Elijah Kellogg
"The summer folks," said a Harpswell
fisherman, "say they never heard such preaching as Uncle Kellogg
served up at the Congregational Church."
He referred to the late Rev. Elijah
Kellogg, best known perhaps, especially to boys who like tales
of adventure, as the author of the Elm Island stories.
'There's one thing about the stories
that Uncle Kellogg writes," his critic went on, ''he always got
everything right when he wrote about the sea. He was a sailor
himself and when he told about managing a dory in a squall, or
working a ship in a storm, you could use what he wrote for a
sailor's guide. I have read Clark Russell and Marryatt and
Dana's 'Before the Mast,' but I must say Uncle Kellogg got it
nearer from a sailor's point of view than any of them."
Rev. Elijah Kellogg was born in Portland
May 20, 181 3, and died March 17, 1901. It is well known that he
refused many offers of large city parishes, where the people
would have paid him a good salary, but he preferred to spend his
life in his secluded home on Harpswell Neck. Not long before the
great preacher's death, Holman Day, the well-known Maine author,
visited Rev. Elijah Kellogg and wrote the following impressions
of the preacher and writer and of his home.
In the tall, old-fashioned house behind
the spruces on Harpswell Neck, lives Rev. Elijah Kellogg.
Notwithstanding the picturesque beauty of the place it would be
lonely for anyone except a lover of retirement. Especially
lonesome was the homestead one sunny afternoon in September. The
house was locked, the blinds were drawn, and were it not for a
little path that wormed through the grass to the door, a
careless visitor might think the place no longer tenanted.
The pastor and his housekeeper were
away, but evidently not for long. The carriage house stood wide
open and within was the venerable clergyman's old-fashioned
carriage, with the big, round glass in back and sides, the muddy
every-day cart and the single-seated wagon with an umbrella
tucked under the seat. A horse munched in his stall in the
stable.
Over behind the barn a cow stood in the
shade.
Whether the minister would appear from
land, or from sea, was uncertain, but plainly he was not far
distant. So I listened to the silence buzzing in my ears and
watched Mr. Kellogg's grey cat scratching her claws on his
favorite pear tree.
The aged minister came by water and his
coming was picturesque. Gen. Joshua L. Chamberlain, the Hero of
Little Round Top, whose summer cottage is across the bay and
with whom Mr. Kellogg's friendship dates from the time when
Bowdoin's ex-president was a boy in college, had invited the
preacher across for dinner. So Mr. Kellogg went with a basket of
his best apples. After the meal the general came rowing the aged
clergyman back to his own shore. It was a striking spectacle,
the soldier-scholar bending to the oars, his old friend seated
in the stern sheets and guiding the craft. The general
accompanied the clergyman up the bank and not until they were
well up toward the spruces did he relinquish the basket and bid
"Uncle'' Kellogg good-bye with a hearty hand-clasp.
"When I first began to write my books
for boys,'' said the venerable author to me, "I used to think
that perhaps I ought to be writing sermons instead. But then I
reflected that I was reaching a larger audience than I ever
could through sermons and so I reconciled my labors to my
scruples. My books number about thirty and I spent much hard
labor in their composition.''
"Where is Elm Island, Mr. Kellogg!"
"Oh, I made that island out of my
imagination for the story. You know it's pretty hard finding an
island on the Maine coast bearing northwest from the mainland.
Still, notwithstanding that fact, I know that at least half a
dozen islands are pointed out as the suppositious place where
Lion Ben and the boys lived and labored.
"I enjoyed writing those books. I like
anything that relates to the affairs and the prosperity of young
men. I have always been anxious to help young men in any way I
could. They're an inspiration. So when I commenced to write
books for boys I struck out on new lines. All the books for
young folks seemed to tell them how to play.
"I commenced to tell them how to work. I
was, of course, much gratified because the stories were read so
generally. When I hear that any boy has perused those books with
pleasure I feel that the boy has something good in him, some
trait worth cultivating, for it indicates that he has a desire
to learn and is interested in wholesome, hard work.
''When boys or men come and tell me that
those books have helped them, I feel a pleasure that I cannot
describe. One of the very happiest days of my whole life was
when a successful man held my hand and said, "Mr. Kellogg, I
date my prosperity and success from the time I read the Elm
Island series.'' And the naive and honest brown face glowed.
Speaking of ''Spartacus to the
Gladiators," that stirring old declamation known to every school
boy, Kellogg said that he wrote it while a boy at Andover, as a
rhetorical exercise, and delivered it himself. The professor
under whose charge the exercises were conducted said, as the
youthful speaker stepped down.
"Boys, that is eloquence!"
"I also wrote most of the other
declamations at that time,'' remarked he. A close rival of
Spartacus is "Regulus to the Carthaginians," another example of
stately eloquence that so charms the hearts of the schoolboy's.
"For a time," said the venerable man
with a quizzical smile, "Spartacus was ruled out at Bowdoin
declamations, as I've heard. The professors used to say that no
matter what the merits of the speakers might be, the prize used
regularly to go to the boy who thundered Spartacus."
Elijah Kellogg's life has not one trace
of repining or reproach in it. He has accepted what has come to
him and has been content. He has borne the adversity that has
overtaken him through the failure of his publishers, and from
his meager resources has always extended a helping hand.
"If Elijah Kellogg had a hundred
thousand dollars," said a neighbor, "he would still be poor, for
he always has his hand out to help someone who is worse off than
he. Why, the people love that man like a father and the newer
generation coming up seem to love him still more than those
before them.''
"I have had a happy life here," said Mr.
Kellogg. "There has been peace and enough for me and those who
were dependent on me. My parish has been world enough in which
to work.
"I have watched the generations grow to
man-hood and felt that in a way I was helping the Lord to shape
their ways. The younger people as they grow seem to like me,
too," and the pastor smiled wistfully.
''Do you know, I have had helping me in
my farm work this week, great-grandchildren of my first
parishioners!''
The Kellogg house was built forty years
ago by Mr. Kellogg, assisted by his neighbors and parishioners.
Then, as now, they would do anything to assist him.
''You come over and hew for me," he used
to say, "and I'll be over and preach for you."
In all the years he has dwelt in
Harpswell, he has never asked neighborly assistance, when by any
manner of means he could perform a task with his own hands. He
has lived and labored honestly on the six days, as he lives and
labors now brown, hardy and earnest, charitable, loving and a
kindly counselor always. He has spoken the words that have
united, has blessed the children, has watched the long lives and
laid the fathers and mothers away. Still he lives on cheerily
and hopefully.
And twice each Sabbath day from the
pulpit of the white church on the hill, he has preached such
sermons as can come only from the heart of a simple, earnest,
toiling man of God and that man Elijah Kellogg.
The fervor, fire and soul of Mr.
Kellogg's earlier productions were never more nearly matched by
him Chan at the time of the Bowdoin centennial in 1894. He spoke
at the great dinner on that occasion. The major-general of the
armies of the United States, the chief justice of the United
States, the chief justice of Maine and many other distinguished
persons had preceded the slight, bronzed, stooped old gentleman
who had stood in the press with his hand at his ear and listened
as best he might. The heat was intense. The great marquee but
indifferently protected the throng from the sun's rays.
Therefore as the after-noon wore on the audience oozed out from
beneath the tent and sought the cool green of the lawn and the
shade of the trees.
At last the word went about on the
campus "Elijah Kellogg is speaking,'' and then the throngs
flocked back again, pressing, crowding, standing on tip-toe,
craning their necks to hear this plainly-attired, kindly-faced
old preacher.
People who had but lily attended the
speeches of men great in the world, now were breathlessly eager
to hear. Anyone who moved restlessly or whispered was reproved
by withering looks. I shall always remember that address not its
words but its marvelous effect on the throng. The venerable
preacher drifted into the story of how it came about that he
settled in Harp swell.
In simple language he described his
early pastor-ate there when he supplied from college. The people
asked him to become their pastor. He promised that he would, if
certain conditions on their part were carried out. The parish
did as he asked and a delegation came to him to announce their
compliance.
Then with gratitude and with a true
interest in his people he took up his work in Harpswell, many,
many years ago, and there he has dwelt ever since, continuing at
the age of eighty-five the pastoral ministrations he commenced
in his early youth.
All this he told with unaffected
earnestness at Brunswick that day, and no career among them all
seemed more to be admired. A blameless, simple life spent in
doing good and in honest work in con-tented retirement that is
Elijah Kellogg's career and his name will be long in the mouths
of people when more dazzling honors and personages have forever
gone.
His closing words at Brunswick thrilled
the hearts of all who listened. A new light came in his eyes.
His bent form straightened. He was inspired. The matchless
eloquence of the last few sentences rang over the heads of the
great throng and echoed in their ears.
Then the speaker ceased and almost
abruptly pushed his way out through the press. Pausing only an
instant to shake a hand outstretched, he plodded across the
campus in the sunshine, stooped yet brisk in his walk, his
well-worn hat pulled down upon his head, his thin, brown face
placid once more after the fervor of his address.
Thus, a lonely figure on the broad
campus, he passed out of sight beneath the trees, unhitched his
sober brown horse and drove away toward his Harpswell home.
Holman Day
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