THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES alicniiinr JJarUrr Attouat 24. 1810 — iHaa 10. 1060 Anmwrsan^H of Itrtli mh i?atl| (llpUbrateii in ffllfiraflo, Nnnrmbcr U-ZO. 19111 unlter tl|p auapicfB af tljr 3ffr?0 iRrligtnuB ABaortation Charles W. Wendte. D. D., President (IIl|0 (Eongrf Bs of Religion Emil G. Hirsch, Ph. D., Acting President Nattoital iFeheratton of IRpltgtouB Slibf ralB Henry W. Wilbur, President anil a Inral rommittf p of ant i^anhrth Stenogrraphically Reported by Mrs. Annie Laurie Kelly 1911 UNITY PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO IN presenting this report of the Theodore Parker Anniver- saries, held in Chicago, Nov- ember 13 to 20, 1910, the committee desire to express their obligation to the men and women — citizens of Chi- cago and elsewhere— whose generosity made the meetings and this report possible, and to the speakers who, without compensation, traveled long distances to pay their tribute to this prophet of the soul. We beg leave to dedicate these pages to those who are to come after, the future generations for whom and with whom Theodore Parker will still be working. -Cri^ ^l>05 ' /5 I|^0b0r^ Parker ^L W fit0O& fur Hiintja anli auflfrrpb for ^^^^ ll)tngs ti|at ar? hpgonlJ prtrr. Al- tliougli aHsatbi \sx\\\\ \\^Xti\\\ p^Jittirta anJJ fr^qurttt mtHrrprrs^ntatton, grt I)r tirurr tuaurr? b ani tipnrr ml|tmprrrb. arrrpting ll|r rottspqu^nrps of ainrf ritg Ukr a \x\xt aoliipr in tl|? battle for \\\^ pmatirtpa- tion of i|umatttttr. As a prfarl|pr of natural pt^lij. I|f I|a5 no pqual in l|i0 gpn^ration. I|ia "®pn §'prmonfl on S? ligion" ar? aa rrmarkabb for X\\t\x poflititJf ronnirtiona anlJ \\\t\x anfalimp faitt? aa for ti|rir uipaltl) of illuatration anii ll|^ir aplrniii iirtion. %^ tangl|t mp at baat to rpapprt anb I|onor I|im, tyxtw mlien 3 ronlli not anli ujoulji not foUom. if? op? ni^b my pgpa to ftpfprta in rxiating OII|ria- tianitg — ortt|obox aniJ t|dproliox — nom aa baring anJi pFrniriona aa ml|pn \\i liiarloarb anb bp- nonnrrb tljpm. Hut l|p bib far morp. %t prpa^nt^b an ibf al of rpligioua Vdt ao rirl| in Ptl|iral anb apiritnal b^autg tlyat it appm^b to mp, uil|pn it firat attrartpb mp, to bp a rompoaitp pirtnrp of tl|p bpat of tljp aainta — a pirtnrp tlyat tynmblpb i|Pt inapirpb mp. tlyat mabp mp amarp I|om littlp of tlyp pompr of an pnblpaa lifp 3f Ijab apprpl?pnbpb. popn mnrly Ipaa arqnirpb. anb at tijp aamp timp rrpatpb in mp a rrauing to bp tranaformpb into aomp rpapmblanrp to tl|p imagp ao iiimblg rpnpalpb. — 3Pr0m a m^U-knonm MFtI|a&tBt Stmnr. OIottt^ntB THE INVITATION 9 RESPONSES 11 THE CALL IS FROM THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE 18 PROGRAM 19 ORCHESTRA HALL MEETING— Address by Rev. Charles F. Carter 25 SINAI TEMPLE MEETING— Addresses by Mr. Edwin D. Mead 32 Prof. George B. Foster 40 Rev. Charles F. Carter 46 HULL HOUSE MEETING— Addresses by Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer 51 Rev. C. W. Wendte 58 Rev. F. C . Southworth 62 Dr. L. B. Fisher 64 Mr . Edwin D . Mead 66 Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones 68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING— Addresses by Mr. Isaac Fisher 74 Rabbi Charles Fleischer 81 Rev. Cherles E. Beals 89 ST. PAUL'S UNIVERSALIST CHURCH MEETING— Addresses by Rev. Charles W. Wendte Ill Mr. William Sullivan 123 Dr. Frederick W. Hamilton 126 SECOND LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING— Addresses by Rabbi Max Heller 133 Rev. Charles F. Dole 138 Rev. Joseph F. Newton 145 {Contents continued on next page) (EatttrntB — Continued banquet- Dean George E.Vincent, Teaitmaster Mrs. Ella Flagg Young 155 Rev. Charles F. Dole 158 Miss Gertrude Parker Dingee 160 Judge Julian W. Mack 161 Dr. F. W. Hamilton 163 Mr. William Sullivan 164 Rev. Edwin D. Mead 165 Mrs. Celia Parker Woolley 168 Rabbi Charles Fleischer 169 Mr. Isaac Fisher 171 Miss Jane Addams 172 Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones 173 ADDITIONAL ADDRESSES 175-188 OTHER THEODORE PARKER CELEBRATIONS 189-196 PRESS NOTICES 177-210 QIJj^ imrttotimt .-"^^^^HE following, with unimportant M ^^ modifications, is the letter which was ^^^^ sent to about one hundred and seventy representative men and women in Chicago. About one hundred said "Yes" (see following call, page 15), while twenty-four said "No," leaving some forty-six unanswered. The letters received were, of course, personal and confidential, but the spirit that characterized the entire correspondence was so significant that we venture to give some extracts of the letters which are the more significant because written without any idea of pubhcity, and which, when printed, are the more significant when removed from the personalities involved. The few who said "No," represented as much fellowship as the many who said "Yes." The following samples will be read with interest: Dear Mr. .• / am wondering whether you would be willing to lend your name to the following invitation. Of course, it would carry wtth it no obligation of work other than that of good will, setting forth the temper of our city and the manner of men we depend on. I am asking a score or more of prominent citizens, lay and clerical, men and women, and your name belongs in such a list, according to my thinking. Very cordially yours, Jenkin Lloyd Jones. IS^ap0«s^j0 FROM THE CLERGY "It gives me deep pleasure to sign the within invitation. The world owes a vast debt to Theodore Parker. He was the prophet of everything large and catholic and beautiful in the religious consciousness and life. He richly deserves our reverence and love." "Of course, my theological position is not the position of Theodore Parker, no more than it is the position of old N. Adams, who thought him the devil incarnate, but a man who does not rejoice in the general result of Parker's patriotic and loyal devotion to the ideas which he be- lieved most important is not of my 'crowd.' You may put me down, if you will, for one of the 'inviters.' " "In the interest of the advancement of all that is good, denominational or undenominational, I will be glad to sign such a call, though, of course, it does not pledge me to the theological views." "Certainly you may attach my name to invitation as enclosed. I am sure I can add nothing to it. It seems very complete. If you know of any way in which I can assist you, tell me. That's the best I can say." "I am in harmony with this movement." "I shall be glad to sign the call to the Parker anniversary, and I will get other signatures from our church if you want them. I am sorry this answer was delayed, but hope it is not too late." "I approve very heartily of the idea of celebrating in some large and fitting manner Parker's centenary." "I am only too happy to lend my modest assistance to the very worthy movement you are fostering." "I shall be very glad, indeed, to have my name attached to the invi- tation for the Theodore Parker anniversaries. Anything I can do to help make the celebration adequate I shall be glad to do." "I am honored by your invitation to sign the call to commemorate the courageous leadership of Theodore Parker. You know that I could not help loving the man who lived his life and did his work and wrote 'O Thou Great Friend of All the Sons of Men,' which we sing more often at our vesper service than any other hymn." "I believe that I shall have to say no in regard to the invitation for the Parker centennial. I hesitate to do so, because I am really shockingly ignorant about Theodore Parker. I do not think that I have ever read a dozen paragraphs from him. I have to decide on a general impression about him, that his attitude toward historic Christianity was pugnacious and bitter. His temper, very different from Channing's, is what has im- pressed me." "While I am a great admirer of Theodore Parker, and in sympathy with many things he said and did, I would be misunderstood if I should sign the call you enclosed. Kindly excuse me, and allow me to attend as many sessions as I may be able when the meetings are held." "I could sign this call for the Theodore Parker anniversaries with joy, 12 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES and work with you full-heartedly to make them successful — all the while being in somewhat sharp difference with certain of the positions of Theo- dore Parker, but loving and honoring the great champion of liberty, the great lover of humanity and the great prophetic soul." "With absolutely no hesitancy, but with a good deal of joy, I sign the inclosed call." "I much appreciate your invitation to serve on a committee in connec- tion with the Theodore Parker anniversary, but I am so beset with many undertakings I regret that I cannot have a part in this. Wishing you all success in duly honoring the memory of this great man, believe me." "Go ahead and do something to honor the memory of this great and good man. He was a great vandal in the social and theological world, but the time has modified his heresies, or rather his heresies have modified the times, and today yon do well to accord him at least a week of appreciative study. 1 do not care to sign the invitation, but will co-operate with you in any way to help emphasize the social and civic leadership of Theodore Parker." "I could not consent to the use of my name in making such a call, for my conviction is that the world would be better off if Theodore Parker had never lived nor written. His denial of the fundamentals of historic Christianity has, in my judgment, been a curse to New England, and all who have been influenced by it. The intellectual strength of the man made him all the greater power for evil. I lived in Boston more than five years and sought to study conditions in New England. I heard Dr. Hoar, editor of 'The Watchman,' say in a public address, that in the rural districts of New England, in which he had spent his summers for ten or twelve years, there was a lower moral tone than in the mining camps of the West, and my investigation confirmed his statement. In seeking to find the cause of this lower moral tone I was convinced that the liberalism which has set aside the autliority of the Bible and, indeed, respect for all authority, is largely to blame for the present conditions. While New England has grown in head, it has decayed at heart, through the influence of the leaders like Theodore Parker. Such are my convictions, and I am sure that one, who, like you, believes in liberty of thought and speech, cannot blame me for expressing them." "I have your note of September 1, and shall be more than glad to have you attach my name to a call for some suitable celebration of the anniversaries of Theodore Parker, whose work for religion and humanity was of such moment at the critical period of our national history." "I shall be more than glad to unite with you in calling on the people to give an expression of the debt which we owe to the great Theodore Parker. "You can use my name to the invitation anent the Parker celebration. You can count on me to co-operate with you in the matter." FROM UNIVF.RSITY MEN, PROFESSORS, PRESIDENTS, ETC. "Although I cannot claim any large acquaintance with Theodore Parker's writings, I shall be glad to join you in the invitation enclosed to me in yours." "Your favor of the 25th of August is received. Theodore Parker rep- resents many ideas in which I thoroughly believe, and which I think have been extremely wholesome. He represents also certain other ideas which impress mc as extremely questionable. In any event, I should hardly think it advisable to be an active agent in the plan for the anniversary." "If it were on the abstract proposition, 'Come! and let us take note of the flight of time and the advancement of the Kingdom,' I should tumble over myself in getting my name among those who will sign the call. I am iExcnittuc (Eommtttrr 1. Rkv. R. A. White 2. Jenkin Lloyd Jones 3. Jane Addams 4. Adolf Krads S. Julius Rosenwald I). T. V. R. Ashcroft 7. Dr. Emil G. Hirsch RESPONSES 13 with the movement and the movers in everything except appreciation of Parker. I have never been able to appreciate him from an angle which made him look likeable. I have no quarrel with him, but he simply never has appealed to me. It strikes me that he was a congenital doer of the right thing in the wrong way, and that liberalism has progressed in spite of him more than because of him. This is merely my personal reaction, and I hope I am wrong. Maybe it is one of my unregenerate remainders of Calvinism, but Parker always seems to me less a pioneer than a prig. However that may be, I don't shy at the matter, but at the manner of his liberalism, and if the celebration boosts the substance I shall applaud it." "Most assuredly I shall be glad to lend my name to the call for the Theodore Parker celebration. And I feel much honored that you consider me. I will do whatever I can to help you, and shall hope to attend the celebration in the plural number." "I have your kind invitation to join in inviting friends to a study of half-century progress, and to honor the great preacher of righteousness, and statesman, Theodore Parker. "I have no hesitation whatever in giving my name for this purpose and, indeed, count it a high honor to be invited. Of course, you and all others will understand, and you especially, that this does not carry with it a sign of agreement upon all points of teaching and belief, but the nation owes a great debt of gratitude to Theodore Parker and to those associated with him, and it would be very unpatriotic not to give expression to it on proper occasions like these." FROM LAY MEN AND WOMEN, BUSINESS MEN, BANKERS, PHYSICIANS, LAWYERS, ETC. "I shall consider it a privilege to lend my name upon an occasion to do honor to Theodore Parker." "I am ashamed to say that I am not very familiar with the life work of Theodore Parker, but I know that he was neither a 'standpatter' nor a reactionary — so accordingly I would be very glad to have you use my name and any influence you can to make it a success." "I am pleased to grant your request to use my name so suggested, and shall feel honored, indeed, in having it so used. The most interesting article I have read this summer is a commentary on the theology of Theo- dore Parker in a recent article number of the Survey." "I regret very much that I do not know as much about Theodore Parker as I should. What I do know, however, leads me to believe that a celebration of the anniversary of his birth and death would serve a use- ful purpose in directing public attention to the civic, economic and religious questions to which he devoted his life, and if my name will be of any service to you, you are at liberty to use it-" 'T would say that I am in full sympathy with your suggestion, and have no objection to the use of my name in connection therewith." "I am always for any effort that ignores religious diff'erences and finds a common ground for serving the community and humanity." "I will be glad to have my name on the invitation to the Parker cele- bration. He was a great man, did a great work that is only now being appreciated. H I can help in making the meeting a success I will be glad to do so." "T appreciate the privilege of having my name attached to the invi- tation which you have sent me." "I want to be in the celebration of such a good man by such good men." 14 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES "I have no delicacy in signing the paper and in acknowledging at all times my great indebtedness to Theodore Parker. I have loved and honored his name and memory for more than fifty years. I grew up in a Presby- terian family, but when a boy in college read one of Parker's books, and later everything of his which was published — to my great enlightenment. He is worthy of all the honor you can bestow upon his name and work." "I am in sympathy with so many of the principles advocated by Theo- dore Parker that I am very willing to lend my name at this time." "I gladly join with you in respect to the Theodore Parker anniversary." "\i you think my name would be of any use in your Theodore Parker enterprise, you are quite at liberty to use it. Ever since my youth Theo- dore Parker has been one of my heroes, and I shall be glad to be identified with your movement." "I should be pleased to have my name connected with yours in any good work for the betterment of mankind, and more especially with refer- ence to anything relating to the Theodore Parker Anniversaries." "Feeling in hearty sympathy with the movement, it would give me great pleasure to have my name associated with it, and you are at liberty to use it in any way that your judgment may dictate." "I consider it an honor to have my name attached to the call for a celebration of the anniversaries of Theodore Parker, and cheerfully agree to its use to that end." "I am really ashamed to confess how little I know about Theodore Parker, but I believe he was a truth seeker, a man of eloquence, humanity and courage. You are quite free to append my name to an invitation such as you suggest." "Thank you very much for inviting me to be on your invitation list for the Theodore Parker celebration. I am much pleased and honored to ac- cept it." "I am grateful that you should think of me as worthy and shall be proud indeed to appear upon your list." "I take it as a privilege to join in the call for the Theodore Parker anniversaries. You have my permission certainly, and 1 regard it a com- pliment to have you ask me." "I am heartily glad to join in the invitation to recall the value of the life of Theodore Parker and the impulse he gave to the onward movement of enlightened conscience. I have a pity for the young person 'I knew the most about,' who, a half-century or more ago, thought the influence malign which now I recognize as most beneficent. I am grateful to his disciples, who have borne aloft the torch he passed on unquenched." ®I|? aiaii The undersigned citizens of Chicago and vicinity, irrespective of sec- tarian lines and theological differences, unite in a Committee of Invitation and Hospitality, to co-operate with the officers of the following national or- ganizations in a suitable celebration of the centennial of the birth and semi- centennial of the death of Theodore Parker, which occurred, respectively, in 1810 and 1860: The Free Religious Association, organized in 1867, with headquarters in Boston ; the Congress of Religion, organized in 1894, with headquarters in Chicago, and the Federation of Religious Liberals, organ- ized in Philadelphia in 1908. The half century which has elapsed since Theodore Parker's death has greatly ameliorated the theological animosities and sectarian anxieties that at the time seemed to entangle the message and to impugn the messenger. Great changes have come in the thinking of religious men and women, and still greater changes in the ethical issues and sociological interests of the world, on lines indicated by the fundamental contentions of Theodore Parker. His was "A voice crying in the wilderness," preparing the way for subsequent advancements, greater and in many ways different from his highest hopes, in the fields of temperance, education, the rights of the Negro, the cause of the laborer, the advancement of women, the abolition of war, the proper use of wealth, as well as in the fields of Biblical studies, and the sympathies of religion. In all these directions he was a pioneer. Studied from this more adequate perspective, Theodore Parker is now, by common consent, acknowledged to be one of the great American preach- ers of religion, who has over-reached all ecclesiastical bounds, and has become one of America's greatest citizens, a noteworthy leader of reform, a prophet of civic righteousness, economic justice, and the Universal Brother- hood in which his contentions were rooted. In view of the above considerations, we join in inviting the friends everywhere to come and spend the week from November 13 to November 20, 1910, inclusive, to join with us in the study of the "Half Century Progress" made on all these lines as interpreted by such men and women of national standing and ability as we may be able to secure. It is hoped that many churches, schools and other civic and religious organizations will take note of these anniversaries in their own way, and that some of the prominent speakers who will take part in the central pro- gram, November 15-17, may be heard in many parts of the city and suburbs. The detailed program and further plans will be duly announced. Again we say, Come ! and let us take note of the flight of time and the advancement toward the kingdom of Truth, Righteousness and Love, in the courage and strength of one from whose opinions we may widely differ, but in whose spirit of earnestness and helpfulness we cordially unite. Rev. William T. McElveen, Ph. D., Pastor First Congregational Church, Evanston, Illinois. Irving K. Pond, Architect. Dr. a. W. Harris, President Northwestern University. Harold F. White, Attorney. John T. McCutcheon, Chicago Tribune. Herbert L. Willett, Dean Disciples' Divinity House, University of Chicago, and Pastor of the Memorial Church of Christ. Payson S. Wild. 16 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES George C. Hall, M. D. George E. Hooker, Hull House. George R. Peck, General Counsel C., M. & St. P. Ry. Co. Rev. Ernest C. Smith, Secretary Western Unitarian Conference. Samuel Alschuler, Attorney. Henry C. Lytton, President The Hub. W. Clyde Jones, State Senator. Edwin B. Tuteur, M. D. E. C. Dudley, M. D. S. Laing Williams, of the Federal Court. H. S. Hyman, Hyman & Company. Arthur Meeker, General Manager Armour & Co. Allen B. Pond, Architect. S. S. Gregory, Attorney. Mrs. Emmons Blaine. Julius Rosenwald, President Sears, Roebuck & Co. Edward B. Butler, President Butler Bros. Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, Superintendent of the City Schools. Alfred L. Baker, Broker. Prof. C. R. Henderson, University of Chicago. Leroy a. Goddard, President State Bank of Chicago. Charles L. Hutchinson, Vice-President Corn Exchange National Bank of Chicago. Rev. Edward S. Ames, Chicago University, and Pastor Church of the Disciples. Edward Morris, President Morris & Co. Prof. George B. Foster, University of Chicago. Mrs. Mary A. Wilmarth. F. Wi Gunsaulus, President Armour School of Technology, Pastor of Central Church. Lorado Taft, Artist. Henry Baird Favill, M. D., President of City Club. Louis J. Block, Principal Marshall High School. W. G. Walling, Secretary Western Trust and Savings Bank. Joseph W. Hiner, Attorney. Hoyt King, Attorney. Celia Parker Woolley, Frederick Douglass Center. Thomas E. Donnelley, President Lakeside Press. Rev. Joseph A. Milburn, Pastor Plymouth Congregational Church. T. B. Allinson, Chicago Ethical Society. Louis F. Post, Editor The Public. Mary E. McDowell, University of Chicago Settlement. Abram Hirschberg, Rabbi North Chicago Hebrew Congregation. Daniel M. Lord, Chicago Bureau of Charities. Clifford W. Barnes, President Legislative Voters' League and of the Sunday Evening Club. Joseph Schaffner, of Hart, Schaffner & Marx. T. K. Webster, President Webster Manufacturing Co. R. A. White, D. D., Stewart Avenue People's Liberal Church. M. R. Kultcher, Independent Button & Machine Co. M. L. Greeley, Vice-President Greeley-Howard Co. Albert Scheible, President Ajax Material Co. William C. Boyden, Attorney. Nathan B. Higbie, Swift & Co. Sumner Sollitt, Contractor. Edgar A. Bancroft, Attorney. Avery Coonley. Mrs. Amf.lia Gere Mason. Arthur L. Penhallow, Hyde Park High School. Miss Jane Addams, Hull House. THE CALL 17 Tobias Schanfarber, Rabbi K. A. M. Temple. Rev. W. H. Head, Pastor 77th St. Church. Oliver W. Stewart, State Senator. George E. Dawson, Attorney. F. L. Barnett, Assistant State's Attorney. George C. Sikes, Attorney. Rev. Eugene C. Conklin, Wlestern Manager Universalist Pub- lishing House. Dr. Charles E. Bentley. W. A. Evans, M. D., Commissioner Department of Health. John L. Whitman, Superintendent House of Correction. W. E. Beebe, Attorney. J. Paul Goode, Assistant Professor Department of Geography, University of Chicago. Prof. James H. Tufts, University of Chicago. Rev. Marcellus W. Darling. Charles W. Lamborn, Attorney. Walter L. Fisher, Attorney. Rev. O. C. Helming, Pastor University Congregational Church. Rev. Joseph Stolz, Rabbi Isaiah Congregation. BiON J. Arnold, Electrical Engineer. Hon. Merritt W. Pinckney, Judge of Circuit Court. Frederic A. Delano, President Wabash Railway Co. George E. Cole, Legislative Voters' League. L. J. Lamson, Board of Trade. Rev. John C. Jones, Pastor Welsh Presbyterian Church. George E. Roberts, Banker. Rev. Joseph A. Vance, Hyde Park Presbyterian Church. Franklin H. Head, President Chicago Historical Society. Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin, President Illinois Industrial School for Girls. Hon. Julian W. Mack, Justice Illinois Appellate Court. Adolph Kraus, President of the International B'nai B'rith. Rev. Charles E. Beals, Chicago Peace Society. Prof. Frederick Starr, University of Chicago. E. J. Buffington, President Illinois Steel Co. Rev. Fred. V. Hawley, Pastor Unity Church. Rev. W. Hanson Pulsford, First Unitarian Church. Francis F. Browne, Editor of The Dial. Rev. August Dahlgren, First Swedish Unitarian Church of Chi- cago. Mss. Coonley-Ward. S. W. Lamson, Treasurer Lincoln Centre Board. Hon. Willam J. Pringle, Alderman. Rev. Axel Lundberg, Pastor Swedish Unitarian Church. Frederick Greeley, of the Chicago Play Ground Association. Dr. E. G. Hirsch, First Vice-President Congress of Religion. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Chairman Executive Committee, Congress of Religion. At a luncheon for the above signers, given Thursday noon, October 13, at which over thirty were present, and cordial letters of regret and approval were read from most of the others, practical plans were discussed, and the chair was authorized to appoint the necessary committees on program, pub- licity, finance, hospitality, etc. Due announcement of the progress of the work was published from time to time. 18 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES 3Ernm X\\t Aimanrg OJommttt^r To the Pastors and Trustees of Churches, the Presidents of Schools and Colleges, the Officers of Civic, Literary and other Clubs, and Repre- sentatives of all other Organisations devoted to human welfare and progress. Dear Friends : The undersigned officers of national organizations join with the hundred and more citizens of Chicago represented in the accompanying invitation in asking the friends of civic progress, humanitarian helpfulness and religious freedom everywhere, to unite with us in the celebration of the centennial of the birth and the semi-centennial of the death of Theodore Parker, a great citizen of the United States who contended for progress on many lines. Delegate representatives from any organizations included in the above list are cordially invited and will be heartily welcomed. It is hoped that the churches, clubs, schools and other civic, educational and religious organi- zations in Chicago and vicinity will take steps to arrange for their own meetings in their own way. The following speakers are expected to be in attendance and take part in the central program, which will be arranged for November 15, 16 and 17. They represent the material from which local programs can be enriched. Arrangement for a large popular banquet has been made to be given at the Auditorium Hotel ($1.50 per plate), on Thursday evening, November 17, and those desiring to secure places at the tables are requested to com- municate at as early a date as possible with Mr. Adolph Kraus, chairman of banquet committee, 143 Dearborn street, that the necessary arrangements can be made. Fuller announcement of the details of these meetings will be given from time to time. All correspondence with regard to programs should be addressed to the Chairman of the Executive Committee named below. All information to and for the press should be addressed to Theodore Van R. Ashcroft, 312 Record-Herald Building, Secretary of Publicity. Charles W. Wendte, 25 Beacon St., Boston, President Free Religious Association. Emil G. Hirsch, 3612 Grand Blvd., Chicago, Acting President Congress of Religion. Henry W. Wilbur, 140 North 15th St.. Philadelphia. President National Federation of Religious Liberals. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Abraham Lincoln Centre, Chicago, Chairman Exec- utive Committee. Advisory Cotnmittee appointed by the Committee of One Hundred. Charles L. Hutchinson, Julian W. Mack, James H. Tufts, Clifford W. Barnes, Alfred L. Baker, D. M. Lord, [ Rev. Charles E. Beals. Aliittfi0ry (Eiimmittrr 1. C. L. Hutchinson 2. Jas. H. Ti'fts 3. A. L. Baker 4. Rev. Chas. E. Beals 5. D. M. Lord 6. Clifford W. Barnes 7. Julian Mack THE PROGRAM 19 Prngram THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES. 1810-1860-1910. Centennial of Birth ; Semi-Centennial of Death. Held in Chicago and vicinity under the auspices of the Free Religious Asso- ciation, The Congress of Religion, and the National Federation of Religious Liberals, in response to an invitation of a Committee of One Hundred Citizens. Sunday, November 13, 1910. Forenoon: Auditorium Central Church, Wabash Avenue and Congress Street, 11 a. m. Sermon by Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus. Sinai Temple, corner Indiana Avenue and Twenty-first Street, 10 a. m. Dr. Chas. Fleisher of Boston. Isaiah Temple, Forty-fifth Street and Vincennes Avenue, Jo- seph Stolz, Rabbi, 11 a. m. Address by Prof. H. C. Maitra of Calcutta. Church of the Redeemer, Warren Avenue and Robey Street, 11 a. m. Sermon by the pastor, Rev. A. Eugene Bartlett. Unity Church, Hinsdale, Rev. W. H. Spence. Sermon by the pastor. Abraham Lincoln Centre, Oakv^'ood Boulevard and Langley Avenue, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Minister, 11 a. m. Address by Edwin D. Mead. People's Liberal Church, Stewart Avenue and West Sixty-fifth Street, Rev. R. A. White, Pastor, 10:30 a. m. Sermon by the pastor. Afternoon : First Congregational Church of Evanston, Rev. W. T. McEl- veen. Pastor, 4:30 p. m. Rabbi Chas. Fleischer of Boston. Evening: Sunday Evening Club, Orchestra Hall, 168 Michigan Avenue, Clifford W. Barnes, Chairman, 8 p. m. Address by Rev. Charles F. Carter of Hartford, Conn. University Congregational Church, Madison Avenue and Fifty-sixth Street, under the auspices of a committee con- sisting of Prof. Tufts, and Revs. Helming, Ames and Pulsford, 8 p. m. Speakers: Edwin D. Mead of Boston and Prof. H. C. Maitra of Calcutta. Monday, November 14, 1910. Noon: Outlook Club, C. .A. Osborne, Secretary, at University Club, 7 Monroe Street, 12:30 p. m. Address by Prof. H. C. Maitra of India, and others. 20 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES Tuesday, November IS, 1910 Forenoon: Religious Study Class, Abraham Lincoln Centre, 10:30 a. m. Address by Mrs. Martha Parker Dingee, niece of Theo- dore Parker. Personal reminiscences. Evening : Sinai Temple, Indiana Avenue and Twenty-first Street, open- ing session of central program, 8 p. m.. Dr. Emil G. Hirsch, presiding officer. Addresses by the Chairman, Edwin D. Mead of Boston, on "The Higher Patriotism"; Prof. George B. Foster, University of Chicago, on "The Deeper Religious Life Necessitated in the Changing Order," and Rev. Charles Francis Carter, on "Theodore Parker's Doctrine of Human Nature." Wednesday, November 16, 1910 Forenoon: Hull House Auditorium, 800 South Halsted Street, Miss Jane Addams, presiding, 10:30 a. m. Speakers: Revs. Anna Garlin Spencer. "The New Center of Gravity in Philan- thropy: A Resume of the General Trend in Social Uplift Since Parker's Day," C. W. Wendte and others. Afternoon : Abraham Lincoln Centre, Oakwood Boulevard and Langley Avenue, vrelcomed by Jenkin Lloyd Jones, 2 p. m. Ad- dress by Lsaac Fisher, President Branch Normal Col- lege, Pine Bluff, Ark., "Has the Negro Kept Faith with Theodore Parker and the Other Brave Souls Who Suf- fered for Freedom's Sake?" Rabbi Heller of New Or- leans and Rev. Charles E. Beals, "Fifty Years' Growth Away from War." Evening : St. Paul's Universalist Church, Prairie Avenue and Thirtieth Street, Rev. Lorenzo D. Case, Pastor, 8 p. m. Rev. Charles W. Wendte of the Free Religious Association, presiding, will give the opening address on "Theodore Parker the Man, with Personal Reminiscences." Rev. William Sullivan of Kansas City on "Spiritual Message of Liberalism to Modernism." Dr. Frederick W. Hamil- ton, President of Tufts College. Reception to visiting friends and delegates in the chapel will follow. Thursday, November 17, 1910 Forenoon : Free for further planning. Afternoon : Abraham Lincoln Centre, Oakwood Boulevard and Langley Avenue, 2 p. m., Dr. R. A. White presiding. Speakers : Rev. Charles F. Dole of Boston, on "Theodore Parker and the Office of the Prophet in Modern Times." Rev. Joseph F. Newton of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on "Theodore Parker and Lincoln." Rev. Charles Fleisher, on "The Growth of Universal Religion." Y. M. C. A. of Northwestern University, Evanston, 4 p. m. Address by Edwin D. Mead. Evening: Auditorium Hotel, Michigan Avenue and Congress Street, 6:30 p. m. Banquet, Prof. George H. Vincent, toastmaster. Eminent speakers selected from above list, and others. Friday, November 18, 1910 Evening: Fellowship Club at Unity Church, Oak Park, 6 p. m. Speakers: Revs. C. W. Wendte and C. E. Beals. Frederick Douglass Center, 3032 Wabash Avenue, Rev. Celia Parker Woolley presiding, 7 :30 p. m. Reception to Isaac Fisher, President Branch Normal College, Pine Bluff, Ark. THE PROGRAM 21 Sunday, November 20, 1910 Afternoon : Frederick Douglass Center, 4 p. m. Rev. Isaac Fisher, speaker. Congregational Church, Winnetka, 4 p. m. Rev. Charles W. Wendte, speaker. THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES. 1810—1860—1910. i§xhtx at g»mitre Sunday, November 13, 1910. Organ Program— "Grande Offertoire in D" Batiste "Evening in the Mountains" Grieg "Angelus" Liszt (Mr. Edgar A. Nelson.) Anthem— "The Radiant Morn Hath Passed Away" Woodward (The Chorus.) DoxoLOGY — The audience standing. The Lord'.s Prayer — All uniting. Anthem — "The King of Love My Shepherd Is" Shelley (Mrs. Gannon, Wr. Green and the Chorus.) Scripture Reading — By Mr. Charles L. Hutchinson, Chairman Advisory Committee Theodore Parker Anniversaries. Prayer — By Professor Graham Taylor, Warden Chicago Commons Social Settlement. Anthem— "Even Me" Warren (Mr. Green and the Chorus.) Announcements — By the President of the Club. Offertory Solo— "Be Thou Faithful Unto Death" (St. Paul) . .Mendelssohn (Mr. John B. Miller.) Reading — Theodore Parker's Hymn, by Mr. Robert A. Woods, Head Worker, South End Settlement, Boston. Hymn 38— Hopkins O thou great Friend to all the sons of men. Who once appeared in humblest guise below, Sin to rebuke, to break the captive's chain. To call thy brethren forth from want and woe, — Thee would I sing: thy truth is still the light Which guides the nations, groping on their way. Stumbling and falling in disastrous night, Yet hoping ever for the perfect day. Yes: thou art still the life; thou art the way The holiest know, — light, life and way of heaven ; And they who dearest hope and deepest pray. Toil by the truth, life, way, that thou hast given. Theodore Parker, 1846. 22 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES Addresses — "Chicago's Tribute to Theodore Parker," Jenkin Lloyd Jones, LL. D., Chairman Executive Committee Theodore Parker Anni- versaries. "Theodore Parker's Theology and Vital Conception of Religion," Rev. Charles F. Carter, D. D., Park Congregational Church, Hartford, Conn. Benediction — By Professor Graham Taylor. Organ Postlude — . . . . "Canzonetta del Salvatore Rosa" Liszt (Mr. Nelson.) ®Ijf ®rrl|f 0tra ffall Mettin^ i^unbag Etirmttg, Nnnrmber 13.1010 THE ORCHESTRA HALL MEETING 25 Pastor of Park Congreeational Church, Hartford, Conn. THEODORE PARKER'S DOCTRINE OF HUMAN NATURE. Two chief reasons have led me to share this commemorative service. It is a pleasure to pay tribute to a religious thinker, who brought sincerity and conviction to his task and whose contribu- tion was vital and profound. Especially do I welcome this oppor- tunity, because, standing in another wing of the great Congrega- tional body, I look for the day when the schism of the past shall be done away in a view of religion large enough to embrace the truth and pure enough to avoid the errors on both sides of that unfortunate controversy. To-night, it seems wise to confine ourselves mainly to one section of Theodore Parker's teaching, in which lay his most vital contribution to religion, both as thought and life. The high- est tribute one can pay to any man is to embody his convictions m one's own life. This is the practical motive I would share with you to-night; not panegyric, but fellowship in thought and earnest purpose. One of the most important teachings of Theodore Parker was his doctrine of human nature. He believed that man is constituted to know God ; by knowing God he discovers the ideal of his own life; committing himself to that ideal, he attains real, genuine manhood. This was a vehement reaction against the current doc- trine of total depravity with all its blasting influence. Parker said, "When a little boy, I used to hear ministers say that the natural man did not love God, but I was sure the natural boy did." How fine the testimony to the sincere desire in the youthful heart for that relation, which was to prove, in after-life, the vital impulse both to his thought and character. This doctrine of normal man- hood presents a working faith of highest potency. The knowing God, of which he spoke, was not a speculative knowledge, but per- sonal and experimental. Parker was called "infidel" and "atheist," but few have been the men who could say with such strength of affirmation, 'T am very sure of God, as sure of him as of my own existence." The proof of this conviction is also within our souls. We may not prove the existence of God by a logical demonstration ; indeed, that is not the method on which to rely, but we may and do find the unmistakable witness of His presence within. We know Him in the divine quality that solicits our recognition and devotion. These words have meaning to every man: truth, justice, love. We know what it is to lie, to do a mean act, to be angry 26 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES and to hate. We know God is against these things. We know their opposites, and God is for them. Something in the universe, bigger than we are, yes, big as the universe itself, stands for truth, for right and good will, and stands thus forever. You and I know it. and that is the rock-bottom for faith. In man, thus capable of knowing God, Parker saw the dis- tinctive mark of his manhood. This meant that without the growth and mastery of this power, life, in its fullness, would never come. Man is not known to himself or to others until religion, this con- nection between himself and God, becomes the master-power. The old Greek thinker, Aristotle, helped Parker to this truth, yet you and I have known it in a hundred forms. The thorn-bush is culti- vated for the sake of the flower it will produce, and until we have the rose with its sumptuous beauty and fragrance, the bush itself is not justified. We plant the apple-tree for the fruit it may yield ; the cow is fed and sheltered that she may give milk ; the horse is groomed and trained for his speed. Unless each form of life de- velops the quality appropriate to it, it is rejected, while it finds its real value in the fullest development of these peculiar qualities. In similar vein, we estimate the worth of manhood in the distinc- tive quality which is spiritual. If this fails of development, then we must regard the individual as an instance of arrested growth and as a failure in complete manhood. Parker knew that this spiritual capacity was rudimentary. His view was no deifying of what we ordinarily call human nature. He did not loosely say that all men were divine. He recognized the capacity, but the capacity bore with it responsibility for use and development, and the capacity unused he would consider a reproach, rather than an honor. Nor was his an easy-going counsel to follow the course of nature. There is a truth in connection with this phrase that has often been seized in a sentimental way, robbing it of virility, perverting it almost into a lie, and missing the force of its real meaning. For the significance of it centers in the con- scious life, where man discovers the higher law of his being and by means of it begins to assume mastery over the lower and merely instinctive. This doctrine of religion as truly normal to the soul, is fitted to stir a man to an ennobling sense of responsibility. It is at the point of conscious recognition of truth as absolute, justice as com- manding, love and good-will as imperative, that we come in con- tact with God, and only in the determined eflfort to make these qualities prevail in ourselves and others do we really share the divine life. Parker was equally convinced that this spiritual germ and potency of life must and could be developed. To this high task he summoned men. His doctrine is altogether practical. It is level to the facts of our experience. We may begin right where we are and with what we have. Within the hour you will meet THE ORCHESTRA HALL MEETING 27 the summons to this higher life in God as surely as Saul ever met it on the Damascus way. A selfish desire may stir within your heart and athwart that desire you will hear a quiet voice, saying, "It is not right." Heed this summons to your soul. It is God calling you to come out and be a man. This truth we are considering is also weighty with imperative urgency and solemn with the power of reproof. It paints no pict- ures of a hell with torture, but it holds the mirror up to nature and cries "shame" upon him who unworthily bears His name. It affirms that men without the spiritual faculty developed and in use are unformed men, and if they grow strong in other ways, they are deformed ; without soul-power there is essential lack. This profound article of faith abounds in inspiration ; indeed it is the recognition that life provides for inspiration and that the inflowing of divine power is normal to the soul. God is with us and available for use. This is no fiction or dream of the imagina- tion, but the sober fact. For years, men had no doubt that the power of Niagara was capable of enormous work; the difficulty was in making the connection, but now the immense volume of that stream has been so harnessed that there is daily demonstration of its practical worth. Men have doubted about God, but the way to overcome the doubt is to make connection between the soul and Him. The point of contact is made in the sense of truth, of right and of love, and through these convictions the divine power be- comes available and operative. Truth and right and love are go- ing to win. Each one of us may help and may share the victory, or we may hold aloof, oppose and go down to defeat, for lying and deceit and selfishness are doomed to failure. Hence this doctrine of manhood carries the guarantee of ?. real success. When one has chosen this manner of life, he has be- come a full-fledged man and has determined his own progressive character. Here is the heart of the gospel written in the consti- tution of the universe and of man himself. God becomes a reality to you and me when on our side by deliberate choice we confirm the bond he has established between us. With the urgency of a real evangelist Theodore Parker pressed home upon men their re- sponsibility for the fulfillment of life in co-operation with God, While this message has its most direct bearing on the indi- vidual and the questions of his welfare, it is no less important in its social bearmg and for our industrial democracy. Everything at last comes back to the individual. All social problems are prob- lems of you and me. Better men and women, coming to our man- hood, are the real solvents of social trouble. The individual be- coming one with his brother, because he is already one in spirit with his God is the vital factor in all our needs. Only as we are sons of God is our brotherhood of any worth, for brotherhood de- pends on sonship, and cannot be a vital thing without it. The things that make a first-class world are honesty and justice and 28 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES good-will, and these spring from the soul of the individual. Here is the open secret of Utopia. Here is the task fit for the noblest. Thus does the central message of Theodore Parker confirm the great commonplaces of religion, which are also the great im- peratives of manhood, and the unfailing inspirations of life. His message opens to a great loyalty. His ancestor, Capt. John Parker, stood on Lexington Green and spoke the famous command, "Stand your ground ; don't fire until fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here." He embodied the spirit of those who are standing against oppression and injustice for the political liberty of mankind. In the same spirit, his descendant, resenting the tra- ditions that hampered the free growth of the soul, outraged by the imposition of outworn and antiquated ideas, stood with a cour- age as firm and a spirit as noble against the limitations of error, m order that he might liberate the soul in the atmosphere of truth to the glorious liberty of sonship under God. By the depth of his conception he newly defined our generic name. Let us open our dictionaries and write a fresh definition. What stands now against this term? "Man, one of the genus homo, a member of the human race." Write again, "man, a being who knows God and who undertakes to live a godlike life," and let us be content with no lower standard. There is this name by which each one of us is called. Let us read into it its true and amplest meaning. Let us exalt it as a sign and patent of nobility, dismissing the unworthy perversions of our nature, renouncing the easy way that may be specious but is spurious and half-fledged, and taking the royal way of discipline, of obedience, of self-con- quest and sacrifice, if need be, regarding this name, as Theodore Parker, apostle of the divine constitution of men, held it, as each one in his conscience knows it to be, and as God, the infinite Father, has graciously created and fashioned it. With all earnestness and energy and joy, let us strive in reliance on the power that worketh in each one to be a man. Sr. Smtl (g. iJlirarlj. PrrHtbing a^MMbag En^ ning, SJntiptnbrr 15. 1910 THE SINAI TEMPLE MEETING 31 Tuesday Evening Session, November 15, 1910 DR. E. G. HIRSCH, Presiding Dr. Hirsch : Friends, it is with more than pleasure that I welcome you to this house in the name of those to whom it has been very many years a spiritual homestead. Over our portals is the welcome uttered, from the unknown and great prophet of cap- tivity, "My house shall be a house of prayer unto all nations." The word "prayer" is not an exact rendition of the Hebrew word used by the prophet himself; the Hebrew term implies much more than the act of worship or of adoration or petition, suppli- cation, in the words of worship accented. Prayer, according to the underlying idea in the Hebrew world, is the humble realization on the part of man of a great and glorious work manifest in the Universe, and is also an expression of the kinship of man to that power of which the universe is the visible expression, and in that sense we have been trying here to be a house of prayer. We have been strongly in sympathy with all that makes for a nobler human- ity, the deeper appreciation of the unity of the race, and being in this sympathy, we felt that we were never out of harmony with the fundamental appeals of our religion which came to us by way of transmission from our ancestors. It may sound strange to many of you, and yet it is the truth, that with perhaps one single exception, Judaism has never known heretics, has never excluded them. There is no power that can brand any Jew to-day a heretic, and the only one that can bar a Jew from the fellowship of Judaism is the Jew himself. H he declares himself no longer to be one of that community, then in- deed he is perhaps looked upon as standing without — and even this is not so certain. The single exception was Spinoza, but those who excommunicated him had learned their lesson from others than the teachers of Judaism, they had come from Spain and they applied to the great thinker the methods of dealing with prophets of new thought copied from what they had seen al- most every day in the land that had expelled them. And, strange irony, after many centuries, two only, not so many, students of Jewish literature, developers of Jewish thought, discovered that never was there a better exposition of the universal conception of Judaism than had been given to the world by Spinoza, and that every one of his thoughts regarded as heretical had been antici- pated, in substance, by another Jewish thinker, who never was de- nounced as a heretic. 32 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES Therefore, in Judaism, Theodore Parker could not have been placed beyond the pale of the church. Of course in this tem- ple and also in every Jewish synagogue where there has come knowledge of the great life and the sacred motives of the life of this at one time lonely prophet of New England, his name is hon- ored in the estimation of those who heed his message, as one shining with that light of which the Good Book says, it shall not be eclipsed, but which shall shine on forever and aye. And so in the name of my congregation I bid you welcome; in the spirit we are made one, whatever may be the historical con- ditions that mark us. I am very glad that the first word of interpre- tation will be spoken by Mr. Mead of Boston, the great champion of universal peace, who has done so much service in the cause of civilization and of enlightenment. I take pleasure in presenting to you the first speaker of the evening, Mr. Mead, Boston, Massachusetts THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM Mr. Chairman and Friends : It is an auspicious thing that this meeting is held in this Jewish temple. I think it would have been peculiarly grateful to Parker himself. I could not but remember, as Dr. Hirsch spoke in his impressive way of honoring Parker, of the peculiar honor in which Parker held the Old Testament, which constitutes three-quarters of the Christian Bible. Some of you will remember that Parker, in his analysis of the Bible, dwelt specially upon the literary power of the Old Testament, which he pro- nounced greater than the literary power of the New. That was not only an illustration of Parker's freedom — it was an illustration of his critical discrimination ; because, however great the Christian may hold, however great I hold, the beauty of the New Testament revelation, I do feel with Parker that the literary power of the Psalms and of the Prophets is a power incomparable. I am glad that we meet to-night in this Old Testament temple. If Parker was a great religious teacher, he was also a great social reformer, a great politician, in the best sense of that term — a great citizen. Were he here, I suspect he would chide us for making any separation between the two, for implying — as in truth I do not mean to do — that the politician is not a part of the true religious teacher; and in this he could have found no other illus- tration so sublime as that of the old Jewish prophets. For it be- comes us always to remember that Isaiah and Jeremiah and Micah and Amos and all of that illustrious galaxy do not find their mod- ern analogies so much in the church, in the pulpit, as in Garrison THE SINAI TEMPLE MEETING 33 and Phillips and Sumner and Henry George, the great social re- formers of the time. Theodore Parker as a citizen and patriot it is of whom I have been asked especially to speak. As a patriot and citizen he would have found in his own Puritan ancestors, our New England fathers, another illustration of this same idea of the common province of politics and religion. The Puritan was not only a reformer in religion, he was a reformer in politics. Wherever Puritanism went in that great day, to Geneva, to Holland, to Scotland, to the English Cambridge, or into the American wilderness, it went to transform politics as well as religion. The Puritan meeting-house was the place where the Puritan prayed on Sunday and where he voted on Monday; religion and politics went, with the Puritan, hand in hand. And so it was with the Puritan, Parker. When one speaks of the higher patriotism of Theodore Parker, or the patriotism of any modern man, we remember that declara- tion of Emerson's that he almost hesitated to use the word "patriot- ism," because it is a term so much abused, its true sense being al- most the opposite of popular usage. "I hate," says Emerson — I quote from memory — "that boyish egotism which shouts itself hoarse for one party, for one state, for one town. True patriotism is the satis- faction which one feels in contributing one's own peculiar and legitir mate national advantage for the benefit of mankind." How does that definition comport with the "patriotism" over which in America, and in every country of the modern world, men still shout themselves hoarse — the satisfaction which one feels in contributing one's own peculiar and legitimate advantage for the benefit of mankind? That defines Theodore Parker's patriotism; that was his stand- ard, and the determining of what sort or degree our patriotism is depends upon our standard. The higher patriotism is, if you please, a problem in the "higher criticism." We use the word "criticism" too much in its aspect of censure. The critic does not simply cen- sure; the critic praises — and the wise and great critic generally praises more than he censures. Criticism is the application to any case of a high and true standard ; it is the determination of what is higher and what is lower; and as concerns patriotism it is the effort to hold the country to the higher, to hold it to what is truest and best in its ideals, and keep it from that lower thing to which it is always in danger of becoming degraded by the efforts of petty, passionate, ignorant and selfish men. The lower patriotism shouts itself hoarse over "My country, right or wrong," with a passion that throws the country into some false attitude and makes it wrong; and the lower patriot always shouts for the passion which has been aroused and becomes pre- dominant with the mob. The lower patriotism is a blind and obtuse patriotism which can never learn. It travels the world over simply to say everywhere "America is good enough for me." If it goes to 34 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES Berlin, to Zurich or Geneva it finds nothing- from which to learn how American municipal affairs can be better administered. If it watches English political procedure it sees nothing by which it should learn that this is, in very much, vastly more democratic than our own. It travels over the world with eyes blind to all things which remind it of any inferiority at home. That is the lower patriotism. It was not the patriotism of Arnold of Rugby, who said : "The measure of my love for every institution is the measure of my desire to reform and improve that institution." Emerson said : *'The good man will not obey the laws too well." Did he mean anarchy? Did he mean lawlessness? He meant that there is a higher law, an ideal high above every statute which up to date has been enacted, and that every man with higher ideals is constrained to discontent and to the work of leading his people upward into conformity with that higher ideal. 'Tn a bad state," Aristotle said two millenniums before, "the good man is a bad citizen." He meant that he is the citizen who is the accuser, who is the censor, who is unwilling to cry peace, peace, in a condition of things where peace is not the chief desid- eratum and where reform is the thing imperative. That was the attitude forever of Theodore Parker. If he some- times "went too far" — and concede that he did sometimes go too far, measured in cold blood — there are times possibly when most men who are in dead earnest suffer from inflammation of the con- science — a too rare disease — but if such as Theodore Parker ever do "go too far," it is because they are captured and led by the higher law with a mighty power. It was because Theodore Parker was on fire with the higher law that he rebuked Webster as he did in 1850. It was because he was captured and entranced by the higher law that Whittier wrote "Ichabod." By and by, in cooler blood, he made a certain atonement by "The Lost Occasion." But do we deplore the writing of "Ichabod" ? It was because he was entranced by the higher law that Emerson wrote of Webster, in awful severity, "Every drop of his blood has eyes that look down- ward." It was because all were so nobly sensitive, so desirous that the great Republic should be kept sensitive to the demands of the higher law, and our politics made to conform in some decent degree to our religion. It was because Theodore Parker was thus sensitive to the higher law, precisely because he was so good a patriot, because his vision of what this Republic ought to be was so lofty, that he was unwilling that we should be guilty of things which might more easily be overlooked in nations whose pedigree and principles were not so sacred and commanding as our own. The great sin of his time, the great wrong which peculiarly menaced then the fair name and the influence and moral life of the Republic, was the sin of slavery. To every time comes pecu- liarly some great and commanding cause ; and to his generation came the command to put a stop to man-selling, as to our own, as THE SINAI TEMPLE MEETING 35 Mr. Carnegie impressively said to a body of students the other day/ comes the command to put a stop to man-killing, "Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side. Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats upon the left hand and the sheep upon the right, And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light." Slavery, the war against slavery, was the issue which came to Theodore Parker's generation ; and it found Theodore Parker the most powerful of all men in pulpits — and I do not forget Henry Ward Beecher ; I do not forget William Ellery Channing — it found Theodore Parker the most powerful of all men in pulpits in oppo- sition to the great sin and wrong which gnawed at the vitals of the Nation's life. As Garrison fought slavery with the newspaper, and Phillips on the platform, and Sumner in the Senate, and Whit- tier in song, and Mrs. Stowe in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and John Brown on the scaffold, and Lincoln by and with the power of the State, so Parker above all men fought it in the pulpit ; and he left behind a great body of solemn arraignment of that terrible sin which is almost unequaled in its thoroughness, in its power, and in its statesmanship. You know well here in Lincoln's Illinois that it struck the note for Lincoln himself, in its moral power and in its precision. No other anti-slavery thinker, as one of your western scholars is showing us in new detail, affected Lincoln more deeply. It is impressive indeed to study those two volumes of Parker's anti- slavery sermons and addresses, now brought together in the new edition of Parker's works, which is the greatest monument to Parker in this commemorative time, and note their learning, their logic and their might. The great fight with slavery, in which as a patriot and as a religious teacher he took so conspicuous a part — in that fight with slavery he saw his country dragged into another of the great evils which still constantly menaces nations, the wrong with which we to-day are especially called upon to do battle — the frightful evil of an unjust war waged by a strong nation upon a weak. I say the commanding cause of our time is the war against war, as the commanding cause of Parker's and Lincoln's time was the war against slavery. And Parker had occasion not only to fight war in general, as a universal evil, but to fight it concretely and particularly in the iniquitous war of his own time — the Mexi- can war. Almost every one of those great anti-slavery men were valiant warriors in the war against war itself. Garrison declared that he felt that evil to be the greater and more pervasive of the two, and lamented that the exigencies of the time, commandmg his 36 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES absorption in the struggle with slavery, left him so little place to cope with it. It was in the war against war, and not in the war against slavery, that Charles Sumner began his public career, in his famous address in 1845 on "The True Grandeur of Nations." You remember Sumner said that the greatest service that the Springfield arsenal ever did for the United States was in inspiring that solemn poem of Longfellow's upon the shame of a condition that made it possible, almost two millenniums after Christ, that men should still have arsenals and be settling their differences with guns and swords, "Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the cost bestowed on camps and courts. Given to redeem the human mind from error. There were no need of arsenals and forts." Theodore Parker, the patriot, the lover of his country, the man who desired to make his country contribute of its peculiar and legitimate advantage to the benefit of mankind, launched his mighty word against that terrible evil also. As one reads Parker's address upon War, upon the everlasting menace of military despotism, upon the waste and wickedness, the injustice and the folly of war, the peace advocate to-day feels that he has almost no new thing to say, so thorough, so comprehensive and cogent is Parker's ad- dress. One needs to supplement the reading of that address, for- ever applicable in the war against war, with the concrete illustra- tion furnished by Parker's address at Faneuil Hall, in the midst of the Mexican War, when soldiers with guns and bayonets were stationed in the hall itself to watch for "treasonable" utterances. He went further even than General Grant went when, at the end of his life, he denounced that war, in which as an obedient soldier he had taken part, as one of the most iniquitous wars ever waged by a strong nation against a weak. It is the attack of a big boy upon a little boy, said Theodore Parker, and the worst part of it is that the big boy is a bully and the little boy is right. That is 'what he would have said had he been here ten years ago and found this great nation bullying the people of the Philippine Islands, struggling for their liberty and independence; he would have spoken the word needed in this time as he spoke the word needed in that. And nothing would have drawn his critical word more directly than the tendencies which we see all about us, unhappily in the United States as well as in Germany and in England, to make this century of ours, which should be the most enlightened and the most orderly and peaceful of centuries, that which is peculiarly distinguished by the burden of its monstrous and ever increasing armaments, I read in one of your Chicago papers yesterday an editorial article upon the guaranty of peace, in which the solemn deliverance was made that we had a great guaranty of peace — and that there THE SINAI TEMPLE MEETING 37 was in the long run no other — in the fact that we had a big navy and that it was now known well all around the world that tiie men behind our guns could shoot straighter than the men behind any- body else's guns ! Now, Theodore Parker would have told this newspaper that a great nation should find its chief defense — and should rely upon it — in enlightenment and in righteousness, in the confidence in its justice and good-will which it had solidly built in the family of nations. Said your newspaper yesterday : "There will be no war with Mexico because Mexico knows that it cannot face the United States." But England in 1895 knew very well that it was vastly superior to the United States, which had then prac- tically no navy at all. Yet there was no war, not because of any matter of better shooting or more guns and gunboats, but because both nations were reasonable nations and acted reasonably and like gentlemen. It was in the acting like gentlemen that Theodore Parker trusted in international relations, calling upon the United States, as a true citizen and as a patriot, for that thing; and we need to remember his strong service in the great cause of our own time, as we remember his strong service in response to the special Messiah of his time. In righteousness and justice he found the true safeguard of nations — in enlightenment and righteousness and education. I read with pleasure a little while ago the report of an im- pressive address by the able president of your Illinois University, upon the vital need of wiser and more generous provision for edu- cation in this nation. He called attention to the terrible lack of education among the negroes of the South, to the terrible lack of education among the poor whites of the South, and to the other pressing needs of education all through the United States ; and referring to the inadequate provision, he called attention to the startling figures that we are hearing now so often, although they have not yet stirred the country as they should to the depths, which reveal the fact that we are spending to-day seventy per cent of our national resources annually for military purposes, to meet the cost of past wars and of imaginary future wars, with but thirty per cent left to the nation for all its constructive purposes. The republic which is guilty of this waste and folly, and guilty also of such neglects in education, is standing on its head. It needs a Theodore Parker to say this with adequate energy and adequate wrath. Theodore Parker, among his many addresses bearing upon the political and social life of this country, gave none that were no- bler, none that were wiser, than those upon public education. In studying those addresses, one remembers the reinforcement which Parker gave to Horace Mann during Mann's great campaign in New England for better public schools. Like Mann, so Parker called attention always to the fact that there could never be a reali- zation of the gospel of democracy save as democracy is made and 38 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES kept enlig-htcned, intelligent and disciplined. Things will go on well for a time ; they will at least go on somehow, where men get some other man to exercise kingship for them, if that other man is royally educated ; but when people undertake to do their own kingship, then there must be royal training of the people to keep th^ leader and the led, who are one, from falling into the ditch. In facing our critical problems to-day, greater far than those which the Republic has faced before, we may yet turn profitably to the teach- ings of Theodore Parker in those noble addresses of his upon pub- lic education. We need to magnify the teachers and the scholars of the country. Parker's high definition of the function of the American scholar — the American Scholar was the subject of one of the noblest of his addresses, as it was also the subject of one of the noblest of Emerson's addresses, the first of his important ad- dresses, and the burden of both is the same — is based upon the scholar's great obligation. The scholar is in debt to his country and mankind for the invaluable things which have come to him, his sacred inheritance, the wisdom of the ages. The open and con- structive mind is the greatest gift and the greatest power which can come to the scholar ; to maintain such is his distinctive duty. It is upon the scholar, the student, the teacher, the man of thought, that Theodore Parker calls to redeem the time and to redeem the Republic. There is hardly any urgent cause which afifects society, which affects the Republic in our day as it affected it in his, for which Theodore Parker, in such addresses as those in the volume upon "The Sins and Safeguards of Society," does not furnish us the word that is still a solvent word and still necessary. We heard from the State of Washington the other day that by a vote of two to one it has been there decreed that women's rights in politics should from now on be recognized in that State. We shall hear more such news. When Theodore Parker lived, when he began his preaching in Boston — that was a time when not only did no woman's college exist in the world, when the higher education in any institution was not possible to woman, but when no girl could have a high school education in Boston. It was in that time, not in ours, that Theodore Parker gave his searching address upon the Public Function of Woman, which is still abreast of the most advanced thought of the day in the move- ment for the higher rights and duties of woman. There was an International Prison Congress in Washington the other day, and almost every word that was there spoken touch- mg the relation of punishment to crime was the same word that was spoken by Theodore Parker sixty years ago. So of his ad- dresses upon the mercantile classes, the laboring classes, the dan- gerous classes, the perishing classes. Among all these addresses, covering the problems of our own time still, none is more contem- poraneous than his admonition to the privileged mercantile classes, THE SINAI TEMPLE MEETING 39 with their strong and so often determining control in the church, in legislation, and in social life. He reinforced his gospel by the appeal to our noble past. Among his noblest addresses were those upon the great founders of the republic. The Englishman, Trevelyan, calls attention to the fact that in the early American congresses the four men of chief influence and power were Washington, Franklin, Adams and Jef- ferson — the very subjects of Parker's lectures upon "Historic Americans," though I hardly think that Trevelyan knew at all that they were the same men from whom Parker chose to draw lessons for the Republic to-day. He wished to have this Republic stand by its principles and become a missionary nation, carrying the principles of its founders, the principles of democracy, into every field whither the influence of the nation at this hour can go. I wish that every one of you might read again Parker's prophetic address upon the Destination of America, as you read again Emerson's Fortune of the Republic. When Li Hung Chang, the great Chinese statesman, visited this country, he went to Mount Vernon ; and as he came to the grave of Washington he knelt and in silence prayed, while his friends who had brought him there stood silently by. Long after- wards he was asked for what he prayed at the grave of Washing- ton, and he said he prayed that if the doctrine of reincarnation be indeed true, the next incarnation of George Washington might find its place and its influence in awakening China. Theodore Parker would tell us at this time, as China is stretch- ing out her hands to us, as Russia is in revolution, as the whole world is waking up under the pressure of larger problems and higher calls, that if we wish to see the fundamental principles of America ever reincarnated and brought to new power again and again in the world, then we must see to it that those principles are kept bright and strong in their pristine purity and virtue, that this country is kept worthy of its founders, true to their principles, and true to those high ideals which alone constitute a proper and a use- ful patriotism. 40 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES Doctor Hirsch : We shall listen to two more addresses, each calculated to be about twenty-five to thirty minutes. The next speaker certainly has a message to deliver in harmony with the spirit of our commemorative exercises. Prof. George B. Foster will talk to us now University of Chicago THE DEEPER RELIGIOUS LIFE NECESSITATED BY THE CHANGING ORDER. Nature has places and periods of storm. So has social and civil life. So has the human soul. You have observed the brew- ing and pilgrimage of a storm among the mountains. At first a troubled sky; clouds chasing each other. Then the winds descend and sweep along the mountain range. Solitary trees on the loftier ledges of rock bend and break. In a moment's time the storm is rushing and roaring in the depths of the forests, swaying the trees as the ocean a ship. You look again and it has plunged out into the open field, into orchard and grain, filling home and village with fear and awe everywhere ! So there are places and periods of storm in nature. In our human historic life you find the same. The first Christian community began in storm. It stirred the world up. It began with plain folk who had a living religious- ness. Next it began to interest scribes and priests. The waves broke against the walls of the temple and the palace of the high priest. Then the tide rolled out into the wide, wide world of the gentiles. The synagogues of Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor were agitated. The homes on the back alleys, the workshops of the cap- itals of Asia and Europe, occasionally the palaces of the nobility, were astir with the new life. Presently the movement reached the officials of the Roman state, and climbed the golden throne of the emperor, even. The ivhole ivorld had to take notice ! Every man, filled with the new spirit, showed that storm had arisen in his life — something neiv, a breach was experienced. Seized with a great new hope and imperative, he was strong enough to face the scorn and persecution of the world ; to welcome death for the sake of his cause. All this was something that the placid, cultured, clever folk could ridicule, but could not understand. All this was the most audacious, most radical thing that the world knew at that time. And the world said that these new people were crazy, atheis- tic; were conspirators against churches and states of historic peo- ples ; and the world soon found that crosses, and torches, and teeth of lions were good enough for these storm people, as they had ever been good enough for prophets of God, from of old. Every- THE SINAI TEMPLE MEETING 41 thing had been so tranquil and proper and regular in the churches of the old religion. Their priests punctually offered their offer- ings, their scholars learnedly interpreted sacred books and sacred oracles ; they enjoyed all sorts of theological controversies ; their vocation was piety just as yours might be law, or golf, or the mati- nee — controversies in which the people had as little interest as you have to-day — the poor, burdened, silent people — the people needing and craving a kingdom of God that did not consist in cult and theological harangue, but in power, truth and spirit. And the need, the craving was met. Suddenly — it was storm — some common men from the com- mon people — men with a living religion, strode through the land. Untheologically, clumsily often, but always masterly, they told what they had experienced ; what filled and fired them. Men heark- ened and a fellozvship of the spirit of the living God arose. In- stead of a dead church-and-Bible religion, a personal, living re- ligion ! God became a living, progressive, rejuvenating reality to them. And in the new spirit, men became brothers. A new com- posite community arose from the most diverse and antagonistic elements — bound together in the new brotherhood. The Master sat down at a feast of love with the slave; the pure woman sat beside the outcast; the philosopher associated with the artisan that could not read or write. One language, one spirit. A new spirit wove all the vari-colored threads — prepossessions of sex and race — wove and interwove athwart all previous unions and boundaries and schisms — into one web of a higher, holier and human life — such, ever, has been the way of the spirit. Wherever it blows, there are times of storm, the tongue of flame, the speech which all understand — the spirit which unites all who are of good will. Theodore Parker was a man of storm. Aye, he could say with old Ossian, "I am alone and on the hills of storm !" With his Leader of old he could cry: *T am come to kindle a fire upon the earth; I am come to root out every plant my heavenly Father hath not planted ; I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished. To this end was I born and for this cause am T come into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth." What did Theodore Parker want? Back of everything else what is the meaning of that tumultuous spirit which burst like an apocalypse upon an inert and stormless church and society? It meant deepest of all a violent sundering from the dead God of his day, for gods die as well as men. It meant, next, the radical re- lease of personality from all the fetters of the strong living codes of a provincial and petty morality which tithed ecclesiastical and civic mint, anise and cummin, but neglected the weightier things of the law — justice and judgment and faith. It meant the growth, the release, the sovereignty of the individual soul over against a 42 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES mass of religion. It meant new standards for discrimination be- tween right and wrong. With his new God and new man, both the God and the man democrats, he saw that the black man was man too. With his sense of the worth of personality, with his demo- cratic God and democratic man against the old monarch with his elect saints and subjects, there could be no special privileges as an ideal for Theodore Parker — but there could be man's finest and highest dream, the spiritual freedom of the indivilnal within the common brotherhood of all men. In one sense the foe of rebellion, yet, on account of the great insurrection of his inner life against the letter that kills, against stupid and dead externalities, on ac- count of his sovereign proclamation of the eternally personal, Theodore Parker was the great rebel of his age. He unleashed a mighty dynamic. He was a man of storm. He lunged against the old order as Voltaire did against the Middle Ages, and each, storm- like, foreshortened the collapse of the old, probably a whole cen- tury. Each was the genius and apostle of disrespect ; to each re- spectability was the one disgrace ; popularity the only perdition — unlike as the two men were in so many ways. You ask: Are such virtuosos of the iconoclastic art a blessing to humanity? Of course that depends upon the man and the age. In a given period the deposit and debris of prejudice and precon- ception may be piled up so high that there is need of some Hercu- lean power to clean out the Augean stables of the reactionary and the obsolete. When current opinions are wilting, widespread forms of faith decaying, worm-eaten institutions mouldering, then it is a painful thing to see the branches of the existing culture-system slowly shed its leaves. But a violent storm comes and sweeps away over night what has already had its day and ought to be out of the way. And we welcome the hurricane — those great personali- ties whom the philosopher Hegel called the beacons of the human race, who frequently rise up with the violence of a hurricane. No melancholy transitions filling the atmosphere with cadaverous odors for them — your Henry Ward Beechers, your Wendell Phillipses, your William Lloyd Garrisons, your Theodore Parkers ! But we, we to-day? Storm and fire are not necessary any more, perhaps? There is no conflict any more between the Eter- nal Spirit and status quo, perhaps? Ah, my friends, we know that this is not so. Scarcely a year passes that the war-cloud does not darken some sky and the roar of the cannon shake some con- tinent. Mammon still lays its deadly hands upon the bodies and souls of men. Unnatural and inhuman conditions of modern life are scarcely second to the rottcnest era of old Rome. In ever new forms the war between master and slave billows back and forth in every modern city. To-day still, the simplest truths of the eternal gospel fight for their existence in head and heart. THE SINAI TEMPLE MEETING 43 Ought there not to be storm and fire — the venturesome ends of moral knighthood? Disquietude in the presence of the squalor and misery and wrong of the world? But let me specify. There is our religious and ecclesiastical condition. Think of our sectarianism. It is an open secret that it has no right light and no right truth any more, because the pre- suppositions out of li'hich it arose in those old days no longer exist; because those old controversies either have been disposed of, or have been left behind; and the new day with entirely ne^y battles is before us. But what do we see? Instead of drawing the proper conclusions from this, namely, give up the old, and adapt ourselves to the new work — instead of doing this we act as if the dead were still living, cherish the old partisanism, and even aggravate it on all sides. How miserable our ecclesiastical and religious life has become in this way ! The secret competition of tendencies and clergymen, which ripens such sorry fruit; the stupid separation of the congregations that ought to be together ; the influence of very worldly and selfish factors upon the innermost things of life; the corruption which partisan ambition leads to — what is so needful as that we should repent of these things ? The pettiness and feebleness of ecclesiastical life, alternating with professional and periodic re- vivalism, which, like the vice of which Robert Burns sings, is sure to "harden all within and petrify the feelings" ; the humiliation which often now attaches to the ministerial office — who does not grieve over these things ? More violent storms are going to break upon our church and religious life if these things are not settled, and settled right. And we must become greater men in order that we may meet the issues and cope with them. The world is too full of deep problems and dangers to have time any more for the petty and miserable anxieties and quarrels which once consumed so much time and strength. We must become greater men for the sake of the greater tasks which God sets us. We must have done with all sorts of old things which seem important to us — first of all, leave our old opinions to one side, and hearken to the living God ! We must do this ; orthodox, liberal, Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Gentile — hearken to God. and know that all the things in life that are most worth while — the deepest and best things — are precisely the things that we cannot quarrel about. Some year or two ago I attended a church gathering where they were ordaining a young man to the Christian ministry, and the preachers were examining him as to his qualifications to be a prophet of God to his generation. And what did they ask him? Do you believe that Adam was an histor- ical person? Do you believe that Moses wrote the Pentateuch? Do you believe in the virgin birth of Jesus? Did Jesus walk upon the water and turn water into wine? Do you hold the dictation theory of inspiration ? and the like. Why Satan, if there be a Satan, could have answered all those questions in the affirmative as this young man was required to answer them, and be a Satan still, for 44 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES all that! Nothing to stir a man's blood there; petty, sorry side issues. To save your life you could not worship a God whose inter- est was in such things. To save your life you cannot imagine Jesus Christ, the man of the Cross, preaching a sermon on close com- munion, or immersion, or infant baptism ; and Paul cried, "Circum- cision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but faith that worketh by love" — and he spoke definitive truth ! And our age is as tremendous as theirs — gigantic tasks and problems are knocking at the church door for admission ; a new world is in birth throes ; thun- derous storms hang and peal in the heavens ; strange, wild, fearful thoughts confuse human spirits ; millions of human souls sigh in uncertainty concerning the supreme issues of life ; others are might- ily moved by religious yearnings and are aglow with vast infinite hopes. Not cult, but character; not rubrics, but righteousness; not belief in miracles, but bravery in morality ; not persistence in the dead formulas of dead peoples, but Theodore Parker's fire and storm — this is the purpose and the passion of our new day ! There simply has got to be more truth and life in our churches, or the really religious people will repudiate the churches. Christianity as traditionally taught among us is not taken seriously any more by serious people. The great revolutionary heroic truths of the proph- ets, of Jesus and his gospel — what has become of these in our mod- em life? We cannot, like them, be simply hunmn in our religion; we want to be orthodox, or liberal, or some other brand. Parties come in between God and the soul, and religion goes out. Then — greater men, that is God's call to us! I will keep you but a moment longer, as I specify one other matter only. I refer to those who are most upset by the signs ol the times. I refer to the panic among our rich people. I do not now inquire as to how much cause the rich have to be disquieted. Still, I do not believe that the revolutions toward which we are forging ahead mean sudden and violent catastrophes — expropria- tion of property owners and the like — these are ghosts begotten of fear and ignorance. But I do believe that the kingdom of mam- mon is on trial for its life. The unequal distribution of this world's goods is the one arch crime of our social Ife. And mighty convul- sions are in store for those who possess this world's goods. But what shall they do? Part with half of their goods, perhaps? We would not hinder him who would do that ! But only one thing can we surely say: Whoever belongs to the property class, let him make his soul free from possessions. Let him accustom himself to the thought of living without them. Let his heart not be fettered by them. But this is true not simply for those who are rich in money. It is true of culture, of outer position of life, and like goods. We all do well not to depend so much on such things. Who knows whither the storms and waves of coming revolutions could carry us? We must be free from this luggage of life, for we may be suddenly called upon to pitch our moving tents a day's THE SINAI TEMPLE MEETING 45 march nearer home. Ours is a time for Paul's solution ag^in : I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound. We must be sure that, should the test come, we are not only not dependent upon our money, our business, our houses, but also not upon our books, our offices, our culture, our esthetic requirements ; that we treasure these things indeed, but do not have our lives in them ; that we know better values in which we rest. If we have thus cast aside i.he unnecessary baggage in thought, have armed ourselves with the pilgrim's staff of the eternal goodness; if we have thus become free, then we may confidently go forward. Confidently forward with God ! Yes, with God ! Firmly and clearly with God ! The genius of religion is forever revealed in the sovereign words: The Eternal God is thy dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms. In such a time as ours we need above all else to find God ! Not the God of comforta- ble Sunday meditations, who is often only an esthetic God ; not a thought-God, or sentiment-God who does not rule life, but the God of reality, on whom we can build our lives in bitter ear- nestness. In the deep and the dark, in the pathless and plumbless future, in judgment and humiliation, God is with us. There will be not merely loss and shame and terror; there will be joy, hope, fresh life. Already we are beginning to leave industrial hatred and greed behind us ! The cult of the ego, sensuality, pseudo-culture and pseudo-civilization, we are beginning to leave behind us. We are moving away from pettiness of the pattern of life, from super- ficial morality and lifeless religiosity — away from all those things are we moving to a brave search for truth, an earnest warfare ; to living ideals, and fresh hopes that souls can become free for God. How good it is that even danger and daring are ours once more, as they were Theodore Parker's ; that the heroic in man, so long a sealed fountain, can break forth again. Then joyously forward with God: New occasions teach new duties ; time makes ancient good uncouth ; They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of truth ; Lo ! before us gleam her camp-fires ! we ourselves must pilgrims be ; Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea ; Nor attempt the future's portal with the past's blood-rusted key ! Doctor Hirsch : May we stand firmly upon the elaborate heights to which the speaker has led us. We will have the pleasure now of listening to an address by the Rev. Charles F. Carter. 46 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES Park Congregational Church, Hartford, Conn. THEODORE PARKER'S THEOLOGY AND VITAL CONCEPTION OF RELIGION. It is good for a man who has been under fire and who has borne the fire well, to speak of another man who also was under fire sixty years ago, and when a man speaks out of his heart prophetic words such as we have just heard from Professor Foster, it is really time for the benediction — time to meditate and take home to our hearts the thing that has been said and out of our hearts to put it into life. While my friend, — I was going to call him — although I never saw him before tonight — yet I have known what he has been do- ing and writing, and I do dare to call him friend in the atmosphere of this spirit, — while he has dwelt somewhat on the vigorous war- fare that Theodore Parker waged, and while we recognize the need and effect of it in the regeneration of men, our great pur- pose and work in this commemoration is not only to praise him for what he did, but also to liberate the spiritual power and princi- ples that he maintained. While they are winning their way, they have never yet had a fair chance ; never yet, I think, with all the progress of the last generation, have they come to the point of supremacy that is their due in the religious consciousness of our time. For there is power in them. Parker is not to be praised simply because he had courage and because he was a radical ; he is scarcely to be praised at all because he was a liberal, as we so often say. I am somewhat jealous for the integrity of the message of Theodore Parker. He was called an infidel, an atheist. Those terms were farthest from the truth and would be ridiculous if they were not so outrageous, for he does not open by his attitude toward religion, any consort with those who take religion in an easy-going fashion. There is no comfort to the agnostic, save as Theodore Parker leads him out of his agnosticism. He is not properly to be called a humanitarian in the technical sense of that term ; he is humanitarian enough in the broadness of his sympathies and the work that he sought to do for men, but he is not a humanitarian in the technical sense that the motive of his religion was prompted chiefly by human needs. His motive in religion was prompted by the love of God. ruling in his own heart. He is a humanitarian in the flower and the fruit of his religion, but in the root of it he comes out from God. And this seems to me so important that you will let me emphasize it still farther by reference to a clause here in the prospectus ; not taking any improper exception to it, for I know the spirit in which it was written. It speaks of him as "a prophet of civic righteous- ness, economic justice and the universal brotherhood in which his i>prakrrs 1. Rahbi Max Heller 2. Anna (Iarland Spencer 3. Rev. Chas. F. Dole 4. Rev. Joseph F.Newton 5. Celia Parker Woolley 6. Rev. Charles F. Carter 7. F. C. Southworth THE SINAI TEMPLE MEETING 47 contentions were rooted." His contentions were not rooted in uni- versal brotherhood : they were rooted rather in the Fatherhood of God, and those convictions show their reahty and their force and their worth by coming out in service to the universal brotherhood of man. What I am seeking to impress is this, that Theodore Parker, in his thought and conviction of religion, was full-orbed as few men have ever been. He had a thorough-going philosophy. He was not stopping in the resort of wearied or baffled intellects, those halfway houses of Pragmatism or Ritschlianism. He was a man who could think, a man who entered into the meaning of the uni- verse as it was given him to have seen it, and who carried on every page of his writing and into every hour of his utterance this full-orbed conviction of the truth. I must not do what with fuller time I would like to do, give a brief outline in exposition of his religious thinking and theology. The existence of God was to him as sure as that of his own selfhood. In this he had kinship with Hegel. The idea of God was a necessity of thought just as the existence of God was nec- essary to life. Then the great moral imperative that so commanded his soul interpreted the practical and vital relation between God and the human soul. Here he had kinship with Kant, and one of the wonders about his capacious intellect was that taking in such a wide range of human thought, he did not forfeit his own independence and originality, while he never indulged in specula- tion for its own sake, but kept peering into the truths of the Al- mighty and His universe, in order that he might live better and help men to live better. His doctrine regarding man, the most vital thing that he con- ceived, held that the soul is fitted for God and may receive the divine life and because of that empowering may do Godlike deeds and make this world a paradise. If Theodore Parker had been asked to meet one of our eccle- siastical councils to-day, not one such as our friend has referred tO; but such an one as I was called to meet two or three weeks ago, I am sure he would have put these two classifications of faith into his statement of belief, regarding the existence of God and the capacity of the human soul, and then I think he would have been sure to say that vital religion rested upon the exercise of this germinal potency of man by which he could lay hold of God and thus become Godlike. Then he would have wanted to say some- thing in the way of negation. It is not identification with the church that will make you religious, not worshiping the Bible, not even worshiping Jesus Christ in outward and formal fashion. None of those things that interfere with the personal man coming into contact with his Divine Father will make a man religious, but he must develop in himself this power of direct and immediate com- munion. He would recognize the greatness of Jesus Christ and 48 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES his exalted leadership. References I must not delay to give, but you all have met them in his writings, showing that there is no form of religious truth, or even religious error, but has met the spiritual need of the man out of whom it earnestly came. In his essential thought Theodore Parker was tolerant to all the limited truth and error of the past. I could give quotation after quota- tion to substantiate that position ; but the thing against which he was violent was the error and the limited truth that in the present kept withholding the spirit of man from its fuller development. Another essential vein in his teaching I can find no better words to characterize than the spirit of a true evangelism. He pressed home the truth which he conceived to the soul of every man and he wanted decision in favor of that truth. That is the heart of a vital evangelism throughout all time. Knowing truth and believing in God does not result in spiritual life. It is man knowing the divine will for himself and saying, I will build my life on that ideal. Theodore Parker liberal ! The word is almost a misnomer. In this fellowship I am glad to stand, and have stood for many years, but of Theodore Parker I would rather say that he was a great radical and that in spirit he was an exactor of righteousness, as was Amos of old, an exactor of righteousness for the individual life that it might become Godlike, and then an exactor of righteous- ness for the entire community, that by means of the life and service of such individuals our human conditions might be transformed and made splendid with the Divine life. He was a mariner, bold to adventure out from the shore, not guided by the headlands of tradition, but sending his bark out into the open sea, relying on the stars to guide him and the compass in his soul ; and the words of Whitman, splendid as they are, seem to me in point as we do honor to this man to-day: "Away, oh Soul, hoist instantly the anchor ! Cut the hawsers, haul out, — shake out every sail ! Sail forth ! Steer for the deep waters only, Reckless. O soul, exploring, I with thee and thou witii me. For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go. And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all, O my brave soul ! O further, further sail ! O daring joy, but safe ! Are they not all the seas of God !" This navigator, prophet of the soul, sailed the seas in faith, and he brought to port a cargo of spiritual convictions and aspira- tions for you and me to use. The choir of Sinai Temple rendered several beautiful selec- tions during the evening. After the benediction, pronounced by Doctor Hirsch, the meet- ing adjourned to Wednesday morning, November 16, 1910. misH Hans Abftama, PrfBt&ing HpJinw&ag Morning, "^awmbn Ifi, ISIQ THE HULL HOUSE MEETING 51 i^uU 1^0110^ ilMtn$ MISS JANE ADDAMS, Presiding Miss Addams: Will the meeting come to order? As this meeting is but one in a series that are being held in Chicago this week sacred to the memory of Theodore Parker, I am sure I need not add my tribute to that great man. I am very happy that one of these meetings occurred at Hull House and shall always be glad to think of this association with this place. The first speaker this morning is Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer, whom we all have associated with Rhode Island and New York, but who happily has come now to Milwaukee for at least a few months of every year. She has come down this morning to ad- dress us. While her theme seems remote, it is after all not re- mote, as she will interpret it, I am sure, for after all Theodore Parker was connected with all reforms. Abir^flH bg S^n. Atttta (^arltn ^i^mttx THE NEW CENTER OF GRAVITY IN PHILANTHROPY; A RESUME OF THE GENERAL TREND IN SOCIAL UPLIFT SINCE PARKER'S DAY. Madam Chairman and Friends: In talking over with Mr. Jones the topic of my little talk this morning, it seemed to me right and commended itself to him, to consider the social value of various changes that have occurred since Theodore Parker's leadership was with us with voice and pen, as a point on which we could com- bine Theodore Parker, the leader in the field of religious idealism and Theodore Parker, the leader in certain great reforms. His leadership in religious idealism will be celebrated everywhere, but perhaps the connection between his general usefulness in the social movement of his own time and the kind of leadership that is called for at the present day is not quite so apparent. The phrase, "The new center of gravity in philanthropy" is one to which we can attach some of these points of change since Parker's day. The idealism that results in practical service for mankind, in whatever field, has changed in its philanthropic aspect within one hundred and fifty or two hundred years, in the most radical man- 52 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES ner. We inherited in Christian civilization an ideal of charity, as an act for the benefit of the giver, rather than the receiver. All of our Middle Age writings, all our inherited institutions indicate that charity was considered "an act of piety" for the spiritual ben- efit of the giver. The old poet — "near-poet," not quite a poet — who gave us so many sidelights upon the 17th century summed it all up when he said : "Then give freely to all without any regard, Though the beggars be wicked thou hast thy reward." It is within ten years that I myself heard a great prelate of a great church standing on the platform of a charity organization society at its annual meeting, regret that the words "abolish poverty" were used as parts of the objects of the organization, for, he said, "If there were no poor to care for, where would be the discipline of the saints?" Now, we have traveled far from that. Perhaps the next step was the very natural step of human sympathy that led us to think that it is not after all of so much account whether or not souls are benefited by the gift, but rather whether the condition of the re- ceiver is benefited ; and we entered into that great humanitarian era when the words were taken literally, "Give to him that asketh of thee and from him that would borrow of thee turn not away." Then came the great disciplinary era growing out of the evils springing from indiscriminate giving and its development of pauperism. Pauperism developed not only from social conditions of the time, but by reason of unwise philanthropy ; this, in reaction, led to the era of restraint and harsh treatment of beggars and the "poor," which made the word "charity" a stench in the nostrils of many social reformers, as it is even to-day. That sort of movement in charity, disciplinary and educational, but chiefly disciplinary, is that which John Boyle O'Reilly char- acterizes when he speaks of "that organized charity skimped and iced, in the name of a cautious, statistical Christ." Passing rapidly from that period into the truly educational, we had an era exemplified by Chalmers and Barnett of London and by many of the workers in this country (perhaps its most gracious exponent is Josephine Shaw Lowell), when the one per- son who had aught to give, gave to another who needed to receive, in the simplest social sympathy, but all acts of benevolent impulse governed by an intelligent understanding of the real needs of the person to be benefited. This is the era of the enlightened "organized charity" that John Boyle OT^eilly and others have over- looked or misunderstood. From that we have passed rapidly in this country to the period of the study of the causes of human misery and to the attempt to remove these causes. I bring this review, which is familiar to you all, to mind THE HULL HOUSE MEETING S3 this morning, that we may realize a little more how far we have moved since Theodore Parker's time in the central and overmas- tering pressure of social ideals upon all philanthropic and educa- tional movements. Theodore Parker lived and worked in that last great reform founded upon the eighteenth century movement for individual hu- man rights. The anti-slavery conflict has been called "the last great social movement to use for its weapons Scripture texts."' It may as truly be said, I think, that it was the last great social movement, in this country at least, to found itself quite clearly and definitely, and almost exclusively upon this eighteenth century doctrine of the equality of human rights. Directly following that great movement, certain changes in our industrial order, great openings of new vistas along social and educational lines brought into all our social movements quite other elements. But in the anti-slavery conflict we had a clear struggle for the rights of man. In the beginning of the movement for the equality of rights between the sexes, we had just such a foundation of principles. I say it with some hesitation, but perhaps the belated nature of this reform in respect to women's rights, (belated as contrasted with other elements in the woman movement), is due to the fact that it was founded upon a theory of reform, a central idealism which is at present somewhat in eclipse, if not outgrown, Theodore Parker forever thundered reform, and personal re- sponsibility for bad conditions was so clear a factor to him that he could condemn individuals as well as conditions. If you will excuse a little personal recollection, — when I made my maiden speech in the field of woman suffrage in Tremont Tem- ple in Boston (pushed out of the nest too soon by my god- mothers in reform, Elizabeth Buffum Chase and Lucy Stone) — in a meeting presided over by James Freeman Clarke, I ventured to say in my paper that "we make no war upon oppressors but upon oppression," whereupon I was promptly rebuked by the chief figure on the platform, William Lloyd Garrison, who indicated that we had reached a dangerous period when we minimized personal re- sponsibility. He said in effect that I should have to learn soon if I were going to be the right kind of reformer, that the slave- holder knew that he was doing wrong when he held a human being in slavery, and therefore he was to be made war against as an oppressor. And he added that the man who arrogated rights to himself which he did not freely and fully grant to his sister woman, knciv that he was an oppressor, and that he therefore sinned against the light. I mention that to show that the attitude of the reformer changed soon after we lost in this country the great leadership of Theodore Parker, and we have been separating the oppressor from oppression ever since ; we have been more and more throwing the responsibility for bad conditions upon society at large, ourselves included, whether we voluntarily sin or not. 54 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES To-day all are considered guilty rather than one great malefactor, whether in one field of wrong-doing or another. It is now diffi- cult to find a scapegoat for the sins of the whole social body. Theodore Parker had not only moral zeal, but, for the ora- tor, that greatest of all advantages, he did not need to pick and choose his words ; he could fire away at the sin and at the sinner with no hesitation at all, and that is a great advantage in stirring the souls of men. That was what made, as has been said, "eloquence dirt cheap on the anti-slavery platform." They never had to pick and choose words lest they should do injustice to the in- dividual; they could swing out into great emotions and get their reaction then and there. We now have to measure and weigh our words more carefully, and lose in consequence much oratorical power. Theodore Parker also was at work for human betterment along philanthropic lines. His day and generation was the time when the great New England renaissance, the transcendental movement, was giving the prophetic dream of a new human society. You know it was along in the early '50s that Emerson said, "This is an age of multitudinous reforms. Every third man you meet carries the ground plan of the New Jerusalem in his pocket." It was an era when what we may call the adolescence of American democracy on its spiritual side was in the full tide of vivid experience. It was an age in which it could be asserted with full confidence that "Every soul has immediate access to the divine," not in the little by-paths and small areas of philosophy and religious experience but pervading all life. Among the leaders of that time Theodore Parker stood firm in the acclamation of that attitude, the access of each human soul to the divine, and thus we gained the most splendid prophecies, the least immediately realizable state- ments of that great epoch of human experience. It gave appre- ciation of the worth and dignity of man, and of the capacity for development in each human being, that led to the movement for popular education which the intimate associates of Parker were leading, and in which he was in entire sympathy. It was thought then that if you could free everybody from the bonds of oppression, and if you could open the schoolhouse door to everybody, that all would enter into the birthright of conscious himian relationship with all that is finest and best. That dream has proved hard to work into the fundamental operations of human life; but that we had a group of people who could dream that dream and dream it so vitally, that, as with the imaginative child, the dream could almost seem demonstrably a fact, is the reason we are able to get a little nearer to it as a realization to-day. But that educational movement, how changed since then ! It was thought then that if you could start this universal culture along the lines of pedagogic theory and practice then held, that was all that was necessary — every one could be truly educated. THE HULL HOUSE MEETING 55 Now we know that the education devised for the few, for certain classes with a Hmited range of vocational activity, must be radically changed to meet the needs of all the people engaged in the multiplicity of activities that are now the common lot. It is easy to say, open the schoolhouse door; make education free. It is difficult, very difficult, to make the education inside the schoolhouse a fit and adequate training for a democratic people. Again, Theodore Parker once said, "The business of the min- ister in Boston is to find employm.ent for poor women out of work." He might have said poor men and women out of work. Theodore Parker's message came when we were just beginning our new in- dustrial order, with no realizing sense on the part of any one, ap- parently, upon what vast social changes we were embarking. It was one's duty then to help the individual to a readjustment of conditions, to help the person who had been trained in general use- fulness, if possible, to be specially useful in some particular field. It is a noble picture of self-sacrifice that we get when we think of Theodore Parker's study, in which he was doing such great things for literature and for the religious life, but where he was besieged night and day by individuals needing individual aid. How generously he responded, at the cost perhaps of his life itself, because no human being can be the greatest leader in some one direction of pioneer thought and be forever spending time and strength in helping individual lives here and there, with- out enormous expenditure of strength. The effort to do that im- possible thing was probably the reason why we lost Theodore Parker so young — one reason at least. But what is the problem resting upon us now in connection with the non-employment of people? We are beginning to use the larger, impersonal term "unemployment." To-day it is not because A, B, C and D or E, F, and G are out of work that our deepest troubles come upon us, it is because of a great mal-adjustment in the economic world ; so that it is not alone to-day the business of the leader in social reform to help A, B, C and D, E, F and G to work-places (though that is still our duty), but it is our duty also to bring aljout a change somehow in the industrial system so that it will not be so easy for A, B, C and D or E, F and G to drop out of the industrial class into the pauper class, the dis- couraged down-and-out. Again, when Theodore Parker talked about philanthropy it self — I wish I could remember to repeat the language he used in inspiring the philanthropic spirit, where he stirred up the church to a realizing sense that it has not alone to talk good and feel good, but to act good and act the right sort of goodness that the church should insist upon. But when he took hold of that sub- ject, how different were the conditions to what we have to-day! The educational impulse that came out of the heart of that mag- nificent effort enabled Dr. Howe, Gallandet and the rest to take 56 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES hold of the needs of special classes, to introduce special elements into the care and education of the feeble-minded, for instance. It was the renaissance in New England ; it was the new growth upon that new soil of the humanistic movement which was embodied in Pestalozzi, who said in dying, "I have lived like a beggar in order that beggars might learn to live like men." That is the element which came into our movement on this side of the water for free education and for the education of all, even the least and worst of humanity. When Horace Mann was asked why he had sacrificed his great prospects as a lawyer, why he had sacrificed all luxuries and most comforts of life in order to serve the cause of free education in Massachusetts, he said, "Because I believe in the infinite improv- ability of the human race." That was the same spirit that entered into Dr. Howe and so many other social helpers of the time. When Dr. Howe began to apply that spirit to the education of the feeble- minded, he applied it with the fervor of the thought that "the idiot himself might lose the stamp of the beast from his forehead and stand up erect as a man." This early hope in regard to the care of the feeble-minded has passed from our vision. Later, one of our great leaders in that work, Dr, Kerlin, has said, "We cannot, as was thought in the beginning, educate all feeble-minded to be normal human be- ings ; we cannot unlock their doors ; but if we can make one third of them one-third normal human beings, we are satisfied to work." It was the same way with the care of the insane. When Dorothea Dix made her wonderful pilgrimage, which revolution- ized the care of the insane, she and all her kind felt — so marvel- ous was the effect upon the insane of kindness and the right sort of physical and mental surroundings — that insanity was a pass- ing disease, largely brought about by neglect and cruelty. But we are not in that same optimistic condition of mind now in regard to insanity. We know much of it is incurable and its treatment and prevention most difficult. It is the same way with all the other elements of defectiveness and degeneracy that we find in modern human life. We have be- come sober ; we are no longer in the adolescent period when noth- ing in the universe seems too hard to do within the next five years ; we are no longer in the period of prophecy and high hope that leads us to feel that now we have arrived, this old world will hustle and do the thing we want it to do. We are in the drudgery of slow constructive reforms. But without that vision and that optimism and that magnificent self-assertion and belief in the power of the human soul, we could not now be engaged in the work which lies before us with adequate courage. We have reached a quite different mind regarding the social causes of individual dci^cncracy. They have come closer to our con- sciousness. The social reformer does to-day exactly as I believe THE HULL HOUSE MEETING 57 Theodore Parker would do if he were living. He places the chief responsibility for the disorders of society upon society in general. I do not believe, however, that if Theodore Parker were here to-day his splendid religious idealism would be submerged as is the religious idealism of so many of our social reformers. I be- lieve he would, if living, venture a definition of human progress which would match his definition of God. "God," says Theodore Parker, "has no limitation, none of personality, none of imperson- ality." May I venture with all modesty to say that I wish as great a voice, to be heard by as many people, to be echoed down the years as his has been, could now be raised to press home to the con- sciousness of all people now working for social betterment in one place and another that there are no limitations to human growth ; no limitations to general uplift through improved environment ; none to individual capacity for achievement of the great person greatly inspired, no matter what adverse conditions hold him bsck. I believe we need something of the confident enthusiasm that was in Theodore Parker's life. We need indeed an intelligent, a realizing sense of economic conditions and of changes coming in the new industrial order, of much of which he knew nothing — as how could he in the period in which he worked? Realizing, however, the new center of gravity in philanthropy which is pressed upon us by the new sense of social responsibility in new forms of social effort, we need as well that splendid idealism of the transcendental epoch. If you study the writings of Theodore Parker, there is evidence of a constant appeal which is in itself a paradox — the appeal to the individual to be great, to be noble, to achieve, no matter what his surroundings, and the appeal to the social conscience itself, the corporate responsibility, to make it possible, yea, easy, for every soul to become a truly human being. You know our poet Lowell speaks of the time in the year when " 'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true, As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, — 'Tis the natural way of living." If there is any deep religious impulse in the social movement of our time, it is that purpose, to make social conditions such that it will be easier, at least, for the heart to be true in the natural way of living than it has ever been in the past. And although Theodore Parker did not feel the mighty cur- rent of environmental change which is the master impulse of our era, he made clear that divine paradox of the supreme demand of religion upon the personal life and the supreme demand upon society for better conditions for every individual. Who shall say that this divine paradox is outgrown even with the new center of gravity in philanthropy moving us toward vaster and vaster circles of social uplift? 58 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES Miss Addams: I think Mr. Wendte is the next speaker. I do not know his subject, but perhaps he himself will announce it. I am sure he needs no introduction to this audience. AbJir? sa bg (D. W. WmhU, S. i. I confess to a good deal of embarrassment in rising to address >ou. We generally come to Hull House to learn, and not to im- part instruction, and we sit at the feet of its "head" — you must excuse that extraordinary expression — to gain instruction and in- spiration for our philanthropic endeavor. I am also personally imder great obligation to our friend, the speaker of the morning. I have often sat at her feet also, learn- ing from her concerning higher educational methods, and the best way to apply our individual effort to philanthropic problems. To come here now without preparation and to follow so brilliant a review as hers of the historic aspects of philanthropic endeavor, is no easy matter. This matter of public service is at present occupying very much the attention of the profession to which I belong, the Chris- tian ministry. There never has been a time, I suppose, in the his- tory of the church, when so many clergymen of all denominations, and especially among Protestants, were devoting themselves to the study and application of social service in some one of its many aspects. The emphasis which was formerly given to theological and doctrinal topics is being gradually withdrawn and the duties of kindness and helpfulness, of service to others, and the larger welfare of the whole, are forming the staple of most of the ser- mons to which I have the privilege of listening in my own fellow- ship, and so, I doubt not, it is in many others. Of course, there are two aspects in which the matter pre- sents itself to clergymen — the one is the duty of relieving actual, existing distress, the consequence of maladjustments in the social order, or of personal inadequacy or delinquency ; and, on the other hand, the duty of seeking to change and improve the causes or sources from which these evils have largely sprung. And I think perhaps the clergy today, especially the younger men, in their desire to grapple with the great reforms of the time, which deal with the sources of poverty and sickness and misery, and the so- cial injustice of our day, are apt to lose from sight the immediate importance of alleviating the results of social maladjustment, of ameliorating the distress which is presented to them. Yet, assuredly, this is a duty of the first order. Everyone has made to him this constant call upon his sym- pathy and bounty, and he cannot ignore it. He has a duty to per- form in this respect, the duty of alleviating distress wherever he THE HULL HOUSE MEETING 59 finds it, the duty of immediate personal service toward as many as his personal endeavor can reach. I know of a young minister settled in one of our New England manufacturing towns, who established some years ago milk sta- tions, in which the mothers and wives of operatives working in the mills could obtain pure milk for their babies, and we are told that he has been the means of saving hundreds of lives in that com- munity. Assuredly, that is a noble service for one man to render. But I find when that example is cited to certain other ministers, they are rather inclined to look with contempt upon it. They say that laws ought to be passed by which pure milk will be provided in any case to everybody in the community; and that we should strike at the sources of this evil and not waste time and strength by trying to ameliorate it. Well, we might reply, "This thing shouldest thou have done, and not have left the other undone." This young minister has established these milk stations, and it will lead, by and by, to larger action by the community ; to the passage of better laws and ordinances, etc. So I think we must not forget the ameliorative work which the minister has to do in the community. Of course it is easy to say that the minister may make mis- takes in this direction ; he may seek, perhaps, to benefit the people of his particular church even more than the recipients of their charity. I remember once Dr. Edward Everett Hale, when he plead for a cause with which I had no sympathy, and told him so, replied, "Wendte, I don't care what they do with the money; but I want these people to give for their own soul's salvation. It will make them, better men and women to be rich in service to their fellows." There was a certain truth in that, but it may easily be carried too far. There are arguments applicable to such a point of view, such as the duplication of charity, the evils of indiscriminate giv- ing, and all that sort of thing. Then, again, I am inclined to think that sometimes we are apt, as Christian ministers, to exaggerate the work of Christian exam- ples and precedents in this matter, — to claim too much for our Christianity, Doubtless Jesus preached the Kingdom of God, but, as a recent German writer has well remarked, the Kingdom of God Jesus proclaimed was to be a free gift from Heaven to man- kind. Man was not expected to do anything to achieve it for him- self, except to live a pure life and be kind to his neighbor ; the rest was to be God's gift ; the end of the world was approaching any- way ; there was no need to build a new Jerusalem, it was to descend a free gift out of Heaven to man. Nowadays we have a very dififerent conception of the King- dom of Heaven, and the possible means of attaining it. We com- bine ; we seek to unite the best methods, and to achieve the mil- lennium ourselves. 60 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES Take, for instance, the great question of women's uplift, the desire of women for a larger opportunity — the idea of their com- bining, for instance, like these poor striking shirtwaist makers, for the purpose of achieving social justice, and endeavoring to uplift their sex — why, this great woman movement was never dreamed of in early Christian times ! It does not, and cannot fit in with the social order of the fi:rst centuries. Then again, take this wonderful method of co-operation in our day, by which the men and women of our industrial classes seek to improve their condition and achieve a larger opportunity, greater rewards for their labor, a fuller and richer life for themselves and their children. All this was unknown to the first Christians. I might go on and speak of the temperance question and many other reforms of the day. Of course you will say that though the early Christian Fathers did not have this particular vision, they yet stood for certain great principles, which, if we adhere faithfully to them, will be sufficient to bring about these ends. "The Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man," will, perhaps, in a general way and in due time, bring about the King- dom of God. Jesus, we know, set in the very center of his en- deavor for humanity the great principle of love, which had been too much neglected by previous teachers. We find it in the Old Testament, in Buddhism and elsewhere, but nowhere do we find it so set in the center of the moral system, or made so command- ing, as in the Christian religion. Therefore I say this great prin- ciple, in the course of time, if rightly developed and applied, would develop all of these social reforms and, doubtless, has done so, for love is the inspiring soul of them all. But there is danger, I sometimes think, lest we claim too much for our Christianity, and think that its historical precepts and ex^ amples can solve all our problems. For even love, uninstructed and unguided, is not sufficient for all our social needs to-day. The question of the prevention of the evils of our time still remains. What part can the minister take in bringing about our needed social reforms? It was almost pitiful the other day to hear certain ministers asking of a speaker who addressed them on the social question, "What can we do? How can we contribute any- thing toward the solution of these problems? The moment we bring these matters into our pulpits we are warned by the deacons that this is politics, with which the pulpit has no concern, etc. They say to us, 'Appeal to us as individuals, tell us about our per- sonal sins ; not the sins of society. Let not our church be an eco- nomic club, but a great power-house where we generate the moral force which then can be gradually distributed through the com- munity and manifest itself in various ways for its betterment.' " I think this power-house illustration has been worked a good deal ; too many have found an excuse for their indifference or lazi- ness in it; yet there is a good deal of truth in it, too. We must THE HULL HOUSE MEETING 61_ appeal to the individual conscience and will of our hearers. I recently heard a young clergyman preach on "The individual and social justice." He began by saying, "We must cease considering man as an individual ; we must define him in social terms always ; the day of individualism has passed forever." That strikes me as a very limited conception of ministerial or personal duty and re- sponsibility. It certainly was not the gospel of Theodore Parker, We are told that some ministers do not enter into this thing with their whole heart, but from a desire to help their churches, or because social work is popular just now, or because they hope to escape many theological doubts and difficulties by throwing themselves into this v/ork of social reform. But if you do this work — this social work — in such a spirit, you do it as a by-product merely of vour religious or denominational endeavor, and, conse- quently, it is limited, it is poor and ineffective. For my part I have come more and more to believe that our ignorance as ministers on these social-economic subjects is colossal; that our theological training has not fitted us for it. The few helps we get in the training schools on the study of sociology is of no great assistance to us. Yet the treatment of social ques- tions demands the finest minds, the most thorough information ; it demands a large observation and experience; it demands a mastery of all rhe resources of the subject; it demands the entire consecra- tion of the man or woman devoted to it. But we ministers enter it unprepared or with divided interest, divided between our service to our congregation and the social need. And so it is very hard for the minister to-day to engage in this work as he would like. I would fall back, therefore, on Theo- dore Parker, and follow his method of agitating the social ques- tion constantly in his pulpit, calling attention to the wrongs of suffering humanity, to the inequalities of human existence, to so- cial injustice, and to the right of our fellow beings to have more of the comforts and compensations of life which we enjoy. This appeal to men's consciences and hearts, this endeavor to impel them more and more to reformative work, it seems to me, if a man has any persuasive power at all, is a legitimate and important service which the minister can render. Theodore Parker did not, after all, engage much in the prac- tical, reconstructive and readjusting work of his time.' He pro- claimed principles, he imparted instruction, he made noble appeals, and he thus rendered a high service to the thousands who listened to or read his sermons. I cannot help feeling that his greatest work was the proclamation of truth, ethical and social, from Sunday to Sunday, arousing men's minds, stirring their consciences, enlarg- ing their sympathies, and so bringing them into more intelligent; personal touch with poverty, with the distress and the injustice and wrong that confront us on every hand. In so doing he ren- 62 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES dered his largest service to humanity, and here, I think, he may help us in our problems as clergymen and ethical teachers. Miss Addams : We will next hear from the Rev. F, C. South- worth, who is now president of the Meadville Theological School, but who used to be a plain Chicago clergyman — I mean plain in the sense of not being president of anything. Meadville, Pa. Madam President and Friends : — I have come in too late to get fully into the spirit of these meetings. Mrs. Spencer was al- ready speaking, and after the heights to which she carried us, I feel that it were perhaps better if the subject were left at that point. I rise, therefore, not to make a further contribution, but to express my own gratitude, as Dr. Wendte has done for me, for the way in which she has dealt with the subject and for the pos- sibilities toward which she has pointed us. Dr. Wendte, in pur- suing the subject, has told us something of the perplexities which present themselves in our time to a minister of religion who is offered the opportunity from Sunday to Sunday of addressing himself to the fundamental religious verities, and is trying to es- tablish a contact between the finite and the infinite, to remedy weakness of will, to grapple with evil conditions that confront the individual and the temptations by which he is beset; and is con- tinually hampered and retarded in this work by certain unsolved social and industrial problems which confront the modern world. There is a chasm between the church and the world to-day, and we are looking to such people as Miss Addams and Mrs. Spencer and Mr. Jones, people that are standing upon the high places of observation and are really accomplishing something in this direction, to point out to us ministers the way in which the chasm may be bridged. The minister of religion seems in some places to be in danger of losing his opportunity to address the souls and consciences of men at the very time when men in other walks of life are discovering such opportunities in abundance. I had the privilege a year ago of spending a couple of months in England. I arrived in that country a day or two after the famous budget speech of David Lloyd George, a speech which, though ostensibly devoted to finance, was actually one of the most powerful sermons given in our generation, and given to a congre- gation consisting of nearly the whole population of the British Isles who had access the next day to the morning papers and were able to read. Mr. Lloyd George won for this address the atten- tion of all the people in England because in the first place he was THE HULL HOUSE MEETING 63 dealing with real conditions and not with imaginary ones and, in the second place, he was in a position where his words were likely to have some effect. The minister of religion in our time often fails to make an impression because the people are in doubt as to whether he is dealing with live issues, and are sure in any case that he is not dealing with them in a live way. This now famous budget speech to which I have referred is only one indication out of many, of a growing interest among the English people in such questions as poverty, unemployment, old- age pensions, the tenure of the land, and other social conditions with which religion has been, ever since the time of the Hebrew prophets, very intimately concerned. It is a striking fact, however, that along with this increase of social consciousness there has gone a diminution in the number of worshipers in the churches. There has been, in other words, in England as well as in America a grow- ing chasm between the churches and the masses, and the hopeful element in the situation over there is that the churches seem now to be thoroughly awake to this condition. Not only organizations like the League for Progressive Thought and Social Service, of which Mr. Campbell is the head, but also the great church of England and nearly all the non-conformist denominations are try- ing to make a contribution in their organized capacity to the so- lution of the social problem. There is at least some encourage- ment for Christian ministers in the fact that leaders of the people, like David Lloyd George, have, many of them, had their in- spiration in the churches for undertaking to deal with this problem with an energy and eft'ectiveness hitherto unknown. We have been somewhat slower in America than in England to learn the possibilities of co-operative social service in the name of religion. The churches in America have a glorious record in the inspiration they have given to individuals, who, in the spirit of Theodore Parker, are working for better social conditions. They will, probably, as time goes by learn that there is a great common work which they can do effectively only when they act together. Mr. Jones: Miss Addams, we have just listened to one head of a school of the prophets, who has applied himself to the most difficult problem of to-day, — I am not going to make a speech, — I was just going to say we have another head of an institution here whom we ought to hear from. We have here Dr. Fisher, president of Lombard University at Galesburg, and I think the logical sequence would indicate that he should make the next speech. Miss Addams : I am sure we should be very happy to hear from Mr. Fisher. 64 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES Galesburg, Illinois I have a great admiration for the courage of Dr. Southworth who dares to stand up here and admit that he is president of a theological school. I should hardly have ventured anything of that kind, but as he has preceded me, I must also plead guilty of being at the head of the theological school at Galesburg founded by Dr. Ryder formerly of this city. It is not very often that I acknowledge this because the theological school seems to be the butt of everybody's wit. Doctor Wendte this morning has hinted at the inadequacy of the modern theological school. He put it very mildly. Generally we are accused of being worse than in- adequate. We are something that a minister has to recover from and outgrow and entirely forget before he can hope to be of any use. Now, the trouble with the critics of the theological schools is that they expect us to take raw material and in three or four years develop men wlio know as much as you do after twenty-five years of study and experience. The fact is that the modern theological school is easily equal to the best professional schools we have and is accomplishing excellent results. I confess that the work of the divinity school is in somewhat of a transitory state. I can easily remember when the whole teach- ing in these schools was abstract theology, and personal religion, which simply meant to prepare young men to fix people so they were sure to go to a good place and escape a bad place after death. I am very glad to acknowledge that our interest in that sort of personal religion and theology has lessened perceptibly. We to- day are much more intensely interested in knowing what sort of a man or woman we are taking to the place we shall go to after we die, than we are in the exact location or temperature of that place. To-day we are told that we need not train men in theo- logy nor in personal religion but only for social service. The emphasis just now is on the oneness of the social group and the supreme importance of the social problems. Religion is nothing, theology is less than nothing, the thing now is to lose one's life in social service. Now this is just as surely an extreme position as was that of the generation before us in their emphasis on abstract theology, and thiC mystical relation with God called personal religion. What we want, of course, is to learn how to harmonize both these extremes in a true philosophy of existence. We want to de- velop the strong individual with a rational theology and a pro- found sense of his accountability to God ; we also want each man to see that he is bound in the great bundle of life with all souls, and that he must serve others or be lost himself. I came to Chi- cago last year to attend the meetings of the Religious Education THE HULL HOUSE MEETING 65 Association. Here the whole air was full of criticism of the col- leges for not making all the students religious. But, out of it all, I have to confess that I did not detect a single definition of what we mean by religion. There was much contemptuous criticism of theology and sectarianism ; there was agreement that we ought to make the boys and girls in our colleges more moral, give them higher ethical standards. I knew perfectly well that we ought to do all this before I went to these meetings ; but I have to confess that I went back to my work without any idea whatever as to how to accomplish these most desirable things. I am still old-fashioned enough to believe that we shall not have better morals, higher ethical standards without the philosophy of existence furnished by a true theology, and the sanctions and inspirations of personal re- ligion. We still need the vivid sense of a personal God which Theodore Parker so clearly had — his sense of the personal God without any limitations of personality or of impersonality. That deep conviction was the foundation of his power, the inspiration and sanction of his brave conduct. We shall get no ethics and morals on any other basis at any time. Our divinity schools to-day need to impart to young men the same passion for clear thinking in theology, the same vivid sense of the personal God, which made Theodore Parker a big enough man to send an influence across a half century strong enough to call us together here to-day. The amount of work and study that Theodore Parker did before and during and after his course in the theological school makes us seem indolent to ourselves. He shortened his earthly life by the intensity of thought and utterance of those brief years. Just the same. I am glad he did it. More than most men do in a hundred years did he make his thoughts vibrate through our thoughts and stir us to social endeavor like God's own chosen prophet. Mr. Jones in the chair. Mr. Jones: Miss Addams has been called out, and she asked me to take the chair. We still have certainly fifteen minutes more before it is necessary to adjourn. I shall be glad to know the pleasure of this audience; or hear from any one who is moved to bear testimony. Who wants to speak? Whom do you want to hear? There is one perennial fountain of information and inspira- tion which Chicago has discovered lying to the eastward. When- ever we catch Edwin D. Mead, all we have to do is to touch the button and we have streams of wisdom and knowledge and infor- mation. Mr. Mead has been heard already to the delight of many this week, to the regret of many that he could not go on and on indefinitely. It was not through the lack of material on the part of Mead, but through the limitations of the clock. Mead, come and tell us something:. 66 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES AJibrpfiB bg Mr, Slimtn i. iM?ab I confess, Mr. Jones and friends, that I do not quite like to be thought of as one who is on tap for all sorts of things. There are a few things on which I do have strong feelings and strong convictions ; and among them are Theodore Parker and the various influences which he exerted. I thought, as I heard Mrs. Spencer and heard the subsequent words here, of two interesting stories. One is known perhaps to most of you. Somebody was trying to define the difference between the old and the new philanthropy ; and he said that the old philanthropy was illustrated by the Good Samaritan who, when he found the man who had fallen among thieves and was left robbed and sick and wounded, took him to some place corresponding to the modern Mills hotel and had him cared for and paid the bill — but that modern philanthropy, after relieving a certain number of these poor sufferers, made up its mind that the thing to do was to clear the Jericho road of thieves. That about describes the change. The other story is this, and it too is not new. It has been re- vived since the death of Mrs, Howe. The story goes that in one of the old Chestnut street meetings in Boston, at which Charles Sumner and others were present with Mrs. Howe, some especially sad case had been considered by the good friends, and somebody tried to enlist Sumner's interest in it. He said, so the story goes — and Mr. Sanborn recently assured me that it is not a myth — that he no longer had any time for individual cases ; he was concerned now only with the masses. Mrs. Howe, who heard the words, at once exclaimed : ''Is it possible, Charles ? Why, you have got fur- ther on than God Almighty!" Now, if we adjust those things, reconcile the morals of the two stories, I think we shall hit it about right; and Theodore Parker did adjust them. Mrs. Spencer in several ways has pointed out the methods of reconciliation. I was impressed by what Mr. Southworth said in character- izing that historic budget speech of David Lloyd George as a great sermon, and telling us that the preachers of England are awaken- ing and connecting themselves so much more directly with philan- thropic and social reform work. Now, Theodore Parker, in his day, would have done in a similar situation precisely what Lloyd George did ; he would have brought himself to bear in the effort to settle a lot of these social evils by legislation, and his speeches for that purpose would have been fervent sermons, albeit packed with facts. Not only are the churches waking up to this duty of bringing themselves as religious people to bear upon the social problems in England, but they are doing it in this country, and doing it in every direction. It was only last week that I attended a meeting of our committee of fifteen, recently appointed by our Unitarian body to consider what Unitarians can and ought to do THE HULL HOUSE MEETING 67 upon these lines of philanthropy and social reform; and the inter- esting thing to me is the discovery that so many of the other churches are ahead of us in such plans. The Christians — the de- nomination so-called — have laid out very important programs, and are urging their people to identify themselves by distinct co-opera- tion with certain specified reforms. I could speak of other similar efforts. When one reads the two volumes of his social reform addresses, as important almost as the two volumes of anti-slavery addresses, one finds that Theodore Parker was discussing all these great ques- tions that we are considenng here to-day, crime, poverty, the greed and tyranny of the privileged classes, the need of public education and all the rest, and discussing them precisely in the spirit of to- day. Read those three great sermons upon the laboring classes, the dangerous classes, and the perishing classes — and also the ad- dress to the mercantile class. If Samuel Barrows were here this hour, talking about crime and its punishment, he would talk sub- rtantially as Theodore Parker talked. If people from the Saga- more Conference were here talking about the moral and social duties of the home, they would talk in the same strain as Theodore Parker talked in his noble address upon that very subject. My own firm conviction is that in these social discussions where we talk so much about the duties of the state and of the church and of the schools, making these responsible for so much, we are fun- damentally neglecting the great social duty of the home, a duty terribly neglected. It is the American home, which in too many cases becomes simply a place to eat and sleep in, the American home which needs to be roused to its social and moral duty. We are holding the church and the school and other institutions of society, I repeat, responsible for the things where the home is really deficient and to blame. Theodore Parker understood the moral and social duty of the home. I cannot help remembering with gratitude here this morning, where a woman has been presiding and where a woman has led our thought; of the immense service of Theodore Parker to woman, to her cause, to her rights and her capacities in the social field. Let us remember that here to-day, remember his powerful address upon the Public Function of Women. The point of all, it seems to me — it is simply another echo of the moral of our two stories — is that we should mingle our science with sympathy. I know of few more beautiful texts in the Bible than this : "I will inquire in Thy temple." We never come to the right kind of knowledge in the right way unless knowledge is gained in reverence ; and similarly science will never do the work that philanthropy demands save when it is informed and controlled by sympathy. I remember the last time I was in this room — I think it was in this room in Hull House, Mr. Jones will remember — was when 68 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES I came out here to help him and Miss Addams and the rest, after dear Henry Lloyd died, speak of Lloyd's great service for social reform and social righteousness in Chicago. Henry D. Lloyd here in this great city, and Jane Addams in this spot where we are, have taught us what it is that we want, the aroused conscience of the individual socially applied. The "new conscience" was what Lloyd talked of, by which he meant conscience applied to the social duties of this new time. We can never get that commanding re- ligious feeling in this matter, of which Theodore Parker spoke — his power was applied to the great social problems not as that of a man apologizing for theologians or theology, but as a man who believed that theology is the very center of the business — unless we know that this is God's world and that it is our part as workers together with God to help him and to help our brothers in human society realize the fundamental ideals of the Divine commonwealth. Abbr^BB bg 3?nktn IGloi|li Jottfa Again we run up against the limitations of time. We are to meet at Abraham Lincoln Centre this afternoon. Of course a celebration of Theodore Parker, without some very distinctive and pronounced emphasis placed upon his central contention in the interest of freedom would be anomalous, and so we have a voice right out of the heart of the emancipated race. Mr. Isaac Fisher, will, in our presence, this afternoon, answer the question, "Has the Negro Kept Faith with Theodore Parker and the Other Prophet Souls who Suffered for Freedom's Sake?" Dr. Fleischer, too seldom heard in Chicago, will also speak. Charles Beals will tell us of the fifty years of progress away from war, which was another high contention of Theodore Parker. I was glad Mr. Mead put an emphasis on another point that was dear to Theodore Parker's heart, and which the world neglects, and upon which the emphasis of this program is inadequate, and that is the woman's side of Parker's message. I am going to make a confession ; in my own mind Parker's work for woman loomed up so large, in my own heart it made such large claims for a place in this .program that I yielded to a big dream which did not ma- terialize. I had hoped that the Woman's Club, or clubs, would claim tomorrow morning so that there might be an adequate recognition of Theodo^-c Parker's place in the woman's movement, but that plan miscarried. I will not say it was not for an adequate reason. It was because our women are so busy that they didn't have time to do it. I was directed by Miss Addams to one, of whom she said that if anybody would attend to it, she would ; but she didn't. So, please take the blank in the program as my recognition of the woman's place in this program ; this was the best I could do. Now, before you go to dinner, may I add two considerations THE HULL HOUSE MEETING 69 very fundamental in my sense of gratitude to Theodore Parker. One is the splendid spiritual economy of discontent with what is, born, not out of a grouch against things existing, but out of a vision of things that ought to be. He was a prophet of the holy discontent in the interest of the sublimcr possibilities. Whenever I hear superficial criticism of those who are discontented with the existing order, I take shelter under the inspiration of Theodore Parker. It is not fault-finding, it is prophesying. I have no need of apologies for Theodore Parker's vehemence ; I am restive under a certain deliberate, polite, slippered and qualified disposition to excuse Parker for his vehemence. Apologize for Amos? For Micah? Because they talked in such plain words about the iniquities about them? Apologize for that incident, whatever it was, that lies back of the New Testa- ment story of the whip of small cords? Apologize for the Master for saying, "Hypocrites, liars, vipers"? Why, the truth is that human vision cannot measure the enor- mities of injustice, of slavery, of selfishness, of complacency, and I am glad, very glad, that Parker let himself loose. I am glad that he was a man of many dictionaries ; he needed all the linguistical achievement that the mastery of twenty languages afiforded to ade- quately express his feelings against the ethical indignities of his times. When eleven years old, he picked huckleberries and bought the first book for his library, which he showed to Colonel Higgin- son with pride. It was Ainsworth's Latin Dictionary. He needed big words, hard words and strong words, such as the case de- manded. The other emphasis, which was so dear to me in my younger student days — I have stacks of note books, and, with all due re- spect to my Alma Mater, I have a good many which I have never opened ; but I will never forget the training and inspiration I re- ceived at Meadville when I went through Theodore Parker's "Dis- course on Religion." That book cleared the atmosphere, pointed the way for me, stirred my heart, and I have lived on it ever since. That book epitomized his faith in God. It was a faith in the essential and absolute unity of the human race disclosed in its inspirations and idealities as well as in its needs. That book came to me when my faith in God was inchoate, when my grip on things eternal was uncertain, when under the lead of Professor Hamilton's metaphysics and the saintly Gary I floundered and did not know where I would come out. But that book of Parker's "Discourse on Religion" led me through underground conduits into the heart of permanence. I found a home in the kindly, capacious bosom of the religious faith of the world, and I found that there was a chorus of faith in which the noblest of the earth joined, which declared at least three things, the fundamental existence of God, 70 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES the reality of the moral law and the hunger for continuity — God, conscience, immortality, were disclosed to me through Parker's learning, Parker's prophetic learning, for he discovered the central things in the messages of the religions and the religious of the world ; and if there is anything the matter with the churches — I don't know as there is ; if there is anything the matter with the theological schools — and I don't say there is — it is because the churches and the theological schools and we preachers have not laid hold in an inspiring way of the fundamental unity of the human race, a unity emphasized by its longings, its yearnings, its aspira- tions, its inspirations, as well as the unities of the stomach and the back. When we catch that divine sense of spiritual unity running through each community, founded away down upon the founda- tion rocks of creation, how petty and small do these little surface lines appear, mere scratches on the maps, which show the dividing lines between the territory occupied by Baptist and Presbyterian, Jew and Mohammedan. How superficial the lines so painfully sus- tained between employer and employe, between the Jewish button- hole maker and the Jewish millionaire in his automobile. Strip them of the externals and the all-seeing eye could not tell one from the other, they are all so precious to Him. The burden of this century is to apply the law of combination and co-operation in the commercial world today, as opposed to the law of competition, rivalry, segregation and antagonism. Parker's voice rings through the half century that has followed his death and pleads with us to get together, to lay hold of the uni- versalities, to join hands, all hands around. I like the frontispiece that William Morris drew with his own hands for his "News from Nowhere." In the English edition of that book you will see the workmen of the world with the imple- ments of their trade in the foreground, the hammer and the square, the plumb line ; the blacksmith and the mason and the carpenter, the mechanics of Europe, of Asia, America and Africa, joining hands in a merry-go-round, around the globe, belting the world with labor. I wish William Morris, or his successor, would re- draw that frontispiece, and say to those workmen, "Break away; give room for more ; let in the scholars, let in the preachers, let in the white-handed laborers of the study and thought laboratory. Make the circle larger, and then cry, 'All hands around ! All hands around the world !' " There is a unity, social unity, a potent and efficient unity, join- ing black and white, Jew and Christian, rich and poor. Parker laid hold of this principle with such clear vision and such splendid conviction that he has been the guide and the com- fort and consolation to men innumerable, among whom I want to claim an humble place. (Adjourned.) 5IIl^ Abraljam Sinrnln (H^tttr^ ii^rting 3pnkttt IClngiii Santa, ^rmhtng WrhnpH&ag Aftfrn00n, Noti^mbtr 16. 1910 ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 73 Abral)am Sjinrcln (E^ «tr^ Wednesday Afternoon Session, November 16, 1910 REV. JENKIN LLOYD JONES, Presiding Mr. Jones : Friends, this is to me an impressive hour, one freighted with many memories and high inspirations, one related to much that is profound in my experience, fundamental in my life. This is a moment that is illuminated with some of the lasting in- spirations of my life — John Brown, Theodore Parker, Abraham Lincoln and all that these words imply. I always delight to tell, and most of you have heard me tell more than once, how, when the grim call to battle came, shattering my boyish dreams of school and culture, and I followed the flag to the front, while other boys whistled up their courage often by saying, "We are down here to save the Union," I used to say, "You can save the Union. I am down here to free the slave!" It was an accident, strange and curious, quaint and amusing, that put me onto the track of the one who is to answer the question this afternoon, "Has the Negro kept faith with Theodore Parker and the brave men who with him suffered for freedom's sake?" In other words, was it worth while, were they worth while? Has history vindicated the tremendous inspirations of Theodore Parker, the sublime sacrifice of John Brown, the far-reaching and saga- cious statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln? We are about to be addressed by Isaac Fisher, whom I found directing the singing with orchestral accompaniment of a bright body of young men and women of color, numbering perhaps four hundred, on a damp, dark, foggy March morning, 'way down south at Pine Bluff, Arkansas. That name, I suspect, carries but little connotation to the minds of any one here present. It carried no connotation to my mind until that visit. When out riding for a morning's exercise on horseback, with my friend Rabbi Frisch of that town, we came upon this modern institution with farm attach- ments, cows of the Jersey strain and all that, and I said, "What is this?" "Why," he said, "this is the Arkansas branch of the Normal School, presided over by Isaac Fisher." I said, "He is the man I want to see ; I am going to get off." And I did get off. I found him at work. I brought him here. He will answer the question. 74 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES President Branch Normal School, Pine Bluff, Arkansas HAS THE NEGRO KEPT FAITH WITH THEODORE PARKER AND THE OTHER PROPHET SOULS WHO SUFFERED FOR FREEDOM'S SAKE? Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : We are gathered here to pay homage to a great man whose simple and child-like belief that every soul is divine, led him, in darker days than these, to work for "the progress of mankind onward and upward forever." We are met to renew and increase our faith in the beauty and permanence of earnest and star-led endeavor, and to inquire whether or not the "great heart" whom we knew as Theodore Parker lived and toiled in vain. To other witnesses will fall the task of reporting the results and value of his struggles for the general extension of the prin- ciples of brotherhood, and the spread of eternal truth over all the earth. In an humbler way, I would speak of the results of the man's labors as they have exhibited themselves in the post-bellum history of my race, and will answer as best I can the question whether Theodore Parker and the other brave souls who suffered to make the Negro free, labored for naught, or whether the Negro has kept faith with them. Let us establish once and for all time the fact that the ques- tion as to whether freedom is more desirable than bondage has been removed from the forum of debate; and we accept as a first principle, now, the conception that, however slow may be the progress of a given race under a system of freedom, that progress is necessarily greater than could have been true in the same country under the institution of slavery. Planting myself firmly upon the truth of this statement, I afirrm, in the first instance, that, inasmuch as they toiled that an enslaved race might be free, and kept the iniquity of slavery before the people until the national conscience was awakened — an awakening that brought freedom to the whole land — the labors of that noble band of lovers of liberty to which Theodore Parker belonged have not been in vain, because no strug- gle for perfect human liberty can ever fall to the ground. But what of the Negro? Has he justified the faith of his friends? Has he brooded over his struggles in America until he has lost that gentle spirit which made him so pathetic a figure during slavery, and which dictated his supreme faithfulness during the trying days of the Civil War? My friends, it was not mere rhetor- ical expediency which moved the eloquent Grady to declare that "history has no parallel to the faith kept by the Negro in the South during the war." Speaking of the fidelity of my race, Mr. Henry ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 75 W. Grady, a Southern white man who wore the gray in the Civil War, made this classic recommendation of the Negro: "Unmarshalled,the black battalions moved patiently to the fields in the morning to feed the armies their idleness would have starved, and at night gathered anxiously at the big house to 'hear the news from marster,' though conscious that his victory made their chains enduring. Everywhere humble and kindly ; the bodyguard of the helpless ; the rough companion of the little ones ; the ob- servant friend ; the silent sentry in his lowly cabin ; the shrewd counselor. And when the dead came home, a mourner at the open grave. A thousand torches would have disbanded every Southern army, but not one was lighted. When the master, going to a war in which slavery was involved, said to his slave, 'I leave my home and loved ones in your care,' the tenderness between man and master stood disclosed. And when the slave held that charge sacred through storm and temptation, he gave new meaning to faith and loyalty." Ladies and gentlemen, with all deference to the Caucasian for his having carried aloft the torch of civilization for so many years through the ceaseless ebb and flow of the centuries, despite a glorious record of achievement of which you may be proud, there is nothing in the history of your race for which I would exchange that voluntary certificate of character; for if it required a burning love of liberty and a high degree of physical courage for your ancestors at Runnymede to force a stubborn King John to sign the Magna Charta of English liberty, upon which this common- wealth is built, it requires everywhere and at all times that fidelity of man to man, and the unwillingness to triumph over the weak, which the Negro showed during the Civil War to make your com- monwealths endure. In the sacredness of this hour, while we commune with the invisible spirit of Theodore Parker, I want to report that through storm and calm, darkness and light, the Negro has kept faith with his friends, and yet retains a gentle heart. More than this: He has not sulked in his tent and refused to help advance the economic progress of that section in which he was so long a slave. As a bondman, he patiently carried the labor burdens of the South upon his shoulders ; but as a freeman he has not only continued to create wealth for the South and the common- wealth of the United States, but his muscles of iron, more and more directed by intelligence and the pride which freedom gives, are creating and conserving riches for his own independence. To the intimation that he will not work I merely suggest that in 1900 62 per cent of all Negroes over ten years of age in the United States were employed in gainful occupations. Since emancipation the great masses of Negroes living in the South have joined their brawn and intelligence with the capital and brain of their former masters, and have helped create more 76 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES wealth than that section ever knew before. As indicative of this growth of wealth, I may say that in the year 1860 the total level of ad valorem taxes in the South was, in round numbers, only $20,000,000; in 1870 it was $40,000,000, increasing to $44,- 000,000 in 1880, to $69,000,000 in 1890, and reaching $103,- 000,000 in 1902, proving not only that freedom for the Negro was a good business investment for the South, but showing also that the colored people, furnishing as they do the bulk of the labor supply for that section, are justifying the faith of those who be- lieved that they would faithfully work to help rebuild the waste places of the South and make her blossom once more as the rose, if only the boon of freedom were given to them. At the same time, the Negro has been creating wealth for himself. Critics often disparage the achievements of the free Negro, forgetting that, even if he has not accomplished very much as a freeman, he accomplished infinitely less as a slave. Just before the Civil War the free Negroes in the United States owned some $25,000,000 worth of property. But in 1909, just forty-six years since freedom was given to him, the Negro had gained at least $525,000,000 worth of property more than the race had been able to secure during the 250 years of slavery's long night ; indeed, Negro farmers in the .South alone owned in 1909 at least 30,000 square miles of land, an amount of territory almost equal to the area of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont. And it must be noted that the most of this wealth has been obtained directly from the soil ; for more than 2,000,000 Negroes, or 53 per cent of all Negroes engaged in gainful pursuits in 1900, were found in agricultural industries. But all of the Negro's wealth produced since emancipation does not consist of lands, stocks or bonds. If I were to list the assets of my race, with utter disregard for the accepted definitions of wealth, I would place first in the inventory the name of a man ; a man as truly set apart for leadership as was the patriarch Moses ; a man whose love for his own race is as beautiful as was that of the maiden Ruth for the mother of her husband ; a philosopher whose teachings have as profoundly affected his day as ever did those of heathen sage in the past ; an advocate as eloquent and convincing as was the great Webster as he presented a brief to posterity for an everlasting and indivisible Union ; a preacher of the gospel of salvation by character as earnest and inspired as was John the Baptist of old; a counselor of Presidents and statesmen; a friend of kings, and an inspirer of men ; the name of that hero, scholar and Christian gentleman whose rise from slavery to heights of fame thrills every heart and cheers each patriot soul. Booker T. Washington, my great teacher and a great asset of the Negro race. If the Negro had done no more than produce this great man, Theodore Parker would stand vindicated today. ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 71 In matters of education, the black man has kept his eyes upon the stars. It is worthy of note that after hundreds of years of freedom and opportunity, Italy, despite all the glory of her past, must confess that 38 per cent of her population can neither read nor write ; Spain must acknowledge a percentage of illiteracy amounting to 68 per cent ; Russia, 77 per cent ; Portugal, 79 ; Brazil, 80 ; Venezuela, 75 ; and Cuba, 56 per cent. But when we turn to the American Negro and demand his rating, we find that although the genius of slavery sealed up the book of knowledge from him for two and one-half centuries, and despite the fact that at the close of the Civil War 90 per cent of his race were illiterate, at the end of the thirty-seven years following emancipation, he had reduced his percentage of illiteracy to 47 per cent ; and, according to one of our most careful students of the history of the race, the census of 1910 will show that he has further reduced his illiteracy to 32 per cent; and the number of his teachers is increasing with twice the rapidity of the Negro population. When freedom came, the health of the Negro was largely cared for by traveling ''root doctors." To-day the Negro has nearly 1,900 physicians, dentists, and druggists. To bring the matter nearer home : You have right here in the city of Chicago, not only the two most noted Negro surgeons in the United States, but in the persons of your Doctors George C. Hall and Daniel H. Williams, Chicago has two Negro physicians who have performed some of the most remarkable operations ever accomplished by the surgeons of any race. To help conserve the moral status of the race, there were 15,530 ministers in 1900, an increase of 27 per cent from 1890. There were also in 1900. 728 lawyers, 210 journalists, and 99 liter- ary persons and scientists. Without boasting, but with a pardonable pride in the advance- ment of my race since emancipation, I submit that we have also made some noteworthy contributions to the esthetic civilization of the world. To mention but a few : In the drama, for your Edmund Kean, I present the Negro tragedian, Ira Aldridge, who was dec- orated by the king of Prussia, and by the Czar of all the Russias for the excellence of his dramatic performances ; in literature, for your Robert Burns, I offer the poet laureate of the Negro race, through whose veins coursed no blood of the Anglo-Saxon, the late Paul Laurence Dunbar; in sculpture, for your William Rhinehart, I offer Edmonia Lewis, and for your Harriet Hosmer, I nominate Meta Vaux Warrick; in painting, we point with pride to the can- vass of Henry O. Tanner when you mention the ecelebrated Michel Angelo ; in music, for your Swedish Nightingale, or for Patti, the mistress of song, I not only offer one whom we call "Black Patti," but I nominate the whole Negro race, for all of them can warble divinely to the morning light, and they have contributed the only original m.usic known on the North American continent: and after 78 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES we listen to your celebrities of song, we pass judgment, in the language of Dunbar, and say to all of you : "G'way an' quit dat noise, Miss Lucy — Put dat music book away ; What's de use to keep on tryin' ? Ef you practice twell you're gray. You caint start no notes a-flyin' Lak de ones dat rants and rings F'om de kitchen to de big woods When Malindy sings." But I must not further lengthen this list of achievement. It is in order to ask, "What are the Negro's hopes? To what is he looking as the years come and go?" I reply that, first of all, we owe it to millions of my race to tell you what they are not striving to obtain. Unfortunately for the Negro, an impression amounting to a positive conviction has laid hold upon vast numbers of white Americans to the effect that the most ardent hope of the race to which I belong is that some day it may lose its identity and be merged with the Caucasian people into a distinct race type yet to appear upon the North American continent. With all of the earnestness of my soul, and with the convic- tion that this impression has done untold injury to the Negro in the United States, I want to declare that such fusion and amalga- mation do not compose the fabric of the Negro's dreams. I owe it to all candor and to him whose natal day we celebrate to speak thus frankly of the position on this question of many thoughtful Negro citizens who are seeking to justify the faith of Theodore Parker in the trying days gone by. How easily we could adjust all questions which grow out of the presence of the Negro in the United States if it were not for this potential submergence of the two races. But since we cannot argue away the possible, it is our duty to allay fears by emphasizing the fact that this race fusion to the point of the submergence of either the Negro or the Cau- casian is extremely improbable. Not only is the Negro not earnestly seeking for physical union with other races, but I am glad to be able to report that he, too, is studying the science of eugenics, and is beginning to discover that his own race has certain great qualities which ought not to perish through the blending of diverse races ; and the Negro, in the future, will most respectfully decline to be cast into Zangwill's great melting pot. And more than this : We are developing men and women who have the broader vision of life, and who have the courage constantly to remind the race that the color of the skin and the curl of the hair are of little moment as compared with the eternal qualities of the heart ; that in the final analysis, a race will be judged, not by the color of its skin but by the equity of its deeds. We are beginning to understand that in the converse with truth, all men speak the same language, and that in the higher ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 79 and more permanent things of this world a man may have a black skin and yet find room enough thereunder for all of his powers, and ought to hold every achievement which he makes, sacredly in trust for the honor and glory of his own race and for the good of the world. But I submit to our white friends north and south, who are disturbed over the possibility of the fusion of the two races, that one of the best ways to preserve the racial integrity of their race is to make it possible for Negro publicists and makers of opinion in mine, to boast that there is neither advantage nor disadvantage in the accident of color in the United States. This they cannot do at present, and they often find themselves laughed out of court because of this fact, when they attempt to make the same fight for racial aloofness that you are making. Nevertheless, there is growing up a healthful race pride everywhere and a com- mendable racial solidarity. Before indicating the Negro's desire, let us ask if he has been a law-abiding citizen. I reply that he has not yet succeeded in set- ting the example for the rest of the United States in this respect ; and yet, I would remind you that the immigrants entering the United States from Mexico, Italy, Austria, France, Canada, and Russia have a larger number of committments to prison per 1,000 of population than has this same Negro whose record of crime receives such publicity ; and, on the authority of Dr. Washington, in 1904, the ratio of crime committed by Negroes and whites was a little less than three and one-half to one — a decrease of 21 per cent for the Negro since 1890. Over and above all this, the Negro has been ever loyal and true to his country. Whatever his lot on the North American continent, he has stood by the government under which he lives; and whenever his country has needed him and the call to arms has sounded, he has rallied around the flag from the hillsides and the plains ; and, to the American people at large, to all who spoke, suffered, and fought that he might be free, yea, to the invisible shades of Theodore Parker, I bring the message from my race that if any man or set of men attempt to lay unholy hands upon the stars and stripes or to humble the proud ensign of our land, if you will but call the roll of patriots, we'll be there to ofifer our lives as the highest measure of devotion and loyalty to our land and country. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the faith that the Negro has kept with the friends of freedom ; and he stands an humble sup- plicant before the bar of public opinion asking, now, if the Amer- ican people will keep faith with him — whether the rulers of the land will give him all the rewards of citizenship if he discharge all the duties pertaining thereto. All that the Negro asks for in America is that the Golden Rule be applied to him just as it is applied to any other race. He asks for no special favors not given to other citizens ; he does THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES not desire anarchy ; he would not knowingly rend in twain the fabric of our government; he would not wittingly set brother against brother; he merely wishes the opportunity of fullest and most complete development and expression. He wants to weep when the nation weeps, to rejoice in her days of gladness, to help carry her burdens, and to share her prosperity and happiness. Tired of the strife for better things ? No. The Negro rested for 250 years. Discouraged? Again, no. He is just beginning to hope. Satisfied with what he has done and with what he is? By no means. The fires of ambition kindled within him by contact with American civilization have just begun to burn, and he will never be content until, in the full stature of most useful manhood, he writes his name in bold relief upon the noble record of these times as a worker for the common good. In the sanctity of this hour, while we pay respect to the illus- trious dead who was the uncompromising foe of everything which hindered human progress, I can best express the hope of the Negro in the soul-stirring words of Edwin Markham : "Come, clear the way, then — clear the way, Blind creeds and kings have had their day — Break the dead branches from the path. Our hope is in the aftermath. Our hope is in heroic men, Star-led to build the world again; To this event the ages ran — Make way for brotherhood, make way for man." Mr. Jones : Had I been endowed as my brother has, with the gift of song, I would ask you to join with me in singing "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord," but I can- not lead you. He could if he would, for I have heard him do it. Surely in this hour is the faith of the martyrs justified, and in this presence is the promise of prophets made good — and there is more to come; this is but a prelude to that nobler history that is to be written of the higher future that assuredly is coming, of which another brother of another race with whom the world has not dealt justly, will speak — Dr. Charles Fleischer of Boston. ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 81 of Boston NATURAL AND PROGRESSIVE RELIGION. Mr. Jones forgot to announce my subject, for which I am very grateful, because I see that the program announces that I am to speak on the Growth of Universal Religion, and I am not going to speak on that, — I am going to speak on Natural and Pro- gressive Religion. Before beginning, however, I want to say that I have seldom listened to so great and splendid an outburst of oratory (which not for one moment apparently was for effect), as we have list- ened to in the high words spoken here this afternoon. As to that other race of which Dr. Jones has spoken, I sup- pose he means the human race, for, with all due deference to Dr. Jones and to the other speaker who preceded me, I certainly rec- ognize no black or white race, I certainly never recognized any Jewish race, for there never was any such, but I as certainly rec- ognize the human race, with which I feel kinship. If certain ele- ments of the human race have dealt unjustly with certain other elements, so much the worse for those who have been unjust. I know Booker T. Washington always lays stress upon that idea, and I have been touched again and again in reading his appeals to the white man to do justice to himself, to his own self-respect, by being more decent to the negro. Says Allen Upv/ard in his recent book, "The New Word," "There are two kinds of human outcasts. Man in his march up- ward out of the deep into the light, throws out a vanguard and a rear guard, and both are out of step with the main body. Hu- manity condem.ns equally those who are too good for it, and those who are too bad." Theodore Parker, fifty years ago, was obviously "outcast" — an armyless leader far in the vanguard and quite out of step with the main body. We are catching up with him — after two genera- tions. But at the distance of a semi-century, he seems "too good to be true." and too near the truth to seem good and acceptable to his own age. Born at Lexington, a worthy scion of the stock made classic by the minute-men, Theodore Parker has rendered a similar service for America, in that he was one of the first signers of, and a valiant fighter for, our spiritual declaration of independence. It is the centenary year of Theodore Parker's birth, and fifty years since he died in Florence, Italy. My purpose is not to weary you with idle statistics about this erstwhile interesting personality, but rather with my words and life to promote the cause of free religion to which he was consecrated and in which I deeply believe. If you ask me, "What is free religion?" I answer: It is that religion 82 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES which is natural to man ; wiiich indwells our human nature ; which transcends revealed religion ; which is almost as old as the race itself; which tells of man's sense of relationship with the universe, and relates the beautiful story of human aspirations and progress. All historic religions are only chapters of the history of free and natural religion. Mohammedanism is less than 1.200 years old, Christianity about 1,800 years, Buddhism nearly 2,500, and Juda- ism perhaps 3,000 — all of them only comparatively modern phases of free and natural religion, and doomed to illustrate Tennyson's verse: "Our little systems have their day — They have their day and cease to be." If you will tell me the age of man on earth, then I can tell you how old is this natural religion, and if you can tell me when man will cease to be, then I shall undertake to say when free re- ligion will be no more. The Greek philosopher says, "All is in a state of flux," "evolu- tion" an eternal fact, and a symbol of infinite potentiality. Yet, man, with all his conceit and self-confidence has not yet developed self-respect — does not yet know his creative power. Therefore al- ways he tries to arrest his own development, and allows fear of loss to brake his rapid and otherwise inevitable progress. Hence, convention, crystallization, orthodoxy. But that weakness simply gives strength and significance to the time element in the story of human progress. Else perhaps our forward march would be at dizzying speed, and the army of man be forever an unorganized mass of stragglers. Orthodoxy is a means of preserving the lines, while the laggards, the lazy, the cowardly and the orderly catch up. To change the figure, disinte- gration is as sure as integration, and the fluid state as reliable a tendency as the habit of crystallization ; in religion, priest follows prophet — but protest as surely succeeds the priest. To come to our time, we find abundant signs of the breaking up of present religious organization. The signs, the symptoms are on every hand : the falling away of attendance at public worship; the freedom of criticism of old faiths ; the indifference of the working classes ; the feminizing of congregations ; the multiplication of sects ; the tol- eration of a double standard of living, the last probably the most important symptom of all. But take that symptom most commonly observed, the falling ofif of attendance at public worship. It is significant that this is not true of two religious bodies — the Roman Catholic Church still holds its following, and the Christian Science Church is adding to its ranks of believers rapidly. These churches exhibit the two extremes of faith — the Roman Catholic revealing the attachment of men to the authority of tradi- tional faith, and willingness to make the church the repository of truth, while on the other hand the Christian Science Church is. ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 83 in a large sense, symbolic of the democratic belief in a right to establish new religious organizations. Rut among persons of average intelligence there is surely an indifference to the claims of religion, except perhaps on state occa- sions. They are willing that the church should ofificiate at wed- dings and funerals in order that due formality and propriety be observed. "And you never can tell," as the good Unitarian woman said, when questioned about her bowing at every mention of the devil's name. The daily conversation of the average American is untouched by religious conviction, and shows his thought on the fundamentals of life to be totally different from the church's. When he wishes to quote religious thought he uses the language of the churches as though he were speaking a foreign tongue. How much more glibly come the phrases of the stock market, the sport- ing world, the artistic circles ! The vocabulary of the churches is like a dead language to him, one that he will use as sparingly as quotations from the classics. Everywhere we find the freest criticism of religious bodies and beliefs, and commonly an irreverent attitude towards them. Read the journals of to-day and you will see that things formerly held in reverence, old-time teachings and beliefs and personages of the Christian faith, have become little more than subject mat- ter for literary illustration ; exactly as the myths and personages of the Greek theology, now called mythology. As a free religionist, I am unworried by this fact and find it significant of spiritual health and vitality, and prophetic of a nat- ural sloughing of the old faiths. I do not find this reduction of a living faith to mere literary phrases and symbols an indication of spiritual weakness. Not when you remember that it has taken 2,000 years for this to happen. And if a faith is to end thus, is the process worth while? Why not? What is a religious faith — several religious faiths, with their 2,000 or 3,000 years' tenure of life in this mighty process of moving the race from savagery towards the fleeting goal of practical idealism? A Buddhism, a Judaism, a Christianity may serve to supply symbols, mental furniture, ideas, giving men vocabulary for expressing their growing needs. It is worth while to have had Olympus with all its gods, to fur- nish figures of speech to human life with its aspirations. Bud- dhism has given us the symbol of tenderness for all created life ; Judaism, righteousness which exalts a nation ; Christianity has con- tributed a Jesus to emphasize the infinite value of every human life. Our little systems have their day — the human race loses none of the net results. And I have no fear of spiritual bankruptcy for the race if it gives up its oresent faith ! None. Another symptom of the seeming unreligiousness of the day is the multiplication of sects. But that is not a symptom of unre- ligiousness ; rather of dissatisfaction with the lack of a religion 84 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES which fits the needs of the time. It indicates spiritual vitality. These new sects do not necessarily spell a larger truth ; indeed, they often represent backsliding toward cruder religious philosophies as, for example. Dowieism and Christian Science. The latter I think a most material system, with its emphasis of the body, sickness and sin, despite its negation of material things. Yet in this as well as in other new sects, one sees the restless craving of men to fit their aspirations with a living faith — and perhaps I should say one sees it in women quite as much as in men ; perhaps, rather more. Those of little faith in man, in the Spirit of God working through man — claim to see, in this growing restlessness, evidence of moral degeneracy, and, in the instinctive self-preserving efforts of the church to meet the larger demands of men, proof of a tend- ency to cheapen religion and to rob it of all intrinsic worth and beauty. The "this-worldly" trend of the Christian Church is the only thing which will save it as a social factor. I maintain that only the closest affiliation of the church with the workday world of normal human interests will preserve religion as a precious in- fluence. A dread of spiritual bankruptcy is upon us, and a fear lest the sanctuarv become profaned by use for all the common purposes of life. All of this latter-day contempt or disrespect for the natural concerns of life, is to be expected as an aftermath of the Chris- tian metaphysics of other-worldliness. But that ancient atti- tude is already practically outgrown, however the mystic churches and pietistic cults may try to maintain themselves. Even the church to-day must prove its use, or else pass out of existence as other than a social luxury or curiosity. There is no room in the life of the future for the church which aims to be merely a church of the future life. It is true that the function of the church is spiritual, but that does not to-day mean inevitably and exclusively other-worldly. Also, it is the business of religion to preserve for us "the conscious re- lation between man and God and to express that relation in human conduct." But '"conduct" must include not only the development of per- sonal character, but also all social relationships, however impersonal or complex or practical or subtle. From this viewpoint, politics and industry, economics and corporate management, as well as the- ology, metaphysics and ethics, are in the sphere of religion. They cheapen religion who deliberately limit its sphere so that it be- comes coterminous with anything less than the whole of life, cov- ering every individual aspiration and interest and all tlie practical social concerns. This brings me to a necessarily brief consideration of the new phase of religion which is to replace the one from which we are emerging. And, naturally, I must comment upon the formulation ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 85 of "The Religion of the Future," given us by the wise and reverent former president of Harvard College — Charles W. Eliot. As a champion of progressive religion, I am glad I can give almost full- circled assent to Dr. Eliot's fearless, honest, and satisfying utter- ance. He appears to me to have gone far towards supplying a creed for the emancipated, enlightened and aspiring religionist of to-day — a creed which reverences truth, sees the spiritual signifi- cance of science, recognizes the moral worth of our material civili- zation, exalts the individual and demands the consecration of social service. I lay stress upon the fearless honesty of Dr. Eliot's essay, not in order to charge other religious teachers, by implication, with dishonesty, but to express the more fervent appreciation of his service. The average minister is not dishonest, but he is likely to be as incapable as the average attorney of seeing truth objectively and squarely, of seeing it otherwise than he is supposed to see it. Therefore, at best, he is likely to toy with truth, to become "ra- tionalistic,"' and to attempt to "harmonize" religious and scientific doctrine. This attitude and this process do not satisfy the lay mind, which is not so prone, pathologically, as is the professional relig- ionist, to recognize two kinds of truth which are in conflict, viz., a truth of religion and a truth of common sense. It is this unpro- fessional religionist whom President Eliot has particularly voiced and helped — the average, thinking, free man and woman outside the pulpit, and largely outside the church for sufficiently self-re- specting reason. The chief indictment brought against Dr. Eliot's "new" re- ligion is that it is too reasonable, too logical, and the "supernatural" cannot be left out of religion. Who says that? Only the devotees of unreasonable and supernatural religion. Where, then, shall we place the limit on irrationalism and supernaturalism ? Perhaps Cook and Peary will initiate us into the superior worth of the religion of the ignorant and savage Esquimaux, or Roosevelt will reveal to us the hidden beauties of the religion of the fetish worshiper in darkest Africa. Why not? If reason and logic are fatal to religion, why stop short of St. Augustine's: "I believe, because it is absurd"? I deny that ever the religious layman, except as misled by the religious philosopher, deliberately believed irrationally. When our ancestors accepted the six-day creation story, it was to them as reasonable as it is to us unreasonable, and it was as religious for them to hold the implied belief about God as it is irreligious for us to hold it. So with the idea of sacrifice. When men practiced that rite, it was because they honestly believed that a God could be cajoled or appeased by the sacrifice of human beings. It does no credit to the intellectual, moral, or spiritual calibre of the religionist to- 86 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES day, who accepts — because it is "supernatural" — any "rationalized" form of the idea of sacrifice. The honest "new" religion, like the honest "old" religion is simply the sublimest common-sense of the time. Obviously, that changes from age to age for the race, as it changes — and, let us hope, grows — with the "seven ages" of the individual man. Why any religionist should pride himself on a fixed and final faith, when obviously even a so-called revealed religion must address itself to, and find expression through an evolving, unfolding human intelli- gence, passes my comprehension, unless he is satisfied with anything short of the best and fullest and latest "revelation" of the divine, through the best and most enlightened and most spiritual men and women of succeeding generations. The modern tendency is to demand that religion shall be com- mensurate with the whole of life, to fit and to fulfil every side of our complex nature, and to meet all our physical, mental, moral, esthetic, and spiritual needs, and, if possible, to answer all our desires here and hereafter. Any religion which fails by all these tests — and they all do — is either doomed to continuous "growing- pains" or is destined to be outgrown and discarded by its own in- creasingly exacting devotees. That would hold true of all faiths which specialize, as it were, in catering to one or another human need and ignore the rest, as, for instance, making a cult of physical well-being, or of esthetic delights, or of "consolations" — all of these at the expense of sound common-sense. Well-balanced, all-around men and women are bound in due time to forswear such specializing cults. President Eliot was harshly criticized for his assertion that "the religion of the future will not be based on authority either spiritual or temporal." I cordially accept that prophecy. Nor do I ask the insertion of the word "external." We all know that "au- thority" always means external authority. What I want to assert is that enlightened and high-minded persons in general already pur- sue truth, beauty, goodness, justice, and whatever other ideals, for their own sake, because of the intrinsic worth and inherent attract- iveness of these — and not because God and the church command them. In other words, theology and ethics are separate though kindred human concerns, and the moral imperative is independent of the God-idea. I acknowledge that it is mainly the practical aspect of religion which interests me, the evolution of a series of ethical ideals and standards which shall uplift the life of the individual and regulate society on a spiritual basis. As to the theology and the metaphysics of the future (as of to-day), these certainly are to be diflferent from the theology and metaphysics of the past — if they are to be made, as always they have been, of our growing knowledge of man and the universe. Plainly, I mean to assert that tiie old-time theo- logical "sanction" ancl "authority" for human conduct — whether in ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 87 a conception of God as "perfect" and "holy" — which is really only tile register of man's spiritual aspiration, the image of his self- projection at his best — or in a divine commandment, enjoining "thus saith the Lord." These formerly effective (or at least influ- ential) guides and motives for human conduct have practically lost their individual compulsion and their social validity. No, we cannot do without them or their legitimate substitutes. The individual and society absolutely need compelling standards by which to regulate their conduct. It is neither desirable nor safe for an individual, however high-minded, to be a law unto himself. We need, in a new sense, a relation with a "power not (merely) ourselves which makes for righteousness." Of course, I am not blotting out the God of our fathers. He is already self-effaced by the greater revelation of himself in the soul of even the average man. The thought of God grows as man gets better acquainted with himself and with environing nature, and the desperate cling- ing to outworn theologies has always seemed to me a curious ex- hibition of spiritual cowardice. But all that is a matter for private speculation, a matter about which men will always honestly differ according to their individual temperament and culture. I am speaking of the "sanction" and "motive" for conduct in a free and natural religion, and I assert that already we do or do not do things for other reasons than did our fathers, whose con- duct was guided by their conception of God and their desire to fulfil what they believed to be his will. We of to-day are, and future gen- erations still more will be, influenced by ideals of individual living, and by the desire to establish a certain order of society. Are we, then, tending towards a religion of pure and practical ethics mere- ly? No, not merely that, but mainly that. God will be always an object of search and communion. The effort toward God-likeness and the expression of the spirit in prayer will continue. I believe the great formulator of a new religion will not only follow the trend of the time, but he will anticipate the evolved human being of the future as the prophet has always done — Jesus, Isaiah and others. He will talk in compelling tones about the sort of man that the individual must be in himself and in his social relations, as becomes a member of the society of the future. Will the average man understand such mandates as he does his present "Thus saith the Lord"? He will grow up to that demand of the prophet, gradually but surely; indeed, we are walking that sunlighted path to-day. In the growth of our distinctly human nature we shall not become im- mersed in merely practical affairs, but, through that very unfolding of the spirit, become increasingly interested in. and increasingly capable of understanding such departments of human concern as theology, metaphysics and religious philosophy. THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES I realize that humanity wants a "religion" in the old sense of the word. Normal human nature requires religion ; indeed, we "secrete" religion. Religion is a growth keeping pace with the culture of every human group and each individual. The religion of a country or of a certain social stratum or of any human being proclaims their mental and spiritual caliber, the outreachings of the soul and their expression in social practice. But must not the new religion give us dogma ? Yes ; but our dogmatizing will relate itself to social ideals and social practice. We shall be just as dogmatic about these matters as the traditional religions have been in their teaching about Gods and Christs and the hereafter ; and we shall not be too tolerant of "heresies" re- garding our new doctrine, any more than the traditional religions have been about the old. But as to speculations and dogmas re- garding the unknown, I feel sure we shall proceed modestly, as becomes our increased reverence toward the mystery of the infinite universe. At any rate, I feel sure that a new religion will not repeat the dogmas and speculations plainly antagonized by science and his- tory and in conflict with our culture, as, for instance, the six days' creation theory and the fall of man. It will expect worship for nothing man-made, whether a bible or a god, though it will rev- erence all products of human nature in the making. And will this religion be born in America? Of that, who can prophesy? But I believe that America will be more and more the breeding ground for world-wide ideas and influences. The mix- ture of nations here in America prefigures a fusion of races in the future. Now, undoubtedly, the religion of the future will be world-wide. It will not advance along racial lines, but along lines of intelligence. The universal religion will come to the world large- ly as the result of perfected means of communication and inter- course between the nations, and in that future day we shall live on a world scale in our "perfected" state of human society. And then we shall perhaps find time to study the inexhaustible problems and mysteries of the universe. This brings me to my one point of difference with Dr. Eliot, that he predicts the continuance of the anthropomorphic view of God, holding that man necessarily thinks of God in terms of hu- man personality. How does Dr. Eliot know this to be necessary, and necessary always? True, we now ascribe personality to God. But we are still in the infantile phase of our theology, being too yoimg by thousands of years to think clearly and and speak know- ingly about God. Therefore, I hold, even our most advanced theol- ogy is tentative (to be expanded and improved by our growing knowledge of the universe and of human nature), and our present thought and language about God are largely figurative. ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 89 The surviving orthodoxy indicated in Dr. Eliot's theology also appears in his estimate of Jesus. Admirable as is the remarkable personality of that gentle Rabbi of Nazareth, I believe that it must lose its transcendence in an age that ceases to worship him as God, and Jesus must take his place on a plane with the other spiritual heroes of history, all of whom have served to glorify our common human nature and to illustrate its limitless possibilities. A final challenge I wish to give to Crystallized Religion, and a rallying cry to Progressive Religion : In the face of the surviving autocracy which indwells every ecclesiastic institution and whose purpose plainly is self-perpetua- tion more than individual and social service, it is desirable, espe- cially in democratic America, to assert and to prove : that man is greater than churches, that human nature is incurably spiritual, and that our free and natural religion is a reliable means for binding together the human family and relating it closely to God. Mr. Jones: Our Friend Fisher has regained his breath and I have regained my courage, and now he is going to lead us in singing. ''Mine eyes have seen the glory," and we will all join in the chorus. (Singing.) I wish I could feel that the great contention of Theodore Parker which we are now about to consider was as well begun and as far advanced as these other contentions which we have considered. Only one enlightened by close study, I take it, can take a very buoyant estimate of our present progress away from war, so heartily and holily hated by Theodore Parker; but Mr. Beals speaks by the book, he knows what he is talking about, and I hope and expect that he will be able to show us that, despite the unholy wars that have soiled the pages of history since the great prophet went hence, despite the humiliating figures of the burden of the budgets of all nations, despite the bumptiousness of our own coun- try, still we have progressed away from war. Brother Beals, cheer us. We need comforting ni this line. Chicago, Illinois FIFTY YEARS' GROWTH AWAY FROM WAR. Because Theodore Parker was a deeply religious man, because he took his religion in earnest and believed in righteousness, its practicability, its triumph, he was interested in all the great re- form movements of his day. As Mr. Mead, following Mr. Emer- son, has so well said : "He insisted beyond all men in pulpits that the essence of Christianity is its practical morals ; it is there for use, or it is nothing." (Mead: Emerson and Theodore Parker.) 90 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES Roug'hly, we may divide his life into two parts : the first period ending with the close of his West Roxbury pastorate, the second embracing the fifteen magnificent years of his Boston ministry. Throughout the first period he figured as an indefatigable student and pioneer in theological reconstruction. But during the second period he was forced on, as a loyal lover of truth and justice, to study and participate in all the great moral movements of his times. Life in a great city, in which sins of all kinds confront one at close range, and such events as the Mexican War and the rendi- tion of fugitive slaves, made his Boston pastorate famous for his immortal utterances. '"Peace, temperance, education, the condition of women, penal legislation, prison discipline, the moral and mental destitution of the rich, the physical destitution of the poor — all these things," says one of his biographers, "engaged his sympathy and warmed his blood, dictating many a page in his sermons." (Chadwick, 235.) To quote another of his biographers: "Theo- dore Parker came to Boston as a theological, not as a sociological reformer ; but life in the city brought him into such close contact with misery, crime and vice, that he could not stand aloof. A re- former by instinct, readily kindled into indignation at the thought of evils he never saw, the daily communication with evil in its con- crete forms, moved and roused every energy in him." (Frothing- ham.) No one can read his volumes on "Discourses of Politics." "Dis- courses of Slavery," and "Discourses of Social Science." without agreeing with Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson that "Parker's sermons constitute a moral history of the age in which he lived." His tireless advocacy of reforms, his searching analysis of the functions of a church, his ringing messages on the social, indus- trial and political duties of the hour, are all keyed to an attempt to organize righteousness. The specific task assigned to me is to discuss Theodore Parker's espousal of the peace cause, and to inquire whether or not the world has grown away from war in the fifty years since his earthly work ended. And first let me speak of / — Theodore Parker as a FigJitcr. Whether he was an altogether glorious prophet of the eternal (as grateful friends aver), or whether he was "the foulest fiend which hell ever vomited forth" (as a hostile biographer declared), one thing he was not — he was no mollycoddle. He was a beautiful fighter and loved a good, hard battle as well as a later Theodore of whom we have heard somewhat. How could he help it? He was born in Lexington (August 24, 1810). In his arteries coursed the good red blood of the New England farmer-soldier. It was his grandfather, Captain John Parker, who marshalled the company on Lexington green on that fateful morning when was "fired the shot heard round the world." ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 91^ And if you will g^o to Lexington to-day, you will find chiseled in stone the courageous words uttered by Captain John i'arker on that memorable morning: "Don't fire unless fired upon; but if they mean to have war, let it begin here!" When well warmed up to the fray, this same Captain John took from a British grenadier the weapon with which the latter was armed. Throughout his life, the grandson, Theodore, kept hanging in his study, this king's arm, captured from the British grenadier, and also the rifle which Captain Parker bore in the Lexington fight, which was the same one which he had fought with in the old French War and which he carried at the taking of Quebec. (Frothingham, 419.) These two guns are now hung in the Senate chamber in the State House in Boston, having been bequeathed by Theodore Parker to the State of Massachusetts. These old guns had, for their owner, an interest far deeper than the gratification of the musty curiosity of the mere relic-hunter. To him they spoke a living message. They were a perpetual ad- monition and encouragement to be loyal to present duty. Listen to his manly words to Millard Fillmore, on the subject of assisting fugitive slaves : "There hang beside me in my library, as I write, the gun my grandfather fought with at the battle of Lexington . . . and also the musket he captured from a British soldier on that day, — the first taken in the war for independence. If I would not peril my property, my liberty, my life, to keep my own parishioners out of slavery, then I would throw away these trophies, and should think I was the son of some coward, and not a brave man's child." Chadwick states : "So long as the two muskets hung in Parker's study they were to him a daily inspiration, and there were times when it seemed highly probable that he might use one or the other of them to begin another war." No, Theodore Parker was not a mollycoddle. It is said that when, in young manhood, he was teaching school, he joined the Lexington Militia and was made lieutenant and clerk of the com- pany. In a playful letter, written on the anniversary of Bunker Hill, to S. J. May, he addresses his good friend as "you son of a colonel, you !" And he intimates that May "will be pleased to be associated with any battle !" Thomas Wentworth Higginson, he addresses as "Rev. General Higginson." (Chadwick, 300.) In the bosoms of these friends, and others who might be named, upon whom the holy hand of emancipation was laying a compelling hand, there flamed the spirit of young Philip Sidney, who declared, "If there are any good wars I shall go to them." Anti-slavery, for their generation was such a "good war," and in this war Theodore Parker enlisted heart and soul, voice and pen, purse and strength. He gloried in rescuing fugitive slaves. Hear his own words : "I have in my church black men, fugitive slaves, they are the crown of my apostleship, the seal of my min- istry. It becomes me to look after their bodies, to save their souls. 92 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES I have been obliged to take my own parishioners into my house to keep them out of the clutches of the kidnappers ; yes, gentlemen, I have been obliged to do that, and to keep my doors guarded by day as well as by night. I have had to arm myself. I have writ- ten my sermons with a pistol on my desk, loaded, with a cap on the nipple, ready for action ; yes, with a drawn sword within reach of my right hand ... I am no non-resistant." A vigilance committee was formed in Boston to prevent the return of fugitive slaves. Parker's name was first on the list of the executive committee and to this work he gave whole days and nights. It was his pen which drafted the resolutions which were to rouse the conscience of the city and the nation. Upon him and a few others rested the responsibility of thwarting the "kidnappers" who arrived from time to time. Upon two of these southern gen- tlemen — Hughes and Knight — a party of some sixty members of the committee called, at the United States hotel. Parker was the spokesman and so clearly did he state the object of the visit that the Southerners took the afternoon train for New York. (Chadwick, 251.) But not always did the exciting scenes have so happy a termination. An attempt was made to deliver Anthony Burns from the marshal's men who held him in custody. Parker that evening was addressing an anti-slavery meeting in Faneuil Hall. He pro- posed that the audience meet the next morning at Court Square ( for the purpose of freeing Burns). But events moved faster than had been expected and that very evening an attack was made on the court house. Higginson was clubbed and his forehead was laid open by a sword-cut. But the affair was soon over, and a force of marines was marched over from Charlestown Navy Yard to defend the marshal. In the melee a black man fired at Marshal P'reeman, narrowly missing him. On hearing this Parker exclaimed distressfully, ''Why didn't he hit him? Why didn't he hit him?" Parker was arrested with Wendell Phillips, Thomas Wentworth Higginson and others, for inciting riot, but the case was not pushed and never came to trial. Parker, however, seized the opportunity to issue a volume of 220 pages, through which he laid his defense before the people of the land. Parker played his part in the movement to settle Kansas with free-soilers. In his private Journal, under date of April 2, 1856, we find this entry: "Saw the Kansas party go off. Dr. Charles H. Sanborn at their head, about forty . . . There were twenty copies of Sharp's 'Rights of the People' in their hands, of the new and improved edition, and divers Colt's six-shooters also." And in October of the same year, in a letter to a friend he predicted that if Buchanan should be elected President, the Union would not hold out his four years. "It must end in civil war, which I have been preparing for these six months past. I buy no books except for pressing need. Last year I bought fifteen hundred dollars' ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 93 worth ; this year T shall not order two hundred dollars' worth. I may want money for cannons." Mr. Parker was a loyal friend to John Brown, helping him with counsel, encouragement and money. When the old hero of Ossawattomie perished as the martyr of Harper's Ferry, Theodore Parker, from over the ocean, nobly eulogized the brave old man in a long letter. As Frothingham says : "No one had more eagerly looked for tidings of the bold adventure; no one more sincerely regretted its failure ; no one more faithfully bore witness to the magnanimity of the martyred man, more frankly expressed his friendship for him, or his approval of his deed." Parker held that slaves had a natural right to destroy their oppressors and that it might be the duty of freemen to help them. Indeed he went so far as to say: "I should like, of all things, to see an insurrection of the slaves," One of the most dramatic acts performed by Theodore Parker during the exciting anti-slavery struggle was a certain marriage ceremony at which he officiated. William and Ellen Craft, fugitive slaves, refugees in Boston, hotly pursued by slave-catchers, decided to go to London where they would be safe. Being slaves, they had had no legal marriage solemnized. As their pastor, Mr. Parker was called upon to officiate. After the usual marriage formula had been spoken, the clergyman addressed a few special remarks to the bridegroom, telling Craft that he was an outlaw, that no law protected his liberty in the United States, that he must depend upon himself; that if attacked by one wishing to return him to slavery, he had a natural right to resist the man unto death; that his wife depended upon him for protection, and to protect her was a duty he could not decline. Then taking up a bowie-knife, or a sword, which was lying on the table, the minister placed it in the bridegroom's right hand and charged him to use it in the last ex- tremity. The times became blacker and blacker. It seemed impossible to quicken the conscience of the nation into life and action. But never did this man quail. Charles Sumner was brutally assaulted and laid low. At this event, Parker, in a sermon from his Music Hall pulpit, exclaimed, "I keep the coat of Thomas Sims ; it is rent to tatters. I wish I had also the bloody garment of Charles Sumner that I might show it to you." After the presidential elec- tion of 1856 he wrote: 'T am more than ever of opinion that we must settle this question in the old Anglo-Saxon way — by the sword. I make all my pecuniary arrangements with the expecta- tion of civil war. I buy no books." No, this man was no mollycoddle. When he dared to lift up his voice in Faneuil Hall in protest against the iniquitous war with Mexico, cries of "Throw him over" were uttered by the armed soldiers present. Upon which he asked: "Throw him over, what good would that do? What would you do next, after you had 94 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES thrown him over?" "Drag you out of the hall," came from the coarse mol>throat. "What good would that do? It would not wipe off the infamy of this war! Would not make it less wicked!" A few moments later there burst out angry cries, "Throw him over ; kill him, kill him !" accompanied by a flourish of bayonets. But the dauntless man scornfully replied: "Throw him over? You will not throw him over. Kill him? I shall walk home unarmed and unattended, and not a man of you will hurt one hair of my head." Such a man is no weakling. And only a stout-souled hero would say, as he said, early in life, "Blessed be these iron times ! There is something for a man to do." We have thus far considered Parker as a fighter ; he was like- wise a thorough-going pacifist, and we are now to think of // — Theodore Parker as a Prophet of Peace. On a certain occasion in the year 1851, Parker said: "I must not let a fugitive slave be taken from Boston, cost what it may justly cost. I will not (so I think now) use weapons to rescue a man with ; but I will go unarmed when there is a reasonable chance of success, and make the rescue." Later, however, when the anti- slavery excitement became fanned into a white heat, we find Theo- dore Parker arming himself with a hatchet when assisting colored refugees ; and from his own lips we have it that in his study he kept arms, ready for use, should occasion arise. But he says : "It is no small matter that would compel me to shed human blood." Physical force was repugnant to him, the poorest kind of an argu- ment ; and the weapons of violence he looked upon as evidence of surviving barbarism. And it is true that in the marriage ceremony of William and Ellen Craft, as has been stated, Mr. Parker placed a bowie-knife, or a sword, in the hand of the groom and bade him defend his wife with it. But he also charged Craft to use the weapon only in the last extremity ; to bear no harsh or revengeful feelings against those who once held him in bondage, or such as sought to make him and his wife slaves even now. "Nay, if you cannot use the sword in defense of your wife's liberty without hating the man you strike, then your action will not be without sin." Although anti-war sentiments are scattered all through the published works of Parker, his views on war and peace find fullest expression in his "Sermon of War," preached at the Melodeon, June 7, 1846; in his speech delivered at the anti-war meeting in Faneuil Hall, February 4, 1847; in his "Sermon of the Mexican War," preached at the Melodeon, June 25, 1848 ; and in his "New Lesson for the Day," delivered in Music Hall, May 25, 1856. In these sermons and addresses we find all the arguments which were being used by the great peace workers of his day, and which are still used by modern pacifists. I have wondered how much Parker owed to the peace leaders and peace literature of his ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 95 time, and how mtich he contributed which was original with him. Certainly he was familiar with the leaders and literature of the peace movement. He quotes from Judge William Jay's address before the American Peace Society, which was delivered in 1845. He was inspired by Charles Sumner's noble address on "The True Grandeur of Nations" in 1845, approved of its sentiments and re- ferred to it with hearty enthusiasm. He was in closest sympathy with Sumner and letters were constantly passing between them, this correspondence dating from the delivery of said oration. The American Peace Society published "The Book of Peace" in 1845. In 1847, Dr. Beckwith, the secretary of the American Peace So- ciety, published his "Manual of Peace," one of the ablest pieces of pacifist literature ever issued. Parker's "Sermon of War," which was preached in 1846 follov/s almost identically the same arrange- ment as Beckvvith's Manual. I suspect that Parker used the am- munition furnished in the publications of our American Peace So- ciety. He touched on almost every phase of the peace question. In general, he looked upon war as something that is to pass away. Indeed he thought that already it was practically unnecessary. Hear his own words : "At this day, with all the enlightenment of our age . . . war is easily avoided. Whenever it occurs, the very fact of its occurrence convicts the rulers of a nation either of entire incapacity as statesmen, or else of the worst form of treason : trea- son to the people, to mankind, to God. There is no alternative." As Frothingham says : "He was exceedingly curious about war — the cost of it ; the expense of maintaining armies ; the waste of life ; the effects, physical and moral, on society, whether to stunt and brutalize, or to stimulate and ennoble; its avoidableness or in- evitableness ; the amount of guilt implied in it ; the value of the virtues it educated." Of those who stir up wars he said, "There are some men who seem to have no eyes nor ears, only a mouth ; whose chief func- tion is to talk. Of their talk I will say nothing; we look for dust in dry places." These are good words to remember when the annual war scare is trotted out just as the naval appropriations bill comes up in Congress. "No eyes, no ears, only mouth. . . . Dust in dry places. How well this describes the silly war talk of to-day! Parker had no patience with the sentiment uttered by Stephen Decatur. "My country, right or wrong!" On the other hand, he approved the idea of true patriotism as expressed by John Quincy Adams : "Our country ! May she be always successful ; but whether successful or not, may she be always in the right!" Modem history teachers are coming to appreciate the truth of his contention that "It is not of much importance to know whether General Fairfax charged up hill or down hill, wore a blue feather or a red one, or whether his military breeches were of plush or 96 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES fustian ; but it is of great importance to know what ideas were in his head or in the heads of his opponents and of his soldiers, and what organization those ideas got in the world." "Manifest destiny" was a phrase not unknown in Parker's day. This cant expression was not coined by the modern imperialists. The same sarcasm and withering scorn which Parker turned upon this formula, should be poured upon it again by the thinking, right- eous people of our own day. Parker agonized over the Crimean War and a part of his sermon on "A New Lesson for the Day," was devoted to a dis- cussion of it. In summing up the good results of this war Mr. Parker says, "But all these things might have been done without drawing a sword or shedding a drop of blood." How true are these words of the beneficent results of the world's later expe- riences in war-making! The "glory of war" receives his consideration. The wanton slaughter at Tabasco and Vera Cruz in the Mexican War by our troops he characterizes as cold-blooded massacre, and adds, "None but a Pequod Indian could excuse it. Would you see the trophies of Napoleon and Wellington? Then count the orphan asylums in Germany and Holland; go into the hospitals at Greenwich, that of the Invalides in Paris ; there you see the 'trophies' of Napoleon and Wellmgton." "Military glory," he adds, "is the poorest kind of distinction, but the most dangerous passion. The glory which comes of epaulets and feathers ; that strutting glory which is dyed in blood — what shall we say of it? In this day it is not heroism; it is an imitation of barbarism long ago passed by." He compares military heroism with moral courage. "It re- quires very little courage to fight with sword and musket, and that of a cheap kind. . . . Every male animal will fight ; the more brutal, the better. . . . But it takes much to resist evil with good ... it is the stoutest kind of a combat, demanding all the man- hood of a man." Parker welcomed any measures of constructive peacemaking. He heartily approved those articles in the treaty which ended the Mexican War, which provided for arbitration between the two nations, if future hostilities should occur. How glad would he have been if his eyes had been permitted to behold a world court at The Hague! Should you ask me to specify the chief excellences of Theo- dore Parker as a prophet of peace, I should name three things; namely; (1) he emphasized the economic waste of the war sys- tem; (2) he laid great stress on the moral, or immoral, effects of war; and (3) he unceasingly preached democracy, and argued that the people had a right to put an end to wars. He never tired of bearing down heavily on the economic waste of war. In all his sermons and addresses on war topics, almost invariably he begins by considering the cost of war in money, prop- ABR4HAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 97 erty, loss of life, etc. We have already quoted one of his biog- raphers as saying that "he was exceedingly curious about war — the cost of it. . . . His inquiries extended as far as to the strength of cannon and the ordinary supply of ammunition kept on hand by the government." I do not think that this biographer has ade- quatelv interpreted Theodore Parker in describing him as "ex- ceedingly curious" about the cost of war. It was something deeper than curiosity. The truth is, Parker was a sound economist. He anticipated the day when men would be educated to think in eco- nomic terms, and when waste would be looked upon as immoral. We are just coming to this in our own day. Parker was seventy- five years ahead of his times. Because he looked at things from the viewpoint of a true economist, he went into all sorts of eco- nomic comparisons. He showed how war paralyzes industry. He traced the actual destruction of property by war. He quoted gov- ernment statistics to show how great was the sum expended for army, navy and fortifications. (What would he say if living to- day?) He compared the cost of battleships and navy yards with the amount invested in schools, colleges, libraries, etc. His con- clusion was that the "soldier is the most unprofitable animal you can keep," and that "a country is the poorer for every soldier it maintains." Thus did Parker, as prophet of peace, anticipate con- servation and the whole economic movement of our day. Nor did this keen visioned seer lay less stress on the moral aspect of war. He lamented war, especially an unjust and iniq- uitous one like the Mexican War, as a sin, as a corruption of public morals, as a denial of Christianity. He pictured camps as schools of vice and showed that an increase in crime is the invari- able sequence of a war. He went on to trace the moral damage which war inflicts on generals, on political parties, on the nations which engage in it. He pays his respects to "chaplains who teach the soldiers to wad their muskets with leaves of the Bible," and to the priest who gives thanks for "a famous victory" and hangs up the bloody standard over his pulpit. Nor does he spare the victorious general who rose to his extreme intellectual and moral height when he exclaimed in a certain battle, "Give 'em hell, damn 'em !" and for this was made President of the United States. The Theodore Parker who would write to Charles Sumner, begging him to be "the Senator zvith a conscience" could not help consider- ing war from the view-point of its effect on morals. Moreover, Parker was a great democrat. The cause of the people never had a sturdier or more loyal champion than this farmer preacher and hard-hitting reformer. It was Theodore Parker who forged the thunderbolt which Abraham Lincoln used with such telling effect in his Gettysburg address — "government of the peo- ple, by the people, for the people." To him "the great business of society is not merely to have farms and shops — but to have men — men that are conscious of their manhood, self-respectful, earnest 98 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES men, that have a faith in the living God." Persons are of more importance than property, he contended. With true seerlike vision he affirmed that the work providentially laid out for us to do is to organize the rights of man. With such ideals, he showed that war is hostile to democracy, and that the burden of war falls upon the humbler classes, while the glory goes to the aristocrats — the officers. He believed that the people had a right to discuss the wars which they have to fight and pay for, and protested against any attempt to overawe popular discussion by a display of bayonets. Thus was Parker economist, moralist and democrat, and, as such, a warrior against war. It is just now being borne in upon us that society can be enduring, or endurable, only as it is based upon sound economic principles, morality and democracy. Parker saw this and bravely sounded his pioneer's message. That he was a faithful and unwavering champion of peace principles is perhaps best attested by the fact that several persons left Parker's church because of his uncompromising opposition to war. /// — The Wars and the Increase of War Establishments Since Theodore Parker's Day. Having viewed Theodore Parker as a fighter and as a pacifist, w-e are now to ask whether there has been any growth away from war in the last fifty years. At first glance it seems as though no progress had been made, for during this period some of the most terrible wars in all history have been fought. The dryest enumeration of the wars of the last half century is a blood-curdling catalogue of human misery. We have spoken of Parker's attitude toward the Mexican War and his horror at the efifusion of blood in the Crimean War (1853-1856). during which nearly two-thirds of a million men laid down their lives on the battlefields of Alma, Balaklava, Inkermann, and Malakhofif, un- til at last the Treaty of Paris was signed. This terrible war arose from a dispute as to whether the Greek or Latin church should have possession of the holy places in Palestine. England and France sided with Turkey against Russia. Many years after the Crimean War, a Prime Minister of Great Britain declared, "We put our money on the wrong horse that time." (Report of London Peace Congress, 1908, p. 72.) In Parker's lifetime also came, in 1856, the war between Great Britain and Persia, which was ended by a proclamation of peace in 1857. Moreover, he knew of the Indian mutiny, which raged from 1857 to 1859. It will be remembered that this rebellion grew out of the refusal of the Sepoys, or native soldiers in India, to use the cartridges furnished by the British government, because said cartridges were said to be greased with tallow or lard, which was an insult to their religion, since a Hindu is forbidden to touch cows' fat ; and a Mohammedan, lard. Terrible massacres of the whites took place at Delhi, Cawnpore and other places, while Lucknow was relieved just in time to save the be- ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 99 leaguered English from a similar fate. In 1859, too, the Italian war of 1859, took place. In this war with its terrible battles of Magenta, Solferino. etc., Austria, France and Piedmont lost 24,000 men, while the Franco-Sardinian army alone had over 100,000 soldiers disabled by disease. Only a few months after the death of Theodore Parker in Florence, Italy, our own great Civil War burst forth. What pathetic memories are called up by the very mention of Bull Run, Shiloh, Seven Days, Antietam, Murfreesborough, Chancellorsville, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, the Virginia and Atlanta campaigns ! A million able bodied men laid down their lives. Thank God, time is softening the asperities, and the Blue and the Gray are touching shoulders once more as they to- gether march swiftly to the grave. In 1864 Denmark, Prussia and Austria waged the short Schles- wig-Holstein War, in which 3,500 lives were lost. The year 1866 was marked by the Seven Weeks' War between Prussia and Austria in which the battle of Koniggratz or Sadowa made Prussia supreme in Germany. Fifty-seven thousand lives were a part of the cost of this war. Brazil, Argentine and Paraguay, between 1864 and 1870, lost 330,000 men in war. In 1870 France, "with a light heart," declared war against Germany. Napoleon III. was jealous of the growing power of Germany, under Bismarck's skillful negotiations, and easily found an excuse for resorting to arms. In this Franco-Prussian War the terrible battles of Worth, Gravelotte, Sedan, Metz and Paris were fought, in which the losses of life aggregated 311,000. Paris was captured, and Alsace and Lorraine were annexed by the vic- torious Germans. Another terrible war was the Russo-Turkish one in 1877-78. Plevna, Shipka Pass, Kars, etc., are names representing fierce fight- ing and the sacrifice of 180,000 human lives. The peace of San Stefano and the Treaty of Berlin ended this war. Mention also should be made of the various European expe- ditions to Mexico. Morocco, China, Lebanon, Paraguay, etc., be- tween the years 1861-1867, in which 65,000 men perished. The Zulu and Afghan wars in 1879 cost 40,000 lives. In 1894-95 came the war between China and Japan, in which Japan was victorious, the Chinese navy being practically destroyed in the battle of the Yalu River. No statistics as to loss of life are at hand, but the losses are estimated at 15,000. From 1868 onward, for thirty years, Cuban revolutionists made attempt after attempt to wrest Cuba from Spain. In 1898, after the blowing up of the battleship "Maine," the United States joined with the insurrectionists and Cuba was freed from Spain. This ranks as a very small war ; only about 6,000 lives were sacrificed. 100 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES But as a sequel to the war with Spain came the PhiHppine war in which from 5,000 to 10,000 American soldiers perished, while between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Filipinos are estimated to have lost their lives. Anglo-Boer troubles dragged on intermittently in South Africa from 1876 till the breaking out of the Boer War in 1899. The struggle during the next two or three years cost England alone 28,000 lives. The sum total of British and Boer losses, including the deaths of women and children in reconcentrado camps, mounted up to some 91,000 lives. The giant struggle between Russia and Japan which broke out in 1904, cost the two nations over half a million lives, not to men- tion the wounded. In 1909, the troubles and discontent in Morocco came to a head and Spain waged a repressive war against the Moors. These are the principal wars of the last half century. No time remains to speak of our own Indian campaigns, or of the Latin American revolutions, or of "the little wars" waged by na- tions. Of these "little wars," Great Britain alone had eighty dur- ing the nineteenth century. IV — The Increased Expenditures for War Purposes. From the middle of the nineteenth century nearly three million human lives have perished on battlefields, while the direct money cost of the wars has footed up to over sixteen billions of dollars. But this is only a small item of the total "butcher's bill." Armed peace to-day is more expensive then war itself was in former days. Europe probably has expended, since the Franco-Prussian War, 48 billions of dollars for the maintenance of armies and navies. According to the British prime minister, the "civilized" nations are expending between two and two and a half billions of dollars annually for war purposes. A most remarkable document has just been issued, namely, the report of the Massachusetts Commission on the Cost of Living, 1910. This commission was appointed by the Legislature of Massa- chusetts. The report shows that the extravagances and wastes of our political and social system are "a main factor in the present burdensome cost of living." As the chief of all these wastes it ar- raigns the world's war system and the monstrous expenditures for armaments. I want to urge that each of you secure and care- fully read this report, or that part of it which bears upon the cost of militarism. Let me at least quote at some length : "As showing the enormous demands that militarism makes up- on resources, let us first note the comparative expenditures of the national treasury for the thirty-one years from 1879 to 1909. The ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 101_ figures are given both in amounts and in percentages of national revenue as follows : Army $ 2,465,096,479 equal to 20.2 per cent Navy 1,456,795,867 equal to 11.9 per cent Pensions 3,499,883,832 equal to 28.7 per cent Interest 1,309,026,795 equal to 10.7 per cent Total $12,210,499,778 equal to 71.5 per cent "The balance of the national income for those thirty-one years, amounting to $3,479,696,805, or 28.5 per cent of the whole, was spent upon the civil administration of national affairs, Indians, leg- islation, law, justice, customs service, and all other miscellaneous activities of the nation. "Thus during this period 71.5 per cent of the nation's income, almost three dollars out of every four of revenue, was spent on the destructive agencies of war, for the interest paid on the debts contracted for warlike purposes, and in pensions to the victims of war, — the army of surviving economic inefficients created by war. "The national debt of the United States is a monument to our past wars. "Eliminating the nominal debt indicated by notes and paper currency in circulation, with other credits, and assuming the pop- ulation of the United States to be 94,000,000, the per capita debt would amount to almost exactly $10.00. "In addition, there are debts of the states, counties, and cities of the country, about 25 per cent at least of which may be assumed to have been the contribution of the states to national militarism, the rest of the debt being supposedly for improvements represent- ing economic values. These debts represent an average per capita which, added to the national per capita, yields a total debt of $36.80 per capita. "In the one hundred and twenty-six years of our national ex- istence, besides the war of the rebellion, we have had wars with three foreign powers, — England, Mexico, and Spain. Whether or not any or all of these wars were preventable is a matter of merely academic interest at this time. Though they covered only six years of our national life, and the rebellion four, these ten years were responsible for our huge debts. It is worth recalling that during the life of the republic we have spent for all purposes the sum of $21,518,871,351, and of this amount $16,567,677,135 was devoted to militarism and its incidents and only $4,951,194,216 to the activi- ties of peace. "The enormous national debt of England has been piled up almost exclusively by the constant wars, great and small, in which 102 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES she has been engaged. The growth of this debt from its inception to date is interesting economically ; it began, in England, practically with the establishment of a standing army of a permanent character. "In 1800, while the ordinary administrative civil expenditures of this republic amounted to only $1,330,000, the expenditures for pensions and naval and military purposes reached the sum of $9,- 470,000. The country's debt in 1812 was about $45,200,000, but by the time the war with England closed it had been run up to $127,- 300,000. The country then settled down to the ways of peace, in- dustry and trade in a national sense, our only trouble being petty Indian outbreaks, so that by the time of the Mexican War the na- tional debt had been paid off. "The expenses of the government have since been constantly increasing; but although the extension of territorial settlement and the increase of population would have entailed increased expenses in the administration of public affairs, the largest item of expense has always been for military affairs, army and navy. The War of the Rebellion, with its waste and loss, may have been preventable ; we are to look at that tremendous contest simply from its economic side. Its effects on every phase of American life were far-reach- ing, and on none so impressive as on the economic side. Five years after its close the United States, in 1870, as a result of it, was paying out in interest charges alone twice as much as the whole cost of the government in 1860. Prior to the Rebellion the budget of the army and navy amounted to $27,980,000, and, though the vast armies that had carried on the struggle had vanished and were absorbed into civil life, the army and navy in 1870 cost the country $79,430,000. "The following table of the indebtedness of the principal Eu- ropean countries and their dependencies is an impressive showing of the enormous capital taken from productive industry and the work of civilization, and wasted in death and destruction. The debt thus piled up for war and waste remains a burden on the life of the world, — a burden calling every year for a huge interest pay- ment of more than a billion dollars taken from the earnings of the nations. This is supplemented annually by many other billions to maintain huge armies and navies of men taken from industry, who are organized, trained and maintained for the day when they will again be hurled at each other, to duplicate the destruction of the past and piie up new and heavier burdens upon the thrift and industry of the world. ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 103 "Indebtedness of nations, with amount of interest payments, computed up to the year 1906: Annual Country National Debt. Int. Paym'ts. Austria-Hungary $ 1.092,863,255 $ 48,214,794 Belgium 621,640,286 24,925,694 Denmark 64,231,713 2,197,120 France 5,655,134,825 237,855,497 French Algiers 6,323,838 737,440 German Empire 855,963,454 30,358,300 German States 2,957,356,846 120,537,100 Netherlands 458,069,211 14,718,505 Portugal 864,701,627 21,369,000 Roumania 278,249,239 16,086,604 Russia 4,038,199,722 172,385,884 Russia, Finland 27,073,900 1,205,734 Switzerland 19,787,648 1,037,642 Turkey 458,603,213 9,499,450 United Kingdom 3,839,620,745 150,295,210 British Colonies 612,510,084 22,802,418 Spain 1,899,265,995 69,256,706 Italy 2,767,911,940 190,803,281 Totals $26,517,504,541 $1,134,296,179 "We cannot, in view of these considerations, escape the fact that militarism is a cause of enormous waste in this age. Its world- wide existence and character make it the most difficult of all prob- lems to solve, just as the logic upon which its existence is based is the most intractable to combat and controvert. National honor and safety are the catchwords of a system that is bleeding the world to death ; the former, shadowy though it may be, is more in evidence abroad than at home ; and so far in the life of the republic the latter has been jeoparded more frequently by our in- habitants than by foreign foes. Nevertheless, the bogey of foreign aggression and invasion is periodically invoked to bolster up the sys- tem of militarism whenever it appears to need support and when- ever the appropriations do not meet the desires of those whose economic existence depends upon the production of the instru- mentalities of war and waste." It must be admitted that during the last fifty years there has been an increase of war establishments and a piling up of war ex- penditures such as this old war-cursed, blood-drenched earth never witnessed before. But the very burdensomeness of the system is the hopeful thing. The world is being "stung broad awake" and once it gets its eyes open, will speedily consign war to the scrap- pile of wornout institutions. 104 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES Moreover there is a brighter side to the picture. As Mr. Emer- son said, in Theodore Parker's day: "War is a juvenile and tem- porary state. . . . History is . . . the record of the mitigation and decline of war. ... A universal peace is as sure as the prev- alence of civilization over barbarism, of liberal governments over feudal forms . . . It is a thought that built this portentous war- establishment, and a thought shall also melt it away." If Emerson and Parker could perceive this truth and preach it in their day, how much more easily we may see it in ours when we consider V — The Progress of International Peacemaking During the Last Fifty Years. 1 — Think of the growth of peace sentiments as organized in peace societies and parallel movements. Not only have the century- old peace societies, like the American and London, greatly increased in influence, but societies have multiplied all over the world and a permanent international bureau is maintained at Berne, Switzer- land. There are now two peace societies in Japan. One of these, the Japan Peace Society, was organized two or three years ago, and our American Peace Society contributed some money to help get the baby born. Today that infant is a pretty lusty fellow. Count Okuma, former secretary of state, is the president and takes a deep personal interest in the movement. The American and British Ambassadors have recently joined the society and are in- terested members. The great business men are lending their support. During the past ten months, for the first time in history, a peace society was organized in Russia, and the most interesting figure on the floor of our last Universal Peace Congress, which was held in Stockholm in August, was the president of the pro- gressive party in the Russian Douma, Another participant in the Congress was Ahmed Riza Bey, the head of the Chamber of Dep- uties of Turkey. Wherever the work of organizing is being pushed, the best and the most influential people are enlisting. The society in New York has doubled its membership in a year. Since opening our office in Chicago in January, five hundred of the prominent busi- ness men of the city have joined. The American School Peace League, the International School of Peace, the Intercollegiate Peace Association and the Cosmopolitan Clubs are covering the field of educational institutions as never before. Mohonk Conference has enlisted all the great Boards of Trade and Chambers of Commerce in the country. The great denominations are beginning to align themselves on the side of peace. Socialism and organized labor constitute the largest and most pronounced anti-militaristic bodies in the world. The Interparliamentary Union, made up of members of the various national legislatures of the world, now numbers over 3,000 in its membership, and its influence is increasing year by ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 105 year. Trade and commerce can evolve only as peace prevails. The evolution of the world is headed in the direction of peace and by 1950 our peace societies will be able to disband, because their work will be done. For consider, 2 — Arbitration has come to be an international habit. Within the last half century the world has formed the habit of settling in- ternational disputes by arbitration, instead of by war. War is now the rare exception, and arbitration the general rule. Think of the Geneva Award, by which the controversy between the United States and Great Britain over the Alabama Claims was settled. Think of the Dogger Bank incident ; the commission of inquiry, appointed from The Hague, undoubtedly averted war between Great Britain and Russia. Think of the fisheries case, which was terminated by a decision of the Hague court rendered September 7, 1910. Think of the hundred or more treaties, signed within the last seven years, containing arbitration agreements. Think of Mr. Taft's noble plea that all international disputes, whether involving so-called ques- tions of national honor or vital interest, be submitted to The Hague. Consider moreover, 3 — The increasing number of inter-governmental enterprises. Almost every year witnesses the organization of some new inter- national undertaking. For thirty-five years the Universal Postal Union has been operated by the nations of the world. Similar, though younger and not so well known or so completely equipped, enterprises may be numbered by the dozen. I know of no more fascinating stories than certain articles from the pens of Governor- elect Simeon E. Baldwin and Prof. Paul S. Reinsch, on interna- tional congresses, international unions, and the interdependence of states. They read like romance, they are romantic, and, best of all, romance is being hammered out into international institutions. Through the International Bureau of American Republics, now housed in its beautiful building in Washington, D. C, twenty-one American republics work together. Then, too, Pan-American conferences are acquiring more and more importance. Moreover, Central America has an international court, to which the five sig- natory powers have agreed to submit all their disputes. 4 — Then there are the Hague institutions, — the periodic con- ference, assembling every seven or eight years, and the court of arbitration, to which cases are being submitted with increasing frequency. These institutions little by little will be perfected, en- larged and clothed with more and more power. Mr. Knox intimates that the permanent court of arbitral justice will soon be set up. This will be a real court, with the same judges sitting on all cases, a court always in session, waiting for the case. Our Secretary of State prophesies that we shall be getting decisions from this new court before the assembling of the Third Hague Conference. Once get such a court, created by the nations jointly, a tribunal in whose 106 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES integrity the nations have confidence, and the need for resorting to arms not only will have passed, but the nation that takes the law into its own hands by resorting to force, will be treated as a disturber of the peace and forfeit the respect of civilized powers. So near are we to the realization of such a court that we can prac- tically look upon the problem as solved. Only one real problem remains, and that is how to induce the nations to discontinue the present ruinous expenditures for rival armaments. Already machinery has been set in motion to produce the much desired result. Last spring a bill was introduced into Congress, and passed both houses, for the creation of a commis- sion, to work with similar commissions from the other powers. (Great Britain already has appointed hers and the Interparliament- ary Union voted to urge all its members to have their respective governments appoint such commissions). The function of this joint commission, as I understand it, is to devise some plan which will make such vast military and naval establishments unnecessary, either by a league of peace entered into by as many nations as are vv^lling to unite for this purpose, or by a general agreement of all the nations as to a limitation of armaments, or some other plan which may commend itself. The point is, we have already taken actual steps towards concerted action of all the nations for the solution of the one real problem which remains. The history of great reform movements shows that when a movement gets down to its final stage, it then moves with exceed- ing rapidity. Is it too much, therefore, to say that it is not im- possible, but highly probable, that most of us present here will live to see the passing of war, just as the last generation witnessed the passing of chattel slavery? So great has been the growth away from war during the last fifty years, that, if the present rate of progress is maintained, another half-century will not have passed before the present system of competitive armed peace shall have yielded to a less expensive, less dangerous, more rational and more satisfactory system. The necessities of economic, industrial, com- mercial, political, social and moral evolution are so imperative, and the forces that are working with us are so irresistible as to admit of no doubt. Peace, as the Baroness von Suttner so well says, is inevitable. Theodore Parker and Elihu Burritt (who also was born one hundred years ago this year), and Emerson and Charles Sumner and William Jay and William Ladd are coming to their own. Most rapidly, before our wondering eyes, are their prophecies being ful- filled. The fulness of time is here. By the middle of the present century peace secretaries will find it as difficult to find a job as do the men who specialize in picking blossoms off of century plants. Surely the admirals and armor-plate manufacturers need not com- plain that we are trying to put them out of a job ; with none the less ardor we are trying to put ourselves out of a job. When gun-users and gun-makers and gun-haters are all out of jobs to- ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 107 gether, then we can all go to work at education, conservation, at scientific and industrial and commercial development enterprises, having ample funds to do some big things that are really worth while, because then the world's resources will be applied to con- structive uses. Will you permit a word of personal experience in closing? I must confess that I had never read Theodore Parker before this summer and fall. To go through two or three of his biographies and to read the dozen or more volumes of his published works, has been like inhalations of ozone. Health, honesty, wholesomeness, loyalty and manliness come to one as he reads those messages of that utterly fearless, truth-loving preacher, philosopher and re- former. Up in the White Mountains I have seen the bark of white pine trees torn almost into shreds by bears. The bears stretch up to their utmost height and dig their claws into the tree as high up as they can reach. 1 have been told that this is their method of challenging one another. That mighty scratch, high up from the ground says to the next bear that comes past the tree, "I am a bigger fellow than you." The reading of a great biography does just that for me. It challenges me to stretch up and match my life to the life of great usefulness and nobility whose story I am read- ing. Just as Theodore Parker gathered inspiration from his grand- father's rifle and the captured king's arm, so may we gather in- spiration from his noble utterances, his noble deeds and this noble celebration of his noble life. And what would Theodore Parker say to us if he lived to-day? 1 fancy he would say, if he could see the great waste of the world's resources in military expenditures, if he could see the machinery of international justice so rapidly being perfected, if he could see how near the world is to the realization of a system of world housekeeping that shall be economical, moral and democratic, — "Or- ganize peace on earth!" You know he used to say that America's special mission is to organize the rights of man. So, I fancy, if he could see what the world's greatest leak and greatest danger are to-day, if he could see the reform that is ripest and most needed, he would say, "Organize peace on earth ! Put the angel's song into international terms !" And I fancy that he would say to men and women everywhere to-day, "Join the peace societies. If you really want to get rid of war once and for all, organize ! Evil organizes itself. Militarism is well organized. Organization must be met with organization, zeal with zeal, error with truth! Then organize! If you have not yet paid your mite to identify yourself with the peace army, you have not done your duty as a man ! Organize ! Join ! Join this very day !" And if Theodore Parker were here to say this, and if he should say it, he would be once more a true prophet of peace. For the thing that needs saying most to-day, is just this — organize, join ! In an organized, effective, adequate way, I beg you then, help to put the Christmas message into interna- 108 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES tional agreements, international statutes, international institutions. To honor Theodore Parker as a peace prophet, while neglecting to take up the high and holy cause he entrusted to our keeping, would mean insincerity, irreverence, an insult to his memory, and the moral deterioration of our own character. The best way to honor a prophet is to complete his work. Mr. Jones: One of my favorite stories of Lincoln is related of his short, and, as he called it, inglorious military career, when he was much stronger in the affections of his men than he was in the tactics of the army. He is said to have been drilling his men one day in an open field and he had them marching in line and they were steadily moving on toward a gate that was too narrow to let the line through, and he says that for the time being he had forgotten the word of command that would move the company "eendwise." Finally, as a last resort, he says, "Company, halt !" and then added, "This company will break ranks for two minutes and reorganize on the other side of the gate." And the military movement was successfully accomplished. Now, if I knew how to move this company endwise I would march them down to St. Paul's church, corner of Thirtieth and Prairie avenue, for a continuation of this great, great program. Failing that, we will adjourn — break ranks, adjourn just long enough for you to go home and get your supper and report down there at eight o'clock. I am going to make some announcements — don't get in a hurry. "Quickened are they who touch a prophet's bones." We have been thus quickened this afternoon. I am old-fashioned enough to try never to forget that deeper than all these high reforms, more fundamental than all these holy helpfulnesses, was the great gift that was given to Theodore Parker, communion with the Unseen. Louisa Alcott tells how she went to listen, perchance to criticise, and how she stayed to pray ; how she went as a lonely self-supporting woman to see if she might find some comfort in the sermon that was devoted to the discussion of self-supporting women, but how her soul was filled and satisfied with the prayer uttered by Theo- dore Parker, and she didn't need the sermon. She has borne this testimony in her preface to a beautiful edition of Parker's prayers. I will ask my friend and yoke-fellow to pronounce the bene- diction. (Benediction by Dr. Hirsch.) Bt puis Iniu^raaltBt Olljurrlj iM^^ttng Wrbnffibag Stipmng, Nntipmbfr Ifi, 1010 i'prakrrs 1. Isaac Fisher 2. p:d\vin D. Mead 3. Rev. Charles W. Wendte 4. Martha Parker Dingee 5. Gertrude Parker Dingke 6. Rabbi Charles Fleischer 7. Prof. Geo. B. Foster ST. PAUL'S UNIVERSALIST CHURCH MEETING 111 ^t. PaulB llttttr^rfialtBt (!II|urrI| REV. CHARLES W. WENDTE, Presidine (Religious Exercises Conducted by Rev. Lorenzo D. Case, Pastor of the Church) Mr. Case: Rev, Charles W. Wendte, president of the Free ReHgious Association, will now take charge of this meeting. It is rather interesting to note that once Mr. Wendte was pastor of a church that stood on the site of this present church in the long ago. For that reason additionally it gives me great pleasure to introduce Mr. Wendte to this congregatiion. Alibrf BB by &ti. (Hl^uvitB W. WmhU THEODORE PARKER. THE MAN, WITH PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. My dear friends, your pastor has touched a chord in my heart by his allusion to my former service in this city, to which I return from time to time with a reminiscent tenderness of spirit ; for, as he says, more than forty years ago I began my missionary endeavor and ministry here in this great city, founded a little church, which finally felt strong enough to build a modest chapel, and in building it much of my own hope and prayer went into the structure. On Sundays I had the pleasure of standing on this very spot for two or three years. The accents in the pulpit may have been faltering at times, but at least I know they were always sincere. But your climate, — which I see the morning newspapers uni- formly declare to be the most perfect in America, if not the world, — your climate finally drove me away, other ministers came and went, .and came and went, and at last the little church, its membership having drifted far to the south, stood empty and desolate until one day this congregation came, tore it down altogether and built m its place this splendid temple. I am always thankful to feel when I come back to Chicago, that this spot is still dedicated to the ideals and the service of liberal Christianity. We have received a noble testimony to this in the invitation of this congregation to the committee in charge to hold one of its sessions in this temple, in celebrating this noble commemoration in honor of Theodore Parker, the great free-thinker and religious and social radical of his day. 112 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES I have been chosen to preside over this meeting, to make the opening address, not from any personal quality in myself, but sim- ply as representing officially the oldest and earliest of the liberal associations of the United States, which have united in this anni- versary celebration in Chicago, the Free Religious Association of America. This association, it may interest you to know, was formed forty-three years ago, in 1867, and although its headquarters have been in Boston, it is really a national organization and has mem- bers and officers in various parts of the Union. The objects of the association are: "To engage in the scientific study of religion and ethics ; to advocate freedom in religion ; to increase fellowship in the spirit ; to emphasize the supremacy of practical morality in all the relations of life, and to encourage the organization of local societies or free churches on the basis of free, spiritual, and universal religion." The Free Religious Association has continued to hold annual meetings throughout the country, has published interesting tracts and books from time to time, and has offered a free platform to men of all shades of belief and all kinds of worship, Christian, and so-called pagan, Roman Catholic — for Roman Catholic Bishops have been heard on its platform — and Protestant, and all varieties of orthodoxy, as well as many agnostics and unbelievers, so-called, who gave their testimony as their reason and their conscience moved them, and were always accorded a free platform and the fellow- ship of the Spirit. Furthermore, the first man to join this society, to put his name down upon the roll of membership, was Ralph Waldo Emer- son, and other men of distinction have been associated with it, and have served as president of the association. Among them I may mention Octavius B. Frothingham, Felix Adler, William J. Potter, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Lewis G. Janes and Edwin D. Mead, former presidents; Robert Dale Owen, Lucretia Mott, Lydia Maria Child, Isaac M. Wise, George Wm. Curtis, Edward L. Youmans, Ednah D. Cheney, Moncure D. Conway, Frederick Douglass, Francis E. Abbott, William M. Salter, Julia Ward Howe, Joseph Le Conte, Stephen S. Wise and Jenkin Lloyd Jones, who, among others have served it as vice-presidents. These are some of the names that have been connected with the association, and have rendered their testimony and given their service for the furthering of its aims. It is true that this association was organized largely because of a certain narrowness in the Unitarian Fellowship, to which many of its members belonged ; yet in the course of time the animus that brought about that action has practically died away. Its membership at present consists largely of Unitarians and Uni- versalists, though by no means is limited to these bodies. ST. PAUL'S UNIVERSAUST CHURCH MEETING 113 And so it is very much in keeping that our association should join in this anniversary celebration of Theodore Parker, and should meet in this Universalist Christian church. It is true that Theodore Parker was no longer living when this association was formed, but it may be considered as one of the products of his earlier testimony for freedom and progress in religion, for the rights of the human reason, the supreme rights of the conscience in all matters concerning the ethical relations of man, and for that broader fellowship of the spirit which in- quires not what creed or what religious antecedents, but only, "What is the spirit that animates you, my brother?" And if that spirit be one of reverence and aspiration, one of love for human- ity, one of desire for light from heaven upon the path we all have to tread in common, then all such are welcome to full freedom of utterance and warmth of hospitality on the platform of the Free Religious Association. I am to speak to you this evening concerning Theodore Parker, with whom in the earlier years of my life I was privileged to have acquaintance, and in whose environment I grew up to man- hood. It is fifty years ago since Theodore Parker died in Italy, to whose sunny climate he had been exiled with the fond expectation that it would restore him to something of his former health, and assure an early resumption of his duties as a public teacher and social reformer. It proved, however, to be too late for such re- covery. The insidious disease to which nine of his brothers and sisters before him had fallen victims had laid its hold also upon Theodore Parker. Although his constitution was naturally robust, the strenuous labor which he had undergone in acquiring an edu- cation and afterward in fulfilling his vocation as a preacher and a reformer, his self-sacrificing endeavors for the social welfare of his fellow-men — these things, aggravated by early privations, had made too great inroads upon his otherwise robust constitution. In his fiftieth year he was called upon to leave the circle of his friends and the larger sphere of influence which he had created for himself in American life and American religion, to enter upon that invisible country, that higher and eternal life in which he believed so profoundly himself, and which he had tried to make more real to his fellow-men by cogent argument and fervent appeal. Theodore Parker, the man and minister, was dead, and his emaciated form was laid away in the little Protestant burying ground which rises like an island out of the encircling boulevards in the ancient and beautiful city of Florence, in Italy; but Theo- dore Parker, as an inspiring and ethical force, lives today, is more than ever alive in the institutions, in the thoughts and aims of his beloved America. The great preacher spoke prophetically when he said to those around him on his deathbed: "There are two Theodore Parkers; 114 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES one is dying here in Italy, the other I have planted in America. He will live there and continue my work." That this expectation has been fulfilled to a remarkable de- gree in the social, political and religious development of the people of the United States during the past half century is the belief of those who are best acquainted with the nature and scope of his influence as a public teacher and niolder of public sentiment. Parker's name is an honored one in the American common- wealth of letters, and is also spoken reverently in circles which, dur- ing his life, looked upon him as a heretic, as an unbeliever and infidel, and a disturber of the peace. In less than fifty years since his death at least four elaborate biographies of him have been published, together with innumer- able memoirs and contributions in the English language and sev- eral extended lives in French, German, Dutch and other idioms. His writings have been translated into many modern tongues and into the vernaculars of Japan and India. Memorial halls and monuments have been reared to his memory. It may be safely affirmed that he is the American theologian best known to the religious world in Europe, and is more widely influential than any other in molding the religious life of European nations. If there were any doubt as to this continued influence of Theo- dore Parker in the world of religion and ethical endeavor, it should be dispelled by the universality and the fervor with which re- cently the one hundredth anniversary of his birth and the fiftieth of his death have been celebrated, not only in scores of American cities, but in European and Asiatic communities as well. Philadelphia, New York and Boston have held large and im- posing meetings. At his birthplace, Lexington, at West Roxbury and Watertown, the scenes of his earlier ministry, in London and Paris, in Basle, in Copenhagen, Christiania and Budapest, in Cal- cutta and Tokyo — everywhere, have been held special services in memory of Theodore Parker. Tell me, is there any other theologian, is there any ethical teacher, is there any social reformer who has lived in America during the past two hundred years to whom such general tribute has been paid? The last of these European memorial services I had the great privilege of attending and conducting myself. It was on the re- turn of the American pilgrims from the Berlin International Con- gress of Free Christian and Religious Liberals. On their journey back to America they visited the city of Florence. On a summer afternoon we stood in the cemetery where Theodore Parker's re- mains were laid away, and there, under the blue heavens, the sun setting brilliantly in the west and the birds choiring their hymns in the leafy trees above ; there by the simple little tomb, just as he would have loved it himself, there we held our vesper service in his sacred memory. One American clergyman, a young man, a follower of the great American preacher, read from Parker's ST. PAUL'S UNIVERSALIST CHURCH MEETING 115 writings. We intoned one of his most beautiful hymns. Then, one after another, friends brought their tributes, one a member of the Society of the Brahmo Somaj, who had come all the way from India to bear his testimony. Also, an Italian brought up in the Catholic church, and other friends from America and from Eng- land. And so, laying our memorial wreaths upon his grave, we left him to rest in the evening sunshine, in the bosom of nature and in the all-embracing love of God. This naturally seemed to me the most beautiful of all the Parker celebrations that have occurred during the past year. And now Chicago comes to add its tribute, the last, and, in some respects, the most beautiful of all. Thanks to the indomitable energy of our friend, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, and the earnest and true men and women assisting him, we are having a series of meetings here which will go down in the religious history of America as a deserving and noble tribute to this great teacher and reformer, fifty years after his death. Perhaps the most admirable single contribution to his memory is the new edition of Theodore Parker's writings, which has just been published. We call it the Centennial Edition, and it appears in fourteen handsome volumes. Oh, how that would have de- lighted — does delight — his heart! Theodore Parker's writings have gone through various vicissitudes. I discovered some time ago that the English edition, edited by his friend, Francis Power Cobbe, was no longer obtainable ; the plates had been melted down in a great conflagration. The American edition, always imperfect, was also out of print. So I went to a wealthy man in Boston, who had been brought up under Theodore Parker's teaching and influence, and told him the story, and asked him for a gift of $11,000 with which to issue in a complete edition in this centennial year the writings of Theodore Parker. Mr. John C. Haynes — for that was his name — cheerfully gave the money, and, although he did not have the satisfaction of seeing the issue of these volumes before his death, we should correlate his name with such a celebration as this, that he may bear his just meed of praise for the great service he has rendered Theodore Parker and us all, enabling us to publish for a dollar a volume ($10 for the fourteen volumes) this beautiful edition of his writings, and place them where they can always be obtained by those who desire to come into spiritual touch with his master mind. Yet it is not Theodore Parker's writings, it is not his opinions on any given subject, it is not the things which he said or for which he strove, that were most important in his career, or have exercised or will continue to exercise the largest influence. Greater than all his books or his doings was the man himself. His char- acter, his life, the example he gives us of a noble, independent, consecrated, unselfish manhood, is the best contribution he has made to the great problems to which he gave his thought and his life. Therefore, in asking myself what I should speak to you about 116 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES this evening, I thought it would be well to tell you something of Theodore Parker's life, for, since he passed away, two generations have come into being, and it is to be feared that a great many who are not entirely unfamiliar with his name, and even have some acquaintance with his writings, nevertheless have little actual knowledge of the facts of his life. While I may say some things that are perfectly familiar to you, and repeat things which others have been saying during the past week, I think it is well for the benefit of those who are not acquainted with Theodore Parker's life to dwell briefly on the prominent incidents of his career and the traits of his character. I do this all the more willingly be- cause it was my privilege as a young man to have been brought up under his influence. My mother was a member of his congre- gation, and while when he died I was in my sixteenth year, I have many pleasant remembrances of him as he came to our house, or as I accompanied my mother, perhaps, to his house ; for she was his German teacher and went to read German with him once a week for a number of years. I also heard him at times on Sundays in the Music Hall in Boston delivering those noble discourses on religion and life and the great social and political questions of the time which drew such wonderful audiences and had such great influence in his day and generation. For some years, when I was a boy, my favorite playground was in front of his house, which was in Exeter place in Boston, one end of which was closed ; and there, free from all traffic dis- turbances, the children were wont to gather. Parker had no chil- dren of his own, but loved young people dearly. He came down from his study sometimes and looked on and enjoyed our romping and playing, and sometimes he would tap me gently on the head and send a pleasant message to my mother, or make some kind inquiry. How little he knew in those days, and far less the boy who looked up at him with wondering and affectionate eyes, that in bestowing upon him this little human touch of kindness he was in reality conferring upon him the apostolic succession ; for, many years after, I had the privilege of being his remote successor in the pulpit of the Theodore Parker Memorial Church in Boston. I have often said to myself that I would rather have had that benediction from his hand and that consecration to the ministry, than to have received the apostolic succession from the Holy Father at Rome himself. To speak, then, more or less briefly concerning Theodore Parker, let me remind you that he was born in 1810, on the 24th of August, the last of eleven children, in Lexington, Massachu- setts, where his father was a wheelwright and pumpmaker and farmer, working upon the farm that had been in the family for many generations. The father was a sturdy, upright man of great sense and integrity, a member of the Congregational church, but a man of ST. PAUL'S VNIVERSALIST CHURCH MEETING 117 liberal views. His mother was a woman of rare sweetness of nature and of profoundly religious spirit. From her he seems to have received his affectionate and spiritual nature in great de- gree, and he remained deeply attached to her and to her memory as long as he lived. He came of noble stock ; his grandfather, Captain John Parker, commanded the American militiamen at the battle of Lexington, as that early skirmish of the War of Independence was called. As the red coats advanced he drew up the feeble line of his militia- men and uttered that word which has come down the corridors of time as a word of profound significance to American hearts : "Don't fire unless fired upon ; but if they want a war, let it begin here." A few moments later a volley rang forth, which stretched many of his company on the green sward in suffering and the agonies of death, and that responsive shot was fired of which the poet tells us : "There the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard 'round the world." Theodore Parker was justly proud of such an ancestry, and over the mantelpiece in his study for years hung the arm which his grandfather carried in that memorable fight, together with another — a King's arm — which he had taken from a British soldier. When he died he bequeathed to the commonwealth of Massa- chusetts this family treasure. Governor Andrews received it, with much effusion, at the State House on Beacon Hill, and today we see it hanging in the Senate chamber as a trophy, a memorial of the time that tried men's souls in the early days of republican in- stitutions in this country. Theodore Parker was a self-educated man in every sense of the word. He enjoyed little schooling; very probably not as much as you would get from a high school in the country today. He also desired to enter Harvard College, but his father said it was impossible ; he had not the means to keep him there, and needed his son's labor besides. So Theodore Parker cheerfully went to his father's aid, daily worked in the fields or in the shop, and in such leisure hours as were granted him studied hard, taking all the examinations of the class which he had formally entered at Har- vard. At the end of three years he triumphantly passed all the college examinations, but was too poor to pay for the graduation diploma, and so did not obtain it. In later years Harvard College honored itself and him by conferring upon him the degree of Master of Arts. He next became a school teacher in various towns, Boston, Watertown and elsewhere, and toiled at this vocation six or eight hours a day, and perhaps spent eight or nine hours more in study. It was a very wrong thing for him to do, to wear himself out thus in his early youth, and his naturally robust constitution was no doubt impaired by it. There is existent a pathetic epistle in 118 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES which he tells us how little he knew about the care of the body; he tried to live on bread and water for whole weeks in order to raise money with which to buy books, or to enter the theological school ; and so it went on more or less for years. He mastered an astonishing amount of information, but his physique was much undermined by his experience. In the year 1833 he entered the Divinity School at Harvard, and there took the regular course, having saved some money by teaching. When he graduated from the school, with the same courage he always manifested, he married the woman of his choice, Lydia Cabot, and shortly after, in 1837, was called to his first church, the old parish in West Roxbury, a suburb where many Boston people made their summer homes. For the most part his people consisted of farmers and dairymen, and it shows the kind of stuff he was made of that he preached the very first year to these a sermon on "The Besetting Sins of Dairymen." He cer- tainly had the courage of his convictions ! But a great transformation was taking place in the community ; the philosophy of Transcendentalism had taken possession of many of the most earnest minds of New England. I will not undertake to define it, except to say that it interpreted the things of heaven and earth in terms of the spirit, instead of external authority. And Theodore Parker felt the uplift of this new philosophy. In the year 1838 Ralph Waldo Emerson preached his Divinity School address in which the transcendental philosophy found its first adequate expression. Theodore Parker was there to hear it ; he walked all the way back from Cambridge to West Roxbury that night, and, before he went to bed, entered in one of his jour- nals (which he kept for years, comprising great volumes of which very little has been published as yet) his feelings over that ad- dress. It spoke to his highest nobility and was a rousing appeal to his conscience. Parker sought for an opportunity to bear his testimony. But it took some time. In 1841 he was called to South Boston to preach the sermon at the ordination of a friend, and there Parker preached a discourse perhaps the second in significance of any ever preached in New England, his sermon on "The Pennanent and Transient in Christianity." He showed that many things in religion are tran- sient, but other things endure. His statements seem very simple and self-evident now to us. I remember a Presbyterian elder asking me if I could obtain copies of this sermon for him ; he wished to distribute them among his congregation at home, feeling that it so admirably expressed the opinions of that society ; but in Theo- dore Parker's day it was rank heresy to question the permanence of any doctrine or sacrament. It is astonishing what a commotion his sermon created. Even the Unitarians, who claimed to be on a free platform, refused him their countenance, they passed him without recognition on the street, and some who had promised to exchange pulpits with him withdrew their offers — with one noble ST. PAULS UNIVERSAL! ST CHURCH MEETING 119 exception, James Freeman Clarke. The latter had an exchange pending with Theodore Parker, and when his congregation ob- jected, and many threatened to withdraw, he said, "I have given my promise," and he carried out the exchange. Many of his con- gregation did withdraw, but among those who endorsed his spirit and remained with him was Governor Andrew and Dr. S. G. Howe, and his church went on as before. Then the Boston Ministerial Association took the matter in hand. They had an institution. The Thursday Lecture, at which annually a collection was taken for the poor of Boston, and when it came Theodore Parker's turn to preach, in order to prevent his obtaining a hearing and to avoid trouble, they abolished the time- honored and revered Thursday Lecture altogether! Then the Boston Association, against whom he had written some very earnest and searching public letters which they could not quite forgive or forget, summoned him for trial. I have just been engaged in editing these letters, and another one in which he called upon the American Unitarian Association to define itself, as part of the last volume of his works which are being pub- lished by the American Unitarian Association. This Boston Asso- ciation which sought to have him withdraw or be expelled, still exists, and they actually held a meeting two or three weeks ago in memory of Theodore Parker! It shows how time brings about its revenges. Then they summoned him before a Ministerial Association and brought him up for trial. He came, primed for defense, and answered them sturdily. But when two or three of these ministers, whom he had always honored and loved, but who were strongly opposed to his opinions and utterances, got up and bore testimony concerning his personal character and spoke appreciatively and gently about him, that was more than he could stand ; he burst into, tears, hid his face in his hands and ran out of the meeting, leaving behind him a roomful of excited and deeply moved clergy- men. Soon after the association adjourned, and that was the end of the only heresy trial that the Unitarians have ever attempted to hold. Then came the reaction from these displays of intolerance. A little band of men in Boston who loved the courage and straight- forwardness exhibited by Theodore Parker and wanted such a man for their minister, summoned him to Boston to begin a con- gregation there. He came to Boston, and first in the Melodeon, afterward in the larger Boston Music Hall, which held twenty-five hundred people, held Sunday services. For seventeen years he preached in the Boston Music Hall before what was then the largest con- gregation in the United States. Hie had seven thousand names on his parish list. The hall seated about twenty-five hundred people and was usually well filled, and sometimes densely crowded. 120 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES He was a minister, too, who attended to his parish duties in a surprisingly devoted manner, going from house to house to call upon his parishioners. Of course, he did not escape criticism, but was bitterly assailed by the orthodox, the conservative, the timid, and the unscrupulous of his day. Only a few years ago a Boston clerg>Tnan said that Theodore Parker was "a wild man preaching to wild people." Let us see who some of these "wild people" were to whom he preached. For instance, Miss Hannah Stevenson, a woman of rare culture and character ; the Goddard sisters, who went about doing good and were blessed by the poor and unhappy in Boston — "Saints Matilda and Lucy" Parker called them ; then Bronson Alcott, the aged philosopher, and his gifted daughter Louisa Alcott, who found in his sermons her religious inspiration ; Mrs. Julia Ward Howe; Elizabeth Peabody, the author of the kindergarten system in this country ; Horace Mann, the great pub- lic school reformer, whose statue stands before the State House m Boston ; William Lloyd Garrison ; Mrs. Carolina H. Dall, who did so much for her sex in earlier days, and still, in her old age, para- lyzed and bedridden, lifts up her voice in grateful testimony to Parker ; Charles Slack, editor of The Commonwealth ; Charles Sum- ner also was a warm friend and occasional hearer; Frank B. San- born ; Mrs. Ednah Cheney ; members of the May, Apthrop, Jack- son and Shaw families, the "blue blood" of New England. In front of the .State House in Boston there is a bronze relief setting forth the charge of the black troops with their young leader, Colonel Shaw, at Fort Wagner ; they marched to terrible defeat, but the spirit of victory, in this representation, leads them on ; and justly, for their defeat was their glory, and their failure was their eternal exaltation to a high place in American history. Colonel Shaw was one of Theodore Parker's Sunday School boys. Wendell Phillips often took his place in the pulpit. Besides these there was a great mass of plain people, whose hard sense and independence Parker delighted in, and who found in him their religious oracle and teacher. These were some of the "wild people" whom this 'wild man" preached to on Sundays. What was it that filled the Music Hall Sunday after Sunday? Nothing sensational whatever, either in his utterances or in his delivery. He was a very quiet preacher, always reading his ser- mons from manuscript ; he made very few gestures ; he never made concessions in his style. It was the matter of his sermons, rather than the manner of the preacher. Into them he poured the treas- ures of his learning, his rich imagination, his close reasoning and his high ethical purpose and his spiritual fervor. He preached always from the standpoint of religion, even on public affairs. It has been said that four-fifths of the sermons of Theodore Parker were on religious topics, dealing with the great problems of life, death and eternity ; but, after all, the real power, aside from his perfect sincerity and freedom and fearlessness — the real power of the man lay in his intense religiousness. ST. PAUL'S UNIVERSALIST CHURCH MEETING 121 Theodore Parker seems to me to have been the most religious man of his day and generation. He believed in God with an in- tensity which never faltered ; he believed in God as he believed in his own life, and felt himself to be charged with a message from God to the people. Woe be unto him, how straightened was his spirit until he should be delivered of that message, should pour cut his soul in testimony of the great truths which God had com- manded him to deliver to his time and generation ; the truth about God's willing and working in this world ; truths concerning the social and moral order. On these subjects he spoke like a prophet of God, and the people were swept away by the beauty of his rhetoric and the splendor of his appeal. One of our speakers said a few days ago that the first book Theodore Parker ever bought was a Latin dictionary, and that he sought through the dictionaries to find words fit for his use. But this was not so ; his style was of the simplest. John W. Chadwick, his biographer, has analyzed his language and finds that ninety-five per cent of the words he used are Anglo-Saxon words. It was that which gave him such command over the plain people. He was a great scholar; the greatest scholar of his day and generation. He understood twenty languages and was familiar with their literary products ; he had an iron memory which held everything that he had read. He could tell you, years after, where to find some passage in certain early Christian Fathers ; he could tell you the very volumes they were to be found in. He collected a library of thirteen thousand books, certainly the largest clerical library in Massachusetts, if not the largest private library at that time in America. As a public lecturer he increased his influence over the general public, but it also wore upon his strength to be going about four or five months of the year lecturing, often finding poor fare and accommodations. All the money he gained in that way he put into his library. His library, at his death, he gave to the city of Boston. Of Theodore Parker as a reformer I will not speak; that subject has been treated over and over again. He pleaded for woman's emancipation, for temperance, for universal peace, and especially for anti-slavery. His house was a station of the under- ground railway, and sometimes he pressed weapons into the hands of fugitive slaves and said, "Use these for your safety." I cannot go on and tell you the story of his wonderful career as a social reformer — it would take a whole session. Of his un- limited activity in every department of social reform, private benevo- lence and heroic endeavor others have spoken fully at these meetings. He was sent ofif to Europe in the year 1859 in the hope that he might gradually recover some measure of his former strength and return to his large sphere of usefulness in America. It proved a vain expectation. You know how, in 1860, on the 10th of May, in the city of Florence, Italy, the end came. His faithful wife 122 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES was with him to smooth the pillow of his distress, and also Francis Power Cobbe, the great English ethical writer, who afterwards published his works. He had long been in correspondence with him and was brought back to rational theism through his writings, but had never seen him until just before he died. Tenderly, bravely and trustfully, as he had lived, Parker died, and was laid away in the Protestant cemetery of Florence. My friends, I would like to take more time to tell you of the interesting Sunday night meetings at his house, and other things that took place, but I must remember that others are to speak this evening, and that we must listen to their testimony also. It is well for us, friends, to remember and treasure these heroes of the Spirit, these religious ancestors of ours through whose devotion, through whose heroic testimony, we have won our re- ligious freedom, and been placed in the line of spiritual progress. "* * * So let the light Shine on their deeds of love Which shamed the light of all but Heaven, And in the Book of Fame the glorious record of their virtues write, And hold it up to men, and bid them claim A fame like theirs, and catch from them the hallowed flame." Before taking my seat, let me say that one of the most inter- esting movements in the religious life of our time is that which is known as "Modernism," a phase of religious development which has arisen from the larger influence of physical science, the closer study of comparative religion, and the whole drift and tendency of democratic institutions in our day, and which not only agitates the Roman Catholic, the mother church, but also, I think, has done its work in many of our Protestant communities. It is a great pleasure and privilege to have on this platform this evening, to participate in these anniversary exercises, a young man who has espoused the cause of religious growth and freedom, one who has made sacrifices which have darkened for a time his spirit and have wrenched his afifections, one whose adherence to duty and devotion to truth, righteousness and sincerity have brought him out of the depths, so that today he stands on an independent platform and seeks the larger light, the larger leading of the Spirit of God. He is to speak to us tonight on the contribution which Liberal- ism can make to the Modernist movement, and presumably what Modernism can contribute to Liberalism. I take great pleasure in introducing to you the Rev. William Sullivan of Kansas City. ST. PAUL'S UNIVERSALIST CHURCH MEETING \23 Kansas City, Missouri THE SPIRITUAL MESSAGE OF LIBERALISM TO MODERNISM. Every congress of liberal religion that has been held in these latter years has given sympathetic consideration to those Modern- ists who are struggling within the communion of the Roman Cath- olic church for spiritual liberty and intellectual emancipation. For the liberal faith has recognized a kinship with this movement, as it recognizes kinship with all movements that are truth-seeking and God-seeking. It is true that Modernism as a whole has made no formal advances to liberal Christianity; and, indeed, some Modern- ists have endeavored to show the intellectual and spiritual insuf- ficiency of this freer form of faith, and have said that they can have no organic relations with it whatsoever. But it is the glory of liberal religion that it conceives the bond of brotherhood to con- sist, not in agreement as to any system of consecrated conjecture concerning the Inscrutable, but in the indestructible oneness of high aspiration, of pure sympathy, and of common endeavor for the divine ideals of the soul. The liberal fraternity of worshipers asks only if these Modernists are workers for sincerity and serv- ants of truth. Finding that they are, it scorns all differences aris- ing from formularies, creeds and theories, and proffers the hand of fellowship, and speaks the word of good cheer and God-speed. That you members of the liberal churches are right in esteem- ing Modernists as genuinely truth-seeking and God-seeking I do not need to prove. If proof were required, I should give it in one brief but conclusive word; for both truth and God these Modern- ists have suffered and are suffering. This is enough ; for to suffer for a cause is the supreme evidence of devotion to it. To mention but an instance or two : Last spring one of the most brilliant priests of France, expelled from his order for Modernist views, was found dying in wretched lodgings in Paris ; dying of neglect, and pos- sibly of starvation. And a year ago Father Tyrrell, though he died canonically in the communion of his church, was refused what is called Christian burial, and had to receive from the Anglicans from whom he had gone out in his youth the sorrowful hospitality of an alien grave. You have sympathized with many high causes, you followers of free religion, but I dare to say that never have you bestowed your sympathy on any cause that deserves it better than this noble and fundamentally spiritual reform of Modernism. However, I wish this evening to speak to you of a service done to Modernism by liberal religion — greater than that of the mere expression of good will. I wish to point out to you that Liberalism has a message for Modernism, an appeal to the soul of it, an inspiring challenge to it that it realize a higher mission than 124 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES any it has yet achieved. And to understand what I mean by this, I beg you to look for a moment on the situation of Modernists. In the last decade of the nineteenth century there was a re- birth, a very efflorescence, of Catholic scholarship. In answer to the reproach of the age that Catholicism had no rational standing in democracy, and that its foundations had been destroyed by criticism, there arose a group of young and ardent scholars to refute that charge and to prove that the ancient church could and would make all needed adaptations, and vindicate for itself in the face of what- ever social progress, whatever advance of science, a pre-eminent position in the religious life of men. Men like Loisy and ]\Iinocchi gave themselves to the study of Scripture in order, as it were, to Catholicize that department of learning. Dabry, Naudet, Marc Sangnier and Romolo Murri took up social studies in order to win for modern democracy the benediction of the church. Blondel, Laterthouniere and Tyrrell dedicated themselves to religious philosophy to prove that the thought of the church is not closed in by mediaeval formulas and scholastic systems. And, under the inspiration of these names, a host of young men in schools and universities the world over, devoted themselves with high hopes and brilliant minds to the same great task of reconciling not only the church to the age, but the age to the church. It was a new apostolate ; it was a divine cause ; and never did any cause call forth a more unselfish service, a more pure and zealous conse- cration. Such was the situation when, in the summer of 1903, the pres- ent sovereign pontifif came to the chair which is called of Peter. At once the sky was ablaze with the lightnings of anathema. Every weapon in the arsenal of ecclesiastical authority was brought to bear against the scholars and reformers who had dared to cherish so divine a dream. "There can be no adaptation to modern needs, no modification of the old traditions," said the pope, "and every man that speaks for adaptation and modification shall be destroyed." Professors were deposed, priests were suspended, the reading of modern books was forbidden, and in every diocese it was ordered that a "vigilance committee" — a euphemism for a hideous and intol- erable system of espionage and inquisitorial delation — should find out what priests were reading, thinking and writing, and denounce such as were infected with modern thought. And to choke every voice of remonstrance it was decreed that all who should gainsay this terrific proscription of reason and servitude of conscience should be ipso facto excommunicated. Not to protract the mournful story, let me simply say that to- day every one of those brilliant leaders of the new movement lies prostrate beneath papal condenmation, and that the young disciples who pressed forward to follow them are beaten down and their hope has become despair. So far as it represented a reformative movement within Catholicism, Modernism has been relegated to that long series of similar forlorn attempts over which stand the ST. PAUL'S UN I VERS A LI ST CHURCH MEETING 125 sorrowful names of De Lamennais, Gratry, Montalembert and Rosmini. What did the Modernist do when the crash of condemnation came? The word went all along the line: "Submit! Close your books ! Lay aside your pens ! Consign yourselves to sterility and despair!" And here it is that Liberalism speaks its vital word and inspiriting message. What, in these circumstances just mentioned, should we as Modernists say is the greatest need of Modernists? It is that they open their eyes to the divine rights and imprescrip- tible dignity of manhood. They know well the rights of the eccle- siastical organization. They have been drilled in the recognition of them all their lives. Obedience is the first and obedience is the last word of clerical education. Now it is time for them to per- ceive that manhood and intellect and conscience also have their rights, and that there are occasions when these rights are supreme. They need to understand that every intelligence has the sacred duty of following and of uttering truth — that no authority has the right to put the curse of sterility on any human spirit, and that enforced conformity is a crime. If a Modernist has a needed mes- sage for his age, he is false to the gifts of God if he is bludgeoned and bullied into withholding it. If he has any contribution to make to scholarship, he is unworthy to be called a disciple of truth if his pen falls from a hand that is paralyzed by timidity. If he is able to assist human society toward a better social order and a purer democracy, he is but a wretched specimen of teacher or re- former if his vision of the welfare of mankind is obscured by the shadow of the rod that strikes him. The rights of systems Mod- ernists understand. The rights of the individual and those august responsibilities which the individual owes to the Creator alone, they need now to understand. And what is this inspiring teaching of human dignity but the constant and historic gospel of the liberal faith? The supremacy of conscience, the God-likeness of every man, salvation by charac- ter and the glorifying of God through the glorifying of man is your creed, your enthusiasm, your mighty contribution to the prophetic oracles of the world. Teaching this always, you teach it now to these Modernists who so much need it. Not that you coun- sel them to revolt. Whether they stay within or go outside the church you leave to themselves as an issue concerning which the individual soul must arrive at its own decision. But that they should realize themselves, live freely, richly, purposefully, and that they should do for the world all the service of which they are capa- ble — this you counsel them, as you counsel whatsoever man will stop to hear. Upon the manner in which the world heeds these lessons depends the future of the world. Upon the manner in which Modernism heeds them depends the dismal failure or the glorious success of that movement. Let us hope that the great word will bear fruit, and that Modernism will so develop as to aid in bringing in the day of larger liberty and loftier character 126 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES when the animosities born of creeds shall have passed away, and only the blessed unities, binding us together in brotherhood and to God in soulship, shall remain. Mr. Wendte: I think the good people of Chicago have reason to congratulate themselves that our friend should have de- livered his first address on an independent platform in this city and in this church. Also that the first book which he has published since his struggle is a book whose title is "Letters to Pope Pius X." and was published by a Chicago house, the Open Court Publish- ing Company. So that you have given him a double hospitality — the hospitality of publishing his book and of receiving his spoken word. Those of you who desire to know more concerning our friend who has spoken — I am saying this, I fear, with some little objection on his part — will find in that book a fuller exposition of his attitude. Music by the choir, Mr. Wendte: Among the contemporaries of Theodore Parker, of whom he always spoke with a great deal of reverence, was Hosea Ballou, one of the founders of the Universalist Church in America. Indeed, in an unpublished writing of Theodore Parker's I recently found a comparison between Dr. Ballou and Dr. Channing, in which he expresses the opinion that Ballou was a greater man than Dr. Channing, and that we owe him a precious debt of gratitude. Be that as it may, it is a great privilege to welcome this even- ing on this platform a prominent member of the Universalist church, an exponent of the higher education of the Universalist body. Our symposium would not be quite perfect unless we had such a one on our program. We will now hear from Dr. Hamilton, Presi- dent of Tufts College. President Tufts College Theodore Parker is no longer the center of an envenomed con- troversy. Dead fifty years, he is now a great historical figure. The echoes of the old conflict have died away on the air. The contest is settled. The fragments wrenched from his spoken and written words and bandied about by men who did not understand them have ceased to be the basis of controversy. We are beginning to be able to see the man and his sayings as they were, with clear eyes and with understanding minds. We are beginning to see that this man who was so loved and feared in his day — and I think it was fear which precipitated the controversy, as it always does — was not a mere denier of truth, was not a reck- less soul making light of things which men had held sacred through the ages, was not an image-breaker or a faith-destroyer. We begin ST. PAUL'S UNIVERSALIST CHURCH MEETING 127 to see that the characteristics of his message were not negation and destruction, but that he was a true and humble follower of the man who came not to destroy, but to fulfill, and that the characteristic thing about Theodore Parker was his great and splendid statement of the fundamental truths of Christianity. His denials were merely intellectual; his destruction was merely occasional. It was as a great constructive thinker, a man who laid the simple foundations of his thought down deep in the eternal verities, that he stands before us today, and it is as a great constructive thinker, holding fast to the simple and fundamental things, realizing that it is those things, and those things alone, which the soul needs, that he is to be the leader of the religious life of the present and of the future* Much has been said always, since Parker's death, of his leader- ship in politics, in social science, in philanthropy and in education. Sometimes those aspects of his activity have been presented in such a way as to make us feel as if he scattered himself through many varied fields ; as if he might have suffered from a diversion of interests and a division of power. I am very glad that it has been pointed out to us tonight that these things, always important as they were, bulked so little, comparatively, in the whole mass of his work. It was not that Parker had many interests — he had one interest, and that interest was religion, and that interest expressed itself in leadership in these other channels, because to him they were part of religion. Religion was not simply what a man was to think on Sunday, and possibly to do on Sunday; it was the application of the spirit of Jesus Christ to all human affairs. When a man learned really to say, not simply from his teeth outward, but from his heart, "Our Father who art in Heaven," he could not tolerate slavery, because the affirmation of human brotherhood is immediately inconsistent with human slavery. He could not tolerate the permanent depression of a large part of humankind in the darkness of ignorance, while the few enjoy the light of knowledge; he must be a leader in popular education, be- cause nothing else would be consistent with his religion. And so of the other things which were involved, these things in which Parker was eminent. They are parts of the relation to and expres- sion in the afifairs of daily life of the fundamental convictions of his soul. It seems to me that in the greatness of his fundamental affirma- tions and in the thoroughness of his application of them to the afifairs of life, Parker anticipated the religion of the twentieth century, for the twentieth century is going to have a religion, though there are a great many people who have tried to believe that that was not the case. Only a few years ago a very distin- guished Frenchman wrote a book entitled "The Non-Religion of the Future," and there are certain theorists with some pretensions to eminence who tell us that religion is doomed ; that the world is to become entirely secularized with the advance of civilization. 128 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES There never was a greater mistake. Religion is in the world to stay. Religions come and go. The world has had a great many religions — it probably will have a great many more. Every stage of civilization, every fundamental movement, the life of every period of human history, has some form of religion which it de- velops in accordance with the inevitable conditions of the thinking of the time. But religion itself, clothing itself thus from century to century, in the varied forms which the time shapes, religion is eternal. The religion of today and of rhe future must be ulti- mately something like the religion of Theodore Parker, a religion which holds fast to a few great and simple affirmations and then applies those affirmations to all the concerns of human life. Prophecy is always dangerous business, but there are some prophecies which it is reasonably safe to make ; there are some conclusions which may be reasonably drawn, I think, from condi- tions which are evident to everybody. And one of the affirmations that I Vt^ant to make in defense of the prophecy which I have just ventured to utter is this : that a small world calls for a big religion ; a big world may well be packed with little religions. Now, this is a small world in which we live today ; the whole world is not as big as a single country was a few centuries ago. Think for a moment how this world has shrunk. I live a thou- sand miles from here ; next Monday I expect to leave here at half- past two o'clock in the afternoon and to take luncheon at my usual hour of one o'clock in my own house the next day. If necessary, I can speak to my family at any time from here. We sat at meat the other day with a man whose skin is not the color of ours, whose native speech is not like ours, who lives on the other side of the world in Calcutta. He was here among us as a friend speaking to us in our own language, and able to communicate with his office in Calcutta in a few hours if he so desired. These are common things, but I am simply calling your attention to them so that you can see what a little world this is that we live in, how the corners of it have been drawn so close together that we begin to understand the meanings of such phrases as "all men," and "everybody," and "everywhere," and all that sort of thing. But, beginning to see the unity and at the same time the variety of human life and human nature, means that religion must be simple enough and big enough to cover these inclusive conceptions whose real meaning is just beginning to dawn upon us, because we are beginning to be able to get some sight of the contents. Years ago, when the world was a very big world, and men did not know anything about each other and were further av^ay from the people in the next state than we are now from the people across the Atlantic ocean, when the mental horizon of the indi- vidual was circumscribed and the immense variety and unity of humanity was unknown and not perceptible, men made their little religions according to local thought and local life and local tra- ditions. They could very well content themselves with small re- -ST. PAUL'S UNIVERSALIST CHURCH MEETING 129 ligions, and the world was full of them, because it was made up of small and separate sections. But the little world must have a big religion, and the religion of Theodore Parker was a big religion ; big in its simplicity and big in its application. We cannot separate ourselves any longer by our philosophies and by our theological conceptions. We must realize that there are great units which are greatly more important than any of those things were. We don't think alike; we never did think alike and we probably never will think alike, because we are so constituted that we cannot think alike. There are men who could not be Universalists, and there are others who could not be anything else. There are some men who could not be Protestants and some who could not be Catholics. There are some men who could not be Buddhists, some who could not be Confucianists, and some who could not be anything else; but away down underneath and around the Universalist and the Baptist, the Catholic and the Protestant, are the great truths of human life and the simple rela- tions to God and to other human lives, and those are the things that it is for us to get hold of with something of the simplicity and something of the vigor and something of the power and the grasp which Theodore Parker had upon those things. And when we have gotten hold of them we have the religion of the twentieth century, and it is an essential part of it to apply them to the con- cerns of our daily lives. It is said of a certain English gentleman of the reign of King George III. that he stamped out of church in a fury one day, de- claring that he did not see what this world was coming to if re- ligion was going to be made to invade the private lives of indi- viduals — because he had been ofifended by the direct preaching of a certain clergyman. Well, that seems almost like a caricature, and yet religion with so many persons in those days when the world was packed with the little religions was a matter of belief about this thing or that thing; for instance, the possession of the Holy Spirit — was it from God alone or from God and the Son? Two great churches arrayed themselves in antagonism over that question, and that schism has remained for centuries and shows no signs yet of closing. Should the whole of the man be baptized, or only a little of his skin? Churches have divided over that. Should the government of the church be in the hands of the congregation, or should it be a monarchical government? Men have divided over that. Are we free agents or are we only apparently so? Men have divided over that. And they have been so interested in their divi- sions and discussions over those things that they have forgotten that there were human wants to be provided for and human lives as well as human souls to be saved, and human minds to be en- lightened, and — yes, human stomachs to be filled, if you please, and human backs to be clothed. 130 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES They have forgotten that Jesus of Nazareth came to set up the Kingdom of God — something perfectly definite, something per- fectly tangible, something perfectly possible right here and now — and that when He came He told men that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. He didn't mean that it was tomorrow ; he meant that it was close at hand, locally, not temporally. We sometimes forget that the expression "at hand" has two meanings ; it may mean that a thing is in the next day, or it may mean that it is in the next room. It may mean that it is near in time, and it may mean that it is near in place, and Jesus came to tell men that the King- dom of Heaven was at hand. Sometimes we say He was a false prophet, because that was two thousand years ago and it has not come yet ; but, beloved, the Kingdom of Heaven is still at hand in the same sense it was then, and the only reason it has not come in is because men have not put out their hands and taken it, because they have not stepped into it, because of the strife that separates our souls from those of our fellows. When, with the faith of Theodore Parker, we can see the great, simple affirmations, the great, simple truths of religion, and that religion has to do with relations between human souls and each other, as well as between human souls and God, and when, with the consummate common sense of Theodore Parker, we can apply those truth to all the concerns of our daily lives — from the little daily things which go on in our homes, to our business, our philanthropy, our education and our politics, then the Kingdom of Heaven will no longer be at hand — it will be here. ®If^ Bncxxii Eittrnln Ol^ntr^ il^rttttg ». A. Wifitt, S. 1.. 3Prwibmg QIl|nradag Afternoon. Nnupmbpr 17,1910 SECOND LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 133 Abral|am ffitttroln dlmtn Thursday Afternoon Session, November 17, 1910 REV. R. A. WHITE, Presiding Mr, White: I have a friend, a very celebrated toastmaster in Chicago, who has drawn up a series of rules covering toast- masters in particular and presiding officers at public meetings in general. These rules agree that the presiding officer has a perfect right to speak before and after introducing each speaker, getting in this way two speeches to the other fellow's one. He, however, does qualify this by saying that the presiding officer should never speak longer on either occasion, either before or after such intro- duction, than the speakers themselves speak, and that any presid- ing officer who persists in speaking for two hours at each intro- ductory point in the program deserves death. Now, though I have been very much interested in this Parker anniversary and have been saying the best word I could in my own pulpit for the last two Sundays, I am going to improve today upon my friend's sug- gestion, I am going to be more merciful to the speakers than he indicates that a presiding officer ought to be. I take great pleasure in introducing Dr. Heller of New Orleans. Khhx^BB bg JSabbt Mux i^^iin New Orleans THEODORE PARKER AS A REFORMER. If I rightly understand my place in this program, I have been invited here in a double capacity, one as a representative of the South, having been asked to participate in this celebration for certain special reasons, and partly as a representative of modern Judaism, which surely takes a very hearty interest in the celebra- tion of such a personality as that of Theodore Parker. It is for the first reason that I regret that I was prevented from living up to the program as it had been outlined by my friend, Mr. Jones, and from being here to take my place with the other representatives of the South ; partly because I would have had the privilege which has some interest to us in the South, of standing on the same platform with a colored speaker, and partly because I should have liked to take my place among the few representa- tives of the South who profess an enthusiasm for the life and the services of Theodore Parker. 134 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES It may be interesting to this audience to know that perhaps the first time that ever a service commemorative of Theodore Parker was held in the city of New Orleans, in which I have made my domicile for over a generation, was last May, when it was, I am glad to say, at my suggestion that the Unitarian and the Jewish congregations united to do honor to Theodore Parker at the time of the anniver- sary, I believe, of his birth. We were very glad to find this much of an improvement, that the papers were willing to print the addresses, some of which were very much contrary to what is still the general feeling about those times and about those men in the South, and that they did so at least without comment, either way, friendly or hostile. It shows that a certain measure of progress has been made, at least with regard to the tolerance that is felt toward him and his views. I do not need to specify that in New Orleans, as throughout the South, Theodore Parker is identified very promi- nently with the abolition movement and that the years that have passed since that movement was active, have not yet been so many as to completely heal over the wounds that the war has left in the South. Not being sure of the exact place I would hold in the program, as I came into it rather late, I thought that it would be legitimate for me to speak on a theme as general and as embracing as that of "Theodore Parker as a Reformer," a theme that presents him in quite a number of lights and a theme that approaches very closely to the inmost grip of his personality. It was the misfortune of Theodore Parker that he lived in an age and an environment that centered around one issue, the aboli- tion of slavery, and that his life was too brief to behold the final triumph, except at a considerable distance. It was perhaps his still greater misfortune to have been born in a country and a civil- ization that were merely beginning to unfold an original culture, with hardly any history behind them; as a consequence, he was distinctively of an age, he gave himself up to his day and its prob- lems, leaving to posterity the memory of past power and the in- spiration of a splendid personality. A comprehensive and pro- found scholar, he left no contribution to scholarship that has per- manent value ; fiery orator and powerful writer, he finished not one classical, perfectly molded specimen of literary art; a subtle and ingenious theologian, he completed no system that has given rise to a school of theology; ardent and devoted Reformer, he has been but one of a host of workers, without stamping upon any one of his various endeavors the seal of his leadership. To my mind there was in the man the material for the making of a Luther, a Calvin or, at least, a Savonarola. It is not often that there stand at one man's cradle such mutually exclusive gifts as, on the one hand, the omnivorous memory, the tenacious grasp of detail which make the scholar, and, on the other hand, the sacred fires, the perfervid passions which make the prophet and hero; SECOND LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 135 not often that in one man is found the lucid mind which rejects the hoary mytholog-ical fable, which scorns the bHnd dogma, and, at the same time, the glowing soul, the God-intoxicated spirit which loves God's flower and God's cloud, which goes forth in tender yearning and in eager self-sacrifice to every being that breathes under the wide expanse. Still less frequent is it, in the records of God's saints, that one who delights in the subtleties of theological controversy, who is at home in the mazes of metaphysics should plunge with exultation into the battle-clash of a Reform warfare. It was Whittier, I believe, whom the gentle Channing, with his "half-battles for the free," reminded of Luther; the comparison would have been far more applicable to so warlike a type as Parker, excelling his contemporary as he did, both in scholarship and in aggressiveness, though he was free, of course, from the peasant-like coarseness of the German Reformer. To understand Theodore Parker as a reformer we must real- ize how intimate, after all, was the touch between his theology and his religiousness, how both of them were the outflow of a vigorous passionate temperament, spurning injustice, loving free- dom, brooding with fiery impatience over the tragic problems of boundless universe and unfathomable soul. Amid a thousand joys such as bubble up in the receptive spirit, yet the "chiefest of his delights" was still and ever that which he had from religion. To him. as to Abou ben Adhem, loving God was to love man ; "God," he wrote in a letter to a friend, "is to be served by loving man" ; from his earliest youth the doctrine of eternal damnation filled him with shudders of repulsion ; his correspondence and his diaries as well as his lectures and sermons prove how constantly and with how much of self-distrustful toil he speculated over the problems of moral and physical evil, of sin and suffering. He could, on the one hand, be relentlessly severe, until James Freeman Clarke him- self, in his brief sketch of Parker, takes occasion expressly to dis- approve of his methods as "relentless and unsympathizing" and expresses the wish that Parker had "felt less bitter scorn towards his opponents." Yet the same man would give lavishly and in the spirit of utmost meekness, of his time and strength as well as of his means, to the ignorant and the helpless ; answering letters with unwearied patience ; dispensing gratuitous instruction out of his obsessed time; assisting aspiring youths to go through college. In the reform movements of his day he participated with greater or less ardor, in proportion as they appealed more or less urgently to his all-dominating love of humanity. It was for this reason that he denounced slavery with such zeal, that he was ready to defy and denounce the law, as he never hesitated to risk his life, in defense of his convictions. Not but that there were ex- tremes to which he, too, refused to go. His was the impetuous nature which flings itself, heart and soul, into any movement of which it warmly approves ; the other side he was congenitally i36 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES unable to see; it was to him a question of human happiness and human right ; to its practical aspects or its legal sides he gave no heed. He was far more cautious and deliberate, however, judicious in the midst of his enthusiasm, in other causes which enlisted his devotion. I am following Frothingham's, rather than Weiss' biog- raphy in the attempt to sum up his attitude towards the agitations of his day. He was a strong believer in temperance, though not in prohibition as a permanent policy. While, personally, he not only abstained from wine, but even went so far, on the spur of the moment, as to sign the pledge, he was impelled to his advocacy altogether by his poignant realization of the fearful evils of drink; he saw no sin whatever in the temperate use of stimulants ; yet he conscientiously believed that "right now" the evil had grown to such gigantic proportions as to justify, even necessitate "an in- vasion of private right for the rights of all." He had studied the question carefully from all sides, before he committed himself with all the ardor of unhesitating advocacy to the cause he espoused. Puritanism, however, aroused his opposition on its intolerant and coercive side, as it won his sympathy where he conceived it as a battling with an engulfing bane. He took part in the Anti- Sabbath convention of 1848 as one of the eminent leaders in the movement against the puritanical Sabbath. He makes the natural and pardonable mistake of identifying the rigors of Sabbath legis- lation with Jewish example ; but his learning was rather defective on the side of Jewish history and Jewish literature, for which lack of opportunities is to blame, rather than lack of interest. A rather difficult chapter of Parker's Reform efforts is that relating to the rights of women. He lived in surroundings in which the woman question ranked almost next in importance to that of slave emancipation ; men like Wendell Phillips felt that the two problems were almost correlative ; while he pondered and studied laboriously over the complications of marriage and divorce, while he correctly recognized that the evils of enforced celibacy only exist "in consequence of the general tyranny which has been so long exercised by the bigger brain over the smaller," while he expected gradual reform of the various injustices that crush women only "as the idea of her equality takes footing," he never went so far as expressly to advocate equal suffrage, though, again and again, he gave expression to his strong desire to see women par- ticipate in all the privileges of modern life, educational, social and civil. He entertained, and he did not hesitate to champion, strong convictions adverse to the infliction of capital punishment which he went so far as to designate as "the sin of judicial murder." He was, of course, a persistent and enthusiastic advocate of Prison Reform; he spoke of what he called "the perishing classes" with the most unaffected compassion. SECOND LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 137 Without being a non-resistant, like William Lloyd Garrison, he denounced war as a species of unjustifiable violence which was resorted to without need nine times out of ten ; he greeted Sum- mer's notable oration on The Grandeur of Nations with ardent en- thusiasm; he believed that warfare would be steadily reduced as nations became more civilized, until it became altogether impossible. In many ways Theodore Parker has laid our civilization under a lasting debt of gratitude. He labored, together with a remark- able generation of poets, philosophers and scholars, to make our moral and religious life finer and nobler; living at a time when eagerness for knowledge and aspiration for advancement were at their best, he toiled among the foremost to cultivate that rich soil in the interests of enlightenment and justice. Not only was he the first of independent preachers, the first pulpit-speaker and religious worker to strike out upon the wider field of a free church, making it the easier for other strong and devoted men to follow the exam- ple once set, but he dared to ofifer to vast popular audiences as their Sabbath-food elaborate treatises on social and political re- form. With Emerson, Alcott and others it was he, to no small extent, who helped to create and to satisfy an appetite for plat- form instruction such as the lecturer of today must sigh for in vain. He was, if we accept the view of James Freeman Clarke, a Yankee of the Yankees, and yet he was, at the same time, not only an American of Americans, descended from the best revolu- tionary blood, grandson of the man who fired the first shot at Lex- ington, but also, in many ways, a citizen of the world, at home in numerous languages, a devotee of many literatures, in active cor- respondence with old world scholars, accustomed to study every problem both in the light of history, and under the illumination of the world's scholarship. Dying in comparative youth he did not feel that his life was a disappointment; as he called optimism "the piety of science" he cultivated a hopeful view regarding humanity and the future ; his deep religiousness was mainly joyful, never darkened, if often deeply moved, by those tragic sources of evil and pain which he felt in the very depths of his fervid spirit. His name will remain a symbol for lofty religious passion, for the rich mind that is in the service of the warm heart, for that love of liberty which can breathe freely only in an atmosphere of justice and equality — Amen! Mr. White: We have listened intently to this strong and interesting word from one section of our country, from the city that sits by its Southern seas, and now we are to listen to another voice, from the city of Parker's adoption. You, of course, have already been told of the many years' service of Theodore Parker in his two pulpits in the city of Boston, 138 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES and we are very fortunate today in being able to have a voice from that city by the Eastern sea. I take great pleasure in introducing the Rev. Charles F. Dole of Boston. Boston, Massachusetts THEODORE PARKER AND THE OFFICE OF THE PROPHET IN MODERN TIMES. I am sure that it is always very good to keep the company of the prophets and heroes and also to keep the company of the people who earnestly reverence their memory. What do we really mean when we call a man a prophet? What does the prophet do? I take it he is the man who, at least for the time, stands at the height of his life as a man. Standing at the height of his life, at his best intellectually and spiritually, he is able to see over the heads of common men, over his own head in its ordinary condition, and he is thus able to see how mankind are marching, and what ought to be done. In this way Parker comes to us as a very beautiful example of the eternal spirit of prophecy. See what perfectly splendid qualities he brought to his work. In the first place, a very open mind, ready to catch the light from whatever source it came. Then a conscientious habit of study; he was unlike many who call themselves reformers, and who hastily make their decisions. He studied. He took every means to become enlightened. Then he had the absolute courage of his convictions ; there was no fear in the man, a quality that I take it was the by-product of his entire abandon and devotion to whatever was right. You might say that the motto of his life was, "Whatever is right, fol- low it. Whatever is true, open your eyes and see it. Whatever beautiful ideal discloses itself, make that ideal real." Moreover, he was a man of a very large heart and a strong sympathy, especially with the oppressed and the poor and the needy, and those whom men ordinarily cast aside as worthless ; that is, he was a man of democratic spirit. Now, when a man rises to the full height of his life with these superb qualities, granting that he has the needful information, that he is able to possess himself of all the facts, granting also that he could always maintain himself on the same level of his high vision — such a man would see almost as God sees ; he would be near to infallibility. It is useless to ask ourselves what Parker would do or say or be today. This is as impossible to know as is the ideal question SECOND LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 139 they are asking about Jesus, namely, if Jesus came back, what would he say or do or be? What they mean when they try to answer that question is to set forth what they think they them- selves, if they possessed the qualities and the great experience and the genius, would do and be and say. I cannot therefore tell just what Parker would be if he were alive today; I can only try to set forth what I think the ideal man would do or be or say. I am inclined to think that he might in some respects be dif- ferent from what he would have been at any age before ; for when we say that there are certain great qualities that go to make the prophet, that he is the man who stands at the height of his life, and at that height tells his vision to others, there is another side which also goes to the making of the prophet. It is the moral and spiritual and social environment which is around him, and there can be no question that there has been something of a change in the moral and spiritual environment since Parker's day. I do not mean that Parker did not himself largely understand the changing intellectual conditions of which I shall speak, but I mean that it was impossible for a man dying as early in the last century as he died, to take into account all the implications of cer- tain new facts that were already coming into view, and especially to Parker, who was marching ahead of the men of his day. In the first place, there is the unitary conception of life, the conception of the world as a universe and as a beneficent universe. Parker, of course, had that conception, but Parker, like all the prophets before him, inherited, I suspect, and keenly felt, the thought and habits and traditions of the men of the earlier time in regard to their method of action. The thought of the old world and of the prophets of the old times was largely tinctured by a certain intellectual dualism ; they lived in a debatable land of everlasting war between the powers of good and evil. There were devils and bad men set over against the good. The business of the good men was to fight and slay. Men's habits of thought and especially of conduct, as they adjusted themselves toward the facts of evil, were largely tinctured by this old dualism. These habits survived even after the unitary concep- tion had come in. I believe that multitudes of people have not yet thrown themselves out of gear with old methods of thought about the universe, which no longer really belong to them, and which they would repudiate if they stopped to think. The common judgment of human nature was colored by this dualism. Human nature was divided between the bad and the good. You have it in the New Testament, the good and the bad fish, the sheep and the goats separated from one another. The habit of the old prophet was to range himself and the few who were in sympathy with him against very actual powers of evil. 140 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES Now, we are coming to see by the clue of evolution a very different thought as regards the sort of ethics which demand our obedience. The old idea of ethics was that of a static condition. This thing was absolutely right; this other was wrong as against right. How many of us have heard it said, "You must do right, because it is right," as if the right were rigidly fixed. This static idea of right cannot be true in a world that is evolving, in which we are coming constantly to see higher forms of life and conduct. A new and higher right is ever coming into view. The fact is that right is the expression, is it not, of the highest power there is in the universe, of good will or love? It is the method or expression of that power ; whatever best expresses good will is right. Thus, in a large way, evolution helps us to a conception of the dynamic force of right, as something which is all the time growing, and in accordance with this, men are not ranged absolutely between the bad and the good any longer. They are in all stages of evolution upwards from the early animalism and barbarism toward what Paul calls the manifestation of the children of God. You cannot draw any line and say, "Here are those who have attained and here are those who are on the opposite side," but they are all, in a way, on the path upward ; all the conditions shade into each other. Now, this makes an im- mense difference in our treatment. For instance, take that typical story of Theodore Parker's con- duct in relation to Webster's 7th of March speech. It seems to me that there, through the dualistic habit growing out of his tra- ditional idea of right, he set Webster over against himself, as one who had altogether repudiated and turned his back on the light. Whereas, I take it the truth v/as, that Daniel Webster had never yet fairly seen the vision that gave Parker his clear sight and the new ideal of the right. Webster was probably expressing at that time the reality of his own inner nature, and it was all that he could express at that stage of his development. At any rate we are coming to see that there is a very important truth in this kind- lier judgment of human nature. It is as if on the great orchard field of the world there were people in all stages of development, some more or less ripe, others hard and green. Others no doubt are suffering from arrested development. One of the figures that helps us about these cases is that of disease which the physician has to treat and cure. How cure? By the inflow of life; let more life come, let there be fullness of nutrition and the disease tends largely to drop away. Under this new thought the work of the reformer or the prophet today is constructive work. You constantly hear the old hostile tone among those who ought to know better. Yes, among those who say that they are evolutionists. They think that their business is to strike out and oppose other men. They conceive themselves to be engaged in a fight with evil. But all the problems SECOND LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 141_ in which they are engaged, touching family relations, touching the relations between the races or between employers and employed are incidental to the great constructive work that is going on, namely, the work of building up the temple of civilization. The figures and methods of militarism, though they have certain uses, are apt to be misleading, untruthful and dangerous. You may thus say that the most helpful part of the work of any one who helps his kind, and especially one who may be con- sidered to be in any form a prophet of the new day, is that of the moral or spiritual or social engineer. Here is the engineer laying out a line of railway through the wilderness, over all manner of obstacles in his path ; there are marshes to be drained, and rivers to be crossed ; there are rocks to be hewn through ; all these are the engineer's problems ; but they are all incidental to his work. And so, these social problems are all incidental to the work of the social reformer. They arise because this is a world in process of evolution upward ; they arise by virtue of the light that shines. They would not be at all in a world that was wholly dark, into which sympathy and love had not come. They touch our sympathies and spur us into action just in propor- tion as light and love come into our lives and make us see the won- derful magnitude of the enterprise of lifting men to civilization. We cannot bear to see our fellows living in the dark, when once our eyes have been opened to what the true life of men and women at their best is. This means the great thought of democracy, one very dear to Parker's heart, but one which it seems to me comes to us in per- haps a more hopeful form than it could have come in Parker's day. You see, today we have conquered certain obstacles which loomed stupendous in Parker's time. We have conquered the mischief of slavery, it has been swept out of the world. We have seen what has been already done in ridding the world of alcohol ; millions of people in America are living without it ; we begin to catch sight of what the world is capable of doing and becoming, and it gives us a new sense of the possibilities of the great democracy. Now then, let us see certain qualities which come especially to the mind of the modern reformer in view of these large concep- tions of a divine universe, which are opening upon us with fuller light than they could have come fifty years ago. Let us see what modification the great qualities which were in Parker take on, under the influence of a thoroughly constructive ideal of the work of civilization and the magnitude of its interrelated problems. In the first place, there is borne in upon us the need for the prophet and, indeed, for every man, of a quiet and profound mod- esty. Such modesty was hardly possible in the early days, when a prophet, being an inspired man, set apart from others and above other men, gifted with a kind of infallibility, seemed to himself at liberty to say everything that came into his mind, as of divine in- 142 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES spiration. This has been a danger to this day to all the men who see clearly beautiful ideals, who think that they alone are right in set- ting forth their ideals, and also in putting forward their own con- ceptions of the best methods by which these ideals can be realized. We are learning today the danger of this prophetic habit of arro- gance. It is not even enough that a man be filled with a good spirit ; he also needs a large intelligence, and to realize profoundly the com- plicated conditions under wiiich moral engineering has to be car- ried on. There is hardly a problem before the world that seems quite as simple to us today as the problem of slavery, for instance, which loomed so big to the generation in which Parker lived. There seemed to be a clear question of right or wrong. But these social problems of our day have come to us in far more complicated tangle of practical difficulty. For instance, who is really wise enough, or good enough, to tell us what is "around the corner" before the advance of mankind, as regards the prophecies of the socialists ? Who knows what socialism is, or would be? Who knows what anarchism is, or would be? We are confronted with the immensity of the world and its problems, and it behooves us to look upon them w-ith great modesty. Moreover, there comes to us, in accordance with the views which I have tried to consider, of the slow evolution of the ideals of right, the need of an all-around sympathy. The sympathy of the men of the early times was largely with those who were under the harrow, with those of their own kind, with the poor and dis- tressed. But we find that sympathy is requisite for all kinds and conditions of men, sympathy for Pharisees, or those who seem to us to be Pharisees. We can leave out of the account of our sym- pathy no class of men, once having recognized that all men are only in a certain stage of development. There exist no classes which anyone can afford to antagonize. Some men who try our patience are like hard winter apples ; they are green yet, but there is a precious quality in them, and a mighty power of will in some of these strong Philistines who seem to oppose us, who assuredly need our sympathy. We can only get on today by the use of all around sympathy towards all kinds of men. I always loved that passage in the Sermon on the Mount where the goodness of God is likened to the sunshine which falls on all, and I like that passage in the Apocrypha where it says, "God hateth nothing that He hath made." The old tendency was to hate the people who oppose you, especially if they are rich and powerful. We can hate no one today. This means also a quality which is yet rather rare among social reformers — the co-operative spirit, the will and the inclina- tion and the hope to work together with all sorts of fellow work- SECOND LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 143 ers. We are apt to be tempted to repudiate certain men who are not of our kind. We say that we do not care for their help, but we have to learn that we must use all men, according to the uses there are in them. This is the teaching of the better pedagogy, which insists upon using every kind of quality which it finds in the child, making each one contribute to the child's progress. Thus we use whatever partial and meager aptitude we find for the sake of developing the rest of the character. In this way alone do we win; in this way only will success come, by utilizing power and co-operating with whatever promising quality we can find in the life of those with whom we have to live and work. Again, this means a very large patience, a patience blended with a sense of humor, because on one side, nearly all the things that trouble us have their humorous aspects. You may now ask whether these modifications in the character of the prophet or reformer are quite consistent with the necessary enthusiasm. They tell us indeed that you cannot even do any scientific work without enthusiasm, you cannot get any kind of success without a hopeful will-power, to give the needful buoyancy and determination to cope with your task. Let us face this ques- tion, because it is often supposed that the enthusiasts are agitators, who strike attitudes at indignation meetings and wax eloquent in depicting social evils, who are out to break windows. Is this the kind of enthusiast whom we need? The fact is, that the mere agitator lacks those very qualities that make the prophet ; he lacks the wide, hearty sympathy, he lacks patience, he often badly lacks humility, he sometimes lacks the will power or determined resolution to accomplish results, he lacks the engineer's spirit of co-operation in effort. It is easy to lift up your voice and cry aloud and denounce ; it is vastly more difficult to con- struct and persuade. That is the work of trained intelligence. Of course, we have uses for all kinds and conditions of men, and therefore I suppose for the agitator, but I believe that the amount of waste, always involved in the habit of denunciation and abuse, and especially in the expression of bitterness, can scarcely be measured. I often wonder, as we go back to the story of the Civil War, whether we did not put back the great reform of overturning slavery by the continued and unsympathetic abuse of the men on the Southern side, who were fatally involved in the system. It was so easy from the Northern side, where no one had temptation to hold slaves, to denounce those who were caught in the trammels of the system. Do you really indeed suppose that Jesus accomplished any- thing by turning the money-changers out of the temple with the whip of small cords? What possible use was it? Those men, after the incident, were the same as they were before ; they were going back to do the same work and, moreover, all sympathy had been 144 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES hopelessly lost between them and the man who was there — if for any high service — to show them the vision of a better kind of life. I doubt whether denunciation ever accomplishes an\i:hing. I do not say that we should not tell the truth, or that we should endorse evil or compromise with it. I urge that the method of one who stands olT, harsh, violent, merely crying out against evils, unsym- pathetic with the people who are close pressed by the entangling conditions of their environment which almost force evil upon them, is itself a survival of barbarism ; it is not practical, persuasive, or effective. Does it not break the majestic law of good will? Now then, it seems to me that enthusiasm — to use the full sense of the old Greek word from which we have our term — is the residence in man of the life of God ; the power of God in man ; it is the sympathy of God flowing in the man. It is in the man at his best, when his sympathies are the broadest, when he sees intel- ligently the greatness of the work to be done, and at the same time sees patiently how costly it is, and who gives himself therefore with renewed consecration to it — very careful how he blames others who have not yet got his sight, who have not had his opportunities. This all rests back on a sublime faith, which, whenever it comes to us, breeds enthusiasm. It is the good engineer's faith, who has an all-around optimism, not the easy optimism of one who simply sees the glory of the distant view, but who sees the obstacles to be overcome, the cost of the work, and yet rises out of his per- plexities determined to pay the cost and to overcome the obstacles, with a large confidence that the forces of the world go with him to solve his problems and give him success. And so we are cheered with a large, all-around optimism and a deep faith that we live in a world — not where man is the highest creator, where he works only by himself, not in a world of a weak God, unable to carry out his ideas unless we little men, perchance, rouse ourselves to assist him, but a world governed by almighty power, which has eternal goodness at the heart of it, where we can always depend on its constant justice and mercy and truth; whose light is ever pouring into our lives ; that, in short — as our Brother Jones loves to say, this is a world where "No good thing is failure, No evil thing success." Mr. White: We have had now an analysis of Parker as the reformer, from another point of view, intensely interesting, care- fully conceived, and strongly expressed. Now. we are to hear another speaker. There has recently appeared from the press a very interesting book. I have not yet had the pleasure of reading this book — 1 shall very soon give myself that pleasure, but I am assured that it SECOND LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 145 is a very strong and interesting book on the authority of Mr. Jones, who has carefully read and analyzed it. It is the latest word in America, and, as I understand, in very many respects, the strongest word that has been uttered on Lincoln, and carries with it many things that many publications of the past had not yet suc- ceeded in corraling. I am sure we are all very much interested in the fact that the author of that recent book on Lincoln is with us this afternoon and will speak on Lincoln and Theodore Parker — or on Theodore Parker and Lincoln. I take great pleasure in introducing the Rev. Joseph F. New- ton of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who will speak to you on this subject. Cedar Rapids, Iowa THEODORE PARKER AND LINCOLN. My theme links together the names of two memorable men, each utterly unlike the other, yet both of them held in our loving and grateful remembrance. It may seem strange that these two names should be linked together at all. Lincoln, so far as we know, never saw Theodore Parker. They came close together on one occasion, when Parker visited the office of Lincoln in 1856, as the guest of the partner of Lincoln ; but, as you recall, Mr. Lincoln made more than fifty speeches in the campaign of that year, and he was not at home when Parker lectured in Springfield and was the guest of William H. Herndon. While it is true that these two men never looked into each other's faces, each influenced the other, and it is of that influence — to trace the current of it — that I should like to detain you a few moments. The mediator between Theodore Parker and Abraham Lincoln was William H. Herndon — a man much misunderstood, even belittled, and at times actually belied, for the reason that he remained in the background unknown. I count it a great honor to have assisted, at least in some degree, in at last making further misunderstanding of Mr. Herndon impossible to those who care to be just. Herndon was of a pro-slavery family, but was set on fire by the murder of Lovejoy, being at that time a student in the Illinois College at Jacksonville. When the students of that institution— whose president, Edward Beecher, was a friend of Lovejoy — held an indignation meeting, Herndon forgot his family bias, denounced the mob spirit that murdered Lovejoy, and became from_ that day to the end of the long struggle an enthusiastic and radical aboli- tionist. 146 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES Early in the forties Mr. Lincoln induced this young" man to study law, and afterwards took him into partnership. Even at that time, as early as 1843, Herndon was consorting with abolitionists, read- ing all the fulminations of agitators, and occasionally writing let- ters to the radical leaders in the East. But it was not until 1848 that he became interested in the work of Theodore Parker. The same force that exploded the pro-slavery feeling in Herndon ex- ploded at the same time his faith in the theology that had been taught him as a boy; and thus by a double tie he was bound to Parker. There was something in the spirit of Parker, in his cast of mind, in the vividness of his nature that appealed strongly to Herndon. He became a reader of the sermons and addresses of Parker, keeping a scrapbook in which to preserve them. About this time, 1849-50, when the great debate was going on which finally found focus in the Senate and resulted in the compromise of 1850, Herndon succeeded in getting Abraham Lin- coln interested in some of the addresses of Parker. The eloquence of Parker, however, was not of a kind to appeal to Lincoln, who was a severe economist in the use of words. Every word used by Lincoln was pondered, weighed, measured, and brooded over. He was a man of extraordinarily conservative cast of mind. If you made a statement to him, he would discount it fifty per cent and accept the rest as probably true. He saw everything for less than it was. So that the buoyant, wide-ranging, vivid oratory of Parker — a style adopted by him for the purpose of stirring up the public mind — did not sway Lincoln as it did Herndon. For example, when Parker delivered his "Sermon Occasioned by the Death of Webster," Herndon induced Lincoln to read it. No doubt all of us will agree with Goldwin Smith that that ser- mon was the finest efflorescence of anti-slavery eloquence ; but Lin- coln felt that Parker had been unjust to Webster, and Lincoln was right. Reference has been made this afternoon to "the 7th of March" speech of Webster, which has for many years been re- garded as an apostasy on his part from a great cause. Yet had Lincoln stood at that time in the shoes of Webster, he would have made much the same speech. Parker himself held that if any State wished to go out of the Union, it had a right to do so. He seems to have modified that opinion towards the end of his life, but he did not realize what Webster had done for his country in his great speeches in the late thirties and early forties. Those speeches formed a sea-wall against which the angry tides of secession beat in vain. But Lincoln understood, and to him Webster was ever the model orator, as Clay was the model statesman. Later, in the joint debates between Lincoln and Douglas, Parker thought that Lincoln got the worst of the debate at Ottawa SECOND LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 147 — not understanding the local situation in Illinois, although Hern- don, in a remarkable letter, had drawn for him a political map of the State. He did not understand that Lincoln had to pick his way between two extremes, that he had to retain the support of men like Owen Love joy and yet command the enthusiasm of men who regarded Lovejoy as a fanatic. Nor did he understand that Lincoln was far from being an abolitionist. Shortly after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which stirred the nation to its depths, Herndon began a correspondence with Theodore Parker — his ideal orator, agitator, and theologian. This correspondence continued, letters passing to and fro, until Parker left the country and became a wandering seeker after health in 1859. By a rare fortune that correspondence has come into my possession, and it makes many things plain which hitherto have been dim. Herndon was keeping Parker informed as to the tides and currents of politics in the West, while Mr. Parker was keeping him in touch with the way the wind was blowing in the East. So here we have letters going to Theodore Parker from the office of Abraham Lincoln, and we have on the other side letters, sermons and addresses going from the study of Parker to the dingy back office in Springfield. This is the connecting tie between Parker and Lincoln. In these letters Mr. Parker more than once expressed good will and good cheer to Lincoln ; at other times his disapproval of Mr. Lincoln's course. As has been said, when Parker read the speeches made in the debate at Ottawa, he wrote to Herndon, saying that "Webster stood on higher ground as to slavery than Abraham Lincoln does now." Many of the sermons and speeches of Parker were read by Lincoln, and some of their phrases fastened themselves in his mind. You are familiar, of course, with the history of the famous phrase which he enshrined in the Gettysburg address. Just what influence Parker had upon Lincoln it would not be easy to describe. Some have tried to trace some influence of Em- erson upon Lincoln, but as a fact Lincoln did not understand Emer- son at all. To a mind like that of Lincoln, Emerson was too ethereal, but he did understand Parker, though not sympathizing with his radical proposals for dealing with slavery. Lincoln did not expect to live to see slavery fall, while Parker was one of the few men — very few — who expected to see it fall during his lifetime. Therefore he watched the course of Mr. Lin- coln with great interest and hope, especially during the great de- bates with Douglas. At that time no one had thought of Lincoln for the Presidency. Though Herndon and Parker discuss presi- dential possibilities in their letters, they do not mention the name of Lincoln for that office until after the debates. Parker was a 148 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES partisan of William H. Seward, whom he regarded as the ablest, most experienced, most brilliant figure upon the scene. His second choice was Governor Chase of Ohio. He does not seem to have thought of Lincoln as a possibility for the Presidency until after the Cooper Institute address. It was that memorable exegesis of the Constitution, with its gentle firmness of attitude toward the South, conciliatory, yet unwilling to compromise, that won, not only Theodore Parker, but Henry Ward Beecher to favor Lincoln for the Presidency. Parker was at this time abroad, but from afar he watched the scene in his native land, which became every day more turbulent, and the western lawyer loomed in his vision as the one great man to meet that critical hour. The Herndon-Parker letters speak of the Civil War in a way almost uncanny, six years before it came. Parker had always a fancy for prediction — a prophet, indeed, in this respect, as well as in others. Writing to a friend in 1856, he remarks, calmly, as though it were a matter of fact: "Fremont will be nominated tomorrow. I think he will be elected ; then the trouble is settled peacefully. If he is not elected, then the Union goes to pieces in five years — not without blood." And that prediction came true. Something has been said this afternoon about the waste of power in agitation. Lincoln regarded the agitation by extremists as not only a waste of power, but an aggravation of the difficulty. It was the anti-slavery agitation in the North, as a matter of simple fact, that destroyed the emancipation party in the South. Mr. Lin- coln stood midway between the radicals of the North and the radicals of the South, himself a child of the South and a leader of the North. Without detracting an iota from the genius and serv- ice of such men as Parker, Garrison and Phillips — splendid men, all of them — it is yet true that it was the quality of leadership found in Lincoln that made it possible for the Union to exist as it does today; a Union not only in name, but in spirit. Let a word be added about religion. Lincoln, in this matter, has been greatly misinterpreted, as it seems to me. I do not mean to intimate that I understand him — not at all. You recall the dear old woman in George Eliot's "Mill on the Floss" who, when dying, was in real distress knowing that her husband would not be able to find the key to the blue closet up stairs. There was a blue closet in the soul of Lincoln, and he took the key with him when he went out of the world. In regard to religious questions he was reticent, though positive in his denial of certain dogmas of the crude theol- ogy of his day. All who stood near him felt that in a mystic and poetic way he was deeply religious, but I feel justified in saying that Lincoln could not have accepted the theology of Theodore Parker. The facile optimism of Parker was very far from his cast SECOND LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 149 of mind ; he felt "the fang bf things," as William James would say, far more keenly than Parker did. As a fact, Lincoln thought as if no one had ever thought be- fore him, and was hardly at all indebted to the labors of other minds. He took nothing for granted, and that is why, religiously speaking, he had no wings ; though, amid the awful ordeal of war, when he himself became a sacrificial figure, his very face wearing the sorrow of a nation torn and bleeding of heart, he came to feel that the Fate, which as a young man had seemed deaf and dumb, was more personal and more responsive to human appeal. While in spirit Lincoln was a Christian, if ever there was a Christian, he was not a Christian in his philosophy of life. He did not enjoy those "escapings of ecstatic souls," of which Elizabeth Browning speaks, and of which she was so radiant an example in her own life. Lincoln lived in a dun-colored world, responsive to its plain- tive, minor note, under a sky as gray as a tired face. To his lonely, brooding mind the sunny upland where Theodore Parker dwelt was an unknown country. The very contrast between the two men makes such a study all the more interesting; but I shall not detain you further, except to say that we may now trace the influence, through the medium of Herndon, of Parker upon Lincoln, and — may we not say? — of Lincoln upon Parker. Had Parker lived, he would have been a tower of strength to Abraham Lincoln. He understood the work- ings of practical politics far better than many other radicals under- stood them, and I think he would have had more patience with Lincoln than some of the abolitionists had during the war. They were soldiers in the wars of God, and to each his exceed- ing great reward. Mr. White: I have mercifully refrained from making speeches, as I have as presiding officer of this meeting a perfect right to do, and I am going to mercifully refrain from making a speech now. However, this I may hastily say, that one of the chief things in Theodore Parker which I have always admired was his fighting quality. I like him because he was a fighter when fighters were needed. When Theodore Parker, if the statements are true, took down the picture of Daniel Webster from his study wall, kissed it and turned its face to the wall, he did an admirable thing. Theodore Parker on the platform of Music Hall, fighting slavery and the aggressions of the slave power, commands my respect. I admire as much as the last speaker can the qualities of gentle- ness and peace and patience. They have their place in the great world, but there are times, my friends, when the Thors with their hammers are worth more to the forces of reform than an army of 150 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES men with peaceful words. No man ever admired James Freeman Clark more than myself. As a student I haunted his church in Boston nearly every Sunday morning. The gentleness of the man fascinated me. But I believe that if James Freeman Clark with his gentle hatred of the old theology^ on the one hand and of South- ern slavery on the other, had been multiplied into a thousand men, he could not have done, under the circumstances and in the condi- tions that then existed, for the pro-slavery movement what Theo- dore Parker did. I admire Phillips, Garrison and Theodore Parker because when there was any fighting to be done, they were not dainty in their words. Men, even when they felt aggrieved by their exaggeration, were led to consider the great problems. I like Theodore Parker for many things, but I like him best because he was unsparing in his denunciation of the things that he thought wrong. Dr. Jones is just dying to do something or say something. I don't know what it is, but I take great pleasure in introducing one to whom we are under more obligation than to any other man for this series of Parker meetings in Chicago. Mr. Jones: I just rise in the line of my perennial secretary- ship to make an announcement. If there is an opportunity given to me among the angels I shall expect to make an announcement, and if there is any •work for me on the other side, it will probably be in the way of getting up a convention. Now, as we are coming to the end of this series of meetings, perhaps it will be interesting information for you if I give you just two or three items connected with this work. When the program is realized, as it is now approaching to an end, we will find that the central management has provided for meetings during this week in fourteen different places, reaching from the University of Chicago to the heart of the Northwestern University in Evanston ; from Orchestra Hall, with its audience of over three thousand, to the Outlook Club, which gathered together some sixty ministers. Besides that, perhaps as many more ministers have been speak- ing the name of Parker this week with love and reverence. Assurances have come to the office that at least this tribute has been paid, from Galveston, Texas, to Columbus, Ohio. Some twenty-four different speakers have more or less revealed them- selves in this series of meetings. Twelve or more of them have come from afar, representing a range which always surprises me. We have had a message out of the heart of the Catholic church, and more expressions than one out of the heart of SECOND LINCOLN CENTRE MEETING 151. Judaism. The tenderest and most glowing, and, to me, the most exquisite tribute to Theodore Parker comes from a man who stands high in the confidences of and holds a conspicuous position in the Methodist church. [See page 5.] We have had not only this wide range of theological com- plexion, but yesterday we stood entranced here while we heard the beautiful, the proud declarations of a man of color. Another man from the South on the program regretted the exigencies which prevented his being here to sit next to this colored man from Arkansas, and speak at the same hour, which was as I had planned it, and I am profoundly moved in the contemplation of the fact that to a "Son of the South," as he calls himself, was made the one fresh contribution of Lincoln literature of the last decade. Tomorrow morning, as he wakes up in the early dawn, crossing the Mississippi river, he will probably look out upon the fortress where his father suffered as a prisoner of war, and still to him has been given the insight and the power and the opportu- nity to explore into neglected realms of the Lincoln literature, hid- den passages in the political life of Lincoln's time; to reinstate in my affections and in that of thousands of others, the man whom Lincoln leaned upon, loved and trusted to the end, his faithful junior partner — "self-effacing" is the word this man wisely uses, the "self-effacing Billy Hemdon." And so when I think of all this, I can but feel that this attempt now to speak deliberately and wisely and lovingly the name of him who was buried in far off Florence fifty years ago, and who was bom into the home of that Revolutionary grandfather one hundred years ago, has not been made in vain in the city of Chicago. ttlli^ lanqurt, Aubitnrium l|ntel ®l|«rH&aa Suptitng, Nmipmbrr IT, 19 in THE BANQUET 155 at the ®l|fobiir0 Parker iH?mnnal ISanqurt Auditorium Hotel, Chicago November 17, 1910 Mr. Chas. L. Hutchinson {Chairman of Banquet Commit- tee, introduced by Jenkin Lloyd Jones) : The toastmaster, although he has not yet been introduced, and has no right to lay down rules, has informed me that even the chairman must confine his speech to three minutes. In the vocabulary of Theodore Parker there was no such word as "fear," and why should one hesitate to stand before this audi- ence, even though he be not an orator, to testify by his presence, if not by his eloquence, his high esteem of the great and noble work of that great man. And so I unhesitatingly accepted the part assigned to me tonight ; since it is absolutely a superfluous one, and where there is nothing expected, it is impossible to disappoint. I am not the toastmaster, and have no right to introduce any- body, but one of our speakers, Mrs. Young, must take a train shortly, and I will therefore take upon myself the pleasure of introducing to this audience Mrs. Ella Flagg Young. MvB, aia Jlags Soung Chicago Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen — I shall take only a moment or two and that will be to leave here a bit of advice that I gave to a number of women and men within the last week. We were discussing the ethics of a situation and I thought that although they were all people holding, as we say, advanced views with regard to the ethical relations that exist between people, that somehow the note sounded very familiar, as one that I had heard in my childhood, and I said to them, "When I was a little girl, one time I was passing a Unitarian church, and a person who was with me, an adult, said, 'A very bad man is going to speak in that church tonight; his name is Theodore Parker; you must not go to hear him.' " I said to these men and women: "This coming week all Chicago people and people outside of Chicago will be doing honor to the name, to the memory of that man who, when I was a child, was spoken of by a good woman as being a bad man. As we are confronted by these problems in the life of the boys and girls in our 156 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES high schools, do not let us make the mistake that was made in my childhood, so that fifty years from now it may be said of us that we were supposed to be good men and women, but we were bad men and women, because we did not show the intelligence and the cour- age to forecast what might be the condition in our high schools and to meet that condition today instead of fifty years from today." The application, ladies and gentlemen, I trust, is apparent. Mr. Hutchinson : The American banquet is a strange affair. When I was a boy we had a one-ringed circus, one ringmaster and one clown. Now no circus would dare go before a community with any expectation or hope of success without three of each ; so now we have to have the minister introduce the chairman and the chair- man introduce the toastmaster. I have often felt, and I feel tonight like the city boy who went into the country to work on a farm, and he thought he knew it all, and the farmer took him to assist him in stacking a pile of hay, and when the stack of hay was up, up pretty high, and the boy was on top — the work was all finished — he began to wonder how he was going to get down, so he said, "Say, mister, how am I going to get down?" And the farmer said, "Just shut your eyes and walk around two or three minutes." P^or a man in my position tonight, to speak before a toast- master, is literally absurd, and particularly this toastmaster, for he is better known to you than I am, and he is more able to speak for himself than I am to speak for him, and it is only mod- esty — I won't say it is false modesty — that prevents him from tak- ing the charge of this meeting without any ceremony and imme- diately making a success of the evening, with the help of the other speakers at least. I cannot help but express the thought that comes to me, what would Theodore i'arker have thought in his life, if a Methodist preacher's son, one of the most eminent divines in the country, was called upon and was willing to preside at a banquet in his honor. It is not necessary for me to introduce him ; we are very fortunate in having the toastmaster with us here tonight, and I am not going to tell you of his ability, you know it, and you will come at the close of the meeting and tell me how fortunate we are that we have such a man to preside over us. It is a pleasure to present George E. Vincent as the toastmaster of the evening. The Toastmaster: Ladies and Gentlemen — As the third ringmaster of this interesting circus, I now proceed to snap the whip. You realize that the three-ringed circus is immensely charac- teristic of the United States ; you realize that the three-ringed circus which makes the American citizen cross-eyed, is necessary for the THE BANQUET 157 public as well as the private man in these days ; no single perform- ance will satisfy his ideals. Fortunately this is a one-ringed circus, or at least one ring at a time. Allusion has been made to the highly orthodox character of my ancestry and presumably of my own views. I want no mis- understanding; I am here to pay due homage and respect to the distinguished man in whose memory we meet, but at the same time I wish you to realize that I am here in a purely missionary spirit. When the opportunity was offered to me to come here to be the one orthodox among all these heterodox people, and, in fact, when it became necessary for myself to become heterodox in this distin- guished company, the temptation was too great to be resisted. I am not here in an intolerant spirit; I still believe that you have some chance. My position is very accurately described by a story told of an intensely loyal member of the Protestant Episcopal church, who, also acting in a missionary spirit, was laboring with a certain party, and among other things the other party said, "Do you mean to say that your church presents the only way of salva- tion?" "Well," said the High Churchman, "I suppose there are other ways, but no gentleman would take advantage of them." So I wish you to realize that I am here in no intolerant spirit, but hoping to do some good in a quiet way, as the evening goes on, as it seems probable it will go on, — indefinitely. I shall have to take a train at eleven o'clock and my function will revert to the second ringmaster, but you will understand that my leaving will not be any reflection on the character of the addresses. The rule we have laid down this evening is a three-minute rule. That may seem ungracious, but my own function and duty is, by concentrating attention upon this fact, by reiterating, dwelling upon the point, to hope thereby to set up in the minds of the speak- ers such consciousness of guilt the moment they step beyond the time limit, as will lead them to emulate each other in brevity — in other words, to say something sententious in a sentence. I would say as to the fourteen or fifteen who are to address you that they have all agreed to withdraw their preliminary re- marks ; not one will give expression to diffidence, not one will "regret to occupy your time," not one of them will indulge in a preamble which is much longer than the address. They will go instantly to the meat of the matter and we can imagine if Theo- dore Parker were looking on, how his keen humor would appreci- ate such a situation ; if they told good stories he would enjoy them; if they grew rhetorical he would probably think how much better he could do it. If they describe reform, his heart would kindle, and if they say something unorthodox, speaking of the orthodoxy of his time, not of these times — there is a very great difference — but if any of these speakers were contemporaneously unorthodox, Theodore Parker would heartily approve. 158 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES The program has been made up. I am not responsible for it, but so far as I can judge, eight or ten people from Boston have been diluted with a few people from the Middle West. It is a little embarrassing to have to put on anybody from the Mississippi Valley when New England could so palpably handle the whole sit- uation — we have such reverence and awe for anything that comes from Boston. I hope our friends from Boston will not misin- terpret our failure to include on this program only those within the three-mile limit from the Boston State House. I will say full reports of these addresses will appear in print later on ; in other words, that is planned for, but we shall not fol- low the example of congressmen who get up to address the speaker and then simply hand their addresses to the clerk for printing without reading. I have occupied just three minutes, and I expect to occupy just three minutes in connection with each address. Of course, we must strike just the right note at the outset and just now I am glad to strike the Bostonian note. I know of no better man to represent Boston than the distinguished president of the Twentieth Century Club, a club which represents all that is advanced in thought and action. I am sure we will listen with the utmost pleasure to the Rev. Charles F. Dole, of Boston, Presi- dent of the Twentieth Century Club. Boston, Massachusetts Reverting first to this proposition of the circus, we all of us have been served with notice, and in this notice it is distinctly told us that we are allowed five minutes to do our little turn. I would like to ask the distinguished toastmaster if he is not confusing his own limit of time with that which is given to the speakers. I wanted to call your attention in my brief three or five min- utes to one of the most interesting aspects of Parker's life. He seems to me to embody in himself very beautifully and effect- ively the idea of practical ideals. You often hear it said of some dreamer or visionary: "Oh, he is an idealist; we don't expect much of him." Parker, from the very beginning of his life, knew all those lower practical values through the learning, and almost only through the learning of which he arose to the clear understanding of the great spiritual values. The idealist, I take it, simply uses his intelligence about the h.igher interests of men, that same intelligence which he also uses and normally uses about all those plainer concerns which give lessons of duty, obligation, responsibility, mutual helpfulness and love, which we understand to be the great concerns of religion. THE BANQUET 159 It is interesting, as you read in Parker's Lives to see this ele- ment from the very first ; his carefulness in boyhood that every obligation and debt shall be paid, that he shall not wrong his father by using time that belongs to him in getting his education. Later you will find that he was often consulted by people as to what they should do with their investments and you will find a very sagacious rule laid down about investments, namely, never put your money into anything where you have not taken the advice of at least two independent judges as to the nature of the invest- ment. Now, I believe, contrary to what is often understood, that this is typical in idealism always. People sometimes appear to think that it is a very rare thing when idealism and good practical ability are found in the same person. I say it is the normal expectation to find these things combined. Everything in this universe presses to bring about harmony. In economics we are finding everywhere that good ethics are good economics ; we are learning that about child labor, about crowded house conditions ; we are everywhere learning of the pressure of the universe to bring about the true harmony of law, and I believe it is immensely interesting and helpful. So we are believers in the great democratic idea of the possi- bilities of human nature. The province of human experience is first to make us all practical, and then to bring us through the lessons of practical affairs to the higher ranges of idealism. I ask if you do not find that at those times when you are exercising your intelligence on the highest ranges, when the good spirit possesses you, the spirit of mutual aid and service, the spirit of trust in the universe, the spirit of faith and hope and good will, in those times, let me ask you, do you not find that you are at your best for the exertion of your intelligence on all sorts of practical problems that present themselves? Then you will have your wisest moments, because you are in harmony with the spirit of the universe and you are in harmon.y with all good souls who are working for the higher things ; you are in harmony with all the great laws which surely in this universe work together for the manifestation of the Sons of God. The Toastmaster: I call the attention of the other speakers to the admirable model which has been set. I fancy that you all have your prize winner in mind already. I regret to say in connection with the introduction of the next speaker that the old theories of heredity have been practically dis- credited, so that in introducing to you the grand-niece of Theodore Parker, I am restrained from asserting unequivocally that she pos- sesses all of the admirable characteristics of that great man, but I am sure whether you accept the one theory of heredity or the 160 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES other, you will be very glad to give welcome to Miss Gertrude Parker Dingee, the grand-niece of Theodore Parker. Chicago To US of today Theodore Parker is not a man — he is more — he is a time, a period, a crisis, part of our great tradition. To his great days we look back as to our age of chivalry, of romance, of great heroes, of fiery passions and of a veritable holocaust of right- eousness ! Parker, Emerson, Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner — the list is long — names to conjure with! Against those vast canvasses how puny our efforts seem, how insignificant our ends ! Pure food and tuberculosis hospitals against Unitarianism and the Emancipation Proclamation ! Garment workers against runaway slaves ! This is the day after — the prose after the poetry ! And we are the generation after, gleaning in their footsteps. They did it all, covered the whole field, or nearly so. There is no reform they did not agitate — unless it be spelling — I am not sure they thought of that ; and it is a bit discouraging to admit that there is nothing new left for us but spelling. But if we are denied the crown, we are spared the cross of martyrdom ; if we are too late for the sowing, we are in plenty of time for the harvest, and while we long for a chance to win some of the glory they monopolized, we can comfort ourselves by shar- ing the results of their toil, for the whole level of human life and human thought has been raised by their efforts. Parker's epoch- making sermons sound to us so mild, so sane, so altogether self- evident. We marvel at the storm they raised ; but the thoughts they set forth, and still more the attitude of mind for which they plead, have become so much a part of our intellectual and spiritual life that we take it as much for granted as the air we breathe. But the testimony of those who knew Theodore Parker in the flesh is chiefly as to his vivid personality. To the sweetness, the helpfulness, the cheerfulness of his presence all bear witness. Those who heard him preach, though it were only once, never for- got the experience. They speak of it today with bated breath and tell it to their children ; it constitutes their chief claim to distinc- tion. And all of us who in any personal way have touched that thrilling past of which he was a part, whose household words have been those mighty names, whose family stories have been the tales they told, have no more precious heritage. We rarely speak of it ; it is too deep for words, and our daily tasks demand our daily attention; but when, in the vast spaces of the west, far from the scenes of their labors, we meet one of similar memories, we are THE BANQUET 161 at once conscious of a bond far closer than that of mere personal acquaintance ; we are drawn together by our common separation from those who knew not Zion, Those days are past; the stage is cleared. Old Nature sets another play With other cast of players. But by that past she measures us; The pace is set; the Great Tradition Spurs us on, and lends us strength For ever greater effort. Not through imposing hands alone Does the spirit pass. Words, too. Their power have; great names Evolve their one time personality, And sound agam across the gulf of years Their trumpet note, their clarion call, So his whose memory tonight you honor. The Toastmaster: It is a dangerous thing in these days to say anything in public of judges. If we compliment them we throw ourselves open to the suspicion of seeking favor; if you tell the truth about them, you put your hands upon the ark of the covenant of our liberty, but now and then even in these days there is a judge who takes his nose out of the law books long enough to look about him, to see the world of live men and women, to interpret his times and to realize that the laws and the machinery of government serve the ends of man rather than the ends in themselves. Such a judge we always welcome, and such a judge we wel- come tonight in Judge Julian W. Mack. iSim, Julian ffl9. ilark Chicago Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen — I was reading today a book published by one of the speakers at these anniversaries, the Rev. Joseph F. Newton, on Lincoln and Herndon, a magnificent volume, which contains the correspondence of Theodore Parker and William H. Herndon. I found some things there that I am going to read to you, because they illustrate what Theodore Parker would be standing for on some of the vital questions of today. One of these questions in which I personally have always had the deepest interest is the problem of the immigrant. Where would he stand today on that question? Would he be, like so many from Massachusetts, a restrictionist, ready to close the doors of this great country and keep the opportunities of American liberty for us and our children, or would he as a liberal stand for the open door, stand for the old-time American doctrine, that this country shall always be the refuge of the oppressed? Herndon shows the influence of the great man whose memory we revere tonight on that still greater man of his generation. 162 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES Abraham Lincoln. Perhaps in Abraham Lincoln's views on this problem we can trace, in a measure, the influence of the views of Theodore Parker. Herndon is quoted in this book as saying: "You will find on my table the addresses and utterances of Gid- dings, Phillips, Sumner, Seward, and one whom I consider greater than all the others, Theodore Parker. Lincoln and I both read those I have named, and after reading them, we discussed the questions they touched upon and the ideas they suggested.'' Perhaps in a measure it was the influence of this great man that caused Lincoln to give his reply to the Know-Nothing party committee that waited upon him and tendered him the nomination lor representative after he had been nominated by the Whigs. The interview was brief; Lincoln said: "Who were the native Ameri- cans? Did they not wear the breech-clout and carry the tomahawk? We pushed them from their homes and now turn upon others not fortunate enough to have come over so early as we or our fore- fathers. Gentlemen of the committee, your party is wrong in prin- ciple." And a little later in a letter to Speed, he said, "I am not a Know-Nothing, that is certain. How could I be? How can one who abhors the oppression of negroes be in favor of degrading classes of white people? When the Know-Nothings get control, the Declaration of Independence will read, 'All men are created equal, except negroes and foreigners.' When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pre- tense of loving liberty — ^to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy." And today, if Theodore Parker or Abraham Lincoln were here, the danger that we are facing in this country from a growing spirit of selfishness and Know-Nothingism, of denying to the op- pressed of the world the great privileges that we and our forefathers have enjoyed, of denying to them that which we want for our own children, this danger would be lessened. If the spirit of Theodore Parker will but influence our generation, America will remain true to her old-time principle, and be the refuge, both of the religiously and of the politically oppressed, and particularly of those that come from that den of iniquity, Russia. The Toastmaster: After this brief but not unprofitable expe- dition into the Middle West, we return to New England. Educa- tion is represented here tonight, and it gives me great pleasure to present Dr. F. W. Hamilton, president of Tufts College, who is the next speaker. THE BANQUET 163 ir. ¥. n. i^amtUnn Boston Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen — I had expected be- fore this to hear some one quote the old witticism that Boston is not a place but a state of mind. As nobody has aimed that at us Bostonians, I will take it as a text for what I am going to say. It is quite true that Boston is not a place but a stand of mind, and it is equally true of Chicago and it is equally true of New York and it is equally true of San Francisco. That which gives life to a community and enables it to play its part in the nations is a state of mind, and not a few square feet or miles of earth with the buildings that are on it. But America is a bigger thing than Boston ; I even venture to say a bigger thing than Chicago, a bigger thing than New York or San Francisco or Philadelphia. The great American spirit and the great American life is the composite of the individual lives of the cities and the commonwealth of which the nation is composed. America itself is a state of mind, "Opportunity," Emerson called it, and I think Theodore Parker was glad to approve of that. Now, let me carry the parable a step further. I have been noting with great interest the group of people before me and around me tonight, and I started at one end of the table and went along, and I found that I went a considerable distance before I found any two people with the same religious connection, and yet we are here out of our own denomination or connections, which are like these states of mind, to do honor to a man who was a prophet of religion which is bigger than any of the religions — is a com- posite of them all. There will always be denominations in religion as there will always be communities in a great nation. Theodore Parker was the prophet of the universal in nationalism, in politics, in education, in philanthropy and in religion, and I believe that our real basis of union is not conformity, but recognition ; not the unity which wipes out diversity, but the unity in diversity which recognizes the uses, the individual characteristics of every religion, as an opportunity for the advancement of the cause of truth and religion, which is greater than any and comprehends them all. The Toastmaster : The individualism of that address recalls the Scotch revivalist who was conducting a revival and calling upon the members of his congregation to stand up and sit down in re- sponse to all sorts of queries. Salvation was going on by the wholesale, and finally that supreme question was asked, ''How many want to go to Heaven?" Immediately all stood up but Sandy. The good revivalist looked at him sadly and said: "Sandy, don't you want to go to Heaven?" "Ou, aye, but I don't care to be personally conducted." 164 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES We now. after breathing for a moment the rarefied air of New England, return to the Middle West, and we will go a little beyond Chicago to one of the suburbs of Chicago in which we take great pride, to Kansas City. I have the very great honor of introducing to you a man who has given evidence of loyalty to ideals, the cour- age of his convictions, who has been contemporaneously unortho- dox and who speaks by the faith that is in him. BJtUtam ^uUtuan Kansas City I came to this series of Parker celebrations, dear friends and Mr. Toastmaster, as the representative of that peculiar sort of ani-. mal, rather individualistic than gregarious, called the Modernist. I presume the reason why the invitation was extended to me was that these Unitarians and other religious laborers recognize a sort of spiritual kindred between those Modernists and themselves ; they feel that it would not take very much to transform a Modernist into a full-blown Unitarian, or Theodore Parkerite. In fact, the process of transformation would not be any more difficult than that sug- gested in an old story which was told by Mr. Twitchell at a dinner in New York City, referring back to the earlier days of the Dar- winian agitation, when people were wondering whether their grand- fathers had tails and spent their nights in the trees. At that time there was an old Irish pastor in Ireland who began reading Dar- winian books and became very much interested. He was power- fully impressed with the arguments which went to make out that we are descended from simians. While he was in that state of mind he went to a circus, and, upon entering, he approached the tent reserved for animals, and particularly for monkeys, and, gaz- ing at them, a grave and dreadful doubt arose in his mind and he asked himself : "Are they our relatives — or, oh, horror ! — are they possibly human?" He approached one lone monkey in a little cage all by himself, and it happened that this monkey had been trained to imitate everything he saw. The old Irish priest looked intently at him. The monkey looked back. The priest put his hand to his head. The monkey put his hand to his head. The priest was astounded ; it seemed as though that monkey were reading his very thoughts. He walked away, walked all about the circus considering the matter, and returned, and — winked at the monkey. The mon- key winked back. He smiled at the monkey, and the monkey smiled back at him. That was too much for the good old fellow, and he exclaimed : "Bedad, me b'y, if you will only say one word I will baptize ye." There are a great many of us Modernists to whom these relig- ious liberals have said the baptizing or regenerating word, the word which constitutes us brethren of their kingdom. THE BANQUET 165 There is just one minute left — I insist that there is, Mr. Toast- master — in which I may bring before you a lesson which is directly appropriate to this occasion concerning Theodore Parker, a lesson that I should certainly consider worth recalling to your mind from the life of this man, and it is one of the lessons which our times need, namely, the virtue of belligerent sincerity. Please understand me, dear friends. We are living in a time when certain segregated groups may be in danger of influencing consciously or irrationally certain actions of other groups which ought not to be actions arising from compulsion, but ought to be absolutely free. We have groups in our social order which exercise a potent influence over the electorate. We go to a man up for public ofifice and we ask him: "Look here, are you going to favor our group?" "Oh, yes, yes ; for God's sake, give me your votes ; I will do it." And so we have the "Irish vote," the "German vote" and every other. The danger is that we shall put into office men whose chief qualification is sycophancy, is servility. What such a man ought to say to such a suggestion is: "I don't know anything about your group as a group. My duty I will do. If that duty breaks your head, I have got to break it." We have been told long ago that this danger exists and can only be avoided by cultivating in our youth that spirit of belligerency which will dare to say : "I will act abso- lutely irrespective of any other consequences than the approval of my conscience and the approval of God." The Toastmaster : That speech reminds me of the Domin- ican monk Campanella, who took as his emblem a bell and who took as his motto, "I can't keep still." But we cannot remain long in the West. Everything draws us toward Boston, and now I am to present to you a gentleman who stands in Boston for every good thing. I am not quite sure what he is going to talk about, but I think I can guess, for he is a man of such singleness of purpose and such devotion and such loyalty that wherever he may start we know where he will end — and I know also that he will end in three minutes. I have the distinguished honor of presenting Mr. Edwin D. Mead of Boston. Boston Mr. Toastmaster: Fifty years ago, in the summer of 1860, Theodore Parker died in Florence. Fifty years ago, in the sum- mer of 1860, Abraham Lincoln was nominated to the presidency in Chicago. As Parker lay dying in Florence he said : "One Theo- dore Parker is dying here. I have planted another in America, and 166 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES he will live there and continue my work." One great department of his work was emancipation. That was the great work of Abraham Lincoln ; and among all the anti-slavery leaders there was none who mtluenced Lincoln more profoundly than Theodore Parker. It was from him that he borrowed the most famous phrase in his most famous speech, his declaration concerning government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" ; and no man inspired him more to precise and powerful statement of the issues of the hour. Half a century after Parker's death, half a century after Lin- coln's nomination, it is imperative for us to ask ourselves whether their work for emancipation has been successfully accomplished, or whether the Theodore Parker who was planted in America still has work to do here in that field. A slave is not made a freeman when the chain? are simply struck from his ankles. He becomes a freeman, he has his rights, when unjust discriminations against him have been overcome, when his mind is informed and freed, and when he has the same opportunities possessed by other men to rise to the fullness of the stature of citizenship and manhood. We must say, then, that the race for which Parker and Linclon labored is not yet free ; that they have not yet their full rights, and that we have not yet done our duty. Lincoln and Parker accuse us today of recreancy and dereliction ; and in this hour let us highly resolve that their work shall not have been m vain, and that every man in this republic, white or black, shall have complete civil and political rights. Slavery is a hydra-headed monster. There are more kinds of slavery than one. as Theodore Parker well knew. He reminded his generation of the dangers which always menace a republic from military despotism and a mercantile oligarchy. If we think that these dangers do not menace us today, then it is because we are blind. Swedenborg said that vv^hen a man is once in hell he does not know it. If he does know it, then he is not altogether in hell, for there is reaction in him, and where there is reaction there is relish of salvation. I sometimes think that the indifference of multi- tudes of our people to the evils in which they are sunk is a terrible implication that they are far into Swedenborgs hell. They laugh at talk of despotism. What is the strongest and most insidious tool of despotism? It is and always has been the power of the purse, the power to levy taxes. Where do the taxes of the people of this republic go today? Theodore Parker, who laid such stress upon public education, would tell us that there is nothing upon which our peoi)le should more constantly be kept informed and educated than upon this point. Seventy per cent of our national taxation goes today to pay for the expenses of past wars and imaginary future wars, leaving barely thirty per cent for the constructive work of the republic ; and this frightful militarism into which we have been betrayed is not alone an intolerable burden to our own people, but a great menace to the world. Our military gentlemen are not THE BANQUET 167 even satisfied with the pass to which they have brought us. General Wood, the commander of our regular army, has just declared his wish, at a public dinner, that we might "out-German Germany" in the completeness of the military training of our people. I note that the military son of one of our great Standard Oil magnates — the association makes us think of Parker's association of military des- potism and mercantile oligarchy — has just returned from a tour among the military clubs of Europe to express the opinion through your Chicago newspapers that we are in imminent danger of in- vasion and should instantly multiply our military forces. I some- times think that these callow and irresponsible mischief-makers should be locked up. In Massachusetts a law has been passed for- bidding the use of public cups for drinking in railways cars and at drinking fountains, lest some infection should be spread. How vastly more poisonous and menacing are the utterances of men like these, repeated manifoldly through the public press. A rational and mature people will learn how to insulate these creatures, to put them into secret places when they talk, and to keep the public air pure from their contagion. A rational and mature people will also know that its defenses lie not in multiplying guns and gunboats, suspicions and defiances, but in such policies of justice, friendship and cooperation as win the confidence of all their brothers in the great family of nations. Establish here in America, said Theodore Parker, a state that shall trust in industry, in justice and in love. The destination of America, he said, and its high privilege, are to teach the world the invincible power and the inspiring beauty of such a state. If we have indeed, any of us, got ourselves paralyzed in the indif- ference and blindness which smack of hell, let Parker startle us into misgiving and alarm. But chiefly let us press forward with his brave and buoyant faith in good sense, good morals and good will. There is an Oriental story of a man seeking wisdom from the gods, who found inscribed above the entrance to the court into which he was led the v.'ords, "Be bold," and over the second gate the words "Be bold," and over the third gate the words "Be not too bold." Let us in this republic heed the same admonitions, with another, and say solemnly to ourselves, "Be bold, be bold, be not too bold, and evermore be bold." The Toastmaster : For the encouragement of Mr. Mead I call attention to some verses that appeared in "Punch" some time ago. I can give only the beginning and the end. The first line is, "I was playing golf on the day the Germans landed," and then at the end, "Oh, the sorrow and shame; why, it almost spoiled my game." It is thoroughly appropriate on an occasion like this that the addresses should not only be from Boston, but that among the speakers there should be women, for at a time when it was un- 168 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERS'ARIES popular to be in favor of women, at a rime when it was unpopular to suggest even the modification of the feminine wardrobe, at a time when it was unpopular to propose large liberties and oppor- tunities for women, Theodore Parker was unorthodox enough to advocate these things. Now there is no man so weak — in private at least — as not to yield io the movement of the time, and so it is most appropriate that on this occasion we should have women as speakers, and we are indeed fortunate in having a woman, one whom it gives me much pleasure to introduce as the next speaker ; a woman who ought to live in Boston, but who temporarily, because we need her, is living in Chicago — Mrs. Celia Parker Woolley. of the Frederick Douglass Center, Chicago Theodore Parker condensed in a single sermon all of the heterodoxy with wh.ch he was so bitterly accused in his day, but which is rapidly becoming the orthodoxy of our own. The title of the sermon was "The Transient and the Permanent in Christianity." Those elements in Christian teaching and in the Bible which deal only with myth and miracle, with dogma and tradition, are transient and of secondary account. The true thinker, the reverent student of the Bible, reads it discriminatingly, with some power of selection. In the Old Testament the bloody pages of Joshua are not of the same value as the teachings of Micah, the Book of Job and the Twenty-third Psalm. In the New Testament the stories of turning water into wine and raising the dead are but of incidental worth compared with the Sermon on the Mount and the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. It is the office of religion to separate the essential from the non-essential. During the great Parliament of Religions we learned the same lesson, with broader application, that of "The Transient and <;he Permanent in Religion." We learned that all sects and creeds were practically one in their feeling about the religious funda- mentals called God, soul, duty. I think it was Goethe who said, "We need not travel all around the world to learn that everywhere the sky is blue." Neither need we travel all around the world to learn that everywhere the heart of man looks up to its Maker, yearning to believe, and that every- where the same human heart is growing into closer fellowship and service with its brother men. No one has taught us these great truths of justice, reverence and human usefulness with more lasting eloquence and power than the man whose anniversary we celebrate tonight. The Toastmaster: The next speaker is going to have a good deal of difficulty. Pie is a man possessed of a perfectly uncheck- THE BANQUET 169 able and irresistible flow of rhetoric, as well as imagination. When bis imagination once kindles, nothing can stop him; he starts with the firm determination to keep within the three-minute limit very likely, but you will see him getting more excited, you will witness the phenomenon of psychic hypnosis, and before he can be stopped, very possibly forcible means will have to be employed. This time we go back to just this side of Boston, to Cambridge, and it gives me pleasure to introduce Rabbi Charles Fleischer of Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge, Massachusetts On my way to Chicago from Boston a fellow Bostonian, formerly from Chicago, told me of a recent conversation with an inhabitant of your city. The Chicagoan said to the Bostonian, "This Theodore Roosevelt" — he was referring to a man whose name is familiar to you and whose wonderful silence since the late election is still a nine days' wonder — "This Theodore Roosevelt seems to have discovered that he is possessed of peculiar righteousness, righteous- ness peculiar to himself, whereas, as a matter of fact, he is talking about common morality," "Yes," said the Bostonian, "but you have to admit that Roosevelt is a great man." "Yes, he is a great man, but I think he ought to be a preacher and not bother men about their daily affairs." I was very much impressed with that characterization of Roosevelt as a preacher. My fellow townsman of the greater Boston, President Hamil- ton, has spoken of the religion which is greater than any and com- prehends them all. That is just the topic on which I want to say my one word. I suppose every one sees of God what he can see. I suppose every one can see of a great man relatively what he is tempera- mentally fitted to see. In Theodore Parker, of the many facets of character which appeal to me, the one that most appeals to me is that which stamps him as the believer in a protagonistic form of natural religion. That, I believe, is the religion which is greater than any and com- bines them all. All of us here at this table are affiliated, one way or another, with organized historical religion ; but underneath us all, and tran- scending us all, is that which is common to us all, which, accordnig to my friend, Theodore Roosevelt seems to have discovered as a new religion. I want to drop the seed of rebellion. Theodore Parker was a democrat, not in the party sense, but in the American sense; and he was a rebel, first, last and all the time. I believe in rebellion, I believe in the spirit of Theodore Parker, that that shall be applied so that there shall be more of that con- 170 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES lemporaneous rebellion against established statements and defini- tions. We are too busy praising Theodore Parker, instead of going and doing likewise. Now, I would like to propose a toast here ; that we shall take to ourselves the obligation of the personal Theodore Parker, and declare that we highly resolve to be rebels like unto him, especially in this matter of free, natural, progressive religion ; that we will not hold our loyalty to traditional forms ; that we will empha- size more and more the religion that is common, that is natural tc all of us ; that in becoming free religionists, then we become signers of and workers for the spiritual declaration of independence ; that we declare ourselves free and independent of the religions that we have inherited, simply saying "Thank you" to them, but feeling it is for us to continue to do everything to secure this natural religion. That is contemporaneous rebellion, the contemporaneous rebel- lion of Theodore Parker; he liked that word. I want to say it tonight, and trust that it will be responsible for some more rebellion and independence. Everything that exists on earth was created by man, and no book, no institution, no combination, no form of government, whether in politics, in religion, or economics, dare dominate man, the creator. It is the function of man always, everlastingly, in- evitably and eternally to continue to create governments, economics, religions, human institutions — marching onward. The Toastmaster: The toastmaster would like to call at- tention modestly to the fact that there is one absolute authority here at present, and that is the toastmaster. As to the views of the eminent political leader to whom allusion has been made this evening, I would call attention to the fact that they will be quoted at length this week in what the New York Sun describes as '"The Down-and-Out-Look." Fifty years ago, the next speaker would have come to Chicago by the underground railway. This time he came in a Pullman car, at least after he got over the Arkansas boundary. If it is proper for any of these speakers to be here tonight, I think you will agree with me that it is eminently appropriate and fitting for the next speaker to be here, and we all have a hearty welcome for this man, who is one of a small group of men who are doing valiant, intelli- gent, loyal service for their fellows and for the country. What joy it would give Theodore Parker to see us welcome Isaac Fisher of Arkansas. (Mr. Fisher was greeted with long-continued applause and waving of handkerchiefs.) THE BANQUET 171 Arkansas Mr. Toastmaster : In a forty-page review of the progress of Chicago one of your city papers attempted to show the greatness of this metropohs. I read with a great deal of interest the sum- mary touching your great parks and playgrounds as a part of the greatness of which the writer boasted, and I suddenly remembered that, in the days of old, Bablyon had the most beautiful hangnig gardens and play spots in the world ; but Babylon is gone. I saw the writer's summary of music and the drama, and 1 suddenly remembered that, in the history of past cities, the sound of the tabret and the music of the harp had resounded; those cities have passed away. I saw his summary of the commerce and wealth and industry of Chicago, and I remembered that Tyre, the commercial center of the East in the past, had also passed away. I saw his summary of the splendid position of the industrial greatness of this magic city of the West, and I remembered that the time comes to all men when they must say, "Return to thy rest, O my soul," and I knew that the mere fact that men worked here is not the ultimate test of Chicago's greatness. In all that great summary I looked in vain for that upon which the greatness of all cities must be built. I looked in vain for the spirit which made possible the appearance in the center of the culture and education of Chicago, the son of a man and a woman who in the days gone by had worn the shackles of slavery. Here is your greatness : That you can wish to have a negro speak- ing here tonight. That is the spirit that is going to make Chicago great among the cities of this nation. It is a long distance from the underground railroad to this hour ; it is a long distance from the times when the slaves, with their hands upheld to Heaven, cried, "Lord, how long?" to this hour, when a new inspiration comes and sinks untainted into every heart tonight ; and al! this has come in a large measure from the public word and work of him who in days past, not because a man was black, not because a man was white, but because his big soul could not brook injustice, dared speak a word for the right. Theodore Parker is greater tonight than he was then ; greater than he ever dared dream that he might become, and I say here, as my humble contribution to this hour, that in the encouragement of prophets, that in the lifting up of their hands that they may have strength and inspiration for each day's tasks and each day's burdens, there is the great work for Chicago to do, there is the work that under God is going to make her great. The Toastmaster : It is a peculiar honor for the toastmaster to introduce the next speaker. This is the first time on a public 172 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES occasion that the toastmaster has been able to call attention to the flattering fact that he is a graduate of the same institution from which the speaker who is next to address you has lately received a degree. To be sure, the degree which was received by that lady was a very recent affair, and of a higher character, but it is from the same institution, and so the toastmaster feels he has some particular part in the honor which that institution conferred upon itself in conferring an honorary degree upon Miss Jane Addams, a graduate of Yale. (Miss Addams was received with hearty applause.) Mtafi 3anr Abliama Hull House, Chicago We will divide that applause between Yale and the woman. Since T have been sitting here I have changed my mind three times as to the special things I was going to say about Theodore Parker and about all the things I have heard this week. Of them all the one that most impressed me was said by Mrs. Spencer on Wednesday morning, when she said of Theodore Parker that, to the end of his life he still believed in the great forces which had brought about the enfranchisement of the slave, which had established all good things, including this republic in America, and which had the power to do still greater things ; he could say and did say his word, used great phrases about human equality, about the necessity of absolute justice for all men and all women, with great confidence in the ultimate outcome of those forces. But we cannot talk so boldly at this time ; we cannot speak so much without reservation as Theodore Parker and other people of his time did ; and it is a matter of great regret to many of us that those men who could use the great forces in existence, who had not yet seen the difficulties and social obligations which we have since discovered, thj;t they did not finish up the business of secur- ing the vote for women. It is too late to talk about those things now, but it is not fair that the women and the men of this genera- tion should have to do the work which belonged to a generation before them. The men who freed the slaves in America, who put the suffrage in their hands, did it because they knew that in no other way could they protect their hard-won liberty, and they should have been the men to give the suffrage to women also. We are called upon to do something which is not quite our affair ; we ought to be now in a position to use this suffrage, not as a per- sonal matter, but for tuberculosis hospitals, for certified milk, and all the other things of which Miss Dingee has spoken ; but instead of that we have to neglect those important matters which are at our very doors and go back and pick up this unfinished work of pro- curing suffrage for women, which Theodore Parker and the others .somehow failed to put into our hands. THE BANQUET 173 He saw the need of suffrage for the negro, because he saw the negro had to be protected in his new-found Hberty. Before he died he also saw that women were entering into all branches of industry, factories, shops and all others. He knew something about this; indeed, Mrs. Spencer declared that he died because he tried to find so many places for women in his congregation of seven thousand. He saw the need of protection under those cir- cumstances, he saw the only solution, and yet he did not quite carry it to consummation — it is outrageous, isn't it, to blame a man when you are set up to praise him? If he had lived longer, I believe he would have moved much farther in this direction. As we like to think of the things Lincoln would have done if he had been here in the days of reconstruction, so perhaps we would like to think of the things men of Theodore Parker's stamp would have done, and he would have done, if he had lived longer. He certainly would have realized that if it was dangerous to give to the negroes freedom without the protection of the ballot, it was extremely dangerous to allow women to go into all the industries which they now occupy without giving to them the protection of the ballot ; and, while I would not wish to cast any reflection upon what those men did, because they did so much in their generation, I would like to endorse what one of the speakers has said: It is for men here and now to take new cour- age and try to finish up the work which Theodore Parker, with all his strength of mind and spirit of rebellion, failed to carry through. The Toastmaster : Now, ladies and gentlemen, we have had a most triumphant time. We have had ten speeches in the space of fifty minutes, and, taking out the two or three minutes that the toastrnaster has consumed, you will see that the speakers, each and all. have kept within the original limits set. The little device of suggesting three minutes has worked admirably. You all realize that this evening would be absolutely in- complete if there were not one more address. I don't have to tell you who the next speaker is, because the very situation of itself points at him and declares him to be the man who is back of it, around it and on top of it, the man whose big heart is throbbing through it. He is the man who must pronounce the benediction, Jenkin Lloyd Jones. (Long-continued and renewed applause.) Sfn. S^nktn Hlogb Jnttpa Chicago I, with you, am very happy tonight. I, with you, feel that a presence and a spirit pervade this place that recall tender mem- ories and awakens aspirations and high resolves. I, with you, rejoice in this man that went out in apparent de- feat, who was beset with obloquy, who was segregated from the 1/4 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES noble. I rejoice with you that that man has lived again in Chi- cago this week. He has found utterance in at least fourteen dif- ferent rooms and centers under the direction of this central pro- gram, and perhaps in twice as many churches. I, with you, rejoice that Theodore Parker has come to his own this week and has been acclaimed as a prophet and a brother by representatives of so many different creeds, different races and different classes. I rejoice with you that it has been given us to live to see this occasion w'hich typifies the better life of this city and is of itself a blessed prophecy. The Theodore Parker that was left at work in America when the other Theodore Parker was dying in Florence is just beginning to get busy, just beginning to put in his work; and of all his high words that have been uttered here tonight there was none higher, there was none more tender and none more commanding in his vocabulary than that w^ord "unity," that word which inspired after him co-operation rather than competition, combination rather than individualism. It was he who sent his spirit across the seas and anticipated the conclusions of the scholars by the discovery that, underneath all the great religious systems of the world, there were the same fundamental affirmations of God, of conscience, of immortality. Rather than to take the time which was not allotted me, after the chairman has completed whatever may be in his mind, I am going to ask our friend, Miss Jennie Johnson, to lead us in singing the words written by the brother whom we all miss, but whose spirit is here tonight, William C. Gannett. After the chairman dismisses us we will ask Miss Johnson to sing "The Crowning Day," and we will join in the chorus: "Oh, the crowning day is coming, is coming by and by ; We can see the rose of morning a glory in the sky. And the splendor on the hilltops o'er all the land shall lie In the crowning day that's coming by and by." MR. HUTCHINSON: We will rise and sing, and then go forth filled with the spirit of Theodore Parker and realizing that his opportunities were far less than those that are ours today. Aiiittinnal KhhvtBBtB ADDITIONAL ADDRESSES \77 By the Niece of Theodore Parker, Mrs. Martha Parker Dingee, read before the Tuesday Class in Religion at Abraham. Lincoln Centre, on November 15, subsequently before the Unitarian Women's Alliance, in the First Unitarian Church, Chicago. In this anniversary year of the birth and death of Theodore Parker others have spoken of his work, his philosophy and his theol- ogy. I will only give some reminiscences showing somewhat the character of the man. Theodore Parker, the youngest of eleven children, was born on a farm in Lexington, Mass., and here his early years were spent. As was the custom in the country for the boys, he attended school in the winter and helped on the farm in the summer. This was his schooling during nine winter terms of eleven weeks each, and with one year added at the Lexington Academy. His father was a sub- scriber to the Lexington Library and here Theodore found books of history, poetry and fiction. He read everything, and, with a remarkably retentive memory, his mind became well stored. His mother was a religious woman and had her boy baptized. This service was performed at home, and the bowl used on that occa- sion has been preserved in the family. She early implanted in his mind a love of truth and justice, and a reverence for Jesus. One day when at play Theodore saw a tortoise sunning itself on the bank of the pond. He raised a stick with which to strike it, but something said to him he must not do it. He put down the stick and went home and asked his mother what it was that spoke to him. She said: "Some call it conscience, but I prefer to call it the voice of God speaking to your soul, and if you always obey that voice you will not go wrong ; but if you disregard it, by and by you will not hear it, and then it will be bad for you." This thought never left him, and his conscience was his guide. His great desire was for books and an education beyond what the country school afforded. The first money he ever earned he spent for a Latin dictionary, and this he studied. It is told that one morning he left home without saying where he was going, and, returning late at night, found his father in bed, but awake, and told him he had been to Cambridge and had passed the Harvard College examination and been admitted to the freshman class. When his father remarked that he could not meet the expenses, Theodore re- 178 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES plied that he would earn money to pay the bills. At the age of sixteen he began teaching school and in the winters taught in sev- eral of the towns about Boston, at the same time studying and keeping up with his class in college. In the summer he continued to work on the farm. His study lamp seems now a very primitive afi'air, burning sperm oil with two wicks. This was before the days of gas and electricity, or even kerosene. This was his course of life until he entered the Divinity School, In 1836 he was ordained as a Unitarian minister and began his duties as a pastor in West Roxbury, a suburb of Boston. Here he made many devoted and life-long friends. At the time he began his ministry the churches were teaching that all mankind were sin- ners and the wrath of an angry God would condemn to eternal punishment all save a few elect. Parker, with his inborn sense of justice, could not accept such a theology. He taught that God was not an avenging judge, but a loving Father and Mother to all mankind, that black and white, Jew and Gentile, pagan and Chris- tian, were His children, over whom He extended a paternal care. He was known as an able scholar, a reformer and a radical in re- ligious doctrines, but had as yet made no special stir in the theolog- ical world. In 1841 he was invited to preach the ordination sermon of a young Unitarian minister. He took for the subject of his discourse "The Transient and Permanent in Christianity." Many points relating to the Bible and the church theology were so foreign to the accepted church teaching that it brought down upon him the maledictions of press and pulpit. The sermon was pronounced heresy and Parker an infidel and an atheist. The Unitarian Fra- ternity asked him to resign from their body, but this he declined to do; they should have the onus of dismissing him. They did not dismiss him. But few of his ministerial brethren would ex- change pulpits with him or extend the hand of fellowship to him. The clergy were especially denunciatory. The words of this humble preacher might undermine the foundations of their theological structure. One preacher went so far as to pray : "O Lord ! we beseech Thee that Thou wilt remove this Theodore Parker from our midst, as we confess we can do nothing with him." This sup- plicant at the throne passed into obscurity and Theodore Parker lived. This treatment, of course, wounded him deeply ; but he felt that he had only spoken as his conscience dictated, and with the same courage and sense of duty that his grandfather had shown when, on the 19th of April, 1775, he with his small company of Minute Men met an army of trained British soldiers, so he stood firm, believing that time would vindicate him. What was deemed heresy sixty years ago is the basis of the ADDITIONAL ADDRESSES 179 free religious thought of today. His friends determined that, in spite of much opposition, he should have a chance to be heard in Boston, and in 1846 he left his country parish. A hall was secured, and here he preached several years; but such throngs came to hear him that a larger place was necessary, and Music Hall, which would accommodate several thousand, was secured, and here he preached until sickness forced him to leave the pulpit. A woman, a stranger, one Sunday morning wandered into Parker's church and after the services, by which she had been much impressed, remarked, ''I wish that infidel, Theodore Parker, could have heard that sermon," little thinking that she had been listening to that very infidel. It is agitation that turns the wheels of prog- ress ; stagnant waters turn no wheels. Parker's Discourses on Religion are published in a separate volume and, I understand, have recently been translated into the Japanese language. His sermons were largely upon practical moral- ity and the problems of the day. Besides preaching, he lectured before different societies throughout the country. After one of these lectures he was in- vited to a private house for the night, and in the cold sheets of the best bed of his entertainer he had a violent chill, which resulted in his fatal illness. His correspondence was immense, and the personal calls from all classes of people, those who wished to unburden their griefs, to have their religious doubts removed, or to express their joys over their matrimonial prospects, took much of his time; but with his great tender heart he listened to all and sent them away comforted. In the anti-slavery movement he took an active part, speaking against the injustice of holding one man as property to be bought and sold by another. He assisted and befriended the run- away slaves, and for such acts he was arrested and held for trial as a violator of the infamous Fugitive Slave Law. He prepared his defense, but the trial never came off. His friends urged him to write out his defense for publication. This he did, adding much history on the subject. This is published as a separate volume known as Parker's Defenses. He felt strongly the disgrace of his country, but never doubted that freedom would eventually triumph. In one of his later letters, while dying in Italy, he says: "There is a glorious future for America, but I fear it will be over a red sea." The war broke out the following year, and it was indeed a red sea through which our country passed. In personal appearance Parker looked older than his years. He was entirely bald, except for the scant locks at the back of his head. His eyes were not large, but bright. His gaze seemed 180 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES to penetrate your very soul when fixed upon you. In speaking, his manner was serious and earnest. He made few gestures and never raised his voice to an unnatural pitch, but his utterance was so distinct that his words could be heard throughout any large hall. You felt sure that he believed what he was saying. His New England conscience gave to him what strangers thought a stern- ness of countenance, but acquaintance corrected that impression. His affectionate nature was shown in his attachment to his friends, his fondness for children, his love for flowers and for animals, especially for oxen, with their large, dreamy eyes. The bear was a favorite, and his friends found much amusement in presenting him with bears of all kinds — china, plaster, or any kind of a ridiculous specimen of Bruin. His pet name for his wife was "Bearsie." Having no children of his own, when he could break from his study, he would borrow the little ones of his friends, and it was their delight to ride over Parker as he would lie on the floor or romp with them. Of flowers he was very fond, and of many he knew their habits and their locations, and in the season he would rise at daybreak and walk seven miles to gather the fringed gentian. In his city home the whole upper floor was his study and library. It was a wilderness of books, not only in cases against the walls, but they stood in every available place, and books over- flowed into every room in the house ; and it was a surprise to people that he always knew just where to find the book that was wanted. Over his study door were placed two guns, one which his grand- father carried, and the other one which he captured from the British officer on the memorable 19th of April, 1775. Because he was so familiar with all subjects he was called a walking encyclo- pedia. At the time of his death it was said he had the largest private library in the country. By his will this was given to the city of Boston, and in the public library a separate alcove is given to his books. Here also were placed the portraits of himself and his wife and a marble bust of the former by Story. His family consisted of a wife and an elderly lady, a friend of his wife, an intellectual woman who greatly appreciated Mr. Parker. His wife was a gentle, domestic woman, whose quiet, pleasant ways were restful to him. In the evening when in the parlor socially with his friends, his fingers were often busy cutting the leaves of the last new book. His sense of humor and his fund of anecdotes made him a delightful companion. He was ever helpful to the deserving. Any young man or woman who showed a desire for an education beyond what his means would allow found in him a generous helper — the bills might be sent to him. My own school bills were paid by him, he ADDITIONAL ADDRESSES 181 saying my father had assisted him and he was glad to help his children. Later, from my school-teaching money, I ofifered to refund a part of what he had paid for me. He refused the money, saying: "There is but one way to pay such debts. I help you; you help some one else." He was very fond of the Lexington home. No butternuts were quite so good to him as those from the trees under which he had played and studied when a boy. In his visits to his dear old home he took books to bis brother's children. I remember some of them — Mother Goose for the little ones, Mary Howill's stories and Aesop's Fables for the older ones. We enjoyed the fables, but skipped the moral application. His was a hospitable home. Strangers always felt welcome at Exeter Place, a four-story house with a small back yard, which he had planted with fruit trees, grape vines and flowers, and it was his pleasure to gather grapes, hold them under the hydrant and bring them to the breakfast table sparkling from their bath. Many marriages were performed in his parlor at Exeter Place, my own among the number. He had no fixed service, and when in his remarks to us he said to the groom, "In some ways you will find this woman your superior ; then look up to her and reverence her," the young man was somewhat disturbed, thinking because I was his niece he was partial to me ; but when he turned to me and said, "In some things you will find this man your superior; then look up to him and reverence him," this appeased the bridegroom. William and Ellen Craft, colored people, were married in this same room as they were escaping to Canada from slavery to freedom. After the ceremony he presented the bride with a Bible and the groom with a pistol, saying: "Read the one and defend yourself with the other." This house, with others, was torn down some years ago in order to widen the adjoining streets, into which business was crowding. His widow later built for herself a house in the newer part of Boston, and here she died. In her back parlor, in loving memory of her husband, she had placed his desk with the little tray and the pen, grown rusty, also his chair with his study robe thrown over it. In this room were such books as she had chosen from his library. Francis Power Cobbe, an English philanthropist who edited an English edition of Theodore Parker's works, says he was a teacher of those cardinal truths of religion which are necessary for our soul's higher life. Emerson says: "He spoke the truth as he saw it, holding back nothing through fear of making an enemy." Theodore Parker was a pioneer in the free religious movement that is pervading the world today, and as advanced thinkers in the 182 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES past suffered martyrdom, so Theodore Parker, though not sub- jected to the rack and the fagot, was nevertheless a martyr in his day. "But ever the right comes uppermost and ever is justice done," and after sixty years his teaching, though Hberal, is not heresy, and the seed which he sowed is bearing fruit. Theodore Parker was an untiring worker; the light in his study could often be seen in the small hours of the night. Seven- teen hours he would give to brain work, and his days were not idle, for he never turned a deaf ear to the most humble supplicant. Once, when his brother remonstrated with him for his overwork, he drew back his shoulders and said : "I am strong ; I shall live to be eighty." It seemed to me that he regarded laziness as the un- pardonable sin. In his thought and labor for humanity he forgot himself; but Mother Nature never forgets, and the transgressor of her laws must pay the penalty, and before he had reached his fiftieth year Theodore Parker died in Florence, Italy, where he had gone hoping to prolong his life. He was buried in the little Protestant cemetery, which was then outside the city limits, but modern Florence now extends around and beyond it ; but the quiet spot where so many of the world's great ones lie is well cared for and is and always has been a place of pilgrimage. A few years ago the old stone that marked the grave of Theodore Parker was replaced by a new and larger monument bearing his portrait in low relief. Friends in Boston soon after his death had a monument marking his birthplace placed on the spot where his early Lexing- ton home stood. In this anniversary year we feel that, though dead, he still speaks to us. ADDITIONAL ADDRESSES 183 Kh\\xtBB bg 3F. 01. g'outliuiortli, 1. i. President of Meadville Theological School THE ENLARGING HORIZON OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT SINCE PARKER'S TIME. [This address, prepared for the occasion, was crowded out for want of time in delivery, and is here printed as a legitimate part of the program.] Among the ambitions which were the guiding stars of Theo- dore Parker's intellectual life was that of writing a book, of which the preoccupations of his stormy career gave him time enough only to compose the introduction. Its title was to be "The Historical Development of Religion in the History of Man." Unquestion- ably the world is poorer today because Parker was unable to com- plete this work. For he would have brought to the task an equip- ment such as probably no other man in America has possessed be- fore or since. When Henry Buckle published, in 1857, his great book on the History of Civilization, Parker wrote a review of it for the Christian Examiner in which he showed his undisguised delight in Buckle's achievement. This delight did not prevent him, however, from expressing his regret that the list of authors quoted by Mr. Buckle — a list which comprised some 3,000 volumes — had been so meager a one, and from supplementing Buckle's authorities by a long list of French and German treatises which ought, in Parker's opinion, to have been taken into consideration. In his Discourse on Religion, published eighteen years before his death, we have an intimation of the temper and spirit with which Parker would have approached a work of this kind. It is there made so clear that he \Vho runs may read, that religion is not something imposed from without, but something which grows up from within. Its acts of worship as well as its beliefs came from inner impulses of the soul quite independently of any external reve- lation. Religion is inseparably bound up with human nature. The study of religious phenomena is something which the psychologist has not the right to neglect. These propositions, so successfully defended by Parker in 1842, are, of course, commonplaces in 1910. Starting as he did from these presuppositions at a time before the study of comparative religion had properly begun, we may well regret that leisure was not accorded him to write the book on the Development of Re- ligion on which he had set his heart. For he would seem in many 184 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES ways, by nature, temperament and training, to have had the his- torian's bent. The student of the history of religion needs the capacity for sympathetic appreciation and spiritual discernment, and tiiis Parker had. In order to study many religions at first hand one needs to know many languages, and this again Parker did. The historian should possess a retentive memory, and be able to reason inductively from facts to theories, both of which qualifications we have seen that Parker possessed in generous meas- ure. The historian ought also to have the capacity for clear and succinct statement, and Parker was always clear. If. with such an extraordinary combination of qualities, he had been permitted to give the labor of a lifetime to the completion of a great historical work, the world would doubtless have been the richer. In these meetings, however, the watchword seems to have been not backward but forward, and it will be more profitable for us to note the progress which has been made along the road to which Parker pointed the way, than to lament the uncompleted task which he was not permitted to finish. We have been told how Parker declared to his biographer, Francis Power Cobbe, when he lay at the point of death in Flor- ence: "There are two Theodore Parkers now. One is dying here in Italy; the other I have planted over in America. He will stay and complete my work." If these words were a prophecy it has been fulfilled in more senses than one. For during the fifty years since Parker's death not only in America, but also in England and Holland and France, has the writing of this book on the Historical Development of Religion in the history of man gone bravely for- ward. Many pens have collaborated in the splendid task, and a brilliant company of scholars have arisen to give valiant support to Parker's great contention that religion is an inherent possession of the human soul, and that the two-fold division of religions, which had been in vogue before his time into those which are true and those which are false, is now no longer valid. Already, before Parker's death, had the epoch-making work of Max Miiller begun at Oxford, in the editing of the Sacred Books of the East, and the results of that work were now beginning to appear. Max Miiller inaugurated in Great Britain the study of comparative philology as a stepping stone to the study of com- parative religion. Like Parker, he was not permitted to give his entire time to the most engrossing interest of his life, for he was a professor, not of comparative religion, but of philology. His work in the former field was therefore a by-product. But the importance of the Sacred Books of the East in enlarging the horizon of re- ligious knowledge can hardly be overestimated. The immediate outcome was a greatly increased interest in comparative religion ADDITIONAL ADDRESSES 185 throughout the English-speaking world. The world remembers, in connection with this brilliant scholar, the public esteem which was accorded him after the value of his work had been recognized. It has already forgotten in large measure the fierceness with which his teachings and his theories were at first attacked. It was so recently as the year 1870 that Max Miiller gave his memorable lectures on comparative religion at the Royal Insti- tution in London, and the real beginning of comparative religion as a science may be said to have been at that time. And it was only a year later that an Oxford colleague, Professor E. B. Tylor, published his epoch-making work on Primitive Culture, laying down the method of investigation which was to be followed by subsequent workers in the field of early religions. But the leaven was working now in other parts of the world, and a Dutch scholar from the University of Leyden who had already attained a European reputation for a book on Zoroaster, Professor C. P. Tiele, published in 1872 his book on the Compara- tive History of the Religions of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Like his contemporary. Max Miiller, who was only a few years his senior, Tiele was not only a distinguished linguist, but also a master of literary style. He was twice called to Edinburgh as Gifford lec- turer and rendered valiant service in quickening in Great Britain the interest in comparative religion which had already been created. Three years after Professor Tiele had been appointed to his chair in Le3^den, a French scholar, Albert Reville, was appointed to a similar chair in I'aris. Reville was born in the same year as Max Miiller, and from the year 1880 until his death five years ago devoted himself to a study of the religions of the non-civilized and imperfectly civilized peoples. Some of us may remember his ad- dress at the Parliament of Religions in 1893. These are three of the pioneers of the coming universal re- ligion, in England, in Holland and in France, upon whom the mantle of Theodore Parker fell. Other names, of those almost equally distinguished, might also have been mentioned. If the list were to be extended it would include in a conspicuous place the late Professor Robertson Smith of Cambridge University, whose book on the Religion of the Semites enabled the world to see clearly for the first time the place of the religion of Israel in the religious history of the world. And it would include also the names of two American ministers, James Freeman Clarke and Samuel Johnson, whose researches in the non-Christian faiths have done much to stimulate a sympathetic interest in these faiths in our own country. Under the stimulus of such leadership, interest in the study of comparative religions has grown apace throughout the world. The 186 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES great universities of Germany, curiously enough, where it was natural to look for the protagonists in the new movement, have been slowest to respond to this awakened interest. Holland, on the contrary, owing, perhaps, to the impetus received from Pro- fessor Tiele, has been the first. In each of its four universities chairs of comparative religions were founded in 1876. Switzer- land, vying with Holland in its hospitality to the modern spirit, established chairs at Basle and Lausanne. The universities of Brussels and Copenhagen followed suit. In Victoria University at Manchester, Professor Rhys Davids has been the distinguished in- cumbent of the chair of comparative religion since 1904. The Imperial University of Japan was not to be outdone by her older sisters, and in America, Boston University, Cornell University and the universities of New York and Chicago were pioneers in introducing the new science. The college has been slower than the university in our own country in introducing its members to this branch of culture, but even in the college the study of the history of religions, if not yet the study of comparative religion, is slowly making its way. The beginnings are frequently hesitating and timid, as, for example, in a vigorous young college of Pennsylvania, whose catalog announces under the heading of comparative religion : "While the religions of the barbarians and of the civilized nations are studied, and the relations of the various religions to one another are considered, it is ever remembered that the true religion is the one revealed in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and the eternal character of the latter over against the transitory nature of the former is made prominent." In other institutions where a similar bias exists it is not quite so frankly admitted as here. It is enough, however, for the present that the beginning has been made. The time spirit will see to it that the scientific method shall ultimately prevail. Moreover, there is reason for rejoicing that in the theological seminary, as well as in the university and the college, the com- parative study of non-Christian religions has been instituted. Charles Carroll Everett began to lecture on this subject in the Harvard Divinity School in 1872, and Estlin Carpenter in Man- chester College, Oxford, four years later. In 1891 George R. Freeman inaugurated a similar work at the Meadville Theological School. This good example was followed by three congregational seminaries in England, namely, Mansfield College at Oxford, and by Hackney and New Colleges in London, and on our own side of the water chairs of comparative religion have been founded for several years at the theological schools of Boston University and the University of Chicago, as well as at Union and the Chicago ADDITIONAL ADDRESSES 187 Theological Seminary. I will not take the time today even to mention by name the seminaries which have established such chairs in more recent years. Another effective instrument for broadening the religious hori- zon of the race by the dissemination of knowledge concerning the history of religions has been the lecture platform. In 1878 the Hibbert Lectures were established in England, ten years later the Gifford Lectures in Scotland, and in 1891 were inaugurated the American Lectures on the History of Religions, to be given by distinguished specialists on one or another of the great religions of the world in selected centers of the United States. Not only have these lectures disseminated knowledge among the people con- cerning religions of which they were previously ignorant, but they have also been the means of putting into printed form from year to year facts and deductions which were previously inaccessible. From all parts of the world have the lecturers been summoned, and a magnificent library is coming into being as a result of the re- searches which have been undertaken in the interest of these lec- tureships. Of the Barrows lectureship in the University of Chicago it would be superfluous for me to speak in this place. But modern education makes its appeal to the eye as well as to the ear, and the student of comparative religion in our time in London, in Boston, in Chicago or Paris, or elsewhere, has an unrivaled opportunity to carry on his work in the midst of the very objects of worship and the very simulacra of religion whose secrets he is trying to fathom. In our own generation the museum has claimed for itself a place as an agency for unfolding the re- ligious history of man, of quite unique importance. Museums of ethnology are rapidly appearing in the great centers of learning, and it is becoming customary to establish in connection with them separate departments devoted to the history of religion. In the Guimet Museum in Paris an entire building is thus set apart ; and the facilities it offeis, together with the lectures at the Sorbonne and at the College de France, have for several years made Paris, for the student of comparative religion, the most important center in the world. It was fitting that the international gathering of scholars who were interested in this subject should have been held in Paris in 1900, and the result of this and subsequent meet- ings of this growing company of savants has been undoubtedly to quicken and to clarify the interest in comparative religion through- out the world. By the efforts of these and others like them a new era in religious thought has been ushered in during the years since Parker died. Intolerance and exclusiveness in this realm have given way to sympathy and hospitality everywhere. It was no less 188 THEODORE PARKER ANNIVERSARIES a man than Dr. Samuel Johnson who declared, "The two objects of curiosity are the Christian world and the Mohammedan world ; all the rest may be considered as barbarous." But his words sound now like a voice from the distant past, and even the phrase of Sir Monier Williams, the Oxford Orientalist, in which he referred to Brahminism, Buddhism and Mohammedanism as "the three chief false religions," seems now curiously out of date. For the world now knows, as it did not know fifty years ago, that religions are not the result of the perverse activity of priests who promote them as a means of self-support, nor are they the shrewd device of rulers adopted as a method of policing their subjects, but that they arise and grow on account of some essential truth at their core, and begin to decay only when that truth has been encrusted with error or is no longer necessary for the well-being of its adherents. Christion missionaries are no longer accustomed to speak of the claims put forth by Christianity as duplicated by the "blasphemous" claims of other faiths, nor do even the representatives of Roman Catholicism in non-Christian countries refer to monasticism, the mass and the rosary or other religious rites which are in use among the natives, as "mocking devices of the devil." The missionary must now be able to teach as well as to preach. He must erect hospitals, introduce printing presses, trans- late books and pamphlets, establish schools, and act as advisor at the courts of kings. That there is room for such a work as ^his in our age of commercialism and militarism I surely do not need to demonstrate. Such are some of the ways in which our religious horizon has widened since Parker's time, and such are some of the results of this widening. Since he died there has arisen into historic view a great panorama of religions of which the world had been igno- rant. Whole sacred literatures, hitherto undreamed of, have emerged out of silence and darkness. The temples and tombs of Egypt, the mounds of Mesopotamia, the vast libraries at India, China and Thibet have yielded up their treasures ; and each dis- covery has meant the restriction of the realm of ignorance and intolerance and exclusiveness, and the lessening of race prejudice. Into this promised land of actual knowledge of the ways in which the nations of the world have sought after God, it was not permitted Theodore Parker to enter ; but he was permitted, like Moses, to ascend the mountain and to see and greet it from afar. ®nlg tlinsp rplrbraJtnttH arr Ifvrt mtntianth as nirrr rrpflrtrii in anv wag or anutljf r to ti^t rom;itI^ra of tijta nolum^ OTHER CELEBRATIONS 191 ®X)i\n 5II|wb0r? Parker 01^ b brattnttB IN CHICAGO Frederick Douglass Center, 3032 Wabash Ave.— Two meetings at the Frederick Douglass Center and one at Bethel Church constituted a pleasant aftermath of the Parker memorial and served to enlarge the circle of those who now know Theodore Parker and gratefully claim him as their own. Mr. Isaac Fisher is a devoted disciple of Booker T. Washington. He stands unreservedly for the work of race construction on all lines of educational and social uplift. At the banquet on Thursday evening he was received with prolonged applause and hearty enthusiasm. A semi-social gathermg met in his honor at the Douglass Center on Friday evening and was well attended. Sunday afternoon he spoke at the regular service on "Weeping and Progress," taking the same grounds of confident hope for his race and belief in their coming destiny as before. The Parker memorial would have missed its most striking and sug- gestive features had the negro's contribution and the review of the great liberator's labors for the slave been left out. The friends and members of the Frederick Douglass Center felt this, and it was both a privilege and a duty to express this feeling in the following resolution : Chicago, November 18, 1910. The members of the Frederick Douglass Center and the colored people of Chicago, Illinois, sincerely appreciating the generous spirit of Dr. Jenkin Lloyd Jones in making it possible for Prof. Isaac Fisher of Arkansas, to be one of the guests and orators of the Theodore Parker anniversaries held in Chicago during the week ending Thursday, November 17, 1910. Be It Resolved, That we extend to Dr. Jones assurances of our deep .• • Volume X. — Social Classes in a Volume m.-Sermons of Religion. Republic. Edited by Samuel A. Edited by Samuel A. Eliot. Eliot. Volume IV. — The Transient and Volume XI. — The Slave Power. Permanent in Christianity. Edited by Edited by James K. Hosmer. George W. Cooke. Volume XII.-The Rights of Man in Volume v. — Lessons from the America. Edited by Frank B. Worldof Matter and of Man. Edited Sanborn. by Rufus Leighton. Volume XIII.— A utobiography. Volume VI.-The World of Matter Poems and Prayers. Edited by and the Spirit of Man. Edited by Rufus Leighton. George W. Cooke. Volume XIV. — Miscellanies. Edit- Volume VII.- Historic Americans. ed by Charles W. Wendte. Edited by Samuel A. Eliot. Index.— To be found in Vol. XIV. Size 8 vo.; pages, 400 to 500 per volume; price per volume, $1.00 net; by mail, $1.16. Per set, $10.00 net; delivered, $11.50. 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