f'j^-m ^^ ii, / \X :-i ■i A Ju.-' idW' iv: UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH M ■J. Jk'i K. i/h^- ^/L^^M/^i/l^^^ ^w Ty^^ ^ / u THE LIFE «u.« . «"- "".r"" UNIVERSITY » OF THE LATE RIGHT REVEREND John Henry Hopkins, FIRST BISHOP OF VERMONT, AND SEVENTH PRESIDING BISHOP. ONE OF HIS SONS. F. J. HUNTINGTON AND CO., 105 DUANE STREET. 1873- Entered, according to Act of Congress, in tiie year 1872, by JOHN HENRY HOPKINS, JR., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at 'Washington, D. C. JOHN ROSS & CO., PRINTERS, 27 ROSE STREET, NEW YORK. PREFACE. Four years ago this day, my face was turned from New York to Rock Point, to undertake the work which is now laid before the reader. That it should have occupied me four years instead of one, has been far more of a disappointment and loss to me, than it can be to any of my Father's friends. But the task — easy as it seemed at first — was filled with difficulties which I did not anticipate, to say nothing of interruptions from other duties. Most of our ecclesiastical biographies are written as flowers are pressed. Amiability excludes every- thing that may not be agreeable to others, until the result is perfectly dry, and quite flat. This result, it is hoped, has been avoided, on the whole. My Father's life was one of almost uninterrupted contro- versies : and to omit these would be like writing the life of a great General and omitting all the battles. To give a lifelike account of these contro- versies, however, in such a manner as at the same time to avoid injustice to others, required minute and painstaking caution. I cannot hope, in such delicate work, to avoid giving any dissatisfaction. 4 Preface. It v/ill be enough if no real ground is afforded for serious blame. In examining my Father's papers, I found that he had himself, a few years previous to his departure, gone patiently over the accumulated mass of letters received during his lifetime, and destroyed all ex- cept such as he thought would be of use to me in this work. For twenty years I had in vain besought him to write an A 2LtobiograpIiy. A few brief frag- ments, and a sketch of his earlier years in verse (privately printed for his descendants at the time •of the Golden Wedding in 1866), were all that I ob- tained : and his unfailing answer to fresh entreaties was, that I must do that work for him, if it was ever to be done at all. Knowing, therefore, that the letters left undestroyed by him were intended for my information in preparing this biography, I have used them perhaps more freely than I should have done under other circumstances. In regard to the subject of Episcopal Trials, which touches some of the tenderest points herein alluded to, it must be remembered that we were in this country experimenting in a branch of Church disci- pline, where our Mother Church of England gave us no precedents for our guidance ; nor was there anything in the Mediaeval Church v\^hich could serve as a practical help. The Primitive Church alone could be of use : and yet even that only in a very general kind of way. Bishops, mostly without any professional legal training or experience, were com- pelled by the circumstances of their position to be Preface. 5 Judges in a Court from which there was no appeal. They were conscientiously most sensitive as to the doctrinal and moral bearings of what they were doing ; but the very intensity of their feelings and convictions on these points tended to weaken or confuse such partial knowledge of the principles of justice and of law as they might have happened to acquire. The worst errors, as to confounding the offices of presenter and judge, in times of extreme excitement and alarm, were errors of the head, and should be very lightly passed over, since the in- tention was, evidently and most earnestly, to do what was riorht. I have detailed these thinsfs, not for the purpose of reflecting upon individuals, but rather as showing some parts of the process by which, as a National Church, we have obtained our education in this most difficult and disagreeable department of Ecclesiastical business ; and as some assistance towards other National or Provincial Churches, whose work in this direction is as yet wholly or partially to be done. Our worst mistakes have been very slight, compared with such awful scenes as the Primitive Church witnessed at the Council of Tyre, or the Robber Synod of Ephesus, or many others that might be mentioned. To a Catholic mind, when desponding or dis- heartened under some little annoyance of the present moment, there is nothing more consoling than to watch the o-radual orowth of the o-reat Church Revival, as unfolded in the various steps of a life like this of the first Bishop of Vermont. The proof 6 Preface. that God's Holy Spirit is at work in our American Branch of the Church, — that He is causing the " root out of a dry ground" to spring, and bud, and blossom, and to bring forth the ripe fruits of CathoHc Unity and Beauty and Brotherly Love, — that He overrules errors, and brings good out of evil, and accomplishes results, through men, which those men never dreamed of: the proof of all this is a cumulative proof, and grows stronger with each year of our past history which is carefully examined. My general rule of condensation in preparing this sketch of my Father's life, has been, to make as graphic a picture of the man himself as was in my power, under the limitations which must ever con- trol the pen of a son ; and as part of this, I have given some prominence to the characteristics of American society in the early part of the centur)^, and to the peculiarly American commingling of nationalities, — English, Irish, French, and German, being here brought together in one family. Next, the chief stress has been laid on those parts of his thought and action which bore directly on the great Catholic Revival of our asfe, and the growth and hopes of the Future. And, lastly, I have paid the least attention to those things which belong to the fading and disappearing, the effete and dying, Past. This is the rule of choice which I know would have been most agreeable to him. As a pledge of my fidelity to truth, I, can only say, that every word of this work has been written in the room in which my Father breathed his last ; — ■ Preface. 7 has been written at the desk where he wrought, and from the very inkstand out of which he wrote, for years ; and, as it were, with his presence in the very air about me all the while. And were it in my power, I would gladly lay the manuscript before him in Paradise, that it should receive his correc- tions before it is seen by any other eye. Besides my personalconsultations with the dear sur- vivors at Home, who have expressed themselves as satisfied with the accuracy of every part of the completed work, I am indebted for valuable per- sonal reminiscences of the Pennsylvania contest in 1S27 to the Rev. Dr. William Cooper Mead; for similar services touching the Boston difficulty in 1832 to the Rev. Dr. Edson, of Lowell, and the Rev. Dr. Thomas W. Coit, of Troy ; as well as to many others in other portions of my work. To the Rev. Dr. William Stevens Perry, of Geneva, Secretary of the Plouse of Deputies, I owe most particular thanks, not only for the immense col- lection of books, pamphlets, and autograph letters concerning our American ecclesiastical history, which renders him a benefactor to the Ameri- can Church as a whole : but also for the per- sonal kindness which has placed his treasures so unreservedly at my disposal, and has so often supplemented my ignorance with his superior information concerning every part of our his- tory. But, notwithstanding my anxious care, if there are found in these pages errors which do injustice g Preface. to others, I shall thank any one who may have the kindness to send me the proof of the truth, and will cheerfully make any correction and reparation that may be in my power. J. H. H., Jr. Rock Point, Burlington, Vt., Feast of S. Philip and S. James, 1872. CONTENTS. Chapter I. FROM BIRTH TO MANHOOD. The Hopkins family, English— Sketch of the Irish branch of it— Birth and Infancy- Education at Home^Character of Parents — Solitary — Precocious reading — Emi- gration to America — Trenton — School at Bordentown — Princeton — Removal to Philadelphia — Music — The Violoncello-^S. Peter's Church — A year in a Count- ing-House — Wilson's Ornithology — The Philological Society — Separation of Pa- rents— French and Scottish Friends — Spaniards and Germans — Temptations to Skepticism — Reads both sides — Attractions of Manufactures — Iron — Three years of Preparation — Twenty-one — Business begun at Bassenheim — Frequent Depres- sion of Spirits — James O'Hara — New engagement in Ligonier Valley. . Pp. 21-36 Chapter II. LIGONIER VALLEY. Sketch of the MUUer larnily — Caspar Otto — The Trance family — Hamburg and Lockstadt — Emigration — Baltimore, and the War of 1S14 — Melusina — Removal to the W^est — A Meeting on Laurel Hill — Courtship in a Log-cabin — Music and Poetry — Betrothal — Hermitage Furnace — Spiritual Conversion — Religious Ser- vices among the Workmen — Sympathy in the Change — Prospect of failure in Business — Peculiarities of Courtship — Study of Law begun — Marriage — House- keeping in a Log-cabin — Medical Practice — Attachment of the Workmen — Wil- liam Dobbin— Madam Hopkins— The Peace fatal to Iron manufacture — Failure and Debt— Generous Conduct of Mr. O'Hara— Closing up the Business at Her- mitage—Literary Influence— Aquila M. Bolton — Francis B. Ogden— His new Steam-engine — Farewell to Ligonier Valley Pp. 37-51 Chapter III. - THE LA WYER. Teaching while studying Law — James R. Lambdin — Admission to the Bar — Suits against Lawyers — Compromising Suits without Litigation — No unjust Cause undertaken — Prompt payment of Moneys collected — First serious Case— Loss lo Contents. of Voice— A Jury case — Extemporary power— Sarcasm— Freemasonry— Failure of Health from Overwork— At the Head of the Pittsburgh Bar— Purchase of a Place in the Country— A Partner— Dr. Heron's Meeting-house — Organist in Trinity Church — The Rev. Abraham Carter— Family Prayer— Bible-reading, English and Greek—" I'll lend you a Sermon ! "—Thoughts of the Ministry— In the Vestry— Death of Edward Muller— The Law and the Gospel— Elected Rector of Trinity Church— Admitted a Candidate for Orders— The Heirs of O'Hara— The Election accepted— Lay Reading— Law Business sold out— Candidacy of two Months— Diaconate of five IMonths— Ordained Priest— Reasons for these Anoma- lies Pp- 52-68 Chapter IV. FIRST-FRUITS OF THE PRIESTHOOD. Sketch of previous Church History in Western Pennsylvania— Destitution and Decay —Dr. Doddridge— Efforts that came to Nothing— Trinity Church, Pittsburgh- Movement for a new Church— Brittan's Gothic Architecture— The Rector the Architect— Corner-stone laid by the Masons— Rector's Address— The Church a Success— The Rector furnishes all the Church Music— Bishop White's first Visit- ation — Labors in other places — Meadville—Greensburg— Journey to the East —Bishop Hobart— The Rector in the Diocesan Convention— Parochial Reports— In the General Conventions of 1826 and 1S29— Opposes Bishop Hobart's plan for Altering the Prayer-Book— That plan defeated— Advocates the Consecration of the Rev. William Meade— His aid kindly remembered. . . . Pp. 69-83 Chapter V. THE CONTESTED EPISCOPAL ELECTION. Low-Church Irregularities — Bishop White openly and repeatedly denounces them — Elections in the Conventions of 1822, 1823, 1824, 1825 — Low-Church Caucus — ii//j£-i9/«/ i??-iiiiitive Creed— ^^ Father Irenaeus" — Clergy to be provided within the Diocese — The Bishop a Judge — The Oratory highly adorned — Substitute for Stained Glass — Epidemic Typhoid— Death of a Daughter — Visit to Montreal and Quebec — The Primitive Church — His teaching concern- ing the Church, Baptismal Regeneration, Temperance Societies, the black Gown, Episcopacy, the Reiinion of Christendom, the continued Validity of Primitive and Anglican Church Law, Appeals, Diocesan Codes of Canons, etc. . Pp. 156-173 1 2 Contents. Chapier IX. THE STRUGGLE FOR DIOCESAN SCHOOLS. Sale of Property in Pittsburgh— Proceeds invested in furtlier Enlargement of Schools in Burlington — Rapid growth of the Schools — Extent of the new Buildings — Mis- givings disregarded— Borrowed Money secured by Mortgage — Intention to devote all to the Church — Essay on Gothic Architecture— 'D^rnxncxaXion of the Pew System — Visit of his aged Father — Parish School — Loss and Gain of Bur- lington Parish — Earnest pressure upon the Convention — The New Constitution and Canons of Vermont — Their salient Features— Defended in a Pamphlet on "The Episcopal Veto " so-called— An Ecclesiastical Trial — The enlarged Build- ings occupied — The Hall of the Fine Arts — Concert-Festivals— The completed Oratory — The School System — The Church of Rome — Intense Pressure of varied Activities— Landscape Paintings— School Excursions— Boating, Bathing, Fishing, Music — Financial Revulsion of 1S37 — Festival to the Convention^Action of the Convention amounts to Nothing — The Hard Times— Decrease of Pupils — Cana- dian "Rebellion" — Withdrawal of Canadian Pupils— The Bishop in the School- room— His proposal to the Convention of 183S— Cold reception — Finally carried— Excuses for the timidity of the Diocese — Determination to attempt the raising of Funds in England Pp. 174-190 Chapter X. EFFORT ABROAD, AND FAILURE AT HOME. Life-Preserver — The good ship S. Andrew— Francis B. Ogden— Dublin— Archbishop Whately — Hurricane in Ireland — London — English reminiscences of Bishops Mcllvaine, Hobart, and Philander Chase— Not permitted to preach in England — Speeches at public Meetings — High reputation of his work on The Church of Rome in England — An English Edition, with Iiztroductioii by the Rev. Henry Melvill — Bishop Copleston's Opinion oftheBook—Oxford^The Guest of Mr. New- man— Dr. Pusey, Henry Wilberforce, Churton — Littlemore^Dublin Anniversaries — McNeile, McGhee — Oxford again — May Anniversaries in London— =The Bible Society — At Court — His Song5^T'Melve Canzonets published — Small pecuniary Results— Various Reasons for this Failure — Return Home — Discouraging Recep- tion at Burlington — The Schools closed — Vain appeal to his Convention — Empty Efforts — Sheriffs sale of Personal Property — Meeting of Creditors — Enough for all, but they refuse to protect themselves- Foreclosure of Mortgage — House work at Home — The Oratory dismantled— Removal of the Dead — Present value of that Property — Similar Failures among our Bishops — Lesson to be learned from these Failures— Revival of the Religious Orders Pp. 191-206 Chapter XL ROCK POINT. Removal from the Old Place— Dilapidated House in Burlington— Pea-rods— Beauti- ful View from Hemlock Hill— A Lease of Rock Point obtained, with Right to purchase— Roughness subdued— The new House built for a Homestead— The iirst Winter— Description of the Point— Home Life there— Constant Gratitude— Po- verty—Lectures— Fruits of the School— Arthur Carey— Discouragement as to the steady Decline in the Diocese— Desire to resign and labor elsewhere— Authorship and the General Institutions of the Church, , . . ' , . . Pp. 207-213 Contents. 1 3 Chapter XII. OXFORDISM— CANONICAL LEG J SLA TION. The Oxford Tracts — Substantial Identity of Effort— Charge of 1842— Our new Mission- . ary System— High Commendation of the Tracts — Mar Yohannan and^Nestorian- ism — Efforts in General Convention for a Court of Appeals — The Three-Bishop Presenting Power — History of its Adoption— Attempted Revival of the Diaconate — Preference for Suffragan Bishops — Uniform System of Ecclesiastical Law — Pro- gressive Legislation on the Trial of a Bishop — Proposed Canon " Of Indefinite Suspension'''' — General Denunciation of Tract No. go— It drives Men out of the Church — First Letter to Bishop Kenrick — Invitation to Oral Discussion de- clined by Bishop Kenrick — Second Letter to Bishop Kenrick — The Carey Ordination— Anti-Papal Panic — Change of View as to Tract No. 90 — Letters 07z tJie Novelties that disturb our Peace — Kindness of tone towards Arthur Carey and Bishop Benjamin T. Onderdonk — Delight of the Low-Church at the Letters on the Novelties — Challenged by the Bishop of New York to present him for Trial for False Doctrine— The Bishops of Illinois and Ohio willing to present — No such Presentment made — Lecttires on the British Reformation — Proposed delivery of them in Philadelphia — Their Publication — The General Convention of 1844 — Visit- ation of the General Theological Seminary by the Bishops — Debates on the Ox- ford Tracts and on the Character of Dr. Hawks — Case of Bishop Henry U. Onder- donk— Prospect of a similar attack on the Bishop of New York. . . Pp. 214-227 Chapter XIII. THE ONDERDONK CASE. Three Presenters undertake to act — Some of the Stories evaporate under Examina- tion— The animus rested on only one Allegation — But for that, no Presentment would have been made— That Allegation Disproved on the Trial — Errors of Judg- ment by the Accused — The two-witness Rule — The Evidence substantially unim- peached — The vote for Deposition — Moral considerations influencing the Majority of the Bishops afterwards — The OJ>inion of the Bishop of Vermont — The two-wit- ness Rule never heard of since — Anonymous Attacks — Lighting his Pipe — The Protestant Churchtna?!. started — The Bishop of Vermont a Contributor — He is treated as a Standard-bearer and Leader — The Low-Church sure of him — They hint iheir intentions against " New Jersey and Maryland " — Bishop Mcllvaine desires united Action against Tractarianism — Letters Dimissory — Pamphlet against Dr. Seabury — Second Letter to Dr. Seabury — Low-Church Congratulations — Bishop Mcllvaine wishes " to discipline some Puseyite distinctly for Puseyism " — How to punish a Parish — Friendly Visit from Dr. Seabury — Alarm of Dr. Anthon and his Friends — They find the Bishop of Vermont very intractable — He opposes their Notion about the Vacancy of the See — Their Reluctance to Print the Argu- ment—Personal Motives urged upon him by them— Bishop Carlton Chase on the Argument— The Bishop of Vermont opposes any Increase of the Penalty inflicted on Bishop Onderdonk— Speech in the Board of Trustees — Sermon at the Consecra- tion of Bishop Alonzo Potter — Attacked by the Episcopal Recorder as worse than all the Tenets of Oxford put together— Application fortheConsecrationof a Bishop for the Scottish Schismatics — How replied to— Bishop Daniel Wilson of Calcutta on Presbyterian Schisms— Disgust and Dissatisfaction of the High-Church— Their proposed Disintegration of the Church of America — Bishop De Lancey's scheme for rendering the General Theological Seminary merely Diocesan— Opposed by the Bishop of Vermont, and defeated— He writes the Onderdonk Reports of the 14 Contents. House of Bishops in 1047 ^^d 1S50— Tlie Special INIeeting, called for in 1849, un- canonically postponed by the Presiding Bishop— The House of Bishops " in Coun- cil " — The case of Bishop Henry U. Onderdonk— Pamphlets by Mr. Horace Binney, Bishop Meade, and the Bishop of Vermont — The True Principles of Restoration to the Episcopal Offi.ce—V>\s\iO^ Henry U. Onderdonli restored on those Principles in 1856— Those Principles disregarded in the case of Bishop Benjamin Onderdonk in 1859— Consequent Failure of the Effort— Last Declarations of Bishop Benjamin Onderdonk. Pp. 228-249 Chapter XIV. THE NEW JERSEY CASE. Proceedings against Bishop Doane contemplated for years— Ventured on after his Failure — All the Errors of Judgment made by the Presenters — Their first Blunder — The Protest, Appeal, and Reply — The New Jersey Investigation — The uncanoni- cal Adjournment of the Court — The new Presentment — The Bishop of Vermont asks to be excused from sitting on the Trial — He is not excused — Is made Presi- dent of the Court — The opening of the Court at Camden — The 33th Psalm — Bishop Doane his own Lawyer — The Court adjourns to Burlington — The New Jersej' Committee is heard — How Bishop Doane " made the Trial of a Bishop hard " — The Bishop of Mississippi's Opinion — The Court decides not to proceed — The President one of the Minoritj^ — His Opinion concerning the Right of a Diocese to intervene — He labors to restore true Catholicity — Bishop "Williams on that Opinion — Bishop Meade's Indignation at the Result — Third Presentment made — More Blunders — The Presenters have their Lawyers in a little Room adjoining — The Promise to produce the list of 130 Names is forfeited — The argument prepared by Counsel is read in Court — The Decision of the first Court overruled, and the Opinion of the Bishop of Vermont sustained, by the second Court — The "■ right" of the Diocese to intervene finall}'- denied — Happy Compromise — Bishop Doane's frank and voluntary Acknowledgment — The Accused unanimoush^ discharged without Trial — Results of all this Experience — Present Canon makes the Trial of a Bishop so "hard" as to be nearly impossible — The Constitutional Change wrought by these Trials in the position of the Episcopate as an Order — High- Church and Low-Church changing Parts in this Work — General Good-will when all was over. Pp. 250-267 Chapter XV. BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS. Parish Growth — Elected Rector in St. Alban's — Parsonage secured — Enlargement of the Church in 1S51 — Adorns the Chancel with his own Hands — Ecclesiological Society — Altar-Cloth — Choral Services — Tiuo Discourses on the Second Advent — Completes his eighteen years' Work in reading the Fathers and Councils — Begins to translate the Suinina of S. Thomas Aquinas — The Vermont Drawing Soohs of Flowers and Figures — Rock Point purchased, under Mortgage, by the aid of a Friend — Defections to Rome, in Vermont — Repeal of Church Law by Non-ziser — This Opinion changed soon afterwards — No Narrowness ever in Personal Rela- tions with those of either Partj^ — His Candidates free to attend any Parish in good standing— " Between Hawk and Buzzard" — Begins a Commentary on the Whole Bible^VlaXi, and Mode of Working— TYz^ History of the Confessional — Bishop Mcllvaine in favor of presenting Bishop Ives for Trial — Intended Permission of Contents. 1 5 private Confession and Absolution in tlie Churcli of England— Two Reasons for it — Letter from Bishop Ives — The First Book of Edward VI. gives the true An- glican position — TJie Gorham Case considered — The real Points of it not correctly understood— Popular Lectures — Slavery — Thanks from the Clergy of Buffalo- Approval of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster — Proposed Letter to Senator Phelps on Slavery, abandoned — Milner's End of Co?itroversy, Cotitrovcrted^Fricndly Reuionstrance with the Editors of the Church Jour7ial — Importuned to write for the Episcopal Recorder Pp. 268-285 Chapter XVI. DIOCESAN AND GENERAL. Double Depression of the Diocese— Decline in the number of Clergy— Repeating the General Confession — Clerical Changes in Vermont — Lowest Depression in 1848 — Laity admitted to form part of the Standing Committee — Some signs of Improve- ment— Early Confirmation approved — Retrospective Summary in 1853 — Convoca- tion of Vermont — Opposition to the Consecration of the Rev. Dr. Upfold — Oppo- sition to the Consecration of Bishops Meade, Burgess, Young, and Doane, all un- successful— Principle underlying the Failure — The i?/^^^if of the Canons — Sermons before the General Convention of 1847 and the Board of Missions in 1S50 — Adheres to our Mission System — Acting with the High-Church in 1S50 on the Maryland Case — Plan for a Court of Appeals, involving the germ of the Provincial System —Bishop De Lancey's proposal for dividing into Provinces — Warm Reception on Passing through Pittsburgh — Deposition of Bishop Ives in 1853 — Projects of new Canons for the Trial of a Bishop — Chairman of the Committee on Canons — One of the Committee on the Pastoral Letter— Canadian Hospitalities— Arrival of Bishop Fulford — Assistance in Synodical organization Pp. 286-294 Chapter XVII. TFIE VERMONT EPISCOPAL INSTITUTE. The Bishop of Vermont is arrested for debt in Boston in 1854 — Bailed by two Friends — His silent Sorrow — Plan of Relief — Rock Point offered for Sale, to the Church the purchase money to extinguish the old Debts — Rock Point to become Church Property, for the Bishop's Residence and for Church Schools — The sad Silence broken in August — The Plan approved in Burlington — One subscriber of $5000— The Convention adopts the Plan — Charter obtained — Arrangement with Boston Creditor — Rock Point conveyed to the Trustees — Unexpected Opposition in Bur- lington— Exciting Interview — Easter afternoon Sermon— Protracted discussion at Easter Parish Meeting — Resignation both of Diocese and Parish threatened — The Parish unanimously vote to reject the Plan — The $5000 Subscription withdrawn — Apparent Hopelessness of canvassing the rest of the Diocese — The W'illoughby bequest of $10,000 — Its Condition — The rest of the Diocese favorably disposed — The Clergy themselves subscribe— Even Burlington does better — The Parish Debt extinguished — Journey to St. Louis and New Orleans — Raising Funds in Philadel- phia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and New York— Resignation of the Rectorship of S. Paul's— The American Citizen— T'he Pastoral Letter of 1856— Plan for the Semi- nary Building adopted— Duty of remembering God and the Church in every Last Will and Testament— Widow of Dr. Willoughby— The Building begun— Finan- cial Revulsion of 1S57— Subscriptions not paid— New Rector in Burlington— Epis- 1 6 Contents. copal Visitation in Pennsylvania for Bishop Alonzo Potter— New Episcopal Robes, different from tlie ordinary Pattern— Hospitality to the Convention, yearly, at Rock Point— Kind Feeling and Concord in the Diocese— Raising Funds in the Cities, harder than before— The General Convention of 1859- Consecration of Bishop Gregg of Texas— The Z'z^wi'— Invitation to Sewanee— Rural life there- Winter's Cough cured— Religious Services— Meeting with Bishop Elliott and Bishop Polk— Artistic Work at Sewanee— The earnings there all given to finish the Chapel of the Institute— Description of the Building and Chapel— Consecra- tion of the Chapel, i860— Dr. Hicks elected Professor, and the Rev. Theodore A. Hopkins Principal of the Academic Department— Economy of Construction— Rec- torship in Rutland earns more Money for the Institute— Similar Earnings in Bran- don—Attempt to found a Girls' School also— The Effort Interrupted by the War- Never accomplished Pp- 295-3^9 Chapter XVIII. THE CIVIL WAR. Request from Friends in New York in 1S60 — Pamphlet on The Bible Vicvj of Slavery —Same Views often published by him before — Pamphlet published in January, 1861 — The " right to secede " — The Question of Treason to be submitted to the Supreme Court — Abolition of Slavery advisable, but to be done by the Southern States themselves — " American Society for Promoting National Unity "— Pamphlet reissued, omitting prefatory matter and the part touching Seces- sion— Fall of Fort Sumter — Letter to Bishop Polk, opposing the Secession of his Diocese— Bishop Polk's reply — Similar Letter to Bishop Meade, and his Reply — Convention Address on Allegiance and political Preaching — No political Sermons or Resolutions in Vermont — Clergjrand Relatives in theArmj' — Resists the attempt to stop the Stipend of Missionaries in Alabama — Letter to the Bishops and Delegates at Mantgotuery., ngninst organizing "The Church in the Confederate States " — Special Forms of Prayer, non-committal— Thirty years' Retrospect of Diocesan Growth — The General Convention of 1862 — Debate on the State of the Country — Democrats and Republicans combine to "do something" — Political pressure — Next to nothing done in the Lower House — The Bishop of Ver- mont presiding^-Prestige of Bishop Mcllvaine— His draft of a Pastoral Letter adopted — Its political Tone — The Bishops interpret the National Constitution " as official Expositors of the Word of God " — The Protest of the Bishop of Vermont — Published — He is absent from the Chancel while the political Pastoral is read — The Holy Eucharist offered on that Occasion — President Lincoln's Thanks for the Pastoral — The dropped "Memorial" — Resistance to the political Pastoral — Request in February, 1863, for the reissue of The Bible View of Slavery — The request granted — Reprinted at once — Larger Editions in June, in New York — Taken up by the Democratic Clubs in July — The political canvass in Pennsji- vania that Year — The Democratic Candidate a Churchman — The Bishop of Pennsyl- vania drafts a Protest against The Bible Viciv of Slavery — The Condition of his sign- ing it — The Protest circulated for signatures to be given " immediately " — Invasion of Pennsylvania by Gen. Lee — Battle of Gettysburg — Intense political Excitement — Suspected collusion between the Democrats and the Enemy — Bishop Potter's " private ' ' circular favoring peace and quietness — Perplexity of many of the Clergy — Reply to the Protest — A Book promised — Rejoinder by one of the Pennsylvania Clergy — Further Reply — Dissuasion attempted in vain — The Book on The Bible View of Slavery begun, and pushed with all Rapidity — The Feeling of Devotion to the Truth of God's Word with which it was written — Seven Editions — No evil Contcnis. 1 7 Consequences — His Diocese as attached as ever — "Declaration" in the Essays and Reviews Cases — Bitter local Controversies in Pennsylvania about the Protest — Bishop Stevens and other Clergymen attacked for not signing- — The Diocesan Convention at Pittsburgh— Political Resolutions and Debate in Trinity Church— Dr. Washburn's speech — Proposed adoption of the Protest and Censure of Bishop Hopkins's Book — Hisses — The motion dropped— Judge Shalcr's speech— Dr. Van Deusen's Resolution in Bishop Stevens's words adopted — Contrast in iS66 — The Bishop of Vermont presiding in tliat same Church at the Consecration of the first Bishop of Pittsburgh — The First Lesson for the Daj'— Coincidence — Farewell to Pittsburgh Pp. 320-342 Chapter XIX. THE REUNION OF THE CHURCH. The Bishop of Vermont becomes Presiding Bishop — The Rule of Seniority unprimitlve, absurd, and inconvenient — His Presidency favorable to Reiinion — His ideas as to the War — His rejoicing at the prospect of Peace — Difficulties — The Low-Churcli as a War-party — Bloodthirsty Low-Church Editorial in Philadelphia — The Bishop of Vermont invited to New Orleans and Memphis before the AVar was over — At- tempt to secure from the Northern Bishops a united Invitation to the Southern to return — Its Failure — The Presiding Bishop writes in his own Name — The General Convention of 1S65 — The Vv'elcome given to the Bishop of North Carolina and Bishop Lay — Delegations from three Southern Dioceses — Consecration of Bisliop Ouintard — Triumphs at that General Convention — Reunion certain and speedy — No Pastoral Letter — Bishop JNIcIlvaine's draft rejected — The Presiding Bishop's draft too late for Acceptance — " Suggestions for the General Convention of iS63 " — Two of them already carried into Effect — Consecrations of Bishops at Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Louisville — Singing of the I'eni^ Creator S^iritics — Ovation at the South — Thrown from the Railway Track on his Return — Uninjured — Letter from Bishop Carlton Chase — Disappointment in not meeting Bishop Elliott at New Orleans — His sudden Death — Last letter of Friendship from Bishop Elliott — Fears of a Schism laughed to Scorn I'P- 343-357 Chapter XX. THE GOLDEN WEDDING— POETRY— CANONICAL POINTS. The Golden Vrcdding Festival in 1866 — Presentation of a Pastoral Staff by the Clergy of the Diocese — The Evening Reception — The Family Dinner — Autobiography in Verse — The Rainbows — The Early Eucharist in the Chapel of the Institute — The Marriage in Cana of Galilee — Confirmations in Maryland — Meeting with Bishop Johns of Virginia — Hospitality of the Rev. Dr. Howe — Vv'riting Poetry on the Railway — The Gospels Versified — The History of the Church in Verse — Tempo- rary Rectorship of S. Paul's, Burlington — Pleasure of Returning to Parochial Work — Large Confirmation Class — Great Enlarg-ement of the Church Building- Energetic lay co-operation — The Bisliop once more the Architect — Plan of En- largement— Two Canonical Points— A Candidate rejected without Statement of Cause or Accuser — Received and Ordained in Vermont — Arbitrary use of Power repugnant to his sense of Justice— The Election of Dr. Whittle as Assistant Bishop of Virginia — Uncanonical, because Bishop Jolins was not "unable to discharge his Episcopal duties "—The Presiding Bishop's view of the case— Certificate of 1 8 Coiitcrds. the Standing Committee of Virginia — Facts — Letter of Bishop Johns to the Stand- ing Committee of Pittsburgla — The Presiding Bishop sends out the Notices to the other Bishops, but leaves on record his own Refusal to consent to the Consecra- tion— The Consecration almost defeated — Excuses for the View of the Canon taken in Virginia Pp. 358-374 Chapter XXI. rilEOLOGICAL OPINIONS— RITUALISM. A Constant Reader — " Justification by Faith onl}'"^"All Bosli !" — The Council of Trent — Dr. Pusej^'s Eirenicon — New Edition of Tract No. 90, with Dr. Pusey's Historical Preface ■xnA Keble's Xc^to — Hail Mary as a Scriptural Anthem — Ilis Opinions on Ritualism — Request for them, in Print — The Laiv of Ritualism — Dis- cussion of it in the House of Bishops — His sober second Thoughts — A " Mrs. Par- tington sort of Business " — The Declaration of the Twenty-eight Bishops — Its real Object the Bishop of Vermont's Book — Ignorance and Blunders in the Decla- ration— Covered v/ith Ridicule — Tabled in the Ilovise of Bishops — The result of thp Attempts in the General Conventions of i36S and iS/i to legislate against Ri- tual, proves the Correctness of the Bishop of Vermont's " little book" — Four Edi- tions sold — Approval of it at Home and Abroad — Bishop Coxe on The Deelaraticii — The Laiv of Ritualism sent to the English Bishops by the English Church Union — Cited by Sir Robert Phillimore in the Mackonochie Judgment — The Real Objective Presence, and Eucharistical Adoration — In how far the Bishop of Ver- mont dilTered from Dr. Pusey and Keble — Their Doctrine is within the intended Comprehensiveness of the Church of England — Purple Stoles ordered for S. Paul's, Burlmgton — Two Lights on the Altar of S. Paul's, Burlington- Increased Richness of the Services at the Consecration of Bishops Nccly and Tuttle — Processionals — Surpliced Clioirs — Choral Services — Consecration of Bishop Young in Trinity Church, New Yorlc — The Pastoral Staff carried before the Presiding Bishop — Treatise on the Personal Reign of Christ — Retractation of an Error — The Pope r.ot the Antichrist — Dr. Mahan's estimate of this Retractation — Sharp Criticism of tlie Homilies — Oppression about the Head — His sole trip in the Adirondacks — Drive through the Green Mountains — Failure of Ej'esight— The right Ej'e blind — The left Eye beginning to sympathize. Pp- 375-391 Chapter XXII. PREPARATORY TO LAMBETH. The Bishop of Vermont, in 1S51, makes the first suggestion of the Conference of Lam- beth:— Testimony of the Bishop of Moray and Ross — The Bishop of Maryland — The Bishop of Montreal — The Church Journal — Request of the Canadian Bishops — Request from the Convocation of Canterbury — Request from informal IMeeting of English, Irish, Colonial, and American Bishops — The Invitation issued — Its Terms— Accepted — The Question laid before t'.ie Vcrmo"t Convention — "What the Bishop said concerning his Povertj- and kis Support — The AVhining about the Starving of the Clergy — The Episcopal Endov/ment now required by the Con- stitution— Funds promptly raised for the Bishop's Expenses — Voyage to England — Mizen Head — Visits to The Cathedrals of Chester and Durham — Last Sketch from Nature inade at Durham— York— Poetry on the State of the Church of Eng- Contents. 1 9 land — Lincoln — Peterborough, Ely, Norwich, London — Westminster Palace Ho- tel—Sermon at S. Lawrence, Gresham Street — Kindness of Archdeacon Words- worth— City Mission Work in the East of London— Private Confession and Abso- lution— Sisterhood of All Saints, Margaret Street — " The Religious" — A Guest at Addington Park — His Opinion asked and given on the Bishop of Salisbury's Charge — Meets Bishop Selwyn — About the Sermon at the Opening of the Confer- ence— How the Bishop of Illinois was appointed — At his Request the Bishop of Vermont prepares a Sermon— Salient Points of it— The Greek Church has the best of the Argument about the Filioque — The Archbishop of Canterbury should be a Patriarch — " Lost Ground to be recovered, Catholic Usages to be restored " — Liturgical Revision so as to be more Primitive than even the First Book of Ed- ward VL — The Sermon read and approved by other American Bishops — Peremp- tory Refusal to Interfere with the published arrangement of the Archbishop — Preliminary Meeting of September 17 — The Conference "invited," not "sum- moned " — The Limitation of the Session to four Days — The Right to preside — Previous Arrangement of a Programme of Business — Open to Amendment or Addi- tion—Stenographic Report to be published — None but Bishops to be present — The Introduction of the Colenso business discussed, not decided — Three meetings of Colonial Bishops at the House of Archdeacon Wordsworth — Their Conclusion — Dr. Pusey's three Objections to the Programme — All three corrected. Pp. 392-412 Chapter XXIII. the lambeth conference. Opening Services, without Music — Indignation of those who were excluded — The Addington Park Hospitality declined— Order of Arrangement of Seats — First Day's Debate adjourned— Speech on the Fifth and Sixth General Councils — "The undisputed General Councils " — The Colenso Resolution — The Bishop of Ver- mont's Substitute offered — Opposed — The private Understanding between the Archbishop and the Bishop of S. David's and others — Acknowledged — The Sub- stitute withdrawn — Asked for, to be used as a Declaration — The v/aiving of the private Understanding asked, and refused — A Declaration signed by tifty-six Bishops in the Conference Room — Appointment of a successor to Colenso— The Report of the Colenso Committee in December— Speech on Church and State — The Stenographic Report to be published with Omissions — Not to be published at all, nor seen except by Bishops — Transcript for the American Bishops voted under equally stringent Restrictions — Close of the Conference — Photographers — The Conversazione at S. James's Hall — Fulham — Closing Religious Services at S. Mary's, Lambeth — The Bishops of New York and Quebec on the part taken in the Conference by the Bishop of Vermont — Repose needed — Brighton — High Ritualistic Services at S. Michael's, Brighton — Purchase of a Present in Rouen — Quiet week in Paris— The Oriental Liturgy — Return Voyage — Welcome at Bur- lington by the Vermont Clergy Pp. 413-428 CHAPTER XXIV. A T HOME. New Rector of S. Paul's, Burlington— Correspondence v/ith Dean Stanley— Explana- tion of his Refusal of Westminster Abbey for the closing Service of the Lambeth Conference— Delay in the Receipt of Dean Stanley's Letter— The Reply— Winter 20 Contents. Visitation of the Diocese undertaken — Last Sermon in S. Paul's, Burlington — Conversation with him on the Way to his Work— Severe Cold— Christmas in the Chapel of the Institute — Last Words sent fcr Publication— Visitation resumed— Exposure — Visits Plattsburgh at the Request of the Bishop of New York— His last Eucharist, Confirmation, Sermon — Severe Exposure to intense Cold on his return — Last Illness— Departure — Expressions of Feeling — Burial — The Holy Eucharist at the Funeral — Last Resting-Place — Cemetery at Rock Point— Mon- ument. Pp. 429-443 In Memoriam Pp. 443-443 APPENDIX. I, Complete List of the Publications of Bishop Hopkins, . . . Pp. 449-452 II. " Conversation Comparisons" (1S18), P- 453 "The Beliefs. John's" (1S25), Pp. 454, 455 III. Bishop Ravenscroft's Opposition to the Consecration of Bishop Meade, Pp. 456-458 IV. " O Peace, O heavenly Peace " (1845), P. 459 "Oh! how the Spirit" (1854), P. 459 V. The Bishop of Vermont's Protest against the Political Tone of the Pastoral Letter of 1S62, Pp. 461-465 VI. Reflections on the State of the Church of England (1S67), . . Pp. 466-471 VII. The Westminster Abbey Correspondence, in full, .... Pp. 472-481 Chapter I. FROM BIRTH TO MANHOOD AMONG the old families of Central England, the name of Hopkins has long occupied a respectable place, having been borne by members of the House of Commons from the city of Coventry as far back as the reign of Richard the Second. Isaac Hopkins — a scion of this stock — went over to Ireland with WiUiam the Third; where, soon after the conclusion of the Treaty of Limerick in October, 1691, he married Mary Fitzgerald, and established that branch of the family from which my Father was descended. About the middle of the eighteenth century — so says family tradi- tion— John Gunning, of Castle Coote, in the county of Ros- common, had three daughters of famous loveliness and social charms : of whom the oldest married the Earl of Coventry, the second married first the Duke of Hamilton and afterwards the Duke of Argyll; while the third married a Roman Catholic and sturdy adherent of King James the Second. A daughter of this last marriage, by a union with the oldest son of Isaac Hopkins, re- covered a large portion of the great landed estate of her ances- tors, which had been confiscated by the Protestants, after the per- suasive custom of those times. Their oldest son, John, married Elizabeth McDermot, a woman of remarkable beauty and ability, but whose extravagance and want of business management, after she was left a widow, grievously encumbered the family estates. This burden might have been cancelled by the heir, on an appeal to the Court of Chancery, as the estates were entailed : but her oldest son John, on coming of age, refused to take any action which might cast reproach upon his mother's administration of affairs ; and abandoning the paternal estates in Roscommon to be devoured of their numerous mortgages, he went to Dubhn to make his own way in the world, in the humbler line of merchan- 2 2 Front' Bii'-th to Manhood. disc. Thither he was soon followed by liis younger brother, Thomas. After some years of steady devotion to business, dealing both in flour and linen, Thomas Hopkins, in April, 1791, married Elizabeth Fitzakerly, a highly accomplished young bride of six- teen. Her father was a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, and had been tutor in the family of the Duke of Rutland while the latter was Lord Lieutenant of, Ireland. These advantages had not been lost upon the daughter. The only child of Thomas and Elizabeth Hopkins, my Father, was "born in the city of Dub- lin, on the 30th day of January, 1792 ; and when weaned was sent to reside for several years with his paternal grandmother, who was then living in the town of Athlone. My Father remembered her as a beautiful old lady, with long white hair, who, when she had washed and dressed him in the morning, or before his going to bed at night, made him kneel down by her side, and say some simple prayer. Little care was taken of him beside this : the constant succession of visitors, the coming and going of any number of uncles and aunts and cousins, the attractions of the military stationed in the neighborhood, and all the other elements of open-handed Irish hospitality, leaving but little leisure for the care of the young child, whose most faithful companions were the servants of the house. The lesson of daily private prayer, however, was so well learned, and the habit so firmly formed, that it never was forgotten or interrupted at any subsequent period of his life. And it was here, too, that he first learned to read, the big Bible being the volume which gave him the greatest and most constant delight. It was not until he was about six years of age that his father came for him, and carried him to Dublin to live v/ith his parents, who until that time were almost perfect strangers to him. His mother, whom he chiefly resembled, and to whom he was indebt- ed for his intellectual powers, had not the tenderness of maternal instinct which makes the care of the helpless infant so sweet a task : but when that earliest period was well over, she began to take pride in her bright and beautiful son, and thenceforward his education was the leading labor of her life, — her chief joy. Pos- sessed of remarkable personal beauty, and in the very prime of From Birth to Matihood. 23 womanhood, she was not only an accomplished performer on the piano-forte, skilled in the use of the pencil, and an extraordinary adept in the now reviving art of embroidery : but she was yet more distinguished — especially among the women of those days — for her wide range of general reading, and her powers of argu- ment and conversation. Her husband admired and loved her intensely, and. in some points their tastes were in happy harmony. Exquisite was the wonder and delight of the little boy as he lay upon the carpet listening to Pleyel's Sonatas, his mother presid- ing at the piano-forte, while his father stood beside her, accom- panying her on the flute. At other times Mozart or Haydn fur- nished still nobler themes, nor was the flute the only instrument upon which his father played. But, unhappily, his parents were not, in other respects, so well suited to one another. Though the husband was the senior by eight years, yet the superiority of education and of talent was too great on the side of the wife; and she had too little experi- ence and wisdom to hide her consciousness of it. There was a brilliancy about her which belonged to a different sphere, and was apt to produce, in all who approached her, and in her hus- band among the rest, a most uncomfortable sense of inferiority. Both were upright in their moral principles, well-meaning in their intentions, and cordial in their feelings towards one another; both abounded in good qualities, and both treated their son with the utmost affection : yet he was compelled to learn, before he was eight years old, the pains of matrimonial discord ; and he already began to wonder whether married people were always so apt to diner from each other, — whether every home was as sub- ject to contention as his own. His parents were nominally members of the Irish Church, and it was a matter of course that he should be baptized in in- fancy : but religion had little or nothing to do with the tone of the household or the system of education laid out for the boy. An occasional attendance at Church — and the ancient tombs of Earl Strongbow and others in Christ Church Cathedral made an indelible impression on his imagination — could do but little. He received no regular instruction in the Christian Faith. He was taught no Catechism. He knew no clergyman of the Church. 24 Fro7n Birth to ManJwod. Neither of his parents ever approached the Holy Communion, Neither of them ever said a word to him concerning the worth of the soul, or the great gift of salvation. Nor was it until many years after, when my Father was himself in Holy Orders, and main- ly through his instrumentality, that his parents at last — though not together — became devout communicants in the Church. It was natural that, with her fondness for society, his motlier should frequently dilate upon the connection of the family — at the fourth or fifth remove — with the nobility : Ireland not being the only place where such connections are valued in the inverse ratio of their nearness. But even in his early childhood, her son de- rived impressions from her conversation on this subject, which were the opposite of what she wished to convey. It was very clear to him that those noble relatives did not think it worth their while to hold any intercourse with either his parents or himself; and he therefore regarded them with a goodly measure of con- tempt, mingled with a certain portion of resentment : while he in- wardly resolved that he would attain a higher elevation by being the artificer of his own fortunes. This youthful feeling of proud self-reliance was rendered still stronger by the fact that he was entirely thrown in upon himself, so far as the heart was concern- ed. His mother did not know how to win his affectionate con- fidence. Among persons who were all so much older than him- self, he became precociously thoughtful and reserved. He had no brother, or sister, or playmates ; and the pride which his mo- ther took in teaching him at home, prevented him from enjoying the usual companionships of schoolfellows. The habit of solitary and self-reliant action, thus early formed, moulded the character of his whole life, and shaped more or less the practical results of all its varied activities. With so brilliant a teacher, and so apt a pupil, however, it is no Avouder that rapid progress was made. Before his eighth year was completed, he had read Shakspere, Dryden, and Pope, be- sides any quantity of tales and romances. In music, he could take his part easily in Haydn's Symphonies. French was already familiar to his tongue ; and in drawing he had made handsome progress. The want of companionship deprived him of any in- ducement to enjoy outdoor life; and he remained at home, From Bh'th to Manhood. 25 devouring every kind- ot reading that he could lay his hands on. His uncle John had meanwhile emigrated to the United States, and wrote thence such glowing accounts of that country and its openings for advancem.ent in life, that it was determined to wind up business in Dublin, and sail for the New World. The passage was very long and stormy, and filled with all manner of discomforts and disgusts. But one incident is well worthy of mention.i During the height of a tremendous storm one day, when passengers and sailors were in great distress fearing total shipwreck, the httle boy thought of One who seemed to be re- membered by nobody else around him ; and, retiring behind a pile of sails near the mainmast in order to be alone, he knelt down and prayed to God to deliver them out of their danger. One of the sailors happened to pass, and observed him ; and, with the strong feeling so characteristic of his class, he went to the Captain at once, and told him what he had seen and heard : adding, that " the ship was safe ; for it was impossible she should come to grief while such a little angel was on board of her." It was in the month of August, 1800, while he was yet in his ninth year, that they landed at New York, and soon after went on to Philadelphia, where every effort made by his father to get into business failed. When all the money brought with him had been expended in these attempts, his mother came to the rescue, and provided for the support of the family by opening a girls' school at Trenton ^ in New Jersey. She was admirably qualified for this good work, not only by her own unusual variety of ac- complishment and information, but by her contempt of false pre- tences and shams, the exactness and unflinching thoroughness of her instructions, and the high-toned manners which she knew how to impart to her pupils. These advantages gave her so strong a hold upon public esteem that for many years her school main- tained a very high character, and a sufficient number of scholars, at good prices for those days. 1 This was told us by my grandfather Hopkins himself, during the only visit he ever paid us, in 1836. 2 The house in which they lived was a stone house, with brick front, orginally built by the British for a barrack, and commanding a good view of the river. 2 6 From Birth to Alanhood. By the time my Father ^vas eleven years old, he had learned all that his mother could teach him ; and for Latin, Greek, and mathematics he must look elsewhere. He was therefore sent to a boarding-school at Bordentown, where he remained for nearly two years. The principal of this school was a Baptist minister, — a kind-hearted man and a good Latin scholar, with quite a library of books outside the usual studies of the school. The first contact of the high-strung, sensitive home-plant with the rough thorns and brambles of the highway, was painful enough. The rudeness, obscenity, and profanity that are commonly met with among schoolboys shocked him excessively. Their art of tormenting the delicate stranger was for some time kept in full play, until human nature could stand it no longer ; and one day, under gross provo- cation, he defended himself against a bigger boy, and after a plucky and protracted contest, gave him a fair beating. After this he was treated very respectfully, and allowed to do pretty much as he pleased. In his Latin studies, the Colloquies of Cor- derius and the Dialogues of Erasmus occupied a prominent place, though they have long since disappeared from the curriculum of modern schools : and the large proportion of time then devoted to the writing of both Latin and Greek was more likely to pro- duce accurate scholarship, than the easier shpshod modes which have since become fashionable. It was a matter of course for liim to win his master's confidence by readiness and diligence in his studies. The good man was a widower, and possessed of suffi- cient accomplishment himself to be strongly drawn towards the precocious boy confided to his charge. He took him to sleep in his own chamber, and gave him the key to his extensive library, where the vacant hours, devoted by the other boys to outdoor amusement, were spent among far more congenial books. He did not avoid athletic exercises altogether, indeed : he took his fair share in these, from time to time. And he well remembered the natural beauties of the place : the broad, rippling current of the Delaware River, the varied foliage, the singing of the birds, the glorious sunsets, the wild flowers of the neighborhood, all left their impress upon his mind and heart. But his chief delight was in that library, where, all alone, he lived in a little world of his own. It afforded a range, it must be confessed, beyond the usual From Birth to Manhood. 27 luck of Baptist ministers ; for there he found The BrU'ish JDrauia^ complete; besides many of the Poets, the best Historians, and works on Art and on Medicine. Of novels there were not so many; and yet even here he found Fielding and Smollett, Miss Burney and Anna Radcliffe, besides " Don Quixote " and the " Arabian Nights," with not a few others. It is not often tlint so large an amomit of general reading is mastered by one so young. At that time there was no Chm-ch in Bordentown. On Sun- days there v/as nothing to be done, therefore, but to attend the Baptist meeting, where my Father heard nothing that made any impression upon his memory. During the whole of his residence at that school, he could not remember that anything had been said to him personally on the subject of religion. But besides the re- membrance of his master's partiality and kindness, he carried away with him vivid recollections of some of his schoolmates, one of whom — the son of a distinguished portrait painter — was a young fellow of infinite fun and drollery, and such " good com- pany " that he turned out, at last, to be good for nothing else. After nearly two years spent in this school at Bordentown, my Father was sent by his mother to Princeton, to reside in the family of a French refugee, — one of the old noblesse, who had fled penni- less from the horrors of the Revolution in his native land, and was compelled to support himself in a strange country by giving les- sons in dancing, fencing, and the Parisian pronunciation of his mother tongue. In less than a year these three accomiDlishments were sufficiently mastered ; and meanwhile the passion for read- ing was further indulged among the books found on the shelves of the refugee, among which were Rousseau, Marmontel, Moliere, and a considerable portion of Voltaire's works. The knowledge of French thus gained was of great value : but, in some points of view, that sort of reading did him more harm than good. Meanwhile, his mother's school had succeeded so well in Trenton, that she was encouraged to transfer it to the larger sphere of Philadelphia. Here she was now joined by her son, who began to render active assistance in her labors, taking special charge of the drawing classes. The larger part of his time, how- ever, was still devoted to the continuance of his own education, mathematics and Greek being his chief studies ; while at the .same 28 From Birth to Manhood. time music occupied a portion of his leisure hours. He mastered the viohn to a degree sufficient to enable him to take his part in the best amateur concerts which Philadelphia could then produce. A musical friend succeeded in organizing a society of these ama- teurs, and when they came together they found they had flutes, vioUns, clarionets, violas, bassoons, flageolets, and French horns ; but there was no violoncello. What was to be done ? No other solution of the problem presenting itself, ray Father undertook to learn the indispensable instrument, and in one month's time bore his part to the satisfaction of all. This success encouraged him in his efforts, and he became so skilful that for years he was the only solo player on the violoncello in Philadelphia. A love for it remained with him during his whole life ; and even when past his threescore years and ten, no winter passed by without two or three times, at least, drawing the bow across the strings of his old sonorous friend, and enjoying once more the melodies which were the favorites of his youth. On removing to Philadelphia, he attended Church v/ith his mother at old S. Peter's, then, with Christ Church, under the pastoral charge of Bishop White. The Rev. Dr. Abercrombie was one of the Assistant Ministers of the united parish at that time, and with his son my Father soon became quite intimate. But there seems to have been nothing in his Church associations, during these early years, that excited any real interest ; he was conscious of no strong attraction, no living power which could influence or mould his youthful character. All the vivid forces of his opening life ran in far other channels than the quiet and prosy respectabilities of S. Peter's in those days. The. idea of being confirmed never seems to- have entered his head, or to have been suggested to him by others. But if religious helps were weak or lacking, it was to be expected that religious dan- gers should be strong and urgent. Many of his musical friends were Frenchmen, whose intimacy was too likely to lead to loose- ness both of tongue and morals. The open display of these ten- dencies, however, so disgusted the pure tastes of the home-bred youth, that he soon learned to evade the intimacy which he could not enjoy, and met such friends as these only on the evenings devoted to their music. As to general society, he was cordially Fro7n Bwth to Manhood. 29 welcomed in all the families which sent pupils to his mother's school, and these families formed a circle inferior to none in the city, whether for high position or refinement and intelligence. It was about his fifteenth year that two of his worthiest friends, merchants, offered him a place in their counting-house, v/ith the idea of training him to business. His mother consented, though with great reluctance, being anxious that he should devote him- self to the Law : nor were his own desires by any means active in the direction of mercantile life. But the narrowness of his do- mestic circumstances, and the hope of soon doing something to relieve his mother of the burden of his support, induced him cheerfully to accept the offered place. A whole year's wasted weariness cured him. Jefferson's Embargo had put a stop to foreign commerce for a time ; and as his friends were in the foreign trade, their new employe found himself with httle or no- thing to do. What a year that must have been to one of such intense activities, already tasting the delights of vigorous exercise in so many difterent directions ! Long before the year was out, he was thoroughly satisfied that he could never be a merchant. A much more congenial sort of drudgery was soon thrown in his way. Wilson the ornithologist had begun the publication of his Birds of America ; but, in the infancy of the arts among us at that time, he was unable to find any one competent to color the splendid plates of that great work from Nature. My Father was at length induced to attempt it. The price paid was lucrative, to him : and his proficiency in the art of painting,' his delicacy and accuracy of both eye and hand in observing and imitating the hues and the forms of Nature, ensured him a degree of success Avhich delighted his employer, besides being, for a time, very agreeable to himself. Mr. Wilson always shot a fresh bird for his colorist, so that there should be no chance of the fading or changing of the brilliant tints of life. But constant repetition at length brought weariness, where the work had been begun with so much of zest and conscious self-improvement : and when other assistants had been sufficiently well trained, the task-work was willingly transferred to humbler hands. 1 In water-colors, he had, at that day, no superior in this country ; and his love for this art, as for music, continued unabated during his whole life. 30 Fi^oin Birth to Manhood. The first result of my Father's freedom from his counting-house experiment, was his joining a " Philological Society," — an associa- tion in which quite a number of young men encouraged and aided each other in literary pursuits, by written essays and oral discus- sions on various subjects. To a mind and temperament like his, nothing could well have been more interesting or improving ; and he devoted himself with the greatest zeal to the duties which this Society imposed. The question of his future profession was more or less a topic of frequent thought and conversation. His mother was still earnest that he should choose the Law, and his own prepossessions were very strong in that direction. An inci- dent which happened in the Philological Society one evening greatly strengthened this prepossession in his own mind, and produced a very strong conviction to the same effect among his youthful associates. He had been appointed to open an oral debate on some point or other, and made quite an elaborate and convincing speech, as seemed to all. His opponent, instead of replying, only apologized for his failure to sustain the negative on that question, pleading that an inflammation of the eyes, much to his regret, had rendered it entirely impossible to read up and prepare himself on a subject of which he had no previous know- ledge. The excuse was accepted as sufficient ; but the Chairman, unwilling to mutilate so seriously the exercises of the evening, called on the members generally, hoping that some one of them might feel able and willing to fill the gap. Silence, however, was the only reply ; and, after an awkward pause, the Chairman called on my Father to resume the discussion, hoping that a few words further from him might encourage the rest. He rose, therefore, and — taking the place of his opponent — argued the negative of the case himself, reviewing fluently all the points made in his former speech, and proving that they were all wrong ! This unusual specimen of strength and skill struck them all with surprise and delight, and loud was the applause that rang through the room when he sat down. The story soon spread far and wide among their many friends, and all agreed that one who could so readily and cleverly argue both sides of the same ques- tion, "must be a lawyer." It was not long after this, that the ever-increasing in- Frovi Birth to Alan hood.. 31 compatibility of temper led to the pei"m,anent separation of his parents. It was only incompatibility ; and, as in all such" cases, both Avere more or less to blame. Neither had any fault to find with the son who was equally duti- ful to both. Each — but especially his mother — regarded him with affection and growing pride. It was not for him, however, to take sides, or interfere between them ; but often, Avith a silent tear, he retired to the solitude of his own chamber to escape the coming strife of bitter words. At length they parted. The hus- band remained, as a book-keeper, in Philadelphia : the wife transferred her school to Frederick, in Maryland, where for several years she kept it up with diminishing success. My Father remained in Philadelphia, supporting himself by his own exertions, and pleased that those who were so dear to him should cease the mutual irritation of a daily intercourse which neither could en- joy. He hoped that absence would not only suffer this irritation to cease, but would in time revive the affection of their earlier years. In this he was unhappily disappointed. They never met on earth again. The grov/ing circle of my Father's friends was not confined to the leading American families in Philadelphia, There were— as we have seen — some French families to whom he was attracted by their music and painting ; there were Scotchmen, too — some literary men and some manufacturers — with whom he became quite intimate ; and later still, Spaniards and Germans enlarged the sphere of his observation and the variety of his personal attachments. The tone of all these was irreligious, infidel, and loose on many subjects of morality : and that he should have moved air^ong them, as he did, exposed to constant danger and temptation, and yet preserved from any gross or serious delin- quency, my Father in after years regarded gratefully as one of the wonders of God's Providence. It was in the society of his Scottish friends, however, that he found his greatest danger. They were men of strong minds, much cultivated in a certain way, shrewd and ingenious ; and as they were very partial to him, he soon found that the aggressiveness of their infidelity would be sure to affect him, if he did not make up his mind to a definite resistance. But so distant were the clergy from his sym- 32 From Birth to Manhood. pathies, that it never once occurred to him to approacn one of them, to ask the shghtest question on the subject. He rushed into this new investigation himself, without shrinking ; borrowed the books of the most noted infidels, Paine, Volney, Hume, Mirabeau, Voltaire, and Rousseau ; and read them carefully, at intervals, dur- ing two years,' until he felt himself fully acquainted with all their arguments against Christianity. But he was conscious that he had been reading only one side of a great question, and he was now resolved to know something of the other. He consulted a bookseller, not a clergyman, as to his choice of volumes, and procured without delay the work of Paley, the answer of Bishop Wa^tson to Paine, and Leslie's Short and Easy, Method with the Deists. The perusal of these, and especially the last, gave him his first clear and definite ideas upon the subject, convincing his intellect thoroughly of the truth of the Gospel. Thus armed and ready, it was not long before one of the most acute of his Scottish friends, — a young man some five years older than himself, the son of a wealthy manufacturer who had trained up his son in unbelief, — provoked an argument by calling the whole class of Christian ministers " a set of knaves and hypocrites, who gained an easy living by imposing a sys- tem of lies upon weak men, women, and children." He was at once met with a sturdy defence, and the two friends went into a protracted and — for men of their age and antecedents — a remark- ably thorough controversy, covering the whole ground of the then coarse and popular infidelity. And the result was, that the younger champion was not worsted upon a single point, from beginning to end. Meanwhile, though the inclination towards the Law was still dominant in my Father's desires, as it had been the constant object of his mother's ambition for him, his practical Scottish friends had succeeded in making more impression on him touch- ing his career in life, than they could in their attempts to unsettle his faith as a Christian. Their first line of argument was indeed a failure. When they denounced the whole work of the noble profession of the Law, as simply selUng the use of one's tongue 1 From his seventeenth to his nineteenth year. From Bi7'th to Mcnihood. -^-^ and brains to any purchaser who had money enough to pay the price — the furnishing of any amount of sophistry and hes needed for the service of any scoundrel : it was easy for my Father to refute them by enlarging upon that true ideal of the legal profes- sion, which is embodied in its standard formulas of admission and obhgation, and has led so many of the greatest human intel- lects to a rare height of usefulness in gaining and defending the liberties and rights of free men, as well as to the winning of that bright renown which deservedly rewards great services in shaping the history of great nations. They Avere more persuasive, how- ever, when they enlarged upon the degree to which the Bar was overcrowded ; the length of time that must elapse before he could be admitted to practice ; and the still longer time that it would probably take to acquire a sufficient amount of reputation and business to ensure a decent living. On the other hand, they described in flattering colors the ease and certainty with which money was to be made in manufactures; and urged that here would be his best employment, at least for a itw years. When he had made something to live on, they suggested, he could better afford to devote himself finally to the Law, if he should then still prefer it. These arguments at length convinced him that he ought not to permit his personal tastes and longings to prevent his acceptance of an opening which promised to be so speedily and certainly lucrative. The manufacture of iron, it was generally agreed among his practical friends, was the surest of all enterprises, at that time. This country was then almost wholly dependent upon Europe for every variety of iron-ware : while yet the growing uneasiness of our relations with England (which had produced the Embargo, and went on from bad to worse until it resulted in open war) had pro- duced a universal readiness to foster every attempt to naturalize the iron manufacture in America. With this great branch of national wants provided for at home, it would be easier to offer that armed resistance to " the insolence of England " which the national self-respect demanded. Every iron manufacturer, there- fore, had not only the confident expectation of making money, but might well look upon himself in the comfortable light of a public benefactor at the same time. 34 From Birth to AlanJiood. His course once decided, his friends offered him every oppor- tunity of preparation for this very different sphere of activity : and lie plunged into the work with a determination only the more energetic, because he was jealous over himself lest his natural preference for a far different line of life should lead him to slight his duty in his new career. The leading mechanical genius and inventor of that day, Evans, took my Father as an inmate of his family, that he might have the best opportunity for acquiring full knowledge and skill in the art of iron-making. It was, to his accurate eye and facile fingers, an easy task to draw all the ma- chinery he saw. Eni£7'son's Mechanics he studied thoroughly. In Mineralogy he made rapid progress. In Chemistry he was equally successful. But book-learning and theory were only the foundation for practical work. Rising each morning before day- light, he took part, with his soft hands, in the roughest of the work- men's toil, and persevered until he satisfied them that he had completely mastered every detail of the tasks that were given them to do. The first year of his service closed with high com- mendation from all his friends. A rich iron-master in New Jersey then sent him a friendly invitation to a residence for a while Avith him, where the process of smelting iron from the ore might be learned with the highest advantage. Here, too, books and labor divided his time, and the new friendships he made grew only stronger during every day of his sojourn. The year following was again passed in Philadelphia, at a good foundry. And there he came in contact with some Commissioners of rank and influence, from one of the South American States, sent hither in order to secure the estab- lishment of the iron manufacture on a large scale in their own country, under the support of the Government. The. headship of this Soutli American enterprise was offered to him ; and while he had it in contemplation, he devoted himself zealously to a mastery of the Spanish language, which his previous knowledge of Latin and French made easy work. But after six months the Commissioners had disappeared, and were heard of no more : some change of affairs at home having probably led to the quiet dropping of their scheme. At length the three years of preparation — years which he From Birth to Ala ?i hood. 35 would so gladly have spent in College — were ended. The age of twenty-one was fully reached. The country was already engaged in war with Great Britain,' If money were ever to be made by the manufacture of iron, it was to be done at once. Mr. Basse, a German merchant, whose foreign commerce was broken up by the war, resolved to invest his capital in the iron business, with a partner, Mr, Glaser, who took an equal share of the risk. They undertook to build and run a furnace at Bassenheim, near Harmony, about twenty-five miles north of Pittsburgh, and engaged my Father to superintend the operation, offering him a salary of $1,000 a year, besides a percentage on the profits, if any. The terms were liberal, and the work was cheerfully under- taken. He left Philadelphia for the scene of his new labors in January, 1813, and the furnace was built and went into operation. The total severance from all that was dearest to him, both intel- lectually and socially, was very trying, and he suffered occasion- ally from severe depression of spirits, mind and body being over- wearied, while yet he was conscious of no sufficient object for all this exertion. At such seasons he was a prey to a " miserable philosophy, which represents the world as a barren wilderness, and calls its business and its pleasures alike vanity and vexation of soul." These gloomy tempers sometimes held him for two days together ; sometimes only for an hour or two. He looked forward hopefully to the happiness of having his mother live with him ere long; and his hope was partially realized before he left Bassenheim, which was towards the close of the year 1814: for the two partners, -after more than a year's experiment, found that the expenses, in a business which neither of them understood, were much larger than they had counted on ; misunderstandings arose between them; and at length the firm was dissolved, the business wound up, and my Father was left free to seek employ- ment elsewhere. But during this first experiment near Harmony, he had not failed to make new friends. Chief among these was James O'Hara, then the wealthiest man in Pittsburgh. A native of Ire- land, he had made his entrance into Western Pennsylvania before 1 War was declared in June, 1812, , 2)6 Fi'om Birth to ManJiood. the existence of wagon-roads, his trade being carried on, in a small way, in bags borne by horses over bridle-paths, which were the only means of threading the otherwise mibroken wildernesses. Through many years of the humblest and most indomitable struggle, he had risen to the head of that youthful community ; and his acknowledged eminence was due to his high integrity, his great ability, and his warm and generous heart, far more than to his wealth. His wife was a noble helpmeet for such an husband. Her earlier difficulties were never forgotten. She could remem- ber, she said, with what pride she looked up to the seven-foot ceiling of the first house she could call her own, having for so long before lived in a cabin whose accommodations were percep- tibly lower. Both of these worthy people formed an attachment for my Father, which was cemented by innumerable acts of kind- ness, and not only remained unbroken during life, but has on both sides been continued down to the third generation. My Father could rarely speak of those dear old friends of his without visible emotion. When it was certain that the winding up of the partnership in the business near Harmony would leave the young iron-master free, Mr. O'Hara proposed a new partnership, with himself. He owned a large property in Ligonier Valley, about forty miles southeast of Pittsburgh, on which there was an old furnace, much decayed. He would supply the capital needed : and the whole management should be in his young partner's hands. The pro- posal was at once thankfully accepted, and the work was under- taken promptly, with cheerful hope. And it was in one of the long horseback rides which were so frequent about the time of the closing up at Bassenheim and the new opening in Ligonier Valley, when slowly toiling along the miry roads, that something happened, which compels us to interrupt our story here, that we may take up another thread, to be interwoven with it unbrokenly from this point even unto the end. Chapter II. LIGONIER- VALLEY. '"T^HE Miiller family — that branch of it, at least, which fiour- X ished in and near the Kingdom of Hanover — was almost wholly devoted to the German Lutheran ministry. From the time of Martin Luther himself, they had been Pastoren, or Siipei'- intendenien, or General- Superiniendeiiten , generation after genera- tion. Two thick volumes, bound in dark leather and closed with brazen clasps, have come down to us as heirlooms, and fair speci- mens of the learning and the piety that were then common in the family. One is by Dr. Martin Miiller, who began his ministry in 1575, published his first book in 1593, and wrote another of such merit that it reached five subsequent editions.' The other is by Professor Heinrich Miiller, who was born in 1631, was piously brought up by godly parents during the horrors of the Thirty Years' War, came to be Professor and Head of the Theological Faculty at Rostock, and dated in 16S8 the preface of that big book, of which our copy was printed in 1698. The bold antique type, the yellow paper, the coarse and queer but significant Avoodcuts, and the sombre copperplate likenesses of these old worthies in their black gowns and white ruffs, will never be for- gotten by any of us who made our first acquaintance with them in our childhood. Caspar Otto Miiller was the first of the name, in direct de- scent, who broke through this clerical tradition of the family: and his doing so was, in more senses than one, a mistake. His father, Heinrich Carl Wilhelm, was Pastor at Garlstorff, in the Jurisdiction of Blekede; and an elder brother, Heinrich August, was dutifully preparing to follow the ancestral calling. One morning, while Caspar Otto — yet a little boy of seven years old — ^ In 1601, 1627, 1642, 1697, and 1733. 38 Ligonier Valley. was quietly playing behind tlie door, he overheard his father very solemnly setting forth to that elder brother the tremendous responsibilities of the pastoral ofifice. He understood him to say, that " a minister would have to answer at the bar of God for every soul that might be lost under his preaching." The dread of the sacred office produced in the boy's mind by this misappre- hension was so great, that he instantly resolved to set himself against learning Latin and Greek, in order that he might never be qualified to take Orders. This determination he adhered to so firmly, that at fourteen years of age his father consented to apprentice him to a wholesale hardware merchant in Hamburg. Here he suffered keenly, being compelled to handle iron and steel without gloves during the cold winters, and without fire. After escaping from this bondage, — persuading his hard master to release him two years before the time, by the artifice of pre- tending to make love to his old and homely daughter, — he went to London, setting out from home with an ample wardrobe, of which every article of linen and cloth was spun and made up by his mother's own hands. The failure of his London employers, in the second year of his sojourn there, threw him out of place ; and skeptical tendencies had meanwhile so far undermined the thorough Christian training he had received at home, that in his depression he at one time meditated suicide. But the chamber- maid at his lodgings one day — by what men call mere accident — had taken down his long-neglected Bible, and, being hastily summoned elsewhere, left it open on the table, so that, on his return, with a lancet which he had just purchased in order to open his veins and bleed to death, he saw the well-known Book, and his eye caught these words on the open page : We know that all things tvork together for good to them that love God} This recalled him to his former self, with a pungency and power which were never forgotten, and marked his whole after-life. After seven years in London, favored with growing success, his father's death summoned him again to Germany. There, after a few years, he married Elizabeth Antoinette Trance " 1 Rom. viii. 28. 2 The great folio family Bible (in French) of Jean David Trance, ■who married Antoinette Marie Nicolas in 1755, is yet in our possession. Ligonicr Valley. 39 whose Huguenot family had fled from France m 1685 at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, their hiding-place under the deck of the little vessel being searched by the thrusting of the swords of the soldiers between the planks, before they were allowed to set sail for Amsterdam. Caspar Otto, after his mar- riage, settled as a merchant in Hamburg, where for twenty years he continued, sometimes in great prosperity, and sometimes meeting with severe reverses. Here all his children were born, — four daughters and one son growing up afterwards to maturity. Great was the delight of the children, in this quaint old city, when, after the long, cold winter, they heard the loud clappering bills of the great storks on the housetops, announcing the return of spring; and well they remembered the joy of feeding the swans that floated all summer long on the placid bosom of the Binnen Alster. Their country residence at Lockstadt was far more full of pleasure than the eight storeys of their tall town- house. There, in the copse of pine-trees under the window, the nightingales sang at night; and in the next cottage there lived a young lady who played the harp out-of-doors on the bright evenings, so that before long the third daughter, Melusina, must needs learn the harp also. Long walks were theirs in the summer months; and there was now and then a wedding at the village church, when flowers were strewed before the bride all the way from the west door to the altar rail. But Napoleon's occupation of Hamburg in 1807, brought ruin upon Caspar Otto, as upon so many thousands of others. His children saw, from the rear windows of his house, the 18,000 men who marched in under Marshal Davoust, a seemingly end- less column, to quarter themselves upon the peaceful citizens. The Bank of Hamburg was seized, — the jugular vein of all the commerce of the city. For seventeen months the fruitless struggle was made to recover from this disaster : but at length the eftbrt was abandoned, and, gathering up the remnants of his shattered* fortunes, the whole family, following the lead of some of their kindred, set sail from Toningen on the Eyder, for Baltimore, in the good ship Perseverance, Fisher, master, of Martha's Vineyard. This was the last ship from that port that 40 Ligonier Valley. arrived in the United States before the famous Embargo went into operation. The weariness of the six weeks' voyage was enHvened by the piano and the guitar, on the former of which the " Battle of Prague " resounded in all its novelty, and the latter accompanied Gnter Mond, and other songs, — for all the daughters were accom- plished singers. As they drew towards the American coast, the delicious perfume of the Spring air was perceived three days before they saw the land. On their way up Chesapeake Bay they were becalmed, and landed for a few hours at Cox's Cliff on the Virginia shore, where the flowers, the strawberries and fresli milk, and the cherries, and the kindness of the people, made them feel — after the calamities in Hamburg and their long impri- sonment on shipboard — as if the New World were verily a para- dise. They landed in Baltimore on the 4th of June, 1808, and were cordially received by relatives and friends. It was not long before a favorable establishment in business was made, and prosperity gilded the outlook of the future. The family formed one of a delightful circle in which high accomplishment, true refinement, and enthusiastic personal attachments, contributed to endear all to each and each to all.^ A country residence repro- duced the pleasures of Lockstadt at " Greeri Vale," four miles out of town on the Philadelphia road, with cottages of friends, — Loneys and Sterretts, — on either hand. But war once more blighted the new-born blessings of peace. The financial convulsions that characterized the opening of the War of 1 81 2 with Great Britain again prostrated the merchant: and while struggling to prevent total ruin, the British inva- sion brought the actual shock of the conflict to his very doors. ^ The strength of this feeling may be illustrated by a little anecdote. About fif- teen years ago, I was, for the first time, a guest under the hospitable roof of the late John G. Proud, Esq., of Baltimore, — then one of the few survivors of that happy circle. On entering the dining-room, and before taking our seats, he called my attention to the chairs about the table, which — as compared with the modern style — were rather an ordinary set of chairs. Those chairs, he said, had been purchased by him at the auc- tion sale of the furniture of the MUller family, at the time when they left Baltimore for the West, nearly fifty years before ; and they had been kept ever since, being seated and reseated, painted and varnished, time and again, but were still preserved and faithfully used as mementos of those happy days which would never come again. Ligonier Valley. 41 The daughters and their friends the Loneys were escorted to a distance of twelve miles, and lay all night on the ground in a log- cabin, hearing and feeling the explosion of every bomb fired at Fort McHenry.' The death of General Ross 2 alone prevented a battle in Green Vale itself. The house and grounds of the Sterretts were partially ravaged by the British troops, and the American forces were equally attentive to Green Vale, leaving nothing that could be destroyed. All this was in September, 1814: and it was resolved to quit Baltimore, and once more seek peace and a livelihood further in the West. A German of wealth and intelligence — the same Mr. Basse who gave name to Bassen- heim — had suggested that the war, which had proved a curse in destroying foreign commerce, might bring a blessing in fostering domestic production ; and sheep-raising in Western Pennsylvania was resolved on, Caspar Otto, and his nephew George Henry, had already been on a prospecting tour, during which they met Mr. Hopkins and were much pleased with him. Mrs. Schroeder — one of that dehghtful Baltimore circle — had also met him, at Bed- ford Springs, and had spoken of him warmly to Melusina, who Avas at this time the oldest unmarried daughter. On a visit to Philadelphia, Melusina herself had been a guest of one who was an admiring friend of Mr. Hopkins — though he was then acci- dentally out of town; and friends on both sides had been sure that they were meant for each other, from their extraordinary love of music. But they had never met. His youth had been spent in the best society of Philadelphia, and hers amid the brightest attractions of Baltimore : and both went heart-free into the West- ern wilderness. It was on the 28th of October, 18 14, that the Miiller family started from Baltimore for Harmony in Western Pennsylvania. All the little relics that had been preserved from the disasters of Hamburg and Baltimore, — a few pieces of family silver, and other mementos of happier times, especially including two pianos and Melusina's harp and guitar, — were packed in the big canvas- covered wagons which were then the sole reliance for such work, and they set out. The weather soon became rainy in the extreme, and the state of the roads among the mountains was frightful. 1 September 14, 1814. 2 September 12. 42 Ligoitier Valley. Three weeks this journey lasted. When they had passed about two-thirds of the way, and were on the descent of Laurel Hill, before reaching Youngstown, the wagons — which were up to the hub in clay mud — were abandoned by the passengers for a time, who preferred, in the transient sunshine, to try their fortune afoot. George Henry led the way, followed by his wife, then Melusina and the rest in Indian file, picking their steps along the side of the road, in and out of the angles of a Virginia rail fence, wherever they could find a chance of clean footing : when, some distance down the mountain road, a " solitary horseman " was seen approaching, equipped in Western fashion for just such roads and just such rainy weather. An oiled-cloth over his hat, saddlebags on either side, with an umbrella strapped on behind them, green baize leggings all splashed with mud, and his black mare Bess liberally covered with the same, completed the picture. George Henry, looking up, soon exclaimed : " It is Mr. Hopkins !" and so it was. As he drew near, his delight at meeting the pedestrian company may well be imagined; and when, with the ancient courtesy, he bared his head in honor of the ladies, his beautiful features and his white forehead shining in the sunlight, made an impression not easily forgotten by one who was, at the time, not altogether hidden behind the bushes that lined the roadside. Af- ter a few moments' conversation with the gentlemen concerning the closing up of his business at Bassenheim and his new engage- ment in Ligonier Valley, and a promise that he would soon return to Harmony and call on the ladies, he passed on up the moun- tain, and the weary journey was resumed for another week. It was only a few days after their arrival at Harmony that he kept his promise, and made his first call. He renewed it every day during the week of his sojourn there. Each subsequent return to that neighborhood strengthened the impression thus begun. The only son of the family, Edward, a youth of fifteen, went to Ligo- nier with him in the January following, to learn mineralogy; and in one of the letters written to Caspar Otto on this subject, Mr. Hopkins assured him that, " if he thought as much of his prayers as he did of that family in Harmony, he would be more of a saint than of an iron-master." And certainly there was something in the circumstances Ligonier Valley. 43 rather out of the common run. With as much of accomplishment and refinement as this country could then produce, familiar with the best society in two of her largest and wealthiest cities, these two young people first met on that dreary mountain road, and all their subsequent courtship was either in one of the three humble log-cabins occupied by the family (for Old Rapp' would not let them live in his village lest they should corrupt his people from his religion), or else in their rambles through the primeval forest that surrounded them. In those cabins, on the floor of earth, and while a curtain at one end was the partition which made it a bed- chamber: at the other end stood the piano, and in a neighboring corner the harp, while the guitar hung by its ribbon on its own peg : and piles of the best music of the day were at hand, among which were some of the choicest songs of Beethoven. Three lan- guages were at her command, — her native German, the French which a French governess in early youth had made a second ver- nacular, and the English which she loved best of all : while besides the music of these three nations, with which he was also familiar, many of his favorites among the plaintive Irish and Scottish songs were added, Moore's Irish Melodies being then the rage. And before long he began writing new songs for her, and she learned to sing them for him, with a voice of rare richness, sweetness, and power. That voice, with perfect truth of intonation, combined the sympathetic quality of tone, and the sudden crescendo and dimi- ?iitendo, which penetrates the heart before one is aware of it : — a voice that has retained all its sweetness, and nearly all its range and power, until far past the threescore years and ten. And so it was no wonder that while all the rest of the world was shut out from them, they soon became all the world to one another. Their betrothal, however, was not until the following May, 1815. It was one night during this first winter of the abode in Ligonier Valley — he called the name of his place " Hermitage Furnace," from his loneliness there — that he sat, quite by himself, reading a work of Hannah More ; when, as he often described it, a sudden beam of divine Truth shone into his inmost heart. Its force was pure and gentle ; its nature he could not pretend 1 A shrewd, long-headed old German fanatic, with some hundreds of unmarried fol- lowers of both sexes, whom he kept in abject but industrious slavery for many years. 44 Ligonier Valley. to define: but from that hour the love of Christ Crucified — so far as his knowledge extended — was the guiding and ruling principle in his soul. The habit of private prayer had never been interrupted : and its guardian influence up to that time, its work of unnoticed preparation, who can overrate ? But it was not until the hour of this great change that the full consciousness of deep repentance, sincere humility, and loving faith, wrought in him the maturity of Christian manhood : and it was so mark- ed, both in time and in degree, as to satisfy all who knew of it that he had " experienced a sudden and genuine conversion of heart," — to use the current language of that day. He at once began to do his best in furnishing some sj)iritual help to his workmen. They were many miles from the nearest minister of any denomination. He therefore held a service in his own room on Sundays, to which they were all invited to come freely. He used the prayers furnished by the Church in the Prayer-Book, and read the Bible to them, with portions of " Scott's Commentary," and such sermons as he could ob- tain, to which were added some simple exhortations of his own. And this was continued until the winding up of Hermit- age Furnace, producing no small amomit of visible benefit among the workmen. But it must not be supposed that he had as yet any definite Churchmanship. His notions at this time touch- ing the sacraments were very nearly those of the Quakers; for some time, subsequently, he inclined not a little towards Sweden- borgianism ; it was apparently a mere accident that decided his attaching himself to the Church rather than to the Presbyterians ; and after becoming a practical Churchman, it was some time before he obtained anything like a clear view of fundamental Church principles. Edward Miiller, during that winter of 1815, frequently wrote home, and gave to his sister Melusina full and glowing accounts of all that was doing among the workmen, and of the deep change in their employer which brought it about. And she was well prepared to sympathize fully, and to follow lovingly such a guide. Her training in the old Lutheran system had been very thorough; and for some years the high sacraraentarianism of that system was a preservative against the looser notions as yet Ligonier Valley. 45 held by her guide : but the practical energy of religion as the ruling principle of the whole life had not previously been felt ; nor was she the only member of her family who at this time learned the same great lesson of divine Love. Meanwhile, the prospects of financial success at Hermitage began to look less and less promising. The ore was of a poor quality, and dear at that. The charcoal had to be brought from a considerable distance. The market for the iron was at Pitts- burgh, fifty miles off, and the only mode of conveyance thither was by teaming over abomina.ble roads. The river Conemaugh, indeed, could be reached by only fifteen miles of teaming ; but it was too shallow for navigation, except during the brief Spring freshet, and even then, the delays from running aground and the danger of rapidly faUing water, more than compensated for the gain in other ways. Only the high prices during the war could offer any chance of profit : and the approach of peace was no blessing to the manufacturers of iron. In the love-letters written during the latter part of the year 1815,1 these gloomy prospects were plain- ly and honestly set forth, crowned by the possibihty of coming bankruptcy; and a release from the betrothal was offered, if the risk of impending poverty were thought too great. But what true woman ever dreamed of deserting, for such a reason, the man whom she loved ? The result was, a determination to cling only the more closely to one another. This straightforward honesty was shown also in another way. It was certainly not a very usual incident in courtship, that during his visits that winter, they never failed to spend a portion of their time together in reading the Bible, especially those portions of the New Testa- ment which set forth the respective authority and duty of hus- bands and wives, pledging themselves to one another to accept that inspired guide as the rule of their future life. Moreover, he was most frank in mentioning to her all his faults of character and temper, that she should have no discoveries to make when it was too late. His pride, he assured her, was the worst of tliem all, and the hardest for him to conquer. He was the more conscientious in doing this, because, as he said, from the few- ness of his visits and the little time they could spend together, 1 The treaty of Ghent was signed December 24, 1814. 46 Ligonier Valley. she could have no fair chance to find out his faults for her- self. It was clearly prudent to be looking out betimes for some other resource in case the fires of Hermitage Furnace should go out. Early in 1S16 an enforced attendance for several days upon court in Greensburgh, as a witness, revived strongly the unsuccessful iron-master's early predilections in favor of the Law. He seldom made up his mind to do any- thing, without at the same moment putting forth some effort to begin ; and as time was valuable, and a two years' preparation was required by law, he at once entered his name as a student Avith lawyer Foster of Greensburgh, who undertook to render him all requisite aid. This good friend also agreed to loan him books, and on his return to Hermitage he carried " Blackstone's Commentaries " tied across his saddle, fully determined to prose- cute his legal studies in such moments of leisure as he could gain from his other duties. About the same time, in order to economize expenses, he dismissed the manager (or head over- seer of the workmen), and undertook the duties of that post in addition to his own previous labors : but all was accomplished by rising so much earlier in the morning, and working the harder during the day. At length he went to Harmony to claim his bride. Caspar Otto had by this time moved into a brick house of very modest pretensions; and there, on the Sth of May, 1816, in the presence of the family and a few friends, they were married by Mr. Coul- son, a Lutheran minister. Among those present was Mr. John Loney, one of that happy Baltimore circle, who had ridden on horseback all the way from Baltimore to Harmony merely to see that marriage, and then returned in the same way : a proof of friendly devotion which it would be hard to match in these degenerate times of ours. The wedding was on a Wednesday ; and for three days the new-married couple remained with the parents and family of the bride. On Saturdaj'-, accompanied by their younger sister, Amelia — the faithful and loving companion of almost the whole of their married life — they started for Her- mitage. Arriving the first evening at Pittsburgh, they were the guests of their dear friends, the O'Haras; and on Sunday went Li 0 oilier Valley. 47 lo the Presbyterian meeting with them as a matter of course, Dr. Heron being then the leading preacher in all that region of country. On Monday they resumed their journey, the stage- coach taking them to Greensburgh, where they spent the night; and the next day carrying them to within two or three miles of Hermitage. This remaining distance they w-alked. It so chanced that a bridgeless brook which lay in their path w^as greatly swollen by rains. The bridegroom gallantly carried the bride across in his arms, and then her sister in like manner, neither of them wetting a shoe. The house in which they began their married life was a log- cabin of the better sort. The logs were well squared, and neatly clapboarded on the outside. There was a wide hall in the mid- dle running through, and a large room, twenty feet square, on either side, besides some smaller chambers. There was but one storey, with an unfinished attic above, which my Father used as his workroom ; and there he would sit for long hours drawing designs for iron castings, while his young wife would sit by him anci.read aloud. It may easily be imagined that this accession to the society of Hermitage Furnace enhanced in no small degree the interest of the Sunday services, sympathizing so deeply as the new-comers did in the more earnest religious life which brought forth such ,good fruits. But this was not the only unusual source of influence for good, obtained by my Father over those among whom he then lived. His mother's school, in Maryland, had not proved permanently successful ; and at his invitation she had taken up her residence with him while he was yet at Bassenheim. After Hermitage had been sufficiently prepared, she removed thither, having in the interim been, for some weeks, a guest in the Miiller family. She had given great attention to medicine, since the closing of her school ; and the activity of her mind found constant scope in this new sphere, especially since the nearest doctor lived twenty miles away. Her son, also, took joart in the practice which such a rural neighborhood was sure to aftbrd, and the books of Reese and Thomas — of high repute among the regular Faculty in those days — were his leading guides. He kept a stock of medicines 48 Ligonier Valley. on hand, and was ever ready, at the call of distress, to go any distance to relieve the sufferings of the poor country people ; while, among his workmen, he was not merely the employer, but also the only physician of both soul and body within their reach. The services he rendered in all these capacities gave him extraordinary influence among those uneducated people; and in some cases the manifestation of enthusiasm was irrepressible. One poor fellow, William Dobbin, who had been spiritually awakened under my Father's instructions, went to a neighboring camp-meeting, and came home in a state of no little excitement.' Everything that my Father had done for him was magnified and glorified in his sight. While the family were at breakfast, he came to the house, entered the room, walked round and round the table, teUing what great things my Father had done for him, and prophesying what blessings would come to the world from such a man, from his wife, and his children to the latest genera- tion ! It was with great difficulty he could be gotten out of the room and persuaded to go home. The same day, at dinner time, Dobbin's wife called and begged of my Father : — " Come, see my husband! he says that he will be sure to die at two o'clock this afternoon !" All went, of course, at once. They found Dobbin pacing to and fro before his house, singing Avith all his might, in an ecstasy of excitement, verse after verse of the_ Hymn, " Come, ye that love the Lord," ^ and expecting surely, at two o'clock, to " reach the heavenly fields " and " walk the golden streets," in person. With no small persuasion my Father got him into the house, and coaxed him into taking a reasonable quantity of laudanum, by the aid of which he soon dozed com- fortably, and thus passed the critical two o'clock without dying. There were many others who felt their obligations as deeply as William Dobbin, but were more quiet in the expression of their gratitude. The summer passed delightfully, — the evening rambles through the picturesque neighborhood making all amends for the toil of the day ; and the night work over Blackstone being sweetened ^ No. 149, in our American collection ; No. 462 in the New Hymnal. Ligojiicr Valley. 49 by the help of the young wife who held the book and tested the fidelity of his memory. An autumnal visit to Harmony was made on horseback, — a ride of seventy-five miles, being what few young ladies of our days would like to undertake. Madam Hopkins continued her medical practice among the country folk : but though ever ready to ride twenty miles to doctor a poor suf- ferer, of whom she knew nothing except that he was in pain, she had not yet learned, with all her brilliance, how to render- her society a pleasure to those whom she loved the most clearly, when living under the same roof with them. Thus the rural paradise had some drawbacks. Others were found in the steadily increas- ing losses incurred in carrying on the business. Ever since the peace, the importation of foreign iron had been bringing down the price of the domestic article, until the sum which it would command in market was only one-half what it cost to make it. Of course, further perseverance in the making of iron was not a virtue under such circumstances. In February, 1817, the experi- ment culminated in disaster, with a deficit of $20,000, the whole of which, for the time being, had to be borne by Mr. O'Hara, my Father having no capital. Nothing could have been nobler than Mr. O'Hara's conduct, under a state of things which would have goaded most men into recrimination, if it did not produce permanent alienation or ill-will. He was not unprepared for the result, indeed, for my Father had been perfectly frank with him from the first, and he knew well all the causes to which the great loss was due. But {q.\\ could have anticipated the open-handed cordiality, the undiminished confidence, the cheery and hearty encouragement, with which he faced the ugly balance-sheet, exonerating my Father from every shade of blame, and assuring him of the undiminished warmth of his friendship. My Father wrung his hand, with a heart too full of gratitude to be able to express more than a few broken words : but his sense of that man's generous kindness remained fresh so long as life lasted. It need hardly be added that the continued friendship thus pledged, was abundantly and repeatedly shown, in the most substantial manner. A business of that kind, however, could not be closed all at once, with justice to the interests of others; and existing contracts- 50 Ligonic}'' Valley. nnist be fulfilled. The winding up ran through several months. During this period, letters received by him show to hoAv great an extent his intellectual influence was beginning to be felt. He was looked to as the leader in a literary association just then forming in Pittsburgh, and epistles addressed to him both in prose and verse ^ witness to the admiration with which he was already looked up to by a growing circle of Western friends, who all anticipated for him a brilliant future. ^ Another of these letters, in a tone of enthusiastic friendship, is written from Leeds, in England, by Mr. Francis B. Ogden, who had heard even there, from various sources, glowing accounts of his friend's marriage, and envied his good fortune "" — not the only 1 A short poem, " Conversation Comparisofts^'' in the Appendix, p. 453, will serve as a specimen of my Father's style at about this time. - No less than four of these poetic epistles — of no slight merit in their way — were written by Aquila M. Bolton, who had evidently a passion for literary exercises and -societies not easily satiated. It was only the day after reading these that I took up the Rev. Dr. McVickar's " Early Years of Bishop Hobart," in which (pp. 15-ig) a detailed account is given of the successful impeachment of Aquila M. Bolton, the President of " the Ciceronian Society," under the leadership of young Hobart, both being boys at the time (July, 1790) in the University of Pennsylvania. Bolton made a stout and very able defence. Dr. McVickar says of him : — " Even from his enemies' showing, Bolton played well the hero's part, and seems to have had hard measure dealt to him. . . . Whether this individual be living or dead, the editor knows not, nor even whether he grew up to man's estate ; most probably not, since he certainly displayed, in the youthful contest, talent, that in life could not have been hid, and traits of character that must have made such talent not only respected, but feared." There is no doubt of the identity of the tv*'o. The unusual name, the age, the abilities, the tastes, all coincide. It was probably one of those cases in which a high order of literary or political ability is buried under a load of ordinary business, without sufficient clearness of sight or firmness of will to throw the burden off, and follow the stronger impulse, to a real success. ^ An extract from this letter of Mr. Ogden's (dated Feb. i, 1817) will be of some interest as beanng on the early history of ocean steam navigation. After alluding to a horseback ride through Ligonier Valley in 1815, he says : — " I was induced, contrary to the intention I had formed of returning to Pittsburgh, to enter upon an operation of some magnitude, — that of building a Steamboat, and of introducing by that means my improvement in the Engine. This business occupied my exclusive attention for a much longer period than I had anticipated, and was attended with many vexatious circum- stances, from the difficulty I found in getting my work done as I wished it, and from the good-natured predictions and condolences of my friends, who all for forty miles round turned engineers on the occasion, and lamented my folly in persisting in a scheme that must terminate in my disgrace and ruin: for, 'what could Frank Ogden know of a steam engine ? ' The very engineer I employed to execute the work, saw with astonishment that in despite of all these predictions, and of his own misgivings, the engine did go, and Frank Ogden did know something of the matter. In short, my boat was completed in May (1816), and was to be transported from New Jersey to Norfolk. As BO internal navigation had been yet established thus far, I s.g?an otitraged t\i& feelings af my friends by my temerity io venturing to sea in a steamboat. ' It was flying in Ligonier Valley, 51 letter of the sort, by any means. Another shows that he still kept up his mineralogical studies, and exchanged specimens with scien- tific friends at the East. Others — evidently from poor and illite- rate persons — in their crooked lines, pale ink, cramped handwrit- ing, and awkward ill-spelt phrases on mere scraps of paper, are the most touching of all, for they thank my Father for being, " under God," the means of their recovery from the shadow of death. The slow process of winding up affairs at Hermitage Furnace was not cornpleted until October, 181 7. Every liability of the concern was paid in full. There was great lamentation among the country people and the workmen, and not a few tears, at beholding the departure of those who had been such unselfish friends. And it was not without strong emotion on their own part that they left Ligonier Valley, where the first deep move- ments of their Christian course had been felt, the first work for Christ begun, and where the happiness of early married life had diffused a peculiar charm over every feature of the landscape. Neither of them ever saw the spot again. the face of the Almighty,' said one old Lady, ' to make such machines to go against wind and tide ; and no good could come out of it !' However, to sea I went ; had the good fortune to encounter a gale of wind (which completely established my belief that it is perfectly practicable to navigate the ocean with steam-vessels); and arrived safe at my port of destination. The performance of the engine equalled my most sanguine expectation, but I was not satisfied with the execution of the work, and . . . I am now getting an engine executed on my plan at this place, that I think I may safely say will be the most complete one ever built. In this belief I am authorized by the opinions of the principal engineers I have had an opponfcinity to consult, Mr. Watt particularly, whose decided approbation of my plan was extremely gratifying. We shall likewise make a great saving in the price, at least 33}^ ^er cent. ^—2^ matter of some moment in so heavy a concern." Mr. Ogden's ocean trip to Norfolk doubtless was an encour- agement to the Savannah, which, in the following year, 1S17, was the first steamship that ever crossed the Atlantic. Chapter III. THE LAWYER. ON their arrival in Pittsburgh, Mr. O'Hara — the head of the society of the place — insisted that for at least a week they should be his guests. My Father had returned from his experi- ment at iron manufacture, with a v/ife and child, ten thousand dollars of debt, and just the quarter of a dollar in his pocket : but his friends were warmer than ever. It was with reluctance that Mr. O'Hara would part with his guests at the end of the week ; and he insisted that, as a regular thing, they should dine with him (baby included) every Saturday. Meanwhile, previous corre- spondence had secured temporary employment, to keep the wolf from the door. There was a girls' school in Pittsburgh, of high character, conducted by Mrs. Brevost. A room in her house was assigned to my parents ; they were to board with the family, and my Father was to be the instructor in drawing and painting, while my Mother gave lessons on the Piano, harp and guitar, and in singing, thus lending attractions to the school such as it had never known before. Mr. O'Hara also insisted that my Father should dine daily with him, should have a seat in his office, and "keep his books " far him, — a very slight labor; but it secured the use of a quiet room for studying Law when not engaged in the school. My Father also taught a drawing class in the Academy, where one of his pupils was James R. Lambdin, who has won for him- self no small name as a portrait painter.' The painting of occa- sional miniatures added still further to the art-earnings of this transition period. But his main business was the study of Law. One of the two leading lawyers of Pittsburgh gladly recorded him as a ' Mr.Lambdin, in the year 1859, showed his kind feeling for his old drawing-master by painting a life-sized portrait of him, in his happiest style, and presenting it to the Vermont Episcopal Institute. The Lawyer. 53 student, loaned him books, and gave any hints that might be needed in pursuing his studies, — a labor which was kept up with the most intense devotion, until the remaining six months of his probation were ended, and he was admitted to the Bar, in April, 1818. He took the lawyer's oath, not as a mere matter of form, but with deep Christian seriousness, and in full faith that he should keep it until death. In accordance with usual custom, the Court assigned to him at once his first client, — a friendless thief, who vv^as too poor to pay a fee, and whose case was too clearly hopeless to be worth arguing. He was convicted : but my Father's effort in his behalf excited general commendation, and several of the lawyers present prophesied his rapid success : with which good news he went home to cheer his wife. The school engagement was now soon over, though private pupils were still taught until the end of the year. My Father rented a small brick building just behind the Court-house, with one room in it set apart for an Office, and went to housekeeping. It is proverbially hard work for a young lawyer to get into business. Flattering promises had been made in certain quarters \ but no- thing came of them. There were twenty-four practising attorneys in Pittsburgh when he was admitted. Yet within a few months he was ranked as about the fifth, and earned enough the first year for the entire support of himself and his growing family. The joyous sense of exhilaration with which he launched into the career which had for so many years been the first choice of his heart, was enhanced by the real repulsiveness of his former occupation : and, comparing the two, he wrote to his mother that he felt as if he " had escaped from gaol." But the success which he achieved was not owing to this alone : and the means by which he obtained so rapid a start; and by which he continued to rise so steadily thereafter, were somewhat peculiar, and are well worthy of special mention. I have alluded already to the deep seriousness with which he took the oath exacted on admission to the Bar. He had ever cherished a high ideal of the profession of the Law, as a character- istic outgrowth of Christianity, and originally supplied mainly from the ranks of the clergy. Its great object was, to facilitate the doing of justice between man and man, with the least prac- 54 ' ^■^^^ Lawyer. ticable loss of time, temper and money. And this higli ideal, which, in the eyes of many, would seem fatal to the prospect of getting into a run of business, worked in his favor to a charm, yet by no unworthy management of his own. Hardly had he " put up his shingle," when a tradesman brought him a bill for collection, due by a brother-lawyer. This was rather an unpromising beginning, and with a very natural esprit lie corps he declined to undertake it. Soon another and another came to him with similar proffers, and received similar answers : until at length he came to comprehend that nearly every lawyer and judge in the place was in debt to tradespeople, and that there was a sort of imderstanding among them that no one of them would take a case against another. When he saw that the mem- bers of a profession whose business was the doing of justice, were thus tacitly leagued together in the doing of injustice, his resolu- tion was instantly taken. He accepted every case that was brought to him, and sued and recovered from so many of his brethren of the Law, that the profession thenceforth understood that it was as necessary for them to pay their honest debts as for other men. This course won the confidence of the general public — which furnishes the clients. " Take your case to Mr. Hop- kins," one would say to another; "he is not in the league, and will see that justice is done you." Another rule with him was, always to exert himself to the utmost to induce parties to come to an agreement, without litiga- tion : — a poor way, one would think, to earn a living at the Law. ]5ut it was so manifestly disinterested, that — even where it did not succeed — it gained him the confidence and grateful esteem of both sides. No one whom he had thus saved from a lawsuit would be likely to place any other law business in any hands but his : and this result was equally sure to follow when his advice was disregarded, and the wilful parties went further and fared worse. Another rule was, never to undertake any cause unless clearly convinced, in his own mind, that it was the cause of justice. Where there was any doubt on this score from his client's own statement, he made him bring his witnesses : and unless sure that the case was right, and could be proved right, he ad- vised compromise rather than contest. Where this advice was The Lazvyer. 55 not taken, they had his permission to try another lawyer. "When- ever he carried a case into Court, it was one in which he had justice and full proofs on his side : and his contested cases were therefore almost invariably won. This uniform success of course increased his prestige, and he soon found that he gained much more in this way than he could have lost. Moreover, he took care that there should be no delay in his clients' business by his neglect. His preparation was always promptly and thoroughly attended to ; and money collected by him was paid over, punctually to the very hour, to the parties to whom it belonged. And this was a duty which he always discharged with real pleasure. His previous experience, too, was of great use to him. The knowledge of men and things, ma- chinery and manufactures, enabled him to explain many points to a jury more readily and clearly than most other lawyers. His first seriously contested case was one of pecuhar interest. A Scotchman had left a young wife in his native land, and in America had become — in some twenty years — very wealthy, settling at Pittsburgh ; but having all this while neglected utterly the wife he left behind him. She, after vain inquiries for years, and not knowing whether he was alive or dead, at length heard of his living in Pittsburgh ; and receiving no answer to her letters, she came over in person, obtaining the funds with the greatest difficulty. He denied all knowledge of her, treating her as if she were an impostor. As the best means of testing the case, he was sued for her board-bill. He at once engaged all the leading lawyers in Pittsburgh in his defence. My Father was alone on the other side. When the case came to trial, my Father had spoken but a few moments, when he suddenly experienced a total loss of voice, — he could not tell why, for such a thing never happened to him before or since. In a scarcely audible whisper he asked for a continuance of the case to the next term, which was granted : the formidable array of opposing counsel smiling with triumphant incredulity, as if satisfied that the apparent loss of voice was a mere pretence, to avoid certain defeat. About a fortnight after, in looking over his case once more, he was utterly confounded at discovering that one import- ant link in his chain of evidence — which could be supplied only 56 The Lazvyer. from Scotland — had been omitted, and that, if he had gone to trial at first, he would certainly have lost his case. The link was supplied before the next term, and the case — after a tough fight — was won, carrying a strong public sympathy for the lady, of course, to say nothing of her lawyer, to whom it was no slight triumph to overcome, single-handed, such a combination of tlie ablest talent at the Bar. Another case may be mentioned, as illustrating his ready tact in the management of a jur3^ A wealthy farmer living about fifty miles from Pittsburgh, and having a large family of grown-up children, had died intestate. Many years before his death, he had given to his oldest son a deed of the farm occupied and worked by him. The rest of the family denied the genuineness of this deed, and claimed that that farm was part of the estate to be equally divided among them all. My Father defended the integrity of the deed. When the case Ciime to trial, the several opposing counsel made long and very learned speeches, piling up a mountain of authorities to prove that the different color of the ink in different parts of that deed, and the dilferent size of the letters — some being much thicker and darker than others — were proofs that the whole was not written at one time, nor with the same pen and the same ink : in other words, that the deed had clearly been altered, or was a forgery outright. While the learned counsel were thus pouring out legal authorities by the hour, my Father, who noticed that the ink on the Clerk's desk was very pale, amused himself with a sheet of blank foolscap, slightly scratching the surface with his penknife in a few places. When it was his turn to reply, he alluded to this long argument, founded only on the ink and the Avriting; and sitting down he wrote a hne or two before their eyes, and then passed the sheet to the jury for their inspection. " It was plain," he said, " that the ink was pale in some places and dark in others, and the letters were thicker in some words than in others, and yet they had seen with their own eyes that it was all done at the same time, and with the same ink and the same pen." This disposed of the whole mountain of legal learning in a moment. He then reminded them that the deed was executed many years before, in .a rough part of the country, where stationery was scarce, and The Lawyer. 57 pens and ink not often used or kept in good order; and that these simple facts would satisfactorily account for the appearance of the deed : whereas, had it been a forgery, they might depend upon it, it would have been much iiiore nicely gotten up. He did not speak ten minutes : but he won the case. His natural fluency was a great advantage to him. The ex- temporary habit of thought was indeed so strong, that it fixed the order in which he arranged everything he had to say. During his whole life this peculiarity remained. He frequently attempted, by means of a written abstract or skeleton, to arrange beforehand the order in which the different parts of what he wished to say should be presented : but, when once on the floor, he never fouTid himself able to adhere to it. His thoughts always spontaneously took an order of their own in the warmth of speaking ; and he was generally satisfied, after all, that this spontaneous order was the best. But besides fluency, and the power of clear and vigor- ous thinking on his legs, he rapidly developed a rare mastery of sareasnij — one of the most telling weapons of legal warfare : and, pitted as he often was against a superiority in numbers and ex- perience, he made up for it by wielding fliis SAVord in such a style as to penetrate even the thickest professional epidermis. On one occasion the tricky practice of an opposing lawyer was shown up with such merciless irony, that the sufferer — having nothing else to say — forgot the respect due to the Court, and flung a law-book at the head of his tormentor. The degree of self-restraint needed in after-years in order to curb this dangerous power, and to learn the kindly and considerate courtesy of tone which so generally marks his controversial writings, can be imagined only by those who have had a similar battle to fight : but to the last, the power remained, and when there was a sufficient occasion for it, the flashes were as bright and strong after he had reached the age of threescore years and ten, as ever they were in the midst of his early contests in the Courts. In the first year of his residence in Pittsburgh, and before he was admitted to the Bar, he became a Freemason, and proceeded as far as the third degree. He ever cherished a sincere regard for the Order, and could not see that it was in any wise opposed to Christianity. By its recognition of the Bible, and by reason of 58 The Lawyer. the many remains, of the origuial working system, he regarded it as a worthy and estimable benevolent society, which impHedly required its members to become full and positive Christians, not to say Churchmen. And in after-years he often said that since the Romanists and some of the Protestant denominations had both run amuck at the Freemasons, the true policy of the Church was to meet them with open arms. So deeply was he interested in the Order, that he not only delivered an Address, which was printed, but he also began a Poem, entitled Freemasomy , — the longest and most elaborate work that he ever wrote in verse — and the object of it was to illustrate, in a tale of varied and striking incident, the beneficent workings of the Order, its close affiliation with' pure and true Religion, and its incompatibility with Roman- ism. The hold which this theme had obtained upon him may be inferred from the fact that this poem was completed many long years after he had ceased all practical connection with the Order. He could not accept, however, the current traditions of Freemasons as to the immense antiquity of their Order, being satisfied that its origin was due to the times of the Crusades rather than to King Solomon, to Christianity rather than to Judaism. Moreover, a growing antipathy to the secrecy which is so characteristic of Masonry, aided in bringing him to the resolution to drop it alto- gether. He paid his farewell visit to the Lodge some time before closing his career at the Bar ; but his kindly feeling continued strongly during his whole life. The intense energy with which my Father had devoted himself to his legal studies and his rapidly extending practice,^ taxed his physical powers to the utmost, and they soon showed signs of giving way under the pressure. Incessant brain-work all day long, and all night until one, two or even three o'clock in the morning, with out any open-air exercise worth mentioning, no human con- stitution can long endure. In the summer of 1819 his physician promised him a speedy consumption if he did not amend his habits. He had grown very thin, had had an obstinate cough for more 1 In August, 181S, he writes to his mother that his office is open at six o'clock in the morning,. and not closed till sunset ; that his conversation is all " law," and that even at night when he ought to be sleeping, he was " dreaming of law cases and arguments constantly." This was only four months after his admission to the Bar. The Lawyer. 59 than six weeks, and was so weak that he could not go up a single flight of stairs without stopping on the landing to take breath. More exercise, and less of nerve-stimulus and study, with a glass of wine and a cracker at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, were the prescription : and he obeyed. His father-in-law lent him a hard- trotting horse, on which he rode every morning before breakfast. He gave up night reading, and the drinking of coffee and tea. He wrote cheerily to his mother : " I do not believe I am in any danger : but, however, I act as if I did, and I expect to grow fat — by and by." This change in his habits — only gradually estab- lished,— at length produced a restoration of health ; and in March, 1820, he writes to his mother: "After innumerable failures, I think I have at last succeeded in keeping good hours. In bed at half-past ten, and up at daylight, has been my practice for the last month, instead of up till one, two, and sometimes three in the morning." But so jealous was he over himself in regard to the use of wine, that when he found that he missed his glass at eleven o'clock, he discontinued it at once, without waiting for a full reco- very. He preferred the risk of consumption, rather than run the danger of becoming a slave to wine. His business increased so rapidly, however, that before long the pressure again began to be threatening. In the second year of his practice, his income was so far improved that he moved into a rather better and more comfortable dwelling ; and in the third year he could afford to hire a still better house, and had fairly risen to be at the head of the Pittsburgh bar, entering a larger number of new suits on thq docket than any other lawyer, while scarcely one amongst them all was lost. From this time onward his superiority was so indisputable, that his legal brethren were at last beginning to talk of sending him to the Legislature or to Congress, in order to get him out of their way. His income rose to about $5000 a year, — a large sum for those days and in a city of the size and character of Pittsburgh : ^ and larger than he ever received during all his life after. At length, overwork again gave a timely alarm, and rather more emphatically than before. After some slight premonitory 1 The population was about 18,000 at the time when my Fatlier settled there. 6o The Laiuyc7\ warnings, one night during the Winter of 1822, just as he was preparing to retire, a strange sensation affected his head. It was indescribable ; but he felt that he should become insane if it con- tinued : and he at once ran, late as it was, to the house of his kind and skilful physician, who had for years been warning him in vain. An opiate gave relief for the night : but the doctor's advice was despised no longer. The next day my Father bought ten acres of land ' nearly two miles from town. It was on the crown of a gentle slope, on the north side of the Ohio River, com- manding an extensive view. The smoky city, with the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela, the sweep of the Ohio River from that point for several miles of its westward course, and the range of high hills that forms its southern bank from above the city to many miles below, were all visible. In the sides of this long hill the coal miners were constantly busy, the loaded cars running by gravity down the parallel tramways, and dumping their dusky loads into the river barges. Its high and level out- line was varied by only one break, just opposite, Avhere the min- gled white steam puffs and dark coal-smoke from the salt-works contributed another lively feature to the landscape. Towards the rear, the road from the city to Harmony and Zelienople was seen, at the distance of about a mile, to wind its way up a steep hill, disappearing at a nunnery near the top. On the land thus purchased, a two-storey frame house was begun in the Spring, just beside an oak wood of venerable trees - covering four acres, which were a part of the purchase. The oversight of the building was a healthful interruption to the drudgery of the Law. A junior partner, moreover, was taken, into the Office, — one who had for some time been a student under my Father, and an inmate of his family, and whose skilful energy soon lightened greatly the burden of legal labor. But while this decided change for the better was going on, other changes, of still more importance, were silently drawing nearer, day by day. When the singular kindness of the O'Haras is remembered, and 1 To which three adjoining lots of the same size were subsequently added. 2 The trunlis of the older oaks yet bore in their bark the tribe-mark of the Turtle Indians. The Lawyer. 6i the absence of all definite Church principle, as yet, in my Father's mind is kept in view, it will not seem strange that, on his first coming to live in Pittsburgh, my parents went on Sundays, as a matter of course, to Dr. Heron's Presbyterian meeting, with seats . in the O'Hara pew. And there they would probably have remained, had it not been for one of those trifling things which the world calls accidents. The Presbyterian society was then, by all odds, the dominant one in Pittsburgh, whether for numbers, wealth, or social and in- tellectual weight and power. There was a Church parish, indeed; but it was a small affair in comparison. Few and feeble were the Church folk in Western Pennsylvania, in those days ; and the worst step that a young man could take who wished to rise in the world as a lawyer, was, to quit the Presbyterians and "join the Episcopals." The Rev. Abraham Carter was then the Rector of Trinity Church, — a warm-hearted man, of good abilities, with a young and lovely wife : and an acquaintance with them soon ripened into something stronger. One day Mr. Carter told the young lawyer that he had succeeded in purchasing an organ for his Church, but had thus far sought in vain for an organist. He knew my Father's musical ability, and begged it of bim, as a personal favor, to play the organ for them until some regular organist could be procured. His services would be gratuitous, of course, as the parish was thus far too poor to offer a salary to anybody but the clergyman — and hardly able to pay that. This request came to my Father simply as a religious man, not as a Churchman. He thought of all the time and labor that he had thus far, during his life, bestowed on acquiring musical skill, and in using it for his own enjoyment or the social pleasure of others : while as yet he had never, in any one thing, consecrated it to the service of his Master. This single thought decided him to under- take the task, which he did at once. He left his wife free to remain with her friends, or to come with him, as she preferred. At first she thought she would remain with her friends, who had been so kind, and whom it was certainly hard to leave. But the spending of one Sunday apart from her husband was enough. The second Sunday she was once more by his side, and her voice was as great a gain to the Church choir as his playing. Thence- 62 The Lawyer. forward, gradually and steadily, the Church system did its Avork ; and v/ithin three months they knelt together before the Altar as communicants, — not being first confirmed, however, for in those days no Bishop had ever held Confirmation in AVestern Pennsyl- vania, and Bishop AVhite's primary visit was yet eight years distant. A sermon preached by Mr. Carter on the testimony borne by God Himself of Abraham : " I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord," ^ soon induced my Father to begin family prayer in his household, never afterwards to be discontinued. Of all tlie lawyers at that time in Pittsburgh, he was the only one Avho " made a profession of religion," as the phrase was : and nearly all the rest — except some of the younger attorneys — were in the habit of taking it for granted that this profession of religion was only a politic piece of hypocrisy, with a view to a lucrative busi- ness among pious people. Could they have seen what was then the secret course of his daily life, they would not have been so uncharitable in their judgment. On the 2d of March, 1820, in reply to earnest inquiries from his mother, he writes : — " My exercise before breakfast is a little walk, and two pages of the Greek Testament, with half a dozen of the English Bible, which I am now perusing consecutively for the fourth time since I began to practise law. My calculation is, to read the Bible twice through from beginning to end, every year, and the Greek Testa- ment as often, during the rest of my life.^ I have no amusements, commonly so-called : — hardly ever leave home, but to Court, and on arbitrations, when business renders it indispensable : trying, with the blessing of God, to lead what many might consider a very dull life, but Avhat I feel to be one of — not liappiness, nor wisdom, nor virtue, — but perhaps the nearest approach to them within my weak and defective ability." And this was the mea- sure of his daily devotion to the oracles of God at a time when he was just recovering from the consequences of severe over- ^ Gen. xviii. 19. 2 The Bishop of Connecticut, in a note to the Address delivered by him at my Father's funeral, says truly : " The Bishop of Vermont had read the Bible through, in English, more than fifty times ; and when he was at home, read every day some part of it in the original tongues." The Lawyei\ ^t^ work, so that he would not have lacked for a good excuse to suspend or abridge his Biblical reading. But he preferred to change everything else sooner than that. It was not many months before the Rev. Mr. Carter resigned and removed to Trenton in New Jersey. A long and painful vacancy followed, varied by fruitless efforts to procure the services of a new rector. Now one was obtained for a time, and now another ; but of such moderate abiHties that little growth could be expected under their leadership. One of them experienced great difficulty in the preparation of his sermons, and made no secret of it. He lived in a house the rear of which looked upon the rear of that occupied by the Rev. Mr. McElroy,' then a young Presbyterian minister of leading ability and a kind heart : and the gardens between them were narrow. Each had his study in the rear of the house. The story runs, that once upon a time, in the summer, our rector had found himself utterly unable during the week to write the dreaded sermon : and on Saturday, at about noon, despairing of success, bent down his head over his crossed arms upon his study-table, and wept audibly from sheer helpless- ness and mortification. The windows were all open : and the kind-hearted Presbyterian dominie, seeing his predicament and pitying him sincerely, called out loud enough to be heard across both gardens : " Don't cry, brother ; I'll lend you a sermon !" It was not strange that, during the weariness of such a rectorship, my Father should often wonder, that the service of the world never called in vain for the highest order of abilities, while such an one as this was the sole pillar of the Church throughout all Western Pennsylvania ! Again and again the desire to devote himself to the work was felt : but was put aside by pleading the wants of a growing family and the claims of creditors— pleas which have often succeeded, in other cases, in drowning the still, small voice that called to the harder life, the higher duty. Then, again, he found the enjoyment of the noble strife of the Law to be more and more marred by the constant contact with that mass of falsehood, meanness, fraud and crime, ^ Long known as the ;iev. Dr. McElroy, of Xew York City. 64 The Lawyer. which provides the work for so many lawyers : and the hunger for a purer element wherein to earn his daily bread, was ever growing stronger. His interest in parish affairs, meanwhile, was steadily increasing, and his attachment to the Church was now much more than mere accident or preference. He was elected one of the Vestry in 1S22 and 1823, was generally present at the meetings, and by no means a- silent or uninfluential member. In the Spring of 1822, while busy furnishing his new house and preparing to occupy it, an incident occurred which was well adapted to deepen all his more reHgious feelings and convictions. His only brother-in-law, Edward Miiller, who was in many ways specially endeared to him, was now an uncommonly attractive young man, and expecting within a week to be married to one of the choicest young ladies of Pittsburgh : when, in driving to attend the wedding of a friend, he was thrown out of his sulky, and broke his leg upon the only stone within sight. The place was on the banks of the Monongahela, twelve miles from the city ; long delays occurred in procuring medical attendance, which was of a very unsatisfactory character when obtained : in short, mortification set in, and the young man died on the 23d of May, 1822, — the very day when he was to have been married. Aly Father was with him, brokd to him the reality of his danger, and administered to him the only religious consolations which soothed his last hours. But in the grief Avhich thus suddenly darkened a whole circle of friendships at the moment of brightest earthly anticipation, he saw a fresh proof of the vanity of laboring for anything except that which shall last throughout eternity. He even went so far as to write to the Standing Committee of the Diocese to ascertain whether he could be admitted as a Candidate for Holy Orders provisionally, — not yet seeing his wa}^ clear to the abandonment of his _profession, and having some idea of trying to combine the two callings for a time.' But in August, they 1 This idea seems to have presented itself to him as far back as in the latter part of the year iSiS, shortly after Mr. Carter's leaving, and was the subject of some correspond- ence between them. Mr. Carter wrote him, very sensiblj^, from Trenton (January 4, 1819) against any such union of two professions : " I have tried two professions the year past," said he, "teaching and preaching ; and have found it absolutely impossible to do my duty properly in either." A ver}' common experience on the part of those who have made the experiment. The Lazvye7'. 65 notified him that they could not feel at liberty to recommend him as a Candidate, until his own mind was first thoroughly made up on the subject. It was wirh these feelings thus strengthening within him that he furnished and occupied his new house, during the summer of 1822. The current of his thoughts was one day casually men- tioned in conversation, to a fellow-vestryman of the parish: and his words were remembered. Meanwhile his health- was reestab- lished, and the arrangement of the garden and grounds of his new purchase gave him abundant work for all the leisure which his legal partnership allowed. The Rev. William Thompson' had now been the rector of the Parish from September, 1821, and several efforts Avere made towards fresh life and growth, but with small success. Even so late as December, 1822, the debt for the organ procured under Mr. Carter was not yet paid. Success seemed impossible, in any effort. At length, in July, 1S23, Mr. Thompson's resignation was sent in, and on my Father's motion was accepted, to take effect at any time he pleased during the ensuing six months. Some little misunderstanding between him and the Vestry led to a total severance towards the end of August, during my Father's absence attending court in another county. And now an unusual event formed the turning-point in my Father's life. The Vestryman to whom he had spoken, the year before, touching his thoughts of the Ministry, had resolved, with- out lisping a syllable to him on the subject, to act upon the information which he thus possessed ; and to act at once, before my Father could return to town to prevent it. On the day after Mr. Thompson received his conge\ the Vestrv " resolved " that a parish meeting should be convened " on busi- ness of importance " on the following Tuesday evening, at the Church, notice being twice given publicly on the intervening Sun- day; and that, at the said meeting, "every Episcopalian who shall have for the last year, in any manner and degree, been a contributor towards the support of the Church and Minister, be 1 On the minute-book of the Vestry he appears as the iirst Clergyman ever present at a Vestry meeting of that parish. One of the " By-Laws" adopted May i, 1819, excluded the rector from a seat in that body ! 66 The Lawyer. entitled to a vote." The meeting was very fully attended. The Vestryman then brought forward his plan, which was, to elect Mr. Hopkins as their future Rector, if he would consent to give up the law, and proceed to ordination as soon as practicable, serving the parish as lay-reader, moreover, until duly ordained. The idea of electing as Rector a man who was not yet a Candi- date for Orders drew out some opposition : but still greater was the reluctance to ask him to resign an income of some $5000 a year, with nothing laid up, and take instead of it a salary of $800 a year, on which to support and bring up a growing family. The discussion was long and animated. But the Vestryman — though acknowledging that he had no authority at all from my Father to say what he ^vould do — yet so fully and earnestly enlarged upon his knowledge of those secret thoughts and longings, and the steadily increasing ardor of my Father's zeal in all Church matters, and the imm.ense advantages to the Church in case he should accept the call thus strangely but strikingly made, that all opposition was at length overborne, and the singular call was wianimously given. ^ On returning from the County court, my Father was startled with a strange surprise when the action of this meeting was form- ally laid before him. No prospects could be brighter than his in the profession of the Law. Politics, too, began to have some at- tractions, his principles then being those of the old Federal party. The income of the rectorship would not be enough to maintain his family ; besides which, he contributed $300 a year towards his mother's support : and especially, he was yet heavily in debt to the estate of his friend O'Hara, for the advances made in set- tling the losses of their iron business. It seemed almost madness, in the face of these circumstances, to make the change proposed. And yet all these obstacles, one by one, were overcome. His wife — who, with her growing family, risked the most — was not only willing, but ardently desirous, to make the sacrifice, and urged him to accept. His last doubt was as to his large debt to the O'Hara estate : and he laid the case fully before the heirs, submitting it entirely to their decision whether he should or 1 The Vestry minutes of Trinity' parish have no record of my Father's Call. They only record the call for the parish meeting. It was this last that gave the call ; and, pot being a Vestry meeting, its action is not recorded in the Vestry book. The Lawyer. 6^ should no't continue at the law until their claim were fully paid. But the noble spirit of O'Hara had descended with his blood : and they unanimously declared that they would put no pecuniary cUim in the way of his obedience to so manifest a call from God. His mind was now made up at once. The requisite formal- ities were complied with as speedily as possible. On the 6th of September he wrote to Bishop White, making his application in canonical form : and on the 2d of October he read to the Vestry the Bishop's reply, informing him of his admission as a Candidate, and hcensing him to act as lay-reader until his ordination. His services in this capacity began the next Sunday, October 5th. At that same meeting of the Vestry, he Avas appointed one of a committee of three " to inquire into the expediency of making the necessary arrangements for the building of a new Church." The fresh leaven thus began to work at once. The seat at the organ, which he had occupied for five years, was now taken by his wife, though with much fear and trembling. He wrote out for her the harmonies of the tunes, and composed all the voluntaries and interludes needed ; and for four years, with more or less of aid from a young friend,' she continued to serve at one end of the Church while her husband was serving at the other. His law business he sold out to the Hon. Henry Baldwin (who was returning from Congress to resume his preeminence at the Pittsburgh bar) and Mr. Fetterman, who had now for some time been his own junior partner. On the 8th of November he pleaded his last cause, and won it. And on the third Sunday in Advent, December 14, he was ordained Deacon by Bishop White, in Trinity Church, Philadelphia, preaching his first sermon the same afternoon in S. Peter's Church. On the Fourth Sunday in Advent, December 21, he entered upon his duties in Trinity Church, Pittsburgh, On Wednesday, the 12th of May following, before the Diocesan Convention then assembled in S. John's Church, Norristown, he was ordained Priest. An election to the Rectorship before he was a Candidate for 1 Mr. William Staunton, now for many years known as the Rev. William Staun- ton, D.D., who is more fully master of ths science of music than aay other of our American clergy. 68 The Lazuycr. Orders at all, a Candidacy of a little over two months before being ordained Deacon, and a Diaconate of scarce five months before being ordained Priest, form a combination, it is believed, with- out a parallel in our day and country. There were several rea- sons for this unusual haste. My Father's maturity of age and character was one element. Another was, the unusual amount of study which he had been able to give already to theology ; for, besides his extraordinary industry in the study of the Scriptures, he had for more than a year been pursuing a steady course of theological reading, comprising the then standard works ; and in compliance with what he supposed to be the requirements of the Canon, he brought with him, on asking for the Diaconate, a theo- logical essay written in the Latin tongue. The high success in the Law, which he was leaving at so remarkable a pecuniary sacri- fice, was an equitable claim against unnecessary delay before being permitted to begin the new work to which he was called. The singular confidence in him manifested by his election to the rectorship under such unprecedented circumstances, w^as felt to demand a prompt and emphatic response on the part of the Ecclesiastical Authority. And a due regard for the interests of the Church in the Western half of the Keystone State, — a vast region in which Trinity Church, Pittsburgh, was the only live parish and my Father was to be the only parish priest, — crowned the combination of reasons with an irresistible persuasiveness. But before Ave can properly understand his work there, we must glance for a few moments at the state of things previously. Chapter IV. FIRST-FRUITS OF THE PRIESTHOOD. IN the year 1801, a meeting was held in Washington, Penn- sylvania, at which a few clergymen of the Church in the western parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia discussed the pros- pects of Chuich growth west of the Allegheny Mountains. They resolved that the Rev. Joseph Doddridge, M.D., should cor- respond with Bishop White, requesting that, through him, the General Convention might permit that western country to be organized into a separate Diocese. But after waiting eight- een months for answer, he learned that nothing could be done. " Then," says Dr. Doddridge, •' I lost all hope of ever witness- ing any prosperity in our beloved Church in this part of America. Everything connected with it fell into a state of languor. The vestries were not reelected, and our young people joined other societies. Could I prevent them, when I indulged no hope of a succession in the ministry ? . . . I enter- tained no hope that even my own remains, after death, would be committed to the dust with the funeral services of my own Church." ^ He tells us that large portions of Western Pennsylvania and Virginia, as well as of Eastern Kentucky and Ohio, were settled by Church people, originally from Maryland, Carolina, or Virginia : and that they had had Methodist Bishops and Roman Bishops ; but that they had never seen a Bishop of their own Church. In a letter written to Bishop Hobart in 1S16, he says r — " Had we imitated at an early period the example of other Christian communities, employed the same means for col- lecting our people into societies and building Churches with the same zeal, we should by this time have had four or five Bishops in this country (/.w-Church expressed it, it was an acknowledgment that Baptismal Regeneration was " only a titular regeneration" : and he threw in the further inducement of permitting the minister, at discretion, to take any other psalm or psalms instead of the Psalter for the day, and to cut down the Lessons to fifteen verses; while, on other than Sundays and Holydays, he might ignore the Calendar altogether, and choose what Lessons he pleased. Those who then opposed this movement were but dimly con- scious of the greatness of the evil which they were preventing: for the proposed setting forth of a " titular " Regeneration would have been a calamity greater than any other which the American Church has yet had to deplore in connection with the alterations made in her standards : though it was that which least impressed itself upon the minds of Churchmen in those days. Bishop Hobart's overwhelming influence carried nearly the whole High-Church party, as a matter of course. The Low-Church party, by instinct, went for anything that would shorten the Liturgy, Those of j^ First- Frints of the Priesthood. them who objected, based their reluctance mainly upon the question of Baptismal Regeneration, being unwilling to concede Baptismal Regeneration in any shape, and preferring "the hypothetical theory," Each side seems, on this point, to have been judicially blinded : the High-Church in offering a " titular " Reireneration, and the Low-Church in refusing to accept it at once. But it was one of those crises which Providence overrules in a manner which a succeeding generation can appreciate much more correctly than the actors through whose exertions the issue is decided at the time. The unusual combination at first threatened to carry all before it. The House of Bishops adopted Bishop Hobart's pro- posal unanimously, thus sending it down to the Lower House with a prestige likely to be similarly successful there. Speaker after speaker rose, of different parties, but each one of them earnestly advocated the adoption of the proposed changes. All opposition seemed to be cowed. ]\Iy Father was a new member, and unwilling to speak : but his spirit began to^ boil within him. He was the guest of Mr. Meredith, one of the Lay Deputies from Pennsylvania, whom he found to be equally opposed to these sweeping innovations. Their conversation so stimulated them, that it was agreed, that Mr. Meredith^ — being the older member — should move the indefinite postponement, with a speech ; and that my Father should second the motion. The steady stream of approval from both sides of the House, however, so far over- came Mr. Meredith's courage, that when he at length rose to make the motion, his promised speech was by no means the im- portant effort that the crisis demanded; and my Father, in second- ing him, found that the whole brunt of the opposition — if it were to amount to anything — was left upon his own shoulders. He at once rose to the full measure of the occasion, thus early in his career giving a significant proof of that quality which, perhaps, was the most prominent feature in his life-labor for the Church: — the power to stand forth alone, with perfectly con- scientious convictions of truth, to battle with all his might against overwhelming majorities ; and that, too, with a voice so firm and 1 He had served in every General Convention from 1817, First- Fruits of the Priesthood. 79 clear and fearless that it could not oe utterly lost even amid the mad roar of popular passion excited to the utmost. On this first occasion there was not the slightest sign of hesitation. The unanimity of the Upper House, the strange yet powerful com- bination in the Lower, his own singular regard and esteem for Bishop Hobart as well as his reverence for Bishop White, all together could hot weaken a particle the force of his attack, or dull the edge of merciless ridicule with which he dissected the arguments used in favor, of the change proposed. It was a curious circumstance that Vermont (his future Diocese) had furnished some of the most pointed and painful of the experiences which demanded the change. One clerical deputy had plaintively urged, that if the brethren were com- pelled to officiate, as had often been his luck in Vermont, in a church where several panes of glass had been knocked out of the windows, and where the wood in the stoves was often so green that the fires would not burn, while nevertheless the ther- mometer was 20° or 30° below zero, they would at once become satisfied that it was desirable to shorten the Liturgy. Such a style of advocacy aftbrded too tempting an opportunity to be let slip. " These reasons for altering the Prayer-Book," my Father said, " showed what wonders could be wrought by the exercise of a vivid imagination. My brother from the far North," said he. " tells us that in Vermont there are sometimes panes of glass missing from the windows in very cold weather. Now a plain, practical, common-sense man, like myself, would say that the shortest and best way to remedy this inconvenience, would be to get some panes of glass and a little putty, and stop up the holes in the usual way. But ' No !' says my imaginative brother : ' Shorten the Liturgy !' Will nothing answer in Vermont when the thermo- meter is 30° below zero, but to paste the broken church windows over with leaves torn from the Prayer-Book ? Then, again, my brother tells us that sometimes the wood in the church stoves on cold Sundays is green and will not burn. A plain practical man, like myself, would say that the best cure for this would be to get some seasoned wood and dry kindlings, and thus make a fire that would burn. But ' No !' says my imaginative brother from Ver- mont : ' Shorten the Liturgy !' Will that cure the evil complained 8o First- Fruits of the PricstJiood. of? If my brother insists on taking enough out of the Prayer- Book to make the -green wood burn merrily in mid-winter, pray how much of our incomparable Liturgy would be left ?" With this keen raillery he analyzed all the arguments, and arrested the attention of every one present, to an unusual degree. Even the Bishops left their House and stole quietly into the church ' to listen to the maiden speech of the new member : and when he had finished. Bishop Hobart rushed down to rebuke him, highly excited with indignation at such daring opposition to the pet project of the unanimous House of Bishops. " Sir," said he Avith great warmth to my Father, "you have this day done the Bishops more harm than you will ever live to do them good!" My Father answered, quietly and kindly, that in fighting for the Prayer-Book he was in reality fighting for the Bishops. The dashing brilliance which thus headed the opposi- tion to the whole of the Upper House and an overwhelming combination of the Lower, gave courage to others ; and the project was fought at every step of the way. Of course the combination triumphed, for the time being: but it was felt that the weight of the argument was heavily on the other side. The Constitution wisely requires that a change of the Prayer- Book shall not take effect until it has been approved by two successive General Conventions, being sent down meanwhile to each Diocesan Convention^ for further consideration by the sober second thoughts of the Clergy and Laity. When this process began, there soon became apparent a growing divergency among those who had been so harmonious in favor of the changes. Bishop Hobart struggled while there was any chance, and secured a strong approval from the Rev. William Meade of Virginia,^ who was so sure that the service ought to be shortened, as to say 1 S. Peter's, Philadelphia. 2 In 1827 (May 25th, in a letter to Bishop Ravenscroft) Bishop Hobart already- feared the turning of the tide against him : — " The Constitution requires that proposed alterations in the Liturgy should be laid before the several State Conventions, but does not require that they should be acted upon. Would it not be well for the State Conventions to express no opinion, but leave the result to the next General Conven- tion?" 3 Feb. 22, 1827. See correspondence in Bishop Johns's Memoir of BisJiop Meade^ Dp. 158 et seqq. First- Fj'uits of tJie Priesthood. 8i that, if it be not done, "a heavy guilt will rest upon us. Nothing can prevent it," he added, " but pride, obstinacy, prejudice, and uncharitableness." ^ He was not quite so clear as to the altera- tions touching Regeneration, and would have preferred an alter- native prayer in that Baptismal Office " which we must now use," he said, " but which I never do without pain, because, its plain literal meaning contradicts my belief." This was written in 1827 ; yet Mr. Meade would probably have spared some of his hard words on the subject, could he have looked but two years ahead ; for in 1S29, the same Convention of Virginia which almost unani- mously elected him Assistant Bishop,- voted against the proposed changes, in response to an earnest appeal from Bishop Moore.* Other Dioceses took a similar course. The Church papers were filled with unfriendly criticisms. And the minority of 1826 had so clearly become the irresistible majority in 1829, that on motion of Bishop Ho Bishop Hobart. 3 It was only afl«r the clerical vote was known to be a tie, that the Rev. Dr. Bedell moved the admission of the Rev. Mr. Ward— a colored clergyman, whose vote he was sure of; and that vote would have carried the day: but public opinion compelled the summary defeat of the proposal. And so totally was the effort destitute of any consci- entious zeal for the advancement of the colored brethren, that it was Dr. Bedell himself who moved that all mention of the attempt to admit Mr. Ward be expunged ixoxa. the Journal.— Sec Candid Address^ by Plain Truth. 92 The Contested Episcopal Election. so long as my faculties shall be continued to me, my cares and my counsels shall not be wanting in any matter that may concern the integrity, the peace, and the prosperity of the Church ; and especially, by bearing my protest against whatever may be an inroad on her system in doctrine, or in discipline, or in ecclesi- astical Constitution and government." And in these words he considered himself "as addressing not only you, but the mem- bers of the Church in the Diocese, when both myself and all you my juniors shall be laid in the dust," The High-Church party — thus far sleepily behindhand again — now found that it was life or death with them to do their best. During the Convention, the Low-Church had held repeated caucuses at the lecture-room of S. Andrew's church, no one being admitted unless pledged tosecresy. The High-Church held two meetings only, which were open, and gentlemen of both parties were present. Before the adjournment, the Low-Church ap- pointed a Committee to sit en permanence until the next Conven- tion : and the day after the adjournment the High- Church followed their example/ A " confidential " circular " was sent round by the Low-Church Committee: a " Private Letter" was copied out and forwarded by the High-Church Committee. iThe Rev. Mr. Kemper (Nov. 3, 1826) writes to Bishop Hobart: — "There is no ground for the rumor of conciliation. The Convention terminated on Friday night. On Saturday afternoon twenty-six of us met — not a whisper was breathed upon that subject. . . . We are indeed in a very sad state, but we do not despair. The excitement . was prodigious, and we are not yet, I presume, capable of judging deliberately. For my own part, I am satisfied that Dr. Wilson must be relinquished, but depend upon it there will be no compromise of principle." Speaking of the Rev. Mr. Allen, he says :— " He, I greatly fear, is a deep intriguer, and is considered by us all as the author of all our troubles, and as somewhat deficient in the organ of conscientiousness." He adds concerning the beloved Bishop White : — "• Half of our difficulties, even in the last Convention, we are compelled to place to the want of decision on the part of our venerable Bishop." This is the only confession of the fact which I have met in all the published or unpublished documents of those times : so great was the delicate reticence of the friends of Bishop M'hite in regard to this his amiable but troublesome weakness. - This was kept close for some time. It was not till the i6th of March, 1S27, that Bishop Kemp wrote to Bishop Hobart : — " The Confidential Circular lately issued, or rather lately discovered, in the Diocese of Pennsylvania, is a proof that these gentle- men stop at nothing to secure success. ... It grieves me to the heart to think that the evening of life, with such a man as Bishop White, should be rendered disquiet and comfortless by such men as Mr. Boyd and Bedell. Were there no other circum- stances to evince the state of their principles and hearts, this with me would be sufficient." The Contested Episcopal Electioji. 93 Pamphlets and counter-pamphlets flew thick and fast from both sides, so that the literature of that one contest makes a thick volume of many hundreds of pages. But the High-Church, thus driven, developed that latent strength which they always have in reserve when the crisis needs it. De Lancey was a host in him- self for keenness, prudence and knowledge of mankind ; and he was the chief writer on that side, being as adroit in avoiding or covering the weak points of his friends, as he was unerring and unsparing in finding and exposing those of his foes. His cool- ness and courtesy of style seems always to have put the enemy into an additional passion.^ He was now reinforced by the Rev. William Cooper Mead, who, in the power of manipulating deli- berative bodies successfully, was not second even to De Lancey. These, with Montgomery and Kemper among the clergy, and the distinguished ability and high position of Horace Binney, aided by Meredith, Ingersoll, Lowber, and others among the laity, made a combination of singular brilliance and power. My Father, on every test division throughout the whole struggle, voted steadily with Bishop White and his friends, and was from the time of his ordination in close and confidential correspondence with De Lancey, Kemper, Abercrombie and Montgomery : but he took no part whatever in the management of the campaign. He lived three hundred miles from the scene of action. Besides, it was a sort of work for which he had no love, and no capacity. He could not do it : and he never attempted anything of the kind during his whole life. The strong point to be pushed, was, the notorious hostility of the Low-Church to Bishop White, and the fact that the High- Church were his friends, and the only true friends he had.* The mild and venerable prelate, who had shepherded the Diocese for forty years, ought not, they said, to be insulted in his old age ; nor ought an Assistant to be forced upon him who would bring down his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. This was a power- 1 In Allen's Secona ILetterto Bishop Hobart,De Lancey is credited with " a cunning equal to that of Machiavel." 2 " This, as the Rev. Mr. Allen expressed it, was the mystery o/iniqtiity which suc- ceeded in deceiving so many of the lay members of the Church in the country."— Second Letter to Bishop Hobart' 94 The Contested Episcopal Election. ful position : and when it was fairl)' brought home to the laity, the changes were very great. Moreover, the representations thus made were entirely correct. Bishop White had for years been charging against Low-Church principles and practices; and in the Recorder as well as on the floor of Convention, to say nothing of private conversation, the Bishop was reflected upon to a degree that grieved the old man's soul. The fact of this hostility to him was palpable, notorious. But when the Low-Church found how greatly it was damag- ing them, they tried — when too late — to put a different face upon the matter. After printing pamphlets in which Dr. Wilson's friends (of whom Bishop White was known to be one, if not the chief) were spoken of as opposed to " truth and piety," one of their writers had the — piety — to say, touching their alleged oppo- sition to the Bishop: — "This is a refinement in electioneering which is as unworthy of the party, at it is disrespectful to Bishop White ; and that must have been a most desperate cause which could have justified even a Jesuit in so desperate and dishonest an expedient. . . . No man can coolly look at it without disgust." Doubtless, they were themselves very much " dis- gusted " on finding how thoroughly their opposiuon to their venerable Bishop was turning the hearts of the laity against them. The Rev. Mr. Allen thus excitedly describes this result : — " High- Churchmen cunningly wrote the name, style, and title, — ' Rt. Rev. William White, D.D., Presiding Bishop, Father of the Church/^ in emblazoned characters, on their banner. They cried aloud with a voice which sounded o'er all the distant moun- tains, and echoed along the waters of the Susquehanna . . * Bishop White is assailed/ Ho, to the rescue / ' The appeal was heard, and . . . members of the Church came to vote as they tvere told would be grateful to Bishop White. The merits of the controversy they knew not. The difference between High and Low Churchmen they did not understand.'" Meanwhile, changes were quietly going on touching the important question of Candidates. The Rev. Mr. Meade, who had been pained by many acts of those who called themselves * Allen's Second Letter to Bishop Hobart, p. 46. The Contested Episcopal Election. 95 his friends,' made an earnest efifort to restore peace. He had no desire to be elected Assistant to a venerable Bishop who did not wish for him, and in a Diocese so fiercely and so equally divided. His course throughout the whole was delicate and high-toned, in a remarkable degree. Within a few weeks after the Special Con- vention, while in attendance on the General Convention then sitting in Philadelphia, he called on Bishop White, and proposed as a compromise that neither party should agitate the election of an Assistant during the life of Bishop White, unless after six months' notice, and at the call of Bishop White himself. Bishop White approved: and in his study on the i8th of November, these two met three of the leaders on each side (Kemper, De Lancey and Binney of the one, and Boyd, Bedell and Robbins of the other), and all agreed to support the compromise. Each of the permanent Committees was to send out a Circular to their own friends, asking their adherence; and another meet- ing was to be held on the i8th of December, at the same place, to learn the result. Mr. Meade, meanwhile, said freely that if his proposal was not accepted by his friends, he would withdraw from the contest altogether. The result on the iSth of Decem- ber was, that the High-Churchmen almost unanimously agreed to the compromise, while the representatives of the other side " were then unable to express any such assent." Mr, Meade at once redeemed his pledge ; and in a letter to Mr. Binney '' absolutely and entirely withdrev/ from all future participation in this contro- versy," the earnest and even passionate appeals of his Philadel- phia friends to the contrary notwithstanding.^ His friends, how- ever, had committed a serious error in their tactics. When a fair compromise had been accepted by their opponents, it was deliberately rejected by themselves, even though it originated with their own chosen standard-bearer : and when they after- wards canie to the pinch, and cried out lustily for a compromise, it was bitterly remembered against them. ' Among these acts of his friends was the reprinting of an old sermon preached by him, for the purpose of circulating it as an electioneering document. He took it up, and read the title-page aloud, with a slight addition, thus: — " ' A sermon preached by the Rev. William Meade, of Virginia,' 2SiA. ptMishcd by the Devil." This was rather hard on his friends : but it was spoken, of course, in only the conversational use of the word.— See Candid Address, by Plain Trtith. * See the correspondence in Bishop Johns's Memoir of Bishop Meade., pp. 138-154- 96 The Contested Episcopal Eledioji. On the other side similar changes had been going on. The pure and gentle Dr. Wilson, weary of the strife and of the abuse heaped upon himself as being " essentially defective in his religious views and Church principles," ^ early withdrew his name as a candidate. De Lance}', being only twenty-eight years of age, was too young to run. There was a general tendency to concentrate upon my Father, he being, after Dr. Wilson, the first choice of Bishop White. In fact, the extraordinary results of my Father's labors in the West were clear High-Church gain, the like of which was to be hoped for nowhere else : and the entreaties of his Philadel- phia friends, as each successive Convention approached, to bring on his full strength clerical and lay, showed their consciousness that he held the balance of the Diocese in his hands. But at length they overdid the matter. By the High-Church circular, they were pledged not to fix upon their Candidate until they met in caucus at Harrisburg, where the stated Convention was to be held. On the 17th of March, De Lancey, writing to my Father on the subject, said : — " My own mind is made up to vote for the Rev. J. H. Hopkins, and to push his claims. The matter, you know from the circular, is to be formally settled at Harrisburg. You must come down strong-handed, with a lay deputation from Pittsburgh and wherever else you can honestly collect them. You are the prominent man talked of (I might say almost the only one) among the sound part of the brethren in this quarter, as our candidate." On the 28th of March, the Rev. George Weller, Editor of the Register^ — a High-Church paper then lately started as a make-weight for the Recorder — wrote him : — " I can assure you that your name is at present by far the most prominent in all conversations known to me, both among clergy and laymen, and there can be no doubt a serious effort will be made to procure your nomination. Efforts within your power would do much to secure this result, and I trust you will not hesitate to make them." Kemper and Montgomery also wrote him, to " bring a full delegation." But they did not yet know their man. There was about him so sensitive a personal delicacy, that whenever there was or could • See " An Answer to Plain Truth, by Plain Fact." The Contested Episcopal Election. gy be the least appearance of self-seeking or personal intrigue, he stopped at once, and no earthly power could persuade him to budge an inch. Instead of stimulating him to increased exer- tion in procuring the attendance of the western Clergy and laity, he stood stock still, and never lifted a finger ; but at the same time he replied to his friends candidly, and told them that after what they had written him his hands were tied. In vain they did their utmost to remove his scruples. His correspondence with liis dear friend Mr. Wallace on this subject is a rare specimen of the ingenious obstinacy and modest independence with which he could resist triumphantly all that could be urged by personal friendship and Churchly zeal. The simple position which he took in regard to the Episcopate, and beyond question the right position, he thus expressed : — " If, without any effort of mine, the Great Head of the Church should put it upon me, I must look to Him for grace and strength to fulfil its arduous duties. But if I were to step one inch out of my parochial sphere in order to increase a favorable delegation, or to influence in the smallest degree the votes which are to decide the election, I should never feel satisfied that my appointment was so strictly Providential, as I must esteem it in order to be at peace in my own mind. This with me is a point of conscience, independently of all the minor motives of delicacy and projDriety which dictate my being as quiescent as possible where I am aware that I may be myself concerned." Golden words ! The Convention met on Tuesday, May 8, 1827, in the Cham- ber of the House of Representatives, Harrisburg, and organized. In the evening, by previous appointment, the High-Church cau- cus met at Mrs. Elder's boarding-house, all the clergy being pre- sent except the Bishop, together with a large majority of the laity. As, in Convention, the Clergy nominated, and the laity then voted yea or nay on the nominee i so it v/as now decided that the selecting the candidate should be agreed upon first by the Clergy, and their choice should then be submitted to the laity. Accordingly, after an eloquent and stirring speech from Mr. Binney, the Clergy retired to ballot alone. Before beginning — as they had not a single vote to spare— it was resolved, on motion of the Rev. Mr. De Lancey, that no one should be the candidate 98 The Contested Episcopal Election. who had not a unanimous vote. My Father had a large majority from the first, and on the third ballot had every vote cast but three. At this stage of the proceedings the Rev. Mr. Montgomery — who, with a few others, was unwilling to vote for one who had opposed Bishop Hobart's plan for altering the Liturgy — rose and took a paper from his pocket, on the strength of which he announced that they had one majority of the Clergy and fourteen of the laity, so that they were sure of success : but that if their candidate were one of their own number, he could not be elected without his own vote. He asked, therefore, whether his Rev. Brother from Pittsburgh would consent to vote for himself. My Father, who had been standing with some others in a corner of the room, but taking no part in the voting, replied, that the brethren who had done him the honor to put him in nomination were well aware that he had given no countenance to the mea- sure ; that he regarded himself as being quite too young in the ministry for so high an office, having been scarce three years a priest ; and that under no circumstances whatever would he con- sent to vote for himself. The Rev. Mr. Weller then rose and said, that he was not going to argue the general principle ; but that he desired to inform his Brother of a fact probably unknown to him, namely, that there were at that time in the House of Bishops tivo prelates who had been elected by their own votes ;* and he added that no reasonable and candid man could find fault, if, for 1 A careful search of the records of the election of all the Bishops then forming the House — White, Hobart, Griswold, Kemp, Croes,Bowen, Chase, Brownell, and Ravens- croft — satisfies me that the two referred to were Bishops White and Philander Chase. As to Bishop White, only four Clergymen were present and took part in his elec- tion,—the Rev. Messrs White (President), Magaw, Pilmore and Blackwell : and Mr. White " was unanimously chosen," which involves his voting for himself. See Jour- nals of First Six Conventions of Pennsylvania, pp. 17, iS. As to Bishop Philander Chase, he himself states in his Reminiscences (p. 14S) :— " The writer was unanimously elected to fill that elevated but most responsible office." This is again an acknowledgment that he voted for himself : for there were only four Clergymen present, and four votes were cast. The record— the printed yournal—sa.ys indeed that ///?- See Allen's First Letter to Bishop Hohart "^ Bp. Johns's Memoir of Bp. Meade, p. 154. 3 It may seem surprising that, with all the sharp tactics and pressure of both parties, the number of clergy present (51) should be less than at the Special Conven- tion in the October previous (54). But the contest was so hot, that some quiet men were more anxious to keep out of it than to take part in it, knowing that if they voted with one party it would never be forgotten by the other. Harrisburg, too, was a less convenient rendezvous than Philadelphia. One Low-Church absentee knew that, if he came, the Rev. Mr. Kemper was likely to show him up as a liar, by letters in his own handwriting : and he therefore wisely stopped at home. lOO The Contested Episcopal Election. They were thoroughly organized, anyhow, and determined to do the best they could to embarrass and defeat their opponents, if they were not strong enough to win themselves. The next day, Wednesday, in the afternoon — Divine Service and the Eucharistic Sacrifice having occupied the morning — the Bishop delivered his Address, and once more the trumpet gave no uncertain sound. In unmistakable language he denounced the American Sundav-School Union as " invading the worship and the ministry " of the Churgh " under the specious pretence of liberality." He desired to reco/d his view as opposed to any Institution " when a part of the professed design is, to be silent, in the instructions given and in the books distributed, on any ponits coming under the head of Go.spel truth." He could not " concur in a profession to explain the Word of Truth, under a stipulated silence as to any part of its contents." And he added, that the stipulations that nothing would be published in dis- paragement of the principles of the Church had " not been punctually regarded by any Institutions of that description, coming under his observation." As to the appointment of an Assistant, he declined to press further for it owing to "the excite- ment of feeling " which had been produced, and occurrences v/hich his mind " could not reconcile to the integrity of ecclesias- tical proceedings ; such," he added, " as I had never before wit- nessed in our Church, and concerning which I was resolved, that if there should be a continuance of them, no act of mine should contribute to it." He gave an account of the abortive effort at compromise made by Mr. Meade; and then, after a brief retro- spect of the past growth of the Diocese, under him, "from a state bordering on annihilation," and all, until lately, in brotherly peace and amity, the venerable octogenarian pathetically added : — ■ " This state of amity has been always considered as one of the best of the blessings which a gracious Providence has bestowed on me. From present appearances, I perceive reason to fear, that trials, hitherto unknown, are reserved for the small remainder of my days. I have painfuhy witnessed the progress of ecclesi- astical transactions, in contrariety to the clearest dictates of religious and moral obligation, — not without the accompaniment of indignities personally wounding to my feelings, such as I think The Contested Episcopal Election. loi unmerited, and certainly such as I have been a stranger to in my earUer years. The subject is mentioned with the view of pledg- ing my assurance to those who seek the integrity of our Zion, that during my continuance in life, and looking to Divine aid for support, I will bear my testimony in favor of the truths of our holy religion, as exhibited by the institutions of our Church, and against all endeavors directed to their destruction or to their deterioration." From such mild lips as his, this was a severe condemnation of the course pursued by the Low-Churchmen thus far. After the Address, the Low-Church made a desperate effort to secure the admission of the Rev. Lucius Carter to a seat. His only business in Pennsylvania was as Agent of the American Sunday-School Union, — a concern which the Bishop had just expressed his opinion of: and he had never been canonically received into the Diocese at all. The Bishop considered his papers insufficient,' and had repeatedly refused to receive him. Every vote was known. There were twenty-six Lligh-Church clergymen present, and twenty-five Low-Church. Unless the latter could get Mr. Carter in, they were done for. It was in this hot debate, that the patience of Bishop White was tried beyond endurance. The Rev. Mr. Ridgeley — after all that had happened — had the hardihood, in a speech, to allude to the Bishop himself as being a Low-Churchman, — one of their party ! The gentle old man showed that, like flint, if struck hard enough, he could flash fire. He rose at once, apologizing for such an unusual thing on his part as interrupting a debate; but the personal allusion to himself must be his excuse. As the word was used in England, and a hundred years ago, perhaps it might not be altogether incorrect to call him a Low-Churchman. " But," continued he, with an emphasis rare indeed as coming from his lips, " as the word is understood in this country, and among us now, you might as well call me a Turk or a Jew! " The House refused to admit Carter, by a strict party vote : 26 to 25 of the Clergy. The lay majority was large enough to make everything safe, being 72 to 58. 1 He was a Deacon, and had only a general letter to any Bishop who might be willing to receive him, instead of one addressed to Bishop White himself. I02 The Contested Episcopal Election. The Lovv'-Church passed an uncomfortable night. They had learned during that Wednesday that Dr. Onderdonk was the High-Church nominee : — one whom they regarded as a New York High-Church bigot, the incarnation of every evil which they detested or deplored. They learned that my Father was the first choice of a great majority of the Clergy and laity, but had been dropped because he v/ould not vote for nimself. With the prospect of having one of the terrible Bishop Hobart's lieutenants forced upon them by a majority of one, -my Father began to look lovelier in their eyes than he had ever been before. He was known to be a High-Churchman, always voting with his party; and they knew, by public and private evidence, that in most of the salient points of Low-Churchmanship, he did not agree with them at all. But he had not been one of the active leaders of the party, and was therefore less obnoxious. In pre- cept and in practice, too, he sympathized rather more with the strictness of the Low-Church in regard to worldly amusements, than with the then prevailing laxity of their opponents : and this, together with the unusual pecuniary sacrifices he had made in entering the ministry, the great success he had achieved in his work, and his constant willingness to exchange with or preach for his Low-Church brethren, induced them to believe that he was " a truly converted man," which was more than they were willing to allow concerning most of those who voted with him. They resolved, therefore, to try for a compromise on my Father, rather than have that detested New Yorker. The High-Church likewise spent a very uneasy night, but for a very different reason. The Rev. Mr. Hutchins, one of their number — and not one could be spared — was seized that night with a violent attack of bilious colic. No poor clergyman was ever the object of a more intense sympathy in his sufferings. All the doctors in the place were gotten together around his bed ; and what with their efforts, and good nursing, and vigorous ])rayer for him all night, and a carriage in the morning, he was brought to the House in good time, and strong enough to hand in a written ballot when he was called on. Thursday was a rainy day. As the venerable Bishop White was on his way to the Capitol, and drew near the steps, — the The Contested Episcopal Election. 103 Rev. Mr. Montgomery walking with him and holding the um- brella over his head, — the modest Carter made a final attempt to secure his seat. Running round, in the rain, in fi-ont of the Bishop, he held out a paper document, and begged him to receive it. The Bishop asked him if it was the same that he had seen b.efore (and which he had refused to accept as a Letter Dimissory). On learning that it was, the old man answered hurriedly, but very decidedly : — " I will not receive it, sir; I will not receive it " : and waving him away, the Bishop ascended the steps, and entered the House of Representatives, where the busi- ness of the day soon began. When Mr. Hutchins was brought in and helped to a seat, it was understood that not a moment was to be lost. The report of the Standing Committee was then being read : but the reading was, on motion, suspended. A Low-Church motion \< admit 7^?/;' additional lay delegations, was lost. A Low- Church motion to adjourn till 3 o'clock in the afternoon, was lost. The Rev. Mr. Sheets ' then moved to go ^^ forthwith " into the election of an Assistant Bishop, who should be Bishop of the Diocese after the decease of Bishop White : and it was carried. Meanwhile busy talk was going on privately. One clergyman of the majority assured some of his opponents that they would change their candidate back to their first choice, if the minority would engage to give Mr. Hopkins six votes. A lay member of the majority said, that if the minority would give Mr. Hopkins " a respectable vote," the laity would negative the nomination of Dr. Onderdonk, and thus bring about a concentration on Mr. Hopkins, But the trouble was, that both parties — thanks to the Low-Church example — were well drilled in caucus, and pledged, to a man, to vote as agreed. It was now past 11 o'clock, and a Low-Church motion to adjourn until 12 o'clock was ruled to be 1 This was poetic justice. The Rev. George Sheets, of Frankford, had formerly been inclined to go with the Low-Church : but when Mr. Ridgeley called on him and avowed his determination to start a new parish at Frankford (where at that time it was utterly uncalled for), for the mere purpose of getting another lay vote in the election for Assistant Bishop, Mr. Sheets was utterly disgusted, and replied : — " Brother Ridgeley, I'm ashamed of you ! If that is the way you are going to elect a Bishop, I want to have nothing more to do with you !" From that moment he acted with the Bishop's friends. The motion was seconded by the Rev. Mr. (afterwards Bishop) Bowman, long considered " doubtful" in those days. I04 The Contested Episcopal Election. " out o» order," as inconsistent with the vote just taken to go into the election " forthwith." Excitement was reaching a painful pitch. A motion to adjourn sine die was threatened, but not actually made. A motion tQ reconsider the "forthwith" in Mr. Sheets's resolution, though moved and seconded by members of the majority, was ruled to be " out of order," as inconsistent with the said "forthwith." The Rev. Mr. Allen then rose, being authorized by a number of his friends (though not by the action of the caucus), and made a formal proposition, to avoid the apparent certainty of the choice of a very obnoxious person by a majority of one vote. He said that he was satisfied that a union could be made, sufficient to give to some one a large majority of votes. Though certainly jDreferring one of their own friends, they would surrender their choice, and unite upon some member of the other party, if, only, they were permitted to unite with their opponents in selecting him. If an adjournment were granted, merely long enough for a conference with their brethren, he doubted not that such a result would take place.' But it was too late. If they had really been so anxious, they would, some time or other during the whole of Wednesday, have acted on it in their caucus, and thus made the proposal in definite form, instead of only suggesting it informally at the last scratch. It was suspected that they hoped to see one of their absent clergy arrive by the stage-coach which was due at noon. In fact, the sin- cerity of the offer was not trusted at all by the leaders of the High- Church party : and it was no wonder. Besides, they remembered how the compromise proposed by Mr. Meade and accepted by them, had been deliberately rejected by those very men who were now earnestly begging for compromise in their turn. They re- membered also, the precarious condition of Mr. Hutchins's health. The only response, therefore, made to the Low-Church appeal was from Mr, Binney, who coolly said to the President of the Convention : — " I hope, sir, the election will proceed." And it proceeded : the Rev. Mr, Bedell saying, just before the balloting began : — " We shall now show you, by our votes, that when it was in your power, by oiie slight act of fraternal courtesy, to give 1 Second Letter to BishoJ> Hobart, The Co7itested Episcopal Elechon. 105 peace to this distracted Diocese, you have preferred to continue our dissensions, God only knows how long ! " As the voting began, one or more of the Low-Churchmen had taken my Father aside, and were energetically talking to him in a low voice, in the recess behind the Speaker's chair/ The leaders, at and around the Secretary's table, were exceedingly uneasy nt this. They knew the straightforward simplicity of my Father's character ; and when they saw with what a flushed and troubled countenance, and downcast eye, he was listening to their earnest persuasions, their hearts almost failed them. His name was called aloud, as it was reached on the clerical roll ; but he did not hear. It was called again; but still he did not hear, so preoccupied was he by the zeal of his new friends. One of the tellers at last touched him on the shoulder, and asked him if he wished to vote. At once he sprang up, with a face clear as the day, and an eye bright as a sunbeam, and held out an open ballot with the name of the Rev. Dr. Onderdonk on it, so that the teller should read it before it was dropped into the box. The leaders then breathed freely once more : they knew that he was true as steel. The clerical vote was carried for Dr. Onderdonk by that ballot, 26 out of 51. The minority, meanwhile, so far proved their sincerity, that, of their twenty-five votes, eighteen were given to my Father : thus making it appear, by the record, as if he had been the leading Low-Church candidate. The nomination thus made then went to the Laity, who could only vote yea or 7iay. The talked-of plan of rejection by them was impracticable. How could honorable men, pledged up to the eyes in caucus, change their front, without any opportunity for further consultation and fresh resolves ? No doubt the great majority of them would have preferred a different result : but they kept their word manfully, and comoleted the election of Dr. Onderdonk by a vote of 72 to 58. The event thus realized the exact majority, in each order, which was pre-announced by the Rev. Mr. Montgomery on Tuesday evening ; and which had been 1 They were doing their utmost to persuade him to secure the desired conference, assuring him that " if it were obtained he would surely be Bishop." He told them he thought it would be the proper and fraternal course to grant the conference : but that the reason given by them for his exerting himself to obtain it, was precisely the thing which made it impossible for him to say a word in favor of it. io6 The Contested Episcopal Electioiz. shown on every vote without exception, from the rejection of Mr. Carter down to the consummation/ The testimonials were signed by the 26 clergy and 78 laymen who voted for Dr. Onderdonk, and by not a single other member of the Convention. Nor was this all. A formal written Remon- strance against his Consecration, was drawn up, under ten distinct heads, part of which consisted of a publication of private corre- spondence and a retailing of private conversations. This docu- ment was signed by every one of the 25 clergy^ and 58 lay delegates who did not vote for Dr. Onderdonk, and by 20 other laymen who had been members of the Special Convention : so that the Consecrators, when assembled, found themselves called to act on Testimonials and a Remonstrance, the former having by only one clerical signature the advantage over the other. How the Church at large regarded the dispute — for every document had been sent diligently to every Diocese — may be judged from the fact that every Standing Committee at first signed Dr. Onder- donk's testimonials : but four members of the Virginia Standing Committee ^ (a majority), and two members of that of Maryland •* (not a majority), withdrew their signatures before the Consecra- tion. Of the Bishops, all gave their consent, except Bishop Philander Chase, then of Ohio. The five Bishops who took part ^ There was once or twice an unimportant variation of one or two on the part of the laity : but the clergy were firm as a roclv. 2 The Rev. Dr. Tyng, in his Memoir of the Rev. Dr. Bedell, quotes from editorial articles in the Episcopal Recorder just before and just after this Convention, as proof of " the unvarying kindness and disposition for peace, by which the subject of the present memoir [Dr. Bedell] was distinguished, even in this most exciting and trying season, in all his ecclesiastical relations." And Dr. Tyng adds, after stating that the result of this Convention was adverse to the views and wishes of Dr. Bedell : — " His meek and Christian spirit, however, immediately accorded with the manifest will of God, and entered upon a course of conciliating conduct, from which he was never known subsequently to swerve." It is for Dr. Tyng, not for me, to reconcile these statements with the facts^ that Dr. Bedell did not sign Dr. Onderdonk's testimonials, that he did sign the Remonstrance against his Consecration, and that he continued — conscientiously, no doubt — in unbroken solidarity witli his party friends in all their measures of factious opposition, until after the Consecration of the new Bishop had taken place. The first decided action of Dr. Bedell towards a conciliatory course, so far as appears from Dr. Tyng's Memoir, was about two years afterwards, in 1829 : but from other sources we know that his amiable heart had taken the kindlier course, and had brought over the greater part of his parish besides, previous to the Convention of 1828. See Dr. Tyng's Memoir of the Rev. Dr. Bedell, pp. 291-296. 8 Three clergymen and one layman. * Both clergymen. The Contested Episcopal Election. 107 in the Consecration (Bishops White. Hobart, Kemp,' Croes and Bowen) received the RemonstraJice on the 23d of October; per- formed the Consecration on the 25th, and on the 3d of November pubUshed an elaborate Decision on every point of the Reinon- stmnce. The Consecration itself was like the celebration of a triumph after a victory. No Low-Church Bishop or clergyman took part in the services. Bishop Hobart's sermon on the occasion rang loud and clear as the blast of a trumpet. It was specially devoted to the crisis of which this Consecration was the turning-point. In allud- ing to Bishop White, whose piety, he said, was " as pure as it was lovely and engaging," he added, that this " had not disarmed that rage of faction which had stretched even him on the rack of moral martyrdom." And he continued, with words far more true than conciliatory : — " The scenes which have been witnessed in this Diocese, well might we wish that they should for ever pass from memory. But duty to God, to His Truth, and His Church, for- bids. I would indelibly engrave them, and raise aloft the record, an awful beacon, to mark the region of wild uproar and of storms ; to warn the friends of genuine piety against those who, in her fairest garb, and with her highest professions, employ arts that dishonor her sacred name ; to admonish Churchmen to the latest generations to shun those principles and practices which will inevi- tably distract, disgrace, degrade their Church, and, but that she is founded on the Rock of Ages, ruin her." After the act of Consecration of the new Bishop was com- plete, and before going on with the Holy Communion, Bishop White read an address, in which, after testifying that his Assistant ■ A few days previous (October lo, 1S27) Bishop Kemp wrote to Bisiiop Ravens- croft: — "It is true we are threatened with consequences; but in my judgment the Opposition only have to dread consequences. I have had a pretty severe experience in such cases. Mr. Dashiell and his adherents pursued me to the very verge of the Altar. And when they were defeated, they still made a bold attempt to obtain Consecration in an irregular manner for him. What has been the result ? Their head and a majority of the members have become nothing better than mere vagabonds. I do not apprehend that these poor, infatuated men intend to disavow the Church. Their object is, to model it to their taste ; add they once thought there was a fair chance of advancing so far as to obtain another Bishop who would suit their views. Should Bishop C.[hase] attempt an irregular Consecration, he would forfeit tne esteem and assistance of his English friends, which of all things he would dread the most." io8 Hie Contested Episcopal Election. had all the quaHfications which he had deemed desirable, he added that he " had been always jealous of opinions which ground the Episcopacy on such principles as would render the government of our Church not that of laws, but of human will. There ought not to be entertained a doubt that the like views of the subject will be those of his Assistant and Successor; and so long as he shall walk in this line of conduct . . .' any invasion of his just rights will have a tendency to the placing of power in the hands of persons whose ' little finger ' of unauthorized authority will be heavier than ' the loins ' of an authority made legal by the Constitution and the Canons of the Church." After personal allusions, — especially referring to the pew near by, where he had worshipped when a boy, and to the pulpit from which he heard the Gospel then, and from which' he had himself' now preached for fifty-five years, — he thus concluded : — " There remains of the duties of the occasion, the celebration of the great Sacrifice for sin, which was prefigured in animal sacrifices from the time of the expulsion from Paradise ; and will be commemorated to the end of time in. the spiritual Sacrifice which is to follow." On finding that their Remonstrance was of no avail, but that the note of victory, from the lij)S of the detested Hobart himself, rang louder than ever over their double defeat : the Low-Church party boiled over with even greater indignation than before.^ Within seventeen days after the appearance of the Bishops' Decision on the Remonstrance, the minority were out with an- other thick pamphlet, attempting to bolster up all their positions : and so the war went on. They separated themselves entirely from, their High-Church brethren in Philadelphia. There was no communication except bowing in the street, and not always that. Bishop Hobart was the especial object of attack.'' Stale 1 The sudden death of Bishop Kemp on returning from the Consecration of Bishop Onderdonlc, was by some of the Low-Church interpreted as a judgment of God upon the wickedness of the High-Church. 2 In the Rev. Benjamin Allen's First Letter to Bishop Hobart, he thus expresses the amiable feelings of his party: — " In my inmost soul, I do honestly believe you to be the worst enemy of the Liturgy, the greatest opponent to the spread of Episcopacy, and the certain author of entire ruin to our Church, if your policy prevail. In every portion of the Church of these United States, I have seen and heard discontent and dissatisfaction concerning you. You are entitled 'the Talleyrand, the would-be Archbishop,' and every other name that can indicate the existence of a feeling which The Contested Episcopal Election. 109 old slanders against him which had been refuted and silenced sixteen years before, were revived and reprinted without a hint as to their ever having been disposed of in any way : so that Bishop White, speaking of Bishop Hobart in his next Convention Address, said : — " I hold myself bound to declare my abhorrence of the calumnies to which he became subject, by his compliance with my request." ^ And he actually refused clean Letters Dimissory to some of those Low-Churchmen, considering their conduct in these affairs to be " inconsistent with integrity." * It was only slowly and sullenly that the storm of bitter and fiery disappointment died away into something like the ordinary state of feeling. From this distance of time, and knowing what we know, one can hardly help smiling, in not unkindly mockery, at the blind blunders of human passion. It was because they thought Dr. Onderdonk to be Bishop Hobart's special friend and nominee, that the Low-Church were so bitterly opposed to him : ^ and yet, on arriving at Harrisburg, my Father received a letter from Dr. regards you as ambitious, as grasping, imperious, intermeddling, and determined to attain power. Hardly a Diocese is there that does not expect it must ask your per- mission as to who shall be its Bishop : scarcely a religious institution but beholds you with dread. . . . Are you to . . . introduce Jacobite notions of Church Government, and claim to be no schismatic ? " Great allowance must be made for men who were unquestionably sincere in believing, with all their heart, such frenzied nonsense. 1 He refers to his requesting that Bishop Hobart should preach the sermon at the Consecration of Bishop H. U. Onderdonk. 2 In a letter to Bishop Ravenscroft of North Carolina (Nov. z, 1827), Bishop White says, speaking of the Consecration of his Assistant : — "■ To have postponed the Measure when possessed of unrevoked Testimonials of i5 out of the whole 17 of the Committees, and of the unrevoked Consent of all the Bishops, except of one who had not been heard from ; was what we could not answer for to the Church generally, and to that of Pennsylvania in particular ; especially as it would have furnished an opportunity for the continuance of Measures which you must perceive to have been marked by utter Disregard of moral Obligation . What will be the Result, God only knows ; and I hope and pray that He will overrule to good, the Operation of a Spirit, which I perceive, with you, to be radically bent on I\Iischief ; but which, I trust, has contemplated more than it will be able to accomplish." Bishop Ravenscroft regarded the election of Dr. Onderdonk " as an additional proof of the superintending care of the Divine Head of the Church, and that the Almighty can make the machinations as well as the wrath of man to praise him." 3 The young Mr. (afterwards Bishop) G. W. Doane wrote to Bishop Hobart (May 31, 1827) on the election of Dr. H. U. Onderdonk:—" I do not doubt, my dear Sir, that if you had been planting potatoes at Short Hills [his country place near Summit, New Jersey], the credit of that result would in a good degree have fallen to your share." no The Contested Episcopal Election. Onderdonk, which showed clearly that there had been no love lost between him and Bishop Hobart for several years ; that Bishop Hobart would not recommend Dr. Onderdonk for any promotion ; and that one reason of it was, Dr. Onderdonk's hav- ing omitted the Ante-Communion service at Canandaigua, like a Low-Churchman ! Through another source it appears that when Bishop Hobart was sounded by one of the Pennsylvania clergy as to the fitness of Dr. Onderdonk for the office of Assistant Bishop, he replied : — " Take Meade of Virginia a hundred times rather than H. U. Onderdonk ! " Moreover, before the Bishops consecrated Dr. Onderdonk, they insisted, and under the leader- ship of Hobart carried their point, that Dr. Onderdonk should sign a written pledge that he would do nothing, as Assistant Bishop, without the knowledge and consent of Bishop White : an exaction which Dr. Onderdonk felt very deeply, and with any- thing rather than gratitude.^ Then again, Dr. Montgomery was disinclined to favor my Father's election, owing to his opposition to Bishop Hobart's proposed changes ; and Dr. IMontgomery was therefore one of the first to push Dr. Onderdonk's name : never dreaming that Dr. Onderdonk, on that point, agreed most heartily with my Father, and had just written to him assuring him of his high appreciation of " the firmness and independence " of his " speeches last November," in the General Convention of 1826. After further remarks in this strain, Dr. Onderdonk writes to my Father : — '^ I beg pardon for troubling you with my poor thoughts . . . but you are the leader in this battle, and it is but proper that your subalterns make their reports to you. . . . I hope the Prayer-Book will never be touched till the whole is reviewed; and that, I hope, will not be in our day." Moreover, Dr. Onderdonk so little desired the office himself, that, under- standing his name might be proposed, he sent a message per- emptorily refusing to permit such a use of it : but — whether accidentally or not — the message never was delivered. On the whole, viewed as a purely party contest, there is no ^ The Canonical requirement that the Assistant Bishop " shall perform such Epis- copal duties, and exercise such Episcopal authority in the Diocese, as the Bishop shall assign to him," was not then in existence. It was first enacted at the ensuing General Convention of 1S29. The Contested Episcopal Election. 1 1 1 fault to be found with the High-Churchmen for refusing the com- promise which was asked for only at the last gasp. The Low- Church had no just cause of complaint when their own inventions returned to plague the inventors. The complete severance of parties, the military precision of caucus drill, have never been brought to such marvellous perfection on any other occasion among us. The battle was fought through with splendid ability and pertinacity ; and the stern driving the enemy to the wall in spite of all his pleadings for compromise, was not inconsistent with the laws of party warfare. But it was not wise ; it was not states- manlike ; it was not in the higher spirit of Christianity. And this harsh policy brought its own punishment. By allowing an almost unanimous vote upon such a man as my Father, the Low-Church party in Pennsylvania would, in a few years, have shown itself in the fair way to die a natural death. As it was, the rankhng bit- terness of disappointed rage bred in that party a concentrated vims of vitality, the fruits of w^hich are felt among us, for evil, unto this day. There was one man, however, who went home still a simple priest, but with his mind relieved from a great weight of appre- hension and anxiety ; — one who had performed his whole duty to his own conscience as well as to his joarty and his friends, and who yet found no man of either party maligning or abusing him. It was he who had, virtually, received the vote of nearly every member of that fiercely divided Convention except his own, and yet was not elected Bishop. Chapter VI. THE WORK DONE AT PITTSBURGH. E must now retrace our steps, to take up some threads which it was best to drop for a time, in order to obtain a more continuous narrative of that great Diocesan struggle. One would think that what with planning and superintending the eref.tion of his new Church, and gathering his numerous candi- dates for confirmation, and composing all the music used in his parish, and founding so many other parishes in Western Pennsyl- vania, and attending faithfully all the councils of the Church in which he had a seat, my Father's attention would have been very fully occupied. But there was yet room for more. Though well prepared — as things went — for Holy Orders, at the time when he was ordained, he was by no means satisfied with his own attainments, and at once began to read up, for his own satisfaction. He had taken Hooker as his general standard, until he could inquire further for himself It was not long before he became satisfied that the points at issue between the Church and the Protestant denominations around her are so simple and clear, and so easily settled, that they demand no protracted study. Our only controversy worthy of the name is with the Church of Rome ; and that includes not only a difference as to the Canonical Books of Holy Scripture, but an appeal to the whole history of the Christian Church in every age. Now his experience of the Law, and of the methods which the matured wisdom of centuries has provided for the ascertainment of truth, taught him that, as a mere matter of justice, each party should be allowed a fair chance to tell his own story, and plead his own side of the case. He therefore went to Father McGuire, then the Romish priest settled in Pittsburgh, told him what he wanted, and borrowed of him a number of the standard controversial works of Romanists against Protestantism. The amiable and sanguine Father McGuire lent them gladly, and expressed the The Work done at Pittsbii7'gh. 1 1 ^ entire conviction that his visitor would soon become " a good Cathohc," as he called it. On reading them carefully, my Father found that they pro- fessed to be simple appeals to the testimony of the Primitive Church, based on the common-sense ground that those ancient Christians who lived nearest the Apostles, were most likely to know the true meaning of the New Testament, written by Apos- tles and their immediate disciples. Quotations from the Fathers were also given, which seemed to prove all that was claimed for them. But a lawyer is well versed in the art of quotation : and so my Father determined to procure and read the old Fathers for himself, to see if the quotations were fairly made. He went again to Father McGuire on this errand; and was kindly per- mitted to carry away with him such of the Fathers as the good pnest possessed, who was now more sure than ever that his vis- itor was on the high-road to Rome. But the full perusal of the context, in every instance where he could find the original of a quotation, soon satisfied him that a case which required such con- stant and careful cooking, lacked the better ground of honesty and justice. The studies here referred to were begun by him immediately after his ordination : and so anxious was he to communicate to others the benefit of such studies, that before he had been for two months a deacon, he contemplated a translation of Eusebius for the press. This design he abandoned, on finding that recent translations were already extant, though not then very accessible. He resolved, however, to continue his patristic studies : and he did so with a perseverance and a thoroughness of which, at that time, our American Church had given no example. He recognized the simple fact, that the Anglican Reformation was neither more nor less than an appeal to the Primitive Church He understood that the Reformers, as such, had no power to originate anything. They could only restore. They were of no authority whatever, unless they restored correctly. He therefore paid little comparative attention to the Reformation, accepting- mucli too easily— the representations of Burnet and other author- ities current m those days. He knew that the real battle must be fought within the lines drawn by the Undivided Church at the 114 '^^^^ Work done at Pittshirgh. beginning : and there he expended his chief strength. One by Dne, as his narrow purse would permit, he purchased the works Df the old Fathers, sometimes picking them up at a secondhand bookstall, sometimes importing them to order; and to the Fathers idding collections of the Councils. The few that he failed to ouy, he managed to borrow and peruse carefully, making extracts, Defore he returned them. Thus during eighteen years his chief studies turned in this iirection, until he had himself perused the whole of the ancient Fathers in the original, down to and including S. Bernard ; be- sides carefully plodding through the whole of Hardouin's immense :ollection of the Councils, which he supplemented by going over :.he ground again with Mansi. Throughout the whole of this eighteen years of study, his method was the same. He made notes with pen and ink, not in the book itself, but on half-quires of foolscap paper, as he read : so that he could at any time turn ro what he wanted. He found himself compelled to this course oy two discoveries, which he soon made. Nearly all of the best editions of the Fathers, in those days, were from Romish presses ind under the learned care of Romish editors, by whom elabor- ate indexes were prepared. In these indexes, every passage capable of being twisted in support of Romish claims, was pro- minently given: but those which were strongest against Rome were omitted from the indexes altogether, and the whole body of the work had to be read carefully before they could be found. The other discovery was, a similar bias in the translations. The Greek Fathers were usually published by these Romish editors with a Latin version in parallel columns; which being the more famihar language, would naturally be depended upon, by ordinary readers, who would seldom look at the Greek, — crabbed as it was with all manner of old-fashioned crooked-looking abbreviations. In passages bearing on the Roman controversy, ray Father found that the translation had felt the same bias which was so perceptible in the indexes, being strengthened or weakened, expanded or condensed, as would be most favorable to Roman views. This made him careful always to go to the original, instead of glancing — as too many do — over the translation only. When he came to write his controversial works, all his quota- i The Work done at Pittsburgh. 1 1 5 tions from the Fathers — which are commonly their main sub- stance— were made from these results of his own reading, as drawn from his own notes : and never is any quotation taken at secondhand, except where it is so stated in the margin. Nor did he hesitate to change his practice in various respects, in accordance with patristic teachings, without waiting for the sanction of general usage or the enactment of Canons or the changing of Rubrics by the General Convention. His reading of S. Cyprian showed him the meaning of the Mixed Chalice : and this primitive and beautiful custiom of mixing a little pure water with the wine, in consecrating the Eucharistic Cup, my Father practised for several years in Pittsburgh, and throughout his whole life subsequently, whenever he was Rector of a parish, S. Cyprian, he said, taught him to do it ; and he thought S. Cyprian was very good authority. He also began, in Pittsburgh, the custom of having the bread for the Holy Eucharist made care- fully in his own house, and unleavened, in thin cakes, deeply in- dented so as to be easily broken. He also reached, at that early day, the firm conviction, that in the terrible battle of the Refor- mation, some innocent, beautiful. Scriptural and edifying things had been lost, which it would have been much better to retain : and among these he reckoned the rich colored and embroidered vestments, and lights, and incense. And this, be it remembered, all took place in Western Pennsylvania before even the first edi- tion of The Christian Year had appeared in England. He had then no idea that he should ever see those things actually re- stored, however; any more than he could then suppose that he should ever live to wear his full beard. His convictions, never- theless, on these subjects were clear and strong, for several years before the first of the Tracts for the Times was ever thought cf As to practical measures, too, he had succeeded, before he left Pittsburgh, in organizing a band of Christian Sisters, peculiarly devoted to good works among the poor and sick : no indistinct foreshadowing of the Sisterhoods which have since arisen, with such glorious promise of an abundant harvest of good works, in both portions of our Anglican Communion. Although his salary was increased first to $1000 and after- wards to $1200 a year in Pittsburgh, his rapidly growing family ii6 The Work done at PiitsbiLrgh. made it necessary that an addition to his income should be made from some other source. At the suggestion of a friend therefore, in the spring of 1826, he took half a dozen young girls into his house, to be educated along with his own. daughters; and the number was gradually more than doubled. Afterwards, as his sons became also old enough to need a similar provision, another department was added for boys. Tl\e modest frame house was twice enlarged to meet these growing needs, the front, of brick, being last added, and having a slight touch in its style of the collegiate Gothic, with buttresses, pinnacles, and Tudor arches over doors, and hood mouldings over windows. When it was first found needful to erect this part of the house, it was resolved that the best room in it, — what in other houses would have been set apart as the drawing-room, — should be de- voted to God. It was known as " The Oratory," and was used only for the daily Morning and Evening worship. Between the windows stood a parlor organ of good tone and six stops, its case rising up to the ceiling. Along the sides of the room, at certain intervals, were little cluster shafts at some distance from the wall, connected by spandrils above, while ribs crossed the flat ceiling diagonally, with pendants at the intersection in the centre. Sing- ing always formed a portion of family worship ; and there, as the number of voices was so great, there was always at least one Canticle chaunted, besides a metrical psalm or hymn : and all the music was composed by my Father, who, when at home, was usually the organist as well : my Mother taking his place when- ever he was away from home. It was for the suitable adornment of this Oratory that my Father made his first attempt in oil paint- ing. A copy of Raffaele's famous Madonna della Seggiola was, for a few weeks, in Pittsburgh, and he obtained permission to duplicate it. In about six weeks of such leisure as he could command, it was finished, and in a style really superior to that of the professional artist from whose Avork it was taken. It was then hung upon the wall of the Oratory, in the place of honor : and in all the subsequent removals of the family, that picture has always hung in the room used for family prayer. As the boys' department of the school grew upon his hands, it enabled him to give maintenance to one or more theological The Work done at Pittsourgh. 1 1 7 students, whom he trained, adding the direction of their studies to all his other avocations. Their work in the school, their daily participation in the service of the Oratory, their aid in the Sun- day-School in town, all contributed to leaven their characters, and prepare them in various ways for their future work. Seven young men were thus ordained in Western Pennsylvania, trained by my Father, during the seven years of his priesthood there ; besides others who, beginning under his influence, completed their studies elsewhere.^ It is beautiful to see, in the letters written by some of these young men, the powerful impression made upon them by my Father's influence. The Gothic architecture, the Oratory, the music, the family worship, — all so different from what was com- monly known elsewhere in those days, — combined with other things in attracting them, and in producing feelings which were too strong for utterance. They all address their pastor, guide. and friend by the endearing title of " Father." One of those letters, now be- fore me, gives an interesting account of a young man's struggles of mind and heart before forsaking the law for the ministry, — fasting as well as praying being among the means by which Divine guidance was sought : until at last, repairing to the Church in the silence of its weekday solitude, he kneeled down before the Altar, and devoted himself to God and His Ministry, yet asking to be punished if he were too presumptuous in offering himself for so great a work. Another, writing of one of the Hymn-tunes composed by my Father, says : — " You know where my thoughts fly when those tunes are played, that used to thrill our hearts in the dear Oratory." Another, when far away, kept a little woodcut of Trinity Church, Pittsburgh, over his mantel-shelf, and says that he and his young wife sit and look at it on Sundays, and are " not ashamed to find tears filling their eyes," while thinking of all that it recalls in their past experience.'^ 1 The seven were, John W. James, John T. Adderly, William Hilton, F. H. L. Laird, Sanson K. Brunot, Lyman N. Freeman, and Samuel W. Selden. Of these, Messrs. James, Freeman and Selden were, for a time, engaged in the school. 2 After further personal reminiscences, that writer adds : — ^" And the Oratory, too ;— thfi murmur of voices to ' Our Father who art in Heaven ' ; the simple impres- sive petition of a single modulated voice ; the ' Catholic Amen ',■ the rapturous peal of the organ, and the full swell of those dear voices : all, and everything else that is 1 1 8 The Wo7'k done at PittsbtLi-gh. One letter is strange, from its curious evidence of the effect produced by tlie striking difterence of the tone of that household from that of other households. A young man who, under my Father's influence, had thought of entering the ministry, after- wards visited the family, and in consequence of that visit with- drew from his resolution to be a Candidate for Orders. He wrote to my Father : — " I had not sufficiently examined myself. Whether it was the piety of your conversation, the sanctity that breathed around your hallowed mansion, or some more hidden and mysterious agency that operated on me, I know not; but I felt as if I had entered upon forbidden ground. The more I reflected on the step I had taken and the prospect that lay before me, the more hopeless I became." Indeed, it would appear as if the impression produced upon most persons, was very much that which was produced in ancielit times among ordinary Chris- tians by a visit to a Monastery while it yet preserved the early fervor of that intense personal piety and glowing devotion which gave birth to each Monastic Order in its turn. But it must not be supposed that there was any air of gloom about the house. Though dancing was not taught and novel- reading not allowed, and even the usual games of children were mostly dispensed with, and there were no vacations, yet there was no gloom. Each department had a garden of its own, and to each pupil was assigned the care of some specific portion of that garden ; and the old oak grove near the house was a shadowy delight. Then music and drawing and painting diversified the more serious branches of study. There was no competition, and public examinations were not held. But twice in each year an evening concert vvas given in the large school- room, to which parents and friends from town were invited; and joyous festivals they were! All the performers were teachers or pupils of the sclipol, and every particle of the music used — overtures, marches, waltzes, solo songs, duetts, vocal, choruses, and what not — was composed and arranged by my Father him- self: our little orchestra including piano-forte, harp, violins, violoncello, clarinets, flutes, and French horn. On a table in the there, I have kere in chambers of the heart ; — I can enter them, and look upon you unseen, like a spirit of the other world." The IVork done at PittsbitTgh. 119 middle of the hall were placed, for the hispec'don of the invited guests, specimens of the work of each pupil, — drawings, maps, paintings, or pieces of ornamental writing, — the name and age of the doer being placed in the lower corner. At these concerts, md in the daily morning and evening worship in the Oratory, and at meals, all the pupils — boys and girls — came together: but ^n the two last-mentioned occasions the intercourse was only Dcular, as they sat on opposite sides of the Oratory, and ate at different tables. At all other times during the week, the two departments were kept entirely separate. It was certainly a very oeculiar school; but it won the love of the pupils to a degree excelled by no other school which I have ever seen.^ Meanwhile, there were not wanting efforts to draw my Father to New York. In November, 1827, on a rumor that he had been invited to the rectorship of S. Thomas's church in that city, Bishop H. U. Onderdonk wrote at once, strongly dissuading him from accepting it. " Your zeal," said he, " in the cause of the Church, and particularly of the western part of it, is every way delightful; and it is a subject of gratitude that the West has in you one who is able as well as willing. We must not lose you from among us." That rumor was premature. About a year afterwards, however, he was unanimously elected rector of S. Stephen's church, New York, then one of the more prominent and influential parishes of that city : and the Rev. Dr. B. T. Onderdonk — who seems to have been one of the leading movers in the matter — wrote to assure him that his removal to New York " would be a high personal gratification to Bishop Hobart," as well as to the other city clergy. A special messenger went to Pittsburgh to convey the formal call; and letters from the Rev. Dr. Lyell, the Rev. Drs. Wainwright and Beirian, the Rev. L. S. Ives, and others of the New York clerg}^, urged his acceptance in strong, and sometimes enthusiastic, lan- guage. Bishops White and Onderdonk both advised him against 1 At rirst my Father thought of giving to his school the name of " Cranmer Hall," as a mark of affectionate devotion to the principles of the English Reformation ; and for some time the title was used conversationally. But eventually he dropped it, being satisfied, on further examination, that Cranmer was hardly worthy even of this infe- rior and nominal sort of canonization. 1 20 The IVork done at Pittsburgh. the change, however : and when he laid the matter before his vestry, they unanimously resolved, " that, considering the situa- tion of the congregation of this Church, and the interest and welfare of the Church in this section of the country, it is de- cidedly the opinion of this vestry, that the removal of the Rev. Mr. Hopkins would be the .means of dissolving a Congregation and Church, which has been built up by his zeal and exertions, and that it would therefore be inexpedient in him to accept said call." It was therefore at once declined: though the kind magnanimity of Bishop Hobart — to whose exertions it was largely if not mainly due — was ever warmly remembered by my Father.^ As to S. Thomas's church, New York, he was more than once sounded; and at one time (October, 1831), with an assurance from the Vestry that he should be at once elected if he would intimate his willingness to accept : but that intimation was never given. Towards the close of the long contest in Maryland between the friends of Dr. AVyatt and Dr. Johns, there were some who were looking towards my Father as one on whom both parties could unite. The Low-Church party — since so many of their friends had voted for him in Pennsylvania — were kindly disposed. The Rev. Mr. H, V. D. Johns, brother of the Low-Church candi- date, said to a friend that my Father's High-Churchmanship would be no difficulty with him ; and that he would be most happy to 1 In his letter to Bishop Hobart (December 29, 1S2S) declining the call, my Father writes : — " And now, my dear Sir, allow me to thank 3'ou from my heart for the expression of confidence and esteem conveyed to me by your letter. The idea of being near to you and to your family, and of being considered one of those whom you felt disposed to admit to an intimate and friendly intercourse with you, did, I frankly acknowledge, incline me powerfully to accept the opportunity afforded me by this call. For, however warm my attachment to you became while I enjoyed the hospitality of yo\\x house, I yet supposed it was not likely that you could tolerate as a near friend, any one troubled with so much awkward obstinacy of opinion as, then and since, I have manifested on some subjects. The magnanimity and kindness with which your letter convinced me that, in this respect, I had undervalued your character, almost upset all ray prudence, and well-nigh persuaded me to leave Pittsburgh on this per- sonal ground alone. In reference to the subject of our difference of sentiment in the late General Convention, I recollect nothing said by you which either did excite at the time, or ought to have excited, any unpleasant feelings on my part, save only the impression that my own blunt freedom of opinion had perhaps lost me a highly valued fiiend. That I was mistaken in this fear, I rejoice to discover; and if for no other reason than this, I should prize the circumstances of my call to S. Stephen's as amongst the most gratifying of my life." The Wo7'k done at Pittsbttrorfi. 121 <3' see him Bishop of Maryland. But my Father was personally known but to few in that State ; and when he was invited to visit that Diocese and preach, that he might thus help on the move- ment, the invitation was "promptly declined." His influence with his Low-Church brethren — such as it v,-as — he always used in a way likely to promote peace. The Rev. B. B. Smith, then the newly appointed editor of the Episcopal i?(fi:^;?/r