A memorial of Albert Gallatin Palmer, D. D., preacher, pastor, poet, scholar ...

Front matter

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A MEMORIAL

OF

Preface

The following pages require neither apology nor explanation, except to confess them utterly inadequate to give full expression to the worth of the subject as estimated by the writer, or the reverence and affection in which he was held by the family, for whom and by whose request this memento has been prepared. It is designed for private reflection, rather than for public comment ; for the hearts that loved him ; for the home which suffered so sad an eclipse when he left it; for the churches which he edified and by whom he was honored ; and for that wide circle of personal friends in whose love and respect he had so large and so warm a place. But no imperfections of this memorial can detract from the honors with which so noble a life was invested, or dim the radiance of so pure a spirit and so resplendent a character as was his. It cannot hope, and does not affect to enhance them, but sets them forth, if possible, so as not to obscure

6 PREFACE.

them. If a composite picture of a superb character and a beautiful life has been produced, with a sufficiently fair degree of fidelity to aid in keeping fresh in both memory and affection the original, its object will have been accomplished. The work might have been done by many an abler, but by no more appreciative, loving, or loyal hand.

A MEMORIAL

OF

ALBERT GALLATIN PALMER. D. D.

i.

Oh, leave this wretched, mouldering house of clay, Shattered and tumbling down to earth and dust ;

God's faithful hand will, at the appointed day, A glorious form, restore the sacred trust.

A. G. Palmer.

The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance. — Psalm.

He that liveth and believeth shall never die. — Jesus.

Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple. — Apocalypse.

No human power can obliterate from the world in which it has had a place, or from the history of which it has been a part, the salutary influence of a good and a noble life. The fragrance lives after the flowers which produced it have been crushed and perished. Though its place cannot be found, nor its path be followed, yet, absorbed into universal ether, it helps to make the universe purer and sweeter. The world loses treasures richer than it knew itself to have possessed, and more than it knows how to g A MEMORIAL OF

lament the loss of, when death removes the good from its midst. Their true memorials are in the hearts of those who loved them. Their real monuments are the works they performed, which cannot die with them. But we do well to gather up the mementoes of the lives which we honor and would cherish, and place them about us as silent but sacred monitors of the past. They are frail, though possibly effectual, reminders of what we have lost, and therefore of what we once possessed, and help to keep fresh and green in our memory and in our hearts the virtues which we prize and honor. Though gone, our loved ones are not dead. Though hidden from sight, they are still with us. Though the mortal bonds which bound us are sundered, they still are ours. They lived in our hearts and homes while here, and their lives mingled with ours and molded them in all that was good and true. Even yet they are our comfort and inspiration. And when at last we too shall cease from earth, our pulseless hearts shall be the silent tombs of cherished memories whose resurrection shall hail the radiant portals of life, and welcome the glories of an endless day.

Albert Gallatin Palmer was born May n, 1813, in North Stonington, in the State of Connecticut. He was the third son of Luther and Sarah K. Palmer, and the sixth child in a family of seven sons and seven daughters. The Palmers are of old New England Puritan stock, whose numerous branches are scattered widely over all parts of our country, especially through the Eastern, Middle, and Western States. They are to be found in all departments of business and professional life, and no strain of early New England society has filled more honorably or usefully the various industrial and official positions than have they.

North Stonington consists of the northern portion of the original town of Stonington, erected into a separate township for the greater convenience of its citizens. It lies back from the seashore from eight to twenty miles, and is, for New England, a good and fruitful farming country. The people are well-to-do farmers for the most part, manufacturing and commercial enterprises having not as yet — certainly not at the time of which we write — invaded that quiet region, as they have not to any considerable extent even till now. The people constituted an intelligent, hard-working community, procuring an abundant support by honest industry. Their children were reared in virtuous habits, and were educated with such facilities as the times afforded. To a great extent the people were religious, and the "meeting house" and the "school house " were essential parts of every town. Very largely through this section of Connecticut and the adjoining State of Rhode Island, the people were Baptists. They procured competency of living by honest labor, worshiped God with sincerity, educated their children in intelligence and good morals, as the best legacy they could bequeath to the next generation.

The old Palmer homestead, roomy, homelike, and comfortable, with its shade trees and outbuildings fitted for the conveniences of farming life, stands on the old post road from Westerly, distant ten miles, and Stonington Borough, distant fifteen miles, leading through Milltown, and running on north to Voluntown, Sterling, and Plainfield in Windham County. It traverses for the most part the "hill country" of Eastern Connecticut. The particular location of " the Palmer place" is now known as " Pendleton Hill," which designates its post office, several families of Pendletons having resided in the immediate neighborhood. Formerly it was known by the more poetical, and perhaps the more appropriate, title of Pauchunganuc Hill, a name preserving the memory of the early Indian occupants and traditions of these romantic regions. The house has undergone many changes and a considerable enlargement, but a part of the present building was a portion of that in which he was born. The front yard has been transformed, and is now decorated with flowering shrubbery, and in summer time is fragrant with pots and tubs of

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►3 flowering plants. The most conspicuous of the trees which shade the place is an immense willow on the right of the entrance from the country road, standing in an angle of the meadow wall and throwing a gigantic arm entirely across the driveway from the road to the barn behind the house. As to this venerable and grand old tree, there is a domestic tradition which has some slight variations as related by different members of the family. The children of Dr. Palmer state that he had often told them that when a boy he stuck the willow switch into the moist soil where it took root, and through the years of his life grew to its present enormous proportions, still flourishing in almost perpetual youth, though the hand that planted it has mouldered into dust.

From this elevated outlook an extensive and most charming view presents itself, a wide and varied landscape of surpassing rural beauty. Woodland and intervale, green pastures and cultivated fields, rich meadowlands and orchards, with farm houses dotting the extended view. On the east, the eye, sweeping over a lovely and quiet valley, catches sight of the silvery Paucatuc, pursuing its sinuous and romantic course to the sea not far away, and marking the boundary line between the States of Connecticut and Rhode Island. At the south, the Atlantic lays in fair view, and with a clear atmosphere Block Island, fifteen miles out at sea and thirty miles away from the observer, can be distinctly seen by the naked eye. It is even declared that Montauk Point lighthouse can be seen from this elevation without the aid of a glass. One who was a playmate and schoolmate of the subject of this sketch, born in the same neighborhood and at about the same time, says : " There is not another place on earth so precious to me as Pendleton Hill. It is beautiful for situation." *

It was in this sphere of natural beauty that Albert G. Palmer first saw the light, and where the years of his childhood and youth were spent. These charms of nature in rural life were calculated to make a deep and lasting, though per. haps at the time an unconscious impression on his sensitive and poetic temperament. It is not likely that he could then have analyzed the emotions which these external pictures produced in his mind, or trace their subtle influence on him in after years. But they surely went far to mold and fashion the character and life which grew to such proportions of symmetry and nobleness. This early fellowship with nature made its impression on his delicate and responsive nature, and fostered,

* Rev. B. F. Chapman, at present (Jan. 16, 1892) living in Andover, Conn. Of Mr. Palmer, he says : " We were about the same age, and it was only some five minutes walk from our house to his father's. We used to be together daily. He was the third son of a family of thirteen children, and I was the third son of a family of thirteen children." The Palmer family had fourteen children, but one dying in infancy occasioned the above estimate as to numbers.

ALBERT GALLATIN PALMER, L>. D. 13

if it did not create, that undercurrent of poetic •melody which even in childhood sang through his spirit, and in after life touched all his mental processes, and developed into more pronounced and rhythmic expressions of poetic inspiration.* He did, however, in subsequent years, attribute much of the idealistic and sympathetic in his nature to the pervading and molding influence of these scenes of loveliness with which his early years had fellowship. To him, as he grew older, they bore a charmed existence. Oft as he could he would revisit them, and drink in their inspiration with speechless delight. He never tired of wandering over his native hills and through the fields which recalled his childhood. He would roam from cellar to attic through the house where he was born, and live over again " the years of long ago." No other place on earth was so much home to him as that, and no other did he love so well. His poetic reference to it expresses that love :

Hail, old Pauchunganuc, land of my birth ! Thy airy heights o'erlooking wide the sea !

To me thou art the dearest spot on earth, Home of a proud and noble ancestry,

I never may forget, where'er I roam,

The beauties of my childhood's highland home.

* A volume of poetic excerpta, edited by his daughter, Miss Sara A. Palmer, was issued in 1884 from the press of Lockwood, Brainard & Co., Hartford, Conn., which received marked commendations not only from personal friends, but from literary men and authors, including the . poet Whittle r. 2

It is noted that he was not naturally a remarkably strong and rugged child. But out-of-door habits, a plenty of exercise in the pure air, work on the farm, and such a life as children bred in the country have the advantage of living, with great nervous and mental vitality, gave a foundation for good health through a long and very active life. He was fond of boyish sports, but still more fond of books, the supply of which at that day, to a boy bred in the country, was by no means abundant. His father was a great reader, but books were a luxury even to him. At school he was an apt and studious pupil, distancing the greater part of his schoolmates in their common studies. But he was, as one of his contemporaries asserts, a general favorite among the children, whether in the schoolroom, on the playground, or elsewhere.

As to his name, it is related that at his birth there was not an agreement concerning a title for the new comer, and for some little time the child was nameless. While an infant in the cradle, the Hon. Albert Gallatin was a conspicuous figure in American politics. Mr. Gallatin was a native of Switzerland, but came early to this country, in 1780, took active part in the struggle of the colonies for independence, was a participant in the later years of the Revolutionary War, and subsequently a United States senator. Under President Jefferson, he was for a time secretary of the treasury, and subsequently special commissioner to Great Britain to arrange terms of peace. Afterward he was sent as minister to Paris, and later still as ambassador extraordinary to London. Mr. Palmer concluded it would be every way appropriate to have in his family a namesake of so distinguished a statesman and patriot whom he so greatly admired. And so the child was named Albert Gallatin.

16 A MEMORIAL OP

II. His Childhood and Youth

At the early age of two and a half years, he suffered the greatest loss which can befall infancy or childhood, in the death of his mother. A loss which no amount of sympathy and kindness ministered, by surviving friends can ever, under ordinary circumstances, fully make good. All that could be done to mitigate such a bereavement was done by the kindness of his father and the affectionate interest of older brothers and sisters, and subsequently by the prudent and faithful care and the truly loving ministry of a step-mother, who later came into the family. Childhood has its sorrows as well as mature years. But it is a merciful dispensation that they can be soon forgotten in the hopes and joys which share their companionship. His daughter writes : "I have so many things I want to tell you of what father has said to me of his childhood. His love for his father, his feelings of perfect rest when, after the day's work was done, sitting at the evening hour before the great log fire, his father would take him between his knees, and pulling his head down, say, ' My good boy,

Allie.' Oh, he has so often told me of those days that I can see them now. How he used to watch with throbbing heart, if his father was a little late at coming home, or run down the dark road to meet him." Of the second mother, it is due to both her memory and his to say, that she proved a true mother to him as well as to the other children of her charge. He ever referred to her with the utmost respect and affection. Between her own and the children she received from the mother whose place she came to fill, no difference was shown. When he professed faith in Christ she bore the most positive testimony in favor of his conversion, from the evidence she gained in his daily life. And it is right to believe that her prayers mingled with those of the mother who bore him, and together were blessed of God to his early call and his assured conversion. And by a marked coincidence, he and his step-mother were baptized at the same time, and together received into the church.

His boyhood was spent in active service, on the farm during the summer and at school during the winter months. The educational advantages of a country district at that time were very limited. But such as they were, he enjoyed and improved them, but longed for larger opportunities. A contemporary of his school days bears witness to the excellency of his scholarship, and says that he was specially proficient in history, of which he was very fond. He also mentions the fact that, like his father, he was very fond of reading, and mentions two books which were his special favorites. The one was " Robinson Crusoe," the ever and everywhere famed delight of childhood, and the other was " Pollock's Course of Time," whose gorgeous poetic imagery captivated his youthful fancy, and not only gratified, but nourished the poetic sentiment of his nature, so largely developed in later life. In a poem on " Self-culture," written later in life, he makes the following reference to the latter work as evidence of his appreciation of the author :

Or happier far, like Pollock's sacred lyre Rapt in the visions of prophetic fire, Attuned in strains of melody sublime, In boyhood even, to his Course of Time.

As to his religious feelings during childhood and youth, it is not so easy now to speak, since those who survive recall but few of his personal references to them, and most of those who may have been familiar with them at the time have passed away. At his examination by council for ordination, these were of course rehearsed, but no record survives ; and if any who were present on that occasion still live, they could not probaby recollect them with distinctness. It is, however, easy to believe that, surrounded by the influences of his childhood, attending church, and being in many ways brought in contact with religious truth, his moral nature must have responded by many serious thoughts and pungent convictions, even in his childhood, as to his personal call to a religious life. Those too were times when revivals prevailed ; not unfrequently of wide extent and of great power. Direct efforts for the conversion of children were not then so common as now ; and even, in some cases, such efforts were discredited, if not discouraged. Nevertheless, children thought, and the Spirit touched their hearts, and the work of saving grace was at times magnified in childhood as well as in age.

Called of God, as was Aaron, the time finally came when the calling and election were made manifest. His conversion occurred in the autumn of 1822, at the age of nine years, during a time of prevailing revival in the church and neighborhood under the ministry of the pastor, Rev. Jonathan Miner. Having been brought out of darkness into light, it was his desire to be baptized, with other converts, at that time. But with the prevailing parental caution of the times, his father wished him to wait. Of course the baptism was put off, and this public dedication of himself to the service of Christ did not take place till July 18, 1830. Eight years after he professed faith in the Saviour. At that time, according to the church records, he was buried with Christ in baptism by the pastor, Rev., or as he was universally known, Elder Jonathan Miner, a man of marked ability, of devout and godly spirit, widely known and of large influence through all Eastern Connecticut ; and one of the last of that generation of noble men who, amidst great difficulties, contended earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Thus his baptism and uniting with the church occurred at the age of seventeen years.

Albert G. Palmer.

At the Age of Eighteen Years

ALBERT GALLATIN PALMER, V. D. 21

III. His Life-work Begun

So soon as he became a member of the church, and thus publicly committed to a religious life, he began " to exercise and improve his gifts" in a public way, by taking part in religious meetings. Rev. B. F. Chapman, already mentioned, the companion of his boyhood, and personally familiar with his early Christian experience, says : "In 1 83 1, there was a precious revival in North Stonington, and both he and myself were quite active in the meetings. We held meetings together without the presence of any minister. I had no idea at that time that either of us would ever become a preacher of the gospel." This was the year after his baptism. Whatever may have been the effect of these things on his own mind, it is very evident that they impressed the church with the conviction that he was called to be a preacher of the gospel. For the records show that November 4, 1832, the church voted him a license to hold meetings and expound the Scriptures with their approval. Such a letter was prepared and presented to the church for their approval by the pastor, Rev. Jonathan Miner, November 10, 1832.*

What had been his thoughts and feelings with reference to the Christian ministry during the eight years which had elapsed since his conversion, we have no means of determining. The probability is that the subject had been frequently, if not constantly, present with him. For it is evident the Spirit was preparing him for the work. It is certain that soon after his baptism the subject took full possession of his mind. Not, however, as a welcome guest, but as one most unwelcome, which he was compelled to entertain. His was the singularly paradoxical and strangely contradictory experience of not a few divinely called to a ministry of the word, that of desiring and yet of dreading it ; of being both attracted and repelled by it. Rev. Mr. Chapman says : "I was the first he made acquainted with his trials concerning preaching. He was loath to undertake the work. He had rather die than

* This license has been carefully preserved, and was found among his papers. It reads as follows :

" We hereby certify that Brother Albert G. Palmer is a regular member of the First Baptist Church in North Stonington — that he is a man of good moral and Christian character — that for some time past he has been in the practice of improving his gifts by way of preaching, and in so doing has the fellowship of the church. We believe him one whom God has designed for the gospel ministry.

By order and in behalf of the First Baptist Church in North Stonington, Conn. Smith Chapman,

Church Clerk"

N. Stonington, November 10, 1832.

preach, he said. He used to have seasons of earnest prayer that he might rather die than preach." But such feelings did not long continue, and failed to control his life.

All this may seem very strange to those unacquainted with the operations of a sensitive and conscientious mind, under the pressure of grave responsibilities attending such a life-service as that of the Christian ministry, with its varied demands and multiplied difficulties. Very strange to some who have heard much talk about being " sweetly given up to the will of God, and having no wish but to do that will." There are many sides to these great questions of conscience, consecration, and submission ; and a divine philosophy is in them all, understood only by those who are led by the Spirit through them all. But his father was remembered to have said, that " Albert was thinking of little else than preaching, no matter what else he might be doing." Several now living state that they heard his first sermon. It was preached in the old meeting house on the hill, from the text, i Cor. 9 : 16 : " Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel." He dwelt much upon the trials and sufferings of the apostle in the ministry of the gospel during his long and eventful life.

This was in 1832, two years after his baptism, and at the age of nineteen years. Making a period of fifty-nine years between the preaching of his first and his last sermon. But this "first sermon " could not have been the first time he actually preached. Probably it was the first time he had been publicly advertised to preach. But from the time of his baptism he was accustomed to speak in the meetings, and sometimes to " lead the meetings," opening them with an address which was substantially a sermon. His daughter remembers to have heard him tell of preaching when scarcely more than sixteen, and wondering how he dared to attempt it. He especially mentioned one occasion, when, at seventeen, having gone to Stonington Borough on business for his father, and being detained over night he attended an evening meeting, and -was persuaded to " speak to the people," which he did with great acceptance to them, if not to himself. And the license given by the church mentions the fact that for some time past he had been accustomed to improve his gifts by preaching. It may here be noticed that the prevailing traits which marked his style of pulpit address remained from first to last. His preaching was characterized by an earnestness, an intensity of thought and of action, which never failed to command the serious attention of his audiences.

From the records of the Baptist Church in Andover, Conn., a few miles remote from North Stonington Church, it appears that he was invited to supply the pulpit of their church for one year, they being without a pastor at the time. After a good deal of hesitancy on his part, and considerable urgency on theirs, the invitation was accepted, and he served them from March, 1833, to March, 1834, with great acceptance. The compensation for his services as proposed by the church, and we believe faithfully paid, was: "Salary $200, with board, and a new suit of clothes." For the times, and the church, which was small, and the fact that he was very young, the conditions seem to have been fairly just. Country churches at that time had not very enlarged notions as to the salaries of their pastors. Indeed, they had not usually very enlarged means for their supply. He certainly performed ministerial service enough, preaching three times each Sunday : at 10.30 a. m., at 1 p. m., and at 5 p. m. in the summer ; and in the evening during the winter, probably at " candle lighting," which was the traditional hour for evening service, at whatever o'clock that might chance to be. The laborer certainly was worthy of his hire.

How a young man without previous preparation, save an occasional sermon, could be expected to prepare and deliver three sermons each week, in addition to pastoral duties, prayer meetings, and other services, is more than one can comprehend ; and how he succeeded in doing it for a year, is more than one can comprehend. No doubt the people thought it easy enough ; and many pastors, both old and young, have done the best they could to sustain such an arrangement. The custom of the people in those days in country-located churches, as many of us remember, was to have the forenoon sermon, then an hour of intermission for lunch, rest, and a little Sunday visiting by neighbors who seldom met at other times, and then another sermon ; after which they scattered to their homes. At the evening service, which was likely held in some convenient school house, the congregation consisted largely of young persons to whom attendance on an evening meeting was something of a recreation, as well as an occasion for worship. But it was no recreation to the pastor.

There is a characteristic incident related in connection with the young preacher's engagement to supply the pulpit of the Andover Church. Rev. Levi Walker, a venerable preacher and friend of Albert's father, had an engagement to visit somewhere and preach. He took Albert along for company. On the Sunday of their absence, Mr. Walker had an appointment to preach at Andover. He finally succeeded in persuading his young companion to preach in his stead. The impression made on the people led the church, then and there, to request him to supply them permanently. He hesitated and declined ; but they were persistent. The next day he was to return home, but Deacon Lyman, with whom he was staying, was so intent on securing his services, and so fearful that he might fail, that he sent his son home with him, with instructions not to return without bringing Albert back. After consultation with his father, who finally favored the plan, he yielded and returned to spend a year as acting pastor at Andover. There is no doubt, though the year's work severely taxed his endurance and his resources, that nevertheless it was greatly beneficial to him as an experience in the ministry, as well as to the people he served.

IV. His Ordination Follows

As matters now stood, it was evident that his ordination and official setting apart to the work of the ministry, could not be long delayed. The church records show that at a meeting held October 19, 1834, "A vote was passed that Albert G. Palmer be ordained next Sunday." This seems rather a sudden movement, judging from this entry alone. But the matter had evidently received previous consideration. "And at the request of Elder Gideon B. Perry, it was also voted that the ordination take place at Hopkinton, R. I." This somewhat strange plan was carried out, and in the twenty-first year of his age, he was publicly set apart to the official work of the ministry, October 26, 1834, in the Baptist church, Hopkinton, R. I. It seemed inappropriate, and was quite contrary to the wishes of his family and church, that his ordination did not take place at his home. But they yielded to the earnest request of Mr. Perry in the matter, against their own judgments and wishes.*

*For the facts and statements from the records of " the Old Church on the Hill," I am chiefly indebted to Mr. Asher Chapman, a brother of Rev.