My life and times, 1810-1899

Front matter

MY

LIFE AND TIMES,

RICHMOND, VA.: The Peesbyterian Committee of Publication.

Preface

looking backward over the troubled past; also forward into a glorious future. When the light of nature was dying and the light of the celestial city was dawning, he paused in the midst of Jordan to erect this monument to the glory of God, as a token to those who should come after. That pen which he had so diligently used in life to propagate and defend the truth, and so tenaciously held in his closing hours, dropped from the faithful hand only when the last summons came, and the ink was scarcely dry when his spirit took its flight. And yet he had not fully accomplished all that was planned. "Chapter XI., Providential Dealings — Full Account of Revision," it will be noted, has been left "unwritten." The decree had gone forth, "Seal up those things . . . and write them not,"

Although this book was written during the closing years of its venerable author, yet his mental faculties had been most remarkably preserved ; so that we have the result of his fully ripened powers, chastened by affliction and thoroughly disciplined by long years of faithful application and diligent use. This consideration has an important bearing upon that very large section of the book, embracing two chapters on "The Controversies of My Times." The bent of his mind, the many years spent in the faithful, earnest, and diligent study of Ecclesiastical Polity, to the teaching of which in the Theological Seminary he had devoted many years in the very prime of life, furnished him with unusual qualifications for this calm review of those controversies. Truly, he seemed to have been qualified and called of God to write these chapters before he could say, "I have finished my course." This feature of the work has been noticed by others.

The Rev. Dr. Hazen, of Richmond, Ya., has written: "Its chief value will be found in the light which it throws upon the critical periods of the history of the Presbyte-

PREFACE. 5

rian Church during the century. No man was more familiar with the notable controversies of the whole period, nor better able to give the history of them ; no man more fully understood the causes leading to the division of the old church; and no man was more active in the organization of the Southern Presbyterian Church and its agencies than was Dr. Adger ; and no one has given to all questions that have stirred the church, from its organization to the present time, a more earnest and intelligent consideration than he. . . . So that there is need of just such a review of the history of those times, with the testimony of one who, as much as any one, was familiar with the inside history of the Church."

The Rev. Dr. Palmer, of New Orleans, La., says of the work : "Four or five of the earlier chapters of the proposed volume were kindly submitted to my perusal by the revered author, which led me to urge upon him the completion and publication of the work. Dr. Adger was distinguished for the honesty and earnestness of his convictions ; and as the last years of his prolonged life were given to the task, the public has every assurance of his fidelity to the truth in the statement of all the issues in the controversies of his day. Its exceeding timeliness at the present juncture cannot be overestimated."

Aside, however, from this feature of the volume, there will be a peculiar charm to many readers in turning these pages and tracing the developments of God's providence in the "Life" of the author, from his cradle to his grave. Surely, it will be edifying to the pious heart of the devout reader to note the windings of this subtle stream of a life so full of various incidents, of abounding grace, and of triumphant faith. To the young, it will be a tonic ; to the aged, a cordial ; to those still battling for truth, it will serve to gird them anew for the strife, with unalterable resolve to fight on till death shall secure a crown of vie-

PREFACE.

tory over all falsehood, in the presence of him who is the King of Truth, the Head of the Church, and the Saviour of Sinners. There are many thousands of God's dear children shut in by the hand of bodily infirmity ; to such, what treasures of joy may be discovered in this unveiling of the life of one whom the Father loved, and whom therefore he chastened.

Jas. L. Martin.

Palmyra, Mo.

Contents

CHAPTEE I. Page.

1689—1810.

Chapter II. 1810—1822

CHAPTEE III.

1824—1828.

CHAPTEE IV.

Theological Seminary Life. — Our Marriage and Sailing to Smyrna. — My Wife's Ancestry, ... 70 1829—1834.

CHAPTEE V.

CHAPTEE VI.

Visit to America for a Year, but My Eeturn was Not

Allowed, and What Followed, . . . .130

1846— 1859.

CHAPTEE VII.

FrvE Years' Work as Missionary to the Negroes ln

Charleston, 164

1847— 1851.

CONTENTS.

chapter vm: PAGE

Retirement from Negro Work. — Dr. Girardeau Succeeds. — Eyes Recuperate from Five Years' Farm LrFE. — Called to Theological Seminary, . . 201 1852—1857.

CHAPTER IX.

Literary Work. — Writing. — Editing — Publishing. —

Seminary Life. — Calvin's Institutes, . . .227

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XL

Proyidental Dealings. — Full Account of the Revision, 350 (Unwritten.)

CHAPTER XII.— Part I.

1801—1861.

CHAPTER Xn.— Part II.

Controversies of Science with the Word of God, . . 412 1884—1891.

APPENDIX A.

The Condition of Missions Among the Armenians ln the

APPENDIX B.

The Armenian Crisis ln Turkey. — The Massacre of 1894, 673

MY LIFE AXD TIMES.

CHAP TEE I.

Our Axcestry.

1689-1810.

MY TAT HER claimed that our ancestors fought at Derry. He was speaking to his daughter Jane Anne, who was ambitious of an honorable ancestry, and he said, "Your ancestors fought at Deny till they were lousy, and that is honor enough for you." He was not a man to make such a claim without knowing well the grounds on which he based it. He may have intended that this honor came to us in his father's line ; or that it came to us in his mother's line ; or that it came to us in both. He may also have intended that it came to us in the line of our mother's ancestors. It is possible that each one of these lines was represented among the heroic defenders of Londonderry. There are people of all three of these lines now in both Antrim and Derry. My grandmother was a Crawford, and she had connections living in Columbia who could trace the family history back through five or six generations. This might bring them nearly or quite back to the time Londonderry was besieged. Macaulay tells us that the inhabitants were Anglo-Saxon, but with the Englishry, as he calls them, were a good many Scotch. At the commencement of the siege, whilst the authorities hesitated, thirteen young apprentices, all of Scotch descent, took on them to close the gates against a detachment from the Irish army who had appeared and demanded entrance. That night messengers were sent to the Protestants of the neighboring counties to come to the city's defence. Hundreds of horse and foot obeyed immediately. These of course were

MY EIFE AND TIMES.

Scotch people as well as English, and we may be sure there were Crawfords among them, for the garrison within shortly became seven thousand arms-bearing men. "But," says Macaulay (Vol. III., p. 153), a the whole world could not have furnished seven thousand men better qualified to meet a terrible emergency, with clear judgment, dauntless valor, and stubborn patience. They were all zealous Protestants." He also says (page 113), "They were indeed not all of one country, nor of one church;" but, according to him, "one common antipathy bound all these Protestants together — an antipathy to the Irish race and the Popish religion."

But in 16S9 amongst the reinforcements assembled at Chester under Schomberg for the relief of Londonderry and ready to depart for Ireland there were thousands of one class of men who had more of the antipathy just mentioned than either English or Scotchmen. Macaulay tells us (page 325) that four regiments accompanied Schomberg from amongst the French Kefugees, who fled to London after the Revocation of the Edict of Xantes. These were three regiments of foot soldiers and one of cavalry. The cavalry regiment was raised by Schomberg himself. The foot regiments were raised chiefly by the Marquess of Ruvigny. His abilities, his experience, and his munificent kindness made him the undisputed chief among the refugees. He was himself eighty years of age, but his two sons, both men of eminent courage, devoted their swords to the service of William. The younger son, who bore the name of Caillemote, was appointed colonel of one of the Huguenot regiments of foot. The two other regiments of foot were commanded by La Melloniere and Cambon, officers of high reputation.

It is respecting these French exiles that Macaulay says they were among the best troops under Schomberg's command. He says (page 337) that "the dislike with which the most zealous English Protestant regarded the House of Bourbon and the Church of Rome was a lukewarm feeling when compared with that inextinguishable hatred which glowed in the bosom of the persecuted, dragooned, expatriated Calvinist of Languedoc. The Irish had already remarked that the French heretic neither gave

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nor took quarter." Accordingly we find that at the battle of the Boyne, where William commanded, when Schomberg gives the word, and Solmes' Blues move into the river followed by Londonderry and Enniskillen, it is Caillemot who crosses next at the head of his long column of French Refugees, followed by the main body of English infantry and the Danes.

~No^Y we know that some five hundred thousand of Louis' best subjects fled to Holland and to England when he revoked the Edict of Xantes. Many of them settled in London. These exiles carried with them remarkable industry, economy, and peculiar skill in various mechanical arts. Many of them were French manufacturers of various branches. It can hardly be doubted that some of Schomberg' s soldiers would remain in Ireland after the close of the war by the flight of James to Paris. These would link to Ireland some of their brethren whom they had left behind in London. How natural that many of these should prefer to the crowded streets of London a residence in the beautiful region of Xorth Ireland, when they and their brethren who had served under King William would be sure to find a warm welcome among their English and- Scotch fellow Protestants. And how natural that thus many more should be attracted thither from France itself to set up silk and linen factories in Ulster.

The Rev. Dr. Henry Quigg, a Presbyterian minister of Conyers, Ga., is a native of the Xorth of Ireland, and writes me that he heard a great deal about the siege of Derry from his mother when he was a boy. Her people were engaged in that terrible conflict. Dr. Quigg has long been an earnest student of the history of Ulster. He is a very high authority in respect to Irish antiquity, and he says that "it is very certain that Schomberg, who fell at the battle of the Boyne, brought over a large body of French Protestant soldiers, who fought the battles of William III., of glorious fame and immortal memory, in Ireland. Very many of these French remained in Ireland, as they had no country to call their own." "The persecuted Protestants came to Ulster in great numbers and established manufactories of various kinds in the counties of Antrim, Down, and Derry. Leister became

MY LIFE AND TIMES.

the gathering ground of those persecuted for conscience* sake in the different parts of Europe, but specially in France and Holland. They engaged in all kinds of manufacturing, which I arn satisfied embraced linen as well as silk."

Dr. Quigg speaks of the settlement of the refugees in Ulster about two hundred years ago. We might naturally expect to find that some descendants of these people should still be found in that province. Their names, especially, and their other characteristics should point them out. It is thus in South Carolina with the descendants of the Huguenots. Accordingly there is in Ulster at this day a considerable number of persons whose name has as fully the Trench shape as the well-known name Huger. But in our country neither that French name nor many others like it, as for instance Legare, have retained the French pronunciation. It is just so with the name of the persons in Ireland whom I refer to. It is spelt in three differ en t ways, all pronounced exactly alike, but not pronounced in French fashion. All this looks as if the Ulster people were in this case handling the name of foreigners. The name referred to I have never found either in English or Scotch history. It looks distinctively like a French name, and it may point out the descendants of French people. It certainly does not point out the descendants of English people, nor yet the descendants of Scotch people, and certainly those it does point out are not the descendants of the Irish. In Ulster this name is sometimes spelt Edger, Adgar, Adger, but it is always pronounced one way. The argument then for our partial French origin stands thus. It seems to be certain that two hundred years ago there were many French Protestants settled in Ulster. It also seems to be certain that they established linen manufactures there. It seems to be probable that there are many descendants of these people there who still retain their French name, and in some degree their blood. But it is absolutely certain that after the lapse of eighty years, that is, at least one hundred and twenty years ago, there was a linen manufactory and bleaching green owned and operated in Dunean, County Antrim, Province of Ulster, and that the owner stamped that French

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name upon the linen lie produced. Xow that man was certainly my grandfather, James Adger, and to make the conclusion still more complete and positive, my father is known to have claimed that his ancestors came over from France to Ireland. He said to my sister Jane Anne, "My people were not Scotch ; they were French."

The fourth and the fifth statements just made I cannot set aside. The fifth is testimony from ample intelligence and unimpeachable veracity. Yet, although one element of the paternal blood was really French, it always paid due honor to its sister element, which was Scotch-Irish. I remember well how great was my father's admiration of William II. Crawford, of Georgia. He was certainly a very great man, filled many important offices for the State of Georgia, and but for a coalition in the House of Representatives at Washington, between the friends of his opposing candidates, Clay and Adams, he would have been elected President of the United States. He was beyond all comparison my father's preference, which I have often heard him express. But no doubt the name and blood of the Crawf ords had something to do with this.

It was in the year 1838 that my father took me and my brother James to the north of Ireland. The places I remember best are Belfast, The Giants' Causeway, Banclallstown, and eight miles from Bandallstown, Dunean. I remember also Toome Bridge, one mile from Dunean, with its little hotel where the sign that hung out in front had on it the picture of a bloody hand cut off at the wrist. But I do not remember what chieftain's hand or what bloody scene it represented. Toome Bridge is famous for its eels, and riding past there in the morning we engaged lodgings for the night and supper. Such a supper of Irish eels and Irish potatoes, both of finest quality, I never ate before or since. But my father's main object was that we might go and visit our grandfather's grave at Dunean.

My grandfather was, as said before, a linen manufacturer. He had his bleaching green at Dunean. The original stamp which he put on the linen he made is now in the possession of Ellison Adger Smyth, given to him by my sister J ane Anne. It is made of a plate of solid brass, into which are cut the names James Adger, Dunean, Antrim, and it has a nicely turned wooden handle. This stamp put into blue ink was then pressed by the hand upon every piece of linen cloth. There is a memorandum on a little, old yellow fragment of paper, by whom written does not appear, which reads thus, "James Adger died March the 25th day, half an hour after six in the morning, aged 41 years, Died March 25th, 1783." On the back of this little memorandum is written in my father's hand, "When J. Adger died." He "left his widow well to do." These are the names of his children : Jane, who married Charles Kidd ; Betsey, and three sons, William, James and Robert.

This whole visit of mine to Ireland, including Dunean, and the grandfather's grave, is indistinctly impressed on my memory. I had left my work at Smyrna, which was uppermost in my mind. Moreover, I was looking forward to a separation for years from my wife, whose health required her to return with my parents to Charleston. I prefer, therefore, to borrow what follows from the narrative of my nephew, Ellison Adger Smyth, who visited the home of our ancestors last summer (1896). He says, "After leaving the railroad station at Randallstown, and seeing no teams, I turned back to ask questions of a policeman. Quite a crowd had gotten off the train, and not finding the officer, I went up to two men who had gotten off, and asked about Moneynick and then about Dunean and the Adgers. The elder gentleman, whose name is Frederick McCullough, who was well-dressed and appeared to be a man of culture and refinement, said he lived in Dunean village, and his mother was an Adger, and his father was the late rector of the Episcopal Church at Dunean. I said to him, 'My mother was an Adger/ 'Indeed V he said, 'and how so V I told him, and he said, 'Yes,' he knew some of the family lived in the Southern States. He urged me to stay all night with him, and offered to show me all around, and hunt up my kin. The other man, aged about thirty-five, was John C. Stewart, who had married McCullough' s sister's daughter, a granddaughter of an Adger. In reply to my question McCullough said the name was spelt Ad gar, Edger and Adger,

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all one family, and all pronounced as we do. I hired a jaunting ear. and Mr. Stewart went with us, first to Aloneyniek. and thence to Dunean. There we visited, first, the Presbyterian church and graveyard, but found no tombstones over seventy-live years old. The church was a modern building in tine order, and Stewart said here the great Dr. Cook was ordained. TTe went on then to r he Episcopal church, a venerable stone edifice, but much smaller, and Stewart, who is a Presbyterian, says the congregation is small. The church-yard is very large, and has been the burial place for many generations. Here on one side, near the church. I found the Aclger burial ground. Xear the centre of the group I found this :

HERE LIES THE BODY OF

JAMES ADGEK, who Died March '25th, 17S3,

AGED -41 TEAES.

"The stone is erect, in good condition, the marble fine, seven or eight inches thick. The grave is sodded over, and in good repair. The old graveyard is much overgrown with grass and tall weeds, and we had to make our way through this growth in order to find the stone which we sought. The figure S in the year 17 S3 is the only part in the inscription hard to make out. There were some weeds on the grave itself ; these I cut off, and left the grave in good shape."

He adds. "On one side of your grandfather's grave was an old stone to -John Edger, who died 1701. aged sixty-three years: next to that Robert Edger. 1702. On the other side of your grandfather's tomb is one to John Edger, of Oargan, 1575. aged ninety years, and his wife Xancy. 1855. aged ninety-one years."'

Here. then. Ellison Adger Smyth found two gravestones bearing the name of Edger, one of which lacks only four and the other only rive of being two hundred years old. One of these men died at the age of sixty-three ; perhaps the other may have been of the same age. Xow, the Revocation of the Edict of Xantes was in 1685, sixteen years before the death of one, and seventeen before the death of the other of these men. Thev mav both of tliem have been Huguenot refugees, who fought at the siege of Derry in 1689, and subsequently with William of Orange at the battle of the Boyne. My nephew said Mr. McCullough laughed at the idea of his mother's people being French. He said they were all from Scotland. But Mr. McCullough might easily be mistaken on this point. How many people in the upper part of South Carolina could tell where their ancestors were living two hundred and twenty years ago ? If I should ask any one of them of more than ordinary intelligence to tell me whether his great-great-great-grandfather in 1675 lived in England, or in Scotland, or in Wales, or in France, or in Holland, he would certainly laugh more than Mr. McCullough did because I was asking him what he would consider such a silly question. I cannot suppose that much more historical intelligence prevails to-day in the north of Ireland than we find here in the north part of South Carolina amongst our Scotch-Irish population.

My nephew next sought for the old Dunean Flax Mill. He says, "The little Stone Mill, built partly of stone and partly of concrete, is still there. The name given it by everybody is 'The Old Mill.' The place where the wheel stood can be pointed out, and the tail race is separate and distinct from the stream ; it is arched over and the road passes over it. and over the bridge across what they call Dunean River, but what we would call a creek. The people all say that the old tail race has been there for over a hundred years. It is still left undisturbed. Xo water passes through it. but it leads to the river backing up under the mill building. It is eight or ten feet wide, and a man can walk under it by stooping.''

"The house is now occupied by Patrick Mclntyre, a blacksmith. He showed me the old dam site and tail race, and where the wheel was placed, and said that his father before him had lived in this building for over sixty years. "

Moneynick, where my father was born Xovember 2, 1777, is now a very small hamlet, with hardly a decent dwelling house, although it has two little flax mills, spinning the flax, but not weaving. They are run by steam, and the steam is got by burning the straw of the plant.

OUR ANCESTRY.

Dnnean is still a respectable village. My nephew says, "It has two churches, a school-house, and one store and a settlement of farmers' houses built of stone. In fact, I did not see a wooden building in Ireland that I remember. Most are stone or concrete. Some families live there, but spelling the name Edger."

His account of the Old Mill at Dunean ends with this statement, "All the linen sheetings, which are the plain linen goods, not table cloths, that I have seen, are stamped in blue with a little hand stamp, like the one I have. For years, however, printed tickets with pictures on them have been gradually introduced for all cloths. The linen mills and most of the cotton mills have stone floors, and the help I saw, fully seventy-five per cent, were barefooted in the mill."

After the death of my grandfather, his widow married again. Her second husband's name was Robert Rodgers. He had been the foreman of the Dunean Mill. He soon ran through her property, being too fond of whiskey.

In a little more than ten years, viz., 1793, our grandmother left Ireland for this country, accompanied by her two sons James and Robert, her daughter Betsey, also her intemperate husband Rodgers, and their four little girls, Esther, Margaret, Mary and Isabella, the last named being an infant. They had a very long passage, as was usual in those days, namely, sixteen weeks and three days, arriving in ]\ T ew York January, 1794. The other son, William Adger, had married young and emigrated previously, coming to South Carolina. His wife's maiden name was McCrory, which is the Irish or Scotch-Irish way of writing Rodgers or Rogers. I do not know, but suspect that my grandmother's second husband belonged to that family.

The voyage from the other side of the Atlantic was a very different affair one hundred years ago from what it is now. Inferior ships, inferior navigators, very far inferior accommodations for passengers, and a long passage always, and great suffering. Food and water always ran short, and sometimes gave out entirely. I heard my father tell of a pig being slaughtered on the deck and how

IS a rain-storm coming on soon after, all efforts were gladly made to catch every drop that fell, and some of the water they were thankful in their great extremity to drink showed signs of the pig's blood, and bristles too.

On the third day after their arrival in New York the infant Isabella died and was buried in what used to be Dr. Spring's church-yard, the old "Brick Church," where now, I think, the Xew York City Post Office stands. Of the other three little girls, who all lived and grew up, Esther married in Fairfield District, S. C, where her brother William lived. At his house all three of them seem to have spent some time while children, or growing up girls. Esther's husband was William Herron, a respectable planter. She raised a large family and lived to be ninety-four or ninety-five years old. The other two girls. Margaret and Mary, went to a wealthy Uncle Kodgers of theirs, living at Kinderhook, Columbia county, Xew York, and there they were married, Margaret to Charles Whiting and Mary to James Clark, both respectable merchants and partners in business. Margaret lived to be more than seventy, her only daughter married an eminent lawyer of Albany, X. Y., named Reynolds, and has raised a large family. Mary lived to be about as old as her sister Esther, and has two daughters still living at this date (Xovember, 1S96), both widows, one, Mrs. Shaw, in Xew York City, and the other, Mrs. Bain, living at Kinderhook.

My L ncle Robert Adger died while yet comparatively a young man. He had two daughters. Xeither survives at this day. My father took them both into his family when they were left orphans. The older one married my cousin William Ellison.

My uncle, William Adger, became wealthy, raised a large family and died an old man. Some of his descendants bearing the name of Adger are living in Louisiana, on the Red River.

Their sister Betsey married Dr. Charles Whitlaw, a celebrated physician and naturalist, whose public lectures on botany possibly some few very old people in Charleston may now remember. She died early, and lies buried, I believe, in the Scotch church-yard (First Presbyterian), Charleston.

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Having brought this history clown so far, I must go back (asking my grandmother Rodgers' pardon), and speak more fully of her. Her maiden name was Margaret Crawford. I have been told by one who knew of her when she was my grandfather Adger's widow (Mr. James Black, of County Antrim) that she bore the title all through the country of ''the handsome widow." Handsome or not, I know she was godly, which is of far greater consequence. How often in my early childhood have I seen her at secret prayer in her bed-room at my father's house in Charleston. Xo doubt I was one of those who inherited a blessing thus. My father, I am convinced, was her darling son, and her Jemmy, as I often heard her call him, must have been truly a good boy.

The Xew York to which so many North-Irish emigrated was, even one hundred years ago, very different from what now bears that name. John Stephenson, inventor of the American horse-car, who is just my age, and was born, therefore, about 1810, says the ''difference is amazing, and it looks like a fairy tale." He says that in his boyhood ''Xew York City consisted of just a few small villages. The boys of one hamlet fared badly if found within the precincts of another, and on Saturday afternoons the boys of two rival hamlets would face each other on either side of a pit or cut and fight one another with stones." Such was the place to which my grandmother, with her family of seven children, the oldest boy some fifteen years old, came in January, 1791. She had lost all, or nearly all, her property. A little shop she essayed to keep, ''her Jemmy" being her mainstay. After awhile, as I have learned from a letter of my father's addressed to his brother AA^illiam in South Carolina, Robert Rogers reformed, and then it seems that he and my grandmother had a grocery store, and Jemmy went to a trade. AYhereabouts "the little shop" or ''the grocery store" stood cannot be said ; very probably in that one of the hamlets lowest down the town. Doubtless they have each been succeeded by some eight or ten-story building, which constitutes the half of a magnificent square. In those days Xew York was in no respect superior to Charleston — decidedly, if I am not greatly mistaken, its inferior. Alany circirmstances combined to send Xew York to the top ; among them the tariff policy of the United States government, and the course of the Gnlf Stream.