nOTiHHMmiwiMHWiwwiM»m^ »"*w —' mi

lliliiili

'Y^ILE'^WEI&SflirY0 - ILEIBlF&&IRir •

DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

GIFT OF
Professor Halford E. Luccock

OTHER PUBLICATIONS BY THIS AUTHOR

FRANCIS ASBURY 18mo. Net, 25 cents
MODERN THOUGHT AND TRADITIONAL FAITH 12mo. Net, 60 cents
SOME MORAL REASONS FOR BELIEF IN THE
GODH00D OF JESUS CHRIST 16mo. Net, 35 cents
CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE Large crown 8vo. Net, $1.50
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE: Its-Evidential Value
Large 12mo. Net, $1.25

'. °?7j?. /fy^eA^l^

JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY

BY
GEORGE PRESTON MAINS

THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN
NEW YORK CINCINNATI

Copyright, 1917, by
GEORGE PRESTON MAINS

TO THE MINISTRY AND MEMBER
SHIP OF THE METHODIST EPISCO
PAL CHURCH, OF WHICH JAMES
MONROE BUCKLEY IS PECULIARLY
A PRODUCT, TO WHICH HE HAS
DEDICATED A PHENOMENAL LIFE
AND IN WHICH HIS INFLUENCE
WILL REMAIN A SOURCE OF PER
PETUAL ENRICHMENT, THIS NAR
RATIVE IS LOVINGLY INSCRIBED.

CONTENTS
Chapter Page
Foreword  11
I. Ancestry  19
II. Boyhood  30
III. Preacher and Pastor  54
IV. Fight for Life  77
V. Editor  100
VI. Debater and Parliamentarian  122
VII. Traveler  142
VIII. Author  166
IX. Academic Honors and OfficialPositions 193
X. Chautauqua — Wit and Wisdom  210
XI. The Man  260
XII. General Index  297

ILLUSTRATIONS
James Monroe Buckley  Frontispiece
Mrs. John Buckley, Mother of Dr.
Buckley (Born Abigail Monroe) Facing page 24
Dr. Buckley When a Member of the New
Hampshire Conference  Facing page 50
Dr. Buckley When Elected Editor of The
Christian Advocate  Facing page 62

FOREWORD
One who attempts the life-narrative of
Doctor James Monroe Buckley should under
take the work neither in a spirit of overcon-
fidence, nor of underestimating what may be
rightfully expected. The subject of this nar
rative holds a unique place in the religious his
tory of the times. For more than a generation,
and throughout a period when his denomina
tion was, both by growth and influence, assum
ing the role of strong leadership in American
Christianity, Dr. Buckley was unquestionably
the most potent individual leader in the Meth
odist Episcopal Church. This is saying much,
but not many will be disposed to challenge the
statement. Dr. Buckley's life presents not the question
of mere leadership — a leadership earned by a
wealth of resourcefulness, sanity, tireless activ
ities, uncommon powers, encyclopaedic knowl
edge, and phenomenal versatility. The char
acter landscape to be studied and if possible
reproduced includes a bewildering variety of
intellectual labors successfully achieved and
11

12 FOREWORD
awakens within us not only a sense of un
bounded admiration, but a feeling akin to
amazement. All this is the more magnified as
one goes back to measure the menacing physi
cal handicap under which he began his pubhc
hfe. It is well known that Darwin, Herbert
Spencer, and many other intellectual celebri
ties, made for themselves a first place in the
history of the intellectual world, in spite of
most painful physical limitations. It remains,
however, that few men conspicuous for achieve
ment have overcome greater limitations, and, in
defiance of them all, have won their way to en
during strength, to phenomenal toils, by a path
more signal than that traversed by the subject
of this narrative.
Those who have stood nearest him, and have
been his closest observers, are those most im
pressed by the very magnitude of his capacity,
industry, and mental fruitf ulness. But even to
such, a just largeness and completeness of im
pression is furnished only when the sum of his
work is reviewed in its true dimensions.
Tiowever alluring and stimulating the study
of such a life, it is manifestly no easy task to
reproduce it in anything like photographic
vividness and trueness. To fully traverse the
activities of this life would be to command

FOREWORD 13
material for an exceptionally voluminous
record. Literally many volumes might be
filled with worthy matter.
I have, however, felt that certain limitations
should be strictly regarded. It is due that a
wide public, so far as may be, should come
under the touch and stimulus of this hfe. To
plan for this result involves consideration of
some conditions perhaps not altogether ideal.
The age is preoccupied. The greater number
cannot be induced to read elaborate books.
Experience as a pubhsher has indelibly im
pressed upon me the fact that it is the excep
tion that the biography of any man, however
great he may have been, is widely read. It is a
fact to be greatly regretted that many of the
biographies of the world's intrinsically most
worthy characters remain unsold. It is their
ignominious function to gather dust upon the
shelves and within the vaults of the publishers.
If a published hfe is to reach and benefit a wide
constituency two material conditions at least
must be practically regarded. The one is, that
the volume should not be overlarge ; the other,
that it may be purchased at a moderate price.
With such warning convictions, my aim has
been to keep this volume within popular limits,
both as to size and price. If in response to the

14 FOREWORD
needs of history, or of a manifest interest on
the part of the Church, a more voluminous
record should be called for, there is available
abundant material for such a work. Indeed, in
interesting and stimulating data few hves are
richer than the one which here necessarily re
ceives but partial record.
Manifestly, in preparing this book, the task,
as related to the mass of outstanding material,
has been largely one of selection and elimina
tion. I have steadily sought to deal only with
the salient facts of the life as gathered from
many sources. How successfully this has been
done those best informed must judge. While
exercising the utmost care in the selection of
material, it will doubtless remain that some will
look for items of special interest to themselves
which they will fail to find reproduced in the
book. The plan of construction for the book itself
has not proven altogether easy for decision. A
chronological record, from start to finish,
would seem to have much to recommend it.
But I have become much impressed that Dr.
Buckley has developed prominence in so many
distinct and diverse fields of activity as to make
it desirable, and possibly best, that the nar
rative should be written in distinct chapters

FOREWORD l$
severally devoted to the departments in which
his creative activities have been most pro
nounced. This method, therefore, has been de
cided upon. It has the practical advantage of
classifying his varying activities into groups
from which they historically emerge, and of
giving them thus a distinct and significant
treatment. The reader may be thus somewhat
aided to pursue any department of the life in
which for the time being he may feel a special
interest. From the ideal standpoint, there are doubt
less some disadvantages apparent in this plan.
First, it may give to the book the appearance
of being a volume of sketches rather than the
consecutive and unbroken narrative of a hfe.
This view at best could be only superficial.
The book is by no means made up of essays
which have been at different times, and here
and there, written. The chapters have all been
written solely for this narrative. They revolve
around a central character, and, so far as pos
sible, they fall into a chronological order.
Second, this method could hardly be used with
out the liability of repeated emphasis being
given to some particular quahties of the per
sonahty involved, these quahties coming to the
front in every department of his activities. I

16 FOREWORD
venture the hope, however, that this feature,
whenever observed by the reader, may not be
found a serious or a tiresome defect in the nar
rative. In completing my work on this manuscript,
I am self -reminded of the fact that, running all
through the work there is an obvious strain in
adulation of my subject. I would neither
modify nor change this. If there is what ap
pears adulation, it is in entire absence of ful-
someness. Nor is the record I have penned
that of an obsessed hero-worshiper. While
trusting that I am not without ability discern
ingly and judiciously to recognize extraor
dinary quahties of character, a long hfe in
close practical relations with men has fully
impressed me that no man is either to be wor
shiped, or is worthy at all points of unqualified
indorsement. While proud of the fact that
through a long series of years it has been my
privilege to know Dr. Buckley somewhat
closely, I am also clearly reminded of the fact
that he has not always agreed with me, nor has
he approved of certain opinions which I hold
with great mental satisfaction to myself. It is
also true that, owing perhaps to differences in
our mental habits, possibly to temperamental
differences, I have found myself at times un-

FOREWORD 17
able to assent to positions which he has quite
positively espoused.
All this in judicial discernment and evalua
tion of character is most superficial and incon
sequential. I have considered for many years,
and the closer my contact with him the more
positive has been my conviction, that Dr.
Buckley is one of the really great men of the
times. I would not be true to my own convic
tions were I never to refer to him in terms of
appreciation which would not apply to the
ordinary man. I am sure I only share with a
wide pubhc that extraordinary admiration
which his history justly evokes. I, moreover,
am free to confess that the all-around review of
his activities which the preparation of this
manuscript has necessitated, has only served
greatly to enhance upon my thought his sur
passing measurement. I would, therefore,
firmly refuse to make any apology, or to plead
any fault, for the occasional eulogy which may
utter itself in this narrative.
Conscious of the limitations under which I
have wrought, realizing, perhaps more clearly
than is possible to any other, how fragmentary
is the product presented, and yet with the jus
tifying conscience of having faithfully done
my work — itself a work of admiration and love

18 FOREWORD
— I now submit the result to the pubhc, in the
hope — may I not say, in the confidence? — that
the lessons of the hfe herein traced may be as
the seed of a holy planting which shall spring
to noble fruitage in lives hereby inspired and
enriched when the lips of both subject and
writer shall be forever silent.
Aside from sources named in the volume,
the author is indebted for several facts, which
he has deemed essential to the narrative, to
the kindly courtesy of persons standing near
to Dr. Buckley who have very graciously fur
nished needed information not otherwise ac
cessible. To any one familiar with the proc
esses necessary in the preparation of such a
work it is needless to say that the required
selection, arrangement, and verification of
facts have called for the examination of a
large mass of material previously printed in
one form or another, and coming from many
sources. If, unhappily, errors of statement
shall anywhere appear, it can only be said that
such errors will stand in proof that the most
conscientious efforts at verification have, by
so much, failed of their purpose.
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1917.

CHAPTER I
ANCESTRY
James Monroe Buckley, on his paternal
side, sprang from a pure Enghsh stock. Eng
land, from the days of the Mayflower Puritan
to now, has contributed richly to the best things
in American life. England, begirt by the seas,
territorially small, historically great, is, in the
large, rich sense, the true mother-land of
America. Home of Magna Charta, seat of
world-empire, mistress of the seas; birth-land
of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton,
Wordsworth, Browning, Tennyson; in philos
ophy and science, breeder of the Newtons,
Bacons, the Huxleys, Tyndalls, and Darwins;
historic bulwark of the Protestant faith;
creator for the world of noble ideals, of justice
and freedom ; land of the primrose hedge, and
of the ravishing lark-song, where the lawns
have sunned themselves in a thousand summers
— this land every man with the instincts of a
true American may gratefully hail as the con
tributor of much that is best in his own match
less inheritance. 19

20 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
The English lineage of our subject is clearly
traceable to his great-grandfathers, James
Buckley, on the paternal, and Henry Wilde,
on the maternal side. James Buckley, the
grandfather, was born July 4, 1774. He hved
in Sholver near Saddleworth, a suburb of Man
chester, and died July 29, 1816. He married
Mary, the daughter of Henry Wilde. From
this union were born John, the father of James
Monroe, and a brother, James. These two
brothers, when still young men, migrated to
America. Of the maternal lineage of Dr. Buckley
there is a clear record back to the seventh gen
eration on the paternal, and to the sixth gen
eration on the maternal, side. His maternal
grandfather, Clayton Monroe, was born De
cember 31, 1788, in Burlington County, New
Jersey, and died at Mount Holly, New Jersey,
June 24, 1867. His wife, Mary York, was
born August 10, 1787, and died January 9,
1870. This Clayton Monroe, the grandfather,
was for ten years a justice of the peace at
Mount Holly, and for another ten years was
judge of Burlington County. He was trustee
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was
esteemed as one of the leading citizens of the
town.

ANCESTRY 21
John Buckley, the father of James Monroe,
was born May 3, 1805, in Lancashire, Eng
land. With his brother James he came to
America in 1827. Before coming to America
his rehgious affiliations had been with the
Church of England. Naturally of thoughtful
and serious purpose, he became controllingly
impressed in his new surroundings with the
necessity of committing himself to an earnest
religious life. His associations probably de
cided the casting his lot with the Methodist
people. Accordingly, in the spring of 1828 he
was received by the Rev. Isaac Winner into the
Methodist Episcopal Church. Not long after,
he was convincingly impressed that it was his
duty to preach the gospel. In a desire to better
his preparation for this great work, he went in
February, 1830, to the Wesley an Academy at
Wilbraham, then presided over by the cele
brated Wilbur Fisk. This school, on account
of failing health, he left in the following
August. In February, 1831, he was licensed
to preach. At the session of the Philadelphia
Conference, in the following April, he was
admitted on trial into the traveling connection.
In 1833 he was appointed preacher in charge
of the Methodist Episcopal church in Mount
Holly, New Jersey. It was here, in the home

22 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
of Judge Monroe, where he met his future
wife, Abby Lonsdale Monroe.
The record of the Rev. John Buckley, so far
as we have it, is one highly creditable both to
his abihty and character. He entered upon his
ministry in the spirit of unreserved consecra
tion. He was scrupulously careful to attend to
all details, large and small, arising in connec
tion with his work. Preaching was with him
a holy passion. In nothing did he so rejoice as
in proclaiming the message of salvation to his
fellow men. The record is that "his talents as
a preacher were of a superior order; his mind
was well disciphned, and but few preachers
could set forth the truth more clearly and
pointedly than he."
Abby Lonsdale Monroe was born February
2, 1813. She was the first-born of three chil
dren, there being besides her a sister and a
brother. The brother, afterward the Rev.
Doctor S. Y. Monroe, came to distinction as
one of the General Officers of the Methodist
Episcopal Church. While in discharge of his
official duties, he met an untimely death in a
railroad accident. Abby Lonsdale Monroe
early entered into a clear religious experience
and united with the church at the age of thir
teen years. She was a dihgent student, and

ANCESTRY 23
her girlhood education, which greatly served
her needs in later years, was superior.
To her the Rev. John Buckley was married
April 21, 1835, by the Rev. Richard W.
Pelterbridge. Throughout the remaining
years of her husband's ministry Mrs. Buckley
proved herself in every way a devoted and most
efficient partner in all his Christian work. The
time of his active ministry proved short. Ex
acting devotion to his work, coupled with
incident exposure and privation, early over
matched his not robust health, necessitating his
retirement to a farm for recuperation. He
made a heroic and protracted struggle for
health, but fought a losing battle, and in June,
1842, he died, "leaving his widow to care for
two sons, the elder not six, the younger scarce
three years old."
To the rearing, the right moral and intellec
tual training, of these children Mrs. Buckley
thenceforward gave herself in incessant and
self-sacrificing devotion. The lads were James
Monroe and his little brother, Henry Clayton.
It is the career of James which has called for
the writing of this work. The younger brother,
born in Mount Holly, October 6, 1839, per
formed most of his hfework in the town of his
nativity, dying there October 2, 1915. He was

24 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
connected with the New Jersey Mirror, of
Mount Holly, for more than half a century.
At the breaking out of the Civil War he en
listed in Battery "A" First New Jersey Artil
lery, and served his term. He was an active
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
and for more than thirty years was on its offi
cial board. He was also an active member of
various useful societies and organizations of
the community.
Mrs. Buckley, that she might supply herself
with means for the physical and mental needs
of her two boys, established a private school
which she conducted successfully until her
recognized abilities led to her appointment as
preceptress of the Central Pubhc School.
From a grateful hand we are supplied with the
following picture of a mother's work in this
relation: "Thus, through winter's cold and
summer heat, for twenty years and more she
wrought for her children. What they learned
in the schools was less than what she taught
them by correcting their language, directing
their reading, and reading to them. When
the tasks had been mastered, never before, play
was allowed. Sunday school lessons were
taught in the same way. Smiles were the re
ward of merit; admonitions or judicious pun-

MRS. JOHN BUCKLEY, MOTHER OF Mi. BUCKLEY

ANCESTRY 25
ishment the penalty of neglect or disobedience ;
but there was ever wistful looking for the first
indications of penitence. Amid all these labors
she sang in the choir and taught in the Sunday
school, imitating her parents in devotion to the
Church, and cherishing undying interest in all
its enterprises."
Mrs. Buckley was moved by ideals so large
and inspirational as to forbid the confinement
of her activities and interests to any narrow
area of vision. In the stern necessity of pro
viding for herself and her children there were
laid upon her tasks that would seem unduly
heavy, tasks which might overtax the energies
and daunt the courage of a lesser personahty.
But her extraordinary character was evinced
by the variety and wide range of interests
which secured her attention. She was an inter
ested attendant and observer of at least six
General Conferences. From the days of
Bishop George she had heard all the bishops
preach, and many of them had been guests in
her home. The Ecumenical Conference at
Washington greatly interested her and claimed
her thoughtful attention during all its sessions.
She was actively interested in the Woman's
Foreign Missionary Society, and was a close
student of the proceedings of the Parent

26 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
Board. She gave helpful personal support to
the useful organizations of her native town,
such as the Dorcas Society, the Female
Benevolent Society, and the Ladies' Aid So
ciety of her home church, and was for many
years treasurer of the "Children's Home." At
the time of her death she was in the thirty-
fourth consecutive year of service as woman
superintendent of the Sunday school, a posi
tion which she efficiently filled to the last.
Throughout her life she was a faithful attend
ant upon the meetings for social worship in her
church. Mrs. Buckley was a diligent reader
of the best literature, such as books of travel,
pure fiction, poetry, history, and discriminat
ing discussions of current thought, and expe
rienced a special satisfaction in the biographies
of eminent Christians and philanthropists, and
in treatises upon the higher forms of the Chris
tian hfe.
Her annual recreations were sought and
found amid religious associations. She visited
with regularity for a few weeks in each year
Ocean Grove, where she was a sympathetic
worshiper and critical listener at the services
held in the great auditorium. Greatly re
freshed in spirit and happy in mind, she re
turned from her last visit to Ocean Grove on

ANCESTRY 27
September 1, 1892, to pass within a few days
to her translation. To Dr. Buckley, visiting
her ten days before she died, and within a few
months of her eightieth birthday, she said, "I
must be old, but I have no consciousness of it."
"Thus she lived, time touching her so softly
that in her person and mind there were few
signs of autumn and none of winter." Her
demise was sudden. Seized with indigestion
and shght neuralgic attacks, from which
neither skill nor tender care could bring relief,
on the evening of Sunday, September 25, just
as the church bells to which she had "joyfully
responded for more than three quarters of a
century," were summoning worshipers to the
sanctuary, "she sank into the final quiet."
The highly creditable career of the father,
the Rev. John Buckley, was so brief, so fatally
handicapped by physical disease and weakness,
as to make impossible any reliable estimate as
to what might have proved his exceptional
power and influence had he been favored with
long life and sustained vigor. To this, the case
of the mother stands out in marked contrast.
She hved to old age. She retained to the last
unimpaired vigor both of body and of mind.
It puts no strain upon our faith to assume that
those qualities of mind which afterward shone

28 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
so brilliantly in the person of her illustrious son
were a direct inheritance from his mother. Dr.
Buckley can be cited as no exception to a rule
often named, that great men are usually the
sons of great mothers. Speaking of the two
little boys at the time of their father's death,
he himself has said: "They knew not the mean
ing of their loss, . . . nor that God had given
them a mother, who to her tenderness would
join the authority, self-control, and wisdom of
a father." Appended to this ancestral chapter, it seems
appropriate to make a brief record of Dr.
Buckley's immediate family history. He was
three times married. In each case he married
into a family of high social standing and influ
ence. On August 2, 1864, he was married to
Eliza A. Burns, daughter of James and Au-
rella Burns, of Detroit, Michigan. She died
February 27, 1866. On April 22, 1874, he
married Mrs. Sarah Isabella French Staples,
the widow of Lyman J. Staples, of Detroit.
She died in Morristown, New Jersey, Novem
ber 29, 1883. On August 23, 1886, Dr.
Buckley married Adelaide Shackford Hill,
daughter of Dr. Levi G. Hill and Abigail B.
Shackford of Dover, New Hampshire, who
died on April 23, 1910. By his second wife Dr.

ANCESTRY 29
Buckley has two surviving children: Mr.
Monroe Buckley, a graduate of Wesleyan
University in the class of 1899, and now prac
ticing law in the City of Philadelphia; and a
daughter, Sarah Isabella, now Mrs. Ernest
Edward Pignona, of Morristown, New Jersey.

CHAPTER II
BOYHOOD
A most interesting thing about a great man
is his beginnings. "The boy is father to the
man," is an old proverb, and as true as old.
That distinguishing and irreducible factor
which we name individuality is not acquired; it
is inborn. The energy which drives and sus
tains a life of phenomenal achievement is
inherent, a constitutional quality. The excep
tional brilliant man, the man who moves among
his fellows as recognized leader, is born under
no vulgar stars. The light of talent must
have burned in his very baby eyes, and the
ozone of storm-cloud and crag been a stimulus
in his boyhood blood. This boy is dynamic
with impulse. His native forces, untutored
and undisciplined, drive him aside from the
beaten ruts and customs pursued by his com
panions. His imagination riots and stimulates
itself in a world of fancies such as never lifts
itself on the vision of the ordinary boy.
This condition is critically sensitive. It
abounds in grave habihties as possibly affect
ing the future character and career of its sub-
30

BOYHOOD 31
ject. Ungoverned and misdirected, such a
childhood carries in itself only the prophecy of
disaster. Self-destruction, and, it may be, un
measured damage to society, are the not im
probable outcome of untutored and undisci
plined brilliant natural gifts. The nascent
powers and ebullient energies of exceptionally
endowed youth need to be early taken wisely
and firmly in hand for training and direction.
If this process is continuous and successful, it
may be confidently predicted that its subject
will finally come to his place as an influential,
constructive, and beneficent force.
Under such convictions it has been mani
festly a matter of exceptional interest to secure
as fully as possible illustrative and illuminat
ing incidents of Dr. Buckley's boyhood. His
mature and public life has been so conspicuous
as to make the thought that he was ever a boy
easily negligible. It may be ventured, how
ever, that if all the interesting incidents of his
youthful history could be collected, material
would be furnished for a boyhood biography
not less interesting in its kind than anything
which could be written of his maturer hfe and
activities. This might not be the life of a
Huckleberry Finn, but if it had a Mark Twain
as its author, it would probably furnish no less

32 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
a hterary revel for the young life of the age.
It would hardly prove the mark of a discerning
prophet to expect the boy Buckley to be a
model young saint. There must, at least, have
inhered in his various qualities gravitations
in other directions. His precocious intellect
would early expose him to many ideas and
influences for the safe treatment of which he
would have neither maturity of judgment nor
sound reason. He himself tells us: "When
about sixteen years of age I had fallen in with
some strong-minded but not highly educated
infidels. They talked with me frequently, and
I was induced by one of them to write a com
position against Christianity, he to furnish the
principles and facts, and I to write them gram
matically ; so that he might read to the club a
presentable paper. These men were of the
Thomas Paine class of infidelity. I read his
works and others, and doubted the truth of
Christianity for more than a year."
Were it not for his illustrious after-hfe, the
incidents and tendencies of his boyhood might
not carry in themselves any special signifi
cance. But they form an essential part of the
history, and are a suggestive index to quahties
which proved decisive in the making, of a great
career. The incidents, therefore, have a legiti-

BOYHOOD 33
mate place in a narrative which in their omis
sion would by so much remain deficient and in
complete. The statements herein presented
are authentic, and, with only such shght verbal
revisions as have been required for the pur
poses of the narrative, are given quite closely
in the language of those furnishing firsthand
information. One of young Buckley's earliest recollec
tions is of driving in from the farm to Mount
Holly with his father to secure a cradle for his
newly arrived baby brother. The cradle rock
ing in the back of the cart caused him to
wriggle about frequently to look at it. This
occasioned an impressive reprimand from his
father, who feared he would fall out. He re
members this distinctly, although he was but
two years and nine months old.
At the age of three he could easily read
simple things.
Though his father died when he was but six,
he remembers well his taking him to church in
Bridgeton, and of his parental strictness, par
ticularly on Sundays, when he was not allowed
to run about and play or make a noise.
After his father's death his mother took the
two httle boys to Mount Holly to hve with her
parents. After her husband's affairs were

34 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
settled there remained nothing but a small
sum, with which she purchased Bibles for her
little sons, giving one to each as a "father's
legacy." This Bible Dr. Buckley has always
cherished as of priceless value. From this time
his home was always at his grandfather's until
he became a minister, though in later years of
his boyhood he was frequently absent months
at a time, either at school or trying various em
ployments either in Philadelphia or other
places. His grandfather, highly esteemed, upright,
a "just judge," was of a silent and stern
manner, and while fond of the children ex
pected them to be "seen and not heard." This
was particularly hard upon James, whose
nature was such that he could not long be still.
He must be doing something. In those days
not much diverting entertainment was pro
vided for children and he was continually get
ting into mischief, involving his frequent pun
ishment, while the younger brother, who was
quiet by nature, was always considered the
"good boy." At such times his devoted grand
mother often stood between him and the judg
ment seat. This very "restlessness" was
symptomatic of a force which pushed him to
the front on life's later walks.

BOYHOOD 35
At the age of seven, of course without per
mission, he set out one day "to see the world."
When seven miles away from town, he met the
fish man, who inquired his destination. This
man, when informed of the boy's intention "to
see the world," agreed that it was a fine idea,
but suggested that a ride back to Mount Holly
in the fish wagon would be pleasant. To this
suggestion the boy, already a bit weary, readily
agreed, and so ended his first "tour." In his
own pubhshed reminiscences he records an inci
dent, also occurring at about the age of seven,
of twenty-seven cakes. The cakes, which had
been prepared for company, he distributed to
various small friends who with himself con
sumed the entire number. A quite enjoyable
prank, no doubt, but his judicial grandfather
counted it worthy of retribution by twenty-
seven spanks. For years thereafter, the simple
word "Remember" from his grandfather's hps
proved quite effective in restraining his tend
ency to overt mischief.
When not far from the same age he con
ceived the idea of inviting his httle friends to
a party at his house. As there were no prepa
rations, his family knowing nothing of the in
vitation, the children on arrival, decked out in
their best, had to be turned away from the door,

36 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
with the result that shortly after the event
James was called upon to attend a private
party far less festive and romantic than the one
which he had planned.
An incident illustrative of his restless inge
nuity occurred one evening when the Misses
Gilder, aunts of Richard Watson Gilder, were
invited to "eat." The boys were not allowed at
table, but were told to stay in the sitting room,
above the dining room* and to "be quiet." All
was quiet for a time, but James soon conceived
the idea of getting under the table with his
brother and trying to see how high they could
lift it with their backs. This caused a catas
trophe, all the things upon the table, including
an old-fashioned desk box, crashing to the floor,
and causing the "tea party" below to rush up
stairs to learn what dreadful thing had hap
pened. This incident was most naturally fol
lowed by another serious arraignment at the
seat of judgment.
As a child, James frequently visited the
court house with his grandfather. A great im
pression was made upon him at one time when
his grandfather, just for a few seconds, shut
him up in a dark cell in the jail to show him
what would happen to naughty boys who grew
up to be bad men. His grandfather, however

BOYHOOD 37
stern in manner, was very fond of his little
grandson. James remembers many happy
walks with him on Sunday afternoons, which
were conditioned especially upon his own pre
vious good behavior in church and Sunday
school. They used to climb the mount, from
which Mount Holly is named, and from this
elevation the lad would look off across the
country and plan for a time when he should
explore the world lying beyond the limits of
the horizon.
Once during these early years the New
Jersey Conference met in Mount Holly, when
several of the ministers were guests of the
family. On this occasion James acted as a
page to the Conference, and he remembers very
well Bishop Beverly Waugh, who presided,
and Dr. A. E. Ballard, who is now the only
living man left to call him "Jimmy."
He first entered Pennington Seminary in
1848, in his fourteenth year, where he remained
for three years. A letter to his mother from
the Principal, Dr. J. Townley Crane, under
date of November 26, 1849, well reflects some
of the boy's traits at this period. Doctor
Crane says : "As far as obedience to my direc
tions is concerned, I have no special fault to
find with James. He is always respectful, and

38 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
never resists my commands in the shghtest de
gree. The only things for which I have had
occasion to reprove him were the by no means
rare faults among children and youth, occa
sional inattention to study, and a kind of
humorous recklessness in his assertions when
talking with his fellow students, a propensity
to enlarge and magnify, something after the
fashion of that well-known child's book, Sind-
bad the Sailor. This I have considered im
proper, because of its tendency to real decep
tions, and representations designedly false, and
I therefore talked to him very seriously, though
very kindly too, respecting this habit, and he
promised to reform."
He was a boy of generous courage and hon
esty. When some of the boys, his mates, would
make expeditions to neighboring farms forag
ing for peaches, apples, and other fruits, with
out asking permission of the owners, it would
be like him boldly to approach the front door
and politely ask if he "might have a few
peaches." The well-nigh invariable result was,
the farmer's wife being so pleased to have him
ask instead of helping himself, that he usually
received as a free gift some of the best of the
fruit. His quick wit, which in after hfe ever proved

BOYHOOD 39
itself an exhaustless fund, voiced itself in the
following incident. It is to be remembered
that the principal of the Seminary was a some
what fastidious dresser. Under the necessity
of wearing glasses, he wore a fine type of the
gold-mounted sort. One day young Buckley
appeared in class with a very large pair of
spectacle frames made of coarse wire and per
fectly adjusted to his nose. Wearing this con
spicuous facial ornament, he sat. in his place
sober as a judge, while other members of the
class were convulsed with laughter. Dr.
Crane, seeing what was going on, turned to
Buckley and said:
"Do you wear those for use or for ornament,
Mr. Buckley?"
"For use, Doctor. If they were for orna
ment, I should have had gold."
If Dr. Crane was the first, he was by no
means the last dignified Doctor of Divinity
who finally went down under the shaft of
James M. Buckley's wit.
After his first period at Pennington he re
mained out of school for two years, during
which time he attempted several kinds of em
ployment. He was by turns, an errand boy in
a dry goods store, a clerk in another store, an
errand boy for a large auction house, the same

40 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
in a hardware estabhshment, and was also
employed in a lumber yard, where he met with
a serious accident. Being sent on an errand,
and deciding that he would prefer to ride than
to walk, he harnessed a horse which he had
been forbidden to drive. The animal proving
too much for the young driver, ran away, threw
the lad out, wrecked the wagon, and ran into
the Delaware River, where it was drowned.
The lad remained unconscious for nearly a
week, and it was thought that even if he should
survive he was permanently injured. He
finally recovered. But having disobeyed orders,
and having caused his proprietor the loss of a
valuable horse, he was informed that his serv
ices in that establishment would no longer be
required. Having read Frankhn's idea that
"all boys should have a trade," he finally per
suaded his mother to let him apprentice him
self to a harness maker, where he became quite
proficient in sewing traces, which work in those
days was done by hand. At one time he set
out to go to California, earning his way as he
went along. He was gone from home nine
weeks, but only got as far as the upper part of
Delaware, where a felon developed on his
finger which painfully forced upon him the
conclusion that "home and mother" were of all

BOYHOOD 41
earthly attractions the dearest. But, being
destitute of money, he was obhged to make his
homeward journey on foot.
When Kossuth, the great Hungarian pa
triot, visited this country, young Buckley saw
and heard him in Philadelphia, and was so im
pressed that then and there he inwardly re
solved that some day he would visit the coun
try whence Kossuth came.
He entered Pennington for a second period
in the fall of 1854. An incident of this period
illustrative of his readiness for mischievous fun
is related by one of his schoolmates, the late
Colonel Dobbins. Being out together one
night, they passed a neighbor's house where
several young ladies were singing. After
listening for a time to the music, Buckley in
flated his lungs and, without giving Dobbins
any hint of what he intended, roared at the top
of his voice, "Hark, from the tombs a doleful
sound," and then shot into the underbrush by
the side of the road so quickly as to leave his
surprised companion quite alone to take what
ever consequences might ensue. The family
came pouring out of the house to see who the
disturbers might be, and found poor Dobbins
by himself very much nonplused and speech
less. Colonel Dobbins never relinquished the

42 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
conviction that Buckley as a young fellow was
always expert in getting himself out of trouble,
whatever might become of his unfortunate
partners. One of his early teachers, at this writing still
hving and in his eighty-seventh year, a life
long and cherished friend of Dr. Buckley, Dr.
Thomas H. Landon, relates substantially as
follows some interesting reminiscences dating
from the second period of Young Buckley's hfe
in Pennington Seminary. He says :
"My acquaintance with him began this way.
In the fall of 1854, while I was teaching at
Pennington Seminary, I stepped into the office
of Dr. J. T. Crane, then principal of the
school, and was introduced to a youth, who had
just arrived from Mount Holly, the home of
his mother. We immediately began to size
each other up. I saw a youth of about eighteen
years, of medium size, but very hght weight,
with an eye as keen as an eagle's, and a very
large head. He was not long in telhng me that
he had attended the school some three or four
years before. Just why he had left it I did not
learn, or, if I did, I do not remember. Then
and there began an acquaintance with the boy,
which during his school days there, and brief
course in college at Middletown, and in after

BOYHOOD 43
years ripened into a friendship which has never
had a break or any misunderstanding; and
now, a day or two after the anniversary of my
eighty-sixth year, and a week or two before the
anniversary of his eightieth year, I am asked
to give some reminiscences of his boyhood days
at the old school at Pennington.
"Soon after my introduction to him in Dr.
Crane's office, he presented himself in my class
in Cyropaedia. The class was composed of
Charles Stockton, in later years an eminent
dentist in Newark; William. Zane, afterwards
a member of the New Jersey Conference;
Albert Slate, subsequently a lawyer of Salem,
New Jersey; B. C. Lippincott, for many years
a member of the New Jersey Conference;
John W. Young (in those days familiarly
called Captain Young, he having been com
mander of a canal boat on the Delaware and
Raritan Canal), afterward a prominent mem
ber of the Newark Conference, and widely
known as an accurate statistician and collabo
rator of the benevolences of the Methodist
Episcopal Church throughout the connection;
also Solomon Parsons, long a prominent mem
ber of the Newark Conference, and a deserving
nominee for Congress of the Prohibition
Party.

44 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
"Where young Buckley had picked up his
knowledge of the Greek language I do not
know, but I soon discerned that he was not only
well drilled in the language and a ready trans
lator of the text, but a most intelligent com-
menter upon the author and the history of the
times of the book. While these qualifications
would have easily put him at the head of his
class, unfortunately his unequal habits of study
greatly reduced his standing. For several
days together he would appear in class and
completely outdo all others. Then again for
an equally long time he would not appear at
all, and thus, of course, would lower his stand
ing by daily marks. Nevertheless, when he was
present he showed himself complete master of
that portion of the book which was in the daily
lesson. This unevenness of attendance upon
and performance of his school work was a
marked characteristic of his whole course at
Pennington Seminary.
"One of the most memorable features of the
career of young Buckley at Pennington was
his activity and influence in the Alpha Omega
Society, of which he soon became a member.
In those days the weekly meetings of the so
ciety became the scenes of high debates, and no
little of the skill which in after years made this

BOYHOOD 45
man a head master in that art, both in the
Annual and General Conferences of which he
was a member, was acquired in these contests.
A notable feature of these debates was the
readiness with which he would change sides on
any question, and outargue and overthrow his
opponents. This illustrates the abundance of
resources and the readiness and skill in the use
of them, which characterized his career in all
the after life of this great debater.
"An incident about this time reveals several
characteristics of the boy, which were more
fully developed in his later hfe. Among the
irregularities of his daily practice was that of
being late to breakfast, and it had become a
repeated cause of amusement in the dining
room to hear the heavy heel and toe movements
coming down the stairs leading to the dining
room door, and then his dehberate entrance as
a late comer to breakfast. I concluded that
this had better be stopped, and so one morning
after the blessing was asked, I stepped to the
door and turned the key. In a few moments
the famihar clump, clump, clump, was heard
and all eyes and ears were attentive. Then
came the trial of the door knob, and, after an
instant of silence, the same clump, clump,
clump, indicated his retirement up the stairs.

46 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
A few minutes passed, and I heard a sound of
merriment from the lower end of the dining
hall, and looking down I saw Master Buckley,
who had come in by the kitchen door, walking
serenely up toward his seat within three or four
chairs of the head of the table. I waited until
he reached his chair, then arose and said to him,
'Now, Master Buckley, you may go out the
way you came in.' He looked me in the eye
steadily, and without a word of remonstrance
turned to the right about and went out the back
door. He was afterward asked why he did not
stand his ground and take his chair. His
answer was, T didn't hke the look of his eye.'
Thus early in his career were illustrated the
ability for a flank movement in debate, or a
maneuvering and equal wisdom in discerning
the psychological moment for retirement in
good order. It can easily be beheved that, with
the eccentricities and originalities thus indi
cated, this youth kept the school, including
teachers and pupils, in hvely expectation of
something to happen, or in equal curiosity to
know what would be done with what had hap
pened. "I shall never forget springing to my room
at the head of the stairs to inquire into an up
roar. I found the boy coming up, bellowing at

BOYHOOD 47
the top of his voice, and a very stentorian voice
it was even at that early day, and the explana
tion was that he was cultivating his vocal
organs by what he called the "explosive
method." One of his favorite diversions was
to gather a lot of fellows at the front stoop, and
set them stunts in jumping. It was truly re
markable how with his long body and relatively
short legs he could beat them all in the great
jump. This he never did in too large measure
at once, but slowly drew them along inch by
inch. At each successive attempt he stood by
looking on with great equanimity and twin
kling eyes at their failures.
"The same superiority which marked his
athletic achievements in the sports of the day
was manifested in his intellectual competitions
with his fellow students. I have referred to his
vigor, versatihty, and superiority in the de
bates of the Alpha Omega Society. But when
it came to essay writing and speech making on
general subjects his precocity in material and
method was equally evident. His ordinary
school compositions for weekly use had a ma
turity of thought and a facility of expression
which not infrequently excited a suspicion of
plagiarism. This, however, was never found to
be the fact. It is a somewhat interesting inci-

48 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
dent that in after years, when he was a mem
ber of the New Hampshire Conference, he
preached a sermon which he was accused of
having taken from a work of Doctor Ohn.
The result was that the accuser in this case,
when brought to book, utterly failed to sustain
his charge, and was obliged openly to confess
his mistake.
"In the New York Christian Advocate of
July 9, 1885, in an editorial notice of the trans
fer of the writer from the pastorate to the prin-
cipalship of the Bordentown Mihtary Insti
tute, Dr. Buckley made the following state
ment : Tt was at a meeting led by Mr. Landon
that the writer attended for prayers, and in his
room in private conversation, that he was en
abled to learn the alphabet of the new life.' It
will be interesting to many readers to learn
some particulars of this history which have
never been published. Even at this early date
young Buckley had been an omnivorous reader
of vast numbers of skeptical books, such as
Thomas Paine's Age of Reason, Voltaire's
works, and many others. With a memory of
remarkable retentiveness, his mind was a
charged battery of doubts and unbeliefs. The
writer was foolish enough to suppose that he
could outreason this youthful skeptic, and con-

BOYHOOD 49
vert him to the Christian faith. Many long
discussions were held in my room with that ob
ject in view. At last one evening, toward mid
night, he said to the boy: 'We are making no
headway, we have begun the wrong way, we
must go to headquarters.' He looked up to me
and said, 'Where's that?' and I answered,
'God.' He said, 'When and where?' I said,
'Here and now.' He said, 'How?' I said, 'By
prayer,' and added: 'Let's get down and pray.'
We both knelt at the bedside, I at the foot, he
at the side, with our faces toward each other.
I prayed first, and then told him to pray. His
prayer was a plain statement of the facts then
present, but of a purely intellectual character
without a shadow of emotion, but manifestly
sincere both to my consciousness and his. At
the close of his prayer we both opened our
eyes and looked at each other. He said, 'Do
you know how this seems to me?' I answered,
'No.' He said, putting his finger on the bed
post that was between us, 'It seems to me
that we might just as well have been talk
ing to this bedpost.' I said: T don't care if
it does so seem to you. You know better,
for you have at least one article of faith,
you beheve in a God who, if worthy of our
shghtest respect, now sees us and knows and

50 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
understands us, what we have said and what
we mean; and if you are conscious of your
own sincerity you must believe that something
will come of this, and this you will know in
due time.' He said, 'Is that all?' I said,
'Yes, for the present.' He said, 'Is there noth
ing else that I am to do?' I said, 'Yes, you
would better come to the class meetings as a
seeker after God, and I have only one advice
at present to give you, simply tell the facts as
they are when the time comes.' And so we ad
journed long after midnight. When the next
class night occurred, Buckley was there, and so
for several successive weeks, always stating
with the utmost simplicity that he was a seeker
after God. His literal compliance with the
advice given him, to tell the plain facts of the
case as they existed at the time, on one occa
sion proved a surprise to us all. In the meet
ing I came to him with the accustomed form of
questioning: 'Well, Buckley, how have you
gotten along this week?' With a very serious
shake of the head, he answered, 'Not at all well,
for to-day I got into a fight with P. C Sub
sequent inquiry developed the facts that a big
bully had persisted in tyrannizing over the
boy until, losing his patience, he bristled up and
showed fight. Though the bully was consid-

DR. BUCKLEY WHEN A MEMBER OF THE NEW HAMPSHIRE
CONFERENCE

BOYHOOD 51
erably the heavier, the boy, by agility and
active use of fists, nails, teeth, and feet, over
came the superior weight and strength of his
antagonist. It is satisfactory to state that
thereafter this fellow was careful to let Buck
ley diligently alone. It may be well enough to
state that as class leader on this occasion, the
writer made a reasonable exposition of those
passages in the Scripture which indicate that
the Christian is bound to live peaceably with
all men only, 'as far as in him lies.' This doc
trine, then full of comfort to the youthful
fighter, was long after very fully remembered
and practiced when he became a defender of
the faith in the Church, and an uncompromis
ing advocate of righteousness in the politics
of the nation."
It was the custom of Mr. Buckley in his
later years at Pennington to teach school in the
winter season. He taught a winter school also
in each of his two college years. At one of
these schools he laid down twenty rules which
were to be obeyed, punishment to be adminis
tered to the boy, however big he might be, who
should infringe them. One of the boys, seven
teen, and much larger than the teacher, decided
to disobey, and to see what would happen. He

52 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
placed a dead cat on the steps where all the
children must pass. It frightened the girls,
and created both excitement and amusement
for the school in general. The next morning
the teacher came prepared to carry out his
threatened punishment, though he was not
without decided qualms as to his abihty to do
so if the large boy should show fight. He said
to the boy: "Do you think a school can be kept
up if the teacher is not obeyed? I have got to
whip you or else I might as well give up. my
position as teacher in this school. You did a
mean thing to bring that dead cat into school to
frighten the little children. Now you have to
take the whipping or leave school. Which will
you do?"
The boy said he would take the whipping,
which he did ; but the teacher found it necessary
to smite with muscular strength, as the boy had
fortified himself for attack by putting folded
newspapers and his geography at well-cal
culated points of attack. Later, as the teacher
had taken a usual walk several miles out of
town, he found this boy at a certain point
awaiting him. His first thought was that the
boy was there to take his revenge. But not so.
The boy said: "You did exactly right. I want
to stay in school and learn." Years afterward

BOYHOOD 53
the former teacher learned that this same boy
was doing well in business and was proving a
useful citizen.
In submitting this chapter of boyhood inci
dents, I do it in the confidence that, while it
may not be intrinsically one of the most im
portant sections of the narrative, it will for the
larger number of readers assert itself as one of
the most interesting and enjoyable chapters of
the book. As the sources of a river indicate the
character of its waters, so any life Providen
tially designated for exceptional usefulness and
honor is well typified by the tempers and inci
dents of its earlier years. The real student of
life is instinctively interested to know the
sources whence spring unusual results, as
manifest either in character or in deeds.

CHAPTER III
PREACHER AND PASTOR
When young Buckley entered Wesleyan
University, in 1856, it was his purpose finally
to become a member of the legal profession.
He had already given considerable attention to
law, having read several selected and recom
mended lawbooks. Both his native endow
ments and acquired tastes would indicate the
possibilities of a distinguished career in this
profession. Indeed, throughout his subse
quent hfe the judgment was often expressed
that, however eminent his achievements as a
minister, by the very fact of his becoming a
preacher a great light was withheld from the
legal world. Even after his entrance into the
ministry efforts were made to turn him aside
to the profession of law. The head of a promi
nent law firm in New York city said, "When
Dr. Buckley was a young minister, I offered
him three thousand dollars a year if he would
begin the study of law in our office, and I told
him that when he had completed his course we
would take him into the firm, and that ever
54

PREACHER AND PASTOR 55
after he would have an income that would
stagger the minds of most Methodist preach
ers." To the question, "Why did you offer
Dr. Buckley three thousand a year to begin the
study of law?" he said, "In ten years it would
be worth one hundred thousand dollars a year
to my firm to have Dr. Buckley a pleader in the
courts of the State and of the nation." There
is no record in proof that Dr. Buckley himself
ever regretted, the decision which was to give
him a life-long place in the Methodist ministry.
At the time of his matriculation in the uni
versity he had been a member of the Church
for about two years, though, as he himself de
clares, he "was in a very indifferent state of
mind, filled with skeptical questionings, to
which he had lent a willing ear, and which were
increased by very free and outspoken utter
ance." He participated in the exciting Presidential
campaign of 1856, stumping for Fremont, and
immediately at the close of this campaign, in
order to supplement his income, he entered
upon the work of teaching a district school in
Connecticut. There being no church in the
town where he taught, he was invited to speak
three times on the subject of religion, he com
plying with this invitation. He himself char-

56 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
acterizes these addresses as follows: "They
were principally moralizing talks which did not
imply any particular spiritual life on my part."
He says : "During the same season I was twice
invited by pastors to fill their pulpits, in their
absence, and delivered sermons which may have
been correct in doctrine, but did not imply any
special religious life on my part, and I fear
were not adapted to create any in the minds of
the hearers." In these very days, however, as
he himself confesses, a vague notion passed
through his mind that he might some day be
come a minister. He did not attribute to this
impression any moral force, but thought it
might have arisen purely from the congratu
latory remarks which his religious addresses
had called forth.
The experience which finally decided his en
trance into the Christian ministry occurred in
the winter of 1858, when, in another commu
nity, he was again teaching school. In this
winter he participated in what proved to be a
notable debate with an Adventist, a Dr. J. C.
Howell, of Boston, upon the subject of the
"Immortality of the Soul." This debate awak
ened intense mterest throughout the commu
nity, and is still vividly remembered by the
older inhabitants. The effect upon Mr.

PREACHER AND PASTOR 57
Buckley himself was most marked. His studies
had begotten within him thoroughly and in
tensely the conviction of the soul's immortality.
This conviction gave him a vitally different
view of life from that which he had previously
entertained. In close connection with these events an
extraordinary rehgious awakening under the
leadership of A. V. R. Abbott occurred which
powerfully influenced the entire community,
and extended into wide surroundings. In this
revival he participated to the great quickening
and strengthening of his own rehgious hfe.
His health was now much impaired. He was
seriously invaded by pulmonary symptoms,
and it was felt by his close and most sym
pathetic observers that he had but a little time
to live. He became convincingly impressed
that it was his duty to enter the Christian min
istry, that he might spend such time as re
mained to him in the endeavor to save young
men from infidelity. He therefore decided not
to return to college, but to enter the ministry
forthwith. Through an introduction by an American
Wesleyan Methodist minister, he became en
gaged to serve for one year a small church of
this denomination in Exeter, New Hampshire.

58 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
This society had been for some time without a
pastor, and was composed of only forty-eight
members, all of whom save four were women.
The pastor had to be minister, chorister, class-
leader, assistant treasurer — filhng nearly every
office except that of sexton. Exeter is the seat
of the famous Phillips Academy, where such
New Englanders as Daniel Webster, Wendell
Philhps, Rufus Choate, George Bancroft, and
many others, had fitted for college. About one
hundred and fifty students were in the Acad
emy when young Buckley entered upon this
pastorate. Beginning with small congregations, the
church gradually filled up, many of the stu
dents and principal citizens regularly attend
ing the services. Thus the young preacher,
still only a layman, received encouraging as
surance of favor with the people. In the
course of this year he received an invitation to
become pastor of a Congregational church.
But after having preached several weeks to this
congregation, and having made a careful study
of the then accepted doctrines and polity of the
Congregational churches, he concluded that
Methodism could furnish for him the more con
genial and fitting field of labor.
His decision to apply for admission into the

PREACHER AND PASTOR 59
mmistry of the Methodist Episcopal Church
was doubtless largely influenced by Dr. Eras-
tus O. Haven, then editor of Zion's Herald,
who seriously persuaded him that he ought to
be a minister in the Church of his father. He
took his church letter which he had received
from Middletown, Connecticut, to the Meth
odist Episcopal church in New Market, New
Hampshire, where he was received, licensed to
preach, and recommended to the Annual Con
ference, all in one evening. He was admitted
to the New Hampshire Annual Conference,
holding its session in Portsmouth, in the spring
of 1859. Much to his own surprise, he was
appointed to Dover, one of the largest churches
in the State. In this church, finding great
favor with the people, especially with the
maturer minds of the community, he remained
two years, which was then the limit.
He was next appointed to a large church in
the city of Manchester. Here he inherited dif
ficulties growing out of discordant conditions
in the congregation, which resulted during his
first year in several church trials. By a wise
course of personal conduct, however, by a firm
and calm adherence to his Christian convic
tions, and by zealous fidelity to his ministerial
duties in pulpit and parish, he won favor from

60 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
the people, and the purification and restoration
of his church.
It was within this period that consumption
was quite generally supposed to be doing its
fatal work with the pastor. His presiding
elder besought him, with all gentleness, to go
home that he might receive the attention which
only a mother's love could bestow upon "a sick
and dying son." The young pastor declined to
follow this advice, and further determined not
to die. This same presiding elder and Dr.
Buckley, both members, greeted each other in
the General Conference which met in the city
of Brooklyn, in 1872.
At the end of his second year in Manchester,
in the spring of 1863, Mr. Buckley went to
Europe, returning in the late autumn appar
ently, for the first time in seven years, well.
At this time Bishop Janes offered him an ap
pointment in California with a salary of
twenty-five hundred dollars gold, and all trav
eling expenses across the continent to be paid.
His decision to decline this offer was in defer
ence to his mother's wishes. She said: "It is
not a mission work. I can see no reason why
a widowed mother should be separated from
her son by so many thousands of miles." A
httle later Bishop Simpson appointed him to

PREACHER AND PASTOR 61
Detroit, where he entered upon one of the most
historic pastorates in Michigan Methodism.
It was during this pastorate that the famous
"Central Methodist Episcopal Church" of De
troit was undertaken. This edifice certainly
at the time of its completion worthily ranked
as one of the best-appointed houses of worship
in American Protestantism. All of gray gran
ite, of cathedral proportions, beautifully lo
cated, with a capacity of twelve hundred sit
tings in its auditorium, with superior accom
paniments for the Sunday school and social
worship and hfe of the congregation, this
church not only gives conspicuous testimony
to the strength and popularity of the pastor
under whose supervision it was constructed,
but it stands as a distinguishing landmark in
the progress of American Methodism,
In the spring of 1866 Mr. Buckley was
transferred to the New York East Conference,
and was stationed at the Summerfield Church,
in the city of Brooklyn. For the ensuing four
teen years his pastorates alternated between
Brooklyn and Stamford, Connecticut. He
served both the Summerfield and Stamford
churches two full terms of three years each,
and was then appointed, in the spring of 1878,
to Hanson Place Church, from which pastor-

62 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
ate he was elected by the General Conference
of 1880 to the editorship of The Christian Ad
vocate. Prior to his appointment to the latter
church he received the unusual honor of an
invitation to a third pastorate in the Summer-
field Church,
The foregoing gives a summary of Dr.
Buckley's distinctive pastoral appointments.
While performing editorial duties he served
with marked favor as the acting and first
pastor of the Madison Avenue Methodist
Episcopal Church in New York city. This
society, effectively and influentially organized,
he passed over to Dr. O. H. Tiffany in the
spring of 1883.
Dr. Buckley had now won a national reputa
tion as a pulpit orator. However laborious
and exacting his duties in other relations, he
could not escape numerous demands for his
services as a preacher on distinctive occasions.
His sermons preached before universities, theo
logical schools, synods, Conferences, and on
dedicatory occasions are phenomenally nu
merous. It seems nothing less than a marvel
that, in addition to other and high duties, he
could command both the strength and produc
tiveness for the large number and variety of
occasions in which he appeared as the chosen

DR. BUCKLEY WHEN ELECTED EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE

PREACHER AND PASTOR 63
preacher. In the distinguished sphere of spe
cial and great occasions it may be doubted
whether any other American minister has been
called upon so often to respond to exceptional
and critical demand.
It is abundantly evident that Doctor Buck
ley had excelling qualities as a preacher. In a
most exceptional measure, he was in possession
of wide knowledge. An omnivorous reader,
his memory was encyclopaedic. He seemed to
have the rare faculty of commanding instantly
for use any fact which had ever come into the
field of his attention. I once heard him say
that if the Enghsh Bible were destroyed, he
could himself rehably restore two thirds of it
from memory. His command of the Bible was
no more wonderful than his familiarity with
other departments of hterature and history.
He would appear to know the theology, the
hymnody, the movements and the personnel of
Methodist history with alphabetical familiar
ity. Thus furnished, he could not fail to be
always an instructive preacher.
His voice, all things considered, was remark
able. While it could not be called musical, nor
possessing in marked measure the quality
known as magnetic, yet in reaching capacity,
in wide range of modulation, it was an instru-

64 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
ment wonderfully trained to give instant re
sponse to both his mood and purpose. He ac
quired the art of easy enunciation, so when
speaking to the largest audiences he made him
self distinctly heard without appearance of
laborious effort or undue physical strain. On
special out-of-door occasions, as when speaking
at a camp meeting or before Chautauqua as
semblies, he could readily make himself heard
to the outermost circles of great crowds. His
voice, which might well be called "Buckleyan,"
proved on all large occasions where called into
requisition, down to his latest years, a reliable
and powerful reenforcement to his effec
tiveness as a pubhc speaker. This is all
the more remarkable when it is remembered
that he began his pubhc career under the ban
of what appeared to be a fatal pulmonary
impairment. In his pastoral life Dr. Buckley did not hesi
tate to discuss and to agitate for social and
moral reforms which he deemed needful for the
betterment of the community hfe. During one
of his pastorates in Stamford he initiated a
no-license campaign which was conducted with
such vigor and effectiveness as to give him
instant fame as being one of the most powerful
opponents of the saloon interests. The hquor

PREACHER AND PASTOR 65
interests placed him under arrest on a trumped
up charge of "conspiracy," the specific offense
alleged being that he had hired detectives to in
duce saloon keepers to sell hquor at a time when
such sale was unlawful. During this agitation
he made a speech to a great throng of people in
the old town hall at Stamford, which was de
clared by many who knew him well to be "the
most eloquent of his life." Leading members
of the bar both in Stamford and in Norwalk
were employed in the trial, which itself proved
to be one of the biggest temperance rallies ever
held in the town. A justice, himself a liquor
partisan, held the court upon the platform, the
hall itself being crowded "to suffocation." Dr.
Buckley "summed up" for himself, taking
more than two hours for his speech which com
manded throughout the most eager attention.
So far as the "justice" was concerned, the plea
seemed useless. For the bulk of his decision he
read, without giving credit for it, an editorial
from a New Haven paper, and, as was ex
pected, bound the minister over for trial. Dr.
Buckley was never brought to trial in the
higher court, and thus was lost to the commu
nity a great occasion for furthering the inter
ests of temperance. As a result of this cam
paign thousands of people signed the pledge,

66 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
and a no-license majority was registered at
three successive elections.
Robert G. Ingersoll once, in a paragraph of
masterful English, pronounced a eulogy upon
some old whisky, a sample of which he sent to
a friend. Dr. Buckley's position on the tem
perance question is well announced by a parody
which he once wrote on Ingersoll's eulogy: "I
send you some of the most wonderful whisky
that ever brought a skeleton into the closet or
painted scenes of lust and bloodshed in the
brain of man. It is the ghosts of wheat and
corn crazed by the loss of their natural bodies.
In it you find a transient sunshine chased by a
shadow as cold as an arctic midnight in which
the breath of June grows icy, and the carol of
the lark gives place to the foreboding cry of
the raven. Drink it, and you shall have 'woe,'
'sorrow,' 'babbling,' and 'wounds without
cause' ; 'your eyes shall behold strange women,'
and 'your heart shall utter perverse things.'
Drink it deep, and you shall hear the voices of
demons shrieking, women wailing, and worse
than orphaned children mourning the loss of a
father who yet hves. Drink it deep and long,
and serpents will hiss in your ears, coil them
selves about your neck and seize you with their
fangs; for 'at last it biteth like a serpent and

PREACHER AND PASTOR 67
stingeth hke an adder.' For forty years this
hquid death has been within staves of oak,
harmless there as purest water. I send it to
you that you may 'put an enemy in your mouth
to steal away your brains.' And yet I call my
self your friend."
In both ideal, conviction, and purpose Dr.
Buckley was always a serious preacher. He
had no sympathy with sensational methods in
the pulpit. In all his announced pulpit teach
ing he might be counted a model of conserv
ative orthodoxy. Whatever reserves of con
viction, if any, which he may have kept within
himself, he never betrayed as a denominational
teacher any serious departures from accepted
Wesleyan standards. He was never at a loss
to support his teaching by a wealth of scrip
tural confirmation. His greatest forte was not
in appeal to the emotions. He was preemi
nently a persuader of the will. He appealed
for action from the standpoint of intelligent
reason. When in the making of vital moral
decisions intellect and will are in accord, the
emotional hfe is sure to be stirred. His most
effectual approach to the emotions was along
the path of high intellectual and moral persua
sions. One of the greatest editors in recent journal-

68 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
ism, and who knew Dr. Buckley intimately,
while confessing that it is not easy to analyze
his power as a preacher, says of him: "Elo
quent, in the sense that he embellishes his
speech with opulent rhetoric, flights of fancy,
captivating periods, warm imagery, he is not.
That profound intellect there appears in its
most satisfying guise, still arguing, still pre
senting proof, still enforcing argument with
irresistible logic, still seeking to convince rather
than to plead and persuade. Dr. Buckley
could not, if he tried, be a popular preacher
as the term goes. He is too sincere, too much
in earnest to resort to efforts to tickle the
fancy. He has a message to bear, and he sets
about it in a way that will carry that message
with the greatest force and power. In this
effort he has achieved a style that is the perfec
tion of simphcity, pure and chaste, which with
his lucidity makes dark things plain to the hum
blest intelligence, while he holds the rapt atten
tion of the learned and the thoughtful. Never,
in the sense that Beecher, or the recently
mourned Storrs were, is he an orator. Yet he
commands and sways vast audiences. An
humble man of little education and no piety
listened to him within a year, through the acci
dent of a funeral ceremony at which Dr. Buck-

PREACHER AND PASTOR 69
ley pronounced the address, with open-eyed
interest, and said at the end: 'If I heard that
man many times, I'd be going to church every
Sunday. He'd make me. And if I heard him
all the time, I'd believe just as he does.' It
was an unstudied and impulsive tribute, and a
revelation of the personal power of the man." 1
Dr. Buckley must be classed as a profoundly
spiritual preacher. He has the high ideals of
a prophet as to the claims of spiritual truth
upon life and conduct. His own character and
example are entirely compatible with the lofty
mission of one whose chief concern is to per
suade men in matters of eternal moment. In
all his career as a minister his hfe has been ex
emplary, pure, thoughtful, a well-nigh fault
less model of Christian hving.
Dr. Buckley has been styled the "Wit of
Methodism," the "Rupert of Repartee." His
humor, quick and keen, always lies near the
surface. His observation and knowledge of
human nature are unusual. The movement of
his mind is hghtning swift. His perceptions
are incisive. A mind of this type, in its very
nature, could not habitually exercise itself in
the pulpit without frequently stirring the hu
morous sense in the congregations. But this
1 Doctor St. Clair McKelway, editor of the Brooklyn Eagle.

70 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
movement with him was spontaneous rather
than studied. In his lecture on the "Psychol
ogy of Audiences" he has expressed his own
views on this subject. He says : "Any minister
who will try to make men laugh for laugh's
sake is irreverent." The man in the pulpit who
seeks to attract attention and to hold his audi
ences by "absurd gestures and stories" he char
acterizes as a "mountebank." In relation to
pubhc speaking in general, he says : "An orator
should never trifle. I consider that he does so
when he states things with gross exaggeration.
I do not object in a temperance lecture to any
thing which will make the people laugh. If I
were a lawyer and could tell a story which
would make a turn upon my opponent and
would make the jury smile at him, I should be
very hkely to do it. But when the matter is
serious, as in a religious service, no man should
trifle with his audience."
His sober sense of the character of his call
ing, his habitual seriousness of purpose, re
moved far from him any design to make a
major use of humor in the pulpit. Neverthe
less, his humor was too rich and full to admit
of its total suppression, even in the pulpit. The
older members of the congregations to which
he formerly ministered still retain hvely re-

PREACHER AND PASTOR 71
membrances of what they would call his "pul
pit witticisms." One of these says : "He had a
way of saying things which was so original that
he frequently had his audiences smiling. What
he said in a humorous strain seemed to come
incidentally, and although many years have
gone since he was here, his preaching made a
deep impression for that very reason. His
manner was grave, and the lesson was always
the important thing." An "elect lady" of a
former congregation says: "I am surprised to
read that he of all men is opposed to humor in
the pulpit. Yet he was such a many-sided man
that we never thought of him as a humorist.
He was usually so earnest, grave, and serious,
that his witticisms only served to impress upon
us the telling points of his sermons."
He was so persuasive in his preaching, so
sane in his appeals to the reason and judgment
of the people, and, withal, so intent upon reach
ing the souls of men, that his ministry was at
tended with marked religious revivals. Under
the nurture of his ministry and example his
churches were soundly educated in the elements
of Christian truth and character. His entire
ministry was promotive of healthy ideals and
growth in the spiritual life. He excelled as a
pastor. Others may have seemed more openly

72 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
to have stressed the social and pastoral side of
their ministry; but he, by quiet, methodical,
and persistent attention to pastoral duties, won
for himself a large and lasting place in the love
and gratitude of the sick, the poor, and the
unprivileged in all the communities which he
served. He was courted and honored by the
cultured and wealthy members of his congrega
tions, but he was never derelict in a helpful
pastoral attention to the humblest people in his
parishes, and he found his rich reward not only
in their own deep gratitude, but in the con
scious approval of Him who will finally say
unto him: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto
one of the least of these my brethren, ye have
done it unto me."
There is much in the history of such a min
istry to be treasured and pondered by every
new generation of preachers. There is no more
deadly arraignment of the materiahstic moods
of the times than is seen in their tendency to
dim the vision of the age to the divine and
supreme import of the preachers' mission. If
there be any possibilities of high moral values,
of prophetic and holy hopes for the world's
future, if there is any place for things of endur
ing worth, for heroic ideals, any place for in
spirations to unselfish consecration and uncon-

PREACHER AND PASTOR 73
querable achievements for human betterment
— then with these things and their kin hes the
legitimate mission of the preacher.
If a given preacher is dull, narrow in vision,
without broad intellectual sympathies, bigoted,
indolent, a mental slacker, a man so wanting in
consecration as not to command the admiration
of the community for at least his sincere zeal —
yet, that one man may be all this does by no
means prove any defect in the true and divine
ideals of the preacher's calling. If the race of
prophets, of heroic moral ideahsts, of God's
trumpet-tongued messengers, has not died out
of the world, then, it is to such as these that the
real preacher truly belongs. The true preacher
is called upon, is under most exacting bonds, to
hve in the clear atmospheres and in that clearer
vision which are found alone on the higher
levels of character and of thought. A soul thus
envisaged can never be other than morally
dynamic. He gives proof positive that men
now living in the vision of God, and who are
divinely commissioned to summon the world to
its best living, still form a part in an undying
succession. Clean lips of men like these utter
messages in which the world recognizes the
voice of God. These are the elect prophets of
the race. They are known as the moral heroes

74 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
of history. They have hfted on high the
inspiring standards of human progress. From
a far past, men of their kind have uttered mes
sages so insouled with divine authority as to
have outlived the material civilizations, kings,
conquerors, and empires — messages which the
passing centuries have only made more lumi
nous and irresistible.
The inspired prophet, in all ages and in all
spheres, has been the emancipator of life.
Under his summons alone the race has aban
doned its Egyptian servitudes for pilgrimage
toward the gateways of a better future. If in
the vision of the race there hngers the lure of
a golden age to come, this vision has been
kindled alone by prophetic inspirations. The
preacher's true vocation and kinships belong
here. In a sense distinctive, uplifting, royal,
the preacher's calling, in its obligations, its
opportunities, its inspirations, and in the
eternal import of its message, is the divinest of
ordinations. No man with its true voice in his
soul can carry poor ideals, or other than a
whole-souled consecration into his work. The
world to-day, with fever at its brain, and a
crazing madness at its heart, needs a new cru
sade of prophetic power. No world-age more
than this has ever needed to hear and to heed

PREACHER AND PASTOR 75
the voice of God's prophet. The Christian
ministry ought at this very hour to instill a
campaign of moral sanity, so potent, so irre
sistible, as to make it under God in the days
that are right upon us the mightiest redemp
tive force of human history. A ministry Christ-
impassioned, of invincible consecrations, whose
inspired and luminous vision shall sweep wide
horizons of human thought and need, is now a
supreme need of the times. No age of apostolic
inspirations, no age through whose persecuting
flames has arisen the triumphant testimony of
martyr and confessor, no age made illustrious
by heroic leadership of reformer or message of
evangel, has needed a mightier, a more inspired,
or a more consecrated ministry. There never
was an age when to be a fully ordained, and a
richly equipped Christian minister was more
needful, more morally potential, or more di
vinely honorable than to-day.
The ministerial life of Doctor Buckley pre
sents many suggestive and stimulating lessons.
He decided to enter the ministry only upon the
basis of clear and mature convictions. He
gave himself with all conscience and dihgence
to the duties demanded by his vocation. He
was an incessant student. His mind and mem
ory were not only saturated with the Bible, but

76 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
he literally ransacked all fields of knowledge
and suggestion for the enrichment of his mind
and function as a teacher. He had firm and
sober convictions as to both the authority and
the necessity of the truth which he felt called
upon to preach. He was never a trifler, never a
sensationalist, never sacrificing the ideal mo
tives to ends of self -ambition or self -ease. He
was serious as a man who felt that he must give
account of himself to God. Not emotionally
sentimental, he was much given to prayer. He
was earnestly desirous on the basis of personal
communion to know the mind and temper of
Christ. He had such a sense of the intrinsic
worth of all souls, that as a pastor he was
scrupulously systematic and industrious in
rendering a true spiritual ministry to all
classes, to the rich and the poor, to the socially
privileged and unprivileged, alike. His per
sonal character, as uniformly evinced in con
versation and conduct, was such as to command
for him widest confidence and respect. Rich in
knowledge, devout in life, noble in consecration,
faithful in service, he so fully and symmetri
cally filled the ideal of ministerial usefulness as
to prove himself a workman of God, needing
not to be ashamed. His pastoral ministry was
continuously and exceptionally fruitful.

CHAPTER IV
FIGHT FOR LIFE
At the time of this writing Dr. James M.
Buckley is well past the eightieth anniversary
of his birth. It may be said that, for his age, he
is in a good state of physical health. His
capacity as a pedestrian is such as to put many
a young man who would compete with him
severely upon his mettle. Yet it is probable
that relatively few men now living have been
victors in a more critical and dubious struggle
against pulmonary attacks than is true of him
self. In view of his own extreme experience,
it is of special interest to know his views as to
the essential heredity of pulmonary consump
tion. At about the age of twenty he made appli
cation for hfe insurance. This colloquy fol
lowed: "Is your father living? If not, of what dis
ease, and at what age did he die?"
Answer: "He is dead; the cause of death
was consumption; his age thirty-seven."
"Had he brothers and sisters?"
77

78 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
"One brother."
"Is he dead or hving?"
"Dead.""At what age?"
"Twenty-eight.""Of what disease?"
"Consumption.""Of what disease did their mother die?"
"Consumption, aged about thirty-five."
"And their father?"
"Of acute lung disease, aged forty-three."
Thus it would appear that the entire an
cestral line had been swept away by consump
tion, none remaining save young Buckley and
his still younger brother. Of course, the appli
cation for insurance was promptly rejected.
Surely, if a crucial test is to be sought, none
more exacting could well be asked for as to the
validity of the theories both of the heredity and
incurable character of consumption than is
furnished in this case. He expresses his own
view as follows: "Consumption is never hered
itary in such a sense that every child, or even a
majority of the children, where one line is con
sumptive must die of it. Nor is it hereditary
in such a sense that all children when both lines
were victims of it die of it, or that none of them
can or do live to extreme age." He also pro-

FIGHT FOR LIFE 79
ceeds to show from authoritative records that
very many cases of consumption, some of them
far gone, have been restored to sound health,
and their subjects have hved to normal old
age. His own, certainly, is one of the most in
teresting of cases. Always of slight physical
stature, yet as a boy he did not in proportion
to his weight lack in strength, activity, or en
durance. However, when at boarding school
in his fourteenth year, he was attacked by acute
bronchitis and was brought apparently near to
death. His recovery was slow, and for a time
he was subject to a cough and shortness of
breath. All this naturally gave rise to the fear
that he would soon go in the way of his father.
The practical effect of this condition upon
himself did not seem to promote the caution of
self -care. He too easily accepted for himself
the view of a "short life and a careless one."
He failed to take either the scientific precau
tions or the care which his condition called for.
In 1856 he moved from a most salubrious cli
mate in the Middle States to enter upon college
life at Middletown, Connecticut. Here, in
partnership with several of his fellow students,
he undertook the "dangerous experiment" of
boarding himself. The average expense of
each student in this self -boarding company was

80 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
about eighty cents per week. He says, "Of the
hardships of that period, the irregularity, the
uncertain condition of the cooking, a volume
might be written, and its proper title would be
'The Dyspeptic's Carnival.' "
The severer climate into which he had gone,
together with his manner of life, served to de
velop "symptoms of pulmonary and gastric"
disease. As has been indicated, during this fall
he engaged imprudently in a Presidential cam
paign, in which he was in demand as a brilliant
young stump speaker. Both normal sleep and
regular habit were thus seriously interfered
with. In the ensuing winter he taught school
in a community where popular debates, held at
far and near points, were in vogue. In these
debates he was a popular participant. But the
excitements and irregularity of his hfe proved
too much for his constitutional resistance.
"Hectic fever, cough, shortness of breath, and
emaciation came on apace." Physicians gave
him httle hope that he could long survive. His
fellow students considered him "as good as
dead." In the spring and summer, however,
from care and study free, by taking long open-
air rambles through New Jersey and Dela
ware, he so far recovered his health as to return
to college in the following autumn. Winter

FIGHT FOR LIFE 81
found him again teaching school. With re
newed strain and excitements upon his hfe,
there came a repetition of the grave symptoms
of the previous year. But the return of these
symptoms of this year was made doubly fear
ful by the occurrence of hemorrhages.
Within this winter, as previously narrated,
occurred a marked revival of rehgion in which
young Buckley's own spiritual life was greatly
quickened. Convinced that probably he had
hardly a year to live, he determined to give
such time as might remain to religious work
among young men. "The year passed away
broken with attacks of illness, including hem
orrhages while preaching, and many other
things not necessary to detail, that, in the opin
ion of physicians, pointed unmistakably to
death." In a period of temporary betterment,
however, he was received into the New Hamp
shire Conference, and made pastor of a large
church. The work here proved so exhausting
as to seem utterly beyond his waning vitality.
In his own narrative of this period, he says :
"From 1857 to 1859 I was more or less under
the care of physicians for acute affections of
the lungs and bronchial organs, and dyspepsia.
From early autumn to late spring I passed
apparently from one cold to another, with an

82 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
interval seldom longer than a week between the
successive attacks. During this period a mor
bid fear of taking cold arose, and no valetudi
narian of eighty years of age ever wore more
coats, caps, scarfs, fur capes and collars, and
overshoes. Perhaps in the severe climate of
New Hampshire some good resulted from this,
but the practice was extreme. On warm winter
days perspiration was induced, and being
caught occasionally without the fur collar, or
allowing the air to strike the neck, was followed
by as bad a cold as might have been taken with
complete exposure." During this period the
constant performance of pastoral duties only
made more certain both his exposure to, and the
aggravation of, physical ills. In the spring of
1860 the betterment of his conditions usually
occurring at this season did not take place. His
hemorrhagic condition now took on a severe
and most menacing form. The closest ob
servers felt that he had but the shortest time to
hve. It was in the early summer following this
that his presiding elder, the Rev. Calvin Hol-
man, made the suggestion hitherto referred to
— that he return home and prepare to die.
It is needless to detail the treatment of his
case as prescribed by physicians. Following
suggestions received from his reading, he be-

FIGHT FOR LIFE 83
came his own physician. Careful to gauge his
exercise by the measure of his strength, he be
gan a systematic exercise of out-of-door walk
ing and deep-breathing. The deep-breathing
exercise was greatly facilitated by the use of
the "inhaling tube," an instrument described
as follows: "The tube is so constructed as to
admit the air without difficulty, but to obstruct
its expiration. It is not a blowing, but a
breathing machine, designed to restore and
maintain the habit of full inspiration and ex
piration of air. By its use all the muscles
naturally employed in respiration are brought
into play. It is impossible to use it without
detaining the air in the lungs a considerable
time, and breathing deeply. Every cell,
whether diminished in capacity by the presence
of tubercle or not, is thrown open and the blood
arterialized." He further makes this notable
statement: "To the use of the tube, the amount
of time spent in walking and riding in the open
air, and the observance of certain additional
hygienic methods, together with the determi
nation not to die, I owe my recovery."
He soon found that systematic exercise in
the open air resulted in increasing strength and
tone, until he was able to average about four
hours a day out of doors, the tube being used

84 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
three times for about one half hour each time.
It was in these days that he estabhshed the
habit, which he maintained for several years, of
taking in the summer a pedestrian tour of from
three to six weeks' duration, and averaging a
daily walk of from fifteen to twenty miles.
From the beginning of his out-of-door course a
somewhat prolonged period elapsed before he
experienced decided benefit. He says:
"In 1861 no marked improvement was seen.
In 1862 progress became more visible; and in
1863, while in Europe climbing the Alps, the
last vestige of the disease, as was supposed, dis
appeared. As a result of continued exercise,
shortness of breath gave place to a rather more
than average lung capacity in actual use."
"Attention to health and to health rules con
siderably diminished; and in 1868, at the close
of a long pedestrian tour, a violent cold was
taken by undue exposure, which brought on an
attack which in course of six weeks became
alarming. A physician was consulted, whose
prescriptions were faithfully followed without
material improvement. At the end of two
months, assuming that what had wrought a
cure before might do it again, the regular use
of the tube and systematic exercise in the open
air were undertaken, and in about five weeks

FIGHT FOR LIFE 85
the portentous symptoms disappeared, and
from then till now not one indication of a
tendency to pulmonary disease has been seen."
Reckoning from the present time, this was
now nearly forty-nine years ago. It is con
servative to say that within these forty-nine
years a hfe-work of prodigious and varied ac
tivity, and of unmeasured fruitfulness, has
been achieved. When the physical background
of these years is taken into account, the subse
quent hfe history seems nothing less than mar
velous. That any man from a health foun
dation so apparently bankrupt and hopeless
could build himself into the status of a phys
ical, intellectual, and moral athlete, fortifying
himself with the sustained strength and pur
pose which through nearly a half century have
ranked him among the foremost workers of the
age — all this must certainly compel from us
highest tribute to the power of an invincible
will when practically coupled with intelligent
and ceaseless self -discipline.
Out of this history springs a lesson which
should be of far-reaching practical value to
a multitude of young lives now menaced with
pulmonary disease. To the mental worker
especially the lessons of this history should
prove invaluable. Dr. Buckley early learned

86 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
that the fountain of healing and of health hes
somewhere out of doors. He has been through
all his life a phenomenal walker. During his
long editorial career it was his frequent custom
to leave his home-bound train at points several
miles distant from Morristown and thence
walk to his home. As has been stated, his
summer vacations took on largely the character
of pedestrian tours. In these periods of nom
inal rest he would aggregate walks of many
hundreds of miles. His pedestrian habits are
well illustrated in his booklet entitled Two
Weeks in the Yosemite. From this publica
tion I venture to quote somewhat at length.
"On any roads, for a month or six weeks,
pedestrians can be found who can travel
farther and end the journey in better condition
than any horses, though the endurance of the
mule defies all competition except that of the
camel and the dromedary." Before taking his
final leave of the Yosemite, Dr. Buckley de
sired to explore some of the more difficult
canons on foot. The description of his subse
quent experiences in the adjacent mountains
is so vividly interesting as to justify its repro
duction in considerable part. Having appar
ently sought in vain for some traveling tourist
who would share his adventures, and just about

FIGHT FOR LIFE 87
as he had decided to employ a special guide, it
was said to him: "There is a Scotch gentleman
in the office whom you ought to see. He says
he has been here three weeks, and has walked
through the whole region, and if he could find
a companion whose wind and limbs were good,
he would stay a week longer." On introduc
tion, the Scotchman, surveying him with suspi
cious criticism, said, "How long can you
walk?" To this challenge the Doctor replied,
"Eighteen hours without food or drink." The
Scotchman rose instantly and said, "We will
ascend the North Dome to-day." Buckley, in
description of his own sensations just then,
says: "The rain in the valley had been snow in
the mountains, and I had not walked much
since the preceding summer; but there was no
room to hesitate. Though it was more than
twenty miles, some of it of terrible climbing, I
could not show the white feather."
"At eight we started, crossed the Valley, and
just beyond the Yosemite Falls entered the
Indian Cafion. For a little while we talked;
but when the climbing grew difficult we needed
all our breath, and hours passed away in
silence. No proposition of rest was made by
my companion; I would not cry, 'Hold!
enough.' At last, after about four hours, we

88 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
met a noted photographer, accompanied by his
assistant. They told us that the summit was
covered with snow, and enveloped in vapors,
and advised us to turn back; but that would
not do, for neither of us could in honor pro
pose it. On we went, waded through the snow,
and reached a point nearly a thousand feet
higher than the North Dome and a mile to the
north of it. But from that point to our desti
nation we walked on a magnificent granite
causeway, sometimes with hundreds of yards
with scarce a seam. At three o'clock we were
on the Dome ; beneath were the Tenayo Fork
and Mirror Lake; opposite, seeming near
enough to touch, stupendous Half Dome; to
the east, the Sentinel Dome, and beyond, the
Sentinel Rock, while in different directions we
saw the various groups of high Sierras, from
ten to fourteen thousand feet above the level
of the sea. . . .
"The next morning, after requesting our ac
commodating landlord to keep our rooms for
us, as we should not return for some days, we
walked to Mirror Lake. This little lake de
rives its deserved celebrity from the sublime
scenery surrounding it, and which is reflected
from its placid bosom; and as the scenery is
grander than that which surrounds other lakes,

FIGHT FOR LIFE 89
the reflection is more beautiful. My friend, the
Scotchman, whose name is Maxwell, said that
there were good fish there, and he would catch
some. While he did so I slept, hoping to fully
recover from the fatigue of the previous day,
which for a 'breaking in' was rather severe.
The fish, when caught and cooked by a man
who had a saloon there, were eaten, but they
had a peculiar effect on us both. We became
very sick, and concluded that the cook had used
two pounds of grease for one of fish. Return
ing, we crossed the Merced River on a log, and
began to ascend toward the Vernal Fall. In
every direction the scenery was grand, but
when we reached the Fall itself we were more
than delighted with its beauty. Three times as
high as Niagara — its volume, of course, not
nearly as great — it was yet the largest we had
seen in the Valley. . . . As it was now
nearly nightfall, we hailed with pleasure
Snow's Cottage, at the foot of the Nevada
Fall. Mrs. Snow is a Vermonter, a woman of
shrewdness, activity, and disposed to please
travelers. She knows how to cook all the plain
dishes, and can furnish from her dairy milk and
butter equal to those produced in her native
State. We had recovered from the effects of
our fish dinner, the walk had given us fine ap-

90 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
petites, we ate heartily, soon went to bed, and
found that 'the sleep of the laboring man is
sweet, whether he eat httle or much' !
"At half -past six in the morning we break
fasted, and having provided ourselves with a
sandwich, set out on a tour into the higher re
gions. Our route first was to the summit of
the Nevada Fall, up a magnificently romantic
path by its side. The top reached, we went out
upon a causeway of rocks into the middle of the
river, and from a kind of cape or promontory,
just above the hp of the Fall, beheld the won
drous panorama. Perpendicularly descending
beneath us was the Nevada; then the little spot
of green, with Snow's house on it ; below, the
cascades ; then the Vernal Fall ; on the left, the
lofty crest of the Sierras ; on the right, the Cap
of Liberty; and in the distance, portions of the
main Valley, with a glimpse of El Capitan.
Here one might remain motionless for a day,
and never grow weary or desire a change of
position. My Scotch friend suggested that
I ought by all means to ascend the Cap of
Liberty, and offered to point out the path;
but said that as he had already made the ascent,
he would amuse himself below. Accordingly,
I began the journey up. The only difficulty
was the steepness, for the trees were burnt

FIGHT FOR LIFE 91
off at the base of the mountain, and for the
last fifteen hundred feet of perpendicular
ascent it was smooth, bare granite. The still
ness and solitude deepened the impression of
sublimity; the views continually increasing in
grandeur and extent; and after an hour and a
half of fair work the summit was reached. It
is, as the name indicates, a mass of granite
shaped like a cap, entirely smooth, but having
on it one or two trees whose roots absorb all
the earth there is. The scene cannot be de
scribed, and cannot be forgotten. ... I had
not been on the summit more than twenty min
utes when my companion appeared, and said
that he would point out some objects which
could not be identified without a guide. He
then proposed to advance to the sharp edge of
the cliff and look at the rainbows playing about
the Nevada Fall. He did so, and stretching
his body far out over the precipice, requested
me to sit down upon his limbs, which done, he
enjoyed for a few moments the scene, and then
offered to exchange places with me, which was
soon accomplished. If he had risen, or had
been seized with a convulsion, no cannon ball
ever rushed through the air more rapidly than
my body would have plunged into the abyss.
So long as neither of these happened, there was

92 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
no danger whatever, and the enjoyment amply
repaid the trouble. The descent was soon
made, and the question now arose, Where
next? "In the distance Cloud's Rest towered up
more than ten thousand feet above the level of
the sea, and about four thousand five hundred
above our position. After a little deliberation,
about noon we started for that mountain. At
our left now was the Cap of Liberty, and be
yond it the Half Dome, whose aspect is as
imposing on this side as on the other, though its
form is very different. For a few miles the
way was quite level, and the walking easy;
there was no bridle path then, as there is now,
and we trusted to our eyes. . . . At four in
the afternoon we reached what we supposed to
be the summit, but found that there are three
peaks, the highest of which had not been visible
at all from any point which we had passed be
fore, and that it was at least half a mile from
us. On we went, determined to attain it, and
ate our last sandwich on the very crest at five
o'clock. We saw, from Cloud's Rest, the
Valley itself; Mount Lyell, thirteen thousand
feet high ; Mount Dana, thirteen thousand two
hundred and twenty-seven feet high; Mount
Hoffman, Mount Starr King, the Obehsk

FIGHT FOR LIFE 93
Range, and innumerable peaks and ranges,
and could apply to it a remark made by a well-
known traveler about another mountain —
'Only those who have been there can tell what
a mistake is made by omitting it.' . . . After
the adventures of this day, the tourists reached
Snow's Cottage at nine in the evening, where
they enjoyed a cooked supper and a night of
profoundest sleep.
"At 6 a. m. we were up, and at 6:30 were
off again, this time determined to 'bring up'
somewhere else that night, or sleep out on the
mountains. Having reascended to the summit
of Nevada Fall, we continued our walk along
the side of the river to the Little Yosemite
Valley. . . . Having spent some hours here,
we returned toward the Nevada Fall, in search
of a log on which to cross the river. None
being found, Mr. Maxwell proposed to wade it,
and, removing a portion of his clothing, made
the attempt, but soon found that he had miscal
culated the depth, and became thoroughly
soaked with the coldest water. I preferred to
disrobe entirely, and avoid the necessity of
climbing in wet clothes. We then began the
ascent of Mount Starr King, which rises
steeply from the shore of the river. The chap
arral, a very stiff, impenetrable growth, ob-

94 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
structed our progress at every step. In addi
tion to the steepness, the labor was as great
as that of forcing through hedges, and at the
end of two hours we seemed provokingly close
to the river. But by two o'clock we were as
near the summit as it is possible for human be
ings to get by climbing. Professor Whitney
says: 'Starr King is the steepest cone in the
region with the exception of Half Dome, and is
exceedingly smooth, having hardly a brake in
it ; the summit is quite inaccessible, and we have
not been able to measure its height.' We think
we were within six hundred feet perpendicular
of the summit. Having surveyed the marvel
ous panorama, which stretched from Monte
Diablo in the Coast Range, near San Fran
cisco, to Mount Lyell and the Obehsk Range,
we descended rapidly toward the Ulilouett, or
South Fork, along which we wandered for per
haps two miles before finding a place to cross.
Mr. Maxwell could cross a log over a chasm
five hundred feet deep, and his head would be
wholly unmoved; not so with me — though
under the encouragement of his example I im
proved. On this occasion I crawled across a
narrow log, where a shp would have been fatal,
taking the attitude of boys playing the ancient
game of 'see-saw.' It was now 5 p. m., and we

FIGHT FOR LIFE 95
were a long distance from any human habita
tion. According to Maxwell's judgment, we
began to climb almost perpendicularly up the
mountain side. Two hours passed in silence
and severe toil, when Mr. M. cried out, 'There
is a grizzly!' And so it was. The immense
brute, however, showed no disposition to molest
us, and walked slowly away into a rocky
cavern. . . .
"At eight o'clock, with our tongues greatly
swollen and hanging out of our mouths with
thirst, there having been neither snow nor water
on our last ascent, we reached the summit. The
sun was just setting and the full moon rising
opposite, and they seemed but a few miles
apart. As they rose and set behind the vertical
summits of mountain ranges, it seemed as
though there was an invisible axis common to
both, and that it was so inclined that one sank
as the other rose. Never have I beheld any
thing more beautiful in the Alps or any of our
American mountains than the blended rays of
the rising moon and setting sun reflected from
the snowy Sierras. . . .
"Across the valley, far up the Yosemite Fall,
a huge fire was burning, kindled by Mr. Muir,
a resident of the valley, who had an engage
ment to spend the night there with us ; but we

96 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
had failed to reach it. The temperature was
now about five degrees below freezing point,
ice formed all about us, and our clothing, wet
by the water in the canon, began to grow stiff.
We had no time to lose, and walked at a rapid
pace to Peregoy's, arriving there at twenty
minutes of one in the morning, having walked
and climbed steadily from a little before 7 a.
m. to 12:40 a. m. next day, making just the
eighteen hours I had foolishly boasted of in the
beginning. Peregoy could give us no bed, nor
any dry clothes, so we sat over the cookstove
until five o'clock, when two guides got up, and
we slipped into their places and slept till six-
thirty, when we breakfasted and afterward
ascended the Sentinel Dome, subsequently go
ing down the Sentinel Rock Cafion to the hotel,
which was reached Saturday afternoon at four
o'clock." These extracts, taken from Dr. Buckley's
experiences in the Yosemite, are justified in
this chapter for two reasons : first, they furnish
an impressive illustration of the athletic status
reached by a man who only won because against
most menacing odds he made a heroic "fight for
hfe" ; second, the incidents related are of most
intrinsic interest.
The story of methods used by Dr. Buckley

FIGHT FOR LIFE 97
for the recovery of his health has been widely
told, and has made as widely for itself a vivid
impression. A writer, whose name is here with
held, has recently published in a Los Angeles
paper a personal statement of the case, which
in form seems entirely sincere, but which in
fact is largely apocryphal. This communica
tion, however, nearly announces the real law
of the case, and does it so artistically as to make
its reproduction here not without interest. He
says: "Dr. J. M. Buckley, for forty years the
editor of the New York Christian Advocate,
was one of the most distinguished scholars and
public speakers in America. He died a little
while ago at about fourscore years of age."
(At this present writing Dr. Buckley is very
much alive. — G. P. M.) "After a great meet
ing, in which Dr. Buckley had addressed with
psychic power six or seven thousand people,
holding them entranced with his wonderful ora
tory, the writer asked him where he found
that marvelous voice, for every person of that
multitude had heard every syllable of the ad
dress, while no other speaker of that national
convention had been able to reach the ear of
more than half the assembly.
"Then he gave the following account of him-

98 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
self: At twenty -five years of age he found he
was going with consumption, as his father had
gone with it at twenty-nine, and his older
brother at twenty-seven; and he seemed des
tined to the same fate. He resolved to fight
it. "He started from New York city afoot and
walked to San Francisco. As he went he
talked and sang and shouted, vociferated to
men and trees and with every degree of force,
from the lowest and gentlest to the fullest and
strongest. He peopled the way with mortals
and angels, demons and gods, beings visible
and invisible, and spoke to them all, as a man
will speak when conscious that he is triumph
ing over death; for he had that consciousness
from the start. From San Francisco he walked
to New Orleans, speaking all the way, and from
there hastened home, a well man — healed by
the Great Outdoors."
The narrative of this chapter, entirely aside
from the fact that it is an essential part of an
exceptional life-story, speaks lessons of high
est value. Many an engrossed mental worker
yields to the feeling that he cannot afford the
time for ample out-of-door exercise. The view
is a great fallacy. The man who takes time for
ozonic exercise, thereby toning his muscle, in-

FIGHT FOR LIFE 99
vigorating his nerves, inflating his lungs, and
quickening his circulation, by this very process
clarifies his brain, and so increases his general
vigor as to enable him to do a larger and better
volume of mental work in briefer time, and
with far greater enjoyment in its performance
than would be at all possible without paying
this price. He will also thereby be almost cer
tain to secure for himself a longer tenure of
productive working hfe.
It might prove of value to many if attention
were called to the fact that the subject of this
narrative is a past-master in the art of pro
viding every physical appliance which may aid
in the most normal exercise of health-giving
pedestrianism. He has not only scrupulously
observed the sanest laws of digestion and of
rest, but no man than he is a better judge of a
thoroughly first-class, scientific walking shoe.
His sense of physical sanity demands that
muscle, nerve, and joint shall be accorded un
obstructed normal rights.

CHAPTER V
EDITOR
The Cheistian Advocate, the oldest weekly
publication of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
has had a continuous history of eighty-eight
years. Its editorial management has been rep
resented by a long line of able and illustrious
men, including such names as Nathan Bangs,
John P. Durbin, Samuel Luckey, John A.
Collins, Thomas Bond, George Coles, Abel
Stevens, Edward Thomson, Daniel Curry,
Charles H. Fowler, James M. Buckley,
George P. Eckman, and, including its present
editor, James R. Joy.
Of all these men it was reserved for Dr.
Buckley to hold the longest tenure of editorial
responsibility. He was first elected editor in '
1880, at the General Conference, holding its
session in the city of Cincinnati. He held the
tripod continuously until 1912, a period of
thirty-two years. At his first election the entire
number of votes cast was 377, of which he re
ceived 228.
The sketch of his personal history presented
100

EDITOR 101
in the Daily Advocate at the time of his elec
tion, gives the following characterization: "It
would be difficult to say in what he excels, as
he is so well poised that he seems equal to any
emergency in debate, in the pulpit, on the ros
trum, or as a writer. Few ministers have such
a judicial mind as he. In debate he is incisive,
clear, and striking, and abounds with original
thoughts. In his pulpit he is illustrative,
didactic, logical, and cogent. He prepares
carefully, and often indulges in a sort of epi
grammatic style. This renders his short, pithy
speeches rich and racy. He makes temperance
and Sunday schools specialties, frequently lec
turing on these subjects. He possesses extraor
dinary gifts in discussion, speaks clearly and
correctly, and always commands attention."
The appraisement of his talents is not to be
found in any single department of his activi
ties. His gifts are many-sided, and his excep
tional power has asserted itself phenomenally
in many diverse fields of action. In his long
career in religious journalism he worthily won
for himself the rank of a very Nestor in his pro
fession. It is no exaggeration to assert that
the variety of subjects which received his treat
ment, and the volume of thought to which he
gave expression in his editorial function are so

102 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
immense as to pass ordinary comprehension.
It is but conservative to say that in the volume
and variety of his intellectual output Dr.
Buckley justly takes rank among the most pro
lific minds of the age. It has sometimes been
asserted that if it were not for the glamour of
his brilliant reputation as a debater, he would
not have received so high popular appraisal as
an editor. It requires only a measured review
of the volume and quality of his editorial work
to disprove this assumption. Dr. Theodore
L. Cuyler, a well-nigh peerless pastor, was a
veteran contributor to, and a reader of, the reh
gious journalism of the nation, and he did not
hesitate to assign to Dr. Buckley the foremost
rank among American rehgious editors. If
for the long period of his official editorship he
had confined his public activities solely to The
Christian Advocate, his high historic rank as a
Christian editor would be fully assured.
It is never to be forgotten, when seeking ap
praisement of James M. Buckley, in any de
partment of his activities, that we are dealing
always with an extraordinary character. His
phenomenal fruitfulness can only be accounted
for by appeal to the extraordinary. His mem
ory was most impressionable and retentive.
His store of general information was encyclo-

EDITOR 103
pedic. His knowledge of details was phenom
enally accurate. He seemed naturally to give
logical classification and place to every fact
that had ever come within the range of his
knowledge. In a remarkable way he was able
instantly to draw upon the facts required for
the uses of the moment. Coupled with abun
dant knowledge and a marvelous memory, was
a quahty of mind which enabled him at all
times, like the master-genius of a battlefield, to
marshal his force to desired ends. He was log
ical and orderly in his mental processes. His
mind moved electrically to the goal of his pur
pose. What would have been hard and plod
ding work to many another, seemed under his
processes to be mere intellectual byplay. He
was, indeed, a kind of intellectual Atlas, in pos
session of a coordinated and symmetrized men
tal machinery which fitted him for the easy per
formance of what would prove to other men
huge tasks.
His habits in composition were such as to
give him exemption from the severe nervous
strain which many undergo in the process of
writing. His rule was to have as aid a most
competent stenographer. He was careful be
forehand quite fully and accurately to inform
himself concerning subjects which he wished

104 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
editorially to treat. It is evident from the
qualities as already noted that when the time
came for formal statement, he was able on the
instant to dictate his thought. In this process,
as though to reheve an overpressure of mate
rial, he frequently dictated much more than he
finally decided to send to the printer. With
blue pencil, he revised the stenographer's
proofs, thus giving final shape to his editorials.
None the less he made much use of the pen in
his editorial work, so much so indeed that he has
been known to suffer at times from "writer's
cramp." In his long-time control of The Christian
Advocate he not only regularly contributed a
full measure of editorial matter, but he fre
quently furnished in serial form, sometimes
running through many numbers, letters vividly
setting forth his impressions on the most vari
ous questions of pubhc and general interest.
It may serve to give a just impression of the
overflow of his intellectual activities in many
directions, if a few instances of these special
letters are given, as taken at random from the
files of The Christian Advocate.
In 1886 he published twelve letters on "A
New Invasion of the South." In the same
year he published a series of pungent editorials

EDITOR 105
on "Collisions Between Employers and Em
ployees." In 1894 he published a series of
thirty-four articles on his personal travels
throughout our own great West, Alaska, Can
ada. In the years 1905 and 1906 he published
fifty-three letters on "The Mormons and Mor
monism." In 1909 he published fifteen articles
on the "Fads of Exercise Contrasted with
Scientific and Symmetrical Development."
In the same year he issued thirteen letters on
the "Cream of the Memory Systems." In the
year 1900 he published "Forty-one Storm-
Centers in the General Conference of 1900."
In 1911 he gave forth ten articles on "Mrs.
Eddy's Errors in Common Sense, Science, and
the Bible."
It must not be assumed that the foregoing
list is exhaustive. It is simply a sample list
which in amount' of matter could be several
times repeated. Any one of several of these dis
cussions, had they been so gathered, would have
made a sizable volume, and of material worthy
of permanent embodiment in book form.
In the course of the long period of his edito
rial work it fell frequently to him to write bio
graphical sketches of eminent characters, both
in and out of Methodism, who had died. In
this department it may be questioned whether

106 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
any other historic editor, within an equal
period, ever wrote so many discerning, discrim
inating, various, just, and apt characteriza
tions of departed hves, as appeared from his
pen. Concerning this department, Dr. Wil
liam V. Kelley, himself a literary artist, in an
autograph letter to Dr. Buckley says : "When
I had finished reading your editorial on Bishop
McCabe, and tried to read its effect on my
mind, I found such things as these running in
niy thoughts (a sentence which first framed
itself some years ago came up again) : 'Why
does Dr. Buckley want to organize himself
into an octopus and do everything better than
the rest of us can do anything?' The most ex
traordinary delineator, portrait painter Meth
odism has produced — one of the most magnan
imous and generous of men in his tributes to
his brethren, alive or dead. — Such things were
stirring in my mind as I sat back from read
ing your extraordinary and unmatchable edi
torial. Possibly you did not reckon among the
captured prizes and decorations of your hfe,
that you should be ranked among great artists.
I have for a long time so held you."
It would, of course, be anticipated that not
everybody would indorse all of Dr. Buckley's
editorial products. He sometimes antago-

EDITOR 107
nized the preferences of men. He pointed a
path in which some people did not wish to
walk. Some could not always find themselves
able to agree with his reasoning. And it would
frequently happen that neither the substance
of his thought nor the style of his statement
would make appeal to certain types of mind.
So far as this latter class is concerned, the
editor is by no means excluded from good com
pany. Not every one appreciates Shake
speare. Among many who make the attempt
are those who fail to understand Browning.
This is only to say that an editor who, as such,
fails to be appreciated in some quarters, may
nevertheless be found intrinsically worthy of
classification with characters most illustrious.
Doubtless, our editor's work was too intellec
tual in character, and was devoted to purposes
too serious, to be in a large popular sense really
appreciated or enjoyed. He wrote mostly for
a constituency with a taste for intellectual and
serious thinking.
The wayside incident is sometimes signifi
cant. Dr. Buckley tells the following on him
self: "Traveling westward, about twenty years
ago, I found the cars crowded, every seat being
taken save one. Behind me was one of the most
gigantic men I had ever seen; he was much

108 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
larger than ex-President Taft, even before he
reduced his weight by sixty pounds. As I was
scanning him he took out of his coat pocket
several papers, and lo ! they were copies of The
Christian Advocate. I asked him if he took
that paper. A deep voice resounded through
the car, 'No! I don't, but my wife does; and
I tell you they have an old cuss at the head of
it who gives things their right names.' "
Dr. Buckley's editorial policy, which was
closely adhered to throughout his long career,
can be no better stated than by himself. In the
first issue of The Christian Advocate, as under
his editorship, of date June 3, 1880, after much
consultation and mature thought, among other
equally impressive statements, he said:
"In twenty-two years of public life, passed
wholly in the pastorate, we have not been dis
contented. The ministry has afforded a sphere
of useful, honorable, and delightful activity.
Nothing less than the unsolicited call of the
Church could justify a willingness to turn
aside from it, even for a limited period. . . .
We enter upon the work unconstrained by any
pledge as to men or measures, having formed
but one resolution and announced but one
policy, namely, to make every effort to render
The Christian Advocate what it should be.

EDITOR 109
"But what should it be? As a Christian ad
vocate it should explain and vindicate Chris
tian principles as against the misrepresenta
tions and attacks of infidehty. As the organ
of a Protestant communion it should declare
and vindicate the grounds of its refusal to
accept the claims and submit to the spiritual
and ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Roman
Catholic Church. As the organ of the Meth
odist Episcopal denomination it should ex
plain its doctrines and discipline, its institu
tions and ceremonies. It should also describe
its customs, and point out the reasons for
them. "It should furnish its readers with rehgious
news — intelhgence of the progress of Chris
tianity in general, and of the Methodist Epis
copal Church in particular. And it should dis
cuss everything that relates to the moral wel
fare of mankind. But social, intellectual, and
moral questions are so intimately connected
that every domain of thought and action must
be to some extent explored in. the search for
materials to be used in this work. On temper
ance, education, the rights of the common peo
ple, the relation of virtue to individual and
national prosperity, it should have decided con
victions.

110 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
"As it circulates among men of all parties, it
should not discuss mere partisan issues, nor ob
trude the pohtical prejudices and preposses
sions of its editor upon the people, nor descend
to the details of party organization and action.
But in the interests of truth and of the welfare
of all classes it should fearlessly expose and de
nounce political corruption; and where poht
ical parties deal with moral questions it is espe
cially called on to discuss fully and fairly those
questions regardless of their effect on party
issues — in all cases 'with malice toward none,
and charity toward all.'
"It should keep its readers advised of the
various philanthropic enterprises which from
time to time attract public attention, and de
vote much space to the advocacy of those plans
which have been devised and authorized for
their extension at home and abroad.
"If there be any class of the population in
the North or the South, the East or the West,
peculiarly hable to oppression, The Chris
tian Advocate should be keenly alive to their
interests, and open its columns to their defense.
As it is the organ of a 'denomination,' it should
'express the mind of the body of which it is
the organ.' It might, therefore, be supposed
'under a yoke,' and incapable of being the

EDITOR 111
'vehicle of free thought.' This would, indeed,
be the case if the editor did not believe the doc
trines, nor love the spirit, nor approve the
usages of the Church. . . .
"But we shall not be debarred the privilege,
nor absolved from the responsibility, of en
deavoring to improve the Church by reexamin
ing its mode of action, and considering the
transitions which are taking place; beheving
that while 'carping and revengeful criticism' is
ever destructive, conservative criticism is a con
dition of genuine progress. . . .
"We are not unmindful that the editorial art
is as distinctly a profession as that of law or
medicine, and that we have it to learn; and
whether we can acquire the nice discrimination
which discerns what the pubhc needs as clearly
as what it wishes; and the tact which will per
suade it to receive what it needs when what it
wishes is not what it needs, is the experiment
which we are required to attempt. It is at this
point that we feel great diffidence. . . . De
termined to be as diligent as if this were a pri
vate enterprise, we shall rely upon the sym
pathy, the prayers and the loyalty of the
Church, whose representative and servant we
are." As Editor, Dr. Buckley quite fully exercised

112 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
the right which he reserved for himself in his
original prospectus, "of endeavoring to im
prove the Church by reexamining its mode of
action, and considering the transactions which
are taking place, . . . believing that con
servative criticism is a condition of genuine
progress." While it must be said that his attitude
toward the Church, both as to its doctrines and
usages, was usually conservative, it remains
probably true that no writer in the denomina
tion has more fully expounded and defended
both Methodist law and teaching. It is cer
tainly true that no man has shown a more
masterful knowledge of the genesis and de
velopment of Methodist history. Among legal
authorities on Methodism it would not be ex
travagant to class him as the Daniel Webster
of the Methodist Constitution.
At the close of an unprecedented tenure of
thirty-two years as editor of the chief official
organ of his denomination, Doctor Buckley
voluntarily declined to be a candidate for re
election. His announcement of this purpose at
the General Conference of 1912 created an
occasion of most unusual interest. On the
morning of May 27, he took the floor to make
the following announcement:

EDITOR 113
"Thirty-two years ago Henry W. Warren
was elected and consecrated a bishop. In the
same year and by the same Conference I was
elected editor of The Christian Advocate.
Bishop Warren was elected for hfe; I for a
single quadrennium. But through the con
fidence and favor of the Church I have been
reelected seven times.
"During the last few weeks a very great
many have asked if I wished to be continued in
the office. Usually I have answered that 'if
that were the case I should be glad, but if not
I would not be sorry.' In every instance I
have reserved in my thought final decision until
the day of action should approach. Then all
the tendencies coalesce. This fluctuation has
culminated in the feeling that it is wiser to
retire before the task becomes a heavy burden,
though the duties of editorship have been very
agreeable to me. Therefore, as the natural
consequence, I wish my name to be withdrawn.
I highly estimate and gladly acknowledge the
favor shown to me by the eight Conferences
which have placed and continued me in the
office ; and also by the pastors, the laymen, and
the bishops of the Church who have encouraged
me to believe that my official work has not been
in vain."

114 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
This announcement awakened a sense of
deep emotion in all hearts, but in obedience to
the judgment that the Conference should not
yield to the impulse to give extemporaneous
expression to its feehngs, a committee was ap
pointed "to draft suitable expression of the
appreciation of the Conference" as related to
the history and voluntary retirement of Dr.
Buckley. This committee, consisting of Drs.
John F. Goucher, Henry A. Buttz, Charles M.
Stuart, Freeman D. Bovard, and the present
writer, on the morning of Tuesday, May 28,
reported as follows :
"This General Conference has heard with
keenest interest and regret the declaration of
the Rev. James Monroe Buckley, D.D.,
LL.D., declining nomination for reelection to
the editorship of The Christian Advocate. We
recognize the conspicuous and sustained abihty
which has characterized his long editorial
career — a service extending through eight full
quadrenniums. "His versatile gifts, his exceptional intellec
tual resourcefulness, his wealth of accurate
knowledge, coupled with clear insight, quick
perception, genuine brotherhness, a high sense
of justice, strict loyalty to convictions, unceas
ing diligence — all of which supremely conse-

EDITOR 115
crated to the kingdom of Christ, has given him
a rank of unequaled influence and leadership
in the councils of his denomination. In general
congresses of the Christian Church, where he
has represented Methodism, he has stood
among the mighty the peer of the best. For
more than a generation his name has been pro
nounced among us as a synonym of strength
and of brilhant abihties.
"We record our appreciation of the long,
honorable, and highly useful service which he
has rendered to our general Methodism; we
give expression to the high esteem in which we
hold him as a man, a Christian, an able de
fender of the faith, and an ordained leader in
the Church of Christ. His record in our de
nominational history is one rich in achieve
ment, and of secure and abiding recognition.
We shall ever continue to cherish his memory
in honor and in love.
"We unite in the hope and prayer that the
future may hold for him a wealth of blessing,
in health of body, in clearness of intellect, in
buoyancy of spirit, and in all things needful
to the cheer and happiness of his life, still
affording him many years of continued use
fulness." The report was promptly supported by able

116 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
and sympathetic speeches from Drs. Edgar
Blake, A. S. Kavanagh, Levi Gilbert, Thomas
Nicholson, D. G. Downey, and for the laymen
by Governor Wallace and the Hon. John A.
Patten. Sentiments kindred to those so ex
pressively voiced by these speakers were hter
ally pressing for utterance in the hearts of hun
dreds of others on the floor of the Conference.
When the Bishop put the motion for adoption,
the great audience rose as one man. The im
pression of this scene is thus described by one
of the editors of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South. He said: "If ever a man could
carry into the reflective twilights of age the
comfort and bracing tonics of appreciation,
that man is Dr. Buckley. What could this last
General Conference do that was left undone?
Did it not stand and respectfully pay Dr.
Buckley its homage, when he came forward
and read his memorable letter declining reelec
tion to The Christian Advocate? Did not the
lihes of a thousand handkerchiefs blossom as
he moved down the aisle when the document
prepared by a specially equipped committee
was read, and the Conference awaited some
word from him? His appearance was always
certain of a salvo of applause. And observing
him that hour when speaker after speaker paid

EDITOR 117
his eulogy, one could see a certain detachment
of soul as if he were listening to the praises of
another. When he spoke it was to caution
against exaggeration. And as he spoke the
eyes of some of the elder men — who understood
— were wet with crying."
It is safe to say that few events in the edito
rial world have called forth more widespread or
generous comment than that occasioned by Dr.
Buckley's retirement from his official work.
His editorial successor, in paragraphs of fine
analysis, wrote as follows :
"When James Monroe Buckley entered the
field of religious journalism he found it oc
cupied by such men as Henry C. Bowen, of the
Independent; S. Irenaaus Prime, of The Ob
server; Henry M. Field, of The Evangehst;
and Henry Clay Trumbull, of The Sunday
School Times. He has survived all these
leaders. . . .
"The versatility of his gifts, the copiousness
of his knowledge, the clarity of his appre
hensions, the keenness of his humor, and the
warmth of his rehgious feeling, together with
his remarkable facility in expressing his convic
tions in simple and in intelligible terms, have
combined to make him an editor of singular
force and effectiveness. To multitudes of per-

118 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
sons he has seemed to be an inexhaustible foun
tain of reason and spiritual energy. . . .
"For thirty-two years he has been not merely
the guiding genius of The Christian Advo
cate; he has been The Christian Advocate
itself. Other hands have labored to produce
it ; his spirit alone has animated it. Thousands
of subscribers have eagerly awaited its weekly
appearance as the approach of a personal coun
selor. It conveyed to them the message of a
man whose judgment they had learned to trust
with absolute confidence. A bright woman
said the other day that the Bible and The
Christian Advocate held the topmost places
of honor among the literary treasures of her
home, and added that her husband never felt
sure of his ground on any disputed point of
morals and religion until he had read what Dr.
Buckley had to say on the matter; reminding
one of the affirmation of Fisher Ames, that
when in doubt he always observed how Roger
Sherman voted, and then contentedly followed
him. Many persons will now for a season find
themselves adrift, the trusted pilot having dis
appeared. . . .
"Doctor Buckley has made competition
hopeless by the diversity of his excellences.
He has writen history, theology, travels, es-

EDITOR 119
says, lectures — indeed, he seems to have tried a
hand at everything except poetry and dramatic
composition, and in every venture he has won
distinction. . . . His duties as editor of our
chief denominational organ would have de
manded that he become thoroughly ac
quainted with the history, constitution, doc
trines, and discipline of our Church, even if his
natural inclination had not led him to pursue
these subjects. But he has followed them with
so much zest and industry that no living man
surpasses him as an authority on questions of
church polity and Methodist doctrine. As a
member of every General Conference since
1872, and of each Ecumenical Conference of
Methodism, except one, since the first held in
London in 1881, he has had unusual opportu
nities both to investigate at first hand, and to
assist in making our recent denominational his
tory. For many years he has been ready at a
moment's notice to discuss any feature of our
system, and to sustain his cause by citations
from the records of the past, drawn from his
capacious memory. . . .
"If the possessor of so much knowledge does
not exercise self-restraint in his communica
tions with less liberally endowed mortals, he is
hkely to awaken jealousy and resentment.

120 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
This was the case with the great statesman of
the South, John C. Calhoun, concerning whom
an exasperated stranger who had just met him
exclaimed: 'For the last three hours I have
been on the stretch, trying to follow him
through heaven and earth. I am wearied, and
I hate a man who makes me feel mv own in
feriority.' "Dr. Buckley, as the friend of every benefi
cent movement, the supporter of all wise social,
religious, and pohtical institutions, and the
benefactor of universal Methodism, is to-day,
and will continue to be throughout his subse
quent life, the object of sincere veneration and
unfeigned affection on the part of many thou
sands of persons in the four quarters of the
globe." It is not permitted in this narrative to give
space to the wealth of appreciative and worthy
eulogy which found expression in the press,
both ecclesiastical and secular, on the occasion
of Dr. Buckley's retirement from official life.
After a most distinguished editorial career ex
tending unbrokenly through eight quadren-
niums, a career passed in the white hght of
publicity, a career which in its multifarious
features had been predominantly appraised,
tested, and approved at the bar of critical

EDITOR 121
public opinion, like a knight of brilliant
achievement on unnumbered fields of contest,
he came to the day when voluntarily he laid
aside his shield and lance. He went white-
plumed and unsullied to his well-earned retire
ment.

CHAPTER VI
DEBATER AND
PARLIAMENTARIAN
Henry Ward Beecher once said that the
loudest call any man ever has to the Christian
ministry is when he is born. It seems a historic
demonstration that preeminent men are born
into the world with pronounced potentiahties
of their coming greatness. The poet is by no
means the only man "born, not made." James
M. Buckley early gave evidence of exceptional
forensic gifts. Doubtless his inborn genius as
a debater early asserted itself. From a very
early history, it may be assumed, he success
fully used his logic in his contentions with his
guardians and seniors.
His debating career in the Alpha Omega
Society of the Pennington Seminary has been
noted in a previous chapter. In the winter of
1858, when he was just past twenty-one years
of age, and while in the class of 1861, in Wes
leyan University, young Buckley taught in the
Academy at Bakerville, Connecticut. While
here he engaged in a debate the fame and tradi-
122

DEBATER 123
tions of which are still held in hving remem
brance. In this community were many zealous
Adventists. It came to pass that the young
teacher was challenged to debate the question
"Is the Human Soul Immortal?" His oppo
nent was a man imported from Boston, and in
the confident expectation that he would drive
his antagonist from the contest overwhelmed
with a sense of confusion and defeat. This
man was a certain Dr. Howell, a physician,
also a learned man, reputed to be a most con
vincing advocate of Adventist views. The de
bate was held in the largest auditorium to be
secured. Every session was crowded to the
very windows, ministers and "freethinkers" for
many miles around regularly appearing in the
audiences. The discussion lasted for four suc
cessive days, being conducted from two until
four o'clock in the afternoon. It is sufficient to
say that embarrassment and defeat did not ap
pear on the side of the young teacher. His
defense of the "Immortality of Mind" was so
ably, so brilliantly conducted as to make the
entire event the proudest and most memorable
intellectual achievement in the history of the
community. The chief and significant outcome of this
debate was its effect upon the mind of the

124 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
young teacher himself. He says: "What
effect it" (the debate) "produced upon the
hearers I am unable to state. The probabihty
is that all who agreed with Dr. Howell in the
beginning agreed with him at the end, and that
all that agreed with me at the beginning held
the same view at the close of the debate. This
is generally the result of debates upon ecclesi
astical and theological subjects. But the effect
upon myself was great. I succeeded in con
vincing myself that the soul of man is immortal,
and the effect of that conviction was to give me
a totally different view of hfe from that which
I had before entertained. About that time an
extraordinary revival of rehgion occurred in
that and in adjacent towns, in which, at the
close of the debate, I participated, and my spir
itual life was greatly quickened."
Doctor Buckley was transferred from the
Detroit to the New York East Conference in
the spring of 1866. Here there were furnished
two especial theaters for the exercise of his
forensic ability — the New York Preachers'
Meeting and the Conference itself. In the
Preachers' Meeting the prowess of this
"Young Lochinvar Come out of the West"
was early put to the test. The old knights,
filled with a proprietary sense and a pride of

DEBATER 125
possession, were somewhat slow to give room
for this latest arrived candidate for forensic
honors. In an hour of imprudent overconfi-
dence they not only challenged but provoked
him to contest. As by the sudden and relent
less stroke of a tornado, the citadel of their
pride was broken down, and the chief trum
peters thereof were stripped and flayed.
The New York East Conference had won
for itself wide reputation as a brilhant debat
ing body. And now into its ranks came this
new and unknown force. An entire volume,
and not without vivid interest, might be written
descriptive of debates in this Conference in
which young Buckley took part. And there
were great debaters in this Conference, among
whom were included such names as George W.
Woodruff, John A. Roche, Joseph Pullman,
William H. Boole; and, among later names,
such as John Rhey Thompson, Charles S.
Wing, and James S. Chadwick. Those were
the days of Daniel Curry. He was tall, mus
cular, strong-faced, white-haired, of imperial
intellect, resourceful in knowledge, and utterly
intolerant of any suggestion of successful ri
valry against himself in the leadership of the
Conference. A Spanish bullfight, though
utterly unlike in its agencies, could not more

126 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
stir the blood of the spectators than did some
of the early contests between Dr. Curry and
the doughty young Buckley in this Conference.
It was generally conceded that in sheer intel
lectual resourcefulness and force Buckley was
certainly not more than the peer of Curry.
But the younger man had a catlike agility
which his senior did not possess. He also had
absolute control of his temper. When he could
not otherwise so easily win, he played his tac
tics on the older man's irascibility. Dr.
Curry's method might remind one of the king
of the herd who with head obliquely lowered
toward the earth seeks to toss his enemy upon
his horns. But the younger man always es
caped these thrusts and lost no time in harry
ing his enemy at the very flanks. The memory
of those long-gone days still awakens a tingling
in the blood.
Dr. Buckley was first elected a member of
the General Conference for the session meeting
in the city of Brooklyn, in 1872. He was
elected a member of every subsequent Confer
ence down to and including that of 1912. He
thus held membership in unbroken series in
eleven of the legislative congresses of the
Church. No adequate measurement of his
power and influence as a debating parliamen-

DEBATER 127
tarian can be reached without an intelhgent
survey of his membership in the General Con
ferences. In these bodies, during the entire
period from 1872 to 1912 inclusive, he took a
foremost rank as debater. This is saying
much. The General Conference is composed
of the picked men of the largest Protestant de
nomination in America. A goodly number of
its members, both clerical and lay, have earned
the right to sit at the very "Round Table" of
elect debaters. Yet, from the first, Dr. Buck
ley was a frequent speaker in the forefront of
discussion. He never spoke without com
manding respectful attention, and, in a large
number of cases, his persuasion gave final form
to the action of the body. Long before he had
reached the middle term in the series of his
General Conference memberships he was with
out dissent, and by common assent, acclaimed
the greatest debater in Methodism, if not in the
nation. While emphasizing his prominence as
a debater in the councils of his own Church, it
may not be forgotten that in this art he made
for himself a nation-wide reputation.
His celebrity as a debater early earned for
him a wide publicity and the most various char
acterizations. Some of the latter were, of
course, more discriminating, more true and

128 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
just, than were others. Dr. Charles Park-
hurst, the brilhant and veteran editor of Zion's
Herald, and between whom and Dr. Buckley
there was not always oneness of view, on the
occasion of the latter's retirement from official
life said : "American Methodism has produced
only one Dr. Buckley, nor is there another man
in the denomination with whom fitly to com
pare him. Many will have it that as 'Master
of Assemblies' — as in the General Conference
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to which
he has been elected for forty years successively
— he has shown most striking superiority. As
suredly, in this assembly there has been no
one to compare with him. His perfect self-
mastery, his resourcefulness, always equal to
any emergency, his strength in argument, his
unanswerable logic, his sparkling wit, and,
when needed, his stinging sarcasm — in all these
and many other quahties, we have never seen
his equal."
The Public Ledger of Philadelphia, speak
ing of the large body of delegates elected to the
General Conference, says: "One half of the
membership of these Conferences consists of a
learned ministry, and the other half of a laity
which embraces in its ranks jurists, lawyers,
statesmen, some of them men of national repu-

DEBATER 129
tation, men who have attained distinction in
legislative halls, men who are not without expe
rience in dealing with large representative
bodies. From all these Conferences held dur
ing the last half century Dr. Buckley has
emerged easily the leader." At the close of
the General Conference of 1908, the Baltimore
Sun, reviewing the Conference, among other
things said: "It is unquestioned that the most
potent factor in the dehberations of the Con
ference was Doctor J. M. Buckley, editor of
The Christian Advocate. No matter how fre
quently he spoke, his voice commanded atten
tion for three reasons at least : because the Con
ference believed in his sincerity; because of his
wide knowledge of the doctrines and polity
of the Church ; and for his impartial treatment
of every subject at issue." Dr. Jesse W- Jen
nings, in observations of the General Confer
ence, says : "Every victory won by Buckley on
the Conference floor is won fairly; he will ac
cept no other. . . . He is to a General Con
ference what an expert pilot is to a vessel feel
ing its way cautiously through an untried sea."
The press notices of Dr. Buckley were not
all eulogies. There were many in the Church
who thought him non-progressive, the leader
of forlorn hopes. He was characterized as the

130 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
"Captain of Conservatives." One church re
viewer says of him: "Organically, Dr. Buckley
is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.
. . . The opinions he held in 1872 are his
opinions in 1904. He is not troubled as other
men are by change of opinions. He knows
exactly what he thought on any given subject
at any given time by what he thinks about the
matter now. He has had no psychological mo
ments, no revolution in sentiment or opinions.
He is not only himself, but a sort of composite
accumulated self. What he has been is fully
involved in what he now is." The Chicago
Evening Post in 1893 said: "Mr. Buckley is
narrow in his beliefs, reasonings, and conclu
sions. He permits of no expansion in the scope
of his creed, and, while his efforts are char
acterized by honest conviction, the lenses
through which he regards affairs are of a more
remote period than the last decade of the nine
teenth century."
Of his book on the Wrong and Peril of
Woman Suffrage one reviewer says: "The
book neither takes notice of the modern argu
ment for woman suffrage nor successfully con
troverts the old ones. . . . The book may
contribute to the amusement of a collector of
intellectual curiosities." Of this book another

DEBATER 131
says : "Dr. Buckley is a good man, a useful and
deeply sincere man, but his arguments are
absurd." These adverse criticisms form a part of the
history which we are pursuing, and of them
it is enough, perhaps, to say that they but utter
a protest which from some quarters would in
evitably be expected as against positions advo
cated by Dr. Buckley. He debated live ques
tions, and by his methods smote hard against
the very nerve centers of the opposition. It is
to be observed that in the most drastic criti
cisms uttered, their authors usually reserve
room for high tribute to the versatile knowl
edge and dialectical skill of him against whom
they aim their strictures. On entering the
arena they prudently notify the on-lookers that
they are about to engage a valiant knight who
in many a noted contest has laid his foe in the
sand. Dr. Buckley was successively a member of
eleven General Conferences, a very unusual
number. So far as I know, but three other
persons in the entire history of the denomina
tion have received each a larger number of elec
tions. George Peck was a member of thirteen
Conferences ; Peter Cartwright the same ; John
Lanahan was a member of twelve Conferences,

132 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
as was also Joseph M. Trimble. The issues of
the Daily Advocates, covering the sessions of
the General Conferences from 1872 to 1912 in
clusive, furnish large information concerning
the debating and parliamentary career of our
subject. He was always prominent, but in the
earlier Conferences he did not frequently seek
the floor. It is equally in evidence that he did
not always carry his points. He made, first
and last, many motions which were negatived
by the body. In the later Conferences he spoke
with great frequency, no other member of the
body even approaching him in the number of
speeches made. If explanation were needed
for this fact, it would be furnished largely in
the functions which the Conference itself as
signed to him. He was several times chairman
of the Committee on Rules for the government
of the General Conference. The very fact that
he was made chairman of this committee is in
itself proof of his reputation as a parliamen
tarian. His work in the creation and defense
of the rules governing the General Conferences
required of him an accurate and commanding
knowledge of parliamentary usages. In this
special department he was never found want
ing. The system of General and Annual Confer-

DEBATER 133
ences characterizing the Methodist Episcopal
Church is of a kind to develop great parliamen
tarians. No presiding position in church or in
state calls for more expert mastery of the par
liamentary art than is required of the Meth
odist bishop. Some of these administrative
officers have reached the very ne plus ultra of
the art. But in real knowledge, and instant
apprehension, of legitimate parliamentary
practice no one in any General Conference
has shown himself more expert than Dr.
Buckley. His absolute knowledge of his
own parliamentary rights was no small factor
in giving him commanding place in Methodist
legislation. In the General Conference at Omaha, an
amusing and memorable incident occurred.
Bishop Fowler was presiding. Dr. Buckley,
having already taken some time on the main
question before the house, the previous ques
tion now having been called for, feeling that he
had been misrepresented by Dr. Neely, arose
to a personal privilege. Several attempts were
made to prevent his speaking with which the
bishop evidently sympathized, but the Doctor,
knowing his rights, insisted and finally the
bishop was forced to give him the floor. Dr.
Buckley instantly and facetiously remarked,

134 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
"The psalmist promises that we shall be de
livered 'from the snare of the fowler.' " As
instantly Bishop Fowler responded, "He also
says that we shall be dehvered 'from the noi
some pestilence.' " Whereupon the Confer
ence, as against all its rules, broke forth into
an unrestrained tumult of laughter and ap
plause. In the General Conference of 1880, a com
mittee was appointed to draft an "Ecclesias
tical Code." Of this committee Dr. Buckley
was made chairman. Here again was an occa
sion which called' for a full and critical expres
sion of his expert knowledge. At two succes
sive Conferences, those of 1884 and 1888, he
was made chairman of the Committee on Itin
erancy, in every way one of the most important
of the standing committees. It was his duty as
chairman to expound and to defend the reports
of this committee before the Conference. In
the course of the two Conferences in question
twenty-four of this committee's reports were
adopted. For five successive Conferences, beginning
with 1892, he was chairman of the Committee
on Episcopacy. His duties here involved him
in the most delicate relations, such as the retire
ment of ineffective bishops, the hearing of com-

DEBATER 135
plaints against bishops for alleged maladminis
tration or on other grounds, the number of
bishops to be elected, the assignment of epis
copal residences, and many other alhed ques
tions. There is no committee of the General
Conference concerning whose functions the
body as a whole is more sensitive than this
Committee on Episcopacy. No man in the
General Conference, including the bishops
themselves, is charged with more delicate or
difficult responsibihty than is the chairman of
this committee. His duties call for knowledge,
insight, wisdom, tactfulness, courage, firmness,
kindliness. A review of the five General Con
ferences in question justifies the judgment that
Dr. Buckley showed himself in command of all
these qualities in exceptionally high measure.
In the course of these Conferences sixty-seven
reports as presented by this committee were
adopted. It is obvious that, as growing out of
his duties alone as chairman of committees, his
voice would of necessity be frequently heard on
the floor of the General Conference.
It is impracticable in this narrative to give
anything like a detailed description of Dr.
Buckley's speeches in the various General Con
ferences. Full statement of them all would fill
a large volume. It would be a mistake to as-

136 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
sume that he seldom spoke except when in dis
charge of his duties as a committee chairman.
He had the habit, a habit which he never sought
to disguise, and for which he never apologized,
of asking for the floor whenever he felt that he
could contribute a fact or an idea promotive of
a wiser direction or action of the General Con
ference itself. His knowledge was so perfect,
his mind so alert, his apprehension of a situa
tion so instantaneous, his habit of discussion so
insistent, as to give him irresistible prompting
to frequency of speech.
Notable among his speeches was that deliv
ered, in one of the greatest of historic debates,
in the General Conference of 1876, against
electing presiding elders. In the Conference
of 1880 he made a great speech on the reunion
of Methodism. These were among his earlier
Conferences. In all the subsequent Confer
ences it may safely be said that no proposition
as affecting the life of the Church was ever pre
sented concerning which his voice was not
heard, either for or against. He made exceed
ingly able speeches on such subjects as "Plac
ing the Support of the Bishops on the Entire
Church"; on the "Time Limit"; on "Equal
Lay Representation"; on the "Admission of
Women to the General Conference"; on the

DEBATER 137
"Constitution of the Church" ; on the "Deacon
ess Work"; on the question of "Bishops for
Races." Aside from the larger questions, he
was frequently heard upon other subjects, so
much so that the Conference was sometimes
facetiously reported as "Dr. Buckley in Ses
sion." It may be doubted whether any other
American Methodist has ever lived who could
have spoken so often, so interestingly, and with
such welcome as was true of him throughout his
General Conference career. He is reported as
having taken the floor seven hundred times in
a single General Conference. This is undoubt
edly an exaggeration, a kind of hyperbole em
ployed to give due prominence to a general
fact. His recognized sanity, however, bulked
so large as to give him always a respectful, if
not an eager, hearing.
One of the Chicago dailies reports a colored
delegate to the Conference of 1900 as saying:
"Dat air Brudder Buckley am de mos' omnib-
erous critter I ever see! He jes' dips inter
eberyting! He seems to think de Ark ob de
Lord would all go ter kersmash if he didn't
stiddy it! I am jes' dead tired ob dat chile's
gobble, I am! Next time we will have to call
dis 'de Buckley General Conference.' " This
may perhaps serve as a typical example of an

138 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
occasional impatience with Dr. Buckley's much
speaking. Reference has been made to his conservative
tendencies. Nothing is perhaps more enig
matical to his closest observers than his uniform
conservatism of expression throughout his
entire official career. In his earher life he
seemed to carry within himself all the aptitudes
of a born radical. If full play had been given
to these aptitudes, it can be httle doubted that
in the character of a free lance he would have
made a career not less brilliant than the one
which he has really achieved. I must believe
that the conservatism which has characterized
his official history is largely the outgrowth of
his acquired habits as a constitutional lawyer.
He early came to feel himself as greatly re
sponsible for defending the Church on its his
toric basis. His dominant habit of mind has
not always shown itself compatible with the
temperament of the seer. It has hence resulted
that the expanding Church has remanded to
the rear several important historic usages for
the retention of which Dr. Buckley stoutly con
tended. The removal of the "Time Limit,"
the "Ehgibihty of Women to Membership in
the General Conference," the use of the "Indi
vidual Communion Cup," are among questions

DEBATER 139
to which he gave no hospitality, but which are
now engrafted into the hving usages of the
Church, and, so far as can be seen, without
detriment to the efficiency of the Church itself.
Dr. Buckley is a good loser. It is much to his
credit to say that when the Church officially
embodies into its usages a measure which he
himself has definitely opposed, he considers the
question settled, and himself accepts the result
in a spirit of philosophical equanimity.
Dr. Buckley early won for himself the
premiership of debaters in any dehberative as
sembly of which he was a member. The Ecu
menical Conferences of Methodism are made
up of picked men from the ends of the earth.
Concerning his relations to the Conference held
in Washington in 1891, an accredited corre
spondent of The Methodist, of Sydney, Aus
tralia, said this: "He is the mighty man of
valor, who can step into the arena at any mo
ment and do battle with a dexterity and force
which few of the enemies of the Church care to
provoke, while his influence in shaping the
policy and inspiring the enterprises of his de
nomination is greater perhaps, than that of
any man within its bounds. ... I was intro
duced to this remarkable man at the Ecu
menical Conference of 1891, in the city of

140 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
Washington, and in the shght intercourse I had
with him I found him as genial and friendly in
private as he was brilliant and able on the floor
of the Conference. . . . Other men of distinc
tion were there: William Arthur, possessing
both genius and sainthness; Dr. Douglas, the
pride of the Canadian Church; Hugh Price
Hughes, with his vast debating power; and
many others of world-wide reputation, but on
all hands Dr. Buckley was regarded as the
Nestor of the Conference."
A United States senator, who had frequent
opportunity of observing Dr. Buckley in de
bate, declared that if he were in the Senate, he
would easily become the most conspicuous
leader of the body. Our age has probably
known no more resourceful debater. He was
hke a man armed on all sides with all weapons
needed for use in the arena. With instant
dexterity he could lay hold upon any device
or argument needed at the moment, and woe
be to the man who had provoked the machine-
gun fire of his sarcasm. It must be said, how
ever, that his habitual method in debate was on
a high and fair-minded plane. He was singu
larly free from personal animosities. He was
fearless of any possible effect of his positions
upon his personal fortunes. He saw things

DEBATER 141
clearly, and without reference to individual
consequences to himself or to others, he argued
for what he sincerely believed was for the right
and best. He will enter the arena no more. It
now seems altogether probable that he will
have no immediate successor. Of all the Meth
odist hosts of his day, he wore worthily and un
challenged the crown as "King of Debaters."

CHAPTER VII
TRAVELER
Doctor Buckley has traveled widely at
home and abroad. Throughout his profes
sional career, as preacher, lecturer, tourist,
pedestrian, he has visited nearly every point of
interest within the United States and its Terri
tories and also in the Dominion of Canada.
The following statements will furnish some
index of his travels in his own country. It may
serve the purpose of some readers if the time
of publication of letters now mentioned is
stated. All the letters indicated appeared in
order in The Christian Advocate as follows:
In 1882, many letters under the caption "Edi
tor's Travels"; in 1885, "Tour in Two States
and a Foreign Country"; in 1886, twelve let
ters under "A New Invasion of the South";
four more on "Summer Journeys for Business
or Recreation"; in 1887, seven articles on
"Rolling Over the Continent"; in 1888, four
letters on "Sketches of a Journey Toward the
Sun" ; in 1892, eight letters mostly on "Denver
and Colorado"; in 1893, five letters, "Notes of
142

TRAVELER 143
a Zigzag Tour"; in 1894, thirty-four articles
on "Over the Border," "Westward Ho!"
"Capital of Manitoba," "Through Alaska,"
"Yellowstone Park"; in 1895, four letters on
"Beyond the Mississippi and Missouri"; in
1897, eleven letters on "A Trip Through the
South"; in 1899, several letters on "Glimpses
of Tennessee"; in 1901, eleven letters on
"Southwestward Ho!"; in 1903, eleven letters
on "My Summer in the South"; in 1904, a
series on "Los Angeles to Salt Lake City," also
on the "World's Fair" ; in 1906, thirteen letters
altogether on "The Maritime Provinces of
Canada" and "The Great State of Illinois."
Of our editor's travels in his own country, The
Christian Advocate alone has pubhshed more
than one hundred and twenty-five full articles,
enough matter for several sizable volumes, and
all of which even now would furnish interesting
reading. But these letters cover only a part,
however large, of the history of his American
travels. From this summary of travels in his own
country we now turn our attention to the for
eign tours of which this chapter principally
treats. His first voyage to Europe occurred in
1863, when he was in his twenty-seventh year.
He had now completed a two years' pastorate

144 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
in the city of Manchester, New Hampshire.
The condition of his health was most precarious.
He decided to take this trip for, "Rest, Change
of Climate, Improvement of Health, and En
largement of Outlook." The time was midway
in the "Civil War." By his patriotic speeches
he had already gained a celebrity which drew to
him the eyes of national leaders, including Mr.
Lincoln. He went carrying letters of indorse
ment from Horace Greeley; Charles Sumner,
who at that time was chairman of the Senate
Committee on Foreign Affairs, Daniel Clark,
United States senator from New Hampshire.
The governor of the State also gave him a
letter of indorsement bearing the State Seal.
These letters were addressed to certain mem
bers of the British Parliament, and certified to
Mr. Buckley's fitness "to explain the Constitu
tion of the United States so far as it affected
the Civil War."
During this tour he visited England, Scot
land, Wales, Ireland, Holland, Belgium,
France, Germany, and Switzerland. His stay
among the Alps was so beneficial as to impress
him that he had entirely recovered his health.
His published notes of this trip are more espe
cially confined to England. During his stay
here he held intimate interviews with several

TRAVELER 145
representative ministerial associations, and de
livered addresses on the "Civil War." His
visit to England was simultaneous with that of
Henry Ward Beecher. On that memorable
night in Liverpool when the mob undertook to
silence Mr. Beecher, Buckley sat upon the
platform not more than six feet away from the
speaker. Of this scene he published a vivid de
scription years after in the Century Magazine.
It is his declaration that "Henry Ward
Beecher that night achieved a marvelous tri
umph of eloquence and wit over intellectual
drunkenness, and in some instances physical
drunkenness." Of this trip nothing is perhaps more interest
ing than his notes on several celebrities whom
he either directly met or observed. Of preach
ers he repeatedly heard Spurgeon, whom he
rates as "one of the most successful preachers
and pastors combined, in the history of
Enghsh-speaking Christianity." He heard
Punshon when he was at the "height of his
rhetorical glory." He heard Dean Stanley,
"calm and comprehensive"; Joseph Parker,
then a young "thunderbolt" ; and he was priv
ileged to hear the famous Guthrie in his church
at Edinburgh. In music, he heard the great
pianist Thalberg, Jenny Lind, Madame

146 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
Alboni, and Parepa, artists of world-wide
reputation. In several visits to the House of Parhament
he looked upon the faces of Gladstone, John
Bright, and Richard Cobden. He listened to
speeches from Lords Russell, Palmerston, and
Brougham, and, not least, from Disraeli. He
describes an interesting observation of Tenny
son. He was requested by the New York
Independent to secure an interview with the
poet, and to write it up for the paper. The
poet was away when the interview was sought,
but one day when visiting the South Kensing
ton Museum, Buckley observed a party con
sisting of a gentleman, two ladies, and two chil
dren, to whom the caretaker seemed to pay
great deference. On inquiry he found that this
man was the poet Tennyson. Following him
at a proper distance, he noted that the man had
apparently not spoken a single word for more
than an hour. At last the poet, turning to one
of the ladies as though about to speak, Buckley
drew gently near, only to hear "these never-to-
be-forgotten words": "You hold the children
while I get a glass of beer."
These were before the days of the Atlantic
cable. The transmission of news was slow, and
many waited with impatient eagerness tidings

TRAVELER * 147
from across the seas. In London, Junius
Morgan, the father of J. Pierpont.Morgan, on
Mr. Buckley's arrival in England, most cour
teously, but earnestly, extracted from him all
he knew of men and things at the time of his
sailing from New York. On his return, after
a six months' absence, the directors of Ply
mouth Church invited him to preach and to
describe the scene of the Liverpool mob. On
this occasion Theodore Tilton, then in high
faVor in church and state, as Mr. Beecher had
now exhausted the time for which the Church
had authorized his absence, offered a resolu
tion of which the following is in part a copy:
"Whereas, also he is doing his country immeas
urable good, be it Resolved, That he may re
main so long as he considers himself to be pro
moting the purpose for which he went abroad
at this time." This resolution, of course, re-
received the unanimous support of the congre
gation. Dr. Buckley's second trip to Europe oc
curred in 1881, when he went abroad as a dele
gate to the Ecumenical Methodist Conference
held that year in the city of London. The
influential part which he himself took in the
proceedings of this Conference is set forth in
the volume giving a verbatim report of all

148 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
speeches and a full history of this convention
of world-Methodism. Many incidents of this
trip are also most interestingly presented in
a series of nine letters pubhshed in The Chris
tian Advocate from September to December,
in 1881. As this was the period when the Eng
hsh ecclesiastical world was much stirred by the
trial of Doctor Robertson Smith, his case, as
also certain "English Traits," were luminously
discussed in these letters.
On the 19th day of June, 1884, Dr. Buckley,
accompanied by his stepson, Mr. Samuel
Staples, then a young man of eighteen years,
embarked on the S. S. Baltic for his third trip
to Europe. This trip, while in transit it in
cluded Liverpool, London, Holland, Cologne,
the Rhine, Frankfort-on-the-Main, Dresden,
Berhn, and Hamburg, had for its chief objec
tive a thorough tour of the northern countries
of Europe, including Denmark, Norway,
Sweden and Russia. At Hamburg, if not
earlier, the party was joined by Mr. Charles
E. Hendrickson, an American lawyer. In the
northern countries named a journey of about
ten thousand miles was taken. Close observa
tions were made of their cities, arts, their social,
educational, and rehgious customs, their nat
ural resources, and, indeed, of all the salient

TRAVELER 149
features entering into their civilizations. A
history, in part, of this trip appeared under the
heading "Letters From Europe," thirty-six in
all, appearing in The Christian Advocate from
August 7, 1884, to April 16, 1885. The
journey as a whole is graphically and instruc
tively narrated in the book, The Midnight Sun,
The Tsar and the Nihilist as published by D.
Lothrop & Co., in 1886.
In preparing this book he expresses the hope
of imparting "to such as has never seen
those countries as clear a view as can be ob
tained from reading, and to aid those who con
template a similar journey to prepare for it.
Besides, I wish to show those who find the
beaten track of travel monotonous that the
north of Europe may give them new sensations
and valuable information." The book remains
to this day a most interesting narrative of
travels in countries which are not even now
familiar to general tourists. In addition to a
description of travels, our author embodies in
four elaborate chapters his impressions of
Nihilism, a cult which for many recent years
has carried in itself a tragic menace against
Russian civilization. While it is probably true
that no modern civilization is characterized by
more rapid changes, none by more hopeful

150 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
strides of progress, than is true of Russia, and
while consequently many things now are much
different from what they were at a period even
as recent as the writing of Dr. Buckley's book,
yet it may be confidently stated that few books,
within its scope, are more illuminating of its
subject than is the one here under considera
tion. Our author's paragraphs on the "Contrasts
Between Russia and the United States" are
such as to enhance in the bosom of every Amer
ican reader an exalted and grateful sense of his
privileges of citizenship. These statements of
contrast are in part as follows :
"Russia and the United States resemble each
other in the vastness of their territory, in the
size and number of their rivers, in their modern
origin as nations, in the gigantic character of
their undertakings, in population and its wide
diffusion, and in variety of mineral and agri
cultural products. They also resemble each
other in the vastness of their prairies, the ex
tent of their forests, their immense mineral re
sources, and in having every variety of climate.
Politically, they are similar in being the two
great nations of which other powers are suspi
cious and jealous, and, growing out of this fact,
in having sympathy with each other.

TRAVELER 151
"In America religion is free; in Russia,
theoretically, it is not free. Though dissent is
tolerated, it is greatly embarrassed.
"In Russia the great majority of the people
are wretchedly poor; in America the great
majority are in comfortable circumstances, and
only a small minority miserably poor.
"In Russia public opinion has httle or no
power ; in America it is almost omnipotent. In
the United States all public matters are dis
cussed without restriction, and no censorship
of the press exists. In Russia anything worthy
the name of discussion is unknown, and a
frightful censorship of the press still continues
to be. In the United States a high degree of
mercantile honor yet prevails; in Russia it is
the exception.
"In Russia nothing relating to the general
administration of affairs is subject to a con
trolling vote. There is nothing analogous to
a legislature." ( Since the writing of the above
and following "contrasts," the Czar of Russia,
on August 19, 1905, issued a manifesto an
nouncing the formation of a representative
Duma, "to take a constant and active part in
the elaboration of laws." On the 30th of the
following October he signed a constitution
granting to the people the foundations of civic

152 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
hberty, and establishing a rule that no law
should come into operation without the consent
of the state Duma. At the time of this final
writing, in correction of proofs, events are
moving rapidly in Russia. The Czar has abdi
cated. The entire country is tossed in the throes
of revolution. The participation of Russia
in the great war seems to have collapsed.
The governmental affairs of the country
in general are so chaotic as to render all predic
tions for the future mere guesses, and most un
certain. — G. P. M.) "The four great councils
can accomplish nothing without the consent of
the Emperor. In the United States the will of
the people is the last authority. In Russia the
writ of habeas corpus is unknown; the personal
liberty of the citizen is at the caprice of the
authorities. In the United States individual
liberty is granted to every man not a pauper, a
lunatic, or a criminal. And a legal and public
investigation of charges against him is his
indefeasible right.
"In the United States dissatisfaction with
the administration is followed by its overthrow
at the polls. In Russia dissatisfaction with the
government has no legitimate means of ex
pressing itself."
Of Dr. Buckley s six journeys to Europe,

TRAVELER 153
the fourth was the most elaborate, and possibly
the most interesting, of all. This extended
tour began by embarkation from New York,
on November 21, 1888, and ended by return to
the point of original departure in the latter
part of May, 1889. The traveler had now
clearly acquired for himself a national reputa
tion. He was decorated with the highest titles
of the learned world. It would be superfluous
to attempt any detailed description of the long
and far journey now taken. A most instruc
tive and luminous narrative of his experiences
and observations in all the lands visited is fur
nished in his large volume, Travels in Three
Continents. Narratives of foreign travel have, in the
recent years, greatly multiplied. Some of
these are of exceeding merit. It may be ques
tioned, however, whether any record of travels
in lands and among peoples described in the
above-named book can be said to be more in
structive, more vivid, or characterized by a
more discerning insight into conditions ob
served, than as set forth in this volume. Of
this book, Paul DuChaillu, the famous ex
plorer, said: "It is the one book of foreign
travels which I find reliable, satisfactory, and
most free from error of statement."

154 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY,
On this journey the traveler passed hastily,
though not without making interesting notes
by the way, from London to Paris, and thence
to an extended tour of observation in Spain.
His descriptions of Spanish scenery, art, and
architecture, his delineations of historic scenes,
of eminent national characters, his photo
graphic portrayals of the Spanish people, their
common life and customs — all are of unusual
interest, not simply because they are set forth
with artistic power, but also because the objects
described lie largely outside the beaten paths of
observation. On Christmas afternoon our traveler sailed
through the Bay of Malaga, taking a south
west course in the Mediterranean. After stop
ping briefly at unimportant points, the steamer
arrived on the second day in the Bay of Tan-
giers, in Africa, a harbor on the south side of
the Straits of Gibraltar. From Tangiers we
trace the itinerary by turns to Gibraltar, to
Algeria, thence northward again to Marseilles,
and in order to Genoa, Milan, Venice, Flor
ence, Rome, Naples, Vesuvius, and Pompeii.
On the morning of February 4, our party
sailed from Brindisi for Alexandria, a point
reached "after four days of fine weather and
smooth seas." He was in Egypt, the land

TRAVELER 155
which Herodotus, writing B. C. 456, described
as "the cradle of history and of human cul
ture." He said of Egypt: "It contains more
wonders than any other land, and is prominent
above all the countries in the world for works
that one can hardly describe." "When Gen
eral Grant, after his tour around the world,
met Andrew D. White, ex-president of Cornell
University, he said to him, 'After Egypt there
is nothing.' " In this land of ancient wonders
Dr. Buckley took time to visit the great cities,
the Pyramids, the Sphinx, the ruins of temples,
the desert, and for traversing the Nile to the
"First Cataract."
Departing from Egypt, he left Cairo by
train which bore him along the skirts of the
Arabian desert to Ismailia on the Suez Canal.
Hence he Went by the Canal to Port Said,
where he took steamer for Syria, thus taking
final leave of Africa. He was now approach
ing the shores of a land forever sacred in the
traditions and records of three great rehgions
— Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedan
ism. Disembarking at Jaffa, the scene of
many New Testament incidents, a city which
as late as 1799 was stormed by the forces of
Napoleon, he went by carriage across the
plains of Sharon to Jerusalem. When in the

156 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
evening he first saw the lights in the suburbs of
the ancient city, he describes his feelings as
follows : "It was a moment of delight, of solem
nity, of sublimity. For of it the greatest of the
kings of Israel said, 'If I forget thee, let my
right hand forget her cunning.' To it the Son
of God said: 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, . . .
how often would I have gathered thy children
together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens
under her wings, and ye would not!' And it
became a type of heaven, for Paul said, 'Jeru
salem which is above is free, which is the mother
of us all.' And John saw in the spirit 'that
great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out
of heaven from God.' And I stood at the
gates of Jerusalem."
Our traveler remained in Jerusalem and its
environments a sufficient time to permit him to
review every location in its relations to bib
lical history as set forth in both the Old and
the New Testament narratives. In going to
Palestine it was his purpose "to visit every
sacred spot in the manner best adapted to allow
close examination, vivid impression, and the
greatest amount of familiarity with the people
and country."
In departing from Jerusalem he leisurely
pursued his way northward past the sites of

TRAVELER 157
ancient Bethel, Shiloh, Mount Gerizim; thence
through the historic scenes of Samaria, cross
ing the great plains, which, in general, pass
under the name Esdraelon, into Gahlee, that
province "which binds together so many of the
most holy memories of our race." x Here he
visited Nain, Mount Tabor, Nazareth, Tiberias
and Capernaum on the shores of the "Sea of
Galilee," and thence by Mount Hermon to
Damascus. Of this city, Dr. George Adam
Smith in his Historical Geography of the Holy
Land says: "We have met her fame every
where. She has seen the rise, felt the effect, and
survived the passage of all the forces which
have strewn Syria with ruins. There is not a
fallen city we have visited but Damascus was
old when it was built, and still flourishes long
after it has perished. Amid the growth and
decay of the races, civilizations, and religions
which have thronged Syria for 4,000 years,
Damascus has remained the one perennially
great Syrian city."
From Damascus Dr. Buckley went by
the Lebanon Pass to Beirut. Thence visiting
the islands of Cyprus, Rhodes, and sailing past
Patmos and other points of interest, especially
as mentioned in the travels of Saint Paul, he
1 George Adam Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land.

158 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
disembarked at Smyrna. Having visited
Smyrna and Ephesus in Asia Minor, he took
final leave of Asia, passing on to Athens, Cor
inth, and Constantinople, thence hastily push
ing his way through Eastern Roumeha, Bul
garia, Servia, Hungary and Vienna, to Paris
and New York. He was absent from his
native land a little more than six months. On
returning home he takes occasion to express
his feelings in the following quotation:
"Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest;
Home-keeping hearts are happiest."
In attempting to trace only in broad out
hne this famous itinerary the impracticability
of giving much detail of the varied and inspir
ing interest awakened by the author's own
elaborated narrations of his observations and
experiences, is, of course, obvious. This itin
erary not only covers the most classic lands of
human history, as also lands made forever
memorable by the most sacred events toward
which human thought can turn, but it leads
through countries most enriched by the treas
ured art and hterature of the ages, countries
which in modern days represent the ripest and
best developments of the world's civilization.
When, in addition, it is remembered that our
guide through all the distances of this won-

TRAVELER 159
drous journey is a man of phenomenal knowl
edge, of exceptional insight, and with equal
powers of description, we shall certainly be
wisely self -directed if deciding to become first
hand students of his own matchless narrative.
This narrative carries an extraordinary wealth
of historic incident and illustration; it is rich in
descriptive references to classic and famous
characters ; it is informing as to the geography,
governments, and political relations of the
lands which it traverses; it is photographic in
its portrayals of the manners, customs, arts,
rehgion, and morals of the peoples with whom
it deals. It was the ideal of the author in pre
paring this volume to write both so truly and so
vividly as to "enable those who do not expect
to cross the ocean to see, 'while looking
through my eyes,' almost as well as with their
own." This ideal is large. But it only requires
a careful reading to prove that the book meas
ures up well to the high demand.
On May 14, 1910, Dr. Buckley, in company
with his daughter, again sailed for Europe.
This tour has been interestingly described in
the columns of The Christian Advocate. The
sailing was direct from New York to Gib
raltar. From Gibraltar the party went to
Granada, here, of course, visiting once and

160 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
again the Alhambra. Of this structure, with
its picturesque mountain environment, Dr.
Buckley has said: "In the deepest valley or the
most gloomy desert on the globe, the Alhambra
would intoxicate and enthrall; but its situation
increases its fascination immeasurably. I
doubt if earth contains a grander natural set
ting for a more astonishing human creation."
From Granada they went to Seville, the
native city of Murillo and Velasquez, the birth
place of three Roman emperors, Adrian, Tra
jan, and Theodosius, as also of Magellan, the
explorer. Seville is the "Alma Mater of bull
fights," and this may be accepted as a criterion
of the general moral status of its inhabitants.
Most conspicuous and imposing in architecture
are the "Alcazar Castle" and the Cathedral
with its famous Giralda Bell Tower. Portugal
is next visited, and fascinating descriptions of
its peoples, palaces, parks, and gardens are
given. From Lisbon to Madrid is four hun
dred miles. This city in the center of Spain,
picturesquely located among high hills, is said
to have the worst climate in Europe, an air "so
keen and so subtle that it will kill a man, while
it will not blow out a candle." This city con^
tains one of the finest art galleries, as well as
one of the most famous royal palaces, in the

TRAVELER 161
world. Here also is the famous Escorial, built
by Philip II. The city abounds in grand
streets, beautiful parks, and is in many ways
unusually adorned, but it is reminiscent of the
dark cruelties of the Inquisition, and is histor
ically inseparably connected with the sinister
name of a monarch whose reign was one of the
most barbarous and murderous in modern
annals, a monarch of whom tradition says that
when the final death pains were upon him, he
declared, "My crimes are giving me much more
anguish than my sickness."
Our party next paid an interested visit to
historic Toledo, and of all objects here to be
seen, the Cathedral is of surpassing interest.
Dr. Buckley confesses to joining the growing
minority who beheve the Cathedral of Toledo
more impressive than that in Seville.
The itinerary now led, with easy stops by the
way, to Paris, London, Edinburgh, Glasgow,
Belfast, the Giant's Causeway, the Lakes of
Killarney, Cork, Blarney Castle, Dublin. Of
this extended section of the journey many
points of interest are graphically and allur
ingly portrayed. From Dublin, the journey
was pushed by rapid stages via London, Calais,
and Cologne to Berlin. In Germany, Berlin,
Potsdam, and other leading cities, with their

162 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
great universities, museums, art galleries, all
setting forth many distinctive and impressive
exhibitions of the culture, prosperity, and
power of the Teutonic civilization, were closely
observed. Some time was passed amid the in
spiring scenery of the Harz Mountains, the
Black Forest, and other scenic sections the
challenge of whose beauty was worthily re
sponded to by the facile pen of our tourist.
Regretfully taking leave of Germany, the
party proceeded to Switzerland, visiting in
order Geneva, Chamounix, spending ten days
above the clouds at the Grand Hotel on Mount
Pelerin, thence returning to Lausanne, the city
in which Gibbon wrote that magnum opus of
historic authorship, The Dechne and Fall of
the Roman Empire. In reviewing his im
pressions of Switzerland, Dr. Buckley says:
"Switzerland, with its lakes, cataracts, moun
tains, glaciers, traditions, freedom, and prox
imity to great nations, will remain the most
fascinating resort for lovers of the vast and the
wild intertwined with civilization."
The next lap in the journey was to Tours,
France, via Paris, where with the "Hotel de
l'Univers" as headquarters, the party lingered
for ten days, visiting objects of special interest
at their leisure. Accessible from this place are

TRAVELER 163
many of the most historic and artistic chateaux
of France. Of several of these our tourist has
furnished descriptions of such discerning merit
as amply to repay a careful study. The Tours
excursions ended, Dr. Buckley and his
daughter spent a week in Paris, visiting some
of the famous places familiar to them through
several former visits. From Paris they went
by rail to Cherbourg, whence they sailed home
ward on the good ship Cleveland, of the Ham
burg American Line, arriving duly in New
York, September 4, 1910. To the experienced
traveler the itinerary, as herein outlined, is seen
to lead through many countries of great his
toric interest; but no adequate appreciation of
this particular journey can be realized save by
first-hand familiarity with Dr. Buckley's own
masterful and fascinating narratives. The de
tails of this journey are quite fully given in a
series of twenty-six letters under the title
"Studies of Other Countries," which appeared
in The Christian Advocate, and running from
September 29, 1910, to April 6, 1911.
Dr. Buckley's sixth and last journey to
Europe, this time also accompanied by his
daughter, was begun on May 17, 1913, with
embarkation from New York on the North
German Lloyd steamer George Washington.

164 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
This trip, carrying them through Holland and
many German cities as far East as Budapest,
took them for the most part over ground
made familiar to them by previous visits, until,
on July 6, they embarked at Hamburg for a
"Northern Cruise." This special cruise took
them in order to Leith, Scotland, Orkney Is
lands, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Spitzbergen,
North Cape, Hammerfest, Tromsoe, Diger-
mulen, Meraak, Gudvangen, Bergen, and back
to Hamburg. The northernmost point of this
cruise was within five hundred and eighty-one
miles of the north pole, and within seventy-five
miles from the "packed ice."
Emerson has repeatedly expressed himself
somewhat cynically upon the subject of travel.
In one of his deliveries, he says: "The stuff of
all countries is just the same. Do you suppose
there is any country where they do not scald
milk-pans, and swaddle the infants, and burn
the brushwood, and broil the fish? What is
true anywhere is true everywhere. And let
him go where he will, he can only find so much
beauty or worth as he carries."
If it must be conceded that a man brings
from scenes of travel, or from books, httle that
he does not himself carry to them, it is to be
emphasized that the subject of the biography,

TRAVELER 165
himself a wide traveler, carried to every historic
spot, to every classic scene, to every master
piece of art, and into the presence of every
celebrity, a resourceful knowledge, a penetra
tive insight, a high interpretative power, which
enabled him to translate into current capital
for the common use his impressions of the most
marked historic events, the choicest products of
art, and the most famous geniuses.
For periods long to come, many an earnest
student, himself precluded from traveling be
yond the seas, will thank our traveler for plac
ing before him as in a mirror the scenes, events,
and art of a great historic world.

CHAPTER VIII
AUTHOR
So far as the subject admits, I purpose to
treat Dr. Buckley's work as an author quite
in distinction from his functions as an editor.
The more carefully each distinctive depart
ment of his activity is surveyed, the more en
hanced will be our wonder and admiration at
the range and variety of his intellectual fruit-
fulness. Dr. William V. Kelley, now the
veteran editor of Methodism, is quoted as say
ing: "In voluminous utterance in print and by
word of mouth no one except the founder
of Methodism has surpassed Dr. Buckley."
When the phenomenal intellectual product as
given out by John Wesley is considered, this
statement by Dr. Kelley would seem an exag
geration, but when one gives equal survey to
the literary and platform outgivings of Dr.
Buckley's mind, the statement cannot be
judged as overdrawn.
In the field of authorship alone, both in vo-
luminousness, variety, and quahty of literary
output, Dr. Buckley has achieved for himself
an enviable fame. Aside from numerous larger
166

AUTHOR 167
volumes standing to his credit, many worthy
pamphlets, and on a great variety of subjects,
have come from his prohfic pen. Of these
lesser pubhcations some were of ephemeral
interest, and it is not easy now to secure a com
plete hst of titles. The following may indicate
something of the variety and character of sub
jects upon which he wrote within the pamphlet
class. The Triumph of Man Over Nature, and
the Sublime Truth which It Estabhshes, As
Suggested by the Successful Laying of the
Atlantic Cable; Supposed Miracles, An Argu
ment for the Honor of Christianity as against
Superstition, and for its Truth as against Un
behef; Two Weeks in the Yosemite; An Ap
peal to Persons of Sense and Reflection to Be
gin a Christian Life; The Changes of Twenty-
five Years, April, 1883; Aaron Burr; The
Itinerant Ministry of the Methodist Episcopal
Church; Logical Consequences of Rejecting
Christianity; A Symposium on Evolution;
The Morality of Ministers; Capital Punish
ment; Traits of Human Nature; Palmistry;
The Phantom Fortress of Christian Science;
Dowie, Analyzed and Classified; Hymns and
Music; Dangers of the Emmanuel Movement;
Genuine Elements of Worship; A Pastor's
Counsel to a Serious Inquirer; Ingersoll

168 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
Under the Microscope; Studies in Physical
Culture; A Hereditary Consumptive's Suc
cessful Battle for Life; The Possible Influence
of Rational Conversation on the Insane — such
are a few of the many topics discussed in the
briefer publications.
Of the foregoing list it should be said that
several of the subjects were originally given in
the forms of addresses, while others appeared
as articles in various periodicals, such as: the
Methodist Review, The Homiletic Monthly,
The Forum, The Chautauquan, The North
American Review, The Century Magazine.
These lesser publications, however intrinsically
meritorious in themselves, receive large signifi
cance from the fact that they represent the
spontaneous, and seemingly irrepressible, over
flow of a wide-seeing and fruitfully creative
mind. In the field of book publications, at least a
dozen rich and informing volumes, some of
large dimensions, all representing wide and ac
curate research, stand as products of his
authorship. The titles of his principal books,
and in the order of their pubhcation, are as fol
lows: Christians and the Theater; Oats or
Wild Oats; The Midnight Sun; Faith Heal
ing, Christian Science, and Kindred Phe-

AUTHOR 169
nomena ; Travels in Three Continents ; History
of Methodism (in two volumes) ; Extempora
neous Oratory; The Fundamentals and their
Contrasts; The Wrong and Peril of Woman
Suffrage; Theory and Practice of Foreign
Missions; Constitutional and Parliamentary
History of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
His first book, Christians and the Theater,
was written when the author was under forty
years of age, and in the period of his active
pastoral hfe. In this he purposed to write a
book every sentence of which should be perti
nent, and from which nothing should be
omitted which was vital to his subject. He
wished to be truthful, clear, and just in every
utterance. He laid down as his foundation
premises his own experiences in younger life
with the theater, careful analysis of many
leading contemporary plays, as also the historic
deliverances of standard evangelical churches.
Proceeding from these bases, his clear and re
lentless logic leads him to the following con
clusion: "No habit which does not imply a pos
itive renunciation of morality is more perni
cious than that of theater-going; and . . .
whatever may have occurred in isolated cases,
he who intends to lead a thoroughly religious
life must renounce the theater."

170 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
To most young men nearing the threshold of
active hfe, a grave question is, "What calling
shall I adopt?" It is a query which for many
is coupled with a Sphinxhke perplexity. It is
not to be wondered at that, in this congested,
competing age, many a young man is in a con
dition of dubious, if not discouraging, uncer
tainty concerning his choice of a life calling.
Our author admits for himself to having made
"several unwise choices and false starts in hfe."
When he became editor of a widely circulated
hterary and religious periodical, he had not
only himself been a wide and sympathetic ob
server of the perplexities besetting young men,
but he was constantly in receipt, from far and
near, of letters seeking his advice on many
problems which confront the life of the young.
Thus was suggested to him the opportunity, of
which he was so well qualified to take advan
tage, of writing a series of helpful counsels to
young men. These letters afterward appeared
in a volume entitled Oats or Wild Oats. This
book was pubhshed now more than thirty years
ago. But for variety and range of practical
questions relating to the hfe of young men, and
for sane and wise discussion of the same, it
would be difficult even now to find for its pur
pose a more fitting or pertinent book.

AUTHOR 171
For consideration of the books on travel,
such as The Midnight Sun, Travels in Three
Continents, and other kindred writings, the
reader is referred to the chapter on travels.
The mind of young Buckley from earliest
childhood was exceedingly alert and observant.
In his boyhood neighborhood there were some
mentally defective children. In these he be
came intensely interested. Later, one day a
man of prepossessing appearance and manners
called upon his mother, and suddenly turning
to James, said: "I have a vast estate; a large
number of horses; some of them Shetland
ponies; two hundred and fifty singing birds,
some of which will light upon my shoulders and
head, and sing like angels. If you will come to
see me, I will give you a pony and also two
singing birds, and a whole wagon full of flow
ers." After his departure Mrs. Buckley had
to tell James that this man was "crazy." He
did not quite apprehend the meaning of the
term. But some time afterward he was priv
ileged to accompany the warden through the
insane asylum at Trenton, when he was nearly
struck dumb by discovering, clad in a strait
jacket, the man who three or four years before
had promised him the birds and the horses.
These early incidents may serve to indicate

172 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
the initial awakening of Dr. Buckley's interest
in the phenomena of abnormal mentality. He
has furnished an interesting list of the subjects
in this general department which have com
manded his expert attention. He says: "The
abnormalities that interest me are not those of
wickedness, but such conditions in general as
are 'out of fix.' Those which I have studied
more than any other division of knowledge are
such as these: idiocy, imbecility from birth,
mental derangements, delusions, hallucinations
of the sane, trances, mental or physical epi
demics, panics of any kind and the effect of
drugs, drinks, and certain vegetables on the
mind and emotions. To these I add certain
diseases and habits which produce abnormal
ities; also Spiritualism so called, Christian
Science so called, Faith Healers so called; in
brief, all alleged methods of curing diseases
which throw away surgery and medicine en
tirely, declaring that the 'spirits' or the answer
to prayer will cure."
To these subjects he, for a period of years,
devoted his leisure time and spare money, and
it is his expressed judgment that these investi
gations have been of more use to him than any
other studies he has ever pursued. In these
studies it was his aim to be thoroughly funda-

AUTHOR 173
mental. It was to him an early surprise to dis
cover that no satisfactory criteria had as yet
been developed for deciding and placing the
real values of the apparent and diverse phe
nomena in this general field. After giving these
large and occult phenomena exhaustive study,
he adopted as working laws for himself, the
following: First, before endeavoring to explain
apparent phenomena, it is necessary to deter
mine what facts really exist ; second, so long as
it is possible to find a rational explanation of
what unquestionably is, there is no reason to
suspect, and it is superstition to assume, the
operation of supernatural causes.
The ripe fruits of his studies in the various
departments indicated are given in his volume,
Faith Healing, Christian Science, and Kindred
Phenomena. This book was published by the
Century Company in 1892. Though a period
of nearly twenty-five years has passed since its
appearance, and though during this period the
whole field of psychic phenomena has been
searchingly and increasingly explored, it may
be safely assumed that for a conscientious sur
vey and searching analysis of facts, and for
a thoroughly rational and convincing account
ing for the same, it would not be easy to find
in all the crowded range of psychic literature

174 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
a more sane or scientific statement of the
case than is presented in this volume. Our
author is thoroughly rationalistic in his dis
cussion of the entire subject. He probably
has not said the last word. The psychic
universe is as yet but little explored. From
its vast and shadowy spaces there come in
numerable, even if mute appeals to all that is
mystical in the soul or mind of man. As
against the convictions of such men as Sir
Oliver Lodge, Alfred Tennyson, James Rus
sell Lowell, William James, and unnumbered
other seerlike minds, we may modestly hesitate
before resting in the verdict that their conclu
sions as to outlying psychic phenomena are
at best but worthless vagaries of speculative
thought. But whatever may be the future
shaping of philosophic thought or conviction
concerning many now occult psychic questions,
Dr. Buckley can never lose rank as one of the
most thorough, competent, and sane investi
gators in the wide, various, and pathetic re
gions of the world's abnormal mentahty.
In the closing decades of the last century a
publishing firm chartered as The Christian
Literature Company enterprised a series of
histories of the religious denominations in the
United States. To the overtures of this com-

AUTHOR 175
pany Dr. Buckley responded in the produc
tion of two stout volumes, entitled History of
Methodism. No man in the denomination was
better furnished, or could be more fittingly ap
pealed to, for this task. The completed work,
which was conscientiously and painstakingly
achieved, has been the subject of wide and for
the most part favorable criticism.
An elaborate review in The Independent,
in addition to much else, says the following:
"A good portion of the work, about one
seventh, is devoted to the English genesis. No
history of a rehgious organization would be
complete without treating the origins, however
remote the geography; and while this work is
strictly a history of the Methodists in the
United States, the history would have been
dwarfed at the outset unless the conditions in
England in the seventeenth and eighteenth
cnturies had been recognized. . . .
"The author warms to his theme the moment
he touches the western shore of the Atlantic.
To wander along the dry paths of the Enghsh
reigns before the Georges, and then through
the former half of the eighteenth century, has
but httle that is inspiring in it ; yet the setting
was necessary for the subject in hand. How
ever, as soon as the author sees the readiness of

176 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
the English Methodists to cross the ocean to
build up far-off societies and to begin their
larger history, he becomes more intense. Here
we find one of the strongest departments of
the whole work — the view of how the first
Methodists did their wise building, their sacri
fice and energy, the intrenched institutions and
agencies which contested every step of the new
advance, the secret of their success. . . .
The careful grouping of the various beneficent
and educational societies and institutions of the
Church occupies one of the closing chapters.
It furnishes one of the finest views anywhere
to be found of the philanthropic and practical
character of the evangelism of Wesley and his
followers in evolving so beautiful, so varied,
and so systematic a ministry of good ahke to
the bodies, the minds, and the souls of men."
It is perhaps enough to say of this History
of Methodism that it will hold a worthy place
among the standard surveys of what, on the
whole, must be regarded as one of the most phe
nomenal and vital spiritual movements which
have arisen within the Christian centuries.
In the year 1898 there was issued from Dr.
Buckley's pen a most exceptional and useful
book — Extemporaneous Oratory. Oratory,
one of the greatest, is also one of the oldest of

AUTHOR 177
the arts. It is an art which will never be super
seded. The press has come to be a kind of
omniscient purveyor of information to all the
world. In this respect it has largely substi
tuted the public function of the speaker. But
we can conceive of no civilization so intellec
tually furnished as no longer to find place or
need for the effective persuasiveness of oratory.
The human voice, vibrant with emotion, in
toned with conviction, uttering great and im
passioned truth direct to the hearts and minds
of men, will always remain a universal instru
ment for moving the human will to decision
and to action. In all the parliaments of the
world, in the halls of legislation, in the courts of
justice, in the great forums where are discussed
the highest issues of civihzation, the human
voice will remain the one paramount instru
ment of utterance and of persuasion. It is
likely always as such to hold an unrivaled place
in the highest contacts of mind with mind.
Eloquence of a kind is indispensable to the
largest success of the teacher. God himself
has ordained preaching as a supreme agency
for carrying the tidings of Christ's kingdom to
all mankind.
No book, certainly none pubhshed in
America, upon this subject, and confined to

178 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
equal space, has ever appealed by a more wise
or helpful philosophy of the art to those who
would acquire success in pubhc speaking. The
author himself has been one of the most suc
cessful extemporaneous speakers both in the
pulpit and on the platform known to the
American pubhc. Apt speaking and correct
thinking seem with him a process as natural as
breathing. His entire intellectual history illus
trates a habit of thorough mastery of any sub
ject for the mental handling of which he has
assumed responsibility. As a mere youth, in
tending at some time to enter the profession of
law, he became interested in forensic pleadings
in the courts, and in societies organized for de
bate. When finally he became a preacher,
from the first, the art of most effectively deliv
ering his messages became to him a subject of
absorbing interest and study. After having
thoroughly tested all prescribed methods, he
definitely decided for himself on the extem
poraneous method. In the use of this method
he has long been recognized as well-nigh a peer
less master. The age has furnished no more
successful or experienced expert in the art.
His own conception and definition of ex
temporaneous oratory is given as follows : "The
dehvery, in an arrangement of words, sen-

AUTHOR 179
fences, and' paragraphs, entirely the birth of
the occasion, of ideas previously conceived and
adopted with more or less fullness and preci
sion, together with such thoughts and feelings
as may arise and obtain utterance." In pre
senting his ideal, he further says : "To the con
sciousness of the speaker his own mental state
is similar to that of one participating in an
animated conversation — there being no effort
to recollect, no anticipation of what is to come,
but entire absorption in the process of evolving,
in correct forms of speech, the thought in
tended to be expressed."
This book has received wide attention from
reviewers on both sides of the Atlantic. The
Methodist Review, speaking of the author,
says: "Dr. Buckley's book will be of greatest
advantage to young ministers and others who
wish to cultivate the most effective style of
oratory. He treats the subject from every
point of view with great vigor and vivacity,
with abundant illustration, and often with
humorous anecdotes. He sets forth the phys
ical, mental, and moral preparation. He
points out the causes of failure, the difficulties
of many attempts at extemporaneous speech;
and the supreme advantage it affords when
achieved."

180 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
The Hon. Andrew D. White, when Ambas
sador to the Court of Berlin, in an autograph
letter says: "No end of thanks for your book
on Extemporaneous Oratory. It has de
lighted me. I began by dipping into it at vari
ous places which seemed hkely to interest me
and soon found myself reading in both direc
tions through the book. Your work is sure to
be of great value, first as a stimulus of the right
kind to students, and finally as exercising the
sort of moral influence which people given to
oratory especially need." The New York Sun
says: "The book contains everything that any
body can think of about oratory. It is very
interesting." The Methodist Times of London says: "We
should regard with intense interest anything
which he had to say or write upon pubhc speak
ing, oratory, of which art he is a master. But
the work he has just pubhshed is one which sur
passes even the high expectations we formed of
its merits. It is at once the most detailed and
most practical and useful book on public
speaking and on the art of preaching which we
have read. It is a most enhghtening book for
preachers. It will widen their whole horizon
even more than it will teach them the arts of
oratory. What many speakers seem to regard

AUTHOR 181
as insignificant details, such as the strengthen
ing and modulations of the voice, the pitch and
tones, and the constant enriching of the vo
cabulary, are here given their due importance.
The physiological basis of speech, the proper
use and assimilation of words, the general
preparation of thought and physical training,
the use of anecdotes, similes, and illustrations,
the preparation of feeling, and the way to pro
tect oneself against failure, are all subjects of
wise and thoughtful chapters. At the close of
a chapter on 'General Preparation of Feeling'
we have this sterling advice to the preacher:
'More effectual than all other helps, because it
includes and purifies all, is an earnest, reverent
Christian hfe, equally removed from cant and
superstition. Its roots being faith, hope, and
love, the fruit is a perennial flow of pure and
helpful emotion.'" The English Methodist
Recorder says : "We believe that if our Meth
odist students in England would carefully read
this volume — and they would find it quite the
reverse of difficult or distasteful — they would
learn from it much common sense, and be saved
from many twangs and vicious tricks which
ruin so many of our Enghsh and American
pubhc speakers and preachers. We should
strongly advise the committee responsible for

182 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
selecting the books which probationers are
required to read, to consider very seriously Dr.
Buckley's volume."
Such are a few of the significant appraisals
of this book as selected from many sources.
The volume throughout its hf etime thus far has
been one of the "best sellers." It is worthy to
be in the hands of every student who aspires in
any measure to proficiency in public speech.
Time may add to its present wealth of mate
rial, but its philosophy of the subject is so
fundamental, its scope and detail so complete,
its illustrative quality so rich and vivid, its
entire treatment so sane, as to render it highly
improbable that it can be wisely superseded for
an indefinite time to come.
In the year 1905 Dr. Buckley delivered the
third course of lectures on the Quillian Foun
dation at Emory College, Oxford, Georgia.
The course consisted of six lectures with the
following titles: "Religions and Rehgion";
"No God"; "Many Gods or One"; "Inspira
tion and Revelation"; "False and Distorted
Forms of Christianity" ; "The Indestructibility
of Christianity." These lectures, both in their
composition and delivery, bore the stamp of
their author's characteristic ability. They
evince wide and accurate research. Under the

AUTHOR 183
title The Fundamentals and their Contrasts,
as required by the conditions of the foundation
on which they were dehvered, they were pub
lished in book form as the property of Emory
College. In the year 1909 The Wrong and Peril of
Woman Suffrage was produced. It is needless
to say that this book installed itself at once as
a voice to be heard, whether heeded or not, at
one of the very storm-centers of pubhc thought
and conviction. Renewed discussion, however
ably or resourcefully conducted, of a subject
as widely and sensitively lodged in the public
mind as is that of woman suffrage, is not likely
much to change the attitude of those already
committed to one side or the other of the ques
tion at issue. Men and women generally,
where their convictions and preferences are
enlisted, are not likely to be practically con
vinced by opposing arguments. New and
fundamental discussion of old questions, how
ever illuminating to the subjects themselves,
for their effectiveness upon public opinion
must rely, if at all, upon appeal either to a
noncommitted, or to a young and open-
minded, constituency. No better illustration
of this general truth could be sought than is
furnished in connection with this particular

184 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
book. The sensitiveness of the public mind to
the question discussed is evidenced by the in
stant flare of criticism, pro and con, which the
appearance of the book awakened.
Extremely diverse opinions were uttered as
to its merits. One reviewer says, "We can only
advise everyone to read the book, believing that
all who bring to it an open mind will agree with
the conclusion of the author, that neither the
state, the family, nor woman herself, would be
benefited, but, on the contrary, would be in
jured, if she were invested with the suffrage."
Another reviewer as previously noted, says:
"The book neither takes notice of the modern
arguments for woman suffrage nor success
fully controverts the old ones. . . . The
book may contribute to the amusement of a
collector of intellectual curiosities." As be
tween these extremes of view, a wide and vari
ous criticism found utterance.
In general, it is conceded that the book is
a marvel of condensation, and that its entire
argument is most lucidly and forcefully de
veloped. Senator George F. Hoar, with
whom, through the Century Magazine, Dr.
Buckley debated the question, declared that in
his judgment the Doctor had presented the
"strongest argument ever made on that side."

AUTHOR 185
Yet Senator Hoar, a doughty suffragist, was
not converted to the view of him whose argu
ment he so eulogizes. It was sometimes stated,
especially in view of the temper of the public
mind on the question, that only a man of brave
soul, a man willing to face unpopularity in
many quarters, could venture on such a publi
cation. It was generally acknowledged that
the book deals fairly with opposing views.
One writer says, "The arguments for woman
suffrage are fairly and admirably stated, and
one cannot read the book without being im
pressed with its candor and reasonableness."
Another says : "Dr. Buckley states frankly the
arguments dear to suffragettes, and popularly
supposed to be the irresistible reason of their
contention. To be sure, he states them to
refute them, but so far as the lay reader is able
to judge the statements suffer nothing on that
account." The impression of the author's views on this
and similar questions will linger long in the
mind of the Church. It is but just that,
coupled with this impression, there should re
main no false or distorted views concerning his
personal attitude toward woman. He was in
finitely far from opposing woman suffrage
because of any personal conviction of either

186 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
woman's inferiority or unworthiness. Indeed,
his opposition, in its most intense forms, arose
from convictions exactly the opposite of these.
He believed fully that to woman there are
divinely assigned the loftiest and holiest func
tions required under the most ideal develop
ments of home and civilization. He was never
able to divest himself of the view, which really
has in it a world of wholesomeness, that how
ever refined, vital, and distinctive may be the
legitimate sphere of woman, yet, while comple
mentary to, it is eternally distinctive from, the
sphere divinely designed for man. His gen
eral view may be best stated in his own terms :
"Should the duty of governing in the state be
imposed upon woman, all the members of so
ciety would suffer — children by diminished care
from mothers; husbands from the increase of
the contentions and the decline of the attrac
tions of home; young men and maidens from
the destruction of the ideahsm which invests the
family with such charms as to make the hope
of a home of one's own 'where in the contrast of
the sexes hfe may be ever a delight,' an impulse
to economy and virtue — but the greatest suf
ferer would be woman."
He further says : "The true woman needs no
governing authority conferred upon her by

AUTHOR 187
law. In the present situation the highest evi
dence of respect that man can exhibit toward
woman, and the noblest service he can per
form for her, is to vote No to the proposi
tion that would take from her the diadem of
pearls, the talisman of faith, hope, and love,
and substitute for them the iron crown of
authority." The foregoing quotations should be accepted
as expressing the sincere and profound convic
tions of one who was a wide observer of society,
a most acute and discriminating student of hu
man nature. He firmly believed that he was
deahng with questions which lie at the very
foundations of the social and political weal.
While many may not be able to accept either
the philosophy or the logic of his position in
relation to woman suffrage, yet he is entitled
only to honor for the courage, the fidelity, the
patriotism, and the abihty with which, as he
believes in the sole interests of the pubhc good,
he comes to the defense of his convictions.
From a plane of exalted idealism, Dr. Buckley
gave foremost honor to womanhood. As
pastor of large churches he encouraged the co
operation of women in all spiritual work. As
husband and father in the home he was a model
of affability, courtesy, and affection.

188 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
The last notable volume from Dr. Buckley's
pen is entitled Constitutional and Parlia
mentary History of the Methodist Episcopal
Church. This work, long promised, was
brought to completion in 1912. The book is
not, nor was it intended to be, a general history
of Methodism, nor of the Methodist Episcopal
Church. Its chief purpose is to trace the evo
lution and development of the constitution of
the Methodist Episcopal Church. Within this
scope it treats with clear and logical coordi
nation all the factors, consisting of documents,
debates, persons, offices and orders, Confer
ences, General, Annual, and Quarterly, and
with the movements of the Methodist Epis
copal Church in all countries so far as these
factors have contributed to, or have themselves
been modified by, the constitution.
A second and minor section of the work
treats of the parliamentary history of the de
nomination, and has for its purpose the clear
setting forth of the importance, the functions,
and the generic rules of debate as often a de
cisive factor in shaping the parliamentary life
of the Church.
A few sentences from many encomiums
which this book has received from reviewers are
herewith given. "The author never writes for

AUTHOR 189
sheer pastime. He thinks, plans, argues, de
bates, and writes for the one purpose of mak
ing his readers agree with him. The emphasis
he places on debate is npt to be wondered at.
He shows that debate is the power of vital per
sonahty in contrast with the dead documentary
or cold storage power of documentary evi
dence." "It is a history rather than a discus
sion, albeit it is at times so graphic as to remind
one of Froude. Being a history, it is scarcely
an argument; the self -repression of its distin
guished author, who can argue fourteen rea
sons in almost as many seconds for his posi
tions, is almost to be marveled at. . . . The
book goes thoroughly into the presiding elder
ship (shall it be elective, etc.) ; the bisection of
the Church in 1844 ; the episcopacy, bishops for
races and languages, the superannuation of
bishops, the veto power of bishops, etc. . . .
We voice the feehngs of multiplied thousands
in congratulating the Church on this book, and
the distinguished writer on both his vivacity
and patience in adding this permanent contri
bution to our' resources." "It brings together
in luminous and pertinent quotations the prin
cipal documents of our constitutional history,
making them accessible to the general reader
in this convenient volume. The highest praise

190 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
perhaps that could be given such a work would
be to say that the text of the history by which
the documents and wisely selected quotations
from the sources are woven into a continuous
account is so accordant with the sources as to
form a connected whole."
In an autograph letter, Vice-President Fair
banks says: "I heartily congratulate you upon
your great work. The whole Church is your
grateful debtor." The Hon. George G. Rey
nolds, justice of the Supreme Court of the
State of New York, and for two terms the
parishioner of Dr. Buckley, writes : "The whole
book is one of the most informing I have read.
. . . The chapters on the Restrictive Rules
are worth careful study by all who care to
understand the history and position of our
Church. Likewise those on the causes and
manner of the 'bisection' of the Church, and
the introduction of lay delegation. These are
some of the salient points which impress me on
the first reading." Professor Milton S. Terry
writes: "I found it so entertaining, and even
fascinating, that I read it through within forty-
eight hours after I received it. . . . You
have accomplished a most useful task, and seem
to me to have done it with praiseworthy ex
cellence. Your chapters on the 'Third Restric-

AUTHOR 191
tive Rule' are of great value. Those on the
'Lay Delegation Movement' revive most inter
esting memories. The last chapter of the book
is a gem in its way. Your clear, accurate, dis
criminating portraiture of our great but many-
sided episcopal parliamentarians is a most re
markable piece of character-painting — truth
ful as it is picturesque. This volume is worthy
of all praise, and ought to have a wide circula
tion." Such are a few judgments, as taken from
many eminent sources, pronounced upon this
book. The book as a whole may be rated as
the most important single contribution to the
constitutional and parhamentary history of the
Methodist Episcopal Church. The volume
forms a fitting close to the cycle of Dr. Buck
ley's larger authorship. It is in every way
worthy of the resourceful and judicial mind
whence it sprang.
Standing, as in some measure I am per
mitted to do, under the impression which an
all-around review of the life of our subject is
adapted to create, I can bring no chapter of
this work to a close without a haunting sense of
the fractional, the incomplete, estimate of the
entire man which the most careful study of any
one department of his activities alone can fur-

192 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
nish. I am impressed that the close of this
chapter on a fruitful authorship may be only
one of many fitting points at which to remind
the reader that the moral and intellectual
measurement of Doctor Buckley cannot be
secured by a consideration, however careful, of
any single department of his work.
In reviewing his authorship alone, however
impressively may appear the wealth and va
riety of his knowledge and thought, as revealed
in his books, it would still be comparatively
easy for the reader to estimate his resourceful
ness from the standpoint of a detached and
partial basis. We shall never measure the real
intellectual greatness of the man save as we
pursue him into all the fields of his activity,
noting his equal at-homeness in many depart
ments of knowledge, taking careful account of
that mental alertness, comprehensive insight,
and balanced judgment, which enable him to
think sanely, and seemingly exhaustively, upon
every question of practical interest. Not until
we have gathered up all his productive proc
esses, and have coordinated them into the
huge sum of his creative work, not until this
inclusive exploration, does, or can, the man
appear to us as he really is — truly prodigious.

CHAPTER IX
ACADEMIC HONORS AND
OFFICIAL POSITIONS
A man signalized as an aggressive and con
structive promoter of humane interests, of bril
liant versatihty, and widely recognized as an
intellectual leader, is one whom educational
institutions honor themselves by honoring.
Dr. Buckley could not escape the academical
appendage. Not himself a college graduate in
cursu, yet, in diverse and far fields of learning,
he made himself so much more than the average
graduate ; in so many departments of scholar
ship and thought he estabhshed for himself
such authoritative standing as naturally and
inevitably to attract to himself attention from
the learned faculties.
From Wesleyan University he received hon
orary degrees as follows: Master of Arts in
1869 ; Doctor of Divinity in 1872. Emory and
Henry College, of Virginia, conferred upon
him the degree of Doctor of Laws, in 1882. A
few years later Syracuse University gave him
the degree of Doctor of Human Letters. If
it were not generally known that he was richly
193

194 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
supplied with these goods, doubtless other in
stitutions would have come forward to pay him
the tribute of like or kindred degrees. It is
certain, from the number of invitations which
came to him to deliver university and college
commencement addresses, that he had earned
for himself a commanding rank as measured by
the standards of the college world.
His knowledge was so large and practical,
his insight into conditions so quick and clear,
his judgment of men and methods so sane, as
to make him largely sought by representative
institutions as a working member on their ad
ministrative boards. All this aside from the
historic places held by him in leading pastor
ates, General Conference memberships, and
editorial work in his own denomination. Thus,
in educational work, he is a trustee of Wes
leyan University, of Goucher College, and of
the Drew Theological Seminary. He was
three times elected a delegate to world Ecu
menical Conferences of Methodism, those held
respectively in London in 1881, in Washington
in 1891, and in Toronto in 1911. He was a
delegate to the great World Missionary Con
ference held in Edinburgh in 1910.
The Board of Foreign Missions of the Meth
odist Episcopal Church is one of the great mis-

ACADEMIC HONORS 195
sionary organizations of the Protestant world.
His continuous membership in this body dates
from among the earliest of members now liv
ing. For many years he was vice-president,
and for three succeeding years he was president
of this Board.
Of various honorary organizations, he was
a member of the New England Society of New
York; of the Washington Society of New Jer
sey; a member of the Sons of the American
Revolution ; of the Society of Colonial Wars ;
and of the Methodist Historical Society of
New York. He was a vice-president of the
New York Society for the Prevention of Vice;
and also one of the judges to decide upon the
acceptance of candidates for place in the "Hall
of Fame." He has for many years been chair
man of the Board of Trustees of the New York
East Conference, a Board holding in adminis
trative custody a fund of approximately $300,-
000. His exhaustive study and expert knowledge
of the phenomena of abnormal mentality quite
naturally led up to his active interest in, and
to his official relations with, institutions con
ducted in the interests of the mentally unfortu
nate. One of the largest and best conducted
asylums for the insane in the entire country

196 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
is located at Morris Plains, New Jersey. He
was actively related to this institution for
twenty years ; was for six years vice-president,
and for three succeeding years president of
its Board of Managers. He was for a period
of five years a member of the Board of Man
agers of the State Hospital for the Insane at
Trenton, New Jersey. He was president of
the Board of Managers of the New Jersey
State Village for Epileptics from the time of
its estabhshment until his resignation in 1903.
An honor which he himself regarded as among
the highest which he had ever received, and in
which he took much satisfaction, was his elec
tion as an honorary member of the Medico-
Psychological Society of America.
In reviewing these official relations we shall
hardly give them a proper coordination save
as we give balanced consideration to the many
and exacting duties which he was simulta
neously performing on other and distinct lines
of work. The real wonder is, not that he was
able to do this or that particular thing with
the skill of an expert, but that he displayed
the ability to perform so many and various
duties, and so to discharge them all as in every
circle to command for himself the rank and
esteem of a leader.

ACADEMIC HONORS 197
It remains to give some narration of the one
institution with which from its beginnings, as
originator and manager, he has had the most
intimate and influential relations — The Meth
odist Episcopal Hospital, in the Borough of
Brooklyn, New York city. In introducing
this subject I am glad to avail myself of sec
tions of an address dehvered before the New
York East Conference, in April, 1912, on the
twenty-fifth anniversary of its opening, by the
Rev. Dr. Abram S. Kavanagh, then superin
tendent of the hospital. He said:
"When the New York East Conference con
vened twenty-five years ago, something new in
Methodism was taking place. For a century
and more we had achieved success as evangel
ists and church builders, and we had also be
come an educational force in the life of the
nation. But now a new conviction was slowly
but steadily making itself felt that the min
istry of Jesus was at once a preaching, teach
ing, and healing ministry. At that Conference
it was announced that within a few months the
western pavilion of the first Methodist Epis
copal Hospital in the world would be opened
for the reception of patients. That promise
was fulfilled December 15, 1887.
"Before the hospital was constructed, or

198 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
even had taken shape in the mind of an archi
tect, it was a reality in the thoughts and plans
and prayers of one man. It was born in an
hour of distress and pastoral anxiety. When
Dr. James M. Buckley was pastor in Stam
ford, Connecticut (1875-77), his organist met
with an accident in New York city which neces
sitated the amputation of an arm. He lay for
an hour upon the sidewalk before an ambulance
came, and later died in surroundings which
were far from being Christian.
"Dr. Buckley at once registered a vow that
some day, if possible, he would secure the erec
tion of a Methodist Episcopal Hospital. That
was the actual moment when the hospital was
founded. Therefore, strict accuracy must
push back the de facto date from 1881 to 1877.
When, in 1880, Dr. Buckley became editor of
The Christian Advocate, he lost no time in
seeking the fulfillment of his vow. His pur
pose was strengthened by certain investiga
tions which he, or his representatives, had made
among the hospitals in New York city, which
disclosed the fact that Saint Luke's Hospital
alone had cared for eight hundred and thirty-
three Methodists, most of whom were charity
patients. The editor's face burned with shame,
not that Saint Luke's had treated us so well,

ACADEMIC HONORS 199
but that Methodism was unable to reciprocate
her kindly deeds. The records of other hos
pitals also showed the same generous treatment
and at the same time emphasized our own de
nominational needs. These facts gave power
and pungency to perhaps the most effective
editorial that ever appeared in The Christian
Advocate. That article declared: 'The Meth
odist Episcopal Church is to-day, so far as we
can learn, without a hospital, a dispensary, an
industrial school, or, except in mission fields,
an orphan asylum under her control. We do
not beheve for one moment that this is the out
come of unfriendly conviction. It is the out
come of preoccupation; but now, is it not time
that somewhere we build a hospital?' "
The editorial referred to fell under the
watchful eye of George I. Seney, who early
sought an interview with the Editor, in the
course of which he submitted this proposition:
"I offer you sixteen eligible lots, valued at
$40,000, as a site, and $100,000 in cash toward
the erection of a Methodist Episcopal General
Hospital, which shall be open to Jew and Gen
tile, Protestant and Cathohc, heathen and in
fidel, on the same terms." A little later Mr.
Seney wrote to Dr. Buckley, saying: "My dear
Sir: I have read with great mterest the two

200 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY.
pamphlets you left with me. You may make
my subscription $200,000 instead of $100,000."
Subsequently Mr. Seney purchased, in a beau
tiful location, on the slope west of Prospect
Park in the city of Brooklyn, an entire city
block, containing about three and one fifth
acres, and costing $70,000, substituting this
for the original sixteen lots as first proposed.
Upon this site the hospital now stands. Mr.
Seney continued his gifts until they reached a
total of more than $410,000.
Soon after the securement of Mr. Seney's
original gifts a Board of Managers, made up
of representative men, was duly selected and
authorized. This Board was organized Au
gust 2, 1881, with James M. Buckley as presi
dent, and James N., afterwards Bishop, Fitz-
Gerald, as secretary. From this date up to the
present writing, a period of nearly thirty-six
years, Dr. Buckley has been continuously the
president of this Board. This record here need
not be enlarged upon, but it is certainly in itself
a significant history.
In his address on the twenty-fifth anniver
sary of the hospital. Dr. Kavanagh further
says: "It is natural that the man of commercial
instincts should measure our success by the

ACADEMIC HONORS 201
buildings erected, the facilities furnished, and
the endowments created. The man of science
will gauge our work by scientific research and
discoveries, but the philanthropist will ask how
many suffering men and women have we re
stored to their families?
"Here are a few suggestive figures: The
hospital during its first year treated 315 pa
tients; the fifth year, 1,097; the tenth year,
1,339; the fifteenth year, 1,984; the twentieth
year, 3,267; and the last year, 4,554. . . .
Since the hospital was opened we have cared
for 42,879 in our wards and rooms, and 100,000
in our dispensary. One item of special interest
to ministers and missionaries is this : since the
hospital was opened we have cared for 736 min
isters or dependent members of their families.
This work has been done at a cost of $128,500
to the hospital, physicians, and surgeons.
"Further, a careful estimate, based upon the
free work of last year, shows that since the hos
pital was opened she has expended in free work
$945,000, and the gratuitous services of the
physicians and surgeons represent at least
$846,000. That is, $1,791,000 is a decidedly
conservative statement of the free work of the
hospital, attending physicians and surgeons."
It is to be borne in mind that these figures

202 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
as stated represent only the work of the first
twenty-five years of the hospital's history.
Since their rendering, a fifth year of ever
growing enlargement and usefulness for the
institution has been entered upon. The hos
pital to-day has properties in lands, buildings,
and endowments that are conservatively worth
$3,000,000. It has modern appliances for its
work. Its medical and surgical services are
unsurpassed. Its beneficent mission is beyond
all description or measurement, and yet it is
only in the beginnings of its history. It is or
dained for a future whose ministries of bless
ing will continue richly to multiply through
indefinite years. In this history its originators
and early supporters will perpetually hve in
the ceaseless service of humane and merciful
deeds which the institution founded by them
shall make continuously possible for the meet
ing of human needs.
A good seed planted by a single hand in a
receptive soil may yield a multiplied fruitage
of beneficence. Mr. Seney had made a great
beginning to this hospital when his ability for
further giving was exhausted. His larger
gifts were supplemented by donations from a
multitude of other givers, many of whose gifts
were notable for size and generosity. The

ACADEMIC HONORS 203
memorials of these all shall never perish. But
still the institution was critically in need of
large benefactions. When Mr. Seney's work
was done, the finely conceived Administration
Building was only partially finished, still re
quiring to make it usable the outlay of a
fortune for its completion. The same was true
also of one of the fine pavihons whose walls and
roof were only outwardly complete, its win
dows being boarded over, and its entire interior
remaining unfinished. For the meeting of
these larger needs there was in preparation a
young business man whose ear and heart were
alike open to the Providential call — Mr. Wil
liam Halls, Jr. In the emergent hour Mr.
Halls, with the most sympathetic cooperation
of his wife, came forward with successive gifts
aggregating more than $175,000, through
which both the Administrative Building and
the Pavihon perfectly completed were passed
over to the Board of Managers as working
factors for hospital use, thereby adding more
than one hundred per cent to the practical ca
pacity of the institution.
It is not the purpose of this writing to pre
sent a history of the hospital further than as it
may serve to illustrate and emphasize the in
fluence of the man who is the subject of this

204 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY,
general narrative. The forces which have their
birth in a single character may sometimes be
traced to large fruitage. Such is certainly true
in this instance. The Methodist Episcopal
Church to-day might be in possession of nu
merous well-equipped hospitals had Dr. Buck
ley never hved. But, so far as we can see, there
is no visible evidence that such would be the
case. In any event, we can clearly trace the
history of this first great hospital in Methodism
to Dr. Buckley as its inspiring source. We
know that as editor of the leading journal of
his denomination, he was a constant and power
ful educator and stimulator of conviction in the
direction of creating the denominational hos
pital. It has been observed as a matter of history
that great and needed movements often spring
simultaneously in creative minds. It is as
though some seminal influence were working in
the general atmosphere of the time. So, as Dr.
Kavanagh said in his anniversary address:
"When Dr. Buckley first conceived the idea of
a Methodist Hospital, others in other places
were thinking out great hospital plans. That
this was the case is evident from the fact that
while our hospital was opened December 15,
1887, the Wesley Hospital in Chicago was

ACADEMIC HONORS 205
opened Thanksgiving Day, 1888. Dr. Scott
Stewart, of Philadelphia, was also planning for
a hospital at the same time ; and, accordingly,
made provision in his will, bearing date of
November 1, 1877, for the founding of a Meth
odist Hospital in Philadelphia. He died June
29, 1881. His bequest was accepted by the
Philadelphia Conference March, 1882, and the
hospital was opened for the reception of pa
tients April 21, 1892. Others followed in this
succession, as near as we can secure the dates
of their founding: in Cincinnati, 1890; Minne
apolis, 1892; Omaha, 1892; Sibley Memorial,
Washington, D. C, 1894; Seattle, 1898; Des
Moines, 1901; Bethany German, Brooklyn,
1902; Indianapolis, 1905; Boston, 1907; Spo
kane, 1907; Cleveland, 1908; Los Angeles,
1909." Since the foregoing enumeration was made,
other like institutions have been founded. It
would be simply impossible, either in statistics
or thought, to measure the beneficent ministries
conducted within the walls of these institu
tions. Their skilled and merciful touch is hke
the Divine Hand laid upon the diseases and
wounds of a whole army of suffering men,
women, and children. The institutions alone,
as above named, form a great and illustrious

206 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
succession, a succession facing a future of con
tinuous enlargement in all that pertains to a
merciful ministry to man's physical needs.
But when we review this splendid procession,
we hail as the leader and the greatest of them
all, the one institution which was born in
the vow of the Stamford pastor, in the year
1877. As a typical example of the Christian motive
and spirit which pervade the work of this hos
pital, it seems not unfitting that a hymn com
posed for the twenty-fifth anniversary occasion
by the Rev. Dr. F. Watson Hannan should be
here included.
Beside Bethesda's fountain cool,
Once stood the gracious Lord;
More power than in the troubled pool
Was in his healing word.
Through all the ages to this hour
His tender help was near.
He ministers through human power
In our Bethesda here.
God bless the hands that reared these walls,
The consecrated wealth
That opened corridors and halls
To those who seek for health.
Physician's skill and nurses' care
Make patients whole again;
And through the power of fervent prayer
Comes faith that conquers pain.

ACADEMIC HONORS 207
No race or creed a bar shall be,
No test to cause a fear;
Wide as the Master's sympathy
Prevails the spirit here.
To suffering flesh the welcome hands
Extend to all who come.
This house of healing ever stands
A Hospital and Home.
The twenty-fifth anniversary of the opening
of the hospital was signalized by a crowning
event. In view of Dr. Buckley's long, devoted,
and influential services to the institution, it
arose in the hearts of his friends to commemo
rate the year by placing a bronze bust of the
president of the Board in the central hall of
the hospital where it might perpetually stand
as a memorial of his work. The celebrated
sculptor Gutzon Borglum was engaged to
execute the work. The event of presenting the
bust was duly signalized on Monday, February
26, 1912, by a "Testimonial Luncheon" given
at the Hotel Saint Denis in New York city.
On this occasion many invited guests were
present. Mr. John M. Bulwinkle, of Brook
lyn, was toastmaster. Happy and appropriate
greetings were uttered by several speakers, to
which Dr. Buckley feehngly and fittingly re
sponded. The event was widely noted in the press.

208 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
Hon. St. Clair McKelway, editor of the
Brooklyn Eagle, himself one of the speakers
of the occasion, and a long time warm personal
friend of Dr. Buckley, wrote as follows:
"Monday was an occasion in the hfe of Dr.
Buckley. Some of the clerical and lay mem
bers of converging Methodist Conferences and
pastorates vitalized by him, signahzed the com
pletion and unveiling of a bronze bust of this
clergyman, orator, editor, and author, and
made him listen to what they thought of him.
The bust is the creation of Gutzon Borglum,
the celebrated sculptor, and as a work of art
and vision those who know art and have the
prophetic sense declare it to be a masterpiece.
Its home is to be the hospital of whose board
of trustees the doctor is the head. Besides Mr.
Borglum some other speakers were Bishop
Luther B. Wilson, D.D., LL.D., of Philadel
phia; the Rev. Dr. Eugene A. Noble, of Dick
inson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; James
W. Pearsall of the Board of Trustees ; Judge
George G. Reynolds, of Brooklyn; Dr. A.
Ross Matheson; the Rev. Dr. Wilham V.
Kelley, of Brooklyn; the Rev. Dr. George P.
Eckman, of New York; the Rev. Ralph B.
Urmy, of Newark, New Jersey ; and the Rev.
Dr. Robert Bagnell.

ACADEMIC HONORS 209
"The addresses were eloquent, sincere, affec
tionate. Memory, tribute, humor, and hope
marked them, and love crowned all. Besides,
Abram S. Kavanagh, D.D., chaplain of the
hospital, gave the nub of many letters from
friends who could not be present, who were
sorry they could not be and who opened their
hearts to Dr. Buckley and his hosts.
"The occasion will long be remembered.
Few men equal clergymen in public addresses.
No clergymen excel Methodist ministers in the
oratory of affection, congratulation, and fel
lowship. . . . Such words as Bishop Wilson,
Judge Reynolds and Dr. Noble said, with not
a few words of other men, will be cherished as
wonders and models. Best of all, the personal
and affectionate side of Dr. Buckley were mag
nified, his learning, his controversial and his lit
erary powers being well enough attested by his
long and illustrious career."
"Whatever dies, or is forgot —
Work done for God, it dieth not."
"You can never tell when you do an act
Just what the result will be;
But with every deed you are sowing a seed,
Though its harvest you may not see.
Each kindly act is an acorn dropped
In God's productive soil;
Though you may not know, yet the tree shall grow
And shelter the brows that toil."

CHAPTER X
CHAUTAUQUA— WIT AND
WISDOM
One institution, distinctly American, cos
mopolitan in breadth, for the promotion of
popular education, an agency of unmeasured
influence and efficiency, itself sustained and
vitahzed by wide public sympathies, is — Chau
tauqua. John Heyl Vincent, intellectually bril
liant, constructive as a thinker, sensitively alive
to every thought-movement of the age, a man
of quickest wit, warm-hearted, proverbially the
sympathetic friend and sane counselor of young
life, would, by sheer force of personal charm,
culture and power, most naturally win for him
self high rank among the elect men of the age.
It was fitting that for many years he should
hold, par excellence, the place of supreme
standard bearer and grand marshal of the great
and growing Sunday school army of his de
nomination. It was probably inevitable that
the Methodist Episcopal Church should have
made him a bishop. But the one institution in
connection with which Bishop Vincent's genius
210

CHAUTAUQUA 211
received most impressive accentuation, and the
most valuable product of his creative talent,
the one throne of his supreme and most valu
able influence, the one movement that will halo
his name with enduring fame, is — Chautau
qua. Chautauqua is unique. As a single organic
institution it has perhaps more nearly than
any other organization in America — probably
in the entire educational world — worthily
achieved the rank, in a large democratic sense,
of a popular university. From its early history
it has had organized departments and has fur
nished facilities for popular instruction in
nearly all useful branches of knowledge. Its
platform, on whose utterances through all the
years untold thousands of most alert young
minds have waited in eager and expectant
mood, has been signally honored, first and last,
by the presence of foremost experts from
nearly all departments of human thought and
learning. Chautauqua has stood for no "pent
up Utica" of ideas. The passport to its teach
ing faculty — it might be said its "Faculty Cos
mopolitan" — irrespective of creed or race, has
inhered simply in the demonstrated ability and
the guaranteed moral character of the teacher.
Who can doubt that the unstinted hospitality,

212 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
or if not this, at least the generous toleration,
which Chautauqua has always shown toward
the honest intellectual hfe, carries in itself a
great and significant lesson for the moral
teachers of the age? The large intellectual
catholicity of Chautauqua, itself a long-recog
nized center of mental stimulation, of moral
healthfulness, and of Christian illumination,
goes far to explain the sustained and widely
vitahzing influence of the institution itself
upon the popular mind.
Nothing less than what is here stated would
seem an adequate introduction to Dr. Buck
ley's personal relations to Chautauqua. The
roster of Chautauqua educators and lecturers
holds a long list of illustrious names. In this
list are represented many of the world's fore
most celebrities. It is clearly within the facts,
however, to say that of this famous company,
Dr. Buckley is signally the dean over all.
From the Chautauqua platform, in all its
years, no one has uttered so many wise and
witty words, and on such a variety of themes,
as has he. For a period of more than thirty
years, beginning with 1877, except in a few
instances when he was absent from the country,
he spoke successively from this platform.
Within this period, including his sermons and

CHAUTAUQUA 213
lectures, he spoke to a Chautauqua audience
probably not less than one hundred times. For
many years he also conducted annually a
"question box." His continuous assignment
to this place was not only a recognition of his
cyclopedic information, but a tribute as well
to the alertness of his mind and the lightning
play of his wit. Dr. Kelley has said: "It is
marvelous to note the aptness, the blended wit
and wisdom, with which he opens the Question
Drawer at the Chautauqua Assembly. All
manner of queries, some philosophical and
some silly, receive appropriate answer from
that rare coordination of faculties, a full mind
and a ready speech." To no man's wealth of
knowledge, intellectual resourcefulness, or
moral sanity could there be given more conspic
uous acknowledgment than that which is fur
nished in Dr. Buckley's conceded premiership,
as emphasized by nearly a full generation of
years, of the Chautauqua platform.
When the variety of subjects, upon all of
which he spoke illuminatingly, is considered, it
seems nothing less than a phenomenon extraor
dinary that any one man could speak with such
readiness and fullness upon so many, and often
upon so diverse, themes. In all the fields of his
intellectual activity there is none perhaps in

214 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
which the ready wealth of his resources, the un
restrained utterance of his personal opinions,
and the spontaneous play of his humor and wit,
appear more pronounced or to better advan
tage than in his Chautauqua life. Any record
assuming to give a narration of Dr. Buckley's
life which should fail in considerable measure
to furnish illustration of his habitual intellec
tual spontaneity, could not be judged as even
approximating at all ideally the real purpose
for which such a record should be made. There
is probably no cycle of his activities in which
this quality more richly or more naturally ap
pears than in his Chautauqua utterances. It is
this conviction which decides that the remain
ing section of this chapter — and let it be gen
erous — shall be made up exclusively of his own
Chautauqua words, intermingled perhaps with
an occasional comment by some interested
hearer. Grateful acknowledgment is here
made to the Chautauqua Assembly Herald for
permission to use these extracts. On the occa
sion of his twenty-seventh lecture, the As
sembly Herald said: "An audience limited only
by the standing and seating capacity of the
vast Amphitheater is a strong attestation to the
popularity of Dr. Buckley at Chautauqua.
His lectures are always the most entertaining,

CHAUTAUQUA 215
and, moreover, always have in them some very
helpful and sensible suggestions."
Questions and Answers
Question: What is the higher criticism?
Answer: Well, the higher criticism professes
to have respect to the hterature of the Bible
and the text of it. If understood, I suppose it
means that it pursues carefully and inquires
whether the Bible books were written by the
men whose names appear there. That is a
legitimate subject for inquiry. Also whether
every part of the books is inspired. Some of
them were plainly not written by the men
whose names appear there, and others have
been added to in various ways. These are all
proper subjects of study. While we give at
tention to this, we should give the same rever
ence to the Old Testament as to the New. If
the Old is false, the New is a delusion. Put
that down on the authority of Jesus Christ. It
was not faultless. If it were perfect, there
would be no room for the second.
Question: Do you think the time will ever
come when we shall be able properly to com
bine oxygen, hydrogen and carbon, etc., and
thereby secure our food without waiting for

216 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
nature to produce it? Answer: Do you mean
to ask me if I think that the time will come that
I never can get a piece of apple pie such as my
mother used to make? If so, let me pass away
first. I have eaten some of those chemical com
binations. They all lack the flavor. Artificial
eggs can be produced that will do for omelet;
but they have not the flavor of the natural egg;
and you cannot hatch them.
Question: Do you think Christian Science
is antagonistic to the Christian religion? An
swer: There never was anything so much so.
It is more so in its results to Christianity and
Christ than Ingersollism is. If you do not be
lieve that, it is because you do not understand
Christian Science, or have not thought it over
and through. There are a number of deceived
persons whose feehngs I would not want to
wound, but I profess to understand Christian
Science to the very bottom of it. I paid one
hundred dollars for lectures and am acquainted
with the leading advocates and professors of it
and know all about it that anybody knows, and
I tell you that in fact it is evil, only evil, and
that continually. There is a personal God or
there is no God. There is actual sin or there is
no sin. There is prayer or there is no prayer;

CHAUTAUQUA 217
and if Christian Science is true, there are none
of those three things.
Question : How much truth is there in hyp
notism? Answer: Hypnotism is a power.
The same thing has forty or fifty different
names, such as electrobiology, animal magnet
ism, mesmerism, idiopathy. The thing itself
has a great deal of truth in it. The word or
name "hypnotism" is merely a word.
Question: Should the Chautauqua plat
form be broad eftough to hold Robert Inger
soll? Answer: If it is, I shall put on sackcloth
and ashes, and never look at it again so long as
the world stands. Robert Ingersoll! Do you
want the most wonderful eulogy of whisky?
He has uttered it. Do you want to see the man
who threw himself in favor of repealing all the
laws which exclude obscene pictures from the
mails? He signed a petition for that purpose.
Do you want here an eloquent denier of Chris
tianity and a man who ridicules Jehovah? If
so, he is the man. Give not that which is holy
unto the dogs. I have no doubt that he is a
very pleasant person, but Chautauqua is not a
circus. Chautauqua is a Christian institution,
a Christian university, a place where God is
hpnored and Christ beheved in, a place where a

218 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
thousand martyrs could be found for the truth
which this man ridicules throughout the world.
Questions: Do you beheve in the nation's
great outlay for warships? Will it not induce
other nations to go and do likewise? Answer:
I think that the most magnificent preparation
for peace is to be thoroughly prepared for war.
I thoroughly beheve in the principle declared
by the late Samuel J. Tilden, that our unpro
tected coast would be a strong temptation to
the nations of the world to declare war against
us. I do not believe that we have gone suffi
ciently far in protecting our coasts. We can
dispense with standing armies, for the armies
of other nations cannot easily reach us if our
coasts are properly protected. More warships
rather than fewer is my notion.
Question: How do you explain the mate
rialization of spirits ? Answer : I explain it on
the principle that it is a he.
Question: What do you think of the
Science of Health, by Mrs. Eddy? Answer:
I read that book six times. It is a mass of sep
arate statements many of which are absurd.
Some of the statements are well written though
contradictory. Mrs. Eddy says in that book

CHAUTAUQUA 219
that many persons have been cured merely by
the reading of her book. But I want you to
understand that whatever has such power for
curing must have equal power for producing
disease. Therefore you would better be care
ful. Question : Where now are the disembodied
spirits of Christian friends? Answer: I ac
knowledge that question is too much for me. I
do not know anything about it. The school
men used to debate how many angels could
dance on the point of a needle. There is no
such thing as comprehending a matter of that
kind. I do not know where they are. I do not
know but spirits have the power of working in
and out where other things are. I neither
know nor care about it. If it were of any im
portance to me as a Christian it would be re
vealed in the Bible.
Question: If you had a friend, a youth
sixteen years old, who had the disease called
skepticism and was drifting into unbehef,
what treatment would you prescribe? An
swer: None at all. Let him alone. He be
longs to either one of two classes — either he has
the foundation of good sense in his constitution
which will enlarge as he grows older and

220 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
slough off everything that is absurd, or he has
not. If he has, by setting him a good Christian
example, talking intelligently on rehgion and
not wearying him with it, praying for him,
being very kind to him, his common sense will
come along and your character will save him
by the Spirit of God. But if you tell him he is
a simpleton — which no doubt is the fact and
therefore he can't appreciate it — you will make
him angry. On the other hand, if he has not
common sense, no treatment you could pre
scribe would do any good. Let him go. One
of the greatest evils is to be continually pre
scribing treatment for boys about sixteen be
cause of their immature ideas. You might
as well prescribe treatment for their size to
make them grow faster than they can.
Question: In reading a book do you think
that persons of ordinary average intelhgence
can acquire the habit of reading ideas without
reading book words? Answer: Why, cer
tainly. Now, the first degree of reading is
this, to read letters ; and it is very hard to learn.
According to one of Dickens's characters, it is
hardly worth going through so much to learn
so little. The next is to read little words by
spelling the letters. The next is to read large

CHAUTAUQUA 221
words at sight. It took me a long time to learn
to read the word "acknowledgment" at sight
and tell it from any other word. The next
degree is to read sentences at sight as you read
sign-boards. Now you come to the fifth degree
and that is to read paragraphs. You can hold
up anything I never saw and give me a glance
at it, provided the type is good enough for me
to see it distinctly, and I can turn around and
talk five minutes on that. That is a habit J
have acquired in my business, and therefore I
state to you that it can be acquired. And the
last degree is to pay no attention to words at
all but look down the page grasping the idea.
The mind instantly thrusts aside all that
amount of verbiage which is necessary to pro
duce grammar. You can condense any sen
tence if you get rid of what is required to keep
up your reputation as a grammarian. No per
son can read well in public who does not read
ideas instead of words. The reason that we
have so many poor readers is simply that they
read words. In many cases elocution teachers
teach that and nothing else.
Question: Does the pope take The Chris
tian Advocate? Answer: A copy of The
Christian Advocate goes regularly to Rome to

222 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
a high Roman ecclesiastic. Don't you think for
a moment that the Catholics depend on omnis
cience or infallibility for information.
Question: Who was Cain's wife? An
swer: The woman he married.
Question : Is it as reasonable to expect per
fection in man in his spiritual nature as in other
things ? Answer : It is wholly unreasonable to
expect it anywhere. Perfection is a much mis
understood doctrine. Christian perfection is
not freedom from infirmities. There is no good
definition of Christian perfection in the world,
and, as a rule, the person that dogmatically
declares he possesses it will prove he has none
of it if you contradict him.
Question : When a minister is called to visit
and pray with the sick, has he authority to
anoint with oil? Answer: Only on one
ground — that he is a fool or a fanatic; and then
he gets his authority from his limitations.
Question : What is your opinion of the ex
isting divorce laws of the United States and
their effect upon society? Answer: We have
a great many States, and the laws are not the
same in any two of them absolutely. My opin
ion is that the State has to have more reasons

CHAUTAUQUA 223
for divorce than the seventh commandment. I
think the Bible allows two causes for divorce
very plainly: first, violation of the seventh com
mandment; and, second, willful desertion, but
I do not think the church ought to be held to
these two only. When a man is sent to prison
for life, for murder, he is legally dead to his
wife and she ought to have a divorce. In the
State of New York when a man stays away ten
years, and is not heard from, I hold the wife is
entitled to a divorce even if the violation of the
seventh commandment cannot be proven, on
the presumption that if alive he has been guilty.
I believe too if a man endeavors to poison his
wife and it is proved, it ought to be a ground
for divorce. I beheve another thing in this
way: Here is a woman whose husband is a
wretch and everyone knows it, but they can't
get any legal evidence. In a church court I
would receive evidence of that man's general
character, and I would allow the court to find
that a man of his character would probably
violate the seventh commandment, and grant
her a divorce. I have investigated this matter
and find a long list of men in favor of my views,
some of which I have given you above.
Question: What do you think of Elisha's

224 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
making the iron swim? Answer: I think it
was a very remarkable circumstance.
Question: Do you think it is possible for
any of our dead friends to come back here and
shake hands with us? Answer: I once called
for one that had only four fingers and he came
back and shook hands with me with five.
Therefore I am ready to beheve anything.
Question : Do you think the heathen world
can or will be saved without a knowledge of
Christ? Answer: My behef is that every man
who hves up to the light he has will be saved,
and no one else will.
Question: What is the real object of the
new woman? Answer: The Lord knows, I do
not. But I am a very careful observer.
Question : Is it possible for an honest man
to get a drink of liquor in Kansas? Answer:
I don't know, I never tried.
Question : Is heredity nothing and environ
ment everything in the formation of character?
Answer: That is mere rhetoric. Heredity
helps some more than environment, and hurts
some more than environment. Environment
helps or hurts some more than heredity. But
heredity and environment are the two great

CHAUTAUQUA 225
factors which, with our limited self -regulating
power, are to develop in us a glorious character
and destiny, or otherwise. In one branch of
my family, from time immemorial, the great
toe has been an inch longer than the second
toe, and I am the individual to whom that has
descended. That is heredity. If it can deal
with one end of the body in that way, what is
the reason that it cannot deal with the other
extensively? Question : What do you think of Christian
Science as a religion? Answer: You might
as well ask me what I think of Christian
Science as a branch of mathematics. It has
nothing to do with it at all.
Question: What is the condition of the
brain of a woman who attempts to do knitting
and f ancywork and digest a lecture at the same
time? Answer: I thought of that yesterday,
when I came to the temperance meeting in the
afternoon, and saw sixteen women by actual
count, on one side of the house, busy sewing
and knitting, but I did not know that the ques
tion was going to be here. I will say this, that
some httle work that does not take a particle of
thought helps some people to think. There
was a celebrated lawyer who could not speak

226 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
unless he had something or other in his hand,
and Charles G. Finney was wholly unable to
preach unless he could catch the button of his
suspender with his thumb. In one case, when
the button gave away, he absolutely stopped
in the presence of a congregation of two thou
sand, excused himself, went out into the ante
room, and pinned things up strongly and came
back; and in a minute after he got back he
made them all forget it in describing the terrors
of the Judgment. I do not know but these
women are unable to think without something
of that kind. I do not know that they are able
to think with it. If they are not able to think
without it, it does them no harm; it makes no
noise, and perhaps they would be talking if
they did not do that. It does not help a
speaker very much to look at a woman and see
her busy sewing. Consequently, an intelligent
speaker never looks at that class of people.
Question: Define woman's sphere? An
swer: That is an unripe chestnut. It is still
under discussion. I have my views, and per
haps you can guess them.
Question: Has the world gained anything
by using the fork instead of the knife in eat
ing? Answer: Yes. It has gained variety.

CHAUTAUQUA 227
Question : What is your conception of God?
Answer: I solemnly declare to you that I have
none, none whatever. I speak right out into
the universe. I do not lift up my head par
ticularly, except for form's sake ; in public and
private I kneel for the reflex influence of devo
tion. But I have no conception of God. I
have no white throne in my horizon. God is
above me completely. He is the mystery of the
universe. But I believe in him with all my
heart. Question: Is it just that I should be
damned for Adam's sin? Answer: You never
will be. Your own personal account is so
large that Adam's sin will not enter into the
calculation. Question: Aside from Bible statements,
what proofs are there of man's immortality?
Answer: No proofs whatever, but many indi
cations and many things that will agree with
the idea, if once accepted, on the testimony of
revelation; but no proofs.
Here is something: Question: Is the old
saying that the ends of the hair should be cut
at the time of the new moon, in order that it
may become healthy and have a good growth,
a fact or simply a whim? Answer: Don't you

228 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
know that hair is a superfluity, that evolution
progresses upward, and goes through the hair
and leaves it behind? Do not do anything in
the new moon except what you would do if
there were no moon, and above all, don't be
come moonstruck. Most of the great men of
antiquity were bald, except Samson, and it
would have been a great advantage to him if he
had been.
Question: What are the principal causes
why we have so many nonchurchgoers among
the laboring classes ? Answer : Dullness in the
pulpit is one, and greater dullness in the pew is
another. Running the church in a semi-femi
nine way is a very serious one. Now, the phi
losophy of this remark is this: women will be
at church anyway. Let women themselves,
and the minister, and everybody else, try to
make the church attractive to the men. I al
ways endeavored to get men to attend the
church. I never advertised a sentimental title
that would draw women and young people. I
advertised titles that intelligent men would
care to hear discussed, if they could get there.
When they came their wives were so glad to
have their husbands go to church that they
came with them; and often their daughters

CHAUTAUQUA 229
were so surprised to see their father going
with their mother that they went too. And,
under these circumstances, everybody knows
that the young men would be there.
Question: What is the seating capacity of
the Chautauqua Amphitheater? Answer:
When they exhibit something here that does
not tax the brain, count the people, and you
will have your answer.
Question : What is the oldest newspaper in
the world? Answer: The Gazette, of Peking.
It is more than a thousand years old; and every
editor, up to about thirty years ago, had died
from the sudden loss of his head.
Request: Please explain how Chautauqua
Lake is the source of the Mississippi River?
Response: I will do it when you explain how
the Delaware River flows by Constantinople.
Question : Is marriage a failure ? Answer :
You know what the Jew said, when they put
that question to him. He said that if a girl is
an orphan, and has $150,000 in her own right,
it is almost as good as a failure.
Question: Do you know why the Amer
icans are victorious on the Sabbath? Answer:
You are one of the persons who have been

230 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
caught by the secular press about the fact that
two or three things have happened on Sunday.
Do you know that churches have been struck
by lightning on Sunday, and the beer breweries
and whisky distilleries were not struck at all?
Think of it. It proves that God, according to
your idea, favors the breweries. Let me tell
you this : no battle was ever fought on Sunday,
under any circumstances, where one or both
sides did not think they were more ready on
that day than they had been on Saturday, or
would be on Monday. And the same is true
of every other day in the year.
Question : Has an audience any rights that
a speaker is bound to respect? Has a citizen
any rights that a pohceman is bound to re
spect? Answer: Yes. But if he strikes the
policeman in the face, what then? Has he any
rights then that will prevent the policeman
from drawing and using his club? The ques
tion, therefore, is to be answered as follows : A
respectful, attentive, decorous audience has a
right to demand of a speaker his very best; but
a disrespectful, inattentive, indecorous audi
ence has only the right to be thrashed with the
speaker's tongue. A personal experience en
ables me to say that there is no pleasure so

CHAUTAUQUA 231
sweet under such circumstances as that which
a speaker then feels. Henry Ward Beecher
said, "God calls on me for the grace of hu
mility, and I am slow to respond. He calls
upon me for the grace of indignation, and I
answer in a moment." Such is hfe.
Question: Do you think that flying ma
chines will ever become a practical means of
conveyance? Answer: I do. I expect to see
flying machines within a few years. What
have I not seen? I have seen the telegraph,
known the inventor, and had explained from
his own lips all the whole proceedings ; and the
telephone, and the phonograph, and the elec
tric hght, and a thousand things as wonderful
as flying.
Question : How is it that with young peo
ple's strong desire for a fine personal appear
ance, they will persist in smoking, drinking,
riding and dressing in such a manner as to
injure health and consequently form and
beauty? Answer: Simply because they are
simpletons. Of all folhes commonly practiced,
excepting drinking intoxicating hquors, smok
ing in excess is one of the worst respecting its
effects on health. Many doctors who smoke
will deny that at once. The fact in the case is

232 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
that it injures a great many persons and a
larger number only a little; and those that it
injures a httle say that it. does not injure them
at all. Anything that makes one feel good as
a result of its contact with any of the internal
organs without digestion and assimilation, so
that if one does not have it he feels badly, that
thing of necessity is pernicious. Those who
understand the human system know this must
be the case.
Question: Was Socrates a Christian? An
swer: No. Every Christian must be a fol
lower of Christ. He was probably a good
man ; if he was, he went to heaven when he died.
"God is no respecter of persons. In every na
tion he that feareth God and worketh right
eousness is accepted with him."
Question : Mr. Moody being an uneducated
man, to what was his extraordinary power for
winning souls due? Answer: He was not an
uneducated man. He was one of the most thor
oughly educated men in this country. You
seem to have the idea that education consists of
knowledge in the contents of certain books, or
of getting a knowledge of them in a certain
place. There are few graduates in America
that have been out of college twenty years,

CHAUTAUQUA 233
except professors, who know as much as Mr.
Moody when he was fifty years old, or had read
more books, or had more ideas clearly defined.
Of course his education did not in most cases
cover the same range.
Question: What is religion? Answer: A
man has an intellect, a heart, a conscience, a
will. Conscience consists of two parts — the
judging part and the feeling part. There is
not a worse guide in the world than conscience
if the judging part is not properly instructed.
A religious man is one having right ideas about
God, morality, truth, immortality in his mind,
and having his heart disposed to do what his
mind shows him to be right ; he therefore under
takes to do that, hve in all good conscience,
prays to God, becomes like God. Religion, if
the heart were not involved, is only a theory.
If you add to philosophy a good heart properly
developed, you have a religious man.
Abraham Lincoln was once told by his
Secretary Stanton that a man had acted in an
outrageous manner and that he should write
him the most scorching letter ever written.
Lincoln said that was right, "But let me see
the letter." Stanton wrote the letter, showing
the man to be a scoundrel. Lincoln said : "It is

234 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
a tremendous thing. Now you have reheved
yourself, burn it up."
Question: What has become of the May
flower? Answer: It is a reasonable presump
tion that it has rotted out by this time.
Question : What are the best divisions of a
sermon? Answer: The exordium and the per
oration. The little boy who said, "The begin
ning was good, and the ending was good, but
there was too much in the middle," was prob
ably right.
Question: What do you consider Roose
velt's strongest trait of character? Answer:
Push. Question : Why do so many Christians have
such a woebegone expression? Why do so
many people not Christians have such a desper
ate look? Answer: Few Christians who
understand their privileges and have not mel
ancholia or hypochondriasis have a woebegone
expression. Yet some of the happiest people
do look sad, and some of the most miserable
manage to wear a cheerful look.
Question: Give a brief and comprehensive
statement of the belief of an agnostic. An-

CHAUTAUQUA 235
swer: I will. He is a professional know-
nothing in all rehgious matters.
Question: Do you believe in woman suf
frage? Answer: I am so well contented with
the women which the last generation has given
us that I do not wish to risk a serious change
in woman's relation to the state.
Question: Is the healing principle in faith
heahng and Christian Science the same? An
swer: There is no "principle of healing" in
any of them. The healing is done by the
strength of the medicine of nature. Believe
and you will be healed, says the faith-healer.
The mental scientist simply produces certain
conditions in the mind of the person to be
healed. The Christian Scientist denies the
reality of disease and forbids thinking about it.
I know this to be true, for I have healed people
that way myself.
Question : What are the strongest elements
of Roman Cathohc organization? Answer:
Striking ceremonies ; relation of priest to peo
ple; the spectacular liturgies, and a strong ele
ment is this: they are taught they cannot do
without the church, where many of the Protes
tant denominations teach the people the church
cannot do without them.

236 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
Request: Please tell us the best joke you
know. Response : I was traveling in the West
and fell into conversation with a gentleman.
We talked a long time and he said on parting,
"I beheve you are a minister." "I am a New
York editor," I said. "Good heavens!" he
exclaimed, "what a mistake I have made!"
I then told him that I was both, but he said that
was too much for any one man.
Question: Is a college education always
beneficial to a young man? Answer: A col
lege education is always beneficial to a young
man who has pursued it thoroughly, provided
he doesn't develop a kind of snobbishness be
cause he is a collegian. If he won't come back
to his father's business and put on a red flan
nel shirt, if needs be, he has failed. But there
it is his fault and not that of his college.
Question: What is love? Answer: If you
ever had it, you know. If not, none can tell
you. Question: What ought to be done with
tainted money? Answer: A remarkable piece
of speculative fanaticism has been agitating the
American people for the last four months. I
consider the whole talk on that subject ridicu
lous. When I lived in Stamford, Connecticut,

CHAUTAUQUA 237
I was collecting money for the aid of the widow
of an organist killed by accident. I did not
visit the saloons, but a saloon keeper came out
and contributed fifty dollars. I don't believe
in rum, but I took it. I say that any man who
offers money to which he has a legal right has
a right to devote it to some good service. This
is the best use you can make of it. If you can't
take a man's money when he offers it for a good
purpose, you can't trade with him. If these
dissenters buy a drop of Standard Oil, they are
exactly in the same position as those who re
ceive bequests.
Request: Explain the origin of sin. Re
sponse: I am more concerned with its cure
than how I got it.
Question : Why are all men, even the best
of them, so selfish? Answer: Perhaps because
they have to look out for the wiles and craft of
the other human inhabitants of the earth.
Question: How should the United States
government deal with the anarchists? An
swer : I refer you to Secretary Bonaparte, who
says that the hght cases should be thrashed, the
next should be imprisoned for an indefinite
period, and those who advocate anything that
has caused murder should be hanged. I have

238 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
no sympathy with the people who say that pen
alty has no place in punishment. We have
more homicides and less convictions than any
other civilized country. Russia in time of
peace is not so homicidal as the United States.
For proof of this, I refer you to statistics by
Andrew D. White, ex-minister to Germany,
and the first president of Cornell University.
Question: Should children be allowed to
read novels? Answer: Certainly, if they are
well selected. I would not sell out the memory
of Robinson Crusoe or Pilgrim's Progress.
Our Lord's parables were novels in a definite
sense. They are not actual history, are not put
forth as such, and are not calculated to deceive
or injure.
Question: Is the "big stick" policy the best
for the United States? Answer: Certainly
it is, if it hits the right head with the right
amount of force. There is no real governing
without a big stick somewhere.
Question: At what age should a minister
retire? Answer: Supposing him to be in
working condition, he ought not to retire from
the work until the work begins to retire from
him. Josh Billings said to me in the cars one

CHAUTAUQUA 239
day that he would retire. I asked why. He
said, "I leave the platform to avoid the mel
ancholy fate of seeing the platform leave
me." Question : Don't you think the apostle Paul
was something of a Christian Scientist when
he made this statement, "Be ye transformed by
the renewing of your mind"? Answer: Well,
I don't think so, for the Bible tells us that he
took Luke the beloved physician with him on
his journeys. Paul, a Christian Scientist?
Why, he did not get rid of his thorn in the
flesh. Paul, a Christian Scientist? He writes,
"Trophimus I left at Miletum sick." He says,
speaking of Epaphroditus, "Indeed he was sick
nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him;
and not on him only, but on me also, lest I
should have sorrow upon sorrow." Paul knew
no more about Christian Science than he did
about automobiles.
Question: You think apparently that
woman's sphere is home, where she should cul
tivate all the finer qualities. What would you
suggest to be done with the woman who has no
home and who has to earn a living or starve?
Ought she to die? Answer: She should, by all
means. Of course she should die. "It is ap-

240 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
pointed unto man once to die, and after death
the judgment." But I know of hundreds of
women without homes or families and they are
not starving or dying. Let a woman move by
affection and intuition in the situation in which
God has placed her and men will defer to her.
I have no objection to women working. I have
even no objection to women appearing on the
platform, if they preserve their womanliness.
If I were on a desert island where there were
three hundred and sixty-seven women and five
men, I would advocate woman suffrage. You
see my theory. As Artemus Ward said, "I
will not further adumbrate it."
Question : Is it correct to call the parables
the first fiction ? Answer : The parables are as
much fiction as Robinson Crusoe or Bunyan's
Pilgrim's Progress. In the parables, as in
these other works, the thing told is not a reality,
but the spirit and the teaching underlying them
is a great reality.
Question: Do you know of any sure cure
for masculine baldness ? Answer : This is a hit
at me. I can say that since my roof has been
unthatched I have never had to worry whether
my hair is parted and I have never had a head
ache.

CHAUTAUQUA 241
Wit and Wisdom
Philosopher (to boatman rowing philos
opher across lake) : Do you understand
astronomy? Boatman: No; I don't know what that word
means. Philosopher: Then one half of your life has
been lost. Do you understand philosophy?
Boatman: No; I never heard of philosophy.
Philosopher: Then a quarter more of your
hfe is gone.
(Boat upsets and throws them both out.)
Boatman: Do you swim?
Philosopher: No.
Boatman: Then the whole of your hfe is
gone. A great many men are called hars — they
only speak symbolically.
The poetry through which to reach the heart
of a Harvard College graduate and hard-work
ing lawyer at the close of a day of hard work is
the poetry of a mutton chop.
A student in what was the East Windsor
Theological Seminary undertook to preach
there one Sunday in one of the old churches.
This church had been so reduced that there was

242 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
scarcely a person who regularly attended there
who was under fifty years of age, and the con
gregation did not amount to more than thirty
or forty persons on a fair day. This young
man had not many sermons, and took the one
he was most familiar with. There was in the
congregation a maiden lady of about fifty-two,
and also her mother, who still hved at the age
of eighty. The old lady always went to church,
but she was slightly deaf, and when the
daughter found the text and showed it to the
old lady she would read it. On this occasion
the old lady, with that loud whisper which all
deaf people have, when the text was read to
her, whispered to her daughter, "He is barking
up the wrong tree here" ; for the text was "Flee
also youthful lusts."
Some claim to tell a man's character by his
gait. Well, now, it is a singular thing, this
matter of gait. Did you ever hear the story
of the poor boy who saw an old gentleman that
was bandy-legged standing in front of the fire;
he never saw anything of the kind before, and
he said, "Come away from the fire, you are
warping." The late Horace Greeley wrote rapidly, but
very illegibly. He wrote a letter at one time

CHAUTAUQUA 243
to James Gordon Bennett and sent it to him
by a boy. Bennett could not read a hne of it,
and said to the boy that brought it: "What
does the old fool mean? Take it back." The
boy took it back. Greeley did not recognize it
and said, "What does the fool mean?" Said
i;he boy, "That's what the other man said."
At one time a missionary was coming home
from India and he heard a man ridiculing the
missions of India; he said he had been in India
for several years and had not seen a native
Christian convert, and gave an account of the
tiger hunts he had seen; he had participated in
over a dozen; seen more than a hundred tigers,
and more than twenty killed. Then came the
missionary's opportunity; he said, "I have
hved in India many years and have never seen
a tiger. I have seen many converts there. You
went for tigers and you saw them. I went for
converts and made them." A man sees what
he takes with him.
Once Dr. Buckley on his way to Denver sat
at the same table with another man, these two
being the only passengers in the dining car.
They talked upon every subject, each skirmish
ing to ascertain the profession of the other. Of
this incident the Doctor says: "No man can

244 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
find out that I am a minister of the gospel
unless I wish him to. He thought I was a
lawyer, and he gave me some legal knowledge.
I thought he was a doctor, and gave him some
medical pointers. Then I thought he was an
insurance man or that he was a banker and
gave him problems as to interest, and so on. I
afterward came to the conclusion he was a
naturahst, and went into the discussion of the
flora and fauna of that region. Then I edged
toward rehgion. At first he did not take it up ;
after that he repeated to me a most magnificent
passage of the liturgy of the Church of Eng
land. I came in with the litany, and he came
in with the Te Deum, and we carried it on
through. Still, we knew nothing about each
other. At, last we exchanged cards. Who do
you think he was? "Lord Dundreary." So I
got inside the theatrical profession, not by the
door, but by some other way.
Just after Mr. Beecher avowed himself what
was subsequently called a mugwump, he went
into a barber shop presided over by a brother
of African descent and said, "Do you shave
mugwumps ?" Mr. Beecher is seldom worsted
in contests of wit, but the answer he evoked,
he afterward acknowledged, confused him.

CHAUTAUQUA 245
"Sah," he said, "I shave anything that has hair
and cash. I have no prejudice that interferes
with business, sah."
Speaking of prejudice, I will name the most
demonstrative manif esters of prejudice, the
Scotch and Irish. Now, if you can get a witty
Scotchman, you have the wittiest man in the
world, if you have the patience to wait for him.
And if you get a witty Irishman you have the
most magnificent expresser of pantomime.
One of the witty Irishmen was talking with
a Scotchman about this country, and said, "It
is a great country over there." "Have you any
lakes equal to Loch Lomond?" said the Scotch
man. "Yes," said the Irishman, "there is one
lake over there so big you could sink all Scot
land in it and not find where it was except, per
haps, by the smell of whisky."
How are we to be sure that we are not under
the control of prejudice? Simply by this proc
ess. Any time we find ourselves getting red
hot upon any subject, and using three adjec
tives where we would otherwise use two, and
think such a man a fool because he does not
agree with us in any favorite position, rein
vestigate the thing from the bottom up. Let
us buy books of the men who do not agree with

246 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
us and hear the men who hold the opposite doc
trine, and, better yet, make their full acquaint
ance. To judge a person by first impressions
is death and destruction all the time. Try peo
ple, and believe in them until you find them
wrong. Egotism is one person talking of himself
when you want to talk of yourself.
Christianity teaches that a man can pray to
God for anything he feels as a Christian he
needs, and that he can beheve that his prayer
will be a potent factor in the divine operations
concerning him.
Christianity does not authorize man to be
lieve that God has surrendered the exercise of
his infinite attributes, either to the caprice, the
ignorance, or the limitations of man. It does,
however, emphatically teach that God will
answer every prayer in one of two ways.
Either he will cause to come to pass the spe
cific things for which we ask, or he will give
unto us a spiritual blessing which will make
even the deprivation of these specific things a
greater means of grace to us than the gift of
that specific thing could have been. Nowhere
does it teach us exphcitly that we shall have
what we pray for.

CHAUTAUQUA 247
When Jesus prayed in the garden of Geth-
semane he prayed as a man. Theology, and
metaphysics of course, would confound us
here. It makes no difference who or what
Jesus was to the interpretation of the passage
which he uttered as a prayer several times ; for
the prayer implies a disposing power in the
Almighty and a natural desire in the express
petition in the prayer of Christ: "If it be pos
sible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless
not as I will, but as thou wilt." "If it be
possible" — as he was addressing God, must
mean it to be possible in harmony with the
high purpose which God is to accomplish
through Christ — "let this cup pass from me;
nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt."
No prayer of any Christian that goes beyond
that has any authority in Christianity. Athe
ism would be preferable to the belief that a
capricious man can compel God by any prayer
that he may offer.
Two Christian Science women undertook to
tell me that I did not need glasses to see any
thing near at hand if I would only reject the
belief that there was anything the matter with
my eyes, and that I would never be short
sighted or long-sighted, and that I could see as

248 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
well without glasses as with them, whereas the
ocuhst whom I consulted said I had a disease
of the eyes and I might take my choice,
whether to buy a pair of glasses or a pair of
tongs, so that I could hold things far enough
off to see. Alas ! one of those very women now
sports a pair of eyeglasses; but still she is a
Christian Scientist, and why shouldn't she be?
She gets fifty dollars for six lectures, and one
hundred and twenty-five dollars for eighteen
lectures, and she is so busy teaching people
these wondrous truths that she has no time to
treat any cases; and is thus relieved from a
great responsibility.
If you want to test Christian Science give it
a case of bad corns or in-growing toenails to
cure. I asked Dr. J. M. Buckley to tell me some
thing of his methods of work. He told me that
usually it is better to work only when one is in
the mood, provided the man loves his work and
has moods often. But sometimes a man is not
in the mood, but cannot tell why. His own
course in such a case is first to try something
else quite unlike the work intended. Then
sometimes it is possible after waking up on this
to switch over to the other. If this fails, he

CHAUTAUQUA 249
takes a short, sharp walk, say of a mile, and
returning tries again. Failing again, he works
at little things that are dispatched in a few
moments one after another. Unless ill, he can
save the day by this sort of work which must
be done at some time. "Occasionally," said he,
"I have been too restless for this, and then, if
possible, I get into an argument with some
good-humored friend with whom on a current
topic there is some difference of opinion. If
still the dullness lingers, I count that day lost
for work, whether its low descending sun
shines on some good deed or not."
No one living can look into a man's face
and tell what he is, provided there are no signs
of physical vices.
It is not for us to sit in judgment upon the
beliefs and doubts of another, but, rather, to
receive him in our midst unquestioningly, pro
vided he do not thrust his doubts upon us, or
burden us with doubtful disputations. For
him who earnestly interrogates the Word of
God there will be returned an answer suited to
his spiritual needs. Preserve the strictest ad
herence to your own views and absolute allow
ance to the behefs of others.

250 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
A few years ago I was delivering a lecture
here on "Cranks; or, How Not to Go Mad."
I had occasion to quote, during the lecture,
from some foreign authors, and in the report
which appeared the name of one of these
authors was misspelled, and the quotation from
a work of his was inaccurately given. Some
time afterward I received from the gentleman
whom I had quoted a letter — the result of his
having seen the imperfect report of my lec
ture. He was really insulting; said that I had
attributed to him something he never said, that
I had even misspelled his name, and that he
didn't believe I had ever read the book. I re
plied to his letter, explaining how the mistakes
had occurred, and then took occasion to say, in
referring to his criticism, that I had read his
book very carefully — had read it through three
times, and to convince him that I was famihar
with its contents I would remind him of one
statement made therein in which he said that
"Bitter impatience is frequently a sign of ap
proaching lunacy."
Whatever may be said of Darwin's theory,
this is perfectly certain, there are many tribes
of men on earth capable of being distinguished
from the more cultivated animals only by their

CHAUTAUQUA 251
figure and their capacity as a race of being
developed. Whatever you may do with any of
the lower animals year after year — as a speaker
once observed — take for example the ass ; train
him year after year and you will only have the
same ass you see before you to-day.
You shake hands with your neighbors. It
originated in the time before the invention of
gunpowder. When two men, who were en
emies still, were about to make a truce, met,
they grasped each other by the weapon-hand,
so there could be no treachery while they were
talking. That is the first grasp of the hand
that history mentions.
There should be courtesy always between a
man and his wife. In courtship it is all cour
tesy and it is a cloak that hides their natures
from each other, but how often they stop as
soon as they are married. Do not carry it
as far as the man who always aroused his wife
when he awoke in order to shake hands with
her. What an awful reflection it is upon
America that Josh Billings could say that
"The observation of fifty years convinced him
that if a man and a woman sat in a train, and
he looked out of the window and she looked
up and down, they were married. But if they

252 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
conversed in the most delightful manner they
were either going to be married or were not
married at all." Almost all domestic troubles
could be prevented if a httle more courtesy
were used in our homes. Talk about a man's
falhng in love with his wife — he ought to do it
if he has not already done so. He ought to fall
in love with her every day and she ought to
fall in love with him. If she believes there is
a man in the world that altogether is superior
to him, she ought to try to deceive herself. He
should believe that no man ever did find, or
could find, a woman better adapted to him
than she is. If it is not a fact, and they both
know it, even then genuine courtesy will enable
them to be happy together after love has
ceased, and they will have more happiness and
peace with each other, under one roof, than
those who love but are always uncourteous.
August 4, 1897. Chancellor Vincent, Presi
dent Lewis Miller and Dr. J. M. Buckley were
the only veterans on the platform who were
there twenty-four years ago. Dr. Buckley
said: "When I contrast an audience like this
with the first day, I have to say to you that the
most wonderful thing in all the world is, that a
brain conceived Chautauqua. All this, and

CHAUTAUQUA 253
more, was in the brain of Chancellor Vincent
and his colleague when this place was laid out.
As well as if it were yesterday, I remember the
words Chancellor Vincent uttered to me on
these grounds, 'If I do not entirely miss my cal
culation,' he said, 'this is the beginning of a
great movement.' Blessings be upon the heart
that conceived it."
A microscope now shows that at the lowest
calculation there are six hundred millions sep
arate cells in the gray matter of the brain.
. . . There is nothing in nature, nothing in
botany, more beautiful or regular than the
human brain. And when you put the brain of
an intelligent man beside the brain of an idiot,
or a Hottentot, you can see the better what
civilization has done for your brain, and on
what civilization itself depends.
Now, in regard to the changes that take
place. There is a scar on my finger, as distinct
as it has been for half a century, that was made
by a hatchet which I took up contrary to the
orders of my mother. During that period,
nature has been changing my substance and
reproducing that scar. Any soldier here that
bears honorable scars for his country has them
still, because nature, when it receives an impres-

254 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
sion, reproduces it. I have no doubt that I
shall destroy a hundred thousand cells by de
livering this lecture, and before I shall have
finished, thousands of them will be in my veins,
on the route to the world, by every eliminating
process. I am absolutely certain that my
morning repast is lecturing to you now. All
the laws of physiology prove that. I have
assimilated the simple ingredients which I in
gested. They must be in the blood ; they must
be in the brain. If I had not blood enough, I
would faint and fall ; if I had too much blood,
I would have a stroke of apoplexy. No organ
in the body proceeds so rapidly in nutrition as
the brain, for more blood, relatively, goes there,
and it goes faster, even against gravity, than
elsewhere. So it is as easy for the brain to
make these new impressions as it is for the hand
to make them. When you connect this train of
thought with the disease of the memory, and
processes of reproduction, you will be surprised
to see how a great many things are explained.
A man who rides a bicycle on the sidewalk is
a foe to humanity, and ought to be crowded off
the curbstone.
With regard to the Sabbath. If I hved four
miles from the church I would go to church on

CHAUTAUQUA 255
the bicycle. If I wanted to see a sick woman,
or a sick man, on Sunday, as a pastor, and it
was too far to walk, I would go on the bicycle.
Essentially, the bicycle is like a carriage, or
like a horse, or like my own legs. In itself
considered, it is as right to ride a bicycle on
Sunday as on any other day. . . . There
is no man that goes out bicychng on Sunday
for pleasure that conducts family prayers in
any proper sense of the word. Remember, it
is not merely that a man stays away from
church to ride the bicycle for pleasure on Sun
day, though that is wrong; it is that being away
from church divorces him from Christian influ
ences. But some one will say, "It is the only chance
I get to ride." Is it? Get up earlier in the
, morning. If you wish to ride, and save your
soul, you can ride in the morning, in the eve
ning, and on hohdays. I give the bicycle great
credit for enabling thousands of men to go
home to dinner that never could do it before.
It is a marvelous benefit, and compensates in a
great degree for many evils. But when you
come to putting anything the bicycle can do
against growth in grace, against your influ
ence over your children, against your influence
over young men, I assure you it is a terrible

256 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
mistake. In the present condition of affairs
no Christian should ride a bicycle on Sunday
on any account, unless advertised practically
that he was going on an errand of charity,
mercy or devotion, for he would be compromis
ing the Sabbath by sanctioning the pleasure-
riding usages that have grown up.
(There can be no doubt that if Dr. Buck
ley were speaking at the present date, he could
substitute "automobile" for "bicycle" in all
the foregoing quotation. — G. P. M.)
A young maiden lady said to a young man
of her acquaintance, "What is the matter with
you? You often seem to be real manly, and
then you are the most effeminate person I ever
knew. How do you explain it?" Said he: "I
suppose it is explained by the law of heredity.
One half of my ancestors were mascuhne and
the other half feminine."
"How did you find the plaintiff," said a
lawyer to a doctor, "when you first saw him?"
"I found him with the right integument in a
tumefied state. I found very much ecchymosis
into surrounding cellular tissues. I found
considerable extravasation of blood." Said
the judge, "Do you mean that he had a
black eye?" "Yes," said the doctor. "Then

CHAUTAUQUA 257
why did you not tell the jury so?" replied
the judge.
There is a monument in Madrid in honor of
a bull which slew a lion, wild and untamed,
brought from Africa for the purpose; then he
slew a tiger, and then a hon and a tiger to
gether. And nothing stood before him until
a wild elephant was brought there to fight with
that bull; and the elephant managed him as
some women manage their husbands — he "sat
down on him" and broke his back.
It is Dr. Buckley's humble opinion that
Theodore Roosevelt would have been a duelist
had he hved in the days of Andrew Jackson,
and as a sort of proof he cites the story of
"Teddy's" boxing match with three ruffians in
the hire of an Albany boss, After having
humbled them in the dust each in turn, or all
at once, some half a dozen times, until they
cried for mercy, he turned upon them with his
blandest smile, saying: "I know who got this
up. I am much obhged to you and to him — I
have not enjoyed myself so much for half a
year." The college men of the highest type are the
salt that is to save a repubhc like this. A re-

258 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
pubhc must be under the control of men of the
highest moral development and symmetrical
culture. The number of men of this sort that
a country has is the measure of that country's
strength. A reform should never go exceedingly fast.
You can cure a man of round shoulders by a
slow process of massage, and exercise, and
making him walk up stairs with Webster's dic
tionary on his head, but if you squeeze him in
a vise he would be straight for about a minute
and a quarter and then he would be straight in
his coffin.
The proper method of taking a bath is first,
take a coarse towel and wringing every drop
of water out of it that it is possible to get out
rub yourself vigorously from top to toe. Next
take a second towel, wet it, and without wring
ing it rub yourself thoroughly with that. The
next step is to douse yourself completely with
water, then rub yourself off first with your
hands and afterwards with a towel. After
such a bath a person feels sufficiently invigor
ated to attempt anything.
Many of the brightest minds I have known
have lost their influence in church and state by
plagiarizing.

CHAUTAUQUA 259
Illustrating the power of money to corrupt
legislation, a man arose in the Assembly of the
State of New York, and asked, "Is this the
house that Vander-built?" "No," rephed an
other, "the house that Vander-bought."
The foregoing and somewhat extended list
of quotations from Dr. Buckley's Chautauqua
sayings form really but a minor fraction in
the total sum of his equally spontaneous and
sapient utterances from the same platform. It
is, I think, correctly judged that these sayings,
as illustrative of his alert mental resourceful
ness, are worthy of permanent place in the nar
rative of his hfe. The eager thousands waited
upon his speech, because from his very fullness
he was a prodigal dispenser of sentiments com
mon to hfe — sentiments which awakened in the
hearts of multitudes the human response. He
possessed the unusual gift of insight and power
which enabled him ' to translate into plain
speech for common uses the experiences and
emotions which most vitally relate themselves
to the hfe of men. He had the genius for
teaching how to "honor every truth by use."

CHAPTER XI
THE MAN
The bodily appearance of Dr. Buckley
stands in somewhat marked contrast when
compared with his mental stature. He is about
five feet six inches high. He is, in proportion
to his height, long-bodied and short-limbed.
His vital functions are well-roomed. Mounted
above all, is a head calhng for a seven and one
half inch hat. To use the figure of Disraeh, he
literally stands "on his head."
His old friend and great admirer, the late
St. Clair McKelway, editor of the Brooklyn
Eagle, thus sketches his appearance: "The per
sonality of Dr. Buckley is interesting. Meet
ing him casually in the street, or in a throng,
the more careless even would be attracted and
impressed by him, yet in outward appearance
he is far removed from the popular ideal of a
great man. It would not be said of him as
was said of Daniel Webster in London that
'no one was ever so great as he looked to be.'
He does not measure up to that ideal so finely
expressed in Bismarck, nor even in Gladstone,
who, if he had not the height, had the bulk. As
260

THE MAN 261
a matter of fact, Dr. Buckley is rather insig
nificant as to frame. It is his head and face
that take and hold attention. Candor compels
the statement that it is not the beauty and reg
ularity of his features that is impressive, but,
rather, the massiveness of the head, the intel
lectual strength and power stamped on the
face, and those remarkable eyes — glowing, ab
sorbing, penetrating, all embracing. It may
be surprising to those who have never seen Dr.
Buckley, but know of him as a controversial
gladiator who receives the hard blows he invites
gaily and returns them with a joyous laugh,
that he is man of under size, of a frame so slight
that it would seem as if his head had gotten
astray from its proper body and had been
joined to one barely if at all able to support it.
Yet withal there is no suggestion of feebleness
or want of vigor."
Bishop Fowler once, perhaps somewhat
facetiously, described Dr. Buckley as follows :
"He is short of stature, hke Saint Paul, stand
ing five and a half feet in his stockings, and
weighing one hundred and fifty pounds. He is
bald-headed like Socrates. He has dark thin
whiskers and moustache, his eyes are round,
dark, and steady. He is nervous, quick and
ready, yet calm, deliberate, and authoritative."

262 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
Judge Wheeler, once in introducing Dr.
Buckley from the lecture platform, in a series
of very witty sentences declared that on ac
count of the extreme modesty of the lecturer of
the evening he had cut out the flower of his
remarks, but wound up with a paraphrase on
Kipling's ode to "Our Bob":
"Oh, Vs little, but 'e's wise;
'E's a terror for 'is size,
'Aint ye, Doctor?"
Thus far, for the most part, we have studied
Dr. Buckley in the light of his achievements.
We have not seen the whole man. We have
not been able to explore all the hidden wealth
of his character. There are doubtless in his
capacious structure reserved chambers rich in
hidden treasure, to which neither we nor any
other have ever been fully admitted — certainly
not with the hghts turned on. It is both a tru
ism and a proverbial classic, that, however
great the product, the creator himself is greater
than his greatest creation. When in the pres
ence of some crowning discovery or invention
we find ourselves wrapped in the mood of ad
miring wonder, we have but to turn from the
discovery or invention to the man in whose
vision these were born, to find a still greater,

THE MAN 263
and a forever unfathomable, source of wonder
and admiration.
Edison has been styled the '"Wizard of In
vention." The products of his genius are be-
wilderingly numerous. He has turned the
night darkness of the city street into brilhant
noonday. He entertains our parlor guests not
only with the oratory, story, and song of hving
geniuses, but we are permitted to hear the iden
tical voices of loved ones whose lips are now
forever closed. But the living genius of Edi
son, like an inquisitor haunting nature's secret
places, inexhaustible in its inventiveness,
stands in the presence of his creations some
thing immeasurably superior to them all. If it
be true that the artist, for his supreme crea
tions, mingles his own blood with his pigments,
it is still true that when his masterpiece is fin
ished his vital fountains remain inexhaustible.
The hidden power of a great life is evidenced
in the fact that no single generation ever be
comes the possessor of it all. In the life of the
Church, a few great lives can be cited which
have given the forms of credal beliefs largely
not only for their own, but for subsequent ages.
Such characters are Augustine, Luther, Wes
ley. These have been great makers of history.
Their influence lingers as a witching stimulus

264 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
in the thought of the Church. They never die.
With each succeeding generation new studies
are given to their careers, fresh appraisals of
their influence are attempted, and their hves
are newly written; but still large sections of
their psychic wealth and power ever remain to
be explored. How many lives of Napoleon
have been written ! But still, the deeper secrets
of his genius remain covered. The resultant
of his influence upon world-history has not
been fully ascertained. He will remain an ob
ject of fascinating interest to future historians.
Robert Burns, sprung from most common soil,
with no visible parentage for his genius, poet
of humanity, prophet of democracy — who has
exhausted the alluring secret of his power?
The charm of his story will remain fresh and
fruitful as long as in our human world there is
aspiring struggle for freedom, and so long as
perfect song shall entrance the soul of man.
If it be true that the greatest study of man
kind is Man, it still remains that we gain our
most impressive and helpful view of the higher
potentialities of mankind in general through
our observation of the exceptional individual.
He is the translator and interpreter to the
world at large of the human possibilities. The
susceptibility to music is universal in the hu-

THE MAN 265
man breast, inborn. But it takes the single
genius of a Beethoven or a Handel to give in
spiration, voice, harmony, the sea-swell of re
sistless melody, to this latent potency in the
multitudes. In the popular mind of Attica
there was not wanting a deeply implanted and
widely distributed motive of patriotism. But
to evoke this patriotism, to fuse it in the fires of
irresistible unity, to give it definite and effec
tive direction, required the impelling voice of
a Demosthenes. In the crises of the world the
great man incarnates himself in the multitude,
he becomes a new soul in the life of the masses.
He inspires among them a common impulse of
migration toward higher levels and to more
heroic achievements, ideals which hitherto have
lived only in his own best moods.
The biographies of such men can never be
ideally written. In the sum of their individu
ahty there is much more hidden than is re
vealed. In saying this we need make no spe
cial appeal to the subliminal treasures, which
it may be assumed, are held in reserve in the
psychology of such characters. The forces
within these men, always subject to instant
summons to the active field of consciousness,
are so numerous that no outside observer, prob
ably not even the subjects themselves, would

266 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
ever be able to make just appraisement of them
all. The psychology of a great soul is a
wonderful study. It must be the study of a
battlefield on which betimes are waged the
fiercest conflicts of which consciousness can
take note. Saint Paul has given us a vivid
lantern shde of the moral conflict within him
which made his own soul a very arena of des-.
tiny. No genius ever argues himself through
to final decisions, ever finally shapes his dia
gram of action, without first encountering
within his own breast the challenge of opposi
tion, the caution of an opposing philosophy.
The foregoing is no digression. It is all
suggested by reflection upon the many-sided
ness of the man whose varied activities have
engaged the pages of this narrative. I confess
to an increasing impression that in all thus far
written we have been dealing more with the
put-forth action, and the outspoken word, of
an official career, rather than reaching success
in revealing the richer wealth, however inacces
sible to us, hidden in the inner life of our sub
ject. The official expression, from first to last,
has doubtless been true to the accepted stand
ards of its obhgation. But behind the tangible
and fruitful output of Dr. Buckley's mind and
heart there must be a spacious hinter-land rich

THE MAN 267
in the play of unrevealed thought, feehng,
motive, mental conflict, inspiration, imagina
tion, introspection. Of course there would be
very much in this inner soul-life which should
remain the Sacred and uninvaded possession of
him in whose consciousness alone it should come
to expression. But, aside from all this, what a
pageant of intellectual and psychic wonder
would pass before us, if in a clear light and
with revealing insight we were permitted to
traverse this hidden world!
Of the man, however, as we have known
him, there remains much to be said quite in dis
tinction from the phenomenal wealth of his
achievements, which themselves lay so great
claim upon both our attention and admiration.
In seeking near approach to his essential char
acter, many quahties challenge our attention.
If impartial frankness is to guide our estimate,
it must be admitted that a pronounced impres
sion which Dr. Buckley has made upon many
minds, more pronounced doubtless in his earlier
than in his later years, is that of personal ego
tism. An acute observer, a long-time friend
and admirer, says: "The first impression re
ceived by many of him in his earlier life was
that of a young man of marked abihty, smart
and quick, who thought of himself more highly

268 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
than he ought to think, or, to put it roughly,
self -conceited. This notion of him, which was
apparent in all directions, continued, though
with diminishing force, till a few years ago."
Another, with perhaps equal and as inter
ested opportunity of observation, says: "I
know there has been an impression accepted
by many that Dr. Buckley's stock of egotism
was so large as to make it impossible for him
to have a correct knowledge of himself, or to
understand his limitations. It cannot be de
nied that, in common with most great men, he
had some vanity which might be reckoned an
infirmity. But his egotism was not of a kind
that makes a fool of a man. He once had a
conversation with a strong-minded woman,
who, when her resources seemed to be ex
hausted, said, 'Dr. Buckley, my chief objec
tion to you is your colossal egotism.' This
fierce attack would have put a stop to the con
versation and the argument with most men;
but it was not so in this case. Holding his
peace until he had time to cool, and until she
had time to cool at least a httle, he answered
with the utmost pohteness and amiabihty:
'Madam, you may be mistaken. I have not
so much egotism as you imagine. When I
know that I know a thing better than anyone

THE MAN 269
else, why should I not sincerely confess it? Is
there any virtue in pretending ignorance when
you know that you have knowledge? What
you so severely condemn is not egotism, but
consciousness of strength, which is a virtue.' "
Whatever may be our estimate, pro or con, as
to the volume or quality of inherent egotism be
longing to him, there could have been nothing
vapid or empty about it all. He was never
foolish, never inane, in his utterances, He
well-nigh invariably spoke the things which
people were interested to hear. He spoke them
in a clear, forceful, informing manner. He al
ways spoke from a seemingly exhaustless fund
of knowledge. His judgment, if it did not al
ways command assent, never failed to com
mand respect.
He was a great conversationalist. He might
be classed with those elect persons who have
gained celebrity as social entertainers. There
is now and then a man sui generis for power as
a brilhant converser at the table. Colonel
Harvey, in one of his editorials, presents a racy
picture of a series of luncheon parties given at
the White House during one winter in the
second administration of Mr. Roosevelt,
"which for occasions of sprightly conversation
have hardly been excelled. Invariably the day

270 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
was Saturday, when the work of the week had
ended, and the party — well, the party was not
always the same, but usually Secretary Root
was there and Secretary Taft and Speaker
Cannon and Senator Proctor (the drollest and
driest of all) and Mr. Francis Sargeant, and
occasionally Senators Aldrich and Beveridge,
Mr. Watterson, Major Hemphill, or others
who happened to be in town and always Mark
Twain and Mr. Wayne MacVeagh. The un
varying question, so Mr. Root was accustomed
to remark, was, which will get started first to
day — Clemens or MacVeagh? And so, indeed,
it was. Either was good for a monologue of
two hours at least and neither would brook an
instant's interruption, even if anybody had
been disposed — as nobody ever was — to check
the flow of humor from the one or of wit from
the other." Dr. Buckley could be very prop
erly rated with the Twain-Mac Veagh class of
table conversers.
If in the social circle, it was his tendency,
even his habit, to monopolize the conversation,
this also could be justified largely on the
ground that as ascribed to Dr. Johnson, "The
influence exercised by his conversation . . .
was altogether without a parallel."
A bright young man in the Reformed min-

THE MAN 271
istry, observing him, said, "I can easily tolerate
a man who takes a large view of himself when
he is really a large man." There is all the dif
ference in the world between the egotism of a
fop, or an empty-headed pedant, and the con
scious power of a great resourceful mind.
There is much to show that Dr. Buckley had a
very measured and sane understanding of him
self. Some things that are now history can be
stated without impropriety. There was a time
when large numbers of delegates in the Gen
eral Conference, moved largely by two, and
quite distinct motives, would have been glad
to elect him to the episcopacy. Many of these
delegates, especially from the West, were not
in agreement with his pohcies on the question
of the admission of women to the General Con
ference, and on other questions. They thought
that by removing him from his position in the
Advocate they would be rid of a powerful an
tagonist. There were many others who be
heved, and among these were included also
large numbers of the former class, that the
bringing of his exceptional powers and gifts
to the episcopacy would both greatly ornament
and strengthen that high office. It is sufficient
to say that the proposition to elect him to the
episcopacy never by word or sign received the

272 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
slightest encouragement or sanction from him
self. There can be httle doubt that if he had
signified his willingness or desire to be made a
bishop, he could have been overwhelmingly
elected to the office.
There were those near him who thought that
he would do well to state his position before
hand. This he declined to do, not thinking it
modest that he should announce himself, pro or
con, on such a matter until the General Con
ference should have at least given some expres
sion in the case. With the general feeling
abroad that he himself was averse to being
made a bishop, he was, of course, not elected.
But his real and determined attitude to the
question, as then revealed in confidence to some
of his near friends, may now very fittingly
belong to the entire Church. He said of him
self: "I cannot say that I beheve I am called of
God to the office of a bishop in the Church of
God. On the contrary, I am sure I am not
called. If I were, there would be some indica
tion of it in my prayers. When I draw near to
God in prayer, he does not give me the slight
est intimation that he wants me in that office.
There is not the slightest drawing of my mind
and heart in that direction. Another reason is
this: I know my limitations. While I am in

THE MAN 273
the Advocate I can travel abroad without com
pulsion or direction. I can avoid rigorous cli
mates which would soon break me down. If I
should accept the office of bishop, I cannot
choose. I cannot shirk. I am certain that in
that case I should not hve two years. I should
break down as E. O. Haven did, and as Ed
ward Thomson did, and be swept away by the
storms. I do not beheve I am called to make
this sacrifice while there are other men, vigor
ous in body, who can do this work as well as I
could, and possibly better."
If we would really know the intrinsic qual
ity of a man, we must test him by the altitude
and plane of his loyalties. The man of flaw
less moral integrity, the sun-crowned man, is
never the creature of mere expediency. In the
presence of hfe's supreme obligations he never
dodges in and out as one guided by the fickle
phenomena of shifting temporal interests.
Rather as a mariner pursuing his steady pur
pose in a career of duty and of destiny, how
ever storm-swept the skies, or fog-covered the
seas, he always knows the bearing of his fixed
polar star. Perhaps for the moral measure
ment of Dr. Buckley there is no surer gauge
than the word "loyalty." The noblest and
loftiest loyalty can grow and flourish only in

274 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
a soil of righteousness. In the supreme rela
tions of hfe the loyalty of that man who at core
is not God-knowing and God-fearing may be
distrusted. James M. Buckley was eminently
a godly man. He did not always perhaps
make this impression in his casual associations
with men. He was absolutely free from cant.
He had an abhorrence of anything hke a gra
tuitous display of pious pretension. He never
used his religious profession as a business card.
He never placarded his headquarters as a place
where business was transacted on the basis of
the "Golden Rule." But the citadel of his own
heart was always guarded by a loyalty to God
which was rock-firm and as clear as the sun
light. The testimony of one who knew him
long and well, is : "I believe that at any time he
would have been willing to lay down his hfe
rather than depart from the way in which he
believed God would have him walk. This was
his anchor."
He had definite, and usually very enhght
ened, views of the Bible. It does not matter
for present purposes, whether these views were
or were not in harmony with most that would
be advanced by the present-day school of evan
gelical and constructive biblical criticism. He
believed that, in a sense sufficient to guide man

THE MAN 275
infallibly along a divine highway of spiritual
and moral attainment to a holy immortality,
the Bible is the Word of God. And his
loyalty to his belief was as firm as that of a
martyr. He loved his Church. He beheved in her
doctrines and usages. He knew, as perhaps no
other man of his day, the history, the teachings,
and the personnel of this Church, and to it he
gave his lifelong labors and support. He early
became convinced that it was his duty to give
himself to the Christian ministry. This could
never mean for him, in any financial sense, a
hfe of lucrative income. It meant that he must
give his powers, however brilliant, to a service
calling for only modest material compensa
tions, that he must be a lifelong minister to the
poor, the sick, and, in many cases, the unpriv
ileged. It meant that he, with his family, must
be subject to the vicissitudes, the ups and
downs, of a life in the itinerancy. We have
already seen how as a very young man there
was proffered him a lucrative place and with
every promise of eminence and fortune, if he
would step aside from the ministry and enter
the legal profession. But, no ! He had heard
God's voice within him calhng him to this work,
and to that work he would be loyal to hfe's

276 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
end. What an example is here for many a
young man of finest moral capacity who, as
away from the summons of the spiritual, feels
put upon him the tremendous lure of this mer
cantile, money-loving, and materiahstic age!
It has been emphasized by those who had
best opportunities for knowing that Dr. Buck
ley's love for his mother was both intense and
tender in a degree that made it distinctly beau
tiful. His mother was an exceptionally admir
able character. Of her her son had just reason
to be proud. It is due also, perhaps more than
incidentally, to note that a large factor in this
mother's happiness throughout all her later
years, was in the satisfactions she experienced
in connection with the character and success
of her illustrious son. He could never be for
getful of his great personal indebtedness to her.
Throughout her lifetime there was no gift of
heart or of treasure too precious for him to lay
at her feet.
In the fullest sense of the term he probably
had but few intimate friends. Some of these
are still living. Their testimony to his partner
ship in a full-hearted, absolutely loyal, and un
broken hf e-friendship is very beautiful.
He was guided by a high sense of honor in
his relations to his associates in official work.

THE MAN 277
One of his long-time fellow workers writes of
the circumstances under which he was invited
to the position of the assistant editorship. Dr.
Buckley said to him: "I have given this matter
careful consideration. ... I want you to
come to my office not as my assistant, but as
the assistant editor of the Advocate. There is
a distinction, and it is my desire to have it ob
served. You will come not as an underling,
but with all the rights and responsibilities of
your office. You will not be my assistant, but
my brother, and we will work together as
brothers on a common task, to which we will
make our common contributions."
The same writer further says: "He was
eminently fair — or sought always to be so. He
had not the shghtest sympathy or patience with
shams — and was keen to try a lance with every
windmill of hypocrisy, pretense, bombast, and
mountebankery that appeared on the horizon.
It was his own innate sense of honor that was
finding expression, and that compelled him to
become a champion of personal righteousness,
even though his championship sometimes
brought much condemnation and criticism
upon his own head. . . . In the editorial con
duct of the paper the same high regard for
the fundamentals of manhood appeared con-

278 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
stantly. If, inadvertently, a statement were
printed that was wide of the truth — even in
small details — he was more than wilhng to
make suitable correction. And if the character
and reputation of an individual or of an organ
ization were involved, he was sore to make more
than ample restitution."
As to his real motives of equity and of fair-
dealing, nothing could be more satisfactory
than this kind of testimony — coming as it does
from out of the long experiences of a sensitive,
exacting, and laborious partnership with one's
chief in the common endeavor to discharge
great and difficult responsibilities.
In preceding pages much incidental refer
ence has been made to Dr. Buckley's wealth of
knowledge. Knowledge, various and full, was
such an element in his personal power as hardly
to admit of overstatement. One who knew his
habits and capacity says: "His ability to read
with surprising rapidity made it possible for
him to read ten times as many books in a year
as the ordinary reader, and his fine memory
enabled him to gather up and store away all the
books contained. He was a wide reader of the
best books. He knew history, especially the
history of our own country and of our own
Church, as few men did. He had read the

THE MAN 279
biographies of nearly all great men, ana had
read with care the stories of all the prominent
men of the Methodist Church. He was fa
miliar with the best English literature, and had
made a special study of Shakespeare and of
most of the great poets. Having this rich store
of hterature always at command made him a
power in debate and extemporaneous address.
I never imagined that he was qualified to take
charge of a department of science in any of our
best colleges; but he had made himself ac
quainted with the principal branches to a suffi
cient degree to enable him to speak without
embarrassment either in conversation or pubhc
discussion on topics requiring a knowledge of
these things. . . . The wonder to me always
was how he could command time to pick up so
much knowledge about everything."
He had a deep insight into character. His
knowledge of men was large. This was partly
instinctive, partly acquired. He studied men,
and easily read them. We have emphasized his
general fair-mindedness. He was habitually
swayed by a large sense of justice. But to as
sume that he invariably took the true and best
view of individuals would be an overassump-
tion. This would be to give him credit for a
perfect insight, and to an unerring judgment,

280 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
of character. There are cases in the memory
and judgment of hving men where Dr. Buck
ley's personal equation was so charged with
certain atmospheres as to make apparently im
possible to him the placing of some individuals
in the best hght — the light to which many
thought them justly entitled. All this is per
haps only to say that he was human, intensely
so. He did by no means altogether escape the
touch of "our mortal nature's strife."
In further illustration of Dr. Buckley's re
markable memory, I present here two inter
esting tests of this faculty. When he went to
Europe in 1888 I was residing in Stamford,
one of his former pastoral fields. He prom
ised that on his return he would spend the first
night of his next visit in Stamford as guest in
my home. On the evening in question Mr.
and Mrs. Henry A. Hubbard, warm mutual
friends, invited Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Hoyt,
Mrs. Mains, and myself to meet Dr. Buckley
at their home for dinner. It transpired that on
that day Mr. and Mrs. Hoyt had become
grandparents by the birth of a child in the
home of their eldest son. No sooner was the
fact announced than Dr. Buckley forthwith, in
felicitation of v Mrs. Hoyt, proceeded to tell,
and without the slightest hesitation, seven dis-

THE MAN 281
tinct stories on grandmothers. This may seem
casual. But how many are there who, without
special premeditation, could tell in quick suc
cession seven grandmother stories?
His long-time friend Dr. James Buckley
Faulks relates the following. In one of their
summer pedestrian tours, with two young men,
Messrs. Burr and Hoyt, as traveling compan
ions, they had witnessed at Raleigh, North
Carolina, a great eclipse of the sun. Dr.
Faulks had been engaged to write up his im
pressions of this eclipse for the Jersey City
Journal, and for the time being was not in a
mood to be diverted by any sort of story-tell
ing, however interesting in itself, "But," he
says, "Dr. Buckley put me to the test by pro
posing to tell me twenty-five distinct stories
which I had never heard him or anybody else
tell, and if he failed, he would pay the entire
expense of the party back to New York.
Young Hoyt and Burr so enthusiastically
urged the acceptance of the proposition that
I finally yielded."
What followed, Dr. Faulks thus describes:
"Buckley proceeded with great caution and
gave forth a few stories which met the require
ments, and then would go away to conjure up
some more and after a while would return to

282 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
narrate them. I would see him sitting under a
tree with a little memorandum book and pencil
pondering and pondering and then making a
note or two. By and by he would return with
another installment. This process went on
through the day and into the night, and it was
not until the afternoon of the second day that
the final story was told as we were riding away
from Raleigh. He told me afterward that it
was the severest mental exercise he had ever
undergone." This quahty of memory must stand as one
explanation of what seemed his inexhaustible
fullness. However free or prolonged his con
versation, he never seemed to reach the end of
his knowledge on any subject.
An intimate observer, speaking of some
quahties which greatly impressed him, says:
"He possessed great self-control, perhaps it
would be better to say mental composure, in
the presence of the multitude. Few men can
face an audience knowing that they are looking
to him for something important, and not be
come shghtly nervous. Often one's powers of
memory and utterance are more or less para
lyzed at first by the presence of a multitude.
Dr. Buckley was always, so far as I know,
entirely composed and had full command of all

THE MAN 283
his resources in the presence of a multitude. I
think he could command his material even
better when speaking to a large mass than when
talking with one or two people. His command
of language was marvelous. He could not
only find the words he wanted, but could put
them in the best shape and use them correctly
without stumbling or blundering while speak
ing in public. This was not only a natural, but
largely an acquired gift. It had been a large
study with him to learn to use language cor
rectly. He told me that in early life he
adopted the plan of using only the best lan
guage at his command in ordinary conversa
tion. He never allowed himself to construct an
awkward sentence or utter a slovenly speech
in conversation with one or two people. I
watched him after he told me this, and observed
that in ordinary conversation on unimportant
subjects, he spoke as carefully and accurately
as he did before an audience of two thousand.
This discipline extending through many years
made him one of the most accurate men in the
use of language I have ever known."
The same writer says : "If I were asked what
is the outstanding feature of Dr. Buckley's
mind, I think I should say, alertness. I am not
sure you could find that word in the dictionary,

284 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
but you know what it means. He was the most
alert man I ever knew. His mind was always
full. He was always ready for speech. He
did not need to wait for inspiration. . . .
He also had a degree of magnetism in public
address. When fully possessed of his subject
and in sympathy with the occasion, his eye
flashed and his countenance took on a peculiar
luster, and his voice responding to his mental
operations got a new ring which made the
people feel that a master of assembhes had
them in his grip."
As referring to this exceptional oratorical
power, exceptional indeed to the speaker him
self, I recall a remarkable occasion, shared also
by other of his personal friends, in which this
power, and on a brilhant stage, received most
superb illustration. The Nineteenth Century
Club of New York had arranged for a debate
concerning Christian Science. The elegant
assembly hall at Sherry's was the place selected
for the meeting. Some eminent speaker was to
represent the affirmative, and Dr. Buckley the
negative, side of the question. The advocates
of Christian Science for some reason found it
impossible to secure a champion whose courage
proved equal to the demands of the occasion,
no less than three different persons promising,

THE MAN 285
and finally each excusing himself from appear
ing. When the evening arrived one of the most
brilliant assembhes possible to New York city
crowded the hall. But as no speaker was pres
ent to represent the affirmative side of the ques
tion, Dr. Buckley felt that it would not be right
for him to take the time, unless he were first
permitted in some capacity, perhaps as that of
an attorney, to speak in behalf of Christian
Science. This proposition was agreed to. So
the entire occasion, divided into two periods,
was occupied by the one speaker, he in the first
period fairly stating the arguments for belief
in Christian Science.
In the closing period he stood on his own
ground as an opposer of the cult. Those who
knew him best felt that he was never more
superlatively himself than in that hour. The
scene itself was inspirational. His bodily con
dition was good. The play of his mind was
perfect. He had absolute command of his sub
ject. His voice was the perfect instrument of
both his thought and emotion. In the first
hour he had presented the grounds of Christian
Science with an ability than which nothing
better could be asked by the most enthusiastic
devotees of the cause. Then, after a brief re
cess, he took the other side, and, most resist-

286 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
lessly, remorselessly, stroke on stroke, smote
the entire structure of Christian Science until
there was nothing left of it but the fine dust of
its own absurdity.
I am writing from my own impressions of
the occasion. It was, I think, the most signal
triumph of intellect, of knowledge, of elo
quence combined that I have ever witnessed on
any single occasion. He compelled the ap
plause even of those whose behefs he was so
ruthlessly demolishing. As a triumph of
oratory it was a scene intrinsically worthy of
rank with the most illustrious instances of his
toric eloquence.
Dr. Buckley was largely endowed with in
born qualities of leadership. A close observer,
speaking of this gift, says :
"He began to be a leader very early in life.
This was not, as in some cases, because he
pushed himself to the front, but because he
possessed those quahties which people recog
nize as necessary to leadership. One of these
qualities is the voice of authority. He spake
as one having authority. His first sentence
made the impression that he was master of the
question and the situation. A man may have
learning and knowledge, but if he speaks with
a hesitating voice, he is not wanted for a leader.

THE MAN 287
Dr. Buckley never hesitated, never retracted,
never amended. He made the impression that
he had no doubts. He set the prow of his
ship toward the port he intended to reach and
never changed. He sailed right on, and every
one could see that he knew right where he
wanted to go and that he was going right there.
This is the kind of man the people hke to foL
low. They say to themselves : 'He knows just
what we want to know. He is going where we
want to go. He is a safe man.'
"He was a leader of the center column. In
every ecclesiastical conclave as well as in nearly
every army there is a right wing, a left wing,
and a center column. The right wing may
represent the radicals, the left wing the con
servatives, and the center, the conquering force,
having some conservatism, some radicalism,
and a good deal of its own thinking. Some
men aspire to leadership of the radicals. There
seems something of heroism in it. Others hke
to lead the conservative wing, because they
have nothing to do but hold back. Dr. Buck
ley was not a leader of either wing, but of the
center column consisting of men and women
who do much of their own thinking and follow
leaders who take the widest range."
One law is emphasized in all of Dr. Buck-

288 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
ley's life— the unfaihng law that a full price
must be paid for supreme attainment. It will
be easily said that he was born with unusual
gifts, that he had a brain of exceptional ca
pacity, and that nature had gravitated him to
the very front. Concede all the truth which
these assumptions contain. It still remains
inexorably true that he reached all his wonder
ful proficiency by dint of tremendous toil. If
it be true that nature endowed him with ten
talents, it is also true that he so invested these
many talents in the markets of enterprise as
far more than to double them. He was not
only an omnivorous reader, most careful to
use only correct speech in all ordinary con
versation, but he sought constantly to enrich
his vocabulary and to put himself in command
of all the range of synonyms that he might
employ instantly the word that would best con
vey his exact meaning. If he was never at a
loss upon his feet for a ready fund of pertinent
fact, and for fitting language by which to ex
press the same, all this was no accident. He
was always ready for the reason that he had
habitually enriched himself from ubiquitous
stores of knowledge and of thought. Among
all public characters of the time the hand of
laborious discipline has nowhere more revealed

THE MAN 289
itself than in the shaping and furnishing of this
man for his phenomenal career.
The voice of this example to the young, the
gifted, the ambitious, is : If you would forge to
the front, you must pay the full price of suc
cess. The prizes at the goal are not for the
indolent, nor for the idle dreamer. "He can
toil terribly," said Cecil of Sir Walter Raleigh.
Terrible toil is the price relentlessly exacted
for the highest prizes of human achievement.
No inheritance of privilege, no patronage of
influence or of power, can substitute this. It
is absurd for any young aspirant for success
to presume on a less cost. "The gods sell all
things at a fair price; but the gods are never
cheated." The better types of young mind are keen-
visioned. Their perceptive edge has not been
dulled. They have not as yet been spoiled by
the sordid worship of materialism. They are
hero-worshipers — and how fine a thing is hero-
worship in an unsulhed young life ! The selec
tive instincts of such minds lay hold upon the
superlative quahties. The man who receives
the crown of their unhesitating approbation
may well wear it as a diadem royal.
I have reserved as the final word for this
chapter the tribute of a business man, one

290 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
whose interest in and attachment to Dr. Buck
ley have grown neither out of ecclesiastical nor
public relations. In his statement he gives the
impressions of Dr. Buckley which he received
in young hfe, in his college and postgraduate
years. Having read this communication sev
eral times over, I have become increasingly im
pressed that it ranks among the finest tributes
of character. This estimate has grown purely
out of that intimate social friendship which in
this case, as sometimes happens, has happily
arisen between an older and a younger mind.
He says :
"Dr. Buckley is to me a man of wonders. I
have not known him as the preacher, or editor,
or lecturer, or parliamentarian, although I
have heard him preach and lecture, have read
his editorials and have known of his skill in the
great meetings of the Church. It is in the
everyday, between-the-acts that have made him
famous, that I have known him best. As a
young man on my college vacations the long
walks with him were events. He was then a
combination of mental wizard and athlete —
never tiring of propounding and answering a
thousand questions and outwalking a vigorous
youngster. There was no subject too trivial or
too weighty to be discussed and settled. He

THE MAN 291
was then aoout fifty. His conversation was a
delight and a despair. He believed in the
Methodist Church from the bottom to the top,
but he was never narrow. I knew that his
vehemence in denying representation to women
in the General Conference was based on a pro
found behef that his advocacy was for the good
of the Church. But he was never bitter in his
talks about it, nor about other things where he
opposed other great leaders. He admired his
opponents who were equally honest in laboring
for their convictions.
"There was a vein 01 humor in his character
which touched with light the serious philosophy
of his talk. . . . He has always been the
same to me, a great genius, a great mind, and
a great friend. This last I should emphasize,
for his friendship was the kind that was both
generous and satisfying. When I went to col
lege he warned me against the sophistries of a
certain professor whose writings had placed
him as a too liberal critic of most of the things
that Dr. Buckley considered as essentials. . . .
"His mastery of himself is a history of life
long endeavor against odds. The determina
tion to shake off disease in early manhood and
his strength by reason of will, is an instance of
rarity. Most people would give up when the

292 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
doctor gave them up. But he believed in the
divine right to live, and no effort was too great
and no disappointment too severe. The opti
mism of his character has been illuminating. I
think of him as of the sharpshooter who is sat
isfied only with bull's-eyes, and who shoots
straight for the very love of excelling.
"The delegate at the Conference who won
dered at his facility in debate and his sharpness
in argument might overlook the human side
of his make-up, or think of him as a mental
machine which could perform the work of a
dozen minds. But he was intensely human, if
an unusual interest in men's and women's hves
that touched his own was any criterion. Al
though justly able to speak of attainments,
he was not boastful. When after twenty-eight
years as editor of the Advocate he was again
elected, I remember his words, and know that
it was to him a deep satisfaction to be selected
again, although he then said it was to be the
last time, as it proved. His hfe has been one of
enormous achievement. The energy and abil
ity which might have brought him wealth and
public favor have been used as he began — al
ways for the good of the Church. So to me he is
a man of wonders, one of the very big men of
his time, content with little and giving much.

THE MAN 293
He will be long remembered. His hfe story
will be an inspiration to thousands of young
men who will try to emulate him, and catch,
if may be, the spirit that carried him through a
long hfe of supreme usefulness."
However alluring the pursuit, I am self-
warned that it is time to lay down my pen.
The quadrennium succeeding Dr. Buckley's
retirement from The Christian Advocate, ex
cept for an extended trip abroad — elsewhere
noted — was spent for the most part in the quiet
of his cultured home — a home tastefully and
affectionately presided over by his only
daughter — in Morristown, New Jersey. Dur
ing this quadrennium he did some occasional
lecturing before the students of the Drew
Theological Seminary. He was frequently
seen upon public occasions, often at the New
York Preachers' Meeting, regularly attending
the meetings of the Board of Foreign Missions,
as also discharging his duties as president of
the Board of Managers of the Methodist Epis
copal Hospital. He could go nowhere, how
ever, where he did not receive marked expres
sion of the profound respect and affection in
which he was held by his brethren.
When, finally, at the session of the New
York East Conference, held in Stamford, in

294 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
1916, he decided to ask for a retired relation
in the Conference, the spontaneous feeling of
the body uttered itself in the following resolu
tions prepared and presented by Dr. David G.
Downey: "The request of James M. Buckley for a
place in the ranks of the honorably retired
ministers of this Conference is a fact of his
toric significance, not only for the New
York East Conference, but for world-wide
Methodism. "For fifty-seven years, just fifty of which
have been spent in the New York East Confer
ence, this valiant and militant soldier of Jesus
Christ has been fighting the battles of Method
ism and of righteousness. The history of
Christianity, and especially of that form of
Christianity known as Methodism, during the
last half century cannot be written without giv
ing him a large place. As a debater and con
troller of pubhc assemblies he has been without
a peer among us; as a legislator he has left
his impress upon our laws and our institutions ;
as author he has given us books of indubitable
value ; as editor he has diffused general in
formation, defended, explained, and advocated
Methodist principles and policies, combated
evil, and advanced righteousness with an en
ergy and virility second to none; while as
pastor, preacher, and friend he has counseled,
comforted, strengthened, and stimulated a

THE MAN 295
mighty host who are glad to rise up and bless
him for his helpful and healing ministry.
"As Dr. Buckley retires from the ranks of
the effective ministry and seeks the quiet and
rest which he has abundantly earned, and to
which his four score years entitle him, we desire
to assure him of our esteem, our veneration,
and our love. With us he never has had and
never can have an equal. No one can draw the
bow that Ulysses has laid aside. In the affec
tion and admiration of the New York East
Conference one name stands preeminent,
unique — the name of James Monroe Buckley."
No better evidence of the large and magnetic
place which Dr. Buckley holds in the esteem
and affection of the Church at large could be
furnished than was displayed on two distinct
occasions at Saratoga, in May, 1916. When,
unannounced, his form was seen entering the
spacious dining room of the United States
Hotel, the many scores of delegates present,
together with their wives, rose spontaneously
to their feet and gave him as greeting the Chau
tauqua salute. In the great assembly room of
the General Conference, on the ensuing morn
ing, only on a far larger scale, the same greet
ing was repeated, literally thousands rising to
their feet to pay enthusiastic honor to this one
man. This kind of tribute is not paid to ordi-

296 JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY
nary characters. The man who thus commands
the homage of elect assemblies incarnates in
himself, and in most extraordinary measure,
the representative human quahties. His fellow
men instinctively admire and love him because
they see embodied in him, in character, in at
tainments, in service, both the prophecy and
the reahzation of the larger possibilities and
mission of the ideal human life.
In the presence of this life we stand wonder
ing and amazed. Its influence will indefinitely
survive, proving an inspiration and a blessing
in all its widening future way. Beyond the
goal of four score years, in the golden sunset of
an eventful day, our man of God, confidently,
cheerfully, awaits the summons which shall one
day call him to the splendors of the Endless
Morning.

INDEX

Abbott, A. V. R., religious
awakening wrought by, 57
Abnormalities, Dr. Buckley's
views on, 172
Acknowledgment of author as
to assistance received in
preparation of work, 18
Adventist, debate of Mr, Buck
ley with, 56
Agnostic, an, defined, 234
Alboni, Madame, 145
Aldrich, Senator, 270
Alpha Omega Society, debates
in, 44, 122, 123
Anarchists, 237
Assembly Herald, quoted, 214
Audience, an, rights of, 230
Bacon, Lord, cited, 19
Bagnell, Dr. Robert G., re
ferred to, 208
Ballard, Dr. A. E., referred to,
37
Baltimore Sun, the, quoted,
129
Bancroft, George, referred to,
58
Bangs, Nathan, cited, 100
Beecher, Henry Ward, saying
of, 122; referred to, 145;
resolution concerning, 147;
quoted, 231
Beethoven, 265
Beveridge, Senator, 270
Billings, Josh, quoted, 251

Blake, Dr, Edgar, speech, of
referred to, 115
Bond, Thomas, cited, 100
Boole, William H, 125
Borglum, Gutzon, bust of Dr.
Buckley, made by, 207
Bovard, Dr. Freeman D., re
ferred to, 114
Bowen, Henry C, cited, 117
Boyhood of Dr. Buckley, inci
dents in, 30-53
Brain, the human, 253
Bright, John, referred to, 146
Brougham, Lord, referred to,
146
Browning, Robert, cited, 19
Buckley, Dr. James Monroe,
unique place of, 11; early
physical handicap of, 12
difficulties overcome by, 12
magnitude of capacity of, 12
limitations regarded in writ
ing .the life of, 13; promi
nence of in diverse fields, 15;
long acquaintanceship of the
author with, 16; one of the
great men of the times, 17;
ancestry of, 19; English lin
eage of, 20; grandfathers and
great-grandfathers of de
scribed, 20; maternal grand
parents of, 20; younger
brother of, 23; quoted, 28;
record of immediate family
history of, 28, 29; hving

297

298

INDEX

children of, 29; boyhood of,
30ff.; not a young saint, 32;
quoted, 32; experience of
with infidels, 32; incidents in
boyhood of, 32ff.; accident
experienced by, 40; appren
ticed to a trade, 40; knowl
edge of Greek acquired by,
44; wrongly accused of pla
giarism, 48; school taught
by, 51 ; as preacher and pas
tor, 54; quoted, 56; health of
impaired, 57; decision of to
enter the Christian ministry,
57; admission of into New
Hampshire Annual Confer
ence, 59; Europe visited by,
60; transferred to New York
East Conference, 61, 124;
pastorates of covering four
teen years, 61, 62; reputation
of as pulpit orator, 62; re
sponse of to exceptional and
critical demands, 63; success
of as outdoor speaker, 64;
arrest of on false charge of
"conspiracy," 65; a serious
preacher, 67; oratorical gifts
of described by an intimate
friend, 68; quotation from
lecture of on "Psychology of
Audiences," 70; persuasive
preaching of, 71; ministerial
life of analyzed, 75; failure of
to secure life insurance, 78;
health-seeking experiences
of, 79-85; quoted, 80, 81, 82,
83, 84, 86; pedestrian habits
of, 86; mountain-climbing

trip in Yosemite Valley de
scribed by, 87-96; prolific
mind of, 102; encyclopedic
memory of, 103; letters of in
The Christian Advocate,
104; editorials of not in
dorsed by everybody, 106;
railway incident related by,
107; editorial policy of, 108-
111; conservative attitude
of toward doctrines and us
ages of the Church, 112, 138;
retirement of, 112; debate of
with Dr. Howell described,
123; activity of in General
Conference, 127; press no
tices of not all eulogies, 129;
one criticism of, 130; Gen
eral Conference career of,
131; parliamentary superi
ority of, 133; frequency of
speeches of, 136; humorous
analysis of, 137; patriotic
speeches of, 144; quoted,
145; invitation to preach in
Plymouth Church, 147;
second trip to Europe, 147;
third trip of to Europe, 148;
quotation from book by, 149;
quoted, 160; variety of au
thorship of, 166-169; quoted,
169, 186, 187; bodily appear
ance of, 260; described by
Bishop Fowler, 261; charac
ter and personality of an
alyzed, 262ff.; marked abil
ity of displayed in early life,
267; accused of possessing
egotism, 268; conversational

INDEX

299

powers of, 269; office of
bishop not desired by, 272;
eminently a godly man, 274;
loyalty of to principle, 274;
devotion of to mother, 276;
wide reading of, 278; self-
control possessed by, 282;
mental alertness of, 283; ex
ceptional oratorical power of,
284; early leadership of, 286;
tribute of a business man to,
290; retired relation asked
for by, 294; ovations received
by at Saratoga, 295
Buckley, John, father of Dr.
Buckley, sketch of, 21; wife
of, 22
Burns, Eliza A., marriage of to
Dr. Buckley, 28
Burns, Robert, humble origin
of, 264
Buttz, Dr. Henry A., referred
to, 114
Cannon, Joseph G., 270
"Captain of Conservatives,"
characterization given Dr.
Buckley, 130
Cartwright, Peter, referred to,
131
Chadwick, James S., 125
Chaucer, Geoffrey, cited, 19
Chautauqua, a distinctly
American institution, 210;
described, 211; Dr. Buckley's
long connection with, 212
"Central Methodist Episcopal
Church" of Detroit, de
scribed, 61

Choate, Rufus, referred to, 58
Christian Advocate, The, state
ment in, 48; election of Dr.
Buckley to editorship of, 62;
editors of enumerated, 100;
Dr. Buckley's long editor
ship of, 100; Dr. Buckley's
editorial policy stated in,
108-111; voluntary retire
ment of Dr. Buckley from
editorship of, 112
Christian Literature Company,
174
Christian Science, 172, 173,
216, 225, 248; unique debate
on, 285
Christianity, teaching of, 246
Christians, view of, 234
Clark, Daniel, referred to, 144
Cobden, Richard, referred to,
146
Coles, George, cited, 100
Collins, John A., cited, 100
Committee on Episcopacy, 134
Committee on Itinerancy, 134
"Constitutional and Parlia
mentary History of the
Methodist Episcopal
Church," Dr. Buckley's last
volume, described, 188; re
viewers' opinions of, 189,
190, 191
Consumption not hereditary,
78
"Contrasts Between Russia
and the United States,"
quotations from, 150-152
Crane, Dr. J. Townley, quoted,
37

300

INDEX

'Cranks," incident connected,
with lecture on, 250
Curry, Daniel, 100, 125, 126
Cuyler, Dr. Theodore L., opin
ion of, cited, 102
Daily Christian Advocate,
sketch of personal history of
Dr. Buckley in, 101; infor
mation contained in issues
of, 132
Darwin, Charles, referred to,
12, 251
Degrees, honorary, conferred
on Dr. Buckley, 193
Disraeli, Benjamin, referred to,
146; quoted, 260
Divorce laws, question con
cerning answered, 222
Dobbins, Colonel, experience
of with young Buckley, 41
Downey, Dr. David G., speech
of referred to, 116; resolu
tions presented by, 294
Drew Theological Seminary,
lectures of Dr. Buckley at,
293
Durbin, John P., cited, 100
"Ecclesiastical Code," 134
Eckman, George P., cited, 100;
quoted, 117-120; referred to,
208
Ecumenical Conferences of
Methodism, constituency of,
139; Dr. Buckley elected
delegate to, 147
Eddy, Mrs. Mary Baker G.,
opinion concerning work of;
218

Edison, Thomas, achievements
Of, 263
Editorial policy of Dr. Buck
ley outlined, 108-111
Editorial products of Dr. Buck
ley not always generally in
dorsed, 106
Egotism, 246
England, mother-land of Amer
ica, 19; bulwark of Protes
tant faith, 19
English Methodist Recorder,
The, quoted, 181
Environment influence of, 224
Evening Post, The, of Chicago,
quoted, 130
"Extemporaneous Oratory,"
appraisals of book by Dr.
Buckley bearing that title,
179-182
Fairbanks, Charles W., quoted,
190
Faith healing, question con
cerning, 235
Faulks, Dr. James Buckley,
incident related by, 281
Field, Henry M., cited, 117
Fifth trip abroad, described,
159ff.
Fight for life of Dr. Buckley, 77
Fisk, Wilbur, referred to, 21
FitzGerald, James N., referred
to, 200
Flying machines, prospective
future of, 231
Fourth journey to Europe by
Dr. Buckley, described, 153-
158

INDEX

301

Fowler, Charles H., 100; mem
orable incident associated
with, 133; quoted, 261
Fremont Presidential cam
paign, participation of Dr.
Buckley in, 55
Gazette, of Peking, oldest
newspaper in world, 229
General Conference of 1912,
statement of Dr. Buckley to,
112, 113; action of on vol
untary retirement of Dr.
Buckley, 114, 115; descrip
tion of scene in,' 116; Dr.
Buckley first elected to
membership in, 126
George, Bishop, referred to, 25
Gilbert, Levi, speech of re
ferred to, 115
Gilder, Richard Watson, cited,
36
Gladstone, William, referred
to, 146
God, Dr. Buckley's conception
of, 227
Goucher, Dr. John F., referred
to, 114
Greeley, Horace, referred to,
144
Halls, William, Jr., gifts of, 203
Handel, 265
Hannan, Dr. F. Watson, hymn
by, 206
Haven, Dr. Erastus O., in
fluence exerted by, 59
Hemphill, Major, 270
Heredity, what it does, 224

Higher criticism, question re
garding, 215
Hill, Adelaide Shackford, third
wife of Dr. Buckley, 28
Hoar, Senator George F.,
quoted, 184
Holman, the Rev. Calvin, re
ferred to, 82
Honorary organizations, mem
bership of Dr. Buckley in,
195
Hospitals of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, list of,
205
Howell, Dr. J. C, Adventist,
56, 123, 124
Huxley, Thomas Henry, cited,
19
Hypnotism, question concern
ing, 217
Immortality, no proofs of, 227
Independent, The, quoted,
175
Ingersoll, Robert G., parody
on eulogy by, 66; question
concerning, 217
James, William, referred to,
174
Jennings, Dr. Jesse W., quoted,
129
Joy, James R., cited, 100
Kavanagh, A. S., speech of
referred to, 115; address by,
197; quoted, 204; referred
to, 209

302

INDEX

Kelley, Dr. William V., quoted,
106, 166; referred to, 208;
quoted, 213
Kossuth, Hungarian patriot,
referred to, 41
Lanahan, John, referred to,
131
Landon, Dr. Thomas H.,
quoted, 42-51; members of
class taught by, 43
Letters of travel by Dr. Buck
ley, list of, 142, 143
Lind, Jenny, 145
Lippincott, B. C, referred to,
43
Lodge, Sir Oliver, referred to,
174
Lowell, James Russell, referred
to, 174
Luckey, Samuel, cited, 100
MacVeagh, Wayne, 270
Mains, George Preston, inci
dent in home of, 280
Marriage, 229
Matheson, Dr. A. Ross, re
ferred to, 208
Mayflower, the, 234
McKelway, Dr. St. Clair,
quoted, 68, 208, 260
Methodist, The, of Sydney,
Australia, quoted, 139
Methodist Episcopal Church,
leadership of in American
Christianity, 11; Dr. Buck
ley's position in, 11
Methodist Episcopal Hospital,
relations of Dr. Buckley

with, 197; origin of, 199;
history and work of, 200-
203; celebration of twenty-
fifth anniversary of opening
of, 207
Methodist Review, the,
quoted, 179
Methodist Times, The, of
London, quoted, 180
Milton, John, cited, 19
Minister, age for retirement of,
238
Money, tainted, Dr. Buckley's
view on, 236
Monroe, Abby Lonsdale,
mother of Dr. Buckley,
sketch of, 22; marriage of,
23; private school estab
lished by, 24; ideals of, 25;
activities of, 26; death of,
27
Monroe, the Rev. Doctor S. Y.,
accidental death of, 22
Moody, Dwight L., an edu
cated man, 232
Mugwump, Mr. Beecher ad
mittedly one, 244
Napoleon, influence of on
world, 264
Neely, Dr. (now Bishop), 133
New Hampshire Annual Con
ference, admission of Mr.
Buckley into, 59
New York Preachers' Meeting,
entrance of Dr. Buckley
into, 124
New York East Conference,
resolutions adopted by rela-

INDEX

303

tive to retirement of Dr.
Buckley, 294
Nicholson, Thomas, speech of
referred to, 116
Noble, Dr. Eugene A., referred
to, 208, 209
Nonchurchgoing among labor
ing classes, reasons for, 228
Novels, reading of, 238
Oil, anointment with, no au
thority for, 222
Oratory, extemporaneous, con
sidered, 176
Paine, Thomas, works of read
by Dr. Buckley, 32
Palmerston, Lord, referred to,
146
Parables, question concerning
answered, 240
Parker, Dr. Joseph, referred to,
145
Parkhurst, Dr. Charles,
quoted, 128
Parsons, Solomon, referred to,
43
Patten, Hon. John A., speech
of referred to, 116
Peace, preparation for, 218
Pearsall, James W., referred to,
208
Peck, George, referred to, 131
Pedestrian feat of Dr. Buckley,
apocryphal description of, 97
Pennington Seminary, 37, 41;
career of young Buckley at
44; later years of Mr. Buck
ley in, 51; debates in, 122,
123, 124

Phillips, Wendell, referred to,
58
Phillips Academy, 58
Plagiarizing, 258
Pope, the, opportunity of to
read The Christian Advo
cate, 221
Prejudice, 245
Presiding ejders, election of op
posed by Dr. Buckley, 136
Prime, S. Iren»us, cited, 117
Proctor, Senator Redfield, 270
Public Ledger, of Philadelphia,
quoted, 128
Pullman, Joseph, 125
Punshon, William Morley, re
ferred to, 145
"Question Box," at Chautau
qua, 213
Questions and Answers, 215-
240
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 289
Reading, question concerning
answered, 220
Religion, what it is, 233
Reynolds, Hon. George G.,
quoted, 190; referred to, 208,
209
Roach, John A., cited, 125
Roman Catholic organization,
235
Roosevelt, Theodore, 234, 257,
269
Root, Senator Elihu, 270
Russell, Lord, referred to, 146
Sabbath, the, 229; opmion of
Dr. Buckley regarding, 254

304

INDEX

Sargeant, Francis, 270
Selfishness of men, 237
Seney, George I., philanthropic
activities of, 199
Sermon, best divisions of a,
234
Shakespeare, William, cited,
19
Sin, origin of, question and
answer concerning, 237
Sixth journey abroad, itinerary
of, 163, 164
Skepticism, treatment for, 219
Slate, Albert, referred to, 43
Smith, Dr. George Adam,
quoted, 157
Smith, Dr. Robertson, trial of
referred to, 148
Smoking, danger of habit of,
231
Socrates, not a Christian, 232
Spencer, Herbert, referred to,
12
Spenser, Edmund, cited, 19
Spirits, disembodied, answer to
question concerning, 219
Spurgeon, Charles, referred to,
145
Stanley, Dean, referred to, 145
Staples, Sarah Isabella French,
second wife of Dr. Buckley,
28 "
Stevens, Abel, cited, 100
Stewart, Dr. Scott, hospital
founded by, 205
Sumner, Charles, referred to,
144
Sun, The New York, quoted,
180

Tennyson, Alfred, incident
concerning, 146; referred to,
124
Thalberg, 145
Theater-going, Dr. Buckley on,
169
Thompson, John Rhey, cited,
125
Thomson, Edward, cited, 100
Tilton, Theodore, referred to,
147
Trimble, Joseph M., referred
to, 132
Trumbull, Henry Clay, cited,
117
Twain, Mark, 270
TyndaU, John, cited, 19
Urmy, Ralph B., referred to,
208
Vincent, John Heyl, personal
ity of, 210
Votes received by Dr. Buckley
as editor of The Christian
Advocate, 100
Wallace, Governor, speech of
referred to, 115
Ward, Artemus, quoted, 240
Warren, Henry W., election of
as a bishop referred to by
Dr. Buckley, 113
Watterson, Henry, 270
Waugh, Bishop Beverly, re
ferred to, 37
Webster, Daniel, referred to,
58
Wesleyan Academy, referred
to, 21

INDEX

30.5

Wesleyan University, referred
to, 54
Wheeler, Judge, introduction
of Dr. Buckley by, 262
White, Hon. Andrew D.,
quoted, 180
Wilson, Bishop Luther B., re
ferred to, 208, 209
Wing, Charles 3., cited, 125
"Wit and Wisdom," 241
"Wit of Methodism," term ap
plied to Dr. Buckley, 69
Woodruff, George W., cited,
125

Woman suffrage, 130; diverse
opinions of Dr. Buckley's
book on, 184, 185
Woman, sphere of, answer
concerning, 226, 239
Wordsworth, William, cited, 19
Yosemite Valley, experience of
Dr. Buckley in, 87-96
Young, John W., referred to,
43
Zane, William, referred to, 43
Zion's Herald, 59, 128

^Tfiii

3 9002 043778795

lailli

mm ii