American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - Ebenezer Davies
At last Gough made his appearance on the platform. He is a slender
young man of three or four and twenty. He told us he had spoken every
night except three for the last thirty nights, and was then very weary,
but thought "what a privilege it is to live and labour in the present
day." He related his own past experience of _delirium tremens_,--how an
iron rod in his hand became a snake,--how a many-bladed knife pierced
his flesh,--how a great face on the wall grinned at and threatened him;
"and yet," he added, "I _knew_ it was a delusion!"
A temperance man, pointing to Gough, had once observed to another,
"What a miserable-looking fellow that is!" "But," replied the other,
"you would not say so, if you saw how he keeps everybody in a roar of
laughter at the public-house till 1 or 2 in the morning." "But I _was_
miserable," said Gough; "I _knew_ that the parties who courted and
flattered me really _despised_ me." He told us some humorous
tales,--how he used to mortify some of them by claiming acquaintance
with them in the street, and in the presence of their respectable
friends. He returned scorn for scorn. "Gough," said a man once to him,
"you ought to be ashamed of yourself to be always drinking in this
manner." "Do I drink at your expense?"--"No." "Do I owe you
anything?"--"No." "Do I ever ask you to treat me?"--"No." "Then mind
your own business," &c. He introduced this to show that that mode of
dealing with the drunkard was not likely to answer the purpose.
"Six years ago," said he, "a man on the borders of Connecticut, sat
night after night on a stool in a low tavern to scrape an old fiddle.
Had you seen him, with his old hat drawn over his eyebrows, his swollen
lips, and his silly grin, you would have thought him adapted for
nothing else. But he signed the pledge, and in two years became a
United States senator, and thrilled the House with his eloquence."
In one place, after Gough had delivered a lecture, some ladies gathered
around him, and one of them said, "I wish you would ask Joe to 'sign
the pledge,"--referring to a wretched-looking young man that was
sauntering near the door. Gough went up to him, spoke _kindly_ to him,
and got him to sign: the ladies were delighted, and heartily shook
hands with Joe. A year after Gough met Joe quite a dandy, walking
arm-in-arm with a fine young lady. "Well, Joe, did you stick to the
pledge?" said Gough to him. "Yes," said Joe with an exulting smile,
"and the lady has stuck to me."
For more than an hour Gough kept the vast audience enchained by his
varied and charming talk.
On the 29th I went over the Tract House in New York, and was delighted
to see there six steam-presses,--four of which were then at work,
pouring forth in rapid succession sheet after sheet impressed with that
kind of literature which in my judgment is admirably adapted to meet
the wants of this growing country. They were then printing on an
average 27,000 publications, including nearly 2,400 of each kind, _per
diem!_ and employing sixty women in folding and stitching. During the
last year they printed 713,000 volumes, and 8,299,000 smaller
publications, making a total of 217,499,000 pages, or 58,154,661 pages
more than in any previous year! Of the _volumes_ issued, I may mention
14,000 sets of four volumes of D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation,
17,000 of Bunyan's Pilgrim, 10,000 of Baxter's Saints' Rest, 9,000 of
Doddridge's Rise and Progress, 7,000 of Pike's Persuasives, 13,000 of
Alleine's Alarm, and 41,000 of Baxter's Call! The two Secretaries,
whose business it is to superintend the publishing department and
matters relating to the raising of funds, the Rev. Wm. A. Hallock and
the Rev. O. Eastman, are enterprising and plodding men. They told me
they were brought up together in the same neighbourhood, and had both
worked at the plough till they were 20 years of age!
The 1st of May is the great moving day in New York. Throughout the city
one house seems to empty itself into another. Were it to the next door,
it might be done with no great inconvenience; but it is not so. Try to
walk along the causeway, and you are continually blocked up with
tables, chairs, and chests of drawers. Get into an omnibus, and you are
beset with fenders, pokers, pans, Dutch ovens, baskets, brushes, &c.
Hire a cart, and they charge you double fare.
One day at the water-side, happening to see the steamer for Staten
Island about to move off, we stepped on board, and in less than half an
hour found ourselves there. The distance is 6 miles, and the island is
18 miles long, 7 miles wide, and 300 feet high. Here are a large
hospital for mariners and the quarantine burying-ground. It is also
studded with several genteel residences. In 1657 the Indians sold it to
the Dutch for 10 shirts, 30 pairs of stockings, 10 guns, 30 bars of
lead, 30 lbs. of powder, 12 coats, 2 pieces of duffil, 30 kettles, 30
hatchets, 20 hoes, and one case of knives and awls.
Several emigrant vessels were then in the bay. On our return, we saw
with painful interest many of them setting their foot for the first
time on the shore of the New World. They were then arriving in New
York, chiefly from the United Kingdom, at the rate of one thousand a
day. The sight affected me even to tears. It was like a vision of the
British Empire crumbling to pieces, and the materials taken to build a
new and hostile dominion.
I should draw too largely upon your patience, were I to describe many
objects of interest and many scenes of beauty I witnessed in New York
and the neighbourhood. The Common Schools; the Croton Waterworks,
capable of yielding an adequate supply for a million-and-a-half of
people; Hoboken, with its sibyl's cave and elysian fields; the spot on
which General Hamilton fell in a duel; the Battery and Castle Garden--a
covered amphitheatre capable of accommodating 10,000 people; the Park,
and the City Hall with its white marble front; Trinity Church; and its
wealthy Corporation; Long Island, or Brooklyn, with its delightful
cemetery, &c., &c. Suffice it to say that New York has a population of
about 400,000; and that it has for that population, without an
Established Church, 215 places of worship. Brooklyn has also a
population of 60,000, and 30 places of worship.
LETTER XXXVI.
The May Meetings--Dr. Bushnell's Striking Sermon--Two Anti-Slavery
Meetings--A Black Demosthenes--Foreign Evangelical Society--A New Thing
in the New World--The Home-Missionary Society--Progress and Prospects
of the West--Church of Rome--Departure from New York--What the Author
thinks of the Americans.
The American May Meetings held in New York do not last a month as in
England,--a week suffices. That week is the second in the month. On the
Sabbath preceding, sermons on behalf of many of the societies are
preached in various churches. On the morning of the Sabbath in question
we went to the Tabernacle, not knowing whom we should hear. To our
surprise and pleasure, my friend Dr. Baird was the preacher. His text
was, "Let thy kingdom come;" and the object for which he had to plead
was the Foreign Evangelical Society, of which he was the Secretary. His
sermon was exceedingly simple, and the delivery quite in an off-hand
conversational style. There was no reading.
In the evening we heard Dr. Bushnell preach, on behalf of the American
Home-Missionary Society, at the "Church of the Pilgrims" in Brooklyn.
This is a fine costly building, named in honour of the Pilgrim Fathers,
and having a fragment of the Plymouth Rock imbedded in the wall. The
sermon was a very ingenious one on Judges xvii. 13: "Then said Micah,
Now know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my
priest." The preacher observed that Micah lived in the time of the
Judges--what might be called the "emigrant age" of Israel,--that he was
introduced on the stage of history as a thief,--that he afterwards
became in his own way a saint, and must have a priest. First, he
consecrates his own son; but his son not being a Levite, it was
difficult for so pious a man to be satisfied. Fortunately a young
Levite--a strolling mendicant probably--comes that way; and he promptly
engages the youth to remain and act the _padre_ for him, saying, "Dwell
with me, and be a _father_ unto me." Having thus got up a religion, the
thief is content, and his mental troubles are quieted. Becoming a
Romanist before Rome is founded, he says, "Now know I that the Lord
will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest." Religion to him
consisted in a fine silver apparatus of gods, and a priest in regular
succession. In this story of Micah it was seen that _emigration, or a
new settlement of the social state, involves a tendency to social
decline_. "Our first danger," said the preacher, "is barbarism
--Romanism next."
The tendency to barbarism was illustrated by historic references. The
emigration headed by Abraham soon developed a mass of barbarism,--Lot
giving rise to the Moabites and the Ammonites; meanwhile, Abraham
throwing off upon the world in his son Ishmael another stock of
barbarians--the Arabs,--a name which according to some signifies
_Westerners_. One generation later, and another ferocious race springs
from the family of Isaac--the descendants of Esau, or the Edomites.
Then coming down to the time of the Judges we find that violence
prevailed, that the roads were destroyed, and that the arts had
perished: there was not even a smith left in the land; and they were
obliged to go down to the Philistines to get an axe or a mattock
sharpened. Then the preacher came to the great American question
itself. It was often supposed that in New England there had always been
an upward tendency. It was not so. It had been downward until the
"great revival" about the year 1740. The dangers to which society in
the South and "Far West" is now exposed were powerfully described. The
remedies were then pointed out.
"First of all, we must not despair." "And what next? We must get rid,
if possible, of slavery." "'We must have peace.'". Also "Railways and
telegraphs." "Education, too, we must favour and promote." "Above all,
provide a talented and educated body of Christian teachers, and keep
them pressing into the wilderness as far as emigration itself can go."
The conclusion of this great sermon was so remarkable that I cannot but
give it in the Doctor's own words.
"And now, Jehovah God, thou who, by long ages of watch and discipline,
didst make of thy servant Abraham a people, be thou the God also of
this great nation. Remember still its holy beginnings, and for the
fathers' sakes still cherish and sanctify it. Fill it with thy Light
and thy Potent Influence, till the glory of thy Son breaks out on the
Western sea as now upon the Eastern, and these uttermost parts, given
to Christ for his possession, become the bounds of a new Christian
empire, whose name the believing and the good of all people shall hail
as a name of hope and blessing."
On the Tuesday I attended two Anti-slavery Meetings in the Tabernacle.
The one in the morning was that of Mr. Garrison's party. The chief
speakers were Messrs. Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Frederick
Douglass. This party think that the constitution of the United States
is so thoroughly pro-slavery that nothing can be done without breaking
it up. Another party, at the head of which is Lewis Tappan, think that
there are elements in the constitution which may be made to tell
powerfully against slavery, and ultimately to effect its overthrow.
Both parties mean well; but they unhappily cherish towards each other
great bitterness of feeling. Mr. Tappan's party held their meeting in
the afternoon. Among the speakers was the Rev. Mr. Patton from
Hartford, son of Dr. Patton, who made a very effective speeches. The
Rev. Samuel Ward also, a black man of great muscular power, and amazing
command of language and of himself, astonished and delighted me. I
could not but exclaim, "There speaks a black Demosthenes!" This man,
strange to say, is the pastor of a Congregational church of white
people in the State of New York. As a public speaker he seemed superior
to Frederick Douglass. It was pleasing at those anti-slavery meetings
to see how completely intermingled were the whites and the coloured.
I had been invited in the evening to speak at the public meeting of the
Foreign Evangelical Society, and to take tea at Dr. Baird's house.
While I was there, Dr. Anderson, one of the Secretaries of the American
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and Mr. Merwin, called to
invite me to address the public meeting of that society on the Friday.
I promised to do so, if I should not previously have left for the West
Indies. The public meeting of Dr. Baird's society was held in the Dutch
Reformed Church, Dr. Hutton's, a magnificent Gothic building. Dr. De
Witt took the chair. The attendance was large and respectable. Dr.
Baird, as Secretary, having recently returned from Europe, where he had
conversed on the subject of his mission with fourteen crowned heads,
read a most interesting report. The writer had then to address the
meeting. After him three other gentlemen spoke. There was no
collection! Strange to say, that, with all their revivals, our friends
in America seem to be morbidly afraid of doing anything under the
influence of excitement. Hence the addresses on occasions like this are
generally stiff and studied, half-an-hour orations. This feeling
prevents their turning the voluntary principle, in the support of their
religious societies, to so good an account as they otherwise might. At
the close of this meeting, there seemed to be a fine state of feeling
for making a collection; and yet no collection was made. This society
is one of great value and importance. It is designed to tell in the
promotion of evangelical truth on the Catholic countries of Europe and
South America. In those countries, it employs a hundred colporteurs in
the sale and distribution of religious publications.
The next morning I addressed a breakfast meeting of about 400 people,
in a room connected with the Tabernacle. This was a new thing in the
New World. It was, moreover, an anti-slavery breakfast, under the
presidency of Lewis Tappan. It was charming to see the whites and the
coloured so intermingled at this social repast, and that in the very
heart of the great metropolis of America.
At 10 the same morning a meeting of the American Tract Society was held
at the Tabernacle. I had been engaged to speak on that occasion, but
was obliged to go and see about the vessel that was to take us away.
In the evening I was pressed, at half an hour's notice, to speak at the
meeting of the American Home-Missionary Society. The Rev. H.W. Beecher
of Indianapolis, one of the sons of Dr. Beecher, made a powerful speech
on the claims of the West and South-west. In my own address I
complimented the Directors on the ground they had recently taken in
reference to slavery, and proceeded to say that there was an important
sense in which that society should be an anti-slavery society. This
elicited the cheers of the few, which were immediately drowned in the
hisses of the many. The interruption was but momentary, and I
proceeded. The next morning one of the Secretaries endeavoured to
persuade me that the hisses were not at myself, but at those who
interrupted me with their cheers. I told him his explanation was
ingenious and kind; nevertheless I thought I might justly claim the
honour of having been hissed for uttering an anti-slavery sentiment at
the Tabernacle in New York!
This society has an herculean task to perform; and, in consideration of
it, our American friends might well be excused for some years, were it
possible, from all foreign operations.
"Westward the star of empire moves."
Ohio welcomed its first permanent settlers in 1788, and now it is
occupied by nearly 2,000,000 of people. Michigan obtained its first
immigrants but fourteen or fifteen years ago, and now has a population
of 300,000. Indiana, admitted into the Union in 1816, has since then
received a population of more than half a million, and now numbers
nearly a million of inhabitants. Illinois became a State in 1818. From
that date its population trebled every ten years till the last census
of 1840, and since then has risen from 476,000 to about 900,000.
Missouri, which in 1810 had only 20,800 people, has now 600,000, having
increased 50 per cent. in six years. Iowa was scarcely heard of a dozen
years ago. It is now a State, and about 150,000 people call its land
their home. Wisconsin was organized but twelve years ago, and has now a
population of not less than 200,000. One portion of its territory, 33
miles by 30, which ten years before was an unbroken wilderness,
numbered even in 1846 87,000 inhabitants; and the emigration to the
"Far West" is now greater than ever. A giant is therefore growing up
there, who will soon be able and disposed to rule the destinies of the
United States. The Church of Rome is straining every nerve to have that
giant in her own keeping, and already shouts the song of triumph. Says
one of her sanguine sons, "The Church is now firmly established in this
country, and persecution will but cause it to thrive. Our countrymen
may grieve that it is so; but it is useless for them to kick against
the decrees of the Almighty God. They have an open field and fair play
for Protestantism. Here she has had free scope, has reigned without a
rival, and proved what she could do, and that her best is evil; for the
very good she boasts is not hers. A new day is dawning on this chosen
land, and the Church is about to assume her rightful position and
influence. Ours shall yet become consecrated ground. _Our hills and
valleys shall yet echo to the convent-bell._ The cross shall be planted
throughout the length and breadth of our land; and our happy sons and
daughters shall drive away fear, shall drive away evil from our borders
with the echoes of their matin and vesper hymns. No matter who writes,
who declaims, who intrigues, who is alarmed, or what leagues are
formed, THIS IS TO BE A CATHOLIC COUNTRY; and from Maine to Georgia,
from the broad Atlantic to broader Pacific, the 'clean sacrifice' is to
be offered daily for quick and dead." The triumph may be premature; but
it conveys a timely warning.
The next day the Anniversary of the Bible Society was held. The Hon.
Theodore Frelinghuysen presided. At that meeting I had been requested,
to speak, but could not. Indeed, we were detained all day on board a
vessel by which we expected every hour to sail for Jamaica; though,
after all, we had to wait until the following day. On that day, the
14th of May, just at the time the Board of Missions were holding their
public meeting, we sailed, and bade adieu to New York and all the
delightful engagements of that memorable week.
But, say you, Tell us in a few words what you think of America upon the
whole? I will try to do so. There is a class of things I greatly
admire; and there is a class of things I greatly detest. Among the
former I may mention--
1. Religious equality--the absence of a State church.
2. The workings of the voluntary principle in the abundant supply of
places of worship, and in the support of religious institutions.
3. General education. With regard to their common schools, and also to
their colleges, they are far in advance of us in England. The existence
of universal suffrage has the effect of stimulating educational efforts
to a degree which would not otherwise be attained. The more respectable
and intelligent of the citizens are made to feel that, with universal
suffrage, their dearest institutions are all perilled unless the mass
be educated.
As education is the great question of the day, I must not omit to make
a few remarks on the Primary Schools of the United States. There is no
_national_ system of education in America. Congress does not interfere
in the matter, except in the "Territories" before they become "States."
The States of the Union are so many distinct Republics, and, in the
matter of education, as in all their internal affairs, are left
entirely to take their own measures. With regard to education, no two
States act precisely alike. If we glance at the States of
Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio, we shall, however, discover the
three great types of what in this respect generally prevails throughout
the States.
MASSACHUSETTS.--Scarcely had the "Pilgrims" been half-a-dozen years in
their wilderness home before they began to make what they deemed a
suitable provision for the instruction of their children. They adopted
the same principle in reference to education and religion--that of
taxation. A general tax was not imposed; but the people in the various
townships were empowered to tax themselves to a certain amount, and to
manage the whole affair by means of their own "select men." But,
although this law has continued for 200 years, the people have always
done far more than it required. In Boston, for instance, the law
demands only 3,000 dollars a year, but not less than 60,000 dollars is
raised and applied! So that here we have a noble proof, not so much of
the effect of government interference, as of the efficiency of the
voluntary principle in providing education for the young. The people of
Massachusetts, and indeed of all the New England States, are doubtless
the best educated in the world. Not one in a thousand of those born
here grows up unable to read and write.
The calumniated "Pilgrims" were thus early attentive to the importance
of education; and their system had been in full operation for between
thirty and forty years, when, in 1670, Sir William Berkley, Governor of
Virginia, the stronghold of the Anglican Church, thus devoutly
addressed the "Lords of Plantations in England:"--"I thank God _there
are no free schools nor printing_, and I hope we shall not have them
these hundred years; for learning has brought _disobedience and heresy
and sects_ into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels
against the best government. God keep us from both!"
The system of Massachusetts may be regarded as a type of what prevails
in the six New England States, except Connecticut, where there is a
State fund of upwards of 2,000,000 dollars, yielding an annual dividend
of about 120,000 dollars for school purposes.
NEW YORK.--In this State a large fund for schools has been created by
the sale of public land. The proceeds of this fund are annually
distributed in such a way as to secure the raising by local efforts of
at least three times the amount for the same object. This fund is thus
used as a gentle stimulant to local exertions. The system described
will convey a notion of what exists in the _middle_ States.
Ohio.--In this and the Western States every township is divided into so
many sections of a mile square; and one of these sections, out of a
given number, is devoted to the maintenance of schools. As a township
increases in population, the reserved section advances in value. These
schools are not subject to any central control, but are under the
management of a committee chosen by the township.
Still education is not so general in all the States as might be wished.
Miss Beecher, the daughter of Dr. Beecher, having devoted to the
subject much time and talent, tells us that there are in the United
States "a million adults who cannot read and write, and more than two
millions of children utterly illiterate and entirely without schools!"
Of the children in this condition, 130,000 are in Ohio, and 100,000 in
Kentucky.
In the working of this system of education, the absence of a State
Church affords advantages not enjoyed in England. Of late, however, an
objection to the use of the Bible in these schools has been raised by
the Roman Catholics, and the question in some States has been fiercely
agitated. In the city of St. Louis the Bible has been excluded. In
Cincinnati the Catholics, failing to exclude it, have established
schools of their own.
This agitation is one of great interest. It leads thoughtful and devout
men to ask, whether, when the State, assuming to be the instructor of
its subjects, establishes schools, and puts Protestant Bibles, or any
other, or none into them _by law_, they have not thenceforth
Protestantism, Popery, or Infidelity so far _by law established_; and
whether it is not better that the State should restrict itself to its
proper function as the minister of justice, leaving secular
instruction, like religious, to the spontaneous resources of the
people.
To this, I think, it will come at last. The Common School economy is a
remnant of the old Church-and-State system, which has not been entirely
swept away. But for this impression I should feel some uneasiness, lest
it should prove the germ of a new order of things leading back to
State-Churchism. It appeared to me quite natural to say, "Here is a
State provision for schools,--why not have a similar provision for
churches? It works well for the one,--why not for the other? Is it not
as important that our churches should rely, not alone on the capricious
and scanty efforts of the voluntary principle, but also on the more
respectable and permanent support of the State, as it is that our
Common Schools should adopt this course?" To me it seemed that the
arguments which recommended the one supported the other; but when I
have mentioned to intelligent men the possibility, not to say
probability, of the one step leading to the other, they have invariably
been surprised at my apprehensions, and have assured me that nothing
was more unlikely to take place.