Life and writings of Rev. Henry Y. Rush, D. D.

Dedication

1. I humbly dedicate this book to the wife and daughter of my departed friend whose Life Story it relates.

2. To my own dear wife who has shared with me in its preparation.

3. To the ministry and laity whose kindly patronage will be greatly appreciated.

Preface

It has been a source of real enjoyment and satisfaction to follow the life of such a man as Dr. Rush through his career of usefulness. I have endeavored to give a true and faithful picture of the man, and of the movements and institutions with which he was associated. I gratefully acknowledge the cheerful co-operation and valuable assistance of the following ministers: Rev. J. P. Barrett, D. D., w r ho writes the Introduction to Part I — Life and Letters; Rev. Warren H. Denison : D. D., for the Introduction to Part II— Sermons and Miscellaneous Writings; also to Rev. D. E. Millard, D. D. ; Rev. J. B. Weston, D. D., LL. D. ; Rev. S. S. Newhouse, D. D. ; Rev. D. A. Long, D. D., LL. D.; Rev. O. P. Furnas, Col. F. M. Sterrett, Van S. Deaton, M. D., and Hon. J. Warren Keifer, who have written beautiful and appreciative Estimates, or Tributes to the memory of such a worthy and beloved brother. I also very gratefully acknowledge the cheerful help of Mr. D. M. McCullough and others, who have furnished some very interesting items concerning his work as a school teacher and during his early ministry.

It has been a source of constant pleasure and gratitude to me also to enjoy the willing co-operation of his widow, Mrs. Rush, through all my labors of nearly two years. Valuable material has been furnished relating to his public and private life, while access has been given to his most valuable and interesting writings. The work might have been made much more voluminous, as a large amount of excellent sermons and writings had to be omitted. It has been difficult to select the best material from so large a mass of writing, all of which was interesting and worthy of preservation. We sincerely hope the work may find a large circle of readers. We have tried to make a book that would be worthy of the man, and would be a real treasure to many of his warm friends and admirers. The illustrations used we hope will add to the value of the book. We now submit it to a grateful public, with the humble wish that the book may bring pleasure and comfort to many homes.

B. F. Vaughan,

Centerville, Ohio, July 7, 1911.

Contents

Introduction — A Threshold Greeting

Rev. J. P. Barrett, D. D. 11

Editor Herald of Gospel Liberty

PART ONE Life and Letters Chapter Page

I. Parentage and Early Lifh. — Ancestors. — Par-

ents. — Slavery. — "Friends/' — Apprenticeship. — Academy at Ashboro. — Parents Move to Indiana 15

II. Educational Pursuits.— Friend's High School.

— Doan Academy. — Antioch College 19

III. Early Ministry. — Course at Meadville. — Marriage. — First Pastoral Work 25

IV. Life as a Soldier. — Raises a Company. — Appointed First Lieutenant. — Service. — Discharge on Account of Failing Health 31

V. Editorial Career. — Continues Pulpit Work. — Becomes Editor of the "Gospel Herald/' then of the "Herald of Gospel Liberty/' — His Ability as a Writer. — Pastoral Work at Shiloh and Trotwood -" 43

VI. Pastoral Work at Franklin and West Milton. — Sermons. — Pulpit Style and Ability. — Positions of Honor and Trust. — Literary Work 49

VII. Eetires From Pastoral Work. — Failing Health of Mrs. Bush. — Home Life. — Letters of Sympathy and Appreciation. — Preaches Many Funerals. — Receives a Degree. — Closing Years. — Passes to His Reward 55

Reminiscences and Tributes to H. Y. Rush —

Reminiscences by an Old Friend

By Hon. Van S. Deaton 67

My Recollections of H. Y. Rush

By Col. Frank M. Sterrett 73

From an Old Classmate at Meadville

By Rev. D. E. Millard, D. D. 7G

A Friendly Estimate from a Nonogenarian . . . .

By Rev. J. B. Weston, D. D., LL. D. 77

Chancellor of Christian Biblical Institute

A Tribute of Love from One of His Native

State By Rev. D. A. Long, D. D., LL. D. 78

General Kiefer's Estimate of H. Y. Rush as a Soldier By J. Warren Kiefer 79

The Friendly Tribute of Another Meadville

Graduate By Rev. S. S. Newhouse, D. D. 81

Warm Words of Praise from a Brother in the

Ministry By Rev. O. P. Furnas 83

From a Southern Friend

PART TWO Introduction. . . .By Rev. Warren H. Denison, D. D. 89 Sermons. — Addresses. — Essays, and Extracts from

Sermons 93

Gems from Mines of Truth 214

A THRESHOLD GREETING

To introduce a friend to friends is a high privilege. The act widens the circle of life's blessings and opportunities, enriching the mind and heart, and crowning the life with larger fruitage. I am glad to introduce you to so sterling a character as my late friend and beloved brother, the Rev. Henry Yount Rush, D. D s , as so well portrayed in these pages by the Rev. B. F. Vaughan, Centerville, Ohio.

When asked why he put so much work on his pictures, Apelles, the Greek painter, replied : "Because I am painting for eternity!" This book will convince you that Dr. Rush was a painstaking servant of the Lord Jesus Christ — that he was laboring for eternity, hence this characteristic of his life. The author presents Dr. Rush to us, not only as a gentle and beloved messenger of the Prince of Peace, but as a man of high ideals, of ripe culture, of fine thought, and of heroic devotion to duty. As a speaker he was ready and fluent, as a writer he possessed an easy Addisonian style, and as a thinker he was forceful and stimulating, making him indeed a most delightful companion and a wise counsellor. You have no ordinary privilege in enjoying an acquaintance with one so Christlike, even though it be an acquaintance through the pen of another.

It was Thomas Carlyle who said : "A true delineation of the smallest man is capable of interesting the greatest man."

If that be true, as no doubt it is, then I risk nothing in commending the life of so noble and devoted a Christian minister, as the subject of this book, to the study of both the learned and the unlearned.

If, as Walt Whitman says :

"Nothing endures but personal qualities — "

I am still assured that I am commending to the reader the study of a rich and splendid life, made so through his relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ, in which personal qualities of a high order were dominating factors. I believe with Henry Ward Beecher that Christian character, rather than personal happiness, is the end of true living. To be becoming more and more like Jesus, day by day, is the highest achievement of the earthly life. That such a life was the high ideal of Dr. Rush is evident, and therefore his character and personal qualities, together with his learning and service, will long survive his earthly career, shining with a God-given light in the galaxy of bis fellows, ever reflecting the image and glory of his Master. If Christian character, fruiting in goodness and usefulness, rather than glittering gifts, or dazzling splendors, or the applause of the populace, constitute true greatness, then was Dr. Rush a great man who left behind him an influence which will live on to bless men and women in other generations yet unborn.

I am not offering fulsome praise to his memory. I design not to lift him above his fellows, but simply to give him his rightful place in the history of his day. No doubt in common with all mortals he had his weaknesses, but they were of such a character and so dominated by the Spirit as to emphasize the strength of Christ in his life and service. It is said that all genuine emeralds have many defects, but these cannot be produced in any artificial stone, and herein the defects of the emerald prove its genuineness. It is so with the defects in Christian character. Notwithstanding their presence, the strength of the life proves that behind the defects is

Christ, giving overcoming power. Verily Christ in us is the hope of glory, yea, the hope of usefulness and power in the life that now is, as well as for the life that is yet to come.

"We are but organs mute, till the Master touches the keys, Very vessels of earth, into which God poureth the wine, Harps are we, silent harps, that have hung on the willow

trees, Dumb till our heart strings swell and break with a pulse

divine."

But I must not detain you. Let me rather open the door to the feast — walk in and revel in all that is so generously offered you in the life and service of this beloved Christian minister, for there are few fields more interesting and instructive than the biography of a great man, a man who is great in goodness and service. In the Master's Service,

J. Pressley Barrett.

Dayton, Ohio.

Chapter I. Parentage And Early Life

Twenty-five years before the outbreak of the great Civil War in America, on a plantation in the sunny climes of the Southland, there was born, August 25, 1835, near Ashboro, North Carolina, the subject of this memoir.

Randolph County had been the home of the Rushs for almost two generations. They were of English descent, the great-grandfather of our subject having come over from England and settled near Philadelphia ; becoming founder of the Rush families in America.

Benjamin Rush, grandfather of Henry Y., emigrated from Philadelphia to North Carolina and settled in Randolph County. A lameness prevented him from active service in the Revolutionary War, but he became an officer in the Home Guards. He was a cousin to Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Dr. Rush was one of the most distinguished physicians of his day, and won honors also as a politician. He introduced before the Provincial Conference of Pennsylvania a resolution setting forth the necessity of a declaration of independence from the mother country. This resolution was unanimously adopted by the Conference the last of June, 1776, and when the Declaration of Independence was adopted a few days later he was one of the first to affix his signature to that historic document.

He showed himself a real hero during the famous yellow fever plague in Philadelphia in 1793, receiving therefor testimonials of recognition from kings and emperors in Europe.

He was a devout advocate of the Christian religion, and drafted the Constitution of the Philadelphia Bible Society, leaving at his death an unfinished work on "The Medicine of the Bible."

SLAVERY

Benjamin Rush, grandfather of Henry, w T as a wealthy planter and slaveholder. His wife, Dorcas Vickery, belonged to one of the old and prominent families of that section. They were members of the Methodist Church, while in politics they were staunch Whigs. One son served seven consecutive terms in the Legislature of North Carolina as a representative of the Whig party. The family exerted a wide local influence in party affairs, and w r hen the trouble arose which threatened to cleave the nation in twain, and which culminated finally in a great civil strife, nearly all the representatives of the Rush name became adherents to the Union cause.

HIS FATHER

Azel Rush, the father of our subject, was reared on the home plantation of his native state, and came into possession of a large plantation. He was also a slave owner. He was an ardent member of the Methodist Church in early life, but later he identified himself with the Society of Friends.

He was married to a lady of excellent family, Sarah Young, a native of Randolph County, where she was reared and educated. She was a member of the Friends.

Unto them were born three sons — Thomas E., Henry

PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE 17

Y., and Noah. The father prospered in the management of his plantation, but the system of enslaved labor became odious in his sight, after he accepted the principles of the Friends and their opposition to human slavery. So strong did this conviction become in Azel's mind that he voluntarily set all his slaves free. This humane act took place in 1834, the year before Henry's birth. He afterward sent most of his former slaves to Wayne County, Ind., and assisted them in securing homes. Two of them however, were so attached to their former master that they would not leave him.

APPRENTICESHIP AND SCHOOL DAYS

When eleven years of age Henry was put to serve as an apprentice in a printing office in Ashboro for a term of two years. This knowledge proved helpful to him long years after when he became editor and publisher.

The great ambition of the lad in the late forties was not to become a printer, but first of all to acquire an education. Hence we find him at thirteen entering the Brooks Male Academy in Ashboro where he remained for two years. What the educational advantages were in a school of that grade in that day we are unable to say, but doubtless the young lad here laid the foundation for future attainments in education which were valuable to him. Diligence and care were early evidences of excellence and painstaking labor in later life.

FATHER EMIGRATES TO INDIANA

When Henry was about fifteen years old his father emigrated to Grant County, Indiana, in 1850, where he purchased about five hundred acres of rich land, which he afterward improved, transforming it from a wild uncultivated tract into a highly cultivated and improved farm.

This overland journey must have been made in wagons across mountain ranges, rivers and swollen streams, through sparsely settled regions, where wild game abounded, and doubtless required some weeks. Such experiences helped to school the young lad in hardships and adventures which helped to develop a spirit of hardihood and self-reliance.

Azel Rush was a member of the old Whig party until that was merged into the Republican party, of which he became a loyal supporter remaining such until his death, which took place at the ripe age of eighty years.

The two brothers afterward became well-to-do farmers in Indiana, but Henry pursued his educational career with unabated ardor, for his soul yearned for the things that enrich mind and heart.

Chapter II Educational Pursuits

After the family became settled in their western home, the father gave all his energies to the management and improvement of his large and fertile farm. Home life in that section of Indiana in the early fifties was not surrounded with many real comforts, and there were almost no luxuries, but each member of the family had to assist in the hard struggle for an existence, as it really was, with some; or in the laying of a foundation for future wealth and prosperity with others.

But life's ambitions lead along various paths, yet while some see only the material possessions of life, and hence put forth all their efforts to secure first, houses, lands, stocks, and other forms of wealth; another, sometimes in the same family, with similar training and environment has a passion for that which leads to the training of the mind, the acquisition of knowledge, the attainment of supremacy over self, in order to prepare for greater usefulness and the achievement of life's higher ideals. Such "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness" and the other blessings come in later years. It was so with young Henry. After spending some months in labor on his father's farm, he again entered school, this time in the Friend's High School at Back Creek. This school was taught by Prof. Wm. Neil, whose training aided the youth in further laying the foundation for a future education. He spent one year in this school, being now about fifteen years of age.

( DO AN ACADEMY

He next became a student in Doan Academy at Marion, Indiana. Educational work sixty years ago in portions of the West lacked much in the splendid advantages of the present day, both in methods and equipment. Yet the Academy training in some schools even of that day had a thoroughness and genuineness which enabled the young man of earnest purpose to gain a good education.

Henry was both diligent and eager for an education, and while in Doan he fitted himself for teaching. He began teaching when quite young and soon earned enough money to enter college, having taught in select and day schools about one year.

ANTIOCH COLLEGE

A new era of opportunity now opened up in the career of this ambitious youth. A great institution sprang up in the early fifties, founded by a people which had then stood for half a century for religious liberty and freedom of thought. The rise and growth of this institution, with one of the most distinguished educators of the past century as its first president, marked an epoch in the educational history of the middle west.

Antioch College was the outgrowth of the great ambition of its founders to establish an institution of high rank where equal privileges were to be given for the first time to both sexes.

With high hopes for the future success of the newly founded institution, its founders, the Christians, very wisely chose Horace Mann as its first president. This choice was made in September, 1852, and it so happened that the call came to him the same day in which he was nominated for Governor of Massachusetts by the Free

EDUCATIONAL PURSUITS 21

Soil Party. Failing in the election, he chose the work for which he was so eminently fitted both by nature and training, and entered upon his career as President of Antioch College the same year.

He found the college in a chaotic state financially. The work to be accomplished in organizing and putting in order the college forces in such a virgin soil was a prodigious task.

The high ideals and noble spirit of its great leader had many difficulties to encounter, and severe trials to endure before the college was put upon its feet. Many of the rooms were not finished, not even plastered, and practically no equipments for successful school work were yet furnished. After the teachers had been chosen the finances failed. The president willingly endured great privations, denying himself of many even of the necessities of life that he might aid the struggling institution and help poor students.

The founders of the new college had fond ambitions to launch an institution which would extend equal privileges to all, regardless of race, color, sex, or condition in life.

Had their financial ability and foresight equaled their cherished ideals and lofty ambitions, they might have established an institution that w r ould have remained an honor and a permanent influence for good among the people through whom it came into existence.

Horace Mann gave the best strength of his great and noble manhood, physical and mental, to the building up of the school which soon rose to the front rank of educational institutions west of the Alleghanies. He was encouraged and endorsed by some men of large and liberal minds found among the people who were the founders of the college ; and some ministers of the Christian name who were able to appreciate his high ideals and worthy undertaking stood by him throughout the struggle.

One of these loyal helpers was that pure and saintly man of God, Dr. Austin Craig, then pastor of the Blooming Grove, N. Y., church. He was a man of scholarly attainments; rare insight and genius for the great truths of God; yet plain, simple and unassuming in his manner and habits, having the polish of a true gentleman, while possessing the learning and classical training of the scholar. He and Mann were on the most intimate terms, and the correspondence carried on between them for some years reveals a friendship, an intimacy, a grandeur of thought and ideals, with a beauty, sincerity, and purity of language and purpose in life, which is rare, yet most refreshing and inspiring.

Craig had been proffered a professorship in the new institution, which he declined, much to the pain and disappointment of his warm friend and admirer, for Horace Mann craved his companionship and co-operation in the college work. But Dr. Craig esteemed the work he was doing in his pastorate and pulpit at Blooming Grove, of "teaching," as he puts it, "a band of ingenious young men and women the great principles of physical, intellectual and spiritual health," as the greatest work of all others which he chose to do.

He did, however, deliver a course of lectures at the college; also serving as college chaplain, and in 1864, he accepted its presidency and served nearly two years. His great ambition was to make the college wholly undenominational. Yet he himself never swerved from his denominational affiliations, for he preferred that simple and direct form and service which ever put Christ before creed.

"I would not go to Antioch," he wrote, "if it was to be narrowed by denominational aims. I could have no heart

EDUCATIONAL PURSUITS 23

to undertake the presidency unless I might do it in the interests of the Christian Church and not of the Christian denomination."

But a work more congenial to the mind and heart of Dr. Craig awaited him as first president of a newly founded institution for the training of young men for the Christian ministry. The Christian Biblical Institute, first located at Standfordville, N. Y., which was opened in October, 1869.

Henry Rush entered Antioch College in 1852, the year of its opening, when he was about seventeen years old. One may imagine the high hopes which stirred the mind and heart of this aspiring youth as he entered the halls of this newly established institution. Although the buildings were not yet completed, yet the impression made upon one as they approached the site, with the brick parapets rising in stately grandeur, and the massive main building, with the two large dormitories nearby, and the rolling, spacious grounds overlooking the picturesque stream on the east, the wild glen, with the woodland extending eastward, the famous springs of such enormous volume flowing with undiminished strength, and rippling down toward the creek to flow onward between the picturesque "cliffs" to mingle with that beautiful stream, the Little Miami River.

All these surroundings of scenic beauty, together with the rising glory and great promise of this new college, with one of the greatest educators in the land, East or West, as its president, were certainly enough to inspire an ambitious youth, fired with an unquenchable thirst for an education, with great hope, and to fill the mind with a deep yearning for imperishable treasures.

He applied himself with great diligence to his college work, working outside school hours at such small jobs as he was able to secure in order to bear his expenses.

This proved too hard a strain upon his physical strength and he was compelled after two years to give up his college work. During most of the following year he devoted his time to teaching school in the country.

BEGINS PREACHING

About the time he entered upon his work as a teacher, just following the close of his term in Antioch College, he felt a power working within him calling him to the ministry of the Gospel of Christ. He obeyed the call to this high and holy office and began preaching in Christian churches at such times and in such places as opportunity offered.

Chapter III Course At Meadville

Having decided to devote his life to the work of the ministry, and fully realizing the need of better educational qualifications for such a work, and that he should more fully equip himself for so sacred a calling, that he might become "a workman that needeth not to be ashamed," and that he might be able to give forth messages containing sharpened and polished arrows of truth, he determined to pursue a theological course, and entered in the autumn of 1854 Meadville Theological Seminary at Meadville, Pa.

This school, which was opened October 1, 1844, was the outgrowth of a need felt by the Unitarians, and shared in by the Christians also, for an institution which would furnish educational privileges to young men preparing for the ministry. Denominational or creed limitations were not placed upon those entering the school, but the whole genius of the movement, and the purposes of its founders were to furnish an institution where liberty and freedom could be given in preparing for the work of the ministry.

The first Unitarian church organized west of the Alleghanies was at Meadville in May, 1829. It was through the influence of Mr. H. J. Huidekoper, a Hollander by birth, that this church, and afterward the theological school, were founded. He was not satisfied with the religious instruction of that day as taught in the creed churches, but began the study of the Scriptures for himself, untrammeled by creed or dogma. He regarded the

"Scriptures as being the only safe rule for the Christian's faith." This had been one of the cardinal principles of the Christian Connection from their origin, about 1800.

The result of such investigation by Mr. Huidekoper was, as he himself says, "I soon acquired clear and definite views as to the leading doctrines of the Christian religion. But the good I derived from these studies has not been confined to giving me clear ideas as to the Christian doctrines, they created in me a strong and constantly increasing interest in religion itself, not as a mere theory, but as a practical rule of life."

Mr. Huidekoper gave the tract of land for the seminary and contributed generously toward the erection of the buildings. Rev. James Freeman Clarke speaks of Mr. Huidekoper in the following appreciative manner: "We have never known any one who seemed to live so habitually in the presence of God.

"The form which his piety mostly took was that of gratitude and reliance. His trust in the Divine goodness was like that of a child in its mother. His cheerful views of this life, and of the next, his simple tastes, his enjoyment of nature, his happiness in society, his love for children, his pleasure in doing good, his tender affection for those nearest to him, — these threw a warm light around his last days, and gave his home the aspect of a perpetual Sabbath. He was always a student, occupying every vacant hour with a book, and so had attained a surprising knowledge of biography and history." He died in Meadville, May 22, 1854, the same year in which Henry Rush entered Meadville Seminary.

His son, Rev. Frederick Huidekoper, entered upon a course at Harvard, but owing to failing eyesight he was forced to discontinue his college course. After working four years upon a farm and studying a little each day, he

EARLY MINISTRY 27

traveled in Europe almost three years, and after his return he pursued a private course in theology, taught privately a class of students, and in 1844 began work in Meadville. He took gratuitous charge from 1845 for five years of New Testament instruction in Meadville, and of ecclesiastical history on until 1877, serving also as librarian and treasurer of the college. He was a man of vast learning and research, and became the author of "Judaism at Rome," and other works of considerable historical value. He proposed the plan of the Brookes Fund for the distribution of religious works to ministers of every name throughout the United States who cared to receive such. The plan was carried out under his direction for many years, but has recently been abandoned. Rev. Huidekoper occupied at different times in the college, the chairs of Professor of New Testament and Ecclesiastical History, Hermeneutics, Latin, Greek and German.

Rev. Rufus P. Stebbins became the first president of the Seminary, serving also as pastor of the Unitarian church at Meadville, and being professor of Old Testament History and Literature; Hebrew and Biblical Antiquities; Natural and Revealed Religion; Mental and Moral Philosophy; Systematic Theology; and Pulpit Eloquence. He served ten years as president, closing his term in 1856. He was a noble type of Christian manhood, combined with rich attainments in learning and scholarship.

It was during the term of Dr. Stebbins that Mr. Rush entered upon his theological course, in October, 1854, having just entered upon his twentieth year.

During the earlier period of this institution the Christian denomination furnished a considerable proportion of its students. Having no theological school of their own at that time, and strongly imbued with the spirit of liberty in religious thought and teaching, they found many things in common with early Unitarianism. The Christians were represented among the lecturers at Meadville, — Rev. David Millard and Rev. Austin Craig, D. D., were each honored with that position. While among those who graduated from the seminary of the Christian body Ave recall, Rev. David E. Millard, D. D., now of Portland, Mich. ; Rev. Wm. Beller, now deceased, long residing near Lebanon, Ohio; Rev. Thomas Martin McWhinney, D. D., LL. D., recently deceased, graduated in 1853. Rev. S. S. Newhouse, D. D., at present (1911) professor of Homiletics and New Testament Literature in the Christian Biblical Institute at Defiance, Ohio, graduated in 18G5, and Rev. Henry Y. Rush, D. D., in 1857. There were others whose names do not now occur to the writer.

There were many ministers among the Christians, especially in the North, who rejected the doctrine of the trinity. Yet some were trinitarians, and nearly all held a firm faith in the divine Sonship of Christ. Rev. Rush through all his life held to the trinitarian faith in a somewhat modified form.