History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 158

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1672

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II > Part 158

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ELIPHALET PEARSON,1 LL.D., was born in Byfield, a parish in Newbury, Massachusetts, June 11, 1752, and died in Greenland, New Hampshire, September 12, 1826, aged seventy-four years, three months, and one day. He entered Harvard College in 1769, and was graduated with high honors in 1773. His eminence was then predicted by his instructors. Soon after graduation he was called to teach a grammar school

at Andover (now North Andover), the home of his frieud, Samuel Phillips, afterwards Lieutenant-Gov- ernor of Massachusetts.

Iu 1775 Governor Phillips was commissioned by the General Court to manufacture gunpowder for the Revolutionary army. In this enterprise he refied very much on the scientific attainments of Pearson. He relied on the same while he was laying the founda- tion of Phillips Academy at Andover. Pearson be- came the first principal of the academy, and re- maiued iu this office from 1778 to 1786. IIe was one of the twelve original trustees, and was the first presi- dent of the board who did not belong to the Phillips family.

In 1786 he was called to the Professorship of the Hebrew and Oriental Languages at Harvard College, --- an office for which he was then well qualified. He delivered to the students a valuable course of lectures on language. He was particularly successful as a teacher of rhetoric. Occasionally he spent the entire night iu correcting the compositions of the stu- dents, in order that he might spend the day in the multiplied extra-official duties which were heaped upon him. He labored with rare zeal and tact for the financial as well as literary welfare of the college. He searched the documents which illustrated the claim of the university to certain disputed posses- sions ; examined old deeds in the registry of probate, old notes pertaining to farms, ferries, bridges, in which the university had, or was thought to have, an interest. For twenty years he was an uncommonly laborious professor in the college ; for six years was a leading member of its Board of Fellows, and for a long time performed many of the duties belonging to the Presi- dent. Among his pupils were some of the most emi- nent men of the day, such as John Quincy Adams, Judge Story, Presidents Kirkland and Quincy, Drs. William E. Channing and Edward Payson, John Pickering, Alexander H. Everett. It has been often said by President Quincy that if Governor Phillips had lived, Pearson would have been elected President of Harvard College, as successor to Dr. Joseph Wil- lard.

He resigned his office at Cambridge in 1806. He immediately repaired to Andover, where he gave the first impulse to the formation of the Andover Theo- logical Seminary. He originated its remarkable con- stitution. He worked with wonderful energy in order to unite with each other the members of his own theological party. Afterward he was a conspicuous agent in effecting the union between his own party and a dissenting one,-that is, between the seminary planned at Andover and that which had been planned by Dr. Samuel Spring, of Newburyport. He rode from Andover to Newburyport thirty-six times for the purpose of consummating that union. IIe was elected the first Professor of Sacred Literature in the Seminary. He was the first president of the board of trustees after the theological iustitution came under

1 Prepared by Prof. Edwards A. Park.

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

its care. Ile retained the presidency of that board nineteen years,-a longer period than any other one, either before or since his time, has held it. Ile con- tinued a member of the board forty-eight years.

Dr. Pearson was noted for the variety of his talents and interests. A large collection of his papers im- presses the readers of them that he was merely "a man of affairs." He was an adept in the fine arts ; he possessed remarkable skill and taste in music ; he had also an architect's eye and forecast. The oak tree is yet standing which he climbed in order to lay out the plan for the building and grounds of Andover Seminary. For many years he had been an indus- trious member, and also the secretary, of the Ameri- can Academy of Arts and Sciences. He had associated mainly with men of letters, of science and of politi- cal renown. IIe had not addicted himself to the niceties of theological studies, but was an accurate critic of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. Ile once published a Hebrew grammar. With great care he revised and prepared for the press Thomas Wilson's "Sacra Privata," Leslie's "Short Method with the Deists," Baxter's " Saints' Rest," Baxter's " Call to the Unconverted," Doddridge's " Address to a Master of a Family ;" also several pamphlets and tracts. Occupied, as he was, with great schemes, theological and political, he yet interested himself' in securing the publication and extending the circulation of Dr. Watts' " Divine Songs for Children." Watts and Doddridge were his favorite authors. He also held in high esteem the writings of Owen, Leighton, Flavel, Tillotson and Bishop Thomas Wilson. He originated the " Massachusetts Society for the Promo- tion of Christian Knowledge," and was the most con- spicuous man in forming the " American Education Society." His enterprising spirit made him a pioneer in many great and good works, which need not be particularized here. flis person was noble and com- manding, his manners were dignified and courtly. As a teacher he was faithful; as a disciplinarian, exact and severe. His severity excited some opposi- tion among his pupils, but many of the most eminent among them regarded him as their prominent bene- factor.

The establishment of Andover Theological Semi- nary was opposed with great vigor by men of great influence in New England. Some of them had been the scholars of Pearson at Cambridge. The brunt of their opposition was borne by him ; he was the target against which their deadliest missiles were amel and thrown. President Josiah Quiney was frohar with the obstacles which Pearson was called to resist, an ) with the herculean efforts which the brave man made in resisting them. Mr. Quincy says : " What no other man would have dared to at- tempt with any hope of success he effected. What- (ver coud has resulted, or shall result, from the mere fact of this union between the two parties who coalescel 'n forming the Seminary !. the merit of es-

tablishing it belongs to Eliphalet Pearson. I speak without reserve. I had better opportunities of know- ing his principles, motives, and causes of success perhaps than any other man. E was eight years, from 1778 to 1786, his pupil, four years under his in- struction in college. Afterwards through life I had frequent intercourse with him. In 1808, as a trustee of the academy, I witnessed his zeal, his labors, and the untiring spirit with which he pursued, until he succeeded in effecting, the cherished object of his heart. After his retirement from the government of the Seminary he made me the confidant of his opinions and feelings concerning it. I mean no dis- paragement to Dr. Spring and his associates. The institution is an ever-enduring monument of their zeal for religion and their munificence. But I owe it to truth and to the memory of Dr. Pearson to de- clare that his influence and power effected the de- sired union and fixed the locality of this Theologieal Seminary." (See a Memorial of the Semi-Centennial Celebration of the founding of the Theological Semi- nary at Andover, pp. 119, 120.)

MOSES STUARTI was born in Wilton, Conn., March 26, 1780, and died in Andover, January 4, 1852, aged seventy-one years, nine months, and nine days. When a lad of but twelve years he became absorbed in the perusal of Edwards on the Will. In his fifteenth year, entering an academy in Norwalk, Conn., he learned the whole Latin grammar in three days, and then joined a class who had devoted several months to Latin studies. In May, 1797, having been under the careful tuition of Roger Minot Sherman, he was admitted as a sophomore to Yale College. IIere his tastes were pre-eminently for the mathe- matics.

At his graduation, in 1799, he delivered the sajn- tatory oration, at that time the highest appointment awarded to the class. One year after leaving Yale he taught an academy in North Fairfield, Conn., and in the following year was principal of a high school at Danbury, Conn. Having pursued the study of the law, he was admitted to the bar in 1802 at Danbury His fertile and versatile mind, his enthusiasm and' prodigious memory, gave promise of eminent success in the legal profession. From his study in fitting himself for this profession he derived signal advan - tages through life. A few weeks before his admission to the bar he was called to a tutorship in Yale Col- lege. Here he distinguished himself as an inspirit- ing teacher. At this time he publicly devoted him- self to the service of God.

Having pursued the study of theology with Presi- dent Dwight, he was ordained March 5, 1806, pastor of the First Congregational Church in New Haven, Conn. During his pastorate of three years and ten months two hundred persons were admitted, all but twenty-eight by profession, into his church. His

1 Prepared by Edwards A. Park.

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deep, solemn, and sonorous voice, his commanding and impassioned manner, his translucent style, his vivacity of thought, his energy of feeling, contributed to make him one of the most eloquent of preachers. Many supposed that he mistook his calling when he left his pulpit for the professor's chair. Doubtless in his early manhood "the pulpit was his throne."

On the 28th of February, 1810, he was inaugurated Professor of Sacred Literature in Andover Theological Seminary. In about two years he composed a He- brew grammar for the immediate use of his pupils. They copied it day by day from his written sheets. When he printed it he was compelled to set up the types for about half the paradigms of verbs with his own hands.

The following letter is perhaps the earliest notice of all his published works :

" To Rev. Dr. Pearson, Present, December 12, 1813 :

" Rev. and Dear Sir: Please to accept a copy of the Heb. Grammar I send you, and to read it with a view to note its errors and defects, for it has both. I have printed only about 120 copies, and have not ventured to put any into the Library, my object being to get the aid of all the Ileb. scholars in our land in bringing it to a state of more perfections before I venture to offer it to the Trustees as a classical book. Robert- son's True and Ancient Method came too late, or I should have discussed his principles briefly in the Preface. I shall place much dependence on your Remarks. Please to write them down.

" Your obed't servant, MOSES STUART."

Eight years after writing this germinal letter he printed his larger " Ilebrew Grammar." This he re- modeled with great painstaking, and published it in a second edition two years after the first. Not satis- fied with this, he re-examined all its principles anew, wrote some of it three, four, and a small part of it seven or eight times over, and published the third edition five years after the second. Professor Lee, of Cambridge University, England, speaking of this edi- tion, said : "The industry of its author is new matter for my admiration of him." The fourth edition of this grammar was republished at Oxford University, England, under the superintendence of the celebrat- ed Professor E. B. Pusey. In correcting the proof- sheets of the grammar Mr. Stuart read some of them over seven times, and a few of them eleven times.

This is one example of the care which he took for securing the accuracy of his publications. Another ex- ample is found in his edition of " Newcome's Greek Harmony of the Gospels." He published it with- out the accents in a duodecimo and also a quarto form. He requested the students in the seminary to re-examine the proof-sheets of the "Harmony," and offered a small pecuniary recompense for the detec- tion of any, even the minutest, error in them.

In the midst of bis labors on his " epoch-mak- ing" grammar he published his "Letters to Rev. William Ellery Channing," a work which, on the whole, has been the most popular of all his writings. The first edition of these letters was sold within a week; two other editions followed it very soon in America, and four in England. The last American edition was published in 1846. Perhaps Mr.

Stuart's "Commentary on the Epistle to the He- brews " stands next to these Letters in general popu- larity among elergymen. It was published in 1827- 28, in two octavo volumes. It has passed through four editions in America, and perhaps twice as many in England. The celebrated Dr. John Pye Smith characterized it as "the most important present to the cause of sound Biblical interpretation that has ever been made in the English language." His commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans and on the Apocalypse are even more elaborate than his work on the Hebrews.

All his published writings cannot be here enumer- ated. Among them are more than twenty volumes ; fourteen pamphlets; thirty-four articles containing fifteen hundred pages in the American Biblical Re- pository ; fourteen articles containing four hundred and ninety pages in the Bibliotheca Sacra; thirty- three important articles in other periodicals. The pamphlets and periodical essays occupy more than two thousand octavo pages.

The publications of Mr. Stuart fail to exhibit the large proportions of the man. He was greater than his books. His greatness was most conspicuous in his lecture-room. Hundreds of his pupils will in- dorse the words of Dr. Francis Wayland, a late President of Brown University, who said : "I have never known any man who had so great power of en- kindling enthusiasm for study in a class. It mat- tered not what was the subject of investigation, the moment he touched upon it it assumed an absorbing interest in the eyes of all of us. I do not think that there was one of ns who would not have chosen to fast for a day rather than to lose one of his lectures."

He was the inspiring teacher of more than seventy presidents or professors in our highest literary insti- tutions, of more than a hundred missionaries to the heathen, of about thirty translators of the Bible into foreign languages. Several of our most important volumes pertaining to Biblical literature were begun by his pupils " in the bosom of his family."

From the fact that he was the pioneer in familiar- izing our clergymen with Ilebrew and German learn- ing, and thus opening a new era in our theological history; from the fact that by the wonderful mag- netism of his character he quickened the literary zeal of men who afterward became leaders of popu- lar thought; from the fact that he prepared more than fifteen hundred of his pupils for appreciating the richness of the Bible in its original languages, and elucidated those languages in a fresh and attrac- tive way, he has been called "The Father of Biblical Literature in our Land." In no small degree he de- serves to be honored as a father of Biblical litera- ture in Great Britain also. His influence is the more noticeable as his life was a perpetual struggle with infirm health, and he was wont to remark that he never allowed himself to work as a real student more than three hours in the day.

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

BELA BATES EDWARDS, D. D.,? was born in South- ampton, Mass., July 4, 1802, and died in Athens, Georgia, April 20, 1852, aged forty-nine years, nine months, sixteen days. ITis ancestors were among the first settlers of Springfield and Northampton, Mass, His grandparents were parishioners of Jonathan Edwards in Northampton ; his maternal grandmother was for some time an inmate in Jonathan Edwards' family, and transmitted to her descendants no small degree of the virtues derived from her pastor's in- struction and example. The paternal grandfather of Professor Edwards was a soldier in two colonial ar- mies, one of which captured Louisburg in 1745, and the other defeated Burgoyne in 1777. During his boyhood Prof. Edwards labored on his father's farm and enjoyed the truly intelligent society of his father's household. While thus laboring, he devoted every leisure hour to his books. He fitted for college partly under the guidance of his pastor, Rev. Vinson Gould ; partly under that of his pastor's wife, a lady of re- markable learning, who prepared several young men for college ; partly under the special care of Rev. Moses Hallock, of Plainfield, Mass., a distinguished teacher in that day. He was graduated at Amherst t'ollege in 1824 ; taught an academy in Ashfield, Mass., in 1825 ; spent the year 1825-26 as a member of An- dover Theological Seminary; was then called to a tutorship in Amherst College; passed two years in that office; returned to the seminary in 1828; was graduated there in 1830, having held an exceptionally high position in a class of exceptional ability. Be- fore he returned to the seminary three offices were pressed upon him,-he was invited to be a professor in Amherst College, the assistant secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- sions, the assistant secretary of the American Educa- tion Society. The last of these offices appeared to him the least honorable, but with his characteristic modesty he accepted it. He continued to discharge its duties while he was a member of the seminary, and when the office of the society was removed from An- dover to Boston he removed his residence to the city.

In Boston he spent five years and a half of his busy life, managing the details of his office, and at the watne time taking the principal charge of the Ameri- can Quarterly Register, a periodical which he made to bristle with statistics. In 1833 he founded the American Quarterly Observer, which he afterwards unitel with the American Biblical Repository, which he subsequently merged into the Bibliotheca Sucra. For these periodicals he wrote uncounted essays and reviews, translated various articles from the ferman and other languages, and conducted an extensive cor- rispotelence In order to calist youthful writers in literary work.

He was this a benefactor of the young. He can-

not be said to have founded all the periodicals which he edited, but he originated new plans for them all, and in process of time became the chief supporter of them all. His conscientiousness in editing them is illustrated by the fact that, in order to write two paragraphs in a review of a scientific work, he once read the whole of an elaborate treatise on geology. Throughout his life he superintended the publication of thirty-one octavo volumes of periodical literature, and in these volumes inserted many paragraphs, which he wrote with serupulous care and in exquisite taste.

While Mr. Edwards was thus promoting the cause of literature in his periodicals, he was incessant in his efforts for the literary and moral improvement of society at large. His published writings were numer- ous. Among them were two admirable school- books-the "Eclectic Reader" and the "Introduc- tion to the Eclectic Reader"-the "Biography of Self-taught Men " (a volume republished in Eng- land as well as this country), the "Missionary Gazeteer," the "Memoir of Rev. Elias Cornelius, D.D.," the " Introductory Essay " to the " Memoir of Henry Martyn," and valuable "Notes" to the Memoir which he edited with rare fidelity. He united with Professor Park in translating and publishing a vol- ume of "Selections from German Literature ;" with Dr. Samuel If. Taylor in translating and publishing the "Larger Greek Grammar " of Dr. Kühner; with Dr. Sears, afterward President of Brown University, and Professor Felton, afterward president of Harvard College, in publishing a volume entitled " Classical Studies." During a large part of his life he was a trustee of Abbot Academy, and a leading trustee of Amherst College,-an institution of which he was ur- gently solicited to be president. The founders of the seminary at South Hadley and of Williston Acad- emy acknowledged their obligation to him as their trusted adviser. Perhaps no man was so familiarly ac- quainted as he with the policy and the needs of our colleges and higher schools. He formed a plan, and expended much of his strength in toiling, for the es- tablishment of a Puritan Library and Museum in Boston, and the present library in the Congrega- tional house may be looked upon as in large degree a monument to him.

llis philanthropic labors were not performed in a perfunctory way. He devoted his whole sensitive nature to them. When the Choctaws and Cherokees were driven from the graves of their fathers, when the British forced the opium trade upon China, his gentle spirit was roused to unwonted indignation, and it seemed to those who heard his utterances that he was the one oppressed. ITis deepest sympathies, however, were with the enslaved African. His en- thusiastic desire for the freedom of the bondmen was developed as early as 1825, and it never left him. A sense of the wrong done to the negroes burned like fire in his bones. For several months he felt anxious to devote his entire life to the African cause. After

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ANDOVER.

he had decided that it was not his duty to do so, he found that he could not resume his interest in study until he forcibly abstained from thinking on the sub- ject. The first address which he ever delivered from the pulpit was on the evils of slavery ; his first "Fourth of July " oration was on the same theme; so was the first pamphlet which he ever published. For twenty-six years he was an unwavering friend of the Colonization Society. The secretary of the Massachusetts Branch of that institution declared that the Branch was kept alive, during its earliest years, mainly by Mr. Edwards' efforts. He was one of the founders of " The American Union for the Re- lief and Improvement of the Colored Race," and gave the greater part of two years' work to the establish- ment of that society, which, by its appeals and pub- lished statistics, roused general attention to the evils of slavery, and finds its work grandly continued by the "American Missionary Associatiou " of the pres- ent day. This Association was in some degree a result of the antecedent "Union." As Mr. Edwards was anxious at one time to spend his life in the service of the enslaved, so he was auxions at another time, but finally was restrained from gratifying his desire, to spend his life as a missionary of the American Board. He was a close friend of Jeremiah Evarts, Samuel Hubbard, Rufus Anderson, and others who were most intimately connected with the board.

As a preacher, Mr. Edwards was not popular with the masses, but was highly prized by the more intelli- gent men. His natural diffidence sometimes em barrassed him, his voice was not strong, his gestures not graceful, he had the "student's nearsightedness," which compelled him to keep his eyes close to his manuscript. But there was an earnestness in his manner, a delicacy in adjusting the light and shade upon the idea which he was developing, a tender vet powerful sympathy with his hearers, making him yearn to have them see his theme as he saw it, and feel about it as he felt. Behind his utterances there was a pure and large personality which overcame all elo- cutionary defect, changed his diffident manner to one of persuasive eloquence, and enabled him to hold an intellectual audience spell-bound. The day of his preaching in the Andover Chapel was a " high day " for the auditors.

We have not yet approached the more important part of Mr. Edwards' life-work. In 1837 he was ap- pointed Professor ofthe Hebrew Language in Andover Theological Seminary. In 1848 he was elevated to the Profe-sorship of Sacred Literature in the Semi- nary,-the office previously occupied by Professor Moses Stuart. For this office he had eminent quali- fications. In fact, he began unconsciously to prepare himself for it in his early childhood. Before he was eleven years old he had read through the Bible seven times, and all of Dr. Scott's " Notes " twice. At the age of twenty two he began the study of Hebrew, which he pursued almost daily as long as he lived.

| He made immense acquisitions in philology, solely in order to qualify himself for the task of Biblical inter- pretation. That he might understand Wickliffe's translation of the Bible, he studied the old Saxon of Chaucer. In order to familiarize himself with Greek words and particles used in the New Testament, he read the tragedies of Eschylus. He studied Arabic, Syriac and various dialects cognate with the Hebrew. He mastered the minutice of interpretation by cor- recting proof-sheets of Greek and Hebrew writings. Desiring to enlarge his acquaintance with the science of Biblical interpretation, he read German authors until their words became to him as his mother tongue.

His manner in the lecture-room was singularly fascinating. He had a clear and exact sense of the meaning of a Scriptural passage, traced out in the original the finer modifications of its import, saw at once the emphatic expression to which the preceding paragraphs contributed, and enthusiastically led the minds of his pupils up to the full height of the poet's or prophet's meaning. Some of his scholars can even now remember his rebuke when a commonplace translation was presented,-"Such a meaning is jejune and frigid. It does not come up to the splen- dor of the words." The late Professor John N. Putnam, one of Dr. Edwards' pupils, wrote concerning his teacher : " Indeed it was by no means alone by what he said that he instructed us, but by what he was in the lecture-room. He formed us by a calm and constant influence that dropped as the rain and distilled as the dew. By some it was not felt at first, but it grew upon us silently day by day, and we found at the year's end that we had gained more than our note-books could show,-a greater fineness and precision of view, a calmer and surer habit of mind. He taught us in himself how often the perception of the final truth may depend on the moral feeling more than on logical keenness."

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 158

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1672

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1672