USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Norfolk > History of Norfolk, Litchfield County, Connecticut, 1744-1900 > Part 35
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Cape Cod has been known for many generations as a nursery of men distinguished for high professional ability, for commercial enterprise, for large hearted philanthropy, and for self-sacrificing piety. The neighborhood of the sea, with its suggestions of in- finitude, with its restless motion and its stirring life, with the coming and going of its ships-bringing strange faces and various products, with its stories of adventure and escape, tends to liberal- ize and elevate and stimulate the mind, and to ennoble the character when it takes a good direction. In devout men it gives ardor and breadth and generosity and openness to their piety, and devout women are trained, by their frequent separation from their hus- bands, to a constant sense of their dependence on God, to a fer- vent faith in prayer, and to habits of self-reliance, circumspection, and forecast.
It was the earnest desire of Dr. Eldridge's mother that he should receive a liberal education and preach the gospel. I know not what hindered the early fulfillment of this desire. I know only that, for a while, he was a clerk in a grocery house in Boston, where his upright moral sense was offended by some of the trans- actions of which he was cognizant, and by some of the tempta- tions incident to a city life. He was subsequently sent to Phillips Academy in Andover, and in Sept., 1825, became a member of Yale College, in the Freshman year, at the age of 21 years. He was then a full-grown man, with much the same bearing as in later life, and from the first was one of the foremost men of his class, being es- teemed alike for his manly generosity, his superior scholarship, and his Christian fidelity. In his college relationships he was a man somewhat by himself, self-occupied and self-sufficing, but not unfriendly; reserved yet frank, blunt yet kindly, devoted to his own affairs yet always ready to respond to the claims and interests of others when made alive to them. His class was distinguished for the brilliancy of some of its members and for the spirit and confidence which characterized its common life. In the summer of 1828, near the end of his Junior year, just after the Senior class had been dismissed for the usual vacation of six weeks before
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commencement, this class distinguished its accession to the head- ship of the college, by abandoning the commons hall with nearly all the students, to express the general dissatisfaction with the food which was furnished. The movement at first view seemed not in- defensible, but it was properly regarded by the Faculty as a com- bination to disturb the authority and good order of the Institution which could not for a moment be tolerated. The students were ad- monished and reasoned with; subsequently they were formally re- quired to return to their places in the hall as an act of obedience. The order was as distinctly and deliberately disobeyed by nearly the whole number concerned. The regular studies were soon sus- pended, and the students were assembled in frequent conferences in which they earnestly discussed the attitude which they should assume and the measures which they should adopt to justify them- selves before their parents and friends and the community. Dr. Eldridge was absent from town when the incipient measures were taken for leaving the commons hall, and for two or three days after the first decisive step had been resolved upon. It was under- stood that he was neither cognizant of, nor a party to, the begin- ning of the movement. On returning to college from a visit to his relatives he found the college all ablaze with excitement. On learning the condition of things he at once gave in his adhesion to the common cause. I was then a boy and a looker on, but I can see him now as he stood in the old Theological Chamber, which was filled with a swaying and surging crowd of excited young men, and assured them of the justice of their cause and the sure promise of its success. His age and sobriety and scholarship and Christian conscientiousness gave no little weight to his position, , and confirmed many of the timid and distrustful among the younger and less experienced. A day or two later the crisis came. Several of those known to be leaders in the class and in this affair were sent for and warned by their instructors and friends, and among them was Dr. Eldridge. They were told that if they persisted they must eventually be expelled from the college, and most justly, for their direct resistance to its authority. Four men when asked whether they would return to their duty, distinctly declined and were at once expelled. Dr. Eldridge had previously come to a better mind and separated himself from the resistants. The others went to their homes, were absent some four weeks, came back on such terms as were imposed, and the affair was over.
This act of Dr. Eldridge brought him prominently before the students as a man of sturdy allegiance to principle and of conscien- tious willingness to abandon an untenable position alone. It se- cured to him the especial friendship of many gentlemen of the Fac- ulty, prominent among whom were those who were subsequently
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his theological instructors. He graduated with the second honor of his class, and immediately entered upon his professional studies in the Theological Seminary of Yale College.
On April 25th, 1832, he was ordained as a Christian minister, and installed as the Pastor of this church, and here he continued to discharge the duties of his office till having resigned his charge he preached his farewell sermon Nov. 1st, 1874. In the year 1853 he was abroad for a few months upon a visit to Europe. In 1870 he intermitted the regular routine of professional duty on account of severe and painful infirmity. But with these exceptions he dis- charged his ministerial and pastoral duties with even uniformity, with unabated interest, and with universal acceptance. At the time of his resignation he was the oldest of the pastors in active service in the State of Connecticut. He resigned his office from a regard to his own health, which had become seriously impaired, and from an affectionate interest in the people to whom he had devoted his life. He had hoped and expected to spend many years of tranquility and love among them and the neighboring churches. He died March 31st, 1875. He was called to be present with his Master sooner than he expected, but we cannot doubt that he has received from Him a welcome and a home.
Dr. Eldridge had a strong and solid intellect. He looked every subject and question squarely in the face, and his judgments were sagacious and penetrating. His mind was eminently comprehensive. His early training had formed him to the habit of looking beyond the conventionalities which are incident to a small and isolated community, and a narrow sect or party. Sea-faring men, and those who deal with them, are often very decided in their opinions, and are usually positive and bold in asserting and defending them; but they are usually broad-minded in their habits of thought and in- quiry. The comprehensiveness and sagacity of Dr. Eldridge's in- tellect were not, however, to be ascribed solely to his early asso- ciations. Had he been reared elsewhere, he would have been a strong, sagacious, and solid thinker.
His intellect was eminently practical. He had little of that activity which is commonly called imaginative. Though he was a never-tiring reader, he was not especially fond of literature as such. As a writer he never could bring himself to give minute attention to refinements of diction, or to fullness or finish of illus- trations, and as a reader, though by no means insensible to the power of eloquence and the elevation of poetry, he was especially interested in the matter of what he read, rather than its form. He delighted in facts-yet not in the spirit of the dry collector of sta- tistics, or the forward retailer of curious scraps of information, but in such facts as have an important bearing on the wealth and
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welfare of mankind-upon their true well-being in this life, and in the life to come. For speculation as such-whether it concerned theories of political economy, of government, or metaphysical the- ology-he had little interest. So far as either facts or theories were used as occasion or material for intellectual subtlety, or the parade of declamation, with no earnest purpose and no profitable result-he cared little for either. But when facts illustrated prin- ciples, and discussion concerned the truths which control the char- acter or the faith of man, no man was more alive to them than he. Next to theology and what related to his profession, history and politics interested him most. Whatever was curious in human na- ture, and touched upon the singular and humorous, awakened his responsive sympathy. In biography, and the higher order of fiction, he found constant delight and inspiration, and everything which he read in either department left a strong and delightful impres- sion upon his mind and memory. He was a constant and absorbed reader, and his range of reading was very wide. As a consequence his mind was always fresh, and in the most important respects he was well abreast of these stirring and advancing times. In the later years of his life, his mind was quickened rather than suffered to grow torpid. This may be ascribed to the generous growth of his mind within, to his growing assurance of the respect of others, to the intellectual and social excitements of his beloved children, and to the increased earnestness of his spiritual life. His intellect was never more vigorous in its activity, or more abundant in its fruits, than during the last ten years of his life. His example is valuable, as it illustrates two most important truths-that the clerical profession is capable of furnishing wholesome food and ample stimulus to the most vigorous intellect, and that a parish in the country is as favorable at least to these fruits as many par- ishes in larger towns. That Dr. Eldridge enjoyed certain advan- tages of freedom from care, and of personal independence, is known to us all. It is perhaps more to his credit than most of us would acknowledge that he did not abuse these advantages to intellectual self-indulgence and sloth.
As a preacher he was characterized by simplicity, good sense, and manly strength. He was not a fluent writer nor an easy speaker. He was originally better fitted for argument and debate than for disquisition and exhortation. When a student in college he was an active disputant in his college society, and during all his life he came up to an exciting argument with a kindled spirit and gathering strength. It might be said very truly of him, that in natural gifts and tastes he was better adapted to the bar or the forum than to the pulpit and the prayer-meeting. But these tastes and gifts by no means disqualified him for great and peculiar use-
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fulness, and for eminent influence in the clerical profession. There is abundant room and opportunity for diversities of gifts in this noblest of all the professions, and this was abundantly manifest in the instructive discources which he prepared for more than forty years, and in the awakened interest with which his fresh and unique trains of thought were received by his own flock, and the churches of this vicinity. He did not aspire to be a sensational or a so-called original or an often falsely-called eloquent preacher. But as he wrought out his own thoughts after his own method, he could not avoid being, in the best and in the only good sense, both original and, at times, eloquent. As he illustrated Christian truth by ex- amples drawn from his own quick observation, or images created by his quaint fancy, his forcible thoughts were often as fresh as the landscape which glitters with the morning dew. Whenever he was roused by some stirring theme, or was kindled into earnest emotion by the progress of his own argument or the solemnity of some great interest, his strong nature was stirred to the irrepres- sible utterances of truly eloquent speech. But whatever he wrote or spoke came from himself, and bore the unmistakable stamp of his own being, in thought, in diction, in illustration, in feeling, and pre-eminently in an indescribable manner, which he borrowed from no other man, and which no man could borrow from him.
In the pulpit he was thoroughly manly, because he was thor- oughly himself. He could not be said to avoid every species of professional arts and tricks and mannerism, for it seemed impos- sible that he should ever contract them. Without knowing it, he had from the first to the last renounced the hidden things of dis- honesty-not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God. While he mused, the fire burned; then spake he with his tongue-always clearly, strongly, and instructively, and not infrequently with tender pathos, resistless energy, and glowing speech. His eminent suc- cess and his growing reputation, even after old age had begun, add one more testimony to many others, that the devotees of that one of the professions which is the noblest in its aims and the most elevating in its motives, should know no arts but manly arts, and should scorn and abhor all expedients for popularity or effect, ex- cept such as are approved by God because they are inspired and sanctioned by Christian integrity, Christian decorum, and Chris- tian good sense.
Preaching and exhortation are not the only channels through which the intellect of the pastor is called to act. In the manifold relations in which he is brought into contact with his parishioners and the community, and under the watchful and the hesitating,
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if not the suspicious scrutiny to which he is subjected, his capacity for insight and judgment, his resources of wise advice and rea- sonable encouragement, his power to distinguish between rational and irrational zeal, are frequently put to the severest trial. In all these and the like opportunities of his life and trials of his intel- lectual capacity, I need not say that he was more than usually sagacious and wise. Being ready always to learn from men who were in many respects his inferiors, he was cautious when he had little knowledge, but confident after he had been taught by ex- perience. He deferred to the judgment of unlettered men in re- spect to matters in regard to which books and study could not make him wise, and was always ready to make their wisdom bis own. Making his parishioners at first his teachers, he became wiser than them all, and built up for himself a position of conf- dence and respect which attested the soundness and sagacity with which he judged of men and of affairs.
In a similar way did he apply his mind to the public relations of the neighboring parishes and churches, and subsequently to the more general interests of the kingdom of Christ. On the many occasions of greater or less importance on which he was called to think and to decide, he uniformly approved himself a wise and safe counsellor, who was patient in hearing, comprehensive and fair-minded in deliberation, and independent and fixed in his con- clusions. His statesman-like and judicial intellect became more manifest as it was disciplined and developed by the opportunities of later years.
Dr. Eldridge was not only endowed with a strong and active intellect, but he was also a man of strong and even ardent feelings. He was not very demonstrative of his emotions. He was rather shy and reserved, but those who knew him most intimately knew that he could be aroused to energetic displeasure at real or fancied wrong against himself or others, and that his affection for those whom he loved glowed with an intense and inextinguishable flame. He may have seemed more than usually undemonstrative of feel- ing in speech or manner, but his feelings were constant, and ready to show themselves, by word or act, whenever an occasion called for special emotion. While by taste and training he was the farth- est removed from sentimentalism, the fountain of manly and ten- der sentiments that exists in every human soul flowed strong and pure in the depths of a nature that had been kept singularly pure from the affectations of conventionality and pretence, and seemed incapable of soil and alloy by the perverseness and the selfishness of human society. He might seem, even to his intimate friends, to hold himself aloof from the common-places of sympathy and excitement, and to be uninterested in the smaller loves and hates
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which move superficial and demonstrative natures, but those who knew him when his inner nature was roused by some special call, could not question that a strong and ardent heart had never ceased to beat within.
Though naturally reserved and self-occupied, Dr. Eldridge was by no means selfish or self-indulgent. He was eminently social, kindly, generous, and sympathizing. He was exceptionally up- right and fair in his judgments of others, and indisposed to cen- sorious or unkindly criticism of the opinions and doings of his fellow men. From many of the meannesses and jealousies and acrimonies of human nature, it was not the less but the more to his credit that "his soul was like a star, and dwelt apart." He was tender hearted towards the suffering, sympathizing with the lowly and the oppressed, and eminently gentle and humane in his judgments and feelings. The poorest and the humblest of his flock received from him as ready attention and as warm a sym- pathy as those whose lot was more favored. His modesty could hardly be called a virtue, it seemed to be so natural and necessary a growth of the good sense and fairness which characterized his nature. While he scarcely needed to be admonished not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, he maintained a pronounced self-respect with which no man could trifle. His external prosperity and ample resources did not with- draw him from ministering to the poorest and the least refined of his people, or seduce him to any superciliousness, or daintiness, or effeminacy, such as wealthy clergymen of weaker natures do not always find it easy to avoid.
He was a truly generous man. He did not value wealth inordi- nately. No man could say that its temptations corrupted the sim- plicity of his honest aims. His friends can testify that he was generous in his benevolence, and that he was always ready to im- part to those who were in need. But he would have been untrue to himself and his convictions of duty had he not sought to give cautiously and wisely. He was especially generous and enterpris- ing in the cause of education. There are not a few young men now in the ministry and other professions, whom he has assisted by his counsel and sympathy and contributions to begin and per- severe in a course of study. This has been his favorite department of Christian benevolence, in which he has labored abundantly him- self, and into which he has incited others to enter and to con- tinue with generous sympathy and ample liberality. This field was made congenial and almost sacred to him by the example and zeal of his honored mother, and was none the less congenial because it was a field in which his efforts and sacrifices might be withdrawn from public notoriety.
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His Christian faith and earnestness were in harmony with his intellectual and emotional habits. I should rather say that a con- sistent and earnest Christian faith, working upon a strong and generous nature, can alone explain, as it alone could produce, such a character and such a life. His religious life was not eminently emotional-it could not be in consistency with the constitution of the man. Obedience to the will of the Heavenly Father, trust in his wisdom, confidence in his goodness, the honest confession of sin and short-comings, loving trust in Christ as the only Redeemer, and a practical sympathy with His life and spirit in all the char- acteristically Christian virtues-above all, constant fidelity to the spirit and aims of his profession as a Christian pastor,-these were the manifestations and fruits of the inner life by which he was controlled and cheered. As life went on, and its varied experiences taught each its lesson, he became more mature in his faith, more elevated in his feelings, more ardent in his prayers, more sym- pathizing and effective in his ministrations, and more spiritual in his desires and hopes.
His own health, which had been so uniform and vigorous, be- gan to fail. Sharp attacks of suffering made him feel his de- pendence. Severe disappointments and protracted illnesses, and many deaths among his kindred and relations, brought the other world very near, and made the present world seem very uncer- tain. His return to his pulpit and his parish work was welcomed with a thankful heart, and he preached and labored with unwonted solemnity and earnestness. His retirement from the ministry, in the anticipation and realization, connected as it was with the death of the honored head and counsellor of his own kindred, foreshad- owed in some sort the winding up of his life. Each of these events made him look more distinctly upon the things which are not seen, and caused him to apprehend these as the only things which can- not be moved. They all brought him nearer to God, elevating his faith, kindling his hopes, and mellowing and softening his love for his family, his people, and the Church of God. It was notice- able that his heart was growing more warm, and his affections more tender, and his happiness more complete, till the day when his Master called him to that glorious vision of Himself, which by its cleansing and transforming power made him worthy to stand among the spirits of the just made perfect.
What Dr. Eldridge was to his people, they do not need to be told. What he had desired and labored to do for them, he has left upon record in his farewell sermon-a sermon to which, for simplicity, and truthfulness, and transparent tenderness, it were difficult to find the superior among the many which are to be found in the annals of the churches of New England. Though nothing
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was farther from the writer's intent, yet the reader cannot fail to interpose between the lines this appeal to his people: "Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblamably we behaved ourselves among you that believe, as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a . father doth his children, that ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto His kingdom and glory." He did say, and say truly, with all the simplicity of his heart: "I am confident that I have not an enemy or ill-wisher in the church, in the parish, or in the town, nor in the region-indeed, not in all the world; and I know that I am an enemy to no human being, and that this church, this society, the people of this town, and many in this region have a warm and permanent place in my heart."
He found this parish one of the most united and well ordered of the parishes in New England, having been singularly happy in the two ministers who preceded him, and happy also in the traditions and habits which constitute so much of the intellectual and spiritual strength of any community. He labored in the spirit of these traditions, and at once identified himself with the interests and welfare of his people and the whole community, giv- ing them his time, his sympathy, his thoughtful care for educa- tion and good morals, as well as for their growth in the kingdom of God; not seeking theirs but them, and imparting to them the best gifts of his mind and heart. And he has not labored in vain. The forty years and more which he has given to this parish, have not been without abundant blessings. The smplicity of his aims, the constancy of his labors, the wisdom of his counsels, the fidelity and tenderness of his exhortations, and the integrity and spiritu- ality of his life, have formed the characters and strengthened the faith, have cheered the lives and blessed the deaths and saved the souls of many who will forever rejoice in the pastor who led them to Christ, and guided their feet in the ways of Christian living. The influences of this long and successful pastorate will remain for more than another generation, as the name of this be- loved and honored servant of Christ shall be repeated with love and thankfulness. It is rare for any minister to have so good a par- ish as this. But it is still more rare for any parish to have so good a pastor, and to retain him so long. As his people review the blessings of the past, let it be with thankfulness for what it has been, and with hope and confidence that its blessed influence may be so cherished as to bring forth the fruits which would delight his heart. In this way will they most effectually honor his memory.
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