Our national union: a thanksgiving discourse, delivered in the First Trinitarian Congregational church, November 29, 1860
(This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)
This reproduction was printed from a digital file created at the Library of Congress as part of an extensive scanning effort started with a generous donation from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Library is pleased to offer much of its public domain holdings free of charge online and at a modest price in this printed format. Seeing these older volumes from our collections rediscovered by new generations of readers renews our own passion for books and scholarship.
(This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)
This reproduction was printed from a digital file created at the Library of Congress as part of an extensive scanning effort started with a generous donation from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Library is pleased to offer much of its public domain holdings free of charge online and at a modest price in this printed format. Seeing these older volumes from our collections rediscovered by new generations of readers renews our own passion for books and scholarship.
Truman Marcellus Post was an American educator and Congregational clergyman.
Background
He was born on June 3, 1810 in Middlebury, Vermont, United States, third son of Martin and Sarah (Hulburd) Post. His father, a lawyer of ability and high character, died when Truman was eight months old.
When ten years old the boy saved the life of a ship captain who had fallen through the ice into Lake Champlain. He was a leader in boyish sports, a local champion in wrestling, and an eager student of history and poetry.
Education
At fifteen he entered Middlebury College, where he supported himself by teaching country schools and graduated in 1829, valedictorian of his class.
Career
For a year he was principal of Castleton (Vermont. ) Seminary and for two years tutor in Middlebury College. After a few months at Andover Theological Seminary, he reverted to his purpose of studying law and spent the winter of 1832-33 in Washington, listening to arguments before the Supreme Court, where Marshall was still presiding, and to debates in Congress led by Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Benton, and John Quincy Adams. These months he regarded as among the most important of his life.
Gen. Joseph Duncan of Illinois, then in Congress, urged him to come to the developing West, and the following spring he went to St. Louis, then a French village of some 6, 000 inhabitants. Before entering there the profession of law he visited his friend Duncan at Jacksonville. Here he was asked by President Edward Beecher of Illinois College to assist temporarily in its classical department. He was soon appointed professor of ancient languages and shortly afterwards of ancient history; he held both chairs for fourteen years.
His teaching was interrupted by the cholera epidemic of 1833, when the college was closed for a time and he devoted himself to nursing stricken victims. Later he suffered a persistent disorder of the eyes, necessitating for two years dependence upon others in reading, which resulted in the strengthening of his memory and power of analytic thought.
In 1840 he was urged to become pastor of the Congregational Church in Jacksonville and on October 8 was ordained. Since this responsibility had been assumed in addition to his full college work, it was impossible for him to prepare written sermons, and he accustomed himself to consecutive thinking while taking exercise in the open air.
After repeated and urgent invitations in 1847 to the pastorate of the Third Presbyterian Church, St. Louis, he wrote that he must be guaranteed liberty of opinion and speech on the subject of slavery. The church replied that they wished more than ever to have him come, and he accepted their call. Some of the residents of St. Louis had been Congregationalists, and discussion arose as to organizing a Congregational church, but Post refrained from commenting upon the project until his church in 1851 voted by a large majority to become Congregational, one of the first west of the Mississippi. For years he was non-resident lecturer on ecclesiastical history in Chicago Theological Seminary.
In 1856 was published his Skeptical Era in Modern History. Of his many published addresses and articles, the following are characteristic: History as a Teacher of Social and Political Science, address delivered before the governor and constitutional convention of Illinois in 1870; address at the Pilgrim Memorial Convention, Chicago, published in the Congregational Review (July 1870); "The Things Which Cannot be Shaken" (December 1886).
He insisted upon closing his pastorate, January 1, 1882, but remained among his people with still widening influence, local and national, until his death.
(This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)
Politics
Post was outspoken and eloquent in advocacy of the Union cause and his church was a tower of strength to that cause throughout the war.
Personality
He had disciplined mind, wide historical and philosophical outlook, intense spiritual conviction, poetic imagination, and passionate love of mountain, prairie, and sea.
Connections
At Middlebury, Vermont, October 5, 1835, he married Frances A. Henshaw. Two daughters and three sons survived them.