Part 11

In 1889, after the close of his Topsham pastorate, he resumed full pastoral care of the Harpswell church, which had been served by others during his work elsewhere, and there he remained until God called him home. It was a wonder to us all how this venerable man, with the infirmities of extreme old age creeping upon him, could still keep on preaching in his eighty-eighth year, two sermons each Sunday, and ministering as a pastor to his flock.

His last visit to Portland was during “the Old Home week” in August, 1900. He opened the festivities of that notable week by preaching Sunday morning in this Second Parish church, upon invitation of its pastor, and preaching again in the evening of that day at Yarmouth; returning Monday morning to the residence of his niece in the old homestead of his honored father, the first pastor of this Second Parish church, who died in that historic house on Cumberland Street in 1842, aged eighty years.

Elijah Kellogg married, after the age of forty, Hannah Pomeroy, the daughter of the Rev. Thaddeus Pomeroy, pastor at Gorham, Maine, from 1832 to 1839. Two children survive this union, both residing in Melrose Highlands, Massachusetts, Frank Gilman Kellogg and Mary Catherine, the wife of Mr. Harry Batchelder. I was called to officiate at the funeral service of their mother in the Cumberland home referred to, and rode to the grave with her sorrowing husband. Returning from the cemetery, the aged, grief-stricken man, said, “Now I will return to my home to be alone with my God.” His words have been living in my memory ever since. They implied that he was sure of finding the God of all comfort in that secluded and desolated home on Harpswell’s shore. Who doubts but the God we love dwelt there with his aged servant, strengthening and supporting him in his loneliness and sorrow?

His children desired greatly to have their father with them in their pleasant homes, but he chose to dwell among the people whom God gave him to serve unto the end. “I will die in the harness,” he would say, in answer to their appeals. I have from the lips of his son the words of the last prayer he was heard to offer some days before his death. “I thank God for a Christian mother, who consecrated me to Christ and the Christian ministry,”--the prayer was followed by his repeating of the twenty-third Psalm.... Just before Elijah Kellogg passed away from earth, he delivered this touching message for his Harpswell flock, “I want to send my love to all these people.” Having loved his own, like his dear Lord, he loved them unto the end. Yesterday the message was delivered to them by Professor Chapman in his funeral discourse. The very last words of this venerable man of God, this faithful shepherd of God’s people, were, “I am so thankful.”

Let us not attempt to interpret the words; they teach us that his Christian heart was overflowing with gratitude to God. He was dying in a good old age, his children around him, his people near him. He was gathered to his fathers after a long, faithful, heroic, and noble life. He leaves with us a most precious and a most blessed memory. Our hearts, too, are full of gratitude to God for the life of Elijah Kellogg on earth.

DECLAMATIONS

SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS

It had been a day of triumph in Capua. Lentulus, returning with victorious eagles, had amused the populace with the sports of the amphitheatre to an extent hitherto unknown even in that luxurious city. The shouts of revelry had died away; the roar of the lion had ceased; the last loiterer had retired from the banquet; and the lights in the palace of the victor were extinguished. The moon, piercing the tissue of fleecy clouds, silvered the dewdrop on the corselet of the Roman sentinel, and tipped the dark waters of Volturnus with wavy, tremulous light. It was a night of holy calm, when the zephyr sways the young spring leaves, and whispers among the hollow reeds its dreamy music. No sound was heard but the last sob of some weary wave, telling its story to the smooth pebbles of the beach, and then all was still as the breast when the spirit has departed.

In the deep recesses of the amphitheatre a band of gladiators were crowded together,--their muscles still knotted with the agony of conflict, the foam upon their lips, and the scowl of battle yet lingering upon their brows,--when Spartacus, rising in the midst of that grim assemblage, thus addressed them:--

“Ye call me chief, and ye do well to call him chief who, for twelve long years, has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast that the broad Empire of Rome could furnish, and has never yet lowered his arm. And if there be one among you who can say that, ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him step forth and say it. If there be three in all your throng dare face me on the bloody sand, let them come on!

“Yet I was not always thus, a hired butcher, a savage chief of still more savage men. My father was a reverent man, who feared great Jupiter, and brought to the rural deities his offerings of fruits and flowers. He dwelt among the vineclad rocks and olive groves at the foot of Helicon. My early life ran quiet as the brook by which I sported. I was taught to prune the vine, to tend the flock; and, at noon, I gathered my sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd’s flute. I had a friend, the son of our neighbor; we led our flocks to the same pasture, and shared together our rustic meal. “One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle that shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra, and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war meant; but my cheeks burned, I knew not why; and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, till my mother, parting the hair from off my brow, kissed my throbbing temples, and bade me go to rest and think no more of those old tales and savage wars. And, methinks, if I could look on something other than warrior’s harness and the blinding glare of burnished steel, and hear some other sound than death groans and armor clangs, could I but lay these throbbing temples upon the soft green turf beside my native brook, and let my hand hang over the bank into its blessed current, and feel the broad sweep of its waters, while the leaves danced over me, methinks that I could heave this cursed crust from off my heart and be again a child. Yes, a child, a child! But what have I to do with thoughts like these? I do forget my story.

“That very night the Romans landed on our shore, and the clash of steel was heard within our quiet vale. I saw the breast that had nourished me trampled by the iron hoof of the war-horse; the bleeding body of my father flung amid the blazing rafters of our dwelling. To-day I killed a man in the arena, and when I broke his helmet-clasps, behold! he was my friend! He knew me,--smiled faintly,--gasped,--and died; the same sweet smile that I had marked upon his face when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled some lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in childish triumph. I told the prætor he was my friend, noble and brave, and I begged his body, that I might burn it upon the funeral-pile, and mourn over his ashes. Ay, on my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arena, I begged that boon, while all the Roman maids and matrons, and those holy virgins they call vestal, and the rabble, shouted in mockery, deeming it rare sport, forsooth, to see Rome’s fiercest gladiator turn pale, and tremble like a very child before that piece of bleeding clay; but the prætor drew back as if I were pollution, and sternly said: ’Let the carrion rot! There are no noble men but Romans!’ And he, deprived of funeral rites, must wander, a hapless ghost, beside the waters of that sluggish river, and look--and look--and look in vain to the bright Elysian Fields where dwell his ancestors and noble kindred. And so must you, and so must I, die like dogs!

“O Rome! Rome! thou hast been a tender nurse to me! Ay, thou hast given to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd-lad, who never knew a harsher sound than a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to drive the sword through rugged brass and plaited mail, and warm it in the marrow of his foe! to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Numidian lion, even as a smooth-cheeked boy upon a laughing girl. And he shall pay thee back till thy yellow Tiber is red as frothing wine, and in its deepest ooze thy lifeblood lies curdled!

“Ye stand here now like giants, as ye are! The strength of brass as in your toughened sinews; but to-morrow some Roman Adonis, breathing sweet odors from his curly locks, shall come, and with his lily fingers pat your brawny shoulders, and bet his sesterces upon your blood! Hark! Hear ye yon lion roaring in his den? ’Tis three days since he tasted meat; but to-morrow he shall break his fast upon your flesh; and ye shall be a dainty meal for him.

“If ye are brutes, then stand here like fat oxen waiting for the butcher’s knife; if ye are men, follow me! strike down yon sentinel, and gain the mountain-passes, and there do bloody work as did your sires at old Thermopylæ! Is Sparta dead? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins, that ye do crouch and cower like base-born slaves beneath your master’s lash? O comrades! warriors! Thracians! if we must fight, let us fight for ourselves; if we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors; if we must die, let us die under the open sky, by the bright waters, in noble, honorable battle.”

REGULUS TO THE CARTHAGINIANS

The beams of the rising sun had gilded the lofty domes of Carthage, and given, with its rich and mellow light, a tinge of beauty even to the frowning ramparts of the outer harbor. Sheltered by the verdant shores, an hundred triremes were riding proudly at their anchors, their brazen beaks glittering in the sun, their streamers dancing in the morning breeze, while many a shattered plank and timber gave evidence of desperate conflict with the fleets of Rome.

No murmur of business or of revelry arose from the city. The artisan had forsaken his shop, the judge his tribunal, the priest the sanctuary, and even the stern stoic had come forth from his retirement to mingle with the crowd that, anxious and agitated, were rushing toward the senate house, startled by the report that Regulus had returned to Carthage.

Onward, still onward, trampling each other under foot, they rushed, furious with anger and eager for revenge. Fathers were there whose sons were groaning in Roman fetters; maidens whose lovers, weak and wounded, were dying in the distant dungeons of Rome; and gray-haired men and matrons whom Roman steel had left childless.

But when the stern features of Regulus were seen, and his colossal form towering above the ambassadors who had returned with him from Rome; when the news passed from lip to lip that the dreaded warrior, so far from advising the Roman senate to consent to an exchange of prisoners, had urged them to pursue, with exterminating vengeance, Carthage and the Carthaginians,--the multitude swayed to and fro like a forest beneath a tempest, and the rage and hate of that tumultuous throng vented itself in groans, and curses, and yells of vengeance. But calm, cold, and immovable as the marble walls around him, stood Regulus the Roman; and he stretched out his hand over that frenzied crowd, with gesture as proudly commanding as though he still stood at the head of the gleaming cohorts of Rome.

The tumult ceased; the curse, half muttered, died upon the lip; and so intense was the silence that the clanking of the brazen manacles upon the wrists of the captive fell sharp and full upon every ear in that vast assembly, as he thus addressed them:--

“Ye doubtless thought--for ye judge of Roman virtue by your own--that I would break my plighted oath, rather than, returning, brook your vengeance. I might give reasons for this, in Punic comprehension, most foolish act of mine. I might speak of those eternal principles which make death for one’s country a pleasure, not a pain. But, by great Jupiter! methinks I should debase myself to talk of such high things to you; to you, expert in womanly inventions; to you, well skilled to drive a treacherous trade with simple Africans for ivory and gold! If the bright blood that fills my veins, transmitted free from godlike ancestry, were like that slimy ooze which stagnates in your arteries, I had remained at home and broken my plighted oath to save my life.

“I am a Roman citizen; therefore have I returned, that ye might work your will upon this mass of flesh and bones which I esteem no higher than the rags that cover them. Here, in your capital, do I defy you. Have I not conquered your armies, fired your towns, and dragged your generals at my chariot wheels, since first my youthful arms could wield a spear? And do you think to see me crouch and cower before a tamed and shattered senate? The tearing of flesh and the rending of sinews are but pastime compared with the mental agony that heaves my frame.

“The moon has scarce yet waned since the proudest of Rome’s proud matrons, the mother upon whose breast I slept, and whose fair brow so oft had bent over me before the noise of battle had stirred my blood, or the fierce toil of war nerved my sinews, did with the fondest memory of bygone hours entreat me to remain. I have seen her, who, when my country called me to the field, did buckle on my harness with trembling hands, while the tears fell thick and fast down the hard corselet scales,--I have seen her tear her gray locks and beat her aged breast, as on her knees she begged me not to return to Carthage; and all the assembled senate of Rome, grave and reverend men, proffered the same request. The puny torments which ye have in store to welcome me withal shall be, to what I have endured, even as the murmur of a summer’s brook to the fierce roar of angry surges on a rocky beach.

“Last night, as I lay fettered in my dungeon, I heard a strange ominous sound; it seemed like the distant march of some vast army, their harness clanging as they marched, when suddenly there stood by me Xanthippus, the Spartan general, by whose aid you conquered me, and, with a voice low as when the solemn wind moans through the leafless forest, he thus addressed me: ’Roman, I come to bid thee curse, with thy dying breath, this fated city; know that in an evil moment, the Carthaginian generals, furious with rage that I had conquered thee, their conqueror, did basely murder me. And then they thought to stain my brightest honor. But, for this foul deed, the wrath of Jove shall rest upon them here and hereafter.’ And then he vanished.

“And now, go bring your sharpest torments. The woes I see impending over this guilty realm shall be enough to sweeten death, though every nerve and artery were a shooting pang. I die! but my death shall prove a proud triumph; and, for every drop of blood ye from my veins do draw, your own shall flow in rivers. Woe to thee, Carthage! Woe to the proud city of the waters! I see thy nobles wailing at the feet of Roman senators! thy citizens in terror! thy ships in flames! I hear the victorious shouts of Rome! I see her eagles glittering on her ramparts. Proud city, thou art doomed! The curse of Jove is on thee--a clinging, wasting curse. It shall not leave thy gates till hungry flames shall lick the fretted gold from off thy proud palaces, and every brook runs crimson to the sea.”

HANNIBAL AT THE ALTAR

The last rays of the setting sun lingered on the towers of Carthage, and tinged with a warm flush the snowy crests of the waves that flung their gray foam to its very ramparts. Laughing maidens, bearing their pitchers from the fountains, assembled at the gates; tired camels that all day long had borne from distant and tributary realms vestments of purple, fragrant gums, and dust of gold, released from their burdens, were feeding beneath the walls; while from the deck of many a galley the slave’s rude song floated on the evening air.

In a quiet vale, secluded, yet not distant from the city, beneath the shadow of a palm, reclines a lovely woman; the low-voiced summer wind, stirring the citron groves, has lulled her to rest. The ripe grapes from a pendent vine almost touch her swelling breast. The spray of a neighboring fountain falls in minute drops, like tears of pearl, on her cheek, while a beautiful boy, tired with play, has nestled to her side, half hidden by her flowing locks.

Hurried footsteps are heard in the distance, a heavy hand puts aside the branches, and Hamilcar, the chieftain of the Carthaginian armies, stands beneath the shadow of the palm; as he bends forward to look upon his slumbering wife, a ripe grape, shaken by the plume of his helmet from the cluster, falls upon the face of the sleeper, and she awakes. Bright tears of pride and joy glitter in her dark eyes, as, seated at his feet among the flowers, her white arm flung in careless happiness across his sinewy knees and throbbing in his gauntleted grasp, she gazes on the towering form and noble brow on which the stern traces of recent conflict still linger. Tempests have bronzed his cheek, desperate and bloody conflicts left their scars upon him; yet is he not less dear to her than when in joy of youth they crowned the altars of the gods with flowers, sporting among the sheaves at harvest home. Thus she speaks:--

“My lord, is it disaster or business of the State that brings you here? Your eye is troubled, and these iron fingers too rudely press my flesh, as though your thoughts were dark and fraught with doubt or danger.”

“I have left the camp to make good a purpose long since known to thee, to devote with sacred rites this boy at the altar of Mars, and pledge him to eternal enmity with Rome.”

“Is this the weighty business which brings thee at this twilight and unaccustomed hour, thine armor soiled with dust, thy brow with sweat, in such fierce haste to pluck this fair child from his mother’s breast, and train him up to slaughter? Strange that this great empire, so full of men and arms and fleets of war, should need the arm of childhood to protect it. Stern man, thou lovest me not.”

“Why question thus my love? For as this breastplate does my heart defend, so have I cherished and protected thee, while in thy fragile beauty thou hast clung around the warrior’s stubborn strength, even as that wreathing vine doth yonder citron clasp, adorning its protector; but little dost thou know, fair wife, of the affairs of nations and of camps. Beneath these shades where the cool zephyr from Trinacrian hills breathes through spicy groves thou hast reposed; no tear has stained thy cheek except the fountain’s pearly drops that glistened there when I thy sleep disturbed.

“Not thus my path has lain; too well I know the Roman’s iron strength; in times of truce and intervals of conflict I have seen his daily life and marked his customs well. Poverty, at Carthage a disgrace, he but rejoices in. The water of the brook to quench his thirst, the dry leaves for his bed, and bread of simplest preparation supply his wants. Then, as the fierce she-wolf whose dugs nourished his ancestors doth raven for her whelps, so goes he forth to plunder and to prey among the nations, and, for the sake of stealing that which stolen is not worth the keeping, will life and fortune set upon a cast. Show to a Roman senate some patch of sand within mid-Africa, some waste of Alpine rocks, white with eternal snows, where, famished peasants watch their starving flocks and wrestle with the avalanche for life; did Phlegethon with all his burning waves the wretched pittance guard, and fierce Eumenides beleaguer all the shore, yet would a Roman consul dare the flood, do battle with the lion for his sands, and slay the shivering goatherd for his rocks.

“The Romans turn their greedy eyes toward these fair realms; they seek to lay in ashes these ancestral towers, where whatsoever piety reveres, memory recalls, or old affection cherishes, is garnered and bestowed, nor will they pause till every wave of this encircling sea, crimsoned with the gore of matrons, of aged men, and even of the laughing and unconscious babe, shall roll its bloody burden to the shore.

“Most unequal is the conflict. The men who reared these towers and moistened with their blood these battlements are not; in their stead has come a race of petty shopkeepers and sycophants, having no inner life, no haughty purpose or generous resolve, no strength to keep what their forefathers won. The streets are thronged with youths whose dainty limbs are clad in flowing and embroidered robes, whose jewelled fingers are skilful to touch the lyre, but not to press the war-horse through ranks of thronging spearmen, to draw the Numidian arrow to the head, and dip its thirsty point in hostile blood. The rest are veterans gray with years, and most unfit for service, like the shepherd’s dog that, stiff with age and pampered with good living, erects his hair and shows his toothless jaws, making in vain a noble front before the gaunt and wiry wolf.

“Our only hope is in the legions I have drawn from Spain, and trained in foreign wars to conflict. But my step, once lighter than the brindled tigers on the Libyan sands, grows heavy with weight of years and hardships. Were I to fall, armies would lack a leader, my country one who loves her better than himself, or wife, or child. But the blood that mantles in this boy’s cheek is that of heroes; thine ancestors and mine were chieftains of the olden time; and when the lion shall breed sheep will I believe that any of our race and lineage can ever fail their country in her hour of need. Therefore, despite thy tears, mine own affection, and his tender age, from off thy bosom will I take this child and as the lion brings his whelps afield with claws half-grown and trains them on the hunters, so will I him. It is not what we choose, but what our country needs, and sacred liberty requires, that we must do, though in the conflict our own heartstrings break. He shall be the enemy of Rome in soul and body and in secret thought. He shall not feed on dainties and sleep on Tyrian purple till he becomes the object of men’s sneers. The panther’s shaggy hide, the forest leaves, the dry bed of some mountain brook, shall be his couch, while on my corselet scales his cheek shall rest,--the soldier’s iron pillow; and when with growing strength and hardihood his bones endure the harness, behind his father’s buckler he shall learn to fight and bathe his maiden sword in blood.”

At the altar of Mars, surrounded by a vast throng of citizens, soldiery, and chief estates of the realm, stands Hamilcar; his helmet down conceals his features from the crowd. On the opposite side of the altar are his wife and her maidens; at his side the child. Placing his little fingers on the yet quivering flesh of the victim, he said: “Hannibal, son of Hamilcar, swear, by this consecrated blood, and in the presence of that dread God of battles on whose altar it smokes, that you will neither love nor make peace with any of Roman blood; should fortune, friends, and weapons fail, you will still live and die the inexorable enemy of Rome.”

As he paused, the clear tones of that childish voice, answering, “I swear,” rose upon a stillness so deep that the low crackling of the flames that fed the altar-fires were distinctly audible.

It was broken by one wild shriek of agony, as the frantic mother fell fainting into the arms of her maidens.