HELIOTYPE REPRODUCTION..DAGUERRE~OTY'PE PORTRAIT OF THEODORE PAiRlKER,~
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TAKzEN  A-T THE AGE~C   OF TH-IRTYT-NINE.




THEODORE PARKER:
4 BIOGRAP.HY.
BY
OCTAVIUS BROOKS FROTHINGHAM.
BOSTON:
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,
(LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.)
I874.




Entered according to act of Congress, in the year i874, by
JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
BOSTON:
RAND, AVERY, & Co., STEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS.




PREFACE.
THE friends of Theodore Parker's ideas, as well as
the lovers of his person, thinking that his day was not
done, but was rather about to break, have long wished
that he might be introduced to a new public by a new
biography. The " Life " by John Weiss, written as soon
as possible after Mr. Parker's decease, and published in
I863, for obvious reasons failed to command the attention it deserved.  Being issued in two large volumes,
it proved to be too heavy for general circulation, besides
being too costly for general purchase. Another draw-'back to popular favor was found in the space given to
letters and discussions, which, however interesting in
themselves, and however important as contributions to
thought, had the effect of blurring the outline of his
individuality.  But a disadvantage more serious, perhaps, than either of these, was the publication of the
work at a time when the destinies of the nation hung
on a thread, and the crowding events of the war pushed
into obscurity nearly all memories, and allowed the public eye to rest only on such men as the combat made
famous.
The clearing-away of the war-cloud displays once
more the figure of Theodore Parker as one of the
iii




iv                  PREFA CE.
naLlon's true prophets, and at the same time reveals a
country prepared in some degree to receive the best
results of his thought and experience. In the hope
that these results may be appreciated better than
hitherto, this memoir is written. The author's aim
has been simply to recover and present the person of
Mr. Parker with all simplicity, omitting some details
which Mr. Weiss's valuable biography will supply to the
more searching student, and making prominent the
mental and moral traits which concern the miscellaneous public.
The present biographer, in addition to the materials
that were placed in the hands of Mr. Weiss, has been
intrusted with many private letters and personal remi*niscences, which enable him to fill out his picture with
more delicate touches. From old sources and new it
has been his delightful task to extract the qualities of
the man in such a way, that the records, literary and
historical, may reveal, and not cumber or cloak, his
form. Should the portrait be unfaithful or inadequate,
the artist alone will be at fault.
Or rather let me say, should it be unfaithful; for
inadequate it must be in the judgment of many, and
chiefly of those who knew Mr. Parker most intimately.
There was more in him than any one mind, even the
most candid and sympathetic, could see; and there was
much in him that few, if any, were ever permitted to see;
the private journal, to which he committed his most
secret thoughts, containing many things of deep significance as illustrations of his interior life, which could
not with the least propriety be published, even when
their meaning is clear, and which often need interpretation.  None of them exhibit qualities inconsistent




PREFA CE.                   v
with a very noble character; but some of them point
to secret recesses of feeling which cannot be uncovered.
A few months before his death, to an intimate friend
who put a question in regard to his literary executor
he said, "If any one writes my life, I think it will be
George Ripley: he, better than any one, understands
my philosophy, and what I meant to do."-" But the
jpesonal life," said the friend: " who will write that?
When one has achieved such a character as yours, we
long to know what elements have been wrought into
it." -" That life," he answered with deep emotion,
"cannot be written. I have been asked to employ
these few remaining months in preparing an autobiography. But it must be written in tears of blood,
if at all." It never was written; and only so much of
the interior life as a plain record of thoughts and actions exhibits can be disclosed.  That will be quite
enough for those who did not know him well: it will
be all that is desired by those who did.
O. B. F.
NEW YORK, October, 1873.








C O N TENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE.
BIRTHPLACE AND PARENTAGE....  X..  I
CHAPTER II.
HOME AND BOYHOOD.                                   10 ~.  IO
CHAPTER III.
TEACHING AND STUDY......... 28
CHAPTER IV.
DIVINITY HALL.......                   41
CHAPTER V.
THE CANDIDATE.......... 67
CHAPTER VI.
WEST ROXBURY.......... 88
CHAPTER VII.
THE FERMENT OF THOUGHT....... 125
CHAPTER VIII.
THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY.1..... I47
CHAPTER IX.
EUROPE...                                        183
CHAPTER X.
THE CONFLICT RENEWED.                    ~ ~.      210
CHAPTER XI.
THE PASTOR.......241
CHAPTER XII.
THE PASTOR. SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE..~ ~. 252
vii




viii                 CONTENR XTS.
CHAPTER XIII.
PAGE.
THE PREACHER..                 332
CHAPTER XIV.
THE REFORMER..                 352
CHAPTER XV.
THE FIGHT WITH SLAVE RY.. 376
CHAPTER XV1.
THE KANSAS WAR.                                   435
CHAPTER XVII.
FAILING HEALTH.                                   477
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE DEPARTURE. —THE SEARCH....... 508
CHAPTER XIX.
THE ETERNAL CITY.. 521
CHAPTER XX.
TRIBUTES..... 537




THEODORE PARKER.
CHAPTER I.
BIRTHPLACE AND PARENTAGE.
A STRANGER, visiting the place where Theodore Parker
passed his early years, did not find it attractive. Exploring the neighborhood on a fair spring-day, he asked a
man who was mending the road where Theodore Parker
was born. The man leaned on his spade, stared at the.
traveller, looked puzzled, and replied, "Dunno." -" Are
you a new-comer here? " —" No, sir: lived here, man and
boy, nigh on to forty year." —" Are there no Parkers
about here? "-" Yes: there's tew lots on'em."-" I
wish to find the old Parker place," said the stranger.
"Older'n creation, both on'em," was the reply. "The
Cajptain Parker place is the one I want." -" They run to
cappens," was the exasperating rejoinder: "but I guess
you had better take that'ar road to the left, and go about
a mile; then turn down a lane, and at the end there's a
monnerment that must be set up for Cappen Parker."
The traveller, obeying the direction, found the monument
that preserves the great preacher's memory.
This incident tells many things: the limited influence
of a great man's name; the power of association to glorify
I                            I




2              THEODORE PARKER.
ordinary spots; the absence of neighborly feeling in rural
populations; and the crudeness of society within ten miles
of the great city. What the tourist found on arriving at
the place of his quest was much the same as what the
boy whose name led him thither used to see. There
was the old bell-tower, which had rung out the alarm
on the eve of the battle of Lexington, and had done
humbler service since as a workshop; the broad stone
ledge behind the house remained; meadow, orchard,
wood, were unchanged; the ash-tree planted by Theodore - which showed its grief at his death by bearing but
one crop of leaves instead of the two it displayed during
his life — still held its place; the double-headed pine,
that seemed a wonder, was as much as ever a feature in
the landscape: but the old house -was gone.
That was a hundred years old when Theodore saw the
light; having been built in I7 o by his great-grandfather,
John Parker, who, with children and grandchildren, came;to Lexington (then called Cambridge Farms) from Reading. John Parker was a grandson of Thomas, who came
to America in I635 in a vessel fitted out by Sir Richard
Saltonstall, with whose family he was connected by marriage.  He settled in Lynn; received, as one of the
earliest settlers of the town, forty acres of landcl; and
was made a freeman the year after landing. In I640 he
removed to Reading, was one of seven who founded the
first church there, and there died in I683.  He was a
man of character. His descendants were also serviceable
in their places; doing their part as land-surveyors, councilmen, adjudicators of claims, teachers, militiamren, drillmasters, lieutenants, and captains. They had the fightingtemper in them, and made themselves felt in hard battle.
Hananiah, the only grandson who did not come with John
to Lexington, - a lad of eighteen, - was serving in a Massachusetts regiment engaged in Virginia.
If we trace the family across the water to England, we




BIR THEPLA CE AND PARENTAGE.            3
find its roots deep down in the soil. Thomas came, perhaps, from a Lancashire stock, which was early transplanted to Yorkshire, where some of them still live in a
stately mansion-house of the time of Queen Elizabeth.
The first who bore the name in England was a Norman,
Johannes Le Parkerre. He followed William the Conqueror, and was keeper of the royal parks; whence his
name, variously spelled Parkerre, Parkre, Parchour, Parker. The name occurs frequently in history in different
connections. Seldom good Churchmen, they were scattered much at the Reformation. Some were executed
under Queen Mary; some were Puritans under Cromwell.
But others were true to the royalist party; lost their lands
in consequence, and regained them when the king " came to
his own again." The Parkers in England now are commonly Churchmen and Tories. The religious and political traditions of the family are mixed. The non-conformist blood,
Puritan and Quaker, found its way into the New World.
Theodore's grandfather, John Parker, born I729, was a
marked man. He was a sergeant in the French and' Indian war, and present at the capture of Quebec. A
parishioner of the Rev. Jonas Clark, who had done his
share in rousing the people to indignation against the
British claims, he was ready for war when the time came;
answered at once the summons to resist the British at
Lexington; was present himself, though suffering from illness, which exposure developed into a fatal disease; drew
up his troop of seventy men; bade every man load his
piece with powder and ball; ordered them  not to fire
unless fired upon; but added, "If they mean to have a
war, let it begin here."  At the battle of Lexington,
Captain Parker took from a grenadier the weapon which,
along with his own light fowling-piece, guarded the door
of Theodore's study while he lived, and now hangs in the
Massachusetts Senate Chamber.
The people of Lexington were, like the country people




4               THEODORE PARKER.
of New England generally fifty years ago, industrious
after a homely and unenterprising fashion, but not specially thrifty. Their land was poor, their toil hard, their
wealth small. Literary and social advantages were scanty.
There were no lectures, clubs, or associations for culture.
A small library contained three or four hundred volumes,
chiefly novels, biographies, books of travel, with a few
popular histories. About a dozen volumes, light reading
for the most part, were added yearly. The cost of a share
was ten dollars. The library stood near by the meetinghouse, nearly three miles off from the Parker residence:
hence the custom of exchanging books on Sunday.
While some went to the library for books, others went to
Dudley's tavern, which was also hard by, to talk politics,
tell stories, and drink. The drinking habits of the period
were pure and simple. Instead of being apologized for,
they were commended on social and on sanitary grounds.
Drink was regarded as the poor man's food, the laboring
man's strength.  It was introduced on sacred occasions as
a thing of course. One of the earliest recorded instances
of its disuse at funerals seems to have been at the house of
Mr. Parker, on the occasion of his grandmother's death.
There was but one meeting-house in the village, the
minister of which was a Unitarian. The people, to a very
large extent, shared his opinions. In fact, the germs of
the later more cultivated rationalism were sprouting in
these New-England communities. The doctrines of the
Puritan theology had lost their hold on an unimaginative people; and with them the fervors of the evangelical
spirit had declined. The sinfulness of human nature, the
need of redemption, the deity of Christ, the atoning efficacy of his blood, the necessity of inward renewal by the
grace of God, the worthlessness of morality, the everlastingness of future punishment, the consciousness of acceptance, the immanence of Christ in the Church, the
eternity of bliss for believers, were all more or less




BIR TEPLA CE AND PARENTAGE.              5
thoughtfully rejected by men whose sober lives had settled
down into prose, and whose experience suggested little
of mystery. The preaching lacked inspiration: even the
prayers were didactic. The best of the clergy were men
of letters, rarely prophets: the worst were neither. Churches were closed to Whitefield before Theodore Parker was
born. The seats of culture dreaded the influence of the
famous preacher of revivals; the clergy encouraged the
laity to frown down extravagant views; the sacraments had
lost their charm; the mystery had departed from the communion; baptism was rarely administered; heads of families were commonly church-members, the younger people
seldom; family prayers were infrequent; grace before meat
was unusual; the clergyman was respected as a man of education; the sabbath was observed punctually; the Bible
was read; but the soul of the Protestant faith had fled.
The parents of Theodore Parker shared the spiritual
life of their time, -the father holding the rational views
with something more than the usual positiveness of
conviction, the mother with something more than the
usual depth of feeling; while both added to them a good
deal more than the average weight of character. John
Parker, born Feb. I4, I76i, was a good specimen of the
New-England countryman, - a "quiet, thoughtful, silent,
reading man, of strong sense, of great moral worth, reliable, honorable; worked every day and all day; kept good
discipline in his family; governed easily; taught his children to speak the truth; always had a book in his hand
in the evening." This is a grandson's testimony. His
son described him from memory as a stout, able-bodied
man, plain and solid. He could endure cold and heat,
abstinence from food and rest. A skilful farmer, he was
prevented by want of means from making costly improvements on his land; but he had, perhaps, the best peachorchard  in Middlesex, and  adopted  nearly all the
improvements in farming that had proved valuable. The
_*




6              THEODORE PARKCER.
farm-work, however, he left mainly to his boys, while he
pursued his own occupation of mill-wright and pumpmaker in the shop: for, like his father and grandfather
before him, he was an ingenious mechanic, and worker in
wood; expert in making and repairing, as men need to be
in a new country, where one must do the work of many.
He put brains into his work; originated new methods;
"made his head save his hands."
Of course, he had little education, and no culture; but
of the raw material of mind he possessed a goodc deal:
he was fond of intellectual things, read such books as he
could reach, pondered hard questions, and turned over
in his mind the higher problems in ethics and metaphysics. He was a fair arithmetician; understood something of algebra and geometry. He was interested in
works on political economy and the philosophy of legislation. Books of history, biography, and travel, engaged
him; but his thoughts occupied themselves most eagerly
with speculative philosophy, metaphysical and moral, in
the current literature of which he was well versed. It is
interesting, in view of Theodore's passion for natural
objects, to know that his taste also belonged to his father.
He watched the heavens, and made himself acquainted
with the movements of the stars. He was an observer of
plants too, and flowers, and had laid up some store of
information in natural history. It is needless to add, that
this man was no hearty lover of poetry: he had too much
understanding, and too little imagination. He read books
of poetry, as he read any books he could lay hands on;
but the range of his reading throws doubt on his taste.
One who can read, without strongly-declared preference,
authors so various as Milton, Dryden, Shakspeare, Pope,
Trumbull, and Abraham Cowley, cannot be credited with
fondness for the poetic art.
Mr. Parker had a strong mind. He thought for himself, and passed judgment on authorities. Neither Paley




BIRTHPLACE ANVD PARENTA GE.              7
nor Edwards was to his liking, - Paley because "he left
us no conscience:" Edwards probably for many reasons;
among others, perhaps, because he left us no will; for will
was a strong feature in the Parkers. He was an avowed
Unitarian before Unitarianism as a system was preached,
and a stout Federalist when there were but four besides
himself in the whole town. Though averse to controversy, naturally silent and reserved, he had a gift of
speech; could argue forcibly and talk well on occasion,
even with something like eloquence. His diligent study of
the Bible made him formidable in theological debate. He
had faith in mind; took a practical interest in the town
school; was satisfied with none but good teachers; and
gave thought to the intellectual and moral training of his
children.
He was an upright man,- just, fearless, humane;
often called on to arbitrate in disputes, administer estates,
and assume guardianship of orphans. He was a friend
of peace, well-mannered and companionable, with a
streak of humor that would occasionally break into mirth,
but never passed the bounds of propriety. No profanity
escaped his lips. His towns-people had a saying, "John
Parker has all the manners of the neighborhood."
The mother, the daughter of a well-to-do farmer, was as
remarkable in her way as the father was in his.  Her
maiden name was Hannah Stearns. Her son describes
her as "a handsome woman, of slight form, flaxen hair,
blue eyes, and a singularly fresh and delicate complexion;
more nervous than muscular." She had a family tendency
to consumption, which increased the mildness and amiability of her disposition. Her education was inferior to her
husband's, her mind less positive and independent. She
lived more in her feeling and imagination, which kept their
freshness amid the homely routine of domestic life, and
through the cares belonging to a large family. Her temperament was poetical, though rather fanciful than imagina



8               THEODORiE PARiER.
tive. Her favorite reading was the Bible and Hymn-Book;
but ballad poetry gave her great delight, and her mind
was stored with passages of beauty from English literature.
She was fond of romantic stories of adventure among the
Indians, some of which were printed in books, while many
others floated about in the form of legend. A fine memory
enabled her to repeat these wild tales, and to carry about
with her such literary stores as she had. The duties of a
large and exacting household — many children and no
servants - afforded little leisure for mental cultivation; but
what she had was improved. Her husband's habit of reading aloud in the evening kept her supplied with food for
thought.
She was of a loving disposition towards those about her,
tenderly watchful of her children, thoughtful of the aged,
kind, and, as far as her means allowed, generous to the
poor. Her rigid economy helped her in this. She was
religious with the natural religion of the good heart. Her
beliefs came to her through feeling rather than through
reflection: they were not so much opinions as sentiments.
She was ho theologian: the doctrines of the Calvinistic
creed, which her- strong-minded husband rejected as irrational, she rejected as monstrous, having no reasons to give
for her aversion that were so cogent as the aversion itself.
The heart was its own witness; conscience was the oracle
of God in the breast; gratitude and trust were interpreters
to her of the ways of Providence. With the simple feeling
of a gentle spirit that comprehends more than it apprehends, and clings where definition is impossible, she knew
the Deity as an omnipresent Father, the joyous and loving Soul of all things, animating nature and enlightening
mind, filling the world with tides of energy that were as
vast as the ocean, and bright as the rivulets.  She, too,
seems to have been silent; a woman of few words, either of
conversation or devotion: her prayers were secret. In the
moral culture of her children she took great interest, which




BIRTHPLA OCE AND PARENTAGE.               g
she expressed, not in doctrinal teaching or incessant precept,
but in wise counsel and sympathy as occasion came up.
This information respecting his parents comes from
Theodore himself, - an affectionate, grateful, and revering
son, who loved to speak of his parents; scarcely ever failed
to record in his busy journal the anniversaries of their
birth or death, and never made such record without dropping the tenderest words on their memories.  If it be
objected that filial love glorified the parental qualities, it
must be granted that filial love is the best interpreter of
them. Affection transfigures, it is true; but then affection
understands. We cannot trust the insight of love when it is
passionate; but we can rely on its judgment when it is calm,
like that of a noble man on those who gave him birth.
From this slight sketch it is plain that the roots of Theodore Parker reached down deep, and spread out wide.
Their fibres coiled round sturdy qualities; their suckers
found out hidden fountains of water. The stock was vigorous, and could be counted on to produce, under favorable conditions, a style of character at once robust and
beautiful, rich in some of the strongest, and attractive in
some of the sweetest, elements of mind and heart. Wh1atever else the Parkers may have had or been defective in,
they had force of will, strength of understanding, power
of moral purpose, steadfastness, and independence.  Some
had humor, some remarkable intellectual thirst, one at least
a curious knowledge of Eastern tongues: all had courage and endurance. The combination of qualities in this
father and mother — the one so serious, intelligent, helpful,
toilsome, sincere; the other so tender, earnest, trustful, and
deep-hearted — contained a prophecy of rare ability and
worth. The fruit from such a tree ought to be rich. These
prophecies do not always come to fulfilment.  How far
they did in this case will be seen as the story goes on.




CHAPTER  II.
HOME AND BOYHOOD.
THEODORE PARKER was born on the 24th of August,
I8Io. He was the youngest of eleven children, — the
tenth being five years older than he. One died in infancy:
the rest, none of them distinguished, lived to be useful
men and women. All but three had a decided fondness for
literature, read the best books they could get, and copied
the portions that most interested them. The oldest had
gone away from home when the last was born; but enough
remained to fill the house. John Parker was poor when
he married, and he never became rich. " When he married
Hannah Stearns," says Theodore in a fragment of autobiography, " he went back to the original homestead to take
care of his mother, while he should support his handsome young wife and such family as might happen. It
was the day of small things: he wore home-made blue-yarn
stockings at his wedding, and brought his wife home over
the rough winding roads, riding in the saddle his tall gray
horse, with her upon a pillion. The outfit of furniture did
not bespeak more sumptuous carriage: the common plates
were of wood; the pitcher, mugs, teacups and saucers, were
of coarse earthenware; while the great carving dishes
were of thick, well-kept pewter. The holiday service'for
company' was of the same material.  Yet a few costly
wine-glasses were not wanting, with two long-necked decanters, a few china teacups and saucers of the minutest
IO




LOME AIND LOYhOOD.                II
pattern, and - the pride of the buffet - a large china bowl.
Besides, the young bride could show patchwork bedquilts
and counterpanes, and a pretty store of linen towels, and
a tablecloth of the same, white as the snow, and spun,
wove, and bleached by her own laborious hands; and her
father raised the flax, which her brother pulled and rotted,
and broke and swingled, and hackled and combed. Hannalh made their work into linen."
"In my earliest childhood," the autobiography goes on
to say, " the family at home consisted of my father's mother,
more than eighty at my birth, - a tall, stately, proud-looking
woman. She occupied an upper chamber, but came down
stairs to dinner, - other meals she took in her own room, 
and sate at the head of the table, on the woman's side
thereof, opposite my father, who kept up the Puritan respect
for age,  always granting it precedence.  She busied
herself chiefly in knitting and puttering about the room;
but passed the Sundays in reading the large Oxford quarto
Bible of her husband, bought for the price of more than
one load of hay delivered up at Boston. She had also the
original edition of the Puritan Hymn-Book printed at Cambridge, which was much in her hands. She read the newspapers, - the'Columbian Centinel,' which then appeared
twice a week; but common mundane literature she seldom
touched. It was a part of my childish business to carry the
drink to my venerable grandmother twice a day, - at eleven,
A.M., and four, P.M.: this was flip in cool weather, and in
spring and summer was toddy or punch: the latter was,
however, more commonly reserved for festive occasions.
"The neighbors about us were farmers: a shoemaker
lived a mile off on one side, and a blacksmith within two
miles on the other. These were generally, perhaps universally, honest, hard-working men. They went to meeting
Sundays, morning and afternoon.'Their talk was of bullocks, and they were diligent to give the kine fodder.' In
their houses, generally neat as good housewifery could




I2             T1HEODORE PAR.KER.
make them, you would find the children's school-books;
commonly a'singing-book' (' Billings's Collection,' or some
other); perhaps a hymn-book; and always a good quarto
Bible, kept in the best room; sometimes another Bible, inherited from some Puritan ancestor: these, with an almanac
hung in the corner of the kitchen-chimney, made up the
family library. Perhaps a weekly or semi-weekly newspaper was also taken, and diligently read. Two families,
not far off, were exceptions to this poverty of books: I
now think of no more. Yet now and then the life of
some great thief like Stephen Burroughs, or some pirate or
highwayman, would show itself. In other parts of Lexington, -' on the great road,' or'in the middle of the town,'
— perhaps there was a better show of books. I only
speak of my immediate neighborhood."
The family, as has been stated, were poor. Their means
were very slender. The land was small and unproductive,
the tillage necessarily inexpensive. The soil was running
out. The products were corn and potatoes, beans, vegetables, and apples. The most valuable crop was peaches:
sometimes as much as a hundred dollars' worth were sold.
The meat was bought, and not seldom  the vegetables.
The chief income was derived from the shop; but that was
not much: a rigid economy was required to meet the
daily needs. Mr. Parker had become surety for a brother
who failed, and his portion of the farm was sold to pay
the debt. The family expenses were increased by sickness. The taint of hereditary disease was aggravated by
the unwholesomeness of the situation; and it was rare
that one or more of the household did not require medical
treatment. This reduced the means of living to a very
scanty sum, and left no margin for the commonest luxuries. Theodore had, as a child, a dangerous attack of
typhoid-fever which threatened his life, and at another
time a severe dysentery; but his boyhood was generally
healthy. The household could not afford to' harbor un



HOMfE AND BOYHOOD.                 13
productive consumers: all the able-bodied members were
drafted for toil. When scarcely more than a child, Theodore, with a companion hardly, it would seem, more competent than he, was sent to Boston market with the peach
crop; and, long before his strength was adequate to such
tasks, he was employed in the laying of a stone wall, the
strain of which, he used to say afterwards, was a permanent injury to his constitution. The skill acquired in the
use of tools, and implements of husbandry, was no compensation for this excessive labor; nor was the physical
strength obtained any suitable reward for the unnatural
exertions by which it was won. The out-door life was
good; but the conditions of it were bad. The causes of
much of the ill health that darkened and depressed the
years of manhood may be traced to these laborious days of
childhood, to which so many have ascribed the apparent
strength of his constitution.
But to return to the autobiography and the childhood.
"As the youngest child, it may be supposed I was treated
with uncommon indulgence, and probably received a good
deal more than a tenth part of the affection distributed.
I remember often to have heard the neighbors say,'Why,
Mis' Parker, you're sp'ilin' your boy! He never can take
care of himself when he grows up.' To which she replied, she hoped not, and kissed my flaxen curls anew.
"Among the earliest things I remember is the longing I
used to feel to have the winter gone, and to see the great
snow-bank - sometimes, when new-fallen, as high as the
top of the kitchen-window - melt away in front of the
house. I loved, though, to run in the snow barefoot, and
with only my night-shirt on, for a few minutes at a time.
When the snow was gone, the peculiar smell of the ground
seemed to me delicious. The first warm days of spring,
which brought the blue-birds to their northern home, and
tempted the bees to try short flights, in which they presently
dropped on the straw my provident father had strewn for
2




14             THIEODORE PARACER.
them about their hive, filled me with the deepest delight.
In the winter I was limited to the kitchen, where I could
build cob-houses, or form little bits of wood into fantastic
shapes. Sometimes my father or one of my brothers
would take me to the shop, where he pursued his toilsome
work; or to the barn, where the horse, the oxen, and the
cows were a perpetual pleasure. But when the snow was
gone, and the ground dry, I had free range. I used to sit
or lie on the ground in a dry and sheltered spot, and
watch the great yellow clouds of April that rolled their
huge shapes far above my head, filling my eye with their
strange, fantastic, beautiful, and ever-changing forms, and
my mind with wonder at what they were, and how they
came there.
"But the winter itself was not without its in-door pleasures, even for a little fellow in brown homespun petticoats.
The uncles and aunts came in their sleighs full of cousins,
some of whom were of my own age, to pass a long afternoon and evening, not without abundant good cheer, and
a fire in'the other room,' as the humble parlor was modestly named. They did not come without a great apple,
or a little bag of shag-barks, or some other tid-bit, for' Mis' Parker's baby;' for so the youngest was called long
after he ceased to merit the name. Nay, father and mother
often returned these visits, and sometimes took the baby
with them; because the mother did not like to leave the
darling at home; or perhaps she wished to show how stout
and strong her eleventh child had come into the world."
The child did not increase in beauty as he increased in
years. They who remember him in his young days describe him as rather under the usual size, clumsily made,
ungainly and inactive, but as arch and roguish in disposition. The bashfulness, and sense of awkwardness, he
probably recovered from; but the ungainliness of movement remained with him always.
The thirst for knowledge appeared in him early; but nei



H01iE AND BO YHOOD.                 I5
ther so early nor so surprisingly as his consciousness of
right and wrong. Two or three interesting examples of
this he recalls from his childhood: "In my fourth year,
my father had a neighbor, Deacon Stearns, come to kill a
calf. My father would not do it himself, as other farmers
did. I was not allowed to see the butchery; but, after it
was all over, the deacon, who had lost all his children,
asked me whom I loved best.'Papa.' —'What! better
than yourself?' —'Yes, sir.'-'But,' said my father,'if
one of us must take a whipping, which would you rather
should have the blows?' I said nothing, but wondered
and wondered why I should prefer that he should have the
blows, and not I. The fact was plain, and plainly selfish.
and, it seemed to me, wicked. Yet I could not help the
feeling. It tormented me for weeks in my long clothes.':
Another instance must not be omitted, though it has been
often quoted for its striking beauty: it is told at the close
of the "Autobiography."  "When a little boy in petticoats, in my fourth year, one fine day in spring my father
led me by the hand to a distant part of the farm, but soon
sent me home alone. On the way I had to pass a little'pond-hole,' then spreading its waters wide. A rhodora in
full bloom -a rare plant in my neighborhood, and which
grew only in that locality — attracted my attention, and
drew me to the spot. I saw a little spotted tortoise sunning
himself in the shallow water at the root of the flaming
shrub. I lifted the stick I had in my hand to strike the
harmless reptile: for, though I had never killed any creature, yet I had seen other boys out of sport destroy birds,
squirrels, and the like; and I felt a disposition to follow
their wicked example. But all at once something checked
my little arm, and a voice within me said clear and loud,' It is wrong.' I held my uplifted stick in wonder at the
new emotion - the consciousness of an involuntary but inward check upon my actions -till the tortoise and the
rhodora both vanished from my sight. I hastened home,




i6             THEODORE PARKER.
told the tale to my mother, and asked what it was that
told me it was wrong. She wiped a tear from her eye
with her apron, and, taking me in her arms, said,'Some
men call it conscience; but I prefer to call it the voice of
God in the soul of man. If you listen and obey it, then
it will speak clearer and clearer, and always guide you
right; but if you turn a deaf ear, or disobey, then it will
fade out little by little, and leave you all in the dark and
without a guide. Your life depends on your heeding this
little voice.' She went her way, careful and troubled
about many things, but doubtless pondered them in her
motherly heart; while I went off to wonder and to think
it over in my poor childish way. But I am sure no event
in my life has made so deep and lasting an impression on
me."  The grateful man tells this story to show "the nice
and delicate care she took of my moral culture."  But it
shows with equal clearness the child's moral sensibility,
not rare, we may hope, at that tender age, but certainly rare
associated with so much thoughtfulness, curiosity, and sincerity. Not that the feeling came, but that it became reflection, and deepened into character, is the remarkable thing.
The religious sentiment was as quick in germinating
as the moral, and had the same conditions in its favor.
The father was a religious man of the grave, earnest sort,
without much emotion. He went to church, taught his children the Ten Commandments, encouraged their learning
hymns, and would have them say their prayers when they
went to bed: but he read the Bible with his understanding;
omitted, toward the close of his life, the grace before
meat; and in his old age, when too deaf to hear the preacher's sermon, staid at home and read novels. The mother
had a sweet, fresh, instinctive devoutness. She belonged
to "the church," and had the children duly christened in
presence of the neighbors. Theodore's turn came when
he was about two years and a half old, he being the last
and the pet child. The occasion was made impressive by




H2OJE AND BOY-HOOD.                I7
a larger concourse of friends than usual. The ceremony
was by sprinkling or touching the forehead with water.
The child prefigured the man, not by the idle wail so common at these rituals, but by an outspoken protest, grounded
in apprehension, possibly, rather than in reason, but sufficiently emphatic to be remembered. A child of two years
and a half could hardly have speculated about the ceremony
he was undergoing, or intelligently wanted to know what
it all meant, or for what purpose it was done: but the " Oh,
don't!" was something more than a cry of fear; there was
character in it; it revealed the spirit that afterwards made
the man protest against so many things, on the ground
that they did not stand in reason.
But if the sharp, challenging disposition was thus forward, the devout tendency was in no way behind. "Religion," he said in a sermon quoted by Mr. Weiss, "was the
inheritance my mother gave me in my birth, - gave me in
her teachings. Many sons have been better born than I:
few have had so good a mother. I mention these things
to show you how I came to have the views of religion that
I have now. My head is not more natural to my body,
has not more grown with it, than my religion out of my soul
and with it. With me religion was not carpentry, something
built up of dry wood from without; but it was growth, -
growth of a germ in my soul."
At an age when most children are amusing themselves
with their first fairy tales, he was capable of "spiritual experiences." He was not seven years old when the
doctrine of everlasting damnation plunged his soul in
anguish, which made the hours of one night, if no more,
so wretched, that for years he could hardly think of the
horror without shuddering. But such passages were not
frequent, nor did they last long. There is no evidence of
morbid tendency at this time; none of severe inward conflict. His nature, if sensitive, was buoyant, and soon surmounted the mental difficulties that came in his way. The
2*




I8             THEODORE PARAK''R.
inherited predisposition to consumption may occasionally
have caused a lassitude of feeling; the hardness of his
lot may a little further have depressed his animal spirits:
but his mind was not self-tormenting. Whenever the man
recalled his childhood, the recollection was pleasant.
" However it may be with the natural man," he used to say,':the natural boy has no fear of God." "I have swam
in clear, sweet waters all my days," he told the Progressive
Friends.  "From the days of earliest boyhood, when I
went stumbling through the grass'as merry as a May bee,'
up to the gray-bearded manhood of this time, there is none
but has left me honey in the hive of memory, that I now
feed on for present delight. When I recall the years of
boyhood, youth, early manhood, I am filled with a sense
of sweetness and wonder that such little things can make
a mortal so exceedingly rich."  Mr. Parker's hilarious
humor was of a spontaneous and racy flavor, that could
hardly consist with a morbid temperament; and this humor
displayed itself in his earliest years.  The elements of
his being were healthy; the struggles were incidental, and
served to make the healthfulness robust. A great capacity for sorrow does not imply an ever-present fact of sorrow. That the capacity was there will be plain enough as
the career flows on; that the fact was present too, and often,
admits of no doubt: but no melancholy cast prevented the
natural wholesomeness from vindicating itself, and coming out easily victorious over foes that held no ground in
the citadel, but only stormed the outer walls.
The school-days began early, when the boy was barely
six years old. The plain district schoolhouse was a mile
distant by the road, but was brought nearer by a short cut
across the fields and over the brook. It was kept by one
teacher at a time, in summer and in winter: twelve or fourteen weeks in winter, from December; four months, or sixteen weeks, from the middle of May to the middle of September, in spring and summer. In seed-time and harvest the




HOME AND BOYHOOD.                   19
children could not be spared; nor could money be spared to
maintain a teacher the full year. The summer school was
kept for the smaller children, whose services were not required on the farm. Theodore attended only in winter from
his seventh or eighth year. The summer teacher was commnonly a woman. Mary Smith, or "Aunt Pattie " as she was
called, was the first who had charge of our young friend's instruction. The male teacher whose name is first mentioned
was John Hastings. He is not highly praised, either as scholar, teacher, or disciplinarian, by one of Mr. Parker's contemporaries; nor had he any vivid recollections, in after-life, of
his distinguished pupil. But Theodore remembered him;
and one evening in Brooklyn, after a lecture, the old teacher
was heartily greeted by the speaker whom he had been
listening to for the first time, and was wittily reminded of
an incident in their school-relations which had quite escaped
his memory. Hastings tells the story, adding that it was
enjoyed by a good many loiterers besides himself. The
rage among the boys, it seems, was for pop-guns, - an instrument made usually of a quill, and loaded with a piece of
potato: the pushing in of a rammer at the larger end of
the tube compressed the air, and the potato came out at
the small end with a report loud enough to startle a large
room. It was a harmless weapon, the bite whereof was in the
bark. Theodore procured from his elder brother a pop-gun
of uncommon caliber, and carried it to school. The weapon being new and untried, the hush of the school-room
tempting, and the master's back suggestive of opportunity,
the experiment on sound was then and there hazarded. In
an instant, all heads were raised; the master faced about
with inquisitive eyes: but at that instant no boy was studying so hard as Parker; he was devouring his book! The
success of the first experiment inspired a second: but this
time the master looked up a second too soon; the culprit
was detected in the very act. There was a challenge, a
summons, a reprimand; the weapon was confiscated, and
order was restored.




20              THEODORE PARKER.
The New-England district schools were not graded: the
scholars were of all ages, from. five to twenty. The teachers were young men from some neighboring college, who
eked out their expenses by teaching in vacations, and for
as much longer as the authorities permitted, or their necessities required. The instruction was never systematic, and
almost always thin. The amount accomplished depended,
in greatest measure, on the capacity and interest of the
instructor: and neither was apt to be great; for the work
was undertaken by raw minds half furnished, and was
done incidentally, as a make-shift, by young men who had
no thought of making teaching their profession. The compensation was small, — twenty-eight dollars a month, the
teacher boarding himself. Little besides the elements
was attempted. No regular instruction was given in the
arts of composition or declamation. The books in use
were Murray's English Grammar, Adams's Arithmetic,
Whelpley's Compend of History; for advanced classes,
Blake's Philosophy, Comstock's  Chemistry, Colburn's
Algebra, Playfair's Euclid, Blair's Rhetoric.
In I820, William  Hoar White, afterwards a Unitarian
minister, then a student in Brown University, twenty-five
years old, succeeded Mr. Hastings, and produced a beneficial change in the school. Theodore was then old
enough to interest him; and he never ceased to be grateful to the firm, kind, sympathetic friend who led himl on
past the prescribed line of study, and started him in Latin.
and Greek. White taught two winters. Theodore felt
his loss severely; but it was made good by his successor,
George Fiske, also a student of Brown University, who
taught three winters. Both these young men were procured by Mr. Parker, who was acquainted with relatives
of theirs in Lexington. To these two men the volume on
"Theism  and Atheism" was dedicated in I853, "with
gratitude for early instruction received at their hands."
Mr. Fiske brought some books from the college library
that made him doubly welcome to the juvenile student.




HOME A ND BOYHOOD.                 21
This desultory kind of teaching went on ten years for
about three months each winter, and two summer terms, —
equivalent to something like three years of continuous
instruction; though not as effective, by any means, as
three years of continuous instruction would have been.
At the age of sixteen he went for a single quarter to Mr.
Huntington's school, called the "Academy," at Lexington.
This costly indulgence -the expense, we are informed by
the letter of a friend, was four dollars —was afforded by
the lad's self-denial in foregoing the accomplishment of
dancing, which the boys and girls of his age were cultivating, in view of social festivities that were the ruling
passion about that time. Between the culture of the two
extremities, Theodore, on consideration, chose that of the
head. At the Academy he pushed his studies into algebra,
and extended his acquaintance with Latin and Greek. At
the age of seventeen he began to teach himself.
When he was a little boy, an incident occurred that
made a deep impression on him. He was on his way to
school, trudging alone across the fields. Suddenly he was
accompanied by an old man with long white beard and a
patriarchal aspect, who talked with him'on the way, told
him what a bright boy might do and be, making his heart
burn with strong emotion, and then disappeared as unaccountably as he came. Theodore often alluded to this
adventure in after-life in a manner that betrayed a halfsuperstitious belief in the visitation. Who the person was,
he could not guess: no inhabitant of the neighborhood;
he knew them all. No stranger had been seen in the quiet
village. Be he who he might be, the meeting fell in with
the boy's early consciousness that he had a destiny. Was
it the consciousness that made the meeting significant?
The boy was distinguished as a scholar by his thirst for
knowledge and his memory. Both were remarkable. He
read miscellaneously and every thing. He was always
studying, in school and out. Mr. White set evening les



22             THEODORE PAR-KER.
sons: Theodore learned them, and wanted more. He
had extra studies, and was not satisfied. In the summer noons, when the other hands indulged in a siesta
under the trees, he refreshed his mind with books. The
winter mornings were too short, and domestic duties left
him no leisure; but the winter evenings and the summer
mornings were long, and the hours were faithfully used.
No boy in the school could match him either in quantity
or quality of performance. But one pupil approached
him; and that one was a girl, Marianne Smith by name.
The extent of his reading was astonishing. Whatever
AMr. Fiske could lend, whatever the social library would
afford, he devoured. The father brought home nothing
that the boy did not appropriate. If the cautious parent
put a volume away on a high shelf, judging it for some
reason unfit for youthful eyes, the eyes espied it, and the
hands reached it the instant the workshop absorbed the
parental form. Every thing was fish that came into his
net. Before he was eight he had read Homer and Plutarch
(in translations of course), Rollin's Ancient History, - a
common book, - and all the other volumes of history and
poetry that circumstances afforded. Books of travel and
adventure were welcomed, and assimilated too; for his
parents made him give an account of every volume he
read before he could have another. At the Academy he
went through Colburn's Algebra in three weeks. Nor
were his studies confined to books. The stars interested
him; the trees, the shrubs, the flowers of the neighborhood, the plants in cultivated gardens he visited, the
foreign fruits he saw in the Boston market, the husks and
leaves that came wrapped about bales of merchandise,
tea-chests, and packages from distant parts of the world,
attracted his attention. The formation of the hills, their
direction and slope; the minerals, rocks, stones that lay
about, or that were brought from  a distance,- excited
his curiosity. The means of satisfying it were few. A




1M0fE AND BOYHOOD.                 23
copy of Evelyn's "Sylva," and Morse's large Geography,
did not go very far; but they told something, and a persevering sagacity did what was done beside. His memory
-an inheritance from his mother, which he treasured and
kept bright by diligent care —held fast whatever the
rapacious mind received. He had his mother's aptitude
for committing verses; could repeat a song from hearing
it once, the Sunday hymn while the minister read it. He
could carry several hundred lines in his memory, so as to
recite them at a sitting. In mature years, when his mind
was burdened with stores, he could appropriate as many
as a hundred and fifty lines of blank-verse after a single
reading. It was his custom, when walking with a companion, to recite from poems like Wordsworth's "Excursion" till his friend begged for mercy. He had the
political events of the country at his tongue's end while
yet a schoolboy; and talked so intelligently about them,
that the political gossips of the town, assembled in Dudley's Tavern, drew him out for the sake of hearing his
opinion. The gift of expression came to him as readily
as the gift of acquisition. The disease of verse-making
attacked him when he was eight years old. His first composition on the " starry heavens" disappointed his teacher,
Mr. Fiske, by being too short. He was an impassioned
declaimer; spoke with much applause, at a public exhibition, a piece from Scott's " Marmion;" and showed the
power of mimicry that afterwards made him so amusing
and so formidable by impersonating a Catholic priest in
some juvenile theatricals.
Such lads are commonly more popular with their teachers than with their comrades. This was hardly the case
with Theodore. His kindness, and love of fun, disarmed
the jealousy his superiority might have excited, and overcame the awe his gravity would naturally inspire. It cost
him no effort to be sportive. In play-time he could play
with the most frolicsome, after a hearty, robustious man



24             THEODORE PARIKER.
ner that was a little too much for some of his companions.
He was never graceful, - never, in fact, any thing but
uncouth; but he was never tyrannical. He loved fair play:
the bullies found him a formidable opponent. We do not
hear that he had intimates; there was too much of him for
that: but we do not hear that he had enemies. If he was
conscious, as he must have been, of remarkable force of
character, he did not make others cruelly sensible of it. In
the last year of school he was much respected, and had great
influence among the boys. They came to him for explanations of difficult points, and referred their disputes to him.
The testimonies to his moral character are all of one
tenor. He was modest, pure, single-minded, frank, and
true. If Theodore Parker said a thing, it was believed by
young and by old. A quick, eager temper would have led
him astray into acts of violence, if he did not have it
under habitual control: but it could not have betrayed
him into vicious indulgence; for there was no taint of
sensuality in him. His thoughts were busy with literature;
his appetite was for knowledge: his warmth of feeling
came to re-enforce the steadfastness of his conscience, not
to weaken it. He was open and unselfish. The bent of
his nature was towards nobleness. In the humbler virtues
of toil and economy his whole life was a school. He
wanted more books than his father could give him; and
to work for them was the only way to obtain them. His
father supplied him with his first Latin grammar: the Latin
dictionary he paid for with the proceeds of a whortleberry
excursion when he was twelve years old. The well-worn
volume had its place in the noble library in Boston, which,
but for the purpose displayed on that whortleberry expedition, would have had no existence.  It was a humble
tome; but it was the corner-stone of the structure.
His career of teaching began at seventeen. The first
winter, that of i827, he took charge of the district school
in Quincy; the second, in North Lexington; the third, in




tHOME AND BOYHEOOD.                25
Concord; and the fourth, in Waltham. Farmers spared
their boys in the winter, reckoning that their labor was
about equivalent to their board; but in summer, if they
went away from home while under age, they must pay the
wages of a substitute. This he did. When he left home
finally, two years before his majority, he hired a cousin to
do his work. During the two years previous he worked
himself like a field-hand on the farm, digging, ploughing,
haying, laying stone-wall, helping his broad-shouldered
father in his shop, mending wheels, repairing wagons,
making pumps, doing miscellaneous jobs in wood-work,
with as much conscience as he studied, if with less
joy. He worked as if toil was his whole occupation; he
studied as if study was his whole delight. The book was
always near to fill up the crevices of time. There were
precious moments in the morning. If the evening was
occupied, he extorted an hour or two from the night.
Rainy days were godsends.
At seventeen, militia duties began; and in these he was
as active, prompt, and efficient as in all the rest. There
was always a touch of the warlike spirit in him. The two
guns in his Exeter-place library were no vain symbols.
The military reputation of the ancestor who was at Lexington Common, and chafed under inaction at Bunker
Hill, was dear to his heart. Life was a warfare, the outward symbols whereof were as significant as they were to
the apostle, who charged his followers to put on the
breastplate of righteousness, and to take the sword of
the Spirit. He rose to rank in the company: clerk he
certainly was, perhaps lieutenant: whether he rose to
higher authority is less certain.
With all this, Theodore added much to the social life of
the household. His talk was copious and entertaining,
his jokes telling, his fun exuberant.  His affectionateness ran over to the domestic animals: he had names for
the cows; he made the cattle hold imaginary conversations
3




26             THE ODORE PARICER.
together; rendered the habits of the dumb creatures into
parables, thus adopting them into the life of the home.
Of his early teaching little record is preserved. That
he worked hard at his calling need not be said. Every
spare hour that could be snatched from the day was devoted to his own studies. At Waltham a young woman
wished to learn French. He knew nothing of the language, but, obtaining the necessary elemental books,
soon mastered the rudiments, and became learner and
teacher at once. In North Lexington his monthly salary
was twenty-five dollars, out of which he paid his substitute
at the farm, met his board-bill, and provided himself with
clothing (it did not cost much): the rest went for books,
which he bought at second-hand prices. There was in
Waltham an impression, that, as a teacher, he was unreasonably exacting in his requirements, and absolute in his
discipline. It is quite possible: his faith in human capacity was always large; his anticipations were always sanguine. What he demanded of himself he expected from
others, and drew out if he could. Schoolboys are seldom
grateful to the master who sets long lessons, and insists on
correct recitals: even school committees are willing to
pass over defects that promote a pleasant state of feeling
among the boys and girls.
One summer day, in August, I830 - the day before his
birthday, -he went away, telling no one whither he was
going. His father had given him leave of absence from
morning till night. He walked to Cambridge, was examined, passed examination, walked home, and told his
father, lying in his bed, that he had entered Harvard College. If the old man wondered in the morning where his
son was going, he wondered more at night on learning
where he had been. "But, Theodore, I cannot afford it."
~"Father, it shall cost you nothing. I will stay at
home, and keep up with my class." And this he did for a
year, working on the farm as usual, pushing on his studies




HOME AND BOYHOOD.                 27
perseveringly, and only going to Cambridge to be examined. The course at Harvard was not, fifty years ago,
what it is now; and Parker found no difficulty in distancing his class in the appointed curriculum, besides doing a
vast deal of miscellaneous reading in general literature.
Being a non-resident, and his own tutor, he paid no tuition-fees, and was not entitled to a degree. Four years
later, he might have had one by paying the arrears of
tuition; but that was beyond his means. He was not
enrolled among the regular Harvard graduates until
I840, when the degree of A.M. was conferred upon him,
as a mark of honor, at the instance of men who thought
it a shame that so distinguished a mind should be unrecognized. The point required urging; for the quality of
the mind was not altogether such as Cambridge approved;
and some were unwilling that so pronounced a rationalist
as he was coming to be thought should be an acknowledged son of Harvard College.
That day in August was never forgotten. The recurrence of its anniversary is found frequently recorded in
the journal, always in tender, grateful words, accompanied with expressions of thanksgiving and prayer. Five
months before he reached the year of manhood he went
away from his father's house, his own guide and master,
left it, as in primitive times sailors took leave when starting on a long voyage. The home grew dearer to him
every year, - dearer while its inmates lived, dearer still
when they lived no more. His heart was always there,
his mind often, his presence less and less frequently.
He could always revert to it with satisfaction: its lessons
he had not to unlearn; its influences he had not to overcome. The memory of father and mother was inexpressibly dear to the last.  In his days of ambition and
fame, he confessed to himself, and made no secret to anybody, that the best in him was due to those who gave
him birth, and to the hardship in which he was nurtured.




CHAPTER III.
TEACHING AND STUDY.
ON the 23d of March, I83I, Theodore Parker went to
Boston, as an assistant teacher in a private school, at a
salary of twelve dollars a month and board: it was afterwards raised to fifteen dollars, and the increase dated
back to the beginning of his service. His worldly goods
were contained in a great wooden trunk covered with
painted cloth. Eleven octavo volumes and a few twelvemos constituted his library. He was set to teach more
than he knew; but, as he never undertook to teach what
he had not learned, he made up by toil what he lacked
in resources. The toil was fearful. Mathematics, natural
philosophy, Latin, French, Spanish, must be kept fresh,
or learned newly, and - except with incidental aid from a
professed teacher in mathematics, Mr. Francis Grund —
by his own solitary efforts. Yet, even at this rate of enforced speed, he distanced duty, adding another language
(German) to his store of tongues, and perfecting his acquaintance with those he had. This winter he wrote his
first lecture, on Poland, and read it in Lexington. The
subject was one of great popular interest at the time, as
much as that of Greece or Hungary afterwards. He
studied ten or twelve hours a day, - the school required
six; from May to September, seven. It was too much:
he lost twenty-eight pounds of flesh in three months.
He had never learned the art of husbanding his health:
28




TEACHINVG AND STUDY.                29
no friend warned him against the consequences of close
confinement, insufficient food, broken sleep, excessive
strain of faculty; and even his great strength felt the exhaustion. Signs of weakness and despondency appeared
thus early: he was laying the basis for the chronic ill
health that was such a drag on his after-life. He knew it
when too late, and tried by resolute efforts to recover the
lost ground; made rules for himself, and did his best to
observe them: but the mistake, once committed, could
not be repaired; nor could the habits, once contracted and
becoming inveterate, ever be wholly abandoned.
He needed air and exercise; but he needed society
even more. His disposition was genial': he loved people,
he craved friendship, and had not even acquaintances.
Recreation he could not afford had he desired it. Nothing broke the monotony of his brain-work, which went on
with such pitiless power, that faint and incidental symptoms of paralysis showed themselves from  time to time
in sensations of numbness and pricking, the purport
whereof he did not understand.  Even religion, his
never-failing supporter, came to him  at this period in
its least attractive shape. He must needs make a study,
and not a refreshment, of that too. He chose that time
of all times for attending the pulpit ministrations of
the famous Lyman Beecher, then in the height of his
popularity, -the most powerful and one of the most uncompromising preachers of orthodoxy in New England,
then in the full tide of popularity, battling fiercely against
"Unitarians, Universalists, Papists, and infidels," He had
come to Boston to crush Dr. Channing  and the new heresies. Parker 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." The result of it was, that he lost all
the little respect he had for the Calvinistic scheme of
theology, -a result, we surmise, that was worth far less




30             THEODORE PARKER.
than it cost, and was no compensation for the delight and
strength the new dispensation would have given him.
There was no danger of his respecting the Calvinistic
theology too much, and there was danger of despondency
in his own heart.
If he could have laid by money for his future plans,
which began to embrace a course at the Cambridge Dil nity School, it would have been a consolation. But
from a salary of fifteen dollars a month, during the first
five months of which he supplied a man to work in his
place on his father's farm, - his father demurred, but
Theodore insisted,- not many dollars could be saved by
the severest economy; and his vision of systematic preparation for the ministry, as it faded away into more distant
future, left an additional faintness in his spirit.
Fortunately, his life in Boston lasted but a twelvemonth,
till April, I832. He went thence at once to Watertown, at
the suggestion, probably, of relatives who lived there, and
opened a private school. There the heavens began to
brighten to him.
The school was opened in the south part of the town, in
a room that had been before used by a Mr. Wilder for a
similar purpose. It was on the second floor of what once
was a bakery. The part beneath was occupied as a storehouse by Nathaniel Broad, who lived on the spot, and with
whom the young teacher boarded. It was in every respect
a comfortable, convenient, and pleasant place, at least
after the handy tenant had spent some of his carpentry
skill on it. He was his own attendant and porter. In
winter he sawed, split, and brought up the wood for the
stove, made the fire, and at all seasons put the room in
order for the scholars. They came satisfactorily, on the
whole. He began with the two sons of Mr. George Robbins. Others dropped in one by one, till the school in the
first year numbered thirty-five. Subsequently it increased
to fifty-four. The charge was not high, - five dollars a




TEACHING AND STUDY.                3T
quarter; but, rather than turn a deserving boy or girl away
because the modest fee could not be paid, he would take
the applicant gratis, and bestow as much care on the
beneficiary as on the rest. To one girl he gave the value
of his instructions for a year and a half, and then begged
his successor to allow her to continue her studies wil.h
him. Social questions were not as clear to his mind
as they were afterwards.  A colored girl applied, and
was admitted by the teacher without misgiving: he knew
no distinction of persons; but the parents of his other
pupils did. They made objections, prophesying injury to
the school; and the black inmate was dismissed. It was
not a generous thing to do: on the contrary, it was a
shabby thing. The young man confessed it afterwards
with mortification, and made ample amends to her persecuted race; but it was pardonable in a youth who had lived
in the seclusion of thoughts, whose conscience had never
been touched by the wrongs of the negro North or South,
and who regarded race merely as he would any other disturbing element. Had it occurred to him that a principle
was involved in the transaction, he would have seen the
school dwindle away to nothing sooner than have yielded.
The boys gave him society: he made companions of them,
shared their sports, invited their confidence, gained their
affection, and used the influence he acquired to shape their
characters for after-life. Five or six of them were fellowlodgers with him at Mr. Broad's. With these he took particular pains, correcting their habits, observing their
manners, and seeming to feel a genuine concern for their
moral welfare. The exercises of the school were opened
with prayer; grace was said before meat, in a simple and
impressive way, no doubt; and the boys felt the contagion
of a pure, reverent mind.
He was a live teacher, with an insatiable hunger for
knowledge himself, a keen appreciation of its value to everybody, a high sense of personal duty as an instructor of it,




32              THEODORE PARKER.
and a faith apparently boundless in the capacity of fresh
young minds to take it in. The lads who came to him
from public schools were at first dismayed at the studies he
expected of them; but he kindled the fire while be fed it
with fuel, so gently persuading and skilfully stimulating
the faculties, so clearly explaining and so dexterously leading along, that the backward and reluctant followed at
length.  He had a way of making the scholars answer their
own questions, and remove their own difficulties, such as
only complete masters of their art possess.  The text-boolk
was never substituted for intellectual activity: it was mind
to mind as much as possible. Manuals of natural theology
he strongly objected to, on the ground that they forestalled
inquiry, and raised doubts before the time. If he used
such at all, he used them as provocatives of thought; but he
preferred discarding them.  He had other ways of teaching
natural theology, -by suggesting natural religion. This
he did by casual comments and reflections, lessons drawn
from the day's reading, appeals to feeling, or to the intuitive perceptions of right and wrong. He made the trees,
flowers, birds, and animals his texts as he rambled with. the
boys in the woods. The mind stored with information on
natural objects overflowed with half-meditated, half-unpurposed interpretations of the beauty and use of the world of
little things, and illustrated by scores of pretty facts the
ethics of boyish life. Religion was the first interest with
him: he was unhappy if he could not make his schoolboys
feel its power and charm.
He insisted on order, but hated to enforce it. In one or
two instances he was obliged to speak harshly in reproof;
but only in one or two. The discipline of the school was
secured by rational kindness, which made the pupils happy
in obedience. Backed by his weight of character, the rule
of love, which is apt to degenerate into an ineffectual sentimentalism, acquired a sweet stringency that was sufficient
for ordinary purposes. His love was a power.




TEA CHZING AND STUDY.              33
The life in Watertown was more wholesome in many
ways than the life in Boston. There was air and light,
and the direct contact with Nature. In summer there were
long afternoon and morning walks. Every Saturday he
walked to Cambridge, and to Charlestown for instruction in
Hebrew. The botanical researches were pursued. There
was companionship too. Mr. and Mrs. Broad were plain
people, but kindly: he was attached to them.  On Mr.
Broad's death, the young teacher found employment for
heart and hand in the service he was able to render his
widow in doors and out. As the labors of the school became less onerous, he had leisure and disposition for society.
His cousins in Watertown were intelligent, sympathetic,
friendly people. His uncle was a man of remarkable dignity and sweetness, of an easy breadth of mind that Theodore enjoyed heartily. Gradually their circle became his:
good men and women welcomed him to their homes. Mr.
Weiss, who has lived in Watertown himself, and can speak
from knowledge, dwells tenderly on the names of eight or
ten families, some of them of wealth and culture, where
he was intimate, and where his intimacy is cherished in
the form of affectionate memories and dearest discipleship.
They are associates in thought with Mr. Parker still. The
intimacy of two years continued for many, and was an education to him as well as to them.
In Watertown Mr. Parker met two persons whose influence was felt on his whole future. Rev. Charles Briggs of
Lexington had given him a letter of introduction to Convers Francis, Unitarian minister to the First Parish; and
by its means he gained access to a noble library, a spacious
and richly-furnished mind, and a heart warm to every lover
of truth and friend of " the humanities."  Mrs. Francis was
kindness itself cormbined with elegance, and a passion for
flowers which Theodore shared. Mr. Francis was one of
those rare men whom too few appreciate: a liberal scholar
in the best sense of the phrase; learned without pedantry;




34              THEODORE PARCKER.
open to the light from every quarter; an enormous reader
of books; a great student of German philosophy and divinity, as very few at that time were. The newest criticisms
and speculations were on his table and in his mind. He
was absolutely free from dogmatism, -the dogmatism of the
liberal as well as the dogmatism of the conservative. The
students at Cambridge, when he afterwards became professor in the Divinity School there, found fault with him for
being too " all-sided," - non-coinziltal, they called it, - understanding neither his respect for their minds, nor his reverence for the truth. He was a conscientious, natural
eclectic, with as few intellectual prejudices as it is well
possible to have. His lectures and sermons were full of
suggestions, opening out lines of thought in every direction,
eminently useful, but eminently unsatisfactory to such
as wanted opinions formulated for filing away. It was a
happy, cordial, cheery mind, with extensive prospects from
all the windows, - just the mind for one like Theodore to
bask in the light of. Now, for the first time, he had the
intellectual atmosphere it was a delight to inhale. The Sunclay sermons revealed a sunny firmament over a rich world.
The week-day talks made the steps familiar with fresh
paths and fields of literature. Here were books without
stint; here was a friendly interpreter and a sympathetic
inquirer.  In the two years he was in Watertown, Mr.
Parker incurred an immense debt to this high-minded
scholar, who had an answer to his questions, and an inexhaustible patience in listening. The debt was increased in
later years, and no part of it was ever forgotten.
Intimacy with Mr. Francis brought Theodore into relations with the parish.  He became superintendent of the
Sunday school.  He would not have been himself if he
had not formed a Bible-class; nor would he have been
himself if he had taught in the usual way. He was peculiar, however, chiefly in his method. His views were as yet
too unformed to be a basis for instruction. He was a Uni



TEACHING AND STUDY.                  35
tarian who lived quietly within the confines of his sect.
Among the teachers in the Sunday school was Miss Lydia
D. Cabot, the only daughter of John Cabot of Newton:
she resided with an aunt in Boston, but was boarding in
Watertown under the same roof with him. An attachment
growing up between them, they plighted troths, and in due
time became husband and wife.  The passion of love
awoke a new being within him. "I have a new pleasure
in the discharge of my duties.  I love my books the more,
my school the more, mankind the more, and even, I believe,
my God the more, from loving you."  " It has been in other
time than this my highest pleasure thus to pass my time,
thus to spend my nights, in'high concord with the Godlike past;' to collect my own thoughts, and search for new.
But now I find a new pleasure, which, with a louder,
sweeter voice, speaks to the heart, and tells another tale."
The happy letters of that period are before me; the tenderest passages, meant only for private eyes, being omitted.
The dates are very near together. The writer's frankness in
pouring out the contents of his mind will entertain the
reader, yet betray no confidence.  Here are a few extracts: —
WATERTOWN, NOV. 21, I833.
I have read the Life of Milton: it contains only seventy-four
pages; so I finished it Monday night. Dr. Channing, in his Review, has given him praise with too much liberality; and Johnson
has, as usual, loaded him with asperity. Still I presume Johnson
has the most truth on his side. Milton was a giant, and so was
Johnson; but one was a celestial prodigy, the other a mere
earthly Antaeus. I am glad you advance so well in Homer.
Somebody says, "Homer is the only royal road to poetry."  I
think so.
DEC. 5, 1833.
Whist is an innocent amusement; and I know no law, divine
or human, which imposes an unpleasant sanctimoniousness on
ministers' wives. I take but little pleasure, I confess, in such
amusements, - a satisfactory reason for.my abandoning them;
but it is a reason that should influence nobody else.




36               THEODORE PARKER.
Nov. 14, I183.
You speak of " poor, weak woman." Weakness and strength
are only comparative terms. To speak absolutely, nothing is
strong but Him who is strength itself. But a woman comrnpratively weak! Turn over the pages of history, and read what she
has done. Who is it that excites the giant spirits of the world to
run their career of glory? and better, far better, and nobler too,
who carries joy and peace to the fireside of the poor and the
peasant?...
I have made very good progress in logic, and find it much
more in'tereslizig than I expected. I shall always be delighted,
encouraged, and excited to greater efforts, by your inquiries
into my studies.
DEC. 27, 1833.
Why should we not suppose all the stars, and all the planets
supposed to belong to each, to be inhabited? They are the
work of an infinite Being, who had infinite wisdom, power, and
goodness, and an infinite space to exert itself in; and, if we suppose all inhabited with various orders of animals like the
tribes of common earth, what a noble universe we have to
contemplate!...
I do not suppose Moses or Joshua, or even Solomon himself,
knew this, or ever thought of it. Nobody in their age had such
ideas. The prophets were illuminated with light from on high;
but it was to rebuke idolatry, reprove oppression, and excite to
virtue: and of Christ himself we may say, that though he must
have known this, yet he came to teach religion, to console
affliction, and to excite mankind to virtue, not to teach astronomy.
JAN. 15, 1834.
I shall probably finish " Waverley " and " The Antiquary " this
week. You know what a task it commonly is to read novels, and
will perhaps be surprised to find I have hardihood enough to
attempt one. Do you recollect the Rev. Mr. Blattergowl in
" The Antiquary "? What a " woful example " Sir Walter held
up for the admonition of prosing parsons!




TEA CHING AND STUD Y.                  37
JAN. 22, I834.
I have been this afternoon to examine a school, which
afforded me a walk of somewhat more than two miles...
Sawed wood half an hour this morning. As you will see, I have
not been without exercise; that is, exercise of the body, which,
St. Paul says, " profiteth little: " my mental exercise has been
reading sixty-six pages of German, and almzost all the Reviews.
Sunday night, read Scripture of course, and othergoodbooks...
A little in Byron has been read. He was a wicked poet, and a
wicked man. His striking, his graphic descriptions enchain the
mind, and the melody of his verse recurs continuallyto one's ears;
but the heart of the thoughtless is in the mean time corrupted.
Miss Martineau says Scott has done more to extirpate vice
from the world than any preacher in England. It is perhaps true;
and she might have added, that no philosopher (!) who denied
his God, no epicurean who struck at the distinction of good and
evil, has done so much to corrupt the hearts of youth, to stagger
the minds of the giddy, as this misanthropic Lord Byron.
FEB. 27, I834.
Mr. Francis called here yesterday, and lent me the necessary
books: so I have commenced the great study, - the criticism of
the New Testament; and with the little which has been yet
explored of it I am not only pleased, but highly delighted.
It is, as you know, a subject on which the noblest minds that
philosophy has enlightened have been busy these thousand
years, and without exhausting the boundless subject.....
I have been to examine a school this afternoon. This is the
last of my service as school committee; and glad I am.
FEB. 26, 1834.
I consulted Mr. Francis about going to Cambridge soon and
joining the present junior class. He thought it a good plan,
and gave me letters of introduction to Mr. Ware. I have walked
to Cambridge this afternoon, and seen all the faculty. Have resolved to make the attempt: so I shall finish school-keeping
on the Ist of April, and remove to Cambridge, take a room at
the Hall, and commence study.....
Diligence and patient application will enable me to accom4




38               THEODORE PARKER.
plish by next commencement all that the class will by that
time have completed; and no disadvantage will be incurred by
thus commencing. I shall study alone all the class has yet
attempted; and, if I stay at Cambridge, can hear Mr. Palfrey's
lectures.
Nothing is too much for young ambition to hope, no eminence
too lofty for his vision, no obstacle too difficult for his exertions,
and no excellence unattainable. Patience, perseverance, prayer,
have done something already; and when we consider that sincere desires are never neglected, and real endeavors never
unassisted, we need not despair of making some approaches at
least to the eminence Mr. Palfrey now occupies. Would not
this be truly delightful? No situation can be more honorable,
no task more pleasant, no prospect more celestial, than that of a
virtuous, faithful clergyman....
I have finished "Childe Harold," and am better pleased with
it than with " Don Juan," because it contains more soberness
of thought, with less of blasphemy and immorality. There is
less fire in Harold than in the other hero, but less rage, folly,
and madness.
MARCH I3, I834... Tlhe story of the witch of Endor is quite curious, and
has served to perplex many of the best commentators. But it
can be explained without any thing supernatural being supposed.
I do not think Saul saw Samuel: the witch only pretended to
see him, and gave the answers as if Samuel himself were actually
present. It deserves notice, too, that nothing new is told,nothing which Samuel had not declared while alive....
Many consider all the Psalms of David as inspired. But do
they all breathe the good and merciful spirit of the Lord? If
we view them as works of inspiration, they appear inconsistent with the character of God; but if we regard them
as only the odes of a pious king, who yet had all the frailties
of a man, they must be pronounced excellent, though often
savoring of a revengeful spirit.
MARCtH 26, I834.
M. Much in this world is ruled by a power we cannot control;
but much also is left completely in our own power. Fate cannot




TEA CHING AND STUD Y.                 39
prevent our beinggood: it may forbid us to be great. Let us,
then, build our castles upon goodness, not greatness; upon the
esteem of the virtuous, not the admiration of the giddy.
Perhaps this is the last letter I shall ever write you from this
place, since school closes in a week.
There was another, a very long and singular one, - about
the strangest kind of a love-letter ever penned.  It is taken
up chiefly with an imaginary conversation between a horse
and a goose, in which each sings his own praises, and celebrates the glories of his race.  Then the pleasant epistles
run on till marriage ends the correspondence, - a strain
of moral reflection, criticism, notes on books, remarks on
persons, accounts of walks and talks, drolleries, bits of sentilnent, rhapsodies, interspersed with poems "to his mistress' eye-brow," -fresh, buoyant, various, with but one
or two passing touches of sorrow, which yet hardly deserves
so expressive a word, and with sparkles of gladness shining
through them all.
The two years in Watertown were eventful years both
of joy and labor. The achievements in scholarship were
amazing.  In spite of school-teaching and school-examinations, social intercourse, visits to Mr. Francis, communions with Miss Cabot, he gives us his word that he pursued
the study of Latin and Greek authors, the most of Cicero,
Herodotus, Thucydides, Pindar, Theocritus, Bion, Moschus (the last four of which he translated), and zEschylus.
He wrote for his Sunday-school class a history of the Jews,
which still exists in manuscript; pushed his studies in
metaphysics, taking up Cousin and the new school of
French philosophers; began the study of Hebrew, walking,
as before said, to Charlestown to meet Mr. Seixas, a Jew;
and entered on the study of theology.  Besides all this,
the German poets Goethe, Schiller, Klopstock, had a share
of his attention, and the works of Coleridge engaged a
portion of his thoughts.  An occasional novel by Walter
Scott, or a poem of Byron, beguiled the leisure moments.




40             THEODORE PARKIER.
His studies ran into the early morning. The landlady
kept the lamps well supplied; but there was no oil in his
lamp when the day broke.
To leave Watertown cost him pain.  His boys loved
him, and concerted a surprise for him in the shape of a silver cup, with ceremony of presentation-speech by Master
Brigs. The testimonial of affection was more than Theodore could bear; his tears, whether of joy or grief, being
always near the surface. A few moments of retirement
were necessary to regain sufficient command of himself to
dismiss the school.




CHAPTER IV.
DIVINITY HALL.
MR. PARKER went to Cambridge Divinity School in
April, I834,- three months before the close of the junior or
first year of his class, - and remained there two years and
a quarter. He had saved up a little money from his teaching, -about one hundred and fifty dollars; having spent
some two hundred dollars in books while at Watertown, and
clothed himself besides. The expenses of the Hall were not
heavy, - sixty-six dollars annually for tuition, and care of
room; one dollar and ninety cents a week for board in
"'commons." This last expense he tried to save by boarding himself at half a dollar a week on dry bread, -a course
that he was wise enough to abandon for a boarding-house so
far off that he must needs get exercise in going to and from
his meals. A successful application for assistance from the
beneficiary fund gave him from a hundred and ten to a
hundred and fifty dollars more. Teaching, first one boy,
then two, then two young girls in addition, brought a moderate accession to his income. He was countenanced in
his habits of economy by his fellow-students; for nearly
all who came to study theology were poor.  The wretched custom of boarding themselves, which meant eating
crackers or other food that needed no cooking, was not
uncommon.  There was no refectory at the Hall: the
college commons were half a mile off. Divinity students
are apt to be touched by a flavor of asceticism from
4*                         4'




42              THEODORE PARKICER.
ancient traditions; but economy was the main consideration.
Divinity Hall is a long brick building, that stands at some
distance from the street, and is approached by a pretty
shaded avenue. It contains rooms for the accommodation of students, -small, but convenient and pleasant, —
recitation-rooms, a pleasant chapel, and a scanty library.
The college-library was open to the students, and was, as
it is now, the main resource for scholars who travelled out
of the beaten path. In front of the hall a broad green
made an excellent play-ground. In the rear were the outbuildings, residence of janitor, and so forth: behind these
were pretty woods. The professors lived in the neighborhood, -Dr. Palfrey at the end of a continuation of the
avenue; Mr. Norton, not then a professor, on a handsome
place across the fields behind; Mr. Ware in a modest
house just beyond the entrance-gate.
Few divinity students have the polished air of young
gentlemen.  Parker was no exception to the rest in his
unformed appearance; his long, thick hair; his dress, neat,
but carelessly worn. But, in other respects, he was remarkable.
"My first and unchanged feeling," says C. A. Bartol,
"was of his exuberant life, restless ambition to excel,
and an honesty that knew not how to lie. The ruddy face;
firm and eager grasp; the manner nothing if not natural;
either a complete retreat into himself, or unmistakable evolution to draw the enemy's fire; the smile, frank as spring
and sweet as Summer, or ready to curl with biting scorn;
no maiden's blushing cheek more ingenuously modest, and
no graduate's tongue from the college, whose privilege was
not his, more ingeniously acute. I remember him, in the
theological debates, sitting still in his seat, and tying noiseless knots in his handkerchief, every one of which, he told
me, meant some argument for which he had a reply. Afterwards I see him, as he stood before a marble statue, called




D I VINI TY  A LL.               43'The Genius of Love,' by Horatio Greenough, in my
parlor, in earnest admiration, but with no pretence.  Perhaps his emotion helped him to hew that other statue of
tranquil fervor in his soul, of which, in his'Discourse of
Religion,' he speaks; and doubtless the knotted silk, in
the sham-fight of abstract questions, was practice preliminary to the woven whip-lash he was to lay on all the hypocrisies, iniquities, and superstitions of Church and State."
There were about thirty students at the Hall when AMr.
Parker joined the school. His own class consisted of
eight, of whom four are still in the ministry: one of them,
Abiel Abbot Livermore, is president of Meadville Theological School in Pennsylvania. Of the rest, one lives in
seclusion in Salem, having early left the ministry; anothei
is editor of "The Journal of Music " in Boston, -rthe foremost musical critic there; a third is an artist, poet, and
man of letters. It is a little singular, that, of so small a
class, so many should have retired from the profession.
The studies the first year were in Hebrew, the criticism
of the New Testament, the evidences of Christianity.
There was, once a week, an exercise in extemporaneous
speaking, and an exercise in declamation.  On Friday
evening the whole school assembled in the chapel for free
debate on some given theme, generally of a social character. Interest in questions of concern to humanity at large
was promoted by the "Philanthropic Society," which held
meetings once a fortnight. At these meetings a committee appointed for the purpose presented a report on some
large subject, like " Intemperance," " License-Laws," " The
Wages of Women:" the members joined in the discussion.
The whole school listened to a lecture on Saturday morning on the composition of sermons.  The senior class
showed how much they had profited by the instruction by
preaching in the chapel on Sunday evenings, professors
and students attending.  The religious interests of the
school were provided for by daily services of prayer in the




44             THEODORE PARKER.
chapel, a general religious meeting on Thursday evening,
and such private exercises as the students might hold
among themselves. Opportunity for practice in some of
the departments of ministerial work was afforded by the
different Sunday schools in the neighborhood, where the
young men took classes, or acted as superintendents; and
by the State Prison in Charlestown, whither the more earnest and sympathetic repaired on Sunday morning to teach
and help morally the inmates.
Here was duty enough to occupy all the hours. Theodore threw himself into it with his whole might. He had
come there to work; and work he did, at whatever invited.
It is quite credible that he studied fourteen hours a day:
even his astonishing force of concentration and acquisition required no less for what he undertook. A companion
at the school remembers that "we all looked upon him
as a prodigious athlete in his studies. He made daily acquaintance with books which were sealed books to many
old biblical scholars, and, to us youngsters of the school,
were scarcely known even by name. He would dive into
the college-library, and fish up huge, venerable tomes in
Latin and Greek, and lug them up to his room, and go
into them as a boarding-school girl would go into a novel.
We soon saw what his extraordinary capacities were of
reading and retention. He literally devoured books. The
rapidity of his reading was something wonderful. Great
things were prophesied of him; but it was supposed he
would be little more than a scholar, — an extraordinary
book-worm. None guessed that he was ere long to be
one of the most remarkable men of the day in more ways
than one; that the immense fund of learning he was laying up was but his arsenal of weapons with which later he
was to do battle for pure, unadulterated Christianity."
Yet at that very time his power of speech and of moral
feeling was attracting attention. He was the best debater,
though not the best writer, in the Hall; always speaking




DIVINITY HALL.                  45
vigorously, and to the point, with an independence of
thought, an enthusiasm of manner, and a freshness, that
gave promise of greater pulpit power than he at first displayed. He liked real themes and real talk. He missed
none of the exercises that tended to equip him for his
office; was devoted to his class at the State Prison, preferring to deal with genuine cases of moral need, and
showing uncommon ability to interest unpromising subjects. He was social too, as mere book-worms are not;
running into his classmates' rooms for a chat or a gambol.
He had as little dust on the surface of his mind as the
airiest of them all: none flushed quicker with indignation,
none broke out more boisterously into mirth.
The same genial reporter first quoted, C. P. Cranch,
says, "His temperament seemed one charged full of
electricity, so that he was literally sza5ppizg at times with
sparks of fun and satire. After the long hours of close
study in his library, his mind would indulge itself in the
most boyish and playful rebounds. He had the keenest
appreciation of the humorous and the ludicrous. In his
sportive and satiric veins he would throw off the most
amusing conceits and pasquinades. His satire was chiefly
directed against the theology and social shams of the day.
His sallies of wit loved to take a pictorial shape. Had
he possessed a talent for drawing, he would have been a
Hogarth. This Rabelaisian trait would twinkle continually
in his eyes, and lurk about the corners of his mouth. It
was, however, always tempered and subdued by a becoming
deference to his office of teacher and clergyman.
"I remember a whimsical and original joke of his at
the Divinity School. It was a play of animal spirits, a
practical jest, a protest and a satire combined. Two or
three of us divinity students -I remember John Dwight
was one — were in full musical blast at something - flut
ing or singing, I forget which- in one of the rooms of
Divinity Hall. Immediately opposite was Parker's room.




46              TIE ODORE PARKr/ER.
He was evidently engaged in much more serious study,
and more in the line of his future profession, than we
were. Still we were quite unaware of our disturbing him,
or we should have sunk our music to a piiazissimo, or
adjourned it to another place or hour. Theodore had,
however, borne it some time without protesting. Presently there was a peculiar'movement'in the entry, just
outside our door, executed upon a peculiar and by no
means musical instrument, - a sort of obligato ad libitzm
bass, -thrown in as an accompaniment to our strains.
On opening the door to ascertain the nature of these
strange sounds, there was Theodore, who had left his
folios of the Latin fathers, had rushed into the cellar, and
brought up a wood-horse, saw, and log of wood, on which
he was exercising his vigorous sinews - see-saw, see-saw
to our utter discomfiture and amusement. As for Theodore, he barely smiled."
The " Common-Place Book" contains a page of original
puns, which indicate that his brains could at times leave
him as completely as they ever leave the professors of that
peculiar kind of witlessness.  If the jokes were strictly
original, they might be excused; but some of them  bear
traces of very remote antiquity. Their execrableness
alone commended them, perhaps; and their venerableness
attested their merit.
Such a man could not be a bookworm: still his bookish
achievements were most remarkable. Only by transcribing the journal, commenced in I835, could any idea be
obtained of the extent of his researches  The folio pages
are crowded with lists of books read or to be read, - analyses, summaries, comments on writers of every description,
in every tongue. Only to name them would be a fatigue,Eichhorn, Herder, Ammon, De Wette, Paulus, Philo, the
Greek historians, the fathers of the Church, the Greek and
Latin poets, Plato, Spinoza, the Wolfenbiittel Fragments.
The succession is bewildering; but there is the record




DZVINITY HALL.                   47
in the private journal, the veracity whereof cannot be
disputed, -a record showing acquaintance not with the
names of the books merely, but with the contents. In
two months, November and December, I835, the names
of sixty-five volumes are given as having been read
in German, English, Danish, Latin, Greek, reaching all
the way from "Peter Simple" to Bouterwek and Rosenmiuller. One of them  was Dr. Channing's "Essay on
Slavery;" the first seed, perhaps, of the tree that spread
so widely in ten years. The seed fell upon good soil; for
Theodore, though generally indifferent to party politics,
held liberal opinions from the first. He never approved
of slavery or defended it, or was silent when others spoke
in its favor. Dr. Francis in Watertown observed that.
His power of getting at the secret of a language was
wonderful. Hebrew he taught to a class of collegians;
and during Dr. Palfrey's absence in New Orleans, in 1836,
he took the professor's place as Hebrew instructor at the
Hall.  His studies in languages were not always pushed
very far; a taste sometimes sufficed; but the taste detected
the quality of the speech. Some of his studies in comparative philology are curious. In the list of languages
from whose literature he drank deeper or lighter draughts
we find Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, modern Greek, Chaldee, Arabic, Persian,
Coptic, Ethiopic, Russian. "The Swedish language is
easy, and I expect to get much amusement and instruction
from  it. The Danish presents more difficulties than
Swedish; and I shall not study it extensively, but soon
make it give place to some other." The Russian he
dropped, being unable to master the sounds of the language. Later in life he mastered it so far as to become
acquainted with the dialect that is used by the priests.
President White of Cornell found him as well booked in
Russian affairs as he himself, who had been studying them
on the spot for months. A friend found him, one day




48               THEODORE PARAER.
in later life, poring over the grammar of the Mpongwe
tongue, a dialect of Africa. The German furnished him
the richest materials for thought in theology, philosophy,
criticism, and poetry. His own English speech was not
neglected. The journal bears traces of serious work on
the Anglo-Saxon alphabet, and on the derivation of Celtic
and Gothic tongues. One page of "The Common-Place
Book " gives a comparative table of characters in Phcenician, Hebrew, Etruscan, Greek, Latin, Runic, Irish, Thibetan, and two others whose names are illegible.
To deal with such materials, one's tools must be in
good condition. He was wont to whet his memory on a
huge chart, covered with dates set down in irregular order,
which he had posted on his door. Here are canons of
self-discipline that he made for himself. They are printed
as they stand; though one or two of them  are for the
privacy of his own eye, and must be read as the secret
thoughts of a man in his closet:I. PHYSICAL.
I. Avoid excess in meat and drink.
2. Take exercise in the air at least three hours a day.
3. Always get six hours' sleep. (To this is added
in pencil, as an afterthought, "More is better:
seven hours certainly; eight hours very often,
and always would be more suitable and proper.")
II. INTELLECTUAL.
I. Explore a subject when curiosity is awake. Sometimes
this is impossible. Note the subject in a book, and
examine as soon as possible in this manner: —
I. By finding out what I really know upon the subject.
2. Obtaining clear and distinct notions in some way.
3. By stating in words the result of my study, and
repeating till it has made a deep impression.
Sometimes write them in this book.
4. If historical, settle the time; writers who related it;
their character.
5. The cause.
6. The effect.




DIVINITY HALL.                     49
II. Kee5 the Tind obedient to the will, so as to be independ
ent of external affairs.  This cannot be completely effected, but may be, in a great measure,
by the use of certain intermedia; viz., words of
poets, &c.
I I I. MORAL.
I. Preserve devoutness by, -
I. Contemplation of Nature;
2. Of the attributes of God;
3. Of my own dependence.
4. By prayer at night and morn, and at all times when
devout feelings come over me.
II. Preserve gratitude by reflections on God's mercies to
me,
I. In giving blessings unasked;
2. Answering prayer.
III. Restrain licentiousness of imagination, which comprehends many particulars that must not be
committed to paper, lest the paper blush.
That last touch shows the sincerity of the man.  None
but the purest ever make such entries. But for that whisper in the confessional, it would never have been suspected that tainted fancies ever surprised him, so utterly
blameless was his life, so strange to his lips was the sound
of an impure word, so alien from his frank blue: eyes was
the most fleeting look  suggestive  of indelicacy.  His
moral feelings were strict to austerity.  Even his religious
sentiments had a tinge of Puritanism in them.
To a nephew he writes in i834: "One thing in your
letter did displease me: I mean the unholy manner in
which you quoted words of sacred writ.  Such use of
Scripture, you know, is inconsistent with the Christian
spirit; and you will only need to have its bad tendency
pointed out to avoid it in the future."  To the same, a
month later: " Do you attend Mr. Barry's (Unitarian)
church constantly? Are you yet a member?  If not, I
do not accuse you: yet I think it is the duty of every one
5




50              THEEODORE PARKER.
to employ all the means of religion within reach; and this
is certainly a powerful one. It is not an end to be
obtainedl: it is one of the means to promote spiritual-mindedness and true piety. Perhaps you think keeping the law,
and being merely a good moral man, is religion: I think
not. Do not think I mean to reproach you. It is only
my intention to warn."  Again, a few weeks later, to the
same nephew, so near his own age that he prefers to
address him as "friend:" "So a man is a Christian, it
makes little difference whether he is a Calvinist or
Lutheran, Papist or Protestant. We all know that each
sect contains in its instructions enough of pure and vital
Christian advice to insure our salvation, so far as this
depends upon ourselves or our fellow-mortals.... I
am glad you find delight in worshipping where you do.
I hope God will hear your prayers, and always grant you
happiness in your belief, which I will never exhort you to
change; though every conscientious man would prefer
all his friends to be of his own persuasion." In a subsequent letter of this intimate correspondence he says, "I
do not suppose you mean to say that religion is some one
t/ing, state, or feeling, which comes to you in a moment,
when you had no conception of such a thing before; but
that it is love to God, and good will to men, which gradually arises in the heart, and which goes on constantly
increasing..... Remember, there is no standing still in
religion. If you are not going forward, you are falling
backward.  Strive for greater eminence in  religion.
Labor to be more constant in prayer, more exact in
self-wratchfulness, more perfect in your outward conduct.
But, above all, strive, watch, pray, to be more pure in
heart. This is the one thing needful.  So far as you fail
of this, though you attend all the meetings in the country, and pray with the force of a martyr, -nay, though
you die a martyr, - you fail of religion; you come sho t
of the requirements of Christianity.... Do not forget




DIVINITY HALL.                     51
charity for men's opinions, defects; yes, for their crimes.
Do not slight and'scorn a man because you think he is
less religious than you." In December of the same year
(1834) he writes further: "I attended Dr. Beecher's sixdays' meeting in Boston some three or four years ago. I
confess I derived much advantage from it; but it was
too harsh a remedy for gentle souls. Neither Christ nor
his apostles ever drove lambs into the fold. A storm
drives, every now and then, a ship to land; but how
many perish in the waters! "  The letter goes on: " If it
is a man's duty to be devout in prayer, it is no less so to
be devout in business. God never commanded us to be
charitable and kind an hour in the morning and a little
time at night, and suffered us to be peevish and revengeful all the rest of the day.  We are not to keep one day
holy, and defile all the rest."
Two more short extracts from the letters to this nephew,
Mr. Greene, will give a sufficient notion of his religious
mind at this period.  The first is dated Nov. 14, i835.
"By religion I mean... total obedience to the will of
God in all things, the most trifling as well as the most
important. This is the religion of the apostles, the religion of Christ..... Its points are self-distrust, meekness,
cheerfulzess, joy, faith, love. If any man on earth has
cause to be joyful, it is the Christian." The date of the
second extract is June ii, i834: "I consider a man's duty
to be this, -to do the most good and the least evil possible.  But how is this to be done? To whom is this to be
done? A man of tolerable intellect, and of little education, quite late in life becomes religiouzs; feels an earnest
desire to'do good,' to'benefit mankind:' so he leaves
his business, and, half educated as he is, becomes a
preacher. Now, the man's motive may be the best possible; his desire to'do good' may be worthy of angels:
but he entirely mistakes the means of assisting man. He
actually retards the growth of religion, and puts back the
truth, good as his heart is."




52              THEODORE PARKER.
Now for his theological opinions. In i833, as we learn
from a letter to Mr. George T. Bigelow, he is inclined to be
sarcastical on the subject of scepticism; and in a long,
strenuously-underlined epistle, caricatures the rationalizing process, by stating doubts in regard to the career and
even the existence of Christopher Columbus, though still
declaring, that, in his judgment, doubt arising from the
spirit of free inquiry is preferable to faith founded on prejudice. "'Ignorance is not devotion, or the mother of devotion; and faith which is not founded upon reason is not
faiz'/, but folly."  But he was very slow in applying to the
ordinary Unitarian creed of his youth the results of his
study. Immediately on going to Cambridge, he writes to
his nephew, Mr. Greene, as follows:'"I believe there is
one God, who has existed from all eternity, with whom
the past, present, and future are alike present; that he is
almighty, good, and merciful; will reward the good, and
punish the wicked, both in this world and the next.
"This punishment may be eternal. Of course I believe
that neither the rewards nor punishments of a future state
are corporal: bodily pleasures soon satiate; and may God
preserve us from a worse punishmenzt than one's own conscience! I believe the books of the Old and New Testaments to have been written by men inspired by God for
cortain purposes; but I do not think them inspired at all
times. I believe that Christ was the Son of God, conceiverd
and born in a mniracuZlous mzanner; that he came to preach
a better religion by which men may be saved.
"This religion, as I think, allows men the very highest
happiness in this life, and promises eternal felicity in
another world. I do not think our sins will be forgiven
because Christ died. I believe God knows all that we
shall do, but does not cause us to do any thing. I do not
believe in total depravity, or that Adam's sin will be imputed to us.
"I believe, if a man leads a good and pure life, he will




DIVINITY HALL.                     53
be accepted with God. I believe prayer to be an especial
duty man owes to himself. God is not to be benefited by
the paltry homage man can give him; but we —we are benefited by it. I think reading the holy Bible, attending church,
prayers, professing religion, and pious conversations, are
all means of religion..... I think sins in the heart as bad
as sins of the hand..... This will, perhaps, be sufficient to
show the grand leading features of my belief."  In 1835,
when Mr. Orville Dewey delivered the Dudleian Lecture,
Mr. Parker made note of it in his journal thus: "It was
the best, perhaps, I have ever heard, though upon the least
interesting part of the evidences of revealed religion; viz.,'Miracles.' He removed the presumptions against them.
The objections were not only met, but overturned."
But the active mind is at work. Here is one of the first
signs of it in the journal, Nov. 2, I835: —
"Tertullian I have always looked upon with considerable jealousy, and believe he introduced more heresies and ridiculous
doctrines into the Church than almost all the other fathers, not
excepting Austin (Augustine). He first introduced the notion
that faith and reason contradict each other naturally. He
thought faith which contradicted reason was most acceptable
to God. Everybody knows he thought the soul material, &c.:
he thought it was sky-blue.
" I am heart-weary and reason-weary of these same doting
fathers. They have sense; but it is like some worthy's wit,' a
grain of wheat in a bushel of chaff.' I shall soon be done with
them, however; for the present, at least. One of the greatest
proofs of the darkness of the monastic ages is the folly-admiration bestowed on these same nonsense-writers.
"Origen was not a good Hebrew scholar; and of course his
principles of interpretation were bad. He did the Church an
essential service by his deep philosophy and eloquence....
"Jerome loved glory rather than truth; was superstitious;
and an introducer of important errors, both in doctrine and
interpretation. He was not a profound scholar in Hebrew, or
even in Greek. He tasted of theology, rather than exhausted
5*




54               THE 0ODOE PARKE R.
it. He wrote his books in great haste. Yet many good things,
they say, can be gleaned from his seven folios.
"St. Augustine, we all know, introduced more errors into the
Church than ally other man. Many of his doctrines fly in the
face both of reason and virtue, to extinguish the eyes of one,
and to stifle the breath of the other."
" Nov. 17, 1835. - Finished De Wette's'Commentary on the
Psalms.'... He is a fearless critic; and a critic should fear
only one thing, - afalsehood. He treats the Messianic interpretation of the Psalms as a mere chimera; which it is, in my
humble opinion."
The following passage from  the journal shows that all
this free-thinking is beginning to have its effect on special beliefs:
"I do not doubt that Jesus was a man'sent from God,' and
endowed with power from on high; that he taught the truth,
and worked miracles: but that he was the subject of inspired
prophecy I very much doubt. Does he ever say so? Admitting he did, may we not suppose that he was ignorant of the
truth of this matter? Was it necessary for him to know how
much inspiration was meted out to the ancient prophets? I
suppose him inspired by God immediately for a certain purpose. Could he not accomplish it without understanding the
sources whence the ancient writers drew their doctrines?
" But, rejecting this, why should he not accommodate himself
to the state of the public mind?... I know the above would
appear like blasphemy to many divines; but I must stand by
my own master, not by another manz. My confidence in the
divinity of Christ's character, of the truth, the sufficiency, of his
doctrine, depends not at all upon prophecies or visions or
dreams.
" Had the prophets only their authority to build upon, they
would not have been believed. They spoke the words of
ancient and notorious tradition; but I find no mention of their
divine inspiration."
He finds stories of virgin-births in the legends of India,
Persia, Greece, though he draws no inference from them:




DIrVIVITY HALL.                  55
doubts whether Luke, "whose Gospel we do not now question in general, could, as a foreigner lately converted to
Christianity, transmit credible accounts of the juvenile
history of Christ;" and is more solicitous to glorify the
spiritual powers of Jesus than to defend his miraculous
birth.
The condition of MAr. Parker's mind is best revealed in the
pages of "The Scriptural Interpreter," a small magazine
designed for easy family instruction, commenced in 183 I by
Ezra Stiles Gannett, then the colleague of Dr. Channing, but
abandoned by him on account of failing health. In 1835
it came under the charge of MIr. Parker and two of his
classmates. They continued the publication, writing the
great part of it themselves, till it closed in 1836.  The
largest contributor of the three was Mr. Parker.  He
Nwrote constantly and frankly, reporting the results of his
studies in biblical interpretations; those being the matters
he was most interested in. I-is articles display fairness
and honesty, but give no evidence of peculiar boldness,
and no sign whatever of rashness either in speech or
thought.  The papers have not the intellectual glow of
speculative controversy, nor the tingling charm of genius:
they are rather dry and dull, plodding industriously along
over the rough ground of criticism that lay between the
accepted Unitarianism of the period and the new views
that had not yet been avowed, if they had been revealed.
De Wette, Eichhorn, Astruc, and scholars of the moderate
school of rationalism, supplied the material. The Authenticity and Construction of the Pentateuch, the Composition
of the Psalms, the Dates and Ingredients of the Books of
Isaiah, the Nature of Prophecy, the Meaning of the socalled " Messianic Prophecies," were the topics handled.
Theological points were scarcely discussed; principles of
philosophy were neither applied nor debated; the themes
dealt with were rarely exhibited in their general aspects;
the question between naturalists and supernaturalists,




56             THEODORE PARKER.
involving the miracle controversy which raged so fiercely
a few years later, was not touched. There was nothing that
should have disturbed a calm mind. Mr. Parker himself
demurred at accepting the positions taken by tHengstenberg and other critics of the rationalistic school. He thinks
that De Wette makes the prodigy of the withered fig-tree
easier of credence by suggesting that the blasting did not
follow immediately on the curse. " Gabler undertakes to
show that a revelation is not possible, which seems utterly
unphilosophical." ToAmmon's argument that Moses could
not have written the Pentateuch, because that shows a finished language, he replies, " All that may be true; but I do
not believe it." Goethe's remark on the Hebrew Scriptures
is quoted admiringly: " They stand so happily combined together, that, even out of the most diverse elements, the feeling
of a whole still rises before us. They are complete enough
to satisfy, fragmentary enough to excite, barbarous enough
to arouse, tender enough to appease."  "Delany believes
in the universality of the Deluge; as who does not?"
The arguments of those who held that the laws commanding the extirpation of the Canaanites could not have been
inspired by Jehovah were not quite convincing, though
plausible: "It must be remembered, the nations to be
extirpated were exceedingly vicious and corrupt; and, if
suffered to remain, would doubtless have led away the
Jews from their better faith. If nations are by the divine
permission visited with earthquakes and pestilences, why
may not the sword be employed for similar purposes?"
The absence of discrimination in this extract, which
places war and earthquake on the same footing; the assumption that Jehovah did send both pestilence and war; the
quiet non-distribution of leading terms, - should have indicated that as yet nothing was to be feared from the audacity
of a heedless intellect. But some did fear. Angry subscribers sent in their warning protests against the destructive
criticism that was unsettling one passage, book, prophecy,




DlVI I TY HALL.                  57
after another, till the pious Christian had nothing left to
stand on but what was in common with the Deist. " Are
the theologians at Cambridge determined to break down
the prophecies, and make our blessed Saviour and his apostles impostors and liars?" was the cry of the sentinels on
the walls of Zion. Eminent divines shook their heads;
were grieved that such an article had been written. The
writer was dimly sorry for the uproar he did not understand, but went on, step by step, apparently seeing as
little as anybody else the end toward which he was tending, and preserved, both by his mental fearlessness and
his spirituality of faith, from any apprehension of danger. His confidence in the truth, and in the honest mind's
power to apprehend it, was simple and entire. "Who dares
say that the man who will adhere to God's truth is rash?
and who will deny the presumption of one who dares
depart from it?"  This noble unconsciousness kept him
safe, but made him, in the eyes of sectarians, unsafe.
The time had not come for him to bring his mental integrity to bear.
Possibly one reason for the slowness with which revolutionary ideas took possession of the future "heresiarch"
may have been the literary spirit that at this period controlled him. His reading was by no means confined to
books of theology and criticism. He enjoys Dante and
Tasso. Goethe begins to interest him, as he did all his
life.  After perusing Mrs. Austin's "Characteristics of
Goethe," he writes, " I always feel my flame growing dim
after such reading: it awakens a sense of dissatisfaction
in the bosom that does not down at a moment's bidding.
The translatress intends to place Goethe in a favorable
light; but she does not succeed, in my opinion. I regard
the great German literature-giant as not a little selfish:
indeed, was not his whole character based on this feeling?
What are we to think of the man who shuts himself in from
all knowledge of human misery?  What did he ever do




58              TIIEODORE PARKAER.
for the cause of man? Voltaire could be benevolent
and patriotic: when was Goethe so? I am, however, but
little, nay, not at all, read in his works; so forbear to judge.
Heaven send it may not be true!"  A page or two farther
on the criticism softens: "I have a better opinion of the
giant of Germany since reading this book ('Wanderjahre')
than before. An enemy of Christianity could by no means
have written that description of the School of the Three
Reverences, which terminates in reverence for one's self."
And again: "WVho can say that Goethe was ignorant of
religion, after having read'The Confessions of a Fair
Penitent'? "
In a correspondence with Miss Susan Burley, a woman of
remarkable literary acquirements, he comments on the characters of the "'Jerusalem Delivered," mentions with enjoyment the " sweet little wild witch-stories " of Tieck, and is
curious about editions of Dante. His original repugnance
to novel-reading is overcome.  The journal has a page
and a half of appreciative comment on "Tom  Jones,"
which he wonders could have escaped him so long. On
another page he writes, " I have just read'The Linwoods,'
a very interesting novel; which shows the woman, however.
I think it will do good. Much good may it do in correcting the tone of society, which I regard as villanous just
now!"  "Bubbles from the Brunnen " he finds a delightful
book; the "Gesta Romanorum" interest him, but one
volume is enough; the "Robin-Hood Ballads" carry him
off into a dissertation on "Volk-Songs;" Ritson's "Fairy
Tales" amuse him; "Peter Simple" is not at all to his
taste; Bowring's "Poetry of the Magyars" tempts him to
make extracts; Longfellow's " Pilgrimage beyond the Sea"
is a pleasant after-dinner book; Heine's " Germany " startles
him, - " The writer must be a man of genius, and can be no
other than a misanthrope and a not-Christian."  The list
is interminable: Southey's "Doctor," " Memoirs of Oberlin," Toulmin's "Life of Socinus," -all food is nourish



DIVINITY HALL.                    59
ing to the hungry mind.  He comes across Bulwer's " Rienzi," -" a fine work, full of beauty, truth, and nobleness.
There is rather too much of it." In December, I836, he
falls in with " Pickwick."  Moore's " Lalla Rookhl" pleases
him: "I have not lately been so much delighted with any
poem as with this little treasury of sweets. It is full of the
East, redolent of its citron-groves and spices, and glows
with its fervid sun and burning soul."
After this the transition is not so violent as it would be
from the Greek and Latin fathers to floods of verses from
his own pen. This favorite amusement of young students
was indulged in freely. The titles will sufficiently indicate
their character: "To L-a," "Moral Beauty," "A Vision,"
"IMidnight," "Gratitude," "Prayer," " Winter," "An Evening I-ymn," "To Sadness," "Two Songs," "Eternity,"
" A  Serenade," "Reflections at Midnight," "Absence,"
"Midnight Musings," " Spring," "The Complaint of a
Lover," "The Stars," "To a Little Flower," "Morning
Hymn," " The Rising Moon," " The Setting Star," " Stanzas," and so on, -sonnets and songs and meditations, in
various moods, easy-going, often melodious, more often sentimental. The author thought them worth committing to
his journal; but it would be hardly worth while to print
them here. A specimen, however, must be given. The
selection would be easier were the pieces fewer, or were any
distinguished by special merit of sentiment or expression.
EVENING HYMN.
The chiming of the evening breeze
That plays among the boughs;
The ripple of the purple seas
As Night her mantle throws;
The unveiling of each timid star
That sheds its beauty from afar,All these have voices for mine ear.




60               THEODOEL PARKER.
All nature cries, great God! to thee;
And I will raise my voice,
Uplift my feeble minstrelsy,
And bid my heart rejoice.
Thy sun sheds glory in his light;
Deep darkness praises thee by night:
But'tis thy Spirit makes delight.
Great God! accept the humble praise
A heart sincere would bring:
My heart's own anthem'tis I raise,
My soul's desire I sing.
Glory to thee, all gracious Lord!
For thou dost every gift afford,
And gladd'st my spirit with thy word.
It is not very good; yet it is one of the best. Mr. Parker
had not the poetic fire; though he knew what it was. In
a letter to Miss Cabot, dated March 14, i836, he says, "I
would I had that'dangerous gift,' as some call it, but which
Milton terms the'divine gift,' - the power of the true poet.
He possesses such a spring of ever-living water in his own
deep and noble soul, that continually gushes up to his breast,
and wells out in all his life. Who can fail to admire that
profound enthusiasm with which the true poet regards all
nature? Nay, all that lives and moves, or merely is, has for
him a deep and permanent charmingness.  Go where he
will, he sees Beauty; for she dwells in his own breast, and
diffuses her sweet influences over all his eye rests upon."
His best poems are religious; and the finest of these are
the sonnets addressed to Jesus, whose name never failed
to kindle his enthusiasm. The first was written in December of this year.
"Jesus, there is no dearer name than thine,
Which Time has written on his endless scroll:
Nor wreaths nor garlands ever did intwine
So fair a temple of so vast a soul.




DIVIA7NTY hALL.                    6 i
Ay, every angel set his glowing seal
Upon thy brow, and gave each human grace,
In a sweet copy heaven to reveal,
And stamp perfection on a mortal face.
Once on the earth, before dull mortal eyes,
Which could not half thy sacred radiance see,
E'en as the emmet cannot read the skies,For our weak orbs reach not immensity,
Once on the earth wert thou, a living shrine,
Where dwelt the good, the lovely, the divine."
The "sentiments" and apothegms scattered up and down
the pages of the Journal and Common-Place Book disclose
the earnestness of his mind:"Faith is collective energy."
" By action of the soul the' formless and void' becomes'very
good.' "
" Had there been no monsters to subdue, there had been no
Hercules."' Love is the perfect action of the whole soul."
" Egyptian bondage brings Egyptian darkness."
" Nothing dries so soon as tears."
"He that has a principle is inspired."
" Religion is the highest form of love."
" Wealth injures talent more than poverty. Under gold hills
and thrones perhaps many a spiritual giant lies buried."
" Liberty is justice secured."
"The soul, like the magnetic needle, ever trembles for an
embrace with God."
" Necessitythe strongest; time the wisest; man the greatest."
"There is a Solomon in every stupid man, a devil in every
saint."
" Artolatry (bread-worship),- that of these times, which invert the old order, and turn God into bread, not bread into God."
" Faith must present her credentials before she rules Reason."
"If you dare not say what you think, soon you will dare say
what you do not think."
"Reason acknowledges no useless or dangerous truths."
"If this world were all, a heart were a sad gift."
6




62               THIIEODORE PARKER.
" If teachers disclose truth as fast as God reveals it to them,
there is no danger."
"A new truth can never do so much harm as an old error."
"God and truth are always on the same side."
"Man may say what is heresy; but God only can tell
who is the heretic."
" Philosophy is the love of wisdom; Christianity, the wisdom
of love."
" Great minds mould things to thoughts: little minds mould
thoughts to things."
" A single seed is the result of all the suns that ever shone."
"The faculty of love is the measure of great souls."
" Laughter of fools is like the crackling of thorns under a
pot, which they cannot heat, only begrime."
" Climbing plants are always weak."
" Avoid that society in which it is dangerous to speak, and
painful to be silent."
This vein of moral earnestness crops out on almost every
page. A passage from Plato suggests this comment: —
" What is it proper for the ignorant to suffer from the wise?
Learning. What, then, is due from the good to the bad? Hurt?
Not at all. Goodness is due them. Is a man bad: the good
shall teach him goodness. Penal legislation now-a-days has
all the effect of the purest injustice in driving the half-guilty
to increased crime, and in making doubly deep the hatred of
the revengeful. I doubt not the angel of humanity will beat
with her golden pinions all prisons to small dust."
One brief note intimates that he had no fondness for
general society: "A ball at Dr. Bowditch's: quite a large
party.  This balling is tedious business to me.  A walk
Of four miles in and four miles out alone, in a terribly
cold night, is no joke."  He takes kindly to vacations,
however:"I have passed the vacation (winter of 1836) delightfully; never more so. Time has flown by on silken pinions.
I have been at Boston most of the time; and to see one's




DIVINITY HALL.                   63
dearest of all friends every day, and a thousand times every
day, is heart-ravishing. Have been to Salem.  Saw all
the lions of the place, from the'murder-house'to'Deacon
Giles's Distillery.' I have made calls, and spent evenings
abroad, almost without end. Indeed, I have completely
reversed the old order of the day; so that to be at home is
the exception, as it formerly was the rule.... I have been
up to Watertown, and staid some considerable time with
my uncle and cousins and with Dr. Francis, and have made
a new acquaintance: I mean Mr. Bradford. I met him
at Mr. Francis's, and walked to Boston with him: not a
little delighted with the man."
This certainly shows a genial spirit. That same winter
he lectured in Concord, and passed part of an evening with
Mr. Emerson -" truly a most delightful man "- and his
wife. "He once said of her, that she was the'soul of
faith.' Of course her life is faithl pbt in action; and what
more noble can be said of any one?"
In the month of April, I836, the generosity of a friend
gave him the pleasure of a trip to Washington, through
New York and Philadelphia. Nothing occurred of note.
In WVashington he goes to the chambers of Congress; listens to the debate on the bill " for preventing the circulation
of incendiary papers " at the South; hears Mr. King and
Mr. Calhoun; sees the "little magician" gliding round,
clapping men on their shoulders, and shaking their hands,
-"very artful and naughty" looking; sees Clay, tall and
homely, walking about in a dignified manner; notices the
negroes as matter of course, and remarks, "They are a
queer set, these negroes: some of them are very merry,
dancing and capering about on the sidewalk as if they had
nought to do but dance. I saw two negro lovers walking
arm-in-arm, cooing and billing as if they could not restrain
their joy in one another's presence. Why should co/or
prevent them? "
In this man, clearly, there are deeps of power waiting to




64              THEODORE PARKER.
be stirred. The angel has not descended to trouble the
waters: he is expected. "What a strange life is this of
mine! How remarkable appears the course I have run
when I look back on it from the present moment! Verily'there's a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them
how we will.' I wonder what the Almighty Parent designs
for me. Where wilt thou, O Father! cast my lot? I would
not seek with prurient curiosity to invade the mysterious
cabinet of futurity; but I must confess that I am by no
means indifferent to the future which shall be appointed
me. But I trust I shall be resigned to the will of Omnipotence. At the worst, even, there will be enough to do:
this is some consolation to one who loves activity, and
would fain be useful to his fellows.
" Opportunities for practical usefulness are always offering themselves to the seekers; one, too, so singularly
blessed by Heaven as I, can carry with him another element of felicity,- a companion, whose brave heart mirrors back mny owzn from its celestial depths. May the Lord
send his blessing upon us wherever we are! "
On June I7, i835, he writes to Miss Cabot, "Let us
imagine our happiness in some new station we are to
occupy: we shall see a thousand delights which now refresh our whole soul only by their images, - the shadows
which they cast before them; and, when they shall really
come, we shall be all ready to receive them, and welcome
them to our company like old guests....  It is delightful
now to imagine myself a minister, to recount the duties of
the station, and consider all the ways of performing them,
and the glorious satisfaction of seeing God's work prosper
in my hand. I turn to a home, — a home of beauty, of
affection, of love; to a home where all noble feelings are
cherished, and all jarring interests and strife excluded....
Calamities may fall upon that home, - they come upon all
men; each country has its own storms; but, if it is built
on the rock of holy affection, it will stand. The floods




DIVINITY IHALL.                  65
may pass over it: they can never shake its fixed foundation."
His sermons in the Divinity School were dry and scholastic to a degree that provoked reproof from the professor,
to Theodore's great chagrin. Their dulness was a surprise. His first public preaching in the village church
was a disappointment. "I felt much embarrassed; though
perhaps it did not show forth. To say the truth, I did not
feel the sermon as much as I usually do; for the hour
usually spent in preparing for the service was consumed
in'doing the agreeable.' May God in his mercy grant
me power to improve in this holy duty!  May I go on from
strength to strength, increasing continually in godliness and
wisdom, and thus show forth pure and holy Christianity
in my life no less than in my teachings! 0 God! wilt
thou help me to become more pure in heart, more holy, and
better able to restrain all impetuous desires and unholy
passions? May I'put down every high thing' that would
exalt itself against the perfect law of God! Help me, in
the intercourse of life, to discharge my duties with a more
Christian-like fidelity; to love thee the more, and those
with whom I am to deal."
" Visitation Day " was a "day of trembling."  The services in the morning "went off" well. His own subject
was "Gnosticism," for which he had read Neander and Matter, and had held conversations with the professor, from
which he came away with an unpleasant impression of the
wise man's want of candor, not to say insight. "The
exercises of the afternoon "dragged heavily."  He was displeased with a certain D.D., who remarked that he had no
denominational character, but was an eclectic. " No man can
thus set himself free from his contemporaries, and feel none
of their influence. He may, indeed, withdraw himself from
their meetings, and refuse to co-operate with them; but to
attempt to retire from all sympathy with them is silly, and
to pretend to have done it is preposterous."
6*




66             THEODORE PARKER.
His preparation at the Hall is finished. " Two years and
three months have passed speedily and pleasantly away.
God has prospered me in all my studies; and I am now
ready to go forth, but not without dread and fear. What
an immense change has taken place in my opinions and
feelings upon all the main points of inquiry since I entered
this place!
"I ask for thy blessings, 0 most merciful Father! upon
all my labors and studies. Keep me from sin and from
every harmful error."




CHAPTER V.
THE CANDIDATE.
ON leaving the Hall, Theodore allowed himself a
short vacation; but it was Milton's " idle vacancy" now.
The relish for this kind of indulgence was gone. "The
two weeks past have been spent in loitering about, idling
away time, and living at ease;  now strolling about with
Lydia, and now picking cherries and flowers alone. By
the way, I have found a flower that wants a name in Dr.
B.'s book. I have thus loitered about, doing almost
nothing; not profiting morally, religiously, or even intellectually, and perhaps but little in body, considering
that I am getting bad habits of early retiring, late lying,
and general indolence. So much for my state of repose.
Blessed be these iron times!-there is something
for man to do; and, still more, something for him to
thzink.
"Suppose not, my dearly-beloved book, that I felt no
pleasure in thus passing time. I am not so cold-hearted
as to wander among the gardens of the Graces with no
sense that riots, and no soul that thrills. Nay, my heart
has been warmed by the sweetest —I had almost said,
the noblest —impulses; but it does not advance me in
the journey of life as I would wish to move. It does
not allow my soul to unfold its wings in this fledgingplace and trial-ground, and prepare for the lofty and dangerous flight when it must'sail with uplift wing' against
67




68              THEODORE PARAIER.
tempest and storm. I have sterner deeds to do, greater
dangers to dare. I mzust be about vmy work."
It was customary for young preachers, after leaving the
school, to try their powers in friendly pulpits of older
men before dashing into the broad "vineyard of the
Lord " which was waiting for reapers. Theodore made
his first venture in the desk of his old friend Dr. Francis,
at Watertown, on July 24, after wrestling with doubts,
hopes, fears, for a month previous. "Not only by day,
but in the deep watches of the night, have painful visitations come over me. Well, Heaven be praised that I
have once preached to a real live audience, to feeling beings, and those my very friends and neighbors!
"I am resolved to cast forth my seed-corn into the
ever-busy working universe, that it may bring forth as the
Lord pleases. With him is the result, not with me."
His themes on this occasion were, " The Necessity of
a Heavenly Life," and "Religion a Principle and Sentiment,"   vital topics both, bespeaking less the bookworm
than the prophet, and vitally treated, if we may accept the
opinion of his hearers. The preacher says, "I have
heard enough of covnpliments, which come from partial
judges." The next Sunday he preached for Mr. Putnam in
a large and full house, with a success that surprised those
who had heard only of his prodigious feats of learning.
The trials of the candidate were now upon him: he
must carry his wares to the public market. After a brief
experience as a peddler of gospel goods, he writes thus in
October to his class-mate Livermore, who had been happy
in finding an early settlement: "I rejoice that you are
already so fortunate as to escape from the perils of cancidating. I have long looked forward to this period of my
life as one full of difficulties, unpleasantness, and dangers; and experience has taught me-dearly enough —
that not a tithe of the real evil was anticipated. To say
nothing about the bodily ills which attend this nomadic




THE CANDIDA TE.                  69
life of a minister, there are intellectual evils of no common nlagnitude, and difficulties in the way of true spiritual culture which are truly frightful. All of us are so far
creatures of time and space, and therefore accessible to
pleasant sights and agreeable sounds, that we all have
some private spot, or at least some chosen time, when the
tide of feeling sets afresh in the heart; when, by virtue
of long'use and wont,' our souls mount upward, and soar
straight into the region of' open vision' without an effort.
Now, how are we not debarred of this privilege? We are
actually driven, by force of circumstances, away from these' fountains of living water,' and compelled to hew out for
ourselves'broken cisterns which hold no water.' But I
will not weary you with a detail of those evils, which, I
bless God, you have escaped."
His first extended experiment was one of four weeks
at Barnstable, a seaport town on the south side of Barnstable Bay, supported mainly by fisheries and a coast
trade. He goes down in the "neat little  schooner'Sappho,'" on a smooth sea, with favoring wind. "Gracefully the little vessel cut the wave." There were about
twenty passengers, mostly ladies; two young people of
rude bearing, who ate lemons and pickled limes, and who
gave him an orange; and three pretty girls, two of them
sisters of the Rev. Mr. Greenwood. Their father was
with them, — " an intelligent and agreeable old gentleman," with whom he soon came to an understanding.
There was but one cabin, which had to serve as lodgement and lounging-room, during the evening and night,
for the whole party.  "The ladies went down about halfpast eight; for it was cold. Soon after nine I descended,
feet foremost, -perpendicularly almost. They had gotten
into their several berths, and there were lying, the curtains still undrawn. I sat rather awkwardly, and chatted
and laughed with them, who did not seem  at all disturbed by the peculiarity of the scene. By and by I, too,




70.THEODORE PARKER.
crept into a crib, -a lady above me, another at my head,
and a third at my feet. I had the poet's corner. All
night there was a noise, - some getting up, others getting down; roisterous fellows carousing; children crying, and mothers attempting to quiet them. Sleep went
up the hatch-way, but did not find good quarters, and
so came in with me, and staid till nearly five, A.M."
At Barnstable he has pleasant quarters at Mrs. Whitman's, a lady of prepossessing appearance and manners.
On Saturday he looks up two or three of the leading
men, presents his credentials, and takes a view of the
town. "The houses are generally small, - many of only
one story, or one and a half, — are usually shingled instead of being clap-boarded, and are not always painted:
many are still of the dark hue of the tarnished wood.
Some are yellow; others green or red; a few are white.
There are some pretty places. The road winds at a little
distance from the shore, and the houses are built at
irregular intervals along its sides. There is a pretty hill
back of the house, which affords a good prospect in all
directions." On the whole, he concludes that the town is
not, perhaps, so well adapted as some others to a cultivation of esthetics, but that ethics can be well enough
studied.  Nevertheless, he tries the Muse:" Day's weary portals softly close,
And slow the sun retires;
And Night his dewy mantle throws
On Earth's decaying fires.'Tis sweet, my love, when day is o'er,
And hushed each jarring sound,
To turn and think of thee once more:
It makes my heart rebound.
A quicker beat now fires my heart;
My thoughts now swifter glow "



THE CA NDIDA TE.                71
But Barnstable is no better adapted to poetry than to resthetics; and suddenly the enraptured strain ceases.
He presently suspects the place to be spiritually dead.
The people do not seem willing to talk on religious subjects. Still he hopes to do some good. The four private and three public schools suggest an occupation.
He begs Miss Cabot not to hang the leaden collar of
" Be careful and not do too much " about his neck. He
walks eight miles a day, makes new acquaintances, and
becomes interested in the doings and feelings of the people. He ascends the hill daily for a breeze and a view;
makes excursions to a pretty pond about four miles distant with Mir. Drew, the schoolmaster; goes to tea-parties
at Capt. Bacon's and elsewhere; attends funerals; and
feels a sort of mental crystallization going on within him.
Slight attacks of home-sickness will visit the young minister; but they decrease as he gradually gets acquainted with:
the inanimate creation, -the trees, hills, rocks. He finds
several new species of flowers; makes a beautiful collection of salt-crystals; the cows and pigs afford him entertainment. The qualities of the people improve on closer
acquaintance. He finds them  not only agreeable, but
intelligent; and begins to think there is more religious
feeling than he had hastily surmised.
The open pulpit troubled him at first. The people sat
within a table's width of his chair, and looked in upon him
as if they would eat him up. The house was good, easy
to speak in. He felt somewhat awkward at the beginning,
but made an effort, and not only delivered the written
word, but " added much that was better and more searching, extemporaneously."  The people were exceedingly
attentive, and showed their interest by coming out in the
afternoon even better than in the morning.  The best
people called on him, - Dr. Tuck, Dr. Mack, Col. Underwood, Mr. Choate, Deacon Monroe. Nobody spoke to
him about the sermon; but Mr. Reed -" Squire " Reed,




72               THEODORE PARKER.
cousin of the Hon. John Reed, Register of Probate " and
several other things "   said to Mr. Whitman of one of his
discourses, that it was the greatest sermon he ever heard.
Parker had the common weakness of ministers, - that of
thinking his best sermons the least appreciated.  The
people did not listen well to his labored discourse; "belike they did not understand it, which was my fault, not
theirs:" but when the "preachment had little thought, and
as little originality," they were all attention.  The babes
wanted milk.
The Sundays were pretty full; so were the week-days.
There were visitings, social parties, a fishing-excursion, trips
to Yarmouth, Hyannis, &c. Dr. Tuck took him to a meeting
of the " Charitable and Benevolent Society," where the subject under discussion was the abolition of capital punishment. A theological point that came up brought him to his
feet, and he spoke in favor of the abolition. All this we
learn from his letters to Miss Cabot, full of pleasant gossip
about things and people, walks, talks, rambles, explorations,
"jactations," and dejections, the whole of which we would
copy if the limits of this biography did not forbid.
Meeting with practical men does the young student good.
This he confesses in a letter to his classmate Silsbee,
dated Barnstable, Aug. 2 I:
" How disqualified we are for contact with the real world I felt
when first shown a real live man; and when brought to speak
with him I was utterly at a stand, and scarcely knew what to say.
Thus, indeed, we come away from our three-years' studies at
Divinity College with some little knowledge of science, literature,
philosophy, peradventure some small inklings of theology and
metaphysics, nay, even a little knowledge of the science of
things in general, and with beards on our chins, but with no
other marks of manhood. Now, I maintain, that, besides a great
deal of knowledge, one needs as much skill to make it of any
use to him.
"This art of things in general I hope I have made some little




TH1E CAN~DIDA TE.                  73
advance in since I came to Barnstable. Indeed, it seems to me
I have growz in this regard, so that I can really talk to men as
if I were also a man, and not a student merely. A mere student
is a sort of hzonzunczulus, an animal not treated by Pliny, except
incidentally, when he speaketh of the war they once carried on
against their arch enemies the cranes."
The following encouraging record in the journal was set
down about this time:"It seems that I have gained much light within during the
short stay I have now made in Barnstable: it seems as if the
wire had touched the chaotic liquid, and crystallization had begun.
Seasons occur in the course of one's moral and intellectual history when the work of years seems to be effected in a few hours.
It seems to me that Nature wears a new aspect, and life has got
a new mleaning, since I came hither. Well, if I have learned any
duty more clearly, may Heaven be praised therefor!"
A visit to a Methodist camp-meeting at Eastham interested him.  He and his companion went in a vessel, which
was cast away on a sandy neck of land.  Theodore noted
the peculiar formation of the hills on the neck, the lighthouse, the mountain-cranberries, a glutinous kind of fish, the
conical shape of the sand-mountains, the lines of the beach,
the ship's regulator, and a great many other things. Arriving at the camp-grounds, his curiosity was all alive.  "One
tent was full of negroes, who were more vehement than their
white brethren. There was occasionally a touch upon
slavery: who wonders at it?... The women, I noticed,
were always the most noisy. Some of them were in hzysterics, I should say, and should explain it on well-known
physiological principles.  They said it was the Spirit.
How strangely men mistake the flesh for the Spirit! A
twitching of the nerves is often mistaken for inspiration.
I was much struck with the cold indifference of one
young woman, who sat very quietly munching gingerbread while all the process of'bringing in' was taking
7




74             THEODORE PARKER.
place around her.... I always noticed  that the
least learned were the most violent, — had most of the'Spirit of the Lord,' as they said."  The camp-ground
presented a striking scene. There were sixteen large tents
arranged in a semicircle about the pulpit, some of them
containing more than a hundred people. The woods behind were all alive. The description, which is too long to
copy, contains nice touches of humor, - the hideouslooking hay-cart; the queer carriages, drawn by oxen or
horses, as happened to be convenient; old Capt. Brown,
no stockings nor shoes on his feet, no jacket or vest,
pantaloons rolled up to his knees, carrying one of the
passengers on his back to the cart; the snuff-colored
man; the major who had had three trades and three
wives, - one for each trade. The two comrades walked
back to Barnstable, thirty miles, by the sandy road.
But, great as was the social activity, the mental activity
was even more remarkable. The dozen or so of books he
brought with him were soon exhausted. He writes to
Miss Cabot, "The air of the place braces my whole soul:
I could devour a whole library in a week. I think I
should write three new sermons a week all the time I am
here; but I have only enough of my favorite paper for two
more, and I forbear." Among the books mentioned in the
journal as in course of reading are Ackerman's " Christliches in Plato;" Schelling's "Lectures on Academic
Study," which he finds fault with as being too subjective;
Jahn's "Vaticinia Messiana," which seemed fundamentally
unsound in assuming the inspiration of all the writers of
the Old Testament; Schmidt's " Mysticismus der Mittelailter." But the most significant thing he undertook was
the translation of De Wette's "Introduction to the Old
Testament."  How quietly, yet with what forebodings, he
announces the beginning of this great task, which was
destined to be a monument of his own industry, a test of
his courage, and a mighty inauguration of his career  -




THE CANDIDA TE.                    75
"THURSDAY, Aug. II. - Finished another sermon on' The
Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus.'
"Began to translate De Wette's'Einleitung in das Alte
Testament.' I cannot tell what will be the result of this. I
shall leave that for another time to determine. Meanwhile I
will go on translating it quietly, as I wish, without interrupting
important studies."
On Monday, Aug. 28, his engagement being ended,
he took leave of his friends in Barnstable "'with many
a sigh, and certainly with many a wish that I shall soon
return to them."  They wanted him to stay longer; but
he declined. His books were exhausted: he was, for the
time, satisfied with the Barnstable life; and he longed,
as lovers will, for the society of his heart's mistress.
In the months of September and October his letters
report him as enjoying the autumn scenery, and as interesting congregations in Northfield and Greenfield, - charming towns, where, however, he would not care to reside as
minister. We hear of him also at Portland, Lowell,
Billerica. West Roxbury has been suggested to him,
and Concord presents attractions. In September he
comes across Emerson's " Nature: " criticises it, of
course; finds fault with its excess of idealism, but is
delighted with the overflowing beauty and truth. "Blessed
is the man who stoops and tastes of them! He erects
himself in new vigor and freshness, and becomes a man
divine." The correspondence of this period is remarkable
for freshness and playfulness, showing the healthiest state
of feeling on all subjects. Read these words to his
friend Silsbee: " Is not friendship one of the wells of
the desert, where the pilgrim cools his parched lips,
reposes for the time, and starts afresh in his life-journey?
Love is the well that stands by his cottage-door.  It is
there in winter: it freezes not. It is there in summer:
the drought never makes its waters abate.  It hath ever a
pleasant flavor upon the palate, and a grateful, life-giving




76              THEODORE PARKER.
influence on the whole inner man. I trust you will soon
find this healing water, and, though'the well is deep,'
will draw an abundant supply."
Here is a day in Northfield: " Rose at seven; shaved
and dressed; looked at the newspaper; read the books
of Nehemiah, Esther, Solomon's Song, first twelve chapters of Isaiah, in English; wrote part of a sermon; finished a hundred and fifty pages of Allan's'Life of
Scott,' two of Herder's'Briefe.' Dinner. Read in various books; walked two or three miles; found a queer
plant; gathered about a quart of chestnuts; noticed the
peculiar position of some stratified rocks. Dr. Hall
dropped in, and asked me to ride. Took tea. Mr.
Nevers called; staid two hours at least. Called with
RMr. Allen at Dr. Hall's; ascended Mr. Poxmeroy's mountain." There is no mental sickness here.
In November he is at Barnstable again for three Sundays, with a plentiful supply of books and papers to
brighten the gloomy autumnal days. The people are glad
to see him; his old friends are cordial; the church fills
up, though there is no fire in it, and no means for making
one. Chairs have to be brought in to accommodate
the comers. The audience is attentive as ever, listening so eagerly, that, when a good thing is said, their faces
look like "fires new stirred.."  They wanted to give him a
"call;" though some were doubtful, suspecting the soundness of his views. A meeting was arranged for the purpose; but he, hearing of the intention, prevented it. "I
wish I could divide myself, give them a part, and take
the rest up to some other place. But one cannot give
away half a mind any more than half a heart; and a
church is, doubtless, as jealous as a damsel. I shall not
let them give an invitation to me. I am no coruette among
parishes."
At Barnstable he receives intelligence of his father's
death.




TiE CANDIDA TE.                     77
BARNSTABLE, Nov. II, I836.
I received your letter, my dear Lydia, as I never fail to do,
with unspeakable pleasure and satisfaction; but if the outside
gave me pleasure, and the inside told me what I had long
expected, yet I cannot deny that the intelligence found me
unprepared. I have, as you know, long expected the death of
him who is now no more; yet I had fondly put off the day of
his departure: and, when the event was told me, my grief and
sorrow were tenfold greater than I had expected. One never
knows when his armor is strong enough for the conflict. We
know that our friends must die, and join the companions of
their youth. If they are old, we think that it may come soon;
and, if they are feeble and sick at the same time, we fear that
we must soon wend on our pilgrimage without their kindly aid.
All this compels us to prepare; but, when the dreaded event
actually takes place, all our resolutions, our expected resignation, and our imagined strength, disappear like frost-work in
the sun. I do not mourn for my father's sake, but for my own.
He goes to meet his friends, to see again his wife, his fathers,
and his children: no doubt it is a pleasant meeting. They may
pity his long delay on the earth, and rejoice now that he has put
off the mortal to put on the immortal.
After I read your letter, and sat silent and lonely by my own
fire, I could almost see his fathers of other days, the wife ot his
youth, and his children and long-separated friends, pressing
gloriously around him to press him once more to their hearts.
Their shout and song of welcome still ring in my ears. But,
as I said, I lament not for him: he has no sigh to stifle, no tear
to wipe away. But how canz I, who have been cradled in his
arms, fed by his hands, blessed by his prayers, and moulded by
his tender care,- how can I forbear lamenting, now he's
gone?
But enough of this. We shall yet meet; and I will no
longer weary your soul with the bitterness of mine. He has
gone! let us say no more about it. And now I entreat you to
say nothing upon that subject in your letters, nor when we meet.
A thousand circumstances will bring it all up before me again
and again. Do not let us multiply them without need, nor
foolishly turn away from them when they occur naturally: for
7*




78              THEODORE PARKER.
the valley of tears, when dwelt in, hath a poisonous influence
on the soul; but, if only occasionally passed through, it is full
of "healing waters," and fountains of strength.
The journal of the 8th of November contains touching
reflections on the same event, and pictures the scene of the
re-union in the other world. As often as the anniversary
came round, it was tenderly remembered. Years did not
weaken the sentiments of gratitude he cherished for his
father. In heavy and dark days, when the battle raged
about him, and friends fell off, and his heart trembled,
the record is passionate with feeling: the strong man
seems to stretch out his arms to the revered shade, and
to hide his face in the consoling bosom.  Something of
the same emotion was excited by the recollection of any
of his kindred, — brothers and sisters whom  he had
scarcely known, uncles and cousins whom he had hardly
more than heard of. The power of the root is strong in
him: the ancestral fibre never loses its hold. Ile had a
plan of exploring in England the remotest nooks of
family association, and of placing some memorial on the
grave of every ancestor in America. They were blood of
his blood: it was a pride for him to remember that he was
blood of theirs.
It is interesting to note that already, away off at the
Cape, the young war-horse smells the coming battle afar.
Mr. George Ripley had written an article on Martineau's
"Rationale of Religious Inquiry," in "The Christian Examiner," that had roused the ire of an eminent ex-professor
in the Divinity School at Cambridge; and the ex-professor
had replied in " The Boston Daily Advertiser," rebuking the
bold young writer in imperious terms. The reviewer replied the very next day. Theodore speaks his mind in a
letter thus:"This coming out in the print, and denouncing the writer of
an article which appeared soberly and unostentatiously in a peri



THE CANDIDA TE.                     79
odical with which Mr. N. had nothing to do, is ridiculous.
A man writes something which differs a little from what Prof.
N. believes, and, forsooth, he must come out'with his sign
manual,' and tell the good people of the land he does not think
so! WVhat if he does not? Is he the people?  Will all truth
perish with him?...
" The last time I saw Mr. R., I suggested that the first one
who lifted a hand in this work would have to suffer; and I
wished to push some old veteran German to the fore-front of
the battle, who would not care for a few blows: but he thought
there was no danger."
This was the first gun in a long battle.
The only incident set down in the list of events during
this dismal month of November is a visit to an Indian
settlement about twelve miles from the town. The poverty, squalor, smoke, and stench of the only real wigwam
of the settlement, the talk of the old squaw, need not be
detailed.  The poor hag had seen trouble; she said her
children were dead: "But she had found the only comfort
which the savage receives from the white man: it peered
out from under a bench in the shape of a jzg of gin!" The
quick glance of the future reformer detects the yet covered
path his manly foot is to tread.
The last month of the year was spent in Salem with the
family of his classmate Silsbee.  He filled the pulpit of the
" East Church," though not as a candidate.  The cultured
and friendly old town offered him its choicest hospitalities.
The Silsbee family was large in more senses than one.
The brightest and most amiable of women and the heartiest of men were members of it in near or remote connection; and their social circle embraced the elegance, wit,
and brilliancy of the city.  Parker saw the best people,
and " did more talking than the whole family of the patriarchs during their apocryphal journey over the waters of
the flood."  Miss Burley lived there with her sparkling
and beautiful nieces, - ready for all conversation, and very




8o               THEODORE PARKER.
delightful in literary talk, - Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Howes
also, and his classmate Samuel P. Andrews.
" I have been as happy as Adam was before he was turned
out of paradise; nay, I mean that I was much happier...
By the way, woman is often abused by modern writers because
good Mother Eve did not throw the apple in the serpent's face,
instead of being wheedled into eating it. But, if it had been
Qffered to her precious spouse, he would not have stood there
shall-I-shall-I-ing, but would merely have said,' Apples, indeed!
so early! thank ye, Mister Snake!' and would have eaten it
without thinking of conscience. Now, the sons of this biped
pique themselves upon being men, not women!
"Kings say they reign by divine right, and impiously stamp'Rex, Dei gratia,' upon innocent copper: but woman is the only
monarch that can justly use these words, and she may, -' I am a
woman by the grace of God.' She alone rules by divine right."
The mental exercise was as vigorous and various as ever.
There are schemes of lectures on Heine, Spenser, the
Use of Nature; Notes on Public Instruction among the
Romans; a Study on English State-Trials; a Careful List
of Public Documents in England; an. Account of the Different Rolls from the Earliest Time; Dates of the Doomsday Book, and Memoranda of the Libraries where such
Antiquities are stored; Summaries of Statistics in regard
to the Social Condition of Germany; Births and Deaths in
Prussia; Number of Pupils in the Universities; Longevity
of the Professors; Proportion of Soldiers to the Population in Europe; Pay of Officers; and so forth. Damiron's
" Cours de Philosophie " shares with " Jacob Faithful " the
leisure hours. He transcribes into the journal a number
of Latin monkish hymns; apothegms and parables have
their place also. His fun overflows in a ponderous squib, -
"History and Spirit of Coxcombry or Puppyism, in its Origin
and Development; from the Night-Book of Gottesgute von
Thiergarten." The subject is laid out in divisions, - Puppyismn in the Pulpit, Puppyism of the Press, Puppyisnm of




THE CA NDIDA TE.                   8
the Parlor; and through all this flows the uneasy stream
of verse, not clearing itself, alas! as it flows.
Studies in theology go ominously on. The origin and
composition of the Pentateuch is under consideration.
To this date belongs the following schedule of labors to
be undertaken: -
I. Sundry questions in theology: —
I. What is the extent of known supernatural revelation
made to man?
2. What is the foundation of the authority of Jesus Christ?
3. What is the meaning of faith in Old and New Testament?
4. How is Christ more a Saviour than Socrates?
5. Why did the world need a Saviour?
6. What has been his influence?
7. Is Christianity to be a universal religion?
8. What is the foundation of religion in man? the design
of miracles? the pretence of them in other religions?
II Questions in Scriptural criticism and exegesis: —
I. The authenticity of the beginning of the Gospels of
Matthew and Luke. The miraculous conception.
2. The resurrection: why was the body of Christ raised?
why "carried up"? How is the resurrection of matter
proof of the immortality of spirit? Is not the material
resurrection of the body of Jesus Christ unspiritualizing?
The questions in theology are preceded by questions in
ethics, less systematically drawn up, but suggestive of his
moral drift:
I. The connection between the understanding and the will.
2. Foundation of the idea of duty.
3. Foundation of the idea of God.
4. The limits of duty.
5. Subjective consequences of doing or of omitting duty.
6. Liberty and necessity.
7. Why is man placed in life?
8. How great is the difference in the value of the various means
afforded to attain the end of life? What state best fitted




82               THEODORE PARKER.
thereto? Are outward means of any avail? How much?
(Compare the condition of a Carolinian slave and the son
of a Boston merchant, or a New-Zealander with a citizen of
Massachusetts.)
In close connection with these questions are noble
thoughts from Plato, and devout prayers for help to lead a
consecrated life:" Give me an understanding heart; let me not only know, but
feel, that my duty, my nature, my destination, demand continued
labor and earnest action.
" Give me rest for my soul. Help me to control impetuous
passions, to rule my own spirit, to attain a sublime command
over all appetite and desire, bringing every thought into subjection to the law of my being."
The cast of Mr. Parker's religious philosophy comes
out in a letter to his friend S. P. Andrews, written Jan. 3,
1837, from Northfield, where we find him preaching: -
" Bowen has written a piece in'The Examiner' on what think
you? Why, on Emerson's' Nature.' Pelion upon Ossa is bad;
Jew upon Bacon: but Bowen upon'Nature' caps the climax.
He has given transcendentalism'sick a lick,' that it is almost
dead. KIant, Fichte, and Schelling appeared to me in a vision of
the night, and deplored their sad estate.' Transcendentalism is
clean gone,' said Kant.'Verdammt!' said Fichte.'What
shall we do?' exclaimed Schelling.  They could not be appeased."
In February he is at Greenfield, the birthplace of his
friend George Ripley. An accident (he was thrown from
a sleigh, and had a narrow escape from serious hurt) disabled him with cold and headache much of the time; but
his letters are charming specimens of intelligent prattle
about people and scenery. The air inspires him; the cool
wind from the north braces his frame; and the sight of
mountains and great trees and wide meadows refreshes the
inner man not a little. The aspect of Nature in winter is




THE CANDZ DA TE.                 83
a delight to him: "In the country there is a tale in every
thing; and every little object in Nature hath its beauty to
please by, and its moral to instruct with. Indeed, the country is a great'system of divinity;' while the city is but a commerciai dictionary, a'ready-reckoner,' or a'cook-book.'
A single walk along the banks of the Connecticut or among
the hills, or a moment's listening to the kine's soft music,
has taught me more than Mr. Emerson and all the Boston
Association of Ministers."  The parish is not, on the
whole, attractive: the services are held in a court-room,
and the spirit of the place is not congenial with his.
There were then only about two thousand people in the
town, and there were five societies, — a sign of sectarian
activity and religious lethargy that was not encouraging.
There were agreeable features about the place; and he felt
that he might go farther, and fare worse: but his heart was
not drawn to it. The prospect of other places was more
tempting. But for his desire to be married, he would have
preferred remaining unsettled a year longer to staying in
Greenfield, remote from the active centres of thought.
The smallness of the salary did not repel him: he was
used to poverty, and was willing to accept it on the bidding
of duty. But as long as other men could satisfy the people as well as he could, or better, and one who was already
spoken of was comparatively indifferent to salary, he
turned his face elsewhere.
The fact is, he was becoming weary of the candidate's
aimless life, in which no seed was watered, no field tilled,
no harvest reaped. He wanted continuous, energetic work.
As far back as the previous October, he had said to an
intimate friend who had misgivings in regard to the ministry, " I should have been much less surprised at finding
self-doubt in my own bosom, for I have still much'unreclaimed blood;' and though I love the ministry of Christianity with all my heart and mind, yet I have an affection
for silent vigils, and there is a pulse in my heart that some



84               THEODORE PARKER.
times beats wildly for the stir and noise and tumult and
dust of the literary course." On the I5th of February he
writes to the same correspondent, Mr. S. P. Andrews,"Sometimes, Samuel, I fear lest I have missed it capitally in
becoming a minister; that as a lawyer, in other departments of
thought and action, I might have been more useful, and, at the
same time, free from a certain restraining bond (invisible, but
strong as Fate) wit   h which convention has tied up every minister withal. I do not ever think of deserting a ministry which
would dignify angels, and has been honored by the Son of God
himself. No: I never think of that; for I deem it writ down
in my duty to preach the gospel, come of it what will. And
although some of my dearest expectations have been disappointed, still I shall' bear up, and steer with upright wing right
onward, nor bate one jot of heart or hope.' Yet sometimes the
thought comes mightily upon me,' Thou hast mistaken thy
calling.' Yet think I still there is no employment so noble on
the earth as the faithful attempt to give a loftier action to humanity, to make men unfold the natures God has given them,
and to lead them to be whole men, with no part wanting, and
not merely miserable halves and quarters of men, as they
mostly are, cultivating only a part, and that the meanest part,
of their natures. It sometimes makes my heart bleed to think
of the men whom  the world calls'happy' and'great,' but
whom I call miserable and little, so much so as never to have
suspected their misery and littleness. Now, if I could remove
this frightful state of things, and show men wherein true
strength lies, and divert them from buzbble-zthnting all their days,
then gladly would I labor, spending and being spent. But
when I consider how vast are the obstacles to be removed, how
deeply rooted is the evil, how strongly supported by men's
most active principles, and how hotly it is encouraged by the
force of the senses and the wild intoxication of gold and ambition, and that to all this I can only oppose the'foolishness of
preaching,' rendered still more'foolish' by the foolishness of
the preacher himself, by his consciousness of ignorance, of sinfulness, and of weakness, I think the attempt almost a mad
one. It is an attempt to try to beat down Gibraltar by throwing
figs at it. Now, it is mathematically demonstrable that the rock




THE CA NDIDA TE.                    85
might be beat down by throwing figs; for a force infnitely
small, when put forth for an infinite time, will overthrow any
finite obstacle, be it never so big: but who would attempt such
a work? One sole thing encourages me; to wit, I know that
one who keeps God's'law of the Spirit of Life,' and puts
forth his might manfully in obedience thereto, be his mig':ht
never so little, - be it less than mine even, - has for his friend
and ally and co-worker the entire almightiness and perfect virtue of God as much as he who obeys the laws of matter
brings the whole weight of the earth to bear upon his wheel or
lever: and in such a cause, with such a coadjutor, it is nobler
to be conquered, dragged at the wheels of the enemy, yea, trodden to dust by his followers, who shout aloud,' Great is Aiawdnmzon of the Yalzkees!' than to engage in any other warfare.
Therefore I shall go on. Consequences I have nothing to do
with: they belong to God. He will take care of all consequences.
To me belongs only duty. Come what will come, I shall do it.
All that I have give I to the one cause, be it little or much."
Wherever Mr. Parker preached, he  was received
gladly: in most places he was invited to stay. This was
the case at Waltham and Concord and Leominster; but
the attractions of West Roxbury gradually prevailed
over the rest. It was a quiet country place; the salary
was meagre, - six hundred dollars; the society was small,
and composed, for the most part, of plain people: but
the town was near Boston and Cambridge, and it promised leisure for work he had set his heart on. Mr. Francis at Watertown, and Mr. Stetson at Medford, were not
far off. The position was suggested to him four or five
months before this. He had preached there several
times; and when the invitation came, on May 23, it
was accepted. He was anxious for a seat of activity,
and full of schemes for the execution of which uninterrupted days and  nights were  needed.  The  translation of De Wette's " Einleitung in die Biicher des Altes
Testaments" was finished on the 2oth of May. It must
be diligently revised; notes from various writers are to be
8




86               THEODORE PARKER.
added, essays and dissertations to be appended: it will be
a work of years yet. He must have a home, - a home at
once. How eagerly he longed for it, how glowingly his
heart dwelt on it, these extracts from letters tell:To S. P. Andrews.
SALEM, March I6, IS837.
With regard to my marriage and the "happy day,"
thereof I can only say that probably matters will be brought
to a crisis about the 20thll of next month. With regard to my
feelings in approaching that moment, you may imagine them.
They are not homogeneous, but of a widely different and various character. Sometimes the fear predominates; but usually
hope rules the balance. I look to matrimony as the completion
of man. One cannot be a whole man until married, but a pitiful
fraction thereof merely, a manikin. I look forward to marriage
with reverence.
I promise myself much happiness. How soon my hope will
be destroyed no one can say. From the character (both of
mind and heart) of Miss C. I have every thing to hope, and
nothing to fear.
To the Same.
BOSTON, April 23.... The tree of life still stands in paradise, though Adam
and Eve be cast out, and Cain murders Abel. So sometimes
I console my spirit when I deem that all my present felicity
may in a moment turn into dust, bitter dust, or at least vanish
like the momentary rainbow. So, indeed, it may be. Sad presentiments sometimes spread their shadows over my path; but
I know that two souls made one by love, and realivrzing that
union, can laugh at time and space, and live united forever.
Besides, Death is only a kind angel with severe countenance,
who comes to bless, though with sighs and tears...
The above was written three days after his marriage.
The journal celebrates the wedding-day with exuberant
verse and tender prayer, accompanied by a " Codex JMrarimonitanus'" in Latin, which is inserted here, Englished,
to show with what conscientious feeling he entered on
the relation which so many assume lightly: —




THE CA ND IDA TE.                 87
"Since, by the will of God, a wife is to be given me, it is
becoming that I prescribe for myself rules and laws. Therefore, by God's help, I here resolve, promise, and bind myself
steadfastly to observe the following regulations -
I. Never, except for the best of causes, to oppose my wife's
will.
2. To discharge all services, for her sake, freely.
3. Never to scold.
4. Never to look cross at her.
5. Never to weary her with commands.
6. To promote her piety.
7. To bear her burdens.
8. To overlook her foibles.
9. To love, cherish, and ever defend her.
io. To remember her always most affectionately in my prayers: thus, God willing, we shall be blessed.
"APRIL XX., MDCCCXXXVII."
The ordination took place June 2I, I837. Mr. Francis
preached the sermon; the prayers were by Chandler
Robbins, Mr. Cunningham, and Henry Ware; the charge
by Caleb Stetson; the right hand of fellowship by George
Ripley. John Pierpont and John S. Dwight wrote hymns
for the occasion. Dr. Francis warned the young man not
to neglect his studies. Henry Ware prayed, "May his
fondness for peculiar studies never divert him from doing
Thy work i " Both admonitions he resolved to heed.




CHAPTER VI.
WEST ROXBURY.
MR. PARKER'S situation at " Spring Street "  for so the
place was called- is best described in a few extracts from
letters to his classmate Silsbee: "We have a clever house,
a fine garden, a good horse. I am at the head of a family
of seven souls,'to be, to do, and to suffer' for them all:
no little care. I have become as practical as Stebbins's
ideal man; always carry a rule and compass in my pocket;
all my'talk is of bullocks,' pigs, grapes, strawberries, and
other things which perish in the using.... Our neighbors
are pleasant: about fifty or sixty families are in the parish;
one hundred to one hundred and fifty worshippers; the
people good, quiet, sober, church-going, - capital listeners,
none better; so much so, that I tell my friends I think my
parishioners are as much blessed in preaching as those of
even Dr. Channing: for what is wanting in preaching they
make up in listening; which is not the case with the doctor's people, they depending altogether on him. The Sunday
school grows under my hand; and once in two weeks I
have a teacher's meeting, whereat I explain Bible, which is
far better for me and them than all preachment: for I aim
at the heart and conscience not less directly than when in
the pulpit; and, since there is no formality, the matter
goes home, I trust. I preach abundant heresies, and they
all go down; for the listeners do not know how heretical
they are. Nay, I preach the worst of all things, - tran88




WEST ROXBUR Y.                  89
scendentalism, the grand heresy itself, - none calling me
to account therefor, but men's faces looking like fires
new stirred thereat." Besides this, pastoral visits, which
were no ceremonial thing with Mr. Parker; visitations of
schools, always a deep concern; professional duties, baptisms, funerals, and the like,- justify him in calling himself a busy man. The reading goes on as usual. The
De Wette is progressing; Jacobi, Henry More, the Life of
Apollonius of Tyana, Bulwer's "Athens," Fichte, Coleridge,
Descartes, are in exercise during midsummer. Spinoza,
Gesenius, Ovid, Seneca, are in prospect. There is reading in Homer almost every day. An engagement is made
to translate Ammon's "Fortbildung des Christenthums,"
four volumes octavo: this in July, a month after ordination! " Old studies prosper, - metaphysics, theology,
criticism: all that used so much to delight and instruct us
flourishes and grows apace in my new situation. Thoughts
high as heaven and profound as the centre of the earth
sometimes visit me in my loneliness. Then, too, the smiles
of love cheer and encourage me."
Of special value was the society he found at West Roxbury, - a small but choice circle of elegant, graceful, cultivated people, used to wealth, accomplished in the arts of
life, of open hearts, and, better still, of humane instincts,
who lived in such near neighborhood, that a path from Mr.
Parker's gate led directly to their gardens and welcoming
doors. The fine grounds of Mr. George R. Russell lay
adjacent to his own modest domain; and adjoining those
again was the estate of Mr. Francis G. Shaw. In both
families he was at home on the heartiest terms. All there
were his friends, faithful and sympathetic. To be with
them was always delightful and refreshing; for they had
literature and art, an intelligent interest in public affairs, a
high tone of sentiment, and that rich flavor of character
which distinguishes people well bred.  It was a new
world for Theodore, born and bred in poverty, inured
oe




go90            THEODORE PARKER.
to toil, conversant with few persons to whom the world
brought bloom and aroma. These were idyllic days, —
golden hours spent on lawns, or under verandas, or in the
sweet-scented hay-fields, with youth and beauty and wit, and
literary enthusiasm, and social merriment. Discussions of
the newest book, the last poem, lecture, speech, the freshest speculation, did not take him from study, but relieved
the pressure thereof by entertaining the jaded mind.
The neighboring farms had dear and intimate friends,
whom he neglected no opportunity of seeing: old friends
were never forgotten; new ones were continually added.
His heart had room for as many as could feast in it; and
his hospitality was as big as his heart. The "prophet's
chamber " usually held a guest, whose stay was encouraged;
the pleasant study, with flowers looking in at the windows
in summer, and the sunlight streaming through the glass in
winter, had room for friends as well as for folios, and resounded with the noise of laughter many times when
Cranch, with the power of a skilful caricaturist, put Theodore's grotesque fancies on paper, or Francis greeted with
loud mirth the fantastical descriptions of some brotherminister from the host's rollicking mind. The fun was
exuberant to wildness, but hurt nobody: it was the irrepressible overflow of a nature that could not contain its
glee. It had even its earnest, its pathetic side, —the
humanity of humor. If there was any thing that Parker
enjoyed, it was " taking off " pretenders; but such laughter
was near akin to tears. He had a quick eye for qualities.
Beauty and joy interested him; but goodness interested
him more. " Opposite my house," the journal says, "lives
a poor woman. Her husband labors on a farm at a short
distance from his home, and receives wages. They have
five children, the oldest probably not more than ten years
old. The family is entirely dependent on the earnings of
the husband. A strange family came into the village, - a
Mr. Wallace, with his wife and two small children. They




WEST ROXB UR Y.                 91
were still poorer than the first; and, to add to their distress, Mrs. Wallace was sick with a pulmonary consumption, and'very low,' as we say in the country. Now, this good
woman finds out Mrs. Wallace, sees her condition, pities
her sufferings, and goes to help her. She takes home the
little child, lest it disturb the mother by its cries; carries
home the soiled linen, washes and irons it. She sits with
her by day and night. Mrs., the wife of my orthodox
brother, came in to visit her, prayed with her, and frightened the sick woman badly by telling her her time was
short; asking her if she ever read her Bible, &c. It made
her almost insane for two days. When she slept, a weight
seemed to oppress her head: she saw frightful visions,
pined for her child, and has been rapidly growing worse.
I make no comment."
The absorbing study of this period was the literature of
the Bible. The Egyptian and Phcen-ician alphabets have
attractions for him; ancient inscriptions and coins, Carthaginian, Persian, amuse him; the Orphic poems have a
share of his time; Meiner's book "On the Doctrine of the
One God," Staiidlin "On the Morality of the Drama," fall
under his notice: but the Bible literature leads all the
rest. The works of Paulus, a great name in rationalistic
interpretation, and of G. L. Bauer, who wrote on the
"Mythology of the Old and New Testaments," are on his
table. Mr. George Ripley, one of the earliest students of
the new German criticism and philosophy, live of mind
and warm of heart, lent him Eichhorn's "Urgeschichte,"
and a great many volumes of rationalism besides. Schleiermacher's essay on Luke was one of the most suggestive
of these. The famous work of Strauss, the " Leben Jesu,"
he was already acquainted with. The journal mentions
at some length a fragment of a work in Greek on "things
incredible," written by one Palaephatus.  It was an
attempt to resolve the Greek mythological stories into
ordinary transactions: as, for example, the horses of




92             THEODORE PARKER.
Diomedes devouring their master signifies the expense of
cultivating horses, which eat up the substance of the
people; Lynceus' piercing sight into and through the
ground referred  to  the  discovery  of the  use of
metals; the bull that carried off Europa was a Cretan
named Taurus; the hydra that Hercules attacked was
a town defended by fifty archers; Niobe's loss of her
daughters, and erection of a statue to their memory, suggested the fable of the weeping marble; Scylla was a
swift piratical craft that infested the sea about Sicily. "I
have been a good deal amused, and perhaps instructed,
by the book.  How the priests must have exclaimed
against the'impious' book on the day of its appearance!
Such books do good. I wish some wise man would now
write a book on'things incredible,' or'vulgar errors,'
and show up the absurdity of certain things commonly
believed on the authority of old Jews: to be plain, I
mean the Old-Testament miracles, prophecies, dreams,
miraculous births, &c."
But the student did not jump hastily at conclusions:
he read carefully, and pondered long, feeling his way
step by step. He detected the shortcomings of Strauss's
mythical theory, and exposed the feebleness of Paulus's
common-sense explanations. "There is one objection to
the assumption of myths in the New Testament; viz., they
belong to unhistorical times. Some think myths may
exist even in a literary people. For a long time, there
was no written account of Jesus Christ: tradition enlarged in the Jewish style; hence much was added to the
New Testament. We are not to suppose men sit gravely
down, saying,'Come, let us make us a myth:' they were
formed gradually. Some suppose there are only philosophical myths in the New Testament; others, only historical.
Schleiermacher calls the history of the temptation a
parable. Bauer thinks there are myths in the New Testament coming from the Old Testament: such are some




WEST ROXB URY.                    93
of the stories of the youth of Jesus, angels coming to
him, &c. Yet no man can justly believe in myths in the
New Testament who does not deny the fact that it was
written by contemporaries or eye-witnesses." All of
which shows an undecided mind, and indicates, moreover, that his interest in such questions was, thus far at
least, rather literary than professional. The serious bent
of Mr. Parker's mind was practical.  Matters of exegesis did not stir his blood unless they were associated
with issues which affected human relations: then they
became watch-words and battle-cries.  This time had not
come; and he read, re-read, considered, commented, in a
scholar's temper, with a serene mind. Such studies did
not even occupy his thoughts to the exclusion of others
of a directly opposite kind. In the very thick of them
we come across statistical tables of population and commerce in Massachusetts.  Two pages of the folio journal
are devoted to a well-considered estimate of the comparative advantages and disadvantages of banks! Compare several of his schemes of work: —
THINGS TO BE DONE THIS WEEK.
I. Finish two sermons.
2. De Wette.
3. Jacobi.
4. Fichte (Ethik).
5. Duty vs. inclination.
6. Commence the account of Moses.
7. Begin the translation of Ammon's " Fortbildung Christenthums."
WORK TO BE DONE THIS WEEK.
I. Plant the other side of the brook.
2. Sow the garden-vegetables.
3. Plough the new land.
4. Plant the old alleys.
5. Visit Mr. Keith and Chapin in evening.




94               THEODORE PARKER.
6. See about the Sunday school.
7. Get the benches for the vestry.
8. Ask Mr. Ellis to be superintendent.
Here is work laid out for a month:
I. Continue the translation of Ammon.
2. Continue the study of Plato.
3. Read Tasso and Dante.
4. Iliad.
5. Greek Tragedies.
6. Aristophanes.
7. Goethe's Memoirs.
The work of a year is projected with the same delib.
eration -
I. Finish the translation of Ammon; and publish, if possible.
2. De Wette.
3. Course of study on the New Testament.
4. Course of study on the Old Testament.
5. Progress in Syriac.
6. Danish and Swedish.
7. Finish Plato.
8. Continue the study of Greek writers.
9. Dante and Tasso.
io. Spanish Ballads.
I I. Commence the ideal work.
Such a man as this is certainly in no danger of becoming a "man of one idea."
The tide of life with him seems to be at its flood in the
summer and autumn of I837. Early in the winter, vapors
gather in the sky; though from what cause is not apparent.  Writing to his friend Andrews in December, he
says, "You stated, in that little bit of paper which you
call a letter, that you detected something in my bearing
which argued that there was unhappiness, at least dis



WEST ROXB UR Y.                95
content of some sort, in the wind. I admit its existence
in a greater extent than you imagine; but of the cause,
not a word! Let rumor tell you:   szall  not, - not even
to you. You may think I talk lightly: so I do now; but
there are times when I feel heavily. I always knew that
I had trouble enough in store; but I never thought it
would come in the present shape." About a month later,
he puts down the following in the private journal: "I
have lost many things; but the greatest was hope. Days
there have been when I saw nought else to freshen my
eye, weary with looking over the dull waste of my early
life. Tired with labors, I have laid down my books
beside me, the lamp at summer midnight burning low,
all else silent in sleep. Hope visited me. She sat beside
me; trimmed my lamp. In her sublime presence I grew
calm, composed myself to her majestic features.
"Years have passed over me: Hope never deserted
me. Now where is she? She is not all gone. I see
her, but not on the earth: she is above. She shall
never again fade out of my sight; for she stands on the
Rock of ages.
"I often ask myself what I am doing with my one
talent; and can only reply, that I deem myself well-nigh
wasting it, - preaching to an audience of seventy to a
hundred and twenty souls; going about talking tattle
with old women; giving good advice to hypocrites; and
scattering here and there, I hope, a corn that will one
day germinate and bear fruit. Oh, could I be satisfied
that I am doing even this last!  If I deemed it certain that any word of mine would ever waken the deep
inner life of another soul, I should bless God that I am
alive and speaking. But I will trust. I am sometimes
praised for my sermons. I wish men knew how cold
those sleek speeches are. I would rather see one man
practising one of my sermons than hear all men praise
them." After a visit from Dr. and Mrs. Francis in the




96               THEODORE PARKER.
summer of 1838, he takes himself to task again. "I
have not been in so good spirits as usual to-day: indeed, for a whole fortnight, and that in the most beautiful season of the year, I have been as good as dead."
But nothing of this despondency appears in his letters.
They are full, fresh, and joyous, without exception,
abounding in expressions of sympathy with his friends,
and showering merriment on all the incidents that occur.
The exhaustion was temporary. The most incidental
contact with a cordial fellow-creature revived him. Intellectual intercourse was delightful; but human intercourse was dearer. The hunger of his heart was even
more eager than the thirst of his mind. In writing to his
intimate friends, he puts them in his debt all the time,
not only by the number, but by the length and fulness of his letters, which crowd big sheets of paper
with the outpouring of his mind.
There was in Boston an informal association, or club,
which met at irregular intervals, generally in the rooms
of Mr. Jonathan Phillips, to discuss the living questions
of the day, whether religious, political, social, or philosophical. Dr. Channing often came in. George Ripley,
Charles Follen, Bronson Alcott, Frederic H. Hedge,
Wendell Phillips, and others eminent in the world of
thought, appeared with more or less regularity. The
journal has notes of meetings at which Mr. Parker was
present. They are interesting on many accounts.
"THURSDAY, Feb. 8, I838. - Went at evening to Mr. Phillips's room at the Tremont House to attend a meeting of the
Friends.' This is my third meeting with them. The first evening, the question of the progress of civilization was discussed with
great power of thought and richness of eloquence, especially on the
part of Dr. Channing and Mr. Ripley. The conclusion in which
all rested was this:' That a real vital progress had been made by
society since the creation, especially since the time of Jesus Christ;
but that certain disadvantages attended this progress: actions




WEST ROXBUR Y.                      97
passed at an unreal value; vanity, love of show, - in short, all
forms of selfishness, - were more common than in other days.'
This was a Socratic meeting. Dr. C. is the Socrates. Had the
conversation of this evening been written out by Plato, it would
equal any of his beautiful dialogues.
" The next Wednesday we spoke upon Mr. Emerson's lecture;
anri this led to a discussion of the personality of God. It was
ihou;ght Mr. E.'s doctrines were dangerous; that he denied the
personality, which is, practically speaking, to deny the existence,
of the Deity. Mr. Ripley accused him of maintaining that God
was only an idea formed in the mind of the individual, and then
projected into omnipresence. It is the idea of power, love, &c.,
without any substance to which these attributes belong. I take
it, Mr. E. merely denies the materiality of God; though some of
his expressions, if taken singly, would almost justify the construction Mr. R. puts upon them. Another charge was that of
pantheism; a charge so vague, that every thinking man is liable
to it. Certainly one expression of his is on the high road to
pantheism:' The universe, being perfectly beautiful, exists by
its own laws, and needs no outward cause.' But this sentence
occurred in a connection which belied such construction.
[" Touching the personality of God, what do we mean by the
term? Personality cannot exist without will. Suffer all my faculties to remain as they are, but annihilate the will, I am no
longer a person, an individual: I cannot say'I:' a fagot of
powers has taken the place of I. There are attributes, but no
substance to which they belong. How, then, can I conceive of
God without personality? But is will the only essential of personality? The question is difficult. I conceive of God as a
being easy of access, full of tenderness, whose character is
summed up in one word, - Father. Now, the idea of God's rvill
unites all these attributes into a being. Here, then, are the attributes of God united with a substance, -the will. What is the
essence of God? I know not what is the essence of myself: I
cannot tell. The idea of God is no more mysterious than that
of seyf.' that of the divine personality is as clear as that of
human personality. Men have always perplexed themselves in
meditating on this subject. They have come to this conclusion:'He is past finding out.' This is variously expressed by the
thinkers of different ages and countries.' Search not after the
9




98                THIEODORE PARKER.
essence of God and his laws,' says the old Veda. God is' Unrevealed Light,''the Ineffable,''Incomprehensible,' the'Primal
Being,' say the Gnostics.'The most real of all beings,' says
Plato,'himself without being.' So the mystic can only say'I
am,''He is.']
" Mr. Alcott talks of the progress of God, - the Almighty
going forward to his own infinity, progressively unfolding himself: an idea to me revolting. Mr. H. utters oracles to the same
effect.
"This last evening we discussed the condition of women,
especially in the conjugal relation; our apparent coldness towards
relatives, its causes, consequences, and remedies; our want of
local attachment; want of amusements: yet the new state of
things was deemed better than the old.
"Before attending this meeting, I went to Dr. Channing's,
staid a couple of hours, and took tea. His conversation was
truly delightful, - rather of the nature of discussion.  I felt there
was a broad common ground between us, notwithstanding the immense superiority of his elevation. We spoke of Dr. Walker's
lectures on philosophy.  Dr. C. thinks the lecturer approaches
very near materialism himself.  I. He speaks of thought as putting the brain in action, as the digestive force moves the stomach,
and the hepatic the liver.  Now, the digestive force, acting by the
stomach, secretes chyme; the hepatic force, acting by the liver,
secretes gall; but thought, acting through the brain, secretes
what? Not thought. Again: the hepatic and stomachic force is
physical: why not also the cerebral force? And then where is
the spirituality of men? II. He says the attributes of mattersuch as solidity, divisibility, extension, attraction —are totally
unlike the attributes of spirit, - thought, feeling, &c.; but he
(Dr. WV.) does nzot showu tzat there is nzot a comzmzonz substance int
rwhich/z both inhlere. [This admitted, the essence of matter and
of spirit is the same: all matter is spirit, and all spirit is matter.]
III. He says the difference between man and the animal is
this: man has spiritual powers, existing for their ownz sake;
animals similar powers, existing, not for their own sakes, but
for the sake of their bodies. Man thinks. Why? That he may
think; beasts, that they may be fed. Beast never says' I;'has
no personality.  Dr. C. agrees with this. [But how can it be
known? Can we enter the consciousness of the horse, and learn




WES T ROXB UR Y.                  99
that he never separates himself from all other creatures, and has
no self-consciousness?]  We see reason in brutes, not conscience, not religion. Hence they are mortal.
"Dr. C. thinks no injustice done to brutes by their mortality, but acknowledges the difficulty attending it."
These extracts show the drift of speculation in New
England thirty-five years ago, before the modern school
of Darwin and others came up. Thus boldly did thinking
men form and express opinions among themselves, having
no fear of each other. There was an admirable freedom
combined with an equally admirable modesty.  Theodore
listens and thinks, as courageous as any, but, perhaps,
with something less of the gravely intellectual spirit that
entertains ideas apart from their sentimental, moral, or
social relations.  He hears that Mr. Francis is reading a
book by one Richter, a German, who denies the immortality
of the soul. He is surprised to learn that some ministers of
the gospel are disposed to agree with him. Yet he has
no feelings of acrimony, he falls into no hysterics, but
asks his friend to lend him the book when he has done
with it, unless somebody else wants it more.  Mr. Parker
shows his hand this spring in an article printed in " The
Boston Quarterly Review" " for July on Dr. J. G. Palfrey's
"Lectures on the Jewish Scriptures and Antiquities."
The paper handled the matter under discussion with a
freedom  that many thought disrespectful.  The writer
declares that his own hair stood up when he thought of
what he had written.  He is accused, as he was so often
afterwards, of being sarcastic; to which he replies thus to
the friend who made the charge:To William Silsbee.
WEST ROXBURY, NOV. 27, 1838.
You think there is sarcasm. I do not think that is too strong
a word; though I never intended any thing like it. I hate sarcasm; yet am, perhaps, sarcastic. I wished to indulge in a little




00oo             THEODORE PARKER.
harmless pleasantry; but I fear the dean would not share in the
mirth he excited. You think I indulge in the ludicrous vein too
much: such is my propensity, no doubt. But how ought things
to be treated? Light things lightly, grave things gravely, ridiculous things ridiculously.  I must think ridicule has its place, even
in criticism. E. g.: Suppose Mr. Poyer should write a book on
the miracles of the Saviour, attempting to explain them as the
result of animal magnetism: a critic might show the attempt
was not successful; and show also how ridiculous it was to
make the attempt, and represent the Saviour as filling the five
thousand with a fancy they had eaten, and letting them go off
under that impression.
To my mind, William, there is something strange and startling
in the assertion, that man has been so constituted, that lie can, by
the use of his faculties, on condition of obedience to their laws,
achieve all the wonders of science, and take the dimensions
of the planets, their where-abouts and their what-abouts, and
yet never be able, by the use of his highest faculties, - I
mean the sfontazneozis religious senliments (which Jacobi sometimes calls faith, sometimes reason and conscience), —and by
obedience to their laws, to learn religious truth, and to be
certain it was lrzuth he learned, and not error. Is it not most
of all important for man to settle the questions of Deity, to
possess religious truth and religious life? Has God, so bountiful in bestowing other powers, given him none to discover
these truths, the most important, the most necessary? When
the little (the carnal and temporary) is so abundantly provided
for, would the spiritual and eternal be neglected? If I were
told (by an angel from that planet) that the inhabitants of
Uranus differed much from us, that they had seventy senses
to commune with the outer world, with my present views of
God I should say with confidence, then must they have seven
hundred internal senses to commune with God, and should
expect him to add seven thousand! Is it not the case, William,
that, while the Almighty takes such bounteous care of all little
things that no animal can be found in utmost height or utmost
deep, all of whose wants are not Perfectly satisf/ed, - none found
wandering up and down, seeking rest and finding none,-he
lays most stress on the most important of his works; giving to
man, e. g., such uncontested superiority, - reasoning, social,
aesthetic, religious, and moral powers?...




WEST ROXBURY.                       IOI
I am better satisfied of religious and moral truth than of any
thing besides.  My eye roams to the stars, and returns to the
frost on my window which reflects their light; but the perception
only startles me with its beauty. I can doubt the existence of
stars and frost-work; but in religious truth I doubt nothing.
The spirit affirms.  In science I have a root of truth: in common matters, where the senses reach, I have only opinions.  I
keep their laws; but they cazi give nothing more.  In morality
and religion I have TRUTHS of which I am perfectly certain.
Why is it? Because they have been told me? But for any
one of these one thousand sensual opinions, which are nothing
worth to me, — vox et ir&tereea  zihil, - fleeting opinions, I
have a fountain within me whence to draw infinite supplies of
religious and moral truth.  Did miracles open the fountain?
Did they create it? The dean says there is no such...
Next you ask if I think a man can attain to all religious truth
without revelation. No, no, no! to none at all. But how comes
the revelation? It is a revelation in consciousness, made on the
single condition that man lives by the "law of the Spirit of
Life," and always made when the condition is fulfilled.  I talke
it that all truth is revelation (though, as there are different modes
of truth, so there are different degrees of revelation made to
different men), and that all revelation is strictly in conformity
with the law of our being, and in conformity with the,/z',/zest
powers and laws. I am dependent upon God for all things. I
have no wisdom without him. In him I live and move, &c. To
be without him - i. e., to be carazlly-mizded- is spiritual death,
-death to the truth.  So, William, I believe no man discovers
truth without a revelation.  So the truth is not mzanz's, but
God's. Did you ever say, " That is /zy truth"? But I believe
revelation is always made thZrozghi and by the laws of the Spirit,
and not in a foreign way. Now, I cannot think the revelation
of Moses or of Jesus different iii kind from that of Numa or
Socrates, but infinitely iz degree.
But the truth flashes on the man. You have felt such
revelations. We labor upon a thought, trying to grasp the truth:
we almost have the butterfly in our hand, but cannot get it.
Again we try: it will not come. We walk, sit, pray: it will not
come. At last, in some moment, it flashes on us; the crystals
form in a moment; the work is all done. Whence came it?  I




102              THEODORE PARKER.
do not know. It is in these burning moments that irfe is lived:
the rest is all drudgery, beating the bush, planting and weeding
and watering; this is the harvest-hour. These hours are few to
any man, - perhaps not more than two in a week; but yet all the
real thought of the man is compressed into these burning moments. The Methodist dates his izew birthi from them: the
Orthodox are attempting to reproduce them in four days' meetings, &c. The mystic is united to God in these moments.
Paul was caught up to the second heaven. Now, I believe God
is the fountain of truth, which overflows from him into all minds
that lie low in his power, wishing to feed these minds of theirs
in wise passiveness. But how this influence comes I do not
know. I know nothing about the manner in which my soul is
connected with God: I only know the fact. It is a matter of
experience. My faith is greater than myself. Conscience, the
religious sentiment, settles truths which I am only to obey; for
I have no control over them.
Now a word upon miracles. I believe most heartily the miracles of the New Testament, in the Gospels and Acts. Some
of them I should explain as natural events; such as Paul's conversion, Peter's liberation, perhaps the death of Ananias (I doubt
on this), Paul's wonderful visits from the angels: I do not think
of any others but the gift of tongues. Now, I do not see reason
for believing aljy of the  izzracles of ihe Old Testazent. The
evidence does not satisfy me: the occasion is not worthy of
them; the consequence is nothing. All old nations claim similar miracles (you remember those in Livy and the Greeks), which
rest on similar evidence. If any one of the miracles (of the Old
Testament) rested on sufficient evidence, I would believe it. Besides, this is to be remembered, - the Orientals never made a
sharp distinction between the natural and the supernatural: you
see this in the story of the sun and the moon standing still; and
often in the Psalms and historic books they would represent
matters as miraculous which were not so. They do the same
now...
I would say the same of Christian miracles. They relate to
the history, but not to the doctrines, of Christianity. Prove to
me that they never took place, that there never was a Paul or
John or Jesus, and I will still prove that Christianity is true: it
was true before Jesus Christ; for it is older than the creation.




WES T R OXB UR Y.                  I 03
It is true still. In a word, its truth or falsity has nothing to do
with the accompanying miracles, I fancy. It makes no difference
whether Socrates taught in a surtout or a scarf, by day or by
night: his teaching was false or true by ilsetf. I do not see
how the doctrines of Mosaismn involve historical questions.
WEST ROXBURY, Aug. IO, I838.
I have never had a summer of more delightful study
than the present; never found more satisfaction in theological
and philosophical pursuits. I have solved many questions
which have long perplexed and troubled me; and have grown, in
some small measure, calmer than of old time. Tranquillity is
one of my attainable but unattained virtues.  Some of my
inquiries have been historical, others critical; but philosophy
has given me most delight this season. I do not say that the
greatest questions are yet solved, or ever will be. They stand
now like fire-breathing dragons in my path: I cannot drive
them away. But, though they often heat, they never bite me.
Mr. Francis says, in expressing his despair of philosophy, " It is
better to give it all up, and study the facts of Nature with Kirby
and Spence, and White of Selborne."
WVho can do it if he would? The sphinx will have an answer,
or you die. You must read the riddle.  Love of philosophy
may be " the last infirmity of noble minds; " but I will cling to
it still. You ask what effect my speculations have on my practice: you will acquit me of boasting when I say, the most dezglhf/jl, — better than I could hope. My preaching is weak
enough, you know; but is made ten times more spiritual and
strong by my views of nature, God, Christ, man, and the Sacred
Scriptures. In my religious conversation, I tell men religion is
as necessary as head to the body, light to the eye, thought to the
mind. I ask them to look into their hearts, and see if it is not
so. They say I tell them the doctrines of common sense; and
it is true.
Questions are often asked on heretical points. I had to tell
a man the other day that Paul was overtaken by a thunder-cloud
in his Damascus journey, &c. He said it made it all plain. I
tell men that Moses and the writers of the Old Testament had
low views of God, -the best men could have in those times:
they understand it, and believe the New-Testament account of




I o04             THODORE PARACER.
God. In regard to Christ, they see a beauty in his character
when they look upon him as a man who had wants like theirs,
trials, temptations, joy, and sorrows like their own, yet stood
higher than the tempter, overcome in every trial.
They see the same elements in themselves; but some of them
almost despair of his elevation of character. I can tell them
that even he has not exhausted human nature; that what is not
be/zitzd them is biefore them; that a future is better than a past;
and that they, by a faithful use of their powers, may yet be, in
another world, as far before Jesus as he is now before them.  I
dwell mainly on a few great points: viz., the nobleness of
man's nature; the lofty ideal he should set before him; the
degradation of men of this time, their low aims, and worthless
pleasure; on the necessity of being true to their convictions,
whatever they may be, with the certainty, that, if they do this,
they have the whole omnipotence of God working for them, as
the artist brings the whole power of the river to turn his wheel.
Also I dwell on the c/haracter and Pro-vlideitce of God, and the
exactness and beauty of his laws, natural, moral, and religious.
My confidence in the Bible is increased. It is not a sealed book,
but an open one. I consider there are three witnesses of God
in creation.  I. Works of AiVzzure. these do not perfectly reveal
him; for we cannot now understand all its contradictions. 2. The
words of our fellow-men.  This confirms all the wisdom of all the
past.  It includes the Sacred Scriptures.  Parts of it differ vastly
iz degree from other writings, but not in kind.  3. Tlie iiD zile
senztizelzts of each i;zdividzTal soul. Now, I lay stress on the
first, but more on the second, and still more on the third: for a
man may have just as bright revelations in his own heart as
Moses or David or Paul, - I might say, as Jesus; but I do not
think any man ever has had such a perfect God-consciousness
as he.
But Paul says the spirit searches all things, even the "deep
things of God;" and I dare not fancy it can never go beyond
the writings of the Old Testament.  I find nothing in the Gospels that can ever perish. Paul mistook sometimes, Jesus never:
men no more understand his words than they can do his miracles. "Be perfect as God."  Do they know what this means?
No, no!  lMy confidence in the gospel is immeasurably increased.  I see that it has meaning profoundest meaning, in its




WEST ROXBURY.                     105
plainest figures. " He that is greatest among.you shall be your
servant."  What meaning! It will be understood a thousand
years hence, not before. But I see the gospel is human, but
infinitely almost above present humanity. I feel bound to communicate my views just so fast and so far as men can understand them; no farther. But, if they do not understand them
when I propound them, the fault, I think, is mine, and not theirs.
I often find it difficult to make myself understood; for I doubt
much you could find a more ignorant set in the State than my
congregation of one hundred and twenty. But there are some
twenty who are intelligent; all are vmoral, and I resfect them all.
There is but little relzglious life among them. My predecessor
had little, and could not, poor man! impart what he did not possess. We will have a long talk upon these points; for you know
the pen is dull and cold, while the tongue is nearer the heart.
My heart and my hand go together like two turtle-doves, who
perch on the same bough, and eat of the same food, and drop
water in one another's beaks. My religion warms my philosophy, and my philosophy gives strength to my religion. You
know I do not boast in all this.
The finest spirits come about him; among the rest,
William  Henry Channing, -" a most delightful man, full
of the right spirit; a little diseased in the region of consciousness, but otherwise of most remarkable beauty of
character; full of good tendencies, of noblest aspirations;
an eye to see the evils of society, a heart to feel them, a
soul to hope better things; a willingness to endure all selfdenial to accomplish the end whereto he is sent; itot
covered by thickest wrappages, which rather obscure his
worthy uncle, whom I venerate perhaps too much."
The intellectual event of the summer was Mr. Emerson's celebrated " Address " before the graduating class
of the Cambridge Divinity School.
" THURSDAY, July I5. - After, as usual, preaching, Sundayschooling, teachers' meetinging, &c., wife and I went over to Brookline, and proceeded to Cambridge to hear the valedictory sermon
by Mr. Emerson. In this he surpassed himself as much as he




I o6             TIIEOD ORE PARKIAER.
surpasses others in a general way. I shall give no abstract, so
beautiful, so just, so true, and terribly sublime, was his picture
of the faults of the Church in its present position. My soul is
roused; and this week I shall write the long-meditated sermons
on the state of the Church and the duties of these times."
To George E. Ellis, then in Europe, he writes, Aug. 7,"You know Emerson was to preach the sermon before the
class. I heard it. It was the noblest of all his performances: a
little exaggerated, with some philosophical untruths, it seemed to
me; but the noblest, the most inspiring strain I ever listened to.
It caused a great outcry; one shouting,' The Philistines be upon
us!'another,' We be all dead men!'while the majority called out,'Atheism!' The dean said,' That part of it - as I apprehend
which was not folly was downright atheism.'"
Later he writes to the same correspondent," I sent you Emerson's address to the divinity students. It
has made a great noise. Mr. Norton opened the cannonade with
a broadside aimed at Emerson, Cousin, Carlyle, Schleiermacher,
Shelley, and a paper called'The Western Messenger.' This
provoked several replies, -one of singular beauty from Theophilus Parsons; one from the iron pen of Brownson, in'TilThe Post;'
and one from J. F. Clarke, in defence of the article in'The
Messenger.'  Ministers  preached  on  Emerson's  sermon.
Henry Ware delivered a sermon on the personality of God,
which, it is said, Emerson denies; and the students of the Divinity School come out, cap in hand, and say,' Peccavi/zzls on/zyzes,'
the last class in particular, and request Henry Ware to publish
his sermon, which is said to be a very good one, and to the point.
Brownson writes a fierce review in' The Quarterly;' which, after
all, is rather good than bad, though it contains some severities.
Chandler Robbins speaks mildly, as his manner is, of the whole
affair, and calls the vulgar rant of denouncing Emerson a'vulgar clamor' and'the popular roar.' A. N. is indignant
thereat; and this very minute I have read a fourth article of his,
in this morning's'Advertiser,' on Emerson, in which he says
infidelity and atheism have been long preached by the Unitarian




WES T R OXB URY.                1 07
ministers, - not by all, but by some few. All this makes a world
of talk. It is thought chaos is coming back: the world is coming to an end. Some seem to think the Christianity which has
stood some storms will not be able to weather this gale; and
that truth, after all my Lord Bacon has said, will have to give it
up now. For my part, I see that the sun still shines, the rain
rains, and the dogs bark; and I have great doubts whether
Emerson will overthrow Christianity this time."
The air is filled with "wild views."  The same letter
continues:
" Simmons was ordained last Tuesday at Dr. Channing's, as
evangelist, to go to Mobile.  Bellows preached the sermon;
Dr. Follen gave the charge, Ripley the right hand; Walker read
the Scriptures; Henry Ware made the prayer. All was quite
transcendental, except Mr. Ware's part, which, of course, was
savory enough without transcendentalism.  The sermon is
described as being particularly'liberal;' the preacher maintaining that goodness is goodness in a heathen; that an Esquimau
would not be turned out of heaven if he were a good and religious man; and that a true and sincere prayer, though offered to
an idol, would go to the right place, for the only God would take
it. The discourse alarmed and shocked the more backward of
the brethren; but the younger-hearted were not disturbed.
"The other day they discussed the question in the Association, whether Emerson was a Christian. G. said he was not,
and defended his position; rather poorly, you may suppose. J.
P. maintained he was an atheist. But nobody doubted he was a
virtuous and most devout man, - one who would enter heaven
when they were shut out. Of course, they were in a queer predicament: either they must acknowledge a man may be virtuous
and yet no Christian (which most of them thought it a great heresy to suppose), and religious, yet an atheist (which is a contradiction, -to be without God, and yet united to God), or else
affirm that Emerson was neither virtuous nor religious, which
they could not prove. J. W. and N. L. F. thought he should be
called a Christian if he desired the name. Some of the ministers think we need to have certain' fundamentals' fixed for us
all to swear by, lest the new school among the Unitarians should




I o8            THEODORE PARKER.
carry the whole body up to the height of transcendentalism. It
is notorious that the old Unitarians, in the days when there was
fighting for the faith, had no such fundamentals. It is quite
evident there are now two parties among the Unitarians: one is
for progress; the other says,'Our strength is to stand still.'
Dr. Channing is the real head of the first party: the other has
no head. Some day or other there will be a rent in the party:
not soon, I trust, however."
From all this it will be seen that Mr. Parker's interest
in his profession was sincere. He was a minister; and
nothing that concerned his ministry was indifferent to
him. But he interpreted his ministry in a large way, and
occupied himself with a hundred matters which seemed but
distantly related to his calling. All literature in his eyes
was sacred literature; all facts were divine facts.  Scattered up and down the pages of the journal are curious
studies into the mysterious phenomena of nature and life,
unaccountable cures, presentiments, previsions, stories of
second-sight, incidents old and new illustrating the connection between things visible and things invisible. To
the last of his life he was gleaning accounts of prophecy
and miracle. His reading was literally universal in its
range. He takes up Chapman the poet, Herrick, Wither,
Drummond, Wotton, Flecknoe, — from whom he copies
verses, -Surrey, Suckling: no matter who; there is honey
for him in every flower. He bursts into such glee on
hearing of More's poems from  Dr. Francis, that two
men working in the garden think him crazy. The
early Christian Hymns, the Milesian Fables, "Cupid and
Psyche," Campanella, biographies of Swedenborg and
others, -these were his mental recreations. Richter he
read, but says little about.  Goethe always interested
him: " I shall not dare attempt a mncaniz'ue ceZeste of
Goethe.  The greatness of the subject appalls me.  My
plummet will not fathom his deeps, nor will my telescope
reveal all his far heights.  He is so vast and so many



WES T R OXb UR Y.                o9
sided, I am puzzled, lost in the labyrinth of the man.
The' Farbenlehre' strikes me with amazement. I looked
for a fanciful work, full of ingenious theories,- conclusion before the fact, and even against the fact; but,
instead, the work is compact, systematic, vigorous.  It
overthrows my old notion of colors. In my notice of
Dwight's translation of his poems, I shall speak of Goethe
only as a poet, and confine myself mainly to his lyrics,'Reinecke Fuchs' and'Hermann and Dorothea.' The
last is my especial favorite." But he cannot get over the
moral defects of the great German: "Goethe is an artist,
not a man.... His patriotism seems quite low: there is
no warm beat out from his heart.... Goethe never seems
to have looked on men as brothers. Most men have a
technical standpoint from which they survey the world.
Ministers look on men as things to be converted; kings,
as things to be ruled. Goethe viewed them, first, as things
to minister to his pleasure; second, as objects of art.'Go
to, now,' says he;'let us make us a poem.' His perfect
artistic skill is wonderful.  In his finished works there is
scarce any thing in bad taste.... He talks of self-renunciation and the like, but never practises it."
Through these sunny fields of literature the torrent of
severer study ploughs its way on. Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, are trifles; Schleiermacher, Bouterwek, Baur, Hegel,
Laplace, Leibnitz, are more serious. Bopp's "Vergleichende Grammatik," Karcher's " Analecta," Meiner's " History of Religions," Rimannus' "History of Atheism"
(Latin), are samples of the solid reading. The books
he has not within reach, — Ablard, for instance, and
Averroes, - he stretches out his hand, and obtains from
afar.  Wilkinson and Rossellini are familiar to him.
Hesiod he comments on minutely. No book is mentioned without some notice of its contents and a critical
remark, which proves it to have been read. Plato is a
constant companion. The only notice of Shakspeare we
Io




nIO              THEODORE PARKER.
find is of the Sonnets, which delight him with their glow
of feeling. Is it wonderful that this man now and then
fainted, and fell into moods of sadness?
"Thursday, Friday, Saturday. - unwell the first, and sick
the two last, of these days. Have had no thoughts, save on
Saturday night, when a real gush from the heavenly fount ran
throug-i the dusty bed of my brooklet. It gives life; and a
sermon is already getting forward through its quickening influence. The critique on Goethe has grown into shape, and sundry flowers for my picture-poem have begun to unfold; but the
headache still lingers,'Though often took leave, yet seemed loath to depart.'
"What a fool I am to be no happier! I have enough of the
outward of life (bating some few sorrows known only to myself); am engaged in congenial employment. I should be much
happier, - pshaw! I should be much nobler. Let happiness happen as it may: it is an accident, not the essence. Let me be
more manly, true, simple, Christian. I am not doing my work:
I am too idle; too much afraid of the world.
"This week has been entirely wasted. One good hour of
thought a week is all I will ever ask. Then all the growth is
effected: the rest is only digging and watering and pruning and
lopping. I have had more than one, -one on Monday, and
one to-night. Yet I have done but little."
The special causes of this occasional despondency are
not disclosed. There was no  serious ill-health: his
habits were regular, simple, wholesome. In the pleasant
weather he was much out of doors, planting and trimming in his garden. He took long walks, visiting Boston and the neighboring towns on foot; doing his ten,
fifteen, and twenty miles a day without fatigue. In summer his pedestrian exploits would have tasked the vigor
of any but a very strong man. He once journeyed from
New York to Boston on foot, making about thirty miles a
day.  He walked  easily through  the White-Mountain




WES T R OXB UR Y.               I I I
region, ascending Mount Washington from the Notch
and back the same day; and betimes the next morning
started off for Franconia. His mirthfulness, the natural
overflow of animal spirits, the sparkling wit and frolic
merriment of his near friends in West Roxbury, the
variety of his studies, the diversion of the lightest literature,-for ]Bulwer's novels, and Longfellow's romances,
and Marryatt's tales, were in his hands, - saved him from
the oppression of overwork. He mingled freely with
people; was no solitary; and the people with whom he
had most to do were simple-hearted, plain, homely folks,
whom he met on the warm ground of a common humanity. He was not morbid: there was not a touch of
the morbid element in his constitution. The cries that
broke from him, like those voiced above, came partly
from his heart, and partly from his soul. He was a hungry man, - hungry for knowledge, and hungry for affection. The hunger for knowledge could be appeased by
books: of them there were enough, and they never failed
him. The hunger for affection was less easily satisfied.
Wife, friends, lovers, failed to provide bread enough for
him. His thirst for confidence and sympathy of the
genuine manly sort was literally insatiable.
"At home nominally; but, since wife has gone, my home is
in New Jersey. I miss her absence - wicked woman! -most
exceedingly. I cannot sleep or eat or work or live without her.
It is not so much the affection she bestows on me as that she
receives by which I am blessed. I want some one always in the
arms of my heart to caress and comfort: unless I have this, I
mourn and weep. But soon shall I go to see the girl once
more. Meantime, and all time, Heaven bless her! I can do
nothing without Lydia, - not even read."
The fear that he was to be childless was exceedingly
bitter to him. The children of his friends he treated as
if they were his own, - petted them, gave them endear



I I2           TIIEODORE PARKER.
ing names; but they were not his own, and they only
increased the sense of vacancy in his heart.
But deeper than this, even, was the feeling of bafifled
aspirations which came to torment him in his hours of
suspended effort. He was not hungry for fame or power
or riches; but he was hungry for attainment; and the
more he attempted, the less he was satisfied with his
accomplishment.
But these moods of depression were comparatively
few. Such passages as those quoted above occur, perlhaps, a dozen times in all the volumes of the journal;
and they are followed by words of strength that seem to
rebuke them. On the same page with these, as if written with the same stroke of the pen, is one of his
sketches of work for the week:I. Write a sermon, and finish one not completed.
2. Finish Goethe's " Farbenlebre."
3. Baur's " Gnosis."
4. Do something to Ammon.
5. Critique, - Hebrew Lexicon.
6. Begin Augusti's Einleitung to A. T.
His enjoyment of his literary friends was intense, and
it was continual. He had long and frequent talks and
walks with George Ripley, deriving fresh vigor from that
cheerful, buoyant, accomplished mind. Mr. Ripley was
one of his great stimulators, as Dr. Francis was, perhaps,
his chief support, in matters of pure erudition.  "George
Ripley and his wife came to our house Friday, and staid
until the next Friday. We were full of joy and laughter
all the time of their visit."  His conversations with Dr.
Channing on the sabbath, the New Testament, the character of Jesus, the mythical theory, the morality of the
Gospels as compared with that of the best heathen, were
suggestive. Channing was in some respects the more, in
others the less, conservative. He rather shocked Theo



WEST ROXBURY.                   II3
dore by his doctrine that conscience must be educated, -
an idea which Theodore ridiculed, holding to the infallibility of conscience, and maintaining that it will always
decide rightly, if the case is fairly put before it, and old
habits have not darkened its vision. Channing even
n ent so far as to question whether we needed an infalIi')le guide, - whether such a guide would not be rather a
disadvantage than otherwise; but, in regard to the gospel morality, he was inclined to think that his friend did
less than justice to Christianity. He was persuaded that
the character of Jesus was different in kind from his own;
he accepted the Bible miracles as distinct in genus from
those of other nations or books: in all which opinions
Parker dissented  emphatically from  him.  In  other
words, Parker was a pure transcendentalist, Channing
only a partial one. There were discussions with 1Mr.
Alcott on the comparative merits, aims, and work of Dr.
Channing and Mr. Garrison.  George Bancroft cheered
him with his brave confidence in the popular desire
for spiritual truths. Convers Francis was a fountain of
living water. He walked to Andover to see Moses Stuart,,
the famous "orthodox" professor; found him "full of
talk and anecdote, very uncouth in his manners, broad
in his mind, and free in his spirit, but crude with undigested learning and mixed beliefs."  He even called on
Mr. Norton, who always received him coldly; and, failing
to find communion of heart, paid a tribute to the neatness
of his mental operations and the perfect order of his
papers.
The event of 1839, in the Unitarian world, was Mr. Norton's address to the alumni of the Divinity School on " The
Latest Form of Infidelity," a performance which revived
the war between the old and the new schools.  "Is it
not weaker than you ever fancied? " Theodore writes to
Miss Peabody.  " What a cumbrous matter he makes
Christianity to be! You must believe it is authenticated
IO*




I 14            THEODORE PARKAER.
by miracles; nor that only, but that this is the only way
in which it can be attested. I doubt that Jesus himself
could be a Christian on these terms. Did you notice the
remarkable mistranslations of the German passages?
They are such as no tyro could make, I should fancy. It
will do one good work: it will present the subject to the
public mind; and now we may have a fair discussion."  To
Mr. Silsbee he writes, "Ripley is writing the reply to Mr.
Norton. It will make a pamphlet of about one hundred
pages octavo, and is clear, strong, and good. He will
not say all that I wish might be said; but, after we have
seen that, I will handle, in a letter to you, certain other
points not approached by Ripley. There is a higher
word to be said on this subject than Ripley is disposed to
say just now. But a long controversy will probably grow
out of this: ink will be spilled on both sides, and hard
names called in the excess of Christian charity that usually attends religious controversies. I find no men among
the Unitarian ministers who like the address: even Dr.
Parkman thinks it weak. But some of the lay brethren
think the matter fixed; that Mr. Norton has'done transcendentalism up."'
The points that Mr. Parker wished presented were fundamental.  How does man attain to religion? whence
get the essential truth thereof? What is meant by a revelation? Is revelation necessary in order to a vital and
sufficient religion? Has the revelation been made to all
nations, or so that all nations have had an opportunity to
become acquainted with it? Is Christianity a peculiar
revelation, or the perfection of all previous revelations?
These points he proposed to open in a pamphlet by
" Isaac Smith." The pamphlet was written and published,
but under another title: "The Previous Question between
Mr. Andrews Norton and his Alumni moved and
handled in a Letter to all those Gentlemen, by Levi
Blodgett." And a very'admirable tractate it was for clear



tWES T R OXB UR "Y               I I5
ne;s, pith, and point.  Planting himself on the ground
that man has a spiritual nature endowed with original
capacity to apprehend primary religious truth directly,
without the mediation of sacrament, creed, or Bible, he
stood outside and above the controversy that raged about
him.  His faith, being intuitive, was unassailable by historical doubt or literary criticism. Every thing might go,
- Old Testament, New Testament, miracles, ordinances,
formularies: he was safe. On the question of literary
criticism his mind was far from clear; but he was content that it should be so. He would answer questions as
well as he could when they came up; but he would not
fret if they were unanswered. He would not timidly
thrust them aside, nor would he rashly jump at conclusions that were not warranted by his discoveries.  He was
deeply, almost passionately, concerned that people should
not rest their beliefs in God, duty, immortality, on external evidence; that they should trust in the revelations that
come to their own souls: but there his concern stopped.
He made no war on opinions as such, but on the principles relied on to justify opinions, and on the spirit in
which opinions were held. Men might believe, if they
would, in the Bible, Hebrew and Christian; in the miraculous birth and peculiar nature of Christ; in the incarnation, the transfiguration, the resurrection. He would net
molest them, provided they believed, first of all, in the
soul of course: being thus justified in thinking freely, he
thought freely; being privileged to use his intellect, he
used it.
To Dr. Francis.
"It seems to me most of us set a false value on the writings of
the New Testament. We take them to be our standard of life and
doctrine; and yet probably no learnedze azndfree Christian 1tinker
believes all t1zat is contazied in any writer of the New Testamzent.
Two evangelists evidently believe the miraculous conception;
all, perhaps, credited the popular notions about'possessions.




ii6              THIEODORE PARKER.
Matthew, Mark, and John do not say a living dove descended on
Jesus; but Luke does say it. Can there be any doubt the first
three evangelists supposed that words were s/poken in an articutale voice announcing his acceptance with God?  Celtainly
there can be no doubt that they, and the Saviour/iimself, as well
as Paul and Peter, misunderstood passages of the Old Testament, and misapplied them.  No doubt Paul thought he saw'angels.' I don't believe Luke thought the Damascus journey
a natural affair, or that Paul thought it was less than miraculous.
Peter and John need not be mentioned, and still less the Epistle
to the Hebrews; for in all these the incongruities are more
remarkable, perhaps, than in the other parts of the New Testament. Now, if the New Testament is a standard of life and
doctrine to you and me, we are bound to believe these statements (if possible). But we do not believe themz. This is all
right; but the people believe them, or think they nizzst believe
them, which is still worse. Now, as you said the other day, how
different the Bible as you studied it at home from the Bible
as your parishioners listened to it at church! Is it necessary
there should always be this clerical view, and this laical view
so different from it? Would not the people be better, wiser, and
holier if they were emancipated from this stupid superstition
which now hangs like a millstone about their necks? It seems
to me, if the true insliration of the New Testament was understood, if men could read it as they read Plato or Seneca (not
that the New Testament is not incomparably superior to them),
they would be more enlightened and inspired thereby. I take
it, the main difference between us and the Orthodox is not
respecting the doctrine of the Trinity, or total depravity, or the
fall, or election (for we all agree near enough on these points,
and believe in'God the Father,' in revelations in man, which
is the Son, and in revelations to man, which is the Holy Spirit,
&c.), but in respect to the Scriptures. The Orthodox place the
Bible above the Soul; we, the Soul above the Bible. They
tell us, that, when you and I were born, all revelation was at an
end, all the capital prizes of humanity withdrawn before our
time. When we go up to the bar of God, and ask for our mite,
they say,'You have Moses and the prophets: hear them.' In
short, they say,'The canon was closed before you were born:
you are to study its letter, to get out its spirit; that is all.'




WEST ROXB UR Y.                    II7
We (do not believe this statement. Is revelation at an end? Is
the Bible better than the soul? The Hindoo says that of his
Veda; the Mohammedan, of his Koran. But, if the Christian
says so, he dies,' for Christianity is the religion of freedom. So
the fact that we always take texts from the Bible, read its good
passages, and pass over its objectionable clauses, and allegorize,
or put a higher sense to passages, tends to mislead men as to
the true nature of the book. Do not suppose I have any disposition to undervalue the Bible: I only want the people to
understand it as it is. I remember talking with old Mr. John
Richardson about the Bible once. He said he had recently read
the first part of the Old Testament again: and he was sorry ihe
had read it, because he could not believe it,' and, before, he tizouzzzt
he believed all.
" Let any sober man read De Wette's' Biblical Dogmatics,' and
he will be astonished to see how many doctrines are taught in the
Bible which enlightened men cannot believe. I must think, that
by and by, centuries hence, the Old Testament will be dropped
out from the Church: then the New Testament will follow, or
only be used as we now use other helps. I can't but wish, with
you, that Jesus had written his own books; but even then they
must have contained some things local and temporary."
To the Same.
MARCH 22, I839...  Is not this plain that the New Testament contains
numerous myths? Certainly the book of Acts has several,Paul's Damascus journey; Peter's delivery from prison; Paul's
shipwreck; the story of the ascension; of the miraculous
gift of tongues. We can explain all these things naturally; but
did the compiler of this queer book explain them in this way?
What right have we to use a different system of exegesis from
that we apply to the apocryphal Gospels and every other writing?  Not the smallest.  But we cannot believe the literal
statement of Luke: so we attempt to save his credit, and invent
a system of interpretation for the purpose. But, in the same
manner, we could make the story of John Gilpin an allegorical
history of the origin, progress, and perfection of Christianity.
The Gospels are not without their myths, -the miraculous
conception, the temptation, &c. Now, the question is, Where




THEODORE PARKER.
are they to end? Who will tell us where the myth begins, and
the history ends? Do not all the miracles belong to the mythical
part? The resurrection —is not that also a myth? I know you
will not be horror-struck at any doubts an honest lover of truth
may suggest; and certainly I see not where to put up the bar
between the true and the false. Christianity itself was before
Abraham, and is older than the creation, and will stand forever;
but I have sometimes thought it would stand better without the
New Testament than with it.
CHRIST.
From the Journal.
"How much do we idealize him? Very much, I suspect.  I
look on the Christ of tradition as a very different being from the
ideal Christ. The latter is the highest form of man we can
conceive of, -a perfect incarnation of the Word; the former a
man, perhaps of passions not always under command, who
had little faults and weaknesses that would offend us. He must
have been fitigued at times, and therefore dull. His thoughts
came like mine: so he was sometimes in doubt, perhaps contradicted himself, and taught things not perfectly consistent with
reason; or, at best, gave utterance to crude notions. From the
nature of the case, he could not do otherwise. Thought is life
generalized and abstract: it comes, therefore, only as we live. So,
from year to year, and day to day, Christ must have generalized
better as he lived more. His plans evidently were not perfectly
formed at first: he fluctuates; does not know whether he shall
renounce Moses or not. He evidently went on without any plan
of action, and, like Luther at the ReformatiOn, effected more than
he designed. At first, perhaps, he meditated simply a reform of
Mosaism; but finally casts off all tradition, and starts a fresh
soul.
"His power of miracle-working is an element of the soul;
we find it in all history: it is a vein running through all history,
coming near the surface of life only in the most elevated characters, and in their raptest states of mind. So the central rocks
only crop out in mountains.  WVe all feel this miracle-power
ideally (Alcott says actually likewise, and perhaps he's right: I
can feel something of it, supposing it is what Emerson calls




WEST ROXBURY.                       119
demoniacal influence). Jesus, a greater man than ever lived
before or since, lived it actually. His miracles, therefore, were
natural acts; not contrary to outward nature, but above it. To
man they were natzural; to the mass of matter, szujbernaiztral.
So he can raise the dead, multiply loaves, walk on the sea.
" His inspiration I can understand still better. There can be
but one kind of inspiration; it is the intuition of truth: but
one mode of inspiration; it is the conscious presence of the
Hi-ghest, either as Beauty, Justice, Usefulness, Holiness, or
Truth, - the felt and perceived presence of Absolute Being infusing itself into me....
"Christ, I fancy, was one of the greatest souls born into the
world of time, and did also more perfectly than any other man
fulfil the conditions of inspiration: so the Spirit dwelt in him
bodily. His was the highest inspiration, his the divinest revelation. But this must be said of actualities, not of possibilities. It
is folly, not to say impiety, to say God cannot create a greater
soul than Jesus of Nazareth. Who shall attempt to foreshorten
God, and close the gates of time against him, declaring that no
more of his Spirit can be by any possibility incarnated? Jesus
was cut off at an early age, the period of blossom, not
fruitage.
"The Christ of tradition I shall preach down one of these
days to the extent of my ability. I will not believe the driving
beasts out of the temple with a whip; the command.to Peter to
catch a fish; still less the cursing the fig-tree, and the old
wives' fable about the ascension.'
PAUL AND CHRISTIANITY.
From tize ournal.t,
"What would have been the result if St. Paul had not been
converted on his Damascus journey? Take the life of St. Paul
out of the Christian Church, and how much is left? Would
Christianity have sunk down into a Jewish sect, like that of the
Essenes? or would it, by its inherent might, have created a
Paul?  How he shot above James and Peter and the others,
save only John!.... What if Christ had been born in Kamtchatka: we should have heard nothing of him. Why, then, may
there not have been other Christs?...




120              THE ODORE PA RICER.
"The first Christian writings were Paul's Epistles. In his
time there were no Gospels. I doubt strongly that Paul knew any
thing of the Christian miracles, or the miraculous birth of Jesus,
or his temptation, or prediction of his death. Had he known
the facts (?), would he have alluded to them? "
THE EARLY CHRISTIANS.
From the youzrna, I84I.
"All I read of them  convinces me more of their noble
character, aim, and life. But I see their limitations. They
were superstitious, formal; at least, after the middle of the
second century, and perhaps also in the apostles' times: the letter burdened them; but they were full of the noble, manly
spirit. Their ascetic doctrines of marriage, dress, amusement,
education, I dislike vastly. They laid too much stress on baptism,
the eucharist; giving the latter to men to keep at home, carry
in their pocket, &c.; gave it to little children just after baptism;
put it in the mouth of dead people, and the like.
" But how they died! How they prayed! How they lived!
We cannot yet afford to criticise these men. Certainly they were
not gentlemen; but they were men. The wonder is, that, being
so much, they saw no more."
HERETICS.
From lhze Journal.
"They began very early: indeed, we find them in the times
of the apostles. In Jesus you are in the fieroma of light: step
into the apostles, it is already evening, and the light is behind
you; take another step, and you are in fathomless darkness.
Heretics have always been treated as the worst of men. Imaginary doctrines have been ascribed to them, - immoral ceremonies.
They have been charged with sins of the blackest dye....
Jerome says the heretics, even if they lead blameless and beautiful lives, have only the image and shadow of virtue. Tertullian
chides Marcion, after the fashion of Dr. South, with his God
who is not to be feared; and asks him why, if he does not fear
God, he does not go to the theatre and bawdy-house, and game
and drink. Philastor and Augustine censure some heretics
who would think the planets, sun, moon, and stars were worlds,
because they denied the resurrection of the flesh.....




WEST ROXBURY.                      121
" Nothing will ever save us but a wide, generous toleration.
I must tolerate and comfort my brother, though I think him in
error, though I know him to be in error. I must tolerate his
ignorance, even his sin; yes, his intolerance. Here the only
safe rule is, if some one has done you a wrong, to resolve on the
spot never to do that wrong to him or any one else. It is easy
to tolerate a man if you know he is a fool, and quite in the
wrong; but we must tolerate him when we know he is not a
fool, and not altogether in the wrong."
From tIe Journal, April I, I839.
" I have just finished a review of Strauss for' The Examiner.'
I could not say all I would say from the standpoint of'The
Examiner,'- for this is not allowable, -but the most the
readers of that paper will bear. If the editor is shabby, as he
was a few days ago, he will'decline the article,' ungrammatical as it may be. I have written it, however, at his request, and
with no small labor. The reading of sixteen hundred pages like
this is something; and then, to consider the study of the books
of Ullman, Tholuck, and the'Streit Schriften,' it makes up a
good deal of work."
From the Journal, Sunday, Aug. I.
" Was at home. Communion in the morning. This rite becomes less and less to me. I would gladly abandon it; for it troubles me. Leave the elements, and give me a meeting for prayer,
conversation, or preaching, not the amphibious thing we have
now. I confess the rite was never much to me. The time spent
alone would always have been the more profitable. Could it be
possible, this should be my plan,   to have a meeting in the evening for religious conversation, and prayer (if needful) at private
houses; and bread and wine might form part of the entertainment. I cannot but think Christ would be astonished at these
rites. But let this go: it warms the hearts of pious women, we
are told."
Though these opinions were expressed chiefly in the
journal and in private letters, Mr. Parker's published
writings were guarded, and his sermons were mostly practical and religious. Towards devout prejudices he was




I22              THEODORE PARELR.
very gentle, not from lack of courage, but partly from distrust in the finality of his views, partly from fear of going
too fast for his hearers, and partly from his deeper interest
In essential ideas than in casual criticisms. The spirit of
his beliefs appeared in sermon and prayer.  He said
nothing in public he did not believe: he was careful that
his people should not be justified in ascribing to him
beliefs he did not entertain. But he waited the bidding
of conscience before telling all he knew, or thought he
knew, about the Bible. Two discourses on the Scriptures
remained unpreached in his drawer for two years, biding
their time for delivery. When the time came, the preacher
found the people more than prepared for their contents.
At this period, Parker was no image-breaker: indeed, he
never was, unless he saw that the image concealed the
god.
Still an evil opinion of him got abroad. Pulpits began
to be closed against him; ministers declined to exchange,
a sign of fellowship withdrawn.
From tgie 7ournal, November, I840.
" I have solicited an exchange repeatedly with Y    g; could
not get it: with B   tt; with Dr. P    n. To ask either of
these men again would be a dereliction from Christian selfrespect. So let them pass. I feel no ill-will towards any of
them. I will try G    tt soon, for the experiment's sake; and
so with the others, excepting  ~, with whom I wish no exchange
for moral reasons. Their answer decides my course for the
future. Let us see! I should laugh outright to catch myself
weeping because the Boston clergy would not exchange with
me!"
Before it fairly came to this, his position was so well
understood, and he was so generally regarded as a man
suspected, that letters of sympathy, encouragement, and
friendly warning, came to him.  The following letter shows
how he received such communications:



WEST ROXEUiR Y.                   123
To Miss E. P. Peabody.
"Touching my becoming a martyr, as you and Miss Burley
conjecture, I think I should have no occasion for the requisite
spirit, even if I had that article in as great abundance as John
Knox or John Rogers. I have precious little of the spirit of a
rnartyr: but, inasmuch as I fear no persecution, I fancy I can'say my say,' and go on smootkly; but if not -why, well, I can
go rouzghy. I trust I have enough of the spirit always to speak
the truth, be the consequence what it may. It seems to me men
often trouble themselves about the consequences of an opinion
or action much more than is necessary. Having settled the
question that an opinion is true, and an action perfectly rlziht,
what have you and I to do with consequences? They belong
to God, not to man. He has as little to do with these as with
the rising of the sun or the flow of the tide.
" Doubtless men said to Galileo,'Your system may be true;
but only think of the consequences that follow! What will
you do with them?'  The sage probably replied,' I will let
them alone. To do duty and speak truth is my office. God
takes care of consequences.'"
To the Same.
" I thank you most profoundly for the kind and seasonable
advice touching the matter of prudence; but you cannot fancy I
have any desire to set the world on fire by promulgating heresies.
I have not the furor divinus which impels some of the young men
to vent their crude conceptions, to the injury, perhaps, of themselves and the public. Prudence, in the common sense, is a vulgar,
sneaking virtue, which bids a man take care of his meaner interests, though at the expense of all that is noble in action or divine
in contemplation. But Christian prudence is a different thing.
It is a wise forecasting of results; a foreseeing consequences in
their causes, and preparing to meet them when they come. Mr.
Alcott would no doubt rejoice to say that Jrudentia was only
1pre-zidentlia; and so it is.
" I have only one consolation for all evils; and that is, an absolute faith that it is all right, that it will one day produce the best
possible influences over me, and that then I shall see how foolish I have been to complain. All of us mourn over many failures:
favorite schemes are dreamed out, only to fail soon as we




I24               THEODORE PARKE R.
attempt to realize them. By and by the cloud breaks away, and
we see it would have been worse had they succeeded. It must
be so in all cases.' May Heaven refuse to grant half of our
prayers' was a wise petition of some old sage. There can be
no such thing as absolute evil; and from  the standpoint of
Omniscience, when the whoZe appears as it is, there can be no
senbl7a;zce of evil. This is all the comfort I have for any sorrow,
or for all sorrows: therefore I can say with old Henry More, -
Lord, thrust me deeper into dust,
That thou mayst raise me with the just.'
"Is it possible, however, for any one to have a faith so deep,
so active, so perfect, that all sorrows can be borne as cheerfully
as blessings are enjoyed? It may be possible for some to reach
this state; but only for a few; certainly not for me. You have
by nature a deep and active faith, which spontaneously overflows, and, like the sacred waters of the Nile or Ganges, makes
all around it green and fruitful."
If these passages express confidence, they also betray
sorrow. Though endowed with a sanguine temperament
and a stout heart, Mr. Parker had an immense capacity
for suffering, which all his power of accomplishment could
not deaden or suppress. The cry was the more agonizing
for not being heard. He did care more than he thought
he did for the fellowship of his ministerial brethren; for they were his brethren in a ministry which he
loved, and could not bear to see desecrated by sordid considerations. To lose his companionship and his confidence at once was a severe blow.




CHAPTER VII.
THE FERMENT OF THOUGHT.
IT was a remarkable agitation of mind that went on in
Massachusetts thirty years ago. All institutions and. all
ideas went into the furnace of reason, and were tried as
by fire. Church and State were put to the proof; and the
woodl, hay, stubble - every thing combustible - were consumed. The process of proving was not confined to Boston: the whole State took part in it. It did not proceed
from Boston as a centre: it began simultaneously in different parts of the Commonwealth. It did not seem to be
communicated, to spread by contagion, but was rather an intellectual experience produced by some latent causes which
were active in the air. No special class of people were
responsible for it, or affected by it. While in Boston the
little knot of transcendentalists - Channing, Ripley, Margaret Fuller, Emerson, Alcott, Francis, Hedge, Parker
— were discussing the problems of philosophy at the
Tremont House and elsewhere, the farmers in the country,
and plain folks of Cape Cod, were as full of the new
spirit as they, and were reaching, though from  the opposite region of common sense, the same intrepid conclusions. It was a time of meetings and conventions for
reforms of every description.  A man of the people like
Theodore Parker, utterly free from conventionality, knowing no distinctions of persons, equally at home with
learned and simple, interested in what Epictetus calls the
[I *                       125




126           THEODORE PARCKER.
"bare man," was sure to be on the spot where any thing
of practical moment was taking place. The journal contains a long account - eight closely-written folio pages -
of a convention held in Groton in August of I840. It is
too long to be copied in full here, as Mr. Weiss has done
in his biography; nor would the importance of the occasion justify the occupation of the required space: but so
characteristic an example of the mental condition of the
time must not be passed by.
The call for the convention was issued by Second Adventists and Come-outers, - two very unlike classes of
people, except in the one particular of being rude and
uneducated. The former we know about: the latter had
no distinguishing tenets, but held opinions of every radical type, taking their name from the mere circumstance
of their having "come out " from the regular churches.
The distance to Groton from Boston was about thirty
miles. An expedition thither on foot was proposed; the
original company being Ripley, Parker, and a new friend
of theirs, E. P. Clark. They picked up Cranch at Newton, and walked on to Concord; stopping, as they went
along, to refresh themselves at a farm-house, or rest a
moment by the way-side, but trusting to the talk to
shorten the way. At Concord they called on Mr. Alcott;
got a word of admonition from  old Dr. Ripley (aged
ninety), who charged them not to become "egoomites," or
scff-senlt men; and then repaired to Mr. Emerson, "who
looked as divine as usual."  With him  they took tea.
The next morning the party, increased by the addition of
Alcott, trudged on to Groton. Some little reconnoitring
was required before Mr. Hawley, the herald of the convention, could be found. When discovered, he proved to
be a young man of about four and twenty years, of pleasant
countenance, but unprepossessingly so, Mr. Parker thought.
"Brother" Hawley introduced themn to Brother Himes
of Boston, Brother Myrick of Cazenovia, Brother Russell,
and others whose names were unremembered.




THE FERMENT OF THO UGHT.             127
On inquiring what was to be done at the convention,
the reply was negative and unsatisfactory. The two questions not to be discussed were, I. What constitutes a
Christian?  2. What constitutes a Christian church?
Brother Jones was to hold forth that night on the second
coming of Christ in I843. The discourse would be very
interesting, no doubt; but I843 was still in the future:
there might something be transacted in the mean time.
So the party of travellers adjourned, and enjoyed a talk by
themselves. The convention had interesting features,
from the mere circumstance of its wildness and fanaticism; but -he most interesting were the people themselves. There was Joseph Palmer, " a man with a meek
face, and a fine gray beard six or eight inches long, clad
in fustian trousers and a clean white jacket." He had
been a butcher; but had renounced that calling, partly
from the conviction of the wrongfulness of eating flesh.
His face was pleasantly touched with enthusiasm: Alcott
found him full of "divine thoughts."  He wore his beard
because God gave it to him, doubtless for some good
end. Joseph spoke to this effect in the convention: " If
you are here to discuss the Church of Antichrist, I have
nothing to say; for I know nothing of that. But I know
something of the Christian Church. You have said a
good deal about getting into the Christian Church, and
about getting out of it. Now, there is but one way of
getting out of the Church, -that pursued by Judas, also
by Ananias and Sapphira. No man, save himself, can put
one out of the Church. Now, I will tell you how to get into
the Christian Church. Christ said to the young man who
asked how to obtain eternal life,' Sell all that thou hast,
and give to the poor.' If he did that, he was saved.
Now, if he was saved, he was a Christian, of course, —a
member of the Church of Christ. Why, then, do you
make such a talk about the way to become a Christian?
It is perfectly plain. There is not a girl here twelve years




128            THEODORE PARXER.
old who cannot understand it." For himself, he had
thought out all that had been said in the meetings long
ago, when he lay in a dungeon for conscience' sake.
B. W. Dyer was a young man of about twenty-five, a
farmer, and a minister as well. He had little book-learning, but deep thoughts. When Alcott asked him about
Christ, he said, "Truth is Christ, and Christ truth." He
expected salvation from the inward Christ; in short, by
becoming the Christ. Here was a rude farmer, who had
found the same well-spring that had quenched the thirst
of the learned Ralph Cudworth and many a profound
mystic besides. His theory of inspiration was, in substance, that set forth in "The Dial." Paul and Peter were
inspired; but so were others, - some more, some less. His
idea of death and the resurrection was strictly apostolic.
He believed that they who possessed the entire truth, who
were the Lord's own, would never die, but would be spiritualized, and caught up into the air. Another personage
Mr. Parker christened " Mantalini," from his close resemblance, in whisker, dress, watch-chain, and drawl, to the
illustrious character in " Nicholas Nickleby."  He was an
Englishman; had been a Baptist, then a Universalist,
afterwards a member of the legislature, and was then a
preacher. In his affected, "dandiacal" manner, he compared the Christian Church to Samson going down to
Timnath and slaying a lion; a remark which provoked our
friend Theodore to the satirical rejoinder, that, when
Samson went down to Timnath and slew the lion, he had
not been shorn by Delilah, but continued true to his vow
of austerity. The covert allusion to soap-locks and other
effeminacies was lost on "Mantalini," who, when the meeting was over, congratulated the grim humorist on his
interesting speech, with nearly all of which he heartily
agreed.
Nickerson and Davis were two preachers among the
"Come-outers," -" two as rough-looking men as you would




THE FER~MENT OF THO UGHT.             129
meet in a summer's day; but their countenances were full
of the divine."  Their hands, their dress, their general
air, showed that they belonged to the humblest class in
society.
Mr. Bearse was a plain Cape-Cod fisherman, -a skipper, probably, —of bright, ruddy, cheerful countenance.
He spoke briefly, gesticulating in a manner distressing to
Brother Hawley, and to this effect: "I see about in the.and many little Babels of sectarian churches, as you call
them. Now, I see you wish to pull down these little Babels; to take the combustible materials of which they are
made, and erect one great Babel, into which you may
enter. You are in a fair way; and, if this is not confusion of tongues already prevailing, I don't know what
confusion is."  Brother Hawley was not rejoiced. Presently Mrs. Bearse, a " sister to live " as they called her,
arose and spoke, her husband cheering her on.  She
stated meekly and beautifully-this Cape-Cod sainther religious history, her connection with an Orthodox
church, then with a Freewill Baptist church, and her persecution in both.  "Now," she said, " the Lord has set me
in a large place."  "Her remarks showed plainly that she
spoke from the divine life. I afterwards talked with her,
and saw how divine her heart appeared, and her countenance also; for she has one of the fairest faces I have
seen for many moons."
The opinions of the "Come-outers " were found to coincide in many respects with those Mr. Parker had arrived
at by his own trained reflection.  The Christian ordinances they esteemed highly: "They are our daily work.
We do not count a rite better than any other act. If our
heart is right, whatever we do we shall do for the glory of
God.  Baptism  we think little of," said Mr. Nickerson.
"and therefore seldom  administer it." - "But," said Mr.
Bearse, "sometimes a brother wishes to be baptized; and,
if the Spirit moves me, I baptize hiln, or some other does




130            THEODORE PARKER.
it. We don't think it necessary for the minister to do this:
any one into whom God puts the desire may do it."
The Lord's Supper they held in light estimation; rarely
administered it, and never except one was moved to it by
a spontmneous action of the divine feelings. The last time
it was administered was at Sister Nancy's house. Several
had met one evening to worship; and Brother some one
said, "The Spirit moves me to eat the Lord's Supper."
Whereupon Sister Nancy went to the cupboard, brought
forth bread and wine, placed it on the table, and the
brother sat down and ate and drank. "All our meals,"
they said, " are the Lord's Supper, if we eat with a right
heart. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord; and he that
eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not."
Whoever wished to join their company did so without
ceremony. No questions were asked about his creed; he
subscribed to no confession; set his name to no paper;
was free to come and go. In case of difficulty between
one of the society and a member of another church, some
of the brethren went quietly and settled the dispute
according to the apostolical method, and so successfully,
that they were sometimes asked to mediate in matters of
controversy outside of their own body. Should one come
to their meeting who did not believe in Christ or the Bible,
or even a God, they took him by the hand, bade him welcome and God speed in a good course. Should such a one
offer to speak in meeting, they heard what he had to say;
and, if he could convince them, they Wvere ready to be convinced.
They had no rules for worship: each prayed as he was
moved, in words or silently. As they talked with their new
acquaintances, Joshua Davis felt moved by the Spirit to
pray; knelt down, and poured out his petition "with
beauty and great earnestness."
Their ministers declared that they were ministers of
silence no less than of speech. They never spoke except




THE FERMENT OF TItO UGHT.            13I
when moved thereto; and each spoke as moved, without
restraint; "for it took the whole Church to preach the
whcle gospel."
They had no church-edifices: all houses where good
and pious people lived were Lord's houses; all days well
spent, Lord's days. Since one day had been set apart by
custom, they met oftener then than on other days when
labor prevented; but the true worship was a divine life
during the weak, — a life of humility, justice, and mercy.
Thus they prayed without ceasing; thus their life was a continual sacrifice.
Their ministers might or might not be educated. They
had no ordination, and received no salary: they worked
like others for their living, owing no debts but the debt of
love; making their own wants few, that they might have
something to give to them that were in need.  Joshua
Davis was a working-man, who, over and above the time
given to labor for his bread, visited troubled and dying
people as a " physician of souls." Yet he managed to give
away out of charity, in one year, a hundred dollars. They
counted their calling sacred; but no more so than any
other; no more so than that of the humblest sister, though
she were but six years old, who made herself useful. They
recognized no distinction between sacred and profane
things where the heart was holy. Some of the ministers
lived up to a very high calling. This very Joshua Davis
rose the year round at four o'clock, and was heard often
before daylight at his devotions, which were at times so
fervent as to disturb the household; in which event he
would go out to the barn, and give voice to the passion of
his prayer.
They used the Bible as a help to godliness. "Men
worship the Bible," said Mr. Bearse to Mr. Parker, " just
as the old pagans worshipped their idols. This is just as
truly idolatry as that false worship was. The Bible is a
Scri2pture of t/ie Word, not the Word itself; for the Word




132             TIHEODORE PARKER.
is never written, save in the living heart." Books of a
mystical character were used among them, such as Law's
" Serious Call," " Spirit of Prayer," " Christian Perfection,"
Scougal's " Life of God in the Soul of Man," George Fox's
"Journal."  Jacob Boehme's more simple and practical
treatises were not unknown to them. They held that men
were inspired in proportion as they had received the truth 
and they received the truth through obedience.
Mr. Parker made a long speech at the, convention, to
the general approval of the audience, in which he set forth
in direct and simple language his idea of the original
Christianity as it lay in the mind of Jesus; described the
early departures from it; traced the rise of the ecclesiastical and sectarian spirit; portrayed in vivid colors the
actual condition of the Church; and more than hinted at
the radical reforms that were necessary, if the religion
was to vindicate its claim to be the savior of mankind.
" What is the Church now?" he asked.  " St. Paul said,'Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.' But
where the spirit of the Church is, there is slavery.  The
Holy Spirit says,'Be a true soul; live a divine life.' The
Church demands a belief, and szot a divine life.  The best
men come to her, and find no life, no power."  Thus he
sums up his impressions of the convention:m I. I am surprised to find so much illiberality amongst the
men who called the convention. They were not emancipated
from the letter of the Bible, nor the formality of a church. They
simply wish to pull down other sects, to make room for their own,
which will probably be worse than its predecessors.
" 2. I am surprised and enchanted to find these plain Cape-Cod
men and numerous others, vwho have made actual my own highest
idea of a church. I feel strengthened by their example. Only
let it be united with high intellectual culture.
" 3. I am surprised to find many others who have emancipated
themselves from the shams of the Christian Church, and now
can worship God at first-hand, and pray largely and like men.




THE FERMENT OF THOUGHT.                  I33
I don't know that I have got any new ideas: but certainly my
confidence in my old ideas has been deepened; for I see they
may be made actual.
"This convention effects nothint directly by its long string of
resolutions; but it does much indirectly.  It sets the ball in
motion, which will go far before it stops."
If it was a bold thing, to attend a convention of " Comeouters " at Groton, it was a bolder thing to be one to call
a convention in'Boston for the consideration of questions
concerning the sabbath, the ministry, and the church. It
was held in Chardon Street, Nov. I7.  Few acts so damaging to reputation could be done.  The risks of inundation from all kinds of radicalisms were very great: it was
striking a blow at the heart of the holiest respectabilities,
and offering a large opportunity for unruly spirits to disport
themselves.  "All my friends after the flesh, and some of
my friends after the spirit, regretted that I had any agency
in calling the convention.  Lamson, a beautiful soul,
doubts the convention; fears bad use will be made of
truth: nous verronzs.  Dr. Channing also doubts the propriety thereof, since it looks like seeking agitation: here,
again, we shall see.  I have my own doctrines, and shall
support them, think the convention as it may.  I look on
the Church as a body of men and women getting together
for moral and religious instruction, on the minister as a
moral and religious teacher, and on Sunday as a day set
apart from work and common secular vocations. All of
them are human institutions, but each valuable; I would
almost say, invaluable."
The convention met, discussed, and dissolved, having
brought to pass no very great result.
From; thke Yournal, SeOt. 23.
"Went to Boston to attend the Non-resistant Convention.
Don't agree with them entirely, but like their spirit and upward
tendency. Like not their formula of' No Human Government.'
12




134             THEODORE PARKER.
Think circumstances render it needful sometimes to take life.
If a man attack me, it is optional on my part to suffer or to
resist; but, should he attack my wife with the worst of purposes,
why should I suffer the wicked to destroy the righteous, when
I could save her by letting out his life? I should deprecate the
issue being tendered; but, if it were tendered, I have little doubt
which course would be revealed to me as the true one."
The time, however, for enlisting in special reforms had
not yet come to Mr. Parker.  General questions interested
him now rather than particular ones. The condition of
society at large weighed heavily on his mind. Like all
thoughtful men who lead secluded and bookish lives, -we
may say, in proportion as they lead secluded and bookish
lives, - he was interested in the problem of evil.  The separate problems of evil present themselves chiefly to those
who live in cities.  In his sweet country village, books
supplied the, chief materials for speculation on the ills of
society. The writings of St. Simon, Victor Considerant,
Charles Fourier, and others of the various schools of
socialism, were becoming known in America, and their
doctrines were already creeping into our speculations.
Albert Brisbane's pamphlet, in part a reproduction of
Fourier, had attracted attention.  It pointed out the vices
and miseries of modern society, and proposed to cure
them by reconstructing society itself from the foundation,
on new principles, resting on a new philosophy of human
nature.  Mr. Parker reads, ponders; thinks the book will
do a great deal of good. The "phalanx" does not appear
to him more improbable than a city may be presumed to
have seemed to Abraham.  The portrayal of the evils of
society strikes him forcibly: he is glad to see the case
stated boldly.
From the 7ozurna.
"Brownson has recently written an article on the laboringclasses calculated to call the philosophic to reflection.  He
thinks inherited property should be given up; that the relation




THE FERMENRT OF THOUGIHT.    135
of master and servant, employer and employed, should cease;
that the priest is the chief curse to society. This makes a great
noise. Tile Whigs, finding their sacramental idea — money —
in danger, have come to the rescue with fire-brands and the like
weapons. Fearful lest the article should do harm, they trumpet
forth to the people those doctrines, which, if left alone, would
come only to scholars. I like much of his article, though his
property notions agree not with my view. Yet certainly the
present property scheme entails awful evils upon society, rich
no less than poor. This question, first, of inherited property,
and, next, of all private property, is to be handled in the nineteenth century, and made to give in its reason why the whole
thing should not be abated as a nuisance.
"Society now rests on a great lie. Money and service have
much to answer for. Can one man serve another for wa-es without being degraded? Yes; but izot its all relaltions.  I have no
moral right to use the service of another, provided it degrades
him in my sight, in that of his fellows, or of himself; yet personal service is connected with this degradation."
In a note on Murphy's " Science of Consciousness," he
remarks, "This book is but a straw on the stream; but it
shows which way the current sets; and God knows what
will be the end of this awful movement.  Heaven save us
from an English reign of terror.
" The same question must be passed on in America.
Property must show why it should not be abated; labor,
why it shculd 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, lest I should




I3 6             THEODORE PARKER.
be in for the whole; and must condemn the state and
society no less than the church."
From t1e y7our.za.
"Ripley dislikes the customs of property, - a father transmitting it to his son; but I see no way of avoiding the evil. The
sin lies deeper than the transmission of property from getter to
enjoyer. It lies in the love of low things, and in the idea that
work degrades. We must correct this notion, and then all is
well; and, before that is done, to hew down the institutions of
property, and cut the throats of all that own lands, would do little
good. How the world ever came into such a sad state it is difficult to conjecture: how it is to get out of it is impossible to
foretell."
From tlze yozcrald.
" Mrs. R. gave me a tacit rebuke for not shrieking at wrongs,
and spoke of the danger of losing our humanity in abstractions.
Many remarks of hers sank deeply into me."
From tlze yournal.
" I have lived long enough to see the shams of things, and to
look them fairly in the face.  I. The State is a bundle of shams.
It is based on force, not love. It is still feudal. A Christian
State is an anomaly, like a square circle. Our laws degrade, at
the beginning, one-half the human race, and sacrifice them to
the other and perhaps worser half.  Our prisons are institutions that make more criminals than they mend: seventeentwentieths of crimes are against property, which shows that
something is wrong in the state of property. Society causes
crimes, and then hangs the criminals. 2. The Church is still
worse.  It is a colossal lie. It is based on the letter of the
Bible and the notion of its plenary inspiration. It is the hospital of fools, the resort of rooks and owls. The one thing it
does well is the baptizing of babies."
In August of I840 Mr. Parker went to New York and
visited the "Tombs," which he thus describes: "It is a
large block of buildings, embracing a whole square, and
comprising a court-house, jail, and yards. It is a very




THE FERMENT OF THOUGHT.               I37
magnificent and imposing edifice in the old Egyptian style.
The taste which would expend all that architecture on a
building. so loathsome as a jail is most wretched.  Shame
that the disgrace of society should be thus arrayed in
costly dress, and made to flaunt before the public eye! I
went into the court-house to see'justice' administered.
A negro was on trial in the Court of Sessions for abusing
his wife. It seemed to me the place was well called'Egyptian' from the darkness that covered over justice
there; and' Tombs,' for it appears, as all our court-houses
are, the sepulchre of equity.  How can it be'justice'
to punish as a crime what the institutions of society render unavoidable? How could any thing better be expected of the poor wretches daily brought up to that
court, exposed, naked as they are, to all the contamination of corrupt society?
"This poor negro, on trial for a crime, showed me in
miniature the whole of our social institutions. I. He was
the victim of Christian cupidity, and had been a slave.
2. From this he had probably escaped by what was
counted a crime by his master; or else was set free by
charity, perhaps desiring to cover up its own sins. 3.
He was cast loose in a society where his color debarred
him the rights of a man, and forced him to count himself
a beast, with nothing to excite self-respect, either in his
condition, his history, or his prospects. Poor, wretched
man! What is life to him? He is more degraded than
the savage; has lost much in leaving Sahara, and gained
infamy, cold, hunger, and - the white man's mercy- a
prison of marble. Oh, what wrongs does man heap on
man!"
George Ripley, one of the strongest pulpit-speakers in
Boston, was so pierced and wounded by the sense of
social abuses, that, in full sympathy with a noble wife, he
left his profession, impatient with the "foolishness of
preaching," sold his fine library at auction, and, gathering
I2*




I38            THEODORE PARKER.
together all that he had, inaugurated the enterprise of
associated mind and labor at Brook Farm. The experiment was tried in a spirit of deep sincerity, as an effort to
carry out in some degree the ethics of the Sermon on the
Mount, by restoring natural and primitive relations between man and nature, and between man and man. Neither
the founder nor his coadjutors were disciples of any particular teacher of socialism, though some of them were
acquainted with French writings on the subject. The
views of Fourier were understood but partially through
translators and interpreters: few accepted his system as
a whole. The spirit that animated him was abroad in
society; but the opinions he formed at the suggestion of
that spirit were more congenial with the French than with
the English or American mind. The problem of Brook
Farm was the practical reconciliation of labor, capital,
and culture, by mutual participation in toil and its results.
This is not the place to give an account of an undertaking, which, from obvious causes, did not prosper either
as a financial speculation or as a social scheme, but which
brought together for a short space of time a remarkable
company of men and women, most of whom have since
been distinguished in letters, and gave to all who were
concerned in it an amount of pleasure they never could
have obtained otherwise, and never will recall without
feelings of hearty satisfaction. The story of Brook Farm
is a story which the cultivators of it delight to tell over to
their friends. Will not one of them adequately tell it to
the public?
The grounds were, by a short cut across the fields, not
more than a mile from Mr. Parker's house. The spirit
never moved him to take part in the enterprise. He was
too absorbingly interested, it may be, in the theological
reform he was pushing, to throw himself with force into
any scheme for the regeneration of society; or perhaps
the instinct of practical utility which he followed made




THE FERMEINT OF THOUGHT.    I39
such schemes seem visionary.  But he was a frequent
visitor, and a keen inspector of the movement. The social
freedom  there was a delight to him; the conversations
were a lively joy; and no one relished more than he the
fine ironies of cultivated ladies bending over the wash-tub,
of poets guiding the plough, or of philosophers digging
potatoes. His faith in the undertaking may have been
small; but his entertainment with it was immense.  It is
probably from the circumstance that the experiment took
so little hold of his mind that there is no more notice of
it in the journal. His enjoyment was on the spot.
Parker's faculty of getting fun out of serious things
in which he felt a truly deep concern, and at which even
he did his share of work, is shown in the way he pleasantly
laughed at " The Dial," a magazine for literature, philosophy, and religion, which was begun in I840.  He wrote
for it faithfully, putting into it some admirable articles on
literature, theology, and ecclesiastical affairs; yet, in a
letter to a friend, he can speak of it thus:To Dr. Francis.
DEC. I8, 1840.
Alproj5os of " The Dial:" to my mind it bears about the same
relation to " The Boston Quarterly" that Antimachus does to
Hercules, Alcott to Brownson, or a band of men and maidens
daintily arrayed in finery, "walking in a vain show," with kid
mitts on their' "dannies," to a body of stout men in blue frocks,
with great arms and hard hands, and legs like the Pillars of
Hercules. If I were going to do the thing in paint, it should be
thus: I would represent a body of minute philosophers, men
and maidens, elegantly dressed, bearing a banner inscribed with
"The Dial."  A baby and a pap-spoon and a cradle should be
the accompaniment thereof. The whole body should have " rings
on their fingers, and bells on their toes," and go " mincing as
they walk," led by a body of fiddlers, with Scott's Claude Halcro
"playing the first violin and repeating new poetry."  This body
of the excellent should come out of a canvas city of Jerusalem




I40              THEODORE PARKER.
set upon a hill. On the other hand should come up a small
body of warriors looking like the seven chiefs before Thebes,
and swearing as they did, with just about as modest devices on
their shields. They should be men who looked battles, with
organs of combativeness big as your fist. They should be covered with sweat and blood and dust, with an earnest look and
confident tread. " Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds"
should encourage them. At their head should stand " Orestes
Augustus Brownson," dressed like Daniel, with Goliath's sword
in one hand, and that giant's head in the other. Would not
this make a picture?
This muscular mind was impatient of amateur performances: he had a keen eye for the deficiencies of people
who put themselves forward as reformers of the world, but
were themselves unreformed.  His admiration for Miss
Margaret Fuller was qualified.  Here is the mildest judgment on her from  the journal: " Miss Fuller came Saturday. She has outgrown Carlyle. Well, I am glad: I
wish the world had outgrown him.  She thinks Carlyle
inferior to Coleridge (doubt this much); that the latter will
live, and the former be forgot.  Miss Fuller is a critic, not
a creator, not a seer, I think. Certainly she is a prodigious woman, though she puts herself upon her genius
rather too much. She has nothing to do with God out of
her.  She is not a good analyst, not a philosopher."
Character was uppermost with him.  The moral element
was decisive: it is the apparent absence of it that staggers him as he contemplates the system of nature. Read
this from the journal: -
" There are many things in nature which are utterly incomprehensible to me. They are contradictions rather than exceptions. I mean such facts as the following: Alligators devour
their own young till they are too large: how frightful this is!
how unlike the rest of God's creation! Volcanoes and earthquakes I can understand: they do not puzzle me. Squirrels
castrate one another. I have often shot young and old males




THE FERIENT OF THO UGHT.               I4I
deprived of a part of their generative organs. I have seen two
old squirrels seize a young one half grown; and, one holding
the wretch, the other plied his sharp teeth, and emasculated him.
What does all this mean? This is a sad symbol of what man
does. Mr. Alcott's theory accounts for it better: viz., the world
is the product of all men: so long as men do such things, some
animals will do likewise."
This was penned before Darwinism was in vogue, or the
new doctrine of evolution, which contents itself with tracing
the development of life, leaving interpretations to the
future.  "Mr. Alcott's theory" has a flavor of the old
orthodoxy, which ascribed the fall of nature to the fall of
man; a theory that would be less vulnerable if the fall of
nature had succeeded the fall of man, instead of preceding
it, as for the most part it does.  It is hard to believe that
the fall of man was heavy enough to shake in pieces and
disjoint the order of creation which had existed several
hundred thousand years before he came; unless indeed, by
making the whole planet reel, he jostled out of place
every thing upon it. This ancient theory Mr. Parker discarded when he thought of it; and he had no other to put
in its place. He could only observe: that he did. He
noted the cruelty of animals towards one another, - the
barbarity of the cat to the mouse, which she tortures before
eating; the abortions of nature, -the monsters, calves with
three heads, human fcetus consisting of only a head, and
the like; the robbery which the bald eagle commits on the
fish-hawk, the lion on the jackal, the wolf on the fox; the
want of natural affection,- wasps destroying their young,
bees killing drones, &c., birds driving other birds from
their nests and then appropriating them, ants enslaving
other ants; the sins against nature committed by numerous
animals, the dog, for instance; the disgusting practices
of apes, frogs, and fishes; things that suggest a dark element in the creative cause of the world, or imply that matter has some qualities which the Deity cannot control.




142              THEODORE PARKAER.
But the philosophy of dualism he will not accept: it seems
to him inconsistent with common sense.
He is not without suspicion of a law of development.
He marks the anticipations or prophecies which a lower
class of beings afford of the next higher, - the toes in the
horse's hoof; the fingers beneath the skin; the singular
man-likeness of certain monkeys; the resemblance to human limbs noticed in some plants, as the orchis and lady'sslipper: but the clew is not continuous enough to lead him
far; and he sets these things down as curious facts, which
puzzle, but do not torment.
"If we look scientifically at these things, and attempt to classify as in other cases of scientific examination, shall we conclude the world is governed by an infinitely wise and good
Being?
" I. Notice the immense physical evils occasioned by war,
slavery, oppression, like that of the Turkish rulers, of the rich
barons; the horrible mutilations, cruelties, &c., that take place,
even in these days; the evils of sickness and poverty, that are
without fault of the sufferer.
" II. Note the exceeding low state of morals in all lands, in
the United States, even in Boston; how unchristian men are;
yet Christianity is only absolute humanity. Note the selfish
spirit, money-getting, ambition, intemperance, ignorance; yet this
is probably one of the most favored peoples. Take the richest
class in Boston: how do they stand when tried by the absolute
standard?
" Note still further the prevalent vices in other countries, -
licentiousness in Italy, Germany, and France. We may say
the sin in each individual is slight: perhaps there is no sin in
the matter; for personal sin is violation of conscience. So it
may be an absolute sin, viewed from the point of pure justice
or right, and not a personal sin. Still the consequences are the
same: I. The physical evils that follow the violation of material law.  2. The degradation of the individual, so that conscience is cast down, and all but extinguished.
"Consider the superior activity of evil over good.  Vice




THE FERM~ENT OF THOUGHT.                   143
spreads with rapidity, virtue slowly. Notice the extreme sufferings of individuals.
" Now, in estimating these matters, my own faith says there
is a perfect system of oqtimism in the world; that each man's
life is to him an infinite good: of course, all his physical evils
must be means of progress; all his vile acts, likewise, unavoidable steps in his course to happiness. But, to legitimate this in
the court of the understanding where all other truths are legitimated, I find difficult. Faith has nothing to do there. I will
imagine a person who claims that all things work together for
good, and suppose myself to reply to the arguments I should
bring in such a case. I should not know how to answer him:
I should appeal solely to faith for my own satisfaction."
Thus sincerely he faced the problems, presenting the
difficulties in their most formidable shape. He had, however, a constitution which turned away naturally from  the
repulsive side of creation. A single flower affected him
more deeply than a blasted forest; a beam  of light gave
him  a joy that many cloudy days did not dispel.  He was
so sensitive to beauty, that ugliness, though of hundredfold bulk, scarcely seemed to reach  him.  The tender
plant growing from  a bed of rotted leaves justified the
pile of decay; the violet lifting up its blue eye from  the
cold damp ground more than excused the ground.  Had
his temperament been less buoyant than it was, his heart
must have fainted; for no spectral optimism would have
availed against the terrible realism of his thought.
To Miss E. P. Peabody.
DEC. i8, 1840.
At different stages of life I have been amazed at the power and
the wisdom that are involved in the creative act; but of later
years, as I look more through the surfaces of things, - or, at
least, try to do so, - it is the beauty and lovi;zg-kuidct zess of God
that strike me most. I think, with you, that we can apprehend
the creative moment through love, and through that alone. It is
this that solves all the mystery. It cares little for the details of
the work, but tells us at once, " Out of the depths of infinite




144              THEODORE PARKER.
love God drew forth the world. 0 mortal! whoever thou art,
thank God that thou art born, and take courage; for thou also
art a child of infinite love, and all of the past is working in thy
behalf: so fear not. What though you weep a little as you
scatter the seed, and the cold rain of spring drenches and chills
you: from this very field you shall fill your bosom with
sheaves of satisfaction." To me, this thought, this feeling, is
enough to wipe the tear from my eye at any time. It is infinite counsel and infinite comfort. It has been adequate for all
the trials I have yet found, and I trust it will help me " till the
world ends." I often wish I could impart this same feeling to
others; but the attempt always reminds me of the truth in Plato:
" It is of all things the most difficult to find out God, and impossible to communicate him to others." Yet it has come to me with
little co;zsciozzs difficulty. I sometimes try - yes, it is the object
of my preaching - to lead all to this same "' watch-tower in the
skies: " but they tell me, " Look at the evil, the wretchedness,
the sin of the world, the wrongs'that patient merit of the unworthy takes'! " as if I could not see them all, and feel some of them.
I wish you would tell me, my dear Elizabeth, some better method
of doing this: you are the all-sympathizer, and must know how
to do this kindly office also. Prithee tell me how you would go
to work to " create a soziz under the ribs of death," and give this
confidence to one who lacks it still.
To impart his faith he finds difficult.  When others suggest their doubts and fears, he often stands dumb, praying
internally for them, and hoping that time will bring them
repose. But for his own part, however much his heart
may be wrung, the serenity of his soul is unbroken. The
following passage on death is taken from a letter:"How few of us are there that are bound to the mortal by ties
so strong we would not willingly see them severed at almost any
time! Even those who reluct a little at the thought of death
are usually unwilling on their friend's account, not on their own.
Death is always a blessing to him who dies: the man ceases to
be mortal. I cannot look on this change which takes place in
the animal system with that terror wherewith some men regard




THE FERVENiVT OF T1IO UGHZT.             I45
it. To me it is a change which is always made for the better, -
an important change, it is true; but it is no more to a man than
the change from the infant's'long-clothes' to the'frock and
trousers' of the boy.
" I understand, therefore, why Swedenborg found men in the
other world who had forgotten all about their death; in a word,
did not remember they had ever died. Perhaps most men do
not remember any thing about their change from'baby-clothes'
tc the boy's dress. Why need they think any more about death,
or fear it any more? I have not forgotten all about my change
of dress. I remember that I cried, and struggled most lustily
against the new dress; and, when my legs were squeezed into
their new envelopes, I was so ashamed, that I went into the fields
to hide myself. I doubt that I should complain half so much if
Death were to come with the new suit, and tell me to lay aside my
old rags, and put on the new clothes.
" Are we not foolish in talking about preparing to die? Our
business is to live. He that is prepared to live, andfit to live, is
fittest to die: is he not? To wear well the one suit is to prepare
well for the next. I am sometimes disturbed by the canting talk
one hears about preparing to die. I want to live; for the soul
never tells you or me that we shall die. The senses die; and so
death is an affair of the senses, -too sensual a matter for wise
men to concern themselves much about."
I cannot more fitly close this chapter, or the thoughts it
contains, than with the prayer written out in his journal
at the close of the year. Such words of supplication close
all the years.  Prayer was as natural to Theodore Parker
as breathing: it was breathing, - the deep inspiration of
his soul, as he stood at the " eastern window of divine
surprise," and caught the breeze from the "mountains
of the dawn." It is not often pleasant to come across
written prayers in a private diary; but his seem like the
efflorescence of what went before.
PRAYER.
O0 thou Spirit whom no name can measure, and no thought
contain; thou to whom years are as nothing, and who art from
I3




146              THEODORE PARKER.
everlasting to everlasting! I thank thee that my life still lasts
from year to year. I thank thee that my cup is full of blessings.
But I would bless thee still if thou didst fill my cup with
grief, and turn my day into night. Yea, 0 God, my Fath.er! I
will bless thee for whatever thou shalt send. I know it is all
very good. I bless thee that thou art still very nigh me; that
thou speakest to my heart from year to year. Thou kindlest
my faith; thou quickenest my love; thou castest down my fear.
When my father and mother forsake me, thou wilt take me up.
0 my God! bless me still this coming year. Be not afar off.
May I never become false to thy gift! Let my eyes be open,
my heart true and warm, my faith pure and heavenly. May
religion dwell in the inmost sanctuary of my heart; let it be
my daily life! And, wherever the years shall find me, may I do
my duty without fear, and so live on, lying low in thy hanu, and
blessed by thy goodness! Amen."




CHAPTER VIII.
THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY.
IT has by this time been made clear that Mr. Parker
was not a rash innovator either in doctrine or in practice.
He was as far from that as it was possible for a man to be
whose steps take hold on new paths at all. By sentiment,
affection, association, practical bent of mind, he was conservative, not destructive. He had no disposition to
break the bruised reed, or to quench the smoking'flax.
He loved the church, the ministry, the brethren. Though
swift in reception, he was deliberate and cautious in
creation. He took time in coming to conclusions, and
waited his opportunity. Bearing testimony "in season
and out of season" was not his way. He would be sure
before he made up his mind; he would be sure before his
intimate friend knew that his mind was made up. All
things considered, it is surprising that his old opinions
gave place so reluctantly to new ones. What he believed
was too strongly rooted in his tenacious mind to be
pulled up by even a strong hand at the first effort. Like
Luther, he clung to the faith of his youth as long as it
would allow. In the Divinity School, although he had
talked much with Mr. Francis, and read many a book of
a rationalizing tendency, he was old-fashioned in his opinions for a Unitarian. The elder ministers were his admiration. His relation to Miss Cabot brought him into
familiar acquaintance with Mr. Ripley, afterwards his
147




I48             THEODORE PARKER.
bosom-friend, who was importing the latest books in German philosophy and criticism, and reading them with eager
interest. They were freely lent to the young student, to
whom all literature was manna from heaven, and in whose
warm veins all honest thought made blood. The books
were, with hardly an exception, unorthodox, in most cases
vehemently so; and, being learned and strong, they naturally modified the student's mind. Parker had never
identified literature with faith, however closely he may
have held them  associated; and so, without serious misgivings, he suffered the literature of religion to undergo
inevitable changes. His views of scripture, of miracle,
prophecy, apostolical and lother infallibility, became altered
from month to month, as matter df course. Truth to him
was truth.
But these books contained a good deal besides criticism:
they contained philosophy of a new school. The re-action
against the philosophy of sensation, supported by the
authority of John Locke, and pushed to extremity by David
Hume, - a re-action which began with Kant in the last century, and continued through Fichte and Schelling, - had
carried before it the living mind of Germany. The great
names in literature became great through its inspiration.
Richter, Goethe, Schiller, were its prophets; Schleiermacher and Herder were its apostles; Statidlin and Ammon, Gabler and Wegscheider, were its theological expositors; Strauss and De Wette assumed it. The doctrine of
intuition, that truth is disclosed immediately to the
reason or the soul, took place of the doctrine of sensation,
that truth is revealed by mediation of book; and the
authority of all outward instrumentalities, church, bible,
creed, was tacitly repudiated before a single scripture
was doubted, Qr a single miracle denied. The vessels of
dogma, rite, ceremony, church, were not scuttled until the
spiritual freight they carried had been transferred to the
spiritual nature, there to be secure from hidden reef o.




TIHE UNITARIAN CONTRO VERSY.           149
sudden tempest.  In England the transcendental movement was represented by Coleridge, who was a student of
Schelling. Thomas Carlyle came later, with reproductions
of Jean Paul and his own tremendous preaching against
shams in church, state, and society. France took the
work in hand according to her genius, not with philosophic
profundity or critical acuteness, but with neat faculty of
generalizing and explaining, - Victor Cousin, and Jean
Philibert Damiron, and Benjamin Constant, and Theodore Simon Jouffroy, each after his own manner, and in.
his own department, vindicating the competence of the
human reason. The writings of these men, especially
of Cousin, Jouffroy, and Constant, were known here
in the original, or through translations by George Ripley,
and William H. Channing. America had a prophet and
seer all its own, beholding and announcing the same
great vision on this side of the water, Parker's admiration
of whom was early and boundless. "The brilliant genius of Emerson," he says, "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 inspiration, as it led them forward
along new paths and towards new hopes."
The new philosophy commended itself to Parker at
once, like his mother's milk. Religion had always been
a spiritual thing with him from his childhood, never a
formal or doctrinal thing. He never knew what it was to
be converted from the philosophy of sensation to the
philosophy of intuition. As a boy, he was a transcendentalist without knowing it. When he became a man, he
was a transcendentalist on conviction. Then reason
legitimated what he had always felt: the piety of the
heart became the philosophy of the intellect. His only
task was to remove from the new spiritual temple, which
was rising in beauty, the rubbish of former edifices that
13*




150             THEODORE PARKER.
once stood on the same ground; and this task he performed with great cheer, presuming on the copious gratitude of his generation for the work performed.
But the Unitarians were not in a mood to be thankful
for such service. They, with very few exceptions, looked
on their work as done. They had proved, to their own
satisfaction at least, that the dogmas of Trinity, Deity
of Christ, Vicarious Atonement, Total Depravity, and Everlasting Damnation, were unsupported by Scripture, and
they were in the main content. Precisely what was supported by Scripture they did not undertake specifically to
declare; but that whatever was accepted must be accepted
on the authority of Scripture, they did not question. "To
the law and to the testimony! " was their cry. In textual
criticism they showed themselves skilful; but behind the
text they did not go. The genuineness and the authenticity of the New Testament, the plenary authority of the
apostles, the supernatural origin and divine mission of
the Christ, the inspiration of the prophets, the validity of
miracles as credentials of the Messiah and his officers,
were accepted truths. The Unitarians were, almost to a
man, disciples of John Locke, -professors more or less,
probably less, intelligent of the philosophy that the great
religious ideas - God, immortality, duty - were given to
the world through external revelation imparted by men
inspired for the purpose, written in "sacred books," and
authenticated by signs and wonders. Half a dozen
minds, perhaps, had distinctly outgrown this position.
Dr. Channing was outside of it so far as the fresh vigor
of his moral sense revolted against the conventional ethics
of his sect, and his aspiration after a nobler humanity
transcended the dull level of respectability where the
Unitarians as a party stood; but lie seems never to have
been a complete transcendentalist.  The Wares were full
of evangelical piety, and were honest-minded as men
could be; but they were neither deep students nor bold




THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY.             I 5
adventurers into new fields of speculative thought. A
few scholarly men of fine literary culture read the German and French books; entertained their minds with the
new thoughts; took an intelligent interest in them; accepted in their libraries the conclusions of Herder,
Schleiermacher, Gabler, De Wette; but felt no call to
announce their discoveries, lacking the moral earnestness, or the faith in the people, or the sense of professional duty, or the vitality of interest, that the reformer's
task demanded. Among the ablest and most accomplished
were some, who, from the constitution of their minds,
could not take a side. As students, thinkers, men of letters, they had their opinions, and rather startling ones,
too, in some cases; but, as clergymen, they considered it
their office to repeat the traditions and teach the received
theology in the most reasonable form.
The sect, as such, was torpid. It was respectable, and
wished to remain so. It had put off its armor, and flung
itself down on the grass, and was unwilling to be disturbed. Its piety was low: the sermon had become a
moral essay; the hymns were didactic; the prayers were
dry; the passion for holiness had cooled down to a sense
of propriety. The creative period of the movement had
passed; and the apathy was the deeper as the stir had
been shallower. When Luther parted from Romanism, he
was in the open sea, with the great winds blowing and the
mighty waves tossing about him; but, when the Wares
and Buckminster and their compeers left Protestantism,
they were comfortably near shore, and soon tethered quietly to the wharf. The Unitarians were about as complacent a set of Christians as ever took ship for the king(dom.
In parting from Protestantism, Theodore Parker, on the
contrary, believed himself to be slipping his moorings, and
going out into the open sea, - the deep sea of truth. A man
of complete integrity, an undivided nature, all of one piece,




I52            THEODORE PAREKER.
he could make no practical distinction between manl and
minister, scholar and preacher, man of letters and man
of duty. All his thoughts were beliefs; all his beliefs
were convictions. The nice discrimination between opinions of the library and opinions of the pulpit was unknown to him. Already his outspokenness had made him
suspected as a disturber of the peace: he had received
warning letters; had been called "infidel;" brethren had
been prevented from exchanging pulpits with him by "ill
health," "home engagements," " frequent absence from
their desks;" but no open rupture had taken place, neither party being aware how wide the gulf had become.
The revelation was made on the now famous occasion
of the ordination of Mr. Charles C. Shackford at South
Boston, on the g9th of May, i84i. Mr. Parker preached
the sermon, on " The Transient and Permanent in Christianity," from the text, " Heaven and earth shall pass
away; but my word shall not pass away."
It was a memorable sermon. Though written in a
week of languor; though regarded as poor by the preacher,
and pronounced by a friend to whom it was read before
delivery to be the weakest thing he had ever done;
though loose in structure, redundant in style, and shadowy in definition, - it was a remarkable discourse, the
more effective from the faults, that were such to the
critical hearer alone.  The gorgeous amplitude struck
the popular imagination; and the moral earnestness that
throbbed in the speaker's heart, and thrilled to his fingers'
ends, made itself felt like the presage of a revolution.
Not to be a moment compared, as a work of art, with
fmerson's exquisite chant three years before, as a manifesto it was vastly more significant. The opening passage
sounds an alarm:
" In this sentence we have a very clear indication that
Jesus of Nazareth believed the religion he taught would
be eternal; that the substance of it would last forever.




THE UNITARIAN CONTRO VERSY.                I53
Yet there are some who are affrighted by the faintest
rustle which a heretic makes among the dry leaves of
theology:  they tremble lest Christianity itself should
perish without hope.  Ever and anon the cry is raised,'The Philistines be upon us, and Christianity is in danger!'"  On this hint the discourse proceeds, gathering
volume as it goes on, and ploughing a furrow that was
not to be mistaken, through  the whole  ecclesiastical
domain.  A few  sentences will explain the effect the
sermon produced: —
" Jesus felt his words were for eternity; so he trusted them to
the uncertain air: and for eighteen hundred years that faithful
element has held them good, distinct as when first warm from
his lips. Now they are translated into every human speech, and
murmured in all earth's thousand tongues, from the pine-forests of the North to the palm-groves of Eastern Ind. They
mingle, as it were, with the roar of the populous city, and join
the chime of the desert sea. Of a sabbath morn they are repeated from church to church, from isle to isle, and land to land,
till their music goes round the world.  These words have
become the breath of the good, the hope of the wise, the joy
of the pious, and that for many millions of hearts. They are
the prayers of our churches, our better devotion by fireside and
fieldside, the enchantment of our hearts. It is these words that
still work wonders to which the first-recorded miracles were
nothing in grandeur and utility. It.is these which build our
temples and beautify our homes. They raise our thoughts of
sublimity; they purify our ideal of purity; they hallow our
prayer for truth and love; they make beauteous and divine the
life which plain men lead; they give wings to our aspirations.
What charmers they are! Sorrow is lulled at their bidding.
They take the sting out of disease, and rob adversity of his
power to disappoint....
"Looking at the word of Jesus, at real Christianity, the pure
religion he taught, nothing appears more fixed and certain. Its
influence widens as light extends; it deepens as the nations
grow more wise. But, looking at the history of what men call
Christianity, nothing seems more uncertain and perishable....




154               THEODORE PARKER.
The stream of time has already beat down philosophies and
theologies, temple and church, though never so old and revered.
How do we know there is not a perishing element in what we
call Christianity? Jesus tells us his word is the word of God,
and so shall never pass away: but who tells us that ozr word
shall never pass away; that ouzr notion of his word shall stand
forever?...
"For centuries, the doctrines of the Christians were no
better, to say the least, than those of their contemporary pagans.
The theological doctrines derived from our fathers seem to have
come from Judaism, heathenism, and the caprice of philosophers,
far more than they have come from the principle and the sentiment of Christianity. As old religions became superannuated
and died out, they left to the rising faith, as to a residuary legatee,
their forms and their doctrines; or, rather, as the giant in the
fable left his poisoned garment to work the overthrow of his
conqueror.... The stream  of Christianity, as men receive it,
has caught a stain from every soil it has filtered through; so
that now it is not the pure water from the well of life which is
offered to our lips, but streams troubled and polluted by man
with mire and dirt.... On the authority of the written Word,
man was taught to believe impossible legends, conflicting assertions; to take fiction for fact, a dream for a miraculous revelation of God, an Oriental poem for a grave history of miraculous
events, a collection of amatory idyls for a serious discourse'touching the mutual love of Christ and the Church.' They
have been taught to accept a picture sketched by some glowing
Eastern imagination, never intended to be taken for a reality, as
a proof that the infinite God spoke in human words, appeared
in the shape of a cloud, a flaming bush, or a man who ate and
drank, and vanished into smoke; that he gave counsels to-day,
and the opposite to-morrow; that he violated his own laws; was
angry, and was only dissuaded by a mortal man from destroying
a whole nation.... What was originally a presumption of
bigoted Jews became an article of faith which Christians were
burned for not believing.... Matters have come to such a
pass, that even now he is deemed an infidel, if not by ilmplication an atheist, whose reverence for the Most High forbids him
to believe that God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son,
a thought at which the flesh creeps with horror; to believe it




THE UNITARIAN  CONTROVERSY.                I55
solely on the authority of an Oriental story, written down
nobody knows when or by whom, or for what purpose; which
may be a poem, but cannot be the record of a fact, unless God
is the author of confusion and a lie..... Modern criticism is
fast breaking to pieces this idol which men have made out of
the Scriptures.... Men have been bid to close their eyes at
the obvious difference between Luke and John; the serious disagreement between Paul and Peter; to believe, on the smallest
evidence, accounts which shock the moral sense and revolt the
reason, and tend to place Jesus in the same series with Hercules
and Apollonius of Tyana.... Men who cry down the absurdities of paganism  in the worst spirit of the French'freethinkers' call others infidels and atheists who point out,
though reverently, other absurdities which men have piled upon
Christianity. So the world goes.
"Almost every sect that has ever been makes Christianity
rest on the personal authority of Jesus, and not the immutable
truth of the doctrines themselves, or the authority of God, who
sent him into the world.  Yet it seems difficult to conceive
any reason why moral and religious truths should rest for
their support on the personal authority of their revealer, any
more than the truths of science on that of him who makes
them known first or most clearly.... To judge the future
by the past, the former authority of the Old Testament can
never return. The ancient belief in the infallible inspiration of
each sentence of the New Testament is fast changing, - very
fast. One writer, not a sceptic, but a Christian of unquestioned piety, sweeps off the beginning of Matthew; another
of a different church, and equally religious, the end of John.
Numerous critics strike off several Epistles. The Apocalypse
itself is not spared, notwithstanding its concluding curse.....
If it could be proved that the Gospels were the fabrication of
designing and artful men, that Jesus of Nazareth had never
lived, still Christianity would stand firm, and fear no evil....
The history of the Christian world might well be summed up in
one word of the evangelist,-'And there they crucified Him.'. Measure Jesus by the world's greatest sons, how poor
they are! try him by the best of men, how little and low they
appear! Exalt him as much as we may, we shall yet, perhaps,
come short of the mark. But, still, was he not our brother?




156              TOIEODORE PARAKER.
the son of man as we are? the Son of God, like ourselves?...Who shall tell us that another age will not smile at our
doctrines, disputes, and unchristian quarrels about Clhristianity, and make wide the mouth at men who walked brave in
Orthodox raiment, delighting to blacken the names of heretics,
and repeat again the old charge,' He hath blasphemed'?
In an age of corruption, Jesus stood and looked up to God.
There was nothing between him and the Father of all. And
we never are Christians as he was the Christ until we worship
as Jesus did, with no mediator, with nothing between us and
the Father of all....
"' Already men of the same sect eye one another with suspicion and lowering brows that indicate a storm, and, like children who have fallen out in their play, call hard names. The
question puts itself to each man,'Will you cling to what is
perishing, or embrace what is eternal?' This question each
must answer for himself.  My friends, if you receive the
notions about Christianity which chance to be current in your
sect or church solely because they are current, there will
always be enough to commend you for soundness of judgment,
prudence, and good sense, - enough to call you Christian for
that reason. But, if this is all your religion, alas for you! The
ground will shake under your feet if you attempt to walk uprightly and like men. You will be afraid of every new opinion,
lest it shake down your churchl; you will fear,'lest, if a fox
go up, he will break down your stone wall.' If, on the other
hand, you take the true Word of God, and live out this, nothing
shall harm you. Men may mock; but their mouthfuls of wind
shall be blown back upon their own face.... And alas for
that man who consents to think one thing in his closet, and
preach another in his pulpit! God shall judge him  in his
mercy, not man in his wrath. But over his study and over his
pulpit might be writ' EMPTINESS;' on his canonical robes, on
his forehead and right hand,' DECEIT, DECEIT!'"
Imagine words, of which these are the fewest possible
specimens, spoken on a public occasion, from a pulpit filled
with ministers, to an audience composed in considerable
degree of clerical people! That it was listened to as quietly




THE UNITARIAN CONTROV ERSY.            15 7
as it was, that only one man went out, that the other participants in the exercises made no immediate protest, is
the wonder. But, if the shock was not felt instantaneously,
it Nwas felt soon.
The opinions themselves advanced by the preacher were
not new: many half entertained them; more were dallying with them in an amateur way; a few held them in their
studies as literary speculations, but breathed no whisper of
them out of doors. These were the first to take alarm. As
birds who have been sailing pleasantly before the gentle
wind hurry to covert when the air becomes agitated and
the black storm comes up, so these excursionists crowded
back into the shelter of the walled town when they saw
the dust-cloud on the road before them. The most forward made most speed to retrace their steps. One gentleman, a doctor of divinity, but a man of letters rather than a
theologian, a radical in literature, but a conservative in sentiment and usage, who once had said to him, that if Strauss
had written a small book, in a single volume, in a popular
style, he would have about done the thing for historical
Christianity; who on another occasion, when asked how
he reconciled the conflicting accounts in the four Gospels,
replied, "I don't try to reconcile them; you can't tell
where fact begins or fiction ends, nor whether there is any
fact at all at the bottom;" who on yet another occasion,
when asked what he thought of Cousin's "Atheism,"
answered, "I don't know whether he believes in a God or
not; but I know that he has the ethical and religious
spirit of Christianity, and is a Christian;" who yet once
more, when challenged on his belief in the prophecies of
the Old Testament, responded, that he did believe them
true prophecies, but only as every imperfect thing is a true
prophecy of the perfect, -this gentleman, when the question was no longer one of literature, but one of custom
and institution and social tranquillity, left the ranks of the
pioneers, and fell back upon the old guard. He had gone
I4




158            TEEODORE PARKER.
out for a pleasant reconnoitre: he was not prepared for
battle. The less distinguished felt quite at liberty to retire
with the leaders, and fully justified in throwing an occasional stone from behind the breastwork. Man after man
on whom Parker had reckoned for countenance was found
wanting in the hour of need.
Boston rang with the controversy.  The daily press
took it up with such intelligence as it possessed. Here,
before me, are clippings from the newspapers, preserved
by Mr. Parker himself, who detected the hand of friend
or enemy in the fluttering columns. "The Daily Advertiser" and " Evening Transcript" had communications
from instructed pens, handling the matter with thoughtful
discrimination.  "The New-York Herald," then as now,
trusting in the plenitude of its theological wisdom, passed
final verdict on the merits of the controversy, and predicted
the result. The religious papers, being more nearly concerned, - the " liberal " papers more especially, - did their
best, probably, to be charitable; but the proverbial bitterness of family quarrels found constant illustration in their
issues: it was not possible to repress the rancor engendered by disappointment, mortification, chagrin, wounded
partisanship, and broken associations. The writers seemed
all to use steel pens. The words "infidel," "scorner,"
"blasphemer," were freely bandied about. Parker's name
was rarely spoken, except in connection with Voltaire,
Paine, and other high priests of unbelief. His piety was
called sentimentalism; his professions of faith, hypocritical; his learning, second-rate; his genius, apparent only
in his rhetoric.  Friendly writers were hardly more than
apologetic: hostile writers alone forbore to practise the
virtue of moderation.
The effect of the sermon on the preacher's ecclesiastical
relations was felt instantly.  One after another of the
"brethren" cancelled exchanges that had been agreed
on, making the usual transparent excuses for postpone



THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY.             1 59
ment. In July, the list had shrunk to twelve names; and
of those twelve, only a portion stood faithful. The pressure that was brought to bear, both on the part of clergy
and laity, against those who exchanged pulpits with the
heretic, was greater than any but truly honest men could
stand. Many were the revolvings and resolvings in ministerial breasts. "Is he willing to exchange with Mr.
Parker?" "Would he, if asked, exchange with Mr. Parker?" were questions raised in church-committees when
discussing a candidate. " What shall I do if Parker applies for an exchange? " was the question which the young
minister anxiously put to himself. To exchange pulpits
with Parker became the test of faith. The minister of a
secluded parish where Parker's face was unknown might
quietly treat his people to a sermon from an eloquent
stranger whom they never suspected to be the arch-heretic;
but, in the vicinity of Boston, these clandestine indulgences
were impossible. A proposition to exchange from Theodore Parker made the heart sink, as the water in wells
sinks at the coming of the earthquake. "Will your husband
exchange with me next Sunday? " asked the proscribed man
of the wife of one of his oldest friends. " I know he would
with pleasure, but am quite confident that he has already
made an engagement." -" Ought I to exchange with you? "
said to him one of his neighbors, a man of unusual popularity and courage. "You know best," answered Parker. " But
some of my people will be offended if I do." -" Very well,"
rejoins Parker; "let it go, then: I don't press the matter."
-" But what would you do in my case?" said the pondering brother. Parker answered, " I should think freedom
of thought and speech worth defending at all risks, and
should make a matter of duty of the business; or, if I
thought it of no value, I should say so." The argument
was not conclusive. The exchange was not effected. The
brother shared the prevailing opinion that the pulpit was
not the place to vindicate freedom of thought and speech.




16o            THE OD ORE P FEARER.
When Convers Francis was deliberating whether or no to
accept the theological professorship at Cambridge, the
authorities there advised him, "under the circumstances,"
to cancel an existing engagement to exchange with Mr.
Parker in Watertown. One strong and noble man in Boston, who disagreed heartily with Parker's theological opinions, spoke'of them in print as " shallow naturalism,"
described Parker as " the expounder of negative transcendentalism," in contrast with Mr. Emerson, who represented
positive transcendentalism, and pronounced his system at
once " ignorant and presumptuous," did, later, when the
controversy was at its fiercest, announce to his congregation his intention to exchange with Mr. Parker, on the
ground that difference of opinion did not justify breach of
fellowship; that Parker was a Christian man and a
devout minister; and that intellectual liberty was too precious to be sacrificed to a point of criticism. The announcement caused a flutter; the deed caused more; but
the minister's avowal of motives partially disarmed consequences.
There were curious scenes at the meetings of the Boston Ministerial Association. The vexed question was the
exchange with Parker. How far ought difference of opinion to prevent ministerial exchanges? That question were
easily answered if taken alone; for Parker had himself
carefully confined the difference of opinion to matters of
learning and criticism. The man who said that every
member of the Association, while he continued to be a
member, had a right to claim an exchange from any and
every other on the ground of fellowship, touched that
point fairly; but the same man, a college-mate of Parker's
too, confessed the secondary importance of the point by
admitting that he would not exchange if asked, because
influential men in his congregation would be offended. It
was suggested, that, if any member of the Association held
views distasteful to the majority, he should withdraw: no




THE UNITARIAN CONTROVE'RSY.              I6i
one recommended that such a one be expelled. One
frankly advised that the Association be broken up. The
discussion was made ridiculous by a remark from the clerical
wit of the body, that, if a minister had a comical twist in
the face, that was reason enough for declining an exchange
with him. There were but two or three men - there were
two or three -who never failed to bear their testimony to
the Christian character and essential Christian faith of
Parker. Their names cannot be mentioned; for the humility that was ever their characteristic would be hurt
thereby.  They were always present when courage was
demanded, but absent when praise was bestowed.  So let
it be now.
The story of sectarian diplomacy is not pleasant; but it
must be told, that the true position of things may be
understood.
The journal, under date of Jan. 23, I843, gives a full
account ("to be printed in I899, as a memorial of the
nineteenth century") of a meeting of the Association at
which Mr. Parker was present by particular request, for
the purpose of conference on matters of ecclesiastical
concern. To print it as it stands would be unprofitable and
in bad taste: the pith of it is given here in illustration of
the ecclesiastical spirit of thirty years ago. The attendance was large, with a fair representation of both sides.
After an early tea, the embarrassing business began with
the customary disclaimers and apologies, and gracious
devices for smoothing the way. Then the chairman, a
man of culture and a gentleman, opened the debate
by charging that Mr. Parker's book was, first, "vehenently deistical," using the word in the worst sense;
and, second, subversive of Christianity as a particular
religion.
The book referred to was the " Discourse of Matters
pertaining to Religion," published in the spring of I842.
It contained the substance of five lectures delivered irn'4*




I62             THIEODORE PARKER.
Boston during the previous autumn. In preparing them
for the book form, the author considerably enlarged them,
adding at the same time an over-abundance of notes,
chiefly of reference, but preserving the brilliant, popular style of the chapters. The volume has passed through
four editions, is probably the best known of Mr. Parker's
writings, and has exerted a wide and excellent influence.
From time to time, instances of its converting power come
up. A Western judge put it one Sunday into the hands
of an idle, thoughtless youth, who was looking about for
a pleasant Sunday time-killer. He took it reluctantly, -
never, he said, having been able to read a religious book
in his life, - and went with it to his room. By evening he
had read it half through, and wished to keep it longer. A
religious book like that he had never seen. If that was
religion, he liked it.  Some days after, the young man
came to the judge, and said, "Will you sell me that book?
I want to own it."-" No," said the judge: "I won't sell
it to you; but I will give it to you."  And the youth went
off with the book, grateful. Years went by. The young
man became prominent as a politician.  A benevolent
institution of the State needing patronage, which his
friends were indisposed to give, he stood up and said,
"You ought to give it. The institution is worthy of all
assistance.  I have been there, and examined it; and, if
there are any Christian people in the world, the managers
of that institution are Christians."  Throug'h his influence
the aid was obtained. About the same time, his old friend
the judge met him, and asked how he got on with his religious studies. "Oh, bravely! I have that book now: it
has been lent ever so many times, and read till it was
read almost to pieces. I have had it strongly bound in
leather to preserve it." In the preface to the first edition,
the author wrote, "It is the design of this work to recall
men from the transient shows of time to the permanent
substance of religion; from a worship of creeds and




THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY.             I63
empty belief to a worship in spirit and in life. If it satisfy the doubting soul, and help the serious inquirer to true
views of God, man, the relation between them, and the
duties which come of that relation; if it make religion
appear more congenial and attractive, and a divinre life
more beautiful and sweet, than heretofore, — my end is
answered. I have not sought to pull down, but to build
up; to remove the rubbish of human inventions from the
fair temple of divine truth, that men may enter its shining gates, and be blessed now and forever."  The language of the preface found comment in the incident above
narrated.
This was the book that the chairman at the meeting of
the Boston Association pronounced "vehemently deistical," and " subversive of Christianity as a particular religion."  The preface had then been written. It is fair to
add, that the incident just narrated had not occurred.
But this is a digression. We must return to the meeting,
where Mr. Parker is under examination. The chairman
having opened the discussion, the next who took up the
word, after expressing agreement with the chairman in
regard to the character of the book, submitted that they
were not met for theological discussion, and tried to confine attention to matters personally at issue between Mr.
Parker and the Association to which he still belonged.
This was the important thing. Mir. Parker's opinion concerned them no more than another man's, except as he
was connected with an ecclesiastical body which. they
helped compose, and for the character of which they
were responsible. Mr. Parker had been guilty of conduct
unbecoming a member of the body, inasmuch as he had
said and printed things reflecting on the conduct of the
brethren.
Against this accusation Mr. Parker defended himself by
pro.testing that he had never felt an ill-natured emotion,
nor uttered an ill-natured word respecting them, on account




164             THE ODORE PARKER.
of their withholden fellowship; that he put his own interpretation on events as the rest did, but had never wittingly
disregarded truth, or violated propriety.   Touching the
doctrines of his book, he did not see how they could fairly
be called "deistical;" for deists, if he knew any thing
about them, denied the possibility of direct inspiration
from God; whereas he not only admitted the possibility
of such inspiration, but claimed inspiration for all men in
proportion to their quantity of being and the amount of
their spiritual obedience. If he was a deist, he made a
new class, whereof he was the sole constituent member,
and which all others excluded.  The other assertion, that
his book was subversive of Christianity, surprised him still
more; for he had supposed it to be full of most essential
Christianity.  Christianity was one of three things: first,
it was less than absolute religion; or, second, it was equal
to absolute religion; or, third, it was absolute religion and
something more. The first none of them would admit;
the second he maintained; the third expressed their
belief. If, therefore, they would specify what peculiarity
Christianity added to absolute religion, would "point out
the precise quiddity" that made absolute religion to be
Christianity, they would do a great service to the unlearned.
Would the chairman be good enough to instruct him?
That there was no curl of the lip, or gleam of deadly import from the steel-gray eyes behind the spectacles, at this
moment, the reader may believe if he will. The chairman reminded the questioner that catechising was not in
order.
Mr. Parker's personal affair with the Association was
then taken up. In "The Dial " of October, 1842, he had
published a remarkably plain-spoken, not to say caustic
article, reviewing the proceedings of an ecclesiastical
council that was called to adjust the relations between the
Hollis-street Society and the Rev. John Pierpont, its pastor, accused of conduct unbecoming a clergyman in per



THE UNITARIAN CONTXO VERSY.            i65
sistently remaining and preaching on topics exceedingly
distasteful to an influential portion of his people, more
especially the'vice, crime, and sin of manufacturing, selling,
and promoting the consumption of intoxicating liquors.
In his review, Mr. Parker had spoken of the "result in
council" as a "Jesuitical document," thus reflecting on
those who drew it up. The members of that council were
prominent members of the Association. The charge was
produced at length with much vehemence of manner.
Mr. Parker had held up the council to the scorn and derision of mankind; had represented the members of it as
a set of hypocrites and double-dealing knaves; had done
his best to weaken their influence and ruin their character;
with much more of the same sort: to all which the accused replied, that what he had written he had written,
and for that was answerable; that for other men's interpretations of what he had written he was not answerable;
what they charged he was at liberty to disclaim. To an
accusation, that, in a sermon on the "Pharisees," he had
meant to " take off " the Association, he replied, that, as
the sermon was written a whole year before any trouble
began, such an intention could not be imputed. So the
debate went on from one point to another, to nobody's
satisfaction.
The talk came back to the book and its doctrines.
MIr. Parker asks for the peculiarity of Christianity as a
religion. "It consists in a recognition of the authority
of Christ as authenticated by miracles." Mr. Parker replied, that, admitting the miracles (for argument's sake),
he did not see how they made to be true or binding what
was not so already, or how they increased the obligation
to be true and dutiful. For his part, he had no philosophical objection to miracles (in his definition of them),
but only demanded more evidence for them than for
common events.  He was by no means certain of the
genuineness of the Gospels'; and, if he were, cotld not




i66            THEODORE PARKER.
take what was there recorded as literally true.  "We
have heard enough!" exclaimed one of the examiners.
" It is plain that Mr. Parker is no Christian; for Christianity is a supernatural and miraculous revelation." —
" That may be," replied the defendant; " but that is the
point to be proved. Nobody accuses me of preaching
less than absolute morality and religion. If they can
exist without Christianity, what is the use of Christianity? " — " But plainly Mr. Parker is no Christian. We
cannot hold ministerial intercourse with a man who denies the miracles." - "Ah! " said Mr. Parker, " that is not
the trouble: that is but a matter of theological opinion,
at the best. The difference began before' the Hollisstreet Council, before'The Discourse of Religion:' it
dates back to the South-Boston sermon. I have some
curious letters on that theme which one day may be published. I was at first surprised at the effect that sermon
had on the Unitarian ministers. I looked round to see
who would stand by me in the pulpit; and, in general, I
have not been disappointed. In two persons I have been
disappointed, - grievously disappointed."
Chandler Robbins, a sturdy conservative, but a resolute
peacemaker, and the kindest of men, hereupon interposed, and said, " Since Mr. Parker finds the feeling
against him  so general, I thin/k it is his duty to witit/lraze
from thAe Association."  This touched the practical point.
Approving voices joined in. Mr. Parker hurt their usefulness, compromised their position, &c.: he should withdraw at once. But this Mir. Parker had no mind to do,
They had put him on his mettle, had waked the reformer
in him, and must allay the spirit as they could. For his
own part, he assured them, were he alone personally concerned, he would retire with pleasure; but a matter of
much graver concern, even the right of free inquiry, was
at stake. His retirement would be taken as a concession
from him, and would be cited as a triumph for them: and,




THE UNITARIA N CONTR OViERSY.          I67
in that view of the case, his duty was to stay; and stay
he would so long as the world lasted.
Here was a new dilemma. The chairman said, " Were
this a body of free inquirers, and not an association of
Christian brethren, I should withdraw myself." -" Why,
then, ask me to withdraw? " said Parker. "Dr. Freeman
was for many years a member of the Association, disagreeing with the rest so much in opinion, that they never
exchanged with him." —'" The case is not in point," was the
rejoinder: " Dr. Freeman was not alone in being a Unitarian among Trinitarians." —" Indeed  Did /zey say so? "
-" Besides, the difference between Trinitarians and Unitarians is a difference wit/hin Christianity: the difference
between the Association and Mr. Parker is a difference between Christianity and no Christianity." -" But that is the
very point in question. What is Christianity? and what is
it that puts Mr. Parker outside of it?" -" We do not deny
that you are' a Christian man, but only that your book is
a Christian book."-" But the man belongs to the Association, and not the book; and, besides, what is it that makes
the book unchristian? "-" But, Mr. Parker, were you not
a member of the Association, you certainly would not,
with your known opinions, be admitted. Now, either you
have changed your opinions since you came in, or you
concealed them when you entered. Whichever be the
case, you should withdraw." — " When I entered, my opinions were not asked, nor was I required to promise always
to retain such as I held. If I do you an injury, you have
the remedy in your own hands, and can pass a vote of expulsion at any time. It is a new thing to make miracles
the Unitarian shibboleth of Christianity. A few years
ago, it was said in the Association that'Christianity once
rested on two great pillars, -Jachin and Boaz, prophecy and miracles. Dr. Noyes knocked down Jachin; and
George Ripley, Boaz: yet Christianity stood.' If I remember right, it was the chairman who said that." -" True,"




i68.7THEODORE PARKER.
said the chairman.  "I do recollect something about
Jachin and Boaz: but I did not say I was one of them
who said Christianity did not rest on the two; still less
did I say that George Ripley had knocked the miracles
down."
There was more talk to the same effect. At length
Bartol spoke warmly in praise of Parker's sincerity; and
Gannett, in his glowing, earnest way, responded; and
Chandler Robbins chimed heartily in.  This was too
much for the tender-hearted iconoclast.  He burst into
tears, shook hands with R. C. Waterston, the host, and
went out.  In the entry he met the chairman, who had
left the room a minute before.  The kind, courteous gentleman, whose professional animosities, however vehement,
did not strike deep, shook him  cordially by the hand,
and hoped to have a visit from him soon.  So the matter
ended. The sharp arrows fell harmless to the ground;
the flushed faces became placid; the angry looks died
away. Two days after the meeting, Mr. Parker received
the following letter, which shows how one good man
felt:
From Chiandler Robbins.
WEDNESDAY, Jan. 25, 1843.
MY DEAR FRIEND, - From the moment when you left the
secretary of the Association on Monday evening, my heart has
been yearning to unbosom itself to you. I felt most deeply the
delicacy and the hard trial of your situation, and am constrained
to say that you sustained yourself nobly. It would have been
unjust to you to have been less frank than we were; and yet I
fear that my frankness seemed ungenerous and unfriendly. I
knew not what I ought to say in my struggle between the love
I do most truly bear towards you, and the desire that the whole
truth of your position relative to the Association should be
clearly understood, and that you should be fully informed concerning all the matters which the Association had in consideration respecting you and itself. I grieved that you left just as I




THE UNITARIAN CONTRO VERSY.    I69
had begun to give a declaration of my individual opinions and
sentiments; for I feared that I had been the cause of inflicting
a wound, which my tongue should cleave to the roof of my
mouth before it should intentionally give. Yet, after you had
gone, I could more freely pour out those friendly and most
affectionate sentiments, the flow of which would have been
narrowed and restricted by your presence. And this I did, and
felt better for having made a "clean breast: " indeed, I could
not have gone to my rest that night if I had not. I am sorry,
my dear friend, that we differ so much in our opinions on theological questions. I am sorry that a brother whose feelings and
whose motives I so much esteem and love should feel under the
necessity of publishing doctrines, that, in my opinion, are inconsistent with faith in Christianity as a special revelation, and in
Christ as "the anointed of God," - doctrines whose avowal
necessarily prevents an interchange of pulpits between us. But
this is all I have against you. Against you? no, between us, I
mean, as a bar. All the other charges (those relating to the
Hollis-street Council and the rest), however grave they may be
held by others, do not weigh a feather's weight with me. I
don't believe that you have said aught in malice against your
professional brethren; and, when I hear any of these attempting
to make out a case against you on such grounds, I have not the
least sympathy with them.
It may be, my friend, that you are in advance of us all in
theological knowledge, and nearer to the clear mount of truth;
and that the interval that separates us in this journey of immortality is the true gulf between us. It may be that your soul is
purer and more virtuous than ours, and that this moral superiority lifts you out of the reach of our sympathy, and gives you
a vision of the spiritual world which our medium of view is too
dark to allow us to discern. Or, my brother, it may be that
you have speculated too boldly; that an intensely active intellect
and much learning have carried you beyond the safe foundations of the eternal Word; and that you have as far to return, as
we to advance, before we can come to stand together on the
Rock of ages. There are questions which abide the solution
of the all-exposing hours and the judgment of the Spirit of
light. I do not wish to attempt to answer them. I only wish
to regard you without " a beam in my own eye," while both of
I5




I<70             THEODORRE PARKCER.
us shall be seeking humbly yet earnestly after "the truth as it
is in Jesus."  I hope that both may have more and more "of
the spirit of Christ;" that, like him, we may be true children
of the Father, and true brothers of mankind.
I cannot satisfy myself with this expression of my state of
feeling towards you, being a sad bungler in the use of set forms
of speech. I wish my breast had a window: I would go to
you and sit in silence whilst you looked into it, if you would
take the trouble to survey all its images which are associated in
any manner with you.
Believe me your sincere friend,
CHANDLER ROBBINS.
To Rev. Chzandler Robbins, Boston.
PLYMOUTH, Sunday Morning, Jan. 27, I843.
MY DEAR FRIEND, - I thank you truly for your kind note
of Thursday last; thank you for your sympathy; thank you, too,
for the caution you give me. I can live with no sympathy but
that of the Infinite, and his still small voice saying,' Well
done!" but when sympathy, human sympathy, comes, it is
truly welcome. You mistake a little the cause of my tears the
other night. It was not a hard thing said by yourself or others.
All might have said such as long as they liked: I would not
have winked at that. It was the kind things said by Bartol and
Gannett, and what I knew by your face you were about to say:
it was this that made me weep. I could meet argument with
argument (in a place where it is in order to discuss " the subjects " of a theological book which is talked of), blow with blow,
ill nature with good nature, all night 16ng; but the moment a man
takes my part, and says a word of sympathy, that moment I
should become a woman, and no man. If Pierpont had been
present, I should have asked him, at the beginning, to say no
word of defence of me, but as many of offence as he liked. I
felt afraid, at first, that a kind thing might be said earlier in the
evening, and am grateful to the "brethren " that they said none
such till late. But to leave this painful theme.
I knew always the risks that I run in saying what was hostile to the popular theology. I have not forgotten George Fox,
nor Priestley; no, nor yet Abe'lard, nor St. Paul. Don't think
I compare myself with these noble men, except in this, -that




THSE  UNVITARIAN  CONTRO VERSY.              I 7 
each of them was called on to stand alone; and so am I. I
know what Paul meant when he said, " At my first answer no
man stood with me: " but I know also wh!at is meant when a
greater than Paul said, "Yet I am not alone; for the Father is
with me."  If my life ends to-morrow, I can say," I have the richest, best, of consolations, -
The thought that I have given,
To serve the cause of Heaven,
The freshness of my early inspirations."
I care not what the result is to me personally: I am equal to
either fate, and ask only a chance to do my duty.  No doubt
my life is to be outwardly a life of gloom, and separation from
old associates (I will not say friends).  I know men will view
me with suspicion, and ministers with hatred: that is not
my concern.  Inwardly, my life is and must be one of profound peace, of satisfaction and comfort that all words of mine
are powerless to present. There is no mortal trouble that disturbs me more than a moment; no disappointment that makes
me gloomy or sad or distrustful. All outward evil falls off
me as snow from my cloak.  I never thought of being so happy
in this life as I have been these two years. The destructive
part of the work I feel called on to do is painful, but is slight
compared with the main work of building up. Don't thinkl  I
am flattered, as some say, by seeing many come to listen.
Nothing makes a real man so humble as to stand and speak to
many men. The thought that I am doing what I know to be my
duty is rich reward to me: I know of none so great. Besides
that, however, I have the'satisfaction of knowing that I have
awakened the spirit of religion, of faith in God, in some twenty
or twenty-five men, who, before that, had no faith, no hope, no
religion. This alone, and the expression of their gratitude
(made by word of mouth, or made by letters or by a friend),
would compensate me for all that all the ministers in all the
world could say against me or do against me. But why do I
speak of this? Only to show you that I am not likely to be
cast down. Some of my relations, two or three hundred years
ago, lost their heads for their religion.  I am called to no such
trial, and can well bear my lighter cross.
Perhaps I ought to say, that if the Association think I com



172             THEODORE PARKER.
promise them, and injure them, and hurt their usefulness, they
have the remedy in their own hands, and in one minute can vote
me out of their ranks. At that I will never complain; but, so
long as the world standeth, I will not withdraw voluntarily while
I consider rights of conscience at issue. I think, too, that,
when I shall have more leisure (as I shall in a few weeks), I
shall attend the meetings more frequently than heretofore. To
withdraw voluntarily would be to abandon what I think a post
of duty.
Excuse this long letter, and believe me
Truly your friend,
THEO. PARKER.
This was noble on both sides, and generous.  But
Theodore Parker knew now that he must stand alone;
and he accepted the situation. Alluding to the bitter
things written and said, he records in the journal, " All
these things are disagreeable to me; but they must be.
I can stand alone. I know the stake I laid down, and
am not unwilling to pay the forfeit.  I doubt not I shall be
forced to leave the pulpit in this way: the clergy will
refuse to exchange with me. I shall not be willing to
write a hundred sermons a year for a hundred and twenty
people (half children); so shall leave it for something
else. I shall leave the calling if an opportunity occurs,
but never the deep love I feel for it, nor ever neglect an
opportunity to utter my word, and pray with men."  To a
friend he writes,
" I feel it is a great work which I have undertaken.  I
know, that, so far as the ministers are concerned, I am
aloone,-ALL ALONE.  But I have no ambition to gratify, and
so neither fear the disgrace, nor covet the applause, they
can give me. If I can speak the truth plainly to honest
and earnest men, it is all I ask.  The result is with the
God of all; and you and I have no cause to fear. I have
received the ready sympathy of intelligent and religioils
laymen, and confess that it makes me feel strong."




THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY.    I73
To Dr. Francis.
FEB. 14, I842.
MY DEAR FRIEND, - It is a great while since I had a letter
from you; and I confess the fault is my own. But now, as I
can do nothing else, and, besides, want to write to you, I will do
so. It is not often I have an hour for such a purpose; since to
write two sermons a week, and spend five days of the week in
other matters, and get no sabbath on Sunday, though it may do
well with stronger heads, yet goes hard with mine. I never
cared much for the sympathy of other men, and never less than
now; but, once in a great while, I feel it is not altogether pleasant to stand alone, to be viewed with suspicion and hatred.
Blessed are those men who can take things as they find them,
and believe as the mob believes, and sail in the wake of public
opinion. I remember you said a year ago, " He that defies public opinion, like the man who spits in the wind, spits in his own
face." It is so. Better men have found less sympathy than I.
I do not care a rush for what men who differ from me do or
say; but it has grieved me a little, I confess it, to see men who
think as I do of the historical and mythical matter connected
with Christianity, who yet take the stand some of them take.
It is like opening a drawer where you expect to find money, and
discovering that the GOLD has gone; only the copper is left.
This has been my fate very often. I put my finger on a mzinzisler, and "bhe ain't there." Somebody said the ministers were
a very selfish set: I fear there is some little truth about it.
Some think, and even say, they are glad at what has been done,
and glory in freedom of thought, and all that sort of thing; but
it is all TALK, TALK, TALK.
To Dr. Francis.
JUNE 24, 1842.
MY DEAR FRIEND, - There is one thing of some consequence to me, -though of little to you, - of which I want to say
a word or two (I am not complaining of any one, nor writing a
jeremiade to grieve you). The experience of the last twelve
months shows me what I am to expect for the next twelve
years. I have no fellowship with the other clergy: no one that
Aheded in my ordination will now exchange ministerial courtesies with me. Only one or two of the Boston Association, and
15*




I74              THEODORE PARKIER.
perhaps one or two out of it, will have any ministerial intercourse with me. " They that are younger than I have me in
derision."  Well, quorszlmz hec spectanzt?  If I stay at Spring
Street, I must write a hundred and four sermons a year for
about a hundred and four people.  This will consume most
of my energies, and I shall be in substance pztt downz, -a bull
whose roarings can't be stopped, but who is tied up in the correr of the barn-cellar, so that nobody hears him; and it is the
same as if he did not roar, or as if he were muzzled. Now,
this I WILL NOT DO. I should not answer the purposes of life,
but only execute the plans of my enemies, -of the enemies of
freedom of mankind. I must confess that I am disappointed
in the ministers, -the Unitarian ministers: I once thought
them noble; that they would be true t( an ideal principle of
right.  I find that no body of men was ever mnore compleiy
sold to the sense of expediency. Stuff them with good dinners, and freedom, theology, religion, may go to the Devil for
all them. I believe the abolitionists and temperance-men are
haf right when they say, " The Church is a hzzbngZ,; " and the
other half of the right is, i the ministers are ditto."  Now, freedom of thought and speech are either wvorth preserving, or they
are not worth ipreserving.  If the ministers think the secozd (as
their life shows they do), let them say it plainly and manfully,
that the public may no longer look to those clouds without rain:
if they think the first, then something must be done.
Now, I am not going to sit down tamely, and be driven out
of my position by the oqhosition of some, and the neglect of
others, whose conduct shows that they have no love of freedom
except for themselves, - to sail with the popular wind and tide.
I shall do this when obliged to desert the pulpit because a free
voice and a free heart cannot be in " that bad eminence." I
mean to live at Spring Street, perhaps with Ripley. I will
study seven or eight months of the year; and, four or five
months, I will go about and preach and lecture in the city
and glen, by the road-side and field-side, and wherever men
and women may be found. I will go eastward and westward, and
northward and southward, and make the land rinzg; and if
this New-England theology, that cramps the intellect and palsies the soul of us, does not come to the ground, then it shall
be because it has more truth in it than I have ever found. I am




THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY.                175
perfectly free of two things, — of FEAR and AMBITION. What
I have seen to be false I will proclaim a lie on the housetop; and,
fast as God reveals truth, I will declare his word, come what
may come. It grieves me to the very soul of my heart's life to
think of leaving the ministry (which I love as few minzisters
love it) and this little parish; but, if duty commands, who am
I to resist? If you have any word of advice to give me, I shall
be glad; and, in the mean time, rejoice in the new field of usefulness opening its harvest to you. I hope you will teach the
young men to be valiant, and fear not.
Parker was brave; but, as has been said already, he was
tender, with  an  immense capacity for suffering.  He
could battle long and well; but to battle alone cost
him dear.  He wanted love; and they from whom he had
the best right to expect it failed him.  He speaks of
"impudent letters " from gentlemen in his profession who
had been friendly.  One or two of his old personal intimates changed their manner.  That Mr. Andrews Norton should receive him  coldly was not strange; but,
when one who had been to him  a bosom-friend made
him  a visit which deserved to be spoken of as "the
most painful I ever received from  any man," the bitterness went to his soul. Those who called themselves his
admirers and lovers had a singular faculty of remembering
his severe words, and forgetting his grand ones: the spirit
of excessive righteousness came upon them. Of the three
that abide, charity seemed so immeasurably superior to
faith and hope, that they stung the poor sore soul with
admonitions against sarcasm, warnings from bitterness,
beseechings to bear in mind the Christian law of love, till
it is wonderful the high-strung nature did not become wild.
That he was able to answer such letters as sweetly as he
did is a testimony to his patience that should weigh something against the biting indignation his kind censors
deplored. It is so easy for people to forgive their neighbors' enemies!




I76             THEODORE PARKER.
Front thze 7ournal, z7une, 1842.
" I have done nothing for a month; been stupid beyond measure; was never in such a state before. Never knew till now the
sadness of that perpetual disappointment of hoping, hoping,
hoping, and finding nothing come of that hope. But I submit. I think I should complete the drama of my life well by
dying next autumn, after the book is ended; but can't tell if it
will then end. External sadness is in store for me, no doubt;
but the light is all bright and beautiful within. I feel somewhat
as Luther in that sad period of his life...
" Few would mourn at my departure.  Some few souls who
know me as I am would find a few tears in their eye, but wipe
them soon (such is the nature of man); others who have heard
my word with joy would look for another: but the many to
whom my name has come would rejoice at my fall, that the
churches might have rest for a season. Why am I spared?
I know not: not for what I enjoy.  I asked but little from
Heaven: that little I have not. I am disappointed, but not
soured; still cheerful. My smiles are few, but heartfelt. Let
me but finish the work now in my hands, that my past life may
have its fruits on earth, I will embrace death. I know not
wherefore I am spared. There are some living that I cling to
as to angels: these it were sad to leave. But "The death of Dr. Channing awakens a similar strain.
To a friend he writes, Oct. 5, "Dr. Channing is dead.  He
died at Bennington, Vt., of the typhus-fever, on Sunday
afternoon.  You know, as all do, that no man in America
had done so much to promote truth, virtue, and religion as
he.  I feel that I have lost one of the most valuable
friends I have ever had. I have known him well, and
have been blessed by his counsels and liberal sympathy.
His mind was wide, and his heart was wider yet. I know
not what we shall do without him: but there are good men
still left; though never, it seems to me, could he be so ill
spared. Well, he has done a good work. I am glad that
he has lived thus long, and glad that he has gone to his
reward."




THE UNITA4RIA NX COiVTRO VERSY.         I 7
The journal betrays a sadder moodl: "I have to-day
heard of the death of Dr. Channing.  He has fallen in the
midst of his usefulness. His faculties grew brighter as age
came on him. No man in America has left a sphere of
such wide usefulness.  No man since Washington has
done so much to elevate his country. His life has been
spent in the greatest and best of works. A great man and
a good man has gone home from the earth. Why, O my
God! are so many left when such are taken? Why could
not I have died in his stead?
" To-day was the funeral of Dr. Channing. There was
a strange combination of men to perform the services of
the burial, - two of them  bitter enemies, two others differing heaven-wide from the doctor. It made me feel disagreeably to see them in the pulpit to speak of Dr. Channing, -men whom I have heard mock at and deride the
excellent man. But strange things meet in this world."
Still he had the great consolers which never fail, —
"Nature, full of God. It is new to me each year. Then
there are my studies, the prospect of usefulness, endeavors
to promote the public virtue."  Work, the greatest of consolers, does not desert him. His lectures in Boston and
elsewhere cost him great labor. The toil on De Wette's
"Introduction to the Books of the Old Testament " was
not ended till the summer of I843, having cost a world of
toil, as well as more time and money than he could afford.
His mind teemed with literary projects: schedules of indust-ry fill pages of the journal.  Studies in primitive Christlanity; studies in church-history; studies in the developrnaent of doctrine; studies in the dynasties of Egypt, -the
dismal chronicles of conjectural kings; studies in mythologr, - Persian, Semitic, Christian; studies in philosophy, -
Bacon, Leibnitz, Plato, - occupy his severer days. In hours
of comparative leisure, the poets of Greece-Tyrtaus,
Anacreon, Sappho, Orpheus, and Pindar -come to his side.
In profounder moods of meditation, his companions are




I78            THEODORE PARKER.
La Motte Fenelon, Madame Guyon, and John Woolman,
in whose sober, deep piety his soul finds repose. Translations from the German of mystic hymns reveal the still longings of his spirit for the infinite peace. His life was getting
stormy on the surface; but below reigned the perpetual
calm.
That he was able to preserve the even balance of his
opinions attests the depth of his conviction. He would
not be driven to extremes, or tempted to associate himself
with views that lay invitingly adjacent to his own. The
cool abyss of pantheism must have looked attractive to his
fervid faith. The glowing diction of his books roused something more than a suspicion that he had plunged into that
shoreless sea.  But he writes to a friend, " I am no pantheist, nor ever was. I am no more troubled by pantheism
or by anthropomorphism than at noonday the evening
and morning twilight trouble me. The whole difficulty
comes of attempting to get a logical 0,didl definite conception of God; but neither the head nor the heart will subsist
on abstractions." He was accused of depreciating Jesus.
To another friend he writes, " It seems to me, that, if we
always obeyed the law God has written on our hearts, the
decisions of reason, of conscience, and of faith, would be as
infallible in their action as the instinct of the bee and the
law of gravitation now are. But no man is in this state.
We are not one with God as Christ was: so we are in
doubt and fear. The best and wisest now feel this the
most deeply.  feszus aloznefelt none of it."  He was called
an enemy of Christianity. The journal testifies thus:
" Christianity is a field on which may be raised the strangest crops, — wood, hay, and stubble, wheat and beans.
The soil remains, the crop varies.... The time is coming
when men will wonder quite as much at the Christianity of
the nineteenth century as we wonder at that of the ninth
century..... Christianity is progressive, because it is not
positive, but natural: therefore Christianity is the hope of




THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY.                I79
the world, the desire of all nations." He is blamed for
making rash and hasty generalizations; yet his letters to
learned correspondents show how long and carefully he still
entertained questions that his philosophy might have been
pardoned for answering on d priori grounds, - such as the
primitive condition of man on the planet, the descent from
one or from many stocks, the order and law of human
development, the rank of succession in the series of religious stages.  No suspicion of Darwinism, or of any
other theory of evolution, seems to have entered his mind.
It was urged against him that he impatiently discarded
miracles; but his refusal to sweep away stories of miracle
on general grounds of theory, his discrimination between
different classes of marvels, and his curious studies in the
literature of the supernatural, - some of them very recondite, and all of them perfectly ingenuous, -refute these
insinuations. His name was constantly associated with
that of Thomas Paine; he was tauntingly spoken of as
Paine's disciple and successor: but when Mr. Horace
Seaver invited him to take part in the celebration of
Thomas Paine's birthday, Jan. 30, I843, Mr. Parker sent
the following reply:WEST ROXBURY, Jan. 14, I843.
DEAR SIR, -Your favor of the I Ith instant came in my absence from home; and I now hasten to reply to the invitation
you offer me. With the views I entertain of Mr. Paine's character in his later years, I could not, consistently with my own
sense of duty, join with you in celebrating his' birthday. I feel
grateful, truly so, for the service rendered by his political
writings, and his practical efforts in the cauzse offreedomn; though
with what I understand to be the spirit of his writings on
theology and religion I have not the smallest sympathy.
I am, respectfully, your obedient servant,
THEO. PARKER.
HORACE SEAVER, Esq.
There has been no intimation, during all these years, of
failing or impaired vigor, except in the beginning of a




ISo            THEODORE PARKER.
letter to Dr. Francis, written from St. John's in August,
1842; and there he merely says that he has gone down
East for his health. The journal of Jan. I, I841, reports
him as dull and in low spirits, but " well in body, temperate in meats and drinks." But the autumn of I843
found him so much spent from anxiety and toil, that a voyage to Europe was recommended. His great work, the
De Wette, was done and issued: other subordinate work
-was completed or dropped. He had passed through a
critical passage in his career, and had reached a point in
his professional life at which pause and retrospect were
desirable. Anxious to survey his work from a distance, to
give his mind rest by letting in a flood of new associations,
to compare the ideas and institutions of the Old World
with those of the New, to see some of the men whose.
thoughts had nourished him, and to visit some of the
places which had been so long venerable to his imagination, he accepted with gratitude the bounty which made
the year's vacation possible; and on the 9th September,
I843, set sail in the ship " Ashburton" for England, and
put the Atlantic Ocean between himself and his past.
To those who review now the period just covered, it is a
surprise that there should have been so much feeling on
so small occasion.  Mr. Parker's slight unpleasantness
with a score of gentlemen in Boston hardly justifies so
much animosity on one side, or so much sorrow on the
other. By the side of Savonarola's deadly fight with Pope
Alexander, or Luther's grim battle with Rome, the Unitarian controversy looks paltry indeed. The shedding of
ink was copious; but it depleted only inkstands, and it
blackened only paper.  The sighs and wailings were uncalled for; weak; almost, it may be thought, childish. But
Theodore Parker was no sentimental milksop: he was a
brave, firm man, who, when tested, proved himself possessed of heroic qualities. He could face jail, and even
gibbet: steel he could have met with tougher steel. But




THE UN/TARIAN CONTROV ERSY.              I8
no such fierce provocatives stirred his blood, or made the
involuntary tears caused by the stings of insects an impertinence. Savonarola and his peers were driven back
on their moral grandeurs, shut up in the citadel of their
souls: they had at once the support and the consolation
of their own heroism.  Parker had none of this stimulus:
unbuffeted and unchallenged, he had nothing to do, and
nothing to bear. His friends weakened him, and his foes
did not strengthen. He fainted because there was nothing
to fight.
Then, it must be said, he believed that a second reformation, more radical than Luther's, was at hand; another
conflict "between old systems and the Word," in which
the soul was to be on one side, and Protestantism backed
by Romanism on the other; and he believed himself
called to be a leader in the struggle. In the proscribed
body of Unitarians, the advanced guard of liberalism,
disciples of reason, friends of culture, he naturally expected to gain allies and supporters. To find them blind
and heedless, if not false, was a bad omen for the cause
of truth, a sad revelation of the adversary's might, and a
bitter presage of coming woes. What the Unitarians said
or did was of small moment, in itself considered; but, as
indicating the temper of Christendom, it was profoundly
significant. It told the new Luther that he was to stand
literally alone; and it told him this, not in tones that
thrilled the blood, but in smooth accents which betrayed
the lack of spiritual virility in the speakers, and implied
the disbelief of it in the protestant, who had not even the
comfort of being assailed. This was the situation as he
viewed it. The view may have been mistaken, distorted, distempered; but it was honest: and they who can share it
by an effort of imagination will not condemn as unmanly
the personal sorrow, or the evil forebodings it brought
with it. To a mind so exercised there is no medicine like
travel in the great world of Europe, which quiets while it
i6




I82            THEODORE PARKER.
strengthens souls like his; for there, while many things are
a-making, many things are made. The world's judgment is
written large in the world's history; and monuments of
victory proclaim the final success of what seemed once to
be hopeless struggle.




CHAPTER IX.
EUROPE.
MR. PARKER'S year in Europe was no holiday trip for
sight-seeing: it was a serious pilgrimage. His object was,
not to kill time, but to improve it; not to evade work, but
to prepare for it. He took mind and conscience with
him; had a clear notion of what was worth seeing, and a
sense of his own deficiency, which was likely to make him
receptive of the best things. No more intelligent or loyal
American ever went abroad. But the Old World was to
him a new world to be explored for treasure that his own
continent did not possess. On the fly-leaf of his European journal is a pencil-drawing of the little village church
in West Roxbury, put there, it would seem, as a symbol
and a remembrancer, to keep before him the simplicity of
his vocation in presence of the rich cities and superb
cathedrals he was to visit. On other leaves are lists of
things to be seen in different cities, - in England, matters
relating to his own and his wife's ancestors; points in
New-England history and biography to be looked up in
the herald's office; the Cudworth Papers in the British
Museum; Lord  Howe's monument in  Westminster
Abbey: in London, the houses of Johnson, Franklin,
Newton, and Milton; the London University; "see Hallain and Hennell; ask Dickens about the writer on American newspapers in'Foreign  Quarterly Review:' in
Germany, examine the schools in Saxony and Prussia,
i83




184            THEODORE PARKER.
the Herrnhiitter Establishment: in Switzerland, ascend.Afonzt Blanc."  These hints strike the key-note.
The pilgrimage begins in New York, where he is detained three days, "The Ashburton " waiting for a wind.
The bad weather does not keep him housed. He visits
Lydia Maria Child, soon after known as the brilliant
writer of "Letters from New York;" and passes hours
with Isaac T. Hopper, for whom he expresses the warmest
admiration: " I have never seen a man who charmed mle
so much as a thoroughly Christian gentleman. He is fearless, kind, industrious, frugal, and as true to moral principle as the needle to the star. I can never tell half the
veneration I feel for him. It makes me strong to see
him."  In company with John Hopper he explores the
wicked haunts of the city; goes to Palmo's on Broadway; spends an hour at the "Five Points;" inspects the
"Tombs," and gets no better impression of the justice
administered there, but a pleasanter one of the sanitary
condition of the prison; attends church at St. Paul's, and
thinks the service unaffecting, "fussy."  On the 9th the
party go on board ship, accompanied by a few friends, who
leave with them a fragrant blessing of peaches and flowers. The shore of America floats away in the sunset.
" My friends are behind; but ONE is with me to whom my
mortal weal and woe are united. I often think I ought
never to return; yet perhaps I shall. Be this as Heaven
appoints."
Mr. Parker was a thorough landsman. He did not like
the sea, nor the sea him; but no sickness could repress
his indomitable energy. Books failing, he tries thinking;
plans courses of sermons; lays out schemes of professional work, projecting his past labors into the future,
with difficulty detaching his tenacious mind from its associations. He is disturbed by the cruel distinction between
the cabin and the steerage and forecastle, -a hundred
and sixty poor wretches in the steerage with almost no




E UROPE.                    i85
comforts, and thirty in the cabin living in luxury. " As the
lion in the wilderness eateth up the wild ass, so the rich
eat up the poor." One of the earliest entries in the journal thus expresses the spirit in which the pilgrimage is
undertaken: "I am now to spend a year in foreign travel.
In this year I shall earn nothing, neither my food nor
my clothes, nor even the paper I write on.  I shall
increase my debt to the world by every potato I eat, and
each mile I travel. How shall I repay the debt? Only
by extraordinary efforts after I return. Those I design to
attempt."  Then he maps out a comprehensive scheme of
labor, and commits it to paper, as if to make sure of fidelity to his vow.
The voyage of twenty-five days ended at Liverpool.
The business before him began at once. We cannot attempt to tell what he saw; for he saw every thing there
was on the surface, and much that lay beneath.  His was
a busy journal. It contains no fine writing, but records
of places and people visited, and copious memoranda for
thought. His route varied from the usual track (there
was no beaten track then) just enough to take in a few
spots of historical interest rarely visited by ordinary tourists. Liverpool and Manchester are prodigies to him of
wealth and power. At Chatsworth he notices the "Christus Consolator" from which the familiar print was taken.
He gathers acorns from  the ditch at Kenilworth, and
plucks ivy from the walls of Leicester's pride. At Warwick
he admires the Vandykes and Holbeins; the picture of
Charles I. on horseback; the portraits of Strafford, Ignatius Loyola, John Locke. At Stratford he copies curious
inscriptions on tomb and chapel-wall; one of which should
be given here, if the combination of old English and
modern hieroglyphics did not make exact transcription
hopeless. At Oxford, wonders in quick succession astonish
him, — the venerable buildings, the halls, pictures, and,
above all, the books. In the Bodleian Library, not satisI6*




ir86           THZEOD lORE PARKER.
fled to be a gazer, he must be a reader too; and has a
quiet little time with William of Ockham. The journal
leaps from Oxford to Paris, plunging into the latter city
with a devouring appetite which nothing can satiate. He
calls a cabman, who proves to be a good fellow, takes compassion on his ignorance of the place and the language,
and points out to him every thing of interest. (That was
a time when an American was a curiosity and an object of
reverence.) His first destination was the Sorbonne, to present a letter to Victor Cousin, -the Sorbonne in the daytime, the Opera Comique in the evening. He admires the
nobleness of the ancient churches, - Notre Dame, the Pantheon, St. Sulpice, St. f;tienne du Mont, -notes the curious
non-observance of the Sunday, copies the queer names of
the streets, marks the thrift and intelligence of the workingpeople. No public building is passed by. He looks in at
the Morgue; rambles about among the old book-stands on
the quays. The great gallery of the Louvre overpowers
him with its glory. There he sees the Venus of Milo,
which he thus speaks of in connection with the Venus de
Medici in Rome: "The toy woman came to her perfect
flower in the Medicean Venus: that is all she is,woman as a plaything, a bawble woman, voluptuous, but
not offensive directly to the conscience. It is only after
much reflection that you say,'Get thee behind me!' But
the Venus of Milo is a glorious humnan creature, made for
all the events of life. Imagine the Venus de Medici as a
mother, as a sister, as a wife to some rich man, and his
fortune perished! Pah!  "
He has time to peep into lecture-rooms, and take notes
of lectures on all sorts of themes, from mysticism to mineralogy, from the philosophy of Descartes to the first
movements of life in the zoophyte. In the Jardin des
Plantes he hears a lecture from Isidore Geoffrey St. Hilaire on "Vultures," which contained interesting facts.
He takes lessons in French, and practises writing the lan



E UR OPE.                    187
guage by describing in that tongue Pere la Chaise and
other places of interest.  Reading, theatres, walks about
the city, occupy the leisure-hours.  From the prayer-book
in use at the Oratoire he copies the following remarkable
version of the twenty-third Psalm: —
"Tu m'es si bon que par ta Providence
Parfums liqueurs, j'ai tout en abondance:
Tant de douceurs accompagnent ma vie,
Que mon bonheur est digne d'envie;
Et tu feras que dans ta maison sainte
Je passerai tous mes jours en ta crainte."
H6tel de Cluny, Porcelain Factory at Sevres, Muse'e
d'Artillerie, Palais de Justice, H6tel de Ville, H6tel des
Invalides, Bibliotheque Royale, the Gobelin tapestry, St.
Germain des Pres, Palais des Beaux Arts, ~fcole des Beaux
Arts, St. Denis, Versailles, each calls forth its appropriate
emotion; while the procession of eminent men that pass
before him is too long to enumerate.
He liked to haunt the Boulevards and the borders of
the Seine, and recall the great events of French history;
seeing in the foreground the gay multitude, in the background the awful events of times past, — the rivers of
steel which once ran through the streets; the blood which
soaked down, and dripped into the catacombs.  He stood
on the site of the old Tour de Nesle, scene of mad revelry
and murder; remembered the Palais de Thermes as the
place where the soldiers hailed Julian emperor, and where
the "Apostate," so called, lived all winter without fire,
save once or twice in a brazier; found where Abe'lard's
house used to be.
He went to the very roots of the old city. The Parini
of Caesar's time came back.  "The word'par' is the
same as'bar,' I take it, and meant the limit between two
great and hostile tribes of Celts. So the Parini were the
borderers, the frontier-men, of old time, and had their




I88            THE ODORE PARKER.
stronghold on the island in the Seine with its two wooden
bridges."  Next came the Paris of Julian's time, next
the Paris of the Merovingians, then of the Carlovingians.
He gets at the curious fact, that the foundation of Notre
Dame contains remains of an old Roman temple, with an
inscription still on the stones. He must have been a
tired man, when, after twenty-six days of this work, he
took leave of the city, and set off by diligence for Lyons.
At Lyons, "the city of massacres," he goes into the
cellar where Polycarp "preached the gospel of Christianity when it cost something to be a Christian;" stands on the
very grave of Irenmeus; sees the bones of the Christian
martyrs piled up in a large vault; and in those memories
forgets the "Boston Association, the heroes of the Thursday Lecture, and the trials, dangers, and sufferings of
Brothers        and."  Avignon comes next in order.
There was the Palais des Papes, - convent, palace, prison,
and castle in one. He stands (with what emotions!) in
the secret chambers of the Inquisition; sees the holes
where the instruments of torture were put up, the fireplace for heating pincers, the dungeon where heretics
were starved to death; and recovers the failing consciousness of his identity in gratitude that those hideous days
are past, and in resolve that the future shall be worthy of
its opportunity. A day was more than enough for Arles;
and the most engaging thing about Marseilles was the
view of the sea. Genoa then opens to him her princely
gates, and welcomes him to romantic memories and delicious art: it is a sadness to break away from it, and sail
even by the " Charlemagne " to Leghorn. From Leghorn,
two horses took him in a coach over the level, cultivated
country, where women carried piles of fire-wood on their
heads, and walked barefoot, in order to save their coarse
hob-nailed shoes, to Pisa. Here the Duomo, Baptistery,
Leaning Tower, Campo Santo, call forth due notice, and
the beggars due comment; but here he finds other curious




EUROPE.                      I89
things, - paintings, relics, historical sites, which travellers
do not commonly know enough to ask about.
Pisa introduces the pilgrim to Florence, the fascinations of which are so engrossing, that he stays there ten
days without making a record in the journal. There is
the San Marco, full of reminiscences of Savonarola. There
is the Medici Chapel with Michael Angelo's "Day and
Night," the tower of Galileo, the cathedral, the baptistery,
the seat where Dante contemplated the beautiful bell-tower. There are the great churches on which architects and
artists had lavished their genius. There is the Santa Croce,
where the illustrious Florentines are buried, the exiled and
persecuted sleeping in peace at last. There are the miracles of art, - the works of Raphael, Titian, Del Sarto; the
Apollo, the Laocobn, both of which rather disappointed
him at first; the great portraits, Julius II., Leo X.; the Fornarina, which surpassed his expectation; the Segg-iola, -
"What a painting! God in heaven, what a painting!"
There is a famous library too, the Laurentian, with treasures of literature.  What is there not in Florence for one
with Parker's eyes? But Florence, too, must be left. He
returns to Leghorn, and takes vessel for Naples. Of
course, nothing of interest is omitted.  He ascends Vesuvius, and goes so near the crater, that he is in danger
from the masses of melted stone which fall continually.
A few of the smaller pieces hit him on the shoulder. Bait,
Puteoli, Pozzuolo; the places " where the old Romans revelled in their Titanic lust, poisoned one another, framed
plans or conspiracies which affected the welfare of the
world;" the spots where Cicero had his villa, where Horace wrote his poems, where Pollio fattened fish for his table with refractory slaves, where Virgil, by tradition, was
buried, - all these he visited. But here, as everywhere,
he made a study of the town itself, the population, taxes,
cost of living, statistics of traffic, &c.; having an eye for
the humanity in the streets, as well as for the art in the




Igo90          THEODORE PARKER.
galleries. Herculaneum and Pompeii interested him so
much, that he made a diagram of them. At the theatre
only, he went to sleep.
From Naples to Rome by diligence,- a tiresome drive,
with lumbering vehicle, jaded horses, clumsy conductor,
and frequent delays from trivial causes. The most beautiful part of the scenery was passed in the night. The early
morning gives sight of Gaeta, the ugly cattle on the Pontine marshes, the desolate Campagna, the wretched people,
the dirty villages. As the day wears on, the classic spots,
one after another, appear. He is on the great road which
Hannibal and Fabius lMaximus and Sylla travelled with
their armies. On either side the plains had been battlefields. Caesar and Pompey and the triumvirs had taken
their turn of victory and defeat on these vast wastes.
The traveller has Horace in his hand, and follows the
poet in his c:.lsoription of the spots passed.  Alone the Appian Way, in sight of the mounds that covered fine villas
of wealthy nobles, past tombs and aqueducts, they roll
on from Albano, and come within view of Rome. The
gate was passed at half-past three o'clock on a March
afternoon. Close by famous buildings they drove to the
Dogana.  In an hour's time, after applying in vain at
seven public-houses, lodgings were found at 70 Via del
Babbuino, - two pretty little rooms on the street, first floor,
and one in the rear, for twenty dollars per month, service
included. It was the 20th of February. Rome was in the
height of its glory and gayety. It was carnival-time. The
party took a coach, and "rode round to see the nonsense.
Mein. - The beggars in the midst of this festivity, their hideous deformity, crippled, &c. Gave half a paul to one. Beggars are sad enough objects at all times: on a festal day
what shall we think of them? Ml[en throw flour at each other, and the rich spoil the coats of the rich with what would
have gladdened the heart of the beggars.'Whatsoever
ye would that men should do unto you.' Ah! this is the




EUROPE.                    I9'
place where Paul was beheaded. They would crucify Christ
if he were to come here or to Boston. God bless men!
they can't crucify Christianity. In the evening L. and I
went to the theatre, -the everlasting Polichinello."
This homebred rustic has an eye for art. In the Vatican, the palaces, the churches, he picks out the gems, and
yields to them the homage of unfeigned admiration. The
beauty of the Apollo Belvedere comes to him now. The
Laoco6n, which disappointed him in Florence, holds him
by its wonderful spell of suffering. The silence of the
agony impresses him as it does everybody; but everybody
does not get at the artist's secret as he does. The point
that Lessing makes so admirably in his famous essay - that
the marble description of a cry would be fatal to a work
of pure art -occurs to Parker, who makes no allusion to
Lessing, and probably had never seen his essay. Michael
Angelo's " Moses" is to him  a wonderful thing: " He
looks as if he could compile or devise laws to hold a nation for thousands of years, and seems armed with the
deep insight into causes which marks the philosopher, and
the ready faculty to grapple with effects that makes the
practical leader." Michael Angelo is his master. Raphael now and then disappoints, as in the "Galatea;"
Domenichino seldom meets anticipation; Leonardo and
Titian surprise him in their greatest paintings by their
perfect accomplishment and subtle feeling. There must
be a sozul in work, if he is to be pleased. In architecture,
the simple grandeur of the temple is more impressive to
him than any magnificence of style, or sumptuousness of
decoration.
But it is as a Christian minister, after all, that the pilgrim sets himself to study Rome. The Christendom of
fifteen centuries is there. The most imposing part of living Christendom  is there also. He is there for a few
weeks: he must not miss his opportunity. Well equipped
with learning, well furnished with understanding, singular



192             THEIODORE PARKER.
ly endowed with candor and ingenuousness, with a scholar's reverence for the past, a wise man's charity for the
present, a philosopher's trust in the future, a disciple's
humility, a reformer's earnestness, he addressed himself
to the task of studying the religion of Rome. One of his
first expeditions was to the Coliseum; and thus his impressions are recorded: "It is more perfect than I feared.
It has now been consecrated to keep it from the devastations of the barbarians of modern Rome. At the entrance is a cross, with a sign-board which promises forty
days' indulgence to all who will kiss the cross. In the
very centre of the amphitheatre is another cross with another direction, -that he who kisses that shall have plenary
indulgence for two hundred days. If Seneca or Cicero
were to come back, he would think the world had made
little progress in the theory of religion, whatever had been
done in the practice of it. Sometimes a monk preaches
here. What recollections come up! -the gladiators, the
wild beasts, the Christians, the emperors, the armies;
Rome fallen; the new Rome, and that, too, fallen. Oh!
one could move the stones by preaching here. I could
not help looking at the place professionally, and thinking
it would be a fine place to preach Parkerism in."
The churches are a study, — St. John Lateran, famed
for. the twelve great councils held there. " In the church
is the table on which Christ and the twelve took the last
supper. Here, too, are the heads of St. Paul and St. Peter. Here, also, we saw the actual well of Samaria between two pillars from Pilate's house in Jerusalem; the
stone on which the soldiers cast lots for Christ's vesture;
the pillars between which Pilate stood when he told the
people to take the Christ and crucify him; the column
that split asunder at his crucifixion (it is split asunder
quite uniformly the whole length; it is about a foot in
diameter, and ten feet long); and four columns supporting a slab which shows the exact height of Jesus, -just six




EUROPE.                     193
feet; and not far off is the Santa Scala, a flight of twenty-eight marble steps, which Jesus descended when he
went to be crucified. It is not lawful for any one to walk
up them: penitents ascend on their knees. We saw several going up; but they are poor folks, for the most part. At
the head of the stairs is a chapel, containing a picture of
Jesus when twelve years old, painted by St. Luke, - the
only one from that artist.
" Went to St. Peter's, the cupola, the ball, and all that is
commonly seen here. The Inquisition near by, with four
or five hundred inmates. The guide says they are not put
to the torture in these days; but they never come out
again, and are never seen any more or heard of." Santa
Maria'Magilore: (' Exceedingly rich, but not imposing;
not a religious architecture.  It seems to me the modern
Unitarians wrould like this style. It is clear, actual, the
work of logical and demonstrative heads, wholly free
from mysticism. The fragments of Christ's cradle are
preserved here; and the miracle of the snow that covered
the Esquiline Hill on the 5th of August, 352."
CATACO2ABS. - "Went to the catacombs in the vicinity
of St. Ignese, a little way out of the city. Entered the
chapels with the little caves on each side, each large
enough for a single body.  These once contained the
ashes of the martyrs. In some of the chapels the ceiling
was covered entirely with paintings.  There was the Goodr
SAP5/heird,   here C/eristpreaching,- though but a child; here
the tebrewz yozths in th/e fnames; here Daniel in t/ze liozs'
den; here the whole story of 7oznah, emblematic of the
death and resurrection of Christ; and here the miracle at
Cana, the s ymbol of transubstantiation, and many more.
"I am confirmed in my opinion, that, long before Constantine, the Church had departed from  the ideal simplicity of the primitive state so often contended for by
Protestants. Indeed, I am now more than ever persuaded,
that, as Christ gave no form, the firs't one used by the
I7




194             THIEODORE PARTER.
apostolic churches was much less simple than we fancy. I
shall never forget the impression left on my lnind by this
visit. Yet, as I walked about here, I could not but think
how easy it must have seemed, and have been too, to bear
the cross of martyrdom. The recollection of Christ, of the
apostles, the certainty of the prayers and best wishes of
men of earth, the expectations of heavenly satisfaction, -
all would conspire to sustain the spirit, and make the man
court, not shun, the martyr's death.
" Father Marchi, a priest who has devoted his life to
the study of the catacombs, went'with us, and explained
every thing; showed us curiosities without stint relating to
the early Christians; bottles of dried blood of the martyrs;
instruments of torture; images of Christ, of the Virgin, &c.
I saw proofs enough that some of the alleged'corruptions
of Christianity' date back to Io7 A.D.  The worship of
the Virgin can be traced nearly as far; that of the invocation of saints for the Licad, quite to that very year.  I
think you find the ceremony of saying mass, as at present,
pretty distinctly traced back to the beginning of the
second century.  In the chapels of the catacombs are
frescoes, painted in the second century (at the latest, in
the early part of it), representing the miracle of Cana in
such conjunction with the saying of mass, that it.'-shows
a distinct allusion to the transformation of the bread and
wine into the body and blood of Christ; at least, they
say so."
On Ash WVednesday he visits the Sistine Chapel to
see the pope celebrate mass in presence of the cardinals
and other church dignitaries.  " The music was fine. The
ceremony did not impress me at all.  It brought to my
recollection Him of Nazareth, whose picture hangs over
the altar.  I remembered what he said of the temple, of
the chief priests, &c. The whole filled me with compassion, and drew tears from my eyes. Is it always to be so,
and in Christian Rome, by the head of the Church? The




EUROPE.                     I95
ceremony of kissing the pope's hand or foot, the kneeling
before him, and burning incense, and all in the name of
the carpenter's son at Nazareth, - it is quite too bad. I
honor the learning, the zeal, the devotion, the humanity,
there is in the Catholic Church; but this nonsense is too
much for me. As if God laughed at the whole, there was
the awful fresco of Michael Angelo representing the Last
Judgment; and here, too, was Aaron, with the Hebrews
worshipping the golden calf; and Moses in indignation,
breaking the tables he had just received! There is no
irony like that of Nature."  The music rarely fails to
touch him; the ceremony never succeeds. As the pope
blesses the palms, he compares the violet dresses of the
cardinals with the garments that were once stripped off
the peasants' backs, and laid beneath the ass's tread. The
passionate music of Allegri's "Miserere" will not drown
his spiritual remonstrance against the haughtiness of the
assembly; and as, standing on the piazza, he looks at the
illuminated  dome  of St. Peter's, "'like a story from
the' Arabian Nights,'" the mendicants in the square suggest the number of the " honest poor for whom no candle
burns all the year."
Still he has a heart of charity.  At St. Peter's he hears
the sleet music at vespers, and smells the incense: the
music, "the perfection of music, - it would stir the heart
of a statue to hear it. The  children were gathered
together (i.e., a few children) to be instructed.  Half a
loaf is better than no bread; and I make no doubt the
essentials of Christianity are inculcated."
He was presented to the pope, who stood in the simple
dress of a monk, with his back against a sort of table, and
talked a little about the state of Rome, the English language in America, the famous polyglot cardinal at the
Propagoanda.  He looked kindly on the visitors, made a
sign, and they withdrew.
Mr. Parker made serious efforts to understand the reli



I96             THEODORE PARKER.
gion of Rome, not from the monuments only, or the ceremonies, the superstitions, and the dumb-shows, but from
the men who interpreted and administered it. He visits
under the best guidance the College of the Propaganda,
where men of every nation, tongue, and complexion, are
instructed in the faith, and prepared to proclaim it to all
lands in their own speech; and he visits the Industrial
School for Poor Girls; the Conservatory of the Virgin of
Sorrow, founded by Cardinal Odescalchi. Letters of introduction make him acquainted with men eminent in the
Church for piety, goodness, and learning; with Dr. Grant,
Bishop Baggs, Father Glover, Cardinal Acton.  Bishop
Baggs and Father Glover favor him with long conversations on the doctrines and institutions of the Church; he
not disputing with them, but questioning, to be sure of
understanding their position. " I feared that I might have
sometimes done them an injustice; but I think I have not.
I have found them universally kind, perfectly free from
cant. They don't draw down the corners of their mouth,
nor talk through their nose, nor roll up the whites of their
eyes, and say'O-o-o-o!'  There is much about the
Catholic Church that I always liked, — its music, architecture, paintings, statues. Besides, there is a long list
whom I truly reverence enrolled on its calendar.  The
Church is democratic (in the good sense) in appointing
its saints. None are made saints except for per'soizal
qualities; not for wealth or birth or power, but goodness.
What if they do pray to the saints, as the Protestants say?
or tzkrozug  them, as t'ey say?  The true God, I take it,
would as lief be called St. Cecilia as Jehovah; and a
true prayer must be acceptable to the true God. I told a
Jesuit father so the other day: but he said that was an
odious doctrine; it justified idolatry.
"The Catholic Church practically, I think, cultivates
the feelings of reverence, of faith, of gentleness, better
than the Protestant churches; but I can't think it affects




EUROPE.                     197
the conscience so powerfully, and I know that at present
it does not appeal to the reason or practical good sense.
While Bishop Baggs says,' Out of the Cathzolic Church is
no salvation,' he adds,'but none is damnied except for his
ozwn fault,. and many may be in the soul of the Cathzoli
Church who are not in its body.' God only knows who.
I wish I could think better of the priests here.
"It is difficult to say what is the present condition:'
the Catholic Church: they are certainly making great exertions to extend their faith in all parts of the world.
The present pope is a pious and excellent man, I should
judge, — one that fears God, and loves mankind; believ.
ing himself fallible as a man, but infallible as head of the
Church; and his character has had an influence on the
Church. I should be sorry to see the Catholic Church
fall now; for which of the Protestant sects could take its
place?  Perhaps it will outlive them  all.  If I wanted
to convert a fop to Christianity, I would send him to
Rome; but, if I wanted to put a philosopher in the
Catholic Church, I would send him anywhere but to
Rome."
It is the custom of young people, on the eve of their
departure from Rome, to drink from the Fontana di Trevi.
The last night Theodore Parker was there, he walked out
to the aqueducts (it was full moon); took a last look
at the Coliseum, where on a former midnight he had seen
an owl light on the cross, and hoot; viewed for the last
time the Capitol, the columns, and bade them all farewell:
perhaps he thought never to see them again, but was grateful for the sight once in his life. The next day (Thursday,
the IIth of April), at one o'clock, the diligence passed the
Porta del Popolo, crossed the Milvian Bridge, and travelled over the old Flaminian way toward Bologna.
On the 20th he is in Venice. "Venice is a dream of
the sea. Occidental science and Oriental fantasy seem
to have united to produce it. A pagan Greek might say
I7*




I98             THEtODORE PARXKER.
that Neptune, drunk with nectar and Aphrodite, slept in
the caves of the sea, and dreamed as he slept: Venice
is the petrifaction of his dream. The sun colors curiously
the walls of her palaces and churches: it seems as if
their wealth had run over, and stained the walls. What a
history was hers! what a destiny in the economy of the
world! Who that lived in the time of the second crusade
could ever have fancied her present lot? Yet who knows
that her ports shall not again be full of the wealth of the
East, and merchants from afar traffic with her? Let
canals and railroads do their work, and she may live
again."
From Venice by rail to Padua, and thence by diligence
to Vicenza; thence by vetturino to Verona; from Verona
over the Brenner Pass to Innsbriick,- the lovely, romantic
town, surrounded by picturesque mountains, where the
wolves could then be heard by the villagers talking
together at night.  He takes time to see the twenty-eight
colossal statues of royal persons, in bronze, that surround the tomb, surpassingly rich in carving, where the
Emperor Maximilian was not buried. From Innsbriick to
Munich, of which small mention is made. From Munich
to Regensburg; the funny little towns on the way being
" done " in ink on the pages of the journal, there being
no better use for the space. From Regensburg by danTjfschzzf on the Donau to Passau and Lintz, the same industrious but not artistic pen making caricatures of the ugly
faces on the boat. The curious would not be much
enlightened in regard to the scenery on the Danube by
these sketches. At last, on Tuesday the 7th, at about
seven o'clock in the evening, he is at the " Golden Lamb "
in Vienna. The city struck him  as the most frivolous
city in Europe, - elegant, easy, heartless: only St. Smephen's seemed to redeem  it; and that belonged to another age. "All the medimval cities are serious: even
the Paris of the middle age is serious, almost sad-look



EUROPE.                     199
ing; but the modern Paris is far less frivolous than
Vienna. For Vienna there is no life of science, art, literature, or commerce; only politics and pleasure."  But he
enjoyed the pictures in the gallery of Count Esterhazy
and the Royal Gallery, —the Murillos, Raphaels, Peruginos, Paul Veroneses. The famous Correggios he adInired less. The journal mentions nothing of this; only
the music of Strauss, which seemed singularly suited to
the city. Twelve years afterward he advised friends in
Vienna not on any account to miss the paintings, mentioning the particular gallery in which his favorites hung;
but the music of Strauss impressed him  as more congenial to the place, — "rich, rhythmic, graceful:" it reminded him of Paul Veronese's pictures, " examples of
a joyous festivity of well-bredness."' The drive from
Vienna to Prague had few incidents, though the blithe
pencil made its quaint observations on the page of the
journal. Prague was interesting. The ancient city, type
of the middle ages; the Jews' quarter; the venerable Hebrew  burial-place; the antique synagogue, the walls
whereof are. black with grime, because to clean them
might erase the name of God, supposed to be inscribed
somewhere on the stone; the monumental bridge; the
grotesque legends of St. John Nepomuck; the palaces;
the Wallenstein Fortress; the Black Tower and the White
Tower; the queer streets; the odd churches, saturated with
the superstitions of hundreds of years; the memorials
of Huss and Jerome and the religious wars, -got hold
of Parker by his faculty of veneration. He bought some
Hebrew books in a Jewish bookstore surprisingly cheap.
Hle could have bought the complete Talmud in twelve volumes, large paper, a fine copy, for forty gulden. Twelve
days are all he can spare for Dresden: but there are
Raphael's  divine "Madonna," and Titian's "Tribute
Money," and Veronese's " Marriage of Cana," and Holbein's "Virgin," and the Dutch masters; and there in the




200             THEODORE PARAKER.
"Green Vaults," more interesting than the jewels, interesting to him as those are, are the ring and drinking-cup
of Martin Luther, and the crucifix of John of Bologna.
On the evening of April IS he is in Berlin.
"Do you know," he writes to Dr. Francis, "what sort
of a place Berlin is?  No?  Imagine a sandy plain
forty miles square, with one or two nasty rivers trying to
get through it, but doubtful all the time that they had
taken the right way; in the centre of this plain, and on
the banks of the most doubtful of the rivers, imagine a
great number of brick houses covered with stucco, and a
few churches, and so forth, of the same material; then
imagine one street sixty or seventy feet wide and two
miles long, with another street two hundred feet wide and'
one mile long, having four rows of lime-trees in it, a footwallk in the centre, and two carriage-ways, one on each
side; then add some hundreds of other streets, all
straight, -and you have a conception of Berlin. For the
moving part of it, imagine a thousand hackney-coaches,
the drivers with cows' tails on the top of their caps, a
hundred private carriages, four hundred drays for beer, a
hundred and fifty carts and wagons for other lusiness,
thirty thousand soldiers, sixteen hundred and fifty students, a hundred and eighty professors, a king, Baron
Von Humboldt, and two hundred and seventy thousand
others; imagine the king with a belly like Uncle Tom
Clarke, the students with mustachios, the professors lecturing on Dagszsh lebze, the king' counting out his money,'
Baron Von Humboldt sleeping on his laurels, and the two
hundred and seventy thousand smoking, wallking, weaving, making pipes, and getting dinner,  and you have
an idea of the persoyzaze of Berlin."
The days here are given up to literary matters, hearing
lectures, visiting celebrities, studying the institutions of government, the h abits and morals of the people, inspecting
schools, collecting statistics of education, and such like.




EUROPE.                     201
A day in Potsdam, —to most travellers, much the most
agreeable feature in a short sojourn in Berlin, - for some
reason, gave him no satisfaction: he counted it a day
wasted. Sans Souci was not to his taste. Of the Museum he hardly says a word; of the music and musicians, who gave lustre to the flat city, not a word: but of
the scholasticism of the place there is much. Hengstenberg and Twesten and  Marheinecke and Vatke and
Michelet and Boeckh and Schelling, - he heard them  all,
each in his own department of philosophy, history, antiquities, or philology. Hegelianism was in the ascendant.
Here is a characteristic description of a lecture by a
young disciple of the school (Werder) on Logik.~ "The
point at issue was Bestimmtiheit (the definite ground or
substance of thought). He got into a great passion and a
desperate fix with his BestinmmztAzeit, trying, as I dimly
gathered, to  discover the Ur-Bestimmnzteit (the fundamental foundation). He said in Bestimrnznu;g there was
]Daseyn (being) and RReaZ'it. Hereupon a fat, chubby
student, with cheeks like one of your classmates, evidently his ma's darling, tried hard to conceive the difference; but, after numerous ineffectual attempts, gave it
up in despair. Then said the professor,'In Daseyn
there is Etwas real, und Anders' ('something real, and
something else'). Now,'Etwas ist cldurch uncl durch Etwas,
und nicht Anders: Anders ist durch und durch Anders, und
nicht Etwas' ('The something is through and through
something, and not the else: else is through and through
else, and not the something').
"He got into quite a dithyrambic mood upon this; put
his finger on the organ of individuality, then laid it alongside of his nose, then flourished it in the air. It is no
easy thing to go down to the profound of Hegelism.
You must take off your Sinnzlic/keit (corporeity), which is
all of many men; then lay aside your Vorslteil'zgelz (notions), which is, with most men, like plucking _/Esop's jay;




202             THEtODORE PARKCER.
then take off your Begr-zf (conception)  then you are'far
too naked to be ashamed.' In short, you are an Urmrenzsc/ (primitive man), a blosse Geist (pure spirit). You
have then the proper'alacrity in sinking:' you go clown,
down, down, and learn that Senyz is equal to _Aich/tseynz."
The most interesting of his studies in Berlin were those
on the civil and social condition of the state and people.
These were at once comprehensive and minute.  They
are too long for insertion here, even if lapse of time and
the social changes of the last generation did not considerably diminish their value for us.  But it is interesting
to know that Theodore Parker, on the spot, did not put a
high estimate on the moral state of the Germans. The
ancient reputation for chastity which Tacitus gave the
women, was not, according to his observation, sustained
by facts. The statistics of the consumption of beer
and ardent spirits proved that intemperance was a prevailing vice, -not the intemperance that maddens, but
the intemperance that muddles.  He estimated, that, in
Prussia alone, from forty to forty-five million gallons of
distilled spirits was consumed yearly; while the consumption of beer was something enormous.
The ride by rail to Wittenberg through a beautiful country was a great delight, and Wittenberg itself was pure
satisfaction. His steps led him directly to Luther's
grave in the Schlosskirche. Opposite was the grave of
his friend, the illustrious Melancthon; and near each were
paintings of the men, said to be by Cranach. "Luther
is sadly spread out, and looks hard."  The church contained the pulpit in which Luther sometimes preached,
and the chancel where stood the tombs of the electors,
Frederick the Wise and John  the Steadfast.  In  the
church, copies were for sale of the ninety-five theses
which Dr. Martin Luther, on Oct. 3I, I5I7, at the Eve of
the Festival of All Saints, nailed to the door of the
Schlosskirche. Theodore bought one on the spot, and




E UR OPE.                  203
inserted it at the appropriate place in the journal.
"What a change from then till now! Where shall the
work end? "  At night he walked in front of the church,
lost in meditation.  "The evening star looked down; the
soft air fell upon my head: I felt the spirit of the great
reformer. Three centuries and a quarter, and what a
change! Three centuries and a quarter more, and it will
be said,'The Protestant Reformation did little in comparison with what has since been done.' Well if THIS
work be of God."
He went to Luther's house; saw the very room where
he used to write and think and work; the stove which he
devised himself, with its reliefs representing the four
evangelists and other scriptural characters; the seat at the
window where he sat and looked out at the evening sky;
the table at which he took his meals, and studied with
Melancthon and the rest. The books (he had not many)
were gone. Other rooms contained curious relics, —a
beer-jug, a glass cup, some embroideries from the hand
of Catherine Bora, impressions of his seal. Outside the
walls was the spot where Luther burned the Papal bull.
It was railed round, and planted with shrubbery. A
young oak grew in the midst of it: the old oak under
which the bold deed was done had been hewn down in
the Seven-Years' War. The monument was visited, of
course. On a pedestal of polished granite (" I regretted
the polis/z "), beneath a Gothic canopy of cast-iron, stood
the bronze figure of Luther in his preach.er's robes, with
his Bible in his arms. "A  grand figure, large, manly,
with that peasant's expression, but full of nobleness and
commanding faith." Below was the inscription: —
" Ist's Gottes WVerk, so wird's bestehen
Ist's Menchen Werk, wird's untergehen."
To the Rathhaus, the church-steeple, wherever Luther
had been or might have been, this true disciple of




204            THE ODORE PARKER.
Luther went, drinking in the great German's soul all the
time.
At Halle he heard Erdmann defend Schleiermacher
from the charge of pantheism; saw Tholuck, and heard
him lecture; went to the house of Gesenius, the great
Hebrew scholar, walked in his garden, plucked a leaf
from the vine that grew over his window, and paid a visit
to his grave.
At Leipsic he went about with Dr. Fliigel to see old
Hermanns, whom he heard talk about German scholars,
and lecture; and dropped a tear on the grave of Charles
Stearns Wheeler, an excellent American scholar, and a
beautiful spirit, who went to Leipsic to study and to
die. At Liitzen he saw the stone where Gustavus Adolphus died, and the Rathhaus where his body lay. At
Weimar, the city of Wieland, Herder, and Goethe, he had
the poor satisfaction of viewing the outside of Goethe's
house. At Erfiirt he remembered the cloister where Luther, when a monk, paced up and down, and the monastery where he took his vows. At Gotha he admired the
fine gardens that beautified the town. At Eisenach he
went out early to the Wartburg, where Luther lived and
worked in seclusion. "Saw the very room where he toiled
in translating the Bible, the table he wrote on, the spot on
the wall where he threw the inkstand at the Devil. The
blow must have been a hard one; for it knocked off the
plaster, and left the ink on the stone itself. But relichunters must not be critical. Here is the closet he used,
studded all over with thick-headed nails; the chapel
where he used to preach'justification by faith,' and'hatred to the pope.' This was his Patmos. It is a fine
position. You see a great ways from the Wartburg." At
Frankfort the Jews interest him, and he puts down
thoughts on the religious condition of Germany.  At
Heidelberg there were learned men to see, - Schlosser,
Ullman, Umbreit, Hdvernik, Delitzsch, Paulus, Creuzer




EUROPE.                     205
(men whom he knew well by their books), Gervinus,
a young man since so famous in the philosophy of history, and from this moment one of Theodore's warm
friends. After Heidelberg comes Carlsruhe, then Stuttgart. There was Thorwaldsen's statue of Schiller, and,
in plaster then, Dannecker's beautiful statue of the
Christ, which J. P. Lesley calls the noblest image of the
Christ in the world. Parker admires its grandeur and
purity, but thinks it a little trcnscenrdenta. At Tiibingen,
Ewald and Baur were the great figures, - the former the
wonderful historian of the people of Israel, the latter
the founder of the historical school of New-Testament
criticism. He had long talks with both, besides hearing
them lecture. The conversations were not fluent; for
Theodore had not the gift of tongues in great profusion;
but he contrived to get at the heart of some important
matters. Baur was a prodigy of learning. "How many
hours a day do you study?" asked his visitor. " Ach / nzur
ac/itze/n" ("Only eighteen "), replied the old man. The
American never touched that mark even in his best days;
but he did what the German did not, -he spent much time
in adapting the results of his mental toil to the people,
and in putting them into plain working shape for social
uses. The Tiibingen giant was aghast at the idea of taking the general public into his confidence: it was the
American's effort and pride to do so. The German lived
in his library to a great age: the American died in the
prime of his years.
At Ba'le he saw, as was natural, a great deal of De Wette;
walked with him; dined with him; visited under his guidance the curiosities of the place. At Berne he enjoyed
the society of the Follens, kindred of the good Charles
Follen, so affectionately remembered at home. From
Berne he had his first view of the Alps. "The solid
mountains seemed clouds, not at all to belong to the
earth." It was in Berne, too, that his wife earned her
_o




206             THEODORE PARACER.
name of "Bear," or "Bearsie," from her delight, not unshared by her husband, in Bruin, the tutelar deity of the
city, enshrined in his capacious pit. At Lausanne there
is a cathedral, an old castle, Gibbon's house, and fine
scenery. At Geneva, memories of Calvin and Servetus,
of Rousseau and Voltaire, crowd upon him. "Went into
Voltaire's house: saw his study, sleeping-room, all just
as he left it. The furniture is of the plainest character.
From this little room he made kings and popes tremble."
There were no great exploits at Chamouni: only the Montanvert and the Mer de Glace. The stay there was short.
Martigny, Vevay, Fribourg, Lucerne, came in rapid succession.  The heroic legends find their place here.  At
Zurich he heard Hitzig lecture on certain points of
Hebrew syntax: " Quite entertaining, as might be expected."  He also heard Oken lecture on "Amphibia:"
" A little man, with an enthusiastic face, forty to fifty years
old; lectures with great rapidity. Not many pupils for
this course."  At Schaffhausen, Schenkel is the object of
chief interest.  Retracing his steps to Bale, the traveller,
who seems to be in a hurry, judging from the note-book,
pushes on to Strasbourg.  There the cathedral is the
prominent feature. He mounts the spire as high as the
police permit. Mayence, Wiesbaden, Biberich, Ems, Coblentz, -no notice of any thing but the' scenery.  In
Bonn he tried to see Eleek, but found him not at home.
Presented his letter to Nitsch; but he could read no
English. They talked, however, not much to the American's delectation: for the professor was narrow, cold, and
dry; was surprised to learn that the Unitarians existed
without a common confession of faith. He spoke of
Strauss as ganz zczed gar ulzc/hristlic/z. What he was at
hearZ he did not know: his life, he confessed, was pure.
He admires, as all do, the Cathedral of Cologne, but
does not believe in finishinog it. "The day of building
grand churches is over. Ours is not a believing age, but




EUROPE.                    207
an investigating one. Better days will come, when a nobler civilization shall incarnate its thoughts, and, without
oppressing the poor, rear temples to God most high."
The pictures of Rubens in the Cathedral of Antwerp
were disappointing. The descending Christ " is a man,
not a dead God."  Liege and Aix-la-Chapelle awaken
thoughts about the Catholic Church.
"What is to become of the Catholic Church I neither
know nor care much. I have little fear that it will bring
back the middle ages, while the philosophy of the age, the
entire spirit of the times, is against it."
At last he gets back to England. The journal becomes
more and more sketchy and illegible: much of it is in pencil, as if the pilgrim became impatient as the time for returning home drew near. In London he sees Carlyle, Sterling,
Hennell (whom he finds more negative than positive in his
religious views), and others of eminence; tries, without success, to get a publisher in England for the translation of
De Wette; hears William J. Fox preach about the Jews,
and is introduced to him after sermon. " He may be the
best man in London; but his face is unfortunate." Of
course, the round of sight-seeing in London is performed
with energy; but few impressions of it are recorded in the
journal. A scant page is given to Cambridge, and that
contains nothing of significance. In Liverpool he finds
Martineau, and talks with him about " promiscuous things."
The days were doubtless fuller than the journal. The
"'promiscuous things" would have appeared weighty to
anybody else; for Mr. Martineau was not one to dwell on
trifles, and Mr. Parker never wasted the rare moments of
opportunity. At Cambridge he fell in with an English
scholar whose special pursuit was Aristotle. He could
boast that he knew Aristotle by heart. His visitor had
read Aristotle, and was ready enough for discussion on his
philosophy; but that topic exhausted, as it was at length,
Parker introduced the name of Plato. The Englishman




208             THEODORE PARKER.
had read Plato, but only once. So the Yankee, who
perhaps had read him once also, but remembered him,
descanted copiously on Plato, analyzing the separate Dialogues, and setting forth his views over against those of
Aristotle. Perhaps he called that " talk about promiscuous things."
The journal of Sept. I has this record: " Sunday, after
a most prosperous and felicitous voyage of twelve days,
completing the quickest passage ever made, I reached
home, saw the household, William Whitney, the blessed
Russells, -all the four little and live plants in bed, -
and Squire Cowing. Who shall tell my joy at returning?
who the rapture with which I saw old friends?
" I really believe that my enemy zati l/eft mze, at least,
for a season. I can't tell the gratitude I feel for that."
This enemy was the trouble in his head, which had
pained and alarmed him from time to time in his travels.
His health had not been uninterrupted.  He was ill in
Florence, and again in Rome, with symptoms in the side
which were distressing; but his apprehensions he kept to
himself.
From Florence, in January, he wrote to his friend Dr.
Francis, "I have now had five months to consider my
own position. I feel all its melancholiness, the severity of
the task laid on me: but I feel, too, that I must on, on;
that the time of rest will never come in my day, and for me;
but, so long as I live, that I must war against the false
gods, and their priests as false. I have done little hitherto:
if health continues, I may, perhaps, do somewhat. I am
grateful for this opportunity to pause in the middle of my
course, and see where I am going. I have done wrong
things, no doubt; but, the more I think of it, the more
the general tendency of my path seems to me the true
one, and the less do I feel an inclination to turn away or
to stand still." Whether his subsequent travels in Italy,
Germany, Switzerland, altered his mind, we have now to




EUROPE.                    209
see. The year in Europe had been a great privilege and a
great delight. He had seen the past face to face, and
could fill it in as a strong background to sustain his
present, and throw into relief his future. It had been a
year of consolation, which he felt the need of; and of
experience, which he also felt the need of. The effect
of it was visible ever after in the rich fund of memories it
supplied, but more palpably still in the solid groundwork
of conviction on which he built.
I8*




CHAPTER X.
THE CONFLICT RENEWED.
THEY who imagined that Theodore Parker would return
from Europe a submissive member of the Boston Association, with changed views and altered purposes, deceived
themselves. He came back with every opinion and every
determination more than confirmed. He had surveyed his
position from a distant point; he had viewed it under all
lights; he had examined the institutions of Christendom
in the places of their power; he had talked with high
priests of the Papal Church in Rome, with Protestant
ministers and theologians in London, Oxford, Berlin,
Heidelberg, Bahle, Zurich; he had attended lectures from
the most eminent professors in philosophy; he had studied the working of ecclesiastical and doctrinal systems;
he had noted the signs of the times in the speculative,
social, and moral world; and the result was a deeper conviction than ever of the justness of his own method, and
the correctness of his own conclusions. He felt himself,
more than before even, a reformer, - one who was commissioned along with many others to lead a new religious
movement, as significant in its time as Protestantism was
when it appeared. His beliefs were not imported: they
were the native product of his own mind and experience.
They were felt before they were formulated. As a boy,
almost as a child, his sense of the reality, the immanence,
the infinite perfection, of God, had been profound; his
210




THE CO2VFLICT RENE WED.              2Ii
assurance of the soul's personal immortality was beyond
necessity or reach of argument; his reverence for the
moral law, as voiced by his private conscience, was habitual and deep. He seems never to have doubted on these
three points; and they were the cardinal points of his religious faith.  Subsequent study and reflection hardened
the feeling into faith, and the faith into formula, but added
nothing essential to the substance of belief. To give expression to these three great verities, to make them seen
in their beauty, appreciated at their intrinsic value, and
accepted as vital principles in private and public life,
was his ruling passion. He proposed as the great object
of his labor to prove by wide historical survey that the
leading races of man gave the sanction of their thought
to his three fundamental positions; and he made a multitude of very interesting and close studies in the subject, -
studies conducted, not as a partisan or a controversialist,
but as a philosopher, in a spirit of singular candor. He
read the best literatures; he gleaned industriously from
all fields; nay, he ventured on all tests. The writings of
atheists and materialists were as familiar to him as the
writings of believers. He knew Feuerbach as well as
Cudworth, Vogt and Moleschott as intimately as Fichte
and Sintenis.  He was eager to talk with the German
professors at home and abroad about the New Hegelians
and their strange views.  Some of his fastest friends were
disbelievers in his theological opinions, able and eloquent
men too: he was glad to confront their minds with his
own, and so to test his faith. From every encounter he
came out with stronger conviction.
The sermons preached in WVest Roxbury after his return were charged with positive faith, larger, broader,
more earnest, than had come from him before. The negative side of his theology was presented incidentally, that
the affirmative side might be made more prominent. He
disturbed what he considered rubbish, that he might re



2I2            THEODORE PARICER.
veal the temple; he removed the shanties of the workmen,
that the people might behold its open doors. He had no
objection to the belief in miracles, provided their importance was not exaggerated, or their function misconceived.
He was willing that people should believe in prophecies,
if they would not regard them as demonstrations of truth.
As has been repeatedly said, a score of notes on the pages
of the journal show how deeply interested he was in the
forecasting power of the human mind, and how little disposed he was to put limits to it. He had no wish, apparently, to reject any thing that was of active service in the
cause of religion. What he did reject was thrust aside
simply because it stood in the way of direct appreciation
of religious truth. He wanted that, and could not be satisfied that any should be contented with less.
But for the unwise passion of MIr. Parker's opponents,
the former controversy might not have been renewed.
He might have remained at West Roxbury, a devoted
parish-minister, a diligent student and writer, comparatively unknown in the religious world outside of Boston, and
unfelt as a power beyond the confines of his sect. His
enemies did for him what his friends never would have
done; what he might never have done from his own ambition. In November, I844, Rev. John Turner Sargent,
minister of the Suffolk-street Chapel in Boston,- a mission-chapel under the charge of the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, - invited Mr. Parker to exchange pulpits. Had Mr. Sargent been an independent congregational minister, responsible to his society alone, his action
would have made no great stir; but being, as it were, the
agent of an association, the Executive Committee of the
Benevolent Fraternity felt themselves compromised. They
took alarm; called a meeting immediately; deliberated;
passed resolutions; framed a remonstrance, which was
sent to each of the ministers at large; and addressed an
earnest letter to the transgressor of ecclesiastical proprie



TIlE CONFLICT RENEW ED.              213
ties. The case was interesting. Mr. Sargent was a valued
minister among the poor. His family contributed largely
to the erection and embellishment of the chapel where he
preached. He spent freely of his private property for
the people under his charge, and was untiring in his labors in the lower parts of the city. His family had wealth
and influence. His personal character was above suspicion: no shadow of reproach clouded his name. A devoted, upright, self-denying man, he went out into the alleys
and streets of Boston, gathering together the poor and the
forsaken, and forming a society which prospered under
his ministry, and became strongly attached to him. He
was never openly accused of preaching in his pulpit, or
believing in his study, the opinions which made Mr. Parker obnoxious: indeed, he disclaimed intellectual sympathy with them in the letter he wrote to the remonstrating
committee. But all this availed nothing. He had exchanged with the arch-heretic j he justified the act; he
would make no promise of future obedience to his superiors; and the resignation that self-respect dictated was
accepted. The ministry to the poor lost its best man;
an excellent pastor was taken from  service he seemed
made for, and eventually from the calling for which
he had shown himself eminently fitted, because the
Unitarian body had not courage to stand by its own
principle.
The case made a great sensation. Letters and replies,
arguments and counter-arguments, criminations and recriminations, came out in newspaper and pamphlet. Tile
" orthodox" struck in, jubilant and sarcastical. The secular journals took the matter up once more, and thrashed
the vacant straw with lively flail.
The excitement was at its height when Mr. Parker, still
a member of the Ministerial Association, took his turn
in preaching the Thursday Lecture at the First Church
in Chauncy Place, on Dec. 26. The Thursday Lecture




214            THEODORE PARKER.
was an ancient institution, inaugurated in the early days
by one of the fathers of the First Church, who preached
it at first himself, and afterwards invited his brotheiministers in Boston and the vicinity to participate with
him. For many years it was a famous institution, and
went by the name of "the great and Thursday Lecture."
But, thirty years ago, it had fallen sadly from its primeval
glory. The galleries were empty, the lower pews nearly
so. A score or two of venerable women glided silently in
at the hour of eleven, and took their seats, well provided
with bottles of sa7-vo7azile against the probable effect
of the discourse.  Here and there a country clergyman,
drawn by legendary associations or personal regard for
the victim in the desk, showed a resigned face in the
shadow. The choir was extemporized for the occasion,
and made music of an extraordinary quality; the handiest
amateur being drafted to play the organ, a son of the
minister of the First Church commonly doing arduous
and unremunerated duty at the bellows.  The sacrifice
lasted a painful hour. There was no enthusiasm  among
the brethren for the honor of court preacher.  Substitutes
were eagerly sought, and volunteers were rare. It was
long since a sinner had been awakened on Thursday forenoon: the sinners had ceased to expect awakening, and
staid away. None came but saints, and these came not
with jubilant feet.
It was another scene when Theodore Parker spoke.
The pews, above and below, were crowded early. The
tardy comners had to stand in any spot they could find;
the pulpit stairs were occupied; the volunteer singers
had not even their "loft" to themselves.  Strangers who
had scarcely heard of the Thursday Lecture were there:
the old /zabi/uts did not know the place. The venerable
old ladies were in the minority. Scent-bottles were uncalled for.  The preacher's theme was, "The Relation
of Jesus to his Age and the Ages." It was not a great




TEE CONFLICT RENE WED.              2I5
sermon; it was loose, rhetorical, and unsatisfactory in
almost all respects: but it was glowing, earnest, sweeping, with immense rush, the negative aspects of it completely hidden behind the gorgeous ascriptions of praise
to Jesus. The audience listened with various emotions.
Simple and straightforward though the sermon was, it
stirred the most opposite feelings, and provoked the most
discordant comment. It was printed; but even then the
disputation over it did not cease. Theodore Parker had
made, perhaps, the most kindling affirmative statement
about Jesus that had ever been made from that pulpit; and
yet his making it there was construed as a new offence,
that must not on any account be repeated. The discussions were warm. To expel Mr. Parker from the Association was a step that could not be ventured; and he
declined to withdraw. At length, after many revolvings
and resolvings, a device was hit on. The minister of the
First Church still held the matter in his hands. Originally, it was his lecture: at his invitation only, others
shared with him the privilege of delivering it. He had
now but to fail back on first principles, to return to the
original arrangement, cancel the invitations which had
been so long out that they were held to be rights, issue
new ones to the proper men, — omitting the wrong man
from the list, -and the knot was cut. The minister of
the First Church, acting on the hint, took the matter into
his own hands, summoned all but Mr. Parker to his side,
and the "stream of tendency" was so far checked. The
device was ingenious, but not handsome. The ungodly
called it a trick.  The divine powers did not think it
noble; for, not long after, "the great and Thursday Lecture" was discontinued.
Precisely one month after the lecture, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, pastor of the Church of the Disciples in Boston, against the wishes of his chief parishioners, - two of
whom, Benjamin H. Greene and John A. Andrew, called




216            THIEODORE PARKER.
on Mr. Parker to represent the feeling, having in vain remonstrated with Mr. Clarke, - after giving due notice to
his people the Sunday before, exchanged pulpits with Mr.
Parker, disavowing all sympathy with his heresies, but
performing what he considered a duty of Christian fellowship. The hall, Masonic Temple, was crowded, notwithstanding that some of the regular congregation staid
piously away. Mr. Parker brought the most innocent
sermon he had, a very innocent sermon indeed, on "The
Excellence of Goodness."  It ought to have satisfied
the most timid people that he was not dangerous; but it
did not.  There was a secession from  the Church of
the Disciples in the direction of Rev. R. C. Waterston,
the minister of Pitts-street Chapel, as Mr. Sargent had
been of Suffolk-street. Mr. Waterston, in a long letter
disapproving of Mr. Sargent's course, had thrown himself
into the current of the popular sentiment, which took him
from his humble mission-chapel, and bore him to a handsome stone church in Bedford Street. But the under-current was with Mr. Parker, after all. The tide soon began
to ebb: the new society, having no special ground of
being, diminished and disappeared.
The reformer was now practically excluded from the
churches of Boston: the pulpits, one and all, were closed
against him with an emphasis like that of the slamming
of doors. At this juncture a company of gentlemen met
on Jan. 22, 1845, and passed a single resolution, -
" That the Rev. Theodore Parker shall have a chance to be
heard in Boston."
A commodious hall was obtained, - the Melodeon. It
occupied the ground now covered by the Boston Theatre;
and on Feb. i6 - a cold, wintry day, the air thick with bitter rain, the streets full of snow -the ministry in Boston
was begun, with much misgiving on his part, with sanguine expectation on the part of his friends, who saw the




THE CONTLICT RENE WED.              2 7
gold drop into the crucible, and remembered the text
which prophesied the fine result of that process. But the
preacher had courage, if he had distrusts. In his journal
he writes, at date Jan. i6, i845, "I pray God for the permanency of my ability. I feel that I have a great work
to do: I think I shall not fail in it. I have no fears for
myself; but it is a little painful to see the condition of
others. I would I had the presence of two men: then
would I be two ministers, — one here, and one in Boston."
In a letter to his young friend, Joseph Allen, he says,
"You say your professional function is different from
mine. That may be true; but mine has been, hitherto, to
endeavor to lay the foundation of my religious teachings
so deep that nothing could move or shake it. I nelver
scruple, nor ever will, to remove out of my way any rubbish that I come upon, and to declare the rubbish is one
thing, and the Rock of Ages a little different, nay, quite
another thing. I never regarded my function as negative,
except in a small degree. I would pull up the weeds, and
give them to the pigs; then plant the corn for men and
pigs too."
A conference with a committee of the Boston Association of Ministers was fruitless of any good result. It was
kindly in temper, but revealed no common ground of professional action, and closed even less satisfactorily than
the famous interview between Paul and the Judaizing
apostles which the Romish Church dignifies with the name
of the First Council. His feeling about the Unitarians is
pungently expressed in the following short extract from a
letter to S. J. May: "The Unitarians are getting shockingly bigoted and little. Their late meetings were windy.
They went to ventilate their narrowness. Yet how contemptible must be a sect who only deny the divinity of
Christ, - affirming a denial, - their life the development
of a negation! Anniversary-week had painfully little of
the Channing; much of the Norton, bating his scholarI9




2 I8            THEODORE PARKER.
ship; more of the         -  specious, superficial, and
worldly. The Universalists are more humane than we:
they declare the Fatherhood of God, and do not stick at
the consequences, - everlasting, happiness for all men. I
think they are the most humane sect in the land. They
had an address on temperance, one on slavery, one on
war, delivered before their ministers on anniversary-week.
Think of that, we whose'mission it is to be silent about
slavery,' and I suppose about war, intemperance, and all
other sins that everybody has a mind to! Do tell the
youngsters to be men, — not merely dawdling ministers,
with no more -    than a pack of cards. They never will
ask me to preach to them, and I hope they won't; but
I rejoice in your opportunity to teach them how to love
the unlovely, and to overcome evil with good."
The advent to Boston was signalized by the following
letter, which effectually terminated a long discussion, and
with it Mr. Parker's connection with the Unitarians. If
he expected a formal reply to it, he was disappointed. But
probably he intended it only as a published manifesto on
his own part, which might or might not call forth a counter-manifesto from the opposite party, but which, whether
it did or not, would remain a standing challenge to the
churches.  Such it was, indeed,-a challenge that has
never been fairly accepted.
A LETTER TO THE BOSTON ASSOCIATION OF CONGREGATIONAL MINISTERS TOUCHING CERTAIN MATTERS OF
THEIR THEOLOGY.
GENTLEMEN, - The peculiar circumstances of the last few
years have placed both you and me in new relations to the
public and to one another. Your recent actions constrain me
to write you this public letter, that all may the more fully understand the matter at issue between us, and the course you
design to pursue. You are a portion of the Unitarian body,
and your opinions and conduct will no doubt have some influ.




THE CONFLICT RENE VED.                  2I9
ence upon that body. You have, I am told, at great length,
and in several consecutive meetings, discussed the subject of
my connection with your reverend body.  You have debated
the matter, whether you should expel me for heresy; and by a
circuitous movement, recently made, have actually excluded me
from preaching the Thursday Lecture. I do not call in question your motives; for it is not my office to judge you: neither
do I now complain of your conduct, public or private, towards
me during the last three years. That has been various. Some
members of your Association have uniformly treated me with
the courtesy common amongst gentlemen; some also with the
civilities that are usual amongst ministers of the same denomnation. Towards some of your number I entertain an affectionate gratitude for the good words I have heard from their
lips in my youth. I feel a great regard for some of you, on account of their noble and Christian characters, - virtuous, selfdenying, pious, and without bigotry. I cherish no unkind feeling towards the rest of you: towards none of you do I feel
ill-will on account of what has passed. I have treated my opponents with a forbearance, which, I think, has not always been
sufficiently appreciated by such as have had the chief benefit
of that forbearance. However, I hope never to be driven,
either by abuse from an opponent or by the treachery of a pretended friend, to depart from the course of forbearance which
I have hitherto and uniformly pursued. But since you have
practically taken so decided a stand, and have so frequently
discussed me and my affairs among yourselves, and have at
last made your movement, I think it important that the public
should have a distinct knowledge of your theological position.
I am searching for truth, however humbly; and I suppose that
you are as desirous of imparting to others as of receiving from
Heaven. Therefore I shall proceed to ask you certain questions a good deal talked of at the present day, to which I venture to ask a distinct and categorical reply. But, by way of
preliminary, I will first refresh your memory with a few facts.
Until recently, the Unitarians have been supposed to form
the advance guard, so to say, of the Church militant; at least,
they have actually been the;/zovenenzt-x5arty in theology. It may
hurt the feelings of some men now to confess it; but I think it
is true. As such, the Unitarians have done a great work. As




220              THEODORE PARK:ER.
I understand the matter, this work was in part inlellectual, for
they really advanced theological science, both negatively by the
exposure of errors, and positively by the establishment of
truths: but in greater part moral; for they declared, either
directly or by implication, the right of each man to investigate for
himself in matters pertaining to religion; and his right also to
the Christian name if he claimed it, and by his character seemed
t3 deserve it. They called themselves "liberal" Christians, and
seemed to consider that he was the best Christian who was
most like Christ in character and life; thus making religion the
essential of Christianity, and leaving each man to determine his
own theology.  They began their history by a denial of the
Trinity, - a doctrine very dear to the Christian Church, of very
ancient standing therein, common alike to Catholics and Protestants; a doctrine for centuries regarded as essential to the
Christian scheme; the fundamental dogma of Christianity. For
this denial they encountered the usual fate of the movementparty: they were denied Christian fellowship, and got a bad
name, which they keep even now.  I am told that they are still
called " infidels " by the Trinitarian leaders; and that, you know,
gentlemen, is a term of great reproach in the theological world.
It has been asserted, I think, in some Orthodox journal, that
the lamented Dr. Channing -whose name is now, perhaps,
praised by your Association oftener than his example is folowved - undoubtedly went to hell for his sin in denying that
Jesus of Nazareth was the Infinite God. Gentlemen, these
things happened not a great many years ago. I do not wonder
at the treatment the Unitarians have received, and still receive,
where they are not numerous and powerful: for the Trinitarians maintain that no one can be saved without a belief in certain doctrines of their theology; which very doctrines the
Unitarians stoutly denied, and in public too. The Orthodox
were consistent in what the Unitarians then regarded as persecution, and, I doubt not, would have used the old arguments, -
fagots and the axe, - had not the laws of the land rendered it
quite impossible to resort to this ultimate standard of theological appeal, which had been a favorite with many of the clergy
for more than fourteen centuries. The Unitarians complained
of that treatment as not altogether Christian.
But now, gentlemen, it seems to me that some of you are




THE CONFLICT RENE WED.                  22 I1
pursuing the same course you once complained of; and, if I
rightly apprehend the theology of your learned body, -of which,
however, I am not quite sure, - without the same consistency,
having no warrant therefor in your theological system. I say
nothing of your motives in all this; nothing of the spirit in
which some of you have acted. That matter is beyond my
reach: to your own master you stand or fall.  In I841 I
preached a sermon at South Boston at an ordination. That
was soon attacked by the Rev. Mlr. Fairchild, and numerous
other clergymen of several denominations equally zealous for
the Christian faith. Since that time, most of you have refused
me the ministerial courtesies commonly shown to the ministers
of the same denomination. And yet, gentlemen, I think these
courtesies are not, in all denominations, withheld when one of
the parties has a moral reputation that is at least ambiguous.
Only five of your number, I believe, have since exchanged with
me; though comparatively but few members of other Unitarian
associations have departed from their former course. I do not
complain of this: I simply state the fact.
Now, gentlemen, there is one matter on which you will
allow me to pause a moment. The Fraternity of Churches is, I
suppose virtually, though not formally, under the direction of
certain members of your Association.  Now, that Fraternity
has virtually expelled from his office a minister engaged in a
noble and Christian work, and performing that work with rare
ability and success. You have thus expelled him from his
place simply because he extended ministerial fellowship to me
in common with ministers of several other denominations. The
case of Mr. Sargent is peculiar, and I must dwell a moment on
a few particulars respecting it.  If I rightly remember, his
family contributed largely to the erection and embellishment of
the chapel out of which he is expelled. He has himself spent
freely his own property for the poor under his charge, and has
been untiring in his labors. No shadow of reproach attaches to
his name. He is above suspicion of immorality; but, on the
contrary, is distinguished beyond his fellows by the excellence
of his character and the nobleness of his life. A righteous and
a self-denying man, he went out into the lanes and highways of
Boston gathering together the poor and the forsaken, and
formed a society which prospered under his ministry, and be19*




222              THEI OD ORE PA4 RKER.
came strongly attached to him. And yet, gentlemen, some of
you have seen fit, knowing all these circumstances, by demanding of him a pledge that he would never exchange with me, to
drive away from the field of his labors and the arms of his
parish this noble man, solely because he extended the usual
ministerial fellowship to me; and yet I still continue a member
of your Association l I think he has never been accused,
perhaps not suspected, of preaching in his pulpit, or even
believi:g in his study, the peculiar doctrines of my own theology, which are so obnoxious to some of you, and apparently
reckoned worse than a grave moral offence. It may be said
that Mr. Sargent was minister over a vassal chzurch, and the Fraternity were his fezudal suzeriors, and this seems to be true.
You will say, furthermore, that the Boston Association, as a
whole, is not responsible for the acts of the Fraternity; and this
is doubtless the case: but, as I think some of its members are
accountable, to them let the above remarks apply. I pass to
another matter.
The Unitarians have no recognized and public creed.  It
used to be their glory. At the Theological School in Cambridge
I subscribed to no symbolical books; at my ordination I
assented to no form of doctrines, neither church nor council
requesting it. When I became a member of your learned body,
no one asked me of my opinions, whether orthodox or heterodox: no one even demanded a promise that I should never
change an opinion or discover a new truth! I know well, gentlemen, that I differ, and that very widely, from the systems of
theology which are taught, and from  the philosophy which
underlies these systems. I have no wish to disguise my theology, or to shelter it beneath t!l authority of your Association:
let it stand or fall by itself.  But still I do not know that I
have transgressed the limits of Unitarianism; for I do not
know what those limits are. It is a great glory to a liberal
association to have no Symbolical Books, but a great inconvenience that a sect becoming exclusive should not declare its creed.
I cannot utter the shibboleth of a party tiil I first hear it pronounced in the orthodox way. I shall presently proceed to beg
you to point out the limits of scientific freedom, and tell the
mzaxrimuzzz of theological belief which distinguishes you from
the "orthodox" on the one side, and the minlmzum  thereof




THE CONFLICT RENE EED.                   223
which distinguishes you from  the "infidels " on the other
side.
Gentlemen, you refuse me fellowship; you discuss the question, whether you shall expel me from your Association; and you
actually, though indirectly, prohibit me, as I understand it, from
preaching " the great and Thursday Lecture." Gentlemen, I wish
to know distinctly the ground you take in this matter. It is not
altogether plain why you put yourselves in why you put yourselves iyour peculiar attitude towards me.  Mr. Sargent is expelled for granting me
ministerial fellowship. He was an accessory after the fact in
my alleged heresies, and being but a vassal of the Fraternity,
and therefore within their power, is punished, while the principal
of the mischief is allowed to go unscathed; and other clergymen
who exchange with me, but have no feudal lords, retain their
places as before. Here the issue is obvious; and Mr. Sargent is
expelled from his pulpit for fositi-ve lzisjPrisio  of heresy, if I
may make use of such a term. Of course the same doctrine
excludes him from his pulpit and the Association. But I am
told that Mr. Pierpont was quite as effectually excluded from
the actual fellowship of your Association as even myself; for,
while three of the city members of your Association have continued to extend ministerial fellowship to me, - Mr. Pierpont, Mr.
Sargent, and Mr. Clarke, - only three, - Mr. Gannett, Mr. Sargent, and Mr. Clarke, -if I am rightly informed, have extended
that fellowship to him since the time of the famed Hollis-street
Council! Yet I think he is guilty of no heresy, -#tieoog.ical
and shieczladtaive heresy I mean; for, in practical affairs, it is well
known that his course is the opposite of that pursued by most
of his brethren in the city.
Still more: at a conference I had with the Association a
little more than two years ago, the chairman of the Association
- the Rev. Dr. Parkman - declared that my main offence
was not my theological heresies: they would have been forgiven and forgot, had it not been for an article I published on the
Hollis-street Council (printed in "The Dial" for Octol)er, I842),
in which, as he alleged, I "poured scorn and contempt upon
the brethren."  Yet others charge me with heresies, and on
account thereof, I am told, actually deny my right to Christian
fellowship from them, and even my title to the Christian name.
In this intricate confusion, gentlemen, you will probably




224              THEODORE PARAIER.
see the necessity of saying a word to put all things in a fair
light, that I may know on what point you and I are really at
issue. Notwithstanding the remarks of the Rev. Dr. Parkman,
I am still inclined to the belief that the charge of heresy is the
main charge; and as you have had the field of controversy entirely to yourselves these several years, and as yet have not, as a
body, made a public and authorized statement of your theological belief, I must beg you to inform me what is orf/zdoxy according to the Boston Association. The orthodoxy of the Catholic
Church I know very well; I am not wholly ignorant of what is
called orthodox by the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches: but the
ORTHODOXY of the Boston Association of Congregational Ministers is not a thing so easy to come at. As I try to comprehend it, I feel I am looking at something dim and undefined.
It changes color, and it changes shape: now it seems a mountain; then it appears like a cloud. You will excuse me, gentlemen; but, though I have been more than seven years a member
of your reverend body, I do not altogether comprehend your
theology, nor know what is orthodox. Yourwill do a great service if you will publish your Symbolical Books, and let the
world know what is the true doctrine according to the Boston
Association of Congregational Ministers. I have defined my
own position as well as I could, and will presently beg you to
reply, distinctly, categorically, and unequivocally, to the following questions. Gentlemen, you are theologians; men of leisure
and learning; mighty in the Scriptures.  Some of you have
grown gray in teaching the world; most of you, I think, make
no scruple of passing judgment, public and private, on my opinions and myself. It is therefore to be supposed that you have
examined things at large, and been curious in particulars; have
searched into the mysteries of things, deciding what is true,
what false, what Christian, and what not; and so have determined on a standard of doctrines which is to you well known,
accessible, and acknowledged by all. Some of you can sling
stones at a hair's-breadth in the arena of theology. You are
many, and I am standing alone. Of course I shall take it for
granted that you have, each and all, thoroughly, carefully, and
profoundly examined the matters at issue between us; that you
have made up your minds thereon, and are all entirely agreed in
your conclusions, and that on all points; for surely it were not




THE CONFLICT RENE WVE-D.                225
charitable to suppose, without good and sufficient proof, that a
body of Christian ministers - conscientious men, learned, and
aware of the difficulties of the case - would censure and virtually condemn one of their number for heresy, unless they had
made personal investigation of the whole matter, had themselves
agreed on their standard of orthodoxy, and were quite ready to
place that standard before the eyes of the whole people. I beg
that this standard of Unitarian orthodoxy, as it is agreed upon
and established by the authority of the Boston Association, may
be set before my eyes and those of the public at the same time
and therefore, gentlemen, I propose to you the following
QUESTIONS.
Class I. - Scholastic questions relating to the definition of
terms frequently used in theology: —
I. What do you mean by the word " salvation"?
2. What do you mean by a " miracle "?
3. What do you mean by "inspiration"?
4. What do you mean by " revelation"?
Class II. - Dogmatic questions relating to certain doctrines
of theology: —
5. In questions of theology, to what shall a man appeal? and
what is the criterion whereby he is to test theological, moral,
and religious doctrines? Are there limits to theological inquiry?
and if so, what are those limits? Is truth to be accepted because it is true, and right to be followed because it is right,
or for some other reason?
6. What are the conditions of salvation, both theoretical and
practical? and how are they known?
7. What do you consider the essential doctrines of Christianity? What moral and religious truth is taught by Christianity
that was wholly unknown to the human race before the time of
Christ? and is there any doctrine of Christianity that is not a
part also of natural religion?
8. Do you believe all the books in the Bible came from the
persons to whom they are, in our common version thereof,
ascribed? or what are genuine and canonical Scriptures?
9. Do you believe that all or any of the authors of the Old
Testament were miraculously inspired, so that all or any of their
language can properly be called the Word of God, and their




226              THEODORE PARXKER.
writings constitute a miraculous revelation? or are those writings to be judged of, as other writings, by their own merits, and
so made to pass for what they are worth? In short, what is the
authority of the Old Testament? and what relation does it bear
to man, -that of master, or servant?
Io. Do you believe the law contained in the Pentateuch, in
all parts and particulars, is miraculously inspired or revealed to
man? or is it, like the laws of Massachusetts, a human work in
whole or in part?
I. Do you believe the miracles related in the Old Testament? — for example, that God appeared in a human form, spoke
in human speech, walked in the garden of Eden, ate and drank;
that he commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, and made the
verbal declarations so often attributed to him in the Old and
New Testament; that Moses spoke with him "' as a man speaketh with his friend; " that the miracles alleged to have been
wrou1ght for the sake of the Hebrews in Egypt, the Red Sea,
Arabia, and Palestine, and recorded in the Bible, were actual
facts; that the births of Isaac, Samson, and Samuel, were miraculous; that Balaam's ass spoke the Hebrew words put into his
mouth; that God did miraculously give to Moses, and others
mentioned in the Old Testament, the commands there ascribed
to him; that the sun stood still as related in the Book of joshua;
that Jonah was swallowed by a large fish, and, while within the
fish, composed the ode ascribed to him? And do you believe all
the miracles related in the Books of Daniel, Job, and elsewhere
in the Old Testament?
I2. Do you believe that any prophet of the Old Testament,
solely through a miraculous revelation made to him by God, did
distinctly and unequivocally foretell any distant and future event
which has since come to pass? and, in special, that any prophet
of the Old Testament did thereby, and in manner aforesaid, distinctly and equivocally foretell the birth, life, sufferings, death,
and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, so that Jesus was, in the
proper and exclusive sense of the word, the Mlessia/l predicted
by the prophets, and expected by the Jews?
I3. What do you think is the meaning of the phrase, " Thus
saith the Lord," with its kindred expressions, in the Old Testament?
I4. Do you believe that all or any of the authors of the New




THIE CONFLICT RENE WED.                 227
Testament were miraculously inspired, so that all or any of their
language can properly be called the Word of God, and that their
writings constitute a miraculous revelation? or are those writings
to be judged of, as other writings, by their own merits, and so
made to pass for what they are worth? In short, what is the
authority of the New Testament? and what relation does it bear
to man, - that of master, or servant?
I5. Do you believe the Christian apostles were miraculously
inspired to teach, write, or act, with such a node, kind, or degree
of inspiration as is not granted by God, in all time, to other men
equally wise, moral, and pious? Do you think the apostles were
so informed by miraculous inspiration as never to need the
exercise of the common faculties of man, and never to fall into
any errors of fact and doctrine? or are we to suppose that the
apostles were mistaken in their announcement of the speedy
destruction of the world, of the resurrection of the body, &c.
I6. What do you think is the nature of Jesus of Nazareth?
Was he God, maz, or a beinzg neithzer God nor mna? And how
does he effect the salvation of mankind? In what sense is he
the Saviour, Mediator, and Redeemer?
I7. Do you believe that Jesus of Nazareth was miraculously
born, as it is related in two of the Gospels, with but one human
parent; that he was tempted by the Devil, and transfigured, talking
actually with Moses and Elias; that he actually transformed the
substance of water into the substance of wine; fed five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes; that he walked on the
waters; miraculously stilled a tempest; sent demons out of men
into a herd of swine; and that he restored to life persons wholly
and entirely dead?
i8. Do you believe that Jesus had a miraculous and infallible
inspiration different in kinzd or mzode from that granted to other
wise, good, and pious men, informing him to such a degree
that he never made a mistake in matters pertaining to religion,
to theology, to philosophy, or to any other department of human
concern; and that therefore he teaches with an authority superior to reason, conscience, and the religious sentiment in the
individual man?
19. Do you believe that it is impossible for God to create a
being with the same moral and religious excellence that Jesus
had, but also with more and greater intellectual and other facul



228               THEODORE PARKER.
ties, and send him into the world as a man? or has Jesus
exhausted either or both the capacity of man, or the capability
of God?
20. Do you believe, that, from a state of entire and perfect
death, Jesus returned to a state of entire and perfect physical
life; that he did all the works and uttered all the words attributed to him in the concluding parts of the Gospels after his
resurrection; and was subsequently taken up into heaven bodily
and visibly, as mentioned in the book of Acts?
2I. Do you believe, that, at the death of Jesus, the earth
quaked, the rocks were rent; that darkness prevailed over the
land for three hours; that the graves were opened, and many
bodies of saints that slept arose and appeared to many?
22. Do you believe that Jesus; or any of the writers of the
New Testament, believed in and taught the existence of a personal Devil, of angels good or bad, of demons who possessed
the bodies of men? and do you yourselves believe the existence
of a personal Devil, of such angels and demons? In special, do
you believe that the angel Gabriel appeared to Zacharias and to
the Virgin Mary, and uttered exactly those words ascribed to
hitn in the third Gospel?
23. Do you believe that the writers of the four Gospels and
the book of Acts never mingled mythical, poetical, or legendary
matter in their compositions; that they never made a mistake in
a matter of fact; and that they have, in all cases, reported the
words and actions of Jesus with entire and perfect accuracy?
24. Do you believe the miracles related in the book of Acts?
-for example, the miraculous inspiration of the apostles at
Pentecost; the cures effected by Peter, his vision, his miraculous deliverance from prison "by the angel of the Lord;" the
miraculous death of Ananias and Sapphira; the miraculous conversion of Paul; that diseased persons were cured by handkerchiefs and aprons brought to them from Paul; and that he and
Stephen actually, and with the body's eye, saw Jesus Christ, an
actual object exterior to themselves?
25. Do you believe that Peter, in the Acts, correctly explains
certain passages of the Old Testament as referring to Jesus of
Nazareth, his sufferings, death, and resurrection; that Jesus
himself, -if the Gospels truly represent his words,-in all cases,
applies the language of the Old Testament to himself, in its




THE COXFLZCT REN EWED.                  229
proper and legitimate meaning? WVas he never mistaken in this
matter? or have the passages of the Old Testament many
meanings?
26. Do you think that a belief in the miraculous inspiration
of all or any of the writers of the Old Testament or New Testament; that a belief in all or any of the miracles therein mentioned; that a belief in the miraculous birth, life, resurrection,
and ascension of Jesus; that a belief in his miraculous, universal, and infallible inspiration, - is essential to a perfect Christian
character, to salvation and acceptance with God, or even to participation in the Christian name? and if so, what doctrine of
morality or religion really and necessarily rests, in whole or in
part, on such a belief?
27. Do you believe that the two ordinances - Baptism and
the Lord's Supper - are, in themselves, essential, necessary, and
of primary importance as ends, valuable for their own sakes? or
that they are helfps and maunizs for the formation of the Christian
character, and therefore valuable only so far as they help to form
that character?
28. Do you think it wrong or unchristian in another to abandon and expose what he deems a popular error, or to embrace and
proclaim an unpopular truth? Do you count yourselves, theoretically, to have attained all religious and theological truth, and to
have retained no error in your own creed, so that it is wholly
unnecessary for you, on the one hand, to re-examine your own
opinions, or, on the other, to search farther for light and truth?
or do you think yourselves competent, without such search or
such examination, to pronounce a man an infidel, and no Christian, solely because he believes many things in theology which
you reject, and rejects some things which you believe?
Gentlemen, you have yourselves constrained me to write this
letter. I write to you in this open way; for I wish that the pub.
lic may understand your opinions as well as my own. I beg you
will give your serious attention to the above questions, and
return me a public answer, not circuitously, but in a straightforward, manly way, and at your earliest convenience. I have at
various times, as distinctly as possible, set forth my own views;
and as you have publicly placed yourselves in a hostile attitude to me, as some of you have done all in their power to disown me, and as they have done this partly on account of my
20




230             THEODORE PARKER.
alleged heresies, it is but due to yourselves to open the gospel
according to the Boston Association, give the public an opportunity to take the length and breadth of your standard of Unitarian orthodoxy, and tell us all what you really think on the
points above mentioned. Then you and I shall know in what
we differ: there will be a clear field before us; and, if we are
doomed to contend, we shall not fight in the dark. I have
invited your learned attention to matters on which it is supposed
that you have inquired and made up your mind, and that you are
entirely agreed among yourselves, and yet that you differ most
widely from me. I have not, however, touched the great philosophical questions which lie at the bottom of all theology,
because I do not understand that you have yourselves raised
these questions, or consciously and distinctly joined issue upon
them with me. Gentlemen, you are men of leisure, and I am
busied with numerous cares; you are safe in your multitude
of council, while I have comparatively none to advise with. But
notwithstanding these advantages, so eminently on your side, I
have not feared to descend into the arena, and, looking only for
the truth, to write you this letter. I shall pause, impatient for
your reply; and with hearty wishes for your continued prosperity, your increased usefulness, and growth alike in all Christian
virtues and every manly grace, I remain, gentlemen,
Your obedient servant,
THEODORE PARKER.
WEST ROXBURY, March 20, i845.
Mr. Parker's arrangement with his Boston friends contemplated a Sunday-morning service at the Melodeon for
a year; the pulpit at West Roxbury being temporarily
filled by substitutes, he still having his residence there,
and maintaining pastoral relations with the people. The
Boston preaching was regarded as an experiment; but it
was so prosperous, that, before the year had elapsed, a
permanent settlement was decided on and effected.  On
the I3th of December, i845, an invitation from the Boston Society to become their minister was accepted. On
the 3d of January, I846, the position at West Roxbury
was resigned in a tenderly-worded letter, and the new re



THE C0NF I C T R E NE WE D.          23 I
lation taken up. Signal success had attended the preaching at the Melodeon. The hall was filled every Sunday
morning with earnest listeners, humble people in the main,
but intelligent, eager, determined; who came for spiritual
food, and were sure to get it. They flocked together, individual men and women, from the four corners of the ecclesiastical world; some from the " outer darkness " of the
world non-ecclesiastical.  The circles of fashion were not
largely represented; but the thoughtful, sensitive, and
humane were there in numbers. The seekers, doubters,
reformers, were conspicuously present. It was such an
audience as the preacher liked. It made him feel that
his office was no sinecure, his work no child's play, but a
battle; but it made him feel, too, that he was surrounded
by fellow-laborers and fellow-soldiers.  The attraction
and the inspiration were mutual. The people looked up
to the preacher; the preacher looked into the faces of the
people; and both were cheered.
The installation took place on Jan. 4, i846, according
to the strictest congregational usage, the society themselves taking the pastor of their choice. The ceremony
was of the simplest. There was no charge, the minister's
good conscience being deemed sufficient pledge of his
fidelity; no address to the people, they having already
listened to the voice of their own heart, and being disposed to follow it; no right hand of fellowship, a hundred
hands with souls in them being outstretched to give the
pastor welcome. The minister preached his own sermon,
and prayed his own prayer: none could *do it better.'rhe chairman of the committee made a short statement
of the measures taken in founding the society, and calling
Mr. Parker: then the "exercises" went on. The preacher
announced as the subject of his sermon, "The Idea of a
Christian Church."  Let us catch at least the spirit of it;
for it struck thekey-note of his subsequent ministry.  He
took no text, but began as if he meant business, and had
no more than time enough for it.




232            THEODORE PARKER.
The Church was defined as "a body of men and women
united together in a common desire of religious excellence,
and with a common regard for Jesus of Nazareth, regarding him as the noblest example of morality and religion."
"Its essential of substance is the union for the purpose
of cultivating love to God and man; and the essential of
form is the common regard for Jesus, considered as the
highest representation of God that we know."  "It is not
the form, either of ritual or of doctrine, but the spirit,
which constitutes a Christian church. Christianity, to be
perfect and entire, demands a complete manliness, - the
bravest development of the whole man, mind, heart, and
soul. It aims not to destroy the sacred peculiarities of
individual character: it cherishes and develops them in
their perfection."  "A  Christian church should aim to
have its members Christians as Jesus was the Christ, sons
of man as he was, sons of God as much as he."  "If
Jesus were ever mistaken, — as the evangelists make it
appear, — then it is a part of Christianity to avoid his
mistakes, as well as to accept his truths." "It is Christian
to receive all the truths of the Bible; all the truths that are
not in the Bible just as much. It is Christian also to
reject all the errors that come to us from without the Bible
or from within the Bible."  "It is only free men that can
find the truth, love the truth, live the truth. As much
freedom as you shut out, so much falsehood do you shut
in."  "To think truth is the worship of the head; to do
noble works of usefulness and charity is the worship of
the will; to feel love and trust in man and God is the
glad worship of the heart."  "Christianity should be
represented as human, as man's nature in its true greatness."  "The members of a Christian church should be
mindful of one another; they should bear one another's
burdens; they should advise and admonish one another:
the strong should help the weak, the rich the poor."
" The Christian Church should have an action on others




THE CONFLICT RENE WED.               233
out of its pale; should live to see its truths extend;
should be a means of reforming the world after the pattern
of Christian ideas; should bring the sentiments, ideas,
actions of the times to be judged by the universal standard; should measure the sins of commerce, the sins of the
State, by conscience and reason, by the everlasting ideas
on which alone is based the welfare of the world.  A
Christian church should be a society for the promotion of
true sentiments and ideas, for the promotion of good works.
It should lead the movement for the public education of
the people."
"Here are the needy, who ask for justice more than
charity. Every beggar, every pauper, condemns our civilization. Whence come the tenants of our almshouses,
jails, the victims of vice ini all our towns?  Why, from
the lowest ranks of the people, from the poorest and most
ignorant; say, rather, from  the most neglected.  What
have the strong been doing all this while, that the weak
have come to such a state? "
"Does not Christianity say the strong should heiep the
weak?  Does not that mean something?   Every almshouse in Massachusetts shows that the churches have not
done their duty; that the Christians lie lies when they
call Jesus Master, and men brothers.  Every jail is a
monument, on which it is writ in letters of iron that we are
still heathens: and the gallows, black and hideous, the
embodiment of death, the last argument a'Christian'
State offers to the poor wretches it trained up to be criminals, -it stands there as a sign of our infamy; and, while it
lifts its horrid arm to crush the life out of some miserable
man whcse blood cries to God against Cain in the nineteenth century, it lifts the same arm as an index of our
shame."  "Is that all?  Oh, no! Did not Jesus say,' Resist not evil with evil'?  Is not war the worst form of
that evil? and is there on earth a nation so greedy of
war, a nation so reckless of provoking it, one where the
20*




234            THIEODORE PARKER.
wrar-horse so soon conducts his foolish rider into fame
and power?  Is that all? Far from it. Did not Christ
say,' Whatsoever you would that men should do unto you,
do you even so unto them'? And are there not three
million brothers of yours and mine in bondage here, the
hopeless sufferers of a savage doom, debarred the civilization of our age, the barbarians of the nineteenth century, shut out from the pretended religion of Christendom,
the heathens of a Christian land, the slaves of a Christian republic? The Rock of Plymouth, sanctified by the
feet which led a nation's way to Freedom's large estate,
provokes no more voice than the rottenest stone in the
mountains of the West. The Church is dumb, while the
State is only silent. While the servants of the people are
only asleep,' God's ministers' are dead."
"In the midst of all these wrongs and sins, amid popular ignorance, pauperism, crime and war, and slavery too,
is the Church to say nothing, do nothing, nothing for the
good of such as feel the wrong, nothing to save them who
do the wrong? If I thought so, I would never enter the
Church but once again, and then to bow my shoulders to
their manliest work, — to heave down its strong pillars,
arch and dome and roof and wall, steeple and tower,
though, like Samson, I buried myself under the ruins of that
temple which profaned the worship of God most high, of
God most loved. I would do this in the name of man;
in the name of Christ I would do it; yes, in the dear
and blessed name of God."
"The Christian Church should lead the civilization of
the age. It will be in unison with all science; it will not
fear philosophy; it will not lack new truth, daring only to
quote; nor be obliged to sneak behind the inspired words
of old saints as its only fortress, for it will have words
just as truly inspired, dropping from the golden mouths
of saints and prophets now. A church truly Christian
must lead the way in moral enterprises, in every work




THE COVNFLICT RENEWED.             235
which aims directly at the welfare of man. There was a
time when the Christian churches, as a whole, held that
rank. Do they now? Oh, no! -not even the Quakers,
perhaps the last sect that abandoned it. A prophet filled
with love of man and love of God is not therein at home.
I speak a sad truth, and I say it in sorrow.  But look at
the churches of this city: do they lead the Christian
movements of this city,- the temnperance-movement; the
peace-movement; the movement for the freedom of man,
for education; the movement to make society more just,
more wise and good; the great religious movement of
these times? Not at all."
"Christianity is humanity. Christ is the son of man,
the manliest of men; pious and hopeful as a prayer, but
brave as man's most daring thought. He has led the
world in morals and religion for eighteen hundred years,
only because he was the manliest man in it, the humanest
and bravest man in it, and therefore the divinest. He
may lead it eighteen hundred years more.  But the
churches do not lead men therein; for they have not his
spirit, - neither that womanliness that wept over Jerusalem, nor that manliness that drew down fire from heaven to
light the world's altars for well-nigh two thousand years."
"There are many ways in which Christ may be denied:
one is that of the bold blasphemer, who, out of a base
and haughty heart, mocks, scoffing at that manly man, and
spits upon the nobleness of Christ. There are few such
deniers: my heart mourns for them. But they do little
harm. Religion is so dear to men, no scoffing word can
silence that; and the brave soul of this young Nazarene
has made itself so deeply felt, that scorn and mockery of
him are but an icicle held up against the summer's sun.
There is another way to deny him; and that is to call him
Lord, and never do his bidding; to stifle free minds with
his words; and, with the authority of his name, to cloak, to
mantle, screen, and consecrate the follies, errors, sins, of
men. From this we have much to fear."




236            THEODORE PARKER.
"In our day, men have made great advances in science,
commerce, manufactures, in all the arts of life. We need,
therefore, a development of religion corresponding thereto.
Let us have a church in which religion, goodness towards
men, piety towards God, shall be the main thing. Let us
have a degree of that suited to the growth and demands
of this age. Its prayers will be a lifting-up of the hearts
in noble men towards God, in search of truth, goodness,
piety. Its sacraments will be great works of reform, institutions for the comfort and culture of men. If men
were to engage in religion as in commerce, politics, arts;
if the absolute religion, the Christianity of Christ, were applied to life with all the might of this age,- what a result
should we not behold! We should build up a great State,
with unity in the nation, and freedom in the people; a
State where there was honorable work for every hand,
bread for all mouths, clothing for all backs, culture for
every mind, and love and faith in every heart. Truth
would be our sermon; works of daily duty would be our
sacrament. Prophets inspired of God would minister the
Word, and Piety send up her psalm of prayer, sweet in its
notes, and joyfully prolonged. The noblest monument to
Christ, the fairest trophy of religion, is a noble people,
where all are well fed and clad, industrious, free, educated, manly, pious, wise, and good."
Brave words are common in ordination-sermons, but seldom are prophetic of brave deeds. In this case they were.
The minister of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society meant to carry out, if possible, what he foreshadowed.
In a letter to Joseph H. Allen in I849 he says, " Our
church in Boston attend a little to the humanities in an
ecclesiastical sense; not much, for we are poor. We have
a Committee of Benevolent Action, who are the almoners
of the society. Twice a year we take up a collection for
the poor. Once a fortnight the committee meet in the
season from October to May, and consult about cases, &c.




THE CONFLICT RENE EWED.              237
They keep a record of their doings, and are eminently useful. They find places for men, women, and children; and
the blessing of such as are ready to perish falls upon them.
Besides that, the members of the society are almost all
engaged in some of the great reforms; e.g., antislavery,
temperance, prisons, &c. But we have no organized ecclesiastical action in these matters; I wish we had: but I
have not time for all things of that sort. I once hoped to
have a'committee on each of these topics, to report annually to the society the condition of each of these reforms.
Then such as liked one, and not another, could work in
their own way. But perhaps this is better done as it is;
each man connecting himself as he sees fit, without any
ecclesiastical organization about it." The Sunday school
was not successful, although he always attended personally,
and talked pleasantly to the children, telling them a story
or a parable. Sunday schools rarely prosper in cities;
never, probably, in intelligent congregations that choose to
teach their own children, and improve their Sunday leisure in their own way.  The Saturday-afternoon class
for young women did better. The women manifested even
an unusual desire to be considered young: mothers and
daughters sat side by side like sisters. The minister excluded none. He wanted the minds, not the years. He
welcomed all to the best he had, and introduced all to the
best they had themselves, with singular skill and delicacy
drawing them out to speak. He found, on trial, that the
least severe and systematical method was the best; but
he never allowed the conversation to run into gossip or
inane generalities. The subjects were large and various,
but were made pointed and kept vital by the pastor's
watchful mind, which made every question keen, and
every answer pertinent. The tone of seriousness was never
lost. " Mr. Parker," said one of the less astute and sensitive of the company, "what is that feeling which makes
one person so devoted to another that she will cling to




238             THEODORE PARATER.
him through every thing, even drunkenness? " -"I cannot
tellyozL."-" But you believe in it; do you not? "- "Izdeed
Ido."  He took great pleasure in these meetings; was at
much pains to be present; and would hurry home from lecturing expeditions in order not to miss them. They were
continued for several years, and covered important fields
of thought, ethical, social, and religious. The question of
education in its varying aspects occupied a whole winter;
the capacities and duties of women came in for their share
of consideration; right habits of reading and listening were
inculcated; the importance of thoroughness and exactness
was urged on the young in regard to their mental operations; the influence of sickness, misfortune, calamity, on
character, were subjects discussed.
The public Sunday-afternoon discussions proved unmanageable through the presence of the arch-fiend who goes
about in the plausible guise of prophet, reformer, or saint,
and lifts up a shrill, inopportune voice, to the discomfiture of chairman and listeners.  He is deaf to argument
and entreaty. The voice of the presiding officer has no
subduing spell. The policeman alone is potent to expel
the intruder; but the apostle of the free spirit stultifies
himself by an appeal to force, and Mr. Parker was compelled to retire to private quarters.
To organize a society in a city is never easy. There
are too many occupations; the workers are all overworked
in other ways; the parish method is loose and slow;
things worth doing are best done in detail, by individuals
active in their own places; the main direction and impulse
come from the minister, who feels it to be an encumbrance
and a waste of effort; the machinery is out of all proportion to the achievement; the ropes creak, the pulleys
groan.  The best-intentioned pastor confesses at length
that the effort of combining the various elements of his
society for social purposes is more exhausting than profitable. If anybody could make such operations successful,




THE CONFLICT RENE   WED.               239
Theodore Parker could; but he boasted of no triumph.
He was invited to Boston as a preacher. The public.
were interested in his theological opinions.  His friends
wanted his thought on religious themes. His battle with
the churches had made him famous. The hall was opened
as an arena for intellectual conflict, not as a room for
conference-meetings, or an apartment for a Sunday school.
He might be a pastor in many ways, a teacher in private as
much as he would; but before the world he stood as a
prophet, the inaugurator of a new religious movement, the
preacher of a new reform, in the line of Luther's, but
deeper.
The society was not rich. Radicalism and riches have
not yet formed alliance: a generation ago, the connection
was exceedingly loose. The following note tells a story
common enough on one side, not so common on the
other:
BOSTON, Oct. 30, I847.
MY DEAR SIR, — Last Sunday I learned that the financial
condition of our society was neither prosperous nor hopeful;
indeed, that we are four hundred dollars in debt. I think I
can help you a little in this difficulty, though not much of a
business-man; and accordingly I propose, that, for the year
I848, my salary should be, not two thousand dollars, but sixteen hundred. I can easily make up the other four hundred
dollars by some other labor, and then the church will not be
burthened. I beg you to present this proposal to the rest of
the committee as one cheerfully made on my part, at the same
time asking them izot to mention it to other members of the
society.
Believe me, dear sir, truly your friend,
THEO. PARKER.
To the Treasurer of the 28th Congregational Society.
This might have been the first, but it was not the last
time that the devoted minister took less than was offered.
The clerical calling is rarely lucrative. With him it was




240             THEODORE PARKER.
impoverishing; for it cost him a good deal more than it.brought him, even in money. Had he been a hireling
priest, he would have kept nearer the flesh-pots. But the
Master he followed rated hireling shepherds among thieves
and robbers.
This chapter may close with the well-known sonnet,
which presents the standard he aimed at, and conveys the
spirit in which he meant to labor: —
"Dear Jesus, were thy spirit now on earth,
Where thou hast toiled and wept a world to win,
What vast ideas would sudden come to birth!
What strong endeavors'gainst o'ermastering sin!
Thy blest beatitudes again thou'dst speak;
And, with deep-hearted words that smite like fire,
W\ouldst thou rebuke the oppressors of the weak.
But, turning thence to prophets that aspire,
How wouldst thou cheer the souls that seek to save
Their brothers smarting'neath a despot's rod;
To lift the poor, the fallen, and the slave,
And lead them all alive to worship God!
Bigots wouldst thou refuse that hindering stand,
But send thy gospel-fraught apostles conquering through the
land."




CHAPTER XI.
THE PASTOR.
IN January, I847, Mr. Parker removed from West Roxbury, where he had been living till now, to Boston. A
house in Exeter Place — a little court, so near to Essex
Street that his yard was adjacent to that of his friend
Wendell Phillips —was provided for him. The upper
floor wias thrown into one room for a library. In this house
he lived till his last sickness took him away: there his
widow resides still, though the quiet of the spot is invaded
by business. The household consisted of himself and his
wife, "whose domestic name is Bear, or Bearsie, and who,
as usual, is nearly the opposite of her husband, except in
the matter of pzilantjzrojpy; " a young man by the name
of Cabot, one and twenty years old, an orphan, brought up
by Mr. and Mrs. Parker from childhood, and treated by
them as a sort of nephew; and Miss Stevenson, " a woman
of fine talents and culture, interested in all the literatures
and humanities."  The entire house was given to hospitality. The table always looked as if it expected guests.
The parlors had the air of talking-places, well arranged
and habitually used for the purpose. The spare bed was
always ready for an occupant, and often had a friendless
wanderer from a foreign shore. The library was a confessional as well as a study: this room, airy, light, and pleasant, was lined with books in plain cases, unprotected
by obtrusive glass. Books occupied capacious stands in
2I                         24I




242             THEODORE PARKER.
the centre of the apartment; books were piled on the
desk and floor. There was but one table,- a writing-table,
with drawers and extension-leaves, of the common officepattern. A Parian head of the Chri3t, and a bronze statue
of Spartacuts, ornamented the ledge: sundry emblematical
bears, in fanciful shapes of wood or metal, assisted in its
decoration. The writer sat in a cane chair: a sofa close
by was for visitors.  A vase of flowers usually stood near
the bust of Jesus. Flowers were in the southern windows,
placed there by gentle hands, and faithfully tended by
himself. Two' ivy-plants, representative of two sisters,
intwined their arms and mingled their leaves at the window-frames. Every morning he watered them, and trained
their growing tendrils.
Mr. Parker's feeling for flowers was as delicate as his
knowledge of them. In the country they were his companions, in the city his joy. He would never allow his
flowers to be thrown away because they were faded. The
drooping or shrivelled petals falling off to give place to
the seed-vessel were as beautiful to him in idea as the
unfolding or ripened bud. Standing one day in his drawing-room at a table covered with the earliest spring-flowers,
- flowers which bloomed in his parlor simultaneously with
their unfolding in the sheltered nook of field or wood, -
a lady took up a bunch of hepaticas, saying it was one of
her favorites.  "Why?" he asked': "it has no perfume."
"' But think where it grows," she replied: " out of the dead
leaves of the past year."  He started a little; an emotion
passed over his face: but he said nothing. The hepatica
had a deeper root in his affection after that.  A vase of
flowers stood on his pulpit, - the wild flowers in their season, cultivated flowers always, -placed there by friends in
the parish. Their beauty and fragrance crept into sermon
and prayer. Having thus served in the worship of the
morning, they went in the afternoon to the chambers of
the sorrowing and the sick to fulfil the other divine duty




THE PASTOR.                    243
of love. His love for the wild flowers was almost a passion: he watched for their annual return, and knew where,
for miles around, he should find their first blooming.
Every year he went to Lexington to gather the earliest
violets on his mother's grave. In plucking wild flowers,
he always refrained from taking many from one locality,
lest he should injure the future growth; and there were
friends of his to whom he would not betray the haunts he
well knew of some of the shyest kinds, lest they should
exercise on them their propensity for gathering a great
quantity. He appreciated the gift of flowers. The friend
who had always been responsible for those on the pulpit
sent to New York, when he was to sail thence for Havana,
an order for a bouquet to be placed in his stateroom.
From Nassau, where the steamer touched for a few hours,
he sent back to her a pencilled note, enclosing a Nassau
rose: -
" Next week I hope to hear the whippoorwill, and see bobolink; to walk to my old haunts in the woods, and gather my old
and favorite flowers, -the arellhusa, side-saddle, and lady's-sliPper, not forgetting the little dear polygalla. Dear me, how much
the woods and meadows of Spring Street have been to me!
Well, let me learn yet more. Thou, Father, art nearer me in
the woods, the fields, than elsewhere. I see why men need
their conferences and prayer-meetings in the city, while in the
country they are an interruption."
The following sonnet is from the journal:TO ONE WHO SENT ME FLOWERS ON CHRISTMAS DAY, AND I
KNEW NOT WHENCE THEY CAME.
Dear child unknown, there came thy Christmas-flowers,
A bloom exotic'mid December's snow,
Cheering my heart yet more in these glad hours,
When nought abroad save piety dares blow.
And yet, my friend, amid a heavier snow,
A sweeter flower thyself hast been to me.'Mid other storms, and in a wintrier woe,




244              THEODORE PARKCER.
My flower-glad eyes were satisfied with thee.
Thy comfort brought into my bosom glee,
Yea, confidence and trust thy look did lend,
When else in vain I sought tranquillity.
Thus daughter, sister, mother, wife, and friend,
To one long nursed in grief's perplexity,
Little know'st thou what healing cheer thy words could send,
DEC. 27, I849.
Thus with the humblest creatures the pastorate began;
but it did not cease with them.
MAY I9, 1848.
It has been one of the beautiful days we sometimes have
in May. It is summer come in without ringing at the door.
The thermometer says 9go0 in the shade; yet all the morning
the weather was perfect. Oh, how bright the sky was! and so
deep the blue! Then the grass on the Common was so green,
and the children so happy, and the dogs so delighted with their
swim in the Frog Pond! It did me good to see such a day. I
feel in love with all creatures on such a day: and such as I
love most, I feel quite tender to; I long for their presence.
For, when I have any thing so good as existence to-day, I want
to share it with all I love.
In the winters of heavy snow he kept a little corn-crib
in his library, and regularly fed at the window-sill the city
pigeons deprived of their street-food.  They soon found
where breakfast was to be had, and flocked daily to the
window; while he, with delight, watched them as they cooed
and quarrelled, and hustled each  other, and sidewise
nodded through the pane at him. At table, in a summer
boarding-place, a thoughtless mother told how merry her
little boy was over a grasshopper in the kitchen, which was
making ineffectual struggles to escape from  a string by
which she had fastened it to the table for the child's amusement.  A blush of indignation and pain passed over his
face as she spoke. The next moment he was out on the
grass, watching his rescued captive as it skipped away.
Friend he was of the insect, and of every thing else that
needed a helper.




THE PASTOR.                  245
He was a providence to fretful children in the railwaycars with his bag of sugar-plums, and to elder children
without number. From his eighteenth year, says one who
knew him well, there was never a time when he was not
giving to some young person the means for education.
Many a youth struggling into college or through it felt the
pressure of his strong uplifting arm, often without knowing
whence the help came. Those of his parish in West Roxbury he stimulated to study by giving them  his precious
time, correcting their attempts at composition in the most
attractive way. "Don't write about nightingales, my child:
listen to the robin and the blue-bird in our fields." Young
girls without means of obtaining a superior education,
while there were no State normal schools within reach, received his instruction, often when his busy brain was overtasked with study and care. Nor did he wait for their
application, but with exploring kindness sought out those
whom he could help, and gave aid in a spirit so brotherly
that it could not be refused. The president of Harvard
College had a standing request to let him know of any
deserving youth whom a little money would help. He
counted it a privilege to pay the bills of an incipient
scholar. No devotion to his studies ever led him to disregard an appeal for assistance, from whatever quarter. He
never seemed to feel that there he had any rights which
man, woman, or child, black or white, was bound to respect,
but voluntarily tied himself hand and foot, and laid himself
smiling on the altar of self-sacrifice. Just as he might be
pouring out upon the paper the full flow of his thoughts, a
tap at the library-door, answered by the ready " Come! "
would bring in some unknown visitor. The pen was quietly
dipped into the sponge-cup; the India cane-chair slipped
round from the desk to the sofa, where the comer was
invited to sit; while the genial "What can I do for you? "
uttered as quietly as if no torrent had been checked in
its course, put the two into harmonious relations.
21*




246            THEODORE PARKER.
And what a multitude came to him with their private
affairs, domestic and personal! A young Scotchman with
a general letter "to some Christian minister in America,"
seeking employment in his handicraft, is told that the man
most likely to help him lives at No. I, Exeter Place. The
Methodist minister from the country, seeking literary help,
receives it abundantly. A husband and a wife, each without the other's knowledge, come to seek counsel in mutual
estrangement, and learn long afterwards whose wise advice
it was that made them friends again. The man of culture
and wealth who would not be seen at Music Hall goes to
its preacher for consolation in his hour of affliction.
Young people with noble aspirations and stifling surroundings look to him for guidance to congenial activities. The
selfish intruder with private axe to grind; the ripe scholar,
wishing to verify a quotation from a classic; the well-meaning revivalist, who would pray with him then and there for
his immediate conversion, and was courteously permitted to
try; the bully, who, believing himself aimed at in a public
speech, ascended the stairs breathing vengeance, knocked
at the door with the cane he intended using on the person
of the occupant, but, forgetting his wrath in the calm presence, went subdued away; the doctor of divinity, wise and
revered, wanting to see the man who had done such true
work in the temperance cause; the young clergyman soliciting his aid in recovering a faithless husband whose desolated wife was sure that Mr. Parker could reach the
delinquent; anxious mothers seeking counsel about their
children from the man whose lifelong grief was his childlessness; public men to consult him on the moral bearings
of their official action; chairmen of committees needing a
skilful pen to write their reports; the fugitive slave hastening to a way-station, or perhaps a terminus of the "underground railroad;" a friend, bringing the first hepatica
or the latest fringed gentian for the writing-table; a
little pet to play an hour with the toys in "Parkie's"




TIlE PASTOR.                  24'
bureau, put there for the children's amusement; a Baptist
clergyman with a polemical manuscript to be revised for
the press; a young aspirant for literary fame, with verses
to be criticised, or a paper whose eager craving for a magazine he was expected to satisfy, - these are authentic
caises of visitation, specimens of whole classes of visitants,
against whom he never shut the door. They consumed
the time, but never seemed to exhaust the patience, of this
most hospitable of minds. He had enough of that for the
maiden's peevish complaint, for the enthusiast's dream of
a new religion, for the Millerite's vision of the second
coming, and for the fanatic's howl over the sins of society;
and, before the infliction was at the foot of the first flight
of stairs, the swift pen had taken up the unfinished sentence, and was speeding along the page as if there had
been no pause in its work. He was the universal pastor,
the shepherd of the forsaken sheep.  A  company of
friends had planned a journey to Dublin, N.H., for the
man overworked and sick; but as he sat at dinner on
Sunday, the day before the starting, a black woman, poor
of course, and a stranger, came and asked him to attend
the funeral of her child on the Tuesday. He let the journey pass without hesitation, abandoned it, and did as the
suppliant desired. He visited prisons, and comforted such
as were under condemnation.
The writer of this biography has received fresh testimonies to his kind thoughtfulness; the following, for instance, from a young student, son of his valued friend, S.
J. May: " Established in Cambridge, he at once extended
to me that friendship father and mother valued so much,
and made me familiarly welcome in his quiet, pleasant
home, and conscious that he was watching over me with
an unintrusive fatherly care. He constantly inquired as to
my progress in study, discussed matters on which I was
engaged, and advised me both in reference to them and
to the homelier subjects of my health and comfort. I can




248            THEOODORE PARKER.
hear hini coming down stairs, with his tread so firm yet
light, two steps at a time, from his study, humming or
whistling some little quiet strain; and then came his hearty
hand-shake, and sweet smile, and cordial greeting, in that
voice with something suggesting gruffness, yet so gentle as
to be musical. There was never a kinder voice.
"His meals used always to be exceedingly simple and
light. But I remember, that, when he discovered I had
planned a system of diet too meagre, he remarked it, and
gave me good counsel in regard to more generous food.
So, discovering that I was sleeping, for economy's sake,
on a husk mattress, he stopped me one evening as he was
going up stairs, thrust into my hand a bill, and charged
me to go at once and get a hair mattress. Every year,
knowing that my father's means were small, he sent a
considerable check to me to help pay my college-bills. I
believe he did the same for more than one of the young
men in college, whom he had taken likewise under his
fatherly care.
"The first Christmas after I entered college, I found a
package waiting for me at a friend's office. It contained
a costly dictionary of mythology and biography, with only
this line:'Dear Jo, this book is from one who loves
your father very much, and hopes to like you equally well.
So be a good boy.'
" Of all influences whatever which have tended to develop
in me the rc/ziiozis sentiment, the influence of his character, preaching, and prayers, was altogether and peculiarly
pre-eminent; it stands out in my consciousness distinct
from all others; and it was the influence of character, of
which preaching and prayers were only the expression."
A young girl who had listened to Mr. Parker, being
about to leave home alone for the first time in her life to
take charge of a district-school in Pennsylvania, called
with her father to say good-by, and thank him for what he
had done for her. Taking from the table at his elbow the




THE PASTOR.                  249
volume of "Ten Sermons," then recently published, he
wrote her name with his own, and his good wishes for her;
then, with a kiss and a blessing, sent the maiden happy
away.
A young woman called on the preacher to borrow a sermon, a passage whereof had pleased her especially. He
was not at home. Two days afterward, she met him. He
had returned her call, and, not finding her in, had left a
book for her. He now lent her Herbert's " Poems," which
he was preparing to edit. Subsequently he corresponded
with her, sent books to her into the country, and gave
her the use of his library when she was in the city, requesting her to send him abstracts and criticisms of the books
she read, and descriptions of the people she met.
The correspondence with this lady, covering a period of
eleven years, would make an interesting collection of itself. Her letters must have been brilliant, if, as he said
of them, "They are as good as Bettine's to Goethe, without the lies."
The long arm befriended people across the sea. The
refugee from Germany or Switzerland saw his beckoning
hand. The foreign scholar was indebted to him for shelter and employment. He exerted himself to find publishers for unrecognized works, and to make good terms for
needy authors who had no name. The exile knew where
to come for help of all kinds. Purse, mind, heart, were all
open. He had no theories that prevented him from
observing the apostolic precept, " Bear ye one another's
burdens."  The strong man helped the weak in the human
way until social science should find a better. Such notes
as the following are not infrequent in the journal:ADVENTURES OF A DAY.
"After attending to numerous little matters belonging to new
housekeeping, I sat down to complete my sermon; and there
came,




250             THEODORE  PARKER.
" I. A black man -a quite worthy one- for some pecuniary
aid. He is a trader in new and second-hand clothes. Borro~ws
money sometimes. Commonly pays one-fourth of a cent a day
on a dollar, - ninety-one per cent a year; sometimes one-half of
a cent, - equal to a hundred and eighty-two per cent a year. I
could not help him, being myself out of money; but will do what
I can.
" 2. An Orthodox minister from Ohio, seeking for aid to erect
a free church in his State. He wants five thousand dollars.
He seems a good man, pious in my sense of the word, and
moral too. With him was another man from the same place,
who said little.
"3. Came a clergyman to talk about the Zoroastrian doctrine
of the immortality of the soul, and to get Oporin's'De Immortalitate Mortalium' which I had imported for him. Alemz.He will have the' Dabistan.'
" 4. Silas Lamson, with his full beard and white garments.
He has two machines which he wished me to look at. They
are to facilitate spading, ploughing, &c. He wants to get them
before the Exhibition at New York.
" 5. Mrs. M    was here relative to Ned and the medicine
we sent him yesterday.
" 6. Greeley Curtis, just from Rome, and now for California,
came. I have not seen him in several years. He worked his
passage to and from Italy, and will work it famously through
the world. A brave, good fellow.' 7. Dear Mrs. Russell came at five, and staid till nine.
She consecrated the first introduction of the gas into the house:
so the light of the house and the light of the heart burns at the
same time. We took tea by the gas for the first time; lighted
the parlor and kitchen therewith, and study."
How did such a man find moments for the books that
every steamer brought him from England, France, Germany? He appropriated their contents as if by an instinct.
Chatting, he cut the leaves of the thick octavo, turning
them over slowly one by one. The book is laid down, with
the paper-knife. "You have not read it, surely! "-" Try
me, and judge." He was never caught tripping. The play




THE PAS TOR.                   251
of the mind went on in separate strata, as it were, each
department of thought following its own lines with undisturbed serenity, and leaving its broad trail as it proceeded.
The feelings never interfered with the working of the
strong mechanism.  The powers that received and the
powers that distributed had a perfect understanding; so
that, while the master was temporarily absent on lighter
business, the obedient faculties performed their duty. It
was as if the man had a double consciousness, - one outside of him, and one inside; the one chatting in the street
while the ofher toiled in the office: but neither contradicted what the other said.
"0  thou great Friend to all the sons of men,
Who once appeared in humblest guise below
Sin to rebuke, to break the captive's chain,
To call thy brethren forth from want and woe!
Thee would I sing. Thy truth is still the light
Which guides the nations groping on their way,
Stumbling and falling in disastrous night,
Yet hoping ever for the perfect day.
Yes, thou art still the life; thou art the way
The holiest know,- light, life, and way of heaven;
And they who dearest hope and deepest pray
Toil by the truth, life, way, that thou hast given;
And in thy name aspiring mortals trust
To uplift their bleeding brothers rescued from the dust."




CHAPTER  XII.
THE PASTOR. -SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE,
THEODORE PARKER tended  flocks on distant hills.
His correspondence shows the extent and the delicacy
of his care. The copied letters and notes of all kinds,
which are but a portion of all he wrote, are contained in
seven bound volumes of quarto size, and number nine
hundred and forty-eight.  Besides these are piles of
manuscript epistles to intimate friends, —to one, ninety
letters and fifty-three notes; to another, thirty-nine letters,
long, and full of various matter. The correspondence
with one dear friend in Europe covers three hundred
pages folio.  In addition to all this, private notes in
great numbers were sent in response to the present
biographer's call. And these are but a part; for many
were not kept at all, many were lost, and many are held
back from all eyes but those to which they were sent.
They are of every conceivable description, and of every
measure of length. Some are treatises on politics, theology, social ethics, philosophy, agriculture; and some are
notes of three lines: but, whether long or short, they contain the writer's peculiar quality. Each had a purpose,
and accomplished it. They were written to statesmen,
politicians, governors, senators, presidents, men of letters,
clergymen, scholars, men of science, historians, teachers,
farmers, trades-people, boys at school, girls at home,
friends in sorrow. The five minutes before dinner or bed,
252




THE PASTOR.                   253
the spare half-hour on a railway-train, between the finishing of one book and the opening of another, were used
in this cordial way. When his intimates were absent, it
was his custom to send them almost daily some word of
greeting, always bright, often humorous, never other than
affectionate. They lie before me now, scores of these
hurried missives, in queer hieroglyphics of pen or pencil,
often quite illegible to unfamiliar eyes, but never so to
the sensitive feeling; for the lovingness burns through
the shapeless words, and communicates itself. If these
papers could be printed, -he in his simple-heartedness
saw no reason why they should not be, - they would do
much more than convince the world that Theodore Parker was one of the tenderest hearts that ever beat, the
truest of friends, the most sympathetic of men; they
would illustrate the beautiful mission of letter-writing,
the loving ministries of note-paper, the sweet uses to
which the spare moments of the busiest day may be devoted, the possibility of making the pen the vehicle of
pure feeling, just sufficiently weighted with thought not to
be evanescent.
Of course, in a volume of these limited dimensions, to
print many letters in full is impossible. The biographer's
wish is to present Theodore Parker, not his literary
remains; and this will best be done by giving specimenletters, and portions of letters, so as to exhibit him in his
several relations to men and women. Those who desire
to read many important letters in full are referred to the
biography by Mr. Weiss, whose selection is as admirable
as it is copious. That I should in some instances print
the same letters that he did is necessary; for we both
have sought the most characteristic ones: but whereas he
took such as were most interesting in themselves, either
on account of the subject or the treatment, the present
biographer has chosen such as best illustrated the texture
and breadth of the writer's sympathies. We will begin
22




254              THEODORE PARKER.
with the most personal and private,  the pastoral epistles, as they may well be called.
To David A. [WVasson.
BOSTON, June 14, I857.
MY DEAR MR. WASSON, - Please tell me what pecuniary
means you have for your journey to Europe. Perhaps my wife
and I can add our two mites thereto. Tell me how you are, and
when you sail.
Faithfully yours,
THEODORE PARKER.
BOSTON, Oct. 26, 1857.
MY DEAR WASSON, - How glad I am to know you are safe
back in New England once more! I have not ceased to think
of you since you left us last May, looking so sick, and yet trying to be so determined. Tell me all aboutyouzrse.f: that is the
matter of interest now. How well are you? Where are you
sick?  What are the symptoms?  What treatment do you
receive? Where shall you pass the winter? Tell me all.
Shall I send you fifty dollars now, or a little later? It shall
be just as you like. At all events, I shail send it.
Thanks for the kind interest you take in me. I shall prize
Dr. Wilkinson's prescription, and never look on the pretty
flower the plant bears without thinking of him. When you
write, thank him kindly from me for his affectionate concern
for me. I think I am now doing pretty well. I can work with
about half of my former powers. Have a trouble in my side,
but hope to outgrow it (!) My brothers and sisters died at about
my age; yet I think I shall go round the " Cape." Give yourself no concern about me: take thouglht for yozurself. German
will do you good if you take it in moderate doses.
My wife and Miss Stevenson both send their love to you and
yours.                 Faithfully,
THEODORE PARKER.
BOSTON, Dec. 5, I857.
MY DEAR WASSON, —Here is a check for fifty dollars,
which please accept with the best good wishes of Mrs. Parker




SPE CITIES OF CORRESPONDENCE.   255
and myself. Let us know how you are in these days. Please
ask your two excellent doctors if electricity would not help
you. Love from Mrs. Parker and Miss Stevenson.
Yours truly and hastily,
THEODORE PARKER.
Rev. Friedrich Mffiinch.
WEST ROXBURY, OCt. 12, 1846
DEAR SIR, - Your letter of Sept. 23 has just come to hand.
I thank you for the frankness with which you speak about religious and theological matters, and rejoice most heartily in your
desires and efforts to restore rational Christianity, which is the
only real Christianity.  I shall be happy to serve you in any
way that is possible. I think your book had better be published at Boston. If you will send me the manuscript, I will do
all in my power to find a publisher, and make no doubt that I
shall succeed: if I cannot, I will return it to you without cost.
But I think the book would sell better, and sooner find a circle
of readers, if you should write a little account of yourself, telling where you were born, educated, &c. It miglht be brief as
the biographical articles in the " Conversations Lexicon."  I think
you need not hesitate to send the manuscript by mail. The
postmaster will tell you how to send it with the least expense.
Then, if there be any profit from the sale, I will take charge of
it, and send the money to you.... I knew Dr. Follen very
well. His wife is a relative of my wife. She has long been my
parishioner, neighbor, and friend. I saw some of Dr. Follen's
relatives -a brother at Zurich, and a sister at Berne - a few years
ago, and prize them highly. I rejoice to find that you are laboring in the great field of rational Christianity, and welcome you
as a brother. I have myself written a little book on that theme.
If you were not so distant, I would send it to you: as it is, I
send only a couple of sermons, which will show you my Standzzuszct and that of the church which I have gathered together in
Boston. The Unitarians as a body have done a great work
already: they have fought against the old Orthodoxy (so called),
against lotlal depravily, the eternal damnation of men, and the
like. Some things I think they have done wrong: much they
have failed to do. Now a new Rich/tzun begins to show itself;
but it finds small favor with the mass of Unitarian clerigy,




256               THEODORE PAR(CER.
though much with the people. This new tendency, I think, is to
do much good. It aims at ABSOLUTE RELIGION, the Christianity
of Christ; takes the Bible as a helper, not as master. I know
none in Germany who exactly repfresents this tendency.  De
Wette, perhaps, comes the nearest to it; but he keejs back a good
deal. I fear, and does not speak out clearly. A merciless warfare is waged by the PEilisterei of the old party in the new
school; but it is fought with very dull weapons, though
5oisozed ones.... When you write, address me, if,you please,
at West Roxb-ury, Mass., near Boston.
Believe me truly your friend,
THEO. PARKER.
To Dr. Fock.
BOSTON, June 27, 1851.
Mv DEAR SIR, - I received your letter of the 27th of May
a fortnight ago, and immediately made inquiries to see what can
be done for you if you should come to America. It will be
difficult for you to find a suitable employment. If you were a
blacksmith, a carpenter, a fiddler, or a beer-house keeper, you
would succeed well enough. But America is not a good country for a theologian or a philosopher.  We have many colleges
in America; but all but one are in the hands of Calvinists, who
would be afraid of you: they would fear your philosophy and
your freedom of thought.  I think it would not be easy to find
a position in any of them. One college (Ucziversil'lt) is in the
hands of the Socinians (Unitarians),  Harvard College, at Cambridge, near Boston; but there is no place vacant there. Still
I may be mistaken about some of the colleges in the western
parts of America. If you come, we will do all that we can for
you; but I am a very unpopular man, and must therefore work
for you in secret.  My theological opinions, and my opposition
to American slavery, have made me so hateful to many here, that
it ootld not be wise inz you to mentionz me as onze of yozurfrieds.
I have lately seen Herr Edouard Pelz, a German who was
driven from Leipzig by the police. He has been in prison in
Prussia for his writings: he has written many little works. He
has been two months at New York, and edits a literary journal.
He thinks, if yozt lave money enozSgh to suzzfort yourself for a
year, tzlt your success is certain. At Boston there are ten




SPE CIM1E1NS OF CORRESPOVNDEVCOE.           257
thousand Germans, with three or four churches, -one Catholic.
At New York there are sixty thousand or seventy thousand, and
in the suburbs of New York (Vorstiddten) thirty thousand or forty
thousand more: so there are not many places in Germany
where you will find so many Germans as these. If you desire
to come to America, you had better land at New York, and not
Boston. It will give me pleasure to be of service to you in any
way, and I will do all that I can to help you if you come; for I
sympathize most deeply with.you and with your unhappy country in her great trial. I would recommend you to write to my
excellent friend Dr. J. G. Fliigel, American consul at Leipzig,
who will give you advice as to the mode of getting to America.
At New York, when you arrive, if you will visit Mr. Rudolph
Garrigue (No. 2, Barclay Street, under the Astor House), bookseller, he will give you information about the Germans in New
York. Please let me know, if you decide to come, in what sizzt
you embark, and at what timze.: then I will do all that I can to
aid you, and may, perhaps, secure you some friends. But your
first year must be a hard one. You do not mention that you
have a wife: if not, your condition will be more fortunate; for a
man alone can endure much.
Believe me faithfully your friend,
THEODORE PARKER.
To Prof. Fel/on.
BOSTON, June I9, I85I.
DEAR SIR, - I am well aware that it is not according to the
etiquette of gentlemen that I should write you a note like this,
after all that you have publicly written about me; but as I
never entertained any unkind feelings towards you, and never
doubted that you were as faithful to your own conscience as I
was to mine, I do not feel that I am doing a wrong to you or
myself in writing what follows. Of course, you will do as you
like about attending to it.
I left a long letter (from Dr. Lobeck to me) with Dr. Walker
to hand to you (for I did feel some scruples in calling upon you
at your house), hoping you would take an interest in a brother
Grecian. His "Book of Ionic Questions" speaks for itself, and
I think you have seen that. Can you help the poor man to any
place where he can get bread for himself, his liebliche Frau
22*




258              THEODORE PARKER.
and cdrei KIider?  It is a hard case, and one that touches
my heart most tenderly. I wish you would inform me if you
can do any thing for him; for I shall write him soon as I can
ascertain what he can do here.
Truly yours,
THEO. PARKER.
To Mr. and JMrs. 7yohn Bigelow, Medford
FRIDAY, Feb. 6, I852.
MY DEAR GOOD FRIENDS, - How much I rejoice with you
in the lne healthy little boy, the little immortal left in your mortal
arms! I rejoice with you with all my heart, and thank you for
letting me know of this new advent, thus making me a partner
in your happiness. I was almost afraid - you had lived so long
in Exeter Place, and been so near a neighbor to us - that your
silver-wedding might be like ours, when it shall come, -the rejoicing of only twuo.
It is my lot to have no little darlings to call my own; yet all
the more I rejoice in the heavenly blessings of my friends.
The thing that I miss most deeply in coming from Roxbury to
Boston is the society of my neighbors' little children, whom I
saw several times a day, and fondled, and carried, and trotted,
and dandled in all sorts of ways, as if they had been my own.
Well, God bless the life that is given, and the life that is
spared, and the life that rejoices in them both!
I thank the new mother for remembering an old friend at
such an hour: so give her my most affectionate greetings, and
believe me
Happily yours,
THEO. PARKER.
To William Stur{gis, Esq.
BOSTON, NTOV. 3T, IS5j.
DEAR SIR, - Fourteen years ago this month, I delivered a
course of lectures on matters pertaining to religion in Boston.
A few minutes before I began to speak, while I felt such agonies
of embarrassment and fear as I hope never to know again, you
came and sat downi beside me, and strengthened me. I have
been thankful ever since; and now beg you to accept the volume
which accompanies this note, with the grateful regards of
Yours truly,
THEO. PARKER.




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.   259
To 7. B. Parker.
BOSTON, April 28, 1853.
DEAR JOHN, - The house will be a nice thing. It is well
to own the house you live in, but not dwelling-houses in general.
But there are several things to be considered. There is, Ist, The
insurance, which is not much at the Mutual; 2d, The cost of
annual repairs; 3d, The fact that the house wears out in perhaps a hundred years, so that you consume one per cent of the
principal a year. All this is to be considered; but you pay for
these in the shape of rent to some other man, who considers all
this when he makes up the rent.  I hope you will buy a nice
house, such as you like, with sun inz t/e kiltchen.  A house on
the south side of the street is worth much more than one on
the north. You want the szun in the back part. Love to all.
Truly yours,
THEO. PARKER.
To Mrs. Martha P. Dingee, York, Penn.
BOSTON, June 27, I856.
MY DEAR MARTHA, - I don't know what to advise Charles.
It seemed to me a little rash on his part to take a farm so early
in life, with so little acquaintance with the country and its ways;
but I suppose he knew better than I. I don't like to advise him
at such a distance, with so little knowledge of the facts. But
one thing I am sure of, -if he goes back to Lexington, he will
dTo not//zzg, aid, tenz years hence, wa/i/ be drivizg some ot/er man's
mi/k-carlfor egihleenz dollars a nzonz/h, writ/h  o chance of anSv
bel/erfor//zine before him for life. I trust he will not waste his
time and money in a visit; and also that he will not return to
live here. It seems so cowardly and unmanly to give up defeated!  The Illinois Company makes good offers; but, if I
were he, I think I should take government land at a dollar and
twenty-five cents the acre, as so many thousands do every yea-.
But I should work for others till I had two things, -1st, a little
experimental knowledge; and, 2d, a little ready money. You see
the Illinois Railroad Company will sell land for five dollars an
acre on credit, or four dollars for cash. It is so with every
thing.  Let him work a few years on wages, and save his money,
and then he can buy land when he will. He can lay by from a




260              THEODORE PARKER.
hundred to a hundred and fifty dollars a year, - say a hundred
and twenty-five dollars. Here, then, is the state of the case if
he puts the money out at interest, seven per cent: —
1857 earns and saves $I25. Puts at interest.
T858  "    C    C   I25. Interest $8.75 equal $133.75.
IS59  "'    "   125.          9.36   "      143.11.
i86o  "         "   125.    C    IO.OI   "    I53.12.
Then on the Ist of January, I86r, he will have $554.98 of hzis
ownz earninzgs and savizgs. With that he can buy land where
he likes, and he will have such experience as enables him to bzuy
nicely. He has made a bad experiment: he must be wiser next
time. But to return to Lexington would be a yet worse experiment: he might as well go into partnership with "' Bije Perry"
at once, as general loafer.
I am glad to see that Charles has improved in his sie7i/zg,
but he still seems to think it a severe task to write a letter, and
so only does it at rare intervals. I see no reason why he should
not become a thriving man.
Now, with many and the kindest regards for yovrself alzd
yours, believe me
Affectionately your uncle,
THEODORE.
To George C. Cabot.
BOSTON, Aug. 24, 1858.
MY DEAR GEORGIE, - Have not seen the old gentleman for
a whole month! Never away from him so long since IS48! I
was quite sorry not to find you the last day I went in town, but
was glad to hear such good things from my wife. Mr. Frays you a large salary. I hope you will be sure to earn and
deserve it all. I have always made it a rule to earn a little more
than I was paid for. But the difficulty with young men often is
to keefp aczd save what they actually receive. Have a good care
of that. You know your fortune depends on your earning and
saving. If I know you, I think you are a very good young man.
I don't know any immoral habit that you have, and I hope I
shall never hear of any. You have an excellent opportunity to
acquire a reasonable fortune. If you conduct well, and save
your money, by the time you are five and twenty you will be




SPECIMrENS  OF CORRESPONDENCE.             261
able to marr3 some suitable young woman whom you love and
who loves you. I don't know who it is: perhaps you do not yet,
but will find out in due time. I am glad you are staying at Mr.
Thayer's to take care of the house and the girls. I trust you
will prove worthy of the confidence they place in you. Innocent young people can have a good time together when the unworthy must not be trusted. It is my birthday. I am forty-eight
years old! - more than twice as old as you. When you are as
old, I hope you will be a better and more useful man. I shall be
at home next Thursday afternoon, I think; but am not quite sure.
Affectionately yours,        T. P.
WEST ROXBURY, April I7, I846.
MY DEAR LITTLE NIECE, - I thank you for your note asking my advice; and will give it, as you ask me. I would advise
you by all means to do just as you think proper and right. But,
if you were I, you would go without any hesitation. The advanta, ges for you are very great. To go amongst strangers is one
of the best things which could happen to you. You will see a
beautiful country, new forms of society, and a whole set of new
things. It will give you new ideas, make you more of a woman,
and be an exceeding great help to you. You know the proverb,
" Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits;" and there is a
great deal of truth in it. I hope you will go.  Surely you will,
if you have any spirit of enterprise in you; and I think you have
a good deal of it, and hope to see more. Don't be afraid of
getting out of the reach of your mother's apron-strings.  You
can walk alone now, and it will do you good to walk alone.
You may feel a little homesick for a week or so, but will soon
ft;zd new friends, or nmake them. Write me as soon as you
make up your mind, and tell me when you shall go. If possible,
I will go there with you, see you comfortably settled and fixed
down, and will then as now wish you all manner of pleasant
things: so believe me
Truly your affectionate uncle,        T.
A Friendly Letter of Advice.
BOSTON, Feb. 2, 1853.
DEAR SIR, - I do think you did wrong to be married under
such circumstances.  I think it was not wise to leave -    for a




262              THEODORE PARKIER.
wider field, when no wider one was in sight; and you left a certainty for an uncertainty. It seems to me it would not be a
very difficult thing for a hearty young man, with good abilities
and good courage and a good heart, to pay off a few hundred
dollars, or a few thousand dollars even, if he is industrious and
economical. I don't wonder at the feeling you speak of in  -.
I hope you are not going to break poor.-'s heart with sorrow,
disappointment, and chagrin. She is your wife: you are bound
to treat her more tenderly than yourself; to sacrifice your own personal predilections for her. You say she must have a husband
whom she can admaire and be fjroud of. It is for you to give
her such a husband; to make such a husband for her out of
yourself. It is not manly in you to be out of employment.
There is a deal of work to be done in the ministry, in the Unitarian ministry: there was never such a time for a real living
man to do a manly work. It is much easier now than ten, or
eight, or even six years ago. There are more parishes vacant,
looking for earnest and religious men.- There was never a time
when idleness in a minister was such a stigma and reproach.
If you have any conscience in you, you will work; if you -have
any manhood in you, you will work. Not only is there the
general call of duty addressing every religious man, but the
special call of duty to you as a husband; and this also is
-the voice of God. You can find an opportunity to preach, I
doubt not. Let the new responsibilities of marriage stir you to
fresh efforts. I beg you not to put the self-denial on -, but
to take that to yourself. You are young and vigorous. The
world is before you, and a noble and religious career of honorable service if you will.
Yours truly,
THEO. PARKER.
WEST RoXBURY, July Io, IS47.
MY DEAR PATIENCE, - I have not had a convenient opportunity to write you before. In your note you do not give me very
distinctly to understand why you expect to lose the love and
affection of your friends. It seems to me that you may " study
the laws of the Spirit," and live the life of the Spirit, without losing the affection, or even the sympathy, of your friends. The laws
of the Spirit may be as well studied in one place, or one sphere




SPECINMENS OF CORRESPONDEIVCE.  263
of life, as another. Living itself affords the material of that
study; and the study consists in reflecting on the material thus
given. But perhaps you are looking for some new form of
activity in which to work. I am no judge of that: you must
determine that for yourself. But I hope you will not mistake
any transient impulse, which has its origin in some physical
derangement, for a serious monition of a lasting duty. I know
you will be faithful to your own convictions of duty: my only
fear is that you should decide without due deliberation, and without a complete understanding of your own case. Then, of course,
the decision will be incorrect, and the result vanity and vexation
of spirit. ~Would not it be well to state distinctly to yourself
what it is that you wish to do, and how you wish to do it i
then you will know exactly what you are about, and not "fight
as one that beateth the air."
I know you will be true to yourself, but only fear lest you
should not always consult your /pernaznelzt self, but only a
fleeting emotion of the day or the night. If I can ever be of
any help to you, you know it will give me great pleasure to be
so. So, dear Patience,
Farewell!                   T. P.
WEST ROXBURY, Feb. 7, I845.
MY DEAR PATIENCE, - I thank you for your kind and seasonable letter. It came, as your letters always come, at the
right time. I have delayed a little while my reply, because I
have been too much occupied to find time to write any letters
but the most urgent: so you will excuse my delay with the same
charity you have always extended to me.
What you say of the love of God is true and beautiful. I
understand your feelings and your experience; at least, I think
so. No one can dwell too deeply in the love of God; for it is the
noblest sentiment we are capable of feeling; and it leads out to
a love of truth, goodness, usefulness, loveliness; for these are
among the modes in which we conceive of God. It leads, therefore, in a sound and healthy state of mind, to a life full of
truth, goodness, usefulness, and loveliness. But there is always
a danger that such as dwell in this sentiment should lose themselves in contemplation; become dreamvers, not doers; and so
should be abundant in the blossoms of piety, and yet bring no




264              THEODORE PARKER.
fruit to perfection; so that, when the Lord comes seeking fruit,
he shall find leaves ozly. Now, there is always a strong temptation for a mystical man, and I think still more strong for a
mystical woman, to dwell amid the sentimental flowers of religion,
charmed with their loveliness, and half bewildered with their
perfume, so to say, -a danger lest common sins of the times
should not be thought so sinful and injurious as they really are;
and lest the man should sit clown patient and contented, not
heeding his brother's condition, nor helping him out of the ditch
into which he has fallen. At a certain stage of religious progress we lose sight of the human element; we look perpetually
at the divine; we think God does all; we resign ourselves unconsciously to his will; our own will ceases to be. Many stop there,
and stop in outward inaction; then they become one-sided, and
at length dwindle. But, if a man goes on, he catches sight of the
human again, and does not lose the divine. He serves God
consciously, and knowingly lives in obedience to the Great One.
He ceases to be one-sided, but loves God with all his UNDERSTANDING and REASON, as well as with all his heart. Then,
too, though he loves contemplation none the less, he loves
action all the more. The one lives like a worm in the heart of an
apple,.fattens and grows, and then flies off: the other not only
grows and fattens, but comes out, not a moth, but a bee, and
visits all the flowers of the garden, culling from all its sweets,
but carries off honey for other bees, and builds up the comb, -
the residence of future bees that are to rejoice in his labors. We
must not only ty, but, as we mount up, we must take others on
our wings; for God gives one more strength than the rest only
that he may therewith help the weak. I hope you will one of
these days come and see us, and let us talk with you. I had a
very pleasant conference with Mr. Hall the other day. I wish
there were more such men in pulpits.
Remember me to your parents and sisters, and believe me, as
always,
Truly your friend and brother,
THEO. PARKER.
WEST ROXBURY, OCt. 27, I845.
MY DEAR PATIENCE, - I did not hear of your affliction until
Saturday, or I should have come up to see you instantly. Now I




SPECIMENVS OF CORRESPONDENCE.   265
am obliged to go off for some few days: so I fear I shall not
see you till next week. I hope you not only sustain yourself
with a Christian fortitude, but are able also to comfort your
father, whose afflictions are greater than your own, and your sisters, who naturally will look to you for consolation in this hour
of sorrow.  I know you will be calm, resigned, lying low in the
hand of God. I know you will know that all is for the greatest
good of her that is gone and those she has left behind. I hope
you will be able to cheer hearts which are sadder than your own.
They will see more than y5alzience in you, I doubt not, even resignation, cheerful acquiescence in the will of the Great One, who
always is doing us good, not less when he causes us to weep
than when he makes us smile. I beg you to assure your father
of my sincere sympathy for him in this loss, and my hope that
he will find comfort and peace. Let your sisters see and feel that
you are superior to affliction, and you will gradually take away
the grief of this sudder wound, and at last heal it. I have time
to say no more; for 1 go presently: so good-by!
Sincerely,
THEO. PARKER.
To Miss Ella M. WIZile, Salemn, MIass.
BOSTON, Oct. 12, 1857.
MY DEAR MISS WHITE,- It gave me great pleasure to
receive your letter, which I have just this moment laid aside.
Thank you for the generous feelings you express to me.
Gratitude is one of the rarest as well as fairest of the Christian
virtues. But you need not feel so much towards me; for it
gives me more pleasure to help you a little than it does
you to receive the help. Besides, am I not paying an old
debt? Your father was one of my earliest teachers. HIe put
me upon the study of Latin when I was a little boy, and
took great pains with me.  I must not forget that.  I trust
you will take good care of your health: all your success
will depend upon that.  Don't sacrifice it even to desire
of excellence in your studies. I hope you will take regular
exercise in the open air, and be sure to have warm clothing.
Salem is a damp, chilly, east-windy place, and, I think, not quite
healthy. The more care will be needful on your part.
Where do you go to meeting?  Whom  do you know at
23




266              THEItODORE PA i ZtR R.
Salem? When I visit the town, I shall certainly come and see
you. If you are ever in Boston, both my wife and I shall be
glad to see you at No. I, Exeter Place.
Believe me faithfully your friend,
THEO. PARKER.
To Ifr. Henry A. Wilcox, Mendon, Ill.
Mr. WILCOX.                          BOSTON, Oct. Xo, I856.
Dear Sir, - Your case is a very hard one; but I do not know
what advice to give you. It would be in vain to venture to Boston oi any of the Eastern towns, where the avenues to all kinds
of business are more crowded than with you at the West. I
feel the warmest sympathy with you, and trust that patient
efforts will secure you the victory in the end. There are several
modes which men try to overcome an enemy withal: one is to
knock him down; another to talk him down; but I think the
manly way is to live himeZ down. After a little while, farmers will
sow the wheat which gives the largest crop of the best kind of
grain, and will not care much by what namze it is called. If
Hebrew wheat yields only ten bushels to the acre, and heathen
wheat yields thirty of a better quality, the bad name won't
keep the wheat from the fields.
It is always pleasant to try and live down the evil name which
good deeds bring on a man. You are always sure of the peaceful victory at last.
Believe me yours truly,
THEO. PARKER.
To H A. Wilcox.
Mr. WILCOX.                          BOSTON, April I5, I858.
Dear Sir, - I thank you for your kind letter, but fear yc:r
others must have miscarried; for I have answered all I hr.ve
ever received. You may not have received all my replies. I
am glad you like farming. It is the most natural, and so the
most healthy, of all human employments. Omitting all who die
before twenty years of age, the average age of farmers in Massachusetts, at death, is sixty-four; that of printers, thirty-six.
After they reach the age of majority (twenty-one), the printers
live fifteen years; the farmers, forty-thlree.




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.                267
I am not astonished that you find the head saves the hands. A
man with a good head and no hands at all can direct the muscles
of a thousand men. It is a good profession for one's whole
life. I am sorry to find it is no more popular. In Europe it is
the favorite employment with a great mass of men. It is not
fast enough or noisy enough for the Americans.
I send you a couple of little sermons of mine lately printed,
which please accept with the best wishes of
Yours truly,
THEODORE PARKER.
To Mr. 7ames B. Patterson, Dayton, O.
BOSTON, Feb. 28, 1855.
DEAR YOUNG FRIEND, — I am the person whom you met
in the cars, and parted from at Albany. I sought you in the
cars; but, in the dim light, I failed to find you. I took a good
deal of interest in the bright young face, looking so pure and
hopeful, and thinking, that, some five and twenty years ago, I
was on the same road that you are now. I am sorry that you
have met with the "misfortune" you refer to. It certainly casts a
shade over a young man's prospect for the moment, not for the
day. You have a good start thus far, and seem to have laid
the foundation well. It will be no misfortune, in the end, that
you must get your own education. It will bring out the deep,
manly elements at an earlier period; will make you more
thoughtful when you would else have been more gamesome
and playful. If you are a teacher, you can find much time to
study by yourself. I began to teach when seventeen years old,
and continued it for four winters, working at home on my
father's farm in the other parts of the year. I always found
from eight to ten hours a day for study,.besides the work-hours
in school. Then I taught a high school for three years more,
and kept far ahead of the class in college of which I was a
(nominal) member. You can do all that, and perhaps more.
Perhaps it will be well to pursue the same studies you would
have taken at college, with the addition of such as belong to
your calling as teacher; or you may, perhaps, teach till you
accumulate money enough to go through the college at a later
date. NVo good thilzg is imzifossible to a serious anzd earnzesl
youlzg nzan wit/ glood abilities and good nzoral princziles.




268              7YITE7ODORE PARKERR.
But, above all things, be careful of your health. Your suc.
cess depends on a sounzd body. Do not violate the laws which
God writes in these tables of flesh.
Let me know where you go and what you find to do, and I
will write you again when more at leisure.
Truly your friend,
THEO. PARKER.
To Mliss Abby M. Parker, Savannah, Ga.
BOSTON, Feb. 6, I852.
MY DEAR MISS PARKER, - I am truly obliged to you for
your kind letter. I am glad you have had the opportunity to
visit another land, see other skies, and become acquainted with
forms of social life so unlike ours in New England. The longing for home is natural, and painful too, I know very well; but
it will not be without good results in years to come. It is a
good thing, in the early part-of life, to fill the eye with pictures
of lovely things, -in the North with our shaggy forests, mountains, &c.; in the South with the varied and beautiful vegetation of tropic-lands; in all countries with the stars, the little
flowers, the forms of animals, and the faces of handsome men
and women, especially of children.  All these things help
educate the sense of the beautiful, give delight at the time, and
furnish a world of loveliness for the imagination to wander in
at other times, when there is no object of delight for the
senses, and no special thing to interest the mind. You have
the opportunity to add to your store of such things; and the
absence of society, of near friends, and of books, will force
these things upon your eye, to remain there forever.
I never thought you would like to live at Savannah all your
life; but you will return better in health, I trust, and with the
happy result of your experience. I shall value the flowers
very much which you speak of.  I have heard my friends
speak of the abundance and beauty of the flowers in your
neighborhood. Perhaps you will find it a pleasant thing for
yourself to gather a flower from  each spot you visit, press
it in a book, - putting the date and place in the margin, -- and
so keep a diary of blossoms as the day-book of your travels.
I always do so in my rambles about the world, and find my
flower-books the most valuable records.




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.                269
If you get time, and feel the inclination, I hope you will
write me again; for I love to keep my eye on the minds of my
young friends when they wander off from me. We have had
some things here that would have interested you this winter, -
concerts by the Germanians, the iuztsical Fund Associazion,
&c., and, best of all, six lectures from Mr. Emerson. The
latter you may read some day. Accept my kind and friendly
regards, and believe me
Truly yours,
THEO. PARKER.
To M. A4. Parker.
BOSTON, May x6, I852.
MY DEAR MARTHA,- I was glad to receive your letter,
which has just come to hand; and quite pleased to find you
like your new situation. I am always afraid, in so small a
school, you will not have enough to do. It is better to have
too much than too little. If you have not enough to do, the
mind grows sluggish, and all the faculties deteriorate.
I hope you will improve the opportunity to learn French and
drawing. I would do so by all means. In learning to draw,
do not confine yourself to coyinzZg yprinzs, but draw from
nature also. Hang up a cabbage-leaf or a burdock, with its
side towards you, and draw that; then hang it a little edgewise (so as to see half of its breadth), and then draw again.
I think this will help you much.
I think you need society, the acquaintance of educated and
refined persons. I would take every opportunity to meet such
persons. At York I think you will find many agreeable and
instructive persons.
Shakspeare you will find a mine of beauty and of rich wisdom.
" Hamlet" it will be worth while to read over twenty or thirty
times, till you know it thoroughly, and can repeat all the finest
pieces. If you come in contact with a copy of Byron, you had
better read that carefully; delightedly I know you will.  I
tried to get for you a copy of'" The Cyclopzedia of English Literature" when you went to Pennsylvania; but found none.
Some time, when I see you, I will bring it. I shall not attend
the Convention this year. I wish I could; but I have so much
to do at home, that I have no time for such an expedition this
year.
23*




270 o            THEODORE PARKER.
Give my regards to the WriZghs and the Toawnzsends, and
believe me truly
Your friend,
THEO. PARKER.
To a Young Woman.
BOSTON, Dec. I4, 1855.
MY DEAR LITTLE MAIDEN, -"The course of true love
never did run smooth:" so is it. writ in many a history. This
particular affair may turn out quite different from what it now
appears. There may be ups and downs in a courtship. If
there were not a true congeniality between you, it is fortunate
hle made the discovery so early: by and by it would be more
painful to break off. But, be the future what it may, of this
you are sure, - te love wuhicw/ef/led zie the few  Zonoht/s Twit/ its
/azdsomzeflowers. That leaves a mark, like the traces in the
rocks of New England, which will never be effaced from the
character. I know it is very painful for a young maiden to bear
such disappointments, especially for deep-hearted maidens; but
there is a source of strength and comfort in the religious faculties within you, which will never refuse supply in time of sorest
need. Burnt spots in the woods bear the earliest plants and
most luxuriant and most delicate flowers: so can it be with
you; so I trust it will be. It will always give me pleasure to
see you and hear from you.
Truly yours,
THEO. PARKER.
Extract fromn a Letter.
AUG. 14, I859.
I am glad you are busy with work of the house and
dairy; that you can make good bread (I think it one of the fine
arts), and also good butter. We lived (or staid) ten weeks at
St. Croix, and had never a morsel of tolerable bread. There
are few American women who can make a decent article: many
of them commit the (female) sin against the Holy Ghost continually by transfiguring good meal into bad bread. By famous
I meant eminent (which is in your power), not renowned (which is
both undesirable, and out of your control). I should rather be
eminent for bread and butter than famous for straddling about
on platforms, and making a noise in public meetings, and getting
into the newspapers, as many women do.




SPECIMiEvNS OF CORRESPONDENCE.               271
If you can find a school that you suit, and which suits you,
I would take it; but, if not, I would make the most of duty
which lies about me at home. By and by you will have that
opportunity to be loved which you wish for so much, and perhaps in the most attractive of all forms. But I should not
lightly esteem the purely affectional love of father and mother
for an only daughter, nor cherish romantic nonsense in my
-head. The river of life is not all foam: indeed, froth is a very
small part of it; one, too, which neither waters the meadow, nor
turns the mill, nor adds much to the beauty of the stream.
Books will enliven the else dull hours of winter; and both
strengthen and enrich your mind, if you choose them well.
There must be a plenty of intelligent people in ~, of
your own age, to afford you the company you need. I see not
why you should not be as happy at home as a young maiden
need be. The prose of life is quite as indispensable as the
poetry, and about twenty times greater in quantity. The appletree is in flower a week, in bearing some twenty weeks, and, besides, is still and silent long months, but active all the time....
To Ite Salze.
BOSTON, Sept. io, 1858.
MY DEAR,     Your lot is harder than I fancied; for
I thought your occupation was a fixed fact which would continue, and that Theodore's health was mending, and would
finally be restored. It is indeed very sad to see a boy thus fade
away.  It is natural the old should die: it is against nature
that the young pass off so premature. Still I see no reason
for the foolish melancholy you indulge in, and seem to cherish.
I know not how much of it is constitutional, and so beyond
your control. Still I fear much of it is wilful, and within your
own power: this latter you should check at once, and finally
make way with and end.  It cannot, perhaps, be done by a
direct act of the will, but indirectly by the performance of daily
duties. The common wants of life afford the best opportunities for happiness and noble character. Housekeeping, schoolkeeping, and the like, are the best things for the majority of
women: they are as good as grass for cattle. By and by you
will find a school somewhere. A common school will not be
an unfit place for you to work in. I would seek the highest
I was fit for, and put up with the best I could find.




272              THEODORE PARAKER.
But, for the time, you must, no doubt, stay at home, and do
what you can for your little brother. I trust you will find comfort and satisfaction; but it must come out of your own soul.
Remember me with kind sympathy to your father and mother,
and Theodore too.
Affectionately yours,
THEODORE PARKER.
To W. SiZsbee.
BOSTON, Dec. 4, IS48. - Monday morning.
MY DEAR WILLAM, — I did not know what had befallen
you till late on Saturday, or I should have come instantly to
Salem, not to offer you my conzsolation (I know how poor and
cold that will appear in your case), but to give you my sympathy.
How little did I think, when you were last with us, that so soon
such an affliction would befall you! But, William, you are a
man, and can bear hardness; you are a Christian, and can trust
God with an absolute faith. It is not an evil thing that has
befallen Charlotte. Oh, no, William! it is a good thing: it is
only a hard thing that has befallen you. But why has that come
upon you? Is it a thing infinitely evil to you? Surely not.
Now you will have tears. I know what tears; I know what
grief and rending of the heart. But the tears are not forever:
the heart now rent is to be blessed by that very rending.  I
know there is an ecstasy of grief in spiritual men, finely attuned
by religion, which for a time gives an unnatural calmness and a
beauty of faith not seen or known before. I never could doubt
the Infinite Goodness in times of severest trial.  But that
ecstasy will not last: there come sore days of emptiness, when
we go stooping and feeble, with failing eyes and a hungry
heart. That is the great sorrow, the long- grief. But there is
comfort in that period. Your wife will not be lost to you. She
will come back to your affections: the kind words you have
spoken to her will now return, echoed from the immortal world.
The wife will become an angel to cheer you, guide you, bless
you. It is not now the mortal woman, failing and imperfect, it
is the madonna out of heaven, who will lean down, and look
over to help you. In the autumn I have seen a spot in the
woods burnt over by some accidental lightning, a roving thunder-bolt falling at random (so it seemed) out of heaven. All was




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENACE.   273
burnt over, -the leaves and the grass; the trunks of trees looked
black and ugly: but in the spring tender flowers came up which
grew nowhere else in the wood, for the sun came warmest on
that blackened earth; fragrant grass grew there; and all summer
long it was the greenest and the fairest spot in all that wood.
Yes, it was the last spot which the autumnal frost set foot upon.
So it is with sorrow-stricken souls. But why do I write as if
to conso/e?  I only wish to offer you the sympathy of one
kind heart x\hich bleeds at the arrow so sorely piercing you. I
would come and see you to-day; but it is impossible. Perhaps to-morrow; at any rate, as soon as possible.
God bless you, and wipe the tears from your eyes.
T.
WILLOUGHBY LAKE, VT., Aug. 3, I854.
MY DEAR SANBORN, - Your letter apprises me of the sad
fact which I always thought must soon or late come to your
knowledge.  I know the nature of that. treacherous complaint
too well. When you were first engaged, I felt about it as you do
now. There was a flower as brief as beautiful. Young love
sustained her, gave her new hope, new vigor, new strength,
and so, doubtless, prolonged the life you loved so fondly.  I
saw how her friends mistook love for life. But there are cases
in which the soul thus deeply stirred pushes the malady aside,
and the body lives in triumph. If she recovers, it will be by
that medicine.
I have watched your love with great interest, always with
trembling. Well, it is a dear and beautiful thing once to love
with all the fervor of youth; to love one so worthy of a firm
and manly love, so capable of firm and womanly love.
Come what may come, so much you are sure of, so much
joy of the noble sort given and received, so much life made
into l:haracter.  This attachment has blessed you both.  If
death must separate the two souls which seem  made for
each other, I know nothing but religion which can sustain
the survivor: that can.  The tenderest sympathy of your
friends will be freely given you: that will be a little comfort.
All the excellences which made you love her will appear more
lovely, more excellent, when they are immortal. Your affections will follow her where she precedes.  "TWhere thou diest




274              THEODORE PARKER.
will I die," you will say; meaning, "Where thou livesiwill I live."
But the sweetest, best, of consolations, will come from your
realizing sense of the love of God. She takes the step in her
progress which we call "death." You had hoped it would not be
taken yet, nor separately, but arm in arm, at the same time,
you should become immortal together. Alas! the better half
of the treaszlre exhales to heaven, and leaves the earlthez vessel
and the widowed soul. But there is a self-sustaining faith
which looks even that disaster in the face, and is triumphant.
Do not doubt you shall have my tenderest sympathies in my
holiest hozurs. I know too well the touch of suffering:'tis part
of my daily life to try and strengthen others for the cup of
sorrow which may not pass from us. You do not yet know
what heroic strength there is in the womanly part of manhood.
I could wish you might not find it out for many years. But, if
you must, then let me say, that he who drinks early at this deep
spring has a life in him which common men know not, - other
sorrows, other joys, other hopes, other aspirations. Fear not,
my brave young friend, God will be with you as with her; and
eternity will mend what time so sadly seems to mar.
Come and see us when you return to Cambridge, soon as you
can. Let me hear from you. I shall be in Newbury, Vt., in
about ten or fourteen days. You and your friends will know
best what to do. But you must not think of forsaking Cambridge: that will not save her, and will seriously injure her.
Let me know if a little money is needed, and you know it will
give me pleasure to furnish it.
Affectionately yours,
THEO. PARKER.
Remember me affectionately and tenderly to A-; but I
think she had better not see the letter.
BOSTON, Sept. 5, 1854.
MY DEAR SANBORN, - So the summer and the mortal life
went out together.  It was pleasant that she passed farther
on at such a time, -the day of your souls' nuptials. Tears you
will shed; tears you mizst shed: do not try to check them.
But you have an angel in place of a wife. I never thought
your wedding would be other than it is. But the marriage




SPECIMA~ENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.               275
between a mortal and an immortal has the tenderest influences
on the humbler spirit which yet wears the dusty dress of flesh.
You will look up.
I know not how to try to console you, but would rather use
"words of endearment when words of consolation avail not."
But she has gone forward to that higher wedlock, where development and delight not dreamed of here must needs take place.
To the intellect, death is nothing, — it is a ferrying over the
river, where the yonder banks are fairer than the hither: to the
religious part of our nature it is a triumph, a great circumstance and a joyous; but to the affections it is the most cruel
of separations.
" Was iiebt muss zusammen sein,"
and we mourn bitterly as our dear ones are torn away. But in
the burnt spots of our woodland there come up sweet grass
and fairest flowers: the tenderest virtues bloom gloriously there.
I see the effect this is to have on your character. I know, as
you cannot, how it will stimulate the noblest things in you,
making you wise before your time, and giving qualities else not
won in many a year. Doubt not that you are remembered in
the tenderest communings of my heart, both in its public and
its private hours. I did not receive your letter till Monday,
but remembered you not less in the opening services at the
Music HIall, where I saw only one of your friends, - May. I
hope you will come and see us soon as you return this way.
In the mean time look to me for any kind offices you need, and
believe me one that early learned to suffer, and
Most faithfully your friend,
THEO. PARKER.
To C. A. Bartol.
BoSTON, Dec. I, I852.
DEAR BARTOL, - I thank you heartily for your new volume
of sermons, which has just come to hand (I received your note
at the tea-table). Don't dream that I value or love a man less
because he and I differ on questions of geology or theology, or
any thing else. I never did, and, I think, never shall. WVe
have lots of errors both (and all) of us, no doubt, but some
little truth to cling by, to live with, and (if need comes) to die




276              THEODORE PARKER.
for at the last. I love to meet all sorts of persons, to live with
all sorts of books, and so get a little widened by intercourse with
Heathens and Christians, Catholics, Protestants, and Mormons.
I am amazed at the intolerance of men. They hate one another
for a difference on a question of time in the geological periods
of the earth, for a difference in regard to tariff or free trade, to
Gen. Scott or Gen. Pierce, to Trinity or Unity, Christianity or
Mosaism. It is all wrong. We may ask each man to be faithful to himself, not to another man's self. The same fidelity leads
different men to very different conclusions. Was not Beecher
honest as Channing, and Blanco White faithful as either of the
two? Let us agree to think differently (when we must), and to
love one another still.
Truly, as of old,
T. P.
Rev. 7yohn Pierponl.
WVEST ROXBURY, Oct. I5, 1845.
DEAR SIR, —I called to see you yesterday, but unluckily
missed you; and as I shall not, it is probable, have another
opportunity to take you by the hand, I will now say a word to
you before you leave Boston. None can regret your departure
more than I. We have not been much together. You have been
busy, and so have I: therefore I have not seen you so often as I
could always have wished. But I have always felt encouraged
and strengthened by your example, and that long before I had
any " troubles " with my theological " brethren."  If you had
done as the other ministers, had you been as they are, you
would not now have been leaving Boston. If you had flattered
the follies, and winked at the sins, of the rich, you would have
had, not yozr reward (that you have now), but t/heir reward: I
mean, the reward of the ministers you leave behind. But you
have chosen another part, and have YouR reward, - a little different from theirs. You must go in triumph; for you have fought
a good fight and a great one. For nearly thirty years, you have
been foremost in all the great reforms of the day which had the
welfare of men for their object. You have been fearless and
free. If others didn't help you, you thought that was a reason
whyyou should work the more. When your valor was called
for, you did not turn round to remember your discretion. None




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.                  277
of the great moral enterprises of the day would have stood where
now they stand, if you had not opened your manly voice in their
behalf. Where would temyierance have been if John Pierpont
had been silent? where many other good and noble causes?
It is your zeal for the great cause which Jesus died to serve
that now has brought you to your present position.  Your
reward is with you. The confidence that you worked faithfully,
and wrought a great work, will go with you, and bless you to the
end of your days. Nothing has happened for years so reflecting disgrace on the Boston clergy as your departure from the
city under the present circumstances. But what is their disgrace is your glory. Go, then; and may God be with you! For;zy sake, for the sake of many, I could wish you were to stay;
but it is better you should go.  I know you will find work
enough to be done, and warm hearts to welcome you in doing it.
You leave behind not a few to bless you for your toils, and to
pray for your future success and welfare. Your memory will
live ever in their affections, and their good wishes will follow you
wherever you go. I beg you to accept my thanks for all that
you have done, and to believe me ever
Your friend and brother,
THEO. PARKER.
To Mrs. Yulia Bridges, Newton Corner.
BOSTON, April 9, I858.
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 any thing 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 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
24




278              THEODORE PARKER.
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 reject
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, Mahometans, Heathen. There is one
God for us all; and I have such perfect love for him, that it long
since cast out all fear.
Believe me yours truly,
THEODORE PARKER.
What flocks of letters like the one that follows would
have fluttered over desolated homes had Theodore Parker
lived to animate the strong, and console the bereaved, in
our great war! And this was written by a dying man.
Young Meriam was one of John Brown's little band. The
expedition alluded to was the enterprise at Harper's
Ferry. The youth had been reported killed.
To Mrs. Eliza F. Meriamn.
RoME, Nov. I9, I859.
Your son has fallecz a izarlylr ilz a cause Izot less holy, and
mzch, nzore phzionzt/zroA ic. He sought to deliver his own countrymen from domestic misrule and oppression incomparably
greater than what your fathers fought against. Don't think his
young life was wasted and thrown away because the expedition
failed of its immediate object: it will help obtain its ultimate object; will strike terror into the hearts of all slaveholders, and so
weaken the bonds which now hold the slave. Every victory we
rejoice in has been bought with the blood of men. Such as




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.                   279
died had mothers and sisters often wives and children, to mourn
the private cost at which the public benefit was bought. To the
emancipation of American bondmen you have contributed your
first-born son: not a drop of his blood is wasted. He himself
is immortal, and has passed to that higher world we shall all
enter on before long. He is a gainer by the change; and
though his second birth took place in such terrible scenes, and
he was delivered from the mortal flesh with such dreadful instruments, not the less does he pass into that glorious life "lwhich
eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived." I know what you lose; but I think of no cause in which
I should rather one of my friends would lay down his mortal
life. Surely the blessing of men ready to perish will fall on
him.  Here is your consolation on earth; and, beyond the
earth, it will not be long before there is another meeting of souls
widowed and orphaned here below....
I know nothing of the details of your son's departure, only
what " The Standard" briefly told. The last time I saw him,
he came to consult me about another enterprise, which yet
looked to the same end, only by means apparently more fearful.
I could not fail to honor the motives which prompted him then:
not less do I honor him now; hay, far more.
Your family have been always in the first rank of the opponents of slavery, continually malking sacrifices for the slave. It
is not inappropriate that the crown of martyrdom should be set
on one of the members of the same family, -a crown of thorns,
indeed, but also a crown of glory. I have been with you in
other troubles terrible to bear. I think I know with what religious fortitude you will endure this.
Oh that I were in Boston to give consolation in private, and
in public to warn the young and wicked nation against the folly
which now threatens to ruin us! I would prove that the slaves
have a aztural rijz,/it to destroy th/eir ofressors, and that it may
be the duty of freemen to help them. This is only the beginning.
Nine experiments will seem to fail: the tenth will succeed, and
pay for all the previous mistakes. The defeats in the early part
of the American Revolution were essential to the great victory
at last; part of the battle in which we were conquerors. My
dear Mrs. Eddy, accept again my heartiest sympathy: would I
had more to offer! Tell your father I shall write him soon as




280              THEODORE PARiER.
I have news of the trial and fate of Capt. Brown. God bless
you all!
Believe me ever faithfully yours and affectionately,
THEODORE PARKER.
To Dr. Bowman, Edcginglon, Ill.
Dr. BOWMAN.                          BOSTON, May 22, I858.
Dear Sir, - I have heard of several cases like that sad one
you mention. No man becomes mad in attempts to become
honest, truthful, humane, merciful, a good father, husband,
brother, &c. What a direful thing is a fzlse theology! No wonder men grow mad in attempting to appease a God who damns
nine hundred and ninety-nine while he saves but one; a God
who is nine hundred and ninety-nine one-thousandths damnatory, and only one one-thousandth beneficent.
But better times are coming.
I send you a few sermons.
Yours truly,
THEODORE PARKER.
To Dr. Bowman, Edgington, Ill.
Dr. BOWMAN.                          BOSTON, Nov. 3, 1856.
Dear Sir, - I have just returned from a tour to your State,
and find your pleasant and encouraging letter with four dollars
in it. I send the books by express to-day. I am exceedingly
glad when I find that I can help a man out of the mire of the
popular theology to the firm footing of natural religion.
Please let me hear from you again. I have some sixty letters
to write, and must now be short.
Yours truly
THEO. PARKER.
To Dr. Bowman.
BOSTON, Jan. ii, I858;
MY DEAR DR. BOWMAN, — I thank you for your kind and
noble-spirited letter, which I have just read.
I know how difficult it is to make headway against the organized errors of the popular theology. It is so here, where the
mass of the people are both more intelligent and more reflectL6I1CLULIL ~L~I~~~




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDEXCE.                  28I
ing than in your neighborhood. Yet such is the vital affinity
between truth and the nature of man, that there is a continual and obvious progress here. A great change has taken
place in the theological opinions of the thoughtful men in
New England within ten years. In twenty more, it will be
very great.
Still the stationary party becomes more intense in its conservatism, and adopts the course of your Presbyterian friend.  At
North Woburn, a little town fourteen miles from Boston, a
church invited a Mr. Nickerson to be its minister. The council came to ordain the young candidate, and examined him to
see if he was sound in the faith. He was right in all points but
one: he did not betiezve tze eternal dazmnlation of babies, dying
newly born. The council refused to ordain him, and adjourned
for eight weeks, when they will come together again.
The council never asked the young man if he believed in
piety and morality, the substance of the religion which he ought
to teach; but pressed only the questions of their theology,
and insisted on the worst of all. In 1787, Dr. Townsend found
that the Spanish physicians knew nothing of the circulation of
the blood, and the young candidates for the honor of MI.D.
were not expected to believe it; but, before admission to practice, they took their oath that they believed the immaculate
conception of the Virgin Mary.  It was not so ridiculous as
the conduct of that council. The method of men of science
is this: I. To accumulate the greatest possible number of
facts; 2. To induce thence a general law which is common
to all those facts; 3. To deduce other doctrines from that
general law; and, 4. To make practical application thereof
to such cases as require it: so his doctrine rests on facts,
not whims. The ministers' method is to assume an hypothesis
to be true on the testimony of nobody knows who, and thence
deduce doctrines and apply them. Thus the inspiration of the
Bible, the Trinity, the Fall, the Devil, Eternal Damnation, &c.,
are not supported by the smallest particle of evidence in the
world: there is no fact of nature or of human history to support them. Doctors can do a deal of service in the manner
you refer to, and sow seeds by the wayside which the fowls of
the air will not devour.
1 agree with all you say about slavery: only my compassion
24*




282              TH7IEODORE PARKER.
falls more on the negro, who is the unwilling victim, than on his
masters, who might set him free.
Believe me heartily yours,
THEODORE PARKER.
To Thzomas G. Barnard, Esp., Norway, Me.
BOSTON, March 30, I853.
DEAR SIR, - I thank you for your interesting and welcome
letter, which I have just read. It gives me great pleasure to
know of such men as yourself, bred by deeply-religious
parents in the old forms of religion, yet coming out of bigotry
into freedom with a continual increase of piety, and faith in
God. I know some men who cast off the old forms of theology and of church service for the sake of getting rid of the
restraints of religion. I always love to find one who grows in
morality as he advances also in intellectual freedom.
I know many persons whose history is the same as yours.
The Methodist Church does a great deal of good. The Methodist minister, poor, badly educated, often quite ignorant, goes
amongst men more ignorant than he, and rouses up the religious
spirit in their souls, and quickens them with new life.  How
many thousands of men there are who owe their earthly salvation to the labors of some modest minister of that persuasion!
I have great respect for them. But, alas! they bind men in
fetters; they make men fear; they drive by terror, while they
ought to draw by love; they make too much of a separation
between life and religion. Their idea of God is dark and sad;
so is their notion of the next life. But when one comes to the
conviction that God is infinite,- I mean perfectly powerful, perfectly wise, just, loving, and faithful to hirnself, -then the great
difficulty is over. You do not fear God: you love him. You
will not seek to shun his laws, but to keep them; and, if you
fall away sometimes through the strength of temptation and
the weaklness of your character, you feel mortified, ashamed,
and penitent, and come back full of vigor and resolution anew,
and go on your way rejoicing.
I am sorry I did not know you while you were here in Boston, and hope you will continue to grow in all religious and
manly excellence.
Truly yours,
THEO. PARKER.




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.   283
To Robert WIthile, _zen., New York.
BOSTON, March I5, I853.
MY DEAR GOOD FRIEND, - I should have written you long
ago; but, when I came home from New York, I had another of
the comforts of Job, which seated itself on my right hand, so
that I could not write with it.  Some indispensable letters I
wrote with the left. You would laugh to see them, but give up
the attempt to read.' Now that is gone, and all its companions,
I hope. I was never better than now.
Your old and intimate relative has taken that step in his life
which we commonly call death. I doubt not it was a pleasant
step for him to take; though painful always it must be for us,
the living, to separate from such as go to a higher life. But there
are so many beautiful associations which cling to those we love,
and come out with all the more beauty when they cease to be
mortal, that the departure of a friend is always attended with
an exaltation of our spirits, if we have faith in the infinite goodness of the great Father.
There are some men whom I pity exceedingly: -
I. Such as have no belief inz the sozl's eternal lgfe, and look
on death as an ultimate fact.
2. Such as only fear a God, but do not know the infinite
Father (and infinite Mother) of all souls, and so have nothing
on which they can perfectly rely.
I meet both classes of men, the latter oftenest; and I pity
them most exceedingly. To one the grave is only a deep, dark
hole in the ground: to the other it is a hole which leads down
to hell.
The popular religion makes death a most formidable enemy,
a thing to be shuddered at.
I am amazed at the feebleness of men's faith in God.
Death is one step in our progress. Birth was a step once;
but birth was a death to one form of being, and death is a
birth into another form of being.  To die in infancy, youth, or
manhood, does not seem after the true course of nature; but to
die in old age, -
" Life's blessings all enjoyed, life's duties done," -
that is no misfortune, but a blessing also. My father, when an




284              THEODORE PARKER.
old man (seventy and seven years old), laid down his weary
mortal bones, and was glad to die. We wept over his toil-worn
hands and venerable head, which we had kissed so many a
thousand times; but we were glad that the dear old man
rested from his labors, and went home to his God and our.God,
-the earthly father to the iizjnite Father and Mfot/zer. So
shall we all one day be glad to go, and knock with our feeble
hand at our Mother's door. "Undo the gate, and let me in,"
shall we all say, as we go, willing and welcome, to meet her.
I hope you and yours are all well. We send our kindest
salutations to you all. My wife and Miss Stevenson admired
your daguerrotype, and thought it quite faithful.
Sincerely yours,
THEO. PARKER.
To 7. T. Sargent.
WEDNESDAY, Dec. 18, I844.
DEAR BROTHER, - Thanks for your letter, which I am now
hot with reading. I will lecture, as you say, sell tickets, and do
any thing, for so good a cause. I wish to lecture the time you
mention; for I shall preach the Thursday Lecture that day, and
so shall save time. Thank you, thank you, for the letter! But
you must not leave "those few sheep in the wilderness." With
whom can you leave them?  No, no! Have no superstition
about injuring "the cause," or hurting the feeling of the "Fraternity of Churches." Take a hall, and preach to such as come.
Let the " brethren " fill their chapel as they may and can. Don't
budge an inch. I look on this holding as all the free grozund
that is taken in the city: I would fight for it to the last. I
don't know what else you may have in view; but I think you can
do nothing better, nothing half so good, as to continue and
preach to these men you have attached to you.  They look to
you for help in time of trouble. " The hireling fleeth when he
seeth the wolf coming," &c.; "' but the good shetpherdgiveth/ his
lzfe for his shee.p."
Putnam said, yesterday, he did not see the necessity of your
resigning.  I do, and the necessity of your continuing with
your old friends. But what do I say? I have no authority to
advise any one, least of all one who knows his duty himself. I
only fear that you have a superstition about injuring the cause;




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.                285
while I think you will injure it by deserting the little ones, and
so causing them to offend.
Believe me most heartily yours,
THEO. PARKER.
A second letter to the same friend, and in the same
strain, will not seem too much in illustration of that sentiment, half gratitude and half compassion, which is rare
except with the best minds: —
To 7. T. Sargent.
WEST ROXBURY, Jan. 30, I845.
MY DEAR FRIEND AND BROTHER, — I should be very recreant to my own inward promptings if I did not tell you how
my heart feels moved towards you of late, and how much I feel
grieved at your troubles. For my own I never cared much:
they pass by me as the wind. I open a book; I walk in the
fields: they fall from me as I shake the loose snow from my
hat, and trouble me no more. My dreams are sweet as a boy's,
so calm and untroubled! But it gives me great grief and pain
that I have unwittingly brought you into trouble. What can I
do to help you? I know not. If I were to write in your defence, you would say, as Brother Young at Ellis's ordination,
"XLNon tali auzxilio," &c.; and I should do you more harm than
good. It would be regarded as if the Devil should come out
and defend Job from those excellent "friends " who fastened
on him in his misfortunes. I can give you my sympathies:
you have those rich and abundant. I can tell you how much I
admire your spirit, how much I applaud your courage (the
courage of gentleness), your gentleness too (the gentleness of
strength). I have not had time to thank you for your noble and
manly sermons. They are the true expressions of a noble
spirit. They are rich in magnanimity. If any thing had been
wanting to place the Fraternity in their true light, it was the
publication of the last sermon you preached in the chapel. I
feel for you; but I Pity the Fraternity. I hope I feel contempt
for none.
c" I pity such as wicked are;
I pity and I mourn:
But the great God hath fashioned them;
And, oh I dare not scorn."




286             THEODORE PARKER.
Your last sermon places you in a fine light before the public.
It has the rhetoric of facts and the eloquenzce of truzt. I know
not what are your plans for the future. I feel almost glad that
you did not take my advice, and open a new chapel for the poor,
and yet still almost sorry you did not. Do you think the Fraternity will adhere to their groundl?-adhere to it, and not expel
me? That is quite inconsistent. But it was good-natured and
manly to appoint the committee they did to confer with me.
Though nothing but good feelinzf  will come of it, it is worth
while to have that amnzonz brethren. Tell me if you have my
"Treatise on De Wette:" if not, it will give me great pleasure
to send you a copy.
Believe me most truly your Christian brother,
THEO. PARKER.
P. S. - Give all cheering regards to Mrs. Sargent.
To S. 7. May.
OCT. 24, 1853.
I hope you read " The Register " of last week and the
account of the Annual Convention.  What subjects for discussion!- Have we a litany amongst us? Shall we have one?
That is, when the Rev. Mr. Peabody reads, " The Lord delighteth not in the strength of the horse," whether -   -
and  -  -     shall respond, "He taketh no pleasure in the
legs of a man;" or whether Peabody shall drone away alone to
the end of the chapter.
Again: On what terms shall persons be admitted to the
communion? i.e., "on what terms" shall an old woman be
allowed once a month, in a meeting-house, on Sunday, to eat a
crumb of baker's bread, and drink a sip of grocer's wine, which
the deacon has bought at a shop the day before?
What if nobody at all is allowed to come to the communion?
will not Christendom be in just as good case at the year's
end?  What if everybody eats the soda-biscit ( —  thinks
that is the "unleavened bread "), and drinks the wine: who is
the worse for that? Dear me, what a world it is! — drunkenness all round us; covetousness eating the heart out of society;
the Fugitive-slave Bill making it incumbent on a man to send
back his own mother to bondage; ministers, with kidnappers
members of their churches, discussing a litany and the terms




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.                287
of admission to the Lord's Supper! Bless me! if the Nazarene were there at the Worcester Convention, I think he would
have made a scourge of large cords, and let loose upon the
assembly, till there was such a stampede among the brethren as
one does not often see among the reverend clergy. Well, the
age is leaving these old boys to their litanies, and their communions, and their miracles. What politician, what philanthropist,
what merchant (of any head at all), what man of science, cares a
pin forall this humbug? Religion rises early every morning,
and works all day.
Good-by!
THEO. PARKER.
Please write to me as " Mr.," not " Rev.," &c.
Following this letter, as if it were a postscript, is a note
telling Mr. May of two very noble and beautiful actions
done by a gentleman between whom and Mr. Parker no
love was lost in the fierce times of political strife.  The
note should be printed but for the necessary mention of
private affairs. It is alluded to now as one of the many
instances of Mr. Parker's readiness to acknowledge the
personal goodness of men whose public course he felt
compelled to assail.  That he was always successful in
rendering this species of charity is not claimed; that he
always tried to be cannot be doubted by any who have
read his private papers.
To S. 7. May.
BOSTON, June 17, I85I.
DEAR FRIEND, - I will try and write so plain that you can
read all the words. I write on the anniversary of the battle of
Bunker Hill, because I know you were one of the chief contributors to the Monument Fund, and will be pleased to be associated with any battle, -you son of a colonel, you! So much for
the time of writing: now for the matter in hand. I have just
had a letter from Dr. Otto Fock, professor of philosophy at
Kiel in Denmark, who wants to come to America. He is
about forty years old, learned and able, but, alas! a republican.




288             THEODORE PARKER.
He cannot live in Germany: the police look after him too sharp.
Can we do any thing for him here? He'is learned and industrious; will work. Can we find a place worthy of him? He
has written a valuable book, -history of "Socinianismus."
Perhaps he might write an " excellent tra-a-a-ct" for Father
Briggs, or prove that the apostle Thomas was a Unitarian, or,
if not Thomas, then at least Jude, or Judas. Besides Dr.
Fock, another German doctor of philosophy has written for the
same purpose, - to find a home in America. He is a philologian,
(Dr. Lobeck from K6nigsberg), a learned man, librarian of the
university at that place. He has written some books, and has
been an editor of a Volksbote (" People's Messenger "), and is a
democrat. Do tell me whether we can do any thing for these
noble-hearted men.
I hope you will not let the committee appointed by the
ministerial conference go to sleep. We must have the meeting,
and do our prettiest to have justice done at it. Perhaps it
would be well for you to stir up Brother Hall to greater
diligence in this matter; for I fear that evil counsels may yet
prevail. With best regards all round, believe me
Yours heartily,
THEO. PARKER.
To S. 7. May.
DAY AFTER SECOND PREACHING DAY IN MIARCH,
SECOND MONDAY IN LENT, A.S., 1854.
DEAR, BELOVED, AND MOST REVEREND FATHER, —I rejoice that thou art in so good a work as confuting the heretics
who dare lift up their voices against the most ancient, most
orthodox, and infallible church of the Unitarians. It will be
easy to show that the author of the fourth Gospel was a Unitarian, you a member of the Boston Association of Congregational
Ministers.  This is the way, reverend father: Strike out all
after'Ev z'tpx, and insert our "excellent tracts," -the apostle
John a Unitarian. By a similar process, it may be shown that
the apostle Paul was also a Unitarian; nay, likewise, Peter;
that the author of the Apocalypse was a non-resistant. It is
true, in the text he makes the " Lamb " take charge of an army
of two hundred million horse, and destroy one-third part of the
human race, and then tread the "wine-press of the wrath of




SPE CIMENS OF CORRESPONDENVCE.              289
God," and slaughter men till he make a blood-puddle on the
earth two hundred miles wide and three feet deep; and then
there is quite a portion of "the rest of mankind" who are
pitched down into the lake of fire, whither Death and Hell-O0Bvaroc and "Ad6S - had preceded them. But all this, 0 father! is a
delusion of lZaOav, who will deceive the very elect if they do not
keep a top-eye open and a bright look-out. The Katvrl Lailc
contains nothing but a revelation of the most mild and gentle
characteristics of " God and the Lamb: " all else is a delusion
of Satan, whom thou wilt put to rout with the army of the
aliens.
I send thee, 0 father! a copy of a little discourse preached
by thy son touching the Nebraska matters; and will soon send
thee another adiuc suzb irelo sutdanzs, more befitting thy venerable years; to wit, " A Sermon of Old Age."
Vale, pater dilectissime,
THEODORE.
The correspondent who drew forth the next long letter
on a most important subject much discussed at present,
and likely to be discussed more still, was one of those
estimable men whose spirit always teaches truth, whatever
may be thought of their opinions. The contents of the
epistle are not, perhaps, striking for originality; but we
learn to admire commonplace, when a sorely-vexed man
patiently employs them as the only weapons at his command. They illustrate, at least, the excellent quality of
the writer's heart, which will not be wearied by any drain
made on the hours.
To Robert WTzie, Jun.
BOSTON, Dec. 3I, I849.
MY DEAR FRIEND, - Soon as I received your last letter, I
set myself seriously to work to write an answer in detail. But
continued interruption for the sake of other duties renders it
impossible that I should be able to dq this: therefore I will limit
myself to considerations of a more general character, which
require less time and space, and leave the other matter to be
talked over some time when we may meet, as I trust we shall;
25




290               THTEODORE PARKER.
for a little conversation will do more than a good deal of
writing.
I shall take it for granted, that in making man mnale and
fvszale, providing them with instinctive desires for union, and
providing no other way for the perpetuation of the race except
by such union, God established marriage in the very nature
of man's body. I think the spirit of one sex is as incomplete
without the other as the body, and that there is as much a
syiiritzual desire for the spirit of the other sex in men and
women as a bodily desire for the bodies of the opposite sex,
only in most persons it is not so strong. On these two points
I think we do not differ.
Now the question comes, Did Jesus Christ intend to forbid
marriage to his followers? or, allowing it, did he think celibacy
the better state?
Before answering that question, it is necessary to look a little
at the state of opinion in the world about him on this matter.
I. The Jews considered marriage necessary and sacred. Celibacy in a man was thought impious, in a woman disgraceful (see
Isa. iv. I); but afterwards marriage got into worse repute
among the Jews, and moralists found it necessary to commend
marriage (see, e.g., Ecclus. xxxvi. 24-26; xxvi. I-3, 13-I6,
20-2I; X1. 23, and other passages). At length there grew up a
sect which abandoned marriage, - the Essenes: they had some
excellent ideas, it seems, and had a good deal of influence on
the early Christians in many matters.
II. Amongst the heathens, marriage was generally held in
esteem; or, at any rate, celibacy was not much allowed or practised. Still it was sometimes practised as a religious dutyby
a caste of men or women: the vestal virgins are examples.
In the offering of sacrifices, it seems early to be thought
that what was most valuable to men, or most dear, was also the
most acceptable offering to God. Hence the fruits of pastoral
life (oxen, &c.) or of agricultural life (wheat, fruit, &c.),
and not the spontaneous productions of the earth, were the
sacrifice. As the organs of generation were of value in keeping the race in existence, a.nd in satisfying the instinct of man,
in a fit of religious excitement men mutilated themselves in
the name of God (the friests of Cybele are examples of this),
and others made a vow of temporary or continual chastity.




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.   29I
III. The Hebrews never had a higlh idea of woman. Man
is created for his own sake, woman to be a helg5-meet for him
(Gen. ii. 18-24). Man is of God; woman only of man, and for
man. This, also, is Paul's notion (I Cor. xi. 7, &c.). The common notion of woman in the Old Testament is, that she is a
wanton, a drudge, or a shrew. She lost us paradise; her heart
is " snares and nets." " Any wickedness but that of woman"
was a proverb. Among the heathens there was great wantonness: there was among the Jews, to judge from complaints in
the Old Testament, and the numerous words the Hebrew language has for the crime of sensuality.
IV. These things being so, it is not at all surprising that
some of the Christians thought it best to cut off that passion
altogether, which they found it difficult to regulate; not surprising that they thought they ought to sacrifice their powers of
generation, as the vestals or priests of Cybele had done.
Especially would this be so among the rigrid Christians; and
the persecutions tended to make them all rigid. Still more, if
men came from the Essenes to Christianity, would they bring
their own notions of marriage with them.
This being the case, I am not at all surprised to find St.
Paul speak of marriage as he does. But yet further: the early
Christians thought the world was soon to end,-in their lifetime: so marriage was not needful to perpetuate the race. So
Paul suffers it for such as cannot do without it; but to him it
was a mere fAlysical necessity, not at all a spiritual affection,
which led to wedlock. I am not surprised to see such language
attributed to Jesus as occurs in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
But I do not find reason to believe that Jesus was at all desirous of disturbing the natural order of things in relation to this
affair. Still I think such opinions were attributed to him
before the fourth Gospel was written; for in that Christ is said
to work his first miracle at a marriage.  It seems to me the author meant to show that Christ sanctioned marriage and the
use of wine, of which Christ makes three or four barrels for the
occasion. Now, if Christ intended to overthrow and supersede
the union of the sexes, I think he would not have left it at all
ambiguous, but would have said so with great plainness, speaking as distinctly as he did of the sabbath and of the 7ewish ilzstituzions, -fasts and the like. Many of the interpretations of Mr.




292             THEODORE PARKER.
Dunlary seem to me mistaken; e.g., his account of " the abomination of desolation " seems to me wholly a mistake: yet in
other passages he shows a great degree of ingenuity as well as
fairness, and I feel much respect for the man. But you see
how much time it would take for me to go over the whole matter, text for text: it would require me to write a great book,
which I have not time or health to undertake. I hope you will
forgive me for my long delay and neglect: I know you would
if you knew the amount of matter which I must attend to.
Allow me to wish you a happy New Year.
And believe me your friend,
THEODORE PARKER.
To 7. B. Parker.
WEST ROXBURY, Aug. 29, 1846.
MY DEAR JOHN, —I told you I despised the study of
heraldry: I have yet wasted some little time over Guillim and
other writers on that theme. I am quite up to giving any information about the noble family of ICettles. The motto is,
" NE CALL THE POT BLACK."
It is a most ancient family. It is related to the Pots, the Skillets, the Patty-Pans, the Porrizgers, and divers other great and
noble families in all civilized countries.  Lord Copper-IKet/te,
Baron Stew-Pan, and his Grace the Duke of Brass-Kettle, are
all branches of this family: so is that famous champion, Sir
Kettle-Drzumz; and he is soon to be elevated to the peerage. The
family of Boilers is of the same descent, but were for a long
time in obscurity, devoted mainly to agriculture and domestic
economy.  But lately some of the family have entered the
marine service, and have done great honor to their family;
while others have become famous on land. Lord SteamboatBoiler and Sir Fizaway-Locomotfive are of this latter class. It
is thought this branch of the family will surpass all others.
Indeed, some of them have been so elated by success, that
they have actually burst; and this, by the way, is the great
danger to which this family is subject. You will find all about
the stock, &c., in Burke's " Peerage " or " Commoners," &c.
What you say of Salem is pretty true, but not wholly. There




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.                293
are, as I know very well, some noble exceptions to what you
state as the general rule.
If you want any books from time to time, let me know, and
I think I can procure them for you. But Emmeline tells me
you sit up late. Now, that is quite - nay, almost - as bad as
lying late. Be sure you will repent it. If your eyes are sore,
go to bed; go to sleep. You must mind me. There is no
excuse for violating a law of Nature. The laws God wrote on
the body are quite as binding as the ten commands which
Moses wrote on stone. KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS.
And believe me truly yours,
THEO. PARKER.
To Horace Coolidge, Boston.
WEST NEWTON, Aug. 3I, I852.
MY YOUNG FRIEND,-As you are about commencing the
study of your profession, I wish to give you a word of advice.
The study and practice of the law has this advantage, - that it
keeps the intellectual faculties in a great activity; at least, some
of them. And I notice, in general, that lawyers are more
eminently intellectual than any other class of men, unless it be
men of science and authors by profession. But the law has
these disadvantages: I. That it exercises and develops the
intellectual to the detriment of the other and higher faculties;
and, 2. That it does not allow a very complete and generous
development of the intellect itself, especially of the higher departments thereof, -say the reason and imagination,-but
only of the understanding. Most of the lawyers that I have
known are examples of this defective and vicious development. Indeed, most of the lawyers that I know make a mere
money-getting trade of their profession, and no science at all:
so that with them lawnis not a liberal pursuit, only a head-craft;
and they are only mechanics at law, with little more elevation,
and sometimes less, than is law to a handicraft.
I take it you wish to be, first, a complete man, with all your
faculties harmoniously developed; and next a complete lawyer,
master of your calling, and eminent in it, enjoying, accordingly, the emoluments and honors thereof. So I hope you will
take pains to avoid the common evils of the profession, and
25*




294              THEODORE PARKER.
get a wide intellectual expansion. To help in this matter,
there are several things which may be recommended: —
I. One is the study of neta3h/zysics: that forces you to look
at first principles, and study the laws of Nature and the constitution of the universe, and helps to correct the one-sidedness
and partialism of the ordinary lawyer. But there seems to be
a sort of repugnance between law and metaphysics. I never
knew a lawyer that cared much for that pursuit; and, of all the
eminent metaphysicians, I remember no one that was a lawyer.
Besides, to prosecute this study with success, or even pleasure,
there must be a certain natural inclination that way. If you
have it, I hope you will continue your interest in metaphysical
studies all your life.
II. Next the study of natural science: this has a fine effect
in widening the reach of thought and the range of observation,
and so helps the intellectual development of man. Few lawyers attend to this at all. The same one-sidedness which keeps
them from the study of the fermanent-abstract of metaphysics
deters them  from the jfermanent-concrete of natural science.
So they look on the arbitrary statutes of men, which are only a
temporary accident of development, as if they were absolute
and fixed, as much as the permanent-abstract or the permanentconcrete mentioned above. A statute is a temporary rule of
conduct devised to suit the passing emergency. The metaphysician and the naturalist deal with natural laws, which are the
constant modes of ofperation of the forces of the universe; the
lawyers deal with those statutes which are the variables of man;
while the philosopher deals with those laws which are the constants of God. But the misfortune of the lawyer is, that he
looks on his human variables as if they were as permanent and
as absolutely imperative as the divine constants, the laws of
matter or of mind. Hence he loses his natural conscience, and
gets a fictitious and artificial conscience; loses the conscience
of nature, and gets the conscience of Doctors' Commodns, or of
the Old Bailey, or of the Ssureme Court. The study of science
helps correct this; yet I fear few lawyers care much for science. Judge Parsons was a man of large scientific attainments: John Pickering, also, - a quite uncommon man in many
respects,- was quite familiar with the highest results of science.
Both of these men were better lawyers, as well as more com



SPEtCIIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.  295
plete men, for this scientific development. I know a young
lawyer who had to manage a case of damages for injury done
to cows by water artificially contaminated, who, in preparing
for the case, set himself to study the P/Sysiology of the cow, and
so understand the effects of poison upon her. That was the
true way for a scientific lawyer to go to work: the rule applies
everywhere. But I believe lawyers, in general, have a professional dislike for physics as well as metaphysics. I do not
know whether you have any decided natural fondness for science; and, if you have not, I should not look in this quarter for
the corrective to the one-sidedness of legal studies.
III. Here is a third thing; viz., the study of human history:
I mean (I) the study of iolitical national history, - the development of Rome, France, England, &c.; and (2) unziveJrsal-huZman
history, —the development of mankind. Both of these will
be of great advantage to you, first as a man, and next as a lawyer. Historical knowledge is of immense importance: its practical application to the purpose of the lawyer is obvious enough.
Hence lawyers, though ignorant of physics and metaphysics, are
better versed in history than any other class of educated men
(excepting professors of that department whose knowledge
is a technical affair). But here the vicious development of the
lawyer appears again: he attends only to the transient things
of history, and not the permanent laws of development; to the
variables of enactment, not to the constants of natulre. The
study of the gradual evolution of any particular nation, - say
the Romans or the Anglo-Saxons, - with its domestic, social,
national institutions, will be of great advantage to you. It is
not of much importance to know whether Gen. Fairfax charged
up hill or down hill, wore a blue feather or a red one, or whether
his military breeches were of plush or fustian; but it is of
great importance to.know what ideas were in his head or in the
heads of his opponents and of his soldiers, and what organization those ideas got in the world.
I hope you will study carefully the political history of some
of the leading nations, especially of the Roman and AngloSaxon: it will be of great advantage to you. But you will be
profited by studying also the gradual evolution of mankind
from savagedom to its present development. I hope you will
study the history of the legal institutions (and enactments) of




296              THIEODORE PARKIER.
various countries as well as of your own. It is unfortunate
that there is no good account of the development of English
law. There are much better accounts of the history of the
Roman, the German, and the French law, in Latin, in German,
or in French. I hope in the course of your life you may become
acquainted with all these three. Your acquaintance with German
will help you in this matter; for the best book on the historical
development of law in England has been written, not in English,
but in German. But, in the course of your preparatory studies,
I suppose you will not take a very wide range: that will come
later, when your wings are grown. I cannot fail to think that
a careful study of history will be of great help to you.
IV. The study of belles-elttres I suppose I need not speak
of: the general stream of custom will carry you thither. But I
would not waste my time on mean authors: I would study the
masters of poetry before I played with their af!ffrentices, and
still more before I played with lackeys of the apprentices. You
see uneducated people waste a whole evening in silly talk about
silly men or women. It is still worse for an " educated man"
to waste his time on silly books: they are always bad company.
The books of great mzenz will be good company, — the great
poets, English, French, German, Italian, Greek, and Latin;
dramatists, moralists, essayists, &c.
The study and practice of the law tend to weaken the moral
sense and to quicken the intellectual powers. I trust that your
respect for the integrity of your own character, and your reverence for the Infinite God, will keep you from the moral ruin of
which the courts present so many examples. You need not
fear that you shall suffer as a lawyer for what you gain as a
man. A reputation for strict veracity, integrity, and honesty,
will be most eminently valuable to you as a lawyer: it will
give you the best kind of business of the best men. I am glad
you are to study with Mr. Charles G. Loring; for I take it his
moral character is loftier than that of any lawyer of his age in
Boston: his personal influence will be good, and greatly good.
I need not say to you that I think there is no real nobleness of
manly character without manly religion, the love of God, and
the love of man. I wish you great joy and great manhood in
the profession you have chosen, and am
Truly your friend,
THEO. PARKER.




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.   297
The following familiar letters illustrate the pleasantry
of his mind, and his unbounded affectionateness of disposition. As the overflow of his friendliness, they are
printed just as they were written.
To aMiss
BOSTON, June 6, I85I.
DEAR OLD LADYE, - Now she shall have a letter, though
she has not yet written me one. I felt grim as a bear all the
time I was at Northampton. I don't know why, unless it was
the beginning of a certain biliousness, which oranges and rhubarb are to drive away. At any rate, I felt as gloomy as a
snake in October. I hope I shall behave better next time.
Well, the world goes on here after the old sort. Wednesday,
Mrs. R. came and passed the day with dear old Mfiltes o' Teants
and Bits o' Blossoms too. WVe had a nice time of it.  Terzztie
had her rides in " express-trains," on "Bessie," and the " colonel," and all that; her dets, &c. Nay, I tried to find her a Labbit in the toy-shops, but got a Cochon instead, which the Mites
pronounced to be a figZh, and was delighted with Mr. Coc/zon.
Blossoms sprawled out his legs, - and such legs - and purred
and mooed; and, when any thing displeased him, he said,
"Waugh" with a deep grunting tone. The children quite
eclipsed their mother; but we all had a nice time.
There is to be a Thompson Festival on the i6th of June
(he goes off to England the I7th), and you ought to be there. T.
will speak an hour by " Shrewsbury clock."  We expect a great
gathering of the Simon Pzres. (Here I ought to stop to shoot
at my bill with one of Dr. Wesselloeft's bullets.) There! the
association of ideas carries me off to the ship, and J. P. Blanchard, and the sea-voyage he will enzjoy with Thompson. Well,
let that go.
I have finished the Life of Wordsworth, and got a straw hat
-manilla -just like the old one raised from the dead; and that
is all I have done this week.  Wordsworth was a dear old
granny, with a most hearty love of mankind, especially of the
least attractive portions of it, - beggars and fools, and Bishop
Doane, who he thinks was a great and good man.  Wordsworth heard him  preach once at London; saw him at his




298             THEODORE PARK4ER.
(Wordsworth's) house, and liked him much. If Wordsworth
had lived a little in London, and felt the presence of some one
who was manly and differed from him, it would have done
him service. He runs in a narrow round of objects, ideas,
and sentiments; is humane (and means to be so in his penal
sonnets), devout, self-denying, and genial: but he lived too
much in solitude, was too much with his worshippers, and
limited himself in his reading. He loved his neighbors and
their little bits o' blossoms. His domestics he treated in the
most Christian way, - like his own sisters. I love the man the
more after reading all the twaddle of his letters and talk. He
was like Dr. Channing and William Silsbee united. But he
was the most self-conscious poet I remember to have read or
read of: he knows the anatomy of his own mind as if he took
himself to pieces. There was more of will in his poetry than
you commonly find. Things were so because William Wordsworth would have them so. They grew out of his will more
than out of his whole nature. But I love the dear old poetical
Betty more after reading his Life than before. You will rejoice
in the book, which will wait for you when you return.
Susan has gone home; sister sick; mother ailing. The cat
mews at your door, and will not be comforted. He sends you
his best tztrr-r-r, to which I have just room enough for mine.
Lots of love to all the Hunts and Miss A., and quantities of
kisses to the Mites o' Willy.  " Bits" can't say pajta; but
" Mites " counts one, two, fwee, four.
WEST NEWTON, Wednesday, Sept. 15, I852.
POOR OLD LADYE, - Presently after reading the Life and Letters of Byron and Goethe, I read also that of Admiral Robert
Blake. You know he was first a Puritan soldier, and held out
the town of Lyme against Prince Rupert, and subsequently the
city of Taunton (if city it were), both in a most extraordinary
and successful manner; next he was admiral, and such an
admiral! Cromwell on the land was the equal of Blake on the
sea. He fought the Dutch, and swept the famous and formidable Van Tromp out of the Channel. He went off to the Mediterranean, and levied contributions on the cities of Italy, Genoa,
Leghorn, Rome, Naples, and on Tunis. He humbled the Spaniards in the Old World and the New. A man of not many words;




SPE CIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.   299
a compact, resolute man, of the most formidable action. Well,
Goethe's and Byron's lives seem little, mean, and trifling, after
such a man, and more wicked; fo:, in all Blake's dreadful
slaughters, there was conscience and humanity at the bottom of
the man. I should rather be Blake sweeping Tromp out of the
Channel for the nation's sake, and (as he thought) for justice'
sake, than Byron sending for the police to turn the Venetian
woman out of his house, or Goethe breaking the heart (so
cruelly and wantonly) of pure, good Frederika von Sesenheim.
It seems to me less to answer for before man and God. Then the
lives of these literary men seem to me intensely fri'volous, and
scarred all over with egotism and selfishness. Goethe wastes
how much time in nonsensical study of form, and in vain
dramas, Grosskop/ztas, &c.   I felt often a great disgust at the
sight of so much ge'zie directed to such trifles as he spent
much of his time upon. After all, Goethe was less of a man
than Voltaire. Both wrought wholly by the pen, -or c/iefy.
Voltaire influenced his own age vastly more than Goethe, and
will reach much farther into the future. His influence was better
in kind, as well as greater. As a p/hiosofher, Voltaire was more,
more as a poet, and, including prose as well as rhythmic works,
more as a manz. I suppose it would be thought treason to say
this; but it is true.
Yesterday afternoon I went over to West Roxbury to see the
old familiar places, not the people. So I sat down on the seat
under the willow, and went to my old haunts in the woods and
elsewhere, and got my favorite flowers in the favorite spots. But
it was very sad, very sad, - this body of a place after you have
been born out of it. It is a little curious that such a man should
live in our old house, and drink his wine in my old study, and
grow his hunkerism. I should feel uncomfortable to do such
things in a place where such different ones had been done.
Poor old ladye! When will she come home? House empty,
papered, and varlzished, but, alas! not yet swept.
Boo!
MONDAY NIGHT, Feb. 2X 1S52.
DEAR POOR OLD LADYE, -This is the last letter I have the
time to write before I get home. To-day I went with Sam Jo
May- the best man in this world; and, if there are any better




300             THEODORE PARKER.
in the next, I shall be all the more glad when I get there —to
see the Onondaga Indians. Queer folks, these red men! I did
not find a squaw fit to brine home, nor a pappoose that I liked.
Saw some real Pagan Indians; went into their council-house,
church, and several houses. Saw squaws and sawnups and
iktashes, and the like; got them to read some Indian books to
me to get the pronunciation. Saw the missionary, -a real
nice man for the place, with a real nice wife. Sam Jo is at work
on the Indians, for the Indians, and with the Indians. He has
done a deal for them since he has been here, and will do much
more.
Ah, me! I wish I was at home; but home shall I be before
long. I think of all the good folks, - when you lie down, when
you rise up, when eat dinner, supper, &c. But I have had a
nice time; and, though I have had no great audiences, I yet have
had a good time. To-night I had a fine audience in the city
hall. Emerson comes this week, Friday. I give'em the devil
on Wednesday. At Buffalo I saw my " Brother " Hosmer. I
did not venture to call on him without his calling on me first: so
I only saw him after the lecture. Good-by!
Love to all. I shall take the cars from here Wednesday
night at nine or at twelve, and ride all night.
Parker's familiar letters bubbled with humor, running
all the way from pleasantry to fun; not always graceful,
but always characteristic, sometimes expressing the hilarity of his own mood, and sometimes designed to touch
with mirth the moods of his correspondents. In this grotesque way he ministered to his own and to other minds
diseased. A few short examples of this must be given in
notes and extracts. The dates are of small moment. This
note was written on a piece of birch-bark:No PLACE, N.H., Aug. 12, I853.
MY DEAR S.,- I am in such a wilderness, that you will
excuse me for writing on such rude material. I peeled it from
a tree to-day in order to let you know what a savage country I
have wandered into. Last night I lodged with a man who chops
wood in the mountains all winter, and drives his logs to market




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPOiVDENCE.   30I
down the river. It is so wild, that we walked twenty miles today in a howling wilderness. At one man's cabin we saw the
skin of a bear, newly slain, nailed on the side of his house.
Another with whom we lodged told us the bears killed six of his
sheep last spring; they ate up his apples, and broke the trees
down; they devoured his rye and his pumpkins.
You may judge what a dreadful place it is, and so hot that I
have bathed four times to-day; and still the thermometer is So~
in the shade. Bathing won't bring it down.
I send this by the hand of a valiant young man. I hope the
wild beasts will not destroy him. The man who took us in last
night had but one daughter, and she is a -wife! Good-by!
Yours faithfully (if I get out of the woods),
THEO. PARKER.,
BOSTON, Feb. 3, 1857.
DEAR FRIENDS, - This is to say that I, the undersigned,
have removed from the house in Exeter Place, and live miscellaneously, - perambulating, or rather pervehiculating, through
space in all manner of directions. That wicked wag Aristophanes personified the Athenians as Demos, who gave his residence as Pnyx, the place of public meetings, -equivalent to
people of town-meeting: so I might sign myself as Theodore
Parker of everywhere, and no place in particular.
I live in taverns, move in railroad-cars, and have my being in
the Music Hall and other places of public speaking. I am not
a skylark, but a " wandering voice: " so I get no time to write
you all (or singular) the letters I wish. Forgive me now, have
patience with me, and I will pay ye all; that is, so far as possibility goes.
Poor little Potamous! such a shining blade, that he seems
like to eat up the scabbard. What a pity the brightness could
not have been more uniformly distributed over the surface of
the whole family! I wish he could exchange places with
He needs the stimulus which dear Potamous gets too much of,
I fear; and Potamousie needs the wet blanket of dulness
which hangs round little -.
Dear me! if I had been born with such surroundings, really
I might have come to something. I should have made a spoon,
or spoiled (pronounced spilt) a horn.            T. P.
26




302              THEODORE PARKER.
BOSTON, April I9, 1856... The sanguinarias are out at Melrose, the hepaticas at
West Roxbury, the Mayflowers where they condescend to grow;
columbines are suspected at Concord; saxifrages are in their
(little) full glory.  You at Rome have cherries of quotable
bigness; and grape-vines have grown a foot or more. Did not
I leave dear, dear old sunny Italy on the I6th of April, I844,
and turn my face towards the Alps? Shall I ever do the like
again?
I hope you got my sermon; and of course you read it to
the Pope. I hardly dare ask what he thought of it. I fear he
might not think all parts of it quite (Roman) orthodox.
Poor Pope! How are the hezs?  I hope he had eggs enough
for Lent, and that there will be chickens in the summer. I
send you another sermon, which I fear you had better not read
to Pope, nor even to Mrs. Pope. I speak of his Holiness as a
mummy. The shabby old fellow, not to send me a cardinal's
hat and robes! Why, how can I go to the meeting of the Progressive Friends at Pennsylvania with nothing but my stovepii5ze on my head, and my cut-away on my back? If I had the
cardinal's great red hat and the purple robes, how I would sit
on the antislavery platform at New York and at Boston in
anniversary-week! How the Quakers would fall down and
worship the image of the beast, and the great scarlet what-isit in the Revelation. Dear me! I never saw a cardinal without thinking of the whole book of Revelation and the city of
Babylon.
Poor Sumner is worse again. Dear, noble soul! If his pain
could be divided amongst us, how soon he would be on his
legs! But it is only pecuniary sufferings we can thus alleviate.
Poverty is divisible by dollars, not sickness by numbers, not
sadness. Good-by! Here's a Mayflower for S.         T.
NEWTON CORNER, July I2, I858.
A little word before I go to bed. Bear is just snuggling
herself in. It has become a very naughty Bear, and can't say
its catechism till the Hunts come home. It is getting wild again,
and heathenish.'I don't know what to do with the creature.
Hannah writes to the sixty-seven-years-old mother, and will




SPE CIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.   303
tell of the sacrament of the preserved peaches and sponge-cake;
and she will tell, likewise, all the news: this is her province. She
is a woman. But I must tell Frederick Mayis engaged to Miss
Morse of Dorchester. Just the right thing! "Marriage made in
heaven." It was a good while coming down, though: that is
what all the people say. Fred and Martha came over and told
me of it. She sat in the chaise. How happy she did look!
Dear me! I love to see these lovers. I walk in the public
garden at the proper time of day, and delight to look at these
birds of paradise flying after their garden of Edenz. They are
in heaven for a time. How the most precious joys are also the
commonest! It is dear, loving God who fills the earthly cup
with such sweet blessings, and pours out so liberally.  T. P.
SEPT. 6, I858.
It is the last Sunday that we shall spend at  -  this season: so I shall write a word of a letter to our dear Sarah; and,
as I write out of doors on one of the most beautiful days in the
year, I think she will excuse the writing with a pencil, and not
with a pen. We intend to go to Boston next Wednesday morning
with all our worldly goods. It will be pleasant to touzch the
crockery once more: we have done no such thing for a long
time here: a thick film of Paddy is spread over every thing.
I shall also be glad to escape from the everlasting baby, whose
life is one continual yell, or squeal, or scream, or screech, or by
whatever name the most disagreeable of (hzzmanz) sounds,
excejpt the voice of an ill-natured woman, may be called. We
have had a delightful summer, - fine weather, good health, and
all; but I am tired of the leisure, and long to preach again.
Your beautiful book came only a week after my birthday
itself. Had it come a week earlier, I could not have received it
sooner; for I was absent from Massachusetts. It is a quite
charming little book; the only piece of popular song I have in
Italian. All the songs are of love and its accompaniments,youth, beauty, tenderness, &c.; but they are singularly delicate
and refined. Yet it is said all come from the mouth of the
people. If so, it is a remarkable monument of the national
character. It has none of the wonderful richness of fancy and
dear human love of common things which appear continually
in the English ballads of the people and in the Volkslieder of




304              THEODORE PARKER.
the Germans. Idealization of the common and homely is the
characteristic of the aesthetics of the Teutonic mind, including
all the people of that great ethnological family. It appears in
the Dutch pictures; in Rubens, who yet had a culture quite
alien to his nature; and in the noblest of them all, Albrecht
Durer. It comes out, too, in their poetry; most perhaps, of all,
in Shakspeare; but how clear in Burns! even in (stately and
Latinized) Milton. Of course, this appears in the literature of
the people. One day, the Americans, also, will have a national
consciousness, and a literature to express it; when the same
thing will appear. Now we have none of it in artistic forms,
except our landscaj5es, which are real bits of American nature.
Hereupon came the bell for supper: so the rest of this scrawl
must be written within doors, and that, too, in Boston itself.
Here I have no interruption, — only the hand-organs, and the
omnibuses, and the ringing at the door. It is something to be
rid of that baby, crying, roaring, bawling, teasing, screaming,
screeching, yelling, yowling, yelping, barking, growling, snarling,
snapping, squealing, squeaking, mowing! "He is a nice baby,
mamma's little darling, so he is, isn't he?"  But he is also a
nuisance. At breakfast, at dinner, at supper, and between all
the meals, came the universal baby, — baby in all forms, often
azx naturel, which is the prettiest kind of dressing. But Bear
and Hannah have a most feminine delight in all the performances of the aforesaid baby: indeed, I shrewdly suspect they
are the (proximate) cause of much of the nuisance he commits.
Here must I make an end of my letter, which it took two
days to write, and which was begun in Middlesex, and ended in
Suffolk.                                             T.
JUNE i6, I857.
It is Boston now, twelve, noon; nay, almost one, afternoon.
Wind north-east; sky covered with lead-colored clouds; a storm
and a holiday coming for to-morrow. There is to be a celebration of the battle. A statue of Gen. Warren is to be inaugurated.  Gov. Gardner is to have a finger in the pie. Mr.
Everett and Mr. Winthrop, I think, are to do some small chores
in the way of speaking at a dinner or elsewhere. And we are
to have any quantity of soldiers, (Heaven save the mark!) fire



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPON EXNCE.              305
men, &c. Gen. Scott was expected. He was to walk in the
procession, -no, to ride on an animal as big as the pale horse
in West's picture of the Last Judgment, with similar following,
I suppose. But his wife is sick in Europe; and so he can't
come to Massachusetts. But in his place the " SIRTI" is to
walk, preceded by (the skeleton of) old Dr. Warren riding on
his mastodon.  I only know this: " no other paper has the
news."  But the penny journals say " Gen.  ~ will not be in
Charlestown on the I7th;" but Sand's circus will be there, and
the elephants, &c. So the bears have gone over to Charlestown
to celebrate the great battle.  Last year, you remember, Mr.
-    was to deliver his eulogy on Washington at Cambridgeport on the I2th of June, but got frightened, and did not dare
let fly. So, to make it all right with the public, he requested
Dr.  -  to give him a certificate of ill health, stating that
his vocal or gans were in such a condition that he ought not to
speak. Now, the i8th, Mlr. --  is to deliver the long-expected
speech, and satisfy Mr. Public, who has been waiting these
twelve months. I understand that the president of the "' Sirti "
is to introduce after this sort: " Gentlemen, a year ago Mr.
-  could not address you (state of voki orgns); but now, by the
aid of science, and the happy disposition of his nature and his
will, he has become voi etiprceterea nihil."
The "Sirti," it should be remarked, by the way, was
the name given to an imaginary society existing in Mr.
Parker's brain, consisting of his wild fancies and bad
puns.  It figures conspicuously in his familiar letters.
The letter from which the following extract is taken was
written in the summer of I858, when he was struggling
with disease:
" I, too, have been a traveller.' Shall I give you my'impressions'? At three in the afternoon, left Boston by the railroad for
New York; distance two hundred and forty miles. Stop at
Framingham, twenty-six miles off. Some of the people reading
newspapers, which seems the chief literature of the people. Boys
bring round popped corn and peanuts: these seem the chief delicacies of the country. Several persons ate the latter voracious26*




306              THEODORE PARKER.
ly. (N.B. — The boys seem all to be of the same family, as
they all answered to the name of' Bub.' I had a copy of'The
Boston Directory,' but found no such name in that collection of
surnames.) At Worcester, forty-four miles from Boston, found
a town of about thirty thousand inhabitants. It has a courthouse, jail, meeting-houses, and one enormous hospital for the
insane. It contains a hundred and thirty-five inmates, -a large
proportion for so small a town. Several of the Bub family
visited us again; some with apples and oranges as well as the
peanuts; others had candy, and popped corn gummed into
balls with molasses. A few bought lozenges. (I think the sale
of such articles is confined to the members of this family,- the
Bubs. It must be a quite profitable business; for an intelligent
gentleman told me one of them would probably be in the
Senate of the United States before long, and the other would
stand a good chance to be governor of Massachusetts.)  The
chief business of the taverns seems to be providing for travellers.
Many persons crowded about us with the cry,' Have a caidj?'
(that is the American name for a coach drawn by two horses.)
The word'caidj,' or'kaidj,' -for I have not seen it spelt, -
is probably derived from the Indians, who, I suppose, had the
same kind of vehicle. (JIem. - Look in the dictionaries in the
Astor Library, and see what tribe of Indians.) Others called out
with great violence,' Temtzrenceons!' which seems to be another
name for the same thing. But it has not found its way into the
dictionaries, more than the' Bubs' into the directory.
"'Apple-trees are getting into blossoms.  The buttercups
have yellow flowers. There is red clover in the fields, mixed with
wrilet; but the red is the tallest: I suppose it is the native.
Mr. Agassiz says red is the typical color of the continent:
thence red men, red roses, red bricks, red combs on the cocks
and turkeys (the latter anr Almerican bird). The cows are red_;
so are the horses; nay, many of the farm-houses. I am told
that the cherries are also red, the beets also, many of the apples,
and all the native strawberries, cranberries, ras5berries, and
larber;ries. One gentleman told me there are red lilies, and
that all the green blackberries are red before they are ripe.
"The State of Connecticut has but one county, -Barnum
County: it extends over all the State, and indicates the morals
of the people. Mr. Barnum is the typical American: he is




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDEINCE.                307
the bright consummate flower of the nation. Men say Mr.
Buchanan is but another Barnum. I proposed to a gentleman with a clerical look, if it would not be well to consolidate
the prayers of all the churches on Mr. Barnum; after he was
converted, get him and Henry Ward Beecher to engineer the
revival through the United States. He thought, with their help,
the Tract Society might be'saved,' and Mr. Buchanan reelected in I86o.
"Reach New York quarter before twelve. City lit by gas.
Streets are muddy when it rains. (Coachmen cry the same name
for their vehicle as in Worcester; viz., kaidj.) Stopped at the
Astor House. Enormous spittoons in the rooms. Men sitting
with their feet in cairs.  (Query. - Is it to avoid dirtying their
boots? or is it a custom derived from the Indians?) There are
several churches in New York. I heard the bells strike twelve;
and at one went to bed in the uppermost story, with the city-hall
clock staring me in the face.
"Here ends the traveller's journal."
GALESBURG, ILL., OCt. 21, I856.
IT is a good old ladye; only it is a good ways off,- twelve
hundred miles by the shortest cut. To-morrow night (at Jacksonville) it will be thirteen or fourteen hundred. Don't like
it to be so far away. What a country it is out here! Between
this place and Chicago there is not a hill fifteen feet high, no
undulations, only little ripples of land in this great sea of
earth. There are few trees. You go many miles, and find
none. The ground, where it is ploughed, is black as coal-dust,
and fertile as Egypt. The natural wealth of Illinois exceeds
belief. The rapid growth of population, too, seems fabulous,
a miracle. Thus, seven years ago, Galesburg had six hundred
inhabitants; now about seven thousand. One Judge Hale of
Kenosha told me, on the 3d of July, I835, he was following an
Indian path through the Wisconsin Territory, and at night slept
with only the sky above and the ground under him. There was
not a house within many miles: only one woodsman was just
beginning his log-cabin, chopping the trees for it. Last July 3
he went to the same spot (by railroad), and there was the city
of Janesville, with nine thousand inhabitants; and he slept in a
hotel not ten rods from the old spot where he encamped in I835!




308             THEODORE PARKER.
Quantity is immense out here. Bulk is the word to describe
with: quality will come later. Quantity is the great burly
brother; quality the nice, dainty little sister; but both of the
same father and mother. Babies! -why, they are universal:
babies in all the moods and tenses, -babies indicative, subjunctive, potential, imperative, and' also infinitive; babies present,
imperfect, perfect, pluperfect, and in the first (or obvious) and
second (or potential) future; babies in the taverns, in the lecture-rooms, in the meeting-houses; in the cars, babies. Here
they are stationary; there locomotive. I no more expect to
see a woman without a baby than a man without tobacco.
They are not only an "institution," but also a nuisance.
Preached at Waukegan Sunday forenoon, in a public hall, to
about eight hundred or a thousand people. Our hymn-book in
the desk. I sent' them the hymn-books years ago. We had
live singing too.
It is a dark day for America; but she has seen dark years
before. Tories are nothing new. Reading Washington's Life
again. I wonder that we ever got through the Revolution, so
heedless are individuals of the welfare of the whole, so many
are only particular, so few universal or national. There is
something radically wrong in our civilization, which leads men
to neglect their country. The pulpit is partly to blame; for
while it is pounding away all the time on matters of individual,
private concernment,- patience, prudence, prayer, benevolence, &c., in its best endeavors, — it seldom touches the great
political duties which men owe to man as divine service of God.
But politics is the religion of a nation, just as individual daily
life is that of Peter and Rebecca. But how few ministers do
(or can) look beyond mere individuals — in the "church on
church green" and its Sunday school! But it is not worth
while to scold men, only to mend'em.
Love to all. It must be the best old ladye that ever was in
all the world.
Good-by!                   T. P.
TELEGRAPH FROM O. F. -" Meetin'v Sirti'n Sexn'v Theolurgi. Questyun: Why did the Lord make the world?
Answer: Nobodi els cood. Wa'n't none reddi mad: so he
done it."




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.                309
BOSTON, Nov. 7, 1852.
POOR DEAR OLD LADYE, - I had a nice time at Loring's
Monday night. Saw Thackeray, -a great, monstrous man, six
feet and a half high, with a huge shock of gray hair on his
head, spectacles, a large stzzmff  zase, and a long old chin.
He seemed a little shy. Sumner was there, and looked short
beside Thackeray.  It was a caution to hear "- let on"
the great men. It would have amused SWendell. Mr. Crowe,
son of the " Nightside of Nature," I take it, was there. He
is a secretary of Mr. Michael Angelo Titmarsh, and accompanies him from Cornhill to Cairo.
Emerson was here yesterday, full of the sweetest bonhoommzie. Came to ask me to dine with him and Clough- the
" Bothie of Toper na Fuosich," you know -and others at
the Tremont House on Saturday. Emerson's house is in disorder, and he can't give us treat at Concord, and would not
let. me give it in our house at Boston. So it is.
Well, I am all sound and round and light and bright; sleep
like a pic; and have the appetite of a wild roe on the mountains:
so I shall soon make amends. I have answered all the letters;
and "owe no man any thing," according to the Scriptures. I
have even subscribed for " The Daily Advertiser; " and think
in time, say a thousand years, I may be an -old man.
Love to all, especially one; to whom also,
Boo!
The pure nonsense often comes at the end of a grave
letter, as if to relieve the sadness of his thought; for
example: —
WEST NEWTON, June 17, I852.
DEAR OLD LADYE, - Seventy-seven years ago this day, my
worthy grandfather felt a little different from what I feel just
now. It was a hot day then; but they made it hotter. I think
it will be hot at Baltimore to-day. All Boston believes that
Webster will be president. Seven hundred of the Hunkers
have gone to Baltimore as outside members of the convention.
Things look very ill for the country. If Pierce is chosen, or
Webster, I think we shall have Cuba and half Mexico in the




310 T0I7EODORE PARICER.
next administration.  How long this re-action in favor of
despotism is to last, I do not know; but it extends everywhere. We shall have slavery in California yet. But one good
thing gets established, though a dangerous good, - the South
has got the Federal Government to assuzze the control of slavery. One day, they will be very sorry for this.
The whole house is in delicious confusion. We were at
Uncle Peter's on Monday. The great oxen are gone into the
country to board; but the Pics are at home, and receive company. I saw 0. F. the other day with his white hat on.
He read a paper before the "'Cademy," mathematical section,
on the trisection of the arc. WVho first did it? That was the
question. 0. F. examined the claims of Archimedes, Zeno,
&c.  No,'twarn't they. Who was it?  Noah trisected the
ark for Shem, Ham, and Japhet. Never was such a family.
O. F. recommended that Noah be made honorary member of
the Academy.                                     Boo!
BOSTON, May I8, 1858.
IT IS AN OLD LADYE,- We went to Lexington yesterday,
P.M. Emily is to pass away, and that before long. In cold
weather she feels pretty well; but in a warm day she wilts like
a cut flower. I doubt that she sees midsummer. All the rest
are well. The rheumatism alone ought to have been enough to
stop me from going to New York; but I fear it would not. I did
not like to leave the Ellises in that time of trial. Either was
reason enough for not going; but I made public the most
quotable.
I am afraid you will lose interest in Boston, unless you
know the important events of this great town: so I advise
you thereof.
The Daily has a paper, which was read at the Sirti last
night, by Col. S., on "Stravgzz'v'Pinyuzl."  Here it is.
Boo!
Nobody misses it. At a "meetin' of the Sirti" last night,
the question came up on the antiquity of omnzibuses. The
usual variety of (wise) opinions was entertained. But O. F.
decided that they were as old as the time of St. Ambrose, -
fourth century. He quoted the well-known rule of that saint,




SPECIMENVS OF CO RRESPONDENCE.                3II
not with entire accuracy; for his imagination sometimes
supplies his memory with facts, - Ivz triviis unitas; i.e., " unity
in t/hinzgs of no conseqzence; " for that is what he thinks is
meant by triviis, -- not, as the dictionaries say, the public
squares where t,7/ree ways meet: itz cubicuzlis libertas; i.e., " you
may do what you have a mind to: " and int omnibus carilas;
i.e., "good manners in an omnibus."
BOSTON, Saturday Morning.
DEAR OLD LADYE, - We got into town last niglht, driven
in by IMrs. A., who comes up from  the sea-shore in such
weather as this. Last night I could not coax the thermometer
down below 790, any way we could fix it. Now, at eight and
a half, A.M., I dare not look at it, it is so high.  Susan is here,
quite well. In the midst of the heat, there just came a monstrous African. Black! - oh, dear, how black he was! Fat! -
bless me, he looked like a barrel (no, a sugar-hogshead) of tar,
so black, so fat! What an aggravation, with the thermometer
at go9 in the shade!
We have now A. He has been studying German; and, as
usual, his originality develops itself into new forms: indeed,
originality with him becomes imitation (of himself, namely).
He has discovered a misprint in Sclililler's Frauen. Now it
reads,
" Ehret die Frauen, sie flechten und weben
Himmlische Rosen in irdische Leben."
He says, "misprint."  Read so, -
I" Ehet die Frauen, sie flechten und weben
Coltonischze Faden in ih/re sc/lon Leben."
That makes sense.
At the last meeting of the "'Cademy " he announced these
new things: "Why do men eat meat and bread?" -"Cos
ti: ey're hungry."
"WVhy do they eat fruit? "   " Cos they like it."
There never woz sich a fomily az our fomily!
I send a letter of Desor's. The frontispiece represents a
fact. Bradford was going to disturb a pig, a monster, lying
in the road. I remonstrated against stirring him up, and said,




312              THEODORE PARKER.
"' Pig, pig, lie still, and slumber;" but pig got up, and followed
us for ten rods, accompanied by a whole troop of blessed darlings, that cried for their breakfast. So naughty Desor has
taken me off in a scrap.                           Boo!
Catz came in safe. His arrival was announced in " The
Caterwaul and Transcript: " and so, last night, George Ticknor's cat, Sam. A. Eliot's cat, and George T. Curtis's great
tom-cat, all came down to welcome him back; and they scolded
and quarrelled and spit and fought to their hearts' content.
Good-by!
WEST NEWTON, July I9, 1852.
POOR OLD LADYE FORTY-FIVE, — So she has got a comfortable chamber for a particular person never so particular.
Well, at the time appointed,- a long time away it is too, - I
shall report myself. We shall have room for you here for a
little while at the beginning of September; and, after the middle, as much more as you want. I should like most dearly to
take some of the walks with you, and some of the drives: the
waltzing, olIkailzg, &c., I am content to leave to you and the
four-wived deacon.
Boarding has its comforts for a few days, but its disadvantages for many days. I think most of the men of great intellectual renown have associated chiefly with men of large
intellect and of fine culture: so it was with Socrates, Aristotle,
Bacon, Leibnitz, Newton, and the rest of such men. But what
is so good for the head, I take it, is rather hard for the heart.
Men who have attained a large growth in affection, in justice, in
religion, I think have associated with all sorts and conditions
of men. I believe one must do so to get this human sort of
culture. A baby is better for the heart than a whole academy
of philosophers. Martin Luther lived with his li'be Kdazzie,
and with all the plain, homely people about his little town: so
must all teachers of religion, and all learners thereof, I fancy. It
is a deal better to get a whole culture than a half culture. What
business would Newton, Locke, Leibnitz, or Kant, have with a
baby, or even a wife, or even a woman? Thomas Aquinas, Scotus, and that sort of folks, have a right to a family of books; nc
more: their "folks at home " are only folios.




SPE CIMIENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.                3I 3
Out here I have got comfort with the cattle; and the old horse
knows me, and calls for hay; and I talk with the dumb beast,
who is not deaf. He is an excellent creature: and Mrs. L
says, " E'en his failings lean to virtue's side;" for he wants to go
too fast. The great long-horned oxen are pets of mine. The
_ic is one of my favorites also; and I speak to him every morning, noon, and night, and he answers me. Then I throw him
nice dainty pigweed and plantains, which he receives with a
patient shrug; for eating is " the badge of all his tribe."
Here is a nice little boy, - Bubby White. I like him and little
Bits o' Blossoms; but he does not begin to compare to Mousie or famous Mites o' Teants. " To-morrow to Clark's Island
and pastures new: " so good-night; and night it is too.
We have a young woman here (she is IO+-I+-5=25) who is
on the way to the society of 0. M's. She is booked for an 0. M.
I would not mention her name for the world: she would take
my head off, and I should be even worse treated. So don't mention the unpardonable sin to any one.              Boo!
Here is a piece of pure nonsense addressed to a lady of
fifty, in capital letters, as if for the eyes of a child: —
APRIL FOURTH, 1849.
MY DEAR HAN., - I am now at Ports-mouth. It is a small
town close to the sea. Howe and I are at a small house where
they take folks in to lodge if they are good. The moon shines
here just as it shines at home. If you ask the Bear, she will
tell you that she thinks it does so in all the world, but is not
quite sure of it. We went from Fall River on foot to Tiverton:
it was six miles. The land is full of hills and vales, with some
brooks. I have seen some flocks of birds: some were black,
and some were blue. I heard one of the black ones say, —
"If our dear Han.
Will do all she can;
If she will not be rude,
But will try to be good, -
Some day in the spring
She shall hear the birds sing.
Good lit-tle Han.:
She does all she can."
27




3I4             THEODORE PARICER.
Well, to-day we mean to go from Ports-mouth to New-port.
I hope you will get this note next day, if you will be a good girl.
Howe walks on both of his feet. He has got a new cane; and I
thought I could not keep up with him if I went on two legs
while he had three: so I got me a new cane; and I can walk as
fast as he. I went down to the coal-mine last night; but I could
not get in. You see, they fear that men will come and spy out
the coal; and so they keep dark about it. Here is a steamboat
in the bay, and a nice gall in the house. We get on quite well.
We have seen a bridge, and some men with a great long net to
catch fish. You must be good, my dear Han., and do all that
the poor old Bear tells you. Give my love to her; and here is
a kiss for Han.
But usually a strain of pathos runs through it: -
JUNE 21, 1849.
MY DEAR HANNAH,- You don't know how sad all things
are here without you. Nothing goes well without you. The
birds have forgot half their singing; and Lizzy chatters more
than ever. Do you know how hot it is here? Mr. Shaw's
thermometer rose so high, that it went off out of sight. I
suppose you have a buffalo to keep you warm, and wonder
how the poor folks at West Roxbury do who have no
buffalo.
What an unlucky station that is at Monterey! I walked
over there to-day at half-past two, P.M. There I was hot as a
grasshopper or a kettle of tar. The " spectacles " were fixed,
" eyes right;" and I stood there panting like a locomotive,
only redder in the face, and by went the cars: so I took it
coolly, - for it was a cool thing, - and walked home.  No
Boston this day; no Cambridge yesterday; Cambridge the
day before.
Youz don't know it; but to-day is the twelfth anniversary of
my settlement. Chandler Robbins read the Scriptures: this
day his new church is sold on account of whom it may concern.
Ripley gave me the right hand: now he is the New-York correspondent of " The Chronotype." Whitney, Dr. Gray (illustrious name, clarum et venerabile nomen), have both gone.
Henry Ware also is gone -to heaven. Not one that took a




SPECIJENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.                315
part in the services- and there were seven of them - remains
where he was; and three are dead. Old J. Q. Adams was the
delegate from Quincy, and drank the milk that was left in his
saucer after he had fished out the strawberries which he was
lucky enough to get (I got neither strawberries nor milk): he
is gone. Mr. Polk, whom nobody ever heard of, has been
President, and is really dead. Gen. Harrison, whom nobody
ever dreamed of for any thing but drinking hard cider, has been
in that bad eminence, and died. Capt. Taylor is not dead; only
buried alive as his fathers were before him. And now a fourth
man, then as unheard of as a new baby, is President; and I
think the worshipful Whigs will one day wish that they had
never heard of him, or never touched him.
Not a word from you yet: only think of that! I hope
you will take care and keep out of the way of the seaserpent.
These must suffice as specimens of this man's extraordinary facility, fulness, and variety. They present but a
meagre sketch of his sympathetic relations with people.
It must be enough to mention that this busy man found
moments to write letters to a little boy six or seven years
old, living with his parents in Europe; and to print them
laboriously with the pen, that the child might be able to
spell them out for himself. The temptation is great to
print a curiously-elaborate jeaz d'esjrit, in the shape of
the biography of St. Gambrinus, sent to his friend Mrs.
Apthorp. It occupies, exclusive of the illustrations, four
pages of foolscap; and is a pure piece of rollicking fun, -
a jolly bubble escaping to the upper air from a deep well
of native joyousness, which was not satisfied to play in
ordinary fountains of frolic. Miss F. P. Cobbe, who was
present when it was opened at Montreux, pronounced it a
delicious satire on the illustrated travels and overdone picture biographies of the day. The pictures, fifty in number,
were cut out of children's story-books, papers, cheap prints,
advertising columns, and pasted on the thin letter-sheet in
most amusing order. And this was done in the summer




3I6              THEODORE PARAKER.
of I858, when his animal spirits must have been at their
lowest point! But the water was never so low in his spring
that thirsty souls could not come to him freely in their
need for a long draught or a drop of moisture. These
heaps of letters, now brown and lifeless, gladdened many
a wilderness, and made solitary places sing, when they
issued from his exuberant heart.  It is enough for us to
know that the refreshing tide never failed those who came
to it. But, when the spring is dried up, the standing water
in the reservoir becomes tasteless.
The letters that follow show the breadth of his sympathies, as the preceding show their warmth.
To E. Desor.
INDIANAPOLIS, IND., OCt. I8, 1854.
DEAR DESOR, - Here I am a thousand miles from dear old
sedate Boston. I am on a lecturing-expedition. I am to lecture eleven times, and to preach once, in Indiana, Michigan,
Ohio, and Pennsylvania. I have many things to say about the
country and the people. I wish I had you to help me observe,
and to generalize after the facts are known. The WEST, which
I have now visited three times, impresses me much with the.widtl of all things. There is a certain largeness to every
thing, - streams, plains, trees, pumpkins, apples, swine (a hog
in Ohio, I854, weighed, alive, I,980o founds; another, 2,150),
and men. But there is a certain coarseness offibre also noticeable in all things. The wood is coarse-grained; the nuts are big
and fat,'not nice and sweet; the apples have a coarse texture, all
the vegetables, and all the fruits. Did you ever see the fishes
of the Ohio? They are the most uncouth-looking monsters I
ever saw, save the Roman fishes in the market at Rome, —
the CATFISH, an ugly-looking devil, with a face like an owl;
the SPOON-BILLED CATFISH (here is a picture of the
"Spoon-bill Cat: " he weighed about eighty pounds: his spoonbill was two feet eight inzches. he looked like Dr. F    r),
looking yet worse; the BUFFALO (an overgrown scszsin), the
RED HORSE, and the SUCKER. One must be hard pushed to
eat one of these wretches. The men look sickly, yellow, and




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.                 3] 7
flabby. In Indiana I saw but one rosy-cheeked girl, about
eighteen or nineteen. "Were you born here? "-" No, sir: in
New Hampshire." -" I thought so."  I saw three or four hundred children in the schools at Indianapolis; not a rosy cheek.
The women have no bosoms, or, as " the professor " would say,
"a very imperfect development of the glandular formation."
They are tall and bony, their hair lank, their faces thin and
flabby-cheeked.
WVhat effect is this Western climate to have on the human
race? It must check the intensity of the Anglo-Saxon character. The fertility of the soil, the dulness of the air, the general
enervating influence of the physical circumstances, must deteriorate the human being for a long time to come. Health is poor;
activity small, in comparison with New England. You are right
in your estimate of American climate on Europeans. When
Dr. F. the pachyderm came here, he weighed 293 pozn;zds: he
has Zost 8o pOoznzds, - over twenty-seven per cent. But I fear
the West deteriorates Americans quite as much. It is too early
to undertake to determine the future character of the Westerners; but this is pretty plain, - they will no more have the same
energy as the New-Englanders than the Britons have the same
as the Norsemen and Danes who went from Scandinavia to.
England.
There has been a great baby-show in Ohio. One hundred
and twenty-seven babies were offered for prizes. One received
three hundred dollars; one, two hundred dollars; one, one hundred dollars; and, besides, several gratuities were given to
others. The prize, of course, was given to the mother. I think
Jonathan is the first to offer prizes to the best baby. An agricultural society in England, a few years ago, gave twenty-five
pounds for the prize ox, and five shizZlizgs for the modeflteasant.
But you will see an account of the baby-show in " The NewYork Tribune."
Here the letter suddenly breaks off; but in others the
writer reverts again and again to the humanity of the New
World.  It was not as a speculative philosopher merely,
but as a deep lover of his kind, that he watched the shifting problems of his age.
27*




318              THPIEODORE PARKER.
To Prof. E. Desor.
WEST NEWTON, Aug. 9, I852.
DEAR DESOR, —Your very welcome letter came in due
time, and gladdened all our hearts. We were glad to find you
were well, and your brother in no worse condition. Of course,
he knows nothing of me; yet, as he is your brother, I beg you
to present him my best wishes and kind regards. It delighted
us all to find that you were received so kindly both at Neufchatel and at Paris; but I always supposed it would be so, and
that your enemies were confined to Cambridge and its hunker
neighborhood.
You kindly asked if I would like to have a set of the
microscopic specimens which somebody is preparing. I should
like them much. If they are sent to M. Bossange, I i Quai
Voltaire, Paris, care of Little and Brown, Boston, they will
reach me in safety.  Let me know the cost, and I will send it.
So if any thing remarkable appears in the way of philosophy,
science, or any thing of note: you know how gladly I shall
receive it. By the way, you did not give me the address of
your friend the German bookseller at Paris.
Now a word about the politics of Europe. It has long
seemed to me that France was in its decadence; that the phenomena of the Bas Empire are getting reproduced. Just now,
there are great families in Europe: I. The Italo-Greek and
their descendants; 2. The Celtic; 3. The Teutonic; 4. The
Ugrian, comprising the Hungarians, Finns, Lithuanians, and
Lapps; 5. The Turkoman; 6. The Slaves.  I take it the
Turks will be conquered and subjugated by Russia; that
the Ugrians will come also under the same power; and all the
Slaves unite in one great, monstrous nation.  The effort of
the Hungarians, it seems to me, is only that of a nationality
about to perish. The Italo-Greek will never rally, I fear:
indeed, there is no example in history of an old race becoming
young and vigorous again. What is to be hoped for from
Greece, Italy, or Spain, the two last not only old, but with the
Catholic religion on their backs? The Celtic race will rapidly
disappear. The language will not last a hundred years in Scotland, Wales, or Ireland, it seems to me. Facility for intercourse destroys local dialects in Europe, as it prevents their




SPECIME ENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.               319
formation in America. France, partly Celtic, partly  ItaloGreek, and partly Teutonic (by the Alemanni, the Franci, the
Burgundi, mixing with the old Galli or Keltre), seems likely to
fall gradually into the condition of Italy and Spain. Then
there are left two great families, -— the Teutonic and the
Sclavic. In Scandinavia and the Alps, I take it, they will keep
up liberal governments, and become progressively more liberal;
but in the centre of Europe, it seems to me, this family will
continually retreat before the Slaves. Then England, with her
immense practical talent, energy, and materialism, seems to me
likely to become more and more powerful, more and more
liberal. This is a remarkable peculiarity of the Anglo-Saxon
race: they never fight for glory, but for gain. France is poorer
for all her "glorious" victories: England is richer. Then
France covets old countries: England covets izew onzes.  Look
at her possessions now, -Great Britain, Gibraltar, Malta, Greek
Islands, a footing in Greece, right of way in Egypt, little bits
of land all along the Gulf of Guinea, South Africa (and is
now fighting the Caffres, and will soon have all the east of
Africa), India, a footing in Siam (and is marching by that
route to China), a footing in China, New Holland, New Zealand, a footing in Borneo, multitudes of islands in the Pacific
Ocean, Jamaica, Bermudas, half of North America.  She
has now a hundred and fifty millions of subjects, and is horribly rich and formidably wise.  Then there is the Anglo-Saxon
American, just like his mother, with the same materialism, the
same vulgarity, the same lust for land, and longing for individual freedom. I take it, that, a hundred years hence, there
will be only two great factors in the civilization of Christendom; viz., the Anglo-Saxon family (in two divisions, - the
Anglo-Saxon Briton and the Anglo-Saxon American) and the
Sclavic family. The history of mankind is getting simplified.
It would not be surprising if these two tribes, then, should conquer all the globe. In due time, I trust, a nobler race of men
will spring up, with higher notions, to establish a higher civilization. We Anglo-Saxons are RoPmaxs of inzdustry, as the
Romans were An-zolo-Saxons of rwar. See how we invade
nations with our pcddlers and workmenz/ True, England and
America are just alike in this.
I expect a good deal from the Sclavic family. Look at their




320              THEODORE PARKER.
great territorial possessions! half Europe, half Asia, a big
piece of North America.  Look at their language, with every
sound of all the alphabets of the race except the tZ; at their
large heads, the biggest in the world; at their power in diplomacy, ruling all the courts of Europe for fifty years! Note
the steady advance of the race in territory, in internal civilization, and all art.  I think it will not be long before Russia
is at Constantinople, and then at Athens. Let England go to
Naples, to Rome, to Thebes, and Russia may go to Byzantium
and Smyrna.
Well, these are dreams, -only dreams. Poor, short-sighted
mortals! our faculty of prevision is most exceedingly little.
Consider that I am dreaming.
Now a word of America. I think Pierce and his Democrats
will come into power; that this will be the aim of his administration, -to divide California into two States (one a slave
State), to get another slice from Mexico (slave territory), to
make slave States out of New Mexico and Utah, to re-annex
Cuba. This re-annexation of Cuba will be the darling object of
the administration.  It will be popular, I. With the PJcope, who
want a great territory, just as all the farmers want a great farm.
2. W\Vith the CAPITALISTS: the capitalists will like it for these
reasons, - they will then have a chance to speculate in cotton
stock, and make lots of money. Then there must be a national
debt of a hundred million dollars, or more: that will give them,
I. An opportunity to defraud the government in getting the
stock. 2. An opportunity for a safe investment of money.
3. A high tariff to protect their manufactures. Then the trade
with Cuba will be so much increased, that the merchants will
like it; and Northern gentlemen will like to have estates in Cuba
to live on in the winter, and escape taxation by moving thither
from Boston, as they now run out into the country on the last
of April to escape taxing the first of May. Then the productiveness of the island will be much enhanced if Jonathan gets
hold of it.
The great difficulty is on the side of England and Spain.
There is a secret treaty, I think, between the two nations
(France, also, I think, is a party to it), which guarantees the
possession of Cuba to Spain. But, if we can bzy it of Spain,
that nation is quieted.  But England desires the abolition of




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.                 321
slavery. I take it, the government cares nothing about it; but
the people do. Now, it is from the action of England that I
have much to hope. I do not believe that American slavery
will see the year I9oo. If we undertake to get Cuba by violence, the governor of the island has orders to liberate the
slaves at once. England will not suffer us to keep slaves there
~vithout a word against it. I think we shall have a little
tlouble. " The pitcher is broke that goes oft to the well," says
the proverb. If the pitcher of slavery does not get broken, it
is not in consequence of not going to the well.
I see one of your Swiss-German gentlemen (Louis Vertisch)
has written a real German philosopher's book on the geological
changes of the earth (" Die jiiingste Katastrophe des Erdball:"
Brunswick, 1852), in which he maintains that an unknown
cosmic mass came in the neighborhood of the earth, and
drew away part of our atmosphere. I suppose all the evils
in the world, from "Adam's fall to the German revolution,"
are to be ascribed to the "unknown cosmic mass."  I have
before me a new edition of " Carpenter's Physiology " (Svo, pp.
Io8o), which posts up the literature to the year I85I. It is all
new except a hundred and fifty pages, and is a grand work.
Owen's distinction between a lover and a loved is there
observed.  I have read a book of M. Mathieu (" Etudes cliniques sur les Maladies des Femmes:" Paris, I848), which contains many things that are interesting,  on hysteria, nervousness, and all sorts of exaltation, clairvoyance, possession, &c.
The superior science of the French doctors over the English
and American springs in the eyes at once.
Here we have nothing new of any importance. I had a kind,
nice letter from " the professor " a few days ago, at Pottsville,
making new discoveries in " the infra carboniferous series"
"almost daily."  Dear, good, kind, feminine soul! we must
both meet him at some association of geologists on the planet
Jupiter; and " mi brother and I " must have just returned from
the planet Leverrier, with specimens of the nzatztinal series of
limestone. How pleasant it will be! Well, he is a good soul,
and I like him dearly.
Now I must tell you more about the good folks here at Boston, &c. Mrs. Howe and Chev. have just gone to Newport.
Howe looks ill, and seems sad: things go not ri.ght. Mrs.




322              THEODORE PARKER.
Howe sends the kindest regards to the Stets Liber-wturdig in
return for yours. "The old count" is at Newport again, railing
against Kossuth. " Ugsh! " says he, " have you got the great
Kossuth fever?" "-  Not even the great Gurowski fever," replied some one. A queer fellow, that Gurowski, but, I think, more
honest than men judge. Paskevitch gave his word of honor
to Gurowski's sister-in-law at Warsaw, that, if he (Gurowski)
desired it, all things should be arranged, and he might return
with honor. The old count wrote him  a violent refusal.
" Noh, noh!" said he. Old Fiister is actually stouter than
ever, but has new pains in the Beinzen (Beizsanzgste), - 1" effect of
poison."  He is no longer the " Mzastodon KICab " which you
used to call him: he is the mastodon sel/bst. He has enough to
do in "giving hours," as he used to call it; and now speaks
quite well, but rather " sanft," as he says. He still thinks the
Boston Germans are sc/zech/te Kerlenz. He desires me to remember him to you after the most friendly sort. He is one of the
kindliest and most womanly-tender souls that ever lived.
We have a new German paper in Boston, " The New-England Zeitung," conducted by Wagner, Domscke, and Schliiger:
antislavery all through.  But just now it has come out for atheism, and denies the immortality of the soul.  " Es giebt kein
Gott, und keine Unsterblichkeit," is its creed. Miss Stevenson
is at Vermont. I go to bring her back soon. Wife sends all
manner of love to you.  I think you, Howe, and I shall yet
make our excursion to the tropics. - Good-by!
Yours,
THEO. PARKER.
To tle Same.
BOSTON, Jan. 29, I853.
DEAR DESOR,- There are two reasons why you could not
read my letter of last summer, - x. You have forgotten your
English; 2. You are growing old.  But this shall be so plain,
that, if you put on your spectacles, you shall read it all through.
Well, I thank you heartily for your last kind letter, and am much
rejoiced that you went to the German scientific meeting, and
saw some parts of your native land which I have seen before.
I wish I could have been with you. Some time we will journey
together all over Germany, and up to the North, "lighting
our pipes at the midnight sun." Nay, perhaps we will go down




SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.   323
to the equator in America, and see the grandeur of tropic
vegetation. Did you see Alexander von Humboldt in your
visit to Berlin? I have more curiosity to see him than to see
all the Idzzige-z and Kaisern that ever stood on the world. He
is a noble specimen of a man. When I was at Berlin in I844,
I had letters to him; but he was not in the city: so I missed
the good man. His " Kosmos" seems to me a little over-ripe: the
tone is old-mannish; not enough of theyouzth ofgenius in it.
I suppose Europe will now return to the quiet pursuit of
science and literature.  " Il n'y aura pas de revolution aujourd'hui."  The gens de salor at Paris may return to their
opera, their peite comzed/ie, and their jolies fl/es; the German
Gelehrte may re-ascend the clouds, and thence rain down new
systems of philosophy, KIritiken der reinei Vernztuzf/, and the
like.  It seems as if another Kant was possible now. But I
fear that all Continental Europe will fall a prey to what the old
count would call CZARISJMUS. Liberty is an Alpine plant in the
flora of Continental Europe.  It grows in Scandinavia and
Switzerland; but where else?
In Continental Europe there are four great families of the
Caucasian race: Ist, The Celtic; 2d, The Italo-Greek, or Classic
family; 3d, The Teutonic; 4th, The Sclavic. The destinies of
Europe are in their hands. The influence of Hungary and
Turkey is only exceptional, and at this day quite feeble, it seems
to me; only restrictive, and not initiatory. Now, for the Celtic
family, I expect nothing new or great in the political way. It
is only in France that they have any power. In Scotland,
Wales, Ireland, they are nothing. The Spaniards, mixed up of
Ibero-Basques, of Celts (Celtiberi), of Classics, and of Teutons
(Viszio/hi), are of no account.  Well, in France you are reenacting the old scenes of the Bas Empire. Paris is the
Byzantitum of /e zzizefeenzth centuzry. What can you hope of
a people that are the prey of an adventurer, who, in a time of
revolution, lands with a tame eagle and a pocket full of debts,
a miserable wretch without character or talents, and in two
years is emperor of the forty million Frenchmen?
The Classic family is well-nigh dead. They live only by the
bones of their fathers, the glorious names of Greece and
Rome. Political liberty cannot revive in that worn-out soil.
Then there is left the Teutonic and the Sclavic family. What




324              THEODORE PARKER.
do you expect from Germany for the next five hundred years?
Will freedom get established there? What will Russia dc? I
have more hope of the Sclavonics than of the Continental Germans. In a hundred years, it seems to me, there will be but
two great powers in Christendom; viz., the A.zglo-Saxons of
England and America and the Sclavonics. I cannot believe
that the Germans or French will stand against these hundred
millions of Slaves. America will soon be the citadel of freedom, with three million bondmen in the donjon-keep.
Here in Massachusetts the Whigs have regained the power.
The Hunkers are triumphant again to-day: they have elected
their governor (Mr. Clifford), and got all the officers. Mr.
Everett will probably be the senator. The ministers are worshipping Daniel Webster. The politicians think his opinions are
an'"amendment to the Constitution: " the clergy think his life
one of "the evidences of religion."
WTe have nothing new in the way of literature or science or
art. Stansbury's "Survey of New Mexico " I have for you,
and will send it soon, with several things of my own. " The
professor" is as happy as surroundings can make him. He has
a little neuralgia, and a " slight attack of erysipelas in the nose."
The good soul was never happier, and is as wise as the French
Institute. I have seen a good deal of him this winter, and love
him more and more. He lectured to the Natural-history Society
the other day on - what do you think? -on Earthquake Waves.
He won the admiration of all that heard him, - such clearness
of statement with such nicety of speech!
" Old Fuister," as you call him, is often here. Miss Skindly teaches him English. His Be'lz is much better, and he
has got a new Rock. He is a dear good soul, and is translating
a little volume of sermons of mine just now published. Dr.
C. T. Jackson is fighting for ether, and gets no release from
pain by his own discovery. It is not azceslthetic to him. The
Cabots are both well: I saw them to-day; and they send their
bes: regards to you. Dr. and Mrs. Howe are in fine condition,
and send also their kindest salutations. The doctor and I go
to New York this day.  He is one of the editors of "The
Commonwealth," and slashes " The Daily Advertiser " with no
mercy. I saw your friend Mrs. John Howe yesterday. She
was at meeting, and looks quite well. You don't know how we




SPECIMrENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.               325
miss you. We eat the sacramental cheese on the Naturalhistory Society nights, and think of Desor; and I imitate you,
and ask after "Katz," &c. Wife and Miss Stevenson send
their kindest regards. Do go dox n to Italy with your brother
and see Rome, Poestum, Vesuvius. Send me the microscopic
objects, and tell me the address of that bookseller at Paris. I
want some books from him.
Believe me ever most truly yours,
THEO. PARKER.
I have a letter from  Siljestr6m.  His wife has a son
Hans, and he a book, -"Resa i F6renta Staternia."  I shall
send him "Mother Goose " for the Hanschen. He says Sweden is dull, dull, dull.
My sermon on Webster will be printed in a pamphlet form
in a few weeks; and I will send it to you, with sundry other
things. Do go to Italy, if your brother is well enough. Send
me some early flower in your letter. I value your gentiana
much. One of the clergymen said, "There was only one thing
above Daniel Webster: that was the Almighty God." There
have been more than a hundred and thirty eulogies of Webster
printed: only three have found any fault with the man, - May's
(at Syracuse), Higginson's (at Worcester), and mine. Write as
often as you can conveniently: but do not distress yourself; for
I know how many friends there are to claim your attention.
Some time or another, I must see you again on this side or the
other of the ocean. Good-by!
To Peter Lesley, PiiladedJzhia.
BOSTON, Nov. 15, I857.
MY DEAR MR. LESLEY, - It did me great good to see your
handwriting again; but I fear there is little to be done this year
in the way of lecturing, even on iron. The lecturers hereabouts
complain of no work. Some societies have sent out their circulars, and cancelled the engagements already made; others have
" suspended " for this season. The way to make yourself known
in that way is to send a line to'" The New-York Tribune," and
ask it to put your name in its list of lecturers. But I fear little
will be done this winter. Labor stops, and all sto.ps.
28




326             7THEODORE PARKER.
I wish you lived where I could see you often, and talk over
matters of science. Since Desor has gone, and now Prof. H.
D. Rogers, I am in great want of scientific company. By the
way, do you see the attack which Agassiz has made on Desor?
It is in a note on page ninety-seven of his " Essay on Classification," so called; which is the general introduction to his
contributions to the " Natural History of the United States,"
volume first, and is just published.  He charges Desor with
plagiarism from him, Agassiz! I make no doubt that the boot
was on the other leg, and that Agassiz took from Desor. But
we shall see what the good soul will say for himself: I sent
him the passage. I wish you would tell me what you think of
Agassiz's essay. Three-quarters of it is on the subject of the
"Bridgewater Treatises," chap. i.; the rest on Classification,
chap. ii.
I wish you would tell me if Agassiz, in chap. i., removes the
difficulty which philosophers find in their way, and which makes
atheists of them, so the ministers say.  I find more real
atheism amongst thzeologrians than amongst P/ziZosotSzers. The
former deny the substaizce of God in the world of things and
men, and send us off to some phantom which lives (or stays) at
a distance, and now and then " intervenes " by a miracle, - this
Deus ex machina; they are ready to deny his laws. But the
latter deny the existence of that God, and yet admit the immanent reality of a power of thought, will, and execution, which
fills all space and all time, is ever active, and never needs to
" intervene " where he forever dwells.
Mr. Agassiz says there are " not more than six men in the
United States who can understand his book, and perhaps twelve
or twenty in Europe: " so I suppose it would be presumptuous
in a man brought up on Descartes, Bacon, Leibnitz, and Newton,
and fed on Kant, Schelling, and Hegel, not to speak of such
babies as Plato and Aristotle, to think of comprehending the
popular lecturing of this Swiss dissector of mud-turtles (for
I take it this chap. i. is only a part of his lectures on the
Evidences of Religion in Nature, delivered at WVashington, or
somewhere else). Agassiz is a man of great talents, great industry. His power of analyzing a clam or a turtle, an echinoderm or a snail, is wonderful; his skill in lecturing, and making
the philosophy of fish pleasant to men who only catch and eat




SPECIIME~NS OF CORRESPONDENVCE.   327
them, is beyond all praise: but when he comes to the metaphysics of all science, and the relation of the clam to the
Causal Power and Providence of all things which are, I should
like to know what you think of him. With hearty regards for
you and yours, -those with the incisors, and those with the
molars, - believe me
Yours heartily,
THEODORE PARKER.
To David A. lWassoz.
BOSTON, Dec. 12, I857.
MY DEAR WASSON,- Many thanks for your kind and welcome letter. I know how much it cost you to write it; and that
dims my joy in reading it. You must not write much. You
learned to labor long ago: now " learn to wait." I ate my lunch
in the railroad-station, and thought over all Higginson said in
defence of the Irish. I like good plump criticism, and need it
oftener than I get it. But I think he was mainly wrong, and
still adhere to my opinion of the Ce/tic Irish/. In other lectures I
have showed at length the good they will do our ethnology.
When I give this again, I will do so, and name the good qualities
of the "gintleman from C a r r r k k" and the poor wretches
from Africa.
I take Blumenbach's five races only as i5rovisiona;, - five
baskets which will hold mankind, and help us handle them. In
respect to power of civiization, the African is at the bottom, the
American Indian next. The history of the world, I think, shows
this, and its prehistoric movement. I don't say it will always
be so: don't know.
You and I don't differ, save in words, about the Greeks. In
the emotiona/ element of religion, I think the Shemites surpass
the Indo-Germans; and the Jews were at the head of the Shemites. (The Phoenician took to trade, and cared no more about
religion than a Connecticut tin-peddler, who joins any church for
a dollar. Somebody found one of the scoundrels - a mummy
now in an Egyptian tomb - who was circuzmcised. He took the
religion of the place just as the current coin.) Religious emotion, religious will, I think, never went farther than with the
Jews. But their infte/ect was sadly pinched in those narrow
foreheads. They were cruel also, - always cruel. I doubt not




328              THEODORE PARKER.
they did sometimes kill a Christian baby at the Passover, or the
anniversary of Haman's famous day. If it had been a Christian man, we should not blame them much, considering how they
got treated by men who worshipped a Jew for God. They were
also lecherous: no language on earth, I think, is so rich in terms
for sexual mixing. All the Shemites are given to flesh. What
mouths they have! —full of voluptuousness: only the negro
beats them there.
The Jews, like all the Shemites, incline to despotism: they
know no other government. The Old Testament knows no king
but one absolute: the New Testament is no wiser, -if, perhaps,
you bate a line or two which Jesus spoke; and they indicate a
feeling more than a thought. The New Jerusalem is a despotism, with a LAMB for the autocrat, -a pretty lamb too, by
the way, who gathers an army of two hundred million horse,
and routs his enemies by the Euphrates, and then comes to
Italy and kills men, till he makes a puddle of blood two hundred
miles wide and three feet deep (see Rev. ix. I6: "And the
number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand; and I heard the number of them."  And xiv.
20: " And the wine-press was trodden without the city, and blood
came out of the wine-press, even unto the horse-bridles, by
the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs "). In the Old
Testament, Jehovah is KING, - a terrible king too. He is not a
constitutional king, but arbitrary,  "Thzzis sailt the Lord."
There is no proof of any thing; no appeal to individual consciousness. With the Greeks all this was different; Indo-Germanic, not Shemite. I love the Greeks, especially the authors
you name; but, for moral helps and religious emotional helps, I
go to that dear Old Testament, for all 2Eschylus and Sophocles,
&c. Do you remember any example of remorse in the Greek
literature? The Hebrews had a pretty savage conception of
God; but he is earnzest: there is no frizvoliy attributed to Jehovah. He is the most efficient deity of old times, - none of your
dilettanzi gods. Besides, he is wholly superior to the material
world; while none of the Greeks or Romans got above the idea,
that, in some particulars, it was more than any deity or all deities.
Get well as fast as you can.
Yours,
T. P



SPECZYIMENS  OF CORRESPONDENCE.             329
The following needs no introduction:To George Ripley.
BOSTON, Sept. 21, I854.
MY DEAR GEORGE, - I will try and write so that you can
read the matter. I have just read your papers on Pierpont and
Ralph Waldo Emerson. I think I love and admire Emerson
more than you do: so there are some things in the paper which I
don't quite agree with. But, in the main, I like it. The spirit is
high and generous. It is admirably written. You never wrote
better than in the three sketches of " Pierpont," " Ralph Waldo
Emerson," and " Andrews Norton."'" Yas, it was wall done.
But ugh he lied! He knows he lied!"
There is no shadow in your picture of Pierpont. You once
gave me an analysis of Pierpont (and of Sumner at the same
time), which I thought was most masterly. You gave the shadow
then which both made the picture more artistic, and the noble
traits in Pierpont yet more salient. But I like your portrait of
Pierpont better than that of Emerson; and I am almost glad
that you did not put in the criticisms lwhich you made to me on
Pierpont. Just now, considering all that he has done and suffered, it would seem a little ungenerous to be quite just. All
pictures must be painted in reference to the light they are to
hang in and be looked at. Now, when you come to tell about
me, I wish you would make a picture which will make me
ashamed of what is ill in me and in my works. I need a thorough criticism from an able hand. It is too much to expect in
private; but I should read with great interest a critique which
told me of my faults of nature, culture, motive, conduct, aim, and
manner. I know I must have made great errors; but I don't
see them. I am afraid that the hollow of my foot "will make a
hole in the ground," and somebody will one day fall into it. I
should like to be criticised as I criticised Emerson; only better.
Now, don't let your friendship run away with your judgment: —
" Nought extenuate, and nothing add."
I know you will set down nought in malice. But here are
yet one or two things which I want in the picture. I love science in almost all departments, from the most abstract metaphysics to the most concrete application of Nature's laws in
28*




330              THEODORE PARAKER.
the new machine for planing oblique and irregular surfaces,
which one of my neighbors put in his shop last week. I
love all departments of natural history, and am at home with
beast, bird, fish, and insect, and all manner of (phoenogamous)
plants.
When a boy, I had an intense passion for beauty in every
form. I knew all the rare flowers, wild or cultivated. When a
little boy in petticoats, I used to lie all the forenoon in June,
and watch the great clouds, and see the incessant play of form
and color. There was a pond a mile off, whither I used to go
a-fishing; but I only caught the landscape. I never fished much,
but looked down into the water, and saw the shadows on the
other side creep over the water, and listened to the sounds from
the distant farms. When I was six or seven years old, there
came a perfectly beautiful young girl to our little district-school:
she was seven to eighlt. She fascinated my eyes from my book,
and I was chid for not getting my lessons. It never happened
before; never after the little witch went away.  She only
staid a week; and I cried bitterly when she went off. She
was so handsome I did not dare speak to her, but loved to
keep near her as a butterfly to a thistle-blossom. Her name
was Narcissa. She fell over into the flood of time, and vanished
before I was seven years old. I loved beauty of form before
beauty of color. I wonder if this is usual. You know beauty
of sound (not artificial, of music) filled me with ravishment.
The winds in the leaves, and the rushing brooks, were a delight
from the earliest boyhood till now. Fine little pieces of literary
art I culled out in childhood, and committed them to memory.
It was no effort: it did itself. Especially poetry was my delight.
My sisters had a little bagful of clippings from the newspapers
which helped nurse my little soul. They also encouraged me
in my transcendental tastes for the beautiful. But hard work
and tile;'es atzgz/st/ domi left but a poor soil for such a harvest.
Yet it was hard to tear the tired body from the handsome moonlight or the evening star. Mornings, from before daylight to
sunrise, when forced to be abroad, gave an acquaintance with
the beauty of Nature at that hour, which was worth more to me
than all my night-labors brouTght to my father. It was poetry
to me, even if only a dull horse or heavy oxen were my only
companions. The pictures of old times live now in my memory,




SPECIMIENS OF CORRESPONDENCE.               331
a never-failing delight in my hours when I am too tired to do
any kind of work or to sleep. This hanging-garden is always
over me; and I rejoice therein as no Nebuchadnezzar, I fear,
ever did.
I love children and hens; all sorts of men; and have the
oddest set of intimates you will find any scholarly man to be
acquainted with. But I am much less of a practical man than
men think.  All my ideals of life are of philosophical and
literary activity, with a few friends about me, Nature and
children. Good-by!
Please send me the parcel I sent you, - the article from
Chapman. Send by Adams's Express.
Can this chapter be closed more fittingly than with one
of his religious sonnets, addressed to Jesus, as the model
of his imitation? The printed letters conspire with the
devoted life to show how faithful was the attempt at imitation. If the success of it was incomplete, the effort was
never relaxed, nor was the idea ever lowered.
" O Brother, who for us didst meekly wear
The crown of thorns about thy radiant brow!
What gospel from the Father didst thou bear
Our hearts to cheer, making us happy now? "
"'Tis this alone," the immortal Saviour cries:
" To fill thy heart with ever-active love, -
Love for the wicked as in sin he lies,
Love for thy brother here, thy God above.
Fear nothing ill;'twill vanish in its day:
Live for the good, taking the ill thou must;
Toil with thy might; with manly labor pray;
Living and loving, learn thy God to trust,
And he will shed upon thy soul the blessings of the just."




CHAPTER XIII.
THE PREACHER.
THEODORE PARKER'S fame as a preacher is associated
with the Boston Music Hall; for there his greatest efforts
were made, and there the crowds listened to his speech.
The hall is situated behind Winter Street, and has a
double approach, -one from Winter Street, and one from
Tremont through Bumstead Place. Its position insures
for it a complete seclusion and utter silence from without.
It has no architectural exterior for the public eye. The approach to it is not imposing. It was built by subscriptions,
collected under the direction of the Harvard Musical Association, at a cost of a hundred thousand dollars for land
and building. The design was by an English architect, Mr.
Snell, practising his profession in Boston. Before completing his drawings, which were submitted to the first
authorities in London, he visited the chief public halls in
England, with a view to avail himself of the best experience in acoustic elements. The result was an auditorium
admirably adapted to purposes of music, vocal or instrumental, and almost equally well of speaking; pleasar tly
lighted in the day-time by semicircular windows above the
cornice, fifty feet from the floor, and at night by a fringe
of gas-burners running along the cornice beneath the
windows, round three sides of the room. The ventilation
is sufficient, and facility for egress abundant. Two light
galleries relieve the monotony of the long walls. The
332




THE PREA CHER.                 333
wide platform connected with retiring rooms in the
rear, and having behind it a recess for the organ, occupied
one end: an ornamental screen of iron concealed the instrument. The speaker's stand was an ordinary movable
desk. At musical festivals, or on grand-concert occasions,
seats were piled up in ranks, from the centre of the platform backward and sideward, sufficient to accommodate
some five hundred persons, in addition to the twenty-seven
hundred who were supplied with seats elsewhere, above and
below: in an exigaency, musical or oratorical, three thousand
and- more have found accommodation in the room itself.
The dimensions, one hundred and thirty feet in length by
seventy-eight in width and sixty-five in height, are according to most approved proportions, and satisfy the critical
eye, as does also the simple elegance of the decoration.
Mr. Parker's society removed from the Melodeon to
their new place of worship on Nov. 2I, I852, with not
a few regrets on the part of the early friends, who felt
that the family feeling they had enjoyed would be dissipated or choked by the multitude in the vast space, and
that intimate relations with the pastor and with one
another would be no longer possible.  On the 2d of
March, I856, Mr. Parker welcomed his "new colleague"
of "majestic brow," and "eyes turned inward and upward,"-the bronze Beethoven, presented to the Association by Mr. Charles C. Perkins. When the great organ
was set up, in i863, the preacher could not give it welcome: he was silent in his Italian grave.
In this spacious temple, dedicated to art, Theodore
Parker made his power felt. He grew to the place. The
central position commanded a broad view. Standing here,
he could be seen on all sides. The multitudinous doorways
let in the world: it was the world he wanted. The assembly was, on the whole, the most remarkable that ever
gathered statedly within four walls in America; up to that
time much the largest, if we except Whitefield's, which




334             THEODORE PARKAER.
was composed of very different people, drawn by a very
different attraction. Whitefield's audiences consisted of
unintellectual people, sympathetic and passionate; Parker's, of people unlettered and uncultivated in the main,
but thoughtful and questioning. Whitefield was an orator and a revivalist, who played with consummate art on
the~ emotions of an excited crowd: Parker was a scholar
and a teacher, who addressed the individual understanding and the private conscience.  He had no accessories of rite, symbol, ceremony, doctrinal or ecclesiastical
mystery.  He read the old Bible, but with great freedom; and he read other writings beside.  Hymns were
sung, but not from collections in general use with Christians. The prayers were expressions of devout feeling,
usually of gratitude and longing, on a sober level, personal
and tender, but without humiliation, superstition, or the
least recognition of dogma at beginning or end. The
sermons were grave, solid; seldom less than an hour in
length, often more; and were crammed with thought.
The preacher took the intelligence of his audience for
granted, and often tasked it severely. To listen to him
regularly was, indeed, a liberal education, not in theology,
or even in religion, alone, but in politics, history, literature, science, art, every thing that interested rational
minds.
He had not rhetorical gifts. His eyes were wonderfully
clear and searching; but their effect was marred by the
interposition of glasses; and his countenance otherwise
was not expressive. Neither was his figure imposing, nor
his gesture fine, nor his action graceful. He moved but
little as he spoke: his hand only occasionally rose and
fell on the manuscript before him, as if to emphasize a
passage to himself; but his person was motionless, and
his arm still. The discourse was read, save on rare occasions or in interpolated paragraphs, in a voice not musical
or sympathetic in its ordinary tones, with little train



THE PREA CHER.                335
ing or natural modulation. His audiences were held by
the spell of earnest thought alone, uttered in language so
simple, that a plain man hearing him remarked on leaving
church, " Is that Theodore Parker? You told me he was
a remarkable man; but I understood every word he said."
He was not like the doctor of divinity who made a point
of having in every sermon one sentence that no one in the
congregation could comprehend. His rule was, to have no
sentence that was above the comprehension of the simplest intelligence. The style was never dry; the words
were sinewy, the sentences short and pithy; the language
was fragrant with the odor of the fields, and rich with the
juices of the ground.  Passages of exquisite beauty
bloomed on almost every page. Illustrations pertinent
and racy abounded; but the steady, methodical movement
of thought forbade all attempt to carry the heart in opposition to the judgment.
The audiences were singularly untractable. They did
not assemble in the usual churchly fashion, from habit or
association, in the mood of reverence, or of regard for the
opinion of the world. They came in such garments as
they had; sat in such seats as were vacant; went out if
they were tired. Some brought newspapers in their pockets, which they read in the few minutes that preceded the
preacher's entrance. Some betrayed by their manner that
they regarded the prayer as an impertinence; and others
that they came for the sermon, not for the scripture or
the hymn.  The sittings were free: the expenses -which
were not heavy, for Mr. Par,4er was ever greedy of a small
salary — were met by voluntary contributions, mostly
given by a few devoted friends and steadfast parishioners, who constituted the minister's body-guard, and
were relied on for the active organized work of the
society. Hence the multitude who heard him from Sunday to Sunday felt none of that peculiar interest, half
mercantile, half personal, which goes with the paying of




336            THEODORE PARKER.
money. No tie held them but that of intellectual and
moral satisfaction.
If the preacher's theological opinions, his "heresies,"
attracted many, they also repelled many. They were so
pronounced as to offend conservatives even of the liberal class, yet so sober and reasonable as to fail often
of satisfying radicals of an extreme school. Not a few
bore them patiently, at first, for the sake of the humanity which they found in Music Hall, and could not
find elsewhere. To his heresy Parker owed his "chance
to be heard in Boston," but not the hearing he had
there. Had he been moderately "orthodox," his following would probably have been larger and more influential.
His influence was due to his intrinsic power alone. He is
commonly thought of as exclusively intellectual. Never was
a greater mistake. His wealth of sympathetic emotion
was as remarkable as his wealth of mind. A good man
who sat very near him on the platform, and, while living
in Boston, heard every sermon he preached there, says,
"More than half the time, in his prayer, I could see the
tears run down his face before he was done. Two years,
on attempting to read on Easter Sunday the story of
the trial and crucifixion of Jesus, he could not get
through, but, overcome by his emotions, had to sit down,
and give way to his tears."  The prayers of Sunday,
which usually seem a difficulty hard to get over by minister and people alike, were with him a means of drawing
far-off hearts to him, and putting them in tune for the
sermon. "Is it not sometimes a burden to the preacher
to go through the devotional exercises of the Sunday?"
asked one of his friends. "Never to me," was the reply.
"The natural attitude of my mind has always been prayerful. A snatch of such feeling passes through me as I
walk in the streets, or engage in any work. I sing prayers
when I loiter in the woods, or travel the quiet road: these
founts of communion, which lie so deep, seem always




THE PREA CHER.                  337
bubbling to the surface; and the utterance of a prayer is,
at any time, as simple to me as breathing."
He wrote in a sermon, "When I was a boy, I heard
men pray great prayers and deep ones. To me it seemed
as if an angel sang them out of the sky, and this man
caught the sound, and copied it easily on his own string.
1 wondered all men prayed not so; that all could not.
Before I was a man, I learned that such inspirings come
not thus, but of toil and pain, trial and sorrow,- here
spread over many days, there condensed into a few; that
it was not by gathering flowers in a meadow of June they
got their treasures, but by diving deep into a stormy water
that they brought up with pain the pearl of the twisted
shell."  So fervent was his utterance, so natural and human his cry, that the flowers on the table before him
colored his devout speech, and the voices of animals blent
easily with his own. One Sunday, a terrier-dog, that had
strayed into the hall, suddenly, in the midst of the prayer,
lifted up a piercing bark. "We thank Thee, O Father of
all, who hast made even the humblest dumb creature to
praise thee after its own way! " responded the supplicating lips.
He was preaching a discourse, one winter's day, on
"Obstacles." Describing the man to whom obstacles are
helps, he said, "Before such a man all obstacles will" —
at this instant a mass of frozen snow that had collected
on the roof came down with a noise like thunder, that
shook the building, and startled the audience with a momentary feeling of dismay -" slide away like the ice from
the slated roof," said the preacher's re-assuring voice.
This emotion gave a positive flavor to even an unpromising discourse. It disarmed many an invective of its
power to wound. In a letter to an intimate friend, written in I845, he said, "I have sometimes felt disappointed
at the expression in some faces as I have spoken; -for it
showed that they did not always appreciate what I said,
29




338            THEODORE PARKER.
just as I did. I will endeavor to avoid leading astray
such as are now ready to start in a false direction. It is
by no means pleasant to me to write or preach negation.
I would rather give light, however thin, than lightning,
however sharp. It is painful to me to thunder; but it is
sometimes needful. I must now and then say,'Woe unto
you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!' but the burden of
my song will be,' He that doeth the will of my Fatlher,' &c."
He loved to preach: subjects crowded on him faster
than he could deal with them. The Sundays were too
few rather than too many. Travelling in Europe, three
thousand miles from his desk, he delighted in planning
sermons that he could not preach. Vacations were short
with him: he would have been glad had they been
shorter. It was his custom to preach a fresh sermon
every Sunday, especially on rainy days; for the people
who came out in storms, he said, have a right to the best.
When illness, or pre-occupation, or unexpected absence
from home, prevented his preparing a new discourse,
instead of disguising the old manuscript, he displayed it,
herein violating another clerical tradition. But he could
not afford to preach many old sermons. It cost him more
to keep the new ones back than to write them.
Parker no more made his sermons than his prayers:
both made themselves: they came in troops, in clusters,
in long files, that stretched over months, and even years.
He is known to have laid out subjects for four years in
advance, and to have adhered to his plan. Groups of
sermon topics appear with curious frequency in the journal. There was no conventional limitation of theme. They
were on all vital concerns, from those of the soul to those
of the kitchen, -religion in all aspects, personal and public; the greater and lesser affairs of the community;
social reform in all its branches; the immediate questions
of the day, philosophical, theological, ethical, commercial: and each theme was treated a-cording to its own




THE PREA CHER.                  339
laws and conditions; no pulpit rule being applied to their
discussion, no professional bar being erected for their
judgment. When the topic demanded extensive research,
the materials were collected long, sometimes a year or
two, in advance. Careful studies were made, notes were
kept, and generalizations from time to time applied to the
facts amassed. His discourses on national matters or on
themes of deep and wide import, such as "The Merchant,"
"The Perishing Classes," "The  Dangerous Classes,"
"Great Cities," "The Dangers and Duties of Woman,"
"Intemperance," "Crime," cost vast labor in compiling
statistics, as well as in reflection.  They are treatises as
well as sermons, at once profound and fascinating. His
political discourses, dealing with each crisis as it occurred,
are a combination of history, philosophy, and prophecy,
that deserves a place in permanent literature; yet they
were prepared for exigencies that soon must pass away.
There was conscientious work enough in thein for a
volume.  His biographical discourses were models of
thoroughness and strength. While preparing his pulpit
oration on John Quincy Adams, he reviewed the statesman's whole career; read every speech; analyzed every
argument; scrutinized every act; went behind every piece
of public policy; and laid out the history so simply,
that the least-instructed intelligence could understand it.
Before writing the greatest discourse of them  all, on
Daniel Webster dead, he did more than this: he gleaned
from all credible sources information in regard to Mr.
Webster's private life and character; probed the secrets
of his ancestry; read the principal works of distinguished
orators, jurists, and statesmen in England; studied again
the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero in order to settle precisely in his mind the rank of the great American
as lawyer, statesman, orator, and man.
That wonderful oration -eulogy, litany, arraignment,
verdict -was written at a heat. The preparation for it




340            THEODORE PARAKER.
covered weeks, nay, occupied years; for Webster had been
one of Parker's idols, exerting on him something like fascination. A few hours of solitary meditation in the
country, after the statesman's death, fused the mass of
material so completely, that it ran like molten metal into
the literary mould. The sentences poured hot from the
speaker's heart. The effect in the delivery was prodigious.
It was not uncommon for the audience, towards the close
of Mr. Parker's impassioned discourses, to lean forward
in rapt attention, showing, as he said once, the angels or
the demons in their faces. They did so now, listening
with breathless intensity; and when he spoke of his
mourning for Webster, and cried in a choking voice, " 0
Webster, Webster i my king, my king! would I had died
for thee i " every eye was wet with tears.
This utter fidelity to his calling made Theodore Parker
the great preacher that he was; probably, all things considered, the greatest of his generation. I-Ie was greater
than Newman Hall, who entertains adult thousands with
Sunday-school addresses; than Spurgeon, whom  five
or six thousand men and women flock to hear, but who
lacks learning, knowledge of men and things, breadth and
poetic fervor of mind, culture of intellect, and delicacy
of perception, - an earnest, zealous, toilsome man, powerful through his sectarian narrowness, not, as Parker was,
through his human sympathy. He was greater beyond
measure than Maurice, Robertson, Stopford Brooke, or any
of the new Churchmen; the delight of those who want to
be out of the Church, and yet feel in it. He was greater
than Channing in range of thought, in learning, in breadth
of human sympathy, in vitality of interest in common
affairs, in wealth of imagination, and in the racy flavor of
his spoken or written speech. Channing had an equal
moral earnestness; an equal depth of spiritual sentiment;
a superior gift of look, voice, expression, manner; perhaps
a more finely-endowed speculative apprehension; a subtlem




THE PREA CHER.                341
insight: but, as a preacher, he addressed a smaller class
of his fellow-men. His was an aristocratic, Parker's a
democratic mind.  Channing was ethereal, even when
treading most manfully the earth; and seraphic, even
when urging the claims of negroes: Parker, when soaring highest, kept both feet planted on the soil; and, when
unfolding the most ideal principles, remembered that his
brother held him by the hand for guidance. Channing
always talked prose, even while dilating on transcendental
themes: Parker, even when discussing affairs of the
street, would break out into the language of poetry.
Channing could sympathize with great popular ideas and
movements, but was too fastidious to be ever in close contact with the people: Parker was a man of the people
through and through; one of the people, as much at home
with the plainest as with the most cultured, more heartily
at home with the simple than with the polished: hence
his word ran swiftly in rough paths, while Dr. Channing's
trod daintily in high places.
Few persons, if asked to name the greatest living
preacher in America, would hesitate to mention the pastor
of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. Mr. Beecher is undoubtedly a more popular speaker than Mr. Parker was: he is
more eagerly sought after, more widely known among the
"common people," more potential through his word. Yet
Beecher owes much of his popularity to qualities that gave
Parker his fame,- to his humanity, his big-heartedness,
his feeling for nature, his simplicity, his independence, his
humor. But the obstacles he has to contend with are nothing as comparecl with those that stood in Parker's way: in
fact, he has no difficulties at all. He is not a reformer, an
innovator, a teacher of new or unwelcome truths, a champion of unwelcome principles. The popular drift befriends
him. His equivocal position as minister of an Orthodox
Congregational society makes him attractive to both conservatives and liberals. Not being radical enough to shock
29*




342            THEODORE PARKER.
the former, nor conservative enough to displease the latter,
he retains people of all descriptions, much as the English
broad Churchman gathers Episcopalians and Unitarians
alike into his fold. Such persons as Theodore Parker
assembled -persons whom he culled from the unchurched,
the unbelieving, the protesting —are a minority in Mr.
Beecher's congregation. Such a ministry is not for them:
they want more knowledge, more courage, more devotion
to reform, more boldness of speculation, more incisiveness of speech, more living vigor of address. Parker,
while fully Beecher's equal in humor, wit, vivacity, playfulness, was greatly his superior in wealth of mental resource, in depth of feeling, in force of emotion; and in
moral earnestness he was so vastly before him, that the
two men cannot be spoken of in the same breath. Beecher is the Spurgeon of America: Parker was its Martin
Luther. With a wealthy congregation like that of Plymouth Church, what would not Parker have done for mankind! Beecher entertains the country: Parker instructed
and moulded it. The former is an object of interest and
admiration: the latter was an object of love and fear.
Where the former causes a titillation on the surface of the
community, the latter ploughed a deep furrow in its soil.
Judge the men by their printed sermons. The sermons
of each are a literature. Who that can read any other
books can read Spurgeon's volumes? The reading-power
of the cultivated man breaks down in their dreadful
slough. Beecher's are dull when taken in quantity, often
commonplace, conventional, and verbose, rarely instructive or nobly stimulating. It is easy to believe that they
were made on Sunday morning, after breakfast. Parker
printed a great deal too much: not a few of his productions are happy in being out of print. But take up
any of his volumes containing the sermons he thought
worthy of permanent preservation, - the volume of " Ten
Sermons " on religion; the " Theism and Atheism," which




THIE PREA CHER.                343
is made up of pulpit addresses; read the pamphlet sermons on "Immortal Life," on "The Perils of Adversity
and Prosperity," "What Religion will do for a Man,"
"Lesson for a Midsummer Day," "The Function and
Place of Conscience," the "Sermon of Poverty," "Of
WTar," " Of Merchants," " The Chief Sins of the People,"
" The Power of a False Idea," - and you have many a long
hour full of edification, instruction, and delight. They
are sermons, always sermons; not essays or disquisitions.
Every book began as a sermon. The parenetical character
runs through every thing the man wrote, as the moral
element ran through the man. As literary productions,
they are open to criticism as being diffuse, clumsy with
repetitions, overloaded with illustrations; but as sermons
intended to reach the conscience as well as the understanding of miscellaneous and heedless auditors, who
must have a thought expressed in several forms, and
reiterated more than once, in order to catch or retain it,
they are almost perfect, and are destined to do a most
important work in educating and inspiring thousands
whom the preacher's voice never reached; who, perhaps,
were not born when he fell asleep. More may be learned
from his political speeches and addresses than from
many volumes of contemporaneous history. His speculative discourses throw light on abstruse problems of philosophy: his ordinary sermons are rich in practical wisdom
for daily life, and will be read when hundreds of sermons
now popular are forgotten, and even when the literature
of the pulpit has fallen into the neglect it for the most
part deserves.
The habitual attendants on Theodore Parker's Sunday
teaching will probably assent to all that has been said.
His intimate friends and admirers will think it hardly less
than the literal truth. There was much fault-findin(, of
course, on the part of people whose opinions were attacked, or whose prejudices were wounded. There was




344            THEODORE PARKER.
occasional complaint from parents of worldly mind that
the Music-Hall preaching was not wholesome to young
men. It was seldom that fair minds objected to the
devotional character of the services, though occasionally
one did. Dr. S. G. Howe, for instance, told a friend of
Mr. Parker that he did not oftener go to hear him because
he did not satisfy his religious nature: he preferred the
Swedenborgian  chapel. The remark wounded Parker
deeply. " This is, in reality," he writes in his private journal, " the most painful criticism I ever heard made on my
ministry. I never before heard of any one as objecting
to my preaching, that it was not religious enough. Several
have gone away for various reasons, - these because I
preached against war; those because I preached against
slavery; yet others because I preached against intemnperance and the making drunkards of men; others, again,
because I spoke against the misdeeds of the political par-'ties. Some have left me because I did not believe the
popular theology, and so hurt their feelings (all that is
natural); several more because the place was not respectable, and the audience was composed chiefly of'grocers
and mechanics:' but this is the first that I know of wiho
has gone elsewhere because the preaching was not redgiozs enough. But who knows how many have been
grieved away by the same thing?'God help me to know
mvself, that I may see how frail I am!' Dr. Howe said
that other men went down into the deep places of his
heart more than I, and gave him a glow of religion which
I failed to produce. Prof. Porter accused me of sentimentalism in religion. I did not think that was true of a
man that wore a blue frock, and held the plough, and
mowed hay, and delivered temperance lectures, and
stormed round the land, preaching antislavery, and making such a tumult as I once made; but it was nearer my
own judgment of myself than this of Dr. Howe.
"I once loved pleasure; and religion kept me in. I




TI/E  PREA CHlER.              345
loved money, even now have a passion for acquisition,
and once resolved to accumulate a hundred thousand dollars; but religion forbade me to be rich while the poor
needed food and the ignorant to go to college. I love
ease; but I don't take it. Religion keeps me at this
desk, and sends me to a thousand things, which, even now,
I like not to do. I love fame, and for religion I took a
path that I knew would lead me to infamy all my life;
and, if any thing else ever comes of it, it will be when I
am wholly oblivious to all such things. I love the society
of cultivated people, a good name, respectability, and all
that; and religious conviction has deprived me of it all,
made me an outcast and the companion of outcasts, and
given me a name more hated than any in all New England. I see men stare at me in the street, and point, and
say,'That is Theodore Parker,' and look at me as if I
were a mzrderer. Old friends, even parishioners, will not
bow to me in the street. I am cast out of all respectable
society. I knew all this would come. It has come from
my religion; and I would not forego that religion for all
this world can give. I have borne sorrows that bow men
together till they can in no wise lift up themselves. But
my comfort has been the joy of religion: my delight is the
infinite God; and that has sustained me.
"Yet I am glad of the criticism; and, true or not, I
will profit by it."
Such an avowal as this in his private confessional indicates a deep and genuine feeling. Neither the sadness
nor the complaint was affected. It was true that men
looked at him askance, called him bitter names, - "liar,"
"scoundrel," "wolf in sheep's clothing," -names worse
than "infidel," -and that as early as I845. The epithets
did not become milder, the tone gentler, or the gesture
feebler, as years went on, and the conflict deepened
between the reformer and the " world;"  The bold
preacher who took the Sermon on the Mount at its word,




346             THEODORE PARKAER.
revered the Commandments, loved the Beatitudes, worshipped the eternal law, applied it strictly to every private
vice and every social evil; who, knowing no distinc tion
of persons, publicly summoned the most eminent men of
Boston, Massachusetts, New England, the nation, before
the judgment-seat of Christ, and openly arraigned them
for private infidelities and public misdeeds; the prophet
who pointed his warning finger at Winthrop, Everett,
Webster, Choate, great manufacturers like Lawrence,
great capitalists like Thayer, — could not escape the opprobrium that is always visited on the censor of morals.
There was no stake for him, no scourge, no jail. It
was not necessary for him to take refuge in any Wartburg
to elude the ecclesiastical or other hunters for his blood.
That old-fashioned persecution, which put men on their
mettle, roused their passions, braced them with the proud
sense of martyrdom, and steeled them against sharp
but momentary physical pain, would have been easier for
one like Parker to bear than the icy neglect, the cold
shoulder, the averted eye, the sneer that could not be
warded off, the shadow of hate that could not be struck
with a weapon, the venomous back-biting that no stubbornness of will could beat back. To "battle against flesh and
blood " is comparatively easy; for flesh is hard with muscle, and blood hot with flame: but to "battle against the
wicked spirits that dwell in the air" makes the bravest
faint.
From tke yournal.
FEB. I6, I85I.
This is the sixth anniversary of my coming to the Melodeon.
I little knew what I had to encounter, nor who would come to
help me do the work. I have found Boston worse by far than
I expected. I have been disappointed in its intellectual power,
in the intellect of its controlling men, and still more in their
moral character. But, on the other hand, I have found a power
of goodness in quarters where I did not look for it. My confidence in the people, in mankind, is strengthened. My con



THE PREA CHER.                    347
fidence in men of the mercantile profession in Boston is much
weakened. I know noble exceptions. But Boston is t-he metropolis of snobs.
THURSDAY, March 27, I851.
To me it seems as if my life was a failure. Let me look
at it.
I. Domestically. -'Tis mainly so: for I have no children;
and what is a house without a little " mite o' teants," or " bits o'
blossoms"?
2. Socially. -- It is completely a failure. Here I am as
much an outcast from society as if I were a convicted pirate:
I mean from all that calls itself " decent society," "respectable
society," in Boston.
3. Professionally. —I stand all alone; not a minister with
me. I see no young men rising up to take ground with me, or
in advance of me. I think, that, with a solitary exception, my
professional influence has not been felt in a single young minister's soul. True, I have a noble parish: that I am proud of
with a pride that makes me humble.
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 24, 1851.
The parish committee applied for the Masonic Temple to hold
our meetings in for a few Sundays; and, after due deliberation,
were refused, on the ground that it wzoztud injure the refutation of the houzse. Mr. WV. felt badly about it; Mr. A. not.  I
only looked for this result. There is no indignity that I do not
expect, if an opportunity offers for it. All things have their
penalty.
TUESDAY, April 27, 1852.
Kossuth came to Boston. I rejoice at his advent here; but
none of the rich men appeared in the streets. Old Josiah
Quincy was the only distinguished citizen that I saw in public.
Many prominent persons closed their curtains, and one would
not allow his family to go to the window.
Nov. 20.
In Boston I have universally been treated with studied neglect, and often with deliberate and premeditated insult. When
I left the parish at West Roxbury, I was treated quite ill, and




348             THEODORE PARKER.
with the design to wound my feelings. I know very well at
whose instigation it has all been done, and am not disposed to
blame the majority.
The letters abound in similar confessions.
To Rev. Dr. Francis.
MARCH T2, IS2.
I am sorry to hear you complain of your lot. It seems to
me you ought to be a happy man, - material wants all met, a
useful and respectable position in society, incubating some eggs
which the Unitarian hen lays from year to year, warming them
into ministerial chickenhood, brooding over some other eggs in
the college-chapel, with two children, the respect of the denomination, and not an enemy in the world. Really, my good
friend, it seems to me you ought to be happy. Think of me,
hated, shunned, hooted at; not thought worthy to be even a
member of the Boston Association of Ministers or of the
P. B. K.! Not half a dozen ministers in the land but they abhor
me; call me'"iifidel:." even you and Lamson would not exchange with me for ten years past. I have no c/izrd, and the
worst reputation of any minister in all America. Yet I think I
am not ill used, take it altogether. I am a happy man. None
of these things disturb me. I have my own duty to do, and joys
to delight in.  Think of those poor Germans, scholars ini
Boston / -poor companionless exiles, set down in vulgar, tory
Boston, and shivering with cold, yet thanking God that it is not
an Austrian dungeon. Why, you and I might have 1"glorified
God in the grass market," if we had lived two hundred years
ago, or three thousand miles east of New England. Come, let
us be happy. I, at least, have had quite as good a time in the
world as I have merited, and daily bless God for favors
undeserved.
Of course, a sensitive nature suffers where an insensible
one does not feel.  Parker's nature was keenly sensitive,
and made what others might have regarded as slight
affronts malicious insults and studied outrages.  Possibly
his sensitiveness now and then imagined affronts where




THE PREA CHER.                  349
none were intended. But he was not suspicious: the
morbid taint, if it existed, was very slight. He tried never
to entertain a disposition towards others he could not
justify; and any one acquainted with the social condition
of New England between i835 and i86o will find it much
easier to believe than to disbelieve that he had excellent
grounds for his feeling.  Outspoken  reformers were
treated with disdain. Not only men like Garrison, whom
nobody in " society " knew, but men like Phillips, whom
everybody knew, were put under the social ban. Charles
Sumner, the pet of society, a worshipper at King's
Chapel, was outlawed, cut in the streets, avoided, dropped
from fashionable visiting-lists, on account of his antislavery opinions. Others less courageous, or more trammelled by conventionalities, shrunk from the ordeal, having
ventured near enough to feel the scorch of the flame on
their clothes. All Dr. Channing's fastidiousness, quietness, strength of family connection and of personal saintliness had failed to save him from personal unkindness and
neglect. They dcid not save him from  dislike, suspicion,
and ugly comment among his brethren. Dr. Howe, who had
lived in Boston for twenty years, most of the time at the
head of the Blind Institution, declared that he never received any sign of recognition from the city authorities
in the shape of an invitation to any of their festivities.
Parker added to the worst offences of these noble men
that of theological heresy.  IHe was a Garrison, a Sumner,
a Channing, a Pierpont, combined; and he was more
offensive to the respectability of Boston than either.
because he was an " infidel," and an infidel among Unitarians, who were the ruling sect. He discredited the religion of the churches.
And he did it every week, on Sunday, — not by editing
a paper which the nobility never saw; not by making a
strong speech on anniversary occasions, or delivering
a grand oration on a Fourth of July; but by preaching
30




350            THEEODORE PARKAER.
great gospel-sermons - one every seven days — to two or
three thousand people, and having them reported in the
daily papers. He was an incessant thorn, a Nessus shirt
that could not be pulled off, a dreadful presence that
could not be laid. He was felt every time he moved.
Even from his silent lips fell rebuke; through his shut
eyelids flashed lightnings. He was loved and he was
hlated, both more than he knew. Fortunately he could
always lose himself in his darling books; he could forget
himself quite in the bosom of his friends; he could find
himself in communion with his Father.
At the close of this chapter a word will not be out of
place, though it may not be necessary, touching the intellectual influence of Mr. Parker's preaching. He is commonly thought of in a senseless, traditional sort of way, as
a denier, a destroyer of faith. This every positive teacher
must be: his "yea" will cast a shadow proportionate to
its own substance. Luther had a strong negative side;
so did Calvin; so did Wesley; so did Channing. Only
the light wisp of vapor causes neither darkness nor chill.
The man who departs from accepted opinions puts them
away: if he bolts from them, he denies them; if he is
expelled by them, he spurns them. To Mr. Parker the
truth was an open common, which he trod with stout
walking-shoes, no doubt to the offence of the fastidious;
but he traversed it on human errands. The occasional
hearer of a single discourse might experience a severe
shock; could not help it, if he was mentally thin-skinned.
The frank preacher spoke his mind.  Questions were
started to which the casual listener found no answer;
doubts were raised which the novice, unable to lay them
himself, presumed the speaker unable to quell; the swift
thoughts would strike heedless minds at an unfortunate
angle, and so wound them that they went limping away to
warn their friends against the poisonous tongue.  But
there was no more positive preacher: by this very sign he




THE PREA CHER.                  35 I
was positive. To build up faith on imperishable foundations was his one purpose; to rescue it from earthquake
and flood, to transfer it from  the howling wilderness to
the safe city, to enable it to stand by virtue of the
rational laws rather than by force of clamps and buttresses,
was the aim of his life. And in this he succeeded.  He
created five convictions where he unsettled one.  He
made ten believers for one infidel. They who listened to
him statedly felt the ground firmer under their tread from
week to week; were conscious more and more of the
reality of things unseen, and the validity of intangible
hopes. Could it have been otherwise?  Conviction must
beget conviction: it cannot beget scepticism, unless it be
incidentally, in loose and spongy minds.  Convictions
have roots, and roots must have soil. Parker did his best
to fill in the swampy ground before building. If he but
partially succeeded in many cases, the fault was not entirely his. He could not choose his audience, nor force
them to remain till his work was finished. Hold not the
sower answerable for farm and climate.




CHAPTER XIV.
THE REFORMER.
THEODORE PARKER came to Boston as a theological,
not as a social reformer; but life in the city brought him
into such close contact with misery, crime, and vice, that
he could not stand aloof. A reformer by instinct, readily
kindled into indignation at the thought of evils he never
saw, the daily communication with evil in its concrete
forms moved and  roused every energy in him.  His
gravest charge against religion was not its superstition,
but its inhumanity.
From the Journal.
"I have sometimes in the woods found the dead body of an
eagle, all dry, and yet tenanted by horrid worms, -a fetid, noisome thing. Once it was an eagle, that soared and screamed in
its awful heaven, the playmate of the lightning and the symbol of
the thunder: now it is carrion. So, too, the traveller in Sahara
finds in the desert a camel, all dead, grim, and dried up, only
skin, bones, and emaciated muscle, shrivelled by the hot wind of
the wilderness. Once it was a ship of the desert, carrying food
in his pack-saddle, and water in himself. How the children
loved the camel!  Now it is all dead and worthless, very
noisome, and only supplicating burial; its teeth, long and useless and dry, protruding from its withered lips. But crazy men
stood by and told me that the dead camels were still the only
ships of the desert, and the thunder of heaven slept in the
eagle's claws.
"The clerg-y leave the errors (lies), follies, and sins of the
352




THE REFORMER.                       353
times alone, and go, first to routine, and second to mysticism.
" They erect sin (which is a fact) into a principle, and teach
a theory of wzickednzess, - e.g., declare there is no'higher law;'
justify slavery and fugitive-slave law; praise the sins of men in
high office."
In philosophy Parker was an optimist.  His faith in
the infinite God, "Father and Mother too," made him so.
" Optimism," he says in the journal (January, 1848), "is the
liety  f science.  In the world of creatures subordinate to their
instinct, t1here is only enough capacity of pain to insure the
preservation of life and limb.  Hunger is no evil, but only a
stimulus powerful enough to provoke the lion and the sloth to
do their work.
" So is it in human affairs. Take the whole world together, the
whole race: sin is the provocation to virtue. Take remorse,
the subjective and self-conscious evil of sinl; take shortcoming,
the subjective result, not necessarily self-conscious; take outward evils from  slavery, war, intemperance, pauperism, &c., -
these, all the sufferings of the human race, are just adequate to
waken mankind, and put him  about toil for a greater good.
Take the evils whlich come of pauperism now, begging, &c.:
all that suffering has this result:' I. It stimulates men to toil rather than starve.
" 2. It stimulates men to think out a less wasteful mode of
life. When that comes, see what more there will be of life and
welfare. God is a loving Father, not a fond one who spoils his
children."
But Parker was no idle optimist, disposed to sit still
and see Providence work up the raw material of evil into
beatitude.   He believed in conscience as a powerful
operative in the celestial factory; in his particular conscience as an important wheel, rod, strap, driving-beam,
or what not, in the engine-room; and was mindful to keep
it in good working-order.  Small faith had he in a Providence that left out man; in a living God who did not care
13o




354            THEODORE PARKER.
whether his highest attributes in their highest incarnation
co-operated with him or not; in a Divine Will that worked
underground alone, in chemistry, gravitation, physiology.
His God was human, and, through humanity, made himself felt: thus his optimism was an inspiration, not an
incubus.
"Men begin and say,'THE RIGHT.' It seems hard to forget themselves: so they say,' THE RIGHT AND I.' That serves
their turn: so they take another step, and say,' I AND THE
RIGHT.' That does a good deal better; and they end by sayin,'I, WITHOUT THE RIGHT, OR AGAINST IT.' Thus they go
to the Devil, and nobody cares how soon. God honors him
who says,'THE RIGHT."'
I shall sum up in this chapter Mr. Parker's opinions on
the leading reforms of his time, collecting passages from
letters and journals of different dates; this method being
more convenient and more effective than a reference to
his views at intervals along his career. The opinions
changed little, if at all, in course of years; so that dates
are of little value.
THE SABBATH AND SUNDAY.
In 1848 the agitation against the perpetuation of the
Hebrew sabbath in Christian society, which had been
going on for a good while, broke out in the form of a call
for an Anti-Sabbath Convention, written by Mr. Garrison,
and signed by many leading reformers, including Mr.
Parker. The object in view by him was the restoration
of the Sunday to its place as a day of spiritual recreation, improvement, and joy; the abrogation of penal laws
that punished as crime innocent, beneficent, and even
necessary infringements of the ancient Mosaic institutions; and the extension of freedom of conscience to men
of all faiths. The convention met in March, and resulted,
as conventions so often do, in a large pamphlet, the most




THE REFORMER.                     355
interesting and valuable part of which was Mr. Parker's
exhaustive speech on the whole subject, containing essentially the views that were expressed in a sermon on "The
Most Christian Use of Sunday," which was preached
two months earlier.  It was too moderate in tone to satisfy the convention, crowded as it was with radicals of
the extremest description, but too advanced in spirit to
suit even the "liberal" community of Boston.  Nearly
two months before the convention, he wrote to Rev. Increase Smith, —
"The Anti-Sabbath Conventlion is not to be an Anli-Suzndky Convention.~ not a bit of it. I think we can make Sunday
ten times more valuable than it is now, only by abating the
nonsense connected with it.
"I have all along been a little afraid of a re-action from the
sour, stiff, Jewish way of keeping the Sunday, into a low,
coarse, material, voluptuous, or mere money-making abuse of
it. But, if we take it in time, we can cast out the Devil without
calling in the aid of Beelzebub. The past is always pregnant
with the future. The problem of the present is to deliver the
past. If the case is treated scientifically, the labor is easy, the
throes natural, and the babe is born; but, if the case is not
treated scientifically, the labor is long and difficult, the throes
unnatural, and the sufferings atrocious. The poor old matron
must smart under the forceps, perhaps submit to the Cesarian
operation, perhaps die; and the little monster who thus comes
into the world by a matricide is himself in a sad condition, and
will have a sad remembrance all his life of the fact that he
killed his mother.
" Now, I think that we can deliver the Jewish sabbath of a
fine healthy Sunday, who will remember that he comes of a
Hebrew stock on one side, but that mankind is his father; and,
while he labors for the human race, will never make mouths at
the mother who bore him. But, if the matter be delayed a few
years, I think there is danger for the health of both child and
mother.
" I hope you will come to the convention, and will speak too.
I mean to do so; but as I am not a bit of a re-actionist, and




356               THEODORE PARKER.
share none of the excesses of either party, I suppose I shall be
too radical for the conservatives, and too conservative for the
radicals, and so be between two fires, -cross-fires too."
And so indeed it proved. I copy from the journal the
resolutions he prepared for the convention, but which did
not pass:-'"I. That it is not our design to weaken the moral considerations or arguments which lead Christians to devote Sunday to
worship, and efforts to promote their growth in religion.
"2. That we learn from history, from observation, and all our
experience, that the custom of devoting one day in the week to
the special work of spiritual culture has produced very happy
results.
"3. That we desire to remove such obstacles as now hinder
men from the most Christian use of the first day in the week.
"4. That we consider the superstitious opinions respecting
the origin of the institution of the Sunday, as a day to be devoted to religious purposes, to form the chief obstacle in the
way of a yet more profitable use of that day.
" 5. That we should lament to see the Sunday devoted to lrbor
or to sforlt,- for, though we think all days are equally holy, we
yet consider that the custom of devoting one day in the week
mainly to spiritual culture is still of great advantage to mankind.
" 6. That, as Christians and as men, we lament and protest
against all attempts of governments to tyrannize over the consciences of men."
From tlhe Journal.
MARCH 23.
The Anti-Sabbath Convention assembled to-day. It was a
more respectable-looking body of men than I expected to see
together. Mr. Garrison's call was read, and sounded well.  His
resolutions were thorough, but had some of the infelicities which
have always been distasteful to me.
24th. -  Garrison's resolutions passed.  I voted agazinst
some, for some, and was silent upon others.  My own lie on
the table; for after so much objection was made to them by
Lucretia Mott, Garrison, Foster, and Pillsbury, I thought it not
worth while to disturb the convention with such matters.




THE REFORMER.                   357
The report of the convention contains about all that
can be said on the subject, and is richly worth reading.
TEMPERANCE.
The same moderation of opinion that characterized Mr.
Parker's views on the sabbath question marked his expressed views on temperance. The studies on intemperance are frequent and minute in the private journal. He
made them everywhere, - in Northern and Southern Europe, England, America. The question was interesting to
him economically, morally, socially, ethnologically, nationally. He was a temperate man himself, abstaining from
wine till his physicians advised it as a medicine. I find
this record in the journal, under date of Jan. 26, I846:"To-day a man came out from Boston to sign in my presence the temperance pledge. He brought two of them. I
handed him a gold pen to write it with, and added mine with
his. He keeps one, and I keep the other."
Often in sermons he said tremendous things about intemperance.  The " drunkard-makers," as he called the
traders in ardent spirits, came in for their share of his
blasting invective. The " demon of the still " he warned
people against; did his best to paint black and to exorcise.  His rhetoric was fearful: "You see men about
your streets all afire; some half burnt down; some with
all the soul burned out, only the cinders left of the man,
— the shell and wall, and that tumbling and tottering,
ready to fall. Who of you has not lost a relative, at least
a friend, in that withering flame? "  John Pierpont, the
champion of temperance in the Boston pulpit, had his
sympathy to the last; and the people who expelled him
from Hollis Street for preaching against the evil by which
his wealthy parishioners lived, received at his hands a castigation they neither forgave nor forgot.




358             THEODORE PARIER.
But Parker never ceased to be a student of facts,
whether they made for a theory or against it. In a long
letter, written in i858 to Dr. Henry I. Bowditch, who had
asked him for the results of his observations on consumption, he says, -
"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.
"I knew a consumptive family living in an unhealthy situation,
who had four sons. Two were often drunk, and always intemperate, - one of them as long as I 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.
"Another consumptive family, living 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 to
their posterity. 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."
The last expression shows that Mr. Parker thought the
tendency to consumption no excuse for the intemperance;
though he himself drank red wine, and even brandy, when
threatened by the same disease. There is no evidence
that in the last danger he regretted not having been a sot
as a preventive. Physiological questions he kept distinct
from moral.
Thus he comments in the journal on the prohibitory law
that was passed in Maine in the winter of I850-5I: —




TEIE REFORMi E'R.                   359' They have a new law in Maine, passed last winter, which
went into operation in May or June. This prohibits the use of
all intoxicating drinks except for medical or mechanical purposes. They are now enforcing it with great vigor.  It makes
the whole State an asy/ztzfor tle drzuzkard. The principle was
long ago acted on, though perhaps not recognized, that the
public should seize and destroy things deadly or dangerous to
the community.  Thus no man is allowed to keep a' dangerous
beast.' In France, and perhaps all countries, the government
seizes contaminated meat, &c. Instruments for gambling, for
counterfeiting, &c., are also contrabanzd of peace. Suspected
persons are deprived of arms in war time. All this is of the
same principle.  In Ohio there is a party- I hope a large onethat will vote for none but teetotalers.  If Maine can keep her
actual law, and Ohio her contemplated one, for a single generation, it will be of immense value to the State.
"The law seems an invasion of private right.  It is an invasion, but for the sale of preserving the rights of all. I think
wine is a good thing: so is beer, rum, brandy, and the like,
when rightly used.  I think the teetotalers are right in their
practice for ithese timnes, but wrong in their principles. I believe
it will be found on examination, that, other things being equal,
men in social life who use stimulants moderately live longer,
and have a sounder old age, than the teetotalers.  I don't know
this, but believe it. I fancy that wine is the best of stimulants.
But now I think that nine-tenths of the alcoholic stimulus that is
used is abused. The evil is so monstrous, so patent, so universal, that it becomes the duty of the State to take care of its citizens; the whole, of its parts.  If my house gets a-fire, the bells
are rung, the neighborhood called together, the engines brought
out, and water put on it till my garret is a swamnp. But, as I am
fully insured, I don't care for the fire, and contend that my
lights are invaded by the engine-men and their water. They
say,' Sir, you would burn down the town.'"
This is the whole of Mr. Parker's doctrine on this
momentous subject. It is not original. In the mouths of
some people it would have a fanatical sound on its practical side, and an empty sound on its philosophical; but fronm




3Go             THEODORE PARKER.
his it sounded otherwise. His earnest humanity interpreted
both sides; forbade his being cold, forbade his being hot.
He looked at the physiological question as a philosopher,
at the social evil as a man. The aspect that is conspicuous gains his attention. If the evil alone is conspicuous, he
will lay aside the most plausible theory that interferes with
the directness of his blow.  Each class of facts in its own
order; first, that which bears immediately on the moral
salvation of men.  That he held to be primary; there he
had no doubts.  Whatever questions might be open to dispute, the question that was not at all in dispute was the
question of duty on the part of the strong to aid the weak,
of the safe to rescue the perishing, of the wise to teach
the simple. Let government represent the conscience and
intelligence of the people, and, to his practical understanding, the matter was plain: if the government failed
to represent the conscience and intelligence of the people,
it was the reformer's office to mend it so that it would.
Parker was a realist,' no doctrizricre, no sezz'vizeztaZist.
He had no patent medicine or infallible pill: he could
not march with a trainband, but was prepared to go from
one position on a question to another, as the fortunes of
the battle turned; his principle being, to win the battle of
humanity on the field of fact.  The new fact determined
the new attitude.
WAR.
The following extract from a letter to his friend Robert
White, written June 8, I852, declares that Mr. Parker was
far from being a non-resistant: —
"In respect to repelling force by force, I should differ from
you widely. I respect the conduct of the Friends in this matter
also; but I do not share their opinions. I follow what seems to
me the'light of nature.' It seems to me the opinion of Jesus is
made too much of in this particular. He supposed the'world'
was soon to end, and the' kingdom of heaven' was presently to




THE REFORMER.                     36 I
be established. He therefore commands his followers to'resist
not evil;' not only not to resist with violence, but not at all. In
like manner, he tells them to' take Zno thozgt for the morrow.'
These counsels, I take it, were given in the absolute sense of the
words, and would do well enough for a world with no future.
The day was'at hand' when the Son of man should come with
power and great glory, and give fourfold for all given in charity,
and eternal life besides. But the Son of man (or God) is to use
violence of the most terrible character (Matt. xxv. 31-46).
Men were not to take vengeance, or even to resist wrong; not
to meditate the defence they were to make when brought before
a court: all was to be done for them by supernatural power.
These things being so, with all my veneration for the character of
Jesus, and my reverence for his general principles of morality
and religion, I cannot accept his rule of conduct in such matters.
"Yet I think violence is resorted to nine times when it is
needless to every one instance when it is needed. I have never
preached against the doctrine of the non-resistants, but often
against the excess of violence in the state, the church, the
community, and the family. I think cases may occur in which
it would be my duty to repel violence by violence, even with taking life. Better men than I am think quite differently; and I
respect their conscientiousness, but must be ruled by my own
conscience, and, till otherwise enlightened, still use violence, if
need be, to help a fugitive."
So much for the general principle. Touching the problem of war in particular, he rather skirted the gigantic
subject than doggedly attacked it.  He was exceedingly
curious about war, - the cost of it; the expense of maintaining armies; the waste of life; the effects, physical and
moral, on society, whether to stunt and brutalize, or to stimulate and ennoble; the part it played in the progress of
mankind; its avoidableness or inevitableness; the amount
of guilt implied in it; the value of the virtues it educated.
His inquiries extended as far as to the strength of cannon,
and the ordinary supply of ammunition kept on hand by
government; but no rule was given that covered every
3'




362              THEODORE PARKER.
special case.  No doubt he thought war occasionally justifiable and beneficent, as well as morally inevitable. But
the perusal of such a letter as he wrote to Charles Sumner
after reading his superb Fourth-of-July oration on " The
True Grandeur of Nations" leaves no doubt in regard to
the nature of his moral sentiments: —WEST ROXBURY, Aug. 17, I845.
DEAR SIR, — I hope you will excuse one so nearly a
stranger to you as myself for addressing you this note; but I
cannot forbear writing. I have just read your oration on "The
True Grandeur of Nations " for the second time, and write to
express to you my sense of the great value of that work, and
my gratitude to you for delivering it on such an occasion.
Boston is a queer little city: the public is a desperate tyrant
there, and it is seldom that one dares disobey the commands of
public opinion.  I know the reproaches you have already
received from your friends, who will now, perhaps, become
your foes. I have heard all sorts of ill motives attributed to
you, and know that you must suffer attack from men of low
morals, who can only swear by their party, and live only in public opinion. The Church and State are both ready to engage in
war, however unjust, if a little territory can be added to the
national domain thereby. The great maxims of Christianity,
the very words of Christ, are almost wholly forgotten. Few
dare move an inch in advance of public opinion.
I thank you with all my heart for so nobly exposing the evils
of war, its worthlessness and its waste. The noises made about
you show plainly that you have hit the nail on the head. I am
glad the "park of artillery " got let off against you.
Lauzdari a viro lauzato is thought of some value; and so it is
no small praise to be censured by some men. I hope you will
find a rich reward in the certainty that you have done a duty
and a service to mankind. I wish a cheap edition might be
printed; for I want to scatter abroad fifty or a hundred copies.
Would it be possible to print a cheap edition like that of Mr.
Mann's noble oration?
I beg you to excuse me for writing you this letter, and believe me
Very respectfully yours, &c.,
THEO. PARKER.




THE REFORMER.                    363
The sermon on War, preached Jan. 4, 1846, and the
special sermon on the Mexican WVar, preached June 25,
I848, leave no doubt in regard to the tendency of Mr.
Parker's own teaching on this great subject.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.
The strong preacher's convictions on this point were
spoken without qualification; not often, perhaps, but with
emphasis.
From thle Journal.
MAY 30, 1845.
Attended the anti- capital-punishment meeting, - nothing
remarkable, but as a sign of the times. Soon this sin of judicial murder will be over. (Mern. - The remarkable variety of
persons: all conditions were represented there.)
AUG. 30, I85o.
To-day, by command of the Governor of Massachusetts, Dr.
John White Webster, professor of chemistry and mineralogy in
Harvard University, was hanged in the jail-yard at Boston
(Leverett Street) at twenty-five minutes before ten o'clock, A.M.
This is the second execution in Boston within a very few years;
and it is a terrible sin - it seems to me - thus to take the life
of a man completely in our power. The laws deal equally with
the poor negro and the well-educated and respectable professor;
but I think it cannot be long that we shall continue thus to kill
men for killing man.
PRISONS.
To Czarles M. Ellis.
WEST ROXBURY, Saturday Night, June, I846.
MY DEAR CHARLES, -I want to trouble you again a few
minutes. Can you get for me a copy of the last June Report of
the Committee on the City Prisons, Houses of Correction, &c.?
Then, too, can you find out how many persons from Boston are
sent to the State Prison from June 9, IS45, to June 9, I846, and
the term of their sentences? I want to ascertain this matter
very much. Who can tell me the proportion of seconzd-colmers




364            THEODORE PARAER.
in the State Prison? You will see the use I mean to make of
this information when I print the sermon " Of the Perishing
Classes in Boston."
Yours truly but hastily,
THEO. PARKER.
That sermon " Of the Perishing Classes " had the meat
of many reports in it, and the soul of a deep and wise
humanity. It should be added, that, while denouncing
heartily the prison system as barbarous and idiotic, he was
not enthusiastic over the substitutes which were proposed
for it. When the community glorified the Reform School
at Westborough, Mass., he doubted. " The school at Westborough is a school of crime," he said. He expressed himself not sorry to hear that it was burned. This was quite
in keeping with his philosophy of reform. The substitution of a plausible evil for an undisguised evil gave him
no consolation. The education of humanity was the cardinal point; and that was a deep matter, which good
men might blunder about as well as bad men. Amiability
did not excuse folly.
WOMAN.
Under this caption I can only hint in general terms at
Mr. Parker's opinions on some of the deep questions which
most can ask, and few can answer, and none yet can decide,
affecting the happiness and well-being of women. That he
estimated the native genius of woman as highly as any,
ranked her as loftily in the order of humanity, expected as
much from her, demanded for her as complete an enfranchisement and as thorough an education, recognized as
unqualifiedly her claim to social and civil privileges, anticipated as glorious results from her participation in the
active concerns of life, need hardly be said. Evidence
could be collected, if need were, from published and
unpublished sermons; but here as elsewhere the actual




THE REFORMER.                 365
condition of things engaged him more than the possible
condition at a future day.  He allowed his Utopias to
float in the clouds, and occupied himself with digging for
foundations on which they could securely stand.
The problem of prostitution interested him much from
the earliest day.
BOSTON, April 24, I852.
DEAR HIGGINSON, - I send you our circular, which will
interest your kind heart. Hope to see you soon.
Yours truly,              T. P.
The circular asked co-operation in the work of an asso,,
ciation that aimed to protect girls whom idleness and
vagrant habits led into temptation, and made offenders
against the laws.  Boys were provided for in parallel
emergencies. He wanted a similar care bestowed on girls,
- to take charge of them before they became offenders; to take possession of such as were arraigned for
crimes; to furnish a temporary home for them in the city,
instruction in the means of gaining a living, and places in
the country towns of New England for such as needed
them. Rev. John T. Sargent consented to act as agent of
the association in the courts and elsewhere, becoming bail
for such as he thought deserving. Among the names subscribed to the project were Edmund Jackson, Theodore
Parker, Hannah Stevenson, and Wendell Phillips.
On a Sunday afternoon in I854 he is writing to a company of philanthropists to come and devise means to help the
poor girls in the streets of Boston who were on the way to
the brothel. He is sick too; tormented with rheumatism;
laid prone on the sofa. The good work done in New
York by Charles Loring Brace interested him exceedingly,
especially as it bore on the moral condition of exposed
girls. He took at least one journey to New York on purpose to consult with Mr. Brace on his methods and
results; and always, when in his neighborhood, made
3I*




366             THEODORE PARKER.
a point of collecting information from that valuable
source.
The misery incident to thoughtless marriages oppressed
him sorely; and he spoke of them in terms that would give
aid and comfort to some modern enemies of the marriage
institution, if taken in their bald, literal sense, apart from
the earnest moral feeling that lifted all his opinions above
the range of low-minded discussion.  The following frank
letter to Miss Stevenson will answer as well as many notes
from the journal to convey one phase of his feeling on this
vexed theme:
WEST NEWTON, August, IS52,
Fourth Vacation Day.
DEAR  HANNAH, -Thank you for the nice letter which
came Tuesday figr mnir seibsZ allezzi. There is nothing in it
which I dissent from. The other which I wrote contained some
exaggeration, and did not fully represent my own view of the
matter.  I had been talking with one who — and his wife
equally- suffered intensely from a mismarriage, and took rather
his view of the matter than my own: at least, the letter partook
of the exaggeration of his statement.
About half the people in the world want a husband or a
wife for the utility of the thing, for the various modes of
marketable utility. The partner is an instrument, a medium
for the accomplishment of various purposes. The highest of
these is the atfainzmzenzt of respectability. The partner is a
medium of respectability. The sufferings of these persons
are only like the pain of an ill-fitting shoe, or the mortification
of a bad bargain, or the discomfort of a hard bed. I have not
much feeling for these persons in their connubial griefs.
But; when a noble person marries for the noble end, and
then finds it is no marriage, there is a horrible suffering; and all
sorts of abnormalities of conduct, internal and external, may be
expected to take place. The very eminence of morality in New
England intensifies the suffering; for elsewhere the connubial
Absc/z-ezfuzgen are tolerated, and the disappointed persons
find some relief, at least abatement, for their long-continued
affliction.




T:~E REFORMER..367
Still I must think that the connubial organization is extremely imperfect, and does great injustice on all sides. There is the
gross licentiousness of young men, continued by some through
all their lives; then the unnatural and involuntary celibacy of
so many women, not to speak of conduct that sends many
to the madhouse: all of this is unnatural, is agzainst nature,
and only exists in consequence of the general tyranny which
has been so long exercised by the bigger brain over the smaller.
There is a radical defect in our organization of the family. In
most countries, polygamy is a rough remedy against the involuntary celibacy of women.  Among the Catholics, monastic
establishments are an organization of celibacy, the voluntary
or the involuntary. The celibacy is often, with the Catholic
women, against their consent. The organization is voluntary.
(A nun is an old maid organized.)  In Spain there are now in
the several conventual establishments six thousand nuns; in
Boston five thousand and fifteen widows, and how many nuns
unorganized, involuntary nuns, nuns of the orders of necessity!  Now, there will always be noble women who refuse
marriage, not from lack of affection or lack of passion, but fdr
other reasons and considerations; and they will have their joy
and delight. There will always be unlucky marriages. There
is always a margin of miscarriage in all human affairs; but this
mighty amount of involuntary celibacy on the part of women,
and its consequent suffering, will gradually disappear fast as
the idea of her equality obtains footing. When woman has the
same rights of mind, body, and estate, recognized by all, that
man has, then you will not find five thousand and fifteen widows
in Boston, and three hundred and seventy-six widowers.
Dear old ladye, good-by!
From 1ie.ournal.
"From  psychological considerations, I should think that
mwoogoamy was the natural law of human nature. I find the
same thing shown in the equality of the sexes; and the same
conclusion is confirmed by history.  E.g., 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, who know




368              THEODORE PARKIER.
nothing of this, —though there is no lazw or czstom;z to prevent it. If the whole were more free in social life, I doubt not
that marriage would be happier, and divorces more rare.
What a deal of prudery is there about the matter here in New
England!
"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. Now, it frequently happens that the parties are
vastly unequal, one by no means the equivalent of the other.
Hence they are married but partially, and touch only in one
point or so. 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 phliloprogenitiveness 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. With women
the case is worse still. To a sluggish nature this is a slight
thing: he 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 her true one. So it goes."
This' is the staple.  It is shrewd and commonsensical,
but has not the great moral lift that characterizes Mr.
Parker's mind. The sorrow and perplexity are too much
for him.
Certain aspects of this subject are well treated in
letters to Robert TWhite of New York, printed in full by
Mr. Weiss.  They are interesting, but add little to the




7TfE REFORMER.                   369
hints already given. The discussion is thorough on the
lower planes; but it does not ascend to the higher. The
spiritual element is somehow wanting. The redeeming
feature all through is the faith in God and man, and the
brave trust that the race will work its way through the
slough to better states.
"This great matter (of divorce)," he wrote to Miss Cobbe in
1859, " I have not touched, for two reasons: Ist, I don't feel
quite competent to deal with it, and perhaps never shall, even
if I live; and, 2d, 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, 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 attrib —
uted 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 one 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 marriage, 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."
The problem of woman suffrage was another which Mr.
Parker did not work out.  The agitation had not come
up in his day as it has since; so that the consideration of
it was speculative, and therefore lacked vitality. On general principles, he was doubtless disposed to favor the
reform.  Were he alive to-day, he would probably be one




370             THEODORE PARKER.
of its leaders.  He evidently wished to encourage in others
faith in the capabilities, in all noble directions, of woman;
and in conversation occasionally spoke with enthusiasm of
the part they would perform  in situations now held exclusively by men. In private letters he spoke cordially of
woman's efforts at social and civil emancipation.  The
sermon on the "Public Function of Woman," published
in the second series of speeches, addresses, and sermons,
was printed by the friends of woman suffrage as a tract
powerful in argument and strong in sentiment on their
side.  It was claimed that he argued woman's equal title
to every political right with man.  On June 3, I853, Mr.
Parker, with Lucy Stone, Wendell Phillips, and T. W. Higginson, appeared before a committee appointed to revise
the Constitution of Massachusetts, and made an earnest
appeal for the admission of women to political rights.
The meeting, which was significant, was held in the Senate
Chamber, Hon, Amasa Walker presiding; still his views
were not unqualified.  His private faith was a little at
the mercy of moods, and of obvious facts which met his
eye from day to day. I find the following observation in
the journal of I859:-'" It is surprising to notice the odds between the talk of men
and women, who bear the same relation to mankind and to
humankind. The women talk so much more on trifles; and,
when they treat important matters, it is in a comparatively poor
and narrow manner. If half the American Senate were women,
who should bear the same relation to their female constituents
as the men to the male, I think half (perhaps more than half) of
the debates would be of a strange character."
But here, as in other cases, his faith in the principle
would have proved more than a match for his doubts respecting details of operation. His confidence in the regenerating power of liberty, or of humanity in a condition of
liberty, was too entire, and his trust in the future too sincere,
to be daunted or dashed by difficulties incidental, perhaps,
to a transient phase of social progress.  Certain it is that




THrE REFORMER.                  371
women would have always found in him a champion
pledged to defend every one of their natural rights, and
loyal to claim every human privilege. He would always
have been more than a partisan, but never less than a
friend.
SPIRITUALISM.
This, too, is to be ranked among the reforms; for a
reform indeed it is, and, as such, was honestly recognized
by the candid mind which tried to reckon all movements
at their true value.  Again and again Parker admitted its
worth as an agent in emancipating the human mind. As
early as 1854 I find mention of the subject in a letter
written to Albert Sanford.  His intellect was constitutionally averse, some will say constitutionally powerless,
to grapple with matters that bordered on the supernatural;
and familiar practical objections occurred to him with
force. The ludicrous side was ever obvious. The spirits
were never at home when he called; and they never
pulled his latch-string, though it always hung out. It was
not his way to seek an extramundane cause, if a mundane
cause could be conjectured; and, if none could be, his
demand that the extramundane cause should justify itself
intellectually, inclined him rather to rest in ignorance
than to repose in faith. In a word, he never obtained
satisfaction. Yet he blamed the scientific men, Agassiz
among them, for their unfair methods of investigating the
phenomena; rebuked the prigs who turned up their noses
at the idea of investigating the subject at all; and took
faithful measure of the unbelief in immortality which
pronounced communication between the visible and invisible worlds impossible.  He admitted to his friend
Prof. Desor that Spiritualism does two good things: Ist, It
knocks the nonsense of the popular theology to pieces,
and so does a negative service; 2d, It leads cold, hard,
materialistic men to a recognition of what is really




372             THEODORE PARKER.
spiritual in their nature, and so does a positive
good.
"In I856," he writes in the journal, "it seems more likely
that Spiritualism will become the religion of America than in
I56 that Christianity would be the religion of the Roman
empire, or in 856 that Mohammedanism would be that of the
Arabian populations. Ist, It has more evidence for its wonders than any historic form of religion hitherto. 2d, It is
thoroughly democratic, with no hierarchy, but inspiration open
to all. 3d. It is no fixed fact, has no fzunctzumz stags, but is a
Szufcluzm fuewzs; not a finality, but shows a great vista for the
future. 4th, It admits all the truths of religion and morality
in all the world sects."
Of Swedenborg, the high priest of Spiritualism, Mr.
Parker had not an adoring appreciation.  "Swedenborg
has had the fate to be worshipped as a half-god on the
one side, and on the other to be despised and laughed at.
It seems to me that he was a man of genius, of wide
learning, of deep and genuine piety; but he had an abnormal, queer sort of mind, - dreamy, dozy, clairvoyant,
Andrew Jackson Davisy; and, besides, he loved opium
and strong coffee, and wrote under the influence of those
drugs. A wise man may get many nice bites out of him,
and be the wiser for such eating; but if he swallows
Swedenborg whole, as the fashion is with his followers,why, it lies hard on the stomach, and the man has a nightmare on him  all his natural life, and talks about the' Word' and the'Spirit,''correspondences,' &c. Yet the
Swedenborgians have a calm and religious beauty in their
lives which is much to be admired."
In August, i838, after reading a Life of Swedenborg, -
probably Hobart's, the first published biography in English (Boston, I83I), -he makes the following note in the
journal: -
" It seems written with the most honest intentions, but is not
satisfactory to me farther than this: it shows he wvas a very




THE REFORMER.                   373
remarkable man. As to his wonderful deeds, I have no antecedent objection to them; though the evidence is not always
sufficient to establish their actuality. If actual, they are of no
value to my mind as proof of spiritual inspiration. I cannot
believe in his interpretations of the Scriptures, if he were to
move mountains.
"There is a little unfairness in giving part of the testimony
of Kant, without giving the part against the credibility of Swedenborg."
Parker was, then, acquainted with Swedenborg's story
before reading this book. It would have been singular
indeed had so extraordinary an intellectual phenomenon
escaped him.
To effect a t/zeological reform Parker conceived to be
his mission. To this the cast of his mind and his passion for books inclined him. He was a student and a
thinker, endowed with a prodigious capacity for receiving
the thoughts of others, and with a singular power of
simplifying them in statement. Though not a philosopher
in the technical meaning of the word, he had a vigorous
grasp on the moral bearing of ideas, which qualified him
to be a leader in the general philosophic world.  He
treated ideas as if they were living powers, and watched
their working with the intense interest of a spectator at
a gladiatorial show, or, to speak more accurately, with the
absorbing enthusiasm of a master of the games. His
faith in the regenerating force of a correct theology was
vital. He believed with all his heart, that if the theology
of the Romanist and Protestant - in other words, of the
"Christian" churches —could be destroyed, and juster
views of God, and of man's relations to God, could be
substituted for it, society would feel the change in all its
departments, from government affairs to domestic service:
every wrong would be righted, every mischief removed,
every mistake corrected, every sorrow taken away. His
32




374             THEODORE PARKER.
interest, therefore, in social reforms, like those mentioned
above, was at first incidental to his interest in theology:
it illustrated the bearings of his theological idea; it exhibited in concrete form the drift of his speculative spirit;
it was an application of his scheme of the universe to the
separate concerns of the community.
Thus far, therefore, though his sentiments were those of
a reformer, Parker, in the ordinary sense of the word, was
not a political reformer. He was not a reformer as Garrison was, or Phillips; as Wilberforce was, or Clarkson, or
George Thompson, or John Howard, - men who gave themselves to a particular cause, consecrated time and means
and talents to it, fought for it, made sacrifices for it, were
ready to die for it.  The interest he felt in temperance,
peace, education, the abolition of the gallows, the rescue
of imperilled girls, did not take him from his study, force
him into daily consort with men of affairs, make him cliscontinue or countermand his orders for foreign books,
keep him  on his feet day and night, fill his house with
children of misery, his hours with efforts to relieve suffering and thwart iniquity, his heart with anxieties for the
destiny of his country. The time for this had not come;
but it was coming. When it came, it found him  ready.
His reform of theology meant, at bottom, reform of
society; and, if society raised the loudest cry, his ear was
open to hear it.
The following sonnet, copied from the journal of I849,
expresses the spirit in which he tried to work: —" Father, I will not ask for wealth or fame,
Though once they would have joyed my carnal sense:
I shudder not to bear a hated name,
Wanting all wealth, myself my sole defence.
But give me, Lord, eyes to behold the truth;
A seeing sense that knows the eternal right;
A heart with pity filled, and gentlest ruth;
A manly faith that makes all darkness light:




THE REFORMER.                    375
Give me the power to labor for mankind;
Make me the mouth of such as cannot speak;
Eyes let me be to groping men and blind;
A conscience to the base; and to the weak
Let me be hands and feet; and to the foolish, mind;
And lead still further on such as thy kingdom seek."




CHAPTER XV.
THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY.
THEODORE PARKER never was, never could have been,
indifferent to slavery as an inhuman system. His attention was early fixed on it as a blunder in economics, and
a blot on American institutions. A sermon on slavery,
preached in I84I, and again in I843, was published. In
I842 he wrote to a friend, " Perhaps you feel a stronger
interest than I do in the welfare of Latimer " (a fugitive
slave, whose examination was pending, and in whose behalf the abolitionists had asked public intercession from
divines), "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." It was not, however, till I845, when slavery became prominent in the national politics, and menaced
republican government with overthrow, when men began
to talk of the "slave power," that his concern in the
matter became engrossing. That year finds him busy
with statistics on the general subject. He writes to
the historian Michelet for information in regard to a
work alluded to by him, as he is preparing an essay on
slavery in the Roman empire. The same year he collects facts on slavery in the United States, its introduction and domestication there. The scheme of the "Letter
to the Citizens of the United States," published in December, i847, is drawn up at this time in rough form; books
are noted, and materials gathered from all sources, famil376




THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY.                 377
iar and remote.  The  "Letter," when finished, was a
model of terse composition, throbbing with an earnestness as deep as Garrison's, and animated by a wisdom as
calm as Channing's. Slavery had become the one practical question in America, involving all others. It called
for practical measures: the practical man rallied all his
forces to meet it. In I848 it was suggested to him that
political life would give him a better position than the
pulpit. In one of his despondent moods he writes thus
in the journal: —
"lHay I9. —Several persons of late, as well as formerly,
have talked to me about going to Congress as representative
or senator.  To which there are two objections. I. Nobody
~ would send mne. I don't believe any town in Massachusetts
would give me any post above that of hog-reeve; and I don't
feel competent for that office: a man in spectacles could not
well run after swine. 2. Politics are not mzy vocationz, 1or yet
mny desire. I aim to labor for ideas, to set men a-thinkling.
I feel as if born for a pulpit, if for any thing. If I could be
well, -well enough to work, to do a man's duty, - I should be
glad. Yet that is not a thing I ever mention in my prayers. I
am content, yes, content, to pay the price of violating the laws
of the body in struggling for an education; though I knew not
what I did."
In a braver mood he saw the advantage of his professional position.  He was responsible to nobody, and
nobody to him: he was his own master; owned his own
mill; built his own dam; could grind as much and as little
as he liked. He could speak his own word, in his own
way, and in his own time; was the servant of no party,
the slave of no machine.  He could excite the sentiment
and supply the idea for the political reformer to work up
for his uses.  But he believed in politics, too, as the
instituted agency for carrying ideas into effect.  He did
not stand outside of politics, as the abolitionists did:
rather he stood above them, as one who would make them
32*




378            THEODORE PARKER.
serve his turn. He voted; encouraged voting; counted
the actual and reckoned the possible votes; interested
himself in the candidates to be voted for; stirred up the
enthusiasm of constituencies; marshalled his armies of
ballots as a general his myrmidons; all the time ringing
out his prophetic call to conscience, and impressing on
men the majesty of the eternal law. No disabling scruples respecting the constitutional guaranties of slavery
restrained him on the one side; no ethnological doubts
respecting the negro's rank in mankind restrained him
on the other. He saw democratic institutions -the dream
of history, the hope of humanity-menaced with destruction; and he rushed to the rescue, snatching up the most
effective weapons that lay near his hand.
A brief sketch of the episodes in the conflict, their
dates and characteristic features at least, is necessary to
explain his course. The events have passed into history;
and, even if they had not, are important here only as
illustrating the man, his methods and his spirit.
The annexation of Texas —the first step, as he foresaw, and as it proved, in the march of the slave power
towards its goal, the supreme control of the American
government-was effected in I845. By this measure a
territory as large as France was added as a slave State to
the Union.
The war with Mexico -the first consequence of the
annexation of Texas —followed in x846, and was advocated by the same party that carried through the former
measure. The issue of the war increased the reputation
of the party, and greatly raised the confidence of the
slave power.
The election of Gen. Taylor to the presidency in i848
confirmed the gains already made, and favored new
plots for the feudal usurpation.  In i850 the famous
Fugitive-slave Bill was passed, which opened the whole
North as a hunting-ground for Southern masters whose




THE FIGIHT WITEH SLAVERY.            379
slaves had escaped into the Middle and New-England
States. Of this bill Daniel Webster was the great Whig
supporter. He carried with him the wealth, eminence,
and social respectability, of Massachusetts.
The administration of Franklin Pierce gave to the conspirators an opportunity to consolidate their plans, which
they diligently made use of, and so openly, that the public
sentiment of the North was at last aroused to a sense of
the danger.
On the I5th of May, 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill,
which had passed the Senate on the 4th, passed the
House of Representatives in spite of vigorous opposition
from Northern men; and a new episode in the course of
events was opened. Neither Territory having the population required for admission as a State, both made haste to
stock them with people after their own kind. The "border ruffians" poured in from Missouri, and took violent
possession of the strategic points. The emigration societies formed their organizations in the free States, and
pushed their bands of pioneers across the Western prairies,
fully equipped with implements of civilization, and armed
with rifles to defend them. The suppressed war broke
out in the new Territories with fury. Outrages of every
kind made existence there tolerable to none but combatants. Murders, accompanied by acts of deep atrocity,
were of daily occurrence. There was no law, no restraint
of custom, no respect for property or person. Re-enforcements were continually coming in to the aid of either
party; and, as numbers increased, difficulties accumulated.
The condition of things was one of simple anarch-y: men
went armed; houses were prepared for assault; guards
were stationed as in time of war. Nobody was safe.
Prominent among the figures that loomed up in this
dreadful time was that of John Brown, the stern man of
grim puritanical cast, whose deed of sacrifice closed one
epoch of history.




380            THEODORE PARKER.
In May, 1856, Charles Sumner delivered in the Senate
his famous speech, "The Crime against Kansas," which
lashed the proslavery party to frenzy, and brought upon
him a brutal assault, on the 2ist, by Preston Brooks.
The Massachusetts senator dragged his outraged form
from Washington to Boston, touching all hearts with pity,
filling all souls with indignation, and swelling the party
which had determined that the slave power should lose
the next battle and be crushed.
But it was not. The battle was fiercely fought between
John Charles Fremont and James Buchanan. Buchanan
won; and the dominion of evil was strengthened for
another term. The tide was not turned till i86o, when
the success of Abraham Lincoln checked the slaveholders' advance, but too late for a peaceful solution of the
problem. The civil war punished the South for its iniquity, and the North for its complicity.
At every crisis of this long conflict, from the first
moment till near its close, Theodore Parker made himself
felt. His voice was the loudest; his presence was ubiquitous; his action was prompt. He enlisted for the war,
and brought all his forces with him. The importation of
books slackened; the folios were dropped; purse and
brain were devoted to the one duty of meeting the public
emergency. With astonishing assiduity he went through
the Northern States, enlightening and rousing the people
with ponderous lectures that were orations, sermons, arguments, historical disquisitions, harangues, all in one.
His lecturing-field touched the Southern border, and
once, at least, lapped'over. Thomas Garrett, the famous
station-master of the "Underground Railroad," proposed to him to lecture in Wilmington, Del. (a place
where the proslavery feeling was particularly acrid); telling him at the same time that the undertaking was dangerous; that he would be exposed to insult, and perhaps
to personal violence. The peril was a temptation; and




THE FIGHT WIT  SLAVE R Y.             3SI
the invitation was accepted with alacrity. A special lecture was prepared for the occasion. On his arrival, posters
were out on the walls, of an alarming nature. The hall
was filled with excited people; scowling faces confronted
him as he entered; there were whispers of tar and feathers in the back-yard. Parker took the stand, and, as
quietly as if he were in Music Hall, announced his
theme: "Rhode Island and Delaware, the Two Smallest
States in the Union."  He began by drawing a picture of
the two States as regarded natural advantages, —of position, climate, resources, historical and political antecedents, - all so conspicuously in favor of Delaware, that the
audience was delighted. Having thus sketched the States
as they ought to be, he drew another picture, representing them as they were, - Delaware poor, unenterprising, decadent; Rhode Island vigorous, rich, advancing.
Having set the two pictures face to face, the question
was raised and answered, "What explains these unexpected results?"  With careful array of facts and figures,
it was shown how, in the one case, slavery had defeated the
promise of Nature; and how, in the other case, freedom
had defeated Nature's menace. The lecture was long,
serious, and close; but its vast ability, its evident candor,
and its unimpassioned tone, kept the audience attentive to
the end, and left them deeply impressed. A handsome
substitute for the tar-barrel was a vote of thanks. Parker's earnestness disarmed the rancor of those who would
listen to him. He spoke as a teacher, not as a partisan.
His aim was truth, not victory.
His pulpit rang from Sunday to Sunday with the tones
of a Hebrew prophet. He kept his eye on every public
man, sounded his trumpet-call in the ears of the lagging,
admonished the hesitating, warned the faltering, praised
the valiant, instructed the ignorant, denounced the faithless, respecting no persons, but aiming his blows where
his blows would fall heaviest. The history of those dozen




382              THEODORE PARKER.
years cannot be written in this volume: nor need it
be; for it is written in books easily accessible; in none
more truthfully or vividly than in those of Theodore Parker himself. We are studying now Parker's character, for
the sake of its influence on other characters to be trained
for other emergencies.  Let us try to understand how he
worked.
The  following  letter to George Bancroft shows him
willing, if necessary, to break friendship, rather than be
faithless to his own soul: —
WEST ROXBURY, Nov. iS, I845.
DEAR SIR,-I was once In friendly intercourse with the
historian of the United States; and the remembrance of that
emboldens me to write the following letter to an important
member of the cabinet council, which is the actual government
of the United States. Once you wrote the history of other
men's achievements; I need not say, a noble history of noble
men and noble deeds: now you are to enact a history, not to
write one; to create materials for the future historian. You
can add new laurels to such as you have already won, acquiring the imperishable renown of noble words, and deeds as noble;
or add another to the list of men whose deeds are words, and
words only. I look to you for the noble deeds. I know that
most of your political opponents do not expect that; I know
that some of your political friends expect it no more: but I
have obstinately said to both, that I expected the historian of
great worth to show a worth fit to be as greatly described.
But to come to the point. It is rumored about in this neighborhood, it is the talk in State Street, that you, with others in
place, are desirous of a war with England, - a war, too, on account of that wretched business of Oregon.
Now, I cannot believe the talk of.State Street to that effect;
nor can I believe, spite of " The Union " and its editorials, that
the two leading nations of the world are to plunge into a war out
of which both are to rise losers.  I will say with Cicero, that
tIere Izever was a fzlst war or an ziujzst feace. I write to beg of
you- if the thought of war, or even thle thog/,S7zt of that thozghzt,
enters into the councils of the government -to consider that pos



THE FIGHT WITH1 SLA VERY.                383
terity, which awards fame or disgrace to men, will damn into
deep infamy that government which allows a war to take place
in the middle of the nineteenth century.  Yes, posterity will
pass a damning sentence on the men who even tampered with
the war-spirit so madly active in these half-brutal men who
swarm in our parties.  I say, too, that this vengeance will fall
heaviest on you, and that deservedly. You know at what cost
war is waged.  I don't speak of treasure, not even of blood,
but of the confusion it brings into the minds, and hearts too, of
men. You know, from the bloody page of history, how war in
the latter ages has arrested the progress of man. A war of but
a single year between England and the United States, I seriously
believe, would retard the progress of man full half a century. I
know some men would win a reputtation for a few months in the
mouths of the vulgar; but I know, and you know, that such
fame is real infamy, and will soon appear such even to those
men that are the food for owder.
There is yet another matter on which I feel constrained to
speak: that is the adnissionz of Texas as a slave State. As a
member of the cabinet, you must have an influence on this matter. As an historla~, you know that slavery was the corruption
of Greece and the undoing of Rome. As a p/hiosopizer, you
know that slavery is supported only by the worst passions of
man; that it is this day the ilfamy of the whole nation; that
it is the curse of the very South, which clamors for it with such
foolish speech; and is the real cause of all the ill feeling between
the South and the North; yes, the drug of an evil prophet
thrust into the mouth of that fair statue our fathers set up to
the Genius of Freedom, - a drug which will rend their work
into fragments and ruins. Now I ask if you, George BIancroft,
the historian of freedom, are willing to aid in bringing into this
republic that province which has restored slavery after poor
Mexico had abolished it. You told me once you thought your
lecture on Roman slavery was the best thing you ever wrote.
I think few men place you higher as an author than I have
done; but I confess that I know no passage of your writings
that surpasses your thoughts on Roman slavery.
Now, with that before the eye, and fresh in remembrance, if
you can allow the introduction of Texas as a slave State at all,
still more with that infamous constitution it has adopted; if




384              THEODORE PARKER.
you can do that, - why, what is your lecture on Roman slavery,
what your whole history of freedom, but a piece of brilliant
declamation? I love noble words as well as you; but I love
deeds worthy of noble words, - love them far better. I prize literary reputation; I don't mean that I aspire to it, only that I
place a great author very high in the scale of man: but I
would rather posterity should say of me, that, holding a place
in the government of the United States, I opposed that government in its scheme of annexing a slave territory big as the
kingdlom of France, and, in consequence of that opposition,
gave up my place in the cabinet sooner than be partner to a
horrid wrong, - I say I would rather have posterity tell that of
me than say I wrote the history of the United States better
than mortal ever wrote before. You will say I am but a poor
country minister, with no voice in the Commonwealth, and no
knowledge of political affairs. All that is true: none know it
better than I know it. But I do know what is rigzt by,she everlastinzg law of God, and I do know that the admission of Texas is
wrong by these laws. I beg you in this matter not to consult
with that mushroom popularity which is gained without merit,
and lost without crime; but to act worthy of a pb/ziosofiher; of a
man enriched by the wisdom of the past, and full of the culture
of a Christian's noble life. If you do so, future generations,
ay, the present generation too, will crown your head with
the noblest of honors, -the applause bestowed by good men
on great and noble deeds. If you do it not, if you falsify your
own bravest words, and allow the area of slavery to be
extended, thus to be perpetuated, while you lift up no word of
manly remonstrance, how can the world help regarding you
as a mere declaimer, a poor sophist, who had the art to cheat
the vulgar with fine words, and deceive the many lovers of
freedom by brilliant pretensions, but was himself words and pretensions, nothing more? If you falsify your own writings, what
can you say to me if I burn your books, and then say, "lie and
hks books are the samze Izing, - FINE-SOUNDING WORDS, BUT AT
LAST ASHES AND DUST"?
Act only as you have written, and your reputation is secure:
a great deal more than that, - you will have done a man's deeds.
Men will write on your tomb, " PAR OFFICIO ATQUE OFFICIUM
MAXIMUM"."   That would be a nobler epitaph than this: "Levis




THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY.                 385
sit terra sufper terrain levern;" and this is the inscription
which justice writes on many a tomb.
What shall I say at the end of such a letter as this? Why,
this only, — that it is the strongest proof of friendship and
esteem  that I could show any man. If you are offended, I
shall be sorry for it: not sorry that I have written; not sorry
that I expected deeds commensurate with your words; sorry
only that I do not find them. But I will trouble you no more,
except to say I hope you will be as jealous of your own real
honor as I have been; and to add, that, with many good hopes
for your welfare and usefulness, I am
Most heartily your friend,
THEO. PARKER.
The dead earnestness comes out again thus: Parker
had made a speech at a public meeting, which some of
his best friends found fault with, on the ground, it would
seem, that it was extreme in statement, and bordering on
vulgarity in tone. Thus he replies: -
To Miss Stevenson.
WEST ROXBURY, Sept. 30, 1846.
MY DEAR HANNAH, — I wrote the within letter immediately
on reading yours. Since then, two days have passed; and I
have thought the matter over a little more carefully; have
looked at it im5Personally as a matter of history. It seems
quite otherwise. I am glad it is done; sorry that some things
I meant to say were omitted, - things that would have made no
man laugh, but all men's blood curdle with horror to have heard,
- things that would have rung like the blows of a battle-axe on a
robber's doorposts. To have said just the words I then said, at
that time, may do me no honor: I looked for none, want none. It
may cover me with disgrace: I care not for that. I am glad I
said it; glad I said it jzst so. I went there in a quite unusual
mood. I was filled with indignation at the mean, base spirit (so
it seemed to me) which led strong men to halt, to say, and not do.
I felt that I could eat them up, and spit their pitiful ambition out
of my mouth. I have little patience with a man who makes a
negro's neck a stepping-stone to fame and power. I believe
most men sincere. I never ten times in my life accused
33




386              THEODORE PARKER.
anybody of hypocrisy. Then I felt there was something a
good deal like it, not only in the Democrats and in old
Whigs, but where I had not looked for it before. I felt like a
Hebrew prophet towards all the doughfaces, new school as
well as old. I am glad that I used low words for scurrilous
thihgs; glad I said the slaveholders who passed political antislavery resolutions were " jolly green." I wish I had said, that,
thlough " hell was paved with resolutions," the antislavery resolutions of jolitical arties at the North were too thin, insincere,
aind hyocrilical to be allowed a fermanent lodogement evein there.
I meant to say that. I wish I had said what I thought of the
heart of the real good men of Massachusetts, and what of that
for which the demagogues were striving. I wish I had taken
up the Whig party, and the Democratic party too, and held up
their words and their deeds in the light of God's law, making
that blaze into men's minds, and be reflected upon their parties.
If a man called that " a rowdy speech," it was because he
had the soul of a rowdy; and, if fifty men said so, it was
because there were fifty so ensouled, so animated. I don't
want to blame such critics. I must confess the fact, I have
seldom risen so high as that night; never thundered and lightened into such an atmosphere. I did not think of such words:
they came; and I thank God for it. I hope I may never have
to speak so again. I know I shall not often; perhaps never. I
know how unusual the strain was. If a man had told me
I should speak so, I should have thought it impossible. But I
did greater than I could counsel; far greater than I knew. My
caprice, my personal taste, stood in the background; and my
nature -the nature of mankind - and honest blood spoke in
me, through me. I solemnly think now that I spoke more and
better than ever before. Good judges will not tell you so; but
if another man lhad done as I, and I stood there, feeling as then
I felt, I would tell you so.
I like your letter much. The wounds of a friend I will bear
thankfully, and keep forever the blessed scars thereof. Do so
always. I don't want to wait for my foes to tell me my faults.
You have an insight, a depth of vision, and a delicacy of soul,
far greater than I. ever met before, and can help me more than
any other one. Don't treat me like a baby or a g-i-r-l, but like
a man that loves you best when you beat him.




THEE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY.               387
The letter is marked "Privatissime;" and most private
it should hav.2 been and was kept long after it was written. But the awful illuminations of the war have made
the most fiery words look pale; and we do not wonder
now at speech which twenty-five years ago seemed excessive, but which history has proved to have been prophetic.
The speech which Providence has justified needs neither
excuse nor concealment.
Mr. Parker was fond of formulas, - short, pithy statements of principle, which could be easily remembered,
and contained food for meditation long and close.  In
religion, he summed up his fundamental doctrine in the
three points, - consciousness of t/ie zJinite God, of the iimmortal life, of t/ie eternal right.  These came over as faithfully
in the Sunday sermons as the five points of Calvinism
in a Presbyterian discourse.  In politics, his compact
definition of a democracy, as "government of t/le people,
by th/e people, for the people," recurred with similar constancy.  So in the antislavery war he put the whole case
in a terse form which neither could be missed nor misconceived: I. Freedom  may put down slavery by due
course of law; 2. Slavery may put down freedom by due
course of law; 3. Slavery and freedom may draw swords,
and fight. These propositions appear in sermon, speech,
lecture, letter, with tireless iteration.  The speaker started
from them, and came back to them  continually; developing, illustrating, demonstrating; accumulating facts, arguments, and appeals upon them; using the latest events
and the freshest incidents; but making these  strong
formulas stand up in full view all the time, so as to keep
the grand issues steadfastly in mind. The stern repetition
of the alternatives, accompanied as it was by keen criticism of men and measures, was an education in history
and in ethics.
He had an instinct for men as for principles, and
tested them with singular insight and success.  He knew




388             THEODORE PARKER.
a proslavery man under the cunningest disguise, and
detected the antislavery disposition with a quick eye,
by reason of the moral sympathy which felt farther than
it could see.  His letters reveal these swift glances into
the characters of prominent or ambitious men, who afterward, in almost every case, justified his prophecy; and
he was ready either to fan or to tread out the spark,
according as it promised to illumine, or threatened to consume.  Let who would be faithless, he would be faithful.
No man should falter for lack of his encouragement.
To Hon. oohzn G. Palfrey, Washinogton, D.C.
BOSTON, Dec. I, I847.
DEAR SIR, - I took the liberty the other day to send you
the first number of " The Massachusetts Quarterly Review," in
which you will find a scholarly and able paper on the condition
of Greece, from the pen of Mr. Finlay. I did not intend to
bore you with a letter; but you force me to that yourself. I do
not write for your sake, but my own, and to thank you most
heartily for the honest, manly, and brave course you have pursued in regard to Mr. —, unworthy son of most worthy
sires. I hope you will excuse me for saying it to you, that I
have looked with admiration and delight at your whole course
of late years, especially at the manly position you have taken
in respect of the matter of slavery. I know what conscience
and what courage it demands to do as you have done; but perhaps you do not know what conscience and courage your example is ministering to younger men.
I see your vote censured in the newspapers. The censure
shows what degree of freedom is expected of a politician in the
Whig party as well as the Democratic. I should count such
censure as the highest honor such men could confer. How
could you vote for Mr. —? with what expectation df.justice to your country? While I read the censure in the
newspapers, I hear the warmest praise of your vote from men
whose esteem you would value most highly. I am glad it falls
to the lot of a man constitutionally courageous to stand up in the
bear-garden of American politics, and show that a man may be




THlE FI~GH T  WVITH SLA VERY.           389
in politics, and yet not out of morals. I am only sorry that I do
not live in Middlesex to lend you my vote when needed; though
I have the satisfaction of having two brothers there who do so.
I hope you will have abundant satisfaction for your conduct,
which certainly is not less than heroic. And I remain
Yours respectfully and gratefully,
THEO. PARKER.
To tAze Same.
JUNE 14, 1848.
HONORED AND DEAR SIR, — I hate to trouble so busy a
man as you are, but will not trouble you needlessly with apologies or a long letter. I intend, on the 25th of this month,
to preach on the Mexican war; and wish to know how much
money it has cost, and how many men have perished on the
American side in its wickedness. Of course I know the official
documents accompanying the President's message: but if you
can send me any more information, either by a letter or a document, you will help me much; for I love to know exactly the
trulAz. If the President has issued any proclamation of peace, I
shall be glad of that, as, indeed, of a copy of the treaty and any
thing connected with that. But I will only trouble you by saying with how much and how grateful admiration I look on you
and your services, and how heartily I say, God bless youz 
Respectfully and truly yours,
THEO. PARKER.
Already Mr. Parker's energy in the antislavery cause had
made his name familiar in all parts of the country. It had
even reached the State of Georgia, from which came long
letters, first of rather scornful argument, and afterwards of
senseless vituperation, from a Mr. Flournoy. To the first
Mr. Parker replied in the following letter, which, though
printed by Mr. Weiss in connection with Mr. Flournoy's
letter, is reprinted here for the benefit of those who would
not otherwise know how patient he was in dealing with
even irrational people. The contents of the correspondent's communication may be gathered from Mr. Parker's
reply: the vulgarity of its tone is best left to imagination.
334




390.             THEODORE PARICER.
To 7. 7. Flournoy, Esyp., Wellizhon (near At/zens), Ga.
BOSTON, Feb. 2, I848.
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 slavehoiders.  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 slaveholding is a wrong in itself, and therefore a sin; but
I cannot say that this or that particular slaveholder is a sinner
because he holds slaves. I know what sin is; God only who
is a sinner. I hope I have not said any thing harsh in my letter,
or any thing 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 the
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
the 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
Exod. xxxv. 2, 3, it is forbidden to kindle a fire on Saturday
(sabbath), on pain of death. In Num. xv. 32, 36, it is said
the Lord commanded a man to be stoeaed to death because he
picked up sticks on-Saturday. Yet I suppose you have a fire in




THE FIGHT WITH SLA VERY.                 39I
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 "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 St. Paul was a Christian; and you know
what he says about the law- that is, /ase law of Moses- 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 Hamn; 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 Egyptians, it is true,
and other North-African people; but it is well known that they
were not negroes. But even if somne of the descendants of Ham
were negroes,-though  it is plain from  Gen. x. they were
not, -still that does not bring them under the curse of Noah;
for Noah does not curse Ham and all his children, but only
Canaan. Now, the descendants of Canaan are mentioned in
Gen. x. I5-I9. Not one of them was ever an African people:
they all dwelt in the western part of Asia, and were the nations
with whom the Hebrews were often at war. The Hebrews conquered many of these tribes, seized their country, and often
their persons. Many of them fled, and, I 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 thus: Four thousand years ago, Noah cursed
Canaan; and therefore you hold one of Canaan's children as a
slave. Now, do you think a malz 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




392              THEODORE PARKER.
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, I. That the negro is descended
from Canaan; 2. That the curse was actually uttered as related;
3. That it denounces personal slavery for more than four thousand 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 man in
the nineteeth century, a C/hristian magz, a re5ublican 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! For my own part, I don't
believe the story of Noah cursing his grandson for the father's
fault. I think it all a Jewish story got up to justify the hatred
which the Jews felt against the Canaanites.
I know Bryant's book and Faber's, but never use either nowa-days.  Bryant 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 me if I could not propose some good to be done to
the slaves now. Certainly: their marriage and family-rights
might be made secure, their work easier, their food and clothing
better; they might not be beaten; pains might be taken to educate them. But all this 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 coursed you, still less if four thousand years ago. If I were
a slaveholder, 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.




THE FIGHT WITiH SLA VERY.               393
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 yozt akefrom a man his lib3erty, his jterson, do
yoZ not violate this comzzand, " Thou shalt not covet any thing
that is thy neighbor's "? Do yozt not break the Goldenl RZle, -
"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 slaveholder.  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,
THEO. PARKER.
J. J. FLOURNOY, Esq.
To lohzn P. Hale.
BOSTON, Feb. 22, I848.
DEAR SIR, - I hope you will pardon me for writing you this
note. I would not trouble you with it if I did not feel obliged
to bear my testimony to you. The slight acquaintance I had
with you certainly would not justify me in writing this letter.
But a spirit higher than conventional politeness compels me.
Your recent vote in the Senate is so noble and heroic, that I
cannot be silent. I must thank you for it: I do so in my own
name. In the name of many who will not write the gratitude
they feel, and in the name of mankind, I thank you. Certainly
you have raised my opinion of the human race, when I see you
vote in a minority of one. To stand alone in such a case is
to stand nobly, left alone in the glory, but least alone when all




394             THEODORE PARIKER.
alone. Such conduct is worthy of the best men, of the most
heroic ages, of the best nations. It does not require much
courage to stand up at Thermopylh or Bunker Hill; not half so
much as to stand up in the Senate of the United States, and
say you went there to stand alone. Accept, dear sir, my most
hearty thanks, and believe me
Respectfully yours, &c.,
THEO. PARKER.
Hon. JOHN P. HALE.
To Hon. Horace AIanzn.
BOSTON, Nov. 14, I849.
MY DEAR SIR, - It is time to go to bed; but I cannot go to
sleep without thanking you for the noble work you have done
to-night. Of the magnificence and eloquence in thought and in
speech I shall not stop to speak: they were the smaller beauties
of your sermon. I must thank you for the magnificent morality
you set before those young men. I think I can appreciate the
heroism it required to do so, and speak as you have spoken,
on such an occasion, in such a presence, where your words
must seem personal to many; no, not to many, but to a few.
I know well enough, and you know much more and better than
I, how your oration will be received by the men who are
looked upon as models, but whose business it exposed, and
whose littleness it scathed with terrible fire. But there were
many true hearts, in bosoms younger than mine, which beat
with yours, and echoed back your words.
I have often been thankful that you are in Congress, - one
faithful man, not a slave to the instinct for office more than a
slave to the instinct for gold, but a representative of the instinct for justice and for truth. There is one that will long
be grateful to you for such words as you have spoken to-night,
and the life which made them, not words, but deeds. I beg you
to accept my most hearty thanks, and believe me
Truly your friend,
THEO. PARKER.
At this stage of the conflict, Mr. Parker, so far from relaxing his literary efforts, increased them in a way to tax
the strength of a strong and leisurely man. His lecturing




THE FIGHT WZTH SLA VERY.            395
engagements were making severe drain on his time. His
visitors were augmenting in number and urgency. The
reading of many books went on inexorably. In addition
to this, he undertook the co-editorship, in connection with
R. W. Emerson and J. E. Cabot, of "The Massachusetts
Quarterly Review," which was designed as an organ for
the manly discussion of the momentous questions in
science, politics, philosophy, morals, and theology, that
interested, or were about to interest, or were worthy of
interesting, the American people. He hoped much from
such a journal, and tried to induce the ablest men in the
country to engage in it. He wanted " a tremendous journal,
w ith ability in its arms, and piety in its heart;" a journal
that "would, ist, Strike a salutary terror into all the ultramontanists, and make them see that they did not live in
the middle ages; that they are not to be let alone, dreaming of the garden of Eden, but are to buckle up and
work; 2d, Would spread abroad the ideas which now wait
to be organized, some in letters, some in art, some in institutions and practical life."
To secure a suitable editor was the prime concern.
"We don't want a man of the middle ages, but of the
nineteenth century, for our work. I have written a letter
to Emerson, asking him to undertake the matter. If he
will, it will succeed. He is the better man, if he will take
hold. He is a downright man.- we never had such a jewel
in America before. I think him worth two or three of
Dr. Channing."  Fearing that Emerson would decline, as
he did, he wrote to Charles Sumner: "It has been decided in the council of the gods that you must undertake
the business of conducting a new review: therefore, O
mortal! there is nothing for you to do but to set about the
appointed work." But neither was Mr. Sumner obtainable; and practically the charge devolved on Mr. Parker.
The contributors were another anxiety. He must have
the best young men of culture and energy, if possible; at




396             THEODORE PARKER.
all events, the most competent men. He solicits political
articles from John P. Hale; and bespeaks a special paper
from him, for the first number, on the Annexation of
Texas, and the Mexican War. Work is planned out far
in advance, as was his custom.  The journal has a
schedule of contents for three or four numbers after the
first. The first was already issued, on the ist of December, I847.
No. II.
I. Cabot vs. Mill. - Hildreth on Slavery.
2. Ward on Art.
3. James on Swedenborg.
4. Female Education.
5. Howe on Prison Discipline. - Nichols on Ireland.
6. Wilkinson on Central New York.
7. Literary Notices.
No. III.
I. Schwegler. - T. P.
2. Exploring Expedition.
3. Hornitz on Chinese Literature.
4. Furness on Landor.
5. Cabot on Wheaton.
6. Papineau on Canada. - Desor on Squiers. - Cheap
Postage. - Barnabas Bates. - Carlyle.
No. IV.
I. Baur on the Gospels. -T. P.
2. Lieber on Humboldt (I.).
3. Pantaleone on Pius IX.
4. Andrew on Thirtieth Congress.
5. Theodore Parker on Dr. Channing..
6. George Lee on the East (Howe will write to him). —
Mesmerism.
No. V.
I. Theology in Germany. - T. P.
2. Lieber on Humboldt (II.).




THE FIGHT WITH SLA VERY.               397
But to propose is one thing: to dispose is another. The
writers he had in view did not all meet his expectations.
Others came up whom he had not thought of; but few.
The labor of all kinds fell chiefly on himself. He did all
that he promised, and a great deal more. In addition
to the work laid out, he wrote a powerful article on " The
Political Destination of America," biographical papers
on John Quincy Adams, a careful estimate of Ralph
Waldo Emerson's writings, and an exhaustive review
of Mr. Prescott's histories, which stirred up the wrath
in "select circles."  None of his reviews were done
on Sydney Smith's rule,-of writing before reading the
book, in order to avoid prejudice; but this one was
finished with more than even his usual care. Every thing
bearing on the subjects treated of was- read, - all the contemporary history, every accessible public document (in
the original tongue) relating to the times under examination, military and naval statistics, financial reports. The
article was not complimentary to Mr. Prescott as an historian. One wonders how the reviewer could have sent it to
him with compliments: one wonders not that the historian should have responded by expressing a hope that the
public would give the same reception to his criticism that
it gave to his theology. In noticing the reviewer's conscientiousness towards his authors, it is worth while to notice
the editor's conscientiousness towards his contributors, —not too common a virtue with his tribe.
WEST ROXBURY, June 20, I848.
DEAR FRIEND,- I like your paper much, and will put it
among the critical notices; only I have added a paragraph at
the end. If you don't like that, you can strikeit out; for I will
send you a "proof." The matterlies in a nutshell. The socialcompact men think a State can make any law it sees fit; meaning by the State the peoj5le, or, more commonly, the bourgeoisie.
Here is their error. They forget that a State has no rzghl to enact wrong. Their opponents think a government is divine. It
34




3938             THE OD0ORE PARKER.
may be the Devil's government: so long as it keeps its legs, it
is my duty to obey it.
I suppose you never read Hobbes, nor Mr. Robert Filmer, nor
Locke's "Treatise of Civil Government."  If you should, you
would see that Vinton writes in the interest of tyrants, and not
of mankind. He thinks you must defited olz the governzment,
not it on you; that you must be ruled by an external authority,
and he knows nothing higher or better: so he wants an authority in Church and in StatQ. Now, I would as soon trust to the
social-comnpact men as to St. Paul; for he says the powers that
be are ordained of God. The power at that time was Nero. I
doubt the correctness of your exegesis of the verse. I think
you have not sufficiently attended to the historical fact, that
Paul was writing to a set of fanatical men at Rome, who
thought, that, inasmuch as their Messiah had come, they were
set free from all obligation to keep any social laws which lhe had
not imposed. I don't believe that Paul at this day would lay
down such a general thesis as that; but he did lay it down, it
seems to me; and surely that text has been a scrizpture for
despotism ever since.
This is the sum  of the matter.  Rights and duties are
anterior to all laws or institutions, and always superior to them.
Rights and duties are directly from God; while laws are only
mediately divine. I wish Vinton had said that; but I don't
believe he could, and know he did not mean to in the sermon.
I shall like to exchange with you some time in October.
Now my house is shut up in town, and I live here.
Yours heartily,              T. P.
T. W. HIGGINSON.
"The Quarterly" lived but three years: thanks to him
that it lived so long. The public was not prepared for
any thing so thorough or so advanced.  Competent and
willing contributors were too few; and the political urgency
was pressing too hotly to allow the requisite leisure to the
chief editor.  The year I850 -the year of the Fugitiveslave Bill — had come, and all superfluities must be
dropped.  The decks must be cleared for immediate
action.  Daniel Webster, the potentate of Whig public




THE FIGHT WITH SLA VERY.              399
opinion in Massachusetts, delivered on the 7th of MKarch
the speech that forever sealed his doom, and devoted the
spring and summer to prodigious efforts to persuade the
men of New England to "overcome their prejudices" in
favor of freedom. On the I8th of September the bill was
passed, and sent to the President for approval.  The
acting President, Millard Fillmore, a tool in the hands of
the slave power, signed it without hesitation, on the advice
of Attorney-General Crittenden, a citizen of a slave State.
It was but a virulent revival of an old scheme. A
fugitive-slave enactment had been passed in I793; and
under it, in I842, George Latimer, a slave, was arrested in
Boston. "The Latimer Journal," a revolutionary sheet,
was published at this time by Dr. H. I. Bowditch, assisted by leading antislavery writers, Mr. Parker being one.
What was probably his first antislavery article, in the form
of an Eastern allegory, appeared in this journal. Dr. Bowditch, F. S. Cabot, and William E. Channing, as the Latimer Committee, obtained 64,526 names in Massachusetts
to a petition for a personal-liberty bill, which was granted
by the legislature. This was subsequent to Latimer's release, and intended as a guard against similar attempts at
kidnapping. Some years prior to I85o, a Vigilance Committee was appointed at a meeting in Faneuil Hall, called
on occasion of the kidnapping of a slave in Boston harbor. John Quincy Adams presided over the meeting.
The leading antislavery men of the day were among the
members of this committee, whose numbers were subsequently greatly enlarged.  Mr. Parker was a member of
the executive committee, and, it is said, initiated much of
its action.
The new law struck dismay into the hearts of the
blacks who had been living peacefully in the AMiddle and
New-England States. The slave-hunters leaped over the
border, and prowled about in Northern cities in search of
prey. Ignorant, brutal, crafty, insolent, they snatched




400            THEODORE PARKER.
what they could reach, and laid snares for men and women as superior to them in all human qualities of intelligence, industry, fidelity, and courage, as they were superior to Bushmen. When, a few weeks ago, William Craft
sat in my parlor, talking over his scheme for an industrial
school in Georgia with the air of one accustomed to good
society, speaking admirable English, and showing a complete acquaintance with all the conditions of his undertaking, it was hard to believe that he had been pursued as a
runaway by a miserable creature who spelt "early" eirly,
"wait" ware, "wife" wif, "know" no, and "engaged"
ingztage. But so it was.  The government decreed the
" Christians to the lions;" and the lions did after their
kind. The agony and the terror were supreme. Free
persons were not safe, even such as never had been slaves.
A black man was a black man: his color was a badge of
servitude, a prinzu-facie evidence of chattelhood.  If he
could produce free papers, and get a commissioner to approve them, all was well; but the commissioner was usually
a creature of the government, and too ready to construe
appearances against the victim.  The hunters' success
was naturally greatest in the border States; greatest of
any in Pennsylvania: but the best game was farther
north; and thither the sleuthhounds sped. It is impossible to tell how many were carried off or seized altogether,
-no small number, certainly: but for the vigilance of
the antislavery people, it would have been very large.
The old Vigilance Committee was on the alert; and
branch committees were formed, wherever there was danger, to warn the blacks, conceal them, expedite their escape if practicable, stand by them with legal aid if arrested, rescue them from the clutch of the pursuers by
guile or force if other means failed.
A spy in the United-States marshal's office reported
the probable issue of warrants; and rewards were paid for
timely information of the official movements. The com



THE FIGHT WIT1 SLA VERY.                401I
mittee were prepared to resist the execution of the law to
the very verge of civil outbreak, but not to go beyond.
Their policy was to induce claimants and witnesses, by
persuasions or threats, to leave the city; to expel the slavehunters by all means short of deadly assault: and in the
pursuit of this policy they had need of courage as well as
discretion; for the infuriated blacks more than once plotted the assassination of their pursuers.
In Boston the panic was fearful; for Boston, as being
the hot-bed of abolitionism, was the asylum  of the fugitive.  Decisive measures were taken for meeting the
emergency.  Meetings were called, lists of fugitives were
made, names of citizens were enrolled, organizations were
effected.  A printed list of this Boston Committee of
Vigilance is before me: it numbers one hundred and
sixty-three names. They rose in a short time to two hundred and fifty.  The first name on the executive committee was Theodore Parker. Associated with him were Wendell Phillips, S. G. Howe, Edmund Jackson, Charles M.
Ellis, Charles K. Whipple.  When a special committee
was appointed to act in sudden emergencies, Theodore
Parker was made its chairman. His whole soul, at this
time, was on fire.  He was ready for any and all work,
to draw up resolutions, to write placards, to counsel, or to,
act.  Here is his account of the meeting in Faneuil Halt
to express the popular feeling in regard to the bill. It is
given in a letter to Miss Stevenson, dated the I4th of
October.
"You will wish to hear about the meeting last night. It was
a very good oze. Phillips and Apthorp went down with me at
half-past six.  The galleries were crowded then.  At seven
there were three or four thousand in the hall. None of the
respectability were there, or but few of them; none of'our
family.' C. F. Adams presided; read a neat little speech.
Dr. Lowell opened the services with a touching prayer, which
carried the hearts of the audience to heaven. It was not non34*




402             THE OD O.RE PARKAER.
committal, not respectable and{ harisaic. Douglas spoke, not
very well, but only long. However, the moderation of his tone,
the facts he related, and his wit, made it effective on a part of
the audience. Then came a long letter from Old Quincy, not
interesting except from its authorship. Then Wendell spoke,
and never better. He was received with great applause, cheered
continually, but once hissed a little when he said that Winthrop
had voted right in'a temnporary sfiasmn of liberty.' HIe said
nothing about disunion or of hostility to the Constitution. Then
followed a Mr. Briggs of Ohio, - a tonguey fellow, who told some
anecdotes, but made little sensation. He is a low stump-orator
apparently; but said, wisely enough, that the audience would
probably like best to hear Boston men, and sat down. Then I
said a few words; told the people a few stories about the feeling and perils of the blacks now; and put several cases, asking
them what they would do if the marshal tried to carry off a man
adjudged to be a slave. They answered well, and promised to
go with only the arms their mothers gave them, and rescue the
slave. I asked them to thank Winthrop for his course in the
Senate; and to give Mr. E, not their hate, &c., but their
PITY; which they did. Then Remond spoke; then Douglas
again, saying that the directors of the Albany and Syracuse Railroad had forbidden their agents to take any slave on their road
in the hands of the officers, but to put him and the officers out
of the cars, and to do their best to set the slave free. Then
we passed the resolutions, -pretty good ones too.  Then
Colver spoke, and interrupted the resolutions by adding, that,'law or no law, Constitution or no Constitution, we will never
let a fugitive slave be carried back from  Boston.' That, also,
was put; and then, at five minutes before eleven, just as Mr.
was coming forward with a resolution on the habeas cor-zi.ls, I
suppose, all adjourned."
The above is but a tame account of a most extraordinary meeting.  The packed hall was charged with feeling
to which the speakers, all but Phillips and Parker, failed
to give expression.  Douglas's great ship labored heavily
in the stormy sea. Lesser barks could not live in it a few
moments, but quickly put back to harbor.  The strongest




THE FIG HT  VI TT   SLA VERY.        403
sentiments were most tumultuously applauded. If the
slaveholders had been there, they would at once have
abandoned all idea of carrying out their purpose.
They were not there, and they ventured.
The excitement in Boston centred in four cases. The
first touched Parker nearly.  William and Ellen Craft
were fugitive slaves of the higher order, from  Macon,
Ga.  He was a joiner, and hired himself of his owner
- CC" a very pious man," "an  excellent Christian "for about two hundred dollars a year. He and his wife
had cherished for years the plan of escape.  Having
saved a little money, they bought, piece by piece, of different dealers, at different times, by stealth, a suit of gentleman's clothes. These Ellen put on. William attended
her as her servant; and so they escaped. They lived in
Boston, he working at his trade. Parker had known them
ever since their coming. They were parishioners of his,
respectable, orderly, estimable people. Returning home
from Plymouth late in the afternoon of Oct. 25, Parker
learned that the slave-hunters were on their track, -one,
Hughes or Hews, the jailer at Macon; another, Knight,
who knew Craft as a tradesman formerly, and accompanied Hughes as a witness. Their lodgings were at the
United-States Hotel. The Vigilance Committee was on
their watch. Craft was warned, and was not to be caught
by his old friend's polite invitation to show him the sights
of Boston, and visit him with his " wif" at the hotel.
Ellen was secreted at a friendly house. William consented, unwillingly, to hide at the " South End," - to be
smuggled there in a carriage; but presently, and having armed himself, preferred to go about his business,
and take care of himself after his own fashion. He told
a police-officer that he would rather be drawn and quartered than be carried back into slavery. The hunters had
no easy task. Judge Woodbury, a Democrat, having issued
warrants of arrest against Craft and his wife, they brought a




404            THEIODORE PARKER.
suit against the kidnappers for defamation of character:
they having charged him with being a thief, in that he stole
the clothes he wore, as well as his own person, when he
ran away. The writs were served, and the arrests were
made amid no little confusion, the crowd gathering, and
muttering ominous threats against the " slave-hunters."
On the way to the sheriff's office, Knight declared with
emphasis that he had come for William and Ellen Craft,
and nobody else; " and, damn'em! I'll have them if I stay
here to all eternity; and, if there are not men enough in
Massachusetts to take them, I will bring some from the
South.  It is not the niggers I care about; but it's the
prinzcple of t/ze thing."  The judge demanded bail in ten
thousand dollars, that being the amount of damages laid.
There were men in Boston to give it. Who they were
is not known; but two persons who were known to be
intense negro-haters -one a pettifogger, who had expressed a willingness to see all negroes hanged; the other
a packet-agent, who, four years previous, when the UnitedStates Government gave no such permission, had sent back
a wretched fugitive who had concealed himself in the brig
"Ottoman " from New Orleans, and was discovered almost
famished when the voyage was about ended -were on
hand, and the prisoners were released. Knight slipped
out at the back-door, to the disappointment of the crowd,
which had prepared for him an honest welcome. As
Hughes entered the carriage which drove him away from
the scene, a negro jumped up behind, dashed in the glass,
and would have shot the wretch, had not one of the committee dragged him down. The carriage was chased a
long distance, till it was out of town.
The Committee of Vigilance instantly held a meeting,
and took new precautions. A poster was issued, describing the slave-hunters in graphic and thrilling language,
such as was wont to proceed, on occasion, from the minister of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society. The




TIHE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY.             405
men were watched. Parker urged the appointment of a
committee to attend them all day, keeping them in view
from morning till night: he was ready to take his turn.
The pastor does not neglect his parishioners. He goes to
Brookline, to Mr. Ellis Gray Loring's, to cheer Ellen; to
Louis Hayden's, to advise William.  "I inspected his
arms, -a good revolver with six caps on, a large pistol, twc
small ones, a large dirk, and a short one: all was right."
On the very day of the bond-giving, the committee met,
and voted to visit erz masse, at six o'clock the next morning, the United-States Hotel, where Knight and Hughes
were staying. At the hour appointed, about sixty gentlemen were on the spot, filling the hall-ways, avowing their
purpose to watch the kidnappers. Mr. Parker knew their
room, and, taking with him a companion, ascended the
stairs, stationed himself as a sentry at the door, and paced
solemnly up and down; he and his comrade gravely passing one another in the corridor. This continued for some
minutes; when the landlord, excited, came, and insisted
that they should withdraw. Mr. Parker refused to leave
his post without assurance of seeing the men he sought.
The landlord promised them an interview in the parlor, and
consented - readily enough, it is likely - to rid his house
of such obnoxious guests. The interview was held; Mr.
Parker speaking for the committee. He addressed them as
their sincere friend, who came in the cause of peace, and
to secure their safety from the populace.  He had not
stirred up the excitement. The indignation was spontaneous, natural, and deep, and could not be allayed while
they remained in Boston. He represented to them the
extreme personal danger in which they stood, the utter
hopelessness of their undertaking; and counselled them,
for their own sake, to leave town at once. Knight blustered, and Hughes complained; but both the men were a
good deal frightened, and took the P.MA. train for New
York. It was time; for indignation was waxing hot. Their




406            THEODORE PAR~KER.
persons were Known: they could not leave the hotel unmolested by street-boys, who bestowed on them unsavory
names, and required no urging to bestow unsavory things.
Had they staid longer, there might have been bloodshed;
for the President, so it was rumored, talked of sending
soldiers to dragoon the Bostonians into their duty.
The hunters being gone, the Crafts determined to go
to England, and requested their minister to marry them by
legal form before they went. A certificate was obtained
according to the new law of Massachusetts; and, at eleven
o'clock in the forenoon of Nov. 7, the ceremony was
performed at a colored boarding-house in the city. Before the ceremony, the minister, as was his custom, addressed a few pertinent remarks to the couple, who now,
for the first time, entered into the bands of Christian wedlock. Ile said to them first what he usually said to bridegrooms and brides. Then he spoke to Mr. Craft of his
peculiar duties. He was an outlaw. No law protected
his liberty in the United States: for that he must depend
on the public opinion of Boston and on himself. If attacked by one wishing to return him to slavery, he had a
right, a natural right, to resist the man unto death. For
himself, he might refuse, if he saw fit, to exercise the
right: but his wife depended on him for protection; and
to protect her was a duty he could not decline. "So I
charged him, if the worst came to the worst, to defend the
life and liberty of his wife against any slaveholder, at
all hazards."  The marriage-rite was then performed.
The occ-asion prompted the prayer. A Bible lay on one
table; on another a " bowie-knife," placed there by some
person unknown to Mr. Parker. Ile saw them when he
came in, and, the ceremony being ended, took the book,
placed it in the man's left hand, and charged him to use
its noble truths for the salvation of his own soul and his
wife's soul. This done, he took the knife, placed it in
the man's right hand with words of equal pertinency, and




THE FIGHT WITHsa    SLA VERY.             407
charged him to use it only in the last extremity; to bear
no harsh or revengeful feelings against those who once
held him in bondage, or such as sought to make him  and
his wife slaves even now: "Nay, if you cannot use the
sword in defence of your wife's liberty without hating the
man you strike, then your action will not be without sin."
The fugitives left the country, bearing the following letter-missive from  their pastor to his brother-minister in
Liverpool, James Martineau: -
To Rev. MIr. iAIarlineaz.
BOSTON, Nov.  I, 1850.
DEAR FRIEND, - I take this opportunity to write you a brief
note to interest you in a couple of my parishioners who are
about to visit England under quite remarkable circumstances.
They are two fugitive slaves, - SWilliam Craft and his wife Ellen
Craft. Perhaps you have heard their story: if you have not,
you will, before long, learn of their wonderful flight from iIacon
in Georgia to Philadelphia,- a distance of more than nine hundred miles through the enemy's country. The Fugitive-slave
Law was passed last September.  It is one of the most atrocious acts ever passed since the first persecution of the Clhristians by Nero. It allows the owner to come to Boston, or send
his agent; apply to a commissioner of the United States, wlho
may be a miserable tool of government, and probably will be
(certainly he often is, and we have one loathsome commissioner
in Boston, if no more); and decide that a certain man is his
slave. The commissioner gives the slave-hunter a warrant to
seize the slave, and transport him back to bondage. The slavehunter takes it to the marshal; the marshal makes the seizure;
and the poor victim is hurried off to slavery as hopeless as the
grave. All this may be done without allowing the fugitive to
defend himself; with no inquest by a jury; without the fugitive
ever seeing his hunter till he comes with the marshal to put
handcuffs on his wrists.
The Crafts have been in Boston nearly two years; are sober
and industrious people. She is a seamstress: he is a cabinetmaker. They are members of my parish. But, a few weeks
ago, there came a ruffian from  Macon in Georgia, by the name




408              THEODORiE PARICER.
of Hughes,- he is a jailer at home, - with authority to seize
and carry off the two fugitives. He applied to the proper officer, got his warrant, and secured the services of the marshal.
All was ready for the seizure; but William armed himself with
two revolvers and a substantial dirk, and was ready to kill any
one who should attempt to kidnap him. His wife was concealed
by some friends, who kept her safe and sound. I will tell you
more of her concealment at some future time; but it is not safe
now.
The slave-hunters remained in Boston more than a week.
There was a " vigilance committee " appointed by a meeting of
citizens; and they kept the slave-hunters in a state of disturbance all the time they remained here, and finally frightened Ihem
so, that they were glad to sneak out of the city. After the
danger was over, Craft's friends thought it was wiser for thlem
to go to England, fhat you may see what sort of men and women
we make slaves of in " the model republic." They need no
5eczzzzary aid; but if you will tell their story to your friends, and
draw public attention to the fact that such persons are not safe
in Boston, you mllay help the great cause of humanity in a new
mode.
I keep in may study two trophies of the American Revolution:
one is a musket which my grandfather fought with at the battle
of Lexington (April I9, 1775) against the " British;" the other
is a great gun which he captured in that battle. He was the
captain of the Lexington soldiers, and took the first prisoner,
and the first musket taken in war for independence and the
rights of man. But now I am obliged to look to " the British"
for protection for the liberty of two of my own parishioners
who have committed no wrong against any one. Well, so it is;
and I thank God that Old England, with all her sins and
shames, allows no slave-hunter to set foot on her soil.
I have written you a long letter, when I intended to write only
a short note. I am glad to learn from my friend Sargent what
a pleasant time he had with you in North Wales and elsewhere.
I wish I had been of the party. Remember me kindly to Mrs.
Martineau and the children. I know not how many there are
now; but there was a houseful of them once. Give my kindest
regards to Mr. and Mrs. Thom. I wish you would show him
this letter; for I think his great heart will be interested in the




THE FIGHT WITH SLA VERY.                409
case of these poor fugitives. With many and affectionate
regards, believe me
Truly your friend,
THEO. PARKER.
If ally are disposed to think the scene of the wedding
above described theatrical, the accompaniments stagey, and
the speech bombastic, - the whole performance in needlessly bad taste, —let them read, in connection with the
letter to Mr. Martineau, the following to President Millard
Fillmore, written two weeks after the transaction in Boston. If they feel on reading it as others have done, they
will understand how the act and the manner of its doing
were in simplest accordance with an established state of
mind; that no artificial sentiment, no toudlh of the mockheroic, entered into it; that every word was an inevitable
product of conviction.  Only a man terribly in earnest
could even meditate such a writing, as only a man terribly
in earnest could have done such a deed.
To Millard Fillmore, Esq., Washzington.
BOSTON, NOV. 21, 1850.
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.
/ 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 any thing
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.
35




4-10             THEODORE PARKER.
1 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 society. They have committed no
wrong: they have the same "inalienable 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 ne 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: they wish me to do to others as I
would have others do to me.
But your law will punish me with fine of a thousand 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 scoun-drel; that I was really an infidel (my theological brethren call me so); that I deserved a jail 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 jail. 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 jail, 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 inust reverence the laws of God, comie of that what will come. I must be
true lo mzy re/lizioJz.
I send you a little sermon of mine (see p. 36). 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. He is a descendant of one of our Revolutionary generals. Members of my society aided him in his flight; others




TIHE FIGHT WITH SLA VERY.               411II
concealed him, and 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 Hungrarians found
much natural sympathy all over the United 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 Emperor of Turkey has the thanks of
all the liberal governments of Europe for hiding the outcasts of
Hungary; and can you blame these 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
own church carried off to slavery, and do nothing to hinder
such a wrong.
There hang 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 these 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 about this; 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. He has been impolitely
called the "spaniel of King's Chapel,"- an amiable, inoffensive man. But even he says he "would conceal a fugitive."




412            THEODORE PARKER.
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 MUST KEEP THE LAW OF GOD. I beg you
to excuse this letter; and, with many good wishes for your prosperity, believe me
Your obedient servant,
THEODORE PARKER.
The Committee of Vigilance was not allowed to slumber. The slave-hunters were still abroad. In less than
three months, the excitement was renewed by another case
of arrest.  The fugitive Shadrach was seized, and shut
up in the United-States court-room, on Feb. I5, I85I.
The next day (Sunday) the prayers of all the ministers
and congregations were requested for his deliverance.
They were answered before they were put up. Mr. Parker went to Court Square immediately on hearing of the
arrest, " intending to make a rescue if possible;" but the
rescue had already been effected. The commissioner had
adjourned the case; the crowd had left the court-room;
the building was closed; the guarded prisoner remained
inside. An importunate member of the Vigilance Committee beat upon the door till it was opened to him; the
crowd pushed in; and in a moment, before the bewildered
officers could recover themselves, the man was lifted up
in the arms of his friends, and borne away. There was
no noise or excitement: but the rush of the rescuers was
too tremendous to be resisted by any but military force;
and that would have been dangerous, for preparations for
armed resistance had been made. An attempt at rescue
would have been hopeless, even had there been time; but
there was no time. That very afternoon the man was
hurried off on his way to Canada, and saved. Mr. Parker wrote in his diary, "I think it the most noble deed
done in Boston since the destruction of the tea in 1773.
I thank God for it."




THE FIGHT WITH SLA VERY.                413
On the Sunday, in addition to preaching in the morning, lecturing in the afternoon on I Cor. iv.-vii., making
visits, writing notes for a meeting of the Executive (Vigilance) Committee, and attending the meeting, he wrote
a poster describing the slaveholders then in the city. It
could not have been the following, doubtless from the
same hand, but bearing date the 4th of April; but this
will serve as a specimen of the bills that were put up in
those fearful times:
PROCLAMATIO N.
TO ALL THE GOOD PEOPLE OF MASSACHUSETTS.
Be it known that there are now THREE SLAVE-HUNTERS, OR
KIDNAPPERS, IN BOSTON, looking for their prey. One of them
is called
DAVIS.
He 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 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 M. BACON, al'as 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.
35*




I 4             THE ODORE PARICER.
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 fourth day of April, in the year of
our Lord I85I, and of the independence of the United
States the fifty-fourth.
God save 1hge Comzmonzwealt/z of Mfassachuselts!
This resolution was not untouched with sadness.  His
friends the Shaws sail for Europe.  He doubts if he
ever sees them  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."
From thze Yournal.
Feb. 2I, I851. —Continual alarms about the poor fugitive
slaves. A reported arrest of a new one; but this turned out to
be a false alarm.
I. The case of -, who concealed -  in his cellar all night.
2. Also the -, who came and gave information of an
attempt about to be made on -; and he escaped.
3. The confession which -  made to  ~ about the intentions of the -    and the provisions he made.
4. The strategy of Mr. -  in getting information, and how
he does it.
These are sad times to live in; but I shall be sorry not to
have lived in them. 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
jaris/zioizers /
Sazturday, 22d. — Washington's birthday.  At home, and
very busy with fugitive-slave matters.
Szduzlay, 23d.- Sermon 6i8, A.M. Roxbury, P.M. I have
not been well these several days..MZonday, 24th. -At Cambridge most of the day: not we'
Writing report on fugitive-slave petitions at night.




THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY.               415
Tuesdzay, 25th. -At home, and about antislavery business.
P.M. at State House with antislavery committee.  Phillips,
Sewall, and Ellis spoke. Vigilance Committee at night.
Wednesday, 26th. - Much time on fugitive-slave matters.
The third great slave case, that of Thomas Sims, terminated less happily than Shadrach's, and caused more
excitement afterwards than it did when in progress.
Sims was arrested on the night of April 3. He drew a
knife on the officers, and was arrested as a disturber of
the peace; though the arrest caused the disturbance. The
writ of habeas corpus was refused him. He never saw
a jury; but once a judge. The commissioner, George
Ticknor Curtis, after a summary examination, gave him
up to his pursuers. The poor boy, knowing that his fate
was sealed, begged of his counsel one favor: "Give me a
knife; and, when the commissioner declares me a slave, I
will stab myself to the heart, and die before his eyes. I
will not be a slave! " Such a prayer could not be granted.
At the dead of night, the mayor of Boston, with his
marshal, attended by two or three hundred policemen,
armed with horse-pistols, swords, or bludgeons, at convenience, took the victim from his cell, chained, weeping;
marched him over the spot which the blood of Attucks
had stained; put him on board "The Acorn;" and sent
him off to endless bondage.  "And this," said the miserable negro as he stepped on board, "is Massachusetts
liberty!"  A Boston delegation saw him duly delivered to
his owner, who had him whipped in the town jail within an
inch of his life. This was on the historic Igth of April.
Parker bore his testimony in a sermon which Charles
Sumner thanked him for, saying that it stirred him to the
bottom of his heart; at times softening him almost to
tears; then, again, filling him with rage. " You have placed
the commissioner in an immortal pillory, to receive the
hootings and rotten eggs of the advancing generations."




416              THEODORE PARKER.
To Hon. Charles Sumner.
BOSTON, April I9, 1851.
DEAR SUMM>ER, - I wish it was the I9th of April, I775, on
which I was writing: the times would not look so bad for Boston. What a disgrace has the city brought on herself! "O
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 stiff-necked Lemuel visibly going under the
chains! * That was a spectacle! But it all works well. Thank
you for your kind words and kind judgments of
Truly your friend,             T. P.
The event that could not be prevented had to be commemorated.  To the feeling it excited Charles Sumner
was in part indebted for his senatorial election.
In May, Mr. Parker had the curiosity to attend the
Berry-street Conference, - a meeting at which Unitarian
ministers were wont to commune together on matters that
affected their theological peace. On this occasion Rev.
Samuel J. May of Syracuse ventured to obtrude the vexed
question of duty in regard to the Fugitive-slave Law. It
had been brought up at the business-meeting of the Unitarian Association, and was refused a hearing.  On Wednesday it was brought up again at the Ministerial Conference,
and after a good deal of discussion, and not a little diplomacy, was made the subject of special consideration for the
next day. Even on Thursday morning, time was wasted
in idle preliminaries, as if with the purpose of preventing
action. The social position of the city ministers made
them unsympathetic with the brethren from the country,
who looked at the matter with a more single eye, and were
* Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw, who could only enter his court-room by
stooping under the chain which was stretched round the building to keep off
the people.




THE FIGEHT WITH SLA VER Y.            417
sincerely anxious to hear what the great authorities of the
sect had to say. The discussion began at length, in the
usual indirect and inconsequential manner, by a brother
from New York, who defended Dr. Orville Dewey against
the charge of having said publicly that he would send his
own mother back to slavery if it was necessary to preserve
the Union: questioning, in the first place, the accuracy of
the report; in the next place, protesting against the imputation of "worldly motives " on the doctor's part.  Next a
leading minister of Boston criticised severely the sentiment of one of the body, -that the Fugitive-slave Law
" could not be administered with a pure heart or unsullied
conscience," contending that it could; and then made
two points justifying obedience to the law: i. That to disobey would involve di.obecdience to all law. We must
either have law without liberty, or liberty without law.
Law without liberty was despotism: liberty without law
was license. Despotism was bad; but anarchy was worse.
2. Disobedience to the Fugitive-slave Law involved dissolution of the Union; and with the Union went all hope of
freedom and human rights.
Mr. Parker spoke amid a silence of suppressed discontent. He regretted that years ago there had not prevailed
more of this brotherly spirit which refused to judge men
for their "opinions."  In regard to the main question, the
consequence of obedience or disobedience to the Fugitiveslave Law, he affirmed that in no country on earth was
there more respect for law than in New England. Disobedience is unpopular even when the law is. Nowhere were
judges more respected than in Massachusetts.  So true was
all this, that to inform against one's neighbor, if he violated the law of the land, -an act infamous everywhere
else,  was commended, for the reason that the people
made the laws for themselves, were represented by them,
and educated by them. The value of human laws is to,
conserve the eternal laws of God. So long as laws did




418            THEODORE PARACER.
this, they should be obeyed.  The Fugitive-slave Law
did the opposite. It aspired to trample on the law of
God.  It commanded what nature, religion, and God
alike forbade: it forbade what nature, religion, and God
alike commanded. Who are they that oppose the Fugitive-slave Law?  Mien who have always been on the
side of law and order, and whose disobedience is one ot
the strongest guaranties of just law and equitable order.
You cannot trust a people that will keep law because it is
law.. you cannot distrust a people that will keep no
law but what is just.  Obedience to the Fugitive-slave
Law would do more to overturn the Union than all disobeAience to it the most complete.
As to the dissolution of the Union, if any State wished
to go, she had a natural right to go. But what States'wished to go? Certainly not New England. Massachusetts had always been attached to the Union; had adhered
to it faithfully; had made sacrifices for it. The cry of
dissolution was vain and deceitful: none knew that so
well as the men who raised it. But suppose that dissolution were the alternative of disobedience: which.would be the worse? Is the Union as precious as conscience, freedom, duty?  "For my own part, I would
rather see my own house burned to the ground, and my
family thrown, one by one, amid the blazing rafters of my
own roof, and myself be thrown in last of all, than have
a single fugitive slave sent back as Thomas Sims was
sent back: nay, I would rather see this Union dissolved
till there was not a territory so big as the county of Suffolk. Let us lose every thing but fidelity to God.... I
am not going to speak honeyed words, or prophesy smooth
things, in times like these, -our court-house a barracoon,
our officers slave-hunters, members of our Unitarian
churches kidnappers! I have in my church black men,
fugitive slaves: they are the crown of my apostleship, the
seal of my ministry. It becomes me to look after their




THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY.              419
bodies, to save their souls. I have been obliged to take
my own parishioners into my house to keep them out of
the clutches of the kidnappers: yes, gentlemen, I have
been obliged to do that, and to keep my doors guarded
by day as well as by night. I have had to arm myself.
I have written my sermons with a pistol in my desk,
loaded, with a cap on the nipple, ready for action; yes,
with a drawn sword within reach of my right hand, - this
in Boston, in the middle of the nineteenth century! I am
no non-resistant: that nonsense never went down Awith
me. But it is no small matter that would compel me to
shed human blood. Still, that could I do. I was born
in the little town where the fight and bloodshed of the
Revolution began. The bones of the men who first fell
in that war are covered by the monument at Lexington.
It is'SACRED TO LIBERTY AND THE RIGHTS OF [MANKIND.' This is the first inscription I ever read. These
men were my kindred. Mly grandfather slew the first man
in the Revolution. The blood which flowed then is kindred to that which runs in my veins to-day. Besides that,
when I write in my library at home, on one side of me
is the Bible which my fathers prayed over, their morning
and their evening prayer, for nearly one hundred years:
on the other side hangs the firelock my grandfather fought
with in the old French war, which he carried at the taking
of Quebec, which he used at the battle of Lexington;
and beside it is another, a trophy of that war, - the first
gun taken in the Revolution; taken by my grandfather.
With these trophies before me, these memories in me, when
a fugitive from slavery came to my house, pursued by the
kidnappers, what could I do less than take him in, and
defend him to the last? AMy brother justifies the Fugitive-slave Law; demands obedience to it; calls on his
parishioners to kidnap mine, and sell them into bondage
forever. He is a'Christian,' and I am an'infidel.'
" 0 my brothers! I am not afraid of men: I can offend




420            T~E ODORE PARKER.
them. I care nothing for their hate or their esteem; I am
not very careful of my reputation: but I dare not 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, and father, also,
of the white man's slave. I should not dare violate his
law, come what would come."
For two months the journal is suspended. He opens it
again with the hope, that, for the next five or six years, he
may have less to do with social, civil, and political duties,
and attend to his function as scholar, philosopher, theologian, and writer. But the fates forbade. He went in
his vacation to hear J. F. Clarke preach; but was called
out, the sermon just begun, on antislavery business. The
Fugitive-slave Law was in force; though the attempts to
enforce it were not, for the moment, active. The passage
of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill revived them; and the friends
of that relaxed no effort to have it executed. Daniel
Webster, who had declared resistance to, and even denunciation of, the Fugitive-slave Law, to be "high treason,"
died at Marshfield in October, I852; and Parker-who
had glorified him from his childhood up to the fatal 7th
of March, when the mighty man turned his back on the
fine traditions of his younger days, and had then taken his
likeness from the place of honor where it stood, kissed it
sadly, and put it away where it could not be seen - made
the grandest of his pulpit orations on the false statesman's
character.  They who would know  Mr. Parker should
read that oration. It was, as has been said, written
literally with prayers and tears, in clearest memory of
every step in Webster's career; with judgment clarified by
comptarison of him with the greatest orators of the race,
and confirmed by an exact estimate of his deeds and opportunities; with conscience quieted by the contemplation
of nature, and exalted by meditation on the eternal law;




THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY.                  421
and with soul touched by the sorrows and needs of humanity. There is an awful pathos in some of its sentences.
"Mr. Webster stamped his foot, and broke through into the
great hollow of practical atheism which undergulfs the State and
Church. The firm-set base of Northern cities quaked and
yawned with gaping rents. Penn's'sandy foundation' shook
again; and black men fled from the city of brotherly love, as
doves, with plaintive cry, flee from a farmer's barn when summer lightning stabs the roof.  There was a twist in Faneuil
Hall; and the doors could not open wide enough for Liberty
to regain her ancient cradle. Only soldiers, greedy to steal a
man, themselves stole out and in. Metropolitan churches toppled
and pitched, and canted and cracked. Colleges, broken from
the chain which held them in the stream of time, rushed towards
the abysmal rent. Doctors of divinity, orthodox, heterodox,
had great alacrity in sinking.' There is no higher law of God,'
quoth they as they went down;'no golden rule; only the
statutes of men.'
" But spite of all this, in every city, in every town, in every
college, and in each capsizing church, there were found faithful
men who feared not the monster, heeded not the stamping. In
all their houses there was light; and the destroying angel shook
them not. The Word of the Lord came in open vision to their
eye: they had their lamps trimmed and burning, their loins girt;
they stood road-ready.  Liberty and religion turned in thither;
and the slave found bread and wings....
"The streets are hung with black; the newspapers are sadcolored; the shops are put in mourning; the public business
stops; and flags drop half-mast down. The courts adjourn,even at Baltimore and Washington the courts adjourn; for the
great lawyer is dead, and justice must wait another day. Only
the United-States Court in Boston, trying a man for helping
Shadrach out of the furnace of the kidnappers, -the court
which executes the Fugitive-slave Bill, - that does not adjourn;
that keeps on: its worm dies not; and the fire of its persecution is not quenched when death puts out the lamp of life."
On the 23d of May, 1854, Charles F. Suttle of Virginia
presented to Edward Greely Loring of Boston, commis36




422            THEODORE PARACER.
sioner, a complaint under the Fugitive-slave Bill, praying
for the seizure and enslavement of Anthony Burns. The
warrant was issued the next day. In the evening, Burns
was arrested on the false pretext of burglary, taken to the
Suffolk-county Court House, and there kept under an
armed guard. On the 25th the case came before the commissioner.  Burns was brought in guarded and ironed.
The claimant presented his documents: his witnesses
were on the spot, ready to testify; his legal counsel, S. J.
Thomas and E. G. Parker, were ready with their statement. The commissioner had made up his mind, and the
case seemed in a good train to be "summarily" disposed
of; when Theodore Parker, with a few stanch friends,
made his way into the court-room, gained speech with
the prisoner, ascertained that it was his wish to be heard,
and demanded the rig'ht of counsel.  Thereupon Richard
H. Dana, Esq., asked that counsel be assigned, and a
defence allowed; urging the point so strongly, that the
commissioner was forced to yield. The hearing was postponed till ten o'clock of Maay 27. On the evening of the
26th -the mayor and aldermen cheerfully consenting, the
mayor even regretting that a previous engagement made
it impossible for him to preside —a great meeting was
held at Faneuil Hall.  Samuel G. Howe called it to order;
George R. Russell presided; Mr. Parker, Wendell Phillips, and others made speeches.
The meeting had a general and a special object. The
general object was to excite popular indignation; the
special object, to aid in a concerted attempt to rescue
Burns by an overwhelming and sudden attack on the
Court House. The plan of such an attack had been discussed in committee, and had been voted down by the
majority, who thought it desperate.  Nevertheless, the
committee allowed the friends of the project to meet in
one of their rooms for the completion of their plans.
Mr. Parker favored the assault: Mr. Phillips, it is thought.
did not.




THE FI G  T   I TI SL A VER Y.        423
The suppressed excitement at the meeting was intense;
and nothing occurred to allay it. The resolutions read
by Dr. Howe, the speech of John L. Swift, were in the
interest of the conspirators.  Wendell Phillips threw
no water on the kindling flame.  Mr. Parker took thel
stand, purposing to heat the audience red-hot, fuse them
together, and, at a given signal, to hurl them  into Court
Square.  He was a powerful platform-speaker, responsive
at once and magnetic; and, on this occasion, he rose to a
height he never surpassed: his frame quivered with the
action of his mind; his voice, in passages, was like the
roar of a lion at bay.
" FELLOW- SuBJECTS OF VIRGINIA," he began; "FELLOW-CITIZENS OF BOSTON, then, -A deed which Virg-inia
commands has been done in the city of John Hancock
and the'brace of Adamses.' It was done by a Boston
hand. It was a Boston man who issued the warrant; it
was a Boston marshal who put it in execution; they are
Boston men who are seeking to kidnap a citizen of Maassachusetts, and send him into slavery for ever and ever. It
is our fault that it is so. We are the vassals of Virginia:
she reaches her arm over the graves of our mothers, and
kidnaps men in the city of the Puritans. Gentlemen,
there is no Boston to-day.  There zewas a Boston once:
now there is a North suburb to the city of Alexandria.
Gentlemen, there is one law, -slave law: it is everywhere.
There is another law which is also 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.' I am a cler-gyman and a man of peace. I love peace.
But there is a means, and there is an end. LIBERTY is
the end; and sometimes peace is not the means toward it.
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




424            THEODORE PARKAER.
man shall not go out of the city of Boston, without shootingz a gan, then he won't go back. Now I am  going to
propose, that, when you adjourn, it be to meet at Court
Sulare to-morrow morninzg at nine o'clock. As many as are
in favor of that motion will raise their hands."  (MIany
hands were raised: but there came from many voices a
cry, " Let's go to-night;" " Let's pay a visit to the slavecatchers at the Revere House;" and a demand was made
for th/at question. It was put.) " Do you propose to go to
the Revere House to-night? then show your hands. It is
not a vote. We shall meet at Couzrt Sqzare at nine o'clock
to-morrow morninzg."  The conclusion was lame, impotent,
and unaccountable. Parker explained it afterwards to a
friend by saying that he waited for the signal, and it was
not given. For half an hour he had talked against time,
had repeated himself, lingered, and finally taken his seat
in sheer perplexity.
By some mistake, it would seem, some inadvertency,
some delay, the signal was not given at the moment
agreed on. Mr. Phillips rose again (this is William F.
Channing's account), never cordially assenting to the plan
of assault, and now persuaded that a miscarriage had prevented it entirely, and addressed himself to the task of
allaying the passion of the confused and frenzied people.
Of course, he succeeded: when did he ever fail in a
rhetorical effort? The meeting became calm, - fatally so
for its original purpose; and at that moment the signal
was given at the door by the announcement that an attack
was even then making at the Court House. It was too
late. The meeting broke up; the multitude streamed
forth; but, before the most advanced could reach Court
Street, the struggle had begun. Those in the rear of the
hall and on the platform could hardly have made their
way to the door by the time it had ceased.
The attacking-party did their work promptly and with
determination.  MI-. Cihmnninm;, an antislavery man from




THE FIGHT WI TI, L A VERY.           425
the beginning, member of the Vigilance Committee, arrived on the spot in time to see the beam which answered
as a battering-ram brought from the staircase of the
Museum building opposite, and carried across the street,
by a dozen men. The heavy folding-doors yielded to the
force of the blows; the sound reverberating through the
streets, loud enough to be heard a mile off. The bell of
the Court House rang an alarm for the police. But two
or three minutes were needed to break the door down.
It gave way; and the little band of assailants, rushing up
the steps, were in conflict with the marshal and his men.
A few pistol-shots were fired, a deputy marshal was killed,
- though by whom, or by which side, was never ascertained, - and the assailants fell back. They were unsupported, had no reserves, and were not organized for a
work of magnitude.  The marshal's men fell back also
within the building, apparently as much frightened as anybody, and stood on the stairway leading up to the floor
where Burns was confined, impotently flourishing their cutlasses in space. The doorway was regarded by both sides
as a gate of death. The battered door alone occupied
the empty space. At this moment Mr. A. Bronson Alcott
walked deliberately up the steps, stood there a moment
with habitual serenity, quietly descended, and remarked
to a friend, - his voice preserving its even tone, and pausing, as its wont was, between the words,  " Do you not
think we are wanted there?"  The invitation was not
accepted; for the police were on the ground. Higginson
was badly bruised by clubs, his forehead laid open by a
cutlass; others were beaten or arrested; the rest scattered.
The whole affair lasted scarcely five minutes. The opportunity was lost. That very night a force of marines was
marched over from the Charlestown Navy Yard. In the
morning a detachment of troops arrived from Fort Independence. No further demonstration against the authorities was made. The mayor of Boston applied for the aid
36*




426            THEODORE PARKER.
of the State militia to preserve the order of the town.
The militia held the streets, while United-States soldiers
held the Court House.  The city had the aspect of being
under martial law.
MIr. Parker's distress at the result of the night's work
was extreme. On hearing that a black man had fired at
Marshal Freeman, and narrowly missed him, he wrung his
hands, and cried, "Why didn't he hit him? why didn't he
hit him?"  Sympathy with the fugitives was not confined
to the abolitionists. Judges themselves counselled the
removal of negroes when practicable. Even official souls
were sorely exercised.  A/ More than one Massachusetts
commissioner, probably, would have done what the wife of
George S. Hillard did in the time of the Craft excitement,
- shelter the victim of persecution beneath her own roof,had he possessed that noble woman's courage. The heart
of Boston was sounder than its head. The President,
Franklin Pierce, showed eager interest in the proceedings,
as frequent despatches from Washington testified. By his
direction, the adjutant-general of the army repaired to
Boston, authorized to call the two companies of UnitedStates  troops stationed  at New  Yorlk, if the State
force should prove inadequate.  Meanwhile the case proceeded against the prisoner, in spite of the ability and
zeal with which Messrs. Dana and Ellis managed the
defence. At any other time, under any other circumstances, the Virginia claimant would have been baffled;
for he failed wholly to make his points. As it was, hopes
were entertrined of a decision favorable to the prisoner.
Offers to buy the man were made: the commissioner himself drew the sale papers. But Suttle, after temporizing
and vacillating, braced, probably, by encouraging hints from
those high in authority, intimidated, perhaps, by threats
from his Southern neighbors, that, if he compromnised, it
would be the worse for him, refused to close the bargain.
The decision was predestinated by the powers that ruled.




THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY.               42 7
As the gloomy days went on, the black man's friends did
their utmost to rescue him from bondage, and the North
from  shame. The vigorous hand which was ready for
any work produced placard after placard to rouse the
citizens.  Seven are preserved, the most pungent  of them
bearing the Parker mark. The first simply announces, in
short, sharp words, the arrest.  The second calls on the
citizens of Boston to see to it that no free citizen is
dragged into slavery without trial by jury. A third summons the "yeomanry of New England " to come and lend
the moral weight of. their presence, and the aid of their
counsel, to the friends of justice and humanity in the city.
A fourth brands the insult of employing murderers, prizefighters, thieves, and blacklegs to aid in executing the
atrocious law. A fifth warns the citizens to be on their
guard against an attempt to carry off Burns after the commissioner had declared him free. A sixth admonishes to
be on the alert against lies and deceit; a story being afloat
that Burns had been ransoined.  The last, issued May 31,
calls on true Americans to be prepared for the worst:
"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 the capital."
No device was neglected that might  help defeat the
Burns claimant. Steps were taken to have him arrested,
and held to bail, as Knight and Hughes had been, for
kidnapping. There were blacks desperate enough to lie
In wait for Suttle's appearance at the Court House to answer the charge, purposing his assassination; but the
scheme came to nothing. It was too late for expedients.
Subsequently to the rendition, a portion of the Vigilance
Committee organized, armed, and drilled regularly for
resistance to the law. A yacht large enough for seaservice was also purchased and equipped. The captain




428             THEODORE PARKER.
who was put in charge of it said, that, if he had had the
vessel in the time of the Sims case, he would have sunk
"The Acorn" before she reached her Southern port. Fortunately these preparations were not needed. The Burns
case was too costly and too perilous not to be the last;
but that case had to be pushed through to the end. All
had been done that could be done at that crisis.
The commnissioner handed the man over to his claimant; and on Friday, June 2, crowds of indignant people,
throngingo the sidewalks, filling porticoes and balconies,
peering from windows, gazing from roofs, saw the helpless
negro in the centre of a hollow square of armed ruffians -
themselves guarded by companies of militia, protected by
cannon-marched through Court Street and State Street
to the wharf. To the least reflecting the scene was impressive. To those who recalled the traditions of the city,
the history of that very street; who saw law and liberty
writhing beneath the tread of the soldiers, and the soul of
civilization itself gasping under the feet of the foes of all
society; who knew what it all' portended if it went on,
and feared the worst, — the scene was as awful as imagination could make it. The Vigilance Committee ordered
the streets in the neighborbood of the route of the
procession to be draped in black, and the bells of the
city to be tolled. This the mayor tried to prevent: when
requested to allow it, he refused with vehement stamp
of foot. But the committee detailed men for the service,
and it was pretty generally done. One of them obtained
the key of Brattle-street Church; let in and locked in a
friend: so that bell was made to sound a dirge.  As a last
means of creating confusion, and effecting a rescue, the
new fire-alarm  was struck just as the procession was
about to move. The engines tore down State Street
through the lines of soldiers and the crowds of citizens.
It is a wonder that people were not killed in the tumult;
that blood was not spilled in the fury: but the sudden




THE FIGHT WITH SLA VERY.             429
irruption passed; the lines closed up; and the iron phalanx
was unbroken. They who witnessed the scene of removal'
will never forget it. How one great soul felt, thousands
learned at Music Hall on the next Sunday, when " The New
Crime against Humanity" was described in words that
woke the echoes of history, and sent ominous thunder
rolling through the galleries of time.
The tragedy over, the farce began.  On June 7,
Judge B. R. Curtis charged the grand jury, in substance,
as follows: That not only those who were present and
actually obstructed, resisted, and opposed, and all who were
present leagued in the common design, but all who, though
absent, did procure, counsel, command, or abet others, and
all who, by indirect means, by evincing an express liking,
gave approbation or assent to the design, were liable as
principals; and it was of no importance that the advice
or directions were departed from in respect to the precise time or place or mode or means of committing the
offence. This was aimed at a few individuals; and, under
it, indictments were found against Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, Martin Stowell, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, John Morrison, Samuel T. Proudman, and John C.
Cluer. Parker was arrested Nov. 29. Time for the trials
was fixed, -April 3, I855. A formidable array of counsel
appeared for the defence, -John P. Hale and Charles
M. Ellis for Mr. Parker; William L. Burt, John A. Andrew, H. F. Durant, for the rest. But the trials did not
proceed. Mr. Parker's counsel moved that the indictment
against him be quashed. A brief argument sufficed. The
Court pronounced the indictments bad, and ordered that
against Stowell to be dismissed.  The district-attorney,
Benjamin F. Hallett, entered a nolleprose~zii in the other
cases; and the whole affair ended. "Well, Mr. Parker,"
said Commissioner Benjamin F. Hallett, "you have crept
out through a knot-hole this time." -"I will knock a
bigger hole next time," was the gruff reply.




430             IHEODORE PARKER.
The result was anticipated.  Mr. Parker wrote to his
friend Desor, on the g9th of November, that he should not
be indicted.  He was half sorry; for he longed for an
opportunity to make a speech; but, on the whole, was glad
of the result, preferring to be rid of the trouble and vexation, and to have the city and state spared the shame.
He did not mean, however, that the persecutors should
escape. Three or four days after the judge had delivered
his charge, Parker's line of defence was marked out, the
fortifications sketched, the place of the batteries determined, arms collected.  The quashing  of the  indictments did not disarm  him.  Opportunity to address the
court was lost; but opportunity to address the people
remained.  The great issue between free institutions and
slavery was open, and was likely to remain open.  Other
trials milght be expected. The fortresses of Liberty needed
strengthening; and he set about the preparation of that
remarkable "Defence," - less a defence than an historical
review, and muscular statement of principles, - which has
only passed into neglect withit a thousand other things
because the "God of battles " would endure trifling no
longer, and called more terrible servants into the field.
The summer of I855 was devoted to this burning volume
of two hundred and twenty pages.  It is a monument of
historical learning, as well as a thrilling  record of events
and a stern judgment on men.  The portion that concerned himself personally is small as compared with that
which concerned his fellow-citizens.  They, and not he,
were the persons assailed; and the intention was to plant
convictions in their minds in a way to last forever. The
slave power was ranked with the most arrant of despotisms;
its measures were classed with the most infamous deeds
of the moost infamous times; its servants were numbered
with the meanest tools of tyranny.
" Spirits of tyrants," he cries, quoting the language of a sermon preached after the surrender of Sims, -"spirits of




THE FIGHT WITH SLA VERY.                43 I
tyrants! I look down to you. Shade of Cain, you great first
murderer! forgive me that I forgot your power, and did not
remember that you were parent of so long a line. I will open
the tombs, and bring up most hideous tyrants from the dead.
" Come hither, Herod the wicked! Let me look on thy face.
No: go! Thou wert a heathen.
"Come, Nero, thou awful Roman emperor! come up. No:
thou wast drunk with power, schooled in Roman depravity.
Thou hadst, beside, the example of thy fancied gods.
"Come hither, St. Dominic! come, Torquemada! - fathers
of the Inquisition. Merciless monsters! seek your equal here.
No: pass by. You are no companions for such men as these.
You were the servants of atheistic popes, of cruel kings.
" Come up, thou heap of wickedness, George Jeffreys! thy
hands deep purple with the blood of thy murdered fellow-men.
Awful and accursed shade! two hundred years thy name has
been pilloried in face of the world, and thy memory gibbeted
before mankind. Come, shade of a judicial butcher! let us
see how thou wilt compare with those who kidnap men in
Boston.
" lWhat! dost thou shudder? thou turn back? These not
thy kindred?  It is true, George Jeffreys; and these are not
thy kin. It was a great bribe that tempted thee. Thou only
struckst at men accused of crime, not at men accused only of
their birth. Thou wouldst not send a man into bondage for
two pounds. I will not rank thee with men, who in Boston,
for ten dollars, would enslave a negro now. Rest still, Herod!
be quiet, Nero! sleep, St. Dominic! and sleep, 0 Torquemada!
in your fiery jail. Sleep, Jeffreys! underneath the'altar of the
church' which seeks with Christian charity to hide your hated
bones."
These tremen dous nords were spoken soberly, by a
man quite as ready to have them  judged by the laws of
truth as by the rules of rhetoric.  They ewho must look at
deeds through the imagination; who need the illusion, if
not the enchantment, of distance, and therefore credit antiquity with all the great examples of either fame or infamy,
-read them  as the ravings of a fanatic.  But they who




432            THEODORE PARKHER.
looked at deeds, as he did, in the light of absolute righteousness; whose imagination was filled with the shapes
of eternity, and therefore knew but one standard, - the
supreme law, -read them with awe, as the judgments of
a prophet. Mr. Parker was not playing on the passions
of his audience; for he deliberately repeated the language
four years after it was first uttered, in a book designed to
be read. He was not conscious of dealing in exaggerations: he was merely applying the doctrine which he
had vindicated against the objections of Dr. Channing
years before,-that the individual conscience enunciated
the supreme law, or would if allowed to speak. By that
doctrine he was justified with all who accept it. The disciples of a different school of philosophy -which studies
human nature by other methods, and is disposed to question the accounts of human monsters as well as human
paragons -may pronounce his verdicts unjust, on the
ground that they disregarded the complexities of motive,
and weighed in rude scales the delicate moral qualities
which make up character: these men are very far from
being moral enthusiasts; they are apt to be moral neutrals,
if not moral sceptics. Parker's invective met with small
sympathy from the multitude of respectable people who
sincerely believed the Union to be in danger from the
Northern spirit of liberty, and felt that the return of a few
negroes to the State wherein they were born was an evil of
infinitely less magnitude; and the personal friends of the
judge and the commissioner, who knew them to be amiable, conscientious, and humane gentlemen,- certainly no
more inclined to cruelty or conscious turpitude than their
neighbors, -hooted at the preacher's arraignment of them
as the wildest folly. Mr. Parker may have been wrong in
his psychology; but we cannot see evidence that he was
malignant in his temper. He had strong moral antipathies;
but was, personally, no hater of men. He detested deeds;
the doers of them were hateful to him: but, as a man, he




THE FIGHT WIaTH SLA VERY.             433
felt for them no animosity. True, he never forgot, and he
never permitted others to forget, a minister's unfortunate
expression of willingness to return a near kinsman to the
slavery he might have fled from, rather than imperil the
national unity.  He pursued certain prominent men of
Boston with remorseless severity, holding them up to
public scorn, thrusting acts of theirs into people's faces,
till they seemed to be congested masses of turpitude.
Theirs, however, he regarded as public deeds, which he
fastened upon and exhibited for the purpose of riveting
attention to principles, not for the purpose of blackening
characters. He knew the force of reiteration and emphasis in making things remembered. No man ever tried
harder, against a vehement and sarcastic temper, to separate the personal from the impersonal feeling. No man
ever tried harder to suppress personal feeling, altogether.
That he wholly succeeded cannot be claimed; that he
occasionally spoke bitterly, even sneeringly, of his "enemies, persecutors, and slanderers," cannot be denied:
but he did pray God to forgive them, and to turn their
hearts; nay, he himself was singularly ready to forgive
on the slightest show of concession, and would do any
thing in his power to turn their hearts.  Candor must
grant this. May not candor grant, besides, that, if he was
guilty of unjust judgments, he was led thereto as much,
at the very least, by the intensity of his moral feeling as
by the passionateness of his native temper? and, if this
be so, something may be forgiven him. In these days,
excess of conscience is not common. The levelling process, which brings all characters to the same grade, and
that a low one, goes on fast: appeals to interest are more
frequent and more urgent than appeals to honor: " sentiment " of the exalted kind is not in fashion anywhere: the
pure dictates of the moral law are losing their venerableness.  Parker did believe in them; demanded that all
should believe; threatened woe to all who flouted them. If
37




434            THEODORE PARKER.
he dealt in exaggerations, they were grand ones: they were
the exaggerations of faith. To them we owe, in part, the
power of the faith which at last saved the nation; for,
when the civil war came, the value of conscience became
clearer. Few then wished that lighter emphasis had been
laid on it in previous years. Exaggerations of language
sounded faint enough beside the roar of cannon. He
who had uttered the boldest prophecy was seen to be the
calmest judge. Instead of holding him answerable for
sin because he held up to execration ideas and their representatives, men were more disposed to reproach themselves with faithlessness because they had rejected the
warning.
The interior history of the slave-struggle proves that
Mr. Parker's share in it was large and important. That
his soul was in it, was, therefore, a necessity; and the soul
of such a man, once roused, does not stop, when turning
over the soil of the stubborn fallow-land, to weep over the
daisy his iron ploughshare has bruised. To him sin was a
sinner; malignity was a man; the Prince of Darkness
was a gentleman. If he loaded his rifle with ball, it was
because he was a good soldier. Had more such ballcartridges as his been driven home, the thunder of a nation's guns might have been spared.




CHAPTER XVI.
THE KANSAS WAR.
THE history of the struggle to people Kansas with true
children of New England, so as to secure its admission
into the Union as a free State, cannot be told here. Mr.
Parker has told it so well, that reference to his discourses
is sufficient. There is room now only for a succinct
account of his own efforts in this new field. From the
nature of the case, his personal activity in the fresh emergency was less than in the cases of fugitive-slave hunting
in his own parish. Kansas was very far off; and a press
of duties kept him in Boston. But, as far as his influence
went, it was at the service of the cause. His counsel was
valuable, his encouragement, his generosity in giving, and
his aid in collecting money.
From thze Journal.
APRIL 2, 1856.
Saw the Kansas party go off, Dr. Charles H. Sanborn at
their head,- about forty, nearly half of them  women anzd
children.  There were twenty copies of "Shart's Rights of
the Peole " in their hands, of the new and improved edition,
and divers Colt's six-shooters also. As the bell rang for the
train to move (at five and a half, Providence Railroad), they
were singing," When I can read my title clear."
One of the verses would have some meaning: —
435




436              THEODORE PARKER.' Should earth against my soul engage,
And hellish darts be hurled,
Then I can smile at Satan's rage,
And face a frowning world."
But what a comment were the weapons of that company on
the boasted democracy of America! Those rifles and pistols
were to defend their soil from  the American Government,
which wishes to plant slavery in Kansas. Compare the settler
from Boston in I656, in I756, and then in I856.
From Letfers to Miss Hunt.
SEPT. 4, 1856.
Congress passed the Army Bill without the proviso: so the
President can use his money to push slavery in at the point
of the bayonet. There is continual fighting in Kansas. You
remember Rev. Mr. Nute from  Kansas. His brother-in-law,
Mr. Hipps, came from  Leavenworth to Lawrence, staid a day
or two at Nute's, left his sick wife, and started for home
without weapons. A ruffian shot him dead, sca/led him, and
then exhibited the scalp in Leavenworth, and said, " I went
out for the scalp of a d    d abolitionist, and I have got one."
Of course, the government likes this; "The Post" likes it;
and the respectability of Boston must say, "Served him
right! " You will hear of yet bloodier work in Kansas. Higginson has gone there. But for your visit to Europe, I should
have spent my vacation in Kansas.  Next summer will probably find me there....
Brooks is drunk all the time now, and is quite cowed down
with the reputation for cowardice fixed on him. It is not
thought gentlemanly for a Northern man to speak of him in
the presence of Southern ladies. Such is the wrath of his
friends, that they engaged a mob of rowdies to insult Burlingame, - spit in his face, &c.; and then, if he resisted, to kiZ
him'. so Burlingame's friends kept him out of the city, not
letting him know the news; and he was not there to vote
against the Army Bill....
I still think the election of Fremont presents the only
chance for a.jeacefsuZ settlement of the ghastly question; but
every day I feel less confidence in such a settlement, even with
his election. The wzerat of the South is too hot to allow of a




THE IZWANSAS WAR.                  437
permanent union. I would gladly separate from them to-morrow, were it not that we should leave four million Americans in
bonds. Set them free, I would vote for dissolution to-morrow.
We could take all north of the Potomac and Ohio, and all west
of the Mississippi, and let the miserable rowdies have Virginia,
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Missouri,
Louisiana, Tennessee, and Kentucky.
From Letters to AIrs. Ajhworf.
SEPT. II, 1856.
Mr. Nute is in the hands of the ruffians. We fear he is
hanged. The accounts are awful from Kansas. Five persons
were shot after they had surrendered. Scalping is as common
as with other savages.
We are now in a civil war. I went to a Kansas meeting at
Cambridge last night. R. W. E. was expected, but did not
come till near nine; others wasting the time before in idle
lczagter and jokes. Yet good things were said.  E. was not
happy, but said many good things, as always. He would send
out the sergeant-at-arms to compel all Americans to return
forthwith, lest by and by there be no country left for them. I
know not what is before us, but augur evil, — evil, and then
triumph.
SEPT. 19, I856.
Things look better in Kansas. The ruffians have been
worsted in some fights. Lawrence is well fortified now; has a
fort that will hold a thousand men. Dr. Howe and others
raised five thousand dollars one day last week to buy Sharp's
rifles. We want a thousand rifles, and got two hundred in
one day. Nute is now at large; but the particulars I know
not. Lying is common on both sides, I fear: I know "mistakes " are not rare in such times. But the government is
backing down.....
It is writ down in the bond that Sumner is to go to the Senate: the Know-Nothing Convention at Worcester unanimously
passed a resolve to that effect. But we shall see what we shall see.
Sennott says President Pierce is drunk every day. I had
intelligence of his being solemnly intoxicated on a most important occasion last May; but now he is gone over, it is said, to
cups, and cups only. Really, born rulers are not much worse
than the elected.
37*




438             THEODORE PARKER.
Gov. Reeder has come out for Fremont: his long letter is
in "'The New-York Evening Post" of yesterday. Geary's
inaugural speech is just telegraphed to us. He demands obedience to the Territorial legislature till its laws are repealed
(repudiation by the people is no repeal of the border-ruffian
" laws," I suppose); but promises to protect all, without respect
of party, and calls on armed bands to disperse, or quit the Territory. He has dignified with the title of "militia " the companies of Southern marauders whom  Shannon had furnished
with arms, banners, protection, and whiskey, and set to scalp
the peaceful inhabitants of Kansas. Things look much better
for Kansas. The Emigrant Aid Society has forever prevented
it from becoming a slave State; for, if this company had not
been at work, the Missourians and others would have flocked
in, and made its institutions to suit the South. Now I have no
fears of its future.
We had a meeting of women at our house Monday, P.M.,
and have raised about a hundred and twenty dollars amongst
them for clothing for Kansas; and, besides, any quantity of
women are at work making clothes for the men.
To Miss Hunt.
SEPT. 2I, i856....Yesterday I omitted the chapter of St. James as morning lesson, and introductory to a sermon on Franklin, and,
instead, read from a new epistle of St. Ephraim (Nute), written
a fortnight before in Kansas, and telling of his captivity and
cruel treatment. There was an immense audience; seats all
full, and men leaning against the wall. Dr. Bowditch came
and suggested that a contribution should be taken up at the
door. I mentioned it; and now three hundred dollars are in
my drawer for Mr. Nute and his fellow-apostles. It was not
ten cents apiece for the audience, but a pretty sum for him
and them.
To Mrs. AptIzorl.
OCT. 6, I856... I don't feel so confident of success as a week ago.
Even if Fremont be elected, I have terrible fears for the soundness of his advisers' and of his own course.... I never
took such interest in an election. In I840, when the nation
shook with agitation, I took no part, no interest: there was no




THE _KAENSAS WAR.                   439
idea at issue which I cared a pin for. The nation was tired of
being on one side, and wanted to turn over, and did so with
much noise. But now there is a great question: we are to
decide a programme of principles, which involves a long train
of measures, between such prosperity as we have not ever seen
and such -misery and ruin as we never feared. There is a battle with swords going on at Kansas, with votes all over the
land. Kansas is the centre of the continent. Put one foot of
the compasses in the middle of Kansas where the Republican
and the Snaky Rivers meet, let the other rest on Boston, then
sweep the circle round, it touches (or comes close to) Quebec,
the middle of Hudson's Bay, the mouth of the Oregon, San
Francisco, the city of Mexico, and Havana. Now, the battle
between Freedom and Slavery is for the physical heart of
America, and, of course, for its limbs; but the actual battle is
not less for the spiritual heart of America.
To Miss Hunt.
Nov. 4, 1856 (Night).
It is election-day. We have heard only from Boston and a
few towns round about. All the news is good so far. To-morrow, at nine, I will give the result as far as known: so you
shall have the earliest (and latest) news.
It is a day not less critical in our future history than the
4th of July, I776, for the past. This morning there were three
alternatives before the nation: I. The North might put down
slavery by a vote, peacefully, yet securely, though step by step;
2. The North might allow freedom to be put down by a vote,
peacefully, yet securely, though step by step; 3. The North
and South must have a civil war. So it was at sunrise: at sunset there may be only a choice between the two latter, - slavery,
or battle. If the North locks horns with the South, I know
which is crowded into the ditch. But, in I776, the worst part of
England was in America: so now the worst part of the North
is at the South.
To t1he Same.
Nov. i6, I856.
I am more than ever of opinion that we must settle this
question in the old Anglo-Saxon way, -by the sword. There
are two constitutions for America, - one written on parchment,




440              TITEODORE PARKER.
and laid up at Washington; the other also on parchment, but on
the head of a drzrm. 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 fifty
dollars, and commonly have at least five hundred dollars on
order in all parts of the world.
To 3mrs. Atz5Iorj.
Nov.  I, I856.... This morning, Mr. Rhett of South Carolina is out with
a letter to the governor of that great State of three hundred and
eighty-five thousand slaves, and two hundred and eighty-three
thousand white men, recommending dissolution. South Carolina will nullify at all hazards. Gen. Ouattlebum has again taken
the field, -of newspapers, - and sheds ink and valor without
discretion.  I don't believe we shall hold together long. The
union is not by internal cohesion, but outside pressure. The
hoop which holds these silly staves together is no thicker than
a dollar-bill: a drop of blood, nay, a little ink, will weaken it
so that all falls to pieces. I doubt that we see ten years
without bloodshed.... I don't see the immediate future of
America: the remote future appears more clear and distinct.
This new administration will make its attack on Cuba, I take
it. Mexico is falling to pieces; and Jonathan must be there to
pick up the fragments. The American Government has refused to give a passport to a colored man, on the ground that
he was not a citizen, though born here. I mean to petition the
Legislature of Massachusetts to pass a law directing our officials
to furnish the colored citizens of Massachusetts with such passports as will be sufficient....
To th/e Same.
DEC. 29, I856.
We need Sumner at Washington just now.
" One blast upon his bugle-horn were worth a thousand men."
For the Republicans apologize and explain, and say they "are
not an abolition party, not an antislavery party, not opposed to
the extension of slavery:" they "only mean to restore the
Missouri Compromise."  Men talk hopefully about Kansas.




THE KANSAS WAR.                      441
Certainly all is peaceful there at present; but I know the
enemy too well.
" Then most we dread the tempest's wrath
When most we seem secure."
To ilfiss Hunt.
OCT. 31, I857....Sumner's friends who have seen him think it would be
ruinous for him to return this winter. His health is not much
better now than when he left Paris, I should judge.  I think
Sumner is killed, so far as usefulness is concerned: more merciful if the blow had been fatal at once. Georgye Hillard thinks
he had better not come back. There will be nothing of any
importance done this session, - nothing about Kansas, you
know; about Cuba, nothing; nothing about the slave-trade, or.Dred Scott decision. If I were in Sumner's place, when Congress came together, I would be lihere. If I could sit but an
hour a day, that hour I would be there.
I saw old Josiah Quincy in the street to-day. He has a
backbone, which, old as he is, sticks out through his great-coat.
To Mrs. Atzhorhp.
DECEMBER, 1857....The little class of well-educated men, by falseness to their
position, have lost the confidence of the people; and a few men
with more conscience, though often with less culture, command
the homage of the very crowds which educated hypocrisy in
vain attempted to cajole and win. See what reception is given
to Beecher and Chapin! -men of not great intellect or great
knowledge, but inspired with the progressive spirit of the age,
and so standing in intimate relations with the people.
See the success of Sumner and Phillips! the triumph of
Emerson, who has a more glorious history than any American
of this generation! Prescott has changed no man's opinion.
Bancroft has elevated no man. Irving has made men laugh at
his fun, and rejoice in the precious beauty which blossoms in
his field and his garden: that is all. Webster has connected
himself with nothing except hunkerism: his symbol is his plaster bust; but his calf-bound volumes of speeches are as dead
as the brass of the Colossus at Rhodes, which an earthquake




442             THEODORE PARKER.
threw down, and a Jew bought, - a load also for nine hundred
camels: he affects no man's opinion.  Clay was the tariff,
which is now dead, —an obsolete idea, but a curse, while it
lived, to the manufacturers who bought it of him. Calhoun was
slavery: the greatest sophist the nation ever knew was properly devoted to the worst institution now in the growing world.
The dead tariff will soon be buried also, and on top of Henry
Clay; slavery will go to the Devil, and take with it the memory of John C. Calhoun, a great sophist, and of many little
sophists at the same time: but Emerson has touched the deepest strings on the human harp, and, ten centuries after he is
immortal, will wake music which he first waked.
Thus Theodore Parker took into his heart his country's
sorrow and need, not sparing himself a pang. He felt the
whole situation; let no aspect of it pass him by; but
exhausted, so far as it was in him, even the possibilities
of agony.  The tremendous facts came before him, every
one in the fulness of minute detail. The tremendous
issues unrolled themselves before his prophetic gaze. He
followed every move of the politicians: no trick of the
party managers escaped him. He had his eye on every
public man; watched with breathless interest each newcomer on the stage; and weighed, in scales that rarely
erred, the persons who undertook the control of public
affairs.  The following letters show the temper of his
own mind, and also the view he took of the good citizen's
duty: -
To Hon. W. H. Seward.
BOSTON, May I9, I854,
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 eyuz'ibriouss: so the




THE KANSAS WAR.                    443
nation is not a figure of equilibrium. It is plain (to me) that
these two antagonistic forces cannot long continue in this
condition.  There are three possible modes of adjusting
the balance, all conceivable:I. There may be a separation of the two elements: then
each may form a whole, equilibrious, and so without that cause
of dissolution in itself, and have a national sunity of action,
which is indispensable. Or, -
II. 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, -
III. Slavery may destroy freedom, and then the nation
become an integer, only a unit of despotism. This, of course,
involves a complete revolution, of all the national ideas and
national institutions. It must be an induzstrial despotism, - a
strange anomaly.  Local self-government 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.
I. Now, I see no likelihood of the first condition being fulfilled. Two classes rule the nation:
I. The mercantile men, who want money; and, 2, The folitical men, who want power. There is a strange unanimity
between these two classes.  The mercantile men want money
as a means of iower: the political 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
fio7itical ideas, or reverence for the hzigher  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.
II. Then, considering dissolution as out of the question, is
freedom likely to terminate slavery? It was thought so by the




444              THEODORE PARKER.
founders of the Federal institutions and by the gjeofle at large.
Few steps were taken in that direction, —the ordinance of 1787,
the abolition of the African slave-trade: that is all.  For
forty-six years, not a step.
I I I. The third condition is the one now most promising to end
the matter. See the steps consummated, or only planned: I. The
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 legisJation of Congress;
4. Acquisition of CzGba, lHayti, &c., as a new arena for slavery;
5. The re-establishment of the Africa/ slave-trade; 6. The
occwzancy of the other fiarts of JVorth America and Solth7
America. When all this is done, there will be unity of action,
anzity of idea. " Auferre, trucidare, rapire falsis nominibus
imperiume; atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem 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 at Buffalo on Tuesday, the
4th of July next, to CONSIDER THE STATE OF THE UNION,
and to take measures (I) 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 toyozt with a great deal of confidence in these times of such peril to freedom.
If you like, I should be glad if you would show this letter to
Mr. Chase and Mr. Sumner. Believe me
Respectfully and truly yours,
THEO. PARKER.
To Jo/hn P. Hale.
BOSTON, May 23, I854.
MY DEAR MR. HALE,-YOu have helped me in many emergencies; and I want a little more advice just now. It seems to
me that there should be a convention from all the free States
on the 4th of July to organize for action against slavery as we
have never done before. If this is not done, we are ruined,
and the country becomes one great slave porwer.  I suggest a
convention at Buffalo, Pittsburg, or elsewhere, to consider the




THE KAN SAS WAR.                    445
present alarming condition of the country, and to take measures
(I) to cJzec and (2) to lerminaite this matter of slavery. If the
South will not let it down gradually, we must let it downz by tze
run. Please let me know what you think.
Yours faithfully,
THEODORE PARKER.
Hon. Mr. HALE.
To Charles Sumner.
ST. ALBANS, VT., Feb. I6, I856.
DEAR SUMNER, - The fetifions are all going very well. Tell
me any thing else to do. I wrote to Sandusky, Milwaukee,
Madison, Syracuse, and divers other places, and got the thing
started.
Who is to be nominated for President? -by the Democrats,
the Republicans?
Don't forget to introduce a bill providing books in all military
ports of the United States.
Yours truly,
THEO. PARKER.
Banks's election is the first victory of the Northern idea since
1787.
To H. Wilson.
BOSTON, July 7, IS55.
MY DEAR 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 zanfully and /zeroicae/y, and do battle for
the right. I do not know how to thank you enough. You do
nobly at all places, all times. If the rest of your senatorial term
be like the past, 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,
THEO. PARKER.
To Passmore Williamson, Esq.
DUBLIN, N.H., Aug. 2I I855.
DEAR SIR, - Your noble action and the wicked treatment
you receive for it give me the right to address you, though I am
38




446             THEODORE PARKER.
an entire stranger.  I cannot forbear expressing to you my
admiration for your conduct, and the hope that you will continue faithful and undaunted in the jail which the infamous
court condemns you to. I wish I could bear a part of the suffering, and so relieve you from a little of that pain; but I can
only send you an expression of my heartfelt sympathy, and
thanks for your noble manhood.  I suppose there must be
much more imprisonment and other judicial outrage before the
people are wakened from their sleep. May endless blessings
be upon you is the wish and prayer of
Yours sincerely,
THEODORE PARKER.
To Charles Sumner, Washington.
13URLINGTON, VT., May 21, I856.
MY DEAR SUMNER, - God 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 any thing 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, lecturing on the condition of the country. Pierce is in
open rebellion against the people: he has committed the highest treason against the jpeof5le, the worst form of lese-mnajestd.
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- has 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: -
I. Exterminating the Indians in Oregon, &c.
2. Filibustering against Central America "and the rest of
mankind."
3. Extending slavery into Kansas and everywhere else.
Then, I take it, the free-State men will be immediately put
down, unless Congress comes to their aid. What can they do




THE KANSAS WAR.                    447
-a handful of them, without arms, no officers - against the
border ruffians, eight thousand or ten thousand strong, armed
by the United States, and officered by the soldiers of our
wicked army? Can nothing be done at Washington? Will
nothing arouse the people at the North?
Tell me what you think of the candidates for Republican
nomination? Here is my list of oreferences if I could make
the President:I. 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 would 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,
THEO. PARKER.
I shall send you a speech before long.
To Hon. Jo/hn P. Hale, Washington.
BOSTON, May 23, i856.
MY DEAR MR. HALE, - 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 five hundred 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 in the matter.
Yours truly and heartily,
THEO. PARKER.
To 7ohn P. Hale.
GALESBURG, OCt. 2I, i856.
MY DEAR MR. HALE,- -I'm glad I am not a senator this
year. You win your "Hon." pretty dear this season. Stumping is no joke. I heard your opponent this afternoon, - Douglas. He was considerably drunk, and 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.




448              THEIODORE PARKER.
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 think 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 a hundred and forty-eight electors, a million dollars, I think, might be raised to buy the one
hundred and forty-ninth. 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," "s 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 Free
Pulpit," " No Free Speech,"' " No Free Man."
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 money for cannons.. 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 United
States of America!
Yours faithfully,
THEO. PARKER.
P. S. -I want, before you go to Congress, to borrow your
copy of Force's "American Archives;" also I want you to
come and dine with me, and see some politicians.




THIE KA'SA S WA R.               449
The Kansas war brought to the front a colossal figure,JOHN BROWN. This would not be the place to tell his
story, even if it had not been well told already by James
Redpath, and partially by F. B. Sanborn in the pages of
"The Atlantic Monthly" of April and July, I872; but
something must be said about him, - enough to throw lght
en the character of his friends, especially of one of them,
- -Mr. Parker. That such a person sought Parker, and
was trusted by him, is an incident worth pondering over.
John Brown was fifty-seven years old when Parker first
met him. He had lived in several places; had engaged in
several occupations; had experienced changes of fortune;
but had remained himself steadfast and unchangeable in
character. The State of Connecticut gave him his Puritan blood; Ohio imparted to the boy the influence of her
territorial and social breadth; Massachusetts made the
young man acquainted with the highest form of free civilization; New York trained the man of middle age for
the work he was set to do; Kansas gave him  a field of
operations; Virginia, a chance for martyrdom.  Through
the kindness of a kinsman, he was educated at an excellent private school, and purposed entering the ministry; but
poverty, and weakness of sight, compelled him to abandon
a career for which seriousness of mind, and weight of
character, made him peculiarly fit. He was profoundly
religious after the old —fashioned Orthodox fashion; had an
awful sense of divine realities, and an implicit faith in the
divine decrees. The Bible was to him God's word; life,
God's gift; eternity, God's recompense.  His desire, from
the first, was not to live as was unseemly in the presence
of eternal law. He turned from the ministry with regret,
but like a true Puritan, who knew that the ministry was
only one calling out of many, and returned to his original
occupation as a tanner; dropping that later to become a
shepherd in Ohio, - a pursuit which has had fascinations
before for men of high resolves. At the age of forty-six
38e




45o             THEODORE PARKER.
we find him in Massachusetts again as agent of the Ohio
sheep-farmers and wool-growers, who, wishing to establish
a connection with the manufacturers of New  England,
selected Springfield as the fittest place, and Brown as
the fittest person to have charge of the enterprise. The
business promised well at first, and became flourishing;
but from various causes, which need not be detailed here,
weakened, and at last collapsed. Brown was ruined, and,
after three years' residence in Springfield, in I849 went to
the Adirondack region, in Northern New York, there to
settle up his wool-business, renew his sheep-raising, and
teach settlers' in those wild regions how to clear, plant,
and farm the land which Mr. Gerritt Smith had offered to
give by thousands of acres to such colored people as
wvould accept them and live on them.  Not many availed
themselves of the gift; but those who did had the benefit
of Brown's experience and care as long as he could give
them.
During all these vicissitudes he was cherishing in his
heart a purpose which to him was as sacred as was ever
entertained by man: this was nothing else than.the
liberation of the slaves of the South. To say that he
never lost sight of this purpose is to say little. TIe chose
his occupations, so far as he could, with a view to the
facilities they afforded for carrying it into effect; looked
out at once to discover the bearing they had on it; and
seized every occasion they offered for promoting it. The
occupation of shepherd was attractive to him, as promising the means of furthering his designs.  As agent of the
Ohlio wool-growers in Massachusetts, he sounded for information that might help him in his projects; especially
making the acquaintance of fugitives from  slavery, who
might be made useful.  Parker says in a letter from
Rome, written in I859, " 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




THE KANSAS  W 4AR.                 45 I
was a land-surveyor in that very neighborhood where his
gallows (I suppose) has since grown." Sanborn declares
that his object in retiring to the solitudes of North Elba
was, that he might there, away from observation, muster
and drill a company of men as the nucleus of his army
of liberation. The sheep-raiser, the wool-factor, the farmer, the surveyor, was ever the emancipator in disguise.
What he engaged in was done with all his ability, as conscientiously as if it had been his ultimate business; but
his ultimate business was to set free the captives.
In i85i, being in Springfield on incidental affairs connected with his wool concerns, he assisted in organizing
an armed resistance to the Fugitive-slave Bill, then recently passed; and drew up a paper containing articles
of agreement, which were signed by forty-four men and
women, white and colored, most of the latter being fugitive slaves or their friends.  The paper has "words of
advice " that ring like the address of a general to his
army:
" Do not delay one moment after you are ready: you will
lose all your resolution if you do. Let the first blow be the
signal for all to engage; and, when engaged, do not do your
work by halves, but make clean work with your enemies; and
be sure you meddle not with any others.... Be firm, determined, and cool; but let it be understood that you are not to be
driven to desperation without making it an awful dear job to
others as well as to you..... Hold on to your weapons, and
never be persuaded to leave them, part with them, or have them
far away from you. Stand by one another and by your friends
while a drop of blood remains, and be hanged if you must; but
tell no tales out of school. Make no confession."
Nine years later, he himself, driven to bay, observed
these directions to the letter; thus showing how profoundly he had meditated, and how sincerely he trusted
to them.  The articles of agreement exhibited an equal




452            THEODORE PAR'KER.
ripeness of conviction. He held himself ready at any
hour to inaugurate his grand enterprise, and listened
hourly for the call to do it. During the Anthony Burns
excitement of I854, he was with difficulty restrained from
going to Boston, and leading an attempt at rescue. No
sooner was Kansas fairly opened to emigrants, than his
four sons, who had all been schooled in their father's
beliefs and imbued with his resolution, left their home in
Ohio, and repaired thither to settle.  He himself went
some months later, having affairs to attend to in Massachusetts not unremotely connected with his ulterior ends.
His hour seemed hastening on; and he wanted to sound
his allies once more before the struggle came. When
he joined his sons in the autumn of I855, it was less with
the design of establishing himself in Kansas as a peaceful colonist than of obtaining a basis for operations
against the slave power. He went, not as a civilizer, but
as an emancipator; not as a farmer, but as a soldier.
None of the Kansas-Committee money went into his
hands: he was assisted moderately by friends in New
York, but for the rest provided his own commissariat, and
conducted the campaign at his private charge. He went
alone, having removed his family from Ohio to North
Elba; his four sons only being his comrades.
He established his headquarters near the town of
Ossawattomie; whither, in the spring of i856, his other
three sons and his son-in-law joined him. The name of the
stern old man first became famous from  his defence of
that town against an assault of the "border ruffians " in
August of that year. The name of " Ossawattomie Brown "
was known throughout the country. But the grand opportunity did not come then. There was bloody work. One
son was slain; another wounded; a third taken prisoner,
and made temporarily insane from cruel treatment: all of
which intensified his hatred of slavery and its abetters.
But the peculiar combination of circumstances his plans




THE KANSAS WAR.                     453
demanded, the situation in Kansas did not supply: so he
came away in the autumn to make fresh surveys, and to
acquire new resources. He came to Boston, and early in
January, I859, presented himself before the secretary of
the State Kansas Committee in his office on School
Street.  There was little need to tell who he was, or to
present the letter of introduction from Mr. George Walker
of Springfield, who knew him. The fame of the man had
gone before him. His appearance was his testimonial.
The  moral grandeur was self-evident.   I borrow  the
account of Mr. Sanborn, the secretary to whom he presented himself: -
"His aspect and manner would have made him distinguished
anywhere among men who knew how to recognize courage and
greatness of mind. He was then in his fifty-seventh year, but
active and vigorous when not suffering from  an ague contracted in Kansas. His figure was tall, slender, and commanding, his bearing military, and his garb a singular blending of
the soldier and the deacon. His coat, waistcoat, and trousers
were of a brown color, - such as he always selected when possible, — and of a cut far from fashionable. His gray overcoat
was of that shape which our soldiers, a few years after, made
familiar to all eyes; and he wore a patent-leather stock, which
also suggested the soldier of former years.  His fur cap was
more in keeping with his military overcoat than with the Sunday suit of a deacon, which he wore beneath it.  His face was
close shaven, displaying the force of his firm, wide mouth and
his positive chin. The long white beard which he wore a year
or two later, and which nearly all his portraits now show, added
a picturesque finish to a face that was in all its features severe
and masculine.  His eyes were of a piercing blue-gray, not
very large, but looking out from under brows'Of dauntless courage and considerate pride.'
His hair was dark brown, touched with gray, short and bristling, and shooting back from a forehead of middle height and
breadth. His ears were large; his frame angular; his voice




154.      TITHEODORE PARKER.
deep and metallic; his walk positive and intrepid, though somewhat slow. His manner was modest, and, in a large company,
even diffident. He was by no means fluent of speech; but his
words were always to the point, and his observations original,
direct, and shrewd. His mien was serious and patient rather
than cheerful: it betokened the'sad wise valor' which Herbert
praises: but though it was earnest, and almost anxious, it was
never depressed. In short, he was then to the eye of insight
what he afterwards seemed to the world, - a brave and resolved
man, conscious of a work laid upon him, and confident that he
should accomplish it." *
The object of John Brown's visit to Boston was to
obtain control of some two hundred Sharp's rifles belonging to the Massachusetts Committee, to enable him to
defend Kansas from invasion, and also to carry the zewar,
if advisable, into the enemy's country.  All that that meant
he kept in reserve; perhaps had not settled in his own
mind: though it is far more than probable that his Virginia plan was already conceived.  He frankly said that
whatever was intrusted to him must be intrusted to him
unconditionally; that he could not take orders from  any
committee, but must act on his own personal responsibility.
Mr. Sanborn, deeply impressed by the  aspect and
bearing of the man, spoke of him  to Mr. Parker, and
soon after took him  to Mr. Parker's house in Exeter
Place.  There he met Mr. Garrison.  From that moment,
it would seem, the Puritan hero made the rationalist
minister an adviser and friend; and from that moment
Mr. Parker became one of those who helped him with
counsel and with money. Brown spent portions of four
months in Massachusetts; addressed the State Legislature, urging an appropriation of money to aid the emigrants from the State in Kansas; and spoke effectively to
a large audience in the town-hall of Concord, Mr. Emer* The Atlantic Monthly, April, 1872,




THE KAANSAS WAR.                   455
son and Mr. Thoreau being among his interested hearers.
Wherever he went, he made the same impression.  Wherever he told his story, he drew  listeners to him, roused
their enthusiasm, and gained their faith.  Though silent
in regard to his ulterior plans and secret purposes, he did
not withhold, even from public assemblies, the avowal of
his determination to attack wherever slavery was vulnerable, and to take property, or even life, if it were necessary, to set the slaves free.
The Massachusetts Committee gave Capt. Brown undisputed possession of the arms; subject, however, to future
dispositions of the committee in Boston; and money was
placed in his hands, - not enough, however, to equip and
maintain his company of men: and he went back to his
home in North Elba, saddened by his partial failure.
Before leaving Massachusetts, he expressed his feelings to
Mr. Parker in the following remarkable paper, which is
pasted on a blank page in the journal:OLD BROWN'S FAREWELL TO THE PLYMOUTH ROCKS, BUNKERHILL MONUMENTS, CHARTER-OAKS, AND
UNCLE TOM'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 Dmeans of
azrming and thzorouz/hY/  eqzipzig, his regular minute-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 brave
men, suffered hunger, coldl, 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'epzubl/ic is
under equal moral obligation to do, and for the neglect of
which he will be held accountable to God) in which every man,




456             THEODORE PARKER.
woman, and child of the entire human family has a deep and
awful interest; that when wo waoges are askear or efvtected, - he
cannot secure (amidst all the wealth, luxury, and extravagance
of this " Heaven-exalted " people) even the necessary supplies
of the common soldier.
JOHN BROWN.
BOSTON, April, A.D. I857.
The discouragement was natural. For nearly twenty
years Brown had cherished his scheme, and been watching his opportunity to carry it into effect.  He had devoted himself and his family to it; he had cautiously
taken steps to interest in it one or two from whom  he
might properly expect co-operation; he had engaged as
drill-master for his recruits an English Garibaldian whom
he found giving fencing-lessons in New York: and now,
when the condition of things in Kansas seemed to favor
his enterprise, he was crippled for want of a few hundred
dollars which would not have been missed by the donors,
obliged to discharge his drill-master, and abandon, for the
time, his project. He went away with shut lips, divulging
to no one, not even to Mr. Parker, the secret design, the
disappointment whereof gave poignancy to his grief. But
the scheme was still cherished as intently as ever.  In
September, 1857, he wrote to Mr. Parker that he was in
want of some five hundred or a thousand dollars "for secret service, and no questions asked." He had no news to
send by ietter, being suspicious of the United-States mails.
He was, in fact, a man gravely suspected. Rewards were
offered for him; traitors were lurking; his whereabouts
had to be concealed. His letters were sent to feigned
addresses. His friends, in corresponding with one another
in regard to him, used circumlocutions, and cloaked their
meaning under misleading phrases, speaking of their "wool
speculation" and the "shepherd."  He went to Iowa again
and Kansas, busy with his plots.
AWhether they would have come out when they did, but




TIzE i.ANSAS WAR.                  45 7
for an unforeseen accident, is uncertain.  The discharged
Garibaldian drill-master was angry, and made a noise;
wrote abusive letters to Mr. Sanborn, Dr. Howe, and
Charles Sumner; denounced Brown; charged his friends
with bad faith; and threatened to expose the plot of which
he alone was informed.  He did not actually do this till
nearly two years later, a few weeks before the attack was
made; but he created uneasiness and suspicion in the
minds of some of Brown's friends, which made explanations necessary.  Letters written to him, however, did not
reach him; for he had again left Kansas, and was setting
his face slowly once more towards the East, whence, in
spite of his former disappointment, he still looked for
aid. Early in I858 the following letter was sent to Mr.
Parker from Rochester, N.Y.:ROCHESTER, N.Y., Feb. 2, I858.
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 imzportant measure in which the world has a deep interest as well
as Kansas, and only lack from five hundred to eight hundred
dollars to enable me to do so, — the same object for which I
asked 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 o.ut 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 thoroughly 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
39




458             THEODORE PARK:ER.
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 Mr.
F. B. Sanborn of Concord: but I am not informed as to how
deeply-dyed 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, N.Y.
Very respectfully your friend,
JOHN BROWN.
Letters of similar purport, adapted to the supposed
character of the men he was addressing, were written to
T. W. Higginson, G. L. Stearns, and F. B. Sanborn. The
noble and beautiful letter addressed on Feb. 24 to MIr.
Sanborn from Peterborough, N.Y., and by him sent to Mr.
Parker, among whose papers it was found, - the letter
printed on the fifty-third page of " The Atlantic Monthly"
for July, I872,- reads like the message to a trusted but
younger and less-experienced soldier than Parker.  They
all spoke of an important undertaking,   "by far the
most important undertaking of lly whole life" is the expression he uses to Mr. Higginson, - but furnished no precise clew to its character, and awakened no suspicion of
it.  On the I2th of February Brown wrote again, asking
an interview at a friend's house in Central New York.  He
dared not pass through Massachusetts to come to Boston;
dared not be seen in places where he might be recognized,
as he would be in Springfield.  He was, for good reasons,
in hiding.  His friends in Kansas knew nothing of his
whereabouts. He did not venture to visit his wife and
children, so anxious was he to remain concealed. To go
to Central New York in mid-winter on such a summons,
for a purpose so undefined, was impossible for Mr. Stearns
or Mr. Parker.  Mr. Higginson also found it inconvenient




THE KANSAS WAR.                  459
to go; and Mr. Sanborn went alone, hoping and expecting to receive a full explanation of the charges brought
by Hugh  Forbes, " the  Garibaldian drill-master," but
scarcely anticipating any thing more momentous. There,
oai the evening of Washington's birthday (Feb. 22), in a
retired spot, beneath a perfectly loyal roof, to a few tried
and trusty people the Virginia scheme was unfolded in
all its parts, the locality illustrated, the provisions and
contingencies explained, the movements detailed, the
probable  or possible  eventualities  confronted.  The
whole evening, and all the next day, the discussion went
on between the conspirator on the one side, and his
astonished and half-dismayed auditors on the other; the
old hero answering questions, meeting objections, quieting doubts, disarming fears, showing himself prepared
at all points, and displaying a force of moral conviction
and a grandeur of religious confidence that awed and
stilled, if they did not convince. If it was impossible to
share his enthusiasm, it was impossible to resist its influence.
Sanborn came back to Boston, and lost no time in reporting to Messrs. Parker and Higginson the result of
the interview. It was Parkerwho suggested that Brown,
who had come as far as Brooklyn, should come secretlyto
Boston for an interview.  He did so, and registered himself as "J. Brown," on March 4, at the American House
in Hanover Street, where he staid in strict privacy four
days; not even calling on Mr. Parker in Exeter Place on
Sunday evening, as he had done before. One of the first
to call on him, and promise aid, was Parker, who afterwards met there in consultation Messrs. Howe, Higginson, Sanborn, and Stearns; the latter the largest supplier
of material aid. The substance of those deliberations at
the American House has never been divulged, and perhaps never will be. That Brown's representations made
a deep impression on his friends is evident from the fact




460      o     THIrEODORE PARKE('R.
that they agreed among them to raise a thousand dollars
for him: and that he was himself encouraged appears
from a letter to Theodore Parker, written at his hotel, and
conveyed by a friend to Exeter Place, - a letter printed in
Weiss (ii. p. I64), begging him to prepare an address to
the officers and soldiers of the United-States army, appealing to their feelings of humanity and their sense of
right; and a " similar short address, appropriate to the
peculiar circumstances, intended for all persons, old and
young, male and female, slaveholding and non-slaveholding, to be sent out broadcast over the entire nation."
Mr. Parker never, so far as is known, put his hand to this
work.  But his intercourse with him was confidential: he
lent him helpful books, and gave him the benefit of his
vast information.  It is believed that he was intrusted by
Brown with incidents of his plan which were not revealed
to others, and were contemplated rather than decided on
by the leader himself.  All seemed to be going well: the
greater part of the promised money was collected, enlistments of men were getting forward, the meditated blow -was
about to be struck, when the ",Garibaldian drill-master"
interposed again, -this time with more formidable dclemonstration. He had learned some things he did not know
before; among these, the complicity of members of the
Boston Kansas Committee with Brown: and he insisted
that the enterprise should be stopped; that confidence
should be taken from  Brown, and transferred to him;
otherwise what he knew should be given to the public. The
committee were staggered. Of the five men composing it,
three - Parker, Sanborn, and Stearns - were of the opinion that the blow must be deferred. Dr. Howe was doubtful. Higginson alone sided squarely with Brown, who was
not afraid of any thing Forbes could do; disbelieved in the
extent and accuracy of his information; and was inclined,
on the whole, to think that the vague excitement caused
by his disclosure would favor, rather than otherwise, his




THE KA ISAS WAR..6 I
undertaking. Parker was, ready for extreme measures,
accepted  Brown's ideas, sympathized with him  in his
moral feelings, was expectant of uprisings on the part of
the slaves, would have been glad to see them, had no
scruples in aiding them, but doubted the success of any
first attempt to incite them to revolt. In his judgment,
there must be several such before one succeeded; and he
was not enough of a military man to share the old hero's
conviction that Hugh Forbes would do more to make the
enterprise prosper than to make it fail.
Brown supposed that all he needed was a few hundred
dollars. Of the equipment of arms he felt sure; for were
not the rifles of the committee in his possession?  They
were, but still under the committee's ultimate control, to
be used only for purposes which they approved of. And
when Forbes gave information, in a general way, to Senators Hale, Seward, and Wilson, of Brown's plans, and the
complicity of members of the committee with them, and
Wilson wrote to Dr. Howe, strongly protesting against the
scheme, deprecating any association of the committee
with it, and urging the consideration that they would lay
themselves open to the charge of bad faith if they persisted, affairs came to a pause. The rifles did not then
actually belong to the committee, though it was supposed
they did; and, as Brown's use of them for his private raid
would, in the public estimation, have compromised them, it
was decided that operations must be suspended. Notice
was sent to Brown that the rifles must be used only in the
defence of Kansas; and postponement became inevitable.
This obstacle of the arms was soon after removed by
George L. Stearns, their actual owner, who formally put
Brown in possession of them as his private agent; thus releasing the committee from all responsibility for their use.
Brown was now anxious as before to push his measures to a
conclusion: but his friends hung back, thinking postponement wiser; and I859 was mentioned as the better time.
39*




462            THEODORE PARKER.
But the plan was not abandoned, nor was sympathy withheld. More money was promised; the arms were fairly
made over in a way to relieve the committee of all embarrassment; and John Brown was left with the sole responsibility of the enterprise, deferring to nobody, consulting
nobody, obliged to report to nobody, at liberty to keep his
designs secret even from  those who thus far had been
most in his confidence. In the mean time, it was judged
best that he himself should appear to have abandoned
his scheme, and should throw Forbes off the scent by
returning to Kansas. Thither he went forthwith, and
performed great feats there in the way of border warfare;
closing the whole by an incursion into Missouri, and bringing away a party of slaves, whom  he carried through
Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, to Detroit in Michigan, whence he easily despatched them into Canada.  It
was a great exploit, that made the country ring. This
was early in I859. In May his erect form was seen in the
streets of Boston, calmly walking about, unconscious of
the stir of the city, like a man absorbed in a high purpose, with long white beard and slow tread, observed by
all who had leisure to observe, known of all who cared to
know him, unmolested by the authorities, fearless, and
apparently careless, but mindful of the price that had
been set on his head, and armed against assault. He
was there to see his friends, collect resources, and make
final preparations for the enterprise on which his whole
heart had been set for twenty years. Theodore Parker
was then in the West Indies; the house in Exeter Street
was closed: but whether at Boston, at Santa Cruz, Montreux, Rome, the brave old man was never forgotten by
his friend. "Tell me," he asks from Rome, "how our
little speculation in wool goes on, and what dividend
accrues therefrom." No one more eagerly looked for
tidings of the bold adventure; no one more sincerely
regretted its failure; no one more faithfully bore witness




THE KANSAS WAR.                   463
to the mnagnanimity of the martyred man, more frankly
confessed his friendship for him, or his approval of his
deed.  Had he been at home, Music Hall would have
been filled with another crowd such as listened to the
sermon on "The New Crime against Humanity," and they
would have listened to another thrilling chapter on the
same theme.  How  he wished he were there! How he
fretted under the conditions that forbade his speaking his
word, and standing by his deed, and sharing the fortunes
of his friends! The Americans about him gladdened his
heart by expressions of approval of the gallant attempt;
but they only intensified his desire to unfold its deep
lessons to his countrymen at home, confused and staggered, and needing more than ever to be reminded of
eternal principles.
"No American has died in this century whose chance of
earthly immortality is worth half so much as John Brown's.
The ex-governors 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.
"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 by."
The year I857 was marked by a tremendous financial
convulsion, that covered the surface of the commercial
world with costly ruins.  Mr. Parker was not an unmoved
spectator of the calamity; but he was a clear-headed and
sound-hearted one.  The distress afflicted him: but he
was more interested in the causes of it than in the effects;




464             THEODORE PARKER.
and the causes he found in the general decay of personal
honor incident to the want of great religious ideas.  Society, to his view, was a unit, an organized whole, rejoicing and suffering equally, because sympathetically, in all
its parts.  The community which rejected the idea of a
higher law in politics could not be expected to acknowledge it in trade; nor could the men who apologized for
slavery in order to secure the profits of the Southern market be counted on to observe the highest rules of conscience in their commercial struggle for the wealth they
prized so highly.  The "panic," like the strife in Kansas
and the suppressed war in Washington, was the result of
false ideas of God and man.  The coming of it was inevitable, and might have been predicted: the lesson of it
was wholesome; the effect of it would be good; but the
spectacle of it was awful.  On the g9th of October, 1857,
he writes to Miss Hunt, —... Now a word about Boston and its affairs. There was
never so much mental suffering in any two months as in the
last five weeks. Think of men who never thought of want, except as the frooud angels think of suffering, -as something fit
only for the' lower classes,' - now left without a dollar! The
man who refused thirty thousand dollars for his house in Temple Place, when he wanted to sell before he went to Europe,
saw it knocked down at auction for nineteen thousand dollars.
Michigan State bonds, seven per cent, have gone down from
a dollar twenty-five to sixty-six cents. Our banks have been
forced to suspend specie payments. All property is depreciated. MIy income will not be half this year what it was last.
But' I still live;' only I shall buy no books; and it makes a
great gap in my charities.  Some banks will lose much on
failed paper.  After a kite has been broken to pieces, the
shreds are not worth much. I believe scarcely any house has
failed in Boston which ought not to have failed before. One
firm had a nominal capital of two million dollars; but four hundred thousand dollars was never paid in, and they owed that to
the banks, and never paid, but kept renewing their notes. An



THE KAr SAS WAR.                      465
other had only five hundred thousand dollars, but business to
the amount of three million or four million dollars, it is said,
It is not fair to fly other men's paper on so frail a kite.
" Business stops: that is the great calamity. It is hard to see
great estates thus changing hands; but, though it impoverishes
John to enrich Timothy, it leaves the nation just as rich as before. But the nation itself grows poor when its labor stops.
The property of Massachusetts is, say, at the inflated prices of
last July, one billion dollars, - a tenth part of the worth of all
the real and personal property of the Union: her annual earnings
are, at least, a third as much, -three hundred and thirty-three
million dollars. To stop the mills and shops, you see how soon
we should be poor.  Trade languishes.  Waterman, the dealer
in kitchen-furniture, commonly sells a hundred dollars' worth
in a day, in this month; but, in the six days of last week, he
took only fifty-nine dollars. A friend of mine, a jeweller, clears
commonly from four thousand to five thousand dollars a year;
but last week there were three days in which he did not take a
dollar.  In Lawrence there were three thousand five hundred,
in little Taunton one thousand five hundred, in Natick, in one
week, two hundred mzeI without work. A few years ago, none
would have thought it possible that a grand-daughter of old
-  and a grandson of old        would have been prevented
from marriage by poverty; but now, after the       s and the
-   s have both fallen in, the River Pactolus has not water
enough to float the little shallop with two lovers in it, — children of the streams, -' he this side, and she that.' So the little
skiff goes down the Pactolus empty and whelmed over, while
the lovers crawl to land wet and cold, -'he this side, and she
that side.' Hundreds of marriages will thus cruelly be prevented. Paper-money has a good deal to answer for; for it is
that which causes most of the mischief. There is a hundred
million dollars' worth of French goods now in New York which
will be taken back to Paris.  No market for your flowers now,
Mr. Crapaud. The artificial flowers in the man-milliner's windows, corner of Summer and Chauncy Streets, look wilted:
there is no gum or starch will keep their spirits up in these
times.
"' But no more of this. The country is full of bread and cloth.
We have two hundred and fifteen millions of bank-bills, fifty



466              THEODORE PARAKER.
three millions of specie in the banks, and perhaps a hundred
and sixty millions more of specie in private hands.  By and by
all the prostrate' firms' will be up; money will be easy; business will begin again; Pactolus will rise; the lover will swim out
and right the little skiff, and take the maiden in; and then the
two will row the shallop together for many a happy day, — so
they will. God bless them!
1'...'Defalcations' continue, of course; for the doctrine
of no'higher law' must produce its effects.  You can never
esc:pfe the conseqzences of a first frinciile.  I think you have
heard me say that before. What a terrible logic there is in human affairs! No reasoner is so consequential as mankind. I
think we shall learn much from this crisis; and to the community it will be worth all it costs the individuals. But it is painful to see the soldiers who get wounded in this battle of industry. Often these are the best men in the community. There
is —, the founder of WVarren-street Chapel,'has done
more,' a merchant told me,'for the rising generation, than any
ten churches in Boston;' and at the age of sixty he is left
without a cent."
In another letter to the same correspondent, dated Boston, Nov. i6, 1857, he moralizes on the event in his usual
comprehensive and exhaustive manner:"... Great pains will be taken to do all that charity can do.
Impostors are already abroad to feed their lazy bones on the
charity of self-denying, honest people. I hate lazy people, and
should (perhaps) see an idle Irishwoman starve and die with
no compunction at all. But to those who would earn, and spare
also, I open my heart. We have the old charitable societies acting with new vigor, and also a committee of gentlemen who are
to devise new experiments. Yankees are ingenious. What we
want is work. This time of trouble will make some men consider of the chaotic condition of our social system, this antagonistic coinetifiozn in place of co-opferative industry; and by and
by a better state of things will come. Man is not yet far
enough advanced to work in an harmonious organization: only
self-love can now command the labor of this savage animal.
But he grows wiser and better. Now not a word more of this,




THE KA NSAS WAR.                    467
What an odds you must find between the Italians and the
Germans! This difference of race appears in all the action of
a people, - in its literature, art, architecture, music, painting,
sculpture, science, and especially in its government.
"There are inferior races which have always borne the same
ignoble relation to the rest of men, and always ~wil. For
two generations, what a change there will be in the condition and
character of the Irish in New England! But, in twenty generations, the'negroes will stand just where they are now; that is, if
they have not disappeared.  In Massachusetts there are no
laws now to keep the black man from any pursuit, any office,
that he will: but there has never been a rich negro in New
England; not a man with ten thousand dollars, perhaps none
with five thousand dollars; none eminent in any thing except
the calling of a waiter. Now imagine two thousand average
Yankees set down in Constantinople or Canton with entire freedom for all manner of activities, -all the prizes of commerce,
literature, art, science, politics, before them. How long do you
think Jonathan would be a bootblack or a waiter? How long
before the Turkish or Chinese money would be in Jonathan's
pocket, and all the prizes of civilization in his hands? Not two
generations would pass over before this terrible Yankee superiority would appear in the facts of history. That is the strongest case which can be found of national difference. But Germany and Italy present a striking example of it. The blueeyed Germans have been masters in Italy for nearly eleven
hundred years. I mean Rome has been subject, more or less,
to Germany, ever since the Gothic conquest and Odoacer's
sack of Rome in A.D. 476. The two people have been side
by side, running the race of power. What an odds between
them! In those Italian countries where the Germans mixed
their blood with the old populations, there came up adventurous
mariners, who opened the way to the new worlds of the East
and the WVest; and Gothic architecture got planted there. But
at Venice, Florence, Milan, the religious tree of the Germans
could never reach the vast height and wonderful proportions it
shot up to, spontaneous, in its native North, where the breath
of the people gave life to its great stem, and individuality to
every leaf. The rich buildings of these cities are a compromise
of the German and the Italian mind.




468              THEODORE PARKER.
"At the time of the revival of letters, say I400 to 1500,
see what a different turn the two nations took! The classic
authors of Greece and Rome came back to both. The Italians took to art, painting, sculpture, and rested in objective
beauty. It satisfied them, or most of them. Michael Angelo
was never content with that: all he ever did (except his David)
indicates a yearning after something higher and better than objective art. But quite soon that uplifting of the soul which
appears in old Italian art; that struggle with the flesh, and
yearning after God, so apparent in the pre-Raphael artists, and
which they had caught from their contact with the austere
spirit of medieval Christianity hovering over the land, - all
this disappears. Italy settles down into content with objective,
actual beauty. No more deep thinkers; no more grand poets;
not a great preacher in the Italian Church. The spread of
knowledge woke nothing deeper: it provoked no revival of
religion; nay, it woke no love of liberty, which once created
great men. All her great minds - they were born fast enough
-turned off to material science, and then did not dare claim
the great freedom they knew was their birthright. Galileo, on
his knees confessing a lie to men who also knew it was a lie
he confessed, is a representative picture of Italy.
"Now look at the Germans. Charlemagne, a great German,
a Frank, sought to found schools. Rabanus Maurus begins to
organize popular education among his countrymen in 804.
The spark they kindled became a fire which always smouldered
in the German forest, and sometimes broke out into a light
blaze. By and by a German has invented printing; and, before long, there are presses in all the great German towns;
yes, Germans printing in all the great IrZalian towns, and some
of the little ones, like Aquila and Soncino. When the revival
of letters takes place in Germany, there is a revival of religion
along with it. Men turn inward their eye, and ask not mere
beauty, but also truth and piety.
"Since then-say since I5I7 - what a difference in Italy
and Germany! One believes in salvation by the nasquerading
of the Church, by the ritual which the priests say over in Latin;
the other in salvation through faith in Christ, -an internal
matter, personal to each believer. There is vicarious suffering,
but no vicarious faith.




THE KA1SA1S WAR.                    469
"Luther was a good type of Germany, - immensely strong
in power of instinct, reflection, will, but rough and uncultivated;
Leo. X. a good type of Italy, - of noble birth, supple, astute,
deceitful, given to lies, licentious, atheistic, effeminate in all
things, an amateur even in his lust, not capable of strong,
manly love.
" Since then, look at the men who have come of the Teutonic
stock!- Bacon, Leibnitz, Newton, Locke, Hume, Kant, Hegel,
Shakspeare, Milton; not to name their equals, but in other departments of thought. What has Italy to show?  Look at the
mass of the Teutonic people in Germany, Scandinavia, AngloSaxondom, and compare them with the fifteen million Italians.
Compare the light wit of the two nations, - the Pasqztinades of
Italy with the Reineke Fzuches and the Narren Schi fs of old time,
or the Puzich/ and KI/adderadatsch of our own day; and in these
little grimaces of the people you see the frivolity of the Italian
slave, and the grim earnestness of the Teutonic freeman.
"Look at the Italians and Germans in America, and see what
a difference! The Italian is a trader, a musician; while the
German is a professor in the college. How deeply rooted these
things are! Ineffaceable is the difference.
"I like not much the modern German art: it is rich in technical skill; poor in artistic life. It is an imitation of an imitation.
I refer to the Dusseldorf school as the typical example. But
go back to the German art which came out of the less-cultivated
men, like Albrecht Durer, Cranach, and the like, and you see
these men, all full of the yearning after noble things, with
their pencil seek to translate the instinct of the people into artistic expression.
" Compare Beethoven's or Mozart's music with Rossini's or
Verdi's, and you hear and feel what elsewhere you see and think.
"The Germans just now are charged with atheism: so are
the men of science in England and America; that is, the men
who think. Certainly they are full of doubt. But what a
difference between the atheism of grim, resolute thought, and
that of easy indifference!  nay, between the atheism which is
only the failure of a great, earnest endeavor, and the'belief'
of a man who don't care enough to think whether the priest
tells truth or no! The credo of a fool is not worth the abnego
or dzubito of a man."
4o




470              THEODORE PARKER.
When, two years later (in I859), the Pemberton Mill at
Lawrence, Mass.,- a vast structure many stories high,
fell, causing great loss of life, he reflected thus on the
catastrophe in a letter from Rome to his friend Mr.
Manley:" What a ghastly affair was that at Lawrence! -nearly as
many killed and wounded as the Americans lost at Bunker
Hill. These 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 consequence, 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 ye 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. They did the best they
knew, risking their money and reputation on the factory. They
certainly constructed ill. The walls of this house I live in are
thicker in the fifth story than the Pemberton Mills in the first,
and solid too. Americans are careless, and must suffer unti
they learn prudence. Conform to natural law, and it shall be
well with thee: that is the language of all'accidents.'"
In this general connection we may read another letter
to Miss Hunt, from Boston, bearing date June 3, I858:" DEAR SARAH, - I have just read your sweet little letter
of May 13, full of profound and just remarks on English and




THRE KCA VSAS WAR.                  47I
American people. I quite assent to all you say of the English.
Their national pride is imnznzese; so is their Jersozal pride:
but, unlike the French and the Americans, they have little national vanity, little personal. Inzsolent they truly are as a nation
and as individuals, inzcaabie of apjreciatlfzZ oli/er zatiozzalities actd individualities.
"But, with all the faults of the Islanders, I like the creatures.
W\e are of the same stock, and have the same great problems
to work out in the civilization of mankind; viz.: I. To organize
the powers of Nature for the service of man; 2. To organize
the social powers of humanity, so as to have national unity of
action; 3. To develop the individual man into a great variety of
forms. These are the three great problems of civilization.
England and America work thereat side by side, both unconscious that they are factors in this great product of humanity.
I love the Germans. As a family of men, they do immense
service to mankind. They are not diffusive, but deep, - wells
dark, cool, mysterious (you can see stars from  their bottom
at noonday), never-failing; while the English are a wide lake,
full of green islands, varied in form, green with life, but zlot
deej,'  and the Americans are a river, never still, noisy and turbulent, dirty, but bearing fertility in this very mud which
troubles the stream; now spreading into rich lakes bigger than
the island which holds that British pond; now laughing in
waterfalls, which one day will turn the mills of all the world;
then flattening out into dull lagunes, where only the alligator
and the snapping-turtle can live, and watering marshes which
reek with slavery; then, anon, gathering its waters into one
deep, wide channel, where, laden with the fleets of commerce
going out and coming in, it flows tranquil on to the ocean,
whence all wells, lakes, and rivers are at first supplied, and
whither they all at last return.
" I don't like to judge Russia by the counts I meet at watering-places, with their seal-rings of Siberian gold on their forefingers, drinking the finest br    and passing their nights
in unmentionable riot, after buying flowers for some modest
English or French or German or Italian maiden they have
talked with by day in her own language, not well, but plain.
I would not measure Judaea by the Hebrew peddlers on the Rue
de Pots de Fee at Paris, or on the Exchange at London, Leipsic,




472              THEODORE PARKER.
or Amsterdam; and they are PLeddlers in all these places, whether
they cry,'Marchand de drai /' or loan money by the million
to Austria and France. I would not judge France, England,
Germany, America, by the creatures you meet at hotels, theatres, and watering-places, &c. But I look and see what Russia
has done in two centuries: what Judaea was in her glory, when
Rachel bore patriarchs and prophets, - a Moses, a David, an
Isaiah, a Jesus, and a Paul; nay, what she has done when all
other nations have hated her. I see what Germany has done
and is doing: I look at gunpowder, the printing-press, the
deepest service, the richest literature, the most symbolic and
suggestive art, in the world; a religion which produces a Luther, a Bohme, a Schleiermacher, which comes out in Leibnitz,
Kant, Hegel, Humboldt. I see what England has done for
human liberty and human law in a thousand years: I see the
immense spread of her stock in America, -we are bone of her
bone, flesh of hei' flesh, soul also of her soul, - in Asia, Africa,
and all the islands of the deep. I look at France, and see what
she once did for civilization from 700 to I6oo, and her influence
since in making the deep truths of science intelligible to all
thoughtful men, and her skill in all that pertains to the terrible
art of war and the graceful arts of pleasure: for France is a
CAT, the genteelest of all animals, with her pas de velozurs; and
the most ferocious, with her deceitful grife, and her wonderful
power of centralizing thought, law, and all authority. And for
these things I judge all nations. Poor Italy! poor Spain!
theirs is the fate of Asia Minor, of Egypt, - the dead nation:
no resurrection can lift it up.
"If England or France should possess Italy, there would be
a renewing life; but it would not be Italian, only inz Italy. As
when a young man, poor and vigorous, but with no honest
scruple, or with nature too much for conscience and will, marries an old rich woman, bed-ridden, but with wealthy crutches
to hold her up for the benediction of the priest (not to the fire
of the lover), she sees new life around, and hears the laugh,
ere long, of children not her own; so will it one day be with
Italy, so with Spain. It is a curious law of nature, - the strong
displaces the weak.
"In New England there are two natural grasses for the open
field,- the red-top and the white clover, both equally strong and




THE /KA NSAS WAR.                  473
vivacious. The farmner sows two other grasses together, - red
clover and l erds-grass,- the first a weak grass, the last a strong
one. The first year the field is red with clover, the herds-grass
does not appear; next year there are but bunches of red clover
here and there; the third year the strong herds-grass has killed
it all. But little by little the native grasses, stouter than what
he scattered there, come up, and in a few years have killed out
all the other from the soil. Thus the white man kills out the
red man and the black man. When slavery is abolished, the
African population will decline in the United States, and die out
of the South as out of Northampton and Lexington. It is
just so with youth and age in the market. Let a man of seventy
and a boy of twenty go into business in the same city, with the
same little capital: in five years the young man will run him
out of the market, and get away all his customers. So is it with
the nations."
The problem of American destiny was forever on his
mind:" I don't know but these Paddies are worse than the Africans
to the country. We made a great mistake in attracting them
-here, and allowing them to vote under less than twenty-one
years of quarantine. Certainly it would take all that time to
clean a Paddy, - on the outside, I mean: to clean him inwardly
would be like picking up all the sands of Sahara. There would
be nothing left when the sands were gone.
"It is amazing, the corruption of America! Power is always
abused in Church or State. One of the most sensible men I
know said to me the other day,'It makes me think we have
made a mistake; that we had better have a nobilitary class, who
are above these bitter squabbles about office and money, and
also a queen-bee in the hive, as still in England:' but added,'zj they would do any better.' But our safety consists in going
thro ugh this Red Sea of transition, not turning back to Egypt.
We shall go through, not without manifold trouble. Guizot
says,'God has made the terms of national welfare more difficult than any nation is willing to believe.' How true it is! But
these are yet the easiest conditions which are possible to infinite
perfection.... Sumner never took so deep an interest in
America, was never so regardless of personal consequences, as
4o0




47.4              THEODORE PARKER.
now."  (This was written in December, IS857.)  " The age never
needed him more. I seldom  covet any man's position: I am
quite satisfied with my own. But I should like to be in the
United-States Senate this winter. I should like to make four
speeches, - on Kansas and its affairs, on the national conduct
towards feeble States, on the Dred Scott decision, and on the
general conduct of the Federal Government for the last dozen
years. But I should rather Sumner would do it than I; rather
any one would do it. I want it done; and, lacking a better,
would do my possible. Don't think I desire such a place, or
would accept it were it offered. There is only one position in
fancy which I should prefer to the present one; that is, a great
quiet house in the country a few miles off, where I could write
the books which still burn in my brain. Perhaps I shall have
it one day; but who knows? I think' circumstances' are wiser
than I; certainly stronger."
As early as i844, he wrote from Rome to a friend, Mr.
J. H. Billings of West Roxbury, -
A" I think we live in a time when it is a man's DUTY to attend
to political affairs. If good men neglect their country, the bad
will have it all to themselves, and a sad time we shall have of it.
We certainly have much to fear; not so much from a tariff party
or an anti-tariff party as from an ignorant people and corrupt
leaders. The strength of the country is such, and the energy
of the people so great, where such opportunities are left for
individual freedom and enterprise, that neither John Tyler nor
John Calhoun could do us any great harm in four years; but,
unless we become a wiser people and a more moraZ people, we
may give over the dream of governing ourselves, and be ruled
by bayonets and a despot.  The little I can do to aid the
country, therefore, will be rather in attempting to promote educatiolz - intellectua, moral, and religions education - everywhere, and for all men, than in joining in the measures of either
party."
To Miss Hunzt.
MARCH 23, 1858.... The Devil of slavery now manifests himself in great
wrath because he knows that his power is short. Banks says




THE KANSAS WAR.                     475
there is not a politician he knows in the South who thinks
slavery will last forty years in any slave State.  But how the
government fights for it! how the hunkers at the North! No
foolish mother ever more seriously turned off her only son, and
cuddled her monkey close to her breast. If we behave well, by
the 4th of July, 1876, we shall extirpate slavery from South
Carolina, its last stronghold. I don't believe we shall ever see
another slavery President.
JULY 12, I858.... The slave power pushes things on rapidly. In Virginia
the court decides that a slave has no legal rights to choice. A
woman left money to her slaves on condition that they would be
emancipated by their conzsert. The court decided against the
will: so the slaves get neither freedom nor money. Louisiana
has just passed a law forbidding free blacks to come in, and
banishing all who are there now against the law. If they are
found after July, I859, they are to be sold as slaves forever.
Soon they will attempt to re-enslave all the free blacks.  Great
efforts are making to restore the African slave-trade. Hundreds
of American vessels are in it now: the government does nothing against them; will do nothing. THE END DRAWS NEAR.
But some contingency may alter things. In 1856 we were quite
close to a civil war. Had the governor of Kansas done as he
was bid, and nzot resigned, and taken the free-State side, the war
would have begun then. I think we shall never see another
slave President. Still I may easily be mistaken. I should like,
of all things, to see an insurrection of the slaves. It must be
tried many times before it succeeds, as at last it nmzst.
He was thinking, when he penned that sentence, of John
Brown and his enterprise, of which he thinks a good deal,
but dares say nothing, even to these most intimate of his
friends in Europe. In all his letters the name is not once
mentioned; nor would any suspect that his thoughts were
so full of the man from whom he hoped so much. Parker
knew how to keep a secret.
From the _ournal.
"We understand a little of the evils of war; only a little:
the evils of wicked legislation in times of peace we know less




476             THEODORE PARKER.
of. The English corn-laws in thirty years retarded the progress of mankind in that country more than all the wars of
Napoleon. In America the legal continuance of the slavetrade for twenty years, from I787 to ISo8, cost more lives than
all our wars for a hundred years. The wicked compromise
made by the Constitution in I787 has more retarded the nation
than all other causes put together. It has cost more lives than
all the wars of Napoleon; yet what good did men purchase by
it? "
" Men wonder I am ill: I marvel not;
For the sad sense of human woe is deep
Within my heart, and deepens daily there.
I see the want, the woe, the wretchedness,
Of smarting men, who wear, close pent in towns,
The galling load of life. The rich, the poor,
The drunkard, criminal, and they that make
Him so, and fatten on his tears and blood,I bear their sorrows, and I weep their sins:
Would I could end them! No: I see before
My race an age or so; and I am sent
For the stern work, to hew a path among
The thorns, - I take them in my flesh, - to tread
With naked feet the road, and smooth it o'er
With blood. Well, I shall lay my bones
In some sharp crevice of the broken way.
Men shall in better times stand where I fell,
And journey, singing on in perfect bands,
Where I have trod alone, no arm but God's,
No voice but his. Enough! - his voice, his arm."




CHAPTER XVII.
FAILING HEALTH.
THE accumulation of work on Theodore Parker had by
this time become immense; for the new tasks never displaced old ones. All he had done he continued doing,
quickening his speed as the road lengthened, and bracing
his shoulders as the burden increased. The studies were
continued, and under less merciful conditions.  The
books went in a satchel with him to the trains. All day
he read in the jostling car, the motion and noise whereof
caused an unnatural irritability of brain; and at night,
by the help of a little apparatus he had, the scholar's
toil was continued. The sermons were written as conscientiously, and under severer sense of responsibility.
His lectures, which were meant to edify and instruct,
never to amuse, cost him a world of labor in preparation,
and great fatigue in delivery. The parish-work-visiting the sick, comforting the afflicted, burying the deadwas done faithfully, with broken heart of spikenard, very
precious, poured out on the feet of the humblest. To
weep with the weeping, and rejoice with the rejoicing, was
to him a ministerial privilege he never wished to forego,
or delegate to others; and his parish included, beside
those who regularly attended service at Music Hall, a
multitude of strangers who had no claim on him but that
of their need, and who hastened to lay their loads, not at
his feet, but on his shoulders. He considered himself
477




478             TIHEODORE PARKER.
appointed "minister at large of all fugitive slaves in Boston."  How he discharged that ministry we have seen.
In special cases his attention was unremitted. Hours
were set apart every day for offices of help and sympathy.
He multiplied himself with multiplying cares; he spread
himself with the spreading field.
It is a common opinion that Mr. Parker sank exhausted
from overwork. This is incidentally, but only incidentally, true.  But for terrible overwork, he might have lived
to be an old man. But for the exposure to which a part of
his work (lecturing, for instance) subjected him, he probably
would have reached seventy-five or eighty.  Still his archenemy was not toil: he worked easily. Intellectual labor
was a joy to him: it cost him more to suspend it than to
pursue it. Toil was a necessity of his being, a law of his
constitution. To stop his engines damaged them. Then
-after he reached mature life at least-his habits were
mainly wholesome.  He was temperate, but no ascetic, in
eating or drinking. He did not keep inordinately late
hours.  He was fond of walking; and, in the season for it,
took long walks, - made journeys on foot into the country
and to the mountains. His animal spirits were high:
he could laugh and jest to the last. The blood was swift
in his veins. In his youth he had great strength: he was
always powerful in his arms and legs. In the postscript
to a note to his friend T. W. Higginson, dated March,
I858, he says, —
"Let the saints (at Worcester) always keep good bodies.
Do you know I could once carry a barrel of cider in my hands?
I don't mean a glass at a time, - I could do that now, -but a
barrel at a time. I have worked (not often, though) at farmwork twenly hozurs out of the twenty-four, for several days
together, when I was eighteen o.r twenty. I have often worked
from twelve to seventeen hours a day in my study for a considerable period; and could do that now: so you were not
wholly wrong in putting me among the able-bodied men."




FAILIN;G HTEALT.                  479
Still there was a radical source of weakness: there was
inherited disease. His mother was consumptive. The
climate of his birthplace was unhealthy. He grew up amid
the disadvantages of poverty, — insufficient and unsuitable food and clothing, privation, and premature labor.
His boyish strength was frightfully overtaxed.  He knew
and was told nothing of the necessity of sleep, exercise,
recreation: so that he grew up thoughtless of the simplest
conditions of physical health j so ignorant of them, that
he fancied he could live at Cambridge on two crackers a
day, and actually tried to live on something like it. It is no
wonder that his latent foes were re-enforced: that the citadel held out so long is the marvel. Confessions of ill
health appear early in the journal. The trouble was
mainly in the head, though sometimes in the side.  He
calls it dyspepsia, "or something else."  He complains of
useless days and weeks when he could  do  nothing.
Among the letters to Miss Stevenson I find this one,
dated Feb. 23, I846: —
" I was sorry the moment that I mentioned my complaint to
you the other day; for I saw that it gave you more trouble than
me. I don't often tell my friends that I am ill: then, I know
not how, I felt it would be wi'onZg not to tell you. I have done
no work that I could avoid. I have been idle this winter, till my
conscience rebuked me sternly, and does now. I am passing
my best days, and doing but very little. My troubles are not
the result of any imme'diate overdoing, but of causes that go
back to my childhood. I have often done two days' work in
one; for I was oblz'ged to do it. It cost me a struggle, alone
and single-handed, to gain an education. The foundation of
my present troubles, I have no doubt, was laid more than fifteen
years ago, -before I came to Boston as a teacher. Since that,
my life has been one of care and anxiety, not diminished since
my marriage. You know the cause. I don't know what to
do. So long as I can stand upright, I do well: the moment I
resolve to lean a little, I go plumb down; for there is nothing
for me to lean upon: therefore I never fall till the last minute.




480             THEODORE PARKER.
I will be as careful as I can be, considering the circumstances
of the case. I can't go off a fortnight, though I gladly would.
We are just putting the social meetinzg into action: and I feel
that I had better be here; though, perhaps, I had better not.
Then, too, whom can I get to bend my own bow? - not a long
one, not a tough one, perhaps, but one that others don't like to
handle. I don't know whether I am destined to a long life or
not. Of my seven father Parkers this side the ocean, all but
one have lived to be nearly eighty. My candle stands in a current of air, and so, I suppose, will burn away faster than if all
about it was still. I don't know that I need rest: I think I
need fun, which I can't easily get. I should like to spend one
evening in the week, for three months, with'good fellows,'
who sang,We won't go home till morning!'
However, give yourself no more concern about me; for this
week I am a good deal better. Last week I did nothing at all, -
not even write a sermon; for an old one took its place the
stormy Sunday: and so the ill wind actually blew me a sermon. Ah, Hannah! a great many ill winds have blown mne
good.
" Now, you child, I might turn round and caution yosu, who
need the advice more than I do, but won't follow it half so
much, you good-for-nothing!'Physician, heal thyself;' take
thine own doses. There is no preaching like practice. Cure up
Margaret as fast as you can, and I'll take care of my head;
and it will last a good while yet, and bear some hard knocks.
The spring will soon come; and its freshness of leaves and
blossoms will do as much good to all of us as to the bluebird and
thrasher. Be a good girl, and don't trouble yourself about
"YOUR GRANDFATHER."
In September, i849, he constructs a health-scale, thus:"When able to write the sermon Monday morning, A.
"6'~    "9  "4  "9    "a  evening, -.
49"    "   "    "    "   Tuesday morning, B.
o  "       "    "    "       " D'   evening, a.
And so on, - C, D, E, F. If not at all,          o."




FAILING HEALTH.                   48 
From the 7ournal.
Saturday, Sept. 8.- Have done little all the week. Health
F: this is too near an approach to 0 for this season of the year.
I have not begun this month so ill for some years. If I had
one of the usual humzdrum parishes, I would leave it for a year,
and go off to Europe; but this is a parish which I cannot leave.
I feel as if I had squandered a fortune; for, at the age of thirtynine, I am ill, and lose more than half my time. For the next
six months I will take especial care of my health, making all
else bend to that, and that to nothing.
Saturday, Sept. 22. - Health about B.
The journal of Aug. 24, i853, contains a birthday record  -
" I am this day forty-three years old. I used to think I should
live as long as my fathers; but certain admonitions of late warn
me that I am not to be an old man. The last three years have
made great alterations in my health and vigor. I walk and work
now with a will; then by the spontaneous impulse which once
required the will to check it. I neither grieve nor rejoice at the
thought of departure; but I will try to set my affairs in such a
condition, that I can at any time go over to the other side when
summoned, and leave affairs in no perplexity."
Already he had begun to count his chances. He
bethought himself of his ten brothers and sisters, all of
whom, save one, attained mature years; all of whom, save
one, died from forty-four to forty-seven. He kept his eye
on that critical period, doubting whether he should pass
it; confident that, if he did, he should live to be an old
man.
The journal of April, I856, has another record:" 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
4I




482             THEODORE PARKER.
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 warninz, - not the first."
To Miss Hunt, on the 3oth of November of the same
year, he writes,"I hope that Sarah does not stay a prisoner in her room.
There are two admirable doctors; to wit, Dr. SUN and Dr.
AnR. Both, I think, will do that little maiden a deal of good;
and she need not take their prescription *homnweoj5alicaiiy.  I
preached two Sundays:
" I. On needless sickness, &c.
" 2. On the progress of the Anglo-Saxons in three hundred
years (a sermon on the three-hundredth anniversary of Queen
Elizabetlh's accession to the British throne). It is a great triumph we have made since that day.
" Then the Catholics had the hall for a fair; and we must
shut up on Thanksgiving Day and last Sunday. It happened
famously this time; for I was not able to preach. I strained the
muscles of my right thigh in getting into the railroad-cars on
Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving; and came home in a
bad condition. I have not been down stairs since Thanksgiving morning to breakfast, but stay here; wear the Bear's petticoats, &c.; but am mending, and shall preach next Sunday on
the progress which the foremost ideas of humanity will make
in the next three hundred years. The last sermon was one of
memory and gratitude: the next will be of duty and hope.
" Many thanks for all your kind words, both of you, and your
kind wishes. I am the most submissive of all mortals. I do
just what the doctor (Cabot) and Bear and Hannah tell me. I
am transfigured into a spaniel, a turnspit, a poodle, or some
other puppy-dog, with no self-moving principle in him. So don't
advise Bear to'consult RAREY. She could teach iziz many a
lesson in the art of man-taming. I never expect to name myself again.
" My health is good; but I can't walk much, and have a cough,
- not ipuzmonic, - which is going off. I can preach without
any difficulty; but I don't go about much. Have been in State
Street but once for nine weeks, and made but one parish visit




FAILING H7EAL TH.                 483
for nine, - then to see the sister of Mrs. Fisher: the old lady
has moved up and on. So, of course, I have not seen Cabot,
who has taken his wife out to Brookline; nor Mr. Waterston.
Just now I can't write much: so you get little, and others
nought.
" Willie writes a nice German Wunmder-story; but I had rather
hear that he had knocked down a Dutch boy of twelve, and
could throw any boy in his class. The lad wants bowels, legs,
arms, and chest,' not a head. I tremble at the thought of that
school, - thirty-four boys in the class, and he fourth or fifth!
I wish he was tending cows somewhere, and not studying so
much.
" The cod-liver oil from the Laffoden Isles is rancid before it
reaches us. The best we get is made at Provincetown - which
lasts from March to September — and at Labrador, which is
made in October, and keeps through the winter. None is good
more than four or five months. I am taking the Labrador.
All the house is well, and we all send love.
" God bless you!                " T."
This, then, is his condition in the thick of the Kansas
strife, with all that pressure of anxiety on his mind.  To
Miss Hunt he writes again on the I7th of December,-'I am as busy as the apostle who had'no leisure; no, not
so much as to eat.' I wonder if St. Peter had not some dear
little family off in Siberia or Australia, with a hippopotamus in
it, which he must write to by the next steamer from Joppa, or
by the Turkish mail-line, or the Jerusalem and Kamtschatka
express?
"I am lecturing all the time: twenty-five lectures since the
Ist of November, and perhaps fifty more under contract. All
this keeps me up late, and makes me work hard, which you know
I dislike. In January and February I shall go several times
to New-York State, having some twenty or more applications.
So, perhaps, I shall continue to do till I am $ffty; and after
August, IS6o, I intend no longer to live such an apostolical, nomadic, and unchristian life, but to sit down and write my books,
which cry out for me to make them ready. But who knows?




484             THEODORE PARKER.
It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. Some acci.
dent may stop the lecturing to-day, or something else make it
necessary to continue the toil till I am a hundred. Poverty,
like an armed man, may come upon me in my old age as on
Pierpont, and stir me up to work when I would rather lie down
and sleep. But, as the sky now promises no such storm (I
should have said tzreatenzs), I lay plans of a different sort.'There's nothing sure but death and rates,' say the Scotch:
so who knows that I86o will bring the long-coveted opportunity
to write my books?"
It would seem as if he were determined it should not:
for, early in this very year (I856), he undertook to preach
on Sunday afternoons to an independent society in Watertown that had no minister; and he did it for a year, with
no other compensation than the thanks of the people and
the amount of his bill at the stable. The service he enjoyed, and he wrote no new sermon; but the journey in
all weathers he had no right to submit to, and the duty was
a tax on his conscientiousness.  " Work while it is day"
was the rule he went by, forgetting that too much work
brought on the night before its time. To friends who
remonstrated with him he would reply, "Look at the condition of the country to-day! -'ie slaveholders clamoring for more and more power; the government disposed to
yield all they ask; the South united and arrogant; while
the North is divided, and disposed to be submissive. I
CANNOT stand idly by, a silent witness of this deadly
demoralization. I must exert every power I possess to
avert the awful evils that slavery threatens, to the slaves
first, but also to the whole people; and, if my life must
be sacrificed, it cannot be sacrificed in a better cause than
that. of opposition to this dreadful sin."
To a faithful soul who came to see him not long before
he broke down he said with emotion,
"I am glad youz have come; for I know you won't scold at me.
People come here and scold at me for doing what I can't help




FAIL ING HEALTH.                  485
doing. I feel that the fate is upon me. God has intrusted me
with certain powers, and I must use them in the service of my
fellow-men. Here are four millions of my brothers and sisters
who are literally dumb. They are not allowed to speak; and
they hold up their hands to me in earnest entreaty, saying,
Speak for us!'and I must do for them  all I can. I have
looked the matter carefully over, and think I can go through the
winter safely, and do my work. I come of a long-lived stock,
and hope with care to survive; but it matters little whether I go
through or go under, if I do my duty as I ought."
"Never," said his friend, " did I see any one so thoroughly aware of the fact that he was laying his life on God's
altar."
Still he did the best he could, or thought he could. The
summer of I856 was spent delightfully in the near neighborhood of very dear friends whom he was not to see for
three years, but whom he met himself in Europe before
they had expired. Many an evening of that summer he
passed on the lawn with them, and was in his happiest
vein. Every star as it came out in the heavens, the stray
odors from the ground, the chirp of cricket and grasshopper, the cry of the startled bird in the chestnut-grove, all
sights and sounds, were noted by his quick senses, and
woven into his wonderful talk. On the last evening, as he
said "Good-by! " he begged for the "Moorish cushion"
he had sat on these moonlight or starlight evenings, and
took it away as a memorial, ahnd to sit on " sacramentally"
after his friends had gone. A touch of his heartstrings
always revived him.
In the August of this same summer (I856) he writes to
Miss Stevenson,
" For now a week I have had time — the first for a year or
two - to read for general instruction and for immediate delight.
Guess how I enjoyed it! Kuno Fischer, Diotima (a' Treatise
on Beauty'), and half a dozen volumes of Vogt, with a'Vie de
Pierre Ramus' by Waddington, and a (very stupid and hypo4I*




486             TI7EODORE PARKER.
critical) work on' La Vie Future' by M. Martin, with divers
others, have been the results thus far. Here is unbounded
stillness and repose; nothing to molest."
Light reading to rest the mind!
About this time he amused himself with making translations from German poets; his favorite being Heine, the
most difficult of all to render. It was his habit, late on
the Sunday afternoons of a single winter and spring, to
go to a friend's house in Mt. Vernon Street to hear and
read the translations. He took great pains with these
trifles; wrote them over and over again; seemed never
tired of improving them; prided himself more on their
artistic perfection than on much better work; desired that
the choicest of them  should be preserved, with his name
attached to them.  Specimens of this light work Mr.
Weiss has printed in his second volume.  The very best
of all I venture to reprint here:Oh! knew but the blossoms, the wee things,
How deep I am wounded at heart,
They'd mingle their tears with my weeping,
And charm away my smart.
And did but the nightingales know it
That I'm sad and sick so long,
They would joyfully come and sing me
A life-awakening song.
And if they could know all my sorrows,
The dear gold-starlets we see,
They would all come away from their glory,
And comfort speak to me.
But all of them can't understand it:
One only she knows of my smart;
For it was she herself rent asunder,
Asunder rent, my heart.




FAILING HEALTH.                    487
This is pretty: —
On the pinions of the Muses,
My dearest, thee I bear
To the banks of holy Ganges,
Where I know the spot most fair.
II.
A rosy blooming garden
Lies in still moonlight there:
The lotus-flowers are waiting
Their little sister dear.
III
The violets are billing and cooing,
And look to the stars above;
In secret the roses whisper
Their fragrant story of love.
IV.
There comes to leap and listen
The shy and cunning gazelle;
And far on the holy river
The waters rush and swell.
V.
There'neath a palm we'll lay us,
Beside the holy stream,
And drink of love and quiet,
And dream a blessed dream.
The following version of " The Midnight Review" compares fairly with the usual renderings of that famous
poem, and shows what he could do:I.
About the hour of midnight
The drummer leaves his grave;
Makes with the drum his circuit;
Goes up and down so brave;




488             THEODORE PARKER.
II.
And with his arm all fleshless
Goes drumming through and through:
He beateth many a roll-call,
Reveille, and tattoo.
III.
The drum resoundeth strangely;
It has a heavy sound:
The old deceased soldiers
Waken thereat in the ground.
IV.
They who in high Northland,
All stiff in ice and snow;
Those in Italia sleeping,
The ground too rich below;
V.
They whom the Nile slime covers,
And the Arabian sand, -
They rise from out their war-graves,
And their weapons take in hand.
VI.
About the hour of midnight
The trumpeter leaves his grave,
And bloweth on his trumpet,
And up and down rides brave.
VII.
Those serving on airy horses,
The riders dead, behold!
The bloody ancient squadrons
With weapons manifold.




FAILING HEALTH.                   489
VIII.
There the white skulls all grinning
Beneath the helms appear;
And hands of bone and sinew
Long troopers' swords uprear.
IX.
About the hour of midnight
The commander leaves his grave
From far he cometh hither:
Round him his staff rides brave.
x.
He wears a little chat5eau;
A simple dress he wears;
Also a little straight sword
At his left side he bears.
XI.
The moon, her light, pale yellow,
Shines on the long, wide plain:
The man in the small chafeau
Looks on his troops again.
XII.
The ranks present saluting,
And shoulder then no gun:
With playful sound of trumpet
The whole host marches on.
XIII.
The generals and marshals
Around him form a ring:
To the nearest the commander
A word is whispering.




490              THEODORE PARKER.
XIV.
That word goes round the circuit,
Resounding near and far:
And " France!" is now the watchword;
The countersign, " St. Helena!"
xv.
This is the mighty muster
In the Elysian Plain,
Which at the hour of midnight
The emperor holds again.
To Miss Hunt.
BosToN, Sept. 4, I857.
MY DEAR SARAH, —My summer vacation draws nigh its
end. I shall begin to preach again Sept. 6.
I have spent the last seven Weeks in the most strenuous
attempts to be intellectually idle. It is true, I have not all the
common helps thereto. I don't drink to excess, or drive fast
horses. More than morally, I am materially opposed to smoking, with a constitutional objection to the laziness-producing
weed. I keep no bad company. I don't sit in easy-chairs or
rocking-chairs. What helps could I have? I have industriously read the Boston newspapers, - the "' Courier," "' Journal,"
"Traveller," "Transcript," &c.; and three times have attended
church on Sundays. The result is, I never lived so many weeks
with so little thought. I have done what I could to effect a cure.
If I fail, it must be a vice of my nature, no sin of my will. The
doctors (and doctoresses) recommended total abstinence from
thought. I have come as near it as the "carnal reason " of my
"fallen nature " will allow.
Now I shall begin to think a little, and gradually come back
to a little more, and so on. I shall lecture but little this winter;
never when I am forced to ride all night, or sleep in a bad bed.
There is a deal of writing to be done; and this winter I shall
attend to that partly, and partly to acquiring firm and robust
health. My nature never consented to this nomadic life of a
lecturer, running all over the country, and sleeping in other




FAIL ING HEA L TH.                49 I
men's beds (or in no beds, and often not sleeping). But it
gave me the means of charity, and an opportunity to publish
certain thoughts which I think of value to the people. Hereafter I shall be content with the pulpit and the press, and let the
lecture go; at least, for a time.
The visit to Central New York was fatal. It was
made in February, I857. Thus he tells the story: —
" Feb. 9th, I was to lecture at Waterford; Ioth, at Syracuse;
Ith, at Utica; I2th, at Rochester; and then return, and reach
Boston at midnight of I4th-Isth. I should pass every night in
my bed, except that of the I 2th. 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 inundation.
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 ioth, I felt a sharp pain
in my right side, not known before. I got to Syracuse that
night (Ioth) via Troy; lectured at Utica the I th; and at eleven,
P.M., took the cars for Rochester, and rode all night till five or
six 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 two or three, A.i., having waited for them three or four hours
in the dep6t; and reached Albany in time for the four, P.M.,
train, Friday; and got to Boston about two, 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."
To lfiss Hlunt.
BOSTON, April 7, 1857.
MY DEAR SARAH, - I have written but one letter with my
own hand for more than three weeks; and now my pen will
wabbie a little, do the best I can.
What a queer thing for me to be sick! I don't know that I




492              THEODORE PARKER.
ought to call it sick, though. But I was ailing a month before I
finally broke down. For a while I lay horizontally twenty-two
hours out of the twenty-four, then twenty-one, then twenty,
then nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, sixteen, fifteen; and yesterday I was out of the horizontal line eleven hours. I made up
my mind that one of the best medicines would be the usual
service of Sunday. The doctors all of them said'"No! " all
the laical and clerical friends said " No " and, with even more
emphasis, all the women.
But I thought, out of ten chances, there are seven that it will
do me good; only three for harm. So I made ready an old
sermon of integrity, adding a deal of new matter thereto. A
coach took Bear and me to the door; and with her help and a
cane I crawled into the house, and walked as bravely as I could
to the pulpit. I felt a little sinking of the heart as I looked at
the congregation, - about two thousand. But all the preliminary
services went off without difficulty.  I apologized for being
sick, and showed that it was not wholly my fault; but the nervous _oison I took in at East Albany had done the work.
Then came the sermon. I spread out my feet as far apart as
I could (old men and little children always straddle) to make a
wide basis, and kept my hand always on the desk, so that I need
not fall over. Only two or three times did I venture to lift both
hands at once. The services over, Mr. Manley and others put
on my coat; and Bear and Dr. Geist helped me out and into
the coach, and I rode home. My pulse is commonly about sixty-four: it stood at seventy-six to eighty-four till about three
o'clock; then went down. I felt a little doubtful of the experiment for a while: but at five the tide had begun to turn; and at
six I said I would not crow till I was out of the woods; and at
nine it was clear that the experiment had prospered; and Monday morning, spite of the southerly rain, which held all day, it
was plain to all that I was saved by the "foolishness of preaching." To-day I am a deal better, and shall be as careful and
prudent as the most cautious can desire.
The parish-meeting was last Sunday, at twelve. They raised
my salary from sixteen hundred to two thousand five hundred
dollars; and offered me six months' vacation to go to Europe,
they supplying the pulpit. I shall not take two thousand five
hundred, only two thousand dollars; and shall decline the gener



FAIL~NG HEAL TH.                  493
ous offer of a vacation. The kindly offer effects a cure; and so
I need not take all the medicine. I make day-dreams and nightdreams of the visit, and so get a good deal of solid satisfaction
out of it. But I don't need the relaxation, and so shall not take
it. This recent illness is a warning which I shall carefully
heed. I never came quite so near the edge of the precipice
before. I might have had either a brain-fever or a lung-fever:
I am let off with this trifle of a slow ypzoidal. Men seldom
have the yfi/ozid twice. I had mine at twelve, and lay at Death's
door a good while, but was not taken in.
At this juncture, his strength failing him, he was subjected to a fresh assault on his theological position.
Hitherto his ecclesiastical foes had mainly been members
of the Unitarian sect. His theological war had been waged
within the limits of a small denomination, which the great
religious world of New England had come to overlook as
a Boston clique, a local peculiarity too insignificant to be
regarded with alarm. Beyond an occasional twitting of
the Unitarians with their responsibility for Mr. Parker,
there was little serious concern taken in the family quarrel. But now the case was altered. Parker had a national reputation.  He lectured and preached throughout
the Northern States. His printed sermons were sold by
the thousand, and read by the ten thousand. Strangers
from afar came to hear him, and carried his thoughts all
over the land. His name was spoken in the places of
power by men who had the political and social destinies of
the country in their charge, - by statesmen, senators, governors of States. Reformers confessed him their leader;
philanthropists acknowledged him  their fellow  in good
works.  He was a formidable person in the community, an
invidious influence on the globe, quite worthy the attention
of those who had in their keeping the souls of men.  Had
not such been faithless to their duty in allowing him to run
wild so long? Was it not time that his course should be
checked? Had he not lived long enough, yea, too long,
42




494            THEODORE PARKER.
for the welfare of the elect?  To assassinate him was, of
course, out of the question. But if the Lord might only
be moved to take him to himself, sanctified or not! Might
He not be moved by entreaty?  A "providential interventiot.' would be as effectual as "carnal" methods used to
be, and would be edifying beside. Why should such intervelntions be discontinued?
The great "revival" of I858, resulting from the commercial ruin of I857, gave the desired opportunity for an
experiment.  New England was in a convulsion of religious emotion, torn between ecstasies of devotion and agonies of penitence. Pious whippers-in plied all their arts
on the weak, the nervous, the superstitious.  Praying
bands went from town to town, galvanizing the moribund
into spasms of supplication.  Churches were open all
day, and relays of ministers kept the evangelical car in
swift motion towards the kingdom. Posters in the streets
announced the time and place of special meetings for intercession. The drama of redemption was exhibited with
new scenery, and more imposing stage-effects. The good
people who had persuaded themselves that the reign of
vulgar superstition was at an end, at all events in Boston,
were confounded when they saw the well-worn imagery
of the Apocalypse start into life, and the faded pictures
of damnation glow once more on the walls of modern
meeting-houses. The fetishism they thought obsolete was
rampant still in high places. Men in black coats and
white neck-ties beat the tomtom as vigorously as NewZealanders, and called on their idol as lustily as the
priests of Baal.
Now, then, was the time to get rid of Parker. He was
weak, ailing, prostrate. A combined assault at this juncture, by the combined spirits of earth and heaven, might,
perchance, overthrow  him.  The word was given; the
faithful were ready; a simultaneous movement upon the
Holy Seat was made. That all the forces might be used,




FAILINVG  IEAL TI.                495
and no atom of momentum lost, it was recommended that
men and women, wherever they might be, - in the shop
or on the street, - should pray for Mr. Parker daily when
the clock struck one.  A few samples of these " addresses
to the throne of grace " will tell better than any description
the method and spirit of the evangelical tacticians. They
are taken from  the journal, where Mr. Parker had preserved them in connection with one or two other specimens of the superstition of the nineteenth century.
" O Lord! send confusion and distraction into his study this
afternoon, and prevent his finishing his labors for 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."
" 0 Lord! put a hook in this man's jaws, so that he may not
be able to speak."
" 0 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 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."
" 0 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."
"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 hand? "
The following prayer was offered by Elder Burnham,
who, in an afternoon sermon, said, —" Hell never vomited forth a more wicked and blasphemous
monster than Theodore Parker; and it is only the mercies of
Jesus Christ which have kept him from eternal damnation already."




496             THEODORE PARKER.
After such an outburst, the petition that follows has a
savor of tenderness:
" 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."
There were some who looked on the strong man's sickness as a judgment on him for his impiety; and some, it
is rumored, regarded it as an anticipative answer to the
prayers.
Mr. Parker took the nonsense pleasantly, so far as it
concerned himself. In a letter, after speaking of it, he
lets his thoughts run in other channels:"The robins have come; the blue-birds long ago. Give my
love to the pope. Don't tell the pope this (about the prayers);
for I fear I shall miss the cardinalship, and my black hat is
almost worn out. I think the robes will come over in'The
Leviathan.' "
But, as a sign of the times, the "revival " made him sad,
and stirred up within him  the theological zeal, which
never had wholly slept, but which had temporarily yielded
to a more practical " enthusiasm of humanity." The two
sermons, "A  False and True Revival of Religion," and
"The Revival of Religion which we Need," showed the
old fires still burning, their heat as fierce, their splendor
as awful, their beauty as fascinating, as ever,- fires of
wrath, and flames of prophecy, at once angering some, and
kindling others with hope.
The same spirit animated the four remarkable discourses which he delivered before the Progressive Friends,
in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in June, 1858. They
are among his most characteristic efforts:I. Of the Progressive Development of the Conception
of God in the Bible.




FAIL/fNG HEALTH.                  497
2. Of the Ecclesiastical Conception of God, and its Inadequacy to meet the Wants of Science and Religion.
3. Of the Philosophical or Natural Idea of God, and
its Fitness for all the Wants of Science and Religion.
4. Of the Soul's Normal Delight in the Infinite God.
By this time it had become plain, that, if Mr. Parker
would not take care of himself, his friends must take care
of him.  In August, a new but already intimate friend,
alarmed by the danger, invited him to take a wagon journey of two or three weeks. It is thus described in a letter
to his friends, Mrs. Apthorp and Miss Hunt, in Europe:PALAZZO BABY SQUEAL, PIAZZA PADDY SMELL,
NEWTON CORNER, MASS., Last Sunday in
Dog Days, 1858.
DEAREST SALLIE AND LIZZIE, - I shall put the two sisters
in one letter this clay, the last of my vacation.
You think "fleas the only troubles," do you? What if you
had flies biting, baby squealing, mother yelling, and doors slamming, all at the same time? " But there is no life without its
inconveniences," as the toad said while under the harrow, or
might have said if his tongue had been loosed.
Don't think you are the only voyagers on earth, or that
Europe is the only country fit to travel in. Have not I, also,
had my journey? I returned on Thursday afternoon from a
little ride of seven hundred miles with Joseph Lyman. You
know Joseph Lyman, Judge Lyman's son, of your own town, -
a fine fellow, one of the most gentlemanly of men, "the best
traveller in the world," thoroughly eupeptic, and of course
good-natured (the stomach is the organ of good temper),
conversable, and highly intelligent. Hannah calls him "the
lover," - not hers, not Bear's, but mize. (He does come over,
sometimes, Sunday night; and takes me to ride, &c.) Didn't
we have a good time? His "' wagon " is a wonderful " one-hoss
shay " on four wheels, which cost four hundred and fifty dollars.
Thomas Goddard made it; but for modesty it is called the
"wagon."  We rode about thirty miles a day, at the rate of
from three to five miles an hour: so we were always ten or
twelve hours a day in the open air. Beautiful weather all the
42*




498             THEODORE PARK'ER.
time.  We never staid in a great town - save one night in
Albany, which we could not avoid.  Here is our route: To
Concord (Mass.); through Lancaster, Princeton, Fitzwilliam, to
Keene (N.H.); to Charleston, Windsor (Vt.), Comstock, Sherburne, Montpelier, and Burlington, to Lake Saranac in the
Adirondack Mountains (New York); down Lake Champlain,
and by Fort Ticonderoga and Fort Edward to Saratoga, Troy,
Albany; down the Hudson to Newburg; thence through the
whole length of Connecticut to Dudley in Massachusetts;
thence, via Hopkinton Springs, home again, - seven hundred
miles in twenty-one days, with no accident, no delay. Now, we
saw no kings, only wouzd-bes; and no queens, only siup,5osed-tobes; and no pope, not even a cardinal. Oh! where is my cardinal's hat? What faithless friends you are, not to have extorted from the pope this dream of my life, and consummation
of all my hopes, - the cardinal's hat! Only think how I should
sit on the platform of the Music Hall, with my red hat and my
robes! How I should sit in my brass coach with my Brieschi
horses, and be called Eminence, and high and mighty Prince!
I don't quite forgive you. Surely a womanz could get round the
pope, if she would. But you don't care any thing about me;
that is clear. If I should die suddenly, be sure the "crowner's
verdict " would be, " Lack of a cardinal's hat."
But we did see such neatness, thrift, comfort, and well-diffused wealth, as no other land in all the world can offer. If a
Southern slaveholder could ride where we went, and see what
he must, he would at once be convinced that his miserable system was a wretched failure. We went in by-roads, lived all the
time in small towns, rested at the little country taverns, and not
once saw a ragged American, and but one American at all
affected by drink. Yet there is a great difference in the various
places. The superiority of New-England civilization over all
the rest of America is quite clear. In the north and west of
Vermont this is damaged by the Canadian French, who take
down the tone of the Yankees. In Western Massachusetts and
Connecticut, the Dutch element of New York shows itself in
the greater slovenliness of all things. New-Englanders marry
Dutch girls; and the housekeeping shows the degeneracy of
the breed. Dear old Massachusetts! I never loved her so well.
Puritanic New England! it is she that has shaped America, and




FALING HEALTH.                   499
will one day give her a grander destiny than she dreams of
yet. In Italy, France, and. Germany you see the power of the
few, to whom all else is sacrificed or has been. Much beauty
came from that arrangement, - grand palaces, magnificent
churches, statues, pictures, and things fair to look on. How they
haunt one's dreams years after they have faded from the sight!
But in democratic America it is all different: all is for the people, of the people, by the people. The plough is in the hands
of its owner. Shoemaker Wilson is one of the ablest men in
the American Senate. Blacksmith Banks is the best governor
Massachusetts has had since I was born. How we have altered
style in America! The last Sunday that I preached, Mr.
Chase, governor of Ohio, with its three million two hundred
and fifty thousand people, sat there with all the rest. I tried to
reach him and speak to him after meeting; but so many men and
women came to bid me good-by, that I could not accomplish it.
Riding home, I met Banks, governor of a million two hundred
thousand of Massachusetts, in a common country one-horse
wagon, which cost seventy-five or a hundred dollars, going
to dine with his brother-governor at a tavern, and talk over
the affairs of five millions of people. What if the Duzrcz/lazuc/zt
of Hesse-Homburg, ruler of a hundred and fifty thousand, and
the -  of -, with five hundred thousand, were to meet and
dine!  How many faults New England has! but, God be
thanked, how many blessings! What a present for the people! What a future for all!
One thing struck me with astonishment in the woods of
New York; for you must know we went fifty miles bodily
into the "forest primeval," "the murmuring pines and the
hemlocks:" it was the uncommon fertility of the human race
in the log-cabins. They are all crowded with babies. Often
the mother, a woman of twenty-eight, perhaps, stood at the
door (with a,Soop on), a baby of six weeks in her arms; another
of a year old stood at her side; then one of two, one of three,
four, five, six, and more. Really it seemed as if the wood was
alive with babies, and the trees spawned as the waters do.
Then the letter runs on with charming personalities,
which lack of space alone forbids quoting.




500            THEODORE PARKER.
Parker was the most jocund of travellers. F1e had the
merry exuberance of a boy when out of doors in pleasant
weather. He greeted the trees by name, and welcomed
the familiar flowers, introducing them to his companions,
with their family connections, and an account of their
pedigree. The landscape was on familiar terms with him.
The shape of the country told him the secrets of its flora:
he knew what wild flower must be hiding behind the rock,
in the meadow, in the intricacies of the "stump fence,"
in the shade of the grove, beside the brook; and in a
moment he was out of the wagon in quest of his prize,
pausing to pick the berries on the stalk, -" a feast for the
gods." If he passed a stone-quarry, he must needs stop,
watch the work, and talk with the men, pointing out to
them peculiarities in the formation, which might be availed
of to assist their labor and secure the full value of its
results. The mower attracts his attention: he examines
the scythe, - the handling of which he had not forgotten,
-explains the make, and probably drops a piece of information that will be of use to the farmer the next time
he has occasion to buy. " What is that man doing?
Cradling wheat. I must take a turn at that."  So out he
jumps, springs over the bars, and invites the man to take
a rest while he performs the task. The gentleman in the
city coat and hat proves equal to the occasion: the smile
of incredulity disappears from the farmer's face in a few
minutes; and in half an hour he is convinced that his
coadjutor must have been a farmer once. He mingles in
the discussions at the country inn; listens to the village
oracle, confronts him, puts questions to him he cannot
answer, brings forward facts he cannot dispute, and ends
by instructing the crowd that had gathered on the true
state of the country and the real nature of the issues then
pending. The forlorn bear tethered to a tree, or confined within a small enclosure in the tavern-yard, always
had his sympathy. He could not pass Bruin by, but




FAILINVG HEAL TH.                501
watched his motions, fed him, called him by pet names
till the last moment. In travelling, the peculiar grotesqueness of the man came out. A friend tells me, that journeying one winter's day from Boston to New York where
he was engaged to lecture, and being detained at New
Haven, he kept himself warm by jumping Jim Crow on
the bridge that spans the gloomy station.  The exuberance of life was irrepressible. It made him a great
recipient of the exuberant vitality of Nature, which flowed
in at all the pores of his being, and quickened to the very
last moment the latent vigor of his frame. Contact with
Nature always revived him. On a sultry summer's day
by the seaside he was seen with a scythe, mowing down
the Canada thistle that was threatening to overspread the
fields. They should get no farther than the roadside if
he could prevent. The idlers at the hotel thought he
must be in great want of occupation; but he came from
his task more refreshed than fatigued.
But no excursions by water, or expeditions on land in
open wagons, are a match for hereditary disease and excessive toil. He could not be idle. On his return from this
little trip, forty letters were waiting for him: ten more
came in straightway. Work of other kinds had accumulated; and he was not the man to shirk any portion of it.
In the autumn, preaching began again, and lecturing, and
parish work, and fugitive-slave work, and Kansas work,
and work of various unexpected kinds.
From tI/e _ournal.
OCT. 5, I858.
The Music Hall opened three weeks ago, and has been
filled with quite large congregations. Our course of lectures
begins to-morrow. Mr. Sanborn gives the introductory poem.
This course of lectures, the " Fraternity " course, established by his own friends, gave Mr. Parker his first chance
to be heard in Boston as a lecturer. He was not back



502            THEODORE PARKER.
ward to use it. The lectures on historic AmericansFranklin, Adams, Jefferson, Washington - were intended and partially prepared for this season. The Franklin
was carefully written out and delivered. The Adams was
given, though not fully written out. The others were
completed from copious notes by the hand of his devoted
friend Mr. Lyman, who cherished his memory as tenderly
as he cherished his failing life, and hastened his own
decline by his unwearied toil over the literary remains
of the man he loved as a brother, and revered as a benefactor. Like all Mr. Parker's work, the lectures were
designed to instruct and fortify the American people in
the essential ideas of their institutions.
Heroic remedies are not always best even for heroes.
The effusion of water on the chest which followed the
earlier sickness it took nearly eight months to subdue.
In the mean time, during the summer, a fistula developed
itself, producing painful and alarming consequences. He
lost twenty pounds of flesh; had cough, night-sweats, and
other dangerous symptoms. It seemed as if the end was
nigh. A surgical operation in October gave relief, and
the sick man fancied himself delivered from his tormentors;
but, on getting into a railroad-car to attend the funeral of
a little boy drowned by accident, - a service rendered
from pure humanity, - he strained and wrenched himself
in delicate parts of the body. The brave man was not
daunted; still professed to think he should live to be
seventy or eighty; promised to be more moderate in future;
staid in his library; had his meals brought up to him;
drove out every day; and had the best medical and surgical advice, which he had too much faith not to take.
The anxiety of his friends deepened. Already, in August,
many members of his society joined in beseeching him to
extend the term of his vacation to the utmost limit that
prudence required, and by no means to allow his strong
desire to be at his post to override their united wishes and




FAZILING HEALTH.                  503
settled convictions.  Weakness enforced what consideration would scarcely have granted. As the year drew to a
close, work had to be dropped, —all but the preaching,
which continued with but few interruptions, and those only
when it was physically impossible for him  to stand even
by grasping the desk.
The journal terminates abruptly now, save for a few jottings in small books which can be carried in his pocket.
On Jan. I, I859, this entry is made: —' 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 the 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 were the last of my New-Year's days on 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 friends may linger
long about my grave, and be inly sad for many a day."
Three pages later, the last word in the bulky quarto, is
a direction for a
MONUMENT.
"When I die, I wish to be buried in the old burying-place in
Lexington, where my fathers since I709 -four generations of
them-have laid their venerable bones. I wish to be put near
them. At my head let there be a plain blue or green slate-stone,
thus  A., with no ornament, no black paint. I mark the
stone      as double, in case my wife may also subsequently




504             THEODORE PARKER.
wish to be laid beside me, as she often says: if not, let it be
single. A. may contain this inscription —
THEODORE PARKER,
(SON OF JOHN AND HANNAH.)
Born Aug. 24, I8io; died -
The sermon, "What Religion may do for a Man," was
preached with great difficulty on Jan. 2.  He felt that it
was the last time; and it was. The next Sunday, this little
note, in pencil, was read to the congregation met in Music
Hall: -
SUNDAY MORNING, Jan. 9, I859.
WELL-BELOVED AND LONG-TRIED FRIENDS, — I shall not
speak to you to-day; for this morning, a little after four o'clock,
had a slight attack of bleeding in the lungs or throat. I
intended to preach on "' The Religion 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.
The "slight attack of bleeding " was a serious hemorrhage of the lungs. There was now no time to lose. A
meeting of the parish, called on the spot, voted a year's
salary to the pastor, more if necessary, to enable him to
seek complete repose from every kind of care. Experienced physicians pronounced the case grave. Tubercles
had formed, and were increasing. The disease he had
inherited had already progressed far.  The chances of
recovery were declared to be as one in ten. The stout
soldier laughs at the odds. " If that is all, I'll conquer.




FAILING HEAL TH.                505
I have fought ninety-nine against one, -yes, nine hundred
and ninety-nine against one, -and conquered. Please
God, I will again; sursuzm cordaa." It is decided that he
must go to the West Indies at once; thence to Europe;
thence wherever the chances should look brightest.
I shall leave the reader to imagine the grief of Mr.
Parker's friends and parishioners when the truth they had
feared broke upon them. Any who will may read the
letters that passed between pastor and people. They are
printed at length in Mr. Weiss's book. Tender and touching they are, but no more so than was sincerely felt on
both sides.  Private letters of sympathy and manly or
womanly love came in such numbers, that the sufferer
printed a card in " The New-York Tribune," excusing himself from replying to them all; a notice that only brought
fresh tributes from people who had refrained from writing
because unwilling to burden him with the care of answering. Now that they were sure he would not answer, they
would speak. These heart-roses covered his sick-bed, and
filled him with their fragrance. So much of the odor as
he could he wafted back. As he lay in his pain, tender
thoughts came to him of all he loved, of many who had
not loved him; and in all directions the white doves flew
from his window with messages of good will, thanks for
old kindnesses, gratitude for confidence and sympathy,
generous acknowledgment of smallest services rendered
and long forgotten by the doer, sweet reminiscences of
past joy, praise for good deeds done and good words
spoken for freedom, apologies for imaginary troubles or
offences,- all in manly, simple language, without a weak
expression of complaint, with the natural submission that
belonged to his faith. "If I recover," he says in a parting note to Salmon P. Chase (and it is in the spirit of them
all), - "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 affec43




506             THEODORE PARKER.
tion 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."
To S. P. Andrews.
BOSTON, Jan. 27, I859.
MY DEAR SAM, - I am not well enough to see you: it will
make my heart beat too fast. I sail -Bear, and Miss S., and
Dr. Howe also —in about ten days for the West Indies;
thence to Europe, perhaps, in May. Who knows what the
result will be? For complete recovery, the chances in my favor
are one out of ten. So the doctors say. I don't rate it higher.
I am ready for either alternative, but am still full of hope that
the human mortal life will hold out long enough for me to hammer over again some of the many irons I have laid in the fire
and got ready for the anvil. It does seem to me I shall have
time left to finish certain pieces of work. But I will not complain of the dear Mother (who long ago admonished me that
I must not cherish long hopes in a short world) if the kind
Hand that brought me here shall also soon take me away to that
world "which eye hath not seen," &c. You and I have had
many a good time together; and I hoped we should enjoy many
more. Indeed, I laid out my life to work publicly and hard till
sixty, and then have a quiet afternoon till eighty for getting
in my hay; but, if my hour strikes at forty-eight, let not you
nor me complain.
My wife sends love to your wife; whereto add mine, and
believe me
Faithfully, affectionately, and yours,
THEODORE.
To Rev. William R. Alger.
BOSTON, Jan. 28, 1859.
MY DEAR ALGER, - I thank you for the flowers and the yet
sweeter fragrance of the note which came with them. They
bloom on my table, while it sheds its unseen influence elsewhere. I don't know whether I sail to life or death; but heaven
is never a distant port, and one need not complain if he gets
there sooner than he laid out for. But I leave a deal of work




FAILING HEALTH.                   507
half done, and more only begun, which I meant to finish, and
gladly would. I have rejoiced in your noble words, and make
no doubt they will grow nobler yet as you change time into life,
and natural talents into lofty character. God bless your brave
spirit, and keep you faithful! What could I wish more or better?
Give my regards to your wife, and believe me
Yours faithfully,
THEODORE PARKER.
To Mrs. Lydia M. Chzild.
BOSTON, Jan. 20, I859.
MY DEAR, KIND FRIEND, - Many thanks for your welcome
letter, which I have strength only thus poorly to reply to. I
knew you when you did not know me; and I have much to
thank you for in early as well as in later days. I met you at
your brother's in Watertown in I833; and you then spoke some
cheering words to a young fellow fighting his way to education.
God bless you for that, and for much more! Remember me
kindly to your brave husband.
Yours faithfully,
THEODORE PARKER.
He has not forgotten the sonnet he wrote long before: -
" Through crooked paths Thou hast conducted me,
And thorns oft forced my timid flesh to bleed:
Still I rejoiced my Leader's hand to see,
Trusting my Father in my hour of need.
When in the darkness of my early youth,
Stumbling and groping for a better way,
Through riven clouds streamed down the light of Truth,
And made it morning with refulgent ray,
Along the steep and weary path I trod,
With none to guide, and few to comfort me.
I felt the presence of the eternal God,
That in his hand'twas blessedness to be,
Finding relief from woes in consciousness of thee."




CHAPTER XVIII.
THE DEPARTURE. — THE SEARCH.
THEODORE PARKER, with his wife, Miss Stevenson, and
Mr. George Cabot, left the house in Exeter Place, on the
3d of February, with a resolute determination to use his
one chance in ten for health, - too resolute, in fact. He
who too fiercely fights his own disease may become its ally.
He sat in his room at the Astor House, gaunt and gray,
but firm, as if he were the carer, and not the cared-for. He
knew the contents of each box and bag, where each package and flask was put. When the little procession moved
from the hotel, he staid till the last to see that nothing
had been dropped; then walked sturdily to Jersey City,
where "The Karnac" lay.  All was ready for him on
board. A dear friend from afar put flowers -violets and
carnations - in his state-room. Dr. and Mrs. Howe were
there to greet him with manly sympathy and feminine
grace. They were to be his companions on the voyage.
To the few friends who came to say farewell he said little;
responded gratefully to their expressions of affection,
but faintly to their words of hope; was silent and thoughtful, though not dejected.  The steamer sailed on the
8th. On the 3d of March it reached its destination, —
Fredericksted, West End, Santa Cruz; having touched
at Nassau, St. Thomas, Nuevitas, Puerto Plata, and St.
John, and tarried four or five days at Havana.  The
voyage, which rough weather made uncomfortable at start508




THE DEPARTURE. - THE SEARCH.             509
ing, was afterwards pleasant. The sea became smooth,
the air soft, the sky beautifully tender. Nature did her
best for the weary man. He lay on the deck for hours,
or sat in cool and shady spots. But the restless mind
would not be still. "All my life-schemes lie prostrate."
" I stand up to the chin in my grave." " Fourteen years today since I rode into Boston to preach at the Melodeon.
I enlisted for a thirty-years' war; but am wounded, and
driven off the field, before half that time is over."  "R.
WV. Emerson is preaching at the Music Hall to-day."  "I
wonder if they remembered the anniversary."  "Those
precious guns in my study - what will become of them?
They must be kept in a safe place. They will belong to
the Commonwealth when I die."  " Mr. Shackford would
be a good man to preach."  Then came plans of work
yet to be done.  " I must write out and finish my last sermon. I must write my autobiography."  He felt and
thought out a letter to the Twenty-eighth Congregational
Society, and began to compose it. At every stoppingplace he went ashore with his note-book, and made the
most of his opportunity to pick up bits of knowledge.
Night and day, on shipboard, he walked the rounds of his
parish in a visionary way, asking himself, "Who is sick?
Who is sick no more?  How is poor old Mr. Cass, the
grape-pruner in Chambers-street Court?  I must send
him some strawberries in their season."
Arriving at Santa Cruz, hardly able to crawl out of the
vessel, he begins to labor like a savan on a hurried
voyage of exploration, - noting every tree, shrub, plant,
flower; classifying the products and minerals; studying the
natives and the strangers, the increase of population, pursuits, value of properties; in a word, exhausting the island
and everybody in it, and putting all he sees and thinks
into most instructive and delightful letters to his friends
in America and Europe, —letters betraying no sign of
ill health in their texture, though, in an occasional sen43*




SIO            ITHEODORE PARKER.
tence, dropping hints thereof. The hilarious nature rollicks in breezy fun about the boys and girls, the ducks
and cockadoodles, negroes, pigs, "long-nosed and gravelooking animals, most of them coal-black, and, like Zaccheus small of stature, looking as if they had been
through a revival, and were preparing for the ministry."
His first visit, made the day after his arrival, was to the
Protestant burial-ground, - " the terminus ad quem I am
travelling, it may be.  It is not an attractive-looking place:
none in New England that I know is less so. There the
grass comes'creeping, creeping, creeping, everywhere:'
here only a rugged, coarse, rank sedge comes in tufts to
supply its place. The trees look ungenial. The Bombax
ceiba is the biggest, but not inviting, eaten up with its
parasites."
From the yournal.
MARCH 13.
Found the monument of Rev. Henry Walker of Charlestown, Mass.; died I838. I knew him. He studied in Germany,
and brought thence the first copy of Strauss, I think, that came
to America. I met him at Ripley's, and borrowed his book in
I836 or I837. He left his library to Rev. James Walker. Here
lie his remains, with many more of such as came here after
health, and found only a grave. It is not a pleasant place to lie
in, with the sedgy grass growing in bunches as high as my
head.
There are three other cemeteries, -one Danish, one
American, one Catholic:"The Danish looks most inviting. I change my mind, and
think I shall prefer the Danish to the dark spot under the
Bomnbax ceiba in the English."
But there are more cheerful objects than these: —
"The weather is magnificent. Such clear skies! On the
wharf at St. Thomas I could clearly see Santa Cruz, forty miles
off. The nights are as splendid almost as the days: the stars




THE DEPARTURE. -THE SEARCH.               511
are so large! The scintillation is peculiar. Those near the
zenith twinkle but little. Oh, if Desor were here, or John L.
Russell, or Dr. Cabot! "
Nor is the humanity of the island utterly discouraging.
He finds a Rev. Mr. Dubois, "an excellent man, full of
kindness and industry. He takes great pains in the noble
work of elevating the colored people; but the whites do
not help the movement, 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 on the island is the street
full of colored people on Sunday, going to meeting. Soon
as possible, they get shoes and other clothing, and help up
their self-respect."
The letters to his male friends are crammed with information in regard to the material and political condition
of the island, the imports and exports, productive powers
and agencies, classes of the population, number of workmen, soldiers, slaves, the state of personal and social
morality, amount of rainfall, interspersed with various
comment and speculation on the future prospects of
the people. The letters to his physician, Dr. Cabot in
Boston, give a painfully-detailed account of the progress
of his malady as judged by symptoms, the state of the
abductor muszles, the rclsyiratory organs, the precise character of his cough, the appearances of his eyes, his sensations in different temperatures, with the exact locality
of each.
The letters to his female friends bloom with color, and
sparkle with wit. The bright birds flit through themIn; the
gorgeous flowers spread their glowing leaves. The English Episcopal service is waggishly taken off; the West-Indian aristocracy is deliciously caricatured, with a fine sense
of humor solid with truth. The letters are "works," or
would have been to a less irrepressible man. By the g9th




5 I2          THEODORE PARKER.
of April he has finished the " Letter to the Twenty-eighth
Congregational Society," -a volume detailing his experience as a minister. "A sick man's work," he calls it, "written under many difficulties, amid continual interruption
besides what weakness occasioned, — written in tears of
blood. No work of mine, perhaps, cost me such birthpangs; for I was too sick to write, and yet must be
delivered of my book, and that, too, in such a place!"
How could such a man get well? Nature had no chance
with him. His fires were always burning. Thought and
feeling perpetually consumed him. He could not be
quiet.  The  incessant nervous irritation wasted his
strength away.  Between ecstasy and despondency he
was always torn. If he could have forgotten himself,
stretched himself out on the piazza, or beneath the trees
without caring what their botanical name might be, and
let the natural influences stream into his frame, he might
have lived; but he spent more than he gained.
Then, again, he knew too much about his own condition
for a sick man's good. His finger was never off his own
pulse; he weighed and counted his breaths; was more
intimately acquainted with himself than nurse or doctor;
and could not desist from acting as his own medical adviser. This is enough to create the atmosphere of a sickroom anywhere. It is like a doomed man's listening to
the erecting of his scaffold.
While at the island, he felt comparatively strong; could
walk with tolerable ease; had a good appetite, an excellent digestion; slept, on the whole, well; gained in color,
weight, and vigor; rode three or four times a week on a
pony; his face was brown and ruddy, his eye clear; but
the cough continued. The two months at Santa Cruz
wrought on him no essential benefit: the critical symptoms were worse. On the IIth of May he left the island,
and returned to St. Thomas to take the steamer of the
G6th for Southampton. On the voyage to the latter place




THE DEPARTURE.- THE SEARCH.    5I3
he lost seven pounds of flesh. The cough and the expectoration increased.  He began to lose faith in his
powers of recuperation. Some confidence he had in the
reviving influences of civilization, but not much. Even
the misery of sea-sickness was subdued by the more terrible malady which kept him prostrate. He was in a poor
plight on reaching Southampton, the ist of June; but, the
same evening, he went on to London.
Here less than anywhere could he rest. It was the
charmed season in London; crowds of people to visit,
crowds of things to see. The eleven days there did duty
for thirty. There were letters to be read and written,
neither without emotion and pain. He had rmot been at
Radley's Hotel, Blackfriars, forty-eight hours, when an old
gentleman was announced, - Mr. Brabant, seventy-nine
years old, father-in-law of Mr. Hennell. Miss Winkworth and her sister came, Mr. and Mrs. James Martineau, Prof. H. D. Rogers and his wife. Mr. William H.
Seward, then in London, showed him politeness. John
Bright got him a place in the House of Commons to hear
the great debate which led to the expulsion of the Derby
ministry.
A visit that touched Mr. Parker deeply was from a comparative stranger, - Mr. Thomas Cholmondeley, a nephew
of Bishop Heber, of Oriel College, Oxford, once a pupil
of Arthur Hugh Clough, afterwards a student in Germany.
He had been in America five years before; had heard Mr.
Parker preach; had called on him at his house; was impressed by his power, and interested in his character: for
Cholmondeley himself was a man of high aspirations and
intellectual aims, though in religion, albeit of broad views,
not a pronounced rationalist; indeed, at the time of his
visit to America, he was inclined to Puseyism. His interest, however, was in ideas rather than doctrines. He
brought letters to Emerson; was eager to know our foremost men; a man of progress, as was evident from his




5I4           THEODORE PARKER.
response to a toast given by a Plymouth man on Forefathers' Day: " May the spirit which brought the Pilgrim
Fathers here return again to England! and may we have
a commonwealth there, if not as great as yours, at least as
happy and as well ordered! "  This Mr. Cholmondeley,
hearing that Mr. Parker was in London, and apprehending that he might be inadequately supplied with funds for
travel and sojourn and medical service, delicately put his
purse at the invalid's disposal. The kindness fell on a
tender heart, and made a deep impression. It was declined, but with gratitude. Mr. Cholmondeley inherited
property later, but soon surrendered it all; for he died in
1864 in the same city where Parker breathed his last,
and perhaps mingled his dust with the same soil.
But, of all the visits the pilgrim received, none gave him
more delight than that of Ellen Craft, his colored parishioner, whom, nearly ten years before, he had helped
away to England for safety from the slave-hunters. It all
came back to him, - the danger, the fear, the flight; the
journey to Brookline, accompanied by John Parkman and
Miss Stevenson, in a close carriage, he himself armed
with a hatchet in case of necessity; the bringing the fugitive into the refuge of his own house; the subsequent
marriage in the boarding-house on "Nigger Hill" with
Bible and sword. For all these years she had been safe,
and came now to greet her friend and savior. Such
remembrance touched him more than any attention from
people of station; strengthened him, but weakened him
too.
There were visits to be made as well as received. He
was desirous of seeing Henry Thomas Buckle; but the
author of " The History of Civilization in England " was
not at home. His heart had been set, too, on seeing
Frances Power Cobbe, with whom he had corresponded,
and whose books he ranked among the greatest written by
a woman's pen; but neither was she in London. Invita



THE DEPARTURE. —THE SEARCH.              5I5
tions to breakfasts, dinners, lunches, were incessant, but
had to be declined. Once only he lunched at Rev. James
Martineau's, where he met, for the first time, Francis William Newman, John James Taylor, Mr. Ireson, and a few
others. Eminent men of the Liberal party, coadjutors of
Mr. Bright, he saw under pleasant circumstances, but not
as closely as he could have wished.
He was always going about to interesting places,Westminster Hall, Guildhall, the Tower, Billingsgate, St.
George's Yard, the British Museum, the College of Surgeons, the Reform Club. He heard Huxley lecture, and
Martineau preach; and listened to a charity-sermon at
St. Paul's, where "eight thousand children sat alone, and
fainted with hunger while they listened to a wretched sermon on human depravity, or sang the litanies they had
been made to commit to memory." He called himself
very prudent; went into no damp buildings; was home
early in the evening; avoided festive excitement of all
kinds. But the cloudy, heavy air of the city, thick with
coal-smoke, irritated the cough, and increased the expectorations.  On the I2th of June, London was left for
Paris; the journey viA Folkestone and Boulogne being
made by day in twelve hours.
Scarcely was he settled in his lodgings, H6tel cle Londres, 8 Rue St. Hyacinthe, when Charles Sumner called, 
"'the same dear old Sumner as he used to be before that
scoundrel laid him low."  The next day, the two friends
drove about the city six hours; and, the drive over, Parker
went about on foot for more exercise, while Mr. Sumner
went home to rest. Paris was, if possible, a more exhausting field of recovery than London. It were idle to attempt
to tell what was seen and done during the short week
spent there. Yet he writes to Dr. Cabot in Boston, "I
became a riollusk, an oyster, in the West Indies, and
exercised a most exclusively those Jzerves of vegelation
which you discovered.  After writing my'Letter,' I




516             THEODORE PARKiER.
dropped down into my molluscous condition; and, when
I saw one of the actual tenants of the mud at London, 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.'"
In Paris he consulted the doctors with the usual satisfaction.
" What different counsel in doctors!" he wrote in I859.
"Last October, Bowditch wanted me to go to the West Indies;
Dr. J. Jackson not. For hypophosphates, Dr. Flint of Boston,
Dr. Bigelow of Paris; against hypophosphates, 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; Moleschott, Malaga before Bordeaux; Bigelow
and Cabot, Jackson and Bowditch, whiskey, brandy, &c.; Moleschott, pilled barley."
Dr. Samuel Bigelow took him to Louis, who thought
little of the cough or the expectoration; thought the
greenish-yellowish matter came from  the bronchia, not
from the decomposition of the tubercles; had no faith in
Dr. Winchester's hypophosphates, no more in the disgusting cod-liver oil; recommended _pillules de Blancard
(iodide of iron), -one at breakfast, and one at supper.
Both physicians advised, I. Abstinence from all exertion;
2. As much living in the open air as possible; 3. Abundance of nutritious food, especially ripe vegetables; 4.
Bordeaux or Neufchatel wines. Dr. Louis recommended
Ems; but Dr. Bigelow was indifferent. As regarded a
winter-residence, Louis thought well of Egypt; but the
discomforts there, the chill of the Nile, and want of




THE DEPARTURE. - THE SEARCH.    5I7
society, made that look unattractive. His thoughts turned
toward Montreux for the autumn, and Rome for the winter. The doctors took a more cheerful view of his case
than he did himself. He had thought of Scandinavia,
Holland, the Rhine, Germany, plans of travel with Desor;
but these fine schemes were abandoned. On the g9th
of June he is on the way to Dijon, looking toward the
Lake of Geneva and Montreux. There he met his dear
friends Mr. and Mrs. Apthorp and Miss Hunt on the
22d. His lodgings were ready for him, —fine rooms,
commanding a glorious outlook; the Dent du Midi, ten
thousand feet high, snow-covered, towering up before
him, twenty miles off. The weather had been wet, but
was now delicious. Climate, scenery, accommodations,
and, above all, the friendliest of friends, all conspired to
aid the sick man's recovery. The apricots hung ripe on
the garden-wall; the figs were almost grown; strawberries
and cherries were plenty; and the sweetest care brightened every day. The letters from Montreux - printed in
Weiss, too many and too long to print here-are full of
interest. Mr. Apthorp planned delightful excursions to
Vevay, Chillon, Lausanne, Ferney, and the other charming
spots in the neighborhood. He could walk five miles
without fatigue.
The Italian war was raging: of course he must know
all about that; and nothing comes amiss, - newspapers,
cheap prints, maps, bulletins, pasquinades. The neighborhood is full of associations historical and romantic:
he had them all by heart. The local histories, guidebooks, descriptions, are all on his table, -out-of-the-way
things he had picked up in obscure shops and stalls by
the way as he came along.
Late in July he varies the sweet monotony of his life
at Montreux by a visit of a few weeks to his friend Prof.
Desor at his mountain chzidet. It was but a day's journey,
on a good road, through pleasant villages and rich vine44




5I8            THEOD ORE PARAIER.
yards; over passes that commanded glorious views of the
high Alps, from the peaks of the Bernese Oberland to
Mont Blanc. The'c/zdlet itself had been a hunting-lodge;
but the good, hospitable Desor, to accommodate the scientific men who sought the mountains and each other in
the summer, had built another house close by for his
guests. A background of fir-trees furnished shelter and
balmy fragrance. Little clearings in the wood gave the
sunlight room to sport with the green grass and the red
berries. The owner had extensive vineyards, which he
cultivated, storing the rich juice in his cellar.
Here Parker felt at home. He had his sheltered seat
on the edge of the wood, his favorite fir-tree, doubleheaded, like the pine at Lexington. Here were refreshing
excursions to spots famous or beautiful; and trees enough,
small and large, for the invalid to try his perilous woodchopping propensities on, as he did, against the advice of
all his friends; savans they were too. The summer was
an intensely hot one; and there, three thousand feet above
the valley, it was warm enough to be out of doors many
hours of the day. The invalid made the most of it;
soaked in the sunshine; inhaled the balsam of the pines,
and the aroma from the meadows; drank the professor's
good red wine, and felt his heart revive.  His vigor
increased; his spirits rose; he gained in weight. It
seemed as if an arrest of his disease, at least, was
probable.
Not the least invigorating influence was the companionship of intelligent men; some of them distinguished in
their specialty; all of them interested in living questions:
some of them cordially sympathetic with his views; all of
them respecting his character, and appreciative of his
mind.  There was the noble Lorenz Kiichler, whom
Theodore learned to love as a brother. The meals were
enlivened by discussions on all subjects, scientific, political, philosophical, religious, - discussions that sometimes




THE DEPARTURE. — THE SEARCH.    5I9
grew into warm debates, but ended in brotherly goodwill.
The visitors at Desor's this summer made an album as
a memorial of Parker and Kiichler, each savan contributing a paper. Parker's piece was a satire on the scientific
method of the Bridgewater Treatises, very clever,-"A
Bumnblebee's View of the Universe."  Of course he found
time to write letters, and long ones. The best of them —
and very good they are -may be read in Weiss. They
show how affectionately he bore his friends in mind; how
closely he kept the run of home-affairs, public and private; and how much deeper was his concern for great
principles in America than for his own health in Europe.
"I am only one little spurt of water running into the
great ocean of humanity; and, if I stop here, I shall not
be at all missed there."
Six weeks were passed in this mountain-retreat, - six
weeks which Mr. Parker spoke of as among the most
delightful of his sojourn in Europe. On the afternoon
of Aug. 22 he left the ch/ulet, descended the mountains,
and kept his birthday (the 24th) at Montreux. He
has now an excellent appetite; his spirits never fail; he
coughs less, and feels stronger. He carried more than
seventy pounds of baggage from the boat to the cars, at
Yverdon, without strain. As the autumn advances, he is
still improving. On one of his walks in the neighborhood
of Montreux, as he is pushing along, eating grapes, a
cheery voice calls out, " Can you tell me the way to Bostoll meetin'-house?" He turns, and meets the jocund
face of J. T. Fields the publisher, who was walking over
from Vevay to see him. He steadily gains in weight;
reaches, in fact, a hundred and fifty-eight and a third
pounds,- more than he had weighed for twenty-nine years.
Autumn draws on fast. Desor has come down from
his mountain-perch to his residence in Neufchatel, and
bids his friend to make him a parting-visit there in the




520              THEODORE PARKER.
vintage-time. The scientific men have returned to their
duties in the cities.  It is time to think of winter-quarters; to bid good-by to the Dent du Midi, the hills,
the lake, the lovely meadows, and find a shelter elsewhere
from the cold and wind. After much deliberation, study
of climates, forecasting of probabilities, Rome is decided
on finally. The party of pilgrims break up their pleasant
quarters at Montreux on the I2th of October, and set their
faces toward Marseilles by way of Geneva and Lyons.
Marseilles is left on the I7th: on the g9th the sombre
city lets him in. Again, lines written in other years come
to mind:-'" For all the trials of my earlier day,
I thank thee, Father, that they all have been;
That darkness lay about the rugged way
Which I must tread alone. For all I've seen
Of disappointment, sorrow, pain, and loss,
I thank thee for them all. And did I sin,
I grieve not I've been tried; for e'en the cross
Of penitence has taught me how to win.
Yet, of the ills as child or man I've borne,
My hopes laid waste, or friends sent off by death, -
Remorse has most of all my bosom torn
For time misspent, ill deeds, or evil breath.
But.yet, for every grief my heart has worn,
Father, I thank thee, still trusting with hearty faith."




CHAPTER XIX.
THE ETERNAL CITY.
PLEASANT lodgings were found in the Via delle Quatro
Fontane, No. i6, on the fourth floor, a hundred and
twenty steps from the street; the stairs rising in four
flights of thirty steps each.  There were four rooms,
fourteen or fifteen feet high, well furnished "for Italy,"
comfortably carpeted, with large windows to the east and
south, giving plentiful air and sunshine, when there was
any, all day. Dinner was sent in from a German eatinghouse. The house stood high, in an airy, dry part of the
city. From its upper stories it commanded a view of the
whole city: below, a magnificent prospect stretched out
in every direction.  Close by was the Quirinal Palace,
its gardens lying between: on the other side was the
Pincian Hill, with its fine trees and shrubbery. St. Peter's
was in full view from base to dome, standing out against
the dark background of the Etruscan Hills. The Palazzo
Barberini, where SWilliam Story the sculptor lived, was
hard by. Nothing could promise better. The Apthorps
and Hunts occupied the third floor of the same building,
ready at all times with social cheer, and, in case of an
emergency, with every thing that lay within reach of human power. Daily existence was laid out on a simple
plan, which the weather alone deranged. The needs of
the invalid were the care of all: unhappily, the invalid
could not, with the very best intentions, care for himself.
44*                       52I




522            THEODORE PARKER.
The same irritability of brain that made rest impossible
in the West Indies made it equally - if it could be, more
- impossible in Rome.  Before he had got into his apartments, before he had been two days in the city, prowling
about, he came across, in a stall, a Dutch book on the Existence of God, - a book he had never before been able to
find, - and bought it for half a dollar. In the course of a
week, he had begun work enough to employ a well man's
days; being nothing less than the study of Rome, - its
geology, its flora and fauna, its archaeology, its architecture. He carries his Mommsen with him in his mind as
he visits daily some of the places famous in legend or
history. A vast amount of reading of no light kind is
done. His shelves are filled with a long range of learned
works, in different languages, on Rome and Italy. All
the newspapers he can get are on his table. He keeps
the run of political events in Europe and America, following minutely the course of affairs in Church and State, so
that he could talk with statesmen about them. His correspondence is unintermitted. Ponderous letters, big as
pamphlets, come from his restless pen, which, debarred
from writing lectures and sermons, puts the same amount
of material into epistolary form. His letters are dissertations, crammed with facts and reflections.  Scarcely a
note escapes from him that has not passages which only a
scholar and thinker could have written. To one friend he
writes a summary of the epochs in the history of Rome
itself; to another, an account of agriculture in the Papal
States; to another he gives an outside and inside view of
ecclesiastical institutions there; to yet others, interested
in such matters, descriptions of domestic economy,
humorous sketches of popular manners, statistics of population or trade, comparative tables illustrating the
numerical strength or the social condition of various
classes of the people; all done methodically and with
conscience. His brain is singularly alive; his observ



THE ETERNAtL CITY.             523
ing power keen and swift. Nothing escapes him in the
street. Passing a book-shop, his eye takes in the title of
every volume displayed in the window; going by a fruitstall, he notices every unfamiliar nut or berry or plant, and
will not pass on till he has learned all about it. His
memory does not fail him: his reasoning faculty is ever
on the alert. At Mrs. Browning's a pamphlet is mentioned, -" Le Pape et le Congres," by M. Guerronniere.
Mrs. Browning has not seen it, only heard of its general
character. Nobody, apparently, knows it but Mr. Parker,
who had seen a translation of it in "The London Times."
He takes up the book at once; gives a full account of it, -
its fundamental positions, its argument, its bearing, - and
dilates on its tendency and probable effect in different
quarters; his hearers listening with more than interest to
the development of ideas as they flow from the eloquent
speaker's lips. On another occasion he was breakfasting with William  Story in company with Mr. and Mrs.
Apthorp, Mr. and Mrs. Twisselton, Mrs. Stowe, Hawthorne, Bryant, Gibson, and Browning. The conversation
turned on malarious soils. Mr. Parker, who, up to that
point, had said little (the act of talking being painful to
him), struck in here; gave an account of malarious regions,
their peculiarities, their formation, their influence, and the
precautions to be observed in guarding against their
poison. "No miasma," he said, "could penetrate through
fifteen feet of pure gravel." The old residents in Rome,
who might be presumed familiar with the subject, were
the most interested and the most astonished at the unexpected wealth of information, and freely expressed their
amazement as they left the table; Mr. Browning remarking to Mrs. Apthorp, " What a wonderful man! None of
us knew the facts he told us."  In this instance the subject was one to which Mr. Parker, from the circumstances of his birthplace, the hereditary disease in his
family, and the fact of his own illness, had given par



524            THEODORE PARKER.
ticular attention. But the marvel of his information was
as great in departments which would seem to lie remote
from any interest or study of his. Thus, being in a company with ladies, one of whom had a trimming of beautiful lace on a portion of her dress, and question arising
in regard to its manufacture, Mr. Parker was alone able
to answer; having, it would appear to a stranger, freshly
informed himself on the whole subject of lace-making.
Omniscience was his forte: during these last six months
in Rome it was his weakness. Every thing about him,
the wonderful city, the singular aspect of all things, the
strange modes of life, the restlessness attendant on his
disease, the effort to forget himself, all conspired to
sharpen every mental faculty to the utmost. All actions,
even the wisest, were overdone.
He had been advised to pass as much time as he could
in the open air. He seemed bent on spending all the
daytime there. The bad weather seldom kept him in.
In the early autumn (October) he walked six or seven
hours a day, though he had lost eight pounds since Combe
Varin. He explores the ancient city on foot, searching
about in the squares and gardens for the localities of
famous deeds, identifying temples and palaces in the
Forum, mousing round in the quarter on the other side of
the Tiber, examining the gates and walls, searching after
the remains of theatres; the inseparable umbrella in his
hand, often over his head. He does not know how or
where to stop, a preternatural power of endurance holding
him up, and pushing him on. In the middle of January,
I86o, when he has lost ten or twelve pounds of flesh,
looks paler and thinner in the face, weaker in the eyes,
and is more nervous and desponding, the power of walking does not abate. In April, but little more than a
month before the end came, he rides on a donkey to
Frascati and to Tusculum two miles beyond, among the
mountains, - in all, some twelve miles distant from Rome




THE ETERNAL CITY.                525
and every day he must descend and ascend those hundred
and twenty steps.
He cannot keep out of churches. The pomps attract,
while they disgust him; the antiquities attract. The old
churches of Sts. Cosmo and Damien (supposed to be built
on ancient sites), the temples of Janus and Ceres, the
mausoleum of Augustus, draw him as an archeologist.
The Santa Maria Maggiore, the Ara Cceli, the San Lorenzo without the walls, San Carlo, and many another,
were, of course, intensely interesting; but they were hardly
places which a physician would recommend a consumptive
invalid to frequent in ugly weather. He confesses that he
catches bad colds, and coughs shockingly, now and then
raising blood; but he cannot desist. The places are either
curious or amusing: in either case he is taken out of himself; entertained for the hour, if for no longer. In what
different spirit, with what different purposes, he went over
all that ground fifteen years before, taking in stores of
thought that were to serve and cheer him in many future
years! now killing weary days, and trying to calm a restless mind which had no more work to do on earth, but
wished to get from earth such peace as it could before the
great future opened.
Friendship did all for him that friendship could. A
devoted care, patient and sweet, was always with him.
Dearer hearts than those under the same roof with him
there were not in the world. There was the smallest possible friction of temper.  The kindest of companions
attended him in his walks. The affectionate thoughtfulness of the Storys and Brownings was gratefully acknowledged. Miss Charlotte Cushman did all a good heart
prompted to cheer the tiresome days. Dr. Frothingham
of Boston, who was spending the winter in Rome with his
family, came in and chatted about poetry, the theatre,
people. Mr. and Mrs. C. T. Thayer toiled dutifully up
the hundred and twenty steps to comfort the sick man.




526            THIEODORE PARKER.
Artists he saw now and then,- William  Page, Harriet
Hosmer. Story entertained him with various learning andwit, and kept him employed in his studio while making
his bust. But society was tantalizing, at times exasperating; for the invalid could not talk without pain, and to
listen without responding did not calm his mind. He
avoided social occasions, even of the most attractive sort.
" I sit at all entertainments," he says, "like the coffin in
the Egyptian feasts."
The climate of Rome, this winter, was cruel to the sick
who sought its hospitality, -wet, cold, windy, disagreeable.
The summer had been dry and cold. The rainy season
set in early, and continued late. It rained when he
arrived; it rained for two or three weeks afterward. " For
nine or ten weeks, it beat any thing I ever knew in New
England for badness;" " Cloudy and foggy;" " Chilly
and cold: " these are the records in the journal. "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 one hundred and
twenty days there have been but eight when I have not
walked out an hour or two."  "Rome is the dampest city I
was ever in. The walls and roofs are green and yellow
with fuci and lichens of various kinds. The Tramontana
wind is cold and arid: that makes me cough at once."
Invalids, or people who had been invalid, cheered him by
telling what Rome had done for them; but its kindly
offices are not for him. He writes to Miss Cobbe, " Rome
has not used me well this winter, and I shall leave it with
but one regret; viz., that I came here at all. I have lost
three pounds a month since I left Switzerland, and have
gained nothing but a great cough."
The city, too, was more than usually gloomy. There
were fewer strangers there; and consequently there was
less industry, more complaint, more beggary. "Rome is
an ugly old place. The past is all: there is no present but




THE ETERNAL CITY.                 527
misery, and no future but decay and destruction.  It is a
fossil city, 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 finest of ruins
are not cheering to a man who feels his steps tending
towards decay.
The memory of the brave young America, where his
heart was, deepened the gloom of the old city, and made
existence there at times almost unbearable. Through letters and newspapers he was informed of all that went on
there in the world of religion, politics, society: the petty
sectarian quarrels, the pettier sectarian manceuvres, were
all reported to him. With beating heart he followed the
fortunes of the deepening fight between liberty and slavery, noting the names of those that battled well and of
those that faltered, measuring forces, balancing probabilities, forecasting issues, cheering the combatants, and
aching with agony because he could not be where the strife
was hottest. The heroic venture of his friend John
Brown was made while he was on his way from  Switzerland to Italy.  Every step of that great exploit he traced
with eager emotion, bore in mind tenderly the clay of execution, and listened breathlessly for the echoes that came
from the hills of the North. Every brave word spoken
reached his ear; every responsive act done by ioused
leaders or indignant people, every movement prophetic of
popular uprising, made the blood fly in his veins. It is
anguish to be idle and useless when soldiers are needed
as never before. He would share the fate of his friends,
Sumner, Wilson, Hale, Seward, Gerritt Smith, Stearns,
Howe, the faithful few who dared stand up for principle.
"0 George!" he cries to his friend Ripley, "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,




528            THIEODORE PARKAER.
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."
To all who had been true to him his feeling was exceedingly tender. He had finished a long letter to his
old friend Charles Ellis, when the news came of his death.
Immediately a touching letter goes to his widow: " He
was one of my oldest friends, one of the faithfullest, one
of the nearest and dearest. His friendship never failed;
and I never asked him in vain to help another. 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 free and unfettered spirit. I think it fortunate for him, for you, for us all, that he was spared that
long agony which wearies out the day of many, and
makes the road to the grave so rough and difficult. 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."  The wife of
another of his well-beloved parishioners, Mrs. George
Jackson, passed away; and another message of love and




THE ETERNAL CITY.                 529
faith flew from his pen: " Who would not wish for so
smooth a sail out of this little sea, and into the great wide
haven we are all bound to? Most men dread dying, but
not dealk. I can't think our present deaths natural, or to
continue always.  If something were not wrong in our
mode of life, we should all glide gently out of the world;
but we must bear the misfortunes that others entail on 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 any thing with a
smile."
His faith in the eternal present and the immortal future
never fainted. He felt that the sky was always blue above
the clouds: if the star rose in mist, it cleared itself as it
ascended. As the mortal disease gained on him, — as it
did, and as he better than anybody knew that it did, for
he observed and noted each physical change, - the struggle of nature against dissolution was carried on in every
department of his frame. That vigorous organization was
not soon reconciled to death.  Compactly knitted and
sturdily built as if to last a century, it could not consent
to break up. It had to be taken to pieces slowly, each
part separately detached; and the process made the very
seat of the soul tremble. The finest nerves were wrung.
The sweetest bells became jangled and out of tune. The
mechanism of hope and faith and trust was occasionally
disordered, and responded faintly to the bidding of the will.
The column was moved on which the telescope rested that
used to pick out the tiniest stars in the night heavens, and
the fields of light were blurred. The sick man had the
sick man's fancies, — was restless and self-tormenting;
wanted what he could not have; was capricious about
meat and drink and medicine; had the usual unaccountable likes and dislikes.  His case being desperate, he
45




530            THEODORE PARKER.
would clutch at straws, and try experiments with himself,
which varied from day to day; refused all regular treatment. He was never a good subject for nurse or physician: he knew too much; was too self-dependent; call it,
if you please, too self-willed. He was subject to extreme
physical depression from excessive weakness. At such
times, waves of sorrow would roll over the helpless soul.
lThe accumulated weight of former years, which he had
kept back by main force before, now crowded in with
irresistible power: then, his faith and trust asserting
themselves as the billows receded for a moment, his
spirit rose with a bound into regions of joyous anticipation, where sorrow seemed impossible, and labor light.
Even an apostle felt the strait a close one between living
and dying, when, though dying was gain, living was Christ.
We will say no more about it. It was nobody's fault
that the long, trying sickness was distressing: it had
to be. Death seemed unnatural with such a creature.
The loving ones who ministered to him knew it, and
tenderly forgot what they saw it would grieve him
bitterly to have them remember.  For them  to forget
was easy; for pitying affection was uppermost in their
hearts, and gratitude was uppermost in his. Indeed, he
compelled them to forget by the astonishing vigor of
his mind. Only three weeks before he died, as he lay
one day in Rome, with one eye closed from feebleness,
the whole man apparently in the last stage of prostration, a friend who had been absent in Florence for two
weeks came in. "What news?" inquired the patient. The
visitor took from her pocket two or three unpublished
translations, by Owen Meredith, from the Romance
dialect. "Read them to me." As she read, the wan
countenance regained its animation; speech returned.
He took the papers from her hand, read them himself albud,
explained the obscure lines as he went on, and ended by
giving a history of the dialect, and an account of the




TItE ETERNAL CITY.                  531
sources whence the poems were taken, as if that kind of
literature had been the study of his life.
As the weeks wore on, and spring came again, hope
seemed to revive.  He talked of travel.  He would go to
Naples and see Vesuvius, perhaps to Poastum, afterwards
to Siena, Pisa, Florence, Milan, Venice, thence to Vienna,
so into Germany, and round into Switzerland. Of ultimate recovery he had no hope; none of substantial improvement: but he thought he might reach home and die.
His longing was for his friend Desor: " Let us see you
here soon; for you are the medicine I ueed most of all,
and may do me just the good thing I need to set me on
my legs again." At length Desor came, but too late.
The sight of him  gave strength for a moment; but his
society was exhausting.  Still, as this note -the last he
ever finished, to Miss Stevenson in Florence - bears witness, his courage did not fail. Perhaps the thought of
leaving Rome stirred the embers of hope in him.
ROME, SUNDAY (QUASIMODO), April I5, I86o.
POO OLE LADYE, — It is fine weather to-day; and, before
Dr. A. and Desor come here, I will try and write you a little
letter. Yesterday was dreadful weather, and I did not go out of
doors. I think I have been mending ever since Desor came.
But it is too much for him to dine here every day: so he lodges
and dines mainly at his hotel; and we drive together; and he
stays an hour or two or more, and talks to me. I sleep tolerably well, and do not complain. The sore throat seems to be improving.
Wife is as cheerful and happy as you could look for with all
her anxieties; the best and tenderest of nurses; not at all fussy.
She lies down on the sofa after dinner, and sleeps an hour or
so: this both helps her to sleep in the night all the better, and,
what is more, to keep cheerful and active in the day. It is'what she always needed, but would not take.
Cabot thinks it better for me to come home about Sept. I;
and Desor proposes nice little plans for the summer,- partly of
travel, partly of residence at Combe Varin. But all this must




532            THEODORE PARkER.
depend on a conlingency which I cannot control: therefore I
leave all undecided.
We shall travel north with the spring; keeping in warm
weather till we come into Switzerland. Next Saturday, Appletons and all of us hope to start in a vettura for Florence, via
l'erugia. It will take us about six days; and, if you will ask
Mrs. M. to take us into two rooms then, you will confer a new
favor, especially if we get in. I can't go Ai5 highA: the hundred and twenty steps have been almost fatal to me; and I
thank God that I am to ascend them but five times more.
This is all that will run out of my pen this morning, and
perhaps the last I shall write you from Rome; for I hate a pen
now-a-davs. Good-by!
Boo!
But he had changed sadly since the days of Combe
Varin: he looked ten years older; had become an old
man. It was plain to everybody, soon it was plain to
him, that all travelling was impossible, except, perhaps,
what was necessary to take him away from the city, the
aspect whereof had become ghastly to him, whose atmosphere was mental poison. Then the desire to get away
from Rome and its detestable climate became morbidly
intense. He was impatient to go; fretted under the delays caused by the weather; insisted on departing.
"Should you fail on the road; should you die in a tavern!"-"I will not die so. I will reach Florence.  My
bones shall not rest in this detested soil. I will go to
Florence; and I will get there, I promise you."
The sad procession set off by velturino, by way of Perugia. The journey was made to last five days, -about
thirty miles a day; the patient resting as much as he could,
attempting no excursions, but inquisitive in regard to all
the others saw. "Tell me," he said, "when we pass the
frontier and leave the Papal States behind. If I am asleep,
wake me to tell it." The post, newly painted red, white,
and green, the colors of the kingdom of Italy, was passed
in the daytime. He observed it, and roused himself as




THE ETERNAL CITY.                  533
if electrified. His eyes burned with enthusiasm. Now, at
least, he should die in a free land.
Florence was reached, but hardly. The sick man was
more than ready to accept the rest it offered. He welcomed his last bed. There, day after day, he lay quietly,
his back to the window, his eyelids quivering, his mind
much of the time in a half-conscious state, his thoughts
wandering in pleasant places. He was on his way to
America; he was at home again among his dear parishioners. " Come, Bearsie, let us go and see our friends."
Once he tried to write a note to good John Ayres, the
friend of many years:FLORENCE, May 3.
My DEAR JOHN AYRES, - So I shall still call you. Will
you come over to-morrow and see us, just after your dinnertime? 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.
His broken talk ran upon his old days and old delights.
Grateful messages fell from his murmuring lips:"Mr. Gooding's pears!-thank him. Couldn't forget the
autumn pears  "
" Love to Aunt Mary: that is all that 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, i86o. I
should like to touch them, and tread on Boston Common."
He was in his house,' his library. One day he declared
that all was confusion there; and it was: the careful
housekeeper was sweeping it at the moment, unconscious
that the master's exorbitant sensibility was restlessly m6ving about the room, disturbed by her dust. When the
fever-fits were on him, he would rouse himself as if to pre45*




534            THEODORE PARAKER.
pare for a journey. "When is that vessel going? Will it
not go soon?" In clearer moments he would be aware of
his condition, and bid affectionate adieus to those about
him; then, rallying, would talk his old child's talk with his
wife and Miss Stevenson, his wasted appearance contrasting singularly with the fresh welling-over of his emotion.
In these last days he was never petulant or exacting. His
gentlest consideration returned to him: he asked humbly
for service, and gratefully thanked those who gave it.
Miss Frances Power Cobbe -one of the truest of his
spiritual friends, in whose books he had interested himself
when in Boston; with whom he had corresponded, whom
he hoped to see in London, but had never met-was in
Florence, and impatient to see him. Collecting himself
by a great effort, the sick man received her tenderly at his
bedside. "It is strange that we should meet thus at last.
But you do not see me; only the memory of me. They
who wish me well wish me a speedy departure to the other
world. Of course, I am not afraid to die; but there is
so much to do! "-" But you have done much. You have
given your life to God, to his truth and his work, as truly
as any old martyr of them all." - " I don't know," was the
reply. " I had great powers committed to me: I have
but half used them." She gave him flowers, - tea-roses,
some lilies of the valley.  The gentle touch of nature
woke the soul of nature in him. A heavenly smile suffused
his face, which made his visitor wonder how any should
have thought him homely. His spirit roused, he talked
with animation of the flowers of America, then of literature,
-the literature of Italy. The veil was lifted; and Miss
Cobbe had a glimpse of the man as he was in his plime.
"Do not speak of your feeling for me," he said: "it
makes me too unhappy to leave you." He wanted to see
her every day, but could not: the pleasure was too exciting. When he did, the gleams of light came at intervals
across a dreamy waste of mind. The lilies caused a glad



THE ETE RNAL C TY.                535
ness that soon faded. "What day is it? "-" Sunday, a
blessed day." —" It is a blessed day when one has got over
the superstition of it." " I want to tell you something," he
said earnestly at one of these interviews. "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." Weeks before this there were moments,
moments in almost every day, when the shattered mental
system responded to no supreme effort at control. The
mainspring of the mechanism was fatally weakened; the
golden bowl was broken; the silver cord was loosed. Once,
in Rome, his wife having left the room, he put a paper
into a friend's hand. It contained directions for his
funeral in the Music Hall. Rome and Boston were mingled confusedly in his mind. "It is all one," he said.
" Phillips and Clarke will come for my sake." Notions of
time and space were blurred; but the noble heart was true
to its instincts. If his mind wandered, it was in heavenly
fields. He would save his wife from the bitterness of his
thought. He did his friends the justice to think their love
as all-victorious as his own.
At last the curtain fell: a gradual weakness, without
pain or distress, pressed down the prostrate frame. Mental action ceased: a soft mist crept over the faculties:
physical sensibility became less and less. On the Ioth of
May he fell asleep, so softly, that the most anxious watchers knew not that the last breath had been drawn. The
slumber of a little child was" in his case more than a metaphor. The great soul had gone, and a simplicity as of
infancy rested on the deserted face.
Three days later, on a Sunday afternoon, the body was
taken to the little Protestant cemetery just outside the city,
by the Pinti Gate. It was a feast-day in the city. The
body was taken to its resting-place through streets that
were lined with banners, and rang with rejoicing. In the
narrow graveyard, blooming with verdure, it was buried.




536            THEODORE PARKER.
The reading of the Beatitudes, and the solemn thoughts
of the mourners, made all the service. It was enough.
Over few graves could those immortal words be more fitly
spoken. A plain slab of gray marble, with the simplest of
inscriptions, has told many of his country men and women
where to leave their sweetest flowers and their tenderest
tears. His own words best express the spirit in which he
met his end: -
"Yes, holy one, thou the good Shepherd art,
Enduring hardest service for thy sheep,
Hearing their bleatings with a human heart,
Not losing such as thou wert put to keep;
But feeble wanderers from the field astray
Thou on thy shoulders takest, and dost bear
From hireling thieves and murdering wolves away,
And watchest o'er them with a guardian care.
Thou art the human Shepherd of the sheep,
Leading them forth to pasture all the day;
At night to folds which them in safety keep.
Thou light and life from God, to heaven the way,
And giving, at the last, thy own, thy well-beloved, sleep."




CHAPTER XX.
TRIBUTES.
THE tidings of Theodore Parker's death caused a profound sensation in the places that had known him. At
the annual festival of the Unitarian Association, on Anniversary Week, it was alluded to with feeling by men who
had disagreed with the preacher and reformer, but who
sincerely respected the man. At the session of the NewEngland Antislavery Society, on Thursday, May 3I, resolutions of eulogy were offered by Wendell Phillips, which
the president of the society, John T. Sargent, seconded
in a few appreciative words, and which Theodore's loving
and beloved friend, Samuel J. May, followed with a tribute
out of a full heart. I shall not copy at length the addresses that were made here or elsewhere; but a few extracts will be proper, as showing the impression that Mr.
Parker left on the stronigest minds. The language is, of
course, language of eulogium; but it fell from sincere lips,
that were not in the habit of speaking idle praise of any,
holding truth ever more precious than tenderness to living
or to dead.
After some words of introduction, Mr. Phillips said,"When some Americans die, when most Americans die,
their friends tire the public with excuses. They confess this
spot; they explain that stain; they plead circumstances as the
half justification of that mistake; and they beg of us to remember that nothing but good is to be spoken of the dead. We
537




538              THEODORE PARKER.
need no such mantle for that green grave under the sky of
Florence; no excuses, no explanations, no spot. Priestly malice has scanned every inch of his garment: it was seamless;
it could find no stain. History, as in the case of every other of
her beloved children, gathers into her bosom the arrows which
malice had shot at him, and says to posterity,'Behold the
title-deeds of your gratitude!' We ask no moment to excuse: there is nothing to explain. What the snarling journal
thought bold, what the selfish politician feared as his ruin, it
was God's seal set upon his apostleship. The little libel glanced
across him like a rocket when it goes over the vault: it is
passed, and the royal sun shines out as beneficent as ever.
~" When I returned from New York on the thirteenth day of
this month, I was to have been honored by standing in his
desk; but illness prevented my fulfilling the appointment. It
was eleven o'clock in the morning. As he sank away the same
week under the fair sky of Italy, he said to the most loving of
wives and of nurses,'Let me be buried where I fall;' and
-tenderly, thoughtfully, she selected four o'clock of the same
Sunday to mingle his dust with the kindred dust of brave,
classic Italy.
"Four o'clock! The same sun that looked upon the halfdozen mourners that he permitted to follow him to the grave,
that same moment of brightness, lighted up the arches of his
own temple as one whom he loved stepped into his own desk,
and with remarkable coincidence, for the only time during his
absence, opened one of his own sermons to supply my place;
and, as his friend read the Beatitudes over his grave on the
banks of the Arno, his dearer friend here read from a manuscript the text,'Have faith in God.' It is said that in his last
hours, in the wandering of that masterly brain, he murmured,'There are two Theodore Parkers: one rests here, dying; but
the other lives, and is at work at home.' How true! At that
very moment he was speaking to his usual thousands; at that
very instant his own words were sinking down into the hearts
of those that loved him best, and bidding them, in this the loneliest hours of their bereavement,'have faith in God.'
" He always came to this platform: he is an old occupant of
it. He never made an apology for coming to it. I remember,
many years ago, going home from the very hall which formerly




TRIBUTES.                      539
occupied this place. He had sat where you sit, in the seats,
looking up at us. It had been a stormy, hard gathering, a
close fight; the press calumniating us; every journal in Boston
ridiculing the idea which we were endeavoring to spread. As I
passed down the stairs homeward, he put his arm within mine,
and said,' You shall never need to ask me again to share that
platform.' It was the instinct of his nature, true as the bravest
heart. The spot for him was where the battle was hottest. He
had come, as half the clergy come, a critic.  He felt it was
not his place; that it was to grapple with the tiger, and throttle
him. And the pledge that he made he kept; for whether here
or in New York, as his reputation grew, when that lordly mammoth of the press,'The Tribune,' overgrown in its independence and strength, would not condescend to record a word that
Mr. Garrison or I could utter, but bent low before the most
thorough scholarship of New England, and was glad to win its
way to the confidence of the West by being his mouthpiece, -
with that weapon of influence in his right hand, he always
placed himself at our side, and in the midst of us, in the capital
State of the empire.
"You may not think this great praise: we do. Other men
have brought us brave hearts; other men have brought us keensighted and vigilant intellects: but he brought us, as no one
else could, the loftiest stature of New-England culture. He
brought us a disciplined intellect, whose statement was evidence,
and whose affirmation the most gifted student took long time
before he ventured to doubt or to contradict. When we had
nothing but our characters, nothing but our reputation for accuracy, for our weapons, the man who could give to the cause of
the slave that weapon was indeed one of its ablest and foremost
champions.
" Lord Bacon said in his will,' I leave my name and memory
to foreign lands, and to my own countrymen after some ftime be
Passed.' No more fitting words could be chosen, if the modesty
of the friend who has just gone before us would have permitted
him to adopt them for himself. To-day, even within twentyfour hours, I have seen symptoms of that repentance which
Johnson describes: 
When nations, slowly wise and meanly just,
To buried merit raise the tardy bust.'




540             THEODORE PARKAER.
"The men who held their garments aside, and desired to
have no contact with Music Hall, are beginning to show symptoms that they will be glad, when the world doubts whether they
have any life left, to say,'Did not Theodore Parker spring
from our bosom?' Yes, he takes his place, his serene place,
among those few to whom Americans point as a proof that the
national heart is still healthy and alive. Most of our statesmen,
most of our politicians, go down into their graves, and we cover
them up with apologies: we walk with reverent and filial love
backward, and throw the mantle over their defects, and say,'Remember the temptation and the time!' Now and then
one, now and tdhen one, goes up silently, and yet not unannounced, like the stars at their coming, and takes his place;
while all eyes follow him, and say,'Thank God! It is the
promise and the herald: it is the nation alive at its heart. God
has not left us without a witness; for his children have been
among us, and one-half have known them by love, and one-half
have known them by hate, - equal attestations to the divine life
that has passed through our streets.'"
Mr. Garrison spoke with little premeditation, but in
substance thus: He referred to the mental independence
and moral courage which characterized Mr. Parker in respect to all his convictions and acts.  He was not technically "a Garrisonian abolitionist," though often upon
that platform, but voted with the Republican party, though
faithfully rebuking it for its timidity and growing spirit of
compromise. He was no man's man, and no man's follower, but acted for himself, bravely, conscientiously, and
according to his best judgment.
But what of his theology?  Mr. Garrison did not know
that he could state the whole of Mr. Parker's creed; but
he remembered a part of it: "There is one God and
Father over all, absolute and immutable, whose love is
infinite, and therefore inexhaustible, and whose tender
mercies are over all the works of his hand; and, whether
in the body or out of the body, the farthest wanderer from
the fold might yet have hope."  He believed in the con



TRIBUTES.                   54I
tinual progress and final redemption of the human race;
that every child of God, however erring, would ultimately
be brought back. " You may quarrel with that theology,"
said Mr. Garrison, " if you please: I shall not. I like it;
I have great faith in it; I accept it. But this I say in
respect to mere abstract theological opinions, - the longer
I live, the less do I care about them, the less do I make
them a test of character. It is nothing to me that any
man calls himself a Methodist, or Baptist, or Unitarian,
or Universalist. These sectarian shibboleths are easily
taken upon the lip, especially when the'offence of the
cross' has ceased. Whoever will, with his theology, grind
out the best grist for our common humanity, is the best
theologian for me.
"Many years ago, Thomas Jefferson uttered a sentiment which shocked our eminently Christian country as
being thoroughly infidel.'I  do not care,' said he,'whether my neighbor believes in one God or in twenty
gods, if he does not pick my pocket;' thus going to
the root of absolute justice and morality, and obviously
meaning this: If a man pick my pocket, it is in vain he
tells me, in palliation of his crime,'I am a believer in
one true and living God.' -'That may be; but you are a
pickpocket nevertheless.' Or he may say,'I have not
only one God, but twenty gods: therefore I am not
guilty.' -'Nay, but you are a thief!' And so we always
throw ourselves back upon character; upon the fact
whether a man is honest, just, long-suffering, merciful;
and not whether he believes in a denominational creed, or
is a strict observer of rites and ceremonies. This was the
religion of Theodore Parker, always exciting his marvellous powers to promote the common good, to bless those
who needed a blessing, and to seek and to save the lost,
to bear testimony in favor of the right in the face of an
ungodly age, and against'a frowning world.'"
Mr. Garrison said they were there to honor his memory.
46




542            THEODORE PARKER.
How could they best show their estimation of him? By
trying to be like him in nobility of soul, in moral heroism,
in fidelity to the truth, in disinterested regard for the wvelfare of others.
"Mr. Parker, though strong in his convictions, was no
dogmatist, and assumed no robes of infallibility. No man
was more docile in regard to being taught, even by the
lowliest. Mr. Phillips had done him no more than justice
when he said that he was willing and eager to obtair instruction from any quarter. Hence he was always inquiring of those with whom he came in contact, so that he
might learn, if possible, something from them that might
aid him in the great work in which he was engaged.'When the question of woman's rights first came up
for discussion, like multitudes of others, Mr. Parker was
inclined to treat it facetiously, and supposed it could be
put aside with a smile. Still it was his disposition to -hear
and to learn i and as soon as he began to investigate, and
to see the grandeur and world-wide importance of the
woman's-rights movement, he gave to it his hearty support before the country and the world.
"How he will be missed by those noble but unfortunate
exiles who come to Boston from the Old World from time
to time, driven out by the edicts of European despotism!
What a home was Theodore Parker's for them! How
they loved to gather round him in that home! and what a
sympathizing friend, and trusty adviser, and generous
assistant, in their times of sore distress, they have found in
him! There are many such in Boston and in various parts
of our country, who have fled from foreign oppression, xwho
will hear of his death with great sorrow of heart, and
drop grateful tears to his memory."
Next came James Freeman Clarke, most loyal and
generous of friends, whose theological differences left no
trace on his moral or personal affection —




TRIB UTES.                   543
"I remember meeting him on the cars on that fatal winter
which laid the foundation of the disease which took him away.
He had a carpet-bag with him, filled with German, Greek, and
Latin books, - those old books in vellum of the seventeenth
century, — volumes which it is a pain merely to look at, so hard
reading do they seem to be. On Monday morning he filled his
capet-bag, and went to the place where he was to lecture Monday night: all day long he studied his books, and at night
delivered his lecture. Then on Tuesday he would go to the
next place; studying his books all day, and lecturing at night.
So he would go on through the week until Friday; when he
would be back again to Boston, with his carpet-bag exhausted,
with every one of those books gutted of its contents, with the
whole substance of them in his brain; so that he knew all about
every one of them, and could give a perfect analysis of them
all from beginning to end. On Saturday morning he would sit
down to write his sermon for the next day; on Saturday afternoon go and visit the sick and bereaved of his society; on
Sunday morning preach his sermon, and in the afternoon drive
out to Watertown and preach there; and on Sunday evening he
would lie on the sofa, and talk to his friends. That was his way
of working. I got a letter only yesterday from William H.
Channing, an old friend of his, who, speaking in the most tender
and affectionate terms of his departure, said that he had, by
over-working the intellectual part of his faculties, by too great
fidelity in study, killed out, to some extent, another masterly
faculty, which he had observed, but of which those who did not
know him might be ignorant; namely, his gorgeous imagination.
Mr. Channing said that he was a man who had, with all his logical power, with all those reflective faculties, with all those immense powers of grasp and reception, - the powers by which
he held on to and retained what he had learned, and the powers
by which he brought them into one great system in order to
set them before men, -with all this he had the imagination of a
poet, but did not let it work, he was so busy studying, all the
time.
"Now, there were other students along with him when
he was a boy: and I have known a great many students; but
their way of studying was very different from his.  When
Parker studied, it was not merely with the concentration of cer



544             THEODORE PARKER.
tain faculties, for the sake of working out a certain problem,
and there an end of it; or merely to gather together certain
things, and put them into his brain, and there an end of it. No:
he had a great idea before him all the time; and his study was
always instinct with the life of that idea; and every word he
uttered was a living word; and all the thoughts that came from
him came from him as fresh, glowing thoughts, full of love to
God and love to man.
"Now with regard to the second thing which goes to make a
man great. What was Parker's way of action? It was a grand
way of action. His activity was as large, determined, persistent, complete, and thorough as his intellectual working was.
What he did was on a plan reaching through years, on a plan
arranged when he was a boy, - the whole of his life mapped out
before him, with all he meant to do each year previously arranged, and the reason for it fixed in his own mind: and then
he went to his work, and did it; lived to accomplish it. But
what sort of work was it? Greatness in work considers the
quality of the work as well as the amount and method of accomplishing it. What was the quality of his work? It was simply
this: it was to lift man toward God. That was the work which
Parker gave himself to do in the world; that was the work for
which he gathered together all this knowledge; that the work
for which he so trained his intellect to be acute, persistent, and
comprehensive. It was to raise men to God. With his eye on
God, he turned to man to lift him up; and wherever he found
a man who needed to be raised, or a class, a race, or a nation,
that needed to be lifted up, there he felt his work to be. On
that point I say no more, because it is the least necessary to
speak of his work; since that is patent, and known to all.
" But there is one other element of greatness in man. Besides
the head and the hand, there is the heart. What was the greatness of heart in Theodore Parker? His habit was, in speaking
of the Almighty, not to call him the Almighty. He spoke of
the'Absolute Father'in his philosophy and in his theology;
but when he came to speak of him from the pulpit, as a Christian man speaking to Christian men, as a brother talking to
brethren and sisters of what they needed, it was'Father' and'Mother,' -' the great Father and Mother of us all.' The tender, feminine heart of Theodore Parker was not satisfied with




TRIBUTES.                     545
the name of' Father' unless he united with it that of' Mother.'
So tender was he, so affectionate was he, that no one was ever
near to Parker as a friend, as an intimate companion, without
wondering how it was that men could ever think of him as hard,
stern, severe, cold, and domineering, because, in all the private
relations of life, he was docile as a child to the touch of love;
and it was only necessary, if you had any fault to find with any
thing that he had said or done, to go to him, and tell him just
what your complaint was, or what your difficulty was, and just
as likely as not he would at once admit, if there was the least
reason in the complaint, that he was wrong. He was as ready
to admit himself in the wrong as to maintain his stand for the
everlasting right.
"I do not know how to describe -with what figure borrowed
from nature or art or history to describe - how Parker seems
to me in all this varied and accumulated greatness of mind,
of heart, and of hand, better than by telling you the incidents of
one day of my life. When I was passing out of Italy once by
the St. Gothard route, we were in Italy in the morning, on the
Italian side of the mountains, surrounded by Italian voices and
by the music of Italian nightingales, and within sight of the
opening vineyards. Then we began the ascent of the mountain; and, as we ascended, we passed through the valley of pines,
until at last, on that Is5th of May, we came to the snow. Then
we took the little sleds, and went on upon the snow, higher and
higher, until we were surrounded with great fields of snow, dazzling white in the sun; and on one side we saw the fall of a
terrible avalanche, with its roar of thunder. So we passed on
until we reached the summit of the mountain; and then, descending on the other side, we came at last to where again the snow
ceased; and, there taking the diligence, we went on our way
down the side of the mountain, through gorges and ravines,
and glaciers even, the country around growing more and more
green, changing from spring to summer, until at last, when we
came down toward the Lake of Lucerne, we passed through
orchards full of apple-blossoms, and finally crossed the beautiful lake to the town of Lucerne, there to receive a whole bundle
of letters from home —from father, mother, brother, sister, and
child -to end the day. When I think of that day's journey, -
beginning in Italy, and ending in Germany; beginning under an
46*




546             THEODORE PARKER.
Italian sun, at mid-day surrounded by snow-fields and glaciers,
and at its close amid the apple-blossoms of Germany,-it seems
to me that that varied and wonderful day is a sort of type of the
life of our friend Theodore Parker; its youth Italian, all fresh
and gushing with ten thousand springs of early, boyish life, and
hope and animation, and with all the varied study and activity of
the child and youth; its early morning passed in the stern work
of climbing up the mountain-side; its mid-day with God's everlasting sun over his head, and the great, broad fields all around,
over which his eye looked; and, all through its afternoon-hours,
passing on into an ever-increasing affluence of spring and summer, and ending at last in the sweet bosom of affection, gratitude, and love."
At the close of the regular services at the Music Hall
on the 3d of June, -on which occasion an appreciative discourse on the character of Mr. Parker was delivered by his
friend Samuel J. May, - a meeting of the society was held
to express their sense of the loss sustained in their minister's death.  Mr. Charles W. Slack, chairman of the
standing committee, called the meeting to order; and Mr.
Frank B. Sanborn presented the fitting resolutions, which,
touching as they were, failed to convey all there was in his
friends' thoughts or his own. Two days earlier, on June I,
the Fraternity —an organization composed of members
of the society for the purpose of aiding in all suitable
ways the minister and standing committee - had met, and
adopted resolutions in behalf of its own members.
On Sunday, June I7, exercises in commemoration of
the death of Theodore Parker were held by the Twentyeighth Congregational Society in the Music Hall. The
immense audience, many standing, remained patient and
attentive through proceedings which lasted upwards of
two hours. The stand at which he had so long preached
was covered with flowers. A cross of white roses and
evergreen hung in front; wreaths of variegated flowers,
the rarest and most beautiful of the season, were on either




TRIB UTES.                     547
side; on the top stood vases with large bouquets. Lilies
of the valley, Mr. Parker's favorite, lay beside the Bible.
The services consisted of prayer, the reading of expressive passages from Scripture, the singing of hymns which
the minister loved to read, -one of them  his own selection for this very occasion, - and addresses by Charles
M. Ellis, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Wendell Phillips, -
three men who knew him well, had the discernment to
understand him, and the tongues to say what they had to
say with as much truth as eloquence. A portion of their
words, the portion that is most interesting now, is given.
Mr. Ellis spoke first, he being most intimately associated
with Air. Parker as a parishioner and personal friend.
His voice was the voice of the society:"The resolve'that Theodore Parker should have a chance
to be heard' was more than the word of a friend, or a protest
for religious freedom, or a plan for a free church. Before the
South-Boston sermon, it was known who and what was coming
in this young preacher, who had said,' God still lives; man
has lost none of his high nature:' and in his parable of Paul,'I shall walk by God's light, and fear not.' It was thought
that the new truth would be spread by his voice; perhaps not
dreamed that one man could spread it so widely. But that simple resolve, the seed of this society, was dropped in faith that
that truth would prevail; the mover of it having a year or two
before, in a little book now forgotten, shown how it was the'basis of all true art, criticism, society, morals, laws, an:.
religion.' But of this society: -
"First, We may be content to leave almost all - as to what
he uzdid, that is matter of discussion at this day, whilst partisans define their positions, priests their creeds -with a word
which covers it all, vera vro gratis.  If truth be started, let old
errors go.
"N Vext let us look to what he created and did. He ascended
to the sublime heights of philosophy and religion; by thought
and study made clear to the intellect the truth that fired his
soul, - that'God is infinite perfection, power, wisdom, justice,




548              THEODORE PARKER.
love,' - and plainly showed it to the world. He saw and showed
how, historically and by nature, man grows in the light of love,
and has his eyes opened to spiritual truth, as flowers beneath
the sun. He took truth from books and scholars, religion from
temples and the priests, and showed them to common men.
" His basis was man's intuition of God, and direct tercebtion
of his laws. We see that the old theologies were most disturbed by his ideas, as slavery was, of all institutions, most
shaken by his labors. Probably time will show that the most
positive and complete of his intellectual works was his spiritual
theology.
"Calmly, and at length, alas! with labor too great for that failing frame, thinking death near, - as he said,' up to his shoulders in his grave,'- he reviewed that work. He wished to live to
round it off, hoping for the length of years and strength of his
ancestors, but ready to pass the golden gates to immortal life.
His work is fragmentary in relation to his idea, though so much
is in itself complete.  He tells us, that, after his discourse
of' Matters pertaining to Religion,' he formed a plan, and prepared for the afternoon and evening of his days, to show the'History of the Progressive Development of Religion among
the Leading Races of Mankind.'
"What a few in the grove of the academies, by the lamp of
philosopliy, in moments of vision, had seen, had become so
clear to him, that he would not only make it plain, and prove it to
the reason of men, but would traverse the history of the world,
and show its growth; show how, by either method, analysis, or
synthesis, this one truth was the culmination of human thought.
Well may we leave theologies, christologies, creeds, statutes,
societies, governments, to take care of themselves.
" Success! For fifteen years a free church; this truth embodied in labors for the dangerous, perishing, criminal classes,
for education, woman, temperance, freedom, peace; its light
thrown on the lives of our great men and heroes; put in volumres that will live with the English tongue; put into labors that
now move and will move the American Church and State whilst
they endure; set forth in a system of religion, a positive spiritual theology, a method of spiritual culture; shadowing a scheme
of ethics; containing almost the only fit attempt to state the
law of nature, the law of laws, in the language; his thought, his
labor, his life,- these are success and triumph enough."




TRIBsUTES.                     549
Mi. Emerson followed:"He whose voice will not be heard here again could well
afford to tell his experiences: they were all honorable to him,
and were part of the history of the civil and religious liberty of
his times. Theodore Parker was a son of the soil, charged with
the energy of New England; strong, eager, inquisitive of knowledge; of a diligence that never tired; upright; of a haughty
independence, yet the gentlest of companions; a man of study,
fit for a man of the world; with decided opinions, and plenty of
power to state them; rapidly pushing his studies so far as to
leave few men qualified to sit as his critics. He elected his post
of duty, or accepted nobly that assigned him in his rare constitution, -wonderful acquisition of knowledge; a rapid wit that
heard all, and welcomed all that came, by seeing its bearing.
Such was the largeness of his reception of facts, and his skill to
employ them, that it looked as if he were some president of
council to whom a score of telegraphs were ever bringing in
reports; and his information would have been excessive but for
the noble use he made of it, ever in the interest of humanity.
He had a strong understanding, a logical method, a love for
facts, a rapid eye for their historic relations, and a skill in stripping them of traditional lustres. He had a sprightly fancy, and
often amused himself with throwing his meaning into pretty
apologues; yet we can hardly ascribe to his mind the poetic
element, though his scholarship had made him a reader and
quoter of verses. A little more feeling of the poetic significance of his facts would have disqualified him for some of his
severer offices to his generation. The old religions have a
charm for most minds, which it is a little uncanny to disturb.
It is sometimes a question, shall we not leave them to decay
without rude shocks? I remember that I found some harshness in his treatment both of Greek and Hebrew antiquity, and
sympathized with the pain of many good people in his auditory,
whilst I acquitted him, of course, of any wish to be flippant.
" IHe came at a time, when, to the irresistible march of opinion,
the forms still retained by the most advanced sects showed
loose and lifeless; and he, with something less of affectionate
attachment to the old, or with more vigorous logic, rejected
them. It is objected to him that he scattered too many illu



550              TIIHEODORE PARKER.
sions. Perhaps more tenderness would have been graceful;
but it is vain to charge him with perverting the opinions of the
new generation.  The opinions of men are organic. Simply
those came to him who found themselves expressed by him;
and had they not met this enlightened mind, in which they
beheld their own opinions combined with zeal in every cause
of love and humanity, they would have suspected their own
opinions, and suppressed them, and so sunk into melancholy
or malignity, a feeling of loneliness and hostility to what was
reckoned respectable. It is plain to me that he has achieved
an historic immortality here; that he has so woven himself in
these few years into the history of Boston, that he can never
be left out of your annals. It will not be in the acts of city
councils, nor of obsequious mayors, nor in the State House,
the proclamations of governors, with their failing virtue, —
failing them at critical moments, -that the coming generations
will stu ly what really befell; but in the plain lessons of Theodore Parker in this Music Hall, in Faneuil Hall, or in legislative committee-rooms, the true temper and authentic record
of these days will be read. The next generation will care little
for the chances of elections that govern governors now; it
will cate little for fine gentlemen who behaved shabbily: but it
will read very intelligently in his rough story, fortified with
exact anecdotes, precise with names and dates, what part was
taken by each actor; who threw himself into the cause of humarity; who came to the rescue of civilization at a hard pinch,
and who blocked its course.
" The vice charged against America is the want of sincerity
in leading men. It does not lie at his door. He never kept
back the truth for fear to make an enemy. But, on the other
hand, it was complained that he was bitter and harsh; that his
zeal burned with too hot a flame. It is so difficult, in evil timhes,
to escape this charge! —for the faithful preacher most of all.
It was his merit, like Luther, Knox, Latimer, and John
Baptist, to speak tart truth when that was peremptory, and
when there were few to say it. But his sympathy with goodness was not less energetic.  One fault he had: he overestimated his friends, I may well say it, and sometimes vexed them
with the importunity of his good opinion, whilst they knew
better the ebb which follows exaggerated praise.  He was




TR B UTES.                     55&1
capable, it must be said, of the most unmeasured eulogies on
those he esteemed, especially if he had any jealousy that they
did not stand with the Boston public as highly as they ought.
His commanding merit as a reformer is this, that he insisted beyond all men in pulpits - I cannot think of one rival - that
the essence of Christianity is its practical morals: it is there
for use, or it is nothing; and if you combine it with sharp
trading, or with ordinary city ambitions to gloss over municipal
corruptions, or private intemperance, or successful fraud, or
immoral politics, or unjust wars, or the cheating of Indians, or
the robbery of frontier nations, or leaving your principles at
home to show on the high seas or in Europe a supple complaisance to tyrants, it is an hypocrisy, and the truth is not in
you; and no love of religious music, or of dreams of Swedenborg, or praise of John Wesley or of Jeremy Taylor, can save
you from the satan which you are.
"His ministry fell on a political crisis also; on the years
when Southern slavery broke over its old banks, made new and
vast pretensions, and wrung from the weakness or treachery of
Northern people fatal concessions in the Fugitive-slave Bill and
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Two days, bitter in the
memory of Boston, - the days of the rendition of Sims and of
Burns, - made the occasion of his most remarkable discourses.
He kept nothing back. In terrible earnest he denounced the
public crime, and meted out to every official, high and low, his
due portion.  By the incessant power of his statement, he
made and held a party. It was his great service to freedom.
He took away the reproach of silent consent that would otherwise have lain against the indignant minority, by uttering in the
hour and place wherein these outrages were done the stern protest. There were, of course, multitudes to censure and defame
this truth-speaker. But the brave know the brave.  Fops,
wl:ether in drawing-rooms or churches, will utter the fop's
opinion, and faintly hope for the salvation of his soul: but his
manly enemies, who despised the fops, honored him; and it is
well known that his great hospitable heart was the sanctuary to
which every soul conscious of an earnest opinion came for
sympathy, - alike the brave slaveholder and the brave slaverescuer.  These met in the house of this honest man; for
every sound heart loves a responsible person,- one who does




$552             THEODORE PA RKER.
not in generous company say generous things, and in mean
company base things, but says one thing, now cheerfully, now
indignantly, but always because he must, and because he sees
that whether he speak, or refrain from speech, this is said over
him, and history, nature, and all souls testify to the same.
"Ah, my brave brother! it seems as if, in a frivolous age, our
loss were immense, and your place cannot be supplied. But you
will already be consoled in the transfer of your genius, knowing well that the nature of the world will affirm to all men, in all
times, that which for twenty-five years you valiantly spoke;
that the winds of Italy murmur the same truth over your grave,
the winds of America over these bereaved streets; that the
sea which bore your mourners home affirms it, the stars in
their courses, and the inspirations of youth; whilst the polished
and pleasant traitors to human rights, with perverted learning
and disgraced graces, rot and are forgotten with their double
tongue, saying all that is sordid for the corruption of man."
Wendell Phillips then laid another manly tribute on
the grave of his friend:"There is one thing every man may say of this pulpit: it
was a live reality, and no sham. Whether tearing theological
idols to pieces at West Roxbury, or here battling with the
every-day evils of the streets, it was ever a live voice, and no
mechanical or parrot-tune; ever fresh from the heart of God,
as these flowers, these lilies, - the last flower over which, when
eyesight failed him, with his old gesture he passed his loving
hand, and said,' How sweet!' As in that story he loved so
much to tell of Michael Angelo, when in the Roman palace
Raphael was drawing his figures too small, Angelo sketched a
colossal head of fit proportions, and taught Raphael his fault;
so Parker criticised these other pulpits, not so much by censure
as by creation; by a pulpit proportioned to the hour, broad as
humanity, frank as truth, stern as justice, and loving as Christ.
Here is the place to judge him. In St. Paul's Cathedral the
epitaph says, if you would know the genius of Christopher
Wren,'look around.' Do you ask proof how full were the
hands, how large the heart, how many-sided the brain, of your
teacher: listen, and you will hear it in the glad, triumphant cer



TRIB UTES.                    553
tainty of your enemies, that you must close these doors, since
his place can never be filled. Do you ask proof of his efficient
labor, and the good soil into which that seed fell: gladden your
eyes by looking back, and seeing for how many months the
impulse his vigorous hand gave you has sufficed, spite of boding
prophecy, to keep these doors open. Yes, he has left those
accustomed to use weapons, and not merely to hold up,his
hands. And not only among yourselves: from another city I
received a letter, full of deep feeling; and the writer, an Orthodox church-member, says, -
"' I was a convert to Theodore Parker before I was a convert
to -.  If there is any thing of value in the work I am doing
to-day, it may, in an important sense, be said to have had its
root in Parker's heresy: I mean the habit-without which
Orthodoxy stands emasculated, and good for nothing - of independently passing on the empty and rotten pretensions of
churches and churchmen, which I learned earliest, and more
than from any other, from Theodore Parker. He has my love,
my respect, my admiration.'
"Yes, his diocese is broader than Massachusetts. His influence extends very far outside these walls. Every pulpit
in Boston is freer and more real to-day because of the existence of this. The fan of his example scattered the chaff
of a hundred sapless years. One whole city is fresher to-day
because of him.  The most sickly and timid soul under
yonder steeple, hide-bound in days and forms and beggarly
Jewish elements, little dreams how ten times worse and
narrower it was before this sun warmed the general atmosphere around. As was said of Burke's unsuccessful impeachment of Warren Hastings,' Never was the great object of
punishment, the prevention of crime, more completely obtained.
Hastings was acquitted; but tyranny and i;juszt'ce were
condemned wherever English was spoken.' So we may say
of Boston and Theodore Parker. Grant that few adopted
his extreme theological views, that not many sympathized in his
politics: still, that Boston is nobler, purer, braver, more loving,
more Christian, to-day, is due more to him than to all the pulpits
that vex her sabbath air. He raised the level of sermons intellectually and morally. Other preachers were compelled to grow
in manly thought and Christian morals in very self-defence. As
47




554              THEODORE PARKER.
Christ preached of the fall of the tower of Siloam the week
before, and what men said of it in the streets of Jerusalem;
so Parker rang through our startled city the news of some fresh
crime against humanity,- some slave-hunt, or wicked court, or
prostituted official, - till frightened audiences actually took bond
of their new clergyman that they should not be tormented
before their time.
"Men say he erred on that great question of our age, - the
place due to the Bible. But William Crafts, one of the bravest
men who ever fled from our vulture to Victoria, writes to a
friend,'When the slave-hunters were on our track, and no
other minister except yourself came to direct our attention to
the God of the oppressed, Mr. Parker came with his wise
counsel, and told us where and how to go; gave us money.
But that was not all: he gave me a weapon to protect our liberties, and a Bible to guide our souls. I have that Bible now, and
shall ever prize it most highly.'
" How direct and frank his style - just level to the nation's
ear. No man ever needed to read any of his sentences twice
to catch its meaning. None suspected that he thought other
than he said, or more than he confessed.
" Like all such men, he grew daily; never too old to learn.
Mark how closer to actual life, how much bolder in reform, are
all his later sermons, especially since he came to the city,
every year a step'Forward persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpassed.'
"There are men whom we measure by their times, content
and expecting to find them  subdued to what they work in.
They are the chameleons of circumstance; they are iEolian
harps, toned by the breeze that sweeps over them. There are
others who serve as guide-posts and landmarks: we measure
their times by them. Such was Theodore Parker. Hereafter
the writer will use him as a mete-wand to measure the heart
and civilization of Boston. Like the Englishman, a year or two
ago, who suspected our great historian could not move in the
best circles of the city when it dropped out that he did not
know Theodore Parker, distant men gauge us by our toleration and recognition of him. Such men are our nilometers:




TRZBUSE5S.                     555
the harvest of the future is according to the height that the
flood of our love rises round them. Who cares now that Harvard vouchsafed him no honors? But history will save the fact
to measure the calculating and prudent bigotry of our times.
"Some speak of him only as a bitter critic and harsh
prophet.  Pulpits and journals shelter their plain speech in
mentioning  him under the example of what they call his'unsparing candor.'  Do they feel that the stranczeness of their
speech, their unusual frankness, needs apology and example?
But he was far other than a bitter critic; though thank God for
every drop of that bitterness that came like a wholesome
rebuke on the dead, saltless sea of American life! Thank God
for every indignant protest, for every Christian admonition, that
the Holy Spirit breathed through those manly lips! But, if he
deserved any single word, it was'generous.'  Virgenerosus is
the description that leaps to the lip of every scholar. He was
generous of money. Born on a New-England farm in those
days when small incomings made every dollar a matter of importance, he no sooner had command of wealth than he lived
with open hands. Not even the darling ambition of a great
library ever tempted him  to close his ear to need. Go to
Venice or Vienna, to Frankfort or to Paris, and ask the refugees who have gone back —when here friendless exiles but
for him —under whose roof they felt most at home. One of
our oldest and best teachers writes me, that telling him once, in
the cars, of a young lad of rare mathematical genius who could
read Laplace, but whom narrow means debarred from the
university,' Let him enter,' said Theodore Parker:' I will pay
his bills.'"
"No sect, no special study, no one idea, bounded his sympathy; but he was generous in judgment where a common man
would. have found it hard to be so. Though he does not go'down to dust without his fame,' though Oxford and Germany
sent him messages of sympathy, still no word of approbation
from the old grand names of our land, no honors from university or learned academy, greeted his brave, diligent, earnest life.
Men can confess that they voted against his admission to scientific bodies for his ideas, feeling all the while that his brain
could furnish half the academy; and yet, thus ostracized, he
was the most generous - more than just - interpreter of the




556             THEEODORRE PARKER.
motives of those about him, and looked on, while others reaped
where he sowed, with most generous joy in their success.
Patiently analyzing character, and masterly in marshalling facts,
he stamped with generous justice the world's final judgment of
Webster; and, now that the soreness of the battle is over,
friend and foe allow it.
" He was generous of labor. Books never served to excuse
him from any the humblest work. Though' hiving wisdom
with each studious year,' and passionately devoted to his desk,
as truly as was said of Milton,' the lowliest duties on himself
he laid.' What drudgery of the street did that scholarly hand
ever refuse? Who so often and constant as he in the trenches
when a slave-case made our city a camp? Loving books, he
had no jot of a scholar's indolence or timidity, but joined hands
with labor everywhere. Erasmus would have found him good
company, and Melancthon got brave help over a Greek manuscript: but the likeliest place to have found him in that age
would have been at Zwingle's side on the battle-field, pierced
with a score of fanatic spears; for, above all things, he was terribly in earnest. If I might paint him in one word, I should
say he was always iln earnlest.
"Fortunate man! he lived long enough to see the eyes of the
whole nation turned toward him as to a trusted teacher; fortunate, indeed, in a life so noble, that even what was scorned
from the pulpit will surely become oracular from the tomb;
thrice fortunate, if he loved fame and future influence, that the
leaves which bear his thoughts to posterity are not freighted
with words penned by sickly ambition, or wrung from hunger,
but with earnest thoughts on dangers that make the ground
tremble under our feet,. and the heavens black over our head, -
the only literature sure to live. Ambition says,' I will write,
and be famous.' It is only a dainty tournament, a sham-fight;
forgotten when the smoke clears away. Real books are like
Yorktown or Waterloo, whose cannon shook continents at the
moment, and echo down the centuries. Through such channels Parker poured his thoughts.
"And true hearts leaped to his side. No man's brain ever
made him warmer friends; no man's heart ever held them
firmer. He loved to speak of how many hands he had in every
city, in every land, ready to work for him. With royal serenity




TRIBUTES.                     5 5 7
he levied on all. Vassal hearts multiplied the great chief's
powers; and at home the gentlest and deepest love, saintly,
unequalled devotion, made every hour sunny, held off every
care, and left him double liberty to work. God comfort that
widowed heart!
"Judge him by his friends. No man suffered anywhere who
did not feel sure of his sympathy. In sick-chambers, and by
the side of suffering humanity, he kept his heart soft and young.
No man lifted a hand anywhere for truth and right who did not
look on Theodore Parker as his fellow-laborer. When men
hoped for the future, this desk was one stone on which they
planted their feet.  Where more frequent than around his
board would you find men familiar with Europe's dungeons and
the mobs of our own streets? Wherever the fugitive slave
might worship, here was his Gibraltar: over his mantel, however
scantily furnished, in this city or elsewhere, you were sure to
find a picture of Parker.
"The blessings of the poor are his laurels. Say that his
words won doubt and murmur to trust in a loving God: let that
be his record. Say that to the hated and friendless he was
shield and buckler: let' that be his epitaph. The glory of
children is the fathers. When you voted'that Theodore Parker
should be heard in Boston,' God honored you. Well have you
kept that pledge. In much labor and with many sacrifices he
has laid the corner-stone: his work is ended here. God calls
you to put on the top-stone. Let fearless lips and Christian
lives be his monument."
Theodore Parker's friends have spared no pains to keep
his memory green. Skilful men of letters, themselves
teachers and reformers, have analyzed his mental and
moral character with rare delicacy. Preachers in sympathy, some with his theology, and some with his religion,
have done their best to exhibit him as he was in his positive attitudes toward his generation. The Parker Fraternity have, from winter to winter, invited men who were
supposed to know him better than most to call up his
image freshly for study and admiration. Samuel Johnson
and John Weiss have been among these.
47*




558              TEIEODORE PARAKER.
The present biographer is permitted to use the following familiar letters from Prof. Edward Desor, written several years after his beloved friend's decease: —
From Prof. E. Desor.
NEUFCHATELt Feb. 13, I868.
MY DEAR MRS. PARKER, - This is the second letter which
I am able to write these last five weeks. Except one or two
da ys, I cannot complain of severe pains; but it is exceedingly tedious to be deprived of the use of the right arm  and
hand. Thus every year makes us acquainted with some new
misery. What meaning and benefit there is in it, I could not,
thus far, ascertain. Still I ought not to complain, since my lot is
not of the worst; and I am aware that many consider it as rather
enviable. Do you know that I am drawing fast near sixty?
Fifty-seven years is no joke. It means that I am an old man,
and that I must prepare myself for the great departure.
But life needs not, for that reason, to be void; nor is it. I
consider, on the contrary, that I have still somewhat to do in
scientific as well as in matters of general improvement. I especially consider as such any thing that is done in the spirit of
our dear Theodore Parker. There are some reforms going on
in our country - for instance, at Ba'le - which would have
filled our departed friend with joy. A new church is being
formed, quite in the spirit of Parker; and I know that his name
is often mentioned there as one of the best authorities. Of
course, they have to fight for their cause, as Parker had in
Boston, especially against all the so-called respectable people,
who are, for the most part, very orthodox. Now the young
chui ch has organized a series of public lectures, which are delivered on the critical questions, such as atonement, miracles, sacraments, &c., by the most eminent clergymen of the rew
school.
But that is not all. After the lecture comes the discussion;
the head of the other party being there to defend their thesis.
The people, seeing that it was a serious debate, proposed that
the discussion should take place in the large hall of the gardeners' guild, in which the same questions were discussed at the
time of the Reformation. Of course, they did not convert each




TRIB UTES.                     559
other; but, according to what I heard, the discussions bore a
serious and solemn character. Every thing went on in a very
proper manner; and I do not doubt that it will be for the benefit of the great cause of progress. What I am still more sure
is, that, had our dear Parker been among us, he would have
done his best to encourage this new church.
What shall I tell you from here? I am sitting on a beautiful morning in the upper floor of my house, with a fine sun
that falls into the room, quickening and cheering both my little
birds, who are singing as much as they can, and the flowers
which Mary has raised for my birthday, - splendid hyacinths,
as fine as I ever saw. As to Mary herself, she is still unmarried, and growing old and gray, but still kind and careful.
There is not much new in Combe Varin, except that the last
storm has broken M. Martin's tall pine-tree along the roadside (I
have not yet dared to inform him of the accident); whereas the
double-headed Parker tree is still alive, although rather sickly.
Lyman's linden, on the contrary, is in full vigor. A new one
has been dedicated to friend Lesley.
Your most affectionate
E. DESOR.
Pray go occasionally to Cambridge, and pay a visit to Mrs.
Manning for my sake.
From the Same.
NEUFCHATEL, Feb. 13, I869.
MY DEAR MRS. PARKER, - I am just leaving my breakfasttable, which I found decorated with magnificent hyacinths, snowdrops, and other flowers, which Mary has raised during the last
months. There was also a mighty cake with my name on it.
All that is very neat; but, unfortunately, its true meaning is not
very pleasant, because it is a step more towards the dissolutioai
of our body. XVell, it does not, after all, matter much, provided
the mind preserves some strength and brightness.  In this
respect, I am happy to say that I have not to complain. And I
dare say, if our dear Parker were alive, he would approve of
what we have done, and are still doing, in a department which
was more especially his; viz., in liberal theology. We are
organizing a church, which is very much like his own, - per



56o             THEODORE PARKER.
haps a little more radical,- and which may resume itself in the
following tenets:A church without sacerdoce,
A religion without catechism,
A worship without mystery,
A moral without theology,
A God without system.
This doctrine, which disclaims, of course, all sorts of sacraments and of miraculous intervention, was preached a few
months ago by a young professor of philosophy; and caused,
as you may imagine, a great disturbance among the orthodox.
Still the discussion went on decently; which would not have
been the case some twenty or thirty years ago. Some of the
most eminent leaders of the French Rational Church came to
second us; among others a M. Fe'lix Pecaud, well known by
several publications, and a great admirer of Parker. You cannot imagine how delighted he was to find around me so many
traces of our lamented friend. I showed him his likeness,
some of his letters, his works; which all interested him in the
highest degree. Had it not been so cold, I would have brought
him to Combe Varin to show him the room, and the pine-tree
which bears his name. The latter is still alive, although somewhat weather-beaten; whereas that of Martin, on the side of
the road, has been blown down.
I wish and hope this letter may find you in good health, and
that you will not forget to tell me of it. Pray give my very
best regards to Miss Shannon, whom I liked very much indeed.
What a pity it was that I could not enjoy more her company!
Give also my regards to Miss Stevenson; and, should you happen to pay a visit to my old Mother Manning at Cambridge, do
not forget to remember me in your conversation.
Yours,
E. DESOR.
Mary sends her best love. She has not yet found a husband; but has not.yet given it up.




TRIBUTES.                     56l
From the Same.
NEUFCHATEL, Feb. 13, I870.
MY DEAR MRS. PARKER, - I will not follow yout example;
and, rather than suppose that you do not care about this correspondence, I prefer supposing that some accident has prevented
you from writing on Parker's birthday. Perhaps you have been
absent, or had too much to do; although I am at loss to suppose what business you may have. Let me suppose that you
are still enjoying that excellent health which was your privilege
thus far. As to myself, I have no reason to complain this year
with my health: it has been better than many years before.
The rheumatism, especially, has not taken hold of me; and this
is an unexpected good fortune. Nor was I less active than in
former years. My burden, instead of being lightened, has, on
the contrary, been increased; for they have elected me a member of the Swiss Congress, which will oblige me to spend yearly
about two months at Berne for the coming three years. My
relation with Theodore Parker has also caused me an increase
of business, inasmuch as they have created in our canton a
liberal church, which has caused a great deal of trouble among
the conservatives and fogies of all descriptions. Of course,
Parker's friend could not stay away. My house was, on the
contrary, frequently the rendezvous of the various preachers
and leaders of the movement. This, of course, did not make me
very beloved among the fashionable people; but, on the other
hand, made me rather popular among the liberal minds of all
Switzerland. Among the lecturers who came to us from the
various parts of France and Belgium, there was also a M.
Bost, preacher at Verviers (Belgium), who gave us an excellent
letter about our dear Theodore Parker. The lecturer was listened to with great attention and earnestness; and I dare say
this noble life, exposed with great enthusiasm, had a good influence on our public. - Mary sends her kindest regards. She is
still the old busy housekeeper, taking great care of every thing,
the animals, the plants, and even the books.
I do not know why neither friend Lyman nor friend Lesley
writes to me. I intend to spend a week with Martin in the
month of March. We have now a great deal of snow, and
sleighing in general.
Your                E. DEsoR.




562             THEODORE PARKER.
From the Same.
NEUFCHATEL, Feb. 13, 1872.
MY DEAR MRS. PARKER, - Again a year more; again a
large step on the slope that leads to the close of this earthly
career: but, instead of being quiet, I am more than ever in the
lFarness, and can hardly, among the pre-occupations of our
federal and cantonal revision, find a moment to devote to the
absent friends. You will therefore excuse me for being rather
brief this time.  And still there are many things which I would
like to talk over with you, if I could sit quietly down and
review the past days. My scientific pursuits led me last
autumn to Italy, where there was an international congress of
anthropology and prehistoric archaeology (at Bologna). I went
from Bologna to Rome and Naples, and thought with uncommon interest of the excursion which we once decided to make
to the Vesuv with our dear friend Theodore. How he would
have enjoyed such excursions with men of science, as were my
companions, in the pursuit not only of natural problems, but
also of archaeological ones, such as are now being discussed
everywhere!
It was not our intention to stay at Florence; but, in order
to be there a day, I separated from my companions at Pisa, and
went to Florence. It was on a fine day. My first and near
attraction was the grave in the churchyard, you know.  I
spent there about an hour in quiet and silence. The tomb
was in a proper state of conservation; the rose-bush vigorous,
and so the ivy. I took a leaf of the last; which I sent in a
letter to one of the heads of our church, one of the greatest
admirers of Parker, - Dr. Lang at Zurich. I took also the last
bud of the rose, which I keep for a French admirer of Parker,Mr. Felix Pdcaud, one of the finest minds and noblest hearts
I have met in this life. You will, perhaps, ask why I did not
cut one for you. This was, indeed, my first impression; and I
would have done it, had I not considered how many Americans
are living at and travelling to Florence, and that it is but
natural to think that some of them are anxious of visiting that
venerated grave, and provide you with flowers and leaves. Our
friend Lyman was also present before my mind when I sat on
the margin of the beloved grave. Pray tell his wife, Mrs.




TRIB UTES.                     563
Lyman, that I understand how every thing and every word
that reminds her husband must be interesting to her. There
was never a nobler character than his.
I had the misfortune of missing, last summer, the visit of
Dr. Samuel Cabot and his wife. It was a great disappointment
for me. Were I not so short of time, I would have written long
ago. My old Mary asks me to remember her to good Mrs.
Parker, and to say that she has not yet found a husband. She
is growing old.
Your most sincerely,
E. DESOR.
From the Same.
NEUFCHATEL, April 6, 1873.
MY DEAR MRS. PARKER,- It is for the first time that I am
late with my writing to you on my birthday.  Strange! the
older I am growing, the more have I to work in all directions;
so that I am  obliged to neglect those duties which I ought
above all to fulfil. It is a peculiar feature of our small republics, that, when a man has some good will and some leisure
for working, he soon gets overburdened. That is my case;
and I trust that you will take it into consideration, and not be
angry with me on account of my neglect.
I need not to say that I have not in the least lost sight of
the happy days when I used to enjoy your and our dear Parker's company, and delight in his noble deeds. Could I forget
the benefit which I derived from this intercourse, the interesting reforms which are going on in religious matters would
suffice to recall our beloved friend to my memory. I do not
know how they think of him and of his labors in the United
States: the fact is, that no important step is taken in our
religious affairs without the name of Parker being quoted. I
know more than one of our Unitarian ministers who has no
greater aim than to follow his footsteps. Were you to attend
our meetings, you would frequently hear him quoted as one of
the most prominent preachers of the present age.  There is
especially one of our Unitarian ministers, Dr. Lang of Zurich,
now the leading man among the Swiss Unitarians, who considers him almost as a prophet.
I had, some months ago, the occasion of making the acquaintance of another admirer of Parker, - Miss Carpenter, -who felt




564             THEODORE PARKER.
very thankful when I gave her a little seal with Parker's head,
which I had at the time made at Florence. This noble woman
is, as I hear, about to start for Boston, in spite of her seventy
years, for the sake of organizing refuge-houses for the liberated
criminals and abandoned children, after the model of the English institutes of that kind. Should you happen to meet her,
I pray you to remember me kindly to her, and to return her
friendly remembrance.
Now as to myself and my household. I have nothing particular to say, except that, in spite of the age, I try to keep as active
as possible; and, in fact, I far prefer to have too much to do
than too little. My public duties call me frequently abroad, to
Berne as well as to Zurich. Friend Parker would probably be
very much astonished to hear that I am now vice-president of
the Swiss House of Representatives. My household is pretty
much the same. There is old Mary, still active and devoted,
August, and partly, also, Benj, although the latter is married.
Mary has given up marrying. I intend to start, towards the
end of next month, for the World's Exhibition at Vienna. Now
please let me know how you are, and believe me ever
Your faithful
E. DESOR.
After this, it may seem unnecessary, to say the least,
for the writer of this biography to add any words of his
own descriptive of Theodore Parker; for though the
language quoted above, as well as much of that referred
to, is the language of eulogy, still it is the language of
wise and discriminating men, who praise thoughtfully,
and judge while they praise. But the familiar daily converse with private journals and letters makes on the mind
a peculiar impression quite different from that left by
study of published writings, or observations of an open
career; and which may be worth preserving. The careful
biographer sees traits that are concealed from even the
discerning eye of companion or onlooker, and detects
mental qualities which are overlaid by the deposits of
outward life. Parker had a habit of confiding secrets to




TRIBUTES.                  565
his journal; of laying bare the processes by which his
results were reached; and so revealing, as it were, the
texture of his faculties, the intellectual "protoplasm," if I
may use the word, which afterward took forms of life.
To one who has been privileged to examine this, much of
what has been said by way of commendation and of censure is aside from the truth. The student of these pri.
vate papers is confirmed in an assurance of the man's
simple genuineness, of his honesty, sincerity, faithfulness,
more than that, of his strict dealing with himself, his
humility, modesty, unpretentiousness, lowliness, and purity of spirit. Anybody who would might see that he was a
good deal of a hero: his biographer knows that he was
a good deal of a saint. His power to assert his will was
apparent to all, painfully evident to some. His power to
resign his will they only knew who knew him intimately:
they knew, too, from what self-submission his self-assertion sprang. Men are ready to tell of the wilfulness he
exhibited: they cannot tell of the wilfulness he suppressed. His individuality looked aggressive, and doubtless it was: but it must be said that he was as jealous of
others' individuality as of his own; laid on himself a solemn vow never to infringe on the sacred personality of
enemy or friend; and piously abstained from crushing
when he could not lead. The efforts he made to keep
himself down appear in every volume of the journal, and
make passages of it as touching as the confessions of
St. Augustine or the soliloquies of Paul.
He was fond of roughly classifying the human faculties
for practical purposes, thus: I. The religious; 2. The
moral; 3. The affectional; 4. The intellectual. WORSHIP OF THE ABSOLUTE PERFECTION: that was chief. ALLEGIANCE TO ETERNAL LAW: that came next. Subordinate
only to these were LOVING FIDELITY TO HUMAN RELATIONS,
POWER OF UNDERSTANDING. Mental power, in its several
phases, majestic and important as it is, must be placed
48




566            THEODORE PA RICER.
last. Saint, hero, lover, thinker, -this was the order of
his human hierarchy. The classification may have reflected his own nature: whether it did or not, his own
nature illustrated the classification.
With him the religious sentiment was supreme. It had
roots in his being wholly distinct from its mental or sensible forms of expression, - completely distinguished from
theology, which claimed to give an account of it in words;
and from ceremonies, which claimed to embody it in
rites and symbols. Never evaporating in mystical dreams,
nor entangled in the meshes of cunning speculation, it
preserved its freshness and bloom and fragrance in every
passage of his life. His sense of the reality of divine
things was as strong as was ever felt by a man of such
clear intelligence. His feeling for divine things never
lost its glow; never was damped by misgiving, dimmed by
doubt, or clouded by sorrow. The intensity of his faith
in Providence, and of his assurance of personal immortality,
seems almost fanatical to modern men who sympathize in
general with his philosophy. His confidence in the latter faith particularly, not all theists share. Yet to him it
was native, instinctive (in the sense of spontaneous and
irresistible), born of reverence, aspiration, trust, affection,
which were ineradicable qualities of his being. So far
from dreading to submit his faith to tests, he courted
tests; was as eager to hear the arguments against his
belief as for it; was as fair in weighing evidence on his
opponent's side as on his own. "Oh that mine adversary had written a book!" he was ready to cry, not that
he might demolish it, but that he might read it. He
knew the writings of Moleschott, and talked with him
personally. The books of Carl Vogt were not strange to
him. The philosophy of Ludwig Biichner, if philosophy
it can be called, was as familiar to him as to any of Biichner's disciples. He was intimate with the thoughts of
Feuerbach. He drew into discussion every atheist and




TRIB UTES.                  567
materialist he met; talked with them closely, confidentially; and rose from the interview more confident in the
strength of his own positions than ever. Darwin's first
book' On the Origin of Species," which was brought to
him in Rome, contained nothing that disturbed him. He
thought it unsupported in many of its facts, and hasty in
its generalizations; but the doctrine itself was not offensive to him. Science he counted his best friend; relied on
it for confirmation of his faith; and was only impatient because it moved no faster. All the materialists in and out
of Christendom had no power to shake his conviction of the
infinite God and the immortal existence; nor would have
had, had he lived till he was a century old: for, in his view,
the convictions were planted deep in human nature, and
were demanded by the exigencies of human life. The service they rendered to mankind would have been their sufficient justification, had he found no other; and in this aspect
they interested him chiefly. He used them daily, as man,
as minister, as reformer, — used them in the closet, the
study, the house of mourning, the arena of strife; and,
finding them suitable for all emergencies, accepted them
~as heavenly provisions for them. If more worked their
faiths as he did, fewer would assail them. Moleschott respected Parker; Desor was his confidential friend; Feuerbach would have taken him by the hand as a brother.
It has been said that Parker accomplished nothing final
as a religious reformer; that if he thought of himself as
the inaugurator of a second reformation, a reformation of
Protestantism, the leader of a new "departure," as significant a} d momentous as that of the sixteenth century, he
deceived himself. Luther, it is said, found a stoppingplace, a terminus, and erected a "station," where nearly
half of Christendom have been content to stay for three
hundred years, and will linger, perhaps, three hundred
years longer. Parker stretched a tent near what proved to
be a "branch-road," where a considerable number of trav



568            THEODORE PARKER.
ellers will pause on their journey, and refresh themselves,
while waiting for the "through-train."  That Parker
thought otherwise, that he believed himself sent to proclaim and define the faith of the next thousand years,
merely gives another illustration of the delusions to which
even great minds are subject. Already thought has swept
beyond him; already faith has struck into other paths,
and taken up new positions. The scientific method has
supplanted the theological and sentimental, and has carried many over to new regions of belief. Parker is a
great name, was a great power, will be a great memory;
but it is doubtful if he did the work of a Voltaire or a
Rousseau: that he did not do the work of a Luther is not
doubtful at all.
There is much truth in this; but is it the whole truth?
That Parker did not inaugurate a second reformation is
frankly conceded. The conditions of a second reformation were not given. In Luther's day there was no science as there is now, no general intelligence, no widespread literature, no awakened thought. Christendom
included civilized and intelligent mind: Romanism stood
for Christendom. It was a solid mass: Luther broke it
in two, and of one part made a separate dominion;
which can never be done again. Luther's "terminus"
was not for all time, but only for so long as the human
mind remained in essentially the same condition of dependence in which he found it. Protestantism has been
decomposing ever since it began its career, and is, by
this tinle, pretty thoroughly demoralized.  The translation of the Bible into the popular speech, on which
Luther relied for the establishment of his reform, did
as much as any thing to scatter its force. Had Luther
lived in the nineteenth century, he could have effected no
more than Parker did. Henceforth it will be impossible
to handle masses of men by the power of a single will or
a single idea.




TRIBUTES.                   569
Certainly Parker was not a discoverer. He originated
no doctrine; he struck out no path. His religious
philosophy existed before his day, and owed to him no
fresh development. But he was the first great popular
expounder of it; the first who undertook tq make it the
basis of a faith for the common people; the first who
planted it as the corner-stone of the working-religion of
mankind, and published it as the ground of a new spiritual structure, distinct from both Romanism and Protestantism.
Some of his special beliefs have been dropped already.
Jesus no longer, in radical thought, holds the place that
Parker gave him. The ethics of the New Testament
have fallen into some discredit in the esteem of scientific moralists. The conception of Christianity, in its
essence, has been greatly modified, and is destined to yet
further modification. But these are incidental points, that
do not affect the strength of his general position.  His
peculiarity was, that, assuming man to have a spiritual
nature, he went directly to that for the revelations of truth
and the inspirations of duty. The Romanist appealed to
the Church; the Protestant, to the Bible; Parker, to the
soul.  The intuitive philosop/hy was his strongzhoZ. That
philosophy is not obsolete. It has lived several thousand
years. It was old when Plato was a child; and it will
endure several thousand years yet to come. Parker's
basis, therefore, is permanent. Others may build upon it
different structures; for it is common ground, wide enough
for whole cities to stand upon: but the structure which
Parker built -so ample, comfortable, hospitable, convenient, easy of access, commanding in site, stately at once,
and democratic   will be the welcome home of multitudes who are wanderers in the intellectual world, and
unable to construct heavenly mansions for themselves.
The few educated, cultivated, self-reliant, must be left out
of the account. Romanism never included everybody.
48*




570            THEODORE PARKER.
Lutheranism was pronounced unsatisfactory by the best
thinkers of the reformer's own day. This will be the case,
even more, with " Parkerism."  For all that, " Parkerism"
may deserve to be regarded as a form of religion; and
Parker may merit the name of founder, - not of a sect,
certainly; he never dreamed of that: nor of a church;
for he believed more in ideas than in institutions: say,
then, that he merits the name of crystallizer; for he supplied the statement about which many floating thoughts
gathered. If he did not make a terminus, he laid a new
track, along which many will travel towards the one central terminus, - the truth.
The ethics of Theodore Parker grew from the same root
as his religion, and were part of the same system. These,
too, rested on the spiritual philosophy, - the philosophy of
intuition. He believed that to the human conscience was
made direct revelation of the eternal law; that the moral
nature looked righteousness in the face. He was acquainted with the objections to this doctrine.  The opposite philosophy of utilitarianism, whether as taught by
Bentham or by Mill, was well known to him, but was
wholly unsatisfactory. Sensationalism in morals was as
absurd, in his judgment, as sensationalism in faith. The
Quaker doctrine of the inner light was nearer the truth,
as he saw it, than the experience doctrine of Herbert
Spencer. Experience might assist conscience, but create
it never. Conscience might consult even expediency for
its methods; but for its parentage it must look elsewhere.
Conscience for him  was authority, divine, ultimate.
What that voice commanded — and he did not go to
Pennsylvania Avenue or Wall Street to learn what it
commanded -he obeyed, even if it commanded the cutting off of the right hand, or the plucking out of the right
eye.  He would not compromise a principle, wrong a
neighbor, injure a fellow-creature, take what was not fairly
his, tell a falsehood, betray a trust, break a pledge, turn a




TRBUTES.                     57 
deaf ear to the cry of human misery, for all the world could
give him. At the heart of every matter there was a right
and a wrong, both easily discernible by the simplest mind.
The right was eternally right; the wrong was eternally
wrong; and eternal consequences were involved in either.
Philosophers might find fault with his psychology: they
did find fault with it. He answered them if he could; if
lie could not, he left them answerless: but for himself he
never doubted, but leaned against his pillar. A cloudy
pillar it certainly was: both base and capital were lost in
the mist of eternity; but, so long as it bore up the moral
universe, he cared not what it was made. of. No casuist he.
The school of fidelity was for him the school of wisdom.
The journal makes note of a long talk with a friend who
doubted the infallibility of conscience under any circumstances, seemed phrenologically inclined, denied the will
of man; and the writer says ingenuously, "I could shed
no light on the subject at all. He took the ground of
Owen, that every thing is forecast in the mental or physical
structure of the man.  He will have a mzotive for all things,
and makes action the result of the balance of forces inclining this way or that. He will outgrow this. It can only
be lived down. I have passed through the same stage."
This occurred early in his career, when he was in West
Roxbury; but his position did not change essentially as
he grew older.
The strength of Parker's affections helped to confirm
l:'s faith in conscience, and give intensity to his moral
iistinct.  He was a mighty lover.  His friends were all
glorified by his feeling, till they hardly knew themselves.
He lavished on them terms of endearment; had pet names
for them all; kept their anniversaries; loved to have memorials of them about him. But his affectionateness by
no means confined itself to his friends.  His heart was
human: its humanity was as remarkable as its tenderness.
Love gave him insight, knowledge, prophetic vision.; taught




572            THEEODORE PARKER.
him to see the soul of truth -in things erroneous, the soul
of good in things evil. That he never forgot a kindness,
never failed to reciprocate an act of friendliness, never
neglected an opportunity of rendering service, is not all:
his readiness to forgive those who hated him was as
remarkable as his devotion to those who loved him.
Beauty attracted him; grace charmed him; gifts gained
his admiration; but human qualities commanded his heart.
Handsome or otherwise, graceful, accomplished, witty,
learned, or otherwise, his love of qualities was the same,
knowing no distinction of persons. Yet no man or woman
ever breathed a whisper of suspicion against his constancy.
No ardor of feeling softened to weakness the texture of
his truth.
The controversy is over Theodore Parker's intellectual
character. Was he a philosopher, an original thinker, an
exact scholar, a man of genius? Whether he was or not
is of much less consequence than is suspected; for the
power of his life and character lay in other departments.
Some, perhaps, have claimed too high a place for him
in the ranks of thinkers: possibly he himself overrated his
intellectual endowment. If by "philosopher" be meant a
man of puzre reason, he was not one; for with him reason,
affection, and conscience went inseparably together: but if
by " philosopher " be meant a " rational man," he deserves
to be called one.  He had the prime quality of mental
integrity: he was a sincere lover of the truth; would
neither deceive himself nor others, if it could be avoided;
was no diplomatist of ideas, no politician of thoughts, no
juggler with speech.  He desired the ultimate, fact. The
charge of intellectual pretence or affectation cannot, without malignity, be brought against him. He was a devoted
"lover of wisdom," and therefore, by definition, a philosopher.
His mental endowments were extraordinary.  What
power of acquisition! What power of retention! Was




TRZ7 UTES.                  573
there ever such a memory? It never lost a fact. In 1857,
thirteen years after his visit to Europe, he wrote to a friend
in Venice, "Please look at the'Viaggi da Giovanni
Gabota' (or Gabotti, or Gabbotti) in the Ducal Library,
and give me the exact title. It used to be the corner
book in the corner of the libiary, next the Canale Grande,
on the lowest shelf.  The book is in no catalogue in
America; and men say there is no such." One day he
recited, without hesitancy, a comic song of more than a
dozen verses; and said, when asked where he had learned
it, "I never read it in my life; but, when I was twelve
years old, my brother brought me to Boston, to the Museum, and a man sang it there." He was then forty years
of age. Dr. Nathan Lord of Dartmouth, an apologist for
slavery in the days when slavery had apologists among
divines, stated in a lecture, as a fact, that " the black Africans were largely descended from the Canaanites, whose
name was derived from Cain, the first murderer; whence
he assumed it to be quite _probable that the blackness was
a brand set on them, a mark of reprobation. A friend,
being in Mr. Parker's study, asked him where Dr. Lord
could have found the fact that the black Africans were
descended  from  the Canaanites. "He got it," said
Parker, "from Grotius''De Veritate;'" and went to the
shelf to verify the statement. The book was not there,
but a narrow empty space where it usually stood. "Miss
Stevenson must have lent the book: I have not. The
statement you refer to occurs in that volume. Then he
proceeded to say how far along in the book it was, how
far down the page, and on which page it was printed.
"Have you read the book lately?" asked the friend.
" No; not for many years: I never read it but once." —
"Is the passage in question associated with any incident
in your experience, that you recall it so readily? " - " No:
I recollect it simply as a part of the contents of the book."
The passage was afterwards found where Parker's memory
indicated.




574            THTEODORE PARKER.
Such a power of holding distinctly great masses of miscellaneous facts, literary and other, will make a man pass
for a genius when he is none; but it endangers exactness
of thought, by, in a measure, dispensing with it. Distinctness of recollection passes for nicety of discrimination.
Nothing may be lost; but nothing may have been, in the
best sense, gained. A great deal has been said, every now
and then something is said again, about the inexactness of
Parlker's scholarship; and people make the charge who
ought to know what they allege, and ought to be above
making rash or ill-natured assertions. If the charge is
true, - and I do not believe it is true to any thing like
the extent claimed, - the inaccuracy must have been due,
partly to the difficulty of combining delicacy of touch
with immensity of grasp, the nice analytic power with the
power of wielding masses of thought, and partly to the
lack of severe training. Self-taught scholars are rarely nice
scholars, not having been subjected to the sharp criticism
which brings the faculties down to delicate discriminations. It certainly was not due to heedlessness or looseness of mind.
Parker was a thorough workman: he left no stone unturned beneath which might lie a fact. He slighted no
authorities.  As a member of the Oriental Society, a
company of eight or ten persons who met in a parlor on
Anniversary Week, he was to read an essay on Mohammed.  By way of preparation for the task, he renewed his
acquaintance with the Arabic and Spanish languages in
order to obtain original materials. Then he collected all
the books he could find relating to Mohammed, till, standing with their titles up, side by side, they- folios, I2mos,
and all - covered a length of twelve feet on his library
floor. These books he read, extracted the pith from them
one by one, and then felt qualified to write the essay.
The inaccuracies of such a man, supposing his work done
conscientiously, are not like the inaccuracies of the care



TRIBUTES.                   575
less, who are satisfied with slight preparation; or of the
dishonest, who use their materials treacherously. That he
was not a scholar after the German type he admitted himself; but as certainly was he not a scholar of the loose,
conceited American type.  Scholarship with him was not
primary, but secondary.  He thought in masses, aimed to
produce broad effects, and prevailed by virtue of his power
to hurl mountains of material on the points he wished to
carry. Of course he was thoughtful in regard to the quality of his material; chose it with care; handled it with
skill; never used what was unfit: at the same time, he was
less dainty in his choice of special bits than a more fastidious critic would have been. His inaccuracies, however annoying they may be to the mental precisian, did
not impair the substantial value of his work. Indeed, one
may suspect that the prodigious bulk of his acquirements
has encouraged some to conjecture their inexactness.
It is certain that all who have made the accusation are
not the persons to substantiate it.  Sectarians have made
it to break the force of his assaults; dogmatists have
made it as a substitute for argument; sciolists have made
it, jealous of his reputation; pedants have made it, failing to perceive the true points at issue, and mistaking the
dropping of an iota for the omission of an idea.
We need not be anxious to defend Mr. Parker's reputation for scholarship: that must plead its own cause at
the bar of scholarship itself. I have said so much, partly
to account for the insinuations against it, but more to
guard against allowing to them an undue weight in the
estimate of his intellectual work. It is admitted that his
receptive powers were enormous: it is admitted that they
were only matched by his power to retain what he received. These two admissions, if they do not render suspicion of grave errors unreasonable, do, at least, suggest
caution in regard to its indulgence.
For the rest it may as well be confessed frankly, that the




576            THEODORE PARAIER.
mesthetic department of his mind was imperfect. True,
the absorption of his life in the business of social reform
might have suppressed the aesthetic element, even had it
been strong. But this did not suppress the theological bent
of his mind, which must, therefore, have been stronger. He
may have deliberately sacrificed it on the altar of practical utilities: but then it should have appeared, and given
promise of fair proportions, before the pressure of practical
utilities came; and this it never did. He read poetry,
but was not an artist in verse; he examined works of
painting and of plastic art, but was not a connoisseur.
By his own confession, made when he first visited the Old
World, and during his last visit in Rome, the fine arts
interested him less than the coarse arts, which fed, clothed,
housed, and comforted mankind. "I should rather," he
wrote from Rome in I859, "be such a 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 Stephenson in 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. 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!"  He had no sympathy with those who lamented the "absence of art" in
America. The useful arts more than made amends.
"There is not a saw-mill in Rome! " he cries.
He had a better eye for form than for color; a better
eye for moral expression than for either. He admired
most what expressed the highest sentiment in the most
pathetic manner. As might have been expected, music
gave him but little delight. He used to call it " the least
intellectual of the fine arts." Jewels and plate interested
him, more from their human associations, as heirlooms or
appendages to certain family estates, than as works of
art: their richness and preciousness, fineness of shape,




TRIB UTES.                   577
and delicacy of carving, were blended with something of
history, with records of service, or memories of social joy.
The diamonds in Dresden delighted him: but the diamonds in Dresden had belonged to great houses, played
a part in pageants, decorated beautiful women, shone in
coronets and belts, graced royal occasions; thus they
suggested to the gazer a brilliancy not their own.
In poetry, it was again the earnest, human quality that
gave him deepest satisfaction. He loved the field-flowers
of literature best, -the homely ballads, the songs of the
people, full of nature, warm with feeling. The German
legend of Tannhaiiser was familiar to him in every language and dialect. He traced the romantic story of
Hero and Leander through the whole range of literature. His admiration for Mrs. Browning's poetry was not
unqualified.  "Aurora Leigh " he did not care to read a
second time. Verses that had a sentiment in them, a
smile, or, better still, a tear, lingered longest in his
memory.  He was fond of quoting poetry in sermons;
but it was chiefly of a didactic or sentimental character.
The following lines from Lowell's "Ghost Seer " were
recited as many as half a dozen times in two years, so
deep was the impression they made on him: —
" Hark that rustle of a dress
Stiff with lavish costliness!
Here comes one whose cheek would blush
But to have her garment brush'Gainst the girl whose fingers thin
Wove the weary broidery in,
Bending backwards from her toil
Lest her tears the silk might soil,
And in midnight's chill and murk
Stitched her life into the work,
Shaping from her bitter thought
Heart's-ease and forget-me-not,
Satirizing her despair
With the emblems woven there."
49




578            THEODORE PARKAER.
Shakspeare he knew, of course: but it would hardly be
suspected from his writings; for, though he did once or'wice recommend the study of him to young people, he
rarely quoted him, and seldom spoke of his plays with
enthusiasm.  The Sonnets pleased him  most, because
saturated with personal feeling.  He once thought of
editing the Sonnets. As compared with Homer and
Sophocles, Shakspeare was nothing to him as a resource
in weary hours: he was less than Milton, or than Wordsworth even, as a companion. A passage in the journal
gives the impression, that in moral qualities, superiority to
the religious and social prejudices of his time, courage to
expose popular follies and fashionable vices, Shakspeare
was, in his judgment, greatly inferior to Moli'ere. Playfully, yet half in earnest too, he said one day, "Shakspeare, if he were living now, would be a hunker and a
snob." This absence from his mind of the fine artistic
quality accounts for the something like crudeness that
mars occasionally his treatment of the poetical side of
ancient religions, their scriptures and their dogmas; and
even helps to explain certain inaccuracies, which sprang
from a defect in Esthetic perception oftener than from
infidelity to literal facts.
The thing of most moment to say of Parker is, that he
was pre-eminently a man of uses. His gifts, natural and
acquired, he held in trust for his fellow-men. The higher
the gifts, the deeper the responsibility. The gifts, as he
could not but be aware, were great: the sense of duty was,
therefore, incessant; in a less capable man it would have
been excessive.  But his keen enjoyment of life, and the
ease with which he performed his tasks, deprived the burden of service of its apparent weight. " Let him that is
greatest among you be your minister, and him that is chief
among you be the servant of all," was perpetually in his
heart, but not as it is with the ascetic or the self-immolator.
His gifts were so rooted in the common earth, had such a




TRIB UTES.                   579
strong savor of the ground, derived such fragrance and
color from the soil of humanity, it seemed to cost so
little to grow them, that their ceaseless consumption by
pilgrims, wayfarers, and cattle even, caused no thought
of waste, but rather suggested the inexhaustible resources
of the nature from which they grew. Pure religion, noble
institutions, just laws, humane customs, sweet morals,
lovely manners, all slept in the common sods of humanity,
and needed but gracious air and sunshine to ripen like
flowers of paradise. To supply the air and sunshine he
felt to be a privilege, not a toil; and, when the labor became more severe,- the blasting of rocks, the felling of
trees, the breaking-up of fallow ground, the ploughing
deep furrows across stubborn fields, -he was cheered in
it by the vision of the fertility that was to follow.
Faith in humanity - this was his secret; love for
humanity-  this was his inspiration; sympathy with humanity-this was his consoler.  This faith was his key
to literature, art, philosophy, society. Had he lived to
be an old man, he would have illustrated his principle
more amply: he could not have more forcibly demonstrated it.
He was a worker, -he lived for uses; a reformer, who
spent his life in efforts to make society more shapely.
Every thing he had was turned instantly to service. No
gift was folded in a napkin; no pot of gold was buried
in the cellar; no fine accomplishment was hung up as
ornament, or kept on the centre-table for the entertainment of visitors.  He was no dilettante.  His conscience,
if nothing else, would have made it impossible for him to
be a mere scholar toying with books. He could never
respect Goethe; he disliked TMargaret Fuller; he detested Rousseau.  The great work which was the dream
of many years was conceived, not in the interest of literature, but in the interest of mankind. We recur once
more to C. A. Bartol's impressions of him: —




580              THYEODORE PARKER.
"Right or wrong, I could not recognize in him genius poetic,
philosophic, or metaphysic, but only immense talent, and a conscience since Luther unsurpassed. He was a power, not in the
realm of imagination, but of fact; the sheriff of ideas, the
translator of knowledge into deed. It was the fault of some of
his contemporaries to be too content with the beautiful perceptions, and. his merit to insist on putting all the poetry into
prose. He was not a master to set the ball in motion, but a
loyal follower or ally to keep the motion up till every error and
sin fell before it in the way; not an organic and incarnate
revolutionizer, or instaurator of opinion, like Swedenborg, but
moral from the first brain-cell to his fingers' ends. Having the
eternal principles in charge, he used the timely opportunity to
set them in gear; and, in such zeal and ability, he transcended
those who were otherwise his superiors or peers.
"' Parker was scientific in not admitting the entity of sin.
Jesus did not admit it, though he was conscious of it, if we
mean by sin the rebuke of the ideal on all the facts of life: but
he did not dwell on or profess it; was no frofessor of sin.
Why talk of the sickness of the mind more than of the body?
But who ever more bravely than this son of a soldier fought
the Devil, and moved more immediately on his works? How
finer seers lagged behind this terrible doer! His great grotesque figure was a Yankee reminder of the Greek Socrates;
and those of us who discounted aught from his dimensions on
the score of any disproportion of temper or taste, shall, in any
revise' of our proofs, witness his steady growth in our reverence
and esteem."
The above passage is cited as the testimony of a keen
and friendly critic to the fact of Parker's eminence in the
domain of use; which is the point I am insisting on.
That Dr. Bartol does less than justice to his intellectual
greatness as a thinker and initiator, as I believe, does not
detract from the value of his testimony to the man's essential grandeur, -that of being an adorer of the Infinite
Perfection, and a devoted lover of his kind.  The "originality" of religious reformers must not be severely scrutinized.  Jesus borrowed the material he used.  His




TRIB UTES.                 581
ideas existed before he did: his genius lay in his use of
them. It was the genius of character. He made himself a focus for the solar rays which had been wandering
through the atmosphere for ages. The thoughts of Paul
were lying loosely about on the surface of his theologic
world: he had the genius to combine and apply them.
Swedenborg is called a seer; but the substance of his
vision had been seen by many a fine soul before his eye
was blessed by it. That Theodore Parker was the peer
of either of these is by no means claimed; but they that
bring against him, as if it were a damning fault, that he
lacked genius, must consider how far their accusation
reaches. The highest genius is that which creates uses;
and of this he did possess something. The world at
large felt that he did; and the testimony of the popular
consciousness, though not finely discriminating, is sound.
He is probably not destined still to ascend in the ranks
of scholars, philosophers, men of letters, or men of pure
thought; but that he is destined to hold a nobler place
in the regards of mankind may be anticipated.
The influence of his thought has been very great, not
more in the realm of opinion than in the realm of character; and it is destined to be still greater. A gentleman of
intelligence, who, in the days of the Unitarian controversy,
had left his church and minister because he had exchanged with Theodore Parker, resumed his old connec-,
tion some time during the war. It occurred one day to
his minister to ask pleasantly the reason of his return.
He replied, " I went away because I could not bear-the
smallest seeming of encouragement to Theodore Parker;
but, when I saw the influence of his mind on our soldiers,
I was forced to make a different estimate of the man."
The youth of America needs the influence of that mind
to-day, and will need it for many days to come.
Theodore Parker looked the man he was, - sturdy,
strong in legs and arms, with a muscular grip of the hand
49*




582            THEODORE PARKER.
that knit one to him at once, and a planted foot that
asserted a whole man's title to stand on the planet. The
lower portion of his face was not good, - strong and firm,
but a little grim in expression. His lip curled easily; and
a slightly Socratic nose had possibilities of sarcasm which
the stranger might find repellent. The glory of the head
was the massive dome, smooth and lofty, which suggested
the man of thought; and underneath it the clear, frank
blue eye, that invited confidence, but had in it the gleam
of a sword to pierce through hypocrisy, and cleave falsehood to the ground. Not a handsome man, seraphic,
poetic; not the ideal of the philosopher, the saint, or even
the prophet; a man of the people rather; a working-man,
to look at him, but a working-man with such tools as
prophets, philosophers, and saints use; a true American if
there ever was one; the best working-plan of a/n American yet produced.




INDEX.
Berry-street Conference, 416.
Betrothal, 35.
Adams, C. F., 401.                    Bigelow, Mr. and Mrs. J., letter to,
Adams, J. Q., 399.                      258.
Advent~ures of a day, 249.           IBillings, Mr. J. H., letter to, 474.
" Advertiser," Daily, I58.            Birthday-record, 481.
Agassiz, 326, 371.                    Birthplace, I.
Alcott, Bronson, 96, 98, II3, I23 I25,  Blake, Admiral, 298.
126, 128, I39, 141, 425.            Blodgett, Levi, letter of, II4.
Alger, Rev. William, letter to, 506.    Boston Committee of Vigilance, 40I1
Allen, Joseph, letters to, 217, 236.  Boston Ministerial Association, i6o.
Andrew, John A., 2I5, 429.            Bowditch, Dr., letter to, 358.
Andrews, Samuel P., 8o; letters to, Bowman, Dr., lettersto, 280, 281.
82, 84, 86, 94, 506.                Boyhood, 10-27.
Anniversary, twelfth, of settlement, Brace, Charles L., 365.
3I4, 3I5.                           Bradford, Mr., 63.
"Antiquary," 36.                      Bridges, Mrs. Julia, letter to, 277.
Anti-Sabbath Convention, 354.         Brook Farm, I38.
Augustine, 53, 54 I120.               Brown, John, 278, 280, 379, 449, 453,
455, 527; farewell of, 455.
Brownson, Orestes, 134, I39.
Buchanan, James, 380, 448.
Bancroft, George, 113; letter to, 382. Burns,  thony, 422, 428
Banks, N. P., 445.                    Burns, Robert, 304.
Barnard, Mr., letter to, 282.
Barnstable, life at, 69-76.                            C.
Bartol, Rev. C. A., 42, I68, 275, 580.
Baur, 205.                            Cabot, F. S., letter to, 6o.
Beecher, Henry Ward, 441; contrast- Cabot, Lydia D., 35, 39, III.
ed with Theodore Parker, 34I.       Calhoun, J. C., 63, 442.
Beecher, Rev. Lyman, 29, 51.          Cambridge, 37.
583




584                             INDEX.
Camp-meeting, 73, 74.                  Curtis, B. R., 429.
Candidate, the, 67-87.                 Curtis, George T., 4I5.
Capital punishment, 363.
Cappen Parker, I.                                        D.
Carlyle, Thomas, 140.
Catacombs, I93.                        Dana, R. H., 422, 426.
Catholic Church, 195, 207.             Dante, 57.
Central New York, visit to, 49I.       Darwinism, I79.
Channing, Dr., 29, 35, 55, 88, 96-98, Death, 535; of father, 77, 283.
107, 112, 133, 150, I76, 177, 2I7, Departure, 508.
298, 340, 349.                       Desor, Prof., 316, 318, 322, 326, 371;
Channing, Dr., compared with Theo-   letters from, 558-564.
dore Parker, 340.                    De Wette, 54, 205; " Biblical DogChanning, William F., 399.               matics," 117; translation from, 75,
Channing, William F., 424.               85, 86, I77, I8o, 207.
Channing, William H., 105, 125.        Dewey, Rev. Orville, 53, 417.
Chapin, Dr., 441.                      " Dial," 1I39, 64, 223.
Character, 564.                        Dingee, Martha, letter to, 260.
Chardon-street Convention, I33.        " Discourse of Matters pertaining to
Chase, Sallllon P., 444.                 Religion," i6i.
Child, Lydia M., 184; letter to, 507.  Divinity School, 30, 33, 37, 41.
" Childe Harold, " 38.                 Divorce, 369.
Cholmondeley, Thomas, 5I3.             Doctors' counsel, 516.
Christ, I18.                           Dwight, John, 43, 45, 87.
Christendom at Rome, I9I.              Dyer, R. W., I27.
Christening, i6.
Church, I36.                                             E.
Church, idea of, 23I.
City, the Eternal, 53I1 536.           Early Christians, 120.
Clarke, J. F., io6, 215, 223, 420, 542. Early theological views, 52.
Clay, Henry, 63, 442.                  Eddy, Mrs. Eliza P., letter to, 278.
Cobbe, Frances Power, 3I5, 369, 5I4. Ellis, Mr. Charles, letters to, 363, 401,
Codex Matrimonius, 87.                   426, 429.
Coleridge, 140.                        Ellis, George E., letter to, I06.
Commemorative exercises, 546.          Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 63, 75, 97,
Comnmercial panic of 1857, 463.           Io5, io6, 118, 121, I25,  152, I6o,
Communion, 121.                          300, 309, 329, 375, 437, 441, 442,
Concord, 63, 126.                        454.
Conflict renewed, 2IO0-24I.            Emigrant-aid Society, 438.
Correspondence, specimens of, 252-  Englishmen, 471.
331.                                 Europe, first visit to, 183, 2I0  second
Counsel for defence, 429.                visit to, 513, 536.
Craft, William  and Ellen, 400, 403, European politics, 318, 324.
406, 407, 514.                       "Examiner," 121.
Cranch, C. P., 43, 45, 90, 126.        Exchanges, 122, i58.
Crittenden, Attorney-General, 399.     Exeter Place, 241-258.
Cuba, annexation of, 320.              Extracts from journal, 60, 61, 414.




INVDEX.                               585
Hastings, John, 1g.
F.                 I Health-scale, 480.
Failing health, 477-508.              Hebrew, 33, 47.
Family, 2, 3.                         Hedge, Frederic H., 96, 125.
"1 Farbenlehre," I09.                Hegelianism, lecture on, 201.
Farewell to Music-hall Society, 504.   " Herald," New-York, I58.
Felton, Prof., letter to, 257.        Heretics, I20.
Ferment of thought, 125, I47. Higginson, T. W., 325, 3272 365, 397,
1Fillmore, Millard, 399, 409.           425, 429, 436, 458, 460, 478.
Fiske, George, 20, 22, 23.            Hollis-street Society, I64.
Flournoy, Mr., letter to, 390.        Home, 12-27.
Flowers, 242.                         Homer, 35.
Fock, Dr., 256, 287.                  Hopper, Isaac T., I84.
Follen, Dr. Charles, 96, I07, 205, 255. Household, 24i.
Forbes, Hugh, 459, 46I.               Howe, Julia Ward, 321, 324.
Formulas, 387.                        Howe, Dr., 321, 322, 324, 344, 349,
France, 472.                            40I, 422, 437, 459, 460, 46I.
Francis, Rev. Convers, 33, 34, 47, 63, Humboldt, Alexander von, 323.
68, 87, 90, 99, Io8, II2, 113, I25, Hunt, Miss, letters to, 438, 439, 464,
139, I47, i6i, 173, I80, 208, 348;   470, 474, 482, 483, 490, 495.
letters to, 115, 200.
Fraternity course, 50I.                                I.
Freeman, Dr., I67.
Fremont, Gen., 380, 436, 438.        Impressions of convention at Groton,
Fremont, Gen., 380, 436, 438.
Fugitive-slave Bill, 378.               132.
Fuller, Margaret, I40, 579.                            J
G.                  Jerome, 53, 120.
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 35.
Gannett, Rev. E. S., 55, i682 I70, 223.
Garrett, Thomas, 380.                                 K.
Garrison, William Lloyd, I I3, 349,
354, 356, 454.                     Kansas State Committee, 453.
Geary, Gov., 438.                     Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 379, 420.
German books, I48.                    Kansas, war in, 435-475.
Germans, 469.                         Kidnappers, proclamation concerning,
Goethe, 56, 58, Io8, I09, 204, 299,   413.
579.                               Kossuth, 322, 347.
G-roton Convention, I33.              Kiichler, Lorenzo, 5 8.
Gurowski, 322.
L.
H.                   Languages, 47.
Hale, John P., letters to, 393, 429, "Latimer Journal," 399.
4442 447, 46i.                     Leo X., 469.
Hallett, B. F., 429.                 Lesley, Peter, letter to, 325.
Harvard, 26, 27.                     Library, 242.




586                             INDEX.
Light reading, 485.                    Nitsch, 206.
Lincoln, Abraham, 380.                 Non-resistant Convention, 133; non.
Loring, Charles G., 296.                 resistance, 360.
Loring, Ellis Gray, 405.               Northfield, 75, 76, 82.
Loring,  Edward Greely, 421.           Norton, Andrews, Io6, II3, II4, I75
Lowell, Dr., 40o.                      Novel-reading, 58, III.
Lowell, Russell, " Ghost-Seer," 577.  Nute, Rev. Mr., 436, 438.
M. 
O.
Mann, Horace, letter to, 394.          Origen, 53.
Marriage, letters on, 366, 369.        Ossawattomie Brown, 452.
Martineau, Harriet, 37.                Oxford, I85.
Martineau, Rev. James, 207; letter to,
407.
Masonic Temple, 2i6.
" Massachusetts Quarterly Review,"  Paine, Thomas, I79.
396.                                 Palfrey, Dr., 38, 42, 47, 99; letter to,
Mathieu, M., " Etuldes Cliniques,"    388.
32I.                                 Palmer, Joseph, I27.
May, Samuel J., 217, 299, 325, 416; Parentage, 2.
letters to, 286, 28S.                Parker, A. M., letter to, 268.
Meeting of Boston Ministerial As- Parker, E. G.,  "   "  422.
sociation, i6I.                      Parker, J. B.,   "   "  292.
Melodeon, 2I6, 230, 333.               Parker, M. A., "   "  269.
Memory, retentiveness of, 573.         Parker family, 2, 3.
Mexican War, 363, 378.                 Parkman, Dr., II4, 223.
Michelet, M., 376.                     Parsons, Theophilus, Io6.
Militia. 25.                           Pastor, the, 24i, 252.
Millard Fillmore, 399, 409.            Patterson, J. B., letter to, 267.
Milton, 35, 304.                       Paul and Christianity, I19.
Ministry in Boston, 2I6.               Peabody, E. P., II3; letters to, 123,
Miracles, 53.                            I43.
Moli;hre, 578.                         Pedestrianism, IIo.
More, Henry, Io8, I24.                 Pemberton Mill at Lawrence, 470.
Morrison, John, 429.                   " Perishing Classes," sermon on, 364.
Mother, 7, I5.                         Personality of God, 97, 98.
Munch, Rev. Friederich, letter to, 255. Phillips, Mr. Jonathan, 96.
Music Hall, 332; last sermon in, 504; Phillips, Wendell, 96, 241, 349, 365,
audiences, 335.                        40I, 422, 424, 429.
Pierce, Franklin, 379, 426, 437.
Pierpont, Rev. John, 87, I64, I70,
N.                     223, 329, 357; letter to, 276.
Neighbors, II.                         Plato, I09, I44.
New Bedford, 48I.                      Poetry, love of, 577.
" New Crime against Humanity," 429. Pope, the, I95, I97.
New York, 136, I84.                    Porter, Prof., 344.




INDEX.                                 587
Prayers, 145; for Theodore Parker, Saturday-afternoon (lass, 237.
494.                                 Schedule of labors, 81.
Preacher, the, 332, 35I.               Schemes of work, 93, 94.
Preaching, 68; intellectual influence  Schenkel, 206.
of, 35~.                             Scholarship, 574.
Prescott, 441; histories, review of, 397. School, 28, 30.
Prisons, 363.                          School-days, I8.
Progressive Friends, sermons to, 496. Schleiermacher, io6.
Prohibition, 359.                      Scott, Sir Walter, 36, 37.
Proudman, Samuel T., 429.              " Scriptural Interpreter," 55.
Psalms of David, 38.                   Search, the, 508.
Putnam, Dr., 68, 264.                  Seaver, Mr. Horace, I79.
Sennott, Mr., 437.
Q.           Sermon-topics, 338.
Quincy, Josiah, 347, 402, 44!.         Seward, Hon. William H., 461; letter
to, 442.
R.                    Shadrach, 412.
Shakspeare, 6, i09, 269, 304, 578.
Reading, 44, 47, 89, I087 Io9.
Readg, 4, 47  Shaw, Francis G., 89, 414.
Reaerder, Ghov., 437.  76Shaw, Lemuel, 416.
Reformer, the, 352, 376.               Selley  I6.
Shelley, io6.
Reform School, 364.                    Ship-board, I84.
Revival of I858, 494.
Siljestrtim, 325.
Rhode Island and Delaware, 381.
Ric hIte    d Jeand Pul, a 99, o   38     Silsbee, Rev. Mr., 72, 75, 79, 88, 99,
Richter, Jean Paul, 99, 1o8.
Ripley, Dr., 126.
9y, D, 1Simmons, Rev. Mr., ordination, 107.
Ripley, Mr. George, 78, 87, 91, 96,   
Sims, Thomas, 415, 418.
97, I07, 112, 14, 125, 126, I36,
tt   Sketches of work, 112.
137, 147, 167, 174, 314; letter to,  Slavery, fight with, 376, 435.
329.                                 Smith, Hon. Gerritt, 451.
Robbins, Rev. Chandler, 87, io6, 66,,Increase, letter to, 55.
I68, 314; letter from, i68.         Smith, Increase, letter to, 355.
Roman friends, 525.
Slnith, Marianne, 22.
Rome, I9o; departure from, I97.        Snell, Mr., 332.
Snell, Mr., 332.
Rules of living, 48, 49.               Socialism  I34.
Russell,  George R., 89, 208, 422.   
Ruissell, Mrs., R50. 89 28Sonnets, 60, 240, 251, 331, 476, 507,
KRussell, Mrs., 250.                     520, 56.
520, 536.
South-Boston sermon, 152, I66.
S.                   Spiritualism, 372.
Sabbath and Sunday, 354.               Spring Street, 88.
Salem, 63,,9.                         Spurgeon, 340.
Saltcnstall, Sir Richard, 2.           Sterling, 207.
Sanborn, Charles H., 435.              Stetson, Caleb, 87.
Sanborn, F. B., 273, 449, 460.         Stowell, Martin, 429.
Sanford, Albert, 371.                  Stuart, Moses, II3.
Sargent, Rev. John T., 2127 2232 284, Study, 28, 117.
365, 408.                           Stearns, George L., 458, 461.




588                          IZNDEX.
Stearns, Hannah, 7.                 Verses, 59.
Stevenson, Miss H., 241, 254, 297, Vigilance Committee, 399.
315, 322, 365, 366; letters to, 385, Visitation Day, 65.
401, 479, 531.                    Visitors, 245.
St. Hilaire, Geoffrey, I86.         Voltaire, 299.
Strauss, 91, I2I, 206.
Sturgis, William, 258.                              W.
Sumner, Charles, 302, 309, 329, 349, Wagon-journey, 497.
38I1 395, 415, 416, 440, 444; 445, Walker, Dr., 98, 107.
447, 474; letter to, 362.         Walker, Mr. George, 453.
Suffrage, woman, 369.               Waltham, 25 26, 85.
Sunday school, 287.                 " Wanderjahre," 58.
Suttle, Charles F., 421.            War, 36I.
Swedenborg, I45; Hobart's Life of, Wares, 37, 42, 87, io6, 107 3I46
372.                              Washington, 63.
Swift, John L., 423.                Wasson, Rev. D. A., letters to, 254,
327~
Waterston, Rev. R. C., i68, 2I6.
Taylor, Gen., 378.                  Watertown, life in, 33.
Teaching, 24, 28.                   Webster, Daniel, 324, 325, 340, 346,
Temperance, 357.                      379, 398, 420, 44I.
Tertullian, 53, 120.                Webster, Prof., 363.
Texas, annexation of, 378.          Weiss, Rev. Mr., I7, 33, 126, 253,
Thackeray, 309.                       368, 486.
Thomas, S. J., 422.                 West Indies, 5o8, 511.
Thoreau, 455.                       West Roxbury, 85, 87, 123, 21 212I
Thursday Lecture, 2I3.                230.
Tombs, I36, I84.                    Whipple, Charles K., 401.
Transcendentalism, 125.             White, Etta M., letter to, 265.
Transcendental movement in  Eng- White, Pres., 47.
land, I49; in France, 149.        Whitefield, Parker and, 334.
Translations, 486.                  Wilcox, H. A., letter to, 266.
Wilder, Mr., 30.
U.                  Wilkinson, Dr., 254.
" Underground Railroad," 380.       Williamson, Passmore, letter to, 445.
Unitarian controversy, 147-182.     Wilmington, Del., 380.
Universalists, 218.                 Wilson, Henry, letter to, 445Woodbury, Judge, 403.
V.                  Woman, weak, 36; woman, 364.
Vacation, 67.                       Wordsworth, 298.