Horatio Stebbins, his ministry and his personality

Preface

There are lives that should be better known and every memory of them jealously cherished. A debt of gratitude and a clear responsibility rest upon those whose privilege it has been to enjoy an exceptional influence.

Horatio Stebbins, in his day and generation, was a man of rare power and lofty spirit. He was a great personality, with uncommon gifts of mind and heart. His mountainous faith was a marked characteristic. He united strength and tenderness in a degree that made him a leader of men, His absolute integrity, his kindliness, his serenity, his patient faithfulness, his fortitude, his magnanimity, his humor, made him the embodiment of the best religious life. For fifty years he preached a rational and reverent religion, with great power. He loved God and his fellow-men. He lived happily, he served gladly, he died courageously.

For the more than thirty-five years of his ministry in San Francisco I knew him well and enjoyed his indulgent friendship, a blessing that demands every possible return. I feel my inability to set forth adequately his message and personality, but I am moved by a profound sense of obligation to do what I may to make him known as he was, to recall to those who

X

PREFACE loved him some of his characteristic sayings with incidents of his fruitful life, and especially to extend his influence to this generation, by emphasis on his benign and beautiful spirit.

C. A. M.

I

n.

FlTCHBURG AND PORTLAND : 1851-1864 in.

With the San Francisco Church

IV.

v.

VI.

Close of the San Francisco Ministry

VII.

Quiet Years ln Cambridge

VIII.

DC.

X.

XL

That which Remaineth : A Conference

Sermon

XII.

The Son of Man in his Day: A Sermon

Chapter I

The Stebbins families of the Connecticut Valley find a common ancestor in Rowland Stebbins, born in Bocking, Essex County, England, on the fifth day of November, 1592. In the baptismal record in the register of St. Mary's Church there, the name is spelled Stebing. Rowland came to America in 1634 with his wife, Sarah Whiting, and two sons. After living in Roxbury, Massachusetts, for four or five years, he moved his family to Springfield, the site of which his friend Pynchon had bought from the Indians some years before. With his son John he later removed to Northampton, while the elder son, Thomas, remained permanently in Springfield. From him Horatio Stebbins was descended.

In 1685 the "outward commons " of Springfield, mountainous land on both sides of the Connecticut River, were awarded to settlers, and three sons of Thomas secured subdivisions. Samuel Stebbins, greatgrandson of Thomas and great-grandfather of Horatio, settled on one of these subdivisions in 1741. The tract was nine miles from Springfield and a part of the future town of South Wilbraham, now known as Hampden. In those days families were generous in size, and Samuel had ten brothers and sisters. His own family was limited to eight children, but his son and his grandson in the direct line had the customary eleven. Calvin Stebbins, one of has grandsons, married Amelia Adams, a young woman of character and charm. Horatio was their third son. Roderick, five years older, became a successful physician. The second son, Randolph, was Horatio's senior by two years. Two other brothers died in infancy. The mother died when Horatio was six years of age. By his father's second marriage there were three children, one of whom, the Reverend Calvin Stebbins, D.D., is still living.

In the history of Wilbraham the family name appears frequently. In 1741 the application for a parish meeting was signed by Samuel Stebbins, and at the meeting he was made an assessor. Aaron, Caleb, and Phineas held minor offices. The location of the meeting-house was a stirring issue. It was six years before Wigwam Hill triumphed, and it was twelve years before this site was accepted, the church built, and all the gallery seats were installed.

The community was intensely loyal to the cause of the colonies. In 1774 a pledge against purchasing or consuming goods imported from Great Britain was signed by one hundred and twenty-five determined men, ten of whom bore the name of Stebbins. In 1775 the call from Lexington was promptly answered by a company of volunteers. Another company rallied at Bennington to the relief of Gates. At least ten of the Stebbins family served in the Continental army. In church matters the family was interested, but independent. In 1805, when a petition for a Methodist Episcopal Church was presented to the town, thirteen of the proponents signed the name of Stebbins, and several of the same name signed a protest against it.

From such an ancestry and in such a community Horatio Stebbins was born on August 8, 1821, of the eighth generation of his American family. His father was a well-to-do farmer, a man of good mind but limited education. He was just and upright, respected by his neighbors. In his family relations he united gentleness and wise severity. He made his son a companion. Dr. Stebbins said of him: "He often bore me upon his shoulder across the running river, or led me by the hand through meadows where birds sang and lilies bloomed."

The death of Horatio's mother in his early boyhood was an irreparable loss. She was a woman of fine temper, good sense, and great sensibility. She is said to have had an unusual gift for sententious expression, which Dr. Stebbins also possessed, perhaps inherited from her. He had merely a childhood recollection of her — a beautiful but indistinct picture of a loving presence as she spoke to him in tender blessing on her dying bed.

Dr. Stebbins had an intense affection for his grandmother. In a remarkable sermon on "The End of Being," he says : "There is one other whose being was a beatific vision to my childhood heart, above all the accidents of earthly existence, in whom duty was a cheerful song, and care a happy delight ; from whose heart love shone like the lily in Abou Ben Adhem's dream. She was my grandmother. What beautiful conduct ! Her feet touched the earth as lightly as an angel's ; in her face was the strange mystery of pain and joy, and a piety in which all fear was changed to reverence. To a child's heart, beauty shone around, as glory on the shepherds of Judea. Thanks be to God that such visions and wonderings and imaginations may be in the heart of a child. They are the light beyond our earthly horizons, tingeing our morning heights."

The family home was the scene of much kindly hospitality. The father was interested in religion, politics, and the intercourse of educated men, and he enjoyed entertaining visiting ministers and strangers generally. Polemics had not much interest for the young boy, but he liked to hear the ministers discuss matters with his father, who, to the son at least, seemed to hold his own. Many of these men were marked figures, who impressed him strongly. He remembered especially Minister Warner, who wore breeches, knee-buckles, and a queue of braided hair; also Elder Brewster, who had a very small salary, but always seemed to have money to lend; and Wilbur Fiske, the Methodist, who founded a college at Middletown, Connecticut. Mr. Stebbins was a reverent man, but he never took much interest in the revivals that recurred regularly.

The home was well supplied with books, and the boy learned to read by reading to his father. For three months in the winter he attended the district school. He early showed ability for work on the farm, and could cut grain in the field, drive a team on the road, or fell a tree in the woods. His youthful sports were simple : a little hunting and fishing, a bee-hunt in the summer, spelling-school in the autumn, nuts and apples around the open fire in the winter. From all that is told of his boyhood life and from his later development, it is plain that one of his happy inheritances was vigorous strength. Physically and mentally he was sound and well. He could do all kinds of things to help his father, and he grew up expecting to do them. He was surrounded by an atmosphere of work, conducive to health of body and mind. He was generally a happy boy, although he had a vein of sensitiveness, and occasionally suffered from some imagined grievance. No doubt he missed his mother unconsciously, but he was a normal boy, thoughtful and seriousminded, who enjoyed good reading. He early showed a predilection for the best preachers, and was attracted to Channing and Dewey before he was twelve years old. He had a half-formed hope that some day he might be a minister, but definite purpose awaited development and the assurance of possibility.

The early unfolding of the boyish mind was recalled more than fifty years later, with a beautiful picture of his daily life. He opened his Easter sermon in 1887 with these words : "When I was a boy, thirteen years old, I sat at noonday beneath the shadow of an oak on my father's farm to eat my luncheon and allow the patient oxen to rest and refresh themselves from the plough. I had taken with me to the field a little book, the first printed sermons of Orville Dewey, that great preacher of a former generation, whose fine sensibility, tender pathos, and moral insight delighted with deep and reverent feeling the hearts of men. I had taken my luncheon, and the oxen were feeding on the fine English hay, that had a brightness and flavor like Hyson tea. I lay flat upon the ground and read : 'The world is filled with the voices of the dead. Though they are invisible, yet life is filled with their presence.' Go where we will, the dead are with us. We live, we converse, with those who once lived and conversed with us. Their well-remembered tone mingles with the whispering breezes, with the sound of the falling leaf, with the jubilee shout of the springtime. The earth is filled with their shadowy train."

These days of helpfulness on the far n left many pleasant memories. In a sermon on "Looking Backward" he says : "Jesus affirms that 'no man is fit for the Kingdom of God who holds the plough and looks backward.' Did you ever hold a plough? It is a much better business than you think. On a fine morning in

May, when the sun shines clear through genial air, the trees are putting forth their buds into tender leaves, and birds are singing in the branches, it is a pleasant thing to go into the field with a team of strong, handsome, gentle-eyed oxen, their heads high, their horns pure white tipped with shining brass, their faces so honest that you know they could never tell a lie. There is a picture, familiar to many of you, perhaps, of a ploughing team, with a man and boy. The boy is holding, and his father is walking by his side, directing him with a gesture of his hand. It is a simple picture of a simple scene, such as artists of great genius choose when they present the scenery of common life on the level canvas, and fascinate and surprise us with the greatness of the everyday sentiments of human nature. I have looked upon that picture many times, and I could imagine that I heard the father tell his son how to hold the plough : ' So, my lad ; bear on the handles gently ; cut the same breadth ; keep the same depth, and turn the furrow flat ; speak quietly to the team, and don't look behind you ; the work is here.'" Next to the family and the home comes the influence of community life and customs. It was almost a hundred years ago, and there was far less relaxation from Puritan severity than we find to-day. There was far greater simplicity, and a rigor we know little. Life was a serious business. To make a living, simple though it was, was not easy, and hard work was a necessary habit of existence. Happiness, if reached, depended little on self-indulgence. Accumulations of wealth were infrequent, amusements few, and pleasure hardly expected. Frivolity was frowned upon as something that could not be afforded. Economy was a part of the atmosphere, and extended to the expression of affection. The church loomed large as a part of life, and, although its standards were narrow and its demands rigid, it nurtured strong characters. Waste did not weaken and luxury did not corrupt. The difficulty of getting anything spurred effort, and vigorous effort generated the strength required to accomplish purpose.

Such environment and educational advantages might not now be considered favorable, but we are prone to underestimate the value of what is hard and difficult. Conditions may be favorable in the degree that they compel effort and arouse determination.

When Horatio Stebbins was about fourteen, he really needed better educational privileges than the district school afforded, and he went to Springfield to attend the high school, working nights and mornings to earn his board. He was not satisfied with the results. The studies were dull, and the teachers did not inspire him. After about a year and a half, he felt an ambition to earn money, and went home to hire out on a neighboring farm. He felt that he was doing well to earn twelve dollars and a half a month ; and he saved a good part of his wages, for his wants were simple. After a year or more he and his brother entered into an arrangement with their father by which they worked the family farm on shares, and for two years they were moderately successful. During this period of wagework and farming he kept at his studies, and finally applied for the place of schoolmaster in a near-by district. He passed the examination, and began to teach at a salary of fifteen dollars a month, boarding around after the manner of the time. He was thereafter engaged for the four months' winter term, and taught for several years.

My native town, Leominster, was about forty-five miles to the northeast, but his reputation extended even there. One winter he was engaged to teach for the central district. At the advent of a new master, a test commonly arose for actual control. On the first day of the term the big boys were apt to be unruly and in this instance they were provokingly defiant ; but the question was summarily solved. The new master, Horatio Stebbins, said little, but he quietly opened the outside door, grasped the ringleader, lifted him high in air, and threw him into a snowbank. His control was not further questioned. The fact that the boy was the son of a prominent deacon gave the schoolmaster no concern.

Taught by teaching, ambition grew until Horatio finally formed the settled purpose to take a college course. One day, as he and his father worked together in the field, he broached the subject. His father was not unsympathetic, but gave him no encouragement. He was unable to give all his sons a college education and felt that he must treat them alike. Horatio remained firm in his purpose, and, realizing the difficulties to be overcome, he determined to accomplish the undertaking by his own efforts.

A friend of his father's conducted an academy at Ithaca, New York, and thither he went, riding ten miles in the family buggy and walking a hundred miles to the Hudson River, in order to husband his small savings. He could not carry his belongings, and sent them by the stage. When he paid the charge in Ithaca, he found that it had cost him only fifty cents less than if he had taken a railway ticket and brought his baggage — a painful lesson in false economy. He began a course of hard study, spending one dollar and twenty-five cents a week for food and lodging, and nearly breaking down in health as a consequence. In six months he was obliged to go out and teach. Trying to make a short cut he added to his teaching the study of medicine, reading evenings and riding with the doctor during vacations. He soon became dissatisfied and discouraged, and returned to his home, feeling that he had wasted two years. For a short time he managed to pursue elementary studies at Northampton, and spent a few months pleasantly and profitably with his cousin, Rufus Phineas Stebbins, at Leominster. Finally, having overcome many obstacles and made what he considered many blunders, he planted his feet more firmly on a recognized ladder of learning.

I E

Before the Revolution one John Phillips founded a preparatory school at Exeter, New Hampshire, and here young Stebbins made his way. His course was prolonged by necessary interruptions for school-teaching, when funds gave out, but on the whole he made good time. In 1845, he was invited to give the Fourth of July address at a celebration at Epping, New Hampshire. This address has especial interest as the earliest example of his public speaking that has been preserved. In many respects it was remarkable. He spoke with serious purpose of the principles and ideals of liberty. Thoughtful and prophetic, it suggested in passages and tone the Gettysburg Address. He said in part : "We honor our fathers most in honoring the great principles which they revered; we are their most worthy children when we cherish in our own bosoms the virtues they reverenced, when we acknowledge the power of the great truths they uttered, and for which they went out for voluntary martyrdom. It is a poor tribute to their memory that we laud their deeds, if the true heroism of those deeds does not dwell in us. Poor, indeed, is it that we speak here the praise of liberty unless we are able to cherish that same spirit of self-sacrifice which moved those heroes of the past. As we stand this day at their graves, let silence be the eloquence we utter. The spirit of the mighty past is here ; the heroic dead are here. They speak ; let us be still!'

He then traced the rise of the star of human improvement, finding the key that unlocks the destiny of the human race to be heroic devotion to truth. "Freedom is dangerous, and not to be enjoyed in passive ease and security. It puts man's higher powers to the test. Governments have usurped power, and human life and liberty have been baubles with which kings have played ; but it has been now established that there are principles more sacred than the divine right of kings. We stand among the nations asserting the highest principles of government under heaven, recognizing the rights of man more fully, a thousand years in advance of European civilization. We as a nation are but a handful of men in comparison to the myriad hosts of the earth who wait for the deliverance which we have reached, and if they ever reach it, it must be from the genius of our institutions."

He concluded with faith in the general diffusion of the great doctrine of universal brotherhood, and in the spirit of inquiry and freedom of thought.

This address is singularly impressive, coming from a young man in a preparatory school, and especially as indicating how early in life were established convictions that he firmly maintained to the end. It is also interesting to recall that thirty-one years later he was selected to speak for the great city in which he had cast his lot, on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which also coincided with the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of San Francisco itself.

The following year he graduated from Phillips Exeter, honored as class orator and also delivering a notable address on "The Dignity of Learning," before the Golden Branch Society. In this he declared that the highest objects of education are the influences it exerts on character. One striking sentence was : " Man is not educated if his moral and religious nature be not developed ; he is only mangled, and if he is great, he is great in his deformity."

On June 21, 1883, Dr. Stebbins enjoyed attending the Centennial of Phillips Exeter Academy. It must have been a satisfaction to him to be selected to deliver the oration.

He left Exeter with little money in his purse. When he reached Boston, it was reduced to three dollars, and he probably had recourse to one of his periodical drafts on his school-teaching bank. He had made friends who believed in him and wanted to help him, and he allowed them to make some small advances during his college and divinity school days ; but he was mainly self-supporting, and had no false pride as to the character of the work that offered. The story of his potato patch was long told at Harvard. He received from Dr. Noyes, of the Harvard Divinity School, permission to cultivate a vacant field on Oxford Street, near Kirkland Street, where a wing of the Agassiz Museum was afterwards built. It was a dry summer and a hard year for potatoes in Cambridge, but morning and night young Stebbins carried pailful

H HORATIO STEBBINS

after pailful of water from the college pump to supply his need. Other potatoes failed to mature, prices were correspondingly high, and the student-farmer cleared one hundred dollars from his potato patch.

Horatio Stebbins received his degree at Harvard in 1848. His friend Horace Davis, ten years younger, graduated in 1849. It mav be inferred that the nine years' priority represents about the time taken to overcome the handicap of having to earn his own way. How much it added to the fiber of his character cannot possibly be shown, but no one could know Dr. Stebbins without feeling that his strength and independence had been largely fostered by his circumstances.

There are evident advantages in postponing the study of theology until relative maturity. At the age of twenty-seven a man should have a ripened judgment and a firmer grasp on truth than is possible in boyhood. Such an experience as that of young Stebbins was doubtless a valuable preparatory course, but fortunately he was able to push on now without added delay. He was anxious to find his place in life and to do his work, but he was wise in not taking advantage of opportunities to cut short his training and accept a pulpit in advance of the completion of his preparatory studies. He resolutely stayed by the Harvard Divinity School, and regularly graduated in the class of 1851.

This was a momentous year in his life. The important question of location was first to be determined.

Evidently his promise was immediately recognized, and he was offered the choice of several desirable pulpits. One was in Boston and would have been taken by almost any graduate, but Horatio Stebbins had a way of thinking a thing out in all its bearings. He had, in the first place, a sincere purpose to render the best possible service. He felt that he was the best judge of his own qualifications and limitations, and that he was better fitted to a country pulpit than to one in a great city. He had known country people all his life, and could get at them and help them far better than the more sophisticated dwellers in the city. Therefore, after careful consideration, he accepted the call to Fitchburg. It was a good church in a manufacturing center about forty miles from Boston. He was ordained a minister and settled over the church on November 5, 1851. Before entering his ministry he married Mary Ann Fisher, of Northborough.

Miss Fisher was the daughter of Samuel Fisher and Mary Bowman, and the granddaughter of Joseph Bowman and Anna Valentine, representatives of families distinguished in the history of Massachusetts. One of her ancestors, the first of his name in this country, was Advocate- General of the Provinces of Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, and is buried in the burying-ground of King's Chapel, Boston, of which church he was a warden. Mary was a beautiful girl, endowed with vivacity and a playful sense of humor, but not robust in health.

Chapter II Fitchburg And Portland 1851-1864

Horatio Stebbins was ordained in Fitchburg as a minister of the Unitarian Church and installed as colleague of the Reverend Calvin Lincoln. The Reverend Andrew P. Peabody, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, preached the sermon, and the Reverend George R. Noyes, the Reverend Converse Francis, the Reverend John F. W. Ware, and others took part in the service. It was an auspicious beginning of a long ministerial career. His wife wrote a glowing account of it to his brother, Dr. Roderick Stebbins, then living at Friendship, New York :

"Horatio's ordination went off finely. The day was bright and clear — a beautiful autumn day. The services were peculiarly solemn and impressive, of the highest order. Everybody said so. The house was crowded. After the service the ministers and delegates, with their wives and all invited guests, went to the Fitchburg Hotel to dine. We stayed at the hotel until four o'clock, then came home to rest, in order to attend the levee which took place at the hotel in the evening. We went down about seven, and met nearly all the members of the parish. I never was at so large a party before. There were about four hundred there, and we were introduced to nearly all and shook hands with them. About nine we went down to the dining-room to refreshments. We had music and songs. It was a grand affair. It showed the good feeling of the people. They have all been very cordial. Nothing could be more so. Do not think, my dear brother, that we are carried away with all this. It is not so. We feel that we are among our friends, and feel grateful for their kindness and cordiality."

Her husband added a postscript : "I find myself with a whole village on my shoulders. There is a great parish here, numbering two hundred families at least, and among them a good sprinkling of educated and clear-headed men. I have got something to do to keep up to their expectations. Mary is a great help to me by her affectionate discretion and quick sense of propriety without referring to rules. My dear brother, not a day passes in which you do not make a part of our conversation. We think of you and talk of you by ourselves, for our hearts delight to turn toward you, and to love you.

" Your dear brother, Horatio Stebbins."

His wife closed the letter with a second postscript, giving an interesting side of the new life: "He married a couple the day after the ordination, for which he received five dollars. That belongs to me, of course, and now, if anything is wanted, why, he thinks I can get it, as I have money enough. I hope he'll get another job soon."

Fitchburg adjoins Leominster, where I spent most of my boyhood. It was about five miles from church to church, and the two ministers frequently exchanged pulpits. I found the tall young minister a most attractive visitor. He was impressive even to a boy. His appearance and manner were different from those of any one else. His was a new pattern, and he said things in his own way. I was always interested in his texts, which were unworn by common usage. I was not equal to following him closely, and I knew nothing about originality or personality, but I now see why he seemed distinctive and pleasing. He used rather long words, I thought, and he preached to men rather than boys, but I liked him, for he was genuine and strong.

There was poor connection between the towns, long before the day of street cars, and when the ministers exchanged they usually walked. Naturally they met as they went home, and they often stopped to talk. Years afterwards Dr. Stebbins related an experience. Amos Smith, our Leominster minister, was a man of rare kindliness, very good but bland, piously emotional, and not forceful. He was fond of Stebbins and wanted to help him. One day they had an earnest talk. As they parted, he stretched himself up on his toes, grasped his towering brother by his collar, and exclaimed : " Stebbins, Stebbins, you must try to be spiritual!" "While all the time," Dr. Stebbins said, "I was trying to hold myself in and be moderate in expressing my deep feeling." However, it is to be admitted that in earlier years his intellect seemed predominant. His clear, thorough thought was so evident that his feelings were less readily recognized, and the indwelling spirit was hidden as are the stars at midday. As he ripened he mellowed, and more and more he became the seer and the prophet — commandingly spiritual.

Dr. Stebbins was well liked by his Fitchburg parish, and declined a number of calls to leave them. One of these calls, in 1852, was from the church in San Francisco. It was a kind providence that left that particular church to be ministered to eight years later by Starr King, and also allowed Horatio Stebbins to grow and ripen for twelve years, gaining firm mastery of great principles that enabled him powerfully to supplement the brilliant leadership of King.

At the death of Dr. Stebbins the Springfield Republican related a characteristic incident of his Fitchburg ministry that throws light on how he captured his first followers. When he was pastor in Fitchburg, according to this narrative, he set out to interest a close-fisted farmer who had long been the terror of the clergymen of Fitchburg and the hard case of the town. Calling on this farmer one day, he found him at work in the hay-field, and drew him into conversation about farming, a subject with which his early experience had made him familiar.