Francis Wayland

Front matter

UNITED STATES OP AMERICA.

3llmetican iHdigiou^ Heatier^ \_^ \_^

JAMES O. MURRAY

Chapter I. Early Years: Home And Student Life

It may justly be said of Di\ Wayland that he was happy in the oppoi'tunity of his life. That life was passed in the formative period of our educational and religious institutions. At no time could his powers have counted for more; at no time, indeed, could he have better done his appointed work. No sooner had the war for independence ended and the government of the United States been placed on a settled basis by the adoption of the Constitution ; no sooner had the national life begun to flow in its new channels, than there was a great advance along all the lines of denominational activity and educational enterprise. Everything which before had been carried on in scattered, sporadic methods, now tended to organization. Boards of foreign and home missions were established. Bible and tract societies were organized. Theological seminaries were founded. New colleges were planted, and the older institutions more liberally endowed. The religious press was multiplied. Associations for moral reform were instituted. The first half of this century was prolific in all these movements.

In this development, religious and educational, the Baptist denomination bore an honorable part. This is the more creditable to that religious body, because its early history in this country had been largely one of struggle under persecutions more or less bitter. Baptists fared hardly in the New England Colonies. They had a treatment scarcely less hard at the hands of the Dutch in New York and from the authorities in Virginia and Georgia. Only in Maryland and Rhode Island did they have a fair and undisturbed opportunity for growth.^

No sooner, however, were their disabilities removed, than they entered upon a growth which now ranks them in point of numbers second among the Christian denominations.^ In 1817, it is said there were only three educated Baptist ministers west of the Hudson River in the State

1 Armitage's History of the Baptists, see pp. 686 et seq. ■^ The relative numbers of Baptist and Methodist churches, ministers, and members are as follows : —

CHURCHES. MINISTERS. MEMBERS.

The Independent, July 31, 1890.

EARLY YEARS. 6

of New York. The Baptists had, however, before the Revolution, begun to plant institutions of learning. Under the auspices of the Philadelphia Association of Baptists, the academy at Hopewell, N. J., was founded in 1756. Brown University, then Rhode Island College, received its charter in February, 1764. And when, after the war of independence was ended, the general movement for enlarged education began, the Bajitists were not behind other churches in their zeal and self-sacrifice. In 1813, the Maine Literary and Theological Institute, now Colby University, received its charter. In 1825, the Hamilton (N. Y.) Literary and Theological Institution was opened. The Newton (Mass.) Theological Institution began its career in 1825. These are facts illustrating the energetic spirit, which then among the Baptists was pushing the cause of higher education. It was alike fortunate for that denomination, and for the interests of good learning, that a man was raised up singularly fitted by natural endowments and by training, for various and important movements in social progress, especially in the line of education.

Francis Wayland was born March 11, 1796, in the city of New York. He came of English stock on both sides, his father, Francis Wayland, being a native of Frorae, Somersetshire, and his mother, Sarah (Moore) Wayland, a native of Norwich, England. His ancestors, further removed, were from the middle class of English society, and were dissenters of Baptist sentiments.^ Shortly after their marriage, his parents emigrated to this country, landing at New York September 20, 1793. In that city his father at once set up his business as a currier. By aid of a small capital, and still more by means of his own skill, industry, and integrity, he throve in his calling. The time was propitious for such a venture, and a prosperous business career at once opened before him. Mr. Wayland and his wife had both been members of a Baptist Church in London. After their arrival in New York they joined what was then the Fayette Street Baptist Church, subsequently, by that process of ecclesiastical transmigration common to all churches in the metropolis, the Oliver Street, and now the Madison Avenue, Baptist Church. It is a tribute to his piety and weight of character that Mr. Wayland was soon appointed one of its deacons. The home life of Dr. W^ayland, like the home life of New England Puritans, was marked strongly by its reli-

^ An uncle, the Rev. Daniel S. Wayland, between -whom and Dr. Wayland a cordial intimacy subsisted, seems, however, to have been in the Established Church, a rector of the parish in Bassingham, England.

EARLY YEARS. 5

gious features. Sunday especially was made a day of Christian nurture. In Reminiscences of his early life, which Dr. Wayland prepared at the request of his family, is preserved a graphic picture of the religious training in that household.

" On the Lord's day, the rule of the family was for all the children to learn a hymn before dinner, and a portion of the Catechism before tea. The former was repeated to my mother, the latter to my father. It was not his custom to attend th» evening meeting. After tea, or at candle -lighting, we were all assembled in the parlor, my father, or one of the older children, read some suitable passage of Scripture, which he explained and illustrated, frequently directing the conversation so as to make a personal application to some one or other of us. Singing and prayer followed. Occasionally some little refreshment was introduced, and we retired each at an early hour to bed. This domestic service was never interrupted until my father became a preacher and spent most of his Sabbath evenings in public worship." What, however, seems quite as influential a factor in Dr. Wayland's early training was the contact with religious and political discussions carried on in his father's house. The church officers had formed an association, visiting each other's houses at special seasons, and making such visits the occasion in part for political debate, mainly, it seems, for " questions of doctrinal or experimental religion." Bible study formed a prominent part of the evening's occupation ; but such authors as Andrew Fuller, Augustus Toplady, and John Newton, appear to have been freely quoted. With all this, from time to time, political discussions were mingled. The Baptists had suffered much from what was called the " Standing Order," ^ which in New England had been somewhat rigorously enforced against tliem^ This was understood to be supported by the Federalists, while the Republicans, on the other hand, favored an " unrestricted freedom in matters of religious opinion." It was natural, therefore, that the sympathies of the Baptists should lie with the latter party. The whole subject was under discussion by the Baptist laymen as they met. Nor is it difficult to imagine a young lad sitting quietly by and watching with serious eyes his elders as they discoursed on these high themes of Christian experience, doctrine, and polity. It was an education which was no mean adjunct to his early training, and its influence can be plainly traced in his later life.

By degrees the attention of the senior Wayland was turned toward the Christian ministry.

^ Dr. Armitage's History of the Baptists, pp. 740-741.

EARLY YEARS. 7

He probably had shown more than common gifts in exhortation. Accordingly he sought from the church a license to preach the gospel. To secure this it was necessary, according to the practice of Baptist churches at that time, that he should preach before the church of which he was a member, his brethren deciding on his qualifications for the ministry. The custom had much to recommend it. Certain it is that if churches and congregations had the licensing power, after testing the actual gifts of candidates, some licenses would be withheld which bishops and presbyteries and councils and conferences now see fit to bestow.

Mr. Way land successfully passed the ordeal, and June 10, 1805, received a license to preach, on the same evening with his Christian brother and lifelong friend, Daniel Sharp, of honored memory, so long the pastor of the Charles Street Baptist Church in Boston.

Dr. Wayland says that his father at first only intended to become a lay preacher. For three or four years he continued in business, preaching to destitute churches in the vicinity of New York. But the work grew on his hands. He could not serve two masters, and after long and anxious deliberation he decided to throw up his worldly vocation with all its prospects of success, and devote himself exclusively to the work of the ministry. Accordingly he became pastor of the Baptist Church in Poughkeepsie in 1807, and subsequently of churches in Albany, Troy, and Saratoga Springs.

That Dr. Wayland's views of the importance belonging to pastoral care, and of the supreme duty of the Christian Church to have the gospel preached to the poor, vievi^s which characterized his latest work on earth, were due in great part to his father's example, is clear. Yet his early training fell mostly into the hands of his mother. His father's frequent absences from home threw him into her society. She made him her companion, relating to him anecdotes of the sufferings and deaths of martyrs, some of which were associated with the scenes of her childhood. Dr. Wayland's intense abhorrence of every form of religious intolerance was a well-known trait of his character. It is traceable in great j)art to the influence upon his mind of these recitals. She told him of the spot in Norwich — her birthplace — " where, in the reign of Mary, many Protestants had suffered martyrdom," and also " of the remains of an old abbey church in the dungeons of which many pious persons had been tortured." We learn from church history that Richard Bilney, the spiritual father of Latimer, and one of the noblest spirits of the English Reformation, was burned at Norwich, August

EARLY YEARS. 9

19, 1531.^ It was to liis martyrdom that she probably referred.

Dr. Wayland's Christian character was profoundly affected by the influence and by the memory of his mother. Her piety was precisely of the type to attract and to mould such a mind as his. It was intelligent and active, but with intelligence and activity seems also to have been blended a saintly type of devotion. Dr. Waylaud names " her lovely humility, her childlike meekness, her touching self-denial and disinterestedness, and her tender and affecting charity " as her peculiar graces. One of her characteristic religious traits was " delight in tracing the progress of the cause of Christ, the diffusion of knowledge, and the triumphs of freedom in every part of the globe." It is easy to find this reproduced in the life of her son, and his noted sermon on "The Certain Triumph of the Redeemer's Kingdom " bears on its pages the subtle charm of early maternal teachings. Probably he owed almost as much on the intellectual side as on the religious to his mother. Her intellectual character was marked. In the letter to his father written on hearing of her death, he recalls her " superior mind, her accurate and discriminating judgment, her strong and expansive thirst for knowledge." The relations between mother and ^ Geikie's English Eeformation, pp. 202-204.

10 FBAN-CIS WAYLAND.

son were so close and constant, that her motherhood transfused its noblest qualities into the forming character of the affectionate and reverencing son. It would be difficult to find in the multijjlying examples of saintly motherhood any instance more marked for spiritual beauty and for spiritual power.

Dr. Wayland's school life began inauspiciously. His first schoolmaster is described by him as a man " who never taught us anything," and in whose school " was only one motive to obedience, — terror." " I do not remember," say the Reminiscences, "anything approaching explanation while I was at the school. A sum was set, and the pupil left to himself to find out the method of doing it. If it was wrong, the error was marked, and he must try again. If again it was wrong, he was imprisoned after school, or he was whipped. . . . Geogi-aphy was studied without a map, by the use of a perfectly dry compendium. I had no idea what was meant by bounding a country, though I duly repeated the boundaries at recitation. I studied English grammar in the same way."

Such experiences are in his case the more worthy of note because they were remembered to good purpose in his after career as a teacher. His pupils in college all recalled the fact that lucid explanation was a cardinal point in all his instructions. His abhorrence of confused and muddy conceptions of any subject may be dated from his own sufferings in his earliest school-days. On the occasion of his father's removal to Poughkeepsie, being then in his eleventh year, he was placed in the Dutchess County Academy. At first there seemed little change for the better in the quality of instruction. Here he began the study of the classics. It was pursued at that time evidently under great difficulties. In Greek the Westminster Greek Grammar was the text-book for beginners. The text was in Latin. Students were expected to master its rules before their knowledge of Latin was equal to construing simple narrative Latin sentences. Fifteen years later, Sydney Smith satirized this method of classical study, in his article on the " Method of Teaching Languages." ^ He used the Westminster Grammar as the stalking-horse from which to shoot his arrows of wit. "From the Westminster Grammar we make the following extract, and some thousand rules conveyed in poetry of equal merit must be fixed upon the mind of the youthful Grecian, before he advances into the interior of the language."

Fortunately, however, at a later period he came under a teacher, who understood the great art of instruction. An enthusiast in his calling, he seems to have inspired his pupils with a kindred enthusiasm, to have cultivated in them also habits of self-reliance. This teacher, Mr. Daniel H. Barnes, had indeed accomplished a great part of Dr. Wayland's education when he taught his pupil " to study for the love of it and to take a pride in accurate knowledge." This was a fruitful period in his mental development. Not only in general scholarship was the progress marked by his fellow -students as well as his teacher, but he showed signs of becoming the " good, strong speaker " of later days. One of his early declamations was an extract from some orator on "Injured Africa." Injured Africa was a subject which occupied his thoughts to his latest day, and on no theme did he ever discourse more eloquently. So too his abiding interest in the career of Napoleon I. dates from these school-days. He studied that career profoundly. It fascinated him, and he was an admirer of the military genius of the great Corsican. The dread of Napoleon, which was then oppressing England, was shared to some extent by this country. After the fashion of those days, the pupils were set to dispute the following question, " If Bonaparte should conquer England, can he conquer America ? " Young Way land took the affirmative, maintaining it with no little skill for a boy of his years. At this school, Dr. Wayland remained till the removal of his father to Albany in 1811. He applied for admission to the freshman class of Union College, Schenectady, N. Y., in May of that year. Upon examination he was told that he could be admitted to the sophomore class, and joined it in the third term, being then fifteen years of age. His only deficiency was in mathematics, which was made up in the ensuing vacation. To his college course, so far as instruction went, he does not seem to have owed much. That he was a hard student, popular with his classmates, fond of athletic sports as well, observant of the college discipline, the testimony of his fellowstudents shows. But the course of instruction must have been meagre even for that day. He says of it in the Reminiscences : " The course was very limited. Chemistry was scarcely born ; electricity was a plaything ; algebra was studied for six weeks ; and geology was named only to be laughed at."

If, however, he owed little to the curriculum of study as then pursued, he owed to Dr. Nott, then in the beginning of his long and honored presidency, what was a liberal education in itself. His tributes to Dr. Nott make this abundantly clear. And that lie had shown marked ability in the mastery of his studies as well as high character, is evinced by his subsequent appointment to the position of tutor in the college. He was graduated July 28, 1813, at seventeen years of age. It marks one difference between college education in that day and this, to note that this is now hardly the average age of students at entrance in our higher institutions.

Immediately after his graduation he began a course of medical study. This was at that time pursued mainly in the offices of distinguished practitioners, supplemented, in the case of those whose means admitted of it, with a course of lectures in one of the medical schools. Following this method he studied under Dr. Moses Hale and Dr. Eli Burritt in Troy. The winter of 1814-15 was occupied in attending medical lectures in the city of New York.

It was while engaged in these professional studies that Dr. Wayland experienced a sort of intellectual regeneration. This is not uncommon in the lives of distinguished men. Readers of Carlyle will recall the well-known passage in " Sartor Eesartus," ^ where is described what he calls his "Spiritual new -birth, or Baphometic Fire-baptism." In the case of Dr. Wayland, it seems to have been more purely a mental trans- 1 Book 2, chapter 7.

HUME AND STUDENT LIFE. 15

formation. He makes much account of it in the

Reminiscences. After a lengthened description of his desultory habits of reading-, of his inability to appreciate " abstract thought," he says : —

" I then first became conscious of a decided change in my whole intellectual character. I was sitting by a window in an attic room which I occupied as a sort of study, or reading place, and by accident I ojiened a volume of the ' Spectator ' — I think it was one of the essays forming Addison's Critique on Milton, — it was, at any rate, something purely didactic. I commenced reading it, and to my delight and surprise found that I understood and really enjoyed it. I could not account for the change. I read on, and found that the very essays which I had formerly passed over without caring to read them were now to me the gems of the whole book, vastly more attractive than the stories and narratives that I had formerly read with so much interest. 1 knew not how to account for it. I could explain it on no other theory than that a change had taken place in myself. I awoke to the consciousness that I was a thinking being, and a citizen, in some sort, of the republic of letters."

His intellectual regeneration was complete. The fondness for fiction, once strong, never returned. Aside from want of intei'est in this kind of literature he seems also to have shrunk from all sorts of painful description. This change in the mental tastes which lay at the fomidation of his intellectual development, occurred in his eighteenth or nineteenth year. It was followed by a spiritual regeneration, which still more profoundly affected the character and changed the currents of life for him.

Dr. Wayland was one of that class who suffered from the theological training too often then imposed on the young. He dwells at some length on this in his Reminiscences, sj)eaks of his father's earlier views — those in which he was bred — as very rigid Calvinism, modified in later years through the teachings of Andrew FiiUer. Not questioning any views which had been inculcated in him, he was yet miserable under their influence. " I believed," he says, " the truths of religion, for aught I know, as fully as I do now. But my heart was unmoved. I had some wish to -be a Christian, but I had no true idea of faith or repentance, and all the theological illustrations which I heard seemed to involve the subject in deeper darkness. . . . When I reflected at all upon religion I was miserable." It is evident that his mental sufferings were both poignant and prolonged. No help came to him from sermons he heard or books he read. He was treading a solitary path, — workiug" out his ovm salvation with fear and trembling. The experiences, however, which he then underwent had on him a twofold effect, — one speculative, the other practical. They made him averse to anything* like closely reticulated theological systems. , They made him an admirable religious guide for many a young soul entangled in religious troubles of whatever type and however begotten.

It was not till the close of his medical studies that his soul gained the needed relief. His mental sufferings had increased, until he resolved to drop everything else and bend all efforts to end the long struggle. He gave himself up to the solitude of his room, reading the Scriptures and calling upon God. It went on so for days. " How long time I remained in this condition I do not now remember. I was embarrassed by ignorance of the plan of salvation, — an ignorance all the more embarrassing because I supposed it to be knowledge. I had marked out a plan of conversion in accordance with the prevailing theological notions." The struggle seemed fruitless, and at length he returned to his usual duties. Fortunately he found in the Rev. Mr. Mattison of Vermont, a Baptist clei'gyman, a man who understood his case and whose wise counsels did him excellent service. The expectation of some extraordinary inward revelation was given up, and the fact accepted that he was already a child of God. It seems strange that he was so long involved in these distressing doubts. In his Reminiscences he attributes much of this to the pride which desired a '' striking conversion." This type of conversion was highly prized and eagerly sought in those days of burning revivals. It is possible, indeed, that he may have had some of this desire. But it seems more in accordance with the structure of his mind to think that he was unable to find rest for his soul, till he had worked his way clear through all the logical and theological difficulties caused by the early training of which mention has been made. This incident in his conversion is noteworthy as showing the falseness of notions, now happily outgrown, which made of " striking conversions " a snare for spiritual self-conceit. If for a time, as he says, he was under the power of such an ambition, it only shows the strength of the delusion then prevalent which could so entangle a natui^e like his, singularly free in earlier and later life from everything like ostentation.

He was baptized and received into the membership of the Baptist Church, the church of his fathers, of whose history he was proud, and his loyalty to which all his subsequent life proved. It was entirely characteristic of him that he threw himself at once into Christian work. On the organization of a Sabbath-school in Troy, he offered his services as a teacher. The class he selected was one of colored boys, and the reasons assigned for his choice were their greater need of instruction and the opportunity thus given for " following out most closely the example of Christ." In this incident, we see the germ of that spirit which moved him, when President of Brown University, to teach a Bible class of convicts in the penitentiary at Providence.

The spiritual change which prompted this step prompted also another and greater, no less than the abandonment of the medical profession and entrance upon the ministry of the gospel. It was a serious matter to thiow by the preparation of several years for active life, and enter upon a new step cf preparation for a wholly different sphere of activity. He was ready to begin the practice of medicine, — had in fact already begun its practice. To engage in theological study involved pecuniary struggle, his father's means having been much diminished by financial losses. It put off indefinitely settlement in life, and necessitated arduous work on new lines of study. His interest in the science of medicine was strong, and that he would have risen to eminence in the profession there is every reason to believe. But whatever he might have become as a medical practitioner in Troy, he never could have reached the larger fame, the nobler usefulness, he attained as a preacher and an educator. The world has been deeply the gainer by his change of callings. It was made, not without careful thought. He was never a man of impulses. It involved some degree of struggle. The work of a j)liysician was congenial to him. He always cherished profound respect for the medical calling. But he never in any matter halted between two opinions. His decision of character was operative here, and no sooner was he reasonably sure of himself as a Christian disciple than he obeyed the divine impulse which impelled him toward the ministry of reconciliation. His home training, especially the example of his father, who had relinquished a growing and lucrative business to preach the Gospel, was a factor in his choice. But it was least of all in his thoughts to enter upon the sacred calling without special training for it. The trend of his denomination was not, at that time, strongly toward an educated ministry. The Baptists had indeed begun their work in theological education by planting a theological institute at Waterville in 1813. But this was far distant and was not fully manned. Andover Seminary, founded in 1807, had already gained high repute as a school of sacred learning. Princeton Seminary, founded five years later, in 1812, was rapidly gaining its honored position under the guidance of Dr. Archibald Alexander and Dr. Samuel Miller. The advantages of both institutions, respectively, were urged upon him by their friends, and carefully weighed. An acquaintance with Dr. Elias Coi*- nelius of Boston, which later ripened into friendship, decided his choice in favor of And over Seminary, — a choice never regretted by him. The hand of welcome. Dr. Cornelius assured him, would be extended at Andover, and also substantial aid, if desired. In the autumn of 1816 Dr. Wayland once more began student life in the Theological Seminary at Andover.

The Andover of that day was just beginning its great career as a theological seminary. There was " oue four -story brick building." The faculty was composed of Dr. Leonard Woods, Professor of Christian Theology ; Dr. Ebenezer Porter, Professor of Sacred Rhetoric ; and Dr. Moses Stuart, Professor of Sacred Literature. On the catalogue of that year, 1816-17, are found the names of sixty-seven students. That they made up a student-body full of intellectual as well as spiritual life is evident from such names on the roll as those of Ira Chase, one of the founders of Newton Theological Seminary in 1825, and professor there for twenty years ; of Joseph Torrey, for forty years connected with the University of Vermont, made its president in 1863, and still more widely known as the translator of Neander's Church History ; of missionaries like Pliny Fisk, one of the first American missionaries to Western Asia ; of Hiram Bingham, the veteran missionary to the Sandwich Islands ; of John King, the well-known missionary to Greece ; of other divines like Joel Hawes, and Henry J. Kipley, and Orville Dewey. With such men Dr. Wayland came at once into cordial sympathy. They recognized his earnestness and purpose, and he felt the stimulating power of such companionship. The simplicity of the life then in vogue, the oldtime Puritan simplicity, pleased him, and he found friends on every hand. In less than half an hour from his arrival in town, he had passed his examination under Dr. Woods, and had become a member of the institution.

During his residence at Andover, he seems to have been under the tuition of only one professor. The junior class, of which he was a member, met Dr. Woods and Dr. Porter only at what was called the " Professors' Conference." This was held once a fortnight in the evening, and seems to have been a familiar lecture or discourse on topics connected with religious expe-

HOME AND STUDKiXT LIFE. 23

rience, followed by questions from the students. This service made decided impression on Dr. Wayland. He preserved his notes of these lectures. It was in its nature an exercise to interest him deeply, beings thoroughly practical. At Princeton Seminary, this feature of seminary life still maintained, has marked deeply the whole history of the institution. The " Conference Papers " of Dr. Charles Hodge have illustrated its scope and power.

" It was at Andover that I first learned to study," Dr. Wayland once said. He was speaking of his instruction in the seminary by Professor Moses Stuart. His introduction to this eminent teacher occurred before he reached the institution. " I well remember," he says in his address at the semi-centennial of Andover Seminary, " my first introduction to the man to whom I owe so much. It occurred in the stage-coach between Boston and Andover, when I was coming to enter the seminaiy. Professor Stuart and the late Rev. Sereno E. Dwight were among the passengers. The conversation between these two eminent men turned mainly on the Unitarian controversy, which was then occupying a large share of piablic attention. It was well worth a journey to Andover to witness the movement of Pi-ofessor Stuart's mind upon the question. While he spoke with the highest respect of tlie talents and learning of those from whom he differed, the unshaken, elastic, and joyous confidence with which he held the truth as he believed it, stirred your mind like the sound of a trumpet. He was ready at any moment to enter upon the controversy, and to carry it to the utmost limits of exegetical inquiry. All he wanted was a fair field and no favor. All he wished was the triumph of truth, and he was ever ready to surrender any religious belief he held, if he could not on the acknowledged principles of interpretation show that it was taught in the Holy Scriptures." The ride in this stage-coach from Boston to Andover with Professor Stuart was for Dr. Wayland one of those crises in life, apparently trivial, but moulding and coloring the whole future. From that hour began a friendship, the influence of which Dr. Wayland never ceased to feel. It was just such a mind and just such a spirit as would at once impress, delight, and hold him under their sway. It was no ill-fortune which placed him for that year mainly, if not wholly, under the teachings of Moses Stuart. His entire time was thus given to exegetical study, both of the Old and New Testaments. The picture he has drawn of his student life is worth preserving, as furnishing a view of the demands of theological discipline in those days. The " laborare " and the " orare " were duly mingled.