The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1871-09-26
ROBERT COILYER.

ROBERT COLLIER.
We find in Frank Leslie the following
sketch of the great pulpit orator of Chica-
go, Robert Collyer, with very bad pic
ture, which does no justice to his noble,
beaning face. His example is full of in
struction and hope to our working-men.
Improving in study the hours so often vast
cd, he has won a place in the very front
rank of men. Grand in power of brain, as
in the virtues of the heart, we may we'll
point with pride to Robert Collyer as a
proof the divine nobleness of that labor by
which he was disciplined to symmetric
manhood, rarely won in the enervating
spheres Of classic culture:
1t is singular that the great opponent of
theatres, who waged bloody and eflectual
war against Wycherly and Vanbrugh--and
the principle modern pulpit-defender of
theatres--should both have borne the family
name Of Collyer.
In 1850 there emigrated to this country,
as Methodist exhorter, the subject of this
portrait. Like many among the Wesley
ans, he combined worldly trade with his
spiritual profession, and labored hard at
the anvil on week-days. His first location
was at Shoeinakertown, in Pennsylvania,
where he was permitted to act as " local
preacher" This position he held for ten
years, and his salary was certainly not such
as to lead to any worldly competition for
the place. 1t amounted, according to him.
self, to !" one almanac, various little house,
hold necessaries, and ten dollars in money!"
No wonder Mr.. Collyer's biographer says
it was usual for licensed exhorters to find
themselves
But during all these years of hard mus
cular work of the anvil this embryo orator
had been schooling himself. His alma MAJ
ter was his room at night and all the good
books he could find.
enough in the volumes he perused. His Or
thodoxy became tainted. The Methodists
suspected him as much as anything for the
company he kept. For, says his biogra-
pher:
during the last years of his blacksmith
lie he became acquainted with the sanity
Quakeress Lucretia Mott, and the we'll
known philanthropist DR.. Furness, whose
views he found to be more in harmony with
his own; and having accepted generous
invitation ofthe latter to preach in his pulpit,
Mr.. Collyer was, in January, $50, brought
up for heresy by the conference, and refus-
ed q renewal of his license as preacher
on the following grounds: That he could not
believe in eternal punishment, nor in total
human depravity, nor in the damnation
OF a good man because he does not believe
in the Trinity. In February of the same
year, the Chicago ministry at large being in
need OF an earnest and unsectarian worker.
he was recommended to the place in noble
letter from DIR. Furness, the Unitarian
pulpit of that city being then vacant.
Mr.. Collyer was invited to supply it the
first Sunday after his arrival. The writer
OF this sketch was one of the happy few
who heard from his lips that day the first
of those tender and touching discourses.
which, with his subsequent labors for his
tellow-men, stamp him to-day as the fore
most man of the Unitarian denomination.
Never shall | forget the impression. the
magnetism, if | may be allowed the word.
of this plain mans presence upon
the minds Of few earnest men
and women, who, for the first
time in their lives, heard a sermon
free from all distractions, charged with
hOmilV practical wisdom aho,md;no IA
oan,;ne ,ioat,,r GU ~ T.. t. III
oii,'-'0 p1o.iy iuii Vi tcliuer nuinan SYM
pathy, ana containing, as 1t seemed to each
fcr b;e ct,roorl;nos so,,l M ao0iien'
~ = III ''l eoui. Inc chtircn III
WHICH he preached being then disturbed by
political differences. some thirty or FORTY or
ne o,,;otl,, iii, ,t,o,,, 81 ;,s:aS, Vi
10 Nit'0eiy "ionhe" anu HiYiteu MT. COllyer
10 become our preacher. From that little
seed has ripened am abundant harvest and