Recollections of a Long Life: An Autobiography

by Theodore L. Cuyler

Our noble people never do anything by halves; and a few evenings after the delivery of my valedictory discourse they gave to their pastor and his wife a public reception, for which the church, lecture-room and the church parlors were profusely adorned; and were crowded with guests. Congratulatory addresses were delivered by Dr. John Hall of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, by Professor William M. Paxton, of Princeton Theological Seminary; and congratulatory letters were read from the venerable poet, Whittier, the Hon. William Walter Phelps, Mr. A.A. Low (the Mayor's father), General William H. Seward, Bishop Potter and Dr. Herrick Johnson, besides a vast number of others renowned in Church and State. On behalf of the Brooklyn pastors an address was pronounced by the Rev. Dr. L.T. Chamberlain, which was a rare gem of sparkling oratory. In his concluding passage he said: "Nor in all these have I for an instant forgotten the dual nature of that ministry, which has been so richly blessed. I recall that in the prophet's symbolic act, he took to himself two staves, the one was 'Beauty,' while the other was 'Bands.' In the kingdom of grace and in the kingdom of nature, loveliness is ever the fit complement of strength. Accordingly, to her, who has been the enthroned one in the heart, the light-giver in the home, the beloved of the church, we tender our most fervent good wishes For her also we lift on high our faithful, tender intercession. To each, to both, we give the renewed assurance of our abiding affection. God grant that life's shadows may lengthen gently and slowly! Late, may you both ascend to Heaven: long and happily may you abide with us here!" The report of the proceedings of that evening says that at this reference to the "dual" character of his ministry, "the veteran pastor sprang to his feet and, seizing Dr. Chamberlain's hand, exclaimed; 'I thank you for that, and the whole assembly's applause revealed its heartfelt sympathy." I had declined more than once, for good reasons, the kind offer of my generous flock to increase my salary, but, when on that evening that crowned my thirty years of labor, my dear neighbor and church elder, Mr. John N. Beach (on behalf of the congregation), put into my hands a cheque for thirty thousand dollars, "not as a charity but as a token of our warm hearted grateful love," I could only say with the Apostle Paul: "I rejoice in the Lord that your care has blossomed out afresh" (for this is the literal reading of the great apostle's gratitude).

The proceedings of that memorable evening were closed by a benediction by the Rev. Dr. Charles L. Thompson, then Moderator of our General Assembly and now the super-royal Secretary of our Board of Home Missions. The proceedings were afterwards compiled in a beautiful volume entitled "A Thirty Years' Pastorate," by the good taste and literary skill of my beloved friend, the late Jacob L. Gossler.

In justice to myself, let me say that I have given this narrative of the closing scenes of my pastoral labors, not, I trust, as a matter of personal vain glory; but that good Christian people in our own land and in other lands may learn from the example of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church how to treat a pastor, whose simple aim has been, with God's help, to do his duty.

CHAPTER XIX.

LIFE AT HOME—AND FRIENDS ABROAD.

A few months after my resignation, the Lafayette Avenue Church extended an unanimous call to the Rev. Dr. David Gregg, who had become distinguished as a powerful preacher, and the successful pastor of the old, historic Park Street Church, of Boston. He is also widely known by his published works, which display great vigor and beauty of style, and a fervid spirituality. When Dr. Gregg came on to assume his office, I was glad, not only to give him a hearty welcome, but to assure him that, "as no one had ever come up into the pilot house to interfere with the helmsman, so I would never lay my hand on the wheel that should steer that superb vessel in all its future voyagings." From that day to this, my relations with my beloved successor have been unspeakably fraternal and delightful. While I have left the entire official charge of the church in his hands, there have been many occasions on which we have co-operated in various pastoral duties among a flock that was equally dear to us both. Recently the Rev. George R. Lunn, a young minister of exceedingly attractive qualities both in the pulpit and in personal intercourse, has been installed as an assistant pastor. The divine blessing has constantly rested upon the noble old church, which has gone steadily on, like a powerful ocean steamer, well-manned, well-equipped, well-freighted, and well guided by the compass of God's infallible word. Last year the church rendered a signal service to the cause of Foreign Missions by erecting a "David Gregg Hospital" and a "Theodore L. Cuyler Church" in Canton, China. They are both under the supervision of the Rev. Albert A. Fulton, who went out to China from our Lafayette Avenue flock, and has been a most energetic and successful missionary for more than twenty years.

My ministry at large has brought a needed rest, not by idleness, but by a change in the character of my employment. Instead of a weekly preparation of sermons, has come the preparation of more frequent contributions to the religious press. Instead of pastoral visitations have been the journeyings to different churches, or colleges, and universities and Young Men's Christian Associations for preaching services. I doubt whether any other dozen years of my life have been more crowded with various activities. To my dear wife and myself have come increased opportunities for travel, which have been, during the almost half century of our happy wedded life, a constant source of enjoyment. We have journeyed together from Bar Harbor, in Maine, to Coronado Beach, in Southern California. We have traversed together the Adirondacks, the White Mountains and the Catskills, the prairies of Dakota and the orange groves of Florida, the peerless parks of Del Monte on the shores of the Pacific, and the "Royal Gorge" in the heart of the Rocky Mountain Range. Our various trips to Europe have photographed on our hearts the memories of many dear friends and faces, some of whom, alas! have vanished into the unseen world. In the summer of 1889, when we were at Ayr, the late Mr. Alexander Allan, came down for us in his fine steam yacht, the Tigh-na-Mara, and took us up to his hospitable "Hafton House" on the Holy Loch, a few miles below Glasgow. For several days he gave us yachting excursions through Loch Goil, and the Kyles of Bute, and Loch Long, with glimpses of Ben-Lomond and other monarchs of the Highlands. When we saw the gorgeous purple garniture of heather in full bloom, we no longer wondered that Sir Walter Scott was quite satisfied to have his beloved hills devoid of forests.

Another memorable visit of that summer was to Chillitigham Castle in Northumberland, from whose towers we got views of Flodden Field and the scenes of "Marmion." The venerable Earl of Tankerville (who was a contemporary and supporter of Sir Robert Peel in Parliament), and his warm-hearted Countess, who has long been a leader in various Christian philanthropies, entertained us delightfully within walls that had stood for six centuries. In a forest near the Castle were the famous herd of wild cattle which are the only survivors of the original herd that roamed that region in the days of William the Conqueror. They are beautiful white creatures, still too wild to be approached very nearly; and Sir Edwin Landseer, an old friend of the Earl, has preserved life-sized portraits of two of them on the walls of the lofty dining hall of the castle. When the servants, gardeners and other retainers assembled for morning worship in the chapel, the handsome old Earl presided at the melodeon, and the singing was from our American Sankey's hymn-book, a style of music that would have startled the belted knights and barons bold who worshipped in that chapel five centuries ago.

While at Dundee, as the guests of Mr. Alexander H. Moncur, the Ex-provost of the city, I had the satisfaction of preaching in St. Peters Presbyterian Church, whose pastor, sixty years ago, was that ideal minister, Robert Murray McCheyne. The Bible from which he delivered his seraphic sermons was still lying on the pulpit. When I asked a plain woman, the wife of a weaver, what she could tell me about his discourses, her remarkable reply was: "It did me more good just to see Mr. McCheyne walk from the door to his pulpit than to hear any other man in Dundee." A fine tribute, that, to the power of a Christly personality. A sermon in shoes is often more eloquent and soul-convincing than a sermon on paper. I spent a very pleasant hour with sturdy John Bright, and he told me that he had more relatives living in America than in England. His reason for declining the invitation of our government to visit the United States was that he knew too well what our enthusiastic countrymen had in store for him. The separation of Bright and Gladstone on the question of Irish Home Rule had a certain tragic element of sadness. When I spoke of this to Mr. Gladstone, the old statesman of Hawarden tenderly replied: "Whenever I think now of my dear old friend, I always think only of those days when we were in our warmest fellowship" Among the many other recollections of foreign incidents I must mention a very delightful luncheon at Athens with Dr. Schlieman in his superb house which was filled with the trophies of his exploration of the Troad and Mycenae. I found him a most genial man; and he told me that he had never surrendered his American citizenship, acquired in 1850. It was very amusing to hear him and his Grecian wife address their children as "Agamemnon" and "Andromache" and I half expected to see Plato drop in for a chat, or Euripides call with an invitation to witness a rehearsal of the "Medea." Athens is to me the most satisfactory of all the restored cities of antiquity, every relic there is so indisputably genuine. My sunrise view from the Parthenon was a fair match for a midnight view I once had of Olivet and Gethsemane.

I cannot close these recollections of foreign friends without making mention of the late Mr. William Tweedie and his successor the late Mr. Robert Rae, the efficient Secretaries of the National Temperance League (of which Archbishop Temple has long been the President). They rendered me endless acts of kindness, and at their anniversary meetings I met many of the most prominent advocates of the temperance reform in Great Britain. It gives me a sharp pang to recall the fact that of all the leaders whom I met at those meetings, the gallant Sir Wilfred Lawson and Mr. Caine are almost the only survivors.