[FN Byington was a young lawyer, here in Sheffield, of good abilities and prospects, but under a strong religious impression he determined to quit the law and study theology. He was a man of ardent temperament, whose thoughts were all feelings as well, which, though less reliable as thought, were strong impulses, always directed, consecrated to good ends. A being more unselfish, more ready to sacrifice himself for others, could not easily be found. This spirit made him a missionary. When our class was about leaving Andover, the question was solemnly propounded to us by our teachers, who of us would go to the heathen—I well remember the pain and distress with which Byington examined it—for no person could be more fondly attached to his friends and kindred—his final decision to go, and the perfect joy he had in it after his mind was made up. He went to the Choctaw and Cherokee Indians in Florida, and, on their removal to the Arkansas reservation, accompanied them, and spent his life among them. He left, as the fruit of one part of his work, a Choctaw grammar and dictionary, and a yet better result in the improved condition of those people. Late in life, on a visit here, he told me that the converted Indians in Arkansas owned farms around him, laboring, and living as respectably as white people do. Here was that very civilization said to be impossible to the Indian.]
Andover had its attractions, and not many distractions. I liked it, and I disliked it. I liked it for its opportunities for thorough study—our teachers were earnest and thorough men—and for the associates in study that it gave me. I could say, "For my companions' sake, peace be within thy walls." I disliked it for its monastic seclusion. Not that this was any fault of the institution, but for the first time in my life I boarded in commons; the domestic element dropped out of it, and I was persuaded, as I never had been before, of the beneficence of that ordinance that "sets the solitary in families." It was a fine situation in which to get morbid and dispirited and dyspeptic. On the last point I had some experiences that were somewhat notable to me. We were directed, of course, to take a great deal of exercise. We were very zealous about it, and sometimes walked five miles before breakfast, and that in winter mornings. It did not avail me, however; and I got leave to go out and board in a family, half a mile distant. I found that the three miles a day in going back and forth, that regular exercise, was worth more to me than all my previous and more violent efforts in that way. But I imagine that was not all. I had the misfortune to scald my foot, and was obliged for three weeks to sit perfectly still. [43] When I came back, Professor Stuart said to me, "Well, how is it with your dyspepsia?" "All gone," was the reply. "But how have you lived?" for his dietetics were very strict. "Why, I have eaten pies and pickles—and pot-hooks and trammels I might, for any harm in the matter." Here was a wonder——no exercise and no regimen, and I was well! The conclusion I came to, was, on the whole, that cheerfulness first, and next regularity, are the best guards against the monster dyspepsia. And another conclusion was, that exercise can no more profitably be condensed than food can.
As to morbid habits of mind, to which isolated seminaries are exposed, I had also some experience. What complaints of our spiritual dulness constantly arose among us! And there was other dulness, too—physical, moral, social. I remember, at one time, the whole college fell into a strange and unaccountable depression. The occasion was so serious that the professors called us together in the chapel to remonstrate with us; and, after talking it all over, and giving us their advice, one of them said: "The evil is so great, and relief so indispensable, that I will venture to recommend to you a particular plan. Go to your rooms; assemble some dozen or twenty in a room; form a circle, and let the first in it say 'Haw!' and the second 'Haw!' and so let it go round; and if that does n't avail, let the first again say 'Haw! haw!' and so on." We tried it, [44] and the result may be imagined. Very astonishing it must have been to the people without, but the spell was broken.
But more serious matters claim attention in connection with Andover. I was to form some judgment upon questions in theology. I certainly was desirous of finding the Orthodox system true. But the more I studied it, the more I doubted. My doubts sprung, first, from a more critical study of the New Testament. In Professor Stuart's crucible, many a solid text evaporated, and left no residuum of proof. I was startled at the small number of texts, for instance, which his criticism left to support the doctrine of "the personality of the Holy Spirit." I remember saying to him in the class one day, when he had removed another prop—another proof-text: "But this is one of the two or three passages that are left to establish the doctrine." His answer was: "Is not one declaration of God enough? Is it not as strong as a thousand?" It silenced, but it did not satisfy me. In the next place, I found difficulties in our theology from looking at it in a point of view which I had not before considered, and that was the difference between words and ideas, between the terms we used and the actual conceptions we entertained, or between the abstract thesis and the living sense of the matter. Thus with regard to the latter point, I found that the more I believed in the doctrine of literally eternal punishments, the more [45] I doubted it. As the living sense of it pressed more and more upon my mind, it became too awful to be endured; it darkened the day and the very world around me. At length I could not see a happy company or a gay multitude without falling into a sadness that marred and blighted everything. All joyous life, seen in the light of this doctrine, seemed to me but a horrible mockery. It is evident that John Forster's doubts sprung from the same cause. And then, I had been accustomed to use the terms "Unity" and "Trinity" as in some vague sense compatible; but when I came to consider what my actual conceptions were, I found that the Three were as distinct as any three personalities of which I could conceive. The service which Dr. Channing's celebrated sermon at the ordination of Mr. Sparks in Baltimore did me, was to make that clear to me. With such doubts, demanding further examination, I left the Seminary at Andover.
We parted, we classmates, many of us in this world never to meet again. Some went to the Sandwich Islands, one to Ceylon, one to the Choctaw Indians; most remained at home, some to hold high positions in our churches and colleges, Wheeler, President of the Vermont University, a liberal-minded and accomplished man; Torrey, Professor in the same, a man of rare scholarship and culture; Wayland, President of Brown University, in Rhode Island, well and widely [46] known; and Haddock, Professor in Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, and recently our charge d'affaires in Portugal. Haddock, I thought, had the clearest head among us. Our relations were very friendly, though I was a little afraid of him, and with him I first visited his uncle, Daniel Webster, in Boston. I was struck with what Mr. Webster said of him, many years after, considering that the great statesman was speaking of a comparatively retired and studious man: "Haddock I should like to have always with me; he is full of knowledge, of the knowledge that I want, pure-minded, agreeable, pious," I use his very words, "and if I could afford it, and he would consent, I would take him to myself, to be my constant companion."
I left Andover, then, in the summer of 1819, and in a state of mind that did not permit me to be a candidate for settlement in any of the churches. I therefore accepted an invitation from the American Education Society to preach in behalf of its objects, in the churches generally, through the State, and was thus occupied for about eight months.
Some time in the spring, I think, of 1820, I went down to Gloucester to preach in the old Congregational Church, and was invited to become its pastor. I replied that I was too unsettled in my opinions to be settled anywhere. The congregation then proposed to me to come and preach [47] a year to them, postponing the decision, both on their part and mine, to the end of it. I was very glad to accept this proposition, for a year of retired and