Although so familiar and informal in his social and pastoral relations, as a preacher he never hesitated to point out to his people their duty in language that was unmistakable. Soon after the new church was built, for example, he told them that increased privilege means ever increased responsibility. “God has given you,” he said, “a commodious and elegant place of worship. Why? That you might sit down and admire it and be proud of it? Do that, and He will wither you to the root. Do it, and He will send leanness into your souls. My dear friends, we had better, like our Puritan forefathers on the coast of Holland, kneel down among the rocks and seaweed in the cold winter to pray to God with the humble spirit with which they prayed than to worship Him here in peace and comfort, surrounded with tasteful decorations, without that humility. You have heard of congratulation and praise as much as you ought to hear. I wish you to look at your increased responsibility. As God has made you first in point of privilege, be not by abusing those privileges the last to attain salvation.”
In his pulpit, with plain-spoken words such as these, and with quaint phrases, and apt illustrations drawn from the farm, the forest, and the sea, this preacher quickened the conscience, and broadened the sympathies, and strengthened the faith of the farmers, fishermen, and sailors, who heard him gladly. As a preacher, “he seemed,” says one who knew him well, “a prophet in the authority with which he spoke, an evangelist in the tenderness with which he appealed to the conscience and set forth the promises of the Gospel, a poet often in the simple beauty and grace with which he portrayed the conditions of human life, and discoursed of the deep things of God.”
THE SEAMAN’S FRIEND
George Kimball
At its annual meeting, May 17, 1854, the Boston Seaman’s Friend Society accepted the resignation of Rev. George W. Bourne, pastor of the Mariners’ Church and chaplain of the Sailors’ Home. The board of managers then began the search for “a suitable man” for the vacant position, and their choice fell upon Rev. Elijah Kellogg of Harpswell, Maine.
Mr. Kellogg began his duties in September of that year, with his accustomed earnestness, and under his ministry the attendance at the church increased, and a new impulse was given to the society’s work.
He first appeared before the society at its twenty-seventh anniversary, held in Tremont Temple, May 30, 1855. A large audience was assembled. President Alpheus Hardy introduced him in complimentary terms, and he made an eloquent address. His “suitability” as the seaman’s friend and pastor is shown in these extracts: “The greater portion of my life has been spent among seamen, either at sea or on shore. The first personal effort, to any extent, I made for the salvation of souls was while teaching among a community of sailors. The first sermon I preached was to sailors. The first couple I united in marriage were a sailor and his bride. The first child I baptized was a sailor’s child. The first burial service I performed was over the body of a seaman. The society with which I have been connected during the last eleven years is with scarcely an exception composed of sailors and their families. There is not a house in the parish in which the roar of the surf may not be heard, and in many of them the Atlantic flings its spray upon the door-stone.... The men who interest seamen and do them good have not any recipe for it; neither can they impart it to others. It is all instinctive. They love the webbed feet, and the webbed feet love them.”
Mr. Kellogg was at this time forty-one years old. His pleasing personal appearance and his hearty, rugged, forceful utterance made a favorable impression upon his hearers.