CHAPTER IV. Washington Society-Its Intolerance - The new Congregational Church A Liberal Club-Distinguished Reformers-Dr. Bailey's National Era— Radical Legislators. PRESIDENT ZACHARY TAYLOR died in Washington on the 9th day of July, 1850, much lamented for his sterling honesty, though taken up as a candidate on the score of availability. I attended his funeral, although too ill to see little more than the formality of an official pageantry so common at State burials; and the old horse, a gray charger of the Mexican war, following in the rear, seemed about all the cortege, brute or man, in becoming solemnity. It was very offensive to my taste that the cavalry and flying artillery returned from the burial with the quick motion of a retreat, and that before sunset the artillery "played war on the mall in front of the White House, clad in mourning for the death of the President. The Washington then and of to-day, how unlike! Impure water, muddy roads, squalor which sat in poverty, and the Avenue in a general dilapidation, and as if the angels of destruction had come to hover over the 40,000 people, ignorant, and massed as servitors of officials, at the National Capital. The place, however beautiful in nature, required the removal of the curse of slavery, and an infusion of new blood and capital, to make the city of to-day attractive to its 200,000 residents. On my second street walk I saw a family in chains, coming over from the Island slave-pens, where it was said there had been an auction-block sale of humanity. My blood boiled, and I did not suppress indignant speech, while the Northern clerks whom I met said, "Talk low, you will get us all into trouble." All seemed to be dumb in the shadow of the great outrages. There was an open alliance of politicians and the Church, to keep still, little less shameful than the league to uphold slavery itself. A free pulpit there was none, and the only light which gave me hope was from Dr. Bailey's National Era, and the social gatherings in his parlors, with the possibility of a Church not chained to the dead corpse, too offensive for concealment, corrupting the very air. Slavery struck with paralysis the otherwise manly spirits, by its subtle exactions and divisive plots. A CHURCH. Humanity found no voice in the sanctuaries, nor was there a free platform for religious protest against the open barter and public sale of men. It was no caricature that our fustian flag "In splendid mockery waves O'er a land of slaves." Messrs. Bigelow, Prentice, Stevens and others advised me that old Trinity Church on Judiciary Square was to be sold when vacated by the Episcopalians for their new one. It was their opinion that the Catholics would be sure of the edifice, certain that the trustees would not incur odium by making a sale to radicals like Dr. Bailey. It was not long before quietly I had a contract for the purchase of the edifice, paying a small sum down to keep an option for a few months. Property was very low, and the price was seven thousand, five hundred dollars, now worth many times that sum. In the effecting of a purchase my plan was to sell the pews in the North, and I recall that Henry C. Bowen (of Bowen & McNamee, then the silk merchants, with national distinction of having goods for sale and not principles), now proprietor of the New York Independent, took the first pew, for which he paid a hundred dollars. Supported in the enterprise by the commendation of Mr. Beecher, Dr. Storrs, Dr. Bushnell and others, I secured about five thousand dollars, which was paid of the purchase money, and we took possession of the church in November, 1851. My sermon on the occasion was printed at the request of the members of the congregation, and, of the listeners on that day, I recall in the congregation, Senators Chase, Hale, Durkee, and Representatives Tuck, of New Hampshire, Fowler and Dickinson, of Massachusetts, Root, Giddings and Townsend, of Ohio, with the ever present Dr. Bailey, ready then, as afterward, to face political and social ostracism. The air at that day was filled with the poisonous, miasmatic breath of slavery, and the friends of our church holding office were truly imperiling the bread of their families in the presence of hirelings and spies. Caste in India, or the hate of bigots in Mexico for Protestants, was only less vengeful than that of the respectables of Washington. Mobs had only just been dispersed, thirsting for blood. Fillmore, the President by succession, was timid and chained to the conservative car, while the escaping of slaves led a free Church to be regarded as a menace, with all the horrid apparitions of a nightmare. The surface of society was truly all placid, but like sea gulls whose gyrations presage a storm, there were ominous crowds on the corners and in dram shops, with no seeming employment but that of lackeys, too lazy for work, too timid for crime, and only when maudlin with drink and provoked with rage, were in their true role the tools of slavery. Their language was gross, and their oaths loud against negro equality, and judging by their invectives they would have drank vile whisky from human skulls as a pastime. I regret to say those denounced as Jesuits were not so venomous as Protestants; even clergymen, whose standing depended upon "Court favor," when they learned that members were to leave their church for the Congregational, brought nothing of fraternity, rather hovered and watched like birds of evil omen waiting for their prey. Finesse more becoming a ward caucus than the fraternity of churches measured the pulse and purpose. A few were not lost to shame in the all abounding recrear.cy. From the sermon in the church, November 25, 1851, the following excerpts are historic as to the occasion: The establishment of a Congregational church in this city, as a new denomination, requires no apology; but a brief explanation may be proper, for the sake of those who may be ignorant of our motives and designs. No efforts are intended in depreciating those Christians who have here set up their banners. All truth is not found in one polity or creed; nor is perfection claimed for any Protestant form of worship. The earnest Christian has not the time to give in criticism of educational preferences, natural affinities, and the nonessentials which separate, in name, the great Protestant family; and it is rather becoming the zealous to "provoke to good works," still cultivating the unity of spirit and the bond of peace. The field is wide, a large portion of it being uncultivated-and a spirit of rivalry or words of railing would work only evil, while thousands about us must soon know the truth as it is in Jesus, if at all. The introduction of a foreign grain of a new name, by the husbandman, is not a signal for decrying all others, indigenous to the soil, which have brought "seed to the sower and bread to the eater"; nor does it become one branch of our Father's great fam ily to depreciate their brethren by endeavors to prove themselves more worthy of peculiar consideration and divine favor. This new standard is set up for far different purposes. The best methods should be chosen for the defense of the truth and the salvation of men. There is a choice in the ways discovered in reaching our distant El Dorado, there being a route by the cape, by the isthmus and overland. Marked changes have taken place in the modes of warfare in bloody and national disputes, by a substitution of science, flying artillery and fleets, for the cross-bow and trial by single combat, and the pen for the sword in diplomacy. Ever giving to God's methods-especially the foolishness of preaching, and the sovereignty of the Spirit, their place, we are not to forget that proper means, and not miracles, are employed for the defense of truth and the attainment of certain ends. They who are the teachers of ethics, and are set for the defense of the Gospel, should have in mind that we live in a time of conflicting sentiments-in an age of great freedom of opinion, and that the abuse of an errorist is not an answer to his argument. Errors are multiform, and a change of tactics in dealing with infidelity, to meet its new phases, becomes necessary, except to those denials to which God has furnished stereotyped answers. We are pointed to men who would overthrow the church, because across their pathway, and supposed in their power. To such we must demonstrate its worth to them and their children, and revive its ancient spirit when known as on the Rock, sending forth its light high in the heavens, and its savor through the earth. To the mass, the age is utilitarian-fruitbearing; and in showing to gainsayers what God's truth is, in its all-comprehensiveness and virtue, marked simplicity, cheerfulness and practical deeds, which will reach men in their immediate wants, will become more effective than simple forms of worship, or pro⚫fessions of orthodoxy. This immediate field is wide, and promises richly to repay cultivation. We are placed in the center of controlling social and political influences, meeting on every street the servants of the people, who here assemble to frame the laws, which bind together this republic of states. This city has emerged from obscurity, becoming populous and beautiful, the very name of which should stimulate you to make it what the Father of his Country would desire, were he permitted to communicate a wish from that home to which he has gone. You appear, not as innovators, either in church polity, or with peculiar theology, on this soil, held in common by all the states. The state has adopted the republicanism of our church, the germ of which was brought to the new world in the Mayflower two hundred years agone. Your theology, with its cognate principles and spirit, was never more welcome to the scholar and Christian- -never more diffusive than now; not bounded by state lines, it marches with the "Star of Empire," on, and beyond the "Father of waters," where the Oregon sweeps by, to find a local habitation and a name in the land of gold, where the Pacific laves the shore. Our common heritage is the theology of those divines whose works are read approvingly by the Christians of many nations. We have treasures in the memory of Elliot and Brainerd, the eminent apostles to the Indians-joy to know that Beecher and Hewitt, the early champions of temperance, are of us; and we take pleasure in our Christian relationship to those in our country who first engaged in the work of home and foreign missions; who have given system and efficiency to Sabbath-schools, and bible and tract circulation. All about us there are those who lend their sympathies, and will join us in labors. Be joyous, then, my brethren, to-day, because the pilgrim spirit has not fled, but walks in noon's broad light: labor and pray that it may abide and burn even here "Till the waves of the bay where the Mayflower lay, There is much of labor before us; and however feeble our beginnings may be, if we go to God for counsel and for strength, we shall learn that with Him there is no restraint" to save by many or by few." If a prophet of evil and a foe say, “If the foxes but run upon these walls, they will fall down," heed it not, for the words to his church are, "I have graven thee upon my hands-thy walls are continually before me!" With a worm He can "thrash the mountains and beat them small, and make the hills as chaff." Oh, then, go to Him when doubting and weary, and He will be a counsellor, and sinew you with the strength of a wrestling Angel. He will here raise up a people in sympathy with all that is good-a church which shall be with her children in the divine economy of preparation-a quarry for the chiselling of marble-a forest for the felling of cedars, to be borne hence by the Master Builder, and have a place in that temple going up in the heavens. This leads to personality. The new church for freedom had not been offensive, but the occupant of the pulpit was "shaded," and finally charged with giving a young mulatto couple a lesson in astronomy, especially the location of the North star. I think a trap had been set for me by visitors at Gilbert's, where I boarded. It became a serious charge. I could not prove a negative, and with my enemies perjury was nothing. My throat gave signs of failing me, and there was a good excuse for a Northern trip; besides, I had a pleasing early matrimonial prospect which I did not desire to have clouded by violence, or by the lips of base informers. I left Washington, but with the mockery of a good-by from so-called gentlemen accompanying me to the cars, whom I advised that they would "see me later" - as they did from the gallery at the Capitol, when I gave the vote to confiscate the property of one of them with that of others, for disloyalty. I looked them boldly in the eye, having found poetic satisfaction at least, waiting on the true verdict in time's just awards. The church kept on its way until a council for the settlement of a candidate not very acceptable, and with Prof. Stowe as moderator, was called early in 1854. It was the largest of the kind ever convened in this country. Dr. Edward Beecher was the main questioner. Was there ever a candidate (whose name I withhold) placed under the eye of hyper D. D.'s in such a theological pillory? He was bold in assurance, but not very orthodox. Henry Ward Beecher preached a sermon to a great crowd, even Senator Sumner standing, and, by a special invitation of Mrs. President Pierce, Mr. Beecher was privately called to console on the death of |