This originally appeared in The Reformed Church Messenger as a weekly series from March 2 to June 2, 1870
CHAPTER 1
My Childhood and Early Youth
Having been called upon to furnish the necessary material for some account of my life, to be given to the world in permanent form, it seems to me best, on the whole, that I should do it in the way at once of a general self-biography, using the first person rather than the third; the more especially so, because it has been desired that the sketch in question should take in something at least of my inward life along with its merely outward facts.
I was born on the 20th of February, 1803, of respectable parentage, in Franklin County, Pennsylvania. My father’s mother was a Williamson, sister to the distinguished Hugh Williamson, LL.D., one of the framers of the U. S. Constitution, and a man otherwise prominent during the period of the Revolutionary War, who held a high place afterward also, in the world of letters, as the author of the History of North Carolina, and Essay on Climate, and other publications. The family, in its coat of arms and otherwise, has always claimed descent (how truly I pretend not to say) from the celebrated Scottish chieftain, Sir William Wallace. Another brother lived and died as an Episcopal clergyman in England; where he is honorably represented by descendants mostly of the third generation. A third brother, Capt. John Williamson, became a successful and wealthy merchant, in Charleston, S. C.; and it was as namesake to him in particular, that I got my own middle name of Williamson–the only proper Christian name, in fact, with which I was ever known or spoken of in my early years.
Being of what is called Scotch-Irish extraction, I was by birth and blood also, a Presbyterian; and as my parents were both conscientious and exemplary professors of religion, I was, as a matter of course, carefully brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, according to the Presbyterian faith as it then stood. I say with purpose as it then stood; for I cannot help seeing and feeling, that a very material change has come upon it since, and this in a way not without serious interest for my own religious life.
What I mean, will appear at once, when I state that the old Presbyterian faith, into which I was born, was based throughout on the idea of covenant family religion, church membership by God’s holy act in baptism, and following this a regular catechatical training of the young, with direct reference to their coming to the Lord’s table. In one word, all proceeded on the theory of sacramental, educational religion, as it had belonged properly to all the national branches of the Reformed Church in Europe from the beginning. In this respect the Reformed Churches of Switzerland, France, Germany, Holland, and Scotland were of one mind; and this mind still ruled, at the time of which I now refer, the Presbyterianism of this country. True, there was no used here of the right of confirmation in admitting catechumens to full communion with the Church; but there was, what was considered to be substantially the same thing, in the way they were solemnly received by the church session. The system was churchly, as holding the Church in her visible character to the the medium of salvation for her baptized children, in the sense of that memorable declaration of Calving (Inst. iv. c. 1, s. 4), where, speaking of her title, Mother, he says: There is no other entrance into life, save as she may conceive us in her womb, give us birth, nourish us from her breasts, and embrace us in her loving care to the end.
This was the system of educational religious in which it was my privilege to grow up, through the first years of my life, under the best sort of parental care, in the vulnerable old Presbyterian church of Middle-Spring. I was baptized by Dr. Robert Cooper, the retired former pastor of the congregation, just about the time that the vacant charge passed into the hands of his successor, the Rev. John Moodey; who also became Doctor of Divinity many years after–a deserved distinction, which I had the pleasure myself of obtaining for him from the Trustees of Marshall College, then at Mercersburg. His pastorate continued for half a century; in the course of which time a great change came over the Presbyterian Church at large, that brought with it in the end no small change also, in the character of this old country charge. But during my childhood and boyhood all was still, in the life and spirit of the congregation, as it had been from the beginning. The Scotch regime was in full force. Pastoral visitation was a business, as much as preaching. The school was held to be of right auxiliary to the church; and the catechism stood in honor and use everywhere, as the great organ of what was held to be a sound religious education. Every Sunday evening, especially, was devoted to more or less catechization of the family. I was put on simply Bible questions as soon as I could speak. Then came the Mother’s Catechism, as it was called; and then the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism–hard to be understood, but wholesome for future use. The same instruction met me again in the common school; where it was usual for the master, in those days, to examine his scholars once a week in the Catechism. All this as part of the established church system, and only to make room for its full operation in a higher form, where the work fell into the hands of the pastor himself, and was understood all round to form a main portion of his proper pastoral trust.
There were two modes, in which such higher church instruction was carried forward; the practice varying from one to the other in different years. In one year, it was by the pastor’s visiting one family after another, and catechizing each household separately; while in another year, it would be by bringing whole neighborhoods before him at some central place, where then, in the presence of one or more of the elders, an examination was held in a public and solemn way. On these occasions, the children were examined first; but after them the grown people also, on some portion of the Larger Westminster Catechism previously assigned for the purpose.
With this all comprehensive catechetical system corresponded the general church life of those days. It was staid, systematical, and grave; making much of sound doctrine; wonderfully bound to established forms; and not without a large sense for the objective side of religion embodied in the means of grace. There was much of this especially joined with the use of the holy sacraments. Each communion season was a four days’ meeting, where all revolved around the central service of the Lord’s table on the Sabbath; which a real, and not simply nominal humiliation and fast going before, on Friday, n the way of special preparation for such near and solemn approach to God.
This was fifty years ago, Such was the general order of religion then with all the Presbyterian churches of the Cumberland Valley. But what had become of it since? Wonderful to think of, it has almost entirely passed away. Not only Rouse’s Psalms–to which I seem to listen still as a found echo borne in upon my soul from the old stone church at Middle-Spring–have passed away with the whole generation that sung them; but the old catechetical system also is gone, and along with it the general scheme of religion to which it belonged, and which it served to hold together. A very great revolution in fact; which, however, has been brought to pass in so gentle and noiseless a way, that it is difficult now for the present generation to understand it, or to make any proper account of it whatever.
I look upon it as another important part of my training, worthy of note, that I was brought up on a farm, in the midst of a people of simple and plain manners; and that I became early familiar also, with the scenes and employments of country life; being put myself in fact to all sorts of farm work, just as soon as far as I was found to have any power of being useful in that way.
My father, however, though only a common farmer, was himself a man of liberal education, a graduate of Dickinson College, in the days of Dr. Nesbit–one who delighted in books, and who was honored fare and wide for his superior intelligence, as well as for his excellent charecter generally; and under his auspices, therefore, my country training was made to look from the beginning toward a course of full college learning. At an early day the Latin Grammar was pout into my hands, and my father himself became my teacher. My lessons were studied irregularly–sometimes in the barn, and sometimes in the field–and I had no fixed times for recitation. But the course was full, and the drill severe; first in Latin, and afterward also, in Greek; being worth more to me in truth, as I came to know at a later day, than all I learned of these languages subsequently passing through college.
