A SON'S PORTRAIT OF FRANCIS E. CLARK
By Eugene F. Clark. The Williston Press. 1930.
In 1922, five years before his death, Francis Clark published his autobiography, under the title Memories of Many Men inMany Lands, An Autobiography. Soon after the death of his father, Eugene Clark began the preparation of a somewhat more condensed and a more intimate life of his father. The manuscript was nearly ready for the press when the untimely death of the son left the last touches of this work to be given by his mother and his younger brother, Sydney.
By condensing the material taken from the Autobiography and by making the main part of the new work extracts from family letters of his father, the son was able to produce a life in briefer and more intimate form. It is, in fact, almost another autobiography, for in the letters we see the father's life as he himself saw it, unfolding and enlarging year by year, and we have a fine picture of the man who, in a life which called him away from home as few men are called, yet was always in spirit in his quiet home, with wife and children, and who, in his longer journeyings, often had one or more of his family as traveling companions.
Gene's fine modesty has led him to refrain from the eulogies of his father which another might well have given, but as we read his clear narrative and catch the spirit of his father's letters, we feel that eulogy is not needed; the life and the man speak more eloquently.
It will surprise many who knew Francis Clark to be told that his father's name was Symmes, and that he was born in Canada. The father had gone there from Massachusetts with his young wife to engage in lumbering. His operations in the Ottawa Country were extensive, but the profits precarious, and his death, when Francis was only three years old, left the mother with little means save their cottage home. For four years his mother carried on bravely with a home school for girls, but when Francis was only seven she saw that her own death was near, and wrote to her brother the Rev. Edward Clark (Dartmouth 1844) a pastor in Auburndale, Mass., asking him, in case of her death, to take her boy into his own childless home. And so it came about that Francis Symmes, legally adopted soon after his mother's death, became Francis Clark, receiving his mother's family name. His life in the new home was in every way a happy one. When he was thirteen years old, Rev. Edward Clark became pastor of a church in Claremont, N. H., and here near Ascutney and Sunapee the boy developed the love for the hills which marked all his later life, and which made it altogether fitting that his son should be one of the first young men to mark the Hanover hills with ski tracks and one of the founders of the Dartmouth Outing Club.
It was natural that Francis Clark should go to the nearby Kimball Union Academy at Meriden to complete his preparation for college. The Academy was then under the famous Dr. Richards, one of the best preparat ory schools in New England. The extracts from the boy's letters from Meriden give an interesting glimpse of those days of plain living and studious work. In his later life Dr. Clark was long Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Academy.
Entering Dartmouth with the class of 1873, young Clark found himself in the largest class that had up to that time entered Dartmouth; about one fourth of his class were Meriden classmates. The chapter on the life at Dartmouth is a welcome and picturesque addition to our literature of Dartmouth in the seventies. At college the young man was already trying his hand at journalism, not only in the editorial chairs of the Dartmouth and the Anvil, but as correspondent for several Boston papers.
For some time Francis Clark hesitated between the choice of journalism and the christian ministry as a profession, but his whole heart was in christian service; his home influences and those of the Academy and the College had all tended in this direction; he seems never to have questioned the wisdom of his final choice in entering Andover Theological Seminary in the year of his graduation from College. He found the Andover faculty at its best, and the three years there gave rapid growth. But Andover's greatest gift to him was the love of the gentle lady of Andover Hill who was to go out with him to share his life work with rare ability and sympathy, and whose hand has given some of the finishing touches to Gene's volume.
It was in Dr. Clark's first pastorate, at Williston Church, Portland, Me., that a little gathering of young people in the pastor's home, in 1881, became the seed that was to grow into the world-wide Christian Endeavor movement. There had, of course, been numerous young people's societies in the churches, but they had remained local and of no great significance. Two things gave to the Society of Christian Endeavor, its rapid growth and its splendid influence: first, the insistence on certain fundamental principles. These were formulated by Dr. Clark when he became head of the national society: "First; the society was not to be independent of the church, but an integral part of it. Second; it was to be undenominational. Third; the purely religious features must be paramount. Fourth; it must sympathize with all true moral reforms, with wise philanthropic measures and with miss ions at home and abroad. Fifth; it must be managed economically with no large number of paid agents or Christian Endeavor missionaries; and Sixth; the officers must have the sympathetic support of the state and local unions." The second cause of the rapid and safe development of the movement was the devotion of a remarkably wise and en- tirely unselfish man to its leadership. For after a few years it became evident that the Society must have all of Dr. Clark's time and strength. His pastorates, one of seven years in Portland and one of four years at Phillips Church, South Boston, had been abundantly successful. But in 1887, six years after the first little society had been formed, at the time of a convention of 2,000 delegates at Saratoga, he became President of the United Society, and for thirty-eight years his was the guiding hand upon the world wide movement.
It had early become evident that the society must have a newspaper organ. Dr. Clark and two friends were able, with borrowed money, to buy out a Boston religious paper. Wise" management and the universal circulation of the paper among the young people of the Society, soon made it a sound investment, and Dr. Clark was able, refusing any salary whatever from the Society, to meet his personal and family expenses and to finance nearly all of his journeys by his share of the income from the paper, and by the proceeds of his numerous books—for, although he had renounced journalism as a profession, he was always a journalist and author.
A large section of Eugene's volume is given to an account of his father's travels. Conventions of the Society called him from coast to coast of this country. Then as the society spread into foreign churches and into the most remote mission fields, Dr. Clark's personal visits became both inspiration and unifying influence. Those journeyings brought him into intimate acquaintance with religious leaders the world over. The chapters on his travels are made up largely of extracts from his home letters—bright, cheerful, full of interest in sea and mountains. There were many hardships of tropical travel, and a pressure of speaking appointments that seem more than any man could have borne. In fact the strain was too great, and several times Dr. Clark was obliged to take refuge in a sanitarium. The wonder is that he was able to endure the pressure so long.
In one interesting Chapter on the Christian Endeavor Conventions through which the head of the movement exerted so much of his influence, we learn that it was his custom to urge someone thought as central for the coming year. Such keynotes in successive years were: Good Citizenship, Missions, The Responsibilities of Success. At a Washington convention in 1896 the son of Webster's alma mater very happily parodied the famous speech, giving as his message: "Fidelity and Fellowship, one and inseparable; Loyalty and Brotherhood, one and inseparable; Obedience and Independence, one and inseparable; Christian Citizenship and Christian Missions, one and inseparable; Organization and Spiritual Power, one and inseparable."
The World War was peculiarly trying to Dr. Clark, for he had been often in Germany and had formed the closest attachment to religious circles there. Of this period his son writes: "Of necessity his point of view was international, and to the end of his life he regretted that the United States had not joined the League of Nations, to contribute its quota to the welfare and stabilizing of the world. The World War did not sweep him off his balance, although he was convinced of the necessity that the Allies should win, and realized that in entering it the United States was only doing the inevitable. He had so many friends in the countries classified as enemy, and knew so well the inherent soundness of Germany, that he could not subscribe to the chorus of hatred and abuse of all things German that swept the country. From the beginning he was able to distinguish between the real Germany and those who were for the time being controlling its destiny. The horror and suffering and destruction of the war and the prostration of Europe after it left him a rather pronounced pacifist, and an ardent supporter of all movements looking toward disarmament or international cooperation." It may be added that Dr. Clark was a personal friend and sincere admirer of Woodrow Wilson. Of the Peace Treaty, Dr. Clark writes in May, 1919: "I am much disappointed in the Peace Treaty, and think it too harsh and a breeder of wars, but still have hope in the League of Nations, though that is dimming a little. I havfe received some very fine letters from Taft and .others for my efforts for the League at the many Christian Endeavor conventions I have attended lately."
The Chapters on Home Life and Sagamore Days give a charming picture of Dr. Clark in his too brief months of vacation at the little farm on the Cape where he had transformed an old farmhouse, and made it the gathering place of children and grandchildren. Always a lover of nature, here he found delight in his experiments in farming and in his few farm animals, and in the friendship of the people of the countryside. The winter home was in Auburndale and later in Boston.
The final Chapter of this volume is by Gene's younger brother, Sydney. It is at the same time an intimate picture of the beautiful home life of the family, and a touching tribute to the elder brother, whose work was left to him to finish. He says, "As regards this book it devolves upon a younger brother to conclude it so far as possible along the lines that Gene would have followed. It is my understanding that he wished to touch up his serious biography with a brief account of the family life, which unquestionably revolved around Francis E. Clark as planets revolve around the sunan account which should make up in informal color and human feeling what it might lack in dignity. I am sure of this much, that Gene would want me to write this account cheerfully with no overawing shadow of his tragic death to mar or darken it."
In this Chapter we read how a father who was one of the most persistent travelers of his time, yet remained the center of his own home and the companion of his four children. Here, too, we find what is ever present in Gene's account, an appreciation of the wonderful life of the little mother. "She was," says Sydney, "in all ways the one perfect mate, partner, lieutenant (there ought to be a better word than any of these) for all father's activities and not least for his activities in family building. Without her I doubt very much if father would have rounded out anywhere near his three score years and ten or would have achieved onehalf of what he did achieve. And the family life I know would not have been so full or bright."
O Of Gene, his brother says: "Gene was very conservative, so conservative that we brothers enjoyed twitting him on it, but with this ingrained conservatism was a sense of humor that bowled everything before it. ... I can think of no finer, happier combination of characteristics than a solid, genuine conservatism, and humor of the first rank." The account of Gene's services to the Dartmouth Alumni and the tender tribute to his character are a fitting close to a volume which records the life of one of Dartmouth's greatest alumni, by a son who, even in his short life, had served his alma mater as few men have done.
