Memoir of Rev. Benjamin G. Paddoc with brief notices of early ministerial assciates. Also, an appendix, containing more extended sketches of Rev. George Gary, Abner Chase, William Case, Seth Mattison, Isaac Puffer, Charles Giles, and others

Front matter

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■®*%*a.TreEL "by J. C. BviXre,.^-^'

MEMOIR

Chapter I. Parentage

IN early life the subject of the following pages was frequently, pefhaps almost universally, called " Green Paddock." His entire Christian name was, however, Benjamin Green ; Green being the maiden name of his paternal grandmother, whose memory it was intended thus to perpetuate.

His parents were Thomas and Elizabeth (Lewis) Paddock. The former belonged to a*physical stock remarkable for manly proportions and uncommon strength ; while some portions of the family were scarcely less distinguished for mental capacity and general culture. Tradition refers the origin of all bearing the name in this country to two brothers, Thomas and William, who came from England to America some fifty years after the Plymouth settlement, and established their residence on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. From that place — supposing the tradition to be correct — their descendants have become scattered over perhaps nearly the whole nation.*

Though the whole family of which Thomas was a member, consisting of eleven brothers and sisters, lived, with perhaps a single exception, to see their " three score years and ten," it is a remarkable fact that all of them fell victims to apoplexy, not one of them living more than thirty hours after being stricken by that potent disease.

The father of our subject was strongly inclined to a species of infidelity, advocating a sort of philosophical fatalism that shielded man from all blame. No matter how flagrant his conduct, in the estimation of men, he acted only as he was acted on, and

* Since writing the above I have had an interview with the Rev. T. T. Bradford, who married my brother's oldest daughter. Being himself a descendant from a Paddock ancestry, and having a special taste for such investigations, he has taken much pains to trace back the family history. The result of his researches he states as follows : —

" Robert Paddock, (the ancestor of all the Paddocks with whom I am acquainted,) came from England to Plymouth as early as A. D. 1630. I learned from one who had investigated the matter, that it is certain that he must have arrived there either in that year or in some previous year. Robert Paddock's sons may have afterward settled elsewhere. How many there were who came from England with their father I am not informed."

What is stated in the text claims no higher authority than that of tradition, and is of no great importance in any view of it. Robert is incontestably a family name, and the individual mentioned by Professor Bradford as sustaining it may have had sons by the names of Thomas and William, who settled in Nantucket, thus harmonizing, in so far at least, with the family traditon.

Parentage, ig

consequently was in no proper sense responsible for his wrong-doing. A phase of predestination frequently came from the pulpit in those days that strikingly harmonized with Mr. Paddock's theory of human responsibility; and when quite sure of hearing the right doctrine, he went, not unfrequently, to the place of worship. Nor did he wholly neglect the Bible, especially the historical parts of it. But then he always found therein authority for his peculiar views of human character and human destiny. It is not wonderful, then, that when Methodism first made its appearance in his neighborhood, it was about as distasteful to him as any thing well could be. Its teachings -in respect to man's moral freedom, to human guilt, the necessity of repentance, the duty and privilege of faith in a Saviour who had died for all men, the new birth, and the like, seemed to him little better than the quintessence of nonsense.

But all of this, even, was quite tolerable as compared with the experiences and warm devotional exercises of the votaries of Methodism. These were, indeed, the very climax of absurdity. No one possessing common sense, thought he, could^ countenance such wide aberrations from all that is sober and decent. While he cherished such views and feelings, it might not be difficult to imagine how he would be likely to be affected by the conversion of his oldest son to such a creed and such a life, and especially when he found that son inclined to the

Methodist ministry. The actual occurrence all but frenzied him. Even his notions of fatalism were regarded as supplying no palliation whatever for a faith and a practice so utterly unreasonable. Poor Benjamin, the particulars of whose induction to the household of faith and call to the ministry will be given hereafter, had a hard time of it indeed. Restrictions and tasks were imposed upon him until he was often obliged to exclaim, " My burden is greater than I can bear."

But affliction often does for a man what nothing else can. Under the pressure of adversity even the skeptic is sometimes made not only to see, but to feel, his utter helplessness. It was so with the father in the present instance. By unreasonable exposure Mr. Paddock took cold, and was violently attacked with pneumonia, Which almost immediately threatened his life. In this posture of affairs infidelity stood him in no stead. However soothing the doctrine of fate in health and prosperity, it was found to be a broken reed in the hour of languishing. In the immediate prospect of death all his former speculations appeared air-built and baseless. Though in great _bodily pain, his mental distress was still more insupportable. He could hardly speak of any thing but his own past errors and follies, and his consequent exposure to remediless ruin. He had always said, if there were any good people on earth, any real followers of the Saviour, his wife was one of them ; and to her he now looked, less for physical alleviation than for religious instruction and comfort. Ever after their marriage, as he had reason to know, her prayers for his salvation had been incessant, and now he seemed to regard her as his most reliable subordinate intercessor. Well does the writer remember, though at the time a mere child, how his suffering, repenting father insisted on being taken from his bed, so that upon his bended knees he might join his godly companion in prayer for Divine pardon and acceptance. But whether upon his knees or upon his pillow — whether others interceded for him or not — he himself, like the great Master, " offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears," at the same time asking pardon of all about him.

The struggle was too sincere and ardent to last long. Truly repenting of all sin, and believing on the Lord Jesus Christ with the heart unto righteousness, he was soon enabled to cry out, in the language of believing Thomas, " My Lord and my God ! " The change was evident to all. This occurred in January, 1812. He knew it was generally understood how unreasonably and how wickedly he had opposed his son, and was therefore anxious to make the widest and most satisfactory reparation possible. The expedient fixed upon was remarkable. It was that this son should publicly administer baptism to him, so that the whole community might understand him as not only identifying himself with the household of faith, but also and especially as confessing the great wrong he had done to this son. Accordingly he wrote to Benjamin, who was at the time some two or three hundred miles away on the Northumberland Circuit, in Pennsylvania, telling him that " God had had mercy on the old sinner," and that he was waiting for him to come home formally to induct him into the visible Church of Christ. The son was not then in orders, but it was understood he probably would be at the approaching s'ession of his Conference, so that the thing desired seemed quite possible. Expectation was realized. The son returned and performed the solemn service, his own father being the first person he ever baptized. The occasion was one of extraordinary interest. Vast multitudes came together to witness a transaction at once so impressive and so unique. Tears fell from eyes unused to weeping, and many retired glorifying God, and saying, " We have seen strange things to-day." Though more than sixty years have elapsed since this occurrence, the writer remembers all of the minutioB of the occasion as distinctly as he does events which have fallen under his observation within the last few months.

From this time forward to the close of his pilgrimage Thomas Paddock was a new man. He had not only ceased to do evil, but had learned to do well. During the last few years of his life he seemed to be more in heaven than upon earth. Bemoaning the errors and follies of his past life, and adoring the riches of that grace that had rescued him from the jaws of hell, he looked forward with exultant anticipation to death and the scenes beyond it. While his " eyes were a fountain of tears," his face was radiant with holy joy. The hundred and sixteenth Psalm so fully expressed the feelings of his heart, that he repeated it with gushing emotions several times a day.* In this happy frame he was, without premonition, stricken by apoplexy. After some thirty hours of unconscious suffering, he entered into rest, aged about seventy-three years. His remains sleep in the cemetery at Little Lakes, Herkimer County, New York, where they were deposited on the .25th of December, 1828.

The mother of Benjamin was a woman of extraordinary excellence of character, and from her he received nothing but the most desirable help. She was the daughter of Matthew and Susannah Lewis, of Hopkinton, Rhode Island, at which place she was born on the 28th of November, 1762. When a mere child she became a professing Christian. Her conversion was very remarkable. It occurred during the first great battle of the American Revolution, the noise of which was distinctly heard at her father's residence. The distant booming of the cannon was to her like the day of judgment. She seemed to hear the blasts of the last trumpet, and

* The funeral sermon for Mr. Paddock was preached by a very devoted local minister, the Rev. Abraham Fish, on the seventh verse of this Psalm : " Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee."

to feel the concussion of heaven's mighty artillery. A conviction that she was unprepared to- meet God in judgment all but overwhelmed her. Retiring to her closet, she began in deep penitence to cry for mercy. Her godly mother, hearing her voice, went and kneeled by her side, joining her in prayer, and directing her to " the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Thus instructed, she gave her heart to the Saviour, and was at once enabled to rejoice in his pardoning love. The change was not only sudden, but inexpressibly joyous. Her little bosom was instantly filled with heavenly tranquillity. Darkness and sorrow were succeeded by light and comfort. The roaring of the cannon ceased to disturb her, so that she went to her bed that night with such an assurance of safety as she had never before felt.

Soon after this blissful change she openly professed faith in Christ, and became a member of the Baptist Church. Though she had few helps, as compared with those enjoyed by young Christians at the present day, she maintained her position with unshrinking fidelity, every-where and on all occasions letting the world know she was on the Lord's side. In no single instance, young as she was, was she known to falter in her religious course, though she may not have always advanced with equal vigor and rapidity.

At the early age of eighteen she was married to Thomas Paddock. Her family soon became numerous, and the cares of domestic life quite engrossing.

Still, however, she resolutely held on her way, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left. Religion was with her a matter of deliberate principle, commanding her first and last attention.

A few months after she removed from Bennington, Vermont, to Northampton, Montgomery County, (now Fulton,) New York, she lost, by a prevailing epidemic, three children — just one half of her family. The effect upon a sensitive nature will be easily imagined. Though for a time reason staggered under the terrible infliction, she was finally enabled submissively to bow to the government of God. In a memorandum found among her papers, she says, referring to this dispensation : " I felt, to adopt the language of King David when he saw the destruction of his innocent subjects : ' Lo, I have sinned and done wickedly : but these sheep, what have they done?' 2 Sam. xxiv, 17. Conscious that the trial had been sent upon me in the way of chastisement for my unfaithfulness, I felt to kiss the rod and Him that had appointed it. The Scriptures became now, more than ever before, a source of unspeakable comfort; Reading, ' Is any among you afflicted? let him pray,' I betook myself with increased earnestness to an exercise with which I was by no means unacquainted. God sent supporting and sanctifying grace; sent just the grace I needed, so that I then found, as did the Psalmist — as indeed I have always found — that ' it is good for me that I have been afflicted.' "

At a later period she says : " My anxiety for the spiritual welfare of my family has been greater than can well be expressed. When my children became large enough to mingle in society, my solicitude for them at times engrossed my whole squI. I knew that they, as well as others, had wicked natures, and that nothing but the grace of God could keep them from falling into vicious and destructive habits. To the Divine throne, therefore, I carried their cases with an ardency of desire which nothing but their moral renovation could fully satisfy. For my unconverted husband, also, my prayers were unceasing. O, the nights of agonizing intercession through which I passed at certain periods of my history, can be known only to Him who knows all things. Nor could I give over the struggle till I saw those to whom I was so closely allied brought into the kingdom of Christ. And, blessed be God for his great mercy to me ! he regarded his handmaid in her low estate. First one child, and then another, and then my husband, and then another child, and so on, were brought from darkness to light, till my entire family were numbered with the heirs of salvation. And now, with a glad heart, and from the fullness of my soul, can I say, with Joshua of old, 'As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.'

" But sickness and death are inseparable from the present state. I have been the mother of thirteen children, of whom no less than eight have been committed to the silent resting-place of the dead. Three lie buried in Northampton, Montgomery County, New York ; three in Warren, Herkimer County, with my first husband along-side of them ; one in Herkimer, and one at St. Charles, Missouri. But through the alone merits of the Saviour, I trust that their souls are with the redeemed in the heavenly temple ; for a part of them were stricken down in their infancy, and the rest of them after they had passed from death unto life. My remaining children are the professed followers of the Saviour, and some of them are watchmen on the walls of Zion. But as the larger portion of my family are with my Saviour, my tie to earth is slender, and I often feel that I would myself willingly depart, and be with Christ. Still I will patiently wait ' all the days of my appointed time, till my change come.' " At the age of seventy-four, Mrs. Paddock (now Widow Eastman) — generally making some one of her grandchildren her amanuensis — commenced the practice of making an annual memorandum of her current religious views, feelings, and exercises, occasionally indulging in a personal reminiscence. This was continued till -bodily infirmities and decaying mental forces rendered it quite impracticable. A single entry is all that can now with propriety be transcribed, but this may be taken as a fair specimen of the whole : —

" I am now eighty years old. ' I have had thirteen children, fifty grandchildren, and twelve great grandchildren. Five of them are Methodist preachers, proclaiming, I trust, the same glorious doctrines that Christ taught his disciples. Can I, then, do .otherwise than bless God for what he has done for me and mine? It is seventy-one years since I set out in the road to Zion ; and from that time to the present I have never seen a moment in which I was sorry that I had commenced the heavenly pilgrimage ; but many has been the time I have sorrowed for not having lived a more holy life. I can only say, ' Enter not into judgment with thy servant,' O Lord. Evidences that we live in a fallen world are spread all about us. We see them on every hand. But,- blessed be God ! he has promised an Almighty Deliverer. Christ can save even to the uttermost. His blood, indeed, ' cleanseth from all sin.' We read that Joshua * followed the Lord with all his heart,' and I would be like him. During the last year, especially, I have been endeavoring to live by faith, and, like Enoch, to ' walk with God.' If I have .succeeded at all, the praise is due to the God of all grace and comfort. Within the last ten years I have read my precious Bible through eighteen times. Apart from my Saviour — if, indeed, this can be separated from him — nothing is so near my heart as this ' book divine.' To me it is no longer a ' sealed book.' Light from above seems to shine upon its pages. The more I read, the more I love it. With David I can say, * O how I love thy law.' Instructed by its teaching, and sustained by its promises, I am kept in perfect peace. Many wellmeaning men are prophesying that the end of the world and the day of judgment are at hand. If so, it is well. The judgment has no terrors for me. I feel fully prepared to see ' our God in grandeur, and our world on fire.' The Judge is my friend, and I feel I can rejoice to meet him in the air. To him I can now appeal and say, as did Peter, ' Lord, thou knowest all things ; thou knowest that I love thee."

Though Mrs. Paddock lived nearly fifteen years after the above was written — dying at not far from ninety-five — she kept up to the last her habitual communion with the sacred text. She read the Bible entirely through twenty times after she was seventy years old, and probably full twice as much more miscellaneously, a book here and another there, as prompted at the time by some peculiar mental state, or incidental emergency. Even when she was not reading the Bible in course her habit was to read an entire book in consecutive order. She frequently said she could not understand how people who loved Divine truth could be satisfied with such a piecemeal way of reading the Holy Scriptures as was apparently their willing habit. The train of thought could be traced and kept, it seemed to her, only by reading the Bible as other books were read. Though one might learn much by consulting detached portions of the Bible, that was not the way t y find the scope and design of the writer. But though she read the Bible, more or less every day, the holy Sabbath supplied her with the most precious opportunity, especially during the last four years of her life, when she was unable to go to the . place of worship. On Monday when her son, with whom she lived, returned from his quarterly meeting— he being at the time presiding elder — she would say to him, ' Well, I too had a good Sabbath, for I read the whole of the Acts of the Apostles through yesterday.' At another time she would say, ' While you were gone I read the whole of the first and second epistles to the Corinthians.' And the like. She always read with a lead pencil in her fingers, so as to mark those passages that particularly interested her, or upon which she had heard sermons, or that conveyed to her mind some new and striking sentiment. The oldest copy of the precious volume, which she steadily used for near half a century, had, it may be safely said, thousands of these marks upon the margins of its pages. At her special, written request, this copy was placed under her head in the coffin as her only pillow while she should sleep the long sleep of the grave. Another and later copy, in which her pencil marks are almost equally numerous, remains as a precious memento in the hands of her children. It is worthy of special remark that while her mental faculties in their bearing upon most other subjects were sadly deteriorated during the last ten or twelve years of "her life, in respect to the Bible they seemed nearly as vigorous as ever. She could not only remember large portions of it, so as to repeat them with wonderful accuracy, but could make very just and discriminating remarks upon their import. Only a few hours before she went hence she read the precious book with all the seeming interest she ever had done.

Her end was peace. She evinced child-like sweetness of spirit, and probably had little or no bodily suffering. There was no death-struggle. Not a limb, not even a muscle moved. The family were all kneeling around her bed, when she passed away as gently as the infant falls asleep upon its mother's bosom. She literally lived out all her days, and then

" The wheels of weary life at last stood still."

Good woman ! She now rests from her labors, and her works do follow her.

A man's character, not unfrequently, largely depends upon his parentage. For this reason the details of tire present chapter may not be deemed an inappropriate introduction to the chapters that are to follow.

Chapter II. Birth And Childhood

THE subject of this memoir was born in Bennington, Vermont, on the 24th of January. 1789. When he was about five years old, the family removed into the State of New York, and settled on the Sacandaga River, a branch of the Hudson, in the then town of Broadalbin, soon after Northampton, and at the time Montgomery County, now Fulton. They were doubtless attracted hither by the fame of the beautiful lands lying about the Fish House, a post established by Sir William Johnson, of revolutionary memory, for the purpose of fishing and trade with the Indians. Though now a considerable village, it was then a mere hamlet. A few hundred rods below this, on a good farm, the Paddock family spent several eventful years, and here Benjamin passed the chief portion of his childhood and early youth.

The country was new, and, consequently, religious and educational advantages were inconsiderable. After awhile, however, Churches were formed and schools opened, so that the multiplying youth of the community received, to some extent at least, evangelical and literary instruction. In these advantages

Benjamin shared quite as largely as any of his fellows, while his home privileges were probably much superior to theirs, generally. Though, at the time, as has already been seen, his father was far enough from being a Christian, his mother was all to him that a true disciple of the Saviour could be. Her children were made familiar with the voice of prayer from their very infancy. They not only heard it every day, but many times every day. Writing of this period, just before his death, my brother says : " Mother would take us children into a retired part of the house, and there talk to Jesus in our behalf, asking his blessing upon each one of us by name. Though I could not see the Saviour, I thought he certainly must be there, for mother spoke to him just as if he were really present." Nor did she omit to instruct her children, as well as pray for them. In the memorandum from which we have just quoted, he says again : " Whatever I am, or have been enabled to do during these eighty years to benefit my fellow men, I owe, under God, to my godly mother. Just as soon as I was old enough to understand somewhat the meaning of words, she told me that when I was born she gave me to the Lord ; that as I belonged to him, l^must do whatever he commanded ; that I must obey my parents, and love my brothers and sisters ; that I must never tell a lie, or break the Sabbath, for if I failed to do the one, or actually did the other, God would not own me as his«child, and that I would be Satan's boy. O how I trembled at the thought of being a child of the wicked one ! I then solemnly resolved, as well as I knew how, to be good, so that I might belong to God's family, and not be Satan's bad boy.

" To enforce these lessons, mother read to us the precious Bible. From that I soon learned that ' all liars shall have their part in the lake which burnetii with fire and brimstone.' Hence I was led to fear a falsehood as I would have done that dreadful place. My attention was also fixed on the fourth command, where I was assured that God would not hold him guiltless who should take his name in vain. So deeply was I impressed with this, that I have never uttered a profane oath, or what I supposed to be one, during my whole life. And it has often occurred to me, especially of late, that one reason why I have been allowed to live so long in the world, has been that I so scrupulously honored and obeyed my parents in childhood and youth."

In March, 1794, a few months after the family came to Northampton, an epidemic, then called canker rash, broke out in the neighborhood, carrying off large numbers of children and youth. This dispensation fall most destructively upon the Paddock family, to which affliction allusion is made in the preceding chapter. The oldest son, aged nine years, and two daughters, aged respectively seven and one, were laid away in the silent grave. Benjamin himself was so violently sick that there scarcely the least hope of his recovery. When convalescence restored him to consciousness, he found himself in a desolate and sorrowing family. Nor did returning health much improve his feelings, as it seemed to give him a keener sense of the great loss he had sustained. His loved companions gone, the garden, the meadows, the pastures, the grove, all the haunts of childhood* seemed to mourn. About all the comfort he found was in the bosom of his mother, and in joining her when she " talked to Jesus." But time and the soothing influence of prayer gradually restored him to a degree of buoyancy, so that he again enjoyed life.

But an incident, far more dreadful than death itself, followed these family bereavements ; not directly, but as an unquestionable consequence. The oldest child, Susan, then aged about seventeen, became a hopeless maniac. She had been a beautiful and lovely girl. Her mother was often heard to say that she never saw her angry, or knew her to do what seemed intentionally wroj^g, even from the days of her ^childhood. In every thing she was scrupulously conscientious. So fearful was she that she might do something that would offend God, that she scarcely dared to move without first' consulting her mother. Indeed, it might be said that she was always •religious. In early childhood prayer seemed to mingle itself with her every breath. Nor did she abate the habit of prayer, as is too often the case, with advancing years. So far from it, that she became more and more devout, so that at the age of about fifteen, she made a public profession of religion, and became a member of the Baptist Church.

At that time high-toned Calvinism held almost universal sway. The horribili decretum that doomed little children to everlasting burnings because of Adam's transgression was not only pretty generally received as an article of faith, but was often prominent in pulpit declamation. Of course, Susan frequently had this revolting doctrine addressed both to her eye and her ear — read as well as heard it — and supposed she was bound to accept it as a part of the evangelical system. Other people, better than she was, received it, and why should not she ? So long as it was to her a mere theory, she hardly paused to think of its dreadfully malign consequences. But now the death of her little brother and two sisters brought home to her own bosom the practical bearings of this terrible doctrine. The idea that these little innocents, so nearly allied to herself, and in whose destiny she had ever felt so# deep an interest, were " with the damned cast out," was more than she could bear. Her whole intellectual and moral nature seemed, for weeks and months, to be struggling with the problem thus forced upon her; nor is it to be wondered at that reason gradually gave way in the dreadful conflict.