USA > New York > New York City > Recollections of persons and events, chiefly in the city of New York; being selections from his journal > Part 2
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Hall still demurred. At length Dr. Mason observed, " You will at least allow that he goes deep into his subject." "Yes," replied Mr. Hall, "he goes down deep, and comes up muddy." Dr. Mason never repeated this reply without a hearty laugh over its aptness and pungency, and would conclude his notice of their interviews with the declaration-"After all, Mr. Hall is among the greatest of the giant minds of England." Par nobile fratrum.
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The public will always make heavy drafts on the time and strength of such a man, and will kill him with labor before his time comes, if he will let them do it. Dr. Mason's willing and generous spirit undertook too much for his strength, great as it was. While he still retain- ed his pastoral relations to his Church, he be- came Professor of Theology in the Seminary he founded, Provost of Columbia College, besides being called upon to take a leading part in the great movements for the spread of religion through Bible Societies, and other kindred insti- tutions. He broke down at an age when other men are in the height of their usefulness. But the ruins had a grandeur which reminded us of what the man had been when he was himself.
In looking back on the characters of such men as Drs. Mason, McLeod, and others of their day and spirit, we see how wisely their gifts were adapted to the wants of their times and their generation. They were "sons of thunder." They were not only great men, but much of their greatness lay in their energy of purpose, their power to rouse and excite. This was what the Churches then around them most
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needed in their leaders. The age of Mission- ary Societies, of Bible and Tract Societies, was now to be inaugurated. The time had come when the command, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature," was to take a new and fresh hold on the conscience of Christians; and they needed "sons of thun der" to wake them up to a sense of their duty. They found what they so much required in these ardent and accomplished ministers of the Gospel. True, they were not without their faults; and where can we find men that are free from faults? "Let him that is without sin first cast a stone." Indeed, great men often have great faults. There is nothing about them on a small scale. Every thing that belongs to the man will
partake, in some degree, of his own greatness.
The sun has its spots, and spots so large that they would extinguish a lesser luminary. Such seems to be the ordering of Providence in this world, and perhaps with the design of so putting a stain on human glory as to enforce his own com-
mand: "Cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils ; for wherein is he to be accounted of ?" Prune down the greatest of men till you have
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made him faultless, and you will make him tame. You may have a sheet of paper, per- fectly white, and without a mark upon it. But though it be free from a blot, it is, after all, blank paper. So it is with men, and in the affairs of life.
Pity, pity, that the World and the Church do not understand and remember this rightly. It would render them more just, and more kind and charitable to those who spend their vigorous strength in doing good to those who too often repay them with reproach and injury.
We may well refer to it as a cause of grat- itude to the great Head of the Church, that when these illustrious men, these Elijahs were carried up into heaven, they left their mantle behind them. They were succeeded by a min- istry well adapted to preserve and strengthen the spirit in our churches which had been awa- kened chiefly by their instrumentality. Some of these brethren still survive. Some have rested from their labors, and their works follow them. The names of McMurray, Milnor, Wain- wright, Alexander, Knox and others, their con- temporaries and compeers, are embalmed in the
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memory of thousands among us as men of sound judgment, lofty purpose, and untiring zeal, not only in their respective churches, but in those Institutions of enlarged benevolence which have been formed for the spread of truth and intelli- gence, not only through our land but through the world.
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CHAPTER II.
DANGERS OF COLLEGE LIFE .- INSTANCES SHOWING THE FATAL RESULTS OF EARLY DISSIPATION .- RESPONSIBILITY OF COLLEGE OFFICERS AS TO THE MORALS OF YOUTH UNDER THEIR CARE .-- HAPPY INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIETY OF LADIES ON THE MINDS AS WELL AS THE MANNERS OF YOUNG MEN.
IN May, 1813, I met with a painful occur- rence. I was going down Broadway near the Battery, and observed a man before me leaning against a lamp-post, whose clothes showed that he had been taken out of the gutter. Our eyes met as I approached him, and I saw it was my former class-mate in college, S- T -. Though greatly intoxicated, he recognized me, and turned away his face as I passed him. I could not leave him as he was; and turned back to see what I could do for him. When I called him by name, he burst into tears, and in a low tone of voice begged me not to degrade myself by speaking to him in the street. I in- sisted, however on taking him home with me, notwithstanding his squalid appearance; where,
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after a few hours sleep, he told me his melan- choly story. His intemperance had led his rela- tives to cast him off; and he was then on his way to Philadelphia to seek employment from a gentleman with whom, in his better days, he had formed an acquaintance at Saratoga. His chance, he remarked, was very slender; but it was all that remained to him, and he was determined to try it. He did try it, but without success. I never heard of him afterwards, and fear he died by his own hand.
He told me what I well knew, that his bad habits were contracted while at college. He was only one out of many of my fellow students, who had fallen victims to the temptations of a college life. In those days, there were no Tem- perance Societies; and temperance itself was lit- tle understood, and still less regarded. Hot sup- pers, midnight carousals, were too frequent with us, and sowed the seeds of a vice that in a few years carried off a fearful proportion of our num- ber to an untimely grave. What a wreck of life and high talent do I see when I look back!
Brilliant and generous-hearted J- B -! He seemed to know every thing as if by intui-
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tion. An hour at study was quite as sufficient for him, as a day for others; and yet averse as he was to protracted or continued labor, no per- plexed class-mate ever sought his aid in vain. He would sit down beside the slowest and dull- est of them all, and would somehow contrive to work the lesson or recitation into their minds, before he would quit them; and in the exube- rance of his spirits, he would laugh at his own patience when the work was done. It
might be the Classics, or Mathematics, or Ethics; every thing seemed to come to him without effort. He had a voice, too, of great compass and ring- ing tone, that made him one of the first among speakers; and all was accompanied with that natural ease and gracefulness of manner, that won upon you irresistibly. With such talents, and with family connections, including some of the most distinguished and influential men in the State, he seemed to have before him the prospect of a most brilliant career in public life. His ambition lay in that direction. How often
has he said to me that he would never be sat- isfied until he had become a leader in the councils of the nation; and much did I hope
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that his high aim would tend to save him from the habit that had begun to grow upon him. But, no. He had scarcely gained admission to the bar, when he sank down into a sot, and died a dishonored death in the morning of his life. I saw him when he was very low in his
misery. He knew all, and confessed all. "I have seen the last of my happy days," he said, "the cloud that is over me will never be scat- tered. My heart is worse than broken. It has been made a burnt offering to the Demon of Brandy." I well remember the scalding tear and the quivering voice with which he made the confession.
E- H- was another of my class-mates. He seemed to live in a constant gale of glad- ness. His wit was sparkling, but always good- natured. He had a wonderful talent for mim- icry. He could imitate every thing animate or inanimate. He was not a good scholar; but even when his deficiencies were most glaring, he had some humorous remark respecting his studies or himself, which not only disarmed the Profes- sor of all angry feeling, but seemed also to ren- der him equally a favorite with teachers and 3
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students. He, too, yielded to the temptation ; became so degraded and lost that he was at times taken to the watch-house in the dead of night, and in a few years was hidden in his grave. I have been told, that during the lat- ter part of his life, all that milk of human kind- ness that so distinguished his earlier years, seemed to be changed into the very gall of misan- thropy. He boasted, in his despair, that he would not only "curse God and die;" but that with his last breath, he would "curse both God and man."
And there was my affectionate J- N -. A nobler or a warmer heart can seldom, if ever, be given to man. Such was our mutual attach- ment that he had well nigh changed the whole course and business of my life. His father was at this time an eminent merchant in one of our Eastern cities. He was to enter the counting- house, when he left college, and most earnest were his entreaties that I would accompany him. To render the temptation the stronger, his father made every proposition that propriety would al- low, as he was anxious that J- should be gratified. I had almost yielded. Brilliant
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prospects in the world, and ardent personal at- tachment, at times, had very great influence upon my mind, before I finally decided. But reflec- tion restored me to my purpose. Little as I then understood of what the ministry of the Gospel is, or of what it requires, I had for years kept my view fixed on it as my profession; and in the end, I told my friend J- that I could not abandon it. He was grieved, though not displeased; and we parted, he to "his merchan- dise," and I to my studies, with vows of an at- tachment that no diversity of pursuit should be allowed to extinguish or abate. 1753302
For years we embraced every opportunity of meeting. Our correspondence was constant and more than cordial. I have sometimes thought it breathed the spirit of David and Jonathan ; and so it continued until he became a junior partner in his father's "House." His letters about that time became less frequent, and he pleaded, in apology, the pressure of business. But they also lost their former freedom. There was
constraint, with an effort to conceal it. I could not but be alarmed. I knew "the sin that easily beset him," and had often implored him to
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be on his guard. I wrote to him frankly what
I feared. He immediately, and in a manner much like his former self, thanked me for my candor, but assured me that he was safe against the temptation respecting which I was anxious. About the same time he was married to a lovely woman, and his letters on that subject were so like those of former days, that I hoped for the best. He was most happy in his choice, and as he was now forming new relations in life, and with new sources of enjoyment opening to him, I pressed on him the importance of in- creased vigilance, and a total withdrawal from occasions of temptation.
But although for a time he seemed to feel what he owed to his family, to himself, and to his Maker, the habit came back upon him. Before the end of four years from his marriage, his conduct to his wife had become so violent, that she had to return with her two little chil- dren to her father's house; after which he soon became a raving madman, and died in the Asylum for the Insane,-his widow soon after dying the victim of a broken heart, leaving their babes orphans.
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These are sad, sad pictures. And yet they are selections taken at random from a countless group. Could I unfold the roll which would tell of all the evil that intemperance in our Col- leges has produced, we should find "it written within and without;" and "the writing therein, lamentation, and mourning, and woe." I have put these two or three examples on record, in order to show how little this Demon can be con- trolled by considerations of a high ambition, or of domestic ties; or, indeed, by any thing else, except that sovereign, omnipotent grace of God, which, alas! is so seldom sought by the once in- temperate drinker. "O my soul, come not thou into their secret : unto their assembly, mine hon- or, be not thou united." Would to God that I could engrave upon the heart of every one, old and young, the graphic warning of Solomon : "Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when it mov- eth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast." Since the times to which I refer, our Colleges
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have seen better days; but some of them should be still further improved in the exercise of a moral influence upon students. The nature of their trust throws upon them a most solemn re- sponsibility. From the age of fifteen to twenty- one, the period of life when most of our youth are pursuing academical or professional education, the mind is like melted wax, easily impressed, and generally assumes the features for good or evil which distinguish it in after-days. Mere intellectual training is far from the whole of a teacher's duty. The development and cultivation of right principles of conduct, and a watchful guardianship against the sources of contamination, are the still higher and more sacred duties of our College officers towards the young men un- der their care. The task of such a parental government may be rendered far from difficult unpleasant. There is a warmth in the youthful heart which inclines it to embrace the counsels of wisdom, when given in a spirit of kindness and affection. But in too many in- stances, instead of drawing a young man with the cords of love, he is made to feel only the rod of stern authority; and when a smile might
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have saved him, the frown injures, perhaps de- stroys him. Haud inexpertus loquor.
I ought not to close this reference to the dan- gers that beset my earlier years, without men- tioning very distinctly one great means of my preservation and safety. The society of ladies has done much for me all my life-long; and it was the salutary, softening influence of such as- sociations that, with God's blessing, restrained me from many an excess into which I might otherwise have been led while receiving my ed- ucation. It is a bad sign when a young man
has no relish for such company. Whatever be a man's station in life, whether higher or lower, public or private, he will become a better man, and escape many a disaster, if he will listen in due season to the voice of the intelligent and the refined among the other sex. Not only do they generally excel us in their nice perception of the proprieties of life, and in their tender sense of duty to both God and man; but they are equally above us in their instinctive faculty of foreseeing evil before it is upon us, and of wisely discerning the character and motives of men. It was not all a dream which made the
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wife of Julius Cæsar so anxious that he should not go to the Senate-chamber on the fatal Ides of March; and had he complied with her en- treaties, he might have escaped the dagger of Brutus. Disaster followed disaster in the ca- reer of Napoleon, from the time that he ceased to feel the balance-wheel of Josephine's influence on his impetuous spirit. Our own Washington, when important questions were submitted to him, often has said he would like to carry the subject to his bed-chamber before forming his decision ; and those who knew the clear judgment and the elevated purposes of Mrs. Washington, thought all the better of him for wishing to make her a confidential+ counsellor. Indeed, the great majority of men who have acquired for themselves a good and great name, were not only married men, but happily mar- ried-" both paired and matched."
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CHAPTER III.
ROBERT FULTON .- HIS APPEARANCE AND MANNER .- HIS SENSI- TIVENESS UNDER THE INDIFFERENCE MANIFESTED TOWARDS HIM IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND .- HIS FIRST VOYAGE BY STEAM FROM . NEW YORK TO ALBANY. - HIS ANXIETY DURING THE VOYAGE. -ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST PECUNIARY ACKNOWLEDGMENT HE RECEIVED FOR HIS SERVICES .- THE TRIALS HE ENDURED FROM VEXATIOUS OPPOSITION .- MR. EMMET'S ELOQUENT ADDRESS WHEN PLEADING HIS CAUSE BEFORE THE LEGISLATURE .- PRO- FESSOR MORSE AND THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.
IT must always remain as the distinctive honor of the Hudson River, that it was the cradle of Steam Navigation. It was on her waters that the value of the discovery was final- ly decided. True, the voyages (we would now scarcely call them "runs") were at first slow af- fairs compared with what has since been achieved. If we made the passage from New York to Al- bany anywhere within twenty-four hours, we were well satisfied, and thought we had a fine boat. I remember to have heard Fulton speak : with great exultation when The Car of Neptune or The Paragon accomplished the distance in six-
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teen hours, having wind and tide in their favor. How little did he comprehend the extent of the power he had called into action !
I met with him frequently during the last four or five years of his life. Very generally he was excellent company. He had seen much and remembered much, both of men and things which had passed before him when he was abroad. He felt even a filial reverence for Mr. West, and was always pleased with an opportu- nity of relating some incident or anecdote in the life of that distinguished man. But sometimes, with the greatest men of the State around him, he would become silent and abstracted, his mind away upon his boats. In this mood he would sit for perhaps half an hour, with his heavy eye- brows drawn down and deeply corrugated, and with a fixed look on the table-cloth before him, as if he were counting the threads; and then, when he had let off the steam, he would join in whatever conversation might be passing, and would appear to enjoy it as if he had never thought of any thing else.
Readily as he would take a part in any sub- ject that might be introduced, he was evidently
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most free when the conversation turned on something connected with his great achievement in steam-navigation. He had a keen sense of the unhandsome manner in which his patience had been tried, and his time trifled with, both in France and England, when engaged in his experiments on sub-marine warfare; and these painful recollections would have made him not the less willing, as his first triumph in that way, to have sent one of his British Majesty's vessels into the air during the late war between England and America.
But the torpedo, with other plans and exploits of sub-marine warfare, seemed to be of small account to him, compared with the steamboat. With that he wished to identify his name, fame, and fortune. He had no concealment as to his frequent misgivings of heart when making his first efforts on our waters, and when, to ordinary observers, he might have appeared flushed with
victory. Many of us could recollect the morn- ing when The Clermont, the first boat on which he made a journey to Albany, cast off from the wharf. The occasion, being extensively known, had excited much interest, and many were
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present to see " the bubble burst," as they said. Owing to something not foreseen, and which he wished to remedy, the boat had not gone far before she was stopped ; and, during the delay, he saw the significant nods and winks that were passing among the bystanders, many seeming to say, "I told you so." This, he said, only nerved his determination to succeed. But when after- ward's the boat moved on, making a steady progress against the stream, and when the shouts of spectators began to rend the air, then he felt as if he should have fainted away, his feelings so entirely overpowered him; and such, he added, was his state of excitement during the whole voyage, that when he arrived at Albany, he was so exhausted that he could scarcely walk without tottering.
While there, the following incident occurred, which well illustrates the state of his mind at the time. It is well worth preserving, though related by a gentleman who has seen fit to conceal his name :
" I chanced," said he, " to be at Albany when Fulton arrived there in his unheard-of craft, which everybody felt so much interest in seeing.
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Being ready to leave, and hearing that this craft was to return to New York, I repaired on board, and inquired for Mr. Fulton. I was referred to the cabin, and I there found a plain, gentlemanly man, wholly alone, and engaged in writing.
"'Mr. Fulton, I presume ?'
"' Yes, sir.'
" """Do you return to New York with this boat ?' 1
"' We shall try to get back, sir.'
"'Can I have a passage down ?'
""'You can take your chance with us, sir.'
"I inquired the amount to be paid, and after a moment's hesitation, a sum, I think six dollars, was named. The amount in coin I laid in his open hand, and, with his eye fixed upon it, he remained so long motionless, that I supposed there might be a miscount, and said to him, 'Is that right, sir?' This roused him as if from a kind of revery, and as he looked up at me, the big tear was brimming in his eye, and his voice faltered as he said : 'Excuse me, sir; but memory was busy as I contemplated this, the first pecu- niary reward I have ever received for all my ex- ertions in adapting steam to navigation. I would gladly commemorate the occasion over a bottle
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of wine with you; but really I am too poor, even for that, just now; yet I trust we may meet again when this will not be so.'
" The voyage to New York was successful, as all know, and terminated without accident.
"Some four years after this, when The Cler- mont had been greatly improved, and her name changed to The North River, and when two other boats, namely, The Car of Neptune and The Par- agon, had been built, making Mr. Fulton's fleet three boats regularly plying between New York and Albany, I took passage upon one of these for the latter city. The cabin, in that day, was below; and as I walked its length, to and fro, I saw I was very closely observed by one I sup- posed a stranger. Soon, however, I recalled the features of Mr. Fulton ; but, without disclosing this, I continued my walk, and waited the result. At length, in passing his seat, our eyes met, when he sprang to his feet, and eagerly seizing my hand, exclaimed, 'I knew it must be you, for your features have never escaped me; and al- though I am still far from rich, yet I may ven- ture that bottle now.' It was ordered; and during its discussion, Mr. Fulton ran rapidly but
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vividly over his experience of the world's coldness and sneers ; and of the hopes, fears, disappointments, and difficulties, that were scattered through his whole career of discovery, up to the very point of his final, crowning triumph, at which he so fully felt he had at last arrived. And in re- viewing all these,' said he, 'I' have- again and again recalled the occasion and the incident of our first interview, at Albany; and never have I done so without its renewing in my mind the vivid emotions it originally caused. That seemed, and still does seem to me, the turning point in my destiny-the dividing line between light and darkness, in my career upon earth, for it was the first actual recognition of my usefulness to my fellow-men.'"
It is seen from Fulton's example, and from that of others also, that there are three stages of trial or conflict through which all great projectors or inventors must pass. When their project is first broached, it is ridiculed. The poor man is pitied, and the best that can be said of him is that he is becoming insane. His friends should look after him. Pity that he should waste his time and his means on such a visionary scheme, and re-
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duce his family to destitution. He should be put under some wise restraint.
When the inventor goes on amidst all this torrent of ridicule and compassion, and shows that he has really produced something valuable, then envy begins to show itself. He is told that, after all, there is nothing new in what he claims to' have discovered or carried out; that others have known all this long before, but did not think it worth while to make a noise about it; and that, at best, he is stealing another man's thunder, and should be discountenanced for his dishonesty.
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