Some Interviews With Charles G. Finney
By William C. Cochran, '69
My first real acquaintance with Charles G. Finney began when I was nine years old. I was visiting him at the time. He seemed to take delight in taking me with him when he drove about to make calls on his out-of-town parishioners, or walked about town. Everywhere we went he called attention to his grandson "Willie." All of the women and some of the men proceeded to kiss me, which I did not like at all.
One day we went to James Fitch's book store and I remained outside looking at books in the show window while he went in to transact some business. Among the books was a copy of Robinson Crusoe, bound in red muslin, with gilt filagree on the back and a gilt representation of Robinson and his umbrella at the top. I was so interested in this that I did not know how time was passing until grandfather tapped me on the shoulder and said it was time to go home. On the way home I said, "Grandpa, I wish I owned that Robinson Crusoe in Mr. Fitch's window." He said, "Why, Willie, don't you know the tenth commandment?" I said "yes." "Well, repeat it." I did so. "Don't you see," he continued, "that it is wrong to want things which belong to others?" "But, Grandpa," I said, with all earnestness, "doesn't Mr. Fitch keep books on purpose to sell?" The only answer to this was a sound like that made by a boy eating a very juicy pear. It was a sound I often heard in after life when he was particularly pleased, or amused, with some chance remark. He took me home, left me in the house, walked back to Fitch's book store, bought the Robinson Crusoe and presented it to me. He rather encouraged debate. I did not always fare so well when debating with my parents and others.
I boarded with my grandfather the last three years I was in college. I was supposed to pay for it by sawing and splitting wood for the kitchen stove, attending to the wood-burning furnace, working in the garden, hoeing corn, digging potatoes, picking fruit, washing his carriage, and doing other light chores about the house and yard. The wood furnace would not keep fire over night and, in cold weather, I had to get up an hour before the rest of the family and start a fire in the furnace so that the rooms would be comfortable when they got up. One morning I overslept and after starting the fire I discovered that the thermometer in the living room registered only 50 degrees. This wouldn't do at all. So I held the thermometer over the register a few minutes and hung it up in its place just before Mr. Finney came into the room. It then registered 90 degrees, which was worse than before. Mr. Finney kept close tab on the weather. He had a barometer and a thermometer in his study, a thermometer outside of his front door and this thermometer in his living room. As he came into the room this morning he glanced at the thermometer, said "Whew! how hot it is!", crossed the room and threw the windows wide open. A few minutes later his wife came in and, consulting her feelings instead of the thermometer, she said, "My dear, it is cold in this room. Hadn't you better close that window?" He complied at once and family worship proceeded as usual. I could hardly suppress the laughter, which was bubbling up within me, until after breakfast. Then I went to Mr. Finney's study and said, "Do you think thermometers are always reliable?" He thought so. "Is the thermometer in the living room just like the one in the study?" He thought there would not be a difference of more than a degree or two. "Does this thermometer (the one in the study) ever make sudden jumps up and down?" "No," he said, "what put that in your head?" "Well," I said, "that's what the thermometer in the living room did this morning." "Oh!" he said, "that was because I opened the window. The room was too warm." Then I told him the whole story. He fixed his eyes upon me, as if he could hardly credit my statement. Then he said, "Thank God, Willie, you are honest. All you had to do was to keep still. I never should have guessed it."
Among the early settlers of Oberlin were some very narrow-minded Puritans who thought that it was wicked, even for children, to spend any time in play--much more so for adults. Some of these reported to Mr. Finney that I was often seen on the ball field and it was setting a bad example for the other students, especially as I was his grandson and living at his house. At last he was reluctantly forced to call me into conference on this subject. He said--drawing it very mildly--"I hear that you are sometimes seen on the ball-field." "Yes, Grandpa!" I said, "I go there every day when it is pleasant." "Why, Willie, I thought when I gave you work to do about the house chopping wood, etc., you would have exercise enough." I said, "So I do, Grandpa, but there is no fun in that." "F u n !" he exclaimed. "F u n !" Then he stopped. It was plain that his thoughts were wandering. He remembered what fun he used to have until he was 28 years old. How he prided himself upon his leadership in all athletic sports, etc. After what seemed an age, he said, "Well, Willie, I will not stop your fun; but don't carry it too far."
It was not long after this that I saw a story in one of the papers about Mr. Finney's encounter with a canal boatman, while walking along the tow-path between Rome and Utica, New York. The boatman was cursing and whipping the horses hitched to the tow line. Mr. Finney saw at a glance that the horses were overworked and tired out. He never could see animals abused without a feeling of resentment. He said to the boatman, "See here, do you know where you are going?" The boatman replied, "I am going to Rome if I can ever get these--(then followed a string of profane expletives)--horses along." Mr. Finney said, "No, you're not. You're going straight to hell." "Well," said the boatman, "do you know where you are going?" Mr. Finney thought he was going to heaven. "No you're not," said the boatman, "you're going into the canal," and he put him in.
I called Mr. Finney's attention to the publication and he said, "That is an old, old story." "Well," I said, "is it true?" He said, "Ask any man who ever wrestled with me in Oneida or Jefferson county, New York, or Litchfield county, Connecticut. Ask the men who tried to fool with me when I was blindfolded and being initiated in the Masonic Lodge at Adams. I never saw a boatman who could put me in the canal." Then he rose to his feet and drew himself up to his full height, as if he defied the whole world to down him.
If anybody supposed that when Mr. Finney was converted he became a weakling and a coward, he had another guess coming. When a keeper of an inn of doubtful reputation in northern New York heard that Mr. Finney had made some remarks that he thought applied to him and his "joint," he went to one of his meetings with the avowed purpose of thrashing him. He said later, "When I saw him, I doubted whether I could thrash him, and when he began talking he could do anything he pleased with me."
I doubt if any man then living, or now, had such complete control over an audience as Mr. Finney. The anecdotes I have related will show that, for all his wonderful power, he was still a human being with kindly thoughts for all.