Trip to New Haven—Captain Stone and his Tender Feeling—Arrival in New
Haven—A Call from Dr. Bacon and the Rev. Mr. Dutton—Newspapers—The
Centre Church and Standing Order—The North Church and Jonathan
Edwards, junior.

Now for an excursion to New Haven. We leave by the steamer "Traveller," Captain Stone, at 61/2 A.M. Wrap yourself up well; it is piercing cold, being the 30th of March. This boat is altogether different from the boats on the Mississippi. It seems to belong to quite another species. It is, however, admirably adapted for its purpose,—that of running along a stormy coast. In the gentlemen's cabin are three tiers of berths, one above another like so many book-shelves. The engine works outside, like a top-sawyer. We shall pass "Hell Gate" directly; but don't be alarmed. You would not have known it, had I not told you. The Hog's Back, the Frying Pan, and other places of Knickerbocker celebrity, are in this neighbourhood.

Let us go to the ladies' saloon. Well! I declare! There is a coloured woman, and allowed to remain unmolested! Things improve as we approach New England, and are much better even there than they were a few years ago.

But here comes the captain muffled up. He brings with him a poor sickly-looking woman, begs the ladies' pardon, and bids her sit down by the stove and warm herself. He then tells the passengers her painful story. The night before, in New York, this woman came on board, from one of the Philadelphia boats, bringing with her a bed and a child. On being spoken to by the captain, she informed him that she was on her way from St. Louis to her home in Massachusetts,—that she had been fifteen days upon the journey, and had two children with her. On being asked where the other was, she replied, "There it is," pointing to the bed, where, clad in its usual dress, the little sufferer, released from the trials of life, lay extended in death. It had caught cold, and died in her arms in New York. She was friendless and penniless, and wanted a passage to New Haven. The captain had obtained a coroner's inquest over the body, purchased for it a little coffin, had it decently laid out, and gratified her maternal feelings by allowing her to bring it with her, that it might be buried in her village-home in Massachusetts. All this he had done without money and without price, had also given her a free passage to New Haven, and was about to forward her home by railway at his own expense! Captain Stone—"what's in a name?"—at the close of this statement had to take out his pocket-handkerchief, and wipe away a few manly tears from his weather-beaten cheeks, as he added, "I have met in my life with many cases of distress, but with none that came so much to my heart as this." His object, in introducing the woman and her case, was to make an appeal to the passengers on her behalf. He did so; and the result was a subscription amounting to about five pounds sterling, which was handed over to her. Captain Stone's was a deed worthy of a golden inscription!

It is half-past 11 A.M., and we are now at the landing-place in the harbour of New Haven, having accomplished the distance from New York, about 80 miles, in five hours! We have a long wharf of 3,943 feet to travel; and then we set foot for the first time on the soil of New England. We have been invited to make our abode here with the Rev. Leicester Sawyer, who makes his abode at Deacon Wilcoxon's, corner of Sherman-avenue and Park-street. Thither, therefore, let us go. Mr. Sawyer, whom we had before met in New York, is the author of several books, comprising two on Mental and Moral Philosophy, and was also lately the President of the Central College of Ohio. Deacon Wilcoxon and his wife are plain, homely, kind Christian people. They make you feel at home as soon as you have crossed their threshold.

Soon after our arrival the Rev. Dr. Bacon and the Rev. Mr. Dutton, the pastors of the "first" and "second" Congregational Churches in this city, honour us with a call. This is brotherly, and more than we could have expected. Dr. Bacon regrets that he is going from home, and cannot have us to spend a few days at his house. Mr. Dutton, however, presses us to accept of his hospitality. We promise to do so in a day or two. Dr. Bacon is one of the great men of New England. He is a living encyclopaedia,—a walking library. He keeps fully up with the literature and sciences of the day. I have not met a man, either in the Old World or in the New, that so thoroughly understood the state of the British West Indies at the present time as he does. He might have spent years in that part of the world, and devoted himself to its exclusive study. His position at home is high, and his influence great. The estimation in which he is held in New England may be judged of by the fact, that when, in August 1846, Dr. Theodore Dwight Woolsey had to be installed as President of Yale College, Dr. Bacon, living within a stone's throw of that institution, was the man chosen to preach the inauguration sermon.

In the middle of the afternoon, my friend Mr. Sawyer presses me to preach in his place of worship—the Howe-street Church—this evening. I consent. By-and-by I observe him very busy with some slips of paper; and I ask him what he is doing? "I am sending," he says, "notices to the evening papers, to make it known that you are going to preach this evening!" What a people the Americans are for newspapers! New Haven has only a population of about 18,000; and yet it has six daily papers—all having a weekly issue besides, two monthly periodicals, and two quarterly ones! The daily papers are, I believe, none of them more than 5 dollars (a guinea) a year, or 2 cents (one penny) per number. No paper duty, and no stamp. At the service in the evening several ministers and students were present.

The next day snow to the depth of six inches cover the ground. Let us, however, turn out in the afternoon. We will go and see the central square,—or the Green, as it is commonly called. This is a large open space like a park, surrounded on all sides with rows of stately elms, and is considered one of the most beautiful spots in the United States. And now we are in a position to take a full view. Three churches, arranged side by side on this open space, at a few rods from each other, stand before us. The central one has the most imposing aspect. It is a large Grecian building; having a portico, supported by four massive columns, from which rises a lofty bell-tower, ending in a spire. The combination of the belfry or spire with the Grecian style is a violation of propriety; but I like it. This is the "first" Congregational Church—that in which Dr. Bacon ministers. That church—not the building—is coeval with the colony, and can trace back its history for more than 200 years. It was formerly a State Church. Congregationalism was for ages the "standing order," or the established religion, in Connecticut! All the people were taxed for its support; and no man could have any share in the administration of the civil government, or give his vote in any election, unless he was a member of one of the churches. It was not till forty years after the separation of Church and State in Virginia, where the establishment was Episcopal, that the example was followed in Connecticut. Happily, however, in 1816 all parties that differed from it—Episcopalians, Baptists, Methodists, Universalists, &c., combined together, gained a majority in the legislature, and severed the connection between Congregationalism and the State! There are old men now living who then anxiously and piously "trembled for the Ark of the Lord." They have, however, lived to see that the dissolution of the union between Church and State in Connecticut, as in Virginia, was to the favoured sect as "life from the dead." The Congregationalist of the one, and the Episcopalian of the other, would alike deprecate being placed in the same position again. But this is a digression.

We are still looking at these churches. The church on our right, which is about the same size and of the same architectural character as the other, though not quite so showy, is the "second" Congregational Church, commonly called the North Church—that in which Mr. Button now ministers. This church originated in the "great awakening" in 1740, was formed in 1742, and has a history of more than a century in duration. It arose from dissatisfaction with the ministry of a Mr. Noyes, a contemporary of Jonathan Edwards, but one who had no sympathy in Edwards's views and spirit. This man was, indeed, greatly opposed to the "awakening," and refused George Whitfield admission to his pulpit. The originators of this second church, therefore, separated from the original parent, availed themselves of the Act of Toleration, and became Congregational Dissenters from a Congregational Establishment! They had of course no State support, nor were they "free from taxation by the society from which they dissented." "The foundations of this church, my brethren," said its present gifted pastor, in a sermon preached at the centenary of its formation, "are love of evangelical doctrine, of ecclesiastical liberty, of revivals of religion. Such ever be its superstructure."

Here, for a quarter of a century, lived and laboured Jonathan Edwards the younger. Perhaps you have never before heard of him; neither had I till I came to New Haven. If you won't think it too long to be detained here standing in front of the church, I will tell you a few facts respecting him. He was the second son and ninth child of the celebrated Jonathan Edwards of Northampton. His mother, too, was an extraordinary woman. You will smile at the impression she made on the mind of good old George Whitfield. He had spent two days at Mr. Edwards's house in Northampton; and he says, "I felt wonderful satisfaction in being at the house of Mr. Edwards. He is a son himself, and hath a daughter of Abraham for his wife. A sweeter couple I have not yet seen. She is a woman adorned with a meek and quiet spirit, and talked so feelingly and solidly of the things of God, and seemed to be such a helpmeet to her husband, that she caused me to renew those prayers which for some months I have put up to God, that he would send me a daughter of Abraham to be my wife. I find, upon many accounts, it is my duty to marry. Lord, I desire to have no choice of my own. Thou knowest my circumstances."

In quoting this, an American writer adds, "He had not yet learned, if he ever did, that God is not pleased to make such 'sweet couples' out of persons who have no choice of their own."

Mr. Edwards, junior, or rather Dr. Edwards, was (like his father) a great scholar and a profound divine. He was frequently invited to assist at the examinations in Yale College. On those occasions he used frequently to display his strictness and accuracy by calling out, "Haud rectÉ" (not right). This procured him the sobriquet of "Old Haud RectÉ," by which he was afterwards known among the students. Some time after his resignation of the pastorate of this church he became the President of Union College. His works have recently been published in two large octavo volumes. There is a striking parallel between the father and the son. They were alike in the character of their minds and in their intellectual developments. The name, education, and early employments of the two were alike. Both were pious in their youth; both were distinguished scholars; both were tutors for equal periods in the colleges where they were respectively educated; both were settled in the ministry as successors to their maternal grandfathers; both were dismissed, and again settled in retired places, where they had leisure to prepare and publish their works; both were removed from those stations to become presidents of colleges; both died shortly after their respective inaugurations, the one in the 56th and the other in the 57th year of their age; and each of them preached on the first Sabbath of the year of his death from the same text—"This year thou shalt die!"

But we must not dwell too long on these historical incidents. I have told you something about the Centre Church and the North Church. That Gothic building on our left is an episcopal church. That white building immediately in the rear of the Centre Church is the State House, completed in 1831. It is constructed of stone and marble, and forms a prominent ornament of the city. It presents one of the best copies of a Grecian temple I have seen in the States. In the rear of the North Church, quite at the remote corner of the Green, stands a plain barn-like Methodist chapel. And, behind the whole, peeping through the elm-trees, you see the long range of buildings which constitutes Yale College. Take it all in all, a view more interesting than that from the spot on which we now stand I have never beheld.