CHAPTER I, BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE-INDICATIONS OF CHARACTER-SCHOOL AND COL LEGE-CANDIDATESHIP. GEORGE WASHINGTON DOANE was born in Trenton, New Jersey, May 27 A. D. 1799. His father, Jonathan Doane, was a man of mark in his day, as a master builder and contractor. He died in the same year, that his son graduated, leaving the homestead unfinished, and most of his hard-earned livelihood, in an unsecured debt, which was never realized. He was a man of singular perseverance and high principle, commanding and handsome in his appearance, most loving and devoted in all his home relations, and very proud of his son. But my Father's strongest points of character are his, through his Mother. She was a noble woman, heroic, and self-denying; full of the wise instincts and great impulses of her nature; earnestly religious; and most careful and affectionate in the training of her children. Over her deathbed, as his hand lay upon her breast, and life's last pulse died out, he said to himself, "great heart." It was her best description. And his unvarying love, and admiring appreciation of her, have their record on the grave-cross which he put at her head, "The Bishop of New Jersey to the best of Mothers." In days when the Church in America was weak and small, she had a brave woman's loyalty to its distinctive features, which moulded, in no small degree, from early boyhood, the earnest promptness, and the bold uncompromising energy of character, that made him a "defensor fidei" in life and death. She was one of the women of the revolution, no whit less heroes, than its men. And she had with it all, a maiden's modesty, which is the true background of real courage; on which it may fall back from the snares of self-consciousness, or cruelty. This rare union of modesty and bravery, her son derived from her. Men saw most of the latter, for modesty becomes immodest by public gazing. But those who knew him well, remember the quick and ready * blush; the almost humility, with which he undertook a new subject, before an untried audience; the unconsciousness with which he welcomed approval; and his disavowal of any praise, for what he thought accidentally successful, in what he did; his gesture or his voice. I remember so well, asking him, at dinner, on last Washington's birthday, whether his oration before the Ladies' Mount Vernon Association, which he that moment, had finished, was "fine." He said "that is for you to say." And when I asked him if he were satisfied with it, his answer was "I never was, with any thing of my own." And in that noble oration, in which orator and subject were equally met, he proved this feature of his own character, by the quick accuracy, with which he detected,† and the earnest admiration, with which he regarded, it, in George Washington. Through his Mother's blood, and in his Mother's milk, God adorned his soul, with the glory of courage, and the grace of modesty. It was the great boulder, carved into a column, with its chapiter of leaves. And none owned more gratefully and constantly, than he, the debt he owed to her. I have beside me now, the Bible and the Prayer Book, which she gave him when he went to College. Carefully he treasured them, and when she had gone, touched them with almost veneration. How they are doubly consecrated now. The Bible is an old and worn book, "hoary with time." And on the fly-leaf, he had kept these lines, copied in his boyish hand. LINES WRITTEN BY MY MOTHER WHEN I WAS AN INFANT. He who the ravens' wants supplies For all his creatures will provide; How beautiful the faith of the Mother's love. His home with her was the house of all home pleasure and delight. And when he left it at his marriage, his care and devotion to her were unintermitted. His Mother and sisters lived always near him. He was, every day, in her house. The first copy of his pamphlets, that went out of his own home, was hers. The flowers, that they loved so together, and the vegetables of his garden, must be shared with her. His daily care was, that the newspaper went to her regularly. And while his energetic * His great diffidence and modesty, in college, which always raised a blush upon his cheek, every time that he recited, and prevented him from finishing a single declamation which was required of him, alone gave him the second, instead of the first, place, in a class of more than ordinary ability.-Church Review, Oct. 1859. See pages 12 and 13 of "One World, One Washington." youth, was the stay of her widowhood; his loving manhood, and his playful tenderness, were the comfort and delight of her age. Through her long and painful illness, his coming was the pleasure of each day. No day so weary, or overborne with work; no night so late, or dark, kept him away. He was her Son, her Pastor, the Father of her second childhood. And the dearest human love had God's own hallowing, in his frequent and earnest administrations of the Holy Eucharist at her bedside, and in his daily prayer, with her, teaching her poor slow lips the prayer he learned from them, in childhood; "Come, Grandmother, let us say Our Father.'" The sorrow of her death was a shadow, that lay upon his heart, till it has passed away in the peaceful light of Paradise, where they are together. And those two graves lie side by side, far sooner than we thought; but no sooner, than they wished. I could not speak of the germs of my Father's character, without this reference to the one, whose hands God used so wisely, in planting them, in him. And his devotion to her, was a beautiful thread, in the web of his manifold+ character, which broke most painfully, a year ago last March, and which death, that separates so many, tied again for them, fourteen months after. * His first lines to her, that we have, and his last, are the uniting ends, of the life-long circle of his love. TO MY DEAR MOTHER. In a copy of "The Winter's Wreath" given to her, Christmas, A. D. 1830. Thou'st twined, around my brow; O many, many winters more, And then, be thine, a fairer wreath, That never fades, in Heaven. And then twenty-eight Christmases after, the first and the last Christmas for him, without her, this was his carol. THE FIRST CHRISTMAS WITHOUT MY MOTHER. "One who mourneth for his Mother." Sweet Mother, eight and fifty years, Thy Christmas blessing crowned my brow; And Christmas comes, without thee, now. "After all the Mother has the making of the man."—Address on the death of General Harrison, by the Bishop of New Jersey. TOKIAN, "many-coloured."1 St. Peter, iv. 10. MEMOIR. A shadow creeps across my hearth, In gifts and prayers, like tracks in snow; And Christmas comes, without thee, now. I would not call thee from thy rest. Safe in the Paradise of God, Thy home is with the holy dead, RIVERSIDE, Christmas, 1858. How young and fresh, the heart, under those white hairs, whose love welled up, from the same deep fountain, nearly thirty years apart, in such spring-tides of song. Moving from Trenton, when the State House, and other public buildings, were completed, my Father's second home was in New York. He was a mere boy, when he went there, so young, that the venerable Dr. Barry took him daily, by the hand, from home to school, and back again. How many memories gather about this name. Dr. Barry was among the first teachers of his time, and among the first scholars, of any time. There was great love, between master and scholar; a love that lasted through life. And the modest dignity of the good Doctor changed its position most gracefully, when the relation changed, and the pupil became his Teacher's Bishop. Often, when the clergy were gathered, at Riverside, he repelled the playfulness, that would remind him, of the one whipping he administered. An older boy than my Father had insulted General Washington's name; and he could not brook it; but immediately gave him a sound whipping. When he went back, to school, bruised and uncomfortable from his victory, the Doctor, upon practical principles of justice, discovering that the other boy had received his flogging already, punished my Father severely. The patriotism and courage of the man, proved their existence early in the boy. It was the habit in book-stores then, to leave the books opened, against the window. And the little boy lingered on the way to school, not to play, but to read the two pages that were against the pane; looking the next day, if some chance had not opened them, at a new place. Leaving New York, he lost the benefit of Dr. Barry's teaching, but never the pleasure of his friendship, and never his love for him. "He was my Master," (so he wrote, in his Conventional Address, in A. D. 1852, the year in which Dr. Barry died,)" my oldest friend; my father; though my brother, and my son." I have elsewhere* poured my heart out on his ashes. A finer scholar, a more perfect gentleman, a more pious and benignant Christian, a Minister of Christ, more Christ-like is nowhere left among us. "Help Lord, for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful are minished from among the children of men." The lamb and his first Shepherd, the Pastor and his Pastor, how are they folded now, by the Good Shepherd, in the green pastures of Paradise. About A. D. 1808, the family removed to Geneva. It was only a quiet home life, with rather more incidents, than come now-a-days, into the life of a country town. But the only marked record of his life here, is connected with his school. Dr. Axtell, his teacher, was a Presbyterian Clergyman; and the boys learned and recited the Shorter Catechism of that Society. On the first catechising day, after my Father went there, in answer to the question, "What is the chief end of man?" he disavowed any knowledge of such a catechism, and utterly declined learning any other than the one his Mother had taught him. His determination was disobedience, and he suffered for it; being whipped and disgraced. But the spirit was not quelled. The offence was repeated, and upon his being sent to the seat of disgrace, near the door, so many boys, who knew only the Church Catechism, took their seats beside * In the address at his funeral, in which, with beautiful tributes to him, as a man, a Christian, and a Pastor, he speaks of him as a teacher, and his teacher, in these words: "It may be doubted if any teacher ever was more successful, in attaching his pupils to himself; in imbuing them with high and holy principles, and impelling them forward in the path of duty and of honour. To him, his kindness, his influence, his example, the present speaker clearly owes it under God that he has had a part in the ministry of reconciliation.' The partiality of his dear and venerable Master, habitually designated him, when he was not ten years old, for the sacred office and he never ceased, during the twenty years of their relation to each other, as Bishop and Presbyter, to dwell with affectionate delight, on the period of their connection, as Master and Scholar, now six and forty years ago; and to trace out the course of providential orderings which had so intimately knit and consecrated their reunion. * Dr. Barry was an accurate and varied scholar. The languages of Greece and Rome were, as it were, vernacular to him. Though free from every shade of pedantry, their choicest idioms were ever bursting from his lips, in his free intercourse with those who could appreciate them. He was pre-eminent in his vocation as a teacher. He loved it. He lived it. He rightly judged of it, as only not a priesthood. He was a dull boy, whom he could not imbue with his own ardent spirit. He inspired his pupils. He made men of them. And if they did not quite withstand the grace, which he invoked for them continually, he made them Christians. More than to all other teachers, the present speaker owes to him and this, although he was scarcely more than ten, when he had ceased to be his pupil." |