CHAPTER LVII [35] For Hull's "Final Statement" see the "Ithaca Daily Journal," January 4, 1898. CHAPTER LVII PLANS AND PROJECTS, EXECUTED AND UNEXECUTED—1838-1905 Among those who especially attracted my youthful admiration were authors, whether of books or of articles in the magazines. When one of these personages was pointed out to me, he seemed of far greater stature than the men about him. This feeling was especially developed in the atmosphere of our household, where scholars and writers were held in especial reverence, and was afterward increased by my studies. This led me at Yale to take, at first, much interest in general literature, and, as a result, I had some youthful successes as a writer of essays and as one of the editors of the "Yale Literary Magazine"; but although it was an era of great writers,—the culmination of the Victorian epoch,—my love for literature as literature gradually diminished, and in place of it came in my young manhood a love of historical and other studies to which literature was, to my mind, merely subsidiary. With this, no doubt, the prevailing atmosphere of Yale had much to do. There was between Yale and Harvard, at that time, a great difference as regarded literary culture. Living immediately about Harvard were most of the leading American authors, and this fact greatly influenced that university; at Yale less was made of literature as such, and more was made of it as a means to an end—as ancillary in the discussion of various militant political questions. Yale had writers strong, vigorous, and acute: of such were Woolsey, Porter, Bacon, and Bushnell, some of whom,—and, above all, the last,—had they devoted themselves to pure literature, would have gained lasting fame; but their interest in the questions of the day was controlling, and literature, in its ordinary sense, was secondary. Harvard undoubtedly had the greater influence on leading American thinkers throughout the nation, but much less direct influence on the people at large outside of Massachusetts. The direct influence of Yale on affairs throughout the United States was far greater; it was felt in all parts of the country and in every sort of enterprise. Many years after my graduation I attended a meeting of the Yale alumni at Washington, where a Western senator, on taking the chair, gave an offhand statement of the difference between the two universities. "Gentlemen," said the senator, "we all know what Harvard does. She fits men admirably for life in Boston and its immediate neighborhood; they see little outside of eastern Massachusetts and nothing outside of New England; in Boston clubs they are delightful; elsewhere they are intolerable. And we also know what Yale does: she sends her graduates out into all parts of the land, for every sort of good work, in town and country, even to the remotest borders of the nation. Wherever you find a Yale man you find a man who is in touch with his fellow-citizens; who appreciates them and is appreciated by them; who is doing a man's work and is honored for doing it." This humorous overstatement indicates to some extent the real difference between the spirit of the two universities: the influence of Harvard being greater through the men it trained to lead American thought from Boston as a center; the influence of Yale being greater through its graduates who were joining in the world's work in all its varied forms. Yet, curiously enough, it was the utterance of a Harvard man which perhaps did most in my young manhood to make me unduly depreciate literary work. I was in deep sympathy with Theodore Parker, both in politics and religion, and when he poured contempt over a certain class of ineffective people as "weak and literary," something of his feeling took possession of me. Then, too, I was much under the influence of Thomas Carlyle: his preachments, hortatory and objurgatory, witty and querulous, that men should defer work in literature until they really have some worthy message to deliver, had a strong effect upon me. While I greatly admired men like Lowell and Whittier, who brought exquisite literary gifts to bear powerfully on the struggle against slavery, persons devoted wholly to literary work seemed to me akin to sugar-bakers and confectionery-makers. I now know that this view was very inadequate; but it was then in full force. It seemed to me more and more absurd that a man with an alleged immortal soul, at such a time as the middle of the nineteenth century, should devote himself, as I then thought, to amusing weakish young men and women by the balancing of phrases or the jingling of verses. Therefore it was that, after leaving Yale, whatever I wrote had some distinct purpose, with little, if any, care as to form. I was greatly stirred against the encroachments of slavery in the Territories, had also become deeply interested in university education, and most of my thinking and writing was devoted to these subjects; though, at times, I took up the cudgels in behalf of various militant ideas that seemed to need support. The lecture on "Cathedral Builders and Mediaeval Sculptors," given in the Yale chapel after my return from Europe, often repeated afterward in various parts of the country, and widely circulated by extracts in newspapers, though apparently an exception to the rule, was not really so. It aimed to show the educational value of an ethical element in art. So, too, my article in the "New Englander" on "Glimpses of Universal History" had as its object the better development of historical studies in our universities. My articles in the "Atlantic Monthly"—on "Jefferson and Slavery," on "The Statesmanship of Richelieu," and on "The Development and Overthrow of Serfdom in Russia"—all had a bearing on the dominant question of slavery, and the same was true of my Phi Beta Kappa address at Yale on "The Greatest Foe of Modern States." Whatever I wrote during the Civil War, and especially my pamphlet published in London as a reply to the "American Diary" of the London "Times" correspondent, Dr. Russell, had a similar character. The feeling grew upon me that life in the United States during the middle of the nineteenth century was altogether too earnest for devotion to pure literature. The same feeling pervaded my lectures at the University of Michigan, my effort being by means of the lessons of history to set young men at thinking upon the great political problems of our time. The first course of these lectures was upon the French Revolution. Work with reference to it had been a labor of love. During my student life in Paris, and at various other times, I had devoted much time to the study of this subject, had visited nearly all the places most closely connected with it not only in Paris but throughout France, had meditated upon the noble beginnings of the Revolution in the Palace and Tennis-court and Church of St. Louis at Versailles; at Lyons, upon the fusillades; at Nantes, upon the noyades; at the Abbaye, the Carmelite monastery, the Barriere du Trone, and the cemetery of the Rue Picpus in Paris, upon the Red Terror; at Nimes and Avignon and in La Vendee, upon the White Terror; had collected, in all parts of France, masses of books, manuscripts, public documents and illustrated material on the whole struggle: full sets of the leading newspapers of the Revolutionary period, more than seven thousand pamphlets, reports, speeches, and other fugitive publications, with masses of paper money, caricatures, broadsides, and the like, thus forming my library on the Revolution, which has since been added to that of Cornell University. Based upon these documents and books were my lectures on the general history of France and on the Revolution and Empire. Out of this came finally a shorter series of lectures upon which I took especial pains—namely, the "History of the Causes of the French Revolution." This part of the whole course interested me most as revealing the strength and weakness of democracies and throwing light upon many problems which our own republic must endeavor to solve; and I gave it not only at Cornell, but at Johns Hopkins, the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford, Tulane, and Washington. It still remains in manuscript: whether it will ever be published is uncertain. Should my life be somewhat extended, I hope to throw it into the form of a small volume; but, at my present age and with the work now upon me, the realization of this plan is doubtful. Still, in any case, there is to me one great consolation: my collection of books aided the former professor of modern history at Cornell, Mr. Morse Stevens, in preparing what is unquestionably the best history of the French Revolution in the English language. Nor has the collection been without other uses. Upon it was based my pamphlet on "Paper Money Inflation in France: How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended," and this, being circulated widely as a campaign document during two different periods of financial delusion, did, I hope, something to set some controlling men into fruitful trains of thought on one of the most important issues ever presented to the American people. Another course of lectures also paved the way possibly for a book. I have already told how, during my college life and even previously, I became fascinated with the history of the Protestant Reformation. This led to further studies, and among the first courses in history prepared during my professorship at the University of Michigan was one upon the "Revival of Learning" and the "Reformation in Germany." This course was developed later until it was brought down to our own times; its continuance being especially favored by my stay in Germany, first as a student and later as minister of the United States. Most of my spare time at these periods was given to this subject, and in the preparation of these lectures I conceived the plan of a book bearing some such name as "The Building of the German Empire," or "The Evolution of Modern Germany." As to method, I proposed to make it almost entirely biographical, and the reason for this is very simple. Of all histories that I have known, those relating to Germany have been the most difficult to read. Events in German history are complicated and interwoven, to a greater degree than those of any other nation, by struggles between races, between three great branches of the Christian Church, between scores of territorial divisions between greater and lesser monarchs, between states and cities, between families, between individuals. Then, to increase the complication, the center of interest is constantly changing,—being during one period at Vienna, during another at Frankfort-on-the-Main, during another at Berlin, and during others at other places. Therefore it is that narrative histories of Germany become to most foreign readers wretchedly confusing: indeed, they might well be classed in Father Bouhours's famous catalogue of "Books Impossible to be Read." This obstacle to historical treatment, especially as regards the needs of American readers, led me to group events about the lives of various German leaders in thought and action—the real builders of Germany; and this plan was perhaps confirmed by Carlyle's famous dictum that the history of any nation is the history of the great men who have made it. Impressed by such considerations, I threw my lectures almost entirely into biographical form, with here and there a few historical lectures to bind the whole together. Beginning with Erasmus, Luther, Ulrich von Hutten, and Charles V, I continued with Comenius, Canisius, Grotius, Thomasius, and others who, whether born on German soil or not, exercised their main influence in Germany. Then came the work of the Great Elector, the administration of Frederick the Great, the moral philosophy of Kant, the influence of the French Revolution and Napoleon in Germany, the reforms of Stein, the hopeless efforts of Joseph II and Metternich to win the hegemony for Austria, and the successful efforts of Bismarck and the Emperor William to give it to Prussia. My own direct knowledge of Germany at different dates during more than forty-five years, and perhaps also my official and personal relations to the two personages last mentioned, enabled me to see some things which a man drawing his material from books alone would not have seen. I have given much of my spare time to this subject during several years, and still hope, almost against hope, to bring it into book form. Though thus interested in the work of a professor of modern history, I could not refrain from taking part in the discussion of practical questions pressing on thinking men from all sides and earnestly demanding attention. During my State senatorship I had been obliged more than once to confess a lack, both in myself and in my colleagues, of much fundamental knowledge especially important to men intrusted with the legislation of a great commonwealth. Besides this, even as far back as my Russian attacheship, I had observed a similar want of proper equipment in our diplomatic and consular service. It was clear to me that such subjects as international law, political economy, modern history bearing on legislation, the fundamental principles of law and administration, and especially studies bearing on the prevention and cure of pauperism, inebriety, and crime, and on the imposition of taxation, had been always inadequately provided for by our universities, and in most cases utterly neglected. In France and Germany I had observed a better system, and, especially at the College de France, had been interested in the courses of Laboulaye on "Comparative Legislation." The latter subject, above all, seemed likely to prove fruitful in the United States, where not only the national Congress but over forty State legislatures are trying in various ways, year after year, to solve the manifold problems presented to them. Therefore it was that, while discharging my duties as a commissioner at the Paris Exposition of 1878, I took pains to secure information regarding instruction, in various European countries, having as its object the preparation of young men for the civil and diplomatic service. Especially was I struck by the thorough equipment for the diplomatic and consular services given at the newly established ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques at Paris; consequently my report as commissioner was devoted to this general subject. On my return this was published under the title of "The Provision for Higher Instruction in Subjects bearing directly on Public Affairs," and a portion of my material was thrown, at a later day, into an appeal for the establishment of proper courses in history and political science, which took the final form of a commencement address at Johns Hopkins University. It is a great satisfaction to me that this publication, acting with other forces in the same direction, has been evidently useful Nothing in the great development of our universities during the last quarter of a century has been more gratifying and full of promise for the country than the increased provision for instruction bearing on public questions, and the increased interest in such instruction shown by students, and, indeed, by the community at large I may add that of all the kindnesses shown me by the trustees of Cornell University at my resignation of its presidency, there was none which pleased me more than the attachment of my name to their newly established College of History and Political Science. During this same period another immediately practical subject which interested me was the reform of the civil service; and, having spoken upon this at various public meetings as well as written private letters to various public men in order to keep them thinking upon it, I published in 1882, in the "North American Review," an article giving historical facts regarding the origin, evolution, and results of the spoils system, entitled, "Do the Spoils Belong to the Victor?" This brought upon me a bitter personal attack from my old friend Mr. Thurlow Weed, who, far-sighted and shrewd as he was, could never see how republican institutions could be made to work without the anticipation of spoils; but for this I was more than compensated by the friendship of younger men who are likely to have far more to do with our future political development than will the old race of politicians, and, chief among these young men, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt. I was also drawn off to other subjects, making addresses at various universities on points which seemed to me of importance, the most successful of all being one given at Yale, upon the thirtieth anniversary of my class, entitled, "The Message of the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth." It was an endeavor to strengthen the hands of those who were laboring to maintain the proper balance between the humanities and technical studies. To the latter I had indeed devoted many years of my life, but the time had arrived when the other side seemed to demand attention. This address, though the result of much preliminary meditation, was dictated in all the hurry and worry of a Cornell commencement week and given in the Yale chapel the week following. Probably nothing which I have ever done, save perhaps the tractate on "Paper Money Inflation in France," received such immediate and wide-spread recognition: it was circulated very extensively in the New York "Independent," then in the form of a pamphlet, for which there was large demand, and finally, still more widely, in a cheap form. Elsewhere in these reminiscences I have given an account of the evolution of my "History of the Warfare of Science with Theology." It was growing in my mind for about twenty years, and my main reading, even for my different courses of lectures, had more or less connection with it. First given as a lecture, it was then extended into a little book which grew, in the shape of new chapters, into much larger final form. It was written mainly at Cornell University, but several of its chapters in other parts of the world, one being almost wholly prepared on the Nile, at Athens, and at Munich; another at St. Petersburg and during a journey in the Scandinavian countries; and other chapters in England and France. At last, in the spare hours of my official life at St. Petersburg I made an end of the work; and in Italy, during the winter and spring of 1894-1895, gave it final revision. For valuable aid in collecting materials and making notes in public libraries, I was indebted to various friends whose names are mentioned in its preface; and above all, to my dear friend and former student, Professor George Lincoln Burr, who not only aided me greatly during the latter part of my task by wise suggestions and cautions, but who read the proofs and made the index. Perhaps I may be allowed to repeat here that my purpose in preparing this book was to strengthen not only science but religion. I have never had any tendency to scoffing, nor have I liked scoffers. Many of my closest associations and dearest friendships have been, and still are, with clergymen. Clergymen are generally, in our cities and villages, among the best and most intelligent men that one finds, and, as a rule, with thoughtful and tolerant old lawyers and doctors, the people best worth knowing. My aim in writing was not only to aid in freeing science from trammels which for centuries had been vexatious and cruel, but also to strengthen religious teachers by enabling them to see some of the evils in the past which, for the sake of religion itself, they ought to guard against in the future. During vacation journeys in Europe I was led, at various historical centers, to take up special subjects akin to those developed in my lectures. Thus, during my third visit to Florence, having read Manzoni's "Promessi Sposi," which still seems to me the most beautiful historical romance ever written, I was greatly impressed by that part of it which depicts the superstitions and legal cruelties engendered by the plague at Milan. This story, with Manzoni's "Colonna Infame" and Cantu's "Vita di Beccaria," led me to take up the history of criminal law, and especially the development of torture in procedure and punishment. Much time during two or three years was given to this subject, and a winter at Stuttgart in 1877-1878 was entirely devoted to it. In the course of these studies I realized as never before how much dogmatic theology and ecclesiasticism have done to develop and maintain the most frightful features in penal law. I found that in Greece and Rome, before the coming in of Christianity, torture had been reduced to a minimum and, indeed, had been mainly abolished; but that the doctrine in the mediaeval church as to "Excepted Cases"—namely, cases of heresy and witchcraft, regarding which the theological dogma was developed that Satan would exercise his powers to help his votaries—had led to the reestablishment of a system of torture, in order to baffle and overcome Satan, far more cruel than any which prevailed under paganism. I also found that, while under the later Roman emperors and, in fact, down to the complete supremacy of Christianity, criminal procedure grew steadily more and more merciful, as soon as the church was established in full power yet another theological doctrine came in with such force that it extended the use of torture from the "Excepted Cases" named above to all criminal procedure, and maintained it, in its most frightful form, for more than a thousand years. This new doctrine was that since the Almighty punishes his erring children by tortures infinite in cruelty and eternal in duration, earthly authorities may justly imitate this divine example so far as their finite powers enable them to do so. I found this doctrine not only especially effective in the mediaeval church, but taking on even more hideous characteristics in the Protestant Church, especially in Germany. On this subject I collected much material, some of it very interesting and little known even to historical scholars. Of this were original editions of the old criminal codes of Europe and later criminal codes in France and Germany down to the French Revolution, nearly all of which were enriched with engravings illustrating instruments and processes of torture. So, too, a ghastly light was thrown into the whole subject by the executioners' tariffs in the various German states, especially those under ecclesiastical rule. One of several in my possession, which was published by the Elector Archbishop of Cologne in 1757 and stamped with the archbishop's seal, specifies and sanctions every form of ingenious cruelty which one human being can exercise upon another, and, opposite each of these cruelties, the price which the executioner was authorized to receive for administering it. Thus, for cutting off the right hand so much; for tearing out the tongue, so much; for tearing the flesh with hot pincers, so much; for burning a criminal alive, so much; and so on through two folio pages. Moreover, I had collected details of witchcraft condemnations, which, during more than a century, went on at the rate of more than a thousand a year in Germany alone, and not only printed books but the original manuscript depositions taken from the victims in the torture-chamber. Of these were the trial papers of Dietrich Flade, who had been, toward the end of the sixteenth century, one of the most eminent men in eastern Germany, chief justice of the province and rector of the University of Treves. Having ventured to think witchcraft a delusion, he was put on trial by the archbishop, tortured until in his agony he acknowledged every impossible thing suggested to him, and finally strangled and burned. In his case, as in various others, I have the ipsissima verba of the accusers and accused: the original report in the handwriting of the scribe who was present at the torture and wrote down the questions of the judges and the answers of the prisoner. On this material I based a short course of lectures on "The Evolution of Humanity in Criminal Law," and have often thought of throwing these into the form of a small book to be called "The Warfare of Humanity with Unreason"; but this will probably remain a mere project. I mention it here, hoping that some other person, with more leisure, will some day properly present these facts as bearing on the claims of theologians and ecclesiastics to direct education and control thought. Of this period, too, were sundry projects for special monographs. Thus, during various visits to Florence, I planned a history of that city. It had interested me in my student days during my reading of Sismondi's "History of the Italian Republics," and on resuming my studies in that field it seemed to me that a history of Florence might be made, most varied, interesting, and instructive. It would embrace, of course, a most remarkable period of political development—the growth of a mediaeval republic out of early anarchy and tyranny; some of the most curious experiments in government ever made; the most wonderful, perhaps, of all growths in art, literature, and science; and the final supremacy of a monarchy, bringing many interesting results, yet giving some terrible warnings. But the more I read the more I saw that to write such a history a man must relinquish everything else, and so it was given up. So, too, during various sojourns at Venice my old interest in Father Paul Sarpi, which had been aroused during my early professorial life while reading his pithy and brilliant history of the Council of Trent, was greatly increased, and I collected a considerable library with the idea of writing a short biography of him for American readers. This, of all projects not executed, has been perhaps the most difficult for me to relinquish. My last three visits to Venice have especially revived my interest in him and increased my collection of books regarding him. The desire to spread his fame has come over me very strongly as I have stood in the council-rooms of the Venetian Republic, which he served so long and so well; as I have looked upon his statue on the spot where he was left for dead by the emissaries of Pope Paul V; and as I have mused over his grave, so long desecrated and hidden by monks, but in these latter days honored with an inscription. But other work has claimed me, and others must write upon this subject. It is well worthy of attention, not only for the interest of its details, but for the light it throws upon great forces still at work in the world. Strong men have discussed it for European readers, but it deserves to be especially presented to Americans. I think an eminent European publicist entirely right in saying that Father Paul is one of the three men, since the middle ages, who have exercised the most profound influence on Italy; the other two being Galileo and Machiavelli. The reason assigned by this historian for this judgment is not merely the fact that Father Paul was one of the most eminent men in science whom Italy has produced, nor the equally incontestable fact that he taught the Venetian Republic—and finally the world—how to withstand papal usurpation of civil power, but that by his history of the Council of Trent he showed "how the Holy Spirit conducts the councils of the church" ("comme quoi le Saint Esprit dirige les conciles").[36] [36] Since writing the above, I have published in the "Atlantic Monthly" two historical essays upon Sarpi. Yet another subject which I would have been glad to present was the life of St. Francis Xavier—partly on account of my veneration for the great Apostle to the Indies, and partly because a collation of his successive biographies so strikingly reveals the origin and growth of myth and legend in the warm atmosphere of devotion. The project of writing such a book was formed in my Cornell lecture-room at the close of a short course of lectures on the "Jesuit Reaction which followed the Reformation." In the last of these I had pointed out the beauty of Xavier's work, and had shown how natural had been the immense growth of myth and legend in connection with it. Among my hearers was Goldwin Smith, and as we came out he said: "I have often thought that if any one were to take a series of the published lives of one of the great Jesuit saints, beginning at the beginning and comparing the successive biographies as they have appeared, century after century, down to our own time much light would be thrown upon the evolution of the miraculous in religion." I was struck by this idea, and it occurred to me that, of all such examples, that of Francis Xavier would be the most fruitful and interesting. For we have, to begin with, his own letters written from the scene of his great missionary labors in the East, in which no miracles appear. We have the letters of his associates at that period, in which there is also no knowledge shown of any miracles performed by him. We also have the great speeches of Laynez, one of Xavier's associates, who, at the Council of Trent, did his best to promote Jesuit interests, and who yet showed no knowledge of any miracles performed by Xavier. We have the very important work by Joseph Acosta, the eminent provincial of the Jesuits, written at a later period, largely on the conversion of the Indies, and especially on Xavier's part in it, which, while accepting, in a perfunctory way, the attribution of miracles to Xavier, gives us reasoning which seems entirely to discredit them. Then we have biographies of Xavier, published soon after his death, in which very slight traces of miracles begin to be found; then other biographies later and later, century after century, in which more and more miracles appear, and earlier miracles of very simple character grow more and more complex and astounding, until finally we see him credited with a vast number of the most striking miracles ever conceived of. In order to develop the subject I have collected books and documents of every sort bearing upon it from his time to ours, and have given a brief summary of the results in my "History of the Warfare of Science." But the full development of this subject, which throws intense light upon the growth of miracles in the biographies of so many benefactors of our race, must probably be left to others. It should be treated with judicial fairness. There should not be a trace of prejudice against the church Xavier served. The infallibility of the Pope who canonized him was indeed committed to the reality of miracles which Xavier certainly never performed; but the church at large cannot justly be blamed for this: it was indeed made the more illustrious by Xavier's great example. The evil, if evil there was, lay in human nature, and a proper history of this evolution of myth and legend, by throwing light into one of the strongest propensities of devout minds, would give a most valuable warning against basing religious systems on miraculous claims which are constantly becoming more and more discredited and therefore more and more dangerous to any system which persists in using them. Still another project interested me; effort connected with it was a kind of recreation; this project was formed during my attache days at St. Petersburg with Governor Seymour. It was a brief biography of Thomas Jefferson. I made some headway in it, but was at last painfully convinced that I should never have time to finish it worthily. Besides this, after the Civil War, Jefferson, though still interesting to me, was by no means so great a man in my eyes as he had been. Perhaps no doctrine ever cost any other country so dear as Jefferson's pet theory of State rights cost the United States: nearly a million of lives lost on battle-fields, in prisons, and in hospitals; nearly ten thousand millions of dollars poured into gulfs of hatred. With another project I was more fortunate. In 1875 I was asked to prepare a bibliographical introduction to Mr. O'Connor Morris's short history of the French Revolution. This I did with much care, for it seemed to me that this period in history, giving most interesting material for study and thought, had been much obscured by ideas drawn from trashy books instead of from the really good authorities. Having finished this short bibliography, it occurred to me that a much more extensive work, giving a selection of the best authorities on all the main periods of modern history, might be useful. This I began, and was deeply interested in it; but here, as in various other projects, the fates were against me. Being appointed a commissioner to the French Exposition, and seeing in this an opportunity to do other work which I had at heart, I asked my successor in the professorship of history at the University of Michigan, who at a later period became my successor as president of Cornell, Dr. Charles Kendall Adams, to take the work off my hands. This he did, and produced a book far better than any which I could have written. The kind remarks in his preface regarding my suggestions I greatly prize, and feel that this project, at least, though I could not accomplish it, had a most happy issue. Another project which I have long cherished is of a very different sort; and though it may not be possible for me to carry it out, my hope is that some other person will do so. For many years I have noted with pride the munificent gifts made for educational and charitable purposes in the United States. It is a noble history,—one which does honor not only to our own country, but to human nature. No other country has seen any munificence which approaches that so familiar to Americans. The records show that during the year 1903 nearly, if not quite, eighty millions of dollars were given by private parties for these public purposes. It has long seemed to me that a little book based on the history of such gifts, pointing out the lines in which they have been most successful, might be of much use, and more than once I have talked over with my dear friend Gilman, at present president of the Carnegie Institution at Washington, the idea of our working together in the production of a pamphlet or volume with some such title as, "What Rich Americans have Done and can Do with their Money." But my friend has been busy in his great work of founding and developing the university at Baltimore, I have been of late years occupied in other parts of the world, and so this project remains unfulfilled. There are many reasons for the publication of such a book. Most of the gifts above referred to have been wisely made; but some have not, and a considerable number have caused confusion in American education rather than aided its healthful development. Many good things have resulted from these gifts, but some vastly important matters have been utterly neglected. We have seen excellent small colleges transformed by gifts into pretentious and inadequate shams called "universities"; we have seen great telescopes given without any accompanying instruments, and with no provision for an observatory; magnificent collections in geology given to institutions which had no professor in that science; beautiful herbariums added to institutions where there is no instruction in botany; professorships of no use established where others of the utmost importance should have been founded; institutions founded where they were not needed, and nothing done where they were needed. He who will write a thoughtful book on this subject, based upon a careful study of late educational history, may render a great service. As I revise this chapter I may say that in an address at Yale in 1903, entitled, "A Patriotic Investment," I sought to point out one of the many ways in which rich men may meet a pressing need of our universities with great good to the country at large.[37] [37] See "A Patriotic Investment," New Haven, 1903. Yet another project has occupied much time and thought, and may, I hope, be yet fully carried out. For many years I have thought much on our wretched legislation against crime and on the imperfect administration of such criminal law as we have. Years ago, after comparing the criminal statistics of our own country with those of other nations, I came to the conclusion that, with the possible exception of the lower parts of the Italian kingdom, there is more unpunished murder in our own country than in any other in the civilized world. This condition of things I found to be not unknown to others; but there seemed to prevail a sort of listless hopelessness regarding any remedy for it. Dining in Philadelphia with my classmate and dear friend Wayne MacVeagh, I found beside me one of the most eminent judges in Pennsylvania, and this question of high crime having been broached and the causes of it discussed, the judge quietly remarked, "The taking of life, after a full and fair trial, as a penalty for murder, seems to be the only form of taking life to which the average American has any objection." Many of our dealings with murder and other high crimes would seem to show that the judge was, on the whole, right. My main study on the subject was made in 1892, during a journey of more than twelve thousand miles with Mr. Andrew Carnegie and his party through the Middle, Southern, Southwestern, Pacific, and Northwestern States. We stopped at all the important places on our route, and at vast numbers of unimportant places; at every one of these I bought all the newspapers obtainable, examined them with reference to this subject, and found that the long daily record of murders in our metropolitan journals is far from giving us the full reality. I constantly found in the local papers, at these out-of-the-way places, numerous accounts of murders which never reached the metropolitan journals. Most striking testimony was also given me by individuals,—in one case by a United States senator, who gave me the history of a country merchant, in one of the Southwestern States, who had at different times killed eight persons, and who at his last venture, endeavoring to kill a man who had vexed him in a mere verbal quarrel, had fired into a lumber-wagon containing a party coming from church, and killed three persons, one of them a little girl. And my informant added that this murderer had never been punished. In California I saw walking jauntily along the streets, and afterward discoursing in a drawing-room, a man who, on being cautioned by a policeman while disturbing the public peace a year or two before, had simply shot the policeman dead, and had been tried twice, but each time with a disagreement of the jury. Multitudes of other cases I found equally bad. I collected a mass of material illustrating the subject, and on this based an address given for the first time in San Francisco, and afterward at Boston, New York, New Haven, Cornell University, and the State universities of Wisconsin and Minnesota. My aim was to arouse thinking men to the importance of the subject, and I now hope to prepare a discussion of "The Problem of High Crime," to be divided into three parts, the first on the present condition of the problem, the second on its origin, and the third on possible and probable remedies. Of all my projects for historical treatises, there are two which I have dreamed of for many years, hoping against hope for their realization. I have tried to induce some of our younger historical professors to undertake them or to train up students to undertake them; and, as the time has gone by when I can devote myself to them, I now mention them in the hope that some one will arise to do honor to himself and to our country by developing them. The first of these is a history of the middle ages in the general style of Robertson's "Introduction to the Life of Charles V." Years ago, when beginning my work as a professor of modern history at the University of Michigan, I felt greatly the need for my students of some work which should show briefly but clearly the transition from ancient history to modern. Life is not long enough for the study of the minute details of the mediaeval period in addition to ancient and modern history. What is needed for the mass of thinking young men is something which shall show what the work was which was accomplished between the fall of Rome and the new beginnings of civilization at the Renascence and the Reformation. For this purpose Robertson's work was once a masterpiece. It has rendered great services not only in English-speaking lands, but in others, by enabling thinking men to see how this modern world has been developed out of the past and to gain some ideas as to the way in which a yet nobler civilization may be developed out of the present Robertson's work still remains a classic, but modern historical research has superseded large parts of it, and what is now needed is a short history—of, say, three hundred pages—carried out on the main lines of Robertson, taking in succession the most important subjects in the evolution of mediaeval history, discarding all excepting the leading points in chronology, and bringing out clearly the sequence of great historical causes and results from the downfall of Rome to the formation of the great modern states. And there might well be brought into connection with this what Robertson did not give—namely, sketches showing the character and work of some of the men who wrought most powerfully in this transition. During my stay at the University of Michigan, I made a beginning of such a history by giving a course of lectures on the growth of civilization in the middle ages, taking up such subjects as the downfall of Rome, the barbarian invasion, the rise of the papacy, feudalism, Mohammedanism, the anti-feudal effects of the crusades, the rise of free cities, the growth of law, the growth of literature, and ending with the centralization of monarchical power in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. But the lectures then prepared were based merely upon copious notes and given, as regarded phrasing, extemporaneously. It is too late for me now to write them out or to present the subject in the light of modern historical research; but I know of no subject which is better calculated to broaden the mind and extend the horizon of historical studies in our universities. Provost Stille of the University of Pennsylvania did indeed carry out, in part, something of this kind, but time failed him for making more than a beginning. The man who, of all in our time, seems to me best fitted to undertake this much needed work is Frederic Harrison. If the general method of Robertson were combined with the spirit shown in the early chapters of Harrison's book on "The Meaning of History," the resultant work would be not only of great service, but attractive to all thinking men. And, last of all, a project which has long been one of my dreams—a "History of Civilization in Spain." Were I twenty years younger, I would gladly cut myself loose from all entanglements and throw myself into this wholly. It seems to me the most suggestive history now to be written. The material at hand is ample and easily accessible. A multitude of historians have made remarkable contributions to it, and among these, in our own country, Irving, Prescott, Motley, Ticknor, and Lea; in England, Froude, Ford, Buckle, and others have given many pregnant suggestions and some increase of knowledge; Germany and France have contributed much in the form of printed books; Spain, much in the publication of archives and sundry interesting histories apologizing for the worst things in Spanish history; the Netherlands have also contributed documents of great value. There is little need of delving among manuscripts; that has already been done, and the results are easily within reach of any scholar. The "History of Civilization in Spain" is a history of perhaps the finest amalgamation of races which was made at the downfall of the Roman Empire; of splendid beginnings of liberty and its noble exercise in the middle ages; of high endeavor; of a wonderful growth in art and literature. But it is also a history of the undermining and destruction of all this great growth, so noble, so beautiful, by tyranny in church and state—tyranny over body and mind, heart and soul. A simple, thoughtful account of this evolution of the former glory of Spain, and then of the causes of her decline to her present condition, would be full of suggestions for fruitful thought regarding politics, religion, science, literature, and art. To write such a history was the best of my dreams. Perhaps, had I been sent in 1879 as minister to Madrid instead of to Berlin, I might at least have made an effort to begin it, and, whether successful or not, might have led other men to continue it. It is now too late for me, but I still hope that our country will supply some man to undertake it. Whoever shall write such a book in an honest, broad, and impartial spirit will gain not only honor for his country and himself, but will render a great service to mankind. In closing this chapter on "Plans and Projects, Executed and Unexecuted," I know well that my confessions will do me no good in the eyes of many who shall read them. It will be said that I attempted too many things. In mitigation of such a judgment I may say that the conditions of American life in the second half of the century just closed have been very different from those in most other countries. It has been a building period, a period of reforms necessitated by the rapid growth of our nation out of earlier conditions and limitations. Every thinking man who has felt any responsibility has necessarily been obliged to take part in many enterprises of various sorts: necessary work has abounded and has been absolutely forced upon him. It has been a period in which a man could not well devote himself entirely to the dative case. Besides this, so far as concerns myself, I had much practical administrative work to do, was plunged into the midst of it at two universities and at various posts in the diplomatic service, to say nothing of many other duties, so that my plans were constantly interfered with. Like many others during the latter half of the nineteenth century, I have been obliged to obey the injunction, "Do the work which lieth nearest thee." It has happened more than once that when all has been ready for some work which I greatly desired to do, and which I hoped might be of use, I have been suddenly drawn off to official duties by virtually an absolute command. Take two examples out of many: I had brought my lectures on German history together, had collected a mass of material for putting them into final shape as a "History of the Building of the New Germany," and had written two chapters, when suddenly came the summons from President Cleveland to take part in the Venezuela Commission,—a summons which it was impossible to decline. For a year this new work forbade a continuance of the old; and just as I was again free came the Bryan effort to capture the Presidency, which, in my opinion, would have resulted in wide-spread misery at home and in dishonor to the American name through out the world. Most reluctantly then I threw down my chosen work and devoted my time to what seemed to me to be a political duty. Then followed my appointment to the Berlin Embassy, which could not be declined; and just at the period when I hoped to secure leisure at Berlin for continuing the preparation of my book on Germany, there came duties at The Hague Conference which took my time for nearly a year. It is, perhaps, unwise for me thus to make a clean breast of it,—"qui s'excuse, s'accuse"; but I have something other than excuses to make: I may honestly plead before my old friends and students who shall read this book that my life has been mainly devoted to worthy work; that I can look back upon the leading things in it with satisfaction; that, whether as regards religion, politics, education, or the public service in general, it will be found not a matter of unrelated shreds and patches, but to have been developed in obedience to a well-defined line of purpose. I review the main things along this line with thankfulness: First, my work at the University of Michigan, which enabled me to do something toward preparing the way for a better system of higher education in the United States; next, my work in the New York State Senate, which enabled me to aid effectively in developing the school system in the State, in establishing a health department in its metropolis, in promoting good legislation in various fields; and in securing the charter of Cornell University; next, my part in founding Cornell University and in maintaining it for more than twenty years; next, the preparation of a book which, whatever its shortcomings and however deprecated by many good men, has, as I believe, done service to science, to education, and to religion; next, many speeches, articles, pamphlets, which have aided in the development of right reason on political, financial, and social questions; and, finally, the opportunity given me at a critical period to aid in restoring and maintaining good relations between the United States and Germany, and in establishing the international arbitration tribunal of The Hague. I say these things not boastingly, but reverently. I have sought to fight the good fight; I have sought to keep the faith,—faith in a Power in the universe good enough to make truth-seeking wise, and strong enough to make truth-telling effective,—faith in the rise of man rather than in the fall of man,—faith in the gradual evolution and ultimate prevalence of right reason among men. So much I hope to be pardoned for giving as an apologia pro vita mea. PART VIII RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER LVIII EARLY IMPRESSIONS—1832-1851 When the colonists from New England came into central and western New York, at the end of the eighteenth century, they wrote their main ideas large upon the towns they founded. Especially was this evident at my birthplace on the head waters of the Susquehanna. In the heart of the little village they laid out, largely and liberally, "the Green"; across the middle of this there gradually rose a line of wooden structures as stately as they knew how to make them,—the orthodox Congregational church standing at the center; close beside this church stood the "academy"; and then, on either side, the churches of the Baptists, Methodists, and Episcopalians. Thus were represented religion, education, and church equality. The Episcopal church, as belonging to the least numerous congregation, was at the extreme left, and the smallest building of all. It was easily recognized. All the others were in a sort of quasi-Italian style of the seventeenth century, like those commonly found in New England; but this was in a kind of "carpenter's Gothic" which had grown out of vague recollections of the mother-country. To this building I was taken for baptism, and with it are connected my first recollections of public worship. My parents were very devoted members of the Protestant Episcopal Church. With a small number of others of like mind, they had taken refuge in it from the storms of fanaticism which swept through western New York during the early years of the nineteenth century. For that was the time of great "revivals." The tremendous assertions of Jonathan Edwards regarding the tyranny of God, having been taken up by a multitude of men who were infinitely Edwards's inferiors in everything save lung-power, were spread with much din through many churches: pictures of an angry Moloch holding over the infernal fires the creatures whom he had predestined to rebel, and the statement that "hell is filled with infants not a span long," were among the choice oratorical outgrowths of this period. With these loud and lurid utterances went strivings after sacerdotal rule. The presbyter—"old priest writ large"—took high ground in all these villages: the simplest and most harmless amusements were denounced, and church members guilty of taking part in them were obliged to stand in the broad aisle and be publicly reprimanded from the pulpit. My mother was thoughtful, gentle, and kindly; in the midst of all this froth and fury some one lent her a prayer-book; this led her to join in the devotions of a little knot of people who had been brought up to use it; and among these she found peace. My father, who was a man of great energy and vigor, was attracted to this little company; and not long afterward rose the little church on the Green, served at first by such clergymen as chanced to be in that part of the State. Among these was a recent graduate of the Episcopal College at Geneva on Seneca Lake—Henry Gregory. His seemed to be a soul which by some mistake had escaped out of the thirteenth century into the nineteenth. He was slight in build, delicate in health, and ascetic in habits, his one interest in the world being the upbuilding of the kingdom of God—as he understood it. It was the time when Pusey, Newman, Keble, and their compeers were reviving mediaeval Christianity; their ideas took strong hold upon many earnest men in the western world, and among these no one absorbed them more fully than this young missionary. He was honest, fearless, self-sacrificing, and these qualities soon gave him a strong hold upon his flock,—the hold of a mediaeval saint upon pilgrims seeking refuge from a world cruel and perverse. Seeing this, sundry clergymen and influential laymen of what were known as the "evangelical denominations" attempted to refute his arguments and discredit his practices. That was the very thing which he and his congregation most needed: under this opposition his fervor deepened, his mediaeval characteristics developed, his little band of the faithful increased, and more and more they adored him; but this adoration did not in the least injure him: he remained the same gentle, fearless, narrow, uncompromising man throughout his long life. My first recollections of religious worship in the little old church take me back to my fourth year; and I can remember well, at the age of five, standing between my father and mother, reading the Psalter with them as best I could, joining in the chants and looking with great awe on the service as it went on before my admiring eyes. So much did it impress me that from my sixth to my twelfth year I always looked forward to Sunday morning with longing. The prayers, the chants, the hymns, all had a great attraction for me,—and this although I was somewhat severely held to the proper observance of worship. I remember well that at the age of six years, if I faltered in the public reading of the Psalter, a gentle rap on the side of my head from my father's knuckles reminded me of my duty. At various times since I have been present at the most gorgeous services of the Anglican, Latin, Russian, and Oriental churches; have heard the Pope, surrounded by his cardinals, sing mass at the high altar of St. Peter's; have seen the Metropolitan Archbishop of Moscow, surrounded by prelates of the Russian Empire, conduct the burial of a czar; have seen the highest Lutheran dignitaries solemnize the marriage of a German kaiser; have sat under the ministrations of sundry archbishops of Canterbury; have been present at high mass performed by the Archbishop of Athens under the shadow of Mars Hill and the Parthenon; and, though I am singularly susceptible to the influence of such pageants, especially if they are accompanied by noble music, no one of these has ever made so great an impression upon me as that simple Anglo-American service performed by a surpliced clergyman with a country choir and devout assemblage in this little village church. Curiously enough, one custom, which high-churchmen long ago discarded as beneath the proper dignity of the service, was perhaps the thing which impressed me most, and I have since learned that it generally thus impressed new-comers to the Episcopal Church: this was the retirement of the clergyman, at the close of the regular morning prayer, to the vestry, where he left his surplice, and whence he emerged in a black Geneva gown, in which he then preached the sermon. This simple feature in the ceremonial greatly impressed me, and led me to ask the reason for it: at which answer was made that the clergyman wore his white surplice as long as he was using God's words, but that he wore his black gown whenever he used his own. Though comparatively little was said by Episcopalians regarding religious experiences or pious states of mind, there was an atmosphere of orderly decency during the whole service which could hardly fail to make an impression on all thinking children brought into it. I remember that when, on one or two occasions, I was taken to the Congregational church by my grandmother, I was much shocked at what seemed to me the unfit dress and conduct of the clergyman,—in a cutaway coat, lounging upon a sofa,—and at the irreverent ways of the sturdy farmers, who made ready to leave the church during the final prayer, and even while they should have been receiving the benediction. I thus became a devotee. Of the sermons I retained little, except a few striking assertions or large words; one of my amusements, on returning home, was conducting a sort of service, on my own account, with those of the household who were willing to take part in it; and, from some traditions preserved in the family regarding my utterances on such occasions, a droll sort of service it must have been. In my seventh year the family removed to Syracuse, the "Central City" of the State, already beginning a wonderful career, although at that time of less than six thousand inhabitants. My experience in the new city was prefaced by an excursion, with my father and mother and younger brother, to Buffalo and Niagara; and as the railways through central New York were then unfinished,—and, indeed, but few of them begun,—we made the journey almost entirely on a canal-packet. Perhaps my most vivid remembrance of this voyage is that of the fervid prayers I then put up against shipwreck. At Syracuse was a much larger and more influential Protestant Episcopal church than that which we had left,—next, indeed, in importance to the Presbyterian body. That church—St. Paul's—has since become the mother of a large number of others, and has been made the cathedral of a new diocese. In this my father, by virtue of his vigor in everything he undertook, was soon made a vestryman, and finally senior warden; and, the rectorate happening to fall vacant, he recommended for the place our former clergyman, Henry Gregory. He came, and his work in the new place was soon even more effective than in the old. His first influence made me a most determined little bigot, and I remember well my battles in behalf of high-church ideas with various Presbyterian boys, and especially with the son of the Presbyterian pastor. In those days went on a famous controversy provoked by a speech at a New England dinner in the city of New York which had set by the ears two eminent divines—the Rev. Dr. Wainwright, Episcopalian, and the Rev. Dr. Potts; Presbyterian. Dr. Potts had insisted that the Puritans had founded a "church without a bishop and a state without a king"; Dr. Wainwright insisted that there could be no church without a bishop; and on this the two champions joined issue. Armed with the weapons furnished me in the church catechism, in sundry sermons, and in pious reading, I took up the cudgels, and the battles then waged were many and severe. One little outgrowth of my religious intolerance was quickly nipped in the bud. As I was returning home one evening with a group of scampish boys, one of them pointed out the "Jew store,"—in those days a new thing,—and reminded us that the proprietor worshiped on Saturday and, doubtless, committed other abominations. At this, with one accord, we did what we could to mete out the Old Testament punishment for blasphemy—we threw stones at his door. My father, hearing of this, dealt with me sharply and shortly, and taught me most effectually to leave dealing with the Jewish religion to the Almighty. I have never since been tempted to join in any anti-Semitic movement whatever. Meanwhile Mr. Gregory—or, as he afterward became, Dr. Gregory—was fighting the battles of the church in many ways, and some of his sermons made a great impression upon me. Of these one was entitled "The Church not a Sect," the text being, "For as to this sect, we know that it is everywhere spoken against." Another sermon showed, especially, his uncompromising spirit and took yet stronger hold upon me; it was given on an occasion when Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists were drawn in large numbers to his church; but, disdaining all efforts to propitiate them, he took as his subject "The Sin of Korah," who set himself up against the regularly ordained priesthood, and was, with all his adherents, fearfully punished. The conclusion was easily drawn by all the "dissenters" present. On another occasion of the same sort, when his church was filled with people from other congregations, he took as his subject the story of Naaman the Syrian, his text being, "Are not Abana and Pharphar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the rivers of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean?" The good rector's answer was, in effect, "No, you may not. The Almighty designated the river Jordan as the means for securing health and safety; and so in these times he has designated for a similar purpose the church—which is the Protestant Episcopal Church: outside of that—as the one appointed by him—you have no hope." But gradually there came in my mind a reaction, and curiously, it started from my love for my grandmother—my mother's mother. Among all the women whom I remember in my early life, she was the kindest and most lovely. She had been brought as a young girl, by her parents, from Old Guilford in Connecticut; and in her later life she often told me cheerily of the days of privation and toil, of wolves howling about the cottages of the little New York settlement in winter, of journeys twenty miles to church, of riding on horseback from early morning until late in the evening, through the forests, to bring flour from the mill. She was quietly religious, reading every day from her New Testament, but remaining in the old Congregational Church which my mother had left. I remember once asking her why she did not go with the rest of us to the Episcopal Church. Her answer was, "Well, dear child, the Episcopal Church is just the church for your father and mother and for you children; you are all young and active, but I am getting old and rather stout, and there is a little too much getting up and sitting down in your church for me." To the harsh Calvinism of her creed she seemed to pay no attention, and, if hard pressed by me, used to say, "Well, sonny, there is, of course, some merciful way out of it all." Her religion took every kindly form. She loved every person worth loving,—and some not worth loving,—and her benefactions were extended to people of every creed; especially was she a sort of Providence to the poor Catholic Irish of the lower part of the town. To us children she was especially devoted—reconciling us in our quarrels, soothing us in our sorrows, comforting us in our disappointments, and carrying us through our sicknesses. She used great common sense in her care of us; kindly and gentle to the last degree, there was one thing she would never allow, and this was that the children, even when they became quite large, should be out of the house, in the streets or public places, after dark, without an elderly and trusty companion. Though my brother and I used to regard this as her one fault, it was really a great service to us; for, as soon as dusk came on, if we were tempted to linger in the streets or in public places, we returned home, since we knew that if we did not we should soon see her coming to remind us, and this was, of course, a serious blow to our pride. When, then, I sat in church and heard our mediaeval saint preach with ardor and unction, Sunday after Sunday, that the promises were made to the church alone; that those outside it had virtually no part in God's goodness; that they were probably lost,—I thought of this dear, sweet old lady, and my heart rose in rebellion. She was certainly the best Christian I knew, and the idea that she should be punished for saying her prayers in the Presbyterian Church was abhorrent to me. I made up my mind that, if she was to be lost, I would be lost with her; and soon, under the influence of thoughts like these, I became a religious rebel. The matter was little helped when our good rector preached upon retribution for sin. He held the most extreme views regarding future punishment; and the more he developed them, the more my mind rejected the idea that so many good people about me, especially the one whom I loved so much, could be subjected to such tortures,—and the more my heart rebelled against the Moloch who had established and was administering so horrible a system. I must have been about twelve years old when it thus occurred to me to question the whole sacred theory; and this questioning was started into vigorous life after visiting, with some other school-boys, the Presbyterian church when a "revival" was going on. As I entered, a very unspiritual-looking preacher was laying down the most severe doctrines of divine retribution. In front of him were several of our neighbors' daughters, many of them my schoolmates, whom I regarded as thoroughly sweet and good; and they were in tears, apparently broken-hearted under the storm of wrath which poured over them from the mouth of the revival preacher. At this I revolted entirely, and from that moment I disbelieved in the whole doctrine, utterly and totally. I felt that these kindly girls, to whom I had looked with so much admiration in the classes at school and in our various little gatherings, were infinitely more worthy of the divine favor than was the big, fleshly creature storming and raging and claiming to announce a divine message. Some influence on my youthful thinking had also been exercised by sundry occurrences in our own parish. Our good rector was especially fond of preaching upon "baptismal regeneration"; taking the extreme high-church view and thereby driving out some of the best "evangelicals" from his congregation. One of these I remember especially—a serene, dignified old man, Mr. John Durnford. After he left our church he took his place among the Presbyterians, and I remember, despite my broad-church tendencies, thinking that he was incurring serious danger by such apostasy; but as I noted him, year after year, devoting himself to the newly founded orphan-asylum, giving all his spare time to the care of the children gathered there, even going into the market and thence bearing provisions to them in a basket, I began to feel that perhaps his soul was safe, after all. I bethought myself that, with all my reading of the Bible, I had never found any text which required a man to believe in the doctrines of the Protestant Episcopal Church; but that I had found, in the words of Jesus himself, as well as in the text of St James regarding "pure religion and undefiled," declarations which seemed to commend, especially, labors for the poor, fatherless, and afflicted, like those of Mr. Durnford. But still more marked was the influence on my thinking of a painful clash in the parish. It came on this wise. Our rector was one day called to attend the funeral of a little child but a few weeks old, the daughter of neighbors of ours. The father was a big-bodied, big-hearted, big-voiced, successful man of business, well liked for his bluff cordiality and generosity, who went to church because his wife went. The mother was a sweet, kindly, delicate woman, the daughter of a clergyman, and devoted to the church. It happened that, for various reasons, and more especially on account of the absence of the father from home on business, the baptism of the child had been delayed until its sudden death prevented the rite forever. The family and neighbors being assembled at the house, and the service about to begin, an old maiden lady, who had deeply absorbed the teachings of Dr. Gregory and wished to impress them on those present, said to the father, audibly and with a groan, "Oh, Mr.——, what a pity that the baby was not baptized!" to which the rector responded, with a deep sigh and in a most plaintive voice, "Yes!" Thereupon the mother of the child burst into loud and passionate weeping, and at this the father, big and impulsive as he was, lost all control of himself. Rising from his chair, he strode to the side of the rector and said, "That is a slander on the Almighty; none but a devil could, for my negligence, punish this lovely little child by ages of torture. Take it back—take it back, sir; or, by the God that made us, I will take you by the neck and throw you into the street!" At this the gentle rector faltered out that he did not presume to limit the mercy of God, and after a time the service went on; but sermons on baptismal regeneration from our pulpit were never afterward frequent or cogent. Startled as I was at this scene, I felt that the doctrine had not stood the test. More and more there was developed in me that feeling which Lord Bacon expressed so profoundly and pithily, in his essay on "Superstition," when he said: It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of Him; for if the one is unbelief, the other is contumely: and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity. Plutarch saith well to that purpose: "Surely, I had rather a great deal that men should say there was no such man at all as Plutarch, than that they should say that Plutarch ate his children as soon as they were born;"—as the poets speak of Saturn: and as the contumely is greater towards God, so the danger is greater towards men. The "danger" of which Bacon speaks has been noted by me often, both before and since I read his essays. Once, indeed, when a very orthodox lady had declared to me her conviction that every disbeliever in the divinity of the second person in the Trinity must be lost, I warned her of this danger and said, "We lately had President Grant here on the university grounds. Suppose your little girl, having met the President, and having been told that he was the great general of the war and President of the United States, should assert her disbelief, basing it on the fact that she had formed the idea of a much more showy and gorgeous person than this quiet, modest little man; and suppose that General Grant, on hearing of the child's mistake, should cruelly punish her for it; what would you think of him? and what would he think of you, were he to know that you asserted that he could be so contemptibly unjust and cruel? The child's utterance would not in the slightest offend him, but your imputation to him of such vileness would most certainly anger him." A contribution to my religious development came also from a very different quarter. Our kitchen Bridget, one of the best of her kind, lent me her book of devotion—the "Ursuline Manual." It interested me much until I found in it the reasons very cogently given why salvation was confined to the Roman Catholic Church. This disgusted me. According to this, even our good rector had no more chance of salvation than a Presbyterian or Baptist or Methodist minister. But this serious view of the case was disturbed by a humorous analogy. There were then fighting vigorously through the advertisement columns of the newspapers two rival doctors, each claiming to produce the only salutary "sarsaparilla," and each named Townsend. At first one claimed to be "THE Dr. Townsend," then the other claimed to be "THE Dr. Townsend"; the first rejoined that HE was "Dr. JACOB Townsend," whereupon the other insisted that HE was "Dr. Jacob Townsend"; to this the first answered that HE was "the ORIGINAL Dr. Jacob Townsend," and the other then declared that HE was "the ORIGINAL Dr. Jacob Townsend"; and so on, through issue after issue, each supplying statements, certificates, arguments, rejoinders ad nauseam. More and more, then, the various divines insisting on the exclusive possession of the only remedy for sin reminded me of these eminent sarsaparilla-makers,—each declaring his own concoction genuine and all others spurious, each glorifying himself as possessing the original recipe and denouncing his rivals as pretenders. Another contribution to my thought was made one day in the Sunday-school. While reading in the New Testament I had noticed the difficulties involved in the two genealogies of Jesus of Nazareth—that in Matthew and that in Luke. On my asking the Sunday-school teacher for an explanation, he gave the offhand answer that one was the genealogy of Joseph and the other of Mary. Of course it did not take me long to find this answer inadequate; and, as a consequence, Sunday-school teaching lost much of its effect upon me. But there was still one powerful influence left in behalf of the old creed. From time to time came the visitation by the bishop, Dr. DeLancey. He was the most IMPRESSIVE man I have ever seen. I have stood in the presence of many prelates in my day, from Pope Pius IX down; but no one of them has ever so awed me as this Bishop of Western New York. His entry into a church chancel was an event; no music could be finer than his reading of the service; his confirmation prayer still dwells in my memory as the most perfect petition I have ever heard; and his simple, earnest sermons took strong hold of me. His personal influence was also great. Goldsmith's lines in the "Deserted Village," "Even children follow'd with endearing wile And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile," accurately pictured the feelings of many of us as we lingered after service to see him greet our fathers and mothers. As to my biblical studies, they were continued, though not perhaps as systematically as they might well have been. The Protestant Episcopal Church has for a youth at least one advantage in this respect,—that the services including Introits, Canticles, Psalter, Lessons, Epistles Gospels, and various quotations, familiarize him with the noblest utterances in our sacred books. My mother had received instruction in Bible class and prized Scripture reading; therefore it was that, when I was allowed to stay at home from church on Sunday afternoons, it was always on condition that I should read a certain number of chapters in the Bible and prove to her upon her return that I had read them carefully,—and this was not without its uses. Here I am reminded of a somewhat curious event. One afternoon, when I had been permitted to remain at home, on the usual conditions, my mother, returning from service, said to me that by staying away from church I had missed something very interesting: that there was a good sermon well given, that the preacher was of fine appearance, dignified,—and an Indian; but that she would never have suspected him to be an Indian were it not for his words at the conclusion of his sermon, which were as follows: "And now, my brethren, I leave you. We shall probably never meet again in this world, and doubtless most of you will forget all the counsels I have given you and remember nothing save that you have to-day heard a sermon from an Indian." The point of interest really was that this preacher, Eleazar Williams, though he gave no hint of it on this occasion, believed himself, and was believed by many, to be the lost Dauphin of France, Louis XVII, and that decidedly skilful arguments in favor of his claims were published by the Rev. Mr. Hanson and others. One of the most intelligent women I have ever known believes to this hour that Eleazar Williams, generally known as a half-breed Indian born in Canada, was the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and that his portly form and Bourbon face were convincing additions to other more cogent testimonies. At various times I sought light from new sources, and, finding on the family shelves a series of books called the "Evangelical Family Library," I read sundry replies to Hume, Gibbon, and other deists; but the arguments of Hume and Gibbon and those who thought with them seemed to me, to say the least, quite as forcible as those in answer to them. These replies simply strengthened my tendency to doubt, and what I heard at church rather increased the difficulty; for the favorite subjects of sermons in the Episcopal Church of those days, after the "Apostolical Succession" and "Baptismal Regeneration," were the perfections of the church order, the beauty of its services, and the almost divine character of the Prayer-book. These topics were developed in all the moods and tenses; the beauties of our own service were constantly contrasted with the crudities and absurdities of the worship practised by others; and although, since those days, left to my own observation, I have found much truth in these comparisons, they produced upon me at that time anything but a good effect. It was like a beautiful woman coming into an assemblage; calling attention to the perfections of her own face, form, and garments; claiming loudly to be the most beautiful person in the room; and so, finally, becoming the least attractive person present.