網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

ELIHU BURRITT, THE LEARNED BLACK

SMITH.

As this indefatigable philanthropist will probably visit Great Britain in the course of a few weeks, it will, no doubt, gratify many of our readers to learn something more regarding his history than they may have been able to glean from the newspapers of the day. The following brief sketch of the life of Mr. Elihu Burritt, extracted chiefly from American documents, is from a letter of Dr. Dick, of Dundee, to the "Evangelical Magazine."

Elihu Burritt was born in New Britain, Connecticut, in the year 1811, of honest and respectable parents. He enjoyed the privilege of attending the "District School" for some months every year, till he was sixteen years old; and by his diligence and attention to his studies he became well versed in the elementary branches of an English education, and by cultivating a taste for reading, he acquired much valuable information. When he arrived at the age of sixteen his father died, and he was apprenticed to the trade of a blacksmith; and when the term of his indenture had expired, and he had attained his legal majority, he had gained the reputation of being a young man of good moral and religious character, a skilful workman in his vocation, and one who cherished an ardent attachment for books. The BIBLE was the first book which he thoroughly studied; and at a very early age, he was familiar with almost every passage in the Old and New Testaments. He next availed himself of the opportunity of reading afforded by the "Social Library" in the town in which he lived; and afterwards was dependent on the kindness of his friends. Before he reached the age of twenty-one he was conversant with the English classics, both in prose and poetry, and passed delightfully many of his leisure hours in poring over the pages of Milton, Young, Thompson, Cowper, Addison, &c. In the winter of the year in which he attained his majority, he commenced, under the direction of a brother-in-law, who was an accomplished scholar, the study of mathematics. About the same time he entered on the study of the Latin language, for the purpose of reading Virgil in the original. He soon after turned his attention to French, which he mastered with wonderful facility. He then acquired the Spanish, and afterwards the Greek and German languages. During two winters he devoted nearly all his time to study, but he was occupied a large portion of his time during spring and summer in working at his trade as a blacksmith, and in this exemplary way, acquiring the means of subsistence.

When about twenty-three years old, he accepted an invitation to teach a grammar-school, but this employment did not suit his convenience or his inclination. He was then engaged for a year or two as an agent for a manufacturing company, when he returned to his anvil, and has since been industriously engaged in the honourable occupation of a blacksmith, to which he was apprenticed in his youth; but devotes all his leisure hours to literary pursuits. After having mastered the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages,

and all the languages of modern Europe, he turned his attention to Oriental literature, and in order to avail himself of the facilities afforded by the valuable library of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, he removed to that place, where he has ever since resided, and been regarded as a useful and exemplary citizen. By dint of hard labour, he has become a proficient in the most difficult languages of Asia, and in many of those languages of Europe which are now nearly disused and obsolete-among them are Gaelic, Welsh, Celtic, Saxon, Gothic, Icelandic, Russian, Sclavonic, Armenian, Chaldaic, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, Sanscrit, and Tamul! It was stated, in a public meeting, in 1838, by Governor Everett, that Mr. Burritt by that time, by his unaided industry alone, had made himself acquainted with FIFTY LANGUAGES.-Mr. Burritt shows no disposition to relax from his labours. He usually devotes eight hours to labour, eight hours to study, and eight hours to physical indulgence and repose; and by pursuing this course, he enjoys the advantages vainly coveted by many literary men-those connected with "a sound mind in a healthy body." Nor does he confine his labours to the mere acquisition of literary wealth-he also diffuses it with a liberal hand. He has written many valuable articles for periodicals of high standing; he has delivered many lectures which have been replete with interest and valuable information; and has been repeatedly listened to by large and highly respectable audiences, in New York, Philadelphia, and other places, with edification and delight. He has not yet reached the meridian of life, and it is to be hoped that many years of usefulness are still before him; he is, indeed, a man of whom New England may well be proud.

The following extract from a letter written by Elihu Burritt, in 1839, to Dr. Nelson, a gentleman who had taken some interest in his history, displays the simple, unassuming, earnest character of the man, in a very interesting point of view :

An accidental allusion to my history and pursuits, which I made unthinkingly, in a letter to a friend, was, to my unspeakable surprise, brought before the public as a rather ostentatious débût on my part to the world; and I find myself involved in a species of notoriety, not at all in consonance with my feelings. Those who have been acquainted with my character from my youth up will give me credit for sincerity, when I say, that it never entered my heart to blazon forth any acquisition of my own. I had until the unfortunate denouement which I have mentioned, pursued the even tenor of my way unnoticed, even among my brethren and kindred. None of them ever thought that I had any particular genius, as it is called ; I never thought so myself. All that I have accomplished, or expect or hope to accomplish, has been and will be by that plodding, patient, persevering process of accretion which builds the antheap particle by particle, thought by thought-fact by fact. And if I ever was actuated by ambition, its highest and farthest aspiration reached no farther than the hope to set before the young men of my country an example in employing those fragments of time

called "odd moments." And, Sir, I should esteem it an honour of costlier water than the tiara encircling a monarch's brow, if my future activity and attainments should encourage American working men to be proud and jealous of the credentials which God has given them to every eminence and immunity in the empire of mind. These are the views and sentiments with which I have sat down night by night, for years, with blistered hands and brightening hope, to studies which I hoped might be serviceable to that class of the community to which I am proud to belong. This is my ambition. This is the goal of my aspirations. But, not only the prize, but the whole course lies before me, perhaps beyond my reach. "I count myself not yet to have attained" to anything worthy of public notice or private mention; what I may do is for Providence to determine.

As you expressed a desire in your letter for some account of my past and present pursuits, I shall hope to gratify you on this point, and also rectify a misapprehension which you with many others may have entertained of my acquirements. With regard to my attention to the languages, a study of which I am not so fond as of mathematics, I have tried, by a kind of practical and philosophical process, to contract such a familiar acquaintance with the head of a family of languages, as to introduce me to the other members of the same family. Thus, studying the Hebrew very critically, I have become readily acquainted with its cognate languages, among the principal of which are the Syriac, Chaldaic, Arabic, Samaritan, Ethiopic, &c. The languages of Europe occupied my attention immediately after I had finished my classics; and I studied French, Spanish, Italian, and German under native teachers. Afterwards I pursued the Portuguese, Flemish, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Welsh, Gaelic, Celtic. I then ventured on further east into the Russian empire; and the Sclavonic opened to me about a dozen of the languages spoken in that vast domain, between which the affinity is as marked as that between the Spanish and Portuguese. Besides those, I have attended to many different European dialects still in vogue. I am now trying to push on eastward as fast as my means will permit, hoping to discover still farther analogies among the oriental languages, which will assist my progress.

Amongst his works of philanthropy, Elihu Burritt issues almost weekly 1,000 or 1,200 of his "Olive Leaves" for the press; and, in proof of his powers of writing, we may mention the fact a fact perfectly unparalleled in the annals of periodical literature-that the articles thus forwarded are regularly printed in about three hundred newspapers in various parts of the Union.

AN OLIVE LEAF, FOR THE BRITISH PRESS.

NO. I.

Semina seminans, semino, seminantibus.

GREETING OF TWO MISSIONARY SHIPS. A SCENE ON A HEATHEN

[merged small][graphic]

MR. EDITOR-Will you accede to a humble member of your profession, in America, part of a column among your selected articles, for a few thoughts suggested by the present attitude of our two kindred and Christian nations, in regard to the Oregon question ? I should be grateful to present to your sober-minded readers the following subject of contemplation, which, in a possible contingency, might become a common reality.

War has been declared between the two great Anglo-Saxon nations for a territory, which each would feel too poor to buy, if to take a single infant from its mother's breast and hang it on the gibbet, were the purchase price. There are two proud ships, freighted with armed men, who yesterday were brothers, bearing up to some small seaport on the coast of India. Each has on board half a score of Missionaries, "shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace," and sent in a Government ship to preach the heart-subduing truths of the Christian religion to the benighted Pagan. There, a little way from the shore, is the humble Missionary house, and the old toil-worn Missionary stands with tears of joy in the door, waiting to greet the new band of labourers to the mission field. The native children of his school press round him and share his joy, while their fathers and all the rude heathen of the hills run down to the beach to see the approaching ships. Slowly they near each other and the land, the one bearing in the starry drapery at its mast-head, a gilded eagle, and the other a lion, and on their decks men in black and men in red, but all speaking the same language, professing to be children of the same Heavenly Father. A sign of mutual recognition passes between the two ships, and a hundred doors instantly open in their sides, disclosing rows of large mouthed cannon. Every man on board brandishes a long silver

handled butcher knife or a loaded musket, except the Missionary, who caries a Bible at his side instead of the cartridge-box. A moment of silence ensues, while an American and English minister of the Gospel of peace pray to the God of battles to fight for both the cagle and the lion. Then, like floating volcanoes, the two vessels belch forth at each other from their iron craters fire and smoke and torrents of red lava. Rocking and reeling in the reddened sea, the tall-masted ships approach each other amid the horrid combustion. The tempest of fire and smoke grows more and more terrific. The quick explosion and crash of the iron thunder-bolts; the falling of masts; the cry of fighting and dying men; the groaning of the broken-ribbed ships; the plunge of headless bodies beneath the crimsoned waves; the hoarse braying of the battle trumpet; the oaths and fierce imprecations of maddened human beings, all mingling their hellish echoes in the fiery chaos, are to the unconverted Pagans on shore the sound of the feet which profess to "bring good tidings of great joy to all people." To their unenlightened hearts, this ministration of fire and blood, this scene of mutual butchery, is associated with the ministrations of the Gospel of Jesus Christ-an illustration of international Christianity among Christian nations !-Follow these Missionaries to the shore from the slippery decks of the two dismantled ships. Release them from the law that made them enemies, and let them stand up before the unchristianised natives, and with their shoes full of Christian blood, tell them of the story of the cross, of the peace-breathing doctrines of Jesus; of the spirit of his life and precepts; of his great law of love, which commands his followers to love their enemies; to resist not evil, but to overcome evil with good. How, think you, would such precepts from such lips fall upon Pagan ears? After such a baptism in fire and blood, and burning hate, what element would there remain in the Christian religion to commend it to the hearts of the worshippers of Juggernaut ?

Is this a fancy sketch-American and English Christians? It is but a back-ground lineament, feebly drawn-a minor incident of that great catastrophe imminent upon humanity in this matter of the Oregon territory. If this world is ever to be redeemed from the tyranny of darkness and despotism of sin, it will, it must, be done through the Anglo-Saxon race. A war between England and America, for any cause, would be a war with God, his Gospel, the spirit and precepts of his religion; with all living and future generations of men on the whole earth. The discharge of the first paixhan gun in such a contest would not only sink a ship, but it would sink the whole heathen world to the deepest depths of that moral night in which they groped a century ago! A war between England and America !-it would be the greatest curse that has visited this world since the fall of man!

Worcester, Mass., U.S.A. May 15, 1846.

ELIHU BURRITT.

« 上一頁繼續 »