EVENTS took a new turn for Robert in the winter of 1822-23. On January 30, 1823, Walter Scott was married to Sarah Whitsette ¹ and moved from his apartment in the Richardson mansion to set up housekeeping. This change deprived the sixteen-year-old boy of a constant companionship upon which he had come to depend. Mr. Scott had now become "Walter" to him, and the separation was painful.

      At the same time, the eldest son of Nathaniel Richardson was making his initial adjustment as a student in the newly formed Western University of Pennsylvania, (now the University of Pittsburgh). This school of college rank had received its charter from the Pennsylvania legislature on February 18, 1819, and, with its faculty installed, had begun its first session in the fall of 1822. Thus the old Pittsburgh Academy, chartered thirty-five years before, passed on up to university status. The faculty, with the eminent Dr. George Stevenson as president of the Board of Trustees, was composed of five professors: Rev. Robert Bruce, principal and professor of natural philosophy, chemistry, mathematics; Rev. John Black, professor of ancient language and classical literature; Rev. E. P. Swift, professor of moral science and the general evidences of Christianity; Rev. Joseph McElroy, professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres; and Rev. Charles B. Maguire, professor of modern languages and universal grammar. Robert's course included English, [35] rhetoric, classical languages, and science, with a special concentration in chemistry.

      The professor who influenced the young scholar most was Robert Bruce, principal and professor of science. He was a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, where he had studied under Dugald Stewart, of the Scottish "Common Sense School" of philosophy. He held the pastorate of the First Associated Church of Pittsburgh (Presbyterian) and was forty-four years of age. Men in all walks of life, said a contemporary, "pronounce him the most learned, the most sincere, the most kindly man they have ever met."

      Scarcely less important to Robert was Professor Black. He was born in county Antrim, Ireland. After graduating from the University of Glasgow, he had come on to America to teach in the University of Philadelphia, and thence to the ministry of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh. This classical scholar was a writer, as well, contributing freely to local magazines. As a teacher, he was a constant stimulus and delight to his students. Possessing little patience with dull scholars, he had at the same time an irrepressible sense of humor. His students watched eagerly for "the significant twinkle of his eye, the corrugation of his brow, which betrayed his internal glee."²

      In these fields of learning, especially in the exact disciplines of science, Robert Richardson found himself happily at home. Under these favorable conditions, a love for precision quickly disclosed itself. His notebooks were accurate and neat. A Greek sample, dealing with the opening section of Matthew's Gospel, looks [36] flawless enough to have come from a printing press. Not only is the script clear and faultless, but the statement of usage and construction is such as to attract the attention of careful scholars. The same is true of a notebook kept while perusing a course in Scottish history.

      Always an obedient and respectful son, Robert was never more so than toward the religious wishes of his parents. With them he attended church regularly at "The Old Round Church" of the Episcopalians, where his father was a charter member and vestryman. Walter Scott's influence had made him much more attentive to religious matters. The result was that he began reading the Scriptures and paying more attention to his prayers and to sermons.

      The Episcopal church had erected a queer, octagonal building in 1805, the year of its organization, and Pittsburghers immediately dubbed it "The Old Round Church." It stood on a triangular lot now defined by Liberty Street, Sixth Avenue, and Wood Street. Rev. John Taylor, eminent rector of this congregation, also published an almanac, forecasting the weather one year in advance. He became something of an awe-inspiring oracle to the whole city when he once prophesied a snowstorm in mid-June, and hit it exactly!³

      The Episcopalians continued to worship in "The Old Round Church" until 1825. Up until 1830, in all Pittsburgh there were only ten church buildings, although there were fifteen congregations, some of which met in the courthouse and in private homes.

      Meantime the vigorous John Henry Hopkins became rector. He had left the iron furnace to study law, and [37] had then given up the bar to enter the ministry. When he moved from Pittsburgh in 1831, it was to accept a call to the Trinity Church of Boston. He was later to become bishop of Vermont. Before he left Pittsburgh, however, he led his people in building a new Trinity Church on a Pennsylvania land grant, allotted for the purpose.⁴

      Robert's deepened religious interest encouraged his mother and other relatives to hope that he would enter the ministry, but in this hope they had not watched their candidate closely enough. The young man was attracted to Christianity but strangely disquieted by its Episcopalian form.

      There was another reason why the urgings of his friends in the church were unavailing. He was embarrassed and retiring by nature, and the prospect of leading a life so public, so constantly before great throngs of people, together with the necessity of continual speaking, dismayed and terrified him.

      So it came about that he not only did not decide for the ministry, but that he even delayed his confirmation from season to season. Finally, he had put it off until he was eighteen years of age. The combined pressure of father and rector was then brought to bear upon him, with the result that he yielded in 1824, and at Easter of that year was confirmed by Rev. William White, bishop of Pennsylvania, with Rev. John Henry Hopkins assisting.

      At the same time that his enthusiasm remained unquickened in the church, it was vibrantly responsive in the classrooms of the Western University of Pennsylvania. Chemistry, in particular, fascinated him. As the [38] time for the completion of his course approached, a decision concerning his lifework became imperative. His interest in chemistry pointing the way, he chose medicine.

      Leaving the university in 1824 or 1825, he began the specific preparation then in vogue to fit him for his profession. In his case, this meant "reading medicine" under the personal oversight of a successful physician. The Richardson family chose Dr. Peter Mowry, himself a former pupil of Dr. Nathaniel Bedford, who had been Pittsburgh's first physician. It is also significant that Dr. Mowry was a vestryman of the Trinity Episcopal Church and a trustee of Western University.

      Dr. Mowry was at the head of his profession. In a day before antiseptics and anesthetics, when much witchcraft was practiced in the name of science by other members of the calling, he was wise and clear-sighted.

      He always sought to impress upon his students the great responsibility of the profession they had chosen. He advised hospital experience as the best way to become a skilled physician. On one occasion he said: "God help the quack, who with little knowledge and much impudence rushes in where conscientious men fear to enter."⁵

      "Reading medicine" was strenuous activity. Besides the constant poring over technical books and journals, it involved practical assistance to the physician, some of it of a rather menial sort. It was no little chore for Robert, reared in a wealthy home, with the continual care of servants, to "clean the office, brush the boots and clothing of the doctor and take care of the horse and stable." He became a sort of junior physician and handy-man, learning by doing. It was not long until Dr. Mowry [39] was relying on him to pull the teeth of dental patients and to do much of the bleeding. Bleeding was based upon the current theory that it drained impurities from the body. The treatment of nearly all ailments included bleeding. Even a common head cold might call for bleeding a patient from seven to twenty times within a few days.

      Bleeding was done both with a knife and by the use of leeches. In the spring of the year people were thought to have too much blood or blood that was too thick. This condition was remedied by bleeding. Sometimes an individual was annoyed with attacks of dizziness; again bleeding was prescribed. The attending physician carried a small china bowl which held between a cup and a pint. The amount of blood taken from the patient, determined by the size of his body and the malignancy of the attack, varied from one to two bowls. During the process of the operation the patient bared his arm, allowing the incision to be made in forearm or upper arm; then he took a firm grip on a broom handle to hurry the flow and make it steady. The junior physician did all of this, at first, under careful supervision. Later, it was necessary for Dr. Mowry to do no more than indicate the amount of blood to be let.

      Robert was also taught to "cup," a treatment consisting of raising a blister under a heated tea cup placed on the forehead, to cure headaches and some fevers. The collecting, drying, and grinding of herbs and roots also fell to him. All medicines, even those which were purchased rather than brought from the fields, were obtained in crude form, so that they had to be ground with mortar [40] and pestle and prepared in the doctor's office. Field trips included the finding and collecting of leeches in the neighboring streams.

      In addition to these duties, the neophyte physician chopped wood, ran errands, accompanied the doctor, carrying his lantern by night and his saddlebags by day.

      His rigorous training acquainted young Richardson with all phases of a physician's work. Among the customs of the day, none was more satirical than that which required the attending physician of a patient who had died to lead the funeral procession on the way to the grave!

      This apprenticeship was a strenuous, exacting life, and Dr. Mowry was at no pains to make it easy for his student. By midwinter of 1825-26, Robert's health was broken. Mostly the trouble had to do with his eyes. As a result of inadequate pigmentation, his eyes were oversensitive to light. Constant reading irritated these organs. Often he had to leave his studies to bathe his eyes in cold water in order to gain temporary relief, and occasionally the pain reached such a pitch that he was forced to give up reading and writing altogether for long periods of days and weeks. He had now reached such a time, the first of many enforced vacations from his beloved books. Medical science of the day diagnosed the ailment as "amaurosis." The weakness of Robert's eyes led him to form the habit of half-closing the lids to shut out the glare of light. The only time he opened them wide was during periods of mirth, and then it could be seen that they were a beautiful hazel in color. These weary, suffering orbs refused to do any more. [41]

      Robert's father and mother were agreed that he needed a period of rest. He was sent, accordingly, to "Ravens Vale," the farm of the Blairs', who were warm family friends of theirs, living near Elizabeth, Pennsylvania. There he was kept strictly away from books and lived much out of doors. Staying on from winter into spring, summer, and autumn, he lived around the whole farmer's clock of seasons and there acquired an undying love for the country and farming. He went sledding and hiking over the snow, or skating with the young people, and sat by the fire on winter evenings, exchanging stories with a merry company. Springtime came, and now he followed the plowman, and in the summer the reaper's swinging scythe. He took the cows to the pasture, or sauntered over the meadows and along the brooks. Sometimes an evening would be spent with jovial young people in dancing at home or at a neighbor's.

      All of this was good medicine for the sick young doctor, and it was marvelously effective. By the fall of 1826 he was well and happy, and it was decided that it would be safe for him to return to his studies. He was only twenty then and he had already studied much beyond his years. Having glimpsed for a few months a world of youth and of activity that he had almost missed completely, he found himself reluctant to depart. With a wrench of the heart he contemplated the painful leave-takings and decided that he would not be able to go through with it; so, in lieu of a formal good-by, in the early morning hours of his last day, he [42] left a poem on the dresser in his room and stole out of the house before the family was awake.

      The Blair family, finding the poem, read it between smiles and tears. Afterward they had it printed in booklet form, both to prolong their own enjoyment of it and also to share it with their friends. "Lines written upon leaving Ravens Vale in the fall of 1826" began as follows:

      The last of the 124 lines trailed away in melancholy moonlight

      In conformity with the customary pattern of training, Robert was now ready to take a course of lectures in [43] medical school. Few doctors bothered to go through the formality of acquiring an M.D. degree. So Robert Richardson was duly matriculated in the School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia. He attended for the school year of 1826-27.⁶

      In the spring of 1827 he returned to Pittsburgh to set up a copractice for a few months with an established physician, whose name is unfortunately lost from the record. Gradually he accustomed himself to respond when called "Doctor" and at length got himself into the swing of his practice.

      Before long, feeling sufficiently prepared to strike out independently, he moved to Carnegie, a village thirteen miles from Pittsburgh, and set up practice in what proved to be a predominantly Presbyterian community. There being no Episcopal church there, he united with the Presbyterians, without relinquishing his Episcopalian connection with the family church at home.

      Although he was now only twenty-one years old, Dr. Robert Richardson quickly became popular, and his practice grew. Emphasizing preventive hygiene and sanitation and practicing little surgery, he kept to conservative and common-sense lines, with good results. His earnings, gathered in fees of fifteen and twenty-five cents, were netting him a modest living. He was established.

      It was in the midst of this busy practice that Walter Scott re-entered his life. His friend had left Pittsburgh in the spring of 1826 to set up a church and a school in Steubenville, Ohio. Thence he had gone the following year to become evangelist of the Mahoning Baptist Association in the Western Reserve. [44]

      When Scott rode out to visit him in the spring of 1829, Robert at once detected a suppressed excitement in his old friend and quickly felt that he was greeting a prophet. The last pieces of Scott's religious puzzle had fallen into place nearly two years before, and he had been preaching a "Restored Gospel" to aroused audiences all over northeastern Ohio. The Baptist churches of that region were electric with expectancy, seething with study and discussion, and he had baptized two thousand converts.

      Scott explained to his friend that this was no repetition of old-style revivals. It was something new in modern Christianity, straight out of the pages of the New Testament. The Campbells had been laboring for twenty years with much success in restoring the "Ancient Order" in the church--weekly Communion, baptism by immersion, a plurality of elders, local church government, the priesthood of all believers, discarding creeds and theological tests of "faith." It had remained for him, Scott said, to restore the "Ancient Gospel," by which men gained entrance into this "Ancient Order"! It all went back to his discovery of the "Golden Oracle." Accepting Jesus as Lord was the key to Christianity. How was this done? The Book of Acts offers the clue! Men are asked by the apostles to do three things: to believe, on the basis of the facts of the New Testament; to repent; and to be baptized. God, in turn, promises to do three things: to remit sites; to grant the gift of the Holy Spirit; and to impart life eternal.

      When Scott had gone, Robert could not get the visit and the excitement out of his mind. In his spare hours over the next few days he studied his Greek Bible [45] minutely. Come to think of it, he had learned to read Greek at Walter's hands. He went over the ground of their recent discussions, checking at every point. The result was plain.

      He became fully convinced that in both the Septuagint Old Testament and the Greek New Testament the words bapto and baptidzo meant to immerse, or dip; and that "to translate them thus would make complete sense and harmony of the passage in which they occur; whereas, to introduce the idea of sprinkling, would frequently make absolute nonsense of scripture." He also found that "faith and repentance were absolute prerequisites for Christian baptism" and that the word of God commanded baptism as prerequisite to the remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.⁷

      No sooner was he convinced by his studies that Scott was right than he decided to act. Saddling his horse, he rode straight toward the Western Reserve, and directly to Scott's home at Canfield. Walter was not at home, but he found him on the third day, and at the end of 120 miles, with his colaborer William Hayden in Shalersville. He arrived on Sunday, at two o'clock in the afternoon, just after the audience had been dismissed and when the two evangelists were preparing to immerse six converts in the near-by Cuyahoga River.

      Pressing through the crowd, Robert first surprised Scott with his presence and then overwhelmed him with his request to be baptized. He had never witnessed an immersion until he saw those which preceded his own and he had never heard a preacher of "the Reformation" until he listened to William Hayden's address at the conclusion of the ceremony.⁸ [46]

      Now, for the first time in his life, religion, which had both fascinated and eluded him, came intimately near. Before this new interest, even chemistry and medicine faded. His newly found happiness could not serve as a simple embellishment of his old manner of living. It demanded a change, a complete revolution.

      Back in Carnegie, he devoted much time to getting his bearings within his new cause. He now learned that a "Reformation of the Nineteenth Century" had been afoot for more than twenty years. In 1809 Thomas Campbell, his own teacher, had written a manifesto of Christian union, called the Declaration and Address, which he now read with mounting surprise and admiration. Casting off creeds as tests of fellowship, distinguishing between essentials and nonessentials, and calling for a return to biblical simplicity and to charity in all things, this document was the charter of a unified Christendom! Similarly, a movement of reform had arisen in Kentucky in 1804, following the great Cane Ridge meeting. A group of Presbyterian ministers including Barton Warren Stone had written "The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery," in which they, too, called for church reform, along much the same lines. Alexander Campbell had become the champion and leader of the Virginia and Pennsylvania movement; his adherents were known to his bitterest enemies as "Campbellites" and to his friends as "Reformers." About this time they were beginning to call themselves "Disciples of Christ." Stone's movement used the simple name "Christians."

      Both movements were publishing magazines for the propagation of their cause. Stone's Christian Messenger [47] had exerted a strong influence in Kentucky for two years, and Alexander Campbell's militant Christian Baptist was read by an amazingly large audience in the eastern half of the nation and had spread his name and views throughout that part of America since 1823.

      At the same time, Alexander Campbell's fame as a debater was mounting--and this was happening in an era much given to the exercise of oratory and the drama of public debate. In March, 1820, he had debated with Rev. John Walker at Mount Pleasant, Ohio, on the subjects and action of baptism. In October, 1823, he had debated with Rev. W. I. Maccalla at Washington, Kentucky, on the purpose or design of baptism. More recently, this very spring, on April 13-22, 1829, Alexander Campbell had achieved a tour de force in his masterly defeat of the famous social reformer and atheist, Robert Owen, in their debate on "The Evidences of Christianity."

      Having met these reformers in the quiet parlor of the Richardson home, Robert had not guessed the extent of their influence or the radical character of their interests. Now, he discovered that his friend Walter Scott had become intimately associated with both wings of this reformatory impulse. On the Western Reserve he had welded "Christians" and "Reformers" into a team to "restore the Ancient Gospel" and was sweeping thousands of new adherents into the swelling tide of nonsectarian Christianity. ⁹ With his fiery zeal and his matchless oratory, Scott was the evangelistic partner of what was soon to become known as the "big four": the Campbells, father and son, Barton W. Stone, and Walter Scott. [48]

      Here, Robert felt, was a cause which was not only righteous, but also one destined to take everything before it. Already it numbered between 12,000 and 20,000 adherents.¹⁰ America was a land of new beginnings; it was not too much to hope that its frontiers would also become the place where divided Protestantism would be transformed into a united Christendom!

      So great was his zeal for what he learned, and so deep was his inward happiness at his own conversion, that the young doctor overcame his terror before audiences and went out as an ambassador of the cause. Soon he had gathered and organized a church!¹¹ From this church at Carnegie, lines of influence reached out through relatives to Washington County, near the place where the Declaration and Address had been written. There, with the aid of some of Thomas Campbell's staunch friends, James and John McElroy, he established and ministered to a second church.

      The physician was not a gifted public speaker. He was timid and hesitant before an audience. While getting into the opening part of an address or sermon, he cleared his throat a great deal and stopped and started like a lurching stagecoach drawn by a frightened team. Discerning hearers quickly saw that he was an artist in the choice of words; but many in his audiences could never penetrate beyond the nervous cough and the monotonous, undramatic delivery to the fire and beauty which glowed beneath. He did not speak because he liked it but because he was now taken captive by a momentous purpose and could not keep silent. [49]

      The doctor was a busy man. Keeping up with his medical practice and practicing his religion as an active agent of church reform occupied his nights and his days, his weekdays and his Lord's days; but he was well content. In fact, he was happier than he had ever been.

      He was so busy that he did not have time to go home to tell his family the news, so he wrote a letter and dispatched it by the post. His action had been so precipitate, and the reasons for it so patently convincing to him, that he had not even thought to consult their wishes before he undertook the trip to Shalersville. And it did not once occur to him that his father might be offended. [50]

[HTB 35-50]