Of Literature, Art, and Science.
Vol. IV. NEW-YORK, AUGUST 1, 1851. No. I.
REV. CALVIN COLTON.
Mr. Colton is a man of very decided abilities, voluminous and various in their manifestation, and assiduously cultivated during a long life, in which he has never failed of the curiosity, ambition, and industry of a learner. The untiring freshness and hopefulness of his spirit is shown by his undertaking the study of the French language not more than three or four years ago, and obtaining such a mastery of it as to read with delight its most abstruse authors, and to preach in it with fluency and even with eloquence. It is characteristic of him that he is always earnest, and that he considers whatever he has to do worthy of his best abilities, so that in writing of theology, economy, polity, or manners, he arrays in order for each particular subject all the forces of his understanding, and makes its discussion their measure and illustration. He has been in an eminent degree devoted to literature as a profession, and although he has produced works which may be deemed unfortunate in design or defective in execution, it must be admitted that he is entitled to a highly respectable position as a thinker and as a writer, and that in opinion and in affairs he has exercised a steady and large influence.
He was born in Long Meadow, Massachusetts, graduated at Yale College in 1812, studied divinity at Andover, and in 1815 took orders in the Presbyterian church. For several years he was settled in the village of Batavia in western New-York, but his voice failing in 1826, he became a contributor to several of the principal periodicals occupied with religion and learning, and in the summer of 1831, after an extended tour through the western states and territories, proceeded to London, as a correspondent of the New-York Observer.
In England, he led a life of remarkable literary activity. In 1832 he published a Manual for Emigrants to America, which had a large sale among the middling classes; and The History and Character of American Revivals of Religion, of which there were two or three editions. In 1833, in a volume entitled The Americans, by an American in London, he replied, with an unanswerable display of facts, to the libels on this country by British travellers and reviewers; and published The American Cottager, a religious narrative. A Tour of the American Lakes and among the Indians of the North-West Territory, in two volumes, and Church and State in America, a vindication of the religious character of the country and the voluntary principle for the support of religion, in reply to the Bishop of London, who had endeavored to show that the United States were going back to paganism because the church was not here connected with the state.
Returning to New-York, in 1835, he published Four Years in Great Britain, in two volumes, which were soon after reprinted, with some additions, in a more popular form. In 1836 he gave to the public anonymously, Protestant Jesuitism, a criticism of the constitution, extreme opinion, and unwise action of many of the benevolent and religious societies; and having taken orders in the Episcopal church, Thoughts on the Religious State of the Country, and Reasons for preferring Episcopacy, a work which was much read and the cause of much critical observation in Great Britain as well as in the United States.
From that time Mr. Colton has written very little on any subject intimately connected with religion, but directing his attention to public affairs, has been as conspicuous in the state as he was previously in the church. In 1838 he published Abolition a Sedition, and Abolition and Colonization Contrasted, in which he contended with equal earnestness and ability that the entire subject of slavery is beyond the limits of the proper action of the national government, and that there is no justification of its discussion, except in the states where slavery is established, or for the wise and really philanthropic purpose of promoting African Colonization. In 1839 he again took up the argument of our social relations with Great Britain, in a work written in Philadelphia, but published in London, under the title of A Voice from America to England, By an American Gentleman. The plan was judicious: it was not so much to express opinions as to state facts which should compel opinions in the adverse audience he addressed. While mainly defensive, he was at the same time bravely critical. He contended that in its constitution our government was republican and not democratic, but that the extraordinary force of public opinion among us has made it democratic in fact. A large portion of the work was devoted to the several ecclesiastical polities existing here, which he treated with singular freedom and originality, so that the frequent impertinences of ignorant laymen and obtrusively-meddling women, in the affairs of churches, rendering the clerical profession humiliating and difficult to a person of manly character and cultivation, were stated without any hesitation or attempt at concealment. The entire performance is still attractive for frequent sound observation upon institutions, judicious criticism of manners, happy illustration, and good humor, and its opportune appearance was advantageous to the best fame of the country.