History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 159

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 159

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As soon as Mr. Edwards took the professorship at Andover he began to execute the broad plans which he had formed in earlier life. He began to prepare a Commentary on Habakkuk, Job, the Psalter, and the First Epistle to the Corinthians : also an Introduc- tion to the Old and New Testaments. He began to collect the gems which he might insert into their fit- ting caskets, and to gather into a uniform series of works the results of his multifarious reading. The hopes of literary men, however, were disappointed by the pulmonary disease which terminated his labors on earth. One of his friends has remarked: "The day of his entrance on his professorship reminded me of the sun rising upon the seminary ; the day of his burial reminded me of an Andover sunset."

If this man of restless energy and far-sceing pru - dence had devoted his life to the acquisition of wealth, he might have amassed such treasures as would have been conspicuous in even the rich valley of the Merrimack. Ilis wealth was his character. Other men might possess his unconquerable industry,

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but we have yet to find the man who can leave upon others the exact impression which Dr. Edwards left. It is impossible to portray him as he seemed to those about him, or transfer to other minds the impression which was stamped by his very presence. His apti- tude for Biblical interpretation gave unmistakable signs of genius, but it was not a merely intellectual

tian name from Samuel Harvey, a youthful hero who distinguished himself at the celebrated siege of Lou- donderry in Ireland.

After an eventful childhood and boyhood, Mr. Tay- lor entered Dartmouth College, where he was con- spicuous for his iron diligence and mental grasp. After his graduation, in 1832, he entered the Theolog- attribute, Genius may get nearer to the throne when ; ical Seminary at Andover. Professor Stuart and Dr. she rises higher than the intellect, and takes her seat in the moral powers. It awakens admiration, not so

Edward Robinson often expressed their admiration of his zeal and accuracy in his Hebrew and Greek much for the mental faculties, as for the man who, studies. Dr. Leonard Woods had confidence in his directs them. A nature uncommonly disinterested, profoundly reverential; an originality of feeling more , servative in theology. His pastor and father-in-law than of thought, a rare combination of apparently opposite qualities ; great strength of purpose with an exquisite refinement of character and taste; a pro- found humility, with self-reliance in reserve, ready for the proper moment; a union of strong practical sense with deep imaginative and poetic instincts ; a singularly active mind, joined to a richly contempla- tive one; good reasoning power, animated by the warmest emotions; and, withal, a tender-hearted humor that played like a sunbeam around his lofty meditations, all these elements gave a singular in- terest to Dr. Edwards' character. Beyond this, there was a fascination which no written description can explain, a mysterious something to which the heart responded, but which the mind could not analyze. theological views, for Mr. Taylor was an early con- was an intimate friend of Dr. Daniel Dana, and through life Mr. Taylor retained the high esteem of Dr. Dana as well as Professor Stuart. His fellow- students, as much as his instructors, trusted him as an interpreter of the Bible and as a theologian. With such antecedents he was called from the seminary to a tutorship in Dartmouth College. This call appeared to be an omen that his future course would be a lit- erary one. He remained in his tutorship about two years, and returned to Andover so as to receive his regular diploma in the autumn of 1837. Before he acquired his high reputation as an instructor and dis- ciplinarian at Dartmouth College, he had won golden opinions as an assistant teacher in Phillips Academy, Andover. He was chosen principal of this academy and began to discharge the duties of his new office near the close of his theological studies.

A Memoir of Prof. Edwards, seven of his sermons, and sixteen of his addresses and lectures were pub- lished after his death, in two volumes, They contain instructive extracts from the papers which he wrote during his tour through England, Scotland, France, Germany, and Italy in 1846 and 1847. He was mar- ried in 1831 to Miss Jerusha W. Billings, daughter of ('ol. Charles E. Billings, of Conway, Mass,, and de- scended from clergymen, among whom are Richard Salter Storrs, of Longmeadow ; Solomon Stoddard, of Northampton ; Timothy Edwards, of East Windsor; .John Williams, of Deerfield; Eleazer and Richard Mather.

SAMUEL HARVEY TAYLOR, LL. D., 1 was born Octo- ber 3, 1807, and died January 29, 1871, aged sixty- three years, three months, and twenty-six days. Ile was descended from Scotch Covenanters, who estab- lished themselves in the old township of Londonder- rt. New Hampshire. Mr. Horace Greeley says that probably 'more teachers now living trace their de- went to the Scotch pioneers of Londonderry than to os egal number anywhere else." In the single State of New Hampshire six descendants of these Mmcers "lave been Governors of the State, nine Eseller manbers of Congress, five, judges of the yor ne Cart, two. meinbers of the Provincial Con- Point Where we signer of the Declara-

Molufris - pp fo wiv . derived his Chris-

Ile might have received ampler emoluments in otli - er schools, but the trustees of the academy recognized his peculiar qualifications for this school. They saw that he united accuracy in the details of classical lit- erature with an enthusiasm in its life-giving spirit ; an uncommon quickness of perception with an un- common solidity of judgment; a singular devotion to the Greek and Roman classies with a general in- terest in scholarly pursuits and the affairs of life. In a peculiar degree he united the factitious with the natural qualifications for a teacher. In several par- ticulars he resembled his great predecessor, Eliphalet Pearson. Like Pearson, he had a stalwart frame and sonorous voice. It may be said of him, as was said of another : "The commander was visible and vocal in him." His personal appearance gave him a right to his ('hristiau name-" Samuel Harvey." When he was directing the movements of the " Phillips fire- engine," he spoke and looked like a military general. Indeed, he seemed to have a decided military taste. Ilis dignified presence and expressive emphasis gave him one kind of power. Another kind was given him by his reputation for trustworthiness ;- this reputation was the fruit of his previous success, and this success was the means of his continuing to succeed. Before he became the principal of the academy it was not the prominent school which it became before he left it. Sometimes the senior class, to whom the principal mainly devoted himself, had consisted, on an average,

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& H. Janker

Justine Pheles.

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of about twenty members; but after he came the class consisted of thirty-five, forty, forty-three, forty- eight, fifty-eight, sixty-four or seventy-three members. These were members of the Classical Departmentalone. The senior class was called his class, and it was the great magnet of the institution, attracting young men to it from the plantations of Georgia, the cotton-fields of Louisiana, the bauks of the Ohio and Mississippi, and the Canadian provinces. It was common to re- mark that students went into " his class" as boys, and came out as men.

He adopted no artificial means for swelling the number of his pupils, his heart was intent on magni- fying rather than multiplying them. He founded the new success of his school upon its intrinsic worth. His great aim was not to make an outward show, but to work on the inner spirit of his scholars.

Ilis perpetual inquiries were : " How can the acad- emy be made to exert the best influence in promot- ing regular habits of work among the young men who are soon to be members of the learned profes- sions, and whose usefulness will depend upon their regularity in study ? How can it be most effectual in promoting a respect for law and government, and thus guarding the future citizens of the republic against the spirit of anarchy,-against the American tendency toward irreverence for superiors? How ean it be most successful in training our future statesmen for the dignified performance of their duties in the legislative hall?" He has been criti- cised for paying too scrupulous attention to the minutiæ of scholarship, but his motto was : "Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle." He believed himself to be discharging the duties of a true patriot, when he was preparing his pupils for holding intimate communion with the sages and poets of Greece and Rome ; when he was holding up a high standard of classical learning, and urging young men up to that standard, himself leading the way in the laborious ascent, and demanding that his pupils should follow him. Many a pupil is now living who can say, "I should have ruined myself by in- dolence, if it had not been for Dr. Taylor ;" " My lile would have been broken into fragments, if it had not been for his persevering exactions of duty." Hundreds of his pupils have said : "I owe more to number nine, than to all other recitation rooms in which I was ever drilled."

Such was Dr. Taylor's interest in Phillips Acad- emy and kindred institutions, that he prepared for them several text books. In 1843 he published a "Guide for Writing Latin " translated from the German of John Phillip Krebs; in 1844 (in connec- tion with Prof. B. B. Edwards) a " Grammar of the Greek Language" translated from the German of Dr. Raphael Kühner; in 1846 an "Elementary Greek Grammar " compiled from a similar work of Dr. Kühner. He published also in 1861 a volume entitled " Method of Classical Study. illustrated by

Questions on a few Selections from Latin and Greek Authors;" in 1870 a volume entitled "Classical Study; its Value illustrated by Extracts from the Writings of Eminent Scholars," with an introduc- tion by himself. Among his other writings is a Memoir of his father-in-law, Rev. Edward L. Parker, prefixed to Mr. Parker's " History of Londonderry " edited in part by Dr. Taylor, also a Memorial of Dr. Taylor's brother-in-law, Joseph P. Fairbanks, a liberal and most exemplary benefactor of various literary institutions. From the year 1852 to the time of his death Dr. Taylor was an editor of the Bibliotheca Sacra. He corrected the proof-sheets of eighteen volumes of this quarterly, and wrote several anonymons articles for it.

One of the most remarkable of his literary exploits is found in his unpublished letters and journal, writ- ten during the foreign tour which he took in 1856. He wrote suggestive notices of Paris, Malta, Alexan- dria, Cairo, Palestine, Constantinople, the Plains of Troy, Athens, Marathon, Corinth, Herculaneum and Pompeii, Rome, Florence, Switzerland, the university towns of Germany, England, Scotland, and was ab- sent from his favorite academy only six months. His record of his travels is a monument of his lit- erary enterprise and patience, his inquisitive spirit and his success in gratifying it, his care and delibera- tion in forming his judgments, his extensive investi- gations preparing him to make the tour, and his more extensive learning derived from his having made it.

On Saturday morning, January 28, 1871, Dr. Tay- Jor exhibited his wonted vigor in the exercises of his school, visited Boston and Cambridge in the after- noon, returned to his home in the evening with more than usual buoyancy of spirit. He rose on Sabbath morning and prepared himself for his large Bible- class in the academy. He went forth like a hero, carrying his New Testament through the deep and rapidly falling snow, to the new academy edifice, which had been erected under his care and according to his plan. His pupils were assembling to receive his Christian instruction, the bell was yet tolling; he stopped in the vestibule of his academy ; his coun- tenance was changed; he fell; he said not a word; he neither sighed nor groaned, but ascended from the circle of his astonished and loving and weeping pupils to become a glorified pupil in the school of his Re- deemer.

REV. AUSTIN PHELPS, D.D.,1 Professor Emeritus of Sacred Rhetoric in the Andover Theological Seminary.

The Phelps family in America trace their descent from an ancient Staffordshire house in England. The English families of the name believe themselves to be a branch of the Welfs ( ffelfs) or Guelphs, whose eminence in European history is well-known.

The good ship " Mary and John" brought, in 1630,

} By one of his pupils.

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

to Massachusetts Bay, William Phelps, his wife and four sons, and his brother George. Another brother, who remained behind, was the secretary of the Pro- tector in 1654. After the Restoration he was in this country, in hiding, at the same time with the regicide judges.

William was one of the leaders of the colony from Dorchester, which settled the town of Windsor, Coun., in 1635, and one of the eight who, by authority of the Massachusetts Colony, instituted the first organ- ization of the infant settlements in Connecticut, in the following year. Dr. Stiles, in his "History of t'onnecticut," represents the Hon. Wm. Phelps as a man of mark in the affairs of hoth church and state. His third son, Nathaniel, was the founder of a family of Phelps in Hampshire County, Mass., which be -*

The year succeeding his graduation he spent in post-graduate study, chiefly in history and English literature, under the direction of Prof. Henry Reed, the editor of the works of Wordsworth in this country. came numerous and of local fame. It is in the line ; He then commenced the study of theology, his pre- of this family that the name descended to the subject of this sketeb. llis grandfather was for many years the foremost citizen of Belchertown. He represent- ed that township in the General Court of Massa- chusetts for sixteen successive years.

The father of Professor Phelps, the Rev. Eliakim I'helps, D.D., was born March, 1790,and died December 1x80. He was an admirable specimen of the ministers of the Gospel, whose piety, courage and progressive spirit made the earlier half of this century a period so fruitful of Christian enterprise and of enterprising Christians.

His wife, Sarah Adam-, the daughter of a substan- tial farmer of Wilbraham, Mass., was born on the 25th of June, 1791, and died November 13, 1845. On the maternal side she was connected with the Connecticut family of Skinner, honorably known in that Commonwealth, and also in Virginia and among the earliest settlers of Ohio.

Austin Phelps was born in the parsonage at West Brookfield, Mass., January 7, 1820. A tradition sur- vives that he was so puny a child as to call from a friend of the father, on the day following, the re- mark : "You will hardly expect to raise that boy." The reply had in it the spirit which pervaded the atmosphere of his household ; "Oh, yes ! lle shall be a member of Congress yet!" In 1826 the family removed to Pittsfield, Mass., and in 1830 to Geneva, N. Y , where the father was pastor of the First l'res- byterian Church. In 1836 he removed to Philadel- plna.

These facts in the father's career are noteworthy for their relation to the education of the son. At the age of wight years the latter began his preparation for elige, in the High School of Pittsfield, nuder the dire tion of Rev. Chester Dewey, D.D. The tutor who nitrodneed Fim to Latin literature was the Late Res. Mark Hopkins, DD. In 1829 he went to tlu Wesleyan Academy at Wilbraham, then under the charge of Dr Wilbur Fish afterward president of the Newvan Uneversi Kt Middletown, Conn. In 19beenteredelh | School in Geneva, then

conducted by Rev. Dr. Justus French, the most emi- nent educator in Western New York for many years. In 1833, i.e., at thirteen years of age, he entered what is now known as Hobert College, in Geneva. There he came under the magnetic influence of Professor Horace Webster, subsequently president of the College of the City of New York. In 1835 he was transferred to Amherst College, in Massachusetts, and in 1836, after his father's removal to Philadel- phia, he entered the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1837, with the honor of the valedictory oration.

ceptors being his father and the Rev. Dr. Albert Barnes. In December, 1839, he went to Union Theo- logical Seminary, in New York, where he studied Hebrew with Dr. Isaac Nordheimer, and attended the lectures of the Professor of Theology, Rev. Charles White, D.D. In the spring of 1840 he was licensed to preach by the Third Presbytery of Philadelphia. At about the same time he went to New Haven, and attended the lectures of Rev. N. W. Taylor, D.D., in systematic theology. Later he was enrolled as a resident licentiate in the Theological Seminary at Andover. Here he pursued his studies for a year and a half, attending chiefly the lectures of Prof. Moses Stuart, and of Prof. E. A. Park, D.D., then Professor of Sacred Rhetorie. This period of study was con- cluded by his call to the Pine Street Congregational Church in Boston, where he was ordained pastor March 31, 1842. He was most fortunate in the sne- cession of eminent and stimulating educators in whose hands he was placed in that formative period of his mind. He has somewhere expressed his con- sciousness of being deeply indebted to the silent influ- ence of the large-minded and erudite men with whom he was brought into contact.

Probably to none was he under greater obligation, for the development of his mind at that time, than to the lamented Prof. Henry Reed. The classic taste and wise counsels of the accomplished instructor could not but leave a lasting impress upon a pupil so fitted by a certain affinity of genius to encourage and reward his endeavors. Professor Reed led his docile pupil into an appreciative study of the poetry of Words- worth. Of Milton's verse and prose the young student was already a passionate admirer. A chance hearer of one of his early sermons said, in leaving the church, "That young fellow preaches as if he had lived on Paradise Lost !" Other favorite authors balanced what was then an extravagant taste. Jeremy Taylor, Dr. South, Edmund Burke and John Foster were among the feeders of his early culture.

Hardly less fortunate was Mr. Phelps in his associ- ates than in his instructors. He became more or less

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intimate, in bis academic years, with many men who at a later period achieved distinction. Among these may be mentioned the Right Reverend A. Cleaveland Coxe, D.D., of Western New York ; Rev. R. D). Hitch- cock, D.D., the late president of the Uniou Theologi- cal Seminary in New York City; Rev. Edwin E. Bliss, D.D., of Constantinople ; Rev. D. W. Poor, D.D., of Philadelphia ; and, among civilians, Hou. Ensign H. Kellogg, late Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives; Hon. Henry Williams, of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania; Judge Walter March, of Indiana; the late Hon. Charles Folger, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States ; and Hon. Horace Maynard, late Postmaster- General of the United States.

His own estimate of his six years' pastorate in Bos- ton is not extravagant. But the congregation and the community which knew him best received a different impression, from another stand-point than his. A straw which shows the drift of opinion in the general public was his election to the chaplaincy of the House of Representatives in 1843-44, and, a year or two later, to that of the Senate, in which he alternated with Rev. James Freeman Clark, D.D. Something also in the man and in his pastoral career attracted the at- tention of wise men to him as a fit candidate for the vacant chair of Sacred Rhetoric in the Theological Seminary at Andover, from which Rev. E. A. Park, D.D., had been recently transferred to the depart- ment of Systematic Theology. Mr. Phelps became his successor in March, 1842, at the age of twenty- eight years.

This change was an unlooked for and an undesired deflection from the strong current of his tastes and pre- possessions. He was devoted to the profession of his choice. He had chosen it by a sort of moral gravita- tion. The traditions of his family had indicated it to him. The atmosphere of his father's house had predis- posed him to it. In his memorial of his father's pas- toral career, he tells us that from the age of four years he had felt himself predestined to it. His own religious culture, in later years, had led him to it as the type of service to which he was inwardly called. He had concentrated upon it his chastened ambition as a man and his apirations as a Christian. He had come to it exceptionally well prepared for it as a life's work. He had been heard to speak of his retirement from it as the great trial of his professional career. One consideration only overcame his reluctance to leave it. His laborious ministry had overtasked his strength, and he felt the premonitions of disease in the near future. That he did not overestimate his peril was proved by the fact that on the morning of the day on which his pastoral relations were dissolved he was attacked by an amaurosis, from which he did not recover for four years.

He was inaugurated at Andover September 6, 1848. From that date his life was given to the duties of his professorship, till declining health compelled his re-

tirement in June, 1879, a period of thirty-one years. In the years which have since elapsed he has lived in comparative seclusion, but has performed some of the most valuable literary work of his life. His pen has been in almost constant use. He has been a wel- come contributor to the representative religious jour- nals. He has actively participated in current theological discussions. He has put to press several volumes, and, altogether, has evinced an intellectual vigor never surpassed in the years of his prime.

Of course the part of his career which invites the more careful criticism is that spent in the labors of his professorship. The work of that period is central in his life. It was the work he was born to do. It was work most significant in its relation to the future of twelve hundred young preachers of the Gospel, many of whom have become educators of younger men in the same sphere of public influence.

His methods of procedure in the conduct of his department are best given in his own words. He says :

" I set myself to work, de novo, as if the department had no history. I aimed to construct the science ont of the materials of the art. I watched the working of the minds of my pupils. I encouraged an io- quisitive spirit. I kept a record of their inquiries, and answered them as hest I could by the spur of mother wit. These answers to practical inquiries, in the lecture room and out of it, constituted the backbone of my instructions. I was dealing with young minds, with live minds, with minds wide awake to the exigencies of a noble profession. The collision of my mind with their minds, under such conditions, struck out almost all that I know of the department which it was my province to create and to expand. They asked, and I answered ; that is the whole atory. I was a daily student with them. My mind was growing, in company with theirs."

This is undoubtedly a just statement in the main. What it needs to be absolutely correct is an enlarge- ment of the obvious meaning of the phrase "by the spur of mother-wit." It was "mother-wit" rein- forced by the results of wide critical reading and se- vere self-criticism by a mind of acutely appreciative instincts and a marvelous power of appropriation.

A life-work entered upon by such a man with such a spirit and in such a method, and prosecuted for more than thirty years, it is needless to say, was a great and successful work. The usefulness of it could hardly be over-stated. Never did more felicitous re- lations of instructor and pupil exist than were illus- trated in that lecture-room. Never were instructions more quiekening, more sympathetic, more genially adapted to find out and to fetch out the best of which a pupil was capable. The courses of lectures always seemed to glow with the heat of recent thinking. They were wise, conscientious, scholarly, exhaustive discussions.

The whole atmosphere of the class-room was pure and bracing. Many a minister looks back to his ex- perience there, as to the most quickening period of his education, quickening not only to his intellect and executive powers, but to his spiritual culture as well.

An important factor of Professor Phelps' influence

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

as an instructor was his own power in the pulpit. The limits of this sketch forbid a description of this at length. It may be summed up in the single fact that, to his pupils his preaching illustrated and en- phasized his homiletical instructions. The ecclesias- tical records of those days indicate that on nearly a hundred occasions in his first fifteen years at Andover he was called to preach in services of dedication, or- dination or installation.

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 159

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