"One comfort is, that Great Men, taken up in any way, are profitable company. We cannot look, however imperfectly, upon a great man, without gaining something by him. He is the living light-fountain, which it is good and pleasant to be near. The light which enlightens, which has enlightened, the darkness of the world: and this not a kindled lamp only, but rather as a natural luminary shining by the gift of Heaven; a flowing light-fountain, as I say, of native original insight, of manhood and heroic nobleness; in whose radiance all souls feel that it is well with them. On any terms whatsoever, you will not grudge to wander in such, neighborhood for a while." - Carlyle, Heroes, p. 2.
Connecticut may be called a mother of theologians.
Two Puritan divines, born in England, John Davenport and Thomas Hooker, - laid the foundations of the State, and for a generation virtually governed it. In the next century Jonathan Edwards brought Davenport's theocracy to a full end, and enforced Hooker's theory of popular government. Edwards, the first of that group of theologians known under his name, or as the New England School, was horn in 1703, and was followed by Bellamy, Hopkins, West, Smalley, and Emmons. A generation later came Lyman Beecher and the New Haven divines, Taylor, Fitch, and Goodrich. Edwards the younger and President Dwight, a grandson of the elder Edwards, though born in Massachusetts, early became residents of Connecticut and prominent members of the school.1
1 Bushnell refers to this group of theologians in his address, " Historical Estimate of Connecticut," Work and Play, p. 215.
4
Its unity, if not its existence, was due to Edwards, to the fact that all were educated at Yale College, then primarily a school of theology, and, on the part of the later generation, that they were the pupils of President Dwight, whose brilliant and popular modifications of its theology captivated their minds. Deeper reasons doubtless may be found, reaching back of Edwards and below all personal influences. They represent a phase in the evolution of human thought and the divine progress of the world.
The relation of Horace Bushnell to this school will become apparent in the following pages. By local associations, by education and ecclesiastical ties, his relations to it were very close; close also in many ways were his religious habits and sympathies. If he is to be classed with it, it must be with wide exceptions and violent contrasts. But whatever his relation, it formed a strong and definite background upon which he stands out a clear-cut figure, not dwarfed by the greatness of the men behind him, and fit in all ways to be classed either with them or against them.
My purpose in this volume is not to give a full history of the life of Bushnell, but rather to follow its thread with sufficient care to get at the real character of the man, and more especially to as-certain his place among the religious leaders of America, his relation to the thought of his day, and his influence upon it.
He was born April 14, 1802, in the county and
5
town of Litchfield, Connecticut. The exact place where he first saw the light was the small village of Bantam, a mile or two from Litchfield, on the shores of a lake of the same name. His lineage on his father's side is traced to the first settlers of Guilford, Connecticut. Here, apparently, the family remained until the sixth generation from Francis, the first settler, when we find Abraham In New Canaan, near Litchfield, where he married Miss Molly Ensign. The second of their twelve children bore his mother's name, Ensign, and was the father of Horace Bushnell. The family is probably of Huguenot descent, and is marked by the best qualities of that blood, - mental alert-ness and religious sincerity. Ensign Bushnell and his wife Dotha, whose maiden name was Bishop, removed to New Preston, about fourteen miles from Litchfield, when Horace was three years old. Here he entered upon an inherited pursuit, - wool carding and cloth dressing by machinery, - to which, he added that of farming. It was in this way that the more energetic people in the rural districts of New England often supplemented the hard conditions of the soil. It had much to do with the mental development of their son, that he was brought up in the atmosphere and exercise of two distinct occupations; it was an early lesson in that comprehensiveness which was the characteristic of his thought. He remained at home until he was twenty-one years of age. Up to that time he had been a hard worker in the factory
6
and on the farm; each was a special school for training eye and hand, mind and heart. The whole environment was the best possible for developing such a man, as he was to be. The region is " a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths, springing forth in valleys and hills." The landscape is full of the peculiar charm of western New England scenery, - a tumble of hills, broken by occasional peaks higher than the rest, one of which is now known as Mount Bushnell, a winding lake, brooks rushing down from wooded crests through wild ravines, precipitous heights, dense forests, broad, undulating stretches of field and pasture. It is fortunate that one so open to nature and so receptive of its meaning should have been reared amid such forms of it, for it was inevitable that nature should play a great part in his thought. His deepest impressions did not come from books nor from contact with men, but from nature, and nothing was quite real to him until it had been submitted to its tests. Other influences-more consciously felt mingled with these, and left an abiding impress upon his character. The homestead was on the slope of a broad-backed hill that stretched away for a mile to the summit, on which stood the only church in the town. The house was one of those which marked the best period of rural architecture in New England, - roomy, cheerful, and with an indefinable air of dignity, simplicity, and comfort, - character, in brief, in the terms of architecture. Just below
7
rushed a stream, the outlet of Lake Waramaug, a beautiful sheet of water, hidden by an intervening hill, but near enough to serve the ends of fishing and boating, sports which Bushnell followed all his days.
The religion of the family is described as "composite." The father imbibed from his mother, who seems to have been a woman of remarkable character, Armenian views, while the Mother had been reared In the Episcopal Church. Both, however, became members of the Congregational Church. In such a family this variety of religious training and atmosphere stood for something, and its effect upon the son is beyond measurement, and can be traced through all his history, the two elements blending rather than antagonizing as time went on. It is a fact to be kept in mind that he was not reared under the influence of the strict Calvinism of the day. He was thus saved from an over-violent reaction, and when it came, there were within him places of refuge to which he could flee. The religious atmosphere of this home is well described by a younger brother, the Rev. Dr. George Bushnell: -
"He was born in a household where religion was no occasional and nominal thing, no irksome restraint nor unwelcome visitor, but a constant atmosphere, a commanding but genial presence. In our father it was characterized by eminent evenness, fairness, and conscientiousness; in our mother it was felt as an intense life of love, utterly
8
unselfish and untiring in its devotion, yet thoughtful, sagacious, and wise, always stimulating and ennobling, and in special crises leaping out in tender and almost awful fire. If ever there was a child of Christian nurture, he was one; nurtured, I will not say, in the formulas of theology as sternly as some; for though he had to learn the Westminster Catechism, its formulas were not held as of equal or superior authority to that of the Scriptures; not nurtured in what might be called the emotional elements of religion as fervently as some, but nurtured in the facts and principles of the Christian faith in their bearing upon the life and character; and if ever a man was true to the fundamental principles and the customs which prevailed in his early home, even to his latest years, he was."
The mother was in the communion of the Episcopal Church when Horace was born, and so he "had it always for his satisfaction, so far as he properly could, that he was Episcopally regenerated;" but the removal to New Preston took the family into the Congregational Church, - there being no other, - where a strict Calvinism prevailed. The father often protested against the "tough predestinationism, and the rather over total depravity of the sermon," but was checked by the wife, though in sympathy with her husband, "for the sake of the children." Both entered heartily into the life of the church, accepting what seemed to them good, and getting along as
9
well as they could with, the rest. Here we have a foreshadowing of the history of the son, - protest of mind and heart against intolerable doctrines, and acceptance of what was intermingled with them, but was deeper and higher, and refusal to tear them asunder " because of the children " of the Kingdom.
He writes of his mother with tender reverence and keen analysis: -
"She was the only person I have known in the close intimacy of years who never did an inconsiderate, imprudent, or any way excessive thing that required to be afterwards mended. In this attribute of discretion she rose even to a kind of sublimity, I never knew her give advice that was not perfectly justified by results. Her religious duties and graces were also cast in this mood, - not sinking their flavor in it, but having it raised to an element of superior, almost divine, perception. Thus praying earnestly for and with her children, she was discreet enough never to make it unpleasant to them by too great frequency. She was a good talker, and was often spoken of as the best Bible teacher in the congregation; but she never fell into the mistake of trying to talk her children into religion. She spoke to them at fit times, but not nearly as frequently as many mothers do that are far less qualified. Whether it was meant or not, there was no atmosphere of artificially pious consciousness in the house. And yet she was preaching all the time by her mater-
10
nal sacrifices for us, scarcely to be noted without tears.
"Whether she had any theory for it, I do not know; but it came to pass, somehow, that while she was concerned above all things to make her children Christian, she undertook little in the way of an immediate divine experience, but let herself down, for the most part, upon the level of habit, and condescended to stay upon matters of habit, as being her humanly allotted field, only keeping visibly an upward look of expectation, that what she may so prepare in righteous habit will be a house built for the occupancy of the Spirit. Her stress was laid thus on industry, order, time, fidelity, reverence, neatness, truth, intelligence, prayer. And the drill of the house in these was to be the hope, in a great degree, of religion. Thus, in regard to the first, industry, there was always something for the smallest to do, errands to run, berries to pick, weeds to pull, earnings all for the common property, in which he thus begins to be a stockholder. So for both sexes and all sizes; and how very close up to the gateway of God is every child brought who is trained to the consenting obedience of industry! Indeed, there is nothing in these early days that I remember with more zest than that I did the full work of a man for at least five years before the manly age; this, too, under no eight hour law of protective delicacy, but holding fast the astronomic ordinance in a service of from thirteen to fourteen hours. So of truth; I
11
do not remember ever hearing any one of the children accused of untruth. We were not always perfect in our neatness, I confess, but we had abundant opportunity to be made aware of it. This habit-discipline, I scarcely need say, came very near being a gate of religion for us all. No child of us ever strayed so far as not to find himself early in a way of probable discipleship.
"If it should seem to any, in this little sketch, that our family discipline was too stringent or closely restrictive, they would fall into great mistake. There was restriction in it, as there ought to be. And yet, when I look back, I scarce know where to find it. No hamper was ever put on our liberty of thought and choice. We were allowed to have our own questions, and had no niggard scruples forced upon us. Only it was given us for a caution that truth is the best thing in the world, and that nobody can afford to part with it, even for an hour. Thus we talked freedom and meant conservatism, and talked conservatism and meant freedom; and, as we talked, we thought."
We have made this long quotation because it reveals the personal equation in "Christian Nurture." Powerful influences lay behind and around him. Ancestry, natural scenery, occupation, home, early training, a church life drawn from three sources, well mingled by faith and good sense, laid the foundations of his character and career. The mother taught him music, in the simple way it was then learned in a New England village, and so
12
put him early upon one of his profoundest studies. She also conceived and carried out for him the plan of a liberal education. This was a common thing in the respectable New England family of the day, but with her it sprang out of a prenatal desire that her firstborn son should be consecrated to the ministry of the Gospel. His education in its early stages is described in "The Age of Homespun,"1 "a graphic delineation of life of the olden time that has become classic in New England literature." Very early " the sense of power " awoke within him, and it never forsook him. He was good-natured, quiet, over-thoughtful, qualities that were resented by the bullies of the school, but he resorted to the usual methods of boys to establish supremacy, and, selecting the strongest, in one vigorous conflict won respect and lasting peace. Later on he disclosed a more unusual trait that was so characteristic as to be humorously prophetic of his future. When he was sixteen years old, the monitorial system was introduced into the Academy. On its coming his turn to serve, he declined both the honor and the duty, on the ground that he was there to study and not to watch other pupils. It was so all through. In some autobiographical notes written late in life he says: " I was almost never a president or a vice-president of any society, and almost never on any committee. Take the report of my doings on the platform of the world's business, and it is naught." He was not made to
1 Work and Play, p. 368.
13
serve on committees, but to furnish, materials for committees, who often found more than they could well handle.
In many other ways was the child the father of the man. He not only loved nature and suffered it to kindle his imagination, but he explored it for its meanings and mapped it out for its uses. He was a born engineer, always laying out roads and building parks, and finding the best paths for railways among the hills, The park in Hartford, which bears his name, was the fruit of a lifelong passion. When visiting Dr. Washington Gladden in North. Adams, Bushnell pointed out to him where the park of the growing town should be located.1 Prophetic also were his early religious experiences. Heaven lay very close about him in his early years. The freshness of the morning moved him to prayer. His religious Impressions came along the path of nature, - in the fields and pastures, - and so coming they were without fear or sense of wrong, but full of the divine beauty and majesty. Deeper experiences springing from the same source were to follow. Nature became a permanent factor in Ms thought as a revelation of divine things, - a feature in which, he bears a striking resemblance to Edwards. As he drew near to manhood, he fell away, for a time, from
1 The suggestion, unfortunately, "was not followed, but the Congregational Church in North Adams is to be credited with the good sense and courage to invite Dr. Bushnell, when few pulpits in New England were open to him, to preach, the sermon at the installation of their young pastor.
14
this natural piety into the dialectic habit of the day. When about seventeen, while tending a carding-machine, he wrote a paper, in which he strove to put Calvinism into logical harmony, and, in the interest of sound reason, to correct St. Paul's willingness to be accursed for the sake of his brethren. It was a natural and wholesome start, a conforming conscience, which is a good sign in youth, and yet along with it a disposition to resent palpable or seeming absurdity; he will question and deny enough when older, and he will soon learn how St. Paul used language. When he was nineteen, he united with the church, and a deep flow of religious feeling attended the act. From that time his desire for a liberal education deepened, and he set about it with such zeal that a year later he passed the examinations and entered Yale College.
He left the home of his early days behind him for the field of a wider education, but the real education had already been gained; for in this home and in the world about it he had learned those lessons that he repeated in "Christian Nurture," and in all those pages where nature appears as an "analogon of the spirit."