Henry Boynton Smith

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Preface

This book was but just finished and placed in the hands of its publishers, when the earthly work of jts author was completed, and his heavenly service began.

It is left to me to express his thanks to Mrs. Henry B. Smith for the free use which she allowed him to make of the memoir and the works of her husband. His thanks would also be given to the publishers of these works, Messrs. A. C. Armstrong & Son, and Charles Scribner's Sons.

I would add my personal gratitude to the publishers of this volume for their unfailing courtesy ; to my sister, Mrs. John S. Sewall, for the help which here, as in all the work of my life, she has given to me ; and to Professor Francis B. Denio, my husband's valued friend, for the preparation of the index.

ELIZABETH M. STEARNS.

Bangob, Mb., April 25, 1892.

CONTENTS,

CHAPTER L

rAos Preparation 1

CHAPTER n.

Ik the Larosr World 43

CHAPTER HL

ThB BlfiCHNMIKa OF THE WORK 72

CHAPTER rV.

The Professor of PhuiOsofht 106

CHAPTER V.

The Professor of Church History 138

CHAPTER VL The Professor of Theoloot 175

CHAPTER Vn.

The Editor Ain> LrrriRATEUR 233

CHAPTER Vni.

The Christian Patriot 253

VI CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IX.

The EcciiBsiAsncAii Statesmak 272

CHAPTER X.

The Christian Apologist 303

CHAPTER XL The Pbomotion 344

HENRY BOYNTON SMITH.

Chapter I. Prepabation

The number of theologians in any particular age is seldom great. Many men make attainments, more or less extensive, in theological scholarship ; many teach theology, or write about it. But such men are not necessarily, or even generally, theologians in the highest meaning of the term. Their knowledge is too often second-hand, their system merely traditional, their conception of the nature and purpose of the sacred science inadequate, and their influence upon their times small, if not actually null. The true theologian appears but rarely. He is a man who has verified the Christian revelation in his own experience and systematized its facts and truths in his thought, who, filled with the conviction of the supreme importance of his science, proclaims it to the world as the key to the great problems of hmnan life and destiny, as one of the most potent instruments in the accomplishment of God's work of redemption. To him theology is truly, in Bacon's phrase, ^^ the haven and Sabbath of all men's contemplations." But it is far more than this ; it is the source of all that is highest in human thought and endeavor. Such a man comes to his age with a message ; men hear him gladly, and accept him as their leader.

Among the half dozen American theologians worthy of the name, whom the nineteenth centuiy has produced, the man who is to be described in these pages deserves a high place. In his hands theology was not a scholastic system but a living power. He did much to advance the kingdom of the Redeemer whom he served. He left an enduring impress upon the Christianity of his times and country. His influence, instead of waning with the passing of the years since his too early death, has steadily increased. He has won his place as one of *^ the choice and master spirits of this age."

What was the secret of this theologian's life? What influences, divine and human, wrought together to give it its power ? What was the nature of the work this man did? These questions this book will attempt to answer.

Henry Boynton Smith was bom in Portland, in the State — then the District — of Maine, on the twenty-first of November, 1815. His grandfather on his father's side was the Rev. John Smith, who during a long ministerial career faithfully served a niunber of churches in New England and the West. His father, Henry Smith, was a prosperous merchant of Portland, a man of imblemished character and cultivated tastes. On the maternal side he sprang from two families of local promineDce, the Kings and the Southgates, the former best known through its distinguished representative, Ruf us King, a leading statesman of the time of Washington. His mother, Arixene Southgate, was one of a number of sisters, " renowned for beauty and grace," ^ and is said fully to have maintained the reputation of her family in these respects. To Henry Smith and his wife were bom five sons. Of these Henry Boynton was the third, the oldest of the three who survived the period of infancy.

When Henry was five years old his beautiful mother, as lovely in her Christian character as in her person, died of consumption. As the end drew near, her faith grew brighter. We are told that " her habitual reserve gave way to rapturous expressions of love to Christ and hope in Him."^ At her request her children were led to her bedside, and there in solemn consecration she committed lliem to God. To those who knew the theologian in his later life, and are aware how strong and personal was his loyalty to Christ, this parental consecration to the Saviour, imder circumstances so tender and sacred, is most significant. The mark upon the boy's memory could scarcely have been permanent, but who will doubt that the mother's prayers were answered ? Nor is it too much

^ Hon. William Willia, the historian of Pordand. Quoted by Mrs. Smith, Henry Boynton Smithy His Life and Work, p. 5. For the sake of breyity the latter will hereafter be referred to as "Memoir."

^ Memoir, p. 5 uq.

4 BENBY BOYNTON SMITH.

to say tliat in this act of maternal faith the foundations of Henry B. Smith's theology were laid.

A few years afterward another mother brought into the home an affection not inferior to that lavished by the first, — an affection fully reciprocated by the children, then and throughout their later life. She, too, was a woman of devoted piety, and made it her aim to bring up her young charges for Christ.

Henry's childhood, so far as it has been recorded, seems to have been an uneventful and happy one. He was a boy of delicate physique, attractive person, and winning ways. He early showed the fine mental endowment that was the foundation of his later successes as a scholar and thinker. When scarcely out of babyhood he had taught himself to read, and henceforth books were his passion. In the cultivated atmosphere of his home, and under, favoring influences in school and social life, his intellect grew apace. Yet he was no mere bookworm. His disposition was a sunny one. He loved outdoor life and sports. He was a favorite with young and old. " Everybody loves him," his father wrote. " He makes warm and attached friends wherever he goes." And speaking of his intellectual attainments, the father added with the prevision of a prophet, " I think he will, by and by, be a professor in some theological or literary institution ; that he will be a maker of books, I have no doubt." 1

PBEPARATION. 5

While the religious influence at home was that of the warmest evangelical piety, in his church relations the boy came into contact with a different type of religion. The family attended the " First Parish Church," then under the ministrations of the Key. Ichabod Nichols, D. D. This church favored the liberal or Unitarian faith. The great controversy between the Orthodox or Trinitarian Congregationalists and the Unitarians had begun in 1815, the year of Henry's birth. During his childhood it was in full swing. In Portland, as in so many other parts of New England, the majority of the intellectual and cultivated people accepted the liberal doctrine. Dr. Nichols was one of the best specimens of Unitarianism, cultured, earnest, zealous in his presentation of the ethical element in Christianity, betraying his difference from the orthodox ministers by his silence respecting the distinctively Christian doctrines rather than by any direct attack upon the orthodox system. One had, however, but to contrast his preaching, in its tone and effects, with that of his neighbor. Dr. Edward Payson, the saintly pastor of the Second Church, then at the height of his remarkable career as a preacher and religious teacher, to realize how great was the divergence between the two types of religion.

The eager mind of the boy readily imbibed the influences at work in the church. In spite of the faithful training at home, he came to regard much that belongs to orthodox Christianity as irrational. This experience of his boyhood cannot be too carefully noted, if we are to understand his later career. It was undoubtedly an important factor in the preparation for his predestined work. The distinguishing features of his piety and his theologj) especially their earnest evangelical tone and the personal loyalty to ^;he divine Saviour, were due in no small degree to the fact that he had tried the so-called liberal Christianity and found it insufficient to satisfy his spiritual needs. He always spoke with respect of Unitarianism. Some of his most valued friends, in later as in earlier life, were Unitarians. He knew how to estimate at its highest all that is good in the system, and to distinguish the system from the men who profess it. But he never hesitated to express his sense of its inadequacy. He regarded Unitarianism as incapable of performing, truly and fully, the work which God has assigned to the Christian church.

In an article prepared many years later, when he was occupying the chair of systematic theology in Union Seminary, he wrote as follows, undoubtedly speaking out of his own early knowledge of the liberal system : —

" The Unitarianism of thirty or forty years ago was generally, in speculation, upon the basis of the philosophy of common sense and of natural ethics. While allowing, as did most of its prominent representatives, a specific historical revelation, recorded in the Scriptures, yet they subjected its teachings to the criticism and standard of what they called human reason and morality, without any very accurate definition of what was meant by reason,

PBEPABATION, 1

or of the metes and bounds of moral science. The truths of natural religion and the maxims of duty were reo* ognized; and the main effort was to find these more clearly and fully in the Bible. The tendency was rational and moral, rather than strictly religious; and it was aided, though not initiated by some New England speculations as to the nature of virtue and the natural ability of man to fulfill the moral law, taken out of their proper connections and limitations in the orthodox system. That God is one, and one Person ; that ... ^ it is very good to be good, and very amiable to be amiable, and very happy to be happy,' and that man can and ought to be virtuous, and if he is not, that he ought to be punished more or less ; that if he sins a good God will naturally and readily forgive him if he will only repent, and that he ought to repent ; these, and kindred positions, were held and preached, perhaps as earnestly and eloquently as they could be. That Christ was a kind of second Grod, that he is to be obeyed and loved, and that in some way his life and death had some important connection with our being reconciled to God, was not denied. But at the same time the resurrection of Christ was more fondly dwelt upon than his death, and next to the Dignity of Human Nature, and God as Father, the Resurrection has perhaps been the most favorite and inspiring theme of the most eloquent Unitarian discourses. But the Trinity, it was declared, especially in the Athanasian Creed, involved, if not mathematical, yet absolute contradictions ; the Incarnation implied a union of entbely opposite and inconsistent qualities, and led to as gross absurdities as the doctrine of transubstantiar tion ; the Atonement was utterly contradictory to the first principles of that justice which the orthodox said that it

Batisfied ; total depravity did dishonor to both Grod and man ; and Regeneration consisted in moral improvement, and not in a mysterious new birth of ^ the human soul in the divine likeness." ^

That this picture was drawn from the life is manifest.

In 1830 Henry entered Bowdoin College at Brunswick, Maine. This institution, founded shortly after the beginning of the century, had already won the high reputation which it has ever since maintained. Its faculty was composed of men of marked ability, and its graduates were occupying some of the highest positions in the state 'and country. At Bowdoin young Smith immediately became a marked man. Here, as elsewhere, his personal attractions, his wit, and his fondness for society, as well as his intellectual ability, gained him many friends. There are indications that his especial temptations were due to his social temperament and love of fim. While he took a high rank in all departments of study, he showed an especial aptitude for philosophy. It was characteristic of him that from the first he thought for himself. Of his metaphysical essays he wrote " that the professor could not understand them, neither could he himself, yet he felt that there was a truth at the bottom." 2

It was during his senior year that the great crisis of his life came. The most important event in any

1 American Theological Beview, vol. ii. p. 281 seq, * Memoir f p. 13 ; cf . also p. 57.

man's career is his conversion. But this was preeminently true in the case of Henry B. Smith. Not only his spiritual life, but his whole intellectual and professional character were determined by the profound religious experience through which he passed at this time. Bowdoin College had shared in the indifference to religion that prevailed throughout the country during the early part of the century, and Ihat was particularly marked in our American colleges. The History of Bowdoin College speaks of a time, in 1810, when the heart of President Appleton was cheered by the admission of a single Christian student, there being then no pi-ofessed Christians in the college. A new and better era seemed to dawn when, in 1812, Frederic Southgate, Henry B. Smith' s uncle, was appointed tutor. " Many for years could recall the affectionate counsel and earnest exhortation to a life of purity and devotion which fell from his lips even in the class-room." But this devout man was soon removed from earth by the enemy of his family, pulmonary consumption. The year 1816 was marked by a revival of religion, and from that time the religious state of the college steadily improved.^ In 1834 was a period of unusual interest in religious things. It was at this time that God's grace found young Smith and brought him out of death into life.

The great change is thus described by his class-

^ History of Bowdoin College, by Professors Cleaveland and Packaid, p. 16 seq mate, the Bev. Cyrus Hamlin, D. D., afterwards the distinguished missionary to Turkey and President of Robert College in Constantinople : —

^^I regard Smith's conversion as a remarkable one, the most remarkable event in college in my day. Longfellow (the poet, who was then professor in Bowd<nn) had great influence over him, not by any propagandism, but by the ^ sweetness and light ' of his character. * Little Smith ' (we had a great big Smith in the class) was briUiant and witty in conversation. He was in danger from convivial habits. We * pious fellows ' saw his danger. He was made a special subject of prayer in our little circles. I think it was Daniel R. Goodwin (afterwards the professor and president) who more than any other arrested his course and saved him from the danger he was in. How our hearts beat when we saw Smith come into the Sunday morning prayer-meeting with a serious look. He had surely not come for fun. Cole, Woodford, and myself had a consultation. Let us not rush upon Smith. Let us warn Beach and a few others to let him entirely alone. If the Spirit of God has hold of him, there will be a real and earnest conflict ; but we will give ourselves unto prayer. He came to me, I did not go to him. I did not wish to raise the spirit of debate in him and thus spoil the work. Prayer and sovereignty bothered him, but I have a strong impression that his knowledge of sin made him cling to an almighty divine Redeemer with such a grasp that the Grod-man became a sudden fact to him, and he forgot all about his Unitarianism. It was — sin and salvation ; I a sinner, He is set forth as my Redeemer ; my allegiance is henceforth to Him. Smith's views were so clear, genuine, honest, pervasive, that there seemed little opportunity

PBEPARATION. 11

for conflict or for doabt He stepped at once into the Christian ranks as though he had always been there. He was transformed in the spirit and temper of his mind. It was wonderful, almost incredible, but a most undeniable fact. If our colleges could have a few such conversions now, it would change their character." ^

In his letters written at this time he gives a full account of the experience through which he passed. Under date of April 6, 1834, he says : —

<< My difficulties have been as many as there are evil thoughts in my heart. . . . The revival here has operated wonderfully; no excitement, no threatening;, calmness, love, and peace are prevalent. ... I feel a want of faith, of full confidence in my Redeemer, and yet I know how lovely is his character, and how worthy of supreme love. I will not falter." «

On April 9 he wrote again : —

'< My determination to seek rdigion was formed solely in consequence of my complete persuasion of its reasonableness. I did not feel my need of it." *

But as he sought, the sense of need came.

"I went to work, performing my duty so far as I knew, praying for light and love, having God before me always, and his approbation my motive of thought and action, feeling full reliance upon Christ for pardon, and having my soul lifted up as it were into his presence. ... I talked with Professor Upham about the Trinity. Of one thing I feel assured, that I need an infinite Saviour. Further than that may the Lord in his mercy and

^ Letter to the aathor. ^ Memoir , p. 14. ' Ibid. p. 15.

wisdom gtade me. My prejudices were fixed in regard to this point, as well as to the innate sinfulness of man. On the latter point I am convinced. ' As to the former, I know nothing bat that Christ is my Redeemer and has atoned for my sins." ^

On April 20 he says : —

*^ I have been, I do believe, gradually obtaining clearer views of Scripture, of God, of Christ, and of myself. I have had many times of disquiet, of temptation ; many great conflicts with my heart, more knowledge of its wickedness, more necessity of relying upon my Saviour. I am determined to set my standard of Christian character high, and, trusting in Grod for his ever-ready assistance, to go forward and do all my duty." ^

That this was the language of mere religious conventionalism, no one who knew the man could for a moment believe. It was all most intensely real and true to him. His " conversion " was an experience which transformed his whole inner and outward being, making of him another man. Primarily it was not a change of doctrinal views, but a new spiritual life. The change in doctrine was the result of the spiritual transformation with its revelation of a realm of facts previously unknown. In the article on Unitarianism already referred to he said, '^ This matter of religion, after all, is not a matter of formulas or of reflection ; it is the soul^s deepest experience in relation to its profoundest wants and needs." And then he went on to declare, that when a man

* Memoir^ p. 15 seq. * Ibid,

PBEPAJRATION. IS

'^ comes to know sin in all its power, and to feel its jast condemnation by a holy God, and when he receives the Lord Jesus as the one only sacrifice for sins, and believes himself to be pardoned and justified only for his sake, so that he can truly say that there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus ; then, and then only, the last vestige of Unitarianism is driven from his soul, for he is vitally united to Christ, and lives the life he lives in the flesh by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself to die for us." *

Thare can be no doubt that in these deliberate words he spoke out of the deep experience through which he himself had passed. Nor can the facts be too strongly emphasized. The men who have written on Henry B. Smith's theology have, with scarcely an exception, found the peculiarity of his system in the fact that it centres in Christ. To use his own phrase, the genetic principle is ^* Incarnation in order to Redemption." To explain the stress he lays upon this central Christian truth, we must go back to this wonderful experience through which he passed while a student in Bowdoin College, this spiritual transformation which revolutionized his life. In it he first obtained the personal, saving knowledge of the living Christ as his Lord and Saviour. His mother's prayers were answered, and her consecration was confirmed by his own free choice. In the new knowledge that thus dawned upon him, this personal discovery of the Saviour, the power of his old theory of life was broken. His ^ American Theological Review, yoL ii. p. 285 seq.

Unitarianism became not only insufficient but untrue; and he who previously had given Christ a secondary place in his thought, now set him upon the throne. All through his after life the peculiarity of the man was his personal loyalty and devotion to the " infinite Saviour." He could no more help making Him the centre of his doctrine than of his religious and moral life.

In the following September he graduated from college, receiving one of the highest appointments in his class. In an old letter which has been wafted down to us across the nearly three-score years since that Brunswick Commencement Day, the occasion is thus described by a girl of sixteen, the sister of one of his college intimates, afterwards the wife of a beloved and trusted ministerial associate : —

^< G. took me to ride aroand the village in the morning, and at ten o'clock we went into the meeting-house, where we stayed till half past thiee. The exercises commenced at half past eleven. We got a very good seat, where we could see by standing all the time. Some I did like very much, and others I thought were not much above mediocrity. There were four orations ; those I believe were of equal standing, the first in the class. The best piece of writing, and in fact the most interesting speaker was, in my humble estimation, Henry B. Smith of Saccarappa, son of Henry Smith, formerly of Portland. He was very good indeed. He was said to be the finest writer in college. The subject of the Oration was, ^ Character of Erroneous Belief, and its Influence on the Conduct' " »

^ Anna PrentiflSi afterwards the wife of the Rey. Jonathan F. Steams, D. D.

It can hardly ]^ doubted that this theme was chosen with reference to the remarkable religious e^tperience of the previous spring.

It was not strange that the young man, when confronted by the necessity of choosing a profession, was drawn toward the Christian ministry. There was, as has been noticed, ministerial blood in his veins ; and in his heart there was a burning love for his new-found Master, which could attain no better expression than in working for Him in the calling that above all others affords opportunities for distinctively Christian labor. Nor is it doubtful that his scholarly tastes, and especially his metaphysical predilections tended to turn him in the same direction. For this was a time of revived theological interest among the orthodox churches in America, when especial attention was being directed to Christian doctrine and the underlying philosophical questions. The church offered a field for the exercise of gifts like his such as would hardly be the case to-day.

So Henry turned his steps, in October after his graduation, towards Andover Seminary. This institution then stood first among the theological schools of the country. Its chair of systematic theology was filled by the able, orthodox, and cautious Dr. Leonard Woods, whom Smith years afterwards characterized as " emphatically the ' judicious ' divine of the later New England theology ; " and to "M^hom he gave the high praise of having " educated a generation of preachers who had neither crotchets nor airy whims." ^ He was then at the height of his power and influence. The department of sacred literature was manned by the scholarly and brilliant Moses Stuart, the father of exegetical studies in America, of whom Smith also wrote: "And Moses Stuart, too, with all his yersatility, became a rich blessing to the churches by training their preachers in the more thorough study of the whole truth, as revealed with open face in the inspired Word." 2 Both of these men had distinguished themselves some years before in the Unitarian controversy, and the whole spirit of the institution was well suited to the needs of the young man so lately released from Unitarian trammels. Working side by side with Woods and Stuart in the Faculty was Thomas Harvey Skinner, the professor of sacred rhetoric, then fresh from a remarkable career as minister and pastor in Philadelphia, a man of saintly character, afterwards for many years to be Smith's beloved colleague in Union Seminary.^

The student threw himself into his new tasks with all the ardor of his nature. But he had yet to learn that his bodily powers were not sufficient to satisfy the demands of his aspiring spirit. God, too, had lessons to teach him by his mistakes and failures. It was not to be expected that he would

1 Faith and Philosophy, p. 258. « Bnd.

' The professor of church history was Dr. Ralph Emerson, and the instructor in Hebrew Daniel Talcott Smith (afterwards Daniel Smith Talcotti professor in Bangor Theological Seminary).

be prepared for the great work in store for him without severe discipline. Such men as he are worth that divine moulding and training which come only through suffering. Hitherto his life had been for the most part a happy and careless one. Now he was to learn the uses of adversity. He had been in Andover scarcely a month when he wrote the following significant words : —

'^ This night I have devoted to the cause of self-impi*oveinent ; to the completion of plans I have been projecting for my intellectual and religious advancement. I have been variously hindered, by the want of resolute self-determination, perhaps, as much as by anything, from maturing and enforcing those projects. . . . The deprivation of the sleep of one night is of little avail in its effects upon my body, compared with the advantages which a strict system of intellectual and religious discipline, such as I now mean to frame, and while I am in time, go on toward completing, will inevitably bring to my mind and heart. Therefore, to-night is my own, with that intent." ^

But if to-night is one's own, that is not always the case with to-morrow. It was hard to understand then, as it is now, and harder then than it is now when the laws of health are better understood, that the body cannot always be made the willing instrument of the spirit in its high ambitions. All through his life Smith had that " fiery soul " of which Dryden speaks, —

" Which, working out its way, Fretted the pigmy body to decay, And o'er-iuformed the tenement of clay."

At the last overwork brought about his death. Now it brought defeat and iUness. " Suddenly came the terrible prostrating stroke, and he was laid low."i

He returned home sick and disheartened, and months passed before he was able to resume his work. From the human point of view it was a dead loss. It is only when we can look at it from the higher side and see in it a part of the divine discipline by which this choice instrument of God was fitted for the important tasks he was destined to accomplish, that we can discern the real meaning of it all.