It was all very easy and pleasant, if not feverishly stimulating; and I am quite willing to match my Andover Sunday-school experiences with that of a Boston free-thinker's little daughter who came home and complained to her mother:
"There is a dreadful girl put into our Sunday-school. I think, mamma, she is bad society for me. She says the Bible is exaggerated, and then she tickles my legs!"
I have said that we were taught to think something about our own "salvation;" and so we were, but not in a manner calculated to burden the good spirits of any but a very sensitive or introspective child. Personally, I may have dwelt on the idea, at times, more than was good for my happiness; but certainly no more than was good for my character. The idea of character was at the basis of everything we did, or dreamed, or learned.
There is a scarecrow which "liberal" beliefs put together, hang in the field of public terror or ridicule, and call it Orthodoxy. Of this misshapen creature we knew nothing in Andover.
Of hell we heard sometimes, it is true, for Andover Seminary believed in it—though, be it said, much more comfortably in the days before this iron doctrine became the bridge of contention in the recent serious, theological battle which has devastated Andover. In my own case, I do not remember to have been shocked or threatened by this woful doctrine. I knew that my father believed in the everlasting misery of wicked people who could be good if they wanted to, but would not; and I was, of course, accustomed to accept the beliefs of a parent who represented everything that was tender, unselfish, pure, and noble, to my mind—in fact, who sustained to me the ideal of a fatherhood which gave me the best conception I shall ever get, in this world, of the Fatherhood of God. My father presented the interesting anomaly of a man holding, in one dark particular, a severe faith, but displaying in his private character rare tenderness and sweetness of heart. He would go out of his way to save a crawling thing from death, or any sentient thing from pain. He took more trouble to give comfort or to prevent distress to every breathing creature that came within his reach, than any other person whom I have ever known. He had not the heart to witness heartache. It was impossible for him to endure the sight of a child's suffering. His sympathy was an extra sense, finer than eyesight, more exquisite than touch.
Yet, he did believe that absolute perversion of moral character went to its "own place," and bore the consequence of its own choice.
Once I told a lie (I was seven years old), and my father was a broken-hearted man. He told me then that liars went to hell. I do not remember to have heard any such personal application of the doctrine of eternal punishment before or since; and the fact made a life-long impression, to which I largely owe a personal preference for veracity. Yet, to analyze the scene strictly, I must say that it was not fear of torment which so moved me; it was the sight of that broken face. For my father wept—only when death visited the household did I ever see him cry again—and I stood melted and miserable before his anguish and his love. The devil and all his angels could not have punished into me the noble shame of that moment.
PROFESSOR AUSTIN PHELPS, FATHER OF ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.
From a photograph by Warren, Boston.