CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY DATE DUE Jjwf^flk ■» iT^ 4 CAYLORO PRINTED INU.S. A. Cornell University Library BX9869.C4 B44 1882 Channing centenary in America, Great Bri olin 3 1924 029 478 769 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://archive.org/details/cu31924029478769 Canning ttnttmxp Q?oftttne* Heliotype, from Plaster Cast of Marble Bust by Sidney H. Morse. ■m VMa*ir Ht:.vt bv THE CHANNING CENTENARY AMERICA, GREAT BRITAIN, AND IRELAND. Keport of Jfleettnfffi belli in (jonor of tjje ©ne tyuritivMl) Slnnitjcrearp of tlje ^Sirtl) of WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE BUILDING AND CONSECRATION OF THE CHANNING MEMORIAL CHURCH. EDITED BV RUSSELL NEVINS BELLOWS. SECOND EDITION ENLARGED, BOSTON : Geo. H. Ellis, 141 Franklin Street (CHANNING BUILDING). 1882. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. Since the first publication of this volume, the beautiful Chan- ning Memorial Church has been completed and consecrated at Newport, R.I. It has seemed appropriate that a brief but com- plete history of that enterprise should be prepared and published in connection with this memorial volume. The chapter on " The Channing Memorial Church," with the heliotype view of the edifice, has accordingly been added to the first edition of the book. R. N. B. New York, March. 1882. PREFACE. The width and depth of public interest in the Channing Cente- nary surpassed the expectation of even Dr. Channing's most faith- ful disciples and ardent friends. As the anniversary day drew nigh, news came of careful arrangements for the appropriate cele- bration of the occasion in many of the chief cities and towns not only of America, but also of Great Britain and Ireland, Holland, Germany, France, Italy, Hungary, and other European countries. After the event, the notices of the press revealed the unusual com- prehensiveness and catholicity in the plan and spirit of many of the meetings, the high quality of many of the memorial addresses, and a striking array of names of well-known writers and speakers who had taken part in the proceedings. Seldom before, it seemed, had so many noted and worthy men, of widely divergent religious opinions, joined their voices in a chorus of praise at once so hearty, so generous, so discriminating. To preserve and present in a form convenient for students, whether of Dr. Channing's life, character, and teachings, or of the present tendencies of liberal religious thought, this somewhat remarkable body of testimony, is the purpose of this volume. It contains reports, more or less complete, of the principal memorial meetings held in America, Great Britain, and Ireland. To have attempted more than this would have involved largely increased expense and more labor of all sorts than the editor could well give to the work. On the other hand, a book made up exclusively of selections from the more interesting addresses would not have served to indicate either the extent or the popular character of the interest in the occasion. R. N. E. New York, May, 1881. CONTENTS. Frontispiece. Heliotype of Morse's Bust of Dr. Charming. Introductory, Origin of the Charming Centenary Movement.— Account of the Celebration of the Ninety- ninth Anniversary of Dr. Channing's Birth. — Poem by Rev. John W. Chadwick.— Letters from President Charles W. Eliot, Thomas W. Higginson, James T. Fields, Henry W. Longfellow, Henry W. Bellows, Octavius B. Frothingham, William H. Furness.— Resolu- tions of the Unitarian Society of Newport. ' AMERICAN CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS. The Celebration at Newport, 19-82 Fifty Thousand Dollars subscribed for a Channing Memorial Church.— The Opening Services. — Memorial Discourse by Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D. — Ceremonies at the Laying of the Corner-stone of the Memorial Church. — Letter from Dr. Channing's only Surviving Brother.— Ode by Rev. Charles T. Brooks. — Corner-stone Address by Rev. William Henry Channing. — Evening Meeting. — Letters from Rev. Dr. James Martineau, Bishop Huntington, Bishop Clark, John G. Whittier, Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, William Lloyd Garrison. — Addresses by Governor Van Zandt, Rev. Dr. Hosmer, Rev. Dr. Hale. — Poems by Mrs. Martha P. Lowe and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. — Remarks by A. Bronson Alcott, Miss Elizabeth Peabody, Revs. N. S. Folsom and Charles F. Barnard. The Celebration at Boston, 83-144 The Meeting in Arlington Street Church. — Addresses by Rev. Dr. James Free- man Clarke and Rev. Dr. C A. Bartol. Pulpit Tributes.— "Dr. Channing a Man of Affairs," by Rev. Dr. Edward Everett Hale. — "Channing Unitarianism," by Rev. Minot J. Savage.—" Dr. Channing the Ideal American," by Rev. William H. Channing. The Children's Service. — Remarks by William H. Baldwin, Governor John D. Long, Revs. E. E. Hale, H. Bernard Carpenter, Minot J. Savage, William P. Tildeu, James Free- man Clarke, and William H. Channing. American Unitarian Association. — Addresses at the Annual Meeting by Rev. Dr. William H. Furness, Rev. Dr. Frederic H. Hedge, and Rev. William H. Channing. 8 CHANNING CENTENARY. PAGES The Celebration at Brooklyn, I 4S~ 2 S3 Meetings in the Church of the Saviour. — Remarks of Rev. Dr. A. P. Putnam, Rev. Dr. F. A. Farley, Rev. Dr. J. B. Thomas, Rev. Dr. J. M. Buckley.— Ode by Rev. John W. Chadwick.— Remarks of Mr. Oliver Johnson.— Hymn by Rev. Dr. William Newell.— Remarks of Rev. Dr. Charles H. Hall, Rev. Amory D. Mayo, Rev. H. R. Nye, Rev. Dr. Gustav Gottheil, Rev. H. W. Foote. Meeting in the Academy of Music. — Remarks of Rev. Dr. Rufus Ellis, Rev. Robert Collyer, Rev. Dr. J. M. Pullman, Mr. George William Curtis, Rev. Dr. C. N. Sims, and Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. The Celebration at New York, 254-261 Sermons in the Churches. — No Special Observance of the Centennial Day.— Oration by Rev. Dr. Samuel Osgood before the Historical Society.— Discourse by Rev. Dr. Gustav Gottheil in the Jewish Temple Emanu-el. The Celebration at Chicago, 262-287 Meeting in Central Music Hall. — Addresses by Judge Henry Strong, Prof. David Swing, Rev. Dr. George C. Lorimer, Rev. William R. Alger, Rev. Dr. H. W. Thomas, and Rev. Brooke Herford. The Celebration at St. Louis, 288-299 Remarks by Rev. John Snyder, Rev. John C. Learned, Rev. Dr. William G, Eliot, Judge McCrary, Rev. Joseph H. Toy, Mr. George Partridge, Rev. Samuel Young, and Rev. Dr. Boyd. The Celebration at St. Paul, 300-31S Memorial Service in Unity Church. — Sermon by Rev. William Channing Gannett. The Celebration at Meadville, 3*9-324 Remarks by Mr. Harris, Prof. Frederic Huidekoper, Mr. Savage, Dr. Wilson, Rev. George Whitman, and President A. A. Llvermore. The Celebration at Washington, 325-327 Remarks by Justice Miller, Hon. George B. Loring, Hon. Horace Davis, Rev. Clay MacCauley, and Mr. Robert Purvis.— Discourse and Hymn by Rev. Clay MacCauley. The Celebration at Ann Arbor, 32S-332 Remarks by Rev. J. T. Sunderland, Judge Harriman, Prof. T. P. Wilson, Mr. Anthony Reynolds, Prof. B. C Burt, Prof. Donald McLean, Judge Cooley, and Prof. V. C. Vaughan. The Celebration at Madison, 333~34-i Meeting in the Jewish Synagogue.— Addresses by Rev. H. M. Simmons and Prof. W. F. Allen.— Remarks by Prof. D. B. Frankenberger, Hon. H. H. Giles, and Rev. W. E. Wright. CONTENTS. 9 PAGES The Celebration at Cincinnati, 342-345 Discourse by Rev. William R. Alger.— Remarks by Rev. C. W. Wendte, and Rev. J. H. Hartley. The Celebration at San Francisco, 346-3S 2 Discourse by Rev. Dr. Horatio Stebbins in the Unitarian Church. Other Celebrations, 353 _ 3^6 Brief Mention of Meetings in Greenfield, Springfield, Watertown, Melrose, Ashby, Mass. ; Hartford, Conn.; Burlington, Vt. ; Concord, Manchester, Nashua, East Wilton, N.H. ; Belfast, Me. ; Detroit, Mich. ; Milwaukee, Janesville, Wis. ; Keokuk, Iowa ; Shelbyville, 111.; Canton, N.Y. ; Portland, Oregon; Montreal, Canada. Notices of the American Press, 367-374 CELEBRATIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. The Celebration at London, 377-433 Meeting in St. James' Hall. — Letters from Rev. Stopford Brooke, George MacDonald, Ernest Renan, Rev. Dr. E. A. Abbott, Rev. Dr. Stoughton, Rev. Dr. Raleigh, Miss Frances Power Cobbe, Rev. Dr. G. Vance Smith, Rev. W. H. Fremantle, Sir J. C. Law- rence and others. — Addresses by Rev. Dr. James Martineau, Rev. J. Baldwin Brown, Mr. Thomas Hughes, the Dean of Westminster, Dr. William B. Carpenter, Rev. Dr. R. Laird Collier. The Celebration at Liverpool, 434-455 Meeting in St. George's Hall.— Addresses by Mr. H. A. Bright, Rev. J. H. Thorn, Rev- Charles Beard, Rev. William Binns. The Celebration at Manchester, 456-478 Meeting in the New Town Hall. — Memorial Discourse by Rev. Charles Wicksteed. — Remarks by Alderman C. S Grundy, Rev. William Gaskell, Rev. Charles T. Poynting, Prof. Roscoe, Mr. John Dendy, Mr. E. C. Harding. The Celebration at Belfast, 479-489 Meeting in the Music Hall. — Reading of Letters by Rev. A. Gordon. — Resolutions and Remarks by Rev. J. C. Street, Mr. John Campbell, Rev. A. Gordon, Mr. John Rogers, Gen. Richmond, Rev. C. J. M'Alester. IO CHANNING CENTENARY. PAGES The Celebration at Aberdeen, 49°~495 Meeting in the Unitarian Church.— Remarks by Mr. G. T. Walters, Mrs. Caroline A. Soule, Rev. Joseph Vickery, Mr. Robert Adams, Mr. William Lindsay. Tributes of the European Press, 496-510 A French Catholic on Channing, S"-S I 4 The Influence of Channing in Europe, 515—532 Letter from Unitarians of Hungary. — Letter from Mr. John Fret well. THE CHANNING MEMORIAL CHURCH. Autotype of the Channing Memorial Church. History of the Enterprise, 533~55 2 Unitarianism in Newport. — The Beginning of the Channing Memorial. — Laying the Corner-stone. — Progress of the Work. — Description of the Edifice. — The Memorial Win * dows. — The Channing Parlors. — List of the Principal Contributors. The Consecration Services, 552-602 Discourse by Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D. — Letter from Dr. Wm. H. Channing. — Poem by Rev. Charles T. Brooks. — Hymn by Rev. Dr. Wm. H. Furness. — Addresses by Rev. Drs. F. A. Farley, James Freeman Clarke, Frederic H. Hedge, Wm. H. Furness, John H. Morison; Alfred P. Putnam. INTRODUCTORY. The movement which culminated in the very general observance of the one-hundredth birthday of William Ellery Channing first manifested itself early in the year 1879. For some time previous to this date, the appropriateness of such a celebration had been freely discussed by members of the Unitarian society in Newport, R.I., where Channing was born ; but no steps were taken toward carrying out the idea, until the Rev. M. K. Schermerhorn, minister-in-charge of the Newport society, happily conceived and successfully executed the plan of a preliminary celebration in Newport of Dr. Channing's ninety-ninth birthday. The purpose of this movement was to arouse public attention, and so secure the widest and best possible celebration of the centennial, a year afterward. The preparations for this preliminary meeting, which was decided upon only a few weeks before the time appointed, were hastily but energetically made by Mr. Scher- merhorn ; and his efforts were crowned with complete suc- cess. The best account of this meeting appeared in the Boston Daily Advertiser of April 8, 1879, from which we make the following extracts: — CELEBRATION OF CHAINING' 8 lOTETY-lOTTH BIRTHDAY. Thanks to the energy and enterprise of the Rev. M. K. Schermerhorn, pastor of the Unitarian Church in this city, where the Rev. C. T. Brooks, the great scholar, preached for over a quarter of a century, the meeting 12 CHANNING CENTENARY. to-night, commemorating the ninety-ninth birthday of William Ellery Channing, the great apostle of Unitarianism, was a complete success The meeting was held in order that the movement for the centennial cele- bration — one year from to-night — in this, the birthplace of Channing, might be inaugurated under the most favorable auspices. A feature of the services was that all the hymns and anthems were the composition of Unitarian authors: namely, "In the Cross of Christ I glory, 1 ' by Sir John Bowring; " Nearer, my God, to Thee," by Sarah F. Adams ; " The Lord will come, and not be slow," by John Milton; "Thy Kingdom come," by Harriet Martineau ; " Star of Bethlehem," by William Cullen Bryant ; " Universal Worship," by John Pierpont ; " Old and New," by John G. Whittier; and " God of Ages and of Nations," by Samuel Long- fellow. The church was crowded, and the floral decorations were very fine, there being a large "C" and the figure "99" in one large piece. The opening prayer was offered by the Rev. A. Manchester, of Provi- dence. After singing, selections of Scripture were read and prayer of- fered by the Rev. R. R. Shippen, Secretary of the American Unitarian Association of Boston. An anthem was then sung, after which the pastor of the church made introductory remarks, giving the object of the meeting and explaining the matters connected with the centennial anniversary next year. Governor Van Zandt was then asked to preside, the invitation being read by the pastor of the church. The Governor made a few eloquent and appropriate remarks, after which a large number of letters from prominent Unitarians were read by the pastor, and a poem appropriate to the occasion was read by the Rev. C. T. Brooks, and one by John W. Chadwick, of Brooklyn, N.Y. Mr. Chad- wick's poem is as follows : — "ALWAYS YOUNG FOR LIBERTY." [Channing's Memoir, Vol. III., p. 301.] Channing, when thou wast living among men, Thy pulse, that beat not always with the strong, Full tide of health, when thou didst hear of wrong O'erthrown, of freedom won, was once again As quick and warm as in thy childhood, when Thou heard'st old ocean's mighty thunder-song Beating familiar cliffs and crags along, And thou didst glow as ardently as then. Yes, thou wast always young for liberty; INTRODUCTORY. 13 And, when a hundred years have passed away, Aye, and a thousand, from thy natal day, Thy never-dying spirit still shall be As young for freedom as when here of old In her great name thou wast the boldest of the bold. John W. Chadwick. Brooklyn, April 3, 1879. A poem written by the late Judge Green of Rhode Island (author of " Old Grimes "), read on the occasion of the death of Dr. Channing, in Providence, October 12, 1842, was read by the author's son-in-law, Gov- ernor Van Zandt. THE LETTERS. Several of the letters received are appended : — Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. April 4, 1879. My dear Sir, — My engagements will prevent me from attending the meeting in honor of William Ellery Channing at Newport on Monday evening next. His countrymen may well hold the name of Channing in remembrance. By his eloquent speech and his unanimous persuasive writings, he greatly helped to destroy African slavery and to rid Christianity of superstitions with which it had been encumbered. These were good services, which may usefully be commemorated until the evils which Channing combated no longer afflict humanity. Very truly yours, Charles W. Eliot. Cambridge, Mass., April 1, 1879. Rev. M. K. Schermerhorn : Dear Sir, — I thank you for the invitation to take part in the service commemorative of the Rev. Dr. Channing. It will be impossible for me to be present ; but it seems to me eminently appropriate that this anni- versary shall be celebrated in Newport, which he so loved, and which is identified with his memory. Very truly yours, Thomas Wentworth Higginson. 14 CHANNING CENTENARY. 148 Charles Street, Boston, April 1, 1879. Rev. Mr. Schermerhorn, Newport, R.I. : My dear Sir, — I wish it were in my power to be present next Monday evening, and add a word or two of my testimony of admiration for the character and services of Dr. Channing. The world owes a debt of gratitude to his sacred memory ; and, to those of us who knew and loved him, his name will always call up the tenderest recollections. I always think of him in Wordsworth phrase as one " Attired With sudden brightness, like a man inspired" ; and the tones of his matchless voice are as fresh in my remembrance as if I heard them yesterday. His words are, indeed, "part and parcel of mankind." I trust your meeting on the 7th will be in every way a successful one. Cordially yours, James T. Fields. Cambridge, April 2, 1S79. My dear Sir, — I wish with all my heart I could answer your request favorably, and take some part in your celebration of the birthday of Channing. Want of time and many pressing engagements render it impossible for me to write anything which would contribute to the interest of the occasion. I can only assure you of my sympathy and of my deep and lasting reverence for his memory. -» Yours sincerely, Henry W. Longfellow. New York, 232 East Fifteenth Street, April 2, 1879. My dear Mr. Schermerhorn, — Every year adds to the admiration, rev- erence, and gratitude that embalm the name of Channing. He treated the greatest of human interests in the greatest manner. There is noth- ing local, sectarian, or temporary in his writings or influence. He is still before, and not behind, the age, nearly forty years after his decease. He is waiting for fit audience, and not few, from the better future of human- INTRODUCTORY. 1 5 ity, already adopted into the short calendar of universal saints. His religious genius shines wherever the rarest of human endowments is prized. His peculiarity was to be able to wrest the greatest of themes from the hands of the language of technical theologians, and clothe it in words intelligible to all, while fully sustaining its dignity and its sacred- ness. Only a soul intimately acquainted with God could have spoken as he speaks. He, like his Master, had the full confidence of his own spiritual vision. He trusted the nature his Maker had given him, and revered it as a part of his reverence for the Creator. He knew no dis- tinction between reason and revelation which could put the human mind into servitude to the written Word. But his reverence for human nature humbled while it exalted him, and was utterly remote from that vain bugbear called " the pride of reason." While he shared in reason the nature of the universal mind, he was under it, and not over it. It was not his reason he honored, but Reason herself, which was God's and man's. The perfection of his culture and style is the enamel round his thoughts. Seldom has the highest religious thought and feeling found in prose so admirable and imperishable a vehicle. Like Milton's angels, he "can only by annihilating die." His usefulness is alike conservative and progressive. He furnishes both sail and ballast to our rational Christian cause. May God multiply his followers ! Fraternally yours, H. W. Bellows. New York, April 5. My dear St'r, — On my return last evening from an absence of several days, I found your note on my table. It will riot be possible for me at this juncture of time to be in Newport to add my tribute toward the debt we all owe to Dr. Channing ; and it is too late to write such a letter as would in any degree do justice either to him or to my regard for him. The cause of liberal thinking and human doing in America, and abroad, top, received from him an impulse which is far from being yet exhausted or even comprehended. He builded better than he knew. He was a seer into things invisible, — a prophet of greater times than he himself divined. He was greater than himself. He increased in spiritual pro- portions while he lived, passing his theological limitations as he ad- vanced, until now we learn that at last he was inclined to adopt Chris l6 CHANNING CENTENARY. into humanity. One would like to hear what he might have to say on the social questions that vex us. One thing seems to me certain, that his word would be one of hope arid faith. Sincerely yours, O. B. Frothingham. Philadelphia, No. 1426 Pine Street, April 2, 1879. My dear Mr. Schermerhorn, — I thank you for the opportunity and privilege, which your invitation gives me, of paying my tribute to the rev- erend memory of Dr. Channing. The American Unitarian Association have done no better thing than in taking especial pains to disseminate his writings. Not only nor chiefly because they help to advance the cause of simple Unitarianism, but because their readers imbibe from them, almost unconsciously, principles and modes of thinking at once profoundly religious and perfectly free. A mind that has caught the spirit that pervades his works may be safely left to itself. If we find that he is only uttering our own thoughts, we nevertheless feel the in- spiration of his convictions. He once said to me of Waldo Emerson, " I do not know that he tells me anything new, but he inspires me," which is equivalent to the acknowledgment of a greater gift than any mere mode of thought, the gift of the spirit. Mr. Carlyle somewhere says that the writings of Dugald Stewart are an excellent introduction to the study of moral and intellectual philosophy. I have always thought that Dr. Channing's writings discharge a like introductory office to the whole broad domain of religious thought. Much as he has done for our liberal form of faith, he has done far more enduring service for perfect freedom of inquiry. His favorite theme — the dignity of human nature, the priceless sanctity of the human soul — rendered him incapable of imposing any restrictions upon the mind. In his Dudleian lecture, de- livered long before the question was started by George Ripley as to the value of miracles as evidences of a visitation, Dr. Channing freely admits that sincere Christians may reject the miracles of the New Testament,— an admission I well remember, as the venerable Dr. Osgood of New York, a stout Calvinist to be sure (my pastor then), wrote on the margin of a copy of the lecture, which I loaned him, against said admission, "This I deny." When the question arose concerning the miracles (which, by the way, INTRODUCTORY. 1 7 has had results), Dr. Charming offended near and valued friends by- saying that no heresy disturbed him so much as the free and full discus- sion of doubts and difficulties interested him. He was a free religionist, and pre-eminently a Christian believer, also. I remember his repeating to me, with no hint of dissent, a remark of Lucretia Mott's (who had just paid him a visit, and whom, by the way, we should canonize by and by, were we Catholics). She had expressed to him the hope that the time may come when "a good man" would be higher than " a good Christian," — a hope which we all may share, if the Christian name is not held to be as broad as humanity itself. It is not because his influence closed with his brief presence on earth and he is in danger of being forgotten, but for the very opposite reason, — because he is still living and active in the world of religious thought, — that you meet to commemorate him upon the spot which he loved. How pure his style was ! As pure and fresh as the midsummer air at New- port. How chaste his fancy ! He never pauses to elaborate figures of speech: he only suggests them. He had no literary ambition. Eminent critics might find fault with him. He gave them no heed. And that voice, so exquisitely flexible, quivering to every shade of emotion! Yes, dear friends, cherish him in special and revering remembrance. Very truly and respectfully, W. H. Furness. Letters, some quite long, were also read from A. Bronson Alcott, Lloyd Garrison, Dr. Hedge and Dr. Peabody of Harvard College, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, Robert Collyer, Dr. Dewey, and the Rev. E. E. Hale. Telegrams were read from George William Curtis and from President White of Cornell University. The following paper was read and adopted. It will show clearly what the Unitarians of Newport propose to do for the centennial celebration: — At a meeting of the congregation of the First Unitarian Church of Newport, R.I., held on Sunday evening, April 6, 1878, of which William A. Clarke was appointed chairman and Thomas Coggeshall secretary, after due deliberation, the following was ordered to be presented at the close of the services of the ninety-ninth birth-anniversary of William Ellery Channing, to be held on Monday evening, April 1, 1879, and the approval of those present on that occa- sion solicited thereto : — First. — It was unanimously voted that we, Unitarians of Newport, R.I., ear- a 1 8 CHANNING CENTENARY. nestly desiring that the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of William Ellery Channing may be celebrated in this his native city, and in order that, for this proposed celebration, timely and fitting preparations may be made, do hereby resolve that a committee of twelve be appointed, to be known as The Channing Centennial Committee of Newport, R.I., whose business it shall be to inaugurate and earn- out such preparations as may seem to them appropriate and desirable. Second. — It was unanimously voted that this committee shall consist of the following persons: namely, the Rev. C. T. Brooks, William A. Clarke, John T. Bush, Thomas Coggeshall, F. A. Pratt, William B. Sherman, Edmund Tweedy, John G. Weaver, Mrs. A. P. Baker, Dr. A. F. Squire, Mrs. C. T. Hop- kins, Mrs. Henry C. Stevens. Third. — It was unanimously voted that the Unitarians of Newport, R.I., do hereby cordially invite the Unitarian denomination to join with us on the seventh day of April, 18S0, in celebrating, in this his native city, the one hun- dredth birth-anniversary of William Ellery Channing, offering the hospitalities of our city and homes to all who may be pleased to come, and promising our hearty co-operation in the carrying out of whatever arrangement may be sug- gested to us as appropriate and wise. Fourth. — It was unanimously voted that this invitation be presented to the Unitarian public through the hands of the secretary and officers of the Amer- ican Unitarian Association, accompanied with the information that a local com- mittee of twelve has been appointed in Newport, of which the Rev. C. T. Brooks is chairman, with full power to act in co-operation with any central committee which may be appointed as a committee of the Unitarian denomina- tion at large. THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. NEWPORT, R.I. Soon after the successful celebration of Dr. Channing's ninety-ninth birthday, the Unitarian society of Newport for- mally resolved, after due deliberation, to undertake the so- licitation of subscriptions for a Channing Memorial Church. Committees were appointed to take the matter in hand ; and, after much hard work and a great deal of patient waiting, subscriptions amounting to nearly fifty thousand dollars .were secured. Preparations were accordingly made to lay the corner-stone of the proposed edifice on the centennial day. A suitable site, on Pelham Street, opposite the Old Mill, was secured ; and the seventh day of April found every- thing in fe readiness for the ceremonies which had been care- fully arranged. The celebration began with a meeting on Tuesday even- ing; April 6, under the auspices of the Channing Conference of Unitarian and other Christian Churches. A large con- gregation filled the Unitarian church, which was beautifully dressed with plants and flowers. After an anthem by the 20 CHANGING CENTENARY. choir and the reading of the Scriptures, the congregation sang Longfellow's hymn, "O Life that maketh all things new!" The Rev. William H. Channing, of London, offered prayer. After a second anthem by the choir, the Rev. Dr. G. W. Hosmer, of Newton, Mass., preached an eloquent sermon from the words, " All my springs are in Thee." In concluding, he said: "It is good for us to be here. Mighty influences are hanging over us like rain-clouds. We are here to-night waiting for inspiration and guidance, as the children of Israel waited at the foot of Sinai for the pattern ideals of duty and life there to be shown them. That re- vered brother, the prophet of liberal thought, the Moses of our Exodus, whose centennial birthday comes to-morrow, thirty-seven years ago went up out of our sight. He has not been forgotten. His word has gone out through the Eng- lish-speaking world ; but we who knew him need to have our memories quickened, and younger men will gladly open their minds and hearts to his influence. Indeed, how great that influence has been ! To-morrow, its story will be told. Who like him has gone up into the mount of aspiration, — the strong thinker, prayerful and tender-hearted as a little child, and so hungering and thirsting after righteousness ; and who with such consecrated purpose has hastened down with his mountain thoughts to uplift the world ! Oh, come, let us sanctify ourselves for the morrow, that the spirit of Channing, which has been as air and light and warmth to us, a greater blessing than we know how to appreciate, may more deeply inspire us and bless our children's children." Mr. Isaac Littlefield, of New Bedford, then sang, " I will lift up mine eyes." After prayer, the meeting closed with the singing of Whittier's hymn, beginning, "0 pure re- formers, not in vain your trust in human kind ! " The services of the centennial day opened in the opera house shortly before eleven o'clock; and all the exercises CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 21 of the day, except the formal ceremonies of laying the corner-stone, were also held there. The florists of the city contributed from their greenhouses a profusion of flowers and plants, which were artistically arranged upon the stage. The most conspicuous feature of the floral dis- play was the decoration of the reading-desk. This was completely covered with bright buds, and in front of it was an inscription in white flowers upon a bed of green, "1780 — Channing — 1880." A large-size oil painting of Dr. Channing stood at the left of the stage. The exercises were opened with singing by a double quartette. The hymn selected was one written by Theodore Parker, beginning with the words " O thou great Friend to all the sons of men." Dr. G. W. Hosmer at the close of the hymn read a short passage of Scripture. The Rev. Dr. E. E. Hale offered prayer, after which the response, "Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee," was beautifully sung by Mr. Lit- tlefield. The Rev. Dr. Bellows then, began his discourse. He was pleasantly interrupted at the very beginning by the confusion attending the seating of a train-load of people who arrived from Boston; and again, in the middle of his dis- course, he paused, and called upon the audience to rise and sing a congregational hymn written for the occasion by the Rev. Charles T. Brooks. Dr. Bellows spoke for more than two hours ; and the audience paid a great tribute to his elo- quence, and showed its deep interest in his theme, by listen- ing with close and apparently untiring attention from the beginning to the end. The opera house was filled to its utmost capacity. Probably about two thousand persons were present. 22 CHANNING CENTENARY. MEMOEIAL DISOOTJBSE, By HEITEY W. BELLOWS, D.D. " He was a burning and a shining light : and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light." — John v. 35. It was when John the Baptist's light was fading in the glory of the newly risen Sun of Righteousness that Jesus bore this generous testimony to his predecessor's lustre. He characterized, in words that have become immortal, the flame of that stern prophet who had heralded the way for his own appearing ; but at the same time intimated that its fires had paled, like a torch whose oil had burned low. The Sun had risen, the torch was no longer useful. We have come together to bless and praise a modern prophet, who, like many other saints who have been the burning and shining lights of their generation, was the herald of a new and brighter day. But it is not his mem- ory chiefly that we recall. It is a living light that we are to contemplate, brighter than it ever was ; it is not a torch that has gone out, but a star that shines on, guiding our present way, that we meet to rejoice in the light of. Of Channing, we do not say he was, but he is, a burning and a shining light ; and the season has not gone by, it has not even reached its meridian, when the Church and the world are willing to rejoice in his light. On this occasion, the centennial of his birth, and in the place of his birth, it falls to me to be the spokesman of the love and honor in which his life and teachings, his character and his services to the Church and the world, are held by his townsmen, and especially by those who have inherited and have sought to extend and perpetuate what was special in his theological opinions. It is true his birthplace was CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 23 not the principal seat of his life and labors ; and it is still more true that no sect or denomination has any exclusive right in his fame. He belonged to the order of Christians called Unitarians, but he belonged still more to the Church Universal ; and nothing would have grieved him more than any attempt to shut him in to any enclosure that shuts out the pure and good of any name, Catholic or Protestant, Trinitarian or Unitarian. His theological opinions, in my judgment, upon a very recent careful reconsideration of them, prove much more systematic, definite, and positive than it is common to allow ; but they are also much more comprehensive, inclusive, and inconsistent with the secta- rian spirit or form than they are sometimes assumed to be. They are profoundly conservative and profoundly radical, holding on to all that is eternal, going down to all that is eternal, and going on to all that is eternal. In the strength of his moral intuitions and convictions, and without antici- pating many results of later criticism, or using the methods which a larger learning has employed, he simply ignored and set aside all that hampered his full intellectual and moral freedom, and slowly evolved a system of religious thought, which has recommended itself more and more to spiritual minds in all branches of the Church and in all Christian countries, — a system so profound, simple, and lofty, so humane and natural, and yet so Christ-like and divine, that it lacks dogmatic and ecclesiastical features almost as much as the Sermon on the Mount or the personal teachings of the Saviour ; enters almost as little into scholastic and tech- nical questions, and avoids, by reducing to their proper in- significance, most of the sectarian disputes of the Church. Channing was a theologian,' but not of the old pattern. He studied God, and reported his ways and his will after a manner that had not been recognized in former schools of theology. This indeed was his chief service, that he broke 24 . CHANNING CENTENARY. with the old theological methods, and refused to settle the controversies of the Church by an appeal to Scriptures and creeds, authoritative over the mind and heart of man, and not merely authoritative within them, and by concurrence with their testimony. He was fully convinced that the pre- vailing system of dogmatic and ecclesiastical Christianity — essentially the same in the Romish and the Protestant His- torical Church — was contrary to the teaching of the spirit of Christ, contrary to the light of Natural reason and con- science (which indeed has been offered as the proof of its divinity and of man's total corruption), and that the power of the gospel could be restored only by returning to Jesus' method of teaching it, a method that respected, honored, and relied upon man's essential relations to God, instituted in his rational and moral constitution. Channing recognized no theology based upon a revelation which by interpretation separated Christianity from the gen- eral history of humanity, and placed it, and must ever keep it, in antagonism to Philosophy and Life. He did not con- sider theology as the study of God, within the covers of the Bible, as if that were a book foreign to human intelligence, and altogether above and aside from it. He resisted stoutly, from the irrepressible freedom of his own soul, all compulsory allegiance to the Church, to the creeds, to the past, to Jesus, nay, to God himself,' and strove to emancipate all other souls from this prostration before mere power and authority. It was not necessary to bind him with cords to the altar, if the Being worshipped there was entitled, as he thought he was, by his holiness, justice, and goodness, to the sacrifice of his heart. Freely, joyfully, humbly, and with his whole soul, he bowed before truth, worth, goodness, purity, sacredness, and in the testimonies of his own spiritual nature he saw them, to an infinite extent, in the Great Source of his own moral experiences. But not one joint would he bend before the CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 2$ threats of mere power, or the assumptions of an authority not guaranteed by his rational and moral nature. We are not left to speculate about his fundamental ideas. They are not only given with transparent simplicity and unfaltering courage, and with a reiteration that to many is wearisome in his collected writings ; but he has prefaced his own works, almost at the conclusion of his life, with a deliberate statement, in which he distinctly, and with the most solemn emphasis, calls attention to the two ideas which he wishes to be regarded as the dominant notes and the master-keys of his whole system of religious and politi- cal thinking and feeling. One is unqualified reverence for human nature ; the other, boundless faith in freedom. They are easily interchangeable, and become in his writings one and the same. Human nature is worthy of unspeakable, immeasurable reverence, because God informs it, because it reveals God, because reason is the intellectual life of God and man, and conscience the moral life of God, which he dignified man by inviting him to share. Man knows God only because he is made in his rational and moral image. God is as much dependent upon our moral and rational powers for worship, communion, and filial love, as we are dependent on his holiness and loveliness and paternal char- acter for an object which is truly adorable. And our intel- lectual and moral powers owe their worth, their development, and their glory to freedom. This is God's own everlasting glory and life, — freedom. Were he not free in his holiness, his goodness, his thoughts, he could not command the love and reverence of free beings ; and were they not free to offer him a voluntary, a rational, moral homage, their wor- ship would be mechanical and worthless. Civilization is nothing but the triumph of freedom, and that is the victory of Reason and Conscience. Unreason — the fruit of self- will, ignorance, passion, prejudice — shows itself in barbar- 26 CHANNING CENTENARY. isms of a more or less atrocious kind ; and society, even now, in its least deplorable forms, is irrational and barbaric. It is not yet based upon, and is not characteristically con- ducted in, reverence for Reason, but rests still on force, on cupidity, on fear. Governments are not strong where they should be strong, in their reliance on what is true and right, but in their appeal to party passion, the love of power, and national animosities. Mankind do not glory in their nat- ure as rational and moral, but in its external circumstances. They build up artificial distinctions of condition and caste ; they glory in luxury and ostentation ; they belittle them- selves with costume and equipage and titles and state. And if Reason, in the occasional form of triumphant logic or vigorous literature, obtains respect, it is often in disre- gard of the only element that makes Reason wholly worthy of reverence, — its subordination to Conscience. Can that state of society be regarded as in any but an inchoate con- dition, in which the quality that alone makes God godlike or venerable is made secondary and subordinate, and that by an immense and all-characterizing step, to what is con- venient, pleasant, favorable to immediate interests, or flatter- ing to mean and interested desires ? Where is the city or community in which the right and the good are enshrined in the inmost heart ; governing respect and affection, de- ciding social station, making and executing the laws ? If God be moral perfection, must he not expect and demand that the race made in his image should be aiming steadily to make justice and goodness prevail and reflect his holi- ness ? But this justice and goodness cannot be forced. They perish, and discharge themselves of their essence when in bondage or under force. Hence in Channing's eyes any state of commotion, revolution, or contention was preferable to intellectual formalism and compulsory decorum. No atheistic or infidel opinions were so much to be dreaded CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 2j as a compulsory formalism of creed. That was the smother- ing of the rational and moral nature. Free, it might wander, but it would learn by its wanderings, and at any rate keep itself alive by its motion, and might some day return. But slavery of the will was moral death. The exalted view of human nature, which Channing had, was not only not opposed to, but it grew out of his sublime sense of the greatness and glory of God. Man learned God's being and his moral and rational attributes from the constitu- tion of his own soul, not from external nature. This was the chief glory of man's own spirit, that.it revealed an Infinite Spirit ! Self-reverence was only the reflection of the awe which God's holiness or moral grandeur kindled in a being who found himself capable of recognizing the Divine exist- ence and character, by the mysterious power of reason and conscience, which at once made him a partaker in the Divine nature, and were the only instruments of his faith and wor- ship. That mind is one and the same essence in God, angels, and men, is a fundamental postulate with him. That the ' finite mind is of the nature and essence of the Infinite mind, he everywhere assumes as the very first condition of all knowl- edge of God or intercourse with him. The later or more modern difficulties, which have arisen from the recognition of the limitation of the finite as vitiating all assumed knowl- edge of the Infinite, he not only does not recognize, but his faith, his character, his service to humanity, are due to the utter freedom of his soul from this most fatal and ultimate form of scepticism. That the finite was cut off from the Infi- nite by its conditions was to him a proposition as meaningless as that the bay was cut off from the ocean, or could have no communication with the ocean, because it was a bay and not the ocean itself. The human soul was open to God, who flowed into it in man's rational and moral nature ; and more and more, as the moral and rational nature grew, expanded, and 28. CHANNING CENTENARY. became capable of receiving it. There was no pantheism in this sentiment of God's presence in man, for that involves a notion against which Channing's whole nature revolted, — the notion that man loses himself by admitting God into his soul. According to him, man is freer, the more nearly he approaches, the more truly he is possessed by, the Infinite Freedom. It is only in freedom, in the exercise of an unen- slaved will, that man can form any true conception of God, who is freedom itself. But it is the glory of God that his freedom is the freedom of his own will ; and will exists, and can exist, only in a person. God is a Person, and as a per- son cannot be confused or confounded with other persons. Man is a person, — tending, however, by his weakness of will, to degenerate into a thing. This indeed is the radical evil of sin. It tends to fall, nay, it is itself a fall from that sense of moral freedom without which moral obedience cannot be rendered. The more man becomes like his Maker, the more truly he is a Person ; and God's personality lies in essence, in the fact that his truth and goodness are always matters of choice, while his choice is always truth and goodness. Noth- ing could have been more dreadful to Channing than the idea of a God who was only the name for inexorable laws, infinite but blind forces, without self-consciousness, without freedom, without feeling, and that men were free only by feigning freedom, or ignoring the bonds that hold them fast in a fatal necessity. Channing's sense of God's goodness and holiness were so utterly dependent on his sense of his freedom that it became impossible for him to think God pleased with any bondage in his children, or any dominion of fear in their worship and service. As God was free, so his children, to know and love and worship him, must be free also, — free to think, free to act, free to worship. This made him the life-long foe of all systems of government in state or church, whose essence CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 29 was conformity, the suppression of free thought, free wor- ship, free will. He dreaded the effort to overawe the indi- vidual soul by the weight and pressure of numbers ; to con- fine the present within the limits of the past ; to quote stale precedents against fresh inspirations ; to discourage new hopes by instancing old failures ; to limit and stereotype the creeds. He had a boundless faith in God's great and good intentions toward the human race ; the infinite love of an Infinite Person — owing his own rational and moral glory to his character and his freedom — toward his human offspring, who were to be made great and glorious after his own pat- tern, by becoming continually more free and more reverent of others' freedom ; more just, and loving more to be just; more obedient, and more willing in their obedience ; more his children, and more themselves at the same time. This is the key to the ideality, the moral enthusiasm, the hopeful- ness of Channing's faith. No one had a keener, deeper sense of individual or social imperfection, folly, and sin than he. His censures, his groans, his yearnings over the inade- quate attainments, the low standards, the dull feelings of his fellow-creatures ; his inexorable determination to accept no excuses or apologies in place of repentance and newness of life ; his severe demands on himself ; his tonic remon- strances with the shortcomings of his best friends ; his jealousy of any praise of himself or his doings ; his arraign- ment of immoral but commanding characters worshipped by the world about him ; of the shallow respectability that mis- took itself for morality ; of the traditional acquiescence that called itself faith ; of the love of freedom that coexisted with the allowance of domestic slavery in his own country; of the business cupidity that covered itself with the name of enterprise and public spirit ; of the faith in free thought that allowed the prejudices or even the just prepossessions of numbers to persecute individual peculiarity or even eccen- 30 CHANNING CENTENARY. tricity of opinion, — all this habitual censoriousness or exact- ingness was nothing but the reverse side of the immense confidence he had in human possibilities, based upon the relations man bore, in his very nature, to a God whose pow- ers, whose love, whose benignity towar.d man were bounded only by his Divine purpose of keeping man's manhood in him, and never allowing him, either as a race or an indi- vidual, to be content or satisfied in any state of life or happi- ness short of the truly human. Men sometimes talk of Channing's ignorance of the neces- sary conditions of human life ; of his secluded separateness from the world ; of his imperfect acquaintance with the pres- sure of material necessities, the spring of animal passions and appetites ; the necessary preoccupation of the masses of men and women with immediate things. He seems almost like an anchorite, a hermit, a pillar-saint, in the fewness of his wants, the wonder he expresses at the low pleasures men find so attractive, and in the monotonous concentration of his thoughts upon the moral and the spiritual. But the truth is, it was not that Channing did not see all this ; but that, seeing it, he saw what is still more real and vastly more powerful and inviting : he saw God, and saw man's likeness to him, and his capacity for realizing f it, and saw that men mostly did not see it, and that it was his office and privilege to draw their attention to it with all urgency. Nobody ever lived since Jesus who recognized the evil in men and the world with a deeper, tenderer sorrow, and still retained so perfect a possession and enjoyment of his own faith and hope for man and society, in God and his gracious purposes. There is no despondency in his complaints, no disrespect in his upbraidings, nay, no impatience in his enthusiasm. He had more than the optimist's content. His confidence is not in powers he does not know, in a God he blindly trusts, in purposes he cannot sympathize -with ! He CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 3 1 has grasped the nature of the Divine method, apprehends its implements, uses them, and knows their temper and edge. It is because mind is at work, and is a Divine instrument ; because truth and justice exist in perfection in God, and are revealed in man's conscience ; because love is almighty, and has its delegates in human hearts, — that he expects results from civilization, and a stage of progress that will make our present state appear barbarous ; and that he appeals so urgently, so boldly, so pleadingly, to men to keep the weapons of the Divine armory open to their use, and make successful war on the lusts, the ignorance, the moral sloth, the dull content that belate the spring of heaven on earth, and perpetuate the winter of human discontent. If other human spirits had seen the vision of God's powers and prom- ises in the human soul and its latent capacities, as Channing saw them, he would never have seemed visionary and extrav- agant. It was the glory of this burning and shining light, that the fogs of our fleshly and self-indulgent civilization — built on the urgency of what is animal and superficial — did not quench its own exalted beams. Channing was an ideal- ist in essence. The ideal was for him the only real, and he treated it as such. So did his Master before him ; so have all the prophets, and so must all those do who have the heavenly vision of God in their eyes. It is not they who are fanatics and dreamers, but we who are asleep, or with only one eye yet open. They see and know what man is, and can prove himself to be, if he will — because he is the child of God by a real spiritual generation, and has his Father's attri- butes at his command; can claim and exercise his moral freedom and his rational nature. They see and know that it is nothing new and strange that is wanted to regenerate the world ; only more of a kind they already have and know ; more of the truly human yet divine sentiment of justice and love. Given a million hearts and minds, a million wills like 32 CHANNING CENTENARY. Charming* s, — nay, like any humble, loving, holy follower of Jesus, — and instantly an unspeakable regeneration — a de- scent of the kingdom of God — appears ! Things become easy, that were before impossible. War, that we cannot kill by force, dies of shame. Selfishness, that we regard as indigenous and indestructible, turns into justice, mercy, and the enjoyment of others 1 happiness as the truest extension of our own, and disappears from the world, just as it disap- pears in every truly regenerate household. All that has ever been realized in any one man is possible in families ; all that has ever triumphed in families may triumph in communities. Every true community predicts the universal emancipation of the race ; and the race, glorified out of its own nature, — which is the gift of God, — foretells more and larger and nobler measures of perfectness in the boundless worlds and times yet to be inherited. With these exalted views of God's freedom, justice, and goodness, as the source and perpetual inspiration and inex- haustible fountain of human powers and hopes, no wonder that Channing had the profoundest and most cheerful faith in the earthly and the celestial destiny of humanity. There was no caprice in the purposes, no limitation in the love, no uncertainty in the direction of the Divine Mind. And equally there was no incapacity to receive God's truth, no constitutional antagonism to it, no essential alienation, no hopeless break with God in human nature, — which was indissolubly connected with and an echo or image of the Divine nature. The clear and full declaration, or rather illumination, of the essential relations of God and man in Christianity, as founded in the oneness of mind and the sovereignty of moral truth, made the gospel of Christ the joy and confidence of Channing's heart, and secured it the allegiance and devotion CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 33 of his life. Because Jesus in his own life and character, and by his precepts and parables, made God's truth to be justice and holiness directed by Fatherly love, and man's life to be obedience to truth and duty, which he was not only capable of rendering, but capable of enjoying, and finding to be his chief and permanent bliss ; because Jesus made God's Fatherhood and man's sonship correlative, transcendent truths, and illustrated them in his own person and character, Channing fastened his faith and affections upon Christianity as the divinest method of advancing the kingdom of God on earth, and the salvation of man for time and eternity. As he understood or interpreted it, it was in exact accordance with what the highest human thought and feeling would wish it to be and expect it to be. It met and satisfied his intellect and his conscience. It presented God in the most holy, just, and merciful character. It honored humanity by exhibiting it in the perfect sinlessness and disinterested love and self-sacrifice of Jesus. Its respect for human freedom was complete ; its method, not force, but persuasion, ex- ample, and light. It made certain the irmnortality for which humanity had only hoped, and by this assurance gave to man that dignity which only a nature destined to a much fuller unfolding than was yet possible on earth could pos- sess. It blended morality and piety for the first time in an indissoluble unity. It rebuked worldliness, and humbled the pride of wealth and station, and the worse pride of intellect and self-will. It abased the high and exalted the lowly. It made men brothers by a tie stronger than blood, whether of race or of family. It discountenanced war and violence. It founded its hopes on the triumphs of mind and heart, of moral truth and love, and not on the schools of science and philosophy, not on the sword nor the power of artificial organization. It was the noblest and most exalted honor 34 , CHANNING CENTENARY. ever paid to humanity that God in Christ addressed not its fears, not its passions, not its dogmatic hopes, not its national prejudices, but its highest and holiest powers, its reason and its conscience — what is universal, uniting, and elevating — what is godlike and divine — and not what is attractive to self-interest, gratifying to self-importance, flat- tering to selfish hopes. Christian to the core, Channing had absolutely nothing of the Churchman in him, — less, possi- bly, than would have been wise, — for he held the Church responsible for a great dogmatic and ecclesiastical system, which had buried the simplicity of Christ's gospel beneath a mass of opinions and customs revolting to his mind and heart. His Christianity was essentially that which fell only from Christ's lips, and was illustrated in his life, before the Apostle to the Gentiles had given it the dogmatic shape of his ingenious intellect, or the powers of the world had seized it, to forge from it a new instrument of political order and ambition. But, simple and profoundly rational as Channing's ideas of Christianity were, they were central and commanding, and they were historical and supernatural. For him Jesus was no mythic growth of marvel-loving times ; he was no uncom- missioned, self-appointed prophet, owing his authority to his greater wisdom and insight. Channing fully believed him to be sent, in the ordinary sense of the Church, from heaven — from God's immediate presence. He believed him to have been pre-existent. He thought him to owe his sinless- ness not simply to his nature, but to his special and personal relations to God, — relations which we do not yet fully enjoy. He did not regard him chiefly as an example for us, in his own temptations and trials, because we could not understand his resources nor enter into his experience. But it would not be just to call him an Arian without explanation, for he CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 35 did not think Christ's nature different from ours, but only the same in a higher stage of development ; nor had he any perception or recognition of what has been called the double nature of Christ, — the divine and the human. He knew but one forrn of spiritual nature, — God's own. It was mind, and mind was rational and moral. It might have, it did have, different stages of development. It was eternally perfect in God. It was eternally capable of development in his chil- dren. God's glory was eternally to give, and man's eternally to receive it. Jesus Christ had, according to his view, a created existence ; but it was older than man's. He brought his moral and spiritual perfections with him. He did not grow into them as we grow, nor were they limited by what hinders us. I am bound, in simplicity, to say that I do not share these views of Christ's pre-existence ; nor is the moral and spiritual exaltation of Jesus in my view dependent upon the place or the date of his first creation ; nor do I think that Channing, judging by the views his disciples have since attained, would have continued in them, if he had lived to our day. His own spiritual philosophy ought, it seems to me, to have made him, of all men, readiest to believe that a being made in the Divine image might, occasionally at least, live in the Divine likeness free from sin ; nor can I see what should prevent us from believing that spiritual or moral genius, like intellectual, may be exceptional, without being abnormal. We do not think Homer, Aristotle, Plato, Mi- chael Angelo, Shakespeare, pre-existed, because their genius is unparalleled : why Jesus ? Genius, poetic, artistic, execu- tive, is always unaccountable and always exceptional ; but it is never other or more than human. I hope and trust that other sinless beings have lived besides Jesus. Beings, at any rate, there have been in whom no sin appeared"; and I should hold it a great deduction from my reverence for 36 CHANNING CENTENARY. Christ and humanity if I were compelled to leave Jesus out of the ranks of our common manhood. But let us not forget that Channing's views about the pre- existence and the miraculous, in which he was a firm be- liever, and the difference between the origin of Christianity and other religions, only emphasize the pure rationality and ethical and spiritual quality of his characteristic views. Be- lieving in the miracles, he neither magnified them nor rested in them. Believing in the pre-existence, it was not this that gave Christianity its dignity and importance in his eyes, and he did not require these opinions from others as a test of their faith. They were not of the essence of his own faith. It was not the mysterious nor the abnormal nor the irrational ; not the ontological and metaphysical, nor the supernatural, that he valued. It was what was rational, in- telligible, rulable, imitable. He accepted certain views which we might reject, as being to him most in accord with the record. He held the record in a more literal respect than modern scholars of his general views. But I feel bound to say that none of his views brought him any nearer to the orthodoxy of the visible church than it did Parker or Martineau ; and that those who use him to disfavor free in- quiry or to buoy up sinking dogmas, or to stop theological progress cannot be careful students of his life and writings, and do not illustrate his freedom. He had no such views of the difference between the truly human and the truly divine as would have made even interesting to him the ordinary empty questions as to how far the same mind can partake of the divine and the human. That question was settled in his fundamental theory of the identity of mind. There was no difference, except in degree of development, between Jesus and other men, as the only difference in nature between God and man is that God is eternally father^ and man eternally his CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 37 child, by rational and moral generation, or identity of nature and derivation of essence. Channing never permitted theo- retical differences to diminish or weaken the significance of moral and spiritual agreements. There is no evidence that he valued anybody more for sharing his views, or depreciated anybody for opposing or denying them, if in a good spirit. If he had a choice, it was for the society of those who had some new or divergent view to present. He had a wondrous confidence in the power of truth to protect itself ; in the safety of free discussion ; and in the possible importance of the new light which even very young and unrecognized spir- its might at any time shed upon questions regarded by most as closed and settled. Like the mothers in Israel, who re- garded every son as the possible Messiah, Channing hailed every independent and earnest mind as the possible opener of some new and wide door into the kingdom of God. He was equally tolerant of others* opinions, and cautious and docile in his own. He thought that new truth was yet to break out of God's Word, and that with new truth would come new means of advancing the delayed triumphs of the gospel, which were identical with the progress of true civili- zation. It is easy to see why, with these views, Channing should be claimed both by conservatives and by radicals in the lib- eral ranks, and why even enlightened and spiritual believers of the so-called orthodox faiths should be able to cull from his writings passages which savor of the old system. He was no destructive, no despiser of the past ; and he retained and breathed all that was sacred and divine in the piety that had been associated with the old opinions. Now and then, it is true, as in his famous Baltimore sermon, and in his equally great New York sermon, he made the strongest, most direct, and most damaging assaults upon the Trinitarian and Cal- 38 CHANNING CENTENARY. vinistic systems of opinion, — assaults which, for courage, explicitness, and even for offensiveness to the feelings and prejudices of the Christian world, have never been exceeded. But controversy of a textual or ecclesiastical kind was his strange work. He dreaded its effects upon himself and others, and only engaged in it when driven by the stress of his position or by his noble necessity to vindicate the free- dom of opinion and the claims to respect of his own be- leaguered company of fellow-believers. Controversy bears no greater proportion to the affirmative part of his writings than Jesus* own contradiction of Jewish and Pharisaic errors does to his positive teaching of religious truth. And there- fore as Jesus has continued to be honored, loved, and quoted by rationalists and supernaturalists, by Catholics and Protest- ants, by churchmen and anti-churchmen, by Calvinists and Arminians and Pelagians, because the bulk of his teaching is universal, uncontroversial, and of that spirit and temper which time does not stale, nor place color, nor other differ- ences affect ; so Channing has been placed, by a wide con- sent, in the calendar of the Universal Church, — the ortho- dox Christian world condoning his denial of several of its most generally received opinions, in recollection of the glo- rious testimony he bore in his writings and his life to the beauty of holiness, the might of divine truth, and the transcendent importance of the Christian life. None have been able to escape the power of his spirituality, the earnest- ness of his faith, the purity and elevation of his character. It has deodorized his dogmatic offenses, and made his con- troversial writings forgotten or forgiven by all except those who have nothing to forgive or forget, still thinking them the necessary and invaluable expression of theological con- viction, on which his own vital faith and his lofty personal character rested, and in which the Christian world will finally unite and agree. CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 39 I have already given more time than I intended to the con- sideration of Channing as a theologian and the essence of his opinions. Let us now turn to the contemplation of his gen- ius and. character, or the measure of the man himself. In some respects, his views, as already set forth, are them- selves the best description of the genius and character of the man. Considering the date of his settlement in the Chris- tian ministry and the prevailing opinions of his contempora- ries, the depth and breadth of his opinions, the freedom of his intellect, and the unconventional, undogmatic, and unec- clesiastical character of his thoughts are the indications of a mind of the first order, — possessing an authority in the clearness, soberness, and calmness of its own vision and its own convictions, that liberates it from local, accidental, and merely custom-made bonds. Rarely has any religious thinker appeared who was less obviously the child of his time and circumstances, whether in his opinions, his spirit, or his ca- reer. He called no man master. The religious views he held were not in accord with those of his kindred ; he was not the disciple of the great men nearest to him in his youth, like Dr. Hopkins and Dr. Stiles, whom he greatly honored. He was not the echo and representative of the prevailing moderation, and compromised or emasculated orthodoxy, the Arianism or obscurantism of the growing liberalism of his region and time. He was utterly out of sympathy with Priestley and Belsham, though appreciative of the merits of Price, and probably more indebted to Butler than to any single mind. He honored Buckminster, but did not partake the scholastic or highly literary spirit, which in his time was giving to Boston the name of the modern Athens, and was arraying the liberal pulpit in the silken robes of academic culture, — the generation of mellifluous pulpit oratory, mild and correct, which Kirkland illustrated and Everett carried to its culminating perfection. 40 CHANNING CENTENARY. He was not the close friend and companion of the able and cultivated men who made Boston the seat and centre of conservatism in everything except theology, — in classicism, in oratory, in rhetoric, in taste, in manners, — and in theol- ogy, the seat of a cautious, ethical, or secularized divinity, — lukewarm and inoffensive, difficult to define and impossible to propagate. Himself exquisitely refined, sensitive to beauty and sublimity in nature and literature ; fond of good letters, read in poetry, with a taste for the classics and for the fine arts ; the first scholar in his class, and at eighteen the chosen writer of the address with which the students hailed Presi- dent Adams in his stiff resistance to French policy ; with early promise of high success in the legal profession, for which his friends and classmates predestined him, or else for a great political career, — he never was the echo or the mouthpiece of the special tendencies or predilections of his day and generation, or of the city where he spent his life. And it was because his impulse came from a higher source than any local or temporary stream. So far as he was not the child of God, he must be pronounced the son of his own genius, and not of his time and parentage and neighborhood, his sect or his party. And his genius was one of intense self-possession, — making his own thoughts more engrossing and commanding than any thoughts he found in books, or any influences that were about him. He found within him- self ideas, feelings, faculties, that fastened his attention upon themselves, not as being his in the egotistic sense, but as being wonderful suggestions and keys, the sublime represen- tatives of what he shared with humanity and with God. What he was and saw and felt in his own nature gave Jiim his inspiration, his mission, and his special career. There was nothing indirectly derived, second-hand, or traditional, and merely bred of local contagion, in his views or in his CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 41 methods. He was an original force, commanded by his vision and conviction, and from a height which no fortresses of venerable custom or of elegant prejudice overlooked, much less overawed. More individual than if his individuality had not lacked all egotism and all eccentricity, all caprice and self-allowance, he had little power of co-operation, little faith in organization, and little dependence on others' sympathy and applause, and as little susceptibility to censure. The most sanctified of his clerical contemporaries, he was the least professional in his temper and spirit ; the most Christian in his heart and life, the least ecclesiastical. He loved Boston best of all the world, — if Newport may not to-day claim the warmest place in his heart, — yet he was not a Bostonian in the most characteristic sense of that term. He did not share its distrust for genius untrained in academic lore ; its bated breath for new men not baptized into Harvardian waters j its impatience with strength, if it were shaggy and rugged ; its marvellous solidity of social conformity, and the breeding in and in of its tastes and convictions. Respecta- bility, good family, self-consistency, decorum, moderation, the lares around that honored hearth, were not his household gods. Far be it from me to disparage the noble self-suffi- ciency and compact perfectness of the place of my own birth and breeding. But, however much it may have been or may still be deplored, it is due to the right measurement of Chan- ning to say that he was not the typical Bostonian of his day or of any day, and that what he did in and for Boston was usually against the grain of its characteristic and governing tastes and wishes. He gave his genius to Boston and man- kind. He did not shape it to suit Boston or his generation, but to satisfy his nature and conscience, and to honor God and his service among men. The same may be said of his great though younger con- 42 CHANNING CENTENARY. temporaries, Emerson, Parker, Garrison. It was a fortunate thing for Channing that he was driven to Virginia, the old heart of the country, to earn his independence, and there to settle his opinions and his profession. There,' in comparative solitude, and beyond the reach of local influences, and even natal bonds, he found himself (not that he had ever wan- dered), because there, with his manhood just attained, con- curred the first great struggle of his mind and heart with its own questions, in a meditative separation from all that could have biased him or warped him from being other or less than himself. True, in that protracted season of profound reverie and meditation, in which his soul was feathering and taking wing and direction, he lost his bodily health permanently. He was adding to his conscientious labor, as a tutor and teacher, the tasks of a profound self-questioner and inquirer of the Spirit of God. He found his soul, and saw the great lines that marked its significance, and indicated his sources of power and usefulness, and fixed his calling and self-dedica- tion to God and Christ and humanity ; he lost his health, and that finally. It is important to connect the two facts. They are curiously illustrative of the disrespect in which he held all endeavors to associate matter and mind in any close mu- tual dependency ; and he was himself the minimum of body and the maximum of mind. But it is well to remember that Channing had been athletic, joyous, springy, and gay, manly and bold to a fault in physical courage in his boyhood and college days ; that there was never any other asceticism or melancholy or other worldliness about him than necessarily belong to invalids who have to study their health continually ; and that, if his poor physique compelled him to live a good deal in solitude, to avoid too much exertion in any form, and to fix his mind upon his special pursuit, it never took any robustness from his courage, dignity from his manhood, CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 43 sympathy from his love of children, the open air, nature, and womanhood. There is no ill health in his lusty hopes of humanity, in his unvaletudinarian admiration *f or those who could defy and resist wrong and oppression, blind custom, or tyrannical use and wont. His love of the beaches of your island in the time of storms, where he said he felt his soul expand and take on the power of the elemental strife, should teach us how little the softness of his tissue or the worn fibres of his muscles communicated their weakness to the cords of his intellectual or his moral nature. In fact, his soul would have animated a giant, and set forth a Viking, in its magnificent courage and sweep of life. I am struck with nothing more than the comprehensive grasp of his thoughts. They bind God and man together, the past and the future; and, high and holy as they are wide and deep, they are never filmy and airy ; always solid, ready to bear the tread of the strongest reason ; full of sense, if full of light ; enthusiastic, but never eccentric, never wild. His feet are steady on the ground, if his eye and arm are reaching for the skies. He had been addicted to reverie, as all ideal natures are, in his earlier manhood ; but the mist quickly consolidated into a cloud, out of which shot bolts of prodigious force and directness. His greatest, most distinctive gift — his instru- ment and his method alike — was the power of an almost unequalled concentration of attention upon his own thoughts and inward experiences, afterwards enlarged into the faculty of fixing his mind, with an absorbing exclusion of other themes, upon any subject he chose to meditate and examine. He brooded, with a patience that Nature does not equal in her winged kind, over the seminal suggestions he found in the sacred nest of his own soul. Other men have had his thoughts; nay, happily, they are so native to humanity that 44 CHANNING CENTENARY. 'they must always lack originality. It was what they grew to, under his prolonged, persistent meditation, that made them new, and other, and more fruitful than they have proved in kindred minds lacking his unwearied and fixed power and habit of contemplation. This, too, is the source of the monotony of which some complain in his writings. There is not room enough in the mind for the concurrent and full expansion of many ideas, as important and sublime as those that occupied his great soul. A few master-thoughts — the greatest that can em- ploy the human soul — had early fastened his attention; they never ceased to yield new fruits to meditation.* He never got to the end of them, or was fully content with the expression he gave them. He returns to them again and again. He applies them. They are always as useful as they are engaging, always as much the ground of his action as of his feeling. They are thoughts of God, of man, of freedom, of holiness, of public justice, of the elevation of the humble, of the enrichment of the poor ! They are not thoughts to amuse, to please, to dazzle ; thoughts for a culti- vated class or a fastidious appetite ; thoughts whose aim is to show off the thinker's skill or taste or originality ; they are not clothed in rhetoric, nor made to suit the love of variety. They can hardly be said to be chosen thoughts; but rather thoughts so self-urged and spontaneous that they seem the special hardy natives of the soil, too vigorous and too exhausting of the sap to allow any lesser thoughts, or * Mr. Browning, in his '* Paracelsus," describes this experience : — " So that, when quailing at the mighty range Of secret truths which yearn for birth, I haste To contemplate undazzled some one truth, Its bearings and effects alone — at once What was a speck expands into a star, Asking a life to pass exploring thus. " CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 45 any variety of thoughts, to spring up in the neighborhood. The solemn pause and measured formality with which in his writings he announces his passing from one to another thought exhibits and illustrates the awe with which he was himself overcome in the presence of his convictions. They hardly seemed his own, and he introduced them as if he were presenting the lofty ambassadors of some sacred power, for the obeisance of the company met to receive them. It is the greatness and glory of only the rarest souls to be thus filled with a few themes, that claim and crowd all the room ' our nature has, — thoughts so exalted, so peerless, and so self-sustained that they neither allow nor require any train- bearers or attendants. Channing did not lack native versa- tility, aptness for many things, taste and capacity for litera- ture, philosophy, science, art, poetry, practical affairs, politics, statesmanship, natural history, society ; that he was capable of wit, satire, humor, is evident enough to those who make a study of his biography — almost an autobiography — by the hand of his favorite nephew. It was no lack of nice obser- vation, of practical interest in daily life, of sympathy with common things, of physical sensibility or even manly pas- sion, that made him such a uniform or one-keyed organ of a few great thoughts. It is as plain as light that he was no mystic, no mere temperamental saint, no vestal in disguise — not even a man to whom evil was unknown, and the world naturally repulsive, and therefore carefully veiled from sight. He had none of the scholar's learned ignorance, the saint's pious inhumanity, the devotee's upturned eyeballs. There was in the odor of his sanctity no savor of any ecclesiastical herbs, no artificial, sickly perfume of funeral . tuberoses, rosemary, and myrrh. His seriousness was habitual, and caused by the essential solemnity of his thoughts. He did not often smile, and seldom laughed ; but it was not from 46 CHANNING CENTENARY. want of cheerfulness or incapacity for humor, but only from the prepossession of his mind by grave and intensely inter- esting themes. He thought himself one of the happiest of men, and his children testify to the vivacity and cheerful- ness of his domestic life. But he was made happy and happier, every year he lived, by his greater realization of our wonderful nature, and its relations to its generous and glorious Source, his high and cheerful views of human prog- ress on earth, and its sublime destiny beyond the skies. It was a grand peculiarity of this great man so to have reconciled his ideas with his immediate life and duty that his life was his - religion, and his religion his life. He did not wear his faith and piety as a professional robe ; it was his home attire and his working-dress. He did not keep his thoughts for meditation, except as far as meditation is itself life and action, but for use and application. He could not be caught in undress. He was the same exalted person, at home and abroad, in ordinary conversation and in the pul- pit. Indeed, Dr. Dewey — whose testimony comes nearer to that of a peer, though his is a different variety of the order of greatness, than that of any close witness of Chan- ning — has told me that his talk was greater, and more exhaustive and exhausting, than his writings or his preach- ing; upon the same themes, just as lofty and just as grave, but more prolonged and more glowing. In short, the nearer you got to this burning and shining light, the more you found it to be not painted flame, but real fire ; not light only, but heat. It went far to consume Channing himself, who lay a live coal upon the altar; and it was apt to scorch and shrivel even the stoutest souls that stood near it while it steadily burnt, not out, but on. It was the utter genuine- ness of his faith, the power it had over himself, that made it so effectual over others, and gives it such might to-day. CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 47 Of his preaching, I was myself the glad and fortunate beneficiary, and am among the not too many living witnesses to its transcendent power. There is no spot in Boston so sacred to me as the profaned site of the old Federal Street Church ; for thither, a youth of twenty-one, I was wont to repair (and it was a walk of several miles) every other Sun- day morning, for two critical years of my life and theological studies, to hear Channing preach ! There were excellent preachers to be heard much nearer home ; but there was that in Channing's mind and soul, in his voice, manner, and look, that separated him from them, as the prophet is sepa- rated from the priest. Indeed, he did not preach, in the ordi- nary sense of the word. Gowned as he was, and obedient to all the decorums of the pulpit, it was not the preacher, but the apostle, you saw and heard. Even in the pulpit, he lived the things he saw and said. The greatness of human nature shone in his beautiful brow, sculptured with thought, and lighted from within ; his eye, so full and blue, was lus- trous with a vision of God, and seemed almost an open door into the shining presence. His voice, sweet, round, un- strained, full, though low, lingered as if with awed delay upon the words that articulated his dearest thoughts, and trembled with an ever-restrained but most contagious emo- tion. He was intensely present in his thoughts, as if just born from his soul, and dressed from his lips, although he usually (always in my experience) spoke from a manuscript. But, while his individuality was inexpressibly commanding, it gave no suggestion of the love of personal influence. He used the word " I " with the freedom of the master, but it conveyed the sense, " not I, but the Father in me ; not I, but the truth I speak ; and not you, but the nature you represent ; not you, but humanity and God in you and in us ! " He rose slowly, read a hymn, and began his dis- 48 CHANNING CENTENARY. course (for seldom in my day was he able to spare much of his strength for the preliminary services, conducted by his colleague) on a plane so level to the feet of the simplest of his hearers that few noticed the difficulty of the slow but steady ascent he always made, carrying his rapt -hearers with him by the power of his thought, the calm insistance of his conviction, and the solemn earnestness of his spirit, until they found themselves standing at a height from which visions of divine things, in their true proportions and real perspective, became easy and spontaneous. There was no muscular strain or contortion in his limbs or face or voice ; no excitement of a fleshly origin ; no false fervor or false emphasis ; no loss of perfect dignity and self-possession. And there was little in the words themselves to fix atten- tion, except their purity and grace. It was the subject that came forward and remained in the memory. He left you not thinking of him, nor of his rhetoric. He had no start- ling figures, no brilliant fancies, no sharp points ; little for admiration or praise ; everything for reflection, for inspira- tion, and for illumination. There was one other peculiarity in his preaching. He preached only on great themes, and this made his sermons always timely, for great subjects are ever in order. So profoundly helpful, so inspiring was his preaching, that I, for one, lived on it, from fortnight to fort- night, and went to it every time, with the expectation and the experience of receiving the bread of heaven on which I was to live and grow, until the manna fell again ; and men of all ages had much the same feeling. When, for the first time, I saw Channing out of the pulpit, I was as much surprised at his diminutive form as if, expect- ing a giant, I had met a dwarf ! He had seemed to me a large and tall man in his pulpit; but I soon found that, slight and low as his frame was, nearness and familiarity CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 49 took nothing from its dignity, and suggested nothing fragile or weak. Indeed, his attenuated and lowly figure really increased the sense of his moral majesty and intellectual eminence. His presence was more awful, simple and gentle as he was, than that of any human being I ever saw. It forbade familiarity, silenced garrulity, checked ease, and had something of the effect of a supernatural visitor ; awing levity, and making even common speech, or speech at all, difficult. He was so unconscious of this effect, so little willing to produce it, so anxious to make others, free and communicative, that it became pathetic to witness the paral- ysis of tongue and motion that usually fell on those whom he in vain tried to set at liberty from his overpowering per- sonality. Doubtless there were familiar and domestic friends, and perhaps men who had grown up with him, that escaped this awe, and overcame this distance ; and children did not seem to feel it ; but just in proportion to the sense and sensibility of young men and women was it irresistible. I have said that Channing was not the kind of preacher Boston usually made and welcomed. Fortunately he did not settle, of choice, in a congregation most characteristic of Boston, — not in Brattle Street, where he was called, but in Federal Street, then comparatively inconspicuous, — and so he made, by degrees, out of a less fixed and wool-dyed class of citizens, a congregation of his own, to which he communicated much of his own spirit and something of his own views. But it was in his character of philanthropist that he had most to do with shaping a new Boston, and most to contend with ; and there his personal courage and com- manding individuality were most displayed. I must not go at length into the history of his relations to the politics, the pauperism, the anti-slavery agitation, the questions of free speech and free opinion, which are really the places where his character and even his views are best illustrated. But 50 CHANNING CENTENARY. I should wholly fail in the completeness even of an outline of Channing, if I did not trace the line of his course upon these public questions. Everybody knows how much of Channing's mind and heart, courage and inspiration, went into the application of his views, — God's glorious purpose in man's creation, the dignity of human nature and the sacredness of freedom, of will, thought, speech, and conduct, — to the working institu- tions of government, of business, of charity, of domestic life. He was above all things a man, and then only a minister ; and no zeal or fidelity to his profession, incompatible with or overriding his duties as a man, could have satisfied him. Indeed, a Christian minister in his eyes was only a man, realizing under Christ's teaching the full dignity of humanity, and working for its rights and its development in the sphere of our present existence. Any effort to shut him up in the pulpit or within the clerical profession, or to cut off his right, his duty, his opportunity of making his moral and spiritual convictions forces in society at large, would necessarily have been unavailing. He knew no distinction between his man- hood and his ministry, and accepted no rules as binding on him which were not binding on all. His field was the world, his congregation the human race ; his office an ordination to advance, protect, and serve all the higher interests of his kind. There was nothing strictly new in this position. All the noblest and greatest men have been distinguished by a certain refusal to observe conventional bounds, or to make their special profession or calling less than that of servant of all truth and all good. Some of the greatest poets have been also theologians ; great lawyers, publicists ; and great physi- cians, philanthropists ; great artists, thinkers and reformers. New England never lacked men in the ministry who felt it their right and duty to guide and watch over political senti- ment ; and Boston had had her Chauncy and Mayhew, not to CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 5 1 speak of her Eliot and Mathers. But, in ordinary times, the tendency of all professions is to become special, and to have an ethics each of its own. Unprofessional, unclerical, are words of significant meaning. No doubt, too, there is a wholesome instinct which teaches men that every profession is a jealous mistress, and demands the exclusive use of the time and talents of its followers, and that a division of labor and a certain mental and moral uniform peculiar to each best favor the interest of all. Departure from this practical rule is only justified when those who break it are clearly seen to be men of exceptional greatness, and competency to larger influence and larger work than belong to any one calling in life. Channing was such a man, — a philosopher, a philan- thropist, a statesman, a poet, — nothing less than the general condition and prospects of the whole race could engage his attention, or limit his sense of responsibleness. He was accordingly an observer and student of other countries, and their moral, social, and political prospects. He was deeply interested in all experiments for increasing popular intelli- gence, improving the condition of the poor, or widening polit- ical rights. He understood the relations and influence of men and events across national boundaries. The French, the English, the German influence upon humanity and the fortunes of Christianity closely concerned him, at a time when few could see over the fences, which, however they narrow the view, do not prevent the circulation of a common human atmosphere. And, in the same way, he was profoundly interested, at a time when interest was rare, in the mutual relations of the different classes of society. Singularly tempted to devote himself to his own excellent and fortunate class, — refined, decorous, solid, and satisfied, and all the more tempted by the fact that his profession justified and expected a certain confinement within parochial bounds, — he could not limit his views or his sympathies or his obligation within 52 CHANNING CENTENARY. any class lines. He reverted to the original office of the ministry, when men were not settled over congregations, but sent forth apostles of truth and mercy to all men. And although he was precluded, by his want of health, from active missionary or active public labors, and lived a peculiarly set- tled and uniform life, his mind, his heart travelled widely, and his pen was a missionary and a public servant that recog- nized the claims of the whole world. Few men, in this country or any other, have been as univer- sal in their survey, their aims, their breadth of view, and the comprehensiveness of their purposes as Channing. With the tastes and habits of a recluse, he was mentally a cosmopolite and a publicist. The least of a partisan and a politician, he had all the feelings and all the capacity of a statesman. Limited by his physical fragility to a narrow walk of personal observation and intercourse, he went in spirit and by the aid of his intellectual and moral sympathies into the homes and shops and fields, and felt the closest and warmest interest in the trials, sorrows, wrongs, and exposures of the common people, and especially those most overlooked. Tuckerman, his most intimate friend, the apostle to the poor of Boston, found in no one so patient and so helpful a supporter and admirer as Channing, who envied his skill, his success, and his delight in this gracious service. His advice and his en- couragement to the laboring classes, which reached many countries, drew forth expressions of gratitude that gave Chan- ning more satisfaction than he could receive from the admira- tion of literary critics, or the crowds of cultivated people that hung on his lips. The ministry to the poor in Boston owed most of its permanent interest to his direction and encour- agement. He was profoundly concerned for the elevation, the happiness, the substantial good of the humbler ranks of people. It was not a professional, technical interest of the ordinary ministerial kind, lest their souls should be lost, but CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 53 a sad sense of what they were losing in not knowing, serving, and loving God. There were none of the materials for a fanatic in Chan- ning ; and yet fanatics have seldom gone as far in their mad- ness or narrowness of view as Channing went in his sobriety and comprehensiveness. He hoped and expected more of all men than perfectionists, socialists, and idealogists have looked for and demanded ; but he had the most practical sense of the difficulties in the way. He had the patience of God and geologic time with the -slowness of the advance. Nobody could have told him much about the obstructions and trying conditions, under the sense of which most men give up the problem. He was hopeful in full view of all obstacles, and active and earnest in spite of his knowledge how long and how much action and effort would be required for an indefi- nite time to come. His course in regard to the anti-slavery movement is per- haps the best illustration of his character as an humanitarian and a citizen. By position, by taste, and by associates, he was one of the men likely to feel most what was called the violence, the narrowness, and the vulgarity of that movement, as it first presented itself in Massachusetts. Its starters and supporters outraged the taste, the ethics, the customs of the best people. It looked wild, fierce, revolutionary, impious, much as the earliest pretentions of Christianity must have seemed to devout and influential Jews in the Holy City. As a rule, Christian ministers gave a wide berth to its advocates. Channing regarded it doubtless with distaste, and turned a cold ' shoulder upon its first apostles, from genuine doubts of its being in right hands, or advocated in a legal and Christian way. In this, he only exhibited the uniform caution of his conscientious mind, which never allowed itself to be swept off the base of its own solid judgment. It was always his judgment — which was his conscience — that had to be set 54 CHANNING CENTENARY. on fire, not his feelings, and it did not catch prematurely ; and when it did, it burnt with a flame that could not be quenched. When Channing began — and it was far earlier than any of the sober and weighty minds about him — to see and feel what was involved in the anti-slavery cause ; what this fierce indignation was, — the cry of outraged justice and down- trampled humanity ; what a holy sense of wrong done to the human soul lay at the bottom of the wrath that made relig- ious,, social, and political conventionalities, so far as they condoned or supported slavery, objects of anger and deri- sion, — he transferred his sympathies from the conservative and popular side of Boston taste and feeling to the radical, the unpopular, the odious side, of the anti-slavery reformers. I do not think he counted the cost of this, or of any course he ever took ; but he knew as well as any man the way in which it would be received by his friends and lovers. His difficulties were never those of the politician, the sectarian, or the time-server. His slowness was always his desire to be right with God and his conscience ; his quickness, the zeal he had in the service of truth and duty, the moment h.e knew them. What services he rendered to the anti-slavery cause ; what he did to clarify, exalt, and make possible the views that afterwards became acceptable and potent, — the world knows, and abolitionists concede. But he never would or could join any organization . that compromised his least conviction, or controlled his own sense of a Divine policy. He spoke for himself ; he stood for himself. He had neither the concurrence of the conservatives nor the radicals. He offended the abolitionists ; he disgusted the Whigs ; he pleased only God and his own conscience, and served the great cause of freedom with transcendent power, because his devotion, to it was neither fanatical, partial, nor local ; and what he wrote on anti-slavery is true for all time. His anti- CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT, 55 slavery was a logical and moral consequent of his reverence for human nature. Channing's course in regard to the trial of Abner Knee- land for atheism was an equal illustration of his faith in the self-protecting power of the truth, and the safety of freedom of opinion and expression. It required immense moral courage to head the petition which he also wrote for his release from prison and punishment. But in the commu- nity, in all the world, where public opinion is most worth attending to, because rarely impulsive or extravagant, Chan- ning had, many times in his life, to confront it with protests or resistance, which left him open to all sorts of suspicion in the very places where his reputation was most valuable, — his piety, his faith, and his scrupulosity. He kept the company of publicans and sinners ; like his Master, he could not judge those universally condemned. His moral courage — because it had no conceit, no superficial passion, no partisan fire in it — was truly sublime. His only cowardice was the rare and honorable fear of being left alone with an accusing conscience. And here, to draw these dim outlines of Channing's views and character to a period, let me crown all by saying that self-reverence was, after all, his most characteristic and his central grace and 'quality. No praise, no sympathy, no con- currence was essential to his peace ; but the approval of his own soul he must have at all hazards and at every sacrifice. He guarded himself at every door from what might betray his purity of motive, his rectitude of will, his moral freedom. To be and not to seem ; to be himself what he demanded and urged others to become; to be just, charitable, hopeful, submissive ; to be like Jesus, and like what he believed God to be, in spirit and in truth, — this was the never-failing pur- pose and plan of his life. Nothing could he do that compro- mised this holy necessity of being true to God and himself. 56 CHANNING CENTENARY. He could not go one step over the limits his fastidious purity prescribed, nor one step back from the path where his conscience beckoned him on, to disaffront his best friends or to disabuse his most powerful censors. And with all his publicity, and his wide sphere of fame and influence, he lived with God almost as in the seclusion of a hermit's cell : as free from worldly ambition as if he were the lowliest of his kind ; as womanly in his purity as if not the most manly of men ; as childlike as if he had not the experience, the wisdom, the strength of the ripest maturity, and the duties and opportunities of a statesman, a great citizen, a leader of his time, and the foremost in the ranks of liberal spirits. I have not attempted a biography of Channing, nor fol- lowed his life in detail, nor quoted his words. No later work of that sort can supersede the precious autobiography which his nephew has skilfully extracted from his journals, letters, and sermons. It is too serious, too spiritual, too much in essence and too little in detail, too bulky and yet too monotonous, to be easy or popular reading, though a dozen American and perhaps as many English editions of it have been circulated. But it is immortal in its substance, and can never cease to be new and fresh in its influence, as human souls rise to the level where its sublime simplicity and searching spirituality become visible. It is a work to be put upon the shelf or table of the private closet, in the small class of permanent devotional helps, into no page of which can any docile heart dip without finding a baptism of the Holy Spirit. Would it were read and studied more! I can name no work which ministers of religion, and especially our own, could consult and feed upon with more profit to their souls and the souls of those they teach. It is encourag- ing to know that Channing's works and his memoir have, if not the immense circulation they merit, a wide, a constant, CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 57 an increasing currency among all sects, and especially among the ministers of all sects ; that they are translated into the chief tongues of the world, and are revered and honored by all who are capable of appreciating their calm, deep, im- part isan, permanent, and changeless truth and piety. I should not have presumed, however, to make this dis- course so long and full, had I not a painful feeling that Channing, after all the exaltation connected with his name and the settled canonization of his character, is really, to a marked degree, neglected and unread and unappreciated among those who owe him most, and who should be best acquainted with his writings, his views, and his character- istics. I often hear men, who owe no small part of their own liberty and spiritual life to his inspiration, say they do not, nay, cannot read him ; and then I feel somewhat the same regret and surprise with which I hear others say they cannot enjoy the Bible. I confess that Channing saturated his more docile hearers and disciples, in his lifetime, with his views and his temper, and that some of them have that surcharged filiality, which sometimes makes children find the best fathers less stimulating society than much less able and worthy men, not so familiar and congenital. But I am confident that this influence has at length become a forgetfulness and an ignorance of the man and his opinions, and has passed over from those who once knew him well, and have neglected the care of his memory, to a generation that did not know him, and do not seem to care to know him, since those who did seem so lukewarm, or so careless, to preserve his present fame and influence. If I do not, in the strength of my reverence and gratitude, overstate this neglect, it is a deplorable one. For nothing can be less true than any notion that Channing was overrated by his immediate contemporaries, his fellow-ministers, his towns- men, or his disciples. The reverse of this is nearer the 58 CHANNING CENTENARY. truth. Nor is he duly estimated, great as his fame is to- day. His is still the morning-star, and is climbing the sky. He has not b£en outshone; he has not been superseded. No great spiritual light, of a strictly human kind, ever had greater, denser fogs of prejudice to encounter, or could oppose to them a milder flame. Still, his star is one held baleful by millions of good Christians. His light waits a purer air, a clearer and more rational sky, a freer humanity, to show its full glory. But it is steady, and its oil does not fail, nor its beams flicker. Long after names more popular and commanding have faded out of human memory, his name will be reviving with new splendor. There is in him and his works little to decay, little to correct or change; and there is nothing to excuse or to explain away. His lan- guage has no false rhetoric, no pretence, no tiresome tricks or shallow music. He was an artist, but one who never left the mark of his tools on his work. Perhaps he fed the mid- night lamp with oil, but it never spilt upon his page or scented his ink. He touched nothing trivial, local, or pass- ing ; his themes are always great, his treatment always majestic. He has not mixed the temporary and the per- manent, feet of clay with thighs of brass and head of gold. He is always high, always in earnest, always careful, clean, and precise, self-consistent, and full of reverence for truth, for God, for man, and for himself. Those who think such a soul and such a thinker and spiritual force can pass by, can be repeated and improved upon, superseded and displaced, outgrown and out-shined, are dull observers of the permanent place which such rare spirits hold in the uncrowded meridian, where their stars shine together forever. Religious genius is God's rarest in- spiration and least common gift in any transcendent form. If we haunt and search the remotest antiquity to find and to sit at the feet of poets, artists, sages, and hang our fresh- CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 59 est wreaths upon the spectral brows of shades whose per- sonal history is unknown, when will the day come tha v t St. Augustine, Borromeo, a Kempis, F^nelon, and Guion, Bos- suet, Taylor, and Butler, and Channing are to be esteemed less than ever fresh fonts of Divine inspiration ? Channing belongs to the Church Universal, and for 'all time. But he had an American birthplace, near the sea that unites all, and in a place that is more and more frequented and cosmo- politan. It is fit that on this spot his eternal memory should have its monument. Catholic, and all the more Catholic, because Unitarian, he must always wear the unity of God, not in its vulgar sense, but in its spiritual significance, as the central jewel in .his coronet of shining doctrines. He suffered for his testimony to this concealed, neglected, or per- verted " Simplicity of Christ," and his disciples and fellow- Christians would be ungrateful to forget that they owe him special devotion, and the devotion of publishing and pro- claiming him, all the more because his fidelity to them cost him dear, and took him out of the general ranks of Christen- dom to be their conscript soldier. He was a cosmopolite, but he was none the less a thorough American ; and the genius of America possessed him, — the hopefulness, the progressiveness, the freshness, the courage and unconven- tionally of the new hemisphere. He belonged in a new world, a democratic State, a country with an ample horizon. He was born by the sea, he died in the mountains. He was bred in the country, he lived in the city ; he passed away in a place that knew him not, in the heart of the most Ameri- can of American States, and on a journey. These things are typical. He belonged in no one place ; and his spirit and influence are national, and still on a journey. The sea and the mountains claim him. Places he knew not have a sacred interest in his history. I believe the nation will some day, remembering his physical birth in Rhode Island, 60 CHANNING CENTENARY. his spiritual birth in Virginia, his life-work in Massachusetts, his death in Vermont, his relations to the most significant reformation and revolution in religious life, because a thor- ough reversal of base in the whole order of theology, place his monument in the Capitol, as the only place central enough to express his national* significance. But it will not be until his name and place as the greatest of American prophets is fully recognized. And that will come when the candid study of his works and his life shall show, with uni- versal consent, that, although a generation or two in advance of his time, he proclaimed and illustrated the kind of relig- ion, the form of Christianity, which is alone adapted to a universal spread, and destined to become a universal leaven and the true Bread of Life to the American people ; and that what is permanently their faith is sure at last to be the faith of the whole world. So high, so wide, so deep is the claim of William Ellery Channing. After the Rev. Nathaniel Adams had pronounced the ben- ediction, the audience was dismissed ; and, by invitation of the committee on hospitality of the Newport parish, the vis- itors from out of town went to the Aquidneck House, where a bountiful collation, was served. THE OOBNEB-STOHE CEKEMOITLES. The hour for the ceremonies of laying the corner-stone of the Memorial Church quickly came, and found a crowd of from fifteen hundred to two thousand persons, who had gathered to see what might be seen, shivering beneath the clouded sky in the chilling wind that whistled through the leafless trees. The inspiration was in the occasion, and not in the surroundings. There was no disposition either on the part of the spectators or of the participants to prolong the exercises here. CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 6l The services were conducted by Rev. Mr. Schermerhorn, pastor of the church. He first introduced Rev. John C. Kimball, of Hartford, a former pastor of the Unitarian church, who offered prayer. Mr. Schermerhorn then made the pleasing announcement that the minimum amount for the expense of building the church, $50,000, had been fully subscribed, a telegram just received from the Rev. Dr. Put- nam, of Brooklyn, making up the sum to that desirable figure. The church could thus be proceeded with imme- diately, and begin its career with no debt to hamper it. Mr. Schermerhorn then read the contents of the sealed box placed within the corner-stone. The articles were the following : Dr. Bellows' memorial address ; Rev. C. T. Brooks' poem ; a programme of the day's services ; an ac- count of the first meeting of the Unitarian Society of New- port, in 1835 ; a full list of the forty original corporators of the church ; the Christian Register of April 3, the Newport Mercury of March 13, March 27, and April 3, the Newport News of April 6, and the Newport Journal of April 3 ; the list of the contributors to the memorial fund, five hundred and sixty-eight in number ; a set of ancient coins left by one of the incorporators who died a few months since, making the request that the coins be put in the corner-stone with his name; a new silver dollar of year 1880, presented by Jos. J. Read ; the Hartford Times, containing a sermon by Rev. John C. Kimball ; a copy of the Bible, presented by John T. Bush ; a copy of the " Reminiscences of Channing," by Miss E. P. Peabody; a copy of the Unitarian Review for April, 1880; and the Providence Journal of April 7. When the box had been placed in the stone, Mr. W. F. Channing, of Providence, a son of the great divine, lovingly laid a bunch of roses on the top. The Rev. W. H. Channing, of London, a nephew of Dr. Channing, with uplifted eyes and standing upon the corner-stone, said, " I pronounce this 62 CHANNING CENTENARY. corner-stone, firmly and squarely laid, placed on the rock of ages, Christ Jesus, in the full fellowship of the Son and in the blessing of God." The benediction was pronounced by the Rev. R. R. Shippen, Secretary of the American Unita- rian Association. The poem written by the Rev. C. T. Brooks and the Rev. William H. Channing's address, which, if the day had been warm and pleasant, would have been delivered at the site of the church, were delivered in the opera house, where a large audience assembled at about half-past three. After singing by the choir, Mr. Brooks read the following note from the Rev. George Gibbs Channing, the only surviving brother of Dr. Channing: — Milton, Mass., April 7, 1880. I long to be in Newport on this sacred anniversary, but my great age of njnety years prevents me from being present in the body. I send to the survivors of my early friends and fellow-townsmen, and to their children, my heartfelt benedictions. George Gibbs Channing. Mr. Brooks then proceeded to read the following ode, writ- ten by him for the occasion : — ODE AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF THE MEMORIAL CHURCH. Auspicious day ! What throngs from far and near, With grateful heart, on Memory's altar here, Love's offering lay ! Thy voiceful morn Calls back long-vanished days, And opens to the soul's prophetic gaze Ages unborn. This day shall be, While years and ages run, And Truth's bright torch is passed from sire to son, A way-mark of the free. CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 63 A hundred years, By thought evoked, return ; And the long-buried past, from Memory's urn, Transfigured, reappears. With reverent feet, We climb the historic hill. All else how changed! — yet earth, sky, ocean, still Our vision greet'. In these fair skies, Illumined by a spirit's glow, The forms of them whose relics sleep below « In glory rise. On this green slope, They, musing, stood, and to the skies, In many a holy hour, upraised their eyes In yearning hope. On this fair hill, " For Christ and Peace " they built in faith sublime In Christ and Peace, far from the storms of time, Their souls live still. In heaven's pure height, Those noble men, — the reverent, brave, and free, — Still young for Virtue, Truth, and Liberty, Walk in God's light. Pure as the sky, Unfettered as the wind and wave, They live in Him to whom their lives they gave, — Their King on high. Amid that band, One form, with meek yet manly mien, I see, majestic and serene, In saintly beauty stand. To heaven's broad light, His infant vision opened here, And with a deeper rapture, year by year, He hailed the radiant sight. His eye could see, In earth's and heaven's expanse, His heart could feel, in Nature's kindling glance, The Father o£ the free. 64 CHANNING CENTENARY. How did his heart rejoice, " In solitude, when man is least alone," To feel Christ's word attuned to unison With Nature's voice ! Henceforth, his thought No chain of sect or school could bar or bind ; Belittling creeds, before his free-born mind, Shrank into naught. His God was Love ; His creed, the Master's footsteps to pursue ; His the warm heart, — the clear-eyed vision, too, — John's eagle and Christ's dove. So lived and taught The sainted man, — the upright, true, and free, — Whom we to-day remember tenderly With reverent thought. And in the Trust In which he lived and died — In which for evermore abide The spirits of the just — And to the Truth For which he lived and wrought, And whence his heavenward-yearning spirit caught The quenchless fire of youth, This corner-stone, In Faith, Hope, Love, we lay, And for Christ's peace and God's pure blessing pray To rest thereon. Rise, hallowed walls ! Look forth o'er land and sea, And welcome all to Peace and Liberty Whom Christ's free spirit calls I From thy rock-base, Laid by Almighty Power, Lift high thy well-knit frame, majestic tower, In strength and grace ! While on thy spire The morning sunbeams play, And linger there the smiles of dying day With cheerful fire, CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 65 Men's thoughts shall climb, As by a heavenward-pointing finger led, To that bright realm where dwell the immortal dead In peace sublime. There 'mid the band Of blessed ones who have, through death, gone in To the Lord's joy, made strong by Him to win The immortal land, Channing shines now In glory far above all earthly fame, With that ineffable and holy Name Writ on his brow : That name which none Can read but they who, through the holy strife Of truth and patient faith, a place have won In the Lamb's Book of Life. The reading of the ode was followed immediately by an ADDRESS BY REV, WILLIAM H. CHANGING. This morning, amid the sunrise brightening to full noon, in the presence of the all-good, all-true, all-beautiful, all- blessed, all-beneficent, all-perfect Father, we beheld to- gether the light of life which irradiated Channing, as mir- rored back in crystal splendor from our dear, beloved friend, Henry W. Bellows. And now this afternoon, amid his townsfolk and his fellow-countrymen, amid Christians of the same communion and of all communions in the Church Universal, amid a great cloud of witnesses unseen to us, we have laid the corner-stone of the temple that is to be. I stand here to render back a grateful tribute, in the name of the family whose head the illustrious Channing was in his generation, commissioned by my venerable uncle to speak for him and them, as the son of the eldest son. And now, dear fellow-children in the great family of God, allow me to lay before you what is the significance of the corner- stones of this temple. The classic ancients were wont, 66 CHANNING CENTENARY. when they would sketch the Perfect Life, to speak of a "Four-square Man," meaning thereby a person in whose character and life the , four cardinal virtues of Temper- ancq, Fortitude, Wisdom, and Justice were duly balanced. And the Christian Fathers reared upon these foundations the four theological virtues of Faith, Hope, Charity, and Holiness. Let us, too, plant on the rock of Eternal Right our Four Corner-stones, and upbuild our Four Walls of Channing' s Living Temple. There are four corner-stones. Let me name them. The name of the first is Confidence in the infinite love of the heavenly Father. If there was one grand central reality of which Channing was the prophet and the representative, it is this assurance that the Giver of all Good is the Father of all spirits throughout the universe of spirits. It was in the confidence of this inner relationship with the Father that he "looked without a cloud of fear into the sunlit presence of the Father's face, assured that all the love of all earthly parents combined is dim, cold, lifeless, in contrast with the infinite love of the Father of all. It was in this spirit Channing lived, and shed abroad the lustre of the Father's love. The second stone is Filial Love, and stands for the name of the beloved Son of God. If you would see the secret of Channing's power, find it there. From first to last, he placed his hand in the hand of the beloved Brother, of the Friend" of friends, of that glorified and transfigured son of man made Son of God. He recognized as coming from an immortal centre this life of God in Christ, which made Jesus not an excep- tion to the race, but the very type of the race. The third corner-stone, as the completion of these two, is the grand Family of the Children of God. Channing taught not only that man upon this earth is one, but that the race here below is one with the race above, with the Father over all. You have not read aright his doctrine, unless you see that CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 6j he had such a consciousness of the all-pervading and all- inspiring love of the Father> that he believed the progress and advance of angels in the highest hierarchy are felt by the youngest child on earth. He interprets by that the rights of the slave, he comes down from his place of privi- lege and power to speak his grandest words to the child of the hard-working mechanic. The fourth corner-stone is the Beautiful Beneficence which unites the reconciled race of man universal around our globe in the free-will co-opera- tion of mutual service and interfluent good-will and joy. Here are the four corner-stones. Now on them let us rear the four walls of this temple, corresponding to these corner-stones. And the first wall, corresponding to the love of the Father, is harmonious Equity of well-ordered rela- tions according to God's law throughout the universe. There is the first fair wall of the temple. And, next, let me ask you to look at the second wall of this temple, which corresponds to the second corner-stone, the love of the child for the parent. And the name of that wall is Brotherly Kindness, recognizing as of kith and kin every single human being. And then the third wall, which corresponds to the family on earth and the family in heaven, is Hu- manity, made one in organized society. How little justice has been done to the statesmanship of Channing ! He be- lieved in the words lisped in the simple childish prayer, "That thy will may be done on earth as it is done in heaven." He believed in the possibility, he believed in the certainty, of a new era of heavenly humanity. No young man whom I have ever known was so enthusiastic in his ideal, so poetic in his imagination, so filled full with the courage of an immortal and universal hope as was William Ellery Channing. Year by year of his progress, he was growing deeper, higher, firmer, broader. The fourth wall is - just the name that was given to the last volume of sermons 68 CHANNING CENTENARY. published from his manuscripts. It is the Perfect Life. If you ever read his early writings, if you ever study what was his aim from the time he entered into the ministry, you will find that, as far back as the very first sermon he preached, he says that Love is the law of universal order, and that the end for man in life is perfect harmony by perfect love. And, from that time forward, it was his end, his aim, his thirst, his aspiration. Dr. Channing believed in a perfect life for you and me. With the saints of all ages, he sought to know the length and breadth, and depth and height, of that love of God in Christ, which passeth knowledge, that he might be filled with the fulness of God. And this Per- fect Life was the Fourth Wall of his temple. We have laid the corner-stones and reared the walls, and now come ye and enter in. And there, in the front of that impartial equity of God's own righteousness, is the lowly porch of humility. Of all human beings whom I have ever known, — and God has been rich to me in bounties in bring- ing me into union with many angels in the flesh, — I have never seen Channing's peer in simplicity and humility. The portal through which Channing entered into the inner pres- ence of the Father was this lowly porch through which we must all enter. From the time I first knew him as a little child, — and I crept among his books when I was an infant, — onward to the last hour when he spoke into my ear his closing words, "I have received many messages from the Spirit," — never once in all those years did I ever see an act, did I ever hear a word, did I ever behold a look, that was not according to his ideal of the perfect life. When I came to study his manuscripts, tear-stained and soiled, I found his own confessions before his Father of his shortcoming. I call upon all who witnessed his daily life in the exquisite sweetness of his home and in every relationship of duty in which he stood to the country, was he not faultless, spot- CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 69 less, peerless ? I have known many grand spirits in my own land and abroad ; but here I say it, as before the angels, never yet upon the earth have I met the peer of William Ellery Channing. He was humility itself. ■ Yet how grand was his dignity ! Only through his own confes- sions in his own private manuscripts am I conscious that he ever was touched with sin and knew struggle and warfare with evil. The pavement of his temple is the co-ordinated strength of mutual help in all the lowliest services of life. He comprehended what is the blending of majesty and mercy, and carried out in every hour of every day the law of the Master : he is greatest who is most the servant of all. At the end of the temple are the altars, and they are three in number. The first is purity, the second is self-sac- rifice, and the third the open tomb, the up-springing aspira- tion toward God. And now let us crown the temple with the dome, the dome of perennial inspiration, the dome of the inflowing holiness of God, the dome of the Father' • coming down to dwell in the tabernacle of the family of the children of God on earth, made one with the children of God in heaven. We have laid our corner-stone, we have reared our walls, we have pictured the altars, we have spanned the dome. Dear brethren, dear sisters, in the name of my beloved uncle, accept his benediction, his God- speed, and good cheer. Farewell, dear fellow-mortals on earth, dear fellow-immortals in Christ : — " Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll. Leave thy low-vaulted past : Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Lift thee toward heaven with a dome more vast ; Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine out-grown shell by life's unresting sea." The afternoon exercises closed with singing and the benediction, pronounced by Rev. Dr. Hosmer, of Newton. yO CHANNING CENTENARY. Many of the visitors from out of town returned home by the afternoon trains ; but their departure produced no visi- ble effect upon the attendance at THE EVENING MEETING, also held at the Opera House, which was crowded by an audience principally made up of citizens of Newport, many of whom had been unable to attend the morning and after- noon meetings. Governor Van Zandt presided, and was surrounded on the platform by many men and women of distinction. After devotional exercises, conducted by Revs. Charles A. Humphreys and R. R. Shippen, Mr. Littlefield, whose rich solos were a feature of the whole proceedings, sang again the hymn "Nearer, my God, to Thee." Mr. Schermerhorn then announced the receipt of letters from many distinguished persons. Time would suffice only for the reading of a few. Those selected and read were sent by the late William Lloyd Garrison, John G. Whittier, Henry W. Longfellow, E. G. Robinson, President of Brown University, Bishop Clark, of Rhode Island, Bishop Hunt- ington, of Syracuse, N.Y., George W. Curtis, editor of Harper s Weekly, Mrs. Mary Livermore, Rev. Phillips Brooks, Prof. Roswell D. Hitchcock, of the Union Theo- logical Seminary, New York, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Dean Stanley, and James Martin eau. Among the letters received and not read were those from Dr. C. A. Bartol, Henry P. Kidder, Rev. Dr. J. W. Thompson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, of Boston, Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard College, Rev. Thomas Hill, ex-President of Harvard, Dr. A. P. Peabody, and Dr. F. H. Hedge, also of Harvard College, Rev. Dr. W. H. Furness, of Philadelphia, and Prof. J. L. Diman, of Brown University. We give here in full the letters of Dr. Martineau, Bishop CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. fl Huntington, Bishop Clark, John G. Whittier, Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, and William Lloyd Garrison : — From JAMES MARTINEAU. 5 Gordon Street, London, W.C., March 20, 1880. My dear Mr. Schermerhorn, — If Rhode Island were only as many miles away as it is degrees of longitude, I should assuredly ask permis- sion to join the Newport commemoration on the 7th of April. It would be a pure joy to me to unite in the chorus of grateful reverence which will there and then harmonize all spirits. Happily, the feeling which creates this celebration transcends all local limits, and will find voice for itself here as well as in Channing's land; so that, in thinking of your festival of thanksgiving, we shall feel, not as exiles from you, but as brethren stirred by the same affection and bending in the same homage. You ask me for a word of testimony to the influence of Channing's life and writings. You could appeal to no more willing witness. I can never forget my first introduction to his name. I was a school-boy of sixteen when, in 1821, my master, the late Dr. Lant Carpenter, received from Boston a copy of the Dudleian Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity, and both read it to his pupils in private, and, after a preface of enthusiastic commendation, preached it to his congregation on the following Sunday. It laid a powerful hold on me, and seemed to find something in me that had never been reached before. This was but the beginning of an experience which was repeated and enlarged as, one after another, his great sermons and essays came over and burned their way into new seats of thought and affection. Nor was the impres- sion due to my temporary susceptibility of youthful zeal. On the con- trary, when his later writings defined his attitude toward the great social, moral, and constitutional questions of the time, — slavery, freedom of discussion, of association, war, temperance, sect, organization, — they appeared to me so strong in their justice, so calm in their wisdom, so considerate ki their charity, as to lift him above the whole region of prejudice, passion, and fear, and to express not less the statesman's mind than the prophet's soul. And so, till he was taken home in 1842, my heart followed him with ^ever-deepening veneration, and recognized in him the commanding power of spiritual religion to harmonize the intensest faculties and glorify the frailest life. But, when I would give account to others of this subduing influence, it seems to evade all words. Like every form of living beauty, it can be seized by no analysis ; for it is more than all its parts, and, lay them 72 CHANNING CENTENARY. out as you will, it is not there. In truth, Channing's greatness was of a kind that has nothing complex in it ; that, instead of being elaborated by constant additions, is rather disengaged by freeing its first element from all adhesions that hide and hinder it. Its very essence lay in its simplicity ; and, just as all books upon the character of Christ do but spoil the gospel and wipe out the image which they pretend to delineate, so will the secret of Channing be better known from any page of his own than from volumes of critical appreciation. One thought, possess- ing his whole nature and showing to him the whole field of being, con- stitutes the focus of his power ; namely, the vision of moral perfection as the reality of God, the possibility for man, the standard of right, the acme of beauty, the end of society, the pledge of immortality, the essence and the blessedness of heaven. Every feeling in himself that fell short of this he rebuked and disciplined with profound humility and aspiration. Every traditional doctrine at variance with this he relent- lessly cut off, and gained a purified theology. Every institution that treated this with insult or despair he indignantly denounced, and so became an emancipator of the body and the soul, a champion of all spiritual culture, a proclaimer of the " honor due to all men." Every conception of human greatness and glory that contradicted this, and made an idol of dazzling ambition and unscrupulous artifice and suc- cessful force, he exposed as a blind revolt against the supremacy of God. This light of righteousness was to him the whole inner mean- ing of the universe, bathing the heavens in eternal splendor, and ever struggling to conquer the shadows of our earthly lot. He turned it as his test on all that came before him for judgment. Whatever was congenial with it no disguise could withhold from his love ; and all that repelled it shrank from his pure and piercing look. Christianity itself had its authority for him chiefly from the same source : its persua- sion lay in the disinterestedness and holiness of Christ, in that life of filial surrender, of gentlest compassion, of unshrinking sacrifice which revealed what our nature would be under the transfiguring power of a divine faith. This identification of religion with goodness, and its cog- nate truth and beauty, is the real source, I take it, of Channing's influ- ence on his age. His words were no echoes of old voices, no repeti- tions of things learned by rote : they made no circuits through texts and creeds, but spoke straight to the living though sleeping contents of men's conscience and affections, asking there for no consent which could not be honestly refused, and kindling a sympathy which it was a joy to yield. He rebuked no sin but that which already disturbed the heart's true rest ; he set up no authority which was not inwardly felt ere CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 73 it was outwardly claimed; he offered no salvation that dispensed with the free exercise of spiritual power, in surrender, if not in victory ; he promised the earth no golden age of which the elements were not con- sciously stirring in the human soul, and the dawn already climbing the horizon with foregleams of the perfect day. To his pleadings and ap- peals, every one has within him an irresistible witness and response, fur- nished not by any temporary mood or accidental conviction, but by the very make of his nature, the primary self-knowledge of his reason, his affections, and his will. Hence, it is that his writings pass from lan- guage to language, and in the transition lose nothing essential to their power, and, though special and occasional in their origin, are not hin- dered in their influence from becoming universal. And for the same reason he speaks with a persuasion that cannot easily be antiquated. The constancy with which, in every argument, he starts from first principles of reason and right, and recurs to them at each completed stage of his advance, elevates his biographical estimates, his historical criticisms, and even his political papers, into philosophical and ethical dignity, and will retain for them a place in literature when the persons and the crises they discuss have been forgotten. At last, no doubt, as the past recedes from view, and its problems vanish before some new strife of thought, and the tides in the affairs of men have altered the curves and shifted the landmarks on all their coasts, it will become -too difficult to extract the permanent from the transient in his page ; and he must share the general fate which quenches the voices of the dead in the acclaim that gathers around living genius. But it will not be so till the truth in which and for which he lived has passed into many another soul and made it an organ of the Holy Ghost. And so, even if, as the centuries lapse, he should be heard of no more, his words will yet not be made void, but still water the roots of future good, and accomplish that whereto he sent it. That your commemoration and ours may so quicken his Christ-like spirit in us as to consecrate us anew to disinterested service in the love of God is the heartfelt prayer of- Your faithful friend and brother, James Martineau. From Bishop HUNTINGTON. Syracuse, N.Y., March 6, 1880. My dear Mr. Schermerhorn, — I thank you for the kindness and courtesy of your note of invitation. Any tribute from me to the memory 74 CHANNING CENTENARY. or character of Dr. Charming — amid the chorus of praises that will resound at the coming celebration, made up of eloquent voices from all parts of the world — can be of but small account. Indeed, we are still so much in the period of his living presence and influence that it is probably doubtful whether any of us know the exact and full significance of the errand on which he was sent. What we do know is that he was a radiant figure, of singular power, in a line of providential persons and events of which the end is not yet. For myself, having been born in a community intensely Calvinistic, and having heard through all my early years a Puritan preacher, who, as he was in the habit of crying audibly and visibly in the pulpit, appeared to me somehow at the time to be crying because he was afraid too many people would be saved, I began to read Channing's and Dewey's and Martineau's writings when I was a child. Living in the country, I read them often in the open air, and they are associated with running streams in the woods, with apple-blossoms, with clear hill- tops, and with wide spaces of earth and sky. To these thoughtful and devout authors I have always felt more indebted, perhaps, for first arousing the life of my mind and heart, than to any others, except the inspired men of the Bible, and Sir Thomas Browne and Burke and De Quincey. It was because, like many others, I found them when I seemed to need them. Parted from their guidance, afterwards, in interpreting some of the great meanings of revelation and history, I have never forgotten my unpaid obligation, and am glad of this eminent opportunity to acknowledge it. With high esteem, yours very cordially, F. D. Huntington. From Bishop CLARK. Providence, R.I., March 26, 1880. Reverend and dear Sir, — In reply to your polite note, inviting me to attend the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of Dr. Channing's birthday, will you allow me, as I cannot accept your kind invitation, to express my profound admiration of this distinguished son of Rhode Island? As a writer and scholar, he did very much to in- spire respect for our republic abroad, at a time when the question, "Who reads an American book?" had received no satisfactory answer. Not less eminent as a philanthropist, he never shrank from identifying himself with any unpopular cause which he regarded as resting upon the foundation of truth and righteousness, because of his "dislike of the CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. . 75 offensive objects with which v it might be associated " ; and this is no slight praise when we consider the peculiarly sensitive and conservative texture of his mind. He was always bold and outspoken, without being violent and extreme ; and his strength in great part lay in his quietness. What his precise position as a theologian would have been, if he had come upon the stage to-day, — where, on the one hand, the acerbities of German doctrine have almost everywhere become so wonderfully soft- ened, and, on the other, the denial of those supernatural elements in Christianity and its records, which he so earnestly and devoutly recog- nized, is becoming rampant, — it may be somewhat difficult to determine. However this might have been, the sweet and loving spirit of the man would have remained the same ; and Christians of every name all must revere his memory. It is a fitting thing that the State which is distinguished by his birth should celebrate this centennial with solemn rites, and erect on these shores, where in his youth he walked and meditated, an abiding memo- rial in honor of his name. Very truly and respectfully yours, Thomas M. Clark. From JOHN G. WHITTIER. Danvers, Mass., 3d mo. 13, 1880. My dear Friend, — I scarcely need say that I yield to no one in love and reverence for the great and good man whose memory — outliving all the prejudices of creed, sect, and party — is the common legacy of Chris- tendom. As the years go on, the value of that legacy will be more and more felt, not so much, perhaps, in doctrine as in spirit, — in those utter- ances of a devout soul, which are above and beyond the affirmation or negatipn of dogma. His ethical serenity and Christian tenderness, his hatred of wrong and oppression, with love and pity for the wrong-doer, his noble pleas for self-culture, temperance, peace, and purity, and, above all, his precept and example of unquestioning obedience to duty and the voice of God in the soul, can never become obsolete or out-dated. It is very fitting that his memory should be especially cherished with that of Hopkins and Berkeley in the beautiful island to which the common resi- dence of these worthies has but given additional charm and interest. Thy friend, John G. Whittier. From Rev. Dr. HITCHCOCK. You are right in assuming that the reverence and affection and grati- tude felt to be due the memory of Dr. Channing are shut up within no J6 CHANNING CENTENARY. denominational boundaries. • New England may well be proud of him. Even Puritan New England had much to do in the making of him. His roots went down deep into her soil, ethical and spiritual. Her words of doctrine brightened his fibre. It was once my good fortune to hear him in a pulpit prayer ; and I shall never forget how his spirit seemed to be cleaving the sky. The tones of his voice went out afar. That, I should say, was about three years before his death. Not far from the same time, I spent an evening with him at his house in Boston. We talked of Coleridge, and the influence he was having upoD the rising generation of thinkers and preachers. He made on me the impression of a widening horizon for himself year by year. Roswell D. Hitchcock. WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON'S LETTER. Boston, April 5, 1877. I cheerfully respond to the request made in your letter, by which I am informed that a meeting will be held in your city on Monday evening next, with reference to making arrangements for celebrating the hun- dredth anniversary of the birth of William Ellery Channing. Such a celebration will be a most fitting tribute to the memory of one whose intellectual power, moral excellence, nobly catholic and widely philan- thropic spirit, profound regard for truth and right, courageous disregard for popular sentiment in the matter of theological dissent, and a pervad- ing spirituality of thought and purpose, entitle him to rank with the fore- most teachers, exemplars, and benefactors of mankind. As he never sought human applause, he needs nothing of it now ; yet, having conse- crated his life to all that is beautiful in humility, Godlike in aspiration, uplifting in virtue, ennobling in true piety, and world-regenerating in divine love, let all sectarian shibboleths be forgotten at such a commem- oration as is contemplated ; and let the wise and good of every sect and party improve the opportunity to show their appreciation of his worth. For, in regard to doctrinal views or Scriptural interpretations conscien- tiously held, no one is more orthodox or heterodox than another; and there is no such thing as a heretic or heresy, on Protestant ground, any more than there is of papal infallibility, seeing that the right of private judgment in all matters of religious faith and practice is admitted to be absolute, and that no higher or better test can be applied than this, " By their fruits ye shall know them." For his testimonies and appeals in behalf of the suffering poor and working-classes, the millions that were groaning in bondage at the CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. JJ South, and for the incoming of the reign of universal peace on earth, Dr. Channing deserves to be held in grateful remembrance. Especially is he to be honored as the eloquent advocate of free thought, free speech, free inquiry, and non-conformity where acquiescence would be in violation of the understanding and conscience. And nothing could be more guarded, comprehensive, or sublime than his definition of the human mind. " I call that mind free," he says, " which zealously guards its intellectual rights and powers; which calls no man master; which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith ; which opens itself to light whensoever it may come ; which receives new truth as an angel from heaven ; which, whilst consulting others, inquires still more of the oracle within itself, and uses instructions from abroad, not to supersede, but to quicken and exalt its own energies." . . . Wm. Lloyd Garrison. The reading of these letters, which was frequently inter- rupted by applause, was followed by the singing of Emer- son's hymn, "Here holy thought a light has shed." His Excellency Governor Van Zandt was then introduced as the president of the meeting, and was received with hearty applause. The Governor said : — It is pleasant for me to preside over this great assembly, and I come as the chief magistrate of Rhode Island; and you, in doing honor to one of the brightest and best of the sons of the State, are here to-night with fragrant forget-me- nots for the cradle and with garlands of white immortelles for the grave of William Ellery Channing. There is a curious little book in the archives of the State at Providence, which contains the original compact made by the first settlers of this colony. It is written in a cramped, old-fashioned hand, with references to the Books of Exodus, Chronicles, and Kings, and pledges its signers, in the presence of Jehovah, to incorporate themselves into a body politic with his help. In a period of sharp theological distinctions and bitter secta- rian controversies, the fathers of our Commonwealth, ignor- ?8 CHANNING CENTENARY. ing all subtle technicalities then so prevalent, organized a government (somewhat like the Israelitish judges), and in it all systems of belief were tolerated and protected. And, as Roger Williams and the fathers planted, so have we reaped. There are three men after Roger Williams who have always appeared to me to fitly represent the breadth and depth of Rhode Island's religious toleration, — Bishop Berkeley, Dr. Hopkins, and Dr. Channing. The first was the "consum- mate flower" of the then conservative Established Church of England. He was for a long time an attached resident of this beautiful island. Dr. Hopkins was of sterner, tougher stuff. It was a new country, and there was heavy work to do in its young theology. Rocks were to be blasted, stumps pulled up, subsoil ploughing done. He had to fight with slavery, which was young and strong and black and profit- able. Most of his salary came from men who made their money in the slave-trade. It was not a time for rosebuds and perfume. The men required strong meat ; and Dr. Hopkins gave it to them, and then shook them over the pit in a way to promote spiritual digestion. And, a hundred years ago to-day, Channing came among men almost like an angel. He was tender and pure and good ; and yet he was brave and strong and positive. He, as well as Dr. Hopkins, fought the black affright of slavery, — the one with the battle-axe, the other with the cimeter. These three men, differing in almost every essential particular, are equally the glory and the love of Rhode Island ; and to-day we begin to erect a beautiful memorial edifice to William Ellery Chan- ning. Its outer walls will be of stone as gray as the old rocks of our cliffs ; its mullioned windows will be stained with the gathered glories of our sunsets ; its spire will point, as he did, steadily heavenward ; its bells will ring for the wed- dings and toll for the funerals of many - generations yet unborn ; its doors will open for worshippers of all beliefs CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. 79 and every land. The bride will enter there with orange- flowers and smiles ; and the pale, still dead will be borne in and out in silence and with tears. But, beyond and above and around it, will glow like an aureole the memory of the saintly man who, one hundred years ago to-night, in this old town, when the mist came in from the ocean at night, was a little, helpless infant in his cradle. Rev. Dr. Hosmer then gave pleasant reminiscences of Channing, saying he first saw him fifty years ago in Cam- bridge, heard him preach, and became acquainted with him slightly. His remarks were so full of wisdom that I used often to go to Boston to hear him. I remember his tones, — that voice so wonderfully modulated, so full of sympathy. I wonder that, amid all these grand utterances, more has not been said about Channing's strength and courage. He was strong to wrench himself out of a narrow creed ; and he showed his courage in his attacks on the doctrinal theories, wonderful for their sharpness. Let the wonderful legacy of thought left us by Channing lead us onward. Mrs. Martha Perry Lowe, of Somerville, next read the following original poem : — THE PERFECT LIFE. By Mrs. Martha P. Lowe. The Perfect Life, — his last bequest, The gleanings of his autumn rnorn : The latest gathering is the best, The sweetest harvest it hath borne. What large intent, what lofty height, What visions warming every page With fairer futures which shall right The wrongs and sorrows of the age ! What summits of celestial calm, Elastic youth, and high desire ; What droppings of refreshing balm, What stirrings of prophetic fire I 80 CHANNING CENTENARY. Illumined pages, burn and shine, Consuming all our dross of sin, Till human work may grow divine, And Christ's new kingdom shall begin ! And yet his book may turn to dust ; The printed word shall fade at length : His living gospel may we trust, His Rock of Ages be our strength. Return, immortal Seer, to find The secret meaning of our day ; Return, beloved Saint, to bind Our hearts in wisdom's pleasant way ! Descend, O Spirit-form serene, And light the paths thou once hast trod ; Show us the Master thou hast seen, And lift us to the Mount of God ! Rev. E. E. Hale humorously referred to the many people who said they had got Channing' s knack in everything, but who, in reality, knew little or nothing of him or his ways. He then delivered a glowing eulogy of Channing, and spoke at some length of the advantages of the theological freedom which such men as Hopkins and Berkeley and Channing found in Rhode Island, and which was so beneficial in devel- oping noble traits in their characters at a time when in neighboring States their desire to extend knowledge of God in their own way would have been frustrated. In introducing Julia Ward Howe, the Governor made a graceful allusion to her " Battle Hymn of the Republic," which "inspired an enthusiasm worth a hundred thousand men." Before reading an original poem, written for the occasion, Mrs. Howe gave it as her opinion that the events of the day would lay firmer the true foundations of re- ligion among men. In early life, and once only, she heard Channing preach, and was so impressed with his sermon that she "told no lies after that, neither did she prevari- cate in any way." [Applause.] CELEBRATION AT NEWPORT. MRS, HOWE'S POEM. I come to-day a verse to build, Which skill should match with arches fine, A task to set the workman's guild Whose strength shall stand for things divine. In this fair isle, by Nature blest, Where men for health and pleasure throng, I call a spirit from its rest ; I summon back a soul with song. For God, who gave this genial sky, The rapture of this mellow air, Did lend in happy days gone by A presence grand, an influence rare. Our beauteous seasons wax and wane, And bear us on to fate and death ; But he shall bloom and bloom again In every generation's breath. Oh ! fine and brave that subtle hand Which found the knots, so small and strong, By which Belief and Passion band To do divine and human wrong. He caught the echo of the wail Which once from Calvary's mountain rolled, When felt the Love that cannot fail The spite of superstition old. His voice took up the trumpet blast Which Hope's glad resurrection blew, When out of mystic shadow passed The glory that the Master knew. O deep of heart! O true of thought! The temper of thy perfect steel In Heaven's high armory was wrought, The strength of justice to reveal. The Negro in the Southern wild Had cause to bless thy champion name ; The Northern freeman for his child Thy gracious heritage doth claim. 82 CHANNING CENTENARY. The faith that maketh Woman free For humankind to do and dare, The peace that dwells with liberty, Were in thy teaching and thy prayer. Here the foundation-stone we lay Of some fine fabric that shall rise, To image to a later day * Thee, greatly good and purely wise. Where God vouchsafes his greatest gift, — The Prophet, crown of all desire, — Let us our duteous emblem lift, Let us endeavor and aspire. So shall the work we strive to rear Be crowned with blessing in our sight, And, like the life we honor here, Reflect the everlasting light. A. Bronson Alcott paid a glowing tribute to the memory of his friend, to whom he said was due the transformation of religion. During an extended visit to the West, he could not help witnessing the great respect which men showed everywhere to the memory of Dr. Channing. After the singing of Bryant's hymn, "Yet doth the star of Bethlehem shed," Miss Elizabeth Peabody made a deeply interesting address, and was followed with remarks by Revs. N. S. Folsom and Charles F. Barnard, both of whom have very vivid memories of Channing, since their lives were deeply touched by his own. Mr. Barnard offered to give to the new Memorial Church the valuable oil portrait of Chan- ning which was before the audience, on condition that the picture of Channing' s mother should be procured and hung as its companion piece. As a last exercise before Mr. Schermerhorn's benediction, Whittier's hymn was sung : — " Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more For olden time and holier shore ; God's love and blessing, then and there, Are now and here and everywhere." THE BOSTON CELEBRATION. Boston's expression of interest in Dr. Channing's cen- tenary was thoroughly characteristic of that most individual of American cities. No attempt was made, as in many chief centres of America and Great Britain, to arouse public attention by a great catholic meeting, in which men and women of all sorts of religious beliefs should be invited to express their appreciation of Dr. Channing and his in- fluence. Possibly, the fact that many Bostonians had accepted invitations to participate in the Newport celebra- tion, which had been widely advertised for several months beforehand, may account for the lack of general interest in the special Boston meeting. More probably, the meet- ing held in Arlington Street Church failed to arouse wider interest, simply because no attempt was made to provide for the expression of that interest. It was, in its plan, exclusively a Unitarian meeting, so far as the speakers were concerned ; and the congregation seemed to be chiefly of the same religious complexion. But the birthday meeting was only one of many inter- esting occasions, in which Boston quietly expressed her love and reverence for her great preacher of fifty years ago. In all the Unitarian churches of the city and neighborhood, 84 CHANNING CENTENARY. and in some churches of other faiths, appropriate reference was made to the anniversary ; and, in many of them, special memorial discourses were delivered. A few of these were afterward published at length, in the newspapers or in pamphlet form ; while many of them were briefly commented upon by the local press. An interesting union service of Sunday-schools was held in the Church of the Disciples ; and at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society appropriate reference was made to Dr. Channing by the President, the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop. Finally, the annual meeting of the American Unitarian Association, May 25, was especially devoted to the celebration of Chan- ning's memory. Full reports of a few of the more inter- esting addresses delivered in Boston are here presented. THE MEETING IN AELINGTON STKEET OHUEOH. [As reported in the Christian Register^ April 17.] On the 1st of June, 1803, William Ellery Channing, then entered on his twenty-fourth year, was ordained as pastor of "the Religious Society worshipping God in Federal Street," which is now known as the Church in Arling- ton Street. The late Mr. George Ticknor was led as ^ child by the hand of his father to the ordination services, of which he understood and remembered little, except that near the close the pale and frail-looking young man, whom he thought of as soon to die, arose and gave out a hymn in a voice so tremulous and thrilling, and a manner so devout and earnest, that even the words of one stanza seized his childish attention so vividly as never to be for- gotten : — CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 85 " My tongue repeats her vows, Peace to this sacred house I For here my friends and brethren dwell ; And since my glorious God Makes this his blest abode, My soul shall ever love thee well." The pastoral relation then formed continued till Dr. Channing's death, October 2, 1842. The site of the build- ing in which he preached for nearly forty years (corner of Federal and Channing Streets), like that whole section of the city of Boston, is now occupied for business purposes. One Sunday afternoon in the summer of 1859, tne °ld church, about to be demolished, was opened for a final religious service, in which thirteen ministers took part, — all, or nearly all, of whom had been at some time members of Dr. Channing's congregation, and had been led into the ministry by his influence. Rev. J. F. W. Ware, the present pastor, sees in his congregation but few of the faces which used to look up to Dr. Channing forty years ago ; but the society may well preserve, with affection and pride, the memory of one whose name has done so much to make its own annals illustrious. A public meeting in honor of Dr. Channing's memory was held on the evening of April 7, in the Arlington Street Church, at which many prominent citizens and clergymen were present. On ' the table in front of the pulpit, sur- rounded with flowers and vines, stood the bust of Channing. " Praise God in his holiness " was the anthem which uplifted the hearts of the people. Rev. Dr. Lothrop led in prayer, and a passage was sung from Whittier's Elegy on Channing, beginning, — " Not vainly did old poets tell, Nor vainly did old genius paint, God's great and crowning miracle, The hero and the saint." 86 CHANNING CENTENARY. The leading address of the evening was on CHASING'S PLACE IN HISTOBY, By Rev, James Freeman Clarke, D.D. I regard it as an honor to be asked by my friend, the pastor of this society, to speak to you this evening on this hundredth birthday of Dr. Channing. It is also a happi- ness. Channing was the inspiration of my youth. He gave me a higher conception than I could find elsewhere of the worth of the Christian ministry. He glorified and honored it by his own life, and by his thoughts lifted the veil of routine which had obscured the divine lineaments of Chris- tianity. In maturer life, Channing stood before me as master in sacred study and in practical reforms. When his first work on slavery appeared, I was editing a monthly magazine in Kentucky, and rejoiced in the opportunity of publishing in that work copious extracts from his volume. I recollect giving his " Letter to Henry Clay," on the an- nexation of Texas, to a Kentucky planter, who was an admirer of Channing, and opposed to slavery, though a slaveholder. He had the little pamphlet interleaved, and kept it in his pocket, reading it at intervals, and writing his comments upon it till he had filled it with his notes, and then returned it to me. It was interesting to see how the mind of Channing had taken hold of this intelligent Kentuckian, and sent him in a new direction of thought. It was at this time that Dr. Channing, at my request, wrote for the Western Messenger his ]etter on the Roman Catholic Church. Such an act of kindness as that can only be ap- preciated by those who are trying to get a hearing amid uncongenial surroundings. But Dr. Channing was always ready to lend the powerful aid of his great reputation and commanding intelligence to any struggling or unpopular cause, if he believed it, in the main, the cause of truth. CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 8? Nor can I forget how, when still a young man, I came to this city, and with others formed the Church of the Disciples here, Dr. Channing lent me again the aid of his sympathy and counsel, advising us as to our plans, en- couraging our design, and being present at several of our meetings. I therefore thankfully accept this opportunity of saying a few words to-night in honor of this good and great man. What is Channing 's place in history ? What will be the nature of his influence, and what his position among the prophets and teachers of mankind ? This theme is too great to be adequately treated at this time ; but it is so interesting that a few suggestions may lead each one present to make himself better acquainted with the life and thought of this great man. " A prophet ? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.'* Every man truly great in thought, who is to influence mankind widely and long, must be something of a prophet. He must see so deeply and truly as to be able to foresee. His insight must lead to foresight. He who has any real gift of vision apprehends principles at work which are to govern the future. He beholds in his imagination a new heavens and a new earth. Thus the seer is always a prophet. He may be a prophet in the material order, like Columbus, seeing in his dreams the far- off continent in the West on which no earthly eye had yet fallen. Or, like the great inventors of our own day, he may be haunted by unborn discoveries which are to change the face of the world. In the higher sphere of religious thought, the prophet foresees the dawn of new truths when all is night to others. There is nothing unnatural in this fore-vision. Jesus has classed it with the sagacity which' foretells to-morrow's weather by to-day's sunset. Baron Bu-nsen has therefore correctly classed Channing 88 CHANNING CENTENARY. among the prophets ; for, more than most men, by a pro- found sight of the present he foresaw the future. The nature, quality, and extent of this vision will determine Channing's place in history. Although we are all familiar with the events of Chan- ning's life, yet let us briefly survey them, as this very survey will be to some extent the contemplation of his great career and character. Born in Newport, April 7, 1780, grandson of William Ellery, signer of the Declaration, who was a type of the best New England character ; his father an eminent lawyer and accomplished gentleman, his mother one of the New England matrons, some of whom we may all remember, — calm, strong, pure, self-possessed, with the inborn truth which compels others to be true, — Channing began life under the best conditions. No matter how great any man may be by his convictions and his personal devotion to high ends, two-thirds of his character rests on a foundation out- side of himself. Character results from the three factors of organization, circumstances, and free choice. Some of the life of past generations is organized in each new-born child, and on that basis of organization he must forever stand. We seem to see, in Channing's character, an inher- itance of the old Puritan conscience and the old Puritan self-reliance, refined and purified by passing through the men and women whose souls were enlarged by the earnest thought which went before the American Revolution. Channing owed much to himself : he made of himself more than most men. He kept his eye steadily fixed on the truths which lift the soul near to God. But he did not make his own simplicity of soul, his own integrity of pur- pose, his own ardent love of freedom, hatred of oppression, courage to stand alone against all odds. These qualities, I think, were born in him ; and he was not obliged to waste CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 89 any of his strength in cultivating them. They were his birthright gifts from a noble past. What belonged to him- self was that intense and concentrated singleness of purpose which gave to all his natural powers their best opportunity, which unfolded them to their full extent. A part of every man's character comes from his organiza- tion, another part from education, including in this term that which comes from environment, from circumstances, and especially from the atmosphere of thought in which we live. Who can tell the mighty and irresistible influence of the opinions which have passed into the very air we breathe, the commonplaces of all conversation, tacitly assumed in all discussion ? They are taken for granted, not stated : there- fore there is no opportunity to question or deny them. The religious, moral, social, political, intellectual atmos- phere which young Channing breathed was, on the whole, healthy. His family were strong Federalists. Washington and Jay had visited his father's house. In religion, they were moderately orthodox, according to that type which was gradually passing into Unitarianism. The moral and social sentiments with two exceptions were good, — those two being occasioned by the rum manufacture and the slave- trade, in both of which Newport was engaged. But perhaps it was necessary for him to be brought thus near to the source of such great evils, in order to react against both' in the cause of temperance and freedom. Dr. Channing speaks of the Federalists with great re- spect in his paper on the Union. " A purer party," he says, "never existed." "Its failure," he says, "was despon- dency." "It had not sufficient confidence in our free insti- tutions, nor in the moral ability of the people to uphold them." He goes on to draw a striking portrait of George Cabot, the leader of the Federalists, and, giving him credit for his high qualities of mind and heart, thinks he wanted "the wisdom of hope." 90 CHANNING CENTENARY. And as he illustrates the excellences and defects of the Federalists by the character of George Cabot, so he illus- trates the excellences and defects of moderate Calvinism by the character of Dr. Stiles. He says that in his earliest years there was no one whom he regarded with equal rever- ence. Calvinism was breaking up all around him, under the influence of men like Ezra Stiles and Dr. Hopkins. Of the latter, Dr. Channing also speaks with great respect. He mentions that when a young man he preached for Dr. Hop- kins, at his own request, in his church, — the very building in Newport in which at present a congregation meets, as we are meeting here, to remember gratefully Channing's name and services. After the young Channing had concluded the service, the good old man, Dr. Hopkins, turned to him with a benignant smile, saying "that theology was still imper- fect," and that he hoped that he, Channing, "would live to carry it to perfection." Then, we may say with Milton, " Old experience did attain To something of prophetic strain." It was a very happy thing for Channing to be early asso- ciated with these two leaders of New England theology, both of whom, while claiming to be orthodox, had broken with a large part of the old orthodox creed and traditions. Their example must have encouraged Channing to follow in that path, and go much further. But it was not from human environment alone that he drew inspiration. Early and always, his soul was fed by the influences of Nature. Miss Peabody, in her very valuable monograph on Channing, just published, which admits us to many details of his daily life, says that, when at Newport in the summer, he seemed "to watch the growth of every flower, enjoying the sunshine and air, and seeming to have some secret intimations of all that passed in the skies, call- ing the family out often to look at some beautiful effect of CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 91 light or other passing loveliness of Nature." He regarded, she says, "all summer-time as though it were a religious fes- tival, the rites of which were the sight of natural beauty and sympathy with innocent animal life." And who does not remember his description in his Newport sermon of New- port beach, the noble place for his study in his youth ? "No spot on earth," says he, "has helped to form me so much as that beach. There I lifted up my voice in praise amid the tempest. There, softened by beauty, I poured out my thanksgiving and contrite confessions. There, in reveren- tial sympathy with the mighty power around me, I became conscious of power within. There, struggling thoughts and emotions broke forth, moved to utterance by the eloquence of the winds and waves. There began a happiness surpass- ing all earthly pleasures, the happiness of communing with the works of God." In Harvard University, where he was in the same class with Judge Story and Dr. Tuckerman, he describes a criti- cal and dangerous condition of things. "The French Revo- lution," he says, "had diseased the imagination and unsettled the understanding of men. The foundations of social order, loyalty, tradition, reverence, were shaken. The authority of the past was gone. The tone of speech and books was pre- sumptuous. The tendency of all classes was to scepticism." Paine's Age of Reason was read by the students very gen- erally. We think that there is a great deal of doubt and unbelief now in the world ; but it is probable that there is more religious faith at present, by far, than when Channing was in college. And, if so, we owe it in a measure to the proof his writings have given that perfect freedom of thought, entire confidence in the reason, and a profound conviction of great spiritual realities can go harmoniously together. While in college, he passed through an intellectual expe- 92 CHANNING CENTENARY. rience which gave him much of his power over the thoughts of men. Two authors, Hutcheson and Price, awakened his mind, — one to the belief in disinterested goodness in God and man, the other to faith in eternal ideas of truth and right, seen in the depths of every soul by some inward intui- tion, "a light, lighting every man who comes into the world." The first of these convictions came to him as he was walking, while he read, in a field on Dana's Hill. The place and hour remained sacred in his memory. There he passed through a new birth into a higher world of convic- tion. He saw the glory of the divine goodness, a universe of progress and order, and the possibility of absolute devo- tion to the will of God. "I longed in that hour to die," said he, "and to go where only such thoughts could have room. But, when I found I must live, I determined to do some- thing worthy of such thoughts." This was the result of Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, The other came from Dr. Price's book, Dissertations on Matter and Spirit. "That," said he, "saved me from the philosophy of Locke, and taught me to believe in the Platonic philosophy of ideas." It was worth while that these two books should have been written, if no one except Channing had ever read them ; for his whole theological influence took its bias and direction from that reading. English Unitarianism and early Ameri- can Unitarianism had followed Priestley's philosophy, which was based on Locke's doctrine that all our knowledge con- sists in transformed sensations. But Dr. Channing inaugu- rated a spiritual theology, based on faith in the soul as born with infinite capacities and divine adaptations, and in this may be found the secret of a large part of his power as a theologian. Behold him, then, having passed through his studies, and his year and a half of experience at the South, entering his profession. In a letter to a friend, written at this time, he CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 93 says, " In my view, religion is another name for happiness ; and I am most cheerful when I am most religious." His religious life had been much quickened while in Vir- ginia, though he describes the unbelief in all religion as greater than it was in Massachusetts. " Christianity is here breathing its last," says he. " I cannot find a friend with whom to converse on religious subjects. . . . The Bible is wholly neglected. . . . Infidelity is very general among the higher classes, and in fact religion is in a deplorable state." But Schiller says, " In better natures, even poison be- comes wholesome food." Surrounded by infidelity, Chan- ning became a more confirmed believer in Christianity, just as, surrounded by the sensational philosophy, he had be- come a transcendentalist. Returning from Virginia to Newport, after passing eigh- teen months there in study, he went back to Cambridge to finish his theological studies. " There was a time," said he, " when I v.erged toward Calvinism ; for illness and depres- sion gave me a dark view of things. But the doctrine of the Trinity held me back. I followed Doddridge through his Rise and Progress till he brought me to a prayer to Christ. There I stopped ; for I was never, in any sense, a Trinitarian." June i, 1803, he was ordained over the society which now worships here, then in Federal Street. George Ticknor, who was present as a boy at his ordination, says that he can never forget the tone of Channing and the intense feeling in his voice in reading a hymn. From this time till his death, he pursued a course of entire consecration to all that was highest and best. He became the apostle of religion, freedom, humanity, progress. A few great ideas perpetually inspired his teaching. Christianity, as he saw it, was sent to make this world full of God's love, to make men holy and happy here, to redeem man from sin and misery in this life. 94 CHANNING CENTENARY. The great- power to accomplish this he believed to be faith, — a strength of inspired conviction, — faith in three forms : in God as an infinite tenderness, in Christ as manifesting in his character perfect goodness, in man as capable of becom- ing, like Christ, a child of God. But the essential condition of this salvation was to him freedom, — freedom of thought and action, liberty in full harmony with law. As we read that beautiful volume of Channing' s writings, circulated by the Unitarian Association, we are struck by the fact that all of these ideas, which were at first denied and opposed, are passing into the thought and life of Chris- tendom. They have been working a revolution in religious thought, not the less radical because so quiet. Some move- ments are like the earthquake or the tempest ; but this of Channing was accomplished by the still, small voice of reason. Yet what an entire change is being effected throughout all denominations by this all-penetrating influ- ence ? God, so long represented as a stern judge and abso- lute monarch, whose dreadful anger burns against sinners until assuaged by the sufferings of his Son, Is now seen as the dear Father who loves the bad and good both ; loving the wicked with an infinite compassion, loving the good with an infinite sympathy. Pain and evil, before regarded as the punishment of sin, are now seen to be divine bless- ings, also sent to cure our sicknesses of heart and thought. Death, long considered as the king of terrors, is now looked upon as an angel of benign goodness, leading us to upper worlds of rest and peace. The whole direction of practical Christian teaching is reversed : instead of fear, we have hope ; instead of mystery, reason ; instead of blind submis- sion to irresistible force, we have willing and glad obedience to what we know to be right and good. I have heard Channing criticised as repeating himself too much, as a man of few ideas. He knew better than to CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 95 scatter his fire. He concentrated it on the points where a breach was to be made in the walls of ancient custom. And this is to his credit ; for he was interested in a vast variety of subjects, of which his different biographers fur- nish us ample evidence. But his mind was intensely practi- cal, no less than spiritual ; and so he kept to his point, and elaborated a few all-important truths thoroughly. These few truths were, however, fruitful in numerous applications to social reforms. He delivered powerful argu- ments in behalf of many an unpopular cause, helping it on to its ultimate triumph. Each of his essays and discourses on such topics is a perfect crystal, — compact, transparent, sharply defined. Each leaves a distinct impression of unan- swerable truth. Such are his writings in behalf of freedom, his repeated blows at slavery, eight of which are in his col- lected works. Such, also, are his admirable papers on Temperance, Education, Self-culture, the Elevation of the Laboring Classes, the Ministry to the Poor, Peace and War. Each of these subjects is treated in an original way, with breadth and freedom, with justice to opposite opinions, giv- ing full weight to all facts on the other side. Every one of these reforms is in the line of human progress, all are to be accomplished in the future. The opinion of civilized man is slowly but certainly setting in this direction. Dr. Chan- ning devoted the ripest and best years of his life to setting forth the evil and sin of slavery, and declared his confident belief that in some way it would come to an end. It has come to an end, because the excessive demands of the slave power made slavery intolerable. Channing set forth the sin and evil of war. War has not ceased, but the excessive and enormous armaments of Europe have made the burden al- most intolerable ; and perhaps war may come to an end in the same way. But Dr. Channing truly says that we can have no security against international war, until we have g6 CHANNING CENTENARY. a Christianity in which Christian love shall overcome secta- rianism and bigotry, — a Christianity which shall make man everywhere the object of reverence to man. And toward this conclusion all opinion tends. If we read Dr. Channing* s essay on Temperance, we shall see that he considered no outward arrangements adequate to cure this evil. He demands the improvement and eleva- tion of the whole man, — a hig'her education, more sympathy between different classes, the cultivation among the people of a -taste for beauty in nature and art, by public goodness, public music, innocent amusements, in which he includes some form of dancing and of the theatre. " Let us become a more cheerful^ and we shall become a more temperate people." But all these reforms which Channing advocated grew from the root of one great conviction, his faith in the worth of the human soul. The great evil which he saw in slavery, war, ignorance, intemperance, was always the same, — that it degraded the human soul. This view was eminently his own. The sacredness of man had been forgotten by Chris- tian theology down to the time of Channing. Christian teachers had thought to exalt God by heaping contumely on human nature, calling it utterly corrupt and evil. They wrote this reproach in every creed. To call man's nature wholly depraved was thought to be somehow an honor to God and Christ. But Channing led the way by the first emphatic declaration made in modern times of the dignity of man in the sight of God. And already, in consequence of this, we find it announced with great authority that ortho- doxy, when it solemnly declared man by nature to be " ut- terly corrupt and denied in all parts and faculties of soul and body," merely meant to say that his moral symmetry was "disarranged." The influence of Dr. Channing's teaching has been so great in this direction that the orthodox have CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 97 not only deserted their old belief, but now blame him for having said that they ever held it. What, then, will be the place of Channing in history ? Doubtless that of a prophet who saw the coming of the great day, 'when the barbarities of the old theologies should pass away, when God should be known as the universal Father and Friend, Christ as the human brother and high example of character to all, and when, in consequence of the heavenly hope of a universal redemption, all the evils of this lower world should be gradually overcome. Since the days of Paul, no one has so clearly seen as Channing saw the approach of the time when all enemies shall be subdued by the power of Christ's love and truth, and that time still farther on, when all enemies having been subdued under him, the Son also himself shall be subject to Him who did put all things under him, that God may be all in all. In the last address given by Channing before his death, this heavenly vision of a new heavens and a new earth floated before his eyes. "I began this subject," said he, "in hope, and in hope I end. . . . Mighty powers are at work in the world, and who can stay them ? A new comprehension of the Christian spirit, a new reverence for humanity, a new feeling of . broth- erhood, and of all men's relation to the Father, — these are among the signs of our times. We see it. Do we not feel it ? Before this, all oppressions are to fall. Society, silently pervaded by this, is to change its aspect of universal warfare for peace. The power of all-grasping selfishness is to yield to this diviner energy. Oh, come, thou kingdom of heaven, for which we daily pray ! Come, Friend and Saviour of the race, who didst shed thy blood on the cross to reconcile man to man, and earth to heaven ! Come, ye predicted ages of righteousness and love, for which the faithful have so long yearned ! Come, Father Almighty, and crown with thine 98 CHANNING CENTENARY. omnipotence the humble strivings of thy children to sub- vert oppression and wrong, to spread light and freedom, peace and joy, the truth and spirit of thy Son, through the whole earth." Amid such high hopes, the life of Channing ended below. It remains for us to-day to cherish his memory, not merely by commemorations, but by doing our part also to spread that truth which was so dear to his heart. On this hun- dredth anniversary of his birth, let us resolve to be loyal, as he was loyal, to the great principles of spiritual freedom and human progress. And thus sball we best remember him, the moral of whose life may be best summed up in the words, " His eye was single, and his whole body was full of light" ADDRESS OF EEV. DR. BARTOL, We speak of making occasions. But no newspaper arti- cles, or lightnings running to and fro on the wires, none of our despatches or arrangements, have made this one. It is wider than this church, than this city, or than this country, — even, like Channing' s soul, wide as the world. It is the electricity, and is in the air. Yet what home bodies and home-loving spirits we are ! So, although his name seems voiced to-day by the elements and written visibly on the sky, let me come back from the broad earth, over which his spirit has travelled, and down from the sky, into which, he told me, out of earthly commotions he always loved to look, to congratulate this church and community on their privilege and advantage and honor in his nearly forty years 1 ministry; and let me speak here their grateful owning, before God, of this one ringing and resounding name, blown so far from that trumpet of fame which is an instrument no money can hire, but which some angel holds fast and forever to his lips. Channing, more than any other, more than all others of CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 99 his alike worthy comrades and compeers, is for mankind the representative name of a rational and liberal faith. Be any other clerical contemporary lesser or greater than he, there is something in the old orthodox doctrine of election ; and he was chosen by Providence for our spokesman, beyond all doubt. Why and how did he become so ? What made him the plenipotentiary and delegate he was ? And what was the message he delivered, and the burden he rolled off upon all the winds, to be carried so flaming and far ? The special errand on which he was sent by the Holy Ghost was to pro- claim in the ear of the race the worth of the human soul. " I love a prophet of the soul," writes our Emerson ; and so he well loved him ! For, at a time when human nature in the long-prevailing and night- mare-brooding creeds was so despised that it had come almost to despise itself, he reached forth his hand and — with what a mighty lift ! — raised it from the dust. We can ill conceive, so long after the thing was done, and with the now everywhere modified views, what a touch of courage and power, what a stroke of originality, what a demand from the core of his being, and what a sublime inspiration of duty in his breast it was ! He saw, as every thoughtful person now sees, that, if the road to God in us is blocked, every road is blocked ; and no way to him, through a written reve- lation, through an ecclesiastical tradition, or even through that beauty of nature which is but the echo or shadow of mind, is really left. He cleared the so-long-closed and clogged inward track to our Author. That was his great mission and achievement sublime. He told me, with much tenderness, that he thought his view of the dignity of human nature did not interfere with personal humility. How much reason and how little pride of reason he had ! Indeed, only in the attitude, aspect, and atmosphere of the IOO CHANNING CENTENARY. relation to Deity, which he tried to liberate and disclose, can a genuine humility be born. It is said by some, who distrust Channing's influence, that his sway is declining, and his thoughts on religion now dwarfed and dwindling away. But, if Unitarianism, as he in such unsectarian wise preached it, is less prominent and aggressive than of yore, it is not by reason of diminution, * but by universal absorption of its sense, as the sun and rain are absorbed. It has, for sixty years, been working in the theological landscape a change how beneficent and immense ! How the once brown, almost black region of dogma has changed into green meadows indeed, and even the thorny wilderness of Calvinism made to blossom as the rose ! Out of that bloom should come no curse or reproach, but only warm acknowledgments of gratitude to those, like Chan- ning, who have wrought a difference so vast, so evident, and so benign. I know how stoutly many of the orthodox preachers of our day declare that the whole icjea of any departure from the ancient symbols and standards is a slander or a mistake. But, lo ! my friends, am not I a living witness of the fact to which I refer ? I was born and bred in the old gloomy New England belief. I hung my head, day after day, and for hours at a time, in my boyhood, before a revengeful God, like an iron pillar ; with hopeless prayers, a hundred times repeated that he would be merciful to me a sinner, before I knew of any sin that lay at my door ! I thought him cruel and hard ; and when women fainted in the hot and ill-venti- lated church, and were borne out on the shoulders of men, I supposed they were summoned to the dreadful judgment that had just been held forth from the desk. How heavy and corrupt was the religious as well as the natural air ! I look daily out of my window at the spot in Boston where Channing lived. The large elm-tree at his threshold, lofty CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. IOI and lowly, with its massive trunk and its drooping branches, as he was lofty and lowly, though with some of its limbs lopped off, still overshadows his, to me, so familiar roof. Does the house stand, and does the tree renew its verdure, and is he gone to be extant no more ? He is present and alive, at least to me. I feel moved sometimes to go and ring the bell, if I might venture to ask leave of those who occupy the mansion now to enter the room where he, the friend and saint, sat and studied and talked. Best of listeners as the eloquent man was, he also hearkened till the silence was almost painful to the guest, scarce ready, though so earnestly invited and entreated, to speak on the subject in hand. Does the tree then survive, and has he deceased ? I know not how in form and circumstance he is. But I question not that he is, and is here, even as is the Master whose table is spread at this shrine with the emblems of the transcendent love and sacrifice. He is where he lives and works, and loves and leads. Does the tree that, like all nature, was so dear to his eyes, outlive himself? I have no such idea of the longevity of a tree. I have an idea, which none has done more than he to brighten and keep fresh, of the immor- tality of the soul. The tree is maimed, and predicts, in every limb, its own fall and destruction. He prophesied, in every faculty and affection, which were more youthful and vigorous in him the longer he lived, that human nature in such an unfolding, however it may be evolved and trans- formed angelically, can never die. The human soul, so long a minor, in Channing came to its majority. That is his crown. After the benediction, many of the congregation passed into the vestry, at the invitation of Mr. Ware, to take a look at the old Federal Street pulpit, which is there preserved. 102 CHANNING CENTENARY. PULPIT TRIBUTES. DE. 0HAN1OTG A MAN OF APFAIES. From a Sermon preached in the South Congregational Church, April xx. By Eev, EDWARD EVERETT HALE, B.D. . . . Not attempting myself to say a word more as to the measure of his moral greatness, I ask your attention to a single form of his work, which has, naturally enough, been neglected in the efforts to state succinctly the principle beneath it all. The men who remember him now, forty years after his death, are, of course, men who remember him in the time which covers the close of his life, as an invalid recluse, not often appearing in society, excepting as a preacher or a lecturer appears. It is almost taken for granted that he was not a man of affairs or of practice. But the truth is that in his college days, as appears from the places he held in the college societies and from the remem- brances of his friends, he was accounted a man of business, to be intrusted with practical commissions. When he left college, they all supposed that he was to follow the law, — a profession then, as now, exacting skill in business as well as quick knowledge of men. When, at twenty-two years of age, he took the charge of the Federal Street Church, he CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. IO3 regarded the pastoral charge, the personal intimacy not only with his parishioners, but with the poor of the town, as the most important 'part of his duty. He declined a call to Brattle Street, because that congregation was larger, and he doubted whether he could meet the demands made on his strength. He accepted a call to Federal Street, because that congregation was smaller. But this choice was, you see, not because he meant to neglect these practical duties, but because he did not. Had he meant to be the studious recluse, appearing in public only as a speaker, which he is now represented, and which, in the bud of his life, he be- came, he would have chosen the" larger congregation and not the smaller. In point of fact, from the moment of his ordi- nation, he attacked the practical duty of a man who means to fight the devil on all his lines of approach, and to trample out sin wherever he finds it. He rejected that fallacy which supposes that a church is a private club for the mutual in- surance of the members, but that they may be indifferent to the needs of others. He recognized the truth that he was one of twelve or fifteen ministers to the town, to whom were intrusted the moral affairs of the town — even of the lowest harlot and of the meanest publican — as they were not intrusted to men in other duties. To the cares of uplifting the moral life of the town, he addressed himself. For fifteen years, as I suppose, no man in the town was more active in such work, even in its details. To understand the way in which he addressed himself to it, remember what the town was. It was a little seaport of some twenty-six thousand people, all told. It was not a place so large as Springfield is to-day. It more resembled the Gloucester of to-day. In the years which soon followed his settlement, its foreign commerce, on which it largely depended, was almost ruined by Jefferson's embargo, under the empire of which grass grew in State Street and on Long 104 CHANNING CENTENARY. Wharf. That was a period in its history not unlike what it went through under the Boston Port Bill, when George III. tried the same experiment Probably, in those first years of Channing' s ministry, Boston suffered more from the pov- erty of her people than she has suffered at any other period in the last century. To care for the poor in such a condi- tion of things, to reform criminals, particularly criminal boys, to meet the dangers and difficulties which followed in a state of war, were all practical matters to which Chan- ning addressed himself; just as Dr. Tuckerman did after- wards, or Mr. Charles Barnard, whom Channing trained to such work, or as Mr. Winkley does to-day. In this time, the school committee took new activity; and I think that for one or two years Dr. Channing acted as the chairman. To speak of a significant detail, we say that in the cus- toms of our time church parlors and rooms for week-day meetings are necessary for the practical work of a church. We want a vestry building ourselves for such purposes. There is a letter of Dr. Channing's, written in 1817, to the standing committee of his church, where he proposes such a building, and shows how it was to be used. He gives six uses to which it would be applied. Among other things, it was to have a church library, and he was to be the librarian ; so that, giving out the books and receiving them, he could become better acquainted with the young people personally, and direct or advise their reading and their lives. That is no plan of a recluse orator. To take another instance, which shows his habit even later. We think there is nothing more characteristic of our time than the modern review, in which the gravest theology is discussed in articles side by side with the latest literature or the most critical discovery. But such is exactly the plan of the Christian Examiner, formed at a meeting called in Dr. Channing's study by himself. His name heads the list CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 105 of members of the association formed to carry it on, followed immediately by that of Prof. John Farrar, the physicist, and that of Andrews Norton, the critic. It is not in the least a company of divines. There are merchants, engineers, physi- cians, in the society. Among early subjects prepared are: " Our National Union," to be discussed by Dr. Channing ; "Lyceums," then in their infancy, by Dr. Dewey; "Rail- roads," to be treated by my father ; and " Catholic Emanci- pation," by James T. Austin. The two subjects taken by Dr. Channing in early numbers were "American Litera- ture" and the "American Union." I think it would be found that the first copies of the European treatises on practical education, on the reform of schools, poorhouses, and prisons, received in America, were the copies received by Dr. Channing from his corre- spondents in Europe. The interest which he took in Fell- enberg's school at Hofwyl, in the Baron Degerando's publi- cations on social science, resulted in the wide extension of the knowledge of these men in this country ; and I suppose we should find that the speculations of Fourier and of Robert Owen were carefully studied by Channing and his friends before they were studied in any other part of America. As I 'have said, I suppose that in the first fifteen years of his ministry he was as largely engaged in the practical move- ment of the town in which a young man would gladly take a share as any man in it. I think it was in 1814 that he was engaged actively in the school committee, in a movement for the regulation of the Latin School. By that time, the popu- lation of the little town had increased to thirty-five thousand. We find it difficult to imagine such a Boston, — a town of gar- dens and orchards, a town of which it is said, with some pride, that there were in 181 1 nine brick blocks of buildings and one of stone, a town suffering severely under the pressure 106 CHANNING CENTENARY. of the war and the events which led to it. But I believe no adequate estimate of the habit of Channing's work will be made, unless we bear in mind what that town was and what its aspirations were. Thos.e people w^re not many, but they were proud. The same spirit which defied George III. was in them ; and I hope it may always be in them. They were used to seeing in the old books and on the old maps that Boston was the u metropolis of America," and they meant it should be. They laid out their public institutions on a scale not for a little provincial fishing-town, but for a metropolis, indeed. Remember their numbers, and think what it was to build the Massachusetts Hospital, to establish on a generous scale the American Academy and the Histor- ical Society, the Charitable Mechanic Association, the Bos- ton Library, and the Athenasum, the asylums for orphan boys and orphan girls, to develop the public schools by the addition of the high schools, which are a pure Boston inven- tion, to raise the college from an "academy" to a university, and to erect and organize the new houses of industry and reformation and like institutions. Imagine any town you know of those numbers, even with the much larger wealth of to-day, undertaking such enterprises in the course of fifteen years. They had a genius for public spirit : they liked to turn their thought that way, and to spend their money that way. In such a community of whom every leader was in his way an idealist, such men as Channing and Murray — ideal- ists eager to see the world made over — found their fit wel- come. The old phrase that Boston was the "paradise of ministers " was not a mere joke. Such men were able to try their practical experiments here as Calvin tried his in Geneva, under circumstances not dissimilar. I wish I might dwell, in some detail, on the results. Without trying to do that, I will say that the work of the group of men who CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 107 surrounded Charming in those years frequently shows au- dacity such as I remember nowhere else in men's conflict with the errors and vices of society. You can compare it with nothing but Prescott's audacity in throwing up his redoubt on the hill yonder within the range of the English guns. The Church, in its various enterprises of reform, as those men speak of them, proposes, not simply to reduce the amount of vice and pauperism, but to trample out those diseases. Just as three years ago, by vigorous measures, your Board of Health reduced the deaths by smallpox here from hundreds to one solitary case, where a poor stranger died, so these men expected to reduce pauperism to be the accident of exile. When Dr. Channing and his friends es- tablished their society for this purpose, they did not call it a society for the " Relief of Pauperism " or the "Diminution of Pauperism" : they called it a society for the " Prevention of Pauperism." When they established the " Ministry at Large," they meant that every man, woman, and child in Boston should be sure of the counsel and help of a sympa- thizing Christian friend. And that illustration shows their habit all along. You will find in their speeches, in their reports, in their private letters, that they really mean to make this little town to be a "city of God," in which the vices and the crimes which have stained city life in other countries shall be unknown. Well, there has been no lack of such enthusiasts in other places ; but the peculiarity here was that for a long term of years these enthusiasts virtually led the town in their plans. The rich men and its political leaders were as much interested in such schemes as they were. They supplied the means, they brought out the detail, and they gave their personal supervision in that happy exer- cise of public spirit which shows itself in like work at this day. So soon as an evil was observed in social order, the measures prepared were measures large enough to meet it 108 CHANNING CENTENARY. in full. Were there orphans, the orphan asylums were made large enough for them all. Were there children, the schools were made large enough for all. The Massachusetts Hos- pital was to be built large enough for all who needed it in Massachusetts and in the province of Maine. Nobody seems to have thought of leaving this or that detail to this or that side direction. If they acted at all, they acted for the whole. You see they were bound to such a course, in mere decency or consistency. "Perfectibility of human nature," — who had a right to talk of perfectibility of human nature, when boys and girls, men and women, were sent every day to the House of Correction not perfected? Every word that they said of the divinity of man and of his oneness with God compelled them to show that the meanest could be lifted up so that they could stand, and that this ideal gospel of glad tidings should be proclaimed to all who were in need, not by the voice only, but in the practical efforts of human love. It is the feeling that they can try their experiments of reform at once, in their own town and State, which gives a definiteness to those statements which such schemes are apt to lack. Indeed, when John Lowell or Colonel Perkins or Charles Jackson or Jonathan Phillips or Josiah Ouincy drew up a scheme or made a statement, there was no more reason why it should lack definiteness than if it had been a State paper or an account of trust. The action and reaction be- tween the thinkers and the actors in such a community has a very great interest, and it should not be forgotten in read- ing the expression which the time made in literature. "We governed the Commonwealth," said one of the youngest of those men to me thirty years ago, "and they let us govern it because we governed it so well." I need not say that this set of conditions has been largely changed. It was changed to the very foundation by the settlement in Boston of a population wholly outnumbering CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. IO9 the natives, — a population of alien descent, of alien tradi- tions, and an alien religion, — jealous of interference from those it found here, and resenting the moral influences which, in the days of a homogeneous race, could be extended alike over each *and all. I know that if Dr. Channing were living here now he would still speak of the "divinity of human nature" and the "possible perfection of human society." But he would speak of" each in different phrases from what he did use, and he would not speak with that certainty of speedy abolishment of this evil or that evil which you find once and again in his letters and addresses. In his early days, this whole town was opened to the appeals, nay, welcomed the advice and help, of those moral leaders to which, by tradition and history, was intrusted the guidance of this town. In our days, three-fifths of the people distrust those appeals, and, so far as they look anywhere for moral guidance, find it in the directions of the servants of a foreign prince, themselves unused to our civilization, igno- rant of its history, and indifferent as to its plan. It is in such a change that a certain chill comes over us who read the prophecies of the idealists, as they made them sixty years ago. If we think they spoke too hopefully, it is because we are living in other conditions, wholly changed from those which were around them. Let us of to-day, however, not be paralyzed nor discour- aged. When we find the real secret of the power of Chan- ning, we find it not in the conditions of his life, not in the methods of his intellectual process, not in such superficial accidents as the sweetness of his voice or the correctness of his style or the books that he read or the philosophy which he devised. The secret is the open secret of nearness to God — "Nearer, my God, to thee!" This was the struggle of those days of his early manhood, to read which is to read the agonies of a Greek tragedy,— to seek God, to find God. 110 CHANNING CENTENARY. This is the success of his life, and then to do his Father's "work, whatever that work might be. Did God choose to have a school system amended, "Here am I: send me." Or did God choose that a house of industry should be organ- ized, " Here am I : send me." Or is it 'that a hundred idols, reared in dark ages of theology, shall be insulted and hurled from their pedestals, " Here am I : send me." Or is it that the absolute statement of right shall be made in the matter of human slavery, il Here am I : send me." Brethren, we do not want to look on all this as if it were a thing of the past. We do not want to talk of this prophet as we might talk of Orpheus or of Amos, prophets to other ages, whose work is now a curiosity of history. It is a prophet of our own time whom we consider. It is for the work of our own future that we consider him. We will look forward and not back. Looking forward, it is that I beg you, young men and young women who are of this genera- tion now stepping upon the scene, to work in the spirit in which your fathers worked. Make large plans, nor be satis- fied with small. Look square in the face the whole duty, and trust in the infinite Ally. The ignorance of those around you, — their intemperance, their selfishness, their dirt, their disease, their sin, these are great evils, very great ; but the precise business for which you are sent into the world — children of God, God's sons and daughters — is that you shall meet great evils and tread them down. It is not to a small work that a "prince of the blood royal" is commissioned. It is not to a small work that he conde- scends. In all this noble eulogium to a great leader of men, there is no blessing, there is no good, unless you who are of to-day and of to-morrow are willing to take larger work upon your shoulders, as God has given to you a larger field and larger power, — that so his kingdom may come and his will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. Ill oHAranra unitarianism. From a Sermon preached in the Church of the Unity, April 4. By Rev. MINOT J. SAVAGE. . . . So, in these modern days, there has sprung up, it seems to me, this growth of sentimental admiration for Channing, going along with an utter misconception of his real spirit and life ; so that the men who claim to be governed by his prin- ciples, and assume to themselves the honor of his name, are the very ones who never think, to-day, of saying and doing the things, the like of which Channing said and did in his own time. There has come to be talk of the " Channing school " of Unitarianism. There are those who claim to represent what they think to be the Unitarian ideal which Channing represented and outlined ; those who deprecate the advocacy of any doctrines not to be found in Channing's works, or in their interpretation of his works ; those who would not go one step further than Channing went in his own lifetime. Channing Unitarianism has been used in these later years to stop the mouths of earnest, strong- thinking young men, has been used as a chain to bind their freedom, has been used as though it were the watchword of a petty little sect created to perpetuate the peculiar ideas that Channing is supposed to have held. Men and women say, "I can't bear such radical preaching, " or "I can't abide science in the pulpit," or "I wish people knew when to stop," for — "I'm a Channing Unitarian." I wish, then, this morning to raise the question as to what Channing Unitarianism means, what it has been in the past, and what we may regard as its probable outlook in the future. Channing Unitarianism, in the sense in which those words are used, implies three things which I wish just to refer to. It implies in the first place the creation of a little 112 CHANNING CENTENARY. Unitarian sect. Of course, it means nothing, unless that there are certain churches and certain people that are "Channing" in their doctrines, in distinction from other people and other churches which are not. It means, fur- ther, the establishment of a creed. It makes no difference that the .xreed is not written or printed, because, if one is to be a Channing Unitarian in distinction from any other kind, it must be by holding certain beliefs which Channing is supposed to have held and advocated ; and these, of course, will constitute a creed. It implies still one more thing ; and that is the supposition that Channing believed that there had been a completed revelation of divine truth from which this finished and perfected creed could be drawn. Now, I wish not to weary you ; but I must read a few extracts that I have culled from Channing's works, to illustrate the positions which he really held on these points. Here is something that he says concerning sectari- anism : — A sect skilfully organized, trained to utter one cry, combined to cover with reproach whoever may differ from themselves, to drown the free expression of opinion by denunciations of heresy, — such a sect is as perilous and palsying to the intellect as the Inquisition. And, of his own position in regard to sectarianism, he says : — I have no anxiety to wear the livery of any party. I indeed take^ cheerfully the name of a Unitarian, because unwearied efforts are used to raise against it a popular cry. Were the name more honored, I should be glad to throw it off ; for I fear the shackles which a party connection imposes. I desire to escape the narrow walls of a particular church, hearing with my own ears and following Truth meekly but reso- lutely, however arduous or solitary be the path in which she leads. Again : — Christian truth is infinite. Who can think of shutting it up in a few lines of an abstract creed ? Christianity is freer, more illimitable than CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 113 the light or the winds. From the infinity of Christian truth of which I have spoken, it follows that our views of it must always be very imper- fect, and ought to be continually enlarged. Every new gleam of light should be welcomed with joy. Better for the minister to preach in barns or the open air, where he may speak the truth from the fulness of his soul, than to lift up in cathedrals, amidst pomp and wealth, a voice which is not true to his inward thoughts. And in his address in dedicating Divinity Hall at Cam- bridge : — To train the student to power of thought and utterance, let him be left, and, still more encouraged, to free investigation. . . . Teach the young man . . . that he has a divine intellect for which he is to answer to God, and that to surrender it to another is to cast the crown from his head and to yield up his noblest birthright. . . . Guard him against tampering with his own mind, against silencing its whispers and objec- tions that "lie may enjoy a favorite opinion undisturbed. Do not give him the shadow for the substance of freedom by telling him to inquire, but prescribing to him the convictions at which he must stop. Better show him honestly his chains than mock the slave with the show of liberty. We must never forget that free rational thought is the greatest gift of God. , To free inquiry then [still from the address in dedicating Divinity Hall], to free inquiry then, we dedicate these walls. We invite into them the ingenuous young man, who prizes liberty of mind more than aught within the gift of sects or of the world. Let heaven's free air circulate, and heaven's unobstructed light shine here ; and let those who shall be sent hence go forth, not to echo with servility a creed imposed on their weakness, but to utter, in their own manly tones, what their own free investigation and deep conviction urge them to preach as the truth of God. And once more : — I must choose to receive the truth, no matter how it bears upon my- self, must follow it, no matter where it leads, from what party it severs me, or to what party it allies. And then again, for the consideration of those who think 8 114 CHANNING CENTENARY. that Channing himself thought that he had attained ultimate truth: — I apprehend there is but one way of putting an end to our present dissensions ; and that is not the triumph of any existing system over all others, but the acquisition of something better than the best we now have. % And his definition of freedom : — I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come, which receives new truth as an angel from heaven. Towards the last of his life, when he had almost retired from the ministry, he wrote : — As I grow older, I grieve more and more at the impositions on the human mind ; at the machinery by which the few keep down the many. I distrust sectarian influences more and more. I am more detached from a denomination, and strive to feel more my connection with the universal Church, Which he defines as "all good and holy men." I must read you one more passage. James Martineau, of London, a few years ago, during the last of Channing' s life, was regarded as dangerously radical by his friends ; and Channing writes to him : — Old Unitarianism must undergo important modifications or develop- ment. It began as a protest against the rejection of reason, against mental slavery. It pledged itself — [To what? To the creation of a little sect called Channing Unitarianism?] — it pledged itself to progress as its life and end ; but it has gradually grown stationary, and now we have a Unitarian Orthodoxy. That is Channing's own utterance. And it is well known, to those who are familiar with the history of that time, how Channing was one of the few men that held out his hand in sympathy to the young, impulsive, and outlawed Theodore Parker. And one of the famous sayings of his life, which CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 115 rings out in tones worthy of the war-cry of an immortal, was, " Always young for liberty ! " I had in mind some other passages that I had thought to read to you, illustrating and emphasizing these same points ; but I must pass them over, for lack of time. Now let us for a moment glance at the outline of his life, to see how this bears upon the question as to where he really stood as a theologian. When he became a young man and first began to preach, Channing stood very near what we should call liberal Ortho- doxy to-day. He progressed from that to Arianism : that is, — to give you its definition in a word, — the doctrine taught by Arius concerning the person of Christ : that Jesus was a supernatural being, but not equal to God ; that he had lived in a pre-existent state, and had come into this world with a special mission from the Father to save and lift up the human race. He went on from this to his old age, and broadened more and more, until at the last, as the Rev. Mr. Brooks, his biographer, tells us, he was a broad-hearted humanitarian. His nephew, W. H. Channing, of London, the one who has written his biography, tells us the same. And last fall I had the privilege of conversing with Dr. Channing's son, who is now residing in Providence; and I asked him the plain question, " What did your father believe at the last ? What was his theological attitude ? " And he told me that he broadened more and more to the last day of his life, and died a simple humanitarian. This does not deny that he held this special belief or that, but rather refers to his spirit and sympathy. And it is a little signifi- cant, as showing at least the influences that were around these boys, to see that both Dr. Channing's son and the son of Dr. Gannett, his long-time colleague, are utterly free and universal to-day, in their theological views. Il6 CHANNING CENTENARY. And Dr. Bellows has said : — If anything would move Channing's spirit to indignation in his heav- enly state, and make his bones stir in their resting-place, it would be the knowledge that his name was used as a block to the progress of religious thought. And Mr. E. P. Whipple calls him "the father of Theodore Parker, and the grandfather of O. B. Frothingham." My purpose so far is not to espouse this side or that, but to give you, as far as I can, a reflection of the inner life and essential principles of Channing. Now, then, let us raise the question, What is Channing Unitarianism ? What must we mean by it? Why, if you just transcribe Channing's life at the first, you can get Orthodoxy ; touch it a little later, and you get Arianism ; touch it a little later, and you get what is called Conservative Unitarianism ; touch it at the last, find Channing's life as it gradually faded out of human- ity and became one with the Divine, and you find him a free and broad and simple humanitarian. And, if we govern our- selves by this one idea, if we take as Channing Unitarianism not simply what he said at any particular time, not simply what he did at any particular period of his career, but the essential underlying ideas of his life, what shall we find Channing Unitarianism to be ? What were his fundamental principles ? They were three, and they were very simple, very broad : they were nothing narrower than those of uni- versal religion. The first was an undying faith in God, — trust in the integrity, the goodness of the universe. The next was an undying belief in the possibilities of human nature, — faith in man and what man might become. Third and last was a pure, simple, free-thinking, reverent ration- alism, as his one universal life-long method, — the method which he applies to all subjects in his search for truth. Faith in God, faith in man and reason, — these are the three central, underlying, formative, life-giving principles of Will- CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 117 iam Ellery Charming. They manifested themselves, of course, in the formal doctrines of the time. If a person chooses to say, " I cannot listen to any talk of modern sci- ence, or about evolution or Darwin, because Channing did not say anything about these things," why, of course, any one on a moment's reflection will see that this is simple absurdity, for the very good and sufficient reason that these subjects were not prominent in Channing's time. To look for these in Channing would be like searching Shakespeare for some reference to the telephone. The thing we are to do, then, is to find out the principles that moulded and shaped Channing's life, and by so doing we shall find in the true sense the meaning of the term Channing Unitarianism. We must not, parrot-like, repeat his words or, ape-like, imi- tate his deeds, but ask ourselves the question, What would Channing think, what would Channing do, how would he act, and how would he deal with the living questions of to-day ? This is Channing Unitarianism. Let us take an illustration. There are two ways in which you can claim to represent Lord Bacon, to be an exponent and adherent of the Baconian philosophy. One is to devote yourself to celebrating the achievements of Bacon himself, reiterating his language and practising that which he did ; another is, to accept his method, which is really the great thing which he has added to the history of the civilized world, and carry that out into the infinitude of modern life, and let it develop as marry grand and noble things as pos- sible. How will you best honor the man who first invented the boat and navigated the sea, — simply, by keeping on all your life constructing the simplest and clumsiest kind of dug-outs like that which he invented, or by building the finest A i clipper or steamship that you can, that which really carries out the work which he undertook to do ? It was not simply the building of the dug-out that he devoted himself to, it was the principle of navigating the seas ; and Il8 CHANNING CENTENARY. the man who carries out this work into its finest and truest development is the one who is the truest representative of his spirit. Suppose a man should propose to celebrate and honor Watt and Stephenson, and in doing that should take no account of any improvement of the steam-engine that has been invented since their times, regarding them as question- able novelties : would that be the true way to honor the men ? Rather would it not be the greatest honor to recognize the principle of their magnificent invention, and rejoice in all its widest unfolding and the highest point of development to which it can be carried ? And so the truest representative of Channing is not the man who repeats Channing's words, not the man who tries to keep the world from turning around any longer, but to hold it simply in the position where it was when Channing died, but the man who is fired in his heart by Channing's spirit, a man who has Channing's love for and faith in man, Channing's trust in God and the universe, Channing's fearlessness in defence of truth, Chan- ning's devotion to the lifting-up of men, to the development of everything that shall go to make the world finer and sweeter and better, and who can say with Channing that he welcomes every new ray of light that comes into the world, who dares to follow truth wherever it leads him, from what- ever party it severs, or to whatever party it allies. The man who feels that truth is safe and that all truth is a manifesta- tion of God, he is the true follower and representative of Channing in this hundredth year after his birth. DE. CHAMTING THE IDEAL AMEKICAN. On Thursday, April 8, the Rev. William H. Channing, of London, spoke to a large congregation in the South Con- gregational Church on "Channing as the Ideal American." CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. I 19 The Jonrnal of the next day contained the following report of that discourse: — Mr. Channing read, as the basis of his discourse, a portion of the third chapter of Paul's Second Epistle to the Corin- thians. He spoke first of the pleasure that he had derived from his return to Boston, the place in which he was born and brought up ; and next of the men of this country who have been eminent or who are now eminent as jurists, scien- tists, authors, artists, merchants, and reformers. In the list of reformers, he placed as leaders Jonathan Edwards, Charles Chauncy, and William Ellery Channing, — the last of whom he characterized as a dear'son of God. He con- tinued: I wish to speak to you of that man as the ideal American. If ever a person had a peculiar privilege in his birthplace, it was Channing; for he was born in the land of Roger Williams, who was the real author of the life of Rhode Island. It was under the influences of that life that Channing was reared and trained. Then he had the advan- tage of going to Virginia, and being face to face with the very best type of Southern statesmen. And then, to crown and complete the circle of these influences, in his early manhood his lot was cast in Boston. What is the central idea, the quickening principle, of all our institutions ? You know that magnificent saying of his, that all men are of one family. But do you know what is the inner significance of it ? It is this : every child of God is a prince or princess of the blood royal. Channing taught thus that everything of kingliness and queenliness was in human nature, in humanity developed after the image of God. . To whom were given those grand lectures of his on " Self -culture " and the " Labor- ing Classes"? The grandest statement made in them is where Channing expresses to the young apprentices of the Mechanics' Library that he feels it a greater honor to speak to them of their possibilities than if he were summoned to 120 CHANNING CENTENARY. deliver an address before the assembled courts of Europe Now, see what was the next principle, following directly from this. . It is that we are peers together in our Father's home, that we are all children of God in this great family of God. He had a conception of a universally cultivated people, in which genius should be as prodigal as flowers in midsummer. And here is one grand word of his, still a word of prophesying: " Laboring men and laboring women," said he, " demand of our statesmen that the public lands of this nation, which are our common heritage, be consecrated to universal education." Well now, once more, look into that sermon of his upon spiritual freedom. When the sermon was delivered, the Governor came to hear it ; the citizen soldiery was there ; the Old South was crowded to its roof-tree. Read again that sermon. Teach your boys that passage in which he describes what spiritual freedom is. It should be written in lines of light upon the walls of all the public schools. But there came something more, and it is yet to be considered, for we have sadly forgotten it. What we call political power is not a right: it is a privilege to which we have no claim ; it is a free gift of God ; it is a free gift of humanity. We claim the right of suffrage. Channing's doctrine was directly opposite : it is the duty of suffrage ; it is how far is your conscience enlightened to know justice, — how far is your reason illuminated to know the truth ? You claim the right to stand here ? Prove it ! His doctrine was never that of promiscuous suffrage : he would have men go to the polls as they would go to an act of worship, as if they were doing an act seen in the courts on high, as if it were being measured there by those scales of infinite equity. We need a thorough regeneration in this matter. An entire new era is to come, and when that era comes we may exclude the harmless and the insane, but we shall exclude CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 121 men who are drunk until they regain their reason : we shall shut out the man who dares offer a bribe to his fellow ; we shall welcome our mothers, our sisters, our wives, and our daughters. Then for the first time shall we be a free and united people. It is time that doctrine were widely taught in the name of God and of Christ. It was this sublime idea of mankind and womankind, of chivalric heroism, that was the very inspiration of Channing's life. He never uttered a word of apprehension for this republic. He foresaw all its troubles, but never for one single instant did he despair of it. I challenge any critic to find in his writings any word of distrust. Channing's conviction was clear as sun- shine that there was but one method by which our republic could realize this sublime ideal that had been handed down by Puritan ancestors, that had been washed by the tears of despairing nations, that had been cleansed in the blood of martyrs who had died in vain across the seas, and that he that was the greatest of all should be the minister of all, that there should be perfect equality in all things. He said again and again that there should not be in this republic one single pauper, one single criminal, one single untaught and unrefined child. It is a general government ; it is a uni- versal government: the birthright is for all; it is we who are guilty of pauperism and crime and degradation. The reason why he pressed so earnestly forward to declare the gospel of the Son of God was not because it interested him as a theologian, but because he saw the intense practical power of the new life which was working amid the nations. He drew very near to the beloved Son, — not as he was centuries ago in Palestine, not as he breathed out his soul on the cross. Jesus has risen. Jesus is glorified. Jesus is influential. Jesus has been passing through all these cen- turies of trouble in the past to. make Christendom Christian, to make humanity human; and, from the time he woke in 122 CHANNIXG CENTENARY. the morning until he slept at night, it was Channing's endeavor to enter into his labors, to bear the cross upon that road that leads to heaven and to God. He believed that nothing but the Christian life in our Commonwealth could bring any real republic, that it could be alone done by uniting all the children of God. Has this been done? William Ellery Channing, if he were here, would say : " Ask yourselves why that awful judgment of God came upon you in the civil war? Are you sure that that punishment was enough ? Do you see no more awful civil war than that between the States ? Do you want me to name it? Your own consciences tell you in advance. What means this high, insane passion for wealth ? What means this miserable pride in class, in nominal prop- erty, in money for yourselves ? Money is well enough when it is held as a trust from the Great Giver of all ; but the man who stalks up and down these free States, saying that he owns so much bank-stock, so much in factory shares, so much of God's free soil, is a man who is not doing the will of God. I tell you the time will come when it will be said that this form of possession is another form of slavery. To stand as a steward of God is all right, — God's blessing be with you, — but to coin blood out of the laboring classes is simply robbery in the sight of God." That is what he would say to you. He would .say, Shame on you, unless you feel the privilege and the honor of universal industry. What is the power whereby demagogues wield the mob ? It is because you who are privileged have not placed yourself in sympathy with the masses. The danger underlying our institutions is that these demagogues that lead the masses shall, like blind Samsons, pull down our house over our heads. The struggle to come is unfortunately worse than that between slavery and freedom ; but it is before us, unless we do our duty. Mr. Channing spoke of his own sorrow for and disgust at recent CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 123 political revelations at Washington, after which he said : All Europe is aghast with the corruption of our politics, but the mightiest scorn of our bitterest foes is hardly to be com- pared with the reality. Away with it, away with it, at all costs ! I ask for regeneration, for reformation, in this nation. I am told that, in the palaces of the merchant princes around the Common, there are young men who think politics beneath them. It seems incredible that a young American should dare in his inmost soul for one single hour to spit upon his birthright. What we need to learn is that those who are highest in their privilege should feel most their duty to serve the people. There is but one way in which this sublime work of regeneration can be effected, and that is by elevating the people. Divorce the Church from the Com^ monwealth ! Our mission is to wed them in an indissoluble union, and the ring that binds Church and Commonwealth together should be knowledge and universal culture. Every home should be a church and a commonwealth ; every home should be a college ; in every community there should be those instrumentalities whereby man is formed in the Church of God. 124 CHANNING CENTENARY. THE CHILDREN'S SERVICE. On the afternoon of Sunday, April 4, a union service of Sunday-schools was held in the Church of the Disciples. Classes with their teachers were present from the South Congregational Church (the Rev. E. E. Hale's), the Hollis Street Church (the Rev. H. B. Carpenter's), the Church of the Unity (the Rev. M. J. Savage's), the New South Free Church (the Rev. W. P. Tilden's), and the Church of the Disciples (the Rev. J. F. Clarke's). Addresses were made by each of the pastors named above, by the Rev. W. H. Channing, of London, and by Governor Long. The church was tastefully decorated for the service. Calla lilies and other potted plants were on each side of the desk; and a beautiful arch of green, with a graceful green fringe, rose to the top of the wall behind the desk. In the focus of the arch was a five-pointed star of white flowers with a crimson centre. On the left of the pulpit was a portrait of Dr. Channing. President W. H. Baldwin, of the Young Men's Christian Union and superintendent of the Sunday-school of the church, conducted the exercises. The church was filled with the Sunday-schools, a large part of the congregation being young girls. Printed programmes of the exercises, with hymns, responsive services, and prayers, were dis- tributed, giving all the people an opportunity to participate. CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 125 The first speaker of the afternoon was the Rev. Dr. E. E. Hale. He spoke of the character of the gospel as a par- ticular revelation to children. It had been kept from the wise and prudent and had been revealed unto babes. The address was adapted to the age of his hearers, and impressed upon them the truth that the church is for children as truly as for grown people. The change in popular belief by which added importance was given to children was attrib- uted to Channing. " Love God, love man, and live for heaven," was a motto inculcated by Channing ; and it is as truly applicable to children as to any people. The Rev. H. B. Carpenter, the only pastor of those present in whose church Channing. had actually preached, followed Mr. Hale. Liberty as the greatest boon t>f earth — greater than life or limb — was the central thought of his address ; and the application was to Channing, who was filled with the spirit of religious liberty, and who brought that liberty to others. Channing was greater than any political deliverer, inasmuch as religious liberty is of greater moment than any other liberty. Channing's writings were pro- nounced full of the great thoughts and deep reflections which fill the writings of Bishop Berkeley. The spirit of Berkeley and of Wordsworth met in the heart of Channing. The waters of life in his writings are sweet and soft, pure and limpid, and have permeated the nation's life, making great changes. After singing, an address was made by the Rev. Mr. Sav- age, an address specially devoted to the children. It was a little biographical sketch of Channing, put in simple words and sentences, stating his beginning as an orthodox minis- ter, and his service in the great movement which resulted in the establishment of the Unitarian churches. He was also pictured as a man fond of children, winning toward them even in his religious life. He was held up as the American 126 CHANNING CENTENARY. saint of religious freedom, and the meaning of the expression was explained to the children. Mr. Savage was followed by the Rev. Mr. Tilden, who dwelt upon the influence of Channing's mother upon her son, directing him to a pure and noble life. Channing was a reflective boy, and the habit of thought was continued into manhood. Love of nature was a marked trait of his charac- ter ; but it was love of nature as a work of God rather than as a thing of beauty. Channing's influence is of the kind which never dies; and, in the highest sense, he still lives, and will continue to live. Dr. Clarke was the next speaker, and began at once with a story of Channing the boy, who got his first lesson in doubt of orthodoxy by hearing his father whistle after he had sat under the delivery of a sermon full of threats of the penalties for sin, as if he did not believe it. Channing's record as an abolitionist was briefly rehearsed, and an expla- nation was given, in language adapted to children, of the great change which was effected by Channing in the theol- ogy of his day, — how it was softened down from the wrath to the mercy of God in its presentation to the people. Governor Long followed Dr. Clarke with a short tribute to the memory of Channing and a few words of sympathy with the gathering. Channing, he said, is one of those men who, though dead, live more and more in the expanding influence of their lives. Of men in New England, none is more worthy of commemoration than this man who was honored by the day's services. The Governor suggested the preparation of a brief biography of Channing for the especial benefit of children. He closed with the hope that Chan- ning's life and genius and teachings would become as famil- iar as household words. The closing address was made by Rev. William H. Chan- ning, of London, who spoke of Channing's relations with his mother and of his great interest in children. CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 12/ AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION. ADDKESSES AT THE ANNUAL MEETING, MAY 25, 1880. ADDBJ3SS OF REV. DE, WILLIAM HENRY FURNESS, OF PHILADELPHIA. I am not competent, and, if I were, I am nc5t inclined to undertake an analysis of Dr. Channing's distinguished power. From different mansions of our common house- hold of faith, eloquent voices have spoken his praise, and dwelt upon the spiritual and intellectual characteristics of the man, and of the exalted position which he holds in the religious history of this age. And there are his writ- ings, as faithful a portraiture of the inner man as the por- trait of the outer man which you have hanging in your studies, the unconscious work of his own hand.* My only qualification for the office which I have been honored by the invitation to discharge on this occasion is that I happen to be one of the rapidly diminishing number of those who had the privilege of Dr. Channing's personal friendship, and in whose minds the charm of his speech is still strong. I propose, therefore, only to talk to you about him, and to revive as vividly as I may the impression that he made on me. "To analyze the characters of those we love," says Wordsworth, " is not a common nor a natural employment of men at any time. We are not anxious unerringly to , un- derstand the constitution of the minds of those who have 128 CHANNING CENTENARY. soothed, who have cheered, who have supported us, with whom we have been long and daily pleased and delighted. The affections are their own justification. The light of love in our hearts is a satisfactory evidence that there is a body of worth in the minds of our friends, whence that light has proceeded." The admiration, the reverence, which have shone forth from so many hearts here and , abroad, irrespectively of sectarian distinctions, on the hundredth anniversary of Dr. Channing's birthday, do they not testify more impressively than any words to the rare worth of him by whom they were inspired ? The portrait of Dr. Channing, with which you are fa- miliar, strikes me as remarkably faithful. It is faultless. It is hard for those who knew him in his manhood to believe that the spiritual power which he then manifested was prefigured by his physical strength in boyhood, that he was famous among his playmates as an athlete. Such, we are told, was the fact. His person in manhood was very slight. His physical hold upon this mortal life seemed to be of the feeblest. To the eye, he was an apparition that might vanish at any moment. He might have said, with Paul, that his bodily presence was " contemptible." Once, when speaking of the doctrine of non-resistance, he said he did not believe that he could strike a man, not from any question of his strength, but from his sense of the sacredness of the human person. The human body was to him the temple of the Highest, not made with hands. The doubt arose involuntarily in my mind whether, if he did strike, the man struck would be aware of it. It is the spirit, I believe, that keeps us all alive, even the strongest. In the case of Dr. Channing, that was evidently the vital spring of his be- ing. That kept his most delicate organization here, and it is a wonder that it kept him so long. There was a soft- ness in the expression of his countenance that I always CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 1 29 felt like velvet. His smile was all the sweeter for the ap- pearance around ^his mouth of physical weakness, through which it struggled, a sunbeam through a cloud. His voice, — ah, that wonderful voice! — wonderful not for the music of its tones, but for its extraordinary power of expression. Whether from the delicacy of the vocal organ or from bodily weakness, I do not know, it was flexible to tremu- lousness. When he began to discourse, it ran up and down, even in the articulation of a single polysyllabic word, in so strange a fashion that they who heard him for the first time could not anticipate its effect, — how, before it ceased, that voice would thrill them to the inmost. I cannot liken it to anything but a huge sail, flapping about at first at random, but soon taking the wind, swelling out most majestically, as Sidney Smith said of Sir James Mackintosh that, " when the spirit came upon him, he spread his enormous canvas, and launched into a wide sea of eloquence." We pronounced Dr. Channing eloquent in speech as well as in style. But no one could suppose for a moment that he had ever taken a lesson in elocution, or had ever given it a thought, so original, so entirely his own, was his .manner of speaking. It was the pure personal conviction from which he spoke that inspired his voice, and took sole charge of it to its faintest modulations. When he read familiar hymns and passages of Scripture, one felt as if he had never heard them before. The effect of his reading was, at times, something more than a pin-drop silence : his hearers were awe-struck. I recall single words which, as he uttered them, seemed so big with meaning that to write them so that they might be as large to the eye as they were to the ear a whole side wall of the church would hardly have af- forded space enough. While he spoke as he was moved, and because he thus spoke, his speech exemplified the finest principles of elocution. There could not be a more striking I3O CHANNING CENTENARY. instance of the rising and falling inflections, which the books tell of, than Dr. Channing's reading of the close of the Ser- mon on the Mount, where the wise man is compared to one who builds his house on a rock, and the fool is likened to one who builds upon the sand. In the former case, the hearer saw that the rain and the wind and the flood were wasting their fury ; in the latter, you felt, before the catas- trophe was announced, that the storm was doing its work, and the house was already rocking upon its foundations. Men are not canonized until after death. But the delicacy of Dr. Channing's bodily frame was in such unison with his impressively spiritual character, he had so light a garment of flesh to put off, it so thinly veiled the spirit, that, long before it dropped off, he was invested, to our eyes, in an air of saintliness, as with a robe. No other man among us was so regarded as one having his constant walk and conversa- tion with eternal verities, which were bringing him in life, as in death, "messages from the Spirit." And now, if much that I tell you of him, and, relying upon your indulgence of old age, make bold to repeat, — if I do not repeat myself, I must repeat some one else, for little remains to be said, except what our friends, Frederic Hedge and William Henry Channing, have to say, — if what I relate seems hardly worthy of mention, you must make allowance for the peculiarly strong feeling of personal rev- erence which Dr. Channing inspired, and which made very impressive every word that fell from his lips. Certain things that he said made such deep and lasting impressions on my mind from his manner of saying them that every word of his appeared to be charged with authority. I had the privilege of hearing his Dudleian Lecture, to which I am happy, with our admirable and venerated friend, James Mar- tineau, to acknowledge a great obligation. To the few brief remarks upon the character of Christ which occur in that CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 131 lecture, I owe much of the inexhaustible interest with which I have ever since pursued the study of that great life. And then I was greatly helped by Dr. Channing, when he said in his own impressive way that it was not by contro- versy that the hold of the old dogmas upon the minds of men is loosened, but by the dissemination of undisputed truth and the expansive force of general intelligence ; in a word, that doctrinal errors are not out-argued, but outgrown. It was in accordance with this teaching that Dr. Channing rendered his best service to a liberal theology. It is true that he first became known as the advocate of liberal views. One of the earliest premonitory signs of the Unitarian and Trinitarian controversy that began in the first half of this century was a published correspondence between Dr. Chan- ning and the Rev. Samuel Worcester, an eminent Orthodox clergyman of Salem. In a memoir of the late Rev. Thomas Worcester, the nephew of the Rev. Samuel Worcester and the son of the Rev. Noah Worcester, the friend of peace (of sainted memory), I find it stated that Dr. Channing sub- mitted his letters to the Rev. Samuel Worcester in MS. to the Rev. Noah Worcester, the brother of his opponent ; and that, after the correspondence was closed, when Rev. Samuel Worcester was informed of this fact, he expressed regret that he himself had not done the same, — had not subjected his letters to his brother's revision. Dr. Channing' s discourse at the ordination of Mr. Sparks was the first formal publication of Unitarianism in this country, or rather it was so received. And, as such, so wide and powerful was its effect, and to such learned, able, and, on the whole, courteous controversies did it give rise, that it makes our Baltimore church historical, a consecrated me- morial spot. May it stand forever! Beside that discourse, the doctrinal writings of Dr. Channing are few. His theo- logical influence wrought, not controversially, but much in 132 CHANNING CENTENARY. the same way that the principles of freedom and justice wrought in old anti-slavery times, in the thirty years* war of opinion for liberty that preceded the great Rebellion. Obnoxious as the anti-slavery cause then was, orthodox men who embraced it soon found it so rich and exhilarating that they discovered how innutritious in comparison were the old traditional husks from which they had all their lives been trying to draw sustenance, like "sucklings from the breasts of a dead mother." So frequently did this happen that it was a matter of regret with the abolitionists that they could not win over to their side an orthodox man who would stay orthodox, and so give the cause the advantage of his influ- ence. My 'kinsman, Wendell Phillips (I am proud of the relationship), was the only man among them who retained a sort of reputation for orthodoxy ; but somehow or other, in his case, it did not avail much. The reason, I suppose, was that it required a great quantity of orthodox repute, a great deal more than Wendell Phillips was credited with, to over- balance his bold and most eloquent speech. Thus it was that the influence of Dr. Channing's writings has wrought to enlarge and elevate the general mind. He has dwelt with such power upon the truths that are truths that the fetters of a false theology have broken and fallen away with- out one direct effort to sever them. Dr. Channing has somewhere said that the defect of our Unitarian preaching is that it is fragmentary, lacking in unity; and that, while he felt deeply his own shortcomings, he was thankful for having been early and deeply penetrated with one great truth, — the sanctity of the human soul, the dignity of human nature. He was indeed blessed therein. Thence it was, from that deep fountain, faith, that there flowed from within him rivers of living water to refresh and inspire other minds. It was made unto him eloquence and wisdom and power. May I, friends and brothers, without CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. I3J o offence to propriety, add to Dr. Channing's the testimony of my humble experience of the advantage and satisfaction of being early possessed with some one great idea ? I esteem it one of the chief blessings of my life that I was, more than half a century ago, taken with a strong desire to ascer- tain the simple historical truth concerning Jesus of Naza- reth. This study has been my faithful companion, com- forter, and friend. I cannot tell whether it is as a literary or religious question that it has most interested me. The feeble health rendered Dr. Channing reserved and a recluse to such a degree that it has been said that he had no sense of humor. And we certainly never thought of telling him humorous stories in order to ascertain the fact. I think, however, that fine sense was latent in him. I am assured by one who knew him better than I that there was no ques- tion of its existence. I asked him once rather hesitatingly (it was at a tim,e when I was riding full gallop that hobby of my steed) whether he ever read Elia, the first of humorists. "Oh!" he exclaimed with animation, "that is the finest English of our day." I do not think one can appreciate Charles Lamb's English and be insensible to his humor. Once, when we were talking of a popular writer of the hour, of whom I had expressed a favorable opinion, Dr. Channing asked with an amusing tone of contempt in every syllable, "Do you suppose he can say anything of anybody?" The habitual tone of his mind was profoundly serious. No one could be in his presence without feeling that he was a man whose thoughts were running upon the greatest in- terests. He was often attacked by disease, when his life hung by a thread, and he knew how feeble the tie was that kept him here. Once, when dangerously ill, he expressed a desire to live, because he "had something to say." He lived among us, dwelling as few do in the inner world, and subsisting on food that our world knows not of. 134 CHANNING CENTENARY. ■ In his later years, in order to escape from your east winds, he was wont to spend a few weeks in the spring time in Philadelphia, where he had special pleasure in the ac- quaintance of members of the Society of Friends, a body to whom he felt a strong attraction, cherishing great venera- tion for John Woolman and Elias Hicks, "those faithful sons of the morning," as the venerable Lucretia Mott calls them. Then it was that I had the pleasure and instruction of frequent intercourse with him. I remember how he- spoke of Mr. Emerson, whose light had then risen and was shining on us all. " I do not know," said Dr. Channing, " that he tells me anything new, but he inspires me." (Is not this, by the way, a greater service than the communica- tion of any amount of knowledge, secular or sacred ?) " He has no partisans," he continued : " his warmest admirers hold their own. He does not need any. Emerson is a hero." It was on one of those annual visits that Dr. Chan- ning delivered his lecture before our Mercantile Library Association upon "The Universality of the Age." As he had rarely spoken in public save upon religious occasions, I asked him, before the evening of the lecture came, whether he had ever been applauded while speaking. Upon his replying in the negative, I warned him of the applause that would be sure to break out as often as he should give it opportunity. I knew that, if it were distasteful to him, he would not hesitate to request its discontinuance. I had heard of his asking his hearers in church, before beginning his sermon, not to cough, — a quite unnecessary request, it seemed to me, as people forgot not only to cough, but even to breathe, when he preached, as I have heard it testified on more occasions than one. Once a friend who had just come from hearing him preach in his old pulpit in Federal Street told me that, at the close of a certain passage in the sermon, the people all over the church could be heard taking their CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 1 35 breath. The same report, almost in the very same words, came to me years afterwards, from one who had just been listening to Dr. Channing in New York. Generally speak- ing, the coughing of a congregation is the fault or the mis- fortune of the preacher. It always ceases when an impres- sive passage comes in the sermon. I had the whooping- cough pretty severely after I became a settled minister. I should be ashamed to mention it, if I had ever been seized with a paroxysm while in the pulpit, as that would have betokened that I was not interested in what I was doing. As with the preacher, so with the hearers : they do not cough when they are interested. But pardon me : I am growing garrulous. On the occasion of Dr. Channing' s lecture in Philadelphia, there was no restlessness, no clearing of throats, but a deep silence, broken by frequent impassioned bursts of applause, that ceased suddenly, as if there were a fear on all that a word might be lost. Seldom has such an assembly been gathered in our city. I never saw a large crowd more com- pletely spell-bound. After speaking some thirty minutes, at a moment when he had the whole audience under his sway, he paused, and said that, with their permission, he would sit down and rest awhile, — a simple act, and in per- fect character. Who else would have hazarded the resump- tion of his power ? Who else would Jiot have risked the fatigue, rather than have broken the spell and laid his wand aside ? There was no one else but himself tired or likely to be. All else were drinking in great draughts of refreshment. When he rose again and resumed his discourse, the spell was as powerful as ever, and so it continued to the end. " What did he stop for ? " one of the retiring crowd was heard to exclaim. " Why did he not go on, and tell us what he thought about everything? " I said to him afterward that I had warned him against the applause, but that it struck me I36 CHANNING CENTENARY. as very intelligent and hearty. "Oh," said he, "it did me good ! " Did him good not as a personal tribute at all, but as an impressive declaration of agreement with him. Does not Mr. Carlyle somewhere quote Novalis as saying that his conviction of any truth is doubled in strength the instant another is of the same mind ? The hearty assent of a thou- sand and more to one's word must needs do one good. I do not think that in all Dr. Channing's writings there can be found so vivid a figure of speech as occurs in that same Philadelphia lecture. We Philadelphians boast of having given to the world Benjamin Franklin, of Boston. Dr. Channing gratified our pride by a graceful allusion to the illustrious philosopher, and said (I quote from memory) that " when Philadelphia should be a ruin, and the darkness of desolation should rest over the place, the kite with which Franklin drew the lightning from the skies would still be vis- ible to the eye of posterity." We all saw it, floating, white, afar off in the darkness. Dr. Channing's fancy seems to me to be singularly subdued and chastened. It throws a delicate grace over his forms of expression. It never runs away with him, or betrays him into saying more than he felt. " People always sympathize," he once remarked, "with suppressed emotion." The least hint of reserved power always touches us to the quick. Every mother knows the pathos of the grieved lip when her infant child, equally ready to cry and to laugh, struggles to keep from crying. We felt that there was deeper faith in Dr. Channing than words could express. No man could be more indifferent than he to literary reputation, rich as he was in literary qualifications. He esteemed nothing that he possessed, except as it could be made subservient to the best interests of his fellow-men. One of the discourses which attracted special notice abroad was one of his earliest publications, his sermon on War. " I think Channing an admirable writer," says Sydney Smith, CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 1 37 in a letter to Countess Grey, — "so much sense and elo- quence ! such a command of language ! Yet, admirable as is his sermon on War, I have the vanity to think my own equally good, quite as sensible, quite as eloquent, as full of good principle and fine language ; and you will be the more inclined to agree with me in this comparison, when I tell you that I preached in St. Paul's the identical sermon which Lord Grey so much admires. I thought I could not write anything half so good, and so I preached Channing." My friend, Mrs. Kemble, told me that, once in conversation with Miss Berry, the intimate friend of Horace Walpole, and religion was the topic, " My dear," the old lady said to her, "lama Channingite" By the way, over what a long stretch of time a few lives may extend ! Horace Walpole tells us that he recollected seeing, when a boy, a lady who belonged to the court of James II. The essay on Milton, first published in the Christian Examiner, in 1826, contemporaneously with an article on the same subject in the Edinburgh Review by Macaulay, was Dr. Channing's first excursion from the pulpit. I remember receiving the number of the Examiner containing the essay, and thinking at first that it was the work of a new hand in that periodical ; but I recognized t.he author before I finished it, although I was quite unprepared to meet Dr. Channing there. The two essays hardly admit of comparison. Macau- lay's is, I suppose, the more learned and brilliant ; but I cannot read Macaulay now without having in mind a remark of Dr. Johnson's, that he who writes antithetically "desires to be applauded, not credited," — a remark which I suspect the grand old man made from the depths of his own consciousness. I call Dr. Johnson old: did any one ever imagine him as young ? It is a long time since I read Dr. Channing' s essay, but I remember it seemed to me to sweep on, a broad tide of eloquent enthusiasm. Dr. Channing's I38 CHANNING CENTENARY. works have been twice noticed in the Edinburgh Review, long the leading English periodical : first by Hazlitt, who is ill-natured and depreciating, — partly, I suppose, because, being the son of an English Unitarian clergyman, he had taken offence at certain remarks of Dr. Channing' s unfavora- ble to the theology of the English Unitarians, Priestley and Belsham ; but, more than that, Hazlitt bore no good-will to Dr. Channing for his most Christian estimate of Napoleon, — an estimate the justice of which time is confirming. Na- poleon was Hazlitt's pet argument against legitimacy and the divine right of kings. Be that as it may, Hazlitt's ill- nature made not the slightest impression upon Dr. Chan- ning, who always spoke of him with special interest. I doubt whether he ever read Hazlitt's criticisms, although I do not doubt that he knew of them. Everybody read the Edinburgh in those days, when there was not such a library of reviews as there is now. The second notice of Dr. Channing in the Edinburgh was understood to be by Lord Brougham. It was characteristi- cally savage. But it was not the first time that his lordship had committed the egregious blunder of disparaging men greater than himself. In the very first volume of the Review (in 1803), he had the ignorant arrogance to pronounce a paper "destitute of every species of merit," — a paper in the Philosophical Transactions, written by Thomas Young, the author of the undulatory theory of light, and the reader of the hieroglyphs, — a man of whom Professor Tyndall (and he is an authority) has said that, if a line were drawn from Sir Isaac Newton, horizontally down toward our time, it would pass over all heads until it came to Thomas Young, who towers tota vertice above all Newton's suc- cessors. I spoke once to Dr. Channing of Lord Brougham's notice of him, and, encouraged by his love of free speech, I said that, while the spirit of that notice was offensive, CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. 1 39 some of the criticisms seemed to me to have force. " Oh, very likely," was his reply. " The favorable reception that essay met with was wholly unexpected by me. I have no doubt Lord Brougham is right. / have never read his arti- cle." Considering the sensitiveness of our people to Eng- lish opinion, — not now, perhaps, so marked as in those earlier days, — I admired Dr. Channing greatly for his indif- ference to what so distinguished a person as Lord Brougham thought of him. It was one of many proofs of how little he cared for fame. No concern for that ever biassed his judgment the weight of a hair. It has been observed that the members of all small sects are apt to inflame one another with exaggerated praise. And it must be admitted that, when the number of avowed Unitarians were small, we thought a good deal of one another. We were the wise men, doubtless ; and wisdom would die with us. But it was never for a moment conceived that Dr. Channing was at all open to flattery. He was as insensible to it as nature herself, and we could no more think of moving him than her by our plaudits. Whether of good report or evil report in the critical world, it was all the same to him. When told that Robert Southey had pronounced him the most remark- able American he had met with, "It must have been then/' he said, " because I was so good a listener. I hardly said a word. Mr. Southey did all the talking." Such being the case, we do not wonder that Southey spoke so highly of him. Is not the first qualification of a good conversa- tionalist that he shall be a good listener ? Sir Walter Scott quotes Lady Mary Wortley Montagu as saying that the most romantic part of any region is where the mountains melt into the plains and lowlands. Some thing of the same sort, Sir Walter, with a poet's eye, finds to be true in history. Those periods, he remarks, being the most picturesque in which rude, barbaric customs are 140 ChAnning centenary. beginning to be softened by the approach of greater enlight- enment. And is not the same true in the history of opinions, of religious opinions ? Is it not exemplified in our revered teacher and friend ? It is interesting to note how, born when a theology reigned that made the atmosphere of New England thick with gloom, — it is beautiful to see how steadily, though gradually, his lovely light rose and pene- trated and dispersed the clouds, — in a word, how constantly he grew, a growing man to the last, the old and the new mingling in him in ever-increasing disproportion ; at the first, the most eloquent advocate of a liberal faith ; at the last, caring less and less, as he said, for Unitarianism, and more and more for universal humanity. Advancing years brought no fetters for him ; in age abounding in the faith and hopefulness of youth, growing ever younger, and like the morning light shining brighter and brighter, ever ap- proaching the perfect day. Addresses upon Channing were also given by Rev. Dr. Hedge and Rev. William H. Channing, of which we pre- sent abstracts : — ADDRESS OF BEV. DB. HEDGE. There is nothing more respectable in man than his enthu- siasm for a great and worthy object. The sentiment of reverence and admiration for what is excellent is the inex- tinguishable hope of human society. To it belongs the future of the race. What -is it that we admire in Channing? I agree to all or nearly all that has been said by the elo- quent speakers who have set forth in these centennial days the many noble qualities of the orator and the man. I still ask myself, Why do we admire the impersonation of these qualities in Channing ? And the answer is, I think, because they are a revelation of our own nature, — in them we see CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. I4I as in a glass our better selves. This unfathomable human nature of ours in its manifold and everlasting workings, out of the ground forces of its constitution has once again heaved up a character beyond the level of the common,; — a peak that has caught a ray of the everlasting morning, and draws our wondering eyes. When I attempt to classify Channing, I find him to belong to that class of theologians whose opinions are shaped by their feelings, — who see through the medium of their sentiments, — the sentimental class. These are the ones who have acted with the greatest power in and on the religious world, and who have fed the life of the Church. My next characterization of Channing may seem fanciful ; but I am deeply in earnest when I say that he was one of those in whom a feminine soul incarnates itself in a mascu- line body. The feminine principle in human nature, we are told, is that which leads heavenward. There is a sex in souls as well as in bodies, and they do not always coincide. Occasionally, a masculine soul appropriates to itself a femi- nine body ; and, on the other hand, a feminine soul is some- times clothed with a masculine body. Lessing said that Nature intended woman to be her masterpiece, but she made a mistake in the clay and took it a little too soft. There was nothing "soft" in the opprobrious sense in Dr. Channing. But the feminine soul in him reveals itself in his exceeding refinement, in his moral sensibility, in his spir- itual hunger, and negatively in his want of humor. It revealed itself above all in the excess of aspiration over insight. Last of all, I define Channing as "the last of the Deists," — the man in whom Deism culminated and reached its Nir- vana. I am aware that that name has an odious sound to orthodox ears, but I hasten to explain: not the Deism which rejects what is called, whether rightly or not, the 142 CHANNING CENTENARY. supernatural element in Christianity, but the theosophic Deism, which regards God as not only personal and formally distinct from creation, but as substantially separated from creation, — an outside God, — a mighty individual, who created not only the forms, but the substance of the universe. In one thing, Channing stood before and above all others, and for it above all others we prize and praise him, — the one thing dear to men of all times and climes, dear, as nothing else is or can be, to the universal heart of man ; and I am sure of the consent of all who hear me when I name it, — liberty; liberty based on the dignity of human life. This is what Channing especially stood for, labored for, and would have died for, — yes, and did die for, when out of the sanc- tuary of his own respectability he stretched forth his hand to aid the release of Abner Kneeland, imprisoned for free- dom of thought ; when in his solemn ire at the murder of Lovejoy he craved the use of the sacred place in which to offer up the birth-offering of public indignation. He died to the respect and good-will of old friends and fellow-citizens, — died to rise to life again, and to live forever in the gratitude and honor of the generations following. ADDRESS OF EEV. WILLIAM HEffBY CHANGING. As regards William Ellery Channing and his ideals, my impression is that his first ideal was this : the ideal of an integral education for every single mortal on this globe. He believed that every single human being was intrinsically great, — had genius, had heroism; that it was the accident of the time that prevented this outbreak of the divine, in all its varied forms, in every human being. He really believed in the possibility of an integral education that should bring out the latent virtue of the manhood and womanhood of the men and women around us. Then he had this other thought : CELEBRATION AT BOSTON. I43 that you must make round, symmetrical, beautiful, this^cult- ure of the human being. Then he wanted the spirit of beauty poured through all life, to bind men together. His second grand ideal was that of a perfectly organized society. He had set his whole heart and soul upon making this city of his adoption an ideal city. And, if you study his life as I have, you will be surprised to find how the little germs that he planted have developed here into grand insti- tutions. He believed in the possibility of the capital of this Bay State, even when it was comparatively a little town, developing into a perfect type of a Christian community ; and it was his deep sorrow that he could not take a more active part in hastening onward this development. He was not an enthusiast or a visionary. He was a man of solid judgment, a man of good business powers, pre-eminently a practical man ; and, if you will talk with those who guided the business and social reforms of that day, you will see that his judgment was singularly critical and discriminating, and made apt suggestions, and that some of the best schemes for working came from his study. Another ideal : it seems to me that, of all men who have lived since the days of our forefathers, no man has ever drunk more deeply of the fountains of the life of this Repub- lic than did William Ellery Channing. His ideas and hopes for this nation were sublime. ' His thought was of a united nation that should bring out all the resources of art and of conscience, and of will and of imagination, and of aspiration, and blend them together into a perfect whole. He believed in the possibility of our taking such an attitude among the nations of the earth that we should be peace-makers and peace-keepers, standing as the great representative and prophet of a universal peace. And, while believing in this, he still believed that every nation should hold its own, and discharge its own trusts, and stand up to the work which God gave it to do. 144 CHANNING CENTENARY. He was the prophet of a transfigured humanity, the prophet of a Christ-like humanity, dwelling in close and living communion with God. That is what he was in hope and aspiration, and those who stood nearest to him know that that is what he was in character arid life. He was a living temple, and from him flowed a holy influence, in every glance of his eye, in his every gesture and his every word. His mere presence was a benediction and an open heaven. MEETING AT BROOKLYN, N.Y. [This meeting, the largest and in many respects the most interesting and sig- nificant of all those held in America, has already been very fully reported in a handsome octavo volume, edited by Rev. Dr. Alfred P. Putnam, and pub lishedby Mr. George H. Ellis, 101 Milk Street, Boston. The following report is an abridgment from that fuller one.] The plan of the Brooklyn celebration was brought to the attention of the Trustees of the Church of the Saviour early in January. The enterprise was regarded with earnest favor ; and a Committee of Arrangements was appointed to take it in hand and carry it forward to completion. People and churches of the neighborhood and the public at large, without regard to creed or name, were cordially asked to join in the eelebration. The response from all sides was most gratifying. It was found that, however widely men were separated from Dr. Channing by their theological opin- ions, yet all recognized some vital point of agreement or sympathy with him. The -pulpit of the Church of the Saviour was occupied on Sunday, April 4, by Rev. A, D. Mayo, of Springfield, Mass., whose sermons, morning and evening, the one on " New Saints for the New Republic," and the other on "Our Common Christianity/' closed with tributes to Dr. Chan- ning, and formed a fitting introduction to the - memorial services of the week. The opening services of the Brooklyn meeting were held- I46 CHANNING CENTENARY. in the Church of the Saviour on Tuesday evening, April 6. The church was filled with people of all denominations in the city, a large number of representative clergymen and laymen of the different sects and neighboring churches being in the audience. After a voluntary on the organ and an anthem by the choir, prayer was offered by the Rev. Rufus Ellis, D.D. The Rev. Joseph May read appropriate selections from the Scriptures. A commemorative dis- course, from the text, " The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance," Psalm cxii,, 6, was then delivered by Rev. Dr. Andrew P. Peabody, of Harvard University. The memorial meeting was held in the Church of the Saviour on the next day, Wednesday, April 7, at 10 A.M. The church was again crowded with representatives of all denominations. There were many present from the neigh- boring towns and cities. On and around the pulpit and tab- lets were rich and abundant floral decorations. The baptis- mal font was surmounted with a large and beautiful cross and star of flowers, a gift from the Church of the Messiah, New York. Directly in front of the pulpit, resting upon an easel, and facing the audience, was the fine portrait of Dr. Channing by Ingham, kindly lent for the occasion by Dr. Bellows, its owner. The services were opened with a chant by the choir. After prayer by Rev. F. W. Holland, a former pastor of the first Unitarian congregation gathered in Brooklyn, the Rev. Dr. A. P. Putnam, Chairman, made the following address of welcome : — BEMABKS OF BEV. DB. PUTNAM (Chairman). Friends, we bid you one and all a hearty welcome to this celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the birthday of William Ellery Channing. Our first thought was to have a single service, to be held in this church, and to consist mainly of a commemorative discourse. But very soon the CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. I4.J plan assumed a larger form, and especially as we remem- bered that here was a name that belonged to the Church universal, that was reverenced in all communions, and that would most fittingly be honored by friendly voices from all the churches and sects around us. We therefore arranged a more extensive programme, and cordially invited ministers and laymen of Brooklyn and elsewhere, of whatever creed or worship, if they had any sympathy with the spirit or purpose of the occasion, or had any word to speak of love or gratitude in memory of Channing, to come and freely participate in the services. We were very glad, nor were we at all surprised, to find that representative men of quite every faith or name in the community were ready and more than willing to respond to the call, and to lend their presence antl voices, too, in furtherance of the object we had in view. Many of them are with us here, and you will have the pleasure of hearing what they have to offer. Others have expressed the deepest interest in the proposed meetings of the day, and regretted that absence from the city or press- ing engagements would render it impossible for them to attend. We invite the freest utterance on the part of those who may feel moved to address the audience, be they Protestants or Catholics ; and we expect here this morning, and at the Academy this evening, a full and varied expres- sion of honest thought and feeling in relation t6 the one great theme that engages us. I shall not long detain you with words of my own, since there are so many others whom you have come and are waiting to hear. But, before I take my seat, I must read two or three letters which, of the many I have received from far and near, to be read during the proceedings of the day, seem to me a fit introduction to what may follow at this particular meeting. The first is from Rev. William H. Channing, nephew and biographer of Dr. Channing, who, as I48 CHANNING CENTENARY. you are well aware, has very recently arrived in this country from England, but whose engagement made long ago to be at Newport to-day prevents him from being present here^ with us. Another will be found to be of great interest to you, dictated as it was — though the signature is in his own handwriting — by the Rev. George G. Channing, of Milton, Mass., the only surviving brother of him whom we meet to honor, and himself now ninety-two years of age. Patiently he awaits the not-distant hour when he shall rise to join the ascended and sainted one. And another letter still is from the Rev. Charles T. Brooks, the revered and beloved poet- preacher, who for so many years was the minister of the Unitarian Church at Newport, Channing's birthplace. [These letters, with many others, some of which were read by Rev. S. H. Camp at later stages of the meeting, and some were received after the celebration was over, will be found in the Appendix of the fuller Report of this meeting.] I have a special purpose in introducing Mr. Brooks' letter just at this point. Much anxiety has been felt, as you know, lest the required sum of fifty thousand dollars for the new Memorial Church at Newport might not all be pledged by the time the corner-stone should be laid to-day. Great effort has been made to this end in various quarters. Last Saturday, I received a telegram from Rev. Mr. Schermer- horn, present minister of the Society there, saying that five thousand dollars more were needed, and asking additional help from the Church of the Saviour. On Monday, I sent him word that my people on Sunday had contributed another thousand, and asked him to let me know by Tuesday the state of things. This morning before breakfast, a telegram came, informing me that there was still, at the last hour, a deficiency of two thousand dollars. Through the generosity of a member of my parish, it was my privilege and joy to re- turn immediately the message that the deficiency was met. CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. I49 [Applause.] It is, therefore, permitted our assembled friends there to go on and lay the corner-stone of the new edifice with rejoicing; and I cannot help feeling a little pride that it has been given to my own beloved Church to add the capstone. [Renewed applause.] And now I beg to present to you Rev. Dr. Farley, my venerable predecessor as pastor of this Church, who is connected by marriage with the family of Rev. George G. Channing, and who will speak to you of Dr. Channing from personal acquaintance and varied associations with him. REMARKS OF REV. DR. F. A. FARLEY. I do not think, my friends, that there is any heart among you that is filled with more grateful emotions than my own, in connection with all the associations of this anniversary. It was my good fortune — shall I not, rather, say that it was "by the blessing of God" my great privilege? — to know Dr. Channing in the early arid more impressible period of my life, and especially during my preparatory studies for the ministry. I recur to the time when I was a student in the Divinity School at Cambridge, and when I was accustomed to go into Boston on the return of the Lord's day, and listen to the preaching of this eminent man. The first reminiscences of Dr. Channing, therefore, which come to my mind, are connected with his public ministry, with the discharge of his duties in the Christian pulpit ; and I am sure that, among those who have been preachers of Christ and his holy gospel, never has there been a man who, from the sacred desk, more entirely held the minds and the hearts of those who listened to him ; and never were there people who sat under preaching with more reverent 15° * CHANNING CENTENARY. ana 1 yet more tender feeling than those who heard the sweet, gentle, inspiring, mighty words of that sainted man of God. After what was said by our dear Brother Peabody last evening in his admirable discourse, it might seem superflu- ous to attempt even to give expression to the* recollections which rise from my own memory, in relation to the manner of Dr. Channing, the matter of his sermons, the power which they manifested, or even to glance at the influence which must have followed, and which we know did follow and is still destined to follow, his remarkable utterances and pub- lished writings. But I am called, and must obey. Among the portraits of Channing there is one that has not been given to the public, and is now the property of my brother-in-law, George G. Channing, of Milton. It is a por- trait painted by the celebrated Stuart of Boston. Somehow or other, the widow of Dr. Channing, and, I believe, both of his surviving children, did not value this portrait as it has always seemed to me it deserved ; and therefore, among the various portraits which have been made, and which have been copied by the engraver and the photographer and sent forth to the world, this does not appear.' But it remained a very treasured memory in the mind of the late Dr. Walter Channing, eminent in the medical profession, and of his brother George, as also of his sister, Mrs. Russell. It is now, as I said before, the property of the Milton branch of the family in Massachusetts. That portrait presents to my own remembrance Channing, as at that day he appeared in the pulpit of the old Federal Street Church. He is painted in the costume which was then almost universal with our clergy, of the robe and surplice and bands. And it brings him before me every time I look at it with a lifelike power, precisely as he seemed to me in the very prime of his active ministry. Next to that, I should place the por- CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 151 trait by S. Gambardella, painted in 1839, when Dr. Chan- ning was fifty-nine years old; a fine line engraving of which, by Kimberly and Cheney, is prefixed to the second volume of the admirably finished Memoir of his distinguished uncle, by William Henry Channing ; and a photograph of the same to our Brother Charles T. Brooks' interesting volume, "A Cen- tennial Memory," just from the press, and which, in passing, I desire warmly to commend to my hearers. The portrait before you was executed by the late Charles C. Ingham, of New York, at his own suggestion, on one of Channing's visits to that city, and is now the property of Dr. Bellows, who very kindly lent it to us for this occa- sion. In some respects, those of you who are familiar with the portrait of Gambardella will be able at once to trace a very considerable resemblance between this and that. Gambardella's is the latest, and was painted for Dr. Chan- ning' s intimate friend, the late Jonathan Phillips, of Boston, the senior deacon of his church. There is very much about Ingham's portrait that is like Dr. Channing in the later years of his life. It presents, certainly, an image of that thin, spare habit, which was a very marked point in his per- sonal appearance, and of the spiriluelle expression of his face. You have been told that he was what, in a certain sense, may be called a tiny man. He was tiny in his figure. He was a very small man, and proportionately thin. I never knew him at any time when he appeared other than thin. From the loss of teeth in early life, his cheeks were comparatively hollow. But there was that in hi»> eye which, I am sure, my Brothers Peabody and Holland, and the few others who remember him, cannot forget. Not only did it speak and flash with his words in the pulpit ; but in his private con- versation and in his most familiar hours there was still, IS 2 CHANNING CENTENARY. with all its softness and gentleness, a remarkably searching quality. In regard to his pulpit ministrations, I beg to say that I have never heard a preacher in whom there was less of what might be called display. His manner was very simple and very engaging. He usually leaned upon his left arm, with his manuscript in the left hand; and this habit was largely, beyond doubt, the result of the delicacy of his con- stitution and general debility. A very slight movement — and always, as Dr. Peabody said last evening, purely "volun- tary," with the forefinger of the right hand raised — was about all the gesture in which, ordinarily, he indulged. But most remarkable was his intonation. Why, although that voice from its- general feebleness seemed to make it impos- sible that he should be heard, even in an auditorium of the size of the Federal Street Church, which was about the size of this, yet, such was its special and peculiar quality, that I suppose there never was a person who went out from those walls, after listening to Dr. Channing, without having heard and understood every word he uttered ! One great reason of this may have been the intense silence which attended his public ministrations. The slightest foot-fall on the carpet could have been heard while he was speaking. At times, in his loftiest flights and in the most earnest appeals which he made to the hearts and consciences of his hearers, his voice was slightly raised; but there was no straining after effect. The manner was perfectly natural, just as natural as when he sat with you in conversation ; and yet, impressive as it was, no one can describe it, and you are left entirely to your imagination to conceive qf it. But what shall I say of his prayers ? There is one of our brethren now living, in very advanced age, of whom I have often heard it said — I refer to our venerable and beloved friend, Dr. Dewey — that it seemed to require a very painful CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 1 53 effort to utter himself in public prayer. I think there never was a greater mistake. It was no effort, except it were sim- ply the effort of self-control. So awed was he in the felt presence of the Almighty, and in the responsible office of leading the devotions of his people, that he seemed to speak under a certain, not morbid, but most natural feeling of con- straint ; and tears have been observed to follow his profound inward emotion. That the heart was full to the brim, every word that he uttered and the very expression of his counte- nance faithfully proved. There was nothing in Dr. Channing of this peculiarity of Dr. Dewey. His prayers were the simplest utterances of the most affectionate and devout feeling of the confiding, trusting child, communing with an all-loving Father, uttered in the most tender and yet the most earnest tones. It be- came contagious, and lifted his hearers to the same plane of devout feeling with himself. All the words which he uttered in prayer seemed to come from the very depths of his own consciousness, and to reach those of his fellow-worshippers, who were thus brought at once into communion with the same Blessed Spirit who was filling his own heart. Taking these two men together, who were, moreover, most intimate friends, I think I never heard from other human lips such soul-subduing, touching, inspiring, uplifting prayer to the Source of all good. I pass from Channing's public ministry to say a word or two of what I must esteem, as has been intimated already, a most blessed privilege, — that of personal communion with him in the quiet of his own study and home. I would go of an evening to his study, and, finding him alone, would sit with him, perhaps an hour or two ; and I confess that the chief feeling which carried me there was the consciousness of the merest pupil in the presence of a great teacher. Shall I say that he commanded me into this feeling? By no means. 1^4 CHANNING CENTENARY. From the reverence which was inspired by what I had expe- rienced of his work in public, and from the knowledge of his saintly character derived through what afterwards be- came a dear family connection, I realized to some extent in what a remarkable presence I stood, and what a fulness there was in the fountain within him, of the sprinklings of which I desired to partake. I see in many notices of Dr. Channing references to him as a remarkable conversationalist. I remember very well one occasion, after his brother-in-law, Mr. Allston, had received a letter from Coleridge, in which allusion was made to him, I asked Dr. Channing who he considered the best conver- sationalist that he met abroad, the two prominent names at that time being Sir James Mackintosh and Coleridge. He very promptly answered, "Sir James Mackintosh." He added that Mackintosh had remarkable conversational power, and that it was truly conversational ; while Coleridge, on the other hand, discoursed, and that one had only to propose to Coleridge a subject or a question to have him instantly pour forth from his rich and cultured mind and soul most remarkable utterances, quite at length. I could not help thinking, at the moment, that that was, to a certain extent, the case with himself. So far as my own experience was concerned, it really seemed so to me ; but then you must re- member I was only a novice, an inexperienced young man. And I regard it as a blessed condescension on his part that, when I ventured to bring a subject before him, he gave me such distinct and prolonged attention, and shed upon it such a flood of light. In the letter referred to, Coleridge said, in substance, " I have had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with your honored friend, Dr. Channing, whom I consider the most remarkable conversationalist that I ever met from your land." When I repeated this, he said, with his quietest CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. I55 manner and gentlest voice, albeit with a slight twinkle of his eye, "Ah! that was because I was so good a listener." When I was in his study, at various times, I find on recol- lection that he was accustomed, as we used to say in college, to "pump" me. He began by questioning me, I might almost say, in the Socratic way ; but his object seemed to be to get into my mind, — a very easy thing for him to do, by the way, for there was very little there at that time, at least ; and, by the questions and the themes which he pro- posed to riddle me through and through ; and then, by and by, to help me, in the kindest manner possible, at once to realize my own faulty way of search, and put me on the right track, by pouring into my soul some of those effective and weighty suggestions which so frequently fell from his lips. Such was his way of dealing with a young man, and was it not a wholesome way? I would come from him to the family of my wife, tell them where I had been, and express my delight in the visit. They wondered why. And here I am led to speak of Chan- ning as he appeared in his ordinary intercourse. Persons of high culture and intellectual accomplishment met him, not exactly with awe, but with a feeling of profound respect and even reverence ; and others, with entire confidence, so that they could be at once at eas$ with him ; while there were many cases in his congregation; as in that very family to which I have alluded, where the moment he appeared among them there was shrinking as from a being of a superior order. Now was this because he put on airs ? Was it because he assumed anything ? Why, he was the simplest of human beings in his whole manner and speech. But it was the in- tense reverence, notwithstanding all the admiration which they might have of him as a preacher and as a man, which he inspired through the saintliness of his very bearing and I$6 CHANNING CENTENARY. life on all occasions and under all circumstances ; and they could not forget it. I would say, " I have had a most delightful evening with Dr. Channing." "Delightful? How could it have been de- lightful ? Why, I shrink into nothingness when I am in his presence," would be the response, perhaps. And then I told them that I went there and got just what I wanted ; that in the veriest sweetness of condescension he listened to my poor words, and poured out the better words and the richer thoughts he had to give me, and sent me away from that place again and again with the inspiration I had gained quickening my resolves for good, and filling me with a heartier thirst for truth, knowledge, and freedom. I could not possibly make it understood that to me, in the* relation in which I stood to him as a very humble and a very de- sirous-of-learning pupil, it was possible that I had had a delightful evening. How often have I heard him lament that he could not draw all his people nearer to him in more familiar inter- course in his pastoral walk, — in which no one could have been more faithful, — and divest them of all timidity in their approaches ! His sympathy in their sorrows and trials, how- ever, all felt; for the spell of that none could resist. He had no "small talk"; but h (3* was simple and gentle as a child. And this leads me to allude to his love of children and his manner toward them. Never can I forget a little incident in connection with one of my own. I had taken my oldest boy, then perhaps four or five years old, to spend a night at "Oakland," his lovely summer retreat at Portsmouth, R.I. His marked kindness soon won the heart of the little fellow ; and the next day, after early lunch preparatory to our drive home, and the chaise being ready at the gate, the doctor took the child, nothing loath, in his arms, and, carrying him. to the vehicle, put him safely in, kissed him, and bade him "good-by." CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 1 57 I was about to say something of the charm of this remark- able man in his home at Rhode Island, which I had so often the happiness of enjoying during my first ministry at Provi- dence. It was one of the loveliest spots in the world ; but his presence, sweet yet dignified manners, affectionate inter-~ course with his family and guests, only made it the more lovely. "Happy," says his nephew in his "Memoir," — "happy the guest who is to ride with Dr. Charming in his chaise ! It is a most plain vehicle, indeed, and the horse knows well that he may trespass almost without remon- strance on his master's good-nature ; but who can regret the slowness of a drive which prolongs the delight of his con- versation ? " Happy, indeed ! On one of these drives, when he had just been reading a spirited paper by Samuel J. May, advocating the extremest doctrine of non-resistance, the doctor, after analyzing the argument of our excellent friend, raised his tiny but clenched fist, — at the moment .and under the circumstances seeming almost ludicrously small, — and, turning to me, exclaimed, "Ah, Brother Far- ley, but there are occasions when we must fight!" But I leave this theme, so much fuller and better treated than I can pretend to treat it, to the delightful pages of his nephew and Mr. Brooks. There are two occasions in my life, Mr. President, which brought me into close and most affecting contact with Dr. Channing, which can never be forgotten, and the remem- brance and influence of which will go with me, I trust, to my final account. To him, indeed, more than to any other mere man, more than to any other being that has trod this earth, except my divine Saviour, do I owe whatever of quick- ening impulse I have felt in my religious, moral, professional life. The first of these was my ordination to the Chris- tian ministry at Providence, in 1828, when he preached that great sermon on "Likeness to God." With all who then 158 CHANNING CENTENARY. heard him, despite the emotion which naturally thrilled a young heart at such a time, I was carried away from my- self. Never, too, was his manner so inspired and grand, so animated and free; and this was the universal judg- ment on all sides expressed. By accident, the platform on which he stood lifted his tiny form so much above the pulpit cushion that he could not, as was his wont, lean upon it. When he began to speak, he seemed slightly embar- rassed, and now and then looked around and beneath him, as though he sought relief ; but then, gathering up his strength in his decision to go on, he stood erect, and went through with his discourse with the unction and fervid eloquence of a prophet. Then came the good old symbolic custom of the Congregational Churches, which seems to have well-nigh died out in our branch of that body, — "the laying on of hands " ; and he, with others of the fathers and brethren m the min- istry, laid his hand upon my head. If anything could have added to the touching and solemn significance of those ordi- nation services, it was the conscious pressure of that hand upon my head, while the prayer of consecration rose in my behalf to the Father of our spirits". Once more, he it was — in connection with his colleague, of blessed memory, my very dear friend in later years, Ezra Stiles Gannett — who with his own hands joined my wife's hands and mine in the holy sacrament of marriage ; and his look and word as he gave us his blessing went, I tell you, to the heart. Do you wonder, as I close, that I look back on my inter- course with that beloved and saintly man with feelings im- possible indeed to express, and which I must leave you to imagine? With unfeigned gratitude, with great joy in the remembrance ; and with confident faith that if his spirit be conscious now of what we and so many all over Christen- dom are engaged in to-day, he joins in our thanksgivings CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 1 59 for what he was inspired to do, and the fruits of which we are reaping, for the Church Universal, and its "unity of spirit in the bond of peace"; yet, let us give the glory to God! [Applause.] Dr. Farley's address was listened to with deep interest by the audience. At its conclusion, the Chairman introduced, as the next speaker, Rev. J; B. Thomas, D.D., Pastor of the Pierrepont Street Baptist Church, who was heartily ap- plauded, as he came forward to the platform. BEMAKKS OF EEV. J. B. THOMAS, D.D. Were there no other occasion, I should be most happy to be here to-day in response to the courtesy of my valued friend and neighbor, whose spotless life and faithful minis- try and amiable spirit I have so long known. I find it easy to obey the Scripture precept to love my neighbor as myself; and I am glad to share in all things that make him glad and in all things that he reverences. But, aside from that, this occasion has for me an interest, as I trust it has for all lovers of their kind, who believe that good men are not superfluous in the world, and are not to be hastily forgotten. I am associated with that body of people whom Dean Stanley recently called "the austere sect," — the Baptists, — and whom he regards, and probably many others regard, as the most unprogressive Christian people. It might seem strange that there should be the suggestion of any possible affinity between them and you who are accounted the most progressive; and yet, were I to look to-day for the largest and most trenchant compilation of authorities sustaining our views on the particular question which outwardly separates us from other Christians, I should look for it in the Racovian Catechism. l6o CHANNING CENTENARY. If you and Dr. Channing are the product of the Reforma- tion, so are we. If you insist upon the spirit of free inquiry, so did we. If you insist upon supremacy of the spirit over form, whether in organization or in expression, so have we, so do we. The root of our organization is not in exterior separation, by ordinance or by creed, but in the radical proposition that the word of God alone, unmanacled, unper- verted by the decree or the organized influence of man, is sufficient for the individual soul. Such is the corner-stone f of our organization. When I say this, I do not forget that, in the years since the Racovian Catechism was promulgated, you and we have gone far apart. I have no fear to-day that you will be mis- taken for Baptists because you invite me to speak, or that I shall be mistaken for a Unitarian because I respond to your invitation. I am reminded, however, that this occasion is a memorial, not of the particular faith which you hold or of the particu- lar organization which you represent, but of the particular man to whom you do honor. I am reminded that that man himself accounted himself, and I trust that by those who appreciate him he is accounted, as above the organizations which he deprecated as merely provisional, regarding them as matters of necessity, but believing that man was before the organized church, that he will be after it, and that he is superior to it. [Applause.] I remember with what earnest- ness he inveighed and protested against those barriers and hinderances which cramped from without, rather than devel- oped from within, the nature that God has given us. I remember how sterling a champion he was for freedom to seek the truth; and, if you will pardon me, still more by his spirit than by his word, a champion of the purest spiritu- ality in religion. Many years have passed since he was taken from us. In CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. \6\ that very profound and moving discourse to which I had the felicity of listening with many of you last night, the question was asked, How has the time so changed that men of all faiths are ready to do reverence to Dr. Channing ? It is true, unquestionably, that the time has gone by when men will be at once disposed of by classifying them under the organiza- tions to which they belong. Men count as men. Ponderan- tur non numerantur. In parliamentary assemblies, sometimes, in haste, they read bills by their titles, and so dispose of them; but let men no longer be read by their titles or by their ecclesiastical relationships: let them be pondered, in order that we may know what is in them. No man was ever more earnest than Dr. Channing in the opinion that the prin- cipal thing in a man is not the specific intellectual conception of truth that he has, but his devotion to the truth as truth ; that a man should be true to the truth, — not that he should accept my opinion or your opinion, but that he should main- tain his own opinion until he get a better one, and that he should be seeking always for a better one. This, I appre- hend, he put above any exterior relation. This, I take it, he thought would bring the world along, rather than any mechanical process. This, as I understand it, he believed to be God's ideal of, and God's preparation for, the progress of truth and of Christianity in the world. And this I sympa- thize with. I remember Dr. Channing's trenchant papers on creeds, copies of which I see here. Dr. Channing was an alert dis- putant. He was a man of rare clearness in statement. He was a man of vigorous and forcible logical faculty, and, I think, not altogether unwilling to cross the sword in debate, — for men like to do that which they can do well ; and yet I have never been prepared to accept the suggestion that his discus- sions were emotionless, and transparent only because they were icy. They rather seem to me to be luminous with the l62 CHANNING CENTENARY. light within the cloud. As has been pithily said of another: " His words are vascular. Cut them, and they would Heed." Underneath them, you catch the throb of the heart; and this it is that will perpetuate his memory among all men. Men's thoughts perish in the day that they are born, they are but as the leaves of autumn ; but the spirit that informs them lives in them and goes beyond them, as it goes beyond the life of man. In that noble discussion of last evening, emphasis was laid upon Dr. Channing's loyalty to Christ. " Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." I was taught it in my childhood, I seek to apprehend it in my manhood. May God let me die with that spirit in my heart and those words upon my lips. When Dr. J. W. Alexander died, and the passage was quoted, " I know whom I believed," and it was* corrected by inserting the preposition " in" he said, " No ! no ! I know whom I have believed." Now, Dr. Channing did not profess to know all about Him whom he believed : he did profess to know Him. As through his clear eye he looked beneath the husk of things in politics, in humanitarian reform, in the dis- cussions of the time, in literature, in all the phases of human existence, and saw life within form greater than form, so he reverenced Christ as revealed through a deeper faculty and a more spiritual intimacy than logical definition brings. Therefore, he was a man of mighty power in his day, and a man whose influence will not speedily die. I should perhaps stop here, for I am not a missionary to this people ; but will you permit me, having expressed, as I sincerely feel, the most unfeigned admiration for Dr. Chan- ning, to make a suggestion, which I would not have ven- tured but for an allusion that I heard from one [Dr. Peabody] whom men of all faiths reverence, and to whose utterances they listen with devout respect, and with the CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 1 63 most earnest desire to profit by them ? Alluding to the widely diverse developments of Unitarianism since Dr. Channing's day, he spoke of it as the "Texas of Chris- tendom," to which men holding aU shades of opinion had resorted, when forced by the rigor of creeds to leave their denominational relations. Accepting the figure, the inquiry is suggested, " How comes Texas to be so proverbial a refuge as to make the allusion significant?" Was it not that, lying between the United States and Mexico, it suffered the inconveniences and dangers of the frontier, being open to emigration from either side? Dr. Channing himself ex- pressed great apprehensions, as we are reminded, in regard to its annexation to the Union, lest the Union should be it- self deteriorated. His apprehensions were in some measure realized, but yet were perhaps exaggerated so far as their ultimate, results are concerned ; for, although Texas did get into the Union some- what modified, it has not destroyed the Union, and it has a future yet before it. Allusion was made to the transcendental element which affected theology in New England. If I remember rightly, there was a sentence of Dr. Channing' s in one of his articles to this purport : That all sects, all bodies of people, have tried too much to define their religion ; that the Infinite is undefinable, and inaccessible to the square, the compass, and the measuring lines of logic ; that transcendentalism which is intellectual is but a counterfeit and a mockery. It is the cloud without the glory, thin, cold, and life-destroying. But there is a transcendentalism that reaches to the Throne. There is a transcendentalism in which life grows and thrives, and in which Dr. Channing himself was per- petually bathed. The dangers of scholasticism, and the damage it has done, he did not overestimate; but will you permit me to say that in his discussions, it seems to me, he 164 CHANNING CENTENARY. may have opened a narrow gap at least toward the scholastic method, in meeting subtlety by subtlety in the attempt at an intellectual counter-definition of the Divine ? The old eccle- siastical enginery, the dungeon-houses, the instruments of torture, might perhaps better have been burned up by the fires of love than hammered down by catapults of polemic discussion. But, my friends, let me say this, — and pardon me for having detained you so long, — while I do not accept Dr. Channing's theology so far as formal statements are con- cerned, and while I am not therefore a Unitarian, I bow humbly at the feet of the man whom I believe to have been a brave, pure, devout, unselfish worshipper and disciple of the Master that I serve ; and I greet you in memory of the hour in which he was born ; and I pray God" that, as the years go on, the clash of war and the strife of tongues, and all those divisions that make Christianity to mean anarchy rather than a kingdom, may be overcome, and that the shadows may flee before the better dawn which brings the better day, in which distant things shall be seen to be distant and immeasurable, in which friends shall not be mistaken for enemies, nor enemies for friends. [Applause.] The Chairman. — That was a voice from out the great Baptist communion, expressive of the very spirit of Roger Williams. And now I have the pleasure of introducing to you, from another large and powerful denomination which has done much good in the world, which has had great suc- cess in the past, and which we hope may have still greater success in the future, the Rev. Dr. Buckley of the Hanson Place Methodist Church of this city, who has just arrived, and will say some words to you. CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 1 65 EEMAKKS OF REV. DE. J. M, BUCKLEY, Mr Chairmariy and Ladies and Gentlemen, — I am not doc- trinally or theologically in any sense in sympathy with what are distinctively called Unitarian views. The gentlemen who invited me to speak here informed me that I would be permitted to express my candid estimate of the life and work of the Rev. William Ellery Channing ; and I have assumed that it is possible to do that in a manner that shall be in har- mony with the spirit of this occasion. The few moments that I shall speak will be devoted to that simple statement. Invited at a late hour, I should not have presumed myself competent to make such a statement if I had not, ever since I entered the ministry, carefully read and studied the works of Dr. Channing. I had the fortune to begin my ministry in the State of New. Hampshire and the town of Exeter, the site of Phillips Academy, within a very few miles of Portsmouth, where at that time the Rev. Dr. Peabody was an honored pastor. The system to which I belong rarely trusts a minister, in his earlier stages, very long in one place. Consequently, after having had the op- portunity to derive all the good I could from the people of Exeter, and to communicate all it was supposed possible that I could give, I was removed to Dover; but I was still as near Portsmouth as before. Now, Dr. Peabody I heard preach with profound respect ; and I was led to believe, when I heard him, that the differ- ence between his theological views and mine was very slight. But when I removed to Dover, where there was a very large church of the Unitarian denomination, I found the incumbent of that church a very different man theologically, to say no more, from the Rev. Dr. Peabody. And when he and I met on the School Board, — both of us being appointed as mem- bers of that Board, according to the custom which prevails in 1 66 CHANNING CENTENARY. that city, — while we devoted considerable time to the consid- eration of matters of education, as required at our hands by the law, in the intervals we devoted a great deal more time to theological debate ; and I found that the difference between him and me was so vast as to be absolutely irreconcilable. In order to prepare myself to convince him that he had widely departed from the doctrines of the Unitarian fathers, I pro- cured the works of Dr. Channing, and during the two years, I spent there I always managed to have a quotation ready for him. The quotations that seemed to disturb him most were those in which Dr. Channing stated that the death of Christ appeared to have some peculiar and special relation to the pardon of sin. I was familiar with those passages. I could repeat them ; and I assure you it gave me a great deal of pleas- ure to remind my radical friend of those words of Dr. Chan- ning. And while I was studying Dr. Channing, even from that somewhat equivocal point of view, I came to love his style very much, — not the less so because I saw from the begin- ning that I should never be able to imitate its clearness, its beauty, or its marvellous balance. Now, I do not know who is in this house ; but I fancy to myself that we have in the city of Brooklyn a clergyman whose style in very many particulars resembles that of Dr. Channing. I refer to the Rev. Dr. Storrs. I say in many particulars. I do not for a moment suppose the resemblance to be perfect ; but in the particular of the marvellous capacity to illustrate thought, and to balance every part, and to con- struct a discourse so that it shall resemble a symmetrical piece of architecture, I think I see a very great similarity. I may be permitted to say that I think in simplicity Dr. Channing surpassed the gentleman to whom I refer, and almost every great speaker in the country to-day. I do not suppose that Dr. Channing as a public speaker would have attracted great attention in the South, from his lack of a CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 167 certain kind of fervency, or in the West, from his excess, relatively to the attainments in that region, of refinement ; but in New England, and in the more cultivated circles of the Middle States, it seems to me Dr. Channing' s style was exactly adapted to make the profoundest impression. I have never supposed that he was a logician, in the technical sense of that term. I think it would have been impossible for John Calvin and Dr. Channing to converse together to their mu- tual satisfaction and edification, entirely apart from their doctrinal views. I believe that John Wesley would have considered Dr. Channing a genuine Christian, but that he would not have been able to argue with him. John Wesley was a dialectician and a logician, who used his logic as a means to an end, to prove the point he had in view at the time. Dr. Channing — and, in order to assure you that I have not been drawn astray in my former reflections, I will say that I have spent a couple of hours this morning in reading his selected discourses — seems to me to have been a philosopher. He was, however, led aside by a poetic ten- dency from the straight lines of philosophy ; and it appears to me that he was not as logically consistent as some who would go further. Permit me a single word here. If I adopted the root prin- ciples of Dr. Channing himself, I fancy that my tempera- ment, my thoughts, and my way of following out to the last results what I seemed to myself to see, would take me a great deal further than he went. On the other hand, if I had such a pure spirituality, if I may use such a term, as that which he possessed, but which I lay no claim to by nature, — and I say nothing in this presence about grace! — I fancy that my temperament would not lead me to go so far as he did, but would lead me rather to content myself with dwelling in the regions of experience. Dr. Channing was of very great use to the Methodists in 1 68 CHANNING CENTENARY. the following manner. He used the splendor of his intellect against Calvinism. In that respect, he was of very great benefit to us. Our entrance into New England was under peculiar circumstances. Our first preacher stood on Boston Common and lifted up his voice. No church was opened to receive him in the State of Massachusetts. He lifted up his voice in song. He understood then what the world under- stands now, — that the people will hear a singer when they will not hear a speaker. Though he had but few listeners to begin with, his powerful voice, singing in a style that was not known in that part of the country, soon attracted a vast concourse. He lifted up his voice like a trumpet to de- nounce Calvinism ; and certainly a man is more sure when he is in a dogmatic state of a satisfactory flow of speech than when he depends upon the changing moods of feeling. And he created a great excitement ; and, when he waked the people up to understand what he was doing, an old gentle- man came forward, and, with a voice as loud as that of the speaker, said, "Are we to stand on Boston Common and hear our foundation principles attacked ? " They all agreed they were not there for that purpose ; and, as in the case of Paul on. Mars Hill, some said they would hear him again, and others said, "What doth this babbler say?" Such was our entrance into New England, and we could not do much for a long time; but Dr. Channing used the splendor of his intellect and his marvellous influence, and fought our battles, so far as Calvinism was concerned. Now, Mr. Chairman, if, in the complacency which is a part of our denominational life, growing out of our great success, we felicitate ourselves on having the sense and grace to stop a little this side of Dr. Channing's final point, we should not be blamed for that. We appreciate the work he did in assisting us in our protest against Calvinism. And if he were alive to-day, and were to apply for admission into CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 1 69 our church as a layman, I, standing here as a warrior upon the walls of Zion, would vote for the admission of a man of God, a patriot, a philanthropist, a friend of temperance, a friend of his country, a friend of the laboring classes, and a friend of all good men ; but candor requires me to say that, if he were to apply for admission into our ministry, while I should rejoice to recognize him as a friend of humanity, and, I will say with Brother Thomas, as a friend of our Lord Jesus Christ, and as one whose influence in many particu- lars has promoted the interests of the kingdom of Christ in the world, especially in this country, I am afraid, sir, that logical consistency would compel me to raise some points, the final effect of which might be to delay or embarrass his entrance into the ministry. This, Mr. Chairman, is my candid opinion of the life and work of Dr. Channing. I rejoice that he has lived. I acknowledge my indebtedness to him. I do not positively know that even, from my point of view, his influence has been deleterious to the progress of Christ's kingdom in the world. But his principles were not mine. I cannot accept his views ; and therefore I simply would honor him as a great factor in American civilization, and believe that every citizen of the United States, in making a list of the men of influence and of power that our country has produced, is compelled, with delight and admiration, to include among the foremost the name of William Ellery Channing. [Ap- plause.] Ladies and gentlemen, I am very much obliged to you for the opportunity of speaking to-day, and for the attention which you have given me. The Chairman. — We are glad, you see, to have the freest utterances of members of different communions. We pro- pose to have the greatest possible variety. And so, having 170 CHANNING CENTENARY. heard from our friend Dr. Thomas, of the Baptist Church, and our friend Dr. Buckley, of the Methodist Church, not to take too large a leap at once, I will call upon our friend Mr. Chadwick to offer some remarks and read us his Centennial Ode. EEMAKES OF KEY. J. W. CHADWICK. Ladies mid Gentlemen, — You are well aware, no doubt, that, in making the preparations for this noble and beautiful occasion, Dr. Putnam has said to one man, "Go," and he goeth, and to another, "Come/* and he cometh, and to a third, "Do this," and he doeth it; and, when he said to me, " Go you and couch the words you have to say in a sort of rhyme and rhythm," I did just as he told me. But for Dr. Putnam's commands, I should not presume to vary from my ordinary form of speech ; but, as it is, I am to read to you a kind of hymn, or ode, on The Hundredth Anniversary of -Channing's Birthday : — CENTENNIAL ODE. A hundred years ago to-day! How often in this latter time, In fond memorial speech or rhyme, Has it been ours these words to say I A hundred years to-day, we said, Since Concord bridge and Lexington Saw the great struggle well begun And the first heroes lying dead. A hundred years since Bunker Hill Saw the red-coated foemen reel Once and again before the steel Of Prescott's men, victorious still In their defeat ; a hundred years Since Independence-bell rang out To all the people round about, Who answered it with deafening cheers, CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 171 Proclaiming, spite the scorner's scorn, That then and there — the womb of time Through sufferance triumphing sublime — Another nation had been born. "All men are equal in their birth," Rang out the steeple-rocking bell ; Rejoice, O heaven I Give heed, O hell I Here was good news to all the earth. And still our hearts have kept the count Of things that daily brought more near, Through various hap of hope or fear, The pattern visioned in the mount. Nor yet the tale is fully told Of all the years that brought us pain, And through the age of iron again The dawning of the age of gold. But naught of this has brought us here, With the old saying on our lips, What time the rolling planet dips Into the spring-tide of the year. Apart from all the dire alarms Of field or flood in that old time, With reverent feet our fancies climb To where a mother's circling arms Enraptured hold a babe new born; And who was there to prophesy, Though loving hearts beat strong and high, Of what a day this was the morn ? For in that life but just begun The prescient fates a gift had bound As dear to man as any found Within the courses of the sun, — A gift of manhood strong and wise, Nor foreign to the lowliest earth — Whereon the Word has human birth — Howe'er conversant with the skies. A hundred years -ago to-day Since Channing's individual life From out the depths of being, rife With spiritual essence, found a way, 172 CHANNING CENTENARY. And welcome here, and forces kind To gently nurse his growing power With steady help until the flower Of instinct was a conscious mind. To him the sea its message brought, Filling his mind with sacred awe What time his eye enraptured saw Its wildest tumult ; or he caught From its deep calm some peace of heart ; To him the ages brought their lore Of books, and living men their store Of thought, and still the better part Of all his nurture was the eye Turned inward, seeking in the mind Some higher, deeper law to find Than that which spheres the starry sky. And so the youth to manhood came, A being frail — with nameless eyes, That seemed to look onTaradise — As clear as dew, as clean as flame. He willed in quiet to abide, Leading his flock through pastures green And by the waters still, where lean The mystic trees on either side. But on his listening ear there fell The jarring discord of the sects, Still making with their war of texts The pleasant earth a kind of hell. He saw the Father's sacred name Made dim by Calvary's suffering rood; Man devil-born — a spawning flood, Engendering naught but curse and shame. He saw the freedom of the mind Denied, and doubt esteemed a crime ; — The path whereby the boldest climb To heights which cowards never find. He saw the manhood which to him Was image of the highest God Trodden as if it were a clod 'Neath Slavery's idol-chariot grim. CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 1 73 He saw it fouled with various sin, Sick'ning from lack of air and light, Abjuring glories infinite To fatten at the sensual bin. He heard and saw ; his shepherd's rod With grieving heart he broke in twain ; The wondering world beheld again A prophet of the living God. Then, as of old, was heard a voice : " His way prepare," and " Come with me, All ye that heavy-laden be, Take up my burden, and rejoice." It rang through all the sleepy land In tones so sweet and silver clear The waking people seemed to hear The accents of divine command. The statesman heard it in his place, The oppressor in his cursed field, And hearts beyond the ocean yield Allegiance to his truth and grace. Our Father, God; our Brother, Man: On these commandments twain he hung The law and prophets all, and rung For all the churches' eager ban A hundred changes deep and strong; Let who would hear him or forbear, The ancient lie he would not spare, The doubtful right, the vested wrong. What words were his of purest flame When, straining up from height to height, He felt the Presence infinite And named the Everlasting Name I With him the thought and deed were one : Man was indeed the Son of God; " What, strike a man I " * Break every rod Of hate beneath the all-seeing sun I So greatly born, how dare to trail Our festal garlands in the' mire I How dare not evermore aspire To Him who is within the veil ! * Hi» argument against flogging in the Navy. 174 CHANNING CENTENARY. In weakness made each day more strong, Softly his days went trooping past Till, robed in beauty, came the last, And with the sun he went along; Not to oblivion's dreamless sleep, But, like the sun, on other lands To shine, where other, busier hands The fields immortal sow and reap. And he is ours! Yes, if we dare, Leaving the letter of his creed, Say to his mighty spirit, >' Lead, We follow hard." Yes, if no care Is ours for aught but this : to know What is God's truth, and knowing this To count it still our dearest bliss To go with that where'er it go. So shall we go with him ; so feel That comfort which the Spirit of Truth Gives all who with his loving ruth Are pledged to her for woe or weal. O thou whom, though we have not seen, We love! Upon our toilsome way Be thy pure spirit as a ray From out that Light which is too clean Uncleanness to behold ; shine clear, That to our dimly peering eyes All hidden truths, all specious lies, That which they are may straight appear. There is no ending to thy road, No limit to thy fleeting goal, But speeds the ever-greatening soul From truth to truth, from God to God. [Applause.] The Chairman. — Mr. Oliver Johnson was in the earliest fight with William Lloyd Garrison against slavery, and we deem ourselves fortunate to have him here this morning; for he knows something about Dr. Channing's connection CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 1 75 with that movement, and had the great pleasure and privi- lege of listening to some of Dr. Channing's famous public discourses, as published in his works. Mr. Johnson will now address you. BEMARKS OF ME. OLIVER JOHNSON. Mr. Johnson. — I feel myself very highly honored in being invited to say a few words on this occasion. I have the greatest reverence for the memory of Channing. My ac- quaintance with him was indeed but slight. When I went to Boston, as a boy, in 1830, I used often to see him in the street. His figure, was familiar to me; but that was the time as you all remember — or at least as you all know, if you are not old enough to remember — when the great controversy between Orthodoxy and Unitarianism in Boston was at its height, — Dr. Beecher the great leader of Orthodoxy, and Dr. Channing the great leader of Unitarianism. I was then an intensely earnest orthodox man. I had united with the church a few years before, and was looking forward to the Christian ministry ; and I was told by those around me, in whom I had the utmost confidence, that Unitarianism was infidelity, or something not much better than that. There- fore, when I first came in contact with Dr. Channing, I was under the influence of very strong prejudice, — not against him personally, however, except as he was the representa- tive of Unitarianism. It was not a great while after this that the first Anti- slavery Society — the parent of all that great circle of asso- ciations which agitated this land nearly fifty years ago, and which prepared the way for the abolition of slavery in our country — was organized in Boston ; and, in the preliminary meetings which we held to consider the question of organ- izing that society, I met the noble man [Samuel E. Sewall] I76 CHANNING CENTENARY. whose letter has just been read, then one of the young men of Channing's congregation; and I said to myself, "Now I shall see what Unitarianism is." I never shall forget the strong prejudice with which I came in contact with that young man, and with another equally noble, Mr. Ellis Gray Loring, also a member of Dr. Channing's congregation. I expected to find those men destitute of a Christian spirit. I supposed I should hear, when they opened their lips, some utterance of infidelity. I believed with all my heart that figs could not grow upon thistles ; and, as I had been told that Unitarianism was a thistle, I was looking out for some- thing very bad to come from these men. But, when I wit- nessed their Christian deportment and their firm attachment to the truth, I felt rebuked for my presumption ; and I began to open my eyes, and to ask whether, after all, I had not been misinformed, and whether it was not possible for a good man to come up under the influence of Unitarianism. And let me say that I was not long in correcting the error into which I had fallen. In the Christian character of those two men was revealed to me the spirit of Channing and of Unitarianism. It was my privilege to hear Channing preach but once, and then I listened with orthodox ears. It was on the occa- sion of the delivery of his "Election Sermon" in 1832, which will be found in his works under the title of " Spiritual Free- dom." It is certainly one of the finest of his discourses. He addressed the "assembled wisdom" of the Common- wealth in that historic place, the Old South Church. I recall the scene now as freshly as if it were only yesterday that it occurred. As he spake, he held his manuscript in his left hand, and his voice, though gentle as a woman's, filled the house. How vividly I recall his utterance of this strik- ing passage, which will live while the English language con- tinues to be spoken ! — I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 1 77 powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come, which receives new truth as an angel from heaven, which, while consulting others, inquires still more of the oracle within itself, and uses instructions from abroad, not to supersede, but to quicken and exalt its own energies. The exquisite intonation and emphasis with which this and other passages of the discourse were read made a deep impression upon my youthful mind. Dr. Charming at first kept aloof from the abolitionists, partly because of the intense individualism which led him to distrust all organized movements, and partly because our bold and uncompromising utterances grated harshly upon his sensitive — may I not say his over-sensitive ? — ear. He could not well bear the noise of the ecclesiastical machinery by means of which his own religious thoughts were sent forth to the world. He shrank from being called an aboli- tionist, partly from the same feeling which led him to say, " I have little or no interest in the Unitarians as a sect ; I have hardly anything to do with them ; I can endure no sectarian bonds." He stood for himself in all things. The abolition- ists were exceedingly unpopular ; and he grobably thought he should gain a more favorable hearing if he magnified some- what the differences between them and himself. But he did not by this means escape the brand of abolitionist. The whole pro-slavery party stamped it upon him, hurling at his head every epithet that they had bestowed upon Garrison. The good doctor, notwithstanding his clear moral insight, was slow in accepting the doctrine of immediate emancipa- tion. He was not quite sure that it would be safe to set all - the slaves free at once. The results of emancipation in the British West Indies convinced him at last, as his Lenox ad- dress proves. He thought that a great sin did not neces- sarily imply great sinners, and he had somehow persuaded I78 CHANNING CENTENARY. himself that there was a way of touching off an anti-slavery gun, and a well-loaded one too, "aisily," as the Irishman said, without making a disturbance. Experience soon cor- rected this mistake on his part. The reverberations of his own gun, so gently discharged as he thought, startled thou- sands from their sleep, and made the slave-holders and their apologists angry. The abolitionists, it must be confessed, did not relish his criticisms, and paid him back in his own coin. The account was long ago settled; and they have no unpleasant memories, but are glad to honor him for his noble and timely testimony. His agreements with them were cen- tral and vital, his differences but incidental and transient. Nor should it be forgotten that he bore with meekness a load of reproach, such as fell to the lot only of the bravest and truest champions of the slave. Even in his own parish, his message was unheeded, save by a few. When he asked that the doors of his church might be opened for a eulogy upon his beloved friend, Dr. Follen, a warm-hearted abolitionist, to be pronounced by another dear friend, the late Samuel J. May, they were rudely shut in his face. In this and many other ways, he was made to feel that his testimony against slavery had greatly impaired his reputation. But he neither wavered nor turned back. His voice grew clearer and stronger to the end. When in 1837 Elijah P. Lovejoy was murdered at Alton, and the liberty of the press struck down by violence, Chan- ning was the first man in Boston to seek to bring the people of that city to a sense of the importance of speaking out against that outrage. It was through his influence that a great meeting was held in Faneuil Hall, and held — let me say it to the shame of Boston — in the daytime, because we dared not hold it in the evening, knowing that it would be broken up by a mob. His friend Jonathan Phillips, the senior deacon of his church, took the chair. I shall never CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 1 79 forget the appearance of Dr. Charming as he presented him- self in that meeting. His face was all aglow with solemn earnestness, his voice tremulous with emotion, his whole attitude and bearing that of a prophet with a message from God. He spoke briefly, but eloquently. There followed him into that meeting a distinguished lawyer of Boston, a member of his own congregation, James T. Austin, Esq., who sprang to his feet the moment the doctor's speech was concluded, and, intruding himself upon the audience, uttered a most disgraceful harangue, which he doubtless thought would have the effect of breaking up the meeting. For a time there seemed to be reason to fear that he would succeed in his purpose ; but, under the inspiring eloquence of Phillips, all such apprehensions were soon averted. The voice of that meeting went forth to cheer the friends of freedom all over the land. Once, and once only, did I have a personal interview with Channing; but that to me was memorable. It was at his home in Portsmouth, near Newport, in 1838 or 1839. I was then the secretary and general agent of the Rhode Island Anti-slavery Society, and I eagerly embraced an opportunity to visit him. He received me with a gracious sweetness and dignity that I shall never forget, and his counsel, modestly given, was most cheering and helpful. In that day, the anti- slavery lecturer was often- called to face a mob. More than once had the tar-kettle been heated for me, and the garment of leathers woven for my behoof. In such circumstances, the words of Channing gave me fresh courage. There are not many persons, if there is even a single one, in this house, who, like myself, witnessed the funeral rites of Channing, and looked upon his placid, I had almost said his seraphic, face in death. One circumstance connected with that funeral ought to be mentioned. Some years be- fore, when the good Catholic Bishop Cheverus died, and l8o CHANNING CENTENARY. funeral services were held in the "Church of the Holy Cross/' the bell on the Federal Street Church was tolled by Dr. Channing's particular request, as a token of respect for his memory. The Catholics did not forget it ; and now the bell on the " Church of the Holy Cross " in Franklin Street pealed forth a requiem in honor of an uncanonized but truly catholic saint. In conclusion, dear friends, — for I have spoken too long — I will say, Let us, in honoring a prophet of the past, not forget to honor and love the prophets of our own time, — the true messengers of God, who live and move among us ! [Applause.] The Chairman. — We would ask the audience to rise and sing, to the tune of "America," the first and the last two stanzas, on the printed slip, of the Memorial Hymn for the Centennial Anniversary, written for this occasion by the venerable Dr. William Newell, of Cambridge, Mass., who had some personal acquaintance with Dr. Channing, and who has also sent us a letter, which will be published with others that have been received, but which cannot all be read now for lack of time. MEMOEIAL HYMN. By EEV. WM. ITEWELL, D.D. And now abideth Faith, Hope, Charity. — I. Cor. xiii , 13. Charity rejoiceth in the Truth. — I. Cor. aaii., 6. And the Truth shall make you free. — John viii., 33. AU hail, God's angel, Truth ! In whose immortal youth Fresh graces shine : To her sweet majesty, Lord, help us bend the knee, And all her beauty see, And wealth divine. CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 1 01 Thanks for the might of Faith, That fears not change or death Under God's care ; Bringing the distant nigh To the soul's quickened eye, And soaring to the sky On wings of prayer. Thanks for the light of Hope, As through the mist we grope Toward heaven's far goal ; On each dark cloud it shines, Illuming God's designs "Where ill with good combines To round the whole. Thanks for the heart of Love, Kin to our Lord's above, Tender and brave ; Ready to bear the cross, To suffer pain and loss And earthly good count dross, In toils to save. Thanks for the names that light The path of Truth and Right, And Freedom's way ; For him whose life doth prove The might of Faith, Hope, Love, Thousands of hearts to move, A power to-day I May his dear memory be True guide, O Lord, to thee, With saints of yore ; And may the work he wrought, The truth of God he taught, The good for man he sought, Spread evermore. The Chairman. — We are very glad to see present with us Dr. Hall, Rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity in this city. We aH know his large and liberal spirit, and need not to be assured beforehand of his interest in such an occasion as this. I know he will respond to our call upon him, and that you will all rejoice to hear him. 1 82 CHANNING CENTENARY. EEMAEKS OF CHAELES H. HALL, D.D. It is a long time since I have felt so great an anxiety as I do now to speak, or so profound a conviction that to do so would be an impropriety. You must be talked out by this time. I should be very glad if I had time to follow out one idea, which of course it would be simply impossible to follow out at this time ; namely, the place of Channing in the his- tory of our various faiths as they are related to us to-day. I must, then, only touch the salient points. We drop from a man's name after he is dead, if he has been good for anything, his ordinary Christian titles and the honorary degrees that he may have picked up and carried as a burden along the path of life ; and therefore I speak of him whose memory we celebrate to-day simply by his one name, Channing. It is claimed that Channing was a Unitarian ; but, in the graveyard'where he sleeps, denominational lines are wholly lost sight of. Although, according to the vicious habit which prevails in Greenwood, and I presume in Mount Au- burn, they may put chains about the lots, and build up stone-walls around them, and erect hideous structures that make the place unsightly, and take away all natural beauty from it, yet under ground there are no distinctions. And in the blessed shrines of the Church of Souls above it there are none. There, I presume, "all hearts confess the saints elect." The value of Channing to every one of us, whether he was a Unitarian or a Baptist or a Presbyterian or a Methodist or an Episcopalian, or what not, is simply very precious. He did manfully the work which was given him to do. When the Puritans came to this country in 1620, it was a tremendous change for John, the Puritan. Being perse- cuted, he came over here to be a persecutor. He did not CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 1 83 persecute more than others, but he did something in that bad way. I hide under the name of Prescott, who says that he came hither to establish religious liberty for himself, — not, as it proved, for all other men as well. He came over here to assume a totally new relation. He came over here with the tremendous gift of Calvinism, and it is an awful gift for any man to bear ! I reverence old John Calvin, while I differ with him, though perhaps not so much in his ultimate thought. That ultimate thought' in his system, as I look at it, was, with such doctrinal materials as he found ready to his hands, to assert the superiority of an illuminated personal conscience against the tyranny of an objective sacerdotal church. I do not know that I differ with anybody in the ultimate thought. I reverence him as I do great names in my own Church, whom I estimate, not so much by what they did as by the spirit which was in their hearts. Well, the Puritans had had persecutions to keep them to- gether in England, and they came over here to be governors, constructors, and builders. They had a tremendous work. Singularly enough, the first difficulty which they encoun- tered was in regard to the sacrament. The first great press- ure that bore upon them was the sacramental question, though it did not take precisely that definite form. John, the deacon's son, when he came to be of age, was to be a voter; and Sally, the daughter of the other deacon across the way, was to be married to John. And the ques- tion came up as to what should be their relations — civil and ecclesiastical — to the village and to the Church. John said, "I love the meeting, I love the deacons, I love the whole thing, and I believe all you say ; but I have not been struck by lightning, I have not had that which every one of the members say they have had." Under oppression, they had been driven in upon the 184 CHANNING CENTENARY. centre, and they remained as one body ; but the attempt to settle the questions how Sally's children should be baptized, and how John should be allowed to be a voter and a civil officer, agitated New England up to the time when old Dr. Samuel Stoddard, of Northampton, having at last lost faith in the old device of "the half-way covenant," struck out a most peculiar sacramental idea, which our ritualistic friends in my section of the Church are to-day striving to fructify upon ; namely, that, though no man could put himself where the lightning is going to strike, yet by the sacraments he could get where he ought to be in case the lightning did strike. Dr. Stoddard, in his " Appeal to the Learned," in '705, wrote an admirable tract, a copy of which you will find in the Yale College Library. He adopted a system of reasoning on the sacrament to the effect that, while the sacrament would not give an individual the conviction of his personal election, it was a means to that grace ; and that, therefore, John and Sally, and all such, should take it, if they would promise to put themselves where the elective decree ordinarily came to an issue. That device became the acknowledged system of church membership of Northampton, when Jonathan Edwards, that magnificently terrible man, whom none of us can honor or differ from too much, came to be the assistant minister of his maternal grandfather, Dr. Stoddard. Now we are all Unitarians, Presbyterians, and good fel- lows together here to-day ; and we all have in our hearts, I suppose, about what that grand man, the young Edwards, — and I honor and love his memory almost as much as if I had known him, — felt, when finding, as I think he was cor- rect in concluding he found, that that system must go down unless it could be saved from its own works, he struck out the idea that, at whatever cost, every man must stand on his sense of divine manhood, illuminated by the thought of CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 1 85 the election of God, with no compromise or " half-way cove- nant." With the most rigid Calvinism, — more rigid than the platforms of Cambridge and Boston and Saybrook, and more rigid even than the Westminster Catechism, — he at- tempted to carry out that " revival " system, as it is now called, which shook New England to the centre. Just then came in that blundering Irishman, ordained of Providence to bring the hidden thoughts of men to light by his surpassing eloquence and his intolerable egotisms, Whitefield, "whose shade through history halts," as Whittier well says. The issue of his New England career was the remorseless test put to every man of the sternest Calvinism or its most decided negative. Compromise was at an end. It was Cal- vinism, pure and simple, or a new departure. Then fol- lowed the two Tennents, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, of New Jersey. Then came the fanatical Davenport, of South old, Long Island. And so came about what is called by Con- gregational historians "the Great Awakening" of 1740. From that time, it was predestined that there should be two opposite movements, a Channing movement on the one side, and a "revival "movement with Nettleton and other thorough Calvinists on the other side; and it seems to me that this man that we are speaking of to-day must, to his own friends, as they stood nearer and nearer to him, have appeared almost with an aureole upon his head, evidently sainted before he was taken away. It is the simplest thing in the world for us to stand here and recognize the true pedestal on which he stood in the history of that movement which was born in 1740. He did not create it, for it began long before he was influenced by it. It was the effort of the New England conscience to escape from the awful dogmas of Edwards, — to find its way back to what I conceive to be a better gospel. The real object was to save the gospel and reject the iron system which called itself by that holy 1 86 CHANNING CENTENARY. name. Therefore, it was long known as Arminianism, then, after Channing had passed through the paths of Arianism, as Socinianism, or Unitarianism. As a boy, Channing must have had extraordinary keen- ness of perception and tenderness of conscience. It was the death of his father, I think, that went down into his soul and stirred it to its depths, and brought him to a conscious religious life, and to a constant thought of it ever after- wards; and then, almost the first man that came in contact with him, and made an impression upon his religious life, — as some old dominie has first made his profound impression upon us when we were boys, — and guided his mind, and turned his thought, was Dr. Samuel Hopkins. Dr. Hopkins was a pupil of Jonathan Edwards ; and I" think I am correct in saying that, as such, he had accepted almost entirely Edwards' theological system. He accepted with it another idea, which many of the best of the pagans have held, which, if treated as unskilful men often do, you may make seem fearful ; or you may use it wisely, and may make it shine with the very brightness of God's presence. That idea was, roughly, that a man should so live that he shall feel more or less willing to be damned, if it be God's will, for His glory. It is an old Stoical notion, which has run through the human race from its beginning. And it affected Hopkins powerfully ; and I imagine that it begat William Ellery Channing. The first of the books that he was profoundly interested in in college was Hutchinson's "Ideas of Beauty and Virtue," which drilled him in that same general idea, that, benevolence could not have a self- ish origin. Take that principle, and follow it through his earlier writings, and you find the man filled with its natural results. And, by the way, let me say that we have all been a little incorrect here this morning in supposing or talking as if Channing had been brought up a Unitarian. The CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 1 87 thing, as it appears to us to-day as a rounded system, is not the thing as it appeared to men in 1780. It was then the division or balance between the two sections of the ortho- dox order, — the Congregational system itself. I remember that my dear old friend, "Rabbi" Stuart, of Andover, always spoke of the Unitarians as Arminians ; that is, as the antagonists of Calvin. So I say to you Uni- tarians here to-day that I am a better Unitarian than you are ; because, with all your admiration for Channing, I do not see that you recognize when he gave up his Arianism. And I say — I say it frankly anywhere — that I worship one God with all my soul ; and I say, looking at the Redeemer of men, that I will not allow any being or creature, however supernal, to stand between the man Christ Jesus and the One infinite God. He was God manifest in the flesh; and to me he is not merely a sort of being superior to archangels. It seems to me perfectly clear that that was the system which Channing received as a boy, and which entered into all his life. He antagonized Calvinism, as it had appeared in the Congregational life of New England. He believed profoundly that benevolence could not have a selfish origin ; and he was willing to accept any opprobrium or persecution for the faith that God is all good, and could wish no evil thing. I love to trace the roots of his life-thoughts back into the age before him. For, talk as you please about it, that glorious New England thought, that grand old Calvin- istic life, certainly begat men and women. They brought that life up to that point where reaction in dogma was in- evitable, their mistakes bringing them here to rigid Calvin- ism, and bringing them there to freer thought. And at last the Master had occasion for another mode of education. And God, in his mysterious providence, gave to this deli- cate, sickly boy his wonderful power simply to love truth for asserting itself y simply to throw himself in the way of every- 1 88 CHANNING CENTENARY. thing that was good and beautiful and kindly and tender, and to utter always the right word and the right thought to his troubled age. As I read his writings, I confess that the chief point about the man is, to my thought, that he was like crystal. I always see through him. I do not stop to think that he was a Yankee, and that I was born in Georgia ; 01 that he sympathized with the abolitionists, while I was taught to detest them. I forget that he was a Unitarian, and that he had ideas about war that I cannot agree with, I care nothing for those things that are merely upon the surface. I recognize that there was in him — always, and in all that he did, and I honor any man in whom it is found — this one thought, "What evil is in me I dare not throne above." In that creed of Channing, on that platform of all true souls, I shake hands with you to-day. [Applause.] The Chairman. — We are glad to find Dr. Hall so good a Unitarian, and we cordially extend to him the right hand of fellowship. I see Mr. Mayo here, from Springfield. He has, as you are aware, devoted much time to the subject oi education ; and who, better than he, can speak to us oi Channing' s gospel of education for the people ? He will now address you. Mr. Mayo, coming forward, read from manuscript an able "and interesting paper, to which we can here make only the briefest reference. He claimed that Channing s educational work was more thorough, far-seeing, logical, and statesman- like than any that had been attempted in America before his day ; that the student of pedagogics will find in a few hundred pages in the writings of Channing the most wonder- ful prophecy and thorough comprehension of all that is most durable and vital in what we call "The New Education. 11 Dr. Channing was no believer in the possibility of " over- education." He always insisted that the laboring man, the CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 1 89 man of affairs, the mother in the home, needed especially the expanding and uplifting influence of education to open their eyes to the sacredness of common life. Whoever reads Channing carefully will see that never for a moment was he bitten with the plausible fallacy of ultra " secularism " in popular education. He saw that the real difficulty in this matter in America is with the clergy, and very little with the people. The American people, at the beginning, made a new departure concerning religion in public affairs, even more important to civilization than the Protestant Reformation in Europe. That departure assumes the existence through all Christendom of what Dean Stanley so happily calls "a common Christianity." No man represents more completely than Channing the practically unanimous resolve of the American people, that character training and public morality shall be a paramount element in our common schools, and that the basis of that training in private and public virtue shall be that common Christianity which ,is the soul of all progress in Christian lands. The Chairman. — We must hear from some of our Uni- versalist friends. Rev. Mr. Nye, pastor of the " Church of Our Father" in this city, is with us here to-day. We regret to learn that he is about to leave Brooklyn for another field of labor. Before he goes, however, he must leave with us his thought about Channing. EEMAEKS OP BEV, H, E. NYE. I believe I would have preferred, at this hour, to have kept my seat. I have a bit of an address somewhere in my pocket, but I shall utter only two or three words to you now. The sympathy existing between the Universalist and the Unitarian churches now is, of course, much greater than that of former times. Dr. Putnam, the pastor of this church, I9O CHANNING CENTENARY. — and that accounts probably for so many excellent things in his character, his spirit, and life, — was brought up in the Universalist Church, and, if I am not incorrect, in a Uni- .versalist family. I was brought up in a Congregationalist family, and my father was a Congregationalist clergyman; and I can remember very well the early times in my boy- hood days, before the rupture had taken place between the Trinitarian Congregationalists and the Unitarian Congre- gationalists, — the time to which the Rector of the Holy Trinity Church referred, — when the Unitarians were Ar- minians, and when the name "Unitarian" was scarcely known; and you remember that it was scarcely known at all until after the war with England in 1812. I can re- member very well that then my father, though a Congrega- tional clergyman, was accustomed to exchange with the Rev. Dr. Crosby, the Unitarian pastor, twelve miles distant. The rupture was not quite complete in that direction. Now we are very near together. You may remember Starr King said — and he said many brilliant things concerning the Universalists and the Unitarians — that the Universal- ists believed that God was too good to damn any human being absolutely forever, and that the Unitarians believed that human beings were too good to be damned. I honor Dr. Channing for his loyalty to Christ and his broad Christian charity. He believed firmly in different in- terpretations of the Christian faith. There is the Methodist interpretation; there is the Baptist interpretation; there is the Congregationalist interpretation ; and there is the Epis- copalian interpretation ; and, if you please, they are all Christian, and they stand at last upon the one Foundation and honor the one Name. Jesus Christ is above them all, he being the Master, and we only the learners and pupils in his school. That is the reason why we, in one sense, so largely revere Dr. Channing. CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. I91 I have a .wife, at home, who was in Dr. Channing's Sunday-school. I hold in my hand a sermon preached by Dr. Channing in the year 1819, the year that I was born. I remember that Dr. Channing died in 1842, the year that I was ordained. Somehow, I put these thoughts along in this manner together. In the year 1 842, it was my utmost desire to hear this great man preach ; but I could not, and it was never my privilege to put my eyes upon his face. But for two things the name of Channing is to me exceedingly precious : first, for his love of truth, wherever to be found ; and next for his love of man. And I ask you to remember to-day that in no ancient religion of which any man can speak, and in no ancient philosophy, was there ever s\ich an idea of man as Christianity presents to us ; and that, in Christianity, in its grand idea of every man a child of God and every man a spiritual and birthright heir of the im- mortal life, lies all that is sweetest and tenderest and noblest in the teaching of Channing. I honor him for his love of truth and for his love of man ; and I am very glad to utter these few words, which I do with the profoundest reverence, in my whole heart, for the beautiful spirit of his life, for the power which l^is example has exerted upon the age since he passed away, and for the good which his books have done to my own soul in the Christian life. [Applause.] Dr. Gottheil of the Temple Emmanuel, New York, being seen in the audience, Rev. Mr. Camp was requested to in- vite him to come forward and offer his testimony. As he stepped upon the platform, he was greeted with hearty applause. REMARKS OF REV. DR. GUSTAV GOTTHEIL, Is there room in this place, — I ask not for much, as I do not intend to detain you for any length of time, — is there 192 CHANNING CENTENARY. room in this place for the hand of a Jew to lay a flower on the honored grave of this apostle of love and freedom? [Applause.] Is there room for one of the ancient people to express his admiration for, and his great obligation to, the man whose birthday you celebrate ? In accepting the invita- tion that was kindly extended to me to jpin in this celebra- tion, I hoped to be among the silent participants ; but, just as Mr. Chadwick confessed himself to lie helplessly under the spell of the honored pastor of this church, so I avow myself to be in the power of one of his brethren, Mr. Camp. We Jews have recently been celebrating the anniversary of our fathers' emancipation from Egyptian bondage. I did not feel at that time that there was any one chain about me which I should never be able to break ; but Brother Camp undeceived me when, a few moments ago, he came to me with the command that I had to say something. I begged for mercy, but he was implacable. He would give me no release. So you must forbear with me, and pardon the crude state of my remarks, as I had not even the priv- ilege of Brother Chadwick in regard to time for prepara- tion. I take, however, courage from the consideration that, where the heart is full, the least preparation often proves the best. As many of those who have preceded me referred to some personal recollections, permit me to do so in my turn. Some twenty years ago, I made my entry into an English- speaking community, at Manchester, England, profoundly ignorant of the mysteries of the English tongue. The presi- dent of my congregation came to me one morning, when I was just setting out on the dangerous journey to discover the island where the treasures of English thought and feel- ing are to be found, and, handing me two volumes, said: "Here, this is an American classic. Study him." I opened the books. They were the works of William Ellery Chan- CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. I93 ning. So you see that my acquaintance with your apostle is contemporaneous with one of the most important changes in my life. Since that time, I have never ceased to read these works over ; and it would be hard for me to convey to you, even if I had had time to prepare, the feelings with which I, a de- scendant of that ancient race which has fought so long and paid so dearly for the great truth of the unity of God and the brotherhood of man, listened to the solemn accents that fell from the lips of this immortal man ; when I heard him solemnize and glorify this central and vital doctrine in accents which I had never heard before, and, to be frank with you, which I never have heard again, from any one professing Christianity. . * I came still nearer him through the medium of one in whose friendship I rejoice, and who has always appeared to me to stand to him in the relation in which John the Evangelist is said to have stood to his Master. I refer to Dr. Bellows. He gave me a new and deeper interest in the works of the great divine ; and I think I shall not dishonor his memory if I take.his name, next Sabbath day, to my own pulpit, and pay him the tribute which is due to one who stood forth the devoted and eloquent champion of liberty and the emancipation of the slave, the apostle of human dignity and of the immortal greatness of the human soul. The impression I have gathered from Dr. Channing's writings is that his theory of Christianity cannot be sub- stantiated by the literary or historical proofs on which he relied ; but it participated of his own deeply moral nature, his own great mind, his deep and loving heart ; he roams, as it were, in the ancient halls, calling to his aid all the spirits which he thought would minister to the ideal which alone could satisfy his own spiritual needs and those of his generation. It is Channing reflected on the historical back- 194 CHANNING CENTENARY. ground which he construed. I look upon the issue which he placed before himself as Channing's ideal, glorious with light and freedom and joy, as against the dark picture of the Church. Though he always meant to speak as a dis- ciple, he, in truth, spoke as a master. You feel, wtien you read him, that he was much bolder than he knew, and that all his thoughts have the force and freshness of a sponta- neous mind, and do not state what he found in the book, but what he discovered in his own reason and conscience. Since that time, the issue has been transferred to a very different field. The contest now lies between science and religion, — between religion and no religion at all. But, when we trace the way of progress, Dr. Channing will at all times be recognized as one marking a new epoch in the development of Christianity in this country as well as in others. What the issue may be no man can tell ; but I believe that the great minds of all ages will ever be held in honor as helpers and coworkers in the advancement of the human mind. I may declare unto you, speaking as to brethren and sisters, gainsaying no man's faith nor insisting upon my own, that I am satisfied to feel the throb of human hearts, as I do now in this temple, in the communion of all the saints, whatever the church that owns them. I do not ascribe perfection or expect the solution of the last problem to any one church or denomination. Truth would be but a very small thing, hardly worth striving for, if it could be contained within the walls of one church, or if it could be known among men ranging themselves under one name only. The human mind is too rich, too abundant in possibilities, for that ; and when we leave our narrow bounds, and allow our minds to cross the ocean, and go into distant continents, or recall half-forgotten ages, everywhere we find the same straining of the human mind after the in- finite God, though in divers ways and various manner. And, CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. I9S as Goethe says, because men are striving after the highest, they needs must err. No one has yet appeared on this planet in whom all conditions of men could absolutely believe. Therefore, I join with my whole heart every movement that tends to widen our sphere, to unshackle the soul, and to lift it to the heights where the eternal One, that Being in whom this great man lived and moved, overshadows all others. [Applause. ] The Chairman. — The time is drawing near when this meeting must be brought to a close. There are many others here whose voices we would fain listen to, and we regret that the needed time is not afforded us ; yet, before we sing the concluding hymn, we want to hear a word from Boston. The pastor of the First Church of that city will be one of the speakers to-night at the Academy ; but I think that Mr. Foote, minister of King's Chapel, the first of American Unitarian churches, will consent to address you now. EEMARES OF EEV. H. "W. FOOTE, My friends, I did not expect, at this late hour, to say a word to you; and I must say but a very few words. - The beauty of this occasion has been the voice from every other side of Christendom and from beyond it. I suppose that our friend, Dr. Putnam, has called upon me now, that the chord which Channing touched in the city where his work was done might not be wholly wanting here ; and certainly I am more than thankful, not to lay a stone on the cairn of a dead prophet, — for, if he were only that, he would be, like many 'another, almost or quite forgotten, — but to join with you in our triumphant testimony to a life and a work full of vital and vitalizing power. I96 CHAINING CENTENARY. The single thought that I would like to put into words, in thinking of Dr. Channing, is one that has not been brought out this morning. Perhaps, from being the minister of a very ancient church, I like to trace historic continuity; and so, as I look at Channing's life, it seems to me that some- times it has been looked at too much as an isolated fact in the spiritual history of America, and that his spiritual pedi- gree has not been sufficiently recognized. Dr. Hall has told us, most eloquently and vividly and truly, how that is to be traced through the historic line of New England Con- gregationalism ; but there was another factor which, I think, as I ponder Dr. Channing' s life, entered more than that into that life, and that was the very blood that beat in his veins. Channing was a native of the island- where, from the beginning, was the colony of religious liberty ; and the ideas that throbbed in Roger Williams' heart, in him, blossomed and bore fairer fruit than Roger Williams knew or could foresee. His life as a preacher was passed in Boston, and he did more than Boston can tell to fill it with larger life ; yet the most loyal of us Bostonians can see that it was not the spirit most characteristic of Boston that kindled in him, though he strove to make this spirit more. He brought to us ideal elements of character which he did not fully find there, and he made that the place whence his spiritual phi- losophy and the large light of his generous soul shone as from a beacon set on a hill. His spirit was the spirit of Rhode Island. He was a typical Rhode Islander. That which we have to remember and to rejoice at in him more than any thing that he taught, more than any one of the ideas, great, living, eternal, which were the very heart of his life, is the fact of what he was in himself. His special influence is and must be, chiefly, in the fact that he stands pre-eminently in our modern America for moral ideas. Here was one who lived in these thoughts, whose life was spent CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 1 9/ in communing with them and in setting them before others, the thoughts the greatest, the ideas the most inspiring, which a soul can touch. Who can estimate the infinite value to his country of a man who is consecrated absolutely to such high, grave themes in this land of hasty speech ;*in this age of theological indifference, on the one side, or of theological virulence, even now, on the other ; in this period so devoured with the lust for material things; in this era of an unspiritual philosophy, when, though the stars shine, there are so many eyes that cannot see their shining? How shall we describe in words glowing enough the value of such a type of character, this mind, so calm, and so pa- tient in waiting for the truth to orb itself in its full light, this soul that lived so absolutely in communion with the great Eternal Thought, — the thought of Christ, of duty, of the human soul, and of the living God? [Applause.] At the conclusion of Mr. Footers remarks, the audience rose, and joined in singing the following doxology (Hymn 104 of the Collection) : — From all that dwell below the skies, Let the Creator's praise arise. The Chairman then renewed the invitation to all present to repair to the adjoining chapel and basement hall of the church, where committees of ladies were in waiting to re- ceive them to the social festivities of the day. The benediction was pronounced by Rev. Dr. Peabody, of Cambridge. At the close of the morning meeting, some six hundred persons accepted the ijivitation to the social festival, and soon assembled in the chapel of the church. The desk in the chapel had been removed from its plat- form, which was now thickly set with a variety of flowering I98 CHANNING CENTENARY. plants. Tables bountifully spread with refreshments ex- tended along the centre of the room. A blessing was asked by Rev. George W. Cutter, of Buffalo, N. Y. ; and, long after the repast which followed, friends from near and from afar still lingered to talk of the one subject of the day, and to revive memories and traditions of past years. MEETDHJ DT TEE ACADEMY OP MUSIO. The final meeting of the celebration was held in the Academy of Music on Wednesday evening, April 7, at 7.45 o'clock. Free tickets had been issued for all who wished to attend, and were placed at numerous convenient centres in Brooklyn, N.Y., or sent with circulars of invitation to friends in and out of the city. The Brooklyn Eagle of the next day, in its report of the occasion, said : — " The Academy of Music has rarely, if ever, held such a magnificent audience as that which assembled within its walls last evening to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of William Ellery Channing. A large throng waited before the doors were opened to pay homage to the memory of the great preacher and thinker, and eagerly em- braced the first opportunity of entering the building. When the portals were unbarred, the multitude, like a mighty torrent released from its bonds, rushed through the door- ways and surged over the parquet and along the galleries, submerging every seat in the dense human tide. It was a grand audience that looked up from the main floor and down from the bended bows of the dress^ and family circles. It embraced a vast representation of thinking Brooklyn, beside delegates from other cities who came to honor Channing and to enjoy the intellectual treat promised in the announcement. All the faces in the throng were reflective of careful atten- CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 1 99 tion and profound thought. Fully one-half of the audience was composed* of ladies. The decorations were almost entirely floral. The orches- tra stall was turned into a flower-garden. Huge calla lilies, with snow-like bells and darting golden tongues, raised their pure petals from masses of evergreens that screened the facing of the stage. Azaleas, ferns, and potted plants and flowers of numerous varieties filled the entire space between the boxes. Beneath the proscenium arch, in letters of white upon a ground of emerald green, was this reminder, " 1780 — Channing — 1880," which had been seen over the pulpit in the church during the morning and afternoon. Beside the reading-desk bloomed an immense floral cross and star. Its flowers were radiant and fragrant, and showed all their beauties beneath the gleaming gas-jets. An excel- lent portrait in oil of Channing stood at the head of the centre aisle. The painting was by Ingham, of New York, and is the property of the Rev. Dr. Bellows. It was adorned by an elaborate floral wreath. The- perfume of the flowers made fragrant the atmosphere in the auditorium. When the exercises began, every inch of space in the Academy was packed. At least four thousand persons were present." Beside those who addressed the meeting, there were seated on or near the stage five or six hundred persons, representing the most prominent departments of social, official, literary, and professional life, as well as all sects and parties in the city. Mingled with these were many distin- guished ministers and laymen from other places. Included in this general array of citizens and strangers were Mr. Isaac H. Frothingham, President of the Board of Trustees of the Church of the Saviour; Rev. A. P. Peabody, D.D. ; Rev. Charles H. Hall, D.D.; Rev. John Cotton Smith, D.D., of the Church of the Ascension, New York; ex-Mayor John W. Hunter; Hon. Dorman B. Eaton, New York; Hon. 200 CHANNING CENTENARY. Joseph Neilson, Justice of the City Court; Joshua M. Van Cott, Esq.; Hon. J. S. T. Stranahan ; Mr. Alexander M. White; Hev. Henry W. Foote, of King's Chapel, Boston; Mr. Josiah O. Low ; ex-Judge John Greenwood ; Hon. A. W. Tenney ; Hon. Ripley Ropes; Capt. Nathaniel Putnam; Prof. R. F. Leighton ; Professors A. Crittenden and D. G. Eaton, of the Packer Institute ; Rev. J. G. Bass, City Missionary; Mr. R. H. Manning; Rev. J. C. Ager, Pastor of the Swedenborgian Church ; Rev. Almon Gunnison and Rev. H. R. Nye, of the Brooklyn Universalist churches ; Mr. John T. Howard; Hon. Demas Strong; Col. Rodney C. Ward ; Rev. William C. Leonard, of the Church of the Redeemer; Mr. J. G. Hollinshead; Mr. E. W. Crowell ; Mr. Gordon L. Ford; Chauncy -L. Mitchell, M.D. ; Mr. Henry Sanger ; Rev. J. W. Chadwick ; Mr. Eli Robbins ; Mr. Oliver Johnson ; Hon. Edwin Reed, Bath, Me. ; Messrs. James and Duncan Littlejohn ; Rev. Edward Beecher, D.D.; Collector John Tanner ; Rev. S. H. Camp ; Mr. Reuben W. Ropes; Col. W. B. C. Thornton; Rev. A. D. Mayo, Spring- field, Mass.; Dr. Gustav Gottheil, of Temple Immanuel, New York ; ex-Mayor Samuel Booth ; Mr. George Hannah, Librarian of the Long Island Historical Society ; Mr. S. B. Noyes, Librarian of the Brooklyn Library ; Prof. G. S. Taylor, of the Adelphi Academy ; President David Coch- ran, of the Polytechnic Institute; Mr. Samuel McLean. Mr. A. A. Low, President of the meeting, and the va- rious speakers for the evening, were greeted with loud applause as they came upon the stage at the appointed hour. Mr. Low, the President, excused himself from making any opening address, but called on Rev. Dr. Putnam, Chair- man of Committee of Arrangements, to offer any intro- ductory remarks that might be necessary. Dr. Putnam said CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 201 that his speech would simply be the announcement of the first hymn on the printed programme. He would, however, state that all sects and churches in the vicinity, and the public generally, had been cordially invited to join in the commemorative meetings of the day ; and he desired, in behalf of the Committee of Arrangements, to thank most heartily the thousands present that they had accepted the invitation in the same spirit in which it had been given. He then requested the assembly to rise, and all join in sing- ing the hymn to the tune, " Hummel/' The audience responded to the call, and were led by a chorus of more than fifty voices from the several Unitarian churches of the city, with organ and cornet accompaniment. After prayer by the Rev. George C. Miln, pastor of the East Congregational Church, Brooklyn, the Chairman intro- duced the Rev. Dr. Rufus Ellis, of the First Church, Boston. EEMAEKS OF EEV. EUFUS ELLIS, D.D. Mr. President and dear Friends y — I count it a great privi- lege to be summoned to this gospel feast. It is always pleasant, it is always helpful, to look up and recall a deserv- edly famous man. I love to be able to look up, and not to be called upon, as we so continually are in our day, to ana- lyze, to explain, to account for great men ; for that is so apt, as you know, to end in explaining them away, and bringing them down to our poor level. We want to look up, and let the light from their faces shine down into ours ; and I am sure it is an especial privilege when we can come together, men and women of different minds, of different opinions, — and yet, as we believe, of the same most precious faith, striv- ing to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, and to be of one heart in one Christian household, if we cannot be just of one mind and of one opinion. It is one of our 202 CHANNING CENTENARY. privileges, as we all see in these days, that we can so come together, and that, when we make up our calendar of saints, we always go beyond our communion, seeking only for those whose love for Christ is true. And because there are so many such seekers, the name that we are naming to-day will be spoken with affection and reverence in many Christian households, — not only Protestant, but Catholic as well; for we know that one of the best eulogiums upon Channing has been pronounced by one of our Roman Catholic brethren. Now, sir, it does not seem to me hard to find or long to seek, if we wish to know what it is about Channing that so binds us all to him. Why, the very things that have been said about his limitations, the very things that have been said sometimes seemingly in disparagement of him, only help to bring out his characteristic merits more distinctly. They only help to put a frame around the picture. I think we shall all say that he is always, and everywhere, and at all times, and in all his utterances, distinctively a gospel preacher, — one of the great gospel preachers of our age. People object. They say, "Well, he was not a great the- ologian " ; and they are right. His theology was always only popular theology. It was not metaphysical theology. It was not the theology of the schools and of the professors. They add, " He was not distinctively a man of letters " ; and 1 should say, though not quite so confidently, that I think they are right there. I suppose that even his great sermons will hardly go down to posterity among the great English classics. We do not read them now at a sitting. We do not take in every picture eagerly. We do not read to the very last line, just as we sip the last drop of some precious cordial. They are didactic. They are over-diffuse even, I think, for the reader. They are weighty rather than inci- sive. Even his essays are all sermons. He always preaches. And they say that he founded no sect. He was only inci- CELEBRATION At BROOKLYN. 203 dentally, indirectly, by the way, connected with a sect. They even tell you that he knew very little of the world, — the great world, the world of the statesman, the world of the merchant ; that he was a parish minister, and an invalid at that. And that is true, also. But, then, consider, my friends, that, though metaphysical theology has spoiled a great many preachers, it never made one yet, and it is not an essential part of a minister's outfit ; and consider, too, — and we Uni- tarians have had some sad experience in this, — that a man of letters is often wholly lost upon a great congregation of hungry souls, whilst the man who is thought to be unlet- tered, and never to have been taught anything, will hold an audience sometimes, out on the parish green, that has been lost from the church. And, then, as to founding a sect, was there ever a great preacher yet who was not a great deal larger than his sect, or who did not come to be, at all events, before he got through ? Consider, too, as to knowing men. Why, how many of us know a great many men, know all about what they are saying and doing, and yet know very little about man and what is in man. Now, we can admit all these things about Channing, only remembering that, when the moral development in a man is very large, it is likely to overshadow the intellect, and we do not think as much of his intellectuality then as we ought. Remember this. And yet, admitting it all, I shall say that Channing was so wondrously endowed with the prophetic function that it amounted, as it always does, to genius, to which you must add learning, as much as you can get of it, and intellect, as much as you can get of it, and poetry, and wit, and rhetoric, and everything else. But, then, all those things are perfectly useless, and always very tedious in the preacher, without the prophetic function. Channing was, first, last, always, a great gospel preacher ; and, if you are 204 CHANNING CENTENARY. willing to use the old words in the old sense, you had better say that he was a prophet. Being filled with the spirit of his God, and finding God near him and in him, he prophesied ; and the world listened to him. And that is why we are here to-night. And we do not consider, I think, as much as we ought, how preaching has been spoiled by those very things which Channing was said to lack, or how much we have lost and left out of sight that old prophetic speech, — the word which the people in Judea and in Galilee heard so gladly, not irrational truth, not unreasonable truth, but unreasoned truth, truth from the people to the people, truth right out of the abundance of a loving, religious heart. The Word of God, that never returns to a man void, — we are spoiling that continually by what we undertake to add to it. And Channing is to be remembered, not so much for what else he was, — and that was a great deal, — but be- cause he was all else in subordination to this great function of a preacher ; and for that, I say, we remember him. In tha*t way, he served his generation ; and he is laying his hand upon our hearts to-day, still living and working on. He came, as such men always do come, in the fulness of the times, — not alone, not unheralded. He came at a time when he was greatly needed, and there was preparation for him. As those of you who heard the sermon of last evening know, it was a time in New England when just such a man was wanted. We had had a dispensation of the letter, which indeed was glorious; but there was needed, as we always need, a fresh dispensation of the Spirit, which should be infinitely more glorious. And it came, and there had been preparation for it. There were tokens of such life in New England before the Revolution. Charles Chauncy, in the old First Church of Boston, was a man of mark, — a man who made, or began to make, an epoch in his time. So was May- hew, in the West Church. And, before the Revolution, they CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 20$ both of them spoke living words, — not merely words from the old traditions, — and the times went on ripening. There were signs in the New England Congregational body of a reviving of religious life ; and it is very narrow, it is a great mistake, to say that it came from only one quarter. It came from both sides of that body, — from those who were called "conservatives," and from those who would have been called, if the word had been used in that day, "liberals." There was a feeling all around that men must come nearer to the reality of Christ's gospel ; that they must have some- thing other than what they had been having too much of in New England, and a great deal of in Scotland, — what was called "Moderatism." There were many preachers who had ceased to hold old truths in the old way ; and they met the case by saying nothing about them, lest somebody should be hurt, lest the repose of the churches — for it was no better than that — should be disturbed, lest there should be some divisions. Now, they all began to feel that that was not the way to preach the gospel. And so the more conservative said, " If we are going to have these old doctrines, let us have them, and let us have them clearly and earnestly stated." On the other hand, there was a feeling that the time had gone by for these old statements, and that they must be restated. On both sides, they were reaching out for the reality of the Lord's Word, — the conservatives in their way, and the liberals in their way ; and we must not dispose of the whole matter by saying that on the one side it was all bigotry, and that on the other side there were only pale negations. That does not represent the case at all. There were signs of a new life. Channing, in his way, was reach- ing continually after this great divine reality. He believed that there was still a message in the gospel for men, and he was bound somehow to get it uttered. 206 CHANNING CENTENARY. He was not alone. You cannot help thinking sometimes, or asking yourself, what might have been the result, if some men who began their career with him had only been per- mitted to live on. There was a famous man in what was called the Brattle Street Church, one Buckminster (we do not hear his name often in our day), — a man who died at the early age of twenty-eight, and yet left his mark deep in that city, — evidently a man of most earnest spirit, of most wonderful gifts ; and another man, one Thatcher, in what was called "The New South Church," who lived a little longer. Both of them were contemporaries of Chanhing; Buckminster dying in 1812, and Thatcher in 1818, Thatcher only thirty-two or thirty-three years of age at the time of his death, surviving to write the memorial of his friend. These aien died in the very bloom of their years. Channing lived on in life-long feebleness, and yet with great power, reaching out after this reality. We sometimes wish — I am sure I do — that the Congre- gational body had not been divided, and that Channing might have got at his affirmations in some more direct way, just as the blessed Lord reached his affirmations, — not by discussing with the Jews their theology, but by passing right through the Halacha and the Hagada y as they called them, — the allegories and the legal niceties that were taught then in the synagogue. He simply passed over theirr all, -paying hardly any attention to them, not destroying, but fulfilling, and went back to the great Book of Deuteronomy and to the prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Micah, and the rest, building upon them. But such things are not for us men, and Channing must do the best thing he could ; and so he became a controversialist, though only for a little while. We wish it could have been otherwise. At least, I do, because the theology of Channing seems to me to be the least interesting part of him. He kept a good deal that CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 20J he might as well have parted with ; and what interests us about him is not this transitional and temporary thing that we call theology, but his Christian consciousness, his faith in Christ as the One who lived in God and for God, and for God's children, and who had a personal message to his soul. That is what he cared for, and compared with that it was of very little consequence in what it happened to be em- bodied. It was, in his case, embodied first in Trinitarianism, then in Arianism, and then we can hardly tell in what ; but the consciousness remained, and that was the deep living nature in him, and that was what he lived to bring near to men's need; and every day he became less polemical in his preach- ing. We talk about his theological sermons and his contro- versial sermons ; but they are very few in number compared with the rest of his sermons. He personally got his sub- jects from the street, and from men's wants and sins, and strove to apply them in the most practical fashion, not as men had been so much in the habit of preaching all around him, seeming to play with their subject, because Sunday had come and there must be a sermo.n, but as men who had a point to carry, and who believed that Jesus, in his spirit and life, could help them carry it. That was his manner of preaching ; and every one said, " Well, now, here is some one who has something to say" ; and they filled his church, as men always fill the church of a preacher who is not coaxing and teasing and trying to. persuade them to go. to church, but who gives them something to go for. They came and heard him, and heard him gladly; and he was really an epoch-making man. " He founded no sect," you say. Well, why should he have founded a sect ? What did we want of another sect ? Were there not too many sects then, as there are now ? Ought we not to be thankful, when we begin to see the end of one of them ? Channing 208 CHANNING CENTENARY. founded no sect ; but he became easily the leader of a still increasing company of men, who may be said — and we say it reverently — to be of the mind of Jesus ; to see God as he saw him ; to see men as he saw them, with the same faith; to share his great blessed trusts, his great blessed confi- dences that this world and the world to come are ours, if we choose to have them/ — men who have a blessed Christian optimism, men who have a realistic faith that the kingdom of heaven belongs here on the earth, and that, if we ever mean to get into the kingdom of heaven, we must get into it now. [Applause.] That was his faith, and that was what he preached. I do not mean that he was always conscious of this. He illustrates singularly one of Cromwell's great sayings, that a man never climbs so high as when he does not know where he is going. I do not think Channing knew where he was going, but he was always enlarging, always spreading out. He believed that everything in this life is sacramental, that everything can be made the bread and the wine of a divine life. And so he found sacraments everywhere, and he found subjects to which he could apply his Christianity ; and he did apply it far and wide. Although his knowledge of men was so largely intuitive and inspirational, somehow he did get a most practical knowledge of practical things, and he became a leader of a great company of preachers. You do not find them, happily, set apart in a little sect, but you find them in all sects. Why, when Dean Stanley was in this country, a little more than a year ago, one of his inquiries was, "Where is the Cemetery of Mount Auburn ? " The gentleman to whom he put that" question was the Rev. Phillips Brooks. He put it with a great deal of interest. Said Mr. Brooks : "What do you care about Mount Auburn ?" For, my friends, it is only one of our cemeteries. We do not take people CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 209 out there so long as they are living. Said Dean Stanley, "Channing is buried there." He wanted to go out and see Channing's burial-place. And so you find men everywhere preaching Channing. Channing is preached to-day in pulpits to which, I am afraid, he would hardly now be admitted, for reasons which are doubtless satisfactory to those who so appoint. I make no criticisms upon them. Every man must answer all these things to his own conscience. But it is a fact that he is 'everywhere preached, because his spirit is abroad. And so, though I may seem to have spoken lightly of his books, it is not that I think little of them. Their lines have gone out, and are going out wider and wider; but you cannot put such a life as that into any book. It is an ever-unfolding mind. It is an ever-proceeding spirit. It comes in new forms, in new expressions, every day. You think you have got the whole of it, and you find that it is doing a greater work than you ever thought of, and that it has only begun its career. And so I say that he is first, last, always, everywhere, to me, the preacher of this blessed gospel of the Son of God. In this simple truth, — unformulated, if you choose to use such a word, — as it caine from the lips of that blessed and wonderful One, who lived in God, and for God, and for God's children, let us live, and we shall say, as time goes on, in the power and sweetness of this spirit, "The day of Pente- cost is fully come." The disciples shall wait no longer in Jerusalem, amid its mingled shadows and light. We mean to know what Jesus says ; and his Word is in us, as he said it would be in them. It will be something more than'a quotation. We shall know it ourselves, and shall be able to utter it ; and then we shall be fit to preach it. We shall have it straight from him. We mean to be as Christian as his disciples were. We do not mean to interpret Jesus 2IO CHANNING CENTENARY. by Paul or by John: we mean to interpret Paul and John by Jesus. We mean to get at the reality. That was what Channing sought ; and that was what, according to the meas- ure of his age and time and ability he found. So, while we take some little satisfaction as a denomina- tion in such a man, we rather choose to belong to the greater company, — to be of all those who, with him, are striving to walk in the one light and to build upon the one foundation ; and we believe that, if we do it in his spirit, there will be as little as may be of the wood and the hay and the stubble that will be consumed, and as much as may be of that fine gold which the fire can only purify, until it shall be laid up as treasure at God's right hand. I am very glad to find that so many, this day, have shown that they are of Channing' s spirit ; and I do not care how much they may be careful to say to me that they do not agree with him in this and that. Well, who does? And who could find out, without a great deal of trouble, precisely what he thought about this or that ? And who would care to find out ? It is the man's spirit, that ever-proceeding life, in which we rejoice. [Applause.] The Chairman. — You have all heard- of the Rev. Robert Collyer, formerly of Chicago, but now, I am happy to say, of New York. He is accustomed to speak to full houses, and he must feel at home here. He will please introduce himself. REMARKS OF REV. ROBERT COLLYER. Mr Chairman and Friends, — I do not know when I have felt more like sitting stilly and enjoying myself, and letting somebody else do the talking. We used to have a saying in our Methodist class-meetings, when we could not say any- thing else to save us, "It is good to be here." I would like CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 211 to say just that, and then sit clown. At our morning meet- ing, I got so full that I had to go away ; and now I feel so full that I am afraid I shall be like one of those bottles that are so full to the stopper that the water cannot get out ! But I was thinking last night and this morning, and again just now, about something I read once about Channing : that if you went to him, and began to praise him — to praise the man — for something he had said or done, his wonderful eyes seemed to empty themselves of concern, and his face of the beautiful, eager interest, and it would seem to the speaker as if you should talk to the snow of its whiteness or to the fresh west wind of its power of refreshing. He did not like to be praised to his face ; and I have felt very glad, in every address that has been made, to notice a cer- tain delicacy of touch about it all, — a feeling, evidently, in the heart of the speaker, like that which Charles Lamb had, who said, I remember, " When we talk about those who have left us, to praise them, we should be as modest as we would if they were still with us on the earth." I have rejoiced in this feeling, which has evidently prevailed in these meetings, — the realization that we must speak with a certain delicacy, with a certain sense of the presence of the man among us, and not overpass the mark so that the praise shall sink into adulation. I feel sure that Channing now, where he dwells, and as he is, cannot have that feeling about all this which he would have, if he were with us still in the flesh ; but, if he can be conscious of the words that are uttered to-day all over the world, about his life, in praise of him, he has risen so high and grown so great in that life into which he has gone, that any such words as are said do not trouble him, but he simply takes them and gives them up to the Giver of the gift that made him so great and so good, and in some sweet, spiritual fashion says again what he learned to say as he nestled by his mother's knee, — that beautiful ascription, 212 CHANNING CENTENARY. "Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever, Amen." We shall not hurt him by such words as we say, especially as they are said out of such a heart as we witnessed this morning, in that grand meeting in the Church" of the Saviour. But I have felt, sir, all the time, as if any word I might say during these meetings would take, possibly, a different turn from such words as I have heard, noble, beautiful, grand, and sweet as they have been. I have rather longed for some man to say, more emphatically and more incisively, what I recognize in Channing as his "grand, broad radicalism, — his deep sympathy with the wide differences as well as the wide agreements of men. I have been very much interested in the study of Chan- ning' s life for years now ; and I confess frankly, sir, that this is what has always gone most warmly to my heart : that, while I felt that I could recognize in Channing that beauti- ful and noble quality of the preacher about which our brother has just spoken so well, there was this also in him, that he had a perpetual sympathy with all sorts of thinkers on all sorts of subjects, and wanted all the time, if he could, to get down into their mind to explore it, to see what good reason lay in them for their conclusion, and so to come into the closest possible sympathy with them, while he must be the man he was in his own convictions and in his own life. I notice therefore that he, as a young man, with his life before him, had great sympathy for the writings of men like Godwin and Rousseau, and for the writings of Mary Woll- stonecraft, who was, he said, one of the greatest women on the earth. And all through his life those who were drawn to him, who gathered about him, who would come to him for help or direction or sympathy, were very much, I think, like those who gathered about David in the old days, in the cave of Adullum. Those who were discontented, and those who CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 213 were distressed, and I guess, also, those who were in debt,- — all kinds of poor creatures, — came to him to get some word that would cheer them, and help them to go forth on special missions in this world, and tell the truth according to such light as might shine forth on their way. I like that quality in Channing, — that grand sympathy for the differences of men in their thinkings and in their conclusions. And I notice that, as he grows older, he loses none of this. It is all in him fresh and true to the last. Some man said to him, I remember, when he was far on in years for him, after he had come through one of the many fights into which he was per- petually plunged, "You seem to be the youngest man in the crowd." "Always young for freedom," he said. It was the deepest thing in his heart, that he should stand by the most absolute freedom of thought and word to which a man can attain. Robert Hall said of a man, in his day, that. his mind was hung on hinges, so that he was always in motion, but made no progress. It was not so with Channing. He was always moving onward to those heights of thought and exploration that made him the grand companion of all flie prophets of every name. He gave his heart to the whole truth ; and that was the reason why he won so many hearts. I remem- ber he says that for the first twelve years of his ministry he does not remember that he mentioned any sect in the Chris- tian church byname for criticism. He did not want to ques- tion and bring into court any of the great religious bodies about him. He always wanted to tell the truth, and let it go home and rest there, and do its work. He had the same feeling towards all 'sides. Let him find an honest man, — one he believed to be sincere to the bottom of his heart, — and then, so far as he could give that man companionship and sympathy, that man was his friend and his companion. I love that quality in the man. I -love to find it forever a 214 CHANNING CENTENARY. flame in his heart. I love to note it as one of the grandest and noblest traits in Channing's character. Mr. Chairman, in the little village where I lived the better part of my life, three hundred years ago, there were two fami- lies, one living on the hill and one in the valley. The family on the hill came there in the time of Henry II. They are there to-day. They have not heard of the Reformation. They are just as nearly as possible what they were at that time, when they went to live there in twelve hundred and something, I do not remember what. The family down in the valley were obscure folk who worked at day's work, and at the time of which I am speaking the representative of the family was earning four cents a day of our present money, — twopence, English. It was borne in upon this working man that this would never do. Something stirred in his heart to strike for a better life ; and so at last it came to pass, after another hundred years, they migrated to this New World, leaving the family still on the hill. They were planted down in this soil. They grew, through the grand opportunities that come to a man when he comes from the Old World to the New, somewhere down in the wilds of Maine; and at last they bloomed out into the family of Longfellows, of which we have the poet, and our grand good friend, Sam Longfellow, a minister of our church in Ger- mantown, Pennsylvania. The old family stays on the hill still ; but this new one moved onward, and has caught this new life, and has made it noble and beautiful before the world, because there was this fine daring in them to go on- ward, while the old family remained still in the old family nest. That was also, in the deeper spiritual sense, the truth with our Channing. He, migrating from the old fastnesses to the new, has made it nobler and more beautiful to those who have to live in it. It was because of this that he became the CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 215 man he was. It is because of this that we love him and revere him, and speak of him with this affection as we gather together to-night. He was the apostle of a new and nobler life; and it was- sufficient to him that under God he was able to do his day's work in his short day. Shall I say that I love him also for this ? I notice sick men are like sick cats : they like to go into a corner, and be let alone. They do not like the movement of their time. They cease to grow aggressive. Everything may go as it will, but they do not want to be bothered. Channing was a sick man. From the time he came from the South, you know, to the time he died, he did not know what it was to be strong, and stand the racket of every day like a man such as our friend Mr. Beecher, for instance. [Applause.] And yet, with that delicate frame, all the time wondering what he should eat and what he should drink and where- withal he should be clothed, having in this very constitution and make of him conditions of creeping away out of active life, and being quiet somewhere in a corner, and getting off his sermons, some such sermons as our friend described just now, in which everybody will feel good and everybody will be peaceful, and go home and say, "What a capital sermon!'* and care nothing at all about it, — a man with such a con- stitution, we would think, would drive in that direction ; but he gave his heart and he gave his life utterly, regardless of the pain, of the fatigue, of the work, of the wear and tear of it, to those great purposes for which God had sent him into the world. I told them last Sunday, when I was talking about him, that I used to have a coat of Channing's. It went up in the fire, as nearly all things did in Chicago. He gave it to Conant, and Conant left it to me at his death. It was the coat of a boy. " How in the world," I said, "did you manage to do such a grand work on earth with that poor, lean body 2l6 CHANNING CENTENARY. of yours ? " If I ever do take to worshipping a saint, I am going to worship Channing. It is this that draws me to him, — that with his poor chance of doing anything he should have done so much. Brother Ellis said, just now, that Dr. Chauncy was one of the grand men of the former days ; and I was reminded of an anecdote that I read about him, that he wrote one of those progressive books in the direction of the doctrine of Universalism, and hid it in his desk, and durst not bring it out to daylight Channing never wrote a word that he did not show to the world, no matter what folks might have to say; and he did find those that were not in the heartiest sympathy with him in Boston. There he stood, four-square, — if you can apply such a term as four-square to such a little body, — to every, wind that blew, and let them blow and blow, and fought his battle, and then, like a brave man, thought less of what he had done than any other man on earth. Ah! we may well think tenderly of him, and we may well think with pride of him. And now, Mr. 1 Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I want to say one word more ; and that is, through this great, free soul, we are freer to-day, far and wide. That is a nobler thought"; and I trust we will all think more nobly, and, because he has lived, we can all live better. Our dear friend, in his speech just now, spoke, you know, Df Channing's being above, and in a great measure aloof from, what he himself had done; that his sermons were but one part of the grand work, and might not by himself be considered to be at all so grand as many consider them to De now. It reminded me of a day which came once when I got, I was going to say, aggravated, reading a poem of somebody in Philadelphia, which bears the title "No Sect in Heaven." The aggravation arose out of this, that I did not find Unitarians there in any shape whatever. There CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 217 were the Baptists and the Methodists, the Episcopalians and the Quakers; but there were no Unitarians. And I said, "I am going to make an improvement on that/' very much as the Yorkshire man thought he could make an improve- ment on the Lord's Prayer by making it read, " O Lord, give us this day our daily bread, and some cheese." [Laugh- ter.] I said, "I will write something for the Unitarians"; and this is what I got off. I remember after having got them all in heaven safe and sound, as the other poem got them, I jotted down these lines: — Then one came, saying, with low, sweet voice: "I have sermons here : they'd the world rejoice. I must bear them on to the shining shore, And make joy in heaven for evermore." But, as twilight is lost in the springing day, Doctrine and dogma melted away, And Dr. Channing cared no more For the word he had said on the time-bound shore. And Parker said, " I have sermons seven, That must be read in the courts of heaven." But the sermons seven went down like lead In the waters that run between living and dead. [Applause.] The Chairman.— Rev. Dr. Pullman, of the Sixth Univer- salist Church in New York, will say a few words to you now. EEMAEKS OF EEV. J. M. PULLMAN, D.D, Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen, — If it ever happens to you to be called upon to apologize for not being some- body else, you will be able to enter into my feelings at this moment. I am an eleventh-hour man ; and I am here be- cause Dr. Chapin is sick and cannot comer But, finding myself in so brilliant a presence, I suppose I must act by the law of contraries; and, since I cannot speak at all like Dr. Chapin, I must speak as differently from him as I can, — and 2l8 CHANNING CENTENARY. I can assure you it is very easy for me not to speak like Dr. Chapin. And I would not be here, honorable as I esteem this position, if I did not know how sorry the Doctor is that he cannot be here; how interested he is in this meeting, how he loved the subject of it, and how all the throbs of his great heart are towards this house to-night. Under the cir- cumstances, I feel that I ought to stand up here and say my Universalist word of praise, whether I say it very well or not. I labor under an embarrassment in trying to say that word here to-sight. I feel as I were between Scylla and Charyb- dis. I loved Channing very deeply and very dearly ; and I loved him for the very things that the world at his time did not love him for. And how shall I, in an assembly like this, gathered from all churches, of all shades of opinion, in beauti- ful amity and accord, go on and praise him for those things that I love him for, and not jar some discordant note? It would be better for me, doubtless, not to say anything about those matters ; and yet, if I speak about a man who loved the truth as he did, and who taught me, in my little way, to love it, I must say what I think. So I am between the Uni- tarian Scylla and the Orthodox Charybdis. You know we live in the days when something that is called the "Channing influence" has broadened out, and deepened, and sharpened down into — what shall I say, and be respectful and nice as I would like to be ? — I will only say that it has come to something that was in that young gentleman who threw his Euclid aside the other day, because the propositions were too dogmatically stated. He said that he really thought he had a right to doubt whether there was that equality in the angles of an equilateral triangle which the author insisted so much upon. A general adviser of mankind, who has broken out down East of late years, and broken out very well, — and who ad- vises very well, too, — has said, recently, that by putting his CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 2\Q ear to the ground he can hear the retreating footsteps of Channing's influence, or words to that effect. - Of course, I must be careful here. I know where the rock is, here and there; but I cannot help saying, men and brethren, that it cannot be very difficult for one who commits himself to the statement that Channing's influence is waning to put his ear to the ground. [Laughter.] If Channing's influence is not making as much stir in the world to-day as it seemed to be making thirty or forty or fifty years ago, it is for the same reason that the water that comes up through my house to the cistern in the attic does not make a noise after a while, — -it, is because the tank is full ; and if Channing's influence does not seem to be as extensive as it was in the earlier days, if it seems to be departing from that level and going downward, it is for the same reason that the water of the reservoir * up here sometimes departs from its level, and goes down through a million pipes, and is feeding a million households. I stand for the perpetuity of the influence which I feel so clearly in myself. If one should ask me what I think is the thing for which William Ellery Channing will be remembered and loved and enshrined among the world's few great men, I should take the broadest generalization I am to make, and say, It is because he taught men to think nobly of God by thinking nobly of themselves. No man that does not think nobly of God can act nobly ; and, the more nobly men are taught to think of God, the more nobility you will find in their daily conduct. Is it not so ? And is it not true that Dr. Channing himself said, in the preface to one of his published works, that, among all the things there written down, there was this one above all others, — his confidence in the essential worth of human nature, and his disposition to stand up for human liberty ? And men thought, " Why, if you elevate the char- acter of men, if you make them think too well of themselves, 220 CHANNING CENTENARY. by so much you lower God." They seemed to think that, in Drder to get contrast enough, you must make men abject, prone upon their faces, and that then God will be better pleased. Men and brethren of all churches, and of no church, it does not turn out so. Those men who have been taught to feel their own moral ability, and who have been taught to know that of themselves they can do right, are the men that think nobly and speak nobly of God in all churches, and everywhere. I want to say, before I close, tEat, so dearly do I prize what has sometimes been called the dogmatism of Channing, I wish it might go further. I do love to see such a spectacle in imagination as some happy people saw in reality in that church in Baltimore, when he preached his famous sermon at the ordination of Jared Sparks. It must have been grand to have seen that slight, pale man, with deep eyes that looked through all things, and to have heard him say : " We all agree externally, do we not, upon the character of God, — as to his goodness, as to his holiness, and as to his power ? Yes : externally we do ; but it is possible to speak magnificently of God, and to think very meanly of him, — to apply high-sound- ing epithets to God personally, and to apply principles to his government that are odious." And then he went on to de- scribe the reasons why he loved and trusted and worshipped God, — that he did it not simply because God had power, but because that power was good, and was exerted for good ; not because he was a Ruler only, but because he was a good Ruler. And then came that grand sentence, which I know I shall never forget, — "We respect nothing but excellence on earth or in heaven." Am I wrong, men and brethren, when I say that in the development of the intellectual and spiritual life of Channing he grew toward the Christ, and not away from him? Have I erred in drawing from his words those thoughts that seem to me to indicate that, the CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 221 longer and the more closely he looked, the more dearly he loved the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? I maybe mis- taken, — I know upon what rock I am running, — but I believe that from my heart and soul. So I speak for the Universalist Church, who see in Chan- ning the exemplification of that which they consider their central light and doctrine, of the moral perfection of the Almighty. The corollary which follows from this is the final extinction of moral evil ; and, taking him as one of those who has contributed so largely to a result everywhere so desirable and noble, how can I better dose this short address than in the words of Dean Stanley, as quoted for us from Norman Macleod, speaking from the general aspect of the man ? " A man broad with the breadth of the charity of Almighty God, and narrow with the narrowness of his righteousness." [Applause.] The assembly then rose and sang, as before, the following selected hymn : — Come, kingdom of our God, Sweet reign of light and love ; Shed peace and hope and joy abroad, And wisdom from above. Over our spirits first Extend thy healing reign ; There raise and quench the sacred thirst That never pains again. -Come, kingdom of our God, And make the broad earth thine ; Stretch o'er her lands and isles the rod That flowers with grace divine. Soon may all tribes be blest "With fruit from life's glad tree ; And in its shade like brothers rest, Sons of one family. The Chairman. — I now have the honor to present to you the Hon. George William Curtis. [Applause.] 222 CHANNING CENTENARY. ADDRESS OF MR. CURTIS, Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen, — As a son of Rhode Island, I have peculiar pride and pleasure in this day. My native State is small, but it is rich in great mem- ories and in great men. The stone of religious liberty, which my Brother Ellis's Massachusetts rejected, became the head of the corner in Rhode Island ; and upon the foun- dation principle of that little State is reared the vast super- structure of the civil and religious liberty -of America. And look with me, for an instant, at the contributions of Rhode Island to American history. In our earliest epoch, it gave us Roger Williams, its founder, — the preacher, not of religious tolerance, but of absolute religious liberty, who held that the Quaker and the Puritan who hung the Quaker, that George Fox and John Endicott, were both of them too narrow for the broad church of soul-liberty. To the Revolu- tion, Rhode Island gave General Greene, the friend of Wash- ington, and Esek Hopkins, the first Commodore, the first Commander-in-chief, of the American Navy. To the later war with Britain, Rhode Island gave Commodore Perry, who upon Lake Erie met the enemy, and they were his. And, last of all, my native State gave to America and the world, to liberty and to humanity, William Ellery Channing. [Ap- plause.] Among the thousand tributes of reverence and of love that are to-day paid to his memory, I have been asked to say to you a word of his anti-slavery career. Why, Mr. Presi- dent, there is not a man who shall speak of him who will not speak of that. Every breath he drew was an anti-sla- very inspiration. Every word he uttered was an anti-slavery battle. Wherever he saw a chain binding the human soul or the human body, he struck it, and he broke it, — not with the might of the trip-hammer that shatters, but with the v ouch of the sunbeam that melts. CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 223 Channing was one of the three great spiritual emanci- pators in our history. The first was Roger Williams ; the second was Channing; the third, in a later generation, was Ralph Waldo Emerson. [Applause.] They all held to what Roger Williams called "soul-liberty." They all asserted that moral independence was the sole source of moral power; that the moment any man looked for his duty to the plat- form of a party, or to the creed of a sect, or to any authority, to any source, but his own conscience, which is God in him, that moment he lost his moral liberty. And, sir, Irejoice to see this great and brilliant assembly, at a time when every mind in the country is forecasting the vast excitements of the Presidential election, when passions and ambitions, and hopes and prejudices of every kind, are fiercely inflamed. The serene memory of a man like Channing falls upon us like a benediction of manly courage and peace. For so long, fellow-citizens, as we are true to his principles ; so long as, in a country of sects and parties, we hold them as servants, and not as masters; so long as we trample under our feet the familiar ecclesiastical, the familiar political sophistries, scorn- ing their scorn, despising their contempt, excommunicating their excommunications, — so long we shall understand the mysterious saying that one with God is a majority ; and our beloved country will be truly invincible because truly free. The supreme passion of Channing's life — if I may use such a word to describe a man so passionless, or, rather, who held all his powers and passions under so strict control — was love of liberty. To him God was perfect love and per- fect freedom. It was this which made him intensely indi- vidual, and it was this which gave him his profound sense of the worth of man as man. He lived in a time of tremendous controversies, — political, theological, social. He was always a teacher of the teach- ers, a leader of the leaders; but he bore himself throughout 224 CHANNING CENTENARY. with absolute heroism and independence, always serene, -superior, solitary. His manner was as gentle and sweet as the dew that falls on Hermon; but his convictions, rooted upon the Eternal Centre, were as absolutely uncompromising as the mountain upon which the dews of Hermon fall. And as to-day we look back into that stormy time, as we catch a glimpse of that slight figure and seraphic glance amid the heavings bf the tempestuous epoch, amid the contentions of statesmen, of politicians, of theologians, of reformers, we seem to see a fervent and penetrating flame that purifies while it illuminates; and we catch at least some glimpse of that essential and innate dignity of human nature which was his profound faith, and the theme of his transcendent eloquence. Mr. President, I can hardly believe, as I look around upon this audience, that there are so many who honor me at this moment with their attention, so many young men and so many young women who have no personal remem- brance of our great anti-slavery debate. It was a question which involved a wrong against human nature, a crime against liberty, so immense and so intolerable that it neces- sarily overshadowed all other questions; and if I have given -you, in the few words that I have spoken, my idea of the golden key that unlocks the whole career of Channing, you will understand where a man, arrayed by the very law of his nature against despotism, necessarily stood in that great con- flict. The question was absolutely unavoidable. Ah! sir, I speak to men who remember with me how we sought to escape it. I speak to men who remember how we evaded the omnipresent issue, how we said that it belonged to the South; that it was so "nominated in the bond," that it was not our affair, that we were morally free from taint. Why, human slavery, as it existed in this country, was a cancer which could live only by tainting the sound flesh around it; and,,by the CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 225 very law of its being, slavery within the Union necessarily encroached upon freedom within the Union. It was every- where. It was not to be evaded. Beyond the Mississippi, the free laborer, planting his happy home and singing at his work in the free territory, suddenly found himself confronted oy the spectre of slavery, in the persons of the overseer and his gang, to dispute with slaves the bread of freedom. It was not beyond the Mississippi alone; but the' panting fugitive, guilty of no crime but color, taking his life in his hand, tracked by blood-hounds, suffering torments which have not been written, and following his only friend, the cold north star in heaven, fled across the border, and here, in your very Brooklyn streets, cowering and starving and knocking upon your own doors, brought home to you, at your hearthstone, the crime and the appalling sorrow of slavery. Nor on the land alone, but on the sea, — far out on the ocean, beyond the sight of land, — innocent men, overpower- ing other men who, for their own gain only, had robbed them of their liberty, were obliged to go somewhere to shore, and, coming to our coast, piteously appealed to the protection of our flag; and the government which that flag symbolized hesitated and demurred. But let me say it to the eternal honor of a man then living, an ex-President of the United States, .whose heart and mind echoed the pitiful cry that he heard, personally a friend of Channing, and also of the relig- ious faith of Channing, but with the ability, with the instinct of a moral gladiator, that he, virtually alone in Congress, with his strong hand and his dauntless will upheld American liberty in the House of Representatives, maintained for us the fundamental American principle of the right of petition, and in the Supreme Court of the United States made the poor foreign slaves, the slaves of the "Amistad," his clients, and gave them liberty. 226 CHANNING CENTENARY. When I think of this man, I see John Pym in the Com- mons, thundering against Charles Stuart; I see Lord Mans- field upon the Kings Bench, declaring that there cannot be a slave in England : and I feel that, in the darkest hour of American history, America and human liberty had no truer friend than John Quincy Adams. [Applause.] Well, this was the contest with which Channing was con- fronted. • There was not a man in this country who could feel the crime more deeply than he, and you will see at once that two things were to be expected of him. He would be one of the earliest and most intrepid of the anti-slavery leaders, and he would not be identified with the party known as abolitionists. On reading our history, you will find that both of these facts are verified by the record. Channing, by temperament, by the intense individuality of which I have spoken, represents everywhere the indi- vidual force, the individual influence. His refinement, his sensitiveness of temperament, and his overpowering sense of justice made him, more than any man in the country, alive to what he conceived to be the excesses and the per- sonalities of reform. Now, fellow-citizens, I do not read Channing aright, if it was the bitterness of invective, so much as what seemed to him its injustice, which kept him solitary in the great awakening. He had no personal aim. He had no private ambition. All his ends were God's, his country's and truth's,— these and nothing more. His object was always a moral object. It was persuasion ; and therefore he recoiled from vituperation, and denounced it, as defeating the very object of the reform. Whatever made persuasion, in his judgment, impossible, was to him a flagrant crime against the cause, and a betrayal of the slave himself. But, on the other hand, the abolitionists, viewing this question with their conscience, with their knowledge of CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 227 mankind, with their experience of daily affairs, considered moderation treachery. They regarded Channing as a man who compromised, and who might even be accused of cowardice. But Samuel J. May, one of those saintly soulr akin to Channing's, early caught up in the ardor of this great crusade of humanity, tells us that Channing, always open, always generous, as Mr. Collyer has said, to every claim of every man and of every cause, asked him perpet- ually how that cause was coming on, and one day reproved Mr. May for what he considered to be the extravagance of reform. Mr. May tells us that he at once responded, "Well, Dr. Channing, God works with such instruments as he can find. He has called the world, he has called the mighty, he has called the leaders of men, and they have not answered. We have come in from the hedges and from the ditches, we have come in from the highways and by-ways, and are here to do our work. Look to it, sir, look to it ; for the work in the Master's vineyard will be surely done. Is it not time, sir, that you spoke?" Mr. May said that the moment he had uttered this reproof to Channing he sat drooping before him, not knowing what the rebuke might be ; but Channing, with the utmost simplicity, answered : "Brother May, I feel the justice of that reproof. I have kept silence too long." I do not, for myself, think that he had kept silence in an unjust sense. Every word, every act of his, had been charged with the anti-slavery spirit ; and of his great co- laborer, William Lloyd Garrison [applause], and Dr. Chan- ning, — both residents of the same city, both moved by the same inspiration, both pursuing the same end, but abso- lutely different in temperament and training, — all we can say is, as of all the resplendent planets in the great heaven of that agitation, "One star differeth from another star in glory.'' 228 CHANNING CENTENARY. For, from the beginning, when Channing was born, a hundred years ago to-day in Newport, Newport was a slave trading port. Its public opinion was what the public opin- ion of New York was when the anti-slavery agitation began Down to the period just before the war, the public opinion of New York was expressed by one of its greatest merchants, when he said, "There will be no peace in this country until men like Charles Sumner are hung." In that one remark, those who were not familiar with those days may understand what those days were. Well, in the old Newport in which Channing was born, his first preacher, in the church to which his father went, was old Dr. Hopkins, who preached every Sunday the terrors of hell to a poor congregation in a desolate church, and who insisted to them that the final test of true faith was the will- ingness to be damned for the glory of God. [Laughter.] Old Dr. Hopkins* preaching that faith, was still a worthy embassador of Him who came to break every bond. And it was from his lips, from his life, and from the whole adverse stress of public opinion there in Newport, that Dr. Channing first acquired his hostility to slavery as it existed in this country. Then, when he is eighteen years of age, just at the very beginning of the century, he goes to Richmond to teach. And he writes home from Richmond, " Except for their sen- suality and their slavery," — two considerable exceptions, — " the Virginians would be the finest people in the world." In 1830, when Garrison began his Liberator Dr. Chan- ning was in Santa Cruz for his health. But in Santa Cruz, amid all the delights of Elysium, he could see and feel but one thing. Like the princess in the fairy tale who could not sleep upon a hundred beds of down because of the little pebble under them all, so he could not rejoice in all the splendor and prosperous luxuriance of the tropics, knowing CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 229 the injustice to human nature that was beneath its whole social system. When he returned to Boston, he stood in the pulpit of a congregation panoplied in as obdurate a respectability against every form of agitation of the anti-slavery question as any congregation in the land. Yet he did not hesitate to say, as he stood meekly before them, " I have been in Santa Cruz. I have seen in Santa Cruz the mildest form of human slavery ; and in its mildest form, brethren, human slavery is the de- stroyer of the soul." In 1835 and in 1837, ne published his essay 'upon Slavery, and his letter upon Texas to Henry Clay. I challenge for those two documents the merit of being the most permanent and imperishable contributions to the literature of the anti- slavery cause, as expressing its fundamental reason and prin- ciple and scope. I do not forget for a moment — how could I in this pres- ence? — the words of the prophet, and the John Knox of* that movement, of whom I have already spoken, Mr. Garri- son. [Applause.] I do not forget the mingled trumpet and flute of the speech of Phillips, which has so often filled this very building with the truest music of eloquence. [Ap- plause.] I do not forget that great appeal, that romance, in which the whole life of slavery was figured, which was borne into every land, which was translated into every lan- guage, and which melted the heart of the world, as it pon- dered the career of "Uncle Tom." [Applause.] I do not forget that, as Emerson said, in every anti-slavery meeting the eloquence was dog-cheap. But the plea of Channing, perfectly tranquil in tone, stands, it seems to me, always separate and apart. These were his words: "God has not intrusted the reform of the world to passion." His argument was a calm and permanent statement. It is the argument which our children's children will read, and feel to be invinci- 230 CHANNING CENTENARY. ble. It will not have the glow, the fervor, the palpitation of the speeches and the appeals to which our hearts have responded ; but it will shine always with the calm light of the stars. Nor was ne wanting — I think my best anti-slavery friends will acknowledge — in his fidelity to his profound conviction. The work of our friend Mr. Oliver Johnson — the last contribution to the history of the anti-slavery reform — tells us that it was not until 1843 that Mr. Garrison felt called upon to declare his gospel of the dissolution of the Union, because it was then his feeling that the Union was a covenant with death and an agreement with hell. But in the essay upon Slavery, eight years before, and in his letter to Mr. Clay, five years before, Dr. Channing had done what every man in this country was warned by the statesmen not to do, — he had weighed the value of the Union ; and he had said : "To other men the Union is a means, but to me it is an end. I love the Union with a love surpassing all the feeling that I have for any American institution but that of liberty." " We will make every concession for the Union," said Chan- ning, "but truth, justice, and liberty : these we will not con- cede." And when he wrote to Clay in 1837, he did not hesitate to speak of the consummation of the annexation ol Texas as a justification for the separation of these States. With celestial prescience, he knew that the States could not cohere, slave and free. He knew that they would sepa- rate either by the sword or by consent ; and, as a man of peace, he hoped that it might be by consent. And, when he said these words, he seems to me to have repeated those great words of Burke, — "All government is founded upon compromise and barter ; but in every bargain the thing sold must bear some proportion to the price paid. No man will barter away the immediate jewel of his soul." Channing spoke the deepest conviction of the American people before CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 23 1 they knew it themselves. He spoke for that love of lib- erty, for that fidelity to the Union, which, when the trial came, was sure to be found supreme. When our Southern brethren made their demand, they asked us to barter away the immediate jewel of our soul. They have had their answer. Mr. President, many voices in many lands are at this moment speaking of this man. He is shown in a hundred aspects. I have mentioned one. But turn this priceless dia- mond in your hand ; and, wherever ycru look, every smooth facet will be as pure and luminous as every other. I never saw Channing, I never heard his voice ; but, walk- ing often in the old Newport garden that he loved, I have felt that its sunny solitude, penetrated by the cool, racy breath and the infinite murmur of the neighboring sea, was the truest symbol of his life and character. We cannot truly appreciate, nor fitly express, our debt to the great men who are not specialists, who are not — if my brother will allow me — preachers merely, nor reformers, but who are great uplifting powers which supply the thoughts that make civilization, who give us the inspira- tions that make the glory of our life. These things we can- not express ; but our deepest souls and all that is noblest within us respond to them, as the shells strown upon that Newport beach of his answer the eternal music of the ocean. " Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow forever and forever." The heavenly light in those sweet eyes is long since quenched ; the music of that voice is silent ; that gentle presence has vanished from men's sight forever ; that slight figure, that trembling body, lies mouldering in the grave. But in the greater spiritual liberty that we see, in the quickened public conscience, in the downfall of sectarian divisions, in the deeper, higher, truer sense of the father- 232 CHANNING CENTENARY. hood of God and the brotherhood of men, that soul of fire and of love goes marching on. [Loud applause.] The Chairman. — The Rev. Dr. Sims, of the Methodist Church, will now address you. ADDRESS BY REV, 0. N. SIMS, D.D. A Californian, with whom his nephew had been long visit- ing, grew strangely sad. The nephew anxiously inquired the cause of his grief, and was surprised to hear his uncle say, "I am so afraid you will never come to see me again." "I certainly will," said the affectionate young man. "No," said the uncle, " I think you never will, for I am afraid you will never go away this time." Now, my friends, I do assure you our meeting to-night will close some time, so you may have a chance to come again. In view of the lateness of the hour, I promise to be extremely brief. Indeed, I only speak at all, because it is fitting that I, and Mr. Beecher who is to follow me, should put an orthodox finish to this centennial celebration, and that it should pass under orthodox revision, as all such meetings ought. The world is not rich enough in virtue or strength to per- mit a great, good man to be forgotten. It has no super- abundant accumulation of truth, that we can afford to* turn away from any truth-searcher, no matter though his methods be different from ours ; and we are here to-night, my friends, to speak words of grateful remembrance of one who was a courageous, devoted searcher after the truth, and who conse- crated that truth to the best interests of humanity, as he un- derstood them. William Ellery Channing is one of the few men who have escaped death and oblivion, and who live on forever in the CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 233 truest life, because he was a great man, after the Master's deepest and most profound definition of greatness, — being the servant of all. His influence upon the world is twofold. It is impersonal, in so far as it goes out to affect general thought and sentiment. As a rivulet on its way to the river gives its waters to the atmosphere, and then those waters are condensed into dew-drops and deposited upon leaf and flower and bud, and yet are truly of the rivulet, though they may not make their way with it to the river, so there are lives that in their definite and living influence quicken and refresh all humanity, long after they themselves have disappeared from any personality in the matter. But, beside that, there is another influence upon the general thought of the world as we have studied him, the philanthropist, the teacher ; the man whose words and thoughts have been before the world, always fresh, never belonging to a departed or to a decayed age ; the glorious thinker, searching after truth. I speak of his continuous personal influence. To the student of his biography, who has followed his labor and struggle and thought, he is still a most living personality, able yet to stir the thought, arouse the enthusiasm, and inspire to noble efforts and purposes. His was the life of a great, consecrated searcher after God's verities. He was a man who gave himself to know the truth. Because the state- ments of Christian doctrine around him did not satisfy his mind, he sought to make other statements which seemed to him more correct. In order to do his work, he became a great and glorious martyr for the truth as he understood it, willing to part company with old friends, willing to feel whatever pain he may have felt in the disapprobation of those under whom he had been instructed, from whom he had learned, and whom he had loved. He parted company with them for conscience' sake. And so the student of Channing's character comes to 234 CHANNING CENTENARY. catch the inspiration of one who'loved the truth, not simply to love what Channing believed. If it were that, we could not all mingle here to-night. But we come to stand where he stood, on this broad principle of loving the truth as he loved it, and to judge of the truth for ourselves as he judged of it for himself; and this inspiration is one which must always be healthful and helpful. Again, the influence of his personal character upon those who study him is felt in his broad, earnest, tender, loving philanthropy. He was a man of generous nature, one who could agree to honor those with whom he disagreed. Not every man can forgive his fellow for holding opinions not in harmony with his own. Many a one can forgive the thief who steals his watch, that cannot pardon his neighbor who fails to find his faith expressed in the same catechism. Because Channing's soul was full of sympathy, he lives largely in my mind and in my affections. It seemed as if his heart was the focal centre of a whispering gallery broad as this wide world ; and that every sigh of human woe and every sob of human sorrow came to be articulate and audible, as it reported to his spirit. So he came to stand before the world the advocate of temperance ; the advocate of freedom ; the advocate of religion; the man of pure and noble life; the man who loved humanity in its loneliness and poverty ; the Sabbath- school man ; the pastor who cared for the poor and needy ; the man whose broad and loving heart planned all generous things for all men ; the man who planned for the emigrant, for the workingman, for the mechanic, for the degraded, for the imprisoned, — planned for whoever suffered or was igno- rant or fallen or hopeless in this world, — and who longed to lift up humanity toward the God whom he worshipped. He was a reverent worshipper of God. This world, my friends, is broad enough, God's love rich CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 235 enough, and his character grand enough, for all of us, with our different religious views, to stand on, and gaze straight up into the face of our divine Father, and not be in one another's way. He loved God and believed in him, and he that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as He is pure ; and his whole life grew beautiful in the sunshine of the divine favor and love, and in the light of God's all-seeing eye, with nothing evil hid away in his heart or in his hand. So he gave his life to humanity. So he lives on, having escaped death. So to-day, in all that makes up life, the helper of the thinker and the worker, of the student, and the down-trodden, he lives on. The life of flesh is past. He does not any longer eat and drink, and suffer and toil ; but he helps humanity, and he will help it through all the years that are to come. And so, believing, as I do, in the essential divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the perma- nent and perpetual power of God's Holy Spirit, and in the doctrine and reality of genuine conversion, I come to lay my chaplet down in memory of one whom I honor; and I pray God that all truth gathered everywhere in this wide world may be consecrated to the service of all men, and that all truth-seekers may be honorable in the sight of their brethren forever. The Chairman. — Of course you will all remain to hear Mr. Beecher. ADDRESS OP REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. I do not propose to speak to-night at any length. It is now a time at which Dr. Channing would have been abed and asleep for an hour. You have had a banquet, if ever an audience had; and you -have also had the benediction of a good sound orthodox clergyman at the end of it. And it 236 CHANNING CENTENARY. seems to me that the consent of men, whether they are in the Mother Church or in any of the scattered sectarian churches, — orthodox, half-orthodox, or heterodox, — is all gained to-night, and gained on one point : that a man who loves God fervently and his fellow-men heartily, and devotes his life to that love, is a member of every communion and of every church, and is orthodox in spite of orthodoxy or anything else! There is one point, however, that has been pressed upon my mind, as I have been overwhelmed with the richness of the thoughts and illustrations of the speakers gone by. So warm and enthusiastic have been the eulogies to-night, that one might almost imagine that Dr. Channing was him- self the light of the world ! But no ; so rich is God, so all, pervading, so incarnated in every soul that thinks and in every heart that throbs, that Dr. Channing was but one single taper shining in the darkness of this world, and draw- ing his light from the great solar Fountain, God. He was the mouthpiece of his time ; but his time had prepared the material which he expressed. No man, in any age, though he stand head and shoulders above his fellows, is competent to do much more than has been wrought out for him, — to be the teacher of those things which have been made needed and manifestly needed, by the experience of millions of men, and to give intellectual expression to those truths which in their emotive form have welled up in thousands and tens of thousands of bosoms. Dr. Channing felt all the accumu- lated force, moral and social, of the times gone by and the times at hand in which he lived. And so, though he was great, mankind behind him was greater, the time was greater, and the all-informing spirit of God was greater yet. In my boyhood, I went to Boston in 1826, and was thrown into the very centre and heat of that great controversy which was raging, in which my father was an eloquent thundereron CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 237 one side, and in which Dr. Channing was an eloquent silent man on the other side. Mostly his work had been done at that time. Do I not remember the image of that day ? In my own nature enthusiastic, sincere, and truthful, did not what my father thought become what I thought ? And did I not know that Unitarians were the children of the devil ? And did I not'know that those heresiarchs, if they had not fallen from heaven, ought to fall from the earth ? And did I not regard Channing, I will not say as a man misled, but as a man demented, in whom was the spirit of error, leading men down to perdition, and who ought to be silenced, and all of whose followers ought to be scourged ? Did I not read in those days the haughty statement, the reply, the rejoinder, and then the diffusive controversy generally ? And yet time has wrought with me, as it has wrought with you, and with all men, wonderful changes ; and now those two men, my father and Dr. Channing, that stood over against each other, — to my young seeming,— as wide apart as the east from the west, I see standing together, and travelling in precisely the same lines, and toward pre- cisely the same results. For did not Lyman Beecher feel that, as the doctrine of God and of moral government was presented in the day in which he lived, the, glory of God was obscured, that men were bound hand and foot, and that the sweetness and the beauty of the love of Christ in the gospel were misunderstood, or even veiled and utterly hidden ? And what was he striving for but such a renovation of the old orthodoxy as should let the light of the glory of God, as it shone in the face of Jesus Christ, have a fair chance at folks ? And what was Channing striving for ? He felt that the old formulas and statements of men did not let out the whole circumference, nor did it give the whole force and beauty of the character *of God. He, too, was driving, as best he could, the clouds out of heaven, and seeking to 238 CHANNING CENTENARY. make the character of God more resplendent, and morally more effective to mankind. And there they stood bombard- ing each other, both of them with the same grand object and motive; like two valiant men-of-war, that are giving each other broadside after broadside, and yet are on a stream of Providence that is carrying them unconsciously in the same direction ! They sailed side by side, and as they met in heaven I think they lifted up hands of wonder and exclaimed, "Is it possible that I am here — and you?" My estimate of Channing is not less because my estimate of the whole force of society is greater. He was one of the men, and but one, — a great and noble and leading man. Ten thousand other things were working. When Sisera was at his battle, the stars in their courses, it is said, fought against him; and, when God hath great work on hand, the stars, and every thing that is beneath them, are working in one direction. The changes in governments, the advance in laws, the development of a better political economy, the evolution of commonwealths, the progress of science and of the mechanic arts, but especially the science of mind, are working out a final ^theology by working to the same great end, — the emancipation of man, the clarity of his under- standing, the sovereignty of his conscience, the sympathies of his soul, and the full • disclosure of God, over all, blessed forever. And it is enough glory to say of Channing that he understood the day in which he lived, and understood that he was appointed to be a pilot to the times that were to come after; and that whatever he did administratively he did intelligently, that the young and the vital wood that carried the sap and the life of the tree might have a chance. Those who are horticulturists will understand that the bark that carried the sap last year will have to get out of the way, and let the bark that cofhes on this year have a chance ; and the kind pomologist, with his knife, often slits CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 239 the bark of the cherry-tree that is conservative, to give a chance to that which has a hereditary right to be the bark, and let the bark-bound diameter of the tree expand a little. Dr. Channing, among other men, used his knife for the sake of letting the new truth, which was struggling for a larger diameter in the world, have a chance. Well, what has been the result? That was one hundred years ago to-day. And what would Channing think if he were allowed to stand here to-night? He would have been half deaf by this time, if he had heard every thing that has been said on this platform ; but, if he turned his eye upward, and saw the change that has come over the American world, to say nothing of Christendom, during the last hundred years, and contrasted the spirit of antipathy which existed between sect and sect, between theologian and theologian, and the spirit which exists between them now, what would be his thought? Even so sympathetic a man as my father never saw an Arminian come' into his church in that early day, that he did not feel bound to give him such a dose of Calvinism as would physic him for a year! I know very well how stringent were the habits, the methods, the pecu- liarities of each sect, and how each sect defended itself. They were like so many nests of wasps in neighboring trees, each one stinging for his own nest, and each one fighting against the nest of every other. So the fiery sects, if they were not dead and buried iu worldliness, or when . they revived and came to life, were animated by a spirit of antipathy and suspicion and jeal- ousy. Of course the spirit of envy and jealousy is universal and continuous ; but in that early day there was the spirit of criticism and of suspicion, and it all sprang from a very obvious source. For had they not embraced that world-wide heresy, that God had committed his kingdoms in this world to the consciences of his official disciples, and had ordained 24O CHANNING CENTENARY. their consciences to govern the consciences of all mankind ? Has it not been the bane of every sect, from the beginning to this day, that men have felt that they were the special depositaries of divine knowledge, and that the deposition gave them the power to dictate to other men what they should think and what they should believe, and to hold the rod of everlasting damnation over their head, if they did not think and believe as they were told ? All men held substan- tially this view then, and some men hold it even now. So it came to pass that each sect followed its own notion of God, marking out exactly the line of the wall, throwing up exactly the right bulwarks, and defending what each man knew to be the one exclusive truth of creation, and feeling bound to look sharp at all the others, to contest them, and to con- demn them, that the deposit of truth which each one had in purity might have a fair chance in this world! ■ That is all changed. I remember when you could not get a minister of the Episcopal Church, and of the Unitarian, and of the Universalist, and of the Swedenborgian, and of the Baptist, and of the Congregationalist, on to a common platform. You could scarcely do it on the Fourth of July, and it was a wonder then that they did not fight. But, to-day, on how many different subjects are they glad to come together and consult ! And how marvellous an event is it of the time in which I live, to see all these stanch churches, by their stanchest ministers and advocates, stand together through one long day with nothing on their tongue but praises of that heretic Unitarian, Dr. William Ellery Channing! Time and the world do move. Changes have been wrought. And more than that : there has come in, from influences which it has pleased God to give forth and distribute in the heart and understanding of many a man, but by none more than by Channing, a change by which it is understood in CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 241 this world that, if God is to have all the glory, then he must be represented to be a God that is altogether glorious ; that, if he is to have sovereign and absolute control of men, then he is to^have sovereign and absolute control of men because all the faculties of the human soul which he infixed in man- kind for the very purpose of judging what is right and what is wrong, what is just and what is unjust, what is holy and pure and what is unholy and impure, are satisfied with the representations that are made of him ; and the whole Chris- tian world to-day is feeling after such a representation of God as mankind will not let die out. No view of God will be allowed to reign which does not conform to the enlight- ened moral sense of good men. While there are men who are atheists largely because the God on which they have been fed is not God r is a misrepresentation of the true God, in churches all over our land, — and, with perhaps more re- luctant step, in the churches of other lands, — -the cry of Christendom is: "Give to us a God that shall not be apolo- gized for ! Give to us a God that we do not need to defend ! Give to us a God that, when the child, and the mother of the child, and the just man, and the loving soul, look up, they shall say, 'Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none that I desire upon earth beside thee."' The Calvinistic theology of New England before Chan- ning's day had become intolerable to the best Orthodox men, and Channing was but one of many who sought its modification. Judged by the Scotch, the, Genevese stand- ard, Edwards, Hopkins, Bellamy, West, Spring, Backus, Strong, Dwight, and a host of others, were smoothing its features, and softening its immedicable harshness. The revolt against this system of organized fatalism and infinite despotism is not yet ended. In the lecture-room of the schools, where intellect has supreme sway and the heart is excluded, it still lives, but in the pulpit it has perished 242 CHANNING CENTENARY. The educated moral sense of the laymen has slain it. The free air of human life, the play of Christian sympathies upon it, have made it as impossible to employ it as it would be to uphold astrology, or alchemy, or the inquisition. But, while we thus speak of Calvinism, John Calvin was illustrious as a radical. He broke away from the reigning spirit of his times, and led the spirit of free inquiry. Were he alive in our day, no man would scourge Calvinism with such resounding blows as John Calvin ! Nor was his theo- logical system without great benefit, in an age when the king and the priest had more power upon the senses and the imagination than God. Men believed in nothing that they could not see and handle. The Church was busy in bringing all high and ineffable truth into a sensuous con- dition. Over against this magnificent Rome, with its cathedrals, altars, robed priests, processions, gorgeous ceremonies, fill- ing the eye, and bringing down the spiritual man to the bondage of the senses, Calvin'' wrought out a theology of thought, logical, elaborate, complete. When men pointed to the visible church, its flowing rituals and its impressive trappings, and asked tauntingly, " Where is your religion ? There is ours, visible to all men, sublime and beautiful," Calvin pointed to his system, invisible yet powerful, ad- dressed to reason, not sense ; a system that aroused fear, that developed imagination, that moved in men's thoughts as laws of nature move upon the earth. His God was full- orbed in power, and his light ^and glory extinguished the false lights of the throne and the altar. It was a time when nations were being dashed in pieces as a potter's vessel; and Calvin's God was the very divine iconoclast, going forth to overthrow idols and polluted temples, and drive headlong all usurpers of His prerogatives. His attri- butes did not shock the rude ideas of that day. It only CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 243 concentred in God the barbaric authority to which men had wearily and long submitted in magistrates and masters. Better one despot than a thousand. That system, which now oppresses the conscience and shocks the moral sense, in its day emancipated reason, developed the moral sense, and inspired men with ideas that led to liberty in the State and in the Church. But, like the steel armor of our fathers, admirable in its day, it can be no longer worn. The spirit of God has ad- vanced men beyond the need of such an instrument. It must be placed in the hall, or gathered in military museums, with broadswords, spears, culverins, and the whole panoply of antiquated weapons. Our age has witnessed, and is still rejoicing in, a better idea of justice. There has been a great advance in our day in the conception of justice, as an emanation of sympathy and love, and not a deification of combativeness and destruc- tiveness. Justice has been made vindictive rather than vin- dicatory. The principle of hate has ruled in civil law, in government, in theology, and in the churches. We have had a fighting, and not a loving Christianity. Repulsion has been stronger than attraction, dislike than sympathy. Upon this dreary winter, spring is advancing. It has not yet conquered. -Here and there come blustering days, to renew the rigor and to destroy this new life. But the Sun of Righteousness is now high in the heavens. The days are longer; the light advances, and the warmth. All things are tending to draw men to each other. The things in which men agree are more and more important than those in which they differ. Love is growing, hate is weakening. More than that, I think in the past one hundred years — and this, the birthday of Channing, marks the beginning of it — there has not only been a change in the spirit of 244 CHANNING CENTENARY. sects, in the notions of government and in theology, but there has also been a wonderful progress in true religion. If you measure religion by the exact forms of any of the highly organized churches, — our mother, Rome, and her eldest daughter, the Episcopal Church ; if you measure it by dogma and formality and ordinance, in the different aspeets in which the denominations present it ; if you measure its condition by the Westminster Catechism, or by the Confession of Faith, or by any of the mediaeval Confessions, or by the hitherto standing claims of any of the organized religious bodies, — I think it must be admitted that there is a decadence of religion. But how? When the morning star begins to shine, the nimble lamplighters of our cities go around extinguishing one gaslight after another. They were substitutes for daylight; but, when the sun is coming up, there is no longer use for gaslight. And shall any man say, "They are putting out the light of the world" ? They are putting out the artificial lights that help up through the night, but are they destroying daylight ? If religion means veneration, there is not so much as there was. Our own institutions do not tend to breed ven- eration. Our children know as much as we do at fifteen years of age, and govern us at twenty! Our magistrates have but little dignity. We put them up merely that we may pelt them. To nominate a man for office in our land is to stigmatize him ; and"* to elect him is to damn him ! There is nothing old in America but trees ; and people do not care for them. For it is with us as of old, when a man was accounted great as he lifted up an axe against the trees ; and almost nothing in the body politic is sacred in our scrambling, active land, where men are building every one for himself. There is little veneration here ; and, if that is religion, Heaven help us ! We have tried to breed it. We build big churches with small windows. We put' CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 245 out what little light can get through, with paint. We have imitations of grotesque things that have come down five hundred or one thousand years, and we try to dress as they used to dress before they knew how to dress ! In every way possible, we are trying to coax the old mediaeval spirit of veneration. We cannot do it : it is not bred in our day. It will not live in our land. The common school is against it ; the elective franchise is against it ; the whole of our so- ciety is against it. So dangerous are the lapses of men now in theology that we are all of us trying to stop that ; and we are refurbishing the old armor, and the word is going out: "We must reprint the old doctrines, and we must introduce a shrewder economy in our seminaries, and we must screw up the system. It is getting loose and shackly." The engineers are screwing it up here and there, and by every means striving to make it work as it used to work. There is such a widespread doctrinal defec- tion — with one or two exceptions — that, if you are to measure the progress of religion by the exact agreement of men to confession and catechism, woe be to religion ! Religion is of the heart. It is a living force. Books do not contain it, but only describe it. Creeds and Catechisms may be honored while religion is perishing; and religion may be increasing in scope and sweetness while creeds are waning. It is born in every generation, and in every heart that is a child of God ; and one cannot find whether men have religion or not by bringing them to the catechism, or by asking them how they got it. We have learned one thing, and that is that mankind are greater than all the gov- ernments of mankind. We have learned that man is more than the church, and that the church was made for man, and not man for the church. We have learned that, if there is such a thing as religion, it is not to be found in any machin- ery. We have learned that religion is loving God and loving our fellow-men. 246 CHANNING CENTENARY. Now, then, tested by that, is there more or less religion in the age in which we live than there was in the days that are gone by ? I say, more. I call the whole civilized world to witness that, although there is much of the lion, of the bear, of the eagle, and of the vulture yet in mankind, and though these foul beasts or birds float on our national banners and represent much of the under economy of animalism among men, yet, to an extent that was never known before in the world, there is the spirit of sympathy of man with man disclosed. Never before has God been worshipped by the serving of his children as he is to-day. Never before was there such an adhesion as there is to-day to the words of Christ, " Inasmuch as ye do it unto one of the least of these, ye do it unto me." We worship a Christ that stands by the poor, by the slave, by the prisoner, and by the emigrant who lands, weary and discouraged, on our shores. We worship a Christ that identifies himself with the low and the needy and the suffering. We worship a Christ that is in the hos- pital among the sick. If worshipping God is worshipping Christ, I am Orthodox. I wish others were. I aver that Christ was never worshipped so much as he is to-day by the love, by the sympathy, and by the self-sacrificing helpful- ness which we bestow upon all classes and conditions of men. Never before did the human race see a whole age and an organized nation putting their hands under the very bottom of society, and attempting to lift, not the crowned heads, not the middle classes, not the burghers and rich men, but mankind from the very lowest, taking the whole house up from its foundation. And while I see all reform- atory societies attempting to reclaim men from intemper- ance, to cleanse our prisons, to purge out vice, to restrain all wrong ; while I see the tendency everywhere to send, by showers of gold, the gospel to benighted nations, and to promote the mission cause at home, and to educate the CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 247 slave and every living creature, — shall a man stand by and tell me that religion is going down? A religion that lets these alone is no religion ; and a religion by which any man or community takes care of these, and in the love of God sympathizes with man, and cares for him, — that is the true religion. When the potato was first sent to Ireland, they planted it, and did not know where to look for the fruit. And when it blossomed and bore its little seed-pods, they boiled these pods, and ate them, and did not like potatoes ! If they had gone to the root of the matter, they would have liked them. And there are very many men who taste religion as it is shown in the pod, if I may so say ; and they do not like this church, that doctrine, this ordinance, and that economy. What if you do not ? These are not crops : they are merely the tools by which we try to raise crops. They are the machinery by which we work, and not the thing for which we are working. I never ate millstones ; but I have eaten that which millstones have produced. And the things that grind out human love and kindness, — all may be defective; but the flour is the thing. And I say that never before was there so much holy flour ground as there is to-day. There is one more thing that I think is true, and of which this celebration is significant ; namely, that there is no state- ment of religion like religion itself. You cannot put into words the essential verities of religion. When you have used all the language that the vocabulary can give you, and tacked word to word, you cannot have made a belt that will go around the infinity and eternity of God. When by every figure that is known to fallible men, by all the sweetness of a mother's love, by all the purity of a child's love, by all the fervor of noble souls just mated, you have tried to represent God; when you have gathered up all things that are re- splendent, and made them patterns of divine love, — you have 248 CHANNING CENTENARY. done, as it were, nothing. The love of God that fills eter- nity, and that is marching down through eternities, bearing benison and benediction to countless spheres of existence, doubtless, besides our own, — when you attempt to put it into language and represent it by figures gathered by the limited experiences of men, it is as if you undertook to find timber for your navy in moss, and as if you undertook to decorate your cathedrals with the inconspicuous flowers and plants that grow too small but for the microscope. God is too big for language, too big for representation by human experience. The thing that most nearly represents God is a man that is living like God. And no man can t draw that portrait or put it into language. We can see it, and we can rejoice in it; but, after all, the man that is like God is the best catechism and the best confession of faith. And we have learned one thing, — that, when we see such a man, he is God's, and he is ours. "All things are yours," says Paul. On that ground, I am as good a Catholic as there is in this world, except the pope and the cardinals and the bishops, and their doctrines. And from my ownership* of every saintly woman and every saintly man no one can hinder me. They are mine, because they are God's ; and I revere them and love them. There is a vast amount of true theology in the good living of the Catholic Church. There are men that rebuke our lukewarmness and our lives by the nobility of theirs, — multitudes of them ; and they are all right. Whatever the church may be that makes them, theirs is the true theology. I go from that into the Episcopal Church. It is enough for me that she gave me my mother. Than that there can be no farther argument. The church that yields such blessings is not a church that I can contest, whatever her machinery may be. I ask: "What are the products? Where are the saints, men and women ?" If they are Christ-like, they are all right. I go into the Unitarian Church. I want no better CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 249 Christians than I find there. They are orthodox, sound, by every Christian man and every Christian woman among them "that makes piety beautiful in the eyes of mankind. I go into the Swedenborgian Church. Brother Ager is a good enough Christian for me. He is soundly orthodox, whatever he believes. No matter about that. I don't care what a man believes. What'si he? That is my question. I say that what a man is, is his confession of faith. A man's life is more important than any statement of the phi- losophy of that life, or of the machinery by which that life was brought into existence. It is true that some schools are better than other schools, that some methods of teaching are very likely to be better than some others, that some statements of doctrine are better than some other statements of doctrine in their apti- tude to carry men on and upward. I will not discriminate as to which I think is the better, though I can well under- stand that there is a difference between one and another; but this I say, that when any man has been made a Chris- tian, luminous of heaven, he does not belong to the church that bred him : he belongs to that universal church which has no exposition but in the sympathies of the universe ; and he belongs to you and to me. And, sir, don't take on airs, as if Channing was your man. He is my man as much as he is yours. I have seen considerable of that spirit here to-night, — and I feel bound as a Christian to fight it, — as if you had a man that you would let us come and look at, as if we might be permitted to come on this platform and wor- ship your hero. I thank God that you have some such men t;o worship and to present to us. It is a sign that there is a sort of grace with you. Your doctrines may be very im- perfect; but, after all, there is a grace of God that goes with imperfection. All sorts of instruments have been employed in this world. Oftentimes, too, the instrument has been more 250 CHANNING CENTENARY. than the prophet, as when Balaam went forth on his famous ride of old. * And, since all sorts of instruments are employed by the good God, no matter what the instrument is, it is the man that is created. Here was a man, in a dark day, in a day of controversy, in a day in which men stood very differently from the way in which they stand now ; and I look upon the godly man and see a lambent flame of holiness. I see that he was a light kindled in a dark place ; and the sweetness of his humility strikes me. He blushes in heaven to hear what is said of him on earth, if he attends to it, — though I think likely he does not. He was a good man. If he had been in the Roman Church, he would have been a saint ; and he is not less a saint, because he was in the Unitarian Church. We have learned that man is a better exposition of Chris- tianity than doctrines, or any of the various instruments of the church. We are learning to receive whom God receives ; and whenever a man shows that he is acceptable to the Master, is wearing his spirit, and is blessed by his contin- ual attendance, that man is sacred to us, no matter .to what denomination he may belong. A man is more than doctrine, — and mankind are more than church and more than govern- ment. Next to God, the only valuable thing in this universe is living men ; and all nature is prepared to take care of them. God is the Fountain and Cause of all things ; and all nature and all time and all providence and all grace are so many ministering servants to develop manhood in men. And the only difference there can possibly be in our view of God is this : those views of God that tend to beat men down, and to beat down their moral sense, you may be sure are false views ; while the views of God that tend to lift men up, to inspire them with a holy horror of sin, to lead them to aspire to holiness, and to give them a willingness to do kindness at their own expense, to live for mankind, and if CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 25 I need be to shed their blood, — such views are orthodox, how- ever defective the system may be from which they spring. When we look back, then, one hundred years, what do we see? The greatest change, I think, that has been produced in any hundred since the advent ; and, when I look forward from this stand-point, it seems to me that we stand just about in the month of April in the history of the world as we do in this year. We have had our dead winter, we have had our blustering, Controversial month of March, and now we have our month of April, which does not know exactly whether it has left March or whether it is entering into May ; but it is on the way toward summer, and soon there will come the blossoms of May already anticipated ; and after that will come June, the opal of the year ; and then the summer ; and then the harvest. We are on the full march ; and, therefore, instead of looking back to the leeks and onions of orthodoxy in Egypt, the spirit of God, the spirit, of philosophy, the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of true religion, is to forget the things that are behind, and to press forward toward the mark for the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus. Mr. Beecher resumed his seat amid the loud and long- continued applause of the audience, which had still remained unbroken, though it was now after eleven o'clock. The following verses, from Bryant's " Thou hast put all things under His feet," were then sung by the assembly to the tune of "Coronation," as the closing hymn : — O North, with all thy vales of green t O South, with all thy palms ! From peopled towns and fields between Uplift the voice of psalms. Raise, ancient East, the anthem high, And let the youthful West reply. 252 CHANNING CENTENARY. Lo 1 in the clouds of heaven appears God's well-beloved Son; He brings a train of brighter years ; His kingdom is begun. He comes, a guilty world to bless With mercy, truth, and righteousness. O Father I haste the promised hour, When at His feet shall lie All rule, authority, and power Beneath the ample sky ; When He shall reign from pole to pole, The Lord of every human soul ! The benediction was pronounced by the Rev. F. A. Farley, D.D., in these words : — Now, with gratitude in our hearts, and thanksgiving and praise to God for this occasion, for all its sweet memories, and for all the blessed words it has caused to be spoken, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with us, and remain with us always ! Amen. Cordial letters, expressive of interest in the celebration and of regret at not being able to attend its meetings, were received from the following near relatives of Dr. Charming : Rev. Geo. G. Channing, his only surviving brother, now in his ninety-first year; Rev. William Henry Channing, his nephew and biographer ; Dr. W. F. Channing; Miss Eliza- beth P. Channing ; Miss Mary Channing ; also from Rev. Charles T. Brooks; Miss Mary E. Davey; Rev. Dr. Samuel Osgood; George Ripley; Rev. Dr. H. W. Bellows; Rev. Dr. James Martineau; Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks; Rev. Dr. William Newell; Rev. Dr. John Cordner; Rev. Dr. F. H. Hedge; Rev. E. Turland; Rev. Dr. C. A. Bartol; Rev. Robert Spears ; Rev. Dr. Thomas Hill ; Bishop Joseph Ferencz ; Prof. David Swing ; Rev. Edwin M. Stone ; Rev. CELEBRATION AT BROOKLYN. 253 Dr. George H. Emerson ; Rev. Dr. Wm. G. Eliot ; Dr. Franz von Holtzendorff ; Prof. C. C. Everett, D.D. ; the Dutch Protestant Association, Holland; Rev. C. C. Sewall ; Hon. S. E. Sewall; Rev. Dr. G. W. Hosmer; Rev. Dr. John Cotton Smith; Rev. Dr. John H. Morison; Prince Arthur Odescalchi and others, Hungary; Mr. John Fretwell ; Charles W. Eliot, LL.D., President of Harvard University; ex-Governor George S. Boutwell, of Massachusetts ; Henry P. Kidder, Esq., President of the American Unitarian Asso- ciation; John H. Rogers, Esq., of Boston; Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson; Prof. J. -L. Diman, of Brown Uni- versity; Rev. E. A. Washburn, D.D., New York; Rev. W. H. Furness, D.D.; Rev. R. P. Stebbins, D.D. ; Rev. James Freeman Clarke, D.D. ; Rev. L. D. Bevan, D.D., of New York; Rev. E. E. Hale, D.D. ; Rev. Messrs. J. F. W. Ware, R. R. Shippen, Samuel Longfellow, S. R. Calthrop, Minot J. Savage, Brooke Herford, James De Normandie, C. A. Staples, C. G. Ames, H. H. Barber, E. H. Hall, etc. A few of these letters were read at the meeting. All are printed in the Appendix of the Special Report of the Brook- lyn meeting. THE CELEBRATION AT NEW YORK CITY. The comprehensiveness of the plan of the celebration in the neighboring city of Brooklyn, and the fact that two of the three Unitarian ministers of New York had accepted invitations to participate in the celebration at Newport, R.I., Channing's birthplace, made any special observance of the centennial day in New York impossible. Sermons appro- priate to the occasion were given on the Sundays preceding and following the anniversary day in the three Unitarian churches of the city, and at the Jewish Temple Emanu-el, by Rev. Dr. Gottheil ; and reference to Channing and his influence was made in many other pulpits and in the edi- torial columns of the leading newspapers of the city. At the meeting of the Historical Society of New York, on Tuesday evening, April 6, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Osgood delivered an oration on Channing's Life and Work, which held the interest of the assembly for an hour and a half, and on Judge Peabody's motion was ordered to be printed and placed in the society's archives. This address will have for Dr. Osgood's friends a double interest, from the fact that it was his last public utterance, delivered only a week before his death, on the 14th of April. Dr. Bellows' discourse was the one prepared for delivery CELEBRATION AT NEW YORK. 255 at Newport Mr. Collyer's sermon was a fresh and an in- teresting biographical sketch, which was published in full in the Christian Register of April 17. The following passages from the discourse of the Rev. Dr. Gustav Gottheil, the Rabbi of the Jewish Temple Emanu-el, will, we believe, be read with peculiar interest, as probably the most hearty and elaborate Jewish tribute ever paid to Channing. The text was from Daniel xii., 3 : " And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament ; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars forever and ever." After an introductory biographical passage, the preacher said : — Time was when a Christian saint's day struck terror to the heart of the Jew ; for it stirred up the embers of a smouldering wrath, and aroused a sleeping hatred, if ever, it did sleep, to new fury. „ It laid the bleeding, mangled bodies of its victims as a sweet savor on the altar of the saint. Time is now — how can we be sufficiently thankful for it? — when the gates of the church are thrown wide open, and all are invited to gather around and lay their flowers on the honored tomb ; and, when the Israelite is found among them, his tribute is gladly accepted. I was invited to take part in the celebration of the day in our sister city, Brooklyn. I responded gladly, and said what my heart prompted me to say. But I asked myself, Have we Israelites as a body no interest in the event beyond that of sympathetic spectators? Do we owe nothing to the great man ? And, if we do, why should we remain silent ? One of the Rabbinical sayings is . to this effect: "This life is to the other what the vestibule is to the palace." And they admonish us so to prepare ourselves in the outer court that we may worthily appear before the 256 CHANNING CENTENARY. King of kings in the inner court. What better portion can we think of than to remember lovingly and thankfully outside the palace those whom we shall meet inside ? Death will have swallowed up all our little creeds, will have blotted out all the dividing lines, and we shall then meet together. What a feeling that will be, knowing that there is nothing in the heart, nothing antagonistic, — no book, no church, no creed, — that any one of us will have to save or to defend, — because God will be in all, and all will be found in God ! Suppose we try to bring that heaven just a little nearer to our troubled earth, and lay our ear to a great heart, though it may have cherished a name of its own, just to feel how closely its heart-throbs resemble those of our own hearts. Here in our own house of prayer, and in the midst of worship of Almighty God, let us honor the memory of Channing. First and foremost, because he was a righteous man. ^Righteous did I say ? Why that is but poor praise ; for so may be the man of flinty heart, from which not a spark of love is emitted. But Channing's heart was suffused with love and compassion. His yearning for well-doing was so strong that it nerved his feeble body to uninterrupted action for his kind. The law of love was in his heart and on his lips. He was a great controversialist. The largest portion of his sermons and writings is devoted to exposure of the fallacies in religion, in politics, and in social life. He applied the scalpel with unsparing hand, cutting down as deep as he thought necessary in order to heal the sore. And yet I know of no other polemical writer so free from all bitterness, from all passionate vindictiveness, from all vile insinuations as he. His classic repose and absolute self- control never forsook him, even in the very heat of the battle. And, when his funeral cortege moved to his grave, the bells of the Catholic churches tolled their dirges, albeit CELEBRATION AT NEW YORK. 257 that Channing was a determined adversary of the Church of Rome. So overpowering indeed was the influence of his goodness, and so irresistible the beauty of his benevolent life! Next to this, we cherish his memory as that of a powerful and intrepid advocate of the emancipation of the slave, who takes his place in American history by the side of such men as William Lloyd Garrison. We honor him as a stanch upholder of' the divine rights of man, as the elo- quent defender of liberty, as a propounder of a national system of free education, from the primary school up to the university, and as one of the founders of a national literature. Now, as lovers of this country, as faithful children of this nation, you cannot but share in the general joy that a man was born who contributed so much to elevate America to the position which she occupies to-day ; whose diligent hands sowed the seed in the furrows of time, which now cover the fields with such abundant harvests. He has been called the representative man of what is best and most pe- culiar in the character and tendency of the American. If some theory or some name must needs be put into our Constitution, I for one shall vote for Channing's theory of a republic ; when he declares in his paper for the annexa- tion of Texas that " the ornaments and safeguards of a republic are'the higher virtues, the moral independence, the simplicity of manners, the stern uprightness, and the re- spect of man for man." It has been said that Channing s influence is waning. So much the worse for Americans. The fault does not lie with them, but with us, in allowing the voice of that prophet of righteousness to be drowned by the noises of selfish pas- - sions and mean political ends. We can see that Channing's life, even though it bore no relation at all to our religion, is 18 258 CHANNING CENTENARY. worthy of our recognition. If not, we should then leave un- noticed the noblest and largest part of his work, the peculiar work to which he had consecrated himself, — " to educate men to just views of God and man." In -Channing's days, Calvinism ruled supreme. The Ori- entals dream of a bridge, of the thickness of a hair only, over which the soul will have to pass on its way to paradise. The bridge that leads to the Calvinistic heaven is of no greater strength. One single doubt or misgiving, and the bridge snaps, and down the soul must go to eternal fire. You meet many people nowadays who hold exactly the same doctrine, but you do not recognize them, because these things have now receded to that domain to which they belong, — to the domain of private opinion. I have sometimes strayed into a church, — and I have been to al- most every variety of worship, — when I have heard from the pulpit theories that made my blood run cold. And I began to think, What a stern, unyielding, unloving character must the man have, who can adopt and preach such terrible doctrines of wrath and fury and brimstone ! But when, by chance, I have seen the man afterwards, come down from the cloudland of his pulpit to our solid earth, and have shaken his hand, I find that he is a capital fellow, whom the worst of theology could not spoil. It was * very different in the days in which Channing lived, at the beginning of the present century. That Christian theory pressed like a weight upon American society, and divided it. The controversy raged not only in the pulpit, but in every-day life. You would scarcely credit the fact that Channing saw, with his own eyes, a man arraigned in a court and sentenced to three months' imprisonment for ut- tering what was then called "blasphemy." If the same law were still carried out, one-half of New York would have to go to prison. He raised his voice against such a the- CELEBRATION AT NEW YORK. 259 ology. His mind revolted against a view of the Deity that invested the Eternal Father with a character among men that would cause the human father to be pointed at and abhorred as a monster. He crowned God with the glory of Fatherhood, and seated him on a throne of eternal justice, — a throne unshared by any other being. He held, as we hold, that man is not a criminal chained to this earth as his prison, but that he is crowned with glory and honor ; that, if he did fall in paradise, he fell, as has been truly said, upwards ; that he took the first step toward a higher moral development ; that every soul is God's' own property, for which he, as the Creator, is responsible to him- self, and being a faithful God he will see to it that his prom- ises be fulfilled. Channing tried to close the gates of hell, because he could never be happy in his paradise so long as these gates yawned to receive his fellow-sinners. He de- throned Satan, because he considered him a usurper of the power which belongs to God alone. So you see Channing preached the brotherhood and equality of men. And, if you look at it .a little carefully, you will find that Judaism was preached in Boston long before a single Jew had settled there, at a time when there was no synagogue there out- side of Federal Street Church, where Channing preached to throngs of devout hearers. Is it not, then, a cause of joy to us that that truth has burst through all the thin layers of the Calvinistic rock, and has welled up in so pure a state, and reflects such a beautiful light as that man was able to shed upon it ? Not that he meant to preach anything but Christianity. Channing was a believing Christian ; and, probably, if he were here and heard me so construe his theory, he would turn around and protest. Many preach- , Moses in their churches, though they do not acknowledge it. Jesus was to Channing, if not God, yet the next of kin, who was sent into this world in a miraculous way, to per- 26o CHANNING CENTENARY. form a work of such stupendous and unique character that it can be accounted for on no other theory than that of the suspension of all natural causes. But his disciples have long since blotted out the circle of his theology, and clung only to his principles and his spirit ; and that spirit is immortal. Channing spoke for his time. His favorite theory of a church purified by the holy spirit which he thought to breathe into it, as the mother of a redeemed world, will never be fulfilled. But there is a true prophecy in words like these: "Charity," he says, "and forbearance delight the virtuous of the different sects : recrimination and cen- sure we condemn/' Those are virtues which, however poorly practised by us, we heartily recommend. We would rather join ourselves to the church in which they abound than to any other communion, however well confirmed their belief in their own orthodoxy. That spirit is destined to burst all the husks of dogmas based on particular histories, and to rear the temple of the living God on the eternal rock of human consciousness and all the common experiences and needs of our common humanity. The sects of which Chan- ning speaks are Christian sects. That follows from the preceding sentence. The Jews are left out in the cold altogether. His references to the Jews are few, and Ju- daism as a surviving religion seems to have been entirely outside of his horizon. Of the deep pathos of Jewish his- tory, of their martyrdom for the same truths which he de- fended, and which were so dear to him, he seems to have known nothing. This is not to be wondered at, since there existed in his day but very little of Judaism in America, and that little in a petrified state, the mediaeval orthodoxy, symbolized by what we see in his own birthplace in New- port, a burial-place and an empty synagogue. But, had he witnessed the rejuvenescence in our day, he would have felt CELEBRATION AT NEW YORK. 26 1 the affinity between his spirit and that in which we endeavor to reconstruct our religion just as keenly as do his followers nowadays. He might have stood in this very pulpit. He might have reiterated in our own hearing his adoring homage to the one God and Father in heaven, which would grace any synagogue. He could have repeated his pleadings for the brotherhood of all men, his trumpet-calls to duty and virtue, his tender appeals for the poor and the suffering, his elevating and ennobling prophecies of a glorious future in store for man, both here and hereafter. Had he done so, I know that each one of you would have said with all your heart and soul, To such teachings, Amen. THE CHICAGO CELEBRATION. Of this meeting, "C. P. W.," the regular correspondent of the Christian Register, says : — The call for the Charming celebration at Chicago was signed by many of the orthodox clergymen of the city, and the committee of arrange- ments included Rev. Dr. Felsenthal, a Jewish rabbi; Dr. Lorimer, Bap- tist; Dr. Thomas, Methodist; Prof. Swing, Independent; and Messrs. Herford, Alger, and Galvin, Unitarians. Long before the hour of opening, the crowd began to gather at the doors of Central Music Hall on the evening of April 7, and by eight o'clock an audience of nearly two thousand had assembled in celebra- tion of the Channing centenary. The six addresses which constituted the principal part of the programme were happily interspersed with fine music and the reading of letters from a few distinguished invites who could not be present. Hon. Isaac N. Arnold served as reader. A friendly word was received from our beloved poet Whittier, and mes- sages of sympathy and regret from Dr. Bellows, George W. Curtis, and Edward E. Hale. The first speaker of the evening was Judge Henry Strong, whose subject was " Channing's Influence on Public Life." The wise, impar- tial, and statesmanlike qualities of Channing's mind were clearly set forth; and at the close a comparison was drawn between him and Mon- tesquieu, of whom Voltaire said, " When the human race had lost their charter, Montesquieu found and restored it." Prof. David Swing then read a brief essay, replete with brilliant meta- phor, delicate and playful irony, and graceful narrative. It fell to his CELEBRATION AT CHICAGO. 263 share to treat of the religious influence of Channing, which he naturally found to lie, not in his leadership of a new sect, but in the emphasis he laid upon the two ideas of the divine goodness and wisdom and the dignity of human nature. Dr. Channing lived at a time when theology "had gone wrong at both ends," having "set up a bad doctrine of God and a bad doctrine of man." What Channing did was to "take up his pencil and retouch both canvases, so that Christianity saw a new image of God and a new image of man." Respecting the Trinitarian contro- versies of those days, Prof. Swing thought that it was not the number so much as the quality of the Godhead that disturbed the religious sen- sibilities of men. A Deity with three faces might not be so bad, if each face beamed with love. The speaker alluded to the criticism of Joseph Cook, that the influence of Channing is on the wane ; and the comment, " Well perhaps it is so," was, as one of the morning papers puts it, " spoken highly sarcastically," and with an additional touch of the char- acteristic drawl. Channing's influence is on the wane, said Prof. Swing, in much the "same sense as abolitionism is, because the slave is free; or from the same cause that induced the woman in the Scriptures, after she had found her piece of silver, to stop sweeping for it; or for the reason that, like Alexander, it has no more worlds to conquer." The definite outlines of Channing's work are lost, if lost at all, in its general adoption and assimilation into the thought of the day. Rev. G. C. Lorimer, the popular Baptist preacher, whose weekly con- gregations run up into the thousands and rival those of Central Church, followed in an address on " Channing as a Philanthropist." In a series of brilliant periods, Boston and Boston charities, and lastly and most gen- erously Unitarian labors in these charities, received most glowing trib- utes. Whether Dr. Channing understood aright the scope and meaning of Christ's thought or not might be open to question, but there could be no difference of opinion as to his comprehension of the Master's heart. As Dr. Lorimer is a straight-out orthodox clergyman, if should be said that, for a perfectly frank, manly, and courteous bearing toward forms of thought which he must hold in deep distrust, he deserves the laurels of the occasion. After him came Rev. W. R. Alger, with the congenial theme " The Character of Channing as an Ideal Force in the Life of America." He drew a contrast between the average ideals of the Vanderbilt and Jay Gould order, produced by a materialistic age like the present, and those types of the highest spiritual excellence, among which America has pro- duced one of the greatest in Channing. To Rev. Dr. Thomas, the liberal Methodist, was assigned the topic of 264 CHANNING CENTENARY. Channing's relation to the anti-slavery cause, presumably, the speaker said, because he was a Southerner. After expressing the great pleasure he felt in attending a meeting of this kind, he proceeded to give a brief and graphic account of the political condition of the North and South half a century ago, and a risumi of the work of Channing in the cause of human freedom. He called attention to the persistent- religious pur- pose underlying all that Channing did and said on this subject, and forming the inspiring motive of his life, quoting those words of high faith and courage, " If I did not see any way to right this wrong, I would still believe there was a way." Rev. Brooke Herford made the concluding address, his subject being " Channing's Influence in Europe." Channing did not belong to America alone. Channing had the distinction, growing rarer every year, of descent from one of those families that did not come over in the " May- flower." [Laughter.] Europe was in a mighty struggle when Channing was a young man. He watched the career of Napoleon, appalled at that conqueror's wickedness, and never dazzled by the splendors of his success. He appreciated the fact that England was, almost single- handed, fighting the battle of freedom; and he opposed his country's war with England. As Channing appreciated Europe, so he was appreciated by Europe. Next to Irving, he was the first man to compel Englishmen to read American books. His collected works were published first in England. His essay on Self-culture was the foundation of many a library and reading-club in England. It was in its time almost'the text- book of the self-education of thousands of young men of England. Mr. Herford cited the estimates of Channing entertained by Frederic Rob- ertson, Sismundi, Laboulaye, and Bunsen. His works were translated into all the leading languages of Europe. They were softening the Lutheranism of Sweden, they were eagerly read by Calvinistic pastors in Hungary, and an Italian statesman said, " On Channing's line, religion is still possible to Italy." [Applause.] Ten years ago, it was doubted if an edition of ten thousand copies of Channing's works could be sold. Before that edition was issued,~ twenty thousand were subscribed for ; and now an edition of one hundred thousand was being prepared. This evening, Channing's centenary was being celebrated in many of the leading European cities. The finest town hall in England, in his old city of Manchester, was echoing to eulogies such as they were listen- ing to in Chicago ; and in London a great meeting was being addressed by Rev. Baldwin Brown, the leading English Congregationalist, and Thomas Hughes ; and Rev. James Martineau had come out of his retirement to say one more word in public for the memory of his old CELEBRATION AT CHICAGO. 265 friend. Mr. Herford concluded with a prophecy of Channing's ever widening and deepening influence. In every particular, the Channing memorial celebration in Chicago was a triumphant success. By means of it, the bonds of brotherly love and religious fellowship will be strengthened anew, and a multitude of sweet and helpful influences set to work in favor of spiritual freedom and moral culture. The addresses of Prof. David Swing, Rev. H. W. Thomas, D.D., Rev. George C. Lorimer, D.D., and Rev. William R. Alger, are given here in full, as they appeared in the Chicago Alliance of April 17. CHANNING AS A RELIGIOUS BEFOBMEB. By Prof. David Swing. This evening, set apart for expressions of regard toward the name of a great Christian worker, our friendship will all be good and true and a unit, but opinions will be many as to wherein lay the influence of him we recall. In my mind, the influence and merit of Channing came not from his opposition to the notion of the Trinity, but from his exaltation of man. The oneness of God and the secondary position of Jesus Christ had been taught fully and clearly for three hundred years. In the north of Ireland there were Presbyteries of Unitarian Presbyterians, and through Eng- land there were many Baptist Unitarians. The names of Milton, Samuel Clark, Lardner, Locke, and Isaac Newton, may well remind us that William Ellery Channing was born too late to become illustrious or influential by teaching that only the heavenly Father is God. Adding somewhat to the momentum of this doctrine, his most significant task was to transform man, a " vile worm," into man, an angel ; and to transform a despotic Deity into a most just and 266 CHANNING CENTENARY. tender friend. It was not the threeness of the orthodox Deity which harmed that form of Christianity, but it was the infinite cruelty of the "threeness" which wrought the injury. A creator of three faces would not harm religion, if each countenance shone with love. For innocent mor- tals to be punished for the glory of God was not made any less rational or more cruel by the consideration that this God had three persons in the Godhead. The Jehovah which ordered the exterminating wars of old Canaan was not a trinity, but a unity, thus teaching us that the bad element in old Christianity was not the number of the persons in the Godhead, but it was the quality of the per- sons. Moses and Joshua were Unitarians, but they were not Channings. The beauty of Unitarianism lies more in its picture of God than in its unity of him. Not from unity as an idea, or from it as a spiritual truth, did this noble Christian draw his eminent place in the world's memory, but this high position came from the excessive light which this clear mind poured upon the nature of God and upon human life in all its details of duty and hope. Let us permit him to announce his own form of Christianity: " From the direction theology has taken, it has been thought that to ascribe anything to man was to detract from God. The disposition has been to establish striking contrasts between man and God, and not to see and rejoice in the like- ness between them. It has been thought that to darken the creature was the way to bring out more clearly the splendor of the Creator. . . . Man's place is in the dust. - The entire prostration of his faculties is the true homage he is to offer God." Channing deeply felt the falseness and harmfulness of any moral system which tended to make man degrade himself, and hence his most powerful blows were always dealt out against those dogmas which made humanity a lot of rubbish fit only to be burned; and for all dogmas CELEBRATION AT CHICAGO. 267 that could make the mind look toward education and high character and which could fill the heart with both earthly and heavenly hope. In the early days of most of us there were several denom- inations which could not find language that could express too strongly the richness with which all men deserved eternal punishment. Man was the being to receive and God just the being to bestow inexpressible calamity. Chan- ning came upon this dark scene a messenger of more light and peace. He said, Man is not such a fit subject of pain, and God is not the being to inflict pain. Theology had gone wrong at both ends of its thought. It had set up a bad picture of God and a bad picture of man. He whom we remember to-night took up his pencil and retouched both canvases ; and, behold, when his hand dropped, Christianity saw the image of Jehovah in the benignant face of Christ, and saw in the same temple a grand portraiture of man. The subjects of sermons gradually changed in the evan- gelical pulpit. It did not abate its zeal over the distinctive doctrines of the cross, but it found time and impulse for discourses upon education and temperance and emancipa- tion, and industry and frugality, and upon all the consid- erations of success and happiness in this world. A broad man sweeping along with so much of eloquence and sweet- ness, and touching society at all points, waked up much imitation even among clergymen who differed with their model in some one or more particulars. The old-time clergy came out of their cells of abstraction rather slowly. They always had come out in hours of great peril for State or Church ; but, as soon as some great national or religious peril had passed away, they relapsed at once into abstrac- tion about theological, far-away matters, and could not realize that all life is storm-tossed. The old pulpit could preach for liberty in war times ; but, when peace came, it 268 CHAXNING CENTENARY. could, if need be, own a few slaves. And it seemed aware of' the evils of intemperance ; but, for years and years to- gether, it could preach the cardinal doctrines, as it called them, and meanwhile taste a little strong drink, if the weather were too hot or too cold. It sometimes touched mankind in bulk, but seldom in detail. Into the midst of such forms of Christianity, Channing came, not more as a Unitarian than as a teacher of a whole Christian civilization. His task was an adaptation of Christ to human life, — a forerunner of such teachings as now appear in the Manliness of Christ and in the discourses of Dean Stanley and Howard Crosby and Dr. Storrs. He brought new themes to Presbyterian and Methodist and Episcopalian, and helped build up a demand for all such books as Thompson's Sermons to Young Men. Powerful as this orator was in presenting the unity of God, he was more effective and more demanded in his grand exaltation of the individual man and woman and child. The same ration- alism which led this careful thinker to reject the Trinity led him to apply the life and teachings of Jesus to earthly things ; for reason dares not slight a life that now is for one that is to come. And the same rationalism attended this heart, when it sat down to interpret the sacred books. Channingism was, therefore, a Christian rationalism, the calmest and most devout that had appeared up to the date of its birth. It was the reason of Bacon or Isaac Newton, joined with the spirituality of a F^nelon or an Augustine. It was prayer separated from credulity. After urging morn- ing prayer, he passes to evening prayer, in the following strain: "The evening is a fit time for prayer, not only as it ends the day, but as it immediately precedes the hour of repose. We are soon to sink into insensibility and sleep. How fit that we resign ourselves to the care of that Being who never sleeps, to whom the darkness is as the light, and CELEBRATION AT CHICAGO. 269 whose providence is our only safety ! How fit to entreat Him that he would keep us to another day ; or, if our bed should prove our grave, that he would give us a part in the resurrection of the just, and awake us to a purer and immortal life ! " Words which strangely mingle logic and piety, and remind us of some one soul that must be partly a Carlyle and partly an Isaac Watts. This influence upon surrounding creeds came as much from manner as from philosophy. No reformer ever treated an opponent more justly or kindly. It has not often been the good fortune of Calvinism to meet so fair an opponent. In his most powerful review of that form of belief, he makes an opening statement, which many others in similar movements on either side of a question have neglected to introduce : "We intend to treat this subject with great freedom, but we beg that it may be understood that by Calvinism we intend only the peculiarities of that system. We would also have it remembered that these peculiarities form a small part of the religious faith of a Calvinist. He joins with them the general and most important truths of Christianity. . . . Accordingly, it has been our happiness to see in the numer- ous body by which they are professed some of the brightest examples of Christian virtue. Our hostility to the doctrine does not extend to its advocates." To the favorite ideas of Channing add this justness and even sweetness of spirit, and it will be seen that this Christian affected all adjacent theology, not only by his logical power, but by his wide sympathy. I must not speak beyond my limited time. Joseph Cook has said that "Channing's influence is on the decline." This may be true. If true, the explanation must be found in the parallel that the fame of abolitionism has declined because the slaves have become free, in the parallel that after the woman in the Bible had found her lost piece of 270 CHANNING CENTENARY. silver she quit sweeping for it. Channingism has perhaps failed, like Alexander, because it has no more worlds to conquer. Even Joseph Cook himself resembles this new star more than he resembles those that went down before this new era came. If Channingism has failed, it is be- cause it has been so absorbed by the American Church and assimilated that it has lost its definite outline by becoming almost universal. The Evangelical churches have not sur- rendered their estimate of Christ, but in other respects they have journeyed toward rather than away from him whose memory we recall to-night. CHANNHJG'S ANTI-SLAVERY WORK. By Rev. H. W. Thomas, D.D. I had no conference with the committee in reference to the part I should take on this programme ; and I suppose they assigned me this, because they knew I was a South- erner, — born and raised in a slave state. [Laughter.] Well, I have always been proud of that, and proud that I came from one of the very first families of the South. [Laughter.] We never owned any slaves, and we did our own harvest work. [Applause.] I was quite an abolition- ist when I was but two years old [laughter] ; and my hatred of despotism and oppression of every kind, physical or men- tal, by Church or State, has increased with every passing year. [Applause.] Slavery has always formed a dark page in the history of our world. It has resulted from despotism, from wars, from captivities, and from the cruelty and avarice of men. But not until the last few hundred years did it cease to be gen- eral in its victims, and settle down upon the poor, inoffen- sive, and helpless African. CELEBRATION AT CHICAGO. 27 1 The great anti-slavery agitation began in England, about a hundred years ago, under the labors of Wilberforce and Clarkson and Pitt. In 1791, Wilberforce moved to bring before the House of Parliament a bill to prevent the impor- tation of slaves to the British colonies. In 1807, under the administration of Fox, he secured its adoption by both houses. Then he and those noble workers for liberty be- gan the agitation of the plan for the emancipation of the slaves in the West Indies, and in 1833 — forty-seven years ago — this act was passed. It was natural that the French Revolution, and all these movements in England for liberty, should have excited the people of our own country; and it was under the influence of such excitements that Channing spent his early and his college years. After graduation, he spent a year and a half in Richmond, Va., making his home with a Mr. Ran- dolph, chief marshal of the State. Here his mind was much exercised. He studied philosophy and theology, and was deeply moved at the condition of society and the sufferings of the colored people. He says, " I could weep over a novel or over the sufferings of the poor ; and then the thought came to me that I feel deeply, but what am I doing for these people ? " This question aroused him to thoughts of action. A few years later, he spent the winter in the Island of Bermuda. Here he was still more deeply impressed with the call of duty, and began the outline of his first work on the evils of the slave system. To understand Dr. .Channing's position and work, we should reflect upon the condition of society in this country in those days. In the South there was the general pro- slavery sentiment, but there were two classes. One class was radically pro-slavery, — the "fire-eaters" of the South, as we call them. The other class was pro-slavery, but felt that it was hardly right, and yet quieted their consciences 272 CHANNING CENTENARY. in the reflection that it was sanctioned by the law and the church. In the North there were three classes : the extreme conservatives, who looked with favor upon the Southern in- stitutions ; the extreme radicals or abolitionists, who sought the destruction of these institutions; and, between them, the clearly pronounced anti-slavery party, who believed slavery to be wrong, and yet who could not wholly sanction the course pursued by the abolitionists. To this third or middle party, Channing belonged. He was aroused to greater ac- tion by the murder of Lovejoy in 1837, and the refusal of the authorities of Boston to open Faneuil Hall for a public meeting. Dr. Channing' s writings on the subject are the following : The Evils of Slavery in 1835 ; in 1837, Letter to Henry Clay ; in 1839, Reply to Clay ; in 1840, Emancipation in the West Indies ; in 1842, Duty of the Free States ; and, also in the same year, his last address at Lenox, Mass. I can only suggest the bearing of these able works. He sought to bring all questions to the great principles of right. " The universe is ruled by almighty rectitude and impartial good- ness," was his foundation argument. He claimed that slavery violated the principles of right, — showed its effects upon the slave, the master, the home, and society. And yet he was opposed to violence, to inciting insurrection. " Better bare," he said, " our own bosoms to the knife than to put it in the hand of the slave to slay his master." But he claimed that we should give the slaves our moral support, and resisted the arrogance of the South in trying to muzzle the press of the North and to silence her orators. Channing calmly met Clay's argument, — that slavery was necessary for the security of the government : he pointed to a statue of liberty with a " slave and a chain as a pedestal." To Clay's claim that the North had S 1,200,000,000 in slaves, Channing replied, the more, the worse ; that money did not weigh in CELEBRATION AT CHICAGO. 273 morals, and the amount did not change the character. The author of Memoirs of Harriet Martineau does great injus- tice to Channing by claiming, in the presence of these facts, that, while Webster and others were the legal and business apologists of slavery in the North, Channing was brought in to cover its religious aspects. Channing said all a man could say, — spoke wisely, plainly, and well. He claimed the right and duty of the North to speak, and he spoke. He claimed that the earth had better be given over to wild beasts than that men should sanction wrong. He had great faith in the power of trust and principle, and that these would somehow prevail. He believed that the love of God, that had reached the world in Christ, was a power to reconcile the world, and that it would' open all prison-doors. In his last address, only a few months before his death, he says, "Come, O Kingdom of God, for which we daily pray, — come, and break every chain, set every prisoner free." My friends, Channing went to sleep. Wilberforce and Fox and Pitt were gathered to their rest. In our day, the great'struggle came. The fife and the drum were heard in the land. Our fathers and brothers and sons went to the war. The flag was saved, the slaves were freed. And, oh ! with what joy must these toilers for liberty — Wilberforce and Clarkson, Parker and Sumner, and Lovejoy and Lincoln — look down from the heavenly heights upon the great work, upon a land that is free ! Had Channing lived in the days of the Rebellion, he would have been for the Union and the Emancipation. Were he here, to-day, he would say, Stand by the freedmen ; help the refuges ; build schools and churches all over the South for these poor people. And let us take up his work, and carry it on till all minds and hearts may rejoice-in the. blessings of liberty and justice. 274 CHANNING CENTENARY. ADDKESS OF BEV. GEO. C. LOEIMEE, D.D. The highest expression of the religious idea is philan- thropy. It is the sublimest, as it is the truest, embodiment of its spirit-. It is the purest worship, the divinest ritual. In comparison with it, processions, mitres, crosiers, tiaras, smoking altars, glittering shrines, and all the tawdry frip- pery of sacerdotalism, are vulgar, childish, and obtrusive. Beneficence cannot but be the supreme symbol of a religion whose Author is pre-eminently Love. Goodness can be the only real incarnation of the infinitely Good ; and giving ourselves for others, the only adequate exposition of a sys- tem that reveals an All-Father giving his Son, and the Son as giving himself, for the life of the world. Coleridge has said that, " to restore a commonplace truth to its first uncommon lustre, you need only translate it into action." In my judgment, this was one of the most distin- guished features of Dr. Channing's brilliant career. He translated into the language both of doctrine and conduct the great commonplace of Christianity, — its philanthropy, — and set it before society radiant with its original beauty. Dr. Channing was beyond everything else a philanthropist. Whether he fully grasped the vast themes of Christ's min- istry, or rose to the high level of his transcendent thought, may be open to debate ; but there can be no doubt that he sympathized with the heart of love, and entered deeply into the spirit that led the Saviour to care for the neglected, to rescue the perishing, to deliver the captive, and to lift up the fallen. The philanthropy of Dr. Channing was certainly orthodox, whatever we may think of his theology. And as charity never faileth, even when his teachings shall fail, and the memory of his eloquent tongue shall cease to stir, and his knowledge shall vanish quite away, that shall still abide to guide and bless mankind. CELEBRATION AT CHICAGO. 2/5 If we may judge the influence of this servant of God by the community in which he lived and labored, we will cease to question its Christly character. Boston, eminent in let- ters, is supereminent in charities. That old city, radical in its ideas of right, uncompromising in its devotion to prin- ciple, stern and rugged, is, perhaps beyond all others, the one most easily moved by the appeals of suffering and sorrow. To the cry of distress, its ear is never closed ; to the plaint of indigence, its hand is ever open. And whether the wail of anguish arises from a poverty-stricken South, a fire-scarred West, or a famine-stricken Ireland, it is as ready to help as the dews are to refresh the sun-scorched flowers, or the rain to fertilize the drouth-encrusted earth. Relig- ious, political, and commercial rivalries and animosities melt like snow before the genial warmth of its philanthropy, and no more bound its gracious ministry than glaciers, icebergs, or grinding frozen seas restrain the rising of the sun. This spirit is common to all classes, all societies, churches, sects, and parties in Boston, and is conspicuously prominent in that religious body of which Dr. Channing was an honored member. And, as long as it continues to number among its representatives such noble men as Edward Everett Hale, whose truly human soul, whose cosmopolitan tastes, sen- timents, and culture, and whose unfailing love impart a gentle cadence to the music of his speech, the Unitarians will continue to reign a queen among the sisterhood of charity. How much of this spirit is traceable to Dr. Chan- ning, I 4eave others to determine ; but, that it is largely due to his influence, a brief analysis of his philanthropy will demonstrate. If we examine its source, we shall find it springing from an abiding sympathy with humanity. Throughout his min- istry, he laid great stress on love,— the love of God for man, the love of man for man. So deep was this divine passion 276 CHANNING CENTENARY. ~in his breast, and so strong, that he was acutely pained at the thought of every evil that afflicts the race. He con- fessed that "his nature was such that he turned away from the contemplation of evil," and added that "his mind sought the good, the perfect, the beautiful." "It is only," he said, "from a sense of duty that I read a narrative of guilt in the daily papers." To him, " souls in evil " were a terrible sight ; and the partial success which attended all efforts to deliver them was appalling. Continually, he was haunted by a grand ideal of humanity. He regarded its redemption as of price- less worth, and as claiming the best endeavors of the pure and enlightened. "One soul," he said, "is worth more than material worlds." " Men travel far to see the wonders of nature and art. The greatest wonder is man himself." He believed in the essential "grandeur of man's nature, its like- ness to God, its immortality, its power of endless progress." And describing him as the "victim of sin," "as the fallen, but redeemed," he regarded Christ's advent as the sign of the high value placed by God himself upon his ruined creat- ures. Condition, station, shame, ignorance, even crime, could never obscure to his eyes the immeasurable impor- tance of the soul, or lessen his interest in its well-being. He never sympathized with the theory now growing in favor, — that philanthropy is simply a measure of society, inspired by social perils, and determined by its necessities. No more did he approve of that selfish utilitarian philosophy that puts happiness before morality. He was not a nice calculator of profits and losses, but expressly taught that good should be attempted, not so much for the benefit to be reaped by the doer as for the blessings it confers on the recipient. In a word, he fully realized the spirit of the Master, who sought not primarily the elevation of society, nor the mere correc- tion of its abuses, but, first of all, the salvation of man as man, and that, too, not from an arithmetical balancing of CELEBRATION AT CHICAGO. 277 advantages to be gained, but from an intense and a consum- ing love of the being in whom God had wrought his image, and for whom he had given his Son to die. This thought furnishes the key to Dr. Channing's philan- thropic methods. They were essentially spiritual. He pro- claimed no superficial cure for the deep-seated diseases and evils of the race. His reliance was not centred in external means and material agencies. In his opinion, poverty never can be permanently relieved by bounteous gifts of fuel, food, or clothing. Such assistance he even looked on with dis- trust, as tending to pauperize large bodies of people. At best, it could only be of temporary service, and under no state of the case should be relied on permanently. His theory was, Educate the people to take care of themselves, and they will overcome the evils of their condition. Con- centrate beneficence on the elevation of the man, and he will take care of himself afterward. This explains the stress he laid on the preaching of the gospel. He knew its capabili- ties, its tendency to produce a noble type of self-dependent manhood ; and he would have every means used to bring the entire community under its influence. For this reason, he took great interest in what is known ' as the Ministry at Large, — an agency appointed to carry the teachings and offices of Christianity to the poor, — and expressed a desire to see such congregations gathered under its preaching as assembled to hear the Methodists of his day. He carefully sought the 'reason for Mr. O. A. Brownson's comparative failure to attract and hold the people, when that gentleman tried to draw them to his ministry, and attributed it to the philosophical style of his pulpit efforts. While he did not believe in the perpetuity of the Jewish Sabbath, he regarded the Lord's day as sacred, and advocated its observance as a day of private and public religious instructions, not to be desecrated by amusements, for which he would have society 2/8 CHAXXING CEXTEXARV. set apart a portion of Saturday. He thought that the day could not be more highly honored than by consecrating it to instruction in Christianity and to the practical exemplifica- tion of its beneficence. He would have it fully devoted* to man as it was originally made for man, — not made for him to abuse, to pervert, to degrade into an opportunity for riot, debauchery, or serviceless amusements. The day rightly observed would tend to the regeneration of man- hood, and hence the high value it had in Dr. Channing's eyes. This also accounts for the part he bore in the educa- tional movements of his time. Fully sympathizing with Horace Mann, supplementing his labors with his pen, he also gave to the world his stimulating paper on Self-culture, which has exerted so wholesome and so wide-spread an in- fluence for good both in Europe and America. The secret of all these endeavors was his profound conviction that the needs of the race required pre-eminently the elevation and enlightenment of each individual, and that every method that came short of this would be fatally defective. I am in- clined to-night to remind you emphatically of his position, as it may warn you against some illusions of philanthropy that are at present current in almost every community. We have only recently been told that it would be better to break up our churches, silence our preachers, sell the property held by different denominations, and give all to the poor. This has an air of philanthropy about it, and many regard it as the outcome of lofty wisdom. Channing would have de- nounced it as the consummation of folly. Hew down your orchards, dry up the sources of your streams, and expect fruit and expansive rivers afterwards, and you will be less de- ceived than you are by the expectation that the extirpation of Christianity and the conversion of the proceeds for the benefit of the indigent will end all poverty and suffering. Such a measure might bring temporary physical relief; but. CELEBRATION AT CHICAGO. 279 as the sources of spiritual renewal would perish through it, the permanent condition of humanity would remain sadder and more debased than ever. Some of our modern reformers look to government, to agitations and strikes, or to associa- tions, as affording means of practically solving the problems which perplex society. It is simply another form of the error that relief is to come from without, not from within. Channing appreciated good government, but he recognized the limits of its beneficent power. Some things it cannot do. He realized this, and compared it to the walls of a house, affording protection to the machinery, but it cannot fabricate the goods. The people make the government, and only in a very inferior sense does the government make the people. Strikes and revolutions Dr. Channing looked on with distrust, and he dreaded the "tyranny incident to asso- ciated action." He was not the enemy of associations, but in a paper pointed out their perils, and reaffirmed his old doctrine of individual and family improvement. And, in this, I venture to say that he interprets the method of Jesus Christ as it is presented in the gospel; and I am old- fashioned enough to avow myself a sincere believer in its efficacy. It remains for me to add that the philanthropy of Chan- ning was all-inclusive in its scope. Every year produces some reformer, who is one-sided and partial, the partisan of some special virtue or improvement. * He is apparently ig- norant of every other interest than the one that has secured his special advocacy, or, if not, is at least indifferent to its welfare. It may be temperance, labor-reform, Sabbath ob- servance, kindness to animals, the social evil, or some other movement of equal importance. Whatever it is, he gives himself up absolutely to its success, becomes so absorbed in it that it casts into the shade all other claims. He judges the virtue of others by the degree of sympathy they feel in 280 CHANGING CENTENARY. his idol, and is ready to stone them, if they fail to worship it as unreservedly as he does. But this was not characteristic of Channing. His mind was too broad, his heart too large, for so narrow and discriminating a philanthropy. He ad- vocated temperance, he pleaded the cause of the laboring man, he uttered his protest against war, he befriended the criminal, he denounced slavery and defended liberty. Even Abner Kneeland, condemned by the courts of Massachusetts on a charge of atheism, he petitioned for, in the name of that freedom which is the heritage of unbelievers as well as believers. Thus his philanthropy was full-orbed, compre- hensive, symmetrical, as will be the philanthropy of every man who has been taught in the school of Christ. As I close this rSsumi, I deem it a fitting opportunity to urge upon the good citizens of Chicago the example of this eminent friend of humanity. In his name, — yea, in the name of One higher, from whom he derived his inspiration, — I plead for education, for the extension of its blessings to all our children, and for special efforts to make this one of the great university cities of the world. I plead for temper- ance, for the better observance of the Sabbath, and for sympathy with the poor and with the struggling laboring classes. Let us not be indifferent to these great objects; let us not lose sight of them in the mad pursuit of wealth and material splendor. These words of mine are but echoes of that philanthropy which you admire in Channing. Happy shall we be, if even the echoes shall guide us to the field where real glory is to be won. Remember that the great- ness of Chicago is indissolubly interwoven with her chari- ties, her benefactions, her seats of learning, and that the brotherhood of citizens can only be perfected by the spirit of philanthropy reigning among them. Let philanthropy prevail, and our people will be blessed ; and, though creeds and nationalities may sometimes divide us, let philanthropy CELEBRATION AT CHICAGO. 28 1 rule, and, though we be Calvinists, Arminians, or Unita- rians, in each other we shall trace the features of a brother, and in each other's grasp feel the warm pulsations of a brother's heart. ADDRESS OF RET, W. R. ALGER. There is an extreme fitness in the democratic nature of this celebration, in which not only the liberal professions and the leaders of society are represented, but also the doors are opened for the people to come in from the streets. For a great man sheds lustre on those below him. They are seen lifted up and glorified in him. The greatness of human virtue is revealed in him. The transcendent quali- ties shown in his life, which enable us to think of him as a God-like and immortal creature, help us to hold the same belief as to the common crowds of men, since they have a common nature with him. My wish on the present occasion is to illustrate the work- ing of the character and power of Channing as an ideal force in the life of America. In the good sense of the words, what is an ideal force? Any influence acting through our intelligence and sensibility to purify, free, and ennoble us, to expand, enrich, and consecrate us. It is by means of ideal forces that our moral education is secured, that our passions and sentiments are restrained, impelled, regulated. These forces are of several distinct varieties and ranks. If we glance rapidly at their definitions, it will enable us to grasp the conclusion which I am to establish. First comes perceptive education^ or the Theoretic Ideal. This embodies in rules, maxims, exhortations, the average moral perceptions current in society, the standard of con- duct established in the ordinary acceptance and profession of the community. The power of these precepts as incul- 282 CHANNING CENTENARY. cated in the family, the school, and the church, is not very vivid or profound. This is usually overrated as a saving influence. What power it exerts comes chiefly from the personal authority of revered and beloved characters asso- ciated with the precepts in the memory of the pulpit. Secondly, we find operative as a moulding moral force what may be called social education, or the Realistic Ideal. This is the action on the individual of the living social order around him, the embodiment, not of the profession of aver- age mankind, but of the sincerest and strongest passions. What the ruling "multitudes environing us say is right and desirable has some influence on us ; but what the}" demon- strate to be their sovereign convictions and desires, by actu- al lv incarnating them in their daily conduct, this influences us far more deeply. The verbal profession of society en- thrones morality, but the genuine life and constant struggle of society enthrone self-seeking. Therefore, the predomi- nant power of the realistic ideal, worshipped everywhere in the great battle of the world, is a demoralizing influence which more than offsets its high precepts. Thirdlv, we come to irritative education, or the Inciting Ideal. The most resolute and energetic champions in the social struggle, who surpass their competitors in the fierce game for money, position, power, reputation, luxury, stand out conspicuously as the objects of popular admiration and envy. Their examples catch the attention and inflame the ambitions of younger aspirants, and thus shape their desires and direct their toils. In this way, the actuals of men of exceptional success become the ideals of the men of medioc- rity. The tendency of this style of influence is more evil than good, because it excites still further passions already too intense. And now we come to personal education, or the Divine Ideal. There are men who extricate themselves from the CELEBRATION AT CHICAGO. 283 vortex of selfish contentions, and consecrate their powers to. the worship of God, the pursuit of truth, the cultivation of beauty, the doing of good, the perfecting of their own souls and experiences. These are original characters, endowed with direct insight into the highest things, subjects of a fresh inspiration from the Infinite Spirit. Exalted by the sacred superiority of their lives, they lift the gaze of meaner men from servile tasks and perishable interests, and enkin- dle in them moral devotion and religious aspiration. Thus, in turn, the actuals of these sacred types of humanity be- come the ideals of less gifted but generous and susceptible natures. The mission of every truly great man or original genius who appears is, by setting up a better example, to free and advance other men out of their bondage to the. inferior examples which were established in honor before him. But the final ideal will not be made up of the special actuals of any : it will arise from a consensus of the true insights and aspirations of all, harmonized and perfected by history and criticism. And every successive instance of .pure worth and genius which wins public recognition, and is crowned with general applause, makes its contribution toward this result. The sweet and noble countenance of Channing has long since been added to those portraits of illustrious men with which fame sprinkles history. It is a profound gratification to see in how many far places there is a spontaneous up- rising to encircle his spotless memory with a garland of cosmopolitan praise on the arrival of his centennial day. It is indeed a high omen of good. For he is, perhaps, the purest instance of the divine type of man that has appeared in our country. He is pre-eminently worthy of reverence and love and study. No character in American history is fitter to be lifted up for popular adoration and gratitude, or worthier to be commended to the emulous docility of the 284 CHANNING CENTENARY. rising generation. He was not a man of meteoric mind, set off with dazzling attributes which challenge approach or reproduction ; but everything in his genius and methods is sober and clear and imitable by those who, appreciating his worth, desire to become like him. By calm, patient, hum- ble, severe painstaking, he purified himself from vices, and built virtues into his character. He took the most un- wearying care in the formation of his opinions, to help out error, prejudice, and extravagance, and to render them sound and proportionate. He cultivated a direct personal consciousness of the living God, whose omnipresence he realized with a vivid constancy which filled him with author- itative sanctity and clothed him with awe. He repudiated all yokes of dead usages, every form of unrightful dictation, and exemplified a liberty as sublime as his faith. And there are things for all to do in accordance with the degrees of their ability. Channing conceived of God as a being of infinite power, freedom, consciousness, wisdom, love, and beneficence, whose attributes are to be seen in fixed revelation, in ma- terial nature, and to be recognized in perpetual play in the free spirit. He thought of himself as a finite filial copy of God, and destined to an equal eternity. He therefore had an overwhelming self-respect, which forbade him to wrong or defile his own being. And recognizing with intense clearness in all his fellow-men incarnated representatives of God, sympathetic copies of himself, he was irresistibly im- pelled to love and honor and serve them. He did not live for money, office, power, pleasure, or fame ; but he lived sacredly for God, humanity, truth, beauty, good, perfection, eternity, resolutely resisting all temptations to the contrary, and steadily growing more calm, wise, holy, useful, blessed, commanding, and divine to the very last. When he was yet a young man, he said, " I practise temperance, and strive for CELEBRATION AT CHICAGO. 285 purity of heart, that I may become a temple for the spirit of God to dwell in." And, while the radiance of the setting sun was answered by the angelic smile on his dying face, he said, "I have received many messages from the Spirit." Ay, gild his name with new honor. Peruse his record with fresh interest. His example will work as an ideal force in the life of America with results of still greater reach and beneficence, just as our people fix their attention upon it with the spiritual conditions requisite for assimilating its influence. And I must add, in closing, a reason of the strongest ur- gency for asking the attention of the American people to the life and spirit of Channing, to the perfect timeliness and adaptation of his thought and example to the exigencies of the present moment. In the crisis of selfish ambition and materialism through which we are passing, the experience and authority of Channing are needed as a counter-weight in the other scale. After a full lifetime of supreme devo- tion to spiritual themes, he affirmed with unhesitating con- viction the reality of God, the soul, duty, and immortality. He united the acumen of the philosopher and the vision of the seer. After the long consecration of his deep and pure gifts, his matchless spirituality and loyalty to truth, be had a right to speak and a claim to deferential attention. But his single assertion, based on grounds of positive perception, may justly outbalance the negative reports which coarse ' and unthinking millions of observers base on their failure to perceive. The most harmonized and competent judges are invari- ably modest and expectant, because they clearly see that the known is petty, the unknown immense. Such minds hold that those who affirm from a positive apprehension always have an inexpugnable advantage over those who merely deny, whether from emptiness or from rebellion. 286 CHANNING CENTENARY. Indeed, it should be evident to every trained reasoner that the rejection, on the mere ignorant ground of the senses, of the truths approved by the spiritual intuitions, is an in- competent procedure. For the physical facts, which are all that the yulgarest minds perceive, are enveloped in mys- teries which not even the profoundest thinkers have ever yet explained. t The eyes translate the undulations of the ethereal medium into light, and then the soul uses that light to discover loveliness, and then in the perception of that loveliness thrills with ineffable joy, and then in the en- trancement of that joy recognizes a symbolic revelation of the presence of God, and then in that intuitive fellowship with God finds a tacit proof of its own immortal destiny. And I will put one such positive declaration of a conse- crated seer, who speaks from what he believes, against the hostile declarations of a wilderness of atheists and an ocean of infidels, who speak only from what they do not believe. A Hottentot can see nothing in the mathematical calcula- tions of Newton. A Patagonian can see nothing in the musical scores of Beethoven. So a materialist, looking from over the solid landscapes of the earth into the open spaces of faith, gazing on the blank blue of the infinite, the empty socket whence the All-Seeing Eye has winked itself out, can perceive nothing in the great formulas of the religious believers of all ages. Nevertheless, Newton is authority in mathematics against the Hottentot, and Beethoven is au- thority in music against the Patagonian. Why is not Chan- ning, with his tremulous and divine sensitiveness to the true and the good, equally an authority in religion, as against the stolid materialist ? If the affirmations of the believers are true, it places these in a rank of superiority to the unbelievers. And so the latter reverse the verdict, and give themselves the suprem- acy,, by declaring that idealism is delusion and error, that CELEBRATION AT CHICAGO. 287 materialism contains the whole truth. But every pure thinker whose intuitive faculties have been developed and illuminated knows that to all which appears in outer mani- festation to the senses, the entire material universe is but a series of transient phenomena, glimpsing out of that un- manifested infinitude of real being, which is forever hidden from sense, but forever open to reason and faith. THE CELEBRATION AT ST. LOUIS. The Missouri Republican of April 8 contains the following account of the celebration at St. Louis : — The services commemorative of the centenary birthday of William Ellery Channing were held last evening in the new hall, corner of Jefferson and Washington Avenues, and were honored with an audience worthy of the occasion. Rev. John Snyder, of the Church of the Messiah, Dr. William G. Eliot, and Mr. Wayman Crow were the committee in charge of the arrangements.for the celebration. The new hall had been especially placed in order for the occasion, the interior decorations not being fully completed. The platform was handsomely dressed with flowering and foliage plants ; and upon the wall over the stage was a large evergreen shield with a silver monogram " C " in the centre, the figures " 1 780-1 880" being conspicuously displayed at either side of the shield. The exercises opened with singing by the choir of the Church of the Messiah. A short prayer was offered by Mr. Snyder, followed by singing by the choir. Mr. Snyder then came forward, and said it was always a work of super- erogation for a writer to put in the preface what was to ap- pear in the body of his book ; and it would be equally so for CELEBRATION AT ST. LOUIS. 289 him to explain at any l'ength the object of the meeting. He would merely say that they had met to honor the memory of William Ellery Channing, one of the noblest and greatest men known to the nineteenth century, and leave it to the other speakers who were present to tell the story in detail. He then introduced, as the first speaker, Rev. John C. Learned. Mr, Learned was called upon for a biographical sketch of Dr. Channing. The speaker called attention to the difficulty attending an effort to put a sixty-two year biography into a ten or twelve minute sketch, but went on to say that Dr. Channing was born April 7, 1780, a time when Wordsworth and Napoleon I. were youngsters of ten years, and Coleridge was eight. Dr. Channing was well connected, and had advantages for developing his natural talents. His father was a graduate of Harvard, and was a man held in high esteem among his fellows. The sub- ject of the sketch was given an excellent home training, and among other things was thoroughly grounded in the catechism. His mother was not only a woman of marked originality of mind, but was possessed of the most undevi- ating rectitude. His father died, leaving him at the age of twelve just preparing for college. At that time, Newport was becoming a fashionable place, as it has since remained. British and French officers and Southerners visited it in great numbers, and the peculiar ideas they brought with them had their effect on society. France was then in a state approaching anarchy ; and, amid all the exciting polit- ical doctrines discussed, there had also begun to appear open attacks on the doctrines of Puritanism. At such a time, an active mind found a ready field for employment. Chan- ning, though connected with various societies at college, would never indulge in wine. He stood well in his classes, but excelled chiefly in composition, attaining rare elegance as a writer. On leaving college, he went to Richmond as 29O CHANNING CENTENARY. a tutor in a private family, remaining a year and a half. This time proved most eventful to him in the matter of shaping his career. He came in close contact with slavery, and formed his estimate of it. At the same time, from his study of the French situation and troubles, he developed his views on war. He made this year and a half a time of such incessant and hard study as almost to break him- self down, and in fact did sow the seeds of disease which kept him ever after in frail health. It was during this time that he read Rousseau and other authors, who did so much toward developing his mind. Then it was that he decided upon the study of divinity, and he began with a most exhaustive examination into the evidences of Christianity. He began to preach in 1802 in Boston. Crowds thronged to hear him almost from the first. He was never a secta- rian. He always refused to lead or be led by a party. He wanted all to be as free in thought as himself. His advice was not to unite with any church, if required to subscribe to any principle the truth of which did not appear beyond doubt. He was thirty-four years old when he married. He went to Europe in 1822, and there met some of the great thinkers, in whose writings he had long taken delight. At the age of forty-four, he had to have a colleague to lighten his labor, being no longer able to bear the fatigue ; yet, his active mind obtained no rest. His idea of freedom went out to all mankind. He was the father of New England Transcendentalism. He left Boston in 1842, and went to Bennington, where he was taken with typhoid fever. Sun- day, the 2d of October, they read him the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord's Prayer, after which he turned, and, looking out upon the mountains he loved so well, his body fell asleep, and no one knew when the spirit departed from it. Dr. Eliot was introduced as the next speaker. He said CELEBRATION AT ST. LOUIS. 29I he desired to ask why should this Charming memorial ser- vice be held. Such services were being held by Christians, scholars, and philosophers everywhere in the civilized wofld from England to India, and all over the United States ; yet Dr. Channing was a quiet, retiring man, not distinguished for great learning. He was not a popular man, nor the leader of a party ; yet his works were now read most ex- tensively. Recently, an edition of one hundred thousand copies of his writings was sold in England. At the pres- ent day, so long after his death, he was more honored than ever. This was because of his earnest and sincere con- victions. He planted himself firmly on the principles of Christianity, and dared to apply the doctrines of religion to his daily life. He was now spoken of as the apostle of lib- erty, — the ljberty of a lover of truth and a servant of God, — one who held to the justice of law. He was not a will- ing iconoclast. It was painful to him to break down old customs. He was the same all the time, alone or with the multitude. In quiet gentleness, he received the new light, and caused it to shine on all around. He could never dis- cover any conflict between science and revelation. True science he held to be essentially religious. The speaker quoted several passages from Dr. Channing's sermons, illus- trating his views. He was a man of stern, unbending in- tegrity, and under no circumstances was he ever known to strengthen his argument by unfair treatment of an oppo- nent. In his first work on slavery, he declared that if a work, no matter how good, could not be carried out by the benevolent workings of Christianity, then the time for do- ing had not arrived. He held that the first object of zeal was not to prosper, but to do right. Judge McCrary was the next speaker. He said it was always a healthful thing to study the lives and commemorate the virtues of the great and good men of the past, because 292 CHANNING CENTENARY. the more these were dwelt upon and the more familiar they became, the more the men of to-day would be led to imitate them. Consciously or unconsciously, the speaker supposed, all men had their saints and ideals ; and it was of great moment whether their ideals were high or low, such as to lift up or drag down. In this, he believed, was the true secret of the hold the Christian religion had obtained, because by it the perfect character of Christ was continually held up before the people. On this occasion, there was held up a life affording an example as perfect, a model as uplift- ing, as could be found among all the great men of America. It was an example of honesty, not only with his fellow-men, but also with his own conscience. Holding clear convic- tions, he uttered them without fear and in the face of oppo- sition, sometimes amounting to persecution. He was the apostle of freedom of thought, and at the same time the peaceful teacher of Christianity. He never held his peace when he felt it his duty to speak. He was also an example of catholicity. His writings would be searched in vain for any expression of unkindness toward those who differed from the views he held. With him, it meant liberty of thought on all subjects, but especially religion. It had fallen to the lot of but few to impress their thoughts on the world as Dr. Channing had done. To-day, that broad catho- licity which he preached in the face of such violent opposi- tion is preached from thousands of pulpits. His theology permeated the thoughts of men as did Jefferson's political views. He proclaimed a declaration of religious independ- ence founded, as Jefferson's declaration was, on the dignity of human nature. He believed man was fit to exercise his own judgment. Though he belonged to the Unitarian denomination, he really belonged rather to the world. He did not believe that all good could be found in any one denomination, and he found brethren in all denominations CELEBRATION AT ST. LOUIS. 293 and outside of all denominations. The speaker was glad the memory of Dr. Channing was so widely celebrated. It would be good for the world that this great and pure charac- ter should be held up as an example, and emulated. " I will now introduce to you a gentleman from another room of the family household," said Mr. Snyder. "In my Father's house there are many mansions," quoted the clergy- man, as he introduced Rev. Joseph H. Foy, pastor of the Central Christian Church. Mr. Foy said he esteemed it an honor and a privilege to speak a word of honest eulogy to one who was a living force, he had almost said a living presence, in their lives. Being a member of a church which held some tenets totally at vari- ance with those grandly advocated by Dr. Channing, he could not be accused of bias in the favorable judgments he had soberly formed and would candidly express. The speaker formed his opinions from no memoirs nor laudatory biographies ; yet he knew as much of the man from a study of his works as any one living or dead. The incertitude in respect to doubtful men, like Byron, Napoleon I., Fred- erick the Great, or Thomas Paine, drove one to investi- gation ; but he was so certain of Channing's truth, good- ness, and purity, that he would as soon have investigated the genealogy of an angel as to distrustfully scrutinize the personal character of this almost inspired proclaimer of the " fatherhood of God" and the "brotherhood of man." His comprehensive and philosophic mind, his almost divine ten- derness, his devotion to truth and principle, that raised him above the earthly plane, made a profound impression upon the speaker. He had dawned upon the lecturer in his works as a gentle, princely man, thoroughly human, yet moving in a large orbit around the central sun. He took hold of him as a man of profound mind, unalterable convictions upon all questions of right and wrong, justice or injustice, of quick 294 CHANNING CENTENARY. sympathies with the down-trodden everywhere. He grew upon him as a man who, though not having learned evil from sad experience, could, by the sympathy of a common nature, enter heartily into plans for the recovery of man, and his restoration to that dignity which was his birthright. Of all the sons of men who had, in imitation of the Blessed One, "gone about doing good," there was none whose name was worthier of perpetual embalmment in the considerate regard and tender affection of all succeeding generations than Channing's. No biographic praise or silver voice of oratory could give their souls a tenderer veneration than they had, for the one who labored that "every wrong, injus- tice, and oppression in the world might cease to be." The deathless truths from Channing's majestic brain were among his most treasured possessions. Though bigotry and preju- dice blinded hundreds as to the value of Channing's works and their marvellous influence upon modern thought, they are nevertheless gradually finding their way into every thoughtful preacher's library. He had spoken to a number of ministers of his own Church upon the subject, and he could not recall one who did not possess these works. His own copy was so marked up as to be almost a curiosity. Mr. Foy paid an eloquent tribute to the man who had taught by precept and example that "truth only endures," who had been an instrument in God's hand to remove distressful doubts, who taught the "rational character of the Christian religion," and who brushed away any doubts as to "immor- tality" and "future life." Campbell, Fletcher, Flavel, New- man, Marvin, Alexander, Hall, Channing, and Dewey, were sources of intellectual and spiritual sustenance to him. The speaker referred in glowing terms to Mr. Channing's absorb- ing interest in the elevation of the laboring classes, and asserted that his essay on "Sunday-schools"