Part 9 (1/2)
The day's celebration was concluded by a dinner of the Society. Dr. Hale spoke on this occasion also. He said in part:
”Let us never forget that this is the monument of a young man--that he is the young man's hero. Let us never forget how the country then trusted young men and how worthy they were of the trust. It was at the very time of which I spoke that Was.h.i.+ngton first knew Hamilton and asked him to his tent. Hamilton had already won the confidence of Greene.
Hamilton was, I think, in his nineteenth year. Knox, who commanded Hamilton's regiment, was, I think, twenty-four. Webb, who commanded Hale's regiment, was twenty-two. When, the next year, Was.h.i.+ngton welcomed Lafayette, whom Congress appointed major-general, he [Lafayette] was not twenty. And Was.h.i.+ngton himself, before whom others stood abashed, had only attained the venerable age of forty-four. The country needed her young men. She called for them and she had them. It is one of those young men who, dying at twenty-one, leaves as his only word of regret that he has but one life to give to her.”
Although it is now known that Hale was not executed near City Hall Park, in some respects there could be no more fitting location for a monument to him than this, perhaps the busiest conflux of human beings that anywhere crowd this great city. Thousands pa.s.s this statue, learning from it their first lessons in American history. Hundreds have stopped, seeing this bareheaded, dauntless man, evidently doomed to die, to try to learn whence he came and why he stands there, appealing to the n.o.blest patriotism--patriotism that must touch the heart of any man who knows the love of country.
Since this statue was placed, memorials of various kinds to Nathan Hale have been erected in several parts of the country. The schoolhouses in which he taught, although not occupying their original sites, have been restored, and are in possession of patriotic societies.
To-day Yale, endowed with buildings costing millions, is learning that stone and mortar, in edifices however beautiful, do not enshrine their n.o.blest memories.
Through a few friends of Yale, a statue of Nathan Hale by Bela Lyon Pratt has recently been placed near the oldest college building, Connecticut Hall. This building has been restored to the appearance it bore when Nathan Hale dwelt therein. Who shall say that the statue of the bound boy, facing death so manfully, will not prove one of Yale's n.o.blest endowments?
Still another beautiful statue of Nathan Hale by William Ordway Partridge may be seen in the city of St. Paul, Minn.
Happily, Nathan Hale's ability to die for his country is but one side of a Yale s.h.i.+eld from which gleam the names of hundreds of her sons, who, doubtless as ready to die for their country as he, had they been in his place, have proved their power to live for G.o.d and for their native land. Everywhere, in all quarters of the world, the Nathan Hale spirit of unselfish devotion has inspired the sons of Yale to the n.o.blest service they could render; and every man, young or old, who pa.s.ses the statue of Nathan Hale will realize that hosts have lived lives inspired by the same splendid spirit.
Nathan Hale himself went forth from his alma mater filled with the joyous hopes and ambitions that have filled the souls of many other men, all unconscious of the fact that the finest heroism and the highest self-sacrifice lay just before him, but conscious that he meant to be ready for the best that life could give him. He was ready; and the best of life for him was the power to die as he died.
CHAPTER IX
NATHAN HALE'S FRIENDS
(1) _Rev. Joseph Huntington, D.D._
A somewhat full description of the Rev. Joseph Huntington, D.D., is well worth placing among the friends of Nathan Hale. It was impossible for such a boy as Nathan to have been under the care of such a man as Dr.
Huntington, first as pastor and then as his private teacher in his preparation for college, without having been strongly influenced by him.
Indeed, scanning these old records of a parish of a hundred and fifty years ago, we cannot help feeling a strong personal attraction toward the Rev. Joseph Huntington.
Few men more fully prove the claim that many of the early New England pastors were eminently fitted to lead their people heavenward and also in the practical development of their daily lives.
Dr. Huntington lived a life evidently inspired by the finest ideals, and also by shrewd common sense, always so dear to the heart of a New Englander. It is a pleasure to recall the story of this man's useful life, and realize that besides the reverence almost invariably accorded to ”the minister” in those days, he must have held the everyday affection and wholesome trust of his people. Year by year he proved himself not only their pastor, but a friend full of all kindly sympathies, never above a hearty laugh when mirth was rampant, or a sympathetic tear for hearts wrung with anguish.
He was born in Windham, Connecticut, in 1735. His ancestors came from England about 1640 and the family ultimately settled in Windham. His father, a man of somewhat arbitrary character, had determined that Joseph should be a clothier, and forced him to remain in that business until he was twenty-one. His intellectual ability was thought to be somewhat remarkable, and his moral character so good that his pastor advised him to begin a course of study for the ministry. He completed his preparation for Yale College in an unusually short time, and was graduated there in the year 1762.
His call to be settled over the First Church in Coventry was received so soon after his graduation that we are forced to believe that his theological course must have been brief. The parish in Coventry had been greatly reduced in numbers. The meeting-house had been allowed to go to decay, and the religious life of the parish was in a corresponding state of depression. His ordination services were held out of doors,--whether because the a.s.semblage was too large for the church, or because the building was too dilapidated, does not appear. The first thing Mr. Huntington did after his settlement was to urge upon his people the project of building a new meeting-house. They responded so heartily that in a short time they had built the best church in the whole region, having expended for it about five thousand dollars--a large sum in those days.
Dr. Huntington does not appear to have been a laborious student. He had few books of his own, largely depending upon borrowing. But he had a remarkable memory and the power of so making his own whatever he read that his scholars.h.i.+p and his originality appear never to have been questioned. The Rev. Daniel Waldo says of him that he was rather above the middle height, slender and graceful in form, and that he seemed to have had an instinctive desire to make everybody around him happy. This, added to his uniform politeness, caused him to be very popular in general society.
The Rev. Mr. Waldo adds that Dr. Huntington was fond of pleasantry and gives this instance:
A very dull preacher who had studied theology with him was invited by his people to resign, and they paid him for his services chiefly in copper coin. On telling Dr. Huntington how he had been paid, he was advised to go back and preach a farewell sermon from the text, ”Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil.” Many such anecdotes and repartees of Dr. Huntington were current in Coventry for years after his death.
This brief summary of Dr. Joseph Huntington's life shows that the men to whom Richard Hale intrusted the preparation of his three sons for entering Yale was not only a Christian, but a gentleman of the finest culture. He was able not only to impart to Enoch, Nathan and David Hale the rudiments of scholars.h.i.+p requisite for entering Yale, but to inspire such boys with the keenest appreciation of courtesy, broad mental endowments, and a wholesome zeal for high public service.
The correspondence concerning the Union School in New London shows that Dr. Huntington gave Nathan Hale the necessary recommendation for the place. It is on record in Hale's diary that on December 27, 1775, the day after his arrival home from Camp Winter Hill, he visited Dr.
Huntington; and in one of his New York letters he wrote, ”I always with respect remember Mr. Huntington and shall write to him if time permits.”