One night, when temperance was the theme, he paused, and directing his conversation to some boys who were whispering, remarked: “I sometimes wonder how it will be with young men who cannot behave in Boston, where there are so many policemen to watch them, when they get into that far country where there are no policemen. You’d better cast anchor, boys.”
This anecdote is on the writer. My companion was one of the young ladies of Park Street, and I was feeling just a bit proud of myself. We were on hand in time, and had good seats against the wall. Distress came upon me by reason of new and tight-fitting shoes. I had slipped them off and put them under the seat, and was as peaceful and contented as a bug in a rug. Presently the crowd came, and there was a demand for seats. Spying other boys and me, this is how he fixed us: “Here, John, Thomas, Ezra, Henry, and William, come this way and sit on the pulpit steps.” All the other boys started. I kept my seat. I was in a fix. Then he spoke a second time. “Come, come, no hanging back!” Taking the shoes in my hand, I went as directed. The boys and girls laughed, and he comforted me by saying: “I sat on the pulpit steps many a time when I was a boy. It didn’t hurt me, and it won’t hurt you.”
One night just before the benediction he said very earnestly: “I wish the congregation would exhibit less haste to be dismissed. When the last verse of the hymn is being sung, you throw your books into the rack with a nervous thud that sounds like the ’ram-cartridge’ of a regiment of raw militia. Kindly hold the books in your hands until after the benediction.”
On one occasion when he was talking about politeness as apart from selfishness, this is how he got back at some of us, “Now I suppose if you were travelling in a crowded horse-car, and a tired mother with a baby in her arms, or a feeble old man with bundles in his hands, got aboard, you would give up your seat even if you had paid for it—but I happen to know that there are some of your elders who won’t do it.” I never knew whom he fired that shot at.
A transient man (speaking in meeting one night) bemoaned the fact that some of the tunes to which hymns were sung were theatre refrains, and unholy. “What!” exclaimed Father Kellogg, “you wouldn’t give all the good music to the devil, would you?” The stranger sat down.
One cold, blustery day Father Kellogg came to the store on Milk Street where I was employed, with a tale of sorrow. He had discovered a sick family. There was no food or fuel in the house, and he had no money in his purse. He must raise $3 immediately. Every one contributed on the instant, and he obtained nearly $4. There was a tear in his eye when he went out, and probably having in mind that some of us were theatre-goers or billiard-players, or something else—he turned to me, and remarked aside, “Old Satan will be about $4 short to-night!”
It should not be understood from the foregoing that my recollection of Father Kellogg and my admiration for him are based on and began and ended with a few little anecdotes incidental to evening meetings at the church over which he was the honored pastor. I knew him in the broad field, the world. He frequently spent an hour of the evening with me at the store which was my only home, and where half the evenings in the week I was alone as watchman after closing hours; here he often related his experiences as a sailor—much of which was afterward woven into his stories—and corrected the compositions I had written as a student at the Mercantile Library Association then located on Summer Street. More than this, he knew most of the boys and young men of the association, and dropped in occasionally to hear them speak his declamations and to encourage them in their studies. Later he was wont to call at my boarding-place, as he did at boarding-places of other homeless young men in that great city, to look after me and make me feel that some one cared for me. In those years I went occasionally with him and others to his week-day meetings at the Marine Hospital in Chelsea to“help out in the singing,”—as he was pleased to put it,—and to more other places than it would be interesting to mention here. On most of these occasions he “stood treat” on soda or ice-cream somewhere on the tramp, and, as I now discover, was always endeavoring to keep us interested and out of reach of temptation. In after years and following my departure from Boston, I used to find him at the Athenæum on Beacon Street where—after giving up his church duties—he spent most of his time when writing his books. These meetings were the joy and pride of my life, and from them I always obtained new courage to persevere in my profession. And here let me say that of all the boys of 1857-1870 I know of but one who has made a misfit of life; and over his misfortunes I throw, as I know Father Kellogg would were he still among us, the broadest mantle of charity.
Of Father Kellogg as an earnest and inspired preacher, a consecrated man with a message to men, and of his greatest sermons, others may speak. He was a modest and unassuming man who did not recognize in himself his full power to move and convince men. Physical fear stood in the way. He often expressed himself as greatly embarrassed when officiating over large and fashionable congregations, and he said to me, following his magnificent discourse in a series of meetings at Tremont Temple, that when he approached the desk, his knees shook so that he feared he should fall in his tracks. However this may have been, he got control of himself before he had spoken twenty-five words. All of embarrassment fled before the earnestness of his words and purpose. It was—and I speak with the knowledge that many others consider his sermon on the “Prodigal Son” his masterpiece—one of the greatest efforts of his life. He realized that he was in contrast with Dr. Stone, Dr. Manning, Dr. Kirk, Dr. Neal, and others, and that he must give the best he had. The sermon made a deep impression upon all his hearers.
It was a comparative parallel of a brook and the career of man in weird and forceful language, in imagery that was entrancing, in striking passages, and with the lesson every moment in the foreground,—man and brook at their sources, the place of their birth.
Morning. He dwelt upon its beauty at sunrise, and the secluded depths of the forest, and sought the birthplace of the brook. Then with the child and the tiny stream he lingered and dwelt in graceful, dreamy thought, in which he compared their purity, pondered upon the dangers and pitfalls beyond, half undecided whether to venture farther or cease to be. Having determined that it would be cowardly to resist destiny, he followed the murmuring stream, listened to its complaints and made note of its troubles. It was the career of man. As it flowed on, and he wandered beside it, he listened to the song of birds, the murmuring wind, and found himself in harmony with things divine. Anon, the scene changed, the harmony was broken, the temptation to recklessness was observed on every hand. The little brook had increased in strength and commenced its complaining. It was being bruised against boulders, rushed over logs and through chasms, over ledges, alongside of marshes and across the quicksands of meadows, under water-wheels and bridges, thrown mercilessly over precipices and dashed against every substance in its path.