1906-1912. AGE 18-24
No duty could overtask him,
No need his will outrun;
Or ever we could ask him
His hands the work had done.
J. G. WHITTIER
BORDEN LOVED THE SEA, and was at home on it and in it. Most of his vacations during student years were spent at Camden, Maine, where he almost lived on the white-sailed Tsatsawassa. Talking with the captain of the yacht one day, who knew and loved him as did few others, Mrs. Borden remarked: “You at any rate must have seen him off duty―off his guard.”
“Mrs. Borden,” was the unexpected reply, “William was never off his guard.”
It was a true word, for in spite of all the good times, in the midst of them indeed, he was as steady in his higher allegiance as the needle to the pole. This comes out in the recollections of those who played as well as worked with him.
“There were few things that Bill liked better than to don his canvas jeans and jumper and sit behind the tiller of his yacht in a spanking good breeze,” wrote a medical-student friend. “Many a pleasant sail I have had with Bill, and many a time we have been together in sloppy weather. One well-remembered summer we took a cruise down the Nova Scotia shore, and there is no time like a cruise for getting to know one another. Bill was our skipper and an ideal one, but he didn’t stop at being in charge. There were few meals we ate that he hadn’t cooked. Life on the boat was full of joy from beginning to end with Bill to keep things going.
“One morning we were becalmed in the middle of the Bay of Fundy. It was a hot sultry day, and we had been talking about sharks. Suddenly Bill said: ‘Sharks or no sharks, here goes!’ And he was overboard in a moment, swimming round the yacht.
“One learned in those days more of the secret of Bill’s life, that his strength lay in his prayer life. No matter what the weather might be, he would always hand over his trick at the wheel and go below for his times of quiet. I remember him distinctly one very rough day, with the boat standing on her beam-end, coming below and climbing up on his berth and losing himself in his God.”
“The time I came to know him best was on the cruise we had in August, 1911,” wrote Mrs. Henry W. Frost, who had chaperoned a merry house party on the yacht. “I cannot think of an instance during those seven days of good thorough testing in close quarters, when William did not put everyone’s comfort and pleasure before his own. He was captain and steersman, steward and cook for a party of ten hungry people, and well he did it. It was something more than the salt sea air that made his coffee and tea and corned-beef hash and pancakes so popular.
“Between times he was ready for any game. Stretched out in the cockpit at dominoes, his hearty laugh rang out with any success that was achieved.
“On Sunday we went to morning service ashore, and in the evening as we finished our meal and had a sing, with perfect naturalness and simplicity he led in a brief prayer service. It was always a pleasure to me to have him conduct prayers. His Scripture reading, while reverent, was so natural and his prayers so direct and simple, conveying the feeling that God was near and real.”
Many were the happy days at Camden that Mr. Charles Campbell recalled.
Three weeks of one summer and the larger part of another I was with Bill Borden. That time, spent largely out of doors, opened my eyes to Bill’s real self even more than had. close association with him at College. At Yale I had learned that he was a rare man to work with; our weeks together in his summer home showed me that he was a rare man indeed to play with. At College I knew, as did all his friends, the strength and intensity of the serious purpose of his life; our happy, everyday comradeship at Camden taught me more of his very human and lovable boyishness, and his enjoyment of outdoor life and play. There was no mistaking the fact that Bill liked to sail, that he liked to swim, play tennis and golf. His laugh was always the heartiest, his enthusiasm the most contagious, and his delight at doing well the most evident.
One of our sailing trips was from Camden to Beverley Farms, on the Massachusetts north shore. We had hardly rounded the lighthouse at the entrance to Camden harbor when we realized that a stiff breeze was blowing. A few hours later, with Monhegan Island astern, we were facing the full force of the open ocean. By six P. M. we were off Portland and, with wind and rainstorms becoming more frequent, held a consultation as to whether we should run for shelter. Just then a coaster, which had been wallowing southward, emerged from a squall, her topsail and topmast gone, and, changing her course, ran for Portland Harbor. That decided Bill; but his decision was that, having started for Beverley, to Beverley we would go. Through the stormy night that followed, Bill was quiet and self-possessed, and I remember that when he took his turn at the wheel his strength and confidence seemed an assurance that all would be well. Serious though the situation was, Bill could laugh when he sang out to us at midnight that the lines with which we had been towing our power-dinghy had parted, taking pleasure in fighting the battle out with only our own resources to depend on.
Some of my most vivid recollections of Bill cluster round those different sailing trips. They range from the above experience to the spectacle of Bill in rough weather, seated in the cabin, calmly disposing of quantities of grapenuts and condensed milk. Great was our secret admiration for one who could perform such a feat at a time when the rolling of the boat had put some of us hors de combat.
I remember one evening anchoring off Bar Harbor about seven o’clock. By the time all was ship-shape the sun had set and the riding lights were shining from all the boats in the harbor. Before getting supper, Bill suggested that we have a swim. The air was chilly, and the black water rippling by with the outgoing tide looked colder than I had ever seen it. But overboard we went, swam a few strokes, took another dive, and were out again and dressing. The splendid reaction put us in the best of spirits as we prepared supper. I can see Bill now, hustling round that cabin, whistling, singing, just full of the joy of living.
It was at that same time, I think, that we sat on deck talking of another trip when we had put into Bar Harbor after sailing the entire preceding night. We had anchored at about the same spot, and as soon as possible had turned in for a little sleep. Before long we had wakened to find the boat dragging her anchor and almost upon the rocks. I can feel Bill’s hearty slap upon my back and hear his laughter still, as we recalled how we had had to hustle to get out of danger.
Of another sort was an experience one day off the Massachusetts coast. We had been watching a school of whales blowing at some little distance. A few moments later one of them came lazily to the surface, not a hundred feet from our fifty-foot yacht. In some alarm one of the party called to Bill, who was at the wheel, to keep the boat off. His response was to edge in a little nearer, with― “Oh, let’s have a good look!”
He was brushing up his Greek, the summer of our graduation from Yale, with a view to the entrance examination at Princeton. Out in the yacht he would often go below and plug away at Greek. He did a great deal of studying aboard his boat during the years I knew him, and was a past-master at making the odd moments count.
One day we sailed over to Eagle Island to take part in some races that were being run there. The wind was very light, and we came to the starting line just after our race had begun. There was no time to report to the judges and no time to put the tender ashore. Bill managed everything. We just hauled the tender up on deck and went after the boats that had already started. All through the race Bill was captain, giving his orders and making every, point to get the most out of his boat. We were heeled far over most of the time, as a good wind had sprung up. It all resulted in our crossing the winning line well in the lead. We were not allowed the victory, because we had not reported beforehand, but the winning was just as real all the same.
Sailing and tennis with Bill were always great fun, but the best hours of our visits were passed in quite another way. Before going to Camden a friend had wonderfully opened the Bible to me, giving me a new insight into its content. I mentioned this to Bill, and he at once suggested further Bible study together. It had been good to play with him, but to join him in the one thing nearest his heart was worth incomparably more.
And it was not only to his guests that Borden’s life meant much during the summer vacations. Many residents in Camden and the vicinity looked forward to his coming, and through his friendship some found the Friend who transforms life from within.
Among those was the gardener, a valuable employee of the family, who had fallen under the power of strong drink. Mrs. Borden had done all she could to help him, but without success, and one day when she was away from home he was found intoxicated near the house. Next morning he sent a note to William saying that he was ill and could not come to work, a situation which was explained by Melanie, who had found him—the children’s former nurse. Waiting only to get her to pray with him about the visit, William set out to see the gardener. But when he reached the house it was only to be told that he did not feel like seeing anyone that day.
“I know the reason,” William said to the gardener’s wife “but please ask him to let me come in.”
The talk that followed resulted in a transformation that brought blessing to the whole family. For the man himself a new life began that day, and months later William was writing from College:
“J. is a constant source of joy and thanksgiving to God, is he not?”
But of all his Camden friends it was Captain Arey who knew Borden best and to whom his life meant most. The following recollections are given just as they came from his heart:
I’ve known him ever since he first come to Camden, and that must have been about nine years ago. If anyone showed on their outside the happiness of being a Christian it was Mr. Borden. When he talked it just seemed as if you could feel his earnestness.
When we two was out alone―we went all the way to New Haven alone once―I have seen him kneel for perhaps an hour at a time and never lift his head. The villagers loved him, everybody loved him. He was so noble looking! When he came up in the spring, he always shook hands with everybody. All the summer people don’t do that. If ‘twas a stranger or a fisherman, didn’t make no difference. He always spoke to everybody, like as if he wanted to, and shook hands with them.
William was a nice hand to sail a boat. You didn’t need no one else when he was along. I used to be afraid he’d fall in the water, at first. He was always singing and jumping around. He’d climb away up the riggin’ and get into the rowboat behind. He did everything well he tried to do. He was so strong, tool When he’d go out and work at the riggin’, I’d be afraid he’d break the sail, he was so strong. Sometimes he’d steer and sometimes he’d help with the sails, but he was an expert on the boat. He could take a chart and go anywhere with it. Of course, he’d studied into it and learned it. It didn’t seem hard for him to go through with anything he undertook―it just seemed easy.
One awful good feature he had; if the boat wasn’t fixed up quite as it ought to be, perhaps if ladies came aboard and the brass wasn’t cleaned, I’d tell him about it, and he’d smile and say it was all right. He never spoke a cross word to me all the time I was with him.
He lent me two books by Gordon, Talks on Prayer and Talks on Power. We have a Young People’s Meeting in the Baptist Church here. After the summer in London when he was converted, he would sometimes lead our prayer meeting. If I had the job, I’d get him to do it for me. Others did too, for they liked to hear him. He could always hold the audience. Sometimes the young people are a little noisy at their meeting, but they was still when he spoke.
Sometimes he’d tell us he was going to be a missionary―seemed to think he was mapped out for it. If ‘twas worldly pleasure he’d wanted, he could have had everything. But he was so much different from others! All his pleasure seemed to be in going about doin’ people good. The last summer here at one of meetings he said he was going to the Mohammedans. He spoke about the National Bible Institute one night, but I don’t remember just what he said.
If we was out all night on the boat, he’d roll in the blanket and sleep on deck. The others would be in the cabin. There might be a bed to spare, but he’d take the deck. He liked it better.
One summer here, he and Mr. T. held open-air meetings. They’d begin right in front of the hotel, about 7:30, and get the crowds sort of interested. They had a little organ and would sing. William could sing quite well. He had a strong voice. Then they’d go into the Opera House, which they’d rented for a while. Sometimes it was crowded full. The last two evenings they’d have after meetin’s, and many stayed. After the meeting was opened―in the Opera House―anybody could speak. Many did. The superintendent of the mills spoke one night, and sometimes ministers would come and speak.
It was blowin’ awful heavy one night―dark and rainy. Two other fellers was gut with us, his friends. About two o’clock in the morning, the bran’ new boat we was towin’, the steam-launch, rolled over and sunk, the rope parted. I remember what he said.
“The boat’s gone,” he called down to the other fellers. “We can go faster now!”
Lots and lots of boats that night that was about as big as the Tsatsawassa was wrecked―that is, the sails were torn and the spars broke, so that they had to be towed in. The storm commenced about eleven o’clock. James Perry and another of William’s friends was with us. I don’t think any of us slept. I know I didn’t, and I know William didn’t. It was about six o’clock next morning when we got into Beverley Farms and anchored (after a record run of nearly two hundred miles in eighteen hours). When all was made safe, William said: “Now we’ll have family prayers, and give thanks for gettin’ in.”
He always had prayers for us every mornin’. Whoever was on the boat, we always had prayers and a blessin’ at table. Sometimes she’d be so keeled over that we’d be standin’ up, but that didn’t make no difference. We always had a blessin’. If we was in port Sunday mornin’, we’d go ashore to church. Perhaps I’d stay aboard―someone had to be there. But before he’d go ashore, he’d have prayers with me on the boat. He was always thoughtful, that way, of others. If he’d been my own brother he couldn’t have used me any better.
Once he and Mary was out, and a fog and heavy sea came on. We couldn’t get back to the landing stage, so they went to my house and stayed all night. He just said so natural-like to my wife: “Have you anything to eat? We didn’t get much supper! Can you give us some milk and cake?”
My wife went to all the meetin’s. She likes him, too. He wasn’t like one of the summer people! I’d be awful glad to have his picture, so’d my wife.
When he and I’d go out alone sometimes, I’d ask where he’d like to go.
“Anywhere,” he’d say, “so as to get out where it’s quiet.”
And he’d go down into the cabin with his Bible or some other book and study all the time we was out. It might be three hours or so. And when we’d come in, he’d seem to be kind of refreshed in his mind.
He always read the Bible before turnin’ in at night. It didn’t matter who was there. If I was alone with him, he’d read it to me and explain it. Yes, he was jolly and he was happy in the work he was undertakin’.
A group of later recollections, running on into Princeton years, come from the family of his College friend, Sherwood Day. The Days were fortunate in having a camp of their own, tucked away on the low shoulder of a mountain overlooking Lake George, William loved the spot, close to that exquisite expanse of water, and loved still more the Christian fellowship recalled in the following letters from Mrs. Day and two of her daughters, Bryn Mawr students:
In the very first conversation I ever had with Bill, we discovered that we both believed in the inerrancy of the Bible, and I can feel yet the hearty grasp of his outstretched hand as we laughed in serious sympathy over our common orthodoxy! That was the summer he joined us at Shelving Rock. I had hesitated to invite him, because it was real camping, and I fancied he might need some conveniences which are no longer considered luxuries but necessaries. I soon learned, however, that comforts were easily dispensable with him, and that no change of surroundings interfered with his habitual walk with God.
That same summer Harriet was with us. You remember how she dubbed him “the Parson,” but you cannot know the amused little smile with which he responded to her fun. They too frolicked together so much that I remember Sherwood’s saying: “I wish the College fellows could see this side of Bill!”
We knew that he went in for athletics and outdoor life, but until then it seemed as if even they were serious undertakings. But with Harriet the playful side was brought out, and we were so glad to know the boy under the manly exterior.
~~~
I, too, loved his standing simply and firmly for the eternal verities of our faith. That staunchness of his, after all his thought and study, has meant much to me. And I have learned much, too, from the way Bill stood for truth. We always noticed that the more earnest he became, the lower, not the louder, he spoke. When others in argument would raise their voices, he would grow more quiet and speak more low, with the result that every one listened.
I recall one day a somewhat heated discussion of the suffrage question. We finally got down to Genesis, Mother basing her plea against it on the teachings of that book, upon which one of our pro-suffrage guests denied much belief in Genesis, anyway, I don’t remember that up to that point Bill had said much, but somehow, the first thing I knew, he was talking along and the other guests were listening. We all listened. Much that he said was beyond us. We did not know enough to follow it fully. But the impression was made that there is such a thing as a deep scholarly conviction as to the authority and inspiration of the book (Genesis) and that the speaker was no unthinking conservative, but an intelligent believer in the Bible.
I do not know that he convinced the friends in question. They did not talk long. But he did what I felt at the time was perhaps more needed, showed that we could hold to the old views in these matters, after thinking. Real certainty and security in the truth is unruffled when the attack comes. He was so sure, as on that occasion, of what he believed―Him whom he believed―that he did not get excited and loudly insist on his opinions. He could wait to say what he knew. And the more you knew him the more sure you felt that, keen and active as his intellect was, that knowledge was the result of no mere theological training, but of personal experience, and prayerful Spirit-guided study of the Word of God.
The thought of him always challenges me. I mean that one knew that he was holding himself and always would hold himself to what he felt to be best and highest. He would not stoop to petty excuses or take advantage of loopholes for self-indulgence. Here at camp he was up early for his Morning Watch as regularly as, I am sure, he must have been at the Seminary. I can see his testament coming out of his pocket now! As surely as he carried that Testament he carried his religion. You felt he would never be one to want a vacation from religious duties. They were not “duties” to him. It was just natural to him to take that morning hour for fellowship with God, and he bore its imprint all through the day.
It was always an opportune time with Bill to speak of the deepest things, because with him they were the realest things.
His spiritual life affected all his living, the heartiness and wholesomeness of his fun as well as his religious activities.... If there arose in his mind a doubt about the rightness of something, he put the doubtful thing aside at once. For example, he became much interested in a card game someone was playing here in camp and took some share in it. Then, one day he would not play it anymore, and you knew he had questioned the rightness of his taking such a keen interest in the game and had shut down on it immediately. It was this steadfast turning from doubtful things that gave him, I think, the atmosphere of separateness that was part of his power.
And then, I suppose, this single-mindedness in his spiritual life was the secret of that fixity of purpose which took him straight along whither he had set out. What Bill started, you might be quite sure he would finish. From the room in which I write I can see where a limb has been cut off a tree, high up from the ground. He cut it off. Someone had expressed a wish that the dead limb might go, because it looked like an ugly clenched fist, and he set out to do it. The ladder was not long enough and he had to prop it up―it was on a steep hillside, and almost dangerous to do so. He had to hang on with his right arm and saw with his left, in an almost impossible position. I can see him doing it now, sawing and resting and sawing again, but sticking at it until the limb fell.
One other thing I want to speak of, but I don’t quite know what to call it. It was something that made you feel that everything would be all right as long as he was around. It was partly, I suppose, his consideration for others.
When, one evening last September, we ran down to the Saga-more, to take him there to get an automobile for Lake George, he discovered that we had no flashlight in the launch with which to examine the engine if necessary. He insisted upon giving us his, one from his traveling bag, because he felt we ought not to be without it. And as we started home, leaving him there on the dock, he called out to Rosalie and me―novices at running the engine―not to forget about an oil cup, I think it was, that it was important we should attend to.
He was such a one to rely on! And it seemed to me that His Lord’s spirit of service had so permeated his life that it not only led him to set his face to the field of greatest need, but meanwhile made his life full of little services, day by day, that many would not see the occasion for. It was easy to see his force, his devotion to Christ’s cause, but it was only after having him around that you began to appreciate what a Christ like man he was.
A kindness he did in a New York station is one of the things I have recalled repeatedly. We were going out to take a train, when I noticed that he had dropped behind, and turning, I saw him helping a very poor immigrant woman who was struggling along with many bundles and a baby in her arms. How well I remember, at camp, how he used to stand near the kitchen door and watch for a chance to be of use. We often said that the table was never cleared so quickly as when Bill did it.
And what a help he was in some German I had to do (for an examination at Bryn Mawr)! The days at camp were pretty well filled with picnics, canoeing, swimming, etc., and it was not easy to make time for study. He was anxious that I should finish that German reading. If a thing had to be done, it was his way to do it and then put it from his mind. When there were a few minutes before it was time to start on a picnic or other outing he would say: “Can’t we get some of that German done now?” I do not know how I should ever have ‘tackled’ it without this encouragement. His help during the few days he was there gave me, so to speak, “a running start,” and I was able to finish it in the required time....
But with all his seriousness there was abundant playfulness and love of fun. He had an inexhaustible store of tricks, which kept us entertained many an evening. I remember specially a spelling game called “Ghost” which he enjoyed immensely.
And one other thing about Bill―his instant and full obedience to the will of God. There never seemed to be any conflict in his life between duty and pleasure, for the moment he saw what his duty was, he did it. There was no procrastination about him. If the thing was hard to do, it made no difference. Feelings were out of the reckoning. “Obedience irrespective of feeling” was, perhaps, the strongest thing about his life.
One of the most vivid memories I have of him is as he sat before our open fire at camp one Sunday evening. We were all there singing hymns, and the only light was that of the fire which shone full on his face. How earnest it was, and with what joyousness he sang the hymns he loved best! “O Love that will not let me go” and “In the secret of His presence” were among his favorites. But it was not the firelight only that brought that light to his face. These lines come to me as I recall the scene and especially that look of joy and calm:
“Beautiful now his face had grown,
But the beauty was something not his own;
A solemn light from that blessed land
Within whose border he soon must stand.”
“His ideals and ambitions were so great,” wrote Elsa Frost, then a young nurse in a hospital, “that anyone who knew him at all could not but be influenced by them, and to us who counted ourselves friends of his they were much more.
“My most vivid remembrance of William has not to do with any football game or sailing, but with a Communion Service we all attended together at Camden. I somehow think of him most often then—not that he did or said anything to fix it in my mind, but just that he seemed to be so in the spirit of the service. When at times I am tempted to wonder whether the end in view is worth all the work and struggle, just to remember the separations and hardships he was facing is enough to start me on again.”