R. SCOTT was not of a temperament that would permit him to be unaffected by the civil, political, and moral questions of his day; on all of them he had convictions which he was ready at all proper times to express, but he ever held those convictions in subordination to the great religious questions which it was the great business of his life to investigate, set forth, and defend. In politics he was a democrat, but he never permitted himself to be drawn into the petty intrigues and issues of party strife, and while he had a very high admiration of the great men of that party from Jefferson to Jackson, of the former for his statesmanship, and of the latter for his energy and decision, he did not withhold his admiration of the men and measures of the opposite party, when both were often such, that as a patriot, if not as a partisan, he could warmly approve. Although a foreigner by birth, he was a great lover of free institutions, and was proud of his citizenship, and none the less so because it was his deliberate choice, rather than a birthright. He once said to an intimate friend: "I remember distinctly the moment that I became an American citizen in heart; it was not when I went through the forms of the laws of naturalization, but on the occasion of my meeting with a procession headed by a band playing the national air, and bearing the national banner; inspired by the strain as I looked on the national emblem, I felt that under that flag, and for it, if need be, I could die, and I felt at that moment that I was in feeling, as well as in law, an American citizen, that that [166] flag was my flag, and that this country was my country."

      The temperance question was one of the great issues of his times; he not only warmly approved of the movement when set on foot, but he, in a measure, anticipated it, and gave his testimony against the use of strong drink when public sentiment was in its favor, and the practice almost universal. Every family that could afford it, had its side-board, and one of the first rites of hospitality was to invite the guest to drink, and his departure was attended by the same ceremony as the greeting. It was not at all unministerial for the preacher to take some of that kind of comfort before starting to his appointment some miles away, nor to repeat it on reaching the scene of his labors before the sermon began. Preachers even could engage in the manufacture of whisky without compromising their character; there was as little disgrace in running a still-house as in managing a grist-mill. Into this feeling, however, Eider Scott never entered, and, on one occasion, after stopping over night with a preaching brother who was the proprietor of a distillery, he gave him a solemn admonition upon the subject and closed by advising him to abandon the business, with the words, "Let the devil boil his own tea-kettle, my brother, and do you preach the gospel."

      He would also warn the people against the common practice of furnishing liquor freely to workmen in harvest time, urging that it was ruinous in the extreme.^a The church at Carthage, which was planted by his labors, at an early period of its history was induced to take strong ground against intemperance. This was done by the passage of a resolution to the [167] effect that she would have no Christian communion with those who used liquor, or with any one who should sell wine or strong drink, except for medicine or the Lord's Supper. This course, brought about by his influence and teaching, was very gratifying, and he expressed his pleasure at the action taken by the church as follows: "This is exceedingly proper, for how can evangelists stand up to plead with a community to obey the gospel, and receive the Holy Spirit, when others, with the name of Christ upon them, stand behind their counters, and make the hearts of the people mad with wine and ardent spirits? The churches have need to cleanse their hands of sin, the coming of the Lord draws nigh."^c

      He fully sympathized with the various temperance organizations, and gave all the aid in his power to their efforts for the suppression of this monster evil, which like a fearful deluge had overwhelmed both pew and pulpit, and threatened to sweep away every virtue and every relic of righteousness. He had no fears that the church would suffer by its members allying themselves with the Sons of Temperance and similar orders, as he thought that no evil could result to religion from virtuous practices.

      But the great question of the day was that of slavery, and was to him, in common with others, one of unbounded extent, interest, and perplexity. He was often called upon to define his position in regard to it, and frequently did so with pen and tongue in public and private. He inclined to the views of the colonizationists, rather than those of the abolitionists, as the former proposed to return the emancipated blacks to their own country, while the latter demanded their instant and absolute liberation, [168] without proposing any means, in his view, by which both master and slave might be able to bear the change with the least injury. There were difficulties in any view of the case; he felt, with the wisest and best men in the nation, that it was an increasing and intolerable evil, and yet difficulties seemed to beset every method of solving it which had been proposed. At one time he wrote: "The manumission of our slave population can be accomplished now only by a means which heaven alone knows--I know it not;" and then adds, "I am no friend to slavery, I deprecate its commencement, I deplore its continuance, and tremble for its issue; but I am silent because I think to speak would be folly. What ought to be said I can not say, and what ought not to be said, I will not say."^c His language is that of perplexity, not of timidity; and this perplexity was shared in a greater or less degree by the most eminent men in the nation; none of them had fallen upon a solution of the then difficult problem--which never was easy of solution until solved--but that he did not live to see.

      The state of perplexity, to which allusion has been made, did not arise from any doubts as to the nature and tendency of slavery, but wholly from the difficulty of getting rid of it; and yet this state of mind, for which there was abundant reason, gave rise to his being called, by a radical and impulsive brother, "an apologist for slavery." To this charge he replied as follows: "Be not surprised, my brother, if I ask where the root of the evil is to be found, and whether slavery is to be associated originally and radically with the Church, or with the State. When men would kill a tree they do not lop off a few of the [169] uppermost boughs as you would, but strike a blow at the root. You are on the house-top. I wish to feel around the foundations, to grapple with the pillars, and to know the length and strength of the things on which the fabric is raised. It is radically a state question, and slavery might exist in the Union even after every disciple of the true gospel had exercised his individual right and freed his slaves on the spot. I assert, then, that the government, and not the church of Christ, is to be blamed for slavery. She did not originate it, she did not propose it, she did not desire it, and she cannot annul it. Hence, slavery is radically a political and not a religious evil. You have so mistaken the state of the case, or the question, that you have dared me to a viva voce defense of slavery as practiced in the United States! I will not defend slavery in any State; it is a political evil, and to defend it would be like defending evil of any other kind. The fact is, the government must be made to act in this affair if we would cure it, and all attempts to remove the disease by any other means is so much time lost."^d This was written some thirty years before emancipation came, but it was effected, as he had said, by the government; the only power, in his judgment, that could remove it.

      Apart, however, from the great work of religious reformation, nothing occupied more of his attention than the subject of education. A thorough scholar, an eminently successful teacher, and at all times a close student, he was well prepared to speak on this important theme.

      For a short period he acted as president of Bacon College, Kentucky,^e and it was, doubtless, his connection with his institution that brought him prominently and favorably before the friends of education [170] in the West. The College of Teachers and Western Literary Institute, which met at Cincinnati, embraced among its members some of the ablest men of the period, many of whom have since achieved a national and even a world-wide reputation. Among them were Samuel Lewis, Dr. Daniel Drake, Joseph Ray, the author of the well known series of arithmetics and algebras, which have found a place in nearly every school and college in the land. Prof. McGuffey, Alex. Campbell, Bishop (now Archbishop) Purcell, A. Kinmont, an accomplished scholar, critic, and author; and Dr. Calvin E. Stowe, Professor of Sacred Literature in Lane Seminary, and son-in-law of Dr. Lyman Beecher, and husband of Harriet Beecher Stowe, of Uncle Tom's Cabin fame. By this association Walter Scott was invited to address them at their anniversary in the autumn of 1837, an invitation which any man, at that time, might have regarded as a compliment.

      He afterward wrote at length upon this subject, and threw much light upon educational science. He anticipated many of the wants of society in this particular, and education has since that time been advancing in the path which he pointed out. He greatly favored teaching by experiment rather than by rote; he deemed it better to address the eye by objects, and collections of specimens from every department of natural history, than to address the ear, as was then the custom, by a recital of their names and properties. He saw, too, that in a country, and under a government like ours, a system different from that of the old world was needed, a system peculiarly national; and, above all, he insisted upon uniting moral with literary and scientific culture. Nor were his labors in vain, and he is worthy to be regarded for his toil, in this field, as a public benefactor. [171]

[LWSA 166-171]