III.

LIFE IN LEXINGTON.

AFTER his graduation, Mr. Staples lingered in Meadville a few days that he might be with Carlton on ́his wedding day, which the whole land celebrated, for it was "the glorious Fourth," and then went East to fulfill engagements he had made to preach in various places. During his last year in the school, his progress had been a delight to himself and an astonishment to all his friends, not more in the quality of his thought than in his power of presenting it. Wherever he went, he was well received; but two places, Watertown and Lexington, soon stood out from all the others as claimants for his ministry. It cost him a sore struggle to decide between them. His journal bears the marks of it at every page. The Watertown people offered him much the larger salary; and as he was not one of those persons to whom money sticks, and was himself aware that he was not, this was no small temptation. But he was afraid of fostering his ambition, and, moreover, his sympathies were always immediately enlisted on the side of the weaker party, which in this case happened to be Lexington, the people there having little hope of getting him after the Watertown society called him. For these reasons, and because there was an atmosphere investing Lexington made up of revolutionary memories, and memories of Theodore Parker, and certain very attractive people, he resolved to go there. The society was that of which Theodore Parker was a birthright member, and in spite of the proverb about a prophet's lack of

honor in his own country, it had invited him to be its minister a dozen years before. The ordination of Mr. Staples was on the 20th September, 1854; but this great event was preceded by one greater.

September 4th.—I have little to write this day; for when I feel the most I say the least. We were married this morning at 7 o'clock."

"September 20th.-This morning everybody was delighted to see as fair a day as ever blessed the earth. At nine o'clock, I met the council at the Lexington House. A large number were assembled. After a few questions, and discharging other business, we proceeded to the church, where we listened to services which were complete; Mr. Huntingdon's sermon, the best I ever heard from him; the ordaining prayer by Calvin Lincoln, the very breath of heaven. The charge by Freeman Clarke was just what he always does; he never outdoes himself. The right hand of fellowship by Abbot Smith, of West Cambridge, was good, cordial, and appropriate; the address by Thomas Hill, of Waltham, perfect. It has been a solemn and impressive, but a very happy day. I have felt nothing new. I had anticipated every feeling in the one conviction, that in God my weakness is strength. I do not shrink from the work before me. I feel equal to it-that I shall answer some purpose here, and in proportion as I live in harmony with God's will, I shall succeed. I trust my all to him."

The work thus pleasantly begun, was prosecuted with the utmost vigor and enthusiasm. The time spent in Lexington was the idyllic period of his life. He always idealized his friends; and the Lexington society, without being idealized, was a very interesting group of people. He loved them passionately, and served them most devotedly. One man, Charles Hudson, stood out from all the rest as his chief friend and counselor. He could have had no wiser and no

better friend. His mind was a storehouse of information and ideas, to which he had continual recourse. He remembered with ever deepening gratitude until his dying day, the sympathy and encouragement which he received from this cultivated and great-hearted man.

While in Lexington, Mr. Staples gave a good deal of thought to organization. One of his first acts was to draw up a creed and covenant. He could bear no dead branches on any tree of his tending, and so was determined to make something out of the church as distinguished from the society. His efforts were appreciated, and rewarded with every outward semblance of success. A great many persons joined the church. His journal is continually recording these little triumphs. The majority of his communicants were young people; in particular, a whole flock of beautiful young girls. The secret of this success was no doubt his personal magnetism. His disciples believed in him just as the disciples of old believed in Jesus, and consequently were ready to believe or do almost anything that he wished them to. Besides this, he idealized the communion service, and made it something very different from the cold-blooded, conventional affair it is in the majority of churches.

His journal further indicates that he was a good pastor; that he had a great deal of parochial work to do, and did it faithfully. Sickness and death among his people came home to him as if they were in his own family, and they came home to him very often. All through his journal is the sound of funeral bells. In this respect, Lexington was like a great many New-England towns from which the fresh young life has gone away, leaving a population of which many are old or feeble. These sorrowful experiences exhausted him in a fearful manner. The spontaneous out

pouring of his sympathy was a greater tax upon his vital energies than any conscious effort in the way of study or writing.

"October 10th.-A couple came to be married this evening. Have now gone the rounds of my profession-done a little of every thing."

"October 14th.-It is a blessing to live here. My cup runneth over. May God's pure spirit enter my soul! I want to be faithful to these people."

It

"October 21st.-Had a full church meeting this evening. was satisfactory and encouraging. . . . They adopted a simple creed which I had drawn up."

This was Saturday evening. The next day he preached on "Christianity, the religion of daily life." "That was a real Parker sermon," said one of his people, who was one of Mr. Parker's adherents. The same sermon he entirely rewrote in Milwaukee and again in Brooklyn, and as it was preached in Brooklyn it was one of his best sermons. Many of his sermons ran through his whole ministry. Once certain that he had a living thought he could never be quite satisfied with his expression of it, but wanted to be continually recasting it. And as with the general drift of his sermons, so with particular sentences. His manuscript sermons are so many palimpsests, they are so interlined and re-interlined with corrections. This is much more so with his own writing than with the portions dictated to others. It was with him a good deal as with Coleridge, who, with pen in hand, felt a thousand checks and difficulties in the expression of his meaning, but never the smallest hitch or impediment in the fullest utterance of his abstrusest thoughts and most subtle fancies by word of mouth. He accused himself of difficulty of expression, and accounted for the difficulty

by his lack of early training. But the difficulty was in satisfying his own standard of fineness and accuracy. Had he been as easily satisfied as most men are, he would have found no difficulty. It is interesting to trace the growth in his thought through the changes in his manuscripts. The changes are almost never in the interest of euphony but in the interest of thought-to please his mind and not to please his ear. If he was a little too anxious to surpass others, he was always a great deal more anxious to surpass himself. His sense of power was nothing like complacency. What he had done always seemed little to him in comparison with what he ought and meant to do.

“December 14th.-Have been pumping for a Christmas sermon, but the well is dry and the boxes loose. It starts hard." "December 14th.—Mr. and Mrs. B― called. Mr. B is one piece of good cheer. He has thrown an idea into the well with which I think I can bring up a sermon."

“December 15th.-Still pumping for a Christmas sermon. Boxes squeak and the water low."

"February 18th, 1855.-Preached in Boston to-day; in the evening went to hear J. F. Clarke. He preached upon the duty of resisting wicked laws. There was nothing very new or striking in his discourse, but it stirred in us both many strong feelings. There is a restraint which I feel upon these subjects which chafes me badly, and yet somebody must influence my people. I pray for guidance. Margaret sees the whole thing in its true light. She is true blue; and as independent as you please. I wish that I had more of her feeling."

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February 20th.—Have read Dr. -'s sermon before the Governor and Council, and was so disgusted with its conservative spirit, I sat down immediately and wrote to Garrison to send me the Liberator."

"March 3d.-Oh the unspeakable joy of having a home of my own!"