A VISIT TO THE AUTHOR OF THE "STUDENTS' MANUAL."

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 470, 13 July 1871, Page 2

A VISIT TO THE AUTHOR OF THE "STUDENTS' MANUAL."

BY DAVID MACBAE.

(Continued from yesterday.)

THE DOCTOR'S STUDY.

" Here I do my work," he said, when we entered the study. "Most of mj boots that you have been speaking about ■were written at that desk. I planned this house myself, and. took care to make a comfortable room of this. In a minister's house no room should be better than the study." Looking round the room, with its high bookcases, I observed near the window a tiny marble fountain. Three little marble boys, standing on the edge, looked down into the basin, from the centre of which, covered by a dome of glass, rose a tiuy jet of water, that scattered about halfway to the dome, and fell back with a sweet tinkling sound into its marble bed. The Doctor said that in hot weather the very sound of the water kept him cool. He went to the corner where thes stop-cock was to show me how he could make the little fountain leap higher and higher till the crystal drops pattered and rained against the glass. Orer the archway that led into a little alcove walled with books, I saw some firearms and bayonets, and asked him what they were. " Some of them," he said, " are relics of the war, captured from the rebels. They were sent me by members ot my congregation who foug'it and fell in the war. They sent these, but they never came back themselves."

He got up and brought down one—a Spencer rifle, which could be loaded in the stock with, eight ball cartridges, fired eight iimes as fast as you could pull the trigger, and loaded agaiu in a few seconds. " When our boys were armed with these," said the Doctor grimly, " the rebels had no chance, and ran. They used to say that we loaded on Sunday and fired all the rest of the week."

He gave me a sight of bis own rifle —ono of Uallarcl's breech-loaders—"as pretty a piece," he said, handling it fondly, " as you will find in America." " It was with, this I shot that deer," he continued, pointing to a stag's head in the corner, "it was during my last holidays. took them in Canada, and hunted with a pr.rty of Indians. I rather pride myself on that shot. The deer was so far away that it looked no bigger that a dog." He then took me within the alcove to show me ia the corner a little plank table with carpenter's tools and little oil bottles upon it. The Doctor keeps his gun beautifully oiled. Be can take the lock ■ to pieces and put it together again like a gunsmith. I hare no doubt he could do the same with the clock on his mantelpiece, ihe New England brain is full of ingenuity. HIS CONVERSATION. He spoke with delight about his trip to Canadn, and his expedition, with the Indians. "It made me feel like a boy again," he said. " and I laughed more in those three weeks than I usually do in three years. We had four Indians with us, and a tent and a little stove Ihat held kettle and pans, and only weighed 22 lbs The Inditins would pitch our tent first, and then their own. Cooked our dinner Grst, too; but when they cooked their own, how they went into it. Monstrous appetites those fellows liad. They would eat half a deer amongst them. We had shot four deer —all we wanted —and sold one for five cents, less twopence halfpenny I We had fine fishing on the great lakes. I won't tell you the size of some of the fish we caught, or you will want affidavits. We met great numbers of ludians in their canoes going to the beaver hunting with their dogs. Ouc Indians were Ojibways (Chipeways they preferred being called), and all of them bad descriptive names. One was ' Walking Gentleman,' another was ' Bright Morning,' and soon we took, a lesson from them, and called our stove ' Little Spunkie.' Our eldest Indian was a chief. He said he had once stood before Royalty in England. He liad two sons ministers. But he had ruined himself with drink." I asked his impression of Canada. " Oh, it is a fine country; immense, bigger than the United States. Why, tbin'c ofoueof these vast lakes with 18,000 islauds already on. the map! We saw the lumberers at work; and their mills busy, each mill eating up a log every live miuutes. day and night. At one place we saw 120,0 jO dollars' worth of lumber piled up. And yet they have only touched the hem of the forest, as if a child had gone in to cut a walking-stick. You get land out there for sixponoo an aero. Population is going in-fast—for. lumber first and forming afterwards. There arc streams and falls enough to create 10, OCJ towns and villages. Canada is a great country. I was not prepared for it." Glancine with me over his library, in ; which I saw lluskin, and Stanley and Robertson of Brighton, and many other familiar books from this side of the water, he said " Most of the books you see have been sent me. My own library was destroyed many years ago when my house was burnt. My Index Jterum and sixty volumes of collected papers and scraps perished in that fire ; so did all my sermons, and the manuscript of a book that was almost ready for the press." When I asked him about " Hafed's Dream," he said the idea of it flashed into his head one day walking in the streets of New York; he could not tell how, but it came like a vision; and he wrote it off in a couple of hours. When the "Students' Manual" was mentioned, he said he had long thought of issuing as a companion volume a Manual for Young Preachers, lie hoped still to get this purpose carried out.

1 When talking about the Church in Scotland, and the to, instrumental smxsic, he said, —" Every change in your country.seems like the pulling of a tooth. But it is only a question o? time. I wonder your people have endured what, they have so long. The singing I heard in some of the country churches in Scotland was noise; not music."

Speaking of the old Puritan strictness, and of (lie co-called Blue Laws of Connecticut, the Doctor said,—" I have been amused' to see that' some of your writers iinapino that, there really were such laws in JNTew England. The .whole thing is an absurb fiction. It Was got up by an English, ojlficer ,who lived for some time in Connecticut, but who disliked so much its strict Sabbath observances that when ho «mit to New York he drejr up these pretended Slue Laws, out of spite, and.

passed them off for real enactments. It was not wonderful, perhaps, that people so ignorant about us as the English, were should have been hoaxed into the belief that there had really been laws in Conntc-

fcicut malting it penal for a man to kiss ibis wife on Sundays, and all that nonsense; /'but to find some of your living writers T, still falling into so preposterous an error jf is very melancholy. "What would you think of an American writing about England and quoting Jack and the Bean Stalk as an authentic historical work!" Speaking, one day, of his early years, the Doctor said, —"'We used to observe the Sabbath >-om suuset to sunset; and it was far better. Saturday was preparation day. Wow people run the world's business and pleasure up^ to midnight on Saturday, and thenon Sunday they are sleepy and can't go to church. The old way was better and

more scriptural. " From sunset to sunset shall your Sabbath be." 1 remember in my childhood the bell used to r<og before sundown, warning neople to stop woik. In some parts of "V ermont and Connecticut where the railway hasn't gone, and where the people are simple and virtuous, tho Sabbath is from sunset to sunset still." He had seen something about the Sabbath and Decalogue controversy in this country, and asked parLici^ars. " Depend upon it," said he, when I had given them, " 'f we give up Dbine authority for it, the Sabbath will go by the board" The Germans here gave it up, and they hunt and fish on the Sabbath, and are the lowest of our population in spirituality. Jf recognition of Li/me authority went in among them it would elevate them year by year." "It amazes me," he added. " that your people don't look across to the ConL'-ient and see what they made of the Sabbath there. I scarcely saw a shop shut in Paris that was open during the week." "As for the Decalogue," he said " 'Thou shalt nob' has a mighty power

over the people. No mistake about it. Give Dr. Macleod my compliments, and tell him it is all very we)1, to speak of Christian principle, but we cannot do without the law."

I spent two Sundays at Pittsfiold, and on both occasions heard the Doctor preach twice in his own church sermons fresh and vigorotts as those that have made him so popular in print. His congregation is large and prosperous—the largesl, 1 believe, in Pittsfield —and the Suaday school, to which the Doctor has always paid special attention, seemed to be attended by nearly a third of the whole congregation—even the elderly people fornr.ng themselves into classes for the study and discussion of the Sciptures. Todd has been a minister now for forty-two or forty-three years. He was first settled at ISorfchampton, where Dr Lvmnn Ueecher (the father of Henry Ward Beecher and Mrs. Stowe) preached his ordination sermon. I was interested in visiting Northampton to see b's old brick church. It was in that his sermons to children were first preached. He told me that, on reckoning up, he found he had preached since his ordination 6000 sermons, and added 2000 souls to the churches under his charge. The children in his Sabbath school? had collected /'or religious and benevolent purposes more than 100,000 dollars (£20,000), besides current expenses and monoy for a new church and lecture room. Ho was proud oi'mentioning also that these schools had given twenty ministers lo tho Christian Church. This after all represents but a small part of Todd's influence compared with the good he has done through his published writings. He has writtea thirty books, large and smal!, and some of these have been translated into different languages. The " Students' Manual" alone has gone through 138 editions. Todd's public life—so long aod so eminently useful—is now near its close. Ho said he meant to retire when he reached the age of 70; and he was now within three years of the goal. His conviction was that no minister should remain in active service after ho had reached seventy. A minister deserved rest by that time; and holding on longer, till his powers began to fail, was apt to destroy his influence, end undo the work it had take him perhaps all his life to accomplish. He had a hope that after he retired he might be able to revisit this country. If he does there will be many Christian hearts to \yelcome him. I was interested to see in liis shelves many books sent bin from Scotland. His daughter showed me a copy which she preserves of his " Lectures to Children," embossed for the use of blind, and printed at the Glasgow Blind Asylum in 1841. On the fly-leaf of a Matthew Henry, which had belonged to a departed sister, Todd had written the following inscription, interesting iv its connection with the same work:—t

"In the year 1838,1 wrote and published Lectures to Children; second series. Thomas Nelson <fe Son, of Edinburgh, published the little book in Scotland, and as a token of their approbation sent me a present in money. With that money, as a kind of memento of the gift, and of my estimation of Matthew Henry's Commentary, and'of my love for my children, I have devoted it to the purchase of a set of Henry for each of my daughters, and I hereby express my earnest desire that they will read a portion of it every day. (Signed) J. Todd." It will interest many to know that a the opening last summer of that new wonder of the world, the Pacific Eailway, which runs across the whole .Worth American continent, connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific, Dr. Todd was present and offered up the opening prayer, which, from the Kocky Mountains where he stood, was telegraphed all over the United States as the words were being uttered. The raiis had been run towards the centre of the continent from both sides, and met on the Hocky Mountains, where " the mountain wedding" was consummated, the last blow upon the golden spike setting the bells of the whole continent ringing in jubilee. Dr. Todd, for his share in the marriage ceremony, was presented by the president of the road with a ring "made from ther golden nail. He continued his westward journey in a drawing-room railway car to the far-off shores of the Pacific, where an enthusiastic reception awaited him, his name being apparently as well known and as ,mu,qh| honoured in that land of the hereafter as. it is amongst ourselves. j •

CAMS. . £ Crown Princo ... 0 Lord Cardigan ... 0 Pukehinau 0 Bod Quoen 0 IJIary Ann 0 Lion * . . 0 Nebraska 0 Beehive... ..-, ... 0 G-oelong ... ... 0 G-olden Calf, Just inTirno Excelsior (Coromandel) DIVIDENDS. Caledonian 6 Thames 1 tfbkatca... 0 •s. d. 0 3 0 3 0 6 0 9 0 3 0 6 0 3 0 6 1 0 1 0 0 3 0 6 0 0 0 0 .5 0 DATE. July 8 ,'vily 21 July 17 July 18 July 21 July 22 Aug. 1 July 22 July 22 July 19 July 25 July 26 July 12 July 12 July 11