Recollections of a Long Life by Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
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18 [Illustration: THEODORE LEDYARD CUYLER]
RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
BY THEODORE LEDYARD CUYLER, D.D., LL.D. _Author of "God's Light on Dark
Clouds," "Heart Life," Etc._
1902.
CONTENTS
I
BOYHOOD AND COLLEGE LIFE
II
GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO
_Wordsworth--Dickens--The Land of Burns, etc_.
III
GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO (Continued)
_Carlyle--Mrs. Baillie--The Young Queen--Napoleon_
IV
HYMN-WRITERS I HAVE KNOWN
_Montgomery--Bonar--Bowring--Palmer and others_.
V
THE TEMPERANCE REFORM AND MY CO-WORKERS
VI
WORK IN THE PULPIT
VII
EXPERIENCE IN REVIVALS
VIII
AUTHORSHIP
IX
SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE ABROAD
_Gladstone--Dr. Brown--Dean Stanley--Shaftesbury, etc._
X
SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE AT HOME
_Irving--Whittier--Webster--Greeley, etc_.
XI
THE CIVIL WAR AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN
XII
PASTORAL WORK
XIII
SOME FAMOUS PREACHERS IN BRITAIN
_Binney--Hamilton--Guthrie--Hall--Spurgeon--Duff and others_.
XIV
SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN PREACHERS
_The Alexanders--Dr. Tyng--Dr. Cox--Dr. Adams
--Dr. Storrs--Mr. Beecher, Mr. Finney and Dr. B.M. Palmer_.
XV
SUMMERING AT SARATOGA AND MOHONK
_Bishop Haven--Dr. Schaff--President McCook._
XVI
A RETROSPECT
XVII
A RETROSPECT (Continued)
XVIII
HOME LIFE
XIX
LIFE AT HOME AND FRIENDS ABROAD
XX
THE JOYS OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY
_A Valedictory Discourse Delivered to the
Lafayette Avenue Church, April_ 6, 1890.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
THEODORE LEDYARD CUYLER
DR. CUYLER WHEN PASTOR OF THE MARKET ST. CHURCH
DR CUYLER AT 50
LAFAYETTE AVENUE CHURCH
DR. CUYLER AT 80
RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE
CHAPTER I
MY BOYHOOD AND COLLEGE LIFE
Washington Irving has somewhere said that it is a happy thing to have
been born near some noble mountain or attractive river or lake, which
should be a landmark through all the journey of life, and to which we
could tether our memory. I have always been thankful that the place of
my nativity was the beautiful village of Aurora, on the shores of the
Cayuga Lake in Western New York. My great-grandfather, General Benjamin
Ledyard, was one of its first settlers, and came there in 1794. He was a
native of New London County, Ct., a nephew of Col. William Ledyard, the
heroic martyr of Fort Griswold, and the cousin of John Ledyard, the
celebrated traveller, whose biography was written by Jared Sparks. When
General Ledyard came to Aurora some of the Cayuga tribe of Indians were
still lingering along the lakeside, and an Indian chief said to my
great-grandfather, "General Ledyard, I see that your daughters are very
pretty squaws." The eldest of these comely daughters, Mary Forman
Ledyard, was married to my grandfather, Glen Cuyler, who was the
principal lawyer of the village, and their eldest son was my father,
Benjamin Ledyard Cuyler. He became a student of Hamilton College,
excelled in elocution, and was a room-mate of the Hon. Gerrit Smith,
afterward eminent as the champion of anti-slavery. On a certain Sabbath,
the student just home from college was called upon to read a sermon in
the village church of Aurora, in the absence of the pastor, and his
handsome visage and graceful delivery won the admiration of a young lady
of sixteen, who was on a visit to Aurora. Three years afterward they
were married. My mother, Louisa Frances Morrell, was a native of
Morristown, New Jersey; and her ancestors were among the founders of
that beautiful town. Her maternal great-grandfather was the Rev. Dr.
Timothy Johnes, the pastor of the Presbyterian Church, who administered
the sacrament of the Lord's Supper to General Washington. Her paternal
great-grandfather was the Rev. Azariah Horton, pastor of a church near
Morristown, and an intimate friend of the great President Edwards. The
early settlers of Aurora were people of culture and refinement; and the
village is now widely known as the site of Wells College, among whose
graduates is the popular wife of ex-President Cleveland.
In the days of my childhood the march of modern improvements had hardly
begun. There was a small steamboat plying on the Cayuga Lake. There was
not a single railway in the whole State. When I went away to school in
New Jersey, at the age of thirteen, the tedious journey by the
stagecoach required three days and two nights; every letter from home
cost eighteen cents for postage; and the youngsters pored over Webster's
spelling-books and Morse's geography by tallow candles; for no gas lamps
had been dreamed of and the wood fires were covered, in most houses, by
nine o'clock on a winter evening. There was plain living then, but not a
little high thinking. If books were not so superabundant as in these
days, they were more thoroughly appreciated and digested.
My father, who was just winning a brilliant position at the Cayuga
County Bar, died in June, 1826, at the early age of twenty-eight, when I
was but four and one-half years old. The only distinct recollections
that I have of him are his leading me to school in the morning, and that
he once punished me for using a profane word that I had heard from some
rough boys. That wholesome bit of discipline kept me from ever breaking
the Third Commandment again. After his death, I passed entirely into
the care of one of the best mothers that God ever gave to an only son.
She was more to me than school, pastor or church, or all combined. God
made mothers before He made ministers; the progress of Christ's kingdom
depends more upon the influence of faithful, wise, and pious mothers
than upon any other human agency.
As I was an only child, my widowed mother gave up her house and took me
to the pleasant home of her father, Mr. Charles Horton Morrell, on the
banks of the lake, a few miles south of Aurora. How thankful I have
always been that the next seven or eight years of my happy childhood
were spent on the beautiful farm of my grandfather! I had the free pure
air of the country, and the simple pleasures of the farmhouse; my
grandfather was a cultured gentleman with a good library, and at his
fireside was plenty of profitable conversation. Out of school hours I
did some work on the farm that suited a boy; I drove the cows to the
pasture, and rode the horses sometimes in the hay-field, and carried in
the stock of firewood on winter afternoons. My intimate friends were the
house-dog, the chickens, the kittens and a few pet sheep in my
grandfather's flocks. That early work on the farm did much toward
providing a stock of physical health that has enabled me to preach for
fifty-six years without ever having spent a single Sabbath on a
sick-bed!
My Sabbaths in that rural home were like the good old Puritan Sabbaths,
serene and sacred, with neither work nor play. Our church (Presbyterian)
was three miles away, and in the winter our family often fought our way
through deep mud, or through snow-drifts piled as high as the fences. I
was the only child among grown-up uncles and aunts, and the first
Sunday-school that I ever attended had only one scholar, and my good
mother was the superintendent. She gave me several verses of the Bible
to commit thoroughly to memory and explained them to me; I also studied
the Westminster Catechism. I was expected to study God's Book for
myself, and not to sit and be crammed by a teacher, after the fashion of
too many Sunday-schools in these days, where the scholars swallow down
what the teacher brings to them, as young birds open their mouths and
swallow what the old bird brings to the nest. There is a lamentable
ignorance of the language of Scripture among the rising generation of
America, and too often among the children of professedly Christian
families.
The books that I had to feast on in the long winter evenings were
"Robinson Crusoe," "Sanford and Merton," "The Pilgrim's Progress," and
the few volumes in my grandfather's library that were within the
comprehension of a child of eight or ten years old. I wept over "Paul
and Virginia," and laughed over "John Gilpin," the scene of whose
memorable ride I have since visited at the "Bell of Edmonton," During
the first quarter of the nineteenth century drunkenness was fearfully
prevalent in America; and the drinking customs wrought their sad havoc
in every circle of society. My grandfather was one of the first
agriculturists to banish intoxicants from his farm, and I signed a
pledge of total abstinence when I was only ten or eleven years old.
Previously to that, I had got a taste of "prohibition" that made a
profound impression on me. One day I discovered some "cherrybounce" in a
wine-glass on my grandfather's sideboard, and I ventured to swallow the
tempting liquor. When my vigilant mother discovered what I had done, she
administered a dose of Solomon's regimen in a way that made me "bounce"
most merrily. That wholesome chastisement for an act of disobedience,
and in the direction of tippling, made me a teetotaller for life; and,
let me add, that the first public address I ever delivered was at a
great temperance gathering (with Father Theobald Mathew) in the City
Hall of Glasgow during the summer of 1842. My mother's discipline was
loving but thorough; she never bribed me to good conduct with
sugar-plums; she praised every commendable deed heartily, for she held
that an ounce of honest praise is often worth more than many pounds of
punishment.
During my infancy that godly mother had dedicated me to the Lord, as
truly as Hannah ever dedicated her son Samuel. When my paternal
grandfather, who was a lawyer, offered to bequeath his law-library to
me, my mother declined the tempting offer, and said to him: "I fully
expect that my little boy will yet be a minister." This was her constant
aim and perpetual prayer, and God graciously answered her prayer of
faith in His own good time and way. I cannot now name any time, day, or
place when I was converted. It was my faithful mother's steady and
constant influence that led me gradually along, and I grew into a
religious life under her potent training, and by the power of the Holy
Spirit working through her agency. A few years ago I gratefully placed
in that noble "Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church" of Brooklyn (of
which I was the founder and pastor for thirty years) a beautiful
memorial window to my beloved mother representing Hannah and her child
Samuel, and the fitting inscription: "As long as he liveth I have lent
him to the Lord."
For several good reasons I did not make a public profession of my faith
in Jesus Christ until I left school and entered the college at
Princeton, New Jersey. The religious impressions that began at home
continued and deepened until I united, at the age of seventeen, with the
Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. As an effectual instruction in
righteousness, my faithful mother's letters to me when a schoolboy were
more than any sermons that I heard during all those years. I feel now
that the happy fifty-six years that I have spent in the glorious
ministry of the Gospel of Redemption is the direct outcome of that
beloved mother's prayers, teaching example, and holy influence.
My preparation for college was partly under the private tutorship of the
good old Dutch dominie, the Rev. Gerrit Mandeville, who smoked his pipe
tranquilly while I recited to him my lessons in Caesar's Commentaries,
and Virgil; and partly in the well-known Hill Top School, at Mendham,
N.J. I entered Princeton college at the age of sixteen and graduated at
nineteen, for in those days the curriculum in our schools and
universities was more brief than at present. The Princeton college to
which I came was rather a primitive institution in comparison with the
splendid structures that now crown the University heights. There were
only seven or eight plain buildings surrounding the campus, the two
society-halls being the only ones that boasted architectural beauty. In
endowments the college was as poor as a church mouse. There were no
college clubs, no inter-collegiate games, thronged by thousands of
people from all over the land; but the period of my connection with the
college was really a golden period in its history. Never were its chairs
held by more distinguished occupants. The president of the college was
Dr. Carnahan, who, although without a spark of genius, was yet a man of
huge common sense, kindness of heart and excellent executive ability. In
the chair of the vice-president sat dear old "Uncle Johnny" McLean, the
best-loved man that ever trod the streets of Princeton. He was the
policeman of the faculty, and his astuteness in detecting the pranks of
the students was only equalled by his anxiety to befriend them after
they were detected. The polished culture of Dr. James W. Alexander then
adorned the Chair of the Latin Language and English Literature. Dr. John
Torrey held the chemical professorship. He was engaged with Dr. Gray in
preparing the history of American Flora. Stephen Alexander's modest eye
had watched Orion and the Seven Stars through the telescope of the
astronomer; the flashing wit and silvery voice of Albert B. Dod, then in
his splendid prime, threw a magnetic charm over the higher mathematics.
And in that old laboratory, with negro "Sam" as his assistant, reigned
Joseph Henry, the acknowledged king of American scientists. When, soon
after, he gave me a note of Introduction to Sir Michael Faraday,
Faraday said to me: "By far the greatest man of science your country has
produced since Benjamin Franklin is Professor Henry." With Professor
Henry I formed a very intimate friendship, and after he became the head
of the Smithsonian Institution I found a home with him whenever I went
to Washington.
Our class, which graduated in 1841, contained several members who have
since made a deep mark in church and commonwealth. Professor Archibald
Alexander Hodge was one of us. He inherited the name and much of the
power of his distinguished father. Also General Francis P. Blair, who
rendered heroic service on the battle-field. John T. Nixon brought to
the bench of the United States Court, and Edward W. Scudder brought to
the Supreme Court Bench of New Jersey, legal learning and Christian
consciences. Richard W. Walker became a distinguished man in the
Southern Confederacy. Our class sent four men to professor's chairs in
Princeton. My best beloved classmate was John T. Duffield, who, after a
half century of service as professor of mathematics in the University,
closed his noble and beneficent career on the 10th of April, 1901. I
delivered the memorial tribute to him soon afterward in the Second
Presbyterian Church in the presence of the authorities of the
University. Another intimate friend was the Hon. Amzi Dodd,
ex-chancellor of New Jersey and the ex-president of the New Jersey Life
Insurance Company. He is still a resident of that State. During the past
three-score years it has been my privilege to deliver between sixty and
seventy sermons or addresses in Princeton, either to the students of the
University or of the Theological Seminary, or to the residents of the
town. The place has become inexpressibly dear to me as a magnificent
stronghold of Christian culture and orthodox faith, on the walls of
whose institutions the smile of God gleams like the light of the
morning. O Princeton, Princeton! in the name of the thousands of thy
loyal sons, let me gratefully say, "If we forget thee, may our right
hands forget their cunning, and our tongues cleave to the roofs of our
mouths!"
CHAPTER II
GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO
_Wordsworth--Dickens--The Land of Burns, etc_.
The year after leaving college I made a visit to Europe, which, in those
days, was a notable event. As the stormy Atlantic had not yet been
carpeted by six-day steamers, I crossed in a fine new packet-ship, the
"Patrick Henry," of the Grinnell & Minturn Line. Captain Joseph C.
Delano was a gentleman of high intelligence and culture who, after he
had abandoned salt water, became an active member of the American
Association of Science. After twenty-one days under canvas and the
instructions of the captain, I learned more of nautical affairs and of
the ocean and its ways than in a dozen subsequent passages in the
steamships.
On the second morning after our arrival in Liverpool I breakfasted with
that eminent clergyman, Dr. Raffles, who boasted the possession of one
of the finest collections of autographs in England. He showed me the
signature of John Bunyan; the original manuscript of one of Sir Walter
Scott's novels; the original of Burns' poem addressed to the parasite
on a lady's bonnet, which contained the famous lines:
"Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see our sel's as others see us,"
besides several other manuscripts by the same poet, and also the
autograph of a challenge sent by Byron to Lord Brougham for alleged
insult, a fact to which no reference has been made in Byron's biography.
From Liverpool, with my friends Professor Renwick and Professor
Cuningham, I set out on a journey to the lakes of England. We reached
Bowness, on Lake Windermere, in the evening. The next morning we went up
to Elleray, the country residence of Professor Wilson ("Christopher
North"), who, unfortunately, was absent in Edinburgh. We hired a boatman
to row us through exquisitely beautiful Windermere, and in the evening
reached the Salutation Inn, at the foot of the lake. My great interest
in visiting Ambleside was to see the venerable poet, Wordsworth, who
lived about a mile from the village. I happened, just before supper, to
look out of the window of the traveller's room and espied an old man in
a blue cloak and Glengarry cap, with a bunch of heather stuck jauntily
in the top, driving by in a little brown phaeton from Rydal Mount.
"Perhaps," thought I to myself, "that may be the patriarch himself," and
sure enough it was. For, when I inquired about Mr. Wordsworth, the
landlord said to me, "A few minutes ago he went by here in his little
carriage." The next morning I called upon him. The walk to his cottage
was delightful, with the dew still lingering in the shady nooks by the
roadside, and the morning songs of thanksgiving bursting forth from
every grove. At the summit of a deeply shaded hill I found "Rydal Mount"
cottage. I was shown, at once, into the sitting-room, where I found him
with his wife, who sat sewing beside him. The old man rose and received
me graciously. By his appearance I was somewhat startled. Instead of a
grave recluse in scholastic black, whom I expected to see, I found an
affable and lovable old man dressed in the roughest coat of blue with
metal buttons, and checked trousers, more like a New York farmer than an
English poet. His nose was very large, his forehead a lofty dome of
thought, and his long white locks hung over his stooping shoulders; his
eyes presented a singular, half closed appearance. We entered at once
into a delightful conversation. He made many inquiries about Irving,
Mrs. Sigourney and our other American authors, and spoke, with great
vehemence, in favor of an international copyright law. He said that at
one time he had hoped to visit America, but the duties of a small office
which he held (Distributer of Stamps), and upon which he was partly
dependent, prevented the undertaking. He occasionally made a trip to
London to see the few survivors of the friends of his early days, but he
told me that his last excursion had proved a wearisome effort. His
library was small but select. He took down an American edition of his
works, edited by Professor Reed, and told me that London had never
produced an edition equal to it. When I was about to leave, the good old
poet got his broad slouched hat and put on his double purple glasses to
protect his eyes, and we went out to enjoy the neighboring views. We
walked about from one point to another and kept up a lively
conversation. He displayed such a winning familiarity that, in the
language of his own poem, we seemed
"A pair of friends, though I was young,
And he was seventy-four."
From the rear of his court-yard he showed me Rydal Water, a little lake
about a mile long, the beautiful church, and beyond it, Grassmere, and
still further beyond, Helvelyn, the mountain-king with a retinue of a
hundred hills. I might have spent the whole day in delightful
intercourse with the old man, but my fellow-travellers were going, and I
could make no longer inroads upon their time. When we returned to the
door of his cottage, he gave me a parting blessing; he picked a small
yellow flower and handed it to me, and I still preserve it in my
edition of his works, as a relic of the most profound and the most
sublime poet that England has produced during the nineteenth century I
know of but one other living American who has ever visited Wordsworth at
Rydal Mount.
After passing through Keswick, where the venerable poet Southey was
still lingering in sadly failing intelligence, we reached Carlisle the
same evening. From Carlisle we took the mail-coach for Edinburgh by the
same route over which Sir Walter Scott was accustomed to make his
journeys up to London. The driver, who might have answered to Washington
Irving's description, pointed out to me Netherby Hall, the mansion of
the Grahams, on "Cannobie lea," over which the young Lochinvar bore away
his stolen bride. We passed also Branksome Tower, the scene of the "Lay
of the Last Minstrel," and reached Selkirk in the early evening. The
next day I spent at Abbotsford. The Great Magician had been dead only
ten years, and his family still occupied the house with some of his old
employees who figure in Lockhart's biography. I sat in the great
arm-chair where Sir Walter Scott wrote many of his novels, and looked
out of the window of his bedchamber, through which came the rippling
murmurs of the Tweed, that consoled his dying hours. I heartily
subscribe to the opinion, expressed by Tennyson, that Sir Walter Scott
was the most extraordinary man in British literature since the days of
Shakespeare.
After reaching Glasgow I made a brief trip into the Land of Burns. At
the town of Ayr I found an omnibus waiting to take me down to the
birthplace of the poet. At that time the number of visitors to these
regions was comparatively few, and the birthplace of the poet had not
been transformed, as now, into a crowded museum. On reaching a slight
elevation, since consecrated by the muse of Burns, there broke upon the
view his monument, his native cottage, Alloway Kirk, the scene of the
inimitable Tam o' Shanter, and behind them all the "Banks and Braes of
Bonnie Doon." I went first to the monument, within which on a centre
table are the two volumes of the Bible given by Burns to Highland Mary
when they "lived one day of parting love" beneath the hawthorn of
Coilsfield. One of the volumes contains, in Burns' handwriting, "Thou
shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thy vows,"
and a lock of Mary's hair, of a light brown color, given at the time, is
preserved in the treasured volumes. A few steps away is Alloway Kirk.
The old sexton was standing by the grave of Burns' father, and described
to me the route of "Tam o' Shanter." He showed me the chinks in the
sides through which the kirk seemed "all in a bleeze," and he pointed
out the identical place on the wall where Old Nick was presiding over
the midnight revels of the beldames when--
"Louder and louder the piper blew,
Swifter and swifter the dancers flew."
After the old man had finished his recital, I asked him whether he had
ever seen the poet. "Only aince," he replied. "That was one day when he
was ridin' on a road near here. I met a friend who told me to hurry up,
for Rabbie Burns was just ahead. I whippit up my horse, and came up to a
roughly dressed man, ridin' slowly along, with his blue bonnet pulled
down over his forehead, and his eyes turned toward the groond." "Didn't
you speak to him?" I said. "Nay, nay," replied the man, in a tone of
deep reverence, "he was Rabbie Burns. _I dare na speak to him_. If he
had been any other mon I would have said 'good morrow to ye.'" Beautiful
and eloquent tribute, paid by an unlettered peasant, not to rank or to
wealth, but to a soul--a mighty soul though clad in "hodden grey" like
himself!
The most interesting object was yet to be visited--the cottage of his
birth, I entered it with reverence; and a well dressed, but very old,
woman welcomed me in. "This is the room," she said. I looked around on
the rough stone walls and could not believe that it ever contained such
a soul; for the cottage, with all its subsequent repairs, was hardly
equal to the generality of our early log cabins. The old lady was very
affable. In her early life she had been connected with an inn at
Mauchline, and had seen the poet often. "Rabbie was a funny fellow," she
said; "I ken'd him weel; and he stoppit at our hoose on his way up to
Edinburgh to see the lairds." I asked her if he was not always humorous.
"Nae, nae," she replied, "he used to come in and sit doun wi' his hands
in his lap like a bashful country lad; very glum, till he got a drap o'
whuskey, or heard a gude story, _and then he was aff!_ He was very
poorly in his latter days." Those closing days in Dumfries, steeped in
poverty to the lips, forms one of the most tragic chapters in literary
history; and I know scarcely anything in our language more pathetic than
the letter which he wrote describing his wretched bondage to the
dominion of strong drink. An old lady of Kilmarnock told my friend, the
late Dr. Taylor of New York, that when a young woman she had gone to
Burns' house to assist in preparations for his funeral, and stated that
there was not enough decent linen in the house to lay out the most
splendid genius in all Scotland! When I was at Ayr, a sister of Burns,
Mrs. Begg, was still living, and I am always regretting that I did not
call upon her. His widow, Jean Armour, had died but a few years before;
and when a certain pert American who called upon the old lady had the
audacity to ask her: "Can you show me any relics of the poet?" answered
with majestic dignity: "Sir, _I am the only relic of Robert Burns_."
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