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LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE
OF
THEODORE PARKER
MINISTER OF THE
TWEiNTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY, BOSTON.
BY
JOHN  WEISS.
IN  TWO  VO L U ME S
VOL. 11
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 443 & 445 BROADWAY.
1864.




ENTEErm, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1.S63,
BY JOSEPH LYMAN,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts,




CONTENTS OF VOL. I [
CHAPTER  XVI.
PAGE
The Library- Habits of Composition and Study-Articles-Greek ClassicsGoethe-Sentences-Verses-Translations from  Heine and others- Some
original lines....                                                         -40
CHAPTER XVII.
Correspondence -Knowledge of the People - Handwriting-Projected Work on
the Development of Christianity..                                     41-67
CHAPTER XVIII.
Anti-Slavery-His Position and Tendency- — Early Speeches -Letters from Slave.
holders-Mexican War...                                     68-90
CHAPTER  XIX.
The Fugitive Slave Bill-Vigilance Committees-William and Ellen Craft. 91-124
CHAPTER  XX.
Anthony Burns-Fanueil Hall - The Placards — The Rendition-The Indictment
— The Defence.......125-153
CHAPTER  XXI.
The Kansas and Nebraska Bill-Capt. John Brown-The Fremont Presidential
Campaign — Fac-Simile Letter to Hon. J. P. Hale - Mr. Yeadon -   on.
Charles Sumner-Letters....154-202
CHAPTER XXII.
Letters upon Anti-Slavery Politics: to Hon. N. P. Banks - Hon. W. H.
Seward —Hon. S. P. Chase —To and from Hon. Charles Sumner- To and from
Hon. Henry Wilson- To and from Hon. J. P. Hale-To William H. Herndon - To Hon. Horace Mann-To Gov. Fletcher, Vermont, and others.. 203-243
CHAPTER  XXIII.
Preaching in Watertown-Illness-The Revival and the Prayers for Mr. Parker
— Jan. 2, 1859 - Letters to the Society- Consultation of Physicians - Letters
to and from Friends...244-270




Vl                                   CONTENTS.
CHAPTER  XXIV.
PAGE
Departure-The Voyage —Havana-St. Thomas-Santa Cruz —London —arisMontreux-Letters... 271-315
CHAPTER XXV.
Combe-Varin, and Prof. Desor's  Chalet, Les Poammes-Life  there-Herr
IXiichler-Letters........                  316-345
CHAPTER  XXVI.
Letters and Journal at Montretx, and other Places-Letter of ResignationTo the Progressive Friends-To others.....            346-370
CHAPTER  XXVII.
Arrival at Rome-Letters to Joseph Lyman, J. R. Manley, Dr. Howe, Miss
Cobbe, Hon. Gerrit Smith — Journal.....371-400
CHAPTER  XXVIII.
1860 —Progress of the Disease-Letters to Mrs. Cheney, John Ayres, Joseph
Lyman, Dr. Howe, Hon. Gerrit Smith, and others-The Last Days-May 10. 401-442
APPENDIX.
No. I.
Last Will and Testament of Theodore Parker..,.443-447
No. II
The Letter from Santa Cruz..     447-513
No. III.
Letter to Dr. Bowditeh                                                           513-515
No. IV.
To Joseph Lyman..                                                        516
No. V.
From Hon. S. P. Chase to Mr. Parker.  -    517-521
No. VI.
From J. Corlies White to Mrs. Parker.  521-522




ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. II.
PAGI1
A BUST, by Wm. W. Story, Esq., Engraved on Steel by Henjry Adlard.  To face Title.
THE LIBRARY.......   1
THE OLD MUSKETS..                                                          67
FACSIMILE OF LETTER TO HON. J. P. HALE......186
LES POMMES......                                         316
THE DOUBLE-HEADED FIR, CO3IBE VARIN.....                                345
CEMETERY AT FLORENCE......                                  400
THE GRAVE R........... 442








LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE
OF
THEODORE PARKER.
THE LIRBAIRYo
CHAPTER XVI.
The Library-Habits of Composition, and Study-Articles-Greek Classics-~G-celheSentences-Verses —Translations from Heine and others —Some original lines.
WIEN Mr. Parker went to Boston, he fitted up the fourth story
of his house for a study, by lining the walls with shelves of
VOL. II.                                              B




2              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
the simplest description, without mouldings or ornaments, so as
to save every inch of space for books.  These shelves gradually
crept over the door, the windows, and the chimney-pieces, thence
into little adjoining rooms, and finally stepped boldly down the
stairs, one flight at a time, for three flights, colonizing every room
by the way, including the large parlor in the second story, and
finally paused only at the dining-room  close to the front door.
The bathing-room, the closets, the attic apartments, were inundated with books.  Unbound magazines and pamphlets lay in
chests of drawers above-stairs; miscellaneous matter was sorted
in properly labelled boxes; cupboards and recesses were stuffed
full.  He had evoked this inundating demon, but did not know
the laying spell.  In the centre of the study floor rose two or
three edifices of shelves to receive the surplus which could find
no other bestowment.  No house was ever so adorned from basement to attic.  To his eye, who knew so well the contents of
each volume of the twelve thousand, the walls were frescoed
with the ages of human thought, and the solemn tragedies of all
the great souls, who counted life a little thing to exchange for
the liberties of truth. He traced, too, many a mediaeval grotesque,
while he recalled from  those old chronicles of German cities,
bishoprics, and monasteries, the slow emancipation of the power
of thinking from the constraints of superstition, marked as it was
with burlesque, satire, blood, and terror.  In these ponderous folios
some of that incongruous literature is collected,-license, that grins
like the sly sculptures among saints and apostles in the old
cathedrals; thoughts, like truncated spires arrested by the exigencies of the times; human aspiration, mounting and buttressed
far above the blackened pediments, above the leaning shops, above
the gargoyles of apes' heads and monks with lolling tongues,
above the last thin curl of the incense and the mutter of the
mass, above even the silvery accents of the chimes, where a
purer zone begins, whence the last touches of man's chisel melt
into the sky.  What sights and voices of old history swept
through his well-instructed mind, as he sat at his task amid this
unrivalled collection of the sources of knowledge!  In his despondent hours what shapes, that drained the hemlock, that
blushed w'-h the fagot's blaze, that were white with loss of
blood, bent upon him, their eyes burning with triumph in peaceful faces, authoritative looks to bid him revert to a true demeanour!  The wonderful companionship which intellect solicits




THEODORE  PARKER.                              3
from past intellect, as it entreats each great book to become again
a great man, to rise from his lettered tomb into the very room
where a dear disciple sits, was his by night and by day.  He
toiled among these volumes with a will as long-breathed  and
persistent as any old scholar of them had; but in the dusk and
quiet he could dream too, and fling on the walls of his dwelling
the glorious colors of this great Past on which he fed.
He had  a good deal of literary appreciation, but it was nothing to the living sympathy he had. He knew Socrates, and had
been about with him  to the braziers' and the leather-dressers'
shops, to learn how to frame those fatal questions, which, whether
answered  by a yes or a  no, took  all the conceit out of the
answerers.*   He had been with him  to the plane-tree on  the
banks of the Ilyssus, considering  as he went that restraining
Daimon, that voice of God in the soul of man.  On such a walk
he might have taught the  great Athenian, who was as bad a
cockney as Charles Lamb, and  sneered at nature, to  love the
fields, and even to try  his hand at botanizing.t   But he loved
men too, and better than  Socrates, who only set their minds
revolving in order to keep a finer edge upon  his blade.   Their
distrust of mythologies and contempt of the tribe who strive to
be both  orthodox  and rational, the accommodating tribe, was
mutual: but Mr. Parker would destroy, in the interest of mankind, what Socrates was disposed to tolerate. Both loved truth
better than Athens and Boston, and the glories of the fields and
skies.
He knew  Savonarola and peasant Luther; and the obscure
men, whose names scholars seek for curiosity, he knew, and had
suffered with them  in their unblazoned martyrdoms.   He sought
through all his books the footsteps of men and women, and the
drops of blood which betray wherever conscience stood, and the
traces of long-forgotten  tears upon  the pages.   He put every
withered flower that he found between the leaves into the fresh
* See in particular "A Friendly Letter to the Executive Committee of the American
Unitarian Association, touching their new Unitarian creed, or General Proclamation of
Unitarian Views." 1853.
t Socrates would have mockingly put such a passage as the following into the mouth
of some speech-maker like Lysias:" In cities there is less to help us communicate with God than in the fields. These
walls of brick and stone, this artificial ground we stand on, all remind us of man; even
the city horse is a machine. But in the country it is God's ground beneath our feetGod's hills on every side-His heaven, broad, blue, and boundless, overhead..
" These continually affect the soul, and cause us all to feel the Infinite Presence, and
draw near to that; and earth seems less to rest in space than in the love of God."
r  2




4              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
full cup of his heart, and it bloomed like one he gathered yesterday   His library was loved because it was a developing mankind; he had few books in it that could not illustrate human
thoughts and passions, or the Divine premeditations; and to this
living assemblage all races sent their representatives, for God
hath made of one blood all nations to dwell on all the face of the
earth.
It will be seen that, even in the indulgence of a taste for
curious books and rare editions, he sought principally those
which were once vitally connected with some human thought,
with the ignorance, vice, and passion of an epoch, with the growth
of law, or religion, or knowledge of the world. Whoever will
look over this list, which includes some of the rarities of his
library, will hardly  find  one book  that gratifies merely a
dilettante taste, or the mania for having what is difficult to
procure.  There is genuine intellectual or human interest in all
of them.
There are nearly a hundred editions of the Bible, including
"Biblia Germanica, Nuremberg, 1483;" another of the same,
with  coloured  plates; " Biblia Hebraica Lucensis, Antwerp,
1584;" " Biblia Sacrosancta Test. Vet. et Novi, 1550;" "B.
Pentapla, Hamburg, 171 1;" and a Dutch Bible with Hooge's
engravings, 1702.
There is a beautiful folio Plutarch, Paris, 1624; a very rare
Virgil, with engravings, Venice, 1544; another beautiful Virgil,
printed at Paris in 1500; a Homer, Basel, 1558; a fine copy
of Herodotus, London, 1679; a fine Horace, Venice, 1559;
a folio Aristotle, Paris, 1629; and Athenmeus, London, 1657.
Old geographies and books of travel attracted him; such as
"Umstindliche und Eigentliche Beschreibung von Africa," with
engravings, Amsterdam, 1670; two Dutch folios about Tartary,
Amsterdam, 1 705;   Claudii Ptolemmi Alexandrini Geographicme
Enarrationis, Libri Octo, Lugduni, 1535," with the imprint of
Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel.  In a note to this volume, Mr.
Parker says  " I received this long-sought volume on the seventyninth anniversary of the Battle of Lexington. It is the edition
of Michael Servetus, whereon see Mosheim, Gesch. MS., s. xviii.
p. 60, et seq." Rauwolf's "Aigentliche Beschreibung der Raisz,"
Journey through the East, 1588, with the notes of old readers.
He bought the very curious book entitled " Chronicon Nurembergense," Hartmann  Schedel, Nuremberg, 1 493, printed  by




THEODORE PARKER.                        5
Koberger, for 3 dollars 43 cents.  It is a history  of the
Seven Day's Creation, six ages reaching down to the date of the
book, with a seventh of Antichrist, and a last of Judgment.
The woodcuts in this volume are by Wohlgemuth, the master
of A. Direr; the child-vignettes are as old as Wohlgemuth, and
have a great deal of grace.
In medieval history the library can show some books that
are seldom  to be met: here are J. D. Schoepflin's " Historia
Zaringo-Badensis, Carolsruhe, 1763-66," his "Vindicime Celtice," and the rare " Alsatia illustrata Celtica Romana Franca;
Colmar, 1751;" "Schannat's Annals of Fulda," "Thuringia
Sacra; " "Antiquitates et Annales Trevirensium, 1670."
Here also are "Leonici de Varia Historia, libri tres, Venice,
1531, 16mo;" "Leti G. L'Italia regnante, Geneva, 1675;"
4 vols, 16mo, a rare book; "Jobi Ludolfi, alias Leut-holf dicti,
Hist. AEthiopica," printed  at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, 1681,
being  an  account of Prester  John's  Kingdom; " Historia
Generale de los Hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas i Tierra
Firma, Herrera,  1601;"  "Helvetiorum  Respublica, 1627,"
by different authors.
To a copy of Alexander Murray's " History of the European
Languages," Mr. Parker has the following note:-" I had long
been looking for a copy of this curious book, which I borrowed
years ago and studied, when I found it advertised in a newspaper published in Charlestown, S.C., and sent to  me that
I might profit by a violent and abusive article against me.  Fcts
est et ab hoste doceri.  I sent and bought the book. It came on
my forty-fourth birthday."
He procured all the editions of Thomas More that he could
find, of London, 1557; Basel, 1580 (the Epigrams); "The Life
and Death, 1630," no place; the "Utopia, Cologne, 1629,"
and another, London, 1634; and the whole works, Frankfort,
by Zeiss, 1689.
Here is the rare and costly " Monumenta Germanica Historica,
Hanover, 1826" (continued); Cardinal Mai's "Classicorum
Auctorum e Vaticanis Codicibus editorum;" the beautiful Bible of
1857, and ten volumes of "Script. Vet., nova collectio."
Here are ten volumes of Jerome Cardan, London, 1663;
the Works of John Damascene, Basel, 1575; the " Historia Salisburgensis-hoc est Vita Episcoporum  et Archiepiscoporum  S.
Salzburg, 1692;" old editions of Picus Mirandula, C'ampanella.,




6               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
and Galen; the rare book  of J. Grynmeus, "Monumenta S.
Patrum   Orthodoxographica, Basel,  1569;"  a  rare volume,
"Exercitationes Paradoxicre adversus Aristoteleos, &c.; Auctore
Petro Gassendo," Canon of the Cathedral of Dinia  (Dijon), an
Elzevir, Amsterdam; the very rare book, "Gasparis Scioppi
Franci, De Arte Critic& et Priapeia, sive diversorum Poetarum in
Priapum  lusus;" the first part printed at Amsterdam, "apud
Judocumn Pluymer, Bibliopolam, sub signo Senecce, 1662; " the
second part, "PatCavii, apud Gerhardum Nicolcaum  V. sub signo
angeli aurati; comment. in rubro xantho et nigro."
In a copy of Jacobus de Voragine, " Lombardica Historia, de
Sanctis " (lived at the end of 13th century), is this note: "homo
ut vera quidam judicabat, ferrei oris et plumrnbei cordis, alioqui
vix dignus qui inter Scriptores locum inveniat."
Of books excessively rare there are nine various works, illustrated by De Bry, as for instance: "Boissardi Theatrum Vitae
humanm —Vita Davidis; " "Boissardi Emblemata, Vita Mahumetis; crudelitas Hispanorum in Indis; " " De Membris humani
Corporis petrifactis;" " Historia Monstrorum"-320 plates by
Theodore De Bry, Francfort, 1596 to  1609.  This includes
"Lithogenesia, sive de microcosmi membris petrefactis; et de
calculis eidem microcosmo per varias matrices innatas;" "Pathologia historica, per Theoriam et Autopsiam demonstrata. Accessit
Analogicum Argumentum  ex Macrocosmo  de calculis brutorum
corporibus innatis.   Auctori Ioanne Georgio Schlenkio, a Grafenberg."
Another book of great rarity is, "Vincentius Bellovacencis,
of Beauvais, or de Burgundia;" "Speculum quadruplex, naturale,
doctrinale, morale et historiale, Argentorati, Johannes ]Mentelin,
1473-76;" this is a large folio, in seven volumes, when complete.  The chain and staple by which the old books were fast
anchored to the reading-desk are still affixed.
Mr. Parker's copy includes volumes of the original edition,
which is very rare.*   His copy is not complete, and not all
of that edition; but out of all the volumes, there may be made
a complete copy of the Speculum?  Quadruplex, except the third
part of the M]orale and a leaf or two  at the beginning of
Vol. III. of the Historicae.
* For information concerning this book of Vincent of Beauvais I am indebted to
Mr. Jewett, the polite librarian of the Boston Free Public Library, whither the books of
Mr. Parker were transported in the summer of 1862. Mr. Auerbach was also very kind
while I was looking up the above-mentioned specimens of the library.




THEODORE PARKER.                        7
While Mr. Parker was carrying on his Saturday afternoon
conversations with members of his parish, he drew from  his
copy of old Vincent specimens of well-attested miracles to offset
those equally well (or badly) attested in the New Testament.
There was not a book in the whole great collection which did not
at some time or other serve his practical turn, to teach withal
plain truths to the people.
He found very valuable such a book as "Io. Henr. Feustkingii, Gynaceum Haeretico Fanaticum," or history and description
of false prophetesses, Quakeresses, enthusiasts, and other sectarian
and inspired female persons, by whom  the Church of God has
been disturbed.  This was printed at Frankfort, in 1704; and
Mr. Parker's copy came from  the library of Christian Frederic
Eberhard.  Also, "De suspectis de haeresi opus. Romae, 1703."
So, too, all books concerning demoniacal possession and agency,
in which he was very curious, such as " Johannis Nideri, de visionibus ac revelationibus," 151 7: reprinted in 1692, an opus rarissimum; " Bodin, de la Demonomanie des Sorciers, 1 580," and the
" Dictionnaire Infernale," became valuable in his hands; and books
like "Geschichte der Deutschen Geistlichkeit im Mittelalter;" "Die
fliegenden Blatter des XVI. and XVII. Jahrhunderts;" "Das
Kloster;"' "Das Schaltjahr;" " Directorium  Inquisitorum; " *
" Die komische und humoristiche Literatur der deutschen Prosaisten des 16ten. Jahrhunderts. Auswahl aus den Quellen und
seltenen Ausgaben, von Ignaz Hub;" " Historia de la Vida y
Excelencias de la Sacratissima Virgen M. Madrid, 1 65 7;" a rare
edition of " H. C. Agrippme Operum, pars posterior; " and " Jacob
Gretzer, de jure et more prohibendi, expurgandi et abolendi
libros hbereticos et noxios," a book levelled at Francis Junius,
the Calvinist, and John Pappus, and other Lutheran preachers,
1603, became endowed with life and immediate value in his
hands.
There are many books of civil and canon law-codes of
different countries: "Joachimi Potgiesseri," commentaries on
the German law de statu Servorum (Lemgovise, 1 736). StaatsArchiv., 1796; "Corpus Juris Germanici Publici ac Privati.
Francofurti ad Mcenum, 1 766;" the "Sachsenspiegel" (Leipzig,
1569); " Savigny's Zeitschrift;" " Rheinisches Museum," which
includes Jurisprudence; Heineccius, Puffendorf, Iohl, Miruss,
* A rare and extraordinary book.




8              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
Spangenberg, Ahrens, books on Ju8s Parocialce  of various
places, Gesterding, Gagern, Putter.
He had well cradled all such books, and melted down their
gold.
If you were looking for didactic books, or writings which
manipulate the ordinary religious proprieties, and vigorously
enforce, with rhetoric more or less inflamed, a feeble sentiment,
his shelves would at once disappoint you and instruct you what
to seek.  For they had selected from each province only the
essential thoughts and characters.
But poetry and literature sent also their highest representatives.  All the great names of Greece and Rome, Italy and
Germany, France and England stood there, Burns as well as
Dante, and Chaucer quite as well thumbed as Shakespeare, and
many a Servian, Russian, Bohemian volume of provincial character, hardly known yet beyond their own firesides, but full of the
ethnic peculiarities which he loved to trace. And the best hymns
of all nations met their best songs upon these cosmopolitan shelves,
which were tolerant of all the forms that strength, beauty, and
religion can put on.  But they had a pitiless discrimination
against the mere fabricators of religious and literary cant which
sneak well-dressed into a library's great society.
Some book always lay upon the desk, to fill up the pauses of
writing or vacant moments in the day.  There was generally
more than one, as many as he had trains of thought or research
collateral with the business of the week. The desk, the chair,
the gas-light above, which could be adjusted at any height to
suit the caprice of the moment, the slides for books,-all this
environment was the perfection of a student's corner: its convenience betrayed him  into the deep hours, and it would have
been better for his head if one of Mrs. Broad's lamps had
crustily  offered the alternative of darkness or repose.  IHe
always waited for those starlit hours, after the great city has
roared and vexed itself to sleep, and the quiet breathing of all
things in the Father's house, like a slow pendulum, tells the soul
in conspiracy with truth that its time has come.
His method of labour may be gathered from the traces of the
composition of articles and sermons.  Nothing was commenced
until a brief or scheme of it lay complete upon his desk.  When
reading and meditation, taking copious notes meanwhile, had
furnished him with a view of the whole subject, so that he saw




THEODORE PARKER.                          9
not only the end from  the beginning, but the details and subdivisions of each head, he began to write.  Or, if he intended,
in the case of speeches and sermons, to address his audience
extemporaneously, if the subject was not already, by frequent
speaking and arranging, made familiar, every point was premeditated, and occasionally one or two leading sentences put down,
just where he felt instinctively that he might need a steppingstone.  He was not obliged to recur to his brief during speaking, because he had assigned to each thing, the facts, the statistics,
the allusions, the helping phrases, its post in the memory.  The
same system and comprehensiveness which insisted upon a perfect
brief made it non-essential at the moment of speaking.  But
he never undertook to lay his track until he had made a most
careful and methodical survey of the route which  he must
travel.  He was all the time making statements and  organizing thought.  How many clergymen use their brains for bait,
and wait in resignation for the nibble of a text I
In reviewing a book his conscientiousness would have been a
matter of affright to Sidney Smith, who did not like to be prejudiced by reading the book.  He not only actually read the
book in question, but all the books he could command which
furnish information upon the subject that was involved.
FROM  THE JOURNAL.
Sept. 20, 1839.-Finished Villemain. He has a strong, almost passionate love for the English orators of Burke's time, and gives long
extracts from their speeches. He admires the thorough education of
the younger Pitt, his skill in classic literature, and those austere
studies so little known to the French wits of the 18th century, but
which are the only foundation of real excellence.
If I had the requisite knowledge, I would criticize the work in the
North American or Christiat. Examiner; but the habit, so common in
America, of getting all your knowledge from the author you review,
and then censuring him, is villainous and unworthy. Cattle drink,
and then foul the water: so these critics. Mr. Somebody reviewed
Cox's "Life of Melancthon," getting all his information from Cox,
who had little himself!
We need and must have a new kind of criticism. It must be like
the' German in its depth, philosophy, all-sidedness, and geniality. It
must have the life, wit, and sparkle of the French.  What need it
borrow from the English? Most of our critics are somewhat shallow
men at the best, and they write often of what they understand but
feebly and superficially, and so the result is as it is.
He did a great deal in obeying his own high standard, to
excite a desire for a more thorough critical ability among us. His




10              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
papers on German Literature, Strauss, Prescott's Histories, are
among the best furnished with  knowledge  upon the subjects
which are discussed of any yet published in our reviews.
FROM  THE JOURNAL.
Sept. 1839.-Write a critique of Menzel's "History of German Literature,"* when it appears, and treat, 1, of the whole subject of
German literature, its sources-classic, romantic, and nature now living
-its influence at home and abroad-compared with the ]French of the
18th century.  Speak of the proper histories of German literature.
[Here follows a list of names]. 2, of the book itself, its merits and
faults. One-sided, smart. Its author's position and character.
The aspects of German literature. 1. Literary, moral, philosophical,
religious. 2. What we have to hope, to fear.
Let us see how  he prepared himself for reviewing Strauss.
First, of course, he read the original text of 1600 pages: then
all the Streitschriften, or books and pamphlets defending or
attacking Strauss, which had appeared up to the time of his
article, by Tholuck, Ullmann, and others; then  the notices in
the foreign reviews.  This, with  his previous knowledge of the
German theological field, made him  competent to apply his own
judgment to the book.
Before he undertook to review Mr. Prescott's popular histories,
he spent all the leisure time which he could command during
seven months, in reading the authorities.  He read everything
excepting some MSS. in the possession of Mr. Prescott himself,
and thus he verified nearly every citation made in the eight
volumes which were under review.  The first article, published
in  the  Massachusetts Quarterly, March, 1849, contains an
admirable statement of the office and duty  of an historian.
This is derived from  his own humane and philosophical spirit,
criticizing in the interest of the future of the people all the best
histories yet written of the past.
He had collected a great many notes for an article which was
to be entitled "The Supernatural in Literature."   Under this
title he meant to treat, first, of violations of ordinary laws in
composition, common-sense, common honesty, and recognition of
a  common  intelligence; second, of theological and  religious
hypocrisies; third, cases of bombast in ancient and  modern
literature (his classical references here are curious); fourth, the
* Translated by President Felton for Mr. Ripley's  Specimens of Foreign Literature."
1840.




THEODORE PARKER.                           1
mistakes in newspapers, pamphlets, sermons, &c., which unconsciously assert a ridiculous impossibility, e. g. "both the obelisks
are in a state of perfect preservation; the larger is about 82
English feet high, and the other about 336  feet shorter;"
fifth, cases of American exaggeration, from reports of southern
and western grandiloquence and congressional appeals.   Under
this head, probably, he  would  have cited American humor,
which delights to " play at bowls with the sun and moon," and
belittles the great and  magnifies the  small with  irresistible
audacity.
I have made these various heads  from   the  illustrations
which he had confusedly gathered; for, apparently, he had no
time to subject them to his usual formal treatment.  But such an
article in his hands would have excited mirth and hatred without limits.   How would religious sentimentalists have recoiled
from their own offspring, stripped and turned loose in inclement
prose!  The Hollis Street Council would have sat again upon
his translations  of their diplomatic  sentences into  the vernacular, e. g.:" Circumstances that call for a liberal measure of that wisdom which
cometh from above."  This is the supernatural in form, and the plain
English is, " Cunning enough to soften the doctrines of Christianity
down to suit a rumseller's case."
The indiscriminate allusions to a Providence, which Americans
indulge to profanity, and the popular conceit which interpolates
the divine agency in all the chores of the house, form a tempting
branch of his subject.  But he made the following distinction
to apply to all his illustrations:1. The supernatural in substance.  2. Inform.  Find no fault with
what is really supernatural.  Some things are written for the subterranean men: of these the terrestrial will not complain, but only neglect them.  Others are written for the terrestrial, and of these the
celestial will not find fault. And still others for the celestial: of these
neither the subterranean nor the terrestrial have any right to complain.
Many things are above our comprehension: we need not fash our
heads about that matter.  But the formally supernatural is fair game.
" Quid vetat dicere ridiculum verum? "
Hail, honest weapon, left for truth's defence,
Sole dread of folly, vice, and insolence!"
Use it against all the things which are"Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne."
Part of the article was intended to be purely literary, as he
has noted the false antitheses in Junius, the tragic degradations




12            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
in Seneca's plays, and the vices of Heine, Coleridge, Richter,
Ariosto, Dryden, Cowley, and Carlyle.  He was driven from
such subjects which involve a careful literary treatment by
greater claims.
There is also a curious collection of the miracles of all ages
and nations, cases of resurrections, healings, miraculous conceptions, &c., each with its reference, so that the time, place, and
amount of evidence could be found.  He meant, of course, to
use these to show the universal tendency towards the marvellous
in men of all races and religions, and the ease with which extraordinary individuals gather a concrete of the supernatural.  A
portion of his book upon religious development would probably
have included this catalogue, to prove that where there is so much
(apparently) good evidence for so many alleged occurrences, they
are either all genuine or none. On the basis of such a collection
he might have composed an interesting chapter on the imperfection of all human testimony, save that of the trained and
scientific observer.  For to observe, and thus to create evidence,
is as much a speciality as to invent, to compose, to discourse, to
labor with the hands.
In like manner, he collected remarkable prophecies made by
sagacious and far-seeing men, which received historical verification, in ancient and modern times.  These would serve to show
the true nature of the prophetical spirit, and what immutable
laws control it.
All these researches were undertaken in the interest of mankind, to contribute something to that accumulation of exact
knowledge which alone can pay real honors to religion, by
driving ignorance and superstition out of the mind.  The
humane and courageous thinker swings such material with both
arms, and meditates his blow; the timid shrink from the sparkling indignation of his eye, as it notes where the fetter clasps
the flesh-for they, too, think they are serving man by maintaining his confinement-down comes the blow, the flesh is not
mangled, only the fetter is hopelessly broken, and the man
stands fast in liberty.  There is no such nice calculator as
knowledge.
In general, he saw it was necessary to be acquainted with the
subject which he intended to use.  This simple precaution is
ludicrously neglected among us, and quite as often in the pulpit
as elsewhere.  He did not believe that excellent intentions, or




THEODORE PARKER.                           1
even the most generous impulses, sufficiently furnished forth the
preacher for his work; and he sighed to see the hasty preparations, the neglect of the classics, the contempt for laborious
investigations, with which, and with youth, we step into the
service of our brethren, under the conceit which all the habits of
a new country foster and forgive-that good raw material just
extelmporized into a person, can take the pulpit, the chair of
science, and the bar by storm.  The very man, of all men born
in America, who could have done this most successfully, preferred
to set a better American fashion.  One  self-made man thus
taught modesty and discipline to all the men self and conventionally made.
He had his own way of deliberately making the acquaintance of all subjects -- the  Homeric Question, zEschylus, the
Greek Drama, Aristophanes, Goethe, Heine, Marriage, Woman,
Socialism, &c.  Many of these are yet unwritten  upon; the
blocks are drawn to the site, and lie in various stages of preparation.  So far as the necessary reading is concerned, let it
suffice to say, that he read and carefully spread out in analyses,
with his private estimate, every attainable book.
Here, it is perceived, are literary as well as philanthropic
questions.  How did he promise to discuss them?  A  few  of
the preparatory notes will show  what ability he had in this
direction, and what tastes he sacrificed to the claims of humanity
and the pressure of the hour.  Such notes have little novelty
or intrinsic value, but they help to betray all his thought.
This, looking to an article upon Socialism, will introduce more
scholarly themes:"Murphy's Science of Consciousness."  This is a queer book,
written by a Materialist, Socialist, Owenite. He says, "Life is a vortex
or whirlpool of material motions."  He denies any immaterial spirit,
and makes all depend on organization: there is neither free-will nor
moral responsibility; our character is made for us, not by us. God
is the col7ectivum  of the universe, all-knowing and ever-present. Of
course, there can be no immortality.  Such is the man's philosophyor want of it.
What is his aim?  To make the world a more comfortable place.
How is it to be done?  By giving up property, i. e., individual property.  He wants to try the experiment of living in a great establishment, feeding at a common table, &e. In short, he wishes for a
family like the Shakers, but with the prevalence of marriage.  He
seems to doubt whether man would be always faithful to one wife,
or would move from  one to another.  He says that in countries
where subsistence is very easy, divorce takes place without difficulty,




14              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
for the state feels no anxiety about the children coming to want,
and being a burden upon the community.  There is no eloquence,
perhaps, in the book, but some passages of no little power.
This book is but a straw in the stream, but it shows which way the
current sets, and God knows what will be the end of this awful movement.  For my single self, I fear the result will be, as often before;
the " rich " and " noble," becoming alarmed, will shed blood, and then
the mob, getting scent thereof, will wash their hands in the hearts of
the " rich " and " noble," and we shall have a worse tragedy in the end
of the 19th century than in the end of the 18th.  Heaven save us
fiom an English Reign of Terror!
The same question must be passed on in America.  Property must
show why it shall not be abated.  Labor must show why it should
exempt so many from its burdens, and crush others therewith.  It is,
no doubt, a good thing that I should read the Greek Anthology, and
cultivate myself in my leisure, as a musk-melon ripens in the sun;
but why should I be the only one of the thousand who has this chance?
True, I have won it dearly, laboriously, but others of better ability with
less hardihood fail in the attempt, and serve me with the body. It
makes me groan to look into the evils of society; when will there be
an end? I thank God I am not born to set the matter right. I scarce
dare attempt a reform of theology, but I shall be in for the whole, and
must condemn the State and Society no less than the Church.
These property notions agree not with my own. Yet, certainly the
present property scheme invokes awful evils upon society, rich no less
than poor. The question, first, of inherited property, and next, of all
private property, is to be handled in this century.
Can one man serve another for wages without being degraded? Yes,
but not in all relations.  I have no moral right to use the service of
another, provided it degrades him in my sight, in that of his fellows, or
himself.
In the meantime, let us see what some of his Greek studies
were.  They began very early, and did him great service.  His
constant recurrence to favorite Greek books amid his various
reading tranquillized  his mind, and helped to save his style
from becoming barbarized with metaphysical terms and idioms.
He was more indebted than he knew  to the "tender, grave
Hellenic speech."
Juno. —I take her for a type of the average woman.  1. She has no
general ideas. 2. No conception of truth and justice-still less any
love for them.  3. She is capricious to the last degree. 4. She has
great preponderance of will-not over her passions, but over her better
affections.  5. She thinks all must yield to her whim.  6. She is restless, rather than active.  7. She perpetually scolds at what is lofty
and noble.  8. She teazes her husband beyond measure.  9. She is
jealous of all rivals, and watches them with the most curious eye. 10.
Judgment precedes knowlege, 1. 518-523.  She thinks Troy must be
destroyed, because she chanced to sweat, as well as her horses, in




THEODORE PARKER.                          15
getting up the war. She has no regard for justice, and asks Jove to
send Minerva to make the Trojans violate the truce.
1840. Batrachomyomachy.*-'This poem  cannot be Homer's.  I
wonder any one can fancy he wrote it, unless there is strong external
evidence to that effect.  It has very little merit, as I think.  However, it teaches one thing, viz. how ridiculous human affairs would
seem to a superior being, unless that being were perfect. The war
of the mice and frogs, conducted with much valor on both sides,
and attended with no little suffering, moves only our ridicule: what
right had the Greek to conclude Jupiter did not laugh at the wars of
Greeks and Trojans?  Again: this is a picture in little of human
affairs. The frog leaves his hazardous friend in danger, and because
one had been slain by accident, many must be slaughtered by design.
Again: the one who counsels war, does it because the cat and the trap
have deprived him of two sons, and the mouse has taken the last.
Hymns attributed to Homer.-Some of these hymns are beautiful.
I like especially the hymn to Venus: the affair with Anchises is most
beautifully told. One to Bacchus also is pleasant. Taken together
they disappoint me. I see no reason to refer them  to Homer, or
perhaps even to his age.
Some of the Epigrams (Hermann's ed.), please me much. Here is one
"On the Senate House ":
Children are the crown of men; of cities, towers;
Horses are ornaments in the field, and ships at sea;
Wealth builds the house, but precedent builds kingsIn council sitting, ornaments to be admired before all othersAnd yet a house lit by a blazing fire is nobler still to see,
On a winter's day, when Saturn's son sheds down the snow."
After a long course of Homeric studies, he writes in 1840:Here close my present studies of Homer, and with this conclusion
on the whole: —1. That the greater part of the Iliad was the work of
one man, whom we may call Homer.  2. That he did not urite, but
only sung. 3. That he sung in detached pieces, which were repeated
by others. 4. That they all became more or less corrupt. 5. That
other pieces were reckoned as Homeric which are not so. 6. That the
men who reduced the Iliad to writing did it gradually-now this, now
that part, ballad, or story.  7. That when all were collected, the genuine
and spurious were not separated sharply. 8. That interpolations were
made by these men also to make the whole work fit together.  9. That
the theology and morality, considering the age, are very high, though
not so high as the theology and morality of the Old Testament.
Again: that the Odyssey belongs to another age, and is also the
work of various hands, and that it is quite possible to separate the
Odyssey into its constituent ballads at this day.
During his Greek studies he notices the variations of different
editions, and discusses the merits of their text, entering into
the minutiae of such criticism, showing why he supposes, for in* Battle of the Frogs and Mice.




1 6              LIFE  AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
stance, that some lines have slipped out of an elegy of Tyrtteus
found in Stobaus, &c., &c., dwells with pleasure upon epithets
and compounds, translates, though not in a finished way, but
merely to mark in his memory, elegies and lyrics which he likes.
These studies were not preliminary to any composition, but to
gratify his scholarly inclinations.
SIEMONIDES or CEOS.-I cannot sum up the whole of Simonides, and
all that marks him  as a poet; for here are doubtless the works of
numerous poets, carelessly thrown together; and one finds that the
editor has no critical tact, I think.  Certainly an air of sadness penetrates all of them.  Many are religious.  Leave all to the gods, is
the perpetual lesson.  Simonides and Mimnermus represent the sad
side of life. They are the shades in the dazzling picture of young
and flashing life among the Greeks.  What a contrast between Simonides and the hymns of Homer or Orpheus! What exquisite sweetness
and power of rhythm!
But I must consult Schneidewin's edition.  He is the same who
edited lbycus some years before: that was censured, and he submits to
the  censure very quietly, and tells his critics he had learned "' mea
non admirari," and hopes to do better than before.
Simonides, it seems, was a miser, as well as a biting satirist. He
quarrelled with the Corinthians, imitated the old wise men in their
"sayings," had always a smart thing ready to say.  Sweetness and
subtlety are his characteristics, and he has a simple way of exciting the
feelings, e.g., Danae, Dysoris, Timarchus, and Gorgo.  It was with
him  " tot verba quot res," so they called his poetry  wycap,a wacocvac,
talking pictures.
PINDA. — The ethical tendency of Pindar is beautiful and striking.
He takes always a lofty tone. The unity of his pieces consists in the
ethical virtue he has set forth-bravery, good fortune (which is always
the meed of virtue), strength, and the like.
I should be glad to know the history of his love. One thinks at first
it must have been sweeter and more celestial than. is wont among the
sons of men.  But the fact always limps after the fancy.  Perhaps his
wife was prosy and cross; at best she was but the creature of his will,
or the toy of his flesh, it may be.
IESCIYLIUS-" Prometheus Bound."  If I were fool enough to turn
matters into allegories, and facts into fictions, I would get an improvemient of this masterly drama as follows:
Zeus represents a Conservative aristocrat who has lately got into
power.  He turns round and abuses his friends who helped him to the
office, and wishes to govern the people ad arbitrium, caring nothing at all
for their welfare. Nay, on one occasion (   b32), he would destroy them all.
Then comes up one ancient as himself, and equally immortal, who
rebukes the wickedness of the aristocratic parveltu, and seeks to make
all things better.  In a word, Prometheus is a gentleman of " property
and standing," of a " very ancient descent," who is a thorough democratic reformer.  He is a philanthropist in all senses; discovers fire
and letters, metals and navigation, agriculture, astronomy, medicine,
and the like, and, besides this, gives Father Jove some clever advice.




THEODORE PARKER.                         17
He recommends mild measures. He is the son of Themis, which
shows that right is on the popular side.  The aristocrat would disturb
and destroy the people, and because Prometheus opposed, he is angry.
Now the established powers, Strength, and Force, and Skill (symbolized
in Vulcan), serve him.  But Vulcan serves unwillingly; for he knows
his kinship with the people, and remembers his familiarity. Both are
immortal; so there will always be a quarrel between these two principles-the selfish-conservative and the disinterested-progressive. But
the latter has Truth on its side-for Themis is its parent-and so will
ultimately prevail, and knows the fact. Therefore it tells the other,
" Thunder as loud as you may!" and mocks the heralds of the aristocrat
to scorn.  " You cannot kill me, and the day will come when you shall
fall."  The ruin of conservatism is to come from itself. Zeus is to ally
with a descendant of Io (Thetis), and she will produce one greater
than its father, &c. Prometheus knows this, and whence the danger
is to come; but Zeus cannot keep continent and cool, and so must
know who the person is. Prometheus will not be specific until all his
fetters are taken off. Then he helps Zeus out of his troubles.  If I
were a German Radical, I should call this the moral of the story.
It is evident that Zeus here is not the Supreme.  There is no
allusion to such an one here.  So heaven is headless.  Zeus is but a
parvenu, &c. Still further, the timid friends of Prometheus, the Chorus
and Oceanus, advise him to hush up the affair, and be a little more
courteous to the one in power.  They tell him, " You are mistaken,'d.TS5; you are saucy, too, but it avails nothing."
Strength would have him  leave off his benevolence, and asks, very
properly, " Why don't you hate whom  the gods (the upper classes)
hate? 
There are many good hits in the piece, e.g. 221, where Prometheus
says it is the curse of tyranny to distrust friends.
Is not the episode of lo a violation of the unity of the piece? She
might appear, and the story of her descendants might have been told
without bringing in the whole history of that maiden.
In this way he goes through all the plays of iEschylus, and
hopes at some proper time to write an article on him; "but he
cannot be understood  without studying  all of his contemporaries, especially the other tragedians and Aristophanes."
Then he translates fragments of Eschylus.
On the whole, my estimation of him is very much raised by this new
study. But a good edition of AEschylus is still to be sought. It would
embrace, 1, an improved text, with copious various readings and critical
notes. 2. Copious notes, historical, archaeological, and aesthetic. 3.
A good interpretation, philological notes, &c. 4. Dissertations after
the manner of Heyne on the Iliad. Hermann, I think, could not do
this work, but he might help to it. The religious significance of
lEschylus I have never yet seen adequately treated.
June, 1840.-Read the "Hero and Leander" of Mussus.  I can
never sufficiently admire this beautiful poem.  I read it four years ago,
and ever since it has dwelt in my mind like remembered music, which
comes up from time to time.  This poem has the naked freshness of
VOL. II.                                               C




18               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
olden time, and the delicate sensibility of later days.$  Homer (or
Orpheus, or Hesiod), would have despatched the matter of love in
three words, and then would have told us how he fought during the day
before he swam  over the Hellespont.  He would tell us nothing of
Leander's feeling as he swam —only of the constellations over his head.
He would describe to us the carving on Hero's lamp, never telling us
how she felt or what she thought.  His love is always stark naked,
without a single fig-leaf to cover its shame.  What would Homer make
of lines 75-85, or of 101 seq.?  Could Homer fancy Achilles swimming the Hellespont, or even the Scamander, for a lovely woman?
Not so; he was too catholic in his taste, while Briseis was in his, tent,
or one of his father's maids in the kitchen chamber. Those old Greeks
were brutes in their lust; for it was not always love. Yet there was
something quite aesthetic and graceful in their love-adventures.  Why
cannot old Greek freedom  and real, unconventional love be united
with Christian morality, and woman stand in her true position?
A ----    S   was right in saying she disliked my figr-e comparing
woman to a vine, and man to an oak, she climbing his tough branches,
giving verdant gracefulness to his trunk, and hanging his boughs with
the purple clusters of love. She would have them two trees, which
grow side by side, and intertwine their arms.  How right that is! If
woman were not deemed a vine, and so inferior to man, these present
abominable abuses could not take place, nor could they have taken
place in Greece.  We should have had no Trojan war and no rape of
the Sabine women.
He reads everything-Gnomic poets, Skolia, Hymns, Orphic
fragments, pursues every trace of a philosopher, as well as the
great footsteps of tragedy and comedy.  All the prayers of the
ancients are carefully examined, to  discover their precise religiosity  underneath  the mythical names.   His volumes of the
classics have a good many notes on the margins and loose leaves.
After reading Meineke's " Fragments of Greek Comic Writers,"
Vol. I. 
Feb. 1841.-Comedy has turned on the same points in all ages. The
lower nature of man, it seems, loves to burst the bonds which confine
it in general, and assume the sway.  But there are passages of the
most beautiful morality and poetry in the Greek comic writers. They
charm  me exceedingly.  They indicate, as I think, a higher state of
morals and decency than has been found in any comic writers since
their time.  It seems melancholy to say this, but it is true.  However, the condition of woman seems the shady side of the picture.
These fragments, it is likely, are the best pieces in all the plays,
selected for their excellence.  Of course, they are not to be taken as
fair samples of the average morality of the times.  I doubt not a
larger collection might be made out of the comic writings of Shakspeare alone.: It was written in the 5th century of the Christian era, and was the first attempt
at making love the exclusive motive of a poem. It was translated by Marlowe.




THEODORE PARKER.                          19
ARISTOPHANES —" The Acharnians."-It is a most wonderful play.
Such versatility of language, thought, and imagery is surprising. He tells
truth boldly-witness the account of the war and its causes, 498-510.
The scene with Euripides is masterly, 370; so is the return of the
ambassadors.  The mockery at Theognis, cold as snow, is exquisite.
He makes brief notes through the play, as above, and concludes:"I hate the obscenity of many passages. But vice is ridiculedput down, it may be. A dreadful state of licentiousness is disclosed;
but the play itself would not encourage it. In this respect it is better
than Wycherley, Farquhar, and others, and the Parisian drama.
" The Knights."-It seems to me there is less poetry, and more good
sense, in this than " The Achcarnians."  For boldness of satire nothing
could surpass it.  Here not only three of the most powerful men of
the state, Nicias, Demosthenes, and Cleon, are satirized with unsparing
severity; but the people of Athens, the Demus itself, is done to the
life. It is one of the boldest pieces of political satire I have ever seen.
" The Clouds." —The philosophers are treated very much as the Transcendentalists are now.  There is a devilish satire in the plot of making
Justice and Injustice contend, and the latter conquer; and then throwing the blame upon Socrates. To the vulgar this must have been sufficient
proof of the falseness of the philosoper, but to one who looks deeper
there is a different moral, viz. if you follow virtue solely for the loaves and
fishes, you ought to be cheated out of them; for it is loaves and fishes
you seek.  Then, again, Strepsiades is justly punished by the folly and
sin of his son. He represents the vulgar fathers who do not ask a
generous education for their children, but simply the skill that will get
them  a living out of a wicked world, by any means.  The play is a
sermon on that head.
Xenophon's "Memorabilia" is the answer to Aristophanes.  This
play shows that ridicule is no test of truth, as the foolish think; for
the blame as often rests with the laugher as with the laughee.
" Thle Birds."-1 like this piece amazingly. It shows us human relations in such a new point of view. It revolutionizes the gods. It was
a capital idea to wall up heaven and shut out the smoke of sacrifice!
So the question of inheritance raised between Hercules and Neptune,
in the case of Jupiter's death, and the felicitous manner in which the
Bird-Archon makes use of it to gain the vote of Hercules, is a fine hit.
Then, see in how human a way the case of Bird-Archon is decided. The
two real gods, Hercules and Neptune, are neck-and-neck; so the matter falls to the barbarian Triballos.  Then see also the characters that
come up to Cloud-Cuckoo-Ville, and their talk! The new fashion among
men who took to imitating the birds.  He proves very prettily that the
birds are older than the gods, and so have a right to all, as waifs and
strays belong to the lord of the manor.  The beauty of language I
think unrivalled.  The choruses are sugar steeped in honey.
THE CLASSICS AND MODERNs.-The works of ZEschylus were slowly
formed. They grew piece by piece, till they became clear, large, massy,
beautiful, perfect! Those of Voltaire, for example, are made at a few
dashes, and are done. One is a huge crystal, without flaw, the work
c 2




20               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
of ages; it will be admired, and never perish. The other is an icecream, made at an hour's warning, to serve one night.  One grew
slowly and silently, by the laws of nature, in a grave cavern which men
never enter. The other is a little dirty shop, in a bye-lane, noisy,
frequented, filled with chattering gossips.
Voltaire, with his erudition, wide though not deep, with style so cleat
and bright that it never wearies, with imagination ever on the wing,
and flying in most strange, capricious circles-is a mocker, after all.
The highest faculty of the soul he never conceives of; religion, he
knows nothing of it.
His reading of Goethe was no ordinary enjoyment.  It was
a deliberate exploration of his life and  character.   First he
read through the whole edition, excepting  the Grand-Cophta,
on which "the reading faculty broke down;" then the supplementary volumes; then collections of letters, Jacobi, Nicolai, and
others; then lives of Goethe, by Doring, Schafer, &c. His observation of Goethe is made with great equanimity, and his opinions
do  not reflect the  conventional tone.   They have, on  the
contrary, the air of being  the first opinions ever formed on
Goethe's life and works.  He always held himself in this way
superior to the books he read, and kept them  off at a proper
distance to be seen with clearness and convenience.  Even in
his earliest studies he had no rages for one author at a time,
and never fell into fits of imitating favorite styles or tendencies of thought.  He had great reserve in this respect; in other
words, he was strong  and  healthy, and  felt competent to
extend an impartial invitation to all the great names in letters
and  in  thought.   There was no want of susceptibility here.
It was fortunate that a disposition so simple and enthusiastic
as his could hold out a hand for so much unimpeachable good
sense to seize.
A  disciple of Goethe would not go far with a critic who
should announce himself in this way:Thus far in reading Goethe (Autobiography and half a dozen plays),
I find no indications of greatness, nothing, in short, but commonplace
morality and an exceedingly graceful use of language. To him it is
perfectly fluid.  The richness, clearness, and beauty, are above all
praise.
But here is something more promising:There must be a period in the life of a great and thoughtful man,
when he passes from the fiery madness of youth, from the deep enthusiasm for particular good things, and a determination towards one
special object, to a more passive state, when the enthusiasm has become




THEODORE PARKER.                         21
reverence for the good, and true, and lovely, and will has given place
to resignation.  We see this change well marked in most great characters, in Coleridge and Goethe. It is less marked in Schiller, because
his was so eminently an ethical genius.  Jean Paul never passed
through the change, so he gains with the million, but loses with the
cool admirers of real greatness.  Emerson and Channing have passed
this period.
Goethe is a beautiful instance of a man reaching this state.  To
many who themselves scarce dream there is such a condition, he seems
indifferent, fish-blooded, feeding the world on snow-broth; but not so
to the wise. The self-renunciation and intense diligence of Goethe
are the secret of his success, of his long life, and permanent creativeness.  Such were some of the great men of antiquity, JEschylus,
Sophocles, and Cicero, and all the sages, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle,
Anaxagoras, Pythagoras.  One cause of the longevity of philosophers
is doubtless to be found in the nature of their studies, which leads
them  to renounce the individual will, to forbear shrieking, and to
acquiesce in God.
But that abstract consideration for the mood in which Goethe
carried on his creations, does not restrain a very free criticism of
the works themselves:
Went on bravely in Hebrew, and likewise read much in Goethe. My
admiration of the man rises more and more; but he was a selfish
rogue.
After finishing the Autobiography:He was a great Pagan.  His aim was to educate Herr Goethe.  He
leads one to labor, but not for the highest, not by any means for
others. His theory was selfish, and the Christian was not in him. He
would have been nobler had he struggled for education, or even for
bread, like Herder, Schiller, Jean Paul, Heyne.  Excess of goodfortune was his undoing.
The " Confessions of a Fair Saint" charm me much.  What richness of piety, what faith, what a fine view of life! Now, could a man
write this out of his own heart, and yet live a licentious life, without
God in the world?  The example of David, to look no nearer home,
shows how easy it is for a wide space to exist between the pen and the
heart.  Goethe stood at arm's length from religion.  But this he did
not write out of his own heart.  He confesses he drew fiom the conversations and letters of Frau von Klettenberg-and how much, he
knew not.  Probably his own youthful experience of religion gave him
power to appropriate skilfully the divine ejaculations of that religious
woman.
His untiring industry strikes me as the most remarkable feature of
his character.  Goethe was not born a great man.  His indefatigable
assiduity did the work. Nothing was beneath his notice, and no labor
too great for him to undertake.  He was curious in particulars, and,
besides, went over things at large.  Wherever he went, he studied all
that could be seen and studied.  He sought the principle that showed
itself in the result.




22                LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
EGMON1T.-Clirchen is a complete woman.  Certainly Goethe under.
stood women, i. e. clever, loving women, exceedingly well.  Clarchen
is all over woman, from first to last.  So is the mother.  Like women
universally, when cool, she judges of counsels by their consequences,
not by their causes.  Cliarchen, excited by love, trusting to that beautiful instinct, cares nothing for the consequences.
Cllrchen's end is precipitated, but this also is woman-like.  A man
would have reasoned himself into the belief that Alva would only humble him  on the scaffold; but woman, by her natural divination, sees
through it all, and is resolved to unite with him at last in death.
WMTLHEL  MEIsTER. —The women are well drawn. Goethe understood
the psychological anatomy of woman to perfection.  But what women!
Philina has not a fig-leaf of modesty.  Miignon is the creature of passion-all passion fiom crown to heel.
I don't like it. The effect is not moral, not pleasing upon me. The
actors in the scenes are low, selfish, for the most part mean and lewd.
Now and then an angel looks in upon the scene, like a small patch of
clear sky and a moment's sunshine in a March storm; rather like a
single star seen through a rent cloud in a night of storms.  Now and
then one of the Muses enters, but goes quickly away, shuddering as
she runs.  Wisdom, from time to time, is seen in the distance; nay,
sometimes she comes near, but tarries not long.
Yet there are some fine pictures of life.
The multiplicity of Goethe's love-adventures is not a little remarkable. His life seems unworthy of such a genius.  But his biographer
smoothes it all over. Poor Friedrike! hers was the saddest fate, for she
had a noble heart; and the cold-blooded " genius" plucked her as a
flower from the garden, wore her on his bosom, then threw her away.
Noble heart! Solicited by others, as Lenz, for example, she said,
" Whoever has been loved by Goethe can belong to no other man."
To me Goethe was less of a man than Voltaire, on the whole.  He
was not such a scoffer as Voltaire, for he did not propose to himself
such a work-to remove a dreadful obstruction from  the path of mankind.  But he was less earnest, less humane, less intellectual by far,
and with less large influence on man.  His range of subjects was narrower, his productiveness less.  I think Voltaire had a larger influence
for good on his own age, and will reach farther into posterity.  Goethe
has produced better poetry-and worse.  Neither affords much help
to lofty men in their lofty works; both are destitute of a religious poise
of character, so essential to real greatness in literature.
He goes to bed on a surfeit of Hebrew and Goethe:
Last night I had a queer dream.  I thought I read Hebrew with Dr.
Robinson for a long time in Michaelis' Halle Bible, and with great ease
and pleasure.  We talked familiarly about the language and its literature.  Then Prof. Stuart came in, and Prof. Hackett, and we renewed
the theme.  Mr. Stuart examined Prof. Hackett in the Vulgate, making
him translate it into English. Pobinson laughed at H.'s being Professor of Hebrew, and said he used to be a very dull scholar.  Then
Robinson showed a collection of Hebrew antiquities, ancient alphabets,
machines, clocks, and the like, all of which he seemed to understand
perfectly.




THEODORE PARKER.                           23
I asked him  about Goethe, and repeated the long passage in the
Wisdom of Solomon, chap. ii., " Go to, now," &c., and dwelt with emphasis on this, " Let us leave tokens of our joyfulness in every place,"
asking if Goethe did not leave many such, to'which he assented, with
good-will and humor.  But, alas! as in all dreams, he related no new
facts, and spoke only in the most general way of his dissoluteness.
Then Stuart and I took a walk, and discoursed of the state of theology, which he thought was mittelalterisch (middle-aged) —as it is.  He
lamented the darkness that prevails.  Next we came upon geology, for
we found a strange ledge of basaltic rock, with queer paths winding up
and down its sides.  I scrambled up the steep rocks, and left him to
plod along in the dusty and crooked road that wound at the foot of the
rocks, and led to a shoemaker's shop and a tavern.
CORRESPONDENCE OF SCHILLER AND GOETHE, VOL. I.*-It is a pleasant volume, but does not make me impatient for the next.  I think the
impression it leaves does not elevate the character of either poet.
Goethe is wide, wise, full of practical sagacity, always the man of
generous views, with little heart, except for his artistic creations. He
has a wide range rather than a lofty flight.  I admire his activity, his
cheerfulness, and his elegant self-reliance.  Now and then he has a
deep insight.  But it seems to me he is over-conscious of the processes
of his work; and so is Schiller.
I dislike Schiller heartily, and always did.  He is proud, inflated,
stiff, diseasedly self-conscious.  He is little like the great, gushing
genius of Goethe.  Even in his letters there is the same oratorical
pedantry which disgusts me in his poetry.  In all this correspondence
there is talk about little matters — vith pedantic solemnity.  I like neither
Goethe nor Schiller so well as before.  There are some remarks on
Goethe's appreciation of religion in Letters 57, 58, that confirm my
own convictions of Goethe's character and his method of treating religious subjects.
In the background there stands always the German public.  Envy,
hate, and malice sometimes appear in the ranks of the public, but
sometimes come within the Arcadian circle of Goethe and Schiller.
The remarks made about Nicolai are neither manly nor temperate.
It is certainly a valuable book.  But it will make silly maidens of
both sexes all the  sillier.  They will fall in love with this solemn
trifling, this use of vague, indefinite expressions, which look as if the
men were always learning, but never coming to the truth.
SCHLLER'S ASTrHEITIC PROSE.-Hardly worth the oil, it seems to me.
I have, when a boy, sometimes climbed up a high fence, and looked
over, expecting tulips and violets at the least, and found-toadstools.
So in books; after climbing over a palisade of tall words, I have
found a great space covered with —nothing!
The following meditations belong to subjects which he never
had opportunirt fully to discuss:OF MARRIAGES.-A whole marriage is when each portion of each person finds its satisfaction in the other; a plartial or functional marriage
* Correspondence between Schiller and Goethe, from 1794 to 1805. Translated by
Qeorge H. Calvert, Vol. I., 1845.




24                LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
when but a part is thus met.  Hence there are whole marriages,
half marriages, one-third marriages, and so on, ad infinitum.  Sometimes the unmarried  portion  is infinitesimal, and neither party
knows of the loss.  Sometimes the married portion is infinitesimal,
and none knows of the marriage.
Sometimes, by society, friends, good-breeding, &c., the parties are so
welded together that they cannot easily be sundered, but are yet only
welded, not wedded.  Solitude is the trial of marriages; for, if the shoe
does not fit, and you wear it but in going upstairs to bed, you think
little of the pinch; but when it must be worn all day, for travel and
for rest, with never a change, if it be not completely accommodated to
the foot, it will in the end gall you sore.
Marriages are best of dissimilar material, as iron runs not so well
upon iron as upon brass; only the dissimilarity must not be too great,
else it is all wear and tear.
All marriages that I have ever known, or almost all, are fragmentary.
If I read aright, a perfect and entire marriage can only take place between equals, or, at least, equivalents. I know a man whose wife has
no passion-sentiment enough, but the passional part of marriage is
hateful to her.  In this point, then, the man is not married. I know
many where in soul there is no equivalent, and in soul the man is not
married.  So with intellect, affection, benevolence, &c. A man not
mated, or a woman not mated, seeks sorrowing the other half, and
wanders up and down without rest.  Most men are married only in
their philoprogenitiveness or their acquisitiveness-perhaps in their
amativeness. Marriage is mainly a discipline to most men, to few is
it mainly an enjoyment.  A man's courtship often begins after his marriage, and he tries to piece out a wife, a little here and a little there.
W~ith women the case is worse still.  To a sluggish nature this is a
slight thing.  lie wants to sleep, and sleeps.  But to a great active
soul it must be a terrible curse.
A. man marries a wife far superior to himself.  He cannot carry her.
She wants sympathy in the unsupported part, and she must have it.
Suppose she does not have it-that part of her nature perishes and
corrupts the rest. If she does have it, then in that point her legal husband is not the true one. So it goes-the world is polygamous from
necessity.
You can only marry your equal.  A man may be tied to your soul,
but it droops and hangs down awhile.  Then it must have some one
else to hold it up, or it will die. I have seen a foolish man so silly
because he was to be wedded to a fine woman. Poor fellow! so he was;
but he married only a fool. All the rest of his wife hangs down, and
will die!
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.-From psychological considerations I should
think that monogamy was the natural law of human nature. I find the
same thing shown in the numerical equality of the sexes; and the same
conclusion is confirmed by history. For example, among the negro
slaves there is no marriage-form, the whole is voluntary, but separations
almost never take place.  The same is true of the North-American
Indians; e. g. the Osages know nothing of divorce, though there is no
law or custom  to prevent it.  If intercourse were more free in social
life, I doubt not that marriage would be happier and divorces more




THEODORE PARKER.                         25
rare. What a deal of prudery is there about the matter here in New
England!
Under this head come the following reflections after returning
from a lecturing trip to Nantucket:
A nice place that Nantucket. It contains the finest-looking set of
girls that is to be met with in New England.  The older women are
not so good-looking, as the wind, and glare of the water and sun in a
town without trees, spoil their complexion. But alas! they will always
be girls-the greater part of them.  There are 1600 men now absent
from the island! Three-fourths of the audience at lecture were women.
I think there is no town in New England where the whole body of
women is so well educated. There are no balls, no theatres, no public
amusements-even courting is the rarest of luxuries.  I should have
said being courted; so they fall upon their heads, the poor women,
when they drop out of that other Eden, and make for the Tree of
Knowledge when debarred from the Tree of Life. Literature thrives
well in Nantucket. There is a deal of reading. But much as I prize
intellectual culture in woman, it made me sad to think of the condition of the majority of these young girls, with generous affections
which could never find the natural objects to cling to. There is something wrong in any state of society which compels so many women to
celibacy. I do not speak of such as choose, only of those whose fate
it  is......
Yet, out of eight emigrants to America, five are of the superior sex!
Hence I fear it is worse the other side of the sea.  In this age, as in all
preceding, woman is treated as the old men are with savages-left to
perish when not needed for the purposes of the tribe. So shall it not
always be.
Some other unappropriated sentences are worth preserving:WAYLAND'S LIFE OF JUDsoN.-It contains less information about the
Buddhists than one might look for, but the noble memoir of Mr. J.
and Mrs. J. is beyond all praise. Yet they carried absurd dogmas to
the Burman, who had a plentiful supply of their own. Had the same
pains been taken at home, to remove poverty, ignorance of natural laws,
to abolish slavery, drunkenness, prostitution, and teach piety and.
morality in general, what a good result would have come from it!
Bigotry must be expected in a missionary. He says to one he tried
to convert, " A true disciple inquires not whether a fact is agreeable to
his own reason, but whether it is in the Book."
This is rather queer:-" We finally concluded that as such an order
(a passport from the Government) would cost several hundred ticuls, we
would prefer trusting in the Lord to keep us and our poor disciples."
The " creed for his Burman Church" is a dreadful document.
Judson's character is truly noble. If the only result of missions were
to raise up such men, it were enough. For one such man is worth
more to mankind than a temple like the Parthenon.
COLERIDGE'S CONFESSIONS OF AN INQUIRING SPIRIT.-Seven poor letters on the inspiration of the Bible.  The book is vitiated by the
absence of a definition of inspiration, It seems to me unworthy of its
great author, and indicative of the low state of theology in England.




26               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
Perhaps this is one of the best theological works of England (1840) in
the present century! But what a disgrace to the island to say it! It
seems to me their scholars are at dinner, and their divines gone a-hunting.  What would the.stout old fellows, with manly piety in their
bosoms, and no lack of good sense in their heads, say if they could rise
up-what would Taylor, and Chillingworth, and Hooker, and Law, and
Butler say to these champions of modern times?  Shame on the English-they do nothing, they say nothing, except on the commonest
subjects!
There has been an age of finle thinking, which began with Henry
VIII. and ended with the 17th century.  Then an age of fine writing,
which of course takes in the wits of Queen Anne's time, and is not
quite ended yet. And now we have the age of fine printing, and can
see the tombs of the prophets built up by Basil Montague, and the
editors of new editions of all the old.
STUDY ON MAN.-One day the history of man will be written, as that of
a single man-Dr. Franklin, for instance; as we say that Dr. F. learned
Latin at seven, and began philosophy at twelve, and in such a year
learned such and such a truth in science and religion.  So will the
progress of mankind be treated of; and it will be seen that we learned
this from  Plato, this from  another, &c. So only shall we know what
we gained by Christianity, the Reformation, &c.
SUSPICION AND OVER-TRUST.-Give a man an old dollar, which some
boy has worn round his neck, and drabbled in the mud, and played with
a half-score of years-he will take it, though it is dim, dingy, and light
of weight.  Give him a new dollar, fresh from the mint, every leaf sharply
defined in the olive branch-ten to one but he will ring it before he
takes it.  I remember one Wheeler was once found to have some bank
bills in his straw bed.  They were counterfeit-the president of the
bank said so. They were all new.  But one man took one of them,
rubbed it over his head, then on the floor, then with thumb and finger
till it looked worn, and the president said it was good.
There is a worm, the arenicola piscatorum, which is found with its
stomach full of sand, but the sand is full of little microscopic characters,
foraminifera, diatomese, &c., and which in reality are the food of the
arenicola; the sand is the vehicle, not the passenger.
So there are a good many Christians found with their stomachs full of
awful doctrines, about eternal damnation, reprobation, the wrath of
God, &c., and men think they live (spiritually) on this food, but you
find some little goodness and piety behind these doctrines, and the
doctrines serve only as a vehicle for the food
I had rather die a sinner than live one.
On condition a great thought be true and revolutionary, it is hard
to get it made a thing. Ideas go into a nunnery, not a family.
Let a party wrestle never so hard, it cannot throw the dollar.
How  ridiculous the allegorical interpretation is of such books as
Solomon's Song, Daniel, the Apocalypse, &c. Here is an example
from a common nursery tale: "This is the house that Jack built."
This bears a double meaning.     The house that Jack built" is the
Christian Church, Jack is the Savior; Jack is the vulgar for John,
which is the English for Johannes, the Latin of ioayE.5, the Greek of




THEODORE PARKER.                           27
tXp.: the etymology indicates this. p17        is OsoEpo5; Gottesgabe,
God's gift.  The " Malt " is the Doctrines of the Christian Church, as
containing the spirit of Christianity,  The " Rat who ate the malt" is
the Catholic clergy, symbolized by the Pope.  The "Cat who caught
the rat" is Master Luther, symbol of the Reformation. The " Dog that
worried the cat" is the opponents of the Reformation, especially the
priests, of whom Loyola is the symbol.  The "Cow with the crumpled
horn, that tossed the dog," is the French Government, which drove out
the priests, and the crumpled horn denotes the Gallic cock, and thereby
seems more clearly to denote the French Government than any other,
for the crumpled horn is much like the crest of a  cock.  The
" Maiden all forlorn" is Liberty.  " The man all tattered and torn" is the
French people, enamoured of liberty, and courting it (in a most feline
fashion) in the Revolution.  The "Priest all shaven and shorn" is
Lafayette; shaven because divested of his dignity and wealth by the
Revolution itself; shorn as despoiled of his liberties and shut up in an
Austrian dungeon, &c.
GLIDDON'S MUMMY.-You take one of the popular saints, a man
who has the vulgar piety in the vulgar form.  You are told he is
a great saint; that when you come to analyze him you will find proofs
of his vocation.  But you make the analysis and you find no such
thing.  So have I seen a huge sarcophagus of wood, containing a
mummy.  It was storied all over with great care, and bore an inscription  setting forth that it was the relic of a priestess, herself the
daughter of the great high priest of Thebes. Jewels, it was said, would
be found on her, and a roll of papyrus; probably one jewel of great
value-the roll of great extent.  So the exhibitor removes the wooden
case, and discloses the other, the case of linen.  That also is sawn
asunder and carefully removed.  Then the bandages are unrolled, and
after long looking you find, no jewels, but a scarabseus of common clay,
a scrap of papyrus, no priest and priestess-not even the daughter of
the priest of Thebes, but a common man of the vulgarest pattern,
reduced to nothing but a mass of pitch, the eyes gone out, the features
marred.
The author of the treatise, De Mirab. Sac. Scrip. says: —" Tota enim
justitia hec est, Virginitas, Sacerdotiut, et Martyriu." How Christianity
had degenerated, when all righteousness-the Law and the Prophetswas summed up in being an old maid, a priest, and a martyr!
1851.-For several days I have been studying the new edition of
Hippocrates. (Paris, 1831-1851. E. Littre.)  I was a little surprised
to find how much he knew. This seems clear: he believed there was
a law everywhere; a law of nature. All has a cause; so the sacred disease
has a natural cause.  He has no faith in divine diseases or divine
remedies.  He abhors quackery, and bears the same relation to the
charlatans of medicine that Socrates bore to the charlatans of metaphysics.  In some things he is a wider man than Socrates; more
emancipated from the popular theology. He would not have believed
that Helios and Selene were gods, and I think did not sacrifice a " cock
to Esculapius" when he died.
What a pretty piece of confusion it would lead to if the doctors




28               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
thought Hippocrates was " inspired," and treated the Hippocratic works
as doctors of the soul treat the Bible! Nay, they once did worship
Aristotle in the same way.
CRITICISMS ON ART.-I am astonished at the boldness of Americans
in passing judgment on works of the fine arts.  I once rode in a hack
with an American, aged 21, through the Via Condotti; we passed a
shop whose windows were full of cameos.  My companion put his
glass up to his eye, squinted at them, and said, " Poor things, by Jove!"
Since then it has not astonished me to hear the most sweeping judgments from Americans-especially women-on painting, sculpture, &c.
It is not at all necessary for the critic to know anything about art, or to
have any feeling for nature, only to have insolence and a tongue.
Who has not seen some man of unbalanced mind, intellectual
always, but spiritual never; heady but not hearty; roving from Church
to Church; now Trinitarian, then unbeliever, then Universalist, Unitarian, Catholic-everything by turns but nothing long; seeking rest
by turning perpetually over, and becoming at last a man having experienced many theologies, but never religion; not a Christian, but only
a verbal index of Christianity-a commonplace-book of theology? Such
a man runs from Church to Church; from Cambridge to Oxford, and
from Oxford to Rome, in his belief, only as a stone runs down-hill, and
for the same reason, because its centre of gravity is not supported.
How different the progress of his life who leaves behind that which is
outgrown, and never turns back, but with all his progress is never an
apostate!*
Numerous verses of no great value are mixed with these scraps
and sentences, for his pen ran readily to rhyme. It is a vice of
his prose that it tends occasionally to hexameters, and the ground
tilts beneath the reader.  Sometimes there is almost half a page
of consecutive sentences in his earlier compositions, which could
be rendered metrical by knocking out a word or two. Prose parts
with its dignity and gains no recompense when it leans upon
this eunuch's arm.
But sometimes, when these verses alight on the paper, fresh
from some personal association, or a moment of friendship gentler
than usual, they are sweet and hearty.  How  quickly he would
vibrate to a sound of home!
A GOLDEN WEDDING.f
1.
Should youthful courtship be forgot,
And never brought to min';
Should youthful courtship be forgot,
And the days lang syne?
* From a Sermon on Religious Rest, preached April 2, 1848.
t Of his friend, Deacon Samuel May, 1859.




THEODORE PARKER.                         29
Q.
Those days of love we ne'er forget:
How sweet your lips to mine 
Your mother did not heed the theft
In the days lang syne.
3.
A half a hundred years ago
We stood at wedlock's shrine:
We're fifty years the better for
The days lang syne.
4.
Brown ringlets round your snowy brow,
That seemed like light to shine;
Now, changed to gray, they're still more fair
Than in auld lang syne.
5.
How fond we pray'd our lovers' prayer
I' the moon's romantic shine!'Tis deeper now, and tranquiller
Than in auld lang syne.
0.
We've tasted many a bitter cup
Of mingled myrrh and wine;
But the draught has made us stronger far
Than in auld lang syne.,
7.
How vain they talk that age can mar
The feelings most divine!
Our hearts now beat with warmer love
Than in days lang syne.
8.
A willing bride and eager swain
We stood at wedlock's shrine;
But other hearts are with us now,
Than of auld lang syne.
9.
Let youthful love be ne'er forgot
Though a hundred years decline;
A household now rejoices in
That day of auld lang syne.
10.
These labor on the blessed earth,
Those heavenly flowers entwine;
And we are nearer heaven to-night
Than of auld lang syne.




30               LIFE  AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
11
And when beyond the grave we rest,
Where saints in glory shine,
We'll still look back and God will bless
For the days lang syne.
Some of his translations of German poetry are well done,
but many are left in an imperfect condition.  There are specimens
from " Hymns of the Mystics," of Paul Gerhardt, from the poetry
of the "Boy's Wonder-horn," from Schwab, Simon Dach, "Popular Collections," Riickert, Korner, Geibel, and Heine.  Here are
two: the first from lRiikert.
LANGUAGE OF THE EYES.
Oh, not in many languages
My youthful love rejoices;
But with her eyes she better speaks
Than others with their voices!
Oh, what a copious stock of words
In this open letter treasured!
A single glance, a paragraph
Of meaning all unmeasured.
Artists have painted Love as blind;
Dumb were he better painted,
The pains of silence done away
By speech the eyes invented.
That is the only speech among
The blessed stars in heaven;
And flowers discourse it in the spring
From morning until even.
That is the speech whose character,
With rays of stars eternal,
Is written by the pen of love,
And shines through space supernal.
This language not by mind is known,
But better by emotion;
Therefore, Love only speaks in this
On every land and ocean.
MIOHNIKE, IN WILHELMI'S LYRIK. No. 567.
A light skiff swam on Danube's tide,
Where sat a young nan and his bride:
He this side, she that side.
Quoth she, "I Heart's dearest, tell to me
What wedding gift I'll give to thee?"




THEODORE PARKER.
Upward her little sleeve she strips,
And in the water briskly dips.
The bridegroom did the same straightway,
And played with her and laugh'd so gay.
Oh, give to me, Dame Danube fair,
Some pretty toy for ny bride to wear."
She drew therefrom a handsome blade,
For which the young man long had pray'd
The groom, what holds he in his hand?
Of milk-white pearls a costly band.
I-le turns it round her raven hair;
She looked like any princess there.
"Dame Danube fair, to me impart
Some pretty toy for my sweetheart."
A second time her arm dips in,
A glittering helm of steel to win.
The youth, o'er-joy'd the prize to view,
Brings her a golden comb thereto.
A third time she in the water dipp'd;
Ah, woe! from out the skiff she slipp'd.
He springs and grasps, alas, the day!
Dame Danube tears them both away.
The Dame to use her toys began,
Therefore, must perish maid and man.
The empty skiff floats down alone:
Behind the hills soon sinks the sun.
And when the moon stood overhead,
To land the two lovers floated, dead:
He this side, and she that side.
Some translations from  Heine, which he made while he was
meditating an article upon that poet, are well done.  Here is a
specimen:
This is the old poetic wood;
The linden's breath comes stealing;
And glancing wondrously, the moon
Enchanteth every feeling.
I walked therein, and as I went
Above I heard a quiring;
It was the nightingale; she sang
Of love and love's desiring.




3 2              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
She sang of love and of love's woe,
Of laughter and of weeping;
She joy'd so sadly, plain'd so gay,
That dreams came back from sleeping.
I walked therein, and as I went,
Before me saw, extending
In ample space, a castle huge,
Its gables high ascending,
Windows were closed, and everywhere
A silence and a mourning,
As if in those deserted walls
Was quiet death sojourning.
Before the door a sphinx there lay,
Part joy, part fear, half human;
Body and claws a lion's were,
The breast and head, a womnan,A woman fair; her pallid face
Spoke of most wild desiring;
The silent lips were arched with smiles,
A tranquil trust inspiring.
The nightingale, too, sweetly sang,
Could I resist her?  Never!
But as I kiss'd the handsome face,
My peace was gone for ever!
Living became the marble form,
The stone began to shiver,
She drank my kisses' fiery glow
With thirsty lips that quiver.
She almost drank away my breath,
And then, with passion bending,
She coil'd me round, my mortal flesh
With lion-talons rending.
Extatic torture, woeful bliss!
Joy, anguish, without measure!
And while the talons grimly tear,
Her kisses give such pleasure!
The nightingale sang, "Handsome sphinx 
O Love, what is intendedThat all thy bless'd beatitudes
With death-throes thou hast blended?
Oh, handsome sphinx, come, solve for me
The riddle, tell the wonder!
For many a thousand years thereon
Thought I, and still I ponder."




THEODORE PARKER.                         33
And here is an impromptu translation from memory of Heine's' Lorelei ":I know not what's the meaning
That I'm so sad inclined;
But from ancient times a story
Will not away fiom my mind.
The air is cool and it darkens;
The Rhine flows tranquil on 
The top of the mountain sparkles
In the rays of the evening sun.
A snow-white maiden sitteth
Above there, wondrous fair;
Her golden garment glitters,
She combs her golden hair.
With a golden conlb she combs it,
And sings a song thereby,
A song that has a wondrous
And graceful melody.
In his small bark the sailor
It takes with longing sigh;
He looks not on the ripples,
He only looks on high.
At length the billows swallow
The sailor and his canoe;
And this with only singing,
The L6relei can do.
This, also, is musically rendered:Oh, knew but the blossoms, the wee things,
How deep I'm wounded at heart;
They'd mingle their tear with my weeping,
And blandish away my smart.
And did but the nightingales know, that
I'm gloomy and sick so long,
They would joyfully come and sing me
A life-awakening song.
If they, too, could know all my sorrows,
The dear gold starlets we see,
They would all come away from their glory,
And empty their love into me.
But all of them lack understanding,
One only, she knows of my smart,
For herself'twas who rent asunder,
She rent asunder my heart.
VOL. II.                                              D




34               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
FROM THE RUSSIAN.
Moaning, moaning, through the oak wood,
Clouds the field all overhanging,
Her only son drives forth the mother:
" Hence, thou son, out of my cottage,
Thee may cruel Moslems capture!"
"Oh, well remember me the Moslems,
Offer me the dearest horses."
Moaning, moaning, through the oak wood,
Clouds the field all overhanging,
Her only son drives forth the mother;
"Hlence, my son, out of my cottage,
Thee may cruel Tartars capture;"
" Oh, well remember me the Tartars,
Offer me most precious garments."
Moaning, moaning, through the oak wood,
Clouds the field all overhanging,
Soft her darling clasps the mother.'Come, my son, come to my cottage,
Thy fair hairs let me comb over!"
" Mother, oh, the rain will wash me,
And the thickest thorn-bush comb me;
The sharp winds know how to dry me."
Brings his steed the oldest sister,
And the second brings the weapons;
Of her brother asks the youngest,
"When return'st thou from the battle?"
"Take thou up of sand a handful,
Strew it then upon the ledges,
And bedew it still with weeping,
By the morning star just shining;
When the sand shall blossom, sister,
Then shall I return from battle."
Some more from Heine follow:Thou hast diamonds and jewels,
Hast all that mortals adore,
And eyes thou hast most handsome;
My darling, what would'st thou more?
Upon thine eyes so handsome
I've written many a score
Of poems, all immortal;
My darling, what would'st thou more?
And with thine eyes so handsome
Thou hast tortured me full sore,
And hast me ruined utterly;
My darling, what would'st thou more?




THEODORE PARKER.                        35
The lindens were blooming, the nightingale sung,
The sun smiled on us with friendliest fire,
You kissed me so, then, and your arms round me flung,
And clasp'd to your bosom that throbbed with desire.
The raven croak'd dull, the leaves they all fell,
The sunlight salutes us gloomily now,
We frostily said to each other, Farewell,
And courtly you bow'd me the courtliest bow.
Many a form of days forgotten
Arose from out its grave,
Again to show me clearly
What life thy presence gave.
By day I wander'd, dreamingThrough all the streets I'd range;
Men looked astonish'd on me,
I was so sad and strange.
At night it all went better,
For then the streets were clear;
I and my ghost, together,
We wander'd silent there.
On the bridge, with echoed footsteps,
My rambling way I took;
The moon broke through the night-clouds,
Greeting with serious look.
I stood before thy dwelling,
And gazed upon the sky,
And gazed upon thy window:
My heart beat wild and high.
I know that oft the window
Thou'st open'd with thy hand,
And seen ne in the moonlight,
Like a marble statue stand.
Thou art a little flower,
So pure, and fair, and gay,
I look on thee, and sadness
Steals to my heart straightway.
My hands I feel directed
Upon thy head to lay,
Praying that God may keep thee,
So pure, and fair, and gay.
D 2




3G               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
Mly child, when we were children,
Two children small and gay,
We crept into the hen-house,
And hid us under the hay.
We crow'd, as do the cockerels,
When people pass'd the wood,' Ki-ker-ki!" and they fancied
It was the cock that crow'd.
The chests which lay in the court-yard,
We paper'd them so fair,
Making a house right famous,
And dwelt together there.
The old cat of our neighbor
Oft came to make a call;
We made her bow and courtesy,
And compliment us all.
Wie ask'd, with friendly question,
How she was getting on;
To many an ancient pussy
The same we since have done.
In sensible discoursing
TWe sat like aged men,
And told how, in our young days,
All things had better been.
That faith, love, and religion
From earth are vanish'd quite;
And told how dear is coffee,
And money is so tight.
But gone are childish gambols,
And. all things fleeting prove;
Money, the world, our young days,
Religion, truth, and love.
Here is a fragment of Geibel's " Tannhiuser "iNow is the night so joyous,
Now blooms so rich the wold,
And on all hill-tops whisper
Such voices manifold!
The streamlets twinkle and glisten,
The flowers give fragrance and light;
The marble statues listen
In the dark-green of the night.
The nightingale singeth, " Beware, beware!"
The boy looks forth, and forth will fare;
Wild beats his heart-he heedeth not:
What once he lo7ed is all forgot.




THEODORE PARKER.                          37
A castle in the garden:
With light the windows glance,
At the door are pages waiting,
Above resounds the dance.
Up the stairway he is leaping,
He enters in the hall;
There are silken garments sweeping,
There gleams the gold pokal.
The nightingale singeth, "Beware, beware!'
The boy looks forth, and forth will fare;
Wild beats his heart-he heedeth not:
What once he loved is all forgot.
The fairest of the women
Holds out to him the glass,
While cool, delicious shudders
Through soul and body pass.
He drains the magic measure,
The door-dwarf answers shrill,
"Now, boy, thou art our pleasure:
This is Dame Venus' hill."
The nightingale singeth, but from afar;
The boy is drawn by his evil star;
Wild beats his heart-he heedeth not:
What once he loved is all forgot.
FROM MARTIN OPITZ.
Come, dearest, let us hasten
While time is ours;
Delay is fast consuming
All of our powers.
The noblest gifts of beauty
Fly wing and wing;
And all that one possesses
Is vanishing.
The rosy cheek is paling,
The hair turns gray;
The eyes' bright fire is failing;
The breast is clay.
That dainty mouth of coral
Will soon be cold,
Those hands, like snow, hang heavy,
And thoult be old.
Then, let us seize, in rapture,
Youth's fruit of gold,
Before we're called to follow
Years that are told,




38               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
As thou thine own self lovest,
Love me as true;
Give me-what else thou givest,
That love I, too.
Here is Hymn No. 1400 in Chevalier Bunsen's Collection:The gloomy night is gathering in,
The day's sweet light is dead;
Oh, then, my soul, sleep not in sin,
Commune with God instead!
O God, the world's eternal Lord,
Whom no one can perceive,
Thou seest me daily in Thy tent;
Wilt Thou my prayer receive?
The daylight, which is ended now,
In chief belongs to Thee,
And so ought I, from morn till night,
Thy holy servant be.
Perhaps my duty is not done,
For I am flesh and blood;
And trespass ere the day is gone,
Although the will be good.
Swedish, Servian, and Russian verses appear occasionally, just
well enough translated to convey their popular and domest.ic
feeling, but not metrically finished.  He loved best the songs
and hymns of the people, which are full of simple sentiments,
and frankly wear the costume of their race and locality.
These are original lines:She never came to risit me
When sickness laid me low,
Nor asT'd, when pallid was my brow,' Deam child, what ails you so?
And when'miid whelming tides I strove,
Struggling for mortal breath,
She never reach'd me out her hand
To save my soul from death!
Ah, once I fancied otherwise!
" When. waters gird me round
She'll come, an angel through the storm1
And I shall not be drown'd."
Then wither'd be the flowers she gave,
And perish every thought
Wherewith she peopled once my heart,
And be herself forgot!




THEODORE PARKER.                           3.9
Ah, no! forgot she cannot beThat hand will still remain;
For ever I shall dread that hand
Whose touch empoisons pain.
The following lines he introduced in a sermon, entitled  " Tlhe
Practical Effect of the Ecclesiastical Conception of God."
In darker days and nights of storm,
Men knew Thee but to fear Thy form;
And in the reddest lightnings saw
Thine arm avenge insulted law.
In brighter days, we read Thy love
In flowers beneath, in stars above;
And in the track of every storm
Behold Thy beauty's rainbow form.
And in the reddest lightnings' path
We see no vestiges of wrath,
But always wisdom-perfect love,
From flowers beneath to stars above.
See, from on high sweet influence rains
On palace, cottage, mountains, plains!
No hour of wrath shall mortals fear,
For their Almighty Love is here.
With this prayer let the chapter close:
O Thou eternal One, may I commune
With Thee, and for a moment bathe my soul
In Thy infinity, Mother and Sire
Of all that are?  In all that is art Thou;
Being is but by Thee, of Thee, in Thee;
Yet, far Thou reachest forth beyond the scope
Of space and time, or verge of human thought.
Transcendant God! Yet, ever immanent
In all that is, I flee to Thee, and seek
Repose and soothing in my Mother's breast.
O God, I cannot fear, for Thou art love,
And wheresoe'er I grope I feel Thy breath 
Yea, in the storm which wrecks an argosy,
Or in the surges of the sea of men
When empires perish, I behold Thy face,
I hear Thy voice, which gives the law to all
The furies of the storm, and Law proclaims,
"Peace, troubled waves, serve ye the right-be still!'"
From all this dusty world Thou wilt not lose
A molecule of earth, nor spark of light.
I cannot fear a single flash of soul.,Shall ever fail, outcast from Thee, forgot.




40                LIFE OF TIiEODORE PARKER.
Father and Mother of all things that are,
I flee to Thee, and in Thy arms find rest.
My God! how shall I thank Thee for Thy love!
Tears must defile my sacramental words,
And daily prayer be daily penitence
For actions, feelings, thoughts which are amiss:
Yet will I not say, " God, forgive!" for Thou
Hast made the effect to follow cause, and bless
The erring, sinning man.  Then, let my sin
Continual find me out, and make me clean
From all transgression, purified and bless'd!




CHAPTER XVII.
Correspondence-Knowledge of the People —Hanc-writiug -Projected. Work on the
Development of Christianity.
WHEN books and thoughts released him  to the family below,
straightway gentleness, humor, and  all natural ways flowed
forth.  He never disdained a bit of fun, indeed his motions
were sometimes demonstrative of a boy's bubbling heart, to the
threatening of his cloth. Nor was a prized domestic ever left
to feel that she was not a member of the family but a mere
convenience; he was free, and kind, not without his' quip, if it
suited him; but he knew his place.  Does not one faithful and
cherished member of that loving household still recall those
courtesies, which warmed the heart like a Christmas fire?
Sometimes he could snatch a pleasant hour in the evening,
between nine and ten, when he descended to the parlor, and
cut the leaves of a fresh book while pleasant talk went round
the table.  But he generally contrived to get the family off to
bed by ten o'clock, that he might remount the stairs to those
walls well lined with a great horizon.
After the morning Scripture had been gratefully read, he was
eager to reach his books.  But how  tolerant he was of interruptions; especially if the children of his dear friends climbed
the long flights to have a chat with Mr. Parkie!  Then he
would open the top of a secretary, in which he always kept a
store of carts and jumping-jacks, and the floor became a playground.  He was on the carpet with them, and the biggest
child of all.
How he would pull LIis books about to show them to a friend,
explain their uses, and glory in their strength!  Pretty soon




42              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
your chair was entrenched with folios, and you sat within an
enforced excuse not to escape too soon.
Sometimes people did not understand that fine art of rising
to go.  Then his fingers went tracking for his pen.  Once, they
were prepared to make a heave-offering of an eminent member
of the old Whig party, who called for the purpose of chastising
him in his study, for some violation of the creed of Hunkerism.
A firm and sensible demeanor disarmed this man, and he went
downstairs with new thoughts in his heart.
The hours of the day which calls and claims of every description did not embarrass, were apt to be laid waste by correspondents.   Letters  and  visitors were  continually  making
onsets upon those marshalled books.   Few  public men ever
sustained such a wide and varied correspondence as he.  It
seemed as if his powerful mind set loose in every direction
doubts, speculations, hopes which were never before betrayed,
for want of some sympathetic listener.  All the passions, too,
posted to his study; bigotry, hatred, envy, gratitude, sleep now
in those heaps of many-colored paper which are sorted on the
shelves where the books lately stood.  In that pile of sheets of
all sizes, from long, thick, and dingy foolscap to bad commercial
post, a parcel of anonymous attacks lie dead in their skulking
paper, slaveholders threatening him  with castigation and the
bowie-knife, in  sentences, or rather agglutinated masses, of
extraordinary rhetoric and syntax; northern critics, liberal only
in their epithets; feeble creatures, panic-stricken at his speech
and afraid to subscribe their panic; pious and proper laymen,
begging him not to use the words "dry-nurse" in the pulpit,
and complaining that the audience laughed when he said that
"in most churches people came for nothing, and got what they
came for; " bitter atheists, charging him  with being religious,
and with suppressing in print things which he said in the pulpit;
all kinds of malignity, startled into their proper shapes by the
touch of his sincerity, coiled for one spring at him, but missed, and
sunk away.  He kept the sheets, as a naturalist puts abnormal
specimens in spirits, to show the amount of divergence.
But thankful and cheering words also reached him; these
have been already hinted at.  They came " not single spies but in
battalions, "- confessions of grateful hearts who had been saved
from  horrible distress, brought on by old theologies; noble souls
born in a narrow place, and emancipated by his faith; tender and




TIHEODORE PARKER.                      43
mystic communications from  women, alone in this world, but
finding near approach to God through him, and clinging fbr
guidance to his strong, kindly hand; confessions of critical
moments of spiritual history, when his word came, like the
belated column which turns the day; manly thanks from persons in England, Scotland, Germany, and the Far West of his own
country, who learned from him  to worship without superstition.
Apparently, his words came always just in time. The punctuality
was in the quality of the word.
It also went wherever it was wanted.  Such a cosmopolitan
collection of post-marks is seldom  made.  They have a conventional range, from  Buckingham  Palace and Osborne, through
university towns, scholars' libraries, remote parishes in Scotland,
the seats of power in British India, to places Down East, and
towns at the West not yet gazetteered; posted by Brahmen
becoming Unitarian, Germans admiring his scholarship and freedom, scholars in confidential talk, Orthodox and Presbyterian
clergymen acknowledging his worth, and sometimes, too, his doctrine; plain New-England farmers, Western "roughs," Kansas
emigrants, Quakers, both mild and militant, maids of honor,
politicians, divinity students, and all people inquisitive about
their souls.  Anthony Burns is taught writing, and sends his
first specimen of bad grammar, but irreproachable gratitude, to
the great scholar who never felt so accomplished as when standing in the dock with him.  Charles Torrey sends him  thanks
from Baltimore Gaol. What exquisite revenge to lay such letters
over the other impudent and cruel sheets  i In reply, he must
acknowledge, advise, encourage, defend, explain, thank, and make
innumerable statements of his opinions and hopes in politics, his
position in theology, his views of books, his estimates of public
men.  What wearisome and endless repetition I  But, doubtless,
each person was contented with his ration.
His publications greatly stimulated those people, so numerous
in America, who are without cultivation, but robust and sensible, given to independent investigation of all possible problems,
which are sometimes maltreated at their hands-people like that
gray-headed Hoosier who presented himself one day at the Patent
Office with a model of the Archimedean screw, of which he had
never heard.  Their minds refuse to take anything for granted,
prefer to rough it and to grow old in toil to making a hospital. of
a meeting-house.  These persons would sometimes astonish, and




44             LIFS'E AND CORlL SPOuNDENCE OF
sometimes affict,  ir. Parker with their lucubrations.  They
would dare everything, even to imparting to him instruction upon
the Old Testament Canon, the dispersion of the Ten Tribes, and
the epoch of Buddha.  They had theories about the liraculous
Conception, and the Crucifixion, Pre-existence, and Immortality.
Their views were very curiously and adroitly put.  But he
patiently replied, and humanely welcomed every word of an
earnest inquirer.
How many there are in this country! They do not sit in the
pews of any of the churches.  It is very doubtful if the " free "
seats sanctified to the use of the colored brethren would hold all
these white recusants and nonconformists.  Mir: Parker's correspondence gave him the inestimable advantage of an introduction to the mind of the people.  He learned their wants and
difficulties, and gloried to know what hardihood and religiosity
waited  outside  of all the creeds for some word  of lifb, a
recognition of the human heart itself, and a popular defence of
it against superfluous doctrine.  His works will always feed and
comfort this unincorporated and invisible communion.
Thus, by means of a correspondence of astonishing extent,
and by lecturing campaigns, which brought him face to face with
the people through the East and West, he gradually established
a relation with a great lay constituency, like that which prominent politicians achieve in their perpetual canvass, but more
intimate and serene.  For ten years his lectures would average
more than forty during each winter; their number varied from
forty to eighty.  WTherever he went he surrendered himself to
popular intercourse; it was his passion to know men, and the
luxury of his laborious life to find human nature everywhere
nobly justifying the confidence he placed in it.  He felt, in the
process of lecturing, that the people, though cautioned against
his heresies, and taught by newspapers and sermons to suspect
his disposition, were gradually overcoming this monstrous misrepresentation, which the political prejudices of the majority
helped for some time to foster.  That prejudice was the first to
give way, as men saw  more clearly  that his words upon
the state of the country  and  the  horrible  disease which
was destroying it were just.  Then the popular heart began
to be with him; a great parish was his before, it waited
each  winter for his steps as he bore  his brave American
heart, in  neglect  of physical weakness, through the  chief




THEODORE PARKER.                          5 
towns  of  the  North,  with  a  dispensation  of  humanity.
The number of  those who  loved  the freedom  of his doctrine was beginning to  increase by a large conversion  from
the parties which once detested his anti-slavery principles, and
shrunk from his unsparing delineations.  The more right he was
found to be, the larger his constituency grew; the people were
fast rallying to the call of their own instincts from his lips.  Of
all the things which he ever said, none was truer than his conviction penned to Mr. Sumner, " The people are always true to
a good man who truly trusts them."  The day will come when
Americans will remember him  regretfully as the representative and prophet of the purer future which they  shall live
to enjoy.
FROM  i. W. EMiERSON.
Concord, Mass., March 19 11853.
MY DEAR PARKER.-Before that bookx came to me, though not until
several weeks after it was sent, I read the inscription, if with more
pride than was becoming, yet not without some terror. Lately I took
the book in hand, and readthe largest part of it with good heed. I
find in it all the traits which are making your discourses material to
the history of Massachusetts; the realism, the power of local and
homely illustration, the courage and vigor of treatment, and the
masterly sarcasm-now naked, now veiled-and I think with a marked
growth in power and coacervation-shall I say?-of statement. To be
sure, I am in this moment thinking also of speeches out of this book
as well as those in it. Well, you will give the times to come the means
of knowing how the lamp was fed, which they are to thank you that
they find burning.  And though I see you are too good-natured
by half in your praise of your contemporaries, you will neither deceive
us nor posterity, nor-forgive me-yourself, any more, in this graceful
air of laying on others your own untransferable laurels.
We shall all thank the right soldier whom God gave strength and
will to fight for Him the battle of the day.
Ever new strength and victory be to you!. W. W    r. EMRSx.
He received a good many letters from  his friends devoted
mainly to anathemas upon his handwriting.  Sometimes after
his manuscript had in turn baffled all the compositors in an
office, it was returned to the editor of the magazine with an
abject confession of ignorance of the language. It is indeed an
extraordinary hand.  In 1835 it was large, round, and deliberate, all the words were furnished with their lawful contingent
of letters, and there were no cabalistic  marks to make the
reader suspect occasional quotations from  the Sinaitic, or other' Dedicated to,Mr. Emerson by Mr. Parker.




46              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
absence of language.  As his work increased, this honest hand
became depraved.  In the epoch of gradual deposition all the
characters are distinctly preserved, but when disturbances commenced, and cataclysms interrupted his creative day, the marks
became huddled and confused.  The letters gave up their individuality, and suffered a kind of pantheistic absorption into the
sense of the word, which was then to be intuitionally conceived.
The abbreviations and symbols become more intelligible than
the actual failures to depict a whole sound word.  A facsimile,
if such a thing were possible, of a page from the manuscript of
the " Historical Development of Religion," would afflict the
learned world like Dighton Rock. His enemies would generously
demand the publication of the book.
His friend, Rev. J, F. Clarke, wrote to him  that it was a
great popular delusion that he was not afraid of saying what
he believed, since he wrote it so that he could declare at any
time that he had not said it.  Mr. Parker had no feeling for
his friends on this point; he probably thought, and with justice,
that his handwriting was the only thing he could not reform.
DEAR FRIEND,-Find fault with my handwriting! M/ine! Mle Hercle!
ras ever such fastidiousness dreamed of? Why, I write nearly as
well as Dr. Parr. I will lay a wager that in three cases out of tenl
I can decipher (pretty accurately) my own handwriting, even a month
after it has been laid aside. Shame on such fault-finding; study the
Babylonian, the Cufic, the Chinese, the Bengalee, and then you willIt was a terrible man who taught me to write, or made the attempt.
He set me near fourscore copies before he suffered me to join any two
letters. All that I had created before were natural celibates, unfit for
wedlock.
It had become rather bad as early as 1841, if the following
did not exaggerate: —- Your good letter gave me so much
pleasure, that despite the hard work I had, assisted by my wife,
in spelling out some parts of it, I felt truly grateful for it.  I
reflected that the gods give us no good thing without labor,
and if after digging through the hieroglyphics, I found a treasure,
I had no right to complain."  And here, too, is an amiable expostulation:-~" Do you know," writes a friend, " that I am sometimes puzzled with your handwriting?  Not but that I am
willing to break any shell to get at such meat."  But this note
from  an editorial chair is not so willing:-" Metcalf absolutely
refuses to print fiom your handwriting; it must be copied, or he
must be paid double."  In this last case, however  there is




THEODORE PARKER.                         47
reason to suppose that the matter written  vas only too intelligible.
In giving the names of these books will you please to exert all your
energies to make them legible, and do not hold it " a baseness to write
fair." In this respect I think you sometimes abuse your privileges. A
man so ready to avow his opinions in speech, ought not to conceal them
so cunningly when he writes.
The facsimile of a letter which is inserted in a later part of
this volume for the sake of its opinions, shows a specimen of his
handwriting better than usual.  But what would a reader make
of this, for instance, which is faithfully copied from a manuscript
sermon, save the disintegrated letters.
I wuld. hae. Bel. Inst. & fr. tht. I would not take a min. with a
Book-Rel., bt. a P. of Ht. & Life, nt. a Pt. who thinks man a little
weak Dl. by INt. & God a gt. sg. one by will, bt. a Man who kn. th.
Inf. Gd. by IIt.
Which may be thus translated:
I would have religious instruction, and for that I would not take a
minister with a book-religion, but a preacher of heart and life, not a
priest who thinks man is a little weak devil by nature, and -God a great
strong one by will, but a man who knows the infinite God by heart.
Hh.,  Hps., Fids., stand for health, happiness, friends; Dts.
is daughters;  HIty. is history;  12  -H. T. is  1,200,000;
-^        "         is a symbol meaning mnore or less than;
=ly is equally.
Occasionally in his love of realism  his pen played with the
text, and became pictorial.
Why, the road which reaches from  the last,r    of S. to the
newest log           in Oregon is called after rn one-half the way,
the other after J.
The travelling in ill-ventilated railroad-cars, with the sudden
transition from them  to all the chances of winter weather, and
an hour's lecturing in large halls closely packed with people,
exhausted him more than he was willing to confess.  When he
returned he was hardly fit for study; yet the preparations for
his elaborate work on the Development of Religion went on. The
composition of lectures, sermons, and articles, the care of his
correspondence, and the other taxes to his fame and notoriety




48              LIFE AND CORIIESPO\DENCE OF
which he had to pay in loss of time, interfered sadly with his
labor upon the book; but, though thus constantly suspended, it
was never abandoned or given up.
His purpose in setting about the composition of this book was
to  establish  a historical and philosophical ground  for pure
theism, by marking the different epochs of religious development
in the races of mankind, so that the divine premeditation might
be discovered, following a definite plan and purpose parallel to
that which appears in the history of the material world.  He
would trace the logical sequence which binds together, in the
continuous creative act of God, all the successive types of the
religious consciousness.  These are to be studied in the ethnic
strata of mankind, exhibiting the general conformity to a great
plan amid specific differences, as the later forms absorb, correct,
and amplify the earlier ones.  Such a method would show the
old roots of notions which still linger in the human consciousness, the gradual development of opinions still in their maturity
or about to decline, and the striving to approach new and purer
forms of belief, in strict obedience to the overruling thought.
This would account for past phenomena, by laying open their
laws.  Nothing is found to be arbitrary or capricious, and the
human investigation must tranquilly accept the divine method,
just as it does, in the highest and most reverential manner, when
scientific and historical facts are determined. There is nothing
to exempt the growth of man's spiritual consciousness from  an
application of the great method which preserves its unity amid all
varieties.   Nothing stands in the way but the old superstitious
methods themselves, which, like similar abortive methods in science,
having failed to account for the facts, are to be quietly set aside,
for the sake of truth and in the highest interests of mankind.
If some points in the growth of the religious consciousness can
be fixed beyond dispute, so much is contributed towards the true
method and the deduction of a law of development; and such a
law, once clearly established, will lead men, between materialism
and superstition on the one side and idealism  on the other,
towards a ground of certitude. The points which are essential for
framing such a deduction are to be gathered from  an examination of the leading races of the past, what they thought, did,
and believed; and also, fiom an examination of the races of the
present day, what are the invariable facts of their mental and
spiritual organization.




THEODORE PARKER.                          49
What purpose could be more religious than this, or pervaded
with a truer deference for the welfare of man?  Though his
work remains unfinished, and might have been imperfectly prosecuted, it was beneficent, both religiously conceived and laboriously
carried on, with all the instincts of a scholar and of a, lover of
men.  The idea remains, bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh
of the great theory of scientific development to which this epoch
has obtained a clue.  Many books and tentative speculations,
much painstaking gathering of facts and cautious classification,
must yet precede the deduction of a law that shall safely express
in human language the invisible thought to which the golden
links of life are hung.  But the end is sure: knowledge will
slowly set aside tradition, ignorance, and bigotry.  The intellect
and piety of man will engage in a continuous act of worship,
learning to recognize everywhere the laws of God.
Astronomy destroys the doctrine of a local heaven, and restores the
doctrine of the divine omnipresence to its proper place, and pronounces
judgment on the Jenseitigkeit  of the angels.
Geology destroys the whim  of a six-days' creation and of a local
hell.
Biology makes death natural, not penal.
Anthropology denies the descent of mankind from a single pair, or,
at least, makes it doubtful, as well as the absolute perfection of the
primitive state.
Biblical criticism shows that inspiration is not limited to the Old
Testament and New Testament, and not infallible there.
Psychology explains visions, ecstacies, &c., as not miraculous.
Comparative religion shows that Christianity is one among many
forms; that inspiration, revelation, holy scriptures are not confined to
any one religion. All reach their highest form in Christianity; and
they are not, as some fancy, caricatures of religion.
The manuscript of Mr. Parker's work, so far as completed, is
contained in  about 270  pages of a blank book.  Elsewhere,
notes and lists of books, meant for use in different chapters, are
scattered; but there is no formal treatment of the subject except
in those pages.  And it is plain that they have not assumed the
final form which he intended should precede publication.  A few
selections are given here, just in their present condition; and,
first, a careful premeditation of the whole ground of the work,
which he calls a " provisional scheme."  It is strictly followed
by him as far as the composition extends:* Yon-sidedness; existence in a place distinct from and beyond the visible universe.
VOL. IT.                                                E




50               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
BOOK I.-Of Religion and the Evidence.
Chap. I. Nature of Religion and the Form of the Evidence thereof.
1. Of Religion.
2. Of Theology.
3. Of Mythology.
4. Institutions.
5. Nature of the Evidence of Religion.
Chap. II. Of Assent and the various Forms thereof.
1. Of Possibility.
2. Of Credibility.
3. Of Probability.
4. Of Certainty.
Chap. III. Of Degrees of Assent demanded in different Departments of Thought.
Chap. IV. Of Ideas as distinguished according to their Modes of
Acquisition.
1. Ideas of Perception.
2. Ideas of Intuition.
3. Ideas of Demonstration.
4. Of Testimony;
Chap. V. Of Ideas distinguished as Necessary or Contingent.
1. Of Ideas of Necessity.
2. Of Ideas of Contingency.
Chap. VI. Of some important Facts of the Religious Consciousness.
1. Modes of Studying Religious Consciousness.
2. Periods of the Development thereof.
(1). Period of Vague Feeling, anterior to Fetichism.
(2). Period of Definite Feeling, anterior to Fetichism.
(3). Period of Distinct Idea of God as Influent.
(4). Period of Distinct Idea of God as God.
Chap. VII. Of the Things to be Considered in the Evidence of
Religion.
1. Of the Three Things to be Demonstrated.
2. Nature and Form of Proof.
(1). Of the Religious Consciousness in Man.
(2). Of the Existence and Character of God, and of
His Relation to Mankind.
(3). Of the Religious Duties of Man.
Chap. VIII. Of the Function of Religion in Human Development.
BOOE: II.-Of the Development of Religion in the Caucasian Race
into various National Forms, to the Time of Christ.
Chap. I. Introductory Statement of the Question.
Chap. II. Development of Religion in _~gypt, or -Egyptian National Form of Religion.
Chap. III. National Form of Religion in India.
Chap. IV. National Form of Religion in Persia.
Chap. V. Of the Shemites in general.
Chap. VI. Heathen, or Non-Jacobic Semitic Nations.
Chap. VII. Heathen, or Non-Jacobic Hebrews.
Chap. VIII. Beathen or Non-Jacobic Greeks (Hellenes.)




THEODORE PARKER.                         51
Chap. IX. Heathen or Non-Jacobic Romans.
Chap. X. The Union of Oriental and Greek Philosophy.
Chap. XI. Teutons and K1elts.
BooK III. —The Moral and Religious Condition of Mankind at the
Birth of Jesus Christ.
Chap. I. Effect of Rome in Gathering into a Unity the Diverse
Nationalities.
Chap. II. Popular Consciousness of the Educated in Beligion, and
its Ideal Effect on Morals and the Public Life.
Chap. III. Relation of Woman to Maln.
1. Hebrew; 2. Classic; 3. Barbarous,  German, &c.
(Domestic.)
Chap. IV. Relation of Rich and Poor, Slaves, &c. (Social.)
Chap. V. Relation of Government and People (Political).
Chap. VI. Relation of State and Mankind (Kosmic).
BooK IV.-Chap. I. Generic Agreement of Christianity and other
Forms of Religion. Christianity of Jesus Christ in the Gospel
of Matthew. (Other New Testament Developments in Book V.)
Chap. II. Specific Difference between Christianity and  other
Forms of Religion.
1. Anthropological:-1. Internality (Sentiment)
2. Free Spirit (Individuality).
3. Ethical Character.
2. Theological-Character of God.
1. Relation to Nature.
2. Relation to Man (Devil, Heil).
3. Critical-Judgment applied to Ideas of Christianity.
BooK V. —IHistorical Development of Christianity.
1. As a Religion, Speculative and Philosophical.
2. In Practice, Ethical, &e.
Part I. As a Religion.  Four Periods: 1. Preponderance of
the Hebrew Element: Ebionites, Matthew, Mark, and Apocalypse, Jewish Christians in general.
2. Preponderance of the Greek Elemen: Philosophy, Paul,
the Subtleties, show the Value of the Dogmatic Disputes.
3. Preponderance of the Roman Element: Practice, Results in the Catholic Church.
4. Preponderance of the Germanic Element: Individualism, Protestantism.
Notice the two forces: one tending to Unity of Action
(Orthodoxy), MBonarchy, &c. The other to Variety of Action
(Heresy), Episcopacy, which is Aristocratic; Presbyterian,
which is Republican; Congregational, which is Democratic,
Notice also: 1. Piety, Personal Religion.
2. Theology.
3. Literature (Theologico-Religious).
Part II. As a Practice.
i. Individual Life and Character (the Individual).
2. Domestic Life and Character (the Family).
E 2




52               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OP
3. Civil Life and Character (the State).
(Effect on Law, Civil Law, Law of Nations.)
4. Mundane Life and Character (the World).
BooK VI. Problems yet to be Solved in the Religion of Mankind.
Part I. Philosophical Desiderata.
Part II. Practical Desiderata.
1. In the Individual; 2. Family; 3. Society; 4. State;
5. Race. A Criticism: 1. Of the History of Mankind hitherto;
2. Of its Condition now; 3  Of its Ideas; 4. Desiderata, under
heads from 1 to 5.
After laying open the four kinds of proof or argument by
which the existence of God is commonly shown-the cosmological, teleological, ontological, and psychological-he proceeds,
assuming some conclusions previously made out:All these various arguments are attempts of mankind to legitimate
by the intellect what is given as a fact of consciousness, and what
seems to me is not attainable by any of the modes enumerated.
Reasoning, I think, will never furnish us with the idea of God, which
is a datum of spontaneous consciousness, any more than with the idea
of cause in itself. But starting with the notion of God, distinguishing
it from  other notions, developing it by the a priori law of intuition,
analysing the facts of intellectual, esthetic, moral, affectional, and
religious consciousness, till we separate the infinite element from all
the finite, uniting all this together by an act of synthesis with the One
Whole Being who is given spontaneously by our nature, we then find
that philosophy and nature agree: we have an idea of God which fulfils
the conditions of the mind, conscience, heart, soul, taken in their
separate activity, and also the conditions of human nature taken in its
whole action.  Thus we have an idea of God clear and consistent,
adequate to represent the first spiritual emotions of God with which
we set out. But all that this process of thought, of analysis, of consciousness, and synthesis of ultimate facts thereof has done, is to legitimate before the mind the consciousness of God, which comes spontaneously, and is a part of nature.  All this process of demonstration
makes me no more certain of the existence of God than at first, as all
the demonstration of my own existence, or of the existence of the
world, would make me no more certain of either than I was at first.
It only legitimates, by analysis and synthesis, what I knew  before
either. It only brings to a distinct consciousness what I held in
solution therein.
Starting thus with the notion of God as a fact of consciousness intuitively known, examining it, and developing it to its proper conclusion, I then see that the existence of God is a fact of necessity, not
merely actual, but uncontingent and necessary, as the a priori cause of
all things, and the reason thereof not less.  If any finite thing exists,
say myself, then by the laws of my own nature I am forced to the
infinite existence implied therein, and as certain of that as of my own
existence.  The only thing I take for granted in the matter is the
validity of my own faculties.




THEODORE PARKER.                          53
Let us examine the nature of God, thus authenticated, more carefully. I lay off all that is limited and conditioned, and separate the
idea of God from the conceptions added to it. Thus, I eliminate all
that is idiosyncratic or peculiar to myself, all that is sectarian and of
my own party, all that is national of my tribe, secular of my age.
Thus removing the idols of my own den, of my family den, of the tribe,
the age, there is left the idea of God the Infinite.  It is not Jehovah,
who is Hebrew; nor Baal, who is Tyrian; nor Odin, Zeus, or Jove,
who have the generic peculiarities of the Caucasian race, the form of
the successive ages which gave birth to such conceptions, and the
national form and colouring of the Jew or the Canaanite, of Scandinavia,
Greece, or BRome. It is not the Allah of the Mahomedan, nor the
Triune Deity of the Christians, that I seek, but God Himself-God,
blank and bare, unclothed by human conditions-the idea of God, a
primitive fact of nature, separated from the dust of human consciousness. This is the Infinite, the Absolute, not conceived as a manifold,
but a unit; and I call it a Being, the Absolute Being. Then I examine it in the light of all my several faculties, and I find God is the
perfection of existence, self, being, the cause uncaused; the perfection
of power, all-mightiness, of will, self-determining; the condition of all
things, but conditioned by none; autonomic, with absolute freedom;
with the perfection of mind, all-knowingness, not reasoning, inducing,
deducing, imagining, remembering, &c., but knowing without process,
regardless of our categories and modes of conception; but knowing in
forms to me unknown; the perfection of conscience, all-righteousness,
all-goodness, goodness unconditioned by motive, as hope, or fear, or
self-love; the perfection of affection, infinite love, not limited by the
character of the object, or with limited affection, which needs reciprocal
influence, and is raised or let down by the character of the object of
love, but loving, irrespective thereof, maid and man, saint and sinner;
the perfection of soul, perfect holiness, fidelity to self; therefore as
wise as powerful, as good as wise, as just as good, as lovely as just,
as holy as beautiful. I call this the Supreme Being. Looked at from
various points of view, and named from specialities of representation,
it is now infinite power, now infinite mind, reason, and understanding,
now infinite beauty, then infinite good, then infinite love, then infinite
holiness.  I unite all-being and the modes thereof-and name it
God.
While I attribute these qualities, I of course conceive of God as
immanent in all of the modes into which I divided existence-matter
and spirit, but as infinite. I do not put a limit there.  God is transcendant; and as there are qualities in a rose, which the slug who eats
it knows not, but I know; so doubtless there are other qualities in
God which far transcend all I can know thereof as yet.  The dog
that runs at my side, the fly that buzzes about my temples, know very
little of me, of my nature, purposes, aims in life, notions and consciousness in general, but yet I doubt not comes nearer to an exhaustive
knowledge of me than I of God.  Suppose that fly to plan about me,
as most men about God, then He must conceive of me with the
enlarged attributes of a fly, and put His inmscous limitations upon me;
He may say there is a certain musculity in man-a flyiness. I dare
not attribute personality to God, lest I invest the Deity with the
limitations of my own, ending in anthropomorphism; nor impersonality,




54                LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
lest I thus affix the limitations of mere matter, and abut in Hylism
or in Pantheism.  Yet infinite self-consciousness must belong to God,
only I can have no adequate conception of any consciousness but my
own; so I know thus that I cannot know the mode of the consciousness of God.  The consciousness that I ascribe to God must be as
alien and as unlike as the bear of the strolling bear-tamers is to the
constellation called the Bear in heaven.*
In use, as symbol of the reverence of men, all nations speak of God
in their highest forms of speech, and, considering the bi-sexual animals
above the unisexual, and then the masculine as more dignified than
the feminine, call God He, not It, nor She.  It is not worth while to
depart from common language while we know its use, though some of
the attributes of God find a better symbol in woman than in man.
Follow out the idea of God this gives, and, thus distinguished and
declared, let us see the relation He must sustain to the world.  As the
Infinite, He corresponds to infinite perfection in each of the forms we
can understand.  He is the infinite cause and reason, the infinite designer, making all things with his own aim  and purpose; the infinite
law-giver, cause, reason, and designer of the modes of action in the
universe, of matter and of spirit; the infinite befriender, that loves
all-the infinite father.  He must be the infinite providence-a providence that is universal, so special and general both.  He must be infinitely present everywhere, immanent in space; every Now also pervading, and eternal in time.  Space and time-nay, immensity and
eternity, may then poetically be called the temporal and local extension
of God-the ultimate cause of all things, the ultimate condition of
all, the law of all, the befriender and the provider of all.
In Book II. " Of the Ante-Christian Modes of Religion," let us
take the introductory chapter, " Statement of the Question:"As religion has its ground in the imperishable nature of man, and its
support in the continual activity of God, both directly in the Holy
Spirit and mediately through nature, so religion is a fact of human consciousness, inseparable from human nature, and appearing at all periods
of man's history. It is a constant force, with a variable quantity, in
human history.  But the phenomena of its development must depend
on the general development of mankind.  The actual manifestation of
religion, therefore, is the result of all the culture of the people, and its
index and test.  Nothing is done per saltun in human history more than
in material nature. Mount Washington does not rise sheer up from the
sea, with perpendicular sides seven thousand feet high; there is an upward slope all the way, though irregular, from the sea to the mountain,
else the ascent were impossible, except to the eagle. Poets like Milton
and Goethe, men of science like Achard and Newton, do not spring up
among the Mandans or the Lestrygonians.  If we bring together two
extremes of religion, the religion of the Bushmen and of a rational
Christian or philosophical Deist, at this day, the two seem unlike and
irreconcilable.  All the difference of civilization appears in the religions thus wide asunder.  But supply all the intermediate links, and
the transition is not abrupt.  The history slips all the way from the
This illustration is Spinoza's.




THEODORE PARKER.                            50
rude natural representations of the Bushmen to the free spiritual religion of the Christian.  The difference between the Bushmen and the
Christian is not of nature, but of development.  This will appear in
the modes of religion.
From  the beginning of human history there has been a gradual
development of man's spirit, of his soul as well as mind; and, as
the result, a gradual development of religion.  This appears theoretically in his idea of God, of man, of their relations; and practically
in the literature, ritual, art, manners, laws, institutions, government,
ethics, and daily life. These are the moments which frame the religious
history of mankind; all modes of religion agree in this, that they are
religious; they differ substantially on account of the different degrees
of culture of the nation, and so represent degrees of religion; and
they differformally in this that the peculiar genius of the nation, or of
its great men, appears therein.  To understand the religious history of
mankind, we must study these various forms of religion, as to know
the religion of a man we must know the phases which religion has
assumed in his consciousness.  No one must be neglected.  To understand any one phase thereof, we must see it in its relation to the whole.
Especially is this so with the later modes of religion, e.g. with Christianity. That cannot be understood except in its relation with other
forms of religion before Christ.  We must understand the religious
history  of mankind before that time, and the religious condition
thereof at that time, the highest, as the result of all the natural
thinking of the human race.  Plato and Aristotle helped Kant and
Hegel, and Thales of M!iletus was the forerunner of Schelling of
Berlin.
As the present inquiry must need? be brief, I shall neglect the
nations which had little or no perceptible influence on the nations then
ruling the world. Thus, the nations then savage or barbarous may be
left out of the account.
Humana ante oculos pede quum vita jaceret
In terris, obpressa gravi sub religione;
Que caput a coeli regionibus obtendebat
IHorribili super adspectu mortalibus instans.*
Mankind was separated into various nations, divided by geographical
obstructions from one another, and developing  their idiosyncracies,
separated also by governments, names, languages, &c.  They thus
developed their own peculiar national character in all directions. Each
had its own peculiar mode of religion, which often purposely separated
it from other nations.  All of these religions had something generalof mankind (souls of religion), as well as special, of their nationality
(forms thereof), and this was its contribution to the sum of the religion
of the world.  When the separation was removed by a transient war,
or a lasting peace, and a form  was found free enough, the several
nationalities might all be moulded into one.  There is no more that
is arbitrary in the religious development of mankind, than in the
scientific or political development thereof.
Each nation has a form of religion which accords with its genius and
progress, and represents the sum-total of its actual ideas of right,
* Lucretillus, I. 63.




56              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
good, the beautiful, &c. So all the forms of religion, like the classes
with their lessons in a school, are to be taken as momenta in the religious progress of mankind.  Idolatry is one form of religion, and as
much belonging to the need of human history when it came, as rude
attempts of a child to walk are indispensable. Each form of religion
is to be tried by its relation to the nation at the time; and every form
once grew out of the actual life of some one, even such doctrines as
that of the depravity of man, and, of course, of God, and the form of
human sacrifice; and also by its relation to the absolute religion. Each
is an attempt to get towards it and to it.  All these lines of human
religion do tend to that central point, as the stumblings of the child to
walking, as the abortive theories of Ptolemy and Copernicus to the true
astronomy: a mistake in religion (doctrinal or practical) is not therefore capricious.
In science and religion much is done by a few great men, who give
their names to discoveries or to systems, but they do little in comparison with what is done by the race of ordinary men, though the
ordinary men are forgot in the eclat of the great men.  Great originators of ideas in politics, like Jefferson, or great executive men like
Cromwell and Napoleon, do much, yet very little compared to the
work of the nation. So in science, how little did Newton and Leibnitz,
compared with the work before them! The mere man of genius tells
the work of his older and his younger brothers. Religious progress
did not begin with Moses, and end with Jesus of Nazareth.  There
had been much done in religion before ever Moses was possible; and
since Jesus of Nazareth, the development has gone on intrinsically and
extrinsically with more rapidity than before. The advance since Jesus
is greater than what he himself made. But now as the scientific
achievements of mankind do not represent all the facts of the universe,
no more does the religious thought of mankind represent all the
religion which mankind has in posse. The beginnings of religion were
small; we creep before we walk, we put out our hands and feet before
we could crawl, and spread wide our fingers, and stared at the world
with great eyes, not knowing what to make of it. In religion there
was a good deal of creeping before there was any walking at all, and
the creeping was as natural at first as the walking afterwards. What
is once gained by mankind is gained forever; for there is this noticeable,
-that man loves truth and the right, in all forms thereof-will be
satisfied permanently with nothing else, but will discard all things for
this, and, getting it once, will never let it go. Therefore, if any form of
religion contain good and evil-as all do-it will not disappear and perish
before any new form, until all the good of the old is taken up by the new.
Christianity is one form of religion amongst many. It was dependent
on the Jewish forms of religion in many ways-much of the good and
much of the evil now current under that name were mixed with forms
of religion before Christ. It can only be understood when taken as one
step in the religious history of mankind. But in a brief sketch like
this I shall neglect the forms of religion which had little influence on
the people of the world since become Christian, and which had no great
influence in the development of Christianity itself. Thus, the religion of
the savage may be left out of the account, also the religion of the Chinese.




THEODORE PARKER.                           57
All the nations of the earth at the time of Christ had their formal
religion-they all agreed in several things: in a belief in the existence of a God, of a religious nature in man   at had need of religion,
and has communication with God. These are two great facts on which
religion rests-deny either, and religion is not possible. They agreed
in a third thing: the immortality of the human spirit.\ These are the
three greatest facts in religious consciousness at this day. Individuals
doubt or deny all these, but nations never. Such as deny the existence
of the material world, are more numerous than these exceptional
deniers.  But these three are a part of the primal revelation made by
the nature of man, and therefore to every man in the world; a spontaneous revelation, made of God and by God, but in the nature of man,
and in conformity with the laws thereof.
These three things are taken for granted in all formal religion then,
and are three points of agreement among all men. But they differed
in the character they ascribed to God, and therefore in the idea of his
relation to man, and accordingly in the doctrines which religion demanded, the hopes which it allowed. They differed as to the nature of
God and of man, and the form of immortal life. The degree of their
revelation, and so of religion, and the forms thereof, differed with the
cultivated and with the natural genius of different people. Nations
differed also in the prominence they gave to the religious nature of man,
some making it of great account, and others of little, as they had much
or little organic tendency to religion.
Let me look at the forms of religion, taking them in their chronological order, limiting myself to the Caucasian race.
THE FORM or1 RETmIGION IN 2EGYPT.-In the present state of inquiry relative to _Egypt, it is not easy, or possible, for one who has no
access to the monuments, to make out or detail the religious facts of
consciousness of the AEgyptians, from the time of Menes to that of the
Ptolemies. It must take the labor of some centuries, perhaps, before
this can be done. Still, the chief facts of religious consciousness in that
time may be gleaned from what is known (from the monuments) to the
learned world.  Beyond that, all must be considered as provisional, and
respecting what is now known, the works of Lepsius and Bunsen will
furnish much information not now accessible to the public.
In regard to antiquity, Egypt surpasses all known nations. Her
civilization goes back beyond the rudest traditions of the nations of
Europe and Western Asia.  (Von Bohlen, in his "Alte Indien, mit
uiieksicht auf Egypten, 1830-31," thought Egyptian civilization derived from India, but retracted the opinion-Lepsius, " Die Chronologie
der 2Egyptier. Einleit. u. erster Theil. Kritik der Quellen," Berlin,
1849, 4to, p. 3.)   Greek and Roman history furnishes us no facts
before the seventh or eighth century B.c., while Egyptian history furnishes us with rigorously historical facts, and ~Egyptian chronology
with accurate dates, years, months, and days-from the third and fourth
thousand years B.c. (Lepsius, 1. e. p. 1.)  In the time of Menes, the
first king of the whole of Egypt (say 3500-4000 B.c., though Manetho's
system would place him 5702 B.c., apud Miller, II. 600), hieroglyphic
writings had been long devised, were established, and in extensive use.
There was a library, fourteenth century 3B.., established in a temple by




58                LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
Osymandias (Ramses Miaimun); we have still papyri firom the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries 3.c. (Lepsius, p. 36-39.) The _Egyptians had a
calendar of 365 days, established 3282 B.c., and reformed it in 2782
B.c. (Lepsius, p. 211 sq., p. 220; 216 sqq.)  Note: It is curious that
the Asiatic and European nations agree so nearly in their early historic
facts; the Chinese place their Jao (yau) about 2300.B.c.; the Chronicles
of Cashmir, their first king, Govada, 2448; the Babylonians, the termination of their great cyclic period about 2400, and their Flood about
2500; and the Hebrews their Deluge at the same time; while Manetho,
following authentic documents, places 3!Menes about 1500 years earlier
(4000 B.c.), and then makes him found a new kingdom by a division of
an older one (Lepsius, p. 24).  The -yggyptian claims to antiquity are
supported by monumental evidence, while those of Asiatic and European nations are not.  (Lepsius, p. 28.)
vEgypt seems to have been in a state of high civilization 1000 or 2000
years before the time of the Hebrew Flood.  (Egypt, " the young lion
of the nations."   See the chronological systems about Egypt, viz.
ifanetho in Syncellus; also in M3iillerus, "F ragmenta. Histor. Grecor.,
Parisiis, 1848," Tom. II., p. 510; Muiller's "Frag. Chron," appended
to Herodotus, Didot's ed., Paris, 1844. Eusebius, "Aucher." I. p. 199,
Svo.; see, too, the older edition, Opp. Lat. (Fol.)   Julius Afiic.
Chronicon, in ltouth, Reliquim," Tom. II., pp. 124-192. His "Epistole,"
ibid. III. sqq.  See, too, the remarks of Lepsius on all these and other
subjects, pp. 405-547; and Bunsen, " Egyptens Stelle in der Weltgeschichte" (Hamb. 1845), Buch I. pp. 25, 304; Pritchard, "Analysis
of the Egyptian Mythology;" Ideler, "Hiandbuch der Chronologie.")
Bunsen thinks the Egyptian mythology old as Menes (4000 B.c.),
and yet thinks "the religion of the Egyptians, like the language, has
its seat in Asia, in the Armenian Caucasian fatherland, and that the
ESgyptians brought the civilization of their age with them in some migration, as the Norwegians carried that of Norway to Iceland "!
The chapter proceeds in this way, with a great accumulation
of authorities, and a canvass of the merits of some to whom he
thinks too much deference has been paid, e. g.Such writers as Apuleius, lamblichlus, Porphyry, Philostratus, are of
scarcely any value here.  See  how  they  deceive  Cudworth  and
Wilkinson.  The Greeks were often  mistaken  on  the  Egyptian
religion.  See, for instance, Sallustius de Diis Mundi (apud Gale) ch.
iv.; Wilkinson's second series of the " Manners and Customs of the
East" (London, 1841), Vol. I. pp. 205, 229, 290, 302, 369; 55, 236,
465, et al. lamblichus was a philosophical gentleman of leisure, who derived his facts from his theories, and his theories from his lively fancies.
It may seem a bold generalization to assume that the Egyptians did
not believe in the freedom of their gods, though in their caprice; but
absolute freedom  could not be ascribed to any of the gods in that
period. The figures of several of the gods indicate this in their maimed
forms.  (See what Eudoxus relates in Plutarch: Isis, ~ 62.  Bunsen,
1. 490.) Note how the restless life of animals and their certain instinct




THEODORE  PARKER.                              59
attracts men, and so they worship.  Some of the deities were represented with human forms, but the heads of animals.  This indicates an
advance upon Fetichism, for the human form  is taken as the highest
type of visible life; and to emphasize that, the special function of some
animal is added, and symbolized by the appropriate animal.  Still it is
a rude step of religious development when an aggregate  of animal
functions, added to the human, is the mode of approximating man to
the Divine.  (See the plates in Wilkinson, or Alontfaucon, Rosellini.)
This is lower than the Indian mode, whereby this augmentation of
powers is represented by multiplying human limbs-hands, heads, feet,
&c.-for here is a unity in the quality of consciousness.
Still, the deities are artistically symbolized by the human form; the
distinction between men and gods is completely preserved; and it was
taught that no god had ever been a man, and no man a god.  This
is still below the Greek development.
All nations believe in some mode of revelation, by which the gods
make themselves known to mortals; here it was by living on the earth
with men, in the period before Menes, before the strictly historical
age.  The manner of this manifestation of the deities (of Osiris, e.g.)
in a human form, without partaking of human nature, was probably
not explained in a very philosophical style.  (Wilkinson, I. 317, 338.
Plut. Isis, ~ xi. 20.)  It seems that the revelation had not entirely
ceased; for though there was no need of the old revelation in the
literature and the deities of the country, the Oracles supplied men with
the new and living revelation-the gospel for the day.*
But if the deities were not connected with any inanimate thing, as
in Fetichism, they were not a mere abstraction, as is the deity of Pantheism.  They partook of human attributes, if not of human naturehad parents, passions, and marriages, and children.  So difficult is it
to rise above the form of human life after men escape from  those of
mere matter, the deities were confounded with time in its succession
of events; the year, the month, and each day was consecrated to some
deity.  Perhaps the -Egyptians were not the first who thus brought
their gods into connection with time.
Someone relates that JEgypt is so full of creative vigor, that animals
may be found in the process of becoming-half-lion, and the rest dirt,
not yet formed.  The fable (see how  Cowley handles it) typifies the
spiritual condition of the people: the spirit seemed half-born, and
struggling to be free from the gross matter which still environed man.
Man is not before nature-the individual not before his kind.  Men
can be divided into castes, and so their lot determined before they are
born; for no man was allowed to follow  any calling but that of his
* Notwithstanding these partial revelations, it appears the Egyptians considered the
nature of God still a mystery, hidden from men. This appears from the name of a deity who
must be placed at the head of theirgods-Amnmon. His name signifies hidden. (Bunsen,
i. 437.) This deity seems originally to have been the sun (Re), and a fetich-god, and
at length to have developed into the Unknown God, and to have been put before all forms
of the known. (But see how dangerous it is to reason on names, in Schwenk, p. 50.)
Plutarch was aware of this, and says they called their first God, who was obscure, and
the hidden, Amun, and entreated him to become clear and manifest to them. Isis and
Osiris. Christians do the same now.




60              LI'E AND CORRESPONDENCE Of
father's.  (Diod. lib. I. ch. 6. Herod. III.)  The government was a
despotism, in which the people were little cared for.
SIan was not free before his God (Noack seems mistaken in Cyclop.
p. 322. See, too, the phantasies of Hegel, " Phil. der Religion, Werke,"
Vol. XI. Berlin, 1840, pp. 435,.456); all was fixed for him beforehand, and compliance seems all that was allowed him. Thus to the social
fate, represented by caste, was added a divine fate, indicated by the fixed
and immovable character of religious rites. The priests were the controlling class-rich, powerful, and free from taxation. Even the king
seems subject to their iron rule, but fought against it. (Hegel, XI. 447.)
Religion appears as ritual. But it had some moral power, for there
was taught a future retribution, which it is difficult to understand.
The Egyptians believed the immortality of the soul.  Osiris was the
judge of the dead; all mortals appear before him. The forty-two
assessors make examination of their actions; they are registered in
the volume, and rewarded or punished. (For the reason of embalming,
see Baurand Zeller, VIII. 285.)  But still the human spirit is subordinate to matter, and must pass into the bodies of animals. (Herod. II.
23, says all, but this may be doubtful, see Pritchard, p. 195 sqq. Bunsen,
1. 467, 501.)  The importance they attached to the immortality of
the soul may be measured by the magnificence of their tombs. (Hegel,
XI. 436-7, 444.)  Polygamy existed in all classes but the priests.
(" Comptes Rendus," Jan. 1851, p. 79; Diod. Sic. I. 80, and references.)
In this form of religion there is a dim feeling of the immanence of
the Divine in nature-not in all parts indifferently, as in Fetichism, nor
as a whole in nature as a whole, as in material Pantheism-but
without the sense of the transcendance of deity. Hence, there was no
separation of God from man, and gods not wholly from  the beasts:
above mere Fetichism, but not attaining the point of deification of men,
though approaching it. Hence, while Amun seems a mere nature-god
(? Re=Sun), Osiris is much like one of the man-gods of Greece, subject
to the accidents of human  life-birth, marriage, death, &c. No
avatar, or descent of God into the human form; no apotheosis, or ascent
of man to the divine form. The deity is still mysterious-the sphinx
a good symbol.  (See thereon Hegel, XI. 455.)  The power of religion
was great. This is attested by the tombs and pyramids. Yet its
aspect must have been that of awe and of fear more than of love.
(Aspects severe and ugly, " so high that they were dreadful,"-a great
activity-see all the architecture-an attempt to write out this consciousness.)  The priesthood tended to make all immovable in religion,
the castes in society, the government (despotism) in politics.  (Yet a
a great life in this compared with India.) Mummy the type of man,
so swathed about, his hands and feet still pinioned.
This is the way the Egyptian chapter closes.  The Chaldsean,
Arabian, Phcenician, Shemite chapters show the great extent of
his Oriental reading and scholarship, but they are hardly more
than a series of annotations.   The Hebrew  chapter is more
finished, so is that upon the Greeks. He traces the development




THEODORE PARKER.                            61
of their conception of God through the poets-the subordination
of deity  to  the  universe-what was  borrowed  from   other
nations-gives the representative principle of each philosophical
school from Thales to Plato; has sections upon the Epicureans,
Stoics, &c.; he covers, in short, completely the whole ground.
The Greek chapter is the longest of all, but it is in an unequal
condition of preparation.
PLATO'S CONCEPTION OF GOD. —In Plato we have a distincter statement of God, still it is difficult to reconstruct his notions.  But God
is one, though he uses the popular form " gods."  (Brandes. II. 349,
and the Timnceus, where he thinks the world is " a blessed God.")  He
is spirit, and the universe depends on him  and originates with him.
God is self-existent and absolute, unconditioned, all-powerful, all-wise,
all-just.  Hecannot alter or be changed for the better or the worse.
Prayers movedhim not, he is incapable of wrong (eo~  ova u3c' ovo,&u
icxoq, tc..x.). He is absolutely happy, and seeks to make the world like
himself, the effective ultimate cause of all things. Accordingly he is
perfect providence of the little and the great.  (See his ingenious
answers to the doubter, Laws. X. 903, B. and D. Ast. VIII. 282.)  So
justice will be done to each, here or hereafter..(Note his Metempsychosis, VII. 383-4.)
This is Plato's scheme of things.
I. There is matter-the elements-the raw material of which things
are (subsequently) composed. This is eternal, necessary, with properties of its own, but inert and not susceptible of thought (intelligence,
ovu-). Tim. p. 30-6, 52-3, 68. E. 69.
II. A  certain motive power, eternal, necessary, extended, divisible,
incorporeal, not sensible, and only known by its effects, but susceptible
of thought, intelligence.  (Laws. X. 895. Tim. 37 C. 46, D.E.  Phedrus, 245 C.D.)
III. God, eternal, necessary, &c. (as above).  To organize bodies
He makes intelligence penetrate the moving power, which becomes the
soul of the world. This intelligence is also the good, and is the
supreme God-the soul of the world participating in intelligence participates in God, and is a created God; but not wholly so, for the motive
power is co-eternal with God, the first of created things.  By it God
forms the world, other gods inferior are also formed, their number no
man can tell; among them are the souls of the stars. (Tim. 38-40.
Laws. VII. p. 821, 822; X. p. 848, of the planets. See Martin, " Etudes
sur le Timee," note, 24, 27, 31, 38, and his "Memoire sur l'Opinion
de Platon sur les Dieux," in "Memoires de l'Acad6mie Royale des
Sciences Morales et Politiques," Tom. II. " Savans Etrangeres," Paris,
1847.) These inferior gods are the cause of the irregularities of the
world, God intervenes sometimes to set things right.  Then there
are demons (genii), of which each soul has one.
Plato is a monotheist; for he makes the chief god creator and
monarch of the rest.  Thus he makes a kosmos of gods out of the
former chaos thereof.  The subaltern gods no more interfere with the
unity of the divine operations than the angels and saints of the more




62              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
modern mythology. The limitation of God comes chiefly from the coeternal matter and motion.
This power of matter and of motion seems a dim remnant of that
Fetichism which made all nature divine. We may trace a yet later
form of it in the "plastic nature " of a later day. The dynamic property which modern science finds in matter is of a different origin in
the mind of men.
About the punishments, &c., see the queer remarks of Nathanael
Chumnius in Creutzer's Ed. Plotinus (Oxon., 1835), II., 1428, et al.
See, too, the remarks on the natural immortality of the soul, in the
"Dialogus de Anim' " of Joannes Chumnius, ibid., II., 1442, 399.
Still, God is not the Infinite in his conception.  His consciousness is
al disturbed one; HIe is not the absolute Creator.  There is evil in the
world; not annual evil-an accident of development, and no more a
flaw in the world than the milk-teeth and tottering step of the childbut absolute evil, a constant for ever, though in variable quantity. " It
is not possible that all evil should be abolished" (Themet. 176, A.). God,
in forming the world, " desired that, as far as possible, all things should
be good, and nothing bad" (Tim. E. and 30, A.). But matter is eternal
as God, and is not absolute good. It has certain evil properties which
are constant, and God cannot overcome them, Therefore, if not limited
in himself, God is ab extra.  This duality of the universe affects all
things; the flaw extends to God.  The world is indeed a "blessed
God," but it does not correspond to the perfect God. It is the prison
of God; he cannot transcend it (hence hatred of matter).
Hostile to all sensualism, Plato demands a high and free ethics.
Not the desire of the senses but soul is the Norm; not pleasure but
virtue is the aim. The dualism  appears here-the body is evil, and
must be spurned as much as possible. The chief virtues of his ethics
are wisdom, bravery, temperance, justice (?). The highest object is the
absolute God —that is, likeness of God-i.e. to our highest idea.  Justice (subjectively) is a harmonious disposition of the faculties-the
balance of all; (objectively) is doing your work and giving each his
own. He is the happiest man who most attains this-the wretchedest
who least.
The result of right and wrong does not end with this life.  The soul
is immortal, even moral evil cannot destroy it. Conduct here determines condition hereafter; the bad are punished-some, it seems,
eternally-the good rewarded and exalted. But there is a purgatory
in the other life; from it some go up to higher states of bliss, and others
down to lower of misery. He admits absolute evil in the primal matter
of the world; this flaw affects the conduct if not the character of God,
the character of man (the evil coming from the body), and his condition.
His moral ideas are not perfect.  Intellectual qualities are before
all others, hence they in whom these predominate are the masters of
mankind. His idea of the good is thus metaphysical not moral-the
good of the intellect, not of conscience (Rep. VII. 517, B. and C.).
Woman is only the handmaid: of man-subordinate to him  as a
medium for posterity; her marriage is subordinate to the state.  Not
monogamy, but partigamy is the law in his ideal state.  Man is subor



THEODORE PARKER.                          6 3
dinate to the state-for it, not co-ordinate with it-the weak to the
strong. There is no equality, no brotherhood.  Slavery is eternal in
his ideal state. The weak (slave) is an organ of the strong; woman of
man; the individual of the state.
The same dualism  appears in his ontology, psychology, theology,
ethics, and politics.  No sense of personal obligation to right.  His
morals are a medium  between the Hedonism  of the Cyrenaic school
and the Cynism  of the others.  There is no complete subjective
freedom-God is hampered by matter, the soul by the body, the individual by the state, woman by man, the weak by the strong; the part is
sacrificed to the whole.
The Platonic theology and ethics were a great improvement over all
that had preceded him. A great future was before them.  We shall
see great evils and much good from this school.
Next comes Aristotle, Pyrrhonism, Epicurus, the Stoics:
THE SToIcs.-The same causes which developed the Hebrew prophets
-political downfall, moral corruption-produced also the Stoics. They
were earnest persons, with a zeal for philosophy and for morals;
but with the excessive subjectivity which makes so much of the Greek
philosophy after Aristotle.  Their philosophy is marked and individual.
In a time that demanded the heroism of a Jeremiah, they were disgusted
with the vice and sensuality which found its philosophy in Epicurus.
They were tired of the dogmatism and empty generalities of the Platonic philosophy, which, beginning with an idea snatched out of the
blue of subjectivity, ended in nothing but disappointment.  They
applied common sense more than inspiration to solve the problems of
philosophy and ethics-not acutely analytic; not desperately subtle;
less rash in generalizing than Plato and his school.
I shall treat Stoicism as a whole, neglecting the differentia from
Zeno to Seneca; and shall take its truest or highest doctrines as the
development of the whole school-in general describe the tree, gather
the fruit, but not paint each crooked limb.
In regard to physical things, the mind of man is a tabula rasa-all
knowledge thereof derived from sensation-so Zeno taught, and thus
every cause is corporeal. But in other matters, it seems, they appealed
to an innate sense as a ground of knowledge.  (Cic. NIat. D. ii. 5,p. 49).
The universe (0Aov) consists of two principles (apXz, query, plural?)one passive, which is matter; one active, which is God; both unborn and
indestructible.  The two are eternally and inseparably united.  Matter
has no properties which manifest themselves alone.  God puts reason
(Amyoq) into it; forms it into the elements (cTro-XEs), them (i. e., the
elements) into worlds (the differentise of the universe), and retakes them
to himself, to reform them anew (Diog. Laert.  VII., c. 134, 137).  There
is a solidarity of matter and God; they are one, as the body and
soul are one. Looked at from the passive side, the universe is matter;
from the active, God.  He is the permanent constant of reason in the
transient variable of matter. Thus formally they escape the dreadful
dualism of Greek philosophy.  Mlatter and God are declared one, but
the twofoldness still remains: matter is distinct from God, who has
a functional, not essential (?), union with it: is coeval, co-extensive,




64              LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
co-equal, co-eternal with God; its properties, denied in form, but held
in fact, continue still immutable and indestructible. (Ritter, 582 et al.,
is mistaken in referring the organization of matter to God; and it is
a transitive act in the history of God, not a continual doing.  He is not
the author of its Genesis, only of its Exodus and Deuteronomy-a
demiurgus, not a creator.)  The universe is not infinite, but only indefinite, and so is God. But in two great matters the Stoics improve the
old idea of God; they teach —1. That there is now a unity of causal
force in the universe; 2. That that cause is rational, self-conscious,
good.  (See the authorities in Ritter, 574.)  EIe is the moving-power
of the universe, the universal nature, without which not the smallest
thing could be, the fatal force and necessity of future things, fate and
foreknowledge both-alike the spermatic seed and the animating soul
of things; the plastic fire that walks its way in the production of the
world; the intellectual fire, like soul, that has no form but changes into
all it will.  God is immortal, rational, perfect; free from  all evil of
every sort, blessed; the providence of the whole and of the parts, not
limited to the form of man; the Former of all things, and, as it were,
the common Father of all-the universe his body, and he its soul. The
variety of matter finds its unity in him.
The limitation of God comes from the dualism, the Greek philosophical stone of stumbling.  The universe is not infinite, it is perfect
as a whole, but of imperfect parts.  MIuch of this seems evil that is
not; they are perfect if taken in reference to the whole, not to themselves. Magna Dii curantparva negligunt. (Cic. Nat. D. II. 66.) Still
there is a residual of real evil in the universe, to the individual sufferer
an unmitigated and unmeasured (evil), but it is indispensable, necessary for the whole; so in well-ordered houses some chaff and even
corn is lost.  But whence comes this much and necessary evil that is
mingled with the universe?  From  matter which the divine mechanic
of the world could not change.  God himself is subordinate to the law
of matter (Plut. Stoic. 37; Seneca, De Prov. ch. v.) something he
dislikes and neglects from  his own imperfection; and instead of God,
evil demons or wicked men have a sorry care over the good!  God will
destroy the world by fire, the self-moving element which most partakes
of his nature.  He is the plastic and destructive fire, and will draw
back the universe to himself-to destroy it for ever?  No, he had not
the power; but to form it anew (Plut. Adv. Stoic. c. 17; Ritter, 586;
Cic. Nat. D. II. 46, whereto Creuzer's Note, 2 Pet. Epist. iii. 7-10,
and Wetstein), but the material necessary evil still remains.  There is
a dark back-ground of evil in the universe, which even God cannot
overcome: immanent in matter, and not transcendent, he is subordinate to that.
The ethics of the Stoics were closely connected with their theology
and physics.  All things are subject to universal and unchanging laws,
including man; God, the active part of the material world, gives it his
reason for its law. In man there is the same distinction of the active
and the passive.  The law of nature demands the subjection of the
passive to the active, the low to the high. Those who have the moral
rule follow nature, live conformably to human nature, in its relation to
the nature of the universe, conformably to right.  There is an absolute




THEODORE PARKER.                          65
right of nature and not of man's appointment.  Happiness consists
not in repose, not in pleasure of the senses, but in activity of the
reason, the flow of life. There is a dim sight of what is morally just,
but the clearest (Preller, ~ 400; the good, bad, indifferent) yet sees
the function of Toi &YayOv, To' JpE&,v (Diog. VII. ~ 103); but the moral
element is not distinctly seen as separate from the intellectual.  This
defect in psychology comes out in morals, yet the sense of duty is
severely felt, more than in any philosophy before. The consciousness
of sin faintly appears; virtue is a permanent disposition of the soul
harmonious with itself through its whole life.  Stob. Eccl. II. 104
(note the distinction, Aristotle calls virtue;iqs: Zeno, 0, S. Smplic.
in Aristot. Cat. 61, B. and Scholia.)  The Stoic must stand up firmly
against an evil world; he must know the right, and separate it from
the desirable, have moderation, fortitude, and justice; but there is no
such thing as justice to himself; justice is for others. Himself must
be of no value in his own eyes. In the theological notion of Providence, the part is sacrificed to the whole, men not seeing that thus the
whole is no more whole; so in ethics the individual is sacrificed to the
universal, and it is not the harmony of all the natural appetites of
sense and soul which Stoicism  aims to produce, but it annihilates
passion after passion, and proclaims peace when it makes solitude. It
is thought that nature aims at genera, not individuals; so the individual
desire, appetite, and welfare are of small value. The object of an
action is of no value, only its moral use. Virtue is its own reward,
but rewards theoretically are indifferent; a man must not desire
money, honors, and agreeable things in general for himself, but for
his friends, not for satisfaction at all, but their moral use alone.  All
must depend upon the will of the individual man; he must not lean
on circumstances, or the world, but stand erect, and out of his own
subjectivity create his virtue.
There is no medium between vice and virtue. Plato and Aristotle
exaggerated this; the Stoics, yet more, magnify this crisis.  There is
no holding-ground between the wise man and the fool (as in Christendom none between a saint and a sinner).  Virtue is a certain round
in the ladder of life, and all below it is vice. A sharp and narrow line
is drawn below the true, and at a certain period of life the young Stoic
" experienced" reason or virtue.  But virtue was capable of no increase or diminution.  He that broke the law in one point was guilty
of all; a doctrine which has since had a great fortune. The ideal wise
man is independent of circumstances, free from desire and ambition;
he has no fear, follows his reason, and is truly free; but is proud also
of his noble life,-for God needs the good man as much as he needs
God. He is raised above every law. The Stoic Antinomian may violate all the common laws of human life, and lie, and cheat, and kill.
(Ritter, p. 647).
With undeniable merits it yet lacks a sufficient and definite moral
principle. There is no inborn rule of right. The Greek philosophy
knew  none without the law  of the land.  Stoicism  knew  none
within. Its notion of the just is wholly from experience. They had
nothing which transcends history.  They had no conception of the
moral sense of man.  All is too intellectual; the good is of the mind,
VOL. II.                                                F




66              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
not the conscience. There is no spontaneity of moral consciousness.
Justice is not done to the spontaneity of the flesh; the body is undervalued. This is not wonderful-while so many placed the chief good
solely in the sense, and Athens, Corinth, Rome, ran over with excess
of riot. It takes all the philosophy of the time to represent the
consciousness thereof. The Stoic tended to virtue's side. But virtue
was obedient to the Categorical Imperative, and not spontaneous.
The ideal Stoic would have been as unlovely as loveless, heroic, and
hateful.
Yet, for the first time in human history, all limits of nations fall
away; we must, says Zeno, be not of one state or people, but we must
reckon all men for clansmen and countrymen, for there is one life for
all mankind, and the universe is the common pasture of the common
herd of men.  (Plut. De Alex. Mag. Virtute, I. c. vi.)  Plutarch calls
it a dream  or phantasy of the benevolent philosophers.  It was the first
time the ideal appeared in human history.  Under this philosophy
Cicero sees the one law for all, the same at Corinth as at Rome.
[Note in its place how Christianity differed, and came to its conclusion
from love].
But the Stoics despair of mankind. Homer looked on his contemporaries as degenerate men, Hesiod called his own age iron, Aristotle
looked back for models, and Plato made all good the reminiscence of
the soul now fallen from a higher state. The Stoics yet more looked
back; they had an historical reason for it in the evil times they fell
upon in Greece and Rome. But their philosophy makes virtue hard
to be found and difficult to win, acceptable only to the few; the primal
virtues, which shine aloft as stars, could only be seen by the telescope
of the understanding, and what experience of being reveals Infinite
Love, the absolute law, was not in the nature of man and of it, but from
without.
The soul of man was part of the soul of the world, and shared the
federal immortality thereof. But is this all? - Here the Stoics differed,
and developed no peculiar view of Eschatology. Some thought at the
incremation of the world all would be dissolved into the Indefinite;
others that all souls would live forever, the bad for punishment; others
that only the wise would survive death. The character of God gave
them  no certain ground of future bliss, at least none for the wicked.
The doctrine on the whole was fitted for strong men in a rude time-fit
to make martyrs, and it made them. It was much more manly than
philosophical.
After the Stoics the Greek mind produced nothing more out of its
own stock. It went eastward and came in contact with a mystical
people, westward, and found a practical race from which it received new
additions to its consciousness. Euripides and Aristotle show that the
cultivated people of Athens had lost respect for the popular mythology
and cultus; they indicate the decline of the national religion. Pyrrho
and Epicurus show the decay of philosophy. In Pythagoras and in
Plato the influence of a foreign spirit is visible, something of the
dogmatic mysticism  of the East. Aristotle and Zeno seem purely
Greek. But Stoicism is the last production of Greek philosophy out
pf its own materials and on its own soil.




THEODORE PARKER.                      67
The manuscript comes to an end in the chapter upon the
Keltic tribes, with the following paragraph:All this previous matter must be recast and put into three sections:
1. Of the Goths; 2. Of the Germans; 3. Of the Skandinavians
(study Strinnholm  again in Section Three; note the story of the
tigsmal, in Strin. II. p. 123; Use of Letters, II. p.200; Favorable
Condition of Women, II. p. 271).
Mr. Parker thought, in the early stages of this work, that he
could complete it in ten years, by using all the time which he
ordinarily had at his command for serious study.  But that
time diminished rapidly, and all literary and scientific pursuits
were rudely thrust aside by the domination of slavery in the
thoughts and affairs of the nation.  A violated Conscience found
her champion in that upper room, and called him from his books
and favorite schemes.  IHer disfigured aspect filled him  with
pity and indignation, and as he turned his back upon the
great companions of his peaceful thought, to  resist the successive encroachments of statutes framed for wickedness, and
laws passed to extend and perpetuate the wrongs of man, is it
strange that a vision of Lexington, and hands of fathers and
relatives reaching for the old muskets, received him  at the
door?
THE OLD MUSKETS.




CHAPTER XVIII.
Anti-slavery-His Position and Tendency —Early Speeches-Letters from SlaveholdersMexican War.
To trace the life of Mr. Parker through the great agitation for
anti-slavery principles, which commenced nearly thirty years ago,
would be almost equivalent to writing the history of the antislavery movement since 1845, when he first became connected
with it.   From the annexation of Texas to the last day of his
intellectual and moral activity, he was identified with every
critical movement in  the national politics, and in  the local
troubles which  they  occasioned.  His life is written  in  his
speeches, lectures, and sermons;  they form  a body of antislavery literature of great value for clear statements, abundance
of facts, and supremacy of conscience.  The same industry to
gather material, and skill in organizing it, which gave him such
practical efficiency in handling other subjects, made him preeminent in this.  Whether you desire a simple and perfectly
intelligible narrative of the development of the Southern policy,
from its original acquiescence in the evil of slavery to its present attitude, or a noble statement of the American idea which
gives to the Constitution and the Union their value and glory,
or a stern impeachment of the men who were betraying that idea,
and with it their country's safety and prosperity; whether you
seek the facts, the history, the patriotism, the religion, the bold
invective, or the personal indignation, which are the body and
soul of anti-slavery-say  rather, the  thought, passion, and
threatening youth of Americanism, suddenly awake, righteously
angry, and with the light of a glorious future upon its countenance-you will find what you seek in those speeches and dis



THEODORE PARKER.                    69
courses; and that vigorous "Defence," into which Mr. Parker
emptied the whole of his true New England nature.  There is
his memoir and the history of his time.
The care which he took in preparing for each of those grand
popular indictments and prophecies, which perpetuate the disgrace and the hope of the last fifteen years, is evident enough.
Documents, biographies, state papers, and newspapers of the
South and North, correspondence with slaveholders and public
men, conversations with men of information from every quarter
of the country, contributed the pragmatic material.  His power
attracted the sources of information; people volunteered letters and
sent him papers; public functionaries were accessible to his requests.
Southern men who hated him would send him, in spite, just what
he desired to see. If a man called upon him out of curiosity, he
paid toll for the gratification, if he was solvent. Whoever came
near him, complimented his sincerity with all the facts and prejudices which they had.
His acquaintance with so many of the prominent men engaged
in politics was of great service. No thoroughly anti-slavery man
had quite all his advantages.  His wide knowledge and culture
held men to him by various ties, and he knew how to sustain a
genial intercourse which prevented any one idea from becoming
oppressive or being suspected as an adventurer. Men admired his
honesty, as well as his gifts; if they did not wish to be as honest
themselves, they liked to contribute to him; perhaps they felt a
secret pleasure, a kind of penumbra of open honesty in recognizing
his mighty zeal and feeding it. A man who is so thoroughly hated
by the ignorant always has the sympathy of the intelligent, even if
they are not of his own party, provided his nature is not narrow
and sectarian.
He represented no technical phase of the great anti-slavery
sentiment. He believed in voting and in the Union as means for
thwarting and eventually overcoming slavery. But he hastened
to stand by the side of every sincere opposer of that iniquity.
He was in intimate relations with some of the chiefs of the Republican party, and knew them all; it was his hope that at last
a Northern sentiment would secure a Republican victory, as the
first preliminary of emancipation, but he always said that his
office was to preach, to enlighten, to help to frame the sentiment.
So he would be identified with no man to the extent of every
party exigency.  He preferred the isolated position which he had




'70             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
the power and conscience to occupy; and he was sagacious enough
to see that he thus preserved a chance of influencing friends and
associates whom various motives drew and held around him.
I am  responsible to nobody, and nobody to me. But it is not
easy for Mr. Sumner, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Chase to say all of their
thought, because they have a position to maintain, and they must keep
in that position. The political reformer is hired to manage a mill
owned by the people, turned by the popular stream; to grind into antislavery meal such corn as the people bring him  for that purpose,
and other grain also into different meal.  He is not principal and
owner, only attorney and hired man. He must do his work so as to
suit his employers, else they say, " Thou mayest be no longer miller."
The non-political reformer owns his own mill, which is turned by the
stream drawn from his own private pond; he put up the dam, and
may do what he will with his own; run it all night, on Sunday, and the
Fourth of July; may grind just as he likes, for it is his own corn.
The anti-slavery non-political reformer is to excite the sentiment and
give the idea; he may tell his whole scheme all at once, if he will. But
the political reformer, who, for immediate action, is to organize the
sentiment and idea he finds ready for him, cannot do or propose all
things at once; he must do one thing at a time. He is to cleave slavery
off from the Government, and so must put the thin part of his wedge
in first, and that where it will go the easiest. If he takes a glut as thick
as an anti-slavery platform, and puts it in anywhere, head foremost, let
him strike never so hard, he will not rend off a splinter from the tough
log; nay, will only waste his strength, and split the head of his own
beetle.
The business of political reformers is to haul in the slack, and see
that what the windlass has raised up is held on to, and that the anchor
does not drop back again to the bottom. The men at the windlass need
not call out to the men at the capstan, " Haul in more slack!" when
there is no more to haul in. This is the misfortune of the position of
the men at the capstan; they cannot turn any faster than the windlass
gives them slack rope to wind up.*
How well men fought when they heard his undaunted voice
far in the front! It rolled with the very shock of the encounter;
but they comprehended that it was leading them to no impossible position.  He wanted organization and a definite plan of a
campaign.  His object was to throw a million votes.  The Constitution and the Union was the bridge to resound with the feet
hastening over to deposit this great ballot of freedom.  But his
opposition to the Fugitive Slave Bill was personal and humane.
He did not care what political issues it might have; it did not
deter him  that the Bill nominally became a law, nor did he
* The Great Battle between Slavery and Freedom, considered in two speeches delivered before the American Anti-Slavery Society, at New York, May 7, 1856; pp. 31
32, B. pamphlet.




THEODORE PARKER.                       71
trouble himself much about its constitutionality.  He hastened
in a moment of peril and dire distress to save such as were
ready to perish-to plant his person and his intellect in the
way of the kidnapper, to be sudden, instant, imperious, for the
supreme necessity of liberty and the things dearest to the soul.
Mr. Parker had occasionally preached against slavery at West
Roxbury, but he did not become prominently active in this field
till 1845, the year of the annexation of Texas. A sermon "Of
Slavery" was preached January 31, 1 841, repeated by request
January 4, 1843, and then published.  In 1845, he was very
busy preparing material for a History of Slavery among the
Romans, its causes, its effects, and its extinction.  This was
never written, but the material did not lie unused.
The speeches which are not yet published in any edition of
his works are quite numerous.  Here is a brief account of the
most important of them.  He delivered one at Fanueil Hall,
December 28, 1 847, for which he had framed comparative tables,
showing the growth of Northern and Southern States, in railroads, their length, their known and estimated cost, the valuation of the principal States, and their gain for a series of years,
the free whites, &c. Another was delivered at Worcester, August
4, 1 849, on occasion of a special fast for the cholera, the point
of which is that repentance from  the sin of slavery is a
practical observance, to which the country must be called.
Before the Anti-Slavery  Convention, May 28, 1851, he discussed the action of the Government in the matter of slavery,
weighed the threats of secession uttered by South Carolina, followed the political track of Mr. Webster, and quoted generously
from  anti-slavery sermons.   This is a grand speech, lucidly
arranged, and full of meat.  At Framingham, on the anniversary of West-Indian Emancipation, 1852, he analyzed the
two great forces of slavery and anti-slavery.  In Boston, at the
annual meeting  of the  Massachusetts Anti-Slavery  Society,
January  28, 1853, he made a fine speech, full of life and
humor.  He criticized the tone of the Northern pulpit on occasion of the death of Daniel Webster, and that of the press on the
Duchess of Sutherland's letter respecting American Slavery.  He
noted the hopeful signs which the Church gave, and spoke some
generous praise of Mr. Beecher.  He examined the criticisms of
the abolitionists upon Mr. Sumner.  Another considerable speech
was made before the New  England Convention, May 26, 1853.




72             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
This speech repeats his vindication of the Duchess, and then proceeds to state the American idea-1. That men were created
free.  2. That they have natural rights.  3. That these are
inalienable.  4. That all men are equal in respect to the first
three.  5. That the function of government is to organize these.
Then he states the despotic idea in the same country, and here
he describes the "irrepressible conflict" clearly.  A  criticism  of
parties follows, and the influence of slavery on courts, on trade,
on the clergy; but he gives the clerical exceptions. Then he
makes a point of the fact that Thomas Sims reached Savannah
on the 19th of April.  He shows the advantages of the North
in being based on free labor.  The peroration of this speech is
fine; it is a description of the right kind of rebuke to administer
to the Duchess and all foreign critics by inaugurating antislavery policy.
In Fanueil Hall, at an Anti-Nebraska meeting, which was
held February 1 6, 1854, he made a speech, which was extensively noticed by the Southern papers.  It traced the consecutive
steps of the slave power.  The Charleston (S.C.) Courier for
May 2 says of it -'" There are frequent passages in this strange
exhibition of the mad parson which, in the main, truthfully as
well as strongly detail and depict the various occasions on which
Southern interests have obtained the mastery in Congress, or, at
least, important advantages, which are well worthy the consideration of all who erroneously suppose that the action of the general
Government has been, on the whole, adverse to slavery."  A
passage from the New York Times for February 23, commenting
upon a speech delivered in that city six days after the Fanueil
Hall Meeting, upon the "Aggressions of Slavery," shows the
condition of public opinion at that time, when the people still
hated his prophesying, and were loth to find it true:-" But
patriotic, Union-loving, faith-keeping Southerners ought to be
apprised of the fact, that people of all classes and of all parties
at the North, are beginning to say to one another that, after all,
there is a great deal of truth in what Theodore Parker says."
Against an article from  the Charleston Courier, which ridiculed him and the anti-slavery idea, Mro Parker placed no other
comment than advertisements, extracted from  the same number
of the paper, of sales at auction, " sound and healthy, likely and
smart negroes," " valuable negroes," "children, nine years, four
years, six months, old," and an " intelligent brown woman."




THEODORE PARKER. 7.
The satire is sufficient.  In the same sheet are advertisements of
" oxen and stallions;" underneath  " a buggy and harness for
sale " is a " good man cook, in the prime of life."
He made another speech at New York, on the 12th of May
of the same year, which is crammed with information to exhibit
the actual condition of the country relative to slavery.  On the
9th of May, 1855, he delivered a very racy speech before the
American Anti-Slavery Society, describing the different political
parties and the way they ignored the only political fact which
the country then could furnish.
A speech at New York, on the 7th of May, 1856, "The
Great Battle between Slavery and Freedom," is valuable.  It
gave a history of the Kansas troubles, very full comparative statistics of North and South, and described a true democracy.
But many of the lectures which he delivered before lyceums
were filled with the same sentiments in a less technical form.
The spirit of the American idea pervaded them all; and at length
his audience were disappointed if, in the course of the evening,
he did not encourage and instruct the awakening conscience.
His subjects were always so related to the culture and elevation
of man, that the one great theme stepped with ease into them,
and proved their strongest illustration.  With this ceaseless
reiteration he went everywhere, moulding the public opinion and
insinuating the morals of politics into the minds of men of various
parties.
Whoever would understand the deep complicity of his life
with the great Northern movement for freedom, must look for it
in his best moments, in those discourses inspired by all the critical events and measures of his time.  Through him  the antislavery idea seemed to be passing over from the earliest periods of
its awakening into the popular consciousness, to assume a practical
republican form.  He represents this second phase of the great
agitation.  The first, commenced by Mr. Garrison, and supported
by the men who are distinctively called Abolitionists, had performed the greater part of its glorious work. Patiently bearing
obloquy and persecution for many years, and fighting with a mere
handful and on an extreme position purely moral campaigns, it
had effected a lodgment in reflecting minds.  They were converted by the faith and suffering of these noble men. Thus the
idea entered upon its second stage with increased numbers, but
removed from its first ground, and seeking, through various in-.




^7 t        LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
consistencies, to gain a working political position.   Then the
original Abolitionists became the critics of their own idea as it
strove to organize a great party of the North.  Many were the
fallacies of men who undertook, through all the forms of an
immoral Government, to conduct a moral idea to a constitutional
triumph.  The Abolitionists preserved the consistency which had
arrested popular attention; the people, in turn, undertook to
write the history of the last ten years, with a divided North and
a united South.  Mr. Parker's conscience was as thoroughly antislavery as his understanding  was thoroughly  practical.   He
detested the Government, which was then a Southern domination,
but he believed in using the forms of the Government against the
spirit which was then pervading it.  His conscience prevented
him from being a politician, but his common-sense was on the
side of the people in their efforts to reconstruct the Republic.
He was one of the first to see that such an effort was but the
final stage of the first American Revolution, and that it might
be driven by Southern opposition and Northern subservience
into blood.  The facts and the history were with him, as all men
can now plainly see.
His letters and private meditations will help to show the
position which he held, and the manifold influence that was
exerted by him upon the political developments of the time. We
thus also get some idea of his personal activity in the excitements which followed the passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill.
TO G. ADAMS.
West Roxbury, Dec. 5, 1842.
But to come to the Latimer petition.* Perhaps you feel a stronger
interest than I do in the welfare of Latimer, and of the slaves in
general. It must be a very strong one if it is so; but I will not boast
of my zeal.  When Mr. Cabot, a noble young man of our village,
asked me to read the petition, I said "Yes, I will." As I thought
more upon it, I doubted that I should serve the special purpose by
reading it, at that time, so well as by omitting to read it, and by leaving the sermon to produce what effect it might in that special direction.
I sat down and read the last dozen pages of the sermon, to see if
reading any petition would accord with my own spirit then. I thought
it would not. I revolved the matter in my mind many times, and
asked myself, " Shall I do the slaves a service by presenting the petition at this time?  I thought I should not. I think so now. I con* Concerning the case of a fugitive slave, who afterwards escaped while his examination was pending.




THEODORE PARKER.                          75
suited a friend, an Abolitionist, a thorough-going one, who is often
called fanatical on account of his abolition; he thought it would do
more harm than good to read the petition then. Monday afternoon I
went to the chapel twice to see if I could find any of the Abolitionists
there, to tell them I could not read it conscientiously at that time. I
could find no one. When in the chapel Mr. Cabot brought me the
petition. I don't know what I told him. I was in a state of great
anxiety, as I always am for half an hour before I begin to preach on
such an occasion. I do remember this, that, as he looked surprised,
I said, " Do not think my zeal for the slave is cooling off," or words to
that effect. After preaching the sermon I could not, in the state of
feeling it left me, have read the petition at that moment, even
if I had promised to do so. Now, my dear sir, you may condemn
me if you please; but my own conscience acquits me of anything but
the best motives. I may have erred in judgment, certainly not in
motive. I thought I should offend some of the Abolitionists by refusing; but fear of man never stopped me yet when conscience said
" Go." Perhaps it will in time to come. Then I beg you to rebuke
me severely as you will. Do you think I was afraid to read the petition, and thought I should hurt my popularity?  Then either you
know me very little, or I know myself very little. Perhaps I am not
zealous enough in the cause of humanity.  No man can be overzealous therein. Let my life speak; if that tells one tale and my
tongue another, you shall be welcome to call me. " Talker" forever and
ever. I don't come up to my own ideal, of course; but I trust I do
not shrink from performing what I consider my duty. If I had read
the petition with the feelings I then entertained, I should have been
false to myself, though all the men in the IIall had said "Amen," and
signed it at once. But I have said already more than I meant to say
on this theme, and will only add, that I think God is to be served by
loving man, and that I think the only " ordinances of religion" that
are of real value, and intrinsic value, are being good and doing good.
May 12, 1845.-I went to the meeting of the Unitarian Association; a stupid meeting it was, too. The brethren looked on me much
as the Beni Elohim looked on Satan, as he came last of all. However,
they shook hands all the more tenderly, because the heart was not in
it, and then turned the cold shoulder. It was a queer meeting. I
went as a demonstration of my existence as a member of the Association.
Anniversary Week, May 26.-Went in the afternoon to the meeting of the Clerical Anti-Slavery Convention.  Found the brethren
organized.  The hall was full of laymen and women also.  Stetson
spoke well.  Then an attempt was made to vote the lay-folk out of the
room; but this would not go, so they continued to listen.  Then -
spoke.  He thought that anti-slavery was in its last stage, when it
seeks to destroy existing institutions.  The leaders of anti-slavery
wanted to pull down Church and State, to build up an institution and
put themselves therein.  They cared less for the advancement of the
slave than for their own advancement.  The clergy had done more
than any other class-all that could be expected.
John L. Russell replied, speaking of the evils of slavery, the great




'76             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
efforts made by the Anti-slavery Society, the dilatoriness of the Churches
the beauty of Christianity, and its power to heal all these woes. Then
G. W. Briggs spoke, and beautifully; begging men to let the antislavery party alone, and apply themselves to the work before them.
The clergy had done little, the Churches little: witness the character
of the Southern Churches, colleges, &c. Stetson spoke with great
beauty, and Pierpont with force I never shall forget. The audience
cheered him with tremendous applause. He turned John the Baptist
round upon the first speaker (who had said that John the Baptist
represented the first stage of reform-that of simple exhortation).
After that I came away, and wended my course homeward.
27.-Meeting of the Unitarian Association at Berry Street, to alter
some arrangements.  They discussed trivial matters involving no principle, with such technical skill, that I came away, leaving one party
milking the ram and the other holding the sieve.
Went to the Anti-Slavery Convention-nothing great. McClure, of
Scotland, spoke, in a bad spirit and with a bad face. I liked not the
spirit of the man. Heard others, but nothing great. I intended myself
to have spoken, and defined the position of the Churches in relation to
reform, but could not.
28.-The Berry Street Conference met this year in Phillip's Chapel.
The "concio ad clerurm"....... told well on the audience; but I
felt, as I listened to it, that the Unitarian sect was gone-gone past
redemption...
I know not where they will go nor what will become of them, I
fear that I shall feel myself obliged to leave the ministry, but not the
calling to preach Christianity. I see so much of the falseness of the
clergy, that I have little respect for them or their calling.
William  H. Channing spoke well in favour of freedom; so did
Bulfinch. I said my say, but it met no response. I looked down,
but into indignant eyes.
The settlement of Texas, by exciting the internal slave-trade
of thle United States, which was sufficiently great before, stimulated slave prices and slave-breeding in Virginia, and destroyed
the small party for emancipation which had existed there. The
idea of Southern domination and unlimited slave territory began
then to make slavery the corner-stone of our Republic. Both
branches of the Texan Congress passed the laws of annexation to
the United States, and the measure, which had been long maturing, was consummated in ] 845 by the enactment of similar and
corresponding laws in the American Congress.  Mro Parker had
frequently lectured against it.
July 26.-I wonder if some good result will not follow the constant
preaching of truth!  It must tell at length; not in my day, but it
will tell at last. At this early age of the country, a few good men of
great ideas can do a great work, that will make a mark on the nation




THEODORE PARKER.                         77
forever. It needs not many to do this, but much. I am resolved to
spend what little strength I have in this way. What happens to me
I care little for; but the welfare of men I think may be advanced by
my humble efforts.
In 1846, the Ottoman, a vessel owned in Boston, and manned
by New England men, arrived in the harbor.  A slave was found
secreted in the hold, lying naked upon the cargo, almost suffocated and half dead with fear.  The owner of the vessel had
him carried back to New Orleans, to preserve the integrity of his
connection with a Southern market.  Men in Boston were indignant at this who have long since forgotten that their hearts
once throbbed.  It was the occasion of a great meeting at
Fanueil Hall, over which John Quincey Adams presided.  Mr.
Parker was very active in getting up this popular protest, and he
made his first speech in Fanueil Hall.
TORREY'S FUNERAL.-May 17th, 1846. —I went to Boston in the
afternoon, though I was ill and the weather raining, to attend the
funeral of the Rev. Charles T. Torrey, who has just fallen a martyr
to the State of Maryland and its infamous " patriarchal institution."
However, he set free over 200 slaves before he fell, the first martyr of
Maryland." I honor the man, and place him high in my list of martyrs.
When I first came home I wrote him a letter, and have his reply now.
The funeral was advertised to be in Park Street Church, but it was
not allowed, so it took place in the Tremont Temple.  Colver made
the prayer; a most manly and able one it was too-a real old Puritan
prayer-calm, deep, forgiving, full of charity and nobleness, but full of
religion too. Then came a hymn read by Mr. Coolidge.  I honor
him for it.
Lovejoy delivered the sermon. It was not equal to the occasion.
But the occasion spoke for itself, and the most meditative needed not
any words to stir their hearts. But nothing will come of it; we are
too dead-so sold to money that it takes a terrible blow to  cut
through the golden skin that covers the sins of our age. Where are
the Churches who honor the martyr? Did the Church of the Pharisees
at Jerusalem honor the first Christian martyr, just as this Church at
Boston honors this?
His first sermon on the war with Mexico, which resulted from
the annexation of Texas, was preached June 7, 1846. This is
published. Afterward, when President Polk was raising volunteers by proclamation, he attended  an  anti-war meeting in
Fanueil Hall, at which a good many soldiers were present, who
* Imprisoned after conviction under a State law against enticing slaves from theil
masters; and died in prison of consumption.




7~8  ~      LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
undertook to interrupt his speech.  But he had all the courage
and good-humor which  pilots an  obnoxious speaker safely
through the most threatening demonstrations of a mob.
If God please, we will die a thousand times, but never draw blade in
this wicked war. (Cries of " Throw him over! " &c.) What would you
do next, after you have thrown him over? ("Drag you out of the
Hall!") What good would that do? It would not wipe off the infamy
of this war-would not make it less wicked i
He proceeded leisurely to review the facts connected with the
war, and said a good many things to make the volunteers.ashamed of themselves.
Did not Mr. Webster, in the streets of Philadelphia, bid the volunteers - misguided young men-go and uphold the stars of their
country? (Voice, " He did right! ") No, he should have said the stripes of
his country; for every volunteer to this wicked war is a stripe on the
nation's back  I Did not he'declare this war unconstitutional, and
threaten to impeach the President who made it, and afterward go and
invest a son in it?  Has it not been said here, " Our country, howsoever bounded!" —bounded by robbery, or bounded by right lines? Has
it not been said, all round, " Our country, right or wrong"?
I say I blame not so much the volunteers as the famous men who
deceive the nation. (Cries of " Throw him over! Kill him, kill him! "
and a flourish of bayonets.) Throw him over! You will not throw
him over. Kill him! I shall walk home unarmed and unattended,
and not a man of you will hurt one hair of my head.
And he finished his speech. Did any of those volunteers for
slavery belong to a Webster regiment?  We have lately sent a
Webster regiment against slavery, and the men marched down
Broadway, in New York City, on their way to the war, singing
the refrain of " John Brown" I  How  the revision of history
corrects the bad logic of men!
His next undertaking is a letter to the American people
touching the matter of slavery, which at first he intended to
publish  anonymously, because, he said, he had a bad name.
But it appeared in 184*7, over his proper signature.
"I am amazed," he wrote to Mr. May, while meditating this
letter, " at the way good men and politicians look at the matter;
amazed at their silence."
It fell into the hands of a Southern slave-holder, who commenced
a correspondence with Mr. Parker, which, for the sake of his
replies, and also for some characteristic marks of Southern cultivation which it bears, is worthy to be published. From it the
reader may infer the nature of many of the communications




THEODORE PARKER.                          7 9
received by Mr. Parker from the South, in which there is a fine,
chivalric disdain of the syntax submitted to by the North, and
even the spelling is patriarchal, the letters being separated and
sold  off, while  a few  have drapetomnani, and entirely  disappear.
TO MR. PARKER.
Wellington, near Athens, Ga., January, 1848.
T. PARKER,-SI, —A lengthy and measureably incoherent and bombastic letter from  you in a book form has been sent me from Boston,
purporting to be for the People of the United States.
You Negrophilists may write and publish for ever in your style and
with your matter, without striking the Southern heart or enlisting its
sympathies.  Until and only until you prove by the Bible collectively
-for it is a collection of theologic truths in its own stability, unchismatic-that God did not allow slaves through Moses' prophetic writings
to the Israelites, and that Jesus Christ, instead of being silent, and St.
Paul coherent, had been of your own conclusion, that "it was a sin
without an excuse." This is the great point you have evaded. In all
your work on slavery, not a syllable is remarked from the Scriptures
on the proof directly in favor of or against the slavery of the children
of Ham, who are veritably the negro race, and until this be treated on
in full, and the conviction sent the slaveholders, that God never once
countenanced slavery, it is utterly futile for you and your brother Abolitionists to attempt successfully to gain the Southern ear!!!
We cannot think the God of Moses less the true, pure Deity than
Jesus Christ; nor that He in one age permitted and regulated a domestic
servitude only to be found to have altered hisfixed Providence in another!
God (you infidel ) is always stable in his purposes.  The Old and New
Testaments are one, and Jehovah never gave laws of such weight as
that forbidding to "covet a neighbour's manservant," &c., only to
revoke them under a newer name and a new dispensation! Prove first
from the Bible alone, and not by your egregious statistics and inuendoes, that slavery is wrong, without also making God wrong or inconsistent, and then the whole structure of bondage would fall to the
ground.  Otherwise for ever hold your peace 
The Old Testament forbade you to covet my property. The New, as
see Paul's letter to Titus or Timothy, discountenanced your " manstealing" of my servants from me! The Bible is either inconsistentthe Almighty a changeling-or you are a horrid monster of infidelity
or blasphemy in your execrable spirit of Yankee conceitedness against
the South.
No, Sir, till you inform us better than I have ever been yet by your
long printed letter, and by J. P. Blanchard's letters, that in God's and
Christ's eye we are doing wrong-we cannot free the slaves without
looking on Moses as an old fool, and Jehovah with no better reverence
than you and he.
Against all your rhapsodies the thing still remains this: that either
Ham's progeny's slavery is wrong, or it is right.  If wrong, as God
has not informed us this in His oracles of light and life, we can




80               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
only be so informed by such infinatessimal atoms of vanity and mental
rascality as you Negrophilists.
Indeed, the whole controversy between slave-holders and anti-slavites
hinge on the proofs from  God's book-God's will-for either side!
Till then, Heaven forbid we should arrogate to condemn Moses, and to
sneeze, as you, at the Creator!
To tell you plainly-representative of Beelzebub's heart!-my own
private opinion, the negroes ought to be colonized back into Africa,
whence came their ancestry, and we shall thus return measureably
civilized men for the savages that left their native " country for that
country's good," and ultimately, if they would be of any service to God,
Christianize that benighted continent.
While they remain here, it would have been better had your abolition
heart been pregnant with ways and means for their domestic amelioration, education, and marriage rights, without attempting only their
freedom.  Can you do nothing for the blacks and swarths but give
them liberty?  Can you never find food for your philanthropy in bettering their condition in slavery, instead of forever harping on the
liberty of those Noah, with plenitude of authority from on high, irrevocably doomed to servitude, and for the best of reasons. It was not
intrinsically Noah, but God, who made Ham's progeny in the mysteries
of a Providence, punishing his faults that deserved death, death, death!
with a life of deserved slavery and inferiority to the rest of mankind, having to do with such a family! Ham's fault at a naked sire,
saved from  such a destruction, was intense, and proved himself and
family unworthy constitutionally. Jehovah, without executing a miracle
to cleanse a voluntary pollution, sanctioned Noah's curse, and you are
but censuring the Eternal Word at every-progress of a nefarious
attempt to assimilate negroes to white men.
Again and again, I say that your reaching the conscience of the
Southern people must come by the Bible alone. All else is in our eyes
detestable blasphemy and treasonable evocations of fetid abomination.
Take my warning.  Never again open your mouth southwardly, unless
you can come backed by the Bible; and, at the same time, never also
prove the Father of Jesus Christ inconsistent. If men were to presume to overjudge Moses and the prophets, and to twist the New
Testament to hallow a race of constitutionally unworthy Africans, and
cast a stigma on your brethren, the injury done to religion, aye, to
Christianity itself, by thus indirectly disproving the authority of Scripture, would synonimise with the effects of the infernal Jacobinism of
the French Reign of Terror. Pause, or else speak to us by reading
the Bible only.  Negro Slavery is just!  The only alternative is colonization.
The bottom, perhaps, of all your errors is the ignorant persuasion
that Ham's progeny are not negroes.  In this, perhaps, you agree, at
least, those from whom you take your cue do, with Faber and some
other antiquarians, that the white races of Europe are the children of
Cush-of Ham.  But Bryant and other archiologists of deeper note
have proved that the Africans are the literal descendants of Cush-of
Ham.  And the Bible itself sustains Bryant.  Faber's researches are
superfluous, and mostly Hindostanic; Bryant's the profound and




THEODORE PARKER.                          81
laborious investigation of accumulated years, and more precise, since
dating from Assyria, Phcenicia, Egypt, the Caucasus, and Greece. The
fact, then, is that Africa is Ham's lot.
Have you seen Este's work on slavery?  I wish he could review
yours and you his; or else, that you and himself could controvert
by writing, and print your respective letters in one volume. In this
way we may have the reasoning of both sides.
Yours for peace.
Mr. Parker replies to the above:
Boston, Feb. 2, 1848.
SIR,-Your letter of January last has just come to hand, and I
hasten to reply. I thank you for your frankness, and will reply
as plainly and openly as you write to me. You need not suppose
that I have any spite against the slaveholders; I wish them well not
less than their slaves.  I think they are doing a great wrong to themselves, to their slaves, and to mankind. I think slave-holding is a wrong
in itself, and, therefore, a sin; but I cannot say that this or that particular slave-holder is a sinner because he holds slaves.  I know what
sin is-God only knows who is a sinner.  I hope I have not said
anything harsh in my letter, or anything not true. I certainly wrote
with no ill-feeling towards any one.
You seem to think that the Old Testament and New Testament are
just alike, that Christianity and Judaism are, therefore, the same.  So,
as a Christian, you appeal to the Old Testament for your authority to
hold slaves. Now, look a little at the matter, and see the difference
between the Old Testament and New Testament.  The Old Testament
demands circumcision, a peculiar priesthood, the sacrifice of certain
animals, the observance of certain fast-days, full-moon days, new-moon
days, the seventh day, and the like. It demands them all in the name
of a Lord.  Yet you do not observe any of them. Now, you say, I
suppose, that the ritual laws of the Old Testament came from God,
but were repealed by Christ, who also spoke by the command of God.
If that were so, then it would appear that God had repealed His own
commands. You say, God could not change.  So I say.  I do not
think God ever makes laws and then changes them; but if the Bible,
as a whole, as you say, is the Word of God, then it is plain that in the
New Testament He takes back what He commanded in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament a man is allowed to put away his wife
for any cause, or none at all; but you know that Christ said Moses gave
that command on account of the hardness of men's hearts.  In Exodus
xxxv. 2, 3, it is forbidden to kindle a fire on Saturday-Sabbath-on
pain of death.  In Numbers xv. 32-36, it is said, the Lord commanded
a man to be stoned to death because he picked up sticks on Saturday;
yet, I suppose you have a fire in your house Saturday and Sunday, too,
and, perhaps would not think it wicked to bring in an armful of wood
to make a fire on either of those days. Now, I do not think God
changes; therefore, I don't believe He ever uttered those dreadful
commands in the Old Testament.  I believe that God has the attributes
of universal justice and universal love. Doubtless, you will call me an
VOL. II.                                               C




82               LIFE  AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
"Infidel," but that makes no odds; I try to be a Christian, but do not
begin by discarding conscience, reason, and common-sense. I think
Saint Paul was a Christian, and you know what he says about the law,
that is, the Law of IMoses, as recorded in the Old Testament.
Now, let us look at the case of the negroes. You think the children
of Ham  are under a perpetual curse, and that the negroes are the
children of Ham.  The tenth chapter of Genesis treats of the
descendants of Ham, but it does not mention among them a single
tribe of negroes.  I don't think the writer of that account knew even
of the existence of the peculiar race of men that we call negroes.  He
mentions the gJ5:yptians, it is true, and other North African people, but
it is well known that they were not negroes.  But even if some of the
descendants of Ham  were negroes, though it is plain from Genesis
x. they were not, still, that does not bring them  under the curse of
Noah, for Noah  does not curse aI-ma  and all his chilcdren, but only
Canaan,   Now, the descendants of Canaan are mentioned in Gen. x.
15-19; not one of them was ever an African people; they all dwelt in
the western, part of Asia, and are the nations with whom the Hebrews
were often at war.  The Hebrews conquered many of these tribes,
seized their country, and often their persons.  tMany of them fled, and
J think, settled in North Africa; the Berbers, and, in part, the Moors
are of that race, perhaps, but none of them are negroes.
But even if the negroes were the children of Canaan, as it is plain
they were not, what title could you make out to hold them  by?  It
would be this:-4-000 years ago Noah cursed Canaan, and, therefore,
you hold one of Canaan's children as a slave.  Now, do you think
a vsan has power to curse so far off as that?  But you will say,
God gave the curse; well, the Bible does not say so.  You say, Canaan
and his posterity were "constitutionally unworthy," but you don't
know that.  On the contrary, the Sidonians, who were the descendants
of Canaan, were a very illustrious people  of antiquity- a good
deal like the English and Americans at this day-and actually held
great quantities of the Jews in slavery.  Before you can hold a single
negro under that clause in Gen. ix. 25, you must make out —. That the
negro is descended from  Canaan; 2. That the curse was actually
uttered as related; 3. That it announces personal slavery for more than
4000 years; 4. That the curse was authorized by God Himself. Now,
there is not one of these four propositions which ever has been made
out or ever can be.  My dear sir, I am really surprised that an intelligent lman, in the nineteenth century, a Christian man-a Republican of
Georgia-could seriously rely a moment on such an argument as that.
Fie on such solemn trifling about matters so important as the life of
two or three millions of men I For my own part, I don't believe the
story of Noah cursing his grandson for his father's fault.  I think it all
a foolish story got up to satisfy the hatred which the Jews felt against
the Canaanites.  I know  Bryant's book and Faber's, but never use
either now-a-days.  B. had more fancy than philosophy, it always
seemed to me.  I may be as " confident " as you think me, but don't
call myself a learned man, though I have read about all the valuable
works ever written on that matter of Noah's curse.
You ask if I could not propose some good to be done to the slaves
now.  Certainly; their marriage and family rights might be made




THEODORE PARKER.                          83
secure, their work easier, their food and clothing better, they might
not be beaten.  Pains might be taken to educate them. But all that
is very little, so long as you keep the man from his natural liberty.
You would not be happy if a slave, would not think it right for a
Christian man to hold you in bondage, even if one of your ancestors
but fifty years ago, had cursed you, still less if 4000 years ago. If
I were a slave. holder I would do this —i would say, "Come, now,
you are free, go to work and I will pay you what you can earn."  I
think, in ten years' time, you would be a richer man, and in two hours'
time, a far happier one, a more Christian one.
Dear sir, Christianity does not consist in believing stories in the Old
Testament, about Noah's curse and all that, but in loving your brother
as yourself, and God with your whole heart. Do not think that I covet
your slaves. No consideration would induce me to become a slaveholder. I should be a sinner, though God grant that you are not one
for that act! Let me ask you, while you take from a man his liberty, his
person, do you not violate that command, "' Thou shalt not covet anything
that is thy neighbour's "?  Do you not break that yolden rule, "' Whatsoever you would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto
them"?
I do not think you feel easy about this matter. What you say about
colonization convinces me that you do not believe slavery is a Christian
institution; that you are not very angry with me, after all. Do not
think that I assume any airs of superiority over you because I am not
a slave-holder.  I have never had that temptation; perhaps if born in
Georgia, I should not have seen the evil and the sin of slavery. I may
be blind to a thousand evils and sins at home which I commit myself.
If so, I will thank you to point them  out. I hope you will write me
again as frankly as before.  I wish I could see Este's book.  I will look
for it, and study it, for I am working for the truth and the right.  I
have nothing to gain personally by the abolition of slavery, and have,
by opposing that institution, got nothing but a bad name. I shall not
count you my enemy, but am
Truly your friend.
In reply to this, Mr. Parker received a very lengthy epistle,
making points out of almost every line he wrote.  But space
cannot be afforded to quote it entire.  Here is a specimen:February 25, 1848.
You Abolitionists are children-you utter strings of nonsense for
wisdom, and have the audacity to elevate your heads, as if your reasonings were admired at the North or favoured at the South!
To ameliorate the slave would be to go to expense for him, and to
render the profits of his slavery, as now existing, narrower. Thus, —.'Tis to school him, and endure the probable tricks of his intelligence, if
he be innately a scoundrel.  2. To secure his marriage inseparable from
his wife and children, and thus to render him less valuable by not being
able to sell him alone, and wife and children separately, at so high a
price as they altogether would bring in a family. For many cannot
c 2




84              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
buy a whole family, and can a single slave at a high price. 3. To
ameliorate his condition by giving him better food, clothes, and less
work, and hence find less profit from  his labor or keeping! Ameliorate slavery-render it valuable! Surely a cabbage has a head, and
so has William L. Garrison or Theodore Parker!
In conclusion, friend Theodore Parker, let me admonish you not to
be for serving God's Holy Prophet of Prophets, Moses, as the Abolitionists, in their infernal conceits, are "after doing," as you see other
prophets which I hinted at also spoke like him, or " worse." And if you
could fling away Moses, you must the prophecies also; and if you can
these, by diminishing the credit or authority of anything they say, you
would knock the butments of Christianity also away, and reduce Jesus'
Gospel to a skeleton, or rather to so much flesh without bones.  This
I have tried, almost in agony, to show to Mr. Blanchard's mind, for he
said, " There may have been a black Adam  as well as a white," thus
insinuating the want of fulness in Moses, or supposing his Genesis
subject to speculations; and as I could not, my horror and distrust of
Abolitionists has become so greatly increased, that I now pronounce
them American infidels and Jacobins, and Boston as the Paris of this
phrenzied sect.  The scenes of its Revolution only is wanted to finish
the revolting picture.
Farewell, sir! write back, if you can, and if I see any solid reason in
your reply deserving another from me, I will not withhold my pen. I
think it much better to let off a deaf man like me, and to attend to
Matthew Este, whose book on slavery I will send, if one be in Athens.
Este, like yourself, and Blanchard, and Drew, I feel to be inferior as
writers to myself.  I feel among you as a Samson among a certain
host, or a Titan, even, among your giants  To attempt to prolong the
contest with me would only sink you in the Serbonian bog.  Deaf
though I be, yet I am  mighty in spirit.  As Abner said to a young
man pursuing him, " I say to thee, turn thou aside upon' Este,' and
take thou his armour," for why should I use thee up?
iSr. Parker rejoins -
Boston, March 4, 1848.
SIr,-Your favour of February 12th was received in due time and
carefully read; but I have hitherto been unable to reply to it, on
account of absence from the city and various duties while in it.  I see
it is altogether useless for me to undertake to dispute with you on the
matter of slavery. I should prefer, certainly, a different antagonist.
Your first letter led me to think you were a very extraordinary man;
your last more than confirmed the opinion. I confess my inability to
reason with you. I see it is of no use for one with weapons like mine
to prolong the contest. I will take your advice and select an opponent
more suitable.
Allow me, however, in parting, to thank you for your long lettersuch as I have seldom read.
Learned sir, I remain,
Your obedient servant.




THEODORE PARKER.                         85
These letters also, though of a later date, find their natural
connection here;  unfortunately I am  not able to furnish the
replies.  But the letters are characteristic of an epoch that is
passing away.  These and the preceding ones have been made to
correspond somewhat to the vulgar exigencies of printing.
FROIM  —, NEAR CHARLOTTE, N. CAROLINA.
February 11, 1855.
DEAR SIR,-It has been on my mind for some time to address you;
to urge that more mild methods and phrases should be employed in
judging and discussing the differences which prevail North and South,
in manners or opinions.
In order to show the necessity for care and caution, I will detail for
your consideration two scenes in Eastern States which fell under my
notice, and I think are entitled to reproof and amendment.
Being in Boston on a Sunday, I was astonished to find that respectable-looking housemaids were required to take, that morning, very early,
to scour and wash the extensive necessary houses of one of the most
prominent hotels in your city.
I felt so much dissatisfied at this discovery, I could not avoid asking
an intelligent, decent-looking white woman if it was the custom of the
house. She assured me it was so regularly! The women were all Irish
Catholics.  They seemed gratefully surprised at my notice and intervention, but vexed and indignant at the selection of time for such
service.
One of them calmly and modestly observed, " It was the time she
had been allowed to go to mass elsewhere." I could but regret some
other day was not substituted for such employment.  The women
looked inquiringly, as if they supposed I had some authority.
I told them, "I was a stranger from the South, who owned slaves,
and would certainly not allow my servants to be thus employed on
a day which demanded general rest, specially for servants."
The next morning an Irish waiter ran a long distance after me to the
cars, expressly to bring me a lunch, as he had observed I usually ate
no breakfast.
Going on board a steamer at Burlington, in Vermont, I found a
number of Irish emigrants on their way from Canada, taking the route
by Lake Chainplain from Quebec, to seek their friends, or employment
in the United States.
The noise of the escape steam, and the tumult in the trans-shipment
of passengers, baggage, and goods, induced me to take a stand on the
upper deck.
Women and children formed a principal portion of the crowd.
With the abstracted devotion which appears peculiar to Catholic
instruction or habits, several were on their knees upon deck, their lips
and hearts uttering prayers as they passed beads of rosaries through
their fingers,




86               IIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
It seemed impossible to avoid a feeling of pity for the poor creatures,
however we might differ about forms.
There were a number of horses in the bow of the boat, to be landed
at Burlington.  Those who had charge led them with. the greatest indifference and brutality among and over the kneeling women and
children.
In the foreground, an aged widow, with seven children surrounding
her, never moved amidst all the disorder.  The noises, the tumult, the
dangers, the rude countenances of boisterous strangers, did not distract
her attention from her prayers, although she was evidently sensible of
the hazard to her infants.
Her faith was strong, and though expressed with manners and devotion differing from those I have been taught to confide in, I trust were
as acceptable before God as mine own.
A. number of gentlemen on the upper deck looked at this scene, and
also said that the clerk of the boat, aided by a negro steward, made
exchanges of foreign monies with the male emigrants, much to the
disadvantage of some of the poorest and most ignorant of the
strangers.
I felt excessively angry, and turning round, said to those about me,
"Gentlemen, I am a slave-owner from the South, but, by God! no one
should treat my negroes as you stand here and see these poor Irish
treated."
I was immediately followed to the lower deck, and we requested an
officer to have the transfers made with more regard to the kneeling
women and children.
The kindly look I received from the patient widow's eye was grateful
to me.  It is difficult to know the secret hearts of men, yet, from what
judgment I could exercise, the formal mode employed by these poor
people, to aid re)imembrazce, by their beads, while asking the protection
of the General Parent, seemed offensive to the rude and reckless men
who did not comprehend it.
I could not avoid an impression that if the sympathies of Northern
hearts were sincere and honest for the improvement of our slaves, they
would be shown in a prompt manner towards these poor " strangers."
Believe me, very respectfully,
Your obedient servant.
FiROI THE SAME.
iear Charlotte, N. Carollna, Marc. 5c 18 55.
To THE  EvE. TIEODORE PAREnR,- I have read with satisfaction
your appeal on account of the perishing classes in Boston, August,
1846.  But that sermon, entitled by you, " The New  Crime against
Humanity," I cannot conceive to be in the right spirit to effect any
moral good.  As you do not show objection to honest frankness, I wil
be very plain to be better understood.
By what you term' higher law," I presume you mean " moral law,"
as we read it in the Scriptures.  By looking back to its principles, we
who reclaim  stolen or secreted property, are not man-stealers.  The




THEODORE PArKER.                           87
moral law permits servitude; some of the earliest precepts teach how
servants should be treated by their masters, and while it places them
under the great law of mercy, recognizes them  distinctly as property.
In the same manner, your fathers, while engaged in the slave trade, did
not believe they did an unlawful act unless they stole the negroes from
the coast.
They purchased from those who did steal or capture them, and sold
them to our fathers in the South, who paid an honest equivalent for
them.  By secreting, detaining, or coveting our slave property, you
show a disregard for the higher law you claim to be ruled by, which
was given to an ancient people as their constitution of government.
Our constitution was formed upon similar principles, and we are as
much bound in faith to it as the Hebrews to theirs.  In my opinion,
by resisting the constitution, you disregard both moral and civil obligations.  Abraham had " servants bought with his money, at home in his
house."  We call such  servants, "slaves."   The Egyptians and
Assyrians knew such property.  At the time of the Exodus, why was
not slavery denounced like idolatry, hypocrisy, deceit, violence, and
false witness?  Instead of being denounced, it was modified in accordance with other similar improvements, in a very special manner.  The
Hebrew was not allowed lto enslave one of his own people.  He was
permitted to purchase servants from neighbouring savage people, who
would otherwise have tortured and put them to death, as savages now
do. The Hebrew was not allowed to steal men for 7himself, but was told
not to covet his neighbour's servants.  If a Hebrew master maimed
his own servant in hasty passion, or revenge, he was obliged to compensate the slave with his liberty. All such facts prove the lawfulness
of slavery under the higher law system among the Hebrews.  But your
people say that law directs that the runaway slave should not be returned to his master.  This injunction could not have had reference
to a runaway from one tribe or state of the Hebrews to another; but
must have been intended to protect the runaway from neighbouring
wandering tribes, not under the same constitution of government as
the Hebrews, whose common law gave special directions for humane
treatment and forbearance, abundant supplies of food, clothing, and
instruction.  If we in the South have not accepted all the laws of the
moral code, as binding upon our slave property, encourage us to put
them in force, in order to benefit that property and the common welfare
of our country, North and South.
The higher law gives no sanction to the master to retain, or delay, or
conceal, or to covet our slaves.  Give them up, and let us be induced
to review our enactments and modify our customs in correspondence
with the principles of faith, justice, and mlercy those moral laws are
founded upon, and which clearly maintain our right to such property,
under modifications of humanity your conduct at the North prevents
or deranges. Those who lhave known this sysrem to the South, understand it differently from you; with you, slavery is an abstraction, and
your imaginations are too actively employed upon it, to your own
injury and ours.
I once asked a sensible preacher of the Society of Friends, in Penn.,
who was about to visit a business meeting in the South for the first




88              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
time, to tell me on his return which were most slaves, the servants
or their masters.
His inquiries and examinations showed him difficulties and defences
he knew not of before.  I have seen your Northern senators struck
with surprise at the demeanor of our slaves in the South, who, from
savage barbarians, as they were when your friends brought them here,
now exhibit as gentle, courteous, and honorable demeanor as servants
anywhere.
Your powers of reproof are very great, and your independence of
expression corresponds; but do not lose sight of the original truth,
that the institution of slavery in higher law stands side by side with
laws which object to covetousness, false witness and false devotion,
violence, enmity, and every injustice. No such condition exists South
as you explain in Boston.  All the crimes, and weaknesses, and faults,
and enormities, which now exist in society, also prevailed before the
days of Moses.  The great deliverer of high law was a reformer: with
the sanction usually conceded to him we may claim, at the South, to
regard that law as closely as you at the North, and in a spirit quite as
much in accordance with the liberality of that honorable code.
I wish the condition of the negro to be improved by his servitude
among us. Your violent expressions interfere with his advancement
as with ours.  I write before day, and in haste.
Sincerely and respectfully.
No doubt he wrote before day; but the day now breaketh.
Let one more of such letters suffice to indicate the nature of Mr.
Parker's correspondence with slave-holders.  It also reveals the
nature of his replies:FROM  THE SAME.
March 7, 1855.
The ancient moral law appears to yield to the ordinary prejudice of
our nature in its first gloom, and to confine attention to " our neighbours."  Yet, afterwards we are cautioned to regard the interests " of
the stranger " as well.  The honorable liberality of moral law directs
the true principles of justice and mercy to be exercised towards all
colors, classes, and conditions; but, in my opinion, plainly indicates
varieties in the races of man. We distinguish occasionally apparent contradictions in those Scriptures which solely arisefrom extreme simplicity
in the language employed by the Hebrew  writers.  The original
Hebrew designs to denominate a different race of people consistent with
the family of Adam, among whom Cain obtained "a wife," had "a son,"
and "'built  a city."
Adam is described as a civilized man at the beginning, stationary
and industrious in his habits, employed in agriculture, or gardening,
according to our literal translation.
I am  instructed by a Hebrew scholar that the word "Nod "left
untranslated in our English Bibles, as a noun-substantive, exists a
Hebrew adjective, signifying "The wandering."  Quite an important
interpretation I




THEODORE PARKER.                           89
"The mark set upon Cain lest any finding him  should kill him"
alludes to these wanderers, others than his own father's family, and to
some law or custom  then existing to punish murder with death, as
men, both wild and civilized, have continued to do. We cannot
discover the absolute origin of slavery among men, for the most remote
records indicate such an institution as prevailing. Biblical history
informs us it existed in the days of Abraham without apparent objection.  It most probably commenced among the civilized nations of
antiquity from a desire to save human life from the relentless vengeance
and retaliations in kind of savage and wandering wild men.
The subsequent improvements in moral law which regulate the
conduct of masters and mistresses to their own servants or slaves,
among the earliest precepts of the Hebrews, have been strangely misconstrued. In order to prompt and enforce humane treatment to that
condition of persons known long anterior to the promulgation of the
Hebrew Decalogue, and to check hasty impulses of passion or revenge
in masters, a compensation for the slightest personal injuries to servants
was ordered in a style of language we cannot believe intended to
authorize vindictive retaliation in kind.
The expressions, " eye for eye," " tooth for tooth," "hand for hand,"
"foot for foot," had reference to previous customs and manner of
speech among bordering savages who credited advantages from acts of
unequivocal retaliation.  This appears in the decided command which
follows the inventory of damages, "If a man smite the eye of his
man-servant, or the eye of his maid-servant, that it perish, he shall
let him or her go free, for the eye's sake."
Liberty was thus conceded as the appropriate compensation or
payment for violence to any of these members of a purchased servant
or slave, and was surely designed to repress cruelty and inhumanity
towards this description of legalized property, as it is plainly called
and treated of in Hebrew moral law, in correspondence with preceding
usages, yet obviously to modify and humanize them  by generous
restraints. The more I study it, the more I am persuaded this ancient
code of practice is based upon a permanent foundation of exact science
not to be overruled by alterations in customs or instructions. If those
of our country who do not own slaves, but largely aided to introduce
them  among us in the South, would more carefully examine the
discreet provisions of the moral code on this subject, they would do more
to benefit " their neighbours " in the South, and "the strangers," our
slaves, than by general denunciation of an abstract principle in which
they do oppose the plainest wording of these writings, and the feelings
of truth, justice, and mercy offered by the Scripture as the measures or
exact rule of proportion, by which we should regulate our own conduct,
opinions, and actions towards each other for the advancement and
progress of society, and the benefit of every diversity of the human
family, both bond and free.
None are disregarded in the honorable system of the Hebrew Reformer, who includes cattle, slaves, children, strangers, neighbours,
and enemies! This noble moral code is the base of every modern
improvement in humanity.  It forms the principles of our constitution
of civil government, probably somewhat distorted b-y false or feeble




90                 LIFE OF THEODORE PARKERl
interpretations.  It ruled the minds and the characters of the men of
our Revolution, and its precepts were intended to influence our common
law. Let not differences of opinion lead us to any violence in argument or in action, for as surely as the principles of this code are
comprehended, so surely will our peace, security, and happiness
in crease I
Believe me, sincerely and respectfully, &c.
P.S.-I think I noticed, in a letter sent you a few days ago, an
objection to the ordinary construction of language with regard to "a
runaway servant."  I cannot credit, from  the general and generous
tenor of moral law, that the order designed to interfere with the rights
or title of property so unequivocally countenanced among the Hebrew
tribes, but had reference solely to fugitives from without; the servants
of wild, barbarous masters on the borders of Syria, whose servants
were ordered to be treated with humanity, and not given up to savages.
The common law of the Hebrew made it obligatory upon all masters
and mistresses to be kind and attentive to the feelings and wants of
servants;  such a law with regard to runaways, as you understand
from the English text, would not be required if the moral precepts of
the Hebrews were obeyed.  Aid us to have them  attended to everywhere.
His second sermon upon the Mexican War was preached June
25, 1848, after the announcement of its conclusion by the treaty
of peace, negotiated by Mr. Trist.
Well: we have got a new territory, enough to make one hundred
States of the size of Massachusetts.  That is not all. We have beaten
the armies of Mexico, destroyed the little strength she had left, the
little self-respect, else she would not so have yielded and given up half
her soil for a few miserable dollars.  Soon we shall take the rest of her
possessions.  How can Mexico hold them now-weakened, humiliated,
divided worse than ever within herself?  Before many years, all of this
Northern Continent will doubtless be in the hands of the Anglo-Saxon
race. That of itself is not a thing to mourn at.  Could we have extended
our empire there by trade, by the Christian arts of peace, it would be a
blessing to us and to Mexico; a blessing to the world.  3ut we have
done it in the worst way, by fraud and blood; for the worst purpose,
to steal and convert the cities of men into the shambles for human
flesh; have done it at the bidding of men whose counsels long have
been a scourge and a curse-at the bidding of slave-holders.  They it
is that rule the land, fill the offices, buy up the North with the crumbs
that fall from their political table, make the laws, declare hostilities, and
leave the North to pay the bill. Shall we ever waken out of our sleep?
Shall we ever remember the duties we owe to the world and to God,
who put us here on this new continent?  Let us not despair.




CHAPTER XIX.
The Fugitive Slave Bill-Vigilance Committees-William and Ellen Craft.
MR. WEBSTER made his speech in Congress in favor of the Fugitive Slave Bill, on larch 7, 1850, and another speech in Boston
the next month, in which, countenanced by the political sympathy of the city merchants, he attempted to instruct the State
to surrender its anti-slavery convictions. But the country population of the State could not recover from  its astonishment at
the abjectness of his speech so quickly as Boston did; the conscience of the city is kept sinuous by the crooked streets where
interest walks; the conscience of the State has all the open
fields to move in, and sees the  shortest line  between  two
points.  lMr. Parker spoke for the country and the people.
The Fugitive Slave Bill was enacted on September ] 8, 1850.
There was a faint hope that it might be vetoed upon the ground
of the unconstitutionality of some of its provisions; but, as soon
as the Attorney-General Crittenden, a citizen of a slave-holding
state, informed President Fillmore that the Bill was constitutional, it received his signature.  He signed  the warrant of
misery of thousands of innocent and unfortunate bings, for it
was not unconstitutional to do so.  They have been the black
pawns in the great Southern games of politics, capable only to
tempt or to restrain a move, and to be sacrificel with equanimity.
Who can describe the distress and anguish of this persecuted
class in Boston, Worcester, iNew  Bedford, and the other principal towns, where large numbers of them  were gathered for the
sake of employment!  They were afraid to remain even in
places where a formidable anti-slavery sentiment existed, for no
man could guarantee to them protection against the well-framed




92             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
wickedness of the law.   They  might stay, and take their
chance of a popular manifestation which, in case of arrest, might
paralyze the arm that held them, or they might sacrifice everything, and fly, dreading the unreliable temper of the people.
Some of the boldest chose to remain, and armed themselves to
defend their freedom, instinctively calculating that the sight of
such an exigency would  make the Northern heart beat too
rapidly for prudence.  Sometimes it did so: but it was nothing
for this race of men who had hitherto been uniformly betrayed
to depend upon. More than forty fled from Boston alone, within
three days from the signing of the Bill from the President. The
anti-slavery men of the State had to sustain the double affliction of the Bill itself, and the misery of its victims; but it
brought upon the negroes expatriation, the sacrifice of little
properties, the loss of employment, the sudden disruption of
family ties, and an uncertain and melancholy future. The humble
annals of these sufferers from that base political expedient, would
compose the vital history of Massachusetts for many long and
gloomy days.  For as these hunted men fled they drew  the
secret tenderness of the people along with them, and left behind
only slave-commissioners and marshals, men in Southern trade,
and their political sympathizers.
But were not the officers created by the law, or clothed in
new  disgraceful functions by it, sworn to support it against
humanity itself?  Yes: and they did not hasten to resign the
godless position, so that by letting it drop to the natural level
of men, without gentleness, scholarship, culture, and various
merit, its naked brutality might terribly shock indifferent spectators, and work a peremptory cure.  For, when evil is driven out
of respectability into the herd of its own, it rushes down a
steep place, and disappears.  Society is protected by careful professional services, and is betrayed when professional excellence
lends its prestige to inhumanity.
The people held indignant meetings, and organized Committees
of Vigilance, whose duty was to prevent a fugitive from being
arrested, if possible, or to furnish legal aid and raise every
obstacle to his rendition.  The constant activity of these committees in the principal towns was a serious check to the activity
of pursuing committees sent on by slave-holding masters.  It
became a rather difficult thing to run a fugitive to earth, and
get him before the commissioners.  The Vigilance members made




THEODORE PARKER.                       93
it everywhere appear such a troublesome and expensive, as well
as uncertain operation, to slave-holders, that the attempts were
very few; but spies were often commissioned to the North with
the errand of discovering the chances of success. And, if success
had been more probable and less costly, many a slave-hunt
would have been undertaken by Southern disunionists for political effect. But policy could afford little till the time came
when the plundered nation itself furnished the means by which
its life is threatened.
With all the difficulties, however, more than two hundred
arrests of persons claimed as fugitives were made from the time
of the passage of the Bill to the middle of 1856.  About a
dozen of these were free persons, who succeeded in establishing
the claim  that they  never had been  slaves; other persons,
equally free, were carried off.  Half a dozen rescues were made,
and the rest of these cases were delivered to their owners.
These arrests took place more frequently in Pennsylvania than
in any other Northern State.  Many fugitives were caught and
carried back, of whom we have no accounts, save that they were
seen on the deck of some river steamboat, in the custody of their
owners, without even passing through the formality of appearing
before a commissioner.  About two-thirds of the persons arrested
as above, had trials.  When arrests to the number of two hundred, at least, can be traced, and their dates fixed, during six
years, we may suppose that the Bill was not, as some politicians
averred, practically of little consequence.
The Vigilance Committees were also the employes of the
" Underground Railroad," and effectively disposed of many a
casus belli by transferring the disputed  chattel to  Canada
Money, time, wariness, devotedness for months and years, that
cannot be computed and will never be recorded, except, perhaps,
in connection with cases whose details had peculiar interest, was
nobly rendered by the true anti-slavery men.   Their recollections now rejoice in every such practical defeat of the inhuman law.  The judges, commissioners, and marshals are in
debt to the anti-slavery men, who so many times interposed
thus to save them from the disgrace which would have attended
each new  discharge of their unchristian function.   Shall we
not hear of their presenting some testimonial to the Vigilance
Committees?
In those dreadful days Mr. Parker hastened from  his study,




94              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
and forgot all calm delights, that he might rescue the noblest of
the humanities from  the barbarism  and ignorance of men.  Of
all his knowledge he remembered best the golden rule.
Here are the  resolutions drawn  up by Mr. Parker, upon
which the future action of the anti-slavery men were rested:RESOLUTIONS.
1. That we disapprove of the new Fugitive Slave Law, considering
it xNCONSTITmUTIONAL-in general, because it does not tend to form a
more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity,
provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, or secure
the blessings of liberty to the people; and in special, because it takes
away from men the privilege of the writ of Habeas Coirus, and the
right of trial by jury, because it violates the right of the people to be
secure in their persons against unreasonable seizures, and takes away
their liberty without due form of law; and also UTNJUST-in general,
because it violates the golden rule of doing to others as we would
have them do unto us; and in special, because it offers a bribe to the
magistrate to decide against liberty, and leaves men with no protection
for their freedom but the opinion of the people.
2. That we will not entertain the opinion that any man can be
found in this city or its vicinity, so destitute of love for his country,
and so lost to a sense of justice as to endeavour to return a fugitive
slave under this law.
3. That we advise the fugitive slaves and colored  inhabitants of
Boston and the neighborhood to remain with us, for we have not the
smallest fear that any one of them  will be taken from us and carried
off to bondage; and we trust that such as have fled in fear will return
to their business and homes.
4. That we will appoint persons from each ward in this city, as a
Committee of Safety and Vigilance, with power to add to their number
such as they shall see fit, and it shall be their duty to endeavor by all
just means to secure the fugitives and colored inhabitants of Boston
and vicinity from any invasion of their rights by persons acting under
this law.
FROM THE JOURNAL.
Oct. 23, 1850.-At work on book; continually interrupted by com.
pany; continual stream of people till night.
At night second meeting of Vigilance Committee, this time at No.
46, Washington Street. This is the same number where the AntiSlavery Society met, when the mob broke them up in 1835. That is a
good sign.
Filled up our numers to about eighty.  Chose all the lawyers for a
legal Committee.  The function of the committee is this:-To be on
the watch, and warn when an attempt is making to procure a warrant
to arrest a fugitive; to see that he has knowledge of it; if brought




THEODOREI  PARKER.                         95
before an officer, that he has counsel, and that all legal delays are made
use of, and if he be adjudged a slave, then to alarm the town.
Francis Jackson proposes that an agent shall be appointed to look
after the fugitives, help find them places, help them to flee. The
first business of the anti-slavery men is to help the fugitives; we, like
Christ, are to seek and save that which is lost.
The Boston Vigilance Committee soon numbered 2 5 0 members.
Out of that number there was raised, besides the Legal Committee, an Executive Committee of eight or ten members, who
could be relied upon for any probable emergency. Mr. Parker
was its chairman.
ieturning home from  Plymouth late in the afternoon of the 25th,
found Howe * had been at our house, to warn me of slave-hunters in
town; found the Legal Committee had been in attendance most of the
day.  A slave-hunter is here in Boston, named Hughes, and warrants
are out for the arrest of Ellen Craft and her husband!
Saw J. B. Smith, who says that writs are out also for the arrest of
two other men working at Parker's restaurant, in Court Square; that
five or six fellows came there at dinner-time, stood on the steps, looked
in, but didn't enter.  After dinner they went in. and inquired for
their fugitives.  No such persons there-looked round and went off.
Smith says Craft is armed, and Ellen secreted. Informal meeting
of Vigilance Committee at the office of New Englancder.  Craft has
consented to be hid to-night, at the south end of Boston. Mr. —
took him up in a coach. Ellen is to-night at -~, in ----- Street. So
all is safe for this night.
The blank  spaces for names of places and persons are left
blank in the manuscript.  This precaution is taken on many
pages, in the interest of the fugitive; for there were times when
devoted  anti-slavery men  felt that the  future  could  not be
trusted.  Warrants and indictments let loose upon their traces
with blood-hound scent, might yet, and how soon  none  could
know, run down both the slave and his protectors.
26th.-It seems a miserable fellow by the name of Knight came
here to Boston from Macon, Georgia, sent out by the former owner of
the Crafts.  He used to work in the cabinet-shop with William, but
was dull and imbecile; so that his chief function was to wait upon
the rest. There came with him a   iMr. Hughes, who is the gaoler at
Macon.
Last Tuesday, KInight called on Craft athis shop, expressed pleasure
to see him, &c.; Craft asked him if he came on alone?  "Yes, there
was nobody with him."  But he wanted William to go round with him,
to show him the streets and the curiosities of Boston.  No! William
" Dr. S. G. Howe, of Boston, always the champion of oppressed people. the good
physician, true leader of the blind.




96              LIFE AND CORRISPONDENCE OF
was on his guard, was "busy," " had work to attend to," and could
not go."
The next day he came again, wanted William  to go round the
Common with him! No, he could not go. Then he told William,
" Perhaps you would like to come to the United States Hotel, and see
me; your wife would like to come also and talk about her mother. If
you will write, I will take the letter home."
Finding that Craft rejoiced in a very appropriate name, and
was even too much for one who had drawn his vital nourishment
of stealth and treachery from slavery's breast, he returned to his
hotel and laid the following little lucid trap.  Spelling is of
small consequence, when the heart swells with generous intentions:
WILALIAM CRAIT —SIn,-I have to leave so eirley in the moring, that
I cold not call according to promis, so if you want me to carry a letter
home with me, you must bring it to the united states Hotel tomorrow,
and leave it in box 44, or come yourself to morro eavening after tea
and bring it. Let me no if you come yourself by sending a note to
box 44 U.S. hotel, so that I may no whether to wate after tea or not by
the bearer. If your wif wants to see me you cold bring her with you
if you come yourself.
JOHN KNIGHT.
PS.-I shall leave for home eirley a Thursday moring.   J. K.
The journal proceeds:The man who brought the letter informed Craft of the other person
(the fraternal gaoler) who came with him, told his name, &c.
Finding this failed, Hughes applied to the Court and got a warrant.
I have not yet ascertained who granted it.
I saw William this morning. He seemed cool and resolute. I told
him I thought it was no use to put the matter off and cut off the dog's
tail by inches. If he were to take the bull by the horns, he had better
do it to-day, rather than to-morrow. So he thought. I inspected his
arms-a good revolver, with six caps on, a large pistol, and small ones,
a large dirk and a short one. All was right.
The next day the Legal Sub-committee  of the  Vigilance
Committee had Knight and Hughes arrested for slander against
Craft, they having called him a thief, for leaving Georgia with
his clothes on when he left with himself. But they were immediately bailed out.  Hughes declared his determination to have
William and Ellen at all hazards.  "It isn't the niggers I care
about, but it's the principle of the thing."
Monday, 28th., a broker and treasurer of U.S. Hotel, told
Francis Jackson, " he would carry out the law if it was to apply to his
own daughter! "  No doubt; but suppose it came to his dividends?




THEODORE PARKER.                         97
There was by this time a good deal of excitement in Boston,
and the committee decided to run  off the slave-hunters themselves.
30.-I was at the tU.S. Hotel. None of the committee there. Inquired of the landlord if Hughes and Knight were in.  "I don't know,
sir. No, sir: they are out,'Mr. Parker."
I walked about awhile, then asked one of the clerks for Hughes and
Knight. "If you will send up your name, you can see."  Sent up a
card; the servant came back with a little bit of paper, and this on it:" Mr. Hughes is inguage."  The others had assembled by this time,
ten or twenty of them. Dr. Kraitser inquired if he was in the breakfast room. " No, not there."  Fearing that they might escape us again,
I went up to the room, No. 44, and walked back and forth in front of
it. By-and-bye Knight came in.  Channing guarded one of the stairways, Brown another. Ellis came to me. About three-quarters of
an hour thus spent. The landlord came and requested me, not very
politely, to walk downstairs, promising to meet me very soon. I went,
and soon Mr. Silsbee came and politely informed me that Spooner
would introduce me to  the slave-hunters.  I went up  and was
introduced.
I told them I came to keep them  safe from harm; that I was a
minister, and came as a friend to them. Some were disposed to violence, I not. Htughes said he knew I had called before, that I was a
minister, and he had understood that I was " a great moralist" —meaning philanthropist-" but this don't look much like it." " What does not
look like it?" " Mobs and violence." "But I came to prevent that."
" But we came here to execute the law." " Yes: but you must be satisfied that you cannot arrest William and Ellen Craft, and if you do
that, you cannot carry them out of the city."  Hughes said he was
satisfied of that.
They both complained that they were ill-treated; that they could
not step into the street but that they were surrounded and followed by
men who called out, "Slave-hunters, slave-hunters! there goes the
slave-hunters! "  Knight said it was too bad; he was not a slave-hunter,
he had nothing to do with it, but was treated as badly as the other.
Hughes said he had the assurance of sufficient help in Boston; that he
did not fear violence-was prepared for it, &c. I told him they were
not safe in Boston another night. They said they had determined to
go in the train at half-past seven (and indeed they had put their names
in the call-book to be called at six), but they saw a crowd at the door,
" and," said Knight, "there would have been forty or fifty fellows hurrahing, and swinging their caps, and calling out,' Slave-hunters! there goes
the slave-hunters!'" I told them we (the committee) came to give them
a safe conduct, and allow no one to hurt them. Said HIughes, "We don't
want a safe conduct; we can take care of ourselves."
I told them that I had stood between them and violence once-I
would not promise to do it again: that I should not have been successful had it not been thought that they had promised to depart that
morning at half-past seven. He said they had never made any promise, nor should they make any. I told them that I could not guaVOL. II.                                              H




%9 8             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
rantee their safety another night. We bid one another good morning,
and I came away. They were considerably frightened.
At half-past 2 P.M. they took the New York train at Newton Corner.
Nov. 1.-Reading the diary of John Adams.  How much the old
times were like the present times! Most of the men of property were
on the side of tyranny.  Adams was made of good stuff, but vain,
irritable, and intensely ambitious; still, he could not be driven from
the right by violence, by intimidation, by fear of poverty and disgrace.
Nobody could buy him, or flatter him  into a continuous course of
wrong.
It is amusing to see how trifles affect a man.  He was much elated
at his election as select-man of Braintree, when he was thirty years
old. Nay, his election to be one of the select-men seemed a great
affair.
As representative of Boston he contended manfully for the right.
It is curious to find how defective collegiate education was then.  He
had to study "Horace" and " Cicero in Catalinam" after he was a
practising lawyer! But it is pleasant to see his literary taste, which
struggled against poverty, sleepiness, and want of books.
It is painful to find that the "men of property and standing" who
at first inclined to freedom almost all fluctuated, and how many of
them went over to the other side. Note the character of the clergy,
and how the greater part of them sided with Power.Many interruptions all this week, and little done; almost nothing
on the book. I make no doubt I shall have to go to gaol this winter,
and then I shall be as well off as Carlyle's " Notability No. 2," free
from taxes and botheration, when I clutch my MSS. as if in a conflagration! Well: I am ready.
The allusion is to " Model Prisons "-visit to a prison of the
exemplary or model kind.  Mr. Carlyle says:-" Next neighbor
to him was Notability Second, a philosophic or literary chartist;
walking rapidly to and fro in his private court, a clean highwalled place; the world and its cares quite excluded, for some
months to come; master of his own time and spiritual resources
to, as I supposed, a really enviable extent.  What' literary man'
to an equal extent? I fancied I, for my own part, so left with
paper and ink, and all taxes and botheration shut out from me,
could have written such a book as no reader will here ever get
of me.  Never, 0 reader, never here in a mere house with taxes
and botherations.  Here, alas! one has to snatch one's poor book
bit by bit, as from a conflagration," &c.
* Where John Adams alludes to  Reverend Tories," he means to designate chiefly
the Episcopal clergy of his time, who sneered at the Calvinistic " preachers of politics,"
and made it a point of boasting and special laudation that they never touched on politics
in the pulpit, except of course to decry from it the republican politics which they detested.




THEODORE PARKER.                         99
The Journal proceeds:
Ellen Craft has been here all the week since Monday; went off at
a quarter past six to-night. That is a pretty state of things, that I am
liable to be find 1000 dollars and gaoled for six months for sheltering
one of my own parishioners, who has violated no law of God, and only
took possession of herself!
Talk in the newspapers about the President sending on 600 or 700
soldiers to dragoon us into keeping the Fugitive Slave Law! The
Bostonians remember how that business of quartering soldiers on us in
time of peace worked in the last century! It is worth while to read
H-utchinson and Adams.
Dr. Osgood* came to see about the Crafts. All must be secretly
done, so nothing here at present. Nell came to say they wish to be
married, I advise to-morrow, so it is agreed, to-morrow at eleven, at
No. --  Street. I never married such a couple and under such circumstances.
Nov. 7.-Married William and Ellen Craft. They have long been
married, but their marriage lacks the solemnity of law, so yesterday
they got a certificate, and this day I married them.
A note from an old parishioner named Webster, asking if the
account in the newspapers of this marriage was to be depended
on, brought out a reply which contains Mr. Parker's own description of that ceremony:
I have known them ever since their flight from slavery. After the
two slave-hunters had gone, they wished to go to England, and requested me to marry them after the legal and usual form.  I told them
how to get the certificate of publication according to the new law of
Massachusetts. It was done, and at the time appointed I went to the
place appointed, a boarding-house for colored people.  Before the
marriage ceremony I always advise the young couple of the duties of
matrimony, making such remarks as suit the peculiar circumstances
and character of the parties.  I told them  what I usually tell all
bridegrooms and brides. Then I told Mr. Craft that their position
demanded peculiar duties of him. He was an outlaw; there was no
law which protected his liberty in the United States; for that, he must
depend on the public opinion of Boston, and on himself. If a man
attacked him, intending to return him to slavery, he had a right, a:natural right, to resist the man unto death; but he might refuse to
exercise that right for himself, if he saw fit, and suffer himself to be
reduced to slavery rather than kill or even hurt the slave-hunter who
should attack him.  But his wife was dependent on him for protection; it was his duty to protect her, a duty which it seemed to me he
could not decline. So I charged him, if the worst came to the worst,
to defend the life and the liberty of his wife against any slave-hunter
at all hazards, though in doing so he dug his own grave and the
grave of a thousand men.
Then came the marriage ceremony; then a prayer such as the occasion inspired. Then I noticed a Bible lying on one table and a sword
" A Boston physician.
u 2




1 00()           LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
on the other; I saw them when I first came into the house, and determined what use to make of them. I took the Bible, put it into William's right hand, and told him the use of it. It contained the noblest
truths in the possession of the human race, &c., it was an instrument
he was to use to help save his own soul, and his wife's soul, and
charged him to use it for its purpose, &c. I then took the sword (it
was a " Californian knife;"  I never saw such an one before, and am
not well skilled in such things); I put that in his right hand, and told
him if the worst came to the worst to use that to save his wife's liberty,
or her life, if he could effect it in no other way. I told him that I
hated violence, that I reverenced the sacredness of human life, and
thought there was seldom a case in which it was justifiable to take it;
that if he could save his wife's liberty in no other way, then this would
be one of the cases, and as a minister of religion I put into his hands
these two dissimilar instruments, one for the body, if need were-one
for his soul at all events. Then I charged him not to use it except at
the last extremity, to bear no harsh and revengeful feelings against
those who once held him in bondage, or such as sought to make him
and his wife slaves even now. " Nay," I said, " if you cannot use the
sword iii defence of your wife's liberty without hating the man you
strike, then your action will not be without sin."
I gave the same advice I should have given to white men under the
like circumstances-as, escaping from slavery in Algiers.
The following letter to Millard Fillmore, then President of the
United States, shows how deep his feeling was at this time, and
what a resolution ruled his heart to resist to the utmost the
hateful statute.  Yet it has all the calmness and dignity of a
man who disobeys the law because he worships God.
TO PRESIDENT FILLMORE.
Nov. 21.
HONORED SIR,- This letter is one which requires only time to
read.  I cannot expect you to reply to it.  I am myself a clergyman in this city; not one of those, unfortunately, who are much respected, but, on the contrary, I have an ill name and am one of the
most odious men in this State.  No man out of the political arena is
so much hated in Massachusetts as myself. I think this hatred is
chargeable only to certain opinions which I entertain relative to theology and to morals.  Still, I think I have never been accused of wanting reverence for God, or love for man, of disregard to truth and to
justice.  I say all this by way of preface, for I need not suppose you
know anything of me.
I have a large religious society in this town, composed of "all sorts
and conditions of men," fugitive slaves who do not legally own the
nails on their fingers and cannot read the Lord's Prayer, and also men
and women of wealth and fine cultivation.  I wish to inform  you of
the difficulty in which we (the church and myself) are placed by the
new Fugitive Slave Law.   There are several fugitive slaves in the
societl; thay have committed no wrong; they have the same " unalien



THEODORE PARKER,                        101
able right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" that you have;
they naturally look to me for advice in their affliction. They are
strangers, and ask me to take them in; hungry, and beg me to feed
them; thirsty, and would have me give them  drink; they are naked,
and look to me for clothing; sick, and wish me to visit them. Yes:
they are ready to perish, and ask their life at my hands. Even the
letter of the most Jewish of the Gospels makes Christ say, " Inasmuch
as ye have not done it unto one of the least of these, ye have not done
it unto me!"  They come to me as to their Christian minister, and ask
me to do to them only what Christianity evidently requires.
But your law will punish me with fine of 1000 dollars and imprisonment for six months if I take in one of these strangers, feed and clothe
these naked and hungry children of want; nay, if I visit them when
they are sick, come unto them when they are in prison, or help them,
"directly or indirectly," when they are ready to perish! Suppose I
should refuse to do for them what Christianity demands. I will not
say what I should think of myself, but what you would say. You
would say I was a scoundrel, that I was really an infidel (my theological
brethren call me so), that I deserved a gaol for six years! You would
say right. But if I do as you must know that I ought, then your law
strips me of my property, tears me from my wife, and shuts me in a
gaol. Perhaps I do not value the obligations of religion so much as my
opponents, of another faith; but I must say I would rather lie all my
life in a gaol, and starve there, than refuse to protect one of these
parishioners of mine. Do not call me a fanatic; I am a cool and sober
man, but I must reverence the laws of God, come of that what will come.
I must be true to my religion.
I send you a little sermon of mine; you will find the story of a
fugitive slave whom  I have known. He is now in Quebec, in the
service of one of the most eminent citizens of that city.  lie is a
descendant of one of our revolutionary generals, and members of my
society aided him in his flight; others concealed him, helped him to
freedom.  Can you think they did wrong?  Can you think of the
Declaration of Independence-of its self-evident truths; can you think
of Christianity, and then blame these men?  The Hungarians found
much natural sympathy all over the LTnited States, though some men
in Boston took sides with Austria; the nation is ready to receive
Kossuth; but what is Austrian tyranny to slavery in America?  The
Sultan of Turkey has the thanks of all the liberal governments of
Europe for hiding the outcasts of Hungary, and can you blame us for
starting "Joseph" and helping him to Canada?  I know it is not
possible.
William Craft and Ellen were parishioners of mine: they have been
at my house.  I married them  a fortnight ago this day; after the
ceremony I put a Bible and then a sword into William's hands, and
told him the use of each.  When the slave-hunters were here, suppose
I had helped the man to escape out of their hands: suppose I had
taken the woman to my own house, and sheltered her there till the
storm had passed by; should you think I did a thing worthy of fine and
imprisonment?  If I took all peaceful measures to thwart the kidnappers (legal kidnappers) of their prey, would that be a thing for
punishment?  You cannot think that I am to stand by and see my




102              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
own church carried off to slavery and do nothing to hinder such a
wrong.
There hangs beside me in my library, as I write, the gun my grandfather fought with at the battle of Lexington-he was a captain on that
occasion-and also the musket he captured from a British soldier on
that day, the first taken in the war for Independence.  If I would
not peril my property, my liberty, nay, my life, to keep my own
parishioners out of slavery, then I would throw away those trophies,
and should think I was the son of some coward, and not a brave man's
child.  There are many who think as I do: many that say it-most of
the men I preach to are of this way of thinking.  (Yet one of these
bailed Hughes, the slave-hunter from Georgia, out of prison!)
There is a minister who preaches to the richest church in Boston.
He is a New  Hampshire man, and writes as any New Hampshire
politician; but even he says " he would conceal a fugitive, of course."
Not five of the eighty Protestant ministers of Boston would refuse.
I only write to you to remind you of the difficulties in our way; if
need is, we will suffer any penalties you may put upon us, BUT WE
MiTST KEEP THE 3LAW 0F GOD.
This extract also shows the temper of his mind:I am  not a man who loves violence; I respect the sacredness of
human life, but this I say, solemnly, that I will do all in my power to
rescue any fugitive slave from  the hands of any officer who attempts
to return him to bondage.  I will resist him as gently as I know how,
but with such strength as I can command; I will ring the bells and
alarm the town; I will serve as head, as foot, or as hand to any body
of serious and earnest men, who will go with me, with no weapons but
their hands, in this work.  I will do it as readily as I would lift a man
out of the water, or pluck him from the teeth of a wolf, or snatch him
from the hands of a murderer. What is a fine of a thousand dollars,
and gaoling for six months, to the liberty of a man? My money perish
with me if it stand between me and the eternal law of God!
FROM  THE JOURNAL.
Nov. 18, 1850.-It is plain now there will soon be two great parties;
1, a slavery-protection party; 2, an anti-slavery party.  Protective
tariff parties and free-trade parties will soon be swallowed up in the
vortex of these two.  Then the fate of slavery is sealed.
Feb., 1851.-To-night a meeting was held at the Tremont Temple,
to consider the case of General Chaplin.  I opened the meeting with
prayer, and introduced Mr. Chaplin to the audience. Mr. Sewall was
in the chair. I think it a disgrace to Boston that there were no more
present. I saw no minister.  It is not to be supposed that many such
would attend, for the meeting was called for a purpose wholly Christian,
to seek and to save that which was lost.
If General Chaplin had done in Algiers what he did in Washington,
all the snobs in Boston would have turned out to welcome him!,But
Wisdom is justified by her own children!




THEODORE PARKER.                      103
Feb. 28.-To-night a meeting of a few members of the Twenty-eighth
Congregational Society was held at our house, to see what we could do for
General Chaplin. It was thought by some that 1000 dollars might
be got. I thought 500 dollars would be more than we ought to expect.
A little more than 200 dollars was paid down by those present.
I have had within three months at my house a fugitive slave, whom
I had to conceal from the Marshal of this district, a woman and a
wife-I mean Ellen Craft. I have been to visit a slave-hunter, who
came here to catch her. I have had a man here-General Chaplinunder bonds of 25,000 dollars, for helping two slaves of members of
Congress escape from the capital of the UJnited States  I believe
this will seem a little strange one of these years.
" Oh, how ridiculous
Appears the Senate's brainless diligence,
Who think they can, with present power, extinguish
The memory of all succeeding times!
They purchase to themselves rebuke and shame,"
THE CASE OF SHADRACH.
Shadrach was arrested on Feb. 15, 1851, and confined in the
United States Court-room.  The case was adjourned by the
commissioner soon after it was opened; and while the crowd
was retiring a body of colored men boldly entered the room,
told Shadrach to follow, which he did, and was outside before
the officers in waiting clearly saw it was a rescue.
FROM THE JOURNAL.
Feb. 16, 1851. —The fugitive slave, Shadrach, put up a "note,"
asking the prayers of this church and of all Christian people for aid
in seeking his liberty! But this Shadrach is delivered out of his
burning, fiery furnace without the smell of fire on his garments. Of
course I refer to the rescue of the man yesterday. I think it the most
noble deed done in Boston since the destruction of the tea in 1773. I
thank God for it. I went down to Court Square as soon as I heard of
the arrest, understanding that the slave was still in the Court-house,
in the custody of the Marshal, intending to make a rescue, if possible.
But it was better done before I heard of the arrest.
The next day, after taking leave of some friends who embarked for Europe, he adds, —
I know not what may take place in times like these, and in such a
city as this. But I doubt that they ever see me again; for I must not
let a fugitive slave be taken from Boston, cost what it may justly cost.
I will not (so I think now) use weapons to rescue a man with. But I
will go unarmed, when there is a reasonable chance of success, and
make the rescue.




10  LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
This placard, issued about this time by the Vigilance Committee, and posted at all corners, must be preserved as a characteristic of the period:
PROCLAMATION!!
TO ALL
THE GOOD PEOPLE OF MASSACHUSETTS!
Be it known that there are now
THREE SLAVE-HiUNTERS OR KIDNAPPERS
IN BOSTON
Looking for their prey.  One of them is called
"D AVIS."
lie is an unusually ill-looking fellow, about five feet eight inches high,
wide-shouldered. He has a big mouth, black hair, and a good deal
of dirty bushy hair on the lower part of his face.  He has a Roman
nose; one of his eyes has been knocked out. He looks like a Pirate,
and knows how to be a Stealer of Men.
The next is called
EDWARD BARRETT.
He is about five feet six inches high, thin and lank, is apparently
about thirty years old. His nose turns up a little. He has a long
mouth, long thin ears, and dark eyes. His hair is dark, and he has a
bunch of fur on his chin. He had on a blue frock-coat, with a velvet
collar, mixed pants, and a figured vest. He wears his shirt collar
turned down, and has a black string-not of hemp —about his neck.
The third ruffian is named
ROBERT MI. BACON, alias JOHN D. BACON.
He is about fifty years old, five feet and a half high. He has a red,
intemperate-looking face, and a retreating forehead. His hair is dark,
and a little gray. He wears a black coat, mixed pants, and a purplish
vest. He looks sleepy, and yet malicious.
Given at Boston, this 4th day of April, in the year of our Lord, 1851,
and of the Independence of the United States the fifty-fourth.
God save the Commonwzealth of lIassachusetts!




THEODORE PARKER.                            105
When,  after  repeated  attempts  to  convict  the  Shadrach
rescuers, a jury acquitted the principal one in November, 1851,
we find the following entry:Hlon. John P. Hale came in, all radiant and flushed with delight, to
say that the jury had acquitted Morris.*  " Lord, now lettest thou thy
servant depart in peace; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."  This
is more than I expected.  All that Boston influence and the money of
the United States could do-all that shameless impudence could dohas been done, and the jury acquit! Well, the jury is not yet to be
despaired of, spite of the judicial tyranny which seeks to unman them!
Feb. 21.-These are sad times to live in, but I should be sorry not
to have lived in themn  It will seem a little strange one or two hundred
years hence, that a plain, humble scholar of Boston was continually
interrupted in his studies, and could not write his book for stopping to
look after fugitive slaves-his own parishioners!
Feb. 22.-Washington's birthday!  Very busy with fugitive slave
matters.
Feb. 24. —Not well.  Writing report on fugitive slave petitions, &c.
Feb. 25.-At home-about anti-slavery business. P.M. at the Statehouse with Anti-Slavery Committee. Phillips, Sewall, and Ellis spoke.
Vigilance Committee sat at night.
Feb. 26.-Much time in fugitive slave matters.
And on a later page, undated,I am getting sad now-a-days; for the one great earthly joy, which
for years has idealized and beautified my internal life, is with me no
more.  I suppose I must bear it with what philosophy I can.  The
great joy of my life cannot be intellectual action, neither practical work.
Though I joy in both, it is the affections which open the spring of
mortal delight.  But the object of my affections, dearest of all, is not
at hand.  How strange that I should have no children, and only get a
little sad sort of happiness, not of the affectional quality.  I am only
an old maid in life, after all my bettying about in literature and philanthropy.
These thoughts come to me in some hours, and I am  deeply sad.
But anon there comes the thought of the infinite goodness of God; and
I cheer up and soon regain my habitual cheerfulness. But the sight of
all the suffering of these poor fugitives is with me continually, and I
cannot be very happy now-a-days.
Feb. 28.-Mem.: The story of James Martin, this day delivered out
of the jaws of the merciless. I will leave this page blank to write the
story on when it shall be safe.
* Robert Morris, Elizur Wright, Lewis Hayden, Charles G. Davis, and others, were
arrested, and all but Mr. Davis bound over for trial. But the juries refused to convict,
though, there is little doubt that they were constructed with reference to pliability.
Hon. John P. Hale and R. H. Dana, Jun., defended Robert Morris, a coloured student
who had been admitted to practice at the Suffolk Bar.




106              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
James Martin's story is not written.
Continual alarms about the poor fugitive slaves.  A reported arrest
of a new one; but this turned out to be a false alarm.
Mem.: The case of    -, who concealed  -   in his cellar until
night. Also   ~, who came and gave information about an attempt
to be made upon; and he escaped.
Mem.: The confession which  _  made to ---- about the intentions of the  ~, and the provisions he made.
The strategy of Mr.      in getting information, and how he does it.
The entry of ill and sad feelings continues through the week.
On Wednesday he re-writes his will, which he drew up when
the fugitive slave troubles commenced, and has it executed.   In
the evening he attends a meeting  of the Vigilance Committee.
His meditations reflect the sorrow which he had to witness; and
the mood lasts a long while.
FROM  THE JOURNAL.
I am sad in the midst of great religious delight. Ah, me! one thing
cannot take the place of a different thing. The eye cannot listen for
the ear, nor the ear look for the eye. Even religion will not fill the
void left by the absence of certain other things which I have not.
Alas! it helps me to still the aching part, not to fill its void. The poor
St. Theresas and St. Brigittas felt Jesus, as they thought, come to
their sole and joyless couch. But with all their pious joy it was not
the particular satisfaction they wanted that the phantom  brought!
Religion cannot supply the demand of the finite affections, more than
a plough can take the place of a flute. It can assure us of a recompense-that it is all right!
28.-Ill all day. Mrs. Russell came and cheered me greatly with a
daguerreotype of Mites o' Teants.
The next fugitive slave case in Boston was that of Thomas
Sims.  He was seized in the night of the 3rd of April, 1851,
in the street.  The bystanders interfered; the police officers
pretended that they were arresting him for disturbing the peace,
for he drew a knife upon them.  He was illegally arrested, and
the "great writ of right" was denied to him.  An observance
took place before the commissioner,* which was called a trial,
and the decision, remanding him  to slavery, was applauded by
the crowd in the Court-room!  He was put on board a vessel
by night, and reached Savannah on the 19th of April.
* George Ticknor Curtis.




THEODORE PARKER,                         1]07
FROM  HON, CHARLES SUMNER.
Court Street, Boston, April 19, 1851.
May you live a thousand years, always preaching the truth of Fast
Day!  That sermon is a noble effort.  It stirred me to the bottom of
my heart, at times softening me almost to tears, and then again filling
me with rage.  I wish it could be read everywhere throughout the
land.
You have placed the commissioner in an immortal pillory, to receive
the hootings and rotten eggs of the advancing generations.
I have had no confidence from the beginning, as I believe you know,
in our courts.  I was persuaded that with solemn form they would
sanction the great enormity, therefore I am not disappointed. My
appeal is to the people, and my hope is to create in Massachusetts
such a public opinion as will render the law  a dead letter.  It is in
vain to expect its repeal by Congress till the slave-power is overthrown.
It is, however, with a rare dementia that this power has staked itself
on a position which is so offensive, and which cannot for any length of
time be tenable.  In enacting that law, it has given to the Free States
a sphere of discussion which they would otherwise have missed.  No
other form of the slavery question, not even the Wilmot Proviso, would
have afforded equal advantages.
Very truly yours,
CHARLES SUMMER.
TO IHON. CHARLES SUMNER.
April 19, 1851.
DEAR STAINE, — I wish it was the 19th of April, 1775, on which I
was writing, and the times would not so bad for Boston.  What a
disgrace has the city brought on herself! Oh, Boston, Boston, thou
that kidnappest men!-might one say now.
I never had any confidence in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts,
in case the Fugitive Slave Law came before it  But think of old stiffnecked Lemuel visibly going under the chains I * That was a spectacle.
But it all works well.
Thank you for your kind words, and kind judgments of,
Truly your friend,
T. P.
No slave had been sent back by  Massachusetts since the
Revolution.  This first case of Boston kidnapping was duly commemorated the next year by the Committee of Vigilance.  Mr.
Parker preached the discourse, and also firnishel at the last
moment, in the failure of various men of poetic fame, who had
* Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw, who was holding court in the same building; it was
surrounded by a chain, behind which a strong police force were patrolling.




108             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE  OF
been desired to write, an ode, which he composed in the railroadcars, on one of his lecturing excursions.  The discourse is published, and is known by all.
This is a copy of the poster which announced the commemoraration of this first case of rendition:FIRST ANNIVERSARY
OF THE
KIDNAPPING OF THOMAS SIMS,
BY THE
CITY  OF BOSTON!
Our Fathers commemorated the Massacre of the Fifth of March, 1770,
till that dark hour was lost in the blaze of the Fourth Day of July, 1776,
and the events which followed it. It is for us, likewise, to keep before
the people of the Commonwealth the late infamous deed of the City
Government, until it be atoned for and forgotten in the joy of a
GENERAL EMANCIPATION!
All the lovers of justice and liberty are therefore invited to assemble,
ON MONDAY NEXT, THE 12TH DAY OF APRIL,
at the
M E L OD E O N
At 10 o'Clock, A.M.,
To commemorate the First Anniversary of the Surrender of Thomas
Sims, arrested on false pretences, by a lying and disguised Police;
subjected to the farce of a seeming trial before a Commissioner sitting
behind bayonets and chains; carried off, at night, by armed men; all
under the direction of a City Government confessing that they knew
they were violating the Laws of the State, and intended to do so —
such was their "Alacrity " in the discharge of this infamous "Duty."
The Morning Session of the Convention will be devoted to an Address
by
REV THEODORE PARKER,
with appropriate religious exercises; the Afternoon and Evening
Sessions to Addresses from many of the most Eloquent Friends of the
Slave.
Boston, April 9, 1852.




THEODORE PARKER.                      109
And here is Mr. Parker's ode:
Sons of men who dared be free
For truth and right, who cross'd the sea,
Hide the trembling poor that flee
From the land of slaves!
Men that love your fathers' name,
Ye who prize your country's fame,'Wipe away the public shame
From your native land!
Men that know the mightiest Might,
Ye who serve the eternal Right,
Change the darkness into lightLet it shine for all!
Now's the day, and now's the hour;
See the front of thraldom lower,
See advance the Southern power,
Chains and slavery!
See! the kidnappers have come!
Southern chains surround your home;
Will you wait for harsher doom?
Will you wear the chain?
By yon sea that freely waves,
By your fathers' honored graves,
Swear you never will be slaves,
Nor steal your fellow-man!
By the heaven whose breath you draw,
By the God whose higher law
Fills the heaven of heavens with awe;
Swear for freedom now!
Men whose hearts with pity move,
Men that trust in God above,
Who stoutly follow Christ in love,
Save your brother men!
FROM  THE JOURNAL.
April 24.-To-day Charles Sumner was chosen to the United States
Senate for six years. This is the great triumph of the season. Pear
old Massachusetts! Money has not quite eaten the heart out of thee,
only out of Boston and its vassal towns!
But it is a little curious to see the odd things which happen. Within
a week Sumner has been sent to the Senate for six years for obeying the




110                LIFE  AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
higher law, and Simmons * has been sent out of his parish tor ever for
the same thing.
TO  DR. FRANCIS.
1851.
Now tell me about various matters: have you ever seen Jo. Luzac's
" Lectures Attice? "  I should like much to see them.  Jacobs often
quotes them, so do the other writers on Greek philosophy.  It ought
to be in the College Library.  I have got some nice books (old ones)
coming across the water.  But, alas me! such is the state of the poor
fugitive slaves, that I must attend to living men, and not to dead books,
and all this winter my time has been occupied with these poor souls.
The Vigilance Committee appointed me "spiritual counsellor of all
fugitive slaves in IMassachusetts while in peril."  So, you see, I am to
save that which is lost.  The Fugitive Slave Law has cost me some
months of time already. I have refused about sixty invitations to lecture,
and delayed the printing of my book-for that!  Truly, the land of the
pilgrims is in great disgrace!
Yours truly.
TO  REV. J  H.I ALLEN.
Boston, April 23, 1851.
DEHAR ALETI, —        have not time for a letter, or you should have one
"as long as the moral law," but now only a word; I did not reply to
your last but one, for I had not time, fugitive slave matters pressing,
and the books you wanted are otherwise occupied.
Let me answer what you ask about.  I think if the slave power continue to press their demand as they have for a few years past, that there
will be a civil war, which will either decide the " Union," or else extirpate slavery; that is what I refer to. The time is not come for fighting.
How soon it will come ncbody knows; it may not come  t  all.  God
grant it do not. But this is cgx  sv cW;Ywy h- ww "io'ri  so TOAo5.
It is rather a queer state of things.  Some of Gannett's parishioners
attempt to kidnap some of my parishioners.  I hide them in my house,
and guard the doors night and day, to keep them safe. Gannett preaches
sermons which justify his church members in kidnapping. But Gannett
is a " Christian,"  and calls me an " Infidel."  His doctrine is " Christianity," and mine " Infidelity."  I have heard some things of you " in
this connection," which I hope are not true.  God bless you I
Yours heartily but hastily,                    T. P.
~ Rev. Geo. FP Simmons, a Unitarian clergyman, gentle, pious, and devoted, who lives
no longer. He alone, among Unitarian clergymen settled at the South, dared to utter his
testimony against slavery. This was in Mobile, where of course his stay was short. He
was turned out of his parish in Springfield, Mass.., for rebuking, in a manly and not extravagant sermon, the spirit which had just mobbed Geo. Thompson, the English
Abolitionist, in that town. Parishioners of property and standing, sympathizing with the
mob, and secretly rejoicing at a blow given to free speech on that topic, could not sit
under the rebuke.




THEODORE PARKER.                        I 1
TO HON. CHARLES SUMNER.
Boston, April 26, 1851.
I)DEiA  SUMNER, —I have not been able to come and offer you my congratulations on your election. I was almost at your office this morning,
when I met some one who told me you were not there, so you will
accept my written congratulations instead of the spoken, and let me
read you a little bit of a sermon. Perhaps you had better lay this away
till Sunday, for I am going to preach. You told me once that you were
in morals, not in politics. Now I hope you will show that you are still in
morals although in politics. I hope you will be the senator with a conscience.
The capital error of all our politicians is this: with understanding and
practical sagacity, with cunning and power to manage men in the heroic
degree, in moral power, in desire of the true and the right, " first good,
first perfect, and first fair," they are behind the carpenters and blacksmiths. Look at Cass, Woodbury, Webster, Clay, Calhoun —nay, even
at J. Q. Adams. The majority of the shoemakers in Norfolk County
had a love of justice which bore a greater proportion to their whole
being than Adams's to his. He never led in any moral movement,
Now, I look to you to be a leader in this matter; to represent
justice, "quce semper et ubique eadem  est."  If you do not do this,
you will woefully disappoint the expectations of the people in the
country. It is a strange sight to find men as much inferior in moral
power as they are superior in intellectual power; as much inferior in
willingness to make a sacrifice for their country, as they are superior in
station! I expect you to make mistakes, blunders; I hope they will be
intellectual and not moral; that you will never miss the Right, however
you may miss the Expedient.
Then, you told me once that you should never find it more difficult to
make a personal sacrifice for the True or the Bight than in 1845. It
seems to me that just as you take a high office in the State, you are
bound more and more to perfect yourself for the sake of the State; to
deny yourself for the sake of the State. I consider that Massachusetts
has put you where you have no right to consult for the ease or the
reputation of yourself, but for the eternal Right. All of our statesmen'build, on the opinion of to-day, a house that is to be admired to-morrow,
and the next day to be torn down with hootings. I hope you will build
on the Rock of Ages, and look to eternity for your justification.
You see, my dear Sumner, that I expect much of you, that I expect
heroism of the most heroic kind. The moral and manly excellence of
all our prominent men is greatly over-rated by the mass of men. I hope
you will never be over-rated by the people, but will overshoot their estimate of you. Yours is a place of great honor, of great trust, but of
prodigious peril, and of that there will be few to warn you, as I do now;
few to encourage you as I gladly would. You see I try you by a difficult
standard, and that I am not easily pleased. I hope some years hence to
say,;' You have done better than I advised! " I hope you will believe me
what I am, sincerely your friend.




112              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE  OF
FROM  MR. SUMNER.
Court Street, July 9, 1851.
Your last speech in the Liberator I have read with the interest and
instruction with which I read all that you say; but pardon me if I
criticize one point.
You speak of me as having "an early reward for good deeds."  This
language reminds me of the Atlas,' which did not see what I had done
"to be thus remarded."
Now, I am not conscious of doing anything to deserve " reward," nor
am I conscious of receiving any "reward." The office recently conferred
upon me, and to which you probably refer, I regard as anything but a
reward.  In my view it is an imposition of new  duties and labors, in a
field which I never selected, and to which I do not, in the least, incline.
But enough of this.  It seems to me that you accidentally fall into the
lan guage of the world.
Let me again express a hope that you will collect your speeches and
sermons into volumes with hard covers. In that form they will be permanently accessible, and will be a source of power to you.
Ever yours,
CARnLES SUMNER.
TO HON. CHARLES SUMNER, BOSTON.
Brookline, July 11, 1851.
DEAR SUMNER,-I spoke of your receiving a reward in no invidious
sense.  I think your election as senator came in consequence of your
honest, powerful, and noble efforts in the cause of humanity.  I agree
with you that it imposes great and very difficult duties upon you.  I
know you never sought the office. Still, I think it both an honor and
a reward-an honor, because it puts you in the highest office which the
people of Massachusetts have at command, and so is the highest mark
of appreciation they can bestow; a reward, for it is (1) given you in
consequence of your actual deservings, and (2) while it brings difficult
duties, it yet gives you a higher and wider field for the same activity
you have previously displayed.  I don't think money a mere name; an
opportunity for ease is an honorable reward for honorable toil; an
opportunity for greater usefulness is the appropriate return, though it
bring with it greater trials and harder duties.
I am glad of the kind estimation in which you hold my speech in the
Liberator, and, indeed, all that I have ever done.  As to collecting my
occasional publications into volumes, I will think of it, and see.  But
you must remember that I am probably the most unpopular man in the
land, certainly the most hated of any one in it. There are enough to
buy a pamphlet that I print for a shilling, but few would care to buy a
costly volume.  It is not with me as with you. There is no party in the
* A paper representing Massachusetts Whiggery of that date: that is, the country,
right or wrong, and " however bounded" by the extensions of the area of slavery: in
general terms, the constitutionality and nationality of slavery.




THEODORE PARKER.                    113
State, no sect in the Church, that has any respect for me or mine. I
don't complain of this, nor ever did. I only say it, and the fact, of
course, enters into all my calculations of printing or preaching.
Truly and faithfully yours,
T. P.
A subject of debate in the Berry Street Unitarian Conference
for May, 1851, was the duty of ministers under the Fugitive
Slave Law.  The occasion exposed the bias of some prominent
clergymen, and drew a speech from Mr. Parker.  The subject was
introduced by Mr. May, of Syracuse, on Tuesday, but did not
reach debate till Thursday forenoon, a great deal of the interim
being wasted judiciously on trifles, which, like a parcel of fussy
beadles, succeeded in keeping the  "colored brother" standing
on the steps.  A  report of the doings preliminary to  Mr.
Parker's speech may be found in the volume of his works entitled " Additional Speeches," Vol. 1.
When Mr. May's resolution finally reached debate, a good deal
of excited talk ensued, and lmembers, as usual, misunderstood
each other, and made desperate efforts to set each other right.
But as the majority were wrong, the attempt might have been
abandoned.  In those days peculiar difficulties beset the discussion of slavery by religious bodies.  Never was i plain question
of right and wrong approached under such disadvantages by men
of ethical cultivation.  Climatic influences have, doubtless, much
to do with this occasional debility of men who are understood to
be ordained upon the basis of the golden rule, and of that rule
even miraculously attested; having thus, were it not for climate,
an advantage over men who take it plain.  But no advantages,
unless, indeed, it be that of simple-mindedness, which Mr. Parker
possessed (though he was badly off for miracles), can overcome the
influence of locality and causes which are endemic.  Clergymen
from abroad were seized as soon as they came into strong Unionsaving regions.  They instantly began to " save the Union,"
which never otherwise would have been endangered, and lost in
that business some inestimable things.
Religious bodies made the duty of obeying the Fugitive Slave
Law to rest upon two points.  First, the disobedience of one
law  would lead to the disobedience of all law.  " There were
two things: law without liberty, and liberty without law. Law
without liberty was only despotism, liberty without law  only
license.  Law without liberty was the better of the two. If we
VOL. II.                                          I




11 4            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
begin by disobeying any law, we shall come to violating all
laws."  The second point which was strongly urged then, and
always, as a reason for overcoming our disgust and yielding support to that infamous law, was " that our obedience would preserve the Union!"  What critics events are upon both these
favorite arguments of politicians and clergymen!  The Union
has just almost gone, in consequence of too much Northern obedience 1 If, at the time when politicians were prescribing subservience, and clergymen were showing the people how to swallow
the poisonous draught, the pulpit and the parties had prescribed
resistance, while it was yet in season, and before the conspiracy
which fed upon our obedience had grown to its opportunity, it
would not now be necessary for clergymen to bless the Stars and
Stripes, spread it over their pulpits, and rhetorically bid it take
the field.  The present could not then have been foreseen, but
obedience to righteousness secures the only safe future, and does
the best man can to anticipate the sword.  What good theology
and what undefiled religion Mr. Parker uttered when he lifted
up his generous voice in that Conference, and said:
Oh, my brothers, I am not afraid of men. I can offend them. I care
nothing for their hate or their esteem. I am not very careful of my
reputation. But I should not dare to violate the eternal law of God.
You have called me " Infidel."  Surely I differ widely enough from you
in my theology. But there is one thing I cannot fail to trust: that is
the Infinite God, Father of the white man, Father also of the white
man's slave. I should not dare violate H-is laws, come what may come.
Should you?  Nay, I can love nothing so well as I love my God."
That might have saved the country; but clergymen and politicians were doing all they could to save it by disobeying God.
They called it " being constitutional."  Politicians, at least, have
made a merit of it in the midst of a war which is partly due to
their subservience.  "Yes," they say, "it has come to this, notwvit-hstcand7cin  our alacrity I "-the men who deserted the patriot
minister of Boston when he offered his body, and his mind, and
his estate, to his country every time he denounced the wicked
measures and lifted up the fugitive I  A voice from that distant
grave penetrates the battle-cloud that covers the country, to
correct the false interpretation   " It is in consequence of your
alacrity."
For though the weakness of men is the opportunity of history,
it is no less a disgrace to the men; and we cannot wipe it out




THEODORE PARKER.                        ] 15
by thanking God for His ability to make the weakness serve
His turn.
FROM THE JOURNAL.
August 24, 1851. —Here is something to be done: —1. Finish and
publish my book before August 24, 1852; 2. Lecture some forty or
fity times (1851-2); 3. Do better at preaching than ever before;
4. Work with more industry.
But who knows that I shall be able to do this?  Last year I laid out
much, and how little of it I did! The wicked Fugitive Slave Law came
and hindered all my work. It may be so again.
I intend, for the future, to devote myself more exclusively to the great
work of my life, to theology (speculatively) and religion (practically);
less to politics. Indeed, I would never preach on a political matter again,
if it were consistent with duty to avoid it. If I am to live twenty years
more, and devote my life to religion and the science thereof, with health
and no outward impediment, I may do something to serve my God by
blessing mankind.  Surely I will try.  But I have not so much con-:idence in my own judgme-nt as to slight the demands of the day and
the hour.  Suppose I could have given all the attention to theology,
&e., that I have been forced to pay to politics, slavery, &c., how much
I might halve done! I was meant for a philosopher, and the times call
for a slunmp orator.
When, in 1851, a member of a publishing firm, to whom  he
had offered two volumes of speeches, asked him  if they would
contain any discourses and speeches relative to slavery, he replied,
" By all means; they are the principal things. I wish to go down
to  posterity, as far as I shall go at all, with the anti-slavery
sermons and speeches in my right hand."
This was the publisher who had among his Southern customers a bookseller from Charleston.  One day, while this patron
of a literature that, knowing no North and no South, could not
be suspected of any latitude, was ordering a quantity of Northern
books, the publisher said to him, " You don't find us so bad as
we are represented."   " I have looked over your list of publications," was the reply, "and so long as you conduct properly I
will trade with you."
Mr. Parker's volumes were not added to that list.  After
preaching a fast-day sermon, " The Chief Sins of the People," he
wrote to a friend:
Men in the street lookf long-favored at mle as I go by. Nevertheless,
the good God lets the skies rain on me, and the sun shine (I saw my
shadow to-day), and I am allowed to ride in the cars and walk on the
side-walk.
i 2




116              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
And he finished his letter with telling about the Boston clergyman  who, when requested to put up a petition for Thomas
Sims, then under arrest, replied, " I never pray for anybody
but my own parishioners."
Sept. 14, 1851.-Sunday, went to hear James F. Clarke preach. He
is here only for a few days. In the beginning of the sermon, Mr.
Emery B. Fay came and touched me on the shoulder, and I went out.
More anti-slavery matter.  So the rest of the Vigilance Committee
came out and went to the Liberator office, consulted, and acted according to our consultation.
Dec. 31.-Soon the year will be at an end, and what a year it has
been to Boston, what a year to me! I-ow little could I have foretold
the public or the private events.  The next year-how uncertain it is!
But the same Father-yes, Mother! that has blessed me hitherto, and
all mankind, will yet bless all.
Father in earth and heaven! Father and Mother, too! help me to
know thy truth, to will thy justice, to feel and share thy love, to trust
thine infinite holiness, and to live blameless and beautiful from year to
year. I know not the mysteries of time; help me to learn the lessons
of eternity, live full of truth and justice, full of holiness, and love
and faith in Thee!
When the slave Jerry was arrested in Syracuse, New York,
the bells of the churches were tolled, and a great crowd gathered.
While the commissioner adjourned for dinner, Jerry was seized
and carried off.  The officers recovered him, the military was
ordered out to assist in holding him, under the pretext of preserving the peace.  But though a few  companies armed, they
refused to act.  At seven in the evening, when the commissioner
adjourned again, the officers were obliged to entrench themselves
in the police-office, and to fire upon the crowd; but the place
was carried by assault, and no one was seriously hurt except the
Deputy-marshal, who broke his arm in jumping from a window."
Jerry was forwarded to Canada.
Mr. Parker rejoiced in every rescue of a fugitive, and in every
successful resistance to slave-holders or their Northern officials,
He would not bear arms, nor would he premeditate violence.
Yet he was never a non-resistant, and there is no doubt that, if
at the call of humanity he had ever personally engaged in a
rescue, he would not have shrunk from  its contingencies.  Tile
people of Syracuse celebrated the first anniversary of the rescue
* See, in Chapter XII., Mr. Parker's letter to Rev. S, 3. May, upon his reputed
share in this transaction. Vol. I. p. 321.




THEODORE PARKER,                        117
of Jerry, on which occasion Mr. Parker sent a letter to be read,
containing sentiments like this:I say, well done; do it again, if need be. Do it continually, till the
American Government understands that, though they make wicked
statutes in the name of " TUnion," and though the clergy in the name
of religion call on all men to obey them, yet the people, in the name of
man and the name of God, will violate any such wicked device and
bring it to nought. Then the Church will pipe a different tune, and
the State dance after a quite other fashion.
His letter, upon the second anniversary of the same rescue,
which reached Syracuse too late to be read, and has not yet
been published, here follows:TO REV. S. J. MAY.
DEAR SI, —I am sorry that other duties render it impossible for me
to attend the meeting at Syracuse, to celebrate the second anniversary
of the rescue of Jerry from the hands of the official kidnappers, on the
1st of October, 1851. Since the battle of Lexington and the Declaration of Independence, few events have taken place in America which
better deserve commemoration. There are certain outward acts which
represent a great principle of eternal right. It is well to pause on
each anniversary thereof, and use the historical occasion to deepen in
our minds respect for justice, and the disposition to be faithful thereunto, even in the midst of peril. I rejoice in these sacramental days of
America-thinly dotting the calendar of this young nation. If I were
with you, doubtless I should make a long speech; as it is, I will say
but a few words, which you can read to the audience.
We call our Govcrnment a Democracy, and profess to found it on the
essential and unalienable rights of human nature, which are equal in
all men at birth. We declare that the only function of Government
is to preserve these natural, essential, unalienable, and equal rights for
each and all the persons under its jurisdiction.  We go on to specify
some of these rights, and mention the right to life, the right to liberty,
the right to the pursuit of happiness, as things of the uttermost importance for the Government to preserve and secure to each person in
the country, until he has alienated the right by some positive action
~which has in a formal and solemn manner been by the people declared
unlawful. What just indignation is felt all over America when a tyrant
of Europe deprives his subjects, or any one of them, of their rights!
NTot only America, but all Protestant Europe was indignant at the outrage committed by the despotic Government of Tuscany upon the
Madiai family. The honorable interposition of the British authorities
found gratitude in the generous democracy of the United States. When
an Austrian officer, with the crew of a man-of-war's boat, arrests a
Hungarian claiming the protection of our flag, and the American naval
officer clears ship for action, and runs out his guns, to protect the
alleged rights of the victim of tyranny-what applause do the people
bestow on the officer who uses his power on the side of justice! But




] ]8              LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
yet, in defiance of our first principles of government, so often afilrmed,
so perpetually boasted, the nation deprives one-seventh part of its
population of the dearest of all natural rights.  Despotic Tuscany and
Austria have never a slave.  Republican America has three millions
and three hundred thousand!
We admit no hereditary claim to political or ecclesiastical honor:  we
will not tolerate the idea that a man can be born a noble, or a king,
and in virtue of the accident of birth be entitled to rank and power
irrespective of his merits and the consent of the people.
If a new State should be formed, with an order of hereditary nobility,
an immovable aristocracy bottomed on birth, that State would be
hustled out of the Continent when she applied for admission into the
TUnion.   "The Constitution," Congress would say, "requires a republican form  of government."  In this particular we stand alone in
all Christendom.  It is a most honorable solitude.  But alone of all
Christendom do we admit the idea that one man may be born a slave,
and other men may have irresponsible power over his time, his limbs,
and his life.  " No king," says America, " has any right to rule against
the citizens' consent; but a white man may steal at birth the black
man's children, and hold them  as his absolute property all their life;
may scourge, and maim, and mutilate, and sell them  when he will."
A noble would destroy the Republic-a slave is the necessary trialground of democracy.  To heathen and aristocratic Seneca in Iome,
eighteen hundred years ago, slavery seemed monstrous.  To " democratic Christians" in America, to-day, it is a'"most beneficent institution," " established by God Himself," "approved of by the Savior,"
and " supported by the chief Apostle " 
Just now, slavery is the favorite institution of the American Government; it yields to nothing; all gives way to that.  The Constitution
gives Congress no authority to establish slavery, more than to establish
Buddhism, or an empire; yet by the authority of Congress it exists in
the capital of the republic, in its territorial districts, and has been
spread over nine new States.  It thus lives, and thus spreads, in defiance of the Constitution. Laws o the " Sovereign States " are no protection to their soil.  Federal slavery, horsed on a statute, rides over
all the constitutions, all the laws, all the customs of the Torithern freeman.  "Legally" the kidnapper sets his hoof on the very spots of
Boston earth which- were made classic and sacred by the noble deeds
and the outpoured blood of our fathers.  The American Pulpit is the
sworn ally of slavery, the negro's deadliest foe.  I know there are
exceptional pulpits.  I congratulate you that one of them is in Syra-.
cuse; one which I trust no winds will ever silence, howsoever often they
may blow it down. But how few they are!-little lamps hung out from
windows, here and there, on a country road at night, they only show
how deep the darkness is, and what long miles of space are all unlit.
The character of the American Church is one of the saddest signs of
the times.  What is preached as' religion," and called " Christianity,"
demands slavery as one of its institutions. If a man publicly doubts
that God commanded Abraham  to commit human sacrifice, he is set
down as a "dangerous man;" even Unitarians and TUniversalists denounce him as an "infidel."  But a man may preach in favor of kid



THEODORE PARKER,                        119
napping men, in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston; he may offer to
send his own mother into slavery to " save the Union," and it shall not
damage a hair of his ecclesiastical reputation.  The American Pulpit
dares not rebuke the public sin. Nay, it is thought indecorous in a
Tew England minister to hide his own parishioners from the official
stealers of men. Bewracy him that wandereth is the clerical text.
In consequence of the existence of slavery, some strange phenomena
occur in the commercial morals of our land. If a ruffian, at the instigation of another, should steal a water-melon from the shop of a certain
colored citizen of Boston, he would be properly punished by fine or gaoling; but if, at the instigation of another ruffian, he should steal the body
of that colored citizen, tear him from his wife and children, and doom him
to slavery for ever, he would be paid ten dollars for that work by the
Government of the United States, and have the praise of the commercial newspapers, and the blessings of the metropolitan churches.  I
cannot forget that I live in a city where a wealthy merchant stole a
man, where Boston mechanics publicly boasted that they assisted in the
theft, and showed the money, the price of blood, in their hands. I shall
not forget that the authorities of this city trampled on the laws of
IMassachusetts and the rights of man, to kidnap a miserable boy; that
they hung the Court-house in chains, and the judges of this commonwealth crouched down and crawled under them: nor that the clergy
publicly thanked God for their success in stealing a man; and that one
of the most prominent ministers of Boston declared that if a slave
asked of him shelter, "I would drive him away from my own door." Yet
if an Irishman steals a yellow pumpkin, he is locked up in gaol!
Well: are you and I to stand still and see these things done? Am I
as a minister to witness the public denial of all the great principles of
practical religion, and hold my peace?  To see my parishioners stolen
by the vilest of men, and never stir? We must make continual aggressions against slavery; resent its attacks; nay, invade slavery on any suitable occasion, and with any weapons that it is just, manly, and effectual
to use.  All human enactments are amenable to the justice of God.
Injustice mounted on a statute is not the less unjust; only the more
formidable.  There are some statutes so wicked, that it is every man's
duty to violate them.  In the days of the Bloody Mary, the Government made laws forbidding our fathers to worship God: our fathers
broke the laws.  The fire which burned their bodies, lit a pathway
across the sea; faggots and the gallows did not make such laws dear or
welcome.  The atrocious laws of the Jameses and Charleses, you know
what obedience they got from Puritans and Covenanters.  We are the
children of those Puritans and Covenanters.  Have we forgotten the
blood in our veins?  The American Republic is the child of " Rebellion;" the national lullaby was " Treason."  Hancock and Adams slept
with a price on their heads.  Now it is an heirloom of glory for all
their kinsfolk. Is not America proud of her rejection of the Stamp
Act, and her treatment of the " Stamp Commissioners "?
The Fugitive Slave Bill is one of the most iniquitous statutes
enacted in our time; it is only fit to be broken. In the name of
justice, I call upon all men who love law, to violate and break this
Fugitive Slave Bill; to do it "peaceably if they can; forcibly if they




J 20             LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
must."  We can make it like the Stamp Act of the last century, which
all Britain could not enforce against disobedient Americans.  I do not
suppose this can, in all cases, be done without individual suffering;
loss of money, imprisonment, that must be expected.  Freedom is not
bought with dust.  I think Christianity cost something once.  I mean
the Christianity of Christ; there is another sort of " Christianity"
which costs nothing-and is dear even at that price.
I congratulate the men and women of Syracuse on having resisted
this Bill, successfully, openly, at noonday. In her youth the city of
Syracuse has done a noble deed which your children's children will be
proud of; and, when this anniversary comes round, they will, each of
them, say, " llyfather was one of those who, in 1851, rescued a man from
the purchased stealers of men."  That is an honor to be coveted.  In the
towns round Boston, we have monuments which tell us of men who
dared be faithful, and obey a law higher than the mere caprice of
governments-they stand at Lexington, and Concord, and West Camlbridge, and Danvers, and Charlestown, to tell of famous deeds of old.
None of them  records a nobler act than what you are about to celebrate. But great virtue gets many a rub in the straight and narrow path,
and cannot go through the world with a whole skin.  We build monuments of dead men's bones.  We must expect to suffer —" inconvenicnce" at least.
The Government for the time being is the servant of the slave
power; the past administration was no more so; the present is of the
same stripe.  I suppose, that whatever uniform  the future President
may put on his flunkeys and footmen, he himself will be striped all
over with its livery of slavery for some years to come.  He must not
forget "the hand that feeds him."  It is to be expected that the
Federal Government will do its utmost to delight and fatten the slave
power; will seek to make slavery national and freedom non-existent.
The higher North the President comes from, the lower South must he go
to.  General Taylor could afford to be more anti-slavery than MB1r.
Fillmore or Mr. Pierce.   Of course, we are  to expect that the
President will allow South Carolina-the Old-Fogy State-to violate the
Constitution, and imprison all free colored citizens of the North, who
venture into her dominion; and that he will endeavor to enforce the
Fugitive Slave Bill at the North, and to punish all who violate it. Hoow
can the South let him  off with less. Is he not bound to perform that
function?  Do the two Baltimore platforms' mean nothing?
The Federal courts, with the " commissions " which they create, are
the tool wherewith this work is to be done; a tool more suitable could
not easily be devised. The value of a good and noble judge can hardly
be overrated-a man who uses law and the judicial modes of procedure
as an instrument for promoting justice and preventing wrong; who
now resists the prejudice and fury of the people; then the prejudice, the
crafty ambition, and relentless hate of the Government; who always
stands up for the eternal right; whom no statute, nor constitution,
nor ruler, nor people can ever force to do official wrong.  Such a man
* Declarations of democratic want of principle in two successive Presidential campaigns. The American who called himself a Democrat has, until this war, always
protected Slavery.




THEODORE PARKER.                        121
deserves high admiration while living, and the hearts of the public
when dead.
But it is difficult to estimate the amount of iniquity which a base
judge may do; a man with no love of right, no conception thereof; now
following the rage of the public clamoring for injustice, now shaken by
the tyrant, thirsty for innocent blood; a man who abuses law as a too!
for doing wickedness, himself appointed to his post because he is
mean and base-he can debauch the higher morals of the nation beyond
what most men conceive possible.
You know how the Federal judges are appointed in America; for
what qnalities possessed; for what services rendered already, or yet to
be performed.  You know what bias they commonly have. A  short
memory is enough to furnish us a long lesson; yes, to create perpetual
distrust of the United States courts in all matters where the freedom
of a colored man is brought in peril.  I believe no judge of any
United States court has been found at all averse to execute the Fugitive Slave Bill "with alacrity," and " to the fullest extent."  This need
surprise no one.  Does the whipping-master in the public flogginghouse at Charleston or New Orleans, refuse to lay the lash on any
bondman or bondwoman, whom their masters send to be tormented
under his hand?  Does he ask any questions about the justice of the
torture?  He is paid to strike, not to listen to humanity.  Injustice,
in these matters, is his vocation.  lie is to retail cruelty.  This is one
of the functions of the Federal courts-to peddle injustice, with the
Fugitive Slave Bill as their measuring pot.  From  these courts and
their officers we are to expect the most strenuous efforts to enforce
the most odious provisions of this Bill.  I shall honor fairness in these
cases when I see it, but it is what I do not hope for; we are to expect
injustice, and only injustice, and injustice continually.  I hope nothing
from the court, only from the jury.
But here there are two difficulties in our way. One is the traditional
~respect for the courts of America.  This is founded partly on the
excellent character of some great men who have honored the Federal
Bench.  I speak with pride and gratitude of the really noble men who
have administered justice in these courts.  But they have given that
institution a respectability and venerableness which it is now fast
losing.  Still, the mass of men, who long overrate the worst of rulers,
look with confidence to these courts, and allow their own conscience to
be overridden by men whom venality has raised to a high place.
The other is the claim of the court to determine for the jury what
is law.  Here is an evil which assumes two forms:-I. The judge
charges the grand jury whom to indict; he assumes to be the norm of
law for the grand jury; they must indict all persons who have done the
deeds which he chooses to denominate a crime.
II. The judge charges the trial-jury whom to convict; he assumes to
be the norm of law for the trial-jury; they must convict all persons
who have done the deeds which he chooses to denominate a crime.
Thus, the jury is only a two-edged sword with which the judge lays at
any man whom the Government wishes to ruin.  If he is the norm  of
law, then he may instruct both these juries that it is a violation of the
Fugitive Slave Bill to read aloud these words out of the Old Testa



122             LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
mnent: —   Take counsel, execute judgment, make thy shadow as the
night in the midst of the noonday; hide the outcasts; bewray not him
that wandereth.  Let mine outcasts dwell with thee; be thou a covert
to them  from the face of the spoiler" (Isa. xvi. 3, 4); or this, out of
the New Testament:-" Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the
least of these, ye did it not unto me " (Matt. xxv. 45), and tell them
they are bound by their oath to indict and convict any man who has
read these words aloud.  Nay, he may try and swear the jurors to
accept his private and purchased opinion for national law and against
the universal and unbought justice of the Eternal God.  If the jurors
cannot so accept and take the opinion of a judicial mind of the slave
power for national law and against universal justice, then what safety
is there for any man whom the Government wishes to destroy P
This is not theory alone: the evil is actual, is imminent, it hangs
over many heads this day, and over some of the best heads in America.
In the purlieus of the Court-house there are always men like Empson
and Dudley in the time of Henry VII.  We found some of that
family in Boston in 1851, greedy for notoriety (which they certainly
got), and lusting for the price of blood. When a cabinet of successful
politicians elevates such an one to office, and we have Empsons and
Dudleys holding a " court," with the Fugitive Slave Bill as weapon,
and obedient jurors as servants, what safety is there for any man whom
the cabinet, or its court, wishes to strike?  In Charles II.'s time, a
" lawyer of profligate habits and inferior acquirements," "the sordid
tool" of other men, was made a criminal judge.  He once instructed
the grand jury "that a petition from the Lord Mayor and citizens of
London to the King, for calling a Parliament, was high treason."  Chief
Justice Scroggs defiled the soil of Britain: it is just as easy to make
Scroggs a judge in America-the material is always at hand.  George
Jefferies was not only Chief Justice but Lord Chancellor. Who knows
how soon the noxious heat of slavery may swell some appropriate
fungi of the American Bar into such judges as Jefferies and Scroggs,
those poison toad-stools of the British bench! All that is lacking is
a submissive jury; and, thankl God! we have not yet found that even
in Boston.  No judicial " packing " has hitherto crowded twelve jurors.
of that sort into one jury-box. How soon it may, I know not. " Threats
are powerful and money seductive!"
I take it in criminal trials the function of the jury comprises these
three things; they are to ask-1. Did the man complained of do the
deed he is charged with?  2. If so, is this deed, thus done, a crime
according to the formal and constitutional law?  3. If so, then shall
this man, who has done the deed, be punished?  If they answer yes
to all these questions, then the grand jury is to indict and the trial-jury
to convict him; if not, not.  It seems to me that if the jury allow the
judge to determine for them  what is the law, that they betray their
trust, and throw  down the great safeguard of our civil liberty, the
breakwater which fends us from  the sea of despotism, whose waters
cannot rest, but cast up mire and dirt.  All true democrats have a
righteous horror of what is called judge law, i, e. law manufactured by
the judge to suit his whim, or the caprice of Government.  It is as
bad as king law, or mob law, and in this country yet more dangerous.




THEODORE PARKEE.                         123
I take it, it belongs to the function of the judge to tell the jury
what he thinks the law is and the constitution is, then the jury are to
take his opinion for what they think it worth. His opinion is one
element, often a very important element, which they are to consider.
Still, the jury are not a subordinate but a co-ordinate branch of the court,
and are not to shift the responsibility of this function to the shoulders
of one who is probably only a creature of the party in power, put in
office as a reward for his venality, and as an instrument to execute the
unjust and unconstitutional purposes of the Government.  They are to
answer the three questions just named on their responsibility, not on
that of a judge.  If he rules wrong and unfitly, they are to decide
right, for they are not a tool to do what the Government bids, but men
to do justice before God.
Surely, it does not stand to reason that the opinion of a drunken
judge is to pass for law with sober jurors; that the opinion of a partial,
prejudiced, unjust, and purchased judge is to outweigh the reason, the
conscience, the heart, and the soul of twelve impartial, unprejudiced,
just, and free men.  Shall a Scroggs and Jeffries overawe twelve
honest men, contrary to their own convictions and justice, and so
punish a man for keeping the golden rule, and obeying the holiest
commands of the Christian religion?  They could hardly do it when
England was ruled by a despotic king.  Can it be done now  in
America-in New York?  Then let us go and learn justice of the
Oneidas and Onondagas; for the welfare of future generations is in our
hands.
Faithfully yours.
Here is a specimen of numerous letters which -Mr. Parker
received about this time, asking counsel or giving information:Marchester, N.I.
FRIEND PAxKE.r,-At 2 o'clock Sunday morning, two colored men
arrived here from Lowell, informing us that the kidnappers would be
here on Mionday morning to steal from us and God a colored,MAr  who
escaped from slavery in Norfolk, Virginia, some eleven years since, by
namue Edwin Moore.
They stated a letter was received by yourself from a Mr. Simmons, of
VTirginia, stating that five Virginians were about to start, or had started,
for Boston and vicinity in search of fugitives.
They say that you ascertained that these men were at the Revere
Hlouse in Boston on Saturday, and that they were to visit Lowell in
search of prey.
They state that you wrote to friend Grant, who ascertained that
they were coming to Manchester, after M]oore, on M onday morning,
with the United States Mlarshal from Portsmouth.
We, of course, sent MIoore, on his earnest request, to Canada,
although we should much have preferred to have had him remained,
and tested the strength of the Fugitive Slave Bill (accursed Bill!) in
Manchester,




124              LIFE OF THEODORE PARKER.
There is great excitement with us this morning.  Will you state to
me by the return mail this evening, if the statements made by the
colored gentlemen are, so far as you are concerned, true. Will you state
any other facts which you may know regarding the case, which you
may deem proper to communicate?
Yours, for God and humanity,
A. T. Foss.
TO MR. ELLIS.
Boston, Feb. 12, 1854.
I have long been trying to write you a letter, but am either so busy,
or else so weary with the business, that I have found no time since
those two little grandchildren went to the kingdom of heaven. It was
a very sad thing for them to lose the little ones-both their " pretty
ones at one fell swoop." But "it is well with the child."  By-and-bye
it will also be well with the father and mother, with you also, and with
me. I do not know how they will comport in their first great sorrow.
I have not been able to see them since the burial of the last, but hope
to be there to-morrow. They try to be calm, but''Tis the most difficult of tasks to keep
Heights which the mind is competent to gain."
I wish you and Mrs. E. could have been with them, for your sakes
and theirs.  But it could not be. So all alone thev had to look the
great sorrow in the face. It is not a fortunate thing when affliction
does not come till we are old and grey-headed. I can't speak for
others, but I am afraid I have not learned so much from success as
from defeat.  One day I trust man will outgrow both this kind of
sorrow and the need for it. N[ow, it is a necessity-we can't avoid it
-and also a part of our education. But the parents will not always
bury their children, and with such bitter weeping.
I will send you a sermon before long. I have three getting ready
for print.  Ole, "Of Old Age," goes to press to-morrow; one, " The
Jesus of Fact and the Christ of Fancy," will be soon ready; the third
I have just preached: " Some Thoughts on the General Condition of
the Country, and the New Attack on the Freedom  of [Mankind in
America." I meant to preach only one hour, so put under the desk
about half of what I had written, and skipped a third of the rest, and
held on an hour and a half.  Now, as I write, my words are ringing in
my own ears. What a wicked business is the Nebraska-Kansas
matter! But here there is no enthusiasm. Mlen "hate it, but know
it will pass;" the prominent men do nothing, not even call a convention; the Free-Soil State Central Committee have called a meeting of
Free-Soilers at Fanueil Hall next Thursday. I passed Thursday night
at Governor Davis's, in Worcester. He is indignant enough-bold
enough; headed a petition to Congress; Lincoln  a similar one;
Knowlton a third.  But that is all in Massachusetts! Not a Whig
stirs.  The Advertiser is against the Bill, but opposes it feebly and
respectably. Evil times! Evil times I




CHAPTER XX.
Anthony Burns-Fanueil Hall-The Placards-The Rendition-The Indictment-The
Defence.
SOON  after the passage  of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, to be
mentioned  hereafter more particularly, another attempt was
made to test the devotion of the North to constitutional freedom.
Anthony Burns was arrested on the 24th of May, 1854, upon
a false charge of robbery, and taken to a room  in  the Courthouse, where he was kept under guard and heavily ironed.  His
master, Col. Suttle, belonged to Alexandria, Virginia. On the morning of the 2 5th he was brought before the commissioner, still in
irons, though he was guilty of nothing, and not even yet adjudged
to have been a slave. The Marshal was determined that this time
the preservation of the Union should be substantial and complete;
if Anthony Burns escaped for want of handcuffs, distinguished
men would be mortified.  But the officers knew that their tyranny
had commenced before the commissioner had time to countenance
it; and the fact of the irons was afterwards denied.  It is a
small matter now, except that it brings Mr. Parker near to the
unfortunate man.  He says, at a later date, when the ironing
was denied:
The first day of the " trial " he was in irons, for I was with him, and
saw the irons with my mortal bodily eyes. The next day of' trial" I
was not allowed to speak with him; but came near enough to see that
he held his hands as if handcuffed. (I was rudely thrust away by one
of the officials). I brought the fact of his being in irons to the knowledge of his counsel, who made complaint to the court. The slavehunter's counsel made some remarks. Commissioner Loring asked
Mr. Burns to stand up. He did so, and had no irons on; but the
officers had taken the irons off while the discussion was going on.
This I knew at the time, or vwas satisfied of, for one whispered to the




126             LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
two who sat with Burns between them, and I saw them  busy with
his hands; and after his subsequent return to Boston, Mr. Burns told
a gentleman of this city that such was the fact.  Mr. B. also stated
that on every day of the "trial " he was brought into the court-room
in irons, which were kept on till the court came in, and were replaced
when the court adjourned.
No risk must be run  this time of missing the dark  link
which was to bind the North and South in new fraternal bonds.
Notwithstanding  these  precautions, the  dreaded  catastrophe
almost occurred.
The best account which I can find  of these transactions is
contained in the Annual Report of the American Anti-Slavery
Society, for 1855 ---
He was arrested on the usual lying pretext of a charge of robbery,
by the United States Deputy Marshal, who held a warrant against
him as a slave, in order to avoid the danger of a desperate selfdefence on the part of his prey. At the Court-house he was suddenly
introduced into the presence of the man who claimed him  as his
property.  Ignorant of his rights, cowed by the presence of a slaveholder, surrounded only by the infamous tools of his natural enemy,
with no friend near him, he was betrayed, as they alleged, into admissions which his judge afterwards seized upon as the pretext of
consigning him again to slavery.
It was probably the expectation of the claimant of Burns, and of the
creatures he hired to help him, Seth J. Thomas and Edward G. Parker,
that the business could be despatched in a truly summary manner,
and without any general knowledge of the villainy in hand until it
was done, and its object beyond the reach of pity or succor.  If
such were their wish, they had selected- their tool well in Commissioner Loring, who, before hearing the case, on the mere ex parte statements of the master and his counsel, advised Mr. Phillips to attempt.
no defence, as the case was so clear that the man must go back.
Fortunately for the cause, if not for the individual, Mr. Phillips and'
Mr. Theodore Parker, accidentally hearing of the case, procured ad —
mittance, though with no little difficulty, to the slave-pen in the Courthouse.  Messrs. It. H. Dana, Junr., and Charles M. Ellis, volunteered
their services as counsel of the alleged slave. Encouraged by friendly
voices, poor Burns expressed his wish to have a hearing, which the
commissioner had regard enough, to appearances at least, not to
deny. The hearing was adjourned over, at the request of his counsel,
though strongly opposed by those of his master, until Monday from
Friday.
Time having thus been gained, no pains were spared to put it to
the best use. A public meeting was demanded, to be held in Fanueil
Hall, to consider what the crisis required. The request was acceded to
by the mayor and aldermen with cheerful readiness.  The rules were
suspended, and the necessary permission granted unanimously.  The
mayor even expressed his regret that another engagement for the




THEODORE PARKER.                          127
evening should prevent him  from presiding at the meeting.  But he
assured the gentleman who waited on him  that no police officer or
public servant of the city should take any part in the reduction of
the wretch claimed to slavery again.
The meeting in Fanueil Hall was truly an immense one.  It filled
the entire room, the staircases, and stretched out into the street. George
R. Russell, Esq.,* a gentleman of eminent character and high social
position, bit not " a technical Abolitionist," presided.  Speeches were
made by the President, Messrs. Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker,
John L. Swift, Francis W. Bird, and others.  The meeting seemed
perfectly unanimous in its sense of the character of the crime impending, and desirous of knowing what was best to be done. The speeches
were of a high and stirring order of eloquence; but any attack upon
the Court-house or the kidnappers was strongly deprecated as unwise,
and likely to be of mischievous consequences.  The Court-house was
known to be garrisoned by armed men, who had control of the gas and
every opportunity of defending themselves, or of smuggling away their
prisoner to safer quarters, in case of a serious alarm.  The meeting
seemed to acquiesce in the opinions of the platform, and it adjourned,
to meet the next morning at the Court-house, to watch, if they could
not guide, the event.
But the zeal    of a portion of those who had a keen sense of the wrong
and indignity of which the city was at once the scene and the object,
could not be restrained.  A small body of men, about nine o'clock,
made an attack upon the Court-house.  By means of a piece of timber
they succeeded in bursting in the outer door.  The garrison made a
stand in the breach. One of the Marshal's assistants, James Batchelder,
was killed, but whether by the assault of those without, or the awkwardness of those within, has never been clearly ascertained.  The
time which it took to break in the door, and the noise which necessarily
attended the operation, drew the police of the city to the scene.  The
attacking party were not strong enough to follow up their first success,
or at least, had good reason to think so.  And the accident of a volunteer company marching into the square, on their return from target
practice in the country, helped to discourage the attempt, through the
belief that it was a company of marines, detailed to strengthen the force
inside.  So the rescue had to be abandoned.  It was a gallant and
generous attempt, but ill-advised and injudicious, under the circumstances.  It should not have been made without a larger co-operation,
and a more general understanding.  Its failure complicated very mate-.ially the possibilities of subsequent operations, and gave the slavecatcher's minions the occasion they desired, of calling in the aid of the
3nilitary.
That very night the Marshal despatched a request for aid to the Navy
Yard, at Charlestown, and a force of marines were marched over before,morning. The next morning a demand was made, and answered, for the
help of the regular United States troops at Fort Independence. The mayor,
also, was eager to signalise his loyalty to the slave-catcher, and to make
amends for the incautious weaknesses of the day before; on pretence of
- Friend and neighbor of Mr. Parker when he lived at West Roxbury.




128             LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
danger to the public property, a danger which the regular police of the
city were amply sufficient to guard against, he called for the aid of the
volunteer companies, which was joyfully granted. An opportunity for
a holiday; a chance of showing their uniforms; a share of the good
cheer and good liquor provided for them at the public expense,-any
one of these inducements was enough, but all together they were
irresistible. The Independent Cadets, or Governor's Guard, were proud
to add the title of the Slave-catcher's Guard to their other honorary distinctions.*  For nearly an entire week the city was, virtually, under
martial law, in order that Suttle might make a slave of a man
who had had the address and courage to make himself a freeman.
For the distinctions which were attempted to be made between
keeping the peace and keeping the man were too transparently absurd
to deceive any one of sense and reflection, had they not soon afterwards
stopped their own mouths by greedily taking the blood-money proffered
by the President. There was no apprehension or possibility of a breach
of the peace except for the purpose of the rescue of the slave. To
prevent such a breach of the peace, the United States soldiers held the
Court-house, and for the same purpose the militia held the streets.
Their purpose was one and the same, and they accomplished it in
common, the only difference being that the United States troops, composed chiefly of Irishmen, and officered, probably, by slave-holders,
were in the discharge of their regular business, and, it is said, had the
grace to be ashamed of it, while the service of the militia was strictly
voluntary, any pretence of military necessity being a transparent show.
The President of the United States was eager in the interest with
which he looked on, and prompt in the services he could afford, at this
critical moment. The despatches which passed between him and his
minions in Boston are worthy of preservation, as showing the natural
relation of the Chief Magistrate of the nation to the lesser kidnappers
under him,
Boston, May 27, 1854.
To THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,-In consequence of an
attack upon the Court-house last night, for the purpose of rescuing a
fugitive slave, under arrest, and in which one of my own guards was
killed, I have availed myself of the resources of the United States,
placed under my control by letter from the War and Navy Departments,
in 1851, and now have two companies of troops from Fort Independence
stationed in the Court-house. Everything is now quiet. The attack
was repulsed by my own guard.
WATSON FREEMAN,
United States Marshal, Boston, Mass.
Washington, May 27, 1854.
To WATSON FREEMAN, UNITED STATES MARSHAL, BOSTON, MAss., —
Your conduct is approved.  The law must be executed.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
* Since then, what veins have been nobly emptied to obliterate these distinctions of
the past together with Slavery, their cause!




THEODORE PARKER.                         129
On Tuesday last the following despatch was sent to Boston by direction of the President:Washington, May 30, 1854.
To HON. B..  HALLETT, BOS0TON, MASS., — What is the state of the
case of Burns?
SIDNEY WETBSTER.
Boston, May 30, 1854.
To SIDNEY WEBSTER,-The case is progressing, and not likely to
close till Thursday.  Then armed resistance is indicated.  But two
city companies on duty.  The Marshal has all the armed force he can
muster.  More will be needed to execute the extradition, if ordered.
Can the necessary expenses of the city military be paid, if called out
by the Mayor, at the Marshal's request?  This alone will prevent a
case arising, under second section of Act of 1795, when it will be too
late to act.
B. F. HALLETT.
Washington, May 31, 1 854.
To B. F. HALLETT, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, BOSTON, MASS.,Incur any expense deemed necessary by the Marshal and yourself for
city, military, or otherwise, to insure the execution of the law.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
On the same day the President ordered Colonel Cooper, AdjutantGeneral of the Army, to repair to Boston, empowered to order to the
assistance of the United States Marshal, as part of the posse coimitatus,
in case the Marshal deemed it necessary, the two companies of United
States troops stationed at New York, and which had been under arms
for the forty-eight preceding hours, ready to proceed at any moment.
Boston, May 31, 1854.
To SIDNEY WEnSTER,-Despatch received.  The Mayor will preserve
the peace with all the military and police of the city.  The force will be
sufficient.  Decision will be made day after to-morrow of the case.
Court adjourned.
B. F. HALLETT,
Yesterday morning the following despatch was received -
Boston, June 2, 1854.
To SIDNEY WEBSTER,-The Commissioner has granted the certificate. Fugitive will be removed to-day.  Ample military and police
force to protect it peacefully.  All quiet.  Law reigns.  Col. Cooper's
arrival opportune.
B. F. HALLETT.
In the meantime the examination proceeded. The defence was conducted with great zeal and ability by Messrs. Dana and Ellis.  A much
stronger case than had been supposed possible was made out on the
side of the prisoner.  It was incontestably proved that Burns had
been in Boston before the time at which it was sworn by Suttle and his
VOL. II.                                                K




1 q0             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
witness that he was in Alexandria.  The case of the claimant was
broken down to all intents and purposes on the facts. For two or
three days earnest hopes were entertained that the decision would be
favorable to the prisoner.  During this time attempts had been
made to purchase Burns of the man that claimed him.  More than
once he had agreed to do so, and the papers were actually drawn
by the very Commissioner who sat on the trial, who thus made but too
manifest the foregone conclusion at which he had arrived. But the
slave-holder was too good a representative of his class to regard himself
bound by any promises to a slave or to his friends. It is believed that
instructions calne on from  Washington to the District Attorney,
Hallett, to prevent any such termination of so promising a case.
There is no doubt, we believe, that Suttle was threatened with chastisement, if not with death, by his fellow slave-holders of Alexandria,
if he dared to let this opportunity of triumph and vengeance escape
him. At any rate, he showed that he was a liar, and the truth was not
in him, for he paid no regard to his engagements, and finally refused
to part with his claim, even when it was hoped that it was most desperate. But he, doubtless, had a well-founded belief that he would not
be sent empty away.
It was a great meeting at Fanueil Hall on the evening of
May 26,  A thoroughly aroused and indignant crowd was there,
not needing the eloquent speeches which were made, to be convinced that Massachusetts was about to be disgraced again in the
name of law, and that the people were expected to be silent, if
not sympathizing, witnesses of the destruction of a man's liberty.
The feeling ran very high  through  the whole of Mr. Parker's
speech, which was continually  interrupted  by fiery assent or
disclaimer as he played  upon the passion of the hour.  Judge
whether he was not in earnest:There is no North," said Mr. Webster. There is none.  The
South goes clear up to the Canada line.  No, gentlemen: there is no
Boston, to-day. There was a Boston, once. Now, there is a North
suburb to the city of Alexandria,-that is what Boston is.  And you
and I, fellow subjects of the State of Virginia, —-— (Cries of "No, no. "
" Take that back again!")  I will take it back  when you show
me the fact is not so. Men and brothers, I am not a young man; I
have heard hurrahs and cheers for liberty many times; I have not seen
a great many deeds done for liberty.  I ask you, are we to have deeds
as well as words?
Then he told them  that the sympathies of the police and
the Mayor were with the slave, and could not be depended on
to support the Federal officers, who, however, depended on them-i
selves:I say, so confident are the slave-agents now that they can carry off
their slave in the day-time, that they do not put chains round the




THEODORE PARKER                         ] 31
Court-house; they have got no soldiers billeted in Fanueil Hall, as
in 1851. They think they can carry this man off to-morrow morning
in a cab. (Voices  " They can't do it!"  " Let's see them try!")
Then he recalled the pre-revolutionary  opinion  of Boston,
when its citizens resisted the Stamp Act, and threw overboard
the tea.
Well, gentlemen: I say there is one law-slave law; it is everywhere.
There is another law, which also is a finality; and that law, it is
in your hands and your arms, and you can put it in execution just
when you see fit.
Gentlemen: I am a clergyman and a man of peace. I love peace. But
there is a means, and there is an end; libertyis the end, and sometimes
peace is not the means towards it. Now, I want to ask you what you are
going to do? (A voice: "Shoot, shoot!")  There are ways of managing
this matter without shooting anybody. Be sure that these men who
have kidnapped a man in Boston are cowards-every mother's son of
them; and if we stand up there resolutely, and declare that this man
shall not go out of the City of Boston, without shooting a gun —(Cries
of " That's it!" and great applause)-then he won't go back. Now, I
am going to propose that when you adjourn, it be to meet at Court
Square, to-morrow morning, at nine o'clock.  (A large number of hands
were raised, but many voices cried out, "Let's go to-night!" "Let's
pay a visit to the slave-catchers at the Revere House; put that question.") Do you propose to go to the Revere House to-night? then
show your hands! (Some hands were held up.)  It is not a vote.
We shall meet at Court Square, at nine o'clock to-morrow morning.
This was certainly a direct appeal to the people to attempt a
rescue, but ifr. Parker's idea was that a demonstration could be
made so formidable, in point of numbers and cool purpose, as to
overawe the armed guard and sweep the slave away.  The democratic papers preferred to represent the speech as advocating
violence under thin disclaimers.,' Freemen, keep cool!" he said, with reason;'To rip the bowels of State were treason.
I warn ye not to rescue Burns
Before the morning sun returns;
For then a band of bloodhound troops
May sharp defend the Court-house loops.
Let no friend seize a goodly timber
For battering ram-the door stands limber;
Nor think to mob the negro's master.'
This said he to restrain them faster.'Doth he not lodge in tavern yonder?
Yet ere ye go your pistols ponder,
Arm not yourselves with stones of paving,
Nor otherwise be misbehaving;
K 2




1 32           LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
But now adjourn like citizens good,
Don't rescue Burns-oh, no! who would?'
As when a roguish boy sees high
A nest of hornets, passes by,
Yet hurls a missile'mong the pack,
And draws them on his comrade's back;
So the soft spokesman of this crew
Drew on the war, and then —withdrew!'!"
The people did not wait till the next morning.  While Mr.
Parker was finishing his speech, news was brought that an
attack was meditated that evening-was even then begun. The
confusion was great, and many persons left the hall while he
was putting the question to the vote.  Ile declared it to be
negatived; for he anticipated failure, unless with daylight and
an imposing front of the people fiom  the suburbs and the
country.  The attack was precipitated by a small body, not well
organized.  The door was broken in, and in the melee one of
the Marshal's guard was shot.  The guard was frightened, and
fired in the dark at random; and the attacking party was also
seized with a panic when it was known that a man had been
killed, and withdrew.  If they had pressed on with determination, the rescue might have been effected.  But Mr. Parker's plan
was better, though it did not preclude the chance of violence.
The opportunity was lost.  Then followed the gloomy days
during which the hearing before the commissioner lasted; troops
held the Court-house and commanded all the avenues.
I will put on record here the famous placards of this period.
It is not difficult to see from whose manly pen some of them at
least were issued:
No. I.
KIDNAPPING AGAIN!!
A Man was Stolen last night by the Fugitive Slave Bill Commissioner!
HE WILL HAVE HIS
M  0 C K  T R I A L
On Saturday, May 27, at 9 o'clock, in the Kidnappers'  Court,"
before the Honorable Slave Bill Commissioner,
AT THE COURT HOUSE, IN COURT SQUARE.
SHALL BOSTON STEAL ANOTHER MA N?
Thursd.ay, Mn ay 25, 1 Q.




THEODORE PARKER.                       1 33
No. IL.
CITIZENS  OF  BOSTON!
A Free Citizen of Massachusetts-Free by Massachusetts Laws until
his liberty is declared to be forfeited by a Massachusetts Jury-is
NOW IMPRISONED
IN A
MASSACHUSETTS  TEMPLE  OF  JUSTICE!
The Compromises, trampled upon by the Slave Power when in
the path of Slavery, are to be crammed clown
the Throat of the North.
THE KIDNAPPERS ARE HERE!
MEN OF BOSTON! SONS OF OTIS, AND HANCOCK, AND THE' BREACE
OF ADAMSES "!
See to it that Massachusetts Laws are not outraged with your consent.
See to it that no Free Citizen of Massachusetts
is dragged into Slavery,
WITHOUT  TRIAL  BY  JURY!'761
No. III.
Boston, May 27, 1854.
TO THE YEOMANRY OF NEW ENGLAND.
COUNTRYMEN AND BROTHERS,
The Vigilance Committee of Boston inform  you that the Mock
Trial of the poor Fugitive Slave has been further postponed to Monday
next, at 11 o'clock A.M.
You are requested, therefore, to come down and lend the moral
weight of your presence and the aid of your counsel to the fiiends of
justice and humanity in the City.
Come down, then, Sons of the Puritans! for even if the poor victim
is to be carried off by the brute force of arms and delivered over to
Slavery, you should at least be present to witness the sacrifice, and you
should follow him in sad procession with your tears and prayers, and
then go home and take such action as your manhood and your patriotism
may suggest.
Come, then, by the early trains on Monday, and rally in Court
Square! Come with courage and resolution in your hearts; but, this
time, with only such arms as God gave you I




I ~3k.           LIFE A ND COYRRESPONDENCE OF
No. IV.
-U!IDERERS%, THIEVES, AND BLACKLEGS
EMPLOYED BY
MARSHAL  FREEMAN!!!
MiaARSHAL FREEMAN has been able to stoop low enough to insult even the
United States Marines, by employing Murderers, Prize-fighters, Thieves,
Three-card-mronte men, and Gambling-house Keepers to aid him in the
rendition of Burns.
Let the people understand that United States Marshal Freeman has
not confidence in the courage of his Deputies, nor the valor, powder, and
ball of the United States  a.rines, to assist him in disgracing Massachusetts, and, therefore, has engaged the services of    -,who fought Jack
Smith, who was arrested, charged with murdering his own mistress!
by throwing her overboard, and who now keeps a brothel in this city;
of     -, and his brother, two three-card-monte robbers; of    -,
known to the police as "Thievy  --," who is "kept " by a prostitute, and escaped from  Leverett Street Gaol about two years since,
where he was incarcerated for robbery; of -, and his brothers,
who are engaged in keeping gambling saloons, and houses of prostitution; and of some fifty other similar characters, all of whom  are
known as villains in the criminal records of Massachusetts!!
These are the characters with whom the officers of the United States
Marines are called upon to act. Let the people mark them! They
are in the Court-house.  They are petted by Hunker Democrats, They
are supplied with money and rum  by the United States, by order of
Marshal Freeman.  Such scoundrels, Freemen of Massachusetts, are
employed to trample upon our laws, and insult you, and are supplied
with arms and ammunition to shoot you down if you dare to assert
your just rights.
Will you submit quietly to such insults?
No. V.
NEW DANGER!
It is now rumored that the Slave-holder intends to carry off Burns by
the aid of hired ruffians after the Commissioner shall have set him at
liberty.
CITIZENS, STAND  GUARD!




THIEODORE PARKEIR                    135
No. VI.
THE MAN IS NOT BOUGHT!
HE 1S STILL IN THE SLAVE-PEN, IN THE COURT-HOUSE!
The Kidnapper agreed, both publicly and in writing, to sell him for
100 dollars. The sum was raised by eminent Boston Citizens and
offered him. He then claimed more. The bargain was broken. The
Kidnapper breaks his agreement, though the United States Commissioner advised him to keep it.
BE ON YOUR GUARD AGAINST ALL LIES!
WATCH THE SLAVE-PEN!
LET EVERY MAN ATTEND THE TRIAL!
No. VII.
AMERICANS!-FREEMEN!
It has been established out of the mouths of many witnesses, that
the poor Prisoner now in the Slave-pen, Court Square, is not the
Slave of the Kidnapper Suttle!! Commissioner Loring will doubtless
so decide to-day! The spirit of our laws and the hearts within us
declare that a Man must not be tried twice for the same offence.
But will the Victim then be set free? Believe it not, until you see
itc!! The Fugitive Slave Bill was framed with a devilish cunning to
meet such cases. It allows that a Man may be tried again. It allows
that if one Commissioner refuses to deliver up a Man claimed as a
SLAVE to his Pursuer, he may be taken before a Second Commissioner,
and a third, until some one is found base enough to do the work.
HIALLETT IS AT WORK!
Burns will be seized again, have another Mock Trial, and be forced
away. SEE YOU TO IT!! Let there be no armed resistance; but let
the whole People turn out, and line the Streets, and look upon the
Shame and Disgrace of Boston, and then go away and take measures
to elect Men to office who will better guard the honor of the State and
Capital!
Per order of the
VIGILANCE COMMITTEE.
Boston, May 31, 1854.




3 36            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
The testimony which was offered in- favor of Burns was set
aside bythe Commissioner, who would not, in the discharge of
what he deemed his legal duty, give the prisoner the advantage
of a single legal doubt.  If he occupied merely a technical position, with which humanity had nothing to do, he might have
consistently admitted a technical difficulty.  But no, Commissioner Loring did not occupy the passionless official position that
was claimed for him.   He hastened  to discharge the more
positive function of " preserving the Union" by ignoring every
flaw  through which his brother man might creep.  lMany a
distinguished lawyer said, after that day, that the testimony was
defective enough to have saved Massachusetts from this crime.
The pro-slavery pressure from  within upon the bench was
quite as great as the anti-slavery pressure from  without.  Thus
Anthony Burns " had the misfortune to escape from  servitude
and to be returned to his owner."*  The volunteer militia of
Massachusetts made a day in State Street more woeful than the
day of the 3Massacre, as they assisted to overawe an immense
crowd of indignant men, through whom the slave was escorted
in a square of hired ruffians to the wharf.  Free bayonets protected ruffians in carrying out the superfluous decision of a slave
commissioner  What a day was that, when the merchants of
State Street were compelled to stand silent upon the porticoes of
their banks and offices, and see the idea of liberty trampled on
all the way down that grand historic street!t   Those were
different days through which we have just lived, when merchants
and people of all ranks clustered on those porticoes, filled those
windows and balconies, and clung to every shelf of granite, to
welcome, with thundering cheers and eyes moistened by patriotic
emotion, the successive regiments that bore the flag of civilization
and freedom along to Alexandria, over the pavements trodden
by the slave's reluctant feet!  It was the North retracing her
pro-slavery steps. Not fully seeing whither the thinking bayonets must go, not yet abandoning the flag with deliberate consciousness to a great, just war against slavery itself but maarching that way, with the popular countenance lowering in the
direction whence all our ills proceed.
On the Sunday after the attempted rescue, a great crowd of
* Letter from Mr. T. B. Curtis, in the Daily Advertiser, Feb. 7, 1855.
t State Street was called King Street before the revolution of'76. It was the scene
of the Boston Massacre.




THEODORE PARKER,                      137
earnest people gathered in the Music Hall, to look in the face of
the man who had the counsel for the hour. Their hearts reposed
upon his brave and magnanimous heart in confidence.  He had
no pretexts for betraying men.  He believed more than all the
Supernaturalists in Boston, and believed it more deeply, with
life more implicated in the doctrines which exalt and protect
human  nature.  Out of that manly  bosom  flowed  prophecy,
scorn, indignation, and encouragement fit for the hour.  As he
looked over the little desk into  that gathering of expectant
eyes, he felt more profoundly than ever the truths of this dear
country which create her dignity, protect and bless her children,
and take her mighty hand to lead into a great future. He stood
that day a prophet of freedom, if ever this earth  bore  a
prophet, to frame an indictment of tyranny, and to announce the
undying  resistance  of moral truth  to  legal exigency.  The
theme lowered in his speech and in his face.  The frank blue
eyes caught a steely gleam, as of bayonets levelled to clear the
hall, to sweep the great iniquity out by the doors.  An undeniable glitter as of steel, seen in that hall more than once, menacing, in the name of the real commonwealth of the people, the
Massachusetts of freedom.   How  little seemed  the Fugitive
Slave Bill that day! " Take away that bauble I" was the virtual
speech, with  steel in the eyes of the speaker, now at length
become steel in the hands of the doers. Those eyes were never
levelled with that threatening expression save to clear the way
for human right; never to assault the breast of the people;
never in- the interest of wrong.  Clear, wrathful, patriot eyes,:now sunk to sleep, their glances all gone forth into the hearts of
many people, their bold looks now marshalled from Washington
to New  Orleans; how  much we need the faith and high purpose out of which  they looked  on  that gloomy  Sunday of
our sorrow!
FROM THE JOURNAL.
May 29, 1854.-The city is now asleep; but the kidnapper is awake.
His victim lies in the same room where Boston retained Mr. Sims.
To share the same fate   Well, there is a day of retribution for all
this!
All the house is asleep. I have listened at the doors, and heard the
low, heavy breathing of them all. How quiet they are! The "higher
law" of the Infinite One keeps up the functions of life while we sleep.
In Thee we live, and move, and have our being.  Thou livest, and
movest, and hast Thy being in us; yet far transcendest space, and
time, and sense, and soul.




138             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE O?
On the  4th  of June, two  days after the rendition, he
preached his sermon of "The New  Crime against Humanity."
It gave a statement of the movements of Southern domination
against the liberties of the  country, of the pusillanimity  of
politicians and clergymen, and of the crime just conmmitted,
in which the history of the past legitimately found its climax.
Nothing in the old Revolution was ever so stoutly, so intelligently spoken, with more fervid abandonment to  a patriotic
impulse, or with more reverence for the great God wvho makes
nations through their faith and suffering.
I know well the responsibility of the place I occupy this morning.
To-morrow's sun shall carry my words to all America.  They will be
read on both sides of the Continent.  They will cross the ocean. It
may astonish the minds of men in Europe to hear of the iniquity
committed in the midst of us. Let us be calm and cool, and look the
thing fairly in the face.
His words did reach to every quarter, carried by their own
power, but also by the event which they denounced, a sullen
demon summoned to do unwilling work for truth.
You have not forgotten Webster's speeches at Albany, at Syracuse,
at Buffalo, nor his denial of the higher law of God at Capron Springs,
in Virginia. "The North Mountain is very high; the Blue Ridge
higher still; the Alleghanies higher than either; yet the'higher law'
ranges an eagle's flight above the highest peak of the Alleghanies."
What was the answer from  the crowd? Laughter! The multitude
laughed at the Higher Law. There is no law above the North Mountain; above the Blue Ridge; above the peaks of the Alleghanies; is
there?  The Fugitive Slave Bill reaches up where there is no God!
"Laughter " from North and South to greet the higher law in
those days!  Weeping for laughter now, because a law of God.
was laughed at; and the lips of cannon to enforce at Capron
Springs itself the doctrines which were there flouted in the fine
October sun   A  truth cannot be turned backward.  The more
violently it is resisted, the more bloody is its course.
Thus, on the 2nd of June, 1854, Boston sent into bondage her
second victim. It ought to have been fifteen days later-the Seventeenth of June. What a spectacle it was! The day was brilliant;
there was not a cloud; all about Boston there was a ring of happy
summer loveliness: the green beauty of June-the grass, the trees, the
heaven, the light; and Boston itself was the theatre of incipient civil
war 
Why did Cormmissioner Loring do all this? He knew the consequences that must follow. He knew what Boston was.  We have no




THEODORE PARKER,                        139
monument to Hancock and Adams, but still we keep their graves; and
Boston, the dear old mother that bore them, yet in her bosom hides the
honored bones of men whom armies could not terrify, nor England
bribe.  Their spirit only sleeps. Tread roughly-tread roughly on the
spot-their spirit rises from the ground!  He knew  that here were
men who never will be silent when wrong is done. He knew Massachusetts; he knew Boston; he knew that ta  he Fugitive Slave Bill had
only raked the ashes over fires which were burning still, and that a breath
might scatter those ashes to the winds of heaven, and bid the slumbering embers flame.
Listen, O  reader, in  camps, in  cottages, in  counting-rooms.
The little Lexington belfry rocks again in the morning air.
This circular was issued from  his pen on the day that cannon from  Bunker's Hill seemed sullenly to emphasize  a more
glorious past —Boston, June 17, 1854.
DEAR SIR, -The Vigilance Committee of Boston have directed us to
address you on the subject of forming a Vigilance Committee in your
town and neighbourhood, for the purpose of aiding persons claimed as
Fugitive Slaves.
If you will form such a Committee in your town, we think you may
serve the cause of Freedom and I-umanity in several ways.
1. You may help such alleged Fugitives to escape from actual danger,
by aiding them in their flight to Canada, or some other place of safety,
where they will be out of the kidnapper's reach. Thus you may help
the individual.
2. You may arouse the sense of justice in the people of your town
and neighborhood, and so prepare the way for checking and termiinating the wicked institution of Slavery, which is so perilous to the
liberties of America.  Thus you can aid the Idea of Justice, for each
Committee will be a little centre of organized action, where discussion
can be carried on, and whence information may be spread abroad.
3. Perhaps you may also, in case of need, furnish pecuniary aid to
the alleged Fugitives in other places.
We therefore invite you to organize a Vigilance Committee in your
-town, and inform us of the names of your Officers whom we may correspond with in case of need.  Communications may be addressed to
Yours truly,
THEODORE PARAKER,
Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Boston Vigilance Committee.
EXECUTIVE COMLMITTEE.
THEODORE PARKER,             WENDELL PHILLIPS,
JOSHUA B. SaMITH,            EDMUNDu JACKSON,
LE7AJS  AYD)E'N,             F:iRANC1S JACKSON,
SAMUEL G. HOvWE,             CHARLES IK. VWHIPPLE.




1.10             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
FROM  HION. CHARLES SUMNEI.
Washington, June 7, 1854.
I had just read and admired your great New York effort, as reported
in the Anti-Slavery Standard, when the Commonwezalth came this morning with that other fulmination from Boston.  Such efforts will deeply
plough the public heart.  Other ages will bless you, even if we do not
all live down the clamor which now besets us.
At last I see daylight.  Slavery will be discussed with us as never
before, and that Fugitive Bill must be nullified. Peaceful legislation
by our commonwealth will do it all.  At once should be commenced
an organization to secure petitions, I, to Congress; 2, to our own Legislature.  Get people committed to the absolute refusal of the whole
wickedness.
The curtain will soon lift here.  Cuba-Hayti-~Mexico. You know
the plot. And yet the people sleep.
FROM  THE JOURNAL.
June, 1854.-What I shall do if I am sent to gaol?
1. Write one sermon a-week, and have it read at Music Hall, a.nd
printed the next morning. Who can read it?  Write also a prayer,
&c. (Prayer, Saturday night).
a. Prepare a volume of sermons from old MSS.
3. Write Memoirs of Life, &c.
4. Vol. I. of "Historical Development of Religion," i. e., the Metaphysics of Religion.
5. Pursue the Russian studies.
The grand jury which was sitting at the time  of these
events, was not specially summoned to notice them, and therefore, though charged explicitly enough to find a bill against the
prominent actors of the night of May 26, separated  without
doing  so.  A  new  grand jury was impanelled in October, but
instead of being charged afresh by the judge upon the statute of
1790, in relation to resisting officers serving a process, or upon
the  statute  of 1850, it was referred to  the United  States
Attorney for the instruction contained in the previous charge;
and an indictment was found against Mr. Parker, for knowingly
and wilfully obstructing, with force and arms, the Marshal of the
district, who was attempting to  serve and execute the warrant
and legal process under which Burns was taken and held; also
for making an assault upon said Marshal, who was in the due and
lawful discharge of his duties as an officer.  Similar indictments
were found against Wendell Phillips, who also spoke at the
Fanueil Hall meeting, and against Martin Stowell, Rev. T. W.




THEODORE PARKER.                        141
HEigginson, John Morrison, Samuel T. Proudman, and John C.
Cluer, who were engaged in the assault.
By laws of the United States, both Grand and Petit Juries
may be selected in Courts of the United States by a combination between the U.S. District Attorney and the U.S. Marshal.
TO PROFESSOR EDWARD DE3SOR.
Nov. 19, 185I shall not be indicted.  "Judge Ben," the Honorable Benjamin I.
Curtis, with his coadjutors, Ben Hallett and others like him, made the
attempt in June, and again in October. But the grand jury found no
bill.  So Phi'lips and I escape this time.  I should be sorry if a
Massachusetts jury should disgrace the State by such meanness; but
I should have liked the occasion for a speech. I chalked out the line
of defence, and was ready for trial the day the grand jury sat. I think
nobody will be punished for the "riot" in June.  Now would be a
good time for another slave-hunt in Boston.  Sumner gave an admirable address before the Mercantile Association last night.  He never
did a better thing.
FROM  THE JOURNAL.
Nov. 29, 1854.-Day before Thanksgiving.  This morning, a few
minutes after eight, as I sat writing, a rap came on my door. I said,
Come in."  A man entered, and stood looking a little awkward. I
took him by the hand, bidding him  good morning.
"Is this the Rev. Mr. Parker? " he asked.
So-called," I said; "sit down, if you please."
"I want to speak with you on business," he said.  So Miss Stevenson withdrew, and as she shut the door, he said, "' Mr. Parker, I have
rather a disagreeable business to do. I am come to arrest you."
"Very well-is that all?" said I; "in the United States Circuit
Court, I suppose."
"Yes."
"Let me see the warrant?"  He presented it. I read it over, about
]half of it aloud, and a few words to myself-enough to catch the drift
of it, and handed it back to him. " Well: what do you want me to do
— shall I go down to the Court-house?"
"No. Will you come down to the Marshal's office at ten o'clock?
* Certainly, where is it?"
"No. 1 in the Court-house."
A' First floor? "
Yes, sir-first floor. I suppose you will have your surety."
"Certainly-four or five of them.  I will go and see them."
"One is enough, if he is a real-estate holder."
"Yes; but there are several persons who have asked the privilege of
being my bail.  For you must not suppose that I did not expect this."




142              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
"Very well.  I won't stay any longer."  I attended him  down the
stairs.  " This is a disagreeable business, Mr. Parker? "
"I make no doubt of it.  But I am much obliged to you for the
gentlemanly manner in which you have performed your official function."
"Oh-thank you-we don't expect to get into low places."
Good morning."
"Good morning, sir."
At ten, I went to the office, attended by C. M. Ellis, Esq., as my
attorney.  Miss Stevenson and L. had previously been to inform  the
bail of what was going on.  Mr. Manley was in the office already. We
went to the Supreme Court-room, to wait with Mr. E. till the officer
was ready.  He soon returned, and we went to the Circuit Court-room,
when I recognized in 1500 dollars for my appearance in that Court at
10 A.M. on the first Monday in March (i. e. the 85th anniversary of the
Boston Massacre.)
Judge Ben Curtis and Judge Peleg Sprague were on the Bench.
His bondsmen were three parishioners, Samuel May, Francis
Jackson, and John R. Manley.
Here is a specimen of the letters which came to him from  the
people at this time.  He prized the badly  spelled but correct
and noble thought:
Pembroke, December the 21 day, 1854.
DEAR SIR,-I gave notice of A meeting to see if we would form A
vigilance committee in this town. The evening was stormy, but theor
was A small number of us who came together, and we resolved ourselves into A vigilance committee, and theay chose L. Mclauthlin, Job
H. Beal, and Otis P. Josselyn, as the Executive Committee, and theay
designated me as thear Chairman, and we shall be reddey to ade the
cause of humane liberty when it is in our power so to do. And nonw,
Sir, I must say that I am veary sorry that any man should be arested
and brought before A couart for speakeing against making slaves in our
State, to send out to Verginner, or any whear elles; but, sence it is so, I
am glad that they have taken such men as yaur Self and Mr. Phillips,
our very Captains of the liberty of speech, and men, too, who can defend thear and our rights, and bring up A host of liberty loving men
and women to sustain you in your just Cause.
Yours, with respect.
Concord, July 10, 1854.
lREV. AND DEAR MR. PARKER,-I received, on the 30th of June last,
a circular from  you, sir, and the other gentlemen comprising the
Executive Committee of the Boston Vigilance Committee.  I owe you
an appology for not acting sooner up your excellent suggestion; but,
the fact is, your circular was received by me at the Post-office, and
finding it to be a printed circular, and not looking at the signer,
supposed it to be something such as I am receiving alimost every day,




THEODORE PARKER.                           143
about some quack medicine, or about some newly invented machine
for sale, or some such thing, and did not stop to read it at the time,
and put it into my pocket, and forgot to look at it untill about Independence Day-what a farce to call it so!!
Well, sir, last evening we had a small Anti-Slavery gathering in
Concord, and I asked the following questions to those present, viz.:If a slave, who was making his escape, should come to your house,
would you aid him  by giving him  shelter, &c.?  There were present
Ralph W. Emerson, Mrs. Mary Brooks, Charles Bowers, John Thoreau,
Mary Rice, Nathan B. Stow, Nathan  Henry Warren, James Weir,
Joshua R. Brown, Stearns Wheeler, Mrs. John Thoreau, Mrs. R. W.
Emerson, and William Whiting.  We were unanimous in our agreement to aid and assist all in our power to help the fleeing bondman to
obtain his God-given rights.
I am, dear sir, your obedient and humble servant,
WILLIAM WHITINeG.
FROM  TT EE JOS1URNAL.
Last night of the year.-It is almost twelve: a new year close at
hand.
O Thou Spirit who rulest the universe, seeing the end from  the
beginning, I thank Thee for the opportunities of usefulness which
the last year afforded, for all the manifold delights which have clustered
round my consciousness. But how little have [ done, how little grown!
Inspire me to do more, and become nobler, in purpose, motive, method
of my life.  Help me to resist new temptations, and do the new duties
which the year brings with it.  i know not what a day shall bring forth
-honor or shame, perhaps a gaol.  Help me everywhere to be faithful
to Thee.  So may I live and serve my brethren more.  Yet still may I
love my enemies, even as Thou sendest rain  on the just and the
unjust I
FRO3  IH3ON. CHARLES SUMNER.
Dec. 12, 1854.
I am glad you have been indicted-pardon me-for the sake of our
cause, and for your own fame.  Of course you will defend yourself,
and answer the whilom speaker at Fanueil Hall face to face.   Don't
fail to recount that incident in your speech, where you will naturally
review Boston tyranny, not only in courts, but also abroad, at public
meetings, and in the world.
I can tell you nothing of history.  You know well Campbell's Chancellors and Chief Justices.  In reviewing these you will meet the
great instances, and will discern the base character of judges-a sad
list!
The cases of Scroggs and Jefferies have a barefaced outrageousness
* Alludes to Judge Curtis, who at a Union-saving meeting demanded to know how a
minister of the Gospel could recommend a juror to break his oath, and clear a fugitive
against the law and the facts. Mr. Parker, who was in the gallery, said, "Do you want
an answer now "' The Judge was embarrassed, and the crowvd made noise enough to
prever.t an explanation.




14               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
which makes them less applicable than the case of ship-money; the case
of Sir Edward Hill, in 1687; the trial of Horne Tooke, in 1796; and at
a later day, the trials which killed Lord Ellenborough.  Do not fail to
master his life and character. Therein you will find more which will
be in point than in earlier cases.
Upon the whole, I regard your indictment as a "call" to a new
parish, with B. R. Curtis and B. F. Hallett as " deacons," and a pulpit
higher than the Strasburg steeple.
TO MR. SUMNER.
Boston, Dec. 15, 1854.
Phillips was arrested to-day, and gave bail with six securities. John
Hancock was also once arrested by the British authorities in October,
1768. Great attempts were made to indict Sam Adams, and Edes and
Gill, patriotic printers; but no grand jury then would find a bill.
Hale gave an admirable lecture on the Trial by Jury last Thursday.
It was a happy hit, and every word told on his vast and most responsive audience.  It came at the right time.
Thank you for your note which came yesterday. I will work on that
hint, and make a sermon which will keep the new " deacons " awake.
In 1845, my friends passed a resolution, "that Theodore Parker
should have a chance to be heard in Boston."  The two brothers-in-lae,
Ben. C. and Ben H. now second the resolution.  "A chance to be
heard!"
TO MR. ELLTS.
Dec. 19, 1854.
DEAR CHARLES,-I am much obliged to Mr. Hallett for his readiness
to accommodate me in the matter referred to; but I did not ask that
or any other favor.  I simply wish to know the time when the court
will proceed to try the matter between it and me.  I will accommodate
myself to that.  I understood from Mr. Phillips that Mr. Hallett said
the trials would not take place in March; if so, I need not disappoint
some fifteen towns by refusing to lecture there.  Excuse me for
troubling you.
TO THE SAME.
Boston, Feb. 8, 1855.
These are the points I should make against Commissioner Loring: —
1. He kidnapped a man in Boston who was accused of no offence
against any law, divine or human, but who, by the laws of God written
in nature, and the constitution and statutes of Massachusetts, and the
principles of the Declaration of Independence, was as much entitled to
freedom as Mr. Loring himself, or any man in the commonwealth.
2. I-Ie was not forced to this, but did it voluntarily. (a). His office did
not compel such a wicked service, for Mr. Hallett, in 1850, declined it, and
in 1854, Mr. George T. Curtis, who was first applied to for the kidnapping of Mr. Burns, refused the office; in 1851 (in the Sims time) no
sheriff or constable of Boston could be found willing to serve the writ of




THEODORE PARKER.                         145
personal replevin, though a fee of five hundred dollars was allowed,
and a bond of indemnity to the extent of three thousand dollars more.
(b.) But if the office, in his opinion, required this, then he ought to have
resigned his office, either at once or on the passage of the Fugitive
Slave Bill, which " required" such a service of him, or, at least, when
called on to steal a man.  He cannot plead that the office is any extenuation of so heinous an offence as making a citizen of Massachusetts,
accused of no fault, a slave of Virginia.
3. He did not do this hastily, but deliberately, after a week for
reflection and consultation with his friends and fellow-citizens.
4. He is not now sorry for the offence, but so justifies it on principle
that the act is legal and constitutional, and so professes to understand
the tenure of his office of commissioner that he would do the same
again if called on; and Massachusetts will, again and again, present to
the world the spectacle of a commonwealth, democratic and Christian,
which keeps in office, as guardian of widows and orphans, a man who
is a professional kidnapper.  Is she ready to do that?
5. The manner of the kidnapping was as bad as the matter.  I will
not refer to the mode of arrest, which he is not responsible for, but, (a.)
he advised Mr. Phillips, Burns's attorney, " Not to throw obstacles in
the way of his being sent back, as he probably will be "! (6.) He
confined him in a Court-house of Massachusetts, contrary to the express
words of the statute, and the well-known form of law of his own State.
(c.) He decided against the evidence in the case, which proved that the
man on trial as a slave in Virginia on a certain time, was actuaclly at
work in Boston at that very time. (d.) The evidence he relied on for the
identity of Burns, the only thing to be proved, as he declared, was the
words alleged to be uttered by Mr. Burns, spoken, if at all, under
duresse, and subsequently denied by him. (e.) He communicated his
decision to parties having an interest adverse to Mr. Burns, twentyfour hours, at least, before it was given in open court.
6. He knows the stealing of a man is wrong.  This is not
merely matter of inference from his education and position, but from
the fact that he declined the fee, ten dollars, his " legal " and " official"
recompense for stealing a brother man. This he does, it is supposed,
not from general charity towards men-stealers, or from  special friendship for Mr. Suttle in this case; but because the money is the price of
blood paid for treachery to the Constitution of Massachusetts, and to
the natural, essential, and unalienable rights of man.
7. He is the first judicial officer of Massachusetts since 1776 who
has kidnapped a man.  Had he stolen Mr. Dana or Mr. Ellis, counsel
for Mr. Burns, charged with no crime, and delivered them up to the
Algerines or Carolinians, he would not more have violated the principles of natural justice and the precepts of the Christian religion.
Nay, the offence is worse when committed against a poor man, an unprotected and a friendless man of a despised race, than if committed against
rich, educated, and powerful gentlemen, who have material and personal
means of defence.  Now, the Legislature of Massachusetts is the
guardian of the lives and the character of her citizens.  If she detains
ea kidnapper in her high office of Judge of Probate, in her own capital
city, she says to the world, " I acknowledge that it is a glory to steal
VOL. II.                                                 L




46             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
a man, and so will make the kidnapper also guardian of widows and
orphans, giving him a better opportunity to crush those who are ready
to perish without his oppression! " Is that the lesson for the guardians
of public morals to teach to the youth and maidens of Massachusettsto teach in the hearing of Fanueil Hall, in sight of Bunker Hill, over
the graves of Hancock and Adams?
8. There are 2038 colored persons in the county of Suffolk; they
must do public business at his office. Is it fair for Massachusetts to force
them, in their affliction, to come before a judge who is the official
enemy of their race-who kidnaps men of this nation? It adds new
terrors to the bitterness of death.
9. If there were no law of God, no conscience in man declaring
what is right, no golden rule of religion, bidding "Whatsoever ye
would that men should do unto you, do ye' even so to them," then
it might be enough to plead the law of the United States allows
him to steal a man. But as there is a law of God, a conscience, a
golden rule, recognized guides of conduct amongst men, Massachusetts cannot detain in such an office a man who on principle will send
his innocent brothers into eternal bondage.
The trials commenced upon the 3rd of April, 1855, with the
arraignment of Martin Stowell.  Hon. John P. Hale, the senior
counsel for the defendant, moved that the indictment be quashed.
The Court decided to hear the motion, whereupon the jurors were
excused for the day, and William L. Burt, the junior counsel,
addressed the Court upon some of the specifications of the motion.
These were six in number, being substantially (1,) that the warrant
was not properly directed and served; (2,) that the jury in the
case was not an impartial jury of the district, as required by
law; (3,) that the acts specified in the indictment did not constitute
a crime under the statutes under which the indictment was framed;
(4,) that the indictment did not sufficiently set forth the proceedings wherein the said warrant was based; (5,) that said indictment
and the several counts thereof, was bad on the face of them, for
several technical reasons; (6,) and because the warrant issued frcim
and ran into a jurisdiction not authorized by law, &c.
ir. Ellis, counsel for Mr. Parker, took up the first two reasons
for quashing the indictment, and continued on the second day of
the trial.  Mr  )Durant filed the same motion for Mr. Higginsonl
and pointed out that the warrant itself did not justify the arrest
of Anthony Burns, and argued that the Marshal had no right to
hold Burns under the warrant, but that his authority ceased with
the seizure.  Mr. John A. Andrew (now  Governor of the State
of.Massachusetts), counsel for Wendell Phillips, followed, in ar
argument based upon the sixth objection specified in the motion,




THEODORE PARKER.                      147
and also made the point that the indictment did not sufficiently
particularize the offence with which defendant was charged.
On the third day the United States attorney, B. F. Hallett,
was ill, and unable to attend; the Court postponed the case to
the tenth of April.  On that day Mr. Andrew  completed his
argument, and Mr. E. W. Merwin, assistant counsel for the
prosecution, replied to some of the objections, prefacing the remark
that the Government hed no object in the prosecutions except to
maintain the law as a terror to evil-doers, and a protection to
those who do well!  The United States attorney, Hallett, then
followed in a defence of the indictment, which occupied the fifth
day.
On the next day Judge Curtis delivered his opinion, "that
the process alleged to have been obstructed was not a legal process in the meaning of the Act of 1 790, because there was no
averment in the indictment to show that the warrant had been
issued by such a Commissioner as the Act of 1850 specifies, and
that, as neither of the counts in the indictment describes, by
sufficient averments, any offence under the Act of 1790, under
which alone the Government claims that the indictment can be
supported, it must be quashed."
Whereupon the Court ordered the clerk to enter on the record
that the indictment against Martin Stowell is quashed, and the
United States attorney, Hallett, then moved the Court to discontinue the cases against the other persons indicted.
C. Id. Ellis, Esq., one of the counsel at this trial, says:
Mr. Parker was at once glad to meet the Government and fight
them, and vexed and annoyed at the groundless and disgraceful assault
on him. As he said, he would "give them  their bellyful."  He was
untiring alike in doing all he could to urge the trial on and to defy
and taunt them  to meet him, and in exploring every ground, the
grandest and the least, upon which to defeat them.
You know there were indictments against several persons, Wendell
Phillips, Higginson, &c. A meeting of the counsel of all was held in
rny office.  We then settled on the plan, which was to make the
attack. We were, first, to move to quash for defects on the face of the
indictment, as we did, and we parcelled out the branches of this
amongst us. After that we proposed to follow up (if, as we expected,
the Court would overrule us), by showing the jury that found the indictment was not indifferent, and so on. (You see a note of testimony
as to Greenough).
Well, we did put theim on trial for several days. It was in the old
sitting rooms of the old wooden house, then used (and good enough)'for such cases, on Bowdoin Square.
L 2




148             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
The judge showed himself out, and the temper of those he stood
with. They sneaked off through the smallest place possible, but
showed temper; needlessly declared that the jury was well drawn, and
slurred at the counsel. You may see Mr. Parker's judgment of it in
the leaf of the State Trials he sent me.
He was, I thought, glad of the result. Of course, any defence in
such a place, and before such men, must have been very different
from the one he wrote, and must have reached the world very differently.
He preferred to be fairly rid of all trouble, to see the " curs sneak
off with their tails between their legs," and then to show without
(certain) interruption of the judge, or boggle of reporting, what sort
of a lash they ought to have had applied to them.
He worked through the summer, and at Dublin (N. H.), on the
defence. It is less a defence than an able review of the assaults and
defences made in the course of our history by the little garrison manning the fortress of the English Jury.  He saw clearly how the central
power, in serving slavery, was making inroads on our institutions.
Curtis had already declared the jury mere tools, in a way an English
judge would have been ashamed of. Mr. Parker then anticipated a
long struggle to undermine our institutions one by one,: and he
threw himself into the breach upon this one. War has anticipated all
of them. But he was right as things were going; that " Defence " and
like things, instead of Sumter and Bull Run, would have been the
steps of our march to freedom.
FROM  MR. ELLIS TO MR. PARKER.
Sept. 8, 1855.
DEAR SIR.,This (more than T thought) is necessary to show the
exact case in the briefest form, with nothing collateral, and with no
comment.
How far anything else is worth while, either to interest or infbrm
people, now or hereafter, depends on what you have woven into your
argument.  I suppose you will have most of the things embodied in it.
And there they will be preserved best.
Let me, however, hastily note these matters that occur.
1. The leading, active part you and Phillips took (as you had always
taken in others) in Burns' trial.  Hinc illc lachryrne.
2. The Court and the Government avoided the only charge for which
there was any pretext, viz., " of rescue or attempt to rescue under the
Bill of 1850, such as was made in the former cases, in order to avoid
the issue, slave or not.
3. No pretence that you did anything save the speech.
4. The wrong of trying a new jury; or the same charge with a
second.
5. The illegal construction of the juries, from  a fraction of the
district, and by the Marshal himself, the party concerned.
6. The unsoundness of the charge to the first jury, in law.
* At that very time the Lemmon case was on its way to the Supreme Court from Newt
York; and from the West the infamous Dred Scott case was taking shape.




THEODORE PARKEP.                        149
7. The wrong of omitting to charge the second, and turning it over
to Hallett.  It was the judge's duty, not to be delegated.  This I
count highly improper and very dangerous, not only in the instance, but as
a precedent; for, without charge or complaint before a coroner, or presentment, or formal information aliunde, to allow the Government to
thus originate the bill, is giving it the power of bending the law to meet
the facts in its possession. Tyrants want no more.
8. Greenough, Merwin; singular coincidences of doubtful delicacy,
but perhaps nothing.
9. Executive interference.
10. The purpose of the prosecution.
Some of these are slightly legal. One is settled; but no judge is
infallible. I believe our views to be the sound ones.
Yours truly,
C. M. ELLIS,
Mr. Parker's defence, a portion of'which he had prepared with
the purpose of addressing the jury himself, was not disposed of
so easily as the indictment. It appeared during the next August,
most carefully elaborated, with valuable historical matter upon
the development of the jury, the corruptions of the judiciary,
and a variety of interesting cases of trial for political offences and
liberty of speech.  He has written nothing that is so vigorous
and effective.  The cases from English political and ecclesiastical
history can nowhere else be found so dramatically and sympathetically presented.  It is a wonder that this "Defence " is so
little known.  The style of it is better than that of any of his
writings, except the last three of the " Sermons of Theism," and
some  of the " Occasional Discourses."   It is sinewy, clear,
thoroughly American, and more sustained and flowing than his
usual composition.  He seldom took the trouble, and never had
the time, to regard his style as a matter for anxiety.  But here,
a favorite historical subject, a most engrossing national qulestion,
the right of free speech, and all his own keen personal interest,
conspired to make one of the most fascinating books of this
epoch.  It will be read in fifty years and after more eagerly
than at present, and is the book which the future historian ot
these times will hunt for with eagerness and rejoice in when
found.
It contains too frequently repeated allusions to persons known
as supporters of the Fugitive Slave Bill, and strenuous advocates
for his indictment.  The iteration is damaging to the moral
effect which he desired to produce.  He is not merely unsparing
and righteously indignant, but his personal implication led him to




15 0           LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
call up some points against his opponents too often; they impede
the general movement of the work.  This will make the book
more valuable to the coming historian of the present generation,
who will feel less these faults of taste while he follows his vigorous presentation of the facts.  It is the best account extant of
judicial and legal tyranny from  the reign of James I. to the
period of his own indictment.
It is not an objection to his "IDefence " that it designates so
palpably individuals who were prominent in the service of the
bad statute, but that it is so solicitous to do so.  That makes his
own personality too prominent.  But he was right in arraigning
men.  Of course he hurt their feelings, and the feelings of their
relatives.  It was right that he should do so, in the interest of
all men.  It is very extraordinary that persons who complain
that his language hurt their feelings, should never once have considered the feeliTcns of the fugitive and of his family.  They
wanted the luxuries of self-respect, consideration, and fidelity to
the Constitution, all at the expense of the poor trembling fugitive's necessities of life and freedom.
May there ever be a plain-speaking champion of the weaker
side!  If a man in this country undertakes to wring his little
luxuries out of the oppressed and suffering, he need not be surprised if some one depicts his arrogant meanness in a stern and
unpolite vernacular.
But his sincerity was not all reserved for his opponents.  His
letters to public men who were his friends, or who were friendly
to the ideas which he made paramount, show the same inflexible
judgment.  Ile addressed them  with a frankness which they
could ill sustain, unless they were at heart devoted to the same
law of r-'ht and the real welfare of the country.  The boldness
of his requisitions upon friendship, in the name of the righteousness which he was willing to serve to the uttermost, alienated
some who could not stand the test.  M]en like to be flattered for
their past service, and entreated to persevere.  He was too
patriotic, too solemnly penetrated with the dangers of the country,
to do either.  On this point the dearest friend could never lead
him astray.  Conscience set aside the susceptible disposition at
the first summons of a great political or moral truth; and he was
incapable of making any allowance for the difficulty some lmen
have to be simple-minded.  Some noble men, whose services to
tie commonwealth cannot be too highly rated, sometimes thought




THEODORE PARKER.                     151
that he was intolerant.  It was because they were not yet his
equals in courage, determination, and straightness. He could
dare more, resolve more, and walk more plainly than any of his
friends.
It was Dante who used to throw stones at women and children whom  he overheard reviling his party; and, in a heated
discussion, he once said, "Such infamous talk is to be answered,
not with arguments, but with the knife."
"Dante, who loved well because he hated,
Hated wickedness that hinders loving."
Anthony Burns was carried back to the South in vindication
of a Republican form of government, and as a symbol in ebony
of the constitutional alacrity of the North.   No doubt his
master, from the time that Anthony held the hands of Parker
and Phillips, and felt their love of freedom, considered him  a
bad piece of property, for he was virtually manumitted when
he was remanded.  Anthony might take to preaching, for which
it seems he had an inborn taste, and the plantation hands would
listen, mute as the fishes, but quite as heedful, which his namesake once addressed.  So the money which was raised to purchase him in Boston, but which was refused there, by advice of
counsel, on great constitutional grounds, became acceptable in
Georgia, where a bird in the hand was better than one who
might take to the bush, with a whole flock behind him.
Anthony's understanding had not been minutely cultivated at
the South, so he passed at first for a rather dull person when he
was received into the college at Oberlin, Ohio.  The teachers had
yet to loosen the clog of stupidity which slavery had fastened to
lis mind.  Their words, in the attempt to discover his capacity:for learning something, fell into the calloused marks which bondage
made in entering his soul.  But it is reported by one who
knew him, that, "The change that came over him in a short time
was one of the most wonderful things I ever witnessed.  When
it fairly dawned upon him that he could learn to read, his zeal to
improve was unbounded.  He was at his books the whole time,
and his capacity for learning developed more and more.  The
whole manner of the man was altered; and the expression of
his countenance changed so much that, in less than a year,
nobody would have recognized in him the half-stultified wretch,




52             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
for whose re-enslavement the enlightened City of Boston raised
a chivalrous army."
One of the earliest proofs of his new  accomplishments was a
letter to Mr. Parker; the handwriting may have astonished the
illegible scholar, but the love might be expected.  Here it is, a
little helped in spelling:
Oberlin, Ohio, Jan. 13,1856.
DEAR MR. PAnKER,-SIR,-It is with much pleasure that I am now
called upon to take my pen in hand to write you a few lines, which, I
truly hope will find you and family at this time enjoying the blessing
and happiness of.the Lord, and all other brethren and friends. Sir, I
suppose that you think that I hath forgotten you and your love and kindness towards me in the time of trouble, but, thanks be to the Lord, I
hath not, and shall I, until my latest breath. I still continue to praise
thee in the name of the Lord our God.
Dear Mr. Parker, I would have written you a letter long before this,
but as you know that my learning or education was very bad, it is for
this cause that I did not, but I hope you will not think hard of this;
but having made some progress in this my studies, I now avail myself
of the opportunity of writing you a few lines, hoping that they will be
accepted of by you.
I am here in Oberlin, trying to do the best I can, hoping that, through
Christ my Lord, and the assistance of you all, my friends, I shall be
able to obtain an education for the purpose of preaching gospel. Oh,
that I had that manner and power of speech which you now obtain:
methinks that much good might be done in the name of the Lord.
When I look at that number of heathen nations where I might, some
day, do a great deal of good, it makes me beg for help, when I would
not; therefore, for this cause I ask your aid, and the aid of all my
friends, in the name of God our Father.
Very respectfully yours,
ANTHONY BURNS.
It seems, then, that his ambition was to fit himself for missionary work among the men of his own race abroad. Mr. Parker in..
spired him with a more practical conception, as we gather from
Anthony's second and last letter of February, 1856.
DEAR MR. PARKER,-It is with much pleasure that I take the opportunity to acknowledge the receipt of your kind letter, which was highly
gratifying to me. I was glad to read the words fallen from your mouth;
it put me much in mind of the time when I was in the Court-house, in
the time of great trouble.
I know that the field is large in the South, where many fear to
go, but who knows but that the Lord is a-going to make of me a Moses,,
in leading His people out of bondage?  I believe He hath a greater
work for me than many may think, and it is for this cause I beg your
prayers. You add that the sooner I get into the field the better, for




THEODORE PARKER.                       1 53
the harvest is truly ripe, and the laborers, as you say, are few in the
South fields.
Please give my best respects to Mr. Phillips, and to all of my friends.
The people here want greatly to know who are my friends, but I know
of no others greater than you two, therefore I look to you as my friends.
Will you please to pray for me, that I may hold out faithfully to the
end?
We doubt if he undertook any Southern expedition to point
his sluggish countrymen towards the North Star, or to create
among them a legitimate discontent with their condition.  But
we next find him the pastor of a colored society at St. Catherine's, C.W., to whom he was very devoted. The exposure which
he suffered last winter (1861-2) in his unremitting efforts to
serve them, and to clear them  from  debt, planted consumption
within him.  He freed them from debt, but paid the great one
himself not long ago.




CHAPTER XXI.
The Kansas and Nebraska Bill-Capt. John Brown-The Fremont Presidential Campaign
-Fac-Simile Letter to lon. J. P. Hale —Mr. Yeadon-Hon. Charles SumnerLetters.
DURING the Congressional Session of 1853-54, a Bill to establish a territorial government in Nebraska passed the House of
Representatives; but its passage was unexpectedly resisted in
the Senate,  principally  by  members from  slave  States, on
the ground that the Missouri Compromise would have the effect
of securing a vast territory for free-labor, to be eventually
divided into two or three free States, whose senators and representatives  in  Congress  would  fatally  preponderate  over the
interests of slavery.  A repeal of the Missouri Compromise was
not immediately pressed by  the South, but the defeat of the
Bill to organize the territory was a preliminary question.
This is the text of the Compromise in the Missouri Bill: —
And be it further enacted, that in all that territory ceded by France
to the United States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies north
of 36~ 30' north latitude, not included within the limits of the State
contemplated by this Act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise
than in the punishment of crime, whereof the parties shall have been
duly convicted, shall be, and hereby is, prohibited for ever.
Early in  1854, Mr. Douglass, of Illinois, proposed to repeal
that clause, by the introduction of the following provision inthe Bill for the territorial organization of Nebraska:
And when admitted as a State or States, the said territory, or any
portion of the same, shall be received into the TUnion, with or without
slavery, as their constitutions may prescribe at the time of their
admission.




THEODORE PARKER.                     15 5
The pretext was that this provision maintained the great
principle of popular sovereignty, by which the will of the people
of a territory, deliberately expressed by their majority, should
decide the character of their local institutions, and not the
passage by Congress of a Bill which might eventually be found
detrimental to the interests of a State and repugnant to the
feelings of its majority.  At the same time, the secret motive
of this provision which repealed the Missouri Compromise, was
betrayed by an amendment to the Territorial.Bill, introduced
by the Committee on Territories, of which Mr. Douglass was the
chairman, to the effect that two territories were to be created
out of that part of the national domain called Nebraska, one
of which was to preserve the old name, and the other was to be
called Kansas.   In other vords, the South wanted two slave
States instead of one.  Hence the subsequent title of "KansasNebraska Bill."
Notwithstanding the vigorous opposition of Senators Chase,
Sumner, and Seward, and Representatives Wade, Giddings,
Gerritt Smith, and others, including one or two from Southern
States, the amended Bill passed the Senate on the 4th of
March, and the House on the 15th of May.
This abolition of a time-honored compromise stirred all parties
at the North with indignation: the old Whig who had hitherto
supported every pro-slavery measure of every Administration, in
the name of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, now
met his anti-slavery foe of the new  Republican party on the
same platform.  Distinguished men were heard to say, that here
at length was a real outrage perpetrated by the South.  The
violation of the most sacred feelings of the heart by the passage
of the Fugitive Slave Bill had not touched them; the violation
of a contract almost converted them  to anti-slavery opinions;
so great, in a commercial circle, is the regard for a written promise to do or to pay, so little is the reverence for the unwritten
prescription of humanity and equity.
Notwithstanding this inconsistency, a powerful stimulus was
given to emigration into the new territories, principally into the
more southerly one of Kansas, which promised to become a
great agricultural region.  For the new converts to a temporary
disgust for slavery were monied men, and they helped to frame
and feed companies and societies, which sent settlers into the
new  field, at the same time that the men of Missouri were




156            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
flocking over the border with their slaves, and Southlern bands
were organizing  to  invade  the territory  and  secure it for
slavery.
The history of the next few years is that of bloody outrage
in Kansas, of intrigue in Congress; in both places the friends
of freedom  achieved  a noble resistance.  The crime against
Kansas was met in all the measures behind which the convenient doctrine of popular sovereignty was hiding-the famous
Lecompton Bill, for instance, which  a temporary pro-slavery
majority in the territory, with the aid of executive patronage,
succeeded in getting before Congress.
But these details are beyond my limits.
TO PROFESSOR EDWARD DESOR.
Boston, May 24, 1854.
DEAR DEso, —I thank you for your kind note which yesterday
came to hand, and write forthwith, as the steamer goes to-day. The
Nebraska Bill passed the House, Monday at 11 P.M., by a vote of
100 nays to 113 yeas. It is a most infamous thing. I had no doubt it
would pass from the beginning. It is a Government measure; not an
office-holder in the United States has said a public word against it,
not one who holds a Government office, and there are 40,000 such in
the nation! I am getting up a convention from all the Free States
for the 4th of July, to meet at some central place-Pittsburgh or
Buffalo-and organize for efficient action.
I make no doubt that the American Government will take sides with
Russia in the coming contest. See why.
1. It is impossible to sustain 2,000,000 Turks, with an empire in a
state of decadence, against a population of 11,000,000 Christians who
are capable of progress.
2. England and France and Austria do not wish to preserve the
Turkish Empire, England wants Candia and tEgypt; France, Tunis
and Tripoli; Austria, Croatia, Bosnia, Servia, Montenegro, &c., as
much as Russia wants Moldavia, Wallachia, and Bulgaria. I think
each will have what it wants; the quarrel is not about the protection,
but the partition of Turkey.
3. In this quarrel the United States hope to seize Cuba and perhaps
Hay.ti. Russia will favor this; (1.) out of hostility to Spain, with whom
there appears to be some alienation; (2.) out of hatred to England,
whom of course she wishes to molest. And the American Government
I think will not openly favor Russia, but secretly, and yet will continue
to make money out of both parties.
4. Little is known about the privateers-but I make no doubt there
will be plenty of them. There is only one difficulty; there is no port in
Europe for them to take their prizes to.
The North takes little interest in the European struggle, except so




THEODORE PARKER.                         157
far as it raises the price of American produce, and cares not who
conquers or who is conquered so long as we can make money by it.
Everything is dear, everybody making money; what do we care for
besides?  The South takes sides with Russia. Alone of all Europe she
never found fault with American slavery; she sympathizes with us.
This is what the Southern journals have said openly, all winter long.
We must have a dreadful chastisement one day. I suppose it will
come from our own towns, from civil war.
TO HON. CHARLES SUMNER.
Sunday Night, January, 1855.
DEAR SUMNER,-I have seen only the briefest report of your sayings
in Senate, but must needs thank you for it, before I go to bed. Every
Session raises you higher and higher.  Not that you display more mind
than men looked for; but because you stand up in Congress as the
man with a conscience which reflects the natural law of God written
in the human heart. Here you and Chase stand side by side.  Send
me the Bill which passed: I want it " summarily."
Yours,
T. P.
TO THE SAME,
Boston, January 14, 1856.
MY DEAR SUMNER,-Many thanks for your two last letters and the
various documents. If you could let me have a copy of the "Two
Quartos " for Desor, I would send it soon. It is a highly valuable
book admirably printed.
I am glad you found -     is in so good humor; he has a large
quantity of a low kind of conscientiousness which bears the same
relation to morality, that church-going and litany-repeating bears to
religion. And as he goes to Peabody's church of the Hunkers, and
after him repeats, " Have mercy on us miserable offenders," and calls
it "Christianity," so he abstains from voting, now he is judge, and
thinks thereby to be fair and just.  But the man has no more moral
intuitions than an ox.  In place of conscience he has attorney logic,
powers of deduction. I think him an exceedingly dangerous man to
be on the bench of the Supreme Court. If I were the people of the
United States I would reconstruct the judicial district, and his should
be limited to Nix's Mate in Boston Htarbor, or to the Thirteenth Ward
of Boston."    " Fenurn  habet in cornu, tu Romane, Caveto!"  We
will look after the impeachments. I think we had better limit our
efforts to Kane t at first; but yet I would have the petition so general
as to cover any case of attack upon the rights of man. We will have
one in motion at the Anti-slavery Convention in Boston, week after
next; some are already in progress (Wendell Phillips says) in the
country.
* A ward, namely, on the same footing as the Greek Kalends-nowhere at all.
+ Petitions for the impeachment of judges, like Kane of Philadelphia, who ruled to
convict men for a violation of the Fugitive Slave Bill.




158              LIFE  AND  CORRESPONDENCE  OF
You see what is done against the Personal Liberty Law     in the
General Court.  If there is any danger we will have a remonstrance,
and Wendell, and various others (T. P. amongst them) will appear
before the committee.  I fear nothing.  For just now  there is some
indignation against the President's message, and much  against the
Border ruffians, and I think  Massachusetts will not take  her tail
between her legs at the command of the Pavement (State Street), of
Hunkers.  But even if this should be done, and the law repealed, it
will be no ultimate harm, for it will only have the effect of an ambuscado, and will bring the enemy into a tight place. But I go for victory
in every skirmish.
I hope you will not be diverted from your course by anything which
the Hunkers say (or do) against the Liberty Law  (don't call it Billleave that term for the Fugitive Slave Bill). Now is the time for you to
strike a great blow.  The North is ready, and if you are at all, let it be
on the side of going too fast and too far, not the other. It will turn out
to your own advantage, as well as the success of the right.  For,1. The North feels insulted and outraged, though not yet brought
into peril-I wish she did feel that as I feel it-and will heartily
respond to a trumpet-note from a man who loves liberty.  She is tired
of the gong which the Whigs and others have been beating as a call
to dinner so long.
2. Gardner t is after your place.  He has set one eye on the Presidency or Vice-Presidency at least-the other on the Senatorsiip. His
chances are not contemptible, especially if all the Know-Nothing lodges
continue in full blast as now. If there is only a quantitative difference
between him  and you, I fear the result.  If there be a qualitative
difference as between light and darkness-and there really is that unlikeness in your aims and schemes-then I think Gardner goes into
private life, and you continue to serve the cause of justice in the Senate
of United States.  The more decided your course is against slavery,
and the further you depart from the Hunkers, the more secure is your
position.  So it seems to me.
I take this ground in my lectures and talks:1. Each State must practically interpret the Constitution for itself
in making its own laws.
2. The rendition clause must be interpreted to include only such
as justly owe service or labor, i. e. owe it on contract for a good and
sufficient consideration; and accordingly slaves do not come under that
clause at all, for no man can justly owe slave service, &c.
3. Each free State must make a law declaring all persons who enter
their borders free, and punish with imprisonment, in State's prison, not
less than five nor more than ten years, all who attempt to curtail them;
e Bill introduced into the Massachusetts Legislature to protect her citizens against the
operation of the Fugitive Slave Law, by emphasizing the State laws and opinions against
slave-catching. It must be understood, that the original clause in the Constitution of the
United States, from which the Fugitive Slave Bill purported to derive its. authority,
simply declared that persons escaping from service were to be given up, but left each
State to prescribe the method; and, of course, implicitly, in the interest of liberty, to'make it as difficult as possible.  Massachusetts refused the use of her prisons.
t A governor of Massachusetts, elected by Know-Nothing (Anti-Catholic) votes.




THEODORE  PARKER.                             159
must forbid all dealing in men on our soil, all engagement in the American slave-trade.
4. The Const. guarantees to  each  State  a  "republican form  of
Government; " this clause puts slavery in the Southern States as completely in the power of Congress as it puts Papism, Czarism, hereditary nobility, or hereditary monarchy. If South Carolina were to
establish a Government, exactly like that of Bome, to-day, Congress
would be bound to interfere and establish a republican form of Government.  Slavery is as much anti-republican as Papism.  Therefore, &c.
That is part of my card.
Now a word about the speakership. *
The open war between slavery and freedom is begun in two places,1. In Congress. (1.) In the Senate the slave power has taken the
committees, and fortified itself in that Sebastopol of despotism. (2.) In
the House the fight goes on, the slave power aiming to carry the committees as in the Senate already.
Here we must fight to the bitter end.
2. In Kansas. There the war is not by ballots but bullets.t  Just now
the Border ruffians are driven back.  It is only for a moment.  They
will return.  But it is sad to think that the only actual victory over
slavery attained in our time has been with Sharp's rifles.  My dear
Sumner, that looks ominous of the means by which we are to resist our
enemy.  Thank God, I can buy a sword without selling my shirt!
Now, I should as soon think of letting the Border ruffians into
Kansas, with their slaves, to organize the slave power in that territory
and take possession of the new soil, as I should of letting the Hunkers
into the speakership, with their ideas of despotism, to organize the
slave power in the committees of that body.  I would not yield if I
sat till the 4th of March, 1857, in permanent session. +
I take it, Kansas cannot this session come in as a free State.  It
might pass the House, not the Senate; or, if that, not the Cabinet; so
it goes over to the next Administration. If that is pro-slavery, see
what follows.  All the power of the new Cabinet will be directed to
put slavery into Kansas; and it may be successful-unless the thermometer stays at 17~ below 0 a good while. If slavery goes to Kansas,
it goes to all the territories, and then see what a fix we are in.
Now it seems to me possible, with the greatest skill and adroitness,
to carry the Presidency for the North.  For, there will be-(l,) conscience  Whigs;~  (2,) revolting Democrats; (3,) Northern Know* Alluding to the struggle for the election of Speaker of the House of Representatives,
who has great influence in the appointment of committees, &c.
+ Alludes to a toast once given at a public dinner by Hon. R. C. Winthrop, a member
of the old Whig party, -the substance of which was that ballots and bullets were the
only currency of a free people; a sentiment that is not realized in a way that the old
Whig party had anticipated.  But if the ballots of that party had been consistently and
sternly anti-slavery, the bullets might possibly have been dispensed with.
+ This struggle for the speakership resulted in the election of Mr. (now Major-General)
Banks, a Republican.
~ A term which arose during the war with Mexico, when a few Whigs refused to vote
for a resolution that war existed by the act of Mexico, simply because war existed
by the act of the United States, made upon Mexico by a Pro-slavery Administration,
with a view to the future extension of slavery.  It was not easy to vote against a war in
which the country was already engaged, and thus to refuse supplies for it. A few Whigs
did this.




160             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
Nothings; (4,) Republicans; (5,) the old anti-slavery organization,
Liberty-party men, Garrisonians, &c. All these will want a man who
favors the right. On the other side will be —(,) the straight Whigs;*
(2,) the Democrats (I mean the Satanic democracy); they will want a
strong slavery man of any stripe.
Can't we find a man thoroughly faithful to humanity, of large powers,
who can be elected?
Everything seems to favor us. There is a practical question in
Kansas and the territories; the South is arrogant, and the North
inclined to be mad.  God bless you!
THEODORE PA1IEKE.
FROM  THE JOURNAL.
April 2, 1856.-Saw the Kansas party go off, Dr. Charles K. Sanborn at their head, about forty, nearly half of them women and children. There were twenty copies of " Sharp's Rights of the People "t
in their hands, of the new and improved edition, and divers Colt's sixshooters also. As the bell rung for the train to move, they were
singing, " When I can read my title clear." One of the verses would
have some meaning:" Should earth against my soul engage,
And hellish darts be hurl'd,
Then I can smile at Satan's rage,
A face a frowning world."
But what a comment were the weapons of that company on the boasted
democracy of America! These rifles and pistols were to defend their
soil from the American Government, which wishes to plant slavery in
Kansas!
Capt. John Brown, of North Elba, a township in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, went to Kansas with his sons, not
so much to  help develope the embryo State's material as its
moral resources, and to do what he could to secure there a preponderance for freedom.  At Black Jack and  Osawatomie he
fired the first shots of the new revolution; they gave a practical
voice to the teachings of the Music Hall; for the prayers of the
old Presbyterian captain and the anti-supernatural preacher were
identical in substance and prophecy, and heard to advantage by
the same Father of both, who hates iniquity.  They were both
Democrats of the New America, whose tread we hear above the
graves of these two dear and noble sons; their lives well sepa* Those, namely, who would vote for anything that the dominant interest conceived
to be essential for the preservation of the Union and the "constitutional guarantees."
-their motto was, "' Our country, right or wrong "-whatever its boundaries might be.
The straight Whigs are responsible for a deal of crookedness.
t Sharp's Rifles.




THEODORE PARKER.                     161
rated religion from theology, their deaths in different ways have
made the same essential truths illustrious.
After Capt. Brown left Kansas, he devoted himself to the
organization of an attempt to weaken slavery by making raids
upon the Border States, whose effect would be, he supposed, to
create panic and distrust in  the slave-holders, and to excite
gradually such a desire for liberty in the blacks that, not content
with escaping, they would conspire and form bands in the mountains, centres of disaffection, and ultimately of revolution. What
his precise plans were was never known, with any thoroughness
of detail, to his friends. They were acquainted with his general
object, and thought that the time was good enough, in the
failure of political expedients, to try all possible methods of
injuring the great enemy of the country and of the rights of man.
Mr. Parker was one of five persons who constituted themselves a committee to aid John Brown in whatsoever attempts
he might choose to make to impair the institution of slavery.
He had established in Kansas a great reputation for coolness,
sagacity, and all manly traits; he hated the slave-holder and
loved his victim.  He had uniformly defeated the open or secret
efforts of men who had sworn to hunt him down and take his
life; and his success in taking a large body of negroes safe to
Canada, out of the very midst of the ruffians in the territory,
showed that he possessed ability for the kind of enterprise that
he premeditated.
The committee trusted him implicitly, and helped him  as far
as they could.  Mr. Parker never missed a meeting; he contributed from his own funds and raised money from others.  " I
have friends," he often said, "who will give me money, without,asking any questions, trusting that I will see it properly applied.
I can get limited supplies in this way."  He believed in John
Brown, but not in the success of any particular plan of his.
When a member of the committee called upon him to confer as
to the possibility of raising a sufficient sum of money to carry
on Brown's general work, he said, "I doubt whether things of
the kind will succeed.  But we shall make a great many failures before we discover the right way of getting at it.  This
may as well be one of them."
Capt. Brown would not pledge himself to carry out any special plan.  He wanted to be left free to make his own plan,
at the time and in the direction which might seem to him most
VOL. II.                                          X




162            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OP
promising.  Consequently, when the affair at Harper's Ferry
took place, the committee knew that it was John Brown's blow,
though he had not confided it to them.  Neither Mr. Parker
nor any other member of the committee endeavored to understand his movements in advance.
Before John Brown's last journey into Kansas, he left a document with Mr. Parker, which history has considerably improved
with her annotations and excursus.  It is written upon a half
sheet of paper; the letters tremble slightly in their downward
stroke, as if the fore-finger were conscious that it must not pull
a pen like a trigger:Old Brown's farewell to the Plymouth Rocks, Bunker Hill Monuments, Charter Oaks, and Uncle Thom's Cabins.
He has left for Kansas; was trying since he came out of the territory to secure an outfit, or, in other words, the means of arming and
tAoroughly equiping his regular minuet men who are mixed up with the
people of Kansas; and he leaves the States with a feeling of deepest
sadness; that after having exhausted his own small means, and with
his family and his brave men suffered hunger, cold, nakedness, and
some of them sickness, wounds, imprisonment, cruel treatment, and
others death; that after lying on the ground for months in the most
sickly, unwholesome, and uncomfortable places, with sick and wounded,
destitute of any shelter, and hunted like wolves; sustained and cared
for in part by Indians; that after all this, in order to sustain a cause
(which every citizen of this "glorious Republic" is under equal moral
obligation to do; and for the neglect of which he will be held accountable to God) in which every man, woman, and child of the entire
human family has a deep and awful interest; that when no wages are
asked or expected, he cannot secure (amidst all the wealth, luxury, and
extravagance of this "Heaven exalted" people) even the necessary
supplies of the common soldier,
JOaN BRowN.
Boston, April, A.D. 1857.
Here are letters from John Brown to Mr. Parker.  He writes
first from Tabor, where the rifles and revolvers were deposited,
which were subsequently removed to his hired house in Maryland:;
TO REV. THEODORE PARKER, BOSTON, MASS.
Tabor, Fremont Co., Iowa, Sept. 11, 1857.
MY DEAR SIR,-Please find on other side first number of a series o.f
tracts lately gotten up here. I need not say I did not prepare it, but
I would be glad to know what you think of it, and much obliged for
any suggestions you see proper to make.




THEODORE PARKER.                        163
My particular object in writing is to say that I am  in immediate
want of some 500 or 1000 dollars, for secret service, and no questions
asked. I want the friends of freedom to "prove me now herewith."
Will you bring this matter before your congregation, or exert your
influence in some way, to have it or some part of it raised, and placed
in the hands of Geo. L. Stearns, Esq., Boston, subject to my order?
I should highly prize a letter from you, directed on the envelope to
Jonas Jones, Esq., Tabor, Fremont Co., Iowa.
Have no news to send by letter.
Very respectfully your friend,
JOHN BRowN.
TO THE SAME.
American House, Boston, March 4, 1858.
M[Y DEAR SIR,-I shall be most happy to see you at my room (126)
in this house, at any and at all hours that may suit your own convenience, or that of friends. Mr. Sanborn asked me to be here by Friday
evening or before, and as I was anxious to have all the time I could get,
I came on at once. Please call by yourself and with friends as you
can. Please inquire for Mr. (not Capt.) Brown, of New York.
Your friend,
JOHN BRowN.
TO THIE SAME.
Rochester, N.Y., Feb. 2, 1858.
MY DEAR SIR,-I am  again out of Kansas, and am at this time
concealing my whereabouts, but for very different reasons, however,
than those I had for doing so at Boston last spring. I have nearly
perfected arrangements for carrying out an important measure, in
which the world has a deep interest, as well as Kansas, and only lack
from  500 to 800 dollars to enable me to do so. The same object
for which I asked for secret-service money last Fall. It is my only
errand here, and I have written some of our mutual friends in regard
to it, but none of them understand my views so well as you do; and I
cannot explain without their first committing themselves more than I
know of their doing. I have heard that Parker Pillsbury, and some
others in your quarter, hold out ideas similar to those on which I act,
but I have no personal acquaintance with them, and know nothing of
their influence or means.  Cannot you either by direct or indirect
action do something to further me? Do you not know of some parties
whom  you could induce to give their abolition theories a thorough
practical shape?  I hope this will prove to be the last time I shall be
driven to harass a friend in such a way. Do you think any of my
Garrisonian friends either at Boston, Worcester, or in any other place,
can be induced to supply a little " straw," if I will absolutely make
"bricks"?
I have written George L. Stearns, Esq., of Medford, and iMr. F. B.
Sanborn, of Concord, but I am not informed as to how deeply dyed




164             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
Abolitionists those friends are, and must beg of you to consider this
communication strictly confidential, unless you know of parties who
will feel, and act, and hold their peace. I want to bring the thing
about during the next sixty days. Please write, N. Hawkins, care
William J. Watkins, Esq., Rochester, New York.
Very respectfully your friend,
JOHN BnowN.
TO THE SAME.
Boston, Mass., March 7, 1858.
MY DEAR SIR,-Since you know that I have an almost countless
brood of poor hungry chickens to " scratch for," you will not reproach
me for scratching even on the Sabbath. At any rate I trust God will
not.  I want you to undertake to provide a substitute for an address
you saw last season, directed to the officers and soldiers of the United
States army. The ideas contained in that address I, of course, like, for
I furnished the skeleton. I never had the ability to clothe those ideas
in language at all to satisfy myself, and I was by no means satisfied
with the style of that address, and do not know as I can give any
correct idea of what I want.  I will, however, "try."  In the first
place, it must be short, or it will not be generally read.  It must be in
the simplest or plainest language; without the least affectation of the
scholar about it, and yet be worded with great clearness and power.
The anonymous writer must (in the language of the Paddy) be "after
others," and not "after himself, at all, at all."  If the spirit that
" communicated" Franklin's Poor Richard (or some other good spirit)
would dictate, I think it would be quite as well employed as the " dear
sister spirits" have been for some years past. The address should be
appropriate, and particularly adapted to the peculiar circumstances we
anticipate, and should look to the actual change of service from that of
Satan to the service of God. It should be, in short, a most earnest
and powerful appeal to man's sense of right, and to their feelings of
humanity.  Soldiers are men, and no man can certainly calculate the
value and importance of getting a single "nail into old Captain Kidd's
chest."  It should be provided beforehand, and be ready in advance to
distribute, by all persons, male and female, who may be disposed to favor
the right.
I also want a similar short address, appropriate to the peculiar
circumstances, intended for all persons, old and young, male and
female, slave-holding and non-slave-holding, to be sent out broadcast
over the entire nation. So by every male and female prisoner on being
set at liberty, and to be read by them  during confinement. I know
that men will listen, and reflect too, under such  circumstances.
Persons will hear your anti-slavery lectures, or abolition lectures, when
they have become virtually slaves themselves. The impressions made
on prisoners by kindness and plain dealing, instead of barbarous and
cruel treatment, such as they might give, and instead of being
slaughtered like vile reptiles, as they might very naturally expect, are
not only powerful, but lasting.  Females are susceptible of being
carried away entirely by the kindness of an intrepid and magnanimous




THEODORE PARKER.                         165
soldier, even when his bare name was a terror but the day previous.
Now, dear sir, I have told you about as well as I know how to, what I
am anxious at once to secure. Will you write the tracts, or get them
written, so that I may commence "colporteur"?
Very respectfully your friend,
JoHN BROWN.
P.S.-If I should never see you again, please drop me a line (enclosed
to Stephen Smith, Esq., Lombard Street, Philadelphia) at once, saying
what you will encourage me to expect. You are at liberty to make
every prudent use of this to stir up any friend. Yours for the right,
J. B.
The attempt at Harper's Ferry was not made till the autumn
of 185 9, more than a year and a half after the date of this letter.
In the meantime Mir. Parker had left the country.
John Brown's final plan was betrayed to the Government by
this anonymous letter, which was addressed to the Secretary of
War:Cincinnati, Aug. 20, 1859.
SIR,-I have lately received information of a movement of so great
importance, that I feel it to be my duty to impart it to you without
delay. I have discovered the existence of a secret association, having
for its object the liberation of the slaves at the South by a general
insurrection. The leader of the movement is old John Brown, late of
Kansas. He has been in Canada during the winter, drilling the negroes
there, and they are only waiting his word to start for the South to assist
the slaves.  They have one of the leading men, a white man, in- an
armory in Maryland; where it is situated I have not been able to learn.
As soon as everything is ready, those of their number, who are in the
Northern States and Canada, are to come in small companies to their
rendezvous, which is in the mountains in Virginia. They will pass
clown through Pennsylvania and Maryland, and enter Virginia at Harper's
Ferry.  Brown left the North about three or four weeks ago, and will
arm the negroes and strike the blow in a few weeks, and so that whatever is done must be done at once. They have a large quantity of arms.at their rendezvous, and probably distributing them already. As I am
not fully in their confidence this is all the information I can give you.
I dare not sign my name to this, but I trust you will not disregard the
warning on that account.
But the Secretary took  no notice of this warning, either
deeming the enterprise preposterous, or desiring that just such ant
a/ctempt as that might be made, to confirm  the disunion feeling,of the South; for Southern politicians were meditating the conspiracy in whose interest this very Secretary (John B. Floyd)
was at that time removing arms of the United States from
Northern to Southern arsenals.




166             LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
In the night of Sunday, October 16, John Brown took possession of the arsenal at Harper's Ferry.  A  few  details * of his
demeanor subsequent to his surrender, will fitly  introduce the
letter which Mr. Parker wrote from Rome, when he heard of the
trial and sentence of his friend.
While the dead and wounded yet lay on the lawn before the enginehouse, Brown was assailed with questions by the bystanders, " which,"
the Baltimore American says, "he answered clearly and freely.  He
talked calmly to those about him, defending his course, and avowing
that he had only done what was right." The modesty of genuine worth
speaks out in his characteristic answers to two of the questions put to
him.
Are you Captain Brown, of KIansas?'
"I am sometimes called so."
" He never assumed the title of Captain," says Redpath,t "even in
Kansas, where titles were as common as proper names.'
" Are you Osawatomie Brown?"
" I tried to do my duty there."
In the words of Redpath, "This sentence was a key to his whole
life.  Neither honor nor glory moved him; the voice of duty was the
only one he heard."
WAhen asked if he expected to kill people, in order to carry his point,
he answered, " I did not wish to do so, but you forced us to it."  He
reminded the questioners that he had the town at his mercy; that he
could have burnt it, and murdered the inhabitants, but did not; he had
treated the prisoners with courtesy.  "His conversation,"  says the
American, " bore the impression of the conviction that whatever he had
done to free slaves, was right, and that in the warfare in which he was
engaged, he was entitled to be treated with all the respect of a prisoner
of war."
To some of Mason's + questions Brown replied, "I could easily have
saved myself had I exercised my own better judgment rather than
yielded to my feelings.  I had the means to make myself secure without any escape, but I allowed myself to be surrounded by being too
tardy. I should have gone away, but I had thirty odd prisoners, whose
wives and daughters were in tears for their safety; and I felt for them.
Besides, I wanted to allay the fears of those who believed we came here
to burn and kill. For this reason, I allowed the train to cross the
bridge, and gave them full liberty to pass on. I did it only to spare
the feelings of those passengers and their families, and to allay the
apprehensions that you had got here, in your vicinity, a band of men
who had no regard for life and property, nor any feelings of humanity.'
When asked his object in coming there, he answered, "We came to
* "The Anti-Slavery History of the John Brown Year; being the Twenty-seventh:
Annual Report of the American Anti-Slavery Society."
t Author of a Life of Capt. John Brown.
e Senator Mason, of Virginia, the author of the Fugitive Slave Bill, and now (1863)
agent of the Southern Rebellion in London.




THEODORE PARKER.                          1 67
free the slaves, and only that."  "How  do you justify your acts?"
I think I did right, and that others will do right who interfere with
you, at any time and at all times.  I hold that the golden rule-' Do
unto others as you would that others should do unto you'-applies to
all who would help others to gain their liberty."  To a bystander who
put, in substance, the same question, some time after, he replied, " Upon
the golden rule-I pity the poor in bondage, that have none to help
them; that is why I am here, not to gratify any personal animosity,
revenge, or vindictive spirit.  It is my sympathy with the oppressed
and the wronged, that are as good. as you, and as precious in the sight
of God."  To another question, he said (telling the reporter, " You may
report that "), " I want you to understand that I respect the rights of
the poorest and weakest of colored people, oppressed by the slave
system, just as much as I do those of the most wealthy and powerful.
That is the idea that has moved me, and that alone.  We expected no
reward, except the satisfaction of endeavoring to do for those in
distress and greatly oppressed as we would be done by.  The cry of
distress of the oppressed is my reason, and the only thing that prompted
me to come here." " Why did you do it secretly?" "Because I thought
that necessary to success; for no other reason."  When asked if he
had seen Gerritt Smith's letter, which, according to the New  York
Herald of the day before, " speaks of the folly of attempting to strike
the shackles off the slaves by the force of moral suasion or legal agitation, and predicts that the next movement made, in the direction of
negro emancipation would be an insurrection in the South," he said,
I have not seen the New York Herald for some days past; but I
presume from your remark about the gist of the letter that I should
concur with it. I agree with Mr. Smith that moral suasion is hopeless.
I don't think the people of the Slave States will ever consider the subject of slavery in its true light, till some other argument is resorted to
than moral suasion."   Vallandighamn  * asked, "Did you expect a
general rising of the slaves in case of your success?"  "No, sir,
nor did I wish it.  I expected to gather them up from  time to time,
and set them  free."  "Did you expect to hold possession here till
then? "  "Well, probably, I had quite a different idea.  I do not
know that I ought to reveal my plans.  I am here a prisoner, and
wounded, because I foolishly allowed myself to be so. You overrate
your strength in supposing I could have been taken if I had not
allowed it. I was too tardy after commencing the open attack, —in
delaying my movements through Monday night, and up to the time I
was attacked by the Government troops.  It was all occasioned by my
desire to spare the feelings of my prisoners, and their families, and the
community at large."  The reporter having offered to report anything
further he would like to say, he answered, "I have nothing to say,
only that I claim to be here in carrying out a measure I believe perfectly justifiable, and not to act the part of an incendiary or ruffian;'out to aid those suffering great wrong. I wish to say, furthermore,
that you had better, all you people at the South, prepare yourselves
* At that time a member of the House of Representatives; at present (1863) the
candidate of the Southern Rebellion for the gubernatorial chair of Ohio,




168            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
for a settlement of this question, that must come up for settlement,
sooner than you are prepared for it. The sooner you are prepared, the
better. You may dispose of me very easily.  I am nearly disposed of
iow; but this question is still to be settled-this negro question, I
mean: the end of that is not yet. These wounds were inflicted upon
me- both sabre cuts on my head, and bayonet stabs in different parts
of my body-some minutes after I had ceased fighting, and had consented to surrender, for the benefit of others, not for my own" [this
statement was vehemently denied by all around]. " I believe the Major"
[meaning Lieut. Stuart, of the United States Cavalry] " would not have
been alive but for that; I could have killed him just as easy as a
mosquito, when he came in; but I supposed he only came to receive
our surrender.  There had been loud and long calls of'Surrender'
from us, as loud as men could yell; but in the confusion and excitement, I suppose we were not heard. I do not think the Major, or any
one, meant to butcher us after we had surrendered."  An officer here
stated that the Marines had fired only when fired upon; but Brown
insisted that they fired first. He was asked why he did not surrender
before the attack. " I did not think it was my duty or interest to do so.
We assured the prisoners that we did not wish to harm them, and they
should be set at liberty. I exercised my best judgment, not believing
the people would wantonly sacrifice their own fellow-citizens, when we
offered to let them go, on condition of being allowed to change our
position about a quarter of a mile.  The prisoners agreed, by vote
among themselves, to pass across the bridge with us. We wanted them
only as a sort of guarantee of our own safety; that we should not be
fired into. We took them, in the first place, as hostages, and to keep
them from doing any harm.  We did kill some men in defending ourselves: but I saw no one fire except directly in self-defence.  Our
orders were strict, not to harm any one not in arms against us."
" Suppose you had every nigger in the United States, what would you
do with them?"  With emphasis, "Set them  free! "  "Your intention was to carry them off and free them?"  " Not at all."  " Was
it your only object to free the negroes?"  "Absolutely, our only
object."  "But you demanded and took Col. Washington's silver and
watch."  "Yes: we intended freely to appropriate the property of
slave-holders to carry out our object. It was that, and only that, and
with no desire to enrich ourselves with any plunder whatever."
Yallandigham, in these words, gives the impression made on him by
his contact with the unvanquished captive:-" Captain John Brown is
as brave and resolute a man as ever headed an insurrection, and, in a
good cause and with a sufficient force, would have been a consummate
partisan commander.  He has coolness, daring, persistency, the Stoic
faith and patience, and a firmness of will and purpose unconquerable.
He is the farthest possible remove from the ordinary ruffian, fanatic, or
madman."
When asked by Colonel Smith, who paid him a visit in company with
a son of Governor Wise, "If he desired a clergyman to administer to
him the consolations of religion," he answered that " he recognized no
slave-holder, lay or clerical, nor any sympathizer with slavery, as a
Christian."  He gave the same reason afterwards for his refusal to




THEODORE PARKER.                         169
accept the services of some clergymen who called upon him. He said
he would as soon be attended to the scaffold by blacklegs or robbers of
the worst kind, as by slave-holding ministers, or ministers sympathizing
with slavery; and that, if he had his choice, he would rather be followed to the scaffold by barefooted, barelegged, ragged negro children,
and their old grey-headed slave mothers, than by clergymen of this
character.  He would feel, he said, much prouder of such an escort, and
wished he could have it.  He told clergymen who called upon him,
that they, and all slave-holders and sympathizers with slavery, had far
more need of prayers themselves than he had, and he accordingly
advised them to pray for themselves, and exhibit no concern about
him. While making these remarks, he requested that he might not be
understood as designing to offer any insult.  In a letter to an antislavery minister, in Ohio, he said, " There are no ministers of Christ
here.  These ministers who profess to be Christian and hold slaves or
advocate slavery, I cannot abide them. My knees will not bend in
prayer with them, while their hands are stained with the blood of
souls."
His minister was in a foreign land, also soon to offer himself
up a sacrifice and testimony to the convictions of a lifetime.
As he was about leaving the gaol, a black woman with her little child
in her arms, stood near his way. He stopped for a moment in his
course, stooped over, and, with the tenderness of one whose love is as
broad as the brotherhood of man, kissed it affectionately. "That mother,"
says the Tribune's correspondent, in relating the incident, "will be
proud of that mark of distinction for her offspring; and some day, when
over the ashes of John Brown the temple of Virginian liberty is reared,
she may join in the joyful song of praise which, on that soil, will do
justice to his memory."  The same writer says, " On leaving the gaol,
John Brown had on his face an expression of calmness and serenity
characteristic of the patriot who is about to die with a living consciousness that he is laying down his life for the good of his fellowcreatures. His face was even joyous, and a forgiving smile rested upon
his lips. His was the lightest heart, among friends or foes, in the
whole of Charlestown that day, and not a word was spoken that was
not an intuitive appreciation of his manly courage. Firmly, and with
~elastic step, he moved forward. He mounted the waggon which was to
convey him  to the scaffold, and took his seat with Captain Avis,
the gaoler-whose admiration of his prisoner is of the profoundest
nature.  Mr, Sadler, the undertaker, rode with them.  He, too, was
one of Brown's staunchest friends in his confinement, and pays a noble
tribute to his manly qualities. I was very near the old man, and
scrutinized him  closely.  He seemed to take in the whole scene at
a glance, and he straightened himself up proudly, as if to set to the
soldiers an example of a soldier's courage. He remarked on the beauty
of the country, " the more beautiful " to him, because he had " so long
been shut from it."  "You are more cheerful than I am, Captain
Brown," said Mr. Sadler. " Yes," said the Captain, " I ought to be."




I70             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
TO FRANCIS JACKSON.
Rome, Nov. 24, 1859.
M3Y DEAR FRIEND, —I see by a recent telegraph which the steamer
of Nov. 2nd brought from Boston, that the Court found Capt. Brown
guilty, and passed sentence upon him. It is said Friday, Dec. 2nd,
is fixed as the day for hanging him.  So, long before this reaches you,
my friend will have passed on to the reward of his magnanimous public
services, and his pure, upright private life. I am not well enough to
be the minister to any congregation, least of all to one like that which,
for so many years, helped my soul while it listened to my words.
Surely, the 28th Congregational Society in Boston needs a minister,
not half dead, but alive all over; and yet, while reading the accounts
of the affair at Harper's Ferry, and of the sayings of certain men at
Boston, whom you and I know only too well, I could not help wishing
I was at home again to use what poor remnant of power is left to me in
defence of the True and the Right.
America is rich in able men, in skilful writers, in ready and accomplished speakers. But few men dare treat public affairs with reference to the great principles of justice and the American Democracy;
nay, few with reference to any remote future, or even with a comprehensive survey of the present.  Our public writers ask what effect will
this opinion have on the Democratic party, or the Republican party?
how will it affect the Presidential election? what will the great State
of Pennsylvania, or Ohio, or New York say to it? This is very unfortunate for us all, especially when the people have to deal practically,
and that speedily, with a question concerning the very existence of
Democratic institutions in America; for it is not to be denied that we
must give up DEMOCRACY if we keep SLAVERY, or give up SLAVERY if
we keep DEMOCRACY.
I greatly deplore this state of things. Our able men fail to perform
their natural function, to give valuable instruction and advice to the
people; and at the same time they debase and degrade themselves.
The hurrahs and the offices they get are poor compensation for falseness to their own consciences.
In my best estate, I do not pretend to much political wisdom, and
still less now while sick; but I wish yet to set down a few thoughts
for your private eye, and, it may be, for the ear of the Fraternity.
They are, at least, the result of long meditation on the subject.
besides, they are not at all new nor peculiar to me, but are a part of
the public knowledge of all enlightened men.
1. A MAN HELD AGAINST HIS WILL AS A SLAVE HAS A NATURAL
RIGHT TO KILL EVERY ONE WHO SEEKS TO PREVENT HIS ENJOYMENT
OF LIBERTY. This has long been recognized as a self-evident proposition, coming so directly from the primitive instincts of human nature,
that it neither required proofs nor admitted them.
2. IT MAY BE A NATURAL DUTY OF THE SLAVE TO DEVELOPE THIS,
NATURAL RIGHT IN A PRACTICAL MANNER, AND ACTUALLY KILL ALL.
THOSE WHO SEEK TO PREVENT HIIS ENJOYMENT OF LIBERTY. For if
he continue patiently in bondage-First, he entails the foulest of




THEODORE PARKER.                        171
curses on his children; and, second, he encourages other men to
commit the crime against nature which he allows his own master to
commit. It is my duty to preserve my own body from starvation. If
I fail thereof through sloth, I not only die, but incur the contempt
and loathing of my acquaintances while I live. It is not less my duty
to do all that is in my power to preserve my body and soul from
slavery; and if I submit to that through cowardice, I not only become
a bondman and suffer what thraldom inflicts, but I incur also the contempt and loathing of my acquaintance. Why do freemen scorn and
despise a slave? Because they think his condition is a sign of his
cowardice, and believe that he ought to prefer death to bondage. The
Southerners hold the Africans in great contempt, though mothers of
their children. Why?  Simply because the Africans are slaves; that
is, because the Africans fail to perform the natural duty of securing
freedom by killing their oppressors.
3. THE FREEMAN IHAS A NATURAL RIGHT TO HELP THE SLAVES
RECOVER THEIR LIBERTY, AND IN  THAT ENTERPRISE TO DO FOR
THEM ALL WHICH THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO DO FOR THEMSELVES.
This statement, I think, requires no argument or illustration.
4. IT IMAY BE A NATURALL DUTY FOR THE FREEMANI TO HELP THE
SLAVES TO THE ENJOYMENT OF THEIR LIBERTY, AND AS IMEANS TO
THAT E ND, TO AID THEM  IN KILLING ALL SUICH AS OPPOSE THEIR
NATURAL FREEDOM.
If you were attacked by a wolf, I should not only have a right to aid
you in getting rid of that enemy, but it would be my DUTY to help
you in proportion to my power. If it were a MURDERER, and not a
wolf, who attacked you, the duty would be still the same. Suppose it
is not a murderer who would kill you, but a KIDNAPPER who would
enslave, does that make it less my duty to help you out of the
hands of your enemy?  Suppose he is not a kidnapper who would
make you a bondman, but a SLAVEHOLDER who would keep you one,
does that remove my obligation to help you?
5. THE PERFOBRMANCE OF THIS DUTY IS TO BE CONTROLLED BY
THE FREEMAN' S POWER AND OPPORTUNITY TO HELP THE SLAVES.
(The impossible is never the obligatory).  I cannot help the slaves in
Dahomey or Bornou, and am not bound to try. I can help those who
escape to my own neighborhood, and I ought to do so. My duty is
commensurate with my power; and as my power increases my duty
enlarges along with it. If I could help the bondmen in Virginia to
their freedom as easy and effectually as I can aid the runaway at my
own door, then I OUGHT to do so.
These five maxims have a direct application to America at this day,
and the people of the Free States have a certain dinm perception
thereof, which, fortunately, is becoming clearer every year.
Thus, the people of Massachusetts feel that they ought to protect
the fugitive slaves who come into our State. Hence come first, the
irregular attempts to secure their liberty, and the declarations of noble
men, like Timothy Gilbert, George W. Carnes, and others, that they
will do so even at great personal risk; and, secondly, the statute laws
made by the Legislature to accomplish that end.
Now, if Massachusetts had the power to do as much for the slaves




I 72            LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
in Virginia as for the runaways in her own territory, we should soon
see those two sets of measures at work in that direction also.
I find it is said in the Democratic newspapers that " Capt. Brown
had many friends at the North, who sympathized with him in general,
and in special approved of this particular scheme of his; they furnished
him with some twelve or twenty thousand dollars, it would seem."  I
think much more than that is true of us. If he had succeeded in
running off one or two thousand slaves to Canada, even at the expense
of a little violence and bloodshed, the majority of men in New England
would have rejoiced, not only in the end, but also in the n2eans. The first
successful attempt of a considerable number of slaves to secure their
freedom by violence will clearly show how deep is the sympathy of the
people for them, and how strongly they embrace the five principles I
mentioned above. A little success of that sort will serve as priming
for the popular cannon; it is already loaded.
Of course, I was not astonished to hear that an attempt had been
made to free the slaves in a certain part of Virginia, nor should I be
astonished if another " insurrection " or " rebellion " took place in the
State of -, or a third in   -, or a fourth in. Such things
are to be expected; for they do not depend merely on the private will
of men like Capt. Brown and his associates, but on the great general
causes which move all human kind to hate Wrong and love Right.
Such " insurrections " will continue as long as Slavery lasts, and will
increase, both in frequency and in power just as the people become
intelligent and moral. Virginia may hang John Brown and all that
family, but she cannot hang the HUTMAN RACE; and until that is done
noble men will rejoice in the motto of that once magnanimous State" Sic senper Tyrannis! " " Let such be the end of every oppressor."
It is a good Anti-Slavery picture on the Virginia shield-a man
standing on a tyrant and chopping his head off with a sword; only I
would paint the sword-holder black and the tyrant white, to show the
immediate application of the principle.  The American people will have
to march to rather severe music, I think, and it is better for them to
face it in season. A few years ago it did not seem difficult first to
check Slavery, and then to end it without any bloodshed.  I think this
cannot be done now, nor ever in the future.  All the great charters of
HUMANITY have been writ in blood. I once hoped that of American
Democracy would be engrossed in less costly ink; but it is plain, now,
that our pilgrimage must lead through a Red Sea., wherein many a
Pharaoh will go under and perish. Alas! that we are not wise enough
to be just, or just enough to be wise, and so gain much at small cost!
Look, now, at a few notorious facts:
I. There are four million slaves in the United States violently withheld from their natural right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Now, they are our fellow-countrymen-yours and mine, just as
much as any four million white men.  Of course, you and I owe them
the duty which one man owes another of his own nation,-the duty
of instruction, advice, and protection of natural rights.  If they are
starving, we ought to help feed them.  The color of their slins, their
degraded social condition, their ignorance, abates nothing from their
natural claim on us, or from our natural duty toward them.




THEODORE PARKE.R,                       173
There are men in all the Northern States who feel the obligation
which citizenship imposes on them-the duty to help those slaves.
Hence arose the ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, which seeks simply to excite
the white people to perform their natural duty to their dark fellowcountrymen.  Hence comes CAPT. BROwN's EXPEDITION-an attempt
to help his countrymen enjoy their natural right to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness.
He sought by violence what the Anti-Slavery Society works for with
other weapons. The two agree in the end, and differ only in the
means. Men like Capt. Brown will be continually rising up among
the white people of the Free States, attempting to do their natural
duty to their black countrymen-that is, help them to freedom. Some
of these efforts will be successful. Thus, last winter Capt. Brown
himself escorted eleven of his countrymen from bondage in Missouri
to freedom in Canada. He did not snap a gun, I think, although then,
as more recently, he had his fighting tools at hand, and would have
used them, if necessary. Even now, the Underground Railroad is in
constant and beneficent operation. By-and-bye, it will be an Overground Railroad from Mason and Dixon's line clear to Canada: the
only tunneling will be in the Slave States. Northern men applaud
the brave conductors of that Locomotive of Liberty.
When Thomas Garrett was introduced to a meeting of political
Free-Soilers in Boston, as "the man who had helped 1800 slaves to
their natural liberty," even that meeting gave the righteous Quaker
three times three. All honest Northern hearts beat with admiration of
such men; nay, with love for them. Young lads say, " I wish that
Heaven would make me such a man."  The wish will now and then be
father to the fact. You and I have had opportunity enough, in twenty
years, to see that this] philanthropic patriotism is on the increase at
the North, and the special direction it takes is toward the liberation of
their countrymen in bondage.
Not many years ago, Boston sent money to help the Greeks in their
struggle for political freedom  (they never quite lost their personal
liberty), but with the money she sent what was more valuable and far
more precious, one of her most valiant and heroic sons, who stayed in
Greece to fight the great battle of Humanity. Did your friend, Dr.
Samuel G. Howe, lose the esteem of New England men by that act?
le won the admiration of Europe, and holds it still.
Nay, still later, the same dear old Boston-Hunkers have never
been more than rats and mice in her house, which she suffers for a
time, and then drives out twelve hundred of them at once on a certain
day of 3March, 1776,-that same dear old Boston sent the same Dr.
Howe to carry aid and comfort to the Poles, then in deadly struggle
for their political existence. Was he disgraced because he lay sevenand-forty days in a Prussian gaol in Berlin?  Not even in the eyes of
the Prussian King, who afterwards sent him a gold medal, whose metal
was worth as many dollars as that philanthropist lay days in the
despot's gaol. It is said, "Charity should begin at home."  The
American began a good ways off, but has been working homeward ever
since. The Dr. Howe of to-day would and ought to be more ready to
help an American to personal liberty, than a Pole or a Greek to mere




174             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
political freedom, and would find more men to furnish aid and comfort
to our own countrymen, even if they were black. It would not
surprise me if there were other and well-planned attempts in other
States to do what Captain Brown heroically, if not successfully, tried
in Virginia.  Nine out of ten may fail-the tenth will succeed. The
victory over Gen. Burgoyne more than made up for all the losses in
many a previous defeat; it was the beginning of the end.  Slavery
will not die a dry death, it may have as many lives as a cat; at last, it
will die like a mad dog in a village, with only the enemies of the
human kind to lament its fate, and they too cowardly to appear as
mourners.
II. But it is not merely white men who will fight for the liberty of
Americans; the negroes will take their defence into their own hands,
especially if they can find white men to lead them.  No doubt, the
African race is greatly inferior to the Caucasian in general intellectual
power, and also in that instinct for Liberty which is so strong in the
Teutonic family, and just now obvious in the Anglo-Saxons of Britain
and America; besides, the African race have but little desire for
vengeance-the lowest form  of the love of justice.  HIere is one
example out of many: In Santa Cruz, the old slave laws were the
most horrible, I think, I ever read of in modern times, unless those of
the Carolinas be an exception. If a slave excited others to run away,
for the first offence his right leg was to be cut off; for the second offence,
his other leg. This mutilation was not to be done by a surgeon's
hand; the poor wretch was laid down on a log, and his legs chopped
off with a plantation axe, and the stumps plunged into boiling pitch to
stanch the blood, and to save the property from entire destruction; for
the live Torso of a slave might serve as a warning.  No action of a
Court was requisite to inflict this punishment; any master could thus
mutilate his bondman. Even from  1830 to 1846, it was common for
owners to beat their offending victims with " tamarind rods " six feet
long and an inch in thickness at the bigger end-rods thick set with
ugly thorns.  When that process was over, the lacerated back was
washed with a decoction of the Manchineel, a poison tree, which made
the wounds fester, and long remain open.
In 1846, the negroes were in " rebellion," and took possession of the
island; they were 25,000, the whites 3000. But the blacks did not
hurt the hair of a white man's head; they got their freedom, but they
took no revenge!  Suppose 25,000 Americans, held in bondage by
3000 Algerines on a little island, should get their masters into their
hands, how many of the 3000 would see the next sun go down?
No doubt, it is through the absence of this desire of natural
vengeance, that the Africans have been reduced to bondage, and kept
in it.
But there is a limit even to the negro's forbearance.  San Domingo is
not a great way off. The revolution which changed its black inhabitants
from tame slaves into wild men, took place after you had ceased to call
yourself a boy.
It shows what may be in America, with no white man to help. In the
Slave States, there is many a possible San Domingo, which may become
actual any day; and, if not in 1860, then in some other ".year of our




THEODORE PARKER.                        175
Lord." Besides, America offers more than any other country to excite
the slave to love of Liberty, and the effort for it.  We are always
talking about " Liberty," boasting that we are " the freest people in the
world," declaring that " a man would die, rather than be a slave." We
continually praise our Fathers "who fought the Revolution."  We
build monuments to commemorate even the humblest beginning of that
great national work.  Once a year, we stop all ordinary work, and give
up a whole day to the noisiest kind of rejoicing for the War of Independence.  How we praise the "champions of Liberty"!  How we
point out the " infamy of the British oppressors"! "They would make
our Fathers slaves," say we, " and we slew the oppressor-Sic SEMPxE
TYRANNIS!
Do you suppose this will fail to produce its effect on the black man,
one day?  The South must either give up keeping " Independence
Day," or else keep it in a little more thorough fashion. Nor is this
all: the Southerners are continually taunting the negroes with their
miserable nature. " You are only half human," say they, "not capable
of freedom." " Hay is good for horses, not for hogs," said the philosophic
American who now " represents the great Democracy" at the Court of
Turin. So, liberty is good for white men, not for negroes. Have they
souls?  I don't know that-non mi recordo.  " Contempt," says the
proverb, "will cut through the shell of the tortoise."  And, one day,
even the sluggish African will wake up under the three-fold stimulus of
the Fourth of July cannon, the whip of the slaveholder, and the sting
of his heartless mockery. Then, if "oppression maketh wise men
mad," what do you think it will do to African slaves, who are familiar
with scenes of violence, and all manner of cruelty?  Still more: if the
negroes have not general power of mind, or instinctive love of liberty,
equal to the whites, they are much our superiors in power of cunning,
and in contempt for death —rather formidable qualities in a servile war.
There already have been several risings of slaves in this century; they
spread fear and consternation. The future will be more terrible. Now,
in case of an insurrection, not only is there, as Jefferson said, " no
attribute of the Almighty" which can take sides with the master, but
there will be many white men who will take part with the slave.  Men,
like the Lafayettes of the last century, and the Dr. Howes of this, may
give the insurgent negro as effectual aid as that once rendered to
America and Greece; and the public opinion of an enlightened world
will rank them among its heroes of noblest mark.
If I remember rightly, some of your fathers were in the battle of
Lexington, and that at Bunker Hill. I believe, in the course of the
war which followed, every able-bodied man in your town (Newton) was
in actual service.  Now-a-days, their descendants are proud of the fact.
One day, it will be thought not less heroic for a negro to fight for his
personal liberty, than for a white man to fight for political independence,
and against a tax of threepence a pound on tea. Wait a little, and
things will come round.
III. The existence of Slavery endangers all our Democratic institutions. It does this if only tolerated as an exceptional measure-a
matter of present convenience, and still more when proclaimed as an
instantial principle, a rule of political conduct for all time and every




176            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
place. Look at this: In 1790, there were (say) 300,000 slaves; soon
they make their first doubling, and are 600,000; then their second,
1,200,000; then their third, 2,400,000. They are now in the process
of doubling the fourth time, and will soon be 4,800,000; then comes
the fifth double, 9,600,000; then the sixth, 19,200,000. Before the
year of our Lord nineteen hundred, there will be twenty million
slaves!
An Anglo-Saxon with common sense does not like this Africanization
of America; he wishes the superior race to multiply rather than the
inferior. Besides, it is plain to a one-eyed man that Slavery is an
irreconcilable enemy of the progressive development of Democracy;
that, if allowed to exist, it must be allowed to spread, to gain political,
social, and ecclesiastical power; and all that it gains for the slaveholders
is just so much taken from the freemen.
Look at this-there are twenty Southern Representatives who represent nothing but property in man, and yet their vote counts as much
in Congress as the twenty Northerners who stand for the will of
1,800,000 freemen. Slavery gives the South the same advantage in
the choice of President; consequently the slaveholding South has long
controlled the Federal Power of the nation.
Look at the recent acts of the Slave Power! The Fugitive Slave
Bill, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the Dred Scott decision, the filibustering against Cuba (till found too strong), and now against Mexico and
other feeble neighbors, and, to crown all, the actual re-opening of the
African slave-trade!
The South has kidnapped men in Boston, and made the Judges of
Massachusetts go under her symbolic chain to enter the courts of justice (!). She has burned houses and butchered innocent men in Kansas,
and the perpetrators of that wickedness were rewarded by the Federal
Government with high office and great pay! Those things are notorious; they have stirred up some little indignation at the North, and
freemen begin to think of defending their liberty.  Hence came the
Free-Soil party, and hence the Republican party-it contemplates no
direct benefit to the slave, only the defence of the white man in his
national rights, or his conventional privileges. It will grow stronger
every year, and also bolder. It must lay down principles as a platform
to work its measures on; the principles will be found to require much
more than what was at first proposed, and even from this platform
Republicans will promptly see that they cannot defend the natural rights
of freemen without destroying that Slavery which takes away the natural
rights of a negro.  So, first, the wise and just men of the party will
sympathize with such as seek to liberate the slaves, either peacefully or
by violence; next, they will declare their opinions in public; and,
finally, the whole body of the party will come to the same sympathy
and the same opinion. Then, of course, they will encourage men like
Captain Brown, give him  money and all manner of help, and also
encourage the slaves whenever they shall rise to take their liberty, at all
hazards. When called to help put down an insurrection of the slaves,
they will go readily enough and do the work by removing the cause of
insurrection-that is —by destroying Slavery itself
An Anti-Slavery party, under one name or another, will before long




THEODORE PARKER.                          177
control the Federal Government, and will exercise its Constitutional
Rights, and perform its Constitutional Duty, and "guarantee a Republican form of Government to every State in the Union."  That is a
work of time and peaceful legislation.  But the short work of violence
will be often tried, and each attempt will gain something for the cause
of Humanity, even by its dreadful process of blood.
IV. But there is yet another agency that will act against Slavery.
There are many mischievous persons who are ready for any wicked
work of violence.  They abound in the city of New York (a sort of
sink where the villainy of both hemispheres settles down, and genders
that moral pestilence which steams up along the columns of the New
York Herald'and the New  York Observer, the great escape-pipes of
secular and ecclesiastical wickedness), they commit the great crimes of
violence and robbery at home, plunder emigrants, and engage in the
slave-trade, or venture on fillibustering expeditions.  This class of
persons is common in all the South.  One of the legitimate products
of her "peculiar institution," they are familiar with violence, ready
and able for murder. Public opinion sustains such men. Bully Brooks
was but one of their representatives in Congress. Now-a-days they are
fond of Slavery, defend it, and seek to spread it.  But the time must
come one day-it may come any time-when the lovers of mischief will
do a little fillibustering at home, and rouse up the slaves to rob, burn,
and kill.  Prudent carpenters sweep up all the shavings in their shops
at night, and remove this food of conflagration to a safe place, lest the
spark of a candle, the end of a cigar, or a friction-match should swiftly
end their wealth, slowly gathered together.  The South takes pains to
strew her carpenter's shop with shavings, and fill it full thereof. She
encourages men to walk abroad with naked candles in their hands and
lighted cigars in their mouths; then they scatter friction-matches on
the floor, and dance a fillibustering jig thereon.  She cries, " Well
done! Hurrah for Walker!" "Hurrah for Brooks!" " HIurrah for the
barque WVanderer and its cargo of slaves!  lUp with the bowie-knife!
Down with justice and humanity!" The South must reap as she sows;
where she scatters the wind, the whirlwind will come up.  It will be a
pretty crop for her to reap. Within a few years the South has BTURNED
ALIVE eight or ten negroes.  Other black men looked on, and learned
how to fasten the chain, how to pile the green wood, how to set this
Hell-fire of Slavery agoing. The apprentice may be slow to learn, but
he has had teaching enough by this time to know the art and mystery
of torture; and, depend upon it, the negro will one day apply it to his
old tormentors.  The Fire of Vengeance may be waked up even in an
African's heart, especially when it is fanned by the wickedness of a
white man: then it runs from man to man, from town to town. What
shall put it out?  The white man's blood!
Now, Slavery is a wickedness so vast and so old, so rich and so respectable, supported by the State, the Press, the Market, and the
Church, that all those agencies are needed to oppose it with-those,
and many more which I cannot speak of now.  You and I prefer the
peaceful method; but I, at least, shall welcome the violent if no other
accomplish the end.  So will the great mass of thoughtful and good
men at the North; else why do we honor the Heroes of the Revolution,
VOL. II.                                                 N




178               LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF'
and build them  monuments all over our blessed New England?  I
think you gave money for that of Bunker Hill: I once thought it a
folly; now I recognize it as a great sermon in stone, which is worth
not only all the money it cost to build it, but all the blood it took to
lay its corner-stones.  Trust me, its lesson will not be in vain —at the
North, I mean, for the LoGIc or SLAVERY will keep the South on its
lower course, and drive it on more swiftly than before. " Capt. Brown's
expedition was a failure," I hear it said.   I am not quite sure of that.
True, it kills fifteen men by sword and shot, and four or five men by the
gallows.  But it shows the weakness, of the greatest Slave State in
America, the worthlessness of her soldiery, and the utter fear which
Slavery genders in the bosoms of the masters.  Think of the condition
of the City of  -Tashington while Brown was at work!
Brown will die, I think, like a martyr, and also like a saint.  Ilis
noble demeanor, his unflinching bravery, his gentleness, his calm, religious trust in God, and his words of truth and soberness, cannot fail
to make a profound impression on the hearts of Northern men; yes,
and on Southern men.  For " every human heart is human," &c.  I
do inot think the money wasted, nor the lives thrown away.  Many
acorns must be sown to have one come up; even then, the plant grows
slow; but it is an oak at last.  Noone of the Christian martyrs died in
vain; and from Stephen, who was stoned at Jerusalem, to  flary Dyer,
whom our fathers hanged on a bough of " the great tree " on Boston
Common, I think there have been few spirits more pure and devoted
than John Brown's, and none that gave up their breath in a nobler
cause.  Let the American State hang his body, and the American
Church damn his soul; still, the blessing of such as are ready to perish
will fall on him, and the universal justice of the Infinitely Perfect God
will take him welcome home.  The road to heaven is as short from the
gallows as from the throne; perhaps, also, as easy,
I suppose you would like to know something about myself.  Rome
has treated me to bad weather, which tells its story in my health, and
certainly does not mend me. But I look for brighter days and happier
nights.  The sad tidings from  America —my friends in peril, in exile,
in jail, killed, or to be hung-have filled me with grief, and so I fall
back a little, but hope to get forward again. God bless you and yours,
and comfort you!
Ever afiectionately yours,
TIIEODOIRE PARKER.
FROM1 HON. CHAIRLES SIMSINER.
Senate Chamber, March 26, 1856.
I am glad you are to open on Kansas.  Let mne suggest to press the
admission of Kansas at once with her present Constitution. T/ is is
the policy we have adopted, and it will crowd Douglas and Cass infinitely.  This proposition is something practical: and on this we must
fight the Presidential election.
Let public meetings and petitions now call, at once, for the admiission of Kansas as a State.  Cannot our Legislature be induced to
pass resolutions making this demand?




THEODORE PARKElR.                        17 9
Seward will male a grand speech.  I shall follow as soon as possible
and use plain words.
Oh! this enormity is not really understood! The more I think of
it the more its wickedness glares.
Ever yours.
FROCM  THE SAME.
Washington, Mxay 17, 1856.
I have read and admired your speech in the Post.  It is a whole
sheaf of spears against slavery.  Alas! alas! the Tyranny over us is
complete.  Will the people submit?  When you read this I shall be
saying - in the Senate —they will not   Would that I had your
strength.  But I shall pronounce the most thorough Philippic ever
uttered in a legislative body.
Ever yours.
The following letter alludes to the speech of Ar. Sumner, entitled "The Crime against Kansas," delivered on Mlay 19 and 20,
and which  the South replied to on the next day by a characteristic argument in the hand of iMr. Brooks.
3uriington, V., lMay 21, 1856.
IMY DEAM SUIRNE,-G-od bless you for the brave words you spoke
the other day, and have always spoken, of which I hear report in the
papers.  Send it to me in full as soon as you can.
I have been ill (in head;) and. scarce able to do anything for a
month, else I should have written you before now. I am  a little
better just now, but still my head feels like an apple which has been
frozen all winter, and is now  thawed out.  I am in Vermont, lee.
turing on the condition of the country.  Pierce is in open rebellion
against the people; he has committed the highest treason against the
people, the worst form of lese mcjeste.
I have long wanted to thank you for your services in that matter
of the Danish Sound affair.  It is quite clear that you are right, that
the twofold Executive, Presidential and Senatorial, have no more right
to annul a treaty than to annul the Tariff Law, the Law against Piracy,
or any other statute.  Why did nobody ever think of this before?
There are three wicked things now going on in the United States:
1. Exterminating the Indians in Oregon, &c.
2. Fillibustering against Central America, and "the rest of mankind."
3. Extending' Slavery into Kansas and everywhere else.  Here, I
take it, the Free State men will be immediately put down unless
Congress comes to their aid.  What can they do-a lhandful of them,
with no arms, no ofl0cers, against the border ruffians, 8000 or 10,000
strong, armed by the United States, and officered by the soldiers of
our wicked army?  Can nothing be done at W~ashington?  Will
2




180              LIFE AND CORRESPONDEN*CE OF
ilothing arouse the People at the North?  Tell me what you think of
the Candidates for Republican Niomination.  Here is my list of preferences if I could makd the President:1. Seward.
2. Chase.
3. Hale.
But I take it none of these could be elected in the present state
of affairs. If we come to actual war, Seward could be chosen, I think:
but not now, in the present state of things.
Do tell me how far is Fremont reliable.
God bless you!
Ever yours.
TO HON. J. P. HALE.
Boston, May 23, 1856.
MY DEAR MR1. I-HAIE,-Do write and tell me how Sumner is getting
on. How much is the noble fellow wounded?  Give him my most
sympathizing regards and love. I wish I could have taken the blows
on my head, and not he, at least half of them. Will the Senate do
nothing about it?  Think of the scoundrel Brooks let off on bail of
500 dollars! I shall go to the State House as soon as the house meets,
to see if I can stir up that body to any action on the matter.
Yours truly and heartily,
T. P.
Another thorough sermon came of this, which went deep into
the indignant heart of the North.  For now the cities, as well
as the country, were touched, and votes made rapidly in that
electric season for Mr. Fremont and for the party of the North.
Mr. Parker called his sermon " A New Lesson for the Day."  It
shows how every measure and outrage is but a logical effect of
slavery:Be not surprised at this attack on Mr. Sumner; it is no strange
thing.  It is the result of a long series of acts, each the child of its
predecessor, and father of what followed; not exceptional, but instantial, in our history. Look with a little patience after the cause of those
outrages at Kansas and at W5ashington.  You will not agree with me
to-day; I cannot convince four thousand men, and carry them quite so
far all at once. Think of my words when you go home.
The causes of the outrage are then derived from  the national
and local subservience to the encroachments of Slavery.  The
brute force in the arm of Preston Brooks sprang no more from
wine and Southern hate than it did from Northern apologies and
local hate of Mr. Sumner.




THEODORE PARKER.  181
Corrupt men at the North, in New England, in Boston, have betrayed
the people. They struck at freedom  before South Carolina dared lift
an arm. The slave-holders know these things, that as often as they
have demanded wickedness, Boston has answered the demand; they
piece out their small bit of lion's skin with the pelt of many a Northern
fox. They are in earnest for slavery: they think New England is not
in earnest for freedom.  Do you blame them for their inference?  A
few years ago Mar. Sumner spoke in Boston on the " True Grandeur of
Nations," a lofty word before the City Fathers, on the 4th of July,
1845; an argunent against war, a plea for peace. As two of our
most distinguished citizens came from listening, one said to the other,
"Well, if that young man is going to talk in that way, he cannot
expect Boston to hold him  up."  Since then that young man has
spoken even nobler words; Boston has not held him up; nay, the controlling part of it has sought to strike him down; counted him one of
a " nest of vipers;" done nothing to support, all to overthrow him.
Why?  Because he was the continual defender of the unalienable
rights of man.  Slave-holders are not fools; they knew all this.  The
South never struck a Northern advocate of a tariff, or a defender of the
Union.  She knew the North would " hold up " the champions of the
Union and the tariff. It attacks only the soldiers of freedom, knowing
that the controlling power of the North also hates them.
Blame me as much as you please for what I say; ten years hence
you will say that I am right.  But, ere I go further on, let me do
an act of gratitude and justice.  In all those dark days behind us,
there have been found faithful men who risked their political prospects,
the desires of honourable ambition, their social standing, the esteem of
their nearest relatives, and were faithful to truth and justice. What
treatment have they met with in the parlor, in the forum, in the
market, in the church?  One day their history must be writ; and
some names now hated will appear like those which were the watchwords of the revolution, and are now the heavenly sounds that cheer
the young patriot in this night of storms. In such men no city is
so rich as this.  Daughter of nobleness, she is its mother too.  I
hope to live long enough to do public honor to their high worth.
Now do you know the seed whence came the bludgeon which struck
that handsome and noble head?  It was the "ACORN,"  in whose
shell Boston carried back Thomas Sims in 1851; and on the 19th
of April, on the seventy-sixth anniversary of the battle of Lexington,
she tool him out of that shell and pat him in a gaol at Savannah,
where he was scourged till a doctor said, " You will kill him if you
strike him again "   And the master said, "Let him die."   That
was the acorn whence grew  the bludgeon which  struck Charles
Sumner.
Mr. Sumner, in carrying  out his intention expressed to Mr.
Parker, told nothing but the unadorned and modest truth.  But
how outraged did many exquisite Northern consciences feel because Mir. Sumner said that Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, was
* Name of the brig, owned in Boston, and chartered by the Government to take away
Sims.




182              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OFin love with a harlot-meaning slavery!  There never was a
stricter truth declared. This harlot, after maintaining her connection with the North long enough to sap the marrow of its bones,
and strike its nerves with the premonitions of paralysis, hastens to
betray it when no more pleasure and profit can be derived from
the intercourse, and robs the house of its keeper to furnish its
precipitate escape.  The very deed and spirit of a harlot.  It
has played the game of harlotry with all its great Northern
embracers, using them  to feed its extravagances, and dropping
them one by one as their fortunes are played out; grown more
and more shameless with every success, wheedling and bullying
as its beauty faded, caressing  with one hand  and  pilfering
with another, all its veins poisoned by lust and avarice, and
breaking out at last into assault and " cursing like a very drab"
— what Hogarth shall arise to depict the stages of this harlot's
brazen course?
In the country I expect great good from this wickedness.  New
England farmers cover the corn they plant with a prayer for God's
blessing; this year they will stamp it also with a curse on slavery.
The matter will be talked over by the shoemakers, and in every carpenter's and trader's shop. The blacksmith, holding the horse's hoof
between his legs, will pause over the inserted nail, and his brow grow
darker while the human fire burns within.
There is a war before us worse than Russian. It has already begun:
when shall it end?  " Not till slavery has put freedom  down," say
your masters at the South; " Not till freedom has driven slavery from
ihe continent," let us say and determine.
Having now determined that, the blood we spill sinks fruitfully into the ground.
The original motto of the LyncAbuviy  VirgybitIcv w as "The
Rights of the States and the Union of the States,"  which placed
the State Rights in the van and allowed to follow all the Union
that migvht be consistent with that preference,  But now  the
lmotto is changed by secession to  "The Rights of the South and
the Union of the South."   And the editor justifies the change
by saying, among other things, "When the future historian
rsall connect all the threads of his narrative, and trace to their
parent source the bitter streams that are now sweeping over the
land, he will find that the poison is exhaled from  the C MAYFLOWER. "
History has a better memory than  that, and though not
botanist by profession, c.an tell mushrooms from toadstools, and




THEODORE PARnKErB                          183
will not be likely in the future to trace our political diseases to
the wrong plant.  Let history " connect all the threads " of her
narrative, and trace the bitter stream  to its real source.
"In 1620 tie pilgrims came to Plymouth, bringing freedom,
asking freedom.  The 1Mayfloower, symbol of earliest spring, has
been followed by a whole April and May of civil beauty, whiteening and fragrant all round  the land.   The same year, at
Jamestown, a slave-trader from  Africa unloaded his freight of
bondsmen-whose descendants boast the best blood of Virginia
in their veins," a state-right, we presume, "but it is slave-blood,
bought, sold, always in the market."
History takes another reminiscence from  her immortal urn,
and gives it in charge to the armed descendants of the pilgrims,
who are marching South with  seeds of the 2Mctyflower for the
Virginia woods.
"In  1607 the Virginia Comnpany had a seal with the device
of St. George and  the Dragon," a nd the legend, "cs ali ctium
surperct  e -,rctcoinem,, " it is worth while to kill one dragon
more."   To do that is the task  of the  Torth and of America.
"  t is kill or be killed; tfreedom for all, or slavery for the greater
part; man, or the accidents of man."  JuqstrtL  est beT.llum  qitZou
necessari'tvm, et pia  armc  qaibu3s nullac zntisi ij  armtis   retinqtZittr 8pes.
How grand a spectacle is the migration hitherward. But there is a
migration out, as well as migration in.  The route of the American
Exodus is not yet open.  Its exiles now travel on the lUnderground
Railroad.  A box half as large as a coffin is the iflayflower to another
pilgrim. Under the British flag they find shelter, and a New Plymouth
in Canada,
FRIOM  THE JOURNAL.
Sunday, Sept. 7, 1850.-Tlhere is the most ghastly state of thilngs
i, Kansas.  I can think of nothing else.  Petitions are on foot for
calling an extra Session of the LJegislature. If I were the people I
would raise a million of dollars at once for this, and send out a committee with power to spend it as they should see fit.  Of course, I
touched on this Kansas matter in my sermon,' introductory to this
new course. How glad I am to be back again.  Vacation was just one
week (Sunday) more tlhan I wanted.
Sept. 9.-America is now in a state of revolution.  There is no
*' " Of the Unlikeness of Cilcumstanie andl Condition, the Unity of Human Duty,
and its Final Reward."  The course w-as practical, industrial, political; upon the Art
of Life: one s-rmon was upon Franklin.




184               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
legal government, but only one which pretends to legality, and has
the show  and form  of law and the substance of power.  There are
two parties.
1. The Party of Slavery.  This has a great majority of the Senate,
the Senatorial Executive, the President with his Cabinet, and all his
departments, the Presidential Executive, with all the chief people of
all the Slave States, all the army, navy, and 40,000 office-holders
This party holds possession of the national power, but rules in the
principles of a party, for the purposes of a party, and in the manner
of a party; for example, Kansas.  Not a pro-slavery man has been
arrested ifr any enormity committed there.  SNow another army of
Missouri men attacked and destroyed Osawatomie,* and nothing is
done. Men are murdered, and nothing done.  But while Lane has
committed no offence and nothing is charged on him, fourteen companies of United States solders are ordered out to take him.  Jefferson
Davis, the famous disunion nullifier, is Secretary of War!!
On the side of this party are the prominent men of the North,
Everett, Choate, and the Know-Nothing Party.
2. The Party of Freedom.  The battle is in the centre of the Continent.  And this is the question, Shall slavery or freedom have the
heart of America, and then its limbs!
Sept. 14, 1856.-Mr. Yeadon, Editor of the Charleston Courier, came
to our house by his appointment.  lie is the person who complimented
Mr. Everett at Plymouth, for his speech in defence of slavery, &c.
Mr. Garrison, J. Z. Goodrich, Iamilton WTillis, and others, came
there.  Mr. Y. had a long discussion with Garrison about slavery, in
which he (Y.) set forth the South Carolina doctrines as usual, and a
couple of days later sent me a slip from  the Boston Daily Times,
entitled " Interesting Incident."  The incident was the receipt of an
affectionate letter from a slave, Joe, to his master at the North, accompanied with a fine daguerreotype portrait of " that image of God carved
in ebony."  Joe can neither write nor read.  So the letter was written
for him.  Mr. Y. sent me a letter in a feigned hand, signed "A
South Carolinian," which was handed to me as I was about to enter
the Music-hall.  I only read the first paragraph.  He told a gentleman
that he (Y.) wrote it to induce me to abuse the South!
Joe had the following sentiment manufactured for him, and
for a Northern market:
The servants' (!) crops are also doing splendidly (for you know each
servant has his own separate crop, which he finds time to work after
he has finished his task, which he generally does pretty early in the
day).  Old Scrub, a man of fourscore years, will make upwards of
forty bushels of rice by himself.  Massa Gendroon left here on the
5th of last month for Kansas, in fine spirits, hoping to have a fight
with the Abolitionists there, and I bid him  good-bye on the cars
* The name of a little settlement of Anti-slavery men in Kansas, whence Capt. Brown
derived his nom de guterre of Osawatomie, for a successful skirmish with a band of
Southerners and Missouri men.




THEODORE PAKER.                         1 85
myself, the morning he started.  God grant that he may return safe
to his family and friends!
Upon the envelope of Mr. Yeadon's letter, [Mr. Parker has
written: "Within is an anonymous letter from   Mr. Yeadon,
editor of Ccthrleston Courier, S. C., handed to me just before
meeting, Sunday, Sept. 14, J 856, while I was waiting in the
ante-room.  I read the first paragraph-no more.  BMr. Y. told
Mr. Kendall that he had sent me a letter signed'A  South
Carolinian. "
The author of the letter, to ensure its being read in time to
add a perfume to the morning service, wrote underneath the
address, "To be read, if possible, before declamation on  this
morning."
The subject of the sermon for that Sunday was "Religion
Considered as thie Art of Life."  HIere are a few sentences from
the high-minded editor:
TO MR. THEODORE PARKER.
SIR, —I would feel it my duty to address you by the title of
"'Reverend," did I or could I regard you as a Christian minister,
preaching the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; but as I
hold you to be anything but a disciple of the meek and lowly Jesus,
who came to preach peace on earth and good-will to men-and,
indeed, to be one of the most irreverent of men, who would, if he
could, the
Pulpit-drum ecclesiastic,
Beat and pound with both fist and stick," *
I cannot conscientiously do more than address you by the ordinary
title of respect to unclerical persons.
Thus opened the disciple of the meek and lowly Jesus, whose
paper at home was filled with advertisements of women and
children for sale, and rewards for men inclining to be fiee.
Having carefully selected by what handle he shall take up the
preacher for the day, he proceeds:My purpose is to inform  you that a party of Southerners will be
present this morning, to see and hear you desecrate the Lord's Day
by your usual quantum and outpouring of pulpit politics and fanatic
declamation and extravagance against slavery and the South.  It is,
therefore, to be hoped that, stimulated by the provocation of their
presence, and for their especial edification, you will pile up the agony
* Probably from a States-righted edition of IIudibras,




1.86               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENTCE OF
as high as Mount Olympus, for Mount Zion is, doubtless, too lowly
for your purposes and aspirations.
And, pray, why should the religious editor care to mount
higher than  the auction-block    An agony is piled up  there
that is more edifying to  his views of his Lord  and Saviour
Jesus Christ.
Are you aware, Sir, that, in your crazy opposition to, and warfare
a.gainst, slavery, you are arrogatig to yourself a wisdomi  ad a
righteousness which not only exceed those of the Seribes and Pharisees, but which are superior to those of God and patriarch, and of
Christ and apostle?  God himself olrdained slavery among the Jews,
when he declared, &c.
Then the usual dreary array of scriptural authorities, foom
Genesis to Onesimus, follows, containing nothing original, unless it
be the remark that " Jehovah hi/mself returned the first runaway
slave to her owner, even the fugitive Hagar to her jealous and
persecuting mistress," having, doubtless, conquered his prejudices
on the score of humanity, mindful of the promises.  Four or five
pages of closely-wvritten textual quotations conclude thus:Answer these texts, if you can, this day, or for ever hereafter hold
your peace.
Yours, as you shall conform yourself to thle Gospel mocdel,
A  SOUTH CABOLITIAN.
-by  construction, leaving the reader in a pleased surmise that
the South Carolinian is the Gospel model.
The conversation between Messrs. *Yeadon and Garrison and
Parker was quite fairly reported by the former in his paper, tile
Chacleston, Coburier, but it is not of sufficient interest to be
insertled here,
On the opposite page is a facsiimile letter of Mr. Parker to
Hon. J. P. Hale, followed by a copy.  It is selected for the
clearness of its anticipations, which  a jourlney to  the West,
made by him  before the date of this letter, had considerably
imodified.  His letters to I-ton. Horace }Matnn, Prof. Desor, and
others, of an earlier date, betray his hopes of the election of
Mr. Fremont.




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THEODORE PARKERt.                             87
[Copy.]
TO IHTON. J. P. ITALE.
Galesburg, II., Oct. 21, 1856.
I am  glad I am  not a senator this year.  You win your "Hi-on."
pretty dear this season.  Stumping is no joke. I heard your opponent,
Douglas, this afternoon.   ie....... made one of the
most sophisticated and deceitful speeches I ever listened to.  It was
mere brutality in respect of morals, and sophistry for logic, in the
style and manner of a low blackguard.  His enemies said he seldom or
never did so ill.  But there is a good deal of rough power in his evil
face.  I never saw him before.
I don't know how you thiTk the election will turn out; but I look
for defeat.  I hope otherwise, but still think so.  The battle is not won
by our carrying the electoral tickets by popular vote.  If Buchanan
gets 148 electors, one million dollars, I think, might be raised to buy
the 149th.  I think there are thirty men in Boston who would give
five thousand dollars apiece to see it done.  It is the most important
crisis in our national history.  No Presidential election ever turned
on such great questions.  It is despotism  or democracy which the
people vote for.  I wish the true issue was represented by the banners
and mottoes.  Buchanan's friends would bear this in front of all,' No
unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," "The
Declaration of Independence a Lie," " No higher law."  Then might
follow, in historical order, " Slavery in Kansas," " Slavery in Cuba,"' Slavery in all the Territories," " Slavery in all the Free States,"
"Bondage for niggers," "Bondage for poor whites," "Slavery for
greasy mechanics," "No free schools," " No free  press," "No fiee
pulpit," " No free sp      "        fee speech," "    f men."
If Buchanan is President, I think the Union does not hold out his
four years.  It must end in civil war, which I have been preparing for
these six months past.  I buy no books, except for pressing need.
Last year I bought fifteen hundred dollars' worth.  This year I shall
not order two hundred dollars' worth.  I may want the money for
cann ons.
Have you any plan, in case we are defeated?  Of course the principles and'measures of the administration will remain unchanged, and
the mode of execution will be more intense and rapid.
God save the USnited States of America!
Yours faithfuflly,
TinCOLonE PArxER.




188               Li E AND  CORRESPONDE.NCE OF
TO HON. iHORACE MANlN.*g
Boston, June 27, 1856.
IM   DEAR  I M. MAN, —Don't think that your labors are obscure or
likely to be forgotten in this generation, or for many that are to come.
Your works are written all over the commonwealth of Massachusetts,
and are in no danger of being forgotten.  I know how arduous your
position is, also how unpleasant much of the work must be.  I fancy
you now and then feel a little longing after the well-cultured men and
women whom you left behind at the East, and find none to supply in
Ohio.  But the fresh presence of young people is a compensation.
What a state of things we have now in politics! The beginning of
the end! I take it we can elect Fremont; if so, the battle is fought
and the worst part of the contest is over. If Buchanan is chosen, see
what follows. The principles of the Administration will be the same
as now; the measures the same; the mode of applying the principles
and executing the measures will be slightly altered-no more.  It is
plain that another such Administration would ruin the country for
men like those of Middlesex County, lMassachusetts.  I don't think
the people will see themselves conquered by 350,000 slaveholders,
headed by an old bachelor! If Buchanan is elected, I don't believe
the Union holds out three years.  I shall go for dissolution.
I wish I could go to the Lakes with you; but a family of most intimate friends will sail for Europe the 23rd of August, to be absent for
three years.  I want to see them  all I can this summer; so we shall
all go to Newton Corner, and live near by.  Else I should do up my
"unpretending luggage," and be off to Lake Superior with you.
I sent you a little sermon for the Sunday after 3Mr. Brooks struck
Sumner, and have another pamphlet in press, containing two speeches
made at New York a month ago, which please accept.  On the 6th of
July I shall preach on " The Prospect before us," and perhaps print.
July 8th, I go to "New  York Central University."  Such is the
"high-phaluting " style and title of a college at M3acgrawville, somewhere in New York, and deliver an address on the "Function of the
Scholar in a Democracy."
I wish I was where I could see you often, but am glad to know that
you are well.
Truly yours,
T. P.
TO PROFESSOR EDWARD DESOR.
Newton Corner, near Boston, 1856.
Mailed Aug. 9th.
Now a word about myself.  I am busy as can be with all sorts
of ecclesiastical, philosophical, and, I am sorry to say, political affairs;
have lectured more than 110 times since October, 1855, besides preaching at home, and publishing the various little volumes sent to you, and
which, I hope, reached you at last.  For the future, I shall not lecture
much, for I am getting old-forty-six next 24th August, you know!
* At this time President of Antiocll College, Ohio.




THEODORE PARKER.                        ] 89
You don't know how bald my head is; my beard is almost white. I am
often taken for sixty, or more! The political condition of the country
is bad, BnD, BAD. But it looks hopetill for the future. I think this is
thie last Presidential election under the constitution.  Yet I do not
desire the dissolution until we have freed 4,000,000 slaves, though I
should vastly prefer a dissolution to the present state of things.  But
I do not believe that any permanent union is possible between the
North and the South.  In ideas, aims, and habits of life, there is more
unity between the Neapolitans and the Swiss about the Vierwc7dstaitter
See, than between the South and the North. Now, a despotic G-overnment, like Austria, can unite nations as unlike as the Hungarians and
Venetians, into one autocracy, for military violence is the stiff iron
hoop which holds these different staves together. But in a republic a
union must be moral-of principle; or economical-of interest, —at any
rate, internal and automatic.  None of these conditions seem likely to
exist long. Besides, just now there is a fierce hostility between the
0South and the North: the South hates the North worse than the Lombards hate i danrati Tedeschi, worse than the French hated l'Albion
perfide in 1800-1815.  The question is now plainly put in the Presidential election: " Will you have slavery spread over all the land, or
will you give freedom  an opportunity?  There is no other question
before us, and this comes in its naked form. Buchanan and Fillmore
are the two candidates of the slave power-Fremont is the one candidate on the other side. The choice lies between Buchanan and Fremont. Fillmore's chance seems good for nothing.  Now, I think that
Fremont will be chosen on the 4th of November, and then that the
South will prepare to break up the union, for, if he succeeds, then
slavery is checked, and with it that wicked fillibustering policy which
has disgraced the nation, and gladdened the South so long. All this
the South knows: the present administration continues in power till
March 4th, 1857, and it is quite friendly to the worst designs of the
South.  So it will allow the slave power to take all the steps preliminary to a dissolution when Fremont comes into office.
But if Fremont is not elected, then I look forward to what is worse
than civil war in the other form, viz. a long series of usurpations on
the part of the slave power, and of concessions by the North, until
we are forced to take the initiative of revolution at the North.  That
will be the worst form of the case, for then the worst fighting will be
among the Northern men-between the friends of freedom and the
Hunkers. I expect civil war, and make my calculations accordingly.
You may judge of the strength of my convictions when I tell you
that I order no more books from Germany, but send the antiquarian
catalogues to the Athenmeum  unopened!  Some pleasant things take
place; all the Rabbis of Cambridge go for progress, for humanity, and
anti-slavery. Felton is President of the Fremont Club!  This will
have great influence on the snobs of Boston.
FROM  THE JOURNAL.
Nov. 3, 1856.-Sumner comes home to-day. The people receive him
in the streets.  Old noble Quincy meets him at Roxbury line, and




190              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
welcomes him as he did Lafayette in 1825. It is worth while to live
so long to be so noble as he is. One day he will be my text for a
sermon,-if I live, and he does not.
On the next day occurred the Presidential election.  The
result was foredoomed to slavery; but the Republicans cast a
million and a quarter of votes for Col. Fremont, of wvhich Mr.
Parker could fairly claim  great numbers as his own.  They
were shapen and tempered at his forge of freedom, where a stalwart arm had hammered, while a noble passion had fused, many
a conscience into those protests.  They were ballots; though
he was already expecting bullets, as we see:FROM  THE JOURNAL,
This day is not less critical in our history for the Future than 4th
July,'76, was for the Past. At sunrise there were three alternatives:1. Freedom may put down slavery peacefully by due course of law.
2. Slavery may put down freedom in the same way.
3. The friends of freedom and its foes may draw swords and fight.
At sunset the people had repudiated the first alternative.  Now
America may choose between Nos. 2 and 3. Of course we s/kai fight. I
have expected civil war for months; now I buy no more books for the
present.  Nay, I think affairs may come to such a pass, that my own
property may be confiscated; for who knows that we shall beat at the
beginning-and I hung as a traitor! So I invest property accordingly.
Wife's will be safe. I don't pay the mortgage till 1862.
TO MISS HUNT, IN EUROPE.
Nov. 17, 1856.
Yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the most terrible defeat of
the Americans in the revolutionary war; for Nov. 16, 1776, you
remember, Fort Washington fell into the hands of the enemy-2,800
soldiers (the flower of the army), provisions for all winter, amnmunition, &c., and more than half the cannons.of the nation, if I remember
right.
You may guess how the Tories of New York rejoiced in Nov. 17,
1776-how  they fired cannons!  Well, while I write, the Boston
Tories are firing cannons over the defeat of Fremont-fifty-eight at
East Boston; fifty-eight more at South Boston-a pretty anniversary,
truly, for such a festival!
But they do not know it-" Nemesis is never asleep."   I heard the
cannons fired for the proclamation of war against _Mexico; for the
passage of the  lugitive Slave Bill.
If the Curtises had dared, they would have touched off the same
guns in honour of the rendition of Thomas Sims and Anthony Burns.
Well, American liberty has just had a terrible defeat; apparently worse
than the fall of Fort Washington in 1776. But that was no misfortune
in the end. Had we gained our independence at less cost, we had
valued liberty cheaper even than now.




THEODORE PARKER.                         191
I don't know but it would have been more fatal if power had fallen
into the hands of the Fremlonters.  I have my doubts of such men as
-   and -.   They are not quite solid enough for my taste.
It was they who gave us Gardner for Governor.
At New York and elsewhere, Banks said the election of Fremont
would settle the slavery question, and stop agitation for thirty years!
I opened my eyes when I went out West, and saw that the hands of
the republicans are not yet quite clean enough to be trusted with power.
There has a deal of bad stuff come over to the republican party.  I am
more than ever of opinion that we must settle this question in the old
Anglo-Saxon way-with the sword.
There are two constitutions for America-one writ on parchment,
and laid up at Washington; the other also on parchment, but on the
head of a dsrum. It is to this we must appeal, and before long. I make
all my pecuniary arrangements with the expectation of civil war.  I
buy no books; have not orders out for 50 dollars, and commonly have
at least 500 dollars on orders in all parts of the world.
I saw Sumner to-day.  HIe talked an hour or more quite well.  He
walks with his hand on his loins, but looks well; drinks tea-French
wine. Howe says he will get well.
Last Sunday I preached of " T'he Need of Religious Consciousness,
and the Joy thereof; next, of " The Need that this subjective Religious
Consciousness should become an Outward Life of noble and various
Ilanhood."  Thanksgiving-day- of the "Prospects of Freedom  in
America." Then will follow one of the " False and True Idea of Education; " then one of " Inheritance "-what we receive of good and ill,
and what we bequeath; then of the " Education of Children," of which
I know  so much!  Thanksgiving text-" The harvest is past, the
summer is ended "-a sad text for such a day.  But Elope is at the
bottom of Pandora's box.
Now good bye, for I have little time,            Ever yours,
T.
Soon after the defeat of Colonel Fremont, the following call
was issued for a Convention of the citizens of M assachusetts.'We, the undersigned citizens of Worcester, believing the result of
the recent Presidential Election to involve four years more of ProSlavery Government, and a rapid increase in the hostility between the
two sections of the Union:
Believing this hostility to be the offspring, not of party excitement,
but of a fundamental difference in education, habits, and laws:
Believing the existing -Union to be a failure, as being a hopeless
attempt to inite under one government two antagonistic systems
of society, which diverge more widely every year:
And believing it to be the duty of intelligent and conscientious men
toD meet these facts with wisdom and firmness:
Respectfully invite our fellow-citizens of Massachusetts to meet in
Convention at Worcester, on Thursday, Januaury 15, to consider the
practicability, probability, and expediency, of a separation between the




'92             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
free and slave states, and to take such other measures as the condition of
the times may require.
Thos. W. Higginson, Thos. Earle, Henry 1-1. Chamberlin, Seth
Rogers, and others.
IMR. PARKER'S REPLY.
Railroad cars from New HIaven to Boston, Jan. 18, 1857.
MY DEAR HIGGINSON, —    have no time but car time, and no space
but the railroad, so you will excuse me if my letter be writ with a
pencil, and dated between nowhere and everywhere.
I cannot attend your Convention to-morrow, as other business takes
me elsewhere.  Yet I am glad you have called it.  For the South lhas
so long cried " Wolf! Wolf!" and frightened every sheepish politician
at the North, that it is time somebody should let those creatures have a
glimpse of the real animal, and see how the South will like his looks. I
once heard of a very honest, sober, and Christian sort of man, who was
unequally yoked to one of the most shrewish mates that ever cursed
soul or body.  She was thriftless, idle, drunken, dirty, lewd, shrillvoiced, with a tongue which went night and day; and was, besides,
feeble-bodied, and ugly to look upon.  iMIoreover, she beat the children,
starved them, and would not allow them even to attend school, or go to
meeting, but brought up the girls in loose ways. Whenever the good
man ventured to remonstrate a little, and took the part of one of his
own children, the termagant, who came of no good stock herself, but
had an  "equivocal generation,"  called him  "a beggar," "greasy
mechanic," an "Abolitionist," and with ghastly oaths, told him he was
" not fit company for a lady of her standing; " and if he found fault
with her standing and character, she would leave his bed and board
forever, and let his old house fall about his ears for him.  She justified
her conduct by quoting odd-ends of Scripture.  She had "divine
authority " for all she was doing. "Wasn't there Jezebel, in the Old
Testament, and the strange woman that turned the heart of Solomon,
and his head too? Did not the Book of Proverbs speak of just such a
woman as she was?  And was there not another great creature in
scarlet, spoken of in the New Testament?  The Book of Revelation
was on her side."  So the shrew raised her broomstick, and beat the
poor hen-pecked husband till he apologized as humbly as any Republican Member of Congress in 1856 or 1857.  Hle did not intend to
interfere with her beating his sons or prostituting his girls; he thought
her interpretation of the Bible was right; there were probably just
such women as she in Sodom and Gomorrah; he begged she "would
not leave his house."  She "might beat him-he was a non-resistant;
but he hoped she would not strike too hard, for it really hurt his
feelings."
So it went on till the house became a nuisance to the neighborhood,
and the submissive husband waas everywhere looked upon as a cowardly
sneak. But one day he made up his mind to make a spoon or spoil a
horn, and, with his ox-whip in his hand, thus addressed the shrew:" Madam, I shall treat you gently, for your wickedness is partly my




THEODORE PARKER.                        193
fault; but I turn over a new leaf to-day. Either you become a good
wife, or else you leave my house, and that forever, with the little bundle
of property you brought into it. I shall take the children.  Take five
minutes to make up your mind.  Go, or stay, just as you like."
To the amazement of the man, she fell down at his feet, weeping
bitterly, promised all manner of things, and after he had lifted her up,
actually began to put the house in order. She treated him with respect,
and her children with considerable tenderness, and for many years they
lived together with about as much welfare as man and wife commonly
enjoy.
I am glad to see any sign of manhood in the North, and I think a
fire in the rear of some of our Republican members of Congress will
do them no harm. But I do not myself desire a dissolution of the
Union just now. Here is the reason. The North is seventeen millions
strong; and the South contains eleven millions, whereof four millions
are slaves, and four millions are "poor whites."  Now, I don't think it
quite right for the powerful North to back out of the Union, and leave
the four millions "poor whites," and the four millions slaves, to their
present condition, with the ghastly consequences which are sure to
follow. Men talk a great deal about the compromises of the Constitution, but forget the GUARANTEES of the Constitution. The very article
which contains the ambiguous "rendition clause," has also these plain
words: "The United States shall guarantee a republican form of Government to every State in the Union."  Article IV. sec. 4.  (I quote fromn
memory. You can look at the passage.) Now, I would perform that
obligation before I dissolved the Union.  I don't think it would have
been quite fair for strong-minded Moses to stay in Midian keeping his
sheep and junketing with his neighbors. No. So the Lord said unto
him, Down into Egypt with you; meet Pharaoh face to face, and bring
up all Israel into the land I shall give you. It is not enough to save all
your souls alive, but your brethren also, with their wives and little
ones. Why, even that hen-pecked husband in the story, had too much
stuff to desert his sons and daughters, and run away from their ugly
dam. No, sir; the North must do well by those four millions of
slaves and those four millions of " poor whites "; we must bring the
mixed multitude even out of the inner house of bondage, peaceably if
we can, forcibly if we must.
But if you insist on separation, and will make dissolution the basis of
agitation, why, I think much good will come of it. Let me give a hint
as to the line of demarkation between the two nations. I would sayFreedom  shall take and keep —1. The land east of the Chesapeake
Bay. 2. All that is north of the Potomac and the Ohio; all that is
west of the Mississippi-i.e. all the actual territory with the right of
reversion in Mexico, Nicaragua, and the " rest of mankind"; the entire
State of Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas, with the part of Louisiana
west of the Mississippi.
I think the North will not be content with less than this. Nay, I
am not sure that, in case of actual separation, Virginia and Kentucky
would not beg us to let the amputating knife go clear down to North
Carolina and Tennessee, and cut there; for I think there is too much
freedom yet in the northernmost Slave States to consent to be left to
perish with the general rot of the slave limbs.
VOL. II.                                              0




194            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
I used to think this terrible question of freedom or slavery in America
would be settled without bloodshed. I believe it now no longer. The
South does not seem likely to give way-the termagant has had her
will so long. I am sure the North will not much longer bear or forbear.
I think we shall not consent to have democracy turned out of the
American house, and allow despotism to sit and occupy therein. If the
North and the South ever do lock horns and push for it, there is no
doubt which goes into the ditch.  One weighs seventeen millions, the
other eleven millions; but, besides, the Southern animal is exceedingly
weak in the whole hind-quarters, four millions in weight; not strong in
the fore-quarters, of the same bulk; and stiff only in the neck and head,
of which Bully Brooks is a fair sample; while the Northern creature
is weak only in the neck and horns, which would become stiff enough in
a little time.
Yours for the right, anyhow,
THEODORE PAnKER.
Mr. Parker's next important speech was delivered in the hall
of the State House, before the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Convention, January 29, 1858.  He proposed to discuss the relation
of American. slavery to foreign politics, to Russia, France, Germany, and England.  Under the latter head, he denied that
there had been been any change in the popular feeling of England
against slavery.
There may have been a change in the British Government, though I
doubt it much; there has been in the London Times. In the cotton
lords, I take it, there is no alteration of doctrine, only an utterance of what they have long thought.  The opinion of the British
people, I think, has only changed to a yet greater hatred against
Slavery.
Next, he discussed the Dred Scott decision, Walker's Nicaraguan
expedition, and the two measures then impending in Congressthe Lecompton constitution and the increase of the army. Passing from these, he laid down the probable programme of the slave
power for the future, in its reliance upon a continuance of
Northern apathy.  HIe did not fail to notice the municipal and
social subservience which had not long ago been manifested on
occasion of a visit of the author of the Fugitive Slave Bill to
Boston.  Then he made a calculation of the amount and character of Northern aid which could be depended on for the next
political struggle against the South.  But all the distinguished
Northern politicians are subject to a peculiar disease, which renders them wholly unreliable for patriotic work, viz. " the Presidential fever."




THEODORE PARKER.                         195
I will try to describe the specific variety which is endemic in the
Northern States, the only place where I have studied the disease. At
first the patient is filled with a vague longing after things too high for
him. He gazes at them with a fixed stare; the pupils expand. But
he cannot see distinctly; crooked ways seem  straight-the shortest
curve he thinks is a right angle; dirty things look clean, and he
lays hold of them without perceiving their condition.  Some things
he  sees doubled, especially  the number of his friends; others
with a semi-vision, and it is always the lower half he sees. All
the time he hears a confused noise, like that of men declaring votes,
State after State. This noise obscures all other sounds, so that he cannot hear the still, small voice which yet moves the world of men. He
can bear no " agitation "; the word " Slavery " disturbs him much; he
fears discussion thereof, as a hydrophobiac dreads water.  His organ of
locality is crazed and erratic in its action; the thermometer may stand
at 20 degrees below zero, even lower, if long enough; the Mississippi
may be frozen over clear down to Natchez, Hellgate be impassable for
ice, and the wind of Labrador blow for months across the Continent to
the Gulf of Mexico; still he can't believe there is any North.
The great change in the public sentiment of the North is not
underrated in this speech.
FROM  HON. CHARLES SUMNER TO tMR. PARKER.
Paris, 27 June, 1858.
I have read the first half of your masterly speech, and long for the
last.
You have read everything, and probably "Lettres familieres ecrites
d'Italie a quelques amis, en 1739 and 1740, par Charles de Brosses."
But my special object was to call your attention to a passage in
Lettre HI., where a remark is made about the Cardinals, which has its
application to our country:-" Car ii n'y a presque point de cardinal gui
nespere parvenir a son tour (a la papaute'), et qui ne soit posseclM de la
maladie qu'on cplpelle ici' la rabbia papal.' "  So you will find here the
prototype of our Presidential Fever.
On my voyage I read your review of Buckle: most able and clear.
Another speech, entitled " The Relation of Slavery to a Republican Form  of Government," was delivered before an AntiSlavery Convention, May 26, of the same year. It is an admirable
specimen of a campaigning speech, carefully divided and simply
worded, occupied mainly with a grave discussion of the political
points which were before the country.
The last occasion on which he made Slavery the subject of his
discourse was on the 4th of July, 1858, which was a Sunday.
I-e preached in the Music Hall, upon " The Effect of Slavery on
the American People."  It is one of his most tranquil and medi2




196             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
tative discourses, with scarcely an allusion to the dreadful disgraces of the past, or to the chief actors in the humiliation of
Massachusetts and the North.
You and I, American men and women, must end slavery soon, or it
rains our democracy; the sooner the better, and at the smaller cost.
And if we are faithful, as our patriot fathers and our pilgrim fathers,
then when you and your children shall assemble eighteen years hence
(1876) to keep the one-hundredth birthday of the land, there shall not
be a slave in all America!
Then what a prospect, what a history is there for the American people,
with their industrial democracy! For all men, freedom in the market,
freedom in the school, freedom in the Church, freedom in the State!
Remove this monstrous evil, what a glorious future shall be ours! The
whole mighty Continent will come within the bounds of liberty, and the
very islands of the Gulf rejoice.
And henceforth there shall be no chain,
Save underneath the sea;
The wires shall murmur through the main
Sweet songs of liberty!
The conscious stars accord above,
The waters wild below;
And under, through the cable wove,
Her fiery errands go.
For He who worketh high and wise,
Nor pauses in His plan,
"Will take the sun out of the skies
Ere freedom out of mnan.*
Thus the preacher of a true democracy, and the defender of the
American idea, finished his last sermon of liberty, on the last
anniversary of her birth which his patriotic heart welcomed in
America.  It is his last defence of the people, who will yet learn
gratitude for his integrity in some future epoch of a peace purchased, as he would have it, only with glory; when, as they
fondly recall the causes of their happiness, and linger over the
names of men who suffered to save a Republic and to transmit
the record of Lexington unblemished to them and to their children, they shall hasten to add another Parker to the list of
village boys who wrought their health and faith into America.
He represented and proclaimed a revolution, and devoted all
his powers of conscience and understanding to organize the great
change by-means of timely justice, that he might, if possible, prevent Freedom from  stepping to her place through blood.  He
* From an Ode, by R. W. Emerson, written for a Fourth of July Breakfast and Floral
Exhibition, at the Town Hall, Concord, for the benefit of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.




THEODORE PARKER.                     197
foresaw and forewarned, but presidential candidates held the ear
of the people during those gloomy seasons, and taught them
there was peace in acquiescence and war in agitation, till acquiescence furnished the opportunity for war.  Every concession
was a lease to conspiracy, which occupied the seats of power for
the sole purpose of betraying and humiliating, at some favorable
moment, the very parties who conceded. How timely righteousness would have been, seeking not to be made President, but to
consolidate a great opinion, and peacefully to reclaim the country
before the power which encroached was able to be the power in
possession.  To anticipate that bitter end Mr. Parker left his
books, and engaged in agitation.
A few people at the North still amuse themselves with the
paradox that the indignant attacks upon the crimes of Slavery
originated its criminality. The partial resistance made by the
Northern moral sense to its successive encroachments are humorously conceived to have been the cause of its encroaching spirit.
The outcry raised against the evils which are organic in Slavery,
and essential to its productive maintenance, such as ignorance in
the slave and hardness in the master, absence of home and marriages, breeding and the auction-block, cruelty held in check only
by self-interest, is still assumed by an ironical minority of our
fellow-citizens to have retarded the cause of emancipation in the
Border States.  They were conscious of these evils, and longing
to be rid of them for ever, but upon being vigorously told of
their existence, preferred to give them a farther trial.  The sober
truth is, that the Abolitionists, by fanatically insisting upon the
annexation of Texas, and dragooning Southern politicians into
the support of a measure obnoxious to them, opened fresh
markets to Virginia, and crushed out the beautiful spirit of selfsacrifice with which that mother of States was just then gravid;
all for the sake'of an abstract principle!  tHow  many times
during the last thirty years have our Southern brethren been
tyrannically forced to postpone their darling project of extending
some human recognition to the bondmen within their borders, of
securing free-schools and the sanctity of home, and a system of
paid labor, and even a gradual introduction to civic rights, to
these people providentially enslaved in order to be Christianized!
NWe of the North have much to answer for in selfishly thwarting
these patriarchal instincts!
But people who understand that the policy of slavery was




198            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
changed gradually, by pecuniary and political advantage, till at
last it developed, from  a struggle for bare existence to an ambition to rule and possess this country, so intense and persistent
that Northern agitation could not have aggravated it, yet find
fault with the methods and spirit of the agitation.  They think
they would have been sooner converted, or some other people
would, if only mild language had been used by anti-slavery men.
It is the old story again; they wish to amend the fact, and to
tone down a revolutionary epoch, with its faithful and indignant
men, to the amenity of a shallow age, that has nothing worth
believing in and no great right at stake.  They would fain alter
one of the most decided facts in the providential growth of
countries and nations. They are the people of an irreproachable
taste but feeble intuition; too feeble to overhear the distant
drum whose rolling infects the disposition of the keen-eared men,
and becomes their presageful and peremptory speech.
It was made, however, a special charge against Mr. Parker,
that he brought up too frequently the persons themselves who
had betrayed the American principle from fear, or feebleness, or
prejudice-teachers and leaders who ought to have been bold
and strong, and partial only for the truth that is above forms
and statutes,
It was said of him,  H' He keeps all his scalps in the desk at
the Music Hall.  While you are listening to him  he suddenly
draws one forth, shakes it at the audience, and puts it up again.
It was the scalp of a clergyman. You recollect the sin for which
he was slain, and grimly recognize and approve.  Pretty soon
forth comes another, and another; scalps of marshals, eminent
lawyers, democratic office-holders, and South-side clergymen.
Your moral sense is rather satisfied to find there on exhibition
these trophies of retributive justice; but it becomes more than
satiated to see them shaken aloft a number of Sundays.  To see
a scalp once is impressive."
It has been said by another critic of the apologetic order, that
these repetitions of indictments were made necessary by the character of the audience, which was never the same for a succession
of Sundays; that men from all parts of the country coming to
Boston, lingered an hour before his great tribunal, whence the
counts of violation of the higher law must be proclaimed to them.
In truth, he was unconscious of any such adaptation to his
shifting audience.  He did often repeat the famous points he




THEODORE PARKER.                     199
had against individuals.  It was the fault of an inflamed and
indignant moral sense.  It was the impersonal gratification of a
wounded conscience.  Not a base touch of the animal man, no
savageness, as men sometimes imputed, nor malignancy, as his
enemies in  particular delighted to proclaim, nor vulgar illtemper, as many amiable women were heard to insist, ever
made this custom immoral. He never could forget for a moment
the sin of his country, and the crime of those who upheld it.
They were the real appealers to public vulgarity and coarseness,
with their cold and grave propriety: they were violators of the
tender laws of the highest propriety, a love for God's oppressed
ones.
He had the rights and temper of a prophet, and his sorrows
also. The ugly slave-holding fury that was harrying his countrymen, pursued him by night and by day; her lashes sank startling and rankling into his moral sense; for in him she found a
conscience that could faithfully keep the score of her wickedness.
A voice, quivering with indignation, swelling with alarm, concentrated by a sense of suffering, spoke, reiterated, emphasized,
insisted on the injuries which the country's demon was inflicting
on the law of God in the soul of man.  Apathetic people were
repelled by the sight of this internal combat; amiable people,
of average convictions, hurt themselves in stretching up against
this stalwart conscience.  Indifferent people of every description
could not understand that every moment was critical: they
resented being drummed into a revolution, when they did not
care to urge even a faint objection.  Clergymen, spitted by traditional pulpit propriety, and precariously held in place by the
cushions, were blown over when this Pentecostal wind smote the
house; as they gathered themselves together and strove to
resume a clerical attitude, they naturally exaggerated the force
of the blast, because they did not justly appreciate how feebly
they stood.  But when they undertook to pronounce it a blast
from  hell, they confirmed the doubt of their spiritual insight
which the common people shared.  It was not a withering and
debilitating sirocco, which lays human nature in the dust, but it
was the cool weather coming out of the North, spreading a deep
and stainless sky, awful with the rustling spears of the Aurora.
Sons of the North woke from their sleep to hail it, and did not
shudder at the keen flitting under the blood-red.  There was
solemn presage and not a ghastly omen in the vivid show.




200           LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
WThen he summons the notorious names of history from their
base graves to pass before the commissioners under the Fugitive
Slave Law; when, calling up each repulsive shade, from Cain to
Jefferies, and briefly designating their title to infamy, he dismisses them from the presence of his audience as not abandoned
enough yet to take service with the men who felt an obligation
to fulfil the requisitions of that law; from what point of view are
we to study his language?  From  no point of view  that is
claimed by conventional art; from  no smooth platform  where
the rhetoricians gather to carve  and  whittle platitudes into
small ware for the people; from no desk whence the periods of
a liturgy roll hollowly in ruts of pews, whose hearts echo the
dull refrain; but from the side of the fugitive himself!  Close
to him, as soon as possible after his arrival, while he is fresh
from his freight-box at the station, or haled forth out of a
schooner's hold; while the panic is yet unmanning the brawny
limbs that professed to own their toil; when he sees in each
sharp look an officer, before he is reassured that a single man
will take his hand except by fraud to capture him; while it is
still uncertain whether he can stay a single night in the City of
the Pilgrims, where a law, and learning, and legal duty, and a
Southern market are in full conspiracy to seize him, if possible,
before the Union falls to pieces; close to the red heart fluttering
under that black skin with recollections of atrocities not yet
escaped from while a commissioner can be found to serve; close,
as Christ stands on the other side of him,-with indignation that
a man should be condemned without crime to such misery; with
horror that men could dare to approach with evil purpose his
holy liberty; with unmeasured hatred  of the constitutional
pretexts of too subservient men, —there stand to take your
artistic and comprehensive view.  And if you really have transferred yourself to that woeful position, so that you have become
the man in whose behalf your imagination is all a-flame with
pity, angeI, abhorrence; so that you, thirsting to be free, must yet
wilt with terror at a footstep; so that it is yourqself, the hunted
slave, hoping only for concealment, having braved all perils and
agonies for a thousand miles, but not brave enough to stay in
the same city with  your polished kidnapper,-oh, then the
rhetoric of the preacher will be the language of your commonsense!
There stood Theodore Parker through the whole of his career —




THEODORE PARKER.                     201
close as he could place his noble, gifted soul to the grimy body
of the fugitive.  As he looked into that black face, he saw shine
down the starry truths of the bold humanity he preached.  He
had a point of view that artists might envy. A part of genius
is its infallible instinct for the place whence men and nature are
seen, not as crowds and masses, but as living symbols of the
Divine intent.  And was any country ever yet furnished with
such symbol of the Divine humanity, of all the faith  and
fraternity of Jesus, as our own dear country with its fugitives?
Never!  Not Greece and Rome, not Judea itself, furnished such
solicitations to the highest genius of their children I
But sometimes, not content with the stern indictment which
he brought against an imperfect moral sense, he would impute an
additional motive.  Here he may be fairly criticized.  One man
serves the infamous law with alacrity, having conquered what
little prejudice a prevailing legality of disposition leaves him,
because he wanted to preserve his respectable standing and political availability.  If an appointment to an office or a nomination followed, this was the object of the subservience.  Another
man was moved by dread of losing his place in State or Church.
Another hastened to save the Union, which was equivalent to
saving his salary.  There are two objections to this imputation
of rapacious motives: they can seldom  be verified like a fact
which is attested upon oath, and they are not essential to account
for the phenomena. The most subservient man may be one who
hankers for nothing in the gift of the people or the Government.
His subservience is the inevitable result of a conscience all run
to statutes.  He is ready, by original or acquired inferiority of
moral sense, to support the most infamous enactment that ever
shocked the undepraved mind under the pretence of law.  You
need not suspect that he is influenced by a single after-thought
or selfish consideration. You will expect to find rapacity and
meanness among such men, and it is sometimes notorious; but
you are not obliged to presumne it.  If a man has consented all
his life to subsist upon such a slender stock of conscience that
the highest thing which he can see, in a critical moment, is a
legal and technical thing, then no amiability of disposition, no
ordinary domestic instincts, no gentlemanly culture, no nice
habits-nothing, neither cleanliness nor conventional godliness,
will restrain him  in such a moment from violating the great
creed of Christian humanity.  His motive is but the necessity




202             LIFE OF THEODORE PARKER.
of his moral state.  The men who have most thwarted antislavery principles, and have postponed Northern resistance till
it has to take the shape of war, have been a huge mob of nice
family-men without a spark of moral indignation, except when
some custom of trade is infringed, or some great constitutional
compromise is violated in the interest which first established it.
The technical violation, and not the immoral acquiescence, is the
only thing which strikes and alarms this intense legality.  See
how  events condemn this wicked substitution of the lower for
the higher law! Southern ambition has fattened on a Northern
constitutional conscience; and the men who are guilty of this
civil war are the men who have consistently countenanced the
South in its technical rights.  They are still capable of justifying their folly by the astonishing paradox that they strove to
avert bloodshed by a course which has led us directly to it.
Mr. Parker early denounced this fatal proclivity, and prophesied in sombre strains its sure results.  For doing this, for indignantly attacking the demoralization which trade and law effected,
for eagerly pressing on the public conscience the imminent necessity of righteousness and humanity, to save Union, and the
country's great idea, and our children's happiness, by saving
God's law  and letting man's law  go, he was honored by a
hatred so hearty, that it will dazzle posterity with confirmation
of his true renown.
And how will those abortive sacrifices to the Constitution and
the Union appear, when the generation which made them  is
remembered chiefly by them?
As the legal atrocities of all the world have seemed when the
legal exigencies have passed away. History will have to borrow
the most incisive pens of the present, to record upon her bronze
the immoral technicalities which they arraigned.  Mr. Parker's
own colors will not be found too deep and glaring for any future
painter who may seek in tranquillity to restore the fading picture
of our times. The healthiest and highest sense in a man always
anticipates the verdict of posterity, as the mountain which never
stirs from its firm base lifts remote zones into the air at once, and
telegraphs what is far below the horizon.




CHAPTER XXII.
LttUers upon Anti-Slavery Politics: to Hon. N. P. Banks —Hon. W. H. Seward —Hon.
S. P. Chase-To and from Hon. Charles Sumner-To and from Hon. Henry Wilson
-To and from Hon. J. P. Hale-To William H. Herndon-To Hon. Horace Mann
-To Gov. Fletcher, Vermont, and others.
THESE are the names of men of high significance for any history of the formation of republican sentiment.   They admired
the position  which Mr. Parker had achieved, and generously
acknowledged the importance of his influence.  With most of
them  he was upon  friendly terms  of giving  and  receiving
counsel; and they would not be backward to say, that they
have often felt indebted to his enthusiasm, common-sense, and
frankness.  They watched his battle with exultation, hastened
to organize and hold every moral advantage which he gained,
and bade him a right hearty God speed.
Most of the letters which are here presented require no explanations.  They show  clearly enough the method and value of
his thoughts upon political affairs, his high and salutary spirit.
TO GOVERNOR FLETCHER, VERMONT.
Boston, Nov. 27, 1856.
HON. INaR. FLETCHIER, GOVNERO  Or o ERMONT, &C.,-DEAR SIR,I have no personal acquaintance with you, but your official position and
conduct make me familiar with your opinions and character, and, after
preaching a Thanksgiving Sermon, " Of the Prospects of Democratic
Institutions in America," I wish to express my profound gratitude to
you, and your State, for the recent appropriation of money in aid of
"the suffering poor in Kansas."




204              LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE  OF
I know the steps which led to the measure: your letters to Judge
Conway are before me; I conferred with Mr. Sumner before he wrote
his note. I fear General Wilson does not quite understand the significance of this movement-the most important step lately taken by the
friends of freedom.  A great principle rides behind that measure.
The vote of 20,000 dollars is like building one new defence for individual liberty. Hitherto Liberal Governments have been ruined in this
manner:1. All individuality of classes is made way with, and the  men
reduced to one homogeneous mass-the people.  They do not have
intelligence enough to see their unity of interest, and still less sufficient
virtue to feel their unity of duty; so they cannot act in concert against
a foe who seeks to conquer and command them.
2. Some ambitious man divides them into fictitious parties-one of
which so checks the other that he easily masters both, overturns their
democratic institutions, and founds a despotism in their place.  Old
Rome, in Cmesar's time, furnishes an ancient example, and modern
France within sixty years has twice afforded a recent instance.  After
the theocratic oligarchy of Rome had mainly perished, the uniform
surface of citizenship, diversified only by the differences of personal
character and condition, formed an excellent field for Cesar to march
over, and ascend his autocratic throne.  After France in her first revolution had abolished all orders of nobility, all provincial and municipal
privileges, there was left an open plain for Napoleon the Great; at
once he found little opposition, and conquered the people. And, again,
after the war in her late revolution had destroyed the constitutional
monarchy, it was not difficult for Napoleon the Little to move on the
level surface of democracy, and establish one of the meanest despotisms in the world.  There were no great obstacles to impede him, no
eminences to surmount.
So it has always been. The nation levels all the eminences; then the
country becomes one vast plain, and, behold! there is no defence against
the tyrant; and as all level countries are easily traversed by a large
army, which is yet checked by a little opposition in a mountainous
region, so do all democracies easily fall before a demagogue.  The
Anglo-Saxon alone has hitherto  known how to found and keep a
Government with national unity of action for the whole, and a high
degree of individual variety of action, personal freedom, for the citizen.
This success comes from what seems at first a defect in the ethnological
character of this tribe; for while the Anglo-Saxon loves liberty he
hates equality-each wanting to be first, and to enjoy a privilege. The
Celt, on the contrary, cares little for liberty, but loves equality, and
clamors for it, as in France to-day.
The great Anglo-Saxon battle for a Liberal Government took place
in England in the seventeenth century (1643-1689); the strife was
between the despotic King (the James and Charles) and the people.
The King did not find the mass of people the great obstacle to his
march; but he was checked, 1, by the privileged classes, the nobles,
the clergy, the gentry; and, 2, by the privileged bodies, the great
corporations, especially the City of London, whose charter secured
its "vested rights."  The corporations had unity of interest, which




THEODORE PARKER.                        205
gave them unity of action. So had the privileged class; though the
King could buy over individual nobles, priests, and gentlemen, yet he
could not make the whole class consent to his despotism-for that
would ruin the class itself.
Now, we have got so far on, that in America we have established a
democracy with no privileged class, no privileged body, admitting that
all persons have an equal right to life, liberty, &c. This is as it should
be; it is time to try the experiment of a Liberal Government on the
most extended scheme of individual equality of rights. Even if the
attempt fail, as I think it will not, it was worth while to try the
experiment. But we have not made the continent of people a smooth
surface for the cannon of a centralizing tyrant to sweep over-we have
roughened it with territorial inequalities; the individual States are to
us the same defence that privileged classes and privileged bodies were
to our fathers in England in the seventeenth century. These local selfgovernments are the great barriers against a centralizing despotisman artificial mountain region where a few men can defend the narrow
pass against a great army. The despot must go through this Thermopyl]e, where three hundred Spartans can stop an army of Border
ruffians.
Franklin, Jefferson, Hancock, and, more than all, Samuel Adams,
disliked the Federal Constitution because it limited State rights too
much.  Seventy years of experience has shown the wisdom of their
instinctive democratic distrust. The slave-holders and their vassals at
the North have, or fancy they have, a certain unity of interest, and so
have always a unity of action. They are the SIAVE PowtE. Every
ambitious and unscrupulous political adventurer pays court to that
slave power, and employs its weapons to fight his own battles, while
it employs him to achieve its victories-pays him with office, money,
and "honor."  The individual States are the great obstacles in the
way of this power; these Alpine mountains impede the march of its
columns, and enable a few men to defend the liberties of great masses
of men who would else have no unity of action.
Hence, the slave power continually attacks the State-rights of the
North (and always carries the day); witness the two Fugitive Slave
Bills of 1793 and 1850; witness Kane's decision, in 1855, that a slaveholder could take his bondmen to any Northern State, spite of its laws.
The Supreme Court is the weapon with which the slave power attacks
these bulwarks of freedom  and democracy,  The people register its
most wicked decrees.
Vermont made the earliest Personal Liberty Law, after the Fugitive
Slave Bill passed in 1850.  She promised to protect all who came
within her fortress.  Now she sends out a company to erect a little
breastwork to strengthen the principal fort. Her conduct is like that
of the Corporation of London in the seventeenth century; like that
of Connecticut and Massachusetts in the eighteenth, which fell back
on their Charters, as fortresses of their inalienable rights.
God bless you and keep you!
Respectfullly yours,
T. P.




206             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
TO HON. W. H. SEWARD.
May 19, 1854.
DEAR SIR,-It seems to me that the country has now got to such a
pass that the people must interfere, and take things out of the hands
of the politicians who now control them, or else the American State
will be lost. Allow me to show in extenso what I mean. Here are two
distinct elements in the nation, viz. Freedom and Slavery. The two
are hostile in nature, and therefore mutually invasive; both are organized in the institutions of the land. These two are not equilibrious;
so the nation is not a figure of equilibrium. It is plain (to me) that
these two antagonistic forms cannot long continue in this condition.
There are three possible modes of adjusting the balance; all conceivable:1. There may be a separation of the two elements.  Then each
may form a whole, equilibrous, and so without that cause of dissolution
in itself, and have a national unity of action, which is indispensable.
Or,2. Freedom may destroy Slavery; then the whole nation continues
as an harmonious whole, with national unity of action, the result of
national unity of place. Or,3. Slavery may destroy Freedom, and then the nation become an
integer-only a unit of despotism. This, of course, involves a conplete revolution of all the national ideas and national institutions. It
must be an industrial despotism; a strange anomaly.  Local selfgovernment must give place to centralization of national power; the
State Courts be sucked up by that enormous sponge, the Supreme
Court of the United States, and individual liberty be lost in the monstrous mass of democratic tyranny. Then America goes down to utter
ruin, covered with worse shame than is heaped on Sodom and Gomorrah.  For we also, with horrid indecency, shall have committed
the crime against nature, in our Titanic lust of wealth and power.
1. Now I see no likelihood of the first condition being fulfilled.
Two classes rule the nation; 1, the mercantile men, who want money,
and 2, the political men, who want power. There is a strange unanimity between these two classes. The mercantile men want money
as a means of power; the political men want power as a means of
money. Well, while the Union affords money to the one and power
to the other, both will be agreed, will work together to "save the
Union."  And as neither of the two has any great political ideas, or
reverence for the higher law of God, both will unite in what serves
the apparent interest of these two-that will be in favor of Slavery,
and of centralized power. Every inroad which the Federal Government makes on the nation will be acceptable to these two classes.
2. Then, considering dissolution as out of the question, is Freedom
likely to terminate Slavery?  It was thought so by the founders of
the Federal institutions, and by the people at large. Few steps were
taken in that direction. The Ordnance of 1787, the Abolition of the
African Slave-Trade; that is all. For forty-six years not a step!
3. The third condition is the one now most promising to end
the matter  See the steps consummated, or only planned. 1, the




THEODORE PARKER.                          207
Gadsden Treaty; 2, the extension of Slavery into Nebraska; 3, the
restoration of slavery to the Free States, either by " decision " of the
Supreme Court, or legislation of Congress; 4, acquisition of Cuba,
SHayti, &c., as a new arena for Slavery; 5, the re-establishment of the
African Slave-Trade; 6, the occupancy of other parts of North America
and South America. When all this is done there will be unity of action,
unity of idea!  " A4uferre, trucidare, racpire fcasis nominibus imperiumn;
atque ubi solitudinem faciunt pacemn appellant."
Now this must not be-it must not be. The nation must rouse itself.
I have been waiting a long time for some event to occur which would
blow so loud a horn that it should waken the North, startling the
farmer at his plough, and the mechanic in his shop. I believe the
time is coming; so I want to have a convention of all the Free States
of Buffalo, on Tuesday, the 4th of July next, to consider the state of
the Union, and to take measures, 1, to check, 2, to terminate, the
enslavement of men in America.
I wish you would advise me in this matter; for I confess I look to
you with a great deal of confidence in these times of such peril to
freedom.
Believe me, respectfully and truly yours,
T. P.
TO GOV. N. P. BANKS, MASSACHUSETTS.
Boston, October 23, 1855.
HoN. MRB. BANKS, —DEAR SIR,-A  political party represents an
idea which is advancing or receding in the people; so it is the provisional organization of that idea, preparatory to its ultimate organization in the stable institutions of the people.  Just now there are two
great ideas in the consciousness of the people, that of Slavery and that
of Freedom.  One represents the retrograde tendency, the other that
of advancing civilization; the first party is well organized, rich, in
official position, educated, and far-sighted, but it is cut off from the
generous intuitions which will construct the future. The second party,
resident in particular spots, exists in the young woods and mills on the
rivers of Kansas, hardly more; it is ill-organized, has little political
experience, with no official position save in exceptional and quite
recent cases, but it is exceedingly powerful through the ideas and the
seeds which spring up in the members, and which are so welcome to
mankind.  All the genius of America is on that side, all the womanly
women.  It will triumph.
Now you want to enable this party to obtain political power immediately, so that it may triumph forthwith, and, having the government
in its hand, at once carry out its ideas, and restrict and destroy the
great obstacle in the way of our national development. How shall we
do it? that is the question.
Hlere are two things to consider:-1. What is the maximum of the
new ideas which the people will accept in the next presidential election?  And, 2. What is the minimum  thereof with which you can
obtain their confidence, and so their delegated trust?
Look at the last first.




208             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
1. Here is the minimum.  (1.) A man whose general character and
public life is of so noble and humane and faithful a stamp, that it shall
be itself a programme of principles, and a guarantee that he will
develope them into such measures as the new idea requires. The people
believe in the continuity of personal character and personal conduct.
They are right. It is easy to find a man who will support the programme with his promise, but unless his general life is a guarantee to
that promise I would give nothing for it in him.
(2.) You next want a declaration of ideas, a platform  which will
sustain your man and your contemplated measures; that platform
should contain the principle, the fundamental idea, out of which the
action of the new party is to grow. There should be nothing hostile
to this principle in the programme, and itself should be stated as clear
as the leaders can conceive it, and the people accept and bear it. The
amount of this will depend on the characters of these two, the leaders
who prepare, and the people who are to accept. I think Mr. Chase
has made a fatal error in declaring that Slavery in the States is sacred;
it is hostile to the fundamental idea of the movement. Sumner has
also erred in his watchword, Freedom national and Slavery sectional. I
recognize the finality of no sectional Slavery even.
3. Now what is the maximum?  The Declaration of Independence
contains the programme of political principles for the conduct of the
whole nation, expressed as clearly as the leaders could make their
statement; there was no concealment.  Now my way of dealing with
the nation is this:-I lay down the principle as clearly as I can,
demonstrating it ideally by the intuitions of human nature, and experimentally by the facts of human history, and then show  what
measures follow from it, and what consequences will attend them, as
far as I can see. I do this because I aim at the general development
of the people, and not at the immediate success of any special measure.
So I always ask the people to know-(1) the point they start from;
(2) the road they go by; (3) the point they aim at. But politicians
act often on a different plan, and withhold some of those things from
the people. My maximum of communication is my own maximum of
attainment. If I were to lay the platform of the new party, I should
fall back on the national declaration of self-evident and unalienable
rights, and affirm the universal proposition that man cannot hold property in man. I should expect to fail in the great issue, but to secure
such a vote that the fact would modify the opinions, at least the
conduct, of the old party which conquered: and besides, by that
annunciation of the idea, and the consequent discussion, the whole
people would be so educated, that before long there would be an
intelligent acceptance thereof by the people, and a desirable victory
would be obtained. I think the people would now bear and justify
this idea-The abolition of Slavery wherever the Federal Government
has the power. I doubt that the North will be content with less.  On
that proposition I think you can unite all the anti-slavery action of the
nation, but on nothing less.
You know better than I whether Mr. Fremont reaches to the naximum and minimum as above. But a man like Van Buren or like
Gardner will only harm us, and that for a long time.
Truly yours.




THEODORE PARKER.                        209
TO HON. HENRY WILSON.
Boston, Feb. 15, 1855.
DEAR MR. WILsoN,-Ever since your election I have been trying
to write you a long letter, but found no minute till now.  Let me tell
you frankly just how I feel about your election and your future
prospects.  If I had the power to put whom I would in the Senate,
my first choice would have been C. F. Adams or S. C. Phillips-though
for either I have not half the personal friendship I feel for you. After
them you would have been my man before all others in the State.
Besides, there is one reason why I wanted you before even either of
them, viz. I wanted to see a shoemaker get right up off his bench
and go to the Senate, and that from Massachusetts. I wish you had
never been to any but a common school, for I want the nation to see
what men we can train up in the public institutions of education which
stand open for all.
You have done more than any political man in Massachusetts or
New England-in the last ten years perhaps, certainly in the last
seven-to liberalize and harmonize the actions of the political parties.
We must thank you for much of the organization of the Free-Soil *
party; for the revolution of the fogyism of Harvard College; for the
election of Charles Sumner, and for the Constitutional Convention,
which was worth all the time, and toil, and money which it cost. There
is only one thing which made me prefer C. F. A. or S. C. P. to youhere it is. You have been seeking for office with all your might.
What makes it appear worse is, you have no mean thing or secretiveness, and so your efforts for office are obvious to all men. Now I
don't like this hunting for office in foes; and yet less in my friends.
But for this, you would always have been my first choice for the
senatorship. As it is-I have seen many men friendly and hostile in
all parts of the State, and done what I could to promote your election
-for I know the others are out of the question. - No man rejoices
more in your success. Now let me tell you what I think are the
dangers of your position, and also what noble things I expect of you.
1. Your success has been rapid and brilliant.  If you do not become a little giddy and conceited, a little overbearing and disposed to
swagger, then you resist the temptation which so mars almost all men
who have a similar history. Look at almost all the rich men in Boston
who started poor or obscure and became famous!
2. You are to live by politics -a costly life with little direct or
honest pay, but with manifold opportunities to gain by fraud-private
gifts, &c., &c. I think the peril of such a position is very great. See
how Webster went to the ground in that way!  "A gift perverteth
judgment."  "Constructive mileage," and such things, are tempting
and ruinous.
3. You are popular and successful.  You will perhaps look for
office above office-for the highest: for nothing American is beyond
American hope. Then come the dangers of compromise with your own
* The original designation of the Republican party-derived from the question of
Freedom and Slavery in the Territories.
VOL. II.                                               p




21]-            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
sense of right, and of all the evils which follow from that, crouching
to the meanness of a party, or the whim of the moment.
It seems to me these are real dangers-and as a real friend I wish to
point them out to you at the risk even of hurting your feelings. But
it is better that I should tell you, than that you should not heed the
peril till too late. Remember, besides, that I am a minister and must
be allowed to preach.
Now for the noble things which I expect of you.   By nature
you are a very generous man, sympathizing with mankind in all lofty
aspirations-a man of the people-with thepopular instincts warm and
powerful in you. I look to you as a champion of justice to all men;
especially to the feeblest and most oppressed. I know you cannot fail
to be faithful to this great question of Slavery. But your connection
with the Know-Nothings makes me fear for other forms of justice.
The Catholics are also men, the foreigners are men, and the world of
America is wide and waste enough for them all. I hope you will never
"give up to Know-Nothings what was meant for mankind."  What a
noble stand Sumner has taken and kept in the Senate! He is one of
the few who have grown morally as well as intellectually by his position
in Congress. But his example shows that politics do not necessarily
debase a man in two years.  I hope the office may do as much for you
as for your noble and generous colleague.
I hope, my dear Mr. Wilson, you will take this long sermon in the
same friendly spirit it has been written in, and believe me now and
ever,
Respectfully and truly yours.
TO REV. T, PARIKER.
Senate Chamber, Feb. 28, 1855.
REV. THEO. PARKER, — EAR SIR,-Some days ago I received two
sermons from you, for which I am very thankful. I have not yet had
time to read them, but I shall do so on my return home. I have read
your kind letter, and you may be assured that I sincerely thank you
for it. I shall keep it and often read it as the plain and frank views
of a true friend. I have not time to write you now in regard to my
intentions, but when I return I shall do so.  I will say, however,
that I shall give no votes here which will infringe upon the rights of
any man, black or white, native or foreign.
Yours truly,
HENRY WILSON.
TO HON. HENRY WILSON.
Boston, July 7, 1855.
MY DEAl WILSON,- I cannot let another day pass by without
sending you a line -all I have time for-to thank you for the noble
service you have done for the cause of Freedom. You stand up most
manfully and heroically, and do battle for the right. I do not know




THEODORE PARKER.                        211
how to thank you enough. You do nobly at all places, all times. If
the rest of your senatorial term  be like this part, we shall see times
such as we only wished for but dared not hope as yet. There is a
North, a real North, quite visible now.
God bless you for your services, and keep you ready for more!
-Heartily yours,
T. P.
TO REV. T. PARKER.
Natick, July 23, 1855.
REV. THEODORE PARKEER,-DEAR SIR,-On my return from a trip
to the West I found your very kind note of July 7, and I need not
tell you that I read it with grateful emotions. Your approbation-the
approbation of men like yourself, whose lives are devoted to the rights
of human nature, cannot but be dear to me. I only regret that I have
been able to do so little for the advancement of the cause our hearts
love and our judgments approve, that I have not ability to do all that
my heart prompts. I hope, however, my dear sir, to do my duty in
every position in which I may be placed, if not with the ability which
the occasion demands, at least with a stout heart that shrinks not from
any danger.
I sometimes read over the letter you were so kind as to send to
me when I first took my seat in the Senate. You dealt frankly with
me in that letter, and I thank you for it, and I hope to be better and
wiser for it. I shall endeavor while in the Senate to act up to my convictions of duty, to do what I feel to be right. If I can so labor as
to advance the cause of universal and impartial liberty in the country,
I shall be content, whether my action meets the approbation of the
politicians or not. I never have, and I never will, sacrifice that cause
to secure the interests of any party or body of men on earth. The
applause of political friends is grateful to the feelings of every man
in public life, especially if he is bitterly assailed by political enemies,
but the approbation of his own conscience is far dearer to him.
Last year, after the attempt was made to repeal the prohibition of
Slavery in Kansas and Nebraska, the people of the North began to
move, and from March to November the friends of freedom won a series
of victories.  The moment the elections were over in the North, I sav
that an effort was to be made by the American organization to arrest the
anti-slavery movement. When I arrived at Washington, I was courted
and flattered by the politicians.  I was even told that I might look to
any position if I would aid in forming a national party. I saw that
men who had been elected to Congress by the friends of freedom were
ready to go into such a movement. I was alarmed. I saw that one of
three things must happen-that the anti-slavery men must ignore their
principles to make a national party; or they must fight for the supremacy of those principles, and impose them upon the organization, which
would drive off the Southern men; or they must break up the party.  I
came home with the determination to carry the convention if I could;
to have it take a moderate but positive anti-slavery position.  If not, I
determined that it should be broken at the June Council, so that the
P 2




212              LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE  OF
friends of freedom  might have time to rally the people.  Since my
return in March, I have travelled more than nine thousand miles,
written hundreds of letters, and done all I could to bring about what
has taken place.  But the work is hardly begun.  Our anti-slavery
friends have a mighty conflict on hand for the next sixteen months. It
will demand unwavering resolution, dauntless courage, and ceaseless
labor, joined with kindness, moderation, and patience.  The next Congress will be the most violent one in our history; it will try our firmness.  I hope our friends will meet the issues bravely, and if violence
and bloodshed come, let us not falter, but do our duty, even if we fall
upon the floors of Congress.
At Philadelphia, for eight days, I met the armed, drunken bullies of
the Black Power, without shrinking, and I hope to do so at the next
session of Congress, if it shall be necessary.  We must let the South
understand that threats of dissolving the Union, of civil war, or personal violence, will not deter us from doing our whole duty.
I want to see you some day when you can give me an hour or two,
for the purpose of consultation in regard to affairs.
Yours truly,
HIETRY WiLsoN.
FROM MIR. SUMNER TO MR. PARKER.
Senate Chamber, Feb. 6, 1852.
Read my speech on Lands.*  The Whig press is aroused, but I challenge it.  I have the satisfaction of knowing that my argument has
been received as original and unanswerable.  The attack of the Advertiser attests its importance.
I shall always be glad to hear from you, and shall value your counsels.
Ever yours.
TO MR. SUMNER.
Boston, Feb. 9, 1852.
I thank you for your vote on the Office Limitation Bill.f  It was
eminently just. I like the leading ideas of your speech on the Public
Lands also very much. Some of the details of your scheme I am not
sure about, because I am not familiar enough with the facts of the case
to judge. But the main idea I thank you for with all my heart.
TO  THE  SAME.
Boston, Feb. 21, 1852.
This is a queer world, and Boston is one of the queerest places in it.
Well, here is something that you ought to know, just to remind you of
* In favor of appropriating public lands to the building of railroads in the States
where they lie.- Congress Globe, 1st Session, 32nd Congress. Appendix, p. 134.
t Proposing to limit commissions in the Navy of the United States hereafter to the
term of ten years. -Congress Globe, Vol. XXIV., Part I. p. 448.




THEODORE PARKER.                        213
the religious character of this goodly and godly city. -, D.D.,
&c, &c., said of your Land speech, "it betrays the instinct of the
demagogue, and is evidently designed to gain popularity at the West."
1-fe that condemns after that sort enables one to see the motives
which animate him.
By the way, here is a good mot of Samuel J. May. The wardens
of King's Chapel sent him their new edition of the Litany, and May
replies: " You have made great improvements in the paper, printing,
and binding-all that is beautiful. But I don't see the same progress
in the matter of the book, or indication of progress in the prayers.
You still confess yourselves "miserable sinners." Now, it is not a
good plan to be always saying this; if you are so, confess it once, and
mend the matter, and be done with it.  I don't think, however, that all
of you are "miserable sinners."  But I think some of you are, e. g.
the man who voted for the Fugitive Slave Bill, I think, is a " miserable
sinner."
Yours faithfully,
THEODORE PARKER.
The following note to Dr. S. G. Howe, expresses a temporary
dissatisfaction  with Mr. Sumner, which was shared by  some
members of the Free-Soil party, and by many anti-slavery men
in 1852, because he seemed to shrink from  speaking.  At that
time an anti-slavery senator was without influence or significance in Washington; his presence was barely tolerated since he
brought credentials of a legal election.  And if he undertook to
arraign  in  speech the institution  which  was governing the
country, indifference was changed to contempt and hatred.
Mr. Sumner's scholarly reserve saved him  from  a premature
and incompetent assumption of the great part which he has
played; but he was only studying the ground, and watching for
an opportunity.
TO DR. S. G. HOWE.
DEAR CHEV.,* —Do you see what imminent deadly peril poor Sumner
is in?  If he does not speak, then he is dead-dead-dead! His course
is only justifiable by success, and just now the success seems doubtful,
and is certainly far more difficult than months ago.  Think of the scorn
with which -, and -, and their crew, will treat him, if he
returns without having done his duty! Think of the indignation of the
Free-Soilers!
T. P.
* Cheiealier, for such a friend, was a fortunate designation.




214                LIFE  AND  CORRESPONDENCE  OF
FROM  MR, SUMNER  TO  MR. PARKER.
Senate Chamber, Aug. 11, 1852.
I must at least acknowledge your letter of friendship and admonition.
I will not argue the question  of past delay.  To all that can be
said  on that head there is this explicit answer.  With a heart full
of devotion to our cause, in the exercise of my best discretion, and on
the advice or with the concurrence of friends, I have waited.  It may
be that this was unwise, but it was honestly and sincerely adopted,
with a view to serve the cause.  Let this pass.
You cannot desire a speech from me more than I desire to make one.
I came to the Senate, on my late motion,* prepared for the work,
hoping to be allowed to go on, with the promise of leaders from  all
sides that I should have a hearing.  I was cut off.  No chance for
courtesy. I must rely upon my rights.
You tell me not to wait for the Civil Appropriation Bill.  I know,
dear Parker, that it is hardly within the range of possibilities that any
other Bill should come forward before this Bill to which my Amendment can be attached.   For ten  days we have been on the Indian
Appropriation Bill.  With this the Fugitive Slave Bill is not germane.
The Civil Appropriation Bill will probably pass the House to-day.
It will come at once to the Senate-be referred to the Committee on
Finance, be reported back by them  with amendments.  After the consideration of these amendments of the committee, and not before, my
chance will come.  For this I am prepared, with a determination equal
to your own. All this delay is to me a source of grief and disappointment.  But I know  my heart; and I know  that sincerely, singly, I
have striven for the cause.
You remember the picture in the " Ancient  Mariner" of the ship in
the terrible calm?  In such a calm is my ship at this moment; I cannot move it.  But I claim the confidence of friends, for I know that I
deserve it.
Mason said to me this morning, "I see my friend Theodore Parker
* On the 27th of July, Mr. Sumner moved that the Committee on the Judiciary be
instructed to consider the expediency of reporting a Bill for the immediate repeal of the
Fugitive Slave Bill.  But the Whig and Democratic parties at their recent Presidential
conventions had declared the finality of the compromises, and, in the spirit of these
resolutions, Mr. Sumner was refused an opportunity to discuss his proposition.  At a
later day he seized an occasion which offered, when, by a timely motion, lie was able to
secure a hearing. At the beginning of his speech, he thus alluded to the earlier obs tructions:
" And now at last, among these final crowded days of our duties here, but at this
earliest opportunity, I am to be heard; not as a favor but as a right.  The graceful
usages of this body my    be abandoned, but the established privileges of debate cannot be
abridged.  Parliamentary courtesy may be forgotten, but parliamentary law must
prevail.  The subject is broadly before the Senate. By the blessing of God it shall be
discussed."-Con2ress Globe, 1st Session, 32nd Congress, Appendix, p. 1102.  It has
been discussed.




THEODORE PARKER.                         215
is after you. The Liberator also calls Butler an overseer."    How
gross the interpretation by the Liberator of the little sotto voce between
Butler and myself. He stood in front of my desk when he spoke. I
had no purpose of discussing the South Carolina laws, and promptly
said so. There is a time for all things.
TO THE SAME.
Washington, Saturday Evening.
In my course I have thought little what people would say, whether
Hunkers or Free-Soilers, but how I could most serve the cause. This
consciousness sustains me now while I hear reports of distrust, and
note the gibes of the press.
Nothing but death, or deadly injustice, overthrowing all rule, can
prevent me from speaking. In waiting till I did, I was right.
Ever yours.
TO MBR. SUMNER.
West Newton, Sept. 6, 1852.
MY DEAR SUM-,ER,-You have made a grand speech, well researched,
well arranged, well written, and, I doubt not, as well delivered. It
was worth while to go to Congress and make such a speech in the
Senate. I think you never did anything better as a work of art, never
anything more timely. This, so far as you are concerned, will elevate
you in the esteem of good men (American as well as European) as a
man, an orator, and statesman.
You have now done what I all along said you would do, though I
lamented you did not do it long ago.
Now, I look for some brave speeches from you in the State of Massachusetts;'not one or two only, but many. Of course you are expected
to speak at the convention at Lowell, and the ratification meeting at
Boston. But there is a deal to do in Massachusetts this autumn.
I thought you did not quite do your duty in 1850-1.  If Rantoul and
Mann had not been elected, we should have stood in a sad predicament in Congress.  If Mann, and some others had relaxed their
efforts, the State would have gone very differently, an  all its strongholds would have been in the hands of the Hunkers.
Who shall take the place of Iantoul, and (now) of Fowler, who
was a brave, good man? It seems to me there was never so much to
be done as now.
There is one thing that I think may be brought about. I think we
may elect Mann for Governor, and such a Governor no State ever had.
I want to talk with you about that and many other things.
While I thank you so heartily for all that you have done, I hope
you will remember that you have enlisted for the whole war, and fight
new battles, and gain new triumphs to yourself and your cause. I had
$ Referring to a remark of Mr. Butler, addressed to Mr. Sumner, which crept into the
papers.




21G             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
not seen a copy of your speech in full till to-day, and did not know
when you will be anywhere, or I should have written you before.
Thanks for the documents. I hope to get the President's Message,
and the report on Utah by-and-bye. I shall come to see you soon, as
you are in town.
Good bye.                                                T. P.
FROMT MRo SUMNER.
Washington, Dec. 17, 1852.
I await the corrected edition of your sermon,* which has produced
everywhere a profound impression. The writers for the Washington
Union have all read it, and Pryor,t the young Virginian, who has been
placed in this establishment as the representative of Mason, Hunter,
and Meade, read it through twice, and then announced to his friends
that there was but one course for them, viz., " to maintain that Slavery
is an unmixed good."
I hope some good friend in Boston will feel able to send a copy of the
corrected edition to every member of Congress.
Ever yours.
The next letter alludes to the hostility of the slave-holding
majority in the Senate, who controlled the organization through
the sympathy of the presiding officer, who is the Vice-President
of the United States.  He had habitually left the Republican
Senators off from  the important committees.
TO  ION. CHARLES SUMNER.
Boston, Dec. 20, 1852.
I am not at all sorry that Hale and the rest of you are left off from
the committees.  I am  glad of it. It is one of the most foolish
measures they could adopt. It is proclaiming this fact to the world:In the Senate of the United States there is but one party; that it is
the party of Slavery; it has two divisions-the cote droit and the co6t
gauche, the Democrat and the Whig. If a man is hostile to Slavery,
seeks to hinder it from becoming federal, and national, and universal,
he is not fit to serve on a committee of the Senate of "the freest and
most enlightened nation of the earth "; he is to be cut off as an " nhealthy member"!  It is always a good thing to drive a man to a
declaration of his principles, and to an exhibition of them in act. I
love to see a pirate gibbet himself at his own cost.
What Lord Carlisle says of you, on the one side, and what the
United States Senate does with you on the other, will look nicely side
by side on the pages of some future Bancroft or Hallam.
The Devil is said to be very old, but he must have been a sad child to
* On Mr. Webster.
+ Afterwards representative in Congress and General in the Rebel Army.




THEODORE  PARKER.                             217
have got no wiser after such experience.  He is still an ass.  Justice is
the Ass's Bridge at which the poor Devil halts, and cannot budge
an inch to get over.
TO  MR. SUMNER.
March 5, 1854.
It is Sunday afternoon-yes, evening.  I am  waiting for a company
of philanthropists to come and devise means to help the poor girls in the
streets of Boston who are on the way to the brothel.  I am sick, too,
and have been tormented with rheumatism-on my sofa all the week;
but I can't wait longer before thanking you for your brave and noble
speech.  It was Sumner all over.  God bless you!  I hope you will
always keep the integrity of your own consciousness.  We shall be
beaten, beaten, BEATEN!-I take it, but must fight still.
I will send you a sermon of mine in a day or two., If the Nebraska
Bill passes, I have a scheme on foot which I will tell you of in time,
Good bye.
TO SIDNEY  HOTMER,
April, 24, 1854.
I think we shall not disagree about the matter of Slavery. I feel no
ill-will against the slave-holders. I have townsmen there who are slaveholders, nay, relations, who have been  slave-holders ever since this
century came in.t  I hate the institution only.  But we must end it;
the two, Slavery and Freedom, cannot exist together in America, more
than hawks and hens in the same coop.  But so long as we send men
like Everett to Congress, why, the South will drive us to the wall, and
despise us-not unjustly.  When the painted Jezebels of the North,
male, not less than female, political, ecclesiastical, ceremonial, literary,
will support Slavery, why, the South must despise us!
I have taken the Richmond Examiner 4 for a year and more, to see
what the South has to say on Slavery.  I read all the Southern books
on that theme, even the sermons. I am now writing a little book on
the Commercial, &c., Effects of Slavery in the United States, from 1840
to 1850.  It will be cyphering-political economy in the main.
* "Some Thoughts on the New Assault upon Freedom in America."  Feb. 12, 1854.
+ An Isaac Parker, seaman, was the witness whom Clarkson found, by accident, after
extraordinary exertions to get hold of somebody who could testify to the point of armed
boats going up the African river, to kidnap men. —  Hist. Slave Trade, II., 177." Was
he too a relative?
+ Edited then by John M. Daniel, since Charge des Affaires at Turin, and now again
(1861) editor of the same paper, one of the ablest upon the side of Secession. Mr. Daniel
was the only Southern editor, we believe, who published in full Mr. Parker's Discourse on
Daniel Webster, not without animadversions from Southern quarters.  But he is understood to have thought it worth publishing on account of its prevailing truthfulness, which
indeed, many other Southern politicians acknowledged.




218             LIFE AND CORREISPONDENCE OF
The next letter was written on occasion of Mr. Sumner's first
attempt to resume his seat in the Senate after the assault made
upon him by MIr. Brooks:TO MIR. SUMNER.
R.R. Cars, Conn. River, February 27, 1857.
MY DEAR SUMnNER, —God be thanked you are in your place once
more!  There has not been an anti-slavery speech made in Congress, unless by Giddings, since you were carried out of it; not one.
Now that you bear yourself back again, I hope to hear a blast on that
old war-trumpet which shall make the North ring again and the South
tremble.  How mean the Republicans look now-a-days! Think of
Wilson wanting to have "these negro discussions stop."  What worse
did Webster ever say in his drunkenness and wrath?  I wish I could
inspire into you a little of my bodily strength just now, for a day or
two. Now is the time for a blow, and such a blow!
God bless you I
THIODORE PAREER.
TO tMR. PARKER.
March 1, 1857.
I have sat in my seat only on one day. After a short time the torment to my system became great, and the cloud began to gather over
my brain. I tottered out, and took to my bed. I long to speak, but
I cannot. Sorrowfully I resign myself to my condition.
Had I an internal consciousness of strength, I might brave these
professional menaces; but my own daily experience, while it satisfies
me of my improvement, shows the subtle and complete overthrow of
my powers organically, from which I can hope to recover only most
slowly, per intervalla ac spiramenta temporis.
What I can say must stand adjourned to another day. Nobody can
regret this so much as myself, and my unhappiness will be increased
if I have not your sympathy in this delay.
I may die; but if I live, a word shall be spoken in the Senate
which shall tear Slavery open from its chops to its heel-from its
bully chops down to its coward heel!
Till then, patience.
Ever yours.
I fear that you are too harsh upon Wilson, and I fear that you and
others will help undermine him by furnishing arguments to the lukewarm and to Hunkers. Bear this in minds and be gentle.




THEODORE PARKER.                          219
TO THE SAME.
New York, Brevoort Hotel, March 5, 1858.
Your speech is beautiful, exhaustive, forcible, great; but why did
you have that tail-piece, desinit in piscem?
What is doing in Massachusetts?  Is everybody asleep?  No resolutions vs. Lecompton! No persistent daily pushing of the requisition for the discharge of Loring!    No inquiry why Massachusetts
money and hospitality went to welcome a slave-hunter at Bunker
lill! *
I range daily in the alcoves of Astor, more charming than the gardens of Boccaccio, and each hour a Decameron.  Thus I try for comfort in my enforced quietude.  But my time is fast coming.  I am
almost at the end-surely, surely!
TO MR. SUMNER.
March 15, 1858.
Many thanks for your kind letter.  It always does me good to see
your handwriting even, if nothing more.  I know my speech desinit in
piscern, but I meant it should do so, for the caudal termination is for the
slave-holder.  By that termination I meant to express my utter contempt for their threat of disunion. I should like to stand in the Senate,
and there reply to some of their stuff.  What a noble opportunity
Foster (of Conn.) let slip the other day, when he was catechized on the
" Republican Form of Government" of Slave States. I would have
given sixpence for the opportunity he had.  Men say slavery was consistent with a republican form of government in Athens and Rome.
No doubt of it, with the meaning of republican at that time.  So
Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac was " imputed to him for righteousness."
TO REV. W. R. ALGER.
Boston, Newton Corner, July 7, 1857.
MY DEAR MR. ALGER,-I shall not go to bed to-night without a
line to you.  I see by the newspapers which I have just read what the
aldermen have done. They don't wish the people to face any kiDd of
music, not even on Independence Day.  Let me thank you for the
brave, independent, timely, and wise discourse which you gave us
on the Fourth.
Vou will long have the thanks of honest men for your words then
spoken, and welcomed by the better and, I judge, the larger, part of
the audience. If it is worth while to observe the day at all, except
with fireworks, and spectacles, and dinners, panem ac circenses! then
let the ideas of the Declaration be set forth, and the facts of our condition be compared therewith.  In my day there have been four other
addresses worthy of the day, one by Sprague, Mann, Sumner, and
Whipple.  Mann's and Sumner's were works which made a mark.
* Alludes to the municipal deference paid to the author of the Fugitive Slave Bill.
See below, a letter to Rev. Mr. Alger.




220            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
Now, in a time of extreme peril, you have looked the facts of our
condition fairly in the face, and told the people there were two changes
to be met: the despotic Church of the Irish, the despotic State of the slaveholders. A little clique of men, haberdashers in trade and haberdashers in politics, had just advertised their wares and their principles,
on the 17th June, by inviting the author of the Fugitive Slave Bill to
come and " call the roll of his slaves at the feet of Bunker's Hill
monument."  You did right in speaking of the act as " complimentary
flunkeyism."  I thank you for it. It was a brave, true word.
I know it is not quite pleasant to find such virulent assaults made
on you-attacks by the newspapers, attacks by the aldermen. But
there is no help for it. You must take hard licks if you would do
manly service. I hope you are ready to endure what comes. Hitherto
your course has been all prosperous.
If the ministers follow the instinct of their tribe and their individual
habit, pray don't be discouraged. There is a To-morrow after To-day,
and an Infinite God, to whom belongs truth, justice, and eternity.
Yours faithfully,
THEO. PAImKEB.
TO HLON. CHARLES SUMNER.
Boston, March 28, 1858.
MY DEAR SUMNER, —The session of the General Court is over; it
has done good and ill. But, on the whole, so far as Slavery is concerned,
it has left us worse than it found us.  Banks removed Loring; he
could do no less; he dared do no less when the alternative was to
remove him directly, or directly refuse to do so.
There was the fixed determination of the people in the State; there
were his own words, uttered in private, but intended to affect and con.
trol the public vote. He could not avoid removing him when the question came. But look at this:1. He tried to dodge the question by speaking of Loring in a general
way with all the other probate judges. He and his party, represented
by Duncan of Haverhill, Vose of Springfield, Charles Hale, &c., thought
they could play that game. But (1) the Anti-Slavery Convention, and
(2) the Democrats, showed the folly of that attempt, and drew the eyes
of the people upon the Governor. It was said, "He and his party
don't dare do it!"  But, finding he must do it,2. He deprived the act of all moral significance whatever by the
manner he did it in. He might have removed Loring without giving
any reasons, and that would have been " safe," or by giving the two
which were really cogent:-(1.) That Loring held an office in violation
of the statute of the State made to meet such cases; and (2) that he
had done an inhuman and wicked act, which outraged the sense of the
people, and which went to the overthrow of all which it is the business
of legislation to uphold and support-that he declared a man to be a,
piece of property. This had been noble.
Now, Banks did neither the one nor the other; he expressly disclaims
all reference to the act of Loring, which had thus outraged the moral
sense of the people, and led to the passage of the very law which




THEODORE PARKER.                         221
removed him, and then recommends the destruction of the Act that
forbids kidnapping in Massachusetts!
The animus of Banks is plain enough; but, depend upon it, he will
"take nothing by that motion."  All the Hunkers hate him for removing Loring; they also despise him for the cowardly way in which he
made the removal. Of course they see the hollowness of the act.
Banks' message is poor in substance and shabby in form. It does
him no honor now, and will damage him much hereafter. Nobody can
foresee what the course of events will be between now and next October
and November. But I think he came in with a smaller majority this
last autumn.
Of course he looks for some Federal office in 1860,1864, or 1868. But
if the anti-slavery tide is not high enough by that time to float a craft
of respectable tonnage, then there is no hope for him at all, and if it
be high enough, then it is a great thing for a man to have his ship
ballasted with anti-slavery Acts, the flag of liberty long flying at his
masthead. Banks don't see this. Does Chase?  Does Seward?  Why
not? It takes conscience to see the right; intellect won't do it. The
best ears in the world never perceive a rainbow, nor even the sun rise;
but the eyes of any little girl see both.
God bless you and your eyes!
TnEODORn   PAnRKE.
TO THE SAME.
Boston, May 6, 1858,
3MY DEAR SUMINN,M —  have not anything special to say, but as you
are most of the time in my thoughts I shall let a little note slip from
under my pen. So the Administration has carried its point in the House
of Representatives. I thought it would be so. Will it be as successful in
Kansas?  A territory is normally with the Administration which has
the power for a considerable time. I mean, in the general way, by the
norm of time, not the norm of justice, the Administration controls all
the offices, buys up the able men who are in the market, has lots of
money in its diffusive hands. All Danaes whom this Jupiter Nebulosus
rains gold upon, will bear children like their sire.  See how it is in
Oregon; the slave-holder whistles and all the Territory runs at once.
But when Oregon is a State we shall see quite other things. From the
point of view of mere vulgar statecraft, Seward is correct in his vote
to let her in.   But from the grand standpoint of Eternal Right,
which is universal expediency for all time in all place, Wilson and
tale were right. I should have voted as they; so would you also.
There are two courses for the Kansas men to pursue or choose
between:1. The pure moral course, i. e. to put their new Leavenworth constitution through by their votes, organize under it, and set up their State.
If' need be, let them cast their bullets and shoulder their guns, make
ready, and take aim; it won't be necessary to fire. They can't come in
as a State this Congress; but in 1858 we choose a new House of Representatives. The Northern men who voted for Lecompton will go where
their predecessors went after voting for Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska




222             LIPE  AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
Bill. The new House of Representatives will make better terms to the
Free States than the present House offers to the Slave States. In
1859-60, the outgoing, defeated, and despised Administration  of
Buchanan won't have the power of bribery, which now enables him
to buy up so many Northern men. The Senate will be glad to have
Kansas in the Union, and so out of the presidential campaign; and she
will come in free and glorious.
2. The pure politic way. Repudiate their own new constitution now,
accept the Lecompton constitution with the bribe, come in at once,
then repudiate Lecompton, put up the Leavenworth constitution, and
be a Free State.
The first is immensely the better way; it is honest, clear, and straightforward. I have not much confidence in the Northern Free-State men
in Kansas. Robinson is a humbug, Pomeroy is ditto, and Jim Lane is
Jim Lane; Conway is a noble fellow, about as faithful as Phillips and
Garrison. But the auri sacra fames misleads the most of them. The
Land Fever is more contagious than the Presidential Fever, and equally
fatal to the moral powers.
Banks behaves pretty well as Governor, and will be of much service
to us. I think how admirably Wilson has borne himself all winter and
all the spring.
Yours ever,
T. P.
TO THE HON. HORACE MANN.
Boston, October 19, 1853.
IMY DEAR SIm,-I send you the Anti-Slavery Standard, only one I
have. It may not be the one I borrowed of you. M]y head has been so
ill lately, and I so busy with matters not to be deferred, that I have not
been able to do much in reference to the libel matter. There are some of
the things which have occurred to me as worth thinking of-the language
of Cicero, in the old Roman Republic, against Verres. You will see
the passages pointed out in the well-studied article of Smith's Classical
Dict., Art. " Verres." There are some nice points of resemblance between
that hog and iMr.  -; and also Cicero's oration against Piso (see
his article in Smith, Vol. III. p. 372 et seq.), and against Antony. The
last is not so applicable perhaps; but it shows what license of speech
was deemed proper in " the last great man whom Rome never feared."
I should not want to make any comparison of -     with Antonius,
but with Verres it is proper to compare him.
I am sorry that I am so little read in controversies; but, though I
have the reputation, I believe, of washing down my dinner with nice
old sulphuric acid, and delighting to spear men with a jest, and to
quarrel with all sorts of people, I never read two theological controversies through in my life. Things of a truculent sort may be found
in Milton-I will look them up-in Horsley's Tracts, in controversy
with Priestley; in Whitman's controversy with Stuart.   The papers




THEODORE PARKER.                        223
relating to Stuart I have not found as yet.  Have you a copy of the
Anti-Jacobin, in which Canning and the others wrote?
Junius, of course, presents a rich reaping for any one; so do
Brougham's speeches; so the London Quarterly Review-say in the
time when Gifford was the editor. Then the political writings of
America, in the time just before the Revolution, and still more before
and at the beginning of " the late war."
The trial of John Philip Zenger for libel, at New York, in 1735, is
one that offers some nice points.  I have not read it since 1836; but
it is in the State Trials, and is remarkable for many reasons. I am
sorry that I am just now so pressed with work that I have little time
at command, but am not less
Truly yours,
TE1O. PARKEIER.
TO HON. J. P. HALE.
Boston, December 19, 1856.
MY DEAR MR. -HAITE,-Thank you for the good words the telegraph
tells of your saying.  Send me a Globe now and then which contains
the words themselves. I am sorry to notice the timidity of the Republican men, not discussing " the relation of master and slave," declaring
it is not their intention ever to interfere with Slavery in the States!
It is my intention as soon as I can get the power. I will remember
the guarantees of the Constitution as well as the compromises! But I
write only to ask you to write me what you twice told of the talk with
Toombs, when he said the slave-holder would call the roll of his slaves
on Bunker Hill.
God bless you!
TE o. PARBEBR
FROM HON. J.P. HALE.
Washington, December 23, 1856.
MY DEAR SIR, — As you have requested me to furnish you with
an account of the conversation which I had with Mr. Toombs, of
Georgia, in relation to the appearance of the slave-holder and his slaves
on Bunker Hill, I shall do it. When I first heard the remark, and
when I first mentioned it to you, I had no idea of meeting it again,
but since it has been made public, and various versions of it have been
made, I will give you the conversation as nearly as I can from memory.
I'do not like to be put in the ungracious attitude of retailing for
political purposes, the private conversations I may have had with
gentlemen, whether members of the Senate or not. The conversation
with Mr. Toombs was not such as to be considered of a confidential
character, nor are my relations with Mr. Toombs such as to warrant
the assumption of such a conversation between us.
With this preface I will give you, as nearly as I can recollect, the
remarks of Mr. Toombs.
He said that the discussions at the North on the subject of Slavery,
instead of having weakened or shaken the institution, had had a directly




224            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
contrary effect on the public mind, both North and South. That the
examination of the institution which has been induced by this antislavery agitation had had the effect to strengthen the rightfulness and
propriety of the institution in the minds of Southerners, and that
the same, he had no doubt, was true of the North; and it was in
connection with this growth of public opinion at the North favorable
to the institution of slavery, that he made the remark that I should
see the slave-holder and his slaves on Bunker Hill. This is the substance of the conversation. The precise phraseology, of course, I do
not pretend to recollect, but that I have given you the substance I am
entirely certain.
With much respect, very truly your friend,
JOHN P. HALE.
TO MR. HALE.
Boston, April 24, 1858.
MKY DEAR HAIE, —Thank you for writing me so.  I have often
wanted thus to address you, and sometimes have done it. But I am
a little afraid of the "l-on. Gentleman from New Hampshire," the
Hon. Senator."  Did not I vote for him once for President?
It is Saturday night now. I have done my sermon, and girded up my
loins for to-morrow. Last Sunday I preached on the Infinite Power of
God; to-morrow I try the Infinite Wisdom of God, then the Infinite
Justice, and at length the Infinite Love. I delight in writing and
preaching.  No poet has more joy in his song than I in my sermons. I
wish I could preach at the House of Representatives.  But (1) the
House of Representatives would not let me.  (2.) I could not come
this year. May 31, I go to the Progressive Friends in Chester
County, Pennsylvania, and I do not like to  be away more than
once in a season.  I did  think  of a trip to Washington, and
attending the Scientific Association at Baltimore, but I give it up for
the Friends.
I am glad you like my revival sermons. They sold 10,000 in ten days,
and the demand still continues. They were stereotyped in forty-eight
hours after they were preached; but they struck off 5000 copies before
they stopped the press to stereotype the matter. I have another I will
send you in a day or two, preached two months ago.
I want' an Executive Document on the Mexican Boundary, a great
quarto volume.
I wish you could magnetize Banks with your great generous honesty;
why cannot you?  He appointed Parker, the kidnapper's counsel in
the Burns case, as his aid.  Turned out Loring and appointed the
kidnapper's counsel!  I do not believe he has ever repented that
crime, —  mean Parker! He changed his measures, not his principles
I fear. Besides, Banks turns men out of office for mere party motives,
and puts worse men in. He is too much of a man to lose. — I feel
great interest in his welfare and wish somebody would help him. I
wonder who are his cronies?
Yours faithfully,
THEODORE PAREKn.
What can we do for poor noble Sumner?




THEODORE PARKER.                       225
TO THE SAME.
Boston, May 12,1858.
Now a word about Kansas.  There are two modes of action for
Kansas independence.  I. The political course: to accept the Lecompton Constitution, with its bribes; organize under it, but with free State
men for its officers.  They are in the Union. Next, repudiate that
constitution, and make a new one. I find that recommended, but I
object to it. 1. It is fraudulent. 2. It can't succeed, as there are
seven chances against it to three in its favor (the Government will
declare the slavery men elected, &c.). 3. It is false to the friends of
Kansas, who have reported her as a virtuous young lady in love with a
nice young man, and hostile to the miserable old curmudgeon, her
guardian has tried to coax, and then to drive, and finally to bully
her into marrying. Now, if both suitors come with her into the meeting-house, and then she chooses the old rich miser, consummates the
marriage, gets the settlements fixed as her absolute and exclusive property asfemme sole, and then runs off with her " nice young man," and
squats on the estate conveyed to her by the defrauded husband, I think
her reputation is gone, and won't come back " till the kye come home,"
and her family will be blown upon.
II. The moral course: to accept the new Leavenworth Constitution;
organize under it, repudiate the Lecompton and all its works; drill
their soldiers, cast their bullets, shoot at targets with " Lecompton"
on them, painted either as Old Nick, or Old Buck, and be ready.
There will be no fighting, or need of it; only need to be ready to fight,
though Kansas will not come into the Union in 1858, or in the winter
of 1859. But next autumn a new House of Representatives must be
chosen. The Lecompton men of the North will go where the KansasNebraska men went in 1854 and 1856. The defeated and outgoing
Administration will not have the means to bribe as in 1857-8. The
House will let in Kansas, with yet more generous grants than the
Democrats have offered her as bribe for slavery. The Presidential and
Senatorial Executive will be glad to get rid of the mischief, and have a
clear field for the election battle in the autumn of 1860.  So Kansas
may be in the Union before Christmas, 1859. She must say " No" to
the old lecher who wants to add her to his harem; " Yes" to the young
man whom she loves (and he loves her); she will have fortune enough
by-and-bye.  I meant to have said that in a speech at New York, but
rheumatism  hindered. I will let it off at Boston in the Anti-Slavery
Convention.
IFaithfully yours,
THHEODORE PARKER.
TO HON. S. P  CHASE.
Boston, March I6, 1854.
MY DEAIR SIR,-I thank you heartily for your kind letter of the
12th.  It was more welcome for the admonition than even for the corn-.
VOL. II.                                               Q




226               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
mendation it contained.  I thank you heartily for the admonition.*
But, (1), the introduction of my peculiar views in this matter will do
no harm to the special matter in hand. It will only, as I think, prejudice men against me, not in favor of the general wickedness, slavery,
or the special sin, the enslavement of Nebraska. It is of small consequence to me whether I am unpopular or not.  I have nothing to hope
from  popular favors, and, thank God, I fear nothing from  popular
frowns.
~2. I have studied this matter of the Divine origin of the Bible
and the Divine Nature of Jesus of Nazareth all my life.  If I understand anything it is that.  I say there is no evidence-external or
internal-to show that the Bible or Jesus had anything miraculous in
their origin or nature, or anything divine in the sense that word is
commonly used.  The common notion on this matter I regard as an
error-one, too, most fatal to the development of mankind.  Now, in all
my labors I look to the general development of mankind, as well as to
the removal of every such special sin as American Slavery, as war,
drunkenness, &c., therefore I introduce my general principle along with
my special measures.  I become personally. unpopular, hated even; but
the special measures go forward obviously; the general principle enters
into the public ear, the public mind, and what is true of it will go into
the heart of mankind, and do its work.  I think I work prudently-I
know I do not rashly, and without consideration.
Here let me say that the thing I value most in a man is fidelity to his
own nature, to his mind and conscience, heart and soul.'he integrity
of consciousness is to me above all outside agreements or disagreements.  So I can esteem a man as much for disagreeing with me as
agreeing.
Allow me also to mention the admiration and esteem I feel for you.
Your whole career, so far as I know it, is most honorable-eminently
manly-religious.  Sumner told me your argument in the Van Zandt
case was the ablest forensic paper ever prepared in America.  My
judgment in such matters is not worth much; but it is the ablest I
ever saw; not inferior to the great English arguments.  I know not
why the Times omitted all I also said of you at Fanueil Hall.  It was
clumsily said, with no premeditation-the whole speech was impromptu.
But this was part of it, that the outer man showed as much intellect as
Webster (his picture was behind me), and his (Mr. Chase's) whole
aspect and history proved that his heart was even better than his
head.
I think  you  and I take the  same view  of the Independent
Democratic party. I assent to all in your letters thereon.  I often, at
public meetings, have set forth the same opinion.  But I confine
myself more to disseminating the ideas of political morality, &c., than
to organizing men into political parties. WVhen the idea has hold of
the public mind, I hope to help organize men about the principle for
the sake of some measures thence derived.
I thought of making my statement of the encroachments of the slave
spirit more minute, by enumerating numerous other advances, but Ifeared
* Mr. Chase had deprecated the introduction of Mr. Parker's theological views in
tonnection with the purely moral points of Anti-slavery.




THEODORE PARKER.                       227
to weaken the faggot by putting too many sticks in it for the withe to
hold. I wish some one would make a special history of the whole
thing-like Mlr. Newman's " Crimes of the House of Hapsburg."
As soon as I get the census of 1850, I mean to write a book on the
"General Influences and Special Effects of Slavery in the United
States from 1840 to 1850."  If you can send me any documents, State
or National, or hints thereto, I shall be much obliged to you.
Believe me ever, gratefully and truly yours,
THEo. PARBKER.
TO THE SAME.
Newton Corner, near Boston, July 25th, 1856.
MiY DEAR SIR,-I believe I think more highly of you than you of
yourself; for I do consider you a great man and a great statesman. I
have always expected great things and noble things of you; always
shall, and such only. If you are not a great statesman, then who is?
and what is the standard to measure men by?  I have rejoiced in your
many manly and noble deeds-done in times of trial, too-and in the
well-deserved honors you have won. I am a minister, and so may easily
be supposed to have that sort of stupid blindness which so often belongs
to the profession. But I am not so stupid as to believe that great
offices can be filled, in such times as these, without occasional mistakes
and errors, even in great men; and I am glad you wrote me the letter
which came a day or two since, for it gives me an opportunity to mention two things which I complained of in the speech at New York,
which lay heavy on me.
1. Of the letter in which you accepted the nomination to the
Governorship of Ohio.
2. Of the fact that you let the United States kidnappers take off
Margaret Garner, after she had broken the laws of your State by
killing her own child.
When the letter was first written we all talked it over —  mean your
friends in N; E. I spoke with the most suspicious of them; some
had been W17higs, some Democrats, some Know-Nothings. They all thought
it was a "backing down;'" that it weakened the usual effect of your
noble course.  Some thought, however, it was made for " buncombe,"
and that you " could not be elected without it."  I have not the papers
now at hand-out here in the country-but remember that it seemed
to me to foreclose all Federal action against slavery in the Slave States.
Now, my notion of the matter is this: the Constitution (I think in
section iv. art. 4) provides that the general Government shall guarantee
to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government.  Certainly that is not a Republican form of government where 280,000
white men own 384,000 black men, as in South Carolina. Or if it be,
then the Czar or the Pope might claim a Republican form of government for Russia and Rome. Now, if I were the whole people of the
North, I should say to South Carolina, "You may establish a Republican form of government for yourself, or we will do it for you;
peaceably, if we can, but forcibly, if we must. We shall attend to the
Q 2




228              LTFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
guarantees of the constitution, and not allow the majority of the South
Carolinians to be bought and sold like cattle."  When the anti-slavery
spirit is strong enough in the North, we shall do that, if need be. But
we may be forced to interfere with slavery in the Slave States by one
of two ways: 1, there may be an insurrection, and the only way to
put it down may be by cleclaring the dcaves free; or, 2, the slaveholders my proceed violently to enslave the poor whites; in which
latter case, I take it, the present public opinion in the North would
demand the interference of the Federal authorities —notwithstanding
the fact that white slavery is as constitutional as black slavery.  Now,
it seemed to me that your letter held out a promise that you would
not use the Federal authority against slavery, and this would embarrass
your future action. I don't object to doing one thing at a time, and
insist that each step should be taken in the most cautious and deliberate
manner; but would not promise not to take other steps.  I may easily
be wrong, but I thought you did so, if not directly, at least by implication.
2. In the Garner case, I thought the anti-slavery Governor of Ohio
would get possession of that noble woman, either by the hocus pocus of
some legal technicality, which would save appearances, or else by the
red right arm of Ohio, and I confess I was terribly chagrined that it
did not turn out so.  If a mechanic had pursued his fugitive apprentice
to Ohio, and that apprentice had set a barn on fire, or stolen a white
hat, I think the apprentice would have been held for trial.
Now, I have made a clean breast of the whole matter, which has
tormented me a good deal.  For I look with anxious eyes on the few
men of great ability and noble character, and am much concerned at
any mistakes they commit.  I know you will honor the motive which
leads me to write as I have. I look to you for great services to be
done to your country, and shall try all your actions by the justice of
the Infinite God.
So, with hearty wishes for your prosperity, believe me
Sincerely your friend,
THEODORE PAREnm.
TO TIHE SAME.
St. Albans, Vt., Feb. 16, 1858.
DEAlS SIr,-I write to thank you for your excellent message relating
to the Kansas matter, and to ask two favors:
1. That you would send me a copy of that message, and of your
inaugural speech, if in a pamphlet form; and
2. That you would collect your various speeches, &c., into a volume,
as Mir. Seward has done.
I hope you received a copy of my "Defence," which I sent you
months ago.
Yours respectfully,
TxIE o. PAXKER.




THEODORE PARKER.                        229
TO THE SAME.
Boston, March 29, 1858.
MY DEAR SIR,-I had been intending to write you a letter, thanking
you for the pamphlet copy of your message, which came to me a few
clays ago, but I had not time to say all I wished until this day, when
your welcome note of 25th inst. came to hand.
I think your last message comes nearer to the ideal of what a
Governor's message should be than any one I ever saw. I like much
the statistics of the industry, and of the wealth you mention (pp. 4
and 5, etpassim). Think of it! You have 270,000 landholders-not
including town-lots-out of a population of 2,400,000! England has
18,000,000 people, and not more than 30,000 to 35,000 landholders,
including the owners of town-lots! There the plough is never in the
hands of the owners of the soil; the normal condition of a Briton is
that of a tenant, not a freeholder.  I hope Ohio will never thus go
down.
I am  glad to see how  rich  you are — 849,000,000 dollars to
1,000,000,000 dollars (p. 4), all won out of the earth in fifty or sixty
years! Compare that with the Slave States. South Carolina in 1855
was valued at a little less than 169,000,000 dollars, excepting the slaves;
that is the value of all the land and things in the State, with its 30,000
square miles of land, and 700,000 people! In 1857 Boston was appraised at 258,000,000 dollars-90,000,000 dollars more than the entire
State of South Carolina.  What an odds betwixt the results of slave
labor and free labor! The property of Massachusetts in 1799 was
97,000,000 dollars; in 1849 it was 597,000,000 dollars; now we guess
it at 1,000,000,000 dollars. Yet we have but 7500 square miles of
land, one-third of that not being fit for the plough; and our natural
products are only trees, stones, and ice-if we except the cranberries,
which a Southerner thrusts into the mouth of one of our Northern
representatives.
I am glad you mention the debt as a bad feature. This is a great
blot, and I think your remarks are admirable on it.
But of course the great matter is slavery. If we don't settle the
matter right, we go down, just as the other republics have done; and
if we do presently annihilate this terrible curse, then, I think, there is
such a course open for the American people as the most sanguine poet
never dared to dream-an industrial democracy, with the whole continent at our command-the Anglo-Saxon blood in our veins-why,
what is too much to expect of such a people?  I think slavery is
doomed to perish soon. Banks, a not sanguine man, told me a month
ago, that he did not know a Southern politician who thought it would
last forty years in any Southern State! As you say, the Devil is in
great wrath because he knoweth that his time is short.
You say well; we want a public opinion, which political men may
thence shape into form. But we want one thing more-a man who
can wisely and bravely embody what public opinion there is already.
Such a man is one of the forces that make public opinion; for while
the thinkers can only persuade and convince men one by one, and act




230              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
on thoughtful men, the magistrate, in a high place, moves men by his
position and the authority thereof, and moves such as do not think
much. In 1860 we shall want a man for the Presidency who has never
yielded to the South; we don't want a fanatic, a dreamer, an enthusiast, but we don't want a coward or a trimmer.  If such an one had
been nominated in 1856, he would have carried the nation, I think.
Instead of that we took a Johnny Raw, of whom we knew no evil,
but the nation knew of no statesmanlike qualities in him, How could
the people trust him?
Governor Banks has just now removed Judge Loring.  He did not
dare to do otherwise. The people demanded the act. But he has
damaged himself greatly by the manner of the removal. He expressly
disclaims all moral motives for the act, and then turns round to destroy
the personal liberty law, so that he may atone for the removal! He
has injured the republican party more than Gardner ever did, and
has left us in a worse condition than he found us. He lacked moral
courage.  God has given us special faculties for special functions;
and as the most delicate ear can never see a rainbow, which yet fills
the eye of every boy or girl, so the nicest and ablest mind fails to
notice the right, which  is God's idea  of expediency, while the
humblest man who keeps his conscience clear and active, sees it at
once and without much ado. I wonder that able men do not see the
immense force of justice in the affairs of men, and the power that a
just and fearless statesman is always sure of at length.  I should
rather deserve the Presidency for my great qualities, than have it for
twenty years without deserving.
But I did not mean to write a busy man a long letter. May God
bless you in your high office and higher talents.
Yours truly,
THE ODORQE PARSER.
I send you a pamphlet speech.
TO THE SAME.
Boston, August 30, 1858.
MY DEAR MR. CHASE,-It gave me great pleasure to see your face
at meeting the last Sunday in February, and I took all possible pains
to get near you; but the crowd of friends who wished to bid me goodbye kept me from you. I was forced to go out of town the moment I
left the meetilg-house, so could not seek you at the hotel.  The next
morning I took the earliest cars for the West and went to Schenectady,
where I had an academical address to deliver before the graduates of
Union College. A queer college it is too, where they train up young
politicians, not young scholars!  I hoped to find you somewhere on your
route, and have a word of talk about the state of the nation, but I
must wait another opportunity.
I have just returned from a wagon journey, with a friend, of 700
miles through Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and a part of
New York, the Adirondac Mountains and the Hudson River region, and
the whole length of Connecticut, from New York line to Massachusetts.
The weather was delightful, not a bad hour in twenty-one days. We




THEODORE PARKER.                         231
saw such signs of wealth, comfort, temperance, intelligence, and virtue
as were exceedingly grateful.  I saw but one American with patched
trousers, but one American at all drunk, and he had lived at the
VWest, and returned fat and rich to his native village in Vermont, and
was making merry over his good fortune.  We slept but one night in
a great town (Albany), but kept in the little villages, and travelled in
the by-roads, resting in little towns.  I wish you could pass over the
same route to gladden your humane eyes with sights of the welfare
which comes from the industrial democracy of the North.  You would
see the practical superiority of the puritan New-Englander over all
the other peoples on the Continent, I think.  In parts of Vermont
he has been damaged by the Canadian French, who take down the
tone of many villages, and even of such towns as St. Albanis  and
Burlington itself. In the border towns of Massachusetts and Connecticut you see the influence of the Dutch, who have dirtied the land
a little, and given a shiftless look to the people.  But elsewhere the
sight of the towns and farms, with the schools and meeting-houses,
and happy people, was a continual delight. What a change since
1758; but what a yet greater change will another hundred years of
peaceful industrial development make.  With thanks for your noble
services, and hopes for a yet greater future,
Yours faithfully,
THEODORE PARKER,
P.S.-What wonders will 100 years do for Ohio!
TO THE SAME.
Newton Corner (near Boston), July 9, 1858.
M Y DEAR SIR,-I sent you a little speech I made the other day at
the Anti-Slavery Meeting, which I think quite important, not for any
special merit of mine therein, but for the direction of it.  I hope you
will look at the argument.
I send you also a copy of the Christian Examiner for July, (it is
the Unitarian periodical), which contains an article on the "material
condition of the people of Massachusetts." It is not to be known that
I wrote it.  I want you to see the facts of our condition in this little
State, with its 7800 square miles of land, and its niggardly soil and
climate.  I wish there was a little more spunk in the people.  If you
will let Horace Miann see it after you have done with it I shall be glad,
for he still takes a deep interest in the State he has done so much to
bless.
I wonder where that collection of your works is which you spoke of
two years ago.
I shall send you a Fourth of July sermon in a day or two, which
will make the tenth address I have published in six months, which is
something for a sick man.
With hearty thanks for your many public services, and hopes for yet
more, believe me,
Yours faithfully,
THEODORE PARKER.




232              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
TO THE SAME.
Newton Corner (near Boston), July 25, 1858.
MY DEAR SIR, —  was glad to see your face to-day, but grieve that I
could not take you by the hand, and have a little talk. But, unluckily,
I had to fly out of town as soon as the sermon was over, and you also
was gone when I came down from the desk. I go to Schenectady
to-morrow, or else I should do myself the favour of seeing you at the
Revere Ifouse.  When you return you will find a letter, and one
or two little notions of mine. I hope you will have a good time
at Dartmouth.  I expect to see Mr. Seward at Union College on
Tuesday.
Yours truly,
THIEODORE PARKER.
TO THE SAME.
New York, Feb. 4, 1859.
MY DEAR SIR, —I shall not go out of the country-perhaps never to
return-without thanking you for the kind letter you sent me a few
weeks ago, as well as many kind letters before.  Certainly it is
unpleasant to be thus stopped in the midst of my work, with my plans
but half carried out, and many literary labours only half-done, and yet
not to be finished by another hand. Yet I do not complain.  If I
recover-and the doctors tell me I have one chance in ten! only nine
chances against me to one in my favor! —I shall be thankful for the
experience of affection and friendship which my illness has brought
from all parts of the land. If I do not recover, I shall pass off joyfully, with an entire trust in that Infinite Love which cares more for
me than I care for myself.
Let me thank you for the noble services you have rendered your
State and your nation, and hope that they will continue to increase and
bless mankind.
Faithfully yours,
THE ODORME PARKER.
This letter relates to a Convention chosen by the people of
Massachusetts, to present a revision of the State Constitution to
the popular vote:TO MR. ELLIS.
Boston, Nov. 20, 1853.
Another Sunday morning has passed away without my seeing your
face. As you have so long been not only a friend to me, but a very
dear and near friend-almost a father-I cannot any longer keep from
speaking to you with the pen, while I cannot with the mouth. You
take such an interest in what goes on at the Music Hall, that I must
tell you last Sunday I preached on " The Good among Things Evil, and its




THEODORE PARKER.                        233
Ultimate Triumph over Them;" that was a continuation of one which
you heard on " The Beautiful in Things Homely, the sublime in Things
Common, and the Eternal in Things Daily and Transient."  To-day I
spoke on " Love of God and its Natural Forms of Manifestation." This
is only half of the whole, the rest is to follow on Thanksgiving Day,
"On the various Forms of Philanthropy which distinguish this Age
above all others."
Charles tells me all about you. The rheumatism did not surprise me.
I saw how much you felt, and knew it would report itself in some
ailment before long. I trust the dry air and fine weather of South
Carolina will drive all the ache from your bones, and that MArs. E. and
Katie, and Mary Jane, will banish all aches from your heart.  I was
quite glad to hear through Charles how well they all were.
You have heard the result of the election. I was surprised at it, for
I thought we should carry the New Constitution by a small majority.
But I am not very sorry at the result, and the more I think of it the
less do I lament.
1. The Convention was faulty in its members.  Adams, Mann,
Palfrey, Stephen C. Phillips, were left out.  They are the four ablest
free-soilers in Massachusetts-powerful men, high-minded men, not
seekers for office. The free-soilers could not entirely respect a Convention which left out this array of talent and integrity. Then, there
was not an anti-slavery man in the Convention.  The men who got up
the Convention did not want Palfey or Mann; no attempt was made
to elect them; not an anti-slavery man was proposed anywhere.  The
"leaders" would not think of such men as Phillips or Garrison, or
other men who go for abstract right. Now there is a class in Massachusetts, not a large one, but one of a good deal of influence even now,
who look up to men of integrity and principle, and trust them.
2. Then the Convention did not trust the people, who were much
more radical than their Constitution. The leading men thought the
district system was the only right one-but said " The people will not
accept it."  They thought the judges ought to be elected by the people,
but said, " The people are not up to that." So was it with many things.
Now there are men in Massachusetts who understand some things.
They had not confidence in the Convention when they saw that the
Convention was not looking for right, but only for the available.  I
heard this said many times while the Convention was in session, and
told some of the leaders, " If you don't trust the mind and conscience
of the people, they will not trust you and your compromise between
your own sense of right and their selfishness."
3. Then the Constitution itself was quite faulty. It failed to meet
the great difficulty of representa.tion.  The Convention shirked the
burthen, made a provisional arrangement to last one year, and then left
the whole thing to the Legislature and the people. That was only a
makeshift.  Besides, the Constitution was not consistent as a whole.
It lacked unity, and did not rest uniformly on great principles. Thus
it went before the people.  It had the endorsement of the free-soil
party, a party which has been willing to sacrifice its principles ever
since 1848. But some of the most eminent men of the party came out
and repudiated the New  Constitution. Mann had left the State;




234  LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
S. C. Phillips said not a word for it. Dr. Howe barely tolerated
it.  It was not so bad as the old one.  Palfrey came out against
it in a pamphlet, which the free-soilers did not answer, but only
abused.  Adams spoke against it, spoke well too, in many particulars.
Hoar opposed it, so did Josiah Quincy.
The free-soilers had many able men in the field.  Dana (who really
does not belong with the reformers, and will ere long, 1 think,     slip out
of their team,) Sumner, and many smaller men.  But Hl. and B.,
who are a curse to -any party, went bawling all over the State. I
should suspect a cause was- wrong which such persons defended.  Then
the  Commonwealth newspaper was miserably  weak.   The  Whig
papers wrote able arguments against the New Constitution.  The
Commonwealt  did not meet arguments with  arguments, only with
sneers, jests, &c. The "Reformers" are defeated, horse, foot, and
dragoons.  The free-soilers are down fiat, at the mercy of Caleb
Cushing, whom they made a judge   If this breaks up the coalition, I
shall be glad. A free-soiler coalescing with a hunker, who stands on the
Baltimore platform,@ is what I wish not to see again.  But I fear the
free-soilers will fall yet lower; we shall see.  By-and-bye we shall have
better times.
TO  HiON. GEORGE BANCROFT.
Boston, March 16, 1858.
Mr  DEAR BANTCOoFT,-If I don't like your seventh volume it must
be not only your fault, for I doubt any man in the United States more
carefully reads or more thoroughly admires true history, but a very
rare fault besides.  For the six goodly volumes only give promise of
good to come.  Let me thank you heartily for the part you have taken
against the Lecompton' wickedness. I only wish it had been a little
earlier.  A  more wicked administration, where can  you find it in
your modern historical researches?
Here is what I get about the Africans at the battle of Bunker Iill;
fighting in it, I mean; my friend William C. Nell, a coloured man of
this city, helps me to the facts. HIe has written a quite valuable book
on " The Colored Patriots of the Revolution," Boston, 1855, 1 Vol.
12mo., pp. 396. On p. 21, he mentions the fact that (Peter) Salem, a
colored man, shot Major Pitcairn.  His authority for it is Col. Swett's
" History of Bunker Hill Battle," (3rd ed., Boston, 1827).  I suppose
you have Col. Swett's pamphlet, but lest it be not at hand I make this
extract:-" Among the foremost of the leaders was the gallant Major
Pitcairn, who exiltingly cried'The day is ours!' when Salem, a black
soldier, and a number of others, shot him through and he fell; " and
p. 43, again, " Many Northern blacks were excellent soldiers, but
Southern troops could not brook an equality with negroes.  Nov. 15,
1775, Washington prohibited their enlistment.  Besides Salem, Cuffee
Whittemore fought bravely, in the redoubt.  He had a ball through
his hat on Bunker Hill, fought to the last, and when compelled to
* Enunciation of the principles of the Democratic party which has always been the
servile instrument of Southern aggression.
+ Alludes to the Bill by that name, which was a democratic measure to compel the
people of Kansas to become a State upon pro-slavery terms.




THEODO1RE PARKER.                      235
retreat, though wounded, the splendid arms of the British officers were
prizes too tempting for him to come off empty handed; he seized the
sword of one of them  slain in the redoubt, and came off with the
trophy, which in a few days he unromantically sold. He served faithfully through the war, with many hair-breadth'scapes from sword and
pestilence," pp. 25, 26, of Appendix, note M.
" Gen. Winslow stated a contribution was made in the army for
Salem and he was presented to Washington as having slain Pitcairn,
who was killed on the British left, according to all authorities," ibid.,
p. 25, note M.
I requested Mr. Nell to hunt up all the additional information he
could get for me touching this matter. He has just reported (3 p.m.)
as follows:Cornelius Harkell was killed and buried  on Bunker Hill; his
daughter, Mrs. Harriet Brown, now lives in Revere Street, Boston.
Titus Coburn was in the battle; his widow now lives in Andover,
(Mass.), and draws a pension.
Prince Ames was also in the battle; he was from Andover. His
widow, Eunice A., JEt. xcii., now lives at Jamaica Plains, and draws a
pension.
Barzillai Leu was also in the battle, likewise, from Andover. He
was a fifer; he has a son of the same name, Barzillai Leu, now living
in Boston, and two daughters, Mrs. Farmer and Mrs. Dalton, in S.
Russell Street, Mrs. Dalton lives in Charlestown in the summer, on
the edge of Bunker Hill.
Cato Howe was in the battle, he was from  Plymouth, Mass. His
widow died in Belknap Street, in 1856.
In the engravings of the battle when I was a boy, the black man,
Peter Salem, appears in the act of shooting Major Pitcairn; but nowa-days a white man is put in his place. Richard Frothingham, in his
account of Bunker Hill battle, makes no mention of Peter. He appears,
however, on some of the bills of the Monument, Freeman's and
Charlestown Banks.
Last 17th of June, when Senator Mason fulfilled Senator Toombs'
prophecy, Mr. Everett said:-" It is the monument of the day, of the
event of the battle of Bunker Hill, of all the brave men who shared its
perils, alike of Prescott, and Putnam, and Warren, the chiefs of the
day, and the colored man Salem, who is reported to have shot the
gallant Pitcairn as he mounted the parapet."
When you publish your volume I wish you would send Nell a copy.
Negroes get few honors.
Yours faithfully,
THEODORE PARKER.
Here is advice to a young  friend touching  the matter of
fugitive slaves:TO MISS GROVER.
Boston, Nov. 6, 1857.
MY fDEAB Miss GROVER,,-~I have just conferred with one of the
best lawyers in Boston, who thinks there is no danger in the woman's




236              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
remaining in Lawrence.  The Supreme Court of Massachusetts long
ago decided (in the 3Med case) that a slave brought to Massachusetts
by her master was by that act free.  It will still adhere to that
decision. It seems to me she might quit the service of her claimant,
and go about her business. I think he would not dare molest her. But,
perhaps you had better talk with some lawyer in Lawrence. If the
young woman is timid, and will be in fear of her master, then it will
be perfectly safe to send her to the Quakers. I don't like to advise in
this matter.  You and she will know  better than I which to do.
Please let me know what is done finally, and her name, and so oblige,
Yours faithfully,
THEODORE PARKER.
Our Supreme Court will not heed the ]Dred Scott decision.
TO THE SAME.
Boston, Nov. 20, 1857.
MY DEAR Miss GRovE,-,-Mr. Stephenson is a very respectable
colored man, a clerk in the glass warehouse of one of my friends, in
Haverhill Street. He wrote me about the matter you refer to-to
learn your name in full. I told him it was Miss, not IMrs. I am glad
the colored people do this, for their sake, and yours.
Truly yours,
THEODORE PARbKER.
TO THE SAME.
Boston, Jan. It, 1858.
DEAR Miss GROVER, —What a world of trouble you have with the
black people, whom you would so gladly serve! I sent word to Mr.
Stephenson soon as I received your note a month ago, and made inquiries of Mr. Nell, the most " respectable" colored man in Boston, and
heard no more. He says S. is a good fellow. I don't know what will
come of it all. Perhaps you will write an amended version of the
Hebrew word, " Put not your trust in Princes! "
I hope you will send me a copy of the farewell address. Betty, I
suppose, has gone to Tennessee, to become the mother of bondmen and
bondwomen till the tenth generation. We must bear as much from
this untoward generation as Moses from  his nation of slaves, who
wanted to go back to Egypt, their land of bondage.
I think Plato must have had the advantage of the companion you
speak of, and I hope it has been communicated to him that he is
thought a greater man than ever.
Yours faithfully,
THEODORE PARKER.
TO HON. JOHN APPLETON, BANGOR.
Boston, June 1, 1857.
MTY DEAR SIR,-The matter you spoke of the other day is one of
s;.ch importance that I will set down one or two things which have
come to me since you left us.




THEODORE  PARKER.                            237
In Pitiscus, " Lexicon Antiquitatum  [Romanarum," s. v. " Libertus "
is a very valuable essay on the whole matter, full of learning and carefil thought.   I suppose you will find  Pitiscus in  the Theological
Library at Bangor, if nobody else has it. Pitiscus had the advantage
of Rosini's "Corpus Antiquitatum IRomanorum," which he had edited.
lie has some things I think not in Walton.
Rosini, a great authority, says, " Libe)lu s antiquis temporibus.
civis erat, sed publico nullo, nisi Apparitoris, cut Coactoris fungebatur
munere.  Apparitores autem  erant, ut post ostendetur, Proecones, Interpretes, Acesnsi, Lictores, Viatores, Slatores,"  (Amsterdam  Ed., 1743,
p. 77).  He cites (p. 78), a " Formzua manumissionis," which Jacobus
Cujacius found in an ancient M3S., and which, it seems, the master
gave in writing to the Libertus: " Ille civis Romanus esto, ita ut ab
hodierna die ingenuuzs, atque ab omni servitutis vinculo securus permaneat,
tanquzam si ab ingenuisfuisset parentibus procreatus. Ena  deAnique peragat
parten, quamcumque elegerit, ut deinceps nec nobis, nec successoribts
nostris, ullumn deleal noxice conditionis servitium; sec diebus vitce sute sub
certa plenissimaque ingenuitate, sicut alii cives Romani, per lunc mnanumissionis atque ingenuitatis titulum, semper in.qenuus et securus existat,"
Ic.  I don't find  the  passage  in  my  copy  of Jacobus Cujacius
(- vols. fol., 1595), but he has many other good things, s. v. "M3anumissio," and  "Libertus."   He always speaks of a libertus as civis
Romanus.  Even the lowest kind of freedmen, libertus dedliticius is still
civis. Look here: " Libert-s Dediticiorum munere testanentum facere non
potest, quia nullius certce civitatis civis est," i. e., he did not belong to any
tribus or gens, I take it.  But he was still a civis in a passive sense, and
so entitled to the benefit of all the laws.  His son had all the rights of
an ingenuus.
For a long time the libertus had not a complete testamentary right,
and the patronus had a lien on the property of a deceased. libertus to
a certain extent.  But that was the case with a son; even after his
father had manumitted him he still owed certain munera to his father
during life, and could not alienate his property, though, certainly, the
filius was as much a civis as the pater himself. But I suppose you
own Cujacius, so I won't worry you with more from him.
It is curious to trace the increase of civil power allowed the different
classes of Gives Romani from the time when the Libertus dediticius was
simply a passive citizen, a non servus, (as the non-church member was
in Massachusetts for a while in the seventeenth century) up to the
time when the Emperor Valeus decreed "Libertorum  filios adipisci
clarissimam dignitatem non prohibemus."
Smith's " Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities " (Lond., 1849)
has an article on " Libertus," but it contains some great errors-as that
the sons of libertini could not have gentile rights.  Now  it appears
from  Cicero (Leg. II., 22) that " tanta religio est Sepulchoerum, ut extra
sacra et gentem inferri fas negent esse "-none but one of the gens could
be buried in the tomb of the gens.  But in the famous tomb of the
Scipios-who were certainly very genteel people-there are epitaphs
of several liberti of that family.
Niebuhr, who was not so much on this as you might look for, says




238              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
most of the clientes were probably freedmen. ("Hist. lom.," lond.,
1851, vol. I., p. 595.)
Yours truly,  TIEO. PAIIKEE.
TO MR. JAMES ORTON, WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS.
Boston, Feb. 22, 1855.
DEAR SIR,-I have not time to write at length as the theme demands. But it seems to me the American party rests on a very
narrow foundation. I have no blood in my veins which did not come
here between 1620 and 1640, but it is no better than if it had come
between 1820 and 1840. Democracy must rest on humanity, not mere
nationality or on modes of religion.  I am as far removed from
Catholicism as any man in America; but I should be ashamed to ask
any religious privilege which I would not grant to any other man in
the country.  I would never exclude any man from office on account
of his birth or religious creed; only for his character. Surely I should
prefer a higher law Catholic, to a lower law Protestant; and. a noble
man born in Scotland, England, Ireland, to a mean man born on
Plymouth rock.
The new party has done good things:(1.) It has rebuked the insolence of the Bishops and Archbishops
of the Catholic Church-who required a severe chastisement.
(2.) It has shown American politicians that they cannot use the
foreign population as before; that was sadly needed in Boston as well
as elsewhere.
(3.) It has checked the administration and beaten them sorely.
(4.) It is knocking the old political parties to pieces with great
rapidity.
All that is good work; but it is not done in the spirit of democracy,
which allows every man his natural rights because he is a man-not a
red-man, or a white-man, or an American man, &c. It is an important
question how long a man ought to be here before he should vote, &c.
Five years may not be long enough, or it may be-I have not made
up my mind about that. But I would welcome the foreigners, they add
to our riches and our national prosperity in general; and it is well that
America should be the asylum of humanity for this century as for the
seventeenth.
Hastily, but truly yours,
TInEO. PARKEE.
TO W. H. IIERNDON, SPiIUNGGIELD, ILL.
Boston, April 17, 1856.
nY iEAn Si,,-Your letters, the printed matter not less than the
Written, rejoice me very much. I honor the noble spirit which breathes
in them all. I did not answer before, for I had no time, and a hundred




THEODORE PARKER.                        239
letters now lie before me not replied to.  When I tell you that I have
now lectured eighty-four times since November 1, and preached at
home every Sunday but two, when I was in Ohio, and never an old
sermon; and have had six meetings a month at my own house, and
have written more than a thousand letters, besides a variety of other
work belonging to a minister and a scholar, you may judge that I
must economize minutes, and often neglect a much valued friend. So
please excuse my delay in acknowledging your brave manly words, and
believe me,
Faithfully yours,
THEO. PARKER.
TO THE SAME.
Boston, Dec. 31, 1856.
MY DEAR SIR,
The President is an old man —a man of feeble will, of no ideasvacillating in his measures, but firm in one principle —to take care of
James Buchanan. But he was chosen by the South, at the command
of the South; on the platform  of the South was he sworn into office.
He will, therefore, be forced to yield to the logic of Southern ideas.
There is a manifest destiny in that which no will could escape.  But
he wishes to keep all the party together; so attempts in words to conciliate the North, while in deeds he obeys his sterner masters at the
South.  Hence his vacillation in regard to Walker and Kansas, to
Nicaragua, to the great financial questions,
Now as the Northern institutions and the Southern are founded on
ideas exactly opposite and antagonistic, and as the logic thereof impels
the people in opposite directions, it is plain that one of three things
must happen;1. The South may conquer the North,
2. The North may conquer the South,
3. The two may separate without a fight,
I need not say which is likely to happen,
Douglas finds his term is nearly out in the Senate; he knows he will
not be re-elected if he continues facing to the South. If he fails of the
Senatorship in 1859, he fails of the Presidency in 1860, in 1864.  He
is ambitious, unprincipled, coarse, vulgar, but strong in the qualities
which make a " democratic " leader. lie has served the South all along,
but the South would not pay him with the nomination in 1856.  He
seeks his revenge on its nominee, and on the South itself, while he
shall advance his own interest.  So he opposes the attempt to force
slavery on Kansas. He claims that he does this in consistency with
his Kansas and Nebraska Bill, and his doctrine of squatter sovereignty.
But he is more inconsistent than it appears at first, for not only did
he (1) favor Toombs' Bill; but (2) the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, with its
squatter sovereignty, was not a principle of his political philosophy,
but only a measure of his political aim to serve the South for his own
advancement.  So he is now not only obviously inconsistent with his
special support of Toombs' Bill, but secretly and personally inconsistent




240               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
with his whole course of action and uniform adhesion to the South and
his perpetual mock at freedom and its supporters.
He is a mad dog, who has grown fat by devouring our sheep; he was
trained to that business, this bloodhound of the South.
But as his master has not fed him, as he hoped, he turns round and
barks at those whom he once obeyed whenever they whistled for him,
and bit whomsoever they told him to seize.
I have no more faith in him now  than years ago.  But he is
biting our enemies.  "Dog eat dog," says the Turk; "Dog eat wolf"
say I.  No man in the North can do the South such damage.  "Seize'en! " say I.  "Bite'em! take hold on'em, stibboy!! "
Here is his plan of action.  He sees the South is determined on
putting slavery in Kansas.  He sees it can't be done; that if the
democratic party insist on the Southern measures, it will be in 1860
where the Whigs were in 1856. In all the Northern States it will be
routed and cut to pieces. He won't connect himself with the Southern
effort.  He won't run for the Presidency in 1860. He has told Walker
"I shan't be in your way in 1860."  For he foresees the defeat of the
democrats at that time, their rally about another platform, under
another flag and with different leaders in 1864. He hopes for his own
triumph then-his own election.
He anticipated this in 1855-6.  Don't you remember "Senator
Douglas had a bad sore throat," and could not attend the sessions
of the Senate in December, 1855, January, 1856, but in February got
better?
I wait now to see what he will say to the administration treatment
of Paulding.
Yours truly,
THEODORE PARKER.
TO THE SAME.
Boston, August 28, 1858.
MY DEAR SIR, —1VMany thanks for your kind letter and the benevolent things you say about my sermons.
I look with great interest on the contest in your State, and read the
speeches, the noble speeches, of Mr. Lincolhfwith enthusiasm: one I
saw in the Tribune of last week will injure Douglas very much.  I
never recommended the Republicans to adopt Douglas into their
family.  I said in a speech last January "he is a mad dog; "just now
he is barking at the wolf which has torn our sheep.  But he himself is
more dangerous than the wolf. I think I should not let him into the
fold.
* These speeches were delivered by Mr. Lincoln, now President of the United
States, at the time that a few prominent members of the Republican party hoped,
by softening their anti-slavery principles, to avail themselves of the hostility of Mr.
Douglas for Mr. Buchanan, and to secure the former for their leader in the impending Presidential campaign. The plan did not succeed.




THEODORE PARKER.                        241
*    *       Greeley is quite humane, and surrounds himself
with some of the best talent in the country.  Do you see what the
Richmond Whig says of Buchanan; that means that the Whig is
fattening Edward Everett for the Presidency.  Much good may it
do him.
I think the Republican party will nominate Seward for the Presidency, and elect him in 1860; then the wedge is entered and will be
driven home. Yours truly,
THEODORE PARKER,
TO THE SAME.
Boston, Sept. 9, 1858.
MY DEAR SIR,-Many thanks for your two very interesting and instructive letters. You make the case very clear. I look with intense
interest on the contest now raging in Illinois. There is but one great
question before the people: Shall we admit Slavery as a principle and
found a Despotism, or Freedom as a principle and found a Democracy?
This one question comes up in many forms, and men take sides in it.
The great mass of the people but poorly see the question; their leaders
are often knaves and often fools.  But
Quidquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi.
I make no doubt Douglas will be beaten. I thought so in 1854, and
looked on him then as a ruined man. What you told me last spring
has all come to pass. I am glad Trumbull demonstrated what you
name. I thought it could be done.  But in the Ottawa meeting, to
judge from the Tribune report, I thought Douglas had the best of it.
He questioned Mr. Lincoln on the great matters of Slavery, and put
the most radical questions, which go to the heart of the question, before
the people. Mr. Lincoln did not meet the issue. He made a technical
evasion; "he had nothing to do with the resolutions in question."
Suppose he had not, admit they were forged. Still, they were the vital
questions pertinent to the issue, and Lincoln dodged them. That is
not the way to fight the battle of freedom.
You say right-that an attempt is making to lower the Republican
platform. Depend upon it, this effort will ruin the party. It ruined
the Whigs in 1840 to 1848. Daniel Webster stood on higher antislavery ground than Abraham Lincoln now.         * *
*      If the Republicans sacrifice their principle for success,
then they will not be lifted up, but blown up. I trust Lincoln will
conquer.* It is admirable education for the masses, this fight!
Yours truly,
THEODORE PARKER.
I think that these letters will be well enough understood by
all who had sufficient interest to follow the political movements
of the times in question.  For all others, perhaps it is too soon,
* Referring to the canvass of Illinois by Messrs. Lincoln and Douglas for the United
States' senatorship in the autumn of 1858.
48




242             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
it certainly would occupy too much room, and raise too many
collateral questions, to attempt to explain and justify all the
allusions. On the whole, it may be said, with reference to Mr.
Parker's letters, that they show a keener political instinct than
the newspapers and speeches of the time betrayed.
TO THE SAME.
Boston, Sept. 23, 1858.
MY DEAR SIR,-Your last letter, just come to hand, is quite important. I shall keep it confidential, but consider the intelligence, and
"govern myself accordingly."  That "accidental" meeting at Chicago
is quite remarkable, and explains many things which seemed queer
before.
Last spring you told me much which was new, and foretold what has
since happened. I did not understand till now, after reading your last
letter, how you could tell what Douglas was after by looking in his
eye; now it is clear enough. There is freemasonry in drinkirg.  I
long since lost all confidence in, both as the representative of a
moral principle, and as the adviser of expedient measures. His course
in regard to Douglas last winter was inexplicable till now.
We must not lower the Republican platform. Let the Know-Nothings
go to their own place; we must adhere to the principle of right!  I go
for Seward as the ablest and best representative of the Democratic
idea, that could now get the nomination.  My next choice would be
Chase. I put Seward first, because oldest and longest in the fieldperhaps, also, the abler.
But if Douglas is defeated, if Trumbull is re-elected in 1860, I
think he would be quite as likely to get the nomination.
Massachusetts is likely to send a stronger anti-slavery delegation to
Congress than ever before. Some of the Know-Nothings will be discharged (others ought to be). C. F. Adams, J. B. Alley, T. D. Eliot,
and George Boutwell, are likely to be members of the next House of
Representatives. Governor Banks would, no doubt, lower the Republican platform, if that operation would help him up. But Massachusetts will oppose any such act, so will the people of the North. If we
put up a spooney, we shall lose the battle, lose our honor, and be
demoralized. Edward Everett is beating every New England bush for
voters to elect him. He may beat till the cows come home, and get
little from his labor.
What you write about, the letter from the Eastern senator, chagrins
me a good deal. But I am sure of this: if the attempt is made by the
Republican leaders to lower the platform, then they are beat in 1860,
and are ruined as completely as I think Douglas now is., says
he would admit new Slave States. I despise such miserable cowardice,
all the more in such a man.
Truly yours,
THEODORE PA~ KEB.




THEODORE PARKER,                         243
TO THE SAME.
Boston, November 13, 1858.
MY DEAR SIR,-I am your debtor for three letters, very instructive
ones too. I should not have allowed the account to run on so, had I not
been sick.  A surgical operation laid me on my bed for nearly three
weeks, and, of course, I wrote only with another's hand, and but little
even in that wise.
So you "are beaten;" the reasons you give are philosophical and
profound, it seems to me. I think you have hit the nail on the head.
But I don't agree with you as to Seward.  W~hat private reasons you
have for your opinion, I cannot say, but his two speeches at Rochester
and at Rlome don't look like lowering the platform.  I-le never spoke
so bold and brave before. He quite outruns his party, and no Rlepublican paper in New England, I fear, has dared to republish them.  The
Anti-Slavery papers printed one, and perhaps will copy the other.
You are beaten, but I am not sure the Administration do not think
it a worse defeat than you do. I think they hated and feared Douglas
snore than Lincoln.   Had Lincoln succeeded, Douglas would be a
ruined man. He would have no political position, and so little political
power; he would have no original influence in American politics, for
he does not deal with principles which a man may spread abroad from
the pulpit or by the press, but only with measures that require political
place to carry out. He could do the Administration no harm. But now
in place for six years more, with his own personal power unimpaired,
and his positional power much enhanced, he can do the Democratic
party a world of damage.
Here is what I conjecture will take place. There will be a reconstruction of the Democratic platform on Douglas's " principles " (else
they lose the nation). This involves (the actual but not expressed)
repudiation of Buchanan, and the sacrifice of his Cabinet officers, &c.
He will sink as low as Pierce. In 1860 the Convention will nominate
a man of the Douglas ideas.  Will it be Douglas himself?  I doubt
it, for he has so many foes in the North and the South, that I think
they will not risk him.  But if he has heart enough to carry the Convention, then I think the fight will be between him  and Seward
and that he will be beaten! I look for an Anti-Slavery Administration
in 1861-I hope with Seward at its head. But it requires a deal of
skill to organize a party to find a harness which all the North can
work in; but we shall triumph, vide Hammond's speech.
Yours truly,
TITEOLORIE PuRKEi.r
1 2




CI-IAPTER XXIII.
Preaching in tWatertown - Illness - The revival and the Prayers for Mr. ParkerJan. 2, 1859 -Letters to the Society-Consultation of Physicians-Letters to and
from Friends.
INf the spring of 1856, Mr. Parker volunteered to increase the
amount of labor, which was already so heavy upon him, by supplying the pulpit of an independent society in Watertown.  Old
associations and a desire to do something to support a movement
for which his influence was partly responsible, induced him to
make this offer.  But it was more than he should have undertaken.  For a year he rode from Boston to Watertown, in all
weathers, and preached generally the sermon which  he had
delivered in the Music Hall in the forenoon.  The only compensation which he desired to receive for this, was the payment of
his livery stable bill. His activity in other directions was not
abated.  Lecturing went on as usual; and his whole life was
controlled and deeply touched by the political and moral questions of the time.  It was not possible for the strongest organization to carry so many burdens, and be unfretted by their
weight.
Yet he neglected nothing which he ever undertook to perform.
Every afternoon was devoted to the parochial service of his
immediate parish in Boston; and he readily answered calls of
this description, which carried him  twenty miles and more from
the city. It was on one of these excursions"' that he fell upon
some ice in mounting the cars, at a time when he was quite ill,
and sustained a severe shock.  He frequently caught heavy colds
upon his lecturing expeditions, but never missed fulfilling his
engagements for any cause whatever, through his own fault or
Nov. 2;i 1858. See poat, p)p, 254-5 letter to Miss Colbe.




THEODORE PARKER,                      245
remissness; nor ever, from any cause, failed to keep his appointments more than two or three times through his whole career.
The parochial business of his ministerial office was performed
with a deep sense of its delicate and important nature.  The
number of the visits which he made was very great, but few
necessarily to each family or individual.   He was a great
strengthener and consoler.  Whatever trouble he approached, or
whatever approached him, was the occasion of an admirable
ministry of common-sense, womanly tenderness, and a mighty
faith in God.  He used to say that the parochial relation taxed
him more heavily than all his work, and that the more closely
he held it, the more he was convinced that it was work for a
genius,-to take a fluttering heart into the hand and calm its
fears, to soothe its agonizing throbs, to penetrate the soul's wild
weather with serene confidence and the warmth of personal feeling, to make the distracted mind resume or begin its faith in the
Infinite Perfection at the very moment when finite imperfection
was most palpable; all this was business for angelic powers.
But it was essential to his highest success, and to the affectional
cultivation of a true idea of God; and he never slighted it.  If
pity, equanimity, devoutness, a manly, brotherly heart contribute
much to discharge the pastor's office well, he did not greatly fail.
He was simple and childlike to the little ones; sincere, brotherly,
sensible, and genial to the young, and an ever-springing sweet
fountain of piety to all.  That hand which could crush, as with
the weight of many tons, could descend, if needful, with a touch
soft as unspoken feeling.  He has made his own record where no
pen is subtle enough to follow and transcribe.
But how his life ran out by these depleting pipes, which so
many truths, so many sorrows, so many studies, so many personal exactions, had attached to his willing nature!  I have
not been disposed to mention every illness, and the lapses of time
laid waste by incapacity to think or work, and the numerous
recoils of an overworked body.  Not a season passed without
them; they became more serious every year.
FROM THE JOURNAL.
April 19, 1856.-Last night I was to lecture at New Bedford, and
tried to speak, but was so ill that I could not hear or see or speak
well. I left the room, and went out with Mr. Robeson, and walked
a few minutes,  Went to an apothecary's, and drank about a




246              LIFE AND  COIRESPONDENCE OF
spoonful and a half of sherry wine, which helped me.  Spoke, but
with great difficulty.  Am better to-day, but slenderly and meanly.  I
take this as a warning —not the first.
The letter which follows is a sufficient explanation of the state
of his health in 18 5 7,
TO BtEV, WILLIAM  }I. FiSH,
Newton Corner, July 25, 1857.
MIrY DEAR FRIEND AND BROTHER,-I thank you for your very kind
letter, and the hopes and fears it expresses.  I am getting betterslowly, but I hope surely.  These are the facts of the case:-I come
of a long-lived family.  Six Parker fathers, buried in lew England,
average about seventy-seven years; six Parker mothers go up to near
eighty.  But my brothers and sisters die early.  My parents had eleven
children.  I am  the youngest.  All but one lived to attain manly
years.  All are dead, save my brother, near sixty, and myself. They
have the critical period of their life from  forty-four to forty-seven.
FTive of them died about that age; only one has surpassed it.  I shall
be forty-seven the 24th of August next. So I am in that critical period.
If I live a year, I shall probably go on to seventy, eighty, or ninety.
Here is the cause of the present form  of disease.  Last February
I went to Central New York to lecture.  Feb. 9th I was to lecture at
Waterford, 10th at Syracuse, ]lth at Utica, 12th at Rochester, and
then return and reach Boston at midnight of 14th-15th.  I should
pass every night in my bed except that of the 12th.  But, on the contrary, things turned  out quite  otherwise.  The railroad conductor
left us in the  cars all night at East Albany, in the midst of the
innundation.  Common New England prudence and energy would have
taken us all over the river.  I had no dinner; no supper, except what
I had in my wallet [dried fruit and biscuit]; no breakfast the next
morning, save a bit of tough beef in an Irish boarding-house.  When
I awoke on the morning of the 10th, I felt a sharp pain in my right
side, not known before.  I got to Syracuse that n-ight, 10th, vidZ Troy;
lectured at Utica the 11 th, and at 11 P.M. took the cars for Rochester
and rode all night, till 5 or 6 in the next morning, when I got into
damp sheets at Rochester, and slept an hour.  I was ill all that day,
and at night had all the chills of an incipient fever. But I lectured, took
the cars at 2 or 3 A.t., having waited for them  three or four hours in
the depot, and reached Albany in time for the 4 P.M. train, Friday, and
got to Boston about 2 A.M. on Saturday, having had no reasonable meal
since noon, Thursday.  Sunday I preached at Boston and Watertown,
as my custom was. The next week I was ill, but lectured four times;
so the next, and the next, until in March I broke down utterly, and
could do no more.  Then I had a regular fever, which kept me long in
the house; but soon as I could stand on my feet an hour, I began to
preach.  This was a means of cure, aun  it helped me much to look into
the faces of the people again!




THEODORE PARKER                         247
July 12th, we shut up the Music Hall, and I shall not preach till
Sept. 6th.  I am  devoting all my might to getting well.  The pain
in the side still continues.  I attack it from without by compresses
of wet linen, and by homoeopathic medicine from within.  I have a
nice boarding-place, with all manner of agreeable influences about me.
and live in the open air all the fine weather.  I hope soon to be as well
as ever. I am  very thankful to the kind people in all parts of the
country, who take so generous an interest in me. I have enemies
enough, who hate me with the intensest bitterness of malice; but I
think few men have more fiiends; non.e warnmer and 1Hizder. But I will
not trouble one of the best of them with any more of a dull, egotistic
letter in the dog-days.
WRith love to you and yours,
T. P.
TO TOHE SAME.
Boston, November 11, 1858.
MY VERY DEAR MR. FISHr, -  thank you for your kind, sweet letter,
which I found so moving that   i kept it two days, after tasting its
sweetness, before I ventured to read it through; for I am  still a
little weak, and cannot quite trust the emotional part in such affairs.
Have no fear for me now; I have weathered the Gape, and think I may
live to the respectable age of my fathers, say eighty or ninety.   I
think I have conquered the last of my physical enemies.  I have submitted to a surgical operation, not painful or dangerous, only exhausting and wearisome; it laid me on my back some weeks, and has kept
me fiom  my pulpit four Sundays; but I shall preach the next time.
I can't walk very well as yet; but try it every fair day.  I have ridden
out four or five times.  You must not thilnk so highly of rme, my
dear friend.  Whenever I slip away there will be a plenty of men to
take my place and do my work, or a greater in a better way. There
is so much prejudice against me, that I sometimes fear I hinder men
more than I help them.  But yet I have much work to do; whole
continents and islands, which I have begun to clear up, and make into
farms and gardens.  I want about twenty years more, for serious, solid
work; even then I shall be only sixty-eight years old; twenty years
less than Josiah Quincy.  But I will not trouble you more; writing,
as you see, by another's hand.
Many thanks for your kind memories and wishes.  Remember me
kindly to your wife.  I hope your son will prove worthy of his father
and mother.
Believe me, faithfully and gratefully, your friend,
THEODORE PA.KEER.
TO REV. S. J. MrAY.
Boston, Feb. 11, 1858.
OH! Mi  DEAR S. J.,-Open thine eyes, look through thy spectacles,
and thou shalt once more behold the elegant chirography of thy longsilent friend. A year ago yesterday I was in the good town of Syracuse;




248               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
but Archimedes was not there to welcome me.  I had passed the night
in the inundation at Albany: the pleurisy was in my side, the fever in
my blood, and I have been about good for nothing ever since. This
has been a stupid winter to me. I have less than half my old joyous
power of work, hence I have not written to you these three months!
I grind out one sermon a week; that is about all I can do. I
have lectured seventy-three times-always close at hand-and have
done for the season.  Last year I lectured eighty times-all the way
from  the Mississippi to the Penobscot, gave temperance and antislavery addresses besides, and preached to two congregations, besides
readlig a deal of hard matter, and writing many things.  I am fortyseven by the reckoning of my mother; seventy-four in my own
(internal) account.  I am an old mian. Sometimes I think of knocking
at Earth's gate with my staff, saying, "Liebe Mutter, let me in!"  I
don't know what is to come of it.  My father died at seventy-seven, a
great hale man, sick ten days, perhaps.  My grandmother lived to be
ninety-three, and, I think, had ne'er a doctor after her eighth baby was
born in her thirty-sixth year, or thereabout.  But nine of my ten
brothers and sisters are already gone forward. None of them saw the
forty-ninth birthday. One lives yet, aged sixty. There is a deal of work
to do. I enlisted " for the whole war," which is not half over yet.
I am glad you preach only once a day. I think the Society will not
return to the old way. Brother Dewey likes it, and other Brothers
would try it, if they dared.  I trust you will be much better, and that
soon. It's the Joe-sickness that pulled you down. You took his complaint in your heart, and so broke down.  I know how it was. Well,
the good boy will go to Europe.  How I wish I had a hundred dollars
to shoot him in this letter! But alack, and alas! I am poor this time!
I can't earn thousands of dollars by lecturing, as hitherto; the factories pay nothing, so I must creep into my shell, which is "'minished
and brought low."  I don't like to be poor and act poor too!
I send your son Joe a letter or two; but I know few persons in
Europe at present.  I hope he will see the Apthorps, now at Rome. If
he goes to Neuchatel, he must see Desor.  All my acquaintances in
Germany are now old men.  He has youth on his side, the dog! which
is a capital introduction to nature and " the rest of mankind."
The house is all well and sends "love to dear Mr. May" and his
family.  Good bye.
T. P.
Here are notes to all the people I can think of. J. won't want to see
the theologic men I knew in 1844.  Now they are as old as the hills!
God bless the boy and his (naughty) father.
In 1857-5, great commercial embarrassments broke up the
fierce business habits of the people; losses, anxieties, and doubts
of a financial solution, held the controlling interest of the country
in suspense.  In this reaction from  an over-stimulated state, a
revival set in, whose waters covered the flats left bare by retreating prosperity.  The prayer-meetings which commenced in
that time of great despondency, or which had been in feeble ope



THEODORE PARKER.                       249
ration before, attracted numbers of people in the cities and towns,
who had less to do and more to dread than usual.  The law,
which was then seen in action, is constant in every age and race,
through every apparent variation made by condition and culture.
If any widely-acting cause invigorates the popular tone, and lifts
it out of depression or indifference, then all hearts rush together
to the nearest symbol of their hope, or joy, or hate.  From this
positive enhancement of life comes a unity, which achieves the best
or the worst things of history. And if a common cause impairs the
popular tone, a prevailing mood is soon created, part physical
and part moral, which also invites the nearest contagion. /Every
race has oscillated between its shop and its temple.  When work
goes swimmingly, whether of arms, of arts, or of industrial enterprises, temples are left open for Te Deums; but when the characteristic activity  languishes or suffers foreign interference, they
resound with threats, misereres, and confessions.  In times of
greater ignorance the minds of the panic-stricken men are laid
waste by superstition, but in an epoch of improving theologies,
and when political and moral subjects are more absorbing than
doctrinal ones, a milder infection runs through people, if business,
the most absorbing subject and pursuit of all in this country,
loosens its hold and gives the moody opportunity./
/   So we had a great revival under natural conditions; but, of
course, the theology which invokes a Providence to dissipate a
whitlow, upset a boat on Sunday, right another on Monday,
and perform  in general all that we like or dislike, ascertained
that the work was supernatural and special. /
Mr. Parker preached a sermon upon the Ecclesiastical and the
Philosophical Methods in Religion, -   in which he showed what
monstrous  evils  resulted from  the Church  Theologies; and
among them he ranked speculative and practical atheism.  It is
a clear and healthy discourse, but not remarkably strong with
any of his characteristics.  There needed not, 1however, the extensive reporting of his sermon by the daily press, and its diffusion in  a pamphlet form, to  attract tile  attention  of the
revivalists towards the great foe of their traditional theology. All
his labors entitled him to their notice.
His continually increasing influence must have presented a
curious problem  to minds which had vehemently denied his
* On False and True Theology, Feb. 14, 1858. Published the same year.




250              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
insinuation that they believed in a Devil quite as much as in a
God.  Now, they were in the dilemma of having denied that
they believed the Devil was as good as God, and yet of claiming
Mr. Parker as a living and triumphant testimony to diabolical
ability.  From their stand-point the question was embarrassing.
At any rate, it became clear to them that something must be done,
for he grew more formidable every day. It occurred to them that
the real sprit of this " notorious infidel" was misunderstood. How
otherwise could he go on so, increasing in favor with  man, and
doing iany undeniably good things?  Perhaps the amount of
good in this bold, bad man-which came, of course, by  nature
and not by grace-~had created a partiality for him  at Court,
which was very damaging to the true adherents, and misrepresented, moreover, the Court's general policy.  An attempt must
therefore be made to disabuse the divine mind of these unfortunate predilections. The proper representations were accordingly
made at a prayer meeting, which was held on the afternoon of
Mlarch 6, at the Park Street Church.  Other efforts were doubtless made elsewhere, and on other occasions, but of this we have
definite and reliable accounts.
Here is a specimen of some i~.. aome of the vigorous insinuations, called praying, which illustrated the spiritual influences of
that occasion:O Lord, if this man is a subject of grace, convert him, and bring
him into the kingdom of Thy dear Son  But if he is beyond the reach
of the saving influence of the Gospel, remove him out of the way, and
let his influence die with him.
O Lord, send confusion and distraction into his study this afternoon,
and prevent his finishing his preparation for his labors to-morrow; or
if he shall attempt to desecrate Thy holy day by attempting to speak
to the people, meet him there, Lord, and confound him, so that he
shall not be able to speak!
Lord, we know that we cannot argue him  down, and the more we
say against him, the more will the people flock after him, and the more
will they love and revere him! O Lord, what shall be done for Boston,
if Thou dost not take this and some other matters in hanl?
O Lord, if this man will still persist in speaking in public, induce the
people to leave him, and to come up and fill this house instead of that!
One brother exhorted the rest to  pray that God would "put
a hook in this man's jaws, so that he may not be able to speak."
O Lord, meet this infidel on his way, who, like another Saul of Tarsus,
is persecuting the Church of God, and cause a light to shine around




THEODORE PARKER.                        251
him, which shall bring him trembling to the earth, and make him an
able defender of the faith which he has so long labored to destroy!
One requested his brethren whether, in their places of business
or walking in the street, or wherever they might be, to pray for
Mr. Parker every day when the clock should strike one.
The latter Christian had probably heard of the destructive
efrect of a concentric fire opened at the same moment.
What might not be the result if, precisely at one o'clock, arms
of all calibre, from the sharp pocket-pistol to the deep-bellowing
columbiad, opening fronm  Hanover and Blackstone Street, and
Commercial Wharf to Roxbury Neck, poured a converging fire
through the Mfusic Hall into the " fortress and defence" beyond?
The gross fetichism of the above prayers is plain to all.  They
are only  bricks from  the masonry which builds the popular
churches.  They are representative prayers, a little more frank
than  usual;  stripped of mastic.  Yet people wonder at the
charges Mr. Parker used to make, that hatred, low conceptions of
God, gross views of prayer, and of the connection between the
finite and the  infinite, were latent elements of the  popular
theology, and might at any time appear under sufficient temptation.  They are, in act, essential to that theology, wherever it is
consistently maintained.
When, in the course of a year, Mr. Parker's frame, overtasked
by all his deeds of power and of love, had to yield, and he sought
in retirement to save a remnant of his time for God's service, it
was suspected that the true believers had succeeded in instructing
the Chief Ear, and that the favorite had been disgraced.  It is
hardly credible, even in ecclesiastical America, but will it be
believed abroad, that a representative paragraph of pious jubilation actually appeared, attributing Mr. Packrer's consumption to
the fervent prayers of the elect?
TO MRS. JULTA BRIDGES, WEST NEWTON.
Boston, April 9, 1858.
DEAR MADAM,-I am much obliged to you for the interest you take
in my spiritual welfare, and obliged to you for the letter which has just
come to hand. I gather from it that you wish me to believe the theological opinions which you entertain and refer to. I don't find that
you desire anything more.
I make no doubt the persons who pray for my conversion to the
common ecclesiastical theology, and those who pray for my death, are
equally sincere and honest.  I don't envy them  their idea of God
when they ask Him  to come into my study and confound me, or to




252             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
put a hook into my jaws so that I cannot speak. Several persons have
come to "labor with me," or have written me letters to convert me.
They were commonly persons quite ignorant of the very things they
tried to teach me; they claimed a divine illumination which I saw no
proofs of, in them, in their lives, or their doctrines.  But I soon found
it was with them as it is with you; they did not seek to teach me
either piety, which is the love of God, or morality, which is the
keeping of the natural laws He has written in the constitution of man,
but only to induce me to believe their catechism and join their Church.
I see no reason for doing either.
I try to use what talents and opportunities God has given me in the
best way I can. I don't think it is my fault that I regret the absurd
doctrines which I find in the creed of these people who wish to instruct
me on matters of which they are profoundly ignorant.
But the Catholics treated the Protestants in the same way, and the
Jews and the Heathens thus treated the Christians.  I find good and
religious men amongst all classes of men, Trinitarians, Unitarians,
Salvationists, and Damnationists, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Mahomedans, Heathen. There is one God for us all, and I have such perfect
love of Him that it long since cast out all fear. Believe me,
Yours truly,
THIEODORE PARKER
The supplications offered up in Park  Street were answered
appropriately from the Music Hall in the two discourses of April
4 and 11: one on "A False and True Revival of Religion," the
other on "The Revival of Religion, which we need."  They are
an answer to prayer worth considering. They overflow with the
health of unsparing criticism, pure morality, and tender devoutness.  They are filled full with the elements which promote a
revival of conscience and piety in the hearts of men, fertile as
the
" --  happy lands that have luxurious names."
Their offence was in their absolute, unvarnished truth-telling
concerning the condition of the Church and the country.  Their
picture of the beautiful purification of America, which a true
revival would promote, has the crushing satire of common-sense,
unstintedly spoken, to show what hideous evils are never touchled
and cured by the agitation of evangelical sentiment.
Ministers talk of a " revival of religion in answer to prayer "  It
will no more so come than the submarine telegraph from Europe to
America.  It is the effectual fervent work of a righteous man that
-availeth much-his head-work, and hand-work. Gossiping before God,
tattling mere words, asking Him  to do my duty-that is not prayer.
I also believe in prayer from  the innermnost of my heart, else must
I renounce my manhood and the Godhood above and about me.
I also believe in prayer. It is the upspiinging of my soul to meet the




THEODORE PARKER.                         253
Eternal, and thereby I seek to alter and improve myself, not Thee,
O Thou Unchangeable, who art perfect from  the beginning! Then
I mingle my soul with the Infinite Presence.  I am ashamed of my
wickedness, my cowardice, sloth, fear. New strength comes into me
of its own accord, as the sunlight to these flowers which open their
little cups.  Then I find that he that goeth forth even weeping, bearing
this precious aid of prayer, shall, doubtless, come again rejoicing, and
bring his sheaves with him.
The technical revival passed away, but Mr. Parker continued
manfully his prayer and work against the palpable evils of his
country.  A French writer has come to the rescue of the revival,
and attributes to it the unanimity of sentiment which suddenly
awoke  in  the uncertain  North at the bombardment of Fort
Sunmter! Orthodox journals do not appear at all eager to accept
this alleged efficiency of prayer and conference-meetings, which is
gratuitously extended to them.  In truth, the genuine revival
which has swept through Northern hearts, and is making them
more unanimous every day, had been anti-slavery!  And that
owes little to the Churches of America, who are carried off by its
power, and compelled to serve it after having resisted and blasphemed the spirit.  What would not the orthodox Churches
give, if history could show them prevailingly faithful, in the days
of anti-slavery weakness, to keep alive the protesting conscience,
and to feed by prayer and works that great revival of political
and moral righteousness which alone shall save this people from
its sins? They cannot claim that crowning testimony to divinity
of doctrine.
He always confessed that his over-work had violated natural
laws; whence came a penalty not supernatural.
Aug. O2, 1858./ —-The undersigned, members of the Twenty-eighth
Congregational Society in Boston, deeply concerned for the health and
public usefulness of their beloved friend and pastor, Theodore Parker,
earnestly request him, in view of the bronchial affection under which
he is laboring, to extend the term of his vacation until such period as,
in the judgment of reliable medical advisers, it will be warrantable for
him to resume his pastoral functions; believing that this is a duty
which he owes to himself, his family, his friends, and the cause of
religion, humanity, and reform; and trusting that he will not allow the
strong desire he will naturally feel to be promptly at his post at the
usual time, to override their united wishes and settled convictions on
this subject.
* This letter followed the counsel of a friend, who was the first to notice Mr. Parker's
failing health during a short journey which they made together in August, 1858.




254             LIFE  AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
The following letter to Miss Cobbe continues the story of his
health:
TO MISS COBBE.
Boston, Nov. 9, 1858.
MY VERY DEAR MiSS COBBE, —  sent you a little bit of a sad note
some weeks ago; this will be more cheerful and encouraging.  I have
had a hospital operation performed lately, which laid me on my bed
for three or four weeks.  I have just recovered, now, and can walk
about a little, say half-an-hour at a time, or ride an hour or two, and
sit up most of the cay.  For several Sundays others filled my pulpit;
next Sunday I hope to speak for myself, and the half-written sermon
lies already before me.  I think I have conquered the last of my
(corporeal) enemies, and trust a long life of serious work is before me
I have much left to do, much half-cone, and yet more projected and
prepared for, but not yet adventured on.  Twenty years more of healthy
solid toil will finish it all, and leave me but sixty-eight, an age not unreasonable for me to desire or expect.
I sent you, at Mrs. Apthorp's request, a little parcel of books by the
steamer of last week. They will reach you through Chapman. My
fiiend Mr. Ripley, of New  York, has a great admiration for your
book, and is trying its fortune with the publishers of that city-more
adventurous than any in Boston.
I sent you some little sermons of mine, and an article in the
Examiner on the Physical Condition  of Massachusetts.   I  trust
this will meet you by your birthday, which we shall keep  as a
festival.
Faithfully yours.
I open this letter, my dear Miss Cobbe, to announce the welcome
receipt of yours from Newbridge, announcing your safe return. Sad must
it be to depart from  such a home! My ancestral home-a common
farm, where may fathers lived one hundred and fifty years, is also dear
to me; but I can see it in my brother's hands in an hour's ride any
day.  I wrote to Mrs. Ripley your proposal, but have not her reply.
Please remember me to Miss Carpenter, and that delightful company
you met at London.  Do you know  my dear friend, William  I.
Channing, of Liverpool?  I hope you will.
TO THE SAME.
Boston, Dec. 14, 1858.
MY VERY DEAR Miss COBBE,-it was exceedingly kind of you to
write me the tender and affectionate note which came only last night.
I am a deal better than when Mr1. Channing saw me on the day of his
sailing.  I don't wonder he thought it would soon be all over with
me.  Yet I knew  better, even  then, feeling  an interior spring
of life he could not see.  I went on improving, until the very day o:
your letter, Nov. 24, I attended a funeral thirty miles off in the
country.  The circumstances were so sad and peculiar, that I could
not leave the afflicted ones to the poor consolations of a stranger, who
did not even believe, much less know, the infinite goodness of God.  I
met with an accident in getting into the railroad cars, which injured me




THEODORE PARKER.                         255
badly in delicate parts of the body, and I have not walked since-three
weeks.  But I ride out every day, and, contrary to the advice of all the
doctors, I preach every Sunday, which does me good anld not harm.
Otherwise, I live in my library, and have my meals brought up to me.
An ugly cough I had is nearly gone; only the lameness continues.
The surgeon fears an abscess, which, after all, is, perhaps, the most
genial way of ending the mischief.  I suffer but little pain except
from the lack of tone and vigor that comes of such long confinement.  Do not fear; I have the best medical and surgical advice,
though T take no medicine but cod-liver oil, which is diet and not
drugs. I shall be very cautious, and take special pains to live, for I
have a great deal of work begun and not half done, which another cannot finish. Besides, the world is so interesting, and friends so dear, that
I find the love of life much more than twenty or thirty years ago.
I hoped to have had a communication from  the bookseller, touching
your book, but have yet heard nothing. I hope you received one letter
from me through Chapman, with some books, from. Mrs. Apthorp, &c.,
and another direct to you at Red Lodge, Bristol, which 1 meant you
should receive on your birthday.  I kept that with true festal delight.
A venerable friend was eighty-two the same day, and came in to thank
me for my letter to him.  [Dea. Samuel May.]
Please present my thankful regards to Miss Carpenter, whom  I
greatly respect and esteem.  I hope the good work of humanity prospers in her hands. Accept my hearty thanks for your letters.
TO M3R. RIPLEY.
Boston, Nov. 1, 1858.
MY DEAR GEORGE,-My hand trembles, and I must take pains to
write, and so write plain, or else not at all.  1 wrote you my last three
weeks ago to-day.  While I was putting your name on the envelope,
the two surgeons stopped their gigs at my door. This is the first letter
I have written since.  They did their work faithfully, and I have laid
on my back nearly all the time since. I rode out yesterday, and again
to-day, and have walked a few steps several times; the evil is all over, I
think, and I believe the last of my (corporeal) foes is routed now. I
see not why I may not live a hard-working life till I am seventy, eighty,
or ninety, as most of my fathers have done in America. I had an ugly
cough all summer, which looked ill to one who had lost a mother, and
even brothers and sisters, of consumption, not to speak of nieces and
other kinfolk.  But I think that, too, is mainly over. My standing
committee have shut me out of the Music Hall for next Sunday.
S. J. May takes my place; but I trust I shall be there the following
Sunday.
Many thanks for your friendship, which never fails. If we could lie
under "he great oak-tree at West Roxbury, or ride about the wild little
lanes together, I should soon be entirely well; for the vigor of your
mind would inspire strength even into my body; but I must do without
that, only too thankful to have had it once.
Thank you for the kind and just things you say about Miss Cobbe.
My friends, the Hunts and Apthorps, almost worship the maiden. I




256              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
keep her birthday as one of my domestic holidays, and honor the 4th
of December with unusual libations.
Furness's new book is       *      *       *      *        full of
zeal, piety, and beauty of sentiment! He does not see that only a
critic and scholar can deal with such questions as he passes judgment
upon.
What he says about Lazarus, &c., is all bosh!  He knows the Four
Gospels are true-knows it subjectively!
But I must write no more.  Good bye!
THEODORE.
Don't tell anybody what I say about my health. I don't write such
things often.
Thus the year wore away in weakness and increasing disability to perform the ordinary ministerial labors.  In preaching
lie would sometimes steady himself by grasping the desk with
both hands.  All other pursuits languished, or were entirely
abandoned.
FROM  THE JOURNAL.
Jan. 1, 1859.-It is Saturday night-eve of the first day of the new
year. I have finished my sermon for to-morrow, and I have nothing
to do but indulge my feelings for a minute, and gather up my soul.
This is tie first new year's day that I was ever sick. Now I have
been a prisoner almost three months, living in my chamber or my
study. I have been out of doors but thrice since Sunday last. The
doctor says I mend, and I quote him to my friends.  But I have great
doubts as to the result.  It looks as if this was the last of my new
year's days upon earth. I felt so when I gave each gift to-day; yet
few men have more to live for than I. It seems as if I had just begun
a great work; yet if I must abandon it, I will not complain. Some
abler and better man will take my place, and do more successfully what
I have entered on. The Twenty-eighth will soon forget me-a few
Sundays will satisfy their tears.  Some fiie:anis may linger long about
my grave, and be inly sad for many a day
The last discourse, preached on Jan iary 2,  entitled, "What
Religion nmay do for a Man: a Sermon   - the New Year."  It
has since been published.
About tour o'clock on the morning of Su':-,s,  Ia.uary 9, he
was seized with a violent hlemorrhage of the lauO:;:  He wrote
in bed, with a pencil, a short letter to his Societ,-,  o -; e r:ead at
the meeting for the usual service of the day.
TO THE CONGREGATION AT THE MUSIC HALL.
Sunday Morning, Jan. 9, 18L'9
WELL-BELOVED AND LONG-TRIED FRIENDS,-I shall not speak to,?i
to-day; for this morning, a little after four o'clock, I had a slight a!i i""




THEODORE PARKER.                          257
of bleeding in the lungs or throat.  I intended to preach on'; The
Rteligion of Jesus and the Christianity of the Church; or the Superiority of Good-will to Man over Theological Fancies."
I hope you will not forget the contribution for the poor, whom we
have with us always. I don't know when I shall again look upon your
welcome faces, which have so often cheered my spirit when my flesh
was weak.
May we do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God, and
his blessing will be upon us here and hereafter; for his infinite love is
with us for ever and ever!
Faithfully your friend,
THEODORE PARKER.
A  profound sensation  of grief followed the reading of this
note.  At a meeting of the parish, which was immediately held,
it was voted to continue Mr. Parker's salary for one year, at
least, with the understanding that he would seek entire repose
fiom  every kind of public duty.
TO  JOHN  R. MANLEY.t
Boston, Jan. 22, 1859.
MY VERY DEAR MR. MANLEY, —I don't like to trust myself to write
you this letter, which I have attempted several times; but I must and
will. I don't know how to express my gratitude for the kindness of the
Society towards me; it is much more than I deserve, but I will try to merit
it for the future.  I don't like to be indebted to mankind, but now I
am constrained to it; yet, if I get well, I will cancel the obligation;
and if I do not, my friends must seek their recompense in their own
consciousness, and in the feeble expression of my deep gratitude for
their many favors.
The sum  which the Society and the fraternity have placed at my
disposal, with my own means, will abundantly suffice for a longer
time than you refer to. A few months will determine my fate, and
I shall know just where I stand-whether I am to recover entirely or
partially, or pass quietly away. Trust me, I shall do everything in
my power to recover entirely, and resume my former functions.
If I have any power of mind, any power of prudence and of will,
depend upon it, all shall be devoted to that one end.   My chance of
recovery is not more than one in ten. But I do not despair at that
state of things; for all the chief things I have done in my life have
been accomplished against yet greater odds. Hope will encourage me,
but not blind or cheat.  I have always walked in difficult places, and
am not scared at a new one now.
I had laid out a great, long series of sermons for this winter, on
important and attractive themes: all these must wait.  I meant to
write out and publish  the  sermon I did not preach, and also to
* Addressed to him as Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Twenty-eiglith
Congregational Society.
VOL. II.                                                 S




258             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
write a long letter to the Society before I left Boston.  But I can't
do both. I fear I may not be able to do either until I reach the West
Indies. You will all excuse me if I omit both for the present. " A
man can but do his best," and it were wicked to injure my chances
of recovery by attempting now what can be done safely a few weeks
hence. But if I can write the farewell letter, I will. It will be fourteen
years on the 16th February since I first preached to the Society. I
knew I was entering on another "thirty years' war," and so wrote it in
my journal; but I did not think we should have so many victories in
the first half of it. If it turns out that I can serve no more in this
warfare, the cause will not suffer. Some one quite different from me,
but better, will yet for the great principles of religious freedom take
my place.  Humanity is so rich in ability, that the man of greatest
genius for the highest function is never missed by the race of men.
There is never a break in the continuous march of mankind. Leaders
fall and armies perish, but mankind goes on.
Please show this to the Standing Committee, and with my hearty
thanks, my firm resolve to recover, if possible, and my earnest prayer
for the success of our common cause,
Faithfully yours,
THEODORE PARKER.
Here follows Mr. Parker's letter to the Society; and succeeding that is one from the Society to him, drawn up before he
left Boston, but from  prudential motives withheld till after his
arrival at Santa Cruz:FAREWELL LETTER.*
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY IN
BOSTON.
MUCH-VALUED FnIENDS,-When I first found myself unable to speak
to you again, and medical men bade me be silent, and flee off for my
life to a more genial clime, I determined,[before I went, to make ready
and publish my New Year's Sermon, the last I ever preached; and the
one which was to follow it, the last I ever wrote, lying there yet unspoken; and also to prepare a letter to you, reviewing our past intercourse of now nearly fifteen years.
The phonographer's swift pen made the first work easy, and the last
sermon lies printed before you; the next I soon laid aside, reserving
my forces for the last! But, alas! the thought, and still more the emotion, requisite for such a letter, under such circumstances, are quite too
much for me now.  So, with much regret, I find myself compelled by
necessity to forego the attempt; nay, rather, I trust, only to postpone it
for a few weeks.
Now, I can but write this note in parting, to thank you for the
patience with which you have heard me so long; for the open-handed
generosity which has provided for my unexpected needs; for the continued affection which so many of you have always shown me, and now
* First published at the end of the Now-year's Sermon.




THEODORE PARKER.                        259
more tenderly than ever; and yet, above all, for the joy it has given
me to see the great ideas and emotions of true religion spring up in
your fields with such signs of promise.  If my labors were to end
to-day, I should still say, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in
peace," for I think few men have seen larger results follow such labors,
and so brief.  But I shall not think our connection is ended, or likely
soon to be: I hope yet to look in your eyes again, and speak to your
hearts. So far as my recovery depends on me, be assured, dear friends,
I shall leave nothing undone to effect it; and so far as it is beyond
human control, certainly you and I can trust the Infinite Parent of us
all, without whose beneficent providence not even a sparrow falls to
the ground. Living here or in heaven, we are all equally the children of
that unbounded Love.
It has given me great pain that I could not be with such of you as
have lately suffered bereavements and other affliction, and at least
speak words of endearment and sympathy when words of consolation
would not suffice.
I know not how long we shall be separated, but, while thankful for
our past relations, I shall still fervently pray for your welfare and progress in true religion, both as a society and as individual men and
women.  I know you will still think only too kindly of
Your minister and friend,
Exeter Place, Jan. 27, 1859.                 THEODORE PARKER.
LETTER TO MR. PARKER.
THE MEMBERS OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY OF
BOSTON TO THEIR BELOVED MINISTER.
DEAR SIR,-It is many years since you came, at the request of some
of us, to preach in this city. A few men and women, acting under the
impulse of a deep religious need, which the churches of Boston at
that time failed to satisfy, sought to establish a pulpit which should
teach a higher idea of religion than yet prevailed, and wherein the
largest freedom of thought and speech should be allowed and respected.
They asked you to come and stand in such a pulpit, thinking that you
would meet their demand, and resolving that you should "have a chance
to be heard in Boston,"-a chance which other men were not willing to
allow. At their earnest solicitation you came, and the result has shown
that they were not mistaken in their choice.
On the formal organization of the Society, when you were installed
as its minister, on the 4th of January, 1846, you preached a sermon of
" The True Idea of a Christian Church."  How well and faithfully
you have labored from that time till now to make that idea a fact,
and to build up such a church, we all know. From Sunday to Sunday,
year after year, with rare exceptions, when other duties or necessities
compelled your absence, you have been at your post, and have always
discharged the great functions of your office in a manner which has
left nothing to be desired on your part; avoiding no responsibility,
neglecting no trust, leaving no duty undone, but working with an
2




60              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
ability, energy, perseverance, and self-sacrifice, of which it is not,
perhaps, becoming in us to speak at length in this place, but which we
cannot the less admire and approve. Outside of the pulpit, we have
always found you equally faithful to your responsibilities and duties in
all the various relations of life.
Nor have your labors and your example been in vain.  You have
taught us to discern between the traditions of men and the living
realities of religion; you have brought home to our consciousness
great truths of the intellect, the conscience, the heart, and the soul;
you have shown us the infinite perfection of God, and the greatness
of human nature, inspired us with a higher reverence for Him, a
deeper trust in His universal providence, with a larger faith also in
man and his capabilities.  You have encouraged us to oppose all
manner of wickedness and oppression, to welcome every virtue and
humanity, to engage in all good works and noble reforms.  From the
experience of mankind, of nations, and of individuals, you have
drawn great lessons of truth and wisdom for our warning or guidance.
Above all, your own noble and manly and Christian life has been to
us a perpetual sermon, fuller of wisdom and beauty, more eloquent
and instructive even, than the lessons which have fallen from your lips.
In all our intercourse with you, you have ever been to us as a
teacher, a friend, and brother, and have never assumed to be our
master.  You have respected and encouraged in us that free individuality of thought in matters of religion, and all other matters,
which you have claimed for yourself; you have never imposed on us
your opinions, asking us to accept them because they were yours, but
you have always warned us to use a wise discretion, and decide
according to our own judgment and conscience, not according to
yours. You have not sought to build up a sect, but a free Christian
community.
You have, indeed, been a minister to us, and we feel that your
ministry has been for our good; that through it we are better prepared
to successfully resist those temptations, and to overcome those evils
by which we are surrounded in life, to discharge those obligations
which devolve upon us as men aiming to be Christians, and to acquit
ourselves as we ought.
As we have gathered together from  Sunday to Sunday, as we have
looked into your face, and your words have touched our sympathies,
and stirred within us our deepest and best emotions, as we have
come to know you better year by year, and to appreciate more fully
the service which you have been doing for us and for other men, and
the faithfulness with which you have labored in it, we have felt that
ou1' was indeed a blessed privilege; and we have indulged a hope
that our lives might testify to the good influence of your teachingsa hope which we humbly trust has, to some extent at least, been
realized. If we have failed to approximate that high ideal of excellence which you have always set before us, the blame is our own, and
not yours.
The world has called us hard names, but it is on you that have
fallen the hatred, the intolerance, the insults, and the calumnies of
men calling themselves Christian. Alas! that they should be so




THEODORE PARKER.                       26 1
wanting in the first principles of that religion which Christ taught
and lived, and which they pretend to honor and uphold. Of those
who have opposed us, many have done so through ignorance, misled
by the false representations of others; some from  conscientious
motives; others from selfishness in many forms.  Time has already
done much to correct this evil with many; it will do more to correct
it with others. While the little we may have sacrificed on our part has
been as nothing in comparison with all we have gained from  our
connection with you, as members of this Society, on yours the sacrifice
has been great, indeed-not, however, without its recompense to you,
also, we hope and trust.
For all that you have been to us, for all that you have done, and
borne, and forborne, in our behalf, we thank you kindly, cordially,
and affectionately. We feel that we owe you such gratitude as no
words of ours can express. If we have not shown it in the past by
conforming our lives to that high standard of morality and piety,
which you have exemplified in your own, let us, at least, try to do so
in the future.
We cannot but feel a just pride in the success of this Church; that
in spite of all obstacles, it has strengthened and increased from year
to year, and that the circle of its influence has continually widened.
Thousands of earnest men and women in this and other lands, who
do not gather with us from week to week, look to this Church as their
" city of refuge "; their sympathies, their convictions, and their hopes
coincide with our own; they are of us, though not with us. Most of
them  have never listened to your voice, nor looked upon your face,
but the noble words which you have uttered are dear to their hearts,
and they also bless God for the service which you have done for them.
In all your labors for us and for others, we have only one thing
to regret, and that is, that you have not spared yourself, but have
sacrificed your health and strength to an extent which, of late, has
excited our deepest solitude and apprehension. We thank God that
I-e furnished you with a vigorous constitution, which has stood the
test of so many years of incessant and unwearied toil, in so many
departments of usefulness, and which has enabled you to accomplish
so much as you have already done; but there is a limit to the endurance of even the strongest man, and the frequent warnings which you
have received within the past year or two would seem  to indicate
that Nature will not suffer even the best of her children to transgress
the great laws which she has established for their observance, without
inflicting the penalty of disobedience, even though they are engaged
in the highest and holiest service which man can render unto man.
We would not presume to instruct you in this matter; we only repeat
what you have yourself often taught us.
A warning now comes of so imperative a nature that it cannot be
disregarded.
We need not assure you that the note from you which was read at
the Music Hall on Sunday morning last, was listened to by us with
the most sincere and heartfelt sorrow-sorrow, however, not unmingled with hope. While we feel the deepest and warmest sympathy
for you under the new and serious development of the disease from




262              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
which you are suffering, we yet trust that it is not too late to arrest its
progress, and that, in some more genial clime than ours, relieved from
the cares and responsibilities which have borne heavily upon you for
so many years, you may regain that soundness of health which shall
enable you to resume, at some future day, the great work to which
you have devoted your life.
We know with how much reluctance it is that you feel compelled
to suspend your labor among us at this time; but there is the less
cause for regret on your part, inasmuch as you have, by the services
you have already rendered to mankind, far more than earned the
right to do so, even if the necessity did not exist.
Whether it is for a longer or a shorter period that you will be
separated from us, of course none of us can tell.  In any event, God's
will be done! and at all times, wherever you may be, you will have our
deepest veneration and regard.
Waiting for that happier day when we shall again take you by the
hand, and again listen to your welcome voice, we remain,
Your faithful and loving friends,
(In behalf of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society),
SAMUEL MAY,           JOHN FLINT,
MARY MAY,             WILLIAMI DALL,
THOMAS GODDARD,   JOHN R. MANLEY,
FRANCIS JACKSON,      And three hundred others.
Boston, Jan. 11, 1859.
REPLY OF MR. PARKER.
Frederickstad, Santa Cruz, May 9, 1859,
To Samuel May, Mary May, Thomas Goddard, Francis Jackson, John
Flint, William Dall, John R. Manley, and the other signers of a
Letter to me, dated Boston, Jan. 11, 1859.
DEAR FRIENDS,-Your genial and most welcome letter was handed to
me at this place the 6th of March; I had not strength before to bear
the excitement it must occasion.  It was Sunday morning: and while
you were at the Music-Hall, I read it in this little far-off island, with
emotions you may imagine easier than I can relate.  It brought back
the times of trial we have had together, and your many kindnesses to
me.  I can easily bear to be opposed, and that with the greatest
amount of abuse; for habit makes all things familiar.  I fear it flatters
my pride a little, to be greatly underrated; but to be appreciated
so tenderly by your affection, and rated so much above my own deservings, it makes me ashamed that I am no more worthy of your
esteem and praise:
"I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning;
Alas! the gratitude of men
Hath oftener left me mourning!"
Herewith I send you, and all the members of the Society, a long
letter, reviewing my life, and especially my connection with you. I
began to compose it before I knew of your letter to me, before I left




THEODORE PARKER.                      263
Boston-indeed, in sleepless nights; but wrote nothing till I was fixed
in this place, and then only little by little, as I had strength for the
work. I finished it April 19th, and so date it that day. The fair copy
sent you is made by my wife and Miss Stevenson, and of course was
finished much later. I have had no safe opportunity of sending it
direct to you till now, when Miss Thacher, one of our townswomen,
returning hence to Boston, kindly offers to take charge of it. If this
copy does not reach you, I shall forward another from Europe.
The letter would have been quite different, no doubt, in plan and
execution-better, I hope, in thought and language, had I been sound
and well; for all a sick man's work seems likely to be infected with his
illness. I beg you to forgive its imperfections, and be as gentle in your
judgment as fairness will allow.
Though I have been reasonably industrious all my life, when I come
to look over what I have actually done, it seems very little in comparison with the opportunities I have had; only the beginning of what
I intended to accomplish. But it is idle to make excuses now, and not
profitable to complain.
As that letter is intended for all the members of the Twenty-eighth
Congregational Society, I beg you to transmit it to the Standing Committee  I know not their names-who will lay it before them in some
suitable manner.
With thanks for the past, and hearty good wishes for your future
welfare, believe me,
Faithfully your minister. and friend,
TIEODORE PARKER.
Frederickstad, Santa Cruz, May 2, 1859.
TO THE STANDING COMMITTEE OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL
SOCIETY IN BOSTON.
GENTLEMEN AND LADIES,-Here is a letter addressed to the members of your Society. I beg you to lay it before them in such a manner as you may see most fit. Believe me,
Faithfully your minister and friend,
THEODORE PARKER.
This letter, which was published under the title of "Theodore Parker's Experience as a Minister," will be found in the
Appendix.  Allusions to his object and feelings in writing it
occur in a subsequent chapter, in letters to friends. [SeeAp. II.]
TO THE LADIES WHO ASSISTED IN SEWING.
Boston, Jan. 31, 1859.
MY DEAR CAROLINE,-Paul wrote to one of his coadjutors to bring
the garment that chief apostle to the Gentiles had left behind him.
I write to beg you to thank the ladies who have so handsomely made
garments for me when about to go among the Gentiles. There seems
to have been a whole Dorcas Society making garments! Please thank
them all from me, accepting also your own share of the praise. I




26 4*            LIFE AND CORlEESPONDENCE Of
shall remember this kindness among those with which "mny cup runneth over."  I will try to repay you all.  God bless you all!
Faithfully yours,
T. P.
TO  1RIENDS IN  GERMANY.
Jan. 18, 1859.
I am  sorry to send such reports of myself as the steamers now
carry to you.  The worst pains we suffer vicariously, through the agony
of our friends.  My chance of recovery and restoration to my former
power is one in eight, Dr. Cabot says; one in ten, I say.  The chance
of continued life (if such a dawdling existence deserves that name), is
greater, and is one in three or four, perhaps. This does not look very
promising!  But I will to get well.  I don't say I will get well.  It
would not be quite religious or wise.  But I turn all my strength in
that direction.  I mean to be well, to preach again, &c.  If I fall, it
will be on that road.  You know I shall not complain at either destination, but bear what comes as from the Infinite Perfection.
I shall not write much or often; reserving my strength for myself.
But I ask one favor now, viz. that you look over my letters to you, and
erase everything which would wound the feelings of any one, should
it meet an eye it was not meant for.  In the flush and fun of letterwriting, I may have said what might one day give needless pain, should
some prying eye hit upon it, and some busy tongue prattle thereof.
Let me thank you for the many kindnesses received from you all,
and for the friendly and beautiful intercourse which has grown up between us.  Remember me kindly.  Gently forgive what requires that
charity, and continue to hold me in your generous regards.  Dear
Sarah, dear Eliza, God bless you both!-you and yours also. Love to
mother, Robert, and Hippopotamus.  One kiss more for Sarah and
Eliza.                                           Faithfully yours,
T. P.
TO THE SAME.
Jan. 31, 1859.
Thus comes this little mite of a note.  We go off in a few days,
bound for Santa Cruz, with high hopes and expectations.  All hearts
are cheerful, and we feel confident of delight......
But I don't think the wind never blows hard in the tropics, or that
there are no troubles; but it is a new world we go to, and we all sail
for the Blessed Islands.  I will not complain if I am left at the Island
of the Blessed, though still it is my will to pursue the voyage.
Your last letter gave us all great joy. Thank Robert for his to me.
The tidings of Willie are delicious.  But the picture-it filled us all
with joy and gladness-he has grown so much; the same type, only
developed and enlarged.  " What a fine intellectual face! " they all
said, and " I showed him round to the neighbors-neighbors-neighbors."  The little good-for-nothing dog! we all feel as much interest
in him  as if he were born in Exeter Place, almost.  I want to ask a
favour of Sarah, that she will write to Miss Cobbe, and tell that famous
woman that I think her pecuniary matter will be attended to by Charles
L. Brace, of Children's Aid Society Rooms, New York.  I would, but
cannot.  Tell her, too, that Saturday night (it is Monday now), I re



THEO)DORE PARKER.                        265
ceived the first proof-sheet of her book, a handsome  12mo (no
woman objects to handsomeness), but, alas! I must return it uncorrected! Tell her the sheets will pass under the eye of a competent
proof-reader, and give her my thanks for her sympathy, and also my
kind regards.
Last Thursday, in Beacon Street, I met Wm. H. Prescott; to-day, in
Tremont Street, I met his coffin.  So the living die while the dying
live..... You must believe, dear Sarah, that I will to get well.
A  consultation of physicians (Drs. Jackson, Flint, Bowditcb,
and Cabot) was held on Sunday forenoon, January 23.  It was
found that the fatal disease of his family had already made deep
inroads upon his life.  Tubercles were formal and progressive;
the bronchia inflamed.  His chance of full recovery was pronounced to be as one to ten.
FROM-  THE JOURNAL.
I must go off to the West Indies, to Europe, and not return.  I am
ready to die, if need be-nothing to fear.  Sorry to leave work,friends,
wife.....   Still, "concedo."  When I see the Inevitable, I fall in
love with her.  To die will be no evil to me.  I should like to finish
my work, write up my hints, print my best sermons, finish my book,
write my autobiography, with sketches of my acquaintances, put all my
papers in order. Yet I am ready. But I mean to live, and not die. I
laugh at the odds of nine to one. If that is all, I'll conquer. I have
fought ninety-nine against one, yes, 999 against one, and conquered.
Please God, I will again.  Sursum corda.
At this heavy moment, when all his glorious earthly labor was
about to leave him for ever, it seemed as if his friends, who came
with their own love and commiseration, were empowered to
speak for the multitudes whom  he had blessed, so sudden and
deep was the sympathy which set in towards him.  And letters
came to his sick room with the cordial for which a noble and
unselfish heart most languishes.  His last days in America were
thus soothed and brightened.*
FROM  DR. FRANCIS.
Cambridge, Feb. 2, 1859.
DEAR PARiKE, —I  hear you are to leave your home and your friends
this week for the West Indies, and I would not have you leave us without offering, in this way, my most affectionate good-bye and prayer for
your health and happiness.  It would have given me very great satisfaction to have taken you by the hand, and to have said the parting
word; but I found, on calling at your house at different times, that
you could not and ought not run the risk of seeing any company.
* Indeed, the letters became so numerous, that he was obliged to publish a card in
the ANew York Tribune, expressing, with his gratitude, an inability to reply. The result
was a fresh flood of letters from friends: who had held back from delicacy; but to every
one of these he replied after reaching Europe.




266              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
Your hearty kindness, so long and so abundantly experienced, is a
deeply cherished remembrance with me, and I hope I am  to enjoy it
again, if you shall deem  me worthy of it. I have learned much, very
much, that is great and good from you; and with all my heart I thank
you for it. Your noble life and noble instructions have taught us all
the full meaning of that great saying of Plato,  rpo Muv o Soyo,  a7rg
VrVE VspM  q'e, TCVT'I ll6v,  and how poor do differences of opinion seem
in the presence of the Eternal Truth, of which they are but the
flickering shadows! No man can have a more supporting sense than
yourself of having performed a great and good labor with righteousness of purpose and with singleness of mind, "as under the great
Taskmaster's eye."  The loving Father, I know, will sustain and lift
you up, whatever may betide. To the arms of His love we all commit you, with truest sympathies and with heart-uttered prayers. We
remember what a sage of old so finely said, " The memorial of virtue
is immortal, because it is known with God and with men: when it is
present, men take example at it, and when it is gone they desire it;
it weareth a crown and triumpheth for ever, having gotten the victory,
striving for undefiled rewards."
May every breeze, dear Parker, be the breath of health and strength
to your frame, and may every day's sun shine upon you as a genial,
cheering, life-giving power. The dear God, I trust, will return you
to us with a restoration of that strength which you have so lavishly
expended for others; and if I am then among the living, no one will
welcome you back with a more sincere joy.
Farewell! God bless you, and keep you in the arms of His love!
Yours most truly,
CONVERS FRANCIS.
The following was written, and waiting to be sent, before he
received, in New York, the letter from Dr. Francis:TO DR. FRiANCIS.
[Written Jan. 30.]           Feb. 3, 1859.
I am sorry to leave the country on a journey of uncertain duration,
and do not like to depart without a word to you. I have much to
thank you for. In my earlier life, at Watertown, your devotion to
letters, and your diligent study of the best thoughts and the highest
themes, offered an example which both stimulated and encouraged me.
Then your sermons, always generous and liberal, well-studied and. rich
in thought, and bearing marks of the learning of the preacher as well
as his religion, were a cheer and a solace, while they abounded in
instruction.  I admired, also, the faithfulness with which you did your
duty to all the parish, rich and poor, and your hearty sympathy with all
common men in their common pursuits. I have rarely found such
things in a minister's life; for " education " separates the scholar from
the people, and makes them strangers, if not foes.
I thank you, also, for the interest you then took in my studies, for
the loan of books, your own and those from  the College Library,
which I had then no access to. I remember, also, with great delight,
* "Wherever the Logos (or right reason) would bear us on, as a wind, there we must
follow."




THEODORE PARKER.                        267
that in the conversations of the little club," your learning and your
voice ~were always on the side of progress and freedom  of thought.
Then, too, you early took a deep, warm  interest in the anti-slavery
enterprise, when its friends were few, feeble, and despised; and you
helped the great cause of human fieedom, not merely by word and
work, but by the silent and subtle force of example, which sometimes
is worth more than all the words and works of a man; for, while they
may fail, I think the other never does.
Let me thank you, too, for the many wise letters you have written
me while at home and while abroad.  They still live inmy memory as
a joy which it is pleasant to recall.  I leave America, with hopes of
returning a sounrnder   n laborious man, to live long and useful years;
but you know how fallacious are the hopes of a consumptive man. I
do not trust them, but leav tthe shore as if I should never see it again.
I am not sad at this pause or ending of my work.  Heaven is as near
at forty-eight as at ninety-the age of my uncle, to whom  I bade
farewell, to-day. I am equal to either fate, though both my wish and
my will incline me to the earthly life.
I congratulate you on your sound body and your unfailing health,
which are not less your acquisition than your inheritance. Remember
me kindly to your wife and family, and believe me,
Faithfully yours,
T. P.
TO REV. C. A. BARTOL.
Jan. 25.
MY DEAR BARTOL,-I thank you for your kindness in coming to
see me, and for the tenderness of your note. I am not well enough
to see any one-it makes my pulses fly. I first met you in 1832 (!)
at Mr. Phinney's, at Lexington. It is twenty-seven years since then,
and I have never met you since without pleasure.  In our long
acquaintance-perilous times, too, it has been in-you never did, or
said, or looked aught that was unkind toward me. Once I intruded
on your kind hospitality, and passed a night at your house, constraining the family to rise at an unchristian hour, for me to travel
off to Portland.  I have not quite forgiven  myself for making so
much trouble.  You and your wife forgot it long ago. Give her my
kind remembrances, and accept for yourself only my thanks for the
past and hopes for the future.           Faithfully yours,
THEODORE PARKER.
TO REV. DR. PALFREY.
Boston, Feb. 3,1859.
MY DEAR SIR,-I write with a pencil, for it is not easy to stoop over
a desk and use a pen, but I do not wish to leave the country without a
word of thanks to you, though it must needs be a brief one. I thank
you for the friendly interest you have taken in me, and I looked with
a mournful satisfaction on the card often left at my door, and marked
with your welcome and familiar name.  Allow me to thank you for
kindnesses received in my earlier life, when I was one of your scholars,: Alludes to meetings of the most liberal members of the Unitarian body in and
around Boston, for the discussion of transcendental themes. The first meeting was held
at the house of Dr. Francis, in Watertown.




268               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
and for the instruction I then received.  But it is not so much that
which I would now thank you for, as it is the noble example of conscientiousness you have set in all public affairs in the latter years of
great trial. A finer instance of that great virtue in political life I know
not where to seek. It has done me great good to stand by and look on
your faithfulness. I now leave the country before you will receive this,
and plead the occasion as my excuse for saying to your face, what I
have so often said to others.  But I must write no more.
Believe me, gratefully and truly yours,
THEODORE PABRKER.
My friends have read me part of your admirable "History of New
England," when I could not read, and I am  both instructed and delighted.
TO REV IR.. FISH.
Boston, Jan. 31, 1859.
MY DEAR Mr. FiSH,-Many thanks for your very kind letter from
Toledo. Really, a man has not lived in vain who finds so many friends
when he stands on the brink of the grave.  But I hope to return from
the Isles of Blessing, and do a deal of work before I go to the Isles of
the Blessed.
I must not write more now.  God bless you in your noble labors,
and yours with you!                   Faithfully yours,
TH EODORE PARKER.
TO REV. J. T. SAIRGENT.
Jan. 27.
I shall be off, I think, the end of next week, and I must take you by
the hand a minute.  I can't talk-the doctors all forbid that. But I
wish again to express to you my hearty thanks for the sympathy and
kindness I have always received from you. When all the rest of the
Boston Association turned against me-except Bartol, who never spoke
an unkindly word against me-you were always firmly and fastly my
friend, and often did me great service.  But the kindness to me personally is less than the religious zeal with which you searched after
truth, and defended the right of free thought and free speech. Accept
my thanks, my dear Sargent, for this.
I don't like to write much just now-it makes my pulses fly too fast.
So believe me, with hearty good wishes for the welfare of you and
yours,                                      Faithfully your friend.
TO GEORGE RIPLEY.
Boston, Jan. 10, 1859.
MY DEAR GEORGE,-I lie in my bed and write this, free from all
pain-except that of suspense, incertus quoquefataferant. I don't talk,
and write only this to you. I had an attack of bleeding at the lungs
Sunday morning about four o'clock; it lasted half an hour.  Of course
the finished sermon lies on my desk. The Music Hall will be shut up,
I suppose, from this date. I shall go to the West Indies soon as possible, and then to Europe, but hope to be at work again before December.  But who knows?  The other result I also look in the face.
It is a great work I am  engaged in, not half done. You and some




THEODORE PARKER.                        269
others love me; my wife more than herself. I like not to leave these,
but I can with religious serenity.
Please stop the ]ribune; it is paid to January 8, 1859, I think. Stop
also the Cyclopcedia. If I recover I shall want it-if not, not.
Many thanks, my dear George, to you. I never told you the service
you rendered me in 1836, and so on. Your words of advice, of profound
philosophic thought, and still more, of lofty cheer, did me great good.
I count your friendship as one of the brightest spots in my life, which
has had a deal of handsome sunshine. God bless you!
THEODORE.
TO REV. INCREASE S. SMITH.
Jan. 25, 1859.
Many thanks for your kind note, and the sympathy of yourself and
wife. I also am grateful to you for coming to my help so early in the
great fight, when there were almost " none that stood with me."  But
it will not now do for me to recall those days of my early struggle-it
makes my pulses fly too fast.  I go, uncertain of the result, but equal
to either fate, hoping for the pleasanter, but not afraid of the othernay, I should also accept that with silent joy, tempered only by sorrow
that I could not finish what I began, and by regret to look the last time
on my dear ones.  But this is enough.  Farewell!
TO DR. LAMSON.
Jan.
You and I were neighbors for some years, and I do not like to leave
the country on so uncertain an expedition, without a word of gratitude
to a valued friend. Especially I have to thank you for encouragement
in the hard work of theologic study, which I gathered both from your
words and your example.
Hoping you will have a long and happy old age, which I yet may
never see, I wish to offer you my thanks for the good of the past.
Astor House, New York, Feb. 5, 1859.
TO THE TWO DEAR WOMEN  WHO WATCH OVER THEIR  MOTHER AT
NO. 2, FLORENCE STREET, This is to say farewell for a time; but still
more to hint my thanks for all the kindness and affection I have
received from you both.  I have not now the power to speak all that
I feel in this matter; but you will understand it without many words.
One of you has selected for her lot and labor of life the protection
of those innocents whom  a worse than Herod would else massacre,
and she daily prints the streets with her gospel of beneficence. The
other attends to the duties of home, and makes it possible for her
sister to shelter the babies of misfortune.  So are you both engaged in
the same charity, and the same well-spring of love fills the two sisterfountains, one standing in public sunlight, the other in private shade.
How have your faces cheered me at meeting on Sunday, and on other
days, in your house and mine! What is joy for the moment is joy also
for the memory.
Remember me kindly to your mother, to your brother, and his wife,
and believe me,                 Faithfully and affectionately yours.




270              LIFE OF THEODORE PARKER.
FROM  MR. G. P. DELAPLAINE
Madison, Wisconsin, Jan. 13, 1859.
REV. THEO. PARKER, BOSTON,-ESTIMABLE FRIEND,-Again the telegraph startles us with the announcement that a relapse has occurred,
and you are once more prostrated by illness, and that you would soon
leave the field of your long labors, and seek rest and benefit in a
southern clime.
I feel like a child about your departure, and can weep for the
bodily sufferings you have to endure. But the Infinite Father is with
you, and you are happy. I am glad I am to live so long in this
new life, which under your teachings I have so lately commenced, and
that you will live so very, very long. I shall see you sometime, and then
I will tell you how much I have loved you, how I have cried over your
writings, and what sorrow I have felt at the ignorance of men in relation to your doctrine and personal character.
You don't know how much good you have done. The seed is springing up, and bearing fruit all about us. Professors connected with our
university, and other educated and intelligent men, come to me for
your books, and I am rejoiced to see conversion to the natural religion
occurring in several instances. The future is big with hope. When
you and I shall have passed away, another generation will revel in the
delightful truths which now are only partially understood by men.
How happy you must be when you reflect how manly you have been,
and how zealously and fearlessly you have advocated the truths you
have for so long a time been promulgating!
If you improve in health, pray let me hear from you. I join with
the thousands who are hoping for your speedy recovery.
Sincerely and affectionately yours,
GEO. P. DELAPLAINE.
But one more of such letters must suffice.  It is from a slaveholder:
Feb. S8, 1859.-I thank you for the sermon on "What Religion may
do for a Man," which I have read, and read again, with profit and delight, as others of your works.
But in the " Farewell Letter" I observe with lively concern that your
health has failed. I earnestly hope that it may be soon restored and
that you may be permitted long to witness on earth the good which you
have done among men.
But in any event you have, in common with the good and great of
all times, the high and rare consolation to know that the light you have
shed is imperishable, and will continue to shine after the luminary has
been removed.
Among the millions who gratefully participate in that light, without
having the honor to know you personally, I would humbly enrol myself,
trusting that you will pardon me if I assume an improper liberty in
thus expressing my sense of obligation, and the profound respect which
I sincerely entertain for your goodness and worth.




CHAPTER XXIV.
Departure-The Voyage-Havana-St. Thomas — Santa ruz- London-Paris —Montreux
-Letters.
SUCH were the faces, sumptuous with reverence and grateful
tears, that bent towards the dear house, with unexpected comfort.  The door was thronged with these messengers of the
heart.  With what other psalm  could he meet the few tender
moments of that last morning, as the time drew near for a farewell to books, to noble labor, farewell to generous enterprises,
and to the artless delights of home?Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou
Disquieted in me? Hope thou in God,
For I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.
But as he read, the filial accents trembled, till at length the head
fell in tears, and all who were present bowed their heads in uncontrollable but trustful sorrow, and laid them upon the bosom
of the Father. Then, with hearty prayers and cheer and help,
the steps went forth towards the cypresses of Florence.
He left Boston for New York, in company with his wife, Miss
Stevenson, and Mr. George Cabot, on the 3rd of February; but
the Karna7c  did not sail till the 8th.  In New York, Dr. and
Mrs. Howe joined them for the voyage. His young friend, Rev.
O. B. Frothingham, the minister of an Independent society in
New  York, Mr. Livermore, editor of the Christian Inquirer,
Count Gurowski, and a few other friends, came with words of
encouragement and blessing to bid him  farewell onboard the
ship.  A dear friend placed flowers in his state-room, violets for




272              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
him and carnations for his wife.  He put an Italian violet be.
tween the leaves of his Bible, to mark the text, " I will be with
thee in great waters."
TO MRS. L. D. CABOT, NEWTON.
Astor House, New York, February 6, 1859.
MY DEAR MOTHER CABOT, —I was sorry to leave Boston without
taking you by the hand once more, and bidding you farewell. I tried
twice to reach your house, but failed to get so far. Last Sunday I was
driven out within three or four miles of you, but was compelled to turn
back. Again, the last day I was in town I determined to renew the
attempt, but the damp and chilly north-east wind made it impossible.
I pray you excuse me for what might seem inattention and neglect.  I
was able to see Aunt Fanny, and am very sorry I could not also see
you. But, though at a distance, let me thank you for all the generosity
you have shown me in the twenty-seven years of our acquaintance, and
for every kind and encouraging word you have ever spoken to me.
Little acts of kindness you showed me when I was a student at Cambridge I have ever cherished with warmest gratitude, and now they are
twenty-five or twenty-six years old, I love to recall them to you, who
doubtless forgot them long ago.
We left Boston Thursday morning at eight, and reached the hotel
at six in the evening. All bore the journey well. Lydia is in fine
health and spirits, and as you know she has been the best of all daughters, so to me is she the tenderest and most thoughtful of wives. I
regret exceedingly that, for I know not how long a time, you will lose
her kindly and loving presence, and the little tender attentions she
knows how to pay you so well.  But I trust she will return in a year
or so, recruited by her long journey, and renew her offices of filial love.
Perhaps then she will have more time than ever to remain with you, and
comfort you when you need her most.
We shall not sail till Ml:onday-I fear not before Tuesday, and I will
write you by the earliest opportunity after we reach Santa Cruz. I
trust you will continue in health and prosperity, and such happiness as
you can, after I have taken away your daughter.
Believe me, gratefully and affectionately yours,
THEODORE PARKER.
It is not easy for me to write with a pen, so please excuse the
pencil.
Outside of Sandy Hook they met rough and stormy weather.
His discomfort was very great; but he managed to use the little
book which he always carried for pencillings.
Feb. 9.-It is just two years ago since I was caught in that inundation
at Albany, and passed the night in the midst of the waters, waking the
next morning with the point of the arrow in my side which now is




THEODORE PARKER.                       273
letting out my life. What an odds between now and then! I was so
able before, and now so good for nothing.
Feb. 10.-Sea-sickness abating a little; lay on the deck ten hours
Weather most genial. No cough or hem while on deck, but a good
deal below, if lying on the right side. The right lung sounds like a
tobacco hogshead when rapped.
Feb. 13.-Desor's birthday.  Close to Nassau; fleeing from death.
All my life-schemes lie prostrate. I stand up to my chin in my grave,
yet hoping to scramble out this side. " Give to the winds thy
fears."
R. W.E.E. is preaching for me at Boston. Here the thermometer is
790 in the shade; the air for forty-eight hours more balmy and voluptuous than I ever knew in New England. We seek out the coolest
places to sit in. The sea is smooth, and of a pale blue, such as I never
saw before.
The steamer stopped a few hours at Nassau, and he went on
shore.  The note-book goes ashore with him, and returns to the
boat with a long file of little springy sentences, each shouldering
a fact.
Quite a pleasure-party of young people have joined us to go to
Havana, and return. They came in like butterflies, and soon the ocean
had them fast, like a butterfly nipped in a blacksmith's vice.
How impossible it is to conceal character! It is not in the face-in
any feature.  It appears in the gestures, in all the actions. What
advertisements men and women continually make of their innermost
secrets!
Feb. 16.-Began letter to Twenty-eighth Congregational Society. It
has been feeling and thinking itself out a long time. It is fourteen years
this day since I rode to Boston to preach at the Melodeon.  I knew I
enlisted for a thirty years' war. But now I am wounded, and driven
out of the field before half that time is over. Yet I leave much work
not done. These three things I must do:-1. Write letter to the parish;
2. Write out and finish the last sermon; 3. Write my autobiography.
About six o'clock in the afternoon the steamer dropped anchor
in the harbor of Havana.  Between the beautiful color of the
sea and sky, the setting sun hung a great purple cloud.  His eye
comforted itself after the wearying waters, which were always so
disagreeable to him, with the picturesque and warmly-colored
scene.
The hotels in the city were so full that they spent the night
in the steamboat, and  in the morning went to a hotel three
miles out of the city.  It was found to be so uncomfortable that
they returned into the city the next day, and finally succeeded in
being well lodged, at Mrs. Almy's. In these journeyings to and
fro, a great number of brisk notes were made.
VOL. II.                                              T




274              LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
TO  MR. MIANLEY.
Wolcott House, Havana, February 17, 1859.
MY DERE MnR. aANLEY, —Here we came yesterday, P.M., and passed
the night on board the steamer in the damp and chill of the water,
which did us all a little harm, making me cough a little more than
usual.  In general it appears that I am a good deal better than when
I left home; all symptoms I think are better, appetite and digestion,
excellent spirits, always hopeful and cheery; we all suffered much
from  sea-sickness, for we struck into a storm  as soon as we passed
Sandy Hook, which lasted three or four days.  But sometimes the
weather was delicious, and I lay on the deck eight, ten, twelve, or
thirteen hours of the twenty-four. I did not forget 16th February,
1845! Fourteen years after, I slid into the port of -Iavana.  Perhaps
some of you thought of the first meeting. I have not recovered to-day
from the emotions of yesterday.  Btt I try to keep from thinking and
feeling, and turn all my nervous power to mere livingr.  How would it
do to ask Rev. iMr. Shackford, of Lynn, to preach for you now and
then?  He is an able man and a good one, as well as a progressive
thinker.  Last year he asked me to exchauge with him.  I preached
his Ordination Sermon, 19th May, 1841.  I think you close the lease
of Music Hall, BMay 22, 1859.  What if he should preach you an occasional sermon eighteen years after his ordination?
E. E. Hale offered to do me any kindly things I might need.  He
would do you a good turn, I think, if asked. I shall always be with you
Sunday mornings, and no distance will shut out the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society on teat day; no, nor on any other for a long time
to come.  But Dr. IHowe comes now and says, "You had better go to
bed, young man! "  So good night.
Feb. 18.-The thermometer stands at 700 in the shade; there is
now no sting in the air.  But this is not a good climate for a sick
man, the nights are damp and chill, and there is a north wind like our
north-easters in April, which cuts in to the bones.  I long to get out
of the place.  I think I must ask you one favor more; when I die, I
leave the two old guns now in my study to the State of Massachusetts.
I fear the house may be burnt down.  What secure place can they be
put in?  Would you ask MIr. Warner, Secretary of State, if he could
keep them in one of the enormous fire-proof safes in the State House,
and so secure them  to the Commonwealth, which must one day have
them  according to my will?  I can reclaim  them  when I return.
Please tell Mr. Goddard I meant to have one ride more with him
before I went away.
TO THE SAME.
B. (that was the beginning of Boston, which the thought of brought
out of the pen.)
Santa Cruz, May 4, 1859.
MF, IYES DEAU MiB. MAIi-EY, —-I write you this to say (1) that
the last letters we had from home were dated April Ist, or a few days
before, which came, thirty of them  in a lump, about seventeen days
ago; (2) that I shall send to Samuel Stay and Francis Jackson a long




THEODORE PARKER.                         275
letter to the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society, which I ask them
(Mr. M. and F. J.) to lay before the standing committee. Of course the
standing committee-who are they noew — will do what they please with
it. It is too long to read before the Society; it would take a common
minister four hIours to preach it, I think, allowing him  due time to
coulgh, wipe his face, &c. I think it had better be printed after reading
before the committee and such as they see fit to invite, and that there
should be a preface stating the fact of my illness, &c., and containing
my little note of January 9th, which Mr. May read to the congregation; the longer one printed at the end of my New Year's sermon,
and the Society's letter to me, which H-~  prudently kept till March
6th.  It will make quite a sizable pamphlet if printed in a handsome
form; I think it will sell, and so involve no expense to the Society.
You will see I have taken some pains with it. L       and Ht      have
copied it all out neat; eighty-four pages there are in my MS.  Much
of it is in lH's hand, for she cannot read the original (!) which my
wife reads to her  it t  ook them eight or ten days to copy it.  Please
ask the kind Mr. Leighton to give it a diligent proof-reading, remembering  that "if it be possible, the printers always get a thing
wrong," so they tell me.  I shall send a list of the persons to whom I
wish it sent.  We all sail in the Parana the middle of M ay; it is a
slow boat, so will not set us down in England before June 3rd or 4th.
We shall send many letters by the Misses Thacher.  We left Dr.
Howe February 22nd, and have not had a line from the faithful companions since. I hope he is well and safe at Boston with his wife,
looking after the fools and blind; but he may have been blown up in
a Mississippi steamer " seventy times as high as the moon."   We
have letters from  Berlin of lBarch 26th, and from  our friends in
England whom  you do not know of the same date.  I have seen one
New York paper of last month, April 9th, and no more, so if any one
asks me how many States there are in the Union, I say, " There were
thirty-two when I left New York, 8th February 1859; they annexed
another the following week; there may have been an extra session of
Congress, which  has admitted  Cuba, New  1Mexico, Old Mexico,
Nicaragua, Yucatan, and the rest of mankind."  Sickles was on trial
at the last dates, and the twelfth juror had just been caught and
penned up. Key did much to make murder easy in Washington at
the time of Brooks, and the killing of the Irishmen at the hotel.  I
fear if all his tribe had been thus served as soon as they reached the
seat of Government, there would be no quorum  of Congress, a.nd so
the Union would be dissolved for lack of a Government.  I should
like to see the Liberator, and to attend aten  annti-slavery meeting, and
hear H. C. Wright call out " Hear, hear! "
Ah, me! who preaches at the Music Hall?  What was done at the
annual meeting? who is sick? who is sick no more?  How is poor old
Mr. Cass,* Chambers Street Court?  If he is alive, send him a box of
strawberries from  me in their time, and I will pay the price. Ask
Caroline Thayer to send me all the news: charming letters she writes
-piquant, witty, and wise.  Give our kind regards to your wife; take
* An old grape-pruner of the Twenty-eighth Society.
T 2




276              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
them to all your family, not forgetting Mary Ann, who opens the door
with such a good-natured look to me.  Remember me tenderly to all
the saints, and don't forget,
Faithfully yours,
THEODORE PARKER.
His letters to his physicians always show a cool and minute
observation; at no time was he either insensible to his condition,
or incapable of narrowly detailing all his symptoms.
TO  DR. CABOT.
Havana, Feb. 17, 1859.
DEAR Dn. CABOT,-I know you will like to hear how your patient
(and pupil) has got on in his travels.
1st. The general condition, seems a good deal mended.  Appetite
excellent, digestion ditto, color of hands and face is browtn Havana.
Strength greater-though it is still an infinitesimal-muscular force
small; nervous force no more. I don't lie deep in the sea, and a little
gust would tip me over.
2nd. The trouble in the abductor muscles was exaggerated by the ride to
New York, by the little stumble in the Astor House, and still more by
the abominable tossings in the storm, perhaps also by scrambling into
my berth, and staggering about on deck when I had to move.  I walk
like a man of ninety.
3rd. The difficulty in the respiratory organs is certainly no worse, perhaps better. I cough from 60 to 120 seconds only in 24 hours, but I hem
one, two, or three hours; the character of the expectorations is altered
a little. There is less green mucus, the white matter is less aerated
with bubbles than before; the quantity seldom half as great as in Boston.
1. I feel and hear a  adle muceuse-it is always in one spot; that
forces me to cough, then I raise a little green mucus, and presently
the white matter.  This happens on the average, since leaving New
York, three times in 24 hours, but never while in the free, open, pure
air, without a chill.
2. I hem  without coughing (1) when a little chill comes from  a
momentary draught of air; (2) when I am  hungry, or the digestive
organs are out of tune; (3) after any considerable emotion; (4) after
talking.  I put myself on the smallest allowance of this, and have
become more obedient to you since I left Boston.
3. I never sleep well at sea-often lie awake till one or two A.M., but
sometimes get a nap in the day.  Two days were quite exciting, when
I got to Nassau and to Havana, and I slept little the following nightonly two hours last night-for the air in the cabin in the port of
Havana was both close and chilly, but I could find no place to sleep in
on shore.
4. I don't like the looks of my eyes; the pupil is dilated unnaturally,
and the whole has that specific look I have noticed in all my relations
a little while before this tiger ate them  up.  I can clasp my left leg
with my hands, and have a full half inch to spare!




THEODORE PARKER.                        27 7
You, dear Doctor, can put all these things together, and tell what
they mean better than I. It is with difficulty I write so long a letter
just after landing, so good bye.
THEODORE PARKER.
Cuba I think a bad place for consumptive people, the air, when hot
or cold, is harsh.  I wish I had taken a sailing ship from New York to
St. Thomas. Took hyposulphites at New York, but not at sea; will
resume at St. Croix. Pulse 70-80 at sea, 70-90 now, with the excitement of the land. I think Dr. Flint will like to see this scrawl.
On the 22nd they were at sea again, bound for St. Thomas,
which they reached on the 28th, stopping by the way at Nuevitas,
the port of Puerto Principe, at Puerta Plata, and at St. John's.
He had time to write letters, and get some glimpses of the people, before sailing again, on the 2nd of March. All this time
lie was very weak, and had in no particular improved.
They reached the town of Frederikstad, West End, Santa
Cruz, on the 3rd of March.  On the next day his explorations
commenced.
Musa sapientumn is abundant in all the West Indies.  Notice what
Bruce says of it, and of the Ensete; and inquire if the musa sapientum
ever occurs in the hieroglyphics (which I doubt), or on the monuments.
Ask Dr. Pickering about this.  In my little pencil memoranda I put
down the names of the plants and trees I find.  But, alas! what an
odds between travelling for pleasure and knowledge and running away
from death!
Yesterday I went to the Protestant burying-ground; the terminus ad
quern I am travelling, it may be. It is not an attractive-looking place;
none that I know of in New England is less so. There the grass comes
"creeping, creeping, everywhere" —here only a ragged, coarse, rank
sedge comes in tufts to supply its place! The trees look ungenial; the
Bombax ceiba is the biggest, but uninviting-eaten up by its parasites.
No letters yet.  No Congress in session now; and the nation,
perhaps, breathes freely. But I should like to know what has been
done with the 30,000,000 dollars which the President wanted to help
steal Cuba with.*
Most of all, I wish to hear from the Twenty-eighth Congregational
Society.  In my wakeful hours at the Astor House and at sea, I went
the rounds of the parish, and visited all the houses in a visionary way.
He collects all the statistics-number of soldiers, the duties
on various articles, exports of sugar, molasses, ruin; notes the
climate, the inches of rain, the fruits, the negroes, the birds and
fishes, the women and children, the condition of the mules and
oxen; attends marriages, visits a sugar estate, and learns the
* But the appropriation was not made.




278             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
process of sugar-making, finds out the clergyman, and what he
is doing.
Sunday.-I shall always spend an hour and a half in my own way at
the time when the Twenty-eighth has its worship.
]Read the Society's letter, dated Jan. 11, only two days after my
pencil note to them.  I think nothing has so moved me as this appreciative and affectionate note. If it overrates me, it is only the exaggeration of love. I could not recover from it all night.
March 10.-How all the work is done here! I saw men and women
hoeing in a cane-field; and they were a sight to behold-so slow did
they strike.  HI-ere there are nine hours of labor; the pay is about
twenty cents, and board yourself. All industry is held in contempt. This
of course, is the consequence of slavery.  Notice the condition of the
whole house, floors, &c. None of the servants in it are willing to'cash a floor. The whites are ashamed to work, so are the negroes;
and, of course, both despise such as do work. Six men and one woman
were at work repairing the road; one was the overseer, and only gave
directions.  Some  of the others, with great hoes, broke up the earth
to be removed, and scraped it into trays, which others took on their
heads and carried to the cart.  Then all six of the workers took hold,
and drew the cart a quarter of a mile, three pulling and three pushing
-the overseer attending-and dumped the contents down where they
were needed.
March 13, Sunday.-Snow  knee-deep at home, I suppose. Not
many at meeting, perhaps, in consequence of the storm; and here the
fair sky seems eternal.
Here I miss the trees-not one in the precincts of the town-not a
place to sit down in the shade-no grass to sit on. Bless me, a square
rod of Boston Common, with green grass, white clover, and dandelions,
would gladden my heart more than all the Palmne, and Siliquoss, and
IusPe, and Graminacese on the Island of the Holy Cross.
March 19.-A most interesting movement is going on here for the
elevation of the colored people.  Mr. Dubois, the Episcopal minister,
takes great pains in this noble work. But the white people do not
help the work or much favor it.  Mr. Dubois has a Friendly Society
of about three hundred colored people, who pay a little sum each week
to aid their needy brethren.  The most interesting sight in the Island
is the street full of colored people on Sunday, going to meeting. Soon
as possible they get shoes and new clothing, and keep up their selfrespect.
March 20, Sunday. —G. W. Curtis lectures at the Music Hall today, where I think I shall not speak again.  B. AW. E. has been there
once, and Solger and Johnson each once. I can't keep the Twentyeighth out of my head.
He finds some native books, specimens of Creole poetry, from
which  he makes extracts.   And  he undertakes  to  arrange
botanically the trees, flowers, and shrubs; but this work came
to nothing, for want of time and books.
lie was not too weak to indulge in humorous passages with




THEODORE PAIRKER                          279
his friends.  His letters, indeed, from  the  West Indies and
Europe, continually show  that his disposition, released from  the
extraordinary  labors and  caLics of his  career, returned  at a
spring to the old geniality.   They are full of fun and raillery.
They overwhelm  everything ridiculous, from  the Pope and his
flamingo  retinue  to  Italian quacks and fine ladies of fashion,
with jovial and knowing criticism.   The fun is capital, because
it is such'excellent sense; yet sometimes he could  be simply
merry without being critical.
Here is his revenge upon a delinquent correspondent, from
Santa Cruz:Dr. Howe left us on board the Pajaro del Oceano, Feb. 21, at night;,
and I had lnot heard a line from  him when I left St. Thomas, May 15,
though he had abundant opportunities for sending letters.  So by the
Miisses Thacher I sent to Boston a letter to " The Executor of the late
Dr. Samuel G. Howe," and in it suggested this epitaph.  The Latin is
often sepulchral, as it was intended.
This epitaph is very long, but here are specimens:
D. 0. M.
Iic jacet
Expectans resurrectionemn justorun
Omne quod mortale erat
Viri exinii
Samuelis Gridleji Hovve, M.D.
Reliquise Graecularum!
Juvenis lusit in universitate Brownensi,
Causa Educationis,
Et Piresidi reverendissimo celeberrimo Messer
i'lultum displacuit
Sed versatus valde fit
In Lingua difficilissima Universitat. Brownensis,
Et ejus Artibus, Literis, Philosophiaque:
Inter Proeres pulchros fiit Antinous.
Studuit Artem AMedicinse:
Discipulus multa cadavera deterravit et infrustra secavit
Vi et armis:
M'agister multorun Animas H-eroum ad Orcum priemature demisit,
Inter Medicos verus 2Esculapius.
In terra Argiva,
E]t SMaylors et Cupido,
Multos Turcos occidit et Arte Medica et Gladio.
Quo melius nunquam  se sustentabat supra femur militis.
Poetam duxit illustrissimram
Quw. Flores Passionis versu depinxit.




280             LIFE  AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
Pro Polonia invictissima bellavit,
Incarceratos visitavit, Cmecos fecit videre;
Mutos dicere, Stultos intelligere (ut ipse;)
Lunaticos in sanam restituit mentem;
Liberavit Servos:
Pyros jucundissimos sibi fecit crescere in hortis;
Inter amicos fidus Achates:
Propter mulieres virginesque et Hercules et Cupido,
Sed pallida Mors wequo pulsat pede
G-rleculas, Turcos, Heroes,
Et omnium mulieres gentiumTroas, Tyriasve, Gallicas, Achivas, Rlomanas, Anglicanas,Americanasqi-,,
Etiam Polos invictissimos, CGecos, Stultos istos, Lunaticos, Servosqu::,
Et ipsum!
Vixit annos circiter lxxvii.
Clamant incarcerati, lacrymant cmeci,
Mcerunt muti, lugeunt stulti,
Stridunt lunatici.
Atque sedent Servi in Pulvere,
Et l3iulieres omniurn Gentium conciamant,
Eheu, Eheu, Eheu.
Sunday, April 3.-W7ent to the Moravian church.  The service had
one good thing in it; "Bless the sweat of labor and business," if I
have got it right.  Could not stand the sermon and ran off. The ecclesiastical theology is the greatest humbug in the world.
His Santa Cruz letter to the Twenty-eighth Congregational
Society was finished on the 19th of April.  Writing afterwards
to Mr. Sumner, he says of this letter: —
Read it as the work of a sick man, writing under many difficulties,
amid continual interruptions besides what his own weakness occasioned.  The substance is about the same it would have been if written
at home. I mean the essential thoughts; but the form and proportion
would have been quite different had I set a well hand to work.  But
it. is Parker's apology for himself.
To another friend he writes concerning it:It is a sick man's book, and seems poor and inadequate as I read
it over now, thlee months after it was written.  I never like to look
at my own books when they are fresh from the press.  What I heated
in my hottest fire, and hammered when it made the shop blaze as the
sparkles flew, seems poor and worthless as I look on it all cold, and
dull, and inflexible. Yet I wrote this with bloody tears-no work of
mine, perhaps, cost me such birth-pangs —for I was too sick to write,
and yet must be delivered of my book, and that, too, in such a place!
St. Thomas, May 12, 1859.
MY DEAR DR. CABOT, —We have just arrived here from  St. Croix
en route for England, via Southampton; shall take the Parana 15th,
16th, or 17th; the sooner the better.  We have stayed a little too long;




THEODORE PARKER.                        281
but could not avoid it. Everybody said it would be no hotter in May
than March, for there was more wind and rain; but they did not come.
Not an inch and a quarter of rain in ten weeks! The normal amount of
water is about eighty-four inches in this latitude; in the twelve months
ending May 1st, 1858, there were forty-two inches; in the last, twelve to
twenty-one!  The Island is brown as its own sugar. The people are
grumbling all the week, and on Sunday praying to the Unchangeable,
" that it would please Thee to send us timely and gentle rain "! But
it will not come, charm they never so wisely, till they allow the trees
to grow on the hill tops.
For the last month the island has been a Dutch oven, a baking
kettle.  The thermometer stands in the parlor at 86~, from ten till five
by day, only goes down to 80~ at sunrise-the coolest time! That is the
worst weather when clouds hinder the radiation; but for twenty days
it has averaged 800 all the time, night and day. I am wet as a frog all
the time, day and night, and take off my clothes as you peel an orange!
Now for my health. In general health I have mended much since I
came to St. Croix, am  much stronger, can ride a pacing pony two
or three hours, and feel the better for it: can walk two or three miles
without much fatigue. My walking five or six hours a-day was one of
Dr. Howe's Munchausens! I never walked three hours a-day! He
represented me better than I think (of myself). The food is bad;
not a decent piece of bread in St. Croix; butter from Denmark, and
offensive to eyes, nose and mouth, uneatable; all the meats are insipid.
Eggs good till the Cashew nuts became ripe; now the hens eat them
and have the yaws, and the eggs are poor.  I hate all the dishes except
the roast turkey and boiled mutton, which are tolerable. In six weeks
I gained three pounds, rising from 145 to 148; but in the last ten
days, I have gone down to 144; lost four pounds, sweat it off. I am
escaping through my own pores. The cough has ugly features still.
I think it is about the same as last January, only a little harder and
more agitating to the system; it rasps the throat a little more. The
hemming is as before.
There is no spiritual Hygiene here.  The island has three good
things: climate (bating the heat), sugar, rum  (I mean it is so reported: I hate the stuff). There are 2000 whites, 21,000 colored
people.  There is only one man on the island who has any science.
I have only heard of him; he is a Scotchman.  Nobody has any
appreciation of science or literature except the few Danes. I found
one who knew Kant's great work almost by heart. Not a Creole has
ever asked me a question relating to America, except as to the wealth
or the food. The women are more insipid than their custard-apples;
a man falls back on his own resources and the beautiful nature about
him.  Here is none of the tropic luxuriance of vegetation, for the
whole island is tamed by cultivation, and now chastised with drought.
Even the cocoa-trees are dying-an insect, Aleoydas Cocois, as far as I
can learn, is destroying them as it has at Barbadoes and elsewhere; no
progress goes on: only sugar, sugar, rum, rum! I have studied the
botany of the island, but with no helps, and shall send home a quantity
of seeds, &c. Flowers and plants I shall bring when I return. So I




282              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
have studied the negroes, and could give quite a lecture on their
physiology, phrenology, and psychology, before the Natural History
Society.  Perhaps I shall, if the medical art gives me my voice again.
But the time here would have been unbearable had I not taken other
matters inl hand. I have written a letter to the Society (Twenty-eighth
Congregational) at home.  You will have a copy and will scold me for
writing it; but I could not help it.  If I die it will be a valuable
document, and I think it is now belore I am  dead, and while I have
"one chance in eight or ten for recovery."  I do not think so highly
of that chance now as I did three months ago.
I wrote to Desor to meet me at Antwerp and go to Scandinavia in
June; then I will go to him  in some part of the summer.  We will
study the sub-aquatic remains of the Celts in the Swiss Lakes.  Steenstrup lectured on them  (Sunday, 9th January) at Copenhagen, as I
see by the Danish papers.  In the winter I want him to go with me to
Egypt; what do you say to that?  I think I must leave the feminines
at Paris or tome, or elsewhere, and he and I drive off together.  I
should like to read the Arabian Nights' Entertainments in the original
at Cairo, where there are Arabs iz situ, but still better to study the
nature of Egypt on the spot, with so intelligent and good talker as
Desor.
IMany thanks for your kind and characteristic letter, which came
most welcome.  I will not trust over much  to drugs,'however
vaunted."  The hypophosphites disturb my stomach, and I gave them
up after two (!) bottles.
If I had been at home I should have gone with Wendell Phillips
before the Legislature to ask for land for the societies.  It brought a
tear into my eye to think that I am a good-for-nothing loafer, fruges
consumere (clesti) ncatus!  But I doubt not you did just as well without
me and got the land; but I hope that miserable sectarian mill at
WVilbraham  got nothing.  It is not worth while for Massachusetts to
give money to make tMethodists of men, or to manufacture any sort of
sectarians.  I suppose Banks killed the new personal Liberty Bill, but
wish it may not prove so, for I hope good things of him.
I could not study the birds much at St. Croix; never shot one, but
caught a hunmming-bird and a yellow-bird in my hands (they flew into
the house), and let them go again.  I have seen about thirty-five kinds
of birds at St. Croix, not forty; the island is so destitute of trees that
there is no chance for birds. The pelicans interested me more than
any other, but I did not find any one who knew the names of half the
birds about him; they sing but little; the laughing-gull frequents the
waters, but I saw  only one specimen.  I found no swallows and no
thrushes! Don't they live in such low latitudes?  I shall send home
some large seeds of some kind of acacia (I think it is) which are
washed up on the coast from South America or Yucatan.  They are
called horse-eye, and look a little like their namesake; they are
washed up on the coast of NorwAay also, I think.  A large nut called
the Guinea cocoa-nut is washed up here on the south-east shore, which
the negroes say comes from Africa.  I could not find a specimen.
The Creoles here are shamefully uninteresting, except as specimens
of the genus Snob.  I don't know what the technical name is, so will




THEODORE PARKER.                           283
give a new one, h0om   sultzissimzus. If I could bring one before the
Natural History Society, and get Wim. B. Rogers to explain him  in
scientific phraseology, it would be refreshing.  Such pride based on
nothing, such contempt of work and impotence of thought, is amazing.
The Danes are rather intelligent; but the Creoles, good Lord deliver
us! I should name their women/fm2zina insipidissima.  The genus is
not worth preserving, and as they all turn out old maids (aiut-e des
kommes), it is not likely to last long.
Kemember me and mine very kindly to yourself and yours. I will
get well if I can, and you shall show me off in State Street as your
card and advertisement.              Heartily yours,
THiODORE PAnKER.
TO MR. ELLIS.
St. Croix, April 22, 1859.
Here we have been seven weeks on one of t'he handsomest little
islands in the world-a queer place too; once the thermometer in the
night went down to 72~, once in the day (in the shade) it went up to
85~, and stood there from two P.M. till six.  But generally the average
heat in the house, with all the doors and windows open, is 760 to 79~
The barometer stands always the same, 930-  inches.  Judge how dry
it is-in March there fell five-tenths of an inch of rain.; we have not
yet had so much in April.  They all complain of drought; indeed, the
hills are all brown as Windsor soap, except where the cane crop is still
left in the field.  There has been no such dry crop since 1837.  The
whole "thought" of the people is turned to making sugar, rum, and
molasses; no culture gets much attention except the cane. You would
be quite entertained with the pains they take with that.  The island
is a mountain in the sea, i.e. a cluster of hills quite steep (more so than
any in iassachusetts).  Their base is rock which comes close to the
surface everywhere.  The farmers extend their cane-fields to the top of
the hills; they plant in rows three feet eight inches apart, and set the
canes about two and a half feet apart in the rows.  The land is thrown
into ridges fourteen or sixteen inches high, which wind round the hills
and keep level always.  So all the rain runs into the trough between
the ridges where the cane is set, and does not wash the ground.  That
method would be an improvement if applied to our hillsides in New
England. 
I know the first thing you will ask about is my health.  I am much
better than when I left home, feel strong, can walk with ease, only
hindered by a little lameness in the right leg, which was much worse
at home; appetite is excellent; digestion could not be improved; sleep
is generally good and abundant, though now and then it fails me, but
not more than when I am fully well.  Yet still the cough continues,
and will not obey me and be gone, charm  I never so wisely.  I like all
the symptoms but that. Miy face is brown and ruddy, my eyes and
teeth look well. I ride on a pony about three times a-week.  I would
do so twice a-day if it did not worry my leg a little.  For nearly a
month we had no letters from Boston; last Sunday thirty came in one
sending!  One of April 1, and a transcript of March 31.  Judge of
our delight-all containing good news! But I have not heard a word




284             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
from  your household, and I have visions of Mrs. E. with a cough,
and Mr. E. with the rheumatism, and getting his feet wet on the
sloppy sidewalk in front of the Merchants' Exchange!  Jenny has
youth on her side and is expected to keep well.
Should not I like to come out after meeting to-morrow and dine
with you, and have a piece of nice cheese, and a crisp apple, and a
glass of lager-beer! I have a great mind to say I will come, but I
fear the horse rail-road car will be full-so I must wait.
What a mess the poor President is in! He can't pass his favorite
measures; Congress goes home and leaves him no money to carry on
the Post-Office with; his party friends desert him. Still I think the
Fillibusters don't dislike him much, and certainly the slave-traders
have reason so say, " I know  that my redeemer liveth!"  WVhat a
state of things; the slave-trade actually restored!
TO MISS CAROLINE C. THAYER, BOSTON.
Saturday Night, April 23, 1859. (Day before Easter!)
West-End, Santa Cruz.
MY DEAR CAROLINE,- What a nice letter you wrote my wife (who
rejoices in the name of Bear), which we all rejoiced in last Sunday!
We had no letters for a month (Santa Cruz is a dreadful dry place for
letters) and Sunday morning (Palm Sunday, too), there came thirty.
Didn't we delight that day? we read'em low, and then read'em loud.
You ask what kind of letters we want: take your pen and let her
drive-that is the kind of letters. Besides, I want all sorts of parish
news. Tell me all the news-one wants gossip when away from homejust as sick men pick up crumbs of bread when they do not dare eat a
mouthful. Snips from  the papers will be more welcome than ever.
I wish I knew who would preach to-morrow at Music Hall. Ah! I wish
it was I.  But a little cough sticks in my throat, and will stay, I fear,
till I have consulted King Pharaoh, and seen his,    and questioned the Sphinx: a dose of mummy may be good for a minister.
But I am not going to write you a letter-only a little note, and
send a flower; it comes from  a tree called women's tongues, which
bears a pod that hangs profusely on the tree, and rattles all the time,
day and night-I wonder whence the name came?  I would send you
one if I could make an envelope long enough. The flower looks quite
handsome now and here; how it will look at Boston I know not. Here
are no young men-white ones, I mean, and many young women. We
had fifteen of them here one night this week, and but one young man.
I canonically asked the Rev. Dubois, who looks after their present and
eternal welfare (and is one of the best of men, working for the blacks
also), " Where are the young men who are to marry all these virgins? "
He said, "Oh, we supply the St. Thomas market with that article;
young women go over there, and stay a few months, and if they come
home not engaged, we call them " a protested Bill." He is very satirical.
Remember me (and us) to all the family.
God bless you!                                           T. P.
Tell Mr. Ayres that Captain Finney, of the Anna Hincks, saw me
to-day, and can report the condition of my craft.




THEODORE PARKER.                          285
TO MRS. APTHORP.
West-End, Frederikstad, March, 1859.
(Written with a pencil out of doors.)
"In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon."
Well, we have got there, this is the place.  With nature it seems a
perpetual Midsummer's Day, but with man it is "always afternoon."
I should think the island was peopled by lotos-eaters.  Everything
goes lazy.  In the morning there is a string of women who go to
the spring for water, each with a little pipkin, or pitcher, or jug, or
carafe on her head.  In six months, time enough is spent to make an
aqueduct with a reservoir which would supply the whole town with water.
The boys do not run even down-hill, nor the girls romp. To play hoop,
jump rope, bat and ball, would be a torture to these dullards.  The
only game I have seen among the children is top; all the little negroes
have a top, and spin it on the hard, smooth street. The cows don't run
to pasture, or from it; even the calves are as sedate as the heaviest
oxen, and walk decorously up to their milky supper, and pull as
leisurely as if they worked by the day (to pay an old debt), not by
the job (and incurring a new one).  The ducks lie in the street all
day where they can find a shade, and only quack and gabble at night,
whlen the effort is not too heating.  Mr. Cockadoodle does not run
after the hens; he only walks as deliberately as a Dutchman, and it
seems as if he ought also to have a pipe in his mouth.  The winds
blow in a gentle sort, and make no dust, though it has not rained
enough to wet a blanket through this never so long.  There is a
brook outside the little village, but it never runs, it has no current.
There are no tides in  the sea, only a little slopping against the
coral rock.
It is a queer place, this little island of the H-oly Cross.  But what
wealth of vegetation and animation! The air, the ground, the water,
all teems with life; a fruit drops on the side-walk, and is soon full of
insects, which convert the vegetable into animal life.  The Saturnian
earth soon eats up the bodies of his human  children, not sparing
their bones. All is strange-the trees, the plants, the flowers, even
the birds.  Great heavy pelicans are always floating on the sea, or
flying a few feet above it.  The turkey-buzzard floats in the air like
a feather, and seems to move by will not effort, one of the most graceful
things I ever saw. The humming-bird, twice as large as ours, lights on
a twig, and waits for the flies to come along for his breakfast, though
he sometimes acts after his kind, and hovers about the flowers, treading
air with his wings, and putting his long beak into the deep-bosomed
monopetalous flowers which abound here.  Many of the trees and
plants are monocotyledonous, and have no network in their leaves,
where the fibres all run the same way, like the threads in a skein,
and are not woven, but glued together.  What gorgeous flowers here
are! Red is the dominant color, which is amongst colors what the
cock's crow is amongst singing birds. There is a queer tree growing in
the churchyard. It is all branches with no twigs (like a tree-cactus); its




286               LIFE  AND  CORRESPONDENCE  OF
boughs are an inch thick at the end.  It has not a leaf now, but great
red flowers in a cyme, at the end of the boughs.  They call it bois
immzorteile, because it pushes out its flowers when its leaves fall off.
But it 0looks repulsive and dangerous, as the vie immmortelle which the
Church preaches-life eternal, but heaven only to one, while it is hell
to the nine hundred and ninety-nine.  I thought the goddess of vengeance-who never sleeps even at St. Croix-had reared it, and planted
it at the church door.
Great quantities of papilionaceous flowers are here, which bear pods.
The tamarind is an enormous bean-tree, three feet in diameter, and
fifty or sixty feet high.  How  grand the cocoa-nuts look, and the
mountain-palm  and the banana; not to speak of the sapodilla (which
looks like an apple-tree), and the papao, and the breadfruit!  I am
never weary of looking at the Flora of this fair-skied island. But I should
like a tree to lie down under, and a little grass; we have none here,
only solme sedgy stuff, solid-stemmed, coarse as flags almost, and growing six feet high, with a top like an old broom.  I should like to see a
little grass-plot, with white clover and a dandelion. I would fling in a
deal of sugar-cane for a New England corn-field.  The Tropic harvests
are not handsome like the Temperate.  The cane lacks color; it is pale
as a city girl.  There is nothing to equal the beauty of a field of wheat,
barley, or rye, or even potatoes in their glory of bloom; a meadow
ready for the scythe has no rival in the Southern crops.  The cotton
plant is not handsomer than a shrub-oak.  Coffee I have not seen
growing.   Orange groves, I think, are a myth; I have seen larger
at Romne, under the Pincian in the monastic garden, than  I met
with at Cuba or here; yet they really do exist.  One Cuban, near
Matanzas, has 10,000 trees, and they are always handsome, with "their
golden lamps in a green night."  I must tell a word about the humanities of the place. 21,000 black and colored,'3000 white. XWhite, indeed!
there is not a rosy cheek on the island, unless it be lately imported
friom the North.  Here we live in the midst of colored folk; up and
down the street, Prinzens Gade, far as I can see, there is not a white
fanily.
We live with a MIrs.  ~, a widow of 65 years old.  She condescends to take boarders at 10 dollars a-week, and takes the greatest
pains to feed them well.  She belongs to the tip-top aristocracy of the
island, and her house is the West-Endest promontory of the West-End
of Santta Cruz.  Why, her husband was -lerr —ilaste;-Collector-Genleral
of the Post, when at least 25 ships arrived in a year, and he had an income
of 20,000 dollars a-year (she says), and her house cost 45,000 dollars
(so she says).  I take off a cypher from each sum, and bring it down
a little by this reduction descending.  They usedto livein Sctus undBcaus
in his time, that they did. What puncheons of rum, what pipes of wine and
brandy did not they have, and what fun, and frolic, and feasting, and dancing, and making  love, and marrying and giving in marriage. But alas!
"' vergangen ist vergangen, verloren ist verloren."  The house and all looks
now, like the state of things a day or two after Noe entered into the ark,
only the ruin is not by Vwater. All the buildings are tumbling down,
the garden is never hoed or dug, the fences have fallen, the gates
without hinges, the doors lack handles, and the once costly furniture




THEODORE  PARKER.                          287
has been battered, and neglected, and maltreated, till you mourn over it
all.  Old M-r. -        was one of the most intelligent men on the island,
and sent his many daughters to Copenhagen for education.  One of
them, at least, obtained it; a fine, sensible, well cultivated woman of
thirty, the Lady Bountiful of the island, with a very tender history of
love, which deathnipped in the bud when just ready for bloom.  It
males me weep only to think of it.
Iere is a better collection of English books than you would be likely
to find in a Connecticut river town; but how they, too, are neglected!The plates gone from  the encyclopsedias; volumes missino from  sets,
and the binding off from  costly works; books scattered, Vol. I. in this
place, II. in a different, III. lost, and IV. under the bed. Irso --   talks
all the time about herself and her former grandeur, till she sounds as
empty as the Heidelberg tun.  In the next life I trust we shall be
able to hold our ears as well as our tongues.  I wish I could now.
The town belongs to the negroes and the pigs.  A word of each. 1.
Of the negros.  In the streets you see nobody but negroes and colored
people-fine straight backs.  All the women are slender.  You may
walk half an hour and not see a white man.  One of these days I
will write a word upon the moral condition of the Africans here, and
their possible future.  It is full of hope.  But the negro is slow-a
loose-jointed sort of animal, a great child.  2. The pig.  There are lots
of pigs in the streets.  Pigs male and pigs female, pigs young and pigs
old. Most of them are coal-black, and, like Zaccheus, " little of stature."
They are long-nosed and grave-looking animals.  I should think they
had been through a revival and were preparing for the ministry; a
whole Andover, Newton, and Princeton turned into the streets.  But
they are slow, as are all things here. They do not keep their tails flying,
like the porkers of New England.  A woman, not far off, comes out
into the street and now and then calls, "Pik, pik! sough, sough! i" (i.e.
suff, suff,) and her particular pig recognizes the voice and grunts gently,
but approvingly, and walks home to his dinner, like an English country
gentleman, and not as American members of Congress go to their meals.
I finish this on Sunday, P.M. 27th. TMarch.  It will go to St. Thomas
by packet to-morrow, and the British steamship will convey it to you.
AWhat do you think a passage costs from St. Thomas, ~38 10s. or ~43.
for an outside cabin! I take the inside.  You must not let us disturb
your plans, and puit you to trouble.  We can join you alnywhere you
know.  I want some healthy cheap place for the latter part of the
summer, where I can live out of doors and find objects of interest.,Tre mean to see Holland and the Rhine, and Nuremberg, before we
go into summer quarters.  Lyman will be with us.  Dr. Bowditch
is to take his daughter to England in the spring.  Hle, too, banks
with the Barings, and will go to the chief cities of the Continent.
Lyman is a trump.  1H - calls him the lover, from  his attachment to
me.  Love to all, including the Hippopotamus. Good bye, dear friend
that you are.
T.




288             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
TO GEORGE RIPLEY.
St. Thomas, May 13.
I have just finished " A Letter to the Twenty-eighth Congregational
Society," which I think they will print. I wish I could have had your
help in writing it; had I been at home I should have gone to New
York to read it to you, for your criticism. It will be harshly criticized.
It is a philosophico-biographical exposition of myself and my doings.
I shall be charged with the grossest vanity and also pride.  I think
you will find neither the one nor the other there. It may be the last
thing I shall ever write; at any rate I write it with that supposition.
I have carefully left out of notice all of my labors and studies which
do not bear upon the matter in hand. You will see how much I pass
over in silence; whilst others will charge me with lack of reserve.
Good heavens! if they knew what I could tell, and should, if I might
live to write the Autobiography you spoke of! I give the rationale of
UJnitarianism, showing its excellence and its fatal defect, and its consequent defalcation. The Unitarians will not like this; I want your
judgment on it. I show that I have utterly broken with the ecclesiastical theology of Christendom, and how; and what I offer in its
stead.
I don't know that I have published anything more important this
long time, though I preached a series of sermons on the " Testimony
of the World of Matter to the Existence and Character of God " in
1857-8, which I think the ablest I ever wrote. I wish I could live
long enough to print them: each was an hour and a quarter long
(hard, abstruse matter) and I did not preach more than two-thirds of
the MS.
I have not much instinctive love of life, but just now I should like a
year or two more to finish up some things not half done. Still I am
ready anytime, and have never had a minute of sadness at the thought
of passing to the immortals.
Your friendship has long been very precious to me, and one of the
great delights of my life.  The volume of sermons I just spoke of I
meant to dedicate "To George Ripley, most genial of critics, most
faithful of friends."  Take the will for the deed. I rather think you
must let me slide before long. I doubt that I ever see the State House
again. I was ten weeks at Santa Cruz, and no critical feature of my
complaint is changed for the better.
To return to the letter to the Society; you will see parts of it
were written with tears of blood, but the people won't see it: I don't
wish them to. I avoided all that was sentimental or pathetic as far as
possible. It is not well conceived nor well expressed, I fear. It is a
sick man's letter, written too, when the average temperature was 800.
Commonly I walk in quiet places, often by night, to make my compositions. Boston Common is part of my study at home; so were the
woods at West Roxbury; the great oak, you remember-it was part of
my library. But here I could not walk for the heat-there is no shade,
and the house admitted no privacy. So I wrote under manifold disadvantages.




THEODORE PARKER.                        289
I think you will be interested in my account of my Orienting myself
in metaphysico-theology in the theological school, my fixing in humanity
the idea of the Divine, the Just, and the Immortal.  In my autobiography I should (not shall) write it out more fully. I know you
will like what I say of the spiritual influences attending my theological
development.  I mention the leaders of the movement and the agents
of the reaction.
God bless you!
T.P.
He left Santa Cruz, and returned to St. Thomas on the 11th
of May, to take the steamer for Southampton, which sailed on
the 1 th.
I leave the tropics with more cough than I brought in. The critical
symptoms are worse, but others are better.
No plant can live in so dry and poor a soil as hope (Spes mortaliunm).
No cactus equals it.  Really it lives on itself,      and -    furnish
me examples of this continually.  ]foriturus spem Ihabeo nullacm.
May 29.-In no essential symptom  is my disease better, in several
it is worse-much worse. I have no longer much hope in my bodily
power of recuperation; no physical instinct assures me of recovery. I
have some faith in the revivifying influence of civilization, which I have
been exiled from  for four months; some also in this, that my affairs
are not ready for my departure-that I have not done my work.  But
these are feeble arguments against a consumption, with a cough which
tells of the destruction of my lungs.  I must let myself slide out of
this life into the immortal.
May 30.-To be a good traveller one should have all these accomplishments: —
1. He must sail without sea-sickness.
2. He must be able to coax a sleep out of any plank.
3. He must have a stomach that never surrenders.
4. He must take tobacco-especially smoke.
5. HIe must drink the coffee which he finds everywhere.
Mly other sickness now gives me the victory over sea-sickness-a
great comfort which I am grateful for.
May 31.-A year ago I was at Kennet Square, Pennsylvania, and
preached four sermons-lectured at West Chester, &c.
Many ships in sight to day-sounded fifty-five fathoms.  We wish
for news of the war. Saw a British steamer at 5 A.M., full of troops
heading south for the Mediterranean.
How the old scenes come back and people the world anew! I see
the faces of my friends whom I saw last year at Kennet Square, whom
I may not see again with the mortal bodily eyes. I am troubled still a
little by the sea, and by the crowd of passengers who incommode us so
at table and elsewhere. When I close my eyes what special shapes are
painted on my optic nerves!
Southampton was reached on June I, and  London the same
evening, where they lodged at Radley's Hotel.
VOL. II.                                               U




290            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
The note-book goes peering round in every direction, To the
Queen's stables, the Court at Westminster Hall, Chief Justice
Ca -pbell on the bench, the Thames, to the book-stores, to Mr.
Btuckle, Mr. Mackay, and other houses, to Guildhall, St. George's
Yarda Vulture Inn, Fish Street Hill, Billingsgate, the Tower, the
iE-form Club, Museum, Speaker's Gallery of the House of Commons
by the favor of Mr. Bright, the Museum  in Jermyn Street, to
Thomas Huxley's Lecture on Fishes, to the College of Surgeons,
to a Charity Sermon at St. Paul's. But, he says, " Too feeble to
do much."
He also wrote letters and received a good many visitors.
At St. Paul's, yesterday, the wealth, beauty, and famous birth of
England sat under the great dome of the Cathedral, while the servants
and ignobly born stood without; 8000 children sat alone, and fainted with
hunger while they listened to a wretched sermon on human depravity
or sung the litanies they had been made to commit to memory.
June 5 —Heard Martineau. Sermon on self-surrender, full of rich
religious feeling, and showing the fine culture of the man. But the
costume and the printed service-book are a hindrance to progressive
thought, and to all freedom.
While he was in London, a young English gentleman called
upon him, who had evidently found the satisfaction which his
mind and heart required in the writings of Mr. Parker.  He
did not come to pay his formal thanks; his whole manner was
a demonstration of respect and grateful feeling.  On leaving,
said he, with much hesitation  and modest embarrassment,"This travelling is a matter of great expense-perhaps, in consequence, you might not be willing always to do something that
you  would prefer, or to go where motives of pleasure and
comfort would otherwise carry you.   That ought not to be.
Pardon me if I say I know  one, deeply indebted to you, who
desires to show it, who would be proud to increase the chances
for your recovery; in fact, he stands before you."
How many such unexpected hands of love were stretched out
to him  during this last year! The offer was declined, but he
accepted the precious love,
TO HON. CHARLES SUMJNEiR.
Racdley's Hotel, London, June 7, 1859.
MYW DLEAR SUMER, —You don't know what delight your letter,
which came last night, gave us all. IHow glad we all are to hear of your
improvement in health I Mr. Seward was here yesterday afternoon,




THEODORE PARKER.                        291
and said he heard indirectly from you every day or two, but did not
speak so confidently of your health as I had hoped. To learn from
your own mouth of your condition is delightful.  Lyman came in the
Ocean Queen to Cowes, reaching land June 2nd, and London the 3rd.
Dear, good soul that he is  he took command of me soon as he arrived,
and hoisted his broad pendant, so I sail under his colors. He says we
shall all be in Paris in ten days at farthest. I think we shall leave
London next Monday. We shall stay but about a week in Paris, then
go to Holland, perhaps, and so to Switzerland. Tell me of some
decent hotel, thlat is central and not dear. Yours must be too costly
for my taste or pocket. Desor is now at Wiesbaden, gone there this
week, for the bath-cure. He asks us to pass a part of the summer with
him, and we shall but too joyfully accept the offer.
We'll talk over the Italian affairs, which must be settled sooner than
I thought. But I have little hope of any good for Italy. Effete
nationalities cannot be rejuvenated, I think. I guess the fate of Spain
and Asia Minor is before the poor people.  The Piedmontese seem the
best portion of the race.
Well, it won't be long before we see you.  i had a letter from
Howe; his visit to the Tropics did him a deal of good.
Yours ever,         T. P.
acdley's Hotel, London, June 2, 1859.
T0 MISS 0O 3O3E AND [ISS CARPENTEREBOTn:  Y V YtRY DEAR FABIEnNDS,
— et me unite you both in one letter, the first I write oi English soil,
while the tossings of the sea still keep my head and hand unsteady.
Many thanks for your kind letters, which reached me at Santa Cruz, and
the two which greeted me yesterday, on board the ship at Southampton.
A boat came alongside, and the boatman called out, " Letter for Theodore Parker!"  Judge of the trembling joy with which a sick man
read your words of kindly greeting! Thanks, many thanks, for your
words of welcome!
I know you will wish to know what effect the residence in the WRest
Indies has had. I cannot yet quite say; for the critical symptoms have
changed but little, if at all. But I am a deal stronger, with a good
appetite, and reasonable strength and spirits, that, if not hilarious as
when well, are never sad. Indeed, I am cheerful by temperament, as
well as by philosophy, and from principle. In all my illness, and it is
now in its third year, I have not had a single sad hour. I have not the
average love of life by instinct, and, besides, have such absolute confidence in the INFINITE LOYE, which creates and provides for the world
and each individual in it, that I am sure death is always a blessing, a
step forward and upward, to the person who dies. iMy place in the
world will soon be filled by wiser and better men, who may be guided
by any wise word of mine, and certainly will be warned by my errors.
So my departure may be the best thing for the great cause of humanity
we all have so much at heart.  The burden of sorrow in that case will
fall on my intimates, and heaviest of all on my wife; for to her I am
all in all I But even such sorrows are blessed in the end they serve.
However, I shall still hope for returning health, and leave no stone
unturned to prolong life. I have many things half ready for the press
u 2




292              LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
which none beside me could print. In special, I have a short volume
of sermons on the " Evidence of God found in the World of Matter
and of Mind"; they were preached in 1858. I like them better than
anything I have done before.  Each was about an hour and quarter in
the delivery, and what was spoken could be recalled from the notes of
the phonographer who daguerreotyped all my words. But I did not
preach more than half of what my brief contained: the unpreached
matter will be lost without me; hard to write it out. Besides, I have
volumes more in that state.
Dear friends, do not think me rash to have wasted my strength in
this way, for I must preach every week, and I had not time to write
out fully all that related to the matter I preached upon. Besides, I
must labor in some other way to obtain the means to publish and circulate my new works-for I have been my own Tract Society. Had I
lived in England I should have printed more and lectured less: in
America I must do as I did.
Your two letters, dear friends, are full of interesting matter, which I
am not quite well enough to write on now.  I hope to do so when I
return from the Continent next year. Yes, at Bristol itself; I wish it
were possible now. But we shall stay only a week or ten days in
London. Here I found letters, dated Montreux, Switzerland, May 28.
My friends are well and happy.  I meant to visit Scandinavia with my
friend Desor, but hear nothing from  him. My American  friend
Lyman has not arrived, so we are all alone in this great Babel of
modern civilization.  I have seen nobody but the bankers, Bates and
Sturgis (Baring, Brothers, and Co.), old acquaintances, and genial,
kindly men. I hope to see Martineau, Newman, and others of the
nobler sort, but must be prudent and not talk much with thoughtful
men.
When I reached Santa Cruz I went, or rather crawled, for I could
hardly walk, to the graveyard, and selected my place of rest if the angel
of death should say, "Thus far, 0 body, but no further! "  It seemed
odious to lay my bones in ground where the bottom of the grave was
dry as the top, and where no grass can grow, but only abominable
sedges six or eight feet high.  Yet I found a sufficient place under a
tamarind and a silk cotton tree (Bombex ceiba) though unlovely. But
when I trod on English ground I felt that the clods of the valley would
be sweet to the crumbling flesh. I would not object to laying my
bones where, save six generations, my fathers have left their ashes for
eight hundred years.  Yet I shall prefer to take home a sound body.
TO MISS COBBE.
Radley's Hotel, June 11, 1859.
MI  TEvY DEAR MISS COBBE,-Your kind note came duly to hand,
and the flowers are fresh and blooming still, on the table before me, as
I write.  I have seen the Martineaus, Newman, Tayler, Ierson, 3fr.
and Mrs. Shaw, Miss Winkworth, Cholmondeley (whom you don't know
-he is a good fellow, and was a while in America), and many others.
Mr. Bright and many of his coadjutors I have also seen, and by his
courtesy got a place under the gallery and heard the great debate on




THEODORE PARKER.                        293
Thursday night. But I am losing daily here in the smoke and chill of
London. To-morrow we hasten to Paris (Ho6tel de Londres, 8, Rue
St. Hyacinthe, Rue St. I-lonore) where we shall stay a few days, and
then take our departure for the Rhine and Switzerland. It is a great
luxury to see the Apthorps again and my dear Desor, with whom I
shall pass some weeks.
" To be weak is to be miserable."  Iere I am in the focus of civilization and can do nothing; a little excitement is a little too much, and
I must get into a quiet place. It has grieved us all that we could
not see you, but if I return next year and in any tolerable condition,
I must have that pleasure. I hope I shall often hear from you on
the Continent. The Barings will always have my address, and I will
besides keep you advised of my whereabouts.
Mrs. P. sends hearty thanks for the flowers, and I have put away
the silken thread which bound them  among other precious things.
Both of the ladies send you their hearty regards. Let me add the best
wishes and thanks of
Yours truly,
T. P.
TO ISAAC AND SARAH CLARK, BELMONT, MASSACHUSETTS.
London (Racley's Hotel, Blackfriars),
June 8, 1859.
lMY  DEAR ISAAC AND SARAH, —My friend, Mfr. Lyman, came here
to take care of me on the 3rd of June, leaving Boston May 19th;
he brought the news that your excellent father had passed on from this
world to a better.  It did not much surprise me. Yet the last time
I heard, he was quite well; had got his petition accepted, and cast the
first vote in the new town of Belmont  I am glad he had that satisfaction. But at ninety what are we to expect?  When I rode out to
see him that last Sunday I spent in Massachusetts, I thought I should
not see him again, but yet imagined that I should shake off the body
before him. I don't know but he was of the same opinion. A tear
stood in his eye as I took him by the hand, and said Good bye. Some
letters told me the particulars of his passing away-gradually, calmly,
quietly; what more could we ask?  lie came to a great age; he had
lived a happy life; his latter years were particularly full of delight;
and he died an easy death, and slipped into the other world without
knowing it. We must shed some natural tears, but let us not mourn
for him. It was only a blessed new birth to him, the mature soul
drew near its time and must be born into heaven. lie could not have
lived many years; they must be years of painful decline of all the
senses. Let us not mourn that he has left the earth and gone to the
blessed ones of his own family, who have ascended to heaven before
him.  Let us rather rejoice that he lived so long and happy a life,
achieved such an excellent character, and passed so pleasantly from
time to eternity. I wish I could have been with you at the time, and
could have spoken a word or two about the character I loved and
esteemed so much. But that pleasure was denied me.




29 i             LiFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
We went from  New York to Havana, stayed there three or four
days, then went to St. Thomas, where we stopped two days; thence to
Santa Cruz, and stayed ten weeks.  There we lived in a house which
had no glass windows, no chimneys, no fire-place. A  house in the
West Indies is a little piece of out-doors fenced off with a slender
partition.  I mean it is almost out of doors.  So we lived in the open
air when within the house.  I used to ride on a little pony, who climbed
the hills nicely; and bathe in the sea-that was my only exercise, for it
was so hot nobody could walk with any comfort; there were no shady
trees.  During all the ten weeks we were there it was not cloudy three
days; it did not rain an inch and a quarter! I saw a grave dug, six
feet deep, and the earth at the bottomf was like ashes, as dry as at the
top.  I wish I could describe the island to you.  It is twenty-three
miles long with an average breadth of not more than four or five; the
shores are coral rock, rising generally but two or three feet above the
sea itself; though in one place there are cliffs ten or twenty feet high.
The sea has no tide, and is commonly still as Fresh-pond, though it flaps
a little at the shore.  The whole island is but a cluster of hills, the
highest about 1500 feet; the steepest part of Wellington  -lill is
nothing to the abruptness of these miniature mountains. Yet they carry
their cultivation to the very top; the steepest sides are planted with
sugar-cane.  They throw the land into ridges about three or four feet
apart and sixteen or eighteen inches high.  These parallels run round
the hills nearly level; between them the sugar-cane is planted: the
plants are set about a foot apart.  Paths making a zigzag lead up to
the top of the hill, in which the mules walk to carry up manure and
to bring down the crop.  For scenes of quiet rural beauty, I have seen
nothing equal to some of the best parts of the island.  But we are all
quite glad at length to get away from it, for it became intolerably hot.
There is no relief from  the heat; a cool day does not come now and
then as with us, and the nights are almost as hot as the days.  11th of
MRay we went back to St. Thomas and stayed till 16th, when, at 3 P.M.,
we steamed off for England.  Here I am as busy as a nail-machine
all day and get little rest, there are so many friends.  But I refuse all
invitations to breakfast, dine, &c., and keep as quiet as I can, doing
nothing rash.  Please show this to my brother. I shall write him soon,
but I avoid letters as much as possible.  Believe me, my dear cousins,
faithfully and affectionately yours,
TO DR. HOWE.
Paris, June 15, 1859.
1VY DEiA  CHTrv. —We left London Sunday morning, June 12, at
half-past five, and reached Paris at a quarter-past five P.M., travelling
(ria Folkstone and Boulogne) nearly three hundred miles, and that
with little fatigue.  We had not got fixed in our lodgings before
Sumner came to see us.  He had been already at the station, but
missed us there.  Hle is the finest sight I have yet seen in Europe-he
is now so much better than I had hoped.  He walks on those great
long legs of his at the rate of four or five miles an hour; his counte



THEODORE PARKER.                        295
nance is good, good as ever; he walis upright, and sits upright; all
trouble has vanished from his brain; he has still a little difficulty in
the spine, enough to make him feel that he has got a back-bone-we
knew it from other indications. Hie is the same dear old Sumner as he
used to be before that scoundrel laid him low —winning the admiration
of the HIunkers of Boston and of South Carolina. He is full of information-knowledge of facts, men, and ideas. Monday I rode with
him nearly six hours about Paris-he doing all the talking, for I do
not speak in the streets.  He was here again yesterday, and I was at
his room.  I never found him more cheerful or more hopeful.  It is a
continual feast to see him.
Now you will wish to know a word about myself.  I did not like to
write from London, where I had no good to tell.  The voyage from
HIavana to Santa Cruz wore me down a good deal. When I reached
that place (March 3rd), I could but just crawl about: I went stooping
and feeble. With the help of a cane, I strolled out after breakfast to
see what I could see, and got into the grave-yard, a most hideouslooking place, where I selected the most unattractive spot, and thought
it likely I should lay my bones there; but I did not!  I gained color
and weight at Santa Cruz, but lost the latter again; strength increased
all the time. I lost seven pounds' weight in the voyage from St.
Thomas to Southampton, and, of course, have not yet recovered
it. The cough " has increased, and is increasing, and ought to be
diminished."  So is it with the expectoration.  Yesterday, in company
with my good friend, Dr. Samuel Bigelow, of Paris, I visited Dr. Louis.
Bigelow and Louis both made the examination, and concurred in their
advice, Bigelow explaining to me more minutely than Louis all the
features of the case.  Still, I don't know that,my opinion about myself
is at all changed. - But it may be of no value; for the doctors here do
not agree with it, Dr. Bigelow thinking that I may preach again. The
2nd of January, when I turned away from the congregation after the
sermon was over, it flashed into me, " This is the last time, 0 Parkie!"
-and I turned and looked at the departing multitude as for the last
time. I will do all my possible to live; then, if I die, it will not be my
fault.
After the six hours' ride, Mro Sumner was obliged to go
home and rest; but Mr. Parker went on foot, still exploring
and making calls for some time longer.  He was then more
capable of muscular exertion  than  Mr. Sumner; and  to all
appearance, putting  the positive  disease  aside, promised  an
earlier return to health.
The note-book was on duty again.  The amount of sig"'
seeing, visiting, and letter-writing is wonderful to contemplate I
TO DR. CABOT.
Paris, June 16, 1859.
MY DEAR CABOT,-I know you will like to hear a word or two':msrn
your docile patient, since leaving St. Croix. We had a good:^:i.ia




296              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
passage to Southampton (May 16th to June 1st).  I took six drops of
chloroform in a wine-glass of water, to prevent sea-sickness, and kept
horizontal on the deck for the first three or four days.  So I escaped
the misery of continual vomiting, retching, and straining, which so
torment me else at sea. I suffered little this time, but yet lost seven
pounds on the voyage. As we got into cooler latitudes, I protected
myself abundantly with clothes, &c., keeping on deck twelve or thirteen
hours a-day, but in sheltered places; but yet the cough would increase.
After I reached London, the dampness-they called it, " uncommon
fine weather it is, for June"!-the clouds and the deadness of the air,
full of coal smoke, irritated the cough still more, and of course increased
the expectorations. I was very prudent. I accepted no invitations to
breakfast or dine. I once lunched with Martineau.  I made no visits,
except one or two of necessity, and those but a few minutes in duration.  Of course, I could not avoid seeing some hundred persons
perhaps, some of them  most enlightened and interesting men and
women. Many hospitalities were offered me, but I could accept none.
" To be weak is to be miserable! "  I was out in the evening time,
once till half-past eight, once till ten-it is hardly dark at nine, and
dawns at half-past two A.M.!-but did myself no harm thereby. Judge
of my forbearance.  I left the House of Commons at half-past eight
(when I had a most distinguished seat), though Sir James Graham and
Lord Palmerston were to speak before midnight; besides, I went into
none of the great churches, not even Westminster Abbey! I never
went to the theatre, and took special pains not to get fatigued.  Professor Rogers happened to be in London for three months, and was
exceedingly attentive, kind, affectionate, and wise. He insisted on my
staying with him, but I did not; nor even accept his invitations to
meet famous savans, and talk with them.
Here, at Paris, I sought Dr. Samuel Bigelow, who took me to Louis.
I told them  my medical and pathological story, and they made a
"survey," and reported  a little tubercular disease at the top of
the right lung, not extended far, no reason why it should extend or even continue!  He thought little of the cough or the expectoration; thought
the greenish-yellowish matter came from the bronchia, not from the
decomposition of the tubercles. He has no faith in Dr. Winchester's
hypophosphites; no more in  (that abominable) cod-liver oil.  He
recommended pillules de Blancard (iodide of iron, you know), and I have
got one hundred of them, to take one at breakfast and at supper for a
while; they look formidable as buckshot, and will kill the consumption,
if they hit it.  Certainly they are big enough.  Drs. L. and B. recommend-1. Abstinence from all over-exertion. 2. To keep in the open
air as much as possible. 3. To eat abundance of nutritious food,
especially viandes matures.  4. To drink vin de Bordeaux, or vin de
Neuchadtel.  He (Dr. L.) also recommended the baths at Ems and
lEaux Bonnes (near the Pyrenees, you know;) but I found Dr. B.
inclined to let me off from them, so I shall go to Montreux (Vaud,
Suisse) at once. Dr. L. thinks well of 2Egypt, but I fear the discomfort of the land, and the chill of the river (seventy-five days in a boat),
and seek some European spot. Do write me (through Mr. Manley)
what you think of Rome for a winter residence. I don't refuse.2Egypt,




THEODORE PARKER.                       297
though the cost is enormous. Now, my dear Cabot, don't think I rode
in your gig for nothing.  I became a mollusc-an oyster, at the West
Indies, and exercised almost exclusively those nerves of vegetation, which
you discovered. But I had in me a letter to the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society, and I must bring it forth, and when my full time was
come, I was in labor four or five hours at a time; but this was ex necessitate, not at all ex voluntate; besides, it was the only way to get through.
I can't "take the leap of Niagara and stop when half-way down."  I
hope you have seen the thing, by this time; a sick man's baby it must
be; the child of sorrows, no doubt; but like others, it must be born!
After that, I dropped down into my molluscous condition, and when I
saw one of the actual tenants of the mud at London (they grew on
trees at St. Croix,) I said, " Am I not a clam and a brother? "  I never
opened my mouth upon oyster or even shrimp, except to speak to them
respectfully, lest I should commit the crime against nature, and devour
my own kind. In Switzerland, I will be as gentle " as a child that is
weaned of its mother," and behave myself "like a sucking child."
I shall see Bigelow again, and keep up a correspondence, perhaps,
with him; but I want your advice as much as ever, dear, good, hearty
friend that you are; please write me through Mr. Manley, who will
always know my address. Love from mine to yours. Please hand this
to the excellent Dr. Flint, and let him show it to whom he will, as
good tidings from
Yours faithfully,
TuHEODORE PARKER.
On the 19th of June he went to Dijon, on the way to the
Lake of Geneva and Montreux.   The latter place had been
recommended to him for a summer residence.
After dinner the next day he took the tour of Dijon, " the
queerest old town I was ever in," and at two in the afternoon was on the way to Geneva.  He reached Montreux by
boat on the 22nd, landing in a violent thunder-storm, and found
lodgings prepared at the Pension Ketterer.  Here he met his
friends the Hunts and Apthorps.
TO MR. JOSEPH LYMAN.
Montreux, June 22, 1859.
MY' DEAR LY~rAX,-We reached Dijon about 5 P.M. Sunday, after
a most delightful ride through a highly cultivated country. The land
is rather sterile by nature, but made abundantly productive by art;
the crops were fine; rye, wheat, grass, now and then a little Indian
corn, and the beautiful vines of this C6te d'Or. How everything is
utilisee, every spot of ground, all the water, and the waste of the
roads! Nothing is lost; at taverns the guests eat their platters clean.
At Dijon we found a fine hotel (De la Cloche), but prices exorbitant; all tavern-keepers I fear are pirates, and seek to exploiter the




29 8             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
rest of mankind. It is, I think, the queerest little old town I ever saw.
All is medieval-narrow streets, churches with no approach to the
Renaissance, of the quaintest fashion. I felt zmyself carried back to
the time of Charles the Bold and Jean Sans Peur, whose tombs are
here, with their high-nosed statues lying on the top.  Ye stayed till
2 P.ai. next day, then started for Geneva, which we reached at eleven,
tired and hungry.  I was too weary to do much the next day,
but I-. and L. visited some of the (few) curiosities of the town.
At 3 P.M. we steamed off for Montreux, but met ill weather threequarters of an hour before reaching it, and at half-past eight landed
(in a flat-boat) in a violent thunder-storm.  We stayed awhile in a
shanty, where M1r. Ketterer was waiting for an English family, and
then walked some three-eighths of a mile to his hotel. All was ready
for us, fine apartments with a most glorious outlook, good beds, &c.
Most of all, there were our blessed friends, all well, and not at all
changed since 1856, save only that Willy has grown older, stouter,
browner, and more boy-like. What a bright little dog he is! They
did not look for us this day, and supposed their ill weather extended
to Geneva, and would prevent us from coming there.  Our baggage
got badly wet, and the industrious -     has been busy all day with
unpacking, airing, smoothing-out, and replacing the unwanted articles
which fill our trunks and bags.
Do you know what a prospect there is right before my face?  The
Dent du iMidi, 10,000 feet high and twenty miles distant, covered
with snow, is as distinctly defined as the steeples of Jamaica Plain
appear at your house. Come and see. Apthorp plans many excursions
for us. This P.Mi. (7 now) the weather is delicious, the scenery
perfect. Come and make it complete with your presence, and believe me,
Faithfully yours.
admired the bronze " counterfeit presentment " of herself as
much as I. All send their hearty love. It has rained here every day
for a month; now wve shall have fair weather.
Greet Sumner, dear, great, noble soul! from me.
To P.
TO M       AISS MARY CARPENTER, BRISTOL, ENGLAND.
Montreux (Pension Ketterer), Suisse, June 23, 1859.
XY DEAR MISS CArPETE,-It grieved me very much to find that
I must leave London without seeing you or Miss Cobbe. Really it
was too bad, after all your very generous intentions. But when I
return to England we will make amends for it, and take our revenge.
I need not tell you how much interest I take in your noble work at
Bristol. Many things are called CnRISTIANITY, a name dear or hateful
as you define it one way or the other; often it means repeating a
liturgy and attending church or chapel; sometimes it meant burning
men  alive; in half of the United States of America it means
kidnapping, enslaving men and women! The Christianity which your
admirable father loved, taught and lived, was piety and morality, love




THEODORE PAIRKER.                       299
to God, love to man, the keeping of the natural laws God writes on
sense and soul. It is this which I honor and love in you, especially as
it takes the form of humanity and loves the unlovely. The greatest
heroism of our day spends itself in lanes and alleys, in the haunts of
poverty and crime, seeking to bless such as the institutions of the age
can only curse. If Jesus of Nazareth were to come back and be the
Jesus of London, I think I know what (negative and positive) work he
would set about.  He would be a new revolution of institutions,
applying his universal justice to the causes of ill; but also an angel of
mercy, palliating the effects of those causes which could not be at once
removed or made well. You are doing this work, the work of humanity:
it seems to me you have a genius for it.
Accept my hearty thanks for all your kind intentions, and believe
me, faithfully yours,
THEODORE PARKER.
There is lying at the base of Wellington Hill a field, which
formerly belonged to the township of Watertown; it is famous
for the great oaks and elms of enormous girth that are  still
flourishing there, the only specimens of the kind within many a
mile.  Some chestnut trees, which yet remain in a secluded spot
on the confines of Dedham, are the only trees comparable with
them  for bulk and stateliness.  The two largest elms have their
feet in  moist ground, and a sparkling brook runs between.
Over this a plank or fallen branch leads to the great oaks, which
flourish on a grassy knoll; it almost encircles a little pond, which
in wet weather is quite full.  The field is skirted on one side by
the road, but the clumps of underwood and barberry bushes
scatter many a screen; and, beyond the knoll of oaks, everything is shut out except the country sights and sound.  There
are few such spots left in Massachusetts, where trees which shaded
the first colonists yet stand.  Underneath these oaks the old
Watertown settlers used to go for foxes and beavers up towards
Waltham Hills.
It was a favorite spot with Mr. Parker; and not far off, upon
Wellington's Hill, the Twenty-eighth Society sometimes held its
annual picnic. But in 18 5 9 a letter must serve for the actual bodily
presence of the pastor who loved those occasions so well:
LETTER TO THE TWENTY-EIGHTH  CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY.
Montreux, Switzerland, June 25, 1859.
To all the good people of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society
in Picnic assembled:
Young men and women, and men and women no longer young! Far
off in body let me salute you as face to face in spirit; so indeed we




300             LIFE AND COBRESPONDENCE OF
are, for I feel as near you as if my eye read your welcome and familiar
faces, and saw there what you have been doing the last five months.
A year ago, when I told you of the great oak-trees near by, almost
as large as John P. Hale in circumference, who stood up before you
as the unit of measure, I had a dim presentiment that I should not
be with you bodily at your next annual meeting, for I then felt the
approach of the evils which have so disturbed me since, and was long
in recovering from the slight fatigues of that festal day. But I did
not then think that when you should again look at Wellington's Hill,
400 or 500 feet high, the Pie du Midi, 10,000 feet high, sheeted with
snow, would seem as near to me.
How little do we know what should happen! That tall mountain,it passes for nothing in this Alpine family of giants,-looks in at my
window all day, and all night long it glitters white in the surrounding
darkness: then blushes rosy red, as morning comes up the sky. The
snow shifts and varies on its top and sides from day to day, but never
wholly disappears,'tis said.  I can throw a walnut from my chamber
into the Lake of Geneva, whose blue-green waters are so fair all day.
Handsome vineyards are all around me here, yet their crop is not so
fair as our own Indian corn, the Pocahontas of the vegetable world,
the great American empress of the cereal grasses.  The Chateau
Chillon is within fifteen minutes' walk, built on a rock in the Lake, a
few yards from the shore, where the water is 500 feet deep, they say.
It is very old; there was a castle there used as a prison in 830 —and
the present structure was put in its present shape in 1248. A
romantic little village, full of old houses, with its grey stone church, is
perched on the side of mountain, one or two hundred feet above my
head.
Mlost picturesque are the pleasant places where the lines of my
present lot have fallen to me! So good comes out of evil! The people
here seem contented and happy, and look intelligent and virtuous;
they work less than we, save more, and enjoy more. The country is
rich, not by nature, but by the toil of many generations. For while, in
New England, our last cultivation of the soil is not 240 years old, here
you count the triumphs of industry by thousands of years. I think
the vine was cultivated here before the time of Julius Cesar; not to
speak of corn and other needful things, which human toil wooed out of
this sunny land, perhaps 3000 or 4000 years ago. The soil is poorer
than what you stand on, and more stony too; the slopes are steeper
than the most abrupt descents about you. But labor conquers all; the
steep mountain sides are notched into terraces, whose sides are protected by the stones which once cumbered the ground; the shores are
lined with stone to withstand the flapping of the uneasy lake. The
soil is rich by art, and bears enormous crops of costly grapes. I love
to see the Indian corn scattered here and there among the vines.
Nothing is lost, no foot of soil; no ray of sunshine on a wall, but an
apricot, a peach, a grape is ripening there. Use has not driven Beauty
off-men are not content with the sublime of nature; they must have
the handsome artifice of flowers. Pinks, hollyhocks, marigolds, gilliflowers, and the queenly roses blow in all the little gardens. In the
homely window of a stone cottage, in the narrow street of MIontreux,




THEODORE PARKER.                        301
you will find a fairer show of cactuses, than all tropic St. Croix now
furnishes to its proud and lazy inhabitants, equally incapable and
regardless of beauty.
Here too all is peace-it is the incidents of peace I have been speaking of; but only eighty miles off, as the crow flies, are the outposts of
the Allies; two armies, numbering 300,000 men, are drawing near to
kill each other, and before these lines reach you, I suppose they will
have reddened the ground with dreadful murder.  No doubt the
Austrians are the Devil to Italy; their name is legion, and they have
possessed it many a sad year, i dannati Tedescli, as the Italians call
them!  Now Napoleon III., the prince of that class of devils, the
very Beelzebub, comes to cast them out.  It is good to get rid of the
old German devil, even if a new French one turns him  off in this
rough fashion; it is of a kind that goes not out except by fire and
sword. I rejoice therefore in every French victory; it gives Italy some
chance for freedom, though I hope little for these effete nations.
You and I may be thankful that our land is not trodden by the
hoof of war-not yet, I mean; but the day will come when we also
must write our great charter of liberty in blood. V No nation in
Europe has so difficult a problem to solve as America, none has so
great a contradiction in the national consciousness.  The spirit of
despotism has a lodgment in the United States of America.  350,000
slave-holders keep 4,000,000 in a degrading bondage which Europe
only knows in her ancient story, not from present facts.  Besides there
are 350,000 Hunkers, entrenched behind the colleges, courts, markets,
and churches of America, who are armed in this way for the defence
of this despotism, and are deadly hostile to all the institutions of
democracy.
A great struggle goes on in Europe to-day, in all Europe. The actual
war is local, confined to a small part of Italy.  It may become general
before you read this note, and be spread over all the land. For the
causes of war are everywhere.  It is the great battle of mankind
against institutions which once helped but now hinder the progress
of humanity-human nature against the limitations of human history.
On the one side are the progressive instincts of the race, demanding
development, the enjoyment of their natural rights; on the other are
the ecclesiastical and political dynasties which now possess the seats of
power and the weapons of authority, and say to mankind, "Thus far,
but no farther! "  We all know how such quarrels must end. Human
instincts are a constant force, continually active, never wearing out;
while dynasties perish, and are not renewed. The Pope and his Christianity will go where the Pontifex went with his heathenism, and one
by one the despotism of the Kings will yield to the Constitutional
Governments of the people.  "Forward," "Upward!"  is God's
word of command-all thrones, all markets, all churches which stand
in the way of men will be trodden under foot of men! The past life
of mankind is a struggle with the elements and a battle against its own
rulers; but the handsome vineyards of Switzerland and the vast cities
of Europe are results of that struggle.  The Constitutional Governments of England, old and new, are the triumphs won in that battle!
Alas! the fight must continue for years, perhaps, for generations.  But




302               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
peace is sure to come at last.  In this great European strife, I find no
man dares appeal to America for encouragement. HIer 4,000,000
slaves, her attempts to revive the African slave-trade, her courts which
lay  waste  the principles of democracy  and justice, her Churches
leagued with the stealers of men, are arguments for despotism  and
against a Republic.  No doubt, Austria is the hindmost State of Christian Europe, the most medieval and despotic; light enters Russia, and
is welcome, while Austria repels the dawn of day. But even this
despotism has not a slave, while democratic America chains one-seventh
of her population, and sets 4,000,000 men for sale.  France is the
ally of rising Italy; America the helper of Austria, which would hold
back the world. Even in your festivities, dear friends, I beg you to
remember this, and not be unmindful of what we owe the world.
I trust you will enjoy the day before you and return home the wiser
for your delight.
I know you will believe me, faithfully yours,
THEODORE PARKE1E,
TO MR. MANLEY.
1Montreux, Vaucl Suisse, June 25, 1859.
MY DEAR MR. MANLEY,-Yesterday's mail brought most welcome letters from you, Mr. May, St. Mathilde, and others. I am glad the letter to
the Twenty-eighth came safe to hand; it cost me too much care and toil
to have it lost, though I have still the duplicate in my desk. It must be
nearly printed by this time, considering the efficiency of the committee
who have the matter in charge. The Twenty-eighth,for whom it was meant,
will receive it in the spirit of love and kindness, making all due allowance
for the short-comings of a sick man; but the outsiders, for whom it was
not meant, will, of course, treat it with harshness.  My apology for
myself will hurt the feelings of many, no doubt.  Please see that
a copy of it is sent to the excellent Dr. Samuel Cabot, and the " Bidsummer Sermon" also. I fear I left his name off of the list I sent
Mr. Leighton.
We left London, June 13th, at half-past five a.m., and reached Paris
at five; stayed there about a week, and left it at eleven A.M., June 19th,
and passed the night at Dijon, one of the queerest old places I ever
saw: it was the capital of Burgundy, you know, the residence and
burial-place of the famous dukes of that name.  Their high-nosed
statues still keep the likeness of the family, and show whence come the
(ugly) features of the Hapsburgs of Austria and the Bourbons of
France, which are traceable to them  through the female line.  God
knows who were the fathers of their families!
From Dijon we went to Geneva next day, and the following came by
boat to this charming and most delicious spot, whose name you have read
at the head of the letter.  Don't you think the Hunts and Apthorps
were glad to meet us all, and we to put our arms about their necks?
It is almost three years since we saw them  sail out of New York
Harbour, not thinking we should meet here under such circumstances
on the 21st June, 1859.
I visited Dr. Samuel Bigelow (you know his excellent brother, John. 3 B., and his wife, a charming person); he took me to the famous [Dr.




THEODORE PARKER.                         803
Louis (Baron Louis), and they made an examination, and reported a
little tubercular disease at the top of the right lung; not extensive,
not necessarily obliged to extend, or sure to continue.  Their judgment
was eminently favorable, and encouraged my poor wife greatly; she
always keeps up a great heart, and is hopeful as the deity who leans on
an anchor, never says a discouraging word, and has a smile at each
unlucky symptom. There are no artists like these women!  Dr. B.
is my doctor just now (you must have a relay of doctors, as of horses
to put you over the road), and he recommends the hypophosphite of
lime (Louis thinks nothing of it), and I take ib now, twenty grains
a-day, three days in the week.  The French chemist who prepares it
thinks the American preparations are good for nothing.  "No such
goods in the market as our goods, sir! Depend upon it, nobody else
has got the gen-u-ine article  "  That is the cry all the world over.  I
suppose a money-lender tells-his customers (or victims), " My money
will go further than any other.  In short, sir, my dollars are a leetle
sounder than any others in the street!' Since I came here last Tuesday,
and it is Saturday now, I have been better than before.  I have slept
better and coughed less than in any four days since I left St. Croix.
That looks well; but the time is a little too short to draw long inferences from.  Still, I have never had so good news to write about myself
as now!  Tell Francis Jackson, that unsurpassably excellent man,
that I will not over-work, and I advise him to be as prudent as I am
and shall be.  I hope he does not go to that cold, raw spot at South
Boston this summer   It has handsome flowers, but ugly east winds
also on all sides of you. It gives me a touch of the rheumatism  only
to think of it.
TO JOHN AYRES.
July 31, 1859.
Your last welcome letter, of July 12, was sent me from  Montreux
by my wife, who is staying there with Hannah, and the Hunts and
Apthorps.  Mr. Lyman and I are staying a little while on a visit with
my friend Desor, whom you may have seen at my house; he is an old
and dear friend-now a man of large property, and has a dozen friends
staying with him at his mountain farm. It is about 3000 feet above
the sea-a most delightful spot. The days are warm and the nights
cool. It is Sunday to-day, and you will not jump out of bed for an
hour or two yet, for though ten o'clock here, it is only a little after
four with you.  The letters, the last and the preceding, were quite
grateful to me, and seemed like the face of an old friend almost.
Many thanks for the wise and prudent interest you took in my affairs,
at a most critical period too.  I hope F~~  keeps his integrity,
if he loses his property.  I wrote him as soon as I heard of his
trouble; he has been an honest man as well as a generous, and I
think this little reverse will do him good, and only good; few men
can bear long-continued prosperity, especially the sudden and uninterrupted increase of riches. Things are arranged for us better than we
can manage them  ourselves.  I look with great reverence and trust
at the inevitable things in life. They are often just what we revolt from,




30 4             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE  OF
but they turn out to be just what we need most of all. Mr. Jackson
has written me about the present disposition of my funds, and I feel
renewed obligations to you and him and Mr. Manley. Do not take
too much interest in an old and sick minister; he will be very thankful
for a little.  The New York Herald of 16th inst., has just been handed
me, and I see that Mr. Choate has passed away; a man of great
talents, which he greatly abused, often to the worst purposes. He had
good qualities, and young men bred in his office both respected and loved
the man. I am glad I was not in Boston when he died, for I should
have felt bound in duty to preach his funeral sermon, more painful for
me to write than it would be for his friends to hear.  I should like to
preach a sermon on John Augustus, one of the most extraordinary men
I ever knew; he created a new department of humanity and loved
the unlovely. A murderer or a highway robber does not corrupt society;
but a man like Choate, with talent, genius, learning, social position,
the most extraordinary power of bewitching men by his speech, he
debauches the people to a terrdible extent. I wonder if any one will write
out and preach the dreadful lesson of such a life, and warn the public
against being seduced by such men, and young scholars against becoming such? When Robert Rantoul died, the Suffolk Bar took no notice
of his death. What a pow-wow they will make over poor Choate!
Why? He was one of them, and Rantoul drank from a different spring
-at least sometimes.
So you see, there is peace, at least for a time. I took great interest
in the war; the prince of devils was casting Satan out of Italy.  I
like to see the devil's-house of despotism divided against itself, but
Beelzebub-Napoleon did not like to cast Satan entirely out; he drives
him out of one or two rooms, and leaves him still master of the great
hall and all the court-yard.  The short of it is, Nap. was afraid.
1. His losses in battle were enormous (he does not dare publish them
yet), and he must' ask for 100,000 more soldiers if he went on.  2.
He feared the spirit of revolution.  In a month all Hungary would
have been in a revolt; Italy was already in open rebellion. 3. He
feared the intervention of the other Powers. Russia would not like
a Hungarian revolution in 1859, after she put one down in 1849; if
the war was general, and not local, all the great Powers would have a
hand in it, at least in settling it.  4. He did not dare offend the
Pope and the 40,000 priests at home, who are Roman and not French,
and might give him a pretty kettle of fish to fry if they pleased.  In
a word, he saw that his devil's-house of despotism was divided against
itself, and in danger of falling about his head. Now the Emperors are
made friends, there seems to be unity of sentiment, of idea, and of
aims between them. The Pope is an ugly customer to deal with. If
I were Emperor of France, after the Solferino battle I would take him
by the scruff of his neck very gently and say to him, " You old cuss
you! long enough have you tormented men and made your three millions and a quarter of subjects hate you; that must cease! Keep your
infallibility as long as you like, and make the most of that nonsense
-decree the immaculate conception of the Mother of God, and his
grandmother, and all his aunts, if you like; nay, you may excommunicate all the rest of mankind, the more the merrier, and damn them




THEODORE PARKER.                       305
in the next world; but if you touch the hair of any honest man's head
in this world-nay, if you wickedly scare a Jewish baby in his cradleyou have got me to settle with, that's all! Your people are to have
you for ruler, if they like you; if not, not! Now, pax vobiscum!"
TO SARAH AND CAROLINE WHITNEY, WEST ROXBURY,
MASSACHUSETTS.
Geneva, June 21, 1859.
MY DEAR SARAH AND CAROLINE, —Let me embrace you both in
one letter, for I am your debtor, owing each of you a letter, and perhaps more than one. It is now  twenty-two years since I was first
ordained as minister at West Roxbury; this longest day in the year
is the anniversary of that event. It is one of the epochs in my life,
which I always cherish with fond regard, though the special ceremony
I thought no more of then than now. Do you remember the council?
A great many of them are now dead. John Quincy Adams, and Mr.
Lunt, both of the Dr. Wares, Tommy Gray, Dr. Pierce, Dr. Harris,
and Mr. Greenwood. It was able men whom I had invited to perform
the services-Francis, Ripley, Stetson, Henry Ware, and faithfully
they did their duty.  One thing happened, a little characteristic of
what was afterwards to befall me. After the services were over, they
they all went down to Tafts for the entertainment. I walked, by some
accident in the management; and when I reached the hall everything
was eaten up but the sandwiches. I have often thought of it as an
omen of much that was to come: so I regarded it then.
I shall never forget the kindness and affection I met with at West
Roxbury! When I went to Europe in 1843-4, no day ever passed but
I, in imagination, looked in every house in the parish, and fancied what
was going on. In the wakeful hours of the night, now-a-days, I do the
same, with the present congregation at Boston, but it takes a little
longer to visit all the parish now. I often wonder that the people at
Spring Street bore with my opinions as gently as they did, for all were
not able to take so philosophical views of them as Deacon Farrington. He
said, " Mr. Parker makes a distinction between religion and theology;
it is a sound distinction. We like his religion; it is exactly what we
want: we understand it; and this religion is the principal thing.
About the theology we are not quite so clear; much of it is different
from what we used to learn. But we were taught many foolish things.
Some of his theology we are sure is right; all of it seems like good
common-sense; and if some of it does sound a little strange, we
are contented to have him  preach just what he thinks.  For, if he
begun by not preaching what he believed, I am afraid he would end by
preaching at last what he did not believe at all! " Wise old deacon!I learned a great many things from him. But I must stop now, and
finish elsewhere.
VOL. II.                                              X




306             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE  OF
TO THE SAME,
Montreux, Switzerland, June 29, 1859.
What a sweet, kind letter you wrote me, dear Sarah, the day I went
off from Boston! It has dwelt in my memory ever since, like some
fragment of a pleasing tune that will keep coming back again and again.
How often I think of you all, and of the happy times I have had in
your house, both the old one and the new i I also remember well my
first visit to your family, and took much delight in the society of S.
and C. all the time I was at Spring Street.  I think I shall not forget the past, nor cease to profit by the present and future.  There were
some very thoughtful persons at West Roxbury, though not one who
was what is technically called "an educated man."  How we abuse the
term " educated"!
We are living in one of the handsomest little places in the world.
By nature the scenery is grand and sublilme; art has added the delicate
beauty of fine culture.  Summer and Winter have clasped hands; the
Dent du cl idi, 10,000 or 12,000 feet high, and covered with snow, looks
in at the window, while the apricots are hanging ripe on the garden
walls, and the figs are almost fully grown.  Strawberries and cherries
abound.  Perhaps you will not find the place on the map, but it is at
the east end of the Lake of Geneva, between Vevay and the Castle of
Chillon.  We are not more than a hundred miles in a straight line from
the seat of war, where a most ghastly battle was fought last Friday.
We have not yet learned the details.  I think it will not continue long.
The Austrian Emperor went back to Vienna day before yesterday.  If
he had waited much longer he would have needed a French passport. I
expect every day to hear the French have taken Venice, and that Padua
has risen against the Austrians. Tell the ladies of West lRoxbury that
I have looked through their eyes for the last four or five months, and no
wonder if the world looks fair. lWe all send love to you all.  Give my
special regards and thanks to Sally (Henshaw) Whittemore. Think
of the Deacon's daughters I " Well, I never!' I hope Captain John's
short-horn is well.  Give our kind regards to mother, and believe
me,
Faithfully yours,
TEIODORE PARKER.
TO MRS. E. D. CHENEY, BOSTON.
Montreux (Pension Ketterer), June 28, 1859.
MY DTEAR EDAH, —I have not written you a single line since I fled
off from Boston  What adds to the mischief, I did not have the coveted
opportunity to bid you good bye for I know not how long.  Now  I
have a little breathing spell, being quietly settled down for a few weeks
perhaps, and so comes this letter-wholly of friendship and partly of
thanks, the latter being something more than the sum of all the parts
which the metaphysicians say make up the whole.  I have written so




THEODORE PARKER.                       307
much about myself lately-good news, too, since I came to this place,
that I am the greatest bore in the world to myself, as bad as Abby
Folsom, or even Mr. Mellen, to the Anti-slavery Conventions; no, worse
than that, as bad as Mr. A. B. to the Twenty-eighth Congregational. If
somebody should announce "The Rev. Theodore Parker," I think I
should put on my shoes, after I had taken him coldly by the hand, and tell
him, " I am very sorry, sir! but really sir, I have important business
which takes me to Vevay, &c. I-I-I beg your pardon, sir, but-but
-but-I must bid you good morning, sir! "  So I should walk off four
or five miles in the rain to escape the " devastator of the day;" to such
a degree has that gentleman become wearisome to me.
What shall I tell you?  There are so many things that I know not
which to select, so I will take the people I saw at London. We had not
been there forty-eight hours when an old gentleman was announced-a
Mr. R. H. Brabant, seventy-nine years old, who had come from Bath to
pay me his respects. " You don't know me, sir," said he. " It is only
your name that is forgotten," I said; " I remember you very well! " Fifteen years ago he came from Devizes, ninety miles, to see me, and I dined
with him at his son-in-law's house (Mr. Hennell, now dead, was the son-inlaw). It did me good to see the old gentleman again, full of scholarship
and humanity. Mrs. Shaen and Miss Winkworth came to see us, and
sat an hour or so; they are sisters, intelligent, cultivated, and thoughtful women, full of literature, ideas, and humanity. You know the
Book of H-ymns one of these talented sisters has translated from the
German. We lunched at the MIartineaus' one day-the only time I
have taken a meal abroad since I left home: (I wonder if some of my
ancestors were not Hibernians, for this is the second Irishism in this
letter!) there I saw Mrs. Martineau. She and her husband had called
on us before, and her nice daughters, three of them; the married one
is with her husband, growing hops in Kent. Pleasant people they all
are, in whom the nice artifice of culture has not impaired or concealed
the instincts of generous nature. I love such girls. Frank Shaw's
daughters are admirable specimens, and Mr. G. W. Curtis has one of them
for wife, the better part of that good man. Rev. Mr. Tayler, and several
younger men, were at the lunch-interesting and instructed people, all of
them. Prof. H. D. Rogers, the kindly, was living at LIondon for the
summer. He " goes to Glasgow to teach, and comes to London to
learn," so he says. IIe and his wife came to see us twice-he, besides,
every day we were in town. They kindly pressed us to come and live
with them all the time we should stay in London-dear, kind souls that
they are!
One of the last persons who came to visit us the night before we
went away was Ellen Craft! I count that an honor. The last time I
saw them  before was the day of their flight from  Boston. You
remember George T. Curtis and his pack (of fellow-creatures) had been
barking at them for several weeks-seeking to rend them to pieces. I
married William and Ellen in solemn sort in a house on " Nigger Hill,"
and put a Bible and a sword into his hands, and bade him use both with
all his might! I had given him a pistol before. It did me good to
meet her again in Blackfriars, London, where the kidnapper would not
be held in very high honor. I thought of the time when Hannah and
x 2




308             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
John Parkman and I rode out to Brookline to bring Ellen into my
house, where I might keep her in safety. I took a hatchet along with
me for defence; I afterwards had better fighting-tools, and borrowed
a pistol of Dr. Bowditch as I returned.*  Poor thing! she feels better
now than when she lived in my upper chamber, and we did not let the
girls go to the street door to let any visitors in. I hope these times
will not come again to Boston.  Mr. Seward was very polite to me.
He is received with great empressement by the chief men in London, and
is delighted with their kindness; they think, as I do, that they are
attending to the next President of the United States.  Mr. Bright got
us (Lyman and me) a place to attend the House of Commons, and we
heard the great debate which led to the expulsion of the Derby Ministry.
Bright made a fine speech —honest, sincere, manly, and sufficiently
eloquent for the House of Commons, which laughs at sentiment. How
handsome the English women are!  Fine large animals, they have good
hair, good teeth, good eyes, and a noble complexion (Mrs. Bodichon,
who offered us many attentions, is a good type). The children, I think,
must be the finest in the world-what a show of them at Hyde Park,
at Kensington Gardens, and many other places in London! All our
women-kind send their love to you.
TO ISAAC PARKER, ESQ., LEXINGTON, MASS.
Montreux, Switzerland, 28th June, 1859.
MY DEAR BROTHER,-I have not written you since I left home;
partly abstaining because I had no good news to write which would be
satisfactory to you to read; and partly because I did not like to tax
myself with any sort of needless labor.  Now I think I can give you
good tidings of myself.
*         *         e          *         e         *
That is enough about myself, now about things of more interest.
You are a farmer, and are naturally interested therefore in the cultivation of the soil. At St. Croix there are 145 estates on the island-from
100 to 400 acres each. About 140 are sugar estates, the rest cattle
farms. There are about 23,000 inhabitants-21,000 colored more or
less, 2000 pure white.  The energies of the people are directed to
raising sugar-canes, which they make into sugar, molasses, and rum —
the great products of the island. They raise no grain: Indian meal,
flour, oats, &c., are all imported. They take little pains with vegetables
and fruits; so all are of the most inferior quality except the oranges,
which (in winter) are the finest in the world. Apples, peaches, cherries,
plums, strawberries, currants, gooseberries, &c., do not grow here.
Their melons are miserable, though I think you or I could raise the
most delicious water-melons, cantelopes, &c. Plantains and baananas
grow with almost no cultivation, and are important articles of food; as
fruits they are pretty good, and as vegetables for cooking they are
invaluable as the potato is with us.  Sweet potatoes, yams, &c., are
* The Doctor met him; he was unconcernedly munching an apple, in excellent spirits,
perfectly cool, and ready for any contingency.




THEODORE PARKER.                         309
abundant, and cost little labor. But all the fruits and vegetables are
raised by the negroes on the little patches of land adjoining their
cabins, and are their perquisites over and above their regular wages.
The village (or city?) of West-End contains about 800 or 1000 people,
who live closely huddled together and raise nothing. On Wednesdays
and Saturdays (especially the latter) there is a market-day. The negro
women fill a little tray with a few potatoes (sweet potatoes, I mean),
oranges, bananas, eggs, chickens, &c., put it on their head, and trudge
off to town-a mile, two miles, or six or seven miles. The market is an
open place, not paved, without shelter or shade; there the women
sit on the ground and spread out their articles for sale. I never saw
one who had goods to the amount of one dollar and fifty cents.
There are some thirty or forty kinds of grass on the island, but none
is as good as the wild wood-grass which you find at home, and which
the moose would eat, but cows (I think) will not.  Most of their
grasses are tall sedgy plants, which do not run and cover the ground,
but grow up in bunches, rank and coarse. There is not a spot of green
grass to lie down upon.  The cattle live chiefly by browsing on the
bushes and low trees. All the best hay is brought from the United
States or from Europe; so is all the cheese, all the butter, &c. I
wrote Isaac Clarke about the manner of cultivating the cane, the
drought of the land, &c., so I will not now repeat it.  The whole island
when we left it was brown as TJriah Stearns' Hill, by the pond, in the
driest time in August.  It was painful to look at the hills-about the
the color of badly burnt coffee.
We reached Southampton June 1st, at 10 A.M., and rode in tho
P.M. seventy miles to London. You never saw such greenness as exists
everywhere in England.  It rains almost every day, and so the ground
is always moist and the air damp. The crops in the fields were of
wheat, rye, clover, beans (a horse-bean which I never saw cultivated at
home), potatoes, cabbages, and all sorts of kitchen vegetables. They were
beginning to make their hay. I think the average yield there would be
two and a half tons to the acre. New potatoes were in the market, though
not so good as the old ones. Cabbages and cauliflowers were fit for the
table and in great abundance; green gooseberries were in all the shops,
oranges were cheaper in the market than at St. Thomas, of the finest
flavor, too, brought from  Spain and Portugal.  England looks like
a garden, all is so nicely cultivated; the apple-trees were just getting
out of blossom, and the horse-chestnuts were in full bloom; roses
abundant; of course there were pinks, gillifiowers, marigolds, &c., &c.,
everywhere.  Lilacs had passed their bloom, bat the prim and the
whitethorn were in full feather.
In France we rode about 400 or 500 miles by rail, through the most
delicate cultivation, quite superior to that of England. The crops were
clover (white, red, yellow), various other grasses; wheat, rye (the winter
rye was ready for the sickle, and the harvest had begun June 12th),
potatoes, beans, and in the east part, between Paris and Switzerland,
vines and Indian corn.  Of course, potatoes met us everywhere; the
strawberries were ripe, the largest I ever saw-many were as large as
the yellow peaches which used to grow behind the shop; they were
sold from hand-carts all over Paris at about eight or ten cents a quart!




310             LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE  OF
Apricots were abundant, bigger than ours, about eight or nine cents
a dozen.  I had pears on the 17th of June, about as big as a cent
in diameter; cherries were large and cheap-five or six cents a quartlarger than ours, but not so sweet. They have a peculiar melon, which
looks like a rough pumpkin-squash; it is about as big as a two-quart
measure; I did not taste it, for the price was from  one dollar to one
dollar fifty cents! but I shall get some of the seeds before I come
home. It is a Persian melon, brought to France, I think, in the time
of the Crusades.  The chief crop in Burgundy-the east part of the
middle of France-is the vine.  Here the stocks are in rows about
two feet apart one way and a little less the other; they allow two,
three, or five or six stems to grow up from one stalk, and support them
on sticks about three feet high, yet like our bean-poles; they do not
grow higher than currant-bushes with us. Between the rows of vines
you sometimes find rows of Indian corn-a single stalk in a place.
Here, in Switzerland, the land is very hilly; the hill-sides are notched
into steps, the edges protected with a stone wall from three to fifteen
feet high, so that the mountain slopes look like stairs.  On the level
part of the terraces the people raise their vines and their crops.  You
may judge of the amount of work necessary to notch and terrace the
whole country.  But here the cultivation is several thousand years old.
Apricots and cherries are ripe here. You never saw such economy as
prevails here and in France; not a spot of ground is left to be idle. On
the banks of the streams there are poplars and willows, which yield an
annual harvest for the basket-maker.  All the sunny sides of walls are
covered with apricots, peaches, pears, or more delicate grape-vines.. No
little stick of wood is wasted. The chips are picked up in the forests
where the wood is cut off; the small brush is made into charcoal, put in
bags and sent off to Paris.  All the manure of the country roads is
carefully gathered up by the peasants, and (on men's backs often,
carried to the vineyards.  You can know nothing of agricultural economy till you see with your own eyes!
Affectionately, your brother,
T. P.
TO MISS THtAYER.
Montreux, Canton de Vaud, Suisse, July 8, 1859.
Ml    vERY DEAR CAROIINE T xAYER,-What a  shame  that you
should have the rheumatic fever, and write a line-which came day
before yesterday-with swollen fingers!  I hardly dare look at the
handsome watch-guard which the paper enfolded lest that should have
been woven, as well as sent, with a painful hand. First, Mr. Manley's
letter frightened us with sad stories; then St. Matilda's of the same
date made it appear not so bad.  Now we see what it is.  Horrible
sufferings that fever always brings, I am told. Do tell me what treatment you had, and how it affected you. What brilliant letters you
write us, you witch you! full of news and comments upon news! The
clippings were invaluable; we brought them from London to this sweet




THEODORE PARKER.                        311
little spot, for we only read in parts in that great noisy Babel where
thev found us. But that will be the last, for on the Continent the
postage is enormous; a letter may weigh a quarter of an ounce, or
seven and a half French grammes, and be single; half an ounce is
double, and so on. Of paper like this with an envelope it takes five
sheets to make half an ounce; two go for a single letter.
^        ^%*                 *          *
I think you would have many things to tell me. Here let me
mention several people I wish to be remembered unto, lest I find no
room at the end. Very kindly to Mirs. L. B. Meriam; she and her
nice good boy will be gone into the country before this reaches you.
I hope he keeps in good health; all the family eggs in one basket is a
misfortune.  To all the Curtises, I don't mean the kidnappers, but
Henry C., his wife, and what is thence derived. Nobody has written
me a word about Cornie, dear good creature that she is, or her husband,
a generous and true man.  I heard about Gussie not long ago, though
only in general; she is at Conway, I guess. Then there are the
Cummingses, Mr. and Mrs., and their dear boy of a Charlie-he is
a man now with a moustache: but though he build houses, and write
articles in the North American, he will always be Charley to me, though
I salute him as Mister Cummings.  Then there is Mrs. Hager, the
smart black-eyed mother, giving her life to the next generation; (what
is the number now?) the two Misses Sturgis, and-stop, I should
fill up the whole sheet; so instead of the Garrisons and the Jacksons,
all the families of them, and the Mays, and Mrs. Bridge, and Mrs.
Clarke (Tappan that never should have been), I shall just write,
" and the rest of mankind, especially womankind."  What is Wendell
Phillips doing this summer, and where?  Your brother Lowell is busy
as ever, and his family as happy and happy-making! That famous
boy —he is a bo-hoy now, I take it —" is the finest child that ever was
in this world!"  So his aunt Caroline says, "because he is a boy 
Tell his father I drank the last drop of his Bourbon whiskev-there
were two bottles-yesterday.  I think it held out like the widow's oil,
two bottles in five months and a half.
The doctors at Paris recommended red wine, of which I take daily
about half a bottle; it is good claret, and costs (of the grocers) about
eight or ten cents a bottle; of the innkeepers two or three times as
much, of course. If our people had this we should need no Maine
Liquor Law, and the charities of Boston would not have to take care
of the miserable relics of drunkenness which now disgrace our civilization. We are all very happy here. The place is beautiful-a little mite
of a town stuck on to the side of a mountain; our hotel or boardinghouse is just on the edge of the lake, in a charming place. The air is
dry as in Exeter Place-thermometer for ten days, from ten to four
o'clock, 800 in the shade; nights moderate. Beauty all round us, and
our old friends in the house; their boy also " is a famous boy," bright
as a mother could wish her only child. All their eggs in one basket,
with a frail handle too!'Ah, me! what a world it would be if there
were not another above it, beyond it, and embracing it all with fond
loving arms! I wonder how people contrive to get on in this world
who have no faith in the next. I could not live a day; I should so




312            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
fear some mischief would pounce down on one of my chickabiddies;
but I won't preach just now.
What a great place that Little Pedlington is which we call Boston!
How full it is of great men! To trust the Transcript, or the Courier, or
the'Tizer, or the Post, it contains enough to save the world if "the
rest of mankind" were wicked as Sodom and Gomorrah. No doubt
the number is too great to be counted. But it seems to me there is
little work for them to do just now, or they would not have condensed
all this greatness into a dinner to a successful chess-player. I suppose
they had placed the Webster statue, and the Winthrop statue, had
wept over Prescott and Humboldt, had seen the ancient and honorable
artillery, had heard the great and Thursday lecture, and taken ices at
the proper place, and decided that Mr. Agassiz was "the only successor of Von Humboldt "; and even then, after all this, their activity
still cried for more work, and they had nothing to do but make it out
that Morphy was greater than Prescott or Humboldt, or perhaps even
Agassiz, who does not play chess!  Great is Little Pedlington, and
its great men are greater yet! All here send love, especially Sarah.
Get well as fast as you can. My love to all that ever did belong to
311, Harrison Avenue, or ever will.
Yours,          T. P.
FROM  THE JOURNAL.
July 1. —ip to this time 1 have felt so languid that I have done
nothing or scarcely anything in the way of ny favorite pursuits,
contenting myself with enjoying my old friends. Now I will begin
something more.
The commencement consisted in gathering various information
concerning the neighborhood, and everything about the war
which he could lay his hands upon-French soldiers' letters,
engravings, maps, and statistics.
In Dijon he purchased De Brosse's "Lettres Familieres, cdrites
en Italie en 1 739-40."  This he enjoyed reading; also French
publications concerning the resources of Austria, and local histories of Dijon.  He made excursions to Chillon, Vevay, &c.,
and hunted up the books which give historical accounts of the
neighborhood; for instance, Vulliemin, "Chillon, Etude Historique," &c.; Cibrario's " Peter of Savoy" and "Economia
Politica del Medio Evo;"  Lichnowski's " Geschichte Hapsb."
He amused himself with collecting odd names in the Celtic part
of Switzerland, names ending in ex, ix, az, but he undertook no
composition or study of importance.
MICHELET'S " L'AMOUR."-This book contains much nonsense of a
romantic character, and gives a quite incomplete notion of woman.
She is an ideal-non-existent and impossible, as he paints her. The
husband, ten or twelve years older, is to create the wife; he lives for
himself, she only for him. But the book has also great excellences:



THEODORE PARKER.                        813
1. Ie repudiates the ecclesiastical idea of woman, the type of sin, and
substitutes a pure and self-devoted being. 2. He declares the object of
marriage is marriage itself. 3. He gives wise counsels founded on
knowledge of facts in social life.
Qu'est ce que la Femme?  La Maladie!  He cites this from Hippocrates. Invert the question, Qu'est ce que la Maladie?  C'est la Femme.
And the answer is just about as true.
A French wit said of this book that the title should be "L'Art de
Verifier les Dates."
He is the only author that I ever found to quote that highly valuable
book of Dr. Lucas, " Heredite."  I am told that Michelet married, late
in life, a woman much younger than himself, and generalized from a
single fact. 40,000 copies have been sold already, but you don't find
the book in sight; it is bought by the women.
July.-I do not think I shall ever preach again, but the habit of
thinking sermons has become automatic, and acts like an instinct now;
so I put down the subjects on which I shall never write.
Here are some of these subjects:1. Of the Lessons which the Old World offers to the New.
2. The Nature and Function of the Will-its use and abuse.
3. The Vice of Jealousy-its origin in the defensive instincts; its
natural functions, and its depraved action.
4. Of War-the elements in man it comes from-the part it has
played in the development of savage nations-the mischief it produces
now —the cause of it in wicked rulers who wish to retard the development of mankind.
5. The Right of the Oppressed to Slay the Oppressor-rebellion to
tyrants.
6. The Means of Religious Development in Theism. I. Show the
difficulty now in the period of transition. II. How the human race
has got over such difficulties: 1. Judaism versus Egypt and Sabaism;
2. Christianity versus Judaism and Heathenism; 3. Protestantism versus
Romanism. III. The actual helps peculiar to Theism.
7. The Function of the Malevolent Emotions, and the Check on their
Abuse.
At a later date these are added:
The Function of the Disposition to Idleness.
The American Lady; or, Contempt of Useful Work.
The Secondary Value of Labor as a means of Development, 1, of the
Individual; 2, of the Nation; 3, of Mankind.
TO MISS COBBE.
Montreux, July 5, 1859.
MY DEAR MIss COBBE,-Here I am in the midst of your friends
and mine, and that, too, in one of the finest situations man or woman
need wish to live in. You know the place, and so I shall dwell on
none of its charms, for, after all, the women part of it interested me
far more than its grandeur of lake, mountain, and sky. I have just




314             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
returned from a mid-day bath in the lake, and am told that you also
used to enjoy that natural luxury. I am glad that your good sense
leads you to that delicious recreation and enjoyment.  In America,
many of my young lady friends can swim as well as I can, i. e. as we
say, " can swim like a duck."  I sometimes go out (or lie) and read
or sleep under the chestnut-tree, close by, which you frequented a year
ago, and which now goes by the name of " Fanny's" tree.*  Besides,
while I am writing, does not your bear adorn my neckerchief, which
it also keeps in place?  Many thanks for the handsome little treasure.
I waited till yesterday, the day of our national independence, when I
ventured to wear it. Now it will be with me continually-" close to
my heart and near my eye."  I wrote you that your flowers all came
safe to hand, fragrant as when you gathered them. A little water soon
brought them to their original freshness and beauty. But flowers will
fade, and so I put a spray of myrtle in my new botany book, which is
still in good preservation, and promises to last many a year green, if
not fresh.
In London I was too much fatigued and to ill to appear agreeable to
my many friends, for the change from the tropical heat of Santa Cruz
to the damp and chills of the Thames in the neighborhood of Blackfriars was a little severe, not to speak of the excitement which came
from escaping out of the barbarism  of the West Indies and into the
great focus of European civilization. So I was tantalized all the time
by the sight of what I could not enjoy; Newman and Martineau, as
well as others, I could best see for a few minutes. Mr. Bright got me
a good place to see and hear the great debate in Parliament which
ended in the dissolution of the Ministry. The Apthorps tell me of
your friend, J. Locke, M.P. I wish you would let me hear more of
him. There is one John Locke King whom I have been much interested in for his efforts at needful reforms in English institutions, but
I suppose he is not the same.
I wonder if you have found the right niche to place your statue in,
and if a ragged school be the place for your work; judging from what
you wrote Mrs. A-  I should doubt.
" Non omnia possumus omnes."
But you know, while I only guess and inquire. It is a noble place you
wish to fill, but there are diversities of gifts even where there is unity
of spirit.
What a dreadful state of things in the North of Italy, within 150
miles of us here! Think of 40,000 or 50,000 able-bodied men in the
prime of life "killed, wounded, or missing" in one day of battle! I
wish the human race might learn to see who the men are that thus
misdirect the wrathful instincts of our nature to such wickedness. In
these days every war is the result of somebody's wickedness: one day
men will see what monsters they have worshipped in the shape of
Metternichs and Schwartzenburgs, and the like, and visit them with
curses. I should not be sorry to see Austria stripped of her Italian
provinces, of her Hungarian provinces, of her Slavic provinces; then if
* Note by Miss Cobbe:-" I visited this tree, a magnificent chestnut, June, 1860, and
found it dying."




THEODORE PARKER.                        315
her seven millions of Teutonic people chose to have a despotism, let
them, and so small a state will not much endanger the liberty of mankind.  I hold Louis Napoleon in loathing, and count him a Beelzebub;
but as hie is now casting out other devils and dividing his own house
against itself, I rejoice in the success of his terrible armies.  Certainly
the defeat of Austria is the victory of mankind, even if Napoleon III.
be the weapon which does the work. I trust soon to hear that the
[French fleet has taken Venice, that Padua has followed the example of
Ferrara, that Garibaldi contests the passes of the Tyrol, and that
Verona falls as Milan, an easy prey.  It is well Francis Joseph
went home when he did; had he stayed much longer he would need a
French vise on his passport before he could get back to Vienna.
I had almost forgotten to tell you that I am much better since
reaching this little choice spot. Is it the material influences or the
women that have wrought the change? I don't know; but feel stronger
and cough much less. My spirits are always good, and I trust will be
under all circumstances. Indeed if one feels and knows the Infinitely
Perfect God, he can bear anything cheerfully. Let me thank you also
for the beautiful photograph you so kindly got for me; I shall give it
an honored place at home.  lMy firiend Desor will come this week,
and by-and-bye we shall go with him to NeuchateJ.
He went to Neuchatel to see Mr. Desor, on the 12th of July,
and spent a day with him in the enjoyment of the neighboring
scenery, and returned on the 14th.
July 24.-Note from Desor, asking us to come (and telling how) to
his chalet. This is the last day of preaching at the Music Hall for
the season.




LTES POMMES.
CHAPTER XXV.
Combe-Varin, and Prof. Desor's Chlet, Les Pomenes-Life there-Herr KuchlerLetters.
IN company with a friend he started on the 26th, and reached
Mr. Desor's residence in Combe-Varin the next day.
A  fine road  leads from  Neuchatel through vineyards and
pleasant little hamlets up into the long Jura valley of La Sagne
or Des Ponts.  It winds at first along the southern slope of
the range, and in mounting discloses a lordly panorama of the
whole Alpine region, from  Rigi and Pilatus, past all the grand
summits of the Bernese Oberland, to Mont Blanc, with  the
blue lakes lying deep between the hills.
The valley of La Sagne ends in one of the deep recesses
which are called Comnben by the people of the Jura.  The Mulden, or troughs, are the valleys which separate the ranges; the
Clusen are deep clefts across a range which unite two JMulden;




THEODORE PARKER.                      317
and the Comben are longitudinal clefts of a summit, or in the
same direction along the side of a range.  They are sometimes
closed at one end by the hill, and the form is amphitheatrical.
M1r. Desor's chalet, in Combe-Varin, was once a huntinglodge; near it he has erected a building for the accommodation
of summer guests, the men of science and friends who know
the way to this hospitable door.  There is a charming view of
the La Sagne valley from  the comfortable settles of the long
house-arbor.   A forest of splendid firs covers the hill which
rises directly behind the house.  A  sheltered seat was put up
for Mr. Parker in the skirt of this wood.  It is on the brink of
a deep chasm, at the bottom  of which lies the village of
Noiraigue.  As he sat there he could overlook the pleasant Val
de Travers, which is in sight, with eight or ten villages, for more
than twenty miles.
It is in the valley next beyond La Sagne, scarce fourteen
miles as the crow flies, that the Chateau de Joux is situated,
where Toussaint L'Ouverture pined to death amid the prison
damp and cold.
Not far from the chalet stands a tree which was Mr. Parker's
favorite during his residence there.  It is a double-headed fir,
selected, no doubt, because it reminded him  of the pine tree at
Lexington, which his youthful fancy had devoted, in gentle partnership, to himself and a sister.  His name is cut upon the
trunk, and underneath it a cross.  At the end of the chapter is
an engraving of this fir, from a beautiful drawing which was
made by Professor Carl Vogt.
In the Preface to the "Album  of Combe-Varin," Mayer von
Esslingen writes: —" Here and there, where the wood is lighted
by clearings, its green carpet is all purpled over for several
months with strawberries, whose pleasant red is packed so close
that a careful walker can hardly step without shedding the
blood of these innocents.  The wood of Combe-Varin is guestfree, like the house, and in berrying-time re-echoes with the
uproar of the children who come up from the valley with their
baskets to feed and gather."
The "Album  of Combe-Varin" is a memorial to Theodore
Parker and Hans Lorenz Kiuchler.  All of the contributions,
except the "Memoir of Kiichler," were made by the scientific
men who met Mr. Parker at Desor's chalet during the summer
of 1 859.  Desor furnished a paper " Upon the Indication of the
Swiss Lakes," in German, and a sketch of Mr. Parker, in French;




318            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
Dr. Moleschott, in German, " A Walk," describing the salutary
influence of an ordinary walk upon the heart, the lungs, the
nerves, every  portion  of the body;  Dr.'Ch. Martins, in
French, " On the Causes of Cold upon High Mountains; " Jacob
Venedey, in German, "H. L. Kiichler, a Life-sketch, from  the
First Half of the Nineteenth Century;" A. Gressly, in German,
" Recollections of a Naturalist from the South of France; " Dr.
Schinbein, the inventor of gun-cotton and the discoverer of
ozone, in German, " Upon the Next Phase in the Development of
Chemistry; " Mr. Parker, in English, "A Bumble-bee's Thoughts
on the Plan and Purpose of Creation." The volume is furnished
with a small map of the environs of Cette, to illustrate Gressly's
paper; an engraving of the five different configurations of Swiss
lakes, to accompany Desor's; a view  of Combe-Varin; a portrait of Kuchler; and one of Mr. Parker, taken from a cast of
the cameo for which he sat in Rome in 1860.
Apart from the value of the contributions, this book is interesting as a characteristic of the friendship and toleration which
can subsist abroad between scientific men; of this it is a
delicate and noble expression.  It could have been projected in
no other country, for in no other would intelligent men have
enough sentiment for each other to think it worth the while.
Here men of science and culture carry on their pursuits for the
most part in isolation, if not in jealousy.  But abroad, upon the
Continent at least, there is an interchange of thought; and men
of like tendencies do not resist being drawn together, and are
not ashamed to indulge and record their profound sympathies.
At Les Pommes, Professor Desor entertains every summer distinguished naturalists and men of science, who bring the rich
contributions of their freshest discoveries and speculations.  The
guests are left to spend the day in their own pursuits, but meet
for dinner and tea at the stroke of the bell, with wits and
appetites keenly set by mountain air in the balsamic woods that
are more than 3000 feet above the sea.  " It would not be easy
to find elsewhere  a fountain-place so richly springing with
instruction and entertainment; observations made upon worldwide travels, among mountains, and in the various provinces of
physical investigation, afford inexhaustible material. Nor does
the host lack that gift of calling out, which sets the contributions flowing from all sides. Thus under his mild direction these
social hours grow often to a true Decameron, in which communications upon the most interesting discoveries in the domain of




THEODORE PARKER.                         319
science  alternate  rapidly  with  the  discussion  of new, bold
problems, or with the narrative of remarkable observations and
events.  The mild irony, which the ancients hardly knew, the
peculiar outgrowth of our modern culture, and which saves our
humanity from becoming sentimental, lent its rich flavor to these
symposia of Combe-Varin."`
Mr. Parker and his friend were set down by the diligence at
Rosiere, and thence they had an hour's scramble up the mountain
to the house.  The pencil is in requisition.
Here only the hardier grains will grow, oats and barley, but no
wheat.  The snow continues from  October to April; the mercury
f/eezes every winter.  To me it is quite cold to-day, in the wind and out
of the sun.
I don't like the condition I find myself in-the lack of wind, of
strength, and of warmth. It looks like drawing ever nearer to the end.
I have but just life enough to digest my own dinner, and am good for
nothing.
But he very soon began to improve, as Professor Desor tells,
in his delightful sketch of Mr. Parker, which is published in the
" Album of Combe-Varin,"  and from which a few extracts are
here made, showing Mir. Parker's habits and employments during
his residence at the chalet.
The summer of 1859, it will be remembered, was excessively hot, so
that the solitude of the " Pouts" valley, which is generally distinguished for its great coolness, offered this time most advantageous
conditions to an invalid. Here was a social gathering of men of letters, of business, and savants of every country. The different elements
which all these guests brought with them; the discussions to which
their very diverse opinions, in matters of science, philosophy, and religion, and political economy, gave rise; the conferences upon various
subjects which were sought and granted; the freedom and good humor
which reigned, notwithstanding the occasional warmth of controversy;
the exercise which no one could avoid taking, so tempting was the
stillness, the freshness of the meadows, or the shade of the great firs;
and the excursions to famous spots in the neighborhood,-all this had
a happy influence upon Mr. Parker's health.  He felt his strength
renewed, even to the point of undertaking sustained manual labor.
Like all country-people in America, Mr. Parker had gone chopping
in the woods during his youth.  The forest around Combe-Varin furnished him  an opportunity to exercise anew his wood-cutting skill.
His friends tried to dissuade him from it, but in vain. All that we
could extort from him was a promise to devote only one hour daily to
this exercise, and to attack only the small trees. At the end of some
days, however, he announced to us that he felt strong enough to do
better, and that he was going to fell a large fir. And he did it, with
* Preface to the Album,




320              LIFE  AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
extraordinary dexterity, to the great astonishment of those who stood
by, for the Swiss usually cut down their trees with a saw. In half an
hour the fir dropped in the direction which had been given to it by
the trained axe of Wood-feller Parker. *
These exercises, although violent, seemed to be of the greatest
benefit to our friend,  Not only had he gained strength by this treatment, but he recovered his spirits and gaiety, and, moreover, increased
his weight by six pounds.  Such a symptom, with a man'whose lungs
were diseased, was of a nature to justify the hope, if not of a radical
cure, at least of an arrest of the malady.  Was it strange that he and
his friends gave themselves up to sweet illusions, and felt happy at the
prospect which seemed to open before them?
It is evident that the presence of a man like Mr. Parker, under such
conditions, in the society of persons devoted to the cultivation of intellectual things, was both a stimulant and a benefit.  The greatest
liberty for everybody being the rule at Combe-Varin, they never met,
except at meals. In the intervals, each one followed his inclination,
some to look for flowers, for fruits, for lichens, for fossils, while others
went into the woods to read. In the evening, after tea, or during the
day, if the weather was unfavorable, they met around the table of the
chalet, to discuss some question of general interest.  Mr. Parker was
of all the most animated, and such was his desire for information that
he easily obtained from all the guests communications upon the subjects
most familiar to each. Sometimes we had well-meditated dissertations,
and the articles which compose this volume, will show, I hope, that
they were not devoid of interest and scientific value.
It was natural that one whose mind embraced a wide range of
studies, and who was at the same time a master in the art of expressing his ideas, should furnish his contingent to these recreations.  We
had, indeed, the good fortune to receive many communications from
our deceased friend, mostly upon serious subjects, religious, philosophical, such as may be found in his works, or possibly in inedited fragments.  Sometimes, also, subjects less grave were the order of the day.
Though the society was composed in good part of professors and men
of letters, there was no concealment of the imperfection of methods,
nor of the whims and weaknesses of the priests of science.  Mr. Parker
had, more than any other man, a sure eye and a practised judgment
when it came to an estimate of the real value of men and things.
Simple in his mental habit, as in his physical traits, he specially
detested all far-fetched theories, and doctrines framed for occasion and
complaisance, and laughed readily at those theologians and natural
philosophers who believe that they are called upon at every turn to
become the interpreters of the Divine wisdom, power, and goodness.
The English, in their Bridgewater Treatises, have made a singular
abuse of these untimely appeals to Providence, and have thus compromised the cause which they pretended they were serving. There is no
use in trying to bespeak glorifications for God.  It is not at all astonishing that the Americans, by habitude or calculation, should have
* It was decided to cut the fir, which Mr. Parker had just felled, into planks to make
a covered seat, where the guests promised to meet again next summer. But the next
year, upon carrying the trunk to the saw, we discovered that it was only sound at the
base. The heart was diseased.




THEODOIRE PARKER.                               321
carried this farther than the English, in their treatises for popular
use, but it seems at least  strange that savants trained  in Europe
should fall into the same foible, as appears by a recent work upon the
Natural History of the United States. *
Allusion is made to this manner of studying nature in the " History
of an Antediluvian Congress of Bumble-bees," which Mr. Parker related to us one evening with a charming humor; he has since kindly
prepared it for this Album.  It was his last work. t
Thus the six  weeks were  passed which Mir. Parker was pleased
to reckon among  the most delightful of his sojourn in Europe, because, in  the midst of the pure  air of our mountains, surrounded
by persons who had  all learned to  love and  to  appreciate  him, he
thought he had recovered health, especially in living with that intellectual life which  was indispensable  to  him, and for which  he had
languished during his abode in the Antilles.  Besides, he met among
the guests of Combe-Varin, persons who were very sympathetic with
him, particularly  Dr.  uiichler.   Both of them  Protestants, the  one
in his quality of minister of a religious congregation, the other as the
preacher to the German-Catholic Church of Heidelberg, they extended
a hand to each other across the forms and rites of their respective
confessions.
Before  proceeding  with  this narrative, the  friends of  Mr.
Parker  may  welcome  some  account  of  this  noble  sharer  of
his last happy summer.  The facts are taken from  Jacob Venedey's
well-written sketch.
Hans  Lorenz  Kiichler  was  born  at  Mannheim,  of  poor
Mr. Desor alludes to the work of Prof. Agassiz upon the Embryology of the Turtle,
which is prefaced by an Essay on Classification.  The essay contains passages which refer
to the marks of Divine premeditation shown by the laws and facts of the Creation.
Many learned men abroad object to this as being non-scientific and transcending the
limits of precise knowledge.  They claim to confine themselves to the observation of
facts, the induction of laws, and the improvement of Methods, and not only refuse to
have anything to do with labelling, flattering, and confining Providence, but are shy of
the spirit which seeks to connect the second causes immediately with the Infinite Cause.
A layman cannot enter into the dispute upon Methods and Classification, but if he loves
the attempts to trace the logic of the Infinite Mind, he ought not to shun the opportunity
to acknowledge it.
+ Upon reading this sprightly essay of Mr. Parker's, I am puzzled to account for the
above interpretation of it. It seems levelled at the narrow arguments from design of
the Bridgewater school, and at the assumption that any system  or method is to be accepted as a finality.  But Mr. Parker was eager to follow the Infinite footsteps through
the garden of the world.  The All-perfect One was to him immanent in every fact, law,
and moment.  It was his very jealousy for this Divine perfection, out of which men recruit their knowledge from  age to age that made him humorous over the attempts to
forestall the future by a plan.  It is plain that there is some confusion here, for want of
a little defining. All religious investigators are not peddlers of a Providence.  It is one
thing to assume that a scientific formula is a final and exhaustive statement of the Divine
intent, and quite another thing to follow that intent, with conscious and religious intelligence, to transmit to the future a tentative survey.  And it is one thing to limit investigation to phenomena and their second causes, but quite another thing to deny that they
reveal to us the premeditations and continual presence of the infinite mind. Foreign
science often tends towards the latter in assuming to be content with the former.  But
why should European naturalists decline to be led by facts, as Mr. Parker was always
led, into a constant recognition of the Mind beneath the facts? Is not Materialism an
assumption of a Finality?
VOL. II.                                                          Y




322            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
parents, Aug. I 1, 1808.  He was thus but little more than
two years the senior of Mr. Parker.  His father was a cabinetmaker, and proposed to train his only son and child for the
joiner's bench; but his mother read a different career in the
broad forehead and clear eyes, and as usual prevailed to have
him  sent to school.  But she privately thought that studying
would lead to the priesthood, and Kiichler narrowly escaped
being a Catholic priest.  Bitter was her disappointment, when
one day the youthful Hans announced to her that the miracle of
the transubstantiation was too much for him, and that celibacy
seemed an unnatural condition.
His literary tendencies were a trouble to the father, who was
now falling sick and feeble.  " The scholar's path is a weary and
costly one —where is the money to come from?"  The son
replied, "My wants shall be few  and of the smallest."  The
father shook his head; but Hans began to give instruction, and
helped the family with the penny thus turned. The bitter cares
of life confronted him  early.  But he was healthy, active,
laborious, cheerful, and true.
The Greek Revolution was a great excitement to him, and to
the young literary circle which met to declaim Korner, Schiller,
and the patriotic poets of the time.  Kiuchler, then eighteen
years old, dramatized the fall of Missolonghi, and his piece was
put upon the stage of the Mannheim  theatre, which is so
illustrious by Schiller's connection with it.
The father's health was broken, and friends must come
forward to help the young man in his career. It was proposed
that he should enter a counting-house, but this was resisted by the
daughter of the very merchant who made the proposition.  For
love has sharper eyes than friends and relations; the fair Louise
said "No" to the scheme, seeing that in Kichler which soon
made her say " Yes" to him.  So he went to the University of
Heidelberg in 1829.
At first he attempted to study medicine, but the preliminary
anatomical studies shocked his feeling, and he turned to jurisprudence.  At the time of the Frankfort revolutionary attempt for
German unity, in 1833, he was in intimate relations with many
who were implicated.  Seeing little hope in any movement, he
endeavored to restrain  his friends.  This, however, as his
sympathies for nationality and freedom  were well known, did
not save him  from  suspicion and denouncement.  IHe was




THEODORE PARKER.                     323
obliged to flee, went to Weissenburg, worked awhile as apprentice to a cabinet-maker, made his way to Paris, in October,
became tutor in an English family, and went with them  to
Switzerland.   In  1836, he was teaching a boys' school in
Nancy.   The faithful Louise  obtained  permission  from  the
Government for his return; a formal trial hung over him till
1839, ending in a six months' imprisonment, three of which
were remitted.  He was married in that year, and began the
practice of law in Weinheim, a beautiful town on the Bergstrasse,
not far from Heidelberg.
In 1844 his wife, to his profound astonishment and grief,
insisted upon being divorced from  him, in the melancholy and
depreciating moods produced by ill-health; bringing forward
the pretext that life with her could no longer be happy for him,
and that no children could bless him.  She eventually carried
her point.  He went broken-hearted to Heidelberg to pursue
his practice of the law, and there became the leader of the
German-Catholic movement in that city; he conducted its first
service, and its last, when the Government cancelled the permission to have public meetings.  He was married again in 1847,
the year of revolutions.  His judgment was against the chief
actors in the German projects, his sympathy was with them.
But he soon had the opportunity to show  the strength and
manliness of his spirit in the consecutive legal defences which
he undertook of many of the chief actors in the Baden insurrection.  Though he was mainly considerate to clear his clients,
he did not fail to utter bold and generous words before the
Prussian military commission.   Some of the prisoners were
acquitted; for  others  he  procured  moderate  punishments,
while some were shot.  He was with them  in court, in the
prison, and at the last fatal hour.  His labors and sufferings at
this time were of the most shattering kind.
He was pre-eminent in Heidelberg as a man of piety and
philanthropy; many good projects were organized and carried
through by his good sense, industry, and forgetfulness of self.
He was a noble, simple-minded man.
Here Mr. Desor's narrative may be resumed:On the edge of the avenue of Combe-Varin there is a fir which now
bears the name of Parker. To the shade of this fir the two friends
went every day to pass some hours, which they consecrated to the
interchange of their ideas and experiences in the matter of religion
Y 2




32c              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
and the ministerial profession. A natural feeling of respect ordinarily
kept the other guests at a distance, but those who in passing chanced
to mingle with these intimate conversations, derived from them satisfaction and genuine edification. If they differed in some details, they
were all the more in harmony upon the leading questions. Both were
opposed to the dogmas of the old theology, which insists that man is
naturally perverse. Both Mr. Parker and his friend had faith in
humanity; they admitted that man had been created for happiness,
and that it can and ought to be attained, without the necessity of
expiatory blood, on the sole condition of developing the good elements
which are in the heart of all men. They differed somewhat as to the
value of the faculties with which our race is endowed, and, consequently, as to the manner of directing them. Mr. Parker was more of
a theologian than Mr. Kiichler; the religious faculties were for him
quite as positive as the intellectual, affectional, or moral faculties.
According to him, religion was the fairest prerogative of our being,
one which was, therefore, worthy of the greatest solicitude, being fitted
to guide man in his approach to the Divinity, while it became, when
improperly directed, a formidable instrument in the hands of obscurantists and reactionists.  Mr. Kiichler appealed, above all, to the
affectional faculties, which he considered the most primitive ones, as
they are the foundations of society and of the family. Here, then,
were some differences of view as to the direction to be lent to education,
and upon the part which religion can and ought to fill.
Before Mr. Kuichler took leave of Combe-Varin, he obtained from
Mr. Parker a promise to come and visit him at Heidelberg, and in the
meantime to keep him informed upon all that concerned him, particularly his health. It never occurred to him that he, the robust and
healthy man, would be the first to quit the world.  When the fatal
news arrived the next morning of the death of Kiichler, there was a
general mourning at Combe-Varin; but no one lamented him more
sincerely than his friend Parker.
The relations of Mr. Parker with the other guests of Combe-Varin,
without being as intimate as those which he had formed with MIr.
Kiichler, were not less friendly. It mattered little to him that one
was materialist, pantheist, or orthodox, provided one was sincere. He
liked and admired that tolerance of our old Europe, which admits all
points of view and tempers all contrasts. No doubt the distance was
great between him  and Moleschott, but each knew and felt that the
other was animated with the love of truth. Does not that suffice to
create confidence and cement friendship?
But the autumn was approaching. It was important that 3Mr. Parker
should make choice of a milder climate for the winter. Opinions were
divided.  Mr. Mfoleschott recommended Madeira; others inclined to
-Egypt, and others to Algiers or the South of France.  IHe, on the
contrary, decided for Rome. The scientific, artistic, and, above all,
bibliographic treasures of that capital, had an irresistible and fatal
attraction for him, and such was the firmness of his will that no consideration could divert him from the project. IHe departed full of hope,
notwithstanding the apprehensions of his friends.
MIr. Parker was not only a philosopher and a theologian; the phenomena of nature had also a great charm  for him. In the United




THEODORE PARKER.                           25
States he made long journeys to join us and participate in our examination of the great coal depots of the Alleghanies.  He had studied
the aspect of the coasts, and the association of plants and animals
on the different strands of the American coast. He liked to collect
reports of methods of cultivation, of crops, and of their relations to
the soil. He had followed with interest our studies upon the geological structure of the mountain-ranges of the Jura. He experienced
a genuine happiness in listening to the brilliant expositions of M. Martins upon meteorology, and particularly his fine composition upon the
cold of mountains, which forms the subject of one of the articles in
this Album. Later he listened with no less interest to the communications of M. Schonbein upon ozone, and the profound considerations
which the learned professor of Basle derived from it for the future of
chemistry. And even the minute observations of M. Gressly upon the
habits of marine animals captivated him, as much by the new facts
which they revealed as by the original observations with which they
were seasoned.
But all this did not suffice him. Among the grand natural phenomena which he had not seen were volcanoes and the desert.  We
were to visit them  together, beginning with Vesuvius. I promised
him that I would rejoin him at Rome during the winter, to go thence
to Naples. This hope appeared to have sustained his courage, in spite
of the bad weather which soon commenced, and whose evil effects were
not long in making themselves felt.
There are but few  connected notes of the excursions which
Mr. Parker made in the neighbourhood of Combe-Varin: —
July 28, 1859.-LAc DE D DOns.-All of us went to Ponts, thence
to Locle, thence to Brenets and the Lac de Doubs. It is singularly
beautiful; a transversal cut in the limestone strata (which lie almost, if
not quite, level at the upper end, and incline as you go farther down),
about four miles long and a quarter wide in the broadest part. Perpendicular rocks, 100 to 120 feet high, form the sides. The Saut de
Doubs is at the end, but the water of the lake was some three to five
feet lower than the bottom  of the river which drains it. The water
works through the crevices of the stone and comes out below, where it
turns mills. The upper mills, which depend on the water that runs
over the Saut (fall) have been dry for weeks, if not months.
MoUINS SOUTERRAINS DE LocLE. —Locle was once a lake, in the
form of a trough, shaped like a boat, only irregular. It was drained
some two hundred years ago.  Gradually the bottom became dry, the
peat was cut out, and men built houses there. Now they use the water
which runs down the deep well (made to drain the region) to turn
mills. It is used three times in its descent. The last wheel is 120 feet
below the surface. All the machinery is iron, and well made. I did
not go down into the pit, mindful of another whence it is not easy
revocare gradus et superare ad aeras. Returned at 9.30 P.Mr., with a little
cold in my throat, which made me cough all night.
There is no sand in this valley, or in its neighbourhood.  So the
people mix sawdust with lime to make mortar. The barley shows the




326              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
want of silex in the soil, and crinkles down; the straw can't support
the head of grain.
Reinwald (one of the guests) says the German military songs are all
sad, and refer to the " Soldier's Death"; while those of the French
are joyous.  Omnis nature in re mninima adest.  It is the national
character which speaks there.
I-ow strong is the instinct of hope! Every man thinks he shall be
an exception to the general rule of mankind. In the" Dismal Swamp
Lottery " this is the scheme:dols.                                 dols.
Capital..  1,000,000      Profit to Company...  333,000
Expenses of sale... 333,000
Accidental loss......    1,000
Value of prizes...... 333,000
1,000,000
Only one man in three will get his money back, on the average. But
each hopes he shall be the lucky one, and the public pays 1,000,000
dollars, when they are sure of getting back only 333,000 dollars.
Aug. 3.-It is six months to-day since I left Boston.  Shall I ever
see it again?  More than doubtful.  Certainly I left it as never again
to set eyes on the State House.
In making up his mind where to spend the winter, he deliberately studied the advantages of the various places which
were recommended to him.  He drew  up a list of books in
Spanish, English, Germian, &c., upon Madeira, and began to read
them, taking notes of the botany, which seemed chiefly to attract
him.
What different counsel in doctors! Last October, Bowditch wanted
me to go to the West Indies, Dr. J. Jackson not.
For hypophosphites-Dr. Flint, of Boston; Dr. Bigelow, of Paris.
Against hypophosphites-Dr. Louis, of Paris.
Indifferent or doubtful-Drs. Bowditch, Cabot, Moleschott.
For cod-liver oil-Cabot (moderate).
Against cod-liver oil-Drs. Louis and Bigelow.
Some think Jongh's is the best preparation of the cod-liver oil. Dr.
Moleschott thinks him a humbug and a liar, his oil good for nothing.
Bigelow recommends Bordeaux wine; Mioleschott, Malaga before Bordeaux; Bigelow and Cabot, Jacson and Bowditch, whiskey, brandy,
&c.; Moleschott, pilled barley.
KUCHIirEir. —Hans Kiichler, an eminent advocate from  Heidelberg,
has been staying with us for some time here, and delighted us all with
his intelligence and moral purity. Tuesday, Aug. 2, he left us with the
Reinwalds, and went to Neuchatel. They dined with him there the




THEODORE PARKER.                           827
same day; he went on the boat en route for home.  That very afternoon
at Nidau he fell dead of apoplexy.* He was buried there the next day.
We did not get the intelligence till Wednesday.  At six in the afternoon Desor and the Reinwalds, who had returned, went to Neuchatel
to attend the sad duties of the occasion.  Mr. and Mrs. I. go to
Heidelberg to console his wife, at least to condole with her.  Ile was
the defender of the patriot victims of the Revolution in 1849, one of the
chief supports of the German Catholic Church, and often preached in
the Assembly at Heidelberg.
I intended, if I lived, to visit him in Heidelberg next spring, and made
him  my promise to that effect.  So the well man goes, and the
miserable consumptive invalid still holds on, barking and coughing his
useless life away.
August 7.-It is Sunday to-day, and the Music Hall has been shut
since July 13. It will never hear my voice again.  That is all well
enough; I have had my time.
Dr. Charles Martins and his wife have been stopping' with M. Desor
for a week or ten days.  He is a quite learned botanist, and P/ysiker
in general, a well-instructed, thoughtful, and liberal man, with a fine
talent for talking, M. and Madame Coquet are also here.  He is an
advocate at Paris, she a Spanish woman and  a devout Catholic.
lTessrs. Martins and Coquet have frequent talks about Catholicism,
which they alike hate and despise, as does also Madamup 31. It interferes
with the individual in all forms of hindrance, and is a manifold curse.
Probably Catholicism is a greater obstacle to the high development of
mankind in Europe now than the classic forms of religion were eighteen
hundred years ago.  I do not know but Protestantism must be added
to the same list; as Arago said, it is " un peu maoins absurd que le
Catiholicisme."'  One rests on its miraculous, divine, infallible Church; the
other on its miraculous, divine, infallible Bible: and each is a humbug,
though both contain much good./
3OLIERmE.-Martins says the French littercaeurs now think Moliere
the greatest mind and character the nation ever produced in literature.
I vainly brought forward Descartes, MIontaigne, Voltaire, Pascal,
D'Alembert, &c.  The chief proofs he brought were-1, his superiority
to the ecclesiastical, mediteval, philosophical, and social prejudices of
his time; 2, his courageous exposure of the most popular and powerful
vices.
Certainly in all these things he was greatly superior to Shakspeare,
who seems to negate the highest function of the poet, and hence has
so little which can be quoted for the highest purposes of literature.
I will read Moliere directly, with his Life, &c.  He died of a sudden
helmorrhage of the lungs, and Bossuet, in an occasional sermon, said
his death was the Divine vengeance against him, because he had
mocLed against the Churc —as the Church was incarnated in Tartuffe,
I take it.  Perhaps the Doctores Medicinc  thought no better of him
than the Doctores Tzeologic.
h The simple-hearted Germans thought it a pleasant circumstance that when he fell he
was lifted into the shop of a cabinet-maker; as it were, dying thus where he began.




3:8              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
TO MRS. APTHORP AND MISS HUNT IN MONTREUX.
Combe-Varin, Switzerland, August 1, 1859.
I shan't try to tell how dear you both are to me, nor how much I
have long valued your friendship and affection, nor how much delight
it has given me to meet you anew. I get fresh vigor from  your
society. If I don't speak of such things much, it is because my heart
when full of such joy does not overflow into the channel of words.
How good your letters have been to me! I do not mean merely for
three years, but those which have come gladdening since I left Montreux. How sweet and wise they have been from both of you! Sallie's
last was quite a work of art, even without the bears which Willie put
in. I did not think the dear "'Potamus " could do such things so well
-it is indeed extraordinary, the conception and the execution too.
Cranch, man that he is, could not have done it better.  How proud
the mother was to go off to the butterfly pasture with her butterfly
hunter and catch the little fragments of a rainbow for his development! I also take a vicarious delight in these things, enjoying them
through your direct and personal pleasure.
But it is a grand good boy, that little IHippopotamousie, with I
know not how noble a future before him!  Certainly, if love and
wisdom  avail aught in the development of inborn talent, it is plain
what lies before him, and we all know that these are the mother and
father of all unfoldings.
T. P.
TO THE SAME.
Desor's Chtlet, August 15, 1859.
Let me metamorphose (that is the profane word) or transfigure
(that is the sacred term) myself into a little breath of wind, and come
through your keyhole. You will say, perhaps, as the maiden in the
classic poem," Veni aura levis! "
And I make sweet dreams for you, and put a kiss on your sleeping
face as soft as the air itself, and not wake you.
I am glad you are so well, and Robert so well, and your mother so
well reported of by the Doctor.  Blessed are you when all doctors
speak well of you! Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for so speak they
of your fathers who lived to a great age before you!
Sumner has been at Paris and is now at Havre, at the Bains Frascati,
where he actually swims in the sea! He has got a back-bone. We
are very happy here-all of us.  Good news from home. I think we
shall leave for Montreux, Aug. 23. Of course we go to Rome if the
Pope does not take to " wearing his hat on one whisker," in which case
it will hardly be safe to keep near the old -!
Can we all pass the winter together?  I would give up home for
any safe place with you.
Dear love to all.
T.




THEODORE PARKER.                       329
TO MR. MANLEY.
Combe-Varin, August 4, 1859.
M\Y DEAR JOHN R. MANLEY,-Your kind letter of July 12th came
here from Montreux, a day or two ago. I am glad you got my last to
you and the Picnic-ians in due time. I thought it would reach
Boston on the night of the 12th or 13th, and that you would look in
at the P. 0. in the morning. I trust the meeting went off wellwithout accident. At the last one I had a dim feeling that I should
not be there in 1859, and so wrote it down in my book. We have
strange premonitions sometimes which we don't heed!  I think tle
beam of life always cracks before it breaks.  I have had warnings
often  enough  before now -- but could not quite make up my
mind to stop till the word came, "No further, my little dear."  Mr.
Lyman-kindest of men, I call him " Governor "-read me a line from
John Ayres' letter to him. It filled me with joy and also with pain.
I refer to the money my friends were proposing to raise for me and
had already got together. The joy was that they should thus value me,
where I am now (and perhaps can be hereafter) of no service to them.
Of all the Christian graces, Gratitude is the last that sits down to
meat-fairest likewise of that handsome sisterhood.  The pain was,
that I could (now, at least) do nothing in return for their good-willand the recollection that I am now living on their bounty, while once
it was my lot to give and not receive. Let me express my warmest
thanks to all who thus show their interest in me, and to the rest who
feel not less, but may not be able to adopt this form of kindness. My
joy will continue with the memory of your kindness.  But let me say
I do not wish to receive another dollar from my friends; I don't need
it. I know what money costs, the sour sweat which earns it, and if I
have never been an avaricious man, and perhaps sometimes a generous
one, it is not that I didn't know the worth of money. But I don't
need this. The voyage to the West Indies and thence to England, the
residence in London and Paris, was unavoidably expensive; now I live
at small cost and can continue so to do. The visit to Egypt, which
would necessarily cost much money, I have given up as not beneficial
to me.
Please, therefore, let the matter stop here-don't give me any more
money. If I am not able to preach, I may yet serve the dear old
Society in many ways to make up for the money they have already advanced me.
John Augustus is dead. I knew him well —have known him from
my boyhood. He married my cousin-a favourite niece of my mother,
who I think brought her up; but they were married before I was
born. His death is a public loss.  I should have preached an
occasional sermon on his death had I been at the Music Hal. His
life was a great lesson. He was the friend of publicans and sinners to
a greater degree than Jesus of Nazareth —if we rely on the records.
He had a genius for philanthropy: it showed itself in Lexington,
where he lived and carried on the shoemaking business from 1810 till
1829 or 1830. Ile was an odd man, queer and fantastical, but honest,
self:sacrificing, and extraordinarily given to help the helpless and love




330             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
the unlovely. I make no doubt he did foolish things in his philanthropy-perhaps wrong things also.  But his character was sweet,
and clean, and beautiful.  All the members of the United States
Supreme Court might die next month, and the President of the United
States follow suit, and half the Governors of the Union, and unitedly
they would not be so great a loss as poor old John Augustus. The fair
record of his life since 1810 (he was born about 1785, the illegitimate
son of somebody), especially since 1830, would be one of the most extraordinary and instructive pieces of biography ever written. Ministers
preach benevolence and beneficence-he went and did it. How many
common prostitutes did he pick out of that Slough of Despond! how
many drunkards save from the pit of ruin? how many thieves, and
robbers, and other infamous persons, did he help out of their wickedness? I wish the lives of merchants like Hovey and John L. Emmons;
of deacons like Moses Grant, and shoemakers like John Augustus,
could be written. " The Life and Works " of Calvin Whiting would be
worth two or three lives of King Do-nought, or of Murderous the
Great.  Pope Gregory XVI. will have his life written in many
languages, but there will be no history of I-ovey, and Emmons, and
Grant, and Augustus, and Whiting, and Saint Matilda, and the other
angels of justice, angels of charity, angels of mercy, whom you and I
know. It makes me a little impatient to remember how much is to be
done to honor the noblest of men, and to recollect that I can do
nothing but cougl.  " But patience to hearts that murmur," &c.-I
won't complain. I am only one little spirt of water running into the
great ocean of humanity; and if I stop here, I shall not be at all
missed there.
The Courts of Boston, I suppose, adjourned when they heard of
Choate's death, as they did all over the United States when Daniel
Webster died (all but the Kidnappers' Court, in Boston; that went on
trying the Shadrach rescuers); but they would take no notice of John
Augustus; yet he had kept hundreds from crime, and bailed thousands
out of gaol; so I hope Judge Russell did adjourn his Court. I am glad
I did not have to preach on Choate; but I fear no minister in Boston
used the occasion to tell the awful moral of the tale. When John
Augustus died, I should have preached of the " Power of Individual
Justice and Philanthropy," and when RB. Choate carried up his case
to another tribunal, of the " Abuse of Great Talents and Great Opportunities."  Perhaps I should have printed them both in one pamphletthe story of the obscure shoemaker and of the great lawyer and
politician!  When will men learn to distinguish the chaff from the
wheat? It is only by accident that we got the life of Jesus of Nazareth
written and saved for us, in the poor unsatisfactory style of the first
three Gospels, while the Cesars had historians enough. But the plebeians are not very democratic as yet, and do not know their prophet
till he has gone up in the chariot of fire, and they miss him from the
path of life.
Kindest remembrances to all yours.  Give my salutation to the
Browns, and the Jacksons, and the Garrisons, and the Sparrells.  Oh,
dear I when shall I end the list?  Good-bye.
Faithfully yours,
T.P.




THEODORE PARKERo                       3 3]
TO MISS GODDARD AND OTHERS, BOSTON, MASS.
Combe-Varin, Aug. 16, 1859.
To my dear Saint Matilda, and all the other saints that be in the house
at No. 2, Florence Street, this goeth (and I hope also cometh), greeting.
Most welcome was your letter, which came but a few days ago, and
brought us good tidings of your mother. I am glad to hear she has so
much freedom from pain, and comes out and enjoys the delicious sunshine in the streets: "walks as far as Decatur Street" sounds quite
cheery. That is the way we go. Once the proud mother carried her
in arms; then trailed her along gently by the hand; next let her run a
little, here and there; then the mature woman walks over to Charlestown and back again, nay, much farther, and is not a-weary. Then we
reverse the process, and come back again to the original feebleness;
and as we were born into this world babies, so babies we go out of itto be caught by some motherly arms at the next birth as at this. Such
is the contrivance of the dear Infinite Perfection, who is Father and
MRother to old and young.  Once George Combe could work in his
study ten or twelve hours a-day; by-and-bye eight or ten; then six or
eight, five or six, four or five, three or four, two or three, one or two;
then only now and then a little-when the sun broke through the
clouds for a few minutes, then was hid. At last it was all over. He
had gone to his (unknown) work the other side. A happy life has
your mother's been; yet more from the internal tranquillity and trustfulness of her character than from even its outward events.  How.
many bitter drops are poured into the cup of human communion! So
is it best.  Who could do without his hardships-his misfortunes?
Not you, not I, not mortal man.  God provides wisely the conditions
of human existence. Even for the Carolinian slave there must be a; compensation somewhere.:  A Mr. Kiichler has been staying here with Mr. Desor for a little while
-a noble man, one of the distinguished democratic patriots of the
nation-not such democrats as they at home, who think there can be no
republic without the white man can " wallup his niggur "-who had done
large service to the cause of humanity and the progress of mankind. He
left us one morning, and died of apoplexy in the afternoon, on his way
home to his wife and children at Heidelberg: his body was buried
where he died. He was a distinguished lawyer at Heidelberg, and
one of the leaders of the Free Church there-a sort of Twenty-eighth
Congregational Society-in which he preached in the absence of the
minister.  As he fell dead in a strange place, his body was carried to
the house of one who esteemed him highly, and who was a boss cabinetmaker. It was mentioned as a pleasant circumstance, quite grateful
to his friends and family, because his father was also a boss cabinetmaker, and in his youth he himself had worked in his father's shop.
This shows the simplicity of the German character.  If N —-    Ashould fall dead at Provincetown, and his body be carried to a cabinetmaker's and thence hoine'to burial, no Yankee would think it a pleasing
circumstance because N~  A -A's father had been a master in that
craft; the American who becomes distinguished or rich, is commonly




332              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
ashamed of his hard-working relations-not so the Germans.  But of
course we are the most democratic people in the world-and own
4,000,000 slaves!
You " don't often go to meeting."  It is a great misfortune that the
Twenty-eighth has no minister who feels some responsibility towards
the people, only a lecturer from week to week.  A minister with any
sort of soul in him, would feel bound to use the various events of the
time to convey some sort of lesson-if not of guidance, then, at least,
of warning.  Now, it is not so; the intellect is the chief faculty
addressed, even by Emerson, who never appeals directly to the conscience, still less to the religious faculty in man. MIost of the others
are, perhaps, less conscientious, certainly less able than he. Besides,
I love the custom of public prayers, and have taken more delight in
praying with like-hearted people, than ever in preaching to like-minded
or otherwise-minded; yet, I think, few men love preaching so well. I
wish you might soon find some one permanently to fill my place. It is
bad to live from hand to mouth, spiritually or materially.
Love to all the household, especially the dear, venerable mother.
Faithfully yours,
T10oDor0?  PARKER.,
Can I tell you how dear you are all to me?  I shall not try.
TO MISS THAYER.
Combe-Varin, Aug. 16, 1859.
M1Y SATNT CAROLINE,-This new pen won't do to write with-that
is clear as this muddy ink; so here goes with the old gold one, which
has done great service for years. What a train of troubles you have
had! A horrible ailment is the rheumatic fever, and the old mode of
treating with great doses of colchicum often left another disease, and
an incurable-an affection of the heart.  Here, and in France, colchicum is used with great caution, and only in small doses.  But you had
only homoeopathic treatment, which, certainly, is as good as none at all,
and so have not to recover from the effects of the medicine.  I don't
find homceopathy has made much mark in Europe, or has the confidence
of scientific men.  But they bear it this testimony: —. It is the best
in old chronic disorders; 2. It is, also, decidedly the best for young
ladies. Besides, in general, the homeopathic doctors attend so well to
the dietetic and climatic, and other hygienic remedies, that they often
effect cures when others fail.  In Paris, homceopathy is the favorite
scheme with the poorer people, because they have to pay only the
doctor, not also the apothecary, whose business is "organized robbery."
(So, indeed, I find it, for at Paris I paid 1 dollar 10 cents for some
medicine which the'potecary here only charges me 16 cents for!)
There is a homeopathic hospital at Vienna, which I hear well spoken
of for discharging its patients in a good condition; but that may
be very unscientific.  It seems to me the Paris doctors care little
about curing the sick.  We have a nice time up here.  Do you remember my German friend, 3Mr. Desor?  I made his acquaintance in
1847; it soon became an intimacy: he left Boston in 1852.  I always




THEODORE PARKERo                        8 33
write him on my birthday, he me on his; besides, many other letters
come and go. His house is full of visitors, ten or a dozen lodging
here at a time; scientific men mostly, with their ladies.  " It is a pity
you have no wife," I said.  "Ugh!" was D.'s answer, "I think I'm
better off without; do you think I could have all these women here if
I had a wife?  Ugh!"
Amongst others, a Doctor Moleschott has been here, a man of great
genius, a chemist and professor of physiology at Zurich, the first
philosophical anatomist in Germany, as well as practising physician.
He made a microscopic examination, and decided that there is no
softening of the tubercles, and no laceration of my lungs as yet, and
therefore the circumstances are still favorable for the action of
medicine and climate. Dr. Cabot, dear good sensible fellow that he is,
says I need nutritious food, air, sun, and reasonable exercise, with but
moderate medicines. So says Dr. I., so Dr. Bigelow at Paris, so all.
Here in fair weather I am out of doors eight or ten hours a-day; the
mornings and evenings are too cold and damp. I work in the woods
chopping, pruning the trees, &c., of course moderately, and get a kind
of exercise which is most delightful to me. I think I have done no
imprudent thing since I came to the Continent; but enough about
myself.
Here the women work out of doors "from morn till dewy eve," and
look as rough as the horses they drive. It is a curious fact that woman
deteriorates and rapidly grows old when much exposed to the elements,
and constrained to great physical labor.  It is against her nature.
The same result appears in the Tropics-at Santa Cruz; and the Temperate Zone-at Switzerland: 1. The degeneration of what is specifically feminine; 2. The degeneration of what is generically human. She
approximates to the male type of humans, then to that of the inferior
animals.
Natlurd duce is an admirable motto in all matters.  But our Noew
England women do not work enough in the fields, a good deal of gardening might advantageously be done by their little nimble fingers; the
raising of poultry and young cattle would be profitable to the cheeks
of our farmers' daughters, as well as their fathers' purses. Just now the
New England women in general tend to abhor all manual labor. They
must be LADIES (a TADY is a female animal of the human species who
won't work, that is the vulgar definition), and so despise the details of
housekeeping; they can't make bread, nor cook a dinner, nor cut out
and make a shirt for a possible (or impossible) husband, not even for a
baby. A deal of mischief comes from this shameful inistake-involuntary celibacy of men who can't afford to keep a lady in the house, and
of maidens who would fain marry but not work. We have not seen
the end of this mischief, nor shall not in any haste. When a boy I
learned to do all kinds of work done in my neighborhood, from the
blacksmith's to the clockmaker's, and I thank God I can work with my
hands.  (I have ground up all Mr. Desor's axes and hatchets, and
actually finished a hog's-trough.)  If I had a family of daughters and
were never so rich, they should all learn thoroughly all the details of
good housekeeping, and not only know how each thing should be done,
but also how to do it-the process as well as the result.




334             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
But I did not mean to draw such a long bow, and preach a sermon
to an (invisible) audience 3000 or 4000 miles off. I wish you could
have seen some of the specimens of "our family bread" sent me last
autumn, after a certain sermon in which I showed how the New England women broke the staff of life over their husband's heads-and the
heads along with it. You would have said a woman was worth several
ladies.  But I need not say this to you, who with all your family,
know how to do all sorts of things, and with such admirable skill that
Mr. Pierpont said of each, " She hath done what she could! "
What could show the moral degradation of Boston more fully than
the funeral honors paid to poor Choate? The town which fired 100
cannons to honor the passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill, which kidnapped Sims and Burns, and whose " respectability" fraternized with
the assassins of Charles Sumner, ought logically so to honor the great
advocate of rogues and solicitor-general for scoundrels, who called the
self-evident truths of our revolutionary fathers only "glittering generalities" and a "noisy abstraction."  Such a demonstration is more
demoralizing than a bull-fight at Havana. I am glad I was spared the
pain of making a post-mortem examination of such a man.
No amount of talent, none of genius, or of good humor, can atone for
a life which was a long public treason to that justice which the State
and Church are built to preserve...
Hearty love to all the household.
Faithfully,
T. P.
P.S.-My wife says, " All Caroline's saints are men! I"  "  didn't!"
she says. Remember me to all the saints and saintesses too.
TO MR. SUINER.
Combe-Varin, Suisse, Aug. 13, 1859.
What a condition Europe is in just now! Before long there must be
a general war-a very dreadful one in its process; very blessed in its
results.  What a lying scamp Louis Napoleon is! How he lied before
the war! "L'Empire, c'est la paix —toujours la paix."  (He had
better have written it, " C'est l'epee, toujours l'6epe!"  That is Mr.
Punch's wit.)  How he lied to the Italians, " from the Mediterranean
to the Adriatic "! How he lied to the Emperor of Austria about the
terms which the other Powers would make less favorable! A German
says there have been two acts of the Euripidean Trilogy of Louis
Napoleon-the coup d'etat was only a prologue, to put the piece on the
stage and notify the audience.
1. Came the Crimean affair, vide Sebastopol, &c.
2. Came the Italian affair, vide Solferino,.&c.
But what will the third be, the finale?
Yet the bulk of the nation seems to like him. How true Cato the
elder said of the ancient (and also of the modern) Gauls!-Pleraque
Gallia duas res industriosissime persequitur, rem militaren et argute loqui.
I render the latterfaire belles phrases. But his empire must down.
He forbids the haberdashers to sell handkerchiefs with Garibaldi's
head on them; the journals to mention the name of Cavour, it is said.




THEODORE PARKER.                       3 35
How the educated French hate him I How many despise Guizot, not
quite unjustly!
Prince Napoleon had a long private communication the other day
with an eminent German savant and Republican.  He says Louis
Napoleon made peace because -(1.) The Italians in  Lombardy
did not favor him, I, because they were naturally cowards; and 2,
were disgusted at the conduct of the Turcos, who plundered the
peasants.  (2.) His army had suffered enormous losses, was badly
organized, not well supplied with necessary provisions, was destitute of
water; the artillery had to go three leagues for it, and were as thirsty
when they returned as when they went; it was sickly, and if he had
not made peace when he did, he must have retreated the next day.
(3.) He found conspiracy at home. " On y conspire," said the Emperor; "if they can't rule, they will conspire-the Orleanistes, the
Republicans, the Eveques."  " The Emperor," said Prince Napoleon,
" conspired against France, and now fears that it will conspire against
him! "  He has got into a dilemma. If he helps the Legations against
the Pope, or leaves them alone to resist that old -, then the Pope is
against him and all the 40,000 priests at home, who are more Roman
than French.  If he helps the Pope against the Legations, then the
public opinion of all (enlightened) Europe is against him, and the arms
of John Bull.   Bull has acted like a great baby-he was scared,
and cried like a fool; but there is stuff in the crittur yet, and
pride. Louis Napoleon acts foolishly in setting the French papers
to stir up  hostility  against England.  He had better let Antwerp fortify, and hold his tongue.  I think the peace not worth
much.   But, alas! I have little hope of a regeneration of Italy.
What confederation can there be between Piedmont and Naples,
or Rome?  What is a confederation for freedom good for, presided
over by  the  Pope, the bitterest foe of freedom?  Besides, the
federative disposition, which creates the Teutonic confederacies of old
times and new, must underlie the new institution, and that is foreign
to Italy and all the Romanic peoples; it is the ethnologic peculiarity of
the Teutons, and in the time of Cssar distinguished them from the
Celts. Nothing will keep the Teutonic people out of Italy; they have
had great influence there ever since Dietrich von Bern, and must enter
the Peninsula as the Americans go to Mexico. I wish differently.
I think Rome will be my winter residence (the Pyramids stick in
my crop). I hope the A.'s will go with us, and we shall all live
together in some wide, sunny street. I live out of doors eight or
ten hours in the day, and have work in the woods, chopping, pruning
trees, &c.
We shall go back to Montreux next week. L. has gone to Paris
to see the show of soldiers, but returns the 16th or 17th. Juvenal
says of Gaul," Natio comceda, est....e 
Si dixeris,' estuo,' sudat! " 
I have the happiest time here. I attend chiefly to botany, geology,
zoology, &c., and read.
* Juv. Sat. III., 94-97.




336               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
But I have my eyes open on my more special studies.  God bless
you! If we do not work together hereafter, we have heretofore.
FROMT MR. SUMNER.
Bains Frascati, au Havre, August 22, 1859.
How beautifully things move in Tuscany! Who says a people thus
composed amidst the grandest trials is not fit for freedom?  Who is fit
for it, I pray?  The Americans with four millions of slaves, and with
a leaven of slaveholding tyrants, and foreign immigrants who cannot
speak our language?  Why these, more than the Italians, full of
genius, invention and all knowledge?  Against the proletarianism  of
Italy, I put the slavery of our country, and hold that Italy is full as
apt for free institutions as the United States. You doubt.  I must
borrow  a phrase from  Charles Fox, addressed to Bonaparte, First
Consul, "Clear your head of that nonsense."  Of course, I am for
freedom everywhere. If I heard of a revolt in the seraglio I should
be for it.
Think of old Gino Capponi, blind, led to the urn and voting for the
emancipation of his country.  Well done, gallant veteran!    It was
his ancestor who went forth from Florence to meet Charles VIII. of
France, and when the King threatened if his terms were not accepted,
"to sound his trumpets," the ambassador of the Republic replied, " If
you sound your trumpets, we will ring our bells."
In the next letter Mr. Parker alludes to the resolution offered
by Mr. Conway, at a meeting of the Alumni of Cambridge Theological School, July, 1859; its passage was opposed for various
reasons, and the question finally avoided by an adjournment.
Resolved, That the Association has heard with deep regret of the
failure, during the past year, of the health of the Rev. Theodore
Parker; and we hereby extend to him  our heartfelt sympathy, and
express our earnest hope and prayer for his return with renewed
strength, and heart unabated, to the post of duty which he has so long
filled with ability and zeal."
TO REV. J.   CLARKE.
Combe-r-arin, Canton de Nouchltel.
MfY DEAR JAMBES, —What a row you and  Conway made at the
meeting of Alumni a month ago, or less! You the President of the
Unitarian Association! only think of it! I am afraid you are " raised
up," "for the disturbance of the Br-rotheren" as Dr.  -  would say.
Poor men! So they couldn't say, " Well, we're sorry you're sick, and
* The venerable Marquis Capponi, who has done so much for historical studies and also
for correct sentiment in Italy, was a Member of the Constituent Assembly at Florence,
which, in 1859, decreed the independence of Tuscany.




THEODORE PARKER.                     3 37
hope you'll get well, and come back to your old place, and go to
work! "  No: they could not say that-how could they?  But this
mode of treating the matter will damage those men not a little.
" What!" honest men will say, " couldn't you wish your sick
brother might get well, and come back, and work against popular wickedness, in low places and high places? Afraid he'd hurt the word o'
God, and knock down the Church o' God! Do you think they're so
much in danger that a little consumptive minister in Exeter Place
could finish one or the other? "... I have been in battle for
twenty years, treated as no other American ever was, and it is not
likely I have escaped without many a wrong deed. You have sometimes told me of my faults.  God bless you for it! I took the advice
greatly to heart. But a note at Harvard College Chapel won't save a
man whose relations all die of consumption soon as that ugly cat puts
her claws into their sides. For the ministers' sake, private and public,
I should rather they would have passed the resolution which brave,
affectionate young Conway presented; for my own sake it is not of the
smallest consequence.  At twenty-nine it would move me; not at
forty-nine.
Here in Europe the Catholic Church is the one great enemy to
human progress and welfare. It is the religion of the Romanic people,
the Celtic people, the Celto-Romanic, the French, and the CeltoTeutonic communities scattered about in all parts of Germany, and
still more in Austria. It is amazing to see how Catholicism penetrates society and controls all individuality. It has greatly demoralized
France, which has 40,000 priests, who steal in everywhere and spread
their slime over the baby, the child, the maiden, and the man.
Protestantism is on the decline in France, for the Government farms
the Roman Church; wealth, fashion, all the great institutions are on
its side.  Once Montpellier was almost Protestant (in the time of
Louis XIII.), and contained, say, 40,000 people. Now it is almost
wholly Catholic, yet there has been no change of population by
migration out or in,  It is done by the marriage contract, which
transfers the children to Catholic instruction.  But it is all hollow.
In France Catholicism is official and ecclesiastical, not personal.
The educated, the men of science and letters, have no belief in it;
the high merchants, bankers, &c., none; even the great mass of working-men have no belief in Catholicism.  They do not confess nor
attend meeting; they have no more belief in it than the better class
of Athenian common people had in their mythology when Aristophanes
wrote his plays, or Lucian his dialogues. Women go to meeting,
confess, and accommodate the priests in diverse ways.
When La Place carried his " Mecanique Celeste" to Napoleon for
presentation, the Emperor was busy making some sort of concordat
with the Pope. So, thinking of what he called "religious affairs,"
meaning theologico-political, he read La Place's preface, and said, " I
am surprised you don't mention the name of God."  "Sire," said the
mathematician, "je n'ai pas trouve besoin de cette hypothese! "  That
is the condition of the cultivated Frenchmen. They are not Atheists,
they don't touch that question. Somebody said to Arago, "But I am
VOL. II.                                             Z




338             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
a Protestant!"  "That is only to be a little less absurd," was the
answer.
Despotism rules everywhere in France-centralized at Paris, diffused
from the Channel to the Alps and the Pyrenees! After the armistice
of July 11th at Villafranca, the Emperor forbade the newspapers to
mention the name of Cavour; it never appears. He ordered the printsellers to put away the caricatures of Austria; down they went.
During the war there were lots of cotton handkerchiefs, some with his
head, others with Victor Emmanuel's, yet others with Garibaldi's head
on them; after the peace Garibaldi's was forbidden. You cannot find
it now; but just before the peace some Italian traders ordered 40,000
each of those handkerchiefs of a Swiss manufacturer, and when peace
came countermanded all but the 40,000 of Garibaldi! Napoleon is
popular with the army, the priests, the uneducated men; the educated
hate him. But there are not 4,000,000 slaves in France, not a kidnapper in Paris! France is rich also; her material interests thrive,
alas! not the human interests, high or even low. Remember me kindly
to your household. I am staying with Desor in the mountains. His
house is full of savans and Gelehrte.
The unwillingness to appear to recognize Mr. Parker by even
a resolution of sympathy, had, of course, its roots in the old
controversy, and was shared  by  many who had  learned to
admire his anti-slavery faithfulness.  They did not see that the
very thing which they admired proved  the superiority of a
moral to a doctrinal or a denominational position.
Here is another mark of this antipathy; but it is also a
sign of the growth of his influence among the young preachers,
who are nominally called Unitarians.   They  will certainly
become a commanding body, in sympathy with an intelligent
people who sit in most of the old Unitarian churches.  Let
them be little solicitous to preserve a denominational connection.
They are fully able to take care of themselves. Let them preach
or not in the old pulpits, according to the good-will of the occupants. But they have a welcome everywhere, in numerous pews,
except in the most strictly sectarian of the city societies.
TO REV. THEODORE PARKER,
Cambridge, April 14, 1857.
DEAR SIE,-The following protest is this day presented to the
Faculty of the Divinity School:We, members of the senior class, hereby protest against the refusal
to sanction our election of Rev. Theodore Parker, as class-preacher, as




THEODORE PARKER.                       339
being a violation of the principle of religious toleration on which this
institution was founded, and we respectfully decline to make aly
election of class-preacher.
(Signed)           " GEORGE F. NOYES.
CHENRY W. BuowN.
" GEo. W. BARTLETT."
The matter will probably end here, at present. We have fully deliberated upon the proposition of leaving the school, and have decided that
it is unwise. As to having a sermon from  you when we graduate, it
seems to us that to elect you now would be to violate in spirit the law
which we are observing in the letter.
We can talk with you and consider of that in the future.
We have already accomplished our main object, which was to make
known the fact that a class of young ministers recognize you as a
Christian minister, and worthy to preach their sermon. Whether the
sermon be preached or not is comparatively of very little importance.
We have felt for a year past that we had a rare opportunity to help
the cause of religious freedom, and to make you some amends for the
persecution which you have endured in the cause of truth.  We have
been faithful to our opportunity, and though not seemingly, have, in
reality, been successful in our endeavor.
With the hope that we may be better acquainted than we have yet
been, I ask you to accept from my class-mates and myself the warmest
regard.
Truly yours,
IIENRtY W. BROWN.
FROM THE JOURNAL.
Swiss AND GERMA.N STUPIDITY. —How many stupid things these
Swiss people do! Here is a cross-cut saw which got broken, and it is
mended by lapping the two pieces one over the other, and riveting the
two together.  So a hand-saw had a crack in the edge near the middle,
and they mended it by riveting on a patch. This writing-desk I sit at
[at Montreux] is so made that a book will slide down the leaf, and I
must chock it up. They are making a railroad opposite the house; the
embankment is fifteen or eighteen feet high, and close to the road;
there must be a solid wall of stone six or seven feet thick to support
it, for the space is too narrow to allow the natural spread of the gravel.
They tipped the dirt, and raised the embankment to the requisite
height, and then dug away what was superfluous, dug a ditch four or
five feet deep, and laid the foundation of the wall; of course the
bank kept sliding down, and the earth must be shovelled over four
or five times, and wheeled up the steep bank and put down behind
the wall.  There were four-wheeled carriages without sideboards,
nothing but a frame, to carry the small stones in. So all the stones
must be taken out by hand; then they are tossed from one man to
another, who tosses them to the place where the masons take them.
With abundant water-power, they saw logs by hand; in the country of
z 2




840             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
steam-engines they drive piles in the old way; twenty men pulling on
a rope and hoisting up the hammer! They have not even a windlass.
In a little town in Mecklenburg they have the cholera this year. The
population is only 150, of whom  80 died; there were not cabinetmakers enough to make coffins as fast as they were wanted. So the
carpenters made them. But the cabinet-makers complained to the
authorities that their legal right was invaded.   So the carpenters
must not make coffins, and the dead had to remain unburied till the
small number of cabinet-makers could do the work!
Swiss NEWSPAPERS.-I am struck with the excellence of the Swiss
newspapers. Take, for instance, such as I see oftenest, the Bund (Berne),
Journal de Geneve, L'Ind6pendant de Neuchatel, Gazette de Lausanne.
These are small in size, but filled on three pages out of four with quite
valuable reading matter, and on the whole are greatly superior to the
country papers of America, and the most of the city papers, I fear.
The French newspapers, of course, are nothing; they only say what
they are commanded (the Government papers), or permitted (the
Opposition).  The Times is hardly more moral than the New  York
Herald; it has lost much of its intellectual talent too.
Aug. 22.-At half-past three P.M. left Desor's hospitable chalet with
no little regret.   Took the diligence, all four of us, for Yverdon
(Ebrodunum; a Latinized name of the Celtic original, I take it). The
route is delightful through the Val de Travers.
Next day, reached Geneva about two, and went to the HIotel L'Ecu
de Genbve, one of the best of these institutions of organized robbery.
Surveyed the town again, one of the most thriving in thrifty Switzerland; enormously wealthy, though Basle is before it.  Notice the
removal of the old walls, and the enlargement of the city, with its
consequent increase in population, health, comfort, beauty, wealth; but
how it was opposed by the landholders within the walls! Yet it was a
scamp who perfected and carried on the good work.
Aug. 24.-My forty-ninth birthday; will it be also the last? Many
things look that way. Yet others do not.  Still, I count it so, and
make no complaint.
Visited the old church of St. Peter where Calvin used to preach;
and strolled about the city till ten. At that hour the naturalists had
their meeting, eighty or one hundred of them, perhaps, besides
strangers. Half-a-dozen Americans among the latter, e. g. T. B. Curtis,
Amasa Walker, Dr. Bethune, Mr. Tillinghast.
As it was my birthday I wished to be with my friends, and so at
three took the steamer for Montreux, bidding good-bye to Desor, who
came to our hotel and on board the boat. At half-past seven we were
met at the landing and went to our dear ones again. I found some
beautiful little memorials of affection in my room.
Alas  I learned when I came home the death of Horace Mann. I
knew nothing of his illness till Howe's letter told me of it. Alas!
that I am not at home to say a word in his honor, and to improve the
lesson of his grand life for the advantage of the people!  Ah, me!
"to be weak is to be miserable."  Mann has long violated the laws of
the body, and falls a victim to his conscientious philanthropy.   None
of the great Temperance men will hold out long and well. P — and




THEODORE PARKER.                      34 1
G —- will not live out their days. -       stimulates his stomach with
red pepper. Brandy even would be better!  LWine and beer would be
invaluable to all these men.
TO DR. HOWE.
Montreux, Suisse, Aug. 26, 1859.
MY JEAR CHEV., —Yours of August 3rd, with its sad PS. of the 4th,
came here on my forty-ninth birthday. I returned at night from a visit
of a month to Desor, and my thoughtful wife, who came back the day
before, wisely kept the melancholy news from me till the next morning.
" Les Dieux s'en vont!"  How many distinguished men have died of
late in 1859, but not a king! " Les Rois restent! "  I knew nothing of
Mann's illness till your letter told me of his death. The last time I
saw him-last autumn, I was ill, and he came to see me. He looked
almost healthy, with more flesh and more color than I had seen before,
and in admirable spirits. Who will do full justice to his great merits
as a philanthropist and a statesman?  Nobody in America. I have
known him since 1836: very well since 1848. I think I understand
him as well as I admire, esteem, and love him. But, alas! I am not
there to preach his funeral sermon at the Music Hall, to appreciate
his great services, to honor his great virtues, to point out his faults,
and so let the dead man warn by his failings and instruct by his great
merits, and thus continue the lesson of his life, though we can directly
see its practical works no more.  If you thought of him, in some
respects, more highly than I did, I never wished your admiration to
be less. If I qualified, I did not diminish it. I think there is but
one man in America who has done the nation such great service-that
is Garrison; the two were much alike in their philanthropy and hatred
of all oppression, in their asceticism and puritanic austerity, in their
cleanness of life and readiness to sacrifice their own interests for a
general good, in their steadiness of purpose and tenacity of work, and
in the severity of their speech and the strength of their personal dislikes. But Garrison had more destructiveness and more courage, and
also more moral directness in his modes of executing his plans. Mann
did not know that "a straight line is the shortest distance between
two points," in morals as in mathematics; Garrison knows no other
line in abstract morals or in concrete politics. Mann had benevolence in the heroic degree.  I have known none who more deeply
and heartily wished for the welfare of mankind; he was also singularly enlightened as to certain modes of carrying out his philanthropy,
e.g. towards the insane, the poor, the ignorant, and the drunken. But
I think his ideas of education were not the most enlightened and
comprehensive; that his estimate of woman was unphilosophic and
obsolete; and his schemes of penal legislation were quite behind the
foremost philanthropy of the day, especially his adhesion to the
gallows.
In his intellectual composition he lacked the ideal element to an
extraordinary degree, yet his mind was as rich in figures and as vivid
as a New England meadow in June. Still, there was little poetry in
the man; the useful left no corner for the beautiful. He loved strongly,




342              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
and idealized the objects of his affection, making them quite other than
they were; he also hated terribly, and never, I think, forgave a public
or a private foe. His hatred idealized men downwards, and he could
see no good in them, or if any, it was deformed by the evil motive he
saw (or fancied that he saw), prompting and controlling it all. Like
other lawyers and politicians, he judged men ungenerously, and thought
their motives mean. lie loved few, and liked not many. By nature
he had great love of approbation, but in all his life I remember no act
~in which this mean passion got the better of his conscience, and bent
him away from the path of right. His sense of duty was overwhelming. Bred in the worst form of Calvinism, he never quite wiped off
the dreadful smooch it makes on the character-nay, he did not extract
the dark colors it bites in to the spiritual nature of the unlucky child.
Hence his low estimate of men, hence his unforgiving disposition. For
if he had much justice in the abstract, he had little mercy in the concrete.  In his reactionary swing from Dr. Emmon's Calvinism he went
about as near Atheism as an intellectual man can go; and, as you say,
under such circumstances, "that is pretty near."  But his confidence
in duty and philanthropy never failed him. IHe took phrenology for
his scheme of metaphysics, and knew no psychology but physiology.
This materialism was a great hindrance to him  in his educational
schemes.  It narrowed his views of human nature. He had not great
confidence in the moral, and still less in the religious instincts of mankind; so after he had broken with the substance of the popular theology, and rejected its miraculous claims to the uttermost, spurning all
" revelation" and all " miracles," he yet clung to the hollow form, and
used the language of theology, not as figures of speech, but as symbols
of a fact.  He did this because he lacked confidence in man's power to
walk without that crutch. I know no politician who so hated Calvinism; none who used its language so much, or who, to the public,
appeared so much the friend of the ecclesiastic theology of which it
is the poison-flower.  There was a certain duplicity in the man, at
strange variance with the austere purity of his personal life, and the
lofty elevation of his purpose.  This appears in his work as Secretary of
the Board of Education, as Mlember of Congress, and as President of
Antioch College-perhaps more conspicuous in the last office. Had
the little narrow, bigoted sect of Christians known his profound convictions, and the moral contempt he felt for their absurd and debasing
theology, they would never have made him  even a teacher in their
school, much less its head.  If he had lived he must have felt great
embarrassment from this cause, to be met by yet farther duplicity. I
like not his taking of bread and wine in the meeting-houses of his sect,
nor his having prayers three times a-day at his table. It was an official,
not a personal act, and savors of hypocrisy. It was done for example
-but it was an instance of falseness to his own convictions. He would
not have made a good president of a college, he was too austere; and
besides, he could not shut his eyes. Still more, lads at college at once
detect all insincerity in their teachers, and judge with terrible justice.
" Him only pleasure leads and peace attends,
Him, only him, the shield of God defends,
Whose means are pure and spotless as his ends."




THEODORE PARKER.                      3 43
Mann did not know this, or knowing did not heed.
These are his great public works:1. He opposed intemperance, I mean drunkenness. The State had
no more efficient laborer directly in this great reform.  Of course he
was an extremist, and went for total abstinence, and ultimately for
the entire suppression of all trade in every intoxicating drink, as an
article of pleasure or of diet. In 1836 he induced the Legislature to
pass a law making it a crime to be drunk in public; the State had had
no such law for 150 years, I think. He put the stamp of felony on the
hideous vice. As a Temperance lecturer he had great power, for he appealed both to the understanding and the conscience with masterly skill.
2. He worked for the insane. I think no one, or two, or five men in
the State did them such wise service as he. But of this you know
much more than I.
3. He took up the common schools of Massachusetts in his arms and
blessed them. Here was the great work of his life. It was a piece of
heroic self-denial to take the secretaryship of the Board of Education.
He gave up his profession, and 2500 or 3000 dollars a-year; he abandoned the Presidency of the Senate, and the fairest chance of political
honors, for he was one of the most popular and influential men in the
Legislature, to work for the public education of the people of Massachusetts fifteen hours a-day, pay his own travelling expenses, and
become the butt of all the democratic politicians-lRantoul was the
only Democrat in Massachusetts who cared anything for the public
schools-of all the lazy schoolmasters that were unfit for their office,
and of all the little miserable orthodox ministers who complained of his
want of ng-pdi-et-ty (you know how to pronounce that word). How he
did work! how he did fight! how he licked the schoolmasters! If one
of the little mosquitoes bit him, Mann thought he had never taken quite
notice enough of the creature till he had smashed it to pieces with a
48-pound cannon-shot which rung throughout the land. He was the
father of Normal Schools. His good work here will live; one hundred
years hence three generations will have tasted its blessed influence, the
last the deepest of all. His influence went to all New England, and
her fair daughter States. It is not often that a man has such an opportunity to serve his kind; in our century I know none who used it
better, almost none so well. Massachusetts had but one man fit for
the work: he went in at the call of duty; the State is not yet wise
enough to honor him for such heroism; it is alike incomprehensible to
the Suffolk Bar and the Suffolk Pulpit.
4. He went to Congress at a most trying period. There was a little
indirection in his mode of getting there, which I never liked. But
when there he proved himself the ablest, the most high-minded and
far-sighted, the most moral and statesmanlike man Massachusetts
has sent there in the nineteenth century. In point of intellectual
ability for the post, only J. Q. Adams was his superior-his long life
of politics gave him that superiority; in all other matters I assign the
palm to M[ann. I did not agree with all his measures, nor accept all
his principles, but I honored his integrity and reverenced his power.
When Daniel Webster committed the great sin which immediately
doubled his popularity in Boston with the Hunkers who had bought




344             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
him, and have now given him  his post on that stone of shame in the
State House Yard, whence Massachusetts will one day cast him down
and break it to powder, Horace Mann exposed the wickedness of the
deed: none in Congress, I think, did the work so ably. He smote the
champion of slavery a blow which sent him reeling home: it was the
heaviest Webster ever had. He never recovered from it.
In his public life I find no aims but the noblest of all. Of how
many others can you or I say that? He had a great mind, though one
of a quite peculiar structure.  He was a formidable debater, with, however, the faults that are generic with lawyers. None that I have
known could more skilfully expose the weakness of an opponent: of
course, he did not always do justice to his opponent; he was combative
to an extraordinary degree, and loved the gaudium certaminis like an old
Goth. His great excellence was moral, not intellectual. He did love
his kind; he did hate their oppressors.  Philanthropy is the key-note
of all his music.
As a lawyer I am told he never took a case that he did not conscientiously think he ought to win. I should be surprised if it was
not true. But I don't think he was always quite scrupulous enough as
to the means of achieving his end. His policy sometimes bordered on
deceit.
As a relative, neighbor, husband, father, his character was admirable,
perhaps spotless. Young men loved him-all the doorkeepers at Washington and the other servants of the Capitol; and old men of noble
mark looked on him with admiration and esteem. I shall always place
him among the noblest men of New England, and thank God I had
the privilege of his acquaintance, perhaps of his esteem and friendship;
and sometimes the opportunity of doing him some little favor. There
are but two men living —Emerson and Garrison-whom  I have in
public praised so much or ranked so high. How different the three,
yet how great their public services to the cause of humanity! None
could comprehend the other, though each might admire. When Mann
moved out of Massachusetts he left a gap none since has filled. I
don't think Ohio was worthy of him, or could appreciate his worth.
Yet Boston had little claim on such a soul as his. But, dear old puritanic town, with all its faults the noblest of human cities, it yet gave
money for his college! The very men, I think, whose political idols he
broke to fragments, and ground to powder, and trod into the mire of
the street, gave him dollars for his college!
Oh, Chev. there never was such a city, and though I shall walk in it
no more, and my voice never again be heard in its halls or its meetinghouses, perhaps never in its parlors, it still lives in my prayers and
my songs of thanksgiving and of praise. Few men have had more
delight in it for a dozen years than I; and I murmur not that it is
over now and ended.  God grant that some nobler man may do better
what I attempted!
I sympathize with what you say of the services at the Music Hall.
Emerson appeals only to the intellect, the understanding, imagination,
reason; never directly to the conscience or the soul-the religious
element. I love to read the deep things of the Old Testament and
New Testament.  They are dear to me, because dear to my fathers and




THEODORE PARKER.                       845
precious to whole nations of men. I love the sweet words of the
hymns we used to sing, though often so poorly, and for my own part,
I should as soon renounce the sermon almost as the prayer. It does
not influence the dear God who loves me better than I myself, but it
does elevate and cheer and comfort me. I think with great pain of
the multitude who used to look up to me; in my Sundays I look in
upon them as a mass, and in the sleepless hours of night creep round
to all their houses, and see how they get on in their joys and sorrows
of private life.
But enough of this. Love to all yours, and, I need not say, dear
Chevie, to you.
T. P.
TIIE DOUBLE-IEADED FIR, COMBE VARIN.




CHAPTER XXVI.
Letters and Journal at Montreux, and other Places-Letter of Resignation-To the Progressive Friends-To others.
TO GEO. ADAMS, ESQ., BROOKLINE, MASS.
Montreux, Suisse, Sunday, Aug. 28, 1859.
MR. AND MRS. ADAMS,-DEAR FRIENDS,-Many thanks for your kind
letters, which came in due time some weeks ago.  As man and wife are
one, I shall include you both in the same answer.  Your words of sympathy were quite welcome and touching. I should have been glad to
take you and your children by the hand before I went away; but the
time of preparation was so brief, and my strength, both of muscle and
nerve, so slight, it was hardly possible for me to bid farewell to any
except those I saw every day.  Here I hope I am getting better; certainly I have mended in all things save the cough, which still goes on
increasing.  What effect a Roman winter will have on it I know not,
but will continue to hope the best and be ready for the worst.
It is Sunday now-a day. too, of singular beauty, even for this handsome region, where all the days have been fair.  It rained last night,
and now the air is full of sweetness. The Indian corn, the handsomest
of all the bread producing plants, is now about ripe, and sends its
sweet fragrance all round on every side; to me it is not only a delicious
odor in itself, but it has the charm of association with my early life
amid cornfields and other pleasant things of New England country life.
As I sit out of doors to write, the lake before me, and mountains
covered with snow just opposite, the church bells in the steeple on the
mountain side, almost over my head, ring out their pleasant call for
meeting.  Some six hours hence they will, do the same in Brookline
and Boston, and all the thousand towns of New  England will be
musical with the call to meditation, thanksgiving, prayer, and praise.
I am glad you have found a place you like for yourself and family to
pass your Sunday mornings in. King is a good fellow, with fine talents,




THEODORE PARKER.                         347
and a brave, humane, and progressive spirit; he will continue to grow
for many a year to come, and to do great service, I hope, to mankind.
Few ministers have so much talent, or have been so faithful in that
trying position, a pulpit. It is unfortunate that we could not at the
Music Hall have some one man who would feed the thousands that turn
thither so readily; who would feel responsible to the Society, and so
use all the events of the day as means of instruction. But that could
not be expected; the speaker feels responsible only for the special
address he makes on some particular morning, and no more....  I
suppose some of our old friends find the services a little cold. Besides,
I like the old custom  of reading the Bible-the best things in it, I
mean; of singing hymns; and especially do I love social prayer, when it
is real, living, and deep. But, alas! when I have attended the religious
meetings at the churches in New England or Old England, the prayer
is almost always the worst part-a prayer without devotion, elevation, or
aspiration-one that smites and offends, and makes you feel degraded
by listening to it. In nine cases out of ten the minister's prayer is a
hateful thing to me, and I always avoid it when I can.  But when it is
a real, hearty, deep, spontaneous prayer, which comes as the white lily
grows in the waters of New England, then I go off cheered, and lifted
up, and blessed. Dr. Channing used to say, " It would be a great thing
to get rid of the long prayer in our meeting-houses."  Oh, if we could
get the prayer of pious genius in its place! Several who fiequent the
Music Hall never come in till that part of the service is ended, and I
always respected the spirit of devotion which kept them away from  the
form  of prayer, though I myself so love the spoken word. But I did
not mean to preach to you a sermon, though it is Sunday.
I hope you are all happy and well.  How Emma and George must
have grown by this time!  The elder daughters, I don't know what
change of name may have happened to them before I return.  I hope
they will always have a character as beautiful as their faces, and that
they will continue to improve in all intellectual and moral excellence.
Don't fear that I forget any of my old friends. I make the tour of the
Society oftener than before, and look in at all the households once so
familiar.  Remember me kindly to your excellent neighbors, the
Goodings.  Theodore will be taller than his namesake before I return.
Tell Mr. Gooding I find no such pears as he used to send me last
autumn, and that I was sorry not to bid him and his good-bye.  With
love to all yours, and from all mine, believe me, faithfully,
Your friend,
THEODORE PARKER.
TO MISS COBBE.
Montreux, August 31, 1859.
MY DEAR Miss COBBE,-Your kind note of August  4 —my fortyninth birthday- reminds me how long I have owed you a letter.  But
I have no great writing faculty in these days, and think it best to make
what little nervous power I develope consume itself in building up my
shattered body.  Besides, I have so many friends in America that I




348              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
mutst write to, that my strength is sometimes used up before I write my
dear ones nearer at hand.
I think we should agree about war. I hate it, I deplore it, but yet
see its necessity.  All the great charters of humanity have been writ in
blood, and must continue to be for some centuries. I should let the
Italians fight for their liberty till the 28,000,000 were only 14,000,000,
and thus resist at that dreadful cost, rather than submit to mean granddukes, &c., and meaner Pope, with his Antonellis and the Antonellas,
who now sway that degraded people.  But most wars in these times are
got up by the ambition and wickedness of the rulers, who only exploiter
the people's instinct of defence or of aggression.  Such I could visit
with the scorn of the human race.
I make no doubt you are right in determining your own course of
duty. How seldom can another help us in that! Certainly you and
Miss Carpenter are engaged in one of the most grand of all the philanthropies of the age. Dreadfully needed they are, too, in England; indeed,
your country, like mine, is full of contradictions, which disgrace us and
threaten us with future peril.  Mrs. Reid's scheme seems full of promise; but it takes a deal of time to accomplish any great work of
human progress. It is with man as with the geological formation of
the earth.  Enormous periods of time are found indispensable for what
we once thought was done in six days. That mythic account (by some
dreamer) in Genesis, " Let there be light," has led to much mischief,
making men believe that the order of creation was by magic and by
sudden violence, not by regular gradual development part after part.
That silly myth that tells of the confusion of tongues at Babel, how it
misrepresents the actual facts and the gradual development of all the
languages of the world, and of the faculties of man, stimulated by the
nature about him! So the notion of a miraculous revelation of religious truth perverts our efforts and turns us off from the slow, regular
attempt to learn the religion God writes in the constitution of the
world, and then to express it in nations comfortable, industrious, intelligent, and moral. How many thousand human experiments must go
to one human success in the great departments of our progress! When
the civilization you and I dream  of is attained, men will find it is
underlaid by thick strata, full of the organic remains of inferior
civilization, each helpful to the high one, which itself is no finality, but
only provisional for something more grand and glorious.
I am glad your book is finished.  Your charming letter to Mrs. A.
told me that and other pleasing facts; and I hope soon to see it. Mr.
Sanborn's article has not reached me yet. I am quite shut out from all
the English quarterlies, and know little of what takes place in the high
world of thought. I am glad you got my little book. I wrote it with
tears of blood in that fierce heat of Santa Cruz, and read it with fear
and trembling when it reached me a fortnight ago. Please remember
it is a sick man's book, I mean in its form.  The substance, I think, is
healthy.  It will be more loved and hated than any book of mine; but
I hope it may do good, and help guide some benighted voyager, "dim
sounding on his perilous way."
When you write to the excellent Mr. Newman, please tell him I am
sorry I did not see him the last time he called, for I hoped to have had




THEODORE PARKER.                          349
some conversation with him on matters we touched before. I trust he
got my little book.  With thanks for your kind remembrances and
wishes, believe me,
Faithfully and affectionately yours.
He started, on Sept. 3, for a little tour to Freiburg, Berne,
Thun, Interlachen, &c., and returned to Montreux on the 9th.
TO 3IR. MANLEY.
Freiburg Canton, Freiburg, Suisse, Sept. 3, 1859.
MY DEAR JOHN R. MANLEY,-I shall soon write you a short letter
resigning my connection with the dear Twenty-eighth; for I am now
only a hindrance, and can never be much of a help.  You want a
man to be a permanent minister, responsible to you. It is clear that
I shall preach no more, even if I (partially) recover.  Love to all the
friends.  Step in at the corner of Milk Street sometime, please, and
remember me to all the good folks there, and represented there.  I
don't lose my friendly affection for the dear ones I shall preach to no
more.  I should have had a sermon on Mann, as well as Choate, had
I been there.  How contemptible seem  the lives of the five or six
Presidents when compared with Mann's! The three great concrete
evils of America are, 1, drunkenness; 2, ignorance; 3, slavery.  Mann
warred against all these three with all his good qualities and all of his
ill.  What a battle he did fight!  Choate opposed no one of them;
he befriended the worst of them. Yet how is he honored!
Lyman leaves us in a few days for Paris, and so we lose another
blessing.  I am  glad James Clarke is to preach for you; he is a
faithful man, and never betrays his trust. I am with you every Sunday,
and many a day besides.  You must accept my resignation; for even
after I am  mended, I shall not be worth much, and your work demands a stout, well man, with no decay in his lungs.  A sick minister
is a sort of nuisance. We hope to go to Rome for the winter, and the
Apthorps with us, and to have a good time.  Tell Mr. Leighton he
has done famously with my books-a deal better for the six months
than I expected for the twelve. I shall make the sale of the old publish
something new.  He can use it, if he likes, to publish the little Christmas story.  I am  glad the fraternity do so well as to get W. P. and
W. L. G.  Massachusetts has not braver men, or better.
What news the papers bring us! A Frenchman said there are  00
religions in America, and but a single gravy. I don't know that any
body has since added to the gravy; but it seems Rev. Henry W. Bellows,
D.D., has devised a new religion, the 201st-a new Catholic religion,
but yet not Roman.  It is to be a Church with authority, i. e. power to
command and enforce obedience in the name of God-that is what
authority means in the ecclesiastic usage-is to have "mystic rites and
symbols"!*   What shall we call it?
* Alluding to a sermon entitled " The Suspense of Faith," in which a revival of faith
was made to depend partly upon a revival of liturgical and ecclesiastical observances.




350             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
Absolute ecclesiastical authority without any authoritative person to
vest it in! That is certainly as original as a steam-engine would be
that had immense power of steam, but was made without any material
substance, and got up its force with no fire or water. Talk about a
suspense of faith! Faith in belief!  Have the civilized nations suspended faith in man, the actual live man of fact, or in any of his high
qualities, and his powers to achieve a noble distinction here and hereafter?  Have they suspended faith in God, manifesting Himself in
nature-all its phenomena so co-ordained to use and beauty by exact
law, the constant mode of operation of all material powers; or manifesting Himself in -the consciousness of the individual man and the
actions of the race, the regular development of humanity, in which the
animal passions are made to serve high spiritual purposes?  Have they
suspended faith in the noblest forms of religio —in love of truth, in
justice, morality, philanthropy, in industry, in the performance of every
natural duty to the body or the spirit, to man or God!  Surely this
kind of faith was never so powerful before, and it goes greatening
onwards, producing men like Humboldt, like Garrison, like Mann, like
Emerson, and their noble fellows of the other sex, Florence Nightingale, Miss Dix, and the rest of them.  Out upon such nonsense of
words! Man has no faith in HUMBUG! I mean virtuous and intelligent man.  What a stupid set of men are the priests of all sects! —
always afraid their special form  of religion will go to the Devil!  I
remember    - confessing once, in the ministerial conference, that a
man might be completely moral and entirely religious, and yet no
Christian!  "Then what is the use of his being a Christian? " asked
some troublesome body; and another D.D. answered, "We must never
admit that any body can be either religious or moral without being a
Christian; for if we do, we endanger our holy faith." How these creatures talk about the "Christian spirit"! " Oh, he has not got the
Christian spirit! " say they against Garrison and Emerson, &c. &c. Ah,
me! the priests of Memphis thought Moses had not the "Egyptian
spirit," and they of Jerusalem that Jesus of Nazareth had not the "Pharisaic spirit."  One day, the term " Christian spirit" will be made as
contemptible as those old words now are, and the ministers will work
this change. God bless you and yours!-so say I and mine.
T. P.
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL
SOCIETY IN  BOSTON.
MontreuX, Sept. 12, 1859.
DEAR AND MUCI-VALUJED FRIENDS,-When I wrote you a long letter
from Santa Cruz, I did not quite like to say what now seems my duty
to write; for I did not wish to destroy the feeble yet fondly-cherished
hope that I might one day speak from your pulpit again, and renew my
ministry both in your meeting-house and your homes. Though the
chances of a certain partial recovery and restoration to some power of
work certainly seem greater now than ever before in this present year,
yet from  the unanimous testimony of skilful and experienced doctors




THEODORE PARKER.                        351
it appears pretty plain that 1 shall never be able to address'large
audiences, as before; perhaps never again to speak in public at all;
certainly not for years to come. Therefore it seems to me best that
the ecclesiastical and official part of my relation to you as minister
should cease immediately: the personal and friendly part, I trust, will
never end.  Accordingly I. now resign the great and important trust
you confided to me several years ago.
Since my illness began, you have secured for your pulpit some of the
best talent in America, and also, I think, its greatest genius.  The
services of so many able men no doubt give you a greater variety
both of matter and manner of treatment than any one man could
afford, unless indeed he were a quite extraordinary person. But still,
in your public preaching, you have no man who feels such a personal
interest and responsibility towards you as would lead him to study carefully the signs of the times and the various significant events which
continually happen, and report them in sermons for your instruction.
In your private life, chequered all over with hopes and fears, joys and
sorrows-gladdened by the new-born soul, or made sad by some loved
one's departure-you have no one to perform  that familiar domestic
duty which is yet a large and highly important part of the minister's
function.  I need not say how often my heart yearns towards such of
you as have been in recent affliction, or has bounded to share your new
or accustomed joys.
Of late, two New England men, of extraordinary talents and conspicuous position-which each climbed up to from the humble place
they were born in-have passed off from this mortal scene, the public
taking suggestive notice of the fact; and I lamented that you had no
minister who should feel it his duty to show you and the nation the
comparative value of those two lives, so opposite and hostile in their
chief characteristics, and. so differently regarded by the controlling men
of your town-the great unscrupulous advocate, whose chief aim was
by any means to win his client's cause, and the great self-denying philanthropist, whose life was bravely devoted to the highest interests of
his nation and his race, and finally given up with such characteristic
ending as a sacrifice thereto.  Besides, another man has lately gone to
his reward from the scene of his philanthropic works in Boston, who
spent his life for the criminal, the drunkard, and the harlot.  His function was to cleanse the unclean, to save such as were ready to perish,
and to love the unlovely; thus making the highest words of Jesus of
Nazareth his daily profession of Christianity.  Though he held no
public office, sat on no platform of honor in public meetings, nor ever
shared a civic feast, he yet did more service, I think, to Boston than
all her mayors for thirty years. Now, the able and conscientious men
who only speak to you from  Sunday to Sunday, will not be likely to
prepare laboriously for you a special sermon on Rufus Choate, or
Horace Mann, or John Augustus, or any public event, even of the
greatest importance; while any large-minded and generous-hearted.
man who was your regular minister would feel impelled to use them,
and every signal event of the times, for the furtherance of your highest
interests. I cannot bear to think I stand between you and a service I
may never be able to perform again.




352             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
It is not easy nor pleasant to undo even the official ties which now
join you and me, so closely knit and holding us so fast and pleasantly
together when we have walked in steep and slippery places; but now I
feel it were better, for I am only a weight which hinders your upward
march.  I trust you will soon find some man who will fill my place, not
only in your pulpit, but also-perhaps the more difficult task-in your
homes and your hearts.
Do not fear that I shall ever be idle; if I recover but partially, I
have yet enough to do in which we can still, perhaps, work together as
heartily as before, though without any official connection. I know
you will not think I shall ever lose the gratitude and affection I have
so long felt towards you. For we have wept and prayed together, have
been joyful with each other, jointly sharing the deep feelings and lofty
ideas of absolute religion, and attending also to its works; and the
memory of this will never fade out from your consciousness or mine.
Let us be thankful to the dear God for all the good the past has brought
us. And now, for the future, also, may ours be the absolute trust in
that Infinite Perfection which is Father and Mother to us all-the
faith that prevails, the hope that endures, and the love which never fails.
So hopes and prays
Your friend,
THEODORE PARKER.
When this letter arrived in Boston, and after it was read to
the meeting, addresses were made by  Messrs. Hope, Dudley,
Sparrell, and Leighton, against accepting the proffered resignation, and the following resolutions passed without a dissenting
voice:Resolved, That, while we rejoice in the improved health of our
minister, and the prospect of his being ultimately restored to his
former vigor and usefulness, we sincerely regret that he should deem
it best at this time to sever his official connection with us as minister
of this society.
Resolved, That, in view of his past services in our behalf, and his
success in building up this free Church in the face of obstacles, which
have been neither few nor small, we desire that his name shall still be
connected with it, and that we may still call him our minister-conscious that such a connection will be for our good, though we miss the
guidance of his counsel and the daily blessing of his presence.
Resolved, That we respectfully and affectionately decline to accept
his resignation, and that our refusal be accompanied with the assurance
of our continued gratitude and veneration.
TO  IMR. MAN LEY.
Sept. 13, 1859.
Within you will find a communication which, perhaps, I ought to
have made months ago. nay, in my long letter of April 19; but I
could not quite do it then.  It is the three events referred to in the




THEODORE PARKER.                           5 3
letter which give the special occasion for what must one day come. I
need not say what pain it gives me to undo even the formal tie which
has held us so long, but I shall sleep better now it is done. The
condition of my lungs and throat I look upon as a divine command to
stop preaching, as much as if —as our fathers used to fancy such things
-a voice had spoken out of the clear sky, "Thus far, 0 Theodore,
but no further."  I doubt not that it is for the best good of all that it
so turns out, and accept it as other similar disappointments for the
present, not joyous but grievous-yet destined to work out a far more
exceeding, even an eternal weight of Glory. Let us not murmur, but
turn,
"To-morrow, to fresh fields and pastures new."
I am still a member of the Twenty-eighth, and nobody will miss me
from the pulpit so much as I, myself! To me it has been not only my
pride and my delight-my joy and my throlne-as George Herbert
would have it, but also my educction, intellectual, moral, affectional,
and religious.  I must find something else now, " Before I quite
forsake my clay." But I have work enough to do for all the time God
spares me, and new work will, no doubt, come to tempt me as before.
Besides, I still keep a place in your hearts, and shall, I hope, often
look into your homes again.
TO REV. J. T. SARGENT.
Montreux, Sept. 18, 1859.
It is Sunday to-day, and my thought turns homeward with even a
stronger flight than on other days of the week, so I shall write a little
to one of my dear old friends —" a friend, indeed," also a brother in
the same ministry. It is the day when the services at the Music Hall
are to begin again, I believe, and James F. Clarke is to stand where I
shall stand no more, for I sent my letter of resignation some days ago,
as duty and necessity compelled.  But my affections will always go
with the dear old friends, and on Sundays, when the Music Hall is
open, I always come as a silent and unseen minister to look on the
congregation, and have "sweet communion together," though we no
longer " walk to the house of God in company."  It is a tender bond
which gets knit by years of spiritual communion-I think, not to be
broken in this life.  Sunday here, you know, is quite different from
what it is in New England, devoted more to gaiety, and to social
festivity of a harmless character. But to-day is the annual Fast all
over Switzerland, and the land is as still as with us in the most quiet
town in New England.  I like these Swiss people; they are industrious,
thrifty, economical to an extraordinary degree, intelligent and happy.
I sometimes think them  the happiest people in Europe-perhaps,
happier than we in Massachusetts, for they are not so devoured by
either a pecuniary or a political ambition.
What a condition we Unitarians are in just now! They put Hunt.
ingdon in the place of Dr. Henry Ware, and he turns out to be
orthodox, and, as I understand, won't go into the Unitarian pulpit at
Brookline, New York, but officiates in the great orthodox Plymouth
VOL. II.                                             A A




354              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
Church hard by. Then Brother Bellows comes out with his "Broad (?)
Church," and, while talking of the " Suspense of Faith," represents
the little sect in no very pleasing light. Meantime, the Examinercertainly the ablest journal in America-reports to the denomination
the most revolutionary theologic opinions, and that, too, with manifest
approbation thereof-witness the half-dozen articles within as many
years, by Frothingham, Jun., some of Alger's, that of " Scherb on the
Devil," and three on India, China, and Asiatic religions, by an orthodox
missionary, now living in Middletown, Connecticut-a noble fellow,
too. What is to become of us?  To me it is pretty clear the progressive party will continue to go ahead in a circuitous course, for progress
is never in a straight line; the regressive party will go back, describing
a line with analogous curves.
It is beautiful to see the gradual development of religion in the
world, especially among such a people as our own, where the government puts no yoke on men's shoulders. Little by little, men shake
off the old traditionary fetters, get rid of their false ideas of man and
and God, and come to clear, beautiful forms of religion.  Nowhere in
the world is this progress so rapid as in America, because in our
Northern States the whole mass of the people is educated, and capable
of appreciating the best thoughts of the highest minds.  Of course,
foolish things will be done and foolish words spoken, but on the whole,
the good work goes on-not slowly, but surely. I am glad the Catholics
have the same rights as the Protestants; if they had not, I should
contend for the Catholics as I now do for the negroes.  But, I think,
after slavery, Catholicism is the most dangerous institution in America,
and deplore the growth of its churches.  I know the power of an
embodied class of men, with unity of sentiment, unity of idea, and
unity of aim, and when the aim, the idea, and the sentiment are what
we see and know, and the men are governed by such rulers, I think
there is danger.  Still, it is to be met, not by bigotry and persecution,
but by wisdom and philanthropy.  I don't believe Catholicism  thrives
very well ever in a republic, but it loves the soil a despot sticks his
bayonet into. Since Louis Napoleon has been on the throne of France
the worst class of Catholic priests have come more and more into
power.  That miserable order, the Capucins, has been revived, and
spreads rapidly; more that three hundred new convents have been
established  since  the couap d'etat; they are filled with more than
thirty thousand devotees already! But, in liberally governed Switzerland, Catholicism does not increase, but falls back little by little.  No
Jesuits are allowed to act in the land. In a few generations we shall
overcome  the  ignorance, stupidity, and  superstition of the Irish
Catholics in America, at least, in the North; but before that is done, we
shall have a deal of trouble. Soon Boston will be a Catholic city, if
the custom  continues of business men living in the country; and we
know what use a few demagogues can make of the Catholic voters. It
only requires another capitalist to offer the bishop one thousand five
hundred dollars if he will tell his subjects to vote against a special
person or a special measure. All the Catholics may be expected to be
on the side of slavery, fillibustering, and intemperance-I mean all in
a body-their Romanism  will lead theni  to support slavery, their




THEODORE PARKER.                        35 5
Irishism  to encourage fillibustering and drunkenness.  But good
comes out of evil.  I think the Irish Catholics, with their descendants,
could not so soon be emancipated in any country as in our dear blessed
land.  So we need not complain, but only fall to, and do our dutyclean, educate, and emancipate " the gintleman from Carrrk " 
I wonder how it goes on with the poor, and how the Provident
Association does its beneficent work?  Well and wisely, I hope.  I
am not quite sorry the Reform School at Westborough is burnt down.
The immediate loss to the State is a great one, but the ultimate loss
would have been far more, for it was a school for crime, and must
graduate villains.  I wonder men don't see that they can never safely
depart from  the natural order which God has appointed.  Boys are
born inffamilies; they grow up in families; a few in each household,
mixed with girls and with their elders. How unnatural to put five
hundred or six hundred boys into one great barn, and keep them there
till one-and-twenty, then to expect they would turn out well, and become
natural men, after such an unnatural treatment! At the beginning,
Dr. Howe, really one of the most enlightened philanthropists I ever
met in America or Europe, proposed a central bureau, with a house of
temporary deposit for bad boys, and that an agent should place them in
families throughout the country. A quarter of the money thus spent
would have done a deal of good.
I wonder if you have ever been up to the Industrial School for Girls,
at Lancaster.  To me that is one of the most interesting institutions
in the good old State, and I should, like to know how it works.  If I
were governor of Massachusetts, I think I should not often dine with
the " Lancers," or the " Tigers," or the " Ancient and Honorable Artillery," but I should know exactly the condition of every jail and house of
correction in the state, and of all the institutions for preventing crime
and ignorance.  If Horace Mann had been governor, I think he would
have done so. But he lost his election through the jealousy of his
rivals in the Republican party, I think, and so went out of the State to
do good work in another, and die there, killed by excessive toil.
Yesterday I suppose Mr. Everett glorified the Webster statue in the
State House.  What a pity to put it there! The United States Court
Room was the proper place for it, where it might be forever.  Now the
people will pitch it off its base, and turn it out of the yard one day, to
give room, perhaps, for Samuel Adams and John Hancock.
Here, in Europe, my life is dull, and would be intolerable, if it was
not introductory to renewed work on earth, or else to another existence
in heaven. Here I am necessarily idle, or busy with trifles which seem
only a strenuous idleness. Such is the state of my voice that I am constrained to silence, and so fail to profit by the admirable opportunity of
intercourse with French, German, and Russian people, who now fill
up the house.  I do not complain at all of this; but think myself fortunate to be free from pain always, and now also mending.
Remember me to Barnard when you see him.  He is doing one of
the great Christian works of our time.  I never think of it without
delight and admiration.  Now, dear Sargent, with many thanks for
your past friendship, which is still fresh, believe me
Faithfully and truly yours, T. P.
AA 2




356              LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
TO MR. W. L. GARRISON.
Montreux, Vaud, Suisso, Sept. 20, 1859.
MY DEAR MR. GARRISON,-This is the day when the Crown Prince
of Russia, heir-apparent to the throne, becomes of age; and his father
has wisely chosen this as the day of freedom for the serfs of his vast
empire.  It is pleasant for an emperor to have the day of his majority
that also of the liberation of 22,000,000 of his subjects.  It is proper
I should write to You on this day, who have imperishably connected
your name with the cause of freedom in America-a freedom, however,
yet to be accomplished for 4,000,000 of our fellow-citizens. So far as
I can find out, the emperor was not moved to this great act of enfranchisement either by a moral sentiment of justice and philanthropy, or
by an intellectual idea, whose development required such a noble act.
But 1, he wished to diminish the power of his nobles, who own all
the serfs, and form an aristocracy often hostile to him, and always dangerous; 2, he feared an insurrection of the serfs themselves, who often
rise against their owner, burn his houses and butcher his family, and
may at any time cause him  a great deal of trouble; 3, he wished to
increase the revenue, and had the sense to see that a population of free,
industrious men is more profitable in the tax-paying line than a horde
of slaves.  However, the work is far from being done; only a beginning is made as yet.  The affair is one of great complication and difficulty.  Many of the nobles oppose it, and throw obstacles in the way.
Then there are questions of finance, questions of military recruits,
questions of mortgage, and questions of pauperism  to be settled.
Commissioners have been appointed to examine the matter, report the
facts, and tell the means for overcoming the difficulties. Some of these
Commissioners have already reported; but it will be five or ten years,
perhaps twenty, before the business is fully accomplished. So hard a
work is it to overcome the wickedness of long centuries.  But what
helps the matter greatly is this: the master and slave are of the same
race and nation, so, when a man is free the stigma is wiped off from
him and his children for ever; while with us, alas! the Ethiopian does
not change his skin, and hatred of the negro race continues and applies
to the free as to the bond; the distinction is ineffaceable.  So the
American problem  of liberation is vastly more difficult than the Russian; for when the legal chain is broke, the work of real emancipation
— whidh is elevation to self-respect, to free individuality of soul and
body-is only begun.  In St. Croix the brute part of emancipation is
accomplished-that is all.  It is a great deal; the indispensable first
step to all the rest.  But it will take three or four generations, I fear,
to do the spiritual part of that great work, even there.
It is painful to see how unwillingly the oppressor parts with his power
to harm.  In Russia-I mean certain parts of the empire in specialdrunkenness has been the great curse of the common people; it is so
in all northern lands, where the grape does not furnish a moderate
stimulant.  Some benevolent people got up temperance societies, as
with us, and the vice was checked.  But the liquor consumed was
whisky, made out of potatoes, or out of grain raised by the great




THEODORE PARKER.                          357
landed proprietors, who found a market close at hand in the distilleries,
or often owned the distilleries themselves.  These proprietors found
their profits destroyed by the decrease of drunkenness.  So they petition the emperor to put down the temperance societies. They tell him
1, the royal revenue will be impaired, for if men don't drink whisky,
they won't have to pay the excise tax on it; and, 2, they themselves
will be injured by not finding a market for the only produce of their
lands! Such is the true spirit of an oligarchy-the spirit of nobles!
I don't find the people-I mean the great mass of men in the common
walks of life-doing such things.  A few years ago, in a large district
in Sweden, the farmers-who owned the land they tilled with their own
hands-went and pulled down the distilleries which were turning potatoes and rye into all manner of mischief; others petitioned the government to make a law to enforce temperance.  The spirit of oligarchy is
the spirit of a clique; that of the people, in large multitudes, is a little
different; and as you would trust your property, liberty, life to a jury of
twelve common men, with their natural instinct of justice and humanity,
rather than to a single judge, however well cultivated, so it is to the
great mass of mankind, the universal jury, we must appeal for help
in all great works.  It was the British people, not the House of Lords
or the Church, that set free 800,000 negroes in the West Indies.
I find by the Invalide Russe, the great Russian newspaper, that some
of the nobles think their order must fall with the emancipation of the
serfs, and say " If there are no serfs in Russia, then there can be no
nobles! "  You would think it was our Southern masters at home who
were talking. But here nobody pretends the serfs are of an inferior
race, that cannot be civilized, &c. I hope hereafter the Anti-Slavery
Society will do honour to the 20th September, 1859, which inaugurated
the emancipation of 22,000,000 men.  I wish it effected it; but thank
God for the beginning.
I see by the European and American papers that the African slave
trade is in full career, and some say that 15,000 were imported in
the last twelve months.  I make no doubt that is a little exaggerated;
but the fact seems certain that the slave trade is re-opened.  The next
step is to legalize the trade.  That may be done by the Supreme Court
of the United States any day, when a case is brought before it; or, as
in the Dred Scott decision, when the matter is non coran judice, let the
judge see fit to volunteer an opinion; or it might be done by the Congress.  The Supreme Court is now ready, and perhaps has sent word
to the slaveholders of the South that " Barkis is willin'."  So I shall
not be surprised if the Court thus decides this winter; still less shall I
be sorry; for the sooner the Court runs its bill into the ground the
better.  We must destroy that Unclean Beast; but it must do more
mischief before the people will undertake to get rid of the unclean
creature.  Congress will not consent to the African slave trade, even if
the Supreme Court take the initiative, and by judge-law attempt to control the legislation of the people. The restoration of the African slave
trade will turn out a stronger anti-slavery measure than any of the
great acts of the slave power since the 7th of March, 1850. A good
many politicians, North and South, will be laid out stiff and cold, and
stark dead, on that (demlocraticl plank.  Let them  be borne to their




358              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
political burial, and may their last end be like that of John Tyler, who
went down into the Old Dominion alone, and has never been since
heard from  until this day.  The slave-breeding States must needs
oppose the African slave trade, as New England and Pennsylvania
oppose free importation of cloth, hardware, iron, and coal. It is the
business of Massachusetts to manufacture cloth, shoes, &c.; she has the
apparatus for that work. So Virginia breeds slaves; but if they can
be freely imported, her occupation is gone.  So she will be hostile to
this wickedness.  The wheels of humanity, bearing the ark of the
world's welfare, often run in deep ruts that are foul with mire.
I have no news to write you from  this little place, where only one
newspaper comes every day to our house, while you sit in the whispering gallery of the world at Boston, and learn things almost before they
take place, I suppose, as you read so many journals.  Here, of course,
the talk is about Italian affairs, and as they seem to depend on the
caprice of Louis Napoleon, all the world is anxious to know what he
thinks and says about them.  Hence the most contradictory rumors
get abroad.  Spite of the the tyranny of Napoleon-which is directed
by the " spirits," so the devotees thereunto declare-France seems
quite prosperous in a material way: she is richer than ever before,
and rapidly increasing in riches.  The mass of the people there seem
to care little to increase their liberty.  There was no popular demand
for the freedom of the press; not even for so much as the emperor
seems just now disposed to grant.  It is a curious fact that while
the French have so much military courage, they have so little civil
or political courage. Indeed, they are a people difficult to comprehend.
Believe me, faithfully and truly yours,
THEODORE PARKRR.
TO MR. C. M, ELLIS.
Montreux, Sept. 22, 1859.
MY DEAR CHAULES,-Your welcome letter of 22nd ult. came here
the 9th inst.  Many thanks for it.  I was glad to hear directly from
your family, and learn that they are well.  There has never been a day
since I left home that I have not thought of your father and his dear
ones. He is one of my oldest friends-none ever had one more friendly
and loving.  His is the last house I was ever in at home, except my
own. I made my last call on him.  It was your father who procured
for me the invitation to settle at West Roxbury; it was he who induced
others (with himself) to ask me to deliver five lectures in Boston in the
autumn of 1841; he who finally led me to come to Boston and preach
at the Melodeon, and he who has been a friend in need at every turn
-thoughtful as a father, kind as a mother. I have not often been
taxed with ingratitude.  I shall never forget such kindness as his, so
long continued and so uniform. Your father's house has been one of
my homes at West Roxbury.  When I first went there, it was the only
place I ever ventured to take tea at without a formal invitation.  You
know how continual my visits have been there of late years. When




THEODORE PARKER.                          359
the Curtises got me indicted by their packed jury for the "misdemeanor " of a speech, in Fanueil Hall, against kidnapping my own
parishioner, and not a newspaper in Boston-the sneaky things! —dared
speak out against such abominations, it gave me pleasure to secure the
services of your father's son for my defence, and most handsomely were
those services rendered and effectually, yet before a Court singularly
mean, even in its decision, that the indictment was a bad one.
How are the ecclesiastical affairs of New  England just now?  In
Ireland an attempt is made to get up a revival; it succeeds as in
America-i. e., men, and still more, women are brought into the state
of hysteria, and conduct themselves accordingly.  But the newspapers
of high standing oppose it.  In America, even the New York Tribune
did not dare do so, still less Tizers and Coburiers.  But here, either the
conductors of the press are men of more character than with us, and
so, on their own account, dare oppose public opinion when it is wrong;
or else in the more numerous classes of society there is a greater
variety of opinion, and so the editor feels safe in developing his own
individuality.  Certainly the London Times, though as unscrupulous as
the New York Hlerald, or lfew York Observer even, is yet as individual
as the House of Commons itself.  In England, there is an enormous
body of rude men, almost wholly uneducated, superstitious and gross
in their passions and manners, who, for generations to come, must be
the food of revivalists and hell-fire preachers, like Spurgeon.  In a
certain state of society a revival is as natural as the plague or the
cholera in a certain state of the air in a close-pent town. But as Europe
has out-grown the plague-which once made fiightful havoc in London-so one day will she and America get rid of the revival, which
still commits such outrages in New York and Boston.
I wonder how the Unitarian Autumnal Convention comes on, and
what they discuss, and how they do it.  No sect had ever a finer
opportunity to advance the religious development of a people. But they
let it slide, and now they must slide with it.  In 1838, the Unitarians
were the controlling party of Boston; the railroads were just getting
opened, and it was plain the population, the Protestant population, of
the town would soon double.  Young men, with no fortune but their
character, would come in from the country and settle and grow rich;
the Unitarians ought to have welcomed such to their churches; have
provided helps for them, and secured them  to the Unitarian fold.
Common policy would suggest that course-not less than a refined
humanity.  But they did no such thing; they loved pecuLnia pecuniata
not pecunia peczuiants.  They were aristocratic and exclusive in their
tastes, not democratic and inclusive.  So they shoved off those young
country fellows, and now rejoice in their very respectable but very little
congregations. The South of Boston is not in the Unitarian churches;
a church of old men goes to its grave: one of young men goes to its
work. The Unitarian ministers are old, not in years, but in feebleness.
They graduate old-not in wisdom, but in lack of hope, in distrust of
men, in fear; their School of the Prophets is an institution for the
senilification of youth.
Besides, they neglected their theological duty, which clearly was to




360              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
lead further on the progress of religious thought.  The sect looks now
like an old-fashioned Puritan meeting-house, with its tall, handsome,
aspiring steeple blown off, and a little dirty thimble-shaped cupola, ten
feet high, put in its place.  The progressive spirit of the age, and the
high philanthropy of the age, have gone elsewhere.
The great destinies of humanity are not confided to the hands of a
single sect.  Theological progress in America goes without leaders;
its movement is democratic of the people, not oligarchic of a few
scholars. The most advanced ideas are not urged in the rich and welleducated congregations, where the pews are costly, and the hands are
white; it is in the great (or little) congregations of most young men
and women that you must look for the instinct of progress, and the
power which one day will build new churches, and fill them with pious
emotion, which also will turn into great moral life.  So the stone that
the (anointed) builders rejected, becomes the head of the corner! So
was it, so is it, so will it ever be. The great burthens of the Lord are
laid on shoulders which seem quite inadequate for the work. Yet the
shoulders bear up the ark, and carry it over many a red desert, and over
many a Jordan all swollen with the drainage of mountains.
Remember me kindly to your wife and all the children, to your sisters
also, and their dear ones, and, above all, to your father and mother, to
whom  I owe so much of both gratitude and love.  Remember me
kindly to John A. Andrew, a right noble man, whom I hope to see
Chief Justice of Massachusetts one day. He has the instinct of justice in the heroic degree, and that in a judge is worth more than the
capacious understanding of      or —.
Now accept my own best wishes for yourself, and believe me, faithfully yours.
FROM THE JOURNAL.
Sept. S5, 1859.-Sunday is always rather a sober day with me, for I
think of those few sheep in the wilderness of Boston, who are probably
getting scattered because they have no shepherd. Especially is the
hour of their service a sad one-not exactly sad, but anxious, and I
must give up the observance of it, I feel much like the mother whom
the German legends tell of, that died in child-bed, and for nine weeks,
every night, left her grave and came to the cradle side of the baby and
wept.  There is a tender little poem  on that theme.  I put it into
English once. I leave my grave and weep at the hour of Sunday service of the Twenty-eighth.  Yet I shall see them no more.  The presage of the New Year's sermon turns out correct: " It is the last time,
O Parkie!"
Here are some verses of Mr. Parker's unfinished  translation
of the German poem:When a wife in child-bed dies,
She is restless in the tomb,
And from slumber will arise,
Through weeping for her home.




THEODORE PARKER.                         ^ (
At the hour of midnight dead,
From her coffin, love-beguiled,
Seeks with still and gentle tread
The cradle of her child.
Looks therein with faithful eye,
Listens to its baby-breath;
Smoothes the covering tenderly
With hand now cold in death.
Seeing it will nothing need,
Frees the mother from her weilght,
And she flies away with speed
Through the churchyard gate.
TO THE REV. A. A. LIVERMORE.
Montreux, Sept. 26, 1859.
Mvr DEAR LilVERMORE, —I wonder how the world of American theology goes on: now and then I hear a little from it, never much.
Some one sent me Mr. Bellows' Sermon in the Tribune on the Suspense of Faith; but it had so many words in it-great long ones, toothat I could not make much else out of the thing.  Yet B. is a good
fellow.
How our theological culture (or often only show of culture) stultifies
the man! Look at the Catholic devotees in Europe, and then at the
various Protestant ones.  My preaching days are all ended now. Even
if I live some years it must be with my mouth shut. It is now commonly painful to talk with my friends in the usual low tone of voice.
Public speaking is for ever out of the question. I wonder if you have seen
my letter to the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society. It makes a little
volume, I asked the publisher to send you a copy.  Of course it contains much you never can like, perhaps not even tolerate; but it holds
the chief doctrines I have come to; and I came to them honestly and
with sore toil, often.  I never found fault with men for faithfully
adhering to their opinions, however diverse from mine; never doubted
that deepest piety and noblest morality exist in men who hold such
doctrines in utter abhorrence.  I have known Catholics and Jews
deeply religious in the highest sense of the word, not to speak of all
manner of Protestant sects.  I say to all:"Si quid novisti rectius istis,
Candidus imperte;
Si non his utere mecum."
I have had to fight a battle, Livermore, and a terrible one, too; and I
often stood (almost) alone.  Of course I aimed so as to hit, and drew
the bow so the arrows might go clear through, and leave a clean hole
whence they passed; for it was no holiday with me, and I did not play




862            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
a child's game. But I have shot no shaft in self-defence, till compelled to
do it in the United States' Court; and have had no personal quarrel with
man or maid. I opposed doctrines which I deemed false, and measures
I thought injurious; when public persons did wicked things-kidnapped
my parishioners-e.g, I called them by name and exposed their wicked
works.  Nine-tenths of my preaching has been positive; building up,
not pulling down, except by implication.  I have broken up wild land
and ploughed also anew the old, which was foul with weeds.  No doubt
I have sometimes crushed down a tender, useful herb; but whenever I
saw such before the coulter, I lifted my plough out of the ground and
spared a whole square yard of baneful weeds for the one sweet flower
they girt about with their poison; nay, after the share had passed, I felt
the furrow with.my hands, to reserve some little herb of grace which
might have been turned over in the general stirring of the ground. No
man in America since Adams and Jefferson has been so abused in
public and private. But I confess to you, Livermore, I have never felt
a resentful feeling against anyone which lasted from  sundown till
sunrise, except in two cases —atrocious cases they were, too. For a
year I felt emotions I did not like towards one man; he took pains to
insult me whenever we met, so I avoided him. But during that time I
never spoke an ill word of him. At length I saw him in the street one
day, went over and took his cold, unwilling hand, and asked tenderly
after his little ones. At length he caved in; and though he has since
changed neither character nor conduct, I feel different towards him, and
free to criticise his acts. The other man did not trouble me a month.
This letter is too egotistic to be shown to anyone; but you and I
were young together once, and so I take the liberty of an old friend
with you.  I don't wish others to see what I have writ. Many thanks
for your kind letter last winter, and your two friendly visits to me at
New York, and kindly words of farewell.  Love to your wife and from
mine.
Yours faithfully,
T. P.
FROM  THE PROGRESSIVE FRIENDS.
To. our well-beloved Friend and Fellow-Laborer in the cause of Truth
and  Righteousness, Theodore  Parker, the Pennsylvania Yearly
Meeting of Progressive Friends sendeth greeting.
As we are about to close our Seventh Annual Convocation, our hearts
turn with loving tenderness to thee.  We remember with gratitude how
thy presence cheered us in former years, and how the words of truth
that fell from thy lips were as sunlight and dew upon our hearts, enlightening our minds and quickening us to more earnest labor in the
cause of humanity. We cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of sending
to thee across the ocean a message of sympathy and affection; of heartfelt regret for the illness which has compelled thee to suspend thy
public labors, and of hope for thy speedy and complete recovery.
The earnest prayer of our hearts is, that the voice which has so




THEODORE PARKER.                         363
often blessed us may not be long silent, but be again lifted up with
new power in behalf of truth and righteousness.
Signed by direction and on behalf of the Meeting, 1st of sixth
month, 1859.
JOSEPH A. DUGDALE, 
ELIZABETH JACKSON,   Clerics.
OLIVER JOHNSON, 
MR. PARKER'S REPLY.
Montreux, Switzerland, 25th of ninth month, 1859.
To THE PROGRESSIVE FRIENDS IN PENNSYLVANIA-DEAR FRIENDS,Your kindly letter of the first of sixth month, signed by your clerks,
Joseph A. Dugdale, Elizabeth Jackson, and Oliver Johnson-persons
well known and highly esteemed-reached me but yesterday, for it was
long delayed in Paris.  Let me now, from a full heart. thank you for
your generous expression of such sympathy and regard.  In these
times, when a difference of theological opinions so often hinders all
feeling of human brotherhood, your words come to me full of sweetness and encouragement.  How pleasant it is to find religion without
bigotry; devotion to God with no hatred of his children!
Once I intended and promised to speak also to each of the other
congregations of Progressive Friends; but now I think you will never
again hear my voice in your yearly meetings; for even if I somewhat
recover my health, it seems I must hereafter address men only with
the pen, and no longer also with the living word. Yet I trust I shall
never fail, with what powers I have, to help forward the cause of truth
and righteousness, so dear to you all.
I kept sacred the anniversary of your last meeting with devout gratitude for the opportunity I twice had of preaching before you what to
me is far more dear than this earthly, mortal life, for the friendly reception my words found amongst you, and the cheering talk I had with
many of you in private. The faces of the men and women I value so
much came up before me and peopled the solitude of the ocean.  I
was, when sailing through, comparing their human loveliness with the
else mere material beauty of the sea.  This year I could not gather with
you at the yearly meeting; yet was I present in spirit, and joined in
your spoken or silent prayer for the truth which shall make all men
free, and for the love that shall add its most precious blessings to all
human kind.
Long may the spirit of truth and love, the spirit of religion, live i:
your hearts, shedding its gladness and its beauty on your daily lives,
while it keeps your feet in the paths of righteousness, and strengthens
your hands for every duty which God demands of you.  Believe me
faithfully
Your firiend,
THEODORE PARKER.




364              LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE  OF
TO MR. LYMTAN.
Mlontreux, September 26, 1859.
I have not much to write to you, O most excellent Governor, but
must now and then remind you that there is a large province here, in
No. 10, Pension Ketterer, that requires a great deal of ruling, and
which now lies wholly ungoverned and disorderly.  There is no knowing (at Paris) how I behave (at Montreux).  Sometimes I cough, and
there is no governor to tell me, " Here is the chloroform  mixture
which you are TO TAKE  "  And when I propose s            some such thing like
walking up to the auzbere, to say, " It won't do; besides, I have been
there and got the wine: ie voici! "
Baron Von Roenne, you know, is here, and he recommends a certain
medicine for my throat.  I must take a new pen for the name: Struveischerobersalzbrunlnenatificielmineralu'asser.'
I think, if that does not cure my throat, it will lock my jaws.
Apthorp will seek for it at Vevay this blessed afternoon, and perhaps
bring  it home in  the Damljfschleppschtfi'gahrtsgesellschaftgelegenheitswaaen,-, and if so I shall take the zahnbrecherische Materiel * to-morrow
morning in warmen Milch.  The said Struve lives at Dresden, and
brews all sorts of Mineralwasser better than Nature herself produces
them, and cheaper a great deal.  That beats all Natur'!
Fields (Ticknor and Fields) is at Vevay; left Boston in June.  I was
stivering along the road from Montreux, eating grapes, and heard somebody call out, " Can you tell me the way to Boston Meetin' House?"
and, behold! there was Fields, with a great handsome beard (not equal
to the Governor's, though!) and an umbrella.  He had seen in the
New York Times that I was at Montreux, and walked over to see the
crittur.  He is well and happy; his wife with him.  He wants to stay
all winter, but doubts the possibility.
I have a great mind to run down to Paris and see you before you
flit for Boston, but the better part of valor is discretion.  Brandy only
helps the cough for three or four hours at a time, producing no permanent good, I fear.  Begin with February 1st, 1858, and divide the
time into periods of three months up to August 1st; there has been a
continuous though irregular increase of that malady in each period,
except from February 1st, 1859, to May 1st, when perhaps it ebbed,
though it went up again to its former level by May 17th, when I sailed
for England.  This don't look very well for the next nine months, or
for ultimate recovery.  But I steadily gain in weight, and last Saturday
went up to 158 lbs.  I have not weighed so much for twenty-nine
years!  I shall overtake you before long, and the province will be
bigger than the Governor!!!
* If Mr. Parker has the letters right, it means "Struve's chief salt-springs artificial
mineral-water. "
+ Stea.mboat-Express Company's accommodation-coach.
+ Jaw-breaking stuff.




THEODORE PARKER.                         365
FROM  THE JOURNAL.
Sept. 27.-Towards night a little cloud gathers over Villeneuve, as I
look at it from the hill below the Pension and Post-Office.  It is about
twice as high as the steeple top.  Next comes another little cloud, and
so on. They extend in regular strata when the wind does not blow
much.  But there is always a thin space between the strata, in which
there is no cloud.  Sometimes there are seven or eight strata.
Went to Vevay on market day. A large young ox, fit for a wagon,
costs 80 to 100 dollars; hay, 4 francs per 100 livres-say 80 cents for
a cwt.; cheese, 45 to 80 centires [9 to 16 cents] a livre; grapes, 30
centimes [6 cents]; cauliflowers, 1 to 2 francs [19 to 38 cents] a piece;
small cabbages, 15 centimes [8 cents] a piece. Tubs, baskets, &c.,
about a third cheaper than with us. Hardware is cheaper.  Bacon
sides, 40 to 45 centimes a livre.  Potatoes about 60 to 70 centimes a
bushel. Allfruit dearer than with us-at least this year, which is bad
for fruit.  The country people seem honest, virtuous-looking people,
but have not the quick intelligence of Yankees.
He had decided to go to Rome from  Marseilles, but before
setting out upon that journey he went to Mr. Desor's residence at
Neuchatel to spend the vintage season, starting on October 6,
and reaching there the same evening.  Professor Schonbein was
there, and scientific discussions alternated with the wine-making,
and the little note-book gathered up all the facts.
On the 12th he left for Marseilles, by the way of Geneva and
Lyons, and sailed on the 1 7th.  On the 19th he was at Rome,
in the Hotel de 1'Angleterre, and looking  about for winter
lodgings.
TO MISS CAROLINE THAYER.
Montreux, October 2, 1859.
MY DEAR CAROLINE,-It is Sunday, 4 P.M., and while I know not
how many are listening to R. W. E., I sit out of doors on a shawl, with
my back against an English walnut tree (the nuts are all gathered;
they were not many nor good this year), and my feet in the sun, and
write you this.  The (miserable) Italians talk of their dolce far niente.
I find it a piece of wretchedness, which I try to be patient in bearing
and suffering. However, it is not like having the rheumatism at the
same time; and if I must be idle, I thank the Divine Providence that
I need not endure other pains at the same time.
You wished I could have seen the Aurora, did you? So you did,
and sent it in your letter. I can believe you are electrified with not
only wisdom, but wit also. What a dangerous thing this same wit is




366             LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
thought to be! I find some one in the newspaper-I think you sent
me a slip of it-charges me with it. Did you ever hear the like? He
complains that I bring my " unhallowed wit into the pulpit."  As he
speaks only of the unhallowed, I suppose he does not object to the
wit itself after it has been through that process; but he thinks it awful
as it is. Hallowed, &c., is used chiefly in the Bible, and not often
there.  I don't know exactly what it means, but suppose it is something very good-that it improves the thing hallowed, i. e. developes it
after its kind, and so enhances its function. If that be what it means,
then he had better not have my wit at all.  For if he, the said plaintiff, has run with the footmen, and they wearied him, then how will he
contend with HORSES, i. e. with wit mounted on a hallowing.  If the
little stream of my wit, when unhallowed, is too much of a sprinkle for
his ecclesiastical meadow, and himself therein hay-making, then what
will he do in the swelling of a whole Jordan of hallowed wit?
Had a muster at Camp Massachusetts, Concord, did you?  Well, if
I had been Governor of Massachusetts, her Chief Executive Officer,
and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces raised and to be raised, I think
I should not have suffered all that gambling and rowdying, and
think I should have pitched something out of that " barn; " not the
"girls "-I would have sent them  home, if homes the poor creatures
had-but the sordid wretches who brought them there, exploitering the
woman's wretchedness. These I should have pitched into their proper
place.
We have also had a deal of musterino here in Switzerland-camps
in many places; for they  had  their full training  all over the
country last month.  The cars and steamboats were full of the citizen
soldiers.  I never saw finer looking bodies of young men anywhere.
No noise, no rowdyism, no drunkenness; all was decorous and orderly.
Democratic Massachusetts has something yet to learn from  the older
Democracy of Switzerland.
Saint Matilda writes me that Miss (Doctress) Hunt has taken to
preaching, and been "handsomely received in eighteen universities
and meeting-houses in Maine."  I am  glad of it, and hope such a
reception will do her good, and that she will go into the nineteenth
much improved.  I like handsome receptions for all strong-minded
women, and am glad the Universalists have the good sense to see what
is appropriate, and to renounce the doctrine of eternal damnation even
in this world. I hope all women lecturers will hereafter have a handsome reception everywhere.  Do ask Mr. Slack to get the fraternity
to do their possible this winter.
I saw an admlirable piece of poetry from the pen of brave old John
Pierpont, entitled, "Not on the Battle-field." He never wrote, I think,
an unpoetic verse; but I should like to know if, at his age, he has fire
enough yet left to sing such a song as that.
I wish I could have been present at the wedding, and done my
possible to make two lovers happy. But, alas, that also is over, as well
as my preaching days! Give my heartiest congratulations to the young
people, and all the good wishes your auntly feelings will suggest.  Of




THEODORE PARKER.                         367
course you think the child Nattie would reconcile the father to any
thing! That is because he is a boy.  I remember you rejoiced at his
birth.  Lydia says, " Caroline thinks the smallest streamlet of boyhood
is worth more than a whole Dead Sea of girls!"  You know that
nurses always treat boys better than girls; even in that little red
pulpy lump of new-born humanity they recognize their future lord and
master, and so open their treasury and bring out the gold, the frankincense and the myrrh of their instinctive homage!  How true it was
to nature when the Methodist minister in his pulpit told of the noble
deed of some young man who saved a family from drowning, though at
the peril of his own life, and then said, " God be thanked for young
men!" How true it was to nature that several women cried out,
"Amen!  Glory to God! "  " Si natura flurc  expelles tamen ustlqu
recurrit! "
Do tell me how E. A. Crowninshield came to die.  He was doing
well when I left home; riding on horseback, and getting fat. But
why do they sell his books? Such a library should be given to the
city, or the Historical Society.  His books, almost all of them, lie off
my track; they are also costly editions-a rich man's collection more
than a scholar's. Besides, what have I to do with buying more books?
"Thou fool, this night," &c.  I will ask your kindness to look after
only one work; No. 691, a Mexican MS.  I will give ten dollars for it.
He did not give three dollars, buying it at Guild's sale, several years
ago, while some booby was talking to me, and I foolishly listened to
him and not the auctioneer.  It may go for much more, or it may for
much less.  I will give only ten dollars, but don't expect to get it.
Please keep all this secret-to yourself-till the proper time. Many
thanks for sending me the catalogue.  Choate's library must be a fine
one; if well I should pick a deal out of it, but now I shall let it slide.
There is a time for buying books and a time to refrain from buying
books.  The latter is mine.
We shall start for Rome about the 13th or O0th.  If Rome don't
agree with me, I shall pull up stakes and push off for Malta, or some
other place.  But it is hard running away from  death-go where you
will he is there before you.  Rome promises me more than any other
place. In Egypt I should have nothing but the climate and the monuments (I have seen Sphinxes enough already, and don't like the tribe,
though one in stone may be better than those of flesh and blood), and
one cannot live on weather and stone alone.  I have lots of out door
work to do in the fine weather, and reading for the foul. I can't talk
(fortunate I am not a woman, you will say), and silence diminishes my
comfort greatly.  But I can read and write. I shall keep out of galleries and churches.
Tell Wendell Phillips if he bring all malefactors to his anvil, he
must hammer Governor Banks, for assisting in breaking the laws at
Concord.  He says he is "fighting with wild beasts."  He will have
his hands full before he gets through with them; then there are the
tame beasts to deal with!
Yours ever,
T. P.




368              LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
TO ISAAC PARKER, LEXINGTON.
Lyons, Oct. 11, 1859.
The vintage is the most interesting part of the year to the Swiss;
the most joyous also.  The vines were just getting into blossom when
I reached Montreux; so I have seen all the vine process from end to
end.  I think I told you how the plant is trained up to little stakes;
now let me say a word or two on the gathering of the grapes.  When
they are fully ripe, men and women go to that work, each having a
little tub with two handles, which would hold three half-pecks, and a
crooked little knife, with which he cuts off the clusters.  He throws
the grapes into his tub, and when that is full, empties it into a large,
tall tub, called a brante.  A man then takes a long stick, with a punch
at the end, and punches them till most of them are crushed to pieces.
He then empties them (carrying the brate on his back), into a huge
tub in a cellar that will hold thirty or forty hogsheads.  There they
remain twenty-four hours, if white grapes, or five or six cays, if red.
H-ere they ferment a little, and become warm; then a bare-footed man
rolls up his trousers to the knees, gets in, and shovels out the contents, which are carried in tubs to the press.  The press is in the
cellar-is a platform  of timber, six or twelve inches thick, resting on
huge beams.  The old-fashioned presses have posts at the end, and an
enormous beam (thirty by thirty-six inches sometimes) of oak, and a
wooden screw, twelve inches in diameter.*  This is turned with a long
lever, and, to give it the last squeeze, a rope is fastened to the end of
the lever and put round a capstan.  After the grape cheese has been
pressed about twelve hours, they run up the screw and cut the pumice
(called nmac) into long strips, eighteen inches wide and four feet long
(the size of the press), and leave them  a foot apart; then put on the
followers and give it another squeeze for twelve hours more; so it becomes pretty dry.  Then it is taken off and sent to the distiller, who
puts it in water for fourteen or twenty days, till it ferments, and he then
makes a sort of brandy out of it.  The juice of the grape as it runs
from the press is caught in a tub, and then put into enormous casks,
that will hold from twenty-five to a hundred hogsheads; then it ferments; then, next March, it will be drawn off into other casks and left
a few months or a year, when it is put into hogsheads for sale, or
into bottles. There is a great difference in the quality of the wine of
different years.  This year it is uncommonly excellent, and brings 50
per cent. more than the common price.  The whole process, you see, is
a good deal like an old-fashioned way of making cider; not a bit cleaner,
only the grapes are not rotten, as the apples often were (and still are,
no doubt); no straw is needed, and no water is added (!)...So much
for the wine.
The Swiss kitchen-gardens are much like the one you and I have
taken so much pains with, containing cabbages, beets, carrots, parsley,
summer savoy, thyme, sage, hoarhound, white turnips and French
* The new presses have a great iron screw fastened under the press; the nut is turned
with levers; the saw goes through the cheese.




THEODORE PARKER.                         369
turnips, celery, lettuce, onions, several kinds of marigold, sunflowers, pinks, roses, creepers, daffodils, &c.  Parsnips I have not
seen in Europe.  I shall try and get some seeds of vegetables we
don't raise at home.  I send you an ear of the best Indian corn —it
grew 3000 or 4000 feet above the sea, and was ripe by the middle of
September; also some chestnuts-plant them  in some nice place (I
think they will ripen at Lexington); also some stones of red-fleshed
peaches of great size.  Love to yourself and your family from all of
us. Remember me (and L.) to the distant children and grandchildren, also to Bowers Simonds and the other neighbors.  Wife and
Miss S. are well. L. weighs 1461 pounds! I do well in all but the
cough, which continues still. Good-bye. Affectionately your
BROTHER THEODORE.
Love to the Clarkes.
TO HON. CHARLES SUMNER.
Desor's, Neuchttel, Oct. 11, 1859.
Your letter of Sunday, my dear Sumner, came yesterday.  So you
go home. Well, you go to new work and new  honor. My career is
ended.  I have resigned my ministry, and stand unrelated to the
world.  Yours opens afresh, and new work and new triumphs are
before you.  I don't complain of my lot (it gives me never a melancholy minute: the world don't need me-I have done all my possible,
and must henceforth be still or die), and I thank God for you and
yours.  America needs you, never more than now. "Your voice will
in New England create new soldiers."  I think we shall see a triumph
of the Republican party next year-it will be a step to the triumph
of Republican principles one day, but not in 1860, I fear.
Banks seems to let himself slide out of popular favor in Massachusetts; but h he has, in an eminent degree, the qualities which make
an American politician, and will continue in public life for many years,
I take it.
I hope you will take care of your health now you have got it back
again.  I wish you did not return till November, for I fear the excitement which must attend your going back to Boston.  I would not
have your friends kill you.
Some day (perhaps) I shall look over your engravings with you in
Boston, and get the advantage of your criticisms.  At any rate, I
rejoice with you in your treasures of art.  I also have many incunabula,
though but few Elzevirs.
Italy has a world of peril before her; and spite of all the nobleness
shown by the Piedmontese, Tuscans, &c., I have little hope and much
fear for her future.  I think she will dwindle from age to age, and die
out at length; but I am now to see with my own eyes. Don't fear for
me at Rome, for (1) I have been there before, in 1843-4, and know the
place; (2) I am forty-nine years old, and know enough to keep out of
dangers. The excitement will not be excessive. I mean to live out of
doors all the fine weather, to study the geology, botany, architecture,
and antiquities of the place, often making excursions into the ConVOL. II.                                             B B




370              LIFE OF THEODORE PARKER.
torni, for I want to see the people. I shall keep out of galleries,
especially out of catacombs, even out of churches. Yet St. Peter's is
always warm, and safe too. I shall find books for rainy days and
winter nights.  I shall get summer apartments, and be sure of them,
and also of fire. I mean to do lots of Italian reading, though it is
rather thin and poor, I think. In January, Desor, the kind and wise
man, will come to Rome, and we (he and I) shall go to Naples and the
South of Italy for a month.  So I think I have a pretty good programme for the winter. Then, in the spring, we will come north to
South and Central Germany, and go up to Scandinavia, perhaps, and
get home in August or the beginning of September, if I do not leave
my bones somewhere here before that time. Now, good-bye, and God
bless you!
Yours ever,
T. P.




CHAPTER XXVII.
Arrival at Rome-Letters to Joseph Lyman, J. R. Manley, Dr. Howe, Miss Cobbe,
Hon. Gerritt Smith-Journal.
AT Rome, on the 23rd, they took possession of rooms, which he
describes in the next letter, at No. 16, Via delle Quattro Fontane.
He very soon began to explore the topography of Rome and the
contents of the book-stores, and surrounded himself with books
and maps to study the ancient and mediseval history'of the city.
These pursuits were too enticing, the scenes and associations too
absorbing; every monument, church, procession, fEte-day, stimulated his favorite ideas.  He was too eager to make the most of
his wintering in the great city, and his body was taxed too much
for the soul.
TO MR. LYMAN.
Hotel de 1'Angleterre, Rome, October 21, 1859.
Here we are, O Governor, in "the Eternal City," and on the look-out
for winter lodgings.  The first letter must be to you, and I trust it will
reach you in your quiet home.  "Again he bringeth them  to their
desired haven," said a sea-captain,' is one of the most blessed words
in the Bible, Old Testament, or New Testament."  At Marseilles, up
to half-past 7 o'clock P.i. Monday, there was no letter from you, and
none possible till half-past 9 o'clock next day. I found none at Rome,
but others from Boston up to 28th ult. So I suppose you have steamed
off for America. We had a delightful time in the Pausilippe from
Marseilles to Civita Vecchia-weather perfect, sea smooth, ship excellent. We reached Civita Vecchia between 7 and 8 o'clock Wednesday,
and after many little delays at Custom-house, &c., got to the hotel at
Rome about 4 o'clock r.M.; stowed away the ladies as well as we could,
BB  2




3372            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
and A. and myself set off to hunt up apartments.... So far had
I got, O Governor, when something put an end to writing.  It is
now Saturday, Oct. 22nd, and we have found an appartamento at No.
16, Via delle Quattro Fontane, quattro piano-that means fourth story
-120 stairs from the ground; but the four flights are all easy, 30
steps in each, the risers being less the higher you go up. We have
four rooms, all finely furnished with all manner of needful conveniences.
So it seems now at least. We pay 48 scudi (48 dollars, and a little
more) a month for them. The price is high, but I found no rooms
which pleased me so much.  (1.) The situation is lofty, the best in
Rome, with a fine view of the whole city from the various windows, so
the air is good, dry, free from  all damp.  (2.) We have abundance of
sunlight; the street runs a little south of due east and west. The sun
comes into our easftwindows at rising, and into the south windows about
half-past nine o'clock in the shortest days, and stays till it goes down.
So you see we have the sun all the time he is worth looking at. (3.)
The rooms and furniture are of a high grade with respect to neatness
and comfort.  (4.) The A.'s and H.'s are under the same roof with
us, in the third story, so if I should become very sick. there is help
close at hand; and company for my wife at any rate. All the (material)
elements look auspicious.
Considering that I am an invalide miserable (was not that the title
you used to put after my name in the hotel books?) and must have
sunlight at all costs, I think I am not very extravagant.
The weather is rainy, and is likely to continue so for some weeks, I
fancy, for itis the rainy season (Oct. 15 to Nov. 10 or 15), and it has
been a very dry, cold summer and autumn; hence more rain than
usual is looked for. I should be glad to escape the damp, my worst
enemy, but could not.  The rain had begun in Switzerland, and doubtless will continue a month. How can a body run away from the rain
when "it raineth everywhere "?  I hope something from the climate
of Rome, and quite as much from the entertainment it will offer, in a
cheap, healthy, and not exciting fashion. I shall keep out of churches,
and not go into any catacomb, until my friends lay me in one: I am
running away from  an American catacomb, and don't incline to a
Roman. Theatres I shall leave to the rest of mankind, but.shall live
out of doors as much as possible in fine weather; and we keep housed
when it is so wet as to make me cough.  I find one thing cheap in
Rome, viz. Italian books, and especially the binding thereof; but bookbuying is behind me, and I shall only indulge in what is indispensable
for my well-being here this season. No English seem likely to come
here this winter; they seem thoroughly frightened.  But Americans
will be pretty plenty, judging from  rumor. I shall not write many
letters, I fear; partly because I don't like stooping over a desk to
write, and partly for the cost of postage.
So far had I written, O Governor, when again something stopped the
pen; now  it is Tuesday, 25th, and we are fixed in our new home.
And a fine situation it is, on almost the highest ground in Rome, with
the whole city before us; under our feet, a magnificent prospect in each




THEODORE PARKER.                          373
direction. The Pope's Quirinal Palace is close to us; his gardens lie
between.  The Pincian is on the other side, with its fine gardens and
magnificent trees.  Story lives in the Palazzo Barberini, just behind us.
St. Peter's is in full sight.  From the top of the Pincian, a street, wide
and handsome, runs pretty straight to the Porta della Croce and Porta
Maggiore, for it forks so as to reach both; this is called in different
parts Via Sistina, Via Felice, Via delle Quattro Fontane, Via di San
Eusebio, and Via di Croce.  (I believe the Porta Croce does not exist,
or is walled up.)
The rooms are fourteen or fifteen feet high; the windows seven or
eight feet wide, and proportionally high. Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4, are carpeted;
the furniture is goodfor Italy.  Of course, New England comfort and
New England cleanliness are not to be expected. Our dinner is sent us
from a trattoria, and costs one dollar for us all, and leaves us a bit of
cold meat, &c., for breakfast.  We shall have hot water from the landlord, who also attends to the service of the chambers, and make our
own breakfast. All kinds of wine, including Malaga, are abundant, and
not dear. Brandy, and gin, and whiskey, are common in the shops. So
you see I need not go dry (and I don't mean to), We have laid in our
little stock of groceries; the tea you bought in Paris will work after its
kind, and a little you gave me also of the flowers of tea is still left and
fragrant as ever. The A.'s are moving in to-day, one story below us. I
thought it important that we should all be under the same roof; first,
because my wife wants their company in the evening, and they hers;
second, I may get sick and end my days here, in which case it would be
highly important to have such friendly help at hand by night and day.
But don't fear for me. I have no intention of leaving my bones in this
Roman earth, which is twice cursed, politically and ecclesiastically.
I have for years been looking for a certain book by Nieuwendt (a
Dutchman) on the Existence of God, and have often got scent of it.
I wanted to read it before publishing my own sermons (1857) on that
theme. To-day I found it in a stall, and bought it (a large handsome
quarto) for 50 cents! If I were a heathen, I should look on this as an
auspicious omen (quodfeli, faustum fortunatum sit), that I should live to
finish my book.*  If so, I will ask no more; yet, if not, will still give
God thanks for a life singularly rich in blessed experiences and sweet
and long enduring friendships, among which let me number yours as
one of the dearest.  By this time I suppose you are "half-seas over."
Good luck to you!
" Sic te diva potens Cypri,
Sic fratres tIelense, lucida sidera,
Ventorumque regat pater,
Obstrictis aliis preiter Brittanicarum
Navis quwe tibi credituml
Debes Lymanium, finibus Americis,
Reddas incolumem, precor,
Et serves animum dimidium mee.f
What is Paris with its civilization to the Placens uxor?
* On the Development of Religion.
t Hor. Car., Lib. I. 3. Ad Virgilium.




374            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
Please tell Mr. Manley to present my letter of resignation to the
parish; it must be done-sooner the better. Love to you and yours
from me and mine.
TO eMR. MANLEY.
October 25: at night.
All looks quite prosperous and promising just now; I think really
I shall be better off in Rome than in Egypt. Why should I go to
Egyptian darkness, " which might be felt "  That of Boston is thick
enough and palpable; surely you don't want me to go among the
"plagues of Egypt "!  I fear they are worse now than of old, for
the plague of fleas is added to the plague of lice, not to speak of
bakksheesh.  I have seen so many strong-minded women in my life,
that I think I shall let the Sphinx slide. I can do without her. Rome
will not be very exciting, not more so than Newton Corner to me, but
yet instructive.  I can find enough to occupy my mind (and body)
without thinking about myself. I shall be very careful, for I know
that I am on a bad shore, and can only get off by availing myself of
every little flaw of wind. Depend upon it I shall use all the little helps
in my power, as well as the great ones. After all, if it turns out as
we do not wish, it is only another step upward and onward. I should
like to take it at eighty or ninety, but will not find fault if told to
" move on" at fifty or forty-nine and a half even. I mended a great
deal in Switzerland, and left it much better than I went in. Half of
my improvement there I must thank Professor Desor for. I stayed
more than five weeks with him, and got such a bodily vigor from him
as will last me a long time.  I am doing well now, here in Rome,
though the weather has been rainy all the time since we came (19th
inst.); to-day it has cleared up, and looks like fine weather, but I
expect a fortnight of wet. It is the time for rain now.
I hope you will give my letter of resignation to the Twenty-eighth at
once, if you have not already. A sick minister is a curse hanging on to
the necks of his friends.  It will torment me greatly to be in that condition, and retard my recovery. I know the kindness of your manly
heart, and that of many more men, and women too. But let me not
" crowd the mourners." The 1000 dollars already got, I suppose,'" must
go where it is sent "; but I trust the Society will do no more for me in
that way. I live so economically that I need no more in Europe; that
I am  sure of, and when I come home I have enough for reasonable
comfort.  So do let me not hinder the Society I would so gladly help.
Lyman will tell you all about me, dear, good soul that he is. No sister
could be more tender and affectionate. He thinks I ought to resign;
so they all think here. Don't let your love for me blind your just
eyes.
Wednesday Morning, half-past 7. Oct. 26.
I have, my dear Mr. Manley, a little more paper left, and wish to add
a word or two more. The weather seems fixed and settled, thermometer
at seven o'clock, in the shade, 58~. The windows dripped this morning
with congealed moisture. I have felt no such cold since last February




THEODORE PARKER.                         375
except as we came near' the coast of England in May. I don't know
how the first frost will affect my cough, but hope for the best. Enough
about myself. I scattered the copies of my letter (which reached me
at Montreux) among my friends, and hear pleasant tidings from them.
Some of the ministers in Switzerland are not quite so unwilling to pray
for my restoration as poor Mr.  ~  and Mr. Broadchurch.  I think I
told you that Air. Kiichler, a noble fellow, stayed at Desor's, and died of
apoplexy the day he left us. I wrote his wife a consoling letter, and
she wrote back to Desor, how much comfort she found in my sermon
6 Of Immortal Life," which long ago was translated into German. It
gave me great pleasure to find that I could cheer and comfort a widow
in her loneliness in Germany, though I can no longer stand in a pulpit
in Boston. Miy life has been singularly rich in work; few men at
eighty have had so much of the highest kind of delight, and I certainly
do not complain that at fifty I must come down to a lower platform,
and content myself with an inferior kind of happiness.  God be thanked
for the past, and for the present also!
Tell me how Hepworth preached. I hope much good from this brave
young man. What did Mr. Noyes accomplish in his sermon P  I don't
see who is to fill your pulpit, that can also fill the house, except Emerson and Phillips; but doubtless the right person is waiting somewhere.
Certainly you have genius for the office you have held in the Twentyeighth, and without you, it seems as if it must have come to nought
long since. I think it will be more difficult to fill your place than mine.
Remember me kindly to your household, the Sparrells, and all the
Saints.  Please stop at Mrs. Vinton's sometime when you go by, and
remember me to her-also to Mr. Thaxter, the optician, near the Old
South.  Do you ever see Samuel Downer?  I shall write him by-andbye: he is a noble fellow. Now, good-bye and God bless you!
Faithfully yours,
T. P.
The Midsummer Sermon gave me as much pleasure to read as to
preach almost. Really I liked it in print, as I do not often anything of
mine.  Did it sell at all?  There are some errors of the press, that I
will send a list of to Mr. Leighton. Everett's Webster oration.
But what he tells about the red line on Oswald's map shows how foolish
it was in Webster to make such a treaty.  I mentioned the fact in the
last edition of my sermon on Webster (Additional Sermons, &c.), though
I knew it well enough before. Everett adds some important details,
which glorify himself, but damage Webster's reputation as a diplomatist.
TO MR. G. RIPLEY.
Romne, Oc. 29, 1859.
MY DEAR G-OimogB, —Here I am at Rome, once more living in my
"own hired house," that is, in a suite of rooms 120 steps from the
ground-floor, and enjoying the prospect of all Rome. I am in the
ancient Regio Alta Semita on the Esquiline Hill: the Pope's Palace of
the Esquiline is just before me: his gardens come close to my house.




376             LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
St. Peter's, also, is before me in full view, and the Etruscan Hills
beyond it. " Rome was not built in a day."  You would assent to this
if you were to walk about in it, and see how old and how various the
things in it appear to be.  It was a queer place to build a city in: the
soil about it is not fertile in corn, wine, oil, or even figs, and never was;
the flavern Tiberimn  has an ugly trick of overflowing its banks (it does
not fall more than a foot in a mile between Rome and the sea) and
filling up the low swampy tracts beween the hills, and making the
place unhealthy; the water was not good nor abundant; (here and
there was a little spring, like that where Numa consulted the nymph
EEgeria.) The Romans even now know little of the art of making wells.
The place had none of the natural advantages which mark out the situation of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Boston, &c.  It
is a queer place now: 175,000 inhabitants; 4900 priests, and 1900 nuns.
Lots of churches, where the priests are "propitiating God," soli cum
solo, for the people don't come in to see how the work is done. What
a heathenish place it is!  Hardly was it more so in the times of
Augustus Caesar.'The Roman religion is addressed only to the senses,
and must, ere long, go the same road as the Egyptian religion, and its
successors.  Protestantism will in due time follow, it being a little less
absurd than Catholicism. Thus the tree of religion drops its leaves
continually after they have done their work, and itself grows greater
and greater by the help of each one of them.  I wonder ministers
don't see that Christianity is one leaf in this immense tree, and must
fall when its work is done.  But they don't and won't.  But the men
of science and philosophy throughout Europe have utterly broken with
the first principles of what is historically called Christianity, i. e. the
supernatural revelation, the incarnation of God in a virgin's womb,
the atonement, the eternal damnation of mankind (all except a few
miserable creatures), the devilish character of the Deity. These are
the essentials of the "revealed religion" of the Christianity of the
Church, and they will go to their own place.  Nihil saltatim, omne
gradatim is the rule of the world. How slow all things go on  The solidarity of earth and man extends even to their history-the same
enormous periods are necessary in one as the other.
Et quce fuit tibi Romam causa videndi?
you will ask me.  I have my fears of 2Egypt, where the doctors sent
me; it is a dull place; objects of interest few and far between. I have
some pictures of the Pyramids, which, it is said, look very much like
the originals.
Here I am booked for six months-if I live so long-having paid
my board for that time.  I have a deal of work to do, as follows:(1,) to study the geology of Rome; (2,) its flora and fauna; (3,) its
archeology: (4,) its architecture.  I have begun already, though I
have been here but a few days. This work will keep me out of doors
all the pleasant weather, and turn my mind off from myself, one of the
most disagreeable subjects of contemplation. I can't attend much to
the fine arts, painting and sculpture, which require a man to be in
doors, And, by the way, the fine arts do not interest me so much as




THEODORE PARKER.                         377
the coarse arts which feed, clothe, house, and comfort a people.  I
should rather be such a great man as Franklin than a Michael Angelo;
nay, if I had a son, I should rather see him  a great mechanic, who
organized use, like the late George Stephenso n  England, than a
great painter like Rubens, who only copied beauty.  In short, I take
more interest in a cattle-show than in a picture-show, and feel more
sympathy with the Pope's bull than his bullum.  Men talk to me
about the  "absence of art"  in America (you remember the stuff
which Margaret Fuller used to twaddle forth on that theme, and what
transcendental nonsense got delivered from  gawky girls and longhaired young men); I tell them we have cattle-shows, and mechanics'
fairs, and ploughs and harrows, and saw-mills; sowing machines, and
reaping machines; thrashing machines, planing machines, &c. There
is not a saw-mill in Rome; I doubt if there is in the Pontifical States.
All the timber is sawed by hand.  Mr. Topsawyer stands on the
log, Mr. Pitsawyer stands underneath; all the stone they veneer their
houses with, is sawed by hand! At the revival of letters the Italian
people turned to the arts of beauty, the Teutonic people to science and
the arts of use.  What an odds between the Italians in 1450 and the
English! What a different odds to-day!  I love beauty-beauty in
nature, in art, in the dear face of man and woman; but when a nation
runs after beauty to the neglect of use-alas! for that people. The
assembly of Roman cardinals, in full costume, all of those " educated
men," all riding to council in great red coaches, and with their bigcalved servants, is a grand sight; while the Senate of 3Massachusetts,
shoemakers, farmers, storekeepers, lawyers, knowing small Latin and
less Greek, walking through the crooked streets of Boston as they go
to council, has a rough look.  But which has the spirit of legislation?
It is a curious fact in history, that the Germans set up the great
printing presses in Italy in the fifteenth century in all the chief towns;
to-day the best book-store in Rome, even for Italian books, is kept by a
German.  It is he who sells Cardinal Mai's publications, even his
" Codex Vat."  The history of Rome is writ by Gibbon, Niebuhr,
Arnold, Mommsen, not by Italians.  It is a German who tells the
Italians  what language was spoken  here  before " Romulus and
Remus had  been suckled."   Even  the Latin classics, Lucretius,
Ennius, Virgilius, Horatius, Cicero, Quinctilian, must be edited by
Germans, not Italians.  I think no good edition of any Latin author
has been published in Italy for a hundred years.  Livy is best edited
by a German, so is Pliny.  Orelli, who made the famous edition of
Cicero, is a Swiss; though the name sounds Italian, it is not so at all.
Rome is the head-quarters of priests; they have little to do, yet they
don't edit even the fathers of their Latin Church.  Frzuges consumere
nati; they are as useless as a ghost-I wish as harmless.  The best
thing I hear of them  is that they don't keep their unnatural vows!
Yet they are a fine-looking body of men: they alone of all Rome look
clean.
The Italian women are generally handsome.  In America, as in
France, Germany, and Switzerland, the homely women are in the majority, and of course have things their own way; here they are in a
small minority.  The Lord be praised for all his mercies!




378             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
Do you want to know something about the undersigned?  Well, I
can walk four, five, six, or seven hours a-day without fatigue; have a
good appetite, good digestion, good spirits. I weighed yesterday 200
pounds; alas! they were only Roman pounds, and make but 150 by the
New England steelyards.  I have been above that, and am sinking
down a little just now. Running from Death is poor business-he gets
there before you. I may recover and dawdle a few more years on
earth, and finish some of my many books; I may not. Either way I
am content.  Few men have had a life so rich as mine in work and
the results of work; perhaps none will leave it with a more perfect
trust in the infinite perfection of the Cause of all.
Do you know the stories I tell about you, what new myths? I hope
I shall get home to tell them at Brace's, or somewhere else, you being
present! It would astonish you to know what a great man you are!
I trust you attend meeting every Sunday, and listen devoutly to the
iRev. S.  Dr. Pierce said of him, " If he ain't a v-e-r-r-y great
man, he's v-e-r-r-y greatly mistaken."  I trust you believe in him
"and all his works."
Remember me to the virtuous Republicans-both genders of them
-to H-ildreth and Dana-to Brace if you see him, and believe me,
Yours faithfully,
T. P.
TO MR. MAIANLEY.
Rome, St. Guy Fawkes' Day (5th Nov.), 1859.
MY DEAR JOHi  MAINVIEY,-Yesterday I went into the Church of
St. Carlo (Carlo Borronaeo, you know), and saw the Pope, a kindlooking, fat-headed old man. There were some sixty Cardinals (in full
toggery), and lots of Bishops, Archbishops, and Senators in the church.
Eight men toted the old Pope round in the great chair, while he held
up his right hand to bless the people.  Mass was said by some high
functionary, and the Pope sat in a great chair, where many of the dignitaries came up to kiss his hand-he holding it under his robe-so it
was only the old clothes they kissed. I think that would not quite
content a youthful lover. The Pope rode in a splendid state coach,
drawn by six horses (I had the honor of talking with his coachman),
followed by one or two other empty state coaches, to give additional
dignity to His Holiness. Cardinals and others had elegant carriages,
several to one person sometimes-with three footmen to each. Antonelli's coach is a quite plain one. But the significant part of the thing
is this: there were 2000 French soldiers in the street, and a battalion
of Italian horse; and besides, in the church the Pope's Swiss Guard
and about 200 Italian soldiers-all fully armed, with bayonets fixed.
This was to make it safe for " the Father of the People" to come and
bless "his children"! That is a comment on the Roman Question!
I walked about in the street, after I had seen enough of the tomfoolery
in the church, looked at the carriages, talked with the soldiers, &c.;
and then went to other business. Afterwards I saw the whole boodle
of them go off. It really was a grand show. The Roman religion is




THEODORE PARKER.                          379
nothing but a show; the Pope is a puppet, his life a ceremony; only
his taking snuff is real, and he does that " after the worst kind," as the
Yankees say; I mean, to the fullest extent. Get converted to Romanismi at Rome! One must be a fool to think of it.  I should as soon go
over to the worship of " Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis," after looking at the
mummies of Thebes, as accept Romanism after seeing Rome.
I could never quite take in the consciousness of men, who in Berlin
or Boston became Atheists, or thought they became such.  Here, I can
understand the cause, process, and result; and am not at all surprised
to be told there are more Atheists in Rome than in any other city.
Alas! how ungrateful the world is! there is no church here consecrated
to Guy lawkes! It is a great omission.  I fear none of the Roman
girls and boys are reminded of his great services.  You and I know
better:" Don't you remember the Fifth of November 
The gunpowder treason and plot?
For I see no reason, why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!"
So I write you this on his day.  I think his name ought to be added
to the list of worthies whom the (New England) kidnappers address
in their prayers.  " St. Guy Fawkes, pray for us! " would sound well at
the opening of the court, of which (so W. P. says) Ben Hlallett represents the religion!
It is now Thursday, November 10th, and I havejust got your welcome
favor of the 18th-19th, ult., with its three enclosures: thanks for them
all.  I suppose the Twenty-eighth did right in declining my resignation.
If they had been I, they would have resigned as I did, for I feared I
might embarrass them in their action. But let it be as they will, only
they must pay me no more money.  I was always economical and
thrifty, never avaricious; now I live at the world's cost, I am bound
to live as cheap as I can.  I would help if I could.  God forbid that I
should hinder my best friends!  I shall take all possible pains to get
well, and here there is much to help me, and all of life or strength I
have, or hope to have, is at the service of the Twenty-eighth.  I
neither can nor wish to do better than to help them.  I have no ambition but to "help the cause along."
I read J. F. C.'s sermon and paper in the Unitarian Quarterly.   ie
is a dear good soul, and I thank him heartily for all the kind things he
says about me. He cannot get rid of his old theology, nor I of my
new.  But his does not hinder him in any good word or work.
Hepworth is a fine fellow, I have great hope of him   He is strong
and good, with his face set in the right direction. Do not you see
that the Unitarians are making a revolution forwards?  Think of the
character of the Examiner, of our " excellent quarterly journal," as
lFather Briggs used to call it, of the Register; think of Hedge as
President of the Association,...... and J. F. C. as its Secretary,
to manipulate all the churches I Clarke's Christ is not a dead Christ,




380             LIFE AND COGRRESPONDENCE OF
but the actual live one who thunders in Matthew xxv., and has also the
blessed beatitudes. The signs of the Unitarian times are decidedly
hopeful.
A. D. Mayo is a fine fellow. I know him well. His quality is admirable; he wants bulk-that is all.  His metal is nice and fine, and he
is faithful entirely, I think.
How famously the Fraternity goes on. The extracts from R. Leighton's
poem made me think highly of it; he has true poetry in him, and has
proved it before. I am glad the Fraternity will print it.  What a
brilliant affair was WVendell's oration! but too full of detraction.  It
must have been delicious to hear it. What a genius he has for
"fighting with wild beasts "! Sam Johnson's sermon came in the same
Liberator.  Johnson has genius, but not practical sense to make a
leader. He is nice and fine, an admirable scholar, and as unselfish
as it is possible for man to be. But it takes a deal of stuff to make
a great minister.
I took cold on arrival at Itome-who could help it with such a rain?
-had a bad cough, sleepless nights, and other disagreeable symptoms,
and obviously was sliding downhill; now things are mending again, the
cough is abating, appetite good again, and sleep reasonable for a man
who does nothing.  The weather has been fine for two or three days
past; like our best in the beginning of September; to-day they call
it winter, and say there will be few days cooler this winter. At halfpast eight AM., the thermometer was 58~, now, at five P.M., in the wind
where the sun has not shown since twelve, I can't coax it below 670.
For about a fortnight in January, the water freezes in the mountains a
little. Oranges ripen in the open air, and are fit for the table about
January or February; and  even  the aloes (Agave Mexicana) and
palm-trees grow here freely.  You may judge the temperature by the
vegetation.  The air is just now damper than I like, but Dr. Appleton
has been here seven or eightfyears with his wife, a consumptive woman,
you know; and he says Rome is just the place for me! He has just
returned from Naples, and already has kindly done me many favors, and
offers more.  Story came here years ago for the consumption, and
is now alive and hearty, full of kindly offices and noble sculpture. Ail
these, and many more speak well of Rome as a winter residence for a
consumptive man; of course, I don't know how it may turn out, but
have done the best I could in the choice of winter quarters, and shall
do my best in trying to get well.  Please tell Mr. Leighton, I think he
does just right, about the tract and the Christmas story. I meant the
latter should be for 1856, not 1859.  Remember me kindly to the
fraternity, and all the saints. I rejoice in your wife's continued health
and beautiful cheerfulness, which her husband so helps. Miss Cushman, the Westons, Miss Hosmer, and Miss Stebbins, all are here and
all friendly.
Good bye!. P.




THEODORE PARKER.                       S81
Rome, Forefather's Day, 1859.
M1Y DEAR JOHN  MANIEY, —   put the above date at the head of
this letter, but I shall not finish it till Saturday, for we have only one
mail a-week  which connects with  America.   Your envelope of
November 16th did not reach me till December 16th, though Mr.
Jackson's of 22nd November came on the 10th instant: the Traveller
of November 29th, the Atlas and Bee of 28th, came to-day with quite
different reports of Wheelock's sermon at the Music Hall, on the 27th.
Both make it out a brave discourse. How good it is! I enclose a letter
to him which you may read if you have a mind to, and then please
enclose it to him. We all read it with great delight. It is a dear
good country, that New England! and a dear good old place is Boston
too-that nest of kidnappers!
But good old Boston has the habit of thinking things over a second
time, and a third time, and is pretty sure to settle down right at the
last. Think of Rev. Manning and Rev. Neale on the same platform
with Emerson and Phillips, to thank God for John Brown, and raise
money for his family! Why, the spirit of "'76 " has got back to the
Old South! I know, of course, what must have been said by the -'s
and's.
Long before this all the John Brown affair is over; the actors in that
great drama hanged, and their bones buried. But the end is not yet.
What a Session of Congress we are to have; what a presidential
election! I hope that Seward will be the candidate, and the Republicans will not make fools of themselves any longer. But I fear for
their half-way men, who have no principle, and want office instead.
Seward seems to me the ablest statesman in America; and as honest as
any man likely to be nominated.  Certainly, his course as a whole has
been highly honorable to him, consistent, and progressively hostile to
Slavery.  In 1850 he showed there was a law higher than the Fugitive
Slave Bill in the Constitution; and in 1858 declared there was an
" irrepressible conflict " between Freedom and Slavery. His party were
ashamed of both these self-evident truths when he uttered them, and
his enemies mocked (you heard the Curtis-Hallett troop in Fanueil
Hall scoff at the higher law); but the sober thoughtful men of the
North welcomed both of his brave words, and I hope will duly honor
each.
Rome is an ugly old place; the weather for nine or ten weeks beats
anything I ever knew in New England for badness. There are few
foreigners in Rome, only 4000 names on the police books, up to
December 1st, while there were 10,000 last year. In the present
month more have gone away than have come hither. Strangers are
afraid of tumults and revolution. No doubt the people hate Papal
Government badly enough; but I think 10,000 soldiers will keep the
cowardly city quiet.
It is funny to read the speeches of the gentlemen at Cork, sympathizing with His Holiness the Pope.  Of course they have not a word




382            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
of sympathy for the people whom the Pope has sot on these many
centuries. The Irishman is always a Paddy. He loves tyrants in;
Europe; in America is ever on the side of rum, ignorance, and Slavery;
a wretched race of people for us to import and breed from in America.
But in Ireland they send the Pope not a single copper penny of help,
only blarney, which he has enough of at home, poor old chough! One
of the Irish speakers said the Pope " did not need any matar-rial help,
for he had already the intercession of the Saints-all of them-and the
pr-romis made to St. Pater"! Much good may they do him! I should
like to see him scare up a cent on the London Exchange on that
security. The "pr-romis to Pater" would be excellent collateral with
the Rothschilds and the Barings!
The Roman robbers made a false move here, a little while ago; they
began at the wrong end, and robbed Antonelli's brother and one of the
high French functionaries. The consequence was the police waited
upon one of the boss thieves and told him the property must come
back or " there would be the Pope to pay." So the money was restored,
but 300 or 400 miserable creatures have been haled off to prison,
where it is easier to get in than out. There is much distress on
account of the absence of strangers, and the evil falls on cabdrivers, keepers of public-houses, on men who rent apartments (some
of the latter are honest!) and servants in general. One other class
suffers-the beggars; (I never saw an Italian give a baiocco to one of
them) 
I told you, I think, that Miss Cushman was quite kind and attentive
to me and mine; and that Dr. Appleton took me under his special
care, and watches over me very tenderly. The Brownings-poetess and
poet both, and little boy besides-are here. I like them much, and
hope a good deal of pleasure from their society. The Storys I see
often; full of kindness and hospitality, as also of fun and wit. I am
greatly indebted to him and her. Rev. C. T. Thayer and wife are here
for the winter; kind and friendly, both of them, as they always were.
I was much surprised when he walked into my room the other day.
All the Americans that I have seen sympathize with Capt. Brown and
his movement! Of course this would not include the minister Stockton-a [New Jersey Democrat. He gives a dinner-party to-night, but
I don't attend such places, for I am not here to dine out, but to get
well (if I can), as I neglect nothing that looks that way.
T. P.
TO THE MISSES GODDARD.
Rome, Saturday, November 26, 1859.
MY DEAR tEBECcA AND MATILDA,-So the long-suffering mother
went to keep her thanksgiving in the kingdom of heaven! Well, it
was a blessed relief from the pain and torment of the much-enduring
flesh. Strange that a frame so slight should hold out so long in such
a storm! But so it was; and as you say, it was doubtless all right.
So we must trust. It is all over now, the voyage ended, the soul




THEODORE PARKER.                        383
secure in its new harbor. How curious it is! Such are not lost to us,
but gone before!
"The saints on earth and those above
But one communion make;
All join in God, the causal love,
And of His life partake."
Their memory sweetens the earth, while their actual presence is in
their own heaven, unapproached and unapproachable, save to immortal
feet. When I left home I knew too well that I should never see
her again; it was highly doubtful that I should set my eyes on her
children. But I hoped for her a quiet discharge from the warfare of
life, and did not dream that so gentle a bird must take flight in such a
dreadful winter. I am glad you will not hide your faces in hideous
black; I hate the mourning of dress. It is to sorrow what flogging
in school is to correction.  Still let such wear it as like; it is fashionable, and the genius of fashion which so rules the living may appropriately sit on the coffin and beat it with his heels.
I am glad you have cares enough to take up your thoughts, and
divert them from over much dwelling on the past. Work is the salvation of mankind-to the afflicted soul not less than to the body, which
should eat bread won by the sweat of its brow. But I wish you could
take a little run off to some other place for a few weeks, with your
brother and his wife, all the remaining family of you, say to Washington or Charleston.  Change of place is often a great relief to sense
and soul! Sometimes we are the worst companions for ourselves, and
should get into other society. I have seen from your letters how much
the watching, the anxiety, and the sympathy have worn upon you, for
the actual self always writes its condition between the lines, and we
tell what we would not.
I don't think it quite just to impute Captain Brown's conduct to a
desire to take vengeance for the murder of his sons; if that were the
motive, he would have sought a cheap and easy revenge on the actual
transgressors in Missouri; but, if I am rightly informed, he has cherished
this scheme of liberating the slaves in Virginia for more than thirty
years, and laid his plans when he was a land-surveyor in that very
neighborhood where his gallows (I suppose) has since grown. This is
in accordance with his whole character and life.
I am much grieved to find Caroline is yet so ill; but trust better
days are before her. Remember me tenderly to Mrs. flint and Mrs.
Whiting; as well as the great-hearted doctor. You know how much
our sympathies have all along been with you. Now, good-bye.
f3aithfully,
THEODORE PARKEBR.
TO MISS JL. OSGOOD, MEDEFORD, MASSACHUSETTS.
Rome, December 2, 1859.
MY DEAR Miss OscGooD.-A few days ago I learned that your muchesteemed  and noble-minded sister had passed upwards into her
glory onward. Yesterday, while I was on the point of writing to you,




844            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
I received your letter of the 8th instant, announcing the same event,
so sad to you, to her so joyous and triumphant.   I thank you most
heartily, my dear Miss Osgood, for writing me so tender and beautiful
a letter.  Your sister lived as she ought, and died as she had lived.
Your account of it shows how characteristic it all was; no complaining, no fearing, no increase of religious action-because all along it
had been normal and sufficient. I am glad you "respected her silence,"
and did no violence to her free spiritual individuality in the last hours
more than in the long life which preceded. Your sister was a noble
woman; this appeared not only in her intellectual power and its consequent attainments, but also still more in the use she made of all
her gifts! Spite of her two-and-seventy years, she was yet one of the
youngest women that I knew, so much was she alive, so open-minded
for new truth, and so open-hearted to all forms of duty; either the
stern of reproving, or the tender of embracing and loving. Old things
did not lose their hold on her, if good, though her eye went forth to
" fresh fields and pastures new," and new things, if good, were still as
welcome at threescore and ten, as if the earthly life had been before
her and not chiefly behind. She sympathized with all the best movements of this generation whose fathers she had seen grow up. I have
never known such an example before, and look upon it now with continual delight and gratitude.  Spite of bodily feebleness, she seemed
to be what the Greeks called uyfpXos; a quality they attributed only
to the gods.  It was in her character that she should have what
Socrates prayed for, avacT0 EvEalx,  a death full of good hope; it was
also fortunate it should be a evOao-i, a death without pain. She filled
up her season with good deeds, rejoiced in them, and developed her
character into beautiful proportion; now she has gone to keep her
thanksgiving day in the commonwealth of heaven, whose glory eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived of yet.
I am  glad you find the enduring consolation which human nature
craves, in the great religion which that same human nature affords.
If we are sure of God, we are not long left in doubt of any other
good thing. This world must be so made, that all things shall work
together for good, though we know not how. I need not say what
sweetness of peace and what depth of joy have come to me from the
consciousness of such religion; but now, when I go stooping and
feeble, when my career of usefulness seems ended, and I can serve no
more, but only stand and wait, I find additional comfort in the
testimony of many persons on both the Continents, who tell me that
I have helped them to a consciousness of the deep things in their own
souls, and so have helped make them nobler men, at least more faithful
to their conscience, and more hopeful to human kind. I do not
complain that I cannot now be useful. I thank God that I could; and
am  content with whatever lies before me-life or death, health or
sickness.
We are well situated here, on the Quirinal Mountain; all Rome lies
before us; St. Peter's is a mile and a half off, but clearly visible, from
its floor to its cross on the top. What a world of ancient art and
modern art; and underneath them both what a history! The tale of
Rome is a tragedy, the profoundest, the saddest ever enacted, and that,




THEODORE PARKER.                       385
too with the world for its stage. As I sit at my window by day, or lie
sleepless on my bed at night, it is wonderful the scenes that come
up before me, in that great drama of Rome. I have been reading
Mommsen's History (to the time only of Cesar's Dictatorship as yet),
and much more on the great theme. It is all the more interesting to
me when I daily visit the spots where the deeds were done, and see
the monuments often of the acts themselves. But still, spite of all
this, my heart turns home, and I consider the American drama getting
acted now.
How young we are! Yet we have a more difficult problem to settle
than the oldest European State is now vexed with-a democracy with
4,000,000 slaves, mocking at the first principles of all human society,
the four great Northern cities all on the side of despotism! I take it
Congress assembles for fresh scenes of violence.  Nobody knows
whose head will be broken next-Seward's, Wilson's, Sumner's, Hale's.
I do not wonder at Captain Brown's attempt at Harper's Ferry: it is
only the beginning; the end is not yet. But such is my confidence
in democratic institutions that I do not fear the result.  There is a
glorious future for America, but the other side of the Red Sea!
All mine send most friendly sympathy. You know you have that of
Yours faithfully and affectionately,
THEODORE PARKER.
TO REV. J. F. CLARKE.
Rome, Nov. 9,1859.
A queer place is this old Rome-a city off of the track of the human
race, and not allowing any cross-cuts to be made to it or near it. Really,
the capital of Christendom  is the stronghold of the Devil —~7ov
yaTMvcS KXroK\. But sometimes the people give the Government a
good shot-through the hands of Pasquin.  Thus, for example, when
the Pope's emissary went to the Conference at Zurich, there appeared
this neat little, satire on Pasquin's statue. Pasquin asks the emissary" Can you speak German?"
( No."
" French?"
" No."
"English?"
" No."
" Italian?"
No."
"What can you speak?"
"Only Latin."
"What can you say in that?'
" Sicut erat in principio, nune est, et semper erit in ceternum! "
Again, Homario says to Pasquin, about the time when King Bomba
was on his last legs.  " What have you seen?"
" A man with a grave tumore."
" Had he anything else? "
"Yes-take off the t; that leaves Umore! " (Always used in a bad
sense, unless qualified by an adjective.)
"What will become of him?"
"Take off the next letter, u-More!"  (He's going to die!)
VOL. II.                                           C C




386              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
"But when?"
"Take off the next letter, m —Ore! " (Right away.)
But who is this unfortunate man?"
"Take off the next letter, o-Re!" (The King.)
" But what will become of him when he dies; will he go to heaven
or hell? "
"Take off the next letter, r-E! " (Alas for him!)
Here's one more. A traveller comes home, and Pasquin calls him.
"Where have you been? "
By land, and sea, and air."
"What did you see at sea? "
"Grande battimenti " (great ships)
" And what by land?"
"Molte armate " (great armies).
"And what in the air?"
" Per aria molti preti " (many priests blown up sky-high).
But, alas! these poor wretches seem to think they have done enough
when they have touched off a squib. Better our fathers, " Trust in
God, but keep your powder dry  "
A mediaeval Latin (Gaudissidium Malaterra) said well of Rome:" Fons quondam totius laudis, nune es fraudis fovea;
Moribus es depravata, exhausta nobilibus,
Pravis studiis inservis, inee est pudor frontibus:
Surge Petre, Summe Pastor! Finem pone talibus! 
But enough of old Rome —and the new. Think of it: St. Peter's
Church cost 46,800,000 scudi, when a scudi was worth at least 1
dollar 75 cents. It takes 30,000 dollars a-year to keep this great toy
in order now.
O James, life is poor to me at Rome, amid all the wonders of antiquity and the marvels of art. At home, how rich it was through my
power of work! But I can still thank God for my affliction, not knowing how it will end. Remember me to your family, and also to the
Russells.  God bless you for the past, and in the present and future!
Faithfully yours.
FROM  THE JOURNAL.
Nov. 1. —All Saint's Day. A great festa, bells ringing all night,
cannons firing, with all the noisy demonstrations which attend the 4th
of July. We went to St. Agatha, and saw the sixty or eighty young
Belgians, who are in process of being metamorphosed into priests.  I
was struck with the inferiority of their heads; amongst them all, not
one superior head-hardly one up to the average.  That is a good sign
that only the least noble part of men go into the priesthood.  In
Rome, it is not so. What is called Christianity is in the same process
of decay as the Roman religion in the time of Cicero; i.e. all the
thoughtful men reject its essential doctrines; this is so both among
Catholics and Protestants.
Nov. 4.-Great tomfoolery in the Church of San Carlo in Corso.
The Pope was there, some sixty cardinals, other high functionaries
the Roman Senate, &c. There were showy dresses and gaudy coaches.
Notice, above all, the thousands of soldiers that were necessary to




THEODORE PARKER.                       387
preserve the life of the Pope when he goes to attend mass in San
Carlo!  About 2000 French soldiers, a battalion of Italian foot,
another of horse, and the Swiss Guard I
Received the Unitarian Quarterly, containing a notice of T. P.'s.
letter.  What a change in the tone of Unitarian periodicals in a few
years!
Nov. 16.-The insurrection of Capt. Brown excites much attention
in America, as well it may. But it is the beginning of the birth-pains
of liberty. There is a logic in the history of freedom.
"Its purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower."
Nov. 29.-Went to Miss IHosmer's studio.  N.B. the Zenobia she
is now making, also the Minerva in plaster.
Went to Terry's studio. N.B. the Parting of Tobit on his Journey
(the Spotted Dog); the scene from Shakspeare's "Tempest;" also
the beautiful portrait of Mrs. Crawford's boy, and the handsome
woman in the Albanese costume. I think Terry has a deal of talent
and thought so in 1844.
TO MISS COBBE.
Nov., 1859.
I wonder if you have seen Cardinal Mai's publication of the " Codex
Vaticanus." He puts into the New Testament many passages which are
not at all to be found in his Codex, and yet has the candor to confess
the fact in the margin! But since his death his assistant has printed
a cheap edition of the New Testament part of the work, just as the
Codex actually is-thus confessing the fault of the former work.
I am glad you saw my friend Samuel Joseph May. He is a fine
specimen of the ministerial profession-one of the wisest and noblest
men I ever knew in my life. There is no fault in the man except
excess of generosity.  He is interested in all the progressive humanities of the age-not least in the elevation of woman. You may believe
all he says of everybody except myself; I think he loves me a little
too well to see me quite as I am. Alas! it is not merely passional love
which blinds the eyes of women to men, and vice versd, but the purely
affectional does the same. I am glad you heard him preach.  His face
is a grand benediction.  He is minister of Syracuse, New York, a
town of 40,000 population, and has, in fourteen or fifteen years, reconstructed the town-I mean its morals. He organized its charities and
its schools, lyceums, &c. I call him the Archimedes of Syracuse.  He
finds his Srov o-r there, and will move the earth-if he have time.
I am reading "Adam  Bede," a quite extraordinary book; but I
wonder that any one should have doubted that a woman wrote it.
Strange is it that we tell the universal part of our history in all we
write, and that a nice eye often reads even our private experience between the lines.
We shall keep your birthday with due honor on the 4th of next
month. And now, my dear friend, may God bless you, and fit you for
great and good works!
c 2




388               IIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
The expedition of John Brown to Harper's Ferry, the capture
of himself and solme of his men, his trial and conviction, took
place in the autumn of this year.  Mr. Parker's letter to Francis
Jackson, dated Nov. 24, is in Chap. XXI.
FROM  THE JOURNAL.
Dec. 2, "Santa Bibiana's Day."    Day appointed to hang  Capt.
Brown.-It is now 6 r.r., and I suppose it is all over with my friends
at Charlestown, Va., and that six corpses lie there, ghastly, stiff, dead.
How the heart of the slave-holders rejoices! But there is a day after
to-day.  John Brown did not fear the gallows; he had contemplated it,
no doubt, as a possible finger-post to indicate the way to heaven.  It
is as good as a cross. It is a pity they could not have had two thieves
to hang with Brown.  There have been anti-slavery meetings to-day,
at Boston, Worcester, Salem, New Bedford, Providence, &c.  The telegraph has spread the news of Brown's death, I suppose, over half the
Union by this time.  It is a great dark day in America.  Thunder and
lightnings will come out of it.
TO PROFESSOR DESOR.
Rome (Poste Restante), Dec. 7, 1859.
I am  rejoiced to hear such good tidings of the Kiichlers.  I will
set about my papers immediately, and will do nothing else till both
are finished.  Shall I send them to you by mail, or wait till you come
here en route for Naples?  My wife shall copy them out in a good, fair
hand.  I have not felt in spirits to write anything of late: affairs at
home have filled me with anxiety.  You have not, perhaps, heard that
Captain Brown, with fifteen or twenty men, made an attempt to free
the slaves of Virginia, at Harper's Ferry. His two sons were shot, and
most of his men.  He and five or six men were taken prisoners, and
have had such a " trial " as slave-holders give such men; are convicted,
and hung before now.  Brown was a friend of mine-his two sons
have been at my house.  Other friends of mine have been forced to
fly from their country.  Attempts are made to implicate many prominent men at the North, and there will be a deal of trouble.  I should
not be surprised to see Dr. Howe in Rome this winter, for there seems
to be some evidence against him which makes the slave-holders suspect
him.  So he may have to flee off for his life, or to avoid exposing other
men. The South talk very big, and utter threats against all the leading
men of the North-Seward, Hale, Wilson, Sumner, &c.  Congress
came together yesterday, and there will be a stupid message from the
President, and a stormy session all winter.  I look for more broken
heads before summer.  We are coming upon a great crisis in American
history, and a civil war seems at no great distance. The slave-holders
will be driven, by the logic of their principles, to demand what the
* Bibiana, Virgin and Martyr at Rome, in the year 363, towards the end of the reign
of Julian the Apostate. She was tied to a pillar and scourged to death with loaded whips.
A chapel was afterwards constructed, in the times of Christian freedom, over the place
where she was secretly buried; and a church now stands there, rebuilt in 1628.




THEODORE PARKER.                         389
free men of the North will not consent to: then comes the split-not
without blood! All national constitutions are writ on the parchment
of a drum-head, and published with the roar of cannon! I
I have no hope for the people of Italy, specially none for the Romans.
These are a miserable people, out of whom  all virtus seems to have
perished utterly.  I am told the Pope is in sad want of money: " Es
fehlt ilmn jetzt an Ablassgelt! "  He gets nothing from Romagna, and as
he owes more than 70,000,000 dollars, he can't borrow, except at great
and ruinous interest.  The sooner he and the like of him go to the
Devil the better. He has just published an edictunz  against crinolines,
and forbids women accoutred therein to enter the churches. We all
send our heartiest love to you, the Apthorps included.  Remember
me to the good Marie.                  Yours,
THEODOIRE PARIKER.
My little book, " Experience," &c., which you have, has been republished in London, and here a Swede is translating it into his own melodious Northern tongue.  I don't know whether or not he will find anybody to publish it in Sweden, for I see a Bill has been introduced to
their Popular (!) Assembly to make the priests censors of the press,
with unconditional power.
TO MR. LYMAN
Rome, December 10, 1859.
Oh, best of governors, your letter of 18th ult., came swiftly to hand
and relieved my anxiety (which was getting to be strong), lest you
were sick, or some ailment had befallen your family.  But the letter
puts me at ease. Here I am  rather rich in newspapers, so all the
details of the Harper's Ferry affair are soon made known to us. See
how the slave-holders hold their " bloody assizes " in Virginia! Well,
the worse they behave the better for us and ours.  This is the opXn
tv So&YV —the beginning of birth-pains; the end is far enough away.
How often I have wished I was in my old place, and at my old desk!
But I too should have had to straighten a rope or else to flee off, no
doubt, for it is not likely I could have kept out of harm's way in
Boston.  I sent a little letter to Francis Jackson, touching the matter
which he will show you, perhaps. Wendell said some brave things, but,
also some rash ones, which I am  sorry for, but the whole was noble.
B~  is faithful to his clerical instinct of cunning, not his personal of
humanity; I read his sermon with a sad heart, and F ~'s with pain.
Noble brave Garrison is true to himself as always, and says, " I am a
non-resistant, and could not pull a trigger to free four million men, but
Captain Brown in his fighting is faithful to his conscience, as I to mine,
and acted as nobly as Cromwell, and Fayette and Washington; yes,
more nobly, for his act was pure philanthropy.  All honor to the fighting saint-now he is also a martyr!"  That is the short of what the
Liberator says.
The " Twenty-eighth"  did not accept my resignation, but made
some handsome resolutions.  Perhaps it is better so. Yet sure I am
that my preaching days are all over and left behind me, even if my
writing and breathing time continue, which I think will not last long.




390              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
I do all I can to live, but make all my calculations for a (not remote)
termination of my work here. I buy no books, except such as are
indispensable to keep me from eating my own head off.
Mliss Cushman is here, and very kind to me; the Storys most hospitable people as well as entertaining; we all dined there on Thanksgiving day. Dr. Appleton (of Boston) has helped me to many things.
I have seen Mrs. Crawford, and of course all the American artists,
painters, and sculptors, The Brownings came a few days ago, and I
have seen them both. I like her much! He, too, seems a good fellow,
full of life; intense Italians are they both.
He was very busy at this time making topographical explorations, to identify the famous spots.
Weather cold and chilly. Walked and examined the walls from
Porta Pia to Porta Maggiore.
At the Forum, to identify the places. Not all settled yet, spite of
Bunsen and Canino.
Robert Browning came in the afternoon.  Visited the Forum again.
Cosmos and Damien * -Santa Maria in Cosmedin-Temple of Janus,
and that of Ceres; the Mausoleum of Augustus.
Went to an auction of books at 47 Piazza del Jesu. A fine copy of
Baronius, Lucca edition, thirty-eight folios, sold for only ninety-nine
dollars!   Vere I not a worthless corpse I had given one dollar more.
Dec. 10. —Went to the Storys in the afternoon to see a juggler
please the children.
On December 12, after visiting nearly a dozen sites and
ruins-a great day's work-he made the following entry:To-night this happened.  Since the fever in February and March,
1857, I have felt there was an adhesion of the pleura of the right side,
and I never breathe without a feeling of constraint there, or pulling.
After a long and violent coughing I felt the adhesion give way. The
right lung moved as freely as the left.  This marks a crisis-of
healing or of finishing.
But on the next day the same restless visiting and exploring
went on, in the churches and the Quirinal gardens; the latter
were damp and chilly.   The day after, he complained of a bad
cold, but went about in the Trastevere quarter, the Island in the
Tiber, and tried to find the remains of Pompey's theatre. His
cough greatly weakened him at this time.
Dec. 17.-Writing a little story for Desor. It goes hard and seems
likely to be the last thing I write for the press.  Kiichler went, and
I shall soon follow. The cough is worse than ever before.  It is plain
where I am going.
The little  story was written for the Album, and is there
printed, with the title, "A  Bumble-bee's Thoughts on the Plan
* These are churches. the surname, "in Cosmedin,' comes from a square in Constantinople.




THEODORE PARKER.                       391
and Purpose of Creation."  It was the last thing from his pen
written with the intent to publish.
One or two extracts will show its clear and lively style:Look at the relation between us and the world of matter.  It seems
to exist only for our use. IHere I will mention but a single fact, and
from that you can easily judge of all, for it is a crucial fact, a guideboard instance that indicates the road which nature travels on. The
red-clover grows abundantly all over the world; in its deep cup there
lies hid the most delicious honey, the nectar of the world! But that
cup is so deep no other insect can reach the sweet treasure at the
bottom; even the common honey-bee, who stands next below us in the
scale of being, must pass it by-longed for but not touched! Yet our
proboscis is so constructed that with ease we suck this exquisite provision which nature furnishes solely for us!
Now, Gentlemen, it is plain that WE are the crown of the universe;
we stand on the top of the world; all things are for us. I say it with
calm deliberation and also with most emphatic certainty: The Bumblebee is the Purpose of the Universe! (Tremendous applause.) Yes, Gentlemen, the Plan of the Universe intends the Bumble-bee as its end and
final cause.  Without him the world would be as unmeaning as a
flower with no honey in its breast. As I look over the long line of
causes and effects which compose the universe; as I thence dissolve
away the material part thereof and look at the idea, the meaning and
ultimate purpose, I see all things point to the Bumble-bee as the perfection of finite being-I had almost said of all being.  He alone is
the principal, the finality; all else is but provisional.  He alone is his
own excuse for being; his existence is the reason why he is here; but
all other things are only that he may be; their excuse for existence is
only this-that they prepare for him, provide for him, and shelter him.
Some things do this directly, some in a circuitous manner; but though
they serve other purposes, yet their end is to serve him.  For him is
the world of matter and its four elements, with their manifold forces,
static and dynamic too; for him its curious combinations, which make
up the world of organization and vegetation; all is but material basis
for him.
What a difference between us and the highest Infusoria. The two
seem hardly to belong to the same world. How much vaster the odds
between us and the inorganic matter, the primeval atoms of the world!
Yet even from that to us there has been no leap; the continuity of
being is never broken.  Step by step went on the mighty work. It
seemed, indeed, to have no meaning; there was only a chaos of organization and decomposition, attraction and repulsion, growth and decay,
life and death, progress and regress. But at length the end is reached,
the idea shines through the more material fact. One evening the sun
went down on a world without meaning; the next morning it rose, and,
behold! there were Bumble-bees. The Chaos of transient night has
become the Kosmos of eternal day! (Immense sensation-prolonged
applause.) Shall I say the Bumble-bee was created? No, gentlemen,
that were to adduce a mere theory. That he came as the resultant of
all the forces there or heretofore active in the universe? No more is




392             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
this to be allowed in such an assembly. The Bumble-bee is mindmind in himself, for himself, of himself, by himself  So he exists of
his own accord; his being is his will; he exists because he wills to be.
Perhaps I might say that all things anterior to him were but an efflux
from him. For with a being so vast as the Bumble-bee's, the effect
may well precede the cause, and the non-existent Bumble-bee project
out of himself all actual existence!
Do not think me presumptuous in standing forth as the representative
of Bumble-beedom in this matter. I have peculiar advantages. I have
attained great and almost unexampled age. I have buzzed four summers; I have dozed as many winters through; the number of my years
equals that of my legs and antennae on one side; and still my eye is
not dim nor my natural vigor abated. This fact gives me an advantage
over all our short-lived race. My time has been devoted to science,
" all summer in the field, all winter in my cell;" this has been my
motto all my life. I have travelled wide, and seen the entire world.
Starting from this, my ancestral spot, I made expeditions east, west,
north, and south. I travelled four entire days in each direction, and
stopped only at the limits of the world. I have been up to the top of
the highest fir tree (abies pectinata). Yes, have flown over it, and
touched the sky. I have been deeper down in the earth than any
Bumble-bee; ten times my own length-it makes me shudder to think
of it-and then I touched the bottom of the monstrous world! I have
lived in familiarity with all the philosophers now on earth, and have
gathered all that time has left of the great thinkers before me. I am
well acquainted with the summits of Bumble-bee consciousness, in
times past and present. If any Bumble-bee may criticise, surely I am
that one! And if I am judge of anything, it is of the universe itself;
for I have studied it all my life. If I know anything, or can know
anything, it is the all of things, the world of matter and the world of
mind!
FROM THE JOURNAL.
Dec. 22.-Wrote several letters. It is Forefather's Day, and will
bring up many reflections at home. As I get weaker and weaker-and
the decline is obvious from week to week-I feel less inclination to
read. It gets a little irksome to write, and I sit still, idle-handed,
idle-minded. It is now pretty clear that I do not go out of Rome
again.  The cough at night exhausts me much, and the next
morning I feel languid. By-and-bye the bleeding will come backthere are little specks of blood now-and these things will hasten to
their conclusion. I don't like the thought of a grave in Rome, for the
soil is really oppressed with a two-fold curse; but I shall find the clods
of the valley sweet to my flesh even there. I had hoped to live long
enough to save from waste some few things half-done, and to finish one
or two more which none else can, but must let them slide. If I were
at home I could work a little."
Dec. 25. Christmas Day.-A deal of noise and show in the town.
Went to some churches-to Santa Maria Maggiore. Noticed the little
chapel in the Borghese Chapel, where there is a curious sculpture of
the Baby-God and his mother and putative father; the cattle in the
back-ground looking on.




THEODORE PARKER.                     393
Went to Ara Coeli. Noticed the funny show of the Baby and the
Heavenly Host, and God the Father in the clouds.
Really the city is as polytheistic as in the days of the Cesars.
L. and I, and all the Apthorps and Hunts dine together to-day. I
sit at all entertainments as the coffin in the Egyptian feasts.
N.B. What I wrote in my journal last Christmas or New Year's
Day. Surely this will be the last; but, really, I die slow.
Dec. 27.-Porta St. Lorenzo. Went to that old church out of the
walls. It is a great Festa to-day. Spots of snow on the road-side in
the shade at noon. None yet on Soracte, I think.
TO JOHN AYRES.
Rome, Immaculate Conception Day.
Here we all are in old Rome. Bad weather we had of it for a long
time; really it rained forty days and forty nights, though not without
ceasing. I thought an umbrella was almost as necessary as a hat and
shoes. Now it is better-fair by day and night-the thermometer
about 24~ to 28~ at sunrise. Roses bloom in all the gardens, and
violets under the hedges, while the Ilexes are ripening their slender
acorns, and the orange-trees are fuller of fruit than I left or found
them at St. Croix. We have seen many things here peculiar to Rome.
The Pope showed himself at the Church of San Carlo one day, surrounded by about 2500 soldiers, and was borne about in a chair on
men's shoulders, while he "blessed the people."  I hear the Pope's
hired man ringing the bells in the night. He begins about three or
four o'clock, and keeps it up till sunrise. HIe must be much overworked and up early in the morning, The Pope's Tom-cat comes under
my windows in the dark, and gets on the cross in the neighbourhood,
and behaves no better than his brothers in Boston. The Pope's bull,
I take it, is kept in the stall as a " dangerous beast," and only let out
on certain great occasions. But the Pope's Gal-I have not seen her
yet. I am told she is arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked
with gold and precious stones, and pearls, &c., and when she rides out, it
is on a beast with seven heads and ten horns; indeed, you may read an
account of her and her cattle in the Book of Revelations (chap. xiv.);
when she appears in public I will tell you. A few days ago a funny
thing took place in the church of San Andrea delle Frutte. A man
caught his feet in the wide-spread crinoline of a lady kneeling on the
pavement, and fell his whole length to the ground. The congregation
clapped their hands and laughed aloud; it made a great scandal, so the
Pope issued an edict, forbidding women to enter the church except with
their heads veiled, and their bodies clad in modest raiment. For, he
says, they come to church, now-a-days, in such guise that they are a sight
to behold —" a spectacle to men," referring to the fact that naughty
young men come into the churches to see the maidens and matrons
show their legs as they kneel or stoop! I don't know what effect it
will have in Rome, but if all the ministers in Boston, and the standing
committees of the societies there agreed to say, "'We will have no
crinolines in our meeting-houses," the women would say, "What do
we care? Then you don't have us, that's all; we can't exhibit on the




394              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
common, or in the streets, all the week; go to thunder with your old
meetin' us.'  But the Pope tells the poor creatures they shall go to
church, and they shan't wear their favourite garments there. It is lard
-I don't know what will happen, but fear this successor of St. Peter
will encounter troubles not mentioned by St. Paul, in his melancholy
catalogue; and to the perils of waters and false brethren will have to
add, perils of women and perils of crinolines.  The Sultan has undertaken the same desperate business of meddling with the women's
clothes;-it may cost him his life-" Touch not, handle not," were good
counsel to them both. I think the Pope had better stick to his own
apocalyptic Gal, and rig her up in scarlet colors, and let the rest of
womankind alone.
Yesterday, a new building was dedicated for the education of priests
who are to convert America to the true faith —don't you think they will
have their hands full before they are done with this business?  The
American Minister, Hon. Mr. Stockton, was present at the ceremony.
A queer dead people these Romans are. I have no hope for their political regeneration! They have a bad reputation for treachery and
lying, which I fear is but too well deserved. Last spring there was a
revolution in North Italy, as you know. Well: the Romans also got a
little uneasy, and the Government thought it must do something to
keep them quiet. So it gave them  a holiday and had a procession of
costly carriages in the Corso, and rich men hung handsome-colored
cloths out at their windows, and the people became contented and
quiet. What if Governor Gage had given the people of Massachusetts
a holiday in 1775, and had fireworks on Boston Common just after the
battle of Lexington; or if President Buchanan should order a parade
of marines at the Navy-yard, in Charlestown, to quiet the agitation
about the Harper's Ferry affair! Much good is to come of that experiment of our friend Brown.  Ten years ago it would have been too
early; now it is just in time! I find brave words have been spoken
about him and his, by Phillips, Emerson, and Clarke, but I hear of
no others.        *         *         *          *         *
e         e         *:       *:         e          C
e              e:         4: e 
Clarkes sermon of Brown was his best, I think
8      *       Clarkeys sermon of Brown was his best, I think,
wise in matter and  condensed in form  of expression. X —
would make a powerful preacher if he did not drown his thought in a
Dead Sea of words. What a pity! you don't want a drove of oxen to
drag a cart-load of potatoes on a smooth road.  I wish ministers and
lecturers would be a little more generous of thought and more stingy
of words; they and we should be better off and like each other more.
What a state of things in Virginia! —a hay-stack takes fire in
Charlestown, and they send 1000 or 2000 soldiers, with two batteries
of cannon, to put down the insurrection, and when they get to the spot
there is nothing but the white ashes of the hay, and the stack-pole
burnt and blackened.  "There is no danger from the slaves," "not the
least," "none at all;" how Buchanan must have bleated in his message,




THEODORE PARKER.                        395
and what a stormy time we are to have this winter! Whose head will
get broke next;? I know not.  I trust Sumner is in his place before
now, and about his noble work. These things are only the beginning
of sorrows; but they are birth-sorrows for freedom, not the pains of
death.
Poor Mr. Everett! I wonder if he " buckled on his knapsack and shouldered his musket."  I fear he said, "my habits are very unmilitary,"
and stayed at home. Doctor Howe, I learn, has gone to Canada; I may
meet him here before spring. Really I think the 28th may be thankful
their minister fell into a consumption a year ago, for I believe they
would rather lose him by a cough than a halter.  It is not quite likely
I should have kept entirely free from Brown if I had been at home
and in full activity; how bravely he acts, how nobly he speaks, even
the slaveholders feel the influence of his magnetic character. "We
sow in tears," &c.
I see there is likely to be another Mexican war; of course I don't
know the merits of the case; but take it for granted they do not lie on
the American side of the border; but it is clear that all Mexico must
fall into our hands. I wish it would not come quite so soon. I doubt
that it ever becomes slave territory; the inhabitants there sympathize
with the negro.
To-day came S's anonymous pamphlet, "The Crisis of Unitarianism," and it has many good things in it, well expressed too; but it
betrays rather a peevish spirit. S-   is a good fellow, fall of generous
instincts, with a natural fondness for the true and the right, the beautiful, and the good; he has made sacrifices in time of trouble, and stood
upright when many found their account in stooping or lying flat. I
shall always think of him with gratitude and not without admiration.
I wrote him  a long letter from  Montreux, which he must have
received before I got his pamphlet. He says my letter from St. Croix
is a little niorbid; so it is, so it must be: do you know the odds
between a sick man and a sound?  Here it is. Mr. Saw-and-grind
has a grist mill turned by a great wide mill-pond, that has four or five
reserve ponds all full of water; it runs over the flush boards and
jumps and laughs as it goes rollicking down the stream. Mr. S. has
some little machinery for his own sport, and amuses the neighbors
with showing it off now and then; he saws at one end of his mill; he
grinds at the other; he has a great up-and-down saw and cylinder
saws likewise, not to speak of his gang of saws which cut twelve
boards at one time.  Besides this are saws for laths, for shingles, and
clapboards; nay, he makes boxes out of the boards in this room; he
has mill-stones for maize, for rye, and for wheat; he cracks corn for
the cattle, he grinds and bolts it for men. All this goes on when his
pond is full-all at once-but then comes a dry time-all his reserve
ponds are exhausted, no water runs over the dam, the flush boards are
all dry as hay; then he stops play-wheels; by-and-bye gives up all
sawing: as the water gets lower, the wheels move slow. HIe does not
bolt meal to flour, nor crack corn for the cattle, he only grinds for
men; next, he only grinds an hour or two a day for his neighbors or
friends, or for poor folks; then only an hour a week for his ownfarmily,




-396              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
the water is so low. At length the mill stops, the great wheel is dry
as a bone, presently the water in the flume does not come near the
bottom of the gate, there is but little in the pond: the cows drink
there no more, the water lilies are dried up, the fish are all dead.
Finally all the water is gone, you can walk right through the mill-pond
over the black and parched earth; the mill is dead; don't expect the
poor miller to grind or saw then, still less to amuse his friends with
play.  God be thanked the water is not lost; all this mill-power is but
exhaled to heaven. Love to your family, neighbors, and all.
Tn' oEDORE PARKER.
TO DR. FLINT.
Rome, December 31, 1859.
MY DEAR DI. FLINFT,-I have not written you a line since I left
Boston, though there has not been a day but you and yours have been
in my thoughts; indeed one of my occupations in the pauses of sleep
is to make visits to all my friends in Boston and its neighborhood,
and as it is day there while it is already night here, I find them always
up and glad to see me. Now I think I shall worry you with a few
words.
Well: the Harper's Ferry affair is over-I mean Captain Brown has
been hanged, and his associates and the troops have gone home again
to boast of their exploits-the military achievements of the chivalry
of Virginia!  It ought to have taken place in South Carolina, and
then the valiant General Quattelbum  would have been out with his
soldiers, of whom  " one can chase a thousand, and two ten thousand
put to flight! "  The effect is not over, nor ever will be. Brown's
little spark was not put out till it had kindled a fire which will burn
down much more than far-sighted men look for.  The Northern sky is
full of lightning, long treasured up; Brown was one bright clear flash
into the Southern ground; the thunder rattles all over the Union now,
there will be other strokes by-and-bye.
I find great complaints made against the courts of Virginia. Certainly the proceedings were hasty and irregular, the general conduct
shameless and atrocious; the judge held his "bloody assizes" with
small regard to the rights of the accused, or the customary forms of
law. He did not give Captain Brown time to confer with his counsel;
he had not a fair trial.  So far so bad.  But what did Massachusetts do
a few years ago?  She arrested Thomas Sims for a thief, and then tried
him as a runaway slave! He had committed no crime. Yet he was
sent into slavery for life! The courts of Massachusetts were asked to
give him the benefit of those statutes made to prevent such injustice,
or of the common law older than the State itself, and they refused;
they would do nothing, when the matter was tried in WVoodbury's
court, and it was left for him to decide whether Sims could have the
benefit of the Habeas Corpus, as well as the shadow of its form. While
he was giving his final judgment, a prominent lawyer of Boston, handed
him a note to help the judicial mind to still more legal iniquity, and he
used its hints; and when the decision of the judge was given that Sims
should have no protection from the supreme court of the United States,




THEODORE PARKER.                        39 7
any more than from  the courts of Massachusetts, but he must be
delivered over to the commissioner, and so be made a slave of, the
respectability of Boston clapped their hands. The slave-holders who
crowded the court-house at Virginia, did not applaud when John Brown
was found guilty!  It seems the first disgrace of Boston was not
enough; for not six years ago, her judge of probate, guardian of
widows and orphans, took the city by a coup de droit, a law-lick,
captured a Baptist minister, and run him off to slavery! The court
assigned counsel to Captain Brown; but in the case of Anthony
Burns, the " court " told his counsel, " You had better throw no obstacle
in the way of his being sent back to slavery, as he probably will be! "
IReally the Virginia jury decided according to Virginia law, and the
evidence before them, when they found Brown guilty; but when Judge
Loring found Burns guilty, it was in utter disregard of the facts of the
case abundantly testified to in the court.  Judge Parker, in Virginia,
gave his charge in open court; the verdict of the jury also was first
delivered in public; but Judge Loring gave his decision (that Burns
was a slave) to the slave-hunter in private, more than twelve hours
before it was made in open court. Brown was condemned by a jury of
twelve men, but Massachusetts let Sims and Burns be dragged off to
slavery on the mere word of a kidnapper who was to receive five
dollars if he freed the man, or ten dollars if he enslaved him! There
was law enough in Massachusetts to save both of these poor victims of
oppression, every advocate knew it; but the judges of the supreme
court of Massachusetts broke down all that law with one puff of their
breath.
Loring was kicked out of his offices, and so out of the State, but he
was far fron  being the great offender! The Court-house of Boston
was turned into a barracoon, the enemies of Massachusetts Democracy
kept their prisoners in it for more than a week, and defended themselves with sword and gun. Massachusetts did not dare dislodge them,
though she had abundant law on her side.  They put a Southern chain
round the Court-house, all round it, and her suppliant Judges stooped
and crouched down, and lay low and crawled under that chain to go to
the seats they had long dishonored! No Virginia minister has said
a word against Slavery; they all defend it as democratic, biblical, Christian and divine; some of them  went to Brown even in his cell to
convert him to that opinion. But in Boston the two great heads of
Unitarianism...
Did Virginia even in those days show any sympathy with freedom,
with real Democracy, or befriend any of its measures?  Not once.
But when the Fugitive Slave Bill passed Congress, the respectability
of Boston fired 100 jubilant cannon. When the first kidnapper came,
that same respectability had a great Union Meeting in Fanueil Hall,
where it resolved that Boston should be prostituted to the slavehunter: he might come when he would, her door was always open, and
she ready and willing!
*X       *        *        *        *        *
I think Massachusetts is the foremost State in the world-spite of
the two hundred thousand Paddies and children of Paddies, whose




98              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
poverty, ignorance, nastiness, superstition and crime lower the general
average.  She is in advance of every other 1,200,000 people in industry,
intelligence, and virtue.  Boston too is the noblest of cities, and the seed
of religious fire never is quenched out from her venerable hearth; it is the
home of great ideas, sure one day to be great facts. But after all this she
can't say to Virginia " let me pull out the mote out of thine eye."  So I
was glad the Legislature, though in love with its own extra-session, was
modest enough to refuse to adjourn on the day her sister hanged one
of the noblest of New England's patriots.  Let us work, and pray,
trust in God, and keep our powder dry; but not say to Virginia,
" Massachusetts is faithful."  She is not faithful-one day she will be.
It was a good while from  the Boston massacre to the evacuation of
Boston.
We sometimes do a little injustice to our own State and the slow
way we have of doing great things.  In the South there is no respect
for personal freedom; hence the slavery of the negroes; hence the
enormous tyranny of public opinion over the minority; hence men like
MBr. Helper, -Mr. Underwood, and many more, are driven out of the
country because they favour democratic institutions. Neither Washington nor Jefferson would be suffered to live in Virginia to-day. There
is as little respect in the South for general law, either local or Federal.
Hence the continual interruptions of the regular course of judicial
proceedings to get at the end more swiftly.  I refer to the lynchings
that are so common.  Hence, too, the violations of positive law-not
to serve the higher law of justice, which all statutes in general are supposed to aim  at, but to carry out the purposes of selfish passion
or selfish calculation.  Hence came the importation of slaves from
Africa, the fillibustering against Cuba, &c., and the threat to dissolve
the UTnion.  These things being so, philanthropic Northerners-impatient of process, but greedy of result-praise the " courage " and
determination " of the South in adhering to her idea.  It is quite
foolish-at least, short-sighted.  Look here! In the North, especially
in New England, there is a profound respect for personal freedom, represented by INDIVIDUxAL LIBERTY.  Hence any man is free till he
commits a crime, and is punished for it by law made beforehand and
made known.  Hence industry is free, opinion free, the press free, and
the tongue! The atheist is free to attack all religion, the bigot to denounce the wrath of God against all who doubt the bigot's stupid creed.
On the 4th of July, at Salem, twenty or thirty years ago, R. H. D.
delivered the address before the town of Salem, and attempted to show
that democracy was a mistake, we ought to have a limited monarchy,
&c. (this is after the best of my recollection).  His right to deliver
his opinion in a 4th of July oration was held sacred.  Webster, Choate,
and shoals of the " democratic" small-fry, have opposed the most
valued institutions and ideas of New England; ministers preached the
most ghastly doctrines, which would make democracy impossible.
Nobody questions their right; their worst enemies would defend their
right to speak and print, and would never seek to abridge it; so pro
found is this respect for personal freedom of body and of spirit. But
along with this, there is also a profound respect for social unity, repreo
sented by GENERAL LAW. Hence we obey laws we know to be unjustjX




THEODORE PARKER.                         399
obey them at first or allow them to be enforced, simply because they are
laws; but, at the same time, go to work to rid ourselves of them in a
regular legal way.  (I know there are two exceptions to this, in the
disobedience of the Usury Laws and the Maine Liquor Law; but these
exceptions, when understood, don't detract much from  what I said
above.)  The resistance Massachusetts makes to the Fugitive Slave Bill
is an example of this.  If Wendell Phillips could have got a scrap of
law as big as a dollar, and a constable's pole to put in front, he could
have had hundreds of men to follow and take Sims or Burns out of
jail.  But as that could not be done, these two victims went back to
slavery.  At this time we have thrown a few threads of law round
the fugitive, and on them I think the people would lay hold, and rescue
any runaway in these times.
But the New Englanders must do their work in regular manner and
form-by due course of law. If a man commits a great crime-a fraud,
for example-and there is no statute that will reach him, we never
think of lynching the wretch; we make a law for the future and let
the past go.  Now this love of law gives us an immense advantage over
the South in the long run, though they often get the start of us in
carrying a special measure.  No doubt we sometimes go too far, and
allow the final purpose of law, which is the preservation of individual
liberty, to be defeated.  But in a democratic community, when the
appeal to the people is so direct and comes so soon, even this failing
leans to virtue's side.  Soon as we get a little individual liberty, we
hedge it round with general law. Hence the progress of Denmocracy in
New England is continuous and certain.  So we have social unity of
action represented by law, and individual variety of action represented
by liberty, and that to a degree no people ever had before.
In this particular affair MIassachusetts has done admirably-never so
well before.  It is curious to see how even Boston makes progress in
her hate against slavery.  It is not thirty years since a mob of "respectable gentlemen " broke up a meeting of women, who came together
to debate on slavery.  Leverett Street Gaol was the only safe place for
Garrison! When the Fugitive Slave Bill passed, the family of kidnappers fired one hundred cannons.  Sims was taken off by them
without much trouble, though at the darkest hours of the night.  But
in the Burns time, what a row there was! (If Captain Brown had been in
Boston, there would have been a rescue. We had only miserable scholars
for leaders-lawyers, ministers, doctors-not men with fists.)   How
the Kansas Bill and the Dred Scott decision thinned the ranks of the
Hunkers! And now see how AMassachusetts sympathises with John
Brown-think of towns tolling their meeting-house bells for an hour
on the day Virginia hung that milk-brother of Washington and Jefferson! Such things have not been done since the times of the Stamp
Act.  Think of the old South on the platform, with Emerson and
Phillips.  Think of such a sermon as Wheelock's, at the Music Hall.
God bless the dear old State!  God bless the dear old town! Massachusetts can't call Virginia hard names; she will do much better, will
Overpower her sister by the great truths which will become great institutions, and surpass her in respect for liberty and respect for law,
which will mean reverence for the eternal right.




400               LIFE OF THEODORE PARKER.
Kindest love from me and mine to your excellent wife, to Mrs.
Whiting, the admirable woman much tried and not found wanting, and
also to the babies, and last not least to their kind and wise father.
Affectionately and thankfully,
THEODORE PARKER.
FROM THE JOURNAL.
Dec. 31.-Cloudy and foggy in the morning; fair and showery at
noon! Rode out of the Porta St. Giovanni for two hours. I have had
a bad cold lately, with a shocking cough. A little blood comes now
and then. Wrote letters. Here endeit the last year.
And the last of the little note-books that he lived to finish
was laid away by the industrious hand.
CiE
CEIETERY AT FLORENCE.




CHAPTER  XXVIII.
1860-Progress of the Disease-Letters to Mrs. Cheney, John Ayres, Joseph Lyman, Dr.
Howe, Hon. Gerritt Smith, and others-The Last Days-May 10.
HE now became more and more absorbed every day with watching the progressive steps of his disease. This he had been in the
habit of doing from  the beginning, with a coolness as if the
patient and the observer were two different persons.  But as
soon as his power of working began to fail so decisively that he
found the will incompetent to whip the body to its tasks, a disappointment and restlessness began to disturb the great tranquillity
which he had maintained.  Labors of love and study had always
been his refuge from physical and mental ills. But here at last
came a weakness, rushing in upon his life by all the avenues of
his various gifts at once; the rugged understanding, the indomitable will, the ardent philanthropy, were now only so many
sluices to let in mortality. Such a strong life could not feel
itself thus daily demoralized, till all the glorious past activity
seemed reduced to the frivolous and annoying duty of observing
its own decay, without betraying the fever of the unnatural conflict. The substantial fabric, built against all weathers, for prolonged uses, to outwear and survive an ordinary lapse of time,
was violently pulled to pieces and levelled with the ground just
as maturity had knit its parts and was spreading its hardy color
over all. A less pious and childlike spirit in such a powerful
nature would have resented this vandalism of a hostile fate. But
the sweet dependent prayers of a whole life had been confirming
the advantage gained by its earliest struggle, when began a trust
in the Infinite Goodness.   These prayers burned purely upon
VOL. I.                                          D D




40 2           LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
this altar of a nervous body bent with premature decay. Pitying friends and observers could see how  hard it was for this
stalwart man to yield to dissolution; for his roots were still deep
in the open country, that dear soil of Lexington, invigorated by
the sun and rain-yes, and with blood!  He could not quietly
shrivel up or fall apart; the big branches -went reluctantly to the
ground.
Nowa, it was quite evident-the clearness of his mind, the calmness of his inward expectation, the effusions of his love, were the
evidence-that he had never in his most vigorous and scornful days
stated too strongly the difference between religion and theology.
As the body, almost petulantly, dropped away, the members of
his faith in that Infinite Perfection, Infinite Goodness, Infinite
Presence and Influence, which he had preached and obeyed, were
one by one uncovered.   Sometimes to those who stood the
closest to him, especially at the last, it seemed as if he were impatiently trying to get off those lendings, to show, not by words
and set allusions, but by a likeness in love, the Father and the
Mlother to whom he had always prayed.
But all that remains to show to others are a few more letters,
which preserve to the last his tender friendships and the clearness
of his mind.
TO MRS. CHENEY, BOSTON.
Rome, Dec. 31, 1859.
A happy new year to my dear Ednab, and little Daisy, and the rest
of the family in Somerset Street, in Bowdoin Street, or wherever else 
I have long since written you letters in fancy; but as it is not so easy
to do it in fact, leaning over a table, I think you have not received one
of them this long time. When I was here in 1844, I often saw Mr.
Cheney, though he was quite ill, even then. Now I am the sick one,
and he is at rest, where the body ceases from troubling the soul that
museth in many things. Here are many American artists-Terry
(whom Mr. Cheney knew very well, I think), Paige, Wilds, Story, not
to speak of the sisters in the arts, Miss Stebbins, Hattie Hosmer, and
Miss Landor.  Story has a fine genius; he has now finished a Judith,
which is quite remarkable. All the other Judiths I have seen are revolting.  The artist takes her when the deed is done, and she is there
in cold blood, with the gory head in her hand. You forget the motive
of the deed, and the provocation which caused it, in your horror at
the ghastly head and the cruel-looking sword. You go off with a
shudder, and dream dreadful dreams of some great, black-eyed, bony
woman coming to chop you to pieces. But Story sculptures the heroine




THEODORE PARKER.                         403
before her thought has become a deed. It is only a purpose, a will;
she prays to Jehovah of Hosts to give courage to her womanly heart
and strength to her maidenly arm to strike the blow.  So she stands
there, the sword half behind her, loosely held in the left hand, while
her uplifted right hand and devout face, turned heavenward, tell the
prayer she puts up. It is a Jewish woman, large, determined, and
handsome.  You would look at it often, and always,"with pleasure.  He
has likewise a Hero, holding up a torch and looking into the darkness
for poor Leander.  I like it very much, but don't comprehend it yet
so well as the Judith.
So far I wrote yesterday, when fatigue, occasioned by many interruptions, overcame me, and the hour of closing the mail drew near, and
so the envelope must go to America with no word to you. It is now
Jan. 1, 1860, and while you are still asleep and hid by 3000 or 4000
miles of distance, I wish you and yours a happy new year! How lightly
we often say these words of common courtesy!
Mr. Story is at work on the statue of President Quincy, for the
alumni of Harvard College, and, I doubt not, will make a fine thing out
of it.  The price offered (7500 dollars), is quite too small, even if the
work were to be delivered in Rome, while, I believe, he is to deliver it
in Cambridge.  The block of marble, delivered at his studio, will cost
1000 dollars, and may have such a flaw in it that he must pay an additional 1000 dollars for another.  Quincy is a grand figure for a statue,
and will look well in his academic robes, put into stone. I am glad
Story has the work, even if he loses money by it.  But Powers had
12,000 dollars for his Webster, though delivered at Munich.
Rome is a good place for a well man who is also a scholar; but for
an unscholarly Yankee I should think it would be the most unsatisfactory spot in Europe.  The past is all; there is no present but misery,
and no future but decay and destruction.  It is a fossil city-the Pope
is a fossil ruler, pre-nedicval. It is as impossible that a pope should
be a progressive king, and rule in the spirit of the great idea of the
nineteenth century, as that a sinner should be virtuous or a thief just.
There is a contradiction in the adjunct.
The Romans are a handsome people. Homely women are in the
minority here.  Well, as every woman has an inalienable right to be
handsome, I rejoice that this demand of her nature gets its supply.
The men are handsome; so are the boys, the finest-looking young
fellows I have ever seen.  Then they are so graceful.  I have never
seen a lubberly boy in all Rome; there are no gawkies, even in the
country.  They are not awkward, but use their limbs well; they stand
well, and walk well. I think the men are handsomer on the whole
than the women-I mean such as you see in the streets, and indeed, a
stranger sees no others. This may come from the fact that the women
of the conmon people are more overworked than the men, and so do
not attain their natural development so well, Woman needs finer
material conditions than man.  The most noticeable industry of Rome
is devoted to the fine arts-none of the coarse arts of usefulness prevail much here.  But it is a curious fact that in ancient and modern
times hardly any native of Rome has acquired any considerable distinction in sculpture, painting, architecture, or music-the most sensuous
DD 2




404              LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
of all. It is rare that a Roman born has been distinguished in any
department of letters.
Of course, the architecture of a city strikes a visitor first.  He
knows the outside look of the parts of the hive before he gets familiar
with the character or the habits of the workers or the drones who
live in it.  Of course, the most illustrious buildings are the churches.
"Heathen " Rome and " Christian " are alike in many things.  The
latter has the most gods, however, But in this they differ: the heathen
city did not go much into the business of building temples for the
gods-what she had was quite small, and generally no great things in
point of cost or beauty, I think; while the buildings for the use of
men-baths, basilicas, theatres, and the like, and public palaces for
kings, were of great size and beauty, as well as surprising in point of
numbers.  But the Christian city runs to churches for the use of the
gods, i. e. for Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the little saints who crowd
the almanac with their names and the town with their churches.  It is
amazing to see how church-mad the Romans have been in times past;
or, if not the Romans, at least, their masters, the popes, bishops, cardinals, &c.  Generally these buildings are homely structures on the
outside, made of dingy brick, or of a ragged sort of stone (travertine),
which soon tarnishes in this dampest of all moist cities, and looks
homely forever.  In the inside you are struck with the enormous
wealth which the buildings cost (St. Peter's took up over 58,000,000
dollars, and is by no means finished, only stuccoed, when marble was
both meant and required), with the extraordinary beauty of the material,
and the admirable workmanship expended on all the details, from the
mosaic pavement, of many-colored and precious marbles, up to the
ceiling of the nave, which is made of wood curiously carved and
lavishly gilt.  The size also fills you with admiration in some of the
greater basilicas, which cover from one to three acres of ground.  St.
Peter's, I think, covers about six acres.  But there is not one of these
churches which lifts you up with wonder, with admiration, and with
awe.  Here is the inferiority of this Roman architecture compared with
the Teutonic, which appears in many forms, and is known by many
names, Gothic being the chief and most common.  The Roman basilica-even St. Peter's-denotes "Rest in the attained "-no more; and
disposes to quiet and slumber.  " Dormi dulce," it seems to say.  But
the great Teutonic meeting-houses for the people-as you find them in
Germany, in the Teutonic parts of France, Burgundy, Normandy,
Frankia; in Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, and England-indicate a
longing after the ideal and an aspiration to attain it.  They dispose to
meditation, thought, and heroic life; for they seem to say,' Surge et
labora dum Dies vocatur."  Both styles have grown out of the heart of
the people, and a great crop of literature, corresponding to the temples
and political and social institutions, from the same dissimilar roots.
The priests, the (French) soldiers, and the beggars, are the most
active people here, after those devoted to the hard necessities of life.
The first are quite worthy of study.  There are 37,000 in the Roman
States, in a population of 3,~50,000.  Here, in Rome, the secular
clergy, with the regulars of the superior monastic orders, to judge
from their looks and bearing, have come fiom the superior classes of




THEODORE PARKER.                          405
the people, and bear about the same relation to Rome that the graduates
of Harvard College do to Massachusetts, both in respect to birth and
education.  They are well-dressed, neat, and clean, always decorous;
such is the virtue of the clerical class in all lands-except the SpanishAmerican provinces, it may  be- intelligent-looking, and kindly to
strangers.  (Indeed, all Italians are good-mannered and gentlemanly).
But in their faces there is a curious contradiction of feelings portrayed, viz. a strong self-esteem; a pride of station, of class and function; and a sense of humility, of abasement, of original sin, of being
the offscouring of the world.  One is natural, the other conventional;
one comes from  the great stream of sacerdotal power which sweeps
throughout the land, the other is a reflection from  the little eddies
formed by its banks, and the slight roughnesses which "dusk and
shiver " on its surface, as a puff of wind blows this way or that.  It
is quite curious to  trace these two  conflicting expressions in the
sacerdotal face of Rome.  They appear also in Papal literature.  The
Pope is the most arrogant sovereign in Europe-the infallible. Others
represent armies, and threaten you with the gallows; he represents
God, and menaces the rest of mankind with eternal hell! But alone
of all sovereigns, he calls himself Servus Servorurm, dates his haughtiest
mandates fiom  " our little hovel of the Vatican," and seals it with
" siqillo piscatoris " (the seal of a common fisherman)!
But here is the end of my paper. Much love to all your family, ascending and descending.  How I should like to sit down to tea with them
all once more! Only I can't talk; voice all gone. Don't forget to include
Gussie Clirtis, and ask her to extend the salutation to her family,
both in Charlestown and Brookline, where that dear, good Cornie
has gone.  Remember me specially to St. Mary (Shannon), of Newton
Corner.  My wife sends the kindest of good wishes to you and yours.
(I would put in a daisy, if it would not make the letter overweight).
Miss S. and the Hunts add theirs.
Faithfully yours,
THEOD. PA1rKER.
TO MISS COBBE.
Rome, Jan. 1, 1830.
MY VERY DEAR Miss COBBE,-Your kind letter, with its Yule and
new year's greeting, came but a day or two ago, and was most welcome.  Thanks for the friendly wishes, and the friendly spirit which
warms the ground they grow out of.  We have the mistletoe here in
Rome, at least in its neighborhood, though different from that in England and Normandy; and the holly is perhaps even finer than in
England itself; so we have the material means for a Yule celebration.
Alas, only such! "How can we sing the songs of Zion in a strange
land?"  And Rome is utterly foreign to me and mine.  I abhor its
form of religion, which is only ceremony.  I despise its theology, and
find little to respect in its lying, treacherous, and unreliable inhabitants.  It is a city of the dead.  It has a threefold past, but no future.
The Pope says, "If the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain




406              LIFE  AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
thing, and the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take
counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed," he, the
Pope, will do as his sainted predecessors have done, will go to the
Catacombs of St. Calixtus, and live there in the protection of the
Lord! It is Mr. Mantalini's threat when his wife chid him  for his
naughtiness —     I will throw meself into the Terns.  I will drown, I
will! I will be a most demnition body! "
What you say of the triumph of liberal ideas gladdens me much. I
know  it must come, only I always expect such results to come slowly;
for I have learned, by long experience, that humanity does not advance
by leaps, but by steps.  England is a slow, solemn country; but no
nation is more sure. How much she has done in the last 300 years for
the deliverance of mankind from  the thraldom  of the Middle Ages!
Your country and mine are two nations, but I thank God we are only
one people, with the same literature, language, ideas, and blood; it is
good blood, too.
Kind-hearted Miss Carpenter tells me of the box of clothing for
Captain Brown's family.  I rejoice at it.  Brown was a singularly
noble man. I have known him  for four or five years, and count his
friendship one of the honors of my life.  We have had nothing done
in such heroic sort for a long time before.  The excitement he has
caused has had no parallel. A storm  now rages in all parts of the
Union, which will not blow over in any haste.  Congress is fighting
already.  There can be no unity of action between North and South
till Slavery is at an end, and that must pass away with violence;
perhaps soon! Who knows?
I wish it was this winter, not a former one, that you could spend
here! Would not we have a good time?  But I should be the passive
party, for I cannot talk without pain, nor indeed can I stoop over a
table to write more than four or five minutes at a time, without serious
inconvenience.  But I could see you and hear you.  We have much
pleasure in the society of the Apthorps, &c., all living under the
same roof, and though the weather is almost as bad as that of London,
still the winter slides off pleasantly.  But it is so different from my
former experience, sixteen years ago, when the days were not long
enough to use up my superfluous energy.  To be weak is to be
miserable. I pass a life of strenuous idleness-a life that has no future.
Your countrymen, Mr. and Mrs. Browning, are here, and very
pleasant people they are, too; I rejoice in thenm.  I have seen also Mr.
Arthur Russell, brother of your minister here-an intelligent and
agreeable person.
Here there is such a dearth of periodicals, quarterlies, &c., that I do
not know what takes place in the wide world of literature and science.
Of course, nothing takes place in Rome; a city which has no interest
in science or letters.
Please remember me kindly to Miss Carpenter. I hope her generous
labors will be always blessed with high results.  And accept my hearty
good wishes for the new year, while you believe me
Yours affectionately.




THEODORE PARKER.                          407
TO MR. MANLEY.
Chief City of Ecclesiastical Humbug, Jan. 6, 1860.
I think I have no Roman news to write.  Of course, you know all
the public acts of the Pope and his gang, from the extracts of European
newspapers at home; but here is one little item  which shows how
things are managed here. You remember the ferocious attack made
on Mr. Perkins and his family last summler, at Perugia.  Mr. Stockton,
the American minister, visited Cardinal Antonelli, the Pope behind the
Pope, and demanded satisfaction and money.  A. put him  off with
evasions and foolish arguments, and so the interview ended in nothing.
But the next day a priest visited Mr. S. and talked over the matter
fieely; he was a great friend to America, thought the conduct of the
soldiers at P. was atrocious, &c.  S. was a little cautious, but told his
opinions freely. Then the priest asked, " If A. does not comply with
your request, what shall you do?" and S. replied, " There is only one
thing for me, i.e. to demand my passports immediately and go home;
there the affair will make so much noise that I shall probably be the
next President! "  The priest went off, and the next day came a letter
from  A., telling S. that his terms should be forthwith acceded to!
So much for spunk and a sharp look-out.  Of course the priest was a
spy of the Cardinal, sent to find out how the matter lay on the minister's
mind.
Of course, I have read the speeches at Fanueil Hall, and the list of
signers to the call.'  It was a most characteristic meeting.         -
could no more comprehend John Brown and his heroism, than a New
Zealand cannibal could understand Florence Nightingale or Matilda
Goddard.  He has no moral organs by which to judge of such a phenomenon.  Gushing attributes fine powers and culture to Garrison,
R. W. E., and W. P.; as if intellect alone explained the rise of the AntiSlavery Party! Why, there is mind enough among the Hunkers! But
the Anti-Slavery men appealed to the conscience of the people, and their
instincts of humlanity, and are now getting their answer.
But that meeting will do as much good as the Union Meeting in
1850. The property and standing of Boston would have condemned
the patriots of Middlesex County on the 20th of April, 1775, and the
heroes of Bunker Hill on the 18th of June that year.  Hancock,
Adams, &c., were but the Garrisons, and R. W. E.'s and W. P.'s of that
day.  But no American has died. in this century whose chance of
earthly immortality is worth half so much as John Brown's.  The exGovernors of Massachusetts are half forgotten before they are wholly
dead; rhetoricians and sophists are remembered while they are talking; but a man who crowns a noble life with such a glorious act as
John Brown's at Harper's Ferry is not forgotten in haste; the red
martyr must be a precious man. A happy New Year to you all; kindest
love to you and yours. Please send my wife's letter to Emmeline Jackson,
and my love to all the Jacksons; they are kindred to John Brown!
Good bye!                                                    T. P.
* To save the Union again, imperilled by John Brown.




408             LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
The following  letter from  Mr. Aptborp  to  Mr.  Lyman
describes the condition of Mr. Parker at the opening of the new
year:Rome, January 16, 1860.
MY DEAR LYMAN,-You will easily believe me when I say that I have
very many times felt impelled to write to you since we parted, and there
is only one reason why I have refiained from doing so, and this is the difficulty of giving you such an account of Mr. Parker as I wished and constantly hoped fiom dayto day I should be able to give on the change of the
weather, which we were all expecting.  To be sure, I thought it encouraging that our friend did not go astern faster under such extremely
unfavorable circumstances; yet I could not conceal from myself that
there was and is a constant diminution of vitality, notwithstanding the
very slight symptomatic changes, and the positive improvement of the
weather, at intervals, lasting six and eight days at a time.  His cough
has been at times much diminished, his sleep much improved, his
strength considerably increased, and his spirits better; but, even at
such times, he has sensibly lost flesh.  This fact he magnifies, as he
does all unfavorable appearances, being, in this respect, no exception
to ordinary invalids.  My theory of treatment for him  has always
been rest for his weak and over-used lungs; and when I accompany
him every other day and oftener on his walks, I scarcely talk at all,
for in this way alone can I prevent his talking. He, however, sees
a variety of persons, and so loves to talk that it is quite impossible
to prevent him.  Of course, in my opinion, he suffers injury in consequence............~.   I do not know that the self-forgetfulness enforced
in this way may not offset the damage suffered by the lungs; but my
opinion is, that the despondency could not work such positive injury.
We often express wonder that physicians know so little of the effects of
remedies and of climate on disease; yet the materials for determining
these subtle facts in a given case are very partial and imperfect, and
very inferior to those enjoyed by a careful nurse or attendant on the
sick man.  I have watched MIr. Parker with the closest scrutiny now
for four months, and I cannot say with any confidence that weather has
or has not worked any positive change on him in any one instance. He
has had increased activity of prominent symptoms on a change from
damp to dry, and one set of theorists here say, " That might have been
expected; it is always so with consumptive persons."   But also he
has had the same changes on a variation from dry to damp, and another
set says-"All right, the damp always acts so on the lungs."  You will
wish I might make some resume after the study of all the phenomena,
and yet I feel my incapacity to do more than to give you my impressions, and compare his present condition with what it was or
seemed to me when you left him  in Montreux.  He is, I think, ten
or twelve pounds lighter, more nervous and desponding, looks thinner in
the face, complexion paler, eyes much feebler-looking, having lost a
great deal of their fire and expression.   His power of walking is
greater than it was then, and his breathing certainly not more diffi



TIiEODORE PARKER.                         409
cult, as far as can be ascertained by the ear, when he goes uphill or
upstairs.  His cough (which has varied at times) is now  about the
same as it was then, not worse in any respect; his appetite sharp
and regular.  He has his own theories (or caprice) about his drinks
-a point upon which I thlink he errs, drinking too great a varietyMarsala, Sicily port, Moonongahela whisky, and occasionally trying
other things.  These and all liquors he takes, as you know, in very
moderate quantities; yet I fear that the variety is prejudicial.  For
a month past he has been apprehending a haemorrhage, which he said
would occur on the anniversary of the first attack, January 9th.
"You will see that I am not mistaken in this," he several times said to
ime.  It is now the 16th, and, as good luck would have it, he was
rather unusually well on that and the few neighboring cays.  He
now  says the 20th must pass before he is safe from  an  attack,
and I think his spirits may rise if he passes that point in safety.
The life he leads is very uniform, and may be described as follows:He rises at nine, breakfasts at half-past nine or ten.  At eleven to halfpast eleven, we start out, go " down town " to Piazza di Spagna, thence
to the post-office (about a mile), and then wander about the streets at
a rather moderate pace; mercury averaging during these hours, say 148
Fahrenheit.  At one or half-past one he always gets hungry, goes into
a ccft, and calls for some light lunch, say fried ham (little zephyr bits),
a roll, and a glass of water.  Then we resume our trudge, and I always
get him  indoors by three, as the streets of Rtome are considered unhealthy after that hour.  A part (say from  a half to a whole hour) of
this time is always devoted to looking over old musty books, either
at the stalls in the street or at the old book-stores.  His eyes are
everywhere; nothing escapes them; he runs them over the fruit-stalls,
selects any new kind of nut or other fruit, asks what it is and where it
grew, and tastes it; every placard on the walls, be it bull of Pope,
Invito Sacro, or (and especially) " Vendita di una Libreria."  Occasionally we pass through a church, where his comments are characteristic,
commonly summed up with an expressive "H-m!" which you are
familiar with.  He looks even upon painting rather with the moral
than the esthetie eye, and with difficulty discovers the beauty of the
medimeval and pre-medisval paintings athwart their ghantly subjects.
This proves not the blindness of the esthetic eye, but the transparency
of all those media which intercept or dim the moral vision of the ordinary man.  His reasoning powers were never clearer or sharper. We
were together, a week or two since, on a visit to Mrs. Browning.
Mr. Browning was present, and the conversation turned on Guerronniere's pamphlet,+ which had just then appeared.  Mrs. Browning had
not seen it, only heard  generally its contents, or rather purport.
Mr. Parker had seen a translation of it in the Times, and proceeded,
in his unique way, to state its grounds, its argument, and then to draw
his own inferences as to its real meaning, object, and probable effect.
Mr. Browning stood up with his back to the fire, Mrs. Browning sat
with her face turned half round towards him, and I sat so that I could
at once see the faces of all three.  It was very interesting to observe
* Le Pape et le Congres.




410              LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
how spell-bound they were; and Mrs. B. said to me, some days after,
" What a masterly statement! What a wonderful man! "
But to return to my diary, or, rather, Mr. Parker's.  Arrived at
home he takes to the sofa, generally, more tired than I approve, and
sometimes get a nap.  Dinner comes at five, and very often with evening a visitor comes in-either the Count Frolich, of Sweden; Dr.
Appleton, an old parishioner, with wife; or George Bemis, of the
Suffolk Bar.  Every night at eight he comes down one story to our
room, with cap and shawl, and sits, never over an hour, except the
Storys be present, when he sometimes extends his visit to ten o'clock,
[Mrs. Parker generally with him.
We are served from a German trattoria, which is far superior to the
best Italian that we have known, and get simple, good, and quite American fare, roast and boiled. Provisions are unprecedentedly cheap
this winter, owing to the diminished demand, and we reap the comforts
of this exceptional state of things.  My programme seems to have filled
up the day; but you know the man, and will not be surprised that a
vast amount of reading and writing is dovetailed into it.  His shelves
show a long range of learned works on Rome and Italy, and his diary*
is swelling under his indefatigable pen.  Social correspondence is by
no means neglected, and the well man shrinks abashed before his indomitable industry and his power of work.
Here the course of life is resumed wvith Mr. Parker's letters
to various friends.  First comes a careful archaeological survey
of Rome.
TO MR. CHARLES ELLTS.
Rome, Jan. 29, 1860.
ITMY DEAR iM. ELLTS.-It is a great while since I have written you,
but I know you will not think that I ever cease to remember that you
are one of my oldest and best friends, as well as one of the best
beloved.  But it is not now quite so easy to write as when I could sit
half a day with a pen in my hand and not be weary; and besides,
here, where we have but one room with a fire in it, there are continual
interruptions which make writing impossible.
But I wonder if you would not like a word or two about this famous
old city and its neighborhood?  I think so, and accordingly will set
down the result of my observations upon it in regular order.
I. The Rome of Nature. An irregular range of mountains, broken
and interrupted here and there, sweeps round and encloses a sort of
amphitheatre of level or undulating land, bounded on one side by the
sea, which this range of mountains approaches at both ends.  This
amphitheatre  contains Rome aud the  Campagna, or field about' The Diary for these months contains only scraps from newspapers and pamphlets,
epitaphs, concetti, brief characterizations of books read. The last page is an Italian
quotation from Novre's "Elementi della Storia de Sommi Pontifici," Roma, 1785, relating to the fable of Pope Joan.




THEODORE PARKER                            411
Rome.  It is irregular in shape, perhaps thirty or forty miles across in
each direction. This territory has two rivers, the Tiber and the Anio,
a branch of the Tiber, which receives it about twenty miles from the
sea.  There are several smaller streams which run directly to the sea, but
are short and small.  The land slopes gradually from the mountains to
the sea, but is broken into gentle swells, or into low but steep-sided
hills.  The mountains are of volcanic origin, except here and there,
where you find an isolated calcareous summit, like Soracte, standing
alone; but a ridge of hills, lower than the mountains, and twenty or
thirty miles long on the north-east side of this amphitheatre, is also of
limestone.  All the plain, with its small hills, is also volcanic.  Along
the shore you find rolled pebbles of various character-granitic, volcanic,
calcareous.   The natural plants are pines, cypresses, oaks-three
kinds, one of them evergreen-chestnuts, alders, maples, ashes, poplars,
willows, &c., all different from our own. Perhaps the fig, the walnut, and
the -vine are also natives; other fruit-trees have been introduced by
man.  The plants of the grass kind are numerous; there is great
profusion of flowers. The soil is rich by nature, and the climate such
that the cattle keep the field all the year; the sheep have lambs in the
early spring, and again late in the summer; the woods and fields are
always green; the ground never freezes, and if snow falls, it lies but a
few hours, and seldom extends half an inch in depth.  It never freezes
in the day-time, even if the weather is cloudy; the rain falls about forty
inches a-year (we have forty-seven at Boston and only twenty-seven at
London) yet it seems to me it rains almost every day since I have been
here.  The land slopes from the mountains to the sea about one foot
in a mile, or a little more; so the soil requires artificial drainage to
make it healthy and serviceable for farms and gardens.  Originally, I
suppose, the whole surface was covered with a great, thick, rich forest,.but that has long ago disappeared; still, the edge of the sea is fringed
with a deep wood, and the sides of the mountains are covered with
trees.  Once there were many volcanoes in this ridge of mountains,
but they have long been silent, and now the craters are lakes of pure clear
water, still retaining their circular shape and great depth.  Indeed, all
the lakes hereabouts are volcanic cups, once filled with fire, now full of
water.
II. Rome of the Pre-Romans.  The city of Rome was founded
754 B.c., but before that time this territory was pretty thickly settled,
and the land apparently cultivated well; large towns were scattered
about, one of three hundred thousand or four hundred thousand
inhabitants a few miles off; many small towns must have been in the
neighborhood. But now no relics remain of those ancient peoples,
save here and there the ruins of a city all covered up and hid so completely that, for one thousand years, nobody knew where it once had
been.  But Greek and Roman writers keep the traditions of those
peoples, and preserve a few fragments of their language; nay, a little
farther off we find, now and then, a monumental inscription.  Here is
one curious fact-all over Central and Northern Europe we find monuments of the time when the inhabitants were savage, or just advancing
out of primitive wildness.  Their tools of bone, of stone, of copper, and
of iron mark the successive steps of their progress; but, in this




41 2            LirE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
neighborhood, no  such marks of ancient savagery have ever been
found; and, so far as I know, all Italy has not a stone tomahauz k to
exhibit, or an arrowhead of flint. I can't account for the fact.
III. Rome of the Roman Kings. About fifteeen miles from the sea, on
the right bank of the Tiber, and two miles below its junction with the
Anio, there is a cluster of hills, ten or fifteen of them, close to the river;
some of them were originally one hundred and twenty or two hundred
feet high above the level of the river, which is twenty feet above the
sea.'Towards the water the sides were steep; there were little ponds or
swamps, between the hills; the valleys were always damp.  This is the
first rising ground between the sea and the mountains.  There the
city was built, small at first, and at length spreading out to the size
of Paris, twelve or thirteen miles in circumference.  The first government was by kings and an oligarchic senate.  The kingdom  lasted
from 754 to 510, and has left a few monuments. (1.) A subterraneous
canal for draining the lowest parts of the city.  It is made of stone,
arched; is about six hundred feet long and twelve feet high; it is
thirteen or fourteen feet wide at one end, and ten or eleven at the
other, where it enters the river.  You will see the skill of the engineer
who thus made it keep itself clear.  (2.) A gaol with thick walls and
a deep dungeon. (3.) Fragments of the city wall, partly of stone,
partly of earth, in which cabbages, lettuces, and other kitchen vegetables
are cultivated now.  Such are the chief remains of a kingdom, which
ceased 2370 years ago-a Sewer, a Prison, and a Wall.
IV. Rome of the Roman Consuls. (570 to 29 B.c.) This has left us
as visible monuments-(1) the foundations of a few small temples now
covered up with other buildings, or with ruins; (2) the foundation of
part of the present Capitol; (3) some bridges now in ruins, or else
built over anew; (4) the remains of some aqueducts, long since
fallen to decay; (5) fragments of the foundation of a theatre, all covered
up with modern structures; (6) a few tombs, some of them celebrated
for beauty or costliness; and (7) several great public highways built
with wonderful solidity.  The Roman Republic has left few visible
remains.
V. -onne of the Emperors. (29 B.C. to 476 A.C.) This has left us (1)
great highways; (2) great aqueducts; (3) bridges, now  built over
anew; (4) a long line of walls of brick or stone; (5) the ruins of a
few temples, small, as the Roman temples always were; (6) the ruins
of enormous baths; (7) the Colosseum, a magnificent ruin; (8) palaces
and villas, all ruins now; (9) two enormous triumphal columns; (10)
several triumphal arches, three of them  pretty complete; (11) old
temples converted into churches-the finest of these is the Pantheon,
the fairest relic of the ancient architecture in Italy, perhaps in the
world; (12) obelisks brought from  Egypt and set up in Rome; (13)
funeral monuments in great number-the most remarkable are the
mausoleums of Augustus and Hadrian, and the pyramid of Caius
Cestius; (14) statues, bas-reliefs, and bronzes in great numbers, some
of them brought from conquered countries.  Most of these works date
from the earlier portion of the Empire: after the year 300, scarce
anything was added to the wealth and beauty of Rome, except what is
next to be named.




THEODORE PARKER.                          4] 3
VI. Rome of the Popes. (Say 200 A.C. to 1860.) This period laps on
that of the Empire one hundred and seventy-six years; the beginning
(f00 A.C.) is arbitrary, but I think the power of the Popes did not show
itself before that time. This may be distributed into three periods1. The Dark Ages, say till 800, the time of Charlemagne.  2. The
Middle Ages, from 800 to 1450.  3. Modern Times, 1450 till now.
(1.) Papal Rorne in the Dark Ages. ti.) We have funeral monuments
of the Christians; (ii.) the Catacombs, with their strange and curious
contents; (iii.) churches-but not one of them  in its present form
dates back to 300.  Perhaps the St. Agnes is the oldest of all, built in
324, and not much altered since.  The great churches of this period
were the old St. Peter's, St. Paul's-beyond-the-Wall, St. John of Lateran;
but all these are swept away and rebuilt.  Four famous churches are
still standing of this time, made out of old heathen temples; all the
others were made out of the materials of former buildings, destroyed
that these might be built.  See how the number of churches increased.
From 400 to 500 there were thirty-six new churches built; from 500 to
600, four; from  600 to 700, seventeen; fiomn 700 to 800, twelve-all,
I think, built out of the ruins of Pagan temples, for the Christians
were the first destroyers of Imperial Rome. (iv.) Statues, bas-reliefs,
and mosaics in great abundance have come from  this period, all indicating decay of everything except " ng-piety " (you know how to pronounce that word).
(2.) Papal Rome in the Middle Ages.  Here come (i.) churches,
though in no great number-from  800 to 900, fourteen; 900 to 1000,
ten; 1000 to 1100, three; 1100 to 1200, eighteen; 1200 to 1300,
sixteen; 1300 to 1400, only one.  These were times of trouble, of war,
of continual disturbance. For three hundred or four hundred years
in the time of the Empire, Rome contained a population of one million
five hundred thousand; but in 1377, it had dwindled down to seventeen
thousand!  (ii.) Towers and other fortified buildings.  These were
very numerous, belonging to the feudal system, and the time of war.
These were built by ruining the old structures; but most of them have
passed away. Indeed, most of the churches of this period are either
demolished or else reconstructed, more or less.  (iii.) Funeral monuments of this age are scattered about in many churches, or collected in
museums. (iv.) There are sculptures, and mosaics, and, perhaps, frescoes
of this age.
(3.) Papal Rome in Modern Times. All the present city dates from this
period, and is not older than the year 1450.  (i.) Here come the
churches.  Even St. Peter's is since 1500.  From 1500 to 1600, sixty
churches and convents were built; from 1600 to 1700, fifty-five; from
1700 to 1800, twenty-three.  (ii.) Palaces and public buildings-all
these are modern; of the eighty palaces mentioned in guide-books, not
one is before 1480.  From  1500 to 1600, there were built thirty-four;
1600 to 1700, twenty-two; 1700 to 1800, six.  (iii.) Houses and shops
of the common people-all these are modern.  The whole town dates
since 1500.  Really, it is surprising to see what wealth of church and
palace has been created in three hundred and fifty years. St. Peter's
Church cost about fifty million dollars! With us at home, what we call
churches are meeting-houses, for the accommodation of men and women




414             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
who hope to get some instruction therein; here they are " for the glory
of God," or oftener of some miserable beast of a saint. Accordingly,
you often go into a church which has cost one million dollars, and find
service going on, but attended only by the gang of priests whose
business it is to do that work. The people are not there; so, many
churches are built where there are no people, and never will be.  St.
Paul's-out-of-the-Walls dates back to the fourth century, if not earlier;
it has often been destroyed and rebuilt-it is in process of reconstruction now. It will cost more than all the meeting-houses of Boston.
TO MIRS. C. ELLIS.
Romne, Feb. 3, 1860.
MY DEAR MiRS. ELLIS,-I had made ready the foregoing letter to
your excellent husband,when the Transcript told me that he had passed
to a sphere where letters are not needed to communicate between
soul and soul. Yesterday, there caime a letter from Francis Jackson,
of 13th ult., giving me more particulars of his departure.  I need not
tell you or your children how much I sympathize with you in your loss;
it is but too well known.  But, my dear sorrowing friends, he has lost
nothing, but has made an unspeakable gain.  Not long ago poor Katie
went before him, lamenting that she must go alone.  Now he is with
her. Nay, she went to make ready a place in heaven for her father,
who so tenderly prepared a place for her on earth. Let us not complain.  Tenderly loved by those who knew him best, widely respected
by many whom he worked with in the various duties of the day, at a
considerable age, he has gone home.  He has shaken off a worn-out
and broken body, continually racked with torturing pains, and risen up
a freed and unfettered spirit.  I think the suddenness of his departure
was not the least of many mercies.  He was saved that long lingering
which torments so many of us, and makes the road to the grave so
rough and difficult; he had none of the " hope deferred which maketh
the heart sick."  Mr. Jackson wrote me that he was taken ill of the
paralysis Sunday, "and died at the going down of the sun."  I think
it fortunate for him, for you, for us all, that he was spared that long
agony which wearies out the days of many, who perish at last of that
disease.  I know how difficult it is for wife and children to think so at
first; after a while our eyes open, and we discover a mercy where at
first we saw only a terror.
I need not say how highly I esteemed your husband, or how I loved
him, nor what reason I had for both. He was one of my oldest friends,
one of the faithfulest, one of the nearest and dearest.  I have known
him twenty-two years, and that, too, with increasing esteem and affection.  He was a large-minded man, observant and thoughtful. He had
his own way of looking at things, original and independent.  I have
not known many men with such fine large natural powers; they were
admirably well-disciplined also. How tender and loving he was at
home I need not say; but his charity went out abroad, and did service
to men whom he never saw; they were lifted up and comforted, though
they saw not the arm that he put round them. His sympathies were




THEODORE PARKER.                         415
so ready, and his mind so active, that, spite of his white hairs and
suffering body, he still continued young. He welcomed all new thought
when almost seventy years old as readily as a man of twenty-five. This
keeping a young heart is quite rare, and always beautiful. I need not
say how much I valued his counsel.  It was he that induced me to
deliver my first course of lectures in Boston in 1841. I said, " I am
too young to engage in such a work;" and he answered earnestly,
" We don't ask you to be older now, but to do what you can till you
become so." I went and did what I could then, I am old enough now!
Again, in 1846, I was in doubt about coming to Boston to preach in
the Melodeon.  I distrusted my own talents.  I feared that only a few
would accept the doctrines I had to offer, for I saw clearly where those
doctrines would lead, and the failure would make matters worse than
before. It was mainly through his persuasion that I gave up my self-distrust and fear, lest others could not accept what I was yet so anxious
to offer them. His friendship never failed, and I never asked him in vain
to help another-he often went further in such matters than I wished.
It is just a year to-day since I left home, expecting not to see him
again. Yours was the last house I went to in America. In my sickness I made but four visits; one to see my uncle, aged ninety-one; one
to see Mrs. Goddard, seventy-eight; another to see my wife's aunt,
almost eighty; and the last to bid good-bye at your house.  I could
not visit my wife's mother, aged seventy-five.  Of the four I took by
the hand only one is left on earth.  Perhaps they have already greeted
each other in the great commonwealth of heaven, where they have
entered into the joy of their Lord, and tasted the fulness of his blessing! Accept the tenderest sympathy for you and yours of, affectionately and faithfully your friend,
T. P.
TO DR. CABOT.
Rome, Feb. 3, 1860.
MI DEAR DR. CABOT,-It is a year to-day since I last saw you, when,
armed with your seven-league boots, you came and so kindly and affectionately helped me off. In many respects I am now  a deal better
than then, when local troubles had brought me down pretty low. I
have had a great variety of climates and situations in twelve months.
Snow was a foot deep on the by-ways of New York when I left the
city, Feb. 8, 1859. In an hour after starting our steamboat struck
into a horrible storm, which was three days thick.  How sea-sick we
were-what troubles we went through! The little, long, thin, deep,
sharp propeller, with no side wheels, turned in the water as quick as
an eel-a most uncomfortable ship.  But when, on the fourth day, we
get into smooth water, with just wind enough to keep the boat steady,
and the sub-tropical sun shone out of a cloudless sky; when the shallow
water had that exquisitely beautiful amethystine color, the Island of
Nassau showed us its green hills, its cocoa-nut trees full of fruit, its
lemon and orange trees, and its various palms, its sugar-canes and its
enormous oleanders, fifteen or twenty feet high.  I felt as I fancy the




41              LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
souls do that are released from a miserable body, and enter at once
upon the eternal paradise!  I never experienced such sensations —I
can never forget them.  At St. Croix, on my arrival, I was terribly
weak.  I could but just walk round the house and garden, ard could
only write by holding my left hand to steady the other-writing with
a hand and a fist.  But the momentum of a long active life, and the
habit of intellectual industry, put me upon tasks above my strength.
I did best at Combe-Varin with Desor.  There I had highly intellectual companions, the best of food, the choicest of wine, and work
in the woods.  We lived in a cup or trough on the top of the mountains.  When the sun was up high, the weather was delicious, but
when the shadows of the mountains began to grow long and reach
across the valley, the radiation of heat ill that clear, thin atmosphere
was strangely rapid; and as the air grew cool I began to cough, and
went in-doors and lighted my peat fire, and read the newest works of
German science. I did well there..
You must not think I slighted your advice in taking Rome and not
Egypt for the winter (sometime I will tell you more of the reasons
than I care to write).  It is a most fitful climate.  I have been here
near four months, and have seen no particle of dust till yesterday. It
has rained almost all the time; yet, out of the 10O days, there have been
but eight when I have not walked out an hour or two. Now and then,
as yesterday and the day before, the weather is perfectly beautiful; it
rains to-day, and we had a rainbow at 7 o'clock A.M. I always know
the  night before what the weather will be next day in general..Rome is the dampest city I was ever in.  The walls and roofs are
green and yellow with fuci and lichens of various kinds; but the soft,
moist air feels as grateful to sore lungs as the steam of the sugarhouses did at St. Croix-it seems healing and wholesome.  The tramontana wind, a westerly current, is cold and arid.  That makes me
cough at once; but if it should continue a few days-it is never violent,
or more than fifteen miles the hour-I think it would cease to trouble
me.  On the whole, Rome has done better for me than I expected or
hoped: it was a pis aller at the best, my coming here.  I have
held my own more than I hoped. At first I got too much fatigued
by long walks-four to six hours a-day.  Then I was sleepless, and
sweat at night; but Story told me the cause (expertus discet), and I
avoided it, and mended.  I have been very careful about exposure.  I
have not been in a palace, a library (!), or a gallery of painting or
sculpture since I came here, and do not see the inside of a church
much oftener than Falstaff saw his own knee. Do commend me for
my prudence. When I first came, I got the requisite books descriptive
of Rome, that I might have some indoor work, and need not eat my
own head off in the long evenings.  So I have read a good deal on
Roman history, antiquities, topography, art, &c., &c. I can't talk, nor
visit, nor go to the theatre, but have yet found not a little sort of
amusement.  I look after the book-auctions; there have been ten
already.  I go in the warm part of the day and look over the books for
sale in the evening, and so learn what is the staple reading of the clergy,
for all these are the libraries of deceased ministers.  Miserable stuff




THEODORE PARKER.                        417
these collections are, in general, the dryest of dead books-mummified
literature.Yet now and then I find works of great value and rarity
sold for a trifle.  A sick man must not buy big books for himself; but
if the College Library had let me have 400 or 500 dollars to spend
here, I could have saved them 400 or 500 dollars more.  Now and then
I get a little thing for myself, at a small cost. So I get amusement
and occupation, and cheat myself into the belief that I am  doing
something, and am going to live and work again.  And in this, "the
pleasure is as great in being cheated as to cheat."  But I will tell you
no more about myself, except that I expect Desor here every week:
he is to go to Naples, &c., with me for a month! Do you know the
Canton of Neuchatel made him  a citizen a few weeks ago!  This
is the first time the honor has been conferred on any one since
1848.
Now a word about Roman affairs.  The people of this melancholy
city live to laugh; and if they cannot make a revolution, they will have
their funny caricatures. You may judge that Pio IX. is not particularly well beloved in Rome just now, especially as the "fear of change
perplexing kings" keeps strangers out of the city, which lives chiefly
upon them.  The old fellow does not behave well now-a-days. He lost
his temper the other morning at a breakfast in the American College,
and made a foolish speech.  He got red in the face, and pounded the
table with his fists.  He said the ideas of the nineteenth century were
deadly hostile to the divine authority of the Roman Church; spoke of
Garibaldi, though without naming him, as an assassin (sicario), and
referred obliquely, but clearly and obviously, to Louis Napoleon as an
incendiary (incenditore); but he said, " I am not afraid.  I will pray to
God, and He will change the elements! " (" Ma io non ho paura, preghero
all, Iddio ed eyli' cambiero gli elementi.") The poor old thing forgetting
that the God whom the nineteenth century knows, made the elements
to suit his purposes at first, and works by developing, not changing
them! He is an obstinate, conscientious, good man; but full of ideas
that are pre-?nediacval.  He is a logical Pope, and can no more escape
from being reactionary and a despot than the Devil can help promoting
sin, to talk in the mythological way of ministers at home. But he will
live to see the ideas of the nineteenth century shake his Pontifical
State to pieces, I think and trust.  When his temporal power is
limited to this city, with 176,000 antiquated, good-natured people, his
spiritual power will be worth little, except with the Paddies in Ireland.
The Roman Academy (Pontificia Accaclemia Romana di Archeologio)
will hold a meeting next Thursday, and the President, Professor Cav.
Salvatore Betti, will treat this question, "Whether Julius CGesar and
Augustus ever thought of removing their Seat of Empire to Old Troy?"
It would be a fit subject for some of the Betties of the American Academy
at Boston to discuss.  Do propose it; you are a member.  I intend to
leave Rome about April 20-23 for Florence, and thence go slowly to
Germany, over the Simplon, if the weather will allow, or if not, then
by Venice and the Tyrol.  Desor wants me to come and pass the summer amid his pine-woods, and get to America about September 1st.  I
don't know what to do; tell me. Is it better to come to Boston about
VOL. IT.                                             E E




418              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
July 1st, and have to go into the country for two months, or about
September 1st, and live in my own house in town?
With love from mine to yours, believe me, gratefully and obediently,
Your faithful patient,
THEODORE PARKER.
TO MISS COBBE.
Roma, 1860.
MY VERY DEAR MIsS COBBE,-I attended to your kind note, which
came last week, as fast as I could, but have not been able to answer it
till now. I have no photograph of myself with me, nor do I like those
taken in America.  The lithograph which you have from Mrs. Hunt is
not much esteemed by my critical friends at home, more than by
myself; for while the lower part of the face, they say, is good, the
upper part is not much like me. As soon as I could make arrangements, I sat to a photographer here in Rome three times, but only took
cold; while he, who, I think, is only a bungler in taking faces, made
most hideous things which I would not keep in the bottom of a trunk.
Miss Hunt has a daguerreotype, taken seven or eight years ago, which
is fine in some points, it is said; and if my bungler can get a picture
of that I will send it, but that has no beard, while I now have an
ample covering to my face.
My friends or foes could not have been further out of the way than
in saying what you mention as to my opinion about divorce. I have
preached on almost all matters of great public concern in America
except this divorce question, on which I have never given any opinion
in public, and never but twice, as I remember, touched it at all. Once,
in a course of lectures on the New Testament, commenting on Jesus's
opinion on marriage and divorce, I gave a history of both in the
Jewish and the Christian Churches. Again, in a lecture on " The
Savage, the Hebrew, the Classic, the Christian, and the Philosophic
Idea of Woman," I spoke of marriage and divorce in heathen nations,
of course briefly, and in a manner purely objective and historical. I
have not touched this great matter for two reasons: (1) I don't feel
quite competent to deal with it, and perhaps never shall, even if I live;
and (2) things are going on very well without my interference, perhaps
better without it. All the progressive States of America are changing
their laws of divorce, and in New England they have altered much in
fifty or even in twenty years.  The instinct and reflection of the
people demand a change.  In the new Western States the alterations
are very great and rapid. In private, I do not share the opinions
attributed to me, and have painfully spent much time in attempting
to reconcile married people who at first sought a divorce. Yet, out of
many trials, I remember but onze where the attempt was at all successful. I have small sympathy with men and women who would either
make or break a marriage lightly; but I do not think material adultery
is the only breach of marriage. I think I once petitioned the Massachusetts Legislature to make habitual drunkenness a ground for
divorce, if the aggrieved party desired it.  But proper notions of mar



THEODORE PARKER.                       419
riage, and so of divorce, can only come as the result of a slow but
thorough revolution in the idea of woman. At present all is chaotic
in the relation between her and man; hence the ghastly evils of involuntary celibacy, of unnatural marriage, and of that dreadful and
many-formed vice which disgraces our civilization.  But we shall gradually outgrow this feudalism of woman, and Kosmos will come where
Chaos was. I have few things more at heart than the elevation of
woman, and have written much on that theme which may never yet
see the light.
I am quite delighted that my little book finds favor in England.  I
see there are two editions of it; one, which Chapman sent me, for a
shilling. I know the idea of Theism must prevail, and shake down at
length the  Roman Catholic Church and the Teutonic Protestant
Church, both representing the idea of an imperfect Deity, who makes
only special revelations of Himself by miracle. How many minds are
now at work in that direction! I trust you will soon find a working
place suited to your genius and your culture.  I think I could aid you
in getting your books before the American public.  But you have left
the matter in good hands.
T. P.
TO MR. MANLEY.
Feb. 8, 1860.
Mr. Ellis was one of the oldest and most dear friends that I left
behind me in America. W\e have been intimate many years.  He had
towards me something of the affection of a father, and liked me, not
merely for what I was to the world at large, but for what he felt me to
be to him. His personal kindness and tenderness has added joy to
me for now many a year.  I have known few men so well born as he,
with so good endowments of body and mind.  He was not what is
pedantically called an " educated man," but I have found not many
with faculties so well developed and disciplined as his. How stupid is
the New England notion of what makes an educated man! A little
Latin, a lttle   e     little Greek, a little of speculative mathematics and knowledge
of a few books-but the understanding, the imagination, the reason,
may lie a howling wilderness, and the conscience be as unproductive
and lifeless as the Dead Sea. Talk with Rev. Dr. Choker; you say he
is an  "educated man," though he has not mind and conscience
enough to know that it is(a Devil, not a God, who would create men to
damn them eternally.) Talk with Capt. Goodwin, and you say " he is
not educated," thougii  he has all his intellectual and moral faculties in
the most healthful activity; can build a ship, and sail her round the
world, selling one cargo well and profitably, and buying another; can
amputate a leg, and make a wooden one to take its place; and manage
the affairs of any town in Plymouth County!
In my sense of the word Mr. Ellis was a man educated well-his
moral faculties were also expanded with good proportions; his instincts
of humanity became quicker and more generous as he grew older. He
was one of the most thoughtful and thinking heads at the Music Hall;
E E 2




420              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
how manly and earnest he looked! I made my last American visit in
his house, thinking we should not meet again in this world.  His life
has seemed very uncertain for years, so much rheumatism, with such
an affection of the heart; perhaps he did not know so much of the
latter as I did. To his family his loss is a great one; their habitation
is left unto them desolate.  He has lost nothing-but shaken off a dull,
painful, worn-out body, and gone home. There are not many I shall
miss so much if I return home, as I trust I shall.  When I heard of
his departure, I had a letter written for him descriptive of Rome.
What a ghastly affair was that at Lawrence — nearly as many killed
and wounded as the Americans lost at Bunker Hill.  Those battles of
industry also have their victims. I see they had a day of religious
observance at Lawrence on the occasion, and am  glad of it.  It is
natural for us in our sorrow as in our joy, to flee to the Infinite for
consolation and hope.  But, alas! how few ministers there are who can
see and tell the causes of this disaster in human ignorance and cupidity; its function, to tell us of the error we commit, and warn us
against repeating it; and its consequences, full of beneficence and man's
triumph over the elements.  These hundreds of innocent people died,
not one of them forgotten before God: they slept in heaven instead
of a factory boarding-house, and woke next morning, not to the sharp
ring of the mill-bell, but to the gladsome call, "Come, ye beloved,
enter into the joy of your Lord! "
But their death is not in vain on earth; they fell as the New England
soldiers fell in our defeats at Bunker Hill, and White Plains, and many
another fatal battle-field: but all helps to the great victory which is to
come.  Harsh words are said against the mill-owners, builders, &c.;
thev did the best they knew, risking their money and reputation on the
factory; they certainly constructed ill.  This winter, Massachusetts
will make laws to prevent such catastrophes for the future, perhaps
have a Board of Commissioners of Construction in every county, to
look after such great buildings; and for the next fifty years no factory
will be built to fall down. The walls of this house I now live in, are
thicker on the fifth story than the Pemberton Mills in the first, and
solid too.  Americans are careless, and must suffer until they learn
prudence.  Conform to natural law, and it shall be well with thee!
That is the language of all " accidents."
I hope to stand next winter well in Boston. Spring is beginning
here (we have had birds and flowers all winter), and the new grass looks
sweet and beautiful. Love from mine to all yours, and to many, many
more, from, yours faithfully and thankfully,
T. P.
TO MISS COBBE.
What a hopeful state the European world is now in! Never has it
been so interesting since the French Revolution of 1789.  It is pleasant to Americans to find England on the side of progress and humanity
in this great battle of the nations. From 1770 till 1833 she went the
* The sudden falling of a great mill, many stories high, with great loss of life.




TIIEODORE PARKER.                       421
other way, and with all her might opposed the great movement which
first made an industrial democracy of America, and next destroyed the
feudal system in Europe, and at length will shake down all despotic
thrones, with " fear of change perplexing kings."
What is commonly called Christianity, i.e., the absurd scheme of
theology and church organization which now obtains in all Catholic
and Protestant lands, can never again engage the minds of enlightened
men; once it could, and Europe blossomed with a new literature and
a new art. The " Divina Commedia," the " Paradise Lost," with the
cathedrals in all the countries, those are flowers in verse or flowers in
stone that show mighty vegetative power lay in the air and the ground.
But future ages will see no such growth. It is a better age you and I
live in, and a grander and more natural religion will bloom into fairer
poetry than past times ever won from  their mythologic tales.  What
a different Paradise will the future Dantes and Miltons be inspired to
see and paint before the longing eyes of men for them  to transfigure
into human life I
Heartily and faithfully yours,
T. P
TO lION. GERRIT SMITH.
Rome, February 16, 1860.
MY DEAR MIR  SMITH,-It is with great pain that I have heard of the
illness which the recent distressing events have brought on your muchenduring frame, which was so shattered by illness before.  When I
saw you last I did not think my next letter would be from such a place
or for such a purpose.  But such is the uncertainty of all mortal things.
Some of the rumors relate that you will perhaps come to Europe for
health. If this be so, I trust I shall have the good fortune to meet
you somewhere.  We have many Americans at Rome-two or three
hundred, it is said-of whom about forty are from Boston, not to mention the permanent inhabitants.  So, you see, one need not lack companionship.  Besides, here are many more from Massachusetts and
New England.
I feel great anxiety about the immediate future of America; the
remote future I have no doubts about.  We must see much darker
hours before it is daylight-darker, and also bloody I think, for nations
don't settle their difficulties without passion, and so without what comes
of passion.  The slave-holders are in great wrath. I am waiting for the
Supreme Court of the United States (in the Lemmon case) to decide,
as it must, that a master may take his slaves in transit through a Free
State, and keep them in it a reasonable time, subject not only to his
own caprice, but defiant of the laws of that State.  Certainly, the slaveholders must have eminent domain over the Free States, and Bondage
must exercise right of way in New York and New England. Next year,
or the year after, it must decide for the African Slave-Trade! " There is
one general grievance," said Oliver Cromwell, in the House of Commons,
"and that is the Law!"




422              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
But I did not mean to worry you with a long letter, so with heartiest
sympathy for your sufferings, and profound respect for your character
and service, believe me,
Faithfully and truly yours,
T. P.
TO MR. MANLEY.
February 23.
I have the American news up to February 1st, and wish I felt as
sure of the action of Congress for the next four months as for the last
two.  Really it is a great thing to have two months of the session gone
and no harm done! I think I know what the Supreme Court will decide in the Lemmon case, and if the Democratic party triumph next
autumn, what it will decide in the African Slave-Trade case in 1861 or
1862. It lies in the logic of Slavery to extend itself over all the
nation, and to annihilate all democratic institutions.  The conflict between it and freedom is irrepressible. The Republicans are very mean,
that they refuse to stand by Seward, when he, with a statesman's prudence, asserted what was a notorious fact. But the Republicans represent only a transitional party, and are perhaps good enough to be
beaten a few times more.  This is clear; the Anti-Slavery spirit is now
so fairly awake in the North, that it cannot be put down; neither the
misconduct of a man nor a party can much retard its progress, or
hinder its ultimate success.
Mr. Gladstone, you will see, has published his budget before the
House of Commons in England.  One of the most important movements of the age is there going forward, the establishment of a most
liberal commercial intercourse between the two foremost and most
powerful nations of Europe.  It is curious to read the comments of
the British press on Mr. G.'s statement.  They publish it in full, as he
made it in the House of Commons, and then say it is a great subject,
full of many complications, requiring much time and thought for us to
master it. By-and-bye, we shall give our opinion. Now, how differently
would a similar paper be taken by the American Press, which I think the
most contemptible in the world! But, fortunately, there is this odds
in the influence of the British and American journals: in England,
thoughtful and serious men go to the editorials for instruction and
advice; in America, nobody does so except the rank and file of the old
Democratic party, whose sole maxim of politics is, Do as you are bid!
Things refuse to be mismanaged for.ever, and some great abuses correct themselves; nobody listens to a common scold.  There is no
fair criticism  in America on works of science and literature.'s
book was about as destitute of all merit as any book I remember to
have seen of latoyears.  It had not a good scene, nor a good paragraph,
a good sentence, or even a good line or phrase, which was original; but
he received more commendation from  the great " critical journals of
commerce " than Emerson in all his life, for all his works up to that
time.  Agassiz has had admiration and flattery enough to make an
ordinary professor sick, but no criticism, since he came amongst us.




THEODORE PARKER.                         423
When he expounded his scheme of classification to the naturalists of
Switzerland and Geneva, last August, they gave him needed criticism,
and he smarted terribly under their examination.  In America, anybody (or nobody) feels competent to pass judgment on all works of
thought, of literature, science, and art; no matter how ignorant he may
be.  So all American editors, with the rarest exceptions, are ready on
two legs to pronounce judgment on a book like Buckle's, or Darwin's,
or J. S. Mill's. All they need is pen and ink; all else, like reading
and writing, comes by nature.  "Can you read and write, Patrick? "
said a gentleman to a Paddy.  "No doubt of it, yir honnerr-I niver
thried! " was the answer.  Jonathan Cocksure, editor of the National
Conservative, Sp2read Eagle, and Universal Democrat "thries" his hand
at criticizing a work of statesmanship, of physics, or metaphysics, and
finds the types compose as readily on that theme as any other, and finds
he has become a great "American critic," while Patrick is still bothered
with his A B C.
I am one of the most careful of men, and have not only come up to
the ideal oyster that Dr. Cabot used to propose as my standard, but
have gone over the other side.  Yet I find a little amusement.  There
have been ten or fifteen book auctions.  I don't dare stay at the sale
(in a little, damp, cold, brick-floored shop) from  four to five P.M, but
have my bid.  So I always have the fun of the hunt, and sometimes
actually bag a little game.  The cost is but a trifle, which my severe
economy has saved many times over in twelve months; and if I die my
wife will not be the poorer, while the books are worth to Boston much
more than they cost me, and if I live they are special tools which I
want for a particular purpose.  I would go to the theatre with Rev. N.
L. Frothingham, D.D., and Rev. Harriet Beecher Stowe, D.D., if I
could.  They rejoice in this beautiful entertainment, and it is a shame
they have been kept from it so long.
Faithfully yours,
THEODORE PARKER.
TO PROFESSOR DESOR.
Rome, February 24, 1860........ Here in Pome I am out of the way of all books, except
Lives of the Saints, &c., &c. But yet I learn of Mr. Darwin's work on
" Principles of Selection in Natural History."  It is one of the most
important works the British have lately contributed to science. He
does not believe in Agassiz's foolish notion of an interposition of God
when a new form  of lizard makes its appearance on the earth.  Indeed, a God who only works by fits and starts is no God at all.
Science wants a God that is a constant force and a constant intelligence, immanent in every particle of matter. The old theological idea of
God is as worthless for science as it is for religion.  I should like to
live long enongh to finish and print a course of sermons I preached in
1858, on " The Testimony of Matter and Mind to the Existence and




424               LIFE AND  CORRESPONDENCE OF
Character of God." *  It certainly is the most important thing I have
done in my life; but is left not fit for publication.  If I don't do
that work some one else will; a little later, but perhaps better.  But
I must end my scrawling letter.  My wife and Miss S. send all manner of good wishes to you and yours.  Remember me kindly to the
qute Marie.  Let Spitz have her culbute, and may the great strong
Hengstt carryyou safely and happily on many a journey  Let me see
you here soon; for you are the medicine I need most of all, and may
do me just the good thing I need to set me on my legs again.
Faithfully and affectionately yours,
THEODORE PARKER.
TO  GEORGE JACKSON, ESQ., BOSTON.
Rome, March 1, 1860.
MY DEAR MIR. JACKSON,-Mr. Manley's last note of February 7th
informed me that your wife's soul calmly, and with no pain, took flight
for heaven a little while before.  I know that ties knit so tenderly as
that between you and her, and which had joined the two so beautifully
and so long, cannot be broken, however gently, without a terrible
shock to the survivor.  But the good woman had reached a good old age,
and seen her children and children's children about her growing up or
grown, and then one night so serenely passed forward and ceased to be
mortal!  I need not speak of her character, least of all to you and
yours; but in the manner of her departure there is something quite
cheering and consoling.  -Who would not wish for such a smooth sail
out of this little sea and into the great wide haven we are all bound
to?  It seems to me, your wife and Mr. Charles Ellis were highlyfavored mortals, they had so quick and smooth a passage; while others
are months, and even years, in getting across. Most men dread dying,
but not death.  I can't think our present deaths are natural, or to continue always.  If something were not wrong in our mode of life, we
should all slide out of the world as gently as old Mr. Bradlee or as
your own wife; but we must bear the misfortunes which others entail
upon us.  If it were fate it could not be borne; but when we look
on it as Providence, the work of an Infinite Father and Mother, who
looks eternally before and eternally looks after, and rules all things
from love as motive and for blessedness as end, we can take almost
anything with a smile.
I can't help the belief that we shall be joined to our dear ones in the
next life, and this conviction sweetens many an hour else filled with bitterness.  I don't know that we can pay any one a higher compliment than
that of hoping to meet him in the kingdom of heaven.  Our affections
* The sermons alluded to were preached in 1858. They are five in number:No. 880. The Progress of True Theological Ideas. Part I. —Historical.,, 881. The Same. Part II.-Conjectural.,, 885. The Progress of God in the World of Matter.,, 889. The Evidence of God in the Relations between the World of Matter
and of Mind. Part I.,, 890. The Same. Part II.
-j Spiz was a terrier dog, and Hengst was one of the horses, —cldlbte was Spitz's
habitual summerset.




THEODORE PARKER.                          425
are so infinite in their desires, and yet the time to gratify them is so
short, and interrupted so on earth-partly by our cares, and in part by
our defects of temper and other follies-that it seems as if there must be
another world where the little plant of love should become a great
strong tree.  It is a beautiful arrangement of the world, that we commonly forget the failings and wrong-doings of those near to us soon
after they are gone, while their excellences come out like the stars at
night, and show us a whole heaven of beauty we had not been conscious
of before.  It is in this way, doubtless, that your wife will live in your
memory and your children's memory for many a year, and grow more
lovely as she is transfigured by the idealizing effect of the most elevated
feelings of our nature.  How fortunate you have been in the long continuance of your marriage-nearly forty-six years, if I remember right
— while the average length of wedded life in our State of Massachusetts
is hardly ten! Happy in its length, happy in its character, and happy
in its close-so noiseless and without pain to the departing one. The
whole seems beautiful.  The ancients used to pray for what they called
Euthalnasia-a beautiful dying-and it was not so foolish as most
prayers of old time, or new. Your wife had the blessing, I suppose,
without asking for it. I hope your daughters are well, and resigned
and cheerful; such a state of feeling makes life so easy and delightful.
If on our daily course our mind
We set to hallow all we find,
New treasures still, of costly price,
God will provide for sacrifice:
Old friends, old scenes will lovelier be,
As more of heaven in each we see.
Some softening gleam of love and prayer
Will dawn on every cross and care."
I have taken great pleasure in your daughters' society in days past,
and can only regret that my life has been so shamefully busy that I
had no more time for that and similar entertainments.  But I did not
choose my cares; they were forced upon me against my will.  I
should have selected a little easier lot; but it is all over now, and too
late to repent.
Remember me kindly to your brothers-Francis I often hear from;
good, kind soul that he is-and their families, and believe me, with
tenderest sympathy, faithfully your friend,
THEODORE PARKER.
TO MISS C. THAYER.
March 2, 1860.
I see some one has written a paper on Thomas Paine, in the Atlantic,
which excites the wrath of the men who were not worthy to stoop down
and untie the latchet of his shoes, or to black his shoes, or even to
bring them home to him from the shoe-blacks. Yet Paine was no man




426              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
for my fancying-in the latter years of his life he was filthy in his personal habits; there seems to me a tinge of lowness about him.  But
it must not be denied that he seems to have had less than the average
amount of personal selfishness or vanity; his instincts were human and
elevated, and his life mainly devoted to the great purposes of humanity.
His political writings fell into my hands in my early boyhood, and I
still think they were of immense service to the country. His theological
works I know less of, chiefly from his enemies; they are not always
in good taste, nor does he always understand the Scriptures of Old
Testament and New Testament he comments upon. But I think he
did more to promote piety and morality amongst men, than a hundred
ministers of that age in America. He did it by showing that religion
was not responsible for the absurd doctrines taught in its name. For
thistreason honest but bigoted ministers opposed him.  They had a
right to; but they misrepresented his doctrines.
I am glad the brave old John Pierpont is to preach at the Music
Hall.  I think he did greatly wrong in expunging all anti-slavery
matter from his school books; but it was under great temptation; and
who is there, in a public life of more than fifty years, that has made but
a single error?  He is a noble old man, and never, so far as I know,
gave a mean counsel in his public teaching! I wish he was rich and
not poor. I often asked him  to preach for me in the Melodeon, but
he always refused.
How fortunate Mrs. George Jackson was in her swift death! these
locn dyings are terrible and unnatural.  Dr. Frothingham is here, and
very kind to me, coming to read me his new poems in the evenings.
Christopher Thayer had returned from Naples, and is kind and attentive.  But no stranger has done me such service as Dr. Appleton;
there is no end to his attention and kindness. Now love from me and
mine " all round to the neighbors, neighbors, neighbors! " and believe
me, faithfully yours,
THEODORE PARKER.
TO ISAAC PARKER, LEXINGTON, MASS.
Rome, March 16, 1860.
MY DEAR BROTHER,-I don't know what will interest you most in a
city iwhere all things would be equally strange; but as you are a farmer,
I shall take it for granted that what relates to your own business will
also prove most welcome in a letter. Well, Rome is surrounded by an
immense desert, extending to the sea on the one side, to the mountains
on the other, and reaching out forty or fifty miles between the sea and
the mountains. This desert bears little but wild grass, which is fed
upon by great flocks of sheep (whose wool is better than their mutton),
swine, cows, and buffaloes.  Some part of it is cultivated with wheatonce in three years they get a crop; the land lies fallow the rest of the
time.  The oxen are small, but well-made, cream-colored or grey, with
long horns; they are very docile and serviceable; the yoke rests on the




THEODORE PARKER.                          427
neck just back of the horns; they draw by a broad strap across the
forehead, though some have the yoke where we put it, and use very
clumsy bows. All oxen have a sort of ring in the nose, which can be
removed at pleasure.  Milk is poor and thin, the butter white and
meagre; it is not the climate for butter and cheese, though the beef is
as good as at home.
In the winter the farmer drives his hogs into the forests, where they
thrive on the acorns of an evergreen oak-one of the fairest trees in
this handsome land; by day they go at large; at night the owner blows
a conch shell, and they come home and are shut up in pens.  The
hogs are black, small (would weigh about'00 lbs), but well-made. Nobody lives in this desert, save here and there on a little knoll of land,
but once the whole broad expanse, from  the mountains to the sea, was
full of towns and villas, fields and gardens.
The chief articles of culture by the farmer are the fruits-grapes,
apples, pears, oranges, pomegranates, peaches, apricots, quinces, filberts,
chestnuts, and wall fruits, and many vegetables not known to Americans. Potatoes are never good on the Continent of Europe. Lettuce
is far better than with us, so are the cauliflowers, which are as easily
cultivated here as cabbages at Lexington, and sold cheap.  Apples are
poor-very poor, close-grained, tough, and indigestible; they bring from
two to twenty cents a pound (!) and are as cheap now as last October.
About two-thirds of the space within the city walls is uninhabited; a
considerable part of it is occupied with kitchen gardens, which are cultivated with great skill.  Take a great one which I visited the other day,
as big as Boston Common.  It has a ridge of land running through it,
twenty or forty feet high; the chief thing cultivated is the grape vine.
The vines are set in rows, and trained to stakes like bean poles, only
not so high.  But as the vines occupy the land with their shade only
from  May till October, there is room  also for a winter crop; so to
facilitate that, the ground on the south side of the ridge is thrown into
furrows, running east and west, shaped, thus:
The sloping side is towards the south, and is planted with lettuce,
which requires all the sun it can get in the winter; that towards the north
is set out with a sort of French turnip, which grows all winter with less
light and heat. That is what I call making a nice use of the winter sun.
All country produce is brought to town in carts.  I have never seen
a waggon in Rome.  The wheels are about as big as those of our oxcarts, the felloes as deep, but the hubs and spokes more slender; the
axletree is about a foot shorter than ours.   The body of the cart
varies according to the load-hay, faggots, bags of charcoal, wine, &c.
The cart is not painted, and is washed about as often as you put water
on your chaise, and is commonly nearly as dirty; for the country
roads here are very poor. It is drawn generally by three horses or
mules, yoked abreast, though sometimes by a single pair of longhorned oxen.  The driver sits on the left-hand side of the fiont-end of
his cart, and, as the weather is variable, he has a sort of tent over his
head attached to a cart-stake, which he can remove at pleasure; it is
made of untanned cow-hide.  Indeed, in the winter he wears leggings,




428              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
which come up to the hips, made of untanned skin of the goat, sheep,
or ox, and which look funny. The horses and mules wear bridles,
without blinders or bits; instead of the latter, they have a rough chain
or ragged bit of iron, which goes round the creature's nose, by which
he is guided. Horses, mules, and asses are shamefully.ill-treated by
the farming people, over-worked, under-fed, and beaten with dreadful
blows.  The little carts which ply about the city have axles about
three and a half feet long, while the body is not more than two feet
wide. The driver always sits in the cart.
The chief diet of the Romans is vegetables. They have many about as
nutritious as asparagus. Cabbages they make much use of. The people
look weak and ill-fed; they do not live long.  Country people have a
warm meal but once a week, on Sunday. Then there is a soup of
vegetables, some boiled beans, and a bit of meat. The rest of the time
their food is bread, with a raw onion, a bit of salt, and dried hog'sflesh, and a little wine. The bread is poor stuff; but, on the whole,
better than what one gets in the country towns of New England; for
here it is only sour and indigestible, not also poisoned with soda and
saleratus.  Pumpkin-seeds are a common article of food.  Do you
know that pumpkins, fed to cows, seeds and all, make them  dry up,
but without the seeds they increase the quantity of milk? The seeds
are a powerful diuretic. I have no good news to write about my health.
We all send love to all-I, not forgetting the neighbors.
Faithfully your brother,
THEODORE PARKER.
TO MISS MARY T. DREW, BOSTON.
Rome, Mar. 17, 1860.
MY DEAR MARY,-This sheet is ruled as whopper-jawed as some
women cut their bread; but I hope you will excuse it. I wonder what
will interest you most in Rome; something that belongs to housekeeping, no doubt. Here all the washing is done in cold water, at great
public stone fountains.  The kitchens here would astonish you. I
think five bushels of charcoal would last a decent family a year, to
do all their cooking with.  They have no pot so large as our teakettle at home; half a dozen copper stew-pans make up the battery, as
they call a set of kitchen tools. The people live chiefly on vegetables,
like our greens, and look ill-fed and hungry. I have seen only onefat
man in Rome, and he came in the day before, and went off the next
day.
I have lost fifteen to twenty pounds of flesh in the five months that I
have been here, and am by no means gaining now. Good nutritious
food, in our sense of the word, is not to be had in Rome for love or
money.  The weather has not been cold this winter; there has seldom
been any ice in the fountains or streets. But the weather has been
cloudy, rainy, windy, changeable, and disagreeable.  I have many times
wished myself in my quiet study, where, if I could not improve, I
could at least do something, and so be of some little use to man



THEODORE PARKER.                         429
kind.  Here I get no better, and can do nothing.  It grieved me a great
deal to hear that you fell and sprained your wrist so badly. You have
a whole siege of troubles; but I am  glad to believe the worst of it is
all over now. Mr. Manley and Miss Thayer keep me informed about
you.  Please ask George, when he writes, to tell me if the box ever
arrived from  St. Thomas, and what condition the contents were in.
There was a glass jar, with a great flower in spirits of wine, meant for
John L. Russell, of Salem; did he ever get it?
I hope you do not allow yourself to lack such help as a doctor can
give you; it is not much, after all, but it is something.  Remember me
kindly to all your friends.  My wife and Miss S. send their kindest
wishes to you; I need not say that I add mine. I know how much you
took Mrs. Follen's death to heart; but she was fortunate to die so easy
and so quick.  Remember me to George and his companion, and
believe me,
Truly your friend,
THIEODORE PARKER.
TO DR. HOWE.
Rome, March 23, 1860.
What you say about the lady learning her accomplishments, &c., is
wholly true, I think; in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, what are
called accomplishments are handsome wens, grown on the person, not
limbs developed naturally out of it. If a real poet, philosopher, painter,
statesman, were sent where he could not exercise his developed talents,
it were cruel; but to send him  where his wife cannot spread her
crinoline or wear her diamonds, and gossip nonsense with similar
" ornamental females," yet where her real womanly qualities would be
called out and developed in daily life, that is no misfortune, but a
blessing.  How much humbug there is about what we call educationz!
I thank God I am  " an uneducated man," but I should be very sorry
not to be both a developed and an instructed one in command of my
most valuable faculties.
I like not the look of things in the Republican party.  Seward's
speech came to-day, but from L.'s comment I expect not much satisfaction: more from Abraham Lincoln, at the Cooper Institute.
Once governors, senators, representatives, &c., were the leaders of
the rank and file, whom  they instructed, directed, and commanded.
The people looked up to Sam Adams and John Adams for counsel and
direction.  Now these functionaries are servants, to obey the rank and
file; they give little counsel, are seldom (any one of them) in advance
thereof; but as they have not wholly lost the traditionary notion of old
time, they refuse to obey the better portion of their constituency; " It
will offend the slave-holders; it will injure the party," &c., &c. Who looks
for instruction or advice to governor, or senator, or representative?
So is it with ministers.  When they were superior to the parish in
talent, culture, progressive virtue, the parish looked up to the pulpit.'Who but a fool ever quotes his minister as authority now-a-days?




430              LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
The following letter to Dr. Howe commences with some allusions to  the Harper's Ferry affair; the Senate Bill was to
clothe a committee with power to send for and arrest persons for
examination, to obtain knowledge concerning the supposed originators of the movement.:
I think the Senate Bill for raising the committee, &c., was well
enough in its principle-i.e. if I understand it. However, it should
have provided for the security of the men (and women) it may summon.
The testimony of men like you and others ought to be taken in Massachusetts, where you are safe and not liable to be kidnapped; for -     and
~- limit their operations to colored people.  Of course, the Republicans lack spunk.  When the patriots from  1765 to 1775 were so
brave and hearty, how happens it that their analogons in 1845- 860
lack all manner of heroism?  In these times they are looking for office,
and put the Anti-Slavery horse they ride on through only such paces
as will bring themselves into honor and power.  But this horse will
fling some of them, for it is a very " cantankerous critter when he gits
his dander up and is a little riled."
I feel anxious to know how Seward will speak in the Senate, and
would have given a penny for an hour more of talk with him before he
left Europe. American politics engross so much of my attention, that I
have written little on Italian or European affairs. Indeed, Boston is a
better place for that than Rome, as you well know; yet I began a
letter on that theme a week ago.  I know not when it will get itself
ended, for I cannot now sit down at 9 A.MA. and have an hour's sermon
ready at 2 P.M.  Oh, Chev.," to be weak is to be miserable," and this
slow way of dying, though painless, is yet tormenting, with its perpetual delusions and mirages of power, which prove nothing but idle
dreams.
Is there to be a statue to HIorace Mann in the yard of the Statehouse?  If so, who is to make it?  Story is at wvork on that of Josiah
Quincy; and a grand thing it will be, too; very grand, I think.  It
seems to me he has a great deal of talent, and I wish the Mann statue
might be wrought out by his hands, for he has alike the head to understand him, and the heart to admire and esteem. Besides, Story is a
capital, good fellow, full of all manner of generous ideas and kindly
feelings.
Several Bostonians are here, and I see most of them; but, alas! I
cannot talk, except with considerable pain. Dr. A. gave me a very
sensible counsel,"" Semper auditor tantum, nunquam ne repone;"
and I keep it as well as I can.
Our political affairs look very ill, but all the more hopeful for that
reason: they must be much worse before they can be at all better.  I
had two admirable and profound letters fiom  Lyman on American
politics lately. Nobody that I know looks so deeply into these matters,
or sees so clearly, unless it be —, who has the advantage of talking
with many persons of diverse modes of thinking.  The " irrepressible




THEODORE PARKER.                           43 
conflict" comes on; and when the North, in the multiplicity of its
interests, looks at the one great and fundamental matter which concerns
the existence of freedom, and shows its teeth, then the slave-holders
will yield to the superior force that is brought against them, and the
-    and  the   -. will sneak over to the Anti-Slavery side, and
bellow louder than real lovers of freedom.*  Still I think we shall see
bloodshed before we get through.
TO  MR. LYM2AN.
I like much what you said about the mode of improving the laws
and political institutions of the United States.  I have often thought
of that scheme; of asking the judges to tell what defects they found
in the law, or what redundances.  Judge Jackson was one of the committee that revised the statutes in 1837, and as a judge of large experience, had valuable things to suggest; and as he sat in the gallery of
the House of Representatives during the discussion of his work, he
could explain the working of laws as he had found them.  It then
seemed to me it would be well to ask all the judges each year to tell
how the mill worked in their hands, and what alteration they would
like.  But your other suggestion is new  to me-viz. that a statute
should declare that no decision of a court should foreclose the question
for the future.  It is highly important to limit that old rule stare decisis,
which perpetuates the ill while it helps to preserve accidental good also.
I wish we had some journal devoted to political science, which should
give us an article on each session of every legislature in America, and
tell what good and ill there was in its new work: it mighht attend also
to the legislation of other countries.  But I suppose there is not intellectual or moral talent in our people for such a work -to produce or to
appreciate it.  So we must stumble along in the dark.  Did you ever
read M. Comte's " Traite sur la Legislation"?  It is a very thoughtful
book; I have studied it a good deal.  He aims to examine and appreciate the causes under which mankind advances, remains stationary, or
retrogrades, and is divided into so many books.  It is a rare book in
America I hear; but I have the Bruxelles reprint of it, a large octavo
in green paper, on the shelf at the right hand of the, north fire-place in
my study.  I think on the third shelf from the floor; if not there, it is
in the neighborhood.
TO MISS COBBE.
Mar. 2T.
MY DEAR Miss COBBE,-I am  writing this with your new and commodious pen, the first words I have written with it-for I wished to
consecrate it by writing to you.  It is very nice and convenient.  I
never saw but one before yours came. Rome has not used me well this
winter, and I shall leave it but with one regret, viz. that I came here
at all.  I have lost three pounds a-month since I left Switzerland, and
* The fanatics for legality and for the I" Union as it is" are just beginning to fulfil
this little prophecy (1861).




432               LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
have gained nothing but a great cough; and I am as weak as I am
emaciated.  Indeed, I felt perfectly demoralise, and long to get out of
the place, where I remain now only to fulfil a little engagement. In
less than ten days I shall be en route for Florence, I hope.  I promised
to do what I could for the photograph: nothing came of it.  Indeed, I
am only fit to sit as a model for St. Jerome taking his last communion, and should imake a better one than Domenichino had for his
famous picture here. But I have sat for a cameo,* and my friends
think the work successful.  When it is completed I will send a photo.
graph of that to Mr. Shaen, at London, and perhaps it will be better
either than nothing or one from the original in its present condition.
Eloping soon to see you face to face, believe me, &c.
TO MR. RIPLEY.
Shrove-Tuesday, A.S., 1860.
MY DEAR GEORGE,, —I have not written you this long time, partly
because it costs money to send a letter-and in these degenerate days,
when I earn nothing and never shall, I must be careful of my pennies
as never before-and partly also because it is not good for my rotten
lungs to stoop over a table like this.  But just now I find a young man
going to New York direct (and directly, too), who offers to take what I
write, and I cannot well resist the temptation.  So here comes a little
note.
Old Rome is a modern city; her 80 palaces, and almost all of her
300 or 360 churches, are since 1450. In running my eye over the 274 (I
think that is the number) of Popes, I am struck with many able men,
and some great ones-some utterly wicked and heartless, but not very
many.  Gregory I. and VII., Innocent III., Sixtus V., Julius II., and
Paul IV., were all men of power, great power, though the two last were
about as unprincipled and wicked wretches as you could find in the
American Congress or the chairs of New York editors. It is curious
to see how a logical necessity controls those poor wretches.  The
Papacy is too strong for the individual who bears it, and crushes him
down. Some Protestants think there can be a reform Pope. It were as
idle to expect an Anti-Slavery President elected by the Democratic party.
William Lloyd Garrison himself, in that post, could not behave other
than James Buchanan does.  You can't have a progressive Pope more
than a virtuous Devil; it is contradictio in adjecto. Of course, I hope no
good from the Papacy, and wish none for it.  But it is in an ugly fix
just now. Commonly, the Carnival here is celebrated with great splendor.  All the Roman gentility, respectability, &c., are in the streets
with their fine carriages; but this year they knew that to keep Carnival
in the Corso (the theatre of this tomfoolery) was to rejoice with the
Pope; so they left it to the foreigners, and themselves went out to
the Porta Pia, a place in nowise related to the Carnival, and drove about
to their hearts' content.  But at Milan, I learn, the patriots turn out
* Which was done by Saulini, but not with such result as to warrant presenting it in
volumes which contain engravings from Story's noble bust, from Cheney's crayon, and
from the earlier photograph.




THEODORE PARIKER.                       4 83
with great glee to express joy at the hopes of Italy.  Really, the Piedmontese and the rest of them have done admirably; and while Louis
Napoleon has played his cards with a master's hand, and shuffled them
skilfully besides, the luck of the game is on his side.
But oh, George, let me thank you for putting my letter to Francis
Jackson (concerning John Brown*), in the Tribune, into all three editions.
I know I must be indebted to you for that favor: it is not public opinion
yet; it will be by-and-bye, and as I have nought to hope or fear, I can
afford to wait in this as with other matters. I have cast my grain in the
waters many times, and have lived long enough to see the waters gone
and the open fields getting ripe.  What care I who has the name of' seedsman?" if I see men and women thrive on corn I sowed for them
in sweat and tears?  I never asked name or gratitude, only chance to
do my duty.
Oh, George, the life I am here slowly dragging to an end-tortuous,
but painless —is very, very imperfect, and fails of much I meant to
hit and might have reached, nay, should, had there been ten or
twenty years more left for me! But, on the whole, it has not been a
mean life, measured by the common run of men; never a selfish one.
Above all things else, I have sought to teach the true idea of man, of
God, of religion, with its truths, its duties, and its joys.  I never fought
for myself, nor against a private foe; but have gone into the battle
of the nineteenth century, and followed the flag of humanity. Now
I am ready to die, though conscious that I leave half my work undone,
and much grain lies in my fields, waiting only for him that gathereth
sheaves.  I would rather lay my bones with my fathers and mothers at
Lexington, and think I may; but will not complain if earth or sea
shall cover them up elsewhere. It is idle to run from death!
Believe me faithfully, and with manifold gratitude, your friend,
T. P.
TO JOHN AYRES.
Rome, April 7, 1860.
Not much of a letter will you get from me this time; for Mr. Sawandgrind's pond is pretty low, and he does no more grinding, onlynow
and then mumbles something, which he makes believe he grinds.
Still, if his pond go down, his spirits keep up, though he expects
no more rain this summer.
I hope the dear girls do well at Yellow Springs. What a shame
that New England has no Girls' College, where a real, good, thorough
education can be given to young women on some terms! Quack seminaries we have in abundance, where they take in the raw material " with
two towels and a spoon, and finish off young ladies," and send the
tawdry things out into the world, almost utterly ignorant of all things
necessary for comfort in life.
I trust I shall soon get away from IRome; I only stay now to finish
* See Vol. II,, p. 170.
VOL. II.                                             F F




434             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
a little engagement I have with a friend, who is making my bust; but
ny friend Desor will come this week, perhaps to-morrow, and he will
take charge of me, and carry me whither he will. I do not know but
I shall go with him  to Neuchatel a little later in the season, and
perhaps find me a quiet resting-place. I feel much anxiety for our
friend Stephenson, but hope you will write better tidings of him and
his.  Remember me most kindly to all the good people at West
Newton.  I often look back with great pleasure on the jovial times we
have had together, not without gratitude to the Ultimate Source of all
joy.  I hope Joseph H. Allen still continues to instruct and elevate the
people there; few ministers do either-few can; but yet, perhaps, many
try. What a poor tool they work with! Of all the humbugs now before
the world, none is so impudent and gross as this which, in all the
sects (with, perhaps, two exceptions) passes for Christianity.  How
would Jesus of Nazareth protest against it, if now here, and only what
he was in the A.D. 25 or 30!
H        -must shoot an arrow  at his former associates; and they
who honored him for his ill qualities before, when directed against
their foes, abuse him now when he turns them  against the Unitarians.
Had he taken as long a step forward as now backward, how would all
the land ring with condemnation! It is an old world-even New
England is, and it takes a long time to mend it; but with truth, and
right, and love on a man's side, and earthly eternity before his brave
words, he needs not despair of triumph at the last.
The trees are in blossom, and at Frascati, March 31, I found the
fields covered with all manner of handsome flowers, such as we never
see in America.  I wish I could eat one of your Baldwin apples, or a
russet.  Remember me to the Popes, to Patience, whom I have not
heard of this long time, and to your excellent wife, and all the " little
ones..
T. P.
TO MR, LYMAN,
April 4.
Yesterday, with Dr. Appleton, we all went out to Frascati, about
twelve miles off, and then to Tusculum-I   on a jackass; the others
walked.  The day was fine, the expedition successful in all respects,
and we had as good a time as a party can with a sick man in it. Cicero
had a splendid place out there, but he got less inspiration from it than
R. W. E. from a plain wooden house in Concord.  Cicero was a great
man, with all his many weaknesses.  I always feel a mingling of pity
and veneration for "the last great man whom  Rome never feared."
I have studied the philosophy of Roman history somewhat more
minutely than before, and think I have got the hang of the people
and their institutions.  They were gross, material, warlike, but energetic and full of will.  They invented nothing. What Virgil makes
\nchises say,'
" Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera,
Credo equidem; vivos ducent de marmore vultus;'* neid, VI., 846-852,




THEODORE PARKER.                          4 35
Orabunt causas melius, coelique meatus
Describent radio et surgentia sidera dicent:
Tu regere imperio populos, Bomane, memento;
Hse tibi erunt artes "I wish what follows were as true:Pacisque imponere morem,
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos."This they never did.  It is instructive to see how all their politics followed as the logical necessity of their first principles.  It is just so in
the United States to-day.  When the Federal Government undertook
to capture fugitive slaves by its own arm  in I  93, it acknowledged the
right of man to own property in man, as much as in land and things;
and as it did not offer to recover other runaway property, it actually
declared this peculiarly worthy of executive protection.  From  this
first principle all subsequent slave legislation has proceeded with inevitable logic, and much more will.
In January I began to write you a long, elaborate letter on the great
problem of American politics-to establish an Industrial Democracy in
America; and its three questions, immediate, proximate, and ultimate,
i.e. 1. Shall the party which claims that man can be the property of
man continue to wield the Federal power?  2. Shall that doctrine be
allowed to exist and be a force in Federal affairs?  3. Shall it be allowed
to develope itself in any individual State?  But I shall never be well
enough to do it.   Seward's speech>  is able, statesmanlike, widelooking; but it shows two things-1. He is satisfied that the Republican party has fallen back since 1858. 2. That he will accommodate
himself to that low standard to gain votes for the Presidency.
Who is so fit a man as thou, 0 Governor, to edit the Remainzs
of T. P.?  Will you look over my papers some time and do it?  It is
the last favor!
Good-bye, and God bless you!
T. P.
TO THE  SAME.
Rome, April 14.
At last, 0, Governor, I can write you good news.  Desor has come!
He was never better; so big, with such a chest,, an  as, and legs!
Why, it made me feel strong (for a minute) only to look at him.  He
dined with us Tuesday and Wednesday, but it wears on me a little too
much even to have him all day; and then I go tired to bed and get up
not fiesh in the morning. So for Nis sake and mine (for I only talk in
a whisper) he dined at his own hotel for the last two days.
He will tell you, I suppose, how he finds me, and perhaps will give
a more faithful report than I can.  We intend to leave Rome on
Saturday, April 21, in a vettura, with Dr. Appleton and his wife, and
Desor.  We shall have a whole carriage, with one spare seat, to ourselves; shall go by Perugia, and be about six days in overcoming a
hundred and fifty miles.  It looks quite feasible.  Then we intend to
* In the Senate, February, 1860.
FS   2




436             LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
follow the spring into Switzerland.  But who knows what a day will
bring forth?
The hygienic result of my residence in Rome is a large negative
quantity; the esthetic is equal to zero.  But Story has made a fine
bust of me; to-morrow it will be put into plaster. My wife and Miss
Stevenson think the likeness perfect, and they are perhaps the best
judges.  I shall send home a cast, and you can judge of that.  It may
reach there before my wife does, in which case, perhaps Manley will set
it on his shelf, and my special friends look upon it.
Rejoice with me that I seem so near the end of residence at Rome!
How near I am I know not; but I think T can see through now, and
have the fatal one hundred and twenty stairs to mount only seven times
more! I can comprehend the treadmill now.
I mean to write you a word or two on the looks of America across
the sea, but perhaps had better use my time and weakness in putting
some few things of my early history together, which one day you will
kindly use.  I meant to write a full little history of my little life till
twenty-one; but as I never could write infoul, dark weather, so was it
irksome to think of it in such health as I have long had, and I have got
only ten or twenty pages of introductory matter, touching the circumstances and men about me at birth. But my early story no man can
tell save me, and I shall use up my time on that, from  my first
year to the twenty-first.  But I may bring little to pass.  I will try
and not write more sad things, if you will excuse these.
This is believed to be the last letter he ever wrote with pen
and ink.
The fragment of an Autobiography, committed to Mr. Lyman,
forms the second chapter of Vol. I.
Mr. Desor records his impressions upon joining Mr. Parker:What    he had gained in strength and condition at Combe-Varin, he
soon lost at Rome.  The miseries of the Papal regime, together with the
damp climate and some annoyances, had affected his state to a singular
degree, so that when, after delays independent of my volition, I was
able to rejoin him, Ifound him changed as if ten years older. He was no
longer the Parker of Combe-Varin; he was an old man. Surrounded by
the tenderest care, on the part of his wife and his friends; treated
with fraternal solicitude by his physician, Dr. Appleton, who was also
his friend and confidant; he alone, of all, had not lost his courage.
Neither had he entirely renounced the prospect of profiting by his
sojourn in Italy to study its flora and geological structure. To this
end he had, according to custom, surrounded himself with all the
accessible manuals and documents upon the subject. It was impossible
to be better prepared in understanding and memory; unfortunately, the
body no longer had corresponding strength.  After having made a few
excursions by carriage into the interior, it was evident to every one
that the projected tour was impossible, and he was not slow also to
recognize it.  In the meantime we were still waiting for the fair
weather, which had long been due.  The month of April, generally so
fine at Rome, was cold and rainy.  To thwarted hopes, succeeded




THEODORE PARKER.                        437
uneasiness and a morbid desire to quit Rome and its frightful climate
as soon as possible, in order to reach Florence. His condition was so
much worse that we became anxious as to the issue of the journey.
He, on the contrary, would not hear a word about postponing it. One
day when I found him reclining on his bed alone, I thought it my duty to
apprise him  of my apprehensions concerning the journey.  " Should
you fail upon the route, to die in a tavern! "  He smiled and asked
me to sit down near him; he took my hand and said, "Listen to me,
my friend. You know that I have some command over myself, and
that I have sometimes put my will to the test.  Well: I will not die
here; I will not leave my bones in this detested soil; I will go to
Florence, and I will get there-that I promise you."  Then resuming,
with a less emphatic tone, he added, " Let me once get upon my couch
at Madame Molini's, in Florence, there may happen what will.  I don't
promise beyond that."  It would have been imprudent and cruel to
oppose this decided wish.  We started the next day for Florence, by the
way of Perugia, but not until Dr. Sarjent, the physician who was
called in consultation, had approved our plan.
The journey from  Rome to Florence by vetlurino lasted five days,
during which our patient displayed admirable fortitude.  He was too
feeble to visit with us the celebrated sites and places which occurred
along our route.  Whenever we reached a hotel, his first and almost
only want was to rest.  But he insisted that we, his travelling companions, should visit everything accessible, and be careful to lose nothing out of regard for him.  When we returned, he loved to hear in
detail our impressions, and made us tell our observations upon the
nature and accidents of the soil, the peculiarities of the flora, the
aspects of the country and its inhabitants. He shared our indignation
every time that we were victimized by some of the numerous stratagems
which the police of His Holiness are so adroit in exploiting to the detriment of travellers.  That only increased his impatience to get out of
this country, doubly cursed, as he said, by political and ecclesiastical
tyranny.  So he enjoined us with warmth to apprise him  when we
crossed the frontier, and not to hesitate to wake him if he was asleep.
This we did.  After having left the last station of the Papal police,
when I bade him notice at a distance by the side of the road a post,
newly painted red, white, and green,* he roused as if electrified, and
his eyes threw upon me one of those piercing and eloquent glances
which only come from a heart profoundly moved.  One who has done
so much for liberty loves to meet it on his way. At that point, we
crossed into the Kingdom of Italy, and he knew that if he died, his
bones would at least repose in a land henceforth free.
Having arrived at Florence, it happened as he had foreseen and predicted.  Overcome by the fatigues of the journey, he had but one
desire, to rest.  He reached his bed, never more to quit it.
Miss Cobbe, who had never seen him, but whose life had been
spiritually saved and strengthened by his published words, was
* Then the Sardinian colors, and now the colors of the Kingdom of Italy; and the
post was newly painted because the territory had been just annexed.




438             LTIF  AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
in Florence at this time, anxiously waiting to see him.  They
had long corresponded, and were to meet thus at last.
He lies quite quietly on his bed, with his back to the light-his eyes
are always trembling. I do not think he sees anything, except vaguely.
They say he must have made a great effort to be as collected as he was
with me yesterday; to-day, it was nearly all wandering, about what he
would do in America, how he would lie still in his house, and be very
comfortable and happy.
He received me yesterday when I went to his bedside very tenderly,
saying, " After all our wishes to meet, how strange it should be thus at
last! You are not to think or say you have seen me-this is only the
mzemory of me. Those who love me most can only wish me a speedy
passage to the other world.  Of course I am not afraid to die " (he
said this with what I could have supposed his old fire), " but there was so
much to do."  I said, " You have given your life to God-to his truth
and his work, as truly as any old martyr of them  all."  "I do not
know," he replied; "I had great powers committed to me; I have but
half used them."  I gave him a nosegay of tea-roses and lilies of the
valley, and there came over his face the most beautiful smile I ever saw
on a human countenance.  I wonder how any one can have spoken of
his face as plain or Socratic. To me it seems the noblest, most loveable
face in the world. He said afterwards, " Do not speak of what you feel
for me. It makes me too unhappy to leave you." Then, suddenly, with
wonderful effort and power, he began discussing Italian literaturethen the flowers of America. I saw he had talked enough and tried to
go away.
It seems my visit did him no harm.  He spoke of me afterwards
very tenderly, Mrs. Parker said, and told her she must see me every
day.  He could not see me often; it was a great pleasure; but it
made his heart swell too high. He had a good night, and this morning again wished to see me. Alas! he wandered in mind nearly all
the time, only his face lighted up as before at the sight of the lilies
of the valley.  (He had said he liked them best.)  He asked what
day it was.  I said, " It is Sunday-a blessed day!  "'True, it is a
blessed day," said he, suddenly, seriously, "when one has got over
the superstition of it! "  He then seemed to fall off into vague, but
not painful dreams, and to doze, so I just kissed his hand gently,
and left him without speaking.  My impression is, that the end will
not be for some days, perhaps a week, but that his thoughts will never
do more than show some faint rays of light again.
It was to this friend that he said later, in a wandering mood,
taking her hand eagerly, " I have something to tell you-there
are two Theodore Parkers now.  One is dying here in Italy, the
other I have planted in America.  He will live there, and finish
my work."  Then giving her a beautiful bronze inkstand which
he had set apart for her, he said, " God bless you!" with the
greatest solemnity and tenderness.




THEO)ORE  PARKER.                        439
Another friend gathers a few  recollections of these failing
hours:When he was in a dreamy, half-conscious state, he sometimes thought
that he was on board a steamer, and on his way home to America; and
sometimes, perhaps more frequently, he thought himself at home, and
would ask his wife to go round to the houses of his friends upon kind
errands and with affectionate messages, to Miss Goddard, Miss Thayer,
and others.  During nearly the whole time he seemed conscious of his
dying state (always when he appeared to be intelligent, and often when
his mind was dreamy and wandering), and he then gave tender messages
to his wife and friends. At times he seemed to think that Ml1iss Cobbe
was Mrs. Russell, and once, holding some flowers in his hand, he
said,
" Dear Sally Russell gave me these! "
He longed for rest and quiet, as a sick man might, when worn and
fatigued with the constant movement of a ship at sea, and he would
speculate thus:
" When we get home and settled in the country, how peaceful,
quiet, and happy we will be! "
Once he thought he was arriving in the railway cars on the Boston
and Worcester Railway, at the " Newton Corner" station, with his
wife, on their way to visit her mother; and he mentioned the particular
room which they would occupy.
He sent a most kind and tender last message to Miss Mary Shannon,
especially confiding his wife to her affectionate friendship after he should
have departed from this world. Whenever he required any assistance
to move him, he required it from those about him in the most careful
manner, generally requesting his wife or Miss Stevenson, consulting
always their ease and comfort as much as possible, and to the last,
though at times quite decided and positive as to what should be done
for him, considerate of the strength and convenience of those who
were attending him, and tenderly grateful for all the services rendered
by them.
To his wife, watching with him one of his last nights, he said," Lay down your head on the pillow,' Bearsie,' and sleep; for you
have not slept for a very long time."
The old simplicity, the old friends and pleasures, penetrated
all his wanderings; their fidelity was a better kind of meaning.
Once he tried a letter, the last:Florence, May 3.
MY DEAR JOHN AvnmR,-So I shall still call you-will you come over
to-morrow and see us, just after your dinner-time?  Bring me a last
year's apple if you can, or any new melon.
Yours truly,
T. P.
You get into my house not far from good Mr. Cummings's grocery.




440            LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE Of
And vaguely talking, still friends and their tokens are remembered well enough.
"Mr. Gooding's pears —thank him! Couldn't forget the autumn
pears."
" Love to Aunt Mary (Shannon); that is all I can send her."
" Tell the Miss Thayers I would like to see them, that I went
away in February, 1859, and came back in July, 1860. I should like
to touch them, and tread on Boston Common."
He was in great trouble one day xbout his library, and declared that everything was in confusion.  As it happened, this
strong impression of his was at the very time when good Mary
Drew  was busying herself in the study, with housewifely intentions.
When he would talk with his wife, who gently checked him,
he would say, " Oh, it don't hurt me to talk bear-talk."  When
the fever fits came over him, he would sometimes try to dress;
"When is that vessel going-will it not go soon? "
Thus a few days were passed in great weakness, but without
the least suffering.  The mind made no effort, all the faculties
and senses were sunk in dreaminess, as the body gradually parted
with its little residue of life.  On the 10th of May he lay
motionless, with innocent look, as of a child just falling into
slumber-a simple look; but it baffled the dear friends, who could
not see how the great soul went that day to another ministry.
The semblance of sleep did not fade from  the face.  The
cheeks were flushed, the white full beard lay over the thin lips,
and the head fell a little to one side beneath a garland of the
roses of Florence, which had been brought to his pillow.
On Sunday, the 13th  of May, at four in the afternoon,
the hour corresponding to that in which he used to stand at the
desk of the Music Hall, an old friend, the Rev. Mr. Cunningham,
held the fitting funeral service over the body of this pure and
righteous man.  He read the Beatitudes.  It was a feast-day in
Florence, and the streets were filled with the gay people; banners
were hung out of the windows, under which the friends passed to
the place where he was to sleep. At first they felt hurt; but a
sudden impulse effaced the idea of any incongruity, and they
whispered to each other, "It is a festival-the Feast of an




THEODORE PARKER.                        441
Ascension!" and they called to mind the closing words of his last
sermon, " Friend, come up higher."
There is no gloom in the place where his worn-out body rests.
A few cypresses are there, " Nature's spires, pointing up into the
infinite cloudless heaven above."
Let me borrow  the description of the place, written by one
who sought it in love and veneration:_
The little Protestant cemetery lies just outside the Pinti Gate, the
city wall itself forming one side of the enclosure. You enter by a
high gateway into an outer court, and through a second gate into
the cemetery.  The ground rises slightly, is covered with daisied turf,
and planted with tall cypresses and flowering shrubs.  There are
many monuments, mostly of white marble, in simple and good taste,
and the whole place, carefully kept, is as cheerful a spot as one
would choose for the burial-place.  Through the trees and above
the wall you get pleasant glimpses of the neighbouring hills. After
a little search we found Mr. Parker's grave, near the centre of the
grounds, and at the foot of a cypress tree, close to the cross-path.
It is enclosed in a border of grey marble, and at the head is a plain
stone of the same material, with only this inscription:THEODORE  PARKER,
BORN AT LEX[NGTON, MIASS.,
UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA,
AuG. 24, 1810,
DIED AT FLORENCE, MAY 10, 1860.
Within the stone border is an edging of periwinkle, and in the
centre a few plants of violet. There is also a small foot-stone, and
at the side was a small pine-tree in a pot.
A week ago we went again to the cemetery, to fulfil a purpose we
had cherished, of planting some ivy upon the grave. We had gathered
two plants in a wild spot of the pleasant Boboli garden, in the morning.  It was the loveliest of spring days; the sky of tenderest blue,
without a cloud, and full of glowing light. The sunshine lay warmly
on the grey, ivied wall, upon the dark cypresses; and every daisy in the
sod was wide open with delight. As we set our ivies in the earth, the
birds sang rapturously over our heads.  Then we carefully trimmed
the bordering, and afterwards cut from the turf two roots of daisies,
and set them between the violets upon the grave. The tree in the pot
was an American pine, which the gardener would plant at the head of
the grave.




442               LIFE OF THEODORE PARKER.
Upon the ledge behind  the little farmhouse at Lexington,
there are also pines, beneath  which  he breathed  his  childish
prayers.  The earliest symbol of Massachusetts flourishes well at
the places where this American life rose and where it set. Plant,
O countrymen, the healing life into your hearts; build political
and spiritual freedom from this native tree I
THEODOR AE. lr. aor tA  e.eh'ton5I'  ssach o'
THE GRAVE;




APPEND X.
No. 1e
COPY OF THE WILL 0F THEODORE PARKER.
[The portions of the Will which went into effect are printed in large
type, those which did not go into effect, in small italics, and the conditions which made them inoperative, IN SMcALL CAPITALS.]
I, Theodore Parker, of Boston, in the County of Suffolk and Commonwealth of iMassachusetts, Minister of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society in said Boston, do make this my last Will and Testament:
I give, bequeath, and devise all the Real and Personal Property of
which I shall die seized and possessed, or to which I shall be entitled
or have any claim at my death, in manner following, to wit:First. To the proper authorities of the Commonwealth of Miassachusetts, I give the two fire-arms, formerly the property of my honored
grandfather, Captain John Parker, late of Lexington, in the county of
Middlesex; to wit, the large musket, or King's arm, which was by him
captured from the British on the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, in
the Battle of Lexington, and which is the first fire-arm taken from the
enemy in the War for Independence; and also the smaller musket
which was used by him in that battle while fighting "in the sacred
cause of God and his country"; and I desire that these relics of the
Revolution may be placed in the Senate Chamber of this Commonwealth, and there sacredly kept in perpetuam rei memoriam.
Second. To my much-valued friend, Wendell Phillips, of Boston, I
give the folio copy of the "English State Trials" in 11 volumes, wit'l
many portraits interleaved, which is now in my library; but if the said
Wendell be deceased at the administration of my estate, then the
second article of my Will is to be wholly inoperative and void.
Third. To my much-valued friend, Charles Sumner, of Boston, I give
the copy of the "Parliamentary History of England" in 36 volumes,
which is now in my library; but if at the administration of my
estate the said Charles be deceased, then this third article of my Will
is to be wholly inoperative and void.




444                          APPENDIX.
Fourth. To Miss Hannah E. Stevenson, of Boston, my much-valued
friend, now, and for a long time, an inmate of my household, I give the
old copy of Schrevelius' Greek Lexicon, which I purchased with much
toil in my boyhood, and also the common Bible which lies on my desk,
and the little taper-holder which I have long used; and I request her,
with the consent of my wife, Lydia D. Parker, to select such book or
books from my library as she may desire; but if at the administration
of my estate the said Hannah be deceased, then this fourth article of
my Will is to be wholly inoperative and void.
Fifth. To my friend Miss Caroline C. Thayer, of Boston, I give the
copy of the " Biographical Dictionary' in 15 volumes, with many
portraits interleaved; but if at the administration of my estate the said
Caroline be deceased, then this fifth article of my Will is to be wholly
inoperative and void.
Sixth. To my friend Miss Sarah N. Hunt, now, or late, residing
temporarily at Dresden, in the Kingdom of Saxony, I give the hymn.
book which lies on my desk, and the small copy of George Herbert's
poems; but if at the administration of my estate the said Sarah be
deceased, then this sixth article of my Will is to be wholly inoperative
and void.
Seventh. To my brother Isaac Parker, of Lexington aforesaid, I
forgive and remit all that he now owes me as the principal and interest
of several notes of hand given me by him for value received.
Eighth. To the proper authorities of the City of Boston aforesaid, I
give all my books which are not otherwise disposed of in the preceding or
following articles of this Will, that they may be put in the Public Library
of the City for the use and benefit of such as have access thereto, and be
read on such terms as the Directors of the said Library shall think just;
and I desire that, so far as consistent with public utility, the said
books be kept in alcoves or on shelves by themselves, and I desire that
the said books shall in no case be sold or given away by the said
Directors, or any other persons, or exchanged for other books; but in
case the authorities aforesaid decline to accept the books on these conditions, then, on the same conditions, they are to be given to the
Library of Harvard College, in Cambridge.  However, this eighth
article of my Will is to be wholly inoperative and void unless it receive
the consent of my wife aforesaid, if living at my decease, as will more
fully appear from the following article:Ninth. To my well-beloved wife, Lydia D. Parker aforesaid, I give
all my manuscripts, journals, sermons, lectures, and letters, and also
any and all books she may wish to retain from my library, even if she
desires the whole, the same to be at her free and absolute disposal, and
she is to have six months to determine what she will keep and retain.
Furthermore, to her, the said Lydia, I do give, bequeath, and devise
all the residue of my estate, as well real as personal, not bequeathed
in the preceding Articles of this Will; to wit, all the property of which
I shall be seized and possessed at my death, or which I shall then be
entitled to, or to which I shall have any claim; the same to be her
absolute property, and so entirely subject to her disposal, to have and
to hold to her and to her heirs forever.




APPENDIX.                                 445
But if the said Lydia shall not be alive at my death, or if we shall
both decease at the same.moment, then  this ninth Article of my Will
is to be wholly inoperative and void.
TENTH.  IF AT MY DEATH MY WIFE THE AFORESAID LYDIA BE NO LONGER
LIVING, OR IF WE DECEASE AT THE  SAME 3IOMENT, THEN I DISTRIBUTE THE
REMAINDER OF MY ESTATE NOT DISPOSED OF IN ARTICLES ONE, TWO, THREE,
FOUR, FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, AND EIGHT OF THIS WILL AS FOLLOWS:1. If my wife, the said Lydia, shall decease at the same moment with myself,
and leave a Willz disposing of property not distributed by me in the above-named
Articles of this WIill, One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, and Eight, then her
WTill is to be sacredly observed, notwithstanding the following provisions of this
W'ill: but if there be no such Will of hers, then,I. To Miss Hannah E. Stevenson, Mliss Sarah H. Hunt, and Miss Caroline C.
Thayer, aforesaid, I restore the various keepsakes and gifts recezved from them, if
they be living.  And to the said Hannah, if living at the administration of my
estate, I give the large inkstand, which for many years has stood on my desk, and
also the sum of One thousand dollars: but if she is not living, then this provision is
to be null and void.,11. To George Colburn Cabot, formerly my ward, and now a member of my
household, I give the sum? of Two thousand dollars; but if he be not living at the
administration of my estate, and leave no issue, then this provision is to be null
and void.
IV. To Mary Drew, who has long lived in my family, Igive Five hundred dollars; but if she be not living at my death, then this clause also is to be null and
void.
V. To the Executors of this Will, hereinafter named, I make this request: that
they will make arrangements with any bookseller for the publication of such portions of my manuscripts, sermons, &c., as they shall see fit, suitably indlemnifyinq
themselves for their labor, but not making my estate chargeable with any cost in
consequence of such publication.
VI. To the proper authorities of the City of Boston, Igive all my books not
otherwise disposed of in this Will, as 1 have already provided in the eighth Article
thereof, and also all my manuscripts, journals, sermons, lectures, letters, &c., &c.,
on the conditions named in said eighth Article; and if these be not accepted by
the said authorities, then on the same terms I bequeath the said books and manuscripts to the Library of Harvard College aforesaid.  But this disposition of the
said manuscripts is not to conflict with the riqht of the Executors mentioned in the
preceding section of this tenth Article of mny Will.
VII. I direct that all the residue of my estate be divided into two equal parts,
which 1 thus distribute and dispose of:A. To the grandchildren of my late esteemed father, John Parker, of Lexington,
I give the one equal part, that is to the children of the late John Parker; of Brighton,
Hcannah Parker Greene, Lydia Parker Herrick, and Hiram  Stearns Parker, and
also to the children of Isaac Parker, of Lexington, who is now living; providinq
that if any grandchild be deceased leaving issue, that issue shall receive the parent's
part, and also providingq that durinqz the life of the said Isaac and of his wiufe,
Martha MI. Parker, the incomze of their children's portioln shall be annually paid to
him or her.
B. I direct the Executors of mny Will to bestow the other equal part on svuch
charitable and philanthropic institutions, or expend it for such charitable and
philanthropic purposes, as they in their judgment shall think most worthy and deserving thereof, and I desire them to make their final decision and the disposition
of this portion of my estate within two years of,my decease.




~~~44 ~6 APPENDIX.
Explanatory Article.  As part of the library furniture, I desire that
my study-table, or desk, and also the great table of oak and mahogany,
once the property of John Parker, of Lexington, my grandfather's
grandfather, which is now in my study, shall be considered as an
appurtenance of the library above-mentioned, and follow the disposition
made of that, in Article Eight of this Will.
I appoint John 1R. Manley, Esq., of Boston; Frederic W. G. May,
Esq., of Boston; and Franklin B. Sanborn, Esq., of Concord, Mass.;
to be the Executors of this my last Will and Testament.  I hereby
revoke all former Wills made by me.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, this
twenty-fifth day of Mlay, A.D. eighteen hundred and fifty-seven.
Signed, sealed, published, and declared by the said Theodore as and
for his last Will and Testament, in the presence of us who, in his
presence and in the presence of each other, and at his request, have
hereunto put our hands, at Boston, on the day aforesaid as witnesses,
FREDER ICK CABOT.
CMARY 1E. CABOT.                    THEOI)ORE PARKE.  L. S.
IWM. F. CABOT.
I, Theodore Parker, of Boston, do make this Codicil to my last Will
and Testament, whereto this is appended, signed by me on or about
the twenty-fifth day of MTay, in the year eighteen hundred and fiftyseven.
First.  If my wife Lydia Cabot be living at the time of my decease,
I request her to give some books from my library to each of the following persons if they be then living; namely, to Mrs. Eliza H. Apthorp;
to Miss Eliza 3IM. Thayer, and each of her two sisters, MBrs. Nichols
and Mrs. Balch; to Misses Rebecca and Matilda Goddard; to Misses
Sarah and Caroline Whitney; and also to Franklin B. Sanborn the
copy of Heyne's edition of H-omer, now in my library.
SECOND. IF I SHOULD SURVIVE MY SAID WIFE, OB IF WE DECEASE AT  SHE
SAME MOBENT, THENT
1 I confirm  and decree all the bequests made by her, in the memoranclum
annexed to her Will, publishe anzd d eclared on or about the 31st clay of Januar?,
in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-nine, and direct my executors to comply
with her wishes therein setforth.
II. Ireturn each of the little gifts I have received from,numerous friends to the
giver, if then liviiig.
111. I confirm the beqeuests mnade in the first section of this Codicil, and direct zmy
Executors to do what I there requested of my wife.
V. To each of my Executors Igive one of my gold pencil-eases.
V. I thus bestowu little gifts and keepsakes:
1. To Sarah S. Russell, wife of George R. Russell, of West oxb2ury, Igive the
silver cup marked with npy name, and also the large silverpencil-case, but if she
be not living at my decease this is void.
2. To Miiss Hannah FE. Stevenson, of Boston, I give the two portraits by Cheney
of my wife and myself; but at her death they are to revert to George C. Cabot, of




APPENDIX.                         447
Boston; and at his demise to the Public Library of the City of Boston, to be
kept in the Library, and near each other.
3. To Franklin B. Sanborn, of Concord aforesaid, if living at my death, ]
give my gold watch.
4. To George C. Cabot, aforesaid, I give all the pictures, portraits, miniatures,
engravings and daquerreotypes, and also the various ornaments about the house,
that he macy keep them as his own, or distribute apart of them among mzy friends;
but if he be not living at my decease, this clause is void.
I hereby revoke all parts of my Will which are inconsistent with the
provisions of this Codicil.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal this thirtyfirst day of January, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-nine.
Signed, sealed, published, and declared by the said Theodore, as and
for a Codicil to his last Will and Testament, in the presence of us who,
in his presence and in the presence of each other, and at his request,
have hereunto put our hands and seals, at Boston, on the day aforesaid,
as witnesses,
FRANCIS CABOT.
JOHN I. CABOT.                     TiEoDoR    PARKER. L. S.
WM. F. CABOT.
No. II.
THE LETTER FROM SANTA CRtUZ, CALLED " THEODORE
PARKER'S EXPERIENCE AS A 3MINISTERE."
LESTTER TO THE M[EMBERS Or THE TWENTY-EIGlTH CONGROEGATIONAL
SOCIETY OF BOSTON.
MY DEAR AND VALIEED FRIENDS,-After it became needful that I
should be silent, and flee off from my home, I determined, at least,
before I went, to write you a letter, touching our long connection, and
my efforts in your service, and so bid you farewell. But the experienced doctors andother wise friends forbid the undertaking, and directed
me to wait for a more favorable time, when the work might be more
leisurely and better done, with less risk also to my life; promising
indeed a time when it would not diminish the chances of recovery. In
the twenty-four days which came between the sudden, decisive attack,
and my departure from Boston, there was little time for even a sound,
well man to settle and arrange his worldly affairs, to straighten out
complicated matters, and return thanks to the many that have befriended
him in the difficult emergencies of life-for surely I left home as one
not to set eyes on New England again.  Since then there has been no
time till now when I have had strength to endure the intellectual
labor, and still more the emotional agitation, which must attend such
a review of my past life.  Consumption having long since slain almost




448                          APPENDIX.
all my near kinsfolk, horsed on the North-wind, rode atme also, seeking
my life.  Swiftly I fled hither, hoping in this little quiet and fair-skied
Island of the Holy Cross to hide me from his monstrous sight, to pull
his arrows from my flesh, and heal my. wounded side. It is yet too soon
to conjecture how or when my exile shall end; but at home, wise,
friendly, and hopeful doctors told me I had " but one chance in ten "
for complete recovery, though more for a partial restoration to some
small show of health, I suppose, and power of moderate work. But if
the danger be as they say, I do not despair nor lose heart at such odds,
having often in my life contended against much greater, and come off
triumphant, though the chances against me were a hundred or a
thousand to one. Besides, this is now the third time that I remember
friends and doctors despairing of my life.  Still, I know that I am no
longer young, and that I stand up to my shoulders in my grave, whose
uncertain sides at any moment may cave in and bury me with their
resistless weight. Yet I hope to climb out this side, and live and
work again amid laborious New England men; for, though the flesh be
weak and the spirit resigned to either fate, yet still the will to live,
though reverent and submissive, is exceeding strong, more vehement
than ever before, as I have still much to do-some things to begin upon,
and many more lying now half done, that I alone can finish-and I
should not like to suffer the little I have done to perish now for lack of
a few years' work.
I know well both the despondency of sick men that makes the night
seem darker than it is, and also the pleasing illusion which flits before
consumptive patients; and while this Will-o'-the-wisp comes flickering
from their kindred's grave, they think it is the breaking of a new and
more auspicious day.  So indeed it is, the Day-spring from on high,
revealing the white, tall porches of Eternity. Let you and me be
neither cheated by delusive hopes, nor weakened by unmanly fears,
but, looking the facts fairly in the face, let us meet the inevitable with
calmness and pious joy, singing the wealthy psalm of life:" Give to the winds thy fears;
Hope and be undismay'd!
God hears thy sighs and count thy fearsGod shall lift up thy head!
Though comprehended not,
Yet Earth and Heaven tell
He sits a Father on the throne:
God guideth all things well! "
But while my strength is but weakness, and my time for this letter
so uncertain, I will waste neither in a lengthened introduction, knowing " it were a foolish thing to make a long prologue, and be short in
the story itself."
In this letter I must needs speak much of myself, and tell some
things which seem to belong only to my private history; for without
a knowledge of them, my public conduct might appear other than it
really is. Yet I would gladly defer them to a more fitting place, in




APPENDIX.                          449
some brief autobiography to be published after my death; but I am
not certain of time to prepare that, so shall here, in small compass,
briefly sketch out some small personal particulars which might elsewhere be presented in their full proportions, and with appropriate
light and shade. As this letter is confidential and addressed to Your,
I could wish it might be read only to the members of the Twentyeighth Congregational Society, or printed solely for their affection,
not also published for the eye of the world; but that were impossible,
for what is offered to the hearts of so many, thereby becomes accessible to the eyes and ears of all who wish to see and hear; so what I
write private to you, becomes public also for mankind, whether I will
or not.
In my early boyhood Ifelt I was to be a minister, and looked forward
with eager longings for the work to which I still think my nature
itself an "effectual call," certainly a deep one, and a continuous. Few
men have ever been more fortunate than I in having pains judiciously
taken with their intellectual culture.
My early education was not costly, as men count expense by dollars;
it was exceeding precious, as they might reckon outlay by the fitness of
the process to secure a development of natural powers. By father and
mother, yes, even by brothers and sisters, great and unceasing care was
taken to secure power of observation, that the senses might grasp their
natural objects; of voluntary attention, fixed, continuous, and exact,
which, despite of appearances, sees the fact just as it is, no more,
no less; of memory, that holds all things firm  as gravitation, and yet,
like that, keeps them unmixed, not confusing the most delicate outline,
and reproduces them at will, complete in tle whole, and perfect in each
part; much stress was also laid on judgment and inventive imagination.
It was a great game they set me to play; it was also an advantage that
the counters cost little money, but were common things, picked up
daily on a farm, in a kitchen, or a mechanic's thoughtful shop. But
still more, pains were taken with my moral and religious culture. In
my earliest boyhood I was taught to respect the instinctive promptings
of conscience, regarding it as the "voice of God in the soul of man,"
which must always be obeyed; to speak the truth without evasion or
concealment; to love justice and conform to it; to reverence merit in
all men, and that regardless of their rank or reputation; and, above all
things, I was taught to love and trust the dear God. He was not
presented to me as a great King, with force for his chief quality, but
rather as a Father, eminent for perfect justice, and complete and perfect
love, alike the parent of Jew and Gentile, Christian and non-Christian,
dealing with all, not according to the accident of their name and
situation, but to the real use each should make of his talents and
opportunities, however little or great.  I was taught self-reliance,
intellectual, moral, and of many another form; to investigate all things
with my own eyes; carefully to form opinions for myself, and while I
believed them reasonable and just, to hold and defend them with modest
firmness. Inquiry was encouraged in all directions.
Of course, I took in many of the absurd theological opinions of the
time; but I think few New Englanders born of religious families in
the first ten years of this century, were formally taught so little
VOL. II.                                             G G




450                          APPENDIX.
superstition. I have met none with whom more judicious attempts
were made to produce a natural unfolding of the religious and moral
faculties; I do not speak of results, only of aim and process.  I have
often been praised for virtues which really belonged to my father and
mother, and if they were also mine, they must have come so easy under
such training, that I should feel entitled to but small merit for possessing them.  They made a careful distinction between a man's character
and his creed, and in my hearing never spoke a bigoted or irreverent
word.
As my relatives and neighbors were all hard-working people, living in
one of the most laborious communities in the world, I did not fail to
learn the great lesson of personal industry, and to acquire power of
work-to begin early, to continue long, with strong and rapid stroke.
The discipline and habit of bodily toil were quite easily transferred to
thought, and I learned early to apply my mind with exact, active, and
long-continued attention, which outward things did not disturb; so
while working skilfully with my hands, I could yet think on what
I would.
Good books by great masters fell into even my boyish hands; the
best English authors of prose and verse, the Bible, the Greek and
Roman classics-which I at first read mainly in translations, but soon
became familiar with in their original beauty-these were my literary
helps.  What was read at all, was also studied, and not laid aside till
well understood. If my books in boyhood were not many, they were
much, and also great.
I had an original fondness for scientific and metaphysical thought,
which found happy encouragement in my early days: my father's strong,
discriminating, and comprehensive mind also inclining that way, offered
me an excellent help.  Nature was all about me; my attention was
wisely directed to both use and beauty, and I early became familiar
with the flora of New England, and attentive also to the habits of beast
and bird, insect, reptile, fish. A few scientific works on natural history
gave me their stimulus and their help.
After my general preliminary education was pretty well advanced,
the hour came when I must decide on my profession for life. All about
me there were ministers who had sufficient talents; now and then one
admirably endowed with learning; devout and humane men, also, with
no stain on their personal character.  But I did not see much in the
clerical profession to attract me thither; the notorious dulness of the
Sunday services, their mechanical character, the poverty and insignificance of the sermons, the unnaturalness and uncertainty of the doctrines preached on the authority of a "divine and infallible revelation,"
the lifelessness of the public prayers, and the consequent heedlessness of
the congregation, all tended to turn a young man off from becoming a
minister. Beside, it did not appear that the New England clergy were
leaders in the intellectual, moral, or religious progress of the people; if
they tried to seem so, it was only the appearance which was kept up.
" Do you think our minister would dare tell his audience of their actual
faultss "-so a rough blacksmith once asked me in my youth.  "Certainly I do!" was the boyish answer. " Humph! " rejoined the smith,
"I should like to have him begin, then!"  The genius of Emerson




APPENDIX.                           451
soon moved from the clerical constellation and stood forth alone, a fixed
and solitary star. Dr. Channing was the only man in the New England
pulpit who to me seemed great.  All my friends advised me against the
ministry —it was " a narrow  place, affording no opportunity to do
much! "  I thought it a wide place.
The legal profession seemed to have many attractions.  There were
eminent men in its ranks, rising to public honors, judicial or political;
they seemed to have more freedom and individuality than the ministers.
iFor some time I hesitated, inclined that way, and made preliminary
studies in the law.  But at length the perils of that profession seemed
greater than I cared to rush upon.  Miistaking sound for sense, I
thought the lawyer's moral tone was lower than the minister's, and
dared not put myself under that temptation I prayed God not to lead
me into.  I could not make up my mind to defend a cause I knew to be
wrong, using all my efforts to lead judge or jury to a decision I thought
unjust. A powerful and successful practitioner told me " none could be
a lawyer without doing so," and quoted the well-known words of Lord
Brougham. I saw men of large talents yielding to this temptation, and
counting as great success what to me even then seemed only great ruin.
I could not decide to set up a law-mill beside the public road, to put
my hand on the winch, and by turning one way, rob innocent men of
their property, liberty, life; or, by reversing the motion, withdraw the
guilty from just punishment, pecuniary or corporeal.  Though I hesitated some time, soon as I got clearness of sight, I returned to my first
love, for that seemed free from guile.  I then asked myself these three
questions:1. " Can you seek for what is eternally true, and not be blinded by
the opinions of any sect, or of the Christian Church; and can you
tell the truth you learn, even when it is unpopular and hated  "  I
answered, " I cA! "  Rash youth is ever confident.
2. " Can you seek the eternal right, and not be blinded by the
statutes and customs of men, ecclesiastical, political, and social; and
can you declare that eternal right you discover, applying it to the
actual life of man, individual and associated, though it bring you into
painful relations of men?"  Again I swiftly answered, " I CAN."
3. " Can you represent in your life that truth of the intellect and
that right of the conscience, and so not disgrace with your character
what you preach with your lips? "  I doubted of this more than the
others; the temptation to personal wickedness seemed stronger than
to professional deceit - at least it was then better known; but I
answered, "I CAN TRY, AND WILL!"
Alas! I little knew all that was involved in these three questions,
and their prompt, youthful answers.  I understand it better now.
So I determined to become a Minister, hoping to help mankind in
the most important of all human concerns, the development of man's
highest powers.
Zealously I entered on my theological education, with many illdefined doubts, and some distinct denials, of the chief doctrines of the
ecclesiastical theology of Christendom.
1. In my early childhood, after a severe and silent struggle, I made
way with the ghastly doctrine of Eternal Damnation and a wrathful
G G 2




452                          APPENDIX.
God; this is the Goliath of that theology.  From my seventh year I
have had no fear of God, only an ever-greatening love and trust.
2. The doctrine of the Trinity, the " great mystery of Revelation,"
had long since gone the same road. For a year, though born and
bred among Unitarians, I had attended the preachings of Dr. Lyman
Beecher, the most powerful orthodox minister in New England, then
in the full blaze of his talents and reputation, and stirred also with
polemic zeal against " Unitarians, Universalists, Papists, and Infidels."
I went through one of his "protracted meetings," listening to the fiery
words of excited men, and hearing the most frightful doctrines set
forth in sermon, song, and prayer.  I greatly respected the talents,
the zeal, and the enterprize of that able man, who certainly taught me
much, but I came away with no confidence in his theology; the better
I understood it, the more self-contradictory, unnatural, and hateful did
it seem. A year of his preaching about finished all my respect for the
Calvinistic scheme of theology.
3. I had found no evidence which to me could authorize a belief in
the supernatural birth of Jesus of Nazareth.  The two-fold Biblical
testimony was all; that was contradictory and good for nothing; we
had not the affidavit of the mother, the only competent human witness, nor even the declaration of the son; there was no circumstantial
evidence to confirm the statement in the Gospels of a most improbable
event.
4. Many miracles related in the Old and New Testament seemed
incredible to me; some were clearly impossible, others ridiculous, and
a few were wicked; such, of course, I rejected at once, while I still
arbitrarily admitted others.  The general question of miracles was one
which gave me much uneasiness, for I had not learned carefully to
examine evidence for alleged historical events, and had, besides, no clear
conception of what is involved in the notion that God ever violates
the else constant mode of operation of the universe. Of course I had
not then that philosophical idea of God which makes a theological
miracle as impossible as a round triangle, or any other self-evident
contradiction.
5. I had no belief in the plenary, infallible, verbal inspiration of
the whole Bible, and strong doubts as to the miraculous inspiration
of any part of it.  Some things were the opposite of divine; I could
not put my finger on any great moral or religious truth taught by
revelation in the New Testament, which had not previously been set
forth by men for whom no miraculous help was ever claimed.  But, on
the whole matter of Inspiration, I lacked clear and definite ideas, and
found neither friend nor book to help me.
In due time I entered the Theological School at Cambridge, then
under the charge of the UTnitarians, or " Liberal Christians."  I found
excellent opportunities for study: there were able and earnest professors, who laid no yoke on any neck, but left each man free to think
for himself, and come to such conclusions as he must.  Telling what
they thought they knew, they never pretended they had learned all
that may be known, or winnowed out all error from their creed. They
were honest guides, with no more sophistry than is perhaps almost
universal in that calling, and did not pretend to be masters. There,




APPENDIX.                          453
too, was a large library containing much valuable ancient lore, though,
alas! almost none of the new  theologic thought of the German
masters.  Besides, there  was leisure, and unbounded freedom  of
research; and I could work as many hours in the study as a mechanic
in his shop, or a farmer in his field. The pulpits of Boston were
within an easy walk, and Dr. Channing drew near the zenith of his
power.
Here, under these influences, I pursued the usual routine of theological reading, but yet, of course, had my own private studies, suited
to my special wants.  It is now easy to tell what I then attempted
without always being conscious of my aim, and what results I gradually
reached before I settled in the ministry.
I. I studied the Bible with much care.  First, I wished to learn,
What is the Bible-what books and words compose it? this is the
question of criticism; next, What does the Bible mean —what sentiments
and ideas do its words contain? this is the question of interpretation.
I read the Bible critically, in its original tongues, the most important
parts of it also in the early versions, and sought for the meaning early
attributed to its words, and so studied the works of Jewish Rabbis on
the Old Testament, and of the early Christian Fathers on both New
and Old; besides, I studied carefully the latest critics and interpreters,
especially the German.
I soon found that the Bible is a collection of quite heterogeneous
books, most of them anonymous, or bearing names of doubtful authors,
collected none knows how, or when, or by whom; united more by
caprice than any philosophic or historic method, so that it is not easy
to see why one ancient book is kept in the Canon and another kept
out.  I found no unity of doctrine in the several parts; the Old
Testament "reveals" one form of religion,cand the New Testament
one directly its opposite; and in the New Testament itself, I found
each writer had his own individuality, which appears not only in the
style, the form of thought, but quite as much in the doctrines, the substance of thought, where no two are well agreed.
Connected with this Biblical study, came the question of inspiration
and of miracles. I still inconsistently believed, or half believed, in
the direct miraculous interposition of God, from time to time, to set
things right which else went wrong, though I found no historic or
philosophic reason for limiting it to the affairs of Jews and Christians,
or the early ages of the Church.  The whole matter of miracles was
still a puzzle to me, and for a long time a source of anxiety; for I
had not studied the principles of historic evidence, nor learned to
identify and scrutinize the witnesses.  But the problem of inspiration
got sooner solved. I believed in the immanence of God in man, as
well as matter, His activity in both; hence, that all men are inspired
in proportion to their actual powers, and their normal use thereof; that
truth is the test of intellectual inspiration, justice of moral, and so on.
I did not find the Bible inspired, except in this general way, and in
proportion to the truth and justice therein.  It seemed to me that no
part of the Old Testament or New could be called the " Word of
God," save in the sense that all truth is God's word.




454                         APPENDIX.
II. I studied the historical development of religion and theology
amongst Jews and Christians, and saw the gradual formation of the
great ecclesiastical doctrines which so domineered over the world. As
I found the Bible was the work of men, so I also found that the
Christian Church was no more divine than the British State, a Dutchman's shop, or an Austrian's farm. The miraculous infallible Bible,
and the miraculous, infallible Church, disappeared when they they were
closely looked at; and I found the fact of history quite different from
the pretension of theology.
III. I studied the historical development of religion and theology
amongst the nations not Jewish or Christian, and attended as well as
I then could to the four other great religious sects-the Brahmanic,
the Buddhistic, the Classic, and the Mohammedan. As far as possible
at that time, I studied the sacred books of mankind in their original
tongues, and with the help of the most faithful interpreters. Here
the Greek and BIoman poets and philosophers came in for their place,
there being no sacred books of the classic nations.  I attended pretty
carefully to the religion of savages and barbarians, and was thereby
helped to the solution of many a difficult problem.  I found no tribe
of men destitute of religion who had attained power of articulate
speech.
IV. I studied assiduously the metaphysics and psychology of religion. Religious consciousness was universal in human history.  Was
it then natural to man, inseparable from his essence, and so from his
development?  In my own consciousness I found it automatic and
indispensable; was it really so likewise in the human race?  The
authority of Bibles and Churches was no answer to that question.  I
tried to make an analysis of humanity, and see if by psychologic
science I could detect the special element which produced religious
consciousness in me, and religious phenomena in mankind-seeking a
cause adequate to the facts of experience and observation.  The common books of philosophy seemed quite insufficient; the sensational
system, so ably presented by Locke in his masterly Essay, developed
into various forms by Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume, Paley, and the French
iMaterialists, and modified, but not much amended, by  Reid and
Stewart, gave little help; it could not legitimate my own religious
instincts, nor explain the religious history of mankind, or even of the
British people, to whom  that philosophy is still so manifold a hindrance.  Ecclesiastical writers, though able as Clarke and Butler, and
learned also as Cudworth and Barrow, could not solve the difficulty;
for the principle of authority, though more or less concealed, yet lay
there, and, like buried iron, disturbed the free action of their magnetic
genius, affecting its dip and inclination. The brilliant mosaic, which
Cousin set before the world, was of great service, but not satisfactory.
I found most help in the works of Immanuel Kant, one of the profoundest thinkers in the world, though one of the worst writers, even
of Germany; if he did not always furnish conclusions I could rest in,
he vet gave me the true method, and put me on the right road.
I found certain great primal intuitions of human nature, which
depend on no logical process of demonstration, but are rather facts of




APPENDIX,                           455
consciousness given by the instinctive action of human nature itself
I will mention only the three most important which pertain to re.
ligion.
1. The instinctive intuition of the divine, the consciousness that
there is a God.
2. The instinctive intuition of the just and right, a consciousness
that there is a moral law, independent of our will, which we ought to
keep.
3. The instinctive intuition of the immortal, a consciousness that
the essential element of man, the principle of individuality, never
dies.
Here, then, was the foundation of religion, laid in human nature
itself, which neither the atheist nor the more pernicious bigot, with
their sophisms of denial or afirmation, could move, or even shake.
I had gone through the great spiritual trial of my life, telling no
one of its hopes or fears; and I thought it a triumph that I had
psychologically established these three things to my own satisfaction,
and devised a scheme which to the scholar's mind, I thought, could
legitimate what was spontaneously given to all, by the great primal
instincts of mankind.
Then I proceeded to develop the contents of these instinctive
intuitions of the divine, the just, and the immortal, and see what God
actually is, what morality is, and what eternal life has to offer. In
each case I pursued two methods-the inductive and deductive.
First, from  the history of mankind-savage, barbarous, civilised,
enlightened-I gathered the most significant facts I could find relating
to men's opinions about God, Morality, Heaven, and Hell, and thence
made such generaiisations as the facts would warrant, which, however,
were seldom  satisfactory; for they did not represent facts of the
universe, the actual God, justice, and eternal life, but only what men
had thought or felt thereof; yet this comparative and inductive
theology was of great value to me.
Next, from the primitive facts of consciousness, given by the power
of instinctive intuition, I endeavoured to deduce the true notion of
God, of justice, and futurity.  Here I could draw from human nature,
and not be hindered by the limitations of human history; but I know
now better than it was possible then, how difficult is this work, and
how often the inquirer mistakes his own subjective imagination for a
fact of the universe.  It is for others to decide whether I have some.
times mistaken a little grain of brilliant dust in my telescope for a
fixed star in heaven.
To learn what I could about the spiritual faculties of man, I not
only studied the sacred books of various nations, the poets and the
philosophers who professedly  treat thereof, but also such as deal
with sleep-walking, dreams, visions, prophecies, second-sight, oracles,
eestacies, witchcraft, magic wonders, the appearance of devils, ghosts,
and the like. Besides, I studied other works which lie out from  the
regular highway of theology, the spurious books attributed to famous
Jews or Christians, Pseudepigraphy of the Old Testament, and the
Apocrypha of the New, with the strange fantasies of the Neoplatonists
and Gnostics.  I did not neglect the writings of the Mystics, though




/456a                         APPENDIX.
at that time I could only make a beginning with the more famous or
most tenderly religious; I was much attracted to this class of men,
who developed the  element of piety, regardless of the theologic
ritualism  of the church, the philosophic discipline of the schools, or
the practical morality of common life.  By this process, I not only
learned much of the abnormal action of the human spirit, and saw
how often a mere fancy passes for fact, and a dreamer's subjective
whim bestrides some great harbour of the world for a thousand years,
obstructing all tall ships, until an earthquake throws it down; but
I also gleaned up many a precious flower which bloomed unseen in
those waste places of literature, and was unknown to the authorised
floras of the school or church.
I left the Theological School with reluctance, conscious of knowing
so little of what I must presently teach, and wishing more years for
research and thought.  Of course my first sermons were only imitations; and even if the thought might, perhaps, be original, the form
was old, the stereotype of the pulpit.  I preached with fear and
trembling, and wondered that old and mature persons, rich in the
experience of life, should listen to a young man, who might, indeed
have read and thought, but yet had had no time to live much and
know things by heart.  I took all possible pains with the matter of the
discourse, and always appealed to the religious instinct in mankind.
At the beginning I resolved to preach the natural laws of man as they
are writ in his constitution, no less and no more.  After preaching a
few months in various places, and feeling my way into the consciousness of men, I determined to preach nothing as religion which I had
not experienced inwardly, and made my own, knowing it by heart.
Thus, not only the intellectual, but also the religious part of my sermons would rest on facts that I was sure of, and not on the words of
another.  I was indebted to another young candidate for the hint.  I
hope I have not been faithless to the early vow. A  study of the
English State Trials, and a careful analysis of the arguments of the
great speeches therein, helped me to clearness of arrangement, and
distinctness in the use of terms.  Here and in the Greek and Latin
orations I got the best part of my rhetorical culture.
On the longest day of 1837, I was ordained Minister of the TUnitarian Church and Congregation at West Rioxbury, a little village near
Boston, one of the smallest societies in New England, where I found
men and women whose friendship is still dear and instructive.  I had
thought freely, and freely preached what I thought; none had ever
questioned my right.  At the Theological School, the professors were
then teachers to instruct, not also inquisitors to torture and to damn;
satisfied of the religious chartacer of the pupils, they left each to
develop his own free spiritual individuality, responsible only to his
own conscience and his God.  It was then the boast of the little UJnitarian party, that it respected individuality, freedom  of thought, and
freedom of speech, and had neither Inquisitors nor Pope. Great diversity of opinion prevailed amongst Unitarians, ministers and laymen,
but the unity of religion was more thought of than the variety of
theology.  At ordinations, for some years, their councils had ceased
to inquire into the special opinions of the candidate, leaving him and




APPENDIX.                          4 5 
the society electing to settle the matter.  The first principle of congregationalism certainly requires this course. As a sect, the Unitarians had but one distinctive doctrine-the unity of God without the
Trinity of Persons.  Christendom said, " Jesus of Nazareth is Jehovah
of Hosts! "  The Unitarians answered, "He is not! "  At my ordination, none of the council offered to catechise me, or wished to interfere
with what belonged to me and the congregation, and they probably
thought of my piety and morality more than of the special theology
which even then rode therewith in the same panniers. The able and
earnest ministers who preached the sermon, delivered the charge, and
gave me the right hand of fellowship, all recommended study, investigation, originality, freedom  of thought and openness of speech, as
well as humanity, and a life of personal religiousness.  One, in his
ordaining prayer, his hand on my head, put up the petition, " that no
fondness for literature or science, and no favorite studies may ever
lead this young man from learning the true religion, and preaching
it for the salvation of mankind!'" Most heartily did I say " Amen! "
to this supplication.
For the first year or two the congregation did not exceed seventy
persons, including the children.  I soon became well acquainted with
all in the little parish, where I found some men of rare enlightenment,
some truly generous and noble souls.  I knew the characters of all,
and the thoughts of such as had them. I took great pains with the
composition of my sermons; they were never out of my mind.  I
had an intense delight in writing and preaching; but I was a learner
quite as much as a teacher, and was feeling my way forward and
upward with one hand, while I tried to lead men with the other. I
preached natural laws, nothing on the authority of any church, any
tradition, any sect, though I sought illustration and confirmation from
all these sources. For historical things, I told the historical evidence;
for spiritual things, I found ready proof in the primal instincts of the
soul, and confirmation in the life of religious men. The simple life of
the farmers, mechanics, and milk-men, about me, of its own accord,
turned into a sort of poetry, and re-appeared in the sermons, as the
green woods, not far off, looked in at the windows of the meetinghouse.  I think I preached only what I had experienced in my own
inward consciousness, which widened and grew richer as I came into
practical contact with living men, turned time into life, and mere
thought became character.
But I had much leisure for my private humanitarian and philosophic
studies.  One of the professors in the Theological School had advised
against my settling "in so small a place," and warned me against " the
seductions of an easy chair," telling me I must become a " minister
at large for all mankind," and do with the pen what I could not with
the voice. I devoted my spare time to hard study. To work ten or
fifteen hours a-day in my literary labours, was not only a habit, but a
pleasure; with zeal and delight I applied myself anew to the great
theological problems of the age.
Many circumstances favored both studious pursuits and the formation of an independent character.  The years of my preliminary
theological study, and of my early ministry, fell in the most interesting




458                          APPENDIX,
period of New'England's spiritual history, when a great revolution
went on-so silent that few men knew it was taking place, and none
then understood its whither or its whence.
The Unitarians, after a long and bitter controversy, in which they
were often shamelessly ill-treated by the "orthodox," had conquered,
and secured their ecclesiastical right to deny the Trinity, "the Achilles
of dogmas;" they had won the respect of the New England public;
had absorbed most of the religious talent of Massachusetts, founded
many churches, and possessed and liberally administered the oldest and
richest college in America. Not yet petrified into a sect, they rejoiced
in the large liberty of "the children of God," and owning neither
racks nor dungeons, did not covet any of those things that were their
neighbor's.  With less education and literary skill, the Tniversalists
had fought manfully against Eternal Damnation-the foulest doctrine which defiles the pages of man's theologic history-secured their
ecclesiastical position, wiping malignant statutes from the law books,
and, though in a poor and vulgar way, were popularising the great
truth that God's chief attribute is LOVE, which is extended to all men.
Alone of all Christian sects, they professedly taught the immortality
of man in such a form that it is no curse to the race to find it true!
But, though departing from those doctrines which are essential to the
Christian ecclesiastic scheme, neither TUniversalist nor Unitarian had
broken with the authority of Revelation, the word of the Bible, but
still professed a willingness to believe both Trinity and Damnation,
could they be found in the miraculous and infallible Scripture.
Mr. Garrison, with his friends, inheriting what was best in the
Puritan founders of Iew England, fired with the zeal of the Hebrew
prophets and Christian martyrs, while they were animated with a
spirit of humanity rarely found in any of the three, was beginning
his noble work, but in a style so humble that, after much search, the
police of Boston discovered there was nothing dangerous in it, for
"his only visible auxiliary was a negro boy."  Dr. Channing was in
the full maturity of his powers, and after long preaching the dignity
of man as an abstraction, and piety as a purely inward life, with rare
and winsome eloquence, and ever progressive humanity, began to
apply his sublime doctrines to actual life in the individual, the state,
and the church.  In the name of Christianity, the great American
Unitarian called for the reform of the drunkard, the elevation of the
poor, the instruction of the ignorant, and, above all, for the liberation
of the American slave. A  remarkable man, his instinct of progress
grew  stronger the more he travelled, and the further he went, for he
surrounded himself with young life.  Horace Mann, with his coadjutors, began a great movement, to improve the public education of
the people.  Pierpont, single-handed, was fighting a grand and twofold battle-against drunkenness in the street, and for righteousness in
the pulpit-against fearful ecclesiastic odds maintaining a minister's
right and duty to oppose actual wickedness, however popular and
destructive.  The brilliant genius of Emerson rose in the winter
nights, and hung over Boston, drawing the eyes of ingenuous young
people to look up to that great, new star, a beauty and a mystery,
which charmed for the moment, while it gave also perennial inspira



APPENDIX,                           459
tion, as it led them forward along new paths, and towards new hopes.
America has seen no such sight before; it is not less a blessed wonder
now.
Besides, the Phrenologists, so ably represented by Spurzheim  and
Combe, were weakening the power of the old supernaturalism, leading
men to study the constitution of man more wisely than before, and
laying the foundation on which many a beneficent structure was soon
to rise.  The writings of Wordsworth were becoming familiar to the
thoughtful lovers of nature and of man, and drawing men to natural
piety.  Carlyle's works got reprinted at Boston, diffusing a strong, and
then also, a healthy influence on old and young.  The writings of
Coleridge were reprinted in America, all of them  "aids to reflection,"
and brilliant with the scattered sparks of genius; they incited many to
think, more especially young Trinitarian ministers; and, spite of the
lack of both historic and philosophic accuracy, and the utter absence of
all proportion in his writings; spite of his haste, his vanity, prejudice,
sophistry, confusion, and opium-he yet did great service in New
England, helping to emancipate enthralled minds.  The works of
Cousin, more systematic, and more profound as a whole, and far more
catholic and comprehensive, continental, not insular, in his range, also
became familiar to the Americans-reviews and translations going
where the eloquent original was not heard-and helped to free the
young mind from the gross sensationalism of the academic philosophy
on one side, and the grosser supernaturalism of the ecclesiastic theology
on the other.
The German language, hitherto the priceless treasure of a few, was
becoming well known, and many were thereby made acquainted with
the most original, deep, bold, comprehensive, and wealthy literature in
the world, fall of theologic and philosophic thought.  Thus, a great
storehouse was opened to such as were earnestly in quest of truth.
Young Mfr. Strauss, in whom  genius for criticism  was united with
extraordinary learning and rare facility of philosophic speech, wrote his
" Life of Jesus," where he rigidly scrutinised the genuineness of the
Gospels and the authenticity of their contents, and with scientific calmness, brought every statement to his steady scales, weighing it, not
always, justly, as I think, but impartially always, with philosophic
coolness and deliberation.  The most formidable assailant of the ecclesiastical theology of Christendom, he roused a host of foes, whose
writings-mainly ill-tempered, insolent, and sophistical-it was yet
profitable for a young man to read.
The value of Christian miracles, not the question of fact, was discussed at Boston, as never before in America.  Prophecy had been
thought the Jachin, and miracles the Boaz, whereon alone Christianity
could rest; but, said some, if both be shaken down, the Lord's house
will not fall. The claims of ecclesiastical tradition came up to be settled anew; and young men, walking solitary through the moonlight,
asked,  "Which is to be permanent master-a single accident in human
history, nay, perchance only the whim of some anonymous dreamer, or
the substance of human nature, greatening with continual development,
and
"Not without access of unexpected strength? "




460                         APPENDIX.
The question was also its answer.
The rights of labor were discussed with deep philanthropic feeling,
and sometimes with profound thought, metaphysic and economic both.
The works of Charles Fourier-a strange, fantastic, visionary man, no
doubt, but gifted also with amazing insight of the truths of social
science-shed some light in these dark places of speculation.  Mr.
Ripley, a born Democrat, in the high sense of that abused word, and
one of the best cultured and most enlightened men in America, made
an attempt at Brook Farm, in West Roxbury, so to organise society
that the results of labour should remain in the workman's hand. and
not slip thence to the trader's till; that there should be "no exploitation of man by man," but toil and thought, hard work and high culture,
should be united in the same person.
The natural rights of woman began to be inquired into, and publicly discussed; while in private, great pains were taken in the chief
towns of New England, to furnish a thorough and comprehensive
education to such young maidens as were born with two talents, mind
and money.
Of course a strong reaction followed. At the Cambridge Divinity
School, Professor Henry Ware, Jun., told the young men, if there
appeared to them any contradiction between the reason of man and
the letter of the Bible, they " must follow the written Word," " for you
can never be so certain of the correctness of what takes place in your
own mind, as of what is written in the Bible."  In an ordination sermon, he told the young minister not to preach himself, but Christ; and
not to appeal to human nature for proof of doctrines, but to the authority of revelation.  Other Unitarian ministers declared, "There are
limits to free inquiry;" and preached, " Reason must be put down, or
she will soon ask terrible questions;" protested against the union of
philosophy and religion, and assumed to " prohibit the banns" of marriage between the two. Mr. Norton-then a great name at Cambridge,
a scholar of rare but contracted merit, a careful and exact writer, born
for controversy, really learned and able in his special department, the
interpretations of the New Testament-opened his mouth and spoke:
the mass of men must accept the doctrines of religion solely on the
authority of the learned, as they do the doctrines of mathematical
astronomy; the miracles of Jesus-he made merry at those of the Old
Testament-are the only evidence of the truth of Christianity; in the
popular religion of the Greeks and Romans, there was no conception of
God; the new philosophic attempts to explain the fact of religious
consciousness were "the latest form of infidelity;" the great philosophical and theological thinkers of Germany were "all atheists;"
" Schleiermacher was an atheist," as was also Spinoza, his master,
before him; and Cousin, who was only "that Frenchman,' was no
better; the study of philosophy, and the neglect of " Biblical criticism,"
were leading mankind to ruin —everywhere was instability and insecurity!
Of course, this reaction was supported by the ministers in the great
churches of commerce, and by the old literary periodicals, which never
knew a star was risen till men wondered at it in the zenith; the Unitarian journals gradually went over to the opponents of freedom and




APPENDIX.                          461
progress, with lofty scorn rejecting their former principles, and repeating the conduct they had once complained of; Cambridge and Princeton
seemed to be interchanging cards. From such hands Cousin and Emerson could not receive needed criticism, but only vulgar abuse. Dr.
Channing could "not draw a long breath in Boston," where he found
the successors of Paul trembling before the successors of Felix. Even
Trinitarian Moses Stuart seemed scarcely safe in his hard-bottomed
Hopkinsian chair, at Andover.  The Trinitarian ministers and city
schoolmasters galled Horace Mann with continual assaults on his measures for educating the people. Unitarian ministers struck hands with
wealthy liquor dealers to drive Mr. Pierpont from his pulpit, where he
valiantly preached " temperance, righteousness, and judgment to come,"
appealing to " a day after to-day."  Prominent anti-slavery men were
dropped out of all wealthy society in Boston, their former friends not
knowing them  in the streets; MIr. Garrison was mobbed by men in
handsome coats, and found defence from their fury only in a jail; an
assembly of women, consulting for the liberation of their darker sisters,
was driven with hootings into the street. The Attorney-General of
Massachusetts brought an indictment for blasphemy against a country
minister, one of the most learned Biblical scholars in America, for
publicly proving that none of the " Messianic prophecies " of the Old
Testament was ever fulfilled by Jesus of Nazareth, who accordingly
was not the expected Christ of the Jews. Abner Kneeland, editor of
a newspaper, in which he boasted of the name " Infidel," was clapped
in jail for writing against the ecclesiastical notion of God, the last man
ever punished for blasphemy in the State. At the beck of a Virginian
slave-holder, the Governor of Massachusetts suggested to the Legislature the expediency of abridging the old New England liberty of
speech.
The movement party established a new quarterly, the Dial, wherein
their wisdom and their folly rode together on the same saddle, to the
amazement of lookers-on. The short-lived journal had a narrow circulation, but its most significant papers were scattered wide by newspapers which copied them. A Quarterly Review was also established by
Mr. Brownson, then a Unitarian minister and " sceptical democrat"' of
the most extravagant class, but now a Catholic, a powerful advocate of
material and spiritual despotism, and perhaps the ablest writer in
America against the rights of man and the welfare of his race. In this
he diffused important philosophic ideas, displayed and disciplined his
own extraordinary talents for philosophic thought and popular writing,
and directed them  towards Democracy, Transcendentalism, " New
Views," and the " Progress of the Species."
I count it a piece of good fortune that I was a young man when
these things were taking place, when great questions were discussed,
and the public had not yet taken sides.
After I became a Minister I laid out an extensive plan of study, a
continuation of previous work. I intended to write a " History of the
Progressive Development of Religion among the leading Races of Mankind," and attended at once to certain preliminaries. I studied the
Bible more carefully and comprehensively than before, both the criticism and interpretation; and, in six or seven years, prepared an " Intro



462                          APPENDIX.
duction to the Canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament," translated
from the German of Dr. Wette, the ablest writer in the world on that
theme; the book as published was partly his and partly mine. This
work led me to a careful study of the Christian Fathers of the first
five centuries, and of most of the great works written about the Bible
and Christianity.  I intended to prepare a similar work on the New
Testament, and the Apocrypha of both Old and New. I studied the
philosophers, theologians, and Biblical critics of Germany, the only
land where theology was then studied as a science, and developed with
scientific freedom. I was much helped by the large learning, and nice
analysis of these great thinkers, who have done as much for the history
of the Christian movement as Niebuhr for that of the Ioman State.
But as I studied the profound works of Catholic and Protestant, the
regressive and the progressive men, and got instruction from all, I did
not feel inclined to accept any one as my master, thinking it lawful to
ride on their horses without being myself either saddled or bridled.
The critical study of the Bible only enhanced my reverence for the
great and good things I found in the Old Testament and New. They
were not the less valuable because they were not the work of " miraculous and infallible inspiration," and because I found them mixed with
some of the worst doctrines ever taught by men; it was no strange
thing to find pearls surrounded by sand, and roses beset with thorns.
I liked the Bible better when i could consciously take its contradictory
books each for what it is, and felt nothing commanlding' me to accept it
for what it is not; and could freely use it as a help, not slavishly serve
it as a master, or worship it as an idol.  I took no doctrine for true,
simply because it was in the Bible; what therein seemed false or
wrong, I rejected as freely as if I had found it in the sacred books of
the Buddhists or Mormons.
I had not preached long before I found, as never before, that practically, the ecclesiastical worship. of the Bible hindered the religious
welfare and progress of the Christians more than any other cause.
With doctors, the traditionary drug was once a fetish, which they
reverenced and administered without much inquiring whether it would
kill or cure.  But now, fortunately, they are divided into so many
sects, each terribly criticising the other, the spirit of philosophic seepticism and inquiry by experiment has so entered the profession, that
many have broken with that authority, and ask freely, "I-ow can the
sick man recover?"  The worship of the traditionary drug is getting
ended.
With lawyers, the law of the land, custom, or promulgated statue,
is also a fetish.  They do not ask, " Is the statute right?-will its
application promote justice?" which is the common interest of all
men; but only, "Is it law? "   To this judge and advocate must
prostitute their conscience; hence the personal ruin which so often is
mistaken for personal success.
With Protestant ministers, the Bible is a fetish; it is so with
Catholic priests likewise, only to themn the IRoman Church is the master
fetish, the "big thunder," while the Bible is but an inferior and subservient idol.  For ultimate authority, the minister does not appeal
to God, manifesting Himself in the world of matter and the world of




APPENDIX.                           463
man, but only to the Bible; to that he prostitutes his mind and conscience, heart and soul; on the authority of an anonymous Hebrew
book, he will justify the slaughter of innocent men, women, and
children, by the thousand; and, on that of an anonymous Greek book,
he will believe, or at least command others to believe, that man is born
totally depraved, and God will perpetually slaughter men in hell by
the million, though they had committed no fault, except that of not
believing an absurd doctrine they had never heard of. Ministers
take the Bible in the lump as divine; all between the lids of the
book is equally the  " Word of God," infallible and miraculous; he
that believeth it shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be
damned; no amount of piety and morality can make up for not believing this.  No doctor is ever so subordinate to his drug, no lawyer
lies so prone before statute and custom, as the mass of ministers
before the Bible, the great fetish of Protestant Christendom. The
Ephesians did not so worship their great goddess Diana and the meteoric stone which fell down from  Jupiter.  "We can believe anything," say they, "which has a'Thus saith the Lord' before or after
it."  The Bible is not only master of the soul, it is also a talisman
to keep men from  harm; bodily contact with it, through hand or eye,
is a part of religion; so it lies in railroad stations, in the parlors and
sleeping chambers of taverns, and the cabin of ships, only to be seen
and touched not read. The pious mother puts it in the trunk of her
prodigal son, about to travel, and while she knows he is wasting her
substance upon harlots and in riotous living, she contents herself with
the thought that " he has got his Bible with him, and promised to read
a chapter every day!  So the Catholic mother uses an image of the
"Virgin Mother of God," and the Rocky Mountain savage a bundle
of grass: it is a fetish.
But with this general worship of the Bible there is yet a cunning
use of it; as the lawyers twist a statute to wring out a meaning they
know it does not contain, but themselves put in, or warp a decision
till it fits their purpose, so, with equal sophistry, and perhaps selfdeceit, do the Ministers twist the Bible to support their special
doctrine: no book has been explained with such sophistry.  Thus,
some make the Apostle Paul a Unitarian, and find neither Divinity
nor the pre-existence ascribed to Jesus in the fourth Gospel; while
others discover the full-blown Trinity in the first verse of the first
chapter of the first book in the Bible; nay, yet others can find no
devil, no wrathful God, and no eternal damnation, even in the New
Testament. But all these ministers agree that the Bible is the " Word
of God,'.' "His only Word," miraculous and infallible, and that belief
in it is indispensable to Christianity, and continually preach this to the
people.
I had not long been a minister, before I found this worship of the
Bible as a fetish hindering me at each progressive step. If I wished
to teach the nobleness of man, the Old Testament and New were
there with dreadful condemnations of human nature; did I speak of
God's love for all men, the Bible was full of ghastly things-chosen
people, hell, devil, damnation-to prove that he loved only a few, and
them not overmuch; did I encourage free individuality of soul, such




461  APPENDIX.
as the great Bible-men themselves had, asking all to be Christians as
Jesus was a Christ, there were texts of bondage, commanding a belief
in this or that absurdity. There was no virtue, but the Scriptures
could furnish an argument against it. I could not deny the existence
of ghosts and witches, devils and demons, haunting the earth, but
Revelation could be quoted against me. Nay, if I declared the constancy of nature's laws, and sought therein great argument for the
constancy of God, all the miracles came and held their mythologic
finger up. Even slavery was " of God," for the " divine statutes " in the
Old Testament admitted the principle that man might own a man as
well as a garden or an ox, and provided for the measure.  loses and
the Prophets were on its side, and neither Paul of Tarsus nor Jesus
of Nazareth uttered a direct word against it. The best thing in the
Bible is the free genius for religion, which is itself inspiration, and
not only learns particular truths through its direct normal intercourse
with God, but creates new men in its own likeness, to lead every Israel
out of his Egypt, and conduct all men to the Land of Promise: whoso
worships the Bible, loses this.
I set myself seriously to consider how I could best oppose this
monstrous evil; it required great caution. I feared lest I should weaken
men's natural trust in God, and their respect for true religion, by
rudely showing them that they worshipped an idol, and were misled
into gross superstition. This fear did not come from my nature, but
from ecclesiastical tradition, and the vice of a New England theologic
culture. It has been the maxim of almost every sect in Christendom
that the mass of men, in religious matters, must be ruled  with
authority, that is, by outward force; this principle belongs to the
idea of a supernatural revelation; the people cannot determine for
themselves what is true, moral, religious; their opinions must be
made for them by supernatural authority, not by them through the
normal use of their higher faculties!  Hence the Catholic priest
appeals to the supernatural Church to prove the infallibility of the
Pope, the actual presence of the body and blood of Jesus in the
sacramental bread and wine; hence the Protestant appeals to the
supernatural Bible, to prove that Jesus was born with no human
father, the total depravity of all men, the wrath of God, the existence
of a devil, and the eternal torments of hell. Besides, the man of
superior education is commonly separated from sympathizing with the
people, and that by the very culture they have paid for with their toil,
and which ought to unite the two; he has little confidence in their instinct or reflection.
I had some of these unnatural doubts and fears; but my chief
anxiety came less from distrust of mankind, than from diffidence in
my own power to tell the truth so clear and well that I should do no
harm. However, when I saw the evil which came from this superstition, I could not be silent. In conversation and preaching, I explained little details-this was poetry in the Bible, and not matter of
fact: that was only the dress of the doctrine, not truth itself; the
authors of Scripture were mistaken here and there; they believed in
a devil, which was a popular fancy of their times; a particular prophecy has never been fulfilled.




APPENDIX.                          465
But the whole matter must be treated more philosophically, and set
on its true foundation.  So, designing to save men's reverence for the
grand truths of the Bible, while I should wean them  away from worshipping it, I soon laboriously wrote two sermons on the contradictions
in the Scripture-treating of historic contradictions, where one part
is at variance with another, or with actual facts, authenticated by
other witnesses; of scientific contradictions, passages at open variance
with the facts of the material universe; and of moral and religious
contradictions, passages which were hostile to the highest intuitions
and reflections of human nature.  I made the discourses as perfect
as I then could at that early stage of my life: very imperfect and
incomplete I should, doubtless, find them now.  I then inquired
about the expediency of preaching them immediately.  I had not yet
enough practical experience of mnen to authorize me to depart from
the ecclesiastical distrust of the people; I consulted older and enlight- 
cned ministers.  They all said "'o: preach no such thing!  You
will only do harm."  One of the most learned and liberal ministers
of New England advised me never to oppose the popular religion!
"But, if it be wrong to hinder the religious welfare of the peoplewhat then? "  Why, let it alone; all the old philosophers did so;
Socrates sacrificed a cock to 2Esculapius! I-e that spits on the wind
spits in his own face; you will ruin yourself, and do nobody any
good! 
Silenced, but not convinced, I kept my unpreached sermons, read
books on kindred matters, and sought to make my work more complete as a whole, and more perfect in all its parts.  At length I consulted a very wise and thoughtful layman, old, with large social experience, and much esteemed for sound sense, one who knew the difficulties of the case, and would not let his young children read the
Old Testament, lest it should injure their religious character.  I told
him my conviction and my doubts, asking his advice. He also thought
silence wiser than speech, yet said there were many thoughtful men
who felt troubled by the offensive things in the Bible, and would be
grateful to any one who could show  that religion was independent
thereof. But, he added, " If you try it, you will be misunderstood."
Take the society at —, perhaps one of the most intelligent in the
city; you will preach your sermons, a few will understand and thank
you. But the great vulgar, who hear imperfectly and remember imperfectly, and at the best understand but little, they will say, " He
finds faults in the Bible!  What does it all mean; what have we got
left?"  And the little vulgar, who hear and remember still more imperfectly, and understand even less, they will exclaim, " Why the man
is an Infidel! He tells us ther arare faults in the Bible. He is pulling
down religion!"  Then it will get into the newspapers, and all the
ministers in the land will be down upon you! No good will be done,
but much harm. You had better let it all alone!
I kept my sermons more than a year, doubting whether the little
congregation would be able to choose between truth and error when
both were set before them, and fearing lest I should weaken their faith
in pure religion, when I showed it was not responsible for the contradictions in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures  But at length I
VOL. II.                                             H H




466                         APPENDIX.
could wait no longer; and to ease my own conscience, I preached the
two sermons, yet not venturing to look the audience in the face and
see the immediate result. In the course of the week, men and womne
of the commonest education, but of earnest character and profound
religious feeling, took pains to tell me of the great comfort I had
given them  by showing, what they had long felt, that the Bible is
one thing and religion another; that the two had no necessary connection: that the fhults of the Old Testament or the New need not
hinder any man from religious development; and that he never need
try to believe a statement in the Bible which was at variance with his
reason and his conscience. They thanked me for the attempt to apply
common-sense to religion and the Bible. The most thoughtful and
religious seemed the most instructed. I could not learn that any one
felt less reverence for God, or less love for piety and morality. It was
plain I had removed a stone of stumbling from the public path.  The
scales of ecclesiastical tradition fell from my eyes; by this crucial experiment, this guide-board instance, I learned that the mass of men
need not be led blind-fold by clerical authority, but had competent
power of self-direction, and while they needed the scholar as their help,
had no need of a self-appointed master.  It was clear that a teacher of
religion and theology should tell the world all he knew thereunto
appertaining, as all teachers of mathematics or of chemistry are expected
to do in their profession.
I had once felt very happy, when I could legitimate these three great
primal instinctive intuitions, of the divine, the just, and the immortal;
I now felt equally joyous at finding I might safely appeal to the same
instincts in the mass of New England men, and build religion on that
imperishable foundation.
I continued my humble studies, philosophical and theological; and
as fast as I found a new truth, I preached it to gladden other hearts
in my own parish, and elsewhere, when I spoke in the pulpits of my
friends. The neighbouring ministers became familiar with my opinions
and my practice, but seldom  uttered a reproach. At length, on the
19th of May, 1841, at the ordination of 1Mr. Shackford, a thoughtful
and promising young man, at South Boston, I preached a "Discourse  of the Transient and Permanent in  Christianity."   The
Trinitarian ministers who were present joined in a public protest; a
great outcry was raised against the sermon and its author.  Theological and commercial newspapers rang with animadversions against
its wickedness.  " Unbeliever," "Infidel," "Atheist," were the titles
bestowed on me by my brothers in the Christian ministry; a venerable
minister, who heard the report in an adjoining county, printed his
letter in one of the most widely circulated journals of Niew England,
calling on the Attorney-General to prosecute, the grand jury to indict,
and the judge to sentence me to three years' confinement in the State
Prison for blasphemy!
I printed the sermon, but no bookseller in Boston would put his
name to the title-page-lUnitarian ministers had been busy with their
advice.  The Swedenborgian printers volunteered the protection of
their name; the little pamphlet was thus published, sold, and vehemently denounced.  Most of my clerical friends fell off; some would




APPENDIX.                           467
not speak to me in the street, and refused to take me by the hand;
in their public meetings they left the sofas or benches when I sat
down, and withdrew  from  me as Jews from  contact with a leper.
In a few months most of my former ministerial coadjutors forsook
me, and there were only six who would allow me to enter their pulpits.
But yet one Unitarian minister, Rev. John L. Russell, though a
stranger till then, presently after came and offered me his help in my
time of need! The controlling men of the denomination determined,
"This young man must be silenced!'  The Unitarian periodicals were
shut against me and my friends-the public must not read what I
wrote.  Attempts were secretly made to alienate my little congregation, and expel me from my obscure station at West Roxbury.  But I
had not gone to war without counting the cost.  I well knew beforehand what awaited me, and had determined to fight the battle through,
and never thought of yielding or being silenced.  I told my opponents
the only man who could " put me down" was myself, and I trusted I
should do nothing to bring about that result. If thrust out of my
own pulpit, I made up my mind to lecture from  city to city, from
town to town, from village to village, nay, if need were from house
to house, well assured that I should not thus go over the hamlets of
New England till something was come. But the little society came
generously to my support and defence, giving Ame the heartiest sympathy, and offered me all the indulgence in their power.   Some
ministers and generous-minded laymen stood up on my side, and
preached or wrote in defence of free thought and free speech, even
in the pulpit.  Friendly persons, both men and women, wrote me
letters to cheer and encourage, also to war —this against fear, that
against excess and violence; some of them never gavie me their names,
and I only have this late opportunity to thank them for their anonymous kindness. Of course scurrilous and abusive letters did not fail
to appear.
Five or six men in Boston thought this treatment was not quite
fair; they wished to judge neither a man nor his doctrines unheard,
but to know at length what I had to say; so they asked me to deliver
a course of five lectures in your city, on religious matters. I consented, and in the autumn of 1841 delivered five lectures on " 2atters
pertaining to Religion;" they were reported in some of the newspapers, most ably and fully in the lNew York Tribune, not then the
famous and powerful sheet it has since become.  I delivered the
lectures several times that winter in New  England towns, and
published them in a volume the next spring.  I thought no bookseller would put his name to the title-page; but when the work was
ready for the public eye, my friend, the late i Mr. James Brown, perhaps the most eminent man in the American book trade, volunteered
to take charge of it, and the book appeared wih th e advantage of
issuing from  one of the most respectable publishing-houses in the
United States,  Years afterwards he told me that two " rich and
highly respectable gentlemen of Boston" begged him to have nothing
to do with it; "we wish," said they, "to render it impossible for him
to publish his work!"  But the bookseller wanted fair-play.
H a  2




468                         APPENDIX.
The next autumn I delivered in Boston six "Sermons for the
Times," treating of theology, of religion, and of its application to life.
These also were repeated in several other places. But, weary with
anxiety and excess of work, both public and private, my health began
to be seriously impaired; and in September, 1843, I fled off to
Europe, to spend a year in recovery, observation, and thought.  I
had there an opportunity to study nations I had previously known
only by their literature, and by other men's words; to see the effect
which despotic, monarchic, and aristocratic institutions have on multitudes of men, who, from generation to generation, had lived under
them; to study the effect of those forms of religion which are enforced by the inquisitor or the constable; and in many forms, to see
the difference between freedom and bondage.  In their architecture,
painting, and sculpture, the European cities afforded me a new world
of art, while the heterogeneous crowds which throng the streets of
those vast ancient capitals, so rich in their historic monuments, presented human life in forms I had not known before.   It is only
in the low parts of London, Paris and Naples, that an American
learns what the ancients meant by the " People," the " Populace," and
sees what barbarism may exist in the midst of wealth, culture, refinement, and manly virtue.  There I could learn what warning and what
guidance the Old World had to offer to the New. Visiting some of
the seats of learning, which, in Europe, are also sometimes the citadel
of new thought and homes of genius, I had an opportunity of conversing with eminent men, and comparing their schemes for improving
mankind with my own. Still more, I had an entire year, free from
all practical duties, for revising my own philosophy and theology, and
laying out plans for future work.  My involuntary year of rest and
inaction turned out, perhaps, the most profitable in my life, up to that
time, in the acquisition of knowledge, and in preparing for-much that
was to follow.
Coming home the next September, with more physical strength than
ever before, I found a hearty welcome from the many friends who
crowded the little meeting-house to welcome my return-as before to
bid me God-speed-and resumed my usual labours, public and private.
In my absence, my theological foes had contented themselves with
declaring that my doctrines had taken no root in America, and my
personal friends were turning off from the error of their ways; but
the sound of my voice roused my opponents to new activity, and ere
long the pulpits and newspapers rang with the accustomed warfare.
But even in Boston there were earnest ministers who lifted up
their voices in behalf of freedom of thought in the study, and free
speech in the pulpit.  I shall never cease to be grateful to Mir. Pierpont, Mr. Sargent, and James Freeman Clarke, " friends in need, and
friends in deed."  They defended the principle of religious freedom,
though they did not share the opinions it led me to, nor always approve
of the manner in which I set them forth.  It was zeal for the true and
the right, not special personal friendship for me, which moved them
to this manly course.  In the most important orthodox Quarterly in
America, a young Trinitarian minister, tev. Mr. Porter, reviewed my




APPENDIX.                           469
"Discourse of Religion," not doing injustice to author or work, while
he stoutly opposed both. A few other friendly words were also spoken;
but what were these among so many!
Under these circumstances you formed your society.  A few earnest
men thought the great principle of religious freedoml was in danger;
for, indeed, it was ecclesiastically repudiated, and that, too, with scorn
and hissing by the Unitarians-the " liberal Christians!" the " party
of progress "-not less than by the orthodox.  Some of you came
together, privately first, and then in public, to look matters in the face,
and consider what ought to be done. A young man proposed this resolution: "Resolved, That the Rev. Theodore Parker shall have a chanco
to be heard in Boston."  That motion prevailed, and measures were
soon taken to make the resolution an event. But, so low was our
reputation, that, though payment was offered in advance, of all the
unoccupied halls in Boston, only one could be hired for our purpose;
but that was the largest and most central.  So, one rainy Sunday, the
streets full of snow, on the 16th of February, 1845, for the first time
I stood before you to preach and pray: we were strangers then! I
spoke of the' Indispensableness of True Religion for Man's Welfare
in his Individual and his Social Life."  I came to build up piety and
morality; to pull down only what cumbered the ground.  I was then
in my thirty-fifth year, and had some knowledge of the historical
development of religion in the Christian world.  I knew that I came
to a " thirty years' war," and I had enlisted for the whole, should life
hold out so long.  I knew well what we had to expect at first; for we
were committing the sin which all the great world-sects have held
unpardonable - attempting to correct the errors of theory and the
vices of practice in the Church.  No offence could ecclesiastically be
greater; the Inquisition was built to punish such; to that end blazed
the faggots at Smithfield, and the cross was set up on Calvary.  Truth
has her cradle near Golgotha. You knew my spirit and tendency better
than my special opinions, which you then gave a " chance to be heard
in Boston."  But I knew that I had thoroughly broken with the ecclesiastical authority of Christendom; its God was not my God, nor its
Scriptures my Word of God, nor its Christ my Saviour; for I preferred the Jesus of historic fact to the Christ of theologic fancy.  Its
narrow, partial, and unnatural heaven I did not wish to enter on the
terms proposed, nor did I fear, since earliest youth, its mythic, roomy
hell, wherein the triune God, with his pack of devils to aid, tore the
human race in pieces for ever and ever.  I came to preach "another
Gospel," sentiments, ideas, actions, quite unlike what belonged to the
theology of the Christian Church. Though severely in earnest, I came
to educate men into true religion as well as I could, I knew I should
be accounted the worst of men, ranked among trifiers, mockers, infidels,
and atheists.  But I did not know all the public had to offer me of
good or ill; nay, I did not know what was latent in myself nor foresee
all the doctrines which then were hid in my own first principles, what
embryo fruit and flowers lay sheathed in the obvious bud.  But at the
beginning I warned you that if you came, Sunday after Sunday, you
would soon think very much as I did on the great matters you asked
me to teach-because I had drawn  my doctrine from  the same




470                           APPENDIX,
human nature which was in you, and that would recognise and own
its child.
Let mae arrange, under three heads, some of the most important
doctrines I have aimed to set forth.
I. TuE ilrirTITE PERFECTION or GoD. —This doctrine is the cornerstone of all my theological and religious teaching-the foundation, perhaps, of all that is peculiar in my system.  It is not known to the Old
Testament or the New; it has never been accepted by any sect in the
Christian world; for, though it be equally claimed by all, from  the
Catholic to the Mormon, none has ever consistently developed it, even
in theory, but all continually limit God in power, in wisdom, and still
more eminently in justice and in love. The idea of God's imperfection
has been carried out with dreadful logic in the " Christian Scheme."
Thus it is commonly taught, in all the great theologies, that, at the
crucifixion of Jesus; " the Creator of the universe was put to death,
and his own creatures were his executioners."  Besides, in the ecclesiastic conception of Deity, there is a fourth person to the God-headnamely, the Devil, an outlying member, unacknowledged, indeed, the
complex of all evil, but as much a part of the Deity as either Son or
Holy Ghost, and far more powerful than all the rest, who seem  but
jackals to provide for this'roaring lion," which devours what the
others but create, die for, inspire, and fill.  I know  this statement is
ghastly —the theologic notion it sets forth, to me, seems far more so.
W~hile the Christians accept the Bible as the " Word of God," direct,
miraculous, infallible, containing a complete and perfect " revelation "
of His nature, His character, and conduct, it is quite impossible for
them to accept, or even tolerate, the infinite perfection of God.  The
imperfect and cruel character attributed to God, rejoicing in his hell
and its legions of devils, is the fundamental vice of the ecclesiastical
theology, which so many. accept as their "religion," and name the
hideous thing " Christianity!"  They cannot escape the consequence
of their first principle; their gate must turn on its own hinge.
I have taught that God contains all possible and conceivable perfection:-the perfection of being, self-subsistence, conditioned only by
itself; the perfection of power, all-mightiness; of mind, all-knowingness; of conscience, all-righteousness; of affection, all-lovingness; and
the perfection of that innermost element, which in finite man is personality, all-holiness, faithfulness to Himself.
The infinitely perfect God is immanent in the world of matter, and
in the world of spirit, the two hemispheres which to us make up the
universe; each particle thereof is inseparable from Him, while HIe yet
transcends both, is limited by neither, but in Himself is complete and
perfect.
I have not taught that the special qualities I find in the Deity are
all that are actually there; higher and more must doubtless appear to
beings of larger powers than man's.  My definition distinguishes God
from all other beings; it does not limit him  to the details of my conception.  I only tell what I know, not what others may know, which
lies beyond my present consciousness.




APPENDIX.                           471
He is a perfect Creator, making all from a perfect motive, for a perfect purpose, of perfect substance, and as a perfect means; none other
are conceivable with a perfect God. The motive must be love, the
purpose welfare, the means the constitution of the universe itself, as
a whole and in parts-for each great or little thing coming from Him
must be perfectly adapted to secure the purpose it was intended for,
and achieve the end it was meant to serve, and represent the causal
motive which brought it forth. So there must be a complete solidarity
between God and the two-fold universe which He creates. The perfect
Creator is thus also a perfect providence; indeed, creation and providence are not objective accidents of Deity, nor subjective caprices,
but the development of the perfect motive to its perfect purpose, love
becoming a universe of perfect welfare.
I have called God Father, but also Mother, not by this figure implying that the Divine Being has the limitations of the female figure-as
some ministers deceitfully allege of late, who migh't have been supposed
to know better than thus to pervert plain speech —but to express more
sensibility, the quality of tender and unselfish love, which mankind
associates with Mother than aught else beside.
II. THE A DEQUACY o  MAIN  onR AIL HIs F EOrCTorNS.-From the
infinite perfection of God their follows unavoidably the relative perfection of all that He creates.  So, the nature of man, tending to a
progressive development of all his manifold powers, must be the best
possible nature, most fit for the perfect accomplishment of the perfect
purpose, and the attainment of the perfect end, which God designs for
the race and the individual. It is not difficult in this general way to
show the relative perfection of human nature, deducing this from. the
infinite perfection of God; but I think it impossible to prove it by the
inductive process of reasoning from concrete facts of external observation, of which we know not yet the entire sum, nor any one, perhaps,
completely. Yet I have travelled also this inductive road, as far as it
reaches, and tried to show  the constitution of man's body, with its
adaptation to the surrounding world of matter, and the constitution of
his spirit, with its intellectual, moral, affectional, and religious powers,
and its harmonious relation with the world of matter, which affords
them  a playground, a school, and a workshop.  So I have continually
taught that man has in himself all the faculties be needs to accomplish
his high destination, and in the world of matter finds, one by one, all
the material helps he requires.
We all see the unity of life in the individual; his gradual growth
from  merely sentient and passive babyhood, up to thoughtful, selfdirecting manhood.  I have tried to show there was a similar unity of
life in the human race, pointing out the analogous progressive development of mankind, from  the state of ignorance, poverty, and utter
nakedness of soul and sense, the necessary primitive conditions of the
race, up to the present civilization of the leading nations. The primitive is a wild man, who gradually grows up to civilization.  To me,
the notorious facts of human history, the condition of langouae, art,
industry, and the foot-prints of man left all over the torrid and temperate lands, admit of no other interpretation.  Of course it must have




472                         APPENDIX.
required many a thousand years for Divine Providence to bring this
child from his mute, naked, ignorant poverty, up to the many-voiced,
many-coloured civilization of these times; and, as in the strata of
mountain and plain, on the shores of the sea, and under " the bottom
of the monstrous world," the geologist finds proof of time immense,
wherein this material Cosmos assumed its present form, so in ruins of
cities, in the weapons of iron, bronze, or stone, found in Scandinavian
swamps, on the sub-aquatic enclosures of the Swiss lakes, in the
remains of Egyptian industry, which the holy Nile, " mother of blessings "-now spiritual to us, as once material to those whose flesh she
fed-has covered with many folds of earth and kept for us; and still
more in the history of art, science, war, industry, and the structure of
language itself, a slow-growing plant, do I find proof of time immense,
wherein man, this spiritual Cosmos, has been assuming his present condition, individual domestic, social, and national, and accumulating that
wealth of things and thoughts which is the mark of civilization.  I
have tried to show by history the progressive development of industry
and wealth, of mind and knowledge, of conscience and justice, of the
affections and philanthropy, of the soul and true religion; the many
forms of the family, the community, state and church, I look on as so
many " experiments in living," all useful, each, perhaps, in its time and
place, as indispensable as the various geological changes. But this progressive development does not end with us; we have seen only the
beginning; the future triumphs of the race must be vastly greater
than all accomplished yet.  In the primal instincts and automatic
desires of man, I have found a prophecy that what he wants is possible, and shall one day be actual. It is a glorious future on earth
which I have set before your eyes and hopes, thereby stimulating both
your patience to bear now what is inevitable, and your thought and
toil to secure a future triumph to be had on no other terms.  What
good is not with us is before, to be attained by toil and thought, and
religious life.
III. ABSOLUTE OR NATUnrAL RELIGION.-In its complete and perfect form, this is the normal development, use, disipline, and enjoyment
of every part of the body, and every faculty of the spirit; the direction
of all natural powers to their natural purposes. I have taught that
there were three parts which make up the sum of true religion; the
emotional part, of right feelings, where religion at first begins in the
automatic, primal instinct; the intellectual part, of true ideas, which
either directly represent the primitive, instinctive feeling of whoso
holds them, or else produce a kindred, secondary, and derivative feeling
in whoso receives them; and the practical part, of just actions, which
correspond to the feelings and the ideas, and make the mere thought
or emotion into a concrete deed. So, the true religion which comes
from  the nature of man, consists of normal feelings towards God and
man, of correct thoughts about God, man, and the relation between
them, and of actions corresponding to the natural conscience when
developed in harmony with the entire constitution of man.
But this religion which begins in the instinctive feelings, and thence
advances to reflective ideas, assumes its ultimate form in the character




APPENDIX.                           473
of men, and so appears in their actions, individual, domestic, social,
national, ecclesiastical, and general-human; it builds manifold institutions like itself, wherein it rears up men in its own image. All the six
great historic forms of religion-the Brahmanic, Hebrew, Classic, Buddhistic, Christian, liohammedan-profess to have come miraculously
from God, not normally from man; and, spite of the excellence which
they contain, and the vast service the humblest of them has done, yet
each must ere long prove a hindrance to human welfare, for it claims
to be a finality, and makes the whole of human nature wait upon an
accident of human history-and that accident the whim of some single
man.  The absolute religion which belongs to man's nature, and is
gradually unfolded thence, like the high achievements of art, science,
literature, and politics, is only distinctly conceived of in an advanced
stage of man's growth; to make its idea a fact, is the highest triumph
of the human race. This is the idea of humanity, dimly seen but clearly
felt, which has flitted before the pious eyes of men in all lands and
many an age, and been prayed for as the " Iingdom of Heaven."  The
religious history of the race is the record of man's continual but unconscious efforts to attain this " desire of all nations;" poetic stories
of the "golden age," or of man in the garden of Eden, are but this
natural wish looking back and fondly dreaming that " the former days
were better than these."  But while all the other forms of religion
mast ultimately fail before this, fading as it flowers, each one of them
has yet been a help towards it, probably indispensable to the development of mankind.  For each has grown out of the condition of some
people, as naturally as the wild primitive flora of Santa Cruz has come
from the state of this island-its geologic structure and chemical composition, its tropic heat, and its special situation amid the great currents of water and of air; as naturally as the dependent fauna of the
place comes from its flora. Thus in the religions of mankind, as in the
various governments, nay, as in the different geologic periods, there is
diversity of form, but unity of aim; destruction is only to create;
earthquakes, which submerge the sunken continents whose former
mountains are but islands now, and revolutions, in which the Hebrew
and Classic religious went under, their poetic summits only visible,
have analogous functions to perform-handmaids of creation both.
For these three great doctrines-of God, of Mhan, of Religion-I
have depended on no Church and no Scripture; yet have I found
things to serve me in all Scriptures and every Church.  I have sought
my authority in the nature of man-in facts of consciousness within
me, and facts of observation in the human world without.  To me
the material world and the outward history of man do not supply a
sufficient revelation of God, nor warrant me to speak of infinite perfection.  It is only from the nature of man, from  facts of intuition,
that I can gather this greatest of all truths, as I find it in my consciousness reflected back from Deity itself.
I know well what may be said of the " feebleness of all the human
faculties," their "unfaithfulness and unfitness for their work;" that
the mind is not adequate for man's intellectual function, nor the conscience for the moral, nor the affections for the philanthropic, nor the
soul for the religious, nor even the body for the corporeal, but that




474                           APPENDIX.
each requires miraculous help from  a God who is only outside of
humanity! There is a denial which boldly rejects the immortality of
man and the existence of Deity, with many another doctrine, dear
and precious to mankind; but the most dangerous scepticism  is that,
which, professing allegiance to all these, and crossing itself at the
name of Jesus, is yet so false to the great primeval instincts of man,
that it declares he cannot be certain of anything he learns by the normal exercise of any faculty! I have carefully studied this school of
doubt, modern, not less than old, as it appears in history.  In it there
are honest inquirers after truth, but misled by some accident, and also
sophists, who live by their sleight of mind, as jugglers by their dex-.
terity of hand.  But the chief members of this body are the mockers,
who, in a world they make empty, find the most fitting echo to their
hideous laugh; and churchmen of all denominations, who are so anxious to support their ecclesiastic theology, that they think it is not
safe on its throne till they have annihilated the claim of reason, con-l
science, the affections, and the soul to any voice in determining the
greatest concerns of man —thinking there is no place for the Christian
Church or the Bible till they have nullified the faculties which created
both, and rendered Bible-makers and Church-founders impossible. But
it is rather a poor compliment these ecclesiastic sceptics pay their
Deity, to say Ile so makes and manages the world that we cannot trust
the sights we see, the sounds we hear, the thoughts we think, or the
moral, affectional, religious emotions we feel; that we are certain neither
of the intuitions of instinct, nor the demonstrations of reason, but yet
by some anonymous testimony, can be made sure that Balaam's she-ass
spoke certain Hebrew words, and one undivided third-part of God was
" born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified,,
descended into hell, and the third day rose again," to take away the
wrath which the other two undivided third-parts of God felt against
all mankind!
It is not for me to say there is no limit to the possible attainments;
of man's religious or other faculties.  I will not dogmatise where I do
not know.  But history shows that the Hercules' Pillars of one age
are sailed through in the next, and a wide ocean entered on, which in
due time is found rich with islands of its own, and washing a vast continent not dreamed of by such as slept within their temples of old,
while it sent to their very coasts its curious joints of unwonted cane,
its seeds of many an unknown tree, and even elaborate boats, wherein
lay the starved bodies of strange-featured men, with golden jewels in
their ears. No doubt there are limits to human industry, for finite man
is bounded on every side; but, I take it, the Hottentot, the Gaboon
Negro, and the wild man of New Guinea, antecedently, would think it
impossible that mankind should build the Pyramids of Egypt for royal
ostentation, for defence throw up the fortresses of Europe and the wall
of China, or for economic use lay down the roads of earth, of water,
iron, wood, or stone, which now so swiftly help to develop the material
resources and educate the spiritual powers. of Europe and America.
Still less would they conceive it possible for men to make all the farms,
the mills, the shops, the houses, and the ships of civilised mankind.
But the philosopher sees it is possible for toil and thought soon to




APPENDIXo                           475
double, and then multiply manifold the industrial attainments of Britain
or New England.
No doubt there may be a limit to mathematic thought, though to
me that would seem  boundless, and every scientific step therein to be
certain; but the barefooted negro who goads his oxen under my window, and can only count his two thumbs, is no limit to Archimedes,
Descartes, Newton, and La Place, no more are these men of vast genius
a limit to the niathematic possibility of humankind. They who invented
letters, arithmetic symbols, gunpowder, the compass, the printing press,
the telescope, the steam-engine, and the telegraph, only ploughed in
corners of the field of human possibility, and showed its bounds were
not where they had been supposed.  A thousand years ago, the world
had not a man, I think, who could even dream  of such a welfare as
New England now enjoys!  Who shall tell industrious, mathematic,
progressive mankind, " Stop there; you have reached the utmost bound
of human possibility; beyond it economy is waste, and science folly,
and progress downfall! "  No more is the atheistic mocker or the
ecclesiastic bigot commissioned to stop the human race with his cry,
"C Cease there, mankind, thy religious search! for, thousand-millionheaded as thou art, thou canst know nought directly of thy God, thy
duty, or thyself!  Pause, and accept my authenticated word; stop,
and despair!"
I know too well the atheistic philosopher's bitter mock, and the
haughty scorn of theologic despisers of mankind, who, diverse in all
besides, yet agree in their contempt for human nature, glory in the
errors of genius, or the grosser follies of mankind, and seek out of the
ruins of humianity to build up, the one his palace, and the other his
church. But I also know that mankind heeds neither the atheistic
philosopher nor the theologic despiser of his kind; but, faithful to the
great primeval instincts of the soul, believing, creating, and rejoicing,
goes on its upward way, nor doubts of man or God, of sense or intellect.
These three great doctrines I have preached positively, as abstract
truth, representing facts of the universe; that might be peaceful work.
But they must take a concrete form, and be applied to the actual life
of the individual family, community, state, and church; this would have
a less peaceful look; for I must examine actual institutions, and criticise their aim, their mode of operation, and their result.  The great
obvious social forces in America may be thus summed up:1. There is the organised trading power-having its home in the
great towns, which seeks gain with small regard to that large justice
which represents alike the mutual interests and duties of all men, and
to that humanity which interposes the afiectional instinct when conscience is asleep.  This power seems to control all things, amenable
only to the all-mighty dollar.
2. The organised political power, the parties in office, or seeking to
become so. This makes the statutes, but is commonly controlled by
the trading power, and has all of its faults often intensified; yet it
seems amenable to the instincts of the people, who, on great occasions,
sometimes interfere and change the traders' rule.
3. The organised ecclesiastical power, the various sects which, though
quite unlike, yet all mainly agree in their fundamental principle of




476                          APPENDIX.
vicariousness-an alleged revelation, instead of actual human faculties,
salvation from God's wrath and eternal ruin, by the atoning blood of
crucified God.  This is more able than either of the others; and though
often despised, in a few years can control them both.  In this generation no American politician dares affront it.
4. The organised literary power, the endowed colleges, the periodical
press, with its triple multitude of journals-commercial, political, theological-and sectarian tracts.  This has no original ideas, but diffuses
the opinion of the other powers whom  it represents, whose will it
serves, and whose kaleidoscope it is.
I must examine these four great social forces, and show what was
good in them, and what was ill; ascertain what natural religion demanded of each, and what was the true function of trade, government,
a church, and a literature. When I came to a distinct consciousness of
my own first principle, and my consequent relation to what was about
me, spite of the good they contained, I found myself greatly at variance
with all the four.  They had one principle and I another; of course,
our aim  and direction were commonly different and often opposite.
Soon I found that I was not welcome to the American market, state,
church, nor press. It could not be otherwise; yet I confess I had not
anticipated so thorough a separation betwixt me and these forces which
control society, but had laid out work I could not execute alone, nor
perhaps without the aid of all the four.
It is not now, my friends, worth while for me to enter on the details
of these plans which have come to nothing, and which I shall probably
never work out; but I ought at least to name some of the most important things I hoped to do.  When I first came to Boston I intended to
do something for the perishing and dangerous classes in our great
towns.  The amount of poverty and consequent immorality in Boston
is terrible to think of, while you remember the warning of other
nations, and look to the day after to-day! Yet it seemed to me the
money given by public and private charity-two fountains that never
fail in Puritanic Boston-was more than sufficient to relieve it all, and
gradually remove the deep-seated and unseen cause which, in the hurry
of business and of money, is not attended to.  There is a hole in the
dim-lit public bridge, where many fall through  and perish!  Our
mercy pulls a few out of the water; it does not stop the hole, nor
light the bridge, nor warn men of the peril. We need the great charity
that palliates effects of wrong, and the greater justice which removes
the cause.
Then there was drunkenness, which is the greatest concrete curse of
the labouring  Protestant population of the North, working most
hideous and wide extended desolation. It is as fatal as starvation to
the Irish Catholic.  None of the four great social forces is its foe.
There, too, was prostitution; men and women mutually polluted and
polluting, blackening the face of society with dreadful woe. Besides,
in our great towns I found thousands, especially the poorer Irish,
oppression driving them  to us, who, save the discipline of occasional
work, got no education here except what the streets taught them  in
childhood, or the Popish priest and the American demagogue-their
two worst foes-noisily offered in their adult years; it seemed to me




APPENDIX.                            77
not difficult for the vast charity of Boston to furnish instruction and
guidance to this class of the American people, both in their childhood
and their later youth.  That admirable institution, the Warren Street
Chapel-well-nigh the most Christian public thing in Boston-and the
Children's Aid Society at New York, with its kindred, abundantly show
how much can be done, and at how little cost.
Still more, I learned early in life that the criminal is often the
victim of society, rather than its foe, and that our penal law belongs
to the dark ages of brute force, and aims only to protect society by
vengeance on the felon, not also to elevate mankind by refining him.
In my boyhood I knew a man, the last result of generations of ancestral crime, who spent more than twenty years in our State Prison, and
died there, under sentence for life, whose entire illegal thefts did not
amount to twenty dollars! and another, not better born, who lawfully
stole houses and farms, lived a' gentleman," and at death left a considerable estate, and the name of Land-shark.  While a theological
student I taught a class in the Sunday School of the State Prison,
often saw my fellow-townsman, became well acquainted with several
convicts, learned the mode of treatment, and heard the sermons and
ghastly prayers which were let fly at the heads of the poor, unprotected wretches; I saw the " orthodox preachers and other helps," who
who gave them. "spiritual instruction," and learned the utter insufficiency of our penal law to mend the felon or prevent his growth in
wickedness.  When I became your minister I hoped to do something
for this class of men, whose crimes are sometimes but a part of their
congenital misfortune or social infamy, and who are bereft of the sympathy of mankind, and unconstitutionally beset with sectarian ministers, whose function is to torment them before their time.
For all these, the poor, the drunken, and the ignorant, for the prostitute, and the criminal, I meant to do something, under the guidance,
perhaps, or certainly with the help, of the controling men of the town
or state; but, alas! I was then fourteen years younger than now, and
did not quite understand all the consequences of my relation to these
great social forces, or how much I had offended the religion of the
state, the press, the market, and the church, The cry, "Destroyer,"
" Fanatic," "In-fidel," "Atheist," "Enemy of Mankind," was so widely
sounded forth that I soon found I could do little in these great philanthropies, where the evil lay at our own door. Many as you are for a
religious society, you were too few and too poor to undertake what
should be done; and outside of your ranks I could look for little help,
even by words and counsel. Besides, I soon found my very name was
enough to ruin any new good enterprise.  I knew there were three
periods in each great movement of mankind —that of sentiment, ideas,
and action: I fondly hoped the last had come; but when I found I had
reckoned without the host, I turned my attention to the two former,
and sought to arouse the sentiment of justice and mercy, and to diffuse
the ideas which belonged to this five-fold reformation.  Hlence I took
pains to state the facts of poverty, drunkenness, ignorance, prostitution,
crime; to show their cause, their effect, and their mode of cure, leaving
it for others to do the practical work.  So, if I wanted a measure
tarried in the Legislature of the town or state, or by some private




478                          APPENDIX,
benevolent society, I did my work by stealth. I sometimes saw my
scheme prosper, and read my words in the public reports, while the
whole enterprise had been ruined at once if my face or name had appeared in connection with it. I have often found it wise to withhold
my name from petitions I have myself set agoing and found successful;
I have got up conventions, or mass meetings, whose " managers " asked
me not to show my face thereat.
This chronic and progressive unpopularity led to another change of
my plans, not abating my activity, but turning it in another direction.
To accomplish my work, I must spread my ideas as widely as possible,
without resorting to that indecency of advertising so common in
America.  There was but one considerable publishing-house in the
land that would continue to issue my works-this only at my own cost
and risk.  As it had only a pecuniary interest therein, and that so
slight, in its enormous business, my books did not have the usual
opportunity of getting known and circulated.  They were seldom
offered for sale, except in one book-store in Boston; for other States,
I must often be my own bookseller.  None of the Quarterlies or
MIonthlies was friendly to me; most of the newspapers were hostile;
the New York Tribune and Evening Post were almost the only exceptions.  So my books had but a small circulation at home in comparison
with their diffusion in Engla nd and Germany, where, also, they received
not only hostile, but most kindly notice, and sometimes from a famous
pen.  But another opportunity for diffusing my thought offered itself
in the Lyceum or public lecture.  Opposed by these four great social
forces at home, I was surprised to find myself becoming popular in the
lecture-hall. After a few trials I " got the hang of the new  schoolhouse," and set myself to serious work therein.
For a dozen years or more, I have done my share of lecturing in
public, having many invitations more than I could accept.  The task
was always disagreeable, contrary to my natural disposition and my
scholarly habits. But I saw the nation had reached an important crisis
in its destination, and, though ignorant of the fact, yet stood hesitating
between two principles.  The one was slavery, which I knew leads at
once to military despotism-political, ecclesiastical, social-and ends
at last in utter and hopeless ruin; for no people fallen on that road has
ever risen again; it is the path so many other Republics have taken
and finished their course, as Athens and the Ionian towns have done, as
Rome and the Commonwealths of the Middle Ages.  The other was
freedom, which leads at once to industrial democracy-respect for
labor, government over all, by all, for the sake of all, rule after the
eternal right as it is writ in the constitution of the universe-securing
welfare and progress. I saw that these four social forces were advising,
driving, coaxing, wheedling, the people to take the road to ruin; that
our "great men," in which "America is so rich beyond all other
nations of the earth," went strutting along that path to show how
safe it is, crying out "Democracy," " Constitution," "W  shington,"
" Gospel," "Christianity," " Dollars," and the like, while the instincts
of the people, the traditions of our history, and the rising genius of
men and women well-born in these times of peril, with still, small voice,
whispered something of self-evident truths and inalienable rights.




APPENDIX.                           479
I knew the power of a great Idea; and spite of the market, the
State, the Church, the press, I thought a few earnest men in the
lecture halls of the North, might yet incline the people's mind and
heart to justice and the eternal law of God-the only safe rule of conduct for nations, as for you and me-and so make the American experiment a triumph and a joy for all humankind.  Nay, 1 thought I could
myself be of some service in that work; for the nation was yet so
young, and the instinct of popular liberty so strong, it seemed to me
a little added weight would turn the scale to freedom.  So I appointed
myself a home missionary for lectures.
Then, too, I found I could say what I pleased in the lecture-room,
so long as I did not professedly put my thought into a theologic or
political shape; while I kept the form  of literature or philosophy, I
could discourse of what I thought most important, and men would
listen one hour, two hours, nay, three hours: and the more significant
the subject was, the more freely, profoundly, and fairly it was treated,
the more would the people come, the more eagerly listen and enthusiastically accept.  So I spared no labour in preparation or delivery,
but took it for granted the humblest audience, in the least intelligent
town or city, was quite worthy of my best efforts, and could understand my facts and metaphysic reasonings.  I did not fear the people
would be offended, though I hurt their feelings never so sore.
Besides, the work was well paid for in the large towns, while the
small ones did all they could afford-giving the lecturer for a night
more than the schoolmaster for a month.  The money thus acquired,
enabled me to do four desirable things, which it is not needful to speak
of here.
Since 1848, I have lectured eighty or a hundred times each year —
in every Northern State east of the Mississippi, once also in a Slave
State, and on slavery itself. I have taken most exciting and important
subjects, of the greatest concern to the American people, and treated
them  independent of sect or party, street or press, and with what
learning and talent I could command.  I put the matter in quite
various forms-for each audience is made up many.  For eight or ten
years, on an average, I have spoken to sixty or a hundred thousand
persons in each year, besides addressing you on Sundays, in the great
hall you throw open to all comers.
Thus I have had a wide field of operation, where I might rouse the
sentiment of justice and mercy, diffuse such ideas as I thought needful
for the welfare and progress of the people, and prepare for such action
as the occasion might one day require.  As I was supposed to stand
nearly alone, and did not pretend to represent any one but myself,
nobody felt responsible for me; so all could judge me, if not fairly, at
least with no party or sectarian prejudice in my favor; and as I felt
responsible only to myself and my God, I could speak freely: this was
a two-fold advantage.  I hope I have not spoken in vain. I thought
that by each lecture I could make a new, deep, and lasting impression
of some one great truth on five thoughtful men, out of each thousand
who heard me. Don't think me extravagant; it is only one-Jhaf of one
per cent!  If I spoke but thus efficiently to sixty thousand in a winter,
there would be three hundred so impresed, and in ten years it would




480                         APPENDIX.
be three thousand! Such a result would satisfy me for my work and
my loss of scholarly time in this home mission for lectures. Besides,
the newspapers of the large towns spread wide the more salient facts
and striking generalizations of the lecture, and I addressed the eyes of
an audience I could not count nor see.
Still more, in the railroad cars and steamboats I travelled by, and
the public or private houses I stopped at when the lecture was over,
strangers came to see me; they were generally marked men-intellectual, moral, philanthropic, at any rate, inquiring and attentive.  We
sometimes talked on great matters; I made many acquaintances,
gained much miscellaneous information about men and things, the
state of public opinion, and, perhaps, imparted something in return.
So I studied while I taught.
Nor was this all. I had been ecclesiastically reported to the people
as a "disturber of the public peace," "an infidel," "an atheist,"
"an enemy to mankind."  When I was to lecture in a little town, the
minister, even the lUnitarian, commonly stayed at home.  lany, in
public or private, warned their followers " against listening to that
bad man.  Don't look him  in the face! "  Others stoutly preached
against me.  So, in the bar-room " I was the song of the drunkard,"
and the minister's text in the pulpit.  But, when a few hundreds, in a
mountain town of Neew England, or in some settlement on a prairie of
the West, or, when many hundreds, in a wide city, did look me in the
face, and listen for an hour or two while I spoke, plain, right on, of
matters familiar to their patriotic hopes, their business, and their
bosoms, as their faces glowed in the excitement of what they heard, I
saw the clerical prejudice was stealing out of their mind, and I left
them  other than I found them.  Nay, it has often happened that a
man has told me, by letter or by word of mouth, " I was warned against
you, but I would go and see obr myself; and when I came home I said,'After all, this is a man, and not a devil; at least, he seems human.
Who knows but he may be honest, even in his theological notions?
Perhaps he.is  right in his religion.  Priests have been a little mistaken
sometimes before now, and said hard words against rather good sort of
men, if we can trust the Bible.  I am glad I heard him.' "
Judging from the results, now pretty obvious to whoso looks, and by
the many affectionate letters sent me from all parts of the North, I
think I did not overrate the number of thoughtful men who possibly
might be deeply and originally influenced by what I said in the lectures. Three thousand may seem a large number; I think it is not
excessive. In the last dozen years, I think scarcely any American, not
holding a political office, has touched the minds of so many men, by
freely speaking on matters of the greatest importance, for this day and
for ages to come. I am sure I have uttered great truths, and such
are never spoken in vain; I know the effect a few great thoughts had
on me in my youth, and judge others by what I experienced myself.
Those ministers were in the right, who, years ago, said, " Keep that
man out of the lecture-room; don't let it him be seen in public. Every
word he speaks, on any subject, is a blow against our religion! "  They
meant, against their theology.
Such are the causes which brought me into the lecture-room.  I did




APPENDIX.                           481
not neglect serving You, while I seemed only to instruct other men;
for every friend I made in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin became an
auxiliary in that great cause, so dear to you and me. Nay, I did not
abandon my scholarly work while travelling and lecturing.  The motion
of the railroad cars gave a pleasing and not harmful stimulus to
thought, and so helped me to work out my difficult problems of many
kinds.  I always took a sack of books along with me, generally such as
required little eyesight and much thought, and so was sure of good
company; while travelling I could read and write all day long; but I
would not advise others to do much of either; few bodies can endure
the long-continued strain on eye and nerve. So, I lost little time, while
I fancied I was doing a great and needful work.
When I first came before you to preach, carefully looking before and
after, I was determined on my purpose, and had a pretty distinct conception of the mode of operation.  It was not my design to found a
sect, and merely build up a new ecclesiastical institution, but to produce a healthy development of the highest faculties of men, to furnish
them. the greatest possible amount of most needed instruction, and
help them each to free spiritual individuality. The Church, the State,
the community, were not ends, a finality of purpose, but means to
bring forth and bring up individual men. To accomplish this purpose
I aimed distinctly at two things: first, to produce the greatest possible
healthy development of the religious faculty, acting in harmonious connection with the intellectual, moral, and affectional; and second, to
lead you to help others in the same work. Let me say a word in detail
of each part of my design.
I. According both to my experience and observation, the religious
element is the strongest in the spiritual constitution of man, easily
controlling all the rest for his good or ill.  I wished to educate this
faculty under the influence of the true idea of God, of man, and of
their mutual relation.  I was not content with producing morality
alone-the normal action of the conscience and will, the voluntative
keeping of the natural law of right: I saw the need also of pietyreligious feeling toward the divine, that instinctive, purely internal love
of God, which, I think, is not dependent on conscience.  I was led to
this aim  partly by my own disposition, which, I confess, naturally
inclined me to spontaneous pious feeling, my only youthful luxury,
more than to voluntary moral action; partly by my early culture,
which had given me much experience of religious emotions; and partly,
also, by my wide and familiar acquaintance with the mystical writers,
the voluptuaries of the soul, who dwelt in the world of pious feeling,
heedless of life's practical duties, and caring little for science, literature, justice, or the dear charities of common life.
I count it a great good fortune that I was bred among religious
TUnitarians, and thereby escaped so much superstition.  But I felt
early that the "liberal " ministers did not do justice to simple religious
feeling; to me their preaching seemed to relate too much to outward
things, not enough to the inward pious life; their prayers felt cold;
but certainly they preached the importance and the religious value of
morality as no sect, I think, had done before.  Good works, the test
of true religion, noble character, the proof of salvation, if not spoken,
VOL. II.                                                I I




482                          APPENDIX.
were yet implied in their sermons, spite of their inconsistent and
traditionary talk about "Atonement,'' "Redeemer,"  "Salvation by
Christ," and their frequent resort to other pieces of damaged phraseology.  The effect of this predominant morality was soon apparent.
In Massachusetts, the head-quarters of the Unitarians, not only did
they gather most of the eminent intellect into their ranks, the original
talent and genius of the most intellectual of the States, but also a
very large proportion of its moral talent and moral genius, most of
the eminent conscience and philanthropy.  Leaving out of sight
pecuniary gifts for theological and denominational purposes, which
come from peculiar and well-known motives, where the Trinitarians
are professedly superior, I think it will be found that all the great
moral and philanthropic movements in the State-social, ecclesiastical,
and political-from 1800 to 1840, have been chiefly begun and conducted by the Unitarians.  Even in the Anti-Slavery enterprise, the
most profound, unrespectable, and unpopular of them  all, you are
surprised to see how many Unitarians-even ministers, a timid racehave permanently taken an active and influential part.  The Unitarians
certainly once had this moral superiority, before the free, young, and
growing party became a sect, hide-bound, bridled with its creed, harnessed to an old, lumbering, and crazy chariot, urged with sharp goads
by near-sighted drivers, along the dusty and broken pavement of tradition, noisy and shouting, but going nowhere.
But yet, while they had this great practical excellence, so obvious
once, I thought they lacked the deep, internal feeling of piety, which
alone could make it lasting; certainly they had not that most joyous
of all delights.  This fact seemed clear in their sermons, their prayers,
and even in the hymns they made, borrowed, or "adapted."  M[ost
powerfully preaching to the understanding, the conscience, and the will,
the cry was ever, " Duty, duty! work, work!"  They failed to address
with equal power the soul, and did not also shout " Joy, joy! delight,
delight! R" "Rejoice in God always, and again I say unto you, rejoice!"
Their vessels were full of water; it was all laboriously pumped up from
deep wells; it did not gush out, leaping from the great spring, that is
indeed on the surface of the sloping ground, feeding the little streams
that run among the hills, and both quenching the wild asses' thirst, and
watering also the meadows newly mown, but which yet comes from the
rock of ages, and is pressed out by the cloud-compelling mountains that
rest thereon-yes, by the gravitation of the earth itself.
The defect of the Unitarians was a profound one.  Not actually, nor
consciously, but by the logic of their conduct, they had broke with the
old ecclesiastic supernaturalism, that with its whip of fear yet compelled a certain direct, though perverted, action of the simple religious
element in the Trinitarians: ceasing to fear "the great and dreadful
God" of the Old Testament, they had not quite learned to love the
all-beautiful and altogether lovely of the universe.  But in general
they had no theory which justified a more emotional experience of
religion.  Their philosophy, with many excellences, was sure of no
great spiritual truth.  To their metaphysics eternal life was only probable: the great argument for it came not from the substance of human
nature, only from aa accident in the personal history of a single man;




APPENDIX.                            483
its proof was not intuitive, from  the primal instincts of mankind; nor
deductive, from the nature of God; nor yet inductive from the general
phenomena of the two-fold universe; it was only inferential, from the
"resurrection of Christ "-an exceptional fact, without parallel in the
storv of the race, and that resting on no evidence! Nay, in their chief
periodical, when it represented only the opinions of the leaders of the
sect, one of their most popular and powerful writers declared the
existence of a God was not a certainty of metaphysical demonstration,
not even a fact of consciousness.  So this great truth, fundamental to
all forms of religion, has neither an objective, necessary, and ontological
root in the metaphysics of the universe, nor yet a mere subjective, contingent, and psychological root in the consciousness of John and Jane,
but, like the existence of "phlogiston" and "the celestial sether" of
the interstellar spaces, it is a matter of conjecture, of inference from
observed facts purely external and contingent; or, like the existence of
the " Devil," is wholly dependent on the " miraculous and infallible
revelation."  Surely, a party with no better philosophy, and yet rejecting instinct for guide, breaking with the supernatural tradition at the
Trinity, its most important link, could not produce a deep and continuous action of the religious element in the mass of its members,
when left individually free; nor when organized into a sect, with the
discipline of a close corporation, could it continue to advance, or even
to hold its own, and live long on its " Statement of Reasons for Not
Believing the Trinity."   Exceptional men-like Henry Ware, Jun.,
who leaned strongly towards the old supernaturalism, or like Dr.
Channing, whose deeper reflection or reading supplied him with a more
spiritual philosophy-might escape the misfortune of their party; but
the majority must follow the logic of their principle.  The leaders of
the sect, their distinctive creed only a denial, always trembling before
the orthodox, rejected the ablest, original talent born among them; nay,
sometimes scornfully repudiated original genius, each offering a more
spiritual philosophy, which they mocked at as " transcendental," and
turned off to the noisy road of other sects, not grateful to feet trained
in paths more natural.  After denying the Trinity, and the Deity of
Christ, they did not dare affirm the humanity of Jesus, the naturalness
of religion to man, the actual or possible universality of inspiration,
and declare that man is not amenable to ecclesiastic authority, either
the oral Roman tradition, or the written Hebrew and Greek Scriptures;
but naturally communing with God, through many faculties, by many
elements, has in himself the divine well of water, springing up full of
everlasting life, and sparkling with eternal truth, and so enjoys continuous revelation.
Alas! after many a venturous and profitable cruise, while in sight of
port, the winds all fair, the little Unitarian bark, o'ermastered by its
doubts and fears, reverses its course, and sails into dark, stormy seas,
*where no such craft can live.  Some of the fragments of the wreck
will be borne by oceanic currents where they will be used by the party
of progress to help to build more sea-worthy ships; whilst others, when
water-logged, will be picked up by the great orthodox fleet, to be kilndried in a revival, and then serve as moist, poor fuel for its culinary
fires.  iti is a dismal fault in a religious party, this lack of piety, and
II 2




48  APPENDIX.
dismally have the TUnitarians answered it; yet let their great merits
and services be not forgot.
I found this lack of the emotional part of religion affected many of
the reformers.  Some men called by that name, were indeed mere
selfish tongues, their only business to find fault and make a noise; such
are entitled to no more regard than any other common and notorious
scolds. But, in general, the leading reformers are men of large intellect,
of profound morality, earnest, affectional men, full of philanthropy, and
living lives worthy of the best ages of humanity.  But as a general
thing, it seemed to me they had not a proportionate development of
the religious feelings, and so had neither the most powerful solace for
their many griefs, nor the profoundest joy which is needful to hold
them up mid all they see and suffer from.  They, too, commonly shared
this sensational philosophy, and broke with the ecclesiastic supernaturalism which once helped to supply its defects.
Gradually coming to understand this state of things, quite early in
my ministry I tried to remedy it; of course I did the work at first
feebly and poorly. I preached piety, unselfish love towards God, as
well as morality, the keeping of his natural law, and philanthropy,
the helping of his human children. And I was greatly delighted to find
that my discourses of piety were as acceptable as my sermons of justice
and charity, touching the souls of earnest men. Nay, the more spiritual
of the ministers asked me to preach such matters in their pulpits,
which I did gladly.
You have broken with the traditions of the various churches whence
you have come out, and turned your attention to many of the evils of
the day; when I became your minister, I feared lest, in a general
disgust at ecclesiastical proceedings, you should abandon this very
innermost of all true religion; so I have taken special pains to show
that well-proportioned piety is the ground of all manly excellence, and
though it may exist, and often does, without the man's knowing it, yet,
in its highest form, he is conscious of it. On this theme I have preached
many sermons, which were very dear to me, though perhaps none
of them has yet been published. But coming amongst you with some
ministerial experience, and much study of the effect of doctrines and
ecclesiastical modes of procedure, I endeavored to guard against the
vices which so often attend the culture of this sentimental part of
religion, and to prevent the fatal degeneracy that often attends it.
When the religious element is actively excited under the control of the
false theological ideas now so prevailing, it often takes one or both
of these two misdirections:
1. It tends to an unnatural mysticism, which dries up all the noble
emotions that else would produce a great useful character.   The
delicate and refined woman developes the sentiment of religion in her
consciousness; surrounded by wealth, and seduced by its charms, she
reads the more unpractical parts of the Bible, especially the Johannic
writings, the Song of Solomon, and the more sentimental portions of
the Psalms; studies Thomas a Kempis, Guyon, Fenelon, William Law,
Keble; pores over the  mystic meditations of St. Augustine and
Bernard; she kneels before her costly Prie-Dieu, or other sufficient
altar, pours out her prayers, falls into an ecstasy of devout feeling, and,




APPENDIX.                           485
elegantly dishevelled like a Magdalen, weeps most delicious tears. Then
rising thence, she folds her idle, unreligious hands, and, with voluptuous
scorn, turns off from the homely duties of common life; while, not only
the poor, the sick, the ignorant, the drunken, the enslaved, and the
abandoned, are left uncared-for, but her own household is neglected, her
husband, her very children go unblessed.  She lives a life of intense
religious emotion in private, but of intense selfishness at home, and
profligate worldliness abroad.  Her pious feeling is only moonshine;
nay, it is a Will-o'-the-wisp, a wandering fire, which
" Leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind."
She is a voluptuary of the soul, often likewise in the senses; her
prayers are worth no more than so much novel-reading; she might as
well applaud Don Giovanni with her laugh at the opera, as St. John
with her tears at church.  This woman's religion is internal glitter,
which gives nor light nor heat.  " Like a fly in the heart of an apple,
she dwells in perpetual sweetness," but also in perpetual sloth, a selfish
wanton of the soul.  In his Pare aux Ceefs, Louis XV. trained his
maiden victims to this form of devotion!
2. It leads to ecclesiastical ritualism. This is the more common form
in New England, especially in hard men and women.  They join a
church, and crowd the ecclesiastical meetings. Bodily presence there
is thought a virtue; they keep the Sunday severely idle; their ecclesiastical decorum is awful as a winter's night at the North Pole of cold;
with terrible punctuality they attend to the ordinance of bread and
wine, looking grim and senseless as the death's head on the tombstones
close by. Their babies are sprinkled with water, or themselves plunged
all over in it; they have morning prayers and evening prayers, grace
before meat, and after meat, grace; nay, they give money for the theological purposes of their sect, and religiously hate men not of their
household of faith.  Their pious feeling has spent itself in secreting
this abnormal shell of ritualism, which now cumbers them worse than
Saul's great armour on the stripling shepherd lad.  What can such
Pachyderms of the church accomplish that is good, with such an elephantiasis to swell, and bark, and tetter every limb?  Their religious
feeling runs to shell, and has no other influence.  They sell rum, and
trade in slaves or coolies. They are remorseless creditors, unscrupulous
debtors; they devour widows' houses.  Vain are the cries of humanity
in such ears, stuffed with condensed wind. Their lives are little, dirty,
and mean.
Mindful of these two vices, which are both diseases of the misdirected soul, and early aware that devoutness is by no means the
highest expression of love for God, I have attempted not only to produce a normal development of religious feeling, but to give it the
normal direction to the homely duties of common life, in the kitchen,
the parlor, nursery, school-room, in the field, market, office, shop, or
ship, or street, or wherever the lines of our lot have fallen to us; and
to the "primal virtues," that shine aloft as stars which mariners catch
glimpses of'mid ocean's rack, and learn their course, and steer straight
in to their desired haven; and also, to the "charities that soothe, and
heal, and bless," and which are scattered at mankind's feet like flowers,




486                          APPENDIX,
each one a beauty the bee sucks honey from, and a seed to sow the
world with wholesome loveliness; for it is plain to me that the common duties of natural life are both the best school for the development of piety, and the best field for its exercise when grown to manly
size.
II. Partly for your education in true religion, and partly to promote
the welfare of your brother man, I have preached much on the great
social duties of your time and place, recommending not only " palliative charity," but still more " remedial justice."  So I have not only
preached on the private individual virtues, which are, and ought to be,
the most constant theme of all pulpits, but likewise, on the public
social virtues, that are also indispensable to the general welfare.  This
work brought me into direct relation with the chief social evils of our
day. In treating these matters I have proceeded with much caution,
beginning my attack a great way off.  First of all, I endeavoured to
establish philosophically the moral principle I should appeal to, and
show its origin in the constitution of man, to lay down the natural law
so plain that all might acknowledge and accept it; next I attempted
to show what welfare had followed in human history from keeping this
law, and what misery from  violating it; then I applied this moral
principle of nature and the actual experience of history to the special
public vice I wished to whelm  over.  Such a process may seem  slow;
I think it is the only one sure of permanent good effects.  In this
manner I have treated several prominent evils.
1. I have preached against intemperance, showing the monstrous
evil of drunkenness, the material and moral ruin it works so widely.
3My first offence in preaching came when I first spoke on the misery
occasioned by this ghastly vice. The victims of it sat before me, and
were in great wrath; they never forgave me. Yet, I have not accepted
the opinion of the leading temperance men, that the use of intoxicating drinks is in itself a moral or a physical evil.  I found they had
not only a medical, but also a dietetic use to serve, and in all stages
of development above the savage, man resorts to some sort of stimulus
as food for the nervous system: for a practice so nearly universal, I
suppose there must be a cause in man's natural relation to the world
of matter.  Accordingly, I do not like the present legal mode of treating the vice, thinking it rests on a false principle which will not long
work well; yet public opinion, now setting strong against this beastly
vice, required the experiment, which could never be tried under better
auspices than now. But I have gladly joined with all men to help to
put down this frightful vice, which more than any other concrete cause
hinders the welfare and progress of the working people of the North.
It was the first public social evil I ever attacked.  I have not ceased to
warn old and young against this monstrous and ugly sin, and to call on
the appointed magistrates to use all their official power to end so fatal
a mischief. In a great trading town, of course, such calls are vain; the
interest of the few is against the virtue of the people.
2. I have preached against covetousness-the abnormal desire of
accumulating property.  In the Northern States our civilization ibased on respect for industry in both forms, toil and thought.  Property is the product of the two: it is human power over nature, to




APPENDIX.                           487
make the material forces of the world supply thle wants of man; its
amount is always the test of civilization.  Our political and social
institutions do not favor the accumulation of wealth in a few men
or a few families; no permanent entails are allowed; it follows the
natural laws of distribution amongst all the owner's children, or
according to his personal caprice; in a few generations a great estate
is widely scattered abroad.  But as we have no hereditary honors,
office, or even title, and as wealth is all the parent can bequeath his
child, it becomes not only a material power, but also a social distinction-the only one transmissible from sire to son.  So wealth, and not
birth from famous ancestors, is the thing most coveted; the stamp of
the all-mighty dollar is the mark of social distinction; science may be
accounted folly, and genius madness, in the paved or the furrowed
town, but money is power in each.  American " aristocracy " rests on
this moveable basis; it is plutocracy: every poor white boy may hope
to trundle its wheels on to his little patch of ground, for the millionnaire is not born, but self-made.  Hence comes an intense desire of
riches; a great amount of practical talent goes out in quest thereof.
Beside its intrinsic character, respect for money is in America what
loyalty to the crown and deference to feudal superiors is in England:
"the ox Imoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib," and the
Americans the millionnaire, the highest product of plutocracy.
Now, on the whole, I do not find this desire of property excessive in
the people of the North.  I would greaten rather than lessen it, for it
is the motive of our general enterprise, the proximate cause of much
of our welfare and success.  No nation was ever too well fed, housed,
clad, adorned, and comforted in general; poverty, subordination to
material want, is still the great concrete barrier to civilization; "the
nations of the world must" think chiefly of what they shall eat and
drink, and wherewithal be clothed.  In this generation, the productive
industry of New England seems vulgar to careless eyes, and excessive
to severe ones; but it is yet laying the material and indispensable
foundation for a spiritual civilization in some future age, more grand,
I think, than mankind has hitherto rejoiced in.  For not only will the
people's property be greater in proportion to their number-their
power to feed, clothe, house, adorn, and comfort themselves-but
it will be more widely distributed, consequently directed with more
wisdom  and humanity, and so bring forth and develope both more and
higher talents.  I have advised all men to shun poverty; to seek a
generous competence for themselves and their dependents, and that
too by honest work, earning all they take.  I see that a great fortune,
thus acquired, may now be a nobler honor than all the red laurels of
Nelson or Wellington, as well as a power of use and beauty for time
to come. I honor the manly, self-denying enterprise which starts with
no heritage but itself, and honestly earns a great estate.  The man
who makes a school-book like Colburn's " First Lessons in Arithmetic," or invents a labor-saving contrivance like the sewing-machine,
or the reaping and thrashing machines, or who by trade developes the
resources of the country, deserves a pay proportionate to his service.
A Boston merchant died in 1847, who had so helped to turn the rivers
of New England into spinners and weavers, that I think he earned




488                         APPENDIX,
millions of dollars more than he received.  If a man fully pay in
efficient, productive toil and thought, he is entitled to all he gets, one
dollar or many million dollars; he earns his riches, gives equivalent for
equivalent-for all honest traffic is but actual barter, mutual exchange
of my work and your work-and if his estate be but what he has
thus actually and honestly paid for with a service given, equivalent to
the service received, what he can virtuously keep or humanely apply
and expend, then it will never be too large.
But covetousness-the lust after property already created; the dishonest desire to get wealth without paying for it with proportionate
service by toil and thought; the wish to hoard it as the chief object
in life, holding for no generous use; to expend it in personal luxury,
making man a delicate swine to eat and drink beyond the needs of
generous nature, a butterfly to glitter in the public sun, or before the
private stars of fashion, a sloth, to lie idle and deform the ground; or
to exhibit it for ostentation, fostering an unwieldy self-esteem or more
disgraceful vanity- this is a vice I have warned men against continually; I began early. It is a popular and most respectable offence,
often counted a virtue.  It assumes many forms, now  terrible and
then ridiculous. I have dealt with it accordingly, now exposing its
injustice or its folly, now satirising its vulgar indecency; now showing
that the ill-bred children of men grossly rich come to a fate no better
than the sons and daughters of the grossly poor; that voluhtary beggars in ruffles and voluntary beggars in rags, are alike supported at
the public cost, pay nothing for what they take, and so should be
objects of contempt in a world where he is greatest who does the most
and best.
I have often spoken of the tyranny of the rich over the thriving
and the poor-our country, state, and town, all furnishing grievous
examples of the fact.  "As the lion eateth up the wild ass in the wilderness, so the rich eateth up the poor," is as true now in New England as two thousand years ago in Egypt. But when I have seen a
man with large talents for business helping others while he helped
himself, enriching  his workmen, promoting their education, their
virtue, and self-respect, I have taken special delight in honoring such
an act of practical humanity. Happily we need not go out of Boston
to find examples of this rare philanthropy.
3. As I was a schoolmaster at seventeen, though more from necessity than early fitness, I fear, and chairman of a town school committee
at twenty-two, I have naturally felt much interest in the education
of the people, and have often preached thereon.  But I have seen the
great defect of our culture, both in public and private schools; our
education is almost entirely intellectual, not also moral, affectional,
and religious. The Sunday-schools by no means remedy this evil, or
attempt to mend it; they smartly exercise the devotional feelings,
accustom their pupils to a certain ritualism, which is destined only to
serve ecclesiastical and not humane purposes; they teach some moral
precepts of great value, but their chief function is to communicate
theological doctrine, based on the alleged supernatural revelation, and
confirmed by miracles, which often confound the intellect, and befool
the conscience.  They do not even attempt any development of the




APPENDIX,                           489
higher faculties to an original activity at all commensurate with the
vigorous action of the understanding.  In the public schools there are
sometimes devotional exercises, good in themselves, but little pains is
directly taken to educate or even instruct the deeper faculties of our
nature. The evil seems to increase, for of late years many of the
reading-books of our public and private schools seem to have been
compiled by men with only the desire of gain for their motive, who
have rejected those pieces of prose or poetry which appeal to what is
deepest in human nature, rouse indignation against successful wrong,
and fill the child with generous sentiments and great ideas.  Sundayschool books seem yet worse, so loaded with the superstitions of the
sects.  The heroism  of this age finds no voice nor language in our
schools.
But this lack of morality in our schemes of culture appears most
eminent in the superior education, in colleges, and other costly seminaries for maids and men.  The higher you go up in the scale of institutions, the less proportionate pains is taken with the development of
conscience, the affections, and the soul; in the dame school for infants,
something is done to make the child " a good boy," or " a good girl,"
but almost nothing in the richest and most respectable colleges.  They
are commonly seats of an unprogressive and immoral conservatism,
where the studious youth may learn many an important disciplinemathematical, philological, scientific, literary, metaphysical, and theologic-but is pretty sure to miss all effective instruction in the great
art and science of personal or public humanity.  Hence our colleges
are institutions not only to teach the mind, but also for the general
hunkerization of young men; and a professor is there sometimes unscrupulously appointed whose nature and character make it notorious
that his chief function must necessarily be to poison the waters of
life, which young men, from generation to generation, will be compelled
to bow down at, and drink! In the last forty years, I think no New
England college, collective faculty, or pupils, has shown sympathy with
any of the great forward movements of mankind, which are indicated
by some national outbreak, like the French Revolutions of 1830 or
1848!
From this fatal defect of our scheme of culture, it comes to pass that
the class which has the superior education — ministers, professors,
lawyers, doctors, and the like-is not only never a leader in any of
the great humane movements of the age, where justice, philanthropy,
or piety is the motive, but it continually retards all efforts to reform
evil institutions, or otherwise directly increase the present welfare or
the future progress of mankind.  The scholars' culture has palsied
their natural instincts of humanity, and gives them  instead, neither
the personal convictions of free, moral reflection, nor the traditional
commands of church authority, but only the maxims of vulgar thrift,
" get the most, and give the least; buy cheap, and sell dear!"  Exceptional men, like Channing, Pierpont, Emerson, Ripley, Mann, Rantoul,
Phillips, Sumner, and a few others, only confirm the general rule, that
the educated is also a selfish class, morally not in advance of the mass
of men.  No thoughtful, innocent man, arraigned for treason, would
like to put himself on the college, and be tried by a jury of twelve




490                          APPENDIX.
scholars; it were to trust in the prejudice and techmic sophistry of a
class, not to "put himself on the country," and be judged by the
moral instincts of the people.
Knowing these facts-and I found them  out pretty early —  have
told them  often in public, and shown the need of a thorough reform
in our educational institutions.  Still more have I preached on the
necessity that YOu should do in private for your children what no
school in this age is likely to attempt-secure such a great development of the moral, affectional, and religious powers, as shall preserve
all the high instincts of nature, while it enriches every faculty by the
information given.  I need not now speak of what I had long since
intended to do amongst you in this matter, when the opportunity
should offer; for, alas! when it came, my power to serve you quickly
went.
4. I have preached much on the condition of woman.  I know the
great, ineffaceable difference between the spiritual constitution of her
and mana, and the consequent difference in their individual, domestic,
and social functions.  But, examining the matter both philosophically
and historically, it seems clear that woman is man's equal, individually
and socially entitled to the same rights.  There is no conscious hostility
or rivalry between the two, such as is often pretended; man naturally
inclines to be a little more than just to her, she a little more than
fair to him; a man would find most favor with a jury of women, as
boys with nurses.  But, certainly, her condition is sadly unfortunate;
for, whether treated as a doll or drudge, she is practically regarded as
man's inferior, intended by nature to be subordinate to him, subservient to his purposes; not a free spiritual individuality like him,
but a dependent parasite or a commanded servant. This idea appears
in all civilized legislation; and in the "revealed religion" of Jews
and Christians, as well as in that of Brahmins and Mohammedans.
Even in New England, no public provision is made to secure superior
education for girls as for boys.  Woman has no place in the superior
industry-shut out from  the legal, clerical, and medical professions,
and the higher departments of trade, limited to domestic duties, and
other callings which pay but little; when she does a man's service she
has but half of his reward; no political rights are awarded to her; she
is always taxed, but never represented. If married, her husband has
legally an unnatural control over her property and her person, and, in case
of separation, ovet her children. A  young man with superior talents,
born to no other heritage, can acquire wealth, or, unaided, obtain the
best education this age makes possible to any one: but with a woman
it is not so; if poor, she can only be enriched by marriage; hence
mercantile wedlock is far more pardonable in her; no talents, no genius
can secure a poor man's daughter her natural share in the high culture
of the age.  The condition of woman follows unavoidably from  the
popular idea, which she also shares often in the heroic degree, that she
is by nature inferior to man: prostitution and its half-known evils come
from this as naturally as crime and drunkenness from squalid want-as
plants from seeds.
I have preached the equivalency of man and woman-that each in
some particulars is inferior to the other, but, on the whole, mankind




APPENDIX,                          491
and womankind, though so diverse, are yet equal in their natural
faculties; and have set forth the evils which come to both from her
present inferior position, her exclusion from the high places of social
or political trust.  But I have thought she will generally prefer
domestic to Iublic functions, and have found no philosophic or historic
argument for thinking she will ever incline much to the rough works
of man, or take any considerable part in Republican politics; in a
court like that of Louis XV., or Napoleon III., it might be different;
but I have demanded that she should decide that question for herself,
choose her own place of action, have her vote in all political matters,
and be eligible to any office.
In special, I have urged on YoU the duty of attending to the education of young women, not only in accomplishments-which are so often
laborious in the process, only to be ridiculous in the display, and idle in
their results —but in the grave discipline of study, and for the practical
duties of life. A woman voluntarily ignorant of household affairs and
the management of a family, should be an object of pity or of contempt;
while the women of New England incline to despise the indispensable
labor of housekeeping, and can neither make wearable garments, nor
eatable bread, I have sometimes doubted whether the men of New
England, irritated with their sour fare, would think them quite fit to
make laws for the State, or even for the Union. I have also called your
attention to those most unfortunate outcasts, the friendless young girls
in the streets of your own city, the most abandoned of the perishing
class, who will soon become the most harmful of the dangerous classfor prostitution is always two-fold, male as well as female damnation.
It is delightful to see the change now taking place in the popular
idea of woman, and the legislation of the Northern States. This reform
at once will directly affect half the population, and soon also the other
half. I am not alarmed at the evils which obviously attend this change
-the growing dislike of maternal duties, the increase of divorces, the
false theories of marriage, and the unhappy conduct which thence results; all these are transient things, and will soon be gone-the noise
and dust of the wagon that brings the harvest home.
5. The American people are making one of the most important experiments ever attempted on earth, endeavoring to establish an industrial
democracy, with the principle that all men are equal in their natural
rights, which can be alienated only by the personal misconduct of
their possessor; the great body of the people is the source of all
political power, the maker of all laws, the ultimate arbiter of all
measures; while the special magistrates, high and low, are but appointed agents, acting under the power of attorney the people intrusts
them with.  This experiment was perhaps never tried before, certainly
not on so large a scale, and with so fair an opportunity for success; but
wise men have always foretold its utter failure, and pointed to the
past as confirming this prophecy.  Certainly, we have human history
against us, but I think human nature is on our side, and find no reason
to doubt the triumph of the American idea.  So I have taken a deep
interest in politics, important not merely as representing the national
house-keeping, but also the public morality, and so tending to help or
hinder the people's success. Never failing to vote, I have yet kept




492                          APPENDIX.
myself out of the harness of every party; responsible to none and for
none, I have been free to blame or praise the principles and the purposes of all, their measures and their men. Addressing such multitudes,
most of them younger than I, in times like the last fourteen years,
when such important interests came up for public adjudication, and
when the great principles of all national morality have been solemnly denied by famous officials, men also of great personal power, who declared
that human governments were amenable to no natural law of God,
but subject only to the caprice of magistrate or elector-I have felt a
profound sense of my responsibility to You as a teacher of religion. So
I have preached many political sermons, examining the special measures
proposed, exposing the principle they rested on, and the consequences
they must produce, and applying the lessons of experience, the laws of
human nature, the great doctrines of absolute religion, to the special
conduct of the American people.  No doubt, I have often wounded the
feelings of many of Ylo.  Pardon me, my friends! if I live long I doubt
not I shall do so again and again. You never made me your minister
to flatter, or merely to please, but to instruct and serve.
Treating of politics, I must speak of the conspicuous men engaged
therein, when they come to die, for such are the idols of their respective parties. In America there are few objects of conventional respect
-no permanent classes who are born to be reverenced; and as men
love to look up and do homage to what seems superior, a man of vulgar
greatness, who has more of the sort of talent all have much of, is sure
to become an idol if he will but serve the passions of his worshippers:
so with us, a great man of that stamp has a more irresponsible power
than elsewhere among civilized men; for he takes the place of king,
noble, and priest, and controls the public virtue more. The natural
function of a great man is to help the little ones: by this test I have
endeavored to try such as I must needs speak of. Not responsible for
their vice or virtue, I have sought to represent them exactly as I found
them, and that, too, without regard to the opinion of men, who only
looked up and worshipped, not asking what.  If I were an assayer of
metals I should feel bound to declare the character of the specimens
brought before me, whether lead or silver; shall I be less faithful in my
survey of a great man, " more precious than the fine gold of Ophir"?
I am no flatterer, nor public liar-general; when such a one is wanted
he is easily found, and may be had cheap; and I cannot treat great
men like great babies. So, when I preached on Mr. Adams, who had
done the cause of freedom  such great service, on General Taylor, and
Mr. Webster, I aimed to paint them exactly as they were, that their
virtues might teach us, and their vices warn. Still further to promote
the higher education of the people, and correct an idolatry as fatal as it
is stupid, as dangerous to the public as it is immediately profitable
to wily rhetoricians, I have prepared lectures on four great famous
Americans —Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Jefferson. The last,
however, was not delivered when my present illness laid me low.  I
wished to daguerreotype these great, noble men, and place true pictures
before the people.
Perhaps no part of my public labors has been condemned with more
noise and violence than this attempt at historic truth.  Certainly I did




APPENDIX.                          493
depart from the panegyrical custom of political and clerical eulogizers
of the famous or the wealthy dead; but I have confidence enough in the
people of the Northern States to believe they will prefer plain truth to
the most rhetorical lies.
I have not quite disdained to turn your eyes to little, mean men,
when set in high office, that you might get instruction from their folly
or wickedness.  So, when the chief magistrate of the city was notoriously the comrade of drunkards, and of the most infamous of humankind, and that of the State was celebrated chiefly for public and private
lying, and both abused their office, to promote their own little purposes
of mischief or of gain, debauching the public virtue, as well as wasting
the people's money-I did not fail to advertise the fact, that YOU at
least might learn by the lesson which cost the public so dear.
6. I have preached against war, showing its enormous cost in money
and men, and the havoc it makes of public and private virtue.  A
national occasion was not wanting; for, obedient to the whip of the
Slave-power, which hag-rides the nation still, the American Government
-not the people, nor even Congress-plunged us into a wicked contest with Mexico, she clearly in the right, we notoriously in the wrong.
I have often spoken against war, and tried to discourage that "excessive lust for land," that aggressive and invasive spirit, which is characteristic of both the American and British people. It is clear that the
strongest races will ultimately supplant the feebler, and take their
place, as the strong  grasses outroot the weak from  the farmer's
meadow.  I complain not of this just natural law, which indeed pervades the universe; but the work need not be done by violence, nor
any form of wrong. So I have preached against the fillibustering of
America, and the not less wicked diplomatizing and soldiering by which
our parent across the sea accomplishes the same thing, though with
even more harshness and cruelty.
Yet I have not preached the doctrine of the non-resistants, who
never allow an individual to repel wrong by material violence; nor
that of the ultra-peace men, who deny a nation's right to stave off an
invader's wickedness with the people's bloody hand.  The wrathful
emotions are also an integral part of humanity, and with both nations
and individuals have an indispensable function to perform, that of selfdefence, which, in the present state of civilization, must sometimes be
with violence, even with shedding aggressive blood. It is against needless and wicked wars-the vast majority are such —that I  have
preached; against the abuse ambitious rulers make of the soldier's
trained art to kill, and of the wrathful, defensive instincts of the multitude.  In this age, I think the people do not make war against the
peaceful people of another land; nay, in New England, the most democratic country, we have too much neglected the military art, I feara mistake we may bitterly regret in that strife between the Southern
habit of despotism, and the Northern principle of democracy, which
any day may take the form  of civil war, and one day must.  For
America will not always attempt to carry a pitcher of poison on her
left shoulder, and one of pure water on her right; one or the other
must soon go to the ground.
7. I have spoken against Slavery more than any concrete wrong,




49 4                        APPENDIX.
because it is the greatest of all, "the sum of all villanies," and the
most popular, the wanton darling of the Government.  I became
acquainted with it in my early childhood, and learned to hate it even
then, when, though I might not comprehend the injustice of the principle,
I could yet feel the cruelty of the fact. I began to preach against it
early, but used the greatest circumspection, for I knew the vulgar prejudice in favor of all successful tyranny, and wished my few hearers
thoroughly to accept the principle of justice, and apply it to this as to
all wrongs. But even in the little meeting-house at West Roxbury,
though some of the audience required no teaching in this matter, the
very mention of American Slavery as wicked at first offended all my
hearers who had any connection with the " Democratic" party.  Some
said they could see no odds between claiming freedom for a negro slave,
and " stealing one of our oxen," the right to own cattle including the
right to own men; they thought Slavery could ride behind them on the
same pillion with " Democracy," according to the custom of their masters.  But, as little by little I developed the principle of true democracy, showing its root in that love of your neighbor as yourself, which
Jesus both taught and lived, and of that eternal justice which comes
even to savage bosoms, and showed how repugnant Slavery is to bothgradually all the more reflective and humane drew over to the side of
freedom; and they who at first turned their faces to the floor of their
pews when I announced Slavery as the theme for that day's sermon, ere
many years turned on me eyes flashing with indignation against wrong,
when I told the tale of our national wickedness; they have since given
me the heartiest sympathy in my humble efforts to  moralise the
opinions and practice of the people.
MY FIEnNDs,-Since I have been your minister, I have preached
much on this dreadful sin of the nation, which now threatens to be
also its ruin; for, while in my youth Slavery was admitted to be an
evil, commercially profitable, but morally wrong, an exceptional measure, which only the necessity of habit might excuse, but which nothing
could justify, of late years it is declared a "moral good," "the least
objectionable form  of labor," fit for Northern whites not less than
African negroes, one of those guide-board instances which indicate the
highway of national welfare.  For some years Slavery has been the
actual first principle of each Federal Administration; to this all interests must bend, all customs and statutes conform, and the nation's two
great documents, containing our programme of political principles and
of political purposes, must be repudiated and practically annulled; the
Supreme Court has become only the jesuitical propaganda of Slavery.
For some years, while busied with theological matters, and with
laying the metaphysic foundation of my own scheme, I took no public
part in the Anti-Slavery movements outside of my own little village.
But when I became your minister and had a wider field to till, when
the ambition of the Slave-power became more insolent by what it fed
upon, and the North still tamer and more servile under the bridle and
the whip of such as were horsed thereon, a different duty seemed quite
clear to me. I have seldom entered your pulpit without remembering
that you and I lived in a land whose church members are not more.numerous than its slaves; as many " communing with God " by bread




APPENDIX.                          495
and wine, so many communing with man by chains and whips; and
that not only the State, press, and market, but also the Church takes
a " South-side view of slavery," as indeed she does of each other
wickedness presently popular, and " of good report"! Since 1845, I
have preached against all the great invasive measures of the Slavepower, exposing their motive, the first principle they refer to, and showing that they are utterly hostile to that democracy which is justice;
and all tend to establish a despotism, which at first may be industrial
and many-headed, as now in Louisiana, but next must be single-headed
and military, as already in France, and finally must lead to national
ruin, as in so many countries of the Old World.
In due time the Fugitive Slave Bill came up from seed which wicked
men had sown and harrowed into the Northern soil; Boston fired her
hundred cannons with delight, and they awoke the ministers, sitting
drowsy in their churches of commerce, mid all the pavements of the
North, who thought an angel had spoke to them. Then I preached
against Slavery as never before, and defied the impudent statute, whereto
you happily said Amen by the first clapping of hands which for years
had welcomed a sermon in Boston; how could you help the natural
indecorum?  When, roused by these jubilant guns, one minister, so
generous and self-devoted, too, in many a noble work, called on his
parishioners to enforce that wicked act, which meant to kidnap mine,
and declared that if a fugitive sought shelter with him he would drive
him  away from  his own door; when another uttered words more
notorious, and yet more flagrant with avaricious inhumanity, which I
care not now to repeat again; and when the cry, " No higher law! "
went down from the market, and, intoned by the doctorial leaders of
the sects, rang through so many commercial churches throughout the
Northern land, I did not dare refuse to proclaim the monstrous fact as
one of the unavoidable effects of Slavery, whose evil seed must bear
fruit after its kind, and to gibbet the wrong before the eyes of the
people, to whom I appealed for common justice and common humanity.
When two men, holding mean offices under the Federal Government,
one of them not fit by nature to do a cruel deed, actually stole and kidnapped two innocent inhabitants out from your city of Franklin, and
Hancock, and Adams, and attempted, with their unclean, ravenous
jaws, to seize yet others, and rend the manhood out of them, I preached
against these jackals of Slavery and their unhuman work; and have now
only to lament that my powers of thought and speech were no more
adequate fitly to expose the dark infamy of that foul deed, against
which I asked alike the people's justice and their wrath; I knew I
should not ask in vain. And when a drunken bully from South Carolina, in Congress, fitly representing the first principle, if not the first
persons of his State —where none can serve in even the Lower House
of Assembly "unless he be seized in his own right of ten negro slaves"
— made his assault, not less cowardly than brutal, on our noble Senator,
wounding him  with worse than death, and while the United States
Attorney sought " to make murder safe and easy in the capital," not
dreaming it would one day, unpunished, reach his own heart, I spoke
of that matter, and showed it was the cowards of iassachusetts who




496                         APPENDIX.
drew the blow on her faithful champion, and that no " anodyne " could
make them less than glad that it was struck!
But why speak more of those sad days?  Others may come with
sterner face, not black but red!  However, a blessed change in public
opinion now goes calmly on in Massachusetts, in New England, and
all the North, spite of the sophistry and cunning of ambitious men
smit with the Presidential fever. The death of a dozen leading AntiSlavery men to-day would not much retard it, for the ground is full of
such!
8. But I have preached against the errors of the ecclesiastic theology
more than upon any other form of wrong, for they are the most fatal
mischiefs in the land.  The theological notion of God, man, and the
relation between them, seems to me the greatest speculative error mankind has fallen into. Its gloomy consequences appear: -Christendom
takes the Bible for God's word, His last word; nothing new or different
can ever be expected from the source of all truth, all justice, and-all
love; the sun of righteousness will give no added light or heat on the
cold darkness of the human world.  From portions of this "infallible
revelation," the Roman Church logically derives its despotic and hideous
claim to bind and loose on earth, to honor dead men with sainthood,
or to rack and burn with all the engines mechanic fancy can invent, or
priestly cruelty apply; and hereafter to bless eternally, or else for ever
damn. Hence, both Protestant and Catholic logically derive their
imperfect, wrathful Deity, who creates men to torment them in an
endless hell, "paved with the skulls of infants not a span long," whereinto the vast majority of men are, by the million, trodden down for
everlasting agony, at which the elect continually rejoice. Hence, they
derive their Devil, absolutely evil, that ugly wolf whom God lets loose
into his fold of lambs; hence, their total depravity, and many another
dreadful doctrine which now the best of men blind their brothers' eyes
withal, and teach their children to distrust the Infinite Perfection
which is nature's God, dear Father and Mother to all that is.  I-ence,
clerical sceptics learn to deny the validity of their own superior
faculties, and spin out the cobwebs of sophistry, wherewith they surround the field of religion, and catch therein unwary men. Hence, the
Jews, the Mohammedans, the Mormons, draw their idea of woman,
and their right to substitute such gross conjunctions for the natural
marriage of one to one. There the slave-holder finds the chief argument for his ownership of men, and in Africa or New England, kidnaps
the weak, his mouth drooling with texts from " the authentic word of
God"; nay, there the rhetorician finds reason for shooting an innocent
man who but righteously seeks that freedom which nature declares the
common birthright of mankind.  It has grieved me tenderly to see
all Christendom  make the Bible its fetish, and so lose the priceless
value of that free religious spirit which, communing at first hand with
God, wrote its grand pages, or poured out its magnificent beatitudes.
Christendom contains the most intellectual nations of the earth, all
of them belonging to the dominant Caucasian race, and most of them
occupying regions very friendly to the development of the highest
faculties of man. Theirs, too, is the superior machinery of civilization,




APPENDIX.                          497
political, ecclesiastical, domestic, social. Nowhere on earth does the
clerical mass so connect itself with the innermost of man.  Christendom
is the bold leader in all intellectual affairs-arts of peace and war,
science, literature, skill to organise and administer mankind.  But yet
the Christian has no moral superiority over the Jews, the Mlohammecans, the Brahmins, the Buddhists, at all commensurate with this
intellectual power. In the sum of private and public virtues, the Turk
is before the Christian Greek. For fifteen hundred years the Jews, a
nation scattered and peeled, and exposed to most degrading influences,
in true religion have been above the Christians!  In  temperance,
chastity, honesty, justice, mercy, are the leading nations of Christendom before the South-Asiatics, the Chinese, the islanders of Japan?
Perhaps so-but have these " Christians " a moral superiority over those
"heathens" equal to their mental superiority?  It is notorious they
have not. Why is this so, when these Christians worship a man whose
religion was love to God and love to men, and who would admit to
heaven only for righteousness, and send to hell only for lack of it?
Because they WORSHIP him, reject the natural goodness he relied upon,
and trust in the "blood of Christ which maketh free from all sin."  It
is this false theology, with its vicarious atonement, salvation without
morality or piety, only by belief in absurd doctrines, which has bewitched the leading nations of the earth into such practical mischief.
A false idea has controlled the strongest spiritual faculty, leading men
to trust in "imputed righteousness," and undervalue personal virtue.
Self-denying missionaries visit many a far-off land "to bring the
heathens to Christ."  Small good comes of it; but did they teach
industry, thrift, letters, honesty, temperance, justice, mercy, with
rational ideas of God and man, what a conversion there would be of the
Gentiles! Two-and-thirty thousand Christian ministers are there in
the United States, all "consecrated to Christ;" many of them are able
men, earnest and devoted, but, their eyes hood-winked and their hands
chained by their theology, what do they bring to pass? They scarce
lessen any vice of the State, the press, or the market.  They are to
" save souls from the wrath of God."
I have preached against the fundamental errors of this well-compacted
theological scheme, showing the consequences which follow thence, and
seldom entered your pulpit without remembering Slavery, the great sin
of America, and these theological errors, the sacramental mistake of
Christendom. But I have never forgotten the great truths this theology
contains, invaluable to the intellect, the conscience, the heart and soul.
I have tried to preserve them all, with each good institution which the
Church, floating over the ruins of an elder world, has borne across that
deluge, and set down for us where the dove of peace has found rest for
the sole of her foot, and gathered her olive-branch to show that those
devouring waters are dried up from the face of the earth. To me the
name of Christianity is most exceeding dear, significant of so great a
man and of such natural emotions, ideas, and actions, as are of priceless
value to mankind.  I know well the errors, also, of the doubters and
deniers, who in all ages have waged war against the superstitious theology of their times, and pulled down what they could not replace with
better.  I have not sat in the seat of the scornful; and while I warned
VOL. II.                                             K K




498                          APPENDIX.
men against the snare of the priest, I would not suffer them to fall into
the mocker's pit.  I have taken exquisite delight in the grand words of
the Bible, putting it before all other sacred literature of the whole
ancient world; to me it is more dear when I regard them not as the
miracles of God, but as the work of earnest men, who did their uttermost with holy heart. I love to read the great truths of religion set
forth in the magnificent poetry of psalmist and prophet, and the humane
lessons of the Hebrew peasant, who summed up the prophets and the
law in one word of LovE and set forth man's daily duties in such true
and simple speech! As a master, the Bible were a tyrant; as a help, I
have not time to tell its worth; nor has a sick man speech for that, nor
need I now, for my public and private teachings sufficiently abound in
such attempts.  But yet, to me the great men of the Bible are worth
more than all their words; he that was greater than the temple, whose
soul burst out its walls, is also greater than the Testament, but yet no
master over you and me, however humble men!
In theological matters, my preaching has been positive, much more
than negative, controversial only to create; I have tried to set forth
the truths of natural religion, gathered from  the world of matter and
of spirit: I rely on these great ideas as the chief means for exciting the
religious feelings, and promoting religious deeds; I have destroyed only
what seemed pernicious, and that I might build a better structure in
its place.
Of late years a new form  of Atheism-the ideal, once thought impossible-has sprung up; perhaps Germany is its birth-place, though
France and England seem equally its home.  It has its representatives
in America.  Besides, the Pantheists tell us of their God, who is but
the sum-total of the existing universe of matter and of mind, immanent
in each, but transcending neither, imprisoned in the two; blind, planless, purposeless, without consciousness, or will, or love; dependent
upon the shifting phenomena of finite matter and of mind, finite itself;
a continual becoming this or that, not absolute being, self-subsistent
and eternally the same perfection: their God is only law, the constant
mode of operation of objective and unconscious force; yet is it better
than the churchman's God, who is caprice alone, subjective, arbitrary,
inconstant, and with more hate than love.  I have attempted to deal
with the problem  of the Pantheist and the Atheist, treating both as
any other theological opponents: I have not insulted them with harsh
names, nor found occasion to impute dishonorable motives to such as
deny what is dearer than life to me; nor attempted to silence them
with texts from  sacred books; nor to entangle them  in ecclesiastic or
metaphysic sophistries: nor to scare with panic terrors, easily excited
in an Atheistic or a Christian's heart. I have simply referred them to
the primal instincts of human nature, and their spontaneous intuition
of the divine, the just, and the immortal; then, to what science gathered
from the world of matter, and the objective history of man in his progressive development of individual and of social power.  I have shown
the causes which lead to honest bigotry within the Christian Church,
and to honest Atheism without; I hope I have done injustice neither
to this nor that. But it was a significant fact I could not fail to make
public, that, while the chief doctors of commercial divinity in the great




APPENDIX.                          499
American trading towns, and their subservient colleges, denied the
higher law, and with their Bibles laid humanity flat before the kidnappers in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, the socalled Atheists and Pantheists over all the Northern land revered the
instinctive justice of the soul, and said, "Thou shalt not steal, nor lie.
Thou shalt do no wrong;'tis nature's self forbids i"
Preaching such doctrines in a place so public, and applying them to
life, I am not surprised at the hostility I have met with from the
various sects. In no country would it have been less, or tempered
more sweetly; no, nor in any age; for certainly I have departed from
the fundamental principle of the Catholics and the Protestants, denied
the fact of a miraculous revelation given exclusively to Jews and Christians, denied the claim to supernatural authority, and utterly broke
with that vicariousness which puts an alleged revelation in place of
common sense, and the blood of a crucified Jew instead of excellence of
character.  In the least historic of the New Testament Gospels it is
related that Jesus miraculously removed the congenital blindness of an
adult man, and because he made known the fact that his eyes were thus
opened, and told the cause, the Pharisees cast him out of their synagogue. What this mythic story relates as an exceptional measure of
the Pharisees, seems to have founded a universal principle of the
Christian Church, which cannot bear the presence of a man who,
divinely sent, has washed in the pool of Siloam, and returned seeing
and telling why.
I knew  at the beginning what I must expect: that at first men
younger than I, who had not learned over much, would taunt me with
my youth; that others, not scholarly, would charge me with lack of
learning competent for my task; and cautious old men, who did not
find it convenient to deny my facts, or answer my arguments, would
cry out, " This young man must be put down! " and set their venerable
popular feet in that direction.  Of course I have made many mistakes,
and could not expect a theologic opponent, and still less a personal
enemy, to point them out with much delicacy, or attempt to spare my
feelings; theological warfare is not gentler than political or military;
even small revolutions are not mixed with rose-water.  The amount of
honest misunderstanding, of wilful misrepresenting, of lying, and of
malignant abuse, has not astonished me; after the first few months it
did not grieve me; human nature has a wide margin of oscillation, and
accommodates itself to both Torrid and Frigid Zones. But I have sometimes been a little surprised at the boldness of some of my critics,
whose mistakes proved their courage extended beyond their information.
An acquaintance with the historic development of mankind, a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, familiarity with the metaphysic thought
of the human race, is certainly no moral merit; but in theologic discussions it is a convenience which some of my opponents have not
always paid quite sufficient respect to, though they were not thereby
hindered from passing swift judgment. Criticism  is the easiest of ail
arts, or the most difficult of all.
It did not surprise me that other ministers, Unitarian and Trinitarian,
should refuse to serve with me on the committee of a college or a school,
to attend the same funeral or wedding, to sit on the same bench at a
K K 2




500                         APPENDIX.
public meeting, to remain in the same public apartment, and trade at
the same book-store, to return my salutation in the street, or reply to
my letters; that they should invent and spread abroad falsehoods intended to ruin me; but I confess I have sometimes been astonished
that such men " could not see any sign of honesty, of love of truth, of
philanthropy, or religion," in my writings or my life, but must set down
all to "vanity and love of the praises of men."  But " it is fit to be
instructed, even by an enemy."  Let you and me learn from  ours to
hate those theological doctrines which can so blind the eyes and harden
the hearts of earnest, self-denying men; let us not imitate the sophistry
and bigotry we may have suffered from, and certainly have been exposed to.
I have found most friendly recognition where I did not expect it.
Men with adverse theological opinions have testified to the honest piety
they thought they found in my writings, and joined with me in various
practical works of humanity, leaving me to settle the abstract questions
of divinity with the Divine Himself. Indeed, I never found it necessary
to agree with a man's theology before I could ride in his omnibus or
buy his quills.  No two Unitarian ministers, I think, differ more in
their theology than Rev. James Freeman Clarke and I, but for twenty
years there has been the warmest friendship between us; that noble
man and I have gone hand in hand to many of the most important
philanthropics of the age; and I think he will not be offended by this
public recognition of our affectional intimacy. I could say similar
things of other men, whom I have not named, but might thereby scare
their timid reputation from its nest, and addle their hopes of future
usefulness.
Besides, I have found kindly and generous critics in America, and
still more in England and Germany, who did me perhaps more than
justice, while they honestly pointed out what they must regard as my
faults. Though I have been written and spoken against more than
any American not connected with political parties, yet, on the whole,
I do not complain of the treatment I have received; all I asked was a
hearing: that has been abundantly granted. You opened wide the
doors, my opponents rang the bell all Saturday night, and Sunday
morning the audience was there.  I think no other country would
allow me such liberty of speech; I fear not even England, which has
yet so generously welcomed every free thought.
Of late years the hatred against me seems to have abated somewhat;
old enemies relaxed their brows a little, and took back, or else denied,
their former calumnies; nay, had kind words and kind deeds for me and
mine. " Let bygones be bygones," is a good old rule.
The fondest, the fairest, the truest that met,
Have still found the need to forgive and forget."
I think few men in America have found sympathy in trouble from a
greater variety of persons than I, in my present disappointment and
illness, from men and women of all manner of ecclesiastical connections. I could not always thank them  by private -letters, but I need
not say how grateful their kindly words have been, for-I may as well
confess it-after all, I am not much of a fighter; my affections are




APPENDIX.                         501
developed far better than my intellect. It may be news to the public;
to You it is but too well known.
Yet, let it not surprise you that in some quarters this theologic odium
continues still, and shows itself in "revival meetings" by public
prayers that God would go to my study, and confound me there, so
that I could not write my sermon; or meet me in your pulpit, and put
a hook in my jaws so that I could not speak; or else remove me out of
the world. Such petitions, finding abundant biblical example, are not
surprising when they came from such places, on such occasions, and
from men whose mind and conscience are darkened by the dreadful
theology that still haunts many such places. But other instances must
find a different explanation. Less than two years ago, the senior class
in the Cambridge Divinity School, consisting, I think, of but four
pupils, invited me to deliver the customary address before them and
the public, the Sunday before their graduation. The theological faculty,
consisting of three Unitarian Doctors of Divinity, interposed their
veto and forbid me from speaking; such a prohibition, I think, had
never been made before. These doctors were not ignorant men, or
bigoted; they attend no "revival meetings," but, speaking intellectually, they belong among the most enlightened scholars in America;
none of them "was ever accused of believing too much; " yet they saw
fit to offer me the greatest ecclesiastical, academical, and personal insult in their professional power, in the most public manner, and that, too,
at a time when I was just recovering from severe illnesss, and fluttering'twixt life and death-the scrutinizing physician telling me the chances
were equally divided between the two; I could only stand in the pulpit
to preach by holding on to the desk with one hand while I lifted the
other up. Others might have expected such treatment from these
men; I confess, my friends, that I did not.
Since my present illness began, some of my theological foes have,
publicly to the world, and privately to me, expressed their delight that
I am not likely to trouble them much longer; in my present feebleness
they read the answer to their prayers for my removal. It was the
Psalmist's petition, "Let not mine enemies triumph over me! "  But
I shall utter none such. If I fall and die, let "mine enemies" rejoice
as much as they will at the consequent thought that there is one feeble
voice the less, rebuking the vice of the press, the State, the market,
and the Church, to speak a word of truth, freedom, justice, and natural
religion; let them be glad there is one weak arm the less reaching out
help to the poor, the drunken, the ignorant, the harlot, the felon, and
the slave; let them thank God for the premature decrepitude of my
voice, the silence of my study, where worms perchance devour my
books, more dear even than costly; let them  find "answer to our
prayers " in the sorrow of my personal friends-there are now many
such-in the keen distress of my intimates, and the agony of my wife;
I complain nothing thereat. Every tree must bear after its own kind,
not another, and their "religion" must yield such fruits. Let them
triumph in these results, and thank their God that He has "interposed," and thus granted their petition; it is small satisfaction compared with what they hope for in the next life, where, as their theology teaches, the joy of the elect in heaven will be enhanced by looking




502                          APPENDIX.
down into hell, and beholding the agony of their former neighbors and
friends, husband or wife, nay, their own children also, and remembering
that such suffering is endless, "and the smoke of their torment
ascendeth up for ever and ever."  Let them triumph in this; but let
them expect no other or greater result to follow from my death.  For
to the success of the great truths I have taught, it is now but of the
smallest consequence whether I preach in Boston and all the lyceums
of the North, or my body crumbles in some quiet, nameless grave.
They are not My truths! I am no great man whom the world hinges
on; nor can I settle the fate of a single doctrine by my authority.
HIumanity is rich in personalities, and a man no larger than I will not
long be missed in the wide field of theology and religion.  For immediately carrying a special measure, and for helping this or that, a single
man is sometimes of great value; the death of the general is the loss
of the battle, perhaps the undoing of a State; but after a great truth
of humanity is once set a-going, it is in the charge of mankind, through
whom it first came from  God; it cannot perish by any man's death.
Neither State, nor press, nor market, nor Church, can ever put it down;
it will drown the water men pour on it, and quench their hostile fire.
Cannot the Bible teach its worshippers that a grave is no dungeon to
shut up Truth in; and that Death, who slays alike the priest and the
prophet, bows his head before her, and passes harmless by?  To stone
Stephen did not save the church of the Pharisees.  A  live man may
harm his own cause; a dead one cannot defile his clean immortal doctrines with unworthy hands.
In these tropic waters, not far off, in time of strife, on a dark niglt,
but towards morning, an English ship-of-war once drew  near what
seemed a hostile vessel under sail.  She hailed the stranger, who
answered not; then hailed again-no answer; then fired a shot across
the saucy bows, but still there was no reply; next fired at her, amidships, but got not a word in return.  Finally, the man-of-war cleared
for action, began battle in earnest, serving the guns with British
vigor, but found no return, save the rattle of shot rebounding and
falling back into the heedless sea. Daylight presently came with tropic
suddenness, and the captain found he spent his powder in battering a
great rock in the ocean! So, many a man has fought long against a
truth which he fancied was but a floating whim, bound to yield to his
caprice; but, at last, the dawning light has shown him it was no passing ship, of timber and cordage and canvas, driven by the wind and
tossed by the undulations of the sea, but a SAIL-noOK, resting on the
foundations of the world, and amenable neither to the men-of-war that
sailed in the wind, nor yet to the undulation of the sea whereon they
came and went.  It is one thing to rejoice at the sickness and death of
a short-lived heretic, but it is another and a little different, to alter thl
constitution of the universe, and put down a fact of spontaneous human
consciousness, which also, is a truth of God.
When I first came amongst you, and lived in a trading town where a
great variety of occupations lay spread out before me all the time, and
preached to such crowds of men as offered a wide diversity of nature,
character, and conduct, I found not only an opportunity to work, but
also to learn and grow.  You say I have taught you much; I hope it




APPENDIX.                           503
is so, but you have been a large part of your own schooling; for I have
also learned much from you: the audience has always furnished a large
part of the sermon and the prayer.  I have received much direct instruction, and that in matters of deep concern, from some of you, by
hearing your words and looking at your lives; the indirect help to my
power of thought and speech, I fear you would hardly credit should I
attempt to tell.  It is enough to say now, that amongst you I have
found men and women, often in quite humble stations, who have added
new elements of both strength and beauty to my notion of what constitutes a " glorious human creature," in particular excellences their
actual surpassing my ideal.  I have been a learner quite as much as a
teacher; indeed, out of nearly a thousand sermons I have written, I
think there are not five-and-twenty which are not also steps in my own
development, studies I have learned by, quite as mnch as lessons you
have been taught with.
To me, human life in all its forms, individual and aggregate, is a perpetual wonder; the flora of the earth and sea is full of beauty and of
mystery which science seeks to understand; the fauna of land and ocean
is not less wonderful; the world which holds them both, and the great
universe that folds it on every side, are still more wonderful, complex,
and attractive, to the contemplating mind.  But the universe of human
life, with its peculiar worlds of outer sense and inner soul, the particular faunas and floras which therein find a home, are still more complex, wonderful, and attractive; and the laws which control it seem to
me more amazing than the mathematic principles that explain the
celestial mechanics of the outward world.  The Kosmos of matter
seems little compared to this Kosmos of immortal and progressive
man; it is my continual study, discipline, and delight.  Oh, that some
young genius would devise the " novum organumn " of humanity, determine the "principia" thereof, and with deeper than mathemiatic
science, write out the formulas of the human universe, the celestial
mechanics of mankind!
In your busy, bustling town, with its queerly-mingled, heterogeneous
population, and its great diversity of work, I soon learned to see the
unity of human life under all this variety of circumstances and outward
condition.  It is easy for a simple-hearted man, standing on a central
truth, to reduce them  all to one common denomination of humanity,
and ascertain the relative value of individuals in this comparative
morality.  The huckster, with a basket, where apples, pea-nuts, candy,
and other miscellaneous small stores, are huddled together, is a small
merchant; the merchant, with his warehouse, his factory, or bank, his
ships on many a sea, is a great huckster; both buy to sell, and sell to
gain; the odds is quantative, not in kind, but in bulk.  The cunning
lawyer, selling his legal knowledge and forensic skill to promote a
client's gainful wickedness; the tricksy harlot, letting out her person
to a stranger's unholy lust; the deceitful minister, prostituting his
voice and ecclesiastical position to make some popular sin appear decent
and Christian, " accordant with the revealed word of God "-all stand
in the same column of my religious notation.  In the street I see them
all pass by, each walking in a vain show, in different directions, but all
consilient to the same end!




504                        APPENDIX.
So, the ambitious vanities of life all seem of nearly the same value
when laid side by side on this table of exchange. The poetess, proud
of her superiority over other " silly women" in the " vision and the
faculty divine," or in but the small " accomplishment of verse "; the
orator, glorying in his wondrous art, longer than other men to hold the
uplooking multitude with his thread of speech, and thereby pour his
thought or will into the narrow vials of so many minds; and the
scavenger, who boasts that he " can sweep round a lamp-post better
than any man in the gang "-all seem alike to an eye that looks beneath
and above the rippling tide of phenomenal actions, learning its whither
and its whence, and knowing the unseen causes which control this
many-billowed sea of life. The diamonds of many-skirted Empress
Eugenie at Versailles, and the Attleborough jewellery of the bare-footed
charwoman Bridget, at Cove Place, are symbols of the same significance,
and probably of the same value, to their respective occupants. The
man not winged with talent, whom a political party cranes up to some
official eminence he could not reach by the most assiduous crawling;
and the dawdling woman, who can make neither bread to eat nor clothes
to wear, nor yet order any household even of only two, whom an idle
hand, and a pinkish cheek, and a lolling tongue, have fastened to
another, but bearded, fool-these seem wonderfully alike to me; and I
say to both, " May God Almighty have mercy on your souls! "  So,
the effort after nobleness of character is ever the same, clad in whatever
dress; the black washerwoman, on Negro Hill, as, with a frowzy broom,
a mop, and a tub or two, she keeps the wolf away from her unfathered
babies, all fugitives from slavery, and thence looks up to that dear God
whom she so feels within her heart a very present help in her hour of
need, which is her every hour-to me seems as grand as Paul preaching
on Miars Hill to the Athenian senators; nay, not less glorious than
Jesus of Nazareth on his mountain, uttering blessed beatitudes to
those thousands who paused in their pilgrimage towards Jerusalem, to
look and listen to one greater than the temple, and destined to control
men's hearts when that city, compactly built, has not stone left on
stone. The thoughtful eye, like the artistic hand, invests with the
same magnificence the Hebrew preachers and the negro washerwoman,
borrowing the outward purple from the glory within. It is the same
great problem of duty which is to be wrought out by all-huckster,
merchant, lawyer, harlot, minister, poetess, orator, Eugenie, and Bridget,
unworthy officer, and idle, helpless wife, Dinah on Negro Hill, Paul at
the Areopagus, and Jesus on Mount Tabor; and it is not of such
future consequence to us as men fancy, whether the tools of our work
be a basket or a warehouse, a mop or a cross; for the divine justice
asks the same question of each, " What hast thou done with thy gifts
and opportunities?"  Feeling the democracy of mankind, and preaching it in many a form, I have learned to estimate the worth of men by
the quality of their character, and the amount of their service rendered
to mankind.  So of each I ask but two questions, " What are you?
What do you do? "  The voluntary beggar in rags, and the voluntary
beggar in ruffles, alike answer,' Nought! "
In my preaching I have used plain, simple words, sometimes making what I could not find ready, and counted nothing unclean, because




APPENDIX.                          505
merely common. In philosophic terms, and in all which describes the
inner consciousness, our Saxon speech is rather poor, and so I have
been compelled to gather from the Greek or Roman stock forms of
expressions which do not grow on our homely and familiar tree, and
hence, perhaps, have sometimes scared you with "words of learned
length."  But I have always preferred to use, when fit, the every-day
words in which men think and talk, scold, make love, and pray, so
that generous-hearted philosophy, clad in a common dress, might more
easily become familiar to plain-clad men. It is with customary tools
that we work easiest and best, especially when use has made the
handles smooth.
Illustrations I have drawn from  most familiar things which are
before all men's eyes, in the fields, the streets, the shop, the kitchen,
parlor, nursery, or school; and from the literature best known to all
-the Bible, the newspapers, the transient speech of eminent men, the
talk of common people in the streets, from  popular stories, schoolbooks, and nursery rhymes.  Some of you have censured me for this
freedom  and homeliness, alike in illustration and in forms of speech,
desiring " more elegant and sonorous language," "illustrations derived
from elevated and conspicuous objects," "from dignified personalities."
A good man, who was a farmer in fair weather and a shoemaker in foul,
could not bear to have a plough or a lap-stone mentioned in my sermon-to me picturesque and poetic objects, as well as familiar-but
wanted " kings and knights," which I also quickly pleased him with.
But for this I must not only plead the necessity of my nature, delighting in common things, trees, grass, oxen, and stars, moonlight on
the water, the falling rain, the ducks and hens at this moment noisy
under my window, the gambols and prattle of children, and the common work of blacksmiths, wheelwrights, painters, hucksters, and
traders of all sorts; but I have also on my side the example of all the
great masters of speech-save only the French, who disdain all common things, as their aristocratic but elegant literature was bred in a
court, though rudely cradled elsewhere, nay, born of rough loinsof poets like Homer, Dante, Shakspere, Goethe, of Hebrew David,
and of Roman Horace: of philosophers like Socrates and Locke; of
preachers like Luther, Latimer, Barrow, Butler, and South; nay,
elegant Jeremy Taylor, "the Shakspere of divines," owes half his
beauty to these weeds of nature, which are choicest flowers when set
in his artistic garden. But one need not go beyond Jesus of Nazareth
and the first three gospels to learn great lessons in the art of speech;
for in him you not only reverence the genius for religion, which intuitively sees divine truth and human duty, but wonder also at the power
of speech that tells its tale as deliverly as the blackbird sings or the
water runs down-hill. Besides, to me common life is full of poetry
and pictoral loveliness; spontaneously portrayed, its events will fill
my mind as one by one the stars come out upon the evening sky, like
them each one " a beauty and a mystery." It is therefore a necessity of
my nature that the sermon should publicly reflect to you what privately hangs over it with me, and the waters rained out of my sky
when cloudy, should give back its ordinary stars when clear. Yet,
for the same reason, I have also fetched illustrations from paths of




506                          APPENDIX.
literature and science, less familiar, perhaps, to most of you, when they,
better than aught else, would clear a troubled thought; so in my rosary
of familiar beads, I have sometimes strung a pearl or two which science
brought from  oceanic depths, or fixed thereon the costly gems where
ancient or modern art has wrought devices dearer than the precious
stone itself.
Using plain words and familiar illustrations, and preaching also on
the greatest themes, I have not feared to treat philosophic matters with
the rigor of science, and never thought I should scare you with statistic facts, which are the ultimate expression of a great principle doing
its work by a constant mode of operation, nor by psychologic analysis,
or metaphysical demonstration.  Ministers told me I was "preaching
over the heads of the people "; I only feared to preach below their feet,
or else aside from  their ears.  Thus handling great themes before
attentive men, I have also dared to treat them  long, for I read the
time not on the dial, but the audience. I trust you will pardon the
offence which I perhaps shall not repeat.
MY FRIENDS, —I said that in my early life I feared the temptations
that beset the lawyer's path, and, trembling at the moral ruin, which
seemed so imminent, turned to the high ecclesiastic road.  Alas! the
peril is only different, not less.  The lawyer is drawn to one kind of
wickedness, the minister to another: their sophistry and cunning are
about equal, only in the one case it is practised in the name of " law,". —and for an obvious " worldly end," and in the other in the name of
"Gospel," and professedly to secure " salvation."  Learning to distinguish sound from  significance, I have not found the moral tone of
ministers higher than  that of lawyers, their motives purer, their
behavior more honest, or their humanity more prompt and wide, only
their alms are greater in proportion to their purse.  In choosing the
clerical, not the legal profession, I think  I encountered quite as
much peculiar peril as I shunned.  The Gospel-mill of the minister
is managed with as much injustice as the law-mill of the other profession.
It is not for me to say I have succeeded in keeping any portion of
my youthful vow. Yet one thing I am  sure of; I never appealed to
a mean motive nor used an argument I did not think both just and
true, I have employed no conscious sophistry, nor ever disguised my
ignorance.
Together we have tried some things, which did not prosper, and so
came to an end.
We attempted Sunday afternoon meetings, for free discussion of
what pertains to religion.  I hoped much good from that experiment;
yet it was made not only a vanity, but also a vexation of spirit, by a
few outsiders, who talked much, while they had little or nothing to
say; there could be no wisdom where their voices were heard.
Next, we tried lectures on the Bible, Sunday afternoons, which continued during the wintry half of several years.  I gave six general
lectures on the origin and history of the Old and New Testaments,
and then turned to the criticism and interpretation of the several books
of the latter.  With Tischendorfs edition of the original text in my
hand, I translated the three Synoptic Gospels, the four undoubted.




APPENDIX.                          507
Epistles of Paul, the Acts, and the "Johannic" writings-Revelation,
Gospel, Epistles-explaining each book, verse, and word, as well as I
could. I intended to treat all the other canonical and apocryphal books
of the New and Old Testaments in the same way. But either the
matter was too learned, or the manner too dull, for it did not succeed
well, bringing a class of but a few scores of persons.  This experiment
was abandoned when we removed to the Music Hall, and had no place
for an afternoon meeting.
I have long meditated other things, which might, perhaps, be helpful
to select classes of young men and women; but as they are now not
likely to be more than thoughts, I will not name them here.
Last year you organized your fraternity: the movement was spontaneous on your part, not originating in any hint of mine.  Though I
had long wanted such an association, so various in its purposes, and so
liberal in its plan, I did not venture to propose it, preferring it should
come without my prompting in 1858, rather than merely by it ten years
before. A minister as sure of the confidence of his hearers as I am of
yours, is often a little inclined to be invasive, and thrust his personality
on that of his congregation, making his will take the place of their
common sense; hence many trees of clerical planting fail, because they
originate only with the minister, and root but into him. I hope great
good from this fraternity, and have laid out much werk for myself to
do with its help. To mention but one thing, I intended this season to
deliver before it ten easy lectures on the first three centuries of the
Christian era, and show how the Christianity of the Christians, alas!
not the more humane and natural religion of Jesus, developed itself in
ideas-the doctrines of the Biblical and Patristic books; in institutions
-the special churches, each a republic at first, with individual variety
of action, but gradually degenerating into a despotic monarchy, with
only ecclesiastical unity of action; and finally, after compromising with
the Hebrew and classic schemes, how it became the organized religion
of the civilized world, a new force in it both for good and evil, the most
powerful organization on earth. In my sleepless nights last autumn,
I sketched out the plan and arranged the chief details; but it must
now pass away, like other less systematic visions of a sick man in his
sleep.
When a young man, it was part of my original plan to leave the practical work of continual preaching, a little before I should be fifty years
old, and devote the residue of my life to publishing works which I
hoped might be of permanent value, separating the two periods by a
year or two of travel in the American tropics and the Mediterranean
countries of the Old World; so I thought I might be most useful to
mankind, for I did not anticipate or desire long life, and did not
originally rate very high my ability to affect the mass of men by direct
word of mouth, and made no pretensions to that most popular of
intellectual attainments, that eloquence which, like other beauty, is
at once a pleasure and a power, delighting whom it compels.  But,
when I found the scholarly class more unfriendly than the multitude,
I began to think I had chosen the wrong audience to address; that it
was the people, not the scholars, who were to lead in philosophic
thought; and when you gave me a chance to be heard in Boston, and




508                         APPENDIX.
I preached on from  year to year, great crowds of men, who were not
readers but workers in the week, coming and continuing to listen to
the longest of sermons, wherein great subjects were treated without
respect to popular prejudice, ecclesiastical, political, or social, and that,
too, without sparing the severest attention of the hearers; when I
found these multitudes seemed to comprehend the abstractest reasoning, and truths most universal, and appeared to be instructed, set free,
and even elevated to higher hopes both here and hereafter, and to noble
character; when, with all my directness of homely speech, I found
myself welcome in most of the lecture halls between the Mississippi
and the Penobscot, and even beyond them, having thence two or three
hundred invitations a-year; when the national crisis became nearer
and more threatening, and I saw my sentiments and ideas visibly passing
into the opinion and the literature of the people, and thence coming
out in the legislation of New England and the other Northern StatesI thought it not quite time to withdraw, and my early purposes were a
little shaken. I intended to continue some ten years more in severe
practical work, till about sixty, then retire, not to lie down in the
grave like a camel under his load at night, but hoping to enjoy a long,
quiet autumn of twenty years or so, when I might accomplish my
philosophic and literary works, and mow up as provender for future
time what I had first raised as green grass, and then mowed down to
make into sound hay, but have now left, alas! either strewn where it
grew or but loosely raked together, not yet carted into safe barns for
the long winter, or even stacked up and sheltered against immediate
spoiling by a sudden rain in harvest.
Besides, I felt quickened for practical work by the great exigencies of
the nation, the importance of the fight already going on between
despotism  on one side with its fugitive slave bills, New England
kidnappers and sophists, in bar or pulpit, and democracy on the other,
with its self-evident truths, inalienable rights, and vast industrial and
educational developments-a battle not yet understood, but destined
to grow hot and red ere long-and by the confidence I have always
felt in the ultimate triumph of the right and true, the beautiful and
good.  Moreover, I was encouraged in my course by the soundness
and vigor of my bodily frame, not stout, perhaps, and strong, but
capable of much and long-continued work of the most various kinds,
not tiring soon, nor easily made ill, but quick recovering from both
fatigue and sickness; and by the long average life of six generations
of American fathers and mothers.  But I have now learned by experience that it is not wise to cherish wide personal hopes in a narrow life,
or seek to make an apple-tree larger than the orchard.
For some years, I have been warned that I was not only spending
the full income of life, but encroaching a little on the capital stock.
But what wise man even is always wise?  The duties were so urgent,
the call for help so imploring, the labor at once so delightful in its
process and so prophetic of good results, and I felt such confidence in
my bodily power and ancestral longevity, that I did not sufficiently
heed the gentle admonition; till, last year, in March, nature at once
gave way, and I was compelled to yield to a necessity above my will.
I need not tell the fluctuations in my health since then; rather, my




APPENDIX.                         509
friends, let me again thank You for the prompt and generous sympathy
you gave then and ever since.
Immediately after my present illness, I left your pulpit empty for a
day. You wrote me a letter signed by many a dear familiar name,
and but for the haste, I know it had been enriched with the signatures
of all; it was dated at Boston, January 11th. Your affection wrote the
lines, and a kindred wisdom kept them from me till I was able to bear
this unexpected testimonial of your sympathy and love. On Sunday,
the 6th of March, while you were listening to-alas! I know not whom
you looked to then-my eyes filled with tears as I first read your words
of delicate appreciation and esteem. My friends, I wish I were worthy
of such reverence and love; that my service were equal to your gratitude. I have had more than sufficient reward for my labors with you;
not only have I seen a good work and a great prosper in my hands as
you held them up, but in public, and still more in private, you have
given me the sweetest, best of outward consolations-the grateful
sympathy of earnest, thoughtful, and religious men.  If my public
life has been a battle, wherein my head grows bald, my beard turns
grey, and my arm becomes feeble, before their time, it has been also
a triumph, whose crown is not woven of the red-flowered laurels of
war, but of the olive, the lily, the violet, and the white rose of peace.
I have no delight in controversy; when assailed, I have never returned
the assault; and though continually fired upon for many years from
the bar-room  and the pulpit, and many other "coigne of vantage"
betwixt the two, I never in return shot back an arrow, in private or
public, until in the United States Court I was arraigned for the "misdemeanour" of making a speech in Fanueil Hall against that kidnapping
in Boston, perpetrated by the public guardian of widows and orphans;
then I prepared my Defence, which had been abler were I more a lawyer,
though less a minister.
To compose sermons, and preach them to multitudes of men of one
sort but many conditions, thereto setting forth the great truths of
absolute religion, and applying them to the various events of this
wondrous human life, trying to make the constitution of the universe
the common law of men, illustrating my thought with all that I can
gather from the world of matter, its use and beauty both, and from the
world of man, from human labors, sorrows, joys, and everlasting hopes
-this has been my great delight. Your pulpit has been my joy and
my throne. Though press and State, market and meeting-house, have
been hostile to us, You have yet given me the largest Protestant audience
in America, save that which orthodox Mr. Beecher, who breaks with no
theologic tradition of the New England Church, inspires with his deep
emotional nature, so devout and so humane, and charms with his poetic
eloquence, that is akin to both the sweet-briar and the rose, and all the
beauty which springs up wild amid New England hills, and to the loveliness of common life; I have given you my sermons in return, at once
my labor and delight. My life is in them, and all my character, its
good and ill; thereby you know me better than I, perhaps, myself-for
a man's words and his face when excited in sermon and in prayer tell
all he is, the reflection of what he has done. Sermons are never out of
my mind; and when sickness brings on me the consciousness that I




51 0                         APPENDIX.
have nought to do, its most painful part, still, by long habit all things
will take this form; and the gorgeous vegetation of the tropics, their
fiery skies so brilliant all the day, and star-lit too with such exceeding
beauty all the night; the glittering fishes in the market, as manycolored as a gardener's show, these Josephs of the sea; the silent
pelicans, flying forth at morning and back again at night; the strange,
fantastic trees, the dry pods rattling their historic bones all day, while
the new bloom  comes fragrant out beside, a noiseless prophecy; the
ducks rejoicing in the long-expected rain; a negro on an ambling
pad; the slender-legged, half-naked negro children in the street, playing their languid games, or oftener screaming'neath their mother's
blows, amid  black  swine, hens, and uncounted  dogs; the  neverceasing clack of women's tongues, more shrewd than female in their
shrill violence; the unceasing, multifarious kindness of our hostess;
and, overtowering all, the self-sufficient, West Indian Creole pride,
alike contemptuous of toil, and ignorant and impotent of thought —
all these common things turn into poetry as I look on or am  compelled to hear, and then transfigure into sermons, which come also
spontaneously by night and give themselves to me, and even in my
sleep say they are meant for You.  Shall they ever be more than the
walking of
" A sick man in his sleep,
Three paces and then faltering"?
The doctors cannot tell; I also know not, but hope and strive to live
a little longer, that I may work much more.  Oh, that the truths of
absolute religion, which human nature demands, and offers, too, from
the infinitely perfect God who dwells therein, while He transcends the
universe,-oh, that these were an idea enlightening all men's minds, a
feeling in their hearts, and action in their outward life!  Oh, that
America's  two-and-thirty thousand  ministers,  Hlebrew, Christian,
Mormon, knew  these truths, and to mankind preached piety and
morality, and that theology which is the science of God and his twofold universe, and forgot their mythologic and misguiding dreams!
Then what a new world were ours!  Sure I would gladly live to work
for this.
I may recover entirely, and stand before you full of brown health,
equal to the manifold labors of that position, live to the long period
of some of my fathers, and at last die naturally of old age.  This to
me seems most desirable, though certainly not most probable.
Or, I may so far recover, that I shall falter on a score of years or
so, one eye on my work, the other on my body, which refuses to do
it, and so urge my weak and balky horse along a miry, broken road.
If this be so, then, in some still, little rural nook, in sight of town,
but not too nigh, I may finish some of the many things I have begun,
and left for the afternoon or evening of my days; and yet, also, from
time to time, meet you again, and, with words of lofty cheer, look on
the inspiring face of a great congregation.  With this I should be well
content; once it was the ideal of my hopec
In either of these cases, I see how the time of this illness, and the
discipline alike of disappointment and recovery, would furnish me




APPENDIX.                          511
new power.  Several times in my life has it happened that I have
met with what seemed worse than death, and, in my short-sighted
folly, I said, " Oh, that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly
away and be at rest!"  Yet my griefs all turned into blessings; the
joyous seed I planted came up discipline, and I wished to tear it from
the ground; but it flowered fair, and bore a sweeter, sounder fruit
than I expected from what I set in earth.  As I look over my life,
I find no disappointment and no sorrow  I could afford to lose; the
cloudy morning has turned out the fairer day; the wounds of my
enemies have done me good.  So wondrous is this human life, not
ruled by fate, but Providence, which is Wisdom  married unto Love,
each infinite! What has been, may be. If I recover wholly, or but
in part, I see new sources of power besides these waters of affliction
I have stooped at; I shall not think I have gone through  "the
Valley of Baca" in vain, nor begrudge the time that I have lingered
there, seeming idle; rainy days also help to seed the ground.  One
thing I am  sure of: I have learned the wealth and power of the
grateful, generous feelings of men, as I knew them not before, nor
hoped on earth to find so rich.  High as I have thought of human
nature, I had not quite done justice to the present growth of these
beautiful faculties.  Htere and now, as so oft before, I have found
more treasure than I dreamed lay hidden where I looked.
But if neither of these hopes becomes a fact, if the silver cord part
soon above the fountain, and the golden bowl be broke, let not us
complain; a new bowl and a stronger cord, shall serve the well of life
for you. Though quite aware how probable this seems, believe me,
I have not yet had a single hour of sadness; trust me, I shall not.
True, it is not pleasant to leave the plough broken in the furrow just
begun, while the seed-corn smiles in the open sack, impatient to be
sown, and the whole field promises such liberal return. To say farewell to the thousands I have been wont to preach to and pray with,
now joyous, and tearful now-it has its bitterness to one not eightyfour but forty-eight.  To undo the natural ties more intimately knit
of long-continued friendship and of love-this is the bitter part.
But if it be my lot, let not you nor me complain.  Death comes to
none except to bring a blessing; it is no misfortune to lay aside these
well-loved weeds of earth, and be immortal. To You, as a congregation, my loss may be easily supplied; and to me it is an added consolation to know  that, however long and tenderly remembered, I
should not long be missed; some other will come in my place, perhaps, without my defects, possessed of nobler gifts, and certainly not
hindered by the ecclesiastical and social hostility which needs must
oppose a man who has lived and wrought as I. It will not always be
unpopular justly to seek the welfare of all men.  Let us rejoice that
others may easily reap golden corn where we have but scared the
wild beasts away, or hewn down the savage woods, burning them
with dangerous fire, and make the rich, rough ground smooth for
culture.  It was with grimmer fight, with sourer sweat, and blacker
smoke, and redder fire that the fields were cleared where you and I
now win a sweet and easy bread.
What more shall I say to sweeten words of farewell, which must




51 2                       APPENDIX.
have a bitter taste?  If I have taught you any great religious truths,
or roused therewith emotions that are good, apply them to your life,
however humble or however high and wide; convert them  into deeds,
that your superior religion may appear in your superior industry,
your justice, and your charity, coming out in your housekeeping and
all manner of work. So when your
" Course
Is run, some faithful eulogist may say,
He sought not praise, and praise did overlook
His unobtrusive merit; but his life,
Sweet to himself, was exercised in good,
That shall survive his name and memory."
Let no fondness for me, now heightened by my illness and my
absence too, blind your eyes to errors which may be in my doctrine,
which must be in my life; I am content to serve by warning where
I cannot guide by example. Mortal, or entered on immortal life, still
let me be your minister, to serve, never your master, to hinder and
command.  Do not stop where I could go no further, for, after so
long teaching, I feel that I have just begun to learn, begun my work.
" No man can feed us always;" welcome, then, each wiser guide who
points you out a better way.  On earth I shall not cease to be thankful for your patience, which has borne with me so much and long; for
your sympathy, nearest when needed most, and the examples of noble
Christian life, which I have found in some of you,
" To whom is given
The joy that mixes man with heaven:
Who, rowing hard against the stream,
See distant gates of Eden gleam,
And never dream it is a dream;
But here by secret transport led,
Even in the charnels of the dead,
The murmur of the fountain-head:
Who will accomplish high desire,
Bear and forbear, and never tireLike Stephen an unquenched fire,
As, looking upward, full of grace,
He pray'd, and from a happy place
God's glory smote him on the face!"
Here they add to my joy; perhaps their remembrance will add to my
delight in heaven.
May you be faithful to your own souls; train up your sons and
daughters to lofty character, most fit for humble duty; and to far
cathedral heights of excellence, build up the being that you are, with
feelings, thoughts, and actions, that become "a glorious human
creature," by greatly doing the common work of life, heedful of all the
charities, which are twice blest, both by their gifts and their forgiveness
too. And the Infinite Perfection, the Cause and Providence of all that
is, the Absolute Love, transcending the time and space it fills, ouiT




APPENDIX.                          513
FATHER and orT  MOTHER too, will bless you each beyond your prayer
forever and forever.  Bodily absent, though present still with you by
the immortal part, so hopes and prays
Your minister and friend,
THEODORE PARKER.
Fredericksted, West-End, Santa Cruz,
April 19, 1859.
No. III.
LETTER TO DR. BOWDITCH.
Boston, October 12, 1858.
MY DEAR BOWDITCH,,-A long time ago I promised to write you
the result of some of my observations on Consumption; hitherto I
have actually had no time, for what strength I have had for the last
sixteen months has been greedily consumed as fast as it was produced
hour by hour; but yesterday two of your (surgical) brethren, Drs.
Cabot and Hodges, made a nice little operation for me, which will lay
me on my back for a week or two, so in this moment of forced idleness
I will try and keep my promise which has been neglected so long a
time.
I will begin with the (consumptive) history of a single family which
I will call the P's.
I. P. came to this country in 1634, and died 1690, aged eighty-one,
leaving many sons and daughters.  He had no consumption.
II. P. his son, died aged eighty-six, leaving also many sons and
daughters, and no consumption.
III. P. the son of the preceding, born 1664, at the family seat, in
1709 moved to another new settlement and built him a great house,
which was thus situated: on the south-east slope of a large range of
hills, screened from the north and west winds, but open to the south
and south-east; all the hills were heavily timbered, chiefly with oak,
hickory, and pine. To the north-east, at the distance of some miles,
hills of small elevation; these also, thickly covered with woods, shut out
the sharp cold wind from that quarter.*
The ground about the house, above it and below, was then wet,
springy, and spongy, in consequence of the great woods on the hills;
the culture and drainage have since remedied that evil.
But about fifty rods from the house, and perhaps sixty feet below it,
there began a great fresh meadow of spongy peat, from two to fifteen
feet in depth. This meadow, with its ramifications and spongy adjuncts,
reaching up the hill-sides in various places and filling the wooded
ravines, would contain, say, perhaps, two or three hundred acres.
It was always wet all the year through; its neighborhood damp
* These woods have since been cut down, and the east and north-east wind now come
in with all their terrors.
VOL. II,                                              L L




r51 4                       APPENDIX.
and chilly, especially towards evening; fogs could often be seen gathering there towards night of a clear day.
P. died at the age of eighty-two, with no sign of consumption in
him, or his family, or their paternal or maternal ancestors.
IV. P., son of the preceding was born before his father removed
t1 L.; but attended him in that removal, and died at the age of-    -,
leaving many sons and daughters, still with no signs of consumption.
HIe inherited his father's house, and his children were born in or
near it,
V. P., son of the preceding, and born in his grandfather's house,
married into a very long-lived family. His widow lived to ninety-three.
He died of epidemic dysentery (needlessly, such being the medical
ignorance of the times) at the age of forty-six.
VI. P., son of the preceding, and in the same house, married a Miss
S., who was descended from a similar family, which had lived for a hundred or a hundred and fifty years in a similar situation, a mile and a
half off, where the house stood on the north-west side of a hill, and
near a similar range of wet, spongy meadow, though less in depth and
extent.  Hitherto consumption had appeared in neither the P.'s nor
the S.'s.
P. had eleven children, and himself died a hale old man at seventyseven; but his wife had passed away from  him  by consumption at
about the age of sixty. Of his children, eight died of consumption,
two of them between sixteen and nineteen; the rest were married, and
attained various ages from twenty-five to forty-nine.  Only two of his
children are now living; one sixty, with no signs of pulmonary disease;
the other forty-eight, I hope equally free from the family taint.
Two of the grandchildren of P. have also died of consumption. One
son of P. moved from the family homestead, and settled on the piece of
wet, spongy land, exposed to the bleakest west, north, and north-east
wind.
He had six children, all of whom  died of consumption between
twenty and twenty-four. The parents soon followed, dying of a broken
heart.
Early branches of the P. family, who were settled in dry and sound
localities, remain to this day, I think, free from that malady.
Another large family, settled in the neighborhood of the same great
meadow for, perhaps, the same length of time, has been consumptive
for two generations, though many of them  have removed to better
situations, or were even born therein.
The S. family in the generation I spoke of consisted of ten sons and
two daughters.
Both daughters died of consumption, but I think none of the sons,
though the daughters of the sons, and several of their male children
who grew up temperate did.  One of the daughters married P.; the
other one married a strong, hearty man of enormous stature, with no
tendency to any specific disease.  She had four sons, one intemperate,
who is now fifty-five years old and well; three temperate, all settled in
healthy place, and at wholesome business, and all died of consumption
between twenty and twenty-five.
Hence I draw carefully these inferences



APPENDIX.                            l 5
1st. That the healthiest of families, living in such a situation as I
have described, generation after generation, acquire the consumptive
disposition, and so die thereof.
2nd. That it sometimes requires several generations to attain this
result.
3rd. That members of the family born with this consumptive disposition often perish thereby, though they live and are even born in
healthy localities.
4th. Intemperate habits (where the man drinks a pure, though
coarse and fiery, liquor, like New England rum) tend to check the consumptive tendency, though the drunkard who himself escapes its consequences, may transmit the fatal seed to his children.
In addition to what I have already mentioned, here are two striking
cases:(1.) I know a consumptive family living in a situation like that I
have mentioned, for, perhaps, the same length of time, who had four
sons.  Two of them were often drunk, and always intemperate, one of
them as long as I can remember; both consumptive in early life, but
now both hearty men from sixty to seventy. The two others were temperate, one drinking moderately, the other but occasionally. They both
died of consumption, the oldest not over forty-five.
(2.) Another consumptive family in such a situation as has been
already described, had many sons and several daughters. The daughters
were all temperate, married, settled elsewhere, had children, died of
consumption, bequeathing it also to their posterity.  But five of the
sons whom  I knew were drunkards, some of the extremest description; they all had the consumptive build, and in early life showed signs
of the disease, but none of them  died of it; some of them are still
burning in rum.  There was one brother temperate, a farmer, living
in the healthiest situation. But I was told he died some years ago of
consumption.
You can make any use you please of this paper, which I think
accurate in all its details, but I beg you by no means to let any one
know who is the author of it.
It is an ill wind which blows nobody good. For if I had been in
my chair and not on my bed you would not have read this paper quite
so easily, but would have painfully deciphered it from the sad hand of
Yours faithfully,
THEODORE PARKER.
PS.-Please accept the queer old volume of " Plantini Imagines
Humani Corporis, 1566."
I hope you will find valuable information in your (doctorial) predecessor's MS. prescriptions of remedies.
I, L 2




516                        APPENDIX.
No. IV.
TO JOSEPH LYMAN.
Montreux, Sept. 15, 1859.
I mean to live, but may die any time, and so wish to provide a little
for that latter contingency; and, as you are going home, I will give you
a hint. Should I die, and the 28th take any notice of the fact, I should
wish this arrangement of services to be conducted by J. F. Clarke and
Wendell Phillips:
1. A Voluntary by the Choir-perhaps a Chant of Ps. cxxxix.
v. 1-4, 7-12, 17, 18, 23, 24.
II. Scriptures. Micah vi. 8. Matt. xxii. 37-40. John iv. 23,
24. 1 John, Ep. iii. 18-20; iv. 7, 12, 16, 18. Ps. xxiii. 1,
4, 6; xxvii. 10, 13. Matt. xxv. 34-40, and v. 3-12.
III. A brief Funeral Prayer.
IV. Hymn, " While Thee I seek," &c.
V. Remarks by Wendell Phillips.
VI. Hymn, " Nearer, my God, to Thee."
I shall tell my executors that I want no monument, but a little plain
old-fashioned grave-stone of blue slate-it won't cost five dollarswithout any paint on it, with only my name and the date of birth and
death.
In a subsequent direction given to his friend only a few
weeks before his death, and dated Rome, April 4, 1860, he
desired to have the Hymn sung that was written by Professor
Norton,My God, I thank Thee, may no thought
Ere deem Thy chastisements severe;
Adding that the Professor had no love for him, but that the
lines were religious and beautiful.
These directions were observed, though some additions were
made, at the funeral services which took place at the Music Hall,
upon receipt of the news that he had passed away.




APPENDIX.                          51 7
No. V.
The following letters from Hon. S. P. Chase, Secretary of the
Treasury, U.S., should have been placed in their appropriate
connection with the letters received by him  from  Mir. Parker,
that all the allusions might be made intelligible;  but they
came too late for insertion.
FROMI HON. S. P. CHASE  1'0 MR. PARKER.
Washington, Feb. 13, 1854.
MY DEAR SIR,-Thanks for your kind letter.  It does me good.
Praise from the sincere who are also of the noble and true co-workers
for humanity is very grateful.
I shall be very glad to see you afterward. There is hope that we
may yet floor the rascals.
By the way, your discourse on "Webster" reached me, but was
forthwith abstracted by somebody, to whom I hope it did good. Can
you lend me another copy?
Seward and Sumner will quit themselves like men, and I have got a
battery of small guns to fire.
Yours cordially,
S. P. CHASE.
Washington, March 12, 1854.
MY DEAR SIr,-Your Sermon on the Nebraska question reached me
this morning, and I have read it with the greatest interest. It is a
noble discourse, going to the root of more matters than one. Its lofty
sentiments inspire me with fresh determination to maintain the right,
while my hope feeds on the anticipation that from many hearts must
come the responsive echoes of such an utterance.
Shall I not say to you frankly, however, how much I regret that on
the great question of the Divine origin of the Bible and the Divine
nature of Christ your views are so little in harmony with those of
almost all who labor with you in the great cause of human enfranchisement and progress; and that I could not help wishing that in this
sermon your distinctive opinions had not been brought forward?
Some of your expressions grate harshly on my ears.
Far from me, however, is the wish to trammel your conscientious
utterance of your own convictions; and I know you will trust my assurance that in my heart of hearts I honor you for your bold and manful
defence of justice, truth, and right against oppression, fhlsehood, and
wrong.
Yours faithfully,
S. P. CHASE.




5 1 8                        APPENDIX.
Washington, April 5, 1854.
MY DEAR SIR,-Your kind letter gave me a great deal of pleasure.
Mlost earnestly do I wish that I were able to do the work which your
more than kind estimate would judge me qualified for. But my consciousness tells me that you overrate me greatly. I am only fit to do
common work that lies right before me from day to day, and, in truth,
I have no aspiration to do any other. I never could fancy myself a
great man, or ever realize that I occupied a great position; and I suppose both these ideas necessary to great achievement, especially political achievement.
I wish we thought more alike on some things; but it is not for me
to argue with you. Let me rather rejoice that on the great questions of
practical duty concerning the progress and elevation of our race we are
so much at one.
There is reason to hope that the Nebraska iniquity sleeps the sleep
that knows no waking, and that the speeches now being delivered concerning it in the lHouse may be classed as obituary notices.  If it be
dead, or rather when assured that it is dead, I shall rejoice that the
first stone cast at the monster went from my sling. Let not the
people, however, be over-confident.  They should still pour in their
memorials, and especially the resolutions of their public meetings.
The New Hampshire and Connecticut elections are memorials which
some politicians will be likely to hold in lasting remembrance.
With many thanks to you, dear Sir, for your well-timed blow at the
great iniquity, and for your every other service to the noble cause of
freedom and progress,
I remain,
Most cordially your friend,
S. P. CHASE.
Columbus, June 23, 1856.
M[Y DEAi SIr,-I have been reading your " New Lesson for the
Day," sent me, I suppose, by your kindness, and feel moved to write
you and thank you for this, and renew  my thanks for your former
utterances in behalf of human liberty.  The time is sharp and tIorny,
but we will pluck freedom out of it.  I know not how it is, but I have
never felt in the least inclined to despair of the Republic; and now I
feel sure that out of the storm and danger of the present will emerge
the peace and safety of liberty guarded by law. Sumner's grievous
wrong will do more to open men's eyes to the true character of the men
that slavery makes than ten thousand speeches, however eloquent in
utterance or perfect in argument.  And the vilenesses perpetrated in
Kansas will expose the thorough recklessness in selection of means
with which the slave power seeks its ends.  The people wake up
slowly, but they will awake, and then woe to tyrants and their
abettors wheresoever!
Sincerely yours,
S. P. CnASE.




APPENDIX.                          5 ] 9
Columbus, July 17, 1856,
MY DEAR SIR,-You have laid me under additional obligations to
you by sending me " The Great Battle."  It is a fit characterisation
of the struggle in which you have dealt so many and so manful
blows on the right side.
But I have somewhat to complain of in your first speech. You say,
on the supposition that the slaves were white: " Do you believe
Governor Chase would have said,' No slavery outside of Slave States,
but inside of Slave States just as much enslavement of Anglo-Saxon
men as you please?' "
My first objection to this is the apparent assertion that I have said,
" Inside of Slave States, just as much enslavement as you please! "
I never said that; for I never thought it. There is no spot on earth
in which I would sanction slavery. Indeed, I do not suppose you
think there is; but your sentence is so constructed as to convey an
idea which was not in your mind.  My other objection to it is its
intimation that my constitutional views on the slavery question are
determined by considerations of the color or origin of the enslaved.
God forbid! If every slave in the South were bleached to-morrow,
if every drop of African blood could be, by miracle, converted into
purest Anglo-Saxon, the constitutional power of the General Government on slavery in the States would be no whit enlarged.  If the National Government has not the power to abolish the slavery of the
black man in the Slave States, it certainly would have no power to
abolish the slavery of the white man. Indeed, not a few white men, to
all practical intents and purposes, and some probably of pure Circassian blood, are now slaves in the United States.
I adopt your motto very cheerfully and heartily: " No slavery anywhere in America!"  No slavery anywhere on earth! The latter is,
you say, the "topmost" idea.  The first, then, is not topmost.  My
sentence, " No slavery outside of Slave States," also, is not topmost.
But it is, to an ambitious man, anxious to get to the top, quite as important.  It isfitndamental.  It is the first in the series. The General
Government has power to prohibit slavery everywhere outside of Slave
States. A great majority of the people now accept this idea. Comparatively few adopt the suggestion that Congress can legislate abolition
within Slave States.  That proposition, most who have studied our institutions regard as including the doctrine of consolidation and subversion of State Sovereignties, and other consequences dangerous to
the rights of the people and tending to bring in despotism.  I say,
then, take the conceded proposition, and make it practical. Make it a
living active reality!  Then you have taken a great step.  Slavery is
denationalized. The faith and practice of the National Government is
on the side of freedom.  Then, encouraged by national example, by the
sympathies, cheering words and liberal aid of good men and patriots,
let the men of the Slave States organize for the enfranchisement of
their own communities.  By-and-by, and not far off, you will come to
the second idea, " No slavery in America! "  Then, let the moral influence and wise action of the nation, wholly enfranchised, be made
active on the side of universal freedom. And, by-and-by, the third




520                         APPENDIX.
grand thought becomes a divine reality: " No slavery anywhere on
earth," which day may God and men of a divine spirit speed!
I write in great haste, but you get my ideas. I don't pretend to be
a very wise or expert statesman, or anything of that sort; but a
roughly-trained practical man, who wishes to do something for truth,
justice, and human progress, and who would prefer that what little he
does or says should be so spoken of, that nothing in his example of
word or deed shall even seem to contribute to the upholding of wrong.
Very cordially your fiiend,
S. P. CHASE.
Columbus, March 25, 1858.
It was a great gratification to hear from  you.  It would be a
greater to see you.  You hang, surrounded by others of like faith
and freedom, in my dining-room; and you lie, in somewhat worse
company, on my table in the Executive Chamber; for Buchanan and
Gardner are there too, not to be saved even by the salt of your introductory association.  But I would rather see you neither hanging nor
lying, but living, speaking, moving! Why can't you come West?
Other lights than the Star of Empire should take their way westward.
As to getting rid of slavery, it will be accomplished when the mind
of the nation is penetrated by such thoughts as your writings inspire.
There must be a new birth and a new baptism of the American nation
in the faith of man's manhood before it will be thoroughly accomplished.
I work in the political field. It is mine, because God seems to have
better fitted me for it than for any other. It seems to me I can do some
good in it.  But, after all, what is our political work but the growth
into substantial form  of the great ideas which higher thinkers put
forth, and the preparation for larger like growths?  I want to see the
National Government divorced from  slavery, and its influence put on
the side of freedom. This seems to me a possible, practical work. Once
accomplished, the doom  of slavery is sealed.  Its final extinction is
certain, the regeneration of the nation inevitable, and a future —how
grand and inspiring! —assured.  What hope for the nation-for man,
then!
But I have no time for much writing to-day. I am grateful for all
you can do of personal kindness, and reciprocate fully every sentiment
of friendly regard, and remain,
Cordially yours,. P. CHASE.
Newport, R. I, August 16, 1858.'MY DEAR SIxm,-To fail to see you was to lose one of the principal
gratifications I promised myself in New England. After you closed
your sermon, I paused awhile, thinking to wait for you; but the situation, amid a retreating crowd, was an awkward one, and I retired, confidently expecting to call in the evening.  Governor Banks came in
and dispelled this idea, by saying that he had just met you going into
the country.  So there was an end. I went back to Boston not long




APPENDIX.                         521
-say two weeks-after, and you were absent still. Your note, which
I received at Concord, had previously apprised me of you elsewhere;
and so this time I was not disappointed.
My visit to New England was a very pleasant one. Much has grati.
fled me.  Cordial welcomes, earnest sympathies, noble men, noble
women too, glorious scenery, grand industries, have spoken eloquently
to eyes, ears, and heart. My inmost sentiments say, God bless and
guard New England! I shall go back to my own great adopted State
with new aspirations, not for place, I hope, but for achievement. How
much I should like to do! How little I can do!
Take, my dear Sir, these words of farewell; assure yourself of my
sincere gratitude for all your appreciation of what I have poorly
attempted, rather than fitly done, and of my earnest purpose to deserve
by effort, if not by accomplishment, something of the good-will which
has been so liberally manifested towards me.
I shall be ever very glad to hear from you.
Sincerely your friend,
S. P. CHASE.
Columbus, January 13, 1859.
MY DEAR SIR,-I read in a Boston paper to-day your note to your
congregation with deep sorrow. Most earnestly do I hope your illness
is but temporary. The report of the paper that your physicians have
ordered you to the West Indies has prompted this hurried note, that
the assurance of my truest sympathy and earnest prayers for your
restoration speedily to your people, and to all of us who labour for
human advancement, may reach you before you sail, if possible.
Most truly yours,
8. P. CHASE.
No. VI.
These letters of acknowledgment should have been appended
to the letters to Robert White, Vol. I., pp. 383-394; but they
did not arrive in time.  Such a warm confession of indebtedness
to the influence of Mr. Parker is a welcome contribution to his
Life,:FROM  J. COtELIES WHITE TO MRS. PARKER.
New York, January 4, 1862.
DEAn  MxADAM,-We all rejoiced to hear that you intend to publish
a memoir of your lamented husband, whose memory is cherished in
the very heart of hearts of all our family.
My father loved and honored Mr. Parker above his other friends,
and we all felt deeply the kindly influence that gradually loosened
the ties which bound him to a cold and heartless superstition, and




522                         APPENDIX.
gave us back the Father we had lost.  Although my father never
formally dissolved his connection with the Society of Shakers, yet
from  the time his acquaintance with Mr. Parker commenced until
his death he became more and more estranged from Shakerism; and
we have the satisfaction of knowing that, in his last days, the barrier
which an alien faith had raised between him and his family had been
entirely broken down.
We well knew, too, through whose agency this result was brought
about, and you can readily believe that the kind sentiments you express for the family of your husband's friend are cordially reciprocated
by us.
New York, January 20, 1862.
MY DEAR MADAM,-TMferely as a matter of form, I have consulted
my family as to the use you should make of my father's name and
letters in the Memoir, and find there is no objection on their part,
more than on my own, to your making such use of either as you may see
fit in its preparation.  Do not, my dear Miadam, hesitate to make any
use of them  that may serve to illustrate your husband's correspondence. Perchance it may help to light others on their way, as it did
my father-others enveloped in the same cloud of error.
With much respect, I remain, your friend,
JoHN CORLIES WHITE.




INDEX,
Accident while travelling, ii. 255.              Berry-street  conference and the Fugitive
Address from the Twenty.eighth Congrega-            Slave Bill, ii. 113.
tional Society, ii. 259.                       Beverwyk, Dr., i. 363.
Allegorical interpretations, ii. 26.                                        i. 155.
America, anxiety for the future of, ii. 421.    Bible, divine origin  of the, his ideas on,
American Lecturers, ideas on, i. 305.               ii. 226.
Ancestors, i. 1.                                  Birds, remarks on the habits of, i. 288.
Angelo, Michael, his statue of Day and    Birth, i. 15.
Night, i. 205.                                 Birthday, forty-third, i. 413.
Anglo-Saxon race, estimate of, i. 463.                 ~     thoughts on forty-sixth, i. 330.
Anniversaries, feeling concerning, i. 291.        Blacksmith, the Rthinebeck, i. 445.
Ante-Christian modes of religion, ii. 54.         Blunt criticism, i. 174.
Anti-Sabbath  convention  at Boston, i.    Book, buys his first, i. 44.
276.                                           Books, his taste for curious, ii. 4.
Anti-slavery, administration in America in    Bopp's Vergleichende Grammatik, opinion
1861 foreseen, ii. 243.                           of, i. 111.
---          excitement in Boston, ii. 97.        Borghese, the Princess, i. 232.
literature, i. 255.                       Boston, accepts an engagement in a school
~ —---— _ -  movement, commencement of,             at, i. 49.
ii. 68.                                        -     -  anti-slavery excitement in, ii. 97.
meeting in  Faneuil-hail,  ii.               Association, letter to the, i. 253.
130.                                                                 and   " Discourse  on
Anti-Trinitarianism in Germany, i. 242.             Matters pertaiining to Religion," i. 188.
Appreciated by men of genius, ii. 203.                     charities of, i. 396.
Aristophanes, opinion of the writings of,     -            churches of, visit to the, i. 280.
ii. 19.                                         --      Exeter Place, removes to, i. 282.
Aries, cathedral at, i. 225.                           -  hard work in, i. 52.
Arms of the Parker family, i. 1.                  -       his great popularity in, i. 261.
Ash-tree, singular, i. 27.                             -  kidnapping at, commemoration of,
Astruc's " Conjectures on Genesis," trans-          ii. 108.
lates, i. 81.                                      -   lectures in, i. 177.
Augustus, John, death of, ii. 329.                -        music-hall, description of, i. 407.
Austria, visit to, i. 214.                        ---   profligacy in, i. 389.
Authors, his knowledge of various, ii. 3.         -       removes permanently to, i. 272.
Autobiography, fragment of his, i. 17.                     " Vigilance  Committee, "  made
Avignon, i. 203.                                    chairman of the, ii. 95.
Brown, John, assists, ii. 161.
Baggs, Bishop, i. 212.                                         -betrayed to the Government
Baptism, his, i. 29.                                by an anonymous letter, ii. 165.
Barnstable, visit to, i. 89.                                       demeanour of, ii. 166.
Baur, i. 244.                                                      goes to Kansas, ii. 166.
Bears, his fondness for, i. 23'.                    -     -     - takes possession of the arBeecher, Dr. Lyman, i. 57.                          senal at Harper's Ferry, ii. 166.
Beethoven, statue of, at Boston, i.  09.                       - courage of, after arrest, ii.
Berlin, description of, i. 237.                      169.
the schools of, i. 216.                                        sentenced to death, ii. 170.




5 24                                   INDEX.
Brown, John, high opinion of, ii. 178.       Commons, visits the English House of, ii.
~        ~ —--   panegyric on, ii. 407.      290..Bulharan's presidency, result of antici-   Composition, first school, i. 44.
pated, ii. 187.                            -            the style of his, i. 179.
lBuckie's " History of Civilization," opinion      -      his emotion in, i. 365.
on, i. 334.                                Conservatism, i. 121.
Buckle, Henry Thomas, early studies of,   Consultation of physicians, ii. 265.
i. 469.                                    Consumptive symptoms, ii. 276.
Bumble-bee, thoughts of a, on the purposes   Consumption, his theory of, ii. 513.
of creation, ii. 391.                      Continent, return from the, i. 220.
Bunker's hill, Africans at, ii. 234.         Contradictions of the Bible, his sermons
Burns, Anthony, the fugitive slave, ii.         upon the, i. 102.
125.                                       Convention in Massachusetts on CG1. Fro~-        ~- rendition of, ii. 136.       mont's defeat, ii. 191.
indictment of Mr. Par-   --             Anti-Sabbath, at Boston, i.
ker for projected rescue of, ii. 140; is     276.
held to bail, ii. 142; result of trial, ii.     --     the Groton, i. 130.
148.                                       CnRRESPONDENCE:-Letters to
~-         - gratitude of, ii. 152.       Adams, George, i. 453; ii. 74. 346.
Alger, Rev.. R., ii. 219.
Cabot, Miss Lydia, acquaintance  made           Alien, Rev. J. H., i. 379, 380, 381,
with, i. 61.                                    382; ii. 110.
Calhoun, Mr., i. 85.                            Andrews, S. P., i. 97.
Cambridge classes, attendance at, i. 68.        Anonymous, i. 338; ii. 81. 84.
- debates at, i. 68.                  Appleton, Hon. G., ii. 236.
~        --- --   expenses at, i. 67.           Apthorp, Mrs., i. 306; ii. 285. 328.
Canaan, the curse of, opinion on, ii. 82.       Ayres, John, ii. 303. 393. 433. 439.
Canada, tour through, i. 265.                   Bancroft, Hon. G., i. 11. 296; ii. 234.
Cathedral music, i. 289.                        Banks, Governor N., ii. 207.
Catholic Church an enemy to progress, ii.       Barnard, T. G., i. 456.
337.                                         Bartol, Rev. C. A., ii. 267.
~-   ~       ~ ~-  democracy of the, i. 228.    Billings, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph, i. 353.
- -   hymn, translation of, i. 45.              Birney, Hon. James G., i. 149.
Catholics, eminent, introduction to some,       Bridges, Mrs. Julia, ii. 251.
i. 231.                                       Cabot, Dr., ii. 276. 295. 415.
Celibacy, opinion on, i. 387.                       - Miss Lydia, i. 61. 64. 74, 75.
Central Italians, physique of the, i. 308.        84, 85. 90, 91. 94. 96, 97.
Channing, Dr., eulogy on, i. 183.                   - Mrs. L., ii. 272.
--  William H., i. 106.                         Carpenter, Miss, ii. 291. 298.
Cheney, the artist, i. 294.                     Chase, Hon. S. P., ii. 225. 227, 228,
Childhood, anecdotes of early, i. 25. 40.         229, 230, 231, 232.
42.                                          Cheney, Mrs. E. D., ii. 306. 402.
~-____ - his moral culture in, i. 25.           Clark, Isaac and Sarah, ii. 293.
Children, his love for, i. 298.                Clarke, Rev. J. F., ii. 46. 336.
----        on the death of, i. 354.         Cobbe, Miss, i. 458, 459, 460; ii. 254,
Christian tranquillity, i. 339.                   291, 292. 313. 347. 387. 405. 418.
Clark, Jonas, i. 8.                               420. 431.
-~.     - revolutionary  influence of,      Cowing, Cornelius, i. 323.
i. 10.                                       Crooker, Mr. and Mrs., i. 348, 349.
Class-mates, affection for his, i. 66.          Dall, Mrs., i. 182. 252. 254, 255. 272,
Clergy, his opinion of the, i. 317.               273, 274. 340, 341.
Cobbe, Miss, interview with, ii. 438.          Desor, Professor, i. 325, 326, 327, 328.
Combe-Varin, ii. 316.                             330, 331, 332, 333; ii. 141. 156..-..       - album of, ii. 317.                   188. 388. 423.
~-.-__ _ ~ - his tree at, ii. 323.            De Wette, i. 258.
-neighbourhood of, ii. 325.             Drew, Miss Mary, ii. 428.
~-      ~ -~ —  wood-felling at, ii. 320.      Ellis, Charles, ii. 124. 144. 232. 283.
Comedy, the Greek writers of, ii. 18.             358. 410.
"Come Outers," discipline of the, i. 127.  G  W., i. 118.
* ~     ~ —-    ministers of the, i. 127.  -     Mrs. C., ii. 414.
~       ~ —----- their use of the Bible, i.  Fillmore, President, ii. 100.
127.                                         Fish, Rev. W. H., ii. 246, 247. 268.




INDEX.                                   525
Correspondence-continued                    Correspondence-continued
Fletcher, Governor, ii. 203.                Physician in Utica, New York, a, i. 457.
Flint, Dr., ii. 396.                        Pierpont, Rev. John, i. 256.
Ford, Miss Patience, i. 446, 447, 448,      Pratt, Miss Carrie H., i. 343, 344, 345,
449, 450.                                   346.
Francis, Dr., i. 119. 173. 180, 181. 183,   Ripley, George, i. 401; ii. 255. 268.
184, 185. 223. 226, 227. 229. 234.          288. 375. 432.
239. 241. 246. 257. 358, 359, 360,        Robbins, Rev. Chandler, i. 193. 250,
361, 362, 363, 364; ii. 110. 266.           251.
- Mr., i. 92.                        Robertson, Peter, i. 452.
Friend, a, i. 266, 267. 398. 401.           Ronge, Dr. John, of London, i. 376.
in Germany, a, i. 269.              Roxbury, the Second Parish in, i. 263.
a young, i. 377.                       Sanford, Albert, i. 356.
Friends in Germany, ii. 264.                Sargent, Rev. J. T., ii. 268. 353.
the Progressive, ii. 363.              Seaver, Horace, i. 187.
Fuller, Miss Margaret, i. 303.              Senkler, Rev. John, of Canada, i. 365.
Garrison, W. L., ii. 356.                     367. 371, 372.
Goddard, Miss, and others, ii. 331.         Seward, Hon. W. H., ii. 206.
- -      the Misses, ii. 382.               Silsbee, W., i. 92. 100. 104. 109. 111.
Greene, Columbus, i. 66, 67, 68.              116. 152, 153. 166.
Grover, Miss, i. 342, 343; ii. 235, 236.   Smith, Hon. Gerrit, ii. 421.
Hale, Hon. J. P., ii. 180. 187. 223, 224,  Rev. Increase S., i. 188. 258.
225.                                        ii. 269.
Healey, Miss C. W., i. 175. 351, 352.       Sumner, Hon. Charles, i. 267, 268. 316,
Herndon, H., ii. 238, 239, 240, 241,          317; ii. 107. 111, 112. 144. 157.
242, 243.                                   179. 212. 215, 216, 217, 218, 219,
Homer, Sidney, ii. 217.                       220, 221. 290. 334. 369.
Howard, Dr. R. L. (of Ohio), i. 403.        Thayer, Miss C., ii. 284. 310. 365. 425.
Howe, Dr. S. G., ii. 213. 294. 341. 429,    Ware, Dr. John, i. 261.
430.                                      Wasserbohr, Master, i, 406.
Hunt, Miss, i. 291. 304. 309; ii. 190.      Wasson, Rev. David A., i. 334. 395.
328.                                     White, Miss, i. 301.
Jackson, Francis, ii. 170.  E. M., i. 338.
--- G., ii. 424.                              Robert (of New York), i. 383,
Johnson, Miss Catherine, i. 287.              384, 385, 386. 388, 389, 390. 392,
Lamson, Dr., i. 224, 225. 258; ii. 269.       393, 394.
Lamed, W., and others, i. 176.                -- Rev. W., (his old schoolmaster),
Lesley, Peter, i. 335.                        i. 299, 300, 301.
Livermore, Rev. A. A., ii. 361.             Whitney, Caroline and Sarah, ii. 305,
Lyman, Joseph, ii. 297. 364. 371. 389.        306.
431. 434, 435.                            Wilson, Hon. H., ii. 209, 210.
Manley, John L., ii. 257. 274. 302.   CORRESPONDENCE —Letters from
329. 349. 352. 374. 378. 407. 419.        Anonymous, ii. 79. 83. 85, 86. 88.
422.                                      Bowman, E. H., i. 464.
Mann, Hon. Horace, ii. 188. 222.            Brown, H. W. and others, ii. 338.
May, Rev. S. J., i. 143. 296. 318. 319.       -     John, ii. 162, 163, 164.
320, 321, 322, 323. 355; ii. 117.247.      -      John, the Rhinebeck blacksmith,
Members of the Twenty-eighth Congre-          i. 445.
gational Society, Boston, ii. 258. 262.   Buckle, Henry T., i. 467, 468, 469.
299. 350.                                 Burns, Anthony, the fugitive slave, ii.
Mendon, H. A. W., i. 440, 441.                152.
Miller, Charles, i. 175.                    Congregational Society at Boston, ii. 259.
Niles, Rev. M. A. H., i. 470, 471.          Delaplaine, Mr., ii. 270.
Orton, J., ii. 238.                         Dickinson, James T., i. 453. 455, 456.
Osgood, Mrs. L., ii. 383.                   Ellis, Mr. C., ii. 148.
Palfrey, Rev. Doctor, ii. 267.              Emerson, R. W., ii. 45.
Parker, Isaac, i. 143. 221; ii. 308. 368.   Ford, Miss Patience, i. 451.
426.                                      Foss, A. T., ii. 123.
~ —-- Miss Emmeline, i. 336, 337.           Francis, Dr., ii. 265.
Patterson, J. B., of Ohio, i. 475, 476.     Gervinus, Professor, i. 476.
Peabody, Miss Elizabeth P., i. 141. 153,    Hale, Hon. J. P., ii. 223.
154. 176. 339. 340. 357.                  Higginson, J. W. and others, ii. 191.




526                                     YNDEX
Correspondence-continued                       Early childhood, i. 21.
Mendon, H. A. W., i. 438, 439, 440.   -             studies, his, i. 43.
442, 443, 444.                            Earnings, his first, i. 44.
"Progressive Friends," the, ii. 362.         Editorial capabilities, i. 268.
Seaver, Horace, i. 187.                      Education, his pleasure in young people's,
Stuart, Professor, i. 264.                     i. 349.
Sumner, lion. Charles, ii. 107. 112.            ~ —public, i. 379.
140. 178, 179. 195. 212. 214, 215,   Egypt, form of religion in, ii. 57.
21 6. 218. 336.                           Embarrassments, commercial, in America,
Tweedy, D. H., i. 463.                         ii. 248.
Wilson, Hon. H., ii. 210, 211.               Emerson, valedictory sermon of, at CamYeadon, Mr., ii. 185.                          bridge, i. 113.
Correspondence, amount of, ii. 42.             Enters theological school, i. 65.
Courtesy, his invariable, i. 297.              Epitaph, humorous Latin, on a lazy correCrafts, the family of the, ii. 99.                spondent, ii. 279.
"Crime against Kansas," the, ii. 179.          Erasmus, the hand-writing of, i. 245.
Crinoline, on, ii. 393.                            --     the portrait of, i. 219.
Critics, his, ii. 198.                         Eternal Damnation, doctrine of; its effects
on him when a child, i. 30.
Damiron, i. 226.                               Europe, sails for, in the Ashburton, i.
Death, his, ii. 404.                              200...-    of his favorite sister, i. 51.          Evil, the phenomena of, i. 148.
Deities, the heathen, ii. 59.                  Ewald, Professor, i. 218.
Demarcation  between  the  North  and    Exiles, his courtesy to, i. 295.
South, ii. 193.                              Extracts from the " Interpreter," i. 79.
Democracy, American, ii. 117.
"' Dent du Midi," the, ii. 306.                Face, the human, i. 289.
Depression of spirits, temporary, i. 103.      Family, his mother's, i. 7.
Description of himself, ii. 295.               Fanueil Hall, Boston, great anti-slavery
Desor, the Naturalist, his attachment to,         meeting at, ii. 130.
i. 295.                                      Farewell letter to the Twenty-eighth Convisits to, ii. 303.                           gregational Society, ii. 258.
"Development of Religion," the, his pur-   Father, death of his, i. 94.
pose in writing, ii. 48.                             manners of his, i. 13.
__~_- ~    ~ ~~_____ _ -    some re-           marriage of his, i. 21.
marks on, ii. 354.                           Fathers, the, observations on, i. 70.
De Wette, becomes acquainted with, i. 218.   Federal judges, ii. 121.
--    value of the method of, i. 196.          Florence, visit to, ii. 437.
De Wette's  "Introduction  to  the  Old             - -   Chapel of St. Antonin at, i. 205.
Testament." translated, i. 195.                     -- Protestant cemetery at, ii. 441..... ~___- lecture on the Harmony of the   Flowering shrubs of New England, i. 19.
New Testament, i. 245.                       Flowers and shrubs, his knowledge of, i.
Diffidence, his boyish, i. 34.                    284.
Dijon, visit to, ii. 297.                      Fock, Dr. Otto, i. 296.
"Discourse of Matters pertaining to Re-   France, tour in, i. 204.
ligion," his book entitled, i. 177.          Francis, Dr., is made acquainted with, i.' Discourses," feelings on the translation        59.
of his, i. 274.                              Frankfort, the Jiidengasse at, i. 217.
Discrepancies in the Gospels, i. 398.           "Fraternity Course of Lectures," i. 432.
Disease, apparent decrease of his, ii. 295.   Frederikstad, ii. 277.
--        rapidly gains ground, ii. 401.               --  the birds of, ii. 285.
Dissolution of the Union, deprecates the   — the shrubs of, ii. 286.
idea of, ii. 193.                            Freedom and slavery contrasted, ii. 206.
Divine Origin of the Bible, his ideas on,   French, character of the, i. 227.
ii. 226.                                             streets, curious names of some,
Personality, the, i. 105.                    i. 203.
Doctors, differences of, ii. 326.             "' Friends of Progress," society of the, i.
Domestic habits, his, ii. 41.                     105.
Doubts of the Infinite Goodness, i. 145.       Friendship, requisites of, i. 293.
Drunkenness in  northern  countries, ii,   Fruits in Paris, ii. 309.
356.                                         I'Fugitive Slave Bill," enactment of the,
Dublin (New Hampshire), i. 362.                   ii. 91.




INDEX. 
Fugitive  Slave  Bill, resolutions on the,   Jerry, arrest of the fugitive slave, at Syii. 94.                                        racuse, New York, ii. 116.... —    duty of ministers in   Jesus, his ideas on the nature of, i. 355.
regard to, ii. 113.                          ---- Strauss's Life of, i. 122.
his condemnation of   Journal, John Woolman's, i. 187.
the, ii. 119.                               Judge-Law, his opinion of, ii. 122.
Fugitive  slaves, wholesale arrest of the   Judson, Wayland's Life of, ii. 25.
supposed, ii. 93.
Future of America, anxiety for the, ii.   Kansas, troubled state of, in  1856, ii.
421.                                            83.
-        modes of action for its indepenGambling in stock, his opinion concern-           dence, ii. 225.
ing, i. 378.                                 "Kansas Nebraska Bill," the, ii. 154.
Gauge of health, his, i. 54.                                                 his  opinions
Genoese women, i. 205.                           concerning the, ii. 156.
Germany, anti-Trinitarianism in, i. 242.       Kidnapping, Ode on, ii. 109.
Gervinus, Professor, i. 217.                   King, Mr., of Georgia, i. 84.
Gifts from his friends, i. 292.                Kuckler, Dr. Hans Lorenz, some account
Gliddon's Ancient Egypt, i. 187.                  of, ii. 321.
Glover, Father, i. 211.                                                      sudden death
Gnosticism, conversation  with  Professor        of, ii. 327.
Norton on, i. 113.
Goethe, ii. 20.                                Labour, his method of, ii. 8.
Gospels, discrepancies in the, i. 398.         Languages, his proficiency in, i. 72.
Grandfather, his great great-, i. 17.          "Latest Form  of Infidelity," discussion
Grandmother, his paternal, i. 21.                 on the, i. 156.
Grave, description of his, ii. 441.            Latin, commences the study of, i. 44.
Greek poets, remarks on  some of the,   Lecturers, American, i. 304.
i. 16.                                       Lectures, " Fraternity Course" of, i. 432.
Greeley, Mr., his opinion of, ii. 240.         -         number of his, ii. 44.
Greenfield, visit to, i. 96.                   Lenormant, lectures of, i. 226.
Groton Convention, the, i. 130.                Letter to the Governor of Massachusetts,
ii. 207.
Habits, his domestic, ii. 41.                  Library, his, at Boston, ii. 2.
Handwriting, his peculiar, ii. 45.             Life, a retrospect of, i. 312.
Harrington, Jonathan, i. 12.                   Liverpool, arrives at, i. 201.
Harvard College, he enters, i. 46.             London, his note-book whilst on a visit to,
Havana, departure for the, ii. 271.               ii. 290.
Health, begins to gradually fail, ii. 253.             - people he saw in, ii. 307.
Heathen deities, the, ii. 59.                  Long life, anticipation of, ii. 247.
Hebrew slave system, the, ii. 87.              Lungs, he is seized with hmmorrhage on
Hen, the four notes of the, i. 288.               the, ii. 256.
Heretics, i. 138.                              Luther's house, visit to, i. 216.
Hermann, i. 240.                                       - Table-talk, i. 181.
Homer, his study of, ii. 15.                   Lyman, Joseph, Esq., journey with, i.
Homceopathy, the partisans of, ii. 332.           401.
Human kind, his love for, i. 136.              "Maine Liquor Law," the, i. 277.
~       ~     ~    ~ ~ - _-    his opinions on,
Illness in 1857, i. 371.                          i. 279.
his frequent, ii. 245.                     Manchester, old church at, i. 223.
Impromptu Note, i. 314.                        Mann, Hon. Horace, remarks on the death
Indianapolis, something about, i. 327.            of, ii. 341.
Infinity of God, i. 405.                       Mantalini, Mr., a second edition of, i. 128.
Infinite Goodness, impressed with doubts   Marriage, anticipation of, i. 97.
of the, i. 145.                                        fragmentary, ii. 24.
Influence on his fellow-men, anecdote of,              -  his life after, i. 100.
i. 439.                                                ideas on the divine institution
"Interpreter," extracts from the, i. 79.          of, i. 385.
Italian literature, its German features, ii.   -          service, his impressive perform377.                                           ance of the, i. 420.
Italian  war, opinions concerning the, ii.    Martineau, Mr., remarks on his "Dis301.                                           course," &c., i. 249.




52 8                                    INDEX.
Massachusetts Convention on Colonel Fre-   Ohio, the fish of the, i. 827.
mont's defeat, ii. 191.                     -         baby show in, i. 328.
" Massachusetts Quarterly," becomes con-   --  statistics of, ii. 229.
nected with the, i. 266.                     Order of religions, the, i. 174.
Meiner's History of Religions, opinion on,   Ordination, his, i. 98.
i. 119.                                               - sermon preached at-South BosMelodeon, first sermon at the, i. 260.           ton, May 19th, 1841, remarks on the,
last sermon at the, i. 281.                i. 170.
Memory, his wonderful, i. 43.                  Osgood, on the death of Miss, ii. 384.
Methodist meeting at Eastham, notes on,   Over-study, the consequences of, i. 55.
i. 93.                                      Oxford, visit to, i. 224.
-             ministers, good done by, i. 457.
Mexican war, remarks on the conclusion   Palephatus, i. 101.
of the, ii. 90.                             Palfrey, Dr., writings of, i. 115.
Michelet's   L'Amour," opinion of, ii. 312.   Parents, manners of his, i. 13.
Militarytraining, his, i. 46.                  Paris, visit to, i. 203.
Ministers, duty of, under the "Fugitive   -          the theatres of, i. 324.
Slave Bill," ii. 113.                         -   seeks medical advice at, ii. 296.
Miracles, his collection of, ii. 12.           Parish, the duties of his, i. 99.
-~     - his feeling concerning, i. 474.       Parker, Hananiah, letter from, to  his
Moleschott's, Dr., opinion of Mir. Parker's       parents, i. 4.
health, ii. 333.                                             -- the death of, i. 5.
Moliere, ii. 327.                                      Captain John, i. 9.
Montreux, ii. 300.                                       -         -  the death of, i. 21.
-      -  leaves for Rome, ii. 365.  Jonas, death of, i. 10.
Moore, Edwin, ii. 123.                                 Jonathan, i. 3.
Moral characteristics, i. 35.                       - Josiah, i. 6.
Morality, subjective and objective, i. 121.    -       Nathaniel, i. 5.
Moses, extracts from  Analysis of Law of,   -          Thomas, i. 2.
i. 79.                                                 --     gravestone of, at South
Mother, description of his, i 14.                Reading, i. 3.
Music-hall, Boston, service at the, i. 408.    "Parmenides," the, Professor Newman's
Mythology, modern Roman, i. 374.                 opinion of, i. 257.
Party-feeling, his freedom from, ii. 70.
Nantucket, visit to, ii. 25.                   Pasquinades, ii. 385.
Naples, description of, i. 221.                Pastimes, his, in childhood, i. 41.
Napoleon, Louis, opinion of, ii. 304.          Paul, St., the prison of, i. 230.
Nassau, stops at, ii. 273.                     Pauperism, ethnology of, i. 397.
Nations, true grandeur of, i. 263.             Peabody, Miss Elizabeth, i. 141.
Nature, immoralities of, i. 146.               Philanthropy, true, ii. 329.. —-   his sympathy with, in composition,   Physical laws, secrets of, i. 145.
i. 285.                                     Physicians, consultation of, on state of his
Nervousness, his, in preaching, i. 91.           health, ii. 265.
New England, the shrubs of, i. 19.             Pio Nono, ii. 378.,- -  the women of, ii. 333.                Pitti Palace, beauties of the, i. 206.
New  Englanders, superiority of the, ii.   Placards on kidnapping at Boston, ii. 133.
231.                                        Plato, Phsedrus of, i. 111.
Newhaven, visit to, i. 275.                    Plato's conception of God, ii. 61.
Newman, Professor, i. 202.                     Poetical fancies, i. 83.
Newspapers, English and American, con-   Poetry, attempts at, i. 303.
trasted, ii. 422.                           Poets, the Greek, remarks on some of, ii. 6.
~-      -  Swiss, the excellence of, ii.   Political controversy, i. 9.
340.                                                 powers, his opinion of his, i. 56.
New Testament, contemplates writing an   Politics, his determination to abandon, ii.
introduction to, i. 157.                       115.
New York, visit to the City Prison, i. 230.   Pope, description of the, i. 233.
North and South, demarcation between   Popular sympathy with him, i. 176.
the, ii. 193.                               Postage on the Continent, ii. 311.
"Northern Movement," complicity with    Prayer on the last day of 1840, i. 158.
the, ii. 73.                                Preachers, pre-revolutionary, i. 8.
Norton, Professor, conversation with, on    Presidential election-defeat of Colonel
Gnosticism, i. 112.                            Fremont, ii. 191.




INDEX.                                         52 9
Proclamation by the'Vigilance Committee     School-house, description of a, i. 28.
of Boston," ii. 104.                           Schooling, progress in, i. 45.
"Progressive Friends" extract from  ser.    School-time, remembrance of his, i. 299
mon to, i.  2.                                   " Scriptural Interpreter," the, i. 75.
in  Pennsylvania,    Sea, vitality of the, i. 427.
letter to the, ii. 3&3.                        Self-discipline, rules for, i. 52.
Punishment, his belief concerning, i. 149.    Sensitiveness, his, when a boy, i. 39.
Pupils, his popularity with his, i. 58.           Sermons, poorness of his first, i. 65.
"Puseyism," his views on, i. 223.                      -     his first, after graduating, i. 86.
--     -on contradictions in the Bible,
Quincy, President, statue of, ii. 403.              i. 102.
-    -    incident in one of his, i. 416.
Ragpickers, literary, i. 433.                           -- influence of, on  his hearers, i.
"Rlahab," derivation of the word, i. 370.           437.
Rakhal Das aI;ldar, i. 453.  -                               on Daniel Webster, ii. 216.
Reading, his love of, i. 43.                   -|            remarks on some of his, i. 430.
"Reineke Fuchs," a new  version of, i.     Sadrach the slave, case of, ii. 103.
243.                                           " Ohakers," the, i. 383.
Relatives, his, i. 23.                          i ";hakerism," opinion of, i. 384.
Religion, ante-christian modes of, ii. 54.        " Sheinites," sensuality of the, i. 395.
-  -  natural to man, i. 405.; Sick men and sound, ii. 395.
Resignation  of ministry  declined by the    Siimon, Jules, i. 226.
28th Congregational Society, ii. 352.           Silms, Thomas, the fugitive slave, ii. 106.
Retrospect of life, i. 312.                       Sin, some words on, i. 151.
Return from abroad, i. 220.                       Sister, death of his favorite, i. 51.
Reviewing, his method of, ii. 9.                  Slave-breeding, stimulation of, by Texas,
"Revivals," his comments on, ii. 252.               ii. 76.
"Revivalsermons," great sale of his, ii.. 224     Slavery, America's " bete noir," i. 463.
Rhinebeck blacksmith, the, i. 445.  a true harlot, ii. 182.
Rhyme, his tendency to, ii. 28.                            his chief speeches against, ii. 71.
"Rimanni Hist. Atheismi," criticism  on,   -               his detestation of, ii. 68.
i. 120.                                                  last discourses on, ii. 195.
Ripley, George, his friendship with, ii. 238.  I           relation of, to foreign  policy, ii
Robeson, Andrew, i. 260.                             194.
Romans, beauty of the, ii. 403.                   Slave party, the two divisions of the, ii.
-     diet of the, ii. 429.                        216.
Rome, All Saints' Day in, ii. 386.                       system, the Hebrew, ii. 87.
- -  Arch of Titus, i. 209.                       Socialism, ii. 13.
-  Capitol at, i. 209.                         Socialistic writers, i. 162.
- Carnival, i. 213.                           Society, his delight in, i. 51.
- Catacombs, i. 210.                           Sophocles, his admiration for, i. 158.
- -  cultivation of land at, ii. 427.             Southampton, arrival at, ii. 289.
explorations in, ii. 390.                   South Boston Sermon," commlents of the
--   Hotel de l'Angleterre at, ii. 373.             newspapers on the, i. 173.
- private lodgings in, i. 373.                                          - his own opinion
-- - St. Clement's, at, 1. 208.                      on the, i. 175.
- temperature of, ii. 380.                 Speculative freedom, his, i. 139.
- trees and shrubs of, ii. 411.                Speech  before the Groton Convention, i.
Rousseau's "Confessions," i. 187.                    130.
"Ruppism," i. 316.                                Spirit Rapping, his ideas on, i. 137.
Spiritualism, i. 331.
Saint Croix, birds of, ii. 282.                   Statues of  Day  and  Night, by  Michael
--   poorness of provisions at, ii.         Angelo, i. 205.
281.                                           Stoics, the, ii. 63.
~  ~-    productions of, ii. 308.            Strauss's Life of Jesus, i. 122.
Salem, visit to, i. 95.                           Strength, his gradual loss of, prior to his
Sarcasm, his involuntary, i. 143.                    death, ii. 437.
-  is propensity to, i. 116.                Stuart, Professor, i. 264.
Sargent, Rev. J. T., i. 253.                      Studies, his Greek, ii. 14.
Schelling, i. 215.                                Study, his views on, i. 84.
Schiller, his dislike of, ii. 23.                 Subscription raised for him, as a mark of
Scholars, takes leave of his, i. 63.                 esteem, ii. 329.
VOL. II.                                                                 1M 51




o 0                                     INDEX.
Sumner, Charles, i. 263.                       Vesuvius, ascent of, i. 222.
election to the Senate,   Vevay, price of provisions at, ii. 365.
ii. 109.                                     Vigilance Committee, the, at Boston, ii.
~   ~~___-    ~his dissatisfaction with,     92.
ii. 213.                                     -proclamation by, ii. 104.
Sunday afternoons, his plans for, i. 430.      Virginian law, ii. 394.
---    school teacher, becomes, i. 59.         Vogt, the works of, i. 328.
Supernatural in literature, the, ii. 10.
Swedenborg, i. 356.                            Ware, Henry, i. 262.
Swiss, stupidity of the, ii. 339.              Wasserbohr, Master, advice to, i. 406.
Switzerland, visit to, i. 219.                 Watertown, opens a school at, i. 58.
Symptoms of his approaching death, ii.   -                   Meeting House at, i. 86.
392.                                                    - volunteers to preach  for an
Independent Society at, ii. 244.
Temperament, buoyancy of, ii. 41.              Weakness gradually increases, ii. 390.
Theology, traditionary, in America, i. 259.   Wedding, a golden, ii. 28.
"Thursday  lecture,"  extract from  a, i.   Werder, i. 215.
249.                                        Wesselhoft, Dr., death of, i. 333.
" Thursday lectures," correspondence on    West Indies, projects a voyage to the, ii.
the, i. 250.                                   265.
Translation, the cost of a. i. 366.             --   Roxbury, ministry at, i. 98.
Translations of Astruc's "' Conjectures on                     resigns his connection with,
Genesis," his, i. 81.                          i. 263.
Catholic hymn, his, i. 45.     -he re-visits, i. 283.
De Wette's "Introduction  Wheeler, Charles, the grave of, i. 241.
to the Old Testament," his, i. 195.          White, William, i. 44.
Traveller, the qualifications of a good, ii.   White Mountains, the, i. 325.
289.                                         Will, re-writes his, ii. 106.
Trees of New England, the, i. 19.              Wilson, Hon. H., elected to the Senate, ii.
209.
Union, dissolution of the, undesirable, ii.   Women and children, his impressions of
193.                                           the English, ii. 308.
Unitarian ministry, meditates leaving the,           -  his pleasure in the society of, i.
i. 184.                                    l   290.
preachers, some celebrated, i.   --    of New England, ii. 333.
271.                                                 accomplishments of, ii. 429.
Unitarianism, his acquiescence in, i. 78.      Woolman's, John, journal, i. 187..~_____   a new school of, i. 160.       Work, his last literary, ii. 321.
_-_ —-- -Swiss, i. 246.
Yeadon, Mr., ii. 185.
Variety of his Ieading, ii. 18.                Young girl, advice to, i. 343.
Venice, visit to, i. 213.                                      t women, the duties and dan gers of,
Verse translations, some of his, ii. 28.          i. 422.