In the afternoon we meet with Dr. Hawes, at the house of Chief Justice
Williams to tea.
In the evening there is a united service in the "Fourth Church"—that of which Dr. Patton's son is minister,—to hear from me an address on the subject of missions. After which Dr. Bushnell puts to me publicly some very close and intelligent questions with regard to the working of freedom in our West India Colonies. He is evidently anxious to elicit from me that kind of information which would enable them to contradict the statements of the pro-slavery party. Young Patton is also an anti-slavery man, and will not tolerate the distinction of colour in his own church.
The next day Mr. Gallaudet and Mr. Patton call and accompany us to the Historical Room. There we see carefully kept an old chest that had come over in the "May Flower," and also the three-legged pot in which the "Pilgrims" had first boiled their food after landing on Plymouth Rock. These and many other memorials of the "Fathers" we are happy to find are very piously preserved. Then we go to a Gallery of Pictures. The admission fee is 25 cents, or one shilling; but from us, being strangers, they will accept of nothing! In the collection there was much to admire; but I could not help regretting that the canvas was made to preserve the memory of so many conflicts between England and her Transatlantic sons.
We dined at Dr. Bushnell's house. The Doctor is a very unassuming man, and a very original but somewhat eccentric thinker. He had lately published a sermon on Roads, a sermon on the Moral Uses of the Sea, a sermon on Stormy Sabbaths, and a sermon on Unconscious Influence,—all treated in a very striking manner. He had recently visited England and the continent of Europe, and had also contributed an article to the New Englander, a quarterly review, on the Evangelical Alliance. The views of a keen thinker from another land on that and kindred topics deserve to be pondered. "The Church of God in England," says the Doctor, "can never be settled upon any proper basis, whether of truth or of practical harmony, until the Established Church, as such, is separated from the State." His estimate of "a large class of English Christians" is not very flattering. "They are good men, but not thinking men. Their piety gurgles in a warm flood through their heart, but it has not yet mounted to their head. * * * In the ordinary, i.e. in their preaching and piety, they show a style of goodishness fitly represented by Henry's Commentary; in the extraordinary, they rise into sublimity by inflation and the swell of the occasion." Towards slavery and slaveholders he manifests a tenderness of feeling at which we are surprised and pained. The proposed exclusion of slaveholders from the Alliance he characterizes as "absurd and fanatical," speaking of the subject as having been "so unhandsomely forced upon" the American brethren in London. Again, "There is too much good sense among the Christians of this country (America) to think of constituting an Alliance on the basis which denies Christian character to all slaveholders. At a future time, when slavery has been discussed long enough, we shall do so. We cannot do it now,—least of all can we do it at the dictation of brethren beyond the sea, who do not understand the question," &c.
And yet in the same article the Doctor proposes that the Christians of England and America should unite their efforts for the promotion of religious liberty in Italy, and says, "If we lift our testimony against all church dungeons and tortures, and against all suppression of argument by penalties, as cruel, absurd, anti-christian, and impious, there is no prince or priesthood in Italy or anywhere else that can long venture to perpetrate such enormities." Will they yield, Doctor, to the "dictation of brethren beyond the sea?" But this subject of American slavery is always represented by our Transatlantic friends as a thing so profound that none but themselves can understand it; and yet it is evident that they understand it least of all. Hear the Doctor:—
"We do not propose, however, in this movement for religious liberty, to invite the efforts of our English brethren here against slavery. We have too little confidence in their knowledge of our condition, and the correctness of their opinions generally on the subject of American slavery. They must consent to let us manage the question in our own way," &c. How strikingly is it here seen that this slavery is the weak point and the wicked point in the American character! We liked Dr. Bushnell's company, his hospitality, his wife, his children, his domestic discipline, his church, his other writings,—everything better than the article in question, though even it contained much that we admired.
The next day we went to see the "First Congregational Church" in this place—that in which Dr. Hawes ministers, together with the old burying-ground attached to it. This was the original church formed by the first settlers, who in 1636 came from Braintree in Essex, bringing their pastor the Rev. Thos. Hooker along with them. Of him it is said, that he appeared in the pulpit with such dignity and independence as if "while engaged in his Master's work he could put a king in his pocket." Here is his tomb, dated 1647. Two eventful centuries have rolled away, during which this church has had only nine pastors; all of whom, except the last, Dr. Hawes, who still survives, died in their charge, and were interred in this place. Interments here are no longer continued; but an old bachelor, of independent means, a descendant of the Pilgrims, spends nearly the whole of his time "among the tombs" of the fathers and prophets, and, con amore, keeps the ground and the graves in the most beautiful order.
Our host Mr. Hosmer took us to see the new burying-ground outside of the city. Here the Catholics and the coloured people had each a parcel of ground allotted for themselves,—the former because they would not, and the latter because they should not, mingle their dust with that of other people!
On our way back I said to my friend, "How was it that neither Mr. Pennington nor any of his people (coloured congregation) were at the meeting last night? I should have thought they would have come to hear about their own brethren in Guiana." "Why," he replied, "the fact was I did not send a notice to them on Sunday: I knew that in the 'Fourth' Church they would have been scattered all over the place; it would have been so unpleasant, and talked of for months." Here then was a man of a large heart, a friend of missions and of all that is good, one who seemed as if he could embrace the whole world in his sympathies, under the dominion of a prejudice you would have expected him to scorn!
At Hartford lives Mrs. Sigourney, the graceful American poetess. She is a pious member of one of the Congregational Churches. Mr. Hosmer kindly took us to call upon her; and we were greatly pleased with our brief visit.