04 COLLEGE DAYS
Chapter 4
COLLEGE DAYS THE choice which James Phillips made of a college in which to continue his education was distinctly his own. His father had been a student in Hamilton College, New York, and his uncle was a graduate from the same, and it was not strange that the latter should advise him to enter Hamilton ; but without quite knowing why, he was strongly impressed to choose Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine. He seems to have been mainly drawn there from a desire to make the acquaintance of Professor Upham, whose reputation had spread far beyond his own locality, and who was not only esteemed as a most competent tutor, but was valued as a very spiritual teacher. It was then to this old established college, beautifully situated among the pines, that James Phillips came in 1857. The following is his first letter written from the place, which ultimately became the dearest spot in America to him : —
"August 22nd, 1857. " My dear Parents, — Of the seven who applied for admission, the Whitestown trio stood by far the best examination. We had to appear before six teachers, and all of them understood their business, I assure you. The first, Professor Smythe, gave us an overhauling in mathematics, and tried to corner us in some dark places in equations and quadratics, but those assigned to our boys were chalked on the boards with nimble fingers. In passing us he said, ’ You are thoroughly prepared in all you have professed to have gone over.’ With light hearts we wended our way to the Medical College, where the examination in languages was conducted. After two hours the Professor dismissed us, saying, ’ I perceive you have studied hard, and have been well taught.’ We felt well, I can tell you, and soon the President gave us our tickets of admission in the sophomore class. I find that I must live an old bachelor’s life for three years, washing my socks and handkerchiefs, and doing my own mending. I shall join the prayer circles, and one of the missionary societies in college, but with secret societies I shall have nothing to do. Yesterday I read the Journal of Missions. All of its pages are filled with transactions of the American Board at their last anniversary. Some addresses of the returned missionaries were so affecting, I could but weep to read them. I would rather have spent a day, nay, an hour, in that assembly, than a week in the United States Congress, or in the British Parliament. — Your affectionate Son, James."
It may be well to add here that the sophomore class to which James was now admitted, is an institution peculiar to American colleges. It consists of students belonging to the second of the four classes, i.e. of students next above the freshmen.
There is probably no spot in the world where the autumnal foliage is more beautifully and brilliantly tinged than in New England. Accustomed as the Indian student was to the gorgeous hues and striking contrasts of the tropical jungle, he was able the more keenly to appreciate the deeper richness of the scene, as the autumn of the West toned down the brilliant green woods and hillsides into the mellow purples and restful browns which marked the season. But the autumn soon sank into winter ; and while James Phillips was able to appreciate the marvellous touch of the frost upon the leaves, his very bones were frozen with the cold. The fierce Maine climate was a foe he had not anticipated. With the insufficiency of food, and being surrounded by strangers, with his nearest relatives 1500 miles off, it is little wonder that at times he grew discouraged, and almost ready to give up the battle. The defraying of college expenses was for him a serious matter. He was no visionary, and had learnt already something of the stern realities of daily life, and he now took up his new life with a courage and unfaltering trust that in some way he should be carried through his course of study. How this could be he could not quite foresee, but he was confident of this one thing, that God knew his case, and was able to make provision. His faith was not disappointed. Some small contributions from neighbouring Free Baptist Churches, with whom he occasionally spent the Sunday, and to whom he sometimes preached, afforded him a little aid, but nothing at all commensurate with his needs.
" I believe I should have gone down," he writes, " had not friends in Portland and Limerick sent me substantial aid. The thought burdened me night and day that I ought to leave college, and go to work for our large and needy family. I could scarcely provide for all ; but many kind friends, including Mrs. Upham, helped my dear ones far more generously than I could have done, and I was permitted to continue my studies."
"Mother" Upham, to whom allusion is here made, was the wife of Professor Upham whom we have mentioned above. She was a woman of singularly consecrated spirit, and her influence upon James Phillips was of a high and permanent character. She cherished and cared for him as a loving mother for a dear son. Together they labored for the revival of God’s work, maintaining prayer and carrying on religious services in a public institution near by, and in the village, by which means many souls were blessed. Many a time Mrs. Upham, at considerable self-denial, provided for the more pressing needs of her favorite student. In a subsequent letter she wrote : —
" Although I made many sacrifices to help James Phillips, I am amply repaid in the good he has already done. Yes, I thank God, who has given me such a precious youth as James Phillips to care for, and through him to feel such an interest in this mission " (the Orissa Free Baptist Mission). The following extracts from his letter and diaries will serve to illustrate his life at Bowdoin College, and will exhibit the spirit of the man better than we could hope to do by any mere description.
" During the vacation we had a blessed revival in Limerick, where I labored for about four weeks. The religious interest in our college prayer circles is deepening. Perkins and I have a Sunday School, three miles out in the country, and my earnest prayer is ’ my whole class for Jesus.’
" Of all work of my attempting at Bowdoin, there is none I love so tenderly as my Poor House services. Mrs. Upham has introduced me to this sad field, and accompanies me each Sabbath afternoon to Topsham, a town across the river. Several old faces are beginning to shine with the love of Christ, and the poor little children cling to us and know they are loved at last."
" I have always fondly indulged the hope that I am not to be the only missionary child who from our dear family group will devote his services to preaching Christ. Dr. Scudder, of Madras, has gone to his rest, but three sons are in the field he left. Cannot as many children of one who has worn out all his energies in a service of twenty years be found who shall gladly fill his place ? "
" When the appointments were made by the Faculty for our class prize declamation, twelve of the best speakers were selected, and the name of your son appeared on the list. There are two in this number, and only two, that I am afraid of."
" Several weeks have slipped away, and the prizes with them. One of the two boys I feared took it, but the college Faculty has again seen fit to remember me among the honors of my class, and at the new senior and junior exhibition I am expected to perform. Two juniors are to speak translations in different languages, and both students and teachers are quite anxious that I should speak in my own Oriya. I shall translate from, the German, as I find richer composition there than elsewhere."
"Nov. 24th.
" The exhibition passed off finely, and was a perfect success. The hall was crowded to overflowing at an early hour. All my friends were on hand to listen to that heathenish tongue ; for the students had circulated quite extensively that I was to speak in Oriya. I kept the people in a great state of laughter, and when I closed my periods there was a general outburst. It was all that I could do myself to preserve a grave face under the circumstances. Our examinations went off very satisfactorily. During the past four weeks I have been a martyr to study, many times sitting up till midnight, and then beginning again at four o’clock in the morning. College honors I have never sought for, but thus far I have had my share of them.
" Since Friday last a dear classmate has been mysteriously missing. We harbor fearful apprehensions of suicide. A general consternation prevails in the college and throughout the community. Parties have been sent out in every direction, searching carefully through the woods, marshes, and swamps, but he was not found. We broke open his desk, in which we found a letter addressed to his father. It began with tender expressions of affection for his parents, and then said that he had determined to put an end to his life, and had taken a farewell look at his collegiate associations. A large number of students searched thoroughly all the ponds and streams. Then boats went up and down the river, and it will be dragged to-morrow. Doubtless the cold and lifeless body is drifting along the bed of the stream on its passage to the sea. The father arrived to-day. Poor man, I do pity him. His son was only nineteen. I wish we had talked more to him about God and the world to come while he was with us. I will try and do more for my remaining comrades.
" During my vacation I attended the Union Missionary meeting in Lowell, a large manufacturing town in Massachusetts. I saw the papers on Saturday evening, and I knew that I was expected to preach there next day. The Lord helped me much in the morning, as I addressed a quiet and attentive audience. In the evening arrangements were made for me to speak at the John Street Baptist Church. I went, but was hardly seated before a messenger came, calling me to the Congregational Church. A friend lent me his watch, saying, " Go, and speak fifteen minutes, but be back promptly." I found there also a crowded house, and for fifteen minutes’ speech they gave me an honorarium of ten dollars. At the John Street Church we had a glorious missionary meeting. Miss Crawford, who had just come from our old Jellasore home, spoke with great effect on India for half an hour. Subsequently a fine watch was presented to me. I have found my Oriya Testament, which has been lost for several weeks. I am keeping the promise I made on leaving India to read ten verses every day."
There was plenty of fun among some of the students at Bowdoin, but James Phillips seems to have been, at any rate during the greater part of his college course, too earnestly engaged in his studies and too deeply impressed with the responsibility of the future, to enter with any great heartiness into the frolics of his classmates, although we shall presently see that he was by no means without a sense of humor, and was never to be numbered with those who mistake lightheartedness for frivolity, and consider a joke inconsistent with piety of heart. Here are two good stories that he was fond of telling about his fellow students : —
" Spring has opened well, for there are a number of half civilised students, who torment the very life out of the French professor, and generally go wild. The other day he said to me, ’ Monsieur Pheeleeps, I tell you, had I to hear the second division recite, or go to hell, I would go to hell.’ "
" A few days ago they dragged the Professor’s carriage off seven miles, and put it under an old bridge ; but as they were about to leave it there, his head suddenly appeared from under the seat, and calmly remarked, ’ Now, young men, we will return ’ ; whereupon they were compelled meekly to draw the Professor back again. The other morning no little commotion was caused by an old cow’s lowing up in the belfry, where some wild spirits had conveyed her during the night."
It was during his life at Bowdoin that James Phillips met with an adventure in the snow, which many of his friends have heard him describe: " One bright cold morning in the dead of winter, two of us started to attend some special meetings at an inland town, about a day’s journey away. The road had just been opened after a recent snowstorm, and we anticipated a fine sleigh ride ; but about noon another storm set in, and as the sun went down the wind rose. Two hours later blinding blasts of snow were blowing in our faces. Pitch darkness came on, and not a sound but the roaring of the wind could be heard. We soon lost the main track, and got into the fields, where the horse broke through the crust at every step. At last we unharnessed him, and abandoned the sleigh. Meanwhile my hat had blown off, and I had to put the shawl over my head to keep me from freezing, while I scrambled along, tracking the path as best I could, and leading the horse behind. My companion followed, and on we went, little knowing where, but realizing that to stop was to die. Now and then I stumbled, and the drowsy stupor which precedes a sleep which knows no waking began to creep over my senses. But I prayed for strength to rally, and tried hard to cheer up my friend. At last, poor fellow, he fell down, and could go no farther. When I, too, was about to give up, I saw a light in the far distance. What a relief it was ! It put new courage into my heart. I staggered forward till I reached the window of a farmhouse, where the light was shining, and shouted for help. A moment later and a dear old man and woman were drawing me near the fire, where the coals were still burning, though it was past midnight. All I could do then was to say, ’ Thank God, thank God ! find the other man.’ He was brought in almost senseless, and then I remembered the poor old horse. In a little while we were all comfortably alive again; and before we retired to rest we asked for the Bible, and found it had been laid away for years, and that our friends were lost in a darker storm than had overtaken us. But we prayed together, and their hearts were touched, and they thanked God for our coming with tears of joy, and overwhelmed us with kindness. The next day they went to the meeting, and told the story of the light in the window for us, and the light in God’s Word for them, and ever since they have kept brighter lamps than the one that saved our lives."
We have already alluded to the kindly and gracious influence which Mrs. Upham exercised on the life of the young student. Again and again we find in his letters and diaries grateful references to the help, spiritual as well as material, which he from time to time received at her hands. The following extract is but one taken from many : —
" Our Professors were true scholarly men, and they spared no pains in teaching us; but Mrs. Upham, a good, hard-working woman, taught me more than all of them put together. She led me into a higher and holier life than I had ever known. She had learned somewhat of waiting on God, and knew the peace which passeth all understanding, and the perfect joy that comes from complete surrender of all to Christ. Hers was no ascetic life, and I never knew a more intense worker. From the highest circles in Bowdoin to the humble creatures of the Poor House, she labored unceasingly to lead souls into rest. She believed that many Christians know little of the yoke that is easy, and the burden that is light, because they had failed to accept Christ as their all-sufficient Saviour. Little by little she led me to let go of self and cling to Christ, till the very habit of my soul was to cast my care on Him, and I learned to follow Him one step at a time."
Let it not, however, be supposed for one moment that James Phillips had any leaning to perfectionism, or to that so-called "higher life" which is practically indistinguishable from it. While seeking daily to walk in the light, and finding in the exercise of a simple faith in the power and grace of God the secret of victory over many a temptation, he was ever conscious both of his own imperfections and of the exceeding breadth of the divine commands. His whole life was one of quiet growth and advance. He was naturally impetuous, irritable, and self-willed ; but as the years passed by, those who knew him best, and saw him in his most intimate moments, were impressed by the steady growth and increase which manifested itself in his changed and subdued spirit. The old, independent, " cocksure " air gradually disappeared, but only gradually. We lay stress upon this because some who knew him only in later days have wrongly inferred that he arrived at something approaching " entire sanctification " under the influence of Mrs. Upham at Brunswick. But this was by no means the case. Mrs. Upham’s influence was but the initial stage in a process which was lifelong, and which Dr. Phillips never at any time regarded as being in any sense complete.
It may possibly have been due to a sense of personal gratitude to Mrs. Upham that, even in his student days, he took the unpopular side of the question on woman’s share in public work for Christ.
" In those days," he writes, " it was thought in some Churches a shame for women to speak in public. Even in the social prayer meetings they were silent ; but one evening Mrs. Upham, in the fulness of her joy, rose and spoke for Christ. Ministers, professors, and most of the women, too, felt that she had committed an unpardonable breach of a time-honored custom ; but she bravely insisted that St. Paul’s injunction had no bearing upon the case in hand, and that Christ could speak through women’s lips as surely as through men’s. The feeling ran so high that she and some other ladies requested me to hold special meetings, where all alike should be invited to take part. These meetings helped to break down the old prejudices, and in many New England churches the women are now invited to take a share in social service.
" Professor Upham, who was the author of several earnest books on the divine life, himself heartily encouraged his wife in her public efforts, although he himself never on any occasion spoke or prayed in public. He was a strict vegetarian ; and I remember once dining at his house when some boiled lobsters were on the table which his adopted son and I had caught. He mourned grievously for ’ the broken families of lobsters on the seashore,’ and exclaimed so pathetically, ’ Oh, boys, how could you be so cruel ! ’ that his words come back to my memory every time I see a lobster." When a student at Bowdoin College, where the men were arranged alphabetically in the classroom, Dr. Phillips had for his neighbors Messrs. Perkins and Penney. These gentlemen have been good enough to furnish some recollections of their fellow student, which are especially interesting as illustrating the diverse, but not contradictory, sides to his character. Mr. C. S. Perkins, writing under date September 23rd, 1895, says —
" I had never met Dr. Phillips until we went to Bowdoin as students together. At once our intimate friendship began, and it has never been broken. We were drawn together doubtless at first because we were of the same faith and attended the same church. At one time there were seventeen of us Free Baptist students at Bowdoin. Sitting alphabetically in the classroom, Penney was on my left hand and Phillips on my right. We three were much together for the reasons already named, and because in general we were in agreement on all those important questions that came up for settlement in our college life. It happened several times that during our course at Bowdoin matters came up concerning which the class in general were quite agreed ; but a few dissented from the decision of the majority on grounds of principle. These few were sometimes severely denounced for the time, because of their weak scruples, as it appeared to the other college boys, and they were ridiculed for being over-pious. Phillips, though I think he desired as much as anyone the goodwill of others, was always among the few. Notwithstanding his strong convictions which frequently placed him in opposition to most of his classmates, he was still a very popular man in college, no one more so at the close of the course. College boys, I think, are generally just at the last, and they give respect to those who adhere to real principle. Dr. Phillips was a good scholar, standing, if I remember rightly, about sixth in a class that numbered fifty-five, and which had many good scholars in its membership. He had the same readiness of speech in his recitations which characterized him as a public speaker afterwards.
" Fidelity to his duties, both as a student and as a Christian, was one of his marked characteristics. He did not neglect his studies, nor did he neglect his religion ; and he never was ashamed of his religion, as many of the college boys at times seemed to be. He found time, though sometimes hard pressed with college duties, for much religious work, both in the college and in the church he attended, as well as in the surrounding country. He frequently went far abroad when opportunity offered to do work for his Master.
" I remember making the discovery that he was teaching a Sunday School class in Topsham — where we attended church — at noon ; in the Methodist Church in Brunswick early in the afternoon ; and taking a third Sunday School two or three miles away from the college at 5 o’clock. Thus, even in college, there was the beginning of that zeal which was afterwards so noticeable, and which finally consumed him. I recall now all my classmates, and do not think of one of them who, as a college boy, was so nearly what he afterwards became when a man as Phillips was. He was a manly, true, zealous missionary boy ; and when he became a man with his added strength, and with the burdens and anxiety of a marvelously active life upon him, we who met him found in him still the freshness and good-fellowship which we knew and valued in his early days." The recollections of Mr. C. F. Penney, his other classmate, which were written under date January 16th, 1896, serve to show that the strenuous earnestness and religious zeal of James Phillips had in no way marred the mirthful freshness and jollity which should characterize every right-minded and healthy boy.
" I wish it were possible for me to reproduce with accuracy the many impressions, now half forgotten and indistinct, of the wit and mirthfulness which were so abundant in Dr. Phillips’ life. Beyond almost anyone I ever knew, the cheerful and mirthful side of his life was attractive. There was no vindictiveness or sting in his ready wit. His jokes never hurt, and his funny stories were always clean and wholesome. I have no recollection of anything he ever said that could not be repeated in any place. He saw as few could see the ludicrous side of things, and would relate incidents in his irresistible way, till his hearers would be convulsed with laughter. It made no difference whether he was a party to it or not, or whether the joke was against himself, he enjoyed it just as well, and was quite as happy in its relation. I have heard him tell the circumstances of his first sermon preached while at Whitestown. He could not have been more than fifteen or sixteen years of age at the time. He was invited by one of the students in the theological school to go to some preaching station and help him in his Sunday service. He described the church as old-fashioned, with the pulpit lifted high above the heads of the people and covering the entire space of platform, and so high in itself that his head was only just visible above it, and that was all of him that could be seen. He selected for his text the well-known words of the Preacher, ’ Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.’ To hear him picture the scene, the grave elderly appearance of his hearers, his earnest exhortations concerning the duties of parents to their children, and his own appearance in the pulpit, with his head only just visible to his audience, was provocative of convulsive laughter.
" His theological course was spent at New Hampton. Our graver studies were relieved by frequent rambles over the hills and through the valleys of that famous district. He was always the life of the party, and his wit and funny stories kept us usually in fits of laughter. I remember on one occasion, about half a dozen of us, with Professor Brockett of the Institute, wandered away in the late spring for the purpose of botany. In the course of our ramble we came to a brook of such width that we were not able to cross it by any means at hand. Phillips was full of expedients, and I think it was he who suggested to Professor Brockett that he should find a long pole, and planting it in midstream, by a running leap should thus be able to reach the other side in safety. Professor Brockett made the attempt after much chaffing, but the pole sank into the deep mud in the middle of the stream, and there it stuck fast, holding the Professor upright over the water, so that nothing was left for him to do but to lower himself into the water and wade ashore. Phillips’ mirth and jokes at the luckless Professor, as he clung desperately to the pole, and with slow reluctance slipped into the cold water of the stream and waded to the shore, were so irresistibly comical that we simply lay down on the bank in helpless mirth. On another occasion the same party went for a picnic over the hills on a Saturday, and one of us managed to step into a basket of eggs, which had been set aside to boil as a part of our midday meal. Phillips’ remarks on the occasion were so funny that we all threw ourselves on the ground in laughter.
" Occasionally he would come to my room and ask me to call with him on Professor Butler, who was in the theological school at Whitestown, while he was a member of the Institute there. These visits were often occupied by himself and the Professor in recalling amusing incidents which had happened at Whitestown. I usually sat as a listener, but can never forget the mirth that Phillips used to provoke. No one who ever heard his story of the appearance of Professor Butler, who, on an alarm of fire one night in the village of New Hampton, made his appearance on the scene in carefully prepared toilet, with an umbrella spread over his head, and a wooden pail in his hand to assist in extinguishing the flames, can ever forget the mirth his description of the scene produced. He had the happy faculty of making others see a thing as it appeared to himself, and this was so, whether the incident was sober or mirthful in character.
" I find by looking over college memorabilia that Phil was selected one of twelve members of the class in the prize declamations, in his sophomore year in college. He was also one of the committee of arrangements, consisting of three men for the senior and junior exhibitions, and his part on that occasion was an Oriya translation from the German of Fichte, ’ The Vocation of Man.’ He was also one of the three selected from the class for the junior prize exhibition. I find he was chaplain at our class day exercise. His subject on graduation was ’ Christian missions and civilization,’ which was regarded as one of the best performances of the day. I wish I could tell all that his life was to me in the five years we were so much together, at Bowdoin and New Hampton. A large part of the time I was at college we ate at the same table, attended the same church and week-day meetings for prayer, and for two years our rooms were adjoining on the same floor in Appleton Hall — ’ Paradise ! ’ How many miles we walked together, and how often we sang, prayed, and talked together ! What a love I had for him ! I was eight years his senior in age, but his sweet boyish life came into such close and loving relation to my own, that it seems to me that he did for me a hundredfold more than I could ever have done for him."
James Phillips’ last days at Bowdoin had their humorous as well as their pathetic side. To borrow his own words —
" There were no tears in our eyes, and no sentimental expressions of grief, but each heart knew its ’ dear chum,’ and we wrote eulogies and farewells in each others albums, and drove the local authorities well nigh crazy. Very different was the parting with my Sunday School class, and the little children, and old men and women at the Poor House ; that quite broke me down. Thank God for giving me such an opportunity for work ! We all clasped each others hands, and many prayers for God’s blessing went up from that humble abode. I never in any of our meetings had witnessed so much emotion as at the last meetings of the prayer circle. My heart prompted me to praise God for all the peace and joy I had received in His blessed service during my college course. My mother’s parting words, ’ James, if you graduate from college a humble Christian, we shall be glad,’ had often incited me to earnest endeavor for Christ. I felt sure that the sole secret of success to those who were going forth to battle with the sinful world was consecration to Christ. There were now twenty - five professing Christians in my class, and fifteen of these, besides a number of drunkards and roughs, had been converted during my college course."
One more quotation from his diary tells us of the closing scene at Bowdoin —
" Wednesday night, August 1st, 1860. — Well, the long-dreaded day on which degrees are conferred is over. I shall pass my evening in silent communion with my own spirit and with God, rather than at the President’s levee, where I should be quite a stranger. Our class day passed off very finely indeed, but today has been the great day after all. The boys really have done themselves credit, and I felt proud of my classmates. Pain in the head occasioned me a moment’s hesitation with the exhibition, which I got through nicely. The Lord helped me to speak out earnestly for the missionary cause, which I so much love.
" To-night I feel very weary indeed. The exercises did not close till 5 p.m , and then we had the commencing dinner. I am now through college. My poor pen cannot express a tithe of the gratitude I feel to God for His merciful kindness which has so long spared and blessed me." The next morning the old pine trees were whispering a farewell for the students who would never walk arm-in-arm beneath their shade again. But years of study, and still higher degrees, were waiting some of the fifty-five young men who left Bowdoin that day.