Kitabı oku: «Fifty Notable Years», sayfa 17

"He has rare power. A model pulpit voice, deep, sonorous; a manner of wonderful impressiveness; a personality behind his words that makes every word tell; and long years of sagacious work without mistakes re-enforcing what he says, so that it is safe to say that no man's word in any Chicago pulpit, on any question before the people, goes as far as his in impressing the public mind."⁵⁴

Dr. Ryder has what another has termed "an impressive presence," not in bodily size, but in a pleasant dignity which is attractive rather than imposing. An indication of cool self-confidence is in every word and action. He is thoroughly in earnest as a public speaker, and as thoroughly sincere and fearless in maintaining what he believes to be the right of the subject under consideration. A capital instance of this quality in him was given in the discussion of a topic that came up at the United States Convention during its session in Lynn in 1875. He had been invited to speak of "The Needs and Methods of Spiritual Awakening," and used great plainness and force of speech in reference to what he deemed some of the spiritual failures of professed Universalists which needed amendment. His matter was well considered, and his words were stirring and strong. An attempt was made to pass a vote of censure. He had discharged a duty laid upon him, and deserved the thanks of his hearers, even though they had not assented to a word he uttered, if they were convinced – as doubtless all were – that he honestly believed what he said and discharged a conscientious duty. His defence and vindication of himself were admirable. The attempt to censure so significantly failed that the author of the resolution very readily withdrew it. A chronicler of the occasion wrote that it was worth a long journey to listen to that "outpouring."

During the war Dr. Ryder was a strong helper of the Union cause, active, eloquent, and untiring in his support of the government in manifold ways.

In addition to his other agreeable personal characteristics, Dr. Ryder is well known to those most intimate with him as a genial, courteous, and warm-hearted friend and companion. All his pastorates bear testimony to the love which the children and youth bore him, because of the interest in their welfare which he so constantly manifested.

In April, 1882, Dr. Ryder resigned his position as pastor in Chicago, and has since, with his companion, made a voyage to Europe. It is not his intention to take upon him the duties of another pastorate, but he will doubtless be always in readiness to aid as he may the interests of the church to whose prosperity his life thus far has been so constantly devoted.

The Birthplace of Hosea Ballou

In concluding the accounts of ministers here given, it seems appropriate to add a brief reference to an event of recent occurrence, to which the attention of the Universalist public had been specially called. We refer to the meetings held under the direction of the "Cheshire Association," on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the 18th, 19th, and 20th of August, 1882, in Richmond, N. H., the birthplace of Rev. Hosea Ballou, and in honor of this distinguished and venerated man. During these days, discourses were preached by Rev. Quincy Whitney, Rev. S. S. Fletcher, Rev. Dr. S. H. McCollester, Rev. Dr. A. A. Miner, and Rev. Dr. G. H. Emerson. Multitudes were in attendance, and the occasion was deeply impressive, and is significantly historical. Appended to a special account of the great gathering, Dr. Emerson, editor of the "Christian Leader," presents the following description of the birthplace of Mr. Ballou. We are glad to give it a place in this volume: —

"Stratford-upon-Avon has its one interest for the great world in the happy fortune of giving to every age the Bard who, in the faculty for putting an almost inspired wisdom into verse that is not simply matchless, but at a vast altitude above that of every other poet who has spoken the Saxon tongue, – William Shakespeare. The little town of Ayr would be nothing but a Scottish post-village but for the circumstance that Robert Burns first breathed within its borders. But first Stratford and then Ayr, for the English-speaking world, rise to an importance simply unique, above every hamlet upon the British Isles, London and Edinburgh hardly excepted.

"Those who with us fully believe that the future is to honor Hosea Ballou with a niche in the temple of fame, as the peer of the elder Edwards, and as hardly the second of Franklin, who find in the 'Treatise on the Atonement' the quarry where Bushnell has polished a few boulders, will further agree with us that the gazetteer of the coming century will put into conspicuous type, and honor with some detail of description, the New Hampshire farming town where Hosea Ballou was born. The compiler of Lippincott's did not know its claim to distinction, when he summarily disposed of Richmond, N. H., as 'a post-township in Cheshire Co., 53 miles S. W. of Concord.'

"In a recent attendance upon the grove meeting, not the least among the inducements to make the journey was the opportunity to see the homestead where Hosea Ballou first took the breath of life, and to explore some of the vales and hills his boy feet must have trod more than a century ago… As we enter this little village, a church at our right, half a century old, is the Universalist church, – the members of which have nearly all left, to be good parishioners at Winchester, Keene, and other more thriving and distant neighborhoods.

"A little farther on, at our left, is a 'meeting-house,' – it is true to that classic cognomen. It is black with age. It seems hardly strong enough to keep timber, board, and shingle together. It cannot be less than a century and a half old. The very sight of it takes us back to a former and very primitive age. The glass is held to the sash by bits of tin, – the putty got tired long ago and 'let go.' We cannot enter, but we can look through the windows. On the north side is the great, square pine pulpit, possibly one that never knew the smell of paint. The square pews have high seats from which only tolerably long limbs can touch the knotty floor. There is no grace of form, no cunning device of architect, nothing to woo a trained fancy. In and of itself, it is a hulk that only cumbers the ground.

"Why, then, did we look often, long, and spell-bound upon this wretched old rookery, and see therein a fascination not to be noted in the Capitol at Albany or the mammoth and costly post-offices of New York and Boston? The answer is in the history. More than a century ago, Rev. Maturin Ballou preached regularly from that pine pulpit. Among the regular auditors, possibly the most thoughtful of them all, his little legs dangling from the rough benches, sat his little son – Hosea.

"On the morning of Sunday, our friend and host, Mr. L. Martin, says to his pastor of many years, the Rev. E. Davis: 'Take my horse and carriage, and show these people where Hosea Ballou was born.' 'These people' include Dr. Miner, Rev. Mr. Stone, of Canton, Rev. Q. Whitney, and the editor of the 'Christian Leader.' Mr. Davis knows the way, but in Mr. Bowen, who owns the farm contiguous to the once Ballou territory, he finds and calls a pilot and village antiquarian. Perhaps a mile east of the Keene and Richmond road, a mile and a half from the Universalist church on the hill, right at the foot of 'Grassy Hill,' we find a strictly modern house, and a very old barn, and a much older corn-house, – less now by a good sample than it was before we saw it. It is a one-story house, with modern windows, and three small chimneys. Mr. Bowen explains: 'That house contains the frame within which Hosea Ballou was born, and the form of the interior is substantially the same.' He was confident that the three chimneys were the same in material as the one big chimney of the old structure. Of the corn-house near by, Mr. Bowen says: 'That is just the same, only it is older and is now going to decay.' Knoll, stream, valley, plain, and high hill to the east, – in the woods of which run the fence or wall that bounded the Ballou farm: upon these time can have wrought but little change. We saw them upon that Sunday morning as Hosea Ballou saw them, – as child, as boy, as youth, as man. From that quiet spot, so rural, so out of the way, so completely in the backwoods, almost hidden by precipice and hill, came the acorn, the oak whereof is now strong and vigorous, – we trust with healing in its leaves. The little boy entering that corn-barn to get fodder for his father's horse, cows, and oxen, – is that the same whose stalwart form first rose before us in the School Street pulpit forty years ago; whose eloquent tongue set the blood thrilling in our youthful veins; whose majestic bearing seemed to us – what it was – that of an Apostle?

"It has been our good fortune to look upon the Forum where Cicero declaimed in orations that yet thrill; to traverse the Colosseum where Trajan had a private box; to walk the streets of Pompeii whose pavements were trodden by resident Greeks and strangers centuries before the advent of Jesus.

"But there is an ample niche in our memory left. We place therein, to recall reverently, gratefully, and with weird association, our visit, on the morning of August 20, 1882, to the birthplace of Hosea Ballou, Richmond, N. H., 'twelve miles from Keene, due south.' The town of hill, vale, and forest is largely deserted by man. Farms that once waved with corn are now covered with forests of pine. The locomotive has never been seen – hardly heard – within its borders. But its history is precious. For what it was, for what it bequeathed, it shall live in history and in song."

CHAPTER XX.
EDUCATIONAL AIDS

THE Universalists, like some others of the Christian sects in America, were at first destitute of the educational forces which have so signally aided and strengthened the more popular churches of the land. They had no colleges, no academies, or theological schools at their command. Although some of their ministers were very respectable scholars, giving good evidence of their literary attainments in their pulpit instructions, and now and then an uncommon genius would appear, making his talents specially available as a writer or preacher, the larger number were more notable mainly for their plain good sense, their reasoning powers, their very intimate acquaintance with the Scriptures, and their aptness in the use of them in the defence and advocacy of their faith. These last named qualifications gave the Universalist minister a vantage-ground in the elucidation of his faith, which often rendered it impossible for a theological opponent, however well trained as a scholar, to sustain himself in an attempted vindication of his opinions. If, therefore, Christian truth could be thus clearly and impressively set forth by those of but limited educational resources, how much more effective might it prove if thoroughly prepared and armed with a ripe and ready scholarship? This consideration, as was to have been expected, in due time moved some of the wisest and best friends of the Universalist Church to take steps towards the accomplishment of this object.

And not for the ministry only was this advantage sought. Those who were needed to sustain the ministry were equally involved in the attainment of it. Every Christian sect has been elevated and sustained in a great measure by giving its support to educational institutions, – the college, the divinity school, the academy. If an educated ministry is one of the great aids in sustaining Christian truth and the Christian Church, so is an educated laity. Both would have their religion represented and upheld by the highest educational supports and influences of modern civilization.

Besides, Christian Universalism is a child of the light. It is "not of the night nor of darkness." It would send out its inquiries everywhere into the universe in its readiness to "prove all things and hold fast that which is good." It would stand face to face with all the questionings that come up in science, history, philosophy, fully persuaded that all these, truthfully consulted, will more and more confirm its great doctrines of God, the divine law and its operations, the divine purposes and their fulfilment, the reign of righteousness and its final triumph over all evil, as made known through Christ, the Head, Guide, and Emancipator of Man. Hence it could not be otherwise than that the enlightened Universalist should be the earnest advocate and friend of educational institutions.

A notable evidence of this interest was seen in the instituting of Tufts College in Medford, Mass. It was a timely generosity that gave it being on that pleasant hill which "the centuries had piled and planted to be the candlestick on which Charles Tufts should set the light of this institution."⁵⁵ It was incorporated in 1852, and opened for students in 1855. Its prosperity has been of steady growth, its funds have multiplied and its endowments increased; the last report of the President (E. H. Capen, D. D.) showing it to be "no longer an experiment, but a power." The aggregate assets of the college at the present time, including the buildings and one hundred and twenty acres of land, are not less than $1,000,000. With a Faculty of great practical efficiency, and with the close personal intercourse of teachers and pupils, no institution of the kind in America affords better facilities for a thorough education. In connection with the college is the Divinity School, with its able and devoted instructors. A professorship in the school was endowed by Charles Packard, Esq., of Boston. An elegant chapel near the main college building is soon to be ready for use, at a cost of $25,000, the gift of Mrs. Mary T. Goddard, of Newton, Mass.

Lombard University, at Galesburg, Ill., is another institution, founded by Benjamin Lombard, of Galesburg. The university building is of brick, three stories high, with spacious rooms. It has libraries of about 5,000 volumes; an extensive mineralogical cabinet, including a rare collection of shells; a valuable philosophical and chemical apparatus, and a permanent fund of about $100,000. Young men and women are admitted alike to all classes and all courses of study. Rev. N. White, Ph. D., is President, as also of the Theological Department in connection with the university. All departments of the university are open to the students of theology without charge.

St. Lawrence University is at Canton, St. Lawrence Co., N. Y. It has two fully organized departments. 1. The collegiate, comprising the usual four years' classical course, and a four years' scientific course. Rev. A. G. Gaines is president and Craig Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy. Young men and women are admitted to the institution on the same conditions. 2. The theological, of which Rev. I. M. Atwood, D. D. (the successor of the late Dr. Fisher) is president. Competent and faithful teachers are in both schools. The location and surroundings of the school are favorable to uninterrupted study. A good number of well-educated and useful ministers have gone out from Canton.

Another college worthy of special attention is Buchtel, Akron, Summit Co., Ohio. It was founded by the Universalist State Convention of Ohio, and was named in honor of Hon. John R. Buchtel, its most generous and devoted benefactor, and was opened to students of both sexes, Sept. 11, 1872. The curriculum of study embraces: 1. A complete classical course of four years; 2. A thorough philosophical course of four years; 3. A full scientific course of four years. There is also a preparatory course of three years for each of the above courses. Rev. O. Cone is president of Buchtel, who has a company of able teachers with him. There are thirty-two perpetual scholarships of $1,000 each; and four professorship endowments (two for women), two of $25,000, and two of $20,000 each. The outlook from the institution was never more promising than at present, and its friends were never more devoted to its interests. Its generous founder has lived to see this child of his many anxieties and strong affection one of the great joys of his lifetime; and he richly deserves it. The college was lately freed from debt. Its total capital is $290,000.

Clinton Liberal Institute has been of good service. It was founded in Clinton, N. Y., in 1831, and removed to Fort Plain, N. Y., in 1879, and came into possession of the buildings and grounds formerly known as the Fort Plain Seminary and Collegiate Institute. It was the first academic institution set up by Universalists, and has had a steady success from the beginning. Charles V. Parcell, A. M., is president, and has with him a full corps of competent teachers. The amount of its property is $100,000.

One of the most convenient and beautiful educational buildings in New England is Dean Academy, at Franklin, Mass. It was incorporated in 1865, and derives its name from the late Dr. Oliver Dean of Franklin. The edifice with the outbuildings is valued at $200,000, is lighted with gas and heated by steam, and has every modern improvement and convenience for the comfort of the pupils. Its principal is Lester L. Burrington, A. M., Chase Professor of Latin and Greek. The institution is well endowed and is increasing in prosperity. It is an honor to the Universalist denomination as well as to its venerable founder, and deserves to be widely patronized and vigorously sustained. The edifice stands upon land once owned by the distinguished Orthodox divine, Dr. Nathaniel Emmons, formerly the minister of the town.

Goddard Seminary is situated in the beautiful village of Barre, Vt., six miles from Montpelier. The school is for both sexes, and offers three complete courses of study, viz. the college preparatory, of three years; the ladies' collegiate, of four years; the English course, of four years. The seminary is well supplied with anatomical models, skeletons, charts, globes, stereopticon, table and gas microscope, and apparatus for the illustration of physiology, astronomy, philosophy, and chemistry. The cabinet contains an excellent collection of minerals, fossils, and natural history specimens, and superior facilities are offered for the study of natural science.

This institution bears the name of one whose generous encouragement was given it in the beginning, – Mr. Thomas A. Goddard. He was a member of the Second Universalist Church in Boston, and during the long pastorate of Rev. Hosea Ballou was the faithful superintendent of its Sunday-school. Prosperous in business, he was always liberal in his contributions to the church and its charities, which in a large city were ever making appeals to him. From the time of the first movements for the founding of Tufts College, he was among its most interested and generous helpers, and was one of the first treasurers of the institution. When, a few years since, the infant seminary at Barre became embarrassed, a devoted friend, acting as its agent, determined to make a vigorous effort in its behalf. He came to Massachusetts, and calling on Mrs. Goddard, whose husband had aided the school in the beginning, the result was Goddard Seminary.

Westbrook Seminary and Female College is a boarding-school for young men and women, near Portland, in Deering (post-office Stevens Plains), Me. The institution began to be talked of as early as 1830. A generous citizen of Westbrook, Mr. Zechariah Stevens, had resolved to donate land ample enough for the school buildings and the needed adornment around them. How his gift has been improved, the present attractive appearance of the seminary declares. The institution was chartered in 1831, and opened in 1834. It has had friendly aids from time to time, one of them being Hersey Hall, the gift of Gen. S. F. Hersey of Bangor. Common and higher English courses, a college preparatory, and two collegiate courses for ladies are provided. The school-building contains the chapel, recitation-rooms, library, laboratory, and cabinet of minerals. Rev. J. P. Weston, D. D., is president of the institution.

Green Mountain Perkins Institute is situated in the village of South Woodstock, Vt. It was incorporated in 1848, and has since been in successful operation. The school is for both sexes, and offers three complete courses of study. The classical, of three years, includes Greek and Latin sufficient to prepare students for admission to any New England college. The ladies' collegiate for four years is offered to those wishing to take an extended course in Latin, French, and German, and higher English. The school has gained a good reputation.

In this presentation of the principal educational institutions founded and sustained mainly by the Universalist public, it is seen what influences may go out from them to the honor of the Universalist Church, the promotion, of literary culture, scientific enlightenment, and Christian civilization.

It may be well here, as we speak of educational aids, to recognize the instrumentality of the Sunday-school, which has found such a good degree of encouragement from the friends of Christian Universalism. It has been an outgrowth of the increased conviction among them of the duty of instructing the rising generation in the truth and life of the Gospel. From the beginning of the present century in America this work has been recognized, the Universalists in Philadelphia and Boston manifesting their special interest in it.⁵⁶ Growth in this work has been gradual but encouraging, and the Sunday-school is now one of the cherished institutions of the Universalist Church. Its interests are widely and earnestly discussed, and the means for its advancement through the children's paper and teachers' "Helper" promise good results, if wisely utilized in the future. Although still needing improvement, the Sunday-school may be regarded with this church, as with others bearing the Christian name, as an indispensable aid in the moral advancement and religious culture of the children and youth on whom will rest the responsibilities of the church in the years to come. The Sunday-school cause was never more generally and unitedly encouraged by Universalists than at the present time.

Another educational aid worthy of note is that to be found in the circulation of the literature of the church; its periodicals, books, pamphlets, and tracts. These have thus far done excellent work in reaching and awaking interest in religious truth where the living preacher has not gone. A hundred-fold more can this be done by a just appreciation of this great instrumentality, – the Press. It is always a power in the advocacy of any cause; it will be in its tendency to deepen and strengthen the loyalty of Universalists to the church they represent. An active and clear-sighted agent of one of our Western colleges just now writes: —

"In my work for the college, the closest readers of our church papers are the ones who have responded most readily to the call for help. Loyalty to our church among them is the rule, while among those who do not take a paper, he is the exception, only, who responds to the call. Nothing else can be so powerful an ally of the preacher in keeping the people informed of our schools and colleges and all other interests; and that Universalist family which refuse to take a church paper for the pittance which our Western organ costs, —four cents a week, – not only lose much of interest and enjoyment, but thereby advertise their own indifference to the best interests of the church.

"Strenuous efforts should, for these reasons, be put forth by the ministry and other agencies to place a church paper in every Universalist home throughout the land."⁵⁷

The appeal here made will apply to any locality. And more than this. These readers of the church publications are themselves to seek a larger distribution of this means of Divine enlightenment to others. Ignorance of Christian truth at home and abroad, – in our own land and in lands less blessed with heavenly knowledge, – is constantly calling for this educational work on the part of those who are permitted to live in the light and cherish the hopes of the Gospel of God's impartial and efficient grace.