CHAPTER IX

TAPPAN, G. W. DOANE, SEARS,

WATERBURY

WILLIAM BINGHAM TAPPAN

1794-1849

ONE day, in the year 1815, when the lumbering mail coach from New York rolled into Philadelphia, there alighted a young fellow by the name of Tappan. He was a stranger, twentyone years old, looking for work in making and repairing clocks. No one to have seen him would have dreamed that he would make any sort of impress on the world; still less would they have thought so if they had known his meager preparation for an important work in life. And yet this young man sent out no less than ten volumes of poetry, and while most of it was commonplace, there were several sacred pieces which now, after a hundred years, are still widely sung in the churches, and are likely to be prized for a long time to come. And furthermore, as an evangelist and Sunday school worker, both east and west, he made a valuable contribution to the advancement of the Kingdom.

William B. Tappan was born in Beverley, Massachusetts, in 1794. Twelve years later his

father died, and as was usual with boys of limited means in those days, he at once started out to earn his own living. He was apprenticed to a clockmaker in Boston, with whom he spent the next nine years. As he grew up he fell in with evil companions, and only the appeals and prayers of a godly mother saved him from a thoroughly bad life. He was restless at his trade, and the moment he was twenty-one and the fetters of his apprenticeship were broken, he determined to get far away from his old surroundings, and therefore started out on what was then the very long journey to Philadelphia. worked at the clock-bench for a while, but was not contented. Ever since his boyhood he had longed to be a student and a writer, but he had been hindered at every step. All told he had attended school only six months, and the most that he knew was what his father had taught him at home, and what he himself had picked up from industrious reading in spare moments.

He

As soon as possible he gave up his trade and turned to general study and literary pursuits. In 1819 he published his first book, New England and Other Poems. We are especially interested in this little volume, for it contains a piece entitled "Heaven, a Place of Rest." Years afterward, referring to this poem, the author said: "It was written by me in Philadelphia, in the

summer of 1818, for the Franklin Gazette, edited by Richard Bache, Esq., and was introduced by him to the public in terms sufficiently flattering to a young man who then certainly lacked confidence in himself. The piece was republished in England and on the Continent, in various newspapers and magazines, and was also extensively circulated in my own native land." Excepting the second stanza it is widely sung at the present time:

"There is an hour of peaceful rest,

To mourning wanderers given;
There is a joy for souls distressed,
A balm for every wounded breast,
'Tis found above-in heaven.

"There is a soft, a downy bed,

Far from these shades of even-
A couch for weary mortals spread,
Where they may rest the aching head
And find repose-in heaven.

"There is a home for weary souls
By sin and sorrow driven,

When tossed on life's tempestuous shoals,
Where storms arise and ocean rolls,
And all is drear-'tis heaven.

"There faith lifts up the tearless eye
To brighter prospects given;
And views the tempest passing by,
The evening shadows quickly fly,
And all serene-in heaven.

"There fragrant flowers immortal bloom,
And joys supreme are given;
There rays divine disperse the gloom:
Beyond the confines of the tomb

Appears the dawn-of heaven."

Encouraged by his first literary venture, in 1822 Mr. Tappan sent out a second volume of poems. Here we find those lines of subdued, tender solemnity:

""Tis midnight; and on Olives' brow

The star is dimmed that lately shone: 'Tis midnight; in the garden now,

The suffering Saviour prays alone."

This hymn, entitled "Gethsemane," has long been accepted as a worthy member of the select family of Passion hymns. As sung to the plaintive melody by William B. Bradbury, with which it is familiarly associated, it has had an extensive use.

When Nettleton's Village Hymns appeared in 1824, they included one on "Love," by Tappan. Now almost forgotten, it was once quite popular, and Professor F. M. Bird was inclined to give it first place among Tappan's hymns. Whatever its relative merit, it deserves to be brought out of its obscurity and quoted in this connection: "The ransomed spirit to her home,

The clime of cloudless beauty, flies;
No more on stormy seas to roam,
She hails her heaven in the skies:

But cheerless are those heavenly fields,
The cloudless clime no pleasure yields,
There is no bliss in bowers above,
If thou art absent, HOLY LOVE!

"The Cherub near the viewless throne

Hath smote the harp with trembling hand;
And One with incense-fire hath flown,

To touch with flame the angel-band:
But tuneless is the quivering string,
No melody can Gabriel bring,
Mute are its arches when above,
The harps of heaven wake not to LOVE!

"Earth, sea, and sky one language speak,
In harmony that soothes the soul;
'Tis heard when scarce the zephyrs wake,
And when on thunders, thunders roll:
That voice is heard and tumults cease,
It whispers to the bosom peace;
O, speak, Inspirer! from above,
And cheer our hearts, CELESTIAL LOVE!

Tappan's best hymns were all written in his early manhood. In 1826 he accepted a position with the newly organized American Sunday School Union, which he retained to the close of his life. To increase his opportunity for doing good, in 1841 he was licensed as a Congregational minister. Both east and west he rendered valuable service for the Master. Death came sud

denly, from cholera, in 1849.