Startled as I was at this scene, I felt that the doctrine had not stood the test. More and more there was developed in me that feeling which Lord Bacon expressed so profoundly and pithily, in his essay on "Superstition," when he said:
It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of Him; for if the one is unbelief, the other is contumely: and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity. Plutarch saith well to that purpose: "Surely, I had rather a great deal that men should say there was no such man at all as Plutarch, than that they should say that Plutarch ate his children as soon as they were born;"—as the poets speak of Saturn: and as the contumely is greater towards God, so the danger is greater towards men.
The "danger" of which Bacon speaks has been noted by me often, both before and since I read his essays. Once, indeed, when a very orthodox lady had declared to me her conviction that every disbeliever in the divinity of the second person in the Trinity must be lost, I warned her of this danger and said, "We lately had President Grant here on the university grounds. Suppose your little girl, having met the President, and having been told that he was the great general of the war and President of the United States, should assert her disbelief, basing it on the fact that she had formed the idea of a much more showy and gorgeous person than this quiet, modest little man; and suppose that General Grant, on hearing of the child's mistake, should cruelly punish her for it; what would you think of him? and what would he think of you, were he to know that you asserted that he could be so contemptibly unjust and cruel? The child's utterance would not in the slightest offend him, but your imputation to him of such vileness would most certainly anger him."
A contribution to my religious development came also from a very different quarter. Our kitchen Bridget, one of the best of her kind, lent me her book of devotion—the "Ursuline Manual." It interested me much until I found in it the reasons very cogently given why salvation was confined to the Roman Catholic Church. This disgusted me. According to this, even our good rector had no more chance of salvation than a Presbyterian or Baptist or Methodist minister. But this serious view of the case was disturbed by a humorous analogy. There were then fighting vigorously through the advertisement columns of the newspapers two rival doctors, each claiming to produce the only salutary "sarsaparilla," and each named Townsend. At first one claimed to be "THE Dr. Townsend," then the other claimed to be "THE Dr. Townsend"; the first rejoined that HE was "Dr. JACOB Townsend," whereupon the other insisted that HE was "Dr. Jacob Townsend"; to this the first answered that HE was "the ORIGINAL Dr. Jacob Townsend," and the other then declared that HE was "the ORIGINAL Dr. Jacob Townsend"; and so on, through issue after issue, each supplying statements, certificates, arguments, rejoinders ad nauseam. More and more, then, the various divines insisting on the exclusive possession of the only remedy for sin reminded me of these eminent sarsaparilla-makers,—each declaring his own concoction genuine and all others spurious, each glorifying himself as possessing the original recipe and denouncing his rivals as pretenders.
Another contribution to my thought was made one day in the Sunday-school. While reading in the New Testament I had noticed the difficulties involved in the two genealogies of Jesus of Nazareth—that in Matthew and that in Luke. On my asking the Sunday-school teacher for an explanation, he gave the offhand answer that one was the genealogy of Joseph and the other of Mary. Of course it did not take me long to find this answer inadequate; and, as a consequence, Sunday-school teaching lost much of its effect upon me.
But there was still one powerful influence left in behalf of the old creed. From time to time came the visitation by the bishop, Dr. DeLancey. He was the most IMPRESSIVE man I have ever seen. I have stood in the presence of many prelates in my day, from Pope Pius IX down; but no one of them has ever so awed me as this Bishop of Western New York. His entry into a church chancel was an event; no music could be finer than his reading of the service; his confirmation prayer still dwells in my memory as the most perfect petition I have ever heard; and his simple, earnest sermons took strong hold of me. His personal influence was also great. Goldsmith's lines in the "Deserted Village,"
"Even children follow'd with endearing wile
And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile,"
accurately pictured the feelings of many of us as we lingered after service to see him greet our fathers and mothers.
As to my biblical studies, they were continued, though not perhaps as systematically as they might well have been. The Protestant Episcopal Church has for a youth at least one advantage in this respect,—that the services including Introits, Canticles, Psalter, Lessons, Epistles Gospels, and various quotations, familiarize him with the noblest utterances in our sacred books. My mother had received instruction in Bible class and prized Scripture reading; therefore it was that, when I was allowed to stay at home from church on Sunday afternoons, it was always on condition that I should read a certain number of chapters in the Bible and prove to her upon her return that I had read them carefully,—and this was not without its uses.
Here I am reminded of a somewhat curious event. One afternoon, when I had been permitted to remain at home, on the usual conditions, my mother, returning from service, said to me that by staying away from church I had missed something very interesting: that there was a good sermon well given, that the preacher was of fine appearance, dignified,—and an Indian; but that she would never have suspected him to be an Indian were it not for his words at the conclusion of his sermon, which were as follows: "And now, my brethren, I leave you. We shall probably never meet again in this world, and doubtless most of you will forget all the counsels I have given you and remember nothing save that you have to-day heard a sermon from an Indian." The point of interest really was that this preacher, Eleazar Williams, though he gave no hint of it on this occasion, believed himself, and was believed by many, to be the lost Dauphin of France, Louis XVII, and that decidedly skilful arguments in favor of his claims were published by the Rev. Mr. Hanson and others. One of the most intelligent women I have ever known believes to this hour that Eleazar Williams, generally known as a half-breed Indian born in Canada, was the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and that his portly form and Bourbon face were convincing additions to other more cogent testimonies.