Nathan Hale himself went forth from his alma mater filled with the joyous hopes and ambitions that have filled the souls of many other men, all unconscious of the fact that the finest heroism and the highest self-sacrifice lay just before him, but conscious that he meant to be ready for the best that life could give him. He was ready; and the best of life for him was the power to die as he died.
CHAPTER IX
Nathan Hale's Friends
(1) Rev. Joseph Huntington, D.D.
A somewhat full description of the Rev. Joseph Huntington, D.D., is well worth placing among the friends of Nathan Hale. It was impossible for such a boy as Nathan to have been under the care of such a man as Dr. Huntington, first as pastor and then as his private teacher in his preparation for college, without having been strongly influenced by him. Indeed, scanning these old records of a parish of a hundred and fifty years ago, we cannot help feeling a strong personal attraction toward the Rev. Joseph Huntington.
Few men more fully prove the claim that many of the early New England pastors were eminently fitted to lead their people heavenward and also in the practical development of their daily lives.
Dr. Huntington lived a life evidently inspired by the finest ideals, and also by shrewd common sense, always so dear to the heart of a New Englander. It is a pleasure to recall the story of this man's useful life, and realize that besides the reverence almost invariably accorded to "the minister" in those days, he must have held the everyday affection and wholesome trust of his people. Year by year he proved himself not only their pastor, but a friend full of all kindly sympathies, never above a hearty laugh when mirth was rampant, or a sympathetic tear for hearts wrung with anguish.
He was born in Windham, Connecticut, in 1735. His ancestors came from England about 1640 and the family ultimately settled in Windham. His father, a man of somewhat arbitrary character, had determined that Joseph should be a clothier, and forced him to remain in that business until he was twenty-one. His intellectual ability was thought to be somewhat remarkable, and his moral character so good that his pastor advised him to begin a course of study for the ministry. He completed his preparation for Yale College in an unusually short time, and was graduated there in the year 1762.
His call to be settled over the First Church in Coventry was received so soon after his graduation that we are forced to believe that his theological course must have been brief. The parish in Coventry had been greatly reduced in numbers. The meeting-house had been allowed to go to decay, and the religious life of the parish was in a corresponding state of depression. His ordination services were held out of doors,—whether because the assemblage was too large for the church, or because the building was too dilapidated, does not appear. The first thing Mr. Huntington did after his settlement was to urge upon his people the project of building a new meeting-house. They responded so heartily that in a short time they had built the best church in the whole region, having expended for it about five thousand dollars—a large sum in those days.