E^ FROM THE LIBRARY OF REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON. D. D. BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO THE LIBRARY OF PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY SCO Gvsb^ ^ r JunM /c ^/^ A^ ^iu^ Jpv 4^- / 4- ^t^ t./ ^; U*>*- tr ■A A tf / C^l^-K* h^UA a^^A^jrhv L *♦>»<*»*/«»»■ ■*t>'/' I'l'K't. /a* ^t^^«-M //•'I*' ^«^ ^A//^ *!,/ yi^, 9Mu«<..*«^ c«.«^,«.^c«^ a^^ ^"^ / k'A^t "t f^ A / ^ i^ / /^f /r(3 j> yL--»<^A-^ ^^y^~~ //: 4^ Entered according to Act or Congress, in the year 1875, by W. C. GANNETT, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. Cambridge : Press of John Wilson 6^ Son, TO K. B. T., MY O T H E R - A U X T. This book has been written chiefly for old friends who loved Dr. Gannett. He would have entreated that it be not written, — that was his temper ever. The colors of the picture are largely his own as he left them in yearnings and confessions ; but those old friends will make the colors brighter from their memories, — and I would that other readers might bear that in mind. It is a minis- ter's story, with little unique, nothing eventful, in it. There was but little even of that biograph- ical material which undramatic workmen have often left behind them; for he put but little of himself into letters or journals, and his talk ran seldom on by-gone days and deeds. In more than one sense he forgot himself. The seventeen hun- dred sermons that kept the tally of the earnest weeks, and the nameless acts and words that filled the days with kindness, — Ezra, " Helper," was his name, — these were his forms of self-expression. Such expression passed into other lives more easily than it now can pass into his own memoir. But, because the sermons were simply himself written out, they in a measure supply this autobiograph- vi PREFACE, ical element. For that reason a few have been added at the end, less to show the preacher than the man. They are an essential part of the " Life/* as is explained at greater length in the pages that introduce them. Beyond his home and parish he so closely iden- tified his interests with those of his denomination, that an account of the Unitarianism of New Eng- land makes the natural background throughout the story; but the sketch of its rise and growth and several phases has been purposely filled in with more detail than was strictly needed for that purpose. It may be welcomed by some readers, while others can easily skip Chapters III. and YII., and certain pages in Chapters Y. and X. It is mainly a chronicle of facts. What little criticism there is upon the facts will probably be assented to by neither " side " as wholly truthful, which makes the hope not less strong that it may be truthful. Yet, as the impression is not in all respects that which Dr. Gannett would himself convey, I would call attention to his own state- ments on pages 128 and 222, and what follows in each place. The portrait engraved by Mr. J. A. J. Wilcox is slightly altered from a crayon drawn by Rowse, in I8G0. The wood-cuts have been done by Mr. 8. S. KiLBURN. PREFACE. VU Several friends will see that tliey have helped to write the book. One chapter is altogether a service of their love ; and, so far as a son may thank them for such loving help, I would most gratefully acknowledge it. W. C. GANNETT. Boston, January, 1875. I WOULD like to make another acknowledgment of aid, although to make it may seem to exag- gerate the importance of one part of the book: the materials for the sketch of Unitarianism were chiefly gathered from sermons, reports, biogra- phies, and from the old magazines and controver- sial volumes mentioned in the text ; but much aid has also been drawn from w^riters who have before described the same " flow of faith." Among works in regard to the earlier phases of the move- ment, I would specially refer to a series of letters, hostile, but full of facts, on the " Introduction and Progress of Unitarianism in New England," in the " Spirit of the Pilgrims," vols, ii.-iv., 1829-1831 ; to a pamphlet, fair and thorough, while uns^Tn- pathetic, by Bishop Burgess of Maine, called "Pages from the Ecclesiastical History of New England," 1740-1840 ; and to a long, fair article VUl PREFACE. by Professor E. H. Gillett, in the " Historical Magazine" for April, 1871, on the "History and Literature of the Unitarian Controversy," — a compilation helpful by its abundant quotations and a large, though incomplete, bibliography ; also to Sprague's " Annals " of the Unitarian Pulpit, Eev. Dr. J. S. Clark's " Sketch of the Congrega- tional Churches in Massachusetts," and Eev. Dr. George E. Ellis's " Half-Century of the Unitarian Controversy." The later " Transcendental " phase has been described by John Weiss and 0. B. Frothingham in their Lives of Theodore Parker, and part of it lies reflected in Margaret Fuller's Memoirs. Such accounts were freely used ; and here again there were 'the pamphlets of a controversy, and the Unitarian magazines and reports, to quarry in. But the history of those " Transcendental " years of Boston life has never been written out as it should be. There still live elders who were them- selves a large part of that stirring time : may not we, born out of due time, hope to thank one of them some day for the full, true story? W. C. G. Febhuary, 1875. CONTENTS. THE HOME AND THE BOY, 1801-1816. PAGE The Puritan home 9 Caleb Gannett 10 Ruth Stiles 11 Her religiousness : the birth- psalm 12 Neighbors 14 Parent-moulds 14 The mother's touch .... 15 Waiting for death Lexington and Andover . . . Westminster Catechism . . . Towards college : plays by the way Sermon-abstracts Dr. Hedge's schoolmate . . » PAGB . 16 . 17 , 18 19 20 21 II. SEEKING AND FINDING, 1816-1820. Enters college 22 The father's death 23 Frightened and frightening . . 23 " Wiiy am I discontented ? " . 24 The two selves 25 College good-times .... 26 Honors : sermon-shadows . . 27 Misgivings and the aunt ... 27 The tour 28 Enters Divinity School ... 29 " Theses Theologicae " at Com- mencement 30 III. THE RISE OF UNITARIANISM IN NEW ENGLAND. From Calvinism to Arminianism, 1620-1740. Puritan Calvinism 32 I The Great Awakening, 1740 . 34 Its decay 34 I The Arminians 35 CONTENTS. From Arminianism to Unitarianism, 1740-1815. The Ilopkinsian Calvinists . . The two Liberal emphases . . Liberal leaders and sii?ns . . James Freeman and King's Chapel, 1787 Heresy in 1800 : Vague Liberals Sharp Free-thinkers . . . Open Universalists . . . . Bible Christians Orthodoxy : Moderate and Old Calvinists PAGE 36 37 37 Harvard College : Professor Ware, 1805 Antholorjij Club and Magazine . Norton's General Repositon/ . . Noah Worcester's Christian Dis- ciple Other Liberal signs .... Orthodox muster : Dr. Morse . The silent brotherhood of Lib- erals The crisis, 1815 : " Unitarian- ism " The Unitarian Controversy, 1815-1833. Channing vs. Samuel AYorces- ter 53 The schism necessary ... 51 Channing's Baltimore sermon, 1819 55 Berry-Street Conference . . 56 Stuart vs. Norton 57 Woods vs. Ware . . Unitarianism defined . Its following .... Church-breaks and the ham decision, 1820 , Unitarians organizing . Ded- 44 45 46 47 48 48 50 32 57 58 59 60 61 lY. THE GIRDING, 1821-1824. Divinity School 62 " Professors Ware and Norton ** 63 First sermons 65 " Unitarian piety " 66 "Joining the church" ... 67 "Jesus Christ a perfect exam- ple?" 67 "Approbation" 68 " Engagement with Df . Chan- ning " 69 " Preached for the first time " . 70 Coming events 71 Call to Federal Street ... 72 By Dr. Channing's side ! . . 73 Ordination 74 " To die and live with you " . 76 V. MORNING WORK, WITHOUT AND WITHIN: ESTAB- LISHING THE FAITH, 1824-1836. Without: Parish Work and Problems. One thing I do 78 Parish calls 79 Vestry meetings .... 81 Bible class 82 Sunday school 82 Sermons : " The fire points " . 84 CONTENTS. XI PAGE Faitli : reason : revelation . 85 Religious feeling 87 " Thinking too mildly of God " 88 " Fellowship with the Father " 89 Sober style, fervent utterance 89 The extempore struggle ... 91 Cheerers 92 PAGE The two colleagues .... 93 The people's rights .... 95 " Churcli covenants "... 95 Calls to New York, — to the American Unitarian As- sociation 96 Unitarian History [continued). " Boston Association of Minis- ters " in 1824 97 The Fathers of Unitarianism . 100 Reluctance to organize . . . 101 American Unitarian Associa- tion, 1825 102 ** Motive of the founders " . 102 Meagre welcome . . , . ► 103 Organization goes on . . . 104 Cheek : three causes . . Unitarianism too rational Calvinism improving. . Orthodox zeal : Lyman Beecher Controversy at its height . It subsides : Church and State separated, 1833 . . . Tlie Universalists . . . Establishing the Faith. First Secretary of the A. U. A . 1 1 2 Channing's tract 112 On the Register 113 As controversialist .... 114 " Name ' Unitarian Chris- tianity ' " 116 ■' Religious controversy " . 117 *' Unitarian rights " . . . 118 ** The Unitarian contro- versy " 118 "The Unitarian belief" . 120 " It converts sinners " . " No ' half-way house ' " " Not negative "... " Early charges consid ered " Edits Scriptural. Interpreter . Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, 1834. . . Thorough peace-man . . " Slavery our greatest evil " 105 105 106 107 108 110 111 123 124 12S 128 135 136 139 139 Outside, busy bright days . . 141 Inside, self-distrust and gloom 142 " What shall I do ? " . . . 144 Kent's answer 144 Dr. Channing's advice . . . 146 Hei:rv Ware's warnings . . 149 Within : Struggle. An uplifting 151 " Sunrise on Lake George " . 151 Marriage 1-54 Breaks down 154 Exile 155 Y\. REST IN EUROPE, 1836-1838.. Lonely voyage . A preacher's tour " Dr. Boott " . . 157 159 159 Home letters 100 " M. Coquerel, peire" . . . 162 "My own Anna" 164 xu CONTENTS. PAGE Our fault at Verona". . . 165 Unitarianism as a National Church " 166 167 167 168 169 170 171 172 Vichy Compatriots The good parish .... "The Higijlands in winter" *' I have preaclied once more " Dr. Chalmers " . . . . A little girl in London . . Extemporizing in the London chapels .... " Rev. J. J. Tayler " "Eev. W. J. Fox" . " Blanco White " . . " Miss Martineau " . " English Unitarianism " " Fraternal Kindness Home again . . . The unborn book . . PAGE 173 174 175 176 176 177 178 179 180 VII. THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT IN NEW ENGLAND. Third stage in the Liberal movement 181 Causes 182 Unitarian " Free Inquiry " 182 Humanitarianism .... 183 Channing's " Divinity of the Soul" 183 Foreign literature . . . . 185 Divergence 186 Ralph Waldo Emerson : Di- vinity School Address, 1838 187 Boston astir 189 George Ripley : Brook Farm, 1841 190 Unitarian remonstrance . . 190 Channing's disappointment . 193 Theodore Parker : South Bos- ton Sermon, 1841 . . . 194 Transcendentalism defined . 195 The Boston Association . . 198 Parker's Thursday Lecture, Dec. 1844 199 Separation again necessary . 200 The two Unitarian bases in- consistent 202 VIII. MID-DAY: KEEPING THE FAITH. 1838-1852. Hft'il-dai/ ^''or^^ 4 Bumstead Place . . " Resolves " .... The stroke ! . . . . The two canes .... Edits JSIontlilii ^fisrellatll/ Loctiu'es on Unitarianism The Pierpont Council . " White Mountains " . 204 205 206 207 208 209 211 212 Aged forty Dr. Channing's death . " Lenox and Bennington The Fathers vanishing . In request "D. D." Edits Christian Examiner 213 213 214 215 215 216 216 CGNTi ^NTS. XUl Keeping he Faith. PAGE PAGE Henceforth conservative . . 216 Article on Parker .... 222 " Dr. Channing's sermons " . 217 " Is Parker a Christian ? " . 222 "Boston Association" . . . 218 " Miracle and Intuition " . 225 ''Berry-Street Conference " . 219 " Parker and Unitarians " . 229 Parker's critic .... . . 220 The two men 233 Disfellowsliip or not ? . . . 221 Frank letters 234 Mid-day Passing. Rockport : " Old Farm " . 237 President of the American " The still chamber " . . 240 Unitarian Association 250 The Christmases . . . . 241 Missionary stir 250 " A woman " . . . . . . 242 In request Salary-race : Parish vs. Pastor 252 " The memorial book " . . . 243 253 Lectures on tlie Bible . . 246 " The forgotten debt "... 254 The church ebbing . . . 248 "Henry" 256 Tired moods .... . 249 IX. AFTERNOON: ANTI-SLAVERY AND WAR TIMES, 1852-1865. The Home and the Man. The minister's house . . . 258 The minister's houseliold . . 259 Channing Circle 260 Saturday night 260 Sunday 361 Tlie presence in the home . 262 Anniversaries 262 Economies 263 Hospitalities 265 Anniversary week .... 265 Charities 266 Lighting sad faces .... 267 Nerves and conscience with- out humor and poetry . 269 Little system, little rest . . 272 Depression : struggle . . . 273 President of the Boston Fra- ternity of Clmrches . . 275 Plan of a Theological School 276 Anlioch College 277 The old Church abandoned . 278 Arlington Street Church . . 279 " Dedication Sermon on Posi- tive Faith " 280 Why not an Abolitionist . Two memories of tiie "Burns " week 288 Brotlier May's right to speak 291 " The Abolitionist spirit " . . 293 Anti-SIaveri/ and War Times 284 The vice of philanthropy" . 295 Tlie grievous wrong ". . . 296 Freedom, Peace, Order," 1850 296 Calamity of Disunion," 1850 297 XIV CONTENTS, " Union mav cost too much," 1854 . ' 300 " Till the hour comes," 1856 . 302 "Not yet," 1800 303 No war sermons 304 " God's hand visible," 1803 . 30G 'A struggle for the nation's life," 1864 307 ■ The result," 1865 .... 308 ■ Thanksgiving for Peace," 1865 309 The pastor's delight . ... 311 As remembrancer 312 " Fortieth Year Sermon " . . 313 •' Four lines of thought " . 313 " More mystery and more trust" 314 At Sixty. The Brooklyn sermon . . . 316 Tired out 317 Called up in Music Hall . . 317 National Council of Congrega- tionalists 318 Rest once more in Europe . . 319 A FATHER IN THE CHURCH, 1865-1871. Two Unitarian wings . . . 323 Liberal and vague . . . . 324 " The palmy days gone by " . 325 " Discussing our differences". 325 Seizing the opportunity . . 320 " A serious question " . . . 328 Semi-Centennial Address at Divinity School, 18G7 . 329 " Open doors, but control " . 380 "Duty to Radicals: Parker" 332 " Loyal both to Christ and Lib- prtv " 334 "Mere pugnacious Unitarian- ism " 387 Attitude towards elders 387 Channing Memorial Service 388 As professor: Lovell's letter 388 Wifli lu^v-ininititpr* 344 His apologies 345 Letters to his son : " Stability and movement ' 346 " A Christirm minister" . 347 " Preaching cumulative " 350 " With the mourning " . 351 Sixty-six years old . . . 351 The letter prepared . . . 352 "Christmas. 1807" . . . 353 " At Dixville Notch " . . . 353 The study-couch 354 355 356 356 357 358 358 359 359 361 363 364 365 " The letter " Resignation not accepted . The two pilgrims .... Welcome at Milwaukee Students' club-table . . . Second resignation . . , Parish-votes ..... " My Dear Friends ". . , " The Old and the New " , Dr. Walker's welcome . , A young man's plea . " My dear Chaney " . , In the depths 367 Slow revival 368 " Glad," Jan. 1, 1871 ... 370 The old theme 871 The Herjister dinner . . . . 871 " My seventieth birthday " . 872 The last sermon 372 Happy Wliitefield sunnner . 873 Sunday evenings 374 The last work-day .... 376 Homewards 377 At Home ! 378 In the church 378 CONTENTS. xy XI. AFTER-GLOW. Tributes of Friends. Memorial services Hon. Waldo Flint . Rev. Calvin Lincoln . Rev. Dr. Clarke . . Rev. Rufus Ellis . . Rev. Dr. Bartol . . Rev. Dr. Peabody . Rev. A. D. Mayo . . Hon. George S. Hillard E. P. Whipple . . . Rev. J. F. Lovering . Rev. R. L. Carpenter PAGE 380 381 383 385 390 391 391 392 393 893 PAGB Rev. Dr. Morison 395 Rev. Dr. Hedge 398 Rev. E. E. Hale 401 Rev. Dr. Bellows 403 Rev. Dr. Eliot Rev. T. J. Mumford . . The Ministers' Association Rev. J. W. Chadwick . . The parish : church-tablet . 405 407 408 410 412 The grave 413 XII. SERMONS. Self-revealed in sermons . . 415 I The manuscripts 417 The favorite themes .... 416 I These selections 418 Out of the Depths. Dee. 8, 1867 419 Mysteries. 1857 429 The Mystery of God. 1865 439 Religion the Consciousness and Culture of a Spiritual Life and Spir- itual Relations. 1829 449 The Soul's Salvation through Faith in Christ. 1859-1860 ... 458 The Doctrinal Basis of Christianity. 1862 473 The Largeness of Christianity. 1846 484 Great Principles in Small Matters. 1849 493 "Life." 1858 602 Imjwrtance of Opinions as the Basis of a Religious Life. 1849-1850 507 What Unitarians Believe. 1845. 1849. 1871 514 The Minister and his Business. 1839-1860. (Seven extracts) . . 535 Life in Death. 1847 560 Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant ! 1866 561 Appendix : List of Publications 665 CALEB AND KCTH. EZRA STILES GANNETT, I. THE HOME AXD THE BOY 1801-1816. It was a true New England home, such as homes were in the New England of seventy years ago, — a solemn spot for a little man to be born in. They were homes with more reverence than grace in their life, more duty than beauty, where strict disciplines and a very present conscience took not only their own place, but the place of humor and caresses and easy sym- pathies. Not that the sympathy and love were lacking, but sense of the duty stiffened them. The boys and girls sent " duty " instead of *' love " to their elders. Life was a responsibility in these homes, a '' charge to 10 EZBA STILES GANNETT. [1801-181(3. keep." The parents would fain transmit their own strong principles and earnest ways through set routines of thought and conduct. The Bible, the Sabbath, the Meeting- House and Minister, the fear of God and rev- erent behavior, — of these the children heard much on week-days as well as Sahbath-days. Caleb, the father in this particular New England home, Avas a thick-set man, with a slow dignity in his face, and momentous manners ; exact, not fluent ; given to precepts; not to be imposed upon; intellectual by balance of faculties rather than by talents. His rounded judgment and thorough honesty and diligent, stable habits, made him a man for trusts. " He was always active," — thus his boy's journal describes him, — " and in the performance of duty ever calm and under self- control, steady in the pursuit of his high purpose of living, and always under the influence of a pure and sanctifying spirit of religion." For a few years in early life he had been a minister, rather liberal in thought for that day, for he styled himself a Baxterian rather than a Calvinist, and asked his teacher. Dr. Gay of Hing- liam, — sometimes called '' the father of American Uni- tarianism," — to preach his ordination sermon. But judged by the funeral sermon, that came a full half- century afterward, " Mr. Gannett disliked the temerity of philosophizing theologians, and his religious princi- ples were in strict accord with the churches of New England ; " so it is probable that, after the first advance, he stood still, and let the age catch up with him. He was still young, however, — the war had not yet begun, — when he was already back at Harvard as mathemati- cal tutor. There for nearly forty years, until his death, he was the Steward of the College. The Treasurer of Cambridge parish too ; and now and then, to keep his mathematics above the level of the bills and ledjG:ers, 1801-1816.] THE HOME AND THE BOY. 11 he sent a paper on Eclipses or the Aurora Borealis to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of which he was a founder. Back of him lay four or five generations of Massachu- setts farmer-life. The Gannetts were early settlers in the Old Colony, and Caleb was doubtless glad to count among his sixteen great-great-great-grandmothers one Mary Chilton, a '' Mayflower " girl, and the first of woman-kind — so saj^s the family tradition — to touch the Plymouth sands at the general landing of the Pil- grims. Common country-folk the Gannetts had been through all these years, and Caleb's generation was the first to win the o^ood fortune of a Harvard education. The first mother in this home had died, leaving two girls and two boys behind her. A year and a half passed by, and the second mother had come in and was conscientiously at work doing her best by the children. She was Ruth Stiles, daughter of the President of Yale College. Not much romance could there have been in this marriage between the Steward and the President's daughter. He was fifty-five and she was thirty-five years old. Perhaps they had learned to esteem each other at the house of their close neighbor, the Rev. Dr. Holmes, parish minister, who had married Ruth's elder sister. Perhaps her love of order and her religious habits tallied well with his. And yet she must have brought into the home a nature quite unlike the father's. His picture shows the face that could send the children supperless upstairs Avith a look and a silent finger- gesture, and make the students sober-minded at first sight. Her picture has the large sensitive features of a refined and clear-brained woman. Her father was one of the learned men of our Revolutionary time, a friend of Franklin and Jefferson and Washington and Adams, one who entertained foreigners, and carried on 12 EZRA STILES GANNETT. [1801-1816. a large correspondence with English scholars; so that Ruth had enjoyed much more than a girl's usual chance for culture. She was even literary herself, although her verses, some left in pjrint and some in manuscript, are as bare of poetry as they are full of her religiousness. For she was very deeply religious, with a real and tender trust. In belief, she was the true daughter of three generations of Calvinistic ministers. The fly-leaf of her Bible contains the record of her readings in it. Twenty-two times from cover to cover since she was ten years old ! Every eighteen months, on the average, found her beginning Genesis anew. But she was grow- ing wiser towards the end ; of her last two years the entry tells: *' I have confined my reading principally to the New Testament and Psalms, occasionally reading the Prophets." In her hymn-book is a similar note of *' hymns read in the first part of what I now consider my last sickness, several of which I committed to mem- ory. Hymns marked otherwise were read with great delight in a more advanced stage of my disorder." Was it only her father's note-book habit strong in her ; or was she thinking of her boy, and hoping that through this little record he might come to know his dead mother ? These favorite hymns are those of sim- ple yearning trust. But there is a manuscript of Birth-' day Reflections, which shows her nature best ; and it may be interesting to those who loved her boy, as indicating whence he derived some of his marked traits. Year by year, she sets down her self-reproach, her thanksgiving, and her prayers agamst besetting sins. A quick im- patience seems to have cost her many regretful sighs. Morbid introspection, with a deep sense of sinfulness, darkens almost every page. '* Another year, dreadful thought ! is to be given an account of." She is an un- grateful " cumbercr of the ground," and trusts only to 1801-1816.] THE HOME AND THE BOY. 13 the atoning blood of Christ. " I am continually prone to doubt my own sincerity, so deeply has sin poisoned every faculty of my soul. Known only unto Thee is it, whether I am still in a state of nature and deluding myself with a false hope of blessedness. . . . Yet it ap- pears that I love Thee better than all things else, and hope my love increases with my years." After her marriage she grows more cheerful, being busied with the charge of the children, and very thankful for the birth of her own child. Here is her Birthday Psalm after her little Stiles was born : — " How great are the mercies that I have this day to record ! The past year has opened a new era of my life. I have been carried through weakness and distress, pain and sorrow, and at length have been made to feel the most exquisite of all earthly pleasures, a joy which none but the mother can ex- perience. What shall I render to the Lord for all his good- ness ? Oh that I may be enabled to devote the life spared, and the life saved, to Thee, my heavenly Father ! While I meditate on Thy mercies, my heart overflows with gratitude and i3raise; but, alas, how transient is the remembrance, how weak the impression ! When will this ungrateful heart cease to be drawn off from Thee by the things of this vain world?" And then she prays to be kept from showing " an undue partiality to the dear child " which God has given her, and for grace to bring him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. He was the only child of this marriage. At his ad- vent the other children were already far away in years ; one, a boy in college ; and one, a boy studying his Latin Grammar ; and one was a young maiden, who, soon after, married a minister-husband ; and there was a little girl ten years old. Stiles, as the stranger was called, was '' the baby " of the house. With all the decorum and 14 EZRA STILES GANNETT. [1801-181G. ordered ways of the home-life, and those silent finger- gestures, the letters show warm feelings, and a happy, cheerful intercourse, even some fun and sentiment. Ruth's sentiment ran into verse. Now there is a hymn for ^' Master Stiles Gannett," and now a rhyme wrapped round a bit of the boy's hair as he " sends duty to grand- mamma." Pleasant neiohbors and relations lived close by; for the Gannetts belonged to the cultured, staid society that centred round the college-yard and col- lege interests, and was eyed aloof by the towns-people, who murmured something about "exclusive aristocrats." Their house was on the notch at the corner of Kirkland Street and North Avenue, very nearly on the spot where the DiniuG^ Hall now stands. From the door one looked out on the " Common," festive and crowded, and covered with booths on the great Commencement Days ; while a moment's walk brought one to the old brick buildings set in the sacred green. Such were the parent-moulds, and such the home of the boy who was born on the fourth of May, 1801, and named after his grandfather, Ezra Stiles. If we may venture to trace back the characteristics that later life displayed, it is probable that his energy, his enthusiasm, his constant sense of dissatisfaction with himself, and his warm, impulsive speech, were mainly due to the mother ; and that to his father he owed more largely the exact- ness of his conscience, his sense of justice, and the steady, conservative clinch on convictions that had once been formed. The practical, unspeculating intellect that saw points so acutely, and kept so logically on the way to them, came to him, perhaps, from both. Not very long did '^ the life spared " last to care for *' the life given." The boy was barely seven when his mother died. His conscious memories of her were very slight, but she had had time to give him some of those 1801-181G.] THE HOME AND THE BOY. 15 strong impressions about God and duty that underlay all his subsequent purpose. A trivial incident may as well be told, though only one of those little child- pictures that happen to print themselves off on a mind, and, after lying buried for years, so oddly come to light from an old friend's memor}^ Once the mother tested him. They were making plum-puddings in the kitchen. " Sally, take these raisins into the parlor, and offer them to Stiles, and urge him to take them," she said. The girl played her part faithfully. " I don't want them, Sally." *' Why, don't 3'ou love raisins ? " " Yes, but don't you know that my dear mother does not wish me to eat them?" "Oh, nonsense! she won't know any thing about it ; take them 1 " He looked his Eve in the face solemnly, and said, ''Sally, I am astomshed at you ! Do you think I would do any thing that I knew my dear mother did not wish me to do, because she did not know it? I am astonished at you!" It sounds a little "goody" for the boy, and not quite so good as might be for the mother ; but it gives the key-note of the whole after-life, and gives it chiming true to the mother's anxious touch. A few relics of her tenderness were treasured all through that life. Among them is a small brown book inscribed, " The mother's gift to her little boy," which contains in her handwriting some childish prayers and hymns, and a tiny, trusting cate- chism that she herself composed for him. It suggests a pleasant picture of the earnest, clear-faced mother, and "her black-eyed urchin," as she calls him, by her side, catching her smile and the reverence of her tones. His grave child-face appearing with her in the meeting- house is still remembered. " Nothing around disturbed his eye or ear from the preacher," writes one, then a little maid, who sat in the next pew watching him. And it seems as if her hand guided the boy to his future 16 EZRA STILES GANNETT. [1801-1816. profession, when, in his chronicle of Sunda}^ sermons, we read back through an era of long abstracts, and another of short " heads," into a still earlier one of bare texts, and find that this primitive stage begins inside his mother's life-time, that the first few texts are recorded for him by the mother's hand. Her latter years were years of pain, and the " Birth- day Reflections '^ show her looking at death afar off, patient, but waiting, and wondering why the life so use- less is still prolonged. " Is it to give me time to fill up the measure of my iniquity, and to ripen for destruction ? I dare not admit bo awful a supposition ! Is it that I am still in an unregenerate state, and that my will has not yet been subdued, nor my soul bowed to the sceptre of Jesus, that a merciful God is waiting to be gracious ; that light may yet arise out of darkness, and the wanderer be restored to his father's home ? Or is it (delightful thought !) to complete a work of grace already begun in the soul, and to perfect that holiness without which none shall see the Lord ? Is this the case, welcome sufierings and trials, afflictions and sorrows; for, though the feeble body shall shrink from them, the soul shall be purified and made meet to be partaker with the saints in light." This last was her real thought, and its delight made her sick-room the resort of all her friends, and even of strangers desirous to see a person so happy in full view of death. Once, among the pilgrims, came the young Mr. Chauning, recently settled in Boston ; and there by the mother's death-bed he, perhaps, saw for the first time the little boy who was to be his colleague and successor. Very quietly and systematically she made herself ready for the vanishing. For a whole year now, another little book had held a few memorials of her own father and mother : '' copyed May, 1807, by Ruth Gannett, for the use and benefit of her 07il^ child, to whom they are 1801-1816.] THE HOME AND THE BOY. 17 devoutly recommended by his affectionate Mother." She knew she would never read them to him. She had set down, in lists, her worldly goods, directing how " the white cotton countapain with pink stars," and '' the quilted peticoat that was my mother's," and " the large green fan," and " the best white fan," and '' the black fan," and all the rest of the wifely furnishing, should be disposed of. Relatives would come riding from a distance to the funeral, so she had the hard gingerbread made up ready for them. And now — in a different, trembling hand — she added to the list, " To Stiles," — her boy, — "globe, books, writing-desk, green glasses, trunk of papers, white hair-trunk, family hair-ring, brooch," — there her hand seems to have suddenly failed, the word is hardly legible ; perhaps the mother's heart broke down. Before long he was sent away to Rev. Mr. Williams, the minister at Lexington, to be housed and taught for a year ; and his first letters date from this country- home. They tell his progress in big, grave words, with bigger interlined by the minister. " Besides the common studies and beginning Latin, I recite in the catechism and Dr. Doddridge's ' Education of Children.' " Evi- dently he was a good boy, — a trying one. He copies and recopies his letter, sends " duty," and seems very solemn. He reads the Bible daily, and receives his first own Bible from the father ; '' and not so much from you as from God," as the father had written him he ought to receive it. Twice on Sundays he is in the pew, earnest to take down the text of the discourse. Six months more at home, and the boy starts again into the world, — this time for Phillips Academy, at Andover. Well charged with precepts come the father's letters : " Obsta principiis," " omnia vincit labor," are the maxims for the young Latinist. He is to centre 2 18 EZRA STILES GANNETT. [1801-1816. himself in religion ; " go straight forward and avoid by- paths," as well as awkwardness and shy manners and loud talk ; and to get music, if he can, but is cautioned against "too much." ''Psalmody is the best." He never could get any. " We take Emerson's Catechism in place of grammar ; " and the httle book, with " Ezra S. Gannett, ejus liber, 1812," on the cover, was kept as long as he lived. A row of New England pastors testi- fies that it will tend to " guard the rising generation against the fatal errors which are so zealously propa- gated at the present day by the enemies of truth," — which means the then unchristened Unitarians. A queer, grim book to rear children on ! First come inch-square barbarous wood-cuts, beginning with Cain standing over Abel with a club ; Abraham poises his big knife over Isaac ; Jael drives her nail ; David holds the giant's head ; Joab spears Absalom ; and Solomon's soldier brandishes the baby ; and Nebuchadnezzar creeps on all fours, bristling like a hedgehog. A " Minor Doctrinal Catechism " follows, from which the boys learned of what God made all things ; viz., " Of noth- ing, Heb. xi. 3." " For whom did God make all things ? For himself." — " What do 3"ou deserve ? I deserve everlasting destruction in hell." — "If 3^ou should go to hell, how long must you continue there ? For ever and ever, as long as God shall exist. Matt. xxv. 46." Then the " Minor Historical Catechism " gives a synopsis of Biblical events, and the " Shorter Westminster Cate- chism " ends the course, well bulwarked with texts and comments by Dr. Watts. This last " has probably done ten times more good than any volume written by man uninspired, and is undoubtedly the best catechism in existence ; " so an appended note declares. Per- haps this unstrained milk for babes gave Stiles his first distaste for the faith that he so soon outgrew. 1801-1816.] THE HOME AND THE BOY. 19 The second Thanksgiving found him at home again, and there he passed four more quick years in the good times that an earnest boy has when preparing for col- lecre. Collecre looks like a little career in itself to a Cambridge boy of the inner circle, offering a whole set of life-aims and motives in miniature. By his bits of journals there must have been hard work done in the studies, but it was mixed with fun. The man's habits are in germ ; for here are curious lists of his " Books, Clothes, and Other Things," of the school-mates, and the cycle of school-games, and of expenses. The outlays Avere not extravagant for one almost a Freshman : one dollar and sixty-seven cents is the amount of pocket- money received from " D. F." (Dear Father) between January and September, 1816. These seem to fore- shadow his ways of careful registry, and the struggle to balance the week's accounts on the Saturday nights long afterwards. Perhaps that clothes-journal — in which the " soling of boots," and the epoch of the '' shirts not white " and the " new jacket," are so minutely dated — prophesied the punctilious linen, the thrifty endur- ance of well-brushed coats, and the frequent hand- bathings of older daysl Nicely copied, there remains a set of conundrums, in which St. Ives, and the frog climbing the well, and the river-puzzle of fox, goose, and corn, and the three travellers at the cara- vansary, with other venerable problems, appear, besides a few religious extracts and elect statistics, — such as the middle verse of the Bible, how often the word "and" occurs in it, &c. In January, 1814, the boy projected a monthly literary and political newspaper, named allegorically "- The Stile." " The circulation is to be limited to twelve subscribers, as the editor lias not time to make more than twelve copies of his issue, and the subscribers are to pay one cent on subscription and 20 EZRA STILES GANNETT. [1801-1810. one on receipt of each paper." It contained one other original feature also, — the first number was redated to become the second. And then, aj)parently, it died, — even of that issue three copies remaining on the projector's hands to tell the tale. The book-list reveals a strong: predominance of sober elements. Rasselas, The Idler, Pleasures of Hope, Telemachus, Aphorisms on Man, Trials of Temper, Watts's Divine Songs, Wonders of Nature and Art, and Harris's Encyclopaedia, seem to have thus far made much of his lighter reading. But the most characteristic " remains " of this period are those sermon-abstracts which run back to the mother's suggestion, and grow longer and longer as he grows older. There are few Sundays on which the pew does not hold him twice. The habit must have done much to educate his quickness in getting the points of a book, and the tendency to treat his own subjects in the logical, divided way. When he chanced — it was but rarely — to hear a sermon in after-life, he always enjoyed setting up its frame-work at the tea-table talk. Dr. Holmes's doctrine accorded, though not too pre- cisely, with the catechism. There was open exchange, however, in those days ; and Cambridge pulpit was often occupied by pastors of the neighborhood more liberal than himself. Unitarianism had not yet been driven to the break with Orthodoxy ; but opinions were fast ripening to distinctness, and most of the men who a little later took part in the controversy were already in their places. Besides " Uncle Holmes," as Stiles called him, and the other conservative preachers, the boy was reporting Kirkland and Ware and Pierce and Porter and Lowell and Channing. Dr. Hedge's recollection of his schoolmate will fitly end the sketch of these young days : — 1801-1816.] THE HOME AND THE BOY. 21 " We were pupils together for a few months — I just entering on ray classical studies, he far advanced in his prep- aration for college — in a private school, taught by Dr. John G. Palfrey, former minister of Brattle Street Church, then a resident graduate and student of theology in Cambridge. I recall looking up to this older school-fellow then with the mingled awe and admiration with which a boy of nine years is apt to regard a superior youth of fourteen ; his brilliant recitations from the Latin text-book, his flowing speech, his maturity and choice of diction, the fascination of which to my boyish ear was such that I could not choose but listen in the single rude school-room where all the lessons were audible to all, neglecting my own tasks at the risk of the penalty which, under Dr. Palfrey's wholesome rule, awaited such neglect. I well remember how his schoolmates looked upon him then as quite an exceptional youth. ' Stiles Gan- nett,' it was whispered among us, ' is very religious ; ' and anecdotes were current of his exceptional piety. Boys are not usually charmed with that quality in a schoolmate, and boyish criticism is apt to cavil at whatever seems a damper on boyish mirth ; but no ridicule ever attached to young Gannett's serious wnvs." M M THE CAMBRIDGE II03IESTEAD. 11. SEEKING AND FINDING. 1816-1821. "August 31, 1816. Was accepted upon examination, having studied, besides the Grammars and smaller books, part of the first vohime of Morse's Universal Geography ; Cummings' Geography ; Webber's Arithmetic ; Webber's JMathematics, as far as Equations in Algebra; Euclid's Geometry, two books; Bibliotheque Portative, 147 pages; Virgil; Cicero; Sallust ; Greek Testament; Graeca Minora; Livy, three books; Terence, one play .and part of another; Decerpta Ovidii ; Homer, three books ; and considerable writing Latin." That is the little chronicle with which he sums up the burden of his boyhood. Now the lo\hood was over. He was a Freshman at Harvard, ;nf ht lad of fifteen years, eager for the College friendships and prizes and pleasures ; at the same time, gradually coming to himself, and saddening by the v.\;y. 181G-1821.] SEEKING AND FINDING. 23 Halfway through the course, his father died, and the homo was broken up. The two had never been inti- mately acquainted. On the son's side, the relation was one of reverence rather than of childlike love. In after- life, his strongest recollections of the father were asso- ciated with serious conversations, with the Sunday window-seat where the boy sat ensconced, listening to the weekly instruction, and the Saturday nights when the family sat around the fire in the office and quieted themselves in preparation for the Sabbath, — the weary boy now and then devising an escape to the kitchen. Still he felt the loss deeply. Life, henceforth, meant life by and for himself, and he was not by nature very self- reliant. To the end, he always longed for an arm of love with the right to rest upon it. The next winter (1818-19) brought an odd experi- ence. The scene v/as Bedford, a tiny village a dozen miles away, where he attempted teaching '' district- school." On the sci'ap of paper on which the shy teacher enrolled the names of his twenty-four boys and girls, the letters are all shaken from their forms. A note, added later, explains : " These names v/ere writ- ten on the first day of my entering the school at Bed- ford. The paper is worth preserving as a proof of my fear, which was so great as to cause such trembling of my hand as prevented my writing intelligibly." lie must have bravely conquered first-morning fears, how- ever ; for the Bedford career was shortened by his speedily winning a reputation for quite the opposite quality. Undue severity, and incapacity, were the two specifications of the charge brought against him, at a meeting of the school committee called at his request. The committee, after hearing the witnesses, rebuked the district, and fully exonerated the young teacher. 24 EZRA STILES GANNETT. [181G-1821. But the teacher had withdrawn, and was back at Cam- bridge, no doubt feeling dismal and indignant. Dismal and despondent, at least ; for the mother's self-reproaching habit was strong in the son already. The orphan-feeling brooded over him. Pie is wonder- ing what he shall be, and his dreams are tinted by the thought : — "How foolish does it appear to waste one's time in en- deavors to gain distinction, or even happiness, when we look at the close of Ufe, and consider that the grave closes alike upon all. ... I sometimes think I should prefer to devote my time to study and science, that I should glory in distinc- tion ; but at others I say to myself, how much better it were, if possible, to settle down the pastor of some retired and obscure village, and, forsaking and forgot by the world, to devote myself solely to the cause of religion and virtue, to be the friend as well as the minister of my people, and if old age should spread its wrinkles on my brow, to descend to my grave after devoting my life to the cause of my God and Saviour!" This was in June, 1819. A little later the gloom had settled more deeply, and he wrote : — " Why nm I discontented ? It is, it must be, because I want religion. I know it, I dare not tell myself how sinful, how neglectful, I have been and am. Religion and I are strangers: I know it only from report. Its real influence, its sanctifying power, I never felt. I have neglected its duties ; I have wasted its privileges. Uneasy, discontented, and fickle must I continue, till I know more of its power, till I become a disci])le of the Saviour, till I have repented for past sins, and feel that to do good is my desire, to be good my object." . . . ..." I believe there is a God ; for there is such evidence of him in nature that I must believe it. But there I stop. 1816-1821.] SEEKING AND FINDING. 25 As for Christianity, what is it ? Why is not Mahometanism as Efoocl ? I have no faith in the relimon of Jesus. As a moralist I follow no standard, have no rules. There are some sentiments of honor, some notions of right and good, which I suppose are natural. I owe them not to cultivation. I am passionate ; I govern not my anger excepting from policy, for withal I am politic. Perhaps by policy I mean nothing but selfishness, — a feeling which leads one to impose upon others for his own benefit, to make himself the great object of all his care, all his actions." Such expressions half refute themselves. They tell the story of the morbidly self-conscious temperament, and betray that struggle with himself, beginning then, which went on to the last day of his life. It was prima- rily due to inheritance. Had the mother lived to train the steady counter-habits, he might have conquered this laming of his birth. The father's colder touch never made good her loss. Or the necessity so often imposed by inferior talents might have saved him ; but he was too bright, and Avorked too successfully in emergencies, to get help in that way. He had pride ; he had am- bition ; above all, he had a conscience haunted by a sense of duty stronger than his will, and therefore by a con- stant self-reproach. The will was of the pushing rather than the pressing kind. It prompted much ; but time would slip away, and opportunities be forfeited, and plans abandoned, leaving the feeling of an ideal thwarted by a want of worth. All this made him suffer; but as these same qualities drove him also into action, and the activity always took the form of help- fulness to others, he led, more than most men do, two lives, — an inner one unusually sad, self-questioning, and struggling, an outer one of unselfish energy and rare enthusiasm. Throughout our story w^e shall have 26 EZRA STILES GANNETT. [1816-1821. to turn from one man to the other in him ; and the chief good in writing out the life will lie in showing what rich success. in character and service can be won under these circumstances. Although he never gained the clear victory over temperament, in the striving he accomplished such brave living that the seventy years were filled with uses large and glad to all eyes save his own. But, to show this truly, the life must be written truly and the sadness told. In college, the fact of the two selves was already known by those who saw most of him. The weeks, however, were by no means all so gloomy as those ex- tracts might portend. Gannett enjoyed the pleasant college times ; was popular with his fellows ; and, with the two or three best friends who used to laugh him out of the moods, was merry enough. Of the Hasty Pudding Club, which in that day m-acle real its name, he was chosen President: and an address before the " S.S." faintly echoes a Bacchanalian ring ; so sermon-like, however, that it hints the good boy's difficulty. These mild revelries were well remembered ; and always after- wards he loved an abstemious "treat," and fondly appreciated the physical basis of geniality. In the ex- pense-book of his vacation journeys by the Greenfield and New Haven stage, it is odd, in contrast with his later strictness, to see how often the "drink" comes in at the change of horses. At that time both drinks and lottery-tickets were within the lines of righteousness in Massachusetts. He learned the lessons too quickly for his own good. " Four hours a day," writes his chum Kent, gave him the first honors at graduation. Nor does he seem to have spent his leisure very usefully. A journal of the last college vacation shows him rising late, which doubt- less implies late sittings-up, — riding and going to the 1816-1821.] SEEKING AND FINDING. 27 theatre, and reading " Gil Bias," and Petrarch, and '' Thalaba," and '' Decision." Possibly it was out of his own experience that he chose for the subject of the Class Oration " The Influence of Literature on the Char- acter of Individuals and Society," and emphasized espe- cially its dangers. The first part at Commencement was also his, and in this he considered '' The Revolutionary Spirit of Modern Times." It was 1820 ; Napoleon's fate was near enough to point the moral ; while the benefac- tors of Harvard supplied contrast to the Emperor, and, according to the college rule, turned off the peroration nicely. The " Master's Oration," three years later, was assigned him, but by his request was transferred to a classmate whose sickness during the course had possibly cost him the first rank. The '' parts " and his college themes are written in a very careful style, and filled with sober, just reflections ; but they lack humor, dash, and poetry. Harvard pruning is severe on young exuberance, and this lad was grave by nature. The coming sermons cast their shadows before. Between the college days and the first texts lay a few months of doubt, however. What should the life-path be ? A high purpose and religious feeling, literary tastes, a gift of ready speech, and the attraction of a " cause," called him towards the ministry. But he went slowly, with misgivings ; and the misgivings lasted long. A good aunt in Greenfield remembered the orphan ex- posed to the perils of Harvard's liberality, and did her best to dissuade him from yielding to them. " It is a wise son that looketh betimes i