Way, truth, and life. Sermons...

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Preface

There are three persons who, better than any others, could have told the simple, uneventful story of Mr. Staples's life. Of these his wife stands first. She would not have me say it, but I must. And I regret unspeakably that any distrust of her own ability or fitness should have prevented her doing what I am sure she would have done most perfectly. As I have talked with her about her husband, her appreciation of his character and work has seemed so perfect, her sympathy with all his hopes and plans so lively and profound, that I never shall be reconciled to her unwillingness to be his biographer and the editress of his writings. I am only partly reconciled by the consideration that she would not have told, as I must tell, or be no true biographer of him, what noble furtherance her husband found in her, what intellectual and spiritual companionship, what rest in weariness, what patient cheer in sickness and in death.

The other two persons are Carlton Staples, the brother of Augustus, and Robert Collyer, his friend. Of these, the brother, at an early day, surrendered his claim on this task to the friend, who went on year after year hoping against hope that the burden would be lifted a little and opportunity be granted for telling what a man was here. But the new years have only brought new cares, and at last he has felt himself obliged

VI PREFACE.

to relinquish all hope of doing that which, with an easier yoke, would be the first-fruits of his leisure. And here again I am only partly reconciled when I remember that Carlton Staples would not have told how well he played a brother's part, and that Robert Collyer would not have written how large a place he himself filled in his friend's thought and life.

Among Mr. Staples's Brooklyn friends the desire for a brief memoir of him, together with a few of his sermons, has not diminished with the lapse of years. At their request and Mrs. Staples's I have prepared this volume. Should it meet with their approval, I shall be satisfied, for it has already met with hers. I even dare to hope that a few persons who did not know Mr. Staples when he was living may come to know him in these pages. I have tried to make such a sketch that those who read it shall declare, " This is no eulogy ; it is the true story of a man's life." My gladness that my task is ended is tinged with sorrow ; for the many hours of sweet communion I have had with this " son of man in heaven " have rewarded me a thousand times over for my easy toil. T W C

Brooklyn, November 25, 1869.

Contents

SKETCH.

PAGE

I. Youth and early Education • . 9

I. Youth And Early Education

Nahor Augustus Staples was born in Mendon, Mass., August 24th, 1830. Jason Staples, his father, was born in December, 1799; ms mother, Phila Taft, only a month later, January, 1800. Both family names appear on the first taxlist of the' town, that of 1685, and both names figure largely in the history of the place. In 1868 Carlton Staples, the brother of Augustus, delivered an address at Mendon, commemorative of the incorporation of the town two hundred years before; and the poet of the occasion made tender and affectionate reference to Augustus, who, could he have been spared, would have added much to the joy of the occasion, and would have rejoiced in it mightily. For, as Carlton shows in his address, the traditions of the town are of no mean sort. It has always had a great deal of character and individuality. Once, too, it had magnificent proportions, but of these it has long since been shorn. A sad commentary on the " good old times," in which so many have such faith, are some of the traditions. In 1730, there was a long/ and desperate struggle over the location of the new meeting-house. But at the raising a

IO N. A. STAPLES.

great effort was made to erase old differences, and a barrel of rum was voted and disposed of to inaugurate an era of good feeling. But the next day a town meeting had to be called, " to find out who by cutting had damnified the meeting-house," an attempt having been made with axes in the night to undo the labor of the day. The first minister of the place was a Mr. Emerson, the ancestor, seven generations back, of Ralph Waldo Emerson, with ministers all the way between them. Several of his successors were men of force and character ; and in a time when the minister was much more of a social influence than at present, did much toward giving to the town a manly spirit. Like Jerusalem of old, the town is " beautiful for situation ;" occupying a high position, overlooking lovely hills in every direction. Especially pleasant is the out-look from the farm-house where Jason Staples lived, and where his children were born to him. Augustus always took a hearty pride in the physical beauty of the place ; all his life long went back to it with joy, and revelled in its walks and drives and views, and longed at such times to have his friends with him; would write them glowing letters, some of which, to Collyer, for example, are full of pine-scent and the smell of the ground. Here he would bring his wife, and never tire of driving her about the country, pointing out every spot that was associated with his early life, giving one reminiscence after another in his dreamy way, while the old horse, about which he used to joke his father a good deal, would drone along, often stopping to browse by the way without its being noticed. There was the rock he crept under the first time he tried to swear — he wanted to swear that he might feel manly, and he thought that God's wrath couldn't reach him underneath the rock. There was Mendon Pond, a

YOUTH AND EARLY EDUCATION. II

beautiful sheet of water ; its pleasant banks where he had fished and bathed; its dim, solemn recollections of the eldest brother whose lifeless body was brought home from there one bright summer morning. There was the oldest sister's farm and home, where every thing was upon such a generous scale — in such order and complete repair, and so full of solid comfort; and the sister with her large, tender soul, always gentle with him, and ready to shield him from every annoyance. He never forgot his sense of desolation when this sister was married and went away from home ; how he stole from home and went to her house, how she took him to her room, and soothed and comforted his rebellious little heart. There was the dark wood that had to be passed in going to his sister's house, and which his youthful imagination peopled with " gorgons and chimeras dire." There was the little school-house where he first went to school, and the big school-house where he did his first teaching, and got his first deep sense of power. All these associations, not very significant for others, were marvelously so for him, and grew more so at the last, when his heart went out as never before to all the old places and old friends.

Of seven children Augustus was the fifth. After him there came another Henry to take the place of the Henry who was drowned ; and another Raaiel to take the place of one who died. It was no. easy living that the old people got from their farm. But there was more love than money in the house, and an amount of intelligence far in excess of the amount of culture, though both parents were exceedingly fond of books, and read as much of a good sort as their busy life would let them. The mother is still living, a tall, straight, noble-looking woman, as queenly a woman in her make as one would meet in a day's journey, a predestined mother of prophets, wonderfully fresh at the end of her appointed three score years and ten, and well named Phila. From her Augustus inherited many a noble trait. The father died six years ago. In one of his letters Augustus speaks of him as " one of Nature's poets." In another, written after his death, he says :

" It will be a disappointment to me, as long as I live, to think that father did not come to visit us at Brooklyn. I have looked forward to your coming together ever since we have been there, and then to think that he had made up his mind to come, and then was disappointed, seems very hard.

" Father's life has been a very hard one in many respects. He has been a hard-working man, and has seen a great deal of trouble and anxiety, and has borrowed a great deal of unnecessary trouble. Still, the trouble which he borrowed was just as real and just as hard to bear as any other. Let us be glad that he lived long enough to see the fruits of his hard work, and to taste the pleasure of having all the money he needed, and, above all, of seeing a large family grow up to prosperity and usefulness. And yet, in spite of all that father has suffered, few men have enjoyed more, and few men have got more good out of life. He was for the most part cheerful, and always in the enjoyment of perfect health. He loved good society, and found a world of pure and elevated enjoyment in the hosts of good books which he was always reading. I have known few men who improved so fast in every way, as he has done for the last few years. It seems as if he might have enjoyed the next ten years more than any others of his whole life. Still his strength was failing, and he could not have enjoyed life after he had become unable to work. His great soul and noble mind never found half room enough to grow in here ; they will now blossom out in all their beauty. We have every thing to be proud and grateful for in our father's life. It was so pure, and true, and high-minded, and honest, amid the most trying circumstances, that I can not think of it without an emotion of pride and thankfulness."

Even more worthy of remark than the particular traits here mentioned, are certain others. Says one who knew him well :

"He was a remarkable man. I never heard him give expression to a narrow thought ; full of real sentiment, he was fastidiously afraid of any thing bordering upon sentimentality. His feelings were very tender, and he would manoeuvre in all sorts of ways, and put himself to a great deal of inconvenience to hide them. He was singularly unselfish and true. Had the most downright integrity of soul ; could scarcely bear to be in the presence of a person whose character he disliked. Was perfectly independent of the opinions of others, and at the same time gratified with any true appreciation of himself. He did not go to church, because he could not hear any thing that pleased or benefited him. He was truly progressive. His sons grew up to his level, but never got beyond him."

In personal appearance Augustus was part father and part mother. But on the spiritual side he was in most respects his father over again. He was like him in his love of fun, and many a good joke did they crack between them. He was like him in his independence, and in his sturdy and perpetual discountenance of all meanness and wrong.

He was a wild, wayward boy, full to overflowing with life and energy, mischievous, and saturated with fun and frolic, much given as in later years to imitation and mimicry, for which he had great natural talent. This talent, of course, made him many friends. But it must also have made him enemies. Then he regretted bitterly his use of it. He could bear enmity when it was drawn down upon him by any righteous indignation on his part, but not when it was the result of his thoughtlessness and folly. He was not useful or industrious as a boy. though he could work well on great occasions, but had a talent for shirking work and making plausible excuses. But his idleness was Horace's strenua inertia, earnest idleness. He might shirk the task imposed on him by others, but he was always pursuing some plan or idea of his own. He had an intense love of out-door life, and lived among the woods and hills a pensive, brooding sort of life, in strange contrast with the hilarity of his conduct with his fellows, and with much deeper joy. From every other sort of enjoyment except music, no matter how deeply he entered into it at the time, he would come away dissatisfied; but from his silent communings with nature he arose refreshed and strengthened. But nature served him other purposes than this. He had a great interest in all kinds of machinery, and was quick to catch the essential principle of any new invention, and embody it in rough imitations. The banks of the little stream that runs by his early home used to be lined with his dams turning aside the water to test the power and skill of his various contrivances. Adverse to all stated tasks, apparently because he lacked the nervous energy necessary for long-continued physical exertion, he could yet do harder work than others of his age, run faster, climb higher, and perform many difficult and daring feats. The secret of all this was ambition to excel or win the praise of others. He was, perhaps, too willing to attribute all the successes of his early life to the spirit of rivalry and the love of commendation. As he grew older he affirmed that but for his ambition he should have thrown himself away. But his deep

YOUTH AND EARLY EDUCATION.

*5 instincts of purity and spirituality, his noble dissatisfaction with trivial and unworthy pursuits, were, no doubt, greater helpers than he reckoned them. It was a characteristic of his whole life to underrate the motives of his conduct. For his undoubted self-assertion and occasional apparent egotism he made full atonement by an ever-present central modesty that nourished his character at its roots, and made him deal more sternly with himself than others could possibly deal with him. His dislike of farm- work drove him to shoe-making. But his recollections of that quiet, thoughtful occupation were never pleasant. He had a grudge against the time he spent at it as so much time lost, that might have been spent in the pursuit of knowledge. But he made friends at this time whom he never afterward failed to appreciate ; and who shall say that this occupation did not foster, through its opportunities for meditation, a longing for that larger life from which he afterward looked back on it with indignation ?

He was always a good scholar and stood well in the winter schools, where also he had the same dislike of regular tasks that characterized his physical activity. It was not till he was about eighteen that he began to struggle for a liberal education. Before this he went to school for a short time at Medfield ; and a letter now before me of that date would recall to many a boy his first school days away from home, the first dangerous conceit of knowledge, the arrival of the box from home with a mother's love well stitched and ironed into the humble wardrobe, a father's - thoughtfulness taking the shape of apples and the indispensable, too little valued, and too evanescent dollars. The real start was at the formal School at Westfield, whither he went, through the persistent and disinterested efforts of his brother Carlton, in August, 1848, with a view to prepare himself for teaching. Once there, his desire for culture increased rapidly, and he made rapid progress. At the close of his first term he taught a winter school at Uxbridge, and afterward went back again. On entering the school, he began to keep a journal, and with various intermissions continued doing so until his death. For the most part the intermissions correspond with terms of physical depression, or with periods of unsatisfactory work. When the journal is kept at all it is kept honestly. Nothing is written with the ulterior view of having it one day come to light. It begins meagerly and superficially enough, but soon broadens and deepens. The first series of entries only lasts about ten days and ends with a " Normal walk," preceded by " a feast of water-melons," the whole affair being recorded as " the best kind of a time."

But what is the meaning of the next entry ? The date of it is October 8th. 1849. A change has come over the spirit of his dream. He has experienced religion ! Painfully amusing are the entries in his journal and the letters home for the few months following. They make one's cheeks burn with shame for the dear boy, and with righteous indignation at the system that could instill such morbid fancies and hypocrisies into a fresh young heart. Here are a few samples of the " perilous stuft " that he indulged in at this interesting period :

"Friday, October $th, 1849. — I have now in contemplation the unworthiness ot such a sinful creature as myself, for now that my Heavenly Father has forgiven my sins, I have sinned once more against his holy name. This day I have done a little of something to save souls."

" Wednesday, October iot/1. — I find it hard to resist the devil that he may flee from me. He has so long had dominion over me that to prepare my heart for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is hard."

"Monday, i$th. — O my unbelief! I am so prone to sin ; I have such a wicked heart that I can not lay hold of the promises of God as I ought. I am considering the propriety of joining the church."

" Tuesday, 23d. — I am nothing in the sight of God. My heart is so desperately wicked that my mind is continually wandering away from him."

"Friday, November 2d. — I have neglected writing in my memoranda on account of many doubtful and dark moments. Next Sabbath I expect to be baptized in the name of my glorious Redeemer."

"March 24th, 1850. — I almost shrink from the idea of placing my thoughts and feelings on paper, and well I may, for more than three months have elapsed since I last performed this useful and interesting ceremony. [Ceremony indeed ! What has become of the fresh-hearted boy we knew a year ago ?] And during this time God only knows the amount of my sins. I am not deserving the name of Christian. I have backslidden indeed. My closet duties are neglected. I can not enumerate the amount or tell the enormity of my sins. I will if possible form stronger resolutions and nobler determinations.

Appended to this entry are six resolutions. They begin drearily enough, but get better as they go on :

" Resolved, First. To read at least one chapter in the Bible every day ; beginning at the book of Genesis, and so on in order. Also [naughty suspicion of the unprofitableness of certain genealogies and imprecations] to read other chapters more peculiarly suited to my feelings."

The second and third resolves are in the cloud-region of 2 pietism ; in the fourth he comes down to the solid earth, and keeps there till the end :

" Fourth. Never to feel proud.

" Fifth. Never to tell what I have done, or to quote myself as good authority.

" Sixth. To refrain from unnecessary conversation."

And here the journal stops again, and is not resumed until the life at Westfield is all over. In this last entry the reader will perceive many tokens of returning health and sanity. Nothing had been written for some time before and nothing was written for some time after. But for about a year he kept up this "big play-actorism under God's earnest sky." Yet it was not all acting. Most of the thoughts, the very words in fact, that disfigure his journal and letters at this time, are the mere cant of the revivalist ; but in the midst of all this rubbish there are many signs of such an -honest personal religion as a boy may have without shame at the time or ever after. Among these are his fifth and sixth resolves, and such bits as where he says, " May I spend this day right at the feet of Jesus, and not be proud or try to show off before people." Do not these italics point at a real palpable devil, a devil with whom Augustus Staples had many a drawn battle before he had him fairly underneath his heel ?

The letters of this period are even more painful than the journals, they are so unreal, so unlike what a noble young man's letters are, when he is not the victim of a false religiousness. What shall we say of the system that will permit — nay, even encourage a young man to write in this strain to his parents ? The date is November 7th, 1849.

" I have one word to write, one simple request to make, and that is that you will consider the anxiety I must experience in regard to your spiritual welfare. Believing, as I do, that those who do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will surely be cast out from the presence of God for ever, and it being my determination to stand at that great day at the right hand of God, can I see you thus separated from me for ever ? " And so on ad nauseam.

" When I come home (if it should be the good pleasure of the Almighty to permit me once more to return), it would be very pleasing to me to have devotional exercises in the family, if there is no objection."

When he got home he read his answer and rebuke in his father's clear and earnest eyes, and no more was said about it. One can imagine the sad. smile with which the father read these juvenile lucubrations.

" In your last letter it was stated that I had better not join the church, for fear that when I come home I might feel differently. Now this was the very reason why I wished to join, to prevent my ever thinking or feeling different."

And so the matter was now " settled," not, as he hopes, without due consideration, and his name " is now enrolled with those who are ready to die in Jesus's war." But many things that are considered " settled" get sadly unsettled in this jostling world, and young Staples found that even the snug inclosure of a church is no sure preventive against " ever thinking or feeling different ;" that it was very much as his father had suggested it might be, and couldn't have been much more so if he had never joined the church at all. For no sooner did he get safe home again, than things began x to take on quite a different appearance. In comparison with the love and rectitude and selfdenial of his parents, he saw his own external pietism sink into worthlessness. His old cheerfulness came back to him ; his merry laugh rang out once more; the half-forgotten stories were revived ; the flute that had been laid aside was hunted up ; the feet that loved to dance right well tripped to the dear old measures, and he became almost himself again.

Almost, but not entirely. It was a long, long time before that could be said of him. The iron had entered too deeply into his soul.

During the year he spent in Mendon aftei leaving Westfield, he broke his evangelical connections, and became a member of the Unitarian Church. He also made up his mind to study for the Unitarian ministry. But it was not till he was more than half way through his course at Meadville, that he succeeded in unlearning what the Westfield revivalists had taught him. Long before this he had unlearned the doctrines of Trinity and Atonement and Depravity; but after he had done this he kept on trying to be religious in the orthodox way, and making himself miserable because he could not succeed, as we shall see hereafter. In one respect his orthodox experience was a great advantage to him in after years. It enabled him to speak of orthodoxy at first hand ; and if, so speaking of it, he spoke of it at times with terrible severity, the fault was not in him, but in the system that had so marred his growth. His reaction from it was not sudden, but it was profound. A burnt dog dreads the fire. He hated it. He never forgot how it had unmanned him. He never forgave it that treatment. Perhaps iu after years his friends sometimes regretted the way in which he buffeted the monster that had so frightened him in his youth. But perhaps, too, they did not know what recollections edged his sarcasm, what gross imposition had been practiced upon him. Had it been a person he was dealing with, he would have been much more forgiving. But he did not think the command, " Forgive your enemies," applied to systems of theology that were the enemies, not of his fame or fortune, but of his life.

But it was a good day for the Westfield revivalists when they made a convert of Staples, such influence did he have with others, so intense was his ardor, so contagious his conviction. Years afterward, when he was at Lexington, one of the Westfield scholars found him out, and told him what a good and lasting influence his earnestness had had upon him. But it is quite terrible to think what a good revivalist he would have made, what multitudes of excellent people he would have convicted of sin, and enraptured with the promise of a future heaven much inferior to the present one they were enjoying before he met with them.

In estimating the value of this juvenile religious experience, it must be borne in mind that this experience was not the dawn of his religious life. Had it been so it might be more kindly spoken of. But no ; the dawn had risen long before, and this Westfield experience was but a cloud that overcame its brightness, a cloud that held his sunny heart enshrouded in its gloom for years, which added to him nothing ; all of the beauty of its own tangled fringes being that of the life behind them, a life it could conceal but no more quench than any cloud that vails the sun can quench its burning heat.

But whatever the Normal School did for him on his religious side, there can r^e no question that on the intellectual side he made, while there, great improvement It was there that he discovered that it was a joy for him to write. The "compositions" were no burden, but were looked forward to with sincere pleasure, and were written with all possible care. Having finished his course, he obtained a position as teacher in Mendon village. As a teacher he was eminently successful, and had great power over, and influence with, his scholars, many of whom still remember him well, and speak of him with deep reverence and affection. He seemed to instill into his pupils his own sensitiveness to praise or blame. His journal at this period takes an exceedingly practical turn, dealing with railroads, the world's fair, and state politics ; showing a lively interest in the anti-slavery movement, and recording with admiration a saying of Theodore Parker's at the May meetings in Boston, wherein he told one of his fellowministers that he had the gun his grandfather had used at Lexington, and that if he should come into his house to hunt for fugitive slaves, he would do for him what his grandfather did for the British. The germ of his later radicalism in theology is in these sentences. For it was his absolute certainty that Parker was right on the slavery question, that led him to suspect that he might be right on questions of theology. His political radicalism in general was the vestibule of his theological radicalism, inasmuch as he saw that the hunkers of politics were too frequently conservative in their theology, and vice versd, to admit of any doubt that here was no mere coincidence, but a truly logical connection.

II. Life At Meadville

The personal influences that determined Mr. Staples to go to Meadville, were mainly those of his brother, who had preceded him there by a few months, and Rev. Samuel Clarke, of Uxbridge, a man who recognized his fine natural talents earlier than any other person, and did more to inspire him with confidence in his own abilities. He watched over his career with a true fatherly solicitude, but was not permitted to behold except

" With larger, other eyes than ours,"

the fulfillment in him of his generous predictions of success and usefulness. Another early personal influence of which he always spoke with gratitude, was that of one of his teachers, Sylvester Scott: but this influence was upon his character in general, rather than upon his choice of a profession.