The Farmer Boy Who Became a Bishop

Who Became a Bishop

children. She became a life-long friend and in later years a generous contributor to my missionary work. This work at All Saints proved too hard for me in addition to my Seminary studies so that one Sunday I fainted in church and was sick for some time. However, I passed my examinations at the end of the year with credit, but it had been a very hard year.
     During the summer vacation I remained at the Seminary, writing sermons the first part of it and later worked under the direction of Rev. Dr. Dix collecting funds in the Diocese of New York toward the endowment of the Diocese of Albany. The next year I carried on the Sunday school work at All Saints' Church and finished my course in the Seminary. I graduated and was ordained deacon in the Church of the Transfiguration, New York, by Bishop Horatio Potter in June, 1870.
     In the Seminary my warmest friends among the students were Rev. W. B. T. Smith and Rev. J. Lewis Parks. I graduated in the same class as Rt. Rev. Edwin G. Weed, who was the first one in our class and the only one except myself to become a bishop. I made other friends, many of whom have done noble work in the Church and passed to their reward.
     As I had spent only two years in the Seminary, I hardly felt like entering at once upon independent work as rector of a parish. I felt the need of further preparation and study. Accordingly, before my ordination and with the consent of my Bishop, I engaged to be

The Farmer Boy

come for a year the assistant, or curate, of Rev. Dr. B. H. Paddock, the rector of Grace Church, Brooklyn Heights. He was a faithful and systematic parish priest and my home in his family was delightful. I learned many things from his methods and those of his predecessor, Dr. E. A. Hoffman. My duties were to assist at all services, superintend the Sunday school and call on all non-pew-holders, of whom there were a great many among the poor. I had very little preaching to do except when the rector was away on his summer vacation. I spent my forenoons studying and preparing sermons, taking the greatest pains with the sermons. Often I spent two weeks on a sermon, making it the very best I possibly could. I have not been ashamed to use all my life some of the sermons I wrote while a deacon. The afternoons I devoted to making calls, going the full round every month. The year passed pleasantly and profitably.
The special event to me this year was the death of my dear friend and patroness, Mrs. Joseph B. Varnum. From the time she saw me when I was in college to her death she had taken a lively interest in my welfare, occasionally sending me gifts to help me along. Much of that time she was in Europe, but we had corresponded steadily. At her death, she left me two thousand dollars in her will with the expressed wish that I should travel abroad. This made it possible for me to realize a long-cherished wish. As soon as my year was over at Grace Church, I prepared to go. One of

Who Became a Bishop

the wardens of the church, Mr. Henry E. Pierrepont, Sr., added one hundred dollars to my purse. On the fourth of June, 1871, 1 was ordained priest with my friend, A. D. Miller, in Holy Trinity Church, Brooklyn, New York, by Bishop Littlejohn. On June 24th I took the steamer with not a person on board I had ever seen before.

N the steamer, I made the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Morris Phillips and a Mr. Van der Wielen. Mr. Phillips was editor of the New York Home Journal. Mr. Van der Wielen was a native of Holland, but for a number of years had been a teacher of fine arts in Philadelphia. As their line of travel coincided with mine for a while, we arranged to keep together through Ireland and Wales. The Fourth of July was celebrated on shipboard by the firing of a salute, an oration, a poem and singing of national airs.
On landing at Queenstown we went immediately to Cork and from there visited Blarney Castle in a jaunting car. The things that impressed me most were the light green, almost yellow, color of vegetation, the beggar boys running after our car and the men and

The Farmer Boy

women in the fields trying to make hay in the rain. It was with the greatest difficulty that they could make hay or save the crops that year, for it rained every day except three where I was for the next month. Blarney Castle was the first castle I ever saw and I was greatly interested in the curious passages through the walls, the caves underneath, the witches' kitchen and the stairway in the center of the wall. Of course, we kissed the Blarney Stone, Mr. Phillips holding me by the coat while I hung down head first to reach it and then I did the same for him. At the Lakes of Killarney we went around through the Gap of Dunloe and back through the Lakes. We drank the goat's milk offered for sale by the bare-footed, fresh looking Irish girls, but declined the "mountain dew," whiskey, which they also offered for sale. From there we visited the sights of Dublin, then crossing the Irish Sea we enjoyed the grand scenery of North Wales until we came to Chester in England. There my friends left me for London and I turned north through Liverpool and Lancaster to Furness Abbey in the Lake Country of England. I had planned to walk all through the Lake Country, but was taken sick at Furness Abbey and was obliged to take the stages.
It is not my purpose to write a book of travels nor describe all I saw in the next eleven months, but only give an outline of the course I took and speak of a few things which impressed me most. A few quotations from memoranda made at the time or from letters

Who Became a Bishop

written from various places will perhaps best express my impressions:
"Grasmere, July 14th, 1871. Surrounded by the noblest mountains, alone in the quietest churchyard, sitting by the grave of Wordsworth! Whether he had much genius or little, let critics decide. At all events, he was a good man and the good alone are great. If those who had more genius were to crown it as he did with Godliness, they might make this world a sunnier and better one. I wish I were more like Wordsworth, appreciating and loving better the things he loved."
From Carlisle I went through southern Scotland. One day I devoted to the land of Burns, beginning with his grave at Dumfries and ending with his birth place at Ayr. During the early part of the day, I was depressed by a spirit of sadness and I could recall nothing but the serious poems of Burns and the misfortunes of his life. This feeling culminated when I passed the "Woods of Montgomery" and repeated what I could of Highland Mary. A great change came over my spirits when I arrived at Ayr, walked along the road taken by Tam O'Shanter, looked into old Alloway Kirk and stood on the Brig o' Doon. I became as merry as a bird in spring. About these places were two hundred Scotch lads and lasses, who had come on an excursion from Glasgow. Some of these were dancing hornpipes, some in groups on the grass eating luncheon and some frolicking in a familiar way which recalled many a couplet from the poetry of Burns.

The Farmer Boy

The day I spent in the land of Burns was to me a great day full of noble impressions and pleasant recollections.
Abbotsford and the land of Scott was equally full of interest, but I had neither the time nor the solitude for receiving impressions. In company with a dozen others I was hurried through Scott's house, Abbottsford, and shown a hundred objects of interest in half an hour. "This is the picture of Sir Walter when a child and this the snuff box of Napoleon; this the desk where Sir Walter wrote his novels and this the seal of Mary, Queen of Scots; this the bust of Bailie Nicol Jarvie and these swords from the battle of Flodden Field, etc., etc." If I had had time to sufficiently contemplate the wonderful objects, perhaps Rob Roy's gun might have inspired me to write a border song, or Bruce's armor an oration, or the keys of the Old Talbooth a moral sermon. Possibly I might have absorbed from Sir Walter's last suit of clothes something of that power which enabled its wearer to create all those characters which have become to us synonyms of good or evil people.
I was greatly interested in Lochs Lomond and Katrine, Stirling and Edinburgh Castles, Dryburgh and Melrose Abbeys, but the continued rain and my weakness from the bilious attack dampened the joy. In eastern and central England I visited Durham, Ripon, Lincoln, Rugby, Kenilworth, Stratford, Oxford, and London. England, on the whole, I found about as I expected. I was neither disappointed nor much surprised. In better health and under pleasanter circum-

Who Became a Bishop

stances, I might have entered more fully into the spirit of what I saw.

"I am not a critic of paintings, and I am thankful that I am not. Yesterday, in the cathedral here, I stood before the great master work of Rubens, 'The Descent from the Cross.' Others praised the shading and the coloring, discussed it in detail and then passed on. After they were done, I sat down before the picture and gazed upon its speaking surface. It was not difficult to comprehend the tale it told. A dead Christ was written on every inch of the canvas. It was in the careful, tearful faces of the disciples, in the desponding features of the women at the foot of the cross and above all in the pallid, corpse-like face and form of Jesus. What must have been the feelings of those disciples engaged in the sad duty of removing him from the cross to the grave, not anticipating the resurrection and the glorious things that followed! We can almost hear them say, 'We trusted it had been he which should have redeemed Israel.' We now know the end of the story when we read about the cross, hence our difficulty in realizing that Jesus was actually dead. It seems more to us as though he swooned away and revived on Easter. But there is the truth on the canvas in all its dreadful reality. That body is heavy, helpless, lifeless and those rigid features, though expressive of all he suffered, are now as cold and senseless as the wood or nails of the cross itself.
"To-day, as I was going through a street in Antwerp, I saw a little girl standing by a very large pump with a pitcher partly filled with water. As I came along, she offered me a drink, which offer I accepted.

The Farmer Boy

I then took hold of the great handle and by a single stroke refilled the pitcher. Another little girl, who had observed the act, came running across the street and put her little hand trustfully in mine. She did not say a word in her native Flemish nor I one in English, but while I looked down into her face and she up into mine, much passed between us in that higher, common language which God was pleased to grant even to the children of Babel. I have since prayed for her in English and perhaps the stranger gentleman whose name she will never know in this world, has been interwoven with her Flemish prayer. God grant it be so, for He well knows I need the prayers of those who are more simple and more trustful than myself. I saw some little children cross themselves with holy water as they left the cathedral. Perhaps that little act in them was as acceptable to God as the sermons of us rigid thinkers against idolatry and superstition."
Before reaching Antwerp, I had visited the cities of Belgium and there picked up my steamer friend, Mr. Van der Wielen, who was to travel with me through Switzerland. Together we visited Aix la Chapel and Dusseldorf. At the latter place, his eyes, which had failed and prevented him from becoming an artist, were examined by the great oculist, Doctor Moren. An operation would be necessary, but the Doctor told him to go on through Switzerland and build up his physical strength first. Up the Rhine together we went, by all the castles and ruins where even Spain and Sweden had once contended for the mastery. We stopped at Cologne, the Drachenfels, Coblentz, Frankfort, Heidel-

Who Became a Bishop

berg and Strassburg. In Switzerland we visited Basle and Bern, then on foot and by boat to the lakes and falls, then over the Great Scheideck to Grindelwald, over Wengern Alp where we saw the great avalanches and heard them thundering down from the Jungfrau, thence down to Lauterbrunnen and to Geneva. From there we went through Lake Geneva to the Prison of Chillon and by rail to Martigny, then two weeks on foot to Chamouni and the great glacier there, thence up to the Hospice of Saint Bernard, where we saw the famous dogs, one of which had saved fifteen lives, thence up the Rhone Valley to the Rhoner glacier, over the Furca Pass and down to Altdorf, where William Tell is said to have shot the apple off his son's head. We climbed Mount Rigi to see the sun set and the Alpen glow on the distant snow-capped mountains then came to Lucerne. Here Mr. Van der Wielen left me for his Doctor in Dusseldorf.
Here I found my Seminary friend, Rev. W. B. T. Smith, in charge of two boys. The four of us then walked through North Switzerland, via Shauffhausen and Constance, sometimes taking boat or cars for short distances, then on foot seventy miles through the Bavarian Alps to Oberammergau. There we saw the famous Passion Play on the tenth of September. Here Mr. Smith and his boys left me to go through the Tyrol, while I turned north into Germany.
The evening I left Oberammergau, I had a thrilling experience in crossing a spur of a mountain by an un-

The Farmer Boy

frequented foot path. It became very dark when I was on the summit and I had to grope my way through the forest down the mountain. At length I saw a dim light and came to a shepherd's cottage. Here were several rough-looking men who directed me across a marshy plain full of ditches. It was so dark that I had to feel for the path and the planks across the ditches with my Alpine stock. I arrived at the little inn of Eschenlobe about ten o'clock. The next morning I walked twenty our miles before one o'clock to Wilheim, where I took the train to Munich.

"My dear Philip:
It is Sunday afternoon, cold and rainy, and I am going to begin a letter to you. Nuremberg is just the quaintest old town you ever saws or I either. In an art

Who Became a Bishop

exhibition in Brooklyn, I once saw a painting called 'Nuremberg by Moonlight,' and I looked at it for a long time. It so happened that I entered the town by moonlight and leaving my bag at a hotel, I strolled through the town. It was after nine o'clock and the streets were deserted, so I indulged in the very pleasant habit of putting my hands in my pockets and talking to myself. 'Quaint old town this, sure enough! Some streets very wide, with the moon shining down on the pavements--others very narrow and very dark--no moonshine at all! What big houses with high, pointed roofs and with gable ends to the street! I wonder how they happened to be so? I suppose some Titan played a trick on the sleeping burghers and turned the houses round end-wise to the street. But how high they are! There is one that looks like a pyramid of Egypt. Let me count the stories. One, two, three up to the eaves; above the eaves one, two, three, four, five, six! What a garret there must be! Up to the front edges of the roof there is something like a flight of stairs, only very big steps, made for ghosts to climb, I suppose. What have we here? A little hill all paved over? No, a bridge rather high above the water and wondrous old--made in the time of Noah, when they had high water! And the river, how narrow and slow and deep it is! It looks like a great, black, sleepy dragon creeping through the town, under the walls and under the bridges and under the eaves of the houses. I shouldn't like to be drowned in that river, but if I must be, I'd rather take it up there where the moon is shining on the water than here under the shadow of this grim old house.
"'This thing here in the market place must be the

The Farmer Boy

Goose-man Fountain I have read about. Yes, an iron peasant holding two geese under his arms, with the water running out of their mouths. It is made, I suppose, as a kind of allegorical-looking glass--two geese, two men, one with the geese under his arms, the other, myself, with the goose under his hat! I think I will move on now and let some one else stand in my place.
"'This here is the city wall and the gate and the moat and the draw-bridge, only the bridge doesn't draw any more. But what is this little grated door in the wall with an old rusty coat-of-arms on it? I'll just look in. A long stairway leading down under the wall to Hades, I suppose. There is an old man at the bottom with a candle flickering in the dark. I am just going down. Down, down, darker and damper! A suite of rooms is here, not large but pretty high, arched over with brick and a hole in the top. The judges' rooms were above and the condemned criminal was let down through that hole to be punished here. And these things here are the instruments, very convenient, very ingenious! For instance, that whip with fifty strands and at the end of each an iron ball the size of a pea and five sharp points on each ball! One need not strike many times with that whip! That iron band with knobs inside and screw for tightening it is the Spanish crown for the head of the prisoner. That chair with sharp pegs all over the seat was a very uncomfortable thing to sit on. I should not like to sit on it while a German waiter was bringing my dinner! That upright board with a sharp edge is the Spanish horse. To keep the rider from falling off, one of these stones weighing twenty pounds was hung to each foot. What inventive devils men are! And this bench with a roller

Who Became a Bishop

in the middle covered with sharp points and one at each end with ropes affixed was for stretching men on--intended, I suppose, for making short criminals into long ones and long ones into two! This next room is lower and darker and damper. Nothing in it? Oh, yes. I see in the middle against the back wall something like an Egyptian mummy, only, it is upright and larger and uglier. It is called the Iron Virgin. I do not think iron virgins are handsome. Oh, this one opens, does it? And they put a criminal inside? Yes, and those irons spikes five inches long in the front part go into the man when they shut the Virgin-the two upper ones into his eyes and several others into his breast. And because it shuts hard with a man inside, this screw with one end against the opposite wall and other against the Virgin shuts it slowly but surely. When the screams and groans from within cease, pull this bolt, the bottom drops and the victim falls into the water which I see sparkling thirty feet below. This skull here was fished up from the canal and these little square holes in the back part of the eye-sockets are where the spikes went in! ' I say, Old Man with the candle there is no use of your spluttering German to me any longer for I have seen and heard enough. Just show me the way out of this place as quickly as possible, for it is so damp and cold I shall catch the asthma and not sleep for a week. In faith, I shall hardly dare go to sleep for a week, lest I dream of Iron Virgins.

At Vevey, in Switzerland, I rejoined Rev. Mr. Smith and the two boys he had in charge, on the seventh day of October. There we remained four weeks,

The Farmer Boy

reading up on Italy, which we were next to visit. The forenoons were given to study and reading and the afternoons to rowing on the Lake or climbing the vine-covered hills. The fifth of November ended our stay at Vevey. The two boys in Mr. Smith's care went by train through the Mont Ceni Tunnel to Milan, while Mr. Smith and myself started to walk over the Simplon Pass into Italy. The snow was two feet deep on the summit of the Simplon and avalanches had filled the road in several places with deep snow. We were nearly exhausted with hard walking, but the monks at the Hospice warmed and fed us, so we went on and made thirty miles that day. After that we walked two days in heavy rain. Before reaching Como and Milan we had walked one hundred and eighty-two miles through Baveno on Lake Maggiore, Lugano and then Belagio on Lake Como. The mountains were crimson with autumn foliage and the scenery everywhere magnificent. In Italy we visited all the principal cities and art galleries, also Herculaneum and Pompeii. The following is an extract from a letter to Philip Potter:

"I have been on the summit of Vesuvius to-day, stood on the edge of the crater, looked right down into his blood-red throat and felt his hot, sulphurous breath on my cheek. Now and then he groaned and muttered and then breathed forth the fumes with greater fury. I loosed some large stones which went tumbling into his throat, but he swallowed them without winking. Saturn-like be took them for his own children which in

Who Became a Bishop

fact they were. Vesuvius is a grim old chimney and miles before one reaches the summit there is nothing but lava, cinders and black sand."
From Naples I went to Brindisi and took steamer through the Greek Islands to Athens, where I remained ten days, examining all the ruins and places very familiar to a student of classical Greek. In returning, on account of storms, accidents and quarantine, I was twenty days getting to Mentone, in Southern France. There I spent four weeks, teaching the boys whom Mr. Smith had left in my care and exploring the mountain paths. On the twenty-fifth of February, I sailed with one of the boys from Marseilles, France, to Barcelona, Spain. In that country we visited Saragossa, Madrid, Seville, Grenada, where we saw the Alhambra, made famous by Washington Irving and the events of history. I also went to Toledo to see the cathedral and the factory of the famous Toledo blades, or swords.
On my return to Madrid from the south of Spain, I had this experience. I was then alone and arrived in Madrid late at night. I started to walk half a mile from the station to the hotel with a great crowd of people who got off the train. It was up a very wide avenue with trees between the different driveways and walks. As I went on, the people drifted off into the side streets until at last I was all alone. Ahead of me I saw a tall man with a Spanish cloak over his shoulders. As soon as he caught sight of me, he turned and started at a quick pace to intercept me. It was evident that he

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intended to strike me down, probably with a dagger, and rob me. I kept straight on, but quickly changed my knapsack to my left hand, put my right hand into my overcoat pocket and grasped a revolver. The man saw the movement and when within ten feet of me turned off and went the other way.
From Spain we went to Paris and then through Belgium and Holland on to London. There I spent two weeks buying books for my library. I then took the boys through Southern Scotland and around to Liverpool, where we boarded the steamer for New York on the twenty-seventh of April. While in London, I received a call to the rectorship of St. Luke's Church, Plattsmouth, Nebraska. This was a town twenty miles south of Omaha, on the west bank of the Missouri River. On arriving in Brooklyn, I reported to my Bishop as ready for work. He said there were two places I could have, but that he thought it was my duty, being young and single, to go to Nebraska and help Bishop Clarkson, who found it difficult to get clergymen. I bowed to his suggestion and went.

HE seventeenth of June, 1872, found me in Plattsmouth, Nebraska, ready to take charge of my first parish. My friend, Philip Potter, through whose

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influence the call had come to me, was then in business twenty-five miles south of Plattsmouth at Nebraska City. I entered upon my work with much enthusiasm, although I should have preferred a newer place and work more strictly missionary in character. There was plenty to do and I worked hard to do it. In December I took a severe cold riding horseback to a mission station in the country, and was taken down with typhoid fever. The physician partly broke the fever, but I was in bed three weeks. Those were the only Sunday services I missed on account of health for the next thirty-eight years. After getting up and holding Christmas services I went to my friend in Nebraska City for a rest. The fever was still in my system so that I was very lame. It finally culminated in a fever, or bone sore on my left arm which remained open most of the time for the next two years, sapping me of strength and courage. I was very lonely in my work at Plattsmouth, caused partly, I suppose, by the drain upon my health. The following lines written to a friend in the east expressed my feelings:
"Alone with God and doing of his work, Master and man! Mingling with the world But yet not of it; delving on the earth For things not earthy; casting at His feet The gems I find, immortal souls redeemed And gathered from this world of waste and woe. Persuading, battling others, yet alone--Master and man, alone, alone with God."

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in the thirteen months I was in Plattsmouth. I wrote twenty-five new sermons, making them the very best I could and always delivering them on Saturday in the empty church before preaching them on Sunday. More than half the time I preached extempore, but it came very hard for me and I was often discouraged. I told Bishop Clarkson that I was worked out and preached out and desired a change. He wanted me to go to North Platte, three hundred miles farther west. I shrank from the still lonelier life I should have there and accepted a call to assist Rev. D. B. Knickerbacker in his large parish and many missions in and around Minneapolis, Minnesota. I made some good friends in Plattsmouth, so that many years afterwards, when I became Bishop, the parish sent me an offering every year for my missionary work.
In Minneapolis I had a lovely home in Dr. Knickerbacker's family and my health gradually improved. I had charge of three mission chapels in the city and two in the country, alternating between them and often preaching in the parish church of Gethsemane in the evening. The work was hard but interesting and as I did not have to preach twice in the same place on Sunday, I needed but one sermon a week. I had written twelve sermons while a deacon, twenty-five while at Plattsmouth and this year I wrote only twelve, but took the greatest pains to make them the very best I could write. I gradually gained courage to extemporize much of the time. I here learned the practicability of a parish doing

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a great deal of mission work in its vicinity and surrounding country. The three city missions I then had charge of have long since grown into self-supporting parishes.
The striking feature of this year's work was the parochial missions we held in four of the mission stations. Dr. Knickerbacker helped in some of them, but left the most of it to me. A parochial mission, that is, a series of preaching services every day for a week or more, was a new thing in this country then. Rev. Messrs. Morgan and Bonham had lately introduced it from England. These missions which we held in Lent were the first ever held in Minnesota or in the far west. Although the weather was bad they were well attended and resulted in large confirmation classes.
Before the year was over I received a call to All Saints' parish, Northfield, Minnesota, and felt it my duty to accept. There I labored for two years and kept up two mission stations in country school houses seven and nine miles away. There was a Congregationalist college in Northfield and the students, being free to go where they pleased Sunday evenings, began to crowd our little church, filling even the aisles and vestry room. With the evening collections, we started a fund for enlarging the church. About half the candidates I presented for confirmation were from the country missions. A fine rectory was built during my stay there. I often spent Mondays in Faribault with the professors and students of the Divinity School and occa-

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sionally a student would spend a Sunday with me. This was a great comfort in my lonely life.