Doctor Clapp—Views and Opinions—Universal Destiny—Alexander Barrow —E.D. White—Cross-Breed, Irish Renegade and Acadian—Heroic Woman— The Ginseng Trade—I-I-I'll D-D-Die F-F-First.
Dr. Clapp, so conspicuous in the annals of New Orleans, was from New England, and was located in New Orleans as a Presbyterian minister, as early as 1824, and about the same period that the great and lamented Larned died.
His mind was bold and original, analytical and independent. Soon after his location and the commencement of his ministry, he gave offence to some of his church, and especially to some of his brother pastors, by the enunciation of opinions not deemed orthodox.
There was at this time preaching at Natchez, one Potts, who was a Presbyterian, a Puritan, and extremely straight-laced in doctrine, and eminently puritan in practice, intolerant, bigoted, and presumptuous. Potts had accomplished one great aim of his mission: he had married a lady of fortune, and assumed more purity than any one else, and was a sort of self-constituted exponent of the only true doctrines of his church. Arrogant and conceited, he, though a very young man, thrust himself forward as a censor, and very soon was in controversy with Dr. Clapp. Without a tithe of his talent, or a grain of his piety, he assumed to arraign him on the ground of unfaithfulness to the tenets of the church. This controversy was bitter and continued. The result was, that Dr. Clapp dissolved connection with the Presbyterian Church, and, at the call of the most numerous and talented as well as wealthy congregation ever preached to, up to that time, in New Orleans; established himself as an independent, and continued to preach for many years—indeed, until age and infirmity compelled him to retire.
His peculiar religious opinions were more Unitarian than Presbyterian. They consisted of an enlightened philosophy derived from natural revelation, which elevated Deity above the passions, prejudices, loves, and hates of mortality. His GOD was INFINITE, ALL-PERVADING, and PERFECT.
The purity of his character, and his wonderful intellect, combined, brought around him the most intelligent and moral of the population, and his opinions won many converts. He preached and practised a rational religion, defined a rigid morality as the basis and main requisite to true piety, and the doing good toward his fellow-man, the duty of man toward God.
The faith he exacted was predicated upon works.... That he who had faith in the existence of the soul, and who believed its future dependent upon him, should be taught this faith was best exemplified by a faithful discharge of all the duties imposed by society and law. That he who was pious, was a good husband, father, and friend, a good neighbor, an honest, and sincere man, faithful in the discharge of all his duties as a citizen and member of society: resting here the hope of future reward, and not looking to the merits of any other for that salvation, which the mind hopes, and the heart craves for all eternity; fixing a responsibility individually and indivisibly upon each and every one, to earn salvation by discharging temporal duties which secure the harmony, well-being, and general love of mankind. Any other doctrine, he contended, destroyed man's free agency, and discouraged the idea that virtue and goodness were essential to true piety. God had created him for an especial mission. His existence in time was his chrysalis condition; to make this as nearly perfect as was possible to his nature, he was gifted with mind, passion, and propensities—the former to conceive and control the discharge of the duties imposed upon him in this state: this done, he perished as to time, and awoke prepared for eternity. These ideas were impressed with a logic irresistible to the enlightened mind—not clouded with the bigotry of fanaticism—and an eloquence so persuasive and sweet as to charm the heart and kindle it into love.
He never burned brimstone under the noses of his auditory, nor frenzied their imaginations with impassioned appeals to supernatural agencies. He expounded the Scriptures as the teachings of men. His learning was most profound, especially in the languages. He understood thoroughly the Hebrew and Greek. He read from the originals the Scriptures, and interpreted them to his hearers, as to their meaning in their originals, and disrobed them of the supernatural character which an ignorant fanaticism has thrown over them, and which time and folly has indurated beyond the possibility of learning and science to crack or crush.
A great original thinker, untrammelled by the schools, and independent of precedents, he saw nature before him, and studied closely all her developments. Eminently schooled in the philosophy of life, deeply read in the human mind and the heart, he searched for all the influences operating its conclusions, and the motives of human action: the relations of man to external nature, the connection of mind with matter, the origin of things, their design as developed in their creation, their connection and dependence, one upon the other, and the relation of all to the Creator, and in those the duty of man. It was his idea, that, commencing from the humblest, and ascending to man, through created nature, the design was manifest that these were all, in the animal and the vegetable kingdom, assigned by the Creator for man's uses. To him alone, in all these creations, are given the faculties necessary to a comprehension of the nature of all of these, as well as their uses.
From this fact, so powerfully prominent in all natural developments, he viewed man as the most intimate relation of the Creator on this globe, and discovering in him no designs beyond the cultivation of the great faculty of thought for time, the inference was natural that his future was not for time, or time's uses. That all was only fitting the soul, which his instincts tell him exists within, when, refined by time, and the probation of life, for the independence, and the fruition of the sublime designs of God in eternal life, he should ascend to his destined sphere, etherialized, and know his Creator and the future of his being; when speculation should cease, and reality and unambiguous truth be made manifest. Of this great truth his mind was so fully impressed that all his life was by it governed. His convictions were palpable in his conduct, for it was in strict conformity with these opinions. The aberrations from virtue and the laws of morals, as established by man for the better regulation of his conduct toward his fellow-men, he deemed the result of improper education, and especially the education of the heart, and the want of the training this gives to the natural desires of his organization. That these desires, passions, and instincts, are given as essential to his mission in time, and those properly educated, trained, and directed, are necessary to his fulfilment of life's duties, in the perfection of the Creator's design, and, when so educated and directed, secure to the individual, and to society, the consummation of this design; but when perverted, become a punishment to both society and the individual, for the neglect of a prime duty; and belong alone to time. Similar results he saw from similar causes, in the operations of inanimate life. The design of the tree was to grow upward, but an unnatural obstacle, in the falling of another, bends it away, and its growth is perverted from the original design, yet it grows on and completes the cycle of its destiny.