American Scenes, and Christian Slavery Part 18

1. Appropriate names and t.i.tles. Jehovah, &c.

2. Ascription of most glorious attributes. Eternal--Immutable --Omnipotent, &c.

3. Great and glorious works. Creation--Preservation--Redemption --Atonement--Regeneration--Justification--Raising the dead--Judging the world--Destroying it--Glory of the righteous--Punishment of the wicked.

(All these were supported by appropriate quotations of Scripture.)

4. Duties enjoined in reference to Him. Confidence--Worship, &c.

II. That the same honours are ascribed to the Son. (He went over each of the above particulars, showing from Scripture their application to the Son.)

III. That, therefore, the Son is properly and truly G.o.d.

1. We cannot believe the Scriptures would ascribe the same honours to Him as to the Father, if He were not equal to the Father.

2. If He be not truly G.o.d, the Scriptures tempt to idolatry.

3. If He be not truly G.o.d, the accounts which the Scriptures give of Him are self-contradictory.

4. If He be not truly G.o.d, there is no evidence from Scripture that there is a G.o.d at all.

This was a ma.s.sive and compact argument for the Divinity of Christ. It occupied upwards of an hour in the delivery, and was read.

In the afternoon I took care to be in the pulpit five minutes before the time. The Doctor shortly after came, and took his seat behind me.

This to me is always an annoyance,--I would almost as soon have a man with me in bed as in the pulpit;--and in this instance it was peculiarly so, as towards the close, although I had not exceeded forty minutes, I felt quite persuaded that the Doctor was pulling at my coat-tail, which led me rather abruptly to conclude. In this, however, I was mistaken; and the Doctor a.s.sured me it was what he had never done in his life, except in one instance,--and that was when the preacher, having occupied two hours with his sermon, was entering upon a third.

In the evening of the 27th of April I heard, at the Tabernacle, New York, the celebrated Gough deliver a lecture on Temperance. It was to commence at 8 o'clock; but we had to be there an hour before the time, in order to get a comfortable place. That hour was a dreary one. The sc.r.a.ping of throats and the spitting were horrible. It seemed as if some hundreds of guttural organs were uttering the awfully guttural sentence, _"Hwch goch dorchog a chwech o berchill cochion."_

At last Gough made his appearance on the platform. He is a slender young man of three or four and twenty. He told us he had spoken every night except three for the last thirty nights, and was then very weary, but thought "what a privilege it is to live and labour in the present day." He related his own past experience of _delirium tremens_,--how an iron rod in his hand became a snake,--how a many-bladed knife pierced his flesh,--how a great face on the wall grinned at and threatened him; "and yet," he added, "I _knew_ it was a delusion!"

A temperance man, pointing to Gough, had once observed to another, "What a miserable-looking fellow that is!" "But," replied the other, "you would not say so, if you saw how he keeps everybody in a roar of laughter at the public-house till 1 or 2 in the morning." "But I _was_ miserable," said Gough; "I _knew_ that the parties who courted and flattered me really _despised_ me." He told us some humorous tales,--how he used to mortify some of them by claiming acquaintance with them in the street, and in the presence of their respectable friends. He returned scorn for scorn. "Gough," said a man once to him, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself to be always drinking in this manner." "Do I drink at your expense?"--"No." "Do I owe you anything?"--"No." "Do I ever ask you to treat me?"--"No." "Then mind your own business," &c. He introduced this to show that that mode of dealing with the drunkard was not likely to answer the purpose.

"Six years ago," said he, "a man on the borders of Connecticut, sat night after night on a stool in a low tavern to sc.r.a.pe an old fiddle.

Had you seen him, with his old hat drawn over his eyebrows, his swollen lips, and his silly grin, you would have thought him adapted for nothing else. But he signed the pledge, and in two years became a United States senator, and thrilled the House with his eloquence."

In one place, after Gough had delivered a lecture, some ladies gathered around him, and one of them said, "I wish you would ask Joe to 'sign the pledge,"--referring to a wretched-looking young man that was sauntering near the door. Gough went up to him, spoke _kindly_ to him, and got him to sign: the ladies were delighted, and heartily shook hands with Joe. A year after Gough met Joe quite a dandy, walking arm-in-arm with a fine young lady. "Well, Joe, did you stick to the pledge?" said Gough to him. "Yes," said Joe with an exulting smile, "and the lady has stuck to me."

For more than an hour Gough kept the vast audience enchained by his varied and charming talk.

On the 29th I went over the Tract House in New York, and was delighted to see there six steam-presses,--four of which were then at work, pouring forth in rapid succession sheet after sheet impressed with that kind of literature which in my judgment is admirably adapted to meet the wants of this growing country. They were then printing on an average 27,000 publications, including nearly 2,400 of each kind, _per diem!_ and employing sixty women in folding and st.i.tching. During the last year they printed 713,000 volumes, and 8,299,000 smaller publications, making a total of 217,499,000 pages, or 58,154,661 pages more than in any previous year! Of the _volumes_ issued, I may mention 14,000 sets of four volumes of D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation, 17,000 of Bunyan's Pilgrim, 10,000 of Baxter's Saints' Rest, 9,000 of Doddridge's Rise and Progress, 7,000 of Pike's Persuasives, 13,000 of Alleine's Alarm, and 41,000 of Baxter's Call! The two Secretaries, whose business it is to superintend the publishing department and matters relating to the raising of funds, the Rev. Wm. A. Hallock and the Rev. O. Eastman, are enterprising and plodding men. They told me they were brought up together in the same neighbourhood, and had both worked at the plough till they were 20 years of age!

The 1st of May is the great moving day in New York. Throughout the city one house seems to empty itself into another. Were it to the next door, it might be done with no great inconvenience; but it is not so. Try to walk along the causeway, and you are continually blocked up with tables, chairs, and chests of drawers. Get into an omnibus, and you are beset with fenders, pokers, pans, Dutch ovens, baskets, brushes, &c.

Hire a cart, and they charge you double fare.

One day at the water-side, happening to see the steamer for Staten Island about to move off, we stepped on board, and in less than half an hour found ourselves there. The distance is 6 miles, and the island is 18 miles long, 7 miles wide, and 300 feet high. Here are a large hospital for mariners and the quarantine burying-ground. It is also studded with several genteel residences. In 1657 the Indians sold it to the Dutch for 10 shirts, 30 pairs of stockings, 10 guns, 30 bars of lead, 30 lbs. of powder, 12 coats, 2 pieces of duffil, 30 kettles, 30 hatchets, 20 hoes, and one case of knives and awls.

Several emigrant vessels were then in the bay. On our return, we saw with painful interest many of them setting their foot for the first time on the sh.o.r.e of the New World. They were then arriving in New York, chiefly from the United Kingdom, at the rate of one thousand a day. The sight affected me even to tears. It was like a vision of the British Empire crumbling to pieces, and the materials taken to build a new and hostile dominion.

I should draw too largely upon your patience, were I to describe many objects of interest and many scenes of beauty I witnessed in New York and the neighbourhood. The Common Schools; the Croton Waterworks, capable of yielding an adequate supply for a million-and-a-half of people; Hoboken, with its sibyl's cave and elysian fields; the spot on which General Hamilton fell in a duel; the Battery and Castle Garden--a covered amphitheatre capable of accommodating 10,000 people; the Park, and the City Hall with its white marble front; Trinity Church; and its wealthy Corporation; Long Island, or Brooklyn, with its delightful cemetery, &c., &c. Suffice it to say that New York has a population of about 400,000; and that it has for that population, without an Established Church, 215 places of worship. Brooklyn has also a population of 60,000, and 30 places of worship.

LETTER x.x.xVI.

The May Meetings--Dr. Bushnell's Striking Sermon--Two Anti-Slavery Meetings--A Black Demosthenes--Foreign Evangelical Society--A New Thing in the New World--The Home-Missionary Society--Progress and Prospects of the West--Church of Rome--Departure from New York--What the Author thinks of the Americans.

The American May Meetings held in New York do not last a month as in England,--a week suffices. That week is the second in the month. On the Sabbath preceding, sermons on behalf of many of the societies are preached in various churches. On the morning of the Sabbath in question we went to the Tabernacle, not knowing whom we should hear. To our surprise and pleasure, my friend Dr. Baird was the preacher. His text was, "Let thy kingdom come;" and the object for which he had to plead was the Foreign Evangelical Society, of which he was the Secretary. His sermon was exceedingly simple, and the delivery quite in an off-hand conversational style. There was no reading.

In the evening we heard Dr. Bushnell preach, on behalf of the American Home-Missionary Society, at the "Church of the Pilgrims" in Brooklyn.

This is a fine costly building, named in honour of the Pilgrim Fathers, and having a fragment of the Plymouth Rock imbedded in the wall. The sermon was a very ingenious one on Judges xvii. 13: "Then said Micah, Now know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest." The preacher observed that Micah lived in the time of the Judges--what might be called the "emigrant age" of Israel,--that he was introduced on the stage of history as a thief,--that he afterwards became in his own way a saint, and must have a priest. First, he consecrates his own son; but his son not being a Levite, it was difficult for so pious a man to be satisfied. Fortunately a young Levite--a strolling mendicant probably--comes that way; and he promptly engages the youth to remain and act the _padre_ for him, saying, "Dwell with me, and be a _father_ unto me." Having thus got up a religion, the thief is content, and his mental troubles are quieted. Becoming a Romanist before Rome is founded, he says, "Now know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest." Religion to him consisted in a fine silver apparatus of G.o.ds, and a priest in regular succession. In this story of Micah it was seen that _emigration, or a new settlement of the social state, involves a tendency to social decline_. "Our first danger," said the preacher, "is barbarism --Romanism next."

The tendency to barbarism was ill.u.s.trated by historic references. The emigration headed by Abraham soon developed a ma.s.s of barbarism,--Lot giving rise to the Moabites and the Ammonites; meanwhile, Abraham throwing off upon the world in his son Ishmael another stock of barbarians--the Arabs,--a name which according to some signifies _Westerners_. One generation later, and another ferocious race springs from the family of Isaac--the descendants of Esau, or the Edomites.

Then coming down to the time of the Judges we find that violence prevailed, that the roads were destroyed, and that the arts had perished: there was not even a smith left in the land; and they were obliged to go down to the Philistines to get an axe or a mattock sharpened. Then the preacher came to the great American question itself. It was often supposed that in New England there had always been an upward tendency. It was not so. It had been downward until the "great revival" about the year 1740. The dangers to which society in the South and "Far West" is now exposed were powerfully described. The remedies were then pointed out.

"First of all, we must not despair." "And what next? We must get rid, if possible, of slavery." "'We must have peace.'". Also "Railways and telegraphs." "Education, too, we must favour and promote." "Above all, provide a talented and educated body of Christian teachers, and keep them pressing into the wilderness as far as emigration itself can go."

The conclusion of this great sermon was so remarkable that I cannot but give it in the Doctor's own words.

"And now, Jehovah G.o.d, thou who, by long ages of watch and discipline, didst make of thy servant Abraham a people, be thou the G.o.d also of this great nation. Remember still its holy beginnings, and for the fathers' sakes still cherish and sanctify it. Fill it with thy Light and thy Potent Influence, till the glory of thy Son breaks out on the Western sea as now upon the Eastern, and these uttermost parts, given to Christ for his possession, become the bounds of a new Christian empire, whose name the believing and the good of all people shall hail as a name of hope and blessing."

On the Tuesday I attended two Anti-slavery Meetings in the Tabernacle.

The one in the morning was that of Mr. Garrison's party. The chief speakers were Messrs. Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Frederick Dougla.s.s. This party think that the const.i.tution of the United States is so thoroughly pro-slavery that nothing can be done without breaking it up. Another party, at the head of which is Lewis Tappan, think that there are elements in the const.i.tution which may be made to tell powerfully against slavery, and ultimately to effect its overthrow.

Both parties mean well; but they unhappily cherish towards each other great bitterness of feeling. Mr. Tappan's party held their meeting in the afternoon. Among the speakers was the Rev. Mr. Patton from Hartford, son of Dr. Patton, who made a very effective speeches. The Rev. Samuel Ward also, a black man of great muscular power, and amazing command of language and of himself, astonished and delighted me. I could not but exclaim, "There speaks a black Demosthenes!" This man, strange to say, is the pastor of a Congregational church of white people in the State of New York. As a public speaker he seemed superior to Frederick Dougla.s.s. It was pleasing at those anti-slavery meetings to see how completely intermingled were the whites and the coloured.

I had been invited in the evening to speak at the public meeting of the Foreign Evangelical Society, and to take tea at Dr. Baird's house.

While I was there, Dr. Anderson, one of the Secretaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and Mr. Merwin, called to invite me to address the public meeting of that society on the Friday.

I promised to do so, if I should not previously have left for the West Indies. The public meeting of Dr. Baird's society was held in the Dutch Reformed Church, Dr. Hutton's, a magnificent Gothic building. Dr. De Witt took the chair. The attendance was large and respectable. Dr.

Baird, as Secretary, having recently returned from Europe, where he had conversed on the subject of his mission with fourteen crowned heads, read a most interesting report. The writer had then to address the meeting. After him three other gentlemen spoke. There was no collection! Strange to say, that, with all their revivals, our friends in America seem to be morbidly afraid of doing anything under the influence of excitement. Hence the addresses on occasions like this are generally stiff and studied, half-an-hour orations. This feeling prevents their turning the voluntary principle, in the support of their religious societies, to so good an account as they otherwise might. At the close of this meeting, there seemed to be a fine state of feeling for making a collection; and yet no collection was made. This society is one of great value and importance. It is designed to tell in the promotion of evangelical truth on the Catholic countries of Europe and South America. In those countries, it employs a hundred colporteurs in the sale and distribution of religious publications.

The next morning I addressed a breakfast meeting of about 400 people, in a room connected with the Tabernacle. This was a new thing in the New World. It was, moreover, an anti-slavery breakfast, under the presidency of Lewis Tappan. It was charming to see the whites and the coloured so intermingled at this social repast, and that in the very heart of the great metropolis of America.

At 10 the same morning a meeting of the American Tract Society was held at the Tabernacle. I had been engaged to speak on that occasion, but was obliged to go and see about the vessel that was to take us away.

In the evening I was pressed, at half an hour's notice, to speak at the meeting of the American Home-Missionary Society. The Rev. H.W. Beecher of Indianapolis, one of the sons of Dr. Beecher, made a powerful speech on the claims of the West and South-west. In my own address I complimented the Directors on the ground they had recently taken in reference to slavery, and proceeded to say that there was an important sense in which that society should be an anti-slavery society. This elicited the cheers of the few, which were immediately drowned in the hisses of the many. The interruption was but momentary, and I proceeded. The next morning one of the Secretaries endeavoured to persuade me that the hisses were not at myself, but at those who interrupted me with their cheers. I told him his explanation was ingenious and kind; nevertheless I thought I might justly claim the honour of having been hissed for uttering an anti-slavery sentiment at the Tabernacle in New York!

This society has an herculean task to perform; and, in consideration of it, our American friends might well be excused for some years, were it possible, from all foreign operations.

"Westward the star of empire moves."

Ohio welcomed its first permanent settlers in 1788, and now it is occupied by nearly 2,000,000 of people. Michigan obtained its first immigrants but fourteen or fifteen years ago, and now has a population of 300,000. Indiana, admitted into the Union in 1816, has since then received a population of more than half a million, and now numbers nearly a million of inhabitants. Illinois became a State in 1818. From that date its population trebled every ten years till the last census of 1840, and since then has risen from 476,000 to about 900,000.

Missouri, which in 1810 had only 20,800 people, has now 600,000, having increased 50 per cent. in six years. Iowa was scarcely heard of a dozen years ago. It is now a State, and about 150,000 people call its land their home. Wisconsin was organized but twelve years ago, and has now a population of not less than 200,000. One portion of its territory, 33 miles by 30, which ten years before was an unbroken wilderness, numbered even in 1846 87,000 inhabitants; and the emigration to the "Far West" is now greater than ever. A giant is therefore growing up there, who will soon be able and disposed to rule the destinies of the United States. The Church of Rome is straining every nerve to have that giant in her own keeping, and already shouts the song of triumph. Says one of her sanguine sons, "The Church is now firmly established in this country, and persecution will but cause it to thrive. Our countrymen may grieve that it is so; but it is useless for them to kick against the decrees of the Almighty G.o.d. They have an open field and fair play for Protestantism. Here she has had free scope, has reigned without a rival, and proved what she could do, and that her best is evil; for the very good she boasts is not hers. A new day is dawning on this chosen land, and the Church is about to a.s.sume her rightful position and influence. Ours shall yet become consecrated ground. _Our hills and valleys shall yet echo to the convent-bell._ The cross shall be planted throughout the length and breadth of our land; and our happy sons and daughters shall drive away fear, shall drive away evil from our borders with the echoes of their matin and vesper hymns. No matter who writes, who declaims, who intrigues, who is alarmed, or what leagues are formed, THIS IS TO BE A CATHOLIC COUNTRY; and from Maine to Georgia, from the broad Atlantic to broader Pacific, the 'clean sacrifice' is to be offered daily for quick and dead." The triumph may be premature; but it conveys a timely warning.

The next day the Anniversary of the Bible Society was held. The Hon.

Theodore Frelinghuysen presided. At that meeting I had been requested, to speak, but could not. Indeed, we were detained all day on board a vessel by which we expected every hour to sail for Jamaica; though, after all, we had to wait until the following day. On that day, the 14th of May, just at the time the Board of Missions were holding their public meeting, we sailed, and bade adieu to New York and all the delightful engagements of that memorable week.

But, say you, Tell us in a few words what you think of America upon the whole? I will try to do so. There is a cla.s.s of things I greatly admire; and there is a cla.s.s of things I greatly detest. Among the former I may mention--

1. Religious equality--the absence of a State church.