It is enough to mention the names of Moses Stuart, Bela Edwards, Leonard Woods, Ralph Emerson, and Edwards Park, to show that Mr. Kellogg was as fortunate in his teachers at the seminary as he had been at the college. They were men of profound learning, of stimulating influence, of consecrated character, and of great and deserved reputation. They could not fail to quicken and enrich both his intellectual and his spiritual nature, and to send him forth fully instructed, as well as profoundly eager, to preach with persuasiveness and power, as he did preach for nearly half a century.
It was while he was a student in the seminary that Mr. Kellogg wrote the famous declamation, “Spartacus to the Gladiators,” as well as some others, almost equally famous, of the same general character. It was written for one of the prescribed rhetorical exercises of the course, at which the writer or speaker was publicly criticised by members of the student body, and also by the professor in charge. Mr. Kellogg, always timid at the prospect of open and formal criticism of his writing or speech, greatly dreaded the ordeal, and resolved to write something which should so interest his hearers by its unusual subject-matter as to divert their minds from the thought of criticism. His scheme was completely successful. The students listened with breathless attention, and were dumb when the speech was concluded. To the inquiry of Professor Park if there were any criticisms to be offered, not a voice was raised; and the professor himself remarked that though there were some things, perhaps, that might be said in criticism, yet it was so admirable a specimen of masterful rhetoric that he should say nothing. It has been considered so much of a masterpiece in its kind, that at Andover they still point out No. 20 Bartlett Hall as the room in which it was written.
[Illustration: HOUSE ON CUMBERLAND STREET, PORTLAND, MAINE, IN WHICH ELIJAH KELLOGG LIVED WHEN A BOY.]
There is an unmistakable dramatic quality in the conception and speech of “Spartacus,” as there were hints of such a dramatic quality in some of Mr. Kellogg’s sermons in later years, and it is interesting to note that, in his Senior year at Andover, he wrote a “dialogue,” or brief play, called “The Honest Deserter,” which was performed by the Philomathean Society of Phillips Academy. The occasion of its presentation was considered of so much interest and importance that an elm tree was planted in the Phillips yard in commemoration of the event.