the winter of 1864-5 he was occupied in securing
an endowment for the Latin i^rofessorship in Illinois
College, of which his cousin, Edward A. Tanner,
afterward his successor in the presidency, was the
first incumbent.

His delight when the war of the rebellion at last
came to an end could be appreciated only by one who
witnessed the " sacred joy " of all patriotic hearts in
those days. His emotions in view of the assassination
of his friend. President Lincoln, are expressed in the

328

J>

^

>> \

.i" ■*

THE CLOSING YEAtiS 329

following extract from a letter written at Illinois
College, Ai^ril 14, to his daughter Miss E. F. Stur-
tevant:

" What a day! But yesterday we were rejoicing as
no other people ever rejoiced. To day we are mourn-
ing as no other peojjle ever mourned. This is no
assassination of a usurping despot that waded to jjow-
er through the Ijlood of his countrymen, but of the
truest friend of liberty that ever sat in the seat of au-
thority. What these villains intend I know not, and
care little, for they will be defeated. But what God
intends concerns us more, and that I do not by any
means understand. May God strengthen us all to
stand at our post in this awful hour! All business is
suspended, all places of business are deeply draped in
mourning. Thousands are vowing vengeance on what
remains of the rebellion; thousands more are utterly
paralyzed, overwhelmed with horror and sorrow. Ar-
rangements are made for a public meeting of citizens
on Monday afternoon in view of this awful tragedy.
It sems to me, if anything was wanting to fill up the
measure of our hatred of the rebellion and of the
cause of the rebellion, this is it. May the Lord
tranquilize our spirits and give us faith in Him in
this dark hour."

In June 1865 he delivered the opening sermon at
the National Council of Congregational Churches in
Boston. The ojiportunity atforded him great delight
and the reception accorded to the discourse, in which
he expressed with great earnestness his view of the
church, filled his heart with gratitude to God. The
controversy with Bishop Huntington which grew out
of that discourse was on both sides a fine illustration

330 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

of the candor and courtesy which ought always to
characterize theological discussions.

The early months of the year 1866 were devoted to
efPorts in behalf of the "Sturtevant Fcundation," an
endowment for the presidency of Illinois College. He
regarded this as one of the most important undertak-
ings of his life. He did not wish to make Illinois
College a Congregational institution. Neither did he
wish to have it managed by a compromise between
denominations. In a communication offering this
fund to the trustees (after stating that a ijroposition
had been made that "action should be taken by the
trustees assuring the iDublic that in all future appoint-
ments the board of trustees and the faculty shall be
equally divided between New School Presbyterians
and Congregationalists and the position of president
shall be held alternately by these two denominations '' )
he says among other things: "Our conception of the
college, which in the early fervor of our youth we
united with others in endeavoring to found, was that
it should be controlled by sound evangelical men,
who could be trusted to administer it for Christ and
His Church, and that in administering it they were
bound to appoint to the various parts of instruction
trustworthy evangelical men of the highest qualifica-
tions for their respective departments, and that beyond
this they were not to be held resjsonsible for the de-
nominational relations of the candidate. We acknowl-
edge and keenly feel that the trustees are bound to
deal imj)artially with the two denominations. But by
impartiality we understand that the prospects of no
man for election to any place in the institution siiall
be damaged or benefitted by the fact that he belongs

THE CLOSING YEAHS 331

to one of these denominations rather than the other."

When therefore this fund was accepted upon those
terms and his loved and trusted friend, E. W. Bhitch-
ford of Chicaj^o, became one of the trustees, lie greatly
rejoiced. Nor did the denominational position of the
college afterwards cause him serious anxiety.

In May, 1869, he received through his friend, Mr.
S. M. Edgell of St. Louis, an invitation to participate
in an excursion on the new Kansas Pacific railroad.
Gen. Custer i^lanned a buffalo-hunt for the benefit of
the party. My father with others was driven to the
chase in an army ambulance. Among the excursion-
ists were Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Fairbanks, at whose
delightful home in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, father and
mother spent a part of the following summer. In the
spring of 1870 he was called to attend the funeral of
his most beloved friend, Theron Baldwin D. D.

In the summer of 1872 my parents were suddenly
summoned from New England to the bedside of their
son, James Warren, who had for several years held an
honorable i^osition in the general office of the Hanni-
bal & St. Joseph R. R. at Hannibal, Mo. His illness
proved lingering and painful. He was removed to
Jacksonville, where he died May first. 1873. Although
very quiet and retiring my brother had mental gifts
which in some respects greatly resembled those of his
father by whom his death was severely felt.

During the latter part of my father's life most of
his summers were sj)ent in some cooler climate than
that of central Illinois, and during these vacations
much of his two books, "Economics" and the "Keys
of Sect," were written. In all such work UKjther was
his amanuensis and invaluable assistant.

332 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

The following note from the great English states-
man, Hon. W. E, Gladstone, is i3reserved for the com-
pliment it pays to America, and it mentions some of
the work he was doing at that time.

11 C arlton=House=Terrace, S. W
March 6, '75
Rev. Sir:—

I have to acknowledge your letter of February 10 and the Re-
view you so kindly sent me. I shall examine with great interest
your article on Church and State.

It has been given to America to solve many problems; but
there are others in respect to which she will probably have to re-
main content with half=solutions. It may be that one of these
is that deep subject of the relations between Church and State
which it is so difficult entirely to sever from the relations between
the State and Education.

I remain Rev. Sir,

Your faithful servant,

W. E. GLADSTONE.
Rev. Dr. Sturtevant.

During the summer of 1875 my parents, with one
of my sisters, visited me in Denver, Colorado. To
my surjjrise they insisted upon a camping tour in
the mountains, sleeping upon the ground and living
entirely in the open air for more than a week. This
romantic life they greatly enjoyed, although mother
sometimes acknowledged on rising in the morning
that " the Rocky mountains were hard." Father's
outburst of delight when he saw from Denver the
mountains which had been covered with snow during
the night was like that of a boy, and his enthusiasm
was yet more unbounded when we came suddenly
upon the panorama of snowy peaks as seen from Belle-
vue. In spite of the recent breaking of his ankle
he walked many miles up the mountain sides. One

THE CLOSING YEARS 333

Saturday night we camped in a beautiful l)ut very
lonely spot in the heart of the mountains. There we
slept well, though I had been frightened from my
trout fishing that evening within a (quarter of a mile
of our tent by the growling of mountain lions among
the rocks behind me. Father often afterwards spoke
of that Sabbath as among the brightest in his life.
In the afternoon we sat in the door of our tent and
sang, " Oft in the Stilly Night," recited from the one
hundred and twenty fifth Psalm, " They that trust in
the Lord shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be
removed, but abideth forever. As the mountains are
round al)out Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about
his people from henceforth even forever," and then
sang again, one old hymn after another.

In 1876 father resigned the presidency, though he
continued to occupy the chair of mental and moral
philosophy. It was very hard for anyone so intense
and active as he, and so devoted to what he had
undertaken, to relinquish any part of his life work;
yet he felt the necessity of relief from executive re-
sponsibility. He spent the summers of 1877 and '78
in New Haven, going there in April and working
diligently upon the " Keys of Sect." He never lost
his early affection for Yale, and highly esteemed
every opportunity of friendly intercourse with its
president and professors. His eastern relatives and
friends always gave him a cordial welcome, and his
love for them was unabated to the end. In 1879 he
remained west and delivered the semi=centennial
address at Illinois College. In December 1883 he
delivered a historical discourse at the semi centennial
of the Congregational church in Jacksonville.

334 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

In February 1884 lie was brought very near to
death. To show how he retained his mental vigor I
may mention that watching beside him when his ex-
treme weakness and emaciation caused me to fear
that he would pass away before the dawn of the
morning, I found it impossible to restrain him from
discussing the most profound and exciting public
questions. Only a few days later he dictated from
his pillow an article on " The Private Ownership of
Land," which was isublished in the Princeton Review
of March 1884.

During the succeeding summer he visited at seve-
ral i^laces in the East, especially with Mrs. Baldwin
at Charlotte, Vermont. On the thirteenth of August
he had the misfortune to fall upon a rock at Greenwich,
Connecticut, and fractured his hip so severely that his
friends, and among them some exjoerienced surgeons,
believed that he would never walk again. Through
a kind providence he was placed in charge of Dr.
L. P. Jones, whose skilful and very tender care
enabled him to return home with comparative com-
fort before the end of October. A few weeks later
he was able to walk with the assistance of a cane.

In 1885 he was released from all duty in connec-
tion with Illinois College. The 26th of July in that
year was the eightieth anniversary of his birth. It
was arranged by the members of the family that the
event should be celebrated by inviting a great num-
ber of his old friends to surprise him with letters of
congratulation. Nearly all to whom the suggestion
was communicated promptly responded with the
most gratifying expressions of esteem- and affection.
Among them were communications from his former

THE CLOSING YEARS 335

colleagues in the work of instruction, his brothers in
the ministry, his fellow pioneers, his early and his
later pupils and his best4)eloved relatives, and even a
telegram from Mr. E. W. Blatchford on the other
side of the sea. His neighbors would not allow the
day to pass without coming to express in person
their esteem for one who had lived in Jacksonville
nearly fifty six years. Prof. Rufus C. Crampton
was their sj)okesman, and since among all those men
of marked intellectual and spiritual gifts with whom
father had the honor to be associated no one was
more worthy to sj)eak of him here, I embody his
remarks, as follows:

"To be spokesman for a company like this, on this occasion,
would be a pleasing duty to one conscious of ability to give fit
expression to the thoughts and memories of the hour. We come
to offer you, our dearly beloved friend, what we have little right
to expect our friends will offer us, earnest and heartfelt congrat-
ulations upon this anniversary which marks the attainment of
fourscore years.

Although, as we measure time, your life has spanned two gen-
erations, yet this generation most properly claims you as its
own. For physically your later years have been well=nigh as
vigorous as the earlier. Your falls have not been falls from
grace, but only instances in which you were subject to the laws
of gravitation and inertia.

Is it not in these late years that you have seen the unfolding
of the plans and hopes of early manhood? You realize now
more fully than when it was made,the meaning of that consecra-
tion to a grand life work of nearly sixty years ago. Looking
back but little more than half that interval of time, I well re-
member your visit to my native village on the mountain side in
New England, your enthusiasm for the work of Christian educa-
tion at the West. The contagion of this enthusiasm led me to
become one of the humblest of your co laborers. It is no small
•work in which you have borne the chiefest part, to lay so broad-

336 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

ly and well the foundations of Illinois College. Even at present
we feebly appreciate its importance.

Fifty graduating classes have felt your influence, quickening
thought, elevating character, widening mental and moral vision,
giving new views of duty and privilege in a life of consecration
to Christ, as they have gone out to be leaders of society, Church
and State in this great valley of the "West. Future generations
will rise up and call you blessed, as tlie man to whom the cause
of Christian culture is more indebted than to any other in con-
nection with Illinois College, as its name shall be greater and its
impress stronger in the midst of a mighty people.

In my own experience and contact with men I have had occa-
sion to know that, with very many, the college was favorably
known through its president, rather than the president through
the college. Your well known preeminence and success in the
presidency was one of the reasons which made it difficult for
several years to find a successor. For twenty=two years I was
a member of the faculty while you were our presiding officer.
Though during those early years of my professorship there must
have been many shortcomings and mistakes more evident to
your experienced eye than even to my own, I never received
from you any word that left a sting, only words and acts of com-
fort and encouragement. "While in the faculty always facile
2)rincej)s, your only desire was to be what your position required
that you should he jJrimiis inter 2JO res. For all the stimulus of a
noble example, the strengthening of words of wisdom and cheer
that I have received in the experience of our personal relation-
ship, I most sincerely thank you, and I am sure that in this I
shall be heartily joined by all who have sustained similar rela-
tions.

Yours has also been a leading part in the discussion of the
political, economic, social and moral questions of the last forty
years. It is great praise to say of a man that he always, even to
his latest years, lives in advance of the age; that his ideas and
principles are the germs of thought and progress for others, and
that only those who come after him will fully realize his ideals.

For example, the utterance of twenty years ago before a na-
tional council, was it not the crisis of a new departure, a quiet

THE CLOSING YEARS 337

but grand movement for completer religious liberty, for inde-
pendence from sectarian dictation and control? Have we not
already seen great changes, so that there is no denomination of
the Protestant churches that does not at least profess Christian
union and unsectariau motive? There was demanded on that
memorable occasion the voice of one known to be in advance of
the thought of the time, even in the most liberal body of
churches. The leaven of truth is working and it will leaven the
whole lump. Slowly jierhaps, but surely, the churches of Chris-
tendom will come to the ideal of a universal, complete brother-
hood in Christ. If it could only be in your day!

I am aware that it often requires no little courage to tell a
man, to his face, before his friends, the plain truth about him-
self. But there are times when a part of the truth must be told
at whatever sacrifice, at least enough to suggest what the whole
would be if it were told.

And so your life flows on in this community where you are
best known as one whose heart beats in ready sympathy with
every true interest of humanity, whose intellect is clear and
strong to advocate and defend all truth, whose influence is pow-
erful to lead our social, civil and religious activities in the di-
rection of a freer life and a larger liberty.

And we, a few of your many friends and neighbors, with love
sincere, with respect not unmixed with reverence, assemble to
offer our greeting in this place hallowed and endeared by all the
blessed memories and associations of a Christian home; by the
clustering lives and affections of the devoted wife who appreci-
ates the true sphere of woman and nobly fills it, and of children
and grand children whose younger lives have become a part of
your own, and who in return receive into their hearts and minds
a pure and holy influence hallowed and endeared even by be-
reavement, and the tender recollections of those who have gone
before; we meet here to thank you for what we as individuals
have received, for what society and Christianity have gained, to
rejoice together in a life 'which reminds us, we can make our
lives sublime.'

Our prayer is that you may long live to enjoy the fruits of
your labors, and the pleasure of a Christian home, the best fore-

338 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

taste of the bright home beyond in the mansions prepared for all
the children of our Heavenly Father. ' Et serus in coeluni re
deas!' "

The following is from a letter written soon after
these events to Mrs. Theron Baldwin: —

My dear Mrs. Baldwin: —

The contract into which I entered with my
brethren of the "Illinois Association" in February, 1829 was
finally terminated on the 1st. of June, 1885, having controlled
the greater part of the activity of my life through more than
fifty=six years. I cannot help feeling that the results of my life
must now be regarded as chiefly in the past. How small they
now seem to me I cannot express to you or to anyone; but
whether they be really great or small they have greatly depend-
ed on the cooperation of your dear, departed husband. How
greatly I have missed him and how much I have moui'ned his
loss in the fifteen years since he left us I cannot express. How
much I have lacked his wisdom in counsel, his cooperation in
times of difficulty and conflict, and his sympathy in trials, joys
and sorrows! It is a great comfort to me to know that our
friendship was a perfectly unselfish one, and that for that reason
it was never interrupted by any jealousies, suspicions or aliena-
tions. I believe we never for a moment distrusted each other;
that we did truly rejoice in each other's joy and bear each oth-
er's trials and sufferings.

Considering that I have passed the eightieth annual milestone
I am vigorous both in mind and body. Since the fracture of my
thigh I have not attempted any long feats of walking, yet for
short distances my lameness is but trifling. I still intend to try
to do some work for the Master. The themes to which I have
devoted my attention for so many years, religious, ecclesiastical
and social, were never more interesting to me than to=day. I
am compelled to think about them as ever, whether I speak or
publish upon them or not. Most profoundly do I feel in respect
to them all, that "there remaineth much land to be possessed."
Especially I mourn that our Congregationalism is still to a very
great extent unconscious of its strength and knows not the
function which God hath raised it up to perform. It tries me

THE CLOSING YEARS 88i)

that many consider it only almost as good as other sects, es-
pecially as Presbyterianism, instead of recognizing it as God's
own instrumentality for breaking all the bands of sect and fus-
ing the whole Christian brotherhood into that spiritual kingdom
which the Son of Man came to establih-h. In vifcw of this state
of facts my soul is sometimes exceedingly sorrowful and ready
to cry out, "How long, 0 Lord, how long!" I am not discour-
aged. Sect is too mean and hateful a thing to last forever under
the government of God. The kingdom of God has the promise
of universal dominion.

Accept, my dear sister, the assurance of my affectionate sym-
pathy with you in all your trials and sorrows, and in all your
hopes and joys. I am sure God will be with you to the end.

Yours very affectionately,

J. M. Stuktevant.

As soon as my parents were a little rested after so
many exciting experiences, they came to my home in
Cleveland, Ohio. The visit which followed seems like
a dream; too full of unalloyed felicity for this earth.
By common consent we avoided all disagreeable top-
ics, all painful memories. I shall never forget those
long conversations, especially my father's stories of
the past, beautiful in the golden haze of sunset. We
talked of our beloved country and of that " mother of
us all," yet dearer to his heart, the Church of God.
His undiminished interest in all living questions, and
his invincible hopefulness as to the issue of all prob-
lems, were to me a promise of immortality. One Mon-
day I was able to gather in my study and around my
table more than twenty Congregational ministers that
they might hear him tell how God led him out of the
gloom and discouragement of sectarian strife into the
clear preception of that simple unsectarian church
which he afterwards recognized in the Congregation-

340 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

alism of our fathers. It was partly due to the interest
exiDressed on that occasion that he finally promised to
undertake this biography.

We went to Tallmadge, where he had such a wel-
come from old friends as warmed his heart. We vis-
ited the now deserted site of the first cabin and saw
the chestnut rails "his feeble strokes" had helped to
split in 1816. We followed the course of an old road
where his parents were once lost. We worshipped in
the ancient church, and were even shown the wooden
vessel which had held the gallon of whiskey given as
a prize for the first stick of timber brought to the spot
for its construction. We stood by the graves of his
parents while he gave orders for a simple headstone
to mark the spot. Every memory seemed beautiful
and precious. He was living his life over again, and
every scene was touched with the glory of gratitude
and the brightness of hope.

During his visit in Cleveland he preached several
times with freshness and force. The following out-
line of his last discourse, transcribed just as he pre-
pared it for use, will give some idea of his method of
preparation for the pulpit:

Luke 18:22 and 19:8, 9.

Seeming conflict between the words of Christ in these two
cases.

Show that this conflict is seeming, not real. Like a true phy-
sician our Lord treats each individual case according to its indi-
cations.

One principle is recognized and insisted on in both cases.
That principle is the necessity of entire consecration and it is
equally insisted on in both cases.

I. The case of the ruler.

The principle of the necessity of total abstinence is enforced
in the young ruler.

THE CLOSING YEARS 841

This principle is not only applicable to the case in the text but
to a multitude of others. There is but one way to overcome an
inordinate love of money, and that is to give freely of our pos-
sessions to promote the welfare of our fellowmen. I once heard
Henry Ward Beecher say to his congregation, etc.

My brethren, giving to the Lord of our substance is a neces-
sary part of worship.

II. The rule of entire consecration to the Lord is not in the
least relaxed in the case of Zacchaeus. He had shown by his
voluntary profession that he could be trusted with the adminis-
tration and use of wealth.

There is need of accumulated wealth, and the Lord has need of
a style of Christian character that can be entrusted with it. Our
Lord meant all that he said in the parable of merchantman seek-
ing goodly pearls. What is meant by entire consecration.

III. The Lord requires this entire consecration not merely
from professing Christians but from every man that lives.
"The earth is the Lord's " etc.

IV. The Lord will punish the withholding of this rightful
claim in the present life.

In our own hearts. The family. In our posterity.
Finally. The blessedness which will follow now and forever
from this consecration.

Late in September my parents returned to Jack-
sonville and father began at once the first draft of
this book. Both he and mother seemed stronger than
usual. January 4, 1886, he dictated the last para-
graj^h as it is printed. The book was not finished.
But his training in God's earthly school was almost
completed. It remained only to watch beside two
dying beds, and stand, strong in faith but fast fail-
ing in body, by the graves of two of his loved ones.
On Thursday, the 7th, Mr. Palmer returned very ill
from Chicago. The two homes were in the same
yard, and in times of trouble were one household.
The weather was intensly cold. On returning from

342 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

a visit to Mr. Palmer on the afternoon of January
13tli mother was seized with a congestive chill. On
Friday she was much worse, and from that time she
sank rapidly until the end. Father struggled against
despair, sometimes exclaiming, "O my dear wife, you
are better! I know you are better!" Though in great
distress and often delirious, mother did not forget
others. More than once she made an effort to plan
what would be for the comfort of the family after she
was gone. She charged her daughters to take care of
their father, little thinking how brief their opportu-
nity would be. When told that she had probably
only a little while to live and asked if she was afraid
to die, she answered: "No, though I should like to
live ten years longer if it were the will of God."
Then she began to repeat that inspired liturgy of the
dying, the twenty^hird Psalm, and evidently joined
in father's prayer which followed, even mingling her
own sw^eet voice with theirs when her daughters
sang, " How gentle God's commands."

All through Saturday night she was painfully

" Crossing over,
Waters all dark and wide."

When the sun dawned on Sabbath morning she
had found

" Peace on the other side."

No one should attempt my father's biography w^ith-
out saying something of her who walked by his side
for so many years. Even at the risk of seeming too
partial to her who was to me all that a mother could
be, I shall venture to speak of her character. Her
sincerity, good judgment and self-control explained
her strong influence in the home. Every child whom

THE CLOSISG YEARS 348

she reared remembered single, quiet acts, or brief
sayings of hers, which left a life long impression.
Once a boy came into her presence wiping the milk
and dirt from his clothing and the hot angry tears
from his cheeks, as he exclaimed: "I can't milk that
kicking cow, and I won't."' None of us knew that
mother could milk. We would have been ashamed
to see her attempt it. Most women would have had
a conflict with that boy. Mother flushed for a mo-
ment, and then without the least appearance of haste
or emotion took the pail and went to the barn, from
which she presently returned with the milk, and
without one word oi comment. The boy has never
forgotten the mortification of that hour, or the lesson
it taught him. Once a wild college lad appealed to
her for help in dressing a slight wound, the origin of
which he dared not confess. He muttered some-
thing, I blush to say, about falling into a brush heap
in the forest. Many women would have asked ques-
tions, or told father. Mother tenderly dressed the
wound, muttering only three words. I can hear
them yet: " Singular brush heap!"

Her devotion to her household left no room for
thoughts of self. Strange as it may seem, I fear that
her seeming indifference to her own comfort some-
times tempted us to forget it too. Father was so de-
pendent upon her cheerful i^resence and tender care
that when they were withdrawn he ceased to live.
She had five children of her own beside three of us,
left by her older sister, and entertained a great deal
of company. Much of the time without hired help,
she managed to have us all fed and clothed upon a
very limited income and without debt. Yet she was

Ui Julian m. stuetevant

able to teach the children Latin and Mathematics
and act frequently as father's amanuensis, and with
it all she brightened our young lives with many of
those inexpensive pleasures, which add so much to
the memories of childhood. During all those years
of ceaseless cares and worries not one of her children
remembers a moment when her speech or action over-
leajjed the self-control which conscience and faith
enjoined.

Her selfcontrol came not so much from natural
placidity as from Christian princixDie which had been
strengthened by her habit of choosing each morning
a text from the Bible which should be her guide and
insi^iration for the day. Once a thoughtless boy sat
down with unbrushed clothing upon a delicate white
wrap which had been laid for a moment across
a chair. An expression of distress and vexation
passed over her face, and then she said in very gentle
tones: " My son, how could you do that? " An older
son, at home on a visit, began to laugh, and when she
asked the reason of his merriment replied: "I thought
you were going to spoil my boast that mother never
said an angry word." The tears, which for a mo-
ment she could not restrain, showed that her compo-
sure was not the result of natural indifPerence. I
cannot say less of one to whom M^e owe so much.

The most terrible wounds do not always bleed ex-
ternally and so my poor father showed the severity of
the shock he had experienced, at first only by his ef-
forts to resist its effects. When I reached home a
few hours after mother was gone I was astonished at
his apj)arent cheerfulness, and I could not under-
stand it until I noticed that he gently changed the

THE CLOSING YEARS 845

subject whenever we were iiii-linecl to dwell upon his
loss. Previous to the funeral, which took pluc-e in
the home and was conducted ])y mother's beloved
pastor, Rev. Henry E. Butler, the family ijjathered in
the south room to look once more upon the face so
dear to our hearts. Father stood erect and calm be-
side the coffin, and asked the oldest son to offer
a brief prayer. Then he said, "This dear hand has
written almost all that I have published about the
Church," and in a few words commended the same
cause to his children. This most characteristic ut-
terance, though it veiled feelings he could not trust
himself to express, was an illustration of the i^lace
which the dear Church of God ever held in his
thoughts. The promise, " They shall prosper that
love thee," was surely for him. It was soon ai^i^ar-
ent that he was making a brave fight to live, though
he felt that " without her it was impossible," and ac-
knowledged that " to live was to suffer."

He began to work somewhat regularly, doing a
little on the revision of his book, but generally try-
ing to divert his mind with other writing. In the
evenings he greeted very cheerfully the friends who
called, and listened with pleasure and sometimes
with amusement to readings from the "Life of Sam-
uel Johnson." He conducted family prayers as
usual, and on January 28th, the day of prayer for
colleges, iDresided at a public meeting. Of course he
was often in the sick chamber next door, and on the
first of February did what he could to comfort and
uphold his beloved eldest daughter when her hus-
band passed to his rest. Tliis second shock affected
him greatly. Sunday, February 7th, was a cold,

346 JULIAN M. STURTEVANT

clear day. He attended church, and assisted Mr.
Butler at the communion table. Many have men-
tioned his impressive appearance on that occasion.
He seemed so very frail and yet so bright and full of
courage that a stranger said, " It seemed like listen-
ing to a disembodied spirit." The drift of his re-
marks was that the aim of Jesus Christ and of Chris-
tianity was to lift men up and this we must do by
holding up Christ. Nothing else is worth living for.

The next day he looked a little more feeble. He
had taken a slight cold, which he felt was the begin-
ning of the end. His physician saw nothing alarm-
ing in the case, at least nothing but his depression of
spirit. The next day he had evidently failed, but the
doctor could find no evidence of disease. On Wed-
nesday it was plain that he could not last long.
That evening those of the family who were in the
house gathered around his bed; the twenty=third
Psalm was read, and his youngest son offered prayer
to Him who alone can uphold us in such an
hour. Most of the night he was wakeful. Over
and over again he said as if leaning on the
words, " Thy rod and thy staff," and once he said,
" O my son, you have no idea of the j)rostration of
dying." As the day began to dawn a sudden change
passed over his face, and in a few moments he was
gone. It seems wonderful that a form so slight and
a constitution seemingly so delicate could have en-
dured eighty years of almost constant activity.

Among the multitude who gathered at his funeral
there were few, if any, who were in Jacksonville as
early as 1829. Very few were left who could tell the
changes of that region in those fifty-six years. The

THE CLOSING YEARS 347

great trees ou the college campus, many of Iheiu
jjlanted by his hands or inuler his direction, and
ah-eady rivaling iu size the mouarchs of the original
forest which occupied a part of the site, were fit types
of the institutions which he had seen jjlanted and
reared in the state of his adoption.

From the old home his body was reverently borne to
the Congregational church where the principal address
was delivered by the eloquent and beloved Dr. Tru-
man M. Post, himself so soon to pass away. Dr. Post
was one of the early professors of Illinois College, an
honored pastor of the church, and father's lifedong
friend. Representatives of the churches, the college
and the community also made tender and appropri-
ate remarks, and then father's remains were laid to
rest in the beautiful Diamond Grove Cemetery with
those of his kindred and his many friends of earlier
years.

Of my father's f)ublic life and influence it is not
for me to write. To his own household he seemed
remarkable for his earnestness. To me, in my child-
hood, that trait of his character seemed positively
awful. I never knew anyone to whom duty seemed
so sacred or the service of God so glorious and joyful
a reality. He realized what so many of us try to
feel that he and all that he had belonged to God. If
he ever refused to give to a good cause it was with evi-
dent pain and oidy because some other duty seemed to
forbid. In the midst of his great struggle to maintain
the college, when his household had known for many
months the real meaning of jjoverty, he received
what seemed to us a large sum for some extra service
as a preacher, and came to tell us, his face radiant

848 JULIA N M. STVRTEVANT

with delight, while visions of needed supplies rose
before us until he added, as if giving the best news
of all, " and that will ijay for those repairs on the
College Chapel." The lesson was severe but salutary
for us.

His honesty included not only uprightness in
business, but absolute fairness alike to friend and
foe. A debt temporarily incurred weighed on him
almost like a disgrace. Once, many years ago, I
noticed that he was greatly troubled about a horse he
had recently purchased, and I tried to comfort him
by the assurance that the animal seemed to me an
excellent one and quite worth the price he had paid
" My son," said he, " that is not what troubles me; I
fear I have not paid enough for her."

Once a fellow citizen who had done that which so
outraged his strong sense of justice that, as was his
way in such cases, he seldom mentioned the man's
name (perhaps because the subject was painful to
him), was accused of serious wrong doing and made
the subject of public investigation. Father, while
reading his morning paper one day, suddenly ex-
claimed, " They are doing injustice. I can not
stand that." He promptly addressed a note to the
gentleman, suggesting that, if his testimony would
serve the cause of justice nothing which had taken
place need hinder his being summoned as a witness.
His offer was of course promtly accej^ted.

Father's religious life was emotional; but neither
he nor those who knew him best ever thought of it
in that way, because it was far more than anything
else practical. His prayers were by no means formal
or stereotyped, but certain expressions did often

THE CLOSING YEARS 3-19

recur and were uttered in tones which expressed very
strong emotion. He would say in the chajjel, "Grant
Lord, if it be thy will, that this institution may be a
copious fountain of blessing to many generations.
But whether it is copious or not, may it at least be
pure." He would pray in his family, " Lord, grant
that, whether we are rich or poor, honored or forgot-
ten, no child of this family may be found fighting
against God or become an enemy of His kingdom on
earth."

May those prayers be fulfilled in all the future of
Illinois College, and to the very last generation of his
descendants.

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA

B S936S1 C0D1

JULIAN M STURTEVANT NEW YORK

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