Cleveland Past and Present

M >> Maurice Joblin >> Cleveland Past and Present

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During the same year the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church was
held at Cleveland. The slavery question was there presented for the last
time. The Southern members, represented by Rev. Mr. Ross, of Alabama, had
counted upon what they called a conservative course, on the part of Mr.
Aiken. They wished, simply, to be let alone. From the Middle States there
were many clergyman of moderate views, who expected him to take their
ground, or, at least, to be silent. He had advised non-resistence to the
execution of the fugitive slave law, even on the part of the blacks, in
cases where governmental officials were implicated. As usual, the negro
question came up, and a large portion of a day was given to it.

Until near the close of the debate the representatives of the Middle and
Southern States were quite hopeful of a moderate policy, or of no policy.
Mr. Aiken sat near the marble pulpit in the Second church without any
apparent interest in the discussion. He rose and spoke with difficulty and
in a weak voice, and few words. In a temperate but firm and patriarchal
manner he recounted the various phases of the question, during his public
ministry. He then touched upon the moral and religions aspect of the case,
but with no asseveration, and concluded by denouncing slavery as an evil,
so monstrous that the church could neither sustain nor ignore it. The
silence was so complete that no word was lost. When he sat down, the
Southern members remarked that their fate within the church was settled.

On a previous public occasion in 1851, when the Columbus Railway was just
completed, and an excursion of State dignitaries made a trial trip to
Cleveland, Mr. Aiken was requested to preach in their presence. As this
discourse is one of a very few that have been printed, we can give a few
literal extracts:

It was my privilege on the Lord's day to address De Witt Clinton and
the Canal Commissioners of New York in recognition of the beneficient
hand of Providence, who had carried them on to the completion of the
Erie Canal. In a moral and religions, as well as in a social and
commercial point of view, there is something both solemn and sublime
in the completion of a great thoroughfare. It indicates not only the
march of mind and a higher type of society, but the evolution of a
divine purpose.

In his quarter century sermon, June 3d, 1850, he says of revivals:

They are as their Divine Author says, like the breath of wind through
fragrant trees and flowers, scattering grateful odors, pervading the
universal church with the treasured sweetness of divine grace. If my
success has not been as great as I would wish, it is as great as I had
reason to expect. I confess I have much to deplore, and much for which
to be thankful. There have been adverse influences here to counteract
those usually falling to the lot of other ministers. So far as the
subject of slavery is concerned I have endeavored without the fear or
favor of man to preserve a course best calculated to promote freedom and
save the church from dismemberment.

With such a style, perspicuous, easy and impressive, it is easy to see
how he might thoroughly absorb the attention of an audience, without
affecting the orator. If he had been more ambitions and more enterprising,
he might have risen higher as a popular preacher, but would have held a
lower place in the affections of his people. The position of a pastor in
an active and growing city is beset with difficulty on all sides. To
retain place and influence in one congregation during a period of
thirty-five years is an evidence of prudence, character and stability of
purpose more to be desired than outside fame in the church.

Though not yet arrived at extreme old age, he is too feeble to perform
much service. It is ten years since he has retired from active duty, but
his congregation continue his annual salary by an unanimous vote. Few
clergyman are permitted to witness, like him, the fruits of their early
labors. He has contributed largely to shape the religions institutions of
a city, while it was increasing in population from three thousand to
ninety thousand. We remember but one instance where he was drawn into a
newspaper discussion. This was in the year 1815, in which he reviewed the
decrees of the Council of Trent in relation to the prohibition of the
Scriptures to the common people. The letters of "Clericus" and "Veritas"
on that subject covered the whole ground on both sides, and are worthy of
publication in a more permanent form.

The Rev. Doctor sustained the relation of pastor to the First Presbyterian
church until 1858, when he resigned, leaving the Rev. Dr. Goodrich sole
pastor. The whole extent of his ministry from the time of his license by
the Londonderry Presbytery, 1817, to the present time, March, 1869, has
been about fifty-three years. During forty-three years of this period he
has been a pastor in only two congregations. The other portion of this
time he has preached and labored in vacant churches and where there was no
church, as health and opportunity permitted.

The Doctor still resides in Cleveland, beloved by the church over which
for so many years he watched and prayed, and honored in a community in
which he has so long been recognized as an unswerving advocate of right.

Retired from active duty, and nearing, as he is, the sunset of life, his
quiet hours may bring to him remembrances of vigorous effort and
unmeasured usefulness, while his gentle nature may be cheered by the
consciousness that he still holds the love of this people.

Seymour W. Adams.

The subject of this sketch, Rev. Seymour Webster Adams, D. D., was born at
Vernon, Oneida county, New York, August 1, 1815. His father's name was
Isaac Adams and his mother's maiden name was Eunice Webster--she was a
niece of Noah Webster, the great American lexicographer. His mother is
still living. His father died in 1861. Dr. Adams was possessed of
remarkable equanimity of temperament, a healthful constitution and great
powers of application and endurance. These traits, the home influences
under which he was nurtured, developed in a high degree. His early years
were passed upon his father's farm at Vernon and in the home circle.
Having before him constantly not only the example of right living, as
generally esteemed, but of holy living, he could not do otherwise than
profit greatly by the example set before him. But he did not only profit
by this example--he went much further. It is said of him, "As a son he was
docile, loving, tenderly attached to his kindred, profoundly obedient and
reverent towards his parents, whose wish was the law of his heart, and
whom he loved to call blessed."

At the age of seventeen he became a member of the Baptist church at
Vernon, and soon after this entered upon a course of preparation for a
liberal education and in due time he entered Hamilton College, Clinton,
New York, from which he graduated after a full course, taking a very high
position in his class.

That the leading traits of his character while young may be appreciated,
some of his early writings are here referred to.

Soon after entering upon his collegiate course he wrote upon "Integrity of
Character," and among other things remarked that the man who suffers his
principles to be violated "sacrifices his honor, barters all that is noble
and admirable, and abandons those principles to which he should cling with
an unyielding grasp."

On another occasion a little further on he is found maintaining the
necessity of the exercise of the physical and intellectual powers of man
"as a wise provision of the Sovereign Ruler of the world" for man's
happiness, and he maintains that not only in this should there be activity
but _energy_.

Afterwards, in 1841, when he had become a senior and was about to bid
adieu to college life, he chose as the subject of his oration,
"Development of Character," maintaining that no one can become "deservedly
great" who does not encounter and overcome the impediments and
difficulties constantly presenting themselves. He says: "Difficulties may
long have met the aspirant at every step and been for years his constant
companions, yet so far from proving detrimental, they have been among the
most efficient means for preparing him for vigorous effort to surmount
still greater barriers."

These references are deemed sufficient to indicate the principles and
leading traits of the youthful Seymour W. Adams, and as we shall see, were
his unvarying guides through life. To him it was the same to resolve as to
perform, for whether in earlier or later life he never put his hand to the
plow and looked back. Therefore, having resolved to become a Christian
minister, he never swerved from that resolution for a single moment, but
went forward with his mind fixed upon his purpose and object as the
mariner's upon his guiding star. In pursuance of his previous
determination, in the Fall of 1841 he entered the Hamilton Theological
Seminary at Hamilton, Madison county, New York, from which in regular
course he graduated, and after acting as ministerial supply in one or two
places, he was called to and accepted the pastorate of the Baptist church
at Vernon, his native place, having previously received ordination. Here
he was greatly beloved by his people and continued there quietly pursuing
his duties, until sought out at his village home and invited to accept the
vacant pastorate of the First Baptist church of Cleveland, Ohio.

When first invited to the Cleveland pastorate he refused to listen, and
declined to entertain the call; but upon the matter being further pressed
upon him, upon the second call he consented to visit Cleveland for the
purpose of becoming acquainted with the people and learning their
situation, but was careful to give them no encouragement that he would
accept their invitation.

Mr. Adams came to Cleveland in pursuance of this call October 19th, 1846,
and after remaining three weeks returned home to Vernon, leaving it in
great doubt whether he would return here. In about a month afterwards, the
church at Cleveland calling him was relieved of suspense by his acceptance
of the pastorate. He entered upon it November 22d, 1846. The subject of
his discourse on this occasion was:

"For they watch for your souls as they that must give
account."--Heb. xiii, 17.

A few words as to this discourse is deemed not out of place here, as it
has become historic in the church to which it was delivered. The doctrine
of the discourse was the reciprocal duty of pastor and people. Reference
will only be made to what appertains to the pastor. He laid down most
rigid rules for him--"that he should be a holy man,"--that he should be
one that "hath clean hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his
soul unto vanity." That the injunction was laid upon him, "Keep thyself
pure;" that as the conduct of the minister is observed by many it should
be fitting as an example to others "in word, in conversation, in charity,
in spirit, in faith, in purity." That in preparation for preaching the
Word "time, thought and prayer must be given--that the burden of all his
preaching should be 'Christ and him crucified.'"

How well he observed these will appear hereafter in the language of those
who made addresses at his funeral, or soon afterwards. The reader is also
referred to the Memoir of Dr. Adams, edited by Judge Bishop.

In this pastorate Dr. Adams continued till his decease. No extended
reference can be made to his labors in so brief a sketch as this. A mere
summary only can be given of his life work. The number of sermons preached
by him, including addresses at funerals, is three thousand four hundred
and ninety-three; number of marriages solemnized, three hundred and
fifty-two; number of funerals attended, five hundred and four; number
received into the church, including those received both by letter and
baptism, about seven hundred. In addition to his other labors, in 1858-9,
he wrote the life of Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Kendrick, so long and honorably
known as the founder of the Hamilton Theological School, and which has
since grown to be Madison University and Hamilton Theological Seminary.
While in this work all display and all mere ornament is avoided, it is a
work of decided merit, requiring severe application and patient industry
to accomplish it. His surviving wife has said that "his pastoral labors
were prosecuted regardless of self."

He was three times married. First to Miss Caroline E. Griggs, who died
April, 1847. Second, January, 1849, to Mrs. Cordelia C. Peck, widow of
Rev. Linus M. Peck, and daughter of Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Kendrick; she died
October, 1852. Third, to Miss Augusta Hoyt, August, 1855, who is the
mother of his four surviving children.

He was not only a Christian minister, but he was a true Christian patriot,
and never, during all the terrible struggle for the life of the nation,
when he offered prayer, did he fail to remember his country. Nearly the
last work of his life was to accept an appointment in the Christian
Commission to render service in Washington and at the front, relieving and
comforting the sick and wounded of our army.

On the sixth of July, 1864, he returned home from this service, quite
unwell, but he thought he could find no space for repose, and labored on
more intensely than ever, all which time a crisis was approaching which he
did not anticipate. He at last began to perceive symptoms of severe
illness, and Sabbath, September 11th, he preached his last sermon to his
people from Heb. iii: 7, 8. "To-day if ye will hear his voice harden not
your hearts," &c. All that can be said here of this discourse is, that if
he had known it was his last he could not have spoken more appropriately
or warned more earnestly. From the preaching of this discourse he went to
the sick-room, and on the 27th of September, 1864, Dr. Adams bade adieu to
earth and passed away.

His funeral was attended September 30th, by a great multitude of mourners
and friends, at the First Baptist church, and a large number of the
clergymen of Cleveland participated in the solemnities.

This sketch can not be better concluded than by referring briefly to some
of the remarks made on that occasion, as a fitting testimonial to the
character and worth of Dr. Adams.

Remarks, 1st, by Rev. Dr. Aiken:

I have known him intimately, and I have thought, as I have seen him on
the street, of that passage of Scripture, "Behold an Israelite indeed in
whom there is no guile," for there was no guile in him. You might read
his profession in his daily life. He commended daily the Gospel that he
preached, and gave living witness of its power and showed that he loved
the truth. He was eminently successful as a pastor and useful in the
cause of the Redeemer.

2d, by Rev. Dr. Goodrich:

There was manifest a diligence in his study and a thoroughness of
thought which commanded increased respect the longer we listened to him.
His life and character made him felt in this community even more than
his words. He preached one day in the week to his own flock, but he
lived forth the Gospel of Christ every day before the world. There was
in him a sincerity and consistency which could not be hid. He was
transparent as crystal and honest as a little child. No man ever doubted
him. He was always himself, true, manly, faithful. Men, as they passed
him in the street, said to themselves, "There is a man who believes all
the Gospel he preaches." He is gone, but his works follow him. "Being
dead he yet speaketh."

3d, by Rev. Dr. Hawks:

Possessed naturally of a strong intellect, he disciplined it by the
severe process of thought and study. His scholarship was accurate and
thorough, his reading extensive and profitable, by means of these he
intended to serve, as he did, Christ and the church. Dr. Adams was a
pastor as well as preacher. He taught not only publicly but from
house to house.

J. A. Thome.

James Armstrong Thome was born in Augusta, Kentucky, January 20, 1813.
He is of Scotch descent on his father's side, and of North Irish by his
mother, a native Armstrong of the border land. His father was a
Presbyterian of the Scotch type, and a ruling elder in the church. His
mother was a Methodist of the original Wesleyan order and period, having
been converted under the labors of the Wesleys at the age of nine. This
difference of the parents in religious beliefs and church affinities
remained unchanged till the death of the mother, each attending their
respective meetings; yet, wide as the distinction then was, and warm as
the prevalent feeling was, between Presbyterians and Methodists,
particularly in Kentucky, there was neither sectarian width nor warmth
between the godly pair, the twain were one flesh and one spirit in
Christ Jesus.

The son usually followed his father to church, though he sometimes
accompanied his mother; and during week-day evenings he had the double
advantage of going to prayer-meeting with the one, and to class-meeting
with the other. To this two-fold, yet harmonious, religious training in
childhood the son is indebted for a breath of religious sentiment and
sympathy which made him early a Presbyteria-Methodist in heart, and led
him subsequently to the mid-way ground of Congregationalism, where many a
Presbyterian and many a Methodist have met in Christian unity,

He owes his early conversion to the faithful teachings and pious example
of his parents, to their religious instruction, to family worship, to
Sabbath observance, to sanctuary means, in prosecution of the covenant his
parents entered into with God when they consecrated him in infancy.

The son's first great sorrow came when he was in his ninth year, in the
death of his mother. The loss was irreparable, but it led him to Christ,
From the sad moment when the dying mother laid her hand upon his head and
spoke in words never to be forgotten, her last benediction, sorrow for the
sainted dead was blended with penepenitentialrow towards God, and prayers
and tears cried to heaven for mercy. It was not, however, until the age of
seventeen that the blind seeker found the Saviour, and conscious peace in
Him. This happy event was immediately followed by union with the
Presbyterian church, and this by personal consecration to the ministry.
Just before his conversion, his college course, early begun, had been
completed. Three years were spent in farther study, and in travel, and
general observation bearing on the chosen calling of life.

At the opening of Lane Seminary, under the Theological headship of Dr.
Lyman Beecher, the young divinity student chose that school of the
prophets, and joined its first class in 1833. It was a class destined to
be made famous by a discussion, in its first year, of the slavery
question, then beginning to be agitated by the formation of an
anti-slavery society on the basis of immediate emancipation, and by the
active agitation of the subject in the neighboring city, Cincinnati,
whereby the mobocratic spirit was aroused, whence threats of sacking the
seminary buildings, and thereupon alarm and hasty action of the trustees,
disallowing further agitation, and enjoining the disbanding of the
society. The students, too much in earnest to yield, after unavailing
attempts at reconciliation with the authorities, the professors mediating,
and Doctor Beecher conjuring his beloved pupils to stay with him, seceded
in a body, in December, 1834. The young Kentuckian, son of a slave-holder,
became a thorough convert to the doctrine of emancipation, joined the
anti-slavery society, agitated with his brethren, delivered an address at
the first anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, in New York,
May, 1834, and seceded with the class. "A Statement of the Reasons which
induced the Students of Lane Seminary to Dissolve their Connection with
that Institution"--a pamphlet of twenty-eight pages, signed by fifty-one
names, and bearing date December 15, 1834, was published and went over the
land, and the city, intensifying the agitation at home, and raising it
throughout the country. Among the signatures to this document are those of
Theodore D. Weld, H. B. Stanton, George Whipple, J. W. Alvord, George
Clark, John J. Miter, Amos Dresser, (afterwards scourged in the Public
Square of Nashville,) William T. Allen, son of a slaveholding Presbyterian
minister in Alabama, and James A. Thome.

Exiled from the Seminary halls, these rebel reformers took refuge in a
building hard by the city, and extemporized a Theological school,
themselves being both lecturers and students. The following Spring,
negotiations being matured for adding a Theological department to the
Oberlin Institute by the accession of Professors Finney and Morgan the
seceders went in a body to Oberlin, where they prosecuted their
preparations for the ministry, which were completed in 1836. Among these
first graduates of Oberlin Theological Seminary was J. A. Thome. The Winter
of 1835-6, he had spent in lecturing on anti-slavery in Ohio, under
commission of the American Anti-Slavery Society. The Winter of 1836-7, he,
with Jos. Horace Kimball, of New Hampshire, visited the British West India
Islands to investigate the results of the abolition of slavery, two years
prior, by act of Parliament. A volume entitled "Emancipation in the West
Indies," prepared by Mr. Thome, and published, in 1837, by the American
Anti-Slavery Society at New York, embodied these observations. The book
was timely and told efficiently on the reform in this country. The Winter
of 1837, was passed in Kentucky, the abolitionist living among
slaveholders, and officiating as the minister in the church of his father.
The next Spring he accepted a call to the chair of Rhetoric and Belles
Lettres in Oberlin college, and in September following was married to Miss
Ann T. Allen, daughter of John Gould Allen, Esq., of Fairfield,
Connecticut. After ten years of professorial labors, in association with
men of great worth, most of whom still retain their connection with the
college, Mr. Thome entered upon the pastoral work, December, 1848, in
connection with the church of which he is still the pastor.

He has enjoyed a pastorate of twenty years, uninterrupted by serious
ill-health, and cheered by successive revivals and consequent accessions
to the church, which, having a membership at the beginning of his
pastorate of little over one hundred, now numbers over three hundred,
after many losses by dismission and death.

Mr. Thome, early converted to anti-slavery, and consistently devoted to
that cause, has lived to see slavery abolished in America. In addition to
the volume on West India Emancipation, he wrote, in 1850, a book on
Slavery in America, which was published by the British Anti-Slavery
Society. Since, a Prize Tract on Prayer for the Oppressed, also a tract
during the war on "What are we Fighting for?" and a treatise on "The
Future of the Freed People."

At the earnest solicitation of the Secretaries of the American Missionary
Association, and with the generous consent of his church, Mr. Thome,
accompanied by his wife and daughter, went abroad early in 1867, to
secure pecuniary assistance from the friends of the freedmen in England
and Scotland for their education and evangelization. He was absent on
this mission one year. The result of his efforts have not yet ceased to
be realized.

After thirty years of unbroken domestic felicity, three beloved daughters
having been reared to womanhood in the enjoyment of the Christian's hope,
and two of them happily wedded, Mr. Thome and his wife were overwhelmed
with sorrow by the sudden death, on the last day of April, 1869, of their
second daughter, Mrs. Maria E. Murphy, wife of Mr. Thos. Murphy, of
Detroit. A lady of singular amiability, purity, and Christian excellence,
she was endeared by her sweet graces to rich and poor, to young and old,
throughout the circle of her acquaintances.

William H. Goodrich.

Rev. William H. Goodrich, D. D., pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of
Cleveland, is a native of New Haven, Conn. His ancestry is among the most
honorable known in American society. His father was the late Rev. Chauncey
A. Goodrich, D. D., a greatly distinguished professor in Yale College; and
his grandfather, Hon. Elizur Goodrich, for some years a representative in
Congress, and for twenty years Mayor of New Haven; and his
great-grandfather, Rev. Elizur Goodrich, D. D., distinguished both as a
clergyman and an astronomer. His mother was the daughter of Noah Webster,
LL.D., the lexicographer.

He graduated at Yale college, and was subsequently a tutor in that
institution. He studied theology at the New Haven Theological Seminary.
While tutor, it was his duty to preserve order about the college grounds,
and he received, (though not from a student,) during a night disturbance,
a severe injury upon the head, which put his life in peril and
interrupted mental labor for a long period. A part of this time was spent
abroad in 1848; and it was not till 1850 that he entered steadily upon
the duties of his profession. He was first settled as pastor of the
Congregational Church of Bristol, Connecticut, where he remained four
years. He was then called to the pastorate of the Presbyterian Church in
Binghamton, N. Y., where he remained till 1858, when he removed to this
city, where, for eleven years, his ministry has been marked by very great
success. The prosperous condition of the church under his care, together
with almost unparalleled attachment between pastor and people, afford
evidence of the ability and faithfulness with which he has discharged his
ministerial duties. To remarkable mental vigor, he adds great delicacy of
character and the warmest sympathies; and those who know most of him,
regard it as no partial judgment which awards him a front rank among
preachers and pastors.