The life of Isaac Wilson Joyce

Preface

THE original arrangement was that Dr. Richard J. Cooke should write the biography of Bishop Joyce. No one was better fitted to do so, as he had been long and intimately associated with him in his later years. After some months, however, Dr. Cooke found his duties as Book Editor so multiplying on his hands, and his necessary absence in Europe on official duties requiring so much of his time, that he was compelled to give up the task. I was then asked to undertake it. My acquaintance with Bishop Joyce had begun in my childhood, when he was our family's pastor at Greencastle, Indiana. While the work has been most congenial, two things have made it difficult : first, the fact that I have been in the midst of the pressing labors of a heavy city pastorate; second, that Bishop Joyce left comparatively little

written data. He was pre-eminently a man of

6 Preface.

action, and was too busy making history to record it, and too busy preaching sermons even to write them. Both his words and deeds, however, are stamped imperishably in the hearts of men in four continents. W- F. S.

Baltimore, March, 1907.

Mount Vernon Place Parsonage.

Contents

Page.

I. Ancestry — Birth — Childhood, 9

II. Youth— Conversion— Education, 17

CHAPTER I. Ancestry — Birth — Childhood

AT that latitude in our land where the cold l\ intellectualism of the North meets the warm magnetism of the South, it might be expected that a type of mind and temperament should be produced which should blend the two. And if it be the region, also, where the East and West meet, it might reasonably be anticipated that there would be united with the already composite character something of the caution and

conservatism of the East, together with the energy and breeziness of the West. And it might further

be expected that in this region would arise the most facile and adaptable kind of Americanism. Fusing as it would, the several elements, and coming into constant touch with them, there would arise a composite type that could appreciate the viewpoint of all, and become readily representative of all.

It is this very thing that has happened. And as one result, Ohio has become the fatherland of Presidents and of bishops. It is not that that

State has produced men of greater intellectual girth or eloquence, but that she has produced a more representative, because a more composite type. "Born in Ohio for political purposes," is the way a Congressional wit, the Honorable Adam Bede, of Minnesota, puts it.

Ohio has given to the people called Methodists thirteen of their bishops: Ames, Simpson, W L. Harris, Foster, Merrill, Walden, Thoburn, Cranston, McCabe, Moore, McDowell, M. C. Harris, and the subject of our biography, Isaac Wilson Joyce.

If "to be born obscure and die famous is the acme of human felicity," Bishop Joyce attained the apex of human happiness. His father, James Wilson Joyce, was a humble farmer and plasterer, living, at the time of Isaac's birth, on a farm in Colerain Township, Hamilton County, near Cincinnati, Ohio. There, on the 11th of October, 1836, Isaac was born. His father's maternal grandfather was the Reverend Isaac Wilson, a Scotch Presbyterian minister of Ireland. They gave to the child the name of this ministerial ancestor. Bishop Joyce's grand-parents, on his father's side, were William and Margaret Wilson Joyce.

"The Joyces traced their ancestry back to William and Hannah Joyce, of Dublin, Ireland; and

Ancestry — Birth — Childhood. 11

back of them to the Joyces of County Galway, Ireland. Hardiman's "History of Galway" says of the Joyces:

"This old Galway family is of ancient and honorable English descent, and was allied to the Welsh and British princes. Thomas Joyce, the first of the name that came to Ireland, sailed from Wales in the reign of Edward I. He di-

rected his course to the western part of Connaught (of which Galway is a part), where he acquired considerable tracts of territory, which his posterity still inhabit. While on the voyage, his wife (daughter of O'Brien, chief of Thomund, in Munster) gave birth to a son, whom he named Mac Mara — 'Son of the Sea.' He extended his father's acquisitions, and from him descended the sept of Joyces, a race of men remarkable for their stature, who for centuries past inhabited the mountainous district in far Connaught, called from them 'the Joyce Country.' "*

Mr. Henry D. Teetor, a genealogist of Washington City, asserts that the name Joyce was originally Norman, and the family of Norman origin. It is claimed that the name is a corruption of "Jorz" or "Gorst," which became "Joce," and finally Joyce. "DeJorz or Joyce obtained extended possessions in West Connaught, Ireland, in the time of Edward I, 1272-1307, by marriage

*Dr. P. H. Bodkin in California Independent.

with the O'Flahertys, where their descendants remain to this day." "John, Simon, Matthew, and Robert (Joyce) were landed proprietors of Barony Forth at the time of the Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland, 1653-4, of which they were then dispossessed." But in a later generation "a portion of this vast patrimony was recovered." Hall, an authority on the Irish people, says: "The Joyces are a magnificent race of men, the biggest and stoutest and tallest I have ever seen in Ireland." Blake, in his letters from the Irish Highlanders, writing in 1823, says that "Edward Joyce, or 'Big Ned,' as he was called, was between six and seven feet in height and large in proportion." Upon one of the many stone-cairns in "Joyce's Country," tipped with a wooden cross, may be read the following inscription:

"Pray for y e sole of John Joyce and Mary Joyce, his wife, died 1712."

Whatever may be the relation of Bishop Joyce to the Irish Joyces and Norman Jorsts or Joces, whether nobles or peasants, it is certain that he was little interested in the factitious distinctions of ancestry. With Gibbons, he accounted a "coat of arms the most useless of all coats." He was infinitely more concerned in raising up a race of royal spiritual children than in proving himself a son of nobility.

Ancestry — Birth — Childhood. 13

If Bishop Joyce's blood was originally Norman, it had tarried long enough amid Irish tarns to become thoroughly tinctured with Celtic feeling. The pathos, the fire, and the eloquence of the native Irishman were all his. The best qualities of that sturdy stock seem to have come to blossom in him.

On his mother's side Bishop Joyce was of German extraction. In religion her people were Lutherans. Of German influence there is no trace in his life, however, save perhaps in the youthful allegiance to the United Brethren Church, which is of German origin.

The father of Isaac Wilson Joyce was a farmer. Isaac was reared on the farm not far from Cincinnati. No doubt he frequently went with his father to that city, which at that time, in the forties, had become the leading city in the West, enjoying the title "The Queen City of the West." Little did the country boy, riding in on their primitive wagon, dream that he was to be so intimately and influentially connected with that city's life.

Young Joyce enjoyed the advantages of the country schools, which, even at that early period, were good in Ohio. For that State has always been well at the front in education.

In April, 1850, when he was thirteen years of age, his parents moved to Indiana. Many families in that part of Ohio were doing the same thing at that time. The beautiful districts about Lafayette and Frankfort, Indiana, were attracting many of these settlers. The Joyces settled north of Lafayette, at a point made famous forty years before by a bloody battle between the Indians, led by Elkswatawa, more commonly called "The Prophet," a brother of Tecumseh, and the whites, led by William Henry Harrison. It is known in history as "The Battle of Tippecanoe," because of its being fought on the banks of that stream, a tributary of the Wabash. The town of Battle Ground grew up there, and about two miles to the northeast of this town, in a little log house, the Joyces lived. His boyhood days were days of poverty. He grew up in a two-roomed log house, with a lean-to for a kitchen. A barefoot boy in homespun, he trod every foot of ground around that little hut, and on that little farm. In an address in later years he describes tenderly the morning-glory vines that grew up over the windows of that humble house, shaking their blue and pink striped bells in the sunshine, a pathetic token of the hunger for beauty in the heart of his mother amid the privations of the far frontier. And with his description of the morning-glories was poured

Ancestry — Birth — Childhood. 15

out a tribute of undying appreciation of that mother love.

Uneventful enough must have been young Joyce's adolescent life on the Indiana farm. Following the plow in the spring, taking his place, scythe in hand, with his father in the ripe wheat of summer, cutting and shocking the corn in the autumn, and attending school in the winter — this was the program for those first four years in Indiana.

With his temperament, however, it could not have been but that young Joyce drank deeply of Nature's beauties, and entered into sympathy with her passing moods. Nowhere does she manifest her charms in greater variety than in the region where he had taken up his abode. There was prairie, and there was woodland. Hills and streams were not far away. The Tippecanoe is a beautiful stream even yet. And the country rolled away in gentle undulations, in a way that was as restful to the eye as it was pleasing to the imagination. The streams and birds and flowers were all his friends. In productiveness the region was one of the richest in the West, and the families around soon began to prosper, and the comforts of life became accessible to all.

His father died in 1878. Years later his mother married Mr. Isaac Ervin, of Hamilton County, Ohio, a lover of her early girlhood. Many years later he, too, died, and the mother spent the twilight of life with her honored son in his home in Minneapolis, until the Bishop left for South America. She then went to her only daughter, Mrs. Dunafee, in Iola, Kansas, where she died in March, 1904.

CHAPTER II. Youth — Conversion — Education

YOUNG JOYCE'S youth did not differ from that of the average farmer boy in the earlier days of Indiana. The summer was spent in work on the farm, and the winter in the district school. The American public has had a distorted conception of the schools of Indiana, and of the intelligence of her people. This has been due largely to the writings of the late Edward Eggleston, himself a circuit-rider in Indiana at an early day. While "The End of the World" and "The Hoosier Schoolmaster" may have truly reflected the life of isolated communities in Southern Indiana, where the scenes were laid, they caricatured the State as a whole. And this caricature has been accepted by the American public as portraiture. We may add, parenthetically, that the late John Clark Bidpath, the historian, shared the view just expressed as to the responsibility for Indiana's undeserved reputation for illiteracy. The schools were of a high order, throughout the rural regions as well as the towns, during even the fifties, when young Joyce was in them. 2 17

On finishing the district school an event occurred which had a determining effect on his education, as well as on every interest of his lite. That event was his conversion.

It is not often that a raccoon hunt ends in a revival meeting. But Isaac and several neighbor boys were out coon hunting one July night in 1852, when the party became scattered for some reason, and young Joyce became lost from his companions. Wandering around in the woods he heard singing, and presently saw a light. Coming out into the road, he saw that the light and the singing proceeded from a schoolhouse. Entering, he found a revival meeting in progress, conducted by the Reverend David Brown, a United Brethren preacher; and like an earlier David, this David's aim brought down a giant that night. Only it was to life that young Joyce was brought, not death. Humbling himself as a seeking penitent under the exhortation of the preacher, Isaac was happily converted to God. In his later years he sometimes declared in preaching: "I was converted on the hottest night in July I ever saw, and I have not cooled off yet."

This conversion occurred when Isaac was sixteen years of age. His mother had united with the United Brethren Church, and he was baptized in the Wabash River soon after this by Mr.

Youth — Conversion — Education. 19

Brown, and received as a member of this Church. He was religiously zealous from the first, and took part in the family worship with his father. He was a born preacher, for when he was a little boy he would go out and preach to the trees and any other objects he could cluster together, going through the forms of- religious service. When he was to be baptized, he chose immersion, and, though the weather was very cold, he insisted on having it done at once. So they cut the ice, and both he and a brother were immersed.

Any other Church might have had this choice young man, had it been as alert and passionate in its quest of souls as was this little United Brethren society, holding evangelistic meetings in the heat of midsummer in an Indiana schoolhouse. The incident calls to mind the saying of Hugh Price Hughes that "the people belong to any Church that has the apostolic aggressiveness and the sanctified common sense to go for them." It is also an illustration of the character of the work done in winning the West for Christ. Those denominations that did not wait for the parlor car or even the railroad, but pushed their way out, over bad roads and through the forests, secured the choicest families of that region for their communions.

Soon young Joyce felt burning within him the longing for an education. Nothing quickens that desire like a sound conversion. The influence of the preacher in it is seen in the fact that he chose Hartsville College as his place of study. This United Brethren school was situated in Bartholomew County, a hundred and fifty miles from his home. He might have gone to Wabash College, which was only thirty miles away, at Crawfordsville. He might have chosen Asbury (now De- Pauw) University, which was only seventy miles away, at Greencastle. But the former was Presbyterian, and the latter was a Methodist school; while Hartsville was a United Brethren school. And that settled the matter. And the ministers under whom they have been converted have decided the matter for thousands of the young men of our land. The circuit-riders have turned the feet of these young men towards the colleges of the Church. While at the same time from their own scanty salaries they have helped to keep those colleges open. The epic of the educational service and sacrifice of the circuit-rider in America has yet to be written.

Young Joyce attended the Hartsville College for two years — 1854-6. He worked his way, earning his support by sawing and chopping wood, janitor work, and other manual labor.

He was an enthusiastic student, and made ex-

Youth — Conversion — Education. 21

cellent progress in his studies. He cultivated the art of public speaking at every opportunity. Those who knew him at this time speak of his style as being somewhat florid — a natural thing in a youth, especially one of as enthusiastic temperament as young Joyce. At this time his course at Hartsville was interrupted by the financial straits of a member of his family, who had gone into business at Rensselaer, Indiana. In order to save the business, Isaac left college, took charge of the business — a photograph establishment — conducted it successfully for a time, sold it out at a profit, and then went to teaching in the schools of the same town.

But although he had given up his college course, he had by no means given up his purpose to secure a good education. During the two years of teaching that immediately followed he kept up his studies. And later still he took the required course for securing the degree of Master of Arts at Asbury (now DePauw) University, receiving that degree in 1872.

His attitude toward higher education in his maturer years is shown by the following letter, written to a young man just graduated from DePauw University, who was expecting to enter the ministry :

"Cincinnati, Ohio, July 31, 1885. "My Dear :

"I think if you can arrange it so you can go to a theological school, you would do well to go. If you could not go for the three required years, I would go at least for one year; and if you can get credit for what you have done at DePauw in Hebrew and Greek, I think you can graduate at any one of our theological schools in two years. It is my judgment that all our young ministers would do well, if they can so arrange it, to go to a theological school before they enter regularly into the work of the Christian ministry.

"Yours in love, I. W. Joyce."

CHAPTER III. Into the Methodist Ministry

WHILE in college at Hartsville young Joyce had been licensed as a local preacher by the United Brethren. He occasionally exercised the functions of that office at country appointments near Hartsville and also near his old home.

While teaching at Rensselaer he had in his school children of the Reverend Aaron Hays, the Methodist minister of that town. Mr. Hays became impressed with the superior qualities of young Joyce. He felt that a young man of unusual gifts was among them. He communicated his views to his presiding elder, the Reverend Benjamin Winans, of Lafayette, and to the widely known and honored Granville Moody, who came to Rensselaer at this time on a visit. The influence which Dr. Moody exerted on Mr. Joyce's life is found in the former's own words as given in his "Autobiography :'

«i

'In the year 1858 I spent several days in Jasper County, Indiana, where my real estate is located. One day I went to Rensselaer, the county-seat of said county, and called at the Methodist parsonage to see the pastor, Aaron Hays, an old friend of mine. During a somewhat protracted conversation the name of a young man who was teaching school in the town was mentioned. Some things that were said gave me a desire to see him and know more about him. When I arose to depart the pastor invited me to return in the evening, and spend the night under his roof. I accepted the invitation.

"On going out of the town to meet some engagements for the afternoon, I met a young man coming from the direction in which I was going. I had an impression that he was the one whose name I had heard mentioned at the parsonage. So strong was the impression that when we came near each other I stopped and asked him his name ; he replied, 'Joyce.' I said, 'Are you the young man teaching school in town; and are the Methodist minister's children members of your school?' He answered, 'Yes.' I asked him a number of questions. I found he was a member of the United Brethren Church; had been converted when sixteen years of age ; was at the time twenty-two years old; and was now teaching school in order to pay some debts contracted during his struggle in college to secure an education. His purpose was to enter the Christian ministry. He was then a local preacher in the United Brethren Church; had, however, preached only a few times and had in a few instances announced a hymn and offered prayer in the Methodist church at the close of the pastor's sermon. A few more

Into the Methodist Ministry. 25

questions brought out the fact that he was becoming much dissatisfied with the United Brethren Church, because of the opposition he found on the part of some of the ministers of that Church to an educated ministry.

"He was quite poor, had struggled hard to secure an education, and was rapidly becoming unwilling to give his life to a Church where so little was, at that time, done for the cause of education. His replies to all my questions convinced me at once of a duty I owed to this young man- He was correct and exact in all his responses, and gave evidence of a superior mind. I said to him, 'Please meet me at the parsonage to-night, and we will continue this conversation.'

"I went and met my engagement, and returned to the home of my friend the pastor. The young man soon after came in, and was cordially greeted by the family, as well as by myself. I said to him: 'Brother, I have been thinking much about our conversation this afternoon, and I am impressed that God and the Methodist Episcopal Church have need of you.' I added: 'You can better your condition by a change of your Church relations, which will demand no change in your religious views. Suppose you allow me to move in this change ©f your Church relations. Come over into the Methodist Episcopal Church. We can give you a larger field of usefulness in the ministry, without any material change in sentiment; and employment in preaching the Gospel, without burdening you five days in each week with the dull routine and anxious cares of a pedagogue, and thus leaving but the dull remains of life for the work of the ministry. Come, my brother, put your case in my hands this week. I am going tomorrow through Lafayette, and I will see Benjamin Winans, presiding elder of that district. I will represent you and your condition to him, as

his next quarterly meeting in will be held

three weeks from Saturday. I will ask him to take your name to the Annual Conference, so that you may receive an appointment, under a presiding elder, as a supply on some circuit. Then the regular recommendation from some Quarterly Conference can be taken up the next year. I will stop on my way home and get all ready for you to make the change in your Church relations, and it will be for God's glory, for your greater usefulness, and will afford you a comfortable support and a much wider field of usefulness. Now then, my brother, just say, "I will," and, under God and the presiding elder, I will do the rest.'

"He was much moved at my proposal. He asked several pointed questions about the doctrines and government of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and wanted to know more fully of the requirements of its ministry. I found that fears were rising in his manly mind as to his competency for the work in our communion, to which he gave becoming utterances, and to which I gave suitable responses. After struggling exercises of mind, commingled with becoming fears of inadequacy to the work, he at length responded : 'I agree with you, sir, in sentiment, and I put my application into your hands and the presiding elder's.' I said :

Into the Methodist Ministry. 27

'Amen! and may this auspicious interview be an augury of success, with God's blessing!' He was at once received into the Methodist Episcopal Church by Brother Hays, as a full member, on his credentials as a local preacher among the United Brethren.

"The next day I found the presiding elder, represented the matter, and met with the heartiest co-operation. All the doors and locks, as in Peter's exodus from prison, opened of themselves. The Rev. Brother Joyce rejoiced in the happy change that had taken place in his Church relations." (Page 330.)

Dr. Moody never lost his interest in the recruit he had secured for Methodism. He followed his career with deepening satisfaction and thankfulness. And when at last he lay on his deathbed in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, he asked that Dr. Joyce — at this time pastor of St. Paul Church, Cincinnati — should preach his funeral sermon. This service Dr. Joyce tenderly and gratefully rendered.

CHAPTER IV The Circuit-Rider

IT was in June, 1858, that Mr. Joyce, then nearly twenty-two years of age, united with the Methodist Episcopal Church. His standing as a local preacher in the United Brethren Church gave him that relation also in the Methodist Church. He attended the session of the Northwest Indiana Conference at Valparaiso, in September, and was given work as a "supply."

Rolling Prairie Circuit, in the region near LaPorte, in the extreme northwestern section of Indiana, was his field of work, and he was to be the junior preacher, his colleague and chief being the Rev. Thomas Hackney. On returning from Conference he immediately began preparations to go to his new field of labor. His father gave him a horse, a saddle and bridle, and two dollars and a quarter in cash. We are particular about mentioning the quarter, because that was all the money he had left when he reached his new home. The rest of his belongings included his clothes, his Bible, Hymn Book, and Discipline, all of which

ISAAC W. JOYCE

AT THE AGE OF 22 YEARS were packed into a pair of saddlebags. With this extensive outfit he started for his appointment, one hundred and fifty miles away. It took three days to make the journey. Several times on the way the horse was fed while the rider went hungry, because it was important that the horse should be able to carry his load to the end of the journey, and there was not enough money to furnish plenty for both. So young Joyce omitted his own noon meals, and would sing the hymns of Zion to enable him to forget his hunger. He would also shout and praise God for having saved his soul.

"No foot of land do I possess, No cottage in this wilderness,"

made glorious music in those Indiana woods, when sung by men who had laid their all on God's altar. Many of the hymns he loved best he committed to memory.

At the close of the third day he reached the hospitable home of Rev. Levi Moore, a local preacher on the Rolling Prairie Circuit. Here he was warmly welcomed and made to feel at home from the first. Mrs. Moore proved a true and kind mother to the young circuit-rider, and he always cherished tender memories of his first experiences in the home of these loyal Methodists.

His salary was one hundred dollars in money, and board. The latter he obtained by "boarding round" among the members. In order to supplement the small salary, Mr. Joyce taught during the school months. It was while being entertained in the home of one of his pupils that he met the young lady who afterwards became his wife — Miss Caroline Walker Bosserman, daughter of George and Frances Toney Bosserman. It goes without saying that the Bosserman home became a favorite stopping-place with the junior preacher of that circuit from that time on.

Notwithstanding the double work of teacher and preacher, young Joyce devoted himself energetically to his books. All his spare time was spent with them. And the year quickly and happily passed away.

Among the papers of Bishop Joyce was found a renewal of his license as a local preacher, which was granted in August of the year 1859. At this time he spelled his name " Joice." It was not until 1863 that he changed it to the generally accepted spelling, "Joyce.'

j>

Isaac W. Joice, the bearer, license renewed as a local preacher in the M. E. Church. Done at a Quarterly Conference held in Portland, Rolling Prairie Circuit, N- W Ind. Conf., South Bend Dist.

August 6, 1859. T. S. Webb, P. E.

In September, 1859, the Conference met at Greencastle. Bishop Morris was the bishop in charge. There Mr. Joyce was admitted into the Conference "on trial," as the Methodist term is. In the same class with him were J. H. Cissel, E. W Lawhon, J. H. Staley, and others. The first two of these died the same year that Bishop Joyce died.

If any one had told young Joyce that in eighteen years he would be the pastor of the leading Greencastle Church he would have charged them with folly, while the exalted position of a bishop was beyond his wildest dreams. He hoped to make an effective circuit preacher, and perhaps after a long time to reach a "station."

At the Greencastle Conference he was appointed junior preacher of Romney Circuit, near Lafayette, his senior colleague being the Rev. Frank Pierce. This circuit had only twelve appointments, while his previous charge had had sixteen. He could get around to each of the Romney appointments every three weeks.

The home of- Mr. Wesley White, of Linden, was the junior preacher's home, and he found there most congenial friends. Their sympathy was expressed in many ways, some of them very substantial. For years it was a joy to him to pay an annual visit to this lovely family.

The next Conference, that of 1860, met at Terre Haute. Bishop Simpson presided. The pastor of the West Lebanon Circuit said to Joyce : "I hope you will not be appointed to West Lebanon Circuit. It is the hardest appointment in the Conference." Both young men took it for granted that he would receive a new charge, for in those days no young preacher was kept on a circuit for more than one year.