I should draw too largely upon your patience, were I to describe many objects of interest and many scenes of beauty I witnessed in New York and the neighbourhood. The Common Schools; the Croton Waterworks, capable of yielding an adequate supply for a million-and-a-half of people; Hoboken, with its sibyl's cave and elysian fields; the spot on which General Hamilton fell in a duel; the Battery and Castle Garden—a covered amphitheatre capable of accommodating 10,000 people; the Park, and the City Hall with its white marble front; Trinity Church; and its wealthy Corporation; Long Island, or Brooklyn, with its delightful cemetery, &c., &c. Suffice it to say that New York has a population of about 400,000; and that it has for that population, without an Established Church, 215 places of worship. Brooklyn has also a population of 60,000, and 30 places of worship.
LETTER XXXVI.
The May Meetings—Dr. Bushnell's Striking Sermon—Two Anti-Slavery Meetings—A Black Demosthenes—Foreign Evangelical Society—A New Thing in the New World—The Home-Missionary Society—Progress and Prospects of the West—Church of Rome—Departure from New York—What the Author thinks of the Americans.
The American May Meetings held in New York do not last a month as in England,—a week suffices. That week is the second in the month. On the Sabbath preceding, sermons on behalf of many of the societies are preached in various churches. On the morning of the Sabbath in question we went to the Tabernacle, not knowing whom we should hear. To our surprise and pleasure, my friend Dr. Baird was the preacher. His text was, "Let thy kingdom come;" and the object for which he had to plead was the Foreign Evangelical Society, of which he was the Secretary. His sermon was exceedingly simple, and the delivery quite in an off-hand conversational style. There was no reading.
In the evening we heard Dr. Bushnell preach, on behalf of the American Home-Missionary Society, at the "Church of the Pilgrims" in Brooklyn. This is a fine costly building, named in honour of the Pilgrim Fathers, and having a fragment of the Plymouth Rock imbedded in the wall. The sermon was a very ingenious one on Judges xvii. 13: "Then said Micah, Now know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest." The preacher observed that Micah lived in the time of the Judges—what might be called the "emigrant age" of Israel,—that he was introduced on the stage of history as a thief,—that he afterwards became in his own way a saint, and must have a priest. First, he consecrates his own son; but his son not being a Levite, it was difficult for so pious a man to be satisfied. Fortunately a young Levite—a strolling mendicant probably—comes that way; and he promptly engages the youth to remain and act the padre for him, saying, "Dwell with me, and be a father unto me." Having thus got up a religion, the thief is content, and his mental troubles are quieted. Becoming a Romanist before Rome is founded, he says, "Now know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest." Religion to him consisted in a fine silver apparatus of gods, and a priest in regular succession. In this story of Micah it was seen that emigration, or a new settlement of the social state, involves a tendency to social decline. "Our first danger," said the preacher, "is barbarism —Romanism next."
The tendency to barbarism was illustrated by historic references. The emigration headed by Abraham soon developed a mass of barbarism,—Lot giving rise to the Moabites and the Ammonites; meanwhile, Abraham throwing off upon the world in his son Ishmael another stock of barbarians—the Arabs,—a name which according to some signifies Westerners. One generation later, and another ferocious race springs from the family of Isaac—the descendants of Esau, or the Edomites. Then coming down to the time of the Judges we find that violence prevailed, that the roads were destroyed, and that the arts had perished: there was not even a smith left in the land; and they were obliged to go down to the Philistines to get an axe or a mattock sharpened. Then the preacher came to the great American question itself. It was often supposed that in New England there had always been an upward tendency. It was not so. It had been downward until the "great revival" about the year 1740. The dangers to which society in the South and "Far West" is now exposed were powerfully described. The remedies were then pointed out.
"First of all, we must not despair." "And what next? We must get rid, if possible, of slavery." "'We must have peace.'". Also "Railways and telegraphs." "Education, too, we must favour and promote." "Above all, provide a talented and educated body of Christian teachers, and keep them pressing into the wilderness as far as emigration itself can go." The conclusion of this great sermon was so remarkable that I cannot but give it in the Doctor's own words.
"And now, Jehovah God, thou who, by long ages of watch and discipline, didst make of thy servant Abraham a people, be thou the God also of this great nation. Remember still its holy beginnings, and for the fathers' sakes still cherish and sanctify it. Fill it with thy Light and thy Potent Influence, till the glory of thy Son breaks out on the Western sea as now upon the Eastern, and these uttermost parts, given to Christ for his possession, become the bounds of a new Christian empire, whose name the believing and the good of all people shall hail as a name of hope and blessing."
On the Tuesday I attended two Anti-slavery Meetings in the Tabernacle. The one in the morning was that of Mr. Garrison's party. The chief speakers were Messrs. Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Frederick Douglass. This party think that the constitution of the United States is so thoroughly pro-slavery that nothing can be done without breaking it up. Another party, at the head of which is Lewis Tappan, think that there are elements in the constitution which may be made to tell powerfully against slavery, and ultimately to effect its overthrow. Both parties mean well; but they unhappily cherish towards each other great bitterness of feeling. Mr. Tappan's party held their meeting in the afternoon. Among the speakers was the Rev. Mr. Patton from Hartford, son of Dr. Patton, who made a very effective speeches. The Rev. Samuel Ward also, a black man of great muscular power, and amazing command of language and of himself, astonished and delighted me. I could not but exclaim, "There speaks a black Demosthenes!" This man, strange to say, is the pastor of a Congregational church of white people in the State of New York. As a public speaker he seemed superior to Frederick Douglass. It was pleasing at those anti-slavery meetings to see how completely intermingled were the whites and the coloured.
I had been invited in the evening to speak at the public meeting of the Foreign Evangelical Society, and to take tea at Dr. Baird's house. While I was there, Dr. Anderson, one of the Secretaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and Mr. Merwin, called to invite me to address the public meeting of that society on the Friday. I promised to do so, if I should not previously have left for the West Indies. The public meeting of Dr. Baird's society was held in the Dutch Reformed Church, Dr. Hutton's, a magnificent Gothic building. Dr. De Witt took the chair. The attendance was large and respectable. Dr. Baird, as Secretary, having recently returned from Europe, where he had conversed on the subject of his mission with fourteen crowned heads, read a most interesting report. The writer had then to address the meeting. After him three other gentlemen spoke. There was no collection! Strange to say, that, with all their revivals, our friends in America seem to be morbidly afraid of doing anything under the influence of excitement. Hence the addresses on occasions like this are generally stiff and studied, half-an-hour orations. This feeling prevents their turning the voluntary principle, in the support of their religious societies, to so good an account as they otherwise might. At the close of this meeting, there seemed to be a fine state of feeling for making a collection; and yet no collection was made. This society is one of great value and importance. It is designed to tell in the promotion of evangelical truth on the Catholic countries of Europe and South America. In those countries, it employs a hundred colporteurs in the sale and distribution of religious publications.