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Recollections and Impressions, 1822-1890

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Title: Recollections and Impressions, 1822-1890

Author: Octavius Brooks Frothingham


        
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Language: English

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               RECOLLECTIONS AND IMPRESSIONS

                          1822-1890


                OCTAVIUS BROOKS FROTHINGHAM

  AUTHOR OF "BOSTON UNITARIANISM, 1820-1850, A STUDY OF THE LIFE
          AND WORK OF NATHANIEL LANGDON FROTHINGHAM,"
            "THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY," ETC., ETC.

                  G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

                  NEW YORK     LONDON

  27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD ST. 27 KING WILLIAM ST., STRAND

                The Knickerbocker Press

                           1891



                  COPYRIGHT, 1891 BY
               OCTAVIUS BROOKS FROTHINGHAM

            The Knickerbocker Press, New York

  Electrotyped, Printed, and Bound by G. P. Putnam's Sons




CONTENTS


                                                      PAGE
     I PARENTAGE                                         1
    II EDUCATION                                        19
   III DIVINITY SCHOOL                                  25
    IV SALEM                                            35
     V THE CRISIS IN BELIEF                             53
    VI JERSEY CITY                                      65
   VII NEW YORK                                         76
  VIII WAR                                             104
    IX THE FREE RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATION                  115
     X THE PROGRESS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN AMERICA    133
    XI THE CLERICAL PROFESSION                         146
   XII MY TEACHERS                                     165
  XIII MY COMPANIONS                                   190
   XIV MY FRIENDS                                      225
    XV THE PRESENT SITUATION                           248
   XVI THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF AMERICA                 272
  XVII CONFESSIONS                                     289
       INDEX                                           303




RECOLLECTIONS AND IMPRESSIONS.


I. PARENTAGE.


My father was, as I have said elsewhere, a clergyman in Boston,
Massachusetts, a Unitarian minister to the First Church, standing in a
long line of men, of whom the earliest was severely orthodox, while he
abhorred orthodoxy. Yet he was ordained without hesitation, was more
than acceptable to the best minds through a service of thirty-five
years, and continued more and more unorthodox to the end; so gradually
and insensibly did the Puritan tenets disappear one by one until the
shadow of them only remained. We are assured that by 1780 nearly all the
congregational pulpits were filled by Arminians. In 1815, the year of my
father's ordination, they were well domesticated in New England,
Calvinism having lost its hold on the minds of thinking people, and none
but keen-eyed watchers on the tower seeing what course opinion was
taking. How far the tendency towards the moral and practical view of
religion as distinct from the speculative view had gone, is well
illustrated in my father's case. He was a man of excellent education,
one of the best scholars in a distinguished class at Harvard, an
enthusiast for intellectual cultivation, singularly refined in
perception, an acute critic, a careful, precise, elegant writer. His
tastes were pre-eminently literary. This is said in full view of the
fact that he was a learned theologian, a pungent disputant, a zealous
student of biblical researches, a faithful pastor.

He was essentially a man of letters. His passion was for the Latin
classics. The best edition of Cicero was on his shelves; the finest copy
of Horace graced his book-case. His knowledge of the Greek literature
and language was fair. He was fond of poetry of a stately and romantic
description; was, himself, a poet of a gentle, meditative, spiritual
cast, especially eminent as a composer of hymns written for church
occasions, the dedication of meeting-houses, the consecration of
ministers, many of them of permanent and general value, as both
"liberal" and "orthodox" collections attest; while he has done as much
as any man in his generation to elevate, purify, and console delicate
and serious natures.

His library of about three thousand volumes was exceedingly
miscellaneous, illustrating the breadth of his interests and the
activity of his mind. There were Bibles of choice editions and in every
tongue. There were biblical commentaries, dictionaries, grammars. The
Church Fathers were well represented. Church history was presented by
its best narrators. But the bulk of the collection was secular. It
contained copies of Addison, Johnson, Bayle, Carlyle, Milton, Bacon,
Dante, Dickens, Emerson, Grote, Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, Hugo,
Heeren, Hume, Iriarte, Michelet, Lessing, Kingsley, Macaulay,
Longfellow, Plutarch, Pindar, Pope, Scott, Rousseau, Racine, Rueckert,
Rabelais, Tasso, George Sand, Thucydides, Theocritus, Virgil, Voltaire,
Wieland, Pliny, Wordsworth, Wilkinson, Zschokke, Walt Whitman. They were
very various. They commanded all extremes: Augustine and Anacreon;
Aratus and _Annual Register_; AEschylus and Moliere; Aristotle and
Herrick; Seneca and Horace; Antoninus and Almanacs; Burton and
Boccaccio. There was no pure metaphysics--a compendium or two of
philosophy, a bit of Spinoza, of Kant, of Cousin, of Jouffroy, of
Malebranche, the "Dialogues" of Plato--nothing of Schelling or Hegel. I
find Proclus, and Jamblicus, and Boehme, and dramatic literature in
Greek, Latin, French, German. Here is Burlamaqui on Law, and Erasmus
Darwin, and Godwin's "Memoirs of Mary Wollstonecraft," and the
Hitopadesa, and the "Hymns" of Orpheus, and Palaephatus, together with
many a forgotten book.

The favorite language next to English was German, then came French,
then Latin, which was pretty well represented in its literature. Dr.
Frothingham was a wide reader, but his finest gift was a power of
penetrating to the heart of an author, a power that was akin to genius.
He called himself a _taster_. But every taster must take into his mouth
some things that are unpleasant, and he did. He nibbled at Heine, but
Heine's philosophy disgusted him. He nibbled at Browning, but Browning's
lack of sensuous music did not satisfy his idea of poetry. His mind,
trained in the old school, could not adapt itself to the new style of
expression.

He gladly turned his back on doctrines he did not like. He was
spiritually minded, but soberly so, as if to be spiritually minded
belonged to a special temperament; a Christian theist in all respects,
though indifferent to many details of Christian doctrine; an optimist on
principle as well as from instinct, inclined to put the most cheerful
construction on the ways of divine Providence, and to look patiently on
the moral conditions of human life; an unquestioning believer in Christ,
immortality, the need of revelation, the supremacy of the religious and
moral nature, the demand for the steady influence of the spiritual world
to enlighten mankind on the truths of conscience no less than on the
mysteries of faith. He was no seer, gazing on things unseen with the
penetrating, inward eye; no prophet possessed by an overwhelming
conviction of the absolute law; no regenerator believing that men must
be lifted up from the earth by an interior renewal of soul; no reformer
bent on changing the circumstances of society. He was an apostle of air,
sunshine, and the mild, enticing summer shower which covered the wintry
ground with the smiling grass and the sweet-smelling flowers. Reformers,
of whatever school, were not to his taste, partly because their methods
seemed to him violent, but partly also because their primary assumption
that the world was out of joint did not command his sympathy. He could
not think that the established institutions of the age ought to be
subverted, even though they might be improved under enlightened
teaching. Socially he was conservative, although by no means
reactionary; disposed to see the soul of good in things evil, though not
always as studious as one must needs be to "search it out." Rather he
took it for granted, and was often impatient with those who felt keenly
the evil but could not discover the good.

High-minded he was rather than deep-souled; devout in sentiment,
chivalrously moral in principle and in practice; ideal, poetic, delicate
of sensibility, but not soaring of spirit; certainly not a spiritual
enthusiast, as little a prosaic plodder; no mystic but no disciple of
"common-sense." For the dignity, decency, purity, propriety of the
clerical profession he had great regard, but as much on account of its
social position as on account of its sanctity. It indicated the highest
type of gentlemanliness, the finest style of personal character, a kind
of exquisite courtliness of manhood, humanity of a finished stamp of
elegance; and he resented everything like an admixture of ordinary
philanthropy. It was in his view a descent to enter the arena of strife
even for the purpose of removing an evil. Thence his dislike of
Channing; his disapproval of Pierpont, otherwise a particular favorite
of his; his disagreement with Parker, of whom he was fond. When the
"Miscellanies" were published the writer sent a copy to his friend, who
acknowledged the volume by a letter in which expressions of personal
affection were curiously blended with antipathy towards the class of
speculations with which Mr. Parker was identified. George Ripley and
R. W. Emerson won and held his attachment to the end, but he never
visited Brook Farm, and was deaf to solicitations to join the
Transcendental Club.

His friends were many and various--Emerson, Ripley, Francis, Hedge,
Bartol, Stetson, Parkman, Longfellow, Felton, Hillard,--the list is
long, for the sunny temper of the man drew all hearts to him and his
warm affectionateness of disposition made him tenacious of good-will. He
was interested in men as individuals not as members of a clique or
party, and was not repelled by differences of opinion where his heart
was engaged. On the whole, his sympathies were with conservatives like
George Ticknor and W. H. Prescott, and the literary spirit mainly kept
him in association with those. Where this spirit was wanting and there
was divergence of sentiment there was no attempt at intimacy.

Of interest in the denomination, the sect, the party name, he was
absolutely devoid. He never attended the conventions or conferences of
the Unitarian body or spoke in their deliberations. On anniversary week
it was for many years his custom to visit New York, where no
professional responsibility rested upon him, and where he could find
recreations of a purely social kind. But at the "Boston Association"
where he met friends one by one, and could talk half confidentially,
with perfect freedom, in a conversational tone, he delighted to be
present.

For the rest, he was a man universally respected, admired, and beloved,
mirthful and sportive, more than tolerant of gaiety, as a rule in
excellent spirits, though subject, as such temperaments usually are, to
moods of depression. Without private ambition and utterly destitute of
vanity, his uneventful days were spent among his friends and his books.
The round of clerical duties was even and monotonous; his calling had
few excitements; even poverty had limits, and social iniquity was
manageable in those times when relations were simple. The routine of
parochial service was such as a friendly man of quick sympathies and
ready speech could easily discharge in a few hours of each week, nor was
the transition violent from it to the quiet library, the companionship
of Cicero, Shakespeare, Milton, Walter Scott, Herder, Rueckert. The love
of art, society, literature, was not inconsistent with a love of the
Saviour; and though as a matter of taste he would not have spoken of a
sonata of Beethoven in a sermon, there was nothing in his philosophy to
render secular allusions improper.

His literary predilections were somewhat at the mercy of his sense of
beauty, as if he had an eye to artistic effect quite as much as to
intellectual justice, as if the firm lines of logical discernment were
blurred by the passion for poetic or scenic grace. Of the two famous
German writers about whom opinions were divided, he greatly preferred
Schiller to Goethe, probably because the former was glorious, ardent,
declamatory. Of the two eminent English novelists whom all the world was
reading, Dickens was his choice far above Thackeray, perhaps for the
reason that Dickens had color and warmth of sentiment, while Thackeray
seemed to him cold, skeptical, and cynical. The flow of eloquence, the
charm of dramatic style made him relish authors as radically unlike as
Carlyle, Ruskin, and Macaulay, rendering him unmindful of qualities in
their cast of thought which he might have disapproved of if less
seductively presented. When a lady objected to Macaulay on the score of
his material ethics, Dr. Frothingham was too much captivated by
Macaulay's manner to criticise his philosophy, and he let the philosophy
go. It sometimes looked as if the way in which things were said was of
more importance in his view than the things themselves; but it was not
so, for he could respond to ideal sentiments when they offered
themselves fairly to his mind, and his moral indignation against an act
of flagrant turpitude was quick and hot.

With politics, whether speculative or practical, he gave himself small
concern, for in his day politics were hardly an honorable calling. He
belonged to the Whig party, as it was then called, because it comprised
the greater number of educated men--scholars, divines, lawyers,
physicians, judges, and people of consideration from their position in
society. The Republican party in Massachusetts was not formed till his
public life was nearly ended, and we may doubt whether he would in any
case have connected himself with it, for its aims and purposes were
hardly such as he could have gone along with. The well-known sentiment,
ascribed to Wendell Phillips, "Peace if possible, Truth at any rate," he
would in all probability have reversed so as to read, "Truth if
possible, Peace at any rate"; not because the search for truth was
difficult, and peace furnished the most promising conditions for finding
it, but because peace was preferable in itself as being stable and
quiet. He was not a fighter; he disliked the noise of battle; his horror
of anti-slavery agitation, as of all other, was constitutional; and even
if he had been convinced of the slave's degradation, no mode of redress
that was proposed commended itself to his gentle, apprehensive mind. To
him the chief interest of society was enlightenment associated with
refinement; the needed influence was that of education. He was a
delicately organized, sensitive man, fond of repose, happy in his
temperament, in his tastes, in his occupation, in his social position,
in his relationships, in his home. He had his disappointments and
sorrows like other men, but he did not repine. His latter years were
afflicted with total blindness, accompanied by constant distress and
steadily increasing pain; but his friends never failed to find him
cheerful; the companion who ministered to his daily necessities and
culled from books and periodicals the materials for his entertainment,
seldom had reason to complain of his petulance; the visitor could with
difficulty be brought to believe that the man was living in the presence
of death, and was exposed to frightful phantoms due to a slowly
decomposing brain.

His aesthetic tastes were active, as may be supposed, and would have
been keen if there had been opportunity for cultivating them, and
leisure to pursue them. The pictures that adorned his parlor walls were
not distinguished as works of art, but they were pure in sentiment, they
showed a love of color, and of the highest truth. There was not much
fine painting at that time in America, and what there was required for
its fair appreciation more training and experience than was possessed by
one immersed in the cares of an exacting profession and interested also
in literary pursuits. Mr. Frothingham's artistic taste was, besides, so
much controlled by moral feeling that he could not be critical of form.
Of art for its own sake he had no conception, and could have none, for
that cry which voices the demands of technical execution had not been
raised; but even if it had been he would have felt no sympathy with any
kind of excellence that was not directly associated with the moral
sentiment.

His taste in music was much like his taste in painting,--that is to say,
it was uneducated and unscientific. To the great music,--that of the
intellect and the soul,--the compositions of the masters, of Bach,
Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, he was indifferent; but the music of the
heart, of feeling, emotion, elevated passion,--the Scotch songs, the
Irish melodies, the English lays, madrigals, glees, was his delight. He
was especially fond of religious airs. The oratorios of "The Creation"
and "The Messiah" he was never tired of hearing. His voice was
melodious, and he was fond of using it. His organist taught him the
principles of his own art, and hours were spent at a parlor-organ in
playing favorite hymn-tunes, the melody of which he sang as he played.
He amused his children by trilling nursery ditties, and joined his boys
as they performed glees from the "Orphean Lyre," sometimes singing with
the heart quite as much as with the understanding. His joyous nature
expressed itself instinctively in song. His whole nervous system
responded to it. He was transported out of himself by sweet strains, and
fairly trembled under the influence of divine harmonies.

Mr. Frothingham's love of dramatic art amounted to a passion, but the
art must be high as well as pure. Tragedy he did not like. All of the
Shakespearian plays he was critically familiar with, but he loved "The
Tempest" best, as uniting poetry with cheerfulness in fullest measure.
The lines he wrote on the restoration of the Federal Street Theatre
expressed the depth of his interest. A religious society, afterwards the
"Central Church" in Winter Street, was gathered here. Of this kind of
enterprise the poet says:

    More reverence than befits us here to tell,
    We yield to courts where sacred honors dwell.
    But have not they their places? Have not we?
    Has not each liberal province leave to be?

The "Lecture-Room" he had little respect for, none at all for the
"Variety Show." To every device he wishes a cordial farewell,
exclaiming:

    Restored! Restored! Well known so long a time,
    These buried glories rise as in their prime.
    Our tastes may change as fickle fashions-fly,
    But art is safe: the Drama cannot die.
    More than restored! Whate'er the pen since wrought
    Of loftiest, sprightliest, here that wealth has brought.
    Whate'er the progress of the age has lent
    Of purer taste and comelier ornament,--
    To this our temple it transfers its store,
    And makes each point shine lovelier than before.

But the drama must be clean:

    But more yet,--and how much! We claim a praise
    The Playhouse knew not in the ancient days.
    Own us, ye hearts with moral purpose warm!
    Our word Renewal adds the word Reform.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Come, friends of Virtue! Share the feast we spread.
    It loads no spirits, and it heats no head.
    But rouses forth each power of mind and soul
    With food ambrosial and its fairy bowl.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Hearts are improved by Feeling's play and strife;
    Refined amusement humanizes life.
    So wrote the Sages, whom the world admired;
    So sang the Poets, who the world inspired;
    Why in New England's Athens is decried
    What old Athenian culture thought its pride?

Thus Righteousness and Peace are made to kiss each other. Art and
Virtue walk hand in hand. The sole condition is that art shall be
virtuous and that virtue shall be artistic. There was a singular
blending in his mind of the sacred and the secular. Perhaps Matthew
Arnold's definition of religion as "morality touched with emotion" comes
as near expressing Dr. Frothingham's conception as any. There must be
morality; that is cardinal; that lies at the foundation of all systems;
that must be strict and high. But emotion is indispensable also. This
runs into praise, the love of goodness, the worship of the highest. This
imparts warmth, glow, passion, the upward lift that inspires. Morality
alone is cold, emotion alone is apt to be visionary. But the two united
propel the ship, one serving as ballast to keep it steady, and one as
sails to catch the winds of heaven.

My mother was an example of pure character. She laid no claim whatever
to literary talent. Indeed she had none. I cannot associate her with
books of any special description, but I can always associate her with
goodness, with humility, sincerity, duty, kindness, pity, and
simplicity. Truthfulness was her great virtue, and was saved from
bluntness only by her delicate feeling for others and her inborn
politeness. The severest rebuke I ever received from her was on account
of a sharp arraignment of merchants in a youthful sermon, which to her
seemed presumptuous. Her household cares, the nurture of her children
(she had seven, five sons and two daughters, all of whom she trained
most carefully like a devoted mother), the family visitings, the parish
calls, missions among the poor, occupied the day. She would sit for
hours knitting or sewing, or in an armchair before the coal fire
silently musing. She was quiet, reserved, old-fashioned in her
sentiments, but with a great fund of inward strength, which came out on
emergencies. I shall always remember her ceaseless solicitude for an
unfortunate elder brother of mine who had for years been an anxiety and
a trouble. When he died in early manhood, after nursing him tenderly,
she softly closed his eyes, and preserved the memory of him in her
heart. Her chamber window in the country looked upon his distant grave,
the little white stone over which kept him before her eye who was always
in her thoughts.

She accepted the existing order of things because it was established,
disliking experiments, however humane, for the reason that they had not
been tested; and if she had misgivings, she kept them to herself not
daring to set up her private feelings in opposition to the will of the
Supreme, the question whether the existing order expressed the will of
the Supreme never being raised by her.

She was Unitarian, having so been taught, but speculative matters were
out of her reach as well as uncongenial with her sphere. Her faith was
of the heart, and all the reason for it she had to give was an uplifted
life, "unspotted from the world." Of creeds she knew nothing, not that
she was deficient in mind, but because they seemed to her to be affairs
of criticism, with which she had nothing to do. Her concern was with
practical things, and conduct was, with her, more than seven eighths of
life. Even the very mild decoction of theology that was administered
from Sunday to Sunday in Chauncy Place was sometimes too much for her.
She was a practical Christian, if there ever was one.

Her love of nature was genuine. As a young woman she could distinguish
the colors of a flying bird. When she had a house of her own in the
country, she preferred a spot remote from the world of society; went
there as early as possible in the spring, and stayed as late in the
autumn as she could. She delighted in the place; loved the air, the
trees, the smell of the ground. She enjoyed her garden; liked to see
plants grow. Every morning after breakfast she went out to inspect the
grounds, and came back laden with modest flowers; in the fall with pine
cones, the flame of which she enjoyed. On her last evening, quite
unaware of her coming end, she sat on the piazza, and looked at the
sunset, wrapped in shawls, though it was midsummer, for she was weak and
emaciated but patiently tranquil.

Her habits were simple, not from parsimony but from taste. She cared
nothing for decoration or display. She spent no more than was necessary
on dress or furniture. She was fond of old-fashioned, solid things. In
the midst of abundance, her appetite was for plain food, yet she was no
ascetic or prude, but a largehearted, sensible woman, sober and serious
but genial too.

Browning makes Paracelsus say:

    'T is only when they spring to heaven that angels
    Reveal themselves to you; they sit all day
    Beside you, and lie down at night by you,--
    Who care not for their presence,--muse or sleep,
    And all at once they leave you and you know them.

This is in a measure true. Death is a great revealer. Unfortunately it
is a great deceiver also, putting wings on very earthly bodies. But in
this instance, the qualities were all there in the living form, and all
clearly visible to those who sat all day beside my mother. Death did but
brush away a little film that hung before distant eyes.

Until near middle life I had the example and advice of these dear
spirits. It is my privilege to have their blood in my veins. That was my
best endowment, and kept me always hopeful of a better future in the
time to come. The dream of a nobler age for literature, art, science,
humanity, came directly from my father. The desire to do something to
make the dream an actual fact, to prove myself as of some service in the
world, came from my mother. His was the love of intellectual liberty.
Hers was the passion for practical accomplishments. He was a scholar.
She was a worker.

Both had thoughts deeper than they could express. Both were utterly
sincere in their calling, and the limitations of their age alone
confined their advance. The times were quiet then; the world was small
and disconnected; Boston was a little place and shut off even from
American cities by difficulties of travel and by exorbitant rates of
postage. Thus responsibility was mainly confined to individuals. There
were no wearing duties; no perplexing cares; even railroad disturbances
did not worry, for there was no railroad speculation, and no railroad
system. Hours were early, dinner was at two or half-past, tea at six or
seven, the evening ended at ten, and was spent with books, melodious
music, or playful games of amusement, not of instruction. There were few
social gatherings; balls were very rare, seldom lasting later than
eleven o'clock. There was an occasional concert, and here and there a
theatre, but there were no great dinner parties. Social problems were
exceedingly simple; the classes were divided by lines that nobody
attempted to pass over. Socialism was unborn, and labor agitations were
unknown. In a word, there was such a thing as leisure, and this was used
chiefly for the cultivation of the mind.

My father was greatly interested in the education of his boys; watched
all their attainments; taught them French; encouraged their learning how
to box, and fence, and swim; while my mother shed an atmosphere of peace
over the whole household. She made one joke only, as far as my memory
serves me,--and I mention it here lest any one should suppose there was
a lack of sunshine in her nature. My father was very fond of "voeslauer,"
an Austrian red wine. When the last bottle was produced my mother, said
archly, "your _face_ will _lower_ when it is all drunk up." It was not
much of a joke, but a small jest will show the spirit of fun quite as
well as a large one.

There was a singular combination of aspiration with peace at that time.
Probably there is as much aspiration now as there was then, perhaps
more; but it is associated with social reform rather than with personal
perfection; there is peace, too, at the present day, but it is harder to
get at and needs to be sought most often in private homes; the inward
peace is found in all periods.

How the principles then formed would bear the strain of a later age or
a larger sphere remained to be proved. Fifty years ago the modern era
with its complications and perplexities could not even be suspected. The
foundations alone could then be laid.




II. EDUCATION.


Of the primary schools it is unnecessary to speak. They were of the same
kind that were established in Boston at that period. Indeed I can
recollect but two, one, a child's school of boys and girls, kept by a
Miss Scott, at the corner of Mt. Vernon Street and Hancock; the other a
boys' school kept by a Mr. Capen, a poor hump-backed cripple who could
not get out of his chair, but wheeled himself about the room, and kept
on his table a cowhide, which was pretty generously exercised. The
school was on Bedford Street behind the "Church of Church Green." A
little alley-way ran along in the rear of the church through which I
used to go to the school-house.

The Latin School was an old institution brought hither by Rev. John
Cotton, who remembered the Free Grammar School founded in Lincolnshire,
England, by Queen Mary, in which Latin and Greek were taught. It was
established here, in 1635, five years after the landing of Winthrop, two
or three years before Harvard College. When I was there, it stood on
School Street, opposite the Franklin statue. It had a granite front and
a cupola. The head-master was Charles K. Dillaway, an excellent scholar,
a faithful teacher, an agreeable man. He had to resign in consequence of
ill-health. The tutors were Henry W. Torrey and Francis Gardner, who
afterwards became head-master. Both were pupils of the school. Mr.
Frederick P. Leverett, author of the Latin Lexicon, was chosen to
succeed Mr. Dillaway, but died before assuming the office. The next
head-master, during my course, was Epes Sargent Dixwell, a most
accomplished man, an elegant scholar, a gentleman of the world, very
much interested, as I remember, in the plastic art of Greece. He is
still living, and amuses himself by writing Greek. Mr. Dixwell held
office till 1851, when he established a private school. The discipline
of the Latin School was strict but mild. Corporal punishment was the
unquestioned rule, but it was never harshly administered, though the
knowledge that it might be undoubtedly did a good deal toward
stimulating the ambition of the scholars. Here and there no doubt a boy
exasperated the teacher by idleness or disorder; possibly at moments the
teacher was nervous and irritable. I recollect a single instance in
which he was over-sensitive, too prone to take offence, which fastened
suspiciously upon some individual scholar; but injustice was a very rare
occurrence. We learned Greek and Latin, the rudiments of algebra,
writing and declamation; but the best part of the education I received
in those days was an atmosphere of elegant literature, derived from
friends of my father. I used to see William H. Prescott taking his walk
on Beacon Street, in the sun, and have often sat in his study in his
tranquil hours, and heard him talk. The beautiful library of George
Ticknor, at the head of Park Street, was open to me, and I can see his
form now as he walked on the Common. George S. Hillard, the elegant man
of letters, was a familiar figure on the street. Charles Sumner, then a
young law student, strode vigorously along, his manner even then
suggesting the advent of a new era.

In 1846, I listened to his oration before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of
Harvard University on the Scholar [Pickering]; the Jurist [Story]; the
Artist [Allston]; the Philanthropist [Channing]; and his bold
declamation was strangely in contrast with the academical gown that he
wore. Daniel Webster used to stalk by our house, the embodiment of the
Constitution, the incarnation of law, the black locomotive of the train
of civilization. Ralph Waldo Emerson often sat at my father's table
diffusing the radiance of serene ideas, and heralding the diviner age
that was to come.

From the Latin School to Harvard College was an easy transition. There
existed an impression that Latin-School boys might take their ease for
the first year at Cambridge, because they were so well prepared, but I
found enough to do; there was the great library, there were the advanced
studies, there was the more perfect training. The President was Josiah
Quincy, the elder. Henry W. Longfellow was professor of modern
languages; Cornelius C. Felton, the ardent philhellene, taught Greek;
Charles Beck, a German, taught Latin; Benjamin Peirce was professor of
mathematics; James Walker was an instructor in intellectual and moral
philosophy; Joseph Lovering, teacher in chemistry. Among the tutors were
Bernard Roelker, in German; Pietro Bachi, in Italian; Francisco Sales,
in Spanish.

The new buildings now in the college yard were not erected; Holworthy
(1812), Stoughton (1804-1805), Hollis (1763), Harvard (1766), Holden
(1734), Massachusetts Hall (1720), University Hall (1812-1813) were in
existence. There were no athletics; there was no gymnasium; there was no
boating; there was little base-ball. There were few literary societies;
so that we were driven back mainly upon intellectual labor. The
professors' houses were always open, and there was choice society in the
town. I recollect particularly well going to the house of John White
Webster, who was executed later for the murder of Dr. Parkman. He was
very fond of music and had a daughter who sang finely, besides being
handsome. She afterwards married Mr. Dabney, of Fayal. The Doctor was a
nervous man, high strung, but good-natured and polite. His fatal
encounter with Dr. Parkman I always attributed to a sudden outbreak of
passion.

Within the grounds of the college we were quite studious, companionable
among ourselves. There was no rioting, no excess of any kind. Walking
and swimming in the river Charles were our chief recreations. Connection
with Boston was infrequent and difficult, as there was no railroad. The
Sundays could be passed in the city if the student brought a certificate
that he went regularly to church; otherwise it was expected that the
First Church, or one of the others, should be frequented. The
instruction was of a cordial, friendly, courteous, and humane kind; the
professors were enthusiastic students in their departments. I well
recollect Professor Longfellow's kindness; Professor Felton's ardor (I
visited Pompeii with him in 1853). Charles Beck was a burning patriot in
the war. Pietro Bachi's great eyes lighted up and glowed as he talked
about Dante. Bernard Roelker afterwards became a lawyer in New York.
Charles Wheeler and Robert Bartlett, tutors, both rare spirits, died
young. On the whole, life at Harvard College was exceedingly pleasant,
and a real love of learning was implanted in young men's bosoms.

The corner-stone of Gore Hall was laid in 1813. The books were moved
into the library in the summer vacation of 1814. There were forty-one
thousand volumes at that time.

In the early part of my career, I took my meals in Commons, at an
expense of two dollars and a quarter a week, the highest price then
paid. Commons was abolished for a time in 1849, it being found difficult
to satisfy the students, who for some years had boarded in the houses in
the neighborhood.

There were excitements too. Though there was no gymnasium, or boating,
and little foot-ball, base-ball, or cricket (these games were all very
simple and rudimentary), there were the clubs, the "[Greek: Alpha Delta
Phi]," still a secret society, and occupying a back upper room, to which
we mounted by stealth,--the same room serving for initiations and
sociables,--was exceedingly interesting in a literary point of view.
There were papers on Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, delightful conversations,
anecdotes, songs.

The "Institute of 1770" taught us elocution, and readiness in debate;
the "[Greek: Phi Beta Kappa]," no longer a secret society, and no longer
actively literary, hung over us like a star, stimulating ambition and
inciting us to excellence in scholarship.

Altogether it was a delightful life; a life between boyhood and
manhood; of purely literary ambition, of natural friendship. There was
no distinction of persons, no affected pride. We found our own level,
and kept our own place. Money did not distinguish or family, only
brains. There was no care but for intellectual work; there was no excess
save in study. Expenses were small, indulgences were few and simple. The
education was more suited to those times than to these, when culture
must be so much broader, and social expectations demand such varied
accomplishments.




III. DIVINITY SCHOOL.


To enter at once the Divinity School was to start on a predestined
career. From childhood I was marked out for a clergyman. This was taken
for granted in all places and conversations, and my own thoughts fell
habitually into that groove. There was nothing unattractive in the
professional career as illustrated by my father. I was the only one of a
large family of brothers who pursued the full course of studies at
Cambridge, or who showed a taste for the scholastic life. An appetite
for books rather than for affairs pointed first of all to a literary
calling, while a fondness for speculative questions, a leaning towards
ideal subjects, and a serious turn of mind naturally suggested at that
time the pulpit. An inward "experience of religion," which in some other
communions was regarded as essential to the character of a minister of
the gospel, was not demanded. Religion was rather moral and intellectual
than spiritual, a matter of mental conviction more than of emotional
feeling. The clerical profession stood very high, higher than any of the
three "learned professions," by reason of its requiring in larger
measure a tendency towards abstract thought, an interest in theological
discussions, and a steady belief in doctrines that concerned the soul.
Literature was not at that period a profession; there was no Art to
speak of except for genius of the first order like that of Allston or
Greenough. Men of the highest intellectual rank, whatever they may have
become afterwards, tried the ministry at the start. The traditions of
New England favored the ministerial calling. The great names, with here
and there an exception, were names of divines. The great books were on
subjects of religion; the popular interest centred in theological
controversy; the general enthusiasm was aroused by preachers; the
current talk was about sermons. The clergy was a privileged class,
aristocratic, exalted.

Divinity Hall had been dedicated in August, 1826. It was situated on an
avenue about a quarter of a mile from the college yard. It contained,
besides thirty-seven chambers for the accommodation of students, a
chapel, a library, a lecture-room, and a reading-room; it stood opposite
the Zooelogical Museum. Before it was a vacant space used for games.
Behind it was meadow land reaching all the way to Mr. Norton's. Just
beyond it was Dr. Palfrey's residence. George Rapall Noyes, D.D., was
elected in May, 1840, with the title of "Hancock Professor of Hebrew and
Oriental Languages, and Dexter Lecturer on Biblical Literature." He had
already translated the poetical books of the Old Testament, and it was
his eminence as a translator which had won him fame while a minister at
Petersham. It was his duty also to explain the New Testament, and in
addition to give lectures in systematic theology. Besides all this he
was to preach in the college chapel a fourth of the year. He steadily
grew in the respect and attachment of the young men; his authority in
the lecture-room was very great; his opinions were carefully formed and
precisely delivered; and his shrewd, practical wisdom was long
remembered by his pupils. Convers Francis, D.D., appointed to the
"Parkman Professorship," after the resignation of Henry Ware, Jr., was
his associate. The branches assigned to him were ecclesiastical history,
natural theology, ethics, the composition of sermons, and instruction in
the duties of a pastor; besides all this he was to preach half of the
time in the college chapel. Dr. Francis was an accomplished scholar and
a faithful teacher. The best man, too, for his position, at a time when
in an unsectarian school it was exceedingly desirable that the
professors should harmonize all tendencies; for with a strong sympathy
with "transcendentalism," as it was then called, he had been a most
successful parish minister, a very acceptable preacher, and a man in
whom all the churches had confidence.

At Cambridge, owing to the influence of Buckminster, Ware, and Norton,
Unitarian opinion prevailed, though the controversial period had passed
by when I was there. The clouds of warfare no longer discharged
lightning; there was no roll of thunder; only a faint muttering betrayed
the former excitement; and the memory of old conflicts hovered round the
spots where the fights had been hottest. Marks of strife were still
visible on texts, and chapters were scarred with wounds. Comment still
lingered near the passages where polemics had raged, and the blood
burned as we read the tracts or studied the essays of the champions we
admired.

It was impossible to forget the interpretations that had been given to
words or phrases. A strictly scientific study, either of the Bible or
the creed, was therefore out of the question. But the course of
exercises was broad, generous, inclusive, as far as this was feasible.
The bias was decidedly unorthodox, yet without the bitter temper of
opposition. The old system was rather set aside than attacked. It was
assumed to have been vanquished in the fair field. The professors were
liberal in their views. A small but serviceable library furnished the
students with a certain amount of needed material, the college library
was freely opened to them, and the collections of the professors were
gladly placed at their disposal. The days were fully occupied with
lectures, recitations, discussions, exercises in writing out and taking
of notes. Once a week there was a debate on some general theme not
connected with the topics of the class-room; and at the latter part of
the course there was special training in the composition and delivery of
sermons, accompanied by a brief experience of extemporaneous speaking.
The Unitarian ministry was alone contemplated; no wide divergence from
it was encouraged, and the conservative methods of interpretation were
the ones recommended. Some knowledge of Greek and Latin being
presupposed, the study of Hebrew was made the one study of language, and
this was pursued with the best available helps. Biblical criticism
naturally took a prominent place in the current curriculum, under the
guidance of the most distinguished authorities; books of every school
were recommended, whether old or new, Catholic or Protestant,
"conservative" or "liberal," Horne, Tholuck, De Wette being consulted in
turn. The New Testament and "Historical Christianity" were taken for
granted; and these meant belief in miracles, which were defended against
rising objections of the Strauss and Paulus schools, the former holding
by the "mythical" theory, the latter favoring the notion of a natural
explanation of some sort. The hostility towards rationalism was decided.
This was forty years ago, before the "historical method," as it was
called, instituted by Baur, Schwegler, Zeller, Sneckenburger, and the
_Theologische Jahrbuecher_, had any expositor in this country, long
before the Dutch school, the later French school--Kuenen, Reville,
Reuss, Nicolas, Renan,--came out. The great issue was the credibility of
the miracles of the Old and New Testaments. The half-monastic life we
led at Divinity Hall cut us off a good deal from social amenities,
reform agitations, attempts to change institutions, and even from the
deeper currents of religious sentiment. None but the very observant took
note of Brook Farm, or heeded the movements in behalf of Association
that were going on in other communities. Whatever was outside of the
"Christian" ministry concerned us but little. The professors did not
direct our eyes to the mountain tops or call attention to the bringers
of good tidings from other quarters than the Christian Revelation, as
explained by its scholars and writers. Even such a phenomenon as Emerson
did not make a profound impression on the average mind.

A tone of old-fashioned piety pervaded the establishment. A weekly
prayer-meeting, always attended by one of the professors, though
officially rather than as a stimulator, was much in the manner and
spirit of similar exercises at Andover. The students were cautioned
against excessive intellectualism. Several of them spent their Sundays
in teaching classes of the young in the neighboring towns, in
ministering to the sick in hospitals, or in carrying the monitions of
conscience to the criminals in the prison at Charlestown. The aims of a
practical ministry were thus kept in view as well as the circumstances
of the time permitted. Of course the school could not be a philanthropic
institution any more than it could be independent or scientific. It was
committed to a special purpose, which was the supply of Christian
pulpits with instructed, earnest, devoted men. That they should be
Unitarians was expected; that they should be Christians in belief was
demanded. There were two ever-present spectres, "orthodoxy" and
"rationalism," the one represented by Andover, the other by Germany.
Audacity of speculation when unaccompanied by practical piety was
discountenanced, and in flagrant instances rebuked.

The literal form of the orthodox creed, it need hardly be said, was made
more prominent than its imaginative aspect. This was inevitable, for the
object was to assail it rather than to understand it. To be perfectly
fair to all sides was, under the circumstances, not to be expected at a
period so near the era of controversy. An earnest, ingenuous youth could
find at Cambridge all the courage and impulse he needed, for the
atmosphere of the place was neither chilling nor depressing. The less
emotional, more intellectual scholar was left to pursue his studies
undisturbed, the wind of spiritual feeling not being strong enough to
carry him away.

In a word, the institution was all that could have been looked for in a
time when ecclesiastical and doctrinal traditions were fatally though
not confessedly broken, and naked individualism was not avowedly
adopted. The task of the professors, conscientious, hard working,
utterly faithful men, was laborious, difficult, and thankless. The
Unitarian public, fearing a tendency to unbelief, gave them a grudging
confidence; the students, I am afraid, were not considerate of
them,--the zealous finding them lukewarm, the cold-blooded blaming them
for stopping short of the last consequences of their own theory. It is
wonderful that the school went on at all. The single-minded devotion of
the teachers alone preserved it. Looking thoughtfully back across a wide
gulf of years, the writer of these pages feels that he owes this tribute
to Convers Francis and George R. Noyes. How often he has wished he could
take them by the hand and ask their forgiveness for his frequent
misjudgment of them, misjudgment the remembrance of which makes his
heart bleed the more as he can only think of their generous forbearance.
Their influence was emancipating and stimulating. They were friendly to
thought. Under their ministration the mind took a leap forward towards
the confines of the Christian system of faith. What the divinity school
of the future may be able to accomplish it would be hazardous to
conjecture. It could hardly then have done more than it did.

The study of comparative religions, so zealously prosecuted within a
few years, together with a desire to do perfect justice to orthodox
doctrines, may render practical a scientific review of theological
systems, but in this event a predilection in favor of a separate
"Christian" ministry can be no longer characteristic of a divinity
school which proposes to prepare young men for the clerical calling.

The three years of secluded life passed quickly away. The trial sermon
in the village church was delivered and criticised. The President of the
college then was Edward Everett, my uncle. The next morning I went to
his office; he spoke warmly of my sermon, but advised me henceforth to
commit sermons to memory as he did. This I tried two or three times, but
the effort to write the sermons so fatigued me that the task of
committing them to memory was too great, and for years I wrote my
discourses, until for convenience' sake I learned to preach without
notes. The diploma was bestowed, the actual ministry was begun. The term
of preaching as a candidate did not last long. By the advice of friends
an invitation was accepted to an old established conservative parish in
Salem, Mass. Ordination and marriage soon followed, and public life was
inaugurated under the most promising conditions. I had the best wishes
of the conservative portion of the community to which I was, properly,
supposed to belong, and the hopes of the radical portion who anticipated
a change of view as time went on, and I was brought into sharper
collision with prevailing habits of thought than was possible at
Cambridge, where the student was in a great measure cut off from
intercourse with the world.

At the "Divinity School" I was known as a young man with conservative
ideas. I remember now discussions, essays, criticisms, in which the
opinions in vogue among old-fashioned Unitarians were defended somewhat
passionately against the more daring convictions of my companions. In
especial my faith was in direct opposition to the spiritual philosophy;
Strauss was a horror; Parker was a bugbear; Furness seemed an innovator;
Emerson was a "Transcendentalist," a term of immeasurable reproach. All
this was soon to pass away, and I was to go a great deal beyond even
Parker. The word "Transcendentalist" ceased to be a synonym for
"enthusiast." The philosophy of intuition was first literally adopted,
then dismissed, and I came out where I least expected. But I well
remember, one evening as I was walking out from Boston, presenting to
myself distinctly the alternative between the adoption of the old and
the new. I am afraid that the old commended itself by its venerableness,
the solidity of its traditions, and the authority of its great names,
while the new was still vague and formless. I then and there decided to
follow in the footsteps of my fathers, a course more in sympathy with
the prevailing temper of the age and with the current of thought at
Divinity Hall, though Emerson had delivered his address some years
before, and the New Jerusalem was even then coming down from heaven.




IV. SALEM.


Old Salem was a city of the imagination. History does it no justice.
The "Essex Institute," founded in 1848, by the union of the "Essex
County Historical Society" and the "Essex County Natural History
Society," has a very fine collection of books, pamphlets, manuscripts,
an invaluable museum, relics, pictures, so that in no locality in the
country has so much been accomplished in exhuming the treasures of
municipal and civil history, and in bringing to light antiquities.
Hurd's "History of Essex County," published in 1888, with its monographs
on commerce, religion, literature, newspapers, etc., written by
thoroughly competent men, throws a flood of light on the past of the
place. Mr. Upham's "Memoir of Francis Peabody," published in 1868, gives
an admirable account of the literary eminence of the old town. Colonel
Higginson's article in _Harper's Monthly_ on "Old Salem's Sea Captains,"
published in September, 1886, gives something of its romantic character.
But best of all as illustrating this feature are the articles written by
"Eleanor Putnam" (Mrs. Arlo Bates), and republished after her death
under the title of "Old Salem," in 1887. She was about thirty years old
when she died; but if she had lived she would have presented the old
city in its quaintest aspect. Her love of antiquarian research, her
taste, her devotion to Salem qualified her in an eminent degree for her
self-appointed task.

There can hardly be a doubt that the origins of the town were
religious; that a religious purpose, deep though undefined and
undeclared, animated the emigrants before Winthrop. The very name,
Salem, the Hebrew for peacefulness, instead of "Naumkeag" (the old
Indian name), adopted in 1628, to commemorate the reconciliation between
the company of Roger Conant and that of John Endicott, was already
suggestive of spiritual qualities. Eminent forms loom up in the
distance: Francis Higginson, the first minister of Massachusetts Bay;
Roger Williams, whose name is identified with "soul freedom"; Hugh
Peters, his opponent. John Endicott was a most imposing figure; hasty,
rash, choleric (as was shown by his striking a man in early life),
imperious, but brave and bold. He was a stern Puritan, hating popery so
much that he cut out the image of the king from the English banner,
because it was an image, while at the same time he persecuted the
Quakers, because they advocated obedience to the "inner light" and were
disturbers of the established peace. But he had sweeter
qualities--gentleness, generosity, and kindness. An old scripture
(Ecclesiasticus xi., 28) says: "Judge none blessed before his death; for
a man shall be known in his children." The descendants of John Endicott
are graceful, elegant, refined people, lovely in manners, gentle in
disposition. The root of these qualities must have been in the
forefather two centuries and a half ago. The intellectual history of the
city is very illustrious and began early. A strong intellectual bent
characterized the early settlers, who were persons of inquisitive minds,
addicted to experiments and enterprises, exceedingly ingenious. Near the
middle of the last century there was in existence in Salem a social
evening club, composed of eminent cultivated and accomplished citizens.
On the evening of Monday, March 31, 1760, a meeting was held at the
Tavern House of a Mrs. Pratt for the purpose of "founding in the town of
Salem a handsome library of valuable books, apprehending the same may be
of considerable use and benefit under proper regulations." The books
imported, given, or bought, amounted to four hundred and fifteen
volumes. This society, which may be regarded as the foundation of all
the institutions and agencies established in this place to promote
intellectual culture, was incorporated in 1797. In 1766, the famous
Count Rumford was an apprentice here. In 1781, Richard Kirwan, LL.D., of
Dublin, an eminent philosopher of the period, had a valuable library in
a vessel which was captured by an American private armed ship and
brought into Beverly as a prize. The books were given by Dr. Kirwan, who
would accept no gratuity and was delighted that his volumes were put to
so good a use. The books were sold to an association of gentlemen in
Salem and its neighborhood, and formed the "Philosophical Library." This
and the "Social Library" were afterwards consolidated into the "Salem
Athenaeum," which was incorporated in March, 1810.

Among the distinguished men were William H. Prescott, Benjamin Peirce,
Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Lewis Russell, Charles Grafton Page, and Jones
Very. Here lived Edward Augustus Holyoke, president of the Massachusetts
Medical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Timothy
Pickering, Rev. John Prince, Rev. William Bentley, Nathaniel Bowditch,
author of the "Practical Navigator" and translator of the "Mecanique
Celeste"; John Pickering, Joseph Story, of the Supreme Bench; Daniel
Appleton White, Leverett Saltonstall, Benjamin Merrill, and many another
man of accomplishments and learning. Even the uneducated, and those
engaged in the common occupations of everyday life, gratified their love
of knowledge, and followed up, for their private enjoyment, researches
in intellectual and philosophical spheres; apothecaries and retail
shopkeepers distinguished themselves as writers; one of them--Isaac
Newhall by name--was reputed the author of the famous "Junius Letters,"
thus enjoying companionship with Burke, Gibbon, Grattan, Camden,
Chatham, Chesterfield, and other distinguished writers.

Its commercial history was exceedingly brilliant. In its palmy days it
had more trade with the East Indies than all the other American ports
put together. Its situation by the sea encouraged maritime adventure.
From its very infancy its inhabitants sent vessels across the Atlantic
of forty to sixty tons, and followed up the trade with Spain, France,
Italy, and the West India Islands. In the war of the Revolution it sent
out one hundred and fifty-eight armed ships, mounting at least two
thousand guns, and carrying not less than six thousand men. In 1785,
Salem sent out the first vessel to the Isle of France, Calcutta, and
China; she began also the trade to the other ports of the East Indies
and Japan; to Madagascar and Zanzibar, Brazil and Africa. In the south
seas, Salem ships first visited the Fiji Islands; they first opened up
to our commerce New Holland and New Zealand. In the war of 1812 she had
two hundred and fifty privateers. When the war was over, these vessels
were engaged in the merchant service. Mr. E. H. Derby, one of the great
merchants, said to be the richest man in America, sent out thirty-seven
vessels in fourteen years, making a hundred and twenty voyages. The
names of the great merchants, E. H. Derby, N. Silsbee, William Gray,
Peabody, Crowningshield, Pickman, Cleveland, Cabot, Higginson, are of
universal celebrity. Then Derby Street was alive with sea-captains, the
custom-house was active, the tall warehouses were full of treasures, the
great East Indiamen fairly made the air fragrant as they unloaded their
merchandise. To quote the language of "Eleanor Putnam": "There was
poetry in the names of the vessels--the ship _Lotus_, the _Black
Warrior_, the brig _Persia_, the _Light Horse_, the _Three Friends_, and
the great _Grand Turk_. There was, too, a charm about the cargoes. They
were no common-place bales of merchandise, but were suggestive in their
very names of the sweet, strange odors of the East, from which they
came. There was food for the imagination in the mention of those
ship-loads of gum copal from Madagascar and Zanzibar; of hemp and iron
from Russia; of Bombay cotton; of ginger, pepper, coffee, and sugar from
India; of teas, silks, and nankeens from China; salt from Cadiz; and
fruits from the ports of the Mediterranean."

Miss Putnam speaks of the gorgeous fans, the carved ivory, the blue
Canton china, the generous tea-cups, the tureens, the heavy tankards,
the Delft jars, the ancient candle-sticks, the heavy punch bowls, the
strange beads, suggestive of the Hindoo rites, Nautch dances, and women
with dusky throats. Then the very air was weighty with romantic
adventures. We read with awe of cashmere shawls hanging on clothes
lines, of jars full of silver coin, of the gilded fishes on the side of
each stair, of the grand staircase in the front hall of Mr. Pickman's
house on Essex Street, of logs of sandal-wood. The museum of the East
India Marine Society contains sceptres from the Fiji Islands; a musical
instrument from New South Wales, another from Borneo; a carved statue of
a rich Persian merchant of Bombay; an alabaster figure of a Chinese Jos;
a copper idol from Java; a mirror from Japan; fans from Maraba, the
Marquesas Islands, Calcutta; cloth from Otaheite; an earthen patera from
Herculaneum; two dresses of women from the Pelew Islands; sandal-wood
from the Sandwich Islands; a parasol from Calcutta; nutmegs from
Cayenne; thirty-six specimens of Italian marble; cement from the palace
of the Caesars at Rome; white marble from Carthage; porphyry from Italy;
beads worn by the Pundits and Fakirs in India; a glass cup from Owyhee;
Verde Antico from Sicily; sandal-wood tapers from China; wood images of
mummies from Thebes; a silver box from Soo-Soo; porphyry from
Madagascar; a piece of mosaic from ancient Carthage; silk cocoons from
India; marble from the temple of Minerva at Athens; piece of pavement
from the site of ancient Troy; and polished jasper from Siberia.

When I was in Salem, from 1847 to 1855, this splendor had departed.
Derby Street was deserted, the great warehouses were tenements for
laborers. Hawthorne has described the custom-house in his famous preface
to the "Scarlet Letter." The sailors had disappeared; the commerce,
owing mainly to the shallowness of the water in the harbor, had gone to
Boston and New York. But traces of the old glory still lingered. Here
and there a great merchant was seen on the streets. Some of the old
houses remained: the Pickering House on Broad Street, built in 1651; the
Turner House; Roger Williams' house, at the corner of Essex and North
Streets, built before 1634; and Mr. Forrester's house.

As the chairman of the Salem Lyceum, it was my privilege to entertain
such men as R. W. Emerson, George W. Curtis and others. Thomas Starr
King, when he lectured in Danvers, drove over to my house, and spent the
rest of the evening. Nathaniel Hawthorne I used to meet frequently on
the street. I often saw Mrs. Hawthorne leading her children by the hand.
Mr. Hawthorne, who was in Salem from 1846 to 1849, was remarkable for
his shyness. His favorite companions were some Democratic politicians,
who met weekly at the office of one of them, where he occupied himself
in listening to their talk, but he avoided cultivated people. On one
occasion a friend of mine asked us to meet him at dinner; twice he went
to remind his guest of the engagement. The hour arrived, the dinner was
kept waiting half an hour for Mr. Hawthorne to come. He said but little
during the dinner, and immediately afterward got up and went away; his
reluctance to meet people overcoming his sense of propriety.

My church, the "North Church," as it was called, was a handsome
building on the main street, a stone structure with a tower, and a green
before it. It was founded in 1772 by people who had left the First
Parish by reason of great dissatisfaction. The first minister, called in
1773, was Thomas Barnard. He was a broad-minded, liberal man, and left
the church substantially Unitarian. His successor was J. E. Abbot,
called in 1815, whose ministry, from ill-health, was very short. My
predecessor, John Brazer, a cultivated, scholarly, sensitive man, a good
preacher, an excellent pastor, was settled in 1820. My ministry there
was exceedingly pleasant and tranquil for several years. There were long
hours for studying; the parish work was not hard; the people were
honest, quiet, sober, some of them exceedingly refined and gentle; it
was as if the old Puritan spirit, modified by time, still lingered about
the old town. Family life was beautiful to see; the homes were charming;
there was luxury enough; there was great intelligence, singular activity
of mind; and I remember well the bright conversations, the
entertainments, the teas, the dinners, the receptions, the social
meetings. The women, especially, were distinguished for interest in
literary matters. Many interesting people still lived in the town,
Daniel Appleton White, for instance, Dr. Treadwell, Benjamin Merrill,
Thomas Cole; some of these were my parishioners and all were my friends.
But the life was almost too quiet for me, as circumstances presently
proved.

At the same time, as if to render impossible my further ministration in
this first place of service, the anti-slavery agitation was at its
height, dividing churches, breaking up sects, setting the members of
families against each other, detaching ministers from their
congregations, and arraying society in hostile camps. The noise of the
conflict filled the air. It was impossible to evade the issue. Those who
had fixed positions in the community, were of a tranquil temperament, or
of an easy conscience, might survey the battle calmly, or be vexed only
by the confusion in the social world; but they who had the future still
before them could not but feel the necessity of taking sides in the
quarrel. When Garrison, the incarnate conscience, was enunciating the
moral law and illustrating it by flaming texts from the Old Testament;
when the intrepid Phillips was throwing the light of history on
politics, and putting statesmanship in the face of humanity, judging all
men by the maxims of ethical philosophy; when Parker was proclaiming the
absolute justice, and Clarke was applying the truths of the eternal
love; and many others, men and women, were thundering forth the divine
vengeance on iniquity; when facts were set out for everybody's reading,
and tongues were unloosed, and fiery messages proceeded from all mouths,
and conviction was deep, and eloquence was stirring, it was impossible
to be still.

Now the situation is changed; the evil is removed; the wound has
healed; the surgeon's knife has been put up in its case. A new
philosophy is disposed to blame the action of the anti-slavery
champions. Some critics have doubted whether the conduct of the
abolitionists was wise; whether their primary assumption of the
political equality of all men was correct; whether a race that had never
founded a government or contributed to the advance of civilization could
add any weight to the cause of liberty. But then such misgivings could
not be raised. The abolitionists seemed to have on their side the
precepts of the New Testament, the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount,
the character and example of Jesus, the burning language of prophecy,
the inspiring traditions of primitive Christianity, the humane instincts
of the heart, the moral sentiments of equity, pity, compassion, all
reinforced by the growing democratic opinion of the age, and by the
tenets of the intuitive philosophy then coming to the front. The glowing
passages from Isaiah and from Matthew: "Let the oppressed go free; break
every yoke"; "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye
did it unto me," shone in our eyes. To the anti-slavery people belonged
the heroic virtues, courage, faithfulness, and sacrifice. Theirs was the
martyr spirit; the readiness to surrender ease, position, and success
for an idea. It would have been strange if, at such a time, a young man,
a clergyman, too, had been a champion of vested interests. The doctrine
of a higher law than that of the State commended itself to his idealism,
and pledged him to oppose what he regarded as legalized wrong. The
doctrine of legal rights for all men made him a firm enemy of organized
inhumanity. It was a period of passionate war. In every department of
the Church and State the irrepressible conflict went on. It was no time
for the calm voice of the loving spirit of wisdom to be heard. It was no
time to propose that the local laws respecting slavery should be
remodelled, and the relation between whites and blacks readjusted on
more equitable principles. The science of anthropology had no weight in
America or anywhere else. No exhaustive study of race peculiarities
could be entered on. The combatants had the whole field, and between the
combatants there seemed to be no room for choice by a minister of the
Gospel, an enthusiastic friend of humanity, a democrat, and a
transcendentalist.

On one occasion, after a brutal scene in Boston attending the return of
a slave to his master, feeling that the larger part of his congregation
were in sympathy with the government, and approved of the act of
surrender, the excited minister declined to give the ordinance of
communion, thinking it would be a mockery. This action brought the
growing disaffection to a head. The feeling of the parish was divided.
Bitter words were exchanged. The situation on both sides became
uncomfortable, and he accepted an invitation to another city, where he
could exercise his independence without check or limit.

The position in regard to slavery which was taken thirty years ago
there is no room to regret. It was taken with perfect sincerity, and
under an uncontrollable pressure of conviction. The part performed by
the abolitionists was predestined. The conduct of their opponents looks
now as irrational as it did then. American slavery was so atrocious a
system, so hideous a blot, that no terms were to be kept with it.
Probably nothing but the surgeon's knife would have availed in dealing
with such a cancerous mass. The cord had become so fatally twisted that
the knot, too closely drawn to be untied, must be cut with the sword.
The abolition of slavery was inevitable; it came about through a great
elemental upheaval. The situation had become intolerable and was past
reforming. Long before the war, it had become impossible to get along
with the slaveholders, except on the most ignoble principles of trade or
fashion. All manly acquiescence was out of the question. The Unitarians,
as such, were indifferent or lukewarm; the leading classes were opposed
to the agitation. Dr. Channing stood almost alone in lending countenance
to the reform, though his hesitation between the dictates of natural
feeling and Christian charity towards the masters hampered his action,
and rendered him obnoxious to both parties,--the radicals finding fault
with him for not going further, the conservatives blaming him because he
went so far. The transcendentalists were quite universally
abolitionists, for their philosophy pointed directly towards the
exaltation of every natural power. Wherever they touched the earth--as
they did not always, some of them soaring away beyond terrestrial
things--flowers of hope sprang up in their path. In France, Germany, and
England, they were friends of intellectual and social progress, of the
ideal democracy. The spiritual philosophy was in the air; its ideas were
unconsciously absorbed by the enthusiastic spirits. They constituted the
life of the period; they were a light to such as dwelt in darkness or
sat under the shadow of death.

In this country Mr. Emerson led the dance of the hours. He was our
poet, our philosopher, our sage, our priest. He was the eternal man. If
we could not go where he went, it was because we were weak and unworthy
to follow the steps of such an emancipator. His singular genius, his
wonderful serenity of disposition inherited from an exceptional ancestry
and seldom ruffled by the ordinary passions of men, his curious felicity
of speech, his wit, his practical wisdom, raised him above all his
contemporaries. His infrequent contact with the world of affairs, his
seclusion in the country, his apparitions from time to time on lecture
platforms or in convention halls, gave a far-off sound to his voice as
if it fell from the clouds. Some among his friends found fault with him
for being bloodless and ethereal, but this added to the effect of his
presence and his word. The mixture of Theism and Pantheism in his
thoughts, of the personal and the impersonal, of the mystical and the
practical, fascinated the sentiment of the generation, while the lofty
moral strain of his teaching awakened to increased energy the wills of
men. His speech and example stimulated every desire for reform, turning
all eyes that were opened to the land of promise that seemed fully in
sight. How much the anti-slavery conviction of the time, along with
every other movement for the purification of society, owed to him we
have always been fond of saying with that indefiniteness of
specification which communicates so much more than it tells. This must
be said, that, in the exhilaration of the period, they that worked
hardest felt no exhaustion, and they that sacrificed most were conscious
of no self-abnegation, and they that threw their lives into this cause
had no sentiment but one of overflowing gratitude and joy. The
anti-slavery agitation was felt to be something more than an attempt to
apply the Beatitudes and the Parables to a flagrant case of
inhumanity--it was regarded as a new interpreter of religion, a fresh
declaration of the meaning of the Gospel, a living sign of the purely
human character of a divine faith, an education in brotherly love and
sacrifice; it was a common saying that now, for the first time in many
generations, the essence of belief was made visible and palpable to all
men; that Providence was teaching us in a most convincing way, and none
but deaf ears could fail to understand the message.

It was, indeed, a most suggestive and inspiring time. Never shall I
forget, never shall I cease to be grateful for, the communion with noble
minds that was brought about, the moral earnestness that was engendered,
the moral insight that was quickened. Then, if ever, we ascended the
Mount of Vision. I was brought into close communion with living men, the
most living of the time, the most under the influence of stimulating
thoughts; and if they were intemperate in their speech, extravagant in
their opinions, absolute in their moral judgments, that must be taken as
proof of the depth of their conviction. They loved much, and therefore
could be forgiven, if forgiveness was necessary. They sacrificed a good
deal, too, some of them everything in the shape of worldly honor, and
this brought them apparently into line with the confessors and saints.
They made real the precepts of the New Testament. Their clients were the
poor, the lowly, the disfranchised, the unprivileged, against whom the
grandeurs of the world lifted a heavy hand. They were champions of those
who sorrowed and prayed, and this was enough to win sympathy and disarm
criticism. It was a great experience; not only was religion brought face
to face with ethics, but it was identified with ethics. It became a
religion of the heart: pity, sympathy, humanity, and brotherhood were
its essential principles. At the anti-slavery fairs all sorts and
conditions of men met together, without distinction of color or race or
sex. There was really an education in the broadest faith, in which
dogma, creed, form, and rite were secondary to love; and love was not
only universal, but was warm.

Salem was the home of story and legend. There Puritanism showed its best
and worst sides, for there Roger Williams preached, and there the
witches were persecuted. The house where they were tried and the hill
where they were executed were objects of curiosity. There were the wild
pastures and the romantic shores, and broad streets shaded by elm trees,
and gardens and greenhouses. There were spacious mansions and beautiful
country-seats and pleasant walks. There was beauty and grace and
accomplishment and wit. There were quaint old buildings, and ways once
trodden by pious and heroic feet. On the whole, this was the most
idyllic period in my ministry. Thither came Emanuel Vitalis Scherb, the
native of Basel, an exile for opinion's sake, a man full of genius,
learning, enthusiasm. Young, handsome, hopeful, his lectures on German
literature and poetry attracted notice in Boston, whence he came to
Salem to talk and be entertained. The best houses were open to him; the
best people went to hear him. Alas, poor Scherb! His day of popularity
was short. He sank from one stage of poverty to another; he was indebted
to friends for aid, among the rest to H. W. Longfellow, who clung to him
till the last, and finally died from disease in a military hospital
early in our Civil War.

I remember, in connection with Samuel Johnson, collecting an audience
for Mr. A. B. Alcott, the most adroit soliloquizer I ever listened to,
who delivered in a vestry-room a series of those remarkable
"conversations"--versations with the _con_ left out--for which he was
celebrated. It was, in many respects, a happy time.




V. THE CRISIS IN BELIEF.


I was in Salem when this came. It happened in the following way: A woman
in my choir, a melancholy, tearful, forlorn woman, asked me one day if I
knew Theodore Parker. I said I did not, but then, seeing her
disappointment, I asked her why she put that question. She replied that
her husband had abandoned her some months before and with another woman
had gone to Maine. There he had left the woman and was living in Boston,
and was a member of Mr. Parker's Society; and she thought that if I knew
Mr. Parker I might find out something about him, and perhaps induce him
to come back to Salem. I told her I was going to Boston in a day or two,
and would see Mr. Parker.

My visit, again and again repeated, resulted in an intimacy with that
extraordinary man which had a lasting effect on my career. His personal
sympathy, his profound humanity, his quickness of feeling, his
sincerity, his courage, his absolute fidelity of service, even more than
his astonishing vigor of intellect and his earnestness in pursuit of
truth, made a deep impression on my mind. To be in his society was to be
impelled in the direction of all nobleness. He talked with me, lent me
books, stimulated the thirst for knowledge, opened new visions of
usefulness. As I recall it now, his influence was mainly personal, the
power that comes from a great character. He communicated a moral
impetus. Faith in man, love of liberty in thought, institution, law,
breathed in all his words and works. His theological ideas were somewhat
mixed, as was inevitable then. His gift of spiritual vision, especially
as shown in his interpretation of the Old-Testament narratives, may have
been imperfect; his moral perspective may have been incomplete; his
learning was copious, rather than discerning. But his single-mindedness
was perfect, and his devotion to his fellow-men was almost superhuman.
It was a privilege to know such a man, so simple-hearted and brave. The
slight disposition to put himself on his omniscience, to strike an
attitude, was not strange considering his enormous force, his
consciousness of power, his singular influence over men, and his
conviction (in large measure forced on him by his advocates) that he was
a religious reformer, a second Luther, the inaugurator of a new
Protestantism. His three doctrines, to which he constantly appealed, and
in proof of which he adduced the testimony of the human soul,--the
existence of a personal God, the immortality of the individual, and the
absoluteness of the "moral law" might have been untenable in the
presence of modern knowledge under the form in which he stated them. His
vast collection of materials in attestation of Theism may have been
valuable chiefly as a curiosity; but the man himself was all of one
piece, genuine through and through. The mingling of fire and moderation
in him was very remarkable, the blending of consuming radicalism with
saving conservatism puzzled his more vehement disciples; but his
character interested everybody; his firmness was visible from afar, and
his warmth of heart was felt through stone walls. There were no two
ministers in Boston who did as much for the inmates of hospitals and
prisons as he did. His ministry ceased a quarter of a century ago, but
the effect is vital yet, and will last for years to come. At this
distance the heart leaps up to meet him. His chief work was done, for it
consisted mainly in the adoption of a type of character, and length of
days is not needed for this, while it is apt to be impaired by the
infirmities of age. His long, wearisome illness, full of weakness and
pain, tested the strength of his fortitude, patience, hopefulness, and
trust, and was interesting as showing the passive, acquiescent side of
heroism, all the more impressive in view of his love of life, his desire
to finish his course, his sense of accountability (stronger in him than
in anybody I ever met), and his wish to serve his kind. It was my
happiness, more than ten years after he went away from men, to dwell for
months in his atmosphere, while writing his biography, and all my old
impressions of him were confirmed. And five years later, reviewing his
life in the _Index_, I was again struck by his greatness. I may be
excused for quoting the closing passage from the _Index_, of July 5,
1877, in which I stated the claims of Theodore Parker to the honor of
posterity. The paragraph sums up the qualities that have been ascribed
to him--integrity, catholicity, outspokenness; to these might have been
added warmth of heart, but this last attribute lay on the surface, and
could be easily appreciated by ordinary observers--in fact, was seen and
acknowledged by his enemies, and by those who knew him least.

     On the whole, then, I should say that _manliness_ was Theodore
     Parker's crowning quality and supreme claim to distinction. That he
     had other most remarkable gifts is conceded as a matter of course.
     Everybody knows that he had. But this was his prime characteristic.
     The other gifts he had in spite of himself--his thirst for
     knowledge, his love of books, his all-devouring industry, his
     unfailing memory, his natural eloquence or power of affluent
     expression; but character men regard as less a gift than an
     acquisition,--the fruit of aspiration, resolve, fidelity,--the
     product of daily, nay, of hourly, endeavor. Hence it is that
     intellectual greatness does not impress the multitude; even genius
     has but a limited sway over the masses of mankind. But character
     goes to the roots of life. In fact, Theodore Parker's eminence as a
     man of thought and expression in words has concealed from the world
     at large the intrinsic quality of the person. His reputation as
     theologian, preacher, controversialist, has concealed the real
     greatness which comes to light as the dust of controversy subsides.
     The very causes in which the heroism of his manliness was
     displayed--as, for example, the anti-slavery cause, to which he
     devoted so much of his time and vitality--rendered inconspicuous
     the contribution he made to the treasury of humane feeling. Now
     that that great conflict is over, now that its agitations have
     ceased and its heats have cooled, the character of which this
     conflict revealed but a portion, the career in which this long
     agony was but an episode, loom up into distinctness. The greatest
     of all human achievements is a manly character--guileless, sincere,
     and brave; that he by all admission possessed. He earned it; he
     prayed for it; meditated for it; worked for it;--how hard, his
     private journals show. And for this he will not be forgotten. For
     this he will be remembered as one of the benefactors, one of the
     emancipators, of his kind.

From a shelf in his library, I took Schwegler's "Nachapostolische
Zeitalter," a work which threw a flood of light on the problems of
New-Testament criticism. This led to a study of the writings of F. C.
Baur, the founder of the so-called "Tuebingen School." A complete set of
the _Theologische Jahrbuecher_, the organ of his ideas, was imported from
Germany, and carefully perused. These volumes contained full and minute
studies on all the books of the New Testament--Gospels, Epistles, the
writing termed "The Acts of the Apostles," with incidental glances at
the "Apocalypse." The calm, consistent strength of these expositions
commended them to my mind. The author was a university professor, a man
of practical piety, a Lutheran preacher of high repute, simple,
affectionate, faithful to his duties, quite unconscious that he was
undermining anybody's faith, so deeply rooted was the old Lutheran
freedom of criticism in regard to the Bible. In the German mind,
religion and literature, Christianity and the Scriptures, were entirely
distinct things. The scholar could sit in his library in one mood and
could enter his pulpit in another, preserving in both the
single-mindedness that became a Christian and a student.

Other theories have arisen since, but none that have taken hold of such
eminent minds have appeared. Theodore Parker accepted it; James
Martineau adopted its main proposition in several remarkable papers
written at various times, last in the Unitarian magazine _Old and New_.
In the brilliant lectures delivered in London, during the spring of
1880, on the Hibbert Foundation, Ernest Renan's striking account of
early Christianity owed its force to the assumption of the fundamental
postulate of the Tuebingen School. In the latter years of his life, Baur
summed up the results of his criticism in a pamphlet that was designed
to meet objections; and in 1875-1877 his son-in-law, the learned Edward
Zeller, one of his ablest disciples, an eminent professor of history at
Berlin, published an earnest, carefully considered, masterly report of
the writings of the now famous teacher, in the course of which he paid a
merited tribute to his character, vindicated his views from the charge
of haste and partisanship, and predicted for them a triumphant
future.[*]

    [*] "Vortraege und Abhandlungen," von E. Zeller, 2 vols., Leipzig.

The adoption of these opinions, so opposed to the views current in the
community, compelled the adoption of a new basis for religious
conviction. Christianity, in so far as it depended on the New Testament
or the doctrines of the early Church, was discarded. The cardinal tenets
of the Creed--the Deity of the Christ, the atonement, everlasting
perdition--had been dismissed already, and I was virtually beyond the
limits of the Confession. But Theism remained, and the spiritual nature
of man with its craving for religious truth. Without going so far as
Theodore Parker did, who maintained that the three primary beliefs of
religion--the existence of God, the assurance of individual immortality,
the reality of a moral law--were permanent, universal, and definite
facts of human nature, found wherever man was found; without going so
far as this, I contended that man had a spiritual nature; that this
nature, on coming to consciousness of its powers and needs, gave
expression to exalted beliefs, clothing them with authority, building
them into temples, ordaining them in the form of ceremonies and
priesthoods. In support of this opinion, appeal was made to the great
religions of the world, to the substantial agreement of all sacred
books, to the spontaneous homage paid, in all ages, to saints and
prophets; to the essential accord of moral precepts all over the globe,
to the example of Jesus, to the Beatitudes and Parables, to the respect
given by rude people to the noblest persons, to the credences that
inspire multitudes, to the teachings of Schleiermacher, Fichte,
Constant, Cousin, Carlyle, Goethe, Emerson, in fact, to every leading
writer of the last generation. All this was so beautiful, so consistent
and convincing, so full of promise, so broad, plain, and inspiring that,
with a fresh but miscalculated enthusiasm, over-sanguine, thoughtless,
the young minister undertook to carry his congregation with him, but
without success; so he went elsewhere. This action proceeded from the
faith that Parker instilled. Parker was pre-eminently, to those who
comprehended him, a believer.

In the words of D. A. Wasson, his successor in Music Hall:

     Theodore Parker was one of the most energetic and religious
     believers these later centuries have known. This was the prime
     characteristic of the man. He did not agree in the details of his
     unbelieving with the majority of those around him, because it was
     part of his religion to think freely, part of their religion to
     forbear thinking freely on the highest matters. But he was not only
     a powerful believer in his own soul, but was the believing Hercules
     who went forth in the name of divine law to cleanse the Augean
     stables of the world.... This, I repeat, and can not repeat with
     too much emphasis, was the characteristic of the man--sinewy,
     stalwart, prophetic, fervid, aggressive, believing.... The Hercules
     rather than the Apollo of belief, it was not his to charm rocks and
     trees with immortal music, but to smite the hydra of publicity,
     iniquity, and consecrated falsehood with the club or mace of
     belief; if this might not suffice, then to burn out its foul life
     with the fire of his sarcasms.

To quote my own words, written in 1873 (see "Life." p. 566):

    With him the religious sentiment was supreme. It had no roots in his
    being wholly distinct from its mental or sensible forms of
    expression. Never evaporating in mystical dreams nor entangled in
    the meshes of cunning speculation, it preserved its freshness and
    bloom and fragance 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 never lost its glow, never was
    damped by misgiving, dimmed by doubt, or clouded by sorrow. Far from
    dreading to submit his faith to test, he courted tests; was as eager
    to hear the arguments against his belief as for it; was as fair in
    weighing evidence on the opponent's side as on his own. "Oh, that
    mine enemy 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 Buechner, if
    philosophy it can be called, was as familiar to him as to any of
    Buechner's disciples. He was intimate with the thoughts of Feuerbach.
    He drew into discussion every atheist and materialist he met, talked
    with them closely and confidentially, and rose from the interview
    more confident in the strength of his own positions than ever.
    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. Moleschott respected Parker; Dessor
    was his confidential friend; Feuerbach would have taken him by the
    hand as a brother.

There can be no greater mistake than to call Theodore Parker a Deist;
than to class Theodore Parker with the Deists. He was utterly unlike
Chubb or Shaftesbury, Herbert of Cherbury or Bolingbroke. Even the most
philosophical of them had nothing in common with him. Hume and Voltaire,
for instance, were utterly unlike him. They, it is true, believed in _a_
God, the "First Cause," the "Author of Nature," the "Supreme Being," and
in a future life. But their belief was merely logical and mechanical,
his was vital; he believed in the real, living, immanent Deity. They
thought that religion was an imposition, a policy of the priests, who
played upon the fears of mankind; he believed that religion was a
working power in the world, the origin of the highest achievement, the
soul of all aspiration. They had no faith in the direct communication of
the "Supreme Mind" with the soul of man; he believed in the infinite
genius of man, and in the direct communication of the absolute
intelligence. They thought of justice as a contrivance for securing
happiness; he thought of it as the law of life. One of Mr. Parker's
friends ascribed to him a gorgeous imagination; if he had it, it is a
surprise that it should have been so completely suppressed as it was,
for his taste in pictures and in poetry was very questionable. His want
of speculative talent probably helped him with the people. Whether he
formulated his thoughts is uncertain. Such was not his genius. He was a
constructive, not a destructive. It was his faith that he criticised the
Bible in order that he might release its piety and righteousness; that
he tore in pieces the creeds in order to emancipate the secrets of
divinity.

It is useless to conjecture what Parker might have been had he lived.
That he would have held to his primary convictions is almost certain; it
is quite certain that he would have loved mental liberty. He would have
been a great power in our Civil War; he would probably have been a
leader in the free religious movement. Parker, when I first knew him,
was in full life and vigor. He had gone to Boston a short time before my
ordination in 1847, and had before him a long future of usefulness. All
the exigencies in which he might have been conspicuous were distant.
That the effect of such a man on me and my connections was exceedingly
great is not strange. It would have been strange had it been otherwise.
In sermon, prayer, private conversations my convictions came out. That
the people were disappointed may be assumed, but they were kind,
generous, and patient. The congregations did not fall off; there was
little violence or even vehement expostulation. But the position was not
comfortable, and when an invitation came from Jersey City to found a new
Society, I accepted it at once. It had been a dream of Dr. Bellows to
establish a Society at that place, and, learning that I was in search of
another sphere of activity, he asked me to undertake the work. This was
seconded by a cordial representation from Jersey City itself, on the
part of some who were Dr. Bellows' own parishioners. The uprooting was
not easy, for Salem had become endeared to me as the first scene of my
ministry, a place where I could be useful in many ways, and which
contained a delightful society; an established, well-furnished town,
with historic associations; a country centre, an agreeable situation.
But the waters were getting still there, and the sentiment of the past
was getting to over-weigh the promises of the future.




VI. JERSEY CITY.


Jersey City, to which I went directly from Salem, was a very different
place from what it is now; smaller and perhaps pleasanter. Where now is
a large city, a few years ago was but a village. Now it is a
manufacturing place, with great establishments, foundries,
machine-shops, banks, insurance companies, newspapers, more than forty
schools, and more than sixty churches. Then it was a large town, though
it was nominally a city (incorporated in 1820), with a population of
about twenty thousand, the increase being chiefly due to the annexation
of suburbs, not to its own vital growth. It was substantially rural in
character, with extensive meadows, broad avenues; a place of residence
largely, the gentlemen living there and doing business in New York.
There were a few Unitarians, a few Universalists, but there was no
organized Unitarian society before I went there. A great many cultivated
people resided in this place. There was wealth, culture, and interest in
social matters. A meeting-house was built for me and dedicated to a
large, rational faith.

The chief peculiarity of my ministry there was the disuse of the
communion service. This rite I had thought a great deal about in Salem.
There had been, then, a well-meant proposal on the part of the pastor to
make an alteration in the form of administering the communion service.
The custom had been (quite an incidental one, for the usage was by no
means the same in all the churches of the denomination) to thrust the
rite in once a month, between the morning worship and dinner time, and
to offer it then to none but the church-members, who composed but a
small part of the congregation. As a consequence of this arrangement,
the observance became formal, dry, short, and tiresome. To the majority
of the Society it seemed a mystical ceremony with which they had no
concern, while those who stayed to take part in it, wearied already by
the preceding exercises, and hungry for their mid-day meal, gave to it
but half-hearted attention. The observance was thus worse than thrown
away; for, in addition to the loss of an opportunity for spiritual
impression, a dangerous kind of self-righteousness was encouraged in the
few church-members, who regarded themselves as in some way set apart
from their fellow-sinners, either as having made confession of faith or
as being subjects of a peculiar experience. To impart freshness to the
rite, and at the same time to extend its usefulness as a "means of
grace," the minister proposed to celebrate it less frequently (once in
two or three months), to substitute it in place of the usual afternoon
meeting, to make special preparation for it by the co-operation of the
choir, and to throw it open to as many as might choose to come, be they
church members or not. The suggestion met with feeble response, and that
chiefly from young people who had hitherto stayed away out of a laudable
feeling of modesty, not wishing to remain when their elders and betters
went out, and not thinking themselves good enough to partake of a
special privilege. The "communicants," as a rule, set their faces
against the innovation, perhaps because they were secretly persuaded
that the change portended the secularizing of Christianity by a removal
of the barrier that divided the church from the world, possibly because
they wished to retain an exclusive prerogative which had always marked
the "elect."

The matter was not pressed; the routine went on as before; the
minister did his best to render the service impressive and interesting.
But his studies and meditations led him to the conclusion that the
observance had no place in the Unitarian system; that it was a mere
formality, without an excuse for being; that it contained no idea or
sentiment that was not expressed in the ordinary worship; that it was a
remnant of an otherwise discarded form of Christianity, where it had a
peculiar significance; that it was the last attenuation of the Roman
sacrament of transubstantiation; that it ought to be dropped from every
scheme of liberal faith as an illogical adjunct, a harmful excrescence,
a hindrance, in short. No whisper of these doubts was breathed at the
time, but the pastor's silence allowed the scepticism to strike the
deeper root in his mind. Mr. Emerson's departure from his parish, on the
ground that he could no longer administer the communion rite according
to the usage of the sect, had occurred many years before this, but was
still remembered in discussion and talk. Theodore Parker had no
communion; but he was an established leader of heresy, and did not
furnish an example. Many, agreeing with Emerson's reasoning, disapproved
of his course in resigning his pulpit rather than continue to administer
the bread and wine. He himself advised others to hold on to the
observance, if they could, hoping for the time when it might be
universally vivified by faith. Some might do it as it was. The
congregations would, it is likely, without exception, have decided as
his did, to lose their minister sooner than their "Supper." Some years
later, on passing through Boston on my way to another scene of labor, I
called on a distinguished clergyman who had taken a part in my
ordination, and was asked by him what I intended to do in my new parish
with regard to the communion. I replied that it was not my purpose to
have it, "You cannot give it up," he said; "it is stronger than any of
us. I should drop it if I dared, for there is nothing real in it that is
not in the general service, but I am afraid to try. I shall watch your
experiment with interest, but without expectation of its success." "Very
well," I replied, "we shall see." The experiment was tried and
succeeded. For four years I had no communion, and not a word was said
about it. On leaving for New York, several of my friends, who had been
accustomed to the ceremony all their lives, were asked if they did not
think it would be wise to reinstate the rite. To my surprise, they with
one voice said that there was no need of it, that the Society got along
perfectly well without it. It is needless to say that in New York the
observance was never celebrated.

The ceremony was justified among Unitarians by various reasons which,
in the end, seemed apologies. With the old-fashioned, semi-orthodox
members of the congregations it was a precious heirloom, prized for its
antiquity; a link that still held them in the bond of fellowship with
the universal church; a last relic of the supernaturalism to which they
clung without knowing why; the pledge of a mystical union with their
Christ. Any change in the administration of it was regarded as a
desecration; the suggestion of its complete discontinuance could, they
thought, arise in no mind that was not fatally poisoned by infidelity.
It was not, in their opinion, a symbol of doctrine, but a channel of
divine influence, which no intellectual doubts could touch, which
spiritual deadness alone could dispense with. Tenets might be abandoned,
forms of belief might be discredited, but this citadel of faith must not
be assailed or approached by irreverent feet. Mr. Emerson's example was
not followed by his contemporaries. His fellows did not so soon reach
his point of conviction. Even radicals, like George Ripley, did not. In
my own case it was the growth of time. At the moment there was no
disposition to abandon the observance, simply a desire to reanimate it.
It was not perceived till much later that the changes proposed implied a
virtual abandonment of the rite itself; that the communion is regarded
as a sacrament, that as a sacrament it might be presumed to be
supernaturally instituted for the communication of the divine life;
that, when faith in the supernatural declines, the sacrament no longer
has a function as a medium, and must be omitted; that no attempts to
revive it as a sentimental practice could be justified to reason; that
all endeavors to awaken interest in it by assuming some occult efficacy
must be futile because groundless. The "memorial service" can in no
proper sense be called a sacrament. It may be a pleasing expression of
sentiment, somewhat over-strained and fanciful, but capable of being
made attractive. The task of reproducing the emotions of the early
disciples as they sat at supper with their Master, nearly two thousand
years ago, is too severe for the ordinary imagination, and when
persisted in from a sense of duty may become a dull, creaking
performance, against which the sensitive rebel and the witty are tempted
to launch the shafts of their sarcasm. The only way of saving it from
gibes is to ascribe to it some mystical efficacy for which there is no
logical excuse. The Roman Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation had a
foundation in the philosophy of the Church. The Lutheran doctrine of
Consubstantiation, which recognized the presence of Christ on the
occasion, but not the literal change of the substance of his flesh, was
legitimate. But the Sabellian theory, which the Unitarians inherited,
was in no respect justified, save as a tradition.

The sole alternative at that time for me, when the Communion service
was made a test question between the "conservative" and the "radical,"
was to drop it. At present the situation is altered. It is no longer a
ceremony or a tradition, but a means of spiritual cultivation. It stands
for fellowship and aspiration, not for a communion of saints, but of all
those who desire to share the saintly mind, of all who aim at
perfection. The rite is one in which all may unite who wish, however
fitfully, for goodness; _all_, whether Romanist or Protestant, and
Protestant of whatever name; _all_, in every religion under the sun,
Eastern or Western, Northern or Southern, old or new, every dividing
line being erased. I once attended the Communion service of a Broad
Churchman. The invitation was large and inclusive, comprehending
everybody who, though far off, looked towards the light, everybody who
had the least glimmer of the divine radiance; and none but an absolute
infidel was shut out. There was a recognition of a divine nature in
men,--

    Like plants in mines which never saw the sun,
    But dream of him, and guess where he may be,
    And do their best to climb and get to him.

The idea of spiritual communion is a grand one. It is universal too; it
is human in the best sense. The symbols were ancient when Jesus used
them, the Bread signifying Truth, the Wine signifying Life. Originally
the symbols referred to the wealth of nature, as is evident from an
ancient prayer. It was the custom for the master of the Jewish feast to
repeat this form of words: "Blessed be Thou, O Lord, our God, who givest
us the fruits of the vine," and then he gave the cup to all.

Leaving out the personal application which is purely incidental, and
discarding the sacramental idea which is a corruption, throwing the
service open to the whole congregation as an opportunity, a great deal
may be accomplished in the way of spiritual advancement. True, the
ceremony contains no thought or sentiment that is not expressed in the
sermon or the prayer, but it puts these in poetic form, it addresses
them directly to the imagination, it associates them with the holier
souls in their holiest hours, and brings people face to face with their
better selves in the tenderest and most touching manner, teaching
charity, love, endeavor after the religious life. The rite is full of
beauty when confined within the bounds of Christianity, but when
extended to the principles of other faiths, it is rich in meaning, and
may be used with effect by those who wish to educate the people in the
highest form of idealism, who desire comprehensiveness. A symbol often
goes further than an argument, and a symbol so ancient and so
consecrated ought to be preserved. A friend of mine included all
religious teachers in his commemoration. This was a step in the right
direction, but if the people are not ready for this yet, they may
welcome an extension of the reign of spiritual love among the disciples
whom theological hatred has kept apart. But this was not suspected then.

It will be remarked that my reasons were not those of Emerson. His
argument was solid and sound, but his real reason was personal. He said
in his sermon: "If I believed it was enjoined by Jesus and his disciples
that he even contemplated making permanent this mode of commemoration,
every way agreeable to an Eastern mind, and yet on trial it was
disagreeable to my own feelings, I should not adopt it.... It is my
desire in the office of a Christian minister to do nothing which I
cannot do with my whole heart. Having said this I have said all.... That
is the end of my opposition, that I am not interested in it." My ground
was different; I had no objection to the symbol, none to an Oriental
symbol, and the mere fact that I was not interested in it seemed to me
not pertinent to the case. My objection was that it divided those who
ought to be united; that it encouraged a form of self-righteousness;
that it implied a "grace" that did not exist. For the rest, my form of
religion was of sentiment. It was scarcely Unitarian, not even Christian
in a technical sense or in any other but a broad moral signification. It
was Theism founded on the Transcendental philosophy, a substitute for
the authority of Romanism and of Protestantism. This was an admirable
counterfeit of Inspiration, having the fire, the glow, the beauty of it.
It most successfully tided over the gulf between Protestantism and
Rationalism. Parker used it with great effect. It was the life of
Emerson's teaching. It animated Thomas Carlyle. It was the fundamental
assumption of the Abolitionists, and of all social reformers.

I had perfect freedom of speech in Jersey City; there was no
opposition to the doctrine announced. The Society there was large and
flourishing, and its influence in the town was on the increase. But
Jersey City was, after all, a suburb only of New York. Some of my most
devoted hearers came from New York, and urged me to go there. Dr.
Bellows was anxious to found a third Society in the great city, and
added his word to their solicitations, so that in the spring of 1859 I
went thither. My church in Jersey City was continued for a short time,
but I had no settled successor; the congregation did not grow; some of
my most earnest supporters had either died or left the town. The war
broke out and was fatal to institutions that had not a deep root. The
building was sold soon after, for business purposes I think, and the
society was never renewed. This may appear singular considering that
there are Unitarian churches elsewhere in New Jersey, at Camden, Orange,
Plainfield, Vineland, and Woodbury. The changed condition of the town
may have had something to do with the failure to revive, after the war,
the Unitarian Society. The Catholic, Presbyterian, Orthodox
Congregationalist communions were more suited to the new population than
the Unitarian was. Possibly, too, the "radical" complexion of the parish
had something to do with the disrepute that fell upon it. However this
may have been, the cause did not seem to prosper. Mr. Job Male, who died
recently at Plainfield, was one of my most zealous supporters and
exerted himself to keep the enterprise alive, but in vain. It is
understood that the flourishing Unitarian church in Plainfield was
largely due to his efforts.




VII. NEW YORK.


For the first year in New York I lived with Dr. Bellows at his
parsonage. Mrs. Bellows and the children were at Eagleswood, New Jersey,
the children being at school with Mr. Weld. And this is the place to say
something about Henry Whitney Bellows. He was a very remarkable man,
most extraordinary in his way; an original man, a peculiar individual;
of mercurial temper, various, quick, sympathetic, brave, whole-hearted,
generous, but all in his own fashion. More Celtic than Saxon, more
French than English, prone to generalize, something of a _doctrinaire_,
indifferent to personalities, but of warm affections where he was
interested; loyal, as knights always are, where his honor was concerned,
but impatient of dictation, restless, nervous, impetuous, dashing from
side to side, always consistent with himself, yet rarely consistent with
ordinary rules of conventional society. Such a man is best described in
detail.

Dr. Bellows, as we called him, had a singular gift of _expression_.
This was the soul of him, his most prominent feature, the trait that
explains every other. His appearance indicated as much. He had a mobile
mouth, flexible features, a ringing voice, a cordial manner. He was fond
of talking, brilliant in conversation, attractive in social intercourse,
a charming companion, full of wit, rapid in repartee, ready with
anecdote, illustration, allusion. He was a great favorite at the
dinner-table, at friendly gatherings, at the club, where a circle always
collected round him and were delighted with the endless versatility of
his discourse. In fact, he was a man of society rather than a clergyman,
though he occupied a pulpit from the beginning, and was faithful to all
the duties of his profession. Still they were not altogether to his
taste, and he got away from them whenever he conscientiously could. His
best deliverances were half-secular addresses on some theme of immediate
popular interest, speeches, orations, ethical talks, ever on a high
plane of sentiment, but looking towards the urgent preoccupations of the
time. He was not a student in any direction; not a deep, patient,
exhaustive thinker; not a scholar in any school, but an immense reader
of current literature, of magazines, papers, memoirs, and an eloquent
reproducer of thoughts as he found them lying on the surface of the
intellectual world. His brain was exceedingly active, and reached forth
in all directions; his pen was fluent, facile, and busy; language exuded
from all his pores. As a preacher he was conventional, restrained, and,
it must be confessed, not engaging as a rule, but as a talker he was
delightful, copious, entertaining, kindling, attractive to old and
young, and crowds thronged the house when he spoke about what he had
seen or felt, while his pulpit discourses did not fill the pews. Like
many men of remarkable talents, he imagined his strong points to be
those in which he was most deficient, not being gifted with much power
of self-knowledge, and perhaps aspiring after accomplishments he did not
possess. He prided himself more than he should have done on his insight
as a theologian, his depth as a philosopher, his skill as an
administrator, his practical success as an organizer; whereas his
consummate ability consisted in exposition, not in original discovery.
He was not a theologian, not a philosopher, not a builder, but a most
persuasive advocate, perhaps the most adroit I ever met with. His range
was wide, his exuberance infinite, his sway over his listeners absolute.
It is no marvel that such a man was persuaded that he could achieve all
things.

He was the only speaker I ever knew who could talk himself into ideas.
Many, by dint of talking, can work themselves into an implicit faith in
doctrines they were indifferent about at starting; but this man had the
dangerous gift of being able, not merely to think on his feet, but to
set his faculties in motion by the action of his tongue. Again and again
he has gone to a public meeting, at which he was expected to speak, with
no preparation at all, or none but a very general one, depending upon
some impulse of the moment to set him a-going. A word dropped by a
previous speaker, the mere presence of the audience, a suggestion
awakened in his mind as he sat awaiting his turn, would excite him
sufficiently; and when he stood up one idea started another, an
illustration opened a new field of thought, till the torrent, growing
deeper and more tumultuous as it flowed, carried the hearers away in
ecstasy. One who did not know him found it hard to believe that he had
not meditated his address beforehand. He has gone into the pulpit with a
written sermon, and being struck by a sentence in the Scripture he was
reading, has laid his manuscript aside and delivered an extemporaneous
discourse on an entirely different theme.

The reason why he did not preach habitually without notes was that this
fatal facility of speech excited him too much, carried him too far,
rendered him discursive, led him on to inordinate length, and wearied
his congregation. He needed the restraint of the paper, the calm dignity
of the closet meditation; he needed also to spread his thoughts over a
larger expanse of time, and thus to secure quiet for his brain. At the
risk, therefore, of being dull, he spared himself, as well as his
parishioners, the stimulating fervor of the extemporaneous address. He
may have felt, too, that his was not the quality of mind for this
method. It required a less fluent talent, a less ready loquacity, a less
mercurial temperament, a more reserved habit. There are those whose
constitutional reticence preserves them from aberration; who can see the
end from the beginning; can cling closely to the matter in hand; can
walk a thin plank; and have too few ready ideas to be in any peril of
going astray. Such are the most successful extemporaneous preachers. Dr.
Bellows' genius was better adapted to an address, therefore, than to a
sermon.

The secular view of things was more attractive to him than the
spiritual. His defence of the drama in 1857 (an oration delivered in the
Academy of Music, and which was very bold for that time); his vigorous
conduct of the _Christian Inquirer_, a Unitarian paper, which he managed
and for which he wrote constantly for four years, advocating an unwonted
liberality of sympathy, maintaining, for example, the substantial
identity of the Unitarian and the Universalist confessions; his interest
in questions of social and philanthropic concern; his lectures before
the Lowell Institute in 1857,--all attest his desire to effect a
reconciliation between science and religion, between this world and the
next. His oration before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard, in 1853,
is an admirable specimen of his treatment of similar themes. The subject
of the oration was "The Ledger and the Lexicon, or Business and
Literature in Account with American Education"; and its purpose was to
assert the claims of popular life against those of scholarship,--to
state the case of natural instincts and practical intelligence as the
controlling force of our destiny. He says, most truly, at the outset,
"Speaking purely as a scholar, I should unaffectedly feel that I had
nothing to offer worthy this audience or occasion," and then he goes on
with a full, earnest, eloquent plea for the intellectual character of
our political and commercial activity. Here is an extract:

     What History asks from us is not Literature and Art. The world is
     full of what can never grow old in either. _American_ Literature,
     _American_ Art! Heaven save us from them! Let us freely use what is
     so much better than anything one nation can make, the Literature
     and Art of the whole past and the whole world. History implores us,
     first of all, to be true to humanity. She begs to see the
     education, the taste, the sensibility of this great people turned
     to the serious, vital, universal interest of thoroughly vindicating
     _Man_ from the scorn of _men;_ of establishing man on his throne as
     man,--free because man, happy because man, noble and religious
     because man! Literature and Art will take care of themselves; high
     education and scholarship will come in their own time; and so,
     thank God, will everything humanity needs. But for ourselves and
     the immediate generation, there is no work so worthy as confirming
     the faith of our people in their own principles; encouraging
     devotion to Liberty as the supreme interest of Man;--of man sacred
     in his own eyes, with duties, rights, aims, that are bounded
     neither by color, nationality, nor law. The love of the race, the
     liberation of humanity from complexional, material, political, and
     moral disfranchisements; the elevation of the individual and of
     every individual; the prostration of all partition-walls that
     separate our kind; the tumbling of the artificial pedestals that
     elevate the few, into the unnatural pits that bury the rest; the
     affiliation of the foreigner, and the emancipation of the slave;
     the subjugation of rebellious matter and reluctant wealth to the
     wants and desires of man; the establishment of beautiful and
     independent homes, of high and free and noble lives;--this is
     American scholarship, this American art. A country that sacrifices
     even its nationality, that proudest of all prejudices, to its
     humanity, will be the first to pay that tribute to man, which
     Christ waits to welcome as the final triumph of his kingdom. And,
     finally, here in America, where for the first time universal
     comfort and general abundance reign, the race looks to us to
     pronounce the banns between the spiritual and material interests
     and pursuits of man,--his worldly well-being, and his heavenly
     prosperity,--a union that shall not be a miserable compromise of
     which both shall be ashamed and which neither shall keep, but an
     honorable, hearty, and intelligible alliance, on the highest
     grounds.

This is very fine and brave, and similar in tone was all he said
about American life and destiny. He tried to exalt common things, and in
this way he more than made amends for his lack of scholastic equipment.
His mission was to encourage and fortify and console actual men and
women, not to solve deep problems of fate. A good but commonplace man
spoke to me with tears in his eyes of his endless gratitude to Dr.
Bellows because on one New Year's Day he preached a doctrine of promise,
and said that men did their best, and that the world was as good as
could be expected; not an extraordinary doctrine certainly, but one that
is seldom announced with so much cordial, human sympathy. This same
ardor he threw into his ordinary lectures, carrying audiences away with
a flood of conviction. When our Civil War broke out and it became
evident, as it soon did, that the conflict would be a long one,
necessitating large armies in a region of country unused to military
needs and ignorant of military exigencies, Dr. Bellows' attention was
drawn to the questions involved in the maintenance of a vast number of
men in the field, their protection, discipline, and comfort; the proper
supply of food, clothing, medicine; the best kind of tent, the best kind
of hospital, the duty of keeping up the home associations by means of
correspondence and missives. He talked over the situation with a few
friends; societies were formed, organizations instituted, the means of
relief set in motion. Out of this grew the Sanitary Commission, of which
he was the mouthpiece and the inspiring soul. The work was immense, but
the task of awakening the country to the necessity of endeavor was,
beyond all ordinary power of conception, arduous. Such was the blind
faith in the government,--a government inexperienced in similar
matters,--such was the indifference of multitudes who were far removed
from actual danger, such the unconsciousness of the magnitude of the
peril, such the insensibility to the demands of the hour, the serene
confidence that all was going well, the jaunty sense of complacency in
having raised the regiments, that nothing less than a trumpet call was
required to rouse the country to a feeling of obligation. Afterwards
when the magnitude of the strife was self-evident, when the dangers of
camp-life were understood, and the temptations to infidelity of many
kinds were painfully apparent, other forces came in to carry forward the
work; but at first prescience was needed, and zeal, and faith in
principles, and a sense of the gravity of the situation. It is hardly
too much to say that but for the energy shown by the Sanitary Commission
in the early part of the war, the issue might have been indefinitely
postponed. That the Commission itself flourished to the end was due in
the main to Henry Bellows. Of course he did not do everything, but he
did his part. The labor of organization was discharged by other orders
of genius. The duties of treasurer devolved upon men differently
constituted still; there were many hands employed, many heads busy with
planning. But his was the potent voice. He sounded the clarion; East,
West, North, and as far South as he could go, he argued, remonstrated,
pleaded, exhorted, interpreted, inspired, and wherever he was heard he
filled veins with patriotic fire. He was never daunted, never
disheartened, never depressed. His tones always rang out clear, strong,
decisive. The bugle never gave an uncertain sound. In Washington he
addressed the highest authorities and was so urgent, not to say so
imperious, that President Lincoln asked him which of the two ran the
machine of government. He possessed in a singular degree the power of
making people work, and work gladly,--all sorts of people, men and
women, the sensible and the enthusiastic, the practical and the
sentimental, the low-toned and the high-strung; and they toiled day
after day at scraping lint, packing garments, raising money, organizing
fairs. In the meantime he travelled to and fro, lecturing, addressing
crowds in the meeting-houses, halls, theatres; writing letters to
committees, visiting men of influence, inspecting hospitals and camps,
making himself acquainted with the newest methods of dealing with
sanitary problems, and imparting ideas as fast as they came to him. His
activity was prodigious. He was one of the most conspicuous figures in
the country. He brought the Commission into universal repute. Under his
spell it lost its local character and became a national concern. He was
a Unitarian preacher; his immediate co-operators were Unitarians; yet so
broad and mundane was he that no savor of sectarianism mingled with his
zeal, nor could it be suspected, except for his aims, that he was a
clergyman. As long as the war lasted this energy continued, the
enthusiasm did not abate, the outpouring did not slacken. It was not
till the struggle was over that the over-tasked brain craved repose.
Then the reaction was purely nervous, not in the least moral or
intellectual. He sprang up again and threw himself into new enterprises
with the old fervor and the old brilliancy of speech, striving to awaken
a desire for religious unity, as he had promoted national concord. The
establishment of the National Conference of Liberal Churches, which was
to supplement the more local Unitarian Associations, was his suggestion.
The scheme did not entirely meet his expectations, but this shows how
large his expectations were, and how comprehensive were his purposes of
good. As has been intimated already, his desires were in advance of his
practical ability. He was a man of wishes rather than of expedients. His
plans often failed, but his aspirations were always pure and lofty, and
it was characteristic of him to impute the failure of the special plan
to some stubbornness in the materials he attempted to manipulate, rather
than to any deficiency in his own faculty. Thus his confidence in
himself was sustained, and he went on trying experiments and believing
in his talent to set anything, even communities and States, on their
feet.

People used to say that his advocacy was very uncertain; that it was
impossible to tell in advance whether he would take a liberal or a
conservative view of a party or dogma; in short, he had the reputation
of being somewhat of a chameleon, of catching his line from the last
person he talked with. One of his parishioners remarked, jestingly, that
the hearers of Dr. Bellows were taught in perfection one lesson,--that
of self-reliance. This was probably true, as it was a general
impression; and it illustrates the warmth of his sympathy, the
impressionableness of his temperament, the readiness of his adaptation,
the facility of his discourse, as well as the want of depth in his
speculative intellect and his lack of hold on fundamental principles. He
was an advocate by nature, not a theologian, a philosopher, or a critic;
an adept in speech, not a subtle or profound thinker. He saw the
effective points in either doctrine, and chose the one that was most
captivating at the time. His eclecticism was simply ease of
transference, not a keen perception of the grounds of identity. His
logic was the skilful accommodation to circumstances, not absolute
fidelity to the laws of reason. His affluence of diction and his
profusion of thoughts covered up his essential poverty of insight, and
persuaded some that he looked farther than he did; but still it remains
true that he was not a sure guide in matters of opinion. He was a most
adroit, subtle, engaging talker, and as such was of incalculable value;
a fountain of entertainment, and a source of influence. A decided vein
of Bohemianism ran through his character. He was light-hearted, gay,
versatile, fond of fun, restless, addicted to society, abhorrent of
solitude, darkness, confinement; a friend of artists, musicians, wits; a
club-man; could smoke a cigar, and drink a glass of wine, and tell a
merry story; a man of quick emotions, volatile some would call him,
though of unquestioned and unquestionable loyalty when any principle was
at stake, or any person he loved and trusted was in trouble. Otherwise
he forgot unpleasant things and went to something else, dropping the
individual, but holding fast to the elements of charity. This faculty of
changing rapidly from one interest to another saved him from a vast deal
of fatigue, and enabled him to pursue his almost incredible labors with
less wear and tear than would have been possible under other
circumstances. The formation of roots, and the necessity of pulling them
up frequently with a feeling of loss and pain, is sadly weakening and
disabling. This fosters a disposition to stay at home, to form few ties,
to remain quietly where one is placed by destiny, to expose one's self
to no more disruptions than are appointed, to hide one's self in a
corner of existence, to avoid the wind. The scholar hugs his library,
reads books, meditates, cultivates his mind, appears in public only when
he is prepared. The man of society dashes out and deems the time wasted
that is passed in the house. Dr. Bellows once expressed his wonder that
a friend should have no desire to go abroad, but should be content in
his study.

He was a knight-errant, a Norman gentleman, ever ready to succor the
oppressed, but satisfied when he had unhorsed the oppressor, though the
victim lay helpless on the ground. He derived his name from "Belles
Eaux." He was not a democrat as implying one that had affinities with
the people. On the contrary, he was at bottom an aristocrat, looking
down on the people; but he was humane in idea, holding it to be the part
of a gentleman to relieve the unfortunate. The motto, "_Noblesse
oblige_" applied to him exactly, with the understanding that he belonged
to the _Noblesse_, and was privileged to patronize. This tendency was
prominent in him. He would not allow a companion to pay his car fare,
because he would not borrow so small a sum, but he confronted the man to
whom he had lent fifty dollars, and who had forgotten the payment, as
people often do. Meeting the defaulter in the street, he reminded him of
the transaction, taxed him with infidelity to his engagements, and had
the satisfaction of receiving his money and relieving his mind at the
same time. Magnanimous he was by nature. I will give a single instance
of it, out of several I could detail if personalities did not forbid.
When I first came to New York to found a parish, there was a woman in my
congregation,--an angular, brusque woman, not sunny or agreeable,--whose
husband, being unfortunate, had, to repair his fortune, gone to San
Francisco; she stayed in New York and kept school, for the purpose of
educating her children, and of eking out the family expenses. One day,
complaining to me of her lot and labor, she spoke of certain prejudices
against her as interfering with her success, and accused Dr. Bellows of
being one of her enemies. Having satisfied myself of the injustice of
the impression about her, and of her worthy deserving, I took occasion
at once to speak to Dr. Bellows on the subject. Reminding him of the
circumstances in which the woman was placed, I asked him if he did not
think she ought to be helped instead of being hindered. He acknowledged
that he knew her, that he did not like her, that he had spoken harshly
of her under the impression that she was not deserving of moral support.
On my presentation of her case, and conviction that he was wrong, he,
being persuaded of his heedlessness, offered to do everything in his
power to repair any mischief he might have caused. In my excitement, I
became audacious and suggested the drawing up and signing of a
paper,--about the most disagreeable thing that could be proposed. But he
assented, prepared the paper, affixed his signature, and from that hour
did his utmost to befriend the woman whom he took no pleasure in
thinking of. This was noble, even great. He could put his personal
tastes aside when a principle was involved.

It used to be urged against him that he dropped people when he had done
with them, and felt no scruple in sacrificing them to his views of
policy. But it cannot be proved that he was false to anybody, and his
notion of the absolute unfitness of the individual for his place, or of
the man's unreliability, was probably the real cause of his opposition.
Probably, in each instance of his withdrawal of confidence, there were
excellent reasons for his conduct, though it was natural that those who
were suddenly neglected or displaced should feel indignant and
aggrieved. Dr. Bellows was not one to act on a private prejudice or a
personal pique. His affections were strong and would have led him to
make any concession that was consistent with what he regarded as his
public duty. No doubt he was somewhat imperious in judging what his duty
was; he lacked the useful faculty of remaining in the background; he was
impetuous and forward; but he never was or could be insincere, and he
always had a sufficient explanation of the course he pursued,--an
explanation perfectly satisfactory to one who bore his temperament in
mind and considered what he could do and what he could not.

A most lovable, cordial, faithful man I always found him,--a man to be
depended on in difficult and trying times, high-minded, courageous,
daring, ready to enter the breach, happiest when leading a forlorn hope,
straight-forward, inspiring, easily lifted beyond himself, and imparting
nervous vigor to his followers. Followers he must have, for he was not
content to obey any behest; but then his leadership was so hearty and
wholesome, so free from superciliousness, so abundant in expressions of
loyalty, that it was a joy to go with him. He was more than willing to
do his share of hard work, and to indulge his servants. If one could
forbear to cross him, he was friendliness itself; a warm advocate of
liberty, only insisting that liberty and progress should march hand in
hand; that private idiosyncrasies should not stand in the way of
practical advance. He was a very different man from Dr. Dewey, yet he
loved Dr. Dewey devotedly while life lasted. He was an entirely
different man from me in temperament and in gifts,--quite opposite in
fact,--yet he was one of the best of my friends as long as he lived,
seldom resenting my radicalism, never impatient of my slowness, but
warm, sunny, helpful to the end, the man to whom I instinctively
resorted for sympathy in the most painful passages of my career.

In a word, the foundation of his character was impulse. He was a man of
fiery zeal, of moral passion, of vast enthusiasm, and when a storm of
spiritual power came sweeping down from some unseen height, he was
easily carried away. This impulsive character explains his chivalry of
disposition, his magnanimity, his self-abnegation; for though he was
self-asserting, he could at once forget himself, and sink his own
individuality entirely when some cause he had at heart strongly appealed
to him. This impulsiveness explains, too, his theological inconsistency,
for when the popular feeling struck him, he was carried away in a
different direction from what he had first proposed. For instance,
once--I think it was at Buffalo--he gave a most eloquent plea for
individualism, having determined to speak in favor of institutions; and
in Boston when he had been expected to uphold a creed, he was so borne
away by the opposite sentiment that, when he ended, a creed seemed
absolutely impossible.

A very different person from the foregoing was Dr. Samuel Osgood, the
successor of Dr. Dewey in the Church of the Messiah on Broadway, and the
close associate of the pastor of "All Souls," which name he suggested
when the new edifice on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Twentieth Street
was christened. He was a lover of ecclesiasticism, of forms, usages,
ceremonials, though he was not unmindful of the ideas that lay beneath
them, and too good a New Englander, too good a Unitarian, too staunch a
friend of free thought to be anything but a liberal Protestant; a man of
names and dates, and instituted observances, not "electric," "magnetic,"
or a leader either of thought or action; not a man of deep emotions, or
moving eloquence in or out of the pulpit; not a man of long reach or
wide influence, but conspicuous in his way, unique, worth studying as a
figure in his generation.

He was devoted to books, of which he read and produced many, and might
have been called learned, yet he was not a closet man, not a recluse; on
the contrary, he knew about public affairs, talked about what was going
on in the world, attended political, social, and literary meetings, was
a member of the prominent clubs, like the "Century" and the "Union
League," was for years the Corresponding Secretary of the "Historical
Society," rather prided himself, in fact, on the number and intimacy of
his outside relations. With all this, he was a diligent pastor, an
excellent denominationalist, a dependence on all church occasions within
his sect, a speaker at conventions, a worker of the ecclesiastical
machinery, a man much relied on for denominational work.

His writings were numerous. In fact he always seemed to have the pen
in his hand. Besides the books which are known,--"Studies in Christian
Biography," "The Hearthstone," "God with Men," "Milestones in Our Life
Journey," "Student Life,"--all popular once,--he contributed frequently
to the _Christian Examiner_, the _North American Review_, the
_Bibliotheca Sacra_, and other important magazines; delivered orations,
printed theological discourses, especially a famous one before the
theological school at Meadville, Pennsylvania, on "The Coming Church and
its Clergy," and for several months, during Mr. Curtis' illness,
prepared the essays in the "Easy Chair" for _Harper's Monthly Magazine_.
His interest in matters of education and literature was incessant,
active, and useful. He made speeches, served on committees, prepared
reports, in every way tried to serve the cause of rational knowledge.
Yet with all his industry and all his ability--for he possessed ability
of no mean order,--he had a mind singularly destitute of vitality. His
ingenuity, his pleasantry, his sententiousness, his versatility, could
not conceal this lack of organic power. His vivacity did not exhilarate,
his happy expressions did not create the sense of life in the mind, but
were like artificial flowers that had no perfume, and reminded one more
of the perfection of art than of the involuntary sweetness of nature. He
was destitute of genius to inspire. It is the more wonderful that he
could persevere, as he did, without the popular recognition that his
talents merited, or the applause his endeavors deserved. He had praise,
to be sure, but it was not hearty or effusive, and they who rendered it
probably wondered why they could not put more soul into their laudation.
The address was brilliant, but not warming. One must come within arm's
length of him to feel the beating of his heart, to be sensible of his
force. He was unable to project himself far, and relied upon incidental
advantages of occasion for effects which he could not produce by genius.

He was a most affectionate man, dependent, clinging, always ready to
serve, obliging, docile, patient, without hardness and without guile. He
was devoted to his family, faithful to his friends, never allowing
differences of opinion to interfere with his duty towards those who
might expect support from him, but fulfilling disagreeable offices when
he felt that loyalty made perfect truthfulness incumbent. There was
something touching in his fidelity towards men who gave him nothing but
outside recognition, and who were willing to abandon him when he could
no longer be useful. There was something plaintive in his readiness to
work for men who accepted his labor as a matter of course, and allowed
him to throw away his love. He, for his part, asked no reward, but was
quite satisfied if his service was accepted kindly by those to whom he
rendered it. Not that he did not like recognition; he did, and the more
public it was the better he liked it. For he was fond of notoriety, had
a craving for publicity, and was happiest when a multitude applauded.
This may have grown out of his affectionateness, for he reached forth
his arms as widely as possible, and wanted to hear the sound of many
approving voices, needing sympathy and the assurance that he was
conferring pleasure, the noise of plaudits reassuring his heart. Still
he could do without this, if he was certain of the attachment of a
single warm friend. Recognition of some sort was essential to his peace,
for he did not possess independence enough to stand alone, and he cared
too much for individuals to be easy if they were displeased. He gave
himself a great deal of pain, worried, took infinite trouble about
imaginary sorrows, not being able to feel or to affect indifference, and
being destitute of the robustness of character necessary to throw off
unpleasant things; for his ambition, not springing from vitality of
mind, was no guard against griefs of the spirit. He that cannot lose
himself in his studies fails to derive from them their best
satisfaction,--that of consolation and refuge. He stands naked to the
wind, and, if his skin is tender, suffers acutely.

Dr. Osgood was intensely self-conscious, self-regarding,
self-referring. Not vain in the ordinary sense, though he seemed so from
his countenance, attitude, manner, for all of which, I am persuaded,
nature was more responsible than disposition, his physical formation
producing a certain carriage that suggested superciliousness and
conceit. If he were forth-putting, it was, in most instances at least,
because he lacked self-reliance, and wished to be _seen_, knowing that
he could not be _felt_. In reality he was a modest, timid, shrinking
man, with an inordinate desire for distinction, which impelled him
continually to make a demonstration in public. Mere vanity--the love of
appearances--he was destitute of, for he was too tender-hearted and too
conscientious to make victims. One must be self-centred to be vain, as
he was not. I recollect his coming one day into the office of the
_Christian Inquirer_, with his head up as usual, and calling out in a
loud voice: "Where do you think I went on my way down town?" Of course
none of us knew or could guess. "Well," he went on to say, with an air
of complacency, "I stopped at Fowler & Wells' and had my head examined."
"Ah!" exclaimed one of the impudent, "did they find anything, Sam?"
"What they did _not_ find," he said, "will interest you more. They
declared that I was deficient in self-respect, and it is true." And it
_was_ true. Samuel Osgood assumed a brave air, for the reason that he
could not trust himself in the open field. He needed the protection of a
rampart. He wore a showy uniform, because he was not valiant. He had too
much self-esteem to forget himself, and too little courage to assert
himself; the consequence was that he said and did numerous things that
looked vainglorious and were absurd, but which were intended to conceal
his impuissance. It was an innocent kind of bravado, like poor Oliver
Proudfute's, in Scott's romance, "The Fair Maid of Perth." Nobody was
hurt by it, though to him the passion for notoriety was fatal. He liked
to see his name in a newspaper, coveting the kind of reputation that
came in that way, and comforting his heart with the thought of lying on
the broad bosom of the community. His restless desire for public notice
brought ridicule on him, for ordinary people ascribed it to his conceit,
whereas it rather indicated an absence of self-confidence. It was a
cloak to hide his depreciation at the same time that it made him look
larger in the general eye. It was, therefore, more touching than
despicable, and if it excited mirth there was nothing bitter in the
smile which could not break into laughter. Selfish he could not be
called, for he was always serving others, and disinterestedly too; but
on a charge of complacency he could hardly be acquitted. This was the
manner in which he took his reward, and, as I said, it cost nothing to
anybody, while the public received a great deal of service very
ungrudgingly bestowed.

The change from Unitarianism to Episcopacy is very easily explained.
His craving for sympathy was boundless. He was necessarily isolated in
New York, nor had he the solace of a great popular success. In fact his
following was small; his church was dwindling; his reputation was
certainly not increasing; and he became persuaded, I think without
sufficient reason, that he was the victim of adverse influences. In
London, he was charmed with the blended freedom and sanctity of the
"Broad Church" represented by Stanley, Kingsley, Jowett, and a host of
cultivated men; by its unity amid diversity; its sympathy and fellowship
and large scholarship. Here was a church indeed; wide, holy, liberal,
devout, with articles admitting of various interpretations, sacraments
tender and elastic, forms that did not constrain, and usages that did
not bind, an unlimited range of speculation, and a spirit of reverence
that kept the most widely separated together. Here was something very
different from the sectarianism he had, all his life, been accustomed
to, and, all his life, had loathed. He joined this Communion not so much
on account of its _creed_ as of its _creedlessness;_ not as another form
of denominationalism, but as an escape from denominationalism; a real,
living, comprehensive church, where there was room for all Christian
souls, whatever their special mode of belief; a Protestant church with a
truly catholic temper, cordial, humane, courteous; with a respect for
literature, and a love for knowledge; with no jealousy or ill-will, or
fear of thought. His heart was warmed, his fancy fired. Shortly after
his return, as he sat in my study, I asked him if he had materially
changed his theology. He replied that he had not, he had simply altered
the _emphasis;_ as much as to say that in substance it remained what it
was before, essentially Unitarian, as he understood that designation. In
fact, his sermons were to all intents and purposes the same; they never
abounded in doctrine, they did not now; they were always "sentimental,"
in the sense of dealing with sentiment, they were so still. He was not a
prime favorite with Episcopalians in America. He was not narrow or
strict enough for the orthodox; he was not "sensational" enough for the
liberals; he was too ecclesiastical for the Low Churchmen; too
rationalistic for the High Churchmen; and his failure to communicate
warmth was not favorable to his attractiveness. There were not many
Broad Church ministers in New York, so that his circle of fellowship was
small; and on the whole the reception was a disappointment. He longed
for recognition, which he found among many of his old associates, as he
did not find it among his new friends. He was always a churchman when he
was a Unitarian; he was no more of a churchman now, and the sympathy he
sought he might have found in his former connection. Probably had he
lived elsewhere than in New York, where the competition was sharp, and
where individuality alone without distinguished power counted for
nothing, he would have continued Unitarian, and been happy, but he was
ambitious of eminence; he wanted to live in a great city, to be minister
of a metropolitan parish, to be a Doctor of Divinity, and for all this
he lacked the force. There was a perpetual conflict between his
aspirations and his vigor. He joined the Episcopal fraternity, hoping
for what none but those born into it attain without energy of an exalted
kind. His ancient comrades fell away, as was natural; he could not win
other comrades, and his later years became lonely. He cared more for
Christian fellowship than for any other; and he had not the power to
secure this. Thus his affectionateness was against him. He was a loyal
man, true to his convictions, faithful to the bent of his mind. He could
not be a deceiver or a renegade, and his heart was not strong enough or
wide enough to push him forward.

Some thought him deficient in common-sense, and this is, in a sense,
true. He had not the force to carry projects through, nor had he the
hearty accord with the people of his generation that would give him an
instinctive insight into their wishes and enable him to strike into the
current of their designs. His self-reference always stood in the way of
his sympathy with other men; yet he often took practical views of
speculative questions, and curbed a propensity to moral enthusiasm on
the part of some of his associates. This, however, was due to his
timidity, to his absence of vigor, to his want of vital conviction,
rather than to any clearness of perception. He had no humor, no sense of
the incongruous, the incompatible, or the absurd. He named rocks,
groves, arbors, on his summer estate, after the famous poets, and used
to sit in turn on the seats he had thus immortalized. He said things
that no man of taste would have uttered, and did things that no man of
judgment would have been guilty of. But all this was owing to the
absence of sensible qualities rather than to the presence of visionary
ones. He was not perverse, stubborn, or wrong-headed, did not outrage
common opinion, or fly in the face of established prejudice. His want of
good sense was negative, not positive; innocent, not harmful.

Such men have their uses and their place, and neither is small or low.
His love of learning, his devotion to duty, his friendliness, his
fidelity, his kindliness, were rare gifts, particularly rare in
communities like ours. His child-like conceit, very different from the
aggressive vanity that offends the sensitive soul, was not offensive or
noxious, and was a source of harmless amusement. His guilelessness was
more than touching; it was admirable as an example and as a lesson, in
an age that honors knowledge of the world beyond its deserts; and his
simplicity of nature, his trustingness, his ingenuousness, rendered him
a confiding friend, dear to those whose hearts were sore. Few men living
have so small a number of enemies. He did not provoke the hostility he
received. It was possible to be sorry for him; it was impossible to bear
him malice.

As I think of him, the vision arises of a complacent man, with a loud
greeting, a metallic voice, an outstretched hand, a consequential
manner. All this is dust and ashes, but his singleness of intention is
not dead. When everything else is forgotten, his faithfulness will be
remembered.

Both these men gave me a warm welcome; in fact, my relations were most
friendly among the other Unitarian ministers in the neighborhood. It was
anticipated, no doubt, that I would establish a third Unitarian Society
"up town," of a liberal type; but a wide departure from the existing
order was not suspected. The expectation was that the usual doctrines
were to be proclaimed; that the sacraments were to be administered; that
the regular order was to be observed. Perhaps my willingness to
undertake such an enterprise was regarded as a sign of concession on my
part; perhaps it was supposed that the conservative tone of the city,
together with the attitude of the other churches, would repress the
radical tendencies of the young clergyman; perhaps the trials incident
to a new society and the confusions of the time concealed somewhat the
real bearing of the undertaking. However this may be, there was no
opposition, no criticism, no dictation, no proscription of radical
leanings. My congregations were composed of all sorts of people. There
were Unitarians, Universalists, "come-outers," spiritualists,
unbelievers of all kinds, anti-slavery people, reformers generally. But
this, as being incidental to the formation of every liberal society, was
not objected to. It need not have been; for if there had been no
interruption, no check, everything might have gone smoothly, as in
similar societies since.




VIII. WAR.


Hardly had I got warm in my place when the mutterings of war were in
the air. During the autumn of 1859, on the 16th of October, John Brown
planned his attack on Harper's Ferry. His was a portentous figure. His
position in history--greater than his achievements would warrant--was
due partly to his position as herald of the coming strife, but mainly to
his personal qualities. These were colossal; however much one may
criticise his particular deeds, or the details of his motive, these
qualities can not be exalted too highly. His courage, heroism, patience,
fortitude, were most extraordinary. Even Governor Wise, the man whose
duty it was to see him tried and executed as a felon, said of him; "They
are mistaken who take Brown to be a madman. He is a bundle of the best
nerves I ever saw; cut and thrust and bleeding and in bonds. He is a man
of clear head, of courage, fortitude, and simple ingenuousness. He is
cool, collected, indomitable; and it is but just to him to say that he
was humane to his prisoners, and he inspired me with great trust in his
integrity as a man of truth." Colonel Washington, another Virginia
witness, testified to the extraordinary coolness with which Brown felt
the pulse of his dying son, while he held his own rifle in the other
hand, and cheered on his men. His character made his prison cell a
shrine. On the day of his execution, December 2, 1859, he stood under
the gallows with the noose round his neck for full ten minutes while
military evolutions were performed; he never wavered a moment, and died
with nerves still subject to his iron will. He was a Calvinistic
believer in predestination; a real Covenanter, more like the Scotch
Covenanters of two centuries ago than anything we know of to-day. He was
an Old-Testament man, and like all fanatics was indifferent to death,
either that of other men or his own. His anti-slavery zeal began in his
youth. He early took an oath to make war against slavery, and, it is
said, called his older sons together on one occasion and made them
pledge themselves, kneeling in prayer, to the anti-slavery crusade. This
purpose he always bore in mind, whatever else he was doing; he even
chose the spot for his attempt--the mountains which Washington had
selected as a final retreat should he be defeated by the English. Nearly
nine years before his own death, he exhorted the members of the "League
of Gileadites" to stand by one another and by their friends as long as a
drop of blood remained and be hanged, if they must, but to tell no tales
out of school.

Then came the war. Though its physical aspect,--the loss of treasure and
of blood--was most affecting, I cannot but think that its mental and
moral aspect has been underrated. Its whole justification lay in its
moral character, and I must believe that full justice has never been
done to those who were obliged to stay at home and uphold this feature.
The preacher of the Gospel of Peace had as much as he could do to
overcome the horrors of war; and the preacher of Righteousness was
engaged all the time in promoting the cause of justice. They who went to
the front had the excitement of battle, the pleasures of camp-life, the
assistance of comradeship, the comfort of sympathy. The preacher had
none of these. Every day rumors were reaching his ears; "extras" were
flying about in the silence; he had to comfort people under defeat, to
humble them in hours of victory; to interpret the conflict in accordance
with the principles of equity; to keep alive the moral issues of the
struggle. This was an incessant weariness and anxiety; to fight foes one
could not see, and to uphold a cause that was discredited, fell to his
portion; it is no wonder that when the war was over he was spent and
aged.

An illustration of a part of what he had to contend with is found in
the riot of the summer of 1863. This was an anti-abolitionist riot, a
fierce protest against the conscription, and at the same time an
uprising against the government, which was supposed to maintain a war of
the blacks against the whites. The riot was directed against the negroes
and the abolitionists, and was pitiless and ferocious in the extreme. It
was my lot to be in New York in that dreadful week in July. I was
visiting friends in the upper part of the town when the uproar began. As
I walked home down Madison Avenue a group of rough men met me; one of
them snatched at my watch chain, and I should have been maltreated had
not more attractive game in the shape of people in a buggy drawn away
the attention of my assailants. I reached my home in safety. The next
morning, as I walked about the city, there were groups of men standing
idle, or armed with missiles, in almost every street. Had the mob been
organized then it might have done more mischief than it did, for the
inhabitants of the city were unprepared and unprotected. As I stood at
night on my roof, I could see the fires in different parts of the town,
and hear the shots. An arsenal stood on Seventh Avenue, near my house,
full of arms and ammunition which the insurgents wanted. When the United
States troops arrived, they defended this arsenal. Cannons were pointed
up and down the street, guards were posted, officers with their clanking
swords marched up and down before my door. The riot lasted three
days,--from the 13th to the 16th. On the following Sunday a sermon was
preached which gives expression to the better thoughts of the wisest
people, and from which accordingly extracts are made:

     Of all the dreadful and melancholy passages in the history of human
     progress, none, to a thoughtful man, are more dreadful or
     melancholy than those which tell how men have resisted, pushed
     away, reviled, cursed, beaten, mobbed, crucified their benefactors.
     It does seem, as we read them, as if the most dreaded thing on
     earth had been the personal, the domestic, the social welfare; as
     if the deepest anxiety on the part of men of all sorts was an
     anxiety to escape from their health and salvation; as if the
     profoundest dread was a dread of mending their estates, and their
     utmost horror was a horror of heaven! It does seem, as we read, as
     if happiness, prosperity, success, were the pet aversion of
     mankind; as if the signs that were looked for with the most
     agonized apprehension were the signs that the kingdom of heaven was
     at hand.... We saw this conspicuously and dismally exemplified in
     the events of the past week. The one man who, before and above all
     others, was a mark for the rage of the populace, the one man whose
     name was loud in the rabble's mouth, and always coupled with a
     malediction, the one man who was hunted for his blood as by wolves,
     who would have been torn in pieces had the opportunity been
     afforded, and on whose account the dwelling of a friend was
     literally torn in pieces, was a man who had been the steadfast
     friend of these very people who hungered for his blood; their most
     constant, uncompromising, and public friend; thinking for them,
     speaking for them, writing for them; pleading their cause through
     the press, in the legislature, from the platform; excusing their
     mistakes and follies, asserting and reasserting their substantial
     worth and honesty and rectitude, advocating their claims as working
     people, vindicating their rights as men; proposing schemes for the
     safety of their persons, the healthfulness of their houses, the
     saving and increase of their earnings, the education of their
     children, the exemption of their homesteads from seizure in cases
     of debt, the enlargement of their sphere of labor, the transferring
     of their families from the crowded city, where they could do little
     more than keep themselves alive by arduous toil, to the fruitful
     lands of the West, where they could become noble and
     self-respecting men and women. This was the man whose blood was
     hungered for. I need not speak his name,--you know whom I mean,
     Horace Greeley,--a man whom some call visionary, but whose visions
     are all of the redemption of the people; whom some call "fool," but
     who, if he seem a fool, is foolish that the people may be wise;
     whom some call "radical," but whose radicalism is simply a
     determination that the popular existence shall have a sound, sure,
     and deep root in natural law and moral principle; at all events, a
     man who has lived for the people and suffered for the people, and
     been laughed at when he suffered and because he suffered. _This_
     was the man whose blood was hungered for. And yet the most
     moderate, kind, considerate of all the papers, the last week, was
     his paper. And I believe he, even had he fallen into the hands of
     his enemies, would have said, "Forgive them, they know not what
     they do."

     Indulge me in one more personality. I said that the dwelling of a
     friend was pillaged by the mob, under the impression that Mr.
     Greeley lived there. What was this dwelling? Who was this friend?
     The dwelling was one the like of which is rare in any city, a
     dwelling of happiness and peace, a home of the tenderest domestic
     affections, a house of large friendliness and hospitality, a refuge
     and abiding-place for the unfortunate and the outcast. There was no
     display of wealth there--there was no wealth to display; yet the
     house was full of things which no wealth could buy. It was crowded
     with mementos. The pieces of furniture in the rooms had family
     histories connected with them; chairs and tables were precious from
     association with noble and rare people who had gone. Pictures on
     the walls, busts in the parlor, engravings, photographs, books,
     spoke of the gratitude or love of some dear giver. One room was
     sacred to the memory of a noble boy, an only son, who had died some
     years before. There was his bust in marble, there were his books,
     there were the prints he liked, the little bits of art he was fond
     of, and all the dear things that seemed to bring him back. The
     whole house was a shrine and a sanctuary.

     And who were the inmates? The master, a man whose sympathies were
     always and completely with the working-people, a man of steady and
     boundless humanity; the mistress, a woman whose name is familiar to
     all doers of good deeds in the city of New York, and dear to
     hundreds of the objects of good deeds. To the orphan and friendless
     and poor, a mother; to the unfortunate, a sister; to the wretched,
     the depraved, the sinful, more than a friend. In the city prison
     her presence was the presence of an angel of pitying love; at
     Blackwell's Island she was welcome as a spirit of peace and hope.
     The boys at Randall's Island looked into her face as the face of an
     angel. Again and again had she rescued from the life of shame the
     countrywoman, and possibly the kindred of these very people who
     plundered her house. For the better part of a year and more she has
     been in camp and city hospitals, nursing their brothers and sons,
     performing every menial office. At this moment she is at Point
     Lookout, doing that work, amid discomforts and discouragements that
     would daunt a less resolute humanity than hers, giving all she has
     and is to the _people_, to the wounded, crippled, bleeding, and
     broken people; giving it for the sake of the people--giving it that
     the people may be raised to a higher social level! And she,
     forsooth, must be selected to have her house pillaged! She must be
     stabbed to her heart of hearts, stabbed through and through, in
     every one of her affections, by these people for whom her life had
     been a perpetual process of dying! Why, if they had but known this
     that I have been telling you, or but a tenth part of it, those men
     would have defended with their bodies every thread of carpet she
     trod on. But so it was, and so it must be! Only the best names are
     ever taken in vain on human lips, and they are so taken because
     they are the best, and best is worst to those who cannot understand
     it. Theodore Winthrop was shot by a negro. Did he know what he
     did?... In thinking of it one's bosom is torn with distracting
     emotions, and between feeling for the persecuted and feeling for
     the persecutors, one almost loses the power of feeling. Could
     anything be more pitiful? Yes, one thing more pitiful there
     was--the savage hunting down and persecution of the negroes, as if
     they, too, were the enemies of these working-people. The poor,
     inoffensive negroes, most innocent part of the whole population!
     Most quiet, harmless, docile people, who could not stand in the way
     of the white people if they would, and who never thought of
     anything but of keeping out of their way! These the enemies of
     white labor! As if they had not, for these very white people, borne
     the burden and heat of the tropical day, raising the cotton by
     which we are clothed, and the rice by which we are fed! As if to
     these and the like of these, the white people did not owe a large
     share of the manufacturing towns where they get their bread! As if
     the lowest foundation stones of this very New York of ours were not
     cemented by their bloody sweat! As if there were too many of them
     in the country now for the country's needs, supposing the country
     ever to fall into a settled and civilized condition again! As if
     all there are might not by and by be _required_ to do the work
     which white labor can not for a long time, if it can ever, safely
     undertake! Strange complications of things! Strange cross-purposes
     of human nature! The Southern people would revive the slave trade,
     because they have not black laborers enough, and their allies among
     ourselves would banish or kill all the black people, because they
     interfere with white labor! A mutual stabbing at each other's
     hearts! And on each side a stabbing to its own heart!... It is a
     very mysterious thing in history, this alliance between the most
     turbulent and the most tyrannical, the most depraved and the most
     despotic portions of society. The most undisciplined, barbarous,
     savage members of a community are ever in a league with the most
     overbearing, insolent, imperious, and domineering members of it.
     They who are under the least self-control bow most deferentially
     before those who rule others with the most cruel rod. The people
     who were proudest of having turned out to a man, in London, for the
     maintenance of law and order, on the day of the great Chartist
     demonstration there, were the most immoral class in the
     city--proved by the criminal returns to be nine times as dishonest,
     five times as drunken, and nine times as savage as the rest of the
     community. (See Spencer's "Social Statics," p. 424.)

     In Boston, on the occasion of the rendition of Anthony Burns, all
     the thieves, burglars, cut-throats, swarmed from their dens and
     volunteered with alacrity to enforce the fugitive-slave law. And
     now the leaders of the Southern Confederacy count, and count
     securely, on the Northern populace. The fiercest allies of the only
     absolutely despotic class in the country are the outlaws of
     society. The men who are fighting for the privileges of the
     extremest tyranny, the privileges not of ruling merely, but
     literally of owning the laboring class, these men have the
     implicit, unquestioning, fanatical loyalty of the people who are at
     the opposite end of the social scale--the people who own nothing
     either of fortune, position, influence, or character, and whose
     sole relation towards the despots they worship is that of mad,
     savage slaves.

     In Europe this alliance between the despotic and the lawless may
     be fortunate for the peace of the community. In our Southern States
     it is eminently conducive to the tranquillity they desire. But when
     the lawless are here and the despotic are there, when the barbarism
     is in New York and the tyranny in Richmond, when the elements of
     discord and turbulence in our Northern cities fly to support their
     iron-handed rulers in the seceded States, there ensues a state of
     things, especially in time of war, that is calculated to shake
     society to its foundations, and fill every loyal heart with dread.
     The unruly, as if they felt instinctively their lack of
     self-control, seek a ruler--fly to the strongest to save them from
     themselves, worship the sternest, the most high-handed, the
     cruellest, and by that natural sympathy with brutality are
     maintained in subjection to law.

     Heaven speed the time when these heedless, reckless, licentious
     children of humanity may feel sensible of the weight of power
     without its brutality, may reverence authority when it is neither
     beastly nor cruel, may yield obedience to Order, whose symbol is
     not the sword, and to Law, whose badge is not the bayonet. But till
     that time comes, we, with thoughtful minds and sad hearts and sober
     consciences, and souls full as we can make them of human charity
     and good-will, must hold in our hands those terrible symbols, and
     in the Christian spirit do the ruler's part.

The insurrection did not last long. As soon as the United States troops
appeared the trouble was over and order was restored. There was
fighting; there was pillage; but how many lives were lost and how much
property was destroyed was never exactly known. On the whole, the riot
strengthened the hands of the government, increased pity for the victims
of outrage, and excited sympathy for the negroes and the abolitionists.
The priests, as I well remember, helped in the work of pacification. On
the second day of the uprising, as I was visiting a friend in his studio
on Fifth Avenue, the mob came along, shouting, yelling, brandishing
clubs, on their way to the archbishop's palace, to hear an address by
him. The prelate appeared on the balcony dressed in full canonicals, in
order to impress the people, and delivered a most ingenious and
persuasive address. Beginning "Men of New York," he flattered their
self-esteem, paid a tribute to their sense of power and exalted
influence, and advised them against cruelty and anarchy. The effect of
this speech was surprising in soothing and quieting the crowd. They had
come there in a mood of tumult--they separated peacefully and went to
their own homes, satisfied. From that hour the soul of the riot was
broken.

The incidents of the war cannot be detailed here. The story has been
told too often, and is altogether too long for my space. And after all
the moral issues of the war were the most interesting though not the
most pathetic. The sentiment of union, the establishment of the national
supremacy, the authority of the reign of law, the emancipation of a
degraded race, the new inspiration imparted to a great people, and the
advent of a universal republicanism were most significant. It is quite
likely that the modern uprising of labor and the urgent claims of women
for recognition and civil power were aided, if not suggested, by this
overwhelming triumph of order and enlightenment. It is more than likely
that the position of the United States, as a power among the nations of
the earth, was due mainly to the victory that was achieved by the powers
of liberty.




IX. THE FREE RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATION.


The happy ending of the war stimulated, as has been said, the
sentiment of Unity. The success of the government in putting down the
rebellion filled the air with the spirit of union. The restoration of
political harmony suggested a deeper harmony, when divisions should
cease. At this moment, in April, 1865, the indefatigable Dr. Bellows,
who had been the soul of the Sanitary Commission, summoned all Christian
believers of the liberal persuasions to a convention in his church for a
more complete organization. The invitation was most generously
interpreted, and was hailed by some who could be called Christians only
under the most elastic definition of the term. A prominent layman of the
Unitarian body brought an elaborate creed which he wished the convention
to adopt; and a distinguished minister of the West was of the opinion
that the work of perfect organization could best be done by the adoption
of stringent articles of faith. But the minimum of belief was imposed.
The preamble of the constitution, the work of reconciling minds, reads
thus: "Whereas the great opportunities and demands for Christian labor
and consecration, at this time, increase our sense of the obligations of
all disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ to prove their faith by
self-denial and by the devotion of their lives and possessions to the
service of God, and the building up of the kingdom of his son,
Therefore." Then follow the articles. It was this phrase, "Lord Jesus
Christ," that provoked discussion. The struggle was renewed at Syracuse
on October 8th of the next year, 1866, and an attempt was made to
explain away the force of the declaration by announcing that while the
preamble and articles of the constitution represented the opinions of
the majority, yet they were not to be considered an authoritative test
of Unitarianism, or to exclude from fellowship any who though differing
in belief "are in general sympathy with our purpose and practical aims."
But this was not considered by the radicals as satisfactory. For in the
first place the title of "Lord" seemed to contain by implication a
doctrine which could not be subscribed to, as the "Lordship" of Jesus
was supposed to be supernatural. Here seemed to be a fundamental
difference between those who held to the old world's idea of a spiritual
kingdom, and those who proclaimed the new world's idea of a spiritual
democracy. In fact, one of the leaders--Dr. Bellows--plainly said if
there was to be any change it must be made in the other direction; "we
are to consider not only the few on the one side, who may or may not
care to unite with us, but the great body of Christians of all
denominations, the Universal Church of Christ; I demand liberality to
them, the liberality which acknowledges their Lord and Leader, and
welcomes them to a household whose hearth glows with faith in and
loyalty to the personal Saviour." It was plainly declared by him that
Unitarians assumed the name of liberal Christians, because they allowed
liberality of inquiry and opinion _within the pale of Christian
discipleship_. This of itself was enough to create a palpable division,
but it was felt besides that freedom of interpretation did not imply
freedom of rejection. The phrase _Lordship of Jesus_, although as little
of a creed as could be devised, was hostile to freedom, besides not
being altogether true, as Jesus never claimed to be infallible. The
radicals, under the lead of Francis E. Abbot, attempted to introduce a
substitute for the original preamble, inculcating unity of spirit and of
work as the basis of the "National Conference of Unitarian and
Independent Churches." This substitute was not carried, and a final
breach between the Independents and the Unitarians was thus established.
This was inevitable twenty-five years ago; it could not happen to-day,
when both wings are united in one body.

For my part I did not go to Syracuse, having foreseen what eventually
occurred, namely, the intended solidification of the Unitarian body by
the strengthening of the bonds of organization. My own personal
experience, which other radicals knew nothing of, led me to this
conclusion. My church edifice on 40th Street was begun in the spring of
1863. The two ministers in New York were present at the informal service
of laying the corner-stone. The walls were going up during the summer;
on the week of the riot the mob called the workmen off, threatening to
destroy what was built if the masons did not leave. The building was
finished in the winter, and dedicated on Christmas Day. To the warm
personal invitation which was sent to all the Unitarian clergy in New
York and Brooklyn--there were but three then--no response was returned;
and when my father and I went to the church there were no ministers on
the platform. We went through the service, my father offering the prayer
and I preaching the sermon. No remark was made at the time beyond an
expression of surprise at the non-appearance of the "brethren." The next
day my father, who had come from Boston on purpose to attend the
dedication, and whose blindness was approaching fast, went to make a
friendly visit on Dr. Bellows. On his return, when asked if any reason
was assigned for the failure to participate in the proceedings of the
day before, he said that the duties of Christmas were alleged as the
cause. I was sure there was another explanation behind; and as soon as I
had put my father in the train for home wrote to Dr. Bellows, taxing him
among the rest with discourtesy. It was evident that such a charge was
anticipated and prepared for; that the ministers had met and had agreed
on a course to be pursued in my case. For at once there came a reply to
my note, accusing me of studiously neglecting all the usual observances
of the denomination. My invitation had not been official; there was no
"church"; there had never been any sacrament; the allegiance to
fundamental doctrines of the sect had been slack. All this was true, and
no attempt at exculpation was made, but it was felt that a breach
existed. The excitements of the war overshadowed everything else at this
period, and nothing more was said. My Society was duly represented at
the first conference; but as soon as our side was argued,--as it was by
D. A. Wasson,--it was plain that the spirit of organization prevailed
and was against us. A division was inevitable. The "Independents" must
form a separate party.

This virtual exclusion occasioned the formation of the Free Religious
Association. A meeting was held on the 5th of February, 1867, at
Dr. C. A. Bartol's, in Boston, to consider a plan for creating a new
association on the basis of free thought. Very strong words were spoken
on that occasion. One man, I recollect, spoke of all churches, all
ministers, and all religion as being outgrown. But the majority were of
the opinion that religion was an eternal necessity, and the
administration of it an absolute demand. Dr. Bartol himself was always a
warm friend of the Association, appearing on the platform, speaking
always hopefully, one of the most welcome of its supporters. The
Association was formed in the spring of that same year. In the plan of
organization it was distinctly announced that the aim of the Association
was to "promote the interest of pure religion, to encourage the
scientific study of theology, and to increase fellowship in the spirit;
and to this end all persons interested in these objects are cordially
invited to its membership." Thus the object of the Association was
exceedingly broad. It proposed to remove all dividing lines and to unite
all religious men in bonds of pure spirituality, each one being
responsible for his own opinion alone, and in no degree affected in his
relations with other associations. If the movement had been in the hands
of orthodox and well-reputed people, it would have seemed not only large
but noble and beneficent. Being, as it was, in the hands of a few
radical clergymen and laymen, it was supposed to be "infidel" in its
character; and was misrepresented and abused accordingly.

At first, the dissensions of the sects were rebuked. Afterwards, the
scope of the idea was extended; all the religions of the world being put
on an equality of origin and purpose. The spiritual nature of man was
assumed; the universality of religious feeling; the inherent tendency to
worship, aspiration, prayer, being taken for granted as an element in
the best minds; all churches and confessions of faith being looked upon
as achievements of the soul; Jesus being classed among the leaders of
humanity; the Bible being accepted as a record of spiritual and moral
truth; and the church being regarded as an organization to diffuse
belief. The foundation, therefore, was a pure Theism, and the effort
contemplated the elevation of all mankind to the dignity of children of
the Highest. That this aim was always borne in mind is not pretended.
The negative side was made too conspicuous. Now and then there was a
lurch in the direction of denial. There was too much criticism, and it
was not always just. There was too much speculation, and it was not
always wise. The plan of letting each sect tell its own story was a
little confusing at the start. Still, on the whole, the object was
pretty faithfully kept in view. Lucretia Mott suggested that the word
"religion" should be substituted for the word "theology," but the word
"religion" was too vague to afford ground for discussion, and it was
felt that the phrase "scientific" sufficiently explained, through the
substitution of the scientific for the theological method, the purpose
of the association. Moreover, the purpose was to remove _theological_
differences, the only differences that existed.

There were names of distinguished men and women on our list of
officers, members, speakers, and friends--Ralph Waldo Emerson, Amos
Bronson Alcott, Gerrit Smith, George William Curtis, Edward L. Youmans,
Nathaniel Holmes, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Rowland G.
Hazard, Lucretia Mott, Lydia Maria Child, Ednah D. Cheney. Thomas W.
Higginson was one of our most effective speakers; John Weiss read on our
platform his most brilliant paper on "Science and Religion"; David
Atwood Wasson lent us the light of his countenance.

Our greatest want was the want of a leader,--a man not only of competent
learning and spiritual enthusiasm, but of natural impulse and vigor; a
man of the people, a man of rugged speech, a man of vivacity and humor.
If Theodore Parker had been alive he might have taken this position, and
distinguished himself as a leader in this movement; as it was, there was
no one who could take his place, and the enterprise flagged accordingly,
lacking the popular zeal which would give it currency. The speculative
character of the association was always against it and rendered it
somewhat dry; but this under the circumstances was inevitable, because
we were forced to deal with technicalities of credence, and had not
power enough to get beyond them into the universalities of faith.

There was an expectation in many quarters that the association would
devote itself to beneficent projects; and this was natural, because it
seemed as if those who gave up the bond of belief must adopt the bond of
work. Mr. Emerson seems to have had a similar desire. "I wish," he said,
"that the various beneficent institutions which are springing up like
joyful plants of wholesomeness all over this country, should all be
remembered as within the sphere of this committee,--almost all of them
are represented here,--and that within this little band that has
gathered here to-day should grow friendship." But in the first place,
ours was not a philanthropic institution; its aim was religious
entirely, as it attempted to substitute the universality of religion for
the one faith of Christendom. The chief workers in several forms of
charity presented their schemes for our consideration, and at one time
it looked as if we must be borne away into some philanthropic
enterprise. The current, however, which carried us towards "religious"
unity was too strong.

And then, at that time there was little scientific philanthropy. The
word _charity_ was more or less associated with patronage and pity, the
very things that we wanted to avoid; they who were bent on wiping out
distinctions could not countenance these, and it was safer not to let
our hearts get the better of our reason. But even if there had been a
scientific treatment of humane questions, we were afraid of the danger
of becoming too much absorbed in this kind of work, and so of losing
sight of our chief end.

At present the idea of our Association is pretty well domesticated in
Christendom. It was not, after all, entirely new. In 1845 and 1846
Frederick Denison Maurice, lecturing on the Boyle Foundation in London
on "The Religions of the World and their Relations to Christianity,"
attempted to do justice to the ancient faiths of India, Persia, Egypt,
Greece, and Rome. In 1882, in Edinburgh, eminent men discussed the same
problems under the title of "The Faiths of the World." In 1871 James
Freeman Clarke published his "Ten Great Religions." The study of
comparative religion has been going on for many years. When Mozoomdar
came to this country a few years ago, there was such a rush for him
among American orthodox Christians that the Free Religious Association
could not get at him at all, though it had tried in vain to get a real
Brahmin on its platform. True, there were differences of opinion among
the orthodox students of the old-world systems. Some regarded the
ancient religions as effete; some denied that Christianity touched them
at more than one or two points; some treated them simply as preparations
for the crowning faith of Christ. Still, whatever their differences, all
agreed that the religious instinct was universal; that there was a
ground for revelation in the human heart; since Carlyle's famous lecture
in "Heroes," delivered in 1840, it was impossible to regard Mahomet as
an impostor, or to look upon religion as a fabrication of the priests,
as an attempt to practise upon human ignorance and fear.

Among the Unitarians our conception is familiar. At the convention that
was held in Philadelphia, in October, 1889, both parties, the most
conservative and the most radical, sat side by side. A manager of the
Free Religious Association delivered one of the addresses, and said: "I
never believed one tithe as much as I believe to-night. Never did I have
such faith in God; never did I so believe in man; never did I see such a
glorious outlook for the Church; never did I hold such a glad theory of
human hope for the future." The secretary of the American Unitarian
Association was full of joy. The secretary of the Western Unitarian
Conference quoted the opinion of the Western churches, assembled at
Chicago in May, 1887, and declared "our fellowship to be conditioned on
no doctrinal tests, and welcomes all who wish to join us to help
establish truth and righteousness and love in the world." A prominent
leader of Unitarianism in Illinois uttered himself thus: "Whatever its
traditions, whatever its present positions, or its prospects, this
spiritual commonwealth is extra-Unitarian, extra-American,
extra-Christian; it is human, and on that account it is universal, and
it is divine." Another speaker at this convention declared that "the
hand that shall hold this master key is Christ, as the modern mind
conceives him,--Christ healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing the
leper, casting out devils from society and business, from politics and
religion; Christ, the friend of Lazarus and of Mary Magdalen; Christ
robed in absolute justice and also in transcendant love, and embracing
the whole world."

It is not claimed that this extraordinary change in ecclesiastical
fellowship and sympathy is due to the Free Religious Association. That
was one of the signs of the times, and is an effect rather than a cause;
but it is a sign of the grander unity. When the portrait of Theodore
Parker is hanging on the walls of Channing Hall; when a cordial welcome
is extended to all seekers for the light; when the East and West are
ready to embrace in a fellowship of aspiration; when the young men are
all alight with fresh hope and fresh endeavor, we may with confidence
anticipate the time when there shall be but one fold, and the aim of the
Free Religious Association be met.

The emancipation from denominational trammels was of great service to
the young minister. It is true that he was still in a "church" which
kept him within ecclesiastical associations; but these fetters were not
heavy, and they were soon to be thrown off. For in the spring of 1869,
the church was sold to another congregation. This was done partly
because the acoustic properties of the building were not favorable, and
partly because the place was not suited to the genius of the new
society. "There was no room in the inn," was the subject of the last
sermon preached in that building. Lyric Hall, to which we removed, is
situated on Sixth Avenue, between 40th and 41st streets. It is a large
room fifty by one hundred feet. During the week it was used as a dancing
hall, but on Sundays it was arranged for a religious service. A small
organ was placed there, a platform was built, and seats were brought up
from the cellar below. The first sermon preached there was on "Secular
Religion," and it indicated the whole character of the services. The
most remarkable thing, as regards myself, that happened in Lyric Hall,
was the adoption of the habit of speaking without notes. The light from
the avenue was too far off for reading, and the speaker was therefore
obliged to dispense with a manuscript altogether. A theme was first
chosen that admitted of subdivisions, so that as fast as the speaker
exhausted one he could fall back on another. The habit soon became so
familiar that no difficulty was experienced in handling the most
complicated subject. Here we remained until the spring of 1875, when we
removed to Masonic Temple, on Sixth Avenue and 23d Street.

This building, which was very large and handsome, had just been erected
by the Masons, who designed it for their own accommodation. The
structure having cost, however, more than was anticipated, the owners
were obliged, reluctantly, to let the large hall, which they did for
literary and religious purposes only. We were the first to occupy it.
The hall was spacious and stately, with fixed seats for about a thousand
people. A fine organ stood at one end of the platform; at the other end
there was a large reception room. The first sermon there was on
"Reasonable Religion." The audience was never large--never more than
eight or nine hundred, usually six or seven hundred. The form of service
much resembled the form common in Unitarian churches, with the exception
that Mr. Conway's "Sacred Anthology" was substituted for the Bible, and
the other exercises were more universal in their character. It had long
ceased to be a Unitarian congregation. There were people of Catholic
training, many of Protestant training, some of no religious training
whatever, materialists, atheists, secularists, positivists--always
thinking people, with their minds uppermost. It was a church of the
unchurched. George Ripley, the journalist, was always there; E. C.
Stedman, the man of letters; Calvert Vaux, the architect; Sanford R.
Gifford, the painter; Henry Peters Gray, the artist, was there until he
died; C. P. Cranch, the poet, was a member of the Society as long as he
was in the city. In the Lyric-Hall days, Judge Geo. C. Barrett had a
seat in the audience. The secular character was always prominent. When
we had a church on 40th Street, the large basement was used for music,
dramatic performances, readings, festivities, social gatherings. In
Lyric Hall, these were continued as far as they could be.

The "Fraternity Club" was organized in 1869 by a devoted member of the
Society for the entertainment and improvement of its members; and drew
together very brilliant minds both within and without the immediate
fellowship. The meetings were held once in two weeks, when an essay was
read, a debate carried on, and a paper presented; all the performers
being nominated in advance by the President. The work was mainly done by
a few young men, who have since become eminent in various fields--as
teachers, lawyers, literary critics, publishers,--and by witty women not
a few. There were about seventy members, each one standing for some
peculiar accomplishment. The subjects of the essays were such as these,
illustrating the breadth of the intellectual interest: On "Taste"; on
"Expressions"; on "The Coming Man"; on "Wordsworth"; on "The Tree of
Life"; on "Spencer's Britomart as the Type of Woman"; on "Light and
Laughter"; on "Successful People"; on "Culture"; on "The Cultivation of
the Masses." The subjects for debate were equally varied: "Ought the
sexes to be educated apart?"; "Does a house burn up or burn down?"; "Is
the highest musical culture compatible with the highest intellectual
development?"; "Is there a distinctly American literature as contrasted
with that of England?"; "Should matrimonial union be contracted early or
late?"; "Ought we to cultivate most those faculties in which we
naturally excel, or those in which we are naturally deficient?"; "Does
increase of culture involve decrease of amusement?"; "Is the existence
of a 'Mute inglorious Milton' possible?"; "Will giving the franchise to
women exert a beneficial influence on society?"; "Had you rather be more
stupid than you seem, or seem more stupid than you are?"

The "papers," of which there are some nine volumes existing, were
receptacles for the fancy, imagination, sentiment, and humor of the
editors or their co-editors; there were verses, stories, criticisms,
jokes, illustrations, in them; each had its name: "The Bubble," "The
Venture," "Bric-a-Brac," "Stuff," "The Rag-Bag." The club ceased soon
after the Society disbanded, in 1880.

The root idea of the Society, apart from its independence, was the
mingling of the spiritual and the natural; the domestication of faith.
With a view of making the idea more prevailing and complete, a
children's service in the afternoon was substituted for the regular
Sunday-school. A book was prepared, "The Child's Book of Religion," by
the pastor, for this express purpose. There were responsive readings,
recitations in unison, songs, and an address, simple and anecdotical, by
the minister.

The Society was never fashionable, or even popular. At one period--that
of the Richardson-McFarland matter--there was a vast deal of
misrepresentation, criticism, and abuse, but all this had no effect on
the constituency of the parish. There was the same loyalty, the same
interest, the same determination to sustain a thoroughly liberal
ministry, by which every form of conviction was made conducive to a
purely spiritual faith.

It was never pretended that the Society was anything more than a
beginning. A small and feeble beginning, but of something that was to
grow and spread; the beginning of a faith that is as rational as it is
wide. Its influence was more diffusive than concrete as an instituted
thing. It is the pride and consolation of those who began it that they
removed some of the barriers that divided the great brotherhood of
believing men.

My ministry in New York ended in the spring of 1879. Its close was due
entirely to my ill-health. A year before the doctors had warned me not
to continue longer than was necessary my rate of speed. They urged me to
go slower, to "take in sail," and to withdraw as far as I could from all
public demonstrations. Measures were taken against every emergency, and
I sailed away in the French steamer, with the hope that in six months I
might regain my nervous power, and return. There was first the
exhilarating sea voyage; then the beautiful city hall of Rouen, the
churches and famous buildings, the square where Joan of Arc suffered;
then came Paris with its enchantments; after that Basel showed its great
Holbeins, and its lovely promenade overlooking the river; this led to
the celebrated baths at Ragatz in Switzerland, the placid waters of
Pfeffers', the gorge, the hotel gardens, and the lovely walks; after
this came the pass of the Spluegen, the Via Mala, the hotel at the summit
of the pass among the snows, the pastures, the wild goats; then came
Lake Como in Italy, Bellagio, the charming Villa Serbeloni, looking down
upon the two lakes, Como and Lecco, the vineyards ripening in the sun,
the terraces, looking across upon the mountains; then Milan opened its
great cathedral, the gallery of the Brera, the ancient church of Saint
Ambrose. Afterwards came Florence and its heavenly environs, its
pictures and statues and public buildings, its groves and stately drives
and lovely villas; Florence was followed by Siena, and there I saw the
great cathedral, walked on the esplanade, enjoyed the public square, the
palaces, the pictures of Sodoma. From there I went to Rome, in December.

It was all in vain; I became satisfied that the complaint was not of a
temporary nature, not owing to overwork or over-excitement, not easily
cured--if curable at all,--but nervous and hereditary. Thereupon, I
wrote a letter to my trustees absolutely resigning my office and
declining to be a clergyman any longer, as I could not attempt to renew
the same kind of labor. An attempt was made to secure a successor;
several names were mentioned, and among men greatly my superiors in
learning and eloquence, but none, it was thought, represented the
precise form of speculation, the exact view of religion which my friends
desired. The Society therefore was disbanded, and no attempt has been
made since to reorganize it. The members were scattered, some among
other churches, some among other cities, while some never joined any
religious society whatever. Thus a thriving and growing organization is
now simply a memory.




X. THE PROGRESS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN AMERICA.


An article in the _North American Review_ for April, 1885, on "Free
Thought in America," is chiefly significant as showing how gradual and
tentative the progress of thought in religion was. The comments on
individuals are often wide of the mark, but the general drift is quite
correct. The course was shadowy, but the main point was unmistakable. At
this day, the wholesale abuse of religion is harmless, and can exert no
wide influence. The friends of liberal thought are against it; and those
who seek the old grim conclusion do so in another way, striving to
substitute a new faith in nature for the old faith in divine
inspiration, and to prove the latter to have been a growth rather than
an imposition. The study of comparative religions has put a new face on
the question, and the concern is now to discover the source of faith in
the supernatural and not to make it appear a creation of priestcraft. No
sooner had serious investigations into antiquity become known, than the
method pursued by Voltaire and Dupuis was abandoned, and each generation
since has confirmed the facts of historic development.

That my own immediate predecessors were Emerson and Parker is most true.
With the writings of the former I was familiar; the latter was my
intimate friend. Perhaps my theological views are due to him more than
to any other man, though the circumstances of his generation were
peculiar, and determined, in a much greater degree than in my own 

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