Recollections of a Long Life: An AutobiographyCuyler, Theodore L. (Theodore Ledyard)
Religion
Recollections of a Long Life: An Autobiography
Cuyler, Theodore L. (Theodore Ledyard)
Clergy -- United States -- Biography; Cuyler, Theodore L. (Theodore Ledyard), 1822-1909
A few months after that Trenton speech in October, 1852, he went to his
Marshfield home to die. His spirits were broken and he was sore from
political disappointments. His last few days were spent in a fight by
his powerful constitution against the inevitable. The last time he
walked feebly from his bed to his window he called out to his servant
man: "I want you to moor my yacht down there where I can see it from my
window; then I want you to hoist the flag at the mast head, and every
night to hang the lamp up in the rigging; when I go down I want to go
down with my colors flying and my lamp burning." He told them to put on
his monument, "Lord, I believe; help Thou my unbelief." In the final
moment he started up from his pillow long enough to say: "I still live."
He does live, and will ever live in the grateful memories of his
countrymen.
While no one can deplore more than the writer the weaknesses and
mistakes of Daniel Webster, yet when I remember his intellectual
prowess and his magnificent services in defense of the Constitution, and
the integrity of our national union, I am ready to say: "Let us to all
his failings and faults be charitably kind and only remember the
glorious services he wrought to the country he loved."
During the summer of 1840, when I was a college student at Princeton, I
went with a friend to the office of the _Log Cabin_, a Whig campaign
newspaper then published in Nassau Street, New York. It was during the
famous Tippecanoe campaign, which resulted in the election of General
Harrison. I was introduced to a singular looking man in rustic dress. He
was writing an editorial. His face had a peculiar infantile smoothness,
and his long flaxen hair fell down over his shoulders. I little dreamed
then that that uncouth man in tow trousers was yet to be the foremost
editor in America, and a candidate, unwisely, for President of the
United States. Horace Greeley, for it was he, who sat before me, has
been often described as a man with the "face of an angel, and the walk
of a clod-hopper." Ten years later I became well acquainted with him,
and from that time a most cordial friendship existed until his dying
day. He visited me as a speaker at our State convention in Trenton, N.Y.
I had him at my house at supper when my mother asked him if he would
take coffee. His droll reply was: "I hope to drink coffee, madame, in
heaven, but I cannot stand it in this world." After supper I informed my
guest that it was customary for my good mother and myself (for I was not
yet married), to have family worship immediately at the close of that
meal and asked him whether he would not join us. He cordially replied
that he would be most happy to do so, and it is quite probable that I
may be one of the few,--perhaps the only--clergyman in this land who
ever had Horace Greeley kneeling beside him in prayer. He attired
himself in the famous old white coat, and shambled along with my mother
to the place of meeting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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