Chapter XXIX (2)

To seek relief from doubt in doubt,
From woe in woe, from sin in sin--
Is but to drive a tiger out,
And let a hungry wolf come in.

Who helps a knave in knavery.
But aids an ape to climb a tree!
On an ape's head a crown you fling;
Say--Will that make the ape a king?

Know you why the lark's sweet lay
Man's divinest nature reaches?
He is up at break of day
Learning all that nature teaches.

The record of past history brings
Wisdom of sages, saints, and kings;
The more we read those reverend pages
The more we honor bygone ages!

Whate'er befit--whate'er befal.
One general law commandeth all:
There's no confusion in the springs
That move all sublunary things.
All harmony is heaven's vast plan--
All discord is the work of man!

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From The Sixpenny Magazine.

IRELAND AND THE INFORMERS OF 1798.

There has lately issued from the press a work under the title which heads our article, and which is amusing and instructive in the highest degree. Were it not written by a man whose ability and character are pledges for his veracity, we should rank it with Harrison Ainsworth's efforts, and designate it as an almost impossible romance. It has, as we think, appeared at a very opportune and timely juncture, and, in our opinion, Mr. Fitzpatrick is entitled to great praise for the talent, industry, and research evidenced in his volume.

Francis Higgins, the hero of Mr. Fitzpatrick's remarkable biographical sketch, and familiarly known by the title of "The Sham Squire," was born nobody exactly knows where, and reared nobody knows how. He commenced his career, however, in stirring times, and when great events were in their parturition, during which the history of Ireland presents a series of panoramic images--a mixture of light and shadow--instances of devoted fidelity and abounding rascality-- groupings of mistaken enthusiasm, selfish venality, and the most abhorrent domestic treason--such as we in vain look for in the annals of any other country or any other age. It is supposed that Higgins was born in a Dublin cellar, and while yet of tender years became successively "errand-boy, shoeblack, and waiter in a public-house"--improving trades for one of so ripe a spirit, but which he soon left, directed by a vaulting ambition, in order to become a writing-clerk in an attorney's office. While in this position, he commenced practice on his own account, by rejecting popery as unfashionable and impolitic, and by forging a series of legal documents purporting to show to all "inquiring friends" that he was a man of property and a government official. He had an object in this, as he was by this time to appear in a new character, as the lover of Miss Mary Anne Archer, who possessed a tolerable fortune and a foolish old father. Miss Archer happened to be a Roman Catholic, and was strong in her faith; but this was only a trifle to Higgins, who again forsook the new creed for the old, and proved thereby, like Richard, "a thriving wooer." They were married, and the Archer _père_ did at last what he ought to have done at first, ferreted out the real antecedents of his precious son-in-law, and discovered that he had a very clever fellow to deal with; while his daughter, finding, after a short time, that her husband was "by no means a desirable one," fled back to her bamboozled parent, who straightway indicted the pretender. Higgins was found guilty and imprisoned for a year, and it was during Judge Robinson's charge to the jury that he fastened the name of the "Sham Squire" on the prisoner, a sobriquet which stuck to him persistently during the remainder of his life, and proved a greater infliction to his vanity than an apparently heavier penalty would have been. This was in 1767. "Poor Mary Anne" died of a broken heart, and her parents survived her for only a short lime; while the widower, in order to make his prison life endurable, paid his addresses to the daughter of the gaoler and eventually married her, as her father was pretty well to do in the world, the situation being a {123} money-making one, as the order of that day was, as proved before the Irish House of Commons, that "persons were unlawfully kept in prison and loaded with irons, although not duly committed by a magistrate, until they had complied with the most exorbitant demands." When the Sham's term of a year's imprisonment ended, he had life to begin anew, and for some years we find him exercising many vocations, such as "setter" for excise officers, billiard-marker, hosier, etc. For an assault as a "setter," he was again tried and again convicted; but nothing daunted, as his old webs were broken, he proceeded in the construction of new. In 1775, we not only find him "a hosier," but president of the Guild of Hosiers; and in 1780 his services were engaged by Mr. David Gibbal, conductor of the "Freeman's Journal," then, as now, one of the most popular and well-conducted papers in Ireland. But from the period of the Sham Squire's connection with it, it seems to have degenerated, as in April, 1784, the journals of the Irish House of Commons show an "order" that "Francis Higgins, one of the conductors of the 'Freeman's Journal,' do attend this house to-morrow morning." He did so, and escaped with a reproof. Having gained some knowledge of law in the solicitor's office, we now find him anxious to become an attorney, which end he accomplished by the aid and influence of his friend and patron John Scott, afterward chief-justice, and elevated to the peerage as Lord Clonmel, rather for his political talents than his professional ones. From 1784 to 1787 Higgins also acted as deputy coroner for Dublin. By a series of manoeuvres he became the sole proprietor of the "Freeman's Journal," and became at once what is called in Ireland "a castle hack." Both as attorney and editor, the Sham Squire was now a man of importance, and many called in on him. Shrewd, sharp, and clever, with a glib tongue and a facile pen, no business was either too difficult or too dirty for him. He was made a justice of the peace by Lord Carhampton, who, as Colonel Luttrell, was designated by Grattan as "a clever bravo, ready to give an insult, and perhaps capable of bearing one;" in fact, the last allusion was deserved, as Luttrell had been called "vile and infamous" by Scott without resenting it. Lord Carhampton became commander-in-chief in Ireland, and during the outbreak of '98 was a merciless foe to the rebels who fell into his hands. Higgins, by this time, had become a great man, and lived in St. Stephen's Green, in magnificent style, keeping his coach and entertaining the nobility. He was a loyalist of the rosiest hue, and thought no mission too derogatory by which he might show his zeal. He attended divine service regularly, and that over, proceeded to "Crane Lane," in order to count over and receive his share of the gains in a gambling house of which he was principal proprietor, and which his influence with the police magistrates prevented the suppression of--then to his editorial duties, which were to uphold the measures of government and its officials, and to lampoon, cajole, or threaten all who dared to oppose them.

It was in the disastrous period of '98, however, that the Sham Squire's most sterling qualities came into active requisition, as evidenced by the following extract of a letter written by the Secretary Cooke to Lord Cornwallis, then lord lieutenant of Ireland. "Francis Higgins," he writes, "proprietor of the 'Freeman's Journal,' was the person who procured for me all the intelligence respecting Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and got--to set him, and has given me otherwise much information--£300;" meaning thereby that his excellency should sanction that annual amount for "secret service," out of a sum of £15,000, specially laid aside for that purpose. Beside this, however, a lump sum of £1000 was given to Higgins on the 20th of June, 1798, for the betrayal of his friend; and, independent of this, a confederate of his named Francis Magan, a barrister, {124} and a close ally of Lord Edward, and who positively "set" the unfortunate nobleman at Higgins's instigation, received £600 and a pension of £200 per annum for the worthy deed. Probably the most startling of all these revelations of domestic treachery was the conduct of Leonard McNally, barrister at law, and selected "for his ability, truth, zeal, and sterling honesty," as Curran's assistant in defending the prisoners implicated in the rebellion. This fellow seems to have outsoared even Higgins and Magan in his duplicity, since not alone did he keep government duly informed of the movements of the suspected, but when on their trial he exhibited the greatest activity in suggesting points for their defence, seconding his celebrated leader in his unwearied endeavors to save them, although he had previously made known to the law officers what course the accused men's counsel meant to take for the day, so that Curran and his legal friends were puzzled and surprised at having their best-concocted measures anticipated and baffled, although not a man of them ever thought of looking to "honest Mac" as the cause. For this and other services McNally received some thousands, and was gratified, in addition, with a pension of £300 per annum. Singularly enough, the terrible secrets of Magan and McNally were well kept until long after their deaths, and until the publication of the "Cornwallis Papers" enabled inquirers to strike on the true vein. Both these men are said to have been corrupted by the Sham Squire, who seems to have been the Mephistopheles of his time; but a still more notorious "informer," because an open one, was Reynolds--Tom Reynolds--who was promised a pension of £2000 a year and a seat in parliament for his services, but did not receive quite so much. In 1798, however, he received £5000 and a pension of £1000 a year; and as his demands were always importunate, it is known that during the remainder of his life he extracted £45,740 from his employers. Reynolds went abroad and died there, as Ireland would hardly have been for him either a safe or a pleasant residence; but Magan and McNally lived at home for many a goodly year, and were looked upon as honest men and sterling patriots to the last. Higgins did not long survive his victims; he died suddenly, in 1802, worth £20,000, a greater part of which, strange to say, he left for charitable purposes!

In reviewing thus the history of this Irish Jonathan Wild and his detestable comrogues, our object must, we hope, be evident. Their lives and actions are instructive in many ways, and never promised to be more so than now. What happened then may happen again; treason will be dogged by traitors to the end. Fear and avarice are omnipotent counsellors, and, when coupled with talent and ingenuity, marvellous indeed are the misery they can cause and the wide-spread devastation that travels in their track. That a needy and unscrupulous vagabond like Higgins should hunt his dearest friends to the scaffold is not to be wondered at; but that men of position and education like Reynolds, McNally, and Magan should join in the chase, and for years after look honest men in the face, evinces a hardihood of disposition and a callosity of conscience which, as a lesson, is instructive, and, as an utter disregard of remorseful feeling, appears all but impossible. No doubt such miscreants excuse their crimes on a plea of loyalty, and the plea would be all-sufficient had they not stipulated for the price, and had they not exulted in receiving it. There is something especially abhorrent to our natures in those wretches who voluntarily plunge into the ranks of anarchy and disaffection at one time, and then, when cowardice or cupidity overcomes them, overleap all the boundaries of honor and faith, and trade on the blood or suffering of the unfortunate men who placed their liberties or lives in their safe-keeping.

{125}

In the notes which Mr. Fitzpatrick has appended to his biography of the "Sham Squire" as "addenda" we have some well-authenticated and racy revelations of many of the singular Irish characters who flourished during the last thirty or forty years of the last century, and in the first few years of the beginning of this. Ireland appears to have been the "paradise of adventurers" in that day, as the times appear to have been out of joint, and the habits and general _morale_ of the upper and middle ranks were to the last degree loose and irregular. As the manners and modes of action of a people are in a considerable degree fashioned and influenced by the example set them by those who are placed in authority over them, it is not too much to assert that a great deal of the lax morality, unscrupulous spirit, and general demoralization were produced by some of the occupants of the vice-regal throne, and their "courts," the character and course of life of whom are painted by our author in anything but a seductive way. Brilliancy, show, pleasure, wit, and extravagance were the order of the day; lords-lieutenant were either dissipated _roués_, or incompetent imbeciles, and in either case they were sure to be coerced or cajoled by a mercenary tribe of political adventurers, who directed their actions and influenced their minds. We at once see by the wholesale corruption practised to bring about the Union, how utterly depraved must have been the men who openly or covertly prostituted themselves, when it was in contemplation; and never was political profligacy more open and more daring in its violation of honor, probity, and principle than in the abject submission of the Irish parliament, and its unhesitating anxiety to sell themselves, souls and bodies, to those who tempted them, and who had studied them far too accurately not to be sure of their prey. Amongst those who consented to accept the remuneration thus profusely offered them the lawyers bore a very prominent part; in fact, government could hardly have succeeded without their aid; of these, Fitzgibbon, afterward Lord Clare and chancellor, was the most forward and efficient. There was never a man better adapted for the work he had to do. Bold, active, astute, and unscrupulous, he could be all things to all men; those whom he could not cajole, he frightened; equally ready with the pen, the pistol, and the tongue, he was neither to be daunted nor silenced; terrible in his vengeance, no windings of his victims could escape him; and extravagant in his generosity (when the public purse had to bear the blunt), his jackals and partisans felt that their reward was sure, and therefore never hesitated to comply with his most exact demands. Few men had a larger number of followers, therefore, and no man ever made a more unscrupulous use of them. He had nothing of the recusant about him, however, and first and last he was consistent to his party and to the Protestant creed which he had adopted in early life, for he had been born and partly reared in the Roman Catholic faith. In his personal demeanor he was a lion-hearted man; when hissed in the streets by the populace he calmly produced his pistols; and once, on hearing that a political meeting against the Union was being held, he rushed into the middle of the assembled mass, commanded the high-sheriff to quit the chair, and so closed the meeting. On the bench he was equally fearless, and when recommended to beware of treachery, his answer was, "They dare not; I have made them as tame as cats." "If I live," he said, "to see the Union completed, to my latest hour I shall feel an honorable pride in reflecting on the share I had in contributing to effect it." He did live to see it, and to take his seat in the British parliament; but matters were altogether altered there. In his maiden effort he was rebuked by Lord Suffolk, called to order by the lord chancellor, while the Duke of Bedford indignantly snubbed him by {126} exclaiming, "We would not bear such insults from our _equals_, and shall we, my lords, tolerate them at the hands of mushroom nobility?" while, to cap the climax, Pitt, after hearing him, turned to Wilberforce, and said loud enough to be heard by Lord Clare, "Good G--d! did you ever, in all your life, listen to so thorough-paced a scoundrel as that!" Disappointed and despairing, he returned to Ireland, and died of a broken heart, while almost the last words he uttered to a friend were, "Only to think of it! I that had all Ireland at my disposal cannot now procure the nomination of a single gauger!"

John Scott, afterward Lord Chief-Justice Clonmel, was another prominent actor in those busy times. His birth was lowly, but his talents were considerable; he was light and flippant rather than profound, and he felt to the last a terrible mortification that his claims had been postponed to those of Lord Clare. He had neither the grasp of mind, nor the unhesitating manner of the chancellor, however; he was apt to surround himself with companions, like the "Sham Squire," for instance, who might be pleasant but were by no means reputable. Beside, his character for probity was distrusted; his first uprise in life was his wholesale appropriation of the property of a Catholic friend which he held in trust, as Catholics, at that time, could not retain property in their hands, and which he refused to disgorge. He was both venal and vindictive, and but too often prostituted his authority in pursuit of his passions. On one occasion, however, he was signally discomfited. A man of the name of Magee, who owned and edited the "Evening Post," had frequently come under the lash, and was treated with no mercy. Magee's vengeance took a curious form. Lord Clonmel was an ardent lover of horticulture, and had spent many thousand pounds in making his suburban villa a "model." Magee knew this, and as the chief demesne was skirted by an open common from which a thick hedge alone separated it, the journalist proclaimed a rural _fête_, on an enormous scale, to be held on the vacant ground, and to which the whole Dublin population, gentle and simple, were invited. Meats and liquors were given to an unlimited extent, and, in the evening, when the "roughs" were primed with whiskey, several pigs (shaved and with their tails well soaped) were let out as part of the amusement of the day. By preconcert, the affrighted animals were driven against Lord Clonmel's inclosure, which they speedily over-leaped, followed by the mob. Trees, shrubs, flowers, vases, and statues were in a wonderfully short time demolished in the "fun," while, to make the matter still more deplorable, the owner of the property thus wantonly devoted to revenge stood on the steps of his own hall-door, and with alternate fits of imprecation and entreaty besought the spoilers to desist, but in vain. Toward the close of his life, Lord Clonmel became a hypochondriac, and, supposing himself to be a tea-pot, hardly ventured to stir abroad lest he should be broken. On one occasion, his great forensic antagonist, Curran, was told that Clonmel was going to die at last, and was asked if he believed it. "I believe," was the reply, "that he is scoundrel enough to live or die _just as it meets his convenience_." Shortly before his death he said to Lord Cloncurry, "My dear Val, I have been a fortunate man, or what the world calls so; I am chief-justice and an earl; but were I to begin life again, I would rather be a chimney-sweeper, than consent to be connected with the Irish government."

Another "celebrity" was John Taler, "bully, butcher, and buffoon," who was afterward a peer and a judge. He was a bravo in the house and a despot on the bench. He jested with the wretched he condemned, and seemed never so happy as when {127} the scaffold was before his eyes. He was ignorant but ferocious, and when he could not conquer an opponent he would browbeat him.

"Give me a long day, my lord," said a culprit, whom he had just doomed.

"I am sorry to say I can't oblige you, my friend," replied Lord Norbury, smiling; "but I promise you a strong rope, which I suppose will answer your purpose as well."

When he died, and was about to be lowered into the grave himself, the tackle was rather short.

"Tare-an-agers, boys, don't spare the _rope_ on his lordship; don't you know he was always fond of it?" said one of the standers-by.

"I never saw a human face that so closely resembles that of a bull-dog!" remarked one barrister to another in court.

"Let him get a grip of your throat, and you will find the resemblance still closer," was the reply.

These and a hundred others, their equals, instruments, and subordinates, may be supposed to represent the Irish "turnspit" element; it must be acknowledged, however, that in contradistinction to them, there were sounding examples of men of a different and far superior class, such as the Leinsters, Charlemonts, Plunketts, Currans, Ponsonbys, and so forth, who would have adorned any country, and who certainly contributed to relieve their own from the almost intolerable odium which the wholesale venal profligacy of a large number had brought upon it.

------

From Once a Week.

THE LEGEND OF THE LOCKHARTS.

I.

King Robert on his death-bed lay, wasted in every limb,
The priests had left, Black Douglas now alone was watching him;
The earl had wept to hear those words, "When I am gone to doom,
Take thou my heart and bear it straight unto the Holy Tomb."

II.

Douglas shed bitter tears of grief--he loved the buried man.
He bade farewell to home and wife, to brother and to clan;
And soon the Bruce's heart embalm'd, in silver casket lock'd,
Within a galley, white with sails, upon the blue waves rock'd.

III.

In Spain they rested, there the king besought the Scottish earl
To drive the Saracens from Spain, his galley sails to furl;
It was the brave knight's eagerness to quell the Paynim brood.
That made him then forget the oath he'd sworn upon the rood.

IV.

That was his sin; good angels frown'd upon him as he went
With vizor down and spear in rest, lips closed, and black brow bent:
Upon the turbans, fierce he spurr'd, the charger he bestrode
Was splash'd with blood, the robes and flags he trampled on the road.

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V.

The Moors came fast with cymbal clash and tossing javelin,
Ten thousand horsemen, at the least, on Castille closing in;
Quick as the deer's foot snaps the ice, the Douglas thundered through,
And struck with sword and smote with axe among the heathen crew.

VI.

The horse-tail banners beaten down, the mounted archers fled--
There came full many an Arab curse from faces smear'd with red,
The vizor fell, a Scottish spear had struck him on the breast;
Many a Moslem's frighten'd horse was bleeding head and chest.

VII.

But suddenly the caitiffs turn'd and gathered like a net,
In closed the tossing sabres fast, and they were crimson wet,
Steel jarr'd on steel--the hammers smote on helmet and on sword,
But Douglas never ceased to charge upon that heathen horde.

VIII.

Till all at once his eager eye discerned amid the fight
St. Clair of Roslyn, Bruce's friend, a brave and trusty knight.
Beset with Moors who hew'd at him with sabres dripping blood--
Twas in a rice-field where he stood close to an orange wood.

IX.

Then to the rescue of St. Clair Black Douglas spurred amain,
The Moslems circled him around, and shouting charged again;
Then took he from his neck the heart, and as the case he threw,
"Pass first in fight," he cried aloud, "as thou wert wont to do."

X.

They found him ere the sun had set upon that fatal day,
His body was above the case, that closely guarded lay.
His swarthy face was grim in death, his sable hair was stain'd
With the life-blood of a felon Moor, whom he had struck and brain*d.

XI.

Sir Simon Lockhart, knight of Lee, bore home the silver case.
To shrine it in a stately grave and in a holy place,
The Douglas deep in Spanish ground they left in royal tomb.
To wait in hope and patient trust the trumpet of the doom.

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[ORIGINAL.]

REMINISCENCES OF DR. SPRING. [Footnote 23]

[Footnote 23: "Personal Reminiscences of the Life and Times of
Gardiner Spring, Pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church in the City
of New York." 2 vols. 12mo. New York: Charles Scribner & Company.]

Few persons who have lived much in New York during the last quarter of a century are not familiar with the dignified, resolute, yet kindly countenance of the pastor of the Brick Presbyterian church. Fewer still are ignorant of his reputation as a leading and representative man in his denomination; a keen polemic; a great promoter of missionary, tract, and Bible societies; and, we may add, a very determined enemy of the Pope of Rome and all his aiders and abettors. For more than fifty-five years he has preached to the same congregation which gave him a call when he was first licensed as a minister. During his career thirteen Presidents of the United States, from Washington to Lincoln, have died; three Kings of England have been laid in their graves; the horrors of the Reign of Terror, the execution of Louis XVI., the rise and fall of the first Napoleon, the shifting scenes of the Restoration, the Orleans rule, the second Republic and the second Empire, have hurried each other across the stage of French history. He has long passed the scriptural term of the life of man; and now, at the almost patriarchal age of eighty-one, he gives us a collection of reminiscences of what he has seen and done during this protracted and eventful career.

It would be natural to suppose that such a book by such a man must be full of interest. As one of the recognized leaders of a rich and influential religious denomination, and one of the oldest and most respectable citizens of the first city of America, how many historical characters must he have met! to how many important events must he have been a witness! But any one who takes up these volumes in the hope of obtaining through them a clearer view of persons and times gone by, will be disappointed. They are interesting, it is true, but not, we will venture to say, in the way their author meant them to be. They cause us to wonder that the doctor should have seen so much and remembered so little. Yet as a picture of the life of a representative Presbyterian preacher and a complete exposure of the utter emptiness of the Presbyterian religion, these garrulous and random "Reminiscences" are the most entertaining pages we have read for many a month. We propose to cull for our readers a few of the most interesting passages.

Dr. Spring was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Feb. 24, 1785. His father was a minister, of whom the son says that "he would not shave his face on the Lord's day, nor allow his wife to sew a button on her son's vest; and on one occasion, when his nephew, the late Adolphus Spring, Esq., arrived in haste on a Saturday evening with the message that his father was on his bed of death, he would not mount his horse for the journey of seventy miles until the Sabbath sun had gone down." Though young Gardiner used to wonder, when a boy, why he was not allowed to participate in the customary sports of children, he seems to have preserved a warm affection for both his parents, of whom he speaks in a loving and reverential tone which we cannot too carefully respect. The thought that most affected him on their death was {130} "_that he had lost their prayers._" Gardiner was sent to Yale College at the age of fifteen, and during "a remarkable outpouring of the Spirit" upon that rather unregenerate institution, in the year 1803, he became, for a season, "hopefully pious." He had been uneasy for some time about the state of his soul, and one afternoon he resolved to pray, several hours, if necessary, until his sins were forgiven. "There," he says, "in the south entry of the old college, back side, middle room, third story, I wrestled with God as I had never wrestled before." The result of this spiritual struggle we do not profess to understand. He says that he rose from his knees without any hope that he had found mercy, yet feeling considerably relieved. For several weeks he went about, peaceful and happy, when, unluckily, the Fourth of July came, with its speeches and fireworks, and his "religious hopes and impressions all vanished as a morning cloud, and as the early dew." It was five or six years before they came back again.

When he graduated his father came to hear him speak, and at the close of the exercises gave him his blessing and told him to shift for himself. So, there he was, twenty years old, with four dollars in his pocket and a profession yet to be acquired. He borrowed two hundred and fifty dollars from a generous friend, obtained a situation as precentor in a church, opened a singing school, and applied himself zealously to the study of law. Before long he married a young lady as poor as himself, and went with her in 1806 to Bermuda, where he taught school for some time very successfully; but rumors of war between this country and Great Britain drove him back to the United States, and in his twenty-fourth year he entered upon the practice of the law at New Haven.

In the meanwhile those uneasy feelings of the soul, which he seems unable to analyze (though we warrant a good confessor would quickly have solved his perplexities) had not left him at peace. He writes to his father from Bermuda upon the state of his interior man:

"I should wish to go to heaven, because I should be pleased, with
its employment. Were all my sins mortified and I rendered perfectly
holy, I think I should the happy. . . . . Sometimes I can say, Lord,
I believe; help thou mine unbelief. .... I am avaricious; and in the
present state of my family, make money my god. I strain honesty _as
far as I can_ to gain a little."

This was certainly not a satisfactory condition of things. The lust for mammon seems strong enough, but the aspirations for heaven might well have been rather more ardent. He goes to church and sings and weeps, and the minister and elders crowd around him to see what is the matter. He goes to prayer-meeting at last in New Haven, and there the conversion--such as it is--is effected: "As the exercises closed and the crowded worshippers rose to sing the doxology, I felt that I could 'praise God from whom all blessings flow.' Praise! praise! It was delightful to praise him! On the 24th of April following, I united with the visible church under Mr. Stuart's pastorate, and began to be an active Christian."

We must say that this seems to be a very simple and easy process of getting out of the power of the devil. Conversion, according to Dr. Spring's idea, is simply an emotion of the mind, a spasm of sentiment. It includes neither satisfaction for the past, nor the performance of any definite religious duty in the present or the future. Any one who can excite himself into the belief that he is regenerate, or tickle his mind into the pleasant state indicated by the man who, when asked, "How it felt to get religion?" replied that "it was just like having warm water poured down your back"--any such one, we say, may rest assured of his eternal safety. Dr. Spring is no more exacting with other candidates for conversion than he was with himself. To a sick man who inquires "what he shall do?" he answers: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."

{131}

"But will you not tell me _how_ I shall go to him?"

"Yes, I can tell you; you must not go in your own strength; for your strength is weakness. You must not go in your own righteousness, for you have none. You must feel your need of Christ, and see that he is just the Saviour adapted to your wants. You must adore, and love, and trust him. . . . . Commit to him your entire salvation, and in all holy 'obedience live devoted to his service.'" Now in all this there is just one practical suggestion, namely, to "live devoted to God's service"--and that the man could not follow because he was dying. Let our readers contrast Dr. Spring's death-bed ministrations with what a Catholic priest would have said and done in similar circumstances. The priest would have given definite instruction and divine sacraments; the preacher has nothing better to offer than a few commonplace generalities from his last Sunday's sermon.

But we must return to the reverend doctor's biography. Close upon the heels of his conversion came the resolution to be a minister. The pecuniary difficulties in the way of this change of profession were soon obviated by the generosity of a rich widow of Salem. There was another obstacle, however, of a more serious nature. This was Mrs. Spring. She was "not a professed Christian." She was "a worldly woman." She sought the honors of the world. She did not want to be a minister's wife. The doctor had a great respect for her. He was afraid to tell her of his resolution. We must let him describe in his own words how he got out of the difficulty:

"I then began a course of conduct which I have ever since pursued,
and that was, in all cases where my own duty was plain, and my
resolution formed, quietly to carry my resolution into effect, and
meet the storm afterward. I did so in the present instance, though
there was no other storm than a plentiful shower of tears. I said
nothing to my wife; nothing to any one except Mr. Evarts. I sent my
wife on a visit to my only sister, the wife of the Hon. Bezaleel
Taft, at Uxbridge, the native place of my father, where I engaged in
a few weeks to meet her, and make a further visit to Newburyport.
She had no suspicion of my views, and left me with the confident
expectation that she would return to New Haven.

"In the meantime, after she left me, I was busily employed in
arranging my affairs for my removal to Andover. I announced my
purpose to the church at the next prayer-meeting, and received a
fresh impulse from their prayers and benedictions. Mr. Evarts took
my office and my business, and closed up my unsettled accounts with
his accustomed accuracy, and my ledger now records them. Mr. Smith,
my old teacher, laughed at me; Judge Daggett was silent. Judge
Rossiter said to me, 'Mr. Spring, the pulpit is your place; you were
formed for the pulpit rather than the bar.' My business in New Haven
was closed; my debts paid; my household furniture, small as it was,
was carefully stowed away; my law library, worth about four hundred
dollars, was disposed of, and I was on my way to Uxbridge,
Newburyport, Salem, and Andover.

"When I reached Uxbridge, and was once more in the bosom of my
little family, I felt that the trial had come. I could not at once
disclose my plans to my wife, and was saved that painful interview
by the suspicions of Mr. Taft, who told her that he believed I was
going to be a clergyman! She laughed at him; but she saw a change in
my deportment, and began to suspect it herself. I told her all. She
went to her chamber and wept for a long time. But she came down,
subdued indeed, but placid as a lamb, and simply said, 'It is all
over now; I am ready.' Oh, how kindly has God watched over me! It
seems as though the promise was fulfilled, 'Return unto thy country
and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee.' Some day or two
before we left Uxbridge, Mr. Taft said to me, 'Brother Spring, I
have a case before Justice Adams this morning; you are still a
lawyer, and I want you to go and argue it with me.' The thought
struck me pleasantly, and I resolved to go; but instead of assisting
him, without his knowledge I engaged myself to what I thought the
weaker party; and my last effort at the bar was in battling with my
sister's husband, and in the place of my father's nativity."

{132}

After eight months devoted to the study of theology at the Andover seminary, Mr. Spring was licensed to preach and received a call from the Brick church in New York. As a preliminary to his ordination, it was necessary for him to preach a trial sermon before the presbytery, and to submit to an examination as to his orthodoxy. In this latter test he did not give unqualified satisfaction, nevertheless they passed him, and he was duly ordained to the pastorship. As a salve, we suppose, for their consciences, the presbytery deputed the Rev. Dr. Milledollar, one of their number, to talk with the young minister, and try to reason him out of certain heterodox opinions which he entertained upon the subject of human ability. The result of the interview was that, in Dr. Milledollar's judgment, "the best way of curing a man of such views was to dip his head in cold water."

It was but a dismal religion of which he now became the minister. Tears, gloom, discomfort, and brokenness of heart were the characteristics of the spiritual life, and peace of mind was an alarming symptom of the dominion of the devil. "Newark is again highly favored," writes the minister to his parents: "there are not less than five hundred persons _very solemn_." "My people appear solemn; they were so at the lecture on Thursday evening." "I preached on Monday to a very solemn audience at my own house." "The state of things in the congregation, notwithstanding the war, is looking up. Our public meetings and our social gatherings are more full and more solemn." He visits Paris, and there passes an evening with a small party of his countrymen: "We could not refrain from weeping during the whole time we were together." The quantity of tears shed in the course of the book is positively appalling. Of course there is nothing that remotely resembles the gift of tears with which Almighty God sometimes rewards and consoles his saints. It is merely a perpetual gush of mawkish sentimentality, and we defy anybody to read these "Reminiscences" without having before him an image of the whole Brick church with chronic redness of the eyes. A member of the congregation went to the doctor once with a request that he would baptize a child. He was not one of the weepers, or, as Dr. Spring expresses it, "not a religious man." The opportunity was too good to be lost. The doctor labored with him, preached at him, probably wept at him, tried to impress him with the solemnity and privilege of the transaction, did not baptize his child, but finally prayed with him and urged him to come again. The result of the exhortation is a good commentary upon the whole system of sentimental spasmodic religion: "He went away," says Dr. Spring, "and being requested by his wife to have another interview with me, replied, 'No; _you will not catch me there again_.'" We suppose that the child was not baptized; but that, according to Dr. Spring, and in spite of the Bible, makes very little difference. It was his rule "to baptize only those children, one of whose parents was a professed Christian"--that is to say, a member of the church; and except in one instance he has never varied from this strict practice. "That," he says, "was in the case of a sick and dying grandchild, whose father was a man of prayer, but not a communicant, and I myself professed to stand _in loco parentis_, I now look upon the whole transaction as wrong."

Dr. Spring has done a great deal of theological fighting in his day; but his foes have been chiefly those of his own household. Now and then he has carried the war into foreign countries, as at the time of the famous School Question in New York, when he had a tilt with Bishop Hughes before the Common Council, and got decidedly the worst of it; but for the most part he has devoted himself to intestine feuds. The controversy between Hopkinsians {133} and Calvinists in the Presbyterian denomination; the disputes in the American Bible Society; the schism in the Young Men's Missionary Society of New York; the effort to create a division in the American Home Missionary Society; the controversies about the New Haven school of theology and the exscinding acts of the General Assembly;--these and many other religious quarrels took up a great deal of the doctor's time, and he still writes about them with no little acrimony and personal feeling. We subjoin a few extracts:

"The wrath of the Philadelphia Synod is praising the Lord. We shall
have a battle in the spring, and lay a heavy hand upon that report.
I shall not hesitate to take my life in my hand if Providence allows
me to go to the Assembly."--_vol. i., p._70.

"The Rev. Ezra Stiles Ely had published his celebrated work,
entitled 'The Contrast,' the object of which is to show the points
of difference between the views of Hopkinsian and Calvinistic
theology. It was addressed to prejudice and ignorance, and was aimed
at the youthful pastor of the Brick church."--_Vol. i., p._ 129.

"I find my heart strangely _suspicious_. Sometimes I am resolved to
withdraw from the Missionary and Education cause, because I foresee
they will be scenes of contention. But then, again, I know they are
exposed to evils, and the church is exposed to evils, through the
mismanagement of these excellent institutions, which perhaps I may
prevent."--_Vol ii., p_. 78.

We doubt whether Dr. Spring's clerical brethren like the following passage; but anyhow, there is a great deal of truth in it:

"There have been spurious revivals in my day, and the means of
promoting them are the index of their character. In such seasons of
excitement, great dependence is placed on the way and means of
_getting them up_, and little of the impression [sic] that not a
soul will be converted unless it be accomplished by the power of
God. Whatever the words of the leaders may profess, their conduct
proclaims, 'Mine own arm hath done this!' There is a familiarity, a
boldness, an irreverence in their prayers, which ill becomes worms
of the dust in approaching him before whom angels veil their faces.
A pious and poor woman, in coming out from a religious service thus
conducted, once said, 'I cannot think what it is that makes our
ministers _swear_ so in their prayers.' They count their converts,
and when they survey their work, there is a triumph, a self-reliant
exultation over it, which looks like the triumph of the pagan
monarch, when he exclaimed, 'Is not this great Babylon which I have
built!' And hence it is that so many of the subjects of such a work,
after the excitement is over, find that their own hearts have
deceived them, that they are no longer affected by solemn preaching
and solemn prayers, that _their past emotions were nothing more than
the operations of nature, and that when these natural causes have
exhausted their power there is no religion left."--Vol. i., p_. 219.

Dr. Spring gives a curious illustration of the length to which excitement sometimes carries the poor victims of the revivalists, in the case of a Mrs. Pierson, "around whose lifeless body her husband assembled a company of _believers_, with the assurance that if they prayed in faith, she would be restored to life. Their feelings were greatly excited, their impressions of their success peculiar and strong. They prayed and prayed again, and prayed _in faith_, but they were disappointed," vol. i., p. 229.

He is rather free sometimes in his criticisms upon his brother ministers. He listens to a sermon from the Rev. Mr. Finney, a noted revivalist, and says that there was nothing exceptionable in it "except a vulgarity that indicated a want of culture, and a coarseness unbecoming the Christian pulpit." He hears a Mr. Broadway preach at sea, and thus records his impressions: "I must say he is a _John Bull_ of a preacher. What a pity that men who need to be taught what are the first principles of the oracles of God, should undertake to teach others!" We dare say Dr. Spring's judgment of both these gentlemen was sound; but we see no propriety in printing it.

He made several voyages to Europe, and travelled through France, Germany, and Great Britain. Respecting the state of Protestantism in France, he makes some significant admissions:

"Protestantism in France is not what I have been in the habit of
considering it. {134} I knew it was in a measure corrupt, but not to
the extent in which I actually find it. I do not think that the
Romanists, as a body, have much confidence in the Roman religion.
But the mischief is that when thinking men throw off the bonds of
Romanism, _they relapse into infidelity_. . . . .
True religion in France _finds its most bitter and unwearied enemies
in Protestants themselves_. The Protestants of this country are high
Arians, if not absolute Socinians. There are now [1835] three
hundred and fifty-eight Protestant pastors in France, beside their
few vacant churches. _But there are comparatively few among them all
who love and obey the truth."--Vol, ii., pp._ 260, 361.

The pages devoted to his European tours are remarkable exemplifications of the truth of the old adage, that _coelum, non animum, mutant qui trans mare currunt_. Wherever he goes, his breadth of vision seems bounded by his own pulpit. The venerable cathedrals of Europe, rich with the noblest memories, and the great historic places haunted by the grandest associations of the past, fill him with no thoughts more elevated than those awakened by the Brick church. He sees everything distorted through the medium of his own inveterate prejudices. If he visits a religious shrine, he can think of nothing but the abominations of the scarlet woman of Babylon. If he sees a convent, he tells us a cock-and-bull story about subterranean passages paved with the bones of infants. If he witnesses some grand and imposing ceremonial, he throws up his eyes, rushes out of the church, and, while he shakes the dust off his feet, groans over the wickedness of the Romish priests and their blasphemous mummeries, farcical shows, and hypocritical disguises. One Sunday, while at Paris, he went with the well-known missionary. Dr. Jonas King, and some other American friends, to visit a hill called Mont Calvaire, near the city, to which numbers of pilgrims were then resorting. They filled their pockets with tracts, which they distributed, right and left, among the thousands that were going up and down the mountain. They even interrupted kneeling worshippers at their prayers to give them tracts. These valuable gifts were received with avidity, for, as the narrator elsewhere explains, our respectable parsons were mistaken for Catholic missionaries. A few days afterward they made another excursion of the same sort to Mont Calvaire. We give the conclusion of the adventure in the words of Dr. King, from whose journal Dr. Spring copies it:

"Mr. and Mrs. Wilder, and Miss Bertau, and Mr. Storrow's children,
had gone to Mount Calvary to distribute tracts and Testaments. Dr.
Spring and myself, having filled our pockets, and hats, and hands,
with tracts and Testaments, set off with the hope to find them. Just
as we began to ascend the mountain, we met them coming at a
distance. On meeting them, they informed us that they had been
stopped by the Commissary of the Police, and that a gendarme, by
order of the missionaries (Rom. C. M.), had taken away their tracts
and Testaments, and prohibited them in the name of the law to
distribute any more on Mount Calvary. Mr. W. advised us not to
proceed with the intention of distributing those which we had. We
however, went, giving to every one we met, till we came in sight of
the _gendarmes_, when we ceased giving, but occasionally let some
fall from our pockets, which the wind, which was very high,
scattered in all directions, and were gathered up by the crowd. At
length we arrived at the top of the mountain, took our stand on the
highest elevation near the cross, and there, in our own language,
offered up, each of us, a prayer to the God of heaven for direction,
and to have mercy on those tens of thousands that we saw around us,
bowing before graven images. _I then felt in some degree
strengthened to go on, and, taking a tract from my pocket, presented
it to a lady who stood near me, and who appeared to be a lady of
some distinction._ She received it with thanks, and I was not
noticed by the _gendarmes_. Dr. S. let some fall from his pocket,
and we made our way down to one of the stations. There he laid some
on the charity-box, while I stood before him, to hide what he did.
We then went to another station, and I gave ten or twelve to a lady,
whom I charged to distribute them."

The heroism of these Presbyterian missionaries, who go up and down hill, dropping divine truth from their coat-tails, reminds us of a crazy old lady {135}so in New York, whose will was lately contested before our courts. She had peculiar ideas of her own on the subject of politics and the war, and used to inscribe her thoughts on great paper kites, and give them to little boys to fly in the Central Park, in the belief that the words would somehow or another be disseminated through the city. Imagine St. Francis Xavier setting sail for the Indies with his hat, and pockets, and hands full of tracts, scattering them broad-cast along the inhospitable shores, or trusting them to the breezes, like those charitable Buddhists Father Huc tells of, who go up a high mountain on windy days, and throw into the air little paper horses, which being blown away are, as they believe, miraculously changed into real horses for the benefit of belated travellers. Suppose Father Matthew, instead of preaching a crusade against drunkenness, had contented himself with sneaking into shibeens and taverns, and, behind the friendly shelter of a companion's back, had deposited little bundles of temperance tracts on the top of every barrel of whiskey, as if he expected them to explode like a torpedo, and fill the air with virtue. Or what would Dr. Spring think if some Sunday, in the midst of his prayer, two or three Catholic priests should march into the Brick church and distribute Challoner's Catechisms up and down the aisles, making the "solemn" Presbyterians get up from their knees to receive them? It would not be a bit more outrageous than the doctor's behavior during the mission on Mont Calvaire.

American travellers in Europe, especially of the fanatical sort, are but too apt to disgrace themselves and their country by their conduct in sacred places. Here is another extract from Dr. Spring's book which no respectable American can read without blushing. The incident occurred in the famous cathedral of Rouen, built by William the Conqueror, and reckoned the finest specimen of Gothic architecture in France:

"A little circumstance occurred here that was somewhat amusing. [!]
Mr. Van Rensallear, in order to procure some little relic of the
place, instead of gathering some flowers, broke off the _nose_ of
one of the marble saints! He hoped to escape the detection of the
guide, but unfortunately, on leaving the cathedral, we had to pass
the mutilated statue, and were charged with the sacrilege. It was a
lady saint whose sanctity our gallantry had thus violated, and we
had to meet the most terrific volleys of abuse. A few glittering
coins, however, obtained absolution for us, but neither entreaty nor
cash could obtain the _nose_."

That must have been a funny scene one Sunday in crossing the ocean, when the doctor and his wife, and the rest of the passengers, held service under difficulties:

"We assembled for praise and prayer. Susan was quite sea-sick, yet
she came on deck. The day was cold, and she sat with _a hot potato
in each hand to keep her warm_."