Theology, the queen and mother of Science, shall assert her ancient rule, driving off superstition and priestly unbelief; when a real ministry in religion's name shall rebuke that party-spirit which makes a monarch out of a president, a miserable oligarchy out of a republic, and transforms the citizens of New-England into the subjects of slave-holders, and makes our free men only the servants of gain. Pandora has opened her box, sectarianism and party-rage have flown out; see the anarchy they make in Church and State! But there is yet left at the bottomhope. When the lid is lifted next that also will appear, and a new spring come out of this winter, and we shall wonder at the White-Sunday on all the hills, at the Pentecost of inspiration and tongues of heavenly truth. But we have wandered from our theme. In the midst of Boston, so penny-wise and so pound-foolish,-worldly Boston, which sent to the heathens more rum and more Bibles than all the States-the one to teach them our Christianity, and the other to baptize the converts, making their calling and election sure; which sent sleek men to Congress, ambassadors to lie in the capitol for the benefit of their party and themselves; in the midst of Boston, where men set up the hay-scales of their virtue, and on one side put their dollars and on the other set patriotism, democracy, freedom, Christianity, while the dollar weighed them all down: in the midst of this stood Dr Channing, liberal, wise, gentle, pious without narrowness, democratic, and full of hope. Shall we wonder that he wrought so little; that he could not get an anti-slavery notice read in his own pulpit, nor the door open to preach a funeral sermon on his anti-slavery friend-the lamented Follen? Rather wonder that he did so preach. No sailing vessel can stem the Mississippi, nor the stoutest steamboat go up the falls of St Anthony, and it takes time to go round. Here was one great man in Boston who did not seek wealth, nor want place, nor ask for fame; one man who would not sell himself. He only asked, sought, and coveted the power to serve. He was afraid he should give too little and take too much. So he took only his living, and gave men the toil of his genius, his prayers, and his life. There is no charity so great as this. See, now, the effect of such a life;-here in America there is one great man, with broad brows, a colossal intellect, and the most awful presence the world has seen for some centuries, it is said; one who would seem an Emperor in any council, even of the Kings by nature; with understanding so great that Channing's mind would seem but a baby in his arms; a senator, who for many years has occupied important public posts,-and yet in New-England, in the United States, Channing has far more influence than Webster. He was never in his life greeted with the shout of a multitude, and yet he has swayed the mind and heart of the best men, and affected the character and welfare of the nation far more than the famous statesman. In our last number we spoke of that venerable man who breathed his last breath in the capitol: John Quincy Adams had held high offices for fifty years,-been minister to courts abroad, had made treaties, had been representative, senator, secretary of state,-been president; he had lived eighty years-a learned man, always well, always at work, always in public office, always amongst great men and busied with the affairs of the nation,-and yet, which has done the most for his country, for mankind, and most helped men to wisdom and religion, man's highest welfare? The boys could tell us that the effect of Adams and Webster both is not to be named in comparison with the work done for the world by this one feeble-bodied man. Yet there are forty thousand ministers in the United States, and Channing stood always in the pulpit, owing nothing to any eminent station that he filled. In this century we have had two presidents who powerfully affected the nation,-one by his mind, by ideas;-his public acts were often foolish: the other by his will, his deeds, ideas apparently of small concern to him ;-we mean Jefferson and Jackson. But, with the exception of Jefferson, no president in this century has ever had such influence upon men's minds as that humble minister. No, not all together-Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson, Van Buren and Harrison and Tyler and Polk. Some of them did good things, yet soon they will be gone, all but one or two; their influence, too, will pass away, and soon there will be left nothing but a name in a book-for they were only connected with an office, not an idea,—while Channing's power will remain long after his writings have ceased to be read and his name is forgot; of so little consequence is it where the man stands, if he be but a man, and do a man's work. The one great idea of Dr Channing's life was respect for man. He was eminent for other things, but preeminent for this. His eminent piety became eminent philanthropy, in all its forms. This explains his action as a reformer, his courage, and his inextinguishable hope. Dr Channing was one of the few democrats we have ever known. Born and bred amongst men who had small confidence in the people, and who took little pains to make them better, he became intensely their friend. The little distinctions of life, marked by wealth, fame, or genius, were of small account to him. He honoured all men; saw the man in the beggar, in the slave. He never desponded; he grew more liberal the more he lived, and seemed greenest and freshest when about to quit this lower sphere. His youth was sad though hopeful; in the middle period of his life he seems saddened and subdued, in part by the restraints of his profession, in part by ill health, and yet more by austere notions of life and duty, imposed by a gloomy theory of religion, but which in his latter days he escaped from and left behind him. He is a fine example of the power of one man, armed only with truth and love. By these he did service here, and spoke to the best minds of the age, giving hope to famous men, and cheering the hearts of such as toiled all day in the dark mines of Cornwall. By these he sympathized with men, with nature, and with God. Hence he grew younger all his life, and thought the happiest period was "about sixty." In 1839 he thus wrote: Indeed, life has been an improving gift from my youth; and one reason I believe to be, that my youth was not a happy one. I look back to no bright dawn of life which gradually faded into common day.' The light which I now live in rose at a later period. A rigid domestic discipline, sanctioned by the times, gloomy views of religion, the selfish passions, collisions with companions perhaps worse than myself,-these, and other things, darkened my boyhood. Then came altered circumstances, dependence, unwise and excessive labours for independence, and the symptoms of the weakness and disease which have followed me through life. Amidst this darkness it pleased God that the light should rise. The work of spiritual regeneration, the discovery of the supreme good, of the great and glorious end of life, aspirations after truth and virtue, which are pledges and beginnings of immortality, the consciousness of something divine within me, then began, faintly indeed, and through many struggles and sufferings have gone on. "I love life, perhaps, too much; perhaps I cling to it too strongly for a Christian and a philosopher. I welcome every new day with new gratitude. I almost wonder at myself, when I think of the pleasure which the dawn gives me, after having witnessed it so many years. This blessed light of heaven, how dear it is to me! and this earth which I have trodden so long, with what affection I look on it! I have but a moment ago cast my eyes on the lawn in front of my house, and the sight of it, gemmed with dew and heightening by its brilliancy the shadows of the trees which fall upon it, awakened emotions more vivid, perhaps, than I experienced in youth. I do not like the ancients calling the earth mother. She is so fresh, youthful, living, and rejoicing! I do, indeed, anticipate a more glorious world than this; but still my first familiar home is very precious to me, nor can I think of leaving its sun and sky and fields and ocean without regret. My interest, not in outward nature only, but in human nature, in its destinies, in the progress of science, in the struggles of freedom and religion, has increased up to this moment, and I am now in my sixtieth year."-Memoirs, Vol. III., pp. 412-414. His life was eminently useful and beautiful. He died in good season, leaving a memory that will long be blessed. It remains for us to say a word of the "Memoirs." The work is well done, by a kindred and a loving hand. The Memoirs only are published, however, the Life yet remains to be written. Some things are passed over rather hastily by the Editor; we should have been glad if he had told us more of Dr Channing's relations to the theological parties of his time, especially to his own sect in his later years; if he had shown us more in detail with what caution and slowness he came to his liberal conclusions. As a whole, the picture wants a background, and also shadow. But, on the whole, the work is well and faithfully done, though it does not give us so complete and thorough a view of the man as the Memoir of Henry Ware offered of that lamented and sainted minister. An index would be a welcome addition, but, as one seldom finds that in an American book, we will not make a special complaint. THE ETERNITY OF GOD. A HYMN TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN. I. Thou Ocean-deep of God's Eternity; Thou, the Primeval Source of Time and Space; : The ashes of the Past are but the Germ Of vast Futurities to Thee. Then what Is man, the point we call To-day, the worm, II. To Thee, Eternal One, a Universe Marks but a day, and we in our brief lives I. O Meer von Gottes Ewigkeit ! Grund alles Fliehns von Welt und Zeiten! Die Asche der Vergangenheit Ist dir ein Keim von Künftigkeiten. II. Vor dir, Gott, Ewiger, vor dir |