DS RRR . PAAR Ro RS Ss * RAVEN ARE ARRL a SEE TAN SO SONS RSENS HORS VSS AGS ISS WSS RROet RVI See R ‘ CN NCS SAV PHILADELPHIA: QUAKER CITY PUBLISHING HOUSE. 1880. Copyright, B. B. RUSSELL & CO. 1880. 4 aT Sale ‘agp Waient & POTTER PRINTING Company, 18 Post Orrick SQuaRE, Boston. #30, “, TO THE MOTHER, WHO MADE HIM A HATER OF CASTE; TO THE WESLEYAN ASSOCIATION, WHO MADE HIM AN EDITOR; TO THOSE MEMBERS OF THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1872, WHO MADE HIM A BISHOP; AND TO THE RACE FOR WHOM HE LIVED AND DIED; THESE MEMORIALS OF GILBERT HAVEN, THE RADICAL, ARE RESPECTFULLY AND FRATERNALLY INSCRIBED. W.4H. D. PUBLISHERS’ NOTICE. Tux publishers of Gilbert Haven’s delightful “Life of Father Taylor” respectfully announce this Memo- rial volume ; which, with the consent and kind assist-. ance of the Bishop’s family, his literary executors, _ and many near friends, is now ready for the press. In visiting any remarkable work of art, or sublime work of nature, to get the full benefit of its propor- tions and beauty, it must be seen from different sides and stand-points; so it is in studying the character of one who has gained for himself such a distinguished position as Bishop Haven. In gathering together these tributes from friends who have been associated with him in his varied career, we are able to produce a more complete and satisfactory biography, than if it was the product of one mind. The extended sketch of his life by the editor is thorough and complete ; his selections from the various eulogies and tributes, and from Mr. Haven’s works, [7] 8 PUBLISHERS’ NOTICE. are made with judgment and care, and we feel confi- dent that every reader of this book will enjoy and treasure up these memorials of one who was “a man so much a brother of Jesus Christ, that he was not ashamed to’be a brother of every other man.” B. B. RUSSELL & CO. B. B. RUSSELL. T. P. GORDON. Boston, September, 1880, PEOPLES’ CHURCH EDITION. ~<30p-—_—_—~v2e go> The pastor of the Peoples’ Church is distributing thousands of books in the interest of this great missionary enterprise, and this edition is wholly devoted to the Fund for a Memorial Window, to the lamented Bishop Gilbert Haven. The edifice will be the largest church building in Methodism, and the Memorial Window will be the largest. window in the structure, and will face Colum- bus Avenue, one of the chief thoroughfares of the city. For additional copies, address, J. W. HAMILTON, PASTOR PEOPLES’ CHURCH, Boston, Mass. July 9, 1881. CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION, . . $ , . 7 @ 7 a -- « PART I. GILBERT HAVEN, THE ScHOLAR, THE PasToR, THE EpItor, THE BISHOP, THE REFORMER. CuarTeR I. Prelude.— Ancestry.— Boyhood Days,. . . 19 II. The Path to the Pulpit.— Northampton, . . 30 Ili. A Reverend Radical,. ‘ 3 ‘ j » 45 IV. Labor and Sorrow.— The Camp. — The Pilgrim- ; age, . . . 7 ‘ ‘ . . » 58 V. AHeraldofZion, . . . . « « . 7 VI. Another Pioneer Bishop, . . oo oR. cee Se BL VII. To Heaven by Way of Africa, . ee) Cah. veo cx SE PART II. MEMORIALS AND TRIBUTES. CHarTer I. Funeral Oration of Bishop Foster,. . . . 117 Il. Memorial Sermon, by Rev. Geo. M. Steele, D.D., 129 Il. Tribute, by Rev. C. H. Fowler, D. D., LL. D., in ‘ “The Christian Advocate,” : é » 157 IV. Elegy, by Rev. Geo. Lansing Taylor, D.D.,. . 170 [9] 10 CONTENTS. PAGE CuarTeRV. Eulogy, by Bishop Warren, . se . 173 VI. Tribute, by Rev. Arthur Edwards, D. D., Editor of “ North-western Christian Advocate,” . . 189 VII. Poem, by Rev. E. H. Stokes, D. D., is » -~« 196 VIII. Notice, by Rev. J. E. Roy,D.D., . ‘ . . 198 IX. Memoir, by Rev. Richard 8. Rust, D. D., ‘ - 202 X. Address by Bishop Wiley, . : . - 207 XI. Tribute, by Rev. Marshall W. Taylor, D. D., - 210 XI. Editorial, in “ Zion’s Herald,” by Rev. Bradford K. Peirce, D. D., . 5 3 : 5 7 » 215 XIII. Bishop Haven and our Missions, . : : + 219 » XIV. The Swan-Song of Pee Hee i Rev. Daniel Steele, D. D., F 224 XV. Under the Catalpa, by Rev. Theodore L. eas DD,. . aes ca ~ oo sa (227 XVI. ‘In Memoriam of Great-heart the Second, by Rev. E. Stuart Best, . s : : . a » 229 XVII. General Conference Memorial Address, by Rev. Willard F. Mallalieu, D. D., se ee BBL PART IIL HAVENISMS, CHAPTER I. Scraps from “The Pilgrim’s Wallet,” . «41 II. Warand Politics, . ‘ P % . - - 258 III. GJimpses of Africa, . - " : . . - 290 IV. Selections from Bishop Taven’s National Ser- mons, . . . . 5 . . . - 320 V. Bishop Haven’s Views on Church Order and Doc- trine, . ol te Go OSE Re + 345, ILLUSTRATIONS. Steet Portrait or Bishop Haven, . . . «. « Frontispiece, BirTurLact or BrsHor GILBERT Haven, Mayen, Mass., Page 23 ~ BoaRDING-HOUSE, WILBRAHAM ACADEMY, » . . « « 31 AcaDEMY BUILDING, WILBRAHAM, Mass., . e . ee 31 SU hace UNIVERSITY, MIDDLETOWN, CoNN., . % : s 35 AMENTIA SEMINARY, . ‘ ‘ z * 3 ‘ * « 39 CurisMAN Hatt, CLARK UNIVERSITY, ATLANTA, Ga., . “« 3 Latr Resipence or Bishop Haven, and CHURCH FROM wich He was Burrep—Matpen, Mass. . +» . « 113 INTRODUCTION. —_>—__—_ Tue circumstances attending the death of Bishop Haven were calculated to awaken profound emotion in the hearts of his friends and this was the more widely manifested from the fact of his being so generally known and holding so conspicuous a position in the church and in the community. It was not surprising that his burial called out a large attendance, and that the tributes of respect offered over his remains were of the most, pronounced character. It was to be expected that his personal friends, than whom no man had more or heartier, would be very warm in their eulogies, and present in strong terms their appreciation of the irreparable loss which his removal would occa- sion the church which he loved and served. But few, even of his most partial friends, were prepared for the wide-spread and extraordinary evidences of public regard and regret at his departure, the unprecedented number of elaborate memorial addresses which were delivered, and the touching expressions of high estima- tion which found their way into the columns of the leading periodicals of the land. The time for reaction of sentiment, if the portraitures of character and ability had been drawn in too high colors, has now been reached. We have passed so far from the affecting incidents of a death that seemed pre- mature, although its approach had long been provi- dentially indicated,— a death that cut off an extraordi- [13] 14 INTRODUCTION. narily active career in the midst of its busiest plans and incessant activities, and gathered around itself a divine halo rarely vouchsafed to departing saints,— that we can now somewhat calmly contemplate the life that has been translated to higher spheres, and weigh with a cooler judgment the characteristics of one who both dazzled us by his brilliancy and disarmed criticism by his generous unselfishness, his warm affections, and his ‘evident earnestness and conservation of purpose. In this hour of sober second-thought, significantly enough, the first words of almost unqualified eulogy have not been reconsidered. We have looked in vain for the first expression of hesitation, among any that thor- oughly knew him, as to the high qualities of mind and character which were accorded him when the tears of affection had-hardly been dried from the faces of his friends. The last efforts to givea fair estimate of this remarkable man are as warm in his praise’as the first, and constant tender and appreciative words find their way into print, as his absence is still felt in the impor- tant interests of the church which he bore upon his heart and aided so efficiently with his persuasive voice and open hand. No one can fill his place. He cannot be imitated. He was one of those rare men who are scarcely ever duplicated in a generation. He cannot be compared with any one of his own or previous times. He will stand out distinctly, in the period in which he lived, among other remarkable reformers and Christian work- ers, with a well-defined personality of his own. We shall probably never have another Bishop in the church whose similarity of temper and ability will serve in any wise to destroy the sharpness of the distinction with which he stands -out as a unique and remarkable INTRODUCTION. 15 character. He was a genius, with all the intuitive, con- structive, and persistent intellectual force of one of these rarely endowed minds, and still he was intensely practical. He had a singular interest in the temporal and political affairs of his day ; but was one of the most ardent and devoted laborers in the spiritual kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. As he said on his dying bed, he had a strong grasp on both worlds. He was sensi- tive to pain and shrank from danger; but bore himself without hesitation amid the most manifold perils to his life, on sea and land, and among the most desperate men. He was the pleasant companion of the liveliest company, and the very life of it, and one of the ten- derest, most spiritual, and sweetest consolers in hours of bereavement and sorrow. He loved life and its opportunities for usefulness as few do, yet without a moment’s hesitation, but with a shout of triumph, he closed his eyes on earth to open them in heaven. . His life has been so busy and his pen so incessantly employed that an adequate memorial of it will require an ample volume. Some of his best thoughts and happiest expressions are not to be found in his pub- lished works ; they are distributed through his editorial pages and his voluminous correspondence. Such a work, embodying fully the incidents of an eventful life and gathering up the scattered pearls of literature which lie all along his path, is in preparation by his literary executor, and will yet require some time for its completion. But the thousands of his friends all over the land are impatient at the necessary delay inci- dent to such a work. They want a popular sketch of his life and labors, and the chief memorials which have been offered to his memory, in some permanent form. Such a work will not, in any wise, unfavorably affect 16 INTRODUCTION. the sale of the former, but rather prepare the way for it and create a desire to obtain it. This preliminary work, in a remarkably skilful and graphic manner, has been accomplished by Rev. W. H. Daniels, in this interesting biographical sketch and the memorial ad- dresses that follow. We have read its lively pages with constant delight, hardly able to leave them until the closing heavenly scene of transfiguration and ascen- sion was reached. The writer has been eminently suc- cessful in interpreting the early life of his subject, in selecting the most impressive incidents of his active career, and in giving a fairly balanced portraiture of the ability and noble characteristics of this remarkable man. It will satisfy the tens of thousands of readers who are still asking for a more elaborate memorial than a sermon or an address; it will open afresh the tearful memories of the departed; it will awaken a higher appreciation of his rare qualities, and, we fervently pray, inspire also many young hearts with a holy ambition to emulate the virtues of his character, and the consecration of his life to the elevation of the lowliest and to the glory of the one Father of all mankind. B. K. PEIRCE. “Zrion’s HERALD” OFFICE, Boston, September, 1880. PARRY ‘i. GILBERT HAVEN. THE SCHOLAR — PASTOR — CHAPLAIN — TOURIST — EDITOR — BISHOP — REFORMER. MEMORIALS OF BISHOP GILBERT HAVEN. CHAPTER I. PRELUDE. Tuis pen portrait is at best only an outline picture. The whole of the man is not here. The only claim is, that what there is here is like him; much of it a part of him. A nature so broad and deep, with powers so various and brilliant, can not be comprised in words, be they never so choice or so many. There are only two regions known to us where Gilbert Haven has room to dwell— the Heaven to which he has gone, and the hearts of the friends he has left behind. ‘©The nearer one comes to the primitive church, the more does he find bishops like Gilbert Haven.” So writes a Massachusetts editor who.has no temptations to say anything extravagant in praise of Methodism or Methodists. ‘¢He was a power in every place, and will be a power for- ever.” Thus spoke Bishop Foster, with all that was mortal of Bishop Haven lying before him; a.man whom, in spite of wide diversity in sentiment, he had come to love as a brother and honor as a peer. ‘Shure they couldn’t be doin’ more if.the Pope himself was dead,” said the Irish servant of the Haven household, as she mopped the tears from her broad face and looked at the Bishop’s funeral procession just moving away. ‘‘ All the bells is a tollin’, and all the saloons is closed, and all the . 09] 20 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. Catholics is standin’ round and lookin’ at him goin’ to his grave. An’ they all say he has gone to Heaven!” ‘¢ Hallelujah! we have got a colored bishop now!” shouted a jubilant African member of the General Confer- ence of 1872, on the morning of the election of Bishop Haven. It is said that some of the colored brethren had sat up all night praying for that very thing. Here is testimony enough, from sources sufficiently diverse, - to indicate the breadth and depth of the nature of this man whom God raised up to be a prince and prophet, and whom he has now promoted to History and Heaven. ‘* For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” the Head of the Church has given ‘‘ to some apostles, to some prophets, to some evangelists, to some pastors’ and teach- ers.” Beyond all controversy Gilbert Haven was God’s gift to that portion of His church, who, being in bonds, needed the sympathy of some free, powerful, loving nature that was willing to be bound with them. Bishop Haven was, above all others, the prophet, apostle, evangelist, pastor, and teacher of the African race in the United States of America; a man so truly a brother of Jesus Christ that he was not ashamed to be the brother of every other man. ANCESTRY.—BOYHOOD DAYS There is a great family — one might almost call it a clan —in Massachusetts, by the name of Haven; descendants, all, of Richard Haven, who, about the year 1640, came from the West of England and settled in the town of Lynn. He was a godly man, and an honorable, as would appear from the following record in the books of the parish: ‘1692. THE FAMILY TREE. 21 Voted, That Sergeant Haven should sit in the pulpit.’ In the days when the New England clergy were as truly an order of nobility as were the lords, dukes, and bishops in Old England, such a vote as this in Sergeant Haven’s favor, bringing him so closely under the wing of the minister, was surely no small honor. The family of Richard Haven comprised seven sons and five daughters. Among the former was Nathaniel Haven, a man of many functions in the colony; surveyor, selectman, constable, tithingman, pathmaster, and, on one occasion, ** committee to locate the meeting-house.” All these honors came to him in the town of Framingham, where he removed from Lynn sometime about the year 1700, and where he died in 1746 at the age of eighty-two. This branch of the family tree was a fruitful one. Na- thaniel Haven had five sons and five daughters, among whom was Moses. He was the father of five sons and four daugh- ters, among whom was Gideon Haven, a ‘‘ deacon of the charch” in Framingham ; who also had five sons and four daughters, among whom was Jotham, who was blessed with eight sons and two daughters, among whom was Gilbert. To him were born four sons and six daughters, among whom was the subject of this volume. The senior Gilbert Haven was born in Framingham, Mass., on the 21st of April, 1791; lived for awhile at Mount Auburn, then called ‘ Sweet Auburn,” after Goldsmith’s Deserted Village ; was united in marriage to Hannah Burrill in 1811; and then removed to Malden, where he died on the 20th of February, 1863. The almost hereditary dignities in church and state which had ‘been held by his ancestors failed not to descend to him, he being elected a Justice of the Peace, and also for many years holding the office of 22 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. Sunday-school superintendent, first in the Congregational and afterwards in the Methodist church, in both of which communions he was ‘accounted a master in Israel. ‘¢ Squire Haven,” as he was called, was a truly magiste- rial man. His portrait shows him to have been one of the old school of New England gentlemen, dignified, self- poised, courteous, with a dash of sternness in his nature, on account of which his wife used to say to their son, after he had attained Episcopal honors, ‘* Your father was much more fit to be a bishop than you.” He possessed rare executive and judicial powers for one who had only received the education, of the district school- house and the parish meeting-house; but such schools and such meetings were sufficient to bring out the best that was in a good man, and on this account, as well as for his high Chris- tian character, he was looked up to by the people of Malden, then a suburban village, for whose inhabitants he settled many a quarrel and healed many a wounded friendship before he would suffer the case to come before him in his magisterial capacity. In later life he was promoted to a position in the Boston Sub-treasury ;.-and one of his acts as magistrate was to swear in his son as Chaplain of the Eighth Massachusetts Regiment, which, in 1861, was hurriedly departing for that ninety days’ cainpaign by.which it was vainly hoped to bring the rebels to their senses.. ; : Hannah Burrill, the wife of Gilbert’Haven, Sr., was the daughter of a goodly family of Christian people in Abing- ton, Mass., to whom, after due publication of the banns in church, he was joined in marriage by the Rev. Dr. Lowell, father of James Russell Lowell, in Boston, on the 5th of September, 1811. Her father, Benjamin Burrill, was @ soldier of the Revolution, of whom she is proud Wii Teena [i ) : | \ Be | : i) ean , | ii , .] A PURITAN MATRON. 23 to say: ‘‘He was with Washington that terrible winter at Valley Forge.” Small in stature, but mighty in spirit, she seems even now, at the advanced age of ninety-three, to be a typical Puritan matron; one of that immortal race of wives and mothers who were equal to all emergencies, possessed of tireless energy and inexhaustible patience, and with courage’ and conscience enough to face the Enemy of all Righteous- ness in a drawn battle of a lifetime, with the firm determina- tion to keep herself and her children out of his clutches, and - bring them up to ‘be something in the world.” It was from his mother that Bishop Haven inherited his quick wit, his cheery good-nature, his sturdy conscience, and his omnivo- rous appetite for hard work ; while from the Haven line there descended to him much of that executive ability, and a little of that magisterial dignity, the former of which often, and the latter of which occasionally, appeared in his administra- tion of the great affairs committed to his hands. Four sons and six daughters were ‘born to Gilbert, and Hannah Burrill, Haven. ‘‘ They are all gone now, but Sarah and Hannah, and I shall soon be with them,” said the mother; who, in spite of her venerable age, is still unbowed and active both in mind and body, still presides with gracious hospitality at her own table, and with wonderful accuracy and quickness recalls the events in the history of her house which have henceforth a place in the records of the nation and the church. 7 Gilbert Haven, the oldest son and fifth child of Gilbert, and Hannah Burrill, Haven, was born in Malden on the 19th of September, 1821. Asa member of the Haven clan he had some of the best blue blood of Puritan New England in his. veins; and there flowed through his big heart a generous ‘tide of that red blood, still more ancient and noble, the S one 24 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. blood” of which God ‘‘hath made all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth.” Like certain other notables born and bred near Massa- chusetts Bay, he was of the caste of the New England Brahmins ; but unlike them, higher in honor because his hand and heart reached lower, he claimed to belong to all the other castes, and boldly avowed his kinship to all members of that great and ancient family which we call Mankind. Herein "Gilbert Haven outranked all the other aristocrats of his day. The family were members of the Church of the ‘‘ Standing Order ;” but about the time of the birth of his son Gilbert, the father removed his membership to the Methodist Episcopal Church at North Malden, now Melrose ; and, two years later, during the time of a great religious revival, his mother, who had been firmly fixed, as she supposed, in her church rela- tions, followed her husband, and united with that church to which she was to give a minister, an editor, and a Bishop. Methodism was comparatively new in New England. Its first establishment in North Malden was in 1815. Five years later the first ‘‘ class” was formed in Malden Centre, and the accession of Mr. Haven thereto, under the leadership of Father Howard, was a memorable event. According to the pious custom and the holy covenant, which was sacred to the souls of the Puritans, as well as to those of the early Methodists, all the children of the Haven household were consecrated to God in holy baptism; the waters of baptism being sprinkled upon the embryo Bishop by the hands of that well-known itinerant, ‘‘ Reformation John Adams.” From his childhood young Gilbert was the chief sensation in the Haven household, as, indeed, he has been in almost every other small company he has met, and very many large THE BOY IS FATHER TO THE MAN. 25 ones, since. ‘‘He was an active lad,” says his venerable mother, ‘‘and though by no means a bad boy, he gave me more trouble than all the rest of my family put together. If there was anything going on, he was always going ahead of it ; and what he was when a boy he was all the rest of his life.” For a long time she used to take this precious young irre- pressible with her to class meeting and to prayer meeting, as well as on her neighborly visits, because when she was absent ‘‘ nobody could do anything with him at home.” Well was it for both mother and son that she did not fall into the error of attempting to suppress the superabundant life there was in him. She had the sagacity to perceive that the trouble he gave her did not arise from overmuch badness, but from overmuch boy. The Bishop’s last book, ‘‘ A Winter in Mexico,” is. dedicated ‘‘To my Mother,” to whom, though minister, editor, author, and Bishop, he always was ‘‘ my boy.” During his last sickness the venerable woman said to one of her visitors, ‘‘ Oh, I am afraid I shall lose my boy.” It was the delight of some, as well as the regret of others, that the Bishop never wholly overcame his boyishness, which, in the unrestrained freedom of his home, and in the presence of other intimate friends, led them to think that he must have drunk of the fountain of Immortal Youth. Soon after his emancipation from the thraidom of girl’s clothes, which even embryo bishops are forced to endure for a season, he was sent to the district school in the vil- lage, where his bright round face, merry heart, and manly spirit gained the good-will of his instructors; and he rap- idly passed from class to class until he had fairly exhausted the literary resources of the institution. That he was not one of those remarkably good little boys whose final attain- ment of a pulpit or early translation to heaven are the two 26 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. thoughts which divide the- views of all their friends concern- ing them, is evident from the following incident which he used to-relate of his boyhood days, and from which it is also evident that he had no unusual or inspirational liking for colored people, as some may have imagined. One day while he was playing with a party of his com- rades, old ‘‘ Aunty” Knight, the colored washerwoman of the village, went by. Catching a glimpse of her, he cried out: ‘¢ Hullo, boys, guéss it’s going to rain. Black cloud just gone along.” : The old woman looked at him kindly and said, ‘* Why, Gilbert, I didn’t think that of you!” This mild reproof, implying also a compliment to his good- nature, sunk deeply into the boy’s heart, and he at once replied, ‘‘ You never shall hear it from me again.” After- wards he called on the old woman and made due apology for his rudeness. ‘‘ That,” said he, ‘‘ was my conversion from caste.” He was high-spirited but good-tempered, bent on leader- ship but not quarrelsome, and he could readily énough forgive an injury to himself, though it was not always easy for him to forgive an injury to those to whom his friendship or his sympathy attracted him. The questions of school-boy morality which sometimes troubled him, he was accustomed to bring to his mother, by whom he was taught that it was shameful for a boy to fight; that it wags his duty to suffer abuse without returning it; and that under no circumstances could it be honorable in a boy to render evil for evil. These’ lessons entered into the soul of the lad, who believed in his mother with a more sensible if not a more devout rever- ence than a papist does in Mother Church, and he sought to put them into practice ; in which, doubtless, the good angels. A YOUNG KNIGHT. 27 and the good God assisted him. This repression of boyish spirit in wrong directions only gave better scope to its exer- cise in higher and better ones, and the boy who, ‘when he was struck, would not strike back, was ready to defend the little fellows from their big cowardly tormentors. All his school-boy battles were sure to be in defence of the weak against the strong. One day the schoolmistress treated very harshly a little black girl who came to the school from the poor-house. This roused his indignation to the boiling point, and after school was dismissed he presented himself face to face with his teacher, and denounced her conduct to the pauper, saying, ‘« Because that child is poor, and because she is black, you treated her worse than you would dare to treat any of us;” his blue eyes “blazing and his red hair almost standing on end with the righteous wrath that was surging through him. This matter, like the others which troubled him, he rehearsed to his mother when he came home; and that wise counsellor, having carefully examined the case, gave him the following decision : : ‘That little black girl is just as good as you, if she is black, and you ought to take her part.” This settled the question. From that day he took it upon himself to see that she was decently treated, and the abuse which she had suffered was, with such a champion, no longer safe, therefore it ceased; but the little cowards who dared not face the fists and the fury of this young knight, poured out their spite in jeers and jibes, which reached their climax, as they understood it, in calling the little black pauper ‘Gil. Haven’s wife,” a name by which she was for a long time known in the school and which he was too much of 3 gentleman to resent. 28 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. In reference to this matter the Bishop afterwards said: ‘¢My mother and my Bible made me an Abolitionist.” , His father was for a long time book-keeper and head clerk in Barrett’s dye-house in Malden. There was a little room in the building in which old newspapers were kept for wrap- pers; and here the boy was accustomed to spend hour after hour reading the papers and cutting out pieces of poetry, cee speeches, and such other extracts as pleased him: these he preserved in a scrap-book made out of one of the old ledgers, and which is now among the Bishop’s ‘literary remains.” The taste for reading thus indulged grew with his growth and strengthened with his strength, and it was largely to this early-acquired habit, joined to a wonderfully quick and reten- tive memory, that he owed his reputation as a literary man. It has been said of him that “he knew a little of almost everything,” and what he knew he could instantly recall when wanted. The curriculum of the village school was not a very exten- sive one, and having quite exhausted it he left his books to take up a business life as store-boy with one of the Malden traders. As his duties here did not fully occupy him, he spent his spare moments studying French under the instruc- tion of his sister Bethia. His reading had made him acquainted with politics, and on occasions he would start an argument with the customers or loungers who were will- ing to spend their time in debating with a boy; whereby he acquired great readiness of speech. Those were stirring times. William Lloyd Garrison had just started the ‘ Lib- erator”; Webster not long before had made his great speech against Hayne, and gained the title of ‘‘The Defender of the Constitution ;” and Whigs, Democrats, and Liberty Men. (called in derision the ‘‘ Wool and Ivory party”), were all MAKING HIMSELF USEFUL. 29 struggling together, the one for existence, the others for mastery. This gave the boy a wide range, which he was not backward in using; and some of the old men who con- ‘tended with him, say that the lad was able to hold a own with the best of them. On Sundays the young clerk made himself useful, and per- haps somewhat conspicuous, as sexton and usher ai the little -Methodist church. On one occasion a great congregation assembled to hear Abel Stevens, who had begun his career as ‘‘ the boy-preacher.” Nothing particular is recorded con- cerning the young minister or his discourse ; but tradition has preserved the saying of one of the worshippers on that occa- sion; who, after it was over, remarked to his mother, “ Mrs. Haven, it was worth more to see your son Gilbert perform around, showing the people to their seats, than it was to hear the sermon.” 30 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. CHAPTER II. THE PATH TO THE PULPIT.— NORTHAMPTON. As the years passed by his desire for learning increased,- and having heard great things of the Wilbraham Academy, - then under the principalship of Rev. David Patten, D. D., at which one of his sisters had been a student, his parents con- sented to his going thither, and he entered this famous Methodist school in April, 1839 ; being then in his eigh- teenth year. He was a handsome, gallant fellow, and at once became a prominent character. He joined the Union Philosophical Society, which, with the Young Men’s Debating Club and Lyceum, then, as now, divided the masculine society honors between them. He also took an interest in the Reading- Room Society, which for a long time was managed by the students, and whose meetings on Saturday mornings, _ after the close of the weekly declamations, were sometimes scenes of intense political excitement. There was generally an auction for the sale of the papers of the week, which gave an opportunity for the expression of conflicting opinions; the Whigs and Democrats among the boys respectively bidding for their own papers, while their opponents bid against them ‘*for the stove,” for ‘‘ out of the window,” and other uncom- plimentary assignments. On set occasions there were great debates, open to the public, whereat questions of state were argued by the young gentlemen, oftentimes with a skill and force that promised great things for them when they should Boarpinc House, WILBRAHAM ACADEMY, AcapEemy Buitpinc, WiLBRAHAM, Mass. ACADEMY POLITICS AT WILBRAHAM. 81 come out into the arena of the real world. At first young Haven took the Democratic side in politics, partly perhaps because his father was an old-line Democrat, and partly also on account of the influence of his room-mate, one Matthew Dooley, a brilliant Irishman of about twenty-two years of age, a splendid declaimer, a fierce Democrat, and one of the most popular men in the school. From this it need not be inferred that he had fallen from the grace of his boyhood, but only that he had, for a little while, by a strong social current, been carried somewhat out of his way. It was during the winter term of this year that the anti- slavery agitation invaded this quiet seat of learning. Under the auspices of the Reading-Room Society a great debate was held on the question of American slavery, with the Demo- cratic Dooley on the affirmative, and William Rice on the negative ; the latter a slight young man, only seventeen years of age, a new student, and, to all appearance, no match at all for his popular adversary. But when the great debate came off, the champion of the Democratic party — the party of slavery — found himself hors de combat, while young Rice, the radical Abolitionist, the first ever seen at that academy, was in high favor, many of the impressible young ladies and gentlemen who had listened to his arguments having been converted to his opinions. But, for a time, it appeared that he had succeeded too well. Not only had his terrible facts and his audacious theories stirred up the students, and won for him the first place as a debater, but they had also alarmed the Principal and his corps of instructors, the most of whom were opposed to anti- slavery agitation; and so hot did the discussion become in the meetings of ‘the faculty, that it is said to have been pro- posed to expel young Rice for his incendiary abolition speech. 32 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. So much for Wilbraham politics at the time of the advent of Gilbert Haven. He was largely devoted to society; being a great favorite, especially among the ladies, and behaving himself with such distinguished gallantry and spirit as to win the high admira- tion of the students, challenge the attention of the citizens, and bring himself under the careful and anxious inspection of the faculty. ‘‘He was,” says one of his old friends, ‘a te companion of the best of the bad boys;” some of whose escapades are still related by his school-fellows with that gusto which so generally accompanies the account of school- boy frolics : sins, no donbt, but sins only partly grown, which, like tiger cubs, are thought of as almost harmless and im- mensely amusing. Card-playing and drinking were among the accomplishments that the embryo Bishop acquired among these ‘‘ best of the bad boys,” and to such an extent had the irreligious spirit strengthened within him that, when during the month of October a revival of religion broke out in the | academy, young Haven and some of his comrades attended the revival services, sat in the back pew of the church, and beguiled the time by reading novels and playing cards. _After this manner he actually spent the first half hour of that very service, at the close of which, under deep conviction, he presented himself as a seeker of religion. This was on the 18th of October, 1839. In the following day he was happily converted, and from that time he steadily maintained his Christian profession. At the close of the winter term of ’39-40, young Haven left the academy, and in the following March entered the store of one Nichols, on Tremont Street, Boston. But this being too small a place to suit his ambitious views he left it the following year for the establishment of Tenney & Co., A WALKING ENCYCLOPEDIA. 33 then the largest dry-goods and carpet store in the city. When he presented himself to the proprietor, asking a posi- tion, Mr. Tenney looked him over, and said: ‘‘I like the looks of you, and will give you a place;” and so well did he bear out the first favorable impressions, that when, after about a year of mercantile life, he felt himself called to the ministry of the gospel, his employer said to him: ‘‘ Haven you have a gift for trade. No man has a gift for two things. I will fill a store for you and put you in it if you will stay.” But the young man had heard the call of the Lord, and this favorable offer, from a worldly view, failed to divert him for one moment from his duty. He was a popular clerk. His cheerful manners and ready wit made him a favorite with all with whom he came in con- tact; while his habit of reading everything and remembering it, soon caused him to be recognized as a kind of walking encyclopedia, and it came at length to be a saying among the boys in the store whenever any literary, historic, or politi- cal information was wanted, ‘‘ Ask Haven; he’ll be sure to know all about it.” , Sometimes, in stormy days, when customers were few, the clerks would gather in the rear of the salesroom and talk over- their prospects and intentions. Among them were several youths who have since become eminent and successful men. Those who had a special fondness for business would some- times -mark out their future path, and say, ‘‘I intend to be worth so and so many thousand dollars.” But Haven would never set any such mark for himself. No number of dollars was ever large enough to satisfy his boyish ambition. He eared little for money. He was liberal to a fault; and although at first he did not exactly know what he was to do with himself, he was determined to do something, and to do 34 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. a good deal of it. He was still the champion of the weak and unfortunate. One day a colored girl came into the store; and he, having noticed that she was kept waiting — while ‘others were served, made haste to attend to her wants himself, . ‘* Who was that nigger you were waiting. upon so po- litely?” asked one of his fellow-clerks. ‘‘She is my sister,” was Haven’s reply. ' A second brief session at the Wilbraham Academy, where he appears as ‘‘rushing his preparation for college,” enabled him to enter the Wesleyan University in the fall of i 842. He at once took rank among the first of his class, and this, ‘position he steadily maintained. ; During the winter of his sophomore year, Haven taught a district school in Saugus, Mass. His friend and school- fellow, William Rice, who had already entered the ministry in the New England Conference, was at this time pastor at Saugus; his college friend, Fales H. Newhall, held another schoolmastership near by, and these three friends used to spend their evenings together in the study of the young Abolitionist minister ; whose efforts as a reformer, at his first - parish in Malden two years before, had been blessed to the enlightenment of the senior Gilbert Haven in the matter of human rights for black men; in consequence of which that life-long Democrat. united with the Liberty Party, and for the first time, with seven of his townsmen, cast his vote in that interest at the elections in 1842. Memorable evenings were they that these three young men spent together ; occupied for the most part with the reading and criticism of English and American literature, and with lively discussions on current topics, political and theological. They read Dickens, whose star had just risen above the hori- YOUNG RADICAL. 385 zon of the Eastern sea; and Emerson, whose lectures were beginning to appear; and occasionally, by way of varying their literary feasts, they took a tramp over to Boston to hear & speech or lecture by Choate or Webster or Hilliard or Rantoul. Under these influences and in this companionship, Haven - grew in the grace of Abolitionism, and his boyish rage against caste, which for a little while had been suffered to grow cool, but which had been revived by his religious experience at the old academy, now blazed up again with more intensity than ever, so that it was not long before he distanced all his co- patriots in his zeal for ‘‘ liberty,” and the absolute abandon with which he ran out to their logical conclusions the cognate ideas of ‘‘ equality and ‘ fraternity.” . The following winter he taught a school at Chelsea Point, meanwhile keeping up with his class. During his college life his private journals indicate that he was far from being satisfied with himself religiously ; but the grace of God had struck deeply into him; his conversion had been genuine, and through the temptations of his four years at the university he maintained a Christian walk and conversation. He did’ not possess what is usually called a religious nature. He was not given to studying his own spiritual moods, but was quick-sighted concerning all that was going on around him; much more occupied with his duties and relations to the world without than with the panorama of the ever-changing world within him. As a Christian, no less than as a student, he was ambitious, — ambitious to be, but more obviously ambitious to do. His piety was of an active sort, which manifested itself after his return home from the academy in occasional visits to the prisoners at Charlestown, for the purpose of religious instruc- 36 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. tion, and which, in the last half of his college life, led him to champion every reform that looked toward raising the fallen or securing the rights of the oppressed. He was thought to be wild and extravagant in his views of human equality. That a negro could be the brother of a white man was a doctrine which, though taught plainly enough in the Bible, had not found its way into the minds of even the lead- ing Abolitionists of New England. They were for patron- izing and championing the slaves; Haven went beyond, and avowed their claim to friendship and love. Dr. Newhall speaks of him as ‘‘ strong in the intuitional ‘facultiés, always relying more upon intuition than upon reasoning. He had a broad, strong, physical basis, that made his passions strong; but conscience ever held his pas- sions in stern control. His reading was very broad, though he had less interest in physical science than in classical liter- ature. Philosophical abstractions and metaphysical niceties had but little interest for him, Brilliant as a writer, his con- versational powers were far more brilliant, because of his personal magnetism, which was immense.” * Rev. Dr. J. E. King, another of his class, recalls ‘his striking figure, medium size, broad shoulders, well-knit frame, massive head, with a wealth of fiery red hair, a keen, flashing eye, a rosy, joyous face, swift of speech, addicted to debate, ranking first in his class, a great reader, apt in the use of sarcasm, loving to prick the bubbles of sophistry or vanity, with prodigious mental activity, equal to making the most of-all his opportunities, hating shams, hypocrisy, and oppression, while fear was unknown to him.”* From the university he went forth a well-furnished man * “ Monograph of Gilbert Haven,” by Rev E. Wentworth, D. D. A SCHOLAR IN HIS OWN TIME AND TONGUE. 37 ~for the work to which God was calling him. He was pro- . foundly learned in nothing ; but the sum-total of his acquire- ments, both in quantity and availability, was such as to place him undeniably in the front rank of the scholars of his church. He knew enough of Greek and Latin to be a successful teacher of the classics at Amenia, where © his cousin, Dr. E. O. Haven, then the Principal of the seminary, says ‘‘ he created much enthusiasm in his classes on the style and sentiment of the ancient authors;” he was also well up in mathematics; but, in an atmosphere pervaded by the glamour of heathen antiquities, he devoted his best strength’ to the English language and literature, and in the midst of scholarly traditions and associations which accounted no learning as ‘‘ liberal” except what came from Greece and Rome, he achieved the distinction of becoming a classical scholar who was also a master of, and not ashamed of, his own mother tongue. To this unusual choice and judgment of Gilbert Haven the student, does the church, in no small measure, owe the brilliant career and the mighty influence of Gilbert Haven the pastor, the journalist, and the Bishop. He did not suffer himself to be educated away from the life of his own people in his own times. Neither fiction nor fashion could cheat him into accounting anything venerable which did not. bear the stamp of righteousness as well as of antiquity. He had learned to look forward and not backward for the Golden Age. In 1846 he graduated with the third honor in a,class of thirty-five. His appointment was ‘‘ Philosophical Oration ;” his theme, ‘‘ The Identity of Philosophy.” The valedictorian that year was J. Ww. Beach, now President of the University, and the salutatorian his life-long friend, Fales H. Newhall. 38 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. Although called to the gospel ministry, Gilbert Haven, during his college life, did not make-any special progress in that direction. After his graduation, in 1846, he was em- ployed for two years as a teacher of Latin and Greek in the Amenia Seminary, New York, where he first opened his commission as an ambassador of Jesus Christ; his first sermon being written and read in the seminary chapel in 1847. His text was: ‘“ Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.” Ps. xevii..2. It appears that he had a humble opinion of his pulpit efforts, for in his journal, sometime during the next year, he writes : — “T love to preach usually probably better than others love to hear, though I shrink from the title ‘ reverend.’ Nothing but the most solemn conscientiousness and unwaver- ing conviction of duty could have led me to the pulpit.” After two years of service as Professor, he was elected Principal, which position he held for three years. The duties of the situation were congenial to his tastes, and there were also certain reasons of a social nature which led him to enjoy it. Among his pupils was Mary Ingraham, a rare and beau- tiful young woman, of Methodist ancestry, blessed with admirable qualities of body, mind, and soul, in whose educa- tion he had come to feel more than a common. interest. During these five years the professor became the lover, and the young lady whom he had first taught Latin was now a fellow student with her teacher in the mysteries of a more delightful learning. The love of these two persons was kept a profound secret, as seemed, indeed, to be essential to the peace and prosperity of a school organized on the Amenia plan; and when the marriage was celebrated, on the 17th of September, 1851, it was a complete surprise both to citizens and students. f 4 i} ) | i \ | | : Nee | Hii Mle A A = ———S=et oS = BSS = == === == SSS a = = —— THE ELECT LADY. 39 The Ingraham family was of New England origin. ‘In the last decade of the last century Methodism was planted in Rhode Island, and Jesse Lee and Bishop Asbury visited the old town of Bristol and gathered a small society. The mem- bers of that little church were subjected to personal insults and social ostracism. At length two families, feeling that they could not longer endure the fight of affliction, sold their little property and moved to Amenia, N. Y. The names of the families were Reynolds and Ingraham. The Hon. George G. Reynolds, LL. D., judge of the city court of Brooklyn, a lay delegate to the last two General Conferences of our church, and Mary Ingraham Haven, were descendants of these families.”* The wife of Bishop Haven, as any one may see by her portrait, which adorns the Haven mansion in Malden, was a woman of rare beauty as well as of a lovely spirit.. Her figure was slight and graceful, while her harmonious features, deep black eyes, rosy cheeks, and fair complexion made up a face which once seen was not readily forgotten. Wher- ever Pastor Haven went with his bride she was the first and chief attraction. ‘‘ A beautiful woman,” everybody said; and sometimes it was also said, ‘‘She is the ideal Evangeline.” Her manners were quiet and gentle. She was silent rather than discourseful; but. this quietness and reti- ’ cence did not prevent her husband’s parishioners from feeling the sacred influence of her earnest sympathy and affection. She did not shut herself up within herself for any selfish reason. It was simply the saving up of power to be expended, when called for, in love and helpfulness to the best possible advantage. The highest compliments are still paid * Memorial Sermon, by Rey. Dr. Upham, Grace Church, Boston. 40 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. her. ‘‘She was the most beautiful woman you ever saw,” says one. ‘ Everybody loved her,” says another. And her venerable mother-in-law declares, ‘‘ She was just as good as she could be ail the time.” No wonder that such a woman as this, with a heart consecrated to duty and sanctified by grace, and a will fully developed and always quietly set in the direction of righteousness, should have exercised a poundless influence upon such a man as Gilbert Haven. He was able to appreciate such a wife, and she failed not to understand and honor her husband. Pastor Haven entered the regular work of the ministry in the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church; into which he was received in the spring of 1851. The spirit in which he entered the pastorate is evident in the following extracts from his journal. It appears that during the last year or two of his principalship at Amenia, he was impressed with the fact that that was not the work to which God had called him. In 1849 he writes: ‘* How stands my soul? I sometimes fear to ask. I hope I am growing in grace. J hope I have as deep a love for God as ever. May I still find deeper holiness and happiness in Christ. I must engage in something more like my life-work than this. I must get away from this place, and then may God guide me.” In March, 1851, having resigned his Principal’s chair at Amenia, and prepared to go out from this centre of learning, and, to him, of love and happiness, he records his feelings in contemplation of the important change thus :— . ‘‘ Amid extraordinary sorrows and joys I have been ad- vancing, I trust, in knowledge, holiness, practical wisdom, mental power, spiritual purity. My duties here have been beneficial. My studies have enlarged my knowledge ; refiec- tion, my ideas. Prayer and meditation have drawn me nearer to Christ. I go forth in the name of my Saviour. THE FIRST PASTORATE. 41 Heaven is all that is valuable. Christ is all that is supremely lovely. I feel that I am willing to be anything or nothing, so that I may win Christ. My religious profession sometimes seems dark, but beyond I see light. O how I thank God for his goodness to me —for his preventing and pardoning grace ! How great a sinner I am! How great a Saviour he is! May I be humble, faithful, holy, happy, now and forever! May I ever live in Christ, and may I hear at the close of my career the voice of Christ, saying, *¢ Servant of God, well done.’” * It was in the year 1850, the last of his principalship at Amenia, that Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Bill. This occasion he improved by a sermon entitled, ‘‘ The Higher Law,” from the text, ‘‘ Render unto Cesar the things that are Ceesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” Matt. xxii. 21. In this discourse he examined into the basis of governmental authority, declared the bill to be condemned by human instinct, conscience, Providence, and the Bible, and advised that obedience to it should be refused. This is the first of his discourses on political topics that has become famous. It heads the list in his volume entitled National Sermons. [For extracts see Part II.] Gilbert Haven’s first pastorate was at Northampton, Mass. Long years afterwards, having travelled in many lands, he gives the preference for rural beauty, to his first parish above all the rest of the world.. The following letter to the Rev. Albert Gould, who followed him in that station after an inter- val of more than twenty-five years, was written in reply to an invitation to a memorial service at the Northampton Meth- odist Church :— ‘¢ Rev. ALBERT GOULD: ‘« Dear Brother,—TI should have been glad to have given you reminiscences of my pastorate at Northampton, had not sickness and the imperative orders of physicians prevented. “New York, Nov. 21, 1871. * Monograph. 42 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. ‘« As your invitation lay before me, the visions of that first experience in regular ministerial work arose before me. The little cluster of happy souls gathered in that vestry of a Sab- bath, and especially of a week-day night; the small, though larger congregation, in the church ; the songs and testimonies and ardent prayers; the simple faith, strong and clear, of the elect few, that in poverty and social contumely, laid the foundation of our church, —these are not forgotten in my recollections, and come up yet, I believe, in remembrance before God. ‘J vividly recall a prayer meeting on a very stormy night, when only six were present. Such power J do not remember to have seen and felt at any prayer meeting in my entire pastorate. “¢God came down our souls to greet, And glory crowned that mercy-seat.’ It seemed as if tongues like as of fire sat on each of that: little assembly. ‘¢ We had troubles, sore and thick, in those days. Troubles with creditors especially ; troubles among the brethren not so peculiar ; but out of them all the Lord delivered us. I trust ‘He still ‘delivers. I remember one incident in connection with a choir difficulty, that illustrates the influence that Jona- than Edwards still has in that town, though dead for more than a century. While we were debating how to reconcile their feuds, a young brother, a broom-maker (I forget .his name), usually our most silent member, spoke and said: ‘I think I have discovered the origin of evil. Lucifer was the leader of the choir inheaven. Of course riot broke out, and the fall naturally came about.’ Dr. Theodore Cuyler this summer declared that that was the brightest saying he ever heard. It came from the old Edwards seed. «So did the spiritual life and power of that little company. They too were heirs of that faith and zeal which characterized the good men of Northampton. With a less fatalistic creed,. ‘they had a greater Christian love and power. May their successors still more abound in these graces. ‘“‘The beauty of that grand old town, the most beautiful of all American towns, which are the most beautiful towns in the world, like Wordsworth’s ‘Tintern Abbey,’ passes into the ‘purer mind with tranquil restoration.’ It will never leave my memory. ‘\Y hope your success and that of your followers, and of the church, will be greater than that of all your forerunners. A BRAVE BURDEN-BEARER. 43 It will afford me joy always to hear that this church of my first ministry walks in the truth, and flourishes in the faith ‘of the gospel. ‘‘ Ever faithfully yours, ‘¢G. Haven.” ‘To this struggling little parish, the scholarly ex-principal of the Amenia Seminary was sent in the spring of 1851, to begin his work as a Methodist preacher; and to this parish, in the following autumn, he introduced his bride. The hardness which this good soldier endured in this novi- tate has never been generally known. He kept such matters to himself, not simply for the reason that he was unwilling to have it known how small were the resources of the parish to which he had been assigned, but with a brotherly, or perhaps it were more proper to say, fatherly, regard for the feelings of the little flock over which he had been appointed shepherd. A brother, who was a member of his official board, relates that on one occasion, when they were talking together about “money matters, Pastor Haven said :— ‘‘ We were speaking of salaries at our last minister’s meet- ing. The brethren were telling how much, or how little they had received for their work thus far during the year; but. they did not get any such information out of me.” That the amount he received was small enough to have given him the championship in such a contest of honorable poverty is evident from his statement, many years afterwards, to a brother who was mourning over the extremely meagre support which he received from his congregation. ‘* You think it is small,” he said; ‘‘it is three times as much as I received from my first parish.” This was not, however, to be understood as an implied censure of his first parishioners. They, with him, struggled nobly and bravely through financial 44 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. difficulties which beset them, and only by the greatest self- denial on the part of both pastor and people was the unfinished edifice where he commenced his ministry saved from being sold for debt. "The veterans of the Northampton society, newly happy over its deliverance from the last of their long financial bond- age, as the result of the labors of its present pastor, the Rev. Mr. Knox, now look back to those gloomy days with a loving memory of the man who led them for two years through the darkest shadows, showed them the first glimpse of hope, and the first faint prospects of ultimate success. But for him, his boundless courage, his inexhaustible good cheet, his abso- lute unselfishness, and the inspiration of his manly presence and Christian devotion, it is agreed that at that early day Methodism must have ended in Northampton while yet it was hardly begun. THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 45 CHAPTER III. A REVEREND RADICAL. THESE were great days in the political history of the Union ; whose disruption the Defender of the Constitution thought he could foresee; and in order to prevent so dire a calamity — some said, in order to be made President of that Union by the help of Southern votes — he had so far succumbed to the slave power as to lend himself to a measure for turning the Northern States into a hunting-ground for runaway negroes; a species of game often in great request at the South. Though standing upon the highest pinnacle ever reached by a New England statesman since the days of the Elder Adams, Daniel Webster, often irreverently called ‘The Godlike Daniel,” was now tottering to his fall. The Fugitive Slave Law, his last and lowest degradation, had roused the wrath of multitudes of his chief admirers ; and the dose of political, compromise he had helped to admin- ister as a sedative had thrown that much-doctored patient, the Union, into uncontrollable spasms, which threatened the direst consequences. The newspapers contained frequent accounts of the trials’ of persons indicted for aiding in the escape of fugitive slaves ; “the memorable case of Sims, the fugitive who was cap- tured in liberty-loving Boston, and shipped from Long Wharf to Charleston, in April, 1851, had raised the excitement to a fever heat; the name of Rufus Choate had been blackened, and his splendid powers prostituted by aiding in the support 46 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. of this great iniquity; the Nullification Bill, into which the indignation of Massachusetts crystallized, had been reported in the State Legislature by a joint special committee; the ‘¢ Liberator” and ‘* Commonwealth” of Boston, the ‘‘ North- ampton Courier,” and other papers, both North and South, were lifting up their voices for the rights of all men against the claims of the few; the names of Garrison, Wendell Phil- lips, Elizur Wright, Horace Mann, John P. Hale, Richard H. Dana, Jr., etc., were becoming household words in New Eng- land; being praised by the party of liberty and traduced by the party of slavery with a freedom in the use of the English language which distances even the political rhetoric of our own day. George Thompson, the fiery English radical, was pouring out the vials of his wrath, not only against slavery, but against ministers, churches, governments, and people indiscriminately who did not join with him in his vigorous. efforts for tniversal equality ; old-fashiovled Whigs and sturdy Democrats were striving either to coax or bully the small but determined party of liberty into moderate measures, under the pressure of predictions or threats of destruction of the Union; anti-slavery advocates were mobbed at the North and murdered at the South, and the word ‘‘ Agitator” was hurled at the heads of the reformers as the most opprobrious epithet that could be found. “Prominent among these “agitators” was the Rev. Gilbert Haven. His anti-slavery sentiments were a part of his relig- ion. Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness; Gilbert Haven believed in God, and in human equality also; but this latter faith, instead of being accounted to him for righteousness, was, by a large propor- tion of the good people of Northampton, regarded as an absurdity, a semi-insanity, and by some, as a political, if ARMINIAN ABOLITIONISM. 47 not a moral, crime. At this time Northampton was 3 favorite resort of wealthy Southern slaveholders, who every. summer spent much time and money in this cool and beauti- ful paradise; sometimes bringing their slaves with them; and moving with such dignity and courtesy among the select society of this Puritan town as to impress beholders with the idea that slavery was capable of being managed in such a manner as to produce the very highest type of Christian civilization. On the other hand, there was a little company of Aboli- tionists who saw through this thin disguise, and whose souls abhorred the great iniquity founded on the monstrous as- sumption that one human being could hold property in another. With this latter company the new pastor of the Methodist society affiliated. Methodism was by no means popular in that highly cultivated, Calvinistic, New England _ town, and had it not been for this very condition of things in politics, the pastorate of Gilbert Haven in Northampton might have been a failure, even in spite of his persistent labor and his patient endurance; but the Abolitionists, though they cared not for his Arminianism, went to the vestry of his unfinished meeting-house to hear him preach ‘liberty to the captives ;” which he did with the same sense of responsibility to God and obligation to men as that with which he preached any other portion of the gospel. They were sometimes shocked at the extreme views he held ; for he even taught that ‘‘God has made of one blood all nations that dwell upon the face of the earth!” ‘and this axe he vigorously laid at and into the root of the tree, American Slavery. He was the only man of his time, so far as now appears, who was willing to accept the logical and necessary outcome of the doctrines of hu- 48 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. man liberty and equality. As he understood it, the wrong of holding a man in slavery consisted in the fact that he was a man, and when once the chattel, of whatever com- plexion, was recognized as a man, all mere distinctions of caste or condition vanished; since if a man, he must necessarily be a brother, according to the doctrine laid down in the word of God. Some of his conservative neighbors were startled at his. declarations of the ‘‘ extravagant” doctrine that black men were just as good.as white men, and that there was no sen- sible reason why the Anglo-Saxon and the African races should not intermarry. One of his Fast-day sermons espe- cially, which was delivered in the old Congregational church, was a thorn in their eyes and a scourge ‘to their sides ; and tradition says, though on doubtful authority, that their wrath grew so hot that some of the baser sort actually proposed to give him a coat of tar and feathers. A fellow boarder with the Methodist pastor and his wife, ‘whose meagre salary did not suffer him to have a house of his own, tells of the sharp discussions which were had at table over the Fugitive Slave Law, the coalition between the Democrats and the Free-soilers (whereby the election of Charles Sumner as United States Senator was barely secured) , Southern outrages, Northern sympathy for slavery, and other kindred topics of the times. His opponents were not unfre- quently aroused to great anger by the sharp thrusts of his keen logic, and especially by the sharper sallies of his wit; but however fierce the wordy war might rage, Haven never for a moment lost his temper. He would pour out facts and statements, invective and satire, in a perfect torrent, and when his adversary had reached the end of his patience, he would turn about, and laugh his anger away; and the ‘ ANTI-SLAVERY GOSPEL. 49 man, being thus mollified, would leave the table with the impression that this wild Abolitionist was, after all, one of the very best fellows in the world. The anti-slavery sentiment in his own church was notably stronger than in any of the other churches of the village: thus his pastoral relations were not much disturbed by his intense radicalism in politics. He stood up for Methodism as well as for liberty; and day and night, week-days and Sundays, his whole soul and body were pledged to, and employed in, the work of the Lord. In building up that little society, one of the first things required was to collect money to pay certain claims against the half-finished building; and this he did under the most unfavorable circumstances. The attendance at the social meetings of the week was small and discouraging ; but the pastor made it a special point always to be present, and, with half a dozen faithful brethren and sisters, he was as ready to do his best as in the presence of a great congregation in some notable neighboring church. ‘¢ His abolitionism,” says one of his old parishioners, ‘¢ strengthened rather than weakened the church in North- ampton.” He preached politics as a part of the appropriate work of a Christian minister, always, however, from a gos- pel, and not a partisan standpoint; and being completely mastered: by his own logic, he sometimes went to wnat appeared to be extravagant lengths. Among the visitors during one season was a prominent Methodist from New York city, who at home was called a ‘‘ red-hot radical,” but who, after hearing the discourses of Pastor Haven, acknowl- edged that the doctrine contained therein was far in advance of him. Temperance also was preached in that pulpit, vigorously and successfully ; and whatever else, in his judgment, had to 50. MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. do with the immortal interests of human souls. His concep- tion of the duty of ministers of the gospel was astonishingly broad and liberal for those times, and he was reckoned as a dangerous agitator. Now, there are perhaps two millions of people in America, who hold him to have been a prophet of: the Lord. ‘His sermons,” says one of his parishioners, ‘‘ were largely in the form of discussions. They were apt to be rather deep for some of us; but he was always so much in earnest about it that he generally kept us awake. They were systematic, and very carefully arranged, and he produced the impression upon us that he had ever so much to say. The drift of his preaching was instructive rather than moving. I heard him after he was made Bishop, and I ‘thought he had become more spiritual.” . While at Northampton he was elected superintendent of schools, for which office he was admirably fitted, and one that added not a little to his influence in the community. During this first pastorate he was so deeply engaged in extricating his little parish from their difficulties and in per- forming his educational functions, that he had no time or inclination for authorship; and it was not until his removal to the neighborhood of Boston that he blossomed out as a brilliant and prolific writer for the press. After two years at Northampton, which was then the limit of the pastoral term, he was, in the spring of 1853, ap- pointed to the Wilbraham charge. When his appointment was announced, some of the more careful brethren in that excellent and steady-going society were made a little anxious by their recollections of his academic career; and it was with ' some misgivings, and doubtless more than ordinarily ardent prayers, that they received him as their spiritual guide. A RETURN TO OLD SCENES. 51 Among other things, he had, in his student days, produced the impression upon the minds of these villagers of being a born aristocrat. He had dressed better than the other stu- dents, and had carried himself in a Bostonish style generally ; but since those days these manners had disappeared, because the elements from which they had proceeded had been sancti- fied out of his nature, and he now returned to them with the broad charity and sincere devotion of a radical reformer and a consecrated minister of Christ. “Tf you had asked me whose conversion, in the revival in which Gilbert Haven was converted, would turn out to be superficial, I should have picked him out rather than any one else,” said one of the Wilbraham brethren. ‘‘ But,” he con- tinued, ‘‘ the next time I met him, though I had a prejudice against him on account of his former aristocratic fashions, he was so cheery and delightful that I said to myself, ‘ You are . a good fellow, and.I like you.’” Pastor Haven was not long in winning the affections of his Wilbraham parish, less however by his pulpit efforts than his personal magnetism. His sermons, they say, were ‘‘ the poorest part of him,” a judgment in which he fully concurred. On one occasion a young lady student complimented a pas- sage in one of his discourses, to which he responded, ‘‘ Well, you are the only person in Wilbraham who enjoys my preach- ing.” ‘¢ His sermons were divided and subdivided, like a tree, with its branches, boughs, and twigs,” said one of his hear- ers; ‘“‘but it was as if the tree were charged with lightning, for there was a sparkle at the point of every leaf.” “¢T was in love with him,” said one of his chief brethren ; ‘¢no man ever took such a hold of me as he, and I was never so afflicted at the going away of any other minister.” 52 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. He particularly excelled as pastor. No matter how reti- cent the members of his flock might be, whenever they were in any trouble of mind, or, oftentimes, of estate, they would bring their troubles to him. ‘¢ He was,” says one, ‘‘ the receptacle for all the budgets of private griefs and troubles in the parish, and people would open up their hearts to him with perfect freedom, feeling that the advice he would give would be hearty and sincere.” Among the children, also, he was a prime favorite, and he did for them what is so often neglected; that is to say, he’ gathered them into a children’s class, which he led himself on Saturday afternoons ; and this work the Lord owned by send- ing quite a revival of religion among the children, which was, indeed, the only conspicuous work of grace during these two years of his pastorate. He was still the same radical Abolitionist, and was coming to be quite a politician. He joined his fortunes with the Free-soil party in Massachusetts, which, among other good works, elected Charles Sumner to the United States Senate ; but his politics were less conspicuous in Wilbraham than they had been in Northampton, for almost all of his parishioners agreed with him, though most of them were hardly able to digest the strong meat which he sometimes set before them, more particularly his doctrine of the equality of all sections of the human race. That notable colored woman,—one might almost say, prophetess, — Sojourner Truth, paid him a visit here, bring- ing two other negroes; and one of his brethren, while making a casual call upon the pastor, found him, his wife, and the three colored women sitting socially at table enjoying a cup of tea. ‘¢ He looked at me with a sly smile,” said the brother, ‘*as much as to say that the situation was somewhat peculiar, AN INCIDENT. 53 but that everything was all right, and that Les was exactly the way it ought to be.” It was during his second year’s work -at Wilbraham that the infamous Nebraska Bill was passed. On the 25th of May, 1854, he delivered a discourse entitled ‘‘The Death of Freedom,” taking for his texts the following passages of scripture: ‘‘ The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places.” 2 Sam. i. 19. ‘¢ And Saul was consenting unto his death.” Acts viii. 1. ‘‘There was darkness over all the land.” Matt. xxvii. 45. [The discourse appears in his volume of National Sermons,. extracts from which are given in Part III.] . Dr. George Prentice, one of his literary executors, in his address at the Bishop’s funeral-related the following personal incident connected with this pastorate : — ‘¢ My first acquaintance with Bishop Haven was in his second charge in this Conference, at Wilbraham, Mass. He was pastor, I was student. I knew him in a passing way, as everybody knew him, and I knew his repute here and there among the citizens. But one Friday afternoon there came a tap at my door, and on opening it, to my surprise, Pastor Haven stood there, and he said to me, ‘ To-morrow I want you to go and preach for Brother Paulson.’ How he knew that I had thought anything about preaching, I have never learned. Certainly I had never whispered that word to him or any other. I began to say: ‘I pray to be excused.’ ‘You must go!’ And he would not be denied. In that gentle, tender, considerate, and jocose way that he always employed to carry his ends, he insisted, until he obtained his desire, and so I went over to Monson and began preaching ; and from that day it was recognized between us that that was to be my work, and he never lost sight of it. ‘¢He was on the lookout in the same way. Scores of young men never escaped his eyes— scores of young men whose duty on that point was clear, in his mind. He saw what every man.could do best, and he strove to stimulate them to take ~ up that work and do it in the best way they could, for the glory of God and weal of humanity, and for the advancement of the church of Christ.” 54 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. In the same address, speaking of his anti-slavery views, Dr. Prentice said : — ‘Tt appeared to him that one of the worst things that could possibly happen was for the conscience of the country to get into the charge of unbelief. When he was as obscure a man in the ministry as it was ever possible for him to be, he said one day: ‘ We must put the gospel of Christ into all these reforms that.are afloat. If the anti-slavery sentiment of the country gets away from the cross of Christ, and obtains the mastery in the political world, it will emancipate the slave politically, but it will have no benediction for his heart, it will have no salvation for his soul; and we must leaven that reform with the gospel of Christ.’ ” Of his gentleness and tenderness Dr. Prentice said : — ‘¢T have known him to keep things to himself which must have stung him to his soul’s core; and when, by chance, they came to the knowledge of othors, he would say: ‘ Let. us lay all these things aside, and be faithful and true and loving. There is nothing that love won’t conquer.’” He was, by some of his parishioners, thought to be an am- bitious man. Hard workers, who are bent on making the most of their opportunities, are apt to incur this censure ; and, in a quiet New England village, his style of preaching, which included the discussion of current political events, did not fail to elicit the remark that the scholarly Boston boy, with the highest educational honors of the church fresh about him, was struggling to bring himself into notice. Doubtless this was true. God had endowed him with a nature which must inevitably be conspicuous, so different was it from the masses of men. If, therefore, the young pastor was reach- ing out to grasp the lines of power and influence, he was only following the path marked out for him in the counsels of God. It was his mission to be a leader, and a leader must be at the front. THE WESTFIELD PASTORATE. ‘55 He is remembered by his parishioners more as a man than as a minister. They say there was no ministerial style about him; no attempt whatever at clerical sanctity , of manners. The form of godliness was of little account to him, perhaps too little, but for the power thereof he had an ever increasing desire. He was a man of endless perseverance, abundant in labors; not only labors in public, but from house to house. He often encountered opposition among the members of his official board or in his pastoral visits ; but when he found people who differed from him in what he regarded important matters, he gave himself no rest until by persistent argument and persuasion he had brought them to his view of the subject. It was wonder- ful how completely this young minister succeeded in having his own way in the parish. He secured it, as his military ideal, General Grant, secured his victories— fighting it out on the same line, no matter though it should take all summer. ; Pastor Haven’s third charge was Westfield, Mass. ,— a large, strong, influential society, which gave him ample opportunity for all the work that was in him. Here his son, William Ingraham Haven, was born. The commencement of his la- bors here was under circumstances somewhat embarrassing ; the appointment being a double one, ‘‘ Westfield and West Springfield,” against which two names were set down in the Minutes, Gilbert Haven and Mark Trafton. The latter having dropped into politics and secured an election by the Know-Nothings as a member of the House of Representatives at Washington, Haven was appointed as his successor in the parish, and for such time as his duties in Washington did not occupy him, it was presumed that the Honorable Reverend would perform the duties of preacher in charge at the little ! 56 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. mission in West Springfield. “ ‘There was some embar- rassment and misunderstanding connected with the adjust- ment of this double work, and it was some months before Pastor Haven was comfortably seated on his box, and could gather the reins into his hands. But his inexhaustible patience and good-nature carried him triumphantly through all the difficulties of the situation, of ‘which he at length came to be the unquestioned master. , This parish was pretty evenly divided politically, though it always has been notable for its harmony in matters religious. There were, and still are, some sturdy Democrats among the chief men, who were conscientiously opposed to the form of anti-slavery agitation that then chiefly prevailed. What was this radical Abolitionist pastor to do? The question, which might have been a delicate one to others, seems not for one moment to have disturbed Gilbert Haven. He was not preaching to win the praise of men, but the approbation of God and his own conscience; there- fore he opened his pulpit battery upon the great iniquity with great promptness, and served his guns with great vigor and efficiency. - The result was different from what might have been ex- pected. Sometimes a gale at sea comes on so suddenly and blows with such force as to prevent the rising of the waves, and a ship caught in one of these tempests scuds under bare poles before the hurricane, over level water, which hisses like a boiling cauldron, but cannot climb into the air. Perhaps it was by reason of the very intensity of his abolition hurricanes that the waves of contention in his Westfield parish failed to rise. Those who agreed with him in part were breathless at his audacity. Those who differed from him were compelled -to admire his courage ; and since he was evidently preaching A GOOD-NATURED OPPONENT. 57 abolitionism and amalgamation under what he felt to be the impelling power of the Spirit of God, they, as Christian men, could not find it in their hearts to be angry with him. He was evidently in the position of the other apostle who said, ‘* Woe is me if I preach not the gospel.” ‘‘ Woe is me if I preach not liberty and human equality in its widest and most absolute meaning,” said, or seemed to say, Pastor Haven; and though on one or two occasions some conservative souls were agitated, and it was proposed to shut up the church against him, yet for the most part he carried the personal good-will of all his hearers with him; and, at the close of his pastorate, some who differed most widely from him in politics were amongst his warmest personal friends. ‘* Mr. Haven did not quarrel with us,” said one of his old Democratic parishioners ; ‘‘ he would say just what he was a mind to, but he said it in such a way that it did not hurt our feelings.” There was no sign of malice or personal ill-will in him. After crunching their corns most horribly he would follow the action with some pleasantry, or some token of real, hearty friendliness, and bidding the victim good-by with a laugh, he would go off with flying colors. The Westfield people remember him as rather a heavy preacher, except when he was handling without gloves some of the crying sins of the day. At such times he would throw himself like a projectile against the prejudices and sins of his congregation, and compel attention, if not concurrence, as a rattling clap of thunder compels respect. 38 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. CHAPTER IV. LABOR AND SORROW.— THE CAMP.— THE PILGRIMAGE. Ir must not be supposed that because Gilbert Haven wag capable of opposing the current of popular sentiment about him that he was therefore indifferent to the opinions of his friends. Probably few persons had a more sensitive organi- zation than he, and a cut or unfriendly criticism eritered his heart and hurt him, though it was a part of his religion never to show it. One of his ministerial brethren, who knew him intimately, declares that he was one of the most sensitive of men, particularly anxious to be loved and thought well of. What a fight of afflictions must he then have kept up through all his life,‘to fly continually in the face of ‘men’s dearest prejudices, and bring down upon himself a ceaseless torrent of personal and professional abuse for pursuing the course which his conscience and his God declared was laid out for him before the foundation of the world! Perhaps this very sensitiveness may account for the intensity of the friendship which he manifested towards those whose hearts he could see, and whose faith he could trust. With such friends he would spend almost whole nights in heart-converse. Who can tell but that it was by this means he sought to throw off the heaviness which had settled down upon his spirit in view of the hard and harsh things that had been said of him or to him? ‘We often sat up till midnight talking together,” of his Westfield friends. said one HAVENISM VERSUS GARRISONIANISM. 59 ‘What did you talk about?” ‘© Oh, everything. You can’t imagine anything on which he was not posted.” His habit of ‘‘ making a night of it” was, doubtless, his manner of reinforcing that fund of cheerfulness, which to the’ casual observer seemed to be absolutely inexhaustible, but which is known to have sometimes run low. He was cheer- ful, not only from habit of mind, but also because cheerfulness was his duty; and when he felt a depression of spirits he would look up some congenial companion for a chat, or rush off to comfort or assist some one whom he thought was in deeper trouble than himself. This acquired power was his salvation in after years. Without it, in the dark days that were to come, he must have been a maniac. During his Westfield pastorate two memorable additions were made to the records of the slave power ; viz., the assault on Charles Sumner by South Carolina Brooks, and the elec- tion to the presidency of James Buchanan; both of which events he ‘‘improved” with appropriate discourses, further mention whereof is made in Part IIT. In 1857 he was appointed to Roxbury, now Boston High- lands. This brought him into the inner circle of Massachu- setts Abolitionists. Here he improved his acquaintance with such people as Wendell Phillips, Lucy Stone, William Lloyd Garrison et al., the latter being a resident of Roxbury, and editor as well as proprietor of ‘‘ The Liberator,” that abolition newspaper, to whose columns Haven sometimes sent a contri- bution. But while he was more radical on the question of human rights than the most advanced thinkers of the Boston school, he was intensely conservative on all questions that concerned the kingdom of Christ, towards which the face of his patriotism always loyally and lovingly turned’; and it was 60 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. with the orthodox wing of the Massachusetts agitators that he joined himself, meanwhile opposing with might and main the ‘‘come-outism” or anti-churchism of ‘‘ The Liberator” and its following. He contended with Garrison to his face. Even after the outbreak of the Rebellion he says, ‘‘I told Garrison if he did not repent of his sins in attacking Christ’s church, even Jeff. Davis would stand a better chance than he of finally getting to heaven. ‘ You,’ said I, ‘have had the light, but he was born and raised in the dark.’” In this parish he kept up his habit of making the acquaint-. dance of ‘‘all sorts and conditions of men,” and strongly attaching to himself not only the wealthy and cultivated members of his society, but also some of the wildest and — wickedest of the outside world. There were many of. his warmest admirers into whose hearts no other gospel minister had ever been permitted to look. Here his daughter was born, whom he named after her mother, Mary Ingraham; a name always cherished as that of a saint in glory, whom, next to the adorable Trinity, he held in honor, admiration, and love. It was during his pastorate at Cambridge that John Brown was captured and hanged ; both of which events he failed not to ‘“‘improve” from his pulpit; voicing the public sympathy, on account whereof the bells of many Northern churches were tolled on that memorable 2d of December, 1859, when the State of Virginia attempted to strangle the anti-slavery agitation within her borders by means of a rope around the neck of this singular man, who, having struck out so far beyond the vanguard of the advancing army of liberty, was captured by the enemy and hanged as a criminal, while his friends, looking on with helpless rage, across State lines, wrote down his name in history as a martyr. A GREAT SORROW. 61 These sermons, well called ‘‘ National Sermons,” helped to designate Gilbert Haven as the reverend radical par excellence of radical New England. With his ideas of the absolute equality of black men and white men, very few were found to sympathize. He was out of sight ahead. Perhaps it was for this very reason that he was tolerated by those who differed ' from him most widely. It was a relief to them to be able to say, ‘‘ This man is so radical as to be ridiculous; his argu- ments are so extravagant as to be absurd; his conscience is so tender that it is morbid; and his zeal is so vehement that it will react against his cause.” There were some of his parishoners to whom this kind of preaching was insufferable, and one of them is reported to have said, on the outbreak of the war, ‘‘I wish Gil. Haven and Bob Toombs could be put off on an island somewhere and be left to fight this thing out between them; then the nation might be at peace.” His next parish was Harvard Street, Cambridge,— 1859-60. “Here, on the 3d of April, 1860, occurred that.sad event, which was the turning point in his life. He was a very domestic man. His home was his world; his wife and children were his heart and eyes. In the bosom of his family he was in para- dise. His children were his care as well as his delight. One of his parishoners tells of finding him one day with a child on one knee and his Hebrew Bible on the other; thus filling his head and gladdening his heart at the same time. To some of his intimate friends he had opened up his dream of his future life in the ministry. He was to preach the gospel boldly and faithfully ; lead his flock like a shepherd, carrying the lambs in his bosom; hold his pulpit as a for- tress for the defence of the oppressed, and to advocate every- thing that was helpful to humanity, exercising the largest 62 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. liberty therein ; bear as many burdens, and lighten as many sorrows as possible; and then, when he should have become too old to be acceptable as a preacher, he would retire with his blessed wife to ahome which he had already in his eye, and pass the remainder of his days in sweet, ripe recollections of honorable service in this world, and a happy outlook towards the world to come. From all these delight- ful dreams he was rudely and suddenly awakened by the death of the idol of his heart. It was shortly after the birth of their third child, Bertie, that the mother was laid to rest, and a day or two later her grave was opened and her baby was laid once mere upon her bosom. The husband and father was beside himself with grief; had, indeed, a narrow escape from insanity; lost himself for a time; lost all his hold on this life, and spent his days and nights in hopeless wanderings and in agonizing prayers and longings to find the road by which his darling had ascended, and to follow her. - This was no temporary outburst of grief, that burns itself out with its own intensity. ‘Time, the Consoler,” and the comfort of divine grace did, indeed, bring him power to send his love forward to those dear ones in that other life, and to endure the pain that never ceased to torture him; but Mary Ingraham Haven was always his wife, whom he loved none the less, but all the more, as the sorrowful years of absence dragged their slow length along. Death made no differ- ence in his claim to her. When asked: by strangers, ‘‘ Are you a married man, Bishop?” he answered, ‘‘ Yes;” and when the question followed, ‘‘Where is your wife?” he answered, ‘‘ In heaven.” The outbreak of the civil war, in the spring of 1861, found Gilbert Haven unemployed. Overwork and a broken heart FIRST CHAPLAIN IN THE UNION ARMY. 63 had broken his health also, and he had retired for a time from the pastorate, and with his infant son and daughter had found a home at the house of his mother in Malden. As will appear from his journals, it was not any fondness for adventure, and love for military life, or even any over- whelzhing tide of patriotic devotion, that took him into the war. There was, indeed, the blood of the old Revolution in him; his maternal grandfather, as has been seen, having suffered, if not bled and died, for his country, in that first American Rebellion, and his father having revived the mili- tary traditions of the family by being enrolled to fight the same old enemy again in 1812. Blood is thicker than water, and holds some very subtle elements in solution; and the blood that was in Gilbert Haven was of just the sort to be set boiling by the act of the slave power in firing upon the flag of his country that waved over Sumter. By the help of that spirit of prophesy which he seemed sometimes to possess, he overlooked the minor question of State rights and sighted the coming overthrow of the system of slavery, the abolition of caste, and the establishment on the continent of America of the greatest nation in all his- tory, really as well as nominally free. Major-General Butler,-of the Massachusetts militia, had set up his headquarters in Boston and begun to recruit for a three months’ campaign; and Gilbert Haven, forgetting his physical ailments, and with a desperate effort to throw off his mental as well as spiritual depression, pushed through the crowd of eager patriots, and, reaching the side of this first Massachusetts soldier who had waked up to the realities of war, offered his services as chaplain, and received the first commission to that office that was issued during the great struggle; viz., the chaplaincy of the Eighth Massachusetts 64 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. Infantry, at this time quartered in that old ‘Cradle of Liberty,” Faneuil Hall. The following extracts from his war journals show with how great a sorrow, as well as with how'great a system of sin, he was contending. “Wasninaton, May 6, Monday, 9 a. M., 1861. ““T have thought it best to keep a journal of my experi- ences and observations during my connection with the army, for the pleasure of subsequent perusal and as an aid to my memory. . . . The dreadful suffering of my soul had probably as much to do with my engaging in this ser- vice as the patriotic feeling or the desire to minister in spiritual and temporal things. For a year and a month last Friday I have felt the fullness of that experience of - the Psalmist, ‘All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me.’ Such a life I could not have believed could be lived. I have felt like saying, in the deepest reverence, but consciousness of unutterable misery, ‘My soul is exceed- ing sorrowful even unto death.’ Had not my children — darling Willie and Mamie — my dear Mary’s children — been committed to my care and my love, I should have prayed earnestly for death —to depart and be with my wife and my Saviour in that indissoluble union, which he created and which he yet, I believe, will forever bless and preserve. ‘* This sorrow, and its accompanying weakness of body and spirit, left me incapable of discharging my duties as a pastor. The call of my country and the sublime object to which it summonsed me seemed to be providential. I could come easier than I could do anything else. My heart was in the cause ; and so, on Thursday, April 18th (1861), I called on Gov- ernor Andrew and offered my services as a chaplain. He referred me to Adjutant-General Schouler; he introduced me to General Butler, and he sent me with a letter of intro- duction to Colonel Munroe of the Highth Regiment, then in Faneuil Hall. From him I received my appointment; the adjutant-general made out my commission; it was sworn to, the next day, before my father, and recorded in the archives of the adjutant-general the 19th day of April, as famous to- day as in 1775.” * *The battle of Lexington was fought April 19th, 1775. On April 19th, 1861, occurred the rebel attack on the Massachusetts troops while passing through Baltimore on their way to the defence of the capital. TOO MUCH PRAYING. 65. On the 13th of May, after being quartered for some weeks in Washington, his regiment went into camp at Elk Ridge, _Md., near the famous Relay House, the point which com- manded the approach to Washington by way of the Balti- more and Ohio Railroad. It was called ‘‘ Camp Essex,” a name which he soon made familiar to the readers of ‘+ Zion’s Herald” and the ‘‘ Independent.” This pen-and-ink war- fare was the only actual fighting in which either he or his regiment was engaged during that mournful preliminary three months’ campaign. From one of his entries, dated Sunday, June 2d, it ap- pears that he had exercised himself as chaplain with more vigor than was acceptable to his brother officers, whatever might have been the opinion of the rank and file. His idea of the chaplain’s daily duties appears to have been formed on those of the father of a family, who, of course, if he were a good Christian, would assemble his household daily for family worship. But religion was at that time at a ‘low ebb in the army, and Gilbert Haven was not the only chaplain-who found himself unpopular because he attempted to be faithful in his work. The captains, being displeased by what appeared to them his overmuch praying, beset the colonel to order a change; and the result was, that, instead of the regiment being drawn up ‘for daily prayers, the chap- lain was permitted to hold a voluntary service before his tent each evening,—a change not at all to his liking nor yet for the spiritual health and profit of the men. In the midst of his military duties a sense of his great bereavement would- sometimes overwhelm him, and he would pour out his soul to God in strong cries and prayers; and then, as if he could not contain the tide of anguish that 66 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN, surged through his soul, he would seize his pen and write’ such loving, sorrowful words as these :— “SaturDAy EveEnING, 9 o’clock, June 1. “It is raining hard, and my poor, lonely heart is out on the desolate, rainy seas. How I long to-night for a look, or word, or letter even, from my dear, dear wife! My heart must break with the longing which it hath at alltimes. I sometimes fear I am not a Christian—I am so sad, so broken-hearted. My life is a living death. I pine and pine and pine for her sweet voice and smile and kiss. Can she smile and talk and press her squl to mine through those sweet lips when we shall meet as heretofore some summer morning? I most heartily believe that in some ways, far richer and closer than these of earth, shall our souls rush together consciously and eternally there—-ah, when? How long, oh, how long?” . ee Seeing my darling die was the medicine that cured me of' the fear of death. At times the disease returns and my soul trembles at the thought of its weakness and distress of that hour and of the future on which it opens. I find relief only in prayer. The angel of God appears then to strengthen me. Perhaps, I often feel that it is, my angel wife... She, perhaps, probably, has privileges of conscious visiting or communing with us, which are not given tome. She at least learns of our estate by those that go from me to her.” And again : — “Tt does seem to me that I could do more for Him if absent from the body. -Perhaps my mind is weak. I feel that I live more out of the earth than init. I cannot feel it solid as I used to.” © His regiment having been removed to Baltimore, he writes under date of “Camp ANDREW, July 6, 10 P. x. ‘¢ My heart is poured out like water. What shall I do? It is fifteen months to-day since I saw that precious face for the last time. We put little Bertie in her arms—O my God! “*T haven’t written here for several weeks, having found that I was only writing as above. I was very willing to GOING ON A PILGRIMAGE. 67 leave the Relay. I had been so free in my expressions of dislike to slavery that some threatened to string me up. I don’t think they would have done it, but I have no doubt they desired to. It is a pleasant place, but crouches, like Issachar, between the burdens— fear of the slave power and its contempt.” At the expiration of his three months’ term of service it was evident that the army was no place for him; and, being still in infirm heaith, he rested until October, then preached for six months at the Clinton Street Church in Newark, N. J.; and having there finished the conference year, on the 30th of April, 1862, he took passage on board the steamer ‘*Canada” for a tour through Europe and the Holy Land. In ‘“‘The Pilgrim’s Wallet” he published a record of his wan- derings, reflections, and predictions, some of which latter are already fulfilled. Throughout the book the personality of the Pilgrim is prominent. He writes in a free, conversa- tional style, as if he were talking with his readers on the piazza of his hotel after a day’s stroll. Neither the war and its excitements, nor travel and its delights, could dull the edge of his sorrow. ‘His heart was still in the grave with his wife ; or, rather let us say, in the land beyond the grave, where he hoped sometime to rejoin her. Thenceforth, wherever his wanderings might lead him, his home was in the presence of his wife, as it always had been, and it signified not to him whether she were here or there. The ‘‘ Wallet” is full of the inspirations of his journey. In reading his pages one would think of him as a cheery, rollicking, wide-awake Boston Yankee, travelling over Europe on foot for pleasure, and to work off the superabundance of life that was in him, rather than a clergyman, laid aside from active duty by feeble health and a broken heart. In the book only the strong, brilliant 68 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. side of the man appears, while in reality he is almost like another Wandering Jew, industriously threading highways ‘and byways to reach a place which he is destined never in this world to find. The choicest morsels from the con- tents of his well-stuffed ‘‘ Wallet” will be found in Part: III. of this volume. At the New England Conference in 1863, Gilbert Haven having returned from his wanderings in Europe and the East, was stationed at North Russell Street, Boston. It was during his three years’ pastorate that Grace Church, on Temple Street, one of the old strongholds of Boston Episco- palianism, was purchased by his society. This was his own project: he collected the money for it; large sums being given by leading Boston Methodists,— Jacob Sleeper, David Snow, Isaac Rich, Lee Claflin and others,— whose acquaint- ance he made, whose confidence he secured, and whose influ-. ence ag members of the Weslyan Association afterwards placed him in the editorial chair of ‘‘ Zion’s Herald.” The purchase of this property was a part of Haven’s com- prehensive scheme for Methodizing the capital of Massachu- setts. Hitherto the believers in “free grace and full salva- tion” had been in a rather feeble minority, their only popular distinction being their representation at the Mariners’ Church by that matchless sailor preacher, Edward T. Taylor. By this time Gilbert Haven had become famous as a lit- erary man as well as a radical Abolitionist. His sermons‘on the great exciting themes which were all the time challenging attention, were delivered to comparatively small congregations in his church ; but when afterwards they were published in full in the ‘‘ Traveller” they produced a profound sensation. His ready pen was also employed in letters to the ‘‘Independ- ent,” the ‘‘ Christian Advocate,” ‘‘ Zion’s Herald,” etc., and NO COLOR LINE. 69 by the close of his three years at North Russell Street and Grace Church, his literary reputation was so great that he was offered the editorship of the Boston ‘ Traveller,” which he declined as out of the line of his mission. In this his last pastorate his personal power over the people . increased. Men of influence were studying him to see what great possibilities were in him; friends were clinging closer and closer to him, charmed by his brilliancy and warmed by his good-nature. ‘¢ Gilbert Haven was,” said one of his Grace Church brethren, ‘‘ the only red-headed man I ever saw who never lost his temper.” _ The war being ended, and slavery with it, the question arose what was to become of the ex-slaves. Haven’s answer was: ‘‘Kducate them; carry the gospel to them; take them on to the same platform where the white man stands in church and state.” ‘He gave the church no rest. In the summer of 1865 Bishop Ames appointed him to mission work among the colored people of Vicksburg. Everything was chaotic in the South. There was no law, no protection to life or property. None of these things moved him. But this did: to be ap- pointed to the colored work, in distinction from white work. Christianity, justice, humanity, know no color lines, and he objected. Letters passed back and forth, and he refused to go on such conditions. At length the matter was adjusted, and he went to New York, against the judgment of his best advisers (men who knew his life would be in peril every hour) , with the full intention of going to Vicksburg. In the night he awoke his companion, Dr. A. S. Hunt, unable to move: It was a stroke of paralysis. He was very sick, and at the succeeding Conference took a superannuated relation.” * * Tribute to Bishop Gilbert Haven. By Rev. V. A. Cooper. A. M. 70 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. CHAPTER V. A HERALD OF ZION. _ In 1867 Gilbert Haven was elected editor of ‘‘ Zion’s Her- ald,” which position he filled for five years to the astonish- ment of his enemies, and the admiration of his friends. ‘¢ Zion’s Herald and Wesleyan Journal,” as it used to be called, was one of the old institutions of American Meth- odism. It was commenced in January, 1823, by a, little com- pany of Methodist preachers and laymen, which, eight years afterwards, became ‘‘ The Wesleyan Association.” The pred- ecessors of Gilbert Haven in its editorial chair were Abel Stevens, Daniel Wise, Erastus O. Haven, and Nelson E. Cobleigh, under whose careful conduct the ‘‘ Herald” had been a safe spiritual guide, cautious in its policy, as seemed becoming to a modest Methodist organ in proud, Calvinist New England, and economical withal, as was befitting its slender purse. With the advent of Gilbert Haven came a sudden revo- lution. From the quiet and scholarly Cobleigh, to the radical and irrepressible Haven, was a change so com- plete, that for awhile New England Methodism fairly held its breath. All at once, too, the politicians became aware of the existence of a Methodist newspaper in their midst; for no sooner had Haven ascended his editorial throne than he commenced to make war on every species of State and municipal iniquity that had so long disturbed his vision and aroused his soul. Particularly was he A HERALD OF ZION. 71 exercised over the popular subserviency to the rum power. He had no more respect for old brandy in cut-glass decanters than for bad rum in black bottles. With him every drink that had alcohol in it was ‘‘rum,” and in his judgment rum and slavery were a span of devils that always pulled together. He was quite as much of a statesman as a clergyman, and he was more of a fighting editor than New England had been accustomed to see in charge of religious newspapers; all of which facts soon became either joyfully or painfully apparent, and before the end of the first week the sanctum of the ‘« Herald” was invaded by anxious politicians, amazed at his audadity, and alarmed at his ability, who had come to per- suade or overawe him into a more quiet policy. The new editor heard them patiently, announced his purpose to fight for everything that was good, against everything that was bad, regardless of consequences, laughed his adversaries out of their ill-humor, and sent them away with the impres- sion that, at last, in the office of a religious newspaper in New England, a king was come to his own. From this time till the church at large invited him to go up higher—the one step higher that the church had to offer him —he poured himself out upon Boston, and the rest of mankind, with the utmost abandon, startling even the most radical reformers by the sweep of his theories and the breadth of his plans; arousing the wrath of quiet, pious persons, to whom agitation was the chief social evil to be prayed against in their litany ; bringing himself into the forefront of the battle for civil rights, the enfranchisement of women, the destruction of the rum power, and the overturning of every system of false doctrine which had exalted itself against the gospel, and against what was to his mind the most perfect embodiment thereof, the Meth- odist Episcopal Church. q2 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. To his soul it was 2 great affliction, as well as to his mind a great absurdity, that any of the prominent moral, social, or political reforms of the day should be led by men and women who were not believers in the great power underlying all possible reforms; namely, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: -and when he took up his editorial pen, it was his purpose, under the sign of the cross, to conquer oppression, _ caste, ignorance, drunkenness, Atheism, Paganism, and every other form of. iniquity. From first to last Editor Haven was constantly belaboring the heretics of Boston; yet, with many of their leaders he was personally on the best of terms. There was no room in him for malice against the men whose opinions he abhorred ; when he faced an adversary, it was with the purpose of sav- ing him by destroying his errors; and his opponents, while smarting under his stinging satire, or furious under the blows of his orthodox cudgel, could not help being impressed with the warm-hearted kindness of the man who was thus correct- ‘ing them not only for his pleasure, but also for their good. Forty years ago Arminianism was held by ‘‘the Standing Order ” to be only a phase of Unitarianism, and one of their editors fell into the absurdity of calling the Methodists ‘* semi-evangelical.” For a long time the Unitarians were pleasant neighbors to the Methodists, whom they patronized, not because of any sympathy with their intense religious activity, their spiritual life, or their scriptural theology, but because of. their opposition to Calvinism. : In 1868 James Freeman Clarke appeared at a session of the New England Conference, held in the Meridian Street Church, East Boston, with an address of fraternal greeting, in which he said: ‘* You may not believe in the God I wor- ship, but I believe in your God;” and then proceeded to A TILT EDITORIAL. 73 state the points of harmony and reasons for co-operation between the Unitarians and the Methodists. How to make answer to this fraternal overture was.a difficult question ; and the matter was referred to a committee, of which Gilbert Haven was a member. Their report, written by Haven him- self, refers with due courtesy to the brotherly kindness of the Unitarians in sending an honored representative to the Meth- odist Conference, and then proceeds to state, in the clearest and most succinct manner, the evangelical theology believed and preached in the Methodist Episcopal Church. The report bore no appearance of controversy; but after that, except in such matters of moral and social reform as might properly unite all good people, there were no further attempts on the part of the semi-evangelical wing of Boston Uni- tarianism to court the alliance of the Methodists against what they regarded as the common Calvinistic enemy. Blow after blow did the ‘‘ Herald” lay on with good-natured severity, which its Unitarian neighbor, the ‘‘ Register,” strove to parry or return; keeping its temper, meanwhile. But at last the ‘‘ Register’s” equanimity was disturbed. Straying into a Methodist church one morning, the eye of the editor fell upon the following couplet in the hymn-book : “ The Unitarian fiend expel, And drive his doctrine back to hell.” Against this the ‘* Register” protested, declaring that it had always regarded the Methodists as generous, and, indeed, liberal, in their theology ;. but that this was the worst form of sectarian bigotry, put inte a form for divine worship. This was rather strong, even for the ‘‘ Herald,” and for once its editor was in a corner; but a bit of historic hym- nology haying been pointed out to him by his friend Dr. 74, MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. é ~ Upham, to whom he had confided his embarrassment, his reply was ready in the next issue. The couplet, he said, was part of a hymn written by Charles Wesley against the Mohammedans, who were, indeed, simon-pure and origi- nal Unitarians ; but did the ‘‘ Register” really mean to take the couplet to itself, and thus make common cause with the followers of the false prophet? To this there was no reply; but when Haven was elected Bishop the “< Register ” remarked that it would be ‘‘ an easy thing now to edit a Unitarian paper in Boston.” Just after his election to the Episcopacy the semi-centennial of the ‘‘ Register” was celebrated by a banquet at the Com-’ monwealth Hotel, to which the radical orthodox Bishop Haven received a courteous invitation. ‘‘I should like to be with you,” was his pleasant reply, ‘‘ but my official duties forbid. Iam glad to see that it was in your heart’ to follow the gospel injunction, ‘If thine enemy hunger, feed him.’ ” Mr. C. Henry St. John, his assistant on the ‘‘ Herald,” thus speaks of his honored chief :— ‘¢ He was not one of those editors who wrote simply to fill out a certain specified portion of a paper; he wrote be- cause he had something to say — something that kept. strug- gling for utterance. There were sentences that stuck like burrs, however hastily one might peruse them. ‘¢J7 have known many prolific and rapid writers; but never met with one who could cover more paper in a given time, and that, too, with thoughts that breathed and words that burned. The flood of articles came and the rain of para- graphs descended each week on the editorial table sufficient for a paper twice the size. Scarcely a number of the paper came out that did not have an editorial on the question of the colored people, in its various phases. Prohibition was AT WORK FOR THE FUTURE. 5 also a staple topic. Unitarianism and Liberal Christianity were sure to receive a rap or two over the knuckles, and Woman’s Rights were seldom forgotten.” On the subject of caste in all its forms he was intensely severe. Even his friends were alarmed at the fury with which he plunged into the fight for human equality. Colored ministers from the South, into which region stray copies of the ‘‘ Herald” would sometimes penetrate, were frightened at the way in which he was taking their part; and some of the preachers of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (South) actually called upon him to beg him to “et up,” saying,— ‘*We are in trouble down there over your radical ideas. We cannot come up to your standard at present. You must moderate your claims on our behalf.” ‘You white-livered fellows,” Haven would reply; ‘‘ why don’t you stand up for yourselves?” ‘¢ We are not ready yet.” “Well, Tam ready. Iam at work for the future.” Thus the fears and cautions of his dark-complexioned friends only served to rouse him to still greater vigor on their behalf. His attacks on Universalism and Unitarianism also brought him into personal collisions. There were, of course, many families where the ‘‘ Herald” was a weekly visitor, which were composed of persons having diverse views in religion ; the Methodist wife, perhaps, enjoying the ‘* Herald” edito- rials, while the Unitarian or Universalist husband found them as scourges to his sides and thorns to his eyes. On this account domestic quarrels sometimes were stirred up, and the indignant husband would, perhaps. rush in to scold the editor, or to demand that his paper should be stopped. He received all these visitors with unfailing good-nature, listened to their complaints, put fresh emphasis on the most offensive of the 76 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. utterances complained of, yet in such a captivating manner as over and over again sent the angry visitor away, with a smile on his countenance and a warm place in his heart, for the man against whom, a half-hour before, he was in a state of furious rage. : ‘*TIn all his debates, discussions, differences of sentiment and opinion,” says Mr. St. John, ‘* Gilbert Haven was never * out of temper, never ‘riled,’ cross, or * out of sorts,’ never! Never, for the five years we were together, have I seen him for a moment in that unenviable frame of mind the best of men are liable to. People came in angry and snappish, and he sent them off pleased and purring. He drew the sting from each wasp. Bitter and sweet all went into the hop- per, and came out alike wholesome. One day four very indignant men came to demand a retraction. In fifteen minutes all were laughing together. In thirty minutes the four had out their pocket-books, and insisted on subscribing for ** Zion’s Herald,” there and then. They were not Meth- odists, by any means ; but they were converts to the ‘ Herald’ after that.” ‘« The bulk of the editorial writing and book notices came from Gilbert Haven’s pen. He frequently filled five pages, and could as easily have filled five more. It was in the long inside editorials that the hard fighting was done and the pon- derous blows dealt. It was in those articles that the enemies of Orthodox Christianity, prohibition, the full rights of the colored people, were handled in no gingerly fashion. He tore the mask off infidelity, and showed the death’s-head beneath,— showed how cold and soulless was the most elegant and cultured Christianity without Christ. He made no apology for his zeal; nor did he apply either plaster or salve to the wounds of his opponents. FEATHERS! FEATHERS ! viv ‘*His writings were far from being sedative or soothing. They were such as provoked reply and rejoinder. He touched the quick, and people winced and ‘cried out. The necessary consequence was, that during his management of ‘ Zion’s Herald’ few contemporaries were more widely known, or their ideas more fully canvassed. The attacks on him in the papers, however, only afforded him amusement and weapons, and he judged the force of his blows by the violence of the rebound.” To the same purpose was his remark, on exhibiting to a friend a bunch of clippings from the newspapers that had been denouncing him. ‘‘ Feathers, feathers!” cried he, jubi- lantly. To his mind these tirades of abuse were only evidences that his shots had hit the game. It was his purpose to make the ‘t Herald” the leader and standard-bearer of all true progress, and for this purpose he desired’ personal acquaintance with all sorts of active and thoughtful people. Accordingly, a large upper room was fitted up, which came to be the resort of numerous visitors, both clerical and lay,— editors, poets, artists, reformers, and not a few Bohemians,— ‘ all,” says his assistant, ‘‘ buzzing around the general editor like flies around a pot of honey. Men and women of all shades and complexions; of all beliefs, and no belief; people who were diametrically opposed in every way to Gilbert Haven, as well as those who almost agreed with him. I say almost advisedly ; because there were none who seemed to measure themselves exactly to his standard. There would be a misfit, a lapping over, somewhere. But all were received in the same sunshiny way. This contact with live individuality gave him live ideas, and occasioned live articles. He did not receive the opinions of his opponents, or those who differed from him, second-hand. fi 78 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. ‘‘ He didn’t expect that people would or could agree with him in all his ideas; but he never for 2 moment doubted his own position, or that ultimately people would come around to it. ‘To this complexion must they come at last,’ was con- stantly on his lips. He lived long enough to see a verifica- tion of the saying in numerous instances. ‘¢He took an almost mischievous, but playful delight in plaguing a peppery opponent. He went even to the ‘ south- ward of south’ at such times; as when I once heard him remark, to the infinite disgust of his more conservative inter- locutors, that ‘The time may come when a woman will be President of the United States;’ and capped the climax by adding, ‘ A black woman!’ Of course much of this was in jest, but a kind of jest that lay in the line of his ideas. It was utterances of this sort that raised the breezes of contro- versy, and caused ‘ Zion’s Herald’ to be quoted right and left, and that made the air blue around certain editorial heads, North as well as South; so that the meek and mild ‘Herald of Zion’ became a mitrailleuse, a Gatling gun, in his hands ;—a transformation that was more acceptable to the young than the old— to those who were equipped for the battle, rather than those who were sighing for rest and peace.” ‘It was but natural that such a man should have the warm- est friends, and the most bitter enemies. He was at once the best loved and the best hated man in the Methodist Epis- copal Church. In his own Conference there was a circle of which he was the centre, a party which acknowledged him as its leader; the existence of which party implied also the existence of a party in opposition. Thus not only Haven’s doctrines, but Haven himself, came in some sort to be a line of demarcation in the Conference. That they who were for FATHER TAYLOR. 79 him were more than they who were against him, appears from the fact that he was elected a member of the General Conferences of 1868 and 1872. During his editorship /of the ‘‘ Herald,” Gilbert Haven, in connection with Hon. Thomas Russell, prepared the biography of Father Taylor, the sailor preacher, in which volume the quaintness, brilliancy, tenderness, and spiritual power of that marvellous son of the sea were charmingly set forth.* The theme was a congenial one, for of the two religious wits in New England, Father Taylor was one and Gilbert Haven the other. A single flash of his Damascus blade will be enjoyed on one side and pardoned on the other. One Monday morn- ing, at the Boston Preachers’ Meeting, at which he was the leading spirit, a Baptist minister announced that he had come out from the delusions of Close Communion and wished to be received into membership, and at length into the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church. This event the ‘‘ Herald” chronicled with a note of satisfaction over the improved condition of the brother; but what was the chagrin of its editor to learn, during the following week, that the brother had been beset by some of his Baptist friends, persuaded of his error, and induced to recant. In setting forth the fact the following week, the ‘‘ Herald” concluded the account with these words: ‘‘He only came up long enough to blow.” It was during his editorship that the plan for the establish- ment of the Boston University took definite shape. This institution, over which Haven had dreamed, was, by the munificence of Isaac Rich, and further benefactions of Lee * The first edition of The Life of Father Taylor, appeared in 1864, from the publishing house of B. B. Russell & Co., Boston. 80 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. Claflin and Jacob Sleeper, at last definitely realized. Differ- ent views are entertained concerning his influence upon the mind of the chief patron of this great institution ; but it may be said, without injustice to any, that Gilbert Haven was one of the first. and chief promoters of the Boston University, and that but for him the munificent bequests by which it was established would doubtless have been made in other directions. The office of the ‘‘ Zion’s Herald,” under Gilbert Haven, came to be the headquarters of the Methodist army in New England; not an army encamped, but an expedition in the field. He appears to have regarded his editorship as a prov- idential appointment. Once, when his course on the Book Concern controversy led to an attempt to frighten him into resigning, it was represented to him that his course would not leave enough income to the paper with which to pay his salary; but this had no terrors for a man who had been happy as a pastor on two hundred dollars a year, and he declared he would edit the ‘‘ Herald” for one-third of his present salary if necessary, provided they would let him have a pastorate also. He was once offered the editorship of the ‘‘ Independent,” with a salary nearly three times that he was receiving from the ‘‘ Herald ;” but though it was a great attraction, he firmly and finally refused it, saying, half jocosely, half sadly, ‘‘Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.” EDITOR OR BISHOP? 81 CHAPTER VI. ANOTHER PIONEER BISHOP. Tue Methodist Episcopal Church honors the name of the immortal Francis Asbury, who comes down the century with the title of the ‘‘ Pioneer Bishop.” As he scouted over moun- tains and through forests, marking out the path for the min- istry and the Church, so Gilbert Haven, with equal enterprise and superior courage, pushed forward his radical ideas, him- self oftentimes out of sight ahead of the rest of the ministry and the Church, but never for a moment doubting that they would follow his footsteps and occupy and hold forever the advanced positions he was surveying and preémpting. At the General Conference of 1868, some effort was made to secure his election to the episcopacy ; but the Church, as represented in its chief council, seemed to be of the opinion that it was quite enough that Gilbert Haven should occupy the editor’s tripod, without lifting him to the episcopal throne. If he made such a shaking among the dry bones by merely prophesying upon them, what would he do with those same bones if they should come to be a great army under his command? This Boston Yankee; this radical of radicals, who was even guilty of the absurdity of ignoring distinctions in sex, race, color, rank, and, indeed, every natural and tra- ditional distinction which throughout the ages had robed the the rich and the mighty and had robbed the lowly and the poor ; this man who avowed his belief in the amalgamation of. allraces as a means of reaching the ultimate physical per- 82 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. fection of mankind; who belabored magistrates when they abused their office; who despised. governments when they were despicable ; who goaded the Church when it was lag- gard in its duty; who danced at the funerals of obstruc- tionists and shouted over the graves of defunct digni- taries who had been false to liberty and disloyal to God; whom no fear could deter, no favor persuade; who had literally taken his reputation and his life in hand, ready to sacrifice them both to the ideas he represented,—to have such a man for Bishop, was to the majority of this great council an unthinkable thing, and they no doubt breathed more freely when it was determined that no Bishop should be elected. Four years later, at the General Conference of 1872, held’ in the city of Brooklyn, this radical, grown more radical, this reformer grown more oblivious of respectable errors, this quintescence- of extravagance, this personification of every form of absurdity, this dread of conservative souls, was elected a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. How his election was brought about ; how the colored delegates to that Conference carried their petition to Heaven on his behalf; how some of the members of his own Conference fought against him with might and main; how he was wounded in the house of his friends, who praised his brilliancy but believed him a dangerous man; how his published writings were culled for startling statements which, without their proper connection, were put together in a fly-sheet and circu- lated among the electors; how some, for whose promotion to office he was working, were found among his bitterest opponents; how the older Bishops and those just elected watched the balloting with alarm, lest this man who had turned the world upside down should come into the episco- HIS ELECTION A SURPRISE. 83 pacy also; how his friends, who, as the phrase is, ‘‘ were ready to die for him,” rallied to his support, while he, with either a sublime faith or a marvellous indifference, refused to lift a finger in his own interest, or yield a hair’s-breadth of his position on any of the great questions of human rights, cannot now be fully set forth. These are matters, which, if treated at all, should be given in ewtenso, with ample documentary support, a method of treatment that is out of the question here. When the vote was announced that placed the mitre on this massive head, his friends were almost startled by their success; his enemies—that term is used advisedly— were amazed as well as mortified ; his colleagues trembled, and the Church at large were either inclined to fear that, in this instance, wisdom had departed from the Methodist General Conference, or to fall back on the hope that an overruling Providence had roughly revolutionized its judgment and mysteriously asserted the Divine will. ‘¢ His election,” says Bishop Foster, in his memorable funeral oration, ‘‘ was not only a surprise, but it awakened a question and doubt in many of the purest, best, and greatest, whether it was wise and judicious. Thank God he lived eight years to demonstrate the wisdom of that action.” Soon it began to appear to those eyes which were willing to see it, that Gilbert Haven was a man with a mission, a prince and a prophet sent of God to be the champion of the African race in America. He was capable of being ser- viceable as well as delightful to all classes and conditions of men: thus, during the session of the Brooklyn General Con- ference, he on one occasion dined with a party of the most distinguished literary and clerical ladies and gentlemen in that literary and clerical centre; in which brilliant assem- ‘ 84 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. blage he was confessedly the leading spirit, the centre of interest, and the soul of the occasion; yet from such social mountains he could instantly descend,—not thinking it, how- ever, a descent, since, according to his ideas, men and women were all very much alike,—to the company of those who had only a short time before been sold like horses or oxen, and reckoned in tax-lists as merchantable property; and it was difficult to determine in which society he shone most. bril- liantly, or was the most admired and loved. There were many to whose sober judgment it appeared a mistake to allow such a journalist to lay down his pen, even to assume the functions of the chief office of the great Church of Protestant Christendom. Gilbert Haven solved that problem by taking the crosier and keeping the pen. He needed both for the accomplishment of his divincly appointed mission, and during the eight years of his episcopate he probably wrote more, and was more widely read and quoted, than any other man in America. With him expression of his thought by writing for the press was essential to his peace of mind. In no other possible way could he work off the ever- -accumulating force, and make room for the teeming multitude of projects and reflections that surged through his vigorous brain. If he had performed only the customary work of a Bishop, he would have been great in that office, partly by reason of his singularity, and partly by reason of his energy; but when to his full proportion of the care of all the churches is added his voluminous writing, sufficient to make, if gathered together, a very considerable library of history, theology, and politics, the labors of this Providential Bishop appear to be prodigious. By the vote of the Conference, the newly elected Bishops iio i ee + i a ; ih ih i Te ae fe i Ke ma | : 2 ct i . A : ; 53 : | i I. ‘ae | ah , fr il il 4 Ld} HAT i i} li l | Hl Il WTI i | NH | wu | | i AAT THY Hh HH} | | Hi ‘ | ata AN ll A NEW HAT. 85 were to be located at or near certain cities, one of which was Atlanta, Ga., and in that Southern centre, with the South still seething from the heat of the war-fires which were still smoking and smouldering, this radical Abolitionist, this amal- gamationist, this chief human abomination in the eyes of Southern piety and chivalry must needs reside. Timid persons who loved him, bade him good-by, expecting that in a short time he would join the noble army of martyrs. Cautious people were ready with their advice, that if he expected to survive in that latitude, it would be necessary for him to abate some of his zeal for the social equality of the black man, and con- ~ fine himself to purely religious questions ; while some of his brethren in high official station, fearing that his episcopal robes might be soiled with spots of commonness, urged upon him the necessity of greater dignity and decorum, which, in their view, were not at all compatible with the blunt, out- right, downright forms of speech with which as editor he had -been accustomed to express himself. One of his venerable colleagues even objected to his style of dress, and during the interval between his election and ordination advised him to buy a new hat. Taking off the comfortable head-gear which was his cus- tomary wearing, and looking it over, he replied: ‘‘ Why, Bishop, this. is a good hat. This is almost a new hat. I paid three dollars and a half for this hat, and I bought it “since I came to Brooklyn.” A man so utterly oblivious to suggestions of personal dignity had to be left to his own devices in respect to apparel as well as opinion, and thereafter he wore his soft felt hat, no one molesting him, no one making him afraid. — His arrival at Atlanta produced a great sensation. The comparatively small outpost of the Methodist Episcopal 86 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. Church which had been planted in this Southern city, arranged a reception for him at the chief hotel in the town; but when the Bishop presented himself, what was their consternation at seeing him enter arm in arm with a negro. This was more than they had bargained for. They were mostly Northern people, anti-slavery people ; they believed in the rights of the freedmen ; but this colored brother, like all the rest of his race, had been overlooked in the invitations on this occasion, and to be thus reminded of their omission by the honored Bishop himself, was somewhat annoying, if not humiliating. From this little circumstance at the outset, his career as a citizen of Atlanta and a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church may -be understood. It was not long before he repeated this object-lesson before the eyes of another assem- bly, —this time at a private residence, where he had been invited to meet a distinguished company, and to which, also, without invitation, he brought one of bis dusky protégés, and insisted that whoever was introduced to him should also be introduced to his negro companion. Again, with one of his children, he was seen riding through the streets of Atlanta in company with another member of the ‘‘ peculiar race,” a well-known professional man, indeed, but so much * off color ” that hitherto there had been a great gulf separating between him and his Caucasian neighbors. . This gulf, however, was not so great in the eyes of Bishop Haven but that he could readily leap over it, in which exploit he seemed to take a particular delight. He had preached in anti-slavery Boston the doctrine of universal fraternity, he had declared that a black man was the brother of a white man, simply because he was a man, and now it behooved him to be as good as his word; therefore, as in duty bound, from first to last, in spite of scowls and scorn, he COMPLIMENTS OF THE SOUTHERN PRESS, 87 ignored all distinctions of race and color on all his journeys and at all his conferences and receptions. In one of his letters he speaks of an episcopal tour over the Blue Ridge, and gives a characteristic incident of his journey down the mountains. ‘That ride I dare not chronicle. It was relieved by the companions of the stage, two gentlemen of color, going to Warm Springs, and a rebel lady with her two babies, wife to a Union lawyer, thoroughly reconstructed. She, however, sung with great glee, and a certain tone as if the reconstruc- tion was susceptible of deconstruction, some old war songs, such as ‘ Wait for the Wagon, the Old Southern Wagon,’ and ‘*T am an old Rebel, that’s what I am.” In return she was given the John Brown song, including, ‘We'll Hang Jeff Davis on a sour Apple Tree.’ She had never heard this John Brown song, and was greatly taken with it, so we exchanged melodies, and made the mountains echo to our strains, which began and ended in the common harmonies of Sankey and Salvation.” As a matter of course, such conduct roused the wrath of his Southern enemies to a still higher pitch. The Southern newspapers, religious and secular, boiled over with rage and fury; the ‘Atlanta Constitution,” for netance, prefacing a vile communication with the startling head-line: ‘‘ The Bloodhound of Zion Flayed by an Alabama Methodist.” In the article itself the writer calls the Bishop ‘‘a rancid old ecclesiastical goatherd,” and declares that ‘‘his utter- ances are not worth the denial where he is known and the truth respected.” Such a communication, so prominently published in a newspaper of the city in which he resided, must have been a great annoyance to the Bishop, if he had not long ago learned to expect evil-speaking as one of the penalties of telling.and acting the truth. The ‘‘ Richmond Christian Advocate,”.one of the official 88 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. papers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in its issue of Feb. 26, 1874, said :— : ‘‘'We have a proper Christian regard for the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, except for Gilbert Haven, and he won’t allow us to have, by reason of his persistently offensive conduct and language.” In the next paragraph the editor calls him an ‘‘ ecclesiastical vulture.” ‘‘ Such a man,” he continues, ‘‘ cannot claim, cannot expect, the commonest - courtesies of life from those whose history he falsifies, whose characters he defames, and whose misfortunes he delights to behold.” ‘Instead of healing wounds, he stretches out his talons and tears them open afresh. Instead of seeking to throw the mantle of charity over the faults of his fellow-men, he rubs his ecclesiastical palms together and says ‘Ah, you rebels, you proud aristocrats, you deserve all you have suf- fered, and a thousand times more.’ ” Then, after referring to some of the scriptures he has quoted against them, the editor continues :— ‘¢ Will Gilbert be good enough to tell us how the Lord pun- ished his Yankee ancestors who opposed the closing of the slave trade because their ships were in the traffic, and who sold their negroes to the South when they cutely discovered that barren New England was not the place to work them with profit?” Bishop Haven was no man to cloak his own sins or the sins of his neighbors, and he frankly admits, in one of his articles in the ‘‘ South-western Christian Advocate,” that ‘‘ the North is the seat of the sin of caste, as the South was the seat of the sin of slavery.” ‘‘The question,” he says, ‘tig simply and solely whether the Bible doctrine of the absolute oneness of the human race is true or not?” ‘ Anti-slavery means anti-caste.” According to the suggestion or prediction of the ‘‘ Advo- cate,” above quoted, Bishop Haven failed to receive from the church it represented, as well as from the outside Southern . THE INDIAN QUESTION. 89 world, ‘‘the common courtesies of life.” About a year before his death, he stated at the Boston Preachers’ Meeting, that not a preacher of any other church but his own, and not a Southern man of any prominence or influence, had crossed his threshold during all his residence at Atlanta. It was not to be expected that they would; but if they had done so, they would doubtless have found a similar experience to that related of the angry visitors to the ‘‘ Herald” sanctum. . Instances are not wanting of such conversion among South- ern gentlemen whom he accidentally met. There are many who can win friendship ; few like Bishop Haven, who might almost be said to compel it. During his first episcopal tour, in the fall of 1872, he visited some of the Indian tribes of the North-West. His views on the Indian question are given in a nutshell, as follows : — “Tt is the business of America to treat these natives no longer as wards, but as citizens. They are responsible. They are privileged. They can have every right; they must have every obligation. They should vote. Let the politician sue them for their suffrages. Every office-seeker will be at his Ojibwa or Dacotah. He will scatter his shirts and calicoes. He will smile his smilingest. If Mr. Greeley would only tour it in White Earth [the tribe he was visiting], beam benignantly on this brotherhood; if Henry Wilson would follow with his equal blandishments, they would each do one good thing—elevate their oldest Ameri- can brother, if they do not get another, their own elevation.” Having established himself in his appointed place, after a general survey of the Southern country, he writes, under date of ‘‘ Atlanta, June 6, 1873”: ‘I have been going and com- ing for eleven and a half months, with not so much rest as Noah’s raven, ‘who did not imitate Poe’s in that particular, ‘ still is sitting.’ I have been over the whole length and 90 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. breadth of this land and got a glimpse thereof. Big field here. I enjoy it; though it is not Boston.” One of his earliest episcopal explorations was that of Mexico, which country he-visited for missionary purposes in 1874, successfully planting the Methodist Episcopal Church in one of the very finest locations in the heart of the Mexican capital, giving thereby to our own church a leading, and not a little envied, position of advantage. His book, entitled ** Our Next Door Neighbor,” was published in 1875. In the autumn, after holding his Southern conferences, which at that time included all the work of the Methodist. Episcopal Church in the South, though the old caste spirit was manifested by the widest separation possible between black preachers and white, he thus exults over his inaugura- tion of his policy of entirely ignoring the question of color in his episcopal administration :— ‘‘T had a rich time here at the Tennessee conference, on caste. I met it square. A brother who had lived as a slave- holder with a colored woman, had eight children, got con- verted, took her to Mississippi and married her, came back to Nashville and was prosecuted. Before the case was tried she died. He was up for admission on trial. How the fur flew! They got up a talk of bolting. I told them we would fill their vacant places with Northerners in six weeks. Time came and they laid the motion to receive on the table quicker than a flash. Tread him (the rejected candidate) out as a supply under a black presiding elder. I understand they threatened to petition for Bishop M——. , ““T mixed everything, — ordinations, laying on of hands, opening services and all. The benediction was pronounced, by anegro. Still, the white chaps and I got along first-rate. They talked freely with me, and I went on a tramp with them to a cave after conference adjourned.” Just before starting for the Pacific coast, via the Black Hills, he writes to a friend, under date of Atlanta, June THE BLACK LINE AND THE GOLD LINE. 91 15th, 1875: ‘‘The devil is all abroad here, only waiting for a Democratic Prex to strike. That Black Hills you see is in my line—the color line. Black, whether of hills or men, is the gold line. Mark it.” Again, writing from Grenada, Miss., where he was hold- ing a colored conference, he says: ‘‘You ought to have heard the cheers and amens over your poor black brother, G. H.”; thus not only remembering the ex-bondman as bound with him, but the colored man as black with him. The news of the course of the Bishop at the Tennessee conference flew like wildfire over the South, and his coming to the three other mixed conferences was looked forward to’ - with great excitement ; the black ministers being jubilant, and some of the white ones sullen. fo ‘ . A fortnight afterwards ‘he writes again :— ‘*T have had a great time on these four conferences. Hol- ston got it (that is, negro equality) before they knew it. Tennessee was mad, fearfully, but will get over it. Georgia took it easier, but not easily; and Alabama was stunned. The idea of negro equality had never got in there. They looked on them as pious mules. But I put through my alphabetic ordinations, and asking black presiding elders to assist in ordaining white ministers; and it was like an elec- tric shock to an ox—e don’t know the why, or where, or what, except he is immensely stirred up.” The action of the General Conference of 1876, relative to the organization of colored conferences, he could not abide. It was as gravel to his teeth. A few days after the adjourn- ment he writes from Virginia ,— ‘¢Dr. Fuller is my companion, and the General Conference battles are rebattled. He whipped me on the color line, but we will conquer yet. ‘*T have to scold both sides of the church and carry both sides. That is tlie way my mother had to handle her boys.” x 92 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. In the ‘‘ Christian Advocate” he refers to the same topic, and says :— ‘“We have not dared to do right. We are persisting in recognizing a wicked spirit of caste, which God has everywhere and always in his word and his dealings with his church declared to be against the whole letter and life of- his gospel. We presume to distinguish between his children on account of certain shades of complexion or sources of distant origin. We are attempting to organize colored churches after the old God-accursed .and God-chastised pattern. ; ‘¢ The only right and successful way ts to entirely ignore the idea of color in the organization of our churches and confer- ences throughout the whole land. We should say, there and everywhere, a redeemed soul is our brother; one called of God into his ministry is an equal and companion, and no act or thought of separation from him on account of these unrighteous distinctions should find the least place in our hearts. No more caste in the membership of the Methodist Episcopal Church.” While busy in looking after the churches and schools in . the Southern section of the country, he had a sharp eye to the political condition of affairs. As is well known, the slaves had a kind of underground telegraph, by means of which they communicated with each other over long distances with astonishing rapidity. Perhaps they admitted their ‘‘ colored Bishop ” into the mysteries of their private news association. At any rate, he was the best informed man in all the South concerning the political disturbances which in 1874 were rife in certain regions of the former-slave States. Writing from Columbia, 8. C., under date of July 8, 1874, he says :— **The North is befooled. The air is full of blood. If the North drifts as she does now, then blood will come. You ought to see the rabidness of the press. It is awful. And it is all based on ‘ anti-nigger.’” THIRD-TERM POLITICS. 93 Three months later he writes from Chicago :-— ‘* Dear Broraer H.:— Have no fear but that your letters will find me. Though I take the wings of the morning they will get there, too. Horrible times in Mississippi; worse in Georgia. Only Grant will save us.” Bishop Haven was among the chief admirers of General and President Grant. One evening, after returning home from a lecture which he had delivered, he said to his son and daughter, who had accompanied him, ‘‘I have given this lecture before the two greatest men in the country, — Ralph Waldo Emerson and General Grant.” He looked to the ‘‘ man on horseback,” ‘‘ the silent man,” as the only one who either could or would defend the liberties and redress the wrongs of the ex-slaves, whom he declared were, in spite of the war and its results, still substantially under the tyranny of their former masters. It was a frequent prophecy of his that ‘‘ what the South have failed to gain by the sword they will attempt to gain by politics ;” and when the political murders in Georgia and Arkansas, and the horrors of the ‘‘ Mississippi plan ” startled the nation, he pointed out the terrible events as the fulfilment of his own dire prophecies, and called in the clearest tones he could command for the exercise of the power of the national government to stamp out the last remains of the slaveholders’ tyranny as well as the slaveholders’ rebellion. ‘This was the reason of his appeal to the Boston Preachers’ Meeting to pray for the re-election of General Grant. This address, on Monday, the 6th of December, 1875, in the presence of what was left of the weekly ministerial assembly, after the benediction had been pronounced and a part of the - body had dispersed, was flashed over the country and pub- lished by the Associated Press as a ‘‘ third-term speech.” It 94 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. was widely assumed that he had made a great argument for a third term of President Grant ; that the Boston Preachers’ Meeting had enthusiastically endorsed the idea; that the Bishop was in favor of Cesarism; and these misstatements, with all sorts of variations, both in Republican and Demo- cratic journals, kept the country in a state of excitement for weeks together. What he actually did say on the occasion, the Bishop himself recounted as follows :— *¢ T spoke of the loyalty of the men of color to our nation, of the large membership of our church in the South, of our duty as a church to be true to these our brethren, as they would be to us. I quoted Mr. Wilson’s dying remark, that ‘the next political battle would be fought not on the common issue of finance or schools, but on the same ques- tions as before,— Liberty and Union.’ I then added, if we throw over our present ruler, who has saved us once, we should rue it. Idid add, what was the only peculiar remark that I uttered, ‘ Pray, brethren, for the renomination of Presi- dent Grant.’ That was all I said. I never renominated him, as the papers had it. I asked the brethren to pray for the renomination. This I had a perfect right to do; a right as a citizen, as a Christian, as a minister, as a man. The brethren made no such stilted response as is represented. Some responded, Methodist fashion, by amens; some by the Jess Methodist fashion of stamping and clapping. How many responded I know not.”* In a letter written shortly after, in which he refers to the tempest that his Preachers’ Meeting talk had raised, he SAYS :— ‘¢ It was because this nation is so perplexed, so anxious to see the right way, that the call to prayer will yet strike deep into the Christian. heart. Drunken wine-bibbers at Philadel- phia are not to settle this greatest of problems, how to save our poor brothers at the South. Politicians at Washington are not to settle it. The key of this whole question is the oppressed and hated man of color. It is the four or five mil- * “ Buffalo Express,” Dec. 31, 1875. ‘4 THOUSAND MURDERS.” 95 lions of such, whom we all cruelly hate and despise, who are left to their pursuers to do with them as seemeth good or evil in their eyes. God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who loves them more tlian he loves all the rest of us to-day, will compel this nation to do them justice, or will scourge us yet more with bloody rods. . . . Ishall say so still, and everywhere, by the help of God.” He was particularly grieved over the censure of some of his Methodist brethren for this particular bit of politics, but per contra he writes to a friend,— ‘The other side has been comforting. I have received lots of good words, especially from colored brethren. ‘We are praying for you,’ they say; and how they do pray! How mad these are. They would kill me quick, and may yet. I feel all the time the air full of possible bullets. I go to Alabama next Sunday, up in the woods. Nota very safe place; but duty calls and I obey. I shall be glad if I get safe across the Potomac.” In January, ’76, he writes: ‘‘I want to get my affairs all straight, as decapitation is threatened. . . . How they hate the colored equal here! They are murdering them all the time. They say a thousand murders occurred in Missis- sippi this fall; and yet the ‘Tribune’ praises Lamar, the heir of Jeff. Davis and his bigger double! ” Again, in August, ’76, writing from Salt Lake City, he quotes from a Southern paper this item: ‘‘ That old repro- bate, Bishop Haven, sneaked into Newton County [Ga.] last week and preached to the colored people.” He is not insen- sible of his danger, but proposes to keep right on. In a private letter he says :— “Dr. —— tells it that the Indiana boys had a game as to who would pull down the biggest hornets’ nest and get away first. He thought that I beat any of the boys at that game. But I go and pull down another one when the first is well scattered, while has gone north to escape their stings.” 96 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. On Sept. 26, 1874, he refers to the excitement ‘‘ down South” against him, and says: ‘‘ What a hell is boiling down there. You ought to see some of the papers on me. They threaten my life in words and in spirit and intent.” In the presence of Southern audiences he sometimes dis- covered men who were evidently watching for an occasion to kill him. At such times he himself confessed to a sense of mortal fear; but so strong was his sense of duty to God and his cause that he would not abate one jot or tittle of the words he had intended to say, but would bring down the lash_ of his logic on the prejudices of men who were ready to assassinate him; meanwhile, grinding his teeth and clenching his hands to keep himself from trembling visibly as he was conscious of doing inwardly. Jt has been said that Bishop Haven had no fear in his nature. That is not true. There was a good deal of that nervous trepidation in him which leads men to shrink from danger; but in spite of it, continually struggling not to be overcome by it, he habitually and persistently looked death in the face. That was brave to the last degree. Common men, if they had been half as much afraid, would have skulked or yun away. Why he was not murdered at the South is a mystery. It may be said that he bore a charmed life. Let it rather be said that the angel of the Lord encamped round about him to deliver him. ‘A good man is immortal till his work is done.” THE AFRICAN MISSION. 97 CHAPTER VI. TO HEAVEN BY WAY OF AFRICA. t ‘¢ Ginpert Haven was,” said his friend Dr. William Rice, in his letter read at the Bishop’s funeral, ‘‘no tardy convert to the anti-slavery cause. He enlisted in the war for freedom when the army was small and despised, and he lived, through defeat and obloquy, to see the finat and glorious triumph. His interest in the colored man ceased not with the termina- tion of the institution of slavery. His labors with voice and pen have been energetic and persistent throughout these later years, to secure for the negroés the full recognition of man- hood in church and state, and to develop in them the intelli- gent self-reliance and self-assertion which will successfully vindicate their claim to civil and social equality. His name is universally known among them; they know him to love him as their friend, and a wail of grief will come up from all the South when his death is known among them.” Yet it is well known that Bishop Haven at first took no special interest in Africa. It was Americans of African descent who chiefly attracted his sympathy. A short time before the General Conference of 1876, he writes to a friend, urging the election of a colored Bishop, on the ground that it is necessary to ‘‘ put somebody in Africa.” ‘‘ No one of us,” said he, ‘‘ will reside there ; no one can travel there. My Africa is here.” The African mission was no more interest- ing to him, as a mission, than others. He used to say that he cared no more for the African in Africa, than for the Chinese 98 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. in China. It was only when the African became an Amer- ican citizen, and was not equally treated, that his heart was stirred in his defence. During the General Conference of 1876, in arranging the plan of episcopal visitation, the name of Gilbert Haven was set down for the Liberia Conference, an appointment which, to some of his friends, who knew the weaknesses of _ his physical constitution, seemed like an unwarrantable tempt- ing of Providence, some said a useless sacrifice of life. But it was not according to the traditions of Methodism that a man should shrink from his appointment through fear of sick- ness and death. Obstacles have been regarded either as opportunities or as special means of grace. In June, 1876, Bishop Haven writes: ‘*As to Africa, I like the idea more and more. I may make a good thing of it for the church. I would not give it up now.” And again, to a friend who was anxious for his safety, he says: ‘‘ As to Liberia, don’t fret. Out of that nettle, Dan- ger, I trust to pluck the flower, Safety. I should not wonder if I circumnavigated Africa, and went from Zanzibar after Stanley, and the Victoria and Albert Nyanza. Who knows? You know I always do more than anybody expects, or wants. T mean to know Africa as I know Mexico; as I would know India if I went there. Gd has laid Africa upon my heart, and now, if he wishes to complete the sacrifice by laying my bones in African soil, His will be done.” It was his wish, however, to prepare himself by special study, and perhaps by some hygienic precautions, for the memorable journey; but in the estimation of one, at least, of his colleagues, the King’s business required haste ; accord- ingly, on the 1st of November, 1876, Bishop Haven sailed from New York for Monrovia, in the brig ‘‘ Jasper,” and A SMALL, SLOW CONFERENCE. 99 arrived off the coast of Liberia on the 14th of December. Four days afterwards the Liberian Conference assembled at Monrovia, and Bishop Haven had the honor of seeing, and being seen by, that little body of twenty Methodist preachers, at the very ends of the earth, to whom the face of a Bishop had become a sight exceeding rare. The session was appointed for Monday, Dec. 18, 1876, at 10 a.m.; but the Bishop complained that when he entered the church to take the chair, there was no one present except the janitor. After awhile the preachers began to straggle in, though it was nearly noon before the exercises were fairly under way. This instance the Bishop cites as a spec- imen of the manner and spirit of Methodism, and indeed of every other movement, physical, social, educational, and religious, in that little African Republic. The Liberian Conference, he says, is ‘‘ substantially inde- pendent.” A number.of the members had served one charge four, five, seven years; and one local preacher had served one charge twelve years. He complains that America treats Liberia as a purely mission field, and supplies her with every- thing, from parsonages to preachers. ‘‘ Only one church,” he says, ‘‘ supports its preacher. No collections are taken. Church houses drop down unless kept up by missionary help.” He draws what poor comfort he can from the fact that Methodism is ‘‘like all the rest of the churches in Liberia.” ‘‘ Indeed,” he says,-‘‘ the Methodist is the leading church in the Republic yet, in enterprise, as well as in num- bers ;” but he mournfully adds, ‘‘ scarce nought is done for the heathen beyond. ‘With three excellent properties at its command, it has no trainitig school for teachers and preach- ers. Ten or fifteen schools are supported; not by the state, however, for all state schools have been suspended, in con- 100 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. sequence of the late war [with the natives’ in the bush] absorbing the income appropriated to their support, and pri- vate schools assume their. place.” In a letter to the ‘‘ Independent,” of April 5, 1877, he describes the struggling little settlement of Monrovia, ‘‘ with paths zigzaging over the hills m the spaces marked out for streets ;” whose people are ‘‘ too poor to have horses or oxen or carts, and where human labor is so cheap that beasts of bur- den are almost ruled out by competition of human muscle.” All his conference duties having been performed, Bishop Haven determined to make some little explorations of the country ; in which work he occupied about a month, spending in all forty-six days in Africa, preaching. and visiting, traversing the forests, boating on its rivers, studying its phys- ical as well as its social and religious peculiarities; during which time, he says: ‘‘ I never experienced any sickness of any sort. I was as well when I left Sierra Leone, as when I reached Monrovia.” In recalling this tour, he says: ‘‘It was done as well as it could have been.done by this servant of the church, not has- tily or carelessly. It was done suceessfully as far as health was concerned.” Nevertheless, Africa had made her mark upon him; the fever had crept into his bones. The native missionaries, alarmed at his apparent recklessness, gave him fair warning that-the fever was waylaying him, and ready to leap on him unawares ; but he saw and felt nothing of it till, on the homeward voyage, the subtle enemy claimed its prey. The first attack he realized after landing at the port of Teneriffe, when, on awaking at night, he says : — ‘¢ A pillar of ice had erected itself inside my spine.” ‘It must be stopped, or it will be sheathed in ice, and then in fire, until the twofold process of congealing and cremating reduces the castle and expels the soul.” ‘+ I arise, hunt for THE TOUCH OF A COLD FINGER. 101 the ‘ pain-killer,’ get a stiff dose, and such extra clothes as are in the room, and get back into the cot. A violent per- Spiration breaks forth, but the ice column does not vanish away. Iam not unlike a lump of ice in a summer sun — wet with its own perspiration without, as cold as the North Pole within.” ‘* My only duty is to keep the ice-bolt from taking possession of the whole body. This I cannot do by any power save that of the will. Will that doit? I can try.” “Tt is daybreak: the ice-shaft has not increased nor diminished. I ery aloud and spare not. My companions, after due and undue screamings, come over the way. More hot stuff is poured down and piled on, and in half an hour the ice-pillar is dissolved. I arise and take breakfast, and am off, with companions and Consul for a three days’ trip to the peak of Teneriffe, as unconscious of chill as though the ghost had not stood up inside my frame, a skeleton of death i in the living skeleton, all that long and horribly frightful night.” ‘What was it? The fever? No change of pulse. A scare? Never a child fell asleep more sweetly. No dreams before it came, nor nightmare, or other horse of any revclator .gort had been its uvunt-courier. It was a reality, whatever else it was. That is what I know, and all I know, of the beginning of the ‘ malaria.’” From the time of his return to his native shores it was evident that Bishop Haven’s episcopate was drawing to a close. Of his condition he says : — ‘¢The first night on the American shore this chilliness in a subdued form took possession of my flesh generally. A low murmurous shiver ; hardly a chill, only a child of a chill. That never left. Sometimes it felt like a cool breeze on a hot day blowing through the centre of the bones. Sydney Smith’s wish was realized without taking off the flesh. T could sit in my bones with the cool east wind blowing gently but steadily through them, as ‘one feels such a breeze on the coast on a hot day.” i Every possible treatment only mitigated his suffering. Africa was too strong for him; and though he was not destined to lay his bones on that dark continent, it had taken a grip upon him which it would never let go. From October of 1877, to April, 1878, he describes his condition thus : — LUS MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. ‘©T wandered lonely as a star, and idle as a leaf. No deed or word scarce escaped my lip or pen. Deathly sink- ings followed each other in regular nightly, daily, and some- times hourly succession. Cold ran up and down the nerves,— streams of granulated ice. I trembled at my own shadow. Slowly and feebly I got me to my na and there sat and shivered, and lived and sunk. . . . « Iwonder why the Prayer-Book litany begs away from sudden death. It seems far the best way to step out of life,— not time even to say ‘good night.’” October 18, 1877, he writes from Clifton Springs : — ** ¢ Still restless nature dies and groans.’ ‘‘That’s me. Dying and groaning at the same time. I rest very reluctantly. -Doctor says I must stop six months or forever. Doubt if I do either. He proclaims liver, stomach, kidneys, spine, head, —and I don’t know what else, — out of order.” From this condition, rousing all the force of his will, which, more than all the skill of physicians, put him on his feet again, he set his face ‘‘ duty-ward,” and held the Northern New York and the Vermont conferences; and thence South again. Like his great predecessor, Asbury, there was so much life in him that death, fighting with some of its best weapons and having its victim at a continual disadvantage, had a long, hard struggle in killing him. The space allowed to the first part of this volume admits of only reference to many of Bishop Haven’s great political speeches and his prolific journalistic writings. Among the best. of the former he held his address on the Chisholm Murder. [See Part III.] In the fall of 1878, Bishop Haven’s conferences were, Central New York, Genesee, Austin, Southern German, West Texas, and Texas. In writing of the State of Texas, which ‘he calls ‘‘Our Empire in the South-West,” he describes it as follows: — TOUR IN THE NORTH-WEST. 103 ‘‘The country is vast, expectations vast, operations vast, results semi-vast. Ten Ohios, six New Yorks, forty Massa- chusetts ; yet the diamond beats the anthracite. I shall go from end to end of the work if my health holds.” This is the shout of a man who knows himself to be steadily and in- evitably dying. In 1879 he made a grand episcopal tour through what he calls ‘* Our Empire of the North-West,” exploring the North- Pacific Coast, and sending out his inquiries into that ultima Thule, Alaska. Throughout this journey, as aforetime, he abated no jot of his literary work. His series of letters to ‘ Zion's Herald,” ‘‘ From Boston to Portland,” show how care- fally he conducted his observations, and how delightfully he could describe them. In this tour he studied the politics of California, that ‘‘ land of monopolies ;” while a sharp glance at Mormonism calls forth from his pen a diagnosis of this ‘‘ American ulcer.” This last grand episcopal tour, ‘‘ from Atlanta around about into Walla Walla,” he says, ‘‘is a distance, as travelled, of over five thousand miles.” Rolled about on the Pacific or pounded on the wilderness roads, did this indefatigable pioneer Bishop pursue his way ; now burning with fever, now freezing with chills ; with disease of the heart, cancer of the bone, and in- cipient dropsy reinforcing the attack upon his life; and yet, with a death’s head continually staring at him, and a descent to the grave which could be marked by daily stages, he not only kept up his activity but his cheerfulness. The last sight the church at large had of him was at the session of the General Missionary Committee, in Novem- ber, 1879, in whose discussions he took the liveliest interest ; rejoicing in jubilant fashion over the appropriations to the work in Bulgaria, and for an exploration for a mission in 104 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. Alaska; which two projects he affectionately called his “twins.” It now began to be whispered about that he could not be relied upon for work during the next quadrennium, and others, still more closely questioning his condition, declared that he was not long for this world. On the 18th of November he reached the old home at Malden, quite exhausted by his labors at the Missionary Committee, but bent on attending the funeral of his old friend Gershom F. Cox of Salem, Mass. On the following evening he lectured at the People’s’ Church, Boston; an enterprise in which from the first to the last he had taken an especial interest, and whose heroic pastor he had constantly aided, not only by generous sub- scriptions himself, but by persuading others to subscribe. On Sunday, the 23d of November, he attended public wor- ship at the Methodist Church in Malden, where, during the: service, he was seized with pain in his hands, which crept up along his arms, and pervaded his body, until, in unutterable distress, he left the church for his mother’s residence, only a few steps away, and passed over its threshold never more to cross it till devout men carried him to his burial. Six weeks of suffering and wasting sickness followed, dur- ing which time great supplication was made to God to spare his life. How could the church afford to lose him? How could the schools for the colored people, which he had com- menced, and some of which, it might be said, he was ‘‘ car- rying on his shoulders,” spare him? How could his colored brethren of the South spare him, while yet their equal man- hood with white Methodists was practically denied by separa- tion from them in conferences and churches? How could his family spare him in the very climax of his glory, and the very flower of his age? But God seeth not as man seeth. LAST FIGHT WITH THE LAST ENEMY. 105 When it was evident that he was about to depart, one of his intimate friends sent him greeting on this wise : ‘‘ You must not die in Malden. The rounding out of your career de- mands that you should die by a bullet in the South, rather than of a pain in the stomach, in the house of your mother.” But perhaps it was not necessary to the winning of a mar- tyr’s crown that he should die by violence at the hands of his enemies, who had so often threatened his destruction. Let us rather thank God that by his good providence such a tragic taking off was not permitted,— a taking off which, for years, seemed imminent, but which must have caused an awakening of the fury and vengeance that has slept during the killing of thousands of his weak and inconspicuous friends. Vengeance belongeth unto God. On Friday, the second day of the New Year, 1880, after a period of comparative relief from pain, he had a violent attack of distress for breath, and begged his physician, Dr. Sawtelle, to remain with him until he was better. About midnight he awoke from a troubled sleep, and said, ‘* Thank God, the storm is over! Doctor, you can go home now. My good brother [turning to his nurse] and I will fight it out on this line to-night.” The family having retired, exhausted with long watching, and the doctor taken his departure, he called to his faithful companion and said: ‘‘ Now, Brother Griggs, tell me about Grant’s movements to-day. Will he get safe through the South? Thank God that he will not accept a reception when the black man is ignored.” Next he asked about the state ‘of things in Maine. His companion reminded him of their agreement not to talk about that exciting subject, to which he replied, as if with clear consciousness that this was his last night on earth: ‘‘ I must know to-night all there is to be 106 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. known. ‘The will of the people must not be thwarted.” He was informed that that election had been referred to the Supreme Court, whereupon he turned his thoughts to other pressing matters. About five o’clock he turned his face to his friend, and said : *¢ Do you think Iam dying?” and on receiving the answer ‘* No, Bishop, but I think this is the beginning of the end,” he asked : ‘Do you think the physicians have given up all hope?” ‘¢} fear they have,” was the reply. ‘‘Ts that so?” said the Bishop. ‘‘ What had I better do? For the sake of the Church I am not willing to die until every means is exhausted. Call my sister and my son. Let us have a little consultation, we four.” Even in such an hour as this his old, buoyant, jocose spirit did not leave him, and when his son and sister entered the room, and the names of three physicians were mentioned by his nurse, whom he knew had been serviceable to the Bishop in other attacks, the sick man said cheerily, ‘¢ We shall have three horns to our dilemma.” One of these, it was found, could not possibly come. ‘‘ That leaves us two,” said the Bishop. “One of the two was thought to be too far away for any reliance to be placed on him, and to the last one a messenger was at once despatched. He was bent on “ fighting it out” to the last. On Saturday morning, the 2d of January, 1880, his regular physician, Dr. Sawtelle, in making his usual early call, noticed that during the night a great change had taken place in the condition of his patient. This was, beyond a doubt, the day on which Bishop Haven must die. The fact was communi- cated to him, and he again sent for the family, and, on their appearance, he said, with characteristic spirit: There! It A DEATH-BED LEVEE. 107 is just as I told you. Iam like the Deacon’s one-horse shay, all broken down at once.” For weeks no visitors had been permitted to enter his room; but now his longing desire to see his old friends was granted. The telegraph summoned those who were in Boston and vicinity, and presently his neighbors began to come in; to all of whom he spoke in the manner of a man conversing with his guests, rather than of one in the very clutch of death. His mind was perfectly clear and his voice natural, though speaking with some difficulty, and for nearly eight hours the dying Bishop held what may properly be described as a death-bed levee. The room was filled with the glory of God. ‘‘It was,” says one, ‘‘ more like a reception than a death-bed scene.” About nine o’clock his friends from a distance began to come in by the morning trains, and his last words to them were more after the manner of a man stepping on board a steamboat for a business journey or a pleasure tour, than of one stepping down into the valley of the shadow of death. Old-time reminiscences, politics, church-building enterprises, and other practical and even amusing topics, held place along with final hand-shakings, tearful ejaculations, joyful hallelujahs, -and final good-bys. He had done his praying while he had been doing his work, and now it only remained for him to die cheerfully, bravely, heroically, as a Methodist ‘Bishop should. His love for his native New England flamed up during the last morning on which he was to be a citizen thereof, and he laughingly referred to a conversation with his colleagues sometime before, at which he had recommended a friend from Massachusetts to some vacant post of duty. ‘ Bishop 108 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. Harris said, at our last Bishops’ Meeting, that ‘If a man was wanted to make a new archangel of, Haven would undertake to look him up in New England.’” ‘+ And,” he added, with his cheery smile, ‘‘ I would find him, too.” One of his friends went close to him and whispered some- thing in his ear, upon which he shouted, ‘‘ Hallelujah! * Praise the Lord!” .Those who stood by took it for granted, from his response, that the whisper had contained some word of; Christian consolation; a scripture promise perhaps. No. He was announcing to the dying man a generous subscription to Clark University, Atlanta, Ga., one of the colleges for the education of the colored people, on which the Bishop had spent so much care and labor, and to whose funds he had himself made very large contributions. Thus, in the very begin- nings of death, the good of his people was the joy of his soul. When his old college classmate, Dr. Newhall, entered, the meeting was tender and affecting. Doubt had been ex- pressed whether it was safe to trust this brilliant, broken man in the presence of his dying friend; but the shock, though a severe one, did not unhinge his mind, and the two talked naturally and tenderly, but with very little death in the discourse. ‘¢T have beaten you just a little this time,” said the Bishop. ‘¢¥ thought you would have gone before me.” Then referring to the mental affliction which his dear brother occasionally suffered, he said, ‘‘ There has been a little darkness over you, but there is light ahead.” When this visitor was about to retire, the Bishop asked him to pray. Of only one other— Rev. J. W. Hamilton — did he make that request. With a look of surprise and almost childlike simplicity, his friend, as if conscious that he was walking along a mental precipice, turned to the sister of the FAREWELL INTERVIEWS. 109 Bishop, the real house-mother of the Haven mansion, and said, ‘‘Shall I?” and she assenting, though with some mis- givings, he knelt down, and poured out such a supplication as was said by ‘those who heard it to have been ‘‘like the speech of one who was looking straight into heaven.” To his friend, Dr. Mallalieu, with whom he had taken sweet counsel, and fought side by side in many a battle for the oppressed, he said: ‘* My dear brother, you and I would — not. have this so, but it is all right; God knows best. We have been living in great times. But greater times are coming. Stand by the colored man when I am gone.” In giving directions about his funeral, he said: ‘‘ There is ‘brother Mars” (the only negro member of the New England Conference’; now a feeble, tottering old man) ; ‘‘ he must speak at my funeral. Let some of my colored brethren also help to carry me to my grave.” Many times during the day he recited these words to him- self: ‘¢ And he shall never see death.” And then he would break out with ‘‘ Praise the Lord!” and once he said: ‘‘I see no dark river. I am entering the gates of Paradise. Now I know what the book means when it says ‘ They shall never see death.’ There is no death here; it is all glory, glory.” To his physician he said: ‘‘I have not preached this faith all my life to be deprived of its consolations now. My hope is a blessed one, and big with immortality.” Among his visitors was a relative of the family, Mr. O. B. Brown, a professor of music, to whom he said, calling him, as he was. wont to do, by his initials: ‘‘O. B., I am glad you came. ‘And they that play on stringed instruments shall be there.’ Music was first made in heaven. I will meet you there.” 110 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. ‘Through all his sickness,” says Dr. Pierce in ‘‘ Zion’s Herald,” ‘“‘he has conversed with his son about dying and heaven, as one would speak of taking a journey to a familiar place upon earth.” To another he said: ‘‘ The first Sunday in the new year I shall spend in glory.” So real was this ‘‘glory” to the man who was so soon to enter it, that he and his widowed sister, Mrs. Cox, spoke together of the message which ‘he was to take from her to her husband. ‘¢ Gilbert, you know what I told you to tell Wilbur.” “‘Yes,” was his reply, ‘‘I will remember it all, and will deliver your message.” As time drew on, he remarked that he had in the morn- ing sent for Dr. Garratt, who had promised to come to him at four o'clock that afternoon. ‘‘ You will countermand the order to Dr. Garratt,” he said; ‘‘I have no need for him. I am going where the inhabitants shall never say, ‘I am sick.’” To his friend Dr. Upham he said: ‘‘ Preach a whole Christ, a whole gospel, a whole heaven, a whole hell, a whole Bible.” To another he said: ‘‘Stand by the Old Church.” Then, referring to his own experience, he said: ‘‘It is so delightful dying —it is so pleasant —so beautiful — the angels are here—God lifts me up in his arms. I cannot see the river of death—there is no river—it is all light — I am floating away from earth up into heaven—TI am glid- ing away unto God.” One of his friends inquired of him: ‘‘Is it all right?” “Yes,” said he; and again, ‘‘ I have not a cloud over my mind; I believe the gospel all through,” with a characteristic emphasis on the ‘all through.” It was now four o’clock, and the sun of that winter day HIS LAST HOURS. 1i1 was going down; but to him there was no darkness. The last. of the throng of visitors at this strange ‘‘ reception ” was Professor Lindsay, to whom, when taking his leave, the Bishop said : — ‘“* Good evening, Doctor. When we next meet it will be good morning !” After all his visitors had retired, he said: ‘‘ Now we are alone, and must have a little time with our own family. Here are my two sisters, my two children. Where is my mother?” And when she was brought in, they stood in a circle around his bed, in order that he might see them all. But his sight was failing, and, looking around the circle, he said: ‘‘ Are we all alone?” And on being satisfied upon this point, he gave the last of himself away to God, and to those on earth whom he loved the best; taking their hands one by one and saying, ‘‘ This is my dear, dearest mother ; Mamie, my little sunbeam—dear, pretty one; Willie, my and then recurred the name which he was ever ” noble son ; whispering in the intervals of conversation, — ‘‘ Precious Jesus; Blessed Jesus.” There was another name also—the name of her who had been a constant presence in his soul, though for fourteen years she had also been a presence among the angels of God. On the night before his election to the episcopate, being in the company of a few choice friends, he said: ‘‘I would willingly start and make a pilgrimage around the earth on foot to spend one hour with my Mary ;” and when he knew he was about to die, he said, as if overwhelmed by the weary labors and journeyings through which and over which . he had dragged himself, in spite of sickness and sorrow and pain for all these long, lonesome years, he said: 112 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. ‘¢ After I have seen the Lord, I shall want to rest for the first thousand years with my head in the lap of my Mary.” In the soul of this man there was not, it would seem there never had been, any distinction between the love which we call human and that which we call divine. He loved his poor, oppressed, degraded black brethren with some of the very same love wherewith -he loved the Lord; and in the heart of this triumphant Christian Bishop, about to be translated, about to lay down the mitre and put on the crown, his wife and his Saviour dwelt side by side. The following note from the sister of the Bishop, though not written for publication, shows how heartily the family share his faith in the re-union of loved ones in heaven :— MaLpeEN, Aug. 20, 1880. Rev. W. H. Danrts: You ask for ‘‘the date of the death of Mary Ingraham Haven.” She entered life eternal April 3, 1860. When our loved ones pass safely, yea, triumphantly, to the heavenly home, I never like to write against their names, they died; and dear sister Mary was one of those choice spirits that, when the summons came for her to depart this life, had nothing to do but cease living here, and commence living there. I should write against the names of dear Gilbert and Mary,— SEPARATED, Tuesday, at noon, April 3, 1860. Re-unirep, Saturday, 6 o’clock evening, Jan. 3, 1880. With respect, yours, : Hannan B. Haven. On Tuesday, the 6th of January, 1880, the funeral of Bishop Haven was celebrated in the spacious and beautiful Methodist Episcopal Church of Malden. It was about the hour of noon, after the home rites of the funeral had been solemnized, with prayer by Dr. Peirce, Editor of ‘Zion’s Herald,” that the casket, containing all that was mortal of Bishop Haven, was taken to the church near by, and placed ‘SSVI ‘NAIGIVIN—‘aarung svM aH HOIHM Nowa HOWAHD GNV ‘NAAV]] LUAWIIQ AOHSIG AO AONACISAY TLV] 1 THE FUNERAL SERVICES. 113 within the communion rail before the altar. On his face there was a look which that great multitude will not forget. All traces of pain and sickness had disappeared, and those florid features were radiant as if with a reflection from the upper glory into which his soul had passed. Like that memorable death-bed reception, his funeral was a solemn festival.. It seemed as if the Bishop, instead of being the mere occasion of the great assembling, was him- self the chief and most vital presence in the throng. The New England Conference were present in a body, with almost full ranks. There were also large delegations repre- senting the General Missionary Society, the New York Preachers’ Meeting, the Philadelphia Preachers’ Meeting, the Wesleyan University, and the Eclectic Fraternity, of which society the Bishop was a member, and whose badge, the scroll key, exquisitely wrought in white flowers, was among the most conspicuous of the profuse and appropriate floral decorations. Bishops Foster of Boston and Harris of New York, the Rev. Drs. Loranus Crowell, 8. F. Upham, W. F. Mallalieu, George Prentice, Daniel Steele, the Rev. J. W. Hamilton, and the venerable Father Mars took part in the solemn ser- vice, under the direction of the pastor of the church at Malden, the Rev. Dr. Joseph Cummings. A letter from the Rey. Dr. William Rice was read; and music, not dirge-like, but suited to the coronation of a kingly soul, was rendered by organ and choir. : ‘All over the Church funeral services were held in his honor, and both at the North and the South there were friends, who scarcely knew him by his face, whose love and homage found expression by arraying themselves in garments of mourning. Was it Gilbert Haven’s death they were celebrating? Nay, 114 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. rather, but his entrance into life ; for, not only had he joined the company of the immortals, but he had also found at last a higher, kindlier, more adequate place in the judgment of multitudes who had not loved him, and had now been raised to a position in the Church of God from whence he could speak the more impressively, now that his voice seemed to come from the sky. Let those who have failed to understand or appreciate this exceptional man, dwell for a moment on the thought that he was .God’s especial gift to the African race in America; a prophet charged with the reiteration of the Bible statement, so long and so generally overlooked: ‘ONE IS YOUR MASTER, EVEN CHRIST, AND ALL YE ARE BRETHREN.” How could the Divine Disposer of events have produced a human being more perfectly adapted to that peculiar work? Tf, then, this man were God’s ambassador for such a pur- pose, does' it not follow that, in those things pertaining to his mission on behalf of human brotherhood and Christian equality, all his adversaries were in error and Gilbert Haven was right? PART II. EULOGIES AND TRIBUTES. [iisy EULOGIES AND TRIBUTES. +o» WHEN death has taken away the substance of a friend, leaving only the form, loving hands are wont to bring choice flowers wherewith to grace its burial. These, ‘by cunning arts, are sometimes kept from fading; a faint suggestion of the memory that overlives the grave. In like manner have been here preserved some of the trib- utes to the memory of Bishop Gilbert Haven, which in such great profusion, from far and near, have been brought to adorn his burial and set forth his fame. I. FUNERAL ORATION BY BISHOP RANDOLPH S. FOSTER, D.D., LL.D. Brothers, we stand to-day in the presence of a great sor- row, in which, I am sure, if we could follow the dictates of our feelings, silence and tears would take the place of speech. That has happened to us which, but a few days ago, seemed impossible to our affections. Bishop Haven, your friend and mine, is dead. His body lies in the hush and stillness of the casket before the chancel. The blow that has fallen so suddenly, so unexpectedly even, with all the preparation we had for it, falls not alone upon New England. It smites wide and deep over the broad sur- face of this entire land. A great Church stands mourner 118 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. here to-day at this bier; the Church at home, the Church throughout the mission fields in the four quarters of the globe. Not figuratively, but literally, hundreds of thousands join the obsequies of this moment. All abroad among the different races and different denominations and types of Christians, there is a deep, sympathetic sorrow at this moment. And it becomes us, however difficult the task, to discipline our hearts to calmness, and our minds, to acquiesce in this strange and mysterious providence. If our brother has gone away from us, we are called to remember to-day that it was his Lord and our Lord, his Master and our Master, that has called him away. Mere ° sullen grief or idle lament would ill become the sacredness or greatness of this hour. He would reprove the one, and the great Master would reprove the other. If it is inevitable that we should weep, that our hearts should be broken—and there are many broken hearts here to-day—it is just, and right, and worthy, that our words should be words of cour- age, of rejoicing, and of triumph. Did I say Bishop Haven is dead? J take back that word. He is not dead; he can never die. He has but passed on. He has vanished from the house where we knew him, to take possession of another house ‘‘ not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” He has surrendered an inferior for a superior life. He has indeed gone away, and we shall not see him again—now. We shall not communicate with him as afore- time, upon the earth; and no mortal can tell what has gone out of earth and life with his departure. There is no mortal can tell what he contributed to the life of the world, and what he will continue to contribute to the life of the world, to the end of time. For, though he has ceased to be a visible fac- tor, his words, his thoughts, his deeds, will live on in the BISHOP FOSTER’S FUNERAL ORATION. 119 lives and characters of men so long as the world shall stand. For Bishop Haven was no ordinary man. Among the multi- tudes he was an inevitable factor of great power, and he was a conspicuous personality, a highly-individualized man. Fis life has cut a deep impression upon the souls and minds of men in his own time, and through the influence exerted now will still give impression to the latest generation of the world. In speaking of him whom you loved, and whom I loved, so much and so rarely, brothers and friends, it is proper that I should consider well the words I am speaking; that I should not indulge in any extravagant and indiscriminate eulogy ; that I should not draw a picture, unreal, of the departed, but one that will stand the test of criticism and awaken admiration with all candid and honest minds the more perfectly it is por- trayed. It is not for me to speak to-day — and you will not expect it in detail—of his life and of his childhood. We stand in the very shadow of the roof:tree under which it was spent; in the midst of the people who knew him from his infancy, and the beginning and dawn of his manhood to his departure from you. It is not for me to speak of his early school life, of his student history. His classmates and his co-collegians fill this room. Others will furnish personal reminiscences that relate to these early periods of his forma- tive life. You will not expect me to speak of his relations to you in his early ministry, which will always be your pride and joy; nor yet of that growing power which placed him _ foremost among you in official responsibility, as the editor of your Church paper. Rather you will expect me to speak of those things which are more immediately related to myself and my colleagues in his episcopal office, covering the last eight years of his life. $ 120 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. , Bishop Haven, I have said, was, in a remarkable degree, an individuality, a personality. It was impossible that he should be present, even for a few moments, in a narrow or a great circle, upon the platform of an important occasion, or in the deliberative councils of large assemblies, or anywhere else, without making himself known and felt in his personal- ity. He would inevitably and irrepressibly come to the front in the revelation of his own inward thought and life. He was by nature a strange contradiction, — a radical of radicals, a conservative of conservatives, — taking the extremest views, and pursuing the most radical forms of expression and action in matters in which human interests were at stake, where justice revolted and interposed itself against oppres- ‘sion and cruelty, and in every form in which he could person- ally affect the life and action of society. In principles he was fixed as the eternal mountains ; conservative, even beyond what seemed to be demanded, in all his views of truth and righteousness. He was established upon firm and unchange- able foundations. He entered upon the period of his active life in the most eventful crisis in the history of our country, in the most ex- citing and ardent period of New England life, in the midst of that great fray which agitated the continent’ and world — the contest between New England anti-slaverism, and South- ern organized pro-slaverism. By instinct and education, and the atmosphere in which he was born and reared, he imme- diately, even in the formative period of his youth, took sides with the oppressed against the oppressors. While yet the dews of his youth were upon him, he marched boldly to the front in that great combat, and stood in the narrow circle of ten or twelve of the chief men whose words will go down to posterity. BISHOP FOSTER’S FUNERAL ORATION. 121 It is not saying too much of Bishop Haven to say that he Was conspicuous among those champions, and that his words were the most telling and effective blows; that he was an agitator, a disturber, an irrepressible radical until the wrong, which was the agony of his heart, which haunted him and made his life wretched, was destroyed from the face of the earth. His name will stand high in the records of that great contest to the end of the world. And it was given to him to be and to do what was denied all his peers and co-laborers, even the most distinguished of them. Those who spoke the most profound words, and who by tongue and pen contrib- uted most largely to the result which was finally accomplished, were not permitted, as was our dear Bishop, in the history of their lives to work such a work as was given him to perform, and to give such evidences of fidelity and courage to the cause which seemed to be the cause of their hearts as he was permitted to give. Genial in a wonderful degree, generous, great-hearted, cheerful amid all circumstances of depression and of trial, witty, educated, full of knowledge, full of the life of the world from its beginning, rich in its historic acqui- sitions, peculiarly, uniquely rich in his acquaintance with the men of his own time, with the history of his own country, with the influences which were everywhere moulding and ploughing up society, with an unforgetting memory, with a vivid power of perception, with great imagination, with strong self-assertion, with irrepressible love of justice .and liberty, he was a power in every place, and will be a power forever. It is safe to say that when he entered upon the General Conference of 1872, already rich with an honorable fame, especially loved and esteemed in New England, especially despised and hated in the South, with questions of doubt and 122 MEMORIALS. OF BISHOP HAVEN. misgiving in the mind of the middle portions of the country — when he entered the General Conference of 1872, to be a conspicuous member of that important body in its most important session in the history of the Church, it is safe to say that the thought had never entered the large part of the Methodist mind that, in Gilbert Haven, there was a future Bishop of the Church; that whatever was the judgment of those who stood nearest to him, who knew him best and loved him most, he would go away from that great’ gathering clothed with episcopal honors and with episcopal responsi- bilities. Beyond all question, his election was a surprise to the Church; and considering his well-known and pronounced radicalism for so long a time and of so conspicuous a type, and the readiness and promptness with which he always pro- nounced his conyictions (for he had the bravery of his con- victions ; he could not conceal them even on occasions when prudence would seem to require that they should be in abey- ance), it is safe to say that his election was not only a sur- prise, but it awakened a question and doubt in many of the | purest, best, and greatest, whether it was wise and judicious. Thank God, he lived for eight years to demonstrate the wis- dom of that action! He has furnished the proof that it was no mistake or misjudgment, that Providence, which had so strongly presided over the destiny of our Church, and to so large an extent governed and controlled in a matter of so great moment, did not forsake it in this instance. As a Bishop, our colleague became greatly endeared to the entire Board, winning session by session, year by year, upon every heart in the college, until, I am safe in saying in the presence of my revered colleague [Bishop Harris], he stood, in our love and in our confidence, in the very front, and had developed peculiar adaptations, where we did not expect. to BISHOP FOSTER’S FUNERAL. ORATION. 123 find them, for that office which he filled with so great: honor and to so great acceptation; carrying to the chair of the conference a reserved force of dignity which made him a model presiding officer; familiar with the questions that might arise in the body; a ready and acute judge of law; holding the conferences, in whatever excitement, in whatever discussion, in calm and unperturbed equipoise; maintaining order and discipline to a high degree ; carrying nothing of a radical or extreme or injudicious rashness into his adminis- tration ; impressing the humblest member of the body with a sense of the equality of his rights, and maintaining them. In the cabinet he was a careful and earnest student of the interests of the churches and of the interests of the preach- ers. We know that he was a great friend; that friendship, personal love, glowed in his heart like a sun; that whom he once loved he never could forget; that he carried an elect circle closeted in the inner sanctuary of his soul, never forget- — ting them in his wide wanderings, and always anxious for them. But we know this, too: he had this peculiarity,— that while he studied to do all in his power for those he had known longest and loved best, he was careful to consider his most recent friends, and he would not permit an injustice to be done to the humblest or to the most obscure; for that was a conspicuous attribute of Bishop Haven’s character — a sense of fairness, a sense of right, that sent him into the defence of the defenceless, and made him strong in the cause of the oppressed. That sense of justice made him equal and honest in the administration of his office. In the important bodies with which we are connected in our office, it is not doing discredit to any of his colleagues to say that he was most far-seeing, most enterprising, most prolific of devices for the enlargement and expansion of the 124 ’ MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. Church, and most courageous and most alive to every great and grand movement. No mission-field failed to elicit his interest. He was especially concerned and greatly potent - in the affairs of the Italian mission, and in the affairs of the Mexican mission; in planting and protecting and defending and extending the interests of these missions. In the ad- ministration of the missionary branch of the Church, his counsels were heard reverently always. Sometimes his views were in advance of his times, and ex- travagant in the estimation of his brethren; but he had this marked peculiarity, which I have found in no other man, — that, while he had the bravery to put forth any judgment, any opinion, in any presence, anywhere, in the most pronounced and positive manner, he never became troubled, or reserved, or disturbed, or angered by its not being accepted. If his measure failed, he quietly smiled, and let it pass, to bring it up again. It was sure to be brought up, and in a very unexpected moment, when it would awaken a smile upon the faces of those who were amused, but who were also delighted, with his pertinacity ; it would come out again and again until it finally triumphed, and all said his: advice and action were wise and judicious, though at first they may have thought them unwise and injudicious. I have seen Bishop Haven, I dare not say where, I dare not say when, I dare not say how, when any other man would have burned with indignation, as calm and placid as the May morning. Loving his friends with an intensity of love, I have heard it said that he had the power of hate. I never sawit. I never found the occasion when he indicated it even against those who seemed to have wronged him and most persistently to have entreated and obstructed him. I never saw the indication of the slighest ill-will or malice ; constantly BISHOP FOSTER’S FUNERAL ORATION. 125 forgetting, he would pass by offences that would certainly overthrow all power of self-government that grace or nature have ever given me. I am glad to speak of this noble and wonderful trait of his character. And now I recur (for I am reminded that my time is nearly passed — that others are entitled to speak upon this occasion) to the one great trait, the love, of his life — his interest in and love for the African race. Not because they were Africans ; not, in my judgment, because they were black; but because they were oppressed, because they were down-trodden, be- cause they were friendless. And he had the bravery to stand for their defence anywhere, and everywhere, and at. all times, carrying it to what sometimes to us seemed to be - almost a fanaticism, a frenzy, but which proved to be a ~ divine passion glowing in his soul; carrying it up to the gates of death, and making it survive him on this very platform. It was Bishop Haven that said: ‘‘ Father Mars must speak at my funeral. Some colored man must be a pall-bearer ;” going personally to show that the love was strong and triumphant in him to the very last moment of his life, and bequeathing it as a heritage to the Church. Bishop Haven was loved in New England, loved wherever Methodism is known, loved by the generous and brave of the entire land, loved by the wide circle all over the world, and honored—a noble character; yet never was one so especially hated and odious in the region where he lived; and I refer to it, not to call up an unpleasant recollection, nor to allude to what is grievous to us all, but to speak of the conspicuous personality of his character, his great, brave, unflinching courage in the midst of the greatest trial. There was not one of us, in our Board, who did not feel many times that Bishop Haven went into his Southern home 126 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. at the peril of his life; that any day it would have been no surprise to hear that he had fallen in that field. We knew that he went there with that feeling himself; and he stood like an iron wall, firm, unflinching, uncompromising, and pronounced, in Charleston, in Atlanta, in New Orleans, in the hottest and fiercest furnaces of Southern sentiment, with the same placidity and boldness, speaking the very words he would speak in the Preachers’ Meeting in Boston; joining hands with the oppressed race —I am glad to say here — not in a manner degrading or discreditable or dishonorable to himself, but creditable to his piety and charity and great sense of justice ; making himself the acquaintance and friend of the colored people. everywhere, wherever he went; so that I am safe in saying, among the few names of the gener- ation passed away that have cut themselves deepest in the African mind and heart, and that will live the longest, and among the few names at the front, will be the name of Bishop Haven along with that of Abraham Lincoln! They will always remember him as their defender and friend. I happened to be present at a moment when he said to a bosom friend, and one who stands nearest to him, ‘‘ I know” -— it was less than three hours before his spirit stood before the Throne — ‘‘ I know the Lord will not find fault with me for my work in the South.” He carried the conviction with him to the throne of God, that in the sincere devotion of his soul to that great branch of our church work, he would not only have the approval of the Church, but of God. But I may not enlarge further upon this important branch of his life, nor, indeed, upon anything further. He has gone from us! We shall not see him any more—now. To some of you he was more than a brother; to all of us he was a brother. Shall we crown him to-day? Shall we turn this BISHOP FOSTER’S FUNERAL ORATION. 127 moment of mourning and grief into a moment of triumph? Shall we rejoice in his great light? May I say in this pres- ence, there is not an act of his life'that I call to memory, and not a word even, that now, in the light of his victorious and triumphant departure, I would have erased from his record? Let it stand there in its fulness! Let those who will criticise, criticise. To us it is a joy forever that Gilbert Haven has lived in the world ; that he has been our friend and brother ; that he has filled the important and conspicuous place he has in the history of the Church, and in his great episcopal position. Glory be to God that his life was permitted to go out in brightness, not in darkness! I presume it was the first time in forty years (it was when he was dying), that he shouted. I sat by his bedside, when, after many beautiful sayings, he said, looking up, ‘‘ Glory! Glory! Glory!” having reserved to him for the last, for the completed and victorious triumph over his latest foe, a shout of victory. He has gone home! I will not stop to give you the lessons that come to us, brothers. Bishop Haven was a Methodist. He was no bigot. He was positive. He was a Methodist in every atom of his consciousness. He loved his Church. He loved its order. It was not in his mind an unchangeable order. It was not an idol. But he loved its order, and he loved its prosperity. He loved in his heart of hearts its doctrines. He could not conceive of the possibility, for him- self, of changing them in their expression. He accepted them in their simplicity. He was a Methodist. He was a great, generous-hearted Christian. As I held his hand in mine, when my heart broke, he said, ‘¢ Bishop, I love you a great deal;” and I knewit. ‘God bless you! God bless my colleagues! Give them all my 128 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. love. God bless the preachers! God bless everybody !” It was the utterance of the great, glorious, but now glorified — heart, that has passed into the heavens. [The funeral oration of Bishop Foster, here given, is from the stenographic report by the Rev. W. D. Bridge, of the New England Conference, furnished to the columns of the ‘‘ Christian Advocate,” New York.] SERMON BY REV. GEO. M. STEELE, D. D. 129 II. MEMORIAL SERMON BEFORE THE BOSTON PREACHERS’ MEETING. PREACHED AT GRACE METHODIST EPiscopaL CHuRCcH, Boston, JANUARY 11), 1880. BY REV. GEO. M. STEELE, D. D.” In the eulogy on Bishop Ames, delivered in Boston by Bishop Haven, less than eight months before his own death, he began with the following words : — ‘Can it be possible that he whom we have, as ministers, so often seen and heard ; whose clear thought we have so greedily devoured ; whose sharp wit has bit into so many a folly, to our intellectual delight, an acid that easily consumed the error,—is it possible that his voice and form shall be heard and seen no more among us? It is impossible says every voice of nature within us; impossible says every voice of reason; impossible say evolutionism and skepticism ; impos- sible say heart and mind and will. Yet against these clear and positive and unquestionable impossibilities stands Fact. Itisso! Skeptic and evolutionist ; reason and nature ; heart, head, and will, all deny in vain. Death enters and there’s no defence. He seizes the victim and a great ransom cannot * In this and other eulogics, those portions which are simply biographical are omitted; their repetition being unnecessary in this collected form, though essential to their completeness on the occasions of thcir delivery. For the most part such portions stand by themselves, and their absence leaves no gap. When they are inwrought into the text they have been reproduced, in some cases several times over, but always for evident use. -- Ep. 130 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. deliver him. It is the miracle of the universe. The one stupendous, unassailable wonder. The one inexplicable, unde- niable fact.” If this was true in the case of Bishop Ames, the impossi- bility, or the unrealizable character of the possibility is even greater in the ease of Bishop Haven. We need to say again and again that he is dead; and yet it seems like a fictitious utterance. The death of such a man, so many-sided and so many times repeating himself in the esteem and admiration and hearty affection of so many men, and in his own un- bounded utilities, seems like the death of a multitude rather than of an individual. To a superficial observer, who only saw him in society or among his intimate acquaintances, Gilbert Haven might have been regarded as a man—certainly of larger than ordinary mould and of more than ordinary character; an enterprising,. energetic man of affairs, which he managed at comparatively little expenditure; a jovial, witty, brilliant, companionable man, taking the world comfortably on the whole and making it serve him somewhat largely ; with no obvious vices certainly, no conspicuously advertised virtues, and no very: palpably displayed. saintliness ;—but an honorable, hearty, manly man of the world, and most likely of the kingdom of God. But this, as many of us know, is only a miserably meagre account of him; the real treasures of his character were only to be revealed to such as knew him better. Not that these were difficult to ascertain, for he was a frank and outspoken man wherever the occasion required these qualities, and the occa- sions to him were neither few nor infrequent. It is not easy to decide at what point to begin the descrip- tion of a character so varied and full and complicated. But if we start with his religious life, there will be at least this SERMON BY REV. GEO. M. STEELE, D. D. 131 logical fitness about it, that it was the fountain of all the great activities which characterized him. There was never any mere sentimentality about him, — no gushing enthusiasm, no cant,—it was not in his nature that there should be, nor could he have affected it and been himself. Nor was there ever, at any time, any putting on of a religious style. You might even have thought him undevout, or at times irreverent, — though in this you would have been mistaken ; or you might have judged him to have had too little religion. But to those who really knew him there was sufficiently evident a profound and unwavering religious pur- pose, and it was always operative and without compromise. It meant business for God; the doing of the divine will at whatever cost; a determination to act under the direction of the great Captain of oursalvation. His ethical ideas were all grounded in his religious faith. The careless looker-on very likely would have failed to observe the depth of his spirituality and the connection of his moral conduct with it. It might have been doubted whether this man, so utterly free in his handling of all sorts of topics and all sorts of words, might not be a law unto himself, and whether this law might not tend to unlimited license. But whoever went far with him would have early discovered the mistake in this respect, and most likely would have been brought up with a round turn of sharp rebuke for some common breach of ' Christian principle or any indulgence of evil inclination. Some of us have had experience of this kind of reproof; not given sanctimoniously, not always designed for ears polite; but after a thoroughly human fashion, in words idiomatic rather than clerical or classical. Those who knew him best, and to whom his whole heart was open and his whole life manifest, know better than others i ~ 132 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. the depth and potency of his religious convictions. The thoroughness of his sincerity went ‘without saying it. Ido not think he often took the trouble to profess it. Men do not spend much time in asserting their most characteristic virtues —it is the excellence we are ourselves somewhat dubious about that needs the most frequent reassurance of our own energetic testimony. . There was with him no accommodation of the truth to human tastes or human lusts. To any suggestions looking in such directions he gave place, no, not for an hour. He had entire faith in the fundamental doctrines of the Bible, not as they are glossed over and adjusted to modern philosophic systems or to the tastes and dispositions of modern Society, but in their obvious and manifest meaning. It had been to him, as he expressed it on that last great day of his earthly life, ‘* A whole Bible, a whole Christ, a whole hell, and a whole heaven — no half-way arrangement.” He had no sympathy, and very little patience, with those who, under the style of progressive thinkers, virtually give us an expurgated Bible. He did not believe in a mutilated revela- tion, nor yet in one in which divine truth is mixed up with human traditions and superstitions, with no means of distin- guishing them save our fallible human judgment. He accepted the whole as the utterance of the Divine Mind and as binding in every part upon all to whom it was uttered. Thus, also, did he accept Christ; not as in some qualified sense divine, but as embodying the very fulness of God — as the Infinite coming into conditions of suffering and sacrifice — the supreme, incarnate Deity. He believed in the actual and personal presence of the Holy Ghost in the world, and. its regenerating and sanctifying power was to him as real as any other fact in the universe. He believed in prayer in its SERMON BY REV. GEO. M. STEELE, D. D. 133 obvious and natural sense, and not in such refinements of philosophy concerning it as despoil it of all its actual power and efficacy. The supernatural was to him as real as the natural, and the divine personality as actual as any human personality. He gave no sanction to the intermeddling of scientists or sciolists with matters too high for them. Once, when unex- pectedly introduced to’a noted scientific writer, of pronounced skeptical views, which had been largely ventilated, he said: ‘* Professor , Lam happy to make your acquaintance. I don’t know any more about science than you do about religion.” Yet these old doctrines were accepted by him in no narrow or sectarian sense, or as elements of a creed to which, having assented, he felt bound to adhere to and defend for consisten- cy’s sake, and make the best possible of it. But they were con- victions wrought in his soul after much reading and thinking on all sides — for he was not a one-sided reader or thinker — and with a desire and a determination to get at the truth. They belonged to the solid conservatism of his character ; for this fiery radical was, as Bishop Foster has well said, at bot- tom one of the most conservative of men. It was this that gave him security when venturing out where other men have lost themselves ; and it was this which rendered his ideas and projects safe, which in the hands of others have been either doubtful or disastrous. He was anchored to the eternal verities. More than this, these great abiding truths were the inspiration of his energetic outgoings along all the lines of his human action. He demanded their application to the utter- most. To him the word of God signified ‘‘the removing of those things that are shaken as of things that are made, that 134 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. -those things that cannot be shaken may remain.” This con- viction of the wide application of the principles of the gospel to the wants of the world made him an inevitable reformer. To him it meant every possible good to the human race, tem- poral as well as spiritual, secular, civil, political, social ; and he scorned every form of it that did not admit of this ap- plication. I know of no Christian thinker of this century who has carried his Christianity out so thoroughly to its logical results. Jesus Christ was the Alpha and Omega in all his plans and movements for the amelioration of suffering humanity. Intemperance, race-prejudice, the disabilities of women, the growing looseness about marriage, the degrada- tion of laboring men, despotism and oppression of every _ sort, as well as all ignorance, superstition, and vice, were to be overcome, if at all, by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. He meddled, as men said, with politics — . and he certainly did have much to do with them in the press, in the pulpit, in interviews with public men; but it-was-in the name of the Lord. It was this that underlay his whole system of mental culture. He carried it into all his studies of philosophy and history, and literature, and the arts. Said he to an eminent artist who had done some work for him, and who had already attained honorable fame, ‘‘I see there is a certain something © your work yet lacks, a touch which you have not gained ; that will only come when you let in the Divine love to your soul.” His zeal in certain great moral enterprises brought him into strange companionship occasionally. He deemed it not in- consistent with his religious purposes to work in, any good cause, and for any good end, with men of any belief or dis- belief. He carly apprehended the danger of the withdrawal SERMON BY REV. GEO. M. STEELE, D. D. 135 of the Church from moral enterprises in which heretics or even sinners were taking prominent part. He discerned in it one of the great tricks of the devil— one, too, in which he has had large success —to frighten the disciples of Christ out of the most needful moral undertakings, because vicious and bad-principled men had gone into them. He believed that God carries out his plans by all sorts of instrumentalities, making ‘‘even the wrath of man to praise him.” But in all this active co-operation he never compromised his Christian character, nor concealed his religious convictions. Every bad man knew where to find him, and bad men never made the mistake of taking him for one of themselves. That his adhesion to the old, primitive doctrines of Chris- tianity was no mere partisan love of a creed or of established dogmas, because they are established, but a rational conviction, is evident from his readiness to accept any new development of Christian doctrine when fairly made. He fully recognized, — not a progressive revelation,— but the progressive influence in the world, of the revelation in the Bible. Notably was this seen in his views of the moral condition of children and their relation to the Church. On this, and a few other sub- jects, he felt that the Arminian theology had not till recently become fairly adjusted to itself. With these strenuous notions of the integrity of the Christian scheme, as set forth in the Bible, coincided the integrity of his Christian character. He gave himself wholly to the one purpose of Christ’s service. He did not undertake to live an artificial religious life, nor after an unnatural or unhuman fashion, but in a thoroughly natural - and manly way he served his generation and honored God. Of the mental character of Bishop Haven there is much to say. That hoe had extraordinary natural ability in many 186 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. directions ‘is obvious. This is independent of cultivated scholarship. He early evinced remarkable business apti- tude’ —a command of details and an easy comprehension of any number of them, both in their facts and in their relations, together with a quick and ready insight, as well as clear apprehension of the drift and bearing of events and discernment of character. While acting as a clerk in Boston he gave such promise of success as induced a flat- tering proposition for his services. Had he not decided upon a student’s career, he might, no doubt, have been numbered among the merchant princes of Boston. As a student in college, he had great penetration and still more breadth. The records of the college show him to have been one of the very best scholars, if not the best, in one of the most noted classes of his alma mater. He had singular intuitive energy; and the same qualities which have been allnded to as indicating great business aptitudes, character- ized him as a student. With remarkable power of analysis, his sharp discrimination was joined to great constructive ability. He quickly discerned all the parts and bearings of a subject, and rapidly became master of whatever attracted his attention. A varied and most extensive reader, with a remarkable memory, he could readily command vast literary resources. There came trooping to his call poetry, phi- losophy, history, romance-——whatever could illustrate or fortify the point or position under his eye. From his youth he had fastened upon the profound thoughts of the great thinkers, ancient and modern. Bacon’s essays he preferred to take clear, as he expressed it; that is, undiluted with anno- tation or commentary. Even in his undergraduate days he would walk miles, after the completion of his day’s work, to attend upon a course of lectures by Emerson ; so strongly SERMON BY REV. GEO. M. STEELE, D. D. 137 did that unique but marvellous thinker appeal to him. With such writers as Wordsworth he was enamored long before the men of his own age could find any attractions there. After his graduation he still gave himself diligently to earnest study and wide reading, both while teaching and after his entrance upon the ministry. For some years there was a little company, composed first of three and then of four, of which he was the vital and powerful mag- net, which met occasionally to read Hebrew David and Isaiah and Moses, and to compare them with Greek Homer and Demosthenes and Plato, and not merely to put the thoughts of all these, and of Paul and John, into English, but think their thoughts after our modern methods. These were not always occasions of grave and solemn deliberation, nor even of dignified decorum. The importance and extent of this association were sometimes facetiously and fantas- tically exaggerated by its members, and made to assume proportions with which the facts did not exactly coincide ; still it was one of those small things which are nevertheless great in their ultimate influence. Besides these, he was always among the first to get hold of whatever was stirring in the world. The magazines, the reviews, the newspapers (secular, religious, and irreligious), all sorts of new books which the publishers were perpetu- ally putting. into his hands, were run over with that wonder- ful glance of his which instantaneously detectcd whatever was worthy of attention in the whole sweep of current human thought. The latest outcome in theology, or any new movement in ecclesiastical relations, were discerned almost as soon as visible. Movements in the arts, in moral enterprises, and in literature seemed to reveal them- selves to him as if especially commissioned for this pur- as 188 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. pose. In politics, every phase -of the shifting panorama caught his attention; he knew of every movement and its signification. The questions agitated in this field inter- ested him so deeply, not as a partisan, though you might have thought him one of the most intense of partisans, but only in their bearing upon the moral destinies of the nation and their relation to the kingdom of God. His friends, too, all knew that his powerful and brilliant intellect and versatile intelligence comprised only a fraction. of his character. His sensibilities were as deep and tender as his intellect was lofty and strong. What a broad, true, and hearty sympathy he had, some of us know better than others — a sympathy all the more valuable that it was unob- trusive as well as‘ delicate. He had his own great sorrows, but they were not put on public exhibition, and only his most intimate friends had intimations of them. I have seen this strong man shaken when the hand of God was upon him as a tree shakes in a great storm. It is terrible to see such a man weeping as I have seen him — it is a great mourning, ‘‘ like the ‘mourning of Hadadrimmon in the val- ley of Megiddo.” It was in the early April days, and I well remember how almost desperately he caught at the thought and uttered it, ‘‘This is the week of our Lerd’s passion,” as if this Divine sympathy must be his, and the only thing. that could any way meet the. case. As a writer, all those marked intellectual qualities of which I have spoken were found in him in full play. He was rapid, ready, brilliant, profuse, full of ideas, full of his sub- ject. His early writings were criticised by his friends as obscure. This came, doubtless, partly from the abundance of thought and the exuberance of his fancy. But this char- acteristic early disappeared ; and now, for many years, when SERMON BY: REV. GEO. M. STEELE, D. D. 139 Gilbert Haven has written anything for the public, the pub- lic knew what it was about and what it meant. Carlyle, many years ago, gave this advice on the subject of poetry: ‘* Never write poetry unless you can’t help it.” It would almost seem as though Bishop Haven followed similar advice respecting the writing of prose. He was full of thought struggling for utterance, and it was sometimes more painful to restrain himself than to write. It was like fire shut up in his bones. He drove right at his sub- ject. The mere graces of rhetoric he could not stop to cultivate. He was bound to get his ideas into other peo-- ple’s minds, and this he usually did, whether in accordance with the conventional rules or not; and it was often the: case that these rules were almost recklessly ignored. He had no exactness of style or method. Yet there was always something powerfully attractive about his style, and not un- frequently a beauty which fascinated the most cultured. Comparatively little of the vast amount he published was written in the seclusion of the study or with the leisure which most scholars and littérateurs think essential to such work. Much of the most important of it was done in the oddest intervals and in fragments of time — when travelling on the cars or steamboats, waiting in depots, staying at the house of a friend, even in the conference room while com- mittees were reporting, and especially in the middle hours of the night after busy and exciting days. As editor of ‘‘Zion’s Herald,” he almost immediately became famous ; and with the higher classes of the editorial fraternity throughout the country, though by many of them by no means praised, he was respected, and his power acknowledged as that of no other editor in our denomination ever has been. So great did his reputation become that he 140 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. was offered the editorship of the New York ‘‘ Independent,” then at the zenith of its popularity and power. But though the eminence of the position was itself a temptation, and the opportunity to exert a wholesome influence was most prom- ising, and the salary two or three times as great as he was then receiving, he felt that it might interfere with the grand ‘purpose of his life, and he declined it. Previous to his accession’ to the editorial chair, the Meth- odist journal, like Methodism, had been regarded by the prominent Boston sentiment as very good and praiseworthy, and as, in fact, really admirable — for Methodists; and from rather a lofty height the entertainers of this sentiment had smiled down upon and patted and encouraged it to a degree ‘that seemed to reflect no small credit for charity upon its patronizers. The new editor marched right in among this company and made himself at home. He had known them from babyhood and was familiar with all their strength and all their weakness. He did not apologize for his Church, nor try to convince anybody that it was at least as good and respectable as any other, nor did he even take pains to announce this fact; but went straight out on the hypothesis that everybody knew it, or if they didn’t, that they ought to. He early attacked with unsparing hand something that he considered a public wrong, and in doing so must needs severely criticise a public officer whom for many things he greatly admired. A leading writer of the class of whom I have spoken undertook to set him right and to rebuke his presumption. The exceedingly free handling which he gave his mentor astounded that worthy beyond measure, and had a powerful ‘but wholesome influence upon the whole class. Henceforth there was no patting of the editor on the head and calling him ‘‘ a good man — but,” etc. SERMON BY REV. GEO. M. STEELE, D. D. 141 He laid about him in every direction. His theory was, that a religious journal, like a religious minister, has a voca- tion to meddle with everything which has any sort of relation to the kingdom of God or the welfare of humanity. With him the Church was not a mere mutual aid society, but a combination as well for active aggression on the kingdom of darkness. Wherever the devil showed himself or any of his agencies in this world, he believed that he ought to be attacked with all the available force of the church militant. Hence, intemperance, the liquor-traffic, slavery, and that which was the one great bulwark of slavery, race-prejudice, political subservience to corrupt but popular vices, the disabilities of woman, — all these claimed and had his attention. I have the impression that many of our friends in the country, as well as in the city, — possibly the average lay- man everywhere, — were bewildered and made uncomfortable by the unprecedented contents of their family paper. They could hardly get the run of the editor’s ideas, and were sometimes utterly at a loss as to what he might do next. Still, the power of the editor was felt in almost every corner of the land. Other writers assailed his positions and scouted his judgment and maligned his opinions; but they quoted his articles that they might assail them, and so in this way they were often read, at least in part. Some tried ridicule, but that was for the assailant a dangerous weapon with which to attack Gilbert Haven; for more often than otherwise the enemy’s guns were turned on himself, and instead of an exultant victor he found himself a pitiable victim. Even the secular press was compelled, against its will, to attend to this bold adventurer. Some used remonstrance and dissuasion, some were bitter in their opposition and vehement in their denunciation. But however otherwise affected, they came to 142 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. respect him; and it is pleasant as well as singular to-day, to read the handsome things which have been said by nearly all, except the more malignant foes, not more of himself than of the views which he represented. Some of his most pro- nounced antagonists speak with high appreciation of his manliness. , After he left the editorial office his literary work knew no abatement, if, indeed, it did not increase. In all his exten- sive travels he was noting and gathering up for publication all sorts of facts, mingled with all sorts of reflections, on all sorts of subjects. His ministerial career, of course, deserves our attention. He was not an eloquent man, in the ordinary sense -of that term, nor, in the earlier part of his pastoral work, could he be regarded as an attractive or popular speaker. Full of sound and wholesome thought, expressed in remarkably well-chosen words, and in a dignified and scholarly style, though with great simplicity, there was yet a something lacking which conveys to the heart of the hearer the thought and feeling of the speaker. Yet even then, when his soul was stirred with some great moral conviction, or aroused by some mani- fest public wrong, he correspondingly moved and interested his auditors. As time went on this ability greatly grew, and in the later years of his pastorate there was probably no man in the Conference whose occasional discourses attracted more hearers than his. This has been especially the case during his episcopal career, and few of his colleagues, or of our other public speakers, have, whether in the pulpit or on the plat- form, commanded greater attention than has Bishop Haven. He was a diligent and careful student of the Bible, and the fresh suggestions of wholesome doctrine which he was con- tinually finding there, whether in the original or in the ver- SERMON BY REV. GEO. M. STEELE, D. D. 143 nacular, were a frequent surprise to his friends. A thorough thinker, and heartily fond of his books and his study, he was diligent, faithful, and considerate in his pastoral work as well as in all other duties of his office. His influence in the Conference early began to be widely felt. While but yet young in the ministry, his seniors in the service and his equals in education came to him with their difficulties and sometimes with their grievances. We remem- ber how, in those years, he honored the venerable men of our Israel, not because they were old men or influential men — for some of them were not the latter especially — but for their work’s sake. It was not the worship of the past.. The weaknesses of his __ predecessors, where they existed, were as palpable to him as those of his contemporaries. He took both as very much a matter of course ; and could, without malice, as many of us know very well, amuse both himself and his friends with them. He has been called a bigot ; but never certainly by any one who knew much about him. He was by nature a partisan in the better sense of that word. With whatever party or society he allied himself, if it came into any legitimate rivalry, competition, or even in antagonism with any other, it found in him a zealous ‘and valiant champion. He enjoyed defend- ing his own, and heartily fought for it, without hatred to others or bitterness toward any. _. He believed in Methodism; not with any blind idolatry, but because of its common-sense, of its marvellous popular and providential adaptations, and as a system that had far more than vindicated its claim as one of the mightiest moral forces in operation in the world since the days of the Apostles. It was as natural that he should maintain and defend it, ag 144 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. that he should love his own family better than those of his neighbors, or that he should honor his mother more than the mother of another; and this, too, without hating any other family or having any contempt for another man’s mother. He was on kindly and intimate terms with very many of other denominations ; and pastors and conductors of church enter- prises, and leaders in their great undertakings, sought. his counsels and prized his advice. There has been no man among us of broader charity or more generous consideration for those who differed from him than he. In the financial interests of the churches his judgment was of the highest order. That natural business ability, of which I have before spoken, came to his aid and the aid of the church in this respect. He was far-seeing, comprehensive, sagacious. A liberal soul, he devised liberal things. Very likely, some- times, he was too liberal in his devices for those of weaker faith and narrower vision, and so failed, not from the fault of his own plans, but from want of the co-operation of others. This was characteristic of him throughout his ministerial and official life and in relation to all the enterprises of the church. He believed in great undertakings, in attempting large things and then trusting in God. for the means to carry them on. Here it behooves me to say, that, though | he brought rare business abilities to the aid of the church, he never turned aside from his work to.use them for his own advantage. He made no investments, entered into no speculations, and spent no time in securing a competence for himself. His income, aside from his regular salary, was large, and out of it he might have secured a fair fortune. He was not prodigal nor loose about his pecuniary matters, but kept them as became a minister of the gospel, easily under control. He was a gener- ous liver, but a more generous giver, and it is almost incredi- SERMON BY REV. GEO. M. STEELE, D. D. 145 ble how lavish were his charities towards all sorts of benevo- lent enterprises — amounting of late to thousands of dollars | annually. It is nearly certain, that aside from his life-insur- ance policies he left not a dollar that he had laid by out of his own revenues. Z The election of this man to the Bishopric was one of the most remarkable events in our denominational history. It indicated the long moral distance the church had travelled between 1836 and 1872. In the former year, the General _ Conference sitting in Cincinnati had condemned the agitation of the slavery question by Northern preachers, and had ‘cen- sured two of its members who had the courage of their convictions, and participated in an anti-slavery meeting. In all that General Conference there were only eleven members who voted against this resolution. In 1872 the General Con- ference in session at Brooklyn, N. Y., elected to its highest office a man not only whose abolitionism had been of the extremest type, but whose pronounced and irrepressible opinions on the same lines were of a character which would have made the most advanced radicals of that earlier day catch their breath. It is true that almost the whole church had now embraced what was then deemed fanaticism, but which was now regarded only as respectabl> conservatism ; a long way in advance of which the new candidate had gone. Even now the thought of such a Bishop was to some a joke too gigantic to be all taken in at once; to others it was a possibility frighfal to contemplate. Still there were hundreds who would have rejoiced beyond measure to see him in this high office, but who felt in their hearts that the intense though unjust prejudices against him would render any effort to elect him hopeless. They knew, too, that no utterance of his would be made, nor any suppression of conviction would be 146 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. allowed, to allay this prejudice. He could not be a trimmer ; and it was not even in his nature to hold himself in reserve long enough to permit the subsidence of any feeling against him. But after what had seemed like hopeless wishing for an impossible thing had existed for some time among his friends in all parts of the country they at last ventured to compare notes. There was mutual surprise at the large prevalence of this desire. When the project began to be openly agitated, of course there was fierce opposition. To many it appeared like the very acme of absurdity; to others it was like flying ‘in the very face of Providence, which they were sure would never allow so impious a thing to bedone. Atthe Conference it was found that not. only those who sympathized with his opinions, but many others who were attracted to him person- ally, and believed in his sincerity and integrity, his generous and genial spirit, his vigorous enterprise and his comprehen- sive ecclesiastical views, were drawn to heartily support him. Meanwhile his editorials were ringing out with the same clear and certain sound. He abated no jot or tittle of his purpose to apply the gospel to the wants of the down-trodden and despised, to honor all men, and to demand their equality before both civil and ecclesiastical law, whoever might be ‘disgusted or offended. In the Conference itself he stood, as ever before, in the imminent deadly breach, provoking all sorts of anathemas from those who could never see God’s opportunity in preference to human expediency. While many of his friends were exerting their influence after the ordinary human methods, and putting a considerable amount of work with their faith, to effect his election, the colored people had prayer-meetings, in which the burden of their petitions was, ‘‘O Lord, grant that Gilbert Haven may be elected Bishop.” There was earnest opposition by those who were SERMON BY REV. GEO. M. STEELE, D. D. 147 sincere and conscientious in their action. Others, more bitter and less sincere, circulated handbills containing disconnected quotations from his writings, representing the most unpopular of his views. To all these he was silent. He concealed nothing, conceded nothing, pledged nothing, but the old, undying hostility to that race-prejudice which he felt was still the bane and the curse of the church. His record as Bishop is fresh in all our minds; for it has been neither slight nor obscure. It is no doubt too recent for us to estimate the fulness of its influence; for he stopped in the midst of his great work, and the mighty tide of that influence will not for some time reach its flood. Some have suggested that his election took him out of the editorship, where he would have exerted a more powerful influence. But this is an obvious mistake. It is doubtful if, as an editor, he could have written more than he has as a Bishop, while his opportunities have been vastly more effective. Itis not improbable that he has written more, on the average, since his election than any two editors in the church. There are two kinds of work which a Bishop has to do. One is, in conjunction with his colleagues constituting the episcopal college, to devise methods and agencies for carry- ing forward the work of the church. While this function is not obvious to the public eye, it is possibly the most im- portant part of the official duty. The hiding of the church’s power is sometimes there, and the secret of its prosperity is frequently to be traced to this fountain. The testimony of © Bishop Haven’s colleagues gives us conclusive assurance of his power here. The breadth and clearness of his views, his ready conception of the points involved, and the quickness ‘with which he could adapt means to ends, made his counsel valuable, and his influence commanding. As I have said, he 148 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP MAVEN. was wont to devise liberal things, and he no doubt proposed enterprises which at first seemed startling if not impossible, and from which even his colleagues shrank, and to which, perhaps, they did not accede till long after, but which time and the event justified. The other function of the Bishops is to travel at large - through the connection and supervise the work. This may be confined to presiding in the annual Conferences, and attend- -ing to the business implied in that, or more or less naturally connected with it. But, as matter of fact, very much more than this is generally done by our superintendents. Their influence is expected to be felt at various and numerous points, even where no strictly official functions can be exer- cised. There are churches to be dedicated, debts to be can- celled, lectures delivered, local gatherings to be made attractive by their presence, camp meetings, missionary meetings, dis- trict associations, and manifold other ways in which the enter- prises of the church are to be forwarded. It will be doing no one any injustice to say that none of Bishop Haven’s colleagues, nor any of his predecessors, within the last half century, have been so indefatigable in this respect as he. Almost every important locality in the land has felt the pressure of his foot, and his voice has gone out through them all. He has been in every part of the South, from Virginia to the very frontiers of Texas, not only preaching and lectur- ing and giving counsel, but making himself minutely ac- : quainted with the exigencies and character of the work, and its condition throughout the whole region. He particularly interested himself in the needs of the Freedmen, considering this as a burden especially laid upon him. More than is yct known did he exert an influence by means of the educational plans which he devised or co-operated in devising, the full SERMON BY REV. GEO. M. STEELE, D. D. 149 results of which will not be seen for vears to come. Much of the great labor he performed was in this behalf, and it was in the very midst of carrying out one of his compre- hensive schemes of this sort that he was called away from earth. Indeed, I think the very last public address he de- livered, was in aid of this cause. But not in the South alone ; in the East, in the interior, in the North-West, on the Pacific coast, among the Rocky Mountains, and in the Sierra Nevadas, was his intense activity continually displaying itself. It was not only that he was perpetually conveying the church’s message to uncounted localities, whether in the populous city or in the wilderness ; but he was as perpetually reporting all: these to the church and to the world at large, by his letters to the journals, like leaves from a forest, or, as he sometimes termed them, ‘‘ feathers from a flying wing.” By means of his pen, every point in all our spiritual domain was put in communication, if not communion, with every other; while the service rendered was not only great to the religious world, but to the secular as well. In his relation to philanthropic reforms, it has already been stated that his action was inspired by his religious convictions. There has scarcely been a reformer for a hundred years who has been so eminently Christian in his methods. One great principle actuated him ; namely, the sacredness of man, created in the Divine image, and made of one blood, however diverse in nationality or condition. It is true this religious principle _ coincided with a natural love for justice and hatred of the opposite. It was in him when, a school-boy, he defended the friendless colored girl whom he thought to be treated in- humanely by the teacher. In his young manhood, while Principal at Amenia, there was some controversy among the trustees or patrons of the school, respecting the presence of a 150 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. colored student. He said, ‘‘ If you dismiss him you dismiss me.” From his entrance into the ministry, the wrongs of the colored race were the cause of burning indignation with him. -He was an Abolitionist religiously, not merely so far as the exigencies of politics or social expediency might admit. His National Sermons, written, some of them, before the physical conflict began, and nearly all of them before it closed, abound in the clearest views of the nature and bearing of the contest. They abound, too, in utterances, which, at the time, no doubt, to some seemed mere extravagant fancies, but to which the events have given the verisimilitude of pro- phecy. In the sermon on the Assault on Charles Sumner in 1856, he said: “Tf we postpone our political reformation to the presidental contest of 1860, there will be civil war.” In 1859, on the day of John Brown's execution, he said: ‘+ Ere long slavery will lose its Waterloo. Within this first century of our national life it will disappear.” Says Dr. Daniel Steele (Methodist Quarterly Review, April 1870, p. 191), review- ing these sermons: ‘‘ So marvellously have these prophecies been fulfilled that we should be tempted to the skeptic’s resort ’ of asserting that the prediction was made after the events, did we not know that . . . . these predictions were printed at the time of their utterance.” The period of the bitterest persecution against those hold- ing such sentiments as his, had passed before his advent. Still he incurred much hostility and greatly perilled his popu- larity. High officials in the church thought him a rash, and _perhaps mischievous young man, and as his power grew, their disapprobation grew into fear and their fear became alarm. It was only that marvellous power of his to draw even his antag- onists to him that gave him his great influence and leadership. Many of those in his charges who were naturaily most decided SERMON BY REV. GEO. M. STEELE, D. D. 151 against his views were among his warmest supporters and cherished friends. The overthrow of slavery as a political institution was in no sense the goal of his efforts. He still steadily demanded that there should be perfect equality before the law, civil and ecclesiastical, of all men, black and white. He insisted that Christianity meant not an iota less than this, and that whatever religion fell short of it lacked so much of being genuine Christianity. He felt, too, that only the spirit of Christ could cleanse our modern American society of this damning sin of caste. He abhorred the ‘‘color line” in our Confer- ences from the beginning to the very last. In a Fast-day sermon preached seventeen years ago, before the New Eng- land Conference in Charlestown, he said: ‘‘ We should abol- ish every colored church. All should melt into each other. Allye are brethren.” ‘‘ We must expunge the word ‘ colored’ from our minutes. It ought never to have found a place there. How abominable that epithet must appear in the eyes of the Saviour. . . . He does not write it in the Lamb’s Book of Life—the heavenly minutes of his church.” Every recognition of this in the regulations of the church he regarded as an ungodly as well as an inhuman prejudice. For this reason, too, he took no stock in the sentiment about ‘‘ fraternity” with the church South. He believed that there were good and sincere men in that communion, and he honored and even loved them as such. But he believed that church, as such, to maintain a moral position which is utterly at war with one of the most essential principles of Christianity. It was not merely that it had been one of the chief moral bulwarks of slavery, with all that it implied ; but that it still pertinaciously held to the same principles, and was obviously actuated by the same spirit, and that it virtually 152 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. demanded of Northern Methodists a suppression of any prin- ciple or sentiment in antagonism with this. This is evident from the fact that, all through the recent infamous persecu- tions of the colored race, and of all in the South who have, befriended: them ; the disfranchisement of hundreds of thou- sands of them; the murder of scores of our own preachers, largely because they were our preachers; the burnings and hangings, and other atrocities practised upon unoffending persons, because they held to principles which our church now holds as among its essential ethical and religious ideas, — there was scarcely one organ of public opinion in that com- maunion which gave more than a mild rebuke, while in the great majority of instances they either tacitly or expressly sanctioned the crime. The profession of fraternity in such a case he felt could be little more than arrant hypocrisy. We all know very well that Bishop Haven never shrank from any logical result or application of his principles. He treated his colored brethren, always and everywhere, as brethren ; in the South as well as in the North. He invited them to his house; he went to their houses whenever occasion required ; he ate at their tables and refused to recognize any ‘degrading distinction. It was this more than anything else that drew upon him the wrath and obloquy of Southern men. Those who had these people about them all the time; who were associated with them not only in all possible legitimate .- and decent relations, but in some relations that were neither legitimate nor decent ; who really had no sort of objection to the closest intimacy with them, only provided the stamp of servility was recognized, were horrified that a Christian Bishop should dare to outrage the proprieties of Southern society by eating bread in the house of one of his brethren in the ministry who had some of the servile blood in his SERMON BY REV. GEO. M. STEELE, D. D. 153 veins. He refused to pay any deference to a usage of such intrinsic hypocrisy. This was no eccentricity or sensation- alism on his part, nor was it any affectation of a vulgar democ- racy, or any low inclination. He was by nature a man of nice and delicate, and even fastidious tastes, tending rather to exclusiveness except as he suppressed his constitutional prejudices. Nor was there in his action any condescension or patronage. The malignity and vituperation which were manifested toward him in the South, he took as a matter of course. None of these things moved him. It was a wonder that he was permitted to live and travel at large ashe did. But God preserved him by making men afraid, and stopping the mouths of the lions. But if he was hated, he was also loved all through the South; and his name will -be held in affectionate remembrance and reverence as no other will be, in the years to come, by the multitudes whose cause he espoused, and for whose sake he suffered obloquy, reproach, and- much malediction. It will be remembered, too, that in the service of the same race were sown the seeds of that disease which brought his earthly career all too early to a close. For it was in the visit to the coast of Africa to inves- tigate and plan for the furtherance of the work of Christian- izing that great continent, that he incurred the malady which hastened his death. In social life, his large intelligence, and that, too, in mat- ters of universal interest; his ready command of language ; his sense of the fitness of things; his perception of the peculiarities of those in whose company he was, made him one of the most talented and agreeable of conversers. He stimulated every one, and called out the best there was in all who came in contact with him. The wit that is wisdom and 154 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. which conveys truth sometimes when no other process would answer; the wit that, without much positive wisdom, often pricks the bubble of conceit, scatters a whole brood of errors, and annihilates a humbug as a hand might brush away a spider’s web; the pleasantry that enlivens intercourse; the dash of thought ; the startling simile; the flashing repartee ; the humorous anecdote; the ingenious argument; the ready objection; the well-aimed extravaganza, and the hundred other resources of a charming, instructive, and inspiring talker, were his ;—-and when, as was sometimes the case, the hard hitter was himself hit, none enjoyed his own discom- fiture more than he. How easily, too, he adapted himself. to all sorts of company, and to all kinds of men; treating each always as aman, no matter what grade in society he held, yet seldom deceived in the character and motives of those with whom hehadto do. He could deal frankly, and severely enough, if necessary, with pretentious and conceited cox- combs and human frauds everywhere, and bad and vile men, if they ever approached him, as they were not very likely to do. But to all others the tide of his good-will and kindness was as strong as it was unostentatious. His benevolence was just what the word itself most naturally means, and nearly all men felt it who came within the sphere of his influence. Not these qualities alone made his society desired. The genuine sympathy of which I have spoken, the advice and counsel in emergencies, the sound judgment which almost from the beginning characterized him, caused him to be sought by many in their need. What he was as a friend I cannot undertake totell. Lan- guage is not competent to show the wealth of that companion- ship. We were not afraid of him, for there is even a human love that casts out fear. "What freedom there was in our inter- SERMON BY REY. GEO. M. STEELE, D. D. 155 course with him! How sharp sometimes his rebukes; how he hurled the javelins of his wit in among our follies and conceits, while at the same time he held himself open to all such treatment as he gave to others; and yet how faithfully he held us all in his great heart! He was about as much at home in some of our houses as we were ourselves, and we were the more at home for having him there. It was about the sincerest, freshest, most disinterested friendship I ever ‘knew. It is true that this closer and warmer intimacy was limited to a circle, large indeed in itself, and yet small com- pared with the great range of still earnest friendships which characterized his intercourse with acquaintances in every part of the land, and, we might say, in every quarter of the globe. No man in our church, I venture to say, and perhaps no man in our country, has died within the last quarter of a century, on account of whose death there has been, in so many instances, a sense of personal loss. The mourning is wide-spread and very great. There are many other characteristics of our honored friend which, had we time, it would be pleasant to contemplate. Of one more brief mention must be made. It is the gener- osity and magnanimity which he unfailingly manifested towards not only those who differed from him, but many of those who were bitterly hostile to him. I think it doubtful if any one ever saw him animated by a vindictive spirit toward those who had treated him most unfairly, or even meanly. On the contrary, many a time have we known him to say and do the kindest and most helpful things to those from whom he had received most evil usage. The life that after all these words has been only partially set forth; was surely one of the grandest that any of us have known. It was a great, round, full life. We mourn because 156 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. it closed so early. But if ‘‘men live in deeds, not years,” then was his life one of the longest. Looking up through our tears, and from broken hearts, we thank God for it. We thank God, too, that it had so grand a going out. It was better than those who loved him most had dared to hope. That day of his departure was like the departure of Socrates, only grander than that, inasmuch as the triumph of Christian faith is grander than the supports of the purest and highest pagan philosophy. He might not like to have us compare him to Paul. Yet he might also say, in his measure, as the Apostle had said before him: ‘‘I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith.” ‘As some great ship that through the weary days A patient exile on the stocks has lain Beneath the shaping hammer and the plane, Complete at last glides smoothly down her ways, "Mid joyous crowds that checr her while they gaze, Knows through her heart of oak the ripples thrill, And feels the breeze her snowy canvas fill — The seaward breeze that scorns the placid bays,— So thou, grand soul, whom now we bid farewell, Upon that infinite which is thy home Art launched before us. Joyfully we tell Thy slow receding signals o’er the foam, Till lost— the while our harbor-lights burn wan — In the bright track of the eternal dawn!” * *Mrs. M. A. P. Stansbury, Appleton, Wis. TRIBUTE BY REV. DR. C. H. FOWLER. 157 Ii. BISHOP HAVEN. - Rev. C. H. Fow er, D. D., LL. D., In “THE CHRisTIAN ADVOCATE.” Bisnop Haven is dead. A great brain has ceased to work. A great heart has ceased to beat. A great and good man has gone to his rest and to his reward. Though we as a church have been hanging over the sick-bed of this chief pastor, watching for the end, yet the blow comes with a shock of suddenness, and we feel our bereavement, and in our sorrow look about for comfort. On every side we feel our loss. There is not a field of helpful activity that does not miss this manifold worker. The council, the press, the school, the cabinet, all are called upon to pay many talents of sacred treasure to the king of terrors. Few men in the land would be missed more than Gilbert Haven. While the church has suffered a great loss, every needy cause, as well asevery oppressed people, has lost a friend and advocate. How mysterious are the ways of Providence. Only a few weeks ago, after the meeting of the Mission Committee, on his last visit to this city, the Bishop came in the evening to our house, then-called upon Dr. Dashiell, who was spending his first night in the hospital. He spoke rare words of com- fort, and left him, praying for light to rest on the sick man. Little did we think then that the Bishop would be the first to enter heaven. 158 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. Bishop Haven died in his mother’s house, in the very scenes of childhood, in Malden, Mass., Saturday, January 3, at six o'clock p. M. It is not too little a thing to awaken our grat- itude that this itinerant, after a life of world-wide travelling, after the conflicts of a stormy life, was permitted to return to the home of his childhood, and to the house of his aged mother, and there, holding the hands of his mother and of his children, to pass down to the limit of mortal companion- ship. The proud and sorrowing mother, with streaming eyes, said to Bishop Harris, ‘‘I am afraid I shall lose my boy.” It is difficult to tell exactly what overcame him, on account of the number of diseases that were besieging his constitu- tion. There had been a deep scrofulous current in his blood, which caused the death of his sisters. The African fever, contracted during his official visit to Liberia in 1877, had been burning in his veins ever since his return. These evils were reinforced during the last few months with cancer of the bone, which made its appearance on the right thigh. He also had to contend against dropsy, which greatly hindered his breathing; and against Bright’s disease; and against a serious heart disease — fatty degeneration of the heart. Either of these maladies would have terminated his life in the near future. All combined, and inflamed by typhoid fever, made the work of dissolution certain and speedy. His unbending will and exhaustless courage enabled him: to keep his troop of mortal enemies at bay so long, that we almost hoped that his genius, which never failed him in any emergency, and Providence, which never forsook him in any peril, would set these enemies to preying ou each other, while he made his way up again to activity. As a wise general, having to take a strategetical stronghold, marshals his. forces to strike at every exposed point, so Death, having 2 great soul to capture, TRIBUTE BY REV. DR. C. H. FOWLER. 159 marshalled his forces from every arm of the service, to make: certain his victory. Bishop Haven went through this mortal conflict with a calmness and serenity that could come only from the planes of heaven. In full assurance of faith, with the eternal cap- ital in view, he went down, like the ‘‘ Cumberland,” with colors flying, sending up out of the gurgling waters the shout of victory. A friend writes us that the Bishop, resting in the arms of Dr. Mallalieu, said, ‘‘I am borne up; I am floating; I am surrounded with angels!” ‘Glory to God for such a salvation!” ° ‘‘ There is no river here ; it is all beautiful.” This brave and wonderful soul, that was always so earnest, and yet so full of life, and so jolly and companionable, goes up with a shout, with a triumph that skips over the dark river without even seeing it, and calls back to his friends, ‘‘ There is no river here; all is beautiful.” He was born in Malden, Mass., Sept. 9, 1821, and grew up in the nervous, restless atmosphere of Boston. He was converted while attending Wilbraham Academy in 1839. He is a trophy of the wisdom of our fathers in creating schools that should be nurseries of sound doctrine and deep personal experience. These church seminaries and academies have furnished a great army of ministers for the defence of the faith. Children grown in environments favorable to Meth- odism, where our church, and doctrines, and usages, and terminology, and experiences are defended and revered, are quite certain to be true to the faith, and useful in the church. He went from Wilbraham Academy to Wesleyan Univer- sity at Middletown, Conn., where he graduated in 1846. He was distinguished in college days, as since, for his big 160 r MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. heart and active brain; a good scholar, a jolly companion, always ready for a good time that would neither impinge upon the moral law nor upon the comfort of others. After graduating in 1846 he went to Amenia Seminary as a teacher of ancient languages for two years, when he served the same institution as Principal for three years. This drill in the classics was of great service in polishing his pen. He was here so grounded in substantial scholarship, that he found himself ever afterward 2 master in the field of letters. In 1851 he joined the New England Conference, and preached for ‘two years each in the following stations: Northampton, Wilbraham, Westfield, Roxbury, and Cam- bridge. In 1861 he took a supernumerary relation, intend- ing to visit the Old World. But the firing on Sumter gave him another call. He was commissioned as chaplain of the Kighth Massa- chusetts Regiment. His commission was dated April 18, 1861, and was the first commission granted to a chaplain after the war began. He cherished this honor more grate- fully than any-other honor he received. The colonel of the regiment, having skeptical notions, scouted the idea of having any chaplain. Gilbert Haven, feeling called to do what he could for the race whose cause he had always espoused, was not the man to be headed off by an average colonel.. He went up to General Butler’s headquarters, pushed through the throng of excited men who were making haste to get into the field, and presented his case to General Butler. General Butler stopped in the midst of his work and said: ‘‘ The ‘ Mayflower’ was a prayer-room. Plymouth Rock was first pressed with the knees of prayer. Our pat- riotic sires prayed their way through the fires of the Revolu- tion; and in the name of the God of battles we will set up TRIBUTE BY REV. DR. C. H. FOWLER. 161 our standards.” Then picking up a piece of wrapping paper from the floor of his temporary office, he wrote with a full, bold dash an order for Gilbert Haven’s commission as chap- lain of the Eighth Massachusetts Regiment. There are two strangely united names, Haven and Butler, on that scrap of brown wrapping paper. Possibly those two names, meeting on the common platform of patriotism, have been cursed and hated by the rebels more deeply and savagely than ary other names known to American history. While these two men had little in common, save great ability and love of country, yet they comprehended the problem to be solved, and understood the people to be encountered, as few others have ever been able to do. Broken health compelled Gilbert Haven, after a short pastorate at the Clinton Street Methodist Episcopal Church in Newark, N. J., to seek for rest in wandering over Western Europe, Egypt, Palestine, and Greece. This journey re- paired the damages which overwork had wrought upon his constitution, and which for a time threatened the most serious results. It also furnished the material for that pithy, sprightly volume, ‘‘ The Pilgrim’s Wallet.” Returning from ‘the Old World, he was appointed pastor of what is now the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston. In 1867 he was elected editor of ‘‘ Zion’s Herald,” and entered upon a life of work and growing fame that cannot yet be measured. In this field he was distinguished. So marked was his success, he was offered the editorship of what was one of the most prominent non-Methodist papers in the land, with a salary nearly three times as large as he was receiving. But he declined the offer, saying, ‘‘ Except these abide in the ship.” He believed inideas. He created ideas. He sent them forth to live or die on their own merit. His 162 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. business seemed to be to send forth these burning messages to the people. Soon the dome of the temple at the head of his ‘‘ Herald” was seen by all eyes. Politicians raved, enemies threatened, friends trembled; but Gilbert chatted and joked and laughed and wrote, and let things work out results. All the conditions were favorable for the usefulness and ‘exhibition of his peculiar and brilliant genius. The public caldron was ready for anything except stagnation. Its great- est need was to be kept boiling, and from the New England materials, which are always combustible when struck against: any public sin, he could easily throw on the fuel. He demonstrated that he was a supreme and superb agitator. Often have we seen him, with his pockets full of clippings from every sort of paper, abusing him for some of his speeches. He would take them out, saying: ‘‘ Feathers! feathers! It must have been a good shot!” With a con- stituency that never dodged their own logic, he found himself’. transformed into 2 regular swamp angel, with nothing to do but to throw the heaviest shot with the accuracy of leisure. Sometimes the conservative men in the church were certain that he had completely overturned the ship of society; but he never hesitated. He believed that God could sail a ship masts downward just as well as any other way, if his causé could be served thereby. Gilbert Haven will long be remembered as an editor who easily held the first rank. He had the courage of his opinions. Having the most advanced ideas on all social questions, he stood by them. He was an original Abolitionist, always defending the highest claims for the negro, equal rights everywhere. He insisted on the immediate and unconditional emancipation of all slaves, because slavery was the sum of all TRIBUTE BY REV. DR. C. H. FOWLER. 163 villainies, and was hated and forbidden by God. He could conceive of no compromise that would make God encourage sin. He demanded equal social rights for the colored man. He was unsparing in his denunciation of caste. He believed in the right of the whites and blacks to intermarry, if any were so disposed. While he stood almost alone on this subject, so far in advance of his brethren that old-line Aboli- tionists used his utterances on this subject against him when his friends were presenting his name as a candidate for the episcopacy, he still proclaimed his convictions, determined to go up or down with them. He believed in woman’s right to the suffrage. Though this cause often brought him into undesirable associations, he never flinched, saying, ‘‘ No good cause has ever been able to select its advocates.” He was a strong advocate of prohib- itory temperance laws. On all the great reform movements he fought on the picket-line ; but in church polity and doc- trine he was a Methodist of the good old style. He never apologized for being a Methodist. He put on his spurs and rode rough-shod over the conceited, skeptical, culture-spoiled autocrats of Boston. They soon became aware of his exist- ence. This knowledge ripened into hate, then into fear, then into respect, then into admiration. He preached a super- natural religion that was an offence to the rationalism of Boston. He avowed faith in a literal fire in hell, preferring in an unknown field the word of Jesus to the sentiment of Parker. This jarred on the delicate sensibilities of Boston sinners who had secured no insurance against those fires. He preached a gospel that can save sinners, and a Methodism: that has saved ten times more souls than any other ism in the world for the same period of its existence. Of course he was hated and slandered and abused, but. 164 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. these ‘only encouraged him in his convictions. ‘‘ Cursed are ye when all men speak well of you,” was not written of Gil- bert Haven. Indeed, it is never written of any good man in this crooked world. When we see a man stoned and clubbed on all sides, and see him still going steadily on in his work, we may know that the adversary has some reason for wanting that man put out of the way. In 1872 Gilbert Haven was elevated to the episcopacy, and selected Atlanta as his residence, and the South as his special field of labor. He knew that he had only one thing to do, and that was, push the interests of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the South. He kept his face toward the future. He never deserted his old friends — the negroes —in any vain attempt to curry favor with their old masters. . He had a full comprehension of his situation. While the - ku-klux-klans were shooting, hanging, and assassinating white and.colored Republicans all about him, he kept steadily about his work, never abating one jot or tittle his utterances concerning the crimes that were being constantly committed all about him. “After three years’ experience in the South he said, ‘*I am often surprised, when I hear a rifle or pistol shot, that Iheard it.” He travelled extensively throughout the South. He was familiar with the great destitution, ignorance, and prejudices of the mass of the people; and he never lost an opportunity to speak for their education and elevation. In his hurried trips through the North we have been permitted to talk with him more than one night till the coming of the morning; and he seemed too full of this great work of elevating a race to rest. Often he has seemed like the Master in his earthly work, gentle as a girl, and almost broken-hearted over the sufferings and deprivations of the poor people at the bottom in the South; and, like the A we o TRIBUTE BY REV. DR. C. H, FOWLER. | @ 165 “* Master in his treatment of the Pharisees, unable to find lame. guage with which to express his righteous indignation and ~ wrath at the cruel and bloody villains that planned and insti- gated the crimes, and were able in any month to stop, them. Tn his office as Bishop he visited Africa. This trip he did not covet. He had a presentiment or fear that it would prove fatal. But when, in the counsels of his colleagues, it became his duty, he went to his appointment as faithfully as the humblest preacher. He said: ‘ God has laid the African upon my heart; now if he wishes to complete the sacrifice by laying my body down on African soil, his will be done.” Again: ‘* Whatever of opportunity for work I have, I owe it to my great conviction for this people; it may be well for me to return it to them with usury.” Bishop Haven wanted to live for the work he could do; but if he must go, and could have been permitted to select the cause for which and the means by which his death should be accomplished, we have no doubt he would have chosen the way that was appointed. In 1851 Gilbert Haven was married to Miss Mary Ingra- ham, with whom he lived in the most exalted affection nearly ten years, till her death in 1860. He was a lover all these years, and after her death he never abated or diverted his affection. He regarded himself as a married man, and dur- ing the twenty years of his solitude, after her departure, he never allowed his affections to stray from her. She left him two children—a son anda daughter. These he has reared with the utmost care. The son is a graduate of Wesleyan Uni- _ versity, and is now a student in Drew Theological Seminary. The daughter is a student in Boston University.* Each year, as the anniversary of the death of his wife came round, he * Graduated in the class of 1880. 166 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. \ wrote a letter to each of his children, telling them about their mother. With the mind of a truly great man, with a genius that was easily seen from any spot on this continent, loved and hated as no small man can ever be, he was yet so gentle and tender in his great heart-longings. He would once in a great while, in the midst of his talks about his work, in the short hours that usher in the morning, open his weary, wait- ing heart and talk about that wonderful woman that had gone into the excellent glory to watch for his coming. Once he said, ‘‘ When this great battle is ended, and the Master lets me into the city, I intend to lie down with my head in my wife’s lap and rest for a thousand years.” It is enough to make one’s heart ache to see the weariness of these great souls that carry the sorrows of this world’s helpless children. Bishop Haven was an important factor in the history that was made in this land during the years of his activity. He had opinions concerning every public man and measure, and his opinions were not without force. Once in a private gathering of his fellow-preachers he said, ‘‘ Brethren, pray for the nomination of General Grant.” The words fell upon the public ear like blows froma trip-hammer. The politicians began to vociferate and the pious people began to apologize ; but the words were out. Time only can tell whether they were the words of a prophet or of a philosopher, or of both. He was a great writer. He had that peculiar witchery in his writing that characterizes the words of the true orator. One cannot cease reading till he ceases writing. Our columns have too often glowed with his productions for us to pause here to eulagize his pen. His books are : —‘‘ Pilgrim’s Wallet ; or, Sketches of Travel in England, France, and Germany”: - Occasional Sermons”: ‘‘ Life of Father Taylor, the Sailor’s Preacher”: ‘*Qur Next-Door Neighbor; or, a Winter in TRIBUTE BY REV. DR. C. H. FOWLER. 167 Mexico.” Add to these works many articles on every variety of theme, published in every sort of publication, and you have .a glimpse at his labor. He wrote because he was full, and must find utterance. He would throw off an article in a few hours that was rich in the treasures of knowledge, brilliant in its execution, gleam- - ing like a scimitar, genial and jolly in its wit and humor, and crowded with wise and profound convictions. A struggling paper in the South, with only a few subscribers, would receive as noble a product of his genius as he would send to the proudest or greatest periodicals of the day. He wrote, as St. Paul preached, because he must. He was a marvellous student. He seemed to require but little sleep, and to be oblivious to weariness. He would talk with his friends where he stopped till it would be cruel to keep them up longer, however much they might be charmed by his brilliant conversation; then he would go to his-room, and read or write by the hour. He was familiar with everything in respectable literature. His memory recalled whatever he read with great. accuracy. Some of his articles seemed to have been wrought out in the library of a student of leisure. Yet that was all in the seeming; for they were written on scraps of envelopes and bits of brown paper and margins of newspapers — written on his knee in a railroad car with a stub of a pencil. When once they had passed the type and came to the public, they had the finish of some ancient classic. Some of our readers will recall an article from his pen con- cerning his voyage to Africa, in which he traced a parallel between his doubt of the existence of any land ahead and the doubt of the skeptic about the promised land. It was full of arguments and facts and quotations, yet it was manufactured out of what be carried in his head. It seems great praise, yet . 168 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. we are constrained to say that, among all his other. knowl- edges, he had more knowledge about books and literature than any man we ever met. It is hard to analyze Bishop Haven’s character; he com- bined so many divergent and often apparently contradictory traits. He seemed the most extravagant radical that one could ever fear to meet. Single sententes may be selected out of his writings that are of the most amazing character. Yet he was a cautious and conservative man in action and under responsibility. He would fly his kite over a gulf, and men standing outside of his brain would think it a foolish waste of string. But soon the finer cord would draw a heavier one, till in a little while a great suspension bridge of steel and iron would span the gulf, and all the dull commerce of com- mon minds would be riding over the gulf as if it were the most natural and commonplace thing in the world. He was conscientious to the last point, avoiding always the toning down of his moral sense. Yet he was utterly devoid of cant or mock reverence. Hewas brave and generous. He treated his enemies in the most magnanimous manner. He was genial, yet dignified. He had that geniality that never patron- izes nor seems to stoop to its surroundings, but acts from genuine oneness of feeling. His dignity was not that dignity of carriage which familiarity overcomes. We never long respect mere corporosity or stateliness, or assumed reserve. All these makeshifts for true dignity of character, which con- sists in a regality of soul, lose their value whenever they are thrown into the crucible of intimate contact. He was, indeed, a grand soul, sent into the world on a grand mission. Wise in counsel, he was full of plans for the promotion of the work of the church. In the counsels of his colleagues his voice TRIBUTE BY REV. DR. C. H. FOWLER. 169 was often heard and always heeded. He brought’ his full share of suggestions for the solution of difficult problems. We have had with us a grand, genuine, genial soul. His words live with us, and his memory shall not fade out of the church. He said, ‘‘I used to think I would like to write this on my tombstone as my epitaph: ‘ Graduated.’ But since the church has trusted me with one of her chief responsibilities, I hope to make it: ‘ Graduated with honor.’” Surely that will be the verdict of the church, and of all who knew him. The church is full of sad hearts to-day ; hearts that are sad because we shall no more hear the clear voice of this man, no more look into his speaking eyes. We shall not soon forget his broad shoulders, his massive head with its thick auburn hair, his large and fine features, his remarkably clear and. lustrous eye that flashed the inner fires of his genius, and his steady and measured walk — walking as one does who carries a heavy and precious burden. He has gone from us! We have his work, his example, and his charge. The truths he defended must still be defended. The poor he befriended must still be befriended. God will raise up some stalwart souls, that do not fear abuse, nor desertion, nor loneliness, to take up the great ideas he labored to promulgate, and to defend the rights he never deserted, till, in the near future, the church shall see the land redeemed from ignorance and oppression. 12170 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. IV. GILBERT HAVEN: BisHor, EMANCIPATIONIST, LEADER OF MEN. AN ELEGY, BY GEO. LANSING TAYLOR, D. D. ie Brave, brilliant, battling spirit, rest at last; A conqueror, crowned with well-won laurels, rest! Green grow the sod above thy pulseless breast, Unthrilled—how strange !—by shrillest trumpet blast. Il. How strange to think that fiery heart is dead, ’Mongst living millions erst the most alive; Instinct with all for which earth’s noblest strive, Vital and valiant soul, strong hand, clear head. Ill. Ah, we shall miss him in the vanward fight, Where clashing hosts hew out man’s upward way, Where evermore toward purer, brighter day, Rolls on earth’s age-long battle for the right. Iv. No knightlier soul e’er wielded battle-brand, Nor drove couched lance through steel-clad ranks opposed ; And when in righteous peace the conflict closed, None stretched to vanquished foe a knightlier hand. v. Long years he bore reproach for Freedom’s cause, With that brave few who suffered for the slave; Saw cowards cringe, fools scoff, and tyrants rave; Stood up! spake out—man’s rights, God's changeless laws! ELEGY BY DR. TAYLOR. VI. Stood firm, spake boldly, conquered, mounted higher, Not by base arts, by impudence and guile, By bartering plots, nor demagogue’s deep wile; But truth, that maddened foes, set friends on fire! VII. And 80, with pen, tongue, deed, in manful wise, By noble work he won 2 noble place, To guide the Church, to lift 2 downtrod race, And preach the grace that gladdens earth and skies. VIII. At last complete he stood, enriched with lore, With feet that knew the paths of many a clime, With eyes that saw Art’s meaning: soul sublime, Poet and prophet, trained to toil or soar. Ix. With knowledge ripe that compassed all his age, With wisdom bold beyond the Present’s sight, With wit that flashed a keen but kindly light, And broad, warm humanness, 2 laughing sage ;— x. All gifts in one, a gracious, manly man, He stood among us, conscious, full, and strong; A feared and hated foe of every wrong, A trusted champion in Right’s conquering van. XI. ._ Ay, thus in polished panoply he stood, Broader than sect or sacerdotal vest, *Mongst all the brightest, keenest, boldest, best, In equal and acknowledged brotherhood. XII. The friend of all who earned or needed friend, With crest that stooped to none, nor eye that quailed, And daynntless faith in truth that never failed. But gazed right onward to the far-off end. XIII. Grand, loyal soul! struck down in manhood’s might, Far out on Progress’ thinnest skirmish-line; ‘What voice shall ring her watchword clear as thine? What arm so proudly rear her standard bright? 172 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. XIV. And so he fell, with all his armor on— With great plans teeming in his restless brain, By which old realms and lands untrod shall gain, And unknown races bow to kiss God’s Son. xv. Hark! from seven-hilled, eternal Rome a cry! From Mexic Montezuma’s crumbjing halls !— And Afric’s far-off shore re-echoing calls, To hail his hero-spirit to the sky. XVI. But Douglas flung the heart of Bruce full far Amid the Paynim spears; then charged amain ‘Where Bruce had led, the casket to regain! And so shall Haven’s heart still lead the war. XVII. Ay, crown him victor, hero, patriot, seer! Let sword and crosier cross above his breast! Let broad, kind Nature fold her child to rest, And friend and foe above him drop a tear. XVIII. Tears for ourselves, not him. He saw the strife ‘Of Freedom’s agony in glory end; He heard the clang of broken chains ascend, And saw dark millions leap to new-born life. XIxk. - He saw, did well his part, and in full prime Lays down the battered blade for crown and palm, And enters—passing strange !—that endless calm, Unshocked for aye by all the storms of time. xx. - O stormless calm! unvexed by strife and wrong, Serene and smooth abyss of love and light; ‘When shall we, too, lay down earth’s weary fight, And wake in thee, and join the endless song ? Brook.yy, Jan. 6, 1880. — Christian Advocate. EULOGY BY BISHOP WARREN. 173 Vv. EULOGY DELIVERED BEFORE THE PHILADELPHIA PREACHERS’ MEETING, On MonpbayY, JANUARY 12, 1880. BY HENRY W. WARREN, D.D. (NOW BISHOP WARREN). In common with Methodist preachers throughout the Con- nection, we desire this morning to drop a wreath of affection into the still open grave of Bishop Haven, regretting that no flowers of earth or of speech seem beautiful enough for such an offering. We get our most vivid conceptions of life from living men. We cannot make artists by theorizing to them about art. We put tools in their hands, show them the Apollo Belve- dere, and the human form that is diviner, and tell them to reproduce it. For this reason we, whose object in this life ig to acquire the perception, habits, and reality of eternal life, are set to study embodiments of eternal life. Our Divine Teacher puts all of that life that is possible into lowliest men, and raises them thereby into a succession of greatest heroes, and thus makes the way to the highest plain to the lowliest, - even the wayfaring man and the fool. Then he embodies in the one perfect man, Christ Jesus, all of eternal life that humanity can bear, till it breaks out from looks, words, finger-ends, . and the hem of his garment, transfiguring all with radiant light, and finally wrecking that human organism by its out- 174 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. going emotions of forgiveness andlove. This perfect example of highest living, lifted up on the mountains of earth, on the mountains of thought, on the cross of voluntary sacrifice, and, far above all heavens, on the throne of the universe, draws all men unto him. And once there, the highest men see “heights that are sammitless, and an example of human pos- ‘sibilities that draws like a spiritual gravitation. Not only has God done this in the past, but he does it in the ever-living, changeful present. He sets all his imitators to be living epistles, known and read of all men; all mothers, lovers, and friends to illustrate by their love the love that is higher’; and then, when they are interwoven with every heart- string, lifts them up on high, to draw all men by the gravita- tion of love. We desire to still hold in our view and hearts one who has companied with us in the flesh, fought hard in the good fight, kept the faith, and received the crown of glory which the Lord will give to us if we are also faithful. The parents of Gilbert Haven were earnest, consistent Christians of the Methodist type. His father was one of the recognized leaders of his denomination. He held the respon- sible position of keeper of the treasure vaults in the Boston custom-house for many years. His mother still lives, at the age of ninety-three years. Before he was sixteen he became a clerk in a dry-goods store in Boston, with one who is now the leading merchant of the city. He here showed an aptitude for selling goods surpassed by none in the establishment. A prosperous mer- cantile life opened before him, but he began to feel it tobe his duty to get an education. It cost him many a struggle to turn his back on the wealth and fame that he saw so plainly within his grasp. Buth- 7") — ‘« oar a . EULOGY BY BISHOP WARREN. 175 The very day of his leaving was marked by an cvent highly characteristic of him. The store was full of customers, when he, observing that a colored woman had stood a long time without attention, went to her, attended to her wants, assisted her slow comprehension, and, when asked to wait on other ladies, replied that he was busy with this lady. At the close of the day some of the clerks rallied him by asking, ‘¢ Who was that nigger you were giving so much attention to?” He replied, ‘‘ She is my sister.” By taking up the shame and making it a glory, all criticism was silenced. This ability to get in a determining blow at first, followed him through life. He was one day introduced, in the most elegant: book-store in New York, by the proprietor, to a noted scientist who was constantly attacking religion. ‘‘ Ah,” said Haven, ‘I am glad to meetyou. We are somewhat alike, for I am as totally ignorant of science as you are of religion.” The store rang with laughter, and the man treated Haven with the greatest deference thereafter. This is ever the way of true genius. When Dumas was at the height of his fame as a writer in Paris, a supercilious aristocrat, addressing his son, said, ‘‘ Is not your father a mulatto?” ‘‘ Certainly,” said the son. ‘‘And what was your grandfather?” ‘An ape,” said the younger Dumas; ‘‘ my family line begins where yours ends.” When haughty Pharisees sneeringly said of Christ, ‘‘ a friend of publicans and sinners,” he accepted the scornful title, changed it into glory, and said he came to seek and to save the lost. There is no glory like that made out of the world’s shame ; no victory like that won out of defeat. When char- acter is grand enough to transmute the world’s hot scorn into glory, it shows that that character is sublime. In 1851 he joined the New England Conference, and was 176 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. ‘stationed at Northampton, Mass. Here it was my pleasure to know him. I was teaching school there, and was very often in his genial company. We sustained the same relation at Wilbraham, his next appointment. At Northampton, he that had turned his back on the clear prospect of the largest wealth, served a poor society of obscure people, who had no parsonage or furniture, and could not give him salary sufficient to meet the weekly board bills of himself and wife. The society was too poor to pay a sex- ton, and Haven and I swept out the church. That cloud of dust that then encircled him has always appeared to me to be changed to a nimbus of glory by the smile of the Lord, saying, ‘¢ Welldone.” The church was heavily in debt, and the pastor went to New York and Boston, among the prosperous mer- chants of his former acquaintance, and begged, in the face of coolness and sometimes insult, the money to pay the debts. Northampton is famous for being one of the most beauti- ful towns in New England. He said to me one day: ‘‘ When I go through these beautiful streets and see these elegant homes, it takes a clear vision of the eternal mansions to keep me from being discontented. But when I do see them, I say, “I have a better house up there than any of these.’ ” In 1860 his beloved wife Mary went up to glory, but not out of his sight. I have found him, in subsequent years, in a kind of exalted, holy hush on the third day of April, and he would say, ‘‘ This is the memorial day ;” and I knew all too well what he meant, and one day said to him— * Sustain that exaltation, Expand that tender light, And hold with lover passion, Thy blessed in thy sight.” He answered, ‘‘ That is just what I constantly do.” EULOGY BY BISHOP WARREN. 177 He preached his last regular sermon in the pulpit of the Arch Street Church, Philadelphia. He soon after arrived in Boston, went to the house of a brother preacher, said he was ‘infinitely tired,” but begged this preacher to go with him to Salem to attend the funeral of one of the oldest members of the New England Conference. There he offered a prayer full of the most touching tenderness, and closed with a petition that all might be ready to follow,—‘‘ for the feet of them that . Shall carry us out are at the door.” He died in Malden, in the home of his youth, Jan. 3, 1880, aged fifty-eight years. We will now consider his later life and its glorious close. He was a constant advocate of the broadest culture of all the faculties of the soul. While yet a clerk in the dry-goods store, he acquired from one of his artist acquaintances such a knowledge of the fundamental principles of art, and such a cultivated discernment, that he became a discriminating art- critic in his subsequent years. Of the comments on the pictures of the annual art exhibition in Boston, none had a higher value than those of ‘‘ Zion’s Herald” when he was editor. He was thus prepared to enjoy that wonderful dis- play of art one sees in the Old World, and that far more wonderful realm of color and form of which God is the artist — an artist who now continues, in every morning’s dawn and evening’s close, to exercise his power and ask his children to admire. . In the department of literary culture Bishop Haven was a marvel. That training in the classics, by so many years of study and teaching, gave him a rare delicacy of style, pre- cision of speech, and forceful utterance. How often have I seen him on the hills about his éarly appointments, with a pocket edition of Plato or Paul in his hand, luxuriating in their master-pieces of thought. \ 178 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. In poetry he was thoroughly at home, acquainted with the works of all the crowned singers of all ages. From Homer to the poets of to-day they were his familiar friends. His memory could be trusted to reproduce much of their choicest works without the lapse of a single word, or the marring of the flow of their rythmic measure. The choicest gems were -set in all his writings, and even irradiated the backs of postal- cards. He wrote his review of Mrs. Stowe’s work on Byron far from all books, quoting from memory long extracts from Byron’s principal poems, and published it with no oppor- tunity to verify his quotations, and, as it afterwards proved, without any need to verify them. He wrote an appreciative review of Wordsworth, early in life, and declared, long before the critics had agreed upon the fact, that Lowell had the most penetrative vision of any poet that. our country had produced. His familiarity with the hymnology of the Christian ages was great. He could quote the rarest hymns by the hour, and give the name of the author of almost any hymn in use. One of his favorite stanzas showed the range where his mind delighted to revel : ( “ Thy temple is the arch Of yon unmeasured sky Thy Sabbath the stupendous march Of vast eternity.” He was perfectly familiar with all that modern culture had to offer. An ardent admirer of Emerson and all the new lights of the modern school of the gospel of culture, he accepted all the good. they had to give, but perpetually saw beyond, a higher region where they had not entered. By speech and — pen he constantly offered this new realm to those arrogant, self-styled apostles of the new era, but offered it only on condition of humility and faith in the despised Nazarene. EULOGY BY BISHOP WARREN. 179 No man ever more resolutely, beat the outside veneer and varnish of a Christless culture into resounding its own hollow- ness. No one ever told its disciples more emphatically, ‘“‘Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” The writhings of some of these men, when impaled on his edito- rial lance, strikingly remind one of the rage of the Scribes and Pharisees, when Christ called them whited sepulchres and graves that appear not. He had an abiding faith in principles. He recognized them to be the laws of God, and that God still lives in them. He ever held that one man with God, against the world, was -in the majority. His first published sermon, uttered in his young manhood, before he had joined conference or had a-charge, is devoted to enforcing the higher law. It was preached on the occasion of the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, and declares that men are not only to refuse to assist in its execution, but are to oppose the ungodly decree. ‘‘ If this be treason, make the most of it.” It is allegiance and loyalty to the higher law of God. He decided questions concerning his own interests on the same ground of principle. He talked with me about an invitation to the editorial chair of the ‘‘ Independent.” It was the great religious paper of that day. The salary was three times what he was receiving. Here was a grand oppor- tunity for a Methodist to help mould the religious sentiment of his own generation. But he said no, at once. ‘The chureh is the one great thing in this world; success must come along church lines. My being there might injure my own church papers.” And applying a sentiment of St. Paul to himself, said: ‘‘ Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.” Let us remember that Gilbert Haven came to his intellect- / 180 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. ual kingdom in a peculiar time. Forty years ago there was an astonishing agitation of mind in Massachusetts. The air was electric with ideas. Everything went into the crucible of reason, and was tested by both logic and experiment. There were communities formed to try the principles of Com- munism. Fourierism was best known in 18438. Transcen- dentalists published their organ,— the ‘‘ Dial.” Second Adventism began in 1849. Massachusetts entered on the first stages of its long fight of legislation prohibitory of liquor-selling, by its fifteen-gallon law, in 1838. Dr. Chee- ver published his ‘*‘ Deacon Giles’s Distillery.” Dr. Graham insisted on vegetable diet, and gave his name to a sensible bread. Dr. Thompson propagated his system of fire in, medicine; Preissnitz, his of water; and Hahnemann his of infinitesimal doses. Massachusetts did not simply argue these questions, but, true to the Methodist idea, and the idea at the bottom of all the progress of the nineteenth century, insisted on experi- ment and experience. There were three enormous institu- tions for water-cure within a mile of each other in the town where I lived. During all this time such women as Lydia Maria Child and Abby Kelly Foster, and such men as Edmund Quincy, William Ellery Channing, William Lloyd Garrison, Orange Scott,-and Theodore Parker were thunder- ing against slavery with a continuous cannonade. I remem- ber that these subjects were constantly discussed, not only on rostrums, in the pulpits and papers of the cities, but in the school-houses, shops, and around the firesides of the whoie country. The nation, looking northward to Massachusetts, saw a kind. cf intellectual borealis, darting its spires of light, flinging wide its banners, and on every one of those banners, illumined by these wierd and flashing lights, they saw inscribed the God-given richts af man. EULOGY BY BISHOP WARREN, 181 Of course, men went wild and uttered strange things ; men of one idea always do. Garrison, finding that he could not enlist Lyman Beecher in his righteous crusade, wrote bitter things against the church. Parker did worse; he, an eleventh-hour convert to abolitionism, misrepresented the church. It was bad enough to oppose Christ, but to mis- represent him as a glutton, a winebibber, and possessed of a devil, was the depth of wilful malignity. But where men of one idea go astray, men large enough to take in all ideas keep in the way of rapid progress to complete perfection. Gilbert Haven put Christin the centre of the universe, where others ‘put men, or worse, their own notions. Savonarola said, with unequalled eloquence, to the Florentines, ‘‘ Christ is the King of the universe; will you have him to be your king?” And Haven said to excited New England intellect, bowing down to socialism, woman’s rights, reform, and freedom,— worthy idols as ever man worshipped,—‘ Take Christ for your king, and all these shall be your ministers.” He cried to the church, ‘‘ Come upto labor for these reforms, permeate them with conscience and Christ, or the politicians will emancipate the slave, get all the credit, and pour tides of cursing on the church, as a reluctant Meroz, that ‘ came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against "the mighty.’ Perhaps the reformers can emancipate the slave, but they can never educate or Christianize him. The church must come to the front, or lose the grandest oppor- tunity of all the centuries.” He doubted whether God would give success to the humanitarians who were struggling to free the slaves, till the church was ready to take care of them. Thus the church seemed to him to be responsible for their continued bondage. Having adopted the principles of God’s eternal government 182. MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. as his only guide, he accepted them without reserve. When the slave was freed he declared him entitled to all the rights of a freeman. The deadly upas-tree being fallen, let all its roots be dug up. Give the emancipated man all rights, political, social, religious ; let him be a free man at the polls; let it be lawful for him to marry any woman that will wed him, though he be black as Othello, and she white as Desde- mona; let him have all religious rights; let him preach to any congregation willing.to hear him, and choose the man who shall preach to him. In pursuance of this idea he diligently sought to have Rev. J. N. Mars, a colored man, admitted to the New England Conference, and succeeded, though there was no congrega- tion of his color for him to serve. He would no more exclude any man from the church for his color, than God would ex- clude him from heaven. In the great multitude before the throne, ‘out of every nation, and tribe, and kindred, ard ‘tongue, the nationality of each must be recognizable. Haven loved his brothers of a darker hue, not because of affinities, but because they were abused. Christ sought us not for our beauty or worth, but because we were lost. Bishop Haven was ready to help any one in trouble. He constantly spoke and wrote against woman’s wrongs, intemperance, Romish usurpations, and the slanders against his nation. He knew his country’s sins, and lifted up his voice like a trumpet against them. But when in Europe he found his country misjudged and maligned, he stood by it in their public prints with a wisdom that was eminent, and a courage that was sublime. When he, was elected to the episcopacy, tie church knew just what a radical he was. The times had called out his most significant utterances. These were printed on a fly-leaf, and circulated about the conference on EULOGY BY BISHOP WARREN. 183 the day of the election. That the church should still say: to him, ‘‘ Pass up to the head,” shows what grand advance the church had made in twelve years. Not only was young Gilbert Haven able to turn away from the allurements of wealth, that offered its glittering prizes to his reaching hand, but he was able to exercise the largest generosity through life. When he could not pay his board out of his salary, he was accustomed to give one-tenth of that salary in charity. And he diligently enforced this principle on his friends. And when his income increased, according to the divine promise, like Wesley, he ‘‘ got all he could, saved all he could, gave all he could.” .His pre-eminence among the Bishops is this: that he con- stantly sought to raise money, whereby the strong might bear the burdens of the weak. No sooner was he assigned to work in the South, than he laid the largest plans for its education. He bought three hundred and sixty acres of land in the new part of Atlanta, designing to let some of it out in small farms to colored men; but from itshighest part one of the finest colleges in the South should look down on the city. Its walls are now rising. A large part of the money was raised, and he was intending to find a large part of the remainder in the City of Brotherly Love. When God removes the workman, may the work go on. When the sorrowing and grateful citizens of Florence buried one of their best beloved friends on the beautiful hill, San Miniato, they erected a monument by public subscrip- tion, and wrote one of the best inscriptions that ever adorned the grave of man: ‘‘ Here lies Giovanni Cappelari Della Columbo, who was Prefect of the Finances of Florence for twenty years, and died poor.” Bishop Haven died leaving a wealth of subscriptions to needy institutions of learning ; his 184 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. monument should be the immediate raising of $15,000, to pay those subscriptions.* Gilbert Haven was a natural leader of men. He was always before his time. He was mainly instrumental in introducing the laity into the New England Conference, before the mind of the church at large had especially con- sidered the question. He, aided to create, in that conference, Church Aid and Education societies, when as yet there were. none in the denomination. To his wise counsels the church owes the devotion of the wealth of Isaac Rich to the found- ing of the Boston University. Basing his convictions on great principles, he easily became a prophet. Policies change with every wind of expediency. No man can foretell the condition of the money market, for it changes with the varying interests of numerous men. But one can find the trend of the great ocean currents of the uni- verse, and tell whither they will flow, despite of surface winds and waves. In the darkest day after Bull Run, he said, ‘¢ We shall succeed, and we shall emancipate the slaves.” He never mistook the spirit of the times; never believed in fraternity with unr econstructed rebels. His sunny spirit was too large to be disturbed. He said to a high official in a Southern church, after a free discussion of their relative positions: ‘‘ We love you and shall pray for you.” He was answered: ‘‘We don’t want any of your prayers, and please to understand that we hate you.” ‘¢ Well,” said the Bishop, ‘‘ we are commanded to love our enemies, and pray for them who despitefully use us, and shall keep right on loving and praying just the same.” The grand- est picture this world ever saw in all its history was Jesus *Tt is understood that all these subscriptions have been assumed by a wealthy Philadelphia Methodist. EULOGY BY BISHOP WARREN. 185 reviled, spit upon, scourged, crucified, but undisturbed. This world’s hate and pain could not ruffle the Infinite. The most bitter thing I ever heard. said to man I heard said to Gilbert Haven. He flushed almost scarlet, but he answered never a word. And I know that the beloved Lord, who said, ‘«Be ye followers of me,” will not be offended at my tracing the resemblance between him and one who tried to be his follower. , But, perhaps some will say, he was too radical, and shocked the: sensibilities of many who could not march along the world’s progress with his stride. -I have no doubt he shocked many. But have we not learned by this time that Hercules could not hold the distaff of Omphale gracefully? We all wanted to dictate a policy to Abraham Lincoln once. But who dares criticise him now? And shall this man, born ‘of such parentage ; breathing in radicalism with every breath ; familiar with the most advanced thinkers of the race, yet keeping Christ supreme; grounded in such principles; gen- erous, if possible, to a fault; so sensitive that the woes of the most degraded slave in the farthest rice swamp were felt as a personal pang; so fine in his affections that death and absence in the spirit-land for twenty years never cooled the ardor of his youthful love ; so true to friends, so just to ene- mies, making it a principle of action to do a man a favor as soon as possible, if he had gotten an advantage of him in argument or position; so far-sighted that he largely origi- nated the institutions and shaped the policy of the church — shall such a man be allowed no larger liberty of speech than we allow ourselves? ~- Let Bishop Foster speak. Bishop Foster is a man of the most delicate tastes, of a very conservative education and habitof mind. He has met with him in council for eight years,. 186 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. known his spirit, measured his judgment, visited his work. Hear him speak, knowing that he is to go on record, and lose or make many a friend thereby: ‘‘ The election of Bishop Haven to the episcopacy was a surprise. Thank God, he lived eight years to demonstrate the wisdom of that act. He has furnished proof that it was no mistake of judgment, and that Providence assuredly presided over the’ destinies of the church. . . . There is not a word or an act of his I would have erased. Let those who will criticise, it is our joy that he was so much to the world. . . . His name will go down to history side by side with that of Abraham Lincoln.” Oh, Bishop Foster, I love thee for those noble words. ‘Tis the old story; ever the blind world Knows not its angels of deliverance Till they stand glorified ’twixt carth and heaven. As dying limbs do lengthen out in death, So grows the stature of their after fame; And then we gather up their glorious words, And treasure up their names with loving care..” Do we ask how such a man dies? It is unnecessary. We know how Stephen died ; how Paul looked death in the face ; and our Bishops go home in such a way as to make us feel that they are in the true apostolic succession. ‘He went to the home of his mother, having none of his own, where were most of his books, his two children, the first picture he ever bought, the portrait of his wife ; dropped en and companions to give nature the best possible chance, and went into the valley to fight with three fatal diseases. He wanted to live. Seas of brown faces spread out before him, and in every one an appealing look for help. He saw thousands of imploring hands stretched toward him from the dark: On the other side of the river stood the blessed Lord EULOGY BY BISHOP WARREN. 187 he had loved and served so long. Beside him he saw a glorified face he had not lost sight of for twenty years. Still, he wanted to stay. Work seemed better than rest, labor than reward. Finally, the doctor announced that he had not more than a dozen hours to live. Then he said, ‘‘ Open the doors ; call in my friends.” They were summoned by lightning and came by steam. Said he to one: ‘‘ As I have said in life, I say in death, preach a whole gospel, the whole Bible, a whole hell, a whole salvation by a perfect Saviour.” ‘‘ Is it all well?” said the brother. ‘‘ Yes, indeed. I know whom I have believed, and He is able to keep me. I have believed His gospel all through.” To another, who had been sick for years, he said: ‘‘I did not think to get the start of you, and so get first to heaven; but it seems I shall.” Then this invalid friend prayed with him, as only the sorely tried can pray, and the dying Bishop, who had been silent in his religious exercises all his life, shouted, as men shout for vic- tory, ‘Glory! glory! glory!” He bade one farewell, say- ‘ing, ‘‘ It is good-night now, but when we meet again it will be good-morning.” He had dreaded death while living,— regarded it as a repulsive, hideous thing. He rallied a little from a death-like exhaustion, and said: ‘‘ There is no river here; all is beautiful. I feel carried up ina sea of glory.” We think of Him who led the disciples out as far as Bethany, lifted up his hands and blessed them, was taken up, and a cloud received him out of sight. In 1869 he published a volume of twenty-five National Sermons, treating with rare eloquence and foresight on all the events of national importance, from the passage of the Fugitive Slave bill to the election of President Grant. On the title-page he put an open Bible, surrounded with this word of God to Jonah, ‘‘ Preach the preaching I bid thee.” s 188 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. Let that be Bishop Haven’s last ad clerum. At the end he put a significant symbol of what that preaching should accomplish, a symboi that the publisher declared would ruin the sale of the book. It represents a pair of human hands ‘united in brotherly grasp, and one of them is black. Let that be the prophecy of the future, and one hundred years from now it will be the most appropriate device upon his tomb. TRIBUTE BY REV. DR. EDWARDS. 189 VI. DEATH OF BISHOP HAVEN. By Rev. ARTHUR Epwarps, D. D., Epiror oF THE “ NORTH-WESTERN CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.” News of the death of Bishop Haven, near Boston, Satur- day afternoon, January 3, will be received by no one with indif- ference. Some men are bad enough to be glad, because they could never be reconciled to his life; others, by thousands, will mourn passionately, because the church can illy spare such grand men. If it were not for the living, we should say that the grandest soul of all is removed from among our militant heroes. Death always exalts the mighty dead in the estimation of men; but while still living we had given Bishop Haven a most exalted status among his compeers. Such was his influence upon all who understood him, that now, were he blameworthy, we should consider sharp condemnation but simple justice to him who always meant what he said and always said just what he thought. Fully persuaded that over-estimate would be like an insult to his grave, we can find no reproach against him — save that perhaps he did not more fully guard his precious physical life. He defrauded himself of sleep, gave too much of night to his eager friends, and worked far beyond the limit at which he ought to have paused for rest. New England has yielded many advanced leaders, but Gilbert Haven was the noblest Roman of all, since he lifted 190 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. the standard of Progress in the name of God’s Son. He believed that when God projected himself:into this world, that visible person of the advent was very God, the Son of the Father, who when he was lifted up promised to lift all men upward also. Gilbert Haven groaned at the sight of man’s need, and entered upon his hopeful errand to preach man’s coming redemption in the name of the divine Jesus Christ. Therefore, as student, pastor, public orator, pam- phleteer, author, editor, bishop, and ‘‘ reformer,” in every aspect, he spoke with glowing faith in Jesus who came to save men from their sins, and humanity from the wreck of rebellion against God. Had he caught only the slim inspira- tion of those who, as ‘‘ New England reformers,” have been half deified for their inadequate services to man, he would. have gone to the front rank among such. Since, however, he essayed all things in the spirit of the New Testament, he gained not the applause of the half-infidel crowd, and failed to see the full triumph possible to that brilliant coterie had it also been organized on his impregnable foundation. Gilbert Haven was a mighty man. No negative herald of dawn finds such opposition and criticism from the living; or, by his dying, hurls into men’s souls such sense of sudden bereavement and sorrow. Men, in their grief, think of Lin- “coln’s life and loss, and every freedman in the South will deem his fall most grievous, since his form lies lifeless be- neath the shadow of that Cross which alone gives genuine and full emancipation. This winning speaker and pleader, in all his liberality, breadth, and hope, abated not one jot or tittle prescribed by the Word. In the fullness of his loving mission he measured his honest sincerity by God’s Book. Broad, advanced, wide-awake to every’ suggestion that: would forward his work, he was loyally true to the Master. No TRIBUTE BY REV DR. EDWARDS. 191 flattery, raillery, or half-digested criticism; no sneer, laugh, or quip 3; no proffered honor, bribe, or wheedling assumption of superior penetration, moved him from the line of progress outlined by the practical yet dogmatic Word of God.’ He believed that man must be regenerated by God’s Spirit, and all his prescriptions for reform insisted that this new birth must first illumine the souls of the fallen, and the souls of their human saviors. He believed in the Word as it reads, because he insisted that the Word is just as it is, since it was dictated to holy recorders, word for word. Our first glimpse of him is; therefore, as one of a club of students organized to read the Word in its original languages. Our last per- sonal view of him was, too, but the other day, as he sat reading the New Testament in Greek, as part of his first morning worship. In that tongue God continued to speak to him, and he drank in the latest meanings with a facility denied to most men. That Word went with him all day long, and life-long. In sermon, speech, newspaper article, book, argument, prayer, and conversation, he sought inspiration and guidance from the world’s King. He was the companion of our national authors, statesmen, lawmakers, and rulers. He knew person- ally most all the men whose names will be forever associated with the country’s last half of this century. With them he saw .the hidden springs of our public movements and our national legislation. He saw more than most of those great men perceived, since his eye was not dazzled for a moment by the side-lights of selfish aims, or personal relations to pub- lic office. He went into their company, weighed their aims, measured their motives, scanned their material, and then resumed his own line of battle, strengthened beyond their possibilities: because he carried all to Christ, and outstrip- 192 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN, ping his churchly compeers because more abundant material had been grasped by his royal brain. Bishop Haven was not an ‘‘ orator,” yet he moved, and girded, and led, or angered men most mightily by his sweeping conclusions. He seldom spoke as a struggling champion, but he pro- phesied triumph and heralded victory so confidently that men shrank away from opposition as does an enemy when he hears heavy guns in his rear at night. Nothing pleased him more than to see conservatives squirm under the batteries of his resistless assertion that his convictions must prevail if God continues to rule. His best sanction was the fact that cruel men, choked with rage, filled the air with scoffs in lieu of the refutations they dare not attempt. Opponents called him “¢sentimentalist,” ‘‘ visionary,” ‘‘ radical,” even ‘‘ blatant,” ‘* pretentious,” and ‘‘ destructive”; yet that form, now 80° motionless, is not more calm than the seer who knew the sun is rising because his erect eye had already caught the glint of divine twilight. The slave in chains, the citizen freedman replunged into peonage, the republic imperilled by political faction and popular indifference, — public calamity in detail and human woe in the mass, were weights upon him. It is consistent that in his manly zeal he should seek to startle men into life by prophecies that were far in.advance of the ideal vouchsafed to men in general. Like all men of his kind he was impeded temporarily by misunderstanding and consequent lies. For instance, he is almost cursed because they say he advised white. men to marry negroes. He was the prince of ‘‘ miscegenation” advocates. He, in fact, but repeated the well established law, that the commingling of long divergent blood-strains is physically a stimulant. to the better tendencies of both, and he said this, passing, in the midst of an argument when the TRIBUTE BY REV. DR. EDWARDS. 193 law was but an illustration. The very social constitution of the South to-day proves that his saying was truthful, since the mulatto in chains created a practical argument for his manhood, which would have been impossible to a race of pure ‘“‘Guinea negroes.” The saying must be true, since the present freedmen of the South would, if released from dis- ability, do more for the South in two generations than the white Southerners have done in six. : Perhaps his death was too early to fully vindicate the wise impulse of those who elected him a Bishop. His life was yet long enough to sanction his presence among those who, having reached the. human ultimate of position, are conser- vatized and made cautious beyond the degree of such as have not yet attained. Our church has fallen into the habit of expecting reticence and universal acquiescence from these men, and Bishop Haven’s soft hat, companionable salute, ready entrance into debate, prompt repartee, and incorrigible persistence in claiming his old relations to the church militant, have been a puzzle, a surprise, an inspiration, and a blessing to all who are, in a double sense, concerned, His allegiance to the methods and matter that suggested his advancement, thoroughly sanctioned the honors that came to him, and vindicated the men who promoted him. With tongue and pen he had a word of cheer for his fellow-workers whom he had left within call in his rear, and in this sad hour of bereave- ment they wonder how patiently they can toil in the absence of his inspiration ! ‘When men have spoken of their ‘‘ fathers in God,” Bishop Haven was not included, since never for a moment has he ceased to be in every sense a brother. The death of no man in the church could prompt so many to say, ‘¢ My brother has gone.” Our remaining church leaders have their troops of friends, but no one of them, because of the 194 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. peculiar temperaments and surroundings involved, has.such a peculiarily personal following as had Bishop Haven. This one among our Bishops, by a law to which we all must give. loyal allegiance, was in the hearts of his brethren, as each is ecclesiastically, in ordine, ‘‘ primus inter pares.” . Born in September, 1821; graduate of Wesleyan Univer- sity in 1846; teacher and principal of an academy for five. ‘years ; a conference member since 1851; a pastor until 1861, when he became chaplain of the Massachusetts regiment that fought its way through Baltimore ; a journeyer in Europe for health in 1867; editor of ‘‘ Zion’s Herald” until 1872, when, he was elected Bishop ; a constant public speaker ; author of four books; going to Africa in 1876; sojourner in the South for near eight years; going everywhere on the wings of the wind—he served laboriously faithfully, singularly, inspiringly, until now, when he is cut off in the prime of his life. He was widowed twenty years ago; and since, in the companionship of mother, sister, two children, and brigades of friends, he has glowed with expectation of resumed companionship with her whom the graces of no other woman could displace in his heart. Just as good, just as wise, just as progressive, as loving, appreciative, scholarly, eloquent, hopeful, and grand : men are left, but the peculiar combination that made a Gilbert Haven remains not among us. His influence will live for generations. He will not fall out of mind. He can no more be.displaced from men’s hearts than could that wife be dis- turbed in the affections of his great heart. Now that he is dead, and that instinct, de mortuis nil nisi bonum, prompts noble men, he will begin to be frankly measured and honestly loved even-by those he so thoroughly shocked. He will be sure to get justice from all save a few among Southern Meth- odist leaders. The grief that will come up from the lowly TRIBUTE BY REV. DR. EDWARDS. 195 in the South is a tribute to that kingly soul, enviable by whole dynasties of rulers who were crowned but externally. A prince has fallen, but God is good as well as great. We think of him as a promoted servant, a hero crowned, a general removed from the field to the centre of the universe of progress, where he may view the battle to the end. 196 1 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN, VI. BISHOP HAVEN. By Rev. E. H. Stoxss, D. D. Tout ye the bells, for our Master has spoken, Has spoken the word which to Him seemed the best; The light has gone out, the strong staff is broken, The shepherd of souls has gone up to his rest. Gone up to his rest; life’s work not completed, Ungathered the sheep which his heart would enfold; Great plans so divine seem almost defeated, The story unfinished his lips would have told. Great plans all his own, as broad as the ocean, _ Deep currents of thought, as free as the air; Rebuking the wrong, whate’er the commotion, He was wise to conceive and bold to declare. With him wrong was wrong, no lofty condition Could ever transform any wrong into right; Baptized of his God, his holy ambition ‘Went down to the depths and exposed to the light. Mourn! mourn for his death, ye sons of the lowly ; Toll, toll ye the bells for his sun set at noon; Forever, amen! He dwells with the holy, But ah! his departure comes on us too soon. Too soon; yes, too soon; great saints and bright sages Are grand in their work as the nations can see; Abreast thou with them? Aye, more; lo! the ages Are lingering laggards when marching with thee. Hush, murmurer, hush! thou speakest, not knowing The plannings supreme which lie hid in the sod; The seed sown by him in the ages onflowing, Expanding shall bloom in the likeness of God. POEM BY REV. DR. STOKES. 197 He spake! the word, like its author, eternal, Shall live in the heart and grow strong in our trust. A day comes to earth when beauty supernal In Freedom’s bright form shall arise from the dust. It is well, yes, well! though Church be in sadness. Like Phoenix of old, from his words shall arise; Deeds of the hero’s which usher in gladness, To Church and the world a diviner surprise. Then ring, O ring for our Bishop ascended ; * Ring bells on the mountains, through city and glen: He lived for the right, the helpless defended, The fallen he lifted, and cHATTELS ARE MEN! — Ocean Grove Record. 198 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. Vit. BISHOP HAVEN AS A GENTLEMAN. By Rev. J. E. Roy, D. D., SourHERN Fietp AGENT oF THE AMERI- CAN (CONGREGATIONAL) MIssIONARY ASSOCIATION. [From “The Methodist Advoeate,” Atlanta.] Hannan More said of Saint Paul that he was a perfect. gentleman. Yet his opponents declared that his bodily presence was weak, and his speech contemptible. And he himself admits that he was rude in speech. Hannah More meant that the great‘apostle had that gentility of feeling, that spirit of deference to other people’s interests and comfort, which are the qualities of a true gentleman. In him what tender regard for the weakness of others; what reverence for the conscience of the lowliest; what respect for those in authority! This man of unbounded courage, who could con- front all adversaries, was yet the one to exhort, ‘Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted. Above all, put on charity.” Gilbert Haven was a gentleman; not after the Chester- fieldian, but the Pauline stamp; not according to the letters of that eccentric English lord, but according to the letters of the New Testament. When, last Sabbath, that Chrysostom of the Methodist pulpit was drawing the contrast between the apostle Thomas and the apostle Peter,—the one believ- ing at last, and accepted, but never mentioned afterward in the sacred record, perhaps never doing anything; the other NOTICE BY REV. DR. ROY. 199 sinning greatly but forgiven, yet impetuous and fiery, and sometimes making mistakes, but opening the doors of the church to the world ; —I say, when the Bishop was analyzing those characters, and saying, ‘‘ Give me the man of zeal and - courage, the man who marshals other men after him,” I was wondering whether his late official associate was not in his eye, as the Petrine apostle, who, great-hearted, but impetu- ous and liable to err, was the man to open the doors of the church to the poor and the lowly of this sunny land. As it was that stumbling apostle who laid upon Christians the injunction, ‘‘ Be courteous,” so was it his fiery successor who, by his example, enforced the grace of courtesy. In his fierce denunciations he did not give way to passion, though ‘‘The Illustrated History of Methodism” says that he was ‘‘one of the most admired and best hated men in America.” Having had his birth, training, and much of his life, in the vicinity of Boston, that Athens of America, he possessed the external qualities of a well-bred man. But these were enriched by those inner graces of good-will and anticipative attentiveness to others’ happiness, which make up the Chris- tian gentleman. In that independence and self-poise of his nature, he always bore in mind that he was a man and a citizen before he became an ecclesiastic. That quality of manhood and of citizenship he never laid aside. When pre- siding over the convocations of his church, he could mingle the fitting dignity and urbanity. But among men he did not exact the severe proprieties, nor did he carry anything of a patronizing air. He had a winsome way —the artless ex- pression of his heart—which is greatly attractive in our American society. By this gift he became one of the few men who make the name their mothers gave them greater 200_ MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. than all their official and scholastic titles; so that we cannot speak of him in any more deferential way than to call him Gilbert Haven. As such he will be known in the record of his times. In the same line, I have heard him speaking of . the junior members of his conferences ‘‘ as the boys,” putting himself as their elder brother. Never was the manliness of a man less affected by the conventionalities of position. In my personal acquaintance with Gilbert Haven I was let, into the heart of a Christian gentleman. Two years ago, when I was on dry dock at Clifton Springs, he also put in there for repairs. In the unreserve of men lying off, we fell into a fellowship that was greatly enjoyed by myself. Just then there had been laid before me the matter of a transfer from home-mission work at the West to something of the same at the South among the colored people. I opened the matter to him. He kindled at the suggestion. He urged my acceptance. He cleared away some difficulties. He magnified the work that my denomination was called upon to do in the way of helping the South to take care of these dusky citizens. Not a shade of sectarian feeling was there in his spirit. If I had been a Methodist, proposing to come . down and work under him, he could not have been more cordial. I now see that, in the line of providential influences that diverted me from my own West, where I had lived all my ‘days and where I had hoped to fill out my life-work, he had no small share. Iam glad that I accepted his advice. I am happy in the work. I love the’ South, which is now my home. If God wills, I expect to spend my days here, and to take an interest, after my small way, in everything that tends to enhance the material, moral, and spiritual welfare of all the people in this part of our country. When I came, meeting him here, I received the very right- a NOTICE BY REV. DR. ROY. 201 hand of fellowship which he had promised me. His delicate attention went beyond my right to expect. I enjoyed the hearing, in this place, of one of his scholarly and vigorous , sermons; at the Clark University one theological lecture, itself a marvel in its comprehensiveness, its profundity, and its simplicity ; and at the Lloyd Street Church, in May, his telling bagcalaureate ; and then parted with him,—I to go North for five months, and he to go, via California and Boston, up to the New Jerusalem. As [I listened, last Sunday, to the silver voice of that silver- headed speaker, I was thinking that the grandest thing on earth was a gifted, cultured, consecrated man. What a power! Indeed, all the best analogies by which he sought to lead us up toa sense of the power of the gospel of Christ were drawn from the capabilities of man. What a loss, we say, when such a one is removed. After all, as in the mate- rial world, so in the moral, there is a conservation of force, by which no power is lost, by which all the good of a man is preserved. At the funeral of Jabez Bunting, one of the coadjutors of the Wesleys, as the preacher, with failing faith, avowed, ‘¢When Jabez Bunting died, the star of Methodism went down,” one of the brethren had the grace to shout out, “Thank God, that’s a lie!” It was not the truth. At Westminster, in the’ burial-place of England’s illustrious dead, the tablet recently placed there in memory of John and Charles Wesley has this inscription: ‘‘God buries the workers but carries on the work.” Men die, but God lives to carry on his cause, which is dearer to him than it can be to us. Our days soon pass away ; but God is the same, and his days have no.end. His covenant faithfulness is the ground of our assurance for the future. 202 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. 10.6 FROM THE MEMOIR OF BISHOP HAVEN. By Ricuarp 8. Rust, D. D., SECRETARY OF THE FREEDMEN’S AID ~ Sociery oF THE METHODIST EPiscopaL CHURCH. READ AT THE MEMORIAL SERVICES HELD AT ST. PAUL’S CHURCH, CINCINNATI, 0. [The strictly biographical portion of this address does not appear, the substance thereof having already been fully given. ] One of Bishop Haven’s co-laborers in the South affirms, that by the presence and labors of the radical Bishop, the work of the Freedmen’s Aid Society was doubled. He was ever the confidential counsellor of the indefatigable secretary, and to these two men the church owes a large measure of its success in this great work. After reciting the facts of his early life and ministry, Dr. Rust continues : — In 1872 he was elected Bishop, and he selected Atlanta, Ga., for his official residence, and the South for his special field of labor. It is not surprising that the transfer of an intense radical from Boston to Atlanta should awaken op- position. In addition to this, his utterances were distorted, his motives misrepresented, and his principles maligned. MEMOIR BY REV. DR. RUST. 203 Every effort that ingenuity could devise was made to de- stroy his influence and defeat his mission. But with a heart of courage, and an unfaltering faith in God and the right, he entered upon the work of establishing in the South, upon a firm foundation, the Methodist Episcopal Church, which throws the broad cgis of her protection, watch, and care over all her members, without regard to color or condition of life. He felt that he was in the South by the arrange- ment of the church and the providence of God, and he resolved to do the. best be could to plant in that fair land the old church and her institutions. He visited, ofttimes in great peril, all parts of the country, became familiar with the wants of the church, the sufferings and wrongs of the poor colored peopie, and in his travels all over the North he talked and preached and prayed, in his own impressive way, about what he had seen and felt, for the iron of oppression had entered into his own soul, and he ‘‘ remembered them that are in bonds as bound with them.” He identified him- self with God’s suffering poor, and enjoyed no privileges denied to his poor brethren. _ In returning from a conference, when refused the privilege of conversing with one of the preachers in the car in which he was seated, he retreated with the preacher to the car set ‘apart for the colored people, and remained in conversation until forcibly ejected by the conductor. He everywhere recognized the rights of our common humanity and brother- hood, and often exposed himself to’ the severest criticism in their defence. I never heard him denounce oppression and wrong with such fiery eloquence as in the heart of the South, with oppressors writhing in rage before him. His bold ad- vocacy in behalf of the freedmen sent light into the dark cabins of this poor people and comfort to their troubled hearts. 204 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. I add here, that I never knew one who cherished so deep a reverence for the rights of man, and such contempt for those who violated them. The love of his brother was ingrained in his nature, and blended with every fibre of his being. He often spoke to me of the incident connected with his conver- sion to abolitionism. It was in his school-days, when the .. teacher treated with brutality a little colored girl for an offence that would have been unnoticed in the pupils of a fairer hue. He gazed in silent horror upon that treatment, his soul kindled with righteous indignation, and he vowed from that hour to take the side of the poor colored people against their oppressors, and ever after was their friend and protector. For the last few years of his life he seemed like one of the prophets of old, commissioned of God to denounce oppressors and defend the helpless and oppressed. On no other subject was he so exacting as for human rights, and against no others did he write such bitter things as against those who wronged the poor and deprived them of their rights. His funeral oration at the Metropolitan Church, in Wash- ington, in memory of the murdered Chisholm family, was, in his own judgment, as well as that of some of his friends, the best effort of his life. The nation was asleep, and the work of death was going on among our poor brethren in the South, and there was no one to help. He knew it all, and girded himself for the effort. With a soul profoundly moved, he delivered that grand oration in defence of that murdered family, which stirred the minds and hearts of the audience to their profoundest depths, and aroused the nation to the fearful character of that atrocious murder, and compelled the people to bring the murderers to trial. He said to me: ‘¢Such an opportunity to speak in behalf of our murdered MEMOIR BY REV. DR. RUST. 205 brethren was worth a life, and death for such a privilege was a price too poor to pay.” Bishop Haven took the deepest interest in our educational work. Scarcely an enterprise has been inaugurated in the South, since his assignment to that field, without his advice and co-operation. All embarrassed churches and schools appealed to him, and rarely without relief. At his confer- ences he always had some poor church or school for which to beg, and he started the subscription by a liberal gift himself. The amount of his contributions to benevolent purposes was - very great, and he often pleasantly remarked that he could trust his friends for an appropriate burial. He aided all our schools, giving preference to those in the greatest peril and the most important to our work. The one bearing his name, at Waynesboro’, and the Clark University, at Atlanta, were especial objects of his efforts. He raised funds and pur- chased four hundred and fifty acres of land for the Clark University, and when stricken down with disease he had commenced a subscription to raise $10,000, which he had pledged toward the erection of Chrisman Hall and the en-. dowment of a professorship, then nameless, now the Haven Professorship. No name is so reverenced among our colored people as that of Bishop Haven. They loved him, they trusted him as they did no other. When the news of his sickness reached them they came together, they wept, they prayed that he might be spared to them; and when he died there was sorrow in the hearts of two hundred thousand of our colored brethren in the South, and the two hundred millions of Africa will feel the loss, and learn to speak his name with gratitude. ° . . . . . . . ° e 206 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. In the shadow of this great grief we bow in reverence and submission. We thank God for Gilbert Haven, his intellect, his culture, his writings, his addresses, his sermons, his lib- erality, his heroic life, his triumphant death. We thank God that he was elected a Bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church, for the grand work he has done, and the sublime truths he has proclaimed. They shall never die. They shall prove an inspiration for all coming time to millions of young men that shall rally around the Cross to do battle for God and humanity. ADDRESS OF BISHOP WILEY. 207 x. ADDRESS OF BISHOP WILEY, AT THE HAVEN Memoria SERVICES IN ST. Pauw’s M. E. Cuurca, CINCINNATI. Bishop Witey followed in an eloquent and timely address, of which the following is the merest outline : Bishop Haven was a grand man, physically strong and en- during, with a great heart and a great mind; a man of wonderful energy and concentration of purpose; of a clear brain; a Christian of pure developments; a man of tender and widely reaching sympathies. Intellectually he was a genius, a scholar, widely read, quick, witty, intensely active, with an incessantly working brain, with all its forces and all its vast resources ever at his command, and hence prolific in its productions to an amazing degree. His brain was one that seemed rarely to sleep. The oration over the Chisholm family will deserve a high place among the choicest produc- tions of American literature. This address, which stirred the nation to its depth, was prepared in a single day. As a. patriot he rises before the whole country, and fills a place in the age and in the nation. He knew the whole country, its men, its politics. He was thoroughly posted in all the doings of the last eventful thirty years. As a patriot, he was true, sincere, intense, loyal, just, a profound believer 208 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. in all human right and human equality —in race, sex, and color. He was in favor of everything that was right and just and good. He was not a statesman, much less a politician ; he never inquired what is expedient, or what is of party interest,— but what is right ; and for the right he was fearless, and had the true spirit of the martyr, and for it suffered martyrdom. The South knew him no more than Jesus was known in Judea. He lived a martyr’s life; he died a martyr’s death. Yet, with all the weight of care and the con- stant sacrifices, his was a bright and pleasant life; he was of a cheery, cheerful nature. He went South in the fiercest national storms, and went with a consecrated sense of duty. His predominant characteristic was devotion to the right. His was a loving, tender, sensitive human heart. His heart, his intense hatred of oppression, his unfailing devotion to work, were a part of that resistless energy of character and fidelity to truth, justice, and right. In this he was a radical, a destructionist. He would tear down and destroy wrong. In the church he was conservative; for in that was no wrong to be uprooted, no evil to be overthrown. He was a stanch Methodist. He had not the slightest divergence from its doctrine as interpreted by the church he represented. He believed in the verbal inspiration of the Bible, and was inveterately opposed even to the slightest deviation from the precepts of faith established by revelation, and accepted by the church. In him the church has lost a faithful, consist- ent, and conscientious officer. Before he was made Bishop the church saw plainly the vigor and integrity, but feared the apparent destructiveness, of his nature. When appointed a Bishop he chose the South for his field, and many trembled for the result. They thought him hot-headed —a warrior, ’ ADDRESS OF BISHOP WILEY. 209 ‘not a peace-maker. They feared that his method would aggravate rather than ameliorate the disease. But there are few who will not admit now that his choice was a good one, and that his vigor and sincerity were exactly what was needed. May his mantle fall upon men fully consecrated to the work which God has laid upon the church. ' 210 — MEMORIALS OF -BISHOP HAVEN. XI. A TRIBUTE By Rev. Marspatt W. Tayztor, D.D., A PRESIDING ELDER OF THE LEXINGTON CONFERENCE. DELIVERED AT THE HAVEN MEMORIAL SERVICES AT ST. PAUL'S METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, CINCINNATI. We have met here this evening under circumstances the most touchingly sorrowful. The watery vapor of heavy grief obscures our vision. But in the midst of the dark surround- ings of this hour we may trace the outlines of the noble form so suddenly and forever vanished from our sight —of him who was the friend of the slave, and the helper of the freed- men. Bishop Haven, -in connection with Dr. R. S. Rust, was lately the centre about which the educational interest of the freedmen clustered and revolved. Bishop Haven, upon whom we gazed, as it were but yesterday, with admiring hope, has passed on to that ‘‘rest which remains for the people of God.” “ His body with his charge laid down, * And ceased at once to work and live.” t We estimated highly his patriotism and splendid talent; we likewise revered him as a chief pastor. One long and lingering look upon his manly form, enshrined in all the calm sweetness of the Christian’s death, shall close the view forever. TRIBUTE BY DR. TAYLOR. 211 A tearful multitude of mourners assembled yonder at Mal- den, and moved forward to an adjacent necropolis, telling their grief in mournful numbers. They have laid his mortal remains in mute repose with his colleagues, Janes, Ames, and other venerated men, who preceded them to the land of Beu- lah. We, too, have gathered here to review his active life, recall his many virtues, and address affectionate words of consolation to the sorrowing son and daughter, and to the deeply-bereaved mother, who now sits only waiting till the messenger of rest shall bear her onward to mingle with the loved ones who have already gone before her to the better land. * Silent grief shall be their glory, “ Grief that stoops not to complain.” As I survey the imposing audience before me, attendant upon the solemnities of this hour, I am instinctively con- strained to silence. But a spirit whispers in the depths of my soul, ‘‘ The funeral of Gilbert Haven would be poor indeed, and manifestly incomplete, unless the voice of the negro, for whom he labored and endured so much, be lifted up in grateful acknowledgment of his life, his work, and in undescribable sorrow for what to us seems his most untimely death. “Nor can the coldest mortal blame our tear Which glitters on his precious bier.” I have come then, dear friends, to offer the tribute of the colored people of the Methodist Episcopal Church and of the nation, to Gilbert Haven, our friend in slavery, our helper in freedom, and our spiritual guide. Hear me while I recall a few of the many noble acts of his life that bind our hearts with unchanging devotion to his memory. 212 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. He loved and labored for us while we were yet in chains. WhatGarrison, Phillips, and Sumner were to the State, such was he to his church. He lost no lustre by comparison with Chatham, Fox, Wilberforce, Clarkson, Watson, Wesley, or Coke. It was not mere love for the negro as such, nor an unnatural partiality for colored people, which actuated him. It was the love of justice and right, a violent hatred of oppression and wrong which impelled his mighty soul, engaged his fiery eloquence, and made him a warrior in the great anti-slavery conflict. ‘‘The warrior’s name, Tho’ peal’d and chim’d on all the tongues of fame, Sounds less harmonious to the grateful mind Than his who fashions and improves mankind.” I cannot think of any position in the gift of the American nation for which energy, culture, and superlative integrity is a qualification, that Gilbert Haven might not with propriety have aspired to. But instead, he reached forth his philan- thropic hand, until, with my people, he touched and felt the stinging pain and the intolerable burden of the woes and needs that oppressed them upon his own heart, and devoted his life to lighten and remove them. Can you wonder, then, that we loved him? These things touched his heart and smote his ear as God’s call to duty. With him to conceive was toexecute. When once impressed with his duty, every diversion from it was sin to him. Hence he put away from himself all popular patronage or favor that would in the least degree impede his efforts in behalf of the despised negro, whom he was not ashamed to call his brother and kindred. His high spirit could not truckle to the spirit of caste. The impetuosity of his zeal could brdok no temporizing. ‘‘ Nulla vestigia retrorsum” — TRIBUTE BY DR. TAYLOR. ' 213 no retreat — was his motto. When our tongues were silenced by physical force in the South, and by statutory enactments in the North, he loaned us his, and told our woes abroad. When the awful notes of war were loudly sounding in all the country, and many refused to give the country a helping hand unless assured that slavery should not die, Gilbert Haven said, ‘¢ Slavery must die.” That war became God’s agency of redemption. He was among those who went forward having only two purposes in view —to save the nation and to: destroy slavery. He saw both of these accomplished, and we expected him to rest content with what was gained. But, in addition, he demanded land and suffrage in the South, as the rightful and only means of securing and maintaining our new freedom. “Honor to him who, self-complete and brave, In scorn can carve his pathway to the grave, And hecding nought of what men think or say, Make his own heart his world upon the way.” When the church called him to the Bishopric, he at once identified himself with the freedmen’s work. He settled in the South, and hence was brought in closer contact with the people he felt called upon to aid, and, if possible, more deeply impressed than before with the magnitude of their necessities. He conferred with Dr. Rust, and plans were agreed upon between them for carrying forward the educa- tional work for the freedmen on a scale commensurate with its demands. The Bishop, jointly with our beloved secretary, assumed the labors and responsibilities of this work, and continued with unflagging interest to prosecute it to the day of his death. By the supreme mandate of our Heavenly Father, he has been relieved from further labor and the work remains unfin- 214 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. ished. To you, Dr. Rust; and to you, Bishop Wiley, the mind and hope of those he loved and served so well is now turned. Upon you, henceforth, rests the duty of completing what has been so well conceived and faithfully executed thus far. This is God’s pleasure. May the church endow you with the means essential to its completion. Bishop Haven labored, suffered, and died for us. He is the nation’s dead, the church’s dead; but much more is he ‘our dead. As a hero we honor him, and as a pure Christian we shall follow his example. But it would be unjust to him whose memory I honor, should I fail to declare that he did not permit suffering humanity of any race to pass without the comfort of his sympathy, and the influence of his voice and pen. This trait of his character was indelibly written on the national heart when he delivered‘at Washington, in the pres- ence of the magnates of the land, his burning denunciation of the murder of the Chisholm family. These words will “burn in the conscience of our nation until outrage and vio- lence are suppressed. By his death is laid low the friend of humanity, whether. clothed in fairer or in darker hue. Our friend is dead. No more shall we hear his lamentation and bitter denunciation of wrong ; but his eloquent words in behalf of the slave, and in defence of justice to the freedmen, shall live forever. Such, dear friends, was his sublime work and words when living; and such will be his sentiments when we meet him beyond the grave. They will not change, for they are right. And now, bowed, and uncovered at his tomb, we whisper: ‘+ Requiescat in pace.” ‘* All nations shall call him blessed.” EDITORIAL BY REV. DR. PIERCE. 215 XII. BISHOP HAVEN. Rey. Braprorp K. Prercg, D. D., 1x “Zion’s HERALD.” GitsERT Haven, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, is no longer with us. He died to earth in great peace and without a struggle, Saturday, January 3, at 6 o’clock P. M., and ascended to his rest. How pathetically in his last hours he alluded to his weariness. He was tired out. But there is rest for the weary, and he has reached it. A number of his near friends were semmoned to his bedside, on Satur- day morning, to bid him adieu, as his physicians judged that he might not survive the day. Dr. Cummings, Rev. C. S. Rogers, and Rey. J. W. Hamilton were at the house. Rev. Dr. Upham, Brother J. P. Magee, and Brother A. S. Weed were in the company as we visited the well-known and pleas- ant home under the shadow of the Methodist church. It was a scene of Christian sorrow. Tender tears were dropping from all eyes; but it was not sorrow without hope. The Bishop was perfectly himself. The condition of his lungs ‘rendered his speech somewhat difficult and a little indistinct ; but his utterances were vigorous. He received us with great warmth of affection. He said it was his impression when the blow first struck him, six weeks ago, that it was fatal. He wanted to live if it were God’s will. He saw great fields of usefulness before him. He had strong grasp, he said, on 216 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. both worlds. All was bright, however, before him. ‘I: have not a cloud over my mind,” he assured us. ‘It is all blessed. I know in whom I have believed. I believe the Gospel — all its precious truth — all through.” The last two words he uttered with characteristic emphasis. It did not seem like a dying hour, save that all were weeping in the room. Through all his sickness he had conversed with his son about dying and heaven, as one would speak of taking a journey to a familiar place upon the earth. ‘But what a blank his absence leaves in all our circles of Christian affection and activity! Every one who really knew Bishop Haven loved him, however he might differ with him in opinion. He had the singular and wonderful power of winning the hearty love of those whose views on important subjects were widely diverse from his own. He rarely ever, in controversy, lost his good temper, which gave him a re- markable power over his opponents; and if he thought any one had intentionally injured him, this one would be the first person to receive an act of kindness at his hand. Bishop Haven was endowed by nature with a fine intellect ; indeed, in many elements he might rather be considered a genius than one of an ordinary intellectual mould. His quick temperament gave an additional power to his original endowments, and made him one of the readiest as well as most forcible of writers and speakers. He was an accom- plished scholar in the classics and in general literature. His. memory was something wonderful. He wrote his review of Mrs. Stowe’s work upon Lord Byron, quoting at length from nearly all the poet’s great works, while in the country, away from all books, and with no means of correcting his article by the originals. The Bishop had a style of his own. It was open to the criticisms of the schools ; but it was peculiarly EDITORIAL BY REV. DR. PIERCE. 217 vivacious and always attractive. He wrote, with astonishing ease, on the cars, in depots, on the backs of letters, some of his most attractive communications for the press. His books have had a wide sale. The ‘‘ Pilgrim’s Wallet,” a peculiarly attractive volume of European travel, still has a good sale. His volume on Mexico was upon a fresh theme, and is a work of great interest and deserved popularity. The volume of his occasional sermons and addresses has not enjoyed so’ wide a popular distribution, but is by far the noblest monu- ment to his intellectual ability, his broad charity, and his forensic power. Bishop Haven rather underrated himself as to his pulpit ability. He was always instructive, and‘ at times rose to a great height of true eloquence and persuasive power. Some of his conference and camp-mecting discourses will never be forgotten by those who listened to them. His address at ‘Washington, in memory of the Chisholm family, was an occasion of extraordinary interest. The audience—one of the most impressive in the land—was powerfully moved. Per- haps this effort was the climax of the Bishop’s power. He was one of. the most unselfish of men. He labored incessantly on the platform and with his pen, receiving large sums of money; but all was as freely poured forth for the aid of struggling institutions of the Church and for our great charities. No one can tell the amounts that Bishop Haven has distributed everywhere with a lavish hand. How many ‘suffering colored men and ministers,.as well as brethren in all our Northern conferences, will remember tenderly the quiet gifts that were crowded into their hands by the generous Bishop. « . . f s From 1867 to ’72 he was editor of ‘‘ Zion’s Herald.” He ‘ 218 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. gave the paper a wide reputation outside of the church. He was a vigorous, audacious editor, always loyal to the church, conservative in doctrine and discipline, a radical reformer, outspoken, prompt, at the head of the advanced line of reformers, a denouncer of all unrighteousness,—even in high places,—a true patriot, a man to be loved and abused, but always true to himself and his apprehension of truth and duty. BISHOP HAVEN AND OUR MISSIONS. 219 XIII. BISHOP HAVEN AND OUR MISSIONS. From Tur “NORTHERN CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.” Five among the most eventful months of our life were spent with Bishop Haven. Impelled by physical necessity to seek a protracted sea-voyage, and by a long-cherished passion and purpose to see the missions of West Africa, in a wholly inde- pendent relation, at our own charges to the last farthing, yet by his invitation, we accompanied him to Liberia, and back to New York, by way of the Canary Islands, Spain, France, and England, and told him facetiously, when returning, that we had become well enough acquainted with him to write his auto- biography. We write not of personal recollections, however, now. There will be time for that, if the occasion arise, for it will be many a day, many a decade, ere the public interest shall have ceased in this man. There will, we predict, be more said that he said, and there will be more written about him than shall be found to be true of any deceased Bishop since Asbury. On New Year’s Day, 1877, on the bark ‘“‘ Jasper,” in Bassa ~ Cove, he had his first African chill. We rubbed, and wrapped, and administered, and then plead with him to leave at once the ‘‘dead-line.” But no; the church expected him, he said, to examine all the work ; and for weeks longer he tarried and toiled, inspected and inspired. 220 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. x African fever was, however, only an accident in his “‘ taking off.” Our Achilles drove his chariot so rapidly that the axles took fire and consumed it; himself stepped into another, up- ward-bound, and ‘‘is not.” Robustly, the Albany ‘* Argus” says: ‘‘Stout and hearty Gilbert Haven is untimely dead. He should have died hereafter.” But of all who rise to do reverence to his merits and his - memory, none will feel more entitled to a front rank, none to the privilege of placing the topmost immortelle, than the missionary force of our church, on whatever soil or sea, of whatever clime or color. There is no continent which living men will not feel to be the poorer and more lonely because he is gone. We write not now of the fact that, though Elliot originally conceived, and Vernon planted our Italy mission, there is room for doubt if, without Gilbert Haven’s advocacy, it would yet have been; nor of his being the advance courier of Butler to the centre and circumference of our mission in Mexico; nor yet of him as the fore-champion of the rightful recognition by the Missionary Board of our Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, and the unflinching, unwavering, untiring advocate of a bold and broad missionary journalism for our church. We can but now speak of what he did and tried to do for Africa while in Liberia. He found our Liberia church weakened and lonely by isola- . tion, and bound it with fresh cords. of connectionalism, by instituting anniversaries of our benevolentsocieties, by insisting that connectional collections should be taken, and by reproving the tendency to a local and secularized ministry, and theoreti- cally even, where he could not practically, restoring the itiner- ancy. He found them in their poverty, over-estimating their need of pecuniary help from America for their pastors, and he spurred them to self-reliance by a prospective, graduated ‘ BISHOP HAVEN AND OUR MISSIONS. 221 decrease in their supplies from abroad, until they should wholly depend on their own resources. Determined to find or make a way for our church to take its proper plate in Africa’s redemption, he sought and sifted evidence until con- vinced that unless we were prepared to go in force to the Congo, not then known to be the Lualaba, no better base-line for reaching the interior was available than Liberia. It was but a comparatively short distance from the coast to the boat- able waters of the Niger, and once there, we were in a ‘broad place.” He felt that, though the church could not, with a quarter of a million of debt on its missionary treasury, plan a campaign, he must at least put out picket-lines, and with only a scout or two at his command, he pushed those back from the coast. He feared that the Liberia Conference was too much pre-occupied to administer safely along the broad lines he desired to draw, and so separated this work amongst the ruder and remoter races from their jurisdiction, and estab- lished a mission to Interior Africa. He found the schools of the republic paralyzed by recent wars, which had exhausted the exchequer of the nation, and the Liberia College weill-nigh defunct ; so he kindled the hope of a revival of learning, and revivified our seminary to secure a prospectively better edu- cated ministry and membership. He was the same political, civil, and social agitator in Africa that he was in America. He entered boldly and at: once into all the problems that interested the nation. He found Liberia a mine of wealth, if only it had a short railway, and the obstructions at the mouth of the St. Paul River were removed ; and he publicly plead for their speedy undertaking. He knew that, as the only republic on the West Coast, they could receive little sympathy from any European powers, and hence urged a line of steamers directly to the United States. 222 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. He saw that Britain and Holland were building a commerce, and finding a great market along that coast, and he sedulously sought to make the merchants of the United States see their opportunity to compete with them in Liberia. He found Liberians excluding ‘from citizenship all but the black man, and he hurled hig heaviest bolts at the narrowness and at the concomitant suicidal rejection of capital from without, when they had none at home with which to develop their un- measured resources. He found them in peril, oppressed by arrogant and defiant Britishers on their coast, and with open sores in their disputed northern and southern boundary lines, into which British avarice and ambition poured, on every provocation, the poison of sedition ; and he told them that no nation ever attained freedom and force, no people ever acquired respected manhood, who had not the courage of their convic-' tions, and, if needs be, desperation to maintain them. He found them hugging the coast, and urged that their future lay in the interior, and that their fortunes must be allied with the native races. He found them, in many cases, subjecting to a mild sort of unlawful slavery the religiously and morally lower negroes about them, and his voice rang out for equality of rights amongst blacks as it did for equality of rights every- where. We do not mean to say he originated all these questions and theories; for there were parties there which recognized and advocated many of them, and parties which as violently opposed them. But his was no uncertain sound, his no half-and-half convictions. At once, within a week of his arrival on their shores, he was in the thickest of the fray, and the foremost. ‘There were people there, as elsewhere, who hated his positions and his pleadings ; but the weight of his influence went all one way. 2 The church of Liberia sought to avert every possible peril BISHOP HAVEN AND OUR MISSIONS. 223 to his health, fearing they would lose a friend, and that if he fell, as a result of his visit, the church might refuse to risk the life of another Bishop from this country to visit their coast. If the church at home, and the church and state in Liberia could realize what he planned for Africa’s development, it were difficult to predict on which side of the Atlantic the African race were debtor. But he knew no race; he hated the term. His brother’s heart-beat reached to whatever horizon he knew. He toiled in the tropics, and died pointing us to the pole. He lived in Atlanta, but plead for Alaska. We leave to others, at this hour, the ungracious task of dis- crimination against his better qualities, while we mourn the loss of the quickest and most many-sided man of his times. With all his faults —and they were neither few nor far to seek — we look about to see where he left his peer; with all his weaknesses, who will occupy his level of power, who move on his plane of progress? ‘' Nature made him and brake the mould.” As the Germans say of Richter, he was ‘‘the only one.” A vigorous antagonist, while he lived, has said since his death: ‘‘ The fulness of vision and the cor- rective of charity will make the stalwart journalist and crusader a glorious friend to spend eternity with.” 224 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. XIV. THE SWAN-SONG OF BISHOP HAVEN. By DANIEL STEELE, D. D. From “THe NORTHERN CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.” Ow the afternoon of Saturday, January 3, I received the following despatch from Malden: ‘‘ Bishop Haven is near his end, and wishes to see you.” Taking the first. train, leaving the cars at Everett, and walking rapidly two miles, I reached the old homestead two hours before this great and good man’s . death. Quite a number were in the parlors, coming and going, after a brief interview with their departing friend. On my entrance into his chamber, the Bishop lifted up his hand, exclaiming, as he grasped mine, ‘‘O, Dan, Dan, a thousand, thousand blessings on you. The Lord has been giving you great blessings, and me little ones, and now he has given me a great one. He has called me to heaven before you — the first to break the immortal triangle” (a ministerial fraternity of four members). Said I, ‘‘ Do you find the words of Paul true, ‘O death, where is thy sting?’” ‘‘ There is no death, there is no death,” he interrupted, in the midst of my quota- tion; ‘I have been fighting death for six weeks, and to-day I find there is no death.” JI did not then know that these words are a part of one of Longfellow’s immortal stanzas :— “‘ There is no death! what seems so is transition ; This life of mortal breath Is but the suburb of the life elysian, Whose portal we cal! death.” SWAN-SONG OF BISHOP HAVEN. 225 There is no doubt that that brilliant intellect, in which were stored all the choicest treasures of the poets, was citing this stanza as an expression of his triumph. Then he repeated, again and again, John viii. 51: ‘‘ ‘ Shall never see death, shall never see death.’ Glory! glory! glory!” Ihad never heard him shout before, in an intimacy of thirty-seven years. He once told me he was never out of sight of land on the current of religious emotions but once; and that was at the Hamilton camp-meeting. To my remark ‘‘ You have a great Saviour,” he instantly replied, ‘‘ Yes, that is the whole of the Gospel, the whole of it. He then with some difficulty said :— “Happy, if with my latest breath I may but gasp his name; Preach Him to all, and cry in death, Behold, behold the Lamb!” In less than a minute he had an opportunity to preach Christ by a testimony of his power to save. For just then his ‘counselling physician from Boston came in to bid him farewell. Said the dying Bishop, as he reached out his left hand— his right was dead and black from mortification —‘‘ I am satisfied with your attentions; you have done all that human skill can do to heal me. I die happy. I believe in Jesus Christ.” The physician made no reply; but as we passed down the stairs he said, ‘‘I never saw a person die so before.” To me it did not seem that I was in the presence of death. The whole atmosphere of that chamber was that of a joyous and festive hour. Only the tears of kindred and friends were suggestive of death. I felt that I was sum- moned to see a conquering hero crowned. I have often read of Payson’s dying triumphs, of the river of death narrowed to a rill across which he could step; but the Bishop saw not ever the rill. Jesus had annihilated it. 226 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. “Ts that a death-bed where the Christian lies ? ‘Yes, but not his; ’tis death itself there dies.” Twenty years ago the triangle had read Plato’s Phedo together, and we had hung with breathless interest around the cell of Socrates on the day of his death, following the course of that wonderful argument in proof of the soul’s immortality. ‘We had admired the wit of Socrates, flashing out over the very cup of hemlock, saying in reply to the question of his disciples, ‘‘ How shall we bury you?” ‘‘ Just as you please, if only you can catch me.” We had heard the dying philosopher tell them to put away childish fears, ‘*to charm the boy within their hearts” by searching through all ‘* wide Greece” and all barbarian lands, sparing neither money nor toil to find a charmer to charm away_the fear of death, so that they might die with as much peacefulness and triumph as the swan, which sings her sweetest song while she floats down the river to meet death. We had heard the despairing reply of the disciples, ‘‘Death terrifies and unmans us; we have no charmer, no swan-song.” We had heard Socrates’ unsatisfactory reply, the best that unaided reason can give: “Tf the traditions and mythologies | are true, the soul is immortal.” But now one of our number stands where Socrates stood, and instead of pointing us to immortality at the end of a syllogism based on an if, he cries out in the fulness of Christian triumph, ‘‘ There is no death.” Such is the chasm between the ‘‘ Divine peradventure” of Plato, and the abso- jute assurance of the believer in Jesus. . UNDER THE CATALPA. 227 XV. UNDER THE CATALPA. By Rev. THeopore L. CuyLer, D. D., in THE “NEW YoREK EvAne GELIST.” BRooxLyYn, Jan. 10, 1880. Gisert Haven, the most brilliant Bishop in, the Method- ist Church, has been lying in his new-made grave at Malden for a week; but there are many of us, who knew him well and loved him warmly, that cannot refrain from laying our chaplet of affection on that tomb. Bishop Haven was not comparable with his associate, Bishop Simpson, in pulpit oratory, or, with any of his associates in sober discretion. But in brilliancy of thought, which made him in conversation like a charged electric battery, and in brilliancy of pen that kindled everything it touched, he was without a rival in the Methodist Church. Consistently and conscientiously a radical, he always took extreme ground on such questions as negro rights, female suffrage, and liquor prohibition; and he never retreated. Underneath all this impulsive and impetu- ous radicalism, he was thoroughly old-fashioned and orthodox in his theology. As far from Calvinism as any Wesleyan usually is, he did delight in the doctrines of grace with his whole heart; and it is all the more grateful to me as a Pres- byterian to pay this honest tribute to his devout and godly character. I knew him when he was a student at Middletown — some- what rustic in his ways, but a bold, bright youth, hungry for knowledge. In 1862 he published a series of foreign letters 228° MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. in “The Independent” (one of them on Dr. Guthrie and the Free General Assembly), which Horace Greeley told me that he regarded as most remarkable productions. During the summer of that year I was watching the sunrise from the summit of the Rigi, and was accosted by a sandy-haired man in an old oil-cloth overcoat, who asked for some information about an ice-mountain within our view. At the foot of the mountain I fell in with him again, and was struck with his original and racy talk. The same evening he marched into my room at the ‘‘ Schweizer-Hof,” dripping with rain, and intro- duced himself as ‘‘ Gilbert Haven.” We mustered the few Americans whom we could find in Lucerne, and held a prayer- meeting on Sabbath evening in Haven’s room, for our far- away country in her dark hour of distress.~ On that evening began a friendship which waxed warmer and stronger until death sundered the tie for a little while. The same hand that sunders can re-unite. From some of my friend’s radical opinions and rash utter- ances I heartily dissented; but his flashing scimetar was wielded with a powerful hand, and was always aimed for the glory of God, and the rights of the wronged. The negroes of the South will lament him deeply. His fatal disease was contracted during his brief mission-visit to Liberia; and like the heroic and beloved Bushnell, he fell a martyr to the cause of Africa. IN MEMORIAM BY REY. E. 8. BEST. 229 XVI. IN MEMORIAM OF GREAT-HEART THE SECOND. By Rey. E. Stuart BEsT. Great-HeEart, thy work is done, Thy rest is nobly won, And thou art blessed. The Son of God hath come, d Safely He led thee home: Rest, brother, rest. Great-Heart, all o’er the land, Both white and sable hand In grief doth wring. ‘We miss thy words of cheer, We miss thee, brother dear; Sad songs we sing. Great-Heart, we'll not complain; Thine the eternal gain ; Why should we sigh When scvered loved ones meet, Where saints and martyrs greet, In ecstasy on high? Great-Heart, at even-tide, A light doth still abide, Bright on thy way ; It pierceth valley’s gloom, It glows within the tomb, And brings the day. Great-Heart, thou art not dead: Beyond our vision fled, A seraph bright: No more, from flying wing, Shall falling feather bring News of thy flight. 230 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. Great-Heart, thy foes are fled; See! their grim king is dead, To reign no more. Comrade, the battle’s fought, Onward to victory brought, ~ Conqueror and more. Great-Heart, a crown is thine, -, Jewelled by hands Divine For thine own brow; He who was crowned with thorns, ~ Thus all His saints adorns; Receive it now. Great-Heart, a pilgrim band, We watch thy waving hand Beyond the sea. We'll breast the flowing tide, Eager to reach thy side, We press to thee. ADDRESS BY REV. DR. MALLALIEU. 231 XVII. » BISHOP GILBERT HAVEN. ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE METHODIST EPpiscopaL CHURCH AT CINCINNATI, May, 1880, on THE OCCASION OF THE MEMORIAL SERVICES IN HONOR OF THE DECEASED BISHOPS AND GENERAL CONFERENCE OFFICERS. BY REV. WILLARD F. MALLALIEU, D. D. Giusert Haven was born in Malden, Mass., Sept. 19, 1821, and died at the residence of his mother in Malden, Mass., at six o’clock Pp. m., Saturday, Jan. 3, 1880. He was the son of Gilbert and Hannah Burrill Haven, ' who were both of pure New England blood. His paternal grandfather was a chaplain of the Revolution, and spent the winter with Washington and the Continental army amid the privations and suffering of Valley Forge. In early life he commenced a business career which would undoubtedly have brought him into the possession of abund- ant wealth if it had been continued. But a natural thirst for knowledge, which was never fully satisfied, led him to turn aside from all the allurements of prospective wealth, and commence a course of study at Wesleyan Academy, at Wilbraham, Mass. It was while a student at Wilbraham in 1839 that he gave his heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ, making a consecration so perfect and complete of all he had or hoped to possess, that it bound him in changeless loyalty to the Cross. He graduated at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., in 1846, and in the autumn of that year 232 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. became teacher of ancient languages at Amenia Seminary, in Amenia, N. Y. In 1848 he became the principal of this institution, a position which he filled with remarkable suc- cess for a period of three years. Because he felt that he had a divine call to preach, he abandoned the educational work, and in 1851 he joined the New England Conference. His first appointment was North- ampton, then afterwards he was stationed in Wilbraham, Westfield, Roxbury, and Cambridge. While at Cambridge his health failed, and he made preparations for a trip to Europe ; but just at this time the war of the Rebellion broke out, and, offering himself for service, he was granted the first commission that was issued to any chaplain, and went out with the Eighth Regiment of Volunteer Militia of the State of Massachusetts, which was the first to pass through Bal- timore and did most. effective service in preventing the cap- ital falling into the hands of the rebels. He served out his term with his regiment, and, his health still remaining poor, he set out on his European trip. He was gone for a year or more, during which time he visited most of the countries of Western Europe, and also travelled extensively in the East. On his return he finally resumed work in the New England Conference, and was stationed at North Russell Street, Bos- ton. While here he succeeded in purchasing a superior church edifice on Temple Street, to which he moved his society, and which is now known as the Grace or First Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston. In 1867 he was elected editor of ‘‘ Zion’s Herald,” which for five years he conducted with the most distinguished ability. He was elected from the New England Conference to the General Conference of 1868 and that of 1872. At the latter, held in the city of Brocklyn, New York, he was elected Bishop ADDRESS BY REV. DR. MALLALIEU. 233 of the Methodist Episcopal Church, on Wednesday; May the 22d. t As we have reason to believe, in accordance with the wise ordering of Divine Providence, his episcopal residence was located at Atlanta, Ga., and this continued to be his home till the day of his death. His official duties took him to all parts of our own country and to other lands. At the commencement of his episcopal career he made a long tour through the extreme North-west, carefully examin- ing the pioneer work of that important section of the coun- try. He subsequently went to Mexico, where he visited most of the principal cities, and returned from thence by a long and toilsome journey overland. While there he laid broad and deep the foundations of one of the most prosperous and hopeful missions ever established by our church. At a later period he visited Africa, thoroughly ‘examining into the needs of the work there, and devising plans which, if they be faithfully carried out, will bring measureless good to that long-neglected continent. His last extended episcopal tour was to the Pacific coast. He attended the conferences, inspected all the departments of church enterprise, made himself familiarly acquainted with the country and the people, and at length, with his work accomplished, he turned his face homeward. Sept, 28, 1879, he held the Nevada Conference, and at its close he hastened eastward in season to attend the session of the Cen- tral Illinois Conference ; commencing October 8. This was his last conference, and yet, though suffering much from overwork and sickness, he performed all duties, and preached with remarkable power and tenderness. Thence he hastened to Chicago, Nashville, and Atlanta, performing much needed service in each place, and especially occupied at the latter 234 “MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. place with abundant cares and labors in connection with Clark University, which in all its interests rested as a con- tinual burden upon his heart. From Atlanta, he passed northward to attend the meeting of the Bishops, and also the Board of Church Extension and the General Missionary meeting. Sunday, November 9, he was at Millington, Md., where he dedicated a church, the last service of that kind he ever performed. On Sunday, November 16, he preached his last sermon at Arch Street Church, Philadelphia. On the following Tuesday, he at- tended the funeral of a life-long friend in Salem, Mass., and on Wednesday evening lectured in Boston, in aid of the People’s Church. This was his last public service, and, true to himself, it was given to a struggling enterprise, having for its object the evangelization of the neglected masses of Boston. san Seek 23, he was in Malden, and worshipped, for the last time, the God of his fathers in the home of his youth. He returned from the church to his mother’s house, suffering most intensely, never again to pass thence till he was borne to his burial. It will be impossible, in this brief memorial, to do more than glance at a few of the most obvious points in the character of this great and good man. ° All agree that in all mental and physical gifts he was most richly endowed. His was a manly presence, and his pleasant face and cheery voice can never be forgotten by those who knew him, though but for a day. His intellect was clear and strong, his thought was broad and comprehensive, his range of studies and reading was well-nigh universal. He held in his mind the most abundant treasures of learning, which were ever at his command. ADDRESS BY REV. DR. MALLALIEU. 235 Wit, logic, sarcasm, argument, pathos, denunciation,. and ~ persuasion, all waited on his will, and were ever ready to serve his purpose when he would aid the weak or rebuke the strong, when he would encourage the good or condemn the vile. His was truly a master record. His intellectual grasp was that of a giant. As a man he was distinguished by all that was noble and true. He never failed a friend, and his great, brave heart, never treasured a thought of malice towards those who hated and abused him. Because of his practical sympathy and friendship for the oppressed and down-trodden, he was most bitterly maligned, and yet he prayed for his enemies, but still reached out a hand of love to the victims of injustice regard- less of all consequences to himself. His heart was as tender as that of a little child, and full of purest affection. No rarer love was ever witnessed than that between Gilbert Haven and Mary Ingraham, to whom he was married in 1851, and who departed this life in 1860; and that love never faded out of his soul. His great affliction broke his heart ; but the needs of a dying world and an enslaved race led him to cover his grief from human gaze, while he went out to labor with tireless zeal in behalf of God’s suffering poor and the advancement of the Redeemer’s kingdom. Gilbert Haven was pre-eminently a reformer. He was not a revolutionist, never a destructive. He had an intense abhorrence of everything that was wrong. He had an intense love for everything that was good. He hated slavery with all his mind, might, and soul; but he loved his country with equal power. A truer patriot never lived. Every good cause found in him an earnest champion. He would not suffer god- less men and women to assume to be the leaders in move- ments for the amelioration of the condition of mankind. He 236 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. , did not wait until the triumph of a good cause before giving: it his support. He was alike true and faithful when tight was in the minority as when in the majority. The great question with him ever was, on which side is God and right- eousness ; and there he was sure to be found. As a public speaker, he was effective rather than elegant. Men did not so much think of his style as of what he said. He compelled attention. His word, when he preached, was with much assurance and with the Holy Ghost. He believed what he preached, and he preached what he believed. He had no new theology. In every fibre of his soul and intel- lect he was thoroughly a Methodist. Not a bigot, for he loved all God’s people everywhere. But the grand, self- harmonious, man-ennobling, God-honoring doctrines of Meth- odism were his delight and inspiration. During the last years of his life he preached with special power at. many of our camp-meetings, at some of which scores were led to ‘Christ under his ministry. Outside of his pulpit efforts, his orations on various occasions were master-pieces of eloquence. His oration at Woodstock, Conn., on the 4th of July, 1879, and his wonderful oration delivered in the Metropolitan Charch at Washington, on the Chisholm murders, were efforts worthy of the ablest men that have ever spoken the English tongue. It will not be questioned that when he was elected Bishop there were many who did not really know him, who thought it was a measure of doubtful expediency. But if ever the fears of good men were groundless they were in this particular case. He proved to be a wise counsellor, a far- seeing and thoughtful worker in every department; aggres- sive in all good works, and one of the most apostolic and devoted men that has ever worn episcopal honors in our ADDRESS BY REV. DR. MALLALIEU. 237 church. Day by day and year by year it became more apparent that he was a vessel chosen of God, and divinely called to the great work with which he had been intrusted by the church. While his literary labors were sufficient to occupy the time of any ordinary man, he-was also constantly engaged in all kinds of reformatory work. Besides this, he was trustee of some half-dozen of our universities and schools, and was especially active in caring for our institu- tions of learning at the South. He raised by personal solici- tation tens of thousands of dollars for their establishment and endowment, and was never more active and successful in this work than during the last year of his life. In the dis- charge of his duties as Bishop, when presiding at the annual conferences, he was pre-eminently conscientious and faithful. He had a heart to feel for the preachers, and also for their wives and children, and his sympathy and love and prayers greatly helped all to go forth to undertake with fresh courage the great work of leading men to the knowledge and love of God. In his Christian experience Bishop Haven was a man of simple, humble, childlike. devotion to the cause he had espoused. He was a cheerful disciple of the Lord Jesus. His cup of joy always seemed full to the brim; but seldom, if ever, overflowed. He loved God with all his heart, and his neighbor as himself. He brought gladness with him into every home he entered. The children loved him, and every- body loved him who knew the-rich, generous depths of his abounding affection. How he bound men to him with the ~ cords of love was manifest through all this broad land when he had passed away. Not only was the wail of sorrow heard from the dusky sons and daughters of the South, for whom he had so often risked his life, and for whose race he died at 238 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. last, but from Maine to far-away Oregon there were those who mourned his departure with sincerest grief. In his death the grace of God was equally manifest as in his life. On that last day, in his boyhood home, in the pres- ence of his aged mother, and his son and daughter, now grown to most promising. manhood and womanhood, and with friends and relations about him, and with many of his ministerial friends who had been summoned to his side, he met and conquered the last'enemy. Amid the sad farewells that were spoken, his soul exulted in God, and with full voice he shouted his praises as he had rarely done in life; and when at last the supreme moment had come, the promised light of the evening tide of life was bestowed, and as he looked out eternityward he exclaimed: ‘‘It is all bright and beautiful; there is no darkness; there is no river. I an upborne by angels. Iam floating away into God.” And so with a triumphant smile upon his countenance, that even the chill of death could not efface, he passed away to the com- panionship of the loved and longed for, and to the presence of the ever blessed Christ. “ Brave, brilliant, battling spirit, rest at last; A conqueror, crowned with well-won laurels, rest! Green grow the sod above thy pulseless breast, Unthrilled—how strange !—by shrillest trumpet blast. Tears for ourselves, not him. He saw the strife Of Freedom’s agony in glory end; He heard the clang of broken chains ascend, And saw dark millions leap to new-born life. He saw, did well his part, and in full prime Lays down the battered blade for crown and palm, And enters—passing strange !—that endless calm, Unshocked for aye by all the storms of time.” PART III. —— HAVENISMS. SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF GILBERT HAVEN, [289] HAVENISMS. ——_@—_—_. Tue third part of this volume contains characteristic selections from Bishop Haven’s volumnious writings. ‘‘He being dead yet speaketh,” but his pen, alas, will write no more. Some of his works are now out of print, a fact which will give these selections an additional value. For kind assistance in original research, as well as per- mission to use the ample materials at hand, the author and compiler of this memorial volume presents his grateful ac- knowledgments to the family, publishers, executors, and intimate friends of him who was, par excellence, ‘our lit- erary Bishop.” CHAPTER I. SCRAPS FROM “THE PILGRIM’S WALLET.” One of the most characteristic parts of this delightful book of travels is its preface, in the form of ‘‘ A Letter of Introduction to My Dear Unknown.” It takes a master of language to use it in such a man- ner as to glorify trifles. Let the following description of. the Pilgrim’s old boots indicate how fine an English scholar used to stand in them. After referring to several of the walking- sticks which had kept him company in his pedestrian tour, which wooden companions had all been either lost or stolen, [241] 242 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. he gives the following entertaining account of the boots he wore ; faithful friends which clung to him to the last : — ‘*Gayly did they march forth; tattered and rent did they return. Yet they came victorious. To their soles cleave the soil of many lands. The fingers of British, French, Swiss, Italian, and Grecian Sons of Crispin sewed up their wounds, while huge hob-nails had made them resist the ice- smooths of the Alps. Now! they, alas, « « By time subdued — what will not time subdue ? — A horrid chasm disclose, with orifice Wide, dissentanuous, at which the winds Eurus, and Auster, and the dreadful force Of Boreas that congeals the Cronian waves, Tumultuous enter, with dire, chilling blasts, Portending agues.’ _ “The Israelites commended their shoes that had lasted them through forty years of wanderings; Italian Catholics cover ‘the shrines of favorite saints with crutches, bandages, and and other emblems of the diseases their intercessions are supposed to have cured; rags in like manner adorn the tombs of Mohammedan sheiks—each acting according to the fashion of their heathen ancestors. Following these sacred and profane examples, as Horace hung his dripping garments in the temple of protegting Neptune, so I these faithful boots on this temple of my gratitude.” Here speaks the classical learning of the ex-professor of Latin, the ready memory of the quick-sighted tourist; the skill of a true artist in words; and above all and through all, in all the rest of his life, the cheery, buoyant, inspiring genius and spirit of the man. Whoever can so apostrophize and glorify a pair of old boots, — what can he not enliven or enlighten with his sunshiny rhetoric, his homely wisdom or flashing wit! SCRAPS FROM ‘‘THE PILGRIM’S WALLET.” 243 The man who wears such boots will doubtless climb in sight of wide and pleasant prospects, as well as trudge through lowly places where he will find himself in sympathy with the humble life of the poor. - CASTE IN THE GRAVE. From time to time appears his irresistible hatred towards Caste, that great enemy to mankind, with which he must needs be confronted in travelling among the crystallized- orders of European society. He goes to England with the spirit of a loyal child and ardent lover, but he is not there long before his spirit is stirred within him by the artificial distinctions he finds among the people who otherwise appear to be very much alike. Under the head of ‘‘ Caste in the Grave,” he writes as follows concerning the new cemetery in an English rural town : — ‘It is in two parts. A road runs between. Two hand-. some stone chapels, just alike, apparently, though unspeak- ably different in the eye of a true Churchman, stand opposite to each other at the several entrances. of the grounds. One lot and chapel is for Dissenters, one for Churchmen. A gentleman told me that in a parish in Yorkshire, where the road did not kindly cut off the sacred from the accursed earth, the clergyman refused to perform the consecrating services until they had built a wall at least three feet high and six feet deep between the parts,— this depth being that to which the graves were to be dug. ‘One Anglicism was added to this, showing that this aristocracy is chiefly for money. There are in the conse- crated ground three classes of graves. ‘These spots are marked. To bury in the first class costs fifteen shillings; to bury in the third, five shillings ; and so for lots, for monu- 244 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. ments, inscriptions, everything. The first, second, and third-class cars run through the graveyard. And it is simply a matter of money. Not titles and coats of arms command exclusive control of the grand first division of that country churchyard. If the duke will pay but his five shillings, he must sleep in a third-class grave. If the weaver will pay the price, he can be ate by first-class worms.” This gives the sturdy Abolitionist a chance to thrust out bis elbow towards his own country across the sea, and he con- tinues thus: ‘‘ But it will never do for us to throw stones at this nonsensical feeling. A light mulatto lady sat at our table on the vessel, another entered the church before me yesterday, each as unnoticed as myself. But for an Ameri- canto treat unconsciously his neighbor thus, for a church to treat a communicant thus,— I have yet to see it. The last sight I saw there was a colored minister, known to the sexton to be a minister, thrust into the last pew; and that, too, as if he felt himself disgraced by having to perform such a service to such a creature; and this in abolition Boston!” THE GREAT ENGLISH PREACHERS. “ St. Paul’s River? Ask a New Yorker why it is important to go up the Hudson ; ask a Londoner why one should go up the Thames; ask a German why one should go up the Rhine; but never ask a Monrovian why one should row up the St. Paul’s. It is to him more than either of these rivers is to their lands and cities ; for it is the proof to him that he has a country behind the port, and that country is being developed successfully. It is his assurance of the settlement of Africa by a Christian people — an assurance which no seaport can give, which no other part of Liberia so well affords, and which is furnished by no river on the coast in foreign hands. It is the key of the country, the foretaste and hope of the Americo-African. Hence it is deserving of examination. ‘* Monrovia is situated about six miles south-cast of the mouth of the St. Paul's River. The Stockton leaves the St. Paul’s about three miles above its mouth, and winds its way - south seven miles to Cape Mesurado, the base of the town. The Mesurado comes down from the east more directly, and enters the bay at the base of the cape. These two come together at Monrovia. The Mesurado is a narrow stream, ten or twelve miles long, with low banks, and of no great availability. The Stockton is alike low, marshy, narrow; but it enters the St. Paul’s. That gives it a value not its own. : Up this river the Monrovia gentry have their farms — plantations, they call them here. ‘Here is the real seat of the present, and source of the future, of Liberia. So many told us. It was desirable, and, if not too dangerous, needful to explore this portion of the republic. 296 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. ‘‘ Nothing is so surprising and so unexpected as the breadth of these rivers. I had supposed the streams of Liberia to be mere rivulets. But not the Connecticut nor the Hudson is as wide as the St. John’s or St. Paul’s. ‘¢A mile up there is a little elevation, and a clearing is made here by Professor Freeman of Liberia College, as a country home. It shows how acclimated we can become, when this Vermont Yankee lives cheerily in the heart of this malarial swamp, and waves his salute to us from his window as we row past. ‘* A mile or two farther up, a big old log projects into the river, gray with mud and years. It looks like a gigantic crocodile, and is noticed as the vegetable germ from which that creature was probably developed. Our friends inform us that it has a celebrity greater than Darwin could give it. It is a witch-home — the first we had seen of the multitudes that cover thick with their terrors this land of human dark- ness, bodily and spiritual. That abode of witches was a terror to all these boatmen, and many was the misery that shot through them as they paddled swiftly by the crocodile- tree. A little farther up the river, on the opposite side, a huge trunk rose twistédly from the shore, and hung well out over the stream. It was four feet thick and sixty feet long. Its boughs were ragged and thin ; its leaf was not unlike. that of the wild cherry-tree. Perhaps the medicinal qualities of each are not unlike. That is the celebrated sassawood- tree, the ordeal of witches. Its bark, powdered, makes a powerful emetic and cathartic. The one charged with witch- craft is doomed to drink it. If he throws it off he is pro- nounced innocent; if not, he dies, and is adjudged guilty. Myriads are the victims to this sassawood ordeal. The witch-house and witch-tree —the centres of the religion of : GLIMPSES OF AFRICA. 297 the people — are both met ere we have passed five miles into the country. ‘You see but little of the settlement from the river; but what you do see betokens thrift, and more. A large house stands just above the church at Virginia City. In front of it is a small circle full of trees. These are the coffee-trees, the beginning of the wealth and the hopes of the river and the land. Unlike the coffee-plant of Mexico, which is a sort of tendril, or thin, sprawling branch, this is a neat and even handsome tree. It inclines to grow tall and run its branches up in a narrow cone. That gives it less bearing surface. The wise plan is to cut its head off, and so develop its lateral branches, keeping it humble and fruitful and easily handled. The tree gets to be a shrub of four feet high in three years, and then puts forth blossoms. These blossoms take a year to ripen. So you see the white blossom, small and brown beneath, on the same tree where berries in every state are in process of growth. A beautiful young mango stands near the house, about the size of a cherry-tree, and of the most exquisite tint of green, light and rich as no dyer of earth can color it. ‘¢Hon. Mr. Dixon, Speaker of the House, whose place adjoins this, higher up, came down to meet and greet us. We regretted that time did not admit of our going up to his place; also to the other estates farther up. They are said to be finer than any below. There ‘are the plantations of Mr. De Coursie and Mr. Sharp. The first is the largest coffee plantation in the country; the last the largest sugar planta- tion. Mr. Sharp commenced business some twenty years ago. He wore out too many natives in grinding his corn. Then he killed too many of the small and weak cattle in the. same process. So he was not getting satisfactory return. 298 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. He sends to Dr. Pinney at New York for a mill. His order is greater than his draft. The doctor sees William E. Dodge, gets a loan of $1,200, sends out a small steam-mill, with all the appurtenances. The note is paid when due, and Mr. Sharp steps into a fortune. He is now the largest planter, and probably one of the wealthiest men, in the country. His mill is never broken down or worn out. He sends to market annually some five hundred puncheons of sugar — over five tons. His warehouse at Monrovia is one of the biggest —a huge stone receptacle. *¢ Allis not perfect with this perfect sugar planter. The wife of his youth and poverty had no children, and so, Napoleon fashion, he casts off his Josephine. The pliant legislature grants him a divorce. He ‘ marries’ another — takes another, I should say — and his discarded wife supports . herself as matron of the Lutheran Mission. He and a Mr. Anderson, son-in-law of Bishop Roberts, got into a fierce fight; Anderson sprang at him to knock himdown. He shot Anderson in the head, and killed him. He also distils the skimmings of his vats into rum. These three offsets largely . balance the good. Yet in all these he is no worse than some of his neighbors, or his rival business men across the seas, They, too, largely indulge in this hideous practice of divorce. A leading lawyer, a leading merchant of the coast below, and a member of our conference, were all in this mire of pollution. The minister, with the usual luck of that tribe for good or evil, was the only one of these three that got his bill, and he was justly expelled from the ministry and membership for the iniquity. ‘* A native boy was introduced to me, son of a prince, in the service of Mr. Johnson, named Ulysses 8. Grant. The great general, and greater president, has had many honors. GLIMPSES OF AFRICA. : 299 Not the least of them is the giving of his name to this native youth. In honor of both prince and president I shook his hand. He ought to have on a few more clothes; but prob- ably his master thought he was sufficiently clothed with honor. His name is a royal apparel.” THE ROAD TO EGYPT. [From the “ Christian Advocate.”] ‘“*¢ Between that church and that house,’ quietly remarks Dr. Blyden, ‘starts a path that leads direct to Egypt!’ There was a sensation, fit to conclude the successive sensa- tions of the day, from its nervous beginning to its Johnsonian and Grantian close. ‘How long is the road?’ ‘Four thou- sand miles.’ ‘Open and travelled all the way?’ ‘All the way. I have seen, a hundred miles out, a dervish who had walked on it from Cairo, and even from Mecca.’ ‘Is it settled?’ ‘Every six miles there is a village.’ ‘ Peaceful?” ‘Generally.’ ‘Any cannibals?’ ‘ About four hundred miles out, perhaps.’ So the pleasure hath its poison too.” ‘¢ We drop down the river to Clay Ashland, Messrs. Dixon and Johnson accompanying us to that landing. Only one church in this place, the Baptist. The Methodist is in ruins by rain and neglect, The Presbyterian and Episcopalian are gone. Too much help did it. The Baptists, being let alone, are getting ahead. We should have gone back a half mile from the shore. So Dr. Pinney informed us. On a rise that distance back we could have seen coffee plantations for a mile and a half in every direction. The river above is also settling up. Some towns have fallen to decay. Hamburg and Mills- burg among them. But towns are no signs of progress; farms are. These increase and multiply, and fill the land for ten miles up and for four miles back.” 300 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. MAHOMMEDANISM IN AFRICA. ‘Dr. Blyden says that during his travels in 1872-73, on the exploring expedition for the Sierra Leone Government, in every large pagan town he found one intellectual Moslem acting as prime minister to the chief, and directing his policy. He learned that the chief advisers of the king of Ashantee are Mohammedans from Sokoto. This is also true of Daho- mey. It is also said by James Johnson, ‘a native clergyman of Sierra Leone, that Mohammedanism is numerically increas- ing in that locality, and that three-fourths of the additions are through conviction and not by birth. ‘¢ The African Moslems are great travellers. Dr. Blyden met at Toto Korie a boy who was born in Mecca, while his mother was on a pilgrimage thither. Newly converted Mos- Jems often go from the desert of Bornou or Lake Tchad to the great collegiate mosque at Cairo, and return. They will go long distances for their education. One young Moslem negro “is told of who was in the habit of sending orders to Trubner & Co., of London, for books, who went two hundred and fifty miles to get his education. A copy of the Koran was found some few years ago to be of Liberian origin. It was written on coarse folio leaves of a ledger, such as is used in the cus- tom-houses. It was written by a negro. It was not perfect, as it commenced with the nineteenth Sura. ‘¢ The. Mohammedans have shrewdly stationed themselves in influential towns nearest the coast, and generally in those commanding the trade from the distant interior. They have in some way succeeding in impressing the people that their religion is peculiarly adapted to the African. A missionary, who has been laboring in the interior for two years, told us that when he urged the people to accept Christianity, he met GLIMPSES OF AFRICA. 301 with two general answers: first, that Christianity was good for ‘’Merican man, but no good for country man.’ The second generally came from intelligent Mahommedans, and was tersely put in this form: ‘ Christ is the white man’s Saviour ; Mohammed is the black man’s.’ ” UP THE ST. JOHN’S. ‘The second experiment of this up-the-river sort was at Bassa. Three rivers come together here —two minor and short ones, the chief one broad and long. Benson, Mechlin, and St. John’s are their names. Of these, the last is the chief. On the northern side of this river. across from its mouth, lies the pretty port of Edina; on the southern, the less pretty, but larger and more active, port of Buchanan. Both together take the name of Bassa, or Grand Bassa. This was the most famous port on the coast, in the old slave times, for that trade. It is now the most active in the palm-oil and camwood trade. You see the natives coming into the town at all hours of the day, and all days of the week, bringing on their heads, or between their shoulders, baskets made of interwoven green leaves of the palm, holding palm kernels, or a long crock of oil embedded in a basket woven of palm- leaves, or on their heads carrying the scraggy root, grimy with dirt, but disclosing in its edges and splinters, the bril- liant red of the camwood, most beautiful and most costly of dyewoods, second only in worth to the cochineal of the Canaries, which we saw a few weeks thereafter. This wood is worth two hundred dollars a ton. It is dug up, the tree itself being of no value, only the root. It is brought a hun- dred. miles and more on the heads of the natives, sometimes of the weight of over a hundred pounds. These two prod- ucts are the most valuable of the natural products, and the 302 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. only ones, except ivory, they export along the whole coast. The Liberians have added coffee and sugar, but they are cul- tivated, and not wild productions. ‘On this river we passed a gentleman of the country, a native, with his two wives. They were going home, prob- ably from a visit to friends on the coast. The two women sat before the husband — the front one being the first wife. Her face was chalked in shapely forms upon the forehead and around the eyes, in honor of the gala-day. Servants, or slaves, probably, plied the canoe, and the dignified gentleman rode at his ease, with his family before him. ‘¢You never see these ladies of the household walking abreast, or walking by the side of their husband. The next day at Edina a man passed down the street with four or five wives preceding him, walking all of them in silence and single file. I learned in Utah that the husband there seldom waited on his-wives to church. How could he, when no side- walk could contain them all at once? The Mormon and the savage African are in these respects alike, and alike savage. No equality, but slavery, is this abominable polygamy.” A LITTLE LIBERIAN LAW. In a private residence used for a court house, the Bishop witnessed the following : ‘¢Here an interesting case is going forward. The late President Roberts left a will, by which his property was given to heirs near of kin, and $10,000 in American bonds, and a coffee plantation on the point of the cape, were given, after the death of his wife and daughter, in their income, to assist education in Liberia, the disposition of the income being with the stewards of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Monrovia. Of course, a will with $10,000 cash in it, besides \ GLIMPSES OF AFRICA. . 803 a large house and a coffee farm, could not fail to get into the courts. It is the biggest prize— perhaps the first —that has gone ashore among the lawyers since the republic was estab- lished. The wreckers are at work trying to break it up. No will, seeining!y, was ever more carefully made. It is very minute, prolix enough even to please a lawyer’s passion for prolixity, full of legal niceties and unnecessarities. Yet it is on trial for its life. The court consists of a venerable gentle- man, sitting behind a table: Judge Richardson. On one side of the front parlor, as it once was, of the executive mansion, , sits the jury, a not over-intelligent and fascinating body —as what jury ever was? Opposite them sit the lawyers in the case, two on each side. ‘¢ The spectators are in the back parlor, folding-doors hav- ing disappeared. The fight between the lawyers is sharp and interesting. Attorney-General Davis was a student in the office of Hon. W. W. Ricé of Worcester. He was refused admission to other offices in Boston. I rejoice to chronicle this fact, told me by Mr. Davis himself on the very day the news is read by me of the election of the same gentleman to the Congress ef the United States—a just reward for a manly deed. ‘The lawyers were skirmishing over minor points, the chief skirmishers being Messrs. Davis and Hilton. The former charged the plaintiff with seeking to delay the prose- cution of the case. The main point before tlie court, whether conversation with a witness to the will, he being alive and accessible, was admissible, was lost sight of for the moment in the personal conflict. This was sharp and interesting. No American lawyers could be saucier or more gentlemanly. One quotes Shakespeare ; the other replies that the gentle- man may exhaust his familiarity with Shakespeare by that 304 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. quotation, but Shakespeare is not the authority in this court, but the statutes of Liberia, and to these he appeals. Of course, all this was part of the law’s and the lawyers’ delay, but the judge’s decision on the real point, ruling out the wit- ness, showed his head was ‘ level,’ however keen those of the contestants before him might be. Mr. Johnson, in a grace- ful speech, disclaimed all desire to delay the law, and the attorneys for the State accepted his disclaimer. THE END OF THE PARISH. In a delightful letter to the ‘‘ Northwestern Christian Ad vocate,” under the above caption, Bishop Haven describes a trip into the country by land. ‘‘ The End of the Parish” is only four miles back from the coast; but even against this journey there were many vigorous protests and warnings of the danger of fever. ‘I mount my carriage: Behold it. There it stands before McGill’s big stone warehouse, under a wide-spreading mango. A cream-colored creature in the shafts, a scarlet cover over the seat. You never had a handsomer turn-out on Drexel road. Nay, comparisons fail, for this is the only sort here. My Episcopal brother, finding that I have decided to ‘ stick,’ decides to go with me. JI mount my box. It is three feet long, almost, perched on a pair of wheels, with no springs to break the jolting or be broken by it, with a pair of rude shafts, and between them the animal—a bullock—ahout the size of the Philistine heifer, or a stout Newfoundland dog. ° Its weight and size I forgot to inquire, but it was small enough for the job set it to do—to carry four hundred pounds and cart and boy four miles. ‘* Before us rode in a lighter cart our other brother minis- ter, and the on: who waa to have driven us, Brother Yancey GLIMPSES OF AFRICA. 305 of Georgia. How pleasant it is to meet Georgians so far from home! This brother left Sparta some four years ago. He is ‘nigh about’ the smartest man in Cape Palmas. He owns these bullocks, has raised a donkey which trots ‘beside _its dam, has made cloth from cotton which grows wild here, raised sugar, coffee, had his farm overrun in the late war, house burned, his brother killed, yet is full of spirit, and is repairing his fortunes as cheerfully as if he had met with no losses. One of the family of this brother, all whose children, a large number, he has adopted, drives our bullock. “An India hat of pith, the property of Brother Yancey, covered with white muslin and lined with green, an umbrella, a fan, and a handful of leaves in my hat, make up my pro- tections against the sun. The breeze from the land at this hour, near ten, is dying out; that from the sea has not yet set-in. It is, therefore, the sultriest hour of the day. But the meeting is appointed at eleven, and so the danger must. be met. We pass by our church and seminary at Cape Palmas. They are not the ‘end,’ and so are excluded from this sketch. There the end begins. You see the path stretching straight before you. ‘«Qur team moves glibly along, and so do our tongues. The roadside is lined with flowers and fruits and trees and leaves of strangeness and of beauty. The most numerous is the cocoanut, which seems the favorite tree of the lower coast. Its thick crown, not very far from the ground, makes it not unsuitable for shade, while it is also useful for fruit. More useful is its neighbor the palm, so called by way of pre- eminence, for the other is a palm, and so are many others. But this is the treasure-house, the mine of wealth, the real currency of the land. It produces the palm-oil of commerce, ‘the most valuable product of the whole coast. It is lower 806. MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. and bushier than the date or cocoa palm. Its-leaves are numerous enough for shade. They are less lithe and long: and graceful than the cocoanut. In among them you can see great cone-like bunches covered with red nuts, about: the size of dates or prunes. These red dates are set over the the cone Jike diamonds over a brooch, each in a bed of its own. They are not beyond being eaten sometimes for their own sake, though they are too oily for untrained taste. These give the well-known palm-oil. Inside of them is a kernel, which is also sent to Europe and made to yield the samc substance there. Of course, this wealth-giving tree is not out of our landscape. It is a popular tree for shade and for trade. «There is yet another palm-tree, which yields wine. These the natives cut down in this part of the country to get the sap, though elsewhere they have learned to tap them. You can see them growing by the roadside, smaller than their kindred, because not allowed to reach their growth. The ‘liquor they exude is pungent, soon ferments, and is good for drunk-making powers in a very short space of time. ‘« Another of these same palm-like leaves. You will notice on the roadside, a clump of sharp cactus-leaves spring out of a stump hardly a foot or two from the earth. In the centre of these spines rises a small cone, itself, in looks, a concentrated spine. That is the pineapple, most delicate of fruits. How the thorniest things yield the sweetest! What so thorny as the sweet-briar and the rose-bush in northern latitudes? What so perfect there in color and fragrance as their flower? So the cactus in tropic climes, most hideous of trees, has the most exquisite flower, and its sharp and homely spines the most perfect fruit. It grows here by cultivation, not wild. It is set around a garden, and -yields GLIMPSES OF AFRICA. 807 its fruit at all seasons. Anent the pineapple, let us say, one never knows how fruits taste till he eats them where they grow. Apples in Michigan, peaches in Delaware, pears in’ Massachusetts, plums in England, watermelons in Egypt, oranges in Florida, pineapples in Liberia. These are not. the only seats where these sovereigns reign, but they are among their chosen palaces. Pluck that pineapple and taste it. It runs with sweetness. It overflows. It cannot con- tain itself. And such sweetness. The northern air chills and thickens its blood, and takes out its flavor. You could relish it by the hour. Yet it is the only fruit you dare not eat. All warn you of its febrile powers. It is a nurse of. the fever. So it stands safely amid its thorns, and hangs securely along the deck. Nay, cut up and sugared, it finds no devourers but the cockroaches. Officers and crew alike: shun its allurements. ‘Every sweet a snare,’ they say, as they look on its lusciousness. To the acclimated inhabitant itis not so. They make its juices into a table-beer, which they pronounce excellent. And otherwise to them it bears the palm among the palms. ‘- You will note, a marvellous variety and richness of leaves and flowers along the roadway. I got tired of stopping my team, and having these exquisite leaves and flowers handed me. They blossom of every color —scarlet, pink, blue, purple, buff, yellow, and of every shape—open bell, in clusters like chimes of closed bells, like pinks over the fields, though of deeper tint, in convolvular shape, hanging on all the bushes, blazing in the palm-trees, no end of shape or color. But the varieties of green in the leaf are more numerous and more marvellous than the hues of flowers. They are dark, thick, glossy — such are the rubber varieties and the soap-leaf. They are light and delicate ferns. ‘ Most 808 ’ MEMORIALS .OF BISHOP HAVEN. moving delicate and full of life,’ they seem as they wave softly ‘in the soft breeze. They are long, slim, wiry, and palm-like ; short, broad, and soft, like the fig; grayish-green, pinkish-green, pea-green, and intense Paris-green, exceed- ingly lustrous, every shade conceivable, and many that could never be conceived outside of tropic skies and perpetual foliage. ‘* Yet this foliage is not perpetual. It falls, the leaf does here, no less than icy Iowa and bleak Bangor. Those tall: cotton-trees are shedding their leaves. They'll be stripped by February as bare as a maple at Christmas, and they stand stripped for two or more months. That mango is covered thick with red leaves, giving it an autumnal aspect. It is, the young leaf replacing the old. The cocoanut has dry and dead spines coming out of its trunk. In fact its trunk is but a covering of dead stalks, that have died all along its upward growth. So death rules in this paradise, even in its foilage. If we have reached the place ‘where everlasting spring abides,’ we have not that of ‘never withering flowers.’ They decay the quicker here for their exuberance of life. . ‘¢ The narrow path leads through a moderate valley, with . pretty swelling hills on either side. To the left or northern side is a knob on which is « large stone building, dignified enough in size and situation for a city hall or court house. It is the jail. What the want of so big a building and so far from town it is hard to say. It is only less out of place than the Liberia College in Monrovia. The prisoners complain that its cells are cold, so enervating is the climate. There is but little use for it, as flogging is still used for petty offences, and they have none but petty. One murder only has ever been committed in this colony, and the murderer escaped. CR? GLIMPSES OF AFRICA. 809 The actual end of the African parish is at the farm of ‘ Brother Bowen,’ at Tubmantown.” TUBMANTOWN. “Tt is reached. Enter the little yard of Brother Bowen. It is a farm-yard, and not unlike such in country spots in the States. The house stands back a hundred feet or so from the road. Banana-trees, with their great leaves, are in a gar- den on one side. A huge mango-tree stands a little down the road, like a great elm in a New England homestead. Coffee- trees inclose the house on either side. Farm truck lies just to the right of the house and in front of it, wagons, a small pile of wood, just such as any common country farm-house in America might show. Everything is familiar — even to the half-neglected, half-attended flowers near the house. Superb June roses, large, full, dewy, and of unspeakable richness of odor, are hanging before your watering senses on those tall rose-bushes. Oleanders blaze in the sun and out-redden it; tall orange-rods rise up on slim stalks from large lily-leaf- vases; great yellow bells hang profusely from spreading bushes. ‘¢ The land is exceedingly lovely. Your idea of Africa as a region of desolation is goneina moment. No lovelier scene was ever outspread from an English, or Italian, or American church-top. You can feast upon it without weariness for hours. ‘Tt is not only lovely but healthy. Death may lurk in these passing breezes, but only to the unacclimated foreigner. It is without peril to the settler and native. The miasmatic marshes and mangrove swamps are behind us. Before us are high and wholesome lands, more and more high and whole- some as you travel eastward to the central mountains. 310 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. ‘¢ They are continuously productive. Here the sower over- takes the reaper, and he that gathereth corn him that treadeth out grapes. Sugar-cane flourishes luxuriantly here. Cotton grows wild everywhere. There are bushes with novel bolls upon them in Brother Bowen’s front yard, bolls that re- quire no ginning, the seed being a long single or connected seed, which is easily picked from the cotton. Cloth has been woven from this cotton by our brother who owns the bullocks and raises the donkeys. Here, too, you see corn,— American corn, Indian corn, and cassada, the edible of the land, and - everything else, except wheat. That they do not seem able to raise, and as some of them cannot forget fatherland and its flour; so they turn aside from all this abundance and pay eighteen and twenty dollars a barrel for flour that probably cost the shippers three and four. ‘The war [with the natives in the bush] raged around here. One man was killed at the rock which lies within fifty feet of the church door. Philadelphia, the settlement across the creek, was burned down and abandoned. Shots were ex- changed between this hill-top and the one across the roadway, just about this height, and this distance from the path. ‘¢ The native tribes, differing in dialect and name with every short remove of twenty or fifty miles across these thousands, are one in habits, religion, and tenacity of grip upon the lands. These Grebos allow no Liberians any titles a half mile beyond where we stand. There is a creek that distance ahead. This creek, they claim, is the boundary of Cape Palmas, or Mary- land. ‘True, some of our people hold farms a little beyond, but only at the mercy of these natives. One of ours bought a farm of a native and paid him for it, though the government also gave him a title. But when he died and his son sought to cultivate it, the natives tore down the house, uprooted his GLIMPSES OF AFRICA. 811 coffee-trees, and drove him from the place. The extinguish- ment of these titles will be the most delicate and difficult of duties that the Liberian government will be compelled to discharge.” BUNKER HILL. “Itis not unlike its original. Less abrupt, it is not less lofty or sightly. From it you can see a dozen miles down the coast—much further than at the cape itself. From it, also, you can see far into the interior. A block-house is going up as a defence against the natives; how like our American experience over again! The cottages were all burned, and fruits of many years’ labor lostinaday. But the people have no idea of deserting the spot. They are erecting bamboo houses. The twigs are all in place, erect and twisted, and the cottages made; but it is all open as the day. The spaces between these twigs they will fill up at leisure, and before the rainy season is begun, their houses will be thatched and comfortable. ‘¢ They are jolly as Mark Tapley under these outward dis- couragements. A middle-aged man from Maryland (most here are from that State), who had lost everything but family, land, and good spirits, showed me his hut and his farm. That lot of two or three acres adjoining the bamboo hut, had in it almost every kind of product. ‘There were eddoes, used as a potato, with broad plantain-leaves ; cassada, also a sort of yam or potato, a great favorite, and not unworthy of ‘its place; yams; sugar-cane ; coffee, orange and lime trees ; Indian corn, and many more which I forget. But chief in his judgment was the tobacco-plant. Tobacco is the currency of the country. It is the one universal article of demand and use. It was the first I had seen growing in the. land. He had got hold of some seed from America, planted it, and 312 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. now he had one hundred and three plants. He brought out a cured leaf, and was intensely enthusiastic over his prospect. If he can start that growth, he may add to the fiscal re- sources of the land even more than in the raising of coffee ; for tobacco commands the natives and the interior. It showed the resources of the soil, when here on the same acre on the top of Bunker Hill, were growing side by side in equal luxuriance, tobacco, corn, cotton, cassada or tapioca, sweet potatoes, sugar-cane. No American spot can equal that. This Bunker Hill is as fruitful of products as its antetype is of ideas.” AFRICAN COMMERCE. t ‘¢ «You see you are to lose America as a market,’ says an American to an Englishman at the Philadelphia Exposition ; ‘ whither will you go 2? ‘¢*To Africa,’ was the quick reply. ‘¢England has already gone there. She controls Egypt and the Cape Colony,—the extreme north and south. She holds two thousand miles of the West Coast under her sway. She rules from Zanzibar, through Abyssinia, to Suez. She means to possess Africa as she now possesses India.” So says Bishop Haven in his elaborate articles in the ‘¢ North American Review,” entitled ‘‘ America in Africa.” After a reference to the African colonies of Germany, France, Holland, Spain, and Portugal, he sets forth the fact that Great Britain has chief control of the commerce of the West of Africa, some fifty vessels a year visiting those ports, each one of which carries an assorted cargo, that is sold from its deck in the ports visited; the ship being converted into a shop, or store, much to the disgust of the revenue officers of the African governments who, however, are power- GLIMPSES OF AFRICA. . 813 less in dealing with such a nation as Great Britain, and whose objections to this sort of free trade are silenced by threats that, if it is interfered with, the English vessels,, which are the chief means of inter-communication between African ports, will be withdrawn altogether. After narrating the history of the American Colonization Society, and some of the difficulties which attended the establishment of the American Colony. at Cape Mesurado, the retirement of the Colonization Society from the manage- ment of affairs because European traders would not recog- nizé their government, and the erection of the Republic of Liberia, the Bishop continues : ‘¢‘ Look at the colony after the lapse of this first: half cen- tury. We ought not to expect a very great showing. What was any English colony in America fifty years after its settle- ment? In 1670 Massachusetts had hardly penetrated beyond the seaboard. A few towns on the Connecticut had been planted, as they have to-day on the St. Paul’s River, the Connecticut of Liberia. But the country a dozen miles back from the coast was practically a wilderness, inhabited by savages.” PRODUCTS, ‘‘The chief products of Liberia are sugar, coffee, and India-rubber. The best plantations of coffee and sugar are on the St. Paul’s. Up this river are the chief settlements. There lies, more than on the sea-shore, the future of America in Africa. he river is very broad and handsome,—as broad and handsome as the Hudson. For about forty miles, or as far up as the Connecticut, it is navigable for sloops ahd even larger craft. For four miles back from the river, coffee is cultivated. It is sold for twenty cents a pound, gold, at Monrovia, which gives it a higher valuation in New York 314 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN, than Java. It is being exported now to Ceylon, to replace the coffee of that island, itself among the best in the world. Three dollars, gold, a bushel is paid for it at Monrovia for this purpose. It is also being planted in Southern California. The coffee-tree is usually a trim, compact, small tree, not over twenty feet high, nor fifteen wide ‘at its widest part. Thirty pounds have been taken from a tree in one season; two and a half pounds is the average. The last vessel in New York, which arrived last June, had over eighty thou- sand pounds in its invoice. That portion which the shippers held was sold for twenty-five cents a pound, in gold, before it reached port. It is evident, therefore, that unless some drawback occurs, this product will draw capital here, and make the republic a not unimportant factor in the mercantile exchange of the world. “‘ India rubber is also becoming an article of commerce. A Boston gentleman engaged in this business, informed me that he alone purchased two hundred thousand pounds of African rubber during the past year. As this rubber is -worth in Boston not less than forty cents a pound, or nearly a million dollars for the whole, it shows how valuable this trade may yet become. Cameron says over £45,000, or $225,000, was the value of this export in a single year from Zanzibar. It can be gotten on the market much cheaper from Liberia. Gold also is reported to exist in the moun- tains, and an English company has sought to make a contract with the government for the working of its mines.” ITS POLITICAL CONDITION AND POPULATION. ‘*The invasion of European merchantmen, and their refusal to recognize the government of the American Colo- nization Society, compelled the establishment of the Liberian GLIMPSES ‘OF AFRICA. 315 government. When the governors of the society complained of their course, they replied, in substance: ‘England we know, and America we know ; but who are you?’ America, at that time, was unwilling to recognize a territory that was occu- pied by that class of its citizens, as it would encourage their enslaved brothers at home in the idea that they had some rights which should here be respected; there was no alterna- tive, therefore, but for the colony to proclaim its independ- ence. This was done in July 26, 1847. ‘That such an independence was premature is evident from the history of all other colonies. In twenty-five years after its establishment it became an independent state. It was one hundred and sixty-eight years from its first settlement at Jamestown that English America became independent. And that Liberia does as well as she does is a marvel. - “ The Secretary of the Treasury reports last year’s receipts from taxes and duties, ending Sept. 80, 1876, to be $113,- 026.34. Probably the Virginia Colony could not have shown so good an account in 1662, fifty-five years after its first out- casts were landed at its Monrovia. The President and other officials are courteous gentlemen, and probably manage the affairs of state as well as any persons of any land could under like conditions. *¢ The population of Liberia is smaller than it ought to be, considering the number of emigrants sent there and the money spent in colonizing. The American Colonization Society had spent, at their semi-centennial in 1866, the immense sum of $2,558,907.10. Over two million and a half of dollars had been countributed up to Jan. 1, 1867. Since that, probably, a third of a million more has been given, making about three million dollars from this source’ alone. The churches have been very liberal. We may safely 316 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. estimate the amount given in America to this enterprise at not less than five millions of dollars. If we include national aid, it will largely surpass this sum. x ‘¢ This vast amount of money has succeeded in establish- ing the colonies on the coast and settlements up the rivers St. Paul’s, Junk, St. John, and Sinoe. It has erected semi- nary and college buildings, churches, and a congressional building, and aided in the erection of many comfortable dwellings. But it has not moved many persons from Amer- . ica. Only thirteen thousand one hundred and thirty-six per- sons were sent out by the American Colonization Society in its first half century. Probably a thousand is as many as have been sent in the last ten years; less than fifteen thousand persons, at an expense of three million dollars. Recaptured Africans have been returned to the number‘of five thousand seven hundred and twenty-two. Or not far from twenty thousand have been planted in this territory in sixty years ; an average of about three hundred a year.” NECESSITIES. ‘¢ What does Liberia need? More emigrants. The native population are becoming Americanized, but so slowly as to be of little benefit to the republic. It must have large acces- sions from America if it is to flourish, or even if it is to live. America, is being Africanized; Africa should be American- ized. It is to better their own fortunes that emigrants should go, just as they come here from other lands.” ‘How shall this larger emigration be brought about? By steam communication, regular and frequent. There is only one firm in America that has a regular line to Liberia. ‘These vessels have no regular time of sailing, can carry but few emigrants, and, being a long time on the voyage — from GLIMPSES OF AFRICA. 317 forty to seventy days— must charge a large amount for ticket. On the other hand, steamers could make the trip in fifteen to twenty days, could carry five hundred passengers, and would make money at twenty dollars a head. The first necessity is steam communication. ‘¢Nor would this be an unprofitable venture in a larger view of the case. The British steamers visit Madeira and the Canaries, and pass down the whole coast. They carry many passengers. I failed to get a berth, or even a place on a cabin lounge, on an outward steamer at Bassa. It was crowded with passengers. We could have like success. The Western Islands, Madeira, and the Canaries, themselves would support a steamer line. The cochineal trade, already valuable, with fruit and other products, would make our con- nection profitable. From Grand Canaries, one island alone of the Canary group, fifteen thousand bags of cochineal, weighing two hundred pounds each, are exported annually. Tts value fluctuates, but rises as high as seventy-five cents a pound. This single item has a value of nearly three millions of dollars. . . . Great Britain sent to the West Coast of Africa, in 1874, of her products, to the value of over eight - and a half million dollars, and received nearly eight millions in return. The trade has steadily increased since that year. ‘‘In exports from the coast, palm-oil leads, while fruits, wines, and cochineal make up the most of the traffic from the islands. The chief articles sent out to the islands and coast were cottons, arms and ammunition, haberdashery, hardware, and cutlery. Of these, cotton was king. The whole number of yards of cotton cloth, mostly prints, sold at these ports for that year, amounted to 47,217,966, whose value was estimated at £745,179, or nearly four millions of dollars. ‘* Another disagreeable fact: One hundred and twenty- 318 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. four British steamers entered the ports of the Canary Islands in 1874, with one hundred thousand tons of tonnage, and not one from America. Eighteen sailing-vessels were all that came fromi the United States, of only five thousand tonnage, and eleven of these were whalers; leaving only seven merchant ships, of two thousand two hundred tonnage, - against one himdred and sixty-two British vessels (sail and steam), of one hundred and seventeen thousand tons. And the Canaries are not British ports, but would as gladly wel- come American steamers as English.” ANNEXATION. ** Another thing needed to make the America in Africa a greater, and even a great success, is closer. political connec- tion with America. It was a sad day for the colony wieu its union with its motherland was sundered. It will be a bright day for thé republic when such relations are resumed. True, it had no political identity with our government, but that will be necessary on renewal of relations. It ought to be a Territory of the United States, to become a State when its voting population has reached the legal number. ‘¢This would require a change in our theories. If the Monroe doctrine be claimed, America for Americans, then must the converse also be required of us, only America for Americans. This cord of. our own twisting will strangle us in the end. It is a notable fact that the utterer of the famous saying was the first to practically annul it. For the share he took in the American colony his name was given to its capital. For twenty years he labored to plant America in Africa. His deeds rebuked his words. ‘¢ Great Britain already has all the adjacent coast under her control. From the Gambia to the Gaboon, a distance of GLIMPSES OF AFRICA. 319 nearly two thousand miles, she holds sway. One governor rules the whole. Liberia is the only break in this line. But for that her sway would be complete from the equator to Sahara. Of course this American Naboth does-not please the kingly eyes. ‘How can he be swallowed up?’ is the thought of many a representative of England. ‘We shall be swallowed up’ is the fear of many an Afric-American.” The last need mentioned by the Bishop in this article is a railroad from Monrovia to Cairo. ‘‘ Four thousand miles through an utterly undiscovered country,” except that there is a path, not to say road, travelled by the natives from Mon- rovia to Cairo. ‘‘ This road,” says Bishop Haven, ‘‘ would pass through the richest and most important section of the continent. It would touch Timbuctoo, the Niger, the Wely, the Nyanza district, and the vast unknown territory that lies between the eastern and western centres. It would unite every explorer from Mungo Park to Henry Stanley; only Livingstone and Cameron, whose exploits are in Southern Africa, would be excluded from the list, and even these would touch it at its eastern division by the Egypt and Good Hope Railroad, which would traverse all Livingstone’s chief lines. This road is feasible, is necessary, is certain, is not far distant. Already Cameron urges a road from Zanzibar to Tanganyika, a distance of one thousand miles. He says it can be built for one thousand pounds a mile. It only remains to be seen whether America will help her first-born, her representative, her child still in every pulse, to win this honor for herself and for us. Wherever that railroad to Cairo terminates on this side, thither flows the commerce of Africa. Monrovia can have that honor if we will undertake with her and for her. Let the North Pole remain in its icy isolation, while this vaster, nobler, and more useful under- takine is furthered by our government.” 320 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. ¢ CHAPTER IV. SELECTIONS FROM BISHOP HAVEN’S NATIONAL SERMONS. Tue full title of this famous volume is ‘‘ Sermons, Speeches, and Letters on Slavery and its War, from the passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill to the election of President Grant.” It was issued in 1869 by Messrs. Lee & Shepard, Boston, by whose kind permission the following extracts are made. The volume being out of print, this reproduction of some of its choicest portions is all the more valuable and important. The dedication of the book will be read with new interest by those to whom it is inscribed. “To THE REVEREND FATHERS AND BRETHREN Of the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the first organized body in America that accepted and proclaimed the duty of the immediate and unconditional abolition of slavery, after its announcement by William Lloyd Garrison; and that adhered faithfully to this cause, through evil report and good report, until God gave it the victory: THis VOLUME, devoted to the consideration of this reform, in its past, present, and future relations to the Church, the Nation, and Mankind, ~ Is CORDIALLY INSCRIBED, in gratitude for their fatherly guidance, in memory of their fra- ternal co-operation, and in hope of the early obliteration of.the unchristian prejudice, growing out of the abolished iniquity, that still afflicts the American people, and for whose extirpation this Conference has so long and so ardently labored and prayed.’ THE HIGHER LAW. This first political sermon by Gilbert Haven was delivered in November, 1850, at Amenia Seminary, called out by the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law. It is all plain enough SELECTIONS FROM NATIONAL SERMONS. 321 now, but then it was the language of a “‘ fanatic,” an ‘agi- tator,” and we might add, of a prophet. Only brief extracts may find space in this chapter. “Slavery is the most extreme and terrible violation of human rights.” ‘¢ Slavery was almost the first-born of sin, and has settled in midnight blackness on every nation. No scruples existed as to the color or nationality of the victim. If he was the weaker, he became the property of the stronger. Black ‘stole white, and white black. The children of Ham sold and scourged the children of Japhet,’and those of Japhet un- righteously fulfilled prophecy by dwelling thus cruelly in the tents of Shem. ‘s What has caused, in the slow march of the world, its steady disappearance? Why have the most advanced peo- ples of mankind outgrown this barbarism? It is the provi- dence of God declaring its sinfulness, by the evils he inflicts on its disciples,— evils in the state of anarchy, of corruption, of poverty, of weakness, of dissolution; evils in the indi- vidual trangressor of ignorance and brutality. He demanded its extinction as the first step in civilization. He led the advancing races further and further from its black abyss, until now, the mere idea of property in’ man is as abhorrent to the Christian world as the eating of man, its twin abomi- nation in birth and dominion.” ‘¢ A government, therefore, which indorses slavery, which orders the recovery of those who have escaped from its dreadful dungeon, ought to be met with one general burst of execration, one united prayer and effort for the repeal of its wicked enactment, and the deliverance of those so unrighteously bound.” 822 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. ‘¢ Should we be called upon to assist in the execution of this law, we must refuse. Ready as we should be to aid the executors of laws which we have no sound reasons to consider morally wrong, we should refuse any assistance in the execution of those clearly criminal.” ‘* But we have another duty forced upon us by the State, which compels us to defy the State. We are forbidden to harbor the fugitive, or to assist him in his endeavors to: escape his pursuer. This command conflicts with the posi- tive decree of God none the less than those which demand our aid in catching and binding the unhappy victim. It must be disregarded. If the man seeks our assistance whom the government is seeking to reduce to the awful bondage, from which, against great odds and amid great perils, he has effected his escape, even though it forbids us to oppose its vile attempt, as servants of Christ we should unhesitatingly disobey it, and obey Him. We must receive him to our fireside as cordially as we would receive our Lord, had he sought the shelter of our roof from the wicked rage of his persecutors. We must conceal him from his pursuers. We must aid him to escape from his native land, that is thus refusing the protection to its native-born citizens under its own flag, and on its own soil, which it claims for those who but partially adopt it as their own, and are under the flag beneath which they were born, sacrificing these primal and dearest rights of its people to the lusts of god- less traffickers in human flesh.” ‘¢Tt has become too much the fashion of late to centre all moral excellence and natural prosperity in the Constitution. In Christ, not in the Constitution, must we put our trust. On his law should we meditate, not on that which again -nails him, scourged and bleeding, to the fatal cross. His SELECTIONS FROM NATIONAL SERMONS. 823 name should be our badge of honor, our stamp of manhood. Then, and then only, shall we truly render not only unto Cesar the things that are Cesar’s, but unto God, also, the things that are God’s.” ‘¢ There is no permanent union between liberty and slavery. God and Satan can have no compact nor compromise. One or the other must he triumphant.” THE STATE STRUCK DOWN. {Delivered at Westfield, Massachusetts, June 11, 1856, on the occasion of the assault upon Charles Sumner.] “ But those husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir; come, ‘et us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.” — MARK xii. 7. ARGUMENT. — Why Christ suffered; how his suffering disciples participate in his experience, though falling infinitely below it. Theo position of this sufferer as compared with previous martyrs. Not himself assailed, but his State and her Ideas, organized and regnant. His assailant not a man but an Idea, organized and determined on the supremacy. I. Our guilt. History of its progress. II. Our repentance. How to be established. 1. By penitence. 2. Brotherly feeling toward the slave. 3. Resumption of stolen Kansas. 4. The transfer of the government to the side of liberty. III. Failure destroys liberty or compels civil war. 7 ‘‘Why this furor against the slaveholder, if the colored race is not one with our own? He has no objection to our holding slaves and carrying them to Kansas or elsewhere. ‘ Because free labor dies beside slave labor!’ "Wherefore? It does not die where horses and oxen abound; it does not where the dark free man works. Why should it where his slave brother toils? Simply because in our heart of hearts we see our oneness. Take away this conviction, and we can trade in them as easily as in cattle or grain. The argu- ment is simple and unanswerable. If essentially different and inferior, then they are, and of right ought to be, ser- vants, slaves, merchandise. There is but one race of men, 324 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. and God has put all things under its feet. If the negro is a man, then he is the unquestioned equal in every right of every other man. If not an equal, not a man. If not a a a merchantable thing. ‘© All this prejudice of ours is peculiarly superficial. The seat of the disease i is in the skin, not in the vitals, much less in the spirit within. Social and civil rights hang on the fibres of the flesh, dwell in cellular tissues and animal pig- ments. “Driven from one fortress after another by the spirit of human equality, caste has made its last refuge in the surface of the body.” ‘‘We must entertain brotherly feelings toward the slave. You are not going to deliver yourself without delivering him. This revolution has far greater objects, and will have, if successful, results far greater than that of 1776. That was chiefly for the political salvation of the European race. It answered the question: ‘Is the highest of the families of men capable of self-government?’ This is for the political and social salvation of all men. Extremes here providentially meet. The lowliest of your kindred has hold of your hearts. Their welfare is inextricably inwrought in your own. They are around your necks. You cannot shake them off. You are, you must be, if a defender of your own rights, a defender of theirs. ‘ Abolitionist,’ ‘ Negro-worshipper,’ ‘ Black Repub- lican,’ whatever name is attached, honorably or contemptu- ously to the upholders of the great sentiment of perfect. human equality and brotherhood must be your title.” “If we postpone our political reformation to the presi-. dential contest of 1860, there will be civil war. Ifthe North has courage enough to fight, though not enough to vote for liberty, before that not distant period arrives the struggle may have been begun. This power, if again triumphant,: 4 SELECTIONS FROM NATIONAL SERMONS. 825 will triumph as never before. Not smuggled and disguised, but openly will it start on its new career. And if its inso- lence is so great now, if its demands are so unendurable, what will they be when it puts on the crown of authority that the people will offer it? If resisted it must be under the smoke of battle.” ‘ Pennsylvania is not the keystone of this nation. It is prayer. When we pray for the slave as one with him, we shall speak for him, vote for him, and win for him and our- selves individual, national, universal liberty. ‘I will be in- quired of by the house of Israel to do this thing for them.’” CASTE THE CORNER-STONE OF AMERICAN SLAVERY. [Delivered on the occasion of the State Fast, at Wilbraham, Mass., in 1854, and at Roxbury, Mass., in 1858; also delivered at the Forsyth Street Methodist Episcopal Church, New York.] ' We are verily guilty concerning our brother.”—GsEn. xlii. 21. ARGUMENT.—Foundation for American slavery. I. Not in man as man, butin his color or origin. Scripture stolen to array anidol. This color is declared to be a mark of degradation and separation. IT. This feeling, 1. General. 2. Deep-rooted. 3. Unnatural. Because, (1.) Not towards any other class of men: (2.) They have the gifts of music, manners, the culinary art, aptness of imitation, wit and humor, patience, and sunniness of temper. (3.) No repugnance to this color, as seen everywhere else, than in America. (4.) No dis- unity in spiritual nature. (5.) Caused by social condition. (6.) Contrary to the Scriptures. 4. The feeling is the chief bulwark of American slavery. South could not resist the North were she free from this prejudice. III. How shall it be cured? 1. Cease to dwell on the distinction of color. 2. Welcome those of this hue to yout society. 3. Encourage them to enter all branches of trade. IV. Result, intermarriage; its rightand fitness. True marriage. Shakes- peare’s foresight and courage. Othello and Desdemona. I. Upon what is slavery grounded? Is it upon the right to hold in slavery the black man, or the man who has any blood relation, however remote, with ‘that portion of the sons of men? The most arrogant defender of slavery in this 326 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP JIAVEN. country has never dared to advocate the enslavement of any race of colored men, for all men are colored. The lighter, though sometimes very dusky, shades of the Caucasien, the yellow Chinese, the tawny Malay, the copper-hued Indian, are all painted by the hand of their Creator another color than white. No doctor of diabolic divinity has ever picked from the sacred page any text for the enslavement of Indian, Mexican, Englishman, or Greek, though every argument which they wrest from the writings.of Paul (as did those of old for their own destruction and the destruction of the brethren of Christ) must, on their principle, -be applied chiefly to white persons, as these were almost the only slaves of Rome in the days of Paul. One text alone in the whole Bible can they bring to the support of African slavery. Every other reference to it is human, not specific—the slavery of man, not Ham. And even that text supports no such theory. It was a prophecy announced and completed four thousand years ago, when Joshua made the Gibeonites his servants, aid David ruled over the whole land of Canaan.* * The position was long held by Abolitionists, that the curse upon Canaan was a prophecy of his political subjugation to the children of Israel, and that he was not the father of the African race, and his curse had given no author- ity for African slavery. This was opposed with intense vigor by the South ern pulpit and its Northern sympathizers. Even so late as 1869, a lecturer could make “‘ cursed be Canaan”’ a title for a witty satire against slavery and caste. Bat how false it was, and how thoroughly exploded, may be scen from the following extract from “ The Christian Advocate” of January, 1869, published at Nashville, the official organ of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Its learned editor, Rev. Dr. Summers, thus confesses the wrongfal- ness of that famous plea for American slavery: ‘‘ The descendants of Ham's fourth son, Canaan were exclusively involved in Noah’s malediction; but they were not negroes, nor, s0 far as appears, any darker in their hue than the Jews, to whom, as Shemites, they were brought into servitude, as they were afterwards to the Greeks and Romans, the descendants of Japheth. We do not doubt that the black races of Africa, including all the negroes, - descended from Cush and Phut, two of the sons of Ham, with perhaps a little intermingling from the descendants of Mizraim, another of his sons, who settled in Egypt.” SELECTIONS FROM NATIONAL SERMONS. 827 ’ A broader view of the history of these three families only confirms this position. The sons of Canaan ruled in Nitie- veh, and were the first conquerors of the world. They be- came subject to the posterity of Shem, under Cyrus, and Shem had to allow Japhet, under Alexander, to abide in his, tents. To-day, Shem, in the person of the Turk, holds Canaan in bondage in Syria and Egypt, and Japhet, in that of Russia and England, dwells'in many of the tents of Shem. Scripture is stolen to deck a false idol. It is a new argu- ment for an old sin, an argument without any antetype in history, or any authority in the Word of God. Abraham, they say, was a slaveholder; but the sons of Shem were his slaves. Egyptians and Babylonians enslaved Hebrews, ‘Hebrews enslaved the Canaanites, not for reasons of race, but for the sole reason of power. The Persian owned the Greek; the Greek, the Roman; the Roman, the Norman; the Norman, the Saxon. No one of them regarded color, but condition only. The last of these slaves, the Saxon, having gained ‘his liberty, and following the devil’s maxim, ‘** Do to others as you do not wish should be done to you,” goes out and binds his fellow-servants. He is an adventurer, and when he conquers, enslaves. He steals men and women from Africa and sells them in America. Here he enslaves every new-born child of the daughters of these captives in every following generation. For two hundred years he pur- sues this traffic, and when the conscience of the world begins to rise up against his iniquity, behold, he clothes himself with these fig-leaves of prophecy, which he gets professed ministers of Christ to sew together, and hopes to perpetuate ’ his sin and shame with a pretension that blasphemes God and empties his Word of its sovereign power. For if that 328 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. Word could be proved to indorse this crime, its sanctity and authority flee instantly and forever. What is there, then, we solemnly ask, in view of these facts, in this portion of the human family, that justifies the idea, so powerful in this and every American community, that they are, by divine decree, set forever apart and below the ‘rest of mankind? Are they the children of Cain, bearing his mark on their foreheads? Much rather are their haughty oppressors his offspring. Theirs is the faith and fate of Abel. On what do we base our dogma of necessary segregation? On color? What degree of color is requisite to enslave or liberate a man? Where is the Mason and Dixon's line among pigments,—-on one side of which a man is changed from a brother to a beast, and crossing which, if he can cross it, as many do, transforms a beast into a brother? Where run the boundaries that put a son of Adam, of Noah, of God, among another order of beings than the rest of his brethren? Will not this border line, in its course, enter the families of proud-blooded Caucasians, and set husband against wife, father against daughter, brother against sister? Does it not to-day, in many a household in this land, make one half of the family the property of the other? * Will not this * This was confirmed by the visit to America of the Queen of the Sand- wich Islands in 1864, as well as that of Japanese and Chinese embassadors. All of these were received freely into our best society, and all of them were far less attractive in contour of face, or even complexion, as well as in man- ners, than the better class of Afric-Americans. A clergyman of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Rev. J. D. Long, when travelling a circuit in Maryland, stopped at the house of one of his congrega- tion. After dinner they went to walk. : “ Did you notice anything peculiar about my family ?” said his host. “ Nothing especial,” was the reply. “ Did you not sec the girls that waited on the table?” “I noticed that theré were some.” “ Those girls are my daughters, the children of my first wife, who was my SELECTIONS FROM NATIONAL SERMONS. 329 law go yet further, and give the lightest complexioned race dominion over their darker kindred? Cannot England quote this plea as the conclusive argument for its subjugation of Ireland, the yellow-haired Saxon being the natural superior of the dark-skinned Celt? How like an unsubstantial shadow, as it is, does this fantasy fade into nothingness before the clear and sober light of reason ! ‘‘ Two things chiefly create this prejudice among nations — religion and social condition. Religion may breed caste. You do not abhor the black to-day any more than the Chris- tian of the middle ages abhorred the Jew, or than the Jew in earlier ages abhorred the Christian. Neither would have treated the other, when he was in the supremacy, with any more respect than a Southern white man now treats his colored brother. Each would have felt the heaviest curse resting upon him, had he admitted his religious antagonist to his table or his bed. Thus, too, the Mohammedan, in the days of his power, and where he still holds undisputed sway, treats his Christian brother. ‘Dog’ and ‘ infidel’ are his best com- pliments, death his best hospitality. Thus, in India, religion builds its mighty walls between the same blood. Men whom you cannot distinguish apart in complexion, or any feature, are separated by a gulf which it is death, and worse, to attempt to span. ‘* Social condition breeds the same feeling. The English Norman would have felt unutterable disgust had his Saxon neighbor claimed social equality and intimacy. To this day slave. I lived happily with her, and as honorably as the State would allow. When she died, I married my present wife, a white lady, whose daughters sat at the table. The older sisters are the slaves of the younger.” “The elder shall serve the younger” was strangely fulfilled in this in- stance. It was one of a myriad of examples of the mixed condition of Maveholding families. ; : 330 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. the English noble, or even gentleman, would profess that he had a ‘ natural’ aversion to the serf. ‘¢Hence arises American caste. The slave is black. Were they white, they could not be kept in slavery a year. But the South says, ‘ They are so distinct a people that it is impossible for us to ever mingle together.’ How the com- plexion of their slaves gives the lie to this pretence !” In his argument to show that there is no natural antipathy . between blacks and whites on account of color, he continues :—. ‘Tt finds no place in all Bible history. Solomon treated the Queen of Sheba, a negress of Abyssinia, with the utmost “respect and cordiality.; Philip ran reverently by the side of ' the chariot of a negro, the chief minister of the court of ‘her successor; Moses married an Ethiopian; a negro was called of God and his brethren to be one of ‘the prophets and teachers of the church at Antioch,’ with Barnabas and the foster-brother of Herod, and was also called by the Holy Ghost to lay his hands, in company with those of his brethren, upon the heads of Paul and Barnabas — the first Christian ordination that is upon record, and one that our ministers would do well speedily to imitate. ‘More than this: the Bible constantly proclaims the abso- lute oneness of the race of man, in Adam, Noah, and Christ. Against this divine rock every wave of infidelity beats to-day, and beats in vain.” After pleading for hospitality, personal social intercourse, and a fair share of business opportunities for the black man, Gilbert Haven continues : — *‘But you will say this social, business, and political equality may lead to another, the very thought of which is insufferable. My friends, all I have said is, I am aware, very unpalatable to you. It would be insufferable if spoken two SELECTIONS FROM NATIONAL SERMONS. 331 —_ hundred miles south of us. It could not have been spoken below Washington, nor there, save by one protected by the State whom he represents. We must not fear to declare the whole counsel of God in this matter. The question that has been uppermost in your hearts in all this discourse, that will leap from your lips as soon as their enforced silence is broken, let us briefly and calmly consider. When Governor Banks, by whose authority we meet to-day, was asked by the South- ern catechist,: when he was a candidate for the Speaker's chair, in order to cover him with infamy, whether he believed in amalgamation, with a promptness, independence, and courage that but few ministers of the gospel, and fewer of any other class, would have exhibited, he answered, that ‘the more powerful race would absorb the weaker, and it was an undecided question of physiology yet, which was the stronger.’ So, when you ask us if we believe in the inter- marriage of the races, we answer, True marriage is a divine institution. Such hearts are knit together by the hand that originally wove them in separate but half-finished webs. God makes this unity. If he does not, then it is a conventional, human thing, subject to the whims of human society. As it. respects such marriage, all I need to say is, ‘It is none of our business. It is the business of the two souls that are thus made one by the goodness and greatness of their Creator.’ Parents have advisory power to a certain extent. If it is not of God, but only of transient passion, of pride, of ambition, of desire for wealth, then parents may have.com- plete, or nearly complete control until their ehildren have | attained a legal age. But if heart is one with heart, then with Shakspeare must you say, — “ «Let me not to the marriage of true souls Admit impediment.’ 832 MEMORIALS OF BISHOP HAVEN. That greatest of poets and thinkers carries this principle to its full expression in the marriage of the most womanly of his women and the most manly of his men. He sets the loves of Desdemona and Othello far above the range of grovelling criticism. The whole story of that event seems to have been made for our land and hour. Itis a protest against this curse such as no subsequent poet-in all literature has ever attained. Read it and see the feelings of the American heart painted and denounced by this master of human nature. ‘¢ Desdemona’s father, a rich and proud Venetian, full of the spirit of caste, like many such a father in this nation to-day, when he learned of his daughter’s secret marriage, cries out thus against her distinguished and noble husband : — «¢Q thon foul thief, where hast thou stowed my daughter ? Damned as thou art, thou hast enchanted her; For I'll refer me to all things of sense, If she in chains of magic were not bound, Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy, So opposite to marriage that she shunned ‘The wealthy curled darlings of her nation, Would ever have, to incur the general mock, Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom Of such a thing as thou!” ‘In his unrestrained rage he again bursts out:— «¢That she, in spite of nature, Of years, of country, credit, everything, To fall in love with what she feared to look on! It is a judgment maimed and most imperfect That will confess perfection so could err Against all rules of nature, and must be driven Yo find out practices of cunning hell Why this should be.’ , ‘To this storming American, Othello before the Duke makes reply — a reply so dignified, so manly, so majestic in rhythm and in feeling, that it seems as if Shakspeare felt SELECTIONS FROM NATIONAL SERMONS. 833 that he was pleading for God and humanity. against the contemptible prejudices of this age and nation. The great Duke, at the close of Othello’s speech, says truly, as you and every one unprejudiced would have said, — “¢T think this tale would win my daughter too.’ ‘¢ Even Brabantio, her father, softens in his prejudices, and declares, — “