title: Address on the life and character of Thomas C. Upham ...
text: <<■ Cc C < <r Cc< c c O cC c < cc C c  c •■(:• «^ <L c<? <^ < 'C<c t^ C «: <. <^ <<cv <L r <: V c ( c c <1 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. PReSENTED._aY UNITED STATES OP AMERICA, c CI c d c fri^ < a c C rc c C c <s. C. <3C c c«, c: <x C <E C: CT O <? ^ c ^ C C r C'l c c ^ c c. ^ c ^^ C C r- -^ "^ c c ^ ■ C c c < CC C f cc c < . <: cc ' ^ S^. CC '1<1 _ Cc c t . *  c: c CC  d c c c^ CL; s^ < c < 4 <C1" c C ^L. ^ ■ c c ^' <^ ^ c <1. M — < d_ < d ' c / . ( Cl__ c c. <^ c * (' ' ( c <: CL < c C_ ^r-' < c <:. d c C ■' ^ — <' c • c c o: ^ c 4CI «: V '-- V c < r ^^' <z. ""- ' c <:. • — c <: (C d ^ < = ( ( <_' < V ^ t: c:  CC^ c «-<< C <rcc c (CC c (.<C c. (CC <L- ccc; c. Kv C. '<i <L 'C C <c < ■c C c <L- '<L <: «> < c ^: ^■ c c Cd <r :\ ■■■(L ^^ c C c<L^ <L c C cc  C. UPHAM, D.D., LATE PROFESSOR OF MENTAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN BOWDOIN COLLEGE! DELIGHTED AT THE INTEEMEIST, BRUNSWICK, ME., April 4, 1872, BY ALPHEUS & PACKARD, BOWDOIN, JUNE 1, 1872. PROFESSOR ALPHEUS S. PACKARD, D.D. My dear sir: In tendering my thanks for your kind consent to deliver, at scarcely more than a moment's notice, a public discourse upon the life and character of your late associate, Prof. Upham, permit me to express my high appreciation of the appropriateness and excellence of that service of love. Believing that this would be prized by a wide circle of pupils and friends, I request in behalf of the association of the Alumni, a copy of your discourse for publication. I am, my dear sir, Sincerely yours, ALPHEUS S. PACKARD. Your attached friend, JOSHUA L. CHAMBERLAIN", President of the Association of the Alumni Bowdoin College. ADDRESS. Prof. Upham five years ago resigned the position in the College which he had held forty-three years, and, when he bid farewell to Brunswick, felt that he was leaving home. He has now been brought back to this which we are wont to call his last home. But it is only the last home for a wearied, dismantled, perishing tenement — dust to dust, ashes to ashes. His everlasting home is with his God and Saviour above; or, to use his own words, the first articulate speech he uttered after his fatal seizure, "his soul is with God." It seemed due to his memory and to ourselves, to us of the College and to us of this community, who, by the constant inquiry regarding his condition from all classes since the first tidings of his illness came to us, showed how deep and wide was the interest in him, — it seemed fitting that these funeral rites should not be suffered to pass without some more formal testimonial of our respect and regard for his memory, and an attempt to gather up our recollections of the remarkable life which has now come to the end of earth. Prof. Upham was born in Deerfield, N. H., Jan. 20, 1799, and had just completed his 73rd year. The family removed to Rochester, N. H., in his childhood. His father was a representative in Congress, and a leading citizen in that part of New Hampshire. Of his youth, I can give no details. He was a pupil in Latin, for a time, of the late ex-President Jared Sparks, who, while in his preparatory course at Exeter Academy, taught a school at Rochester. Young Upham entered Dartmouth University, and when the chartered rights of Dartmouth College, invaded by the attempt to establish a university, were vindicated by the Supreme Judiciary of the U. S. in the famous Dartmouth College case and the university was disbanded, he entered and graduated at the college in 1818. He then went through three years of theological study at Andover, in which he gained such distinction by his indefatigable study, his scholarship and attainments, that, after completing the course, he was selected by Prof Stuart to assist him in the Greek and Hebrew instruction of the seminary. While at the seminary, at the suggestion of Prof Stuart, he translated from the Latin Jahn's Archaeology with additions and corrections, which was published in 1823, — was deemed a valuable accession to the apparatus then within reach of biblical students, and received high testimonials for the fidelity and excellence of the translation both at home and abroad. He subsequently became pastor over the church of his Rochester home, where he labored a year with characteristic zeal and energy and to the great contentment of his people until 1824, when he was chosen to the Professorship of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics in this College. To this department was added afterwards instruction in Hebrew for such as contemplated a theological course after Graduation — some requisition in Hebrew having been made for admission to the Andover Seminary. In February, 1825, at the opening of our spring term, he and two others of his colleagues, elected to office at the same time with himself the preceding September, were formally and with public ceremonial, in accordance with academic usage, inducted into their professorships. It was deemed an occasion of much interest to the College, inasmuch as two new departments of instruction were established, and an important accession was made to the strength and reputation of the institution in the high reputation which our young professor brought with him. He entered upon this his special field of labor at a period of new and absorbing interest in his particular department of instruction. Locke and Stewart had been the authorities of the lecture room; but now the elegant and attractive philosophical works of the eminent Dr. Thomas Brown of Edinburgh had just been issued from the American press; the "Aids to Reflection" and the philosophical discourses of Coleridge were beginning to be heard and read; the speculations and doctrines of Degerando and Cousin in France, and "The Critique of Pure Reason" of Kant, the influence of which was beginning to be felt, were preparing the way for what might be deemed almost a new philosophy of the mind, certainly a new era in its study. The young professor brought to his chair the energy and indefatigable zeal for which he was already highly reputed, and at once began to prepare a text-book which would form the basis of his class instruction. As Prof Newman began his work of preparing a text-book in the department of Rhetoric, so Prof Upham at first gave lectures to his classes, the results of his studies, and in 1827 embodied them in a work, which he called a compilation on Mental Philosophy, which in 1831 he expanded into a more original and systematic work in two volumes. We may here say, that it was not until after he had terminated his course of more than forty years' instruction in the college, that we were made aware of the incessant labors and anxieties of these first years of his official career. When he was called to his Professorship he was encouraged by his master, Stuart of Andover. Who looked to him with confidence to stem the flood of German metaphysics which in his apprehension tended to unsettle and lead astray. The work on Mental Philosophy was favorably noticed in leading reviews of England and of our own country. In a German periodical it was commended as a good example of the treatment of the subject by a practical English mind. It has appeared in several editions, has been extensively used as a text-book in colleges and seminaries of learning in the land, and Dr. Hamlin of Constantinople translated it for his Mission School. In 1834 he gave to the public his Treatise on the Will, which may be regarded perhaps as his ablest production, and in 1840 his Outlines of Imperfect and Disordered Mental Action. We may judge of the abundance and diversified character of his literary labars and of the fertility of his resources, if we merely refer to the works which, aside from his special department, proceeded in quite rapid succession from his pen. His Eatio Discipliné, or the Constitution of the Congregational Churches as deduced from early authorities, a work of high authority, was published in 1829, and has passed through two editions at least. Having embraced at an early period the doctrines of Peace announced and advocated with great zeal and ability by Capt. William Ladd of this vicinity, he wrote several articles for the public press under the signature of Perier, the name of the eminent French banker and statesman, Casimir Perier, the last appointed Cabinet Minister of Charles X, and afterwards in the Cabinet of Louis Philippe. These essays were embodied in one of the four Prize Essays on a Congress of Nations, in a volume under that title in 1840, which reveals his extensive reading in European political history. Previously, in 1836, was published his Manual of Peace, which has been stereotyped, and both these works are among the advertised volumes of the Peace Society. Several works from his ready pen appeared in rapid succession, which have passed through successive editions, indicating the direction of his mind on topics connected with the higher Christian life; as Principles of the Interior or Hidden Life, 1844; Religious Maxims, 1846; The Life of Faith, 1857; Treatise on Divine Union, 1857; Life and Religious Opinions and Religious Experience of Madame Guyon and of Fenelon, two volumes, 1858 and 1862, noticed with high approval in the British Quarterly and London Athenaeum; and also Life of Madame Adorna. A graduate of this college, then a student at Göttingen, was gratified by seeing a copy of one of these works on the table of Prof Dorner, now of Berlin, and by the interest that eminent German expressed in reading it. One of our missionaries wrote from India, that he found a learned Brahmin studying these works. In 1852 Prof Upham spent a year in European and Eastern travel, visiting England and Scotland, France, Switzerland, Germany and Italy, Egypt and the Holy Land, his companion of travel being Rev. Mr. Thompson, then of the Broadway Tabernacle. One result of his tour was a volume, in which we have the impressions made on an observing, contemplative, highly cultured and poetic mind, of the people and scenes he visited. This volume, of which a third edition has been printed, ranks high among the most thoughtful and instructive works of that class. He has moreover communicated, from first to last, articles for magazines and the public newspaper press, which have always commanded attention. Dr. Upham had a highly poetic temperament, and not unfrequently gave proof of it by poetic contributions to the press. The second year of his residence with us he pronounced the poem at the public exercises of the P. B. K. Fraternity. He published a volume of minor poems, under the title, American Cottage Life, which went through six editions. Indeed, in all his writings, even in those on metaphysical subjects, turns of thought and expression with great felicity of language constantly reveal the imaginative element in his mental constitution. I should add that the papers of this week announce his last work from the press, Christ in the Soul. The labor of preparing it may have caused his fatal seizure. A collection of his works would make at least twenty volumes. The variety and extent of the literary labors of Dr. Upham afford proof of the varied character of his erudition. He was indeed a devourer of books. He explored all the libraries of the college and visited those of other institutions. I know of his visiting Baltimore in search of a volume that he could find there, and knew not where else to find it. He read all works in his own department and biographies and books of travel, from which to draw manifold illustrations. None among us were so deeply read in European history. I doubt if the State could produce a man more conversant with the politics of Europe. He always seemed to have some important topic in hand, though it was incidentally and accidentally that we detected the direction and reach of his explorations. I rather think, if the college librarian found it difficult to account for missing books, his first thought was to make examination of the Professor's long account, and then of his study. Prof Upham came, as we have seen, from a pastorate to his professorship. But although he had exercised the public ministry of the Word, his nervous temperament, as he alleged, did not allow frequent preaching. Occasionally, during the first two or three years of his professorship, he occupied the pulpit of this church to the great gratification of his hearers, but soon felt constrained to avoid public speaking. He supplied the pulpit in Harpswell for a season or two, and his active interest and personal effort in encouraging that people and the people of Topsham, in maintaining the ordinances of God's house, are held in grateful remembrance. In person he solicited contributions among the people of Harpswell towards Their new church, and with success surprising to themselves. Though at an early period of his life among us his voice ceased to be heard even in the social meetings of the church, he for the most part conducted for some years the Saturday evening religious meeting in the college, sitting in his chair while he read his interesting and charming discourses, always listened to with close attention. It was a source of regret, not always patient and submissive, that one who was so abundantly provided in his own mind and experience for the instruction and edification of us all, and was so indefatigable and unsparing in what may be termed the external labors of the church and society, could not be moved from his impenetrable reticence in the more private, no less than in the public offices of the minister and lay brethren. With great skill and persistence in inciting and encouraging those less qualified for such service, he was singularly silent himself. He rarely spoke, but when he did speak, all wished he would be more free and liberal with his gifts. "No," he would say, "that is not work for me. You who are more able must do that. My work is in a humbler sphere. In other ways I try to do something for the cause." Yes, if he did not preach or exhort in the assembly of God's people, he sometimes did more in his way than perhaps most of us united did in ours, which leads me to refer to his power of influence — his power with men, not in masses, for I do not think he ever addressed a public assembly after he ceased to preach, scarcely ever, as I have already mentioned, a private gathering of Christian people; but his power was great with in- Individual men. Of great sagacity and forethought and foresight; of sleepless vigilance in critical emergencies; he was quick to detect motives and movements. Beneath that humble, quiet, unobtrusive bearing, there was a persistent energy combined with skill in enlisting agencies, which would not yield until threatened evil was thwarted, or the proposed good attained. Once certainly, if not more than once, in a crisis of affairs, the chartered rights of the college were secured by his sole intervention. Prof Upham has been identified with a transaction or series of transactions, the issue of which is known in the history of the college as the "Declaration"; an arrangement, the object of which was to assure the friends of the institution that the religious bearing and denominational character of the college should continue to be as it had been. Nothing more was contemplated by the movement, which by mismanagement and misapprehension became a source of great solicitude to him, and of embarrassment and unfriendliness to the college. In justice to his memory, I may state very briefly what at the outset he told me concerning his inception of the undertaking. Fruitless efforts having been made in three different directions to raise funds for the college, at a period of its greatest depression, the idea was suggested by an eminent Boston merchant, a member of the Brattle-street Church, that the only way to secure that object was to assure the college, as he expressed it, a certain character; and, in accordance with that suggestion, Prof Upham sought to effect just that object; and at great personal effort, by journeyings often and interviews and discussions with the several Trustees and Overseers of the college far and near, by persistent and personal influence, he accomplished the purpose. All that was attempted, and all that was done, was to make sure to the college the position in the respects just indicated which it had always actually held; and on the strength of that "Declaration," by personal solicitation he secured to the funds of the college more than seventy thousand dollars, subscribing to the object the larger part of his own property. The founding of the Collins Professorship was one result of this movement, and largely his work. I apprehend that what occurs to the thoughts of all who have been conversant with our departed friend and his manner of life among us, as prominent in their recollections of him, is the unaffected, deep and earnest interest he always manifested in the moral and religious well-being of his fellow-men. His first thought, as was fitting, was for the college. As has been stated, he sustained the Saturday evening religious meeting for the most part for several years. He was instant in season and out of season, in visiting the students at their rooms, was the first to discern indications of awakening interest in religious concerns; was abundant in personal efforts in such seasons; was sagacious in detecting the inworking of the Divine Spirit, or the presence of the spirit of evil; in one instance, as I remember, rescuing from imminent mental wreck a young man of promise, by cautiously and most skillfully alluring him away from speculations which were unduly exciting his mind and threatened disordered mental action. We cannot forget the interest he manifested in behalf of this church and society. His watch and care and abounding efforts in its temporal, no less than in his own, were the most fruitful of his efforts. As illustrating in some measure his faculty of approaching and influencing young men, I quote from a letter which I received from a graduate soon after his burial: "His first call upon me when a Freshman at the age of fifteen, fresh from the country, the embodiment of immaturity, with no religious character, deeply impressed me. He was so gentle, seemed so far to have reversed our relations to each other, treating me with such respect and manifesting so much diffidence, and yet leading the conversation by persistent though imperceptible steps to character and to Christ; opening the Bible so reverently and reading with such docility of spirit and with rich practical suggestions the conversation with Nicodemus, The interview may have been lightly spoken of at the time, but it left me hushed, awed and benefitted. Then in the early part of the Senior year he urged me to public and social effort as a christian." I am encouraging me to do things from which, as you say, he always shrunk. "The service of God first;" this was the lesson he taught me. His excessive nervous timidity to my mind accounted for traits of character that awakened unfavorable comment. He trembled at, and shrank from, public speech. He hesitated at a bold assertion, however true. He loved the most retired, not to say secret, ways of investigation for either practical or philosophical purposes, more because his nerves were weak, than because his convictions were feeble or his moral courage faint. Its spiritual prosperity, deserve grateful remembrance. In seasons of financial embarrassment, he made successful efforts for its relief; and especially when there was a revival of religious interest, many that now sleep in death, could they testify, and many now living, would bear witness to his unceasing devotion to what he was wont to call the great cause of his Master. All questions of public moment, whether regarding religion or morals and manners, found him a vigilant observer and active participant in all good measures. Some may recall an earnest conflict in the earlier history of what is termed the Temperance Cause, when the question of licenses agitated the community and a decisive vote was taken by arraying the opposing parties in the public street, the building in which the meetings were held, (the red school-house in School street,) being too small for polling the house. The question was decided adversely to licenses. It was called "Upham's victory." His voice had not been raised in a public meeting, but he had traversed the town, it was said at the time, and exerted his uncommon power of argument and persuasion in private personal converse to array the public sentiment on the side of good morals and public order. Prof. Upham's whole life was that of a true philanthropist. The famous line of Terence, homo sum humani nihil a me alienum piito, was illustrated in him as fully as in any human being. There was a fountain of kindness and goodwill within him, ever full and overflowing. His domestic affections were deep and abiding. Nothing could show more strikingly the love that was in him, seeking for objects on which to fasten, than the fact that, not blessed with children of his own, he adopted children and loved and did for them as if they were his own. Some of them are able to participate in the solemn rites of today. The oppressed and downtrodden found in him a sympathizing, active friend. He was an early and liberal patron of colonization, constituting himself a life member of the society by a contribution of one thousand dollars. His name stands on the first roll of signers to the temperance pledge in Brunswick, drawn up immediately after the visit of the eminent Dr. Edwards. He watched with eager eye every movement for the ends of civil and religious liberty in Europe or on this continent. He labored earnestly, as we have noticed, in the cause of peace, and yet when the cloud of civil war hung over our land, his heart was stirred within him for the salvation and integrity of his bleeding country. To crown all, he was instant in season and out of season, in college, in the street, and from house to house in the cause of his Master. Not a man among us was more sensitive to anything which promised good or threatened evil to the interests of morals or of vital god. Lights. I think no one was conversant with Prof Upham without being struck with one trait already alluded to, the remarkable absence of self-assertion; by which I mean, that he was singularly free not merely from everything like vain-glory, but from all appearance of self-consciousness of the reputation he had gained by his works or his deeds. There was not the shade of self-exaltation in anything he said or did. He was far as one could be from the appearance of being puffed up by his attainments or his wide reputation. His manner and bearing were not even what might be readily excused in one who could not but be aware, that he could sustain elegant and learned discourse with any of the philosophers or statesmen or men of letters of the world. On the contrary, he could take the level of the most humble and illiterate with no appearance of condescension, readily adapting himself to their apprehension, their prejudices, or their humors — thus in the best sense becoming all things to all men if he might thereby win them to the right and the true. The most lowly found one more lowly themselves. However much he had accomplished by personal effort he did not claim credit for what he had done. In a public meeting, even in a church meeting, his chosen seat was in a retired corner. He seldom spoke of his own agency in affairs of moment; never appeared as a leader, even where in truth he was the heart and soul of the movement. All knew his characteristic persistency, but did not charge him with being obtrusive. Notwithstanding his unassuming, quiet, and meek ways, he had a singular faculty, however, of so presenting a subject as to commend it to the judgment and best feelings of him whom he addressed. A gentleman of large resources and of course subject to frequent calls of benevolence, once declared that it was a pleasure to receive an application from Prof Upham, because he felt that he had gained by the Christian discourse of the applicant. No one, I think, ever saw our friend under the excitement of passion. In circumstances which must have severely tried his patience, he preserved the calm unperturbed bearing so characteristic of him. He had subjected his spirit apparently to the precepts found in his work entitled Religious Maxims, which contains sentences from writings of the mystics, as Fenelon, Madame Guyon, and others eminent for their Christian graces — writings in which few of our day were so deeply read. He was in the best sense a quietest, and seemed to have acquired a remarkable self-control, and to have attained to a high state of repose in God, his providence and grace as revealed in his holy word. I was much struck, at the darkest period of the late war, in an interview with our friend, when the foundations seemed out of course, to hear his unaffected, simple expressions of unwavering confidence in the providence of God. "I have been in the habit, Bro. P., (he declared) of referring everything to the providence of God, and I can and do trust Him and commit all into His hands." But I must not occupy more time in these reminiscences. All I could safely attempt was to gather up in this hurried and somewhat desultory way a few of the more peculiar and prominent traits of character and the more noticeable incidents of the life which has now come to its close. The deep religious character of our departed friend was never, so far as I am aware, called in question. The fruits of the spirit of holiness abounded from the beginning to the end of the forty-three years of his residence among us. As we have seen, he was always and everywhere eminently ready for every good work. A most diligent student and a lover of books, he spared not himself for whatever for good was laid upon him, whether in college or town, or parish or church; and, beyond and above work abroad, he strove for a fuller and deeper experience of the power of Christ in himself, as would be inferred from his several works on the religious interior life. Forgetting the things which were behind, certainly in his later years, he seemed to be ever reaching forth unto those things which were before; as already intimated, he apparently had attained to the full assurance of faith in his God and Redeemer and in the methods of His providence and grace. This we inferred, not from positive declarations, for he spoke rarely of his inner life, but from his general bearing and conversation. As was to be anticipated by all who knew the man and his habits of reflection, and who were at all conversant with his writings, his last years were full of peace. I judge that this composure of spirit has culminated within the last three or four years. Within the last six or eight years he apparently began to lose his bodily vigor. During the last winter, which he spent in New York, he suffered from increasing infirmity, though his last literary labor on the volume just announced as from the press, gives proof that his mental powers could and did work with efficiency and success. During the whole past winter he had a persuasion that he was near the end of his conversation, and anticipated the event with hope — at times with joy. He often declared: "I shall rejoice when the time comes for me to go — the time seems very near;" and he made every preparation for the approaching end. In his frequent conversations about the heavenly state he would say, and how characteristic was it of him, "I do not think of heaven as rest or enjoyment. My heaven will be to reach and raise the lowest. I want to go to the spirits in prison, in the darkness of unbelief, and be a ministering spirit to help them." Fitting and natural that he, whose life had been so much of a ministry, should long for a wider sphere in which to exercise this craving of his soul! On Sabbath morning, March 10th, as he was rising from bed he was stricken with paralysis of the right side, and became at once helpless, speechless, and unconscious. He remained so until the Friday following, when consciousness revived. He was perfectly aware of the crisis that had fallen upon him, and, though denied utterance, his countenance for hours bore an . 24 •expression of peace and triumph. His wife read to him a piece from his last publication — Christ in the Soul — entitled. The Victory of the Cross. On the following Sabbath she read a piece bearing the title, "Waiting," from the same volume. In the reading of these passages he evidently took comfort and satisfaction. On the next Thursday night, March 21st, as he lay in apparently severe suffering (and he often suffered greatly) his wife said to him, "The angels are coming," repeating the expression. With labored but distinct utterance and deepest emotion he exclaimed — his first and only articulate utterance during his seizure — "My soul is with God." Yes, we cherish the confident assurance that the mind and soul so abounding in activity many years — so busy in devices for good, so overflowing with sympathy, so fruitful of kindness, and often so burdened with care and anxiety, is now at rest with God. His career on earth "is closed — his account made up. Who would not desire, that so much of good may be treasured for himself in the memories of men, as this so brief and hurried and inadequate a sketch records of the good we call to mind done by our friend. Friends, brethren, while the faithful fail from among the children of men, let it be our prayer to Him who hath all hearts in his hand, that we may be quickened in our duty by the lesson of life before us — and that He will raise up many  crc < c  <i c <. ^ CT" c c _y^ ^^^ ^ cc c c<. C Cc c' cc '^ cc c£ « c c c ^ o^ C «■ C c CjC C_ic c: c c c c < <: ^ cc CC cc , CC C> cc c cc ^r CC ' c<^ <:C CC ^ Cc CC Ct, a Cc c<c <x\. Cc. <iC <ir: a: CCC cCc c'c c c c "^ C S c *c c c c ^ c c_ C <- c < c <c C <. «1L <:>• <:-<^ c: <" ■* ... «:: 4C ^ cc C C CC c c o^ c c cv «r c (-<: C c-d. c ^ ( c c cc ^^^-~- «o CIC *.- «: . -*._ o:^ .,^.-- <3C': / ^^ , <&^ fe-C..,.- , . . ■ ■ « ■:r\.«L^. CC oc::^^ '■ '■• C >-- - ' V c Ei ' ^. <r fe-- ■ ^ C^ KT. - < ^ .« C •^ < <X.t <^ c ^ CJ <: c ^ C2 cc ^c <rc C T. oc < c C.i << c c cC . c <: ■ <<: C C fC C c <: c: r <L « C c ' c: 1^ <r c: c <c c c L ^"^ <;. ^c cc c < c < c < c_ <c_ c < c < c c ^<; <l5 or C< C < ■- c- C '-' c. 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