While Carleton enjoyed that kind of work, ethical, literary, benevolent, and political, which appealed to sentiment and aroused sympathy to the burning point, he was an equally faithful coworker with God and man in enterprises wholly unsentimental. He who waits through eternity for his creatures to understand his own creation, knows how faithfully good men can coöperate with him in plans which only unborn and succeeding generations can appreciate.
Out of a thousand illustrations we may note, along the lines of electric science, the names of Professor Kinnersly, who probably first led Franklin into that line of research which enabled him to "snatch the sceptre from tyrants and the lightning from heaven," and Professor Moses Gerrish Farmer, who broke new paths into the once unknown. As early as1859, Mr. Farmer lighted his whole house with electric lights, and blew up a little ship by a tiny submarine torpedo in 1847, and in the same year propelled by electricity a car carrying passengers. Yet neither of these names is found in the majority of ordinary cyclopedias or books of reference.
Familiar with such facts, both by a general observation of life, and by a special and critical study of the literature of patents and inventions, Carleton felt perfectly willing to devote himself to a work that he knew would yield but little popular applause, even when victory should be won,—the abolition of railway level or "grade" crossings.
During a brief morning call on Carleton, shortly after he had been elected Senator in the Massachusetts Legislature for the session of 1890, I asked him what he proposed especially to do. "Well," said he, "I think that if I can get all grade crossings abolished from the railroads of the whole Commonwealth, it will be a good winter's work."
Forthwith he set himself to study the problem, to master resources and statistics, to learn the relation between capital invested and profitsmade by the railway corporation, and especially to measure the forces in favor of and in opposition to the proposed reform.
About this time, the chief servant of Shawmut Church was studying an allied question. While the "grade crossing" slew its thousands of non-travelling citizens, the freight-car, with its link-and-pin coupling, its block-bumpers, its hand-brakes, its slippery roofs, its manifold shiftings over frogs and switches, slew its tens of thousands of railway operatives. On the grade crossings, the victims were chiefly old, deaf, or blind men and women, cripples, children, drunkards, and miscellaneous people. On the other hand, the freight-cars killed almost exclusively the flower of the country's manhood. The tens of thousands of hands crushed between bumpers, of arms and legs cut off, of bodies broken and mangled, were, in the majority of cases, those of healthy, intelligent men, between the ages of eighteen and fifty, and usually breadwinners for whole families. The slaughter every year was equal to that of a battle at Waterloo or Gettysburg. Fairy tales about monsters devouring human beings, legends of colossal dragons swallowing annuallytheir quota of fair virgins, were insignificant expressions of damage done to the human race compared to that annual tribute poured into the insatiable maw of the railway Moloch. Every great line of traffic, like the Pennsylvania or New York Central Railway, ate up a man a day. Sometimes, between sunrise and sunset, a single road made four or five widows, with a profusion of orphans.
Yet two men, each of the name of Coffin, and each of that superb Nantucket stock which has enriched our nation and carried the American flag to every sea, were working in the West and the East, for the abolition of legalized slaughter. Lorenzo Coffin, of Iowa, a distant cousin of Carleton's, whom so many railway men always salute as "father," had been for years trying to throttle the two twin enemies of the railway man, alcohol, and the freight-car equipment of link-and-pin coupler and hand-brake. It was he who agitated unceasingly for national protection to railway men, and to the brakeman especially. He and his fellow reformers asked for a law compelling the use of a brake which would relieve the crew from such awful exposure and foolhardyrisk of life on the icy roofs of the cars in winter, and for couplers which, by abolishing the iron link and pin, would save the constant and almost certain crushing of the hands which the shifting of the cars compelled when coupled in the old way.
For a long time Lorenzo Coffin's efforts seemed utterly useless. This was simply because human life was cheaper than machinery, and because public opinion on this particular subject had not yet become Christian. It was Jesus Christ who raised the value of both the human body and the human soul, abolished gladiatorial shows, raised up hospitals, created cemeteries, even for the poorest, made life insurance companies possible, and put even such value on human life as could be recovered in action by law from corporations which murder men through sordid economy or criminal carelessness. Lorenzo Coffin wrought for the application of Christianity to railway men. When finally the law was passed, compelling safety-couplers and air-brakes, and when, in the constitution of New York State, the limit of five thousand dollars replevin for a human life destroyed by a corporation was abolished,and no limit set, there were two new triumphs of Christianity. In these phenomena, we see only further illustrations of that Kingdom of Heaven proclaimed by Christ, and illustrated both in the hidden leaven and the phenomenal mustard-seed.
A sermon by the pastor of Shawmut Church, on "Lions that devour," depicted the great American slaughter-field. It set forth the array of figures as given him in the reports of the Inter-State Commerce Commission, sent by his friend, theHon.Augustus Schoonmaker, of Kingston, New York, and then in Washington, one of the Commissioners. There was considerable surprise and criticism from among his auditors, and the facts as set forth were doubted. There were present, as usual on Sunday mornings in Shawmut Church, men of public affairs, presidents of banks, the collector of the port of Boston, a general in the regular army, a veteran colonel of volunteers, several officers of railway companies, and, most of all, Mr. Charles Carleton Coffin. He and they thought the statements given of the slaughter of young men on railroads in the United States must be incredible. Even Carletonhad not then informed himself concerning that great field of blood extending from ocean to ocean, and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf, which every year was strewn with the corpses or mangled limbs of twenty-five thousand people. He thought his friend in the pulpit must be mistaken, and frankly told him so.
On the following Sunday, having received the figures for the current year, from the best authority in Washington, the preacher was able to say that his statements of last Sunday had been below reality, and that, instead of exaggerating, he had underestimated the facts. This gave Mr. Coffin, as he afterwards confessed, fresh impetus in his determination to get grade crossings abolished in Massachusetts.
Having first personally interviewed the presidents of several great railroads leading out from Boston, and finding one or two heartily in favor of the idea, two or three more not in opposition, and scarcely a majority opposed, he persevered. He pressed the matter, and the bill was carried and signed by the governor. It provided that within a term of years allgrade crossings in Massachusetts should be abolished. This will require the expenditure of many millions of dollars, the sinking or elevating of tracks, and the making of tunnels and bridges. The work was nobly begun. At this moment, in May, 1898, the progress is steadily forward to the great consummation.
Though his measure for the protection of human life received very little popular notice, Carleton counted it one of the best things that God had allowed him to do. And certainly, among the noble and truly Christian measures for the good of society, in this last decade of the century, the work done by Lorenzo Coffin in Iowa, as well as in the country at large, and by Senator Charles Carleton Coffin in Massachusetts,—a State whose example will be followed by others,—must ever be remembered by the grateful student of social progress. Surely, Carleton proved himself not merely a politician, but a statesman.
The welfare of the city of Boston was ever dear to Carleton's heart. He gave a great deal of time and thought to thinking out problems affecting its welfare, and hence was often a welcome speaker at club meetings, which areso numerous, so delightful, and, certainly, in their number, peculiar to Boston. He wrote for the press, giving his views freely, whenever any vital question was before the people. This often entailed severe labor and the sacrifice of time to one who could never boast very much of this world's goods.
When the writer first, in 1886, came to Boston to live, he found the horse everywhere in the city; when he left it in 1893 there was only the trolley. The motor power was carried through the air from a central source. It is even yet, however, a test of one's knowledge of Boston—a city not laid out by William Penn, but by cows and admirers of crookedness—to understand the street-car system of the city. Most of the street passenger lines fell gradually into the hands of one great corporation, which vastly improved the service, enlarging and making more comfortable, not to say luxurious, the accommodations, and by unification enabling one to ride astonishing distances for a nickel coin.
From the peculiar shape of the city and the converging of the thoroughfares on Tremont Street, fronting the Common and the old buryinggrounds, the space between Boylston Street and Cornhill was, at certain hours of the day, in a painful state of congestion. Then the stoppage of the cars, the loss of time, and the waste of temper was something which no nineteenth century man could stand with equanimity. How to relieve the congestion was the difficulty. Should there be an elevated railway, or a new avenue opened through the midst of the city? This was the question.
To this subject, Carleton gave his earnest attention. He remembered the day when the now elegant region of the Back Bay was marsh and water, when schooners discharged coal and lumber in that Public Garden, which in June looks like a day of heaven on earth, and when Tremont Street stopped at the crossing of the Boston and Albany railway. Even as late as 1850 the population included within the ten-mile radius of the city hall was but 267,861; in 1890, the increase was to 841,617; and the same ratio of increase will give, in 1930, 2,700,000 souls. In 1871, seventeen million people were moved into Boston by steam; in 1891, fifty-one millions. At the same ratio of increase, on the opening of thetwentieth century, there will be 100,000,000 persons riding in from the suburbs, and of travellers in the street-cars, in A. D. 1910, nearly half a billion.
Carleton, the engineer and statesman, believed that neither a subway nor an elevated railway would solve the problem. He spoke, lectured, and wrote, in favor of a central city viaduct. For both surface and elevated railways, he proposed an avenue eighty feet wide, making a clear road from Tremont to Causeway Streets.
Moreover, he believed that the city should own the roads that should transport passengers within the city limits. He was not afraid of that kind of socialism which provides for the absolute necessities of modern associated life. He expected great amelioration to come to society from the breaking up and passing away of the old relics of feudalism, as well as of the power of the privileged man as against man, of wealth against commonwealth. He believed that transportation within city limits should be under public ownership and control. He therefore opposed the subway and the incorporation of the Boston Elevated Railroad Company.
One of his most vigorous letters, occupying a column and a half, in the BostonHeraldof July 17, 1895, is a powerful plea for the rejection by the people of an act which should give the traffic of the streets of Boston and surrounding municipalities into the hands of a corporation for all time. He considered that the act, which had been rushed through the legislature in one day at the close of the session, was a hasty piece of patchwork made by dovetailing two bills together, and was highly objectionable. He wrote:
"Why shall the people give away their own rights? Do they not own the ground beneath the surface and the air above the surface?... What need is there of a corporation? Cannot the people in their sovereign capacity do for themselves all that a corporation can do? Why give away their rights, and burden themselves with taxes for the benefit of a corporation?
"Does some one say it is a nationalistic idea? Then it is nationalism for Boston to own Quincy Market, the water supply, the system of sewerage. Far different from governmental ownership of railroads, with the complications of interstate commerce, is theproposition for public ownership of street railways. A street is a highway. Why shall not the subway under the street, or the structure over it, be a highway, built and owned by the people, and for their use and benefit, and not for the enrichment of a corporation?"
After forcibly presenting the reasonable objections to the bill, he closed by pleading that it be rejected, and that the next legislature be asked to establish a metropolitan district and the appointment of a commission with full power to do everything that could be done under the bill, "not for the greed of a corporation, but for the welfare of the people."[Back to Content]
Carleton's biographer having resigned the pastorate of Shawmut Church at the end of 1892, the work was continued by theRev.William E. Barton, who had been called from Wellington, Ohio. He began his ministrations March 1, 1893. As so very many families forming the old church, and who had grown up in it from early manhood, youth, or even childhood, had removed from the neighborhood, it was necessary to reorganize to a certain extent. The great changes which had come over the South End, and the drift of population to the more attractive neighborhoods in the Back Bay, Brookline, Dorchester, Newton, Allston, and other beautiful suburbs of Boston, caused much derangement of previously existing conditions. The tremendous development of the means of transportation by the steam, horse or electricrailways, to say nothing of the bicycle, had caused a marvellous bloom of new life and flush of vigor among the suburban churches, while those in the older parts of the city suffered corresponding decline. The Shawmut Church, like the Mount Vernon, the Pine Street, and others, had to pass through experiences which make a familiar story to those who know Philadelphia, New York, and London. The work of the old city churches had been to train up and graduate sons and daughters with noble Christian principles and character, to build up the waste places and the newer societies. Like bees, the new swarms out from the old hives were called to gather fresh honey.
The exodus from rural New England and from Canada enlarged Boston, and caused the building up and amazing development of Brookline. With such powerful magnets drawing away the old residents, together with the multiplication of a new and largely non-American and Roman Catholic population into the district lying east of Washington Street, the older congregations of the South End had, by 1890, been vastly changed. Several hadbeen so depleted in their old supporters, that churches moved in a body to new edifices on the streets and avenues lying westward. In others the burdens of support fell upon a decreasing number of faithful men and women. Where once were not enough church edifices to accommodate the people who would worship in them, was now a redundancy. In the city where a Roman Catholic church was once a curiosity are now nearly fifty churches that acknowledge the Pope's supremacy.
These things are stated with some detail, in order to show the character of Charles Carleton Coffin in its true light. After a laborious life, having borne the heat and burden of the day in the churches where his lot was cast, withal, having passed his three score and ten years, one would naturally expect this veteran to seek repose. Not a few of his friends looked to see him set himself down in some one of the luxurious new church edifices, amid congenial social surroundings and material comforts.
Carleton sought not his own comfort. When the new pastor and the old guard, left in Shawmut Church to "hold the fort," took counseltogether as to the future, they waited with some anxiety to hear what choice and decision Mr. Coffin would make. He had already selected the ground and was making plans for building his new home, "Alwington," atNo.9 Shailer Street, Brookline,—several miles away from his old residence in Dartmouth Street. It was naturally thought that he would ally himself with a wealthy old church elsewhere, and bid farewell, as so many had done, to their old church home, taking no new burdens, risks, or responsibilities. During the conference in the Shawmut prayer-room, Carleton rose and, with a smiling face and his usual impressive manner, stated that he should give his hopes and prayers, his sympathy and work, his gifts and influence to Shawmut Church; and, for the present at least, without dictating the future, would cast in his lot with the Shawmut people. A thrill of delight, unbidden tears of joy, and a new warmth of heart came to those who heard. As time went on he so adjusted himself to the change, and foundDr.Barton such a stimulating preacher, that any thought of sacrifice entirely vanished.
When the first Congregational Church ofChrist in Ithaca,N. Y.,—the city named by Simeon DeWitt after his Ulysses-like wanderings were over,—sent out its "letter missive" to the churches of the Central Association of New York State, and to Shawmut Church in Boston, the latter responded. It was voted to send, as their messengers, the pastor,Rev. Dr.Barton, and Mr. Coffin; Mrs. Barton and Mrs. Coffin accompanied them. These four came on to the Forest City and its university "far above Cayuga's waters." With the delight of a boy Carleton enjoyed the marvellously lovely scenery, the hills robed in colors as many as though they had borrowed Joseph's robe, and Cayuga, the queen of the waters in New York's beautiful lake region. Most of all he visited with delight that typical American university which, Christian in spirit, neither propagates nor attacks the creed of any sect.
With its stately edifices for culture, training, research, and religion, it had risen like a new city on the farm of Ezra Cornell. This far-seeing man, like Mr. Coffin, had, when so many others were blind, discerned in the new force, electricity, the vast future benefits to commerce, science, and civilization. Ezra Cornellhad helped powerfully to develop its application by his thought, his money, and his personal influence. Ezra Cornell, in Irish phrase, "invented telegraph poles." Moses Farmer, the electrician, invented the lineman's spurred irons by which to climb them.
Besides attending the Church Council in the afternoon, Carleton made an address in the evening that was to one flattering and to many inspiring. Later on, the same night, he attended the reception given to the Faculty and new students at the house of President J. G. Schurman. He was delighted in seeing the young president, with whose power as a thinker and writer he had already acquainted himself.
Carleton's last and chief literary work, done in his old home on Dartmouth Street, was to link together in the form of story the Revolutionary lore which he had gathered up from talks with participators in "the time that tried men's souls." From boyhood's memories, from long and wide reading in original monographs, from topographical acquaintance, he planned to write a trio or quartet of stories of American history. He wished to present the scenes of the Revolution as in the brightcolors of reality, in the dark shadows which should recall sacrifice, and with that graphic detail and power to turn the past into the present, of which he was a master.
As he had repeatedly written the story of the great Civil War from the point of view of a war correspondent actually on the ground, so would he tell the story of the Revolution as if he had been a living and breathing witness of what went on from day to day, enjoying and suffering those hopes and fears which delight and torment the soul when the veil of the future still hangs opaque before the mind.
His first instalment, "The Daughters of the Revolution," was published by Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin &Co., in a comely and well-illustrated volume. It deals with that opening history of the eight years' war with Great Britain which at the beginning had Boston for its centre and in which New England especially took part.
In his other books, "Building the Nation," "Boys of '76," and "Old Times in the Colonies," Carleton had not ignored the work and influence of the "home guard" composed of mothers, daughters, aunts, cousins, and grandmothers;but in this story of the "Daughters" he gave special prominence to what our female ancestors did to make the country free, and to hand down in safeguarded forms that which had been outraged by King and Parliament.
How widely popular this volume may have been, the writer cannot say, but he knows that one little maiden whom he sees every day has re-read the work several times.
In a subsequent volume of the series, Carleton proposed to repicture the splendid achievements of the colonial army in northeastern New York. Here, from Lake Champlain to Sandy Hook, is a "great rift valley" which lies upon the earth's scarred and diversified surface like a mighty trough. It corresponds to that larger and grander rift valley from Lebanon to Zanzibar, through Galilee and the Jordan, the Red Sea, and the great Nyanzas, or Lakes of Africa. As in the oldest gash on the earth's face lies the scene of a long procession of events, so, of all places on the American continent, probably, no line of territory has witnessed such a succession of dramatic, brilliant, and decisive events, both inunrecorded time and in historic days, from Champlain and Henry Hudson to the era of Fulton, Morse, and Edison.
In the Revolution, the Green Mountain boys, and the New York and New England militia under Schuyler and Gates, had made this region the scene of one of the decisive campaigns of the world. Yet, in the background and at home, the heroines did their noble part in working for that consummation at Saratoga which won the recognition and material aid of France for the United States of America. Besides Lafayette, came also the lilies of France, alongside the stars and stripes. The white uniforms were set in battle array with the buff and blue against the red coats, and herein Carleton saw visions and dreamed dreams, which his pen, like the camera which chains the light, was to photograph in words. He had made his preliminary studies, readings, personal interviews, and reëxamination of the region, and had written four or five chapters, when the call of the Captain to another detail of service came to him.
Life is worth living as long as one is interested in other lives than one's own. "Dandoconservat" is the motto of a famous Dutch-American family. So Carleton, by giving, preserved. In the summer of 1895, after Japan had startled the world by her military prowess, Carleton went down to Nantucket Island, and there at a great celebration delivered a fine historical address, closing with these words:
"Thus it came to pass that he who guides the sparrow in its flight saw fit to use the sailors of Nantucket, by shipwreck and imprisonment, as his agents to bring about the resurrection of the millions of Japan from the grave of a dead past to a new and vigorous life. Thus it is that Nantucket occupies an exalted position in connection with the history of our country."
Of this he wrote me in one of his last letters, February 27, 1896:
"I have read 'Townsend Harris' with unspeakable delight. I love to think of the resurrection of Japan in connection with the Puritans of Massachusetts,—the original movement culminating in Perry's expedition having its origin in the shipwrecking of Nantucket sailors on the shores of that empire." Mr.Coffin brought out this idea in his earlier and later address which he gave at Nantucket.
Having lived over thirteen years, from 1877 to 1895, atNo.81 Dartmouth Street, and feeling now the need for a little more quiet from the rumble of the trolley-car, for more light and room, for house space, for the accommodation of friends who loved to make their home with a genial host and his loving companion, and to indulge in that hospitality which was a lifelong trait, Mr. and Mrs. Coffin began looking for a site whereon to build in Brookline. No yokefellows were ever more truly one in spirit than "Uncle Charles and Aunt Sally." Providence having denied them the children for whom they had yearned, both delighted in a constant stream of young people and friends. Blessed by divine liberality in the form of nephews and nieces, rich in the gifts of nature, culture, and grace, neither Carleton nor his wife was often left lonely.
The new house was built after his suggestions and under his own personal oversight, the outdoor tasks and journeys thus necessitated making a variety rather pleasant than otherwise. Here, in this new home, his golden weddingwas to be celebrated, February 18, 1896. The house was in modern style, with all the comforts and conveniences which science and applied art could suggest. While comparatively modest and simple in general plan and equipment, it had open fireplaces, electric lights, a spacious porch, roomy hallways, and plenty of windows. It wasNo.9 Shailer Street, and named Alwington, after the ancestral home in Devonshire, England.
Mr. Coffin's study room was upon the northeast, where, with plenty of light and the morning sun, he could sit at his desk looking out upon Harvard Street, and over towards Beacon Street; the opposite side of the street, fortunately, not being occupied by buildings to obscure his view. At first he was often allured from his work for many minutes, and even for a half hour at a time, by a majestic elm-tree so rich in foliage and comely in form that he looked upon it with ravished eyes. It was in this room that he wrote the chapters for his second book, which was to show especially the part which American women had played in the making of their country.[Back to Content]
It was a remarkable coincidence that Mr. Coffin was to exchange worlds and transfer his work in the very year in which the issues of the Civil War were to be eliminated from national politics, when not one of the several party platforms was to make any allusion to the struggle of 1861-65, or to any of its numerous legacies. In this year, 1896, also, for the first time since 1860, Southern men, the one a Confederate general, and the other a Populist editor, were to be nominated for possible chief magistracy. Mr. Coffin, with prescience, had already seen that the war issues, grand as they were, had melted away into even vaster national questions. He had turned his thoughts towards the solution of problems which concerned the nation as a whole and humanity as a race. His historical addresses and lectures went back to older subjects, whilehis thoughts soared forward to the newer conditions, theories, and problems which were looming in the slowly unveiling future. In literature he turned, and gladly, too, from the scenes of slavery and war between brothers. With his pen he sought to picture the ancient heroisms, in the story of which the people of the States of rice and cotton, as well as of granite, ice, and grain, were alike interested, as in a common heritage. In Alwington, surrounded by old and new friends, genial and cultured, he hoped, if it were God's will, to complete his work with a rotunda-like series of pen pictures of the Revolution.
This was not to be, though he was to die "in harness," like Nicanor of old, without lingering illness or broken powers. While he was to see not a few golden days of A. D. 1896, yet the proposed pictures were to be left upon the easel, scarcely more than begun. The pen and ink on his table were to remain, like brushes on the palette, with none to finish as the master-workman had planned.
Months before that date of February 18th, on which their golden wedding was to be celebrated, Mr. and Mrs. Coffin had secured mypromise that I should be present. Coming on to Boston, I led the morning worship in the Eliot Church of Newton, which is named after the apostle of the Indians, the quarter-millennial anniversary of the beginning of whose work at Nonantum has just been celebrated. In the afternoon, I had the pleasure of looking into the faces of three score or more of my former Shawmut parishioners in the Casino hall in Beaconsfield Terrace.
Mr. Coffin had, from the first, fully agreed with the writer in believing that a Congregational church should be formed in the Reservoir district, which had, he predicted, a brilliant and substantial future. He was among the very first to move for the sale of the old property on Tremont Street, and he personally prepared the petition to the Legislature of Massachusetts for permission to sell and move. Afterwards, when the new enterprise seemed to have been abandoned, he listened to the call of duty and remained in Shawmut Church. When he became a resident in Brookline, feeling it still his duty to work and toil, to break new paths, to make the road straight for his Master, rather than to sit down at ease inZion, he cast his lot in with a little company of those who, though few and without wealth, bravely and hopefully resolved to form a church where it was needed. On November 3d, they first gathered for worship, and one year later, November 4, 1896, the church was formed, withRev.Harris G. Hale as pastor, and taking the historic, appropriate, but uncommon name, Leyden. Their first collection of money, as a thank-offering to God, was for Foreign Missions.
On that afternoon of February 16th, Carleton was present, joining heartily in the worship. As usual, he listened with that wonderfully luminous face of his and that close attention to the discourse, which, like the cable-ships, ran out unseen telegraphy of sympathy. The service, and the usual warm grasping of hands and those pleasant social exchanges for which the Shawmut people were so noted, being over, some fifteen or twenty gathered in the hospitable library of M. F. Dickinson,Jr., whose home was but a few rods off, on the other side of Beacon Street. After a half hour of sparkling reminiscences of the dear old days in Shawmut, all had gone except the host, Mr.Coffin, and the biographer, who then had not even a passing thought of the work he was soon to do. As Carleton sat there in an easy chair before the wood-fire on the open hearth, his feet stretched out comfortably upon the tiles, and his two hands, with their finger and thumb tips together, as was his usual custom when good thinking and pleasant conversation went on together, he talked about the future of Boston and of Congregational Christianity.
Interested as I was, a sudden feeling of pain seized me as I noticed how sunken were his eyes. I am not a physician, but I have seen many people die. I have looked upon many more as they approached their mortal end, marked with signs which they saw not, nor often even their friends observed, but which were as plain and readable as the stencilled directions upon freight to be sent and delivered elsewhere. After a handshake and an invitation from him to dine the next night at his house, and to be at the golden wedding on Tuesday, we bade him good afternoon. On returning with my host in front of the fire, I said, "I feel sad, for our friend Mr.Coffin is marked for early death; he will certainly not outlive this year."
Nevertheless, I could not but count Charles Carleton Coffin among the number of those whom God made rich in the threefold life of body, soul, and spirit.
The old Greeks, whose wonderfully rich experience of life, penetrating insight, powers of analysis, and gift of literary expression enabled them to coin the words to fitly represent their thoughts, knew how to describe both love and life better than we, having a mintage of thought for each in its threefold form. As they discriminatederos,philé, andagapéin love, so also they put difference betweenpsyché,bios, andzoéin life.
What other ranges of existence and developments of being there may be for God's chosen ones in worlds to come, we dare not conjecture, but this we know. Carleton had even then, as I saw him marked for an early change of worlds, entered into threefold life.
1. The lusty boy and youth, the mature man with not a perfect, yet a sound, physical organization, showed a good specimen of the human animal, rich in the breath of life,—psyché.
2. The long and varied career of farmer, surveyor, citizen, Christian interested in his fellows and their welfare, with varied work, travel, and adventure, manifested the noblebios,—the career or course of strenuous endeavor.
3. The spiritual attainments in character, the ever outflowing benevolence, the kindly thought, the healing sunshine of his presence, the calm faith, the firm trust in God, gave assurance of thezoé.
These three stages of existence revealed Carleton as one affluent with what men call life, and of which the young ever crave more, and also in that "life which is life indeed," which survives death, which is the extinction of thepsychéor animal breath,—the soul remaining as the abode of the spirit. In body, soul, and spirit, Charles Carleton Coffin was a true man, who, even in the evening of life, was rich in those three forms of life which God has revealed and discriminated through the illuminating Greek language of the New Testament.
True indeed it was that, while with multiplying years the animal life lessened in quantityand intensity, the spiritual life was enriched and deepened; or, to put it in Paul's language and in the historical present so favored by Carleton, "While the outward man perisheth, the inward man is renewed day by day."[Back to Content]
Thus, amid happy surroundings, in the new home, in the last leap-year of this wonderful century, came the time of the golden wedding. God had walked with these, his children, fifty years, while they had walked with one another. Providence seemed to whisper, "Come, for all things are now ready." The new home was finished and furnished, all bright and cheerful, and suffused with the atmosphere of genial companionship. The bride of a half century before, now with the roses of health blooming under the trellis of her silvery hair, with sparkling eyes beaming fun and sympathy, welcome and gladness, by turns, was at this season in happy health. This was largely owing, as she gladly acknowledged, to regular calisthenics, plenty of fresh air, and complete occupation of mind and body. The thousand invitations in gilt and white had,as with "the wings of a dove covered with silver and her feathers with yellow gold," flown over the city, commonwealth, and nation. On February 18th, the house having been transformed by young friends into a maze of greenery and flowers, husband and wife stood together to receive congratulations. In the hall were ropes of sturdy pine boughs and glistening laurel, with a huge wreath of evergreen suspended from the ceiling, and bearing the anniversary date, 1846 and 1896. In the reception-room one friend had hung the emblem of two hearts joined by a band of gold above the cornice. Dining-room and library were festooned with smilax. In the archways and windows were hanging baskets of jonquils and ferns. "An help meet for him," the bride of fifty years was arrayed in heliotrope satin with trimmings of point lace, making, as we thought, with her delicate complexion and soft white hair, a sight as lovely as when, amid the snow-storms of New Hampshire, a half century before, Charles Carleton Coffin first called Sallie Farmer his wife.
Of Washington it has been said, "God made him childless that a nation might callhim father." In the home on that day were scores of nieces and nephews, and children of several generations, from the babe in arms, and the child with pinafore, to the stately dames and long-bearded men, who, one and all, called the bride and groom "uncle and aunt." From a ladies' orchestra, on the top floor, music filled the house, the melody falling like a lark's song in upper air. In the dining-room, turned for the nonce into a booth of evergreens, where everything was sparkle and joy, new and old friends met to discuss, over dainty cups and plates, both the happy moment and the delights of long ago.
It was not only a very bright, but a noteworthy company that gathered on that February afternoon and evening. Massachusetts was about to lose by death her Governor, F. T. Greenhalge, as she had lost three ex-Governors, all friends of Carleton, within the previous twelvemonth, but there was present the handsome acting-Governor of the Commonwealth, Roger Wolcott. Men eminent in political life, authors, editors, preachers, business men, troops of lifelong friends, men and women of eminence, honor, and usefulness,fellow Christians and workers in wonderfully varied lines of activity, were present to share in and add to the joy. Among the gifts, which seemed to come like Jupiter's shower of gold upon Danaë, were two that touched Carleton very deeply. The Massachusetts Club, which has numbered in its body many Senators, Governors, generals, diplomatists, lawyers, authors, and merchants, whose names shine very high on the roll of national fame, sent their fellow member an appropriate present. Instead of the regular cup, vase, or urn, or anything that might suggest stress, strain, or even victory, or even minister to personal vanity, the Club, through its secretary, Mr. S. S. Blanchard, presented the master of Alwington with a superb steel engraving, richly framed. It represented the Master, sitting under the vine-roof trellis at the home of Lazarus, in Bethlehem. "You knew just what I wanted," whispered the happy receiver.
During the evening, when the people of Shawmut Church were present, a hundred or more strong, their former and latter chief servant being with them, a silver casket, with twenty half eagles in it, was presented byDr.W. E. Barton, with choice and fitting words. So deeply affected was this man Carleton, so noted for his self-mastery, that, for a moment, those who knew him best were shot through as by a shaft of foreboding, lest, then and there, the horses and chariot of fire might come for the prophet. A quarter of a minute's pause, understood by most present as nothing more than a natural interval between presentation speech and reply, and then Carleton, as fully as his emotion would admit, uttered fitting words of response.
The "banquet hall deserted," the photographic camera was brought into requisition, and pleasant souvenirs of a grand occasion were made. Everything joyously planned had been happily carried out. This was the culminating event in the life of a good man, to the making of whom, race, ancestry, parentage, wife, home, friends, country, and opportunity had contributed, and to all of which and whom, under God, Carleton often made grateful acknowledgments.
It was but a fortnight after this event, in which I participated with such unalloyed pleasure, that the telegraphic yellow paper, with itstype-script message, announced that the earthly house of the tabernacle of Carleton's spirit had been dissolved, and that his building of God, the "house not made with hands," had been entered.
The story of Carleton's last thirteen days on earth is soon told. He had written a little upon his new story. For theBoston Journalhe had penned an article calling attention to the multiplying "sky-scraper" houses, and the need of better fire-apparatus. He had, with the physician's sanction, agreed to address on Monday evening, March 2d, the T. Starr King Unitarian Club of South Boston, on "Some Recollections of a War Correspondent."
Carleton's last Sunday on earth was as one of "the days of heaven upon earth." It was rich to overflowing with joyous experiences. It is now ours to see that the shadows of his sunset of life were pointing to the eternal morning.
It was the opening day of spring. At Shawmut Church, in holy communion, he, with others, celebrated the love of his Saviour and Friend. To Carleton, it was a true Eucharist. A new vision of the cross and itsmeaning seemed to dawn upon his soul. At the supper-table, conversation turned upon Christ's obedience unto death, his great reconciliation of man to God, his power to move men, the crucifixion, and its meaning. Carleton said, after expressing his deep satisfaction with Doctor Barton's morning sermon, and his interpretation of the atonement, that he regarded Christ's life as the highest exhibition of service. By his willing death on the cross, Jesus showed himself the greatest and best of all servants of man, while thus joyfully doing his Father's will. On that day of rest, Carleton seemed to dwell in an almost transfigurating atmosphere of delight in his Master.
On Sunday night husband and wife enjoyed a quiet hour, hand in hand, before the wood fire. The sunlight and warmth of years gone by, coined into stick and fagots from the forest, were released again in glow and warmth, making playful lights and warning shadows. The golden minutes passed by. The prattle of lovers and the sober wisdom of experience blended. Then, night's oblivion. Again, the cheerful morning meal and the merry company,the incense of worship, and the separation of each and all to the day's toil.
Carleton sat down in his study room to write. He soon called his wife, complaining of a distressing pain in his stomach. He was advised to go to bed, and did so. The physician,Dr.A. L. Kennedy, was sent for. "How is your head?" asked Doctor Kennedy.
"If it were not for this pain, I should get up and write," answered Carleton.
With the consent of the physician he rose from the couch and walked the room for awhile for relief. Then returning, as he was about to lie down again, he fell over. Quickly unconscious, he passed away. Science would call the immediate cause of death apoplexy.
Thus died at his post, as he would have wished, the great war correspondent, traveller, author, statesman, and friend of man and God. He had lived nearly three years beyond the allotted period of three score and ten.
Two days later, while the flag over the public schoolhouse in Brookline drooped at half-mast, and Carleton's picture was wreathed with laurels, at the request of the scholars themselves, in the impressive auditorium of ShawmutChurch, Carleton's body lay amid palms and lilies in the space fronting the pulpit. At his head and at his feet stood a veteran-sentinel from the John A. Andrew Post of the Grand Army of the Republic. These were relieved every quarter of an hour, during the exercises, by comrades who had been detailed for a service which they were proud to render to one who had so well told their story and honored them so highly. It was entirely a voluntary offering on the part of the veterans to pay this tribute of regard, which was as touching as it was unostentatious.
Nowhere in the church edifice were there any of the usual insignia of woe. The dirge was at first played to express the universal grief in the music of the organ, but it soon melted into In Memoriam and hymns of triumph. The quartet sang "Jesus Reigns," a favorite hymn of Carleton's, to music which he had himself composed only two years before.
It reminded me of the burst of melody which, from the belfry of the church in a Moravian town, announces the soul's farewell to earth and birth into heaven.
In the audience which filled the pews downstairswere men and women eminent in every walk of life, representatives of clubs, societies, and organizations. Probably without a single exception, all were sincere mourners, while yet rejoicing in a life so nobly rounded out. In the pulpit sat two of the pastors of Shawmut Church, andDr.Arthur Little, friend of Carleton's boyhood, and a near relative. The eulogies were discriminating.
The addresses, with the prayers offered and the tributes made in script or print, with some letters of condolence received by Mrs. Coffin, and a remarkable interesting biographical sketch fromThe Congregationalist, byRev.Howard A. Bridgman, have been gathered in a pamphlet published by George H. Wright, Harcourt Street, Boston.
From this pamphlet we extract the following: