Greeley's humanitarianism was not always proof against the irritations of life. In his not infrequent outbursts of wrath he was very likely to consign people who vexed him to a region which, according to his creed, had no existence.
A story told of him in those days seemed to show that his creed did not entirely satisfy him; for one day, when he was trying, in spite of numberless interruptions, to write a "Tribune" leader, he became aware that some one was standing behind his chair. Turning around suddenly, he saw a missionary well known in the city slums,—the Rev. Mr. Pease,—and asked in his highest, shrillest, most complaining falsetto, "Well, what do YOU want?" Mr. Pease, a kindly, gentle, apologetic man, said deprecatingly, "Well, Mr. Greeley, I have come for a little help. We are still trying to save souls in the Five Points." "Oh," said Mr. Greeley, "go along! go along! In my opinion, there ain't half so many men damned as there ought to be."
But though Chapin's influence did not restrain Greeley at all times, it undoubtedly did much for him, and it did much for us of the younger generation; for it not only broadened our views, but did something to better our hearts and raise our aims.
In this mention of the forces which acted upon my religious feelings I ought to include one of a somewhat different sort. There was one clergyman whose orthodoxy, though not of an extreme type, was undoubted, and who exercised a good and powerful influence upon me. This was the Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon, pastor of the First Congregational church in New Haven. He was a man of great intellectual power, a lover of right and hater of wrong, a born fighter on the side of every good cause, at times pungent, witty, sarcastic, but always deeply in earnest. There was a general feeling among his friends that, had he not gone into the church, he would have been eminent in political life; and that is my belief, for he was by far the most powerful debater of his time in the councils of his church, and his way of looking at great questions showed the characteristics of a really broad-minded statesman. His sermons on special occasions, as at Thanksgiving and on public anniversaries, were noted for their directness and power in dealing with the greater moral questions before the people. On the other hand, there was a saying then current, "Dull as Dr. Bacon when he's nothing but the Gospel to preach"; but this, like so many other smart sayings, was more epigrammatic than true: even when I heard him preach religious doctrines in which I did not at all believe, he seemed to me to show his full power.
Toward the end of my college course I was subjected to the influence of two very powerful men, outside of the university, who presented entirely new trains of thought to me. The first of these was Dr. Alonzo Potter, Bishop of Pennsylvania, who had been the leading professor at Union College, Schenectady, before his elevation to the bishopric, and who, both as professor and as bishop, had exercised a very wide influence. He was physically, intellectually, and morally of a very large pattern. There was something very grand and impressive about him. He had happened to come to Syracuse during one of my vacations; on a Saturday evening he gave a lecture upon the tendencies to loose supernaturalism as shown in what were known as "spiritualistic" phenomena; and on the following day he preached a simple, plain, straightforward sermon on Christian morals. Both these utterances impressed me and strengthened my conviction that every thinking young man and woman ought to maintain relations with some good form of religious organization just as long as possible.
Toward the end of my Yale course came an influence of a very different sort. It was at the consecration of a Roman Catholic church at Saratoga. The mass was sung by an Italian prelate, Bedini, who as governor and archbishop at Bologna had, a few years before, made himself detested throughout the length and breadth of Italy by the execution of the priest patriot Ugo Bassi; and he was now, as papal nuncio to Brazil, environed by all the pomp possible. The mass did not greatly impress me, but the sermon, by Archbishop Hughes of New York, I shall always remember. His subject was the doctrine of transubstantiation, and, standing upon the altar steps, he developed an argument most striking and persuasive. He spoke entirely without notes, in a straightforward way, and at times with eloquence, though never with any show of rhetoric: voice and bearing were perfect; and how any one accepting his premises could avoid his conclusions I could not see then and cannot see now. I was proof against his argument, for the simple reason that I felt the story of the temptation of Jesus by Satan, which he took for his text, to be simply a legend such as appears in various religions; still, the whole was wonderfully presented; and, on my return to the hotel, my father was greatly encouraged as to my religious development when I gave to him a synopsis of the whole sermon from end to end.
Next day there resulted a curious episode. Notices were posted throughout Saratoga that Father Gavazzi, the Italian patriot and heretic, famous for his oratory, would hold a meeting in the grove back of Congress Hall Hotel, at three in the afternoon, and would answer the archbishop's argument. When the hour arrived an immense crowd was assembled, and among them many Catholics, some of whom I knew well,—one of them a young priest to whom I had become strongly attached at school. Soon appeared the orator. He was of most striking presence—tall, handsome, with piercing black eyes and black hair, and clad in a long semi-monastic cloak. His first line of argument was of little effect, though given with impassioned gestures and a most sympathetic voice; but soon he paused and spoke gently and simply as follows: "When I was a priest in Italy I daily took part in the mass. On festivals I often saw the fasting priest fill the chalice as full as he dared with strong wine; I saw him pronounce the sacred words and make the sacred sign over it; and I saw, as everybody standing round him clearly saw, before the end of the service, that it flushed his face, thickened his voice, and enlivened his manner. My fellow-Christians" (and here his voice rang out like a trumpet), "who is the infidel, who is the blasphemer,—I who say that no change took place in the wine before the priest drank it, and that no miracle was performed, or the man who says that his fellow-man can be made drunk on the blood of the blessed Son of God?"
The effect was startling, even on Protestants: but on the Roman Catholics present it was most thrilling; and I remember that an old Irishwoman, seated on the steps of the platform as these words were uttered, clapped her hands to her ears and ran from the place screaming. I must confess that my sympathies were with her rather than with the iconoclast, despite his gifts and graces.