\lflj 
 
 2.9- 

 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 JEn 
 
 WITH ESSAYS. 
 
 Vw \lU), di\. ji^-^M^ 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 A. WILLIAMS AND COMPANY. 
 1873.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 
 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE writer's name is not given on the title- 
 page of this little waif, for the same reason that 
 nearly all the names of persons and places are 
 omitted in it. It is a name too much associated 
 with the passions and prejudices of recent con- 
 flicts, to give it any buoyancy. Friends and 
 acquaintance will not complain at this omission ; 
 and those not friends will only be too glad to 
 remain unnoticed. 
 
 I am too far advanced in life to ask any thing 
 more than justice and peace. If others can 
 account for my imperfections as I can for theirs, 
 this consummation will not be long in coming. 
 I am now looking towards the glories of sunset, 
 with the calm assurance that nearly sixty-two 
 years of equally glorious sunrise have given me. 
 So far as I have truly and spiritually lived, I am 
 sure there is a spiritual and eternal life. 
 
 When I wrote my first telegraphic despatch, 
 I showed it to one of my sons, who, as a busi-
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 ness man, had long been familiar with this kind 
 of message ; and at first glance he said, " You 
 will have to pay ten cents a word, and you do 
 not need half of this to answer your purpose." 
 Under this stimulus, I did greatly reduce the 
 number ; and have since often thought of this 
 lesson in regard to the influence or effect of the 
 telegraph upon literature ; have often wished, 
 when listening to inflated speeches, and reading 
 inflated books, that a high, and even prohibi- 
 tive, tariff could be imposed for e.very super- 
 fluous word. The variety of excitements and 
 engagements of most persons, in these late years, 
 has so greatly increased, that time is the most 
 important element in literary calculations. In 
 any kind of address to the public, the great art 
 has come to consist in condensation of thought 
 and expression ; in deciding not what to put in, 
 but what to leave out of, written or spoken 
 effort. When people talk by lightning and 
 travel by steam, or find, in the intense compe- 
 titions of modern life, so few opportunities to 
 attend to their own most important interests 
 and duties, no wonder they are getting impa- 
 tient of wordiness. The blessed era is hastening 
 when speech-makers and book-makers, if they 
 wish to be heard or read, must say less and
 
 PREFACE. T 
 
 suggest more ; must employ language to express, 
 not to conceal thought. 
 
 In the conviction of this increasing necessity, 
 I have put half a century's life into this little 
 book ; or rather have tried to select out of this 
 period what would be of most public interest. 
 And I now send it out, with the feeling that 
 those who read the brief first and second parts, 
 or consider the conditions of my childhood and 
 youth, will not be severe in judging of what 
 follows. Let them remember that they here 
 "know only in part;" that no man with true 
 self-respect can in all things defend or justify 
 himself to others; that the highest and most 
 sacred things are, in the human as in the divine 
 life, unrevealable, except through a sympathetic 
 experience. 
 
 Some of my readers may have seen portions 
 of this Autobiography in the " Religious Maga- 
 zine," and the comments of the editor in the last 
 September number of that monthly. Chapter 
 xix. was rejected as " too querulous, severe, and 
 controversial" in its character. It is in itself 
 an answer to those criticisms, and is here pub- 
 lished that the public may have an opportunity 
 to decide, from the paper itself, upon the justice 
 of this rejection, and of the editor's comments
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 on the previous pages. The last chapter seems 
 to me all the stronger and better for the rejected 
 chapter which precedes it. 
 
 The Essays are added, because those who 
 follow the outlines of this life, through factory 
 and farm, through school and ministry, through 
 the struggles and trials of this long period, 
 may wish to know more of results, of inlook 
 and outlook, may wish to know more, in this 
 harvest-time, of the harvest, of the thoughts 
 and feelings which such circumstances have 
 matured.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. CHILDHOOD 1 
 
 n. YOUTH 31 
 
 in. PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 63 
 
 IV. REFLECTIONS 201 
 
 ESSAYS." 
 
 I. THE PROCESSES OF LIFE 225 
 
 n. MAN AND NATURE 240 
 
 m. HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS 255 
 
 IV. BEGINNING AND ENDING 266 
 
 V. SOCIAL OR COMMON-WEALTH . . 283
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 I. 
 
 TDEFORE entering upon a life so briefly 
 sketched, I wish to say a word of the 
 general character of its first period. It was 
 the most transitional period in New-England 
 history. Previous to the war with the mother 
 country, religion had been the great predomi- 
 nant interest. 
 
 The union between Church and State had 
 been continued so long, and been so intimate, 
 that one was nothing without the other. But 
 the political division and party strife which 
 came in with the war changed all this condition 
 of public affairs, and gave immense prominence 
 to political questions. When we came out of 
 that conflict, we were, religiously speaking, 
 awfully demoralized. Our people, as soldiers,
 
 2 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 had mingled freely with the soldiers of other sec- 
 tious of the country ; and, without their accus- 
 tomed restraints, they went from one extreme 
 to the opposite, from ascetic Puritanism to the 
 scoffing infidel spirit so rampant in France ; 
 and so identified with republican liberty, at this 
 tune, everywhere. The spell of the old religion 
 was broken. The old, orderly, industrious hab- 
 its were gone. Intemperance came in like a 
 flood. Education was neglected. The whole 
 tone of society was lowered ; and there is no 
 time in our whole history that we can look back 
 upon with so little pride or pleasure. 
 
 Half a century ago I was ten years old ; but 
 as I was not a precocious child I cannot go back 
 of that more than five years. My earliest recol- 
 lections are of my surroundings at that time. 
 In an old, unpainted, weather-beaten building 
 used* for a fulling-mill, whose roof rose just above 
 the surface of the mill-dam, I found my home. 
 The dam served as a public highway. On one 
 side of the little stream was a rude saw-mill, on 
 the other some kind of a factory. This old struct- 
 ure, half house and half fulling-mill, in which I
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 3 
 
 was born, stood on a small island, about midway of 
 the rivulet, with its back against the wall of the 
 dam ; and in front there was a grass-plot appro- 
 priated for bleaching cloth which had passed 
 through the fulling process. I still hear the loud 
 clanking made by the rude machines, the rush- 
 ing water upon the wheels and over the waste- 
 ways. I still see my dear mother (a heavenly 
 soul, greatly tried with many earthly cares), 
 spreading cloth upon the grass, or stretching it 
 upon hooks, while she kept an eye upon me, 
 lest I should stray to the banks of the river. 
 
 Such were my surroundings ; and the impres- 
 sions received from them in all their details are 
 now as distinct as they were half a century ago. 
 Of my employments, I remember only those of 
 making mud-pies, with an older brother, upon 
 the road, and sand caves in a large bank near 
 the saw-mill, picking violets out of the green 
 grass, and cooling my little feet in the shallow, 
 running waters. 
 
 My father was not at home at this time. He 
 had enlisted as a soldier in our last war with 
 Great Britain ; and, as there were five of us 
 children, our family was extremely poor. I
 
 4 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 would use the phrase common in such cases, 
 "poor but respectable," did I not fear that, 
 judged by any standard of respectability now 
 known, I should not be believed. I will, how- 
 ever, add, they were not much poorer than, and 
 so about as respectable as, any of the families in 
 that neighborhood or town at this period. 
 
 At the close of the war, we moved to another 
 part of the town, where my father took charge 
 of a saw and grist mill. Our house here was 
 by another mill-pond, and not much better than 
 that of the other location. The first thing I 
 remember of our new home, was of looking out 
 the window across the pond, and seeing a great 
 water-wheel revolving on the outside of the old 
 dilapidated mill. A little farther on, in the same 
 direction, was a small yellow store, a dull-red, 
 boxy-looking yarn factory ; and three low, one- 
 story, unpainted houses, all alike, and all ex- 
 tremely dismal in their whole appearance and 
 surroundings. Just beyond these there was a 
 sandy sheep-pasture, in one corner of which, 
 next the road, there was a graveyard, distin- 
 guished from the rest of the field only by a few 
 graves, with monstrous, slaty headstones slant-
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 5 
 
 ing different ways, seldom one standing upright, 
 probably, as somebody has said of gravestones 
 in general, alluding to the epitaphs upon them, 
 " because they lie so." There was no fence 
 near this unrural cemetery except that which 
 separated it from the road. The entrance dif- 
 fered from the rest of this fence, only by having 
 two common mortised posts, and four rough, 
 split, cedar rails, painted black. 
 
 This graveyard, associated with the gloomy 
 ideas of death then prevalent, was long a terror 
 to me ; and years after, when I had occasion to 
 pass it in the evening, I used to shut my eyes, 
 and run with all my might, lest I should see 
 some of the ghosts that were supposed to haunt 
 such places. All the scenes and persons of that 
 little world are very familiar ; but of the first 
 three years spent there, of events and pursuits, 
 I have scarcely a recollection. The life of a boy 
 between five and eight years of age must have 
 been very meagre not to have left more various 
 and distinct impressions. I had no toys, no 
 books, no skates, not even a jack-knife ; none of 
 those thousand little things that now make up 
 the boy's world. Life then was a hard struggle
 
 6 AN AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 
 
 for all ; and nobody had any time to devote to 
 me, to my amusement or instruction. I did 
 learn to read and spell, enjoyed my annual two- 
 months' school, and loved my teacher. But a 
 brother and sister had in this time been added 
 to our family of five, and poverty drove me at 
 the early age of eight into the little red factory, 
 where cotton machinery had just been intro- 
 duced ; and where I soon had reasons enough 
 for not forgetting any thing that belongs to the 
 later years of my boyhood. 
 
 Those scenes and circumstances form the first 
 chapter of a life that may be more interesting 
 as it proceeds through other phases : an intima- 
 tion that is ventured, lest the reader should 
 fancy any good thing cannot come out of such 
 a Nazareth as is here described.
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 n. 
 
 WHY do we so often hear elderly people speak- 
 ing of the " good old times," and lamenting 
 the present degeneracy ? They must have had 
 a singularly happy childhood, or a faculty of 
 forgetting the evils and miseries of the past. 
 My experience is all the other way. I never 
 knew what a happy childhood was, in any 
 modern sense of this phrase. My own happi- 
 ness began with manhood, and, I am bound 
 to add, has been increasing these many, many 
 years. I say this here only to encourage the 
 reader to go on with the present sad chapter, 
 which embraces my four years from eight to 
 twelve, except two months each year at school, 
 in the old red factory, where, under an ignorant 
 and tyrannical overseer, I worked twelve hours 
 a day, standing on my bare feet most of the year, 
 was poorly fed, and poorly clothed. I had no 
 holidays save those of Fast and Thanksgiving, 
 the former being more than an offset to the lat-
 
 8 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ter. Oh, the unnaturalness, the monotony, the 
 weariness, the actual privations, the positive 
 sufferings of such a life to a sensitive boy, no 
 language can describe ! 
 
 I remember that I got along with the confine- 
 ment much better in winter than in summer. 
 The first year my carding-machine stood near a 
 window ; where I could look out over an orchard 
 and a meadow ; and when I saw the cows lying 
 in the sunshine on the green grass, and the birds 
 hopping and singing in the fragrant apple-trees, 
 I felt as if I must do some desperate thing, and 
 get out among them. I doubt if prison-life was 
 ever sadder to any man than this factory life 
 was to me. 
 
 On one occasion my longing for a day out of 
 doors, with some little variety to it, was so great, 
 that I deliberately put my fingers into the cog- 
 wheels of my machine, where they would get so 
 crushed as to reprieve me till they were healed. 
 The pain of the wound was nothing to the joy 
 of liberation from such bondage. And to this 
 time I never can hear a factory-bell ring in the 
 early morning, or see those buildings lighted in 
 the evening, without thinking of my many long,
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 9 
 
 dreary, miserable days, extended through those 
 four long, miserable years. 
 
 I have spoken of my summer trials. But think 
 of the short days of winter, when a little boy, to 
 whom sleep is always so sweet, had to get up, 
 eat a poor breakfast, and go a long distance in 
 the cold, by the time it was light enough to 
 commence work ; run home at mid-day, eat din- 
 ner, and get back in forty-five minutes ; and 
 then work on till half-past seven in the even- 
 ing, two or three hours after dark ! Of course, 
 I was then too tired and sleepy even to feel my 
 hunger. " And what," it may be asked, " did 
 you get for such work ? " I answer, taking the 
 four years, from seventy-five cents to one dollar 
 and twenty-five cents per week. 
 
 Oh, those " old times " 'were any thing but 
 " good " to me ! Six days of such work, and 
 then the Jewish Puritan, or, to the boy, repres- 
 sive, stupid sabbath. As I look back upon it, 
 it is difficult to decide which of the seven days 
 of the week was the most wearisome, monoto- 
 nous, hateful. I must not go out into the fields, 
 I must not play, or make any noise. My nature 
 must be repressed in every direction, because 
 l*
 
 10 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 it was the sabbath. I grew up in the idea 
 that God required such a strict observance on 
 his own account. It never occurred to me 
 that " the sabbath was made for man ; " and 
 certainly not that it was made for boys. Then 
 I remember going between ten and twelve 
 o'clock, about two miles, almost every Sunday, 
 to church. This walk, in warm weather, was 
 the one refreshment of the week ; because it 
 took me across the fields and through the woods, 
 where I heard the songs of birds, and saw so 
 many beautiful leaves, mosses, and wild flowers. 
 But of the meeting, when the walk was ended, 
 I have none but the most dismal associations. 
 The old, barn-like meeting-house ; the unpainted, 
 rickety horse-sheds ; the rows of stiff Lombardy 
 poplars that led up to the parsonage ; the old 
 minister under the grotesque sounding-board; 
 the solemn, pompous deacons, under the high, 
 narrow pulpit, deaconing off the first lines of 
 the hymns to the singers ; the veteran chorister 
 with his pitch-pipe and loud announcement ot 
 the tunes ; the long prayers ; the longer sermons ; 
 the short recess at noon ; the gossiping women 
 around the doors ; and the toddy-drinking men
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 11 
 
 in and around the old tavern, with its large 
 gallows-looking sign, all these, after the nov- 
 elty of the first impression was over, gave me 
 neither pleasure nor profit. 
 
 I always had to walk fast to keep up with my 
 father, and so would get quite warm by the 
 time of arrival ; and when the winters came I 
 had to go immediately into that cold church, 
 where there was no fire, and not even plaster- 
 ing on the walls, and sit on straight, high- 
 backed seats, shaking with cold through those 
 long, metaphysical, theological discourses, drawn 
 out to " tenthly," " lastly," " finally," " to con- 
 clude," and "the improvement;" while the 
 only word that I could appreciate or rely upon, 
 so that it might do me any good, was the final 
 "Amen." 
 
 There was the same weary round to go 
 through again, after an hour, in the afternoon. 
 It makes me shiver even now, after all these 
 years, just to think of that experience. What 
 an effective means of moral and religious educa- 
 tion those old sabbath services must have been 
 to us boys ! only I did not then see it in that 
 light.
 
 12 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Oh, those " good old times," when we had to 
 carry our shoes to meeting in our hands till we 
 got near the church, and then repeat the pro- 
 cess soon after we left it to go home ; when the 
 only difference between our summer and winter 
 clothing was the one small thread of woollen, on 
 the cotton warp, called satinet; when people 
 were living in the direst poverty and most 
 shocking intemperance ; ragged, barefooted, in 
 mean, unpainted, unfurnished houses, the bro- 
 ken windows of which were stuffed with old 
 hats and rags ; when there were but two carpets 
 in our whole town, and a real scarcity of the 
 necessaries of life generally. 
 
 Of the moral and social condition of this par- 
 ticular neighborhood, I will here say nothing, 
 because I suppose my readers can easily infer 
 from any part of life such as that what the 
 whole must have been, must see that it was 
 necessarily all on the same low plane. Give an 
 accomplished naturalist a single bone, picked 
 up by some traveller in some remote island or 
 some newly discovered region of the earth, it 
 may be the only one of the kind ever seen or 
 known, and yet he will from that single speci-
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 13 
 
 men reconstruct the whole animal. He will 
 give its size, its form, its food, and all the gen- 
 eral habits of its life. Give a philosophical 
 religionist any people's idea of God, in any age 
 or nation, and he will from this one idea accu- 
 rately reconstruct their whole society ; will say 
 with great certainty how high their attainments 
 were in all other departments. The different 
 parts of society always fit each other, like the 
 different bones of any animal.
 
 14 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 III. 
 
 AT the age of twelve, new scenes and new 
 employments were opened to me. My father 
 took a farm on shares with the owner, who also 
 owned some fifty others, and who, of course, 
 was the great man of the town. He got these 
 farms by lending a little money on them, which 
 he foresaw the poor borrowers could never pay, 
 and then closing up the mortgages. He was 
 generally regarded as a very hard landlord. 
 And it seems to me, as I look back over those 
 times, that men generally were much harder, 
 more exacting, and unfeeling in their business 
 transactions than they are now. Fathers of 
 large families were dragged from their homes 
 and long kept in jails for small debts ; the 
 town's poor were annually let by auction to 
 the lowest bidder ; and there was a general self- 
 ishness, or inhumanity, which no public opinion 
 would now tolerate.
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 15 
 
 The poor farm which we took upon " halves," 
 i.e., to give the owner half of all we could get 
 from it, had been skinned by a former tenant ; 
 but as my father and older brothers were very 
 efficient workers, we managed to get along bet- 
 ter than ever before. 
 
 The scene of this new life was in the same 
 town, two miles from the others already de- 
 scribed. Our house was old and unpainted ; 
 two stories in front and one behind, with a 
 chimney that literally occupied the centre. 
 There was a dark, unventilated hole, called a 
 cellar, which I have special reasons for remem- 
 bering, and with which I have some terrible 
 associations. There were no closets with doors 
 where things could be put away, but a few 
 niches in the great chimney, and shelves in the 
 corners of the rooms. I suppose this old con- 
 struction of houses grew out of the fact that 
 people then had so little furniture of any kind, 
 they wanted to give conspicuous places to every 
 thing they had got. Why have closets to shut 
 things away, when there is nothing to put in 
 them ; when people ate off pewter plates, and 
 carried their whole wardrobe on their backs,
 
 16 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 without being burdened, or, in any present 
 sense, half-clothed? 
 
 In this old-fashioned farm-house I lived this 
 third chapter of life. The work was hard, hoe- 
 ing corn, chopping wood, taking care of cattle, 
 and all the usual heavy farm work ; but it was 
 out in the freedom of the air and sunshine, with 
 the variety and reality of nature ; and this, after 
 years of factory confinement, was delightful. 
 
 Then by walking two miles I could attend 
 school two or three months every winter. Here 
 was another great source of improvement and 
 happiness, which, through past experience, I 
 was fully prepared to appreciate. That district 
 school, which now, after half a century, seems 
 so poor in itself and so mean in all its surround- 
 ings, was the best thing then known to me. It 
 stood in the geographical centre of the district, 
 without reference to any accommodation of the 
 majority of the inhabitants, alone, on a bleak 
 hill, at considerable distance from the ground, 
 with only a stone post under each corner, like 
 the old-fashioned corn-barns. It was a square 
 room, with low ceiling, single floor, with many 
 cracks, and its only door opened from the cold
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 17 
 
 north-west corner. So, with the coming in and 
 going out of the scholars, the bringing in of 
 great quantities of wood to supply the large, 
 open, all-devouring fireplace, there was no lack 
 of ventilation ; and I need not add, there was 
 plenty of freezing and thawing, many flushed 
 heads and cold feet, in that little boxy room. 
 
 Then we had different teachers almost every 
 season, several of whom I have occasion to 
 remember without much interest or affection ; 
 coarse, rough, ignorant men, rude in manner, 
 and ungrammatical in speech, chosen partly 
 because they were large and strong, and not 
 likely to spoil the boys by sparing the rod. The 
 schools were not graded in those days. All the 
 youth of the district, from" four to twenty-one 
 years, attended, and were under one teacher. 
 Many of the boys who went in these short whi- 
 ter terms were strong, full-grown young men ; 
 and the strength of the master was often called 
 into requisition. But what scenes those school- 
 rows presented to children of a tender and 
 impressible age ! 
 
 I remember, one very stormy day, when only 
 few went home at noon, and many were stand-
 
 18 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ing round the fire at the close of the hour for 
 recess, I came in just as the order had been 
 given for the scholars to take their seats : I did 
 not hear the order, and remaining a moment, 
 unconscious of any disobedience, the master 
 came up, put his hand in my hair, and jerked 
 me backwards to the floor ; then pulled me up, 
 and ordered me to hold out my hand for a ferul- 
 ing. This happened at a time when the patience 
 of the school was exhausted by the tyranny and 
 brutality of the master. Two of the largest 
 boys came to my defence, and, thrusting the 
 tyrant from the house, locked the door against 
 him. Another soon took his place and the 
 school went on ; but, as a general rule, order 
 was kept in those days, by force on one side and 
 fear on the other. 
 
 Of the books and instruction of that period, 
 perhaps the less said the better. It would be 
 difficult to decide which were the more arbitrary 
 and mechanical, the geography and arithmetic 
 or the methods of teaching them. But we 
 learned to read and write. We acquired habits 
 of obedience and order. We learned by defer- 
 ence to one another, by greater social friction, a
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 19 
 
 larger degree of courtesy. We learned to love 
 our school, poor as it was, as the best of our 
 blessings. There were youth and health and 
 irrepressible human nature in it. There was 
 as warm blood in our veins, and as fresh life 
 in our hearts, as can be found in any of the 
 luxurious, palatial school-houses of the present 
 generation. 
 
 So we managed to get good out of what was 
 not good in itself, as we have often done ever 
 since. We were "building better than we 
 knew." The best of any man's real practical 
 education never comes from the school ; and we 
 turn in our next chapter to the real experience 
 of life.
 
 20 AH AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THKEE years of a New England farm, and 
 common district school, were my experience 
 half a century ago. What did I get from that 
 farm life then ? And what remains with me 
 now? 
 
 I got a good foundation of physical health 
 and strength, and patient endurance of many 
 severe privations and hardships. I learned to 
 do well, and with great facility, all kinds of 
 farm work. I learned the characters and habits 
 of all kinds of domestic animals ; of garden and 
 field plants ; the names and characteristics of 
 pasture shrubs, and forest trees ; of grasses and 
 wild flowers ; of birds, insects, and all the thou- 
 sand details of the phenomena of this natural 
 life, at a period when all things make the most 
 deep and durable impressions. Through all the 
 seasons of the year, the influences of nature were 
 a perpetual source of knowledge and pleasure. 
 From the first green grass and songs of birds,
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 21 
 
 to the budding leaves and bursting flowers of 
 spring ; from the humming insects, the fragrant 
 hay, and delicious fruits of summer ; from the 
 splendid-colored trees, the rich and varied har- 
 vests of autumn ; from the pure snow or glitter- 
 ing ice, resting on the smallest branches of the 
 great trees ; from the chopping and sledding of 
 the beautiful white birches, the fragrant cedars 
 and pines ; hearing the echoes of the woodman's 
 axe through the forest, in the clear, bracing air 
 of winter, from all these, I got something infi- 
 nitely better than church or school could then 
 afford. I got at the great realities of nature, at 
 God's world in the freshness of my youth ; and 
 thus early found it so much better than man's, 
 so grand and lovely, so full of wisdom and 
 beauty, that I have studied it with wonder and 
 delight, and loved it supremely, ever since. 
 
 In those three years I had little that could 
 properly be called companionship, social or 
 mental sympathy. There were no persons in 
 the neighborhood that interested me. It might 
 have been my fault, but I grew up in this 
 feeling of loneliness ; and was thus forced into 
 communion with nature. I delighted in every
 
 22 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 opportunity to wander by the brooks, in the 
 meadows, upon the hills, and through the woods, 
 where there was nothing coarse, rude, unreal, or 
 inharmonious, as there was in society, at that 
 time, everywhere around me. So of the influ- 
 ences of society or home, in shaping my future, 
 I will say nothing. I will, in this connection, 
 merely allude to two things about that old life 
 for which, after all, I remain truly grateful. 
 One is, that I was brought up in the country, 
 where I learned of God directly in his own 
 world, in the great book of nature, whose every 
 chapter, leaf, and page is so full of interest and 
 instruction. Another is, that, when I see, as 
 I now do, so many indolent, inefficient, good- 
 for-nothing young people everywhere in society, 
 I am thankful that I was early trained to work, 
 and never ashamed to have it known.
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 23 
 
 V. 
 
 MY next sketch is of two years more of fac- 
 tory life, in a different scene, and under differ- 
 ent conditions. This was in the early period of 
 American manufacturers, when all kinds of new 
 machinery began to be introduced ; when there 
 were no great corporations, and little factories 
 were built in small, out-of-the-way places, by 
 the little streams abounding in every part of 
 New England. The war and its embargo had 
 destroyed our commerce ; and the poor, unprof- 
 itable farming of that time had necessitated a 
 change in the pursuits of the people. So the 
 rising tide came up to our town and swept me 
 twelve miles from all the scenes of my boyhood. 
 That was a great distance in those days ; and to 
 me it was truly going out into the world. It 
 was the commencement of a new life. 
 
 In leaving the flat sandy region in which I 
 was brought up, and approaching my new home, 
 I obtained the first sight of any thing that might
 
 24 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 be properly called a hill. I never shall forget 
 the impression it made upon me. It seemed a 
 vast mountain, towering to the skies. Oh, how 
 little I then knew of the great world in which I 
 have since lived, of the real mountain scenery 
 with which I have since been so familiar ! This 
 new town was rather rough and rocky, with 
 few inhabitants, and few objects of special in- 
 terest. My employer had known me in my 
 former factory days. He was very kind and 
 friendly, and I soon became much interested in 
 my work. The other persons employed by him 
 were five girls and a boy. His business was 
 manufacturing twine and cotton sewing-thread. 
 This was one of the first establishments of the 
 kind in the country. The best of sea-island 
 cotton was used, and excellent articles were 
 made ; but the whole was on a small scale. I 
 superintended this work, and prepared the 
 goods for market. We all lived in our em- 
 ployer's family ; and he was often away about 
 the country, making his own sales. I am some- 
 what particular in the statement of these facts, 
 because all this is done so differently now, and 
 that the reader may see how humble was the
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 25 
 
 condition and primitive the period to which my 
 story belongs. 
 
 In that obscure and lonely place, while at 
 work twelve hours a day, with many cares and 
 responsibilities, I first became somewhat ac- 
 quainted with the book world ; and in this I 
 lived more intimately than with nature in the 
 old farm-life. It may seem strange that I then 
 and there got access to books, or found time to 
 read them. So I will relate how it happened. 
 When I had been in my new home about a 
 month, my employer's daughter asked me to go 
 up to the village and get ajbonnet she had left 
 there to be trimmed. At the milliner's and 
 dressmaker's little shop, where I was sent, I 
 found a circulating library which, it seemed to 
 me, had more books than I had supposed the 
 world to contain. I was delighted with the 
 discovery, and found that by paying a small 
 annual subscription, I could have access to all 
 its treasures. This little library would be noth- 
 ing now. It had much in it that was trashy 
 then ; but somebody, either from high apprecia- 
 tion, or want of any, had made it a present of a 
 whole collection of valuable historical works. 
 2
 
 26 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 These were old, dusty, and did not seem to be 
 at all in demand, and so were always ready at 
 my call. 
 
 My first book from this little shop was Plu- 
 tarch's Lives of all the celebrated men of Greece 
 and Rome, in several large volumes. It was an 
 exceedingly fortunate selection. I know not 
 how I came to make it, but I have read nothing 
 since that delighted or profited me more. It 
 gave me a decided and a strong taste for bio- 
 graphical and historical studies. Within the two 
 following years, I read the whole of Rollin's great 
 history of the ancient world, the history of Greece 
 and Rome, histories of the various countries of 
 Europe, and biographies of their great men; 
 Hume and Smollet's History of England and 
 Robertson's America, and Charles V., Johnson's 
 lives of the poets, and, in fact, almost all the 
 standard historical works of that period. What 
 a world was here to be suddenly opened to a 
 youth who had known only the poverty and 
 obscurity of a little New England country 
 town I 
 
 To the question how I found time for so 
 much reading in an employment that required
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 27 
 
 so much daily labor and care, I answer, I became 
 so interested in what I read, it took me so com- 
 pletely out of the world in which I had been 
 living, that I found rest in a change rather than 
 a suspension of activity. I read late into the 
 nights. I read on Sundays. I read whenever 
 and wherever I could find or make opportunities. 
 As overseer it would not do for me to be seen 
 reading before others in factory hours. So I 
 always kept my books hidden in the day-time, 
 in the cotton-room, and several times each day, 
 when all was going well, and my presence was 
 not needed, I disappeared, ran upstairs, got 
 behind the bales of cotton, pulled out my book, 
 and was soon on the banks of the Ganges or 
 the Nile, among the isles of Greece, at Rome, 
 Constantinople or Moscow, in London, Paris, 
 Spain, or with Columbus in pursuit of new 
 worlds. Many times have I gone down to tighten 
 loose belting, clear the cards of cotton seeds, in- 
 crease or diminish the speed of the machinery, 
 or settle some dispute that had arisen among the 
 operatives, and then returned to the old attic 
 to hold communion with Plato or Socrates ; to 
 Demosthenes declaiming in Athens, or Cicero
 
 28 AN AUTOBIOGKAPHY. 
 
 before the Roman senate ; to follow Alexander 
 or Csesar in their long victorious marches, or 
 see them returning with kings and queens and 
 their long captive trains, under splendid trium- 
 phant arches, amid excited, thronging, shouting 
 multitudes that had come out to meet them. 
 
 Oh, how charming and refreshing were those 
 hours snatched from labor, and given to such 
 scenes and companions, behind those old cotton 
 bales ! Thanks, oh, how many thanks, are due 
 for our many-sided nature, through which we 
 are able to get so many lives into one ! Solo- 
 mon says, " Stolen pleasures are sweet." But I 
 am sure that stolen knowledge is sweeter, and 
 far more profitable. 
 
 Another reason why I accomplished so much 
 in those two years was, that my life was concen- 
 trated, not frittered away in social excitements 
 or frivolous amusements, as the young life of the 
 present so generally is. In this I do not take 
 any credit to myself. My choice was "that 
 or nothing." It was all work and no play 
 that used to make so many dull boys. It 
 is now all play and no work that makes so 
 many mere triflers. There was little outside
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 29 
 
 of my daily duties to interest me in any 
 way. The few persons with whom I had any 
 intercourse, the dull little town in which I lived, 
 all my surroundings, were of the humblest and 
 least inspiring character. So I was driven to my 
 books for all my means of excitement and prog- 
 ress. I lived alone, and as the great problems 
 of existence, of time and eternity, presented 
 themselves to my mind, I had to meet and solve 
 them for myself in my own way. Of that way 
 all may learn who care to go on with me in the 
 recital of other struggles, external and internal.
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 VI. 
 
 "POVERTY and labor, factory and farm life, 
 churches, schools, and books have received 
 all the attention that can here be given them. 
 Imperfect in their influence as they now seem, 
 they were of great importance in the formation 
 of character ; but the Bible and religion were 
 the supreme interests of society at that time. 
 To leave these out of the influences that formed 
 New England life fifty years ago would be like 
 leaving the sun out of the solar system. So we 
 go back to childhood again to take them into 
 these sketches of a life which they so greatly 
 influenced,. 
 
 My parents were members of the church, and 
 religious after the pattern of their age. They 
 attached much importance to doctrines, forms, 
 and ceremonies. They put into my hands " The
 
 32 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Assembly's Catechism " before there were any 
 Sunday schools. As soon as I could read at all 
 I had to read the Bible. These two books, with 
 " Watts's Hymns " and " The Farmer's Alma- 
 nac," made up the family library. When quite 
 a child, I had read the New Testament through 
 several times ; not because I was especially in- 
 terested or attached any particular meaning to 
 its contents, but because I was greatly com- 
 mended by my parents and others for so doing, 
 and because I had nothing else to read ; for I do 
 not remember having what is generally called 
 " early piety." I did, however, very early begin 
 to ask my mother moral questions about the 
 doctrines of the catechism, and about several 
 things that I read in the Bible, things that 
 seemed arbitrary and unjust. 
 
 The reply generally was, " You are not yet old 
 enough to understand such matters ; at another 
 time I will explain them ; " but the time never 
 came, and I grew up in the feeling that some- 
 thing was wrong, either in regard to God and 
 man, or in what I was taught of them. The old 
 Calvinistic ideas of man's natural inability and 
 depravity, of God requiring perfection of such
 
 AN AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 33 
 
 a being, or dooming him to infinite and eternal 
 torment if he came short of it ; or, worse still, 
 foreordaining that one part of the human race 
 should be saved, and the other lost, without the 
 least regard to what they might or might not 
 do, all this gave me the impression that God 
 was an arbitrary and capricious tyrant. To call 
 such a being good, and love him, was impossible. 
 It shocked all the moral sensibilities within me. 
 As soon as I began to recite my lessons in this 
 catechism, I began to rebel against its doctrines. 
 They seemed to be in direct opposition to what 
 my mother was herself daily teaching me about 
 moral responsibility, about good and evil, what 
 I had power to do and be, and not to do and be. 
 I remember thinking how hard it was that some 
 persons who came almost up to the required 
 standard should at the day of judgment be sent 
 away to eternal misery, without even a chance 
 of improvement, while those who had just passed 
 one step beyond this arbitrary line should re- 
 ceive eternal happiness, and be subjected to no 
 further trial. The doctrines of heaven and hell 
 were thus perfectly shocking to me. It seemed 
 so discouraging to try to be good. I might suc- 
 2* c
 
 34 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ceed in ninety-nine conditions, but failure in the 
 hundredth would make my doom just as sure as 
 if I had done nothing. I remember that one of 
 the first religious questions I asked my mother 
 was concerning this arbitrary nature of salva- 
 tion. Her answer was that we should not reason 
 concerning God as we do about men, because he 
 is infinite, and things might be right for him 
 that would be wrong for us ; that the Bible was 
 God's holy word, and we were to receive these 
 doctrines because they were there taught. All 
 this confused me still more ; but, of course, a 
 little boy could not argue a point like this. I 
 can now see why this confusion increased and 
 continued for years. Farther along in life I 
 saw that my moral nature was given me for the 
 purpose of doing just what my mother told me 
 I should not do, of judging for myself what 
 is right and good in itself in all things, and so, 
 through the development of these powers, rising 
 to a knowledge and appreciation of infinite wis- 
 dom and goodness. 
 
 The slavery to the traditional authority of 
 the catechism, and superstitious reverence for 
 the Bible (the former being regarded as an
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 35 
 
 exposition of the latter), common to that period, 
 formed the basis of my religious education. 
 
 These instructions confused my mental per- 
 ceptions, shocked my spiritual instincts,- and 
 made religion in every way disagreeable ; in 
 fact, the one great terror of my early life. I 
 was afraid of God, of hell, of life, and death, 
 of doing something, or neglecting to do some- 
 thing, that would send me to eternal torments. 
 All the religious people around me were talking 
 about death and the judgment, till all terrible 
 things got associated in my mind with this 
 subject. All the strong and awful language of 
 the Scriptures with which, under the circum- 
 stances, I became so familiar only increased this 
 superstitious tendency. I was afraid of the 
 darkness, of graveyards, of being alone any- 
 where. After I went to bed at night I used to 
 lie awake thinking of all the dreadful things to 
 which I was exposed, and that might happen 
 to me at any moment. I remember very dis- 
 tinctly a dream one night, at this period, about 
 the day of judgment. I thought it had come. 
 As far as my vision extended, multitudes beyond 
 multitudes of the human family were gathered
 
 36 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 together, with the most dreadful anxiety ex- 
 pressed in their countenances, awaiting the 
 decision of their eternal destiny. In some way 
 the occasion became associated in my mind with 
 a narrow stairway in the old factory where I 
 was then working. These stairs were so narrow 
 that only one at a time could pass up or down. 
 There were doors at the ends, and when both 
 were shut it was perfectly dark. All these 
 assembled multitudes before me were to go 
 through this narrow, dark hole, up to the judg- 
 ment that was going on above. I stood near 
 this entrance, and it soon came my turn to 
 ascend. Oh, the horrors of that moment I 
 shall never forget, groping my way alone in 
 that dark passage, when only the next step was 
 to seal my fate for ever ! After that step was 
 taken the upper door was opened, and I stood 
 on a small platform from which I could see 
 heaven and hell, with the countless millions 
 who had already been sent to these final abodes. 
 On Jiis same platform near me stood, in an 
 agony of suspense, the few who had just pre- 
 ceded me. There was no opening of books or 
 balancing of accounts. Christ, the awful judge,
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 37 
 
 stood there with a full and immediate knowl- 
 edge of all his own. On a very small number 
 he bestowed a sweet smile and pointed them to 
 heaven. Then changing his whole aspect, and 
 pronouncing a dreadful curse upon the others, 
 he seized a large club that stood beside him 
 and knocked them into the flaming gulf below. 
 As my turn for judgment came, and that club 
 was raised to strike me down, I awoke to find 
 it all a dream. 
 
 What but the old theology, the tone and 
 spirit of New England religious life half a cen- 
 tury ago, could have made such a dream possible 
 for a little boy ? 
 
 My mother used to say, to our acquaintance, 
 that I was a good boy, but that she could not 
 get me interested in religion. Who can won- 
 der? Was any boy ever interested in such a 
 religion except through his selfish, superstitious 
 
 fears ? The God and Christ of those old West- 
 
 
 minster divines seem to me, even after all these 
 long years of study and experience, the most 
 monstrous creations of human history.
 
 38 AN AUTOBIOGBAPHY. 
 
 VII. 
 
 IN this chapter, I propose to bridge over the 
 period between the common traditional religion 
 of my childhood -and the natural religion of my 
 youth, for I cannot say just when I had out- 
 grown the former, or became conscious of the 
 latter. One is associated in my mind with the 
 old red factory, the other with the farm life 
 sketched in chapters third and fourth. Indeed, 
 the latter was not known to me, or others, as 
 any religion at all, at that time, and, even now, 
 it is looked upon with suspicion, as leading to 
 infidelity, by a large portion of the Christian 
 world. 
 
 As I left the prison life of the factory, went 
 on to the farm, into the presence of nature, 
 with the free air and glorious sunshine, lay 
 on the ground looking to the calm, blue heavens 
 above me, and thought of the illimitable spaces 
 there revealed; or sat down by the regular, 
 ever-flowing brook that meandered through the
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 39 
 
 woods and meadows near my home, thought 
 about time, the past and future of its flowing, I 
 remember that I had in this way a sense of the 
 infinite and eternal; that I apprehended the 
 presence of the Divine Spirit in nature ; that 
 somehow a serene and joyful trust gradually 
 took the place of my morbid religious anxieties. 
 
 I did not then analyze or think of this at all 
 as religion, but I know now that this spiritual 
 apprehension of spiritual realities, this reverence 
 and awe of the unseen and unknown, this con- 
 fidence and joy in the presence of nature, this 
 growing admiration of its order, harmony, and 
 beauty, was the beginning of all that is still 
 highest and best in me. 
 
 The common, conventional, traditional re- 
 ligion, the religion of forms and fears, had 
 not then lost its hold on my imagination. To 
 me, and everybody about me, religion was some- 
 thing entirely distinct from the influences just 
 described. And of this there was a great revival 
 in my neighborhood about this time. I was Boon 
 drawn into the whirlpool of excitement, and 
 carried away with what I saw and heard at this 
 continued series of religious meetings. My
 
 40 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 young acquaintance were there, full of the most 
 zealous enthusiasm, relating their " experience," 
 and calling upon me "to come forward," and 
 give them mine. But though I tried earnestly 
 all their means, I had no such experience to 
 relate. Then there was renewed the old terror 
 of fate, decrees, and of those doomed to be lost. 
 I felt that I might be one of them. Oh, how I 
 struggled, prayed, entreated for some assurance 
 to the contrary ! but it did not come. Mean- 
 while the fanaticism of the revival had exhausted 
 itself, and its fruits were of little practical 
 value. 
 
 About this period, in this condition of things, 
 there occurred the events related in chapter 
 fifth, and which changed the whole mental and 
 spiritual currents of my life, my superintendence 
 of a thread factory in a distant town, and the 
 historical books with which I there became 
 acquainted. 
 
 I now take up the narrative at that point, 
 since religion is henceforth the thread that, in a 
 greater or less degree, unites the whole. 
 
 My employer was unlike any other person I 
 had ever met. He had little mental culture, but
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 4 
 
 was strikingly individual in thought and char- 
 acter. He seemed to be emancipated from the 
 authority ,^and tyranny of public opinion, had 
 come out from the influences of the popular re- 
 ligion, and hence was ostracised as an infidel; 
 but was a man of good sense and pure life. 
 
 I had not been long in his family when he 
 brought home some of the early Universalist 
 publications recommended to him by a Boston 
 friend. These he read with great interest, and 
 soon became a convert to that faith. He got 
 the celebrated Hosea Ballou and other leaders 
 of that denomination to preach in the town and 
 vicinity. They made his house their home on 
 such occasions ; and it was there that I became 
 acquainted with them and their doctrines. About 
 this tune I heard Mr. Ballou preach, in the 
 simplest, most sensible, and most affecting man- 
 ner, a discourse on the " Prodigal Son," the 
 "Lost Sheep," the "Lost Piece of Silver," 
 which produced a very deep and strong impres- 
 sion on my mind. This represented God in an 
 entirely mew light, as the compassionate, loving, 
 forgiving Father of the human family, like our 
 earthly parents, caring most for those who had
 
 42 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 wandered farthest and needed most. He went 
 home with me after meeting, and we had a long 
 and interesting conversation upon to.pics con- 
 nected with the doctrine of the discourse, and 
 from that hour a new world began to dawn 
 upon my understanding and my heart. I be- 
 came morally and intellectually interested in 
 religious questions. I found them occupying 
 the most important place in the historical works 
 I was then reading. I found that the worst 
 things in the world came from the perversions 
 of what were in themselves highest and best; 
 that while superstition had been the greatest 
 curse of men in all ages and nations, religion 
 was intended to be their solace, strength, and 
 joy. I thought of all I had suffered from the 
 false and gloomy theology then prevalent ; of the 
 blight it brought upon my childhood and youth ; 
 of the gloomy clouds it was casting over all the 
 religious world ; of the multitudes who were all 
 their lifetime under bondage to the ancient 
 superstitions of an angry God and an endless 
 hell ; till I felt an intense desire to go out into 
 the world and everywhere proclaim the new 
 gospel of glad tidings of pity and compassion,
 
 AST AUTOBIOGKAPHY. 43 
 
 of forgiveness and love. The new impulse 
 quickened my whole nature to the highest activ- 
 ity, and I longed for the means of that edu- 
 cation which would prepare me for this new 
 work. 
 
 I was now only seventeen years of age, and, 
 legally, neither my time nor wages belonged to 
 me till I should be twenty-one. In those days 
 this legal parental claim was literally enforced. 
 I only had a bare pittance of what I earned, and 
 could be taken from this place and put in another 
 at any time. My family were greatly offended 
 at what they called my infidelity, and threatened 
 to take me home to avoid the evil influences by 
 which they thought me surrounded. What 
 could I do in such a condition ? The thought 
 of going back to a kind of life I had so entirely 
 outgrown seemed perfectly horrible. I was 
 taken ill of fever. My good mother came to see 
 me, and was in great distress through fear that 
 I should die in my unconverted state, and so be 
 lost for ever. She had no doubt that my suffer- 
 ings were a judgment of God for my sin of 
 infidelity, or departure from the true saving 
 faith, as I could easily infer from some quota-
 
 44 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 tions of scripture which she used as delicately 
 as possible. Yet, when I, a month later, in my 
 convalescence, asked her why my good, pious, 
 invalid sister had for so many years suffered so 
 much in so many ways, her reply was, " Whom 
 the Lord loveth he chasteneth." In this and 
 various other ways I early learned that no ties 
 of kindred or family, no bonds of nature or 
 affection, were so sacred to men as their super- 
 stitious theological dogmas. To go back to my 
 old condition after tasting the fruits of knowl- 
 edge, to be without sympathy from any quarter 
 in a course of thought and action that had 
 become so vital to me, to be repressed in every 
 way and treated like a little child now that I 
 had the thoughts and aspirations of a man, I 
 soon decided was out of the question. I had 
 more than taken care of myself since eight years 
 of age, and thought it no robbery to refuse fur- 
 ther service where my own wishes and feelings 
 were so little regarded. So when the command 
 came for ine to return home, I was not to be 
 found. /I left a letter giving my reasons for 
 taking myself away, and making an offer for a 
 legal release of my time for the next four years.
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 45 
 
 This proposition was accepted, and the money 
 was paid as soon as I was able to earn it. 
 
 Here, then, at this early age, with no knowl- 
 edge of the world, with only five dollars in my 
 pocket, without seeing a step of my future way, 
 I started one morning in March to walk twenty 
 miles into Boston, where I had but one acquaint- 
 ance in all that great city. But vigorous j^outh, 
 with little experience and any strong purpose, 
 is always audaciously hopeful. I went to the 
 Rev. Hosea Ballou, told him my story, expressed 
 my desire for a better education, and asked him 
 if he could not suggest some means of attaining 
 it. He received me very cordially, wished me 
 to stay at his house till he could see what could 
 be done ; and the next Sunday morning told his 
 congregation that they would, in the evening, 
 have an opportunity to assist a young man from 
 the country, who seemed to be thoroughly in 
 earnest, and whose purpose had his entire appro- 
 bation. With that contribution of about sixty 
 dollars I went to an academy till the next win- 
 ter, when I commenced teaching school. I con- 
 tinued this course of alternate teaching and study 
 for three years, without farther assistance from
 
 46 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 any quarter. The forty years that have since 
 passed have not in the least dimmed the recol- 
 lection of that generous confidence. I have 
 often wondered whether any other sixty dollars 
 ever procured more blessings, or ever made any- 
 body more grateful. It is true that, some years 
 after, circumstances occurred which forced me 
 to appear wanting in grateful attachment to 
 these friends who helped me most, in the time 
 of my greatest need ; but if those friends could 
 have known what efforts and sacrifices even this 
 appearance cost me, they would have estimated 
 all the more my appreciation and fidelity. The 
 highest return that can be made for such assist- 
 ance is devotion to truth and duty, devotion to 
 principles even at the risk of personal attach- 
 ments.
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 47 
 
 \ . 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IN these last three years of learning and 
 teaching there was little that would now in- 
 terest the reader of these sketches ; but expe- 
 rience in these New England district schools, 
 where many of the scholars were my seniors by 
 several years, was not without high cost to my- 
 self. As a test of character I know of nothing 
 like it. You are " monarch of all you survey." 
 You are responsible for all that is done or left 
 undone. You are to manage, in the best way 
 you can, the congregated mischievousness, ugli- 
 ness, and stupidity of a whole district. You are 
 to teach many who cannot, or will not, learn. 
 You are to govern many who have never been 
 governed at home. You are supposed to be 
 able to instruct, interest, and guide all these 
 young minds in all stages of their progress. 
 You are to divide your efforts about equally, in 
 all directions, between the alphabet and the 
 stars. Like the clergyman, you are to visit all
 
 48 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the families, and take an interest in their affairs. 
 In a word, you are to be " all things to all 
 men," women, and children ; and while all this 
 was required of me, the compensation was 
 only twenty dollars per month for three months 
 of the year. 
 
 I remember as if it were but yesterday my 
 first winter's school of sixty scholars. Neither 
 party had known any thing of the other. I 
 heard the noise of many voices before I got in 
 sight of the little red schoolhouse ; but as I 
 approached it, all went in, and in silence took 
 their seats. But how these young, eager eyes 
 stared at me as I entered ! How all these 
 youthful minds seemed to weigh, measure, and 
 decide for or against me in a moment ; and I a 
 modest, inexperienced youth of only eighteen 
 years, and only nine months from a cotton fac- 
 tory. I have been in many hard places since 
 that time, have publicly addressed most distin- 
 guished and enlightened audiences, but that 
 first day as teacher of this district school was 
 the hardest of all. That this first school was 
 not a failure may be inferred from the fact of its 
 being continued by private subscription a month
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 49 
 
 after the public appropriation was expended. 
 In a different town and in my third winter's 
 experience of this kind, I took a school that 
 had a bad reputation, and from which a teacher 
 had recently been expelled. It was reputed to 
 be disorderly and ungovernable in the highest 
 degree. There had been trouble there for two 
 or three winters, and several of my friends ad- 
 vised me against going into such a district. 
 
 This, character of the school had led the com- 
 mittee to think they must employ the hardest 
 kind of teachers, those who would be most 
 likely to put the great, rough boys under the 
 severest discipline and inspire the greatest 
 amount of terror. This system of government 
 had reacted on the character of the school, and 
 made it still worse, till the last unsuccessful 
 tyrant raised a general insurrection, and he was 
 expelled by being put out of one of the windows. 
 My first morning there was a time to be remem- 
 bered. I said and did as little as possible. 
 Both parties sat there studying each other, 
 waiting for something to " turn up," or each for 
 the other to show its hand. Just before dis- 
 missing the scholars at noon, I had a pleasant, 
 
 3 D
 
 50 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 familiar talk with them, told them as gently as 
 I could of the bad ways into which they had 
 fallen, of the unenviable reputation they had 
 acquired, and how I supposed it had all come 
 about. I told them frankly that I did not 
 believe in the kind of government to which 
 they had been subjected, that I had no faith in 
 tyranny or the kind of fear it inspired, that I 
 had not come there to whip or beat, but to 
 teach them; and that I should take it for 
 granted they came there to learn, till I was 
 fully convinced to the contrary ; that if they 
 needed any flogging, it must be given them 
 elsewhere, by their parents or the committee, 
 who had employed me only to teach; that I 
 should do the best I could for them, and wanted 
 them to help me make theirs the best school in 
 town ; that I should treat them with this confi- 
 dence and respect as long as possible, and when 
 I found I could not I should leave them ; that 
 for no consideration would I allow myself to be 
 used as a public scolding or whipping machine. 
 This frankness and confidence, so different 
 from any thing to which they had ever been 
 accustomed, at once had the desired effect. It
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 51 
 
 estabLshed the pleasantest and most profitable 
 relations between us. Before I close up all this 
 second part of my life, my youth with these 
 pleasant school-teaching days, I must relate a 
 very painful event that occurred where I was 
 then boarding, and which disturbed and shocked 
 me more for the time than any I had hitherto 
 experienced. 
 
 There was a young and popular minister of 
 my acquaintance settled over the parish in my 
 school district. He had rooms at a neighbor- 
 ing hotel ; and, when he found I could not 
 procure a suitable boarding-place, asked me to 
 share his accommodations with him. I joyfully 
 accepted, and our intimate relation was exceed- 
 ingly pleasant. He was a man of fine talents, 
 good attainments, and high ambition ; was rising 
 rapidly in his profession and in the estimation of 
 his people ; was to be married in a few months 
 to a lady every way worthy of his position and 
 affections ; and so had almost every thing that 
 is desirable in this life before him. One very 
 warm day towards the close of winter, when I 
 came from school at noon, I found him sitting 
 with flushed face near the fire and complaining
 
 52 AJST AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 
 
 of the cold; but as lie had preached the day 
 before I did not think of him as seriously ill, 
 or as having any thing more than the influenza 
 that was then prevalent. When I returned in 
 the afternoon, I found him more feverish, and 
 asked him to let me call a physician. He re- 
 plied that he would the next morning if he did 
 not feel any better. I sat up with him till nearly 
 midnight, when he seemed inclined to sleep. I 
 left the lamp burning, and told him, as I lay 
 down at his side, to wake me if I could do any 
 thing for him. I had been up late the night 
 before, and had got into the profoundest slum- 
 ber, when I was suddenly awakened with the 
 most unearthly groan from the most unexpected 
 quarter. For a moment I was utterly bewil- 
 dered. I knew not where I was, or what to do. 
 I found myself in total silence and darkness. 
 My first intelligent impulse was to speak to my 
 companion. No answer followed. I put my 
 hand over to his place ; he was not there. I 
 sprang up, and as I passed round the foot of 
 the bed to go downstairs and call the landlord 
 I stepped on some object from which my naked 
 foot slipped into something wet ; and when I, a
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 53 
 
 moment after, returned over the same stairway 
 with a lamp, I saw my descending footsteps 
 printed in blood through the whole ascent ; and, 
 as I entered our chamber, there on the floor be- 
 fore me lay my dear friend, with his throat cut 
 almost from ear to ear. The sound that awak- 
 ened me so suddenly was the last he ever made. 
 He had, in the short time I slept, got up, put on 
 most of his clothing, taken a chair to step up to 
 the top shelf of a closet for an old razor that he 
 had there thrown aside, blown out the light, 
 and passed to the foot of the bed where he com- 
 mitted the insane deed, and where I had stepped 
 upon his lifeless body. All this that takes me 
 so long to relate was the experience of a mo- 
 ment. In the darkness and silence of midnight 
 it so suddenly and violently shocked my whole 
 nervous system, that I was unable to do my 
 thing, or get any quiet, natural slumber, for 
 several weeks. It, of course, caused much ex- 
 citement at the time in his parish, town, and 
 whole vicinity. It was a great public sensation, 
 and, as such, was soon over; but the private 
 griefs, the disappointed hopes, the blighted af- 
 fections of many individuals, to whom he was
 
 54 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 very near and dear, were too deep for all these 
 long years to erase. Where any of these persons 
 are now I know not ; but should they chance to 
 see these pages they will know who the writer 
 is, and bear witness to the truth of this most 
 afflictive tragedy.
 
 AN AUTOBIOGBAPHY. 65 
 
 IX. 
 
 MY public school closing with the winter, I went 
 in the early spring to study my chosen profession 
 with a clergyman ; and before I proceed with 
 the movements in this direction, and in this 
 third part of my life, it will be necessary to 
 give my mental and spiritual status at this 
 time. 
 
 It seems to me now that I entered upon the 
 work of the Christian ministry with the most 
 vagxie and indefinite ideas of its nature and 
 character. I know only that I had become 
 emancipated from my superstitious fears, from 
 the narrow, degrading, enslaving theology in 
 which I was brought up, and longed to lift from 
 other souls the burdens that had so long op- 
 pressed and tortured my own, longed to impart 
 to all around me the views of the divine char- 
 acter and government that had done me so much 
 good. I had no system of philosophy or the- 
 ology to teach ; had only the intuitional certainty
 
 56 AN AUTOBIOGBAPHY. 
 
 of the final salvation of the whole human family; 
 was sure that if the Almighty was infinitely wise 
 and good, the result of his government must be 
 good, that his purpose through his whole crea- 
 tion and providence must be accomplished. 
 This view included all evil in man and nature, 
 dispensed with a personal devil and an eternal 
 hell, included the overcoming of all evil with 
 good, the substitution of love for fear in religion, 
 and so was a gospel of glad' tidings of great joy 
 for all men. In these views the Universalists 
 were then far in advance of all others. They 
 made this great doctrine prominent ; they in- 
 sisted upon it on all public occasions, and thus 
 made a distinct issue with all the old theologies. 
 Of course it was not original with them. It 
 had by individuals long been believed and pub- 
 lished ; but this was the first body of Christians 
 that ever planted itself fairly and squarely upon 
 it, making the very name of the denomination 
 express it. They were then an humble, despised, 
 misrepresented, persecuted class of people ; and 
 this opposition aroused them, not only to self- 
 defence, but to the most decided, aggressive 
 warfare. They denied and affirmed and were
 
 AN AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 57 
 
 thoroughly in earnest in every direction, till 
 they commanded a respectful hearing every- 
 where ; and in their recent centennial they 
 have shown themselves to be a power through- 
 out the length and breadth of this whole 
 country. 
 
 With this denomination were the first years 
 of my ministry. All my acquaintance and 
 personal friends were in it. I had received 
 the kindest attentions from its prominent 
 preachers, and had no reason to doubt the suc- 
 cess of my labors. My leaving it, therefore, 
 at this early period, with all these personal 
 attachments and associations, deserves a passing 
 notice. 
 
 It was a natural, gradual, almost impercep- 
 tible enlargement, rather than change of views 
 that led to the separation. I never was called 
 to any account by my old friends, was never 
 asked to give any reasons for my departure, and 
 am happy in the belief that there has been 
 no ill feeling on either side. Our tendencies 
 were in different directions. The difference was 
 philosophical rather than theological. Their 
 strong feeling was towards denominationalism 
 8*
 
 58 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 and Bible authority, mine towards individ- 
 ualism, the authority of reason and con- 
 science. 
 
 It somehow came to my mind that Univer- 
 salism and Calvinism were, after all, essentially 
 the same thing, only in different forms ; that 
 the question between these antagonistic parties 
 was about the numbers of those who were to be 
 saved, rather than about the principle of salva- 
 tion. Both appeal to the Bible as their au- 
 thority; one to all the texts that could be 
 construed one way for a part, and the other to 
 all that could be interpreted the other way to 
 mean the whole. When one said, in language 
 of Paul, "In Adam all died," the other an- 
 swered, " Even so in Christ shall all be made 
 alive ; " but neither seemed to have the slightest 
 conception of salvation except through the 
 death of Christ. The questions of the time 
 were, where, when, how many, and how long 
 men were to be punished for their sins, rather 
 than about the principle of retribution itself. 
 This seemed to me an exceedingly shallow mode 
 of discussing the subject on both sides, and 
 turned my attention in another direction,
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 59 
 
 towards another kind of evidence. I saw that 
 the Scriptures, as generally used, could never 
 settle any such questions because all denomi- 
 nations could draw from them about an equal 
 number of proof-texts in favor of their opposite 
 doctrines. 
 
 At this tune I had no acquaintance with 
 Unitarians, but had become familiar with their 
 publications, and found they best expressed my 
 own thoughts and feelings. Dr. Channing's 
 celebrated Baltimore discourse, his essay on the 
 exclusive power of creeds, his exposition of spir- 
 itual freedom, all had affected me more deeply 
 than any thing I had ever read. Dr. Dewey's 
 volume on " the Dignity of Human Nature " 
 gave me another powerful impulse in the same 
 direction ; and when in 1835 I left my old parish 
 and moved into a new, rapidly growing town, I 
 formed a Union Society, composed of Unitarians 
 and Universalists in about equal numbers. 
 Altogether we were few, and feeble in means, 
 so I resorted to a private school to help the 
 cause along. I worked hard for small pay, with- 
 out complaint, because my heart was in my 
 work, and I was free from all sectarian influ-
 
 60 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ences. My school and society were both well 
 under way, when the great commercial and 
 financial cnsh of 1837 prostrated the business 
 of the place, and carried us all down together ; 
 or made it too difficult with my increasing ex- 
 penses to go on with either. I then received 
 and accepted a call from the Unitarian society 
 in the place where I had spent the latter part 
 of my old factory life. So the factory boy was 
 not without honor in his own town. 
 
 From this point I again take a new departure, 
 can go no farther into the details of my life, 
 and present only outlines of mental processes 
 and results through these last thirty years, 
 thirty years of preparation and thirty years of 
 work. When I go over the particulars of both 
 periods together, think of the different places 
 in which I have lived, the different persons I 
 have known, the different scenes and events 
 with which I have been familiar, the time seems 
 so long, my age so great, my conditions so 
 various, that I can scarcely think of myself as 
 the same person through all. I sometimes 
 question whether each individual may not in 
 some way, in some degree, have the experience
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 61 
 
 of all individuals, of all ages; whether I shall 
 ever be more surprised at any condition of 
 another world, than at several in which I have 
 found myself in this ; whether this boy of ten, 
 and this man of sixty, do not differ as essentially 
 as any other persons in society. It is well for 
 us thus to look at ourselves objectively, at cer- 
 tain times and places in the past, to weigh, 
 measure, and gauge our own personality, just 
 as if we were other individuals ; to see how we, 
 then and there, looked at things ; how differ- 
 ently God, nature, man, society, politics, reli- 
 gion, every thing, appeared to us ; that we may 
 learn to make all allowance for the differences 
 of others ; or see that while many are only 
 where we formerly were, they differ from us 
 now no more than we have departed from our 
 own positions, and that we were then just as 
 honest as we are now. Sincerity, devotedness, 
 integrity of purpose, is the essential element in 
 unity of character. All else depends on differ- 
 ent opportunities and means of culture. This 
 moral unity is the only real unity that seems 
 possible for individuals, communities, or nations. 
 Just as it connects all the different parts or
 
 62 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 experiences of any individual's life, it brings 
 together all varieties of persons in one work; 
 it holds multitudes with indissoluble bonds that 
 would otherwise have nothing in common, and 
 forms the basis of all real union between " this 
 world and that which is to come."
 
 PART THIRD. 
 
 X. 
 
 TVTOVEMBER, 183T. At C., successor of the 
 celebrated Dr. B. Parish small and scat- 
 tered over the whole town ; salary, six hundred 
 dollars ; family, wife and three children. Moved 
 into the only house that could be obtained, and 
 this the owner wanted to sell, and might want 
 for his own use at any time ; so under this un- 
 certainty could not give myself unreservedly to 
 my work. And here I may as well speak, once 
 for all, of the greatest trial of the poor minis- 
 ter's life. 
 
 Owing to the great number of small sectarian 
 societies in many of our towns there is a con- 
 stant struggle among them for existence. They 
 try to rival each other in costly churches, and 
 so seldom have means of building comfortable 
 parsonages for their ministers. This, with the
 
 64 AN AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 
 
 increase of population, and the great cost of 
 building, causes a real scarcity of houses in all 
 these country towns. This I know from sad 
 experience, having moved twenty-nine times 
 during the first thirty years of my ministry. I 
 have moved six times in four years ; and twice 
 have broken up my relation to parishes simply 
 because I could find no place in which to put 
 my family, or feel for any time the security of a 
 home. The trouble and expense, the wear and 
 tear of furniture, the greater wear and tear of 
 tempers and tastes, of all the best feelings that 
 enter into the home of an intelligent, sensitive 
 family, no language can express. When I think 
 over all my experience of this kind, of the many 
 times that my real work has been interrupted, 
 my house made chaotic, my children changed 
 from one school-district to another, and all the 
 thousand smaller annoyances that attend these 
 family revolutions, or this vagrant kind of life, 
 I feel sure religious societies can have no idea of 
 the misery and demoralization they are causing 
 in this neglect to provide a resting-place for those 
 whose average term of service is now only two 
 years. It must be from want of thought rather
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 65 
 
 than from want of heart; for we know by ex- 
 perience that these societies are well and kindly 
 disposed. They are mostly made up of persons 
 who themselves know nothing of the evils which 
 we see so clearly, and feel so deeply. I speak 
 not for myself, but for my younger brethren, 
 when I say this condition should be changed, 
 or a more thoughtful compassion exercised to- 
 wards its victims, more excuses made for 
 weak, sorely tried, ministerial human nature. 
 
 Thirty-five or forty years ago, before C. had 
 any business or railroad connections with the 
 great world, it had some very peculiar people ; 
 but no more perhaps than other towns in the 
 same condition. All over New England, in these 
 remote, out-of-the-way places, where the same 
 families have lived several generations, unaf- 
 fected by any thing that could be called society, 
 or public opinion, I have found persons who had 
 followed out freely their predominant tenden- 
 cies, till some one element of character over- 
 shadowed and dwarfed all others. Those most 
 frequently observed were such as might have 
 grown naturally out of the poor, hard life of 
 the early settlers, on such a soil, in such a cli-
 
 66 AK AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 mate. The severe labors and small results, the 
 struggles and trials, the nice economies and petty 
 savings which were necessary, in those early 
 times, resulted at last occasionally in horrible 
 forms of avarice and selfishness, a monomania 
 so extreme as often to destroy all ties of kin- 
 dred, family, and affection. This class of misers 
 is nearly extinct now, but in their day they 
 were numerous and often entertaining. 
 
 I had been at C. but a few days when a man 
 appeared at my door who wanted to saw some 
 wood that had just been drawn into my yard. 
 He was one of the seediest persons I had ever 
 met anywhere. His clothes were of many styles 
 and colors ; his hat was made of pieces of other 
 hats that he had sewed together with various 
 kinds of twine ; his face and hands were dirty ; 
 his hair uncut and uncombed ; and, in every 
 respect, he was altogether a most dilapidated 
 specimen of humanity. I went out to show him 
 how I wanted the wood sawed, when he became 
 confidential and began to tell me that he was 
 not exactly one of my parish, but that his wid- 
 owed sister was ; and then, on the strength of 
 this, asked me if I would not give him some
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 67 
 
 lessons in grammar and arithmetic, so that he 
 could teach a district school. I need not say 
 that he did not get much encouragement in this 
 direction. 
 
 I afterwards found that he was worth several 
 thousand dollars, yet lived by himself in the 
 most abject poverty and wretchedness ; carried 
 potatoes in a basket to roast for his dinner at an 
 iron furnace where he worked ; took a stick of 
 wood to put through the handle every night, 
 under the pretence of carrying it home easier, but 
 really to secure the wood ; and when famished 
 would steal from his poor sister 'rather than 
 spend a cent of his own money. Not at all dis- 
 couraged by his first repulse about the grammar 
 lessons, he returned a week after to renew the 
 request. He said a good many years ago he 
 had a school down in Maine, and as he could 
 not earn much now, in the winter season, he 
 had thought it would be a good thing to brush 
 up his old learning and turn it to some account. 
 He said he could read right off in the New Tes- 
 tament, but had no books ; so he pulled out of 
 his pocket an old newspaper, and wanted to be- 
 gin lessons in parsing. He had marked through
 
 68 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 a paragraph the nouns, verbs, and other parts 
 of speech, and wanted me to see whether he had 
 got them right. To get rid of him, I told him 
 my time was precious, and I should have to 
 charge high for my lessons ; that applicants for 
 schools at the present time had to go before a 
 committee, and pass a severe examination in 
 algebra and other branches of learning which 
 were not required in his school days. He went 
 away with a disappointed and sorrowful aspect, 
 and did not return ; but in parting asked me 
 what algebra was. After I left town, the doc- 
 tor, who took my house, had a similar experi- 
 ence with the same man. He began at the 
 wood-pile and pulled out of his pocket a book 
 of algebra for the doctor to give him some in- 
 struction. He had not given up his idea of 
 getting a winter school. This shows that he 
 had one strong element of character besides 
 avarice, persistence of purpose. But I was 
 never particularly proud of my first student. 
 
 Could Dickens, when in this country, have 
 gone out of the beaten track of tourists, into 
 our small, remote towns, among our most pecul- 
 iar people, those who have had least intercourse
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 69 
 
 with the world ; where the energy, enterprise, 
 wealth, and culture have been drawn away to 
 great manufacturing and commercial centres ; 
 where old families have nearly run out, or, from 
 the want of mental and social stimulus, have by 
 certain ruts run into the grossest eccentricities, 
 could he have stopped for a while in some 
 rural grocery-store, or common loafing place, 
 and heard the unrestrained gossip of some such 
 " sleepy hollow," he would have found charac- 
 ters for more original and striking books than 
 he had ever written. 
 
 In this town of C. my predecessor had been 
 remarkable for his bold reformatory discourses ; 
 and, as I was deeply interested in all the excit- 
 ing questions of the time, I followed up the 
 work thus begun, and was allowed a greater 
 freedom of expression than I expected. Of 
 course there were in my congregation many 
 persons more or less affected by the old Cal- 
 vinistic dogmas, who missed the old tone and 
 phraseology of the pulpit ; one, at least, who 
 complained that I did not have enough to say 
 about " a state of natur' and a state of grace ; " 
 and another, who, when told that I was a sug-
 
 70 AX AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 gestive preacher, and made people think, an- 
 swered that she did not care for that, " she 
 wanted Sunday as a day of rest." I have since 
 often thought there might be a great number 
 of such persons in all religious societies, and that 
 recently they were fast finding a supply for 
 their wants. I have, however, no reason to 
 complain of my society at C. It was the best 
 in town, made up of all classes, and really liberal 
 in thought and feeling. And here, in connec- 
 tion with my first settlement over a Unitarian 
 congregation, I want to speak particularly of 
 the liberality of this early time. 
 
 As seen through the light of these later 
 years it appears to me greater in degree, and 
 better in kind, than any we have since experi- 
 enced. 
 
 Liberalism always seems to lose its peculiar 
 characteristics soon after it gets organized. 
 Before, it is broad, general, progressive. It is a 
 universal principle, an all-pervading spirit ; after 
 it becomes a popular rallying cry for parties and 
 sects, or gets imprisoned in their platforms and 
 creeds, it practically amounts to nothing. It 
 often takes the character of a Jesuitical expe-
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 71 
 
 diency. Men are then liberal only with refer- 
 ence to the interests of their organization. 
 While it is a spirit, it is general ; when it is 
 organized, it becomes special. Just as we often 
 see persons whose liberality reminds us of Jacob's 
 ringed, streaked, and spotted cattle. It is only 
 skin-deep, and there is not enough of it to cover 
 the skin ; so they are liberal and progressive 
 only in spots and streaks. Now the early liber- 
 ality of these New England churches was a 
 principle, a spirit, rather than any system of 
 doctrines ; and it is yet an open question 
 whether the organization of the spirit under a 
 particular name has advanced or retarded the 
 development of that spirit. Such an organiza- 
 tion was then opposed by a large number of 
 our best and most prominent men ; and they 
 never allowed themselves or their churches to 
 be called by its name. Many societies took it 
 by bare majorities, and would have been just as 
 liberal without it as with it. The leaders would 
 have led in the same direction all who were 
 ready to follow, and have led no more. So we 
 may have lost on one side as much as we have 
 gained on the other. The spirit itself is better
 
 72 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 than any of its forms or names, because it is 
 then always ready for reforms and reunions. 
 It is in the liberal spirit, rather than in any 
 liberal theology, that real mental and spiritual 
 freedom is found. 
 
 In the early period to which I now refer, I 
 found this spirit in the liberal societies, in their 
 literature, in all their modes of thought and 
 feeling ; and this, to me, was their chief attrac- 
 tion. I received this impression from Chan- 
 ning, Ware, Dewey, Walker, and many others 
 of their time. I attended their conferences, and 
 there heard the freest and boldest discussions 
 of all the prevalent exciting topics, and remem- 
 ber distinctly what clear conceptions they had, 
 and what solemn warnings they gave, of the 
 dangers of shibboleths, creeds, and all kinds of 
 theological tests and exclusions. It was in the 
 school of this broad church, under the inspira- 
 tion of this free, liberal spirit, that I preached 
 on all the subjects of general interest, in my' 
 own and neighboring pulpits, without anybody, 
 to molest or make me afraid. I therefore speak< 
 from experience when I say that early New 
 England Unitarianism was a spirit, rather than
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 73 
 
 a dogma or theology. As a spirit it gained all 
 its conquests. 
 
 I remained at C. two years, left in kind and 
 friendly relations with all, and have often re- 
 turned to visit and preach in the dear old town 
 of such early and various associations. I was 
 obliged to move twice the last year, and moved 
 away because I could get but half a house, and 
 that not fit for winter use. I began this chapter 
 with moving, and am now ready to move on to 
 another.
 
 74 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 XI. 
 
 HEEE I begin without time or place, because a 
 minister without a parish is nowhere and of no 
 account. For nearly one year this was my con- 
 dition. I preached in various places, had a large 
 and valuable experience, but at great cost to 
 soul and body. How distinctly I remember the 
 long, expensive, disagreeable stage rides, in sum- 
 mer's heat and winter's cold, the long separa- 
 tions from my family, the breaking up of my 
 studious habits, the chaos and discomfort, all 
 the disappointments and trials of such a life ! 
 Deducting the few Sundays unemployed, I re- 
 ceived for this whole year of such service less 
 than four hundred dollars for the support of a 
 family, to which another member had this year 
 been added. Does any reader wonder why I 
 did not sooner get a call or leave so unpromising 
 a profession ? The shortest answer that can 
 here be given is, that many wiser and better 
 men have persevered under greater difficulties,
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 75 
 
 and have felt impulses from within stronger 
 than any from without. 
 
 I went among these societies unknown, with- 
 out any denominational support or sympathy ; 
 and when they found that I had not come 
 through Cambridge, but through the Universal- 
 ists, against whom the prejudice was then much 
 stronger than now, it was everywhere brought 
 to bear against me. Indeed, one of my greatest 
 trials was the want of attention or sympathy 
 from the denomination into which I had come 
 at the sacrifice of all my old acquaintances and 
 friends. Again, I had lived so much alone, was 
 so little accustomed to the ways of the world, 
 as to retain the childish impression that truth 
 and truthfulness were very precious ; that truth, 
 especially religious truth, was the very bread of 
 life for which all were hungering and searching ; 
 that I had only to present it in the clearest and 
 most forcible manner to meet this great popular 
 want. 
 
 Could there have been a greater mistake ? Is 
 there still any greater obstacle to popular suc- 
 cess in the ministry? In my simplicity I then 
 thought the light and life so precious to me I
 
 7(3 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 could easily dispense to others ; but I soon 
 found that real truth in religion was the very 
 thing that most people did not want, and were 
 determined not to have. I had made too little 
 allowance for prejudice and wilfulness, for mys- 
 tical, dogmatic, ecclesiastical assumption, for 
 religious indifference, sectarian complacency, or 
 any of the numerous imperfections of society. 
 I supposed the people who made up our most 
 advanced body were highly enlightened, and 
 wanted their peculiar views brought out with 
 great distinctness ; that religion was with them 
 a principle, rather than a sentiment or feeling. 
 I, therefore, preached "as unto wise men." It 
 was a mistake, but one that I have not yet fully 
 corrected. I did not know then that indefinite- 
 ness was as important in religion as in politics, 
 in Church as in State. 
 
 About this period there was great dulness 
 and reaction in our churches. Their members 
 got tired of controversy and doctrinal preaching, 
 outgrew the old questions, obtained a desirable 
 and most respectable social position, and de- 
 manded rest. Doctrines were ignored, and 
 practical, or rather sentimental and preceptive
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 77 
 
 preaching required. Under this order of things 
 our societies declined ; or, if they did not de- 
 crease in numbers, they became indifferent and 
 paralyzed. 
 
 A generation had grown up who at last began 
 to ask what Unitarians did specially believe ; 
 or rather why all Christendom " left them out 
 in the cold." So this torpor was an exceptional 
 state, and did not long continue. It was broken 
 up by what was called the Transcendental move- 
 ment, ethical and philosophical, taking the 
 place of the old theological or doctrinal ques- 
 tions. Here again we became leaders of thought 
 and progress, and found life and vigor in pro- 
 portion as we were true to this advanced posi- 
 tion. But we did not gain it without a great 
 struggle or conflict among ourselves. This 
 long and indefinite term, " transcendentalism," 
 greatly disturbed and frightened many persons, 
 and the truths it represented were very injudi- 
 ciously and extravagantly presented by some of 
 its advocates ; but the effort was not lost. It 
 put us forward in the right direction. We 
 adopted all that was vital in it, and it has done 
 us immense good. All the best thought or
 
 78 AN AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 
 
 literature of the present time has grown out of 
 it. It has opened to us the highest regions of 
 spiritual life ; has shown us how much more we 
 can know through the reason, the inner light, 
 the spirit's discernment, than by reasoning. In 
 other words, it has shown us how much more 
 we can apprehend than comprehend. It has given 
 us positive convictions on things that transcend 
 the evidence of the senses and the understand- 
 ing. It has shown us whole realms of truth 
 which are more open to spiritual instincts than 
 to intellectual development. This controversy 
 was at its height about the time of my vagrant 
 ministry, and, as I was deeply interested in it, 
 it had much to do with my unsettled condition. 
 Through this a new spirit had arisen among us. 
 Opposition to each other often took the place 
 of opposition to the old common enemy. Em- 
 erson, Ripley, and younger men from several 
 Cambridge classes, left the ministry in conse- 
 quence of this disturbance. The transition here 
 traced is all-important in the life here sketched, 
 because my whole mental and spiritual nature 
 was excited to the highest activity by the great 
 questions which it presented.
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 79 
 
 At last I was invited to preach at R. one year, 
 moved my family there, and stayed more than 
 two ; but was fortunate enough not to be obliged 
 to move into another house before the end of 
 the first year. R. was one of the oldest towns 
 in Massachusetts, the society the first parish, 
 the meeting-house about the last of its kind ; 
 and the people, though not revolutionary in 
 their character or opinions, belonged to what is 
 called the revolutionary period. They gloried 
 in the part their fathers took in that work ; 
 they built a monument to commemorate their 
 heroic deeds in that early struggle, and never 
 seemed to think that any thing more was neces- 
 sary. 
 
 This parish, though large and wealthy, had a 
 fund, the interest of which more than paid all 
 its expenses. Yet they allowed me only eight 
 hundred dollars for my services. I say this, not 
 as complaining, but explaining. I put it down 
 as all the effect of the monument and the 
 fund. A large experience in other places con- 
 firms the impression that a complacent glorying 
 in what ancestors have done is not favorable 
 to progress ; and that what people do not pay
 
 80 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 for, even in religious matters, they do not 
 care for. 
 
 Through these long-continued evil influences 
 this old parish had fallen into a state of chronic 
 indifference. Three other societies had gone 
 out from it, yet retained their legal connection 
 with it, hoping to get each a part of this first 
 parish fund. They continued to exercise the 
 right of voting, and so the trustees could not 
 settle a minister, but only hire for an indefi- 
 nite time. With these and many other circum- 
 stances so much against me, I commenced my 
 labors. I worked hard in many ways, was on 
 the school committee, held temperance talks in 
 the several districts, walked all over the large 
 town to make parish calls, and on ministerial 
 exchanges in neighboring towns ; founded a 
 parish and Sunday-school library : and whatever 
 I found to do for the public I did with all my 
 might. In regard to my Sunday services I know 
 that I was very much in earnest, that my con- 
 gregation increased, and that I had in it a few 
 noble sympathetic souls to cheer and help me. 
 Here I would gladly say no more of this R. 
 life, or would commence a new sketch in a new
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 81 
 
 place ; but truth and duty require me to go on 
 to my failure and its causes. 
 
 About this time the public mind was greatly 
 excited in regard to temperance and anti-slavery 
 questions; but I well remember that I was not 
 excited by them. They were nothing new to 
 me. My name may be found on the subscription 
 list of the first anti-slavery paper ever published, 
 " The Cradle of Liberty ; " and as to the tem- 
 perance cause, I had many years before given a 
 lecture to the first society ever formed in the 
 State for its promotion : so was not in a condition 
 to be surprised into any extravagance of speech 
 or action in these directions. 
 
 This town of R. was not so intemperate itself 
 as some others, but it was the centre of the 
 traffic for several neighboring towns. It was 
 what, in the common phrase of the time, was 
 called " a rum-hole." Now I had in my society 
 two remarkable persons: one, a deacon of the 
 church ; the other, the principal of a celebrated 
 school, God-fearing, truth-loving, humane, 
 noble men, after the type of the old Puritan, 
 without any of the narrowness or bigotry asso- 
 ciated with this name. These men were inti- 
 4* F
 
 82 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 mately associated with me in an effort to change 
 the character and reputation of this town. The 
 opposition of all whose appetites and interests 
 were the other way was manifested in proportion 
 to our success ; and of course the public peace 
 began to be disturbed. 
 
 At last this deacon said, at a church meeting, 
 that he could not conscientiously or consistently 
 go to the stores to buy for the church what he 
 was so greatly opposed to for other purposes. 
 It was at the time the Washingtonians were 
 reclaiming so many drunkards ; and he gave 
 instances where men who, when thus reformed, 
 had joined churches, and had fallen back through 
 the old appetite aroused by the wine-cup at the 
 communion. He asked the brethren to excuse 
 him from its further use on such occasions. 
 This brought the whole matter at once to a 
 crisis. 
 
 Such an innovation could not be tolerated in 
 such a place. By an overwhelming vote he was 
 forced to resign his office. One member said, 
 in the discussion, that we ought to use wine for 
 its color, it so resembled the blood of Christ. 
 I replied, that, if we were going to be as literal
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 83 
 
 as this, we ought to hold our communion in 
 some upper room, and use only unleavened 
 bread. This action, though of little importance 
 in itself, threw the influence of the church all in 
 the wrong direction, and caused many of its best 
 friends to hang their heads in shame. Various 
 persons were afterward chosen to fill the office 
 of deacon, but all declined. One at last, 
 I remember, a very meek man, was disposed 
 to accept ; but his bright, intelligent wife 
 told him if he did she would seek a divorce 
 from him. How the matter was settled I do 
 not know ; but for several months a deacon 
 was borrowed from another church in toe 
 vicinity. 
 
 In connection with this I would here say that 
 the chief man in my parish was chairman of the 
 board of trustees for the parish fund, and of 
 the board of selectmen of the town, and an aspi- 
 rant for the State Legislature. His income was 
 largely derived from buildings used for the 
 liquor traffic, and his influence was bad in 
 many ways, although he tried hard to keep on 
 both sides of all exciting topics. Just before 
 the State election he asked me if I ever voted.
 
 84 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Certainly, I said, always ; I considered it just as 
 much the duty of a clergyman to vote as for any 
 other man. He expressed great satisfaction at 
 my reply, evidently supposing that I would vote 
 for him to represent the town. The next Mon- 
 day, standing at the voting place, he saw me 
 vote for another man. I soon perceived that 
 I was doomed never to have his forgiveness. 
 He had control of the fund, and I was at his 
 mercy. But how could I do otherwise ? Was 
 I to pull down in one way all I was trying to 
 build up in another ? 
 
 My readers may be assured that I did not as 
 a minister make a specialty of this subject to 
 the exclusion of any common pulpit subjects. 
 Af that time I was deeply interested in ethical 
 and spiritual questions ; and as I now read 
 over the sermons of those two years, I am 
 surprised at their great variety and moderate 
 tone. 
 
 A little later came my last unpardonable 
 offence. A Virginian fugitive slave was arrested 
 
 * 
 
 in Boston by his master's sympathizers, and put 
 in Boston jail for safe keeping till his owner 
 should find it convenient to take him away.
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 85 
 
 During the week lie was thus in prison I told 
 some of my parishioners that I intended to make 
 slavery the subject of discourse the next Sunday. 
 They advised me against such a course, and said 
 the people were not interested in it. I replied 
 if they were not it was high time they were ; 
 and at the close of the morning service gave 
 notice of it for the afternoon. I have that ser- 
 mon now, and am proud of it. Much that was 
 then prophecy has since become history; and 
 when South Carolina seceded from the Union, 
 and the first rebel gun was fired on Fort Sumter, 
 I at once thought of the seceders who went out 
 of my congregation that afternoon, slamming 
 their pew doors behind them. I heard the sound 
 of that cannon as the echo of those banging 
 doors. 
 
 Two days after this the trustees waited upon 
 me with the request that I would supply the 
 pulpit by exchanges during the term for which 
 I had been engaged by them. In other words, 
 that I would not go into their pulpit again. It 
 was mid-winter, I had sickness in my family, 
 could get no exchange for the next Sunday, and 
 so was obliged to be idle and give my small pit-
 
 86 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 tance to another. My only rich relation pro- 
 nounced me a fool for quarreling with my 
 " bread and butter ; " and with the great public, 
 who neither knew nor cared for me, or the 
 causes of the separation, it gave me the reputa- 
 tion of being " a violent abolitionist." I had 
 a new parish to seek, and this was not then 
 a favorable introduction anywhere. How this 
 period was passed cannot now be told, I 
 thought I had seen many hard times before, but 
 now, having a larger family to care for and sup- 
 port, I remembered my former experience of 
 candidating, and shrank from its repetition with 
 horror. I wondered if anybody ever thought 
 of the terrible temptations to silence and sham 
 often presented and long continued by this 
 mode of treating ministers. We may talk as 
 much as we please about putting character 
 above opinion. It is not done anywhere yet 
 to any extent. If I had been an angel from 
 heaven, or the greatest sinner on earth, it 
 would have made no difference in this case. I 
 was an abolitionist, and must go. This was the 
 mad-dog cry of the tune, and everybody must 
 run away from me or make me run.
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 87 
 
 Reader,! wish you could have seen the sheepish 
 look of those trustees as they came to my house 
 on this errand, the chairman specially smiling 
 and polite. After making his request, he hoped 
 I would not think the separation required was 
 wholly on account of the sermon of last Sun- 
 day. Oh, no ! I knew better than that, and so 
 did he. It was only the occasion, the consum- 
 mation of causes. But I asked, as if I was sur- 
 prised that there could be any other, what these 
 other complaints were. Mr. C. replied that it 
 had been noticed I did not often read, or take 
 texts, from the Old Testament ; that I did not 
 preach about sin in general, or abstract sin, as 
 others did, but, by special applications to present 
 times and occasions, kept the parish in a fer- 
 ment ; that it would not do to be so particular. 
 The people would not bear it. Then it was I 
 thought of a new classification of men : those 
 who knew what to be ashamed of, and those 
 who did not. They went away graciously as 
 they came. They have all gone to another 
 world now, but I do not believe they will care 
 to see me again anywhere. Personally I never 
 had the slightest ill feeling towards them. They
 
 88 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 were only representatives of the worldly, expe- 
 dient spirit of the time, aggravated in this place 
 by the combined influences of the monument and 
 the fund.
 
 AN ATJTOBIOGEAPHY. 89 
 
 XII. 
 
 MY next location was B., twelve miles from R. 
 Society small, poor, and scattered; meeting- 
 house old, large, and uncomfortable ; pulpit 
 free ; people kind, generous, sympathetic, and 
 appreciating ; salary six hundred dollars, a good 
 parsonage, and fuel. During my residence here 
 my congregation increased, new interest was felt 
 in all parish affairs, the old meeting-house was 
 remodeled, and after this year of trial I was 
 invited to a permanent settlement with an in- 
 crease of salary. Before going to B. I had 
 preached as a candidate at N. for several weeks. 
 More than a year passed, when a gentleman 
 came to my house whom I had seen before, but 
 could not think when or where, and said, "Our 
 society held a meeting last week, and voted 
 unanimously to give you a call. I have come 
 to urge your acceptance." I found he was from 
 N., where to my surprise, after all this long 
 period of hearing candidates, I was thus remem-
 
 90 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 bered. I was strongly inclined to remain at B., 
 but knew I should burden my friends there with 
 my large family, so declined their call " and 
 accepted this of N., regretting to leave a place 
 where I had received so many kind attentions : 
 but time and distance do not change such rela- 
 tions as we felt in our minds and hearts. I have 
 loved these people, and believe they have loved 
 me, ever since we thus parted. 
 
 This new field of labor was very peculiar in 
 many ways, and thus very interesting. Its sit- 
 uation, its business, its character, all were 
 unlike any thing I had before known. It was a 
 large commercial place, with ninety ships and 
 ten thousand inhabitants. My society was 
 large, rich, fashionable, and yet not afraid to 
 choose an obscure, unfashionable minister, one 
 of the hated " abolitionists " who were then 
 greatly disturbing the public peace. This was 
 owing partly to their isolated condition, but 
 mostly to the fact that the original, long-con- 
 tinued, and still predominant influence in the 
 town was Quakerism. My call was from the 
 congregation, rather than from a few pew- 
 owners. I preached my own installation ser-
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 91 
 
 mon ; or, rather, devoted my first discourse to 
 the principles and purposes which were to unite 
 us in our work. 
 
 Here I worked on for nearly seven years, 
 preaching two sermons every Sunday. This, 
 with all my other cares and duties, my nearest 
 exchange being sixty miles distant, my congre- 
 gation too intelligent and thoughtful to be 
 satisfied with the commonplaces of the pulpit, 
 of course made my labors and responsibilities 
 very great ; but these years of hardest work 
 were the best and happiest years of my life. It 
 was the first time I had ever felt at home any- 
 where. The meeting-house was remodeled, the 
 interior made very simple and beautiful, a vestry 
 built, the Sunday school became prosperous, a 
 large audience assembled to hear me morning 
 and evening, and under such circumstances all 
 that was in me was brought out to the highest 
 advantage, and found its highest sphere of 
 activity. 
 
 While here, I published several discourses on 
 the topics of the time ; one in pamphlet, and 
 others in different papers and periodicals-. The 
 pamphlet got into some of the reform papers
 
 92 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 here, and was republished in the same way in 
 England. Its subject was the connection of 
 religion and life ; or the relations of modern 
 Christianity to modern society. This was 
 twenty-eight years ago, and yet I have in all 
 these years seen no reason to modify those state- 
 ments, or change a word of that testimony. 
 
 This was a period of great awakening and 
 excitement on almost all moral, social, political, 
 and religious affairs ; but I was so far away 
 from the centres of these new movements that 
 they seldom disturbed me or my parish. Not 
 that we were stupid, unhnpressible, or " behind 
 the times." We were growing on a different 
 vine, from a different root. " Parkerism," the 
 new horror of conservatism, did not upset us, 
 because we had read Plato, Montaigne, Fox, 
 Woolman, Emerson, and the Transcendental- 
 ists. Intelligent Quakers saw nothing new in 
 it. They had for more than a century borne 
 testimony to that inner light that is ready, under 
 proper conditions, to enlighten " every man that 
 cometh into the world." They plead for the 
 divinity of humanity in the earliest efforts to 
 abolish the slave trade. They first took care
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 93 
 
 of all their poor, first practically and publicly 
 acknowledged the rights of woman, and almost 
 all the reforms of this reforming time date back 
 to these real Protestants of Protestantism. 
 They protested against the worldliness and 
 timidity of the church and clergy, against their 
 pretentious garments and titles, against all their 
 formal ecclesiasticism and sectarian machinery, 
 with as much vehemence as Parker or his friends 
 ever did. But they were obscure, had no effec- 
 tive organization, and the world was not ready for 
 them. They may have fallen into routine, 
 formality, and decline, but their principles and 
 spirit still live in other and later forms. People 
 who are not familiar with the history and liter- 
 ature of other times are not in the condition 
 rightly to estimate their own. They greatly 
 exaggerate the importance of new utterances 
 and organizations. They do not see the con- 
 nections between the new word and the old 
 thought. Now those who had been trained in 
 Quakerism were not so likely to be shocked with 
 a transcendental philosophy or a rationalistic 
 religion. Those who had been taught the doc- 
 trine of the inner light already believed in a
 
 94 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 present and perpetual divine inspiration and 
 guidance. 
 
 So while the Parker controversy was raging 
 at its height in Boston and vicinity we seldom 
 heard it spoken of at our remote portion of the 
 State. 
 
 At this time I preached a discourse on the per- 
 sonal influence of Jesus, as an explanation of a 
 certain class of wonderful works imputed to 
 him by the evangelists, without going at all into 
 the general question of miracles. I thought 
 then, and think still, that it was one of the best 
 I ever wrote. The best judges of such matters 
 in my parish urged me to publish it, and, when 
 I declined, said, " Preach it to other societies 
 when you have an opportunity." Soon after I 
 was invited to supply a vacant pulpit in Boston 
 for two Sundays, and without the least thought 
 of entering into any thing of a controversial 
 character I preached this for my first sermon 
 there. The excitement it caused was a great 
 surprise to me. The same day I received an 
 angry letter from the committee of this society, 
 from which I extract the following gentle speci- 
 mens :
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 95 
 
 " "We heard with deep regret and surprise the sen- 
 timents and opinions expressed in your sermon in 
 our pulpit this morning. "We cannot suppose that 
 you intended to insult us or the society for whom 
 we act ; but knowing as you must that your view of 
 the miracles of the New Testament is considered by 
 all Christian societies as subversive of Christianity, 
 and utterly destructive of the only true foundation 
 of Christian faith, it is not easy to understand upon 
 what principle you could have selected such a sermon 
 to be preached to us. ... You can preach as you 
 please to your own people. But we cannot view it 
 as consistent with good taste or good manners to 
 preach upon invitation to a neighboring society doc- 
 trines and opinions which you could not fail to know 
 would be, not only offensive and disagreeable, but 
 which would be considered as highly injurious to the 
 cause of Christianity. . . . Impressed with these 
 sentiments, you will permit us to say that we have 
 no wish to abrogate the agreement made with you 
 to supply our pulpit for two Sundays ; but we hope 
 it may be in your power to substitute in your place 
 in our pulpit some other minister, whose sentiments 
 are known to be in accordance with those of our 
 denomination generally, to preach to us on the next 
 Sunday." 
 
 I must here put the date of this official docu- 
 ment, " Boston, Sept. 17, 1848," that no one
 
 96 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 may now suppose it was in " the dark ages," or 
 at a great distance from " the Hub "of all 
 enlightenment and liberality. When I first 
 came to Boston, many years before, a poor boy, 
 I asked a well-dressed boy in the street if he 
 would be kind enough to direct me to Province 
 House Court. He sullenly answered, " Follow 
 your nose." So I began to thinkj as long ago as 
 this, that there was a difference in people not 
 all to the advantage of those who have the best 
 means of culture and knowledge. I knew there 
 was not so ill-mannered a lad in all our poor little 
 country town. And when, twenty-five years 
 after, I received this treatment from Boston men, 
 and thought of the different reception of this 
 sermon at my far-distant home, I could not make 
 the comparison altogether in favor of Boston. 
 
 After this, finding the whole matter was being 
 grossly misrepresented, I had no redress but to 
 publish the discourse and the letter. These 
 circumstances gave it a large circulation. It got 
 into different journals, east and west. Its doc- 
 trines were fully indorsed, and its spirit highly 
 commended, by Rev. Dr. Furness and several 
 others of our most honored brethren.
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 97 
 
 This is here presented only as an illustration 
 of the difficulty of speaking at all on such sub- 
 jects at such an exciting time. We were then 
 in our period of theological controversy among 
 ourselves, and liberality as a spirit was fast 
 departing. Living at a distance, at the rim 
 rather than at the hub of the wheel, I was less 
 excited and more surprised than others could 
 have been. As one who had learned of the 
 elders, I did not see how those who had never 
 professed to unite on any theological basis should 
 feel any responsibility for each other's theologi- 
 cal opinions. I had listened to discussions and 
 read essays in " The Christian Examiner " from 
 our leading men as bold and radical, so far as 
 the prevalent theology was concerned, as any 
 that were exciting so much attention at this 
 time. I had heard the celebrated discourse on 
 " The Transient and Permanent in Christianity " 
 at the public occasion of its delivery, dined with 
 a large company of my brethren, and did not 
 hear at the time that any were shocked at its 
 doctrines. But soon after the evangelical press 
 began to denounce them as the height of infi- 
 delity ; and, in self-defence, Unitarians were led 
 6 o
 
 98 AK AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 into their first great inconsistency, denuncia- 
 tions of one another for differences of opinion on 
 which they professedly and really had no stand- 
 ard. They were the first body of men who 
 ever united on the principle of agreeing to 
 differ. 
 
 They did this for a long time, and did it well. 
 There never was such unity of purpose and 
 spirit among men of such diversities of charac- 
 ter and opinion. It was their glory and strength 
 that they were not a sect, that they had no 
 creed, that no one was responsible for another's 
 theological position or scriptural interpretation. 
 
 But when they, out of regard to other denom- 
 inations, or because they chose to hold them- 
 selves accountable for all the views advanced by 
 any individuals of their body, began with pen- 
 alties to enforce their general views, or their 
 efforts for creed making, those troubles began 
 which impaired their union and strength, and 
 which the skill of their greatest doctors of 
 divinity have failed to remove. It was only in 
 the spirit of individual freedom that they could 
 make progress or find peace. This I saw very 
 clearly then, and so was more interested in
 
 AN AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 99 
 
 maintaining the old right than any new doctrine 
 of this exciting controversy. As an old-school 
 Unitarian, I had learned in that school to fear 
 no error or heresy, to hate nothing so much as 
 cant and dishonesty in religion, to love nothing 
 so much as truth and justice in all the relations 
 of life. So the only creed I could then or ever 
 fully adopt was, "In necessary things, Unity ; 
 in doubtful things, Liberty; in all things, 
 Charity." In necessary things, where we are 
 to concentrate our energies for organization and 
 work, Unity. In doubtful or speculative things, 
 where there must be various opinions, honest 
 individual differences, according to culture or 
 condition, Liberty. So in all things, Charity.
 
 100 AN AUTOBIOGKAPHiT. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 I HAVE often thought there was no place that 
 could have suited me so well as N. at that time, 
 no place where all the influences were so well 
 calculated to foster individual growth and har- 
 monious development. 
 
 As my pulpit was free, as I was allowed to 
 have my word, I did not insist upon having 
 my way. There was no antagonism between 
 the pulpit and the pews. We were one hi 
 spirit and purpose, truth-seeking, truth-loving 
 brethren. Hence my preaching was not con- 
 troversial or negative, but positive and affirma- 
 tive in the highest degree. There was a large 
 reading and social circle to which I belonged in 
 my society, and in which the subjects of my ser- 
 mons of the previous Sunday were as freely 
 discussed as if I had not been present. There 
 was the greatest frankness and freedom of speech 
 exercised towards one another, and especially 
 towards me. I doubt if any man ever had a
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 101 
 
 better opportunity to see himself from the out- 
 side point of view, or of estimating the effects 
 of his own labors. It furnished me the means 
 of seeing just what impressions I had made, of 
 clearing up any obscurities, correcting any mis- 
 takes, of learning just the state of my hearers' 
 minds and hearts in regard to the subjects thus 
 before us. These weekly conversations were so 
 frank and stimulating that they very often fur- 
 nished me the subject of discourse for the next 
 Sunday morning. And so we went on together 
 for years, mutually strengthening and helping 
 each other. 
 
 But these years were not in other respects 
 unclouded. I was called to witness among my 
 most intimate friends terrible domestic tragedies, 
 moral wrecks and ruins really greater than many 
 so vividly portrayed in works of fiction. In 
 such an isolated place every thing is known to 
 all, families are all more or less related to each 
 other ; and hence each has to suffer the losses 
 and bear the burdens of all to a greater extent 
 than among any other people. These losses and 
 crosses, these wrecks and ruins, were mostly in 
 my society, and made constant demands for my
 
 102 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 efforts and sympathies. Many and great are 
 the bereavements I have witnessed, separations 
 through death and the grave ; but these fade 
 away and disappear in comparison with those 
 seen as living bereavements, or moral and 
 spiritual deaths. Of these cases there is here 
 so little hope of resurrection. But I must not 
 lift the veil that hides the sorrows which cannot 
 be comforted, the great heart wounds that have 
 never healed, the broken and blighted lives of 
 dear friends who yet remain. 
 
 I had not been here two years when there 
 commenced such a series of calamities as would 
 overwhelm and discourage any people on earth. 
 Business men, whom all their fellow-citizens 
 loved and trusted, began to fail, and their lia- 
 bilities were nearly all at home. Two banks 
 went down soon after, nearly all the capital of 
 one nowhere to be found. The special com- 
 merce, the only business of the place, rapidly 
 declined, the ships were sold away for other uses ; 
 and to crown all a fire broke out which burned 
 over thirty-six acres of the heart of the town 
 before its ravages could be stopped. All the 
 stores and great store-houses, with one or two
 
 AH AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 103 
 
 exceptions, were swept away by the devouring 
 flames. A very large proportion of iny society 
 were burned out of their houses or business, and 
 many of them out of both ; and then in despair 
 they began to go away to begin anew in other 
 places, in California and all our great eastern 
 cities. The last year I had scarcely any men 
 left, and they did not see how we were to find 
 the means of going on any farther. They voted 
 to close the church, and I came away. 
 
 No, not yet. I am not ready for any new 
 departure. Where shall I go ? what shall I do ? 
 are questions first to be decided. I had in these 
 years found rest from a wandering life, and for 
 my soul, the rest of a harmonious activity ; 
 had worked so hard, and, through sympathy, 
 suffered so much for this afflicted people, that I 
 found myself deeply rooted in that soil. It was 
 best for all concerned that the separation should 
 take place. But God only knows what a 
 wrench it takes to pull up or break off such 
 roots. More than twenty years have since 
 passed, years of great variety and activity, 
 but I can, and often do, now see all that assem- 
 bly at that church, all those men, women, and
 
 104 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 children whose faces were so familiar, look in 
 succession at the families in each pew down 
 those long aisles, and find it very difficult to 
 come to the conclusion that I am not still stand- 
 ing in that pulpit, and that all the scene is only 
 reminiscence, that these people are not still 
 there, or that there is not still the same affec- 
 tionate and spiritual relation between us. 
 
 No. I did not come away with my family for 
 more than six months. Meanwhile I preached 
 in several places as a candidate for another set- 
 tlement. At one of these places, a large city, 
 I stayed two months, and had every reason to 
 believe my services perfectly acceptable. But 
 * before the time came to decide, the people were 
 warned against me as an abolitionist and a 
 Parkerite. By whom, and for what purpose, I 
 afterward learned in detail. But it was a great 
 disappointment ; as a whole summer had passed, 
 my family was far away in the most uncertain 
 condition, and I had still to try elsewhere with, 
 perhaps, the same results again. The old con- 
 troversy was still raging, and I had come out 
 of my quiet retreat into the very midst of it to 
 share again the theological epithets and personal
 
 AN AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 105 
 
 bitterness which it had engendered. Oh, what 
 is there in this world so cruel and hateful every 
 way as religious bigotry ! I had traced it in fire 
 and blood all down the pages of human history, 
 had experienced its blighting effects all through 
 my early life, and, what was worst of all, came 
 at last to feel that there might be a bigotry of 
 liberalism as intolerable in its nature and influ- 
 ence as any other. What wonder that I should 
 hate it in all its forms wherever it might appear! 
 In this town of N., in the neighborhood where 
 I lived, there was a little boy who had a small 
 round head, short neck, a very short body, and 
 very long, slim legs. One day, as I was sitting 
 at my window and a number of boys were play- 
 ing in the street before the house, I heard a 
 great outcry, and saw this little boy running 
 home with all his might.. Just before he got 
 in, he cried louder than ever, " Mother, moth- 
 er," when she came out, saying, " What is the 
 matter?" " Johnny Rodgers keeps calling me 
 names." "Does he? What does he call you?" 
 " He calls me ' Clothes-pin.' All the boys are 
 laughing, and I aint going to bear it any longer." 
 The worst of it was that when the mother had 
 
 5*
 
 106 AN AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 
 
 her attention called to this resemblance she 
 could not help laughing too. Now this was a 
 hard case, because it was based on a physical 
 peculiarity for which the boy was in no degree 
 responsible. But it was no more unjust or irri- 
 tating than many of the names that we are in 
 the habit of using about mental or spiritual pe- 
 culiarities which individuals can no more help 
 than this little boy could his resemblance to an 
 old-fashioned clothes-pin. Men are but children 
 of a larger growth ; and there is far more evil, 
 far more malice and all bad feeling, in the nick- 
 names of grown people than is ever attached to 
 those by which boys call each other while play- 
 ing together in the streets. 
 
 With the latter it is often mere fun and frolic ; 
 while with the former they are used to express 
 and increase political and religious prejudices 
 and even bitterest hatreds. They are used for 
 scorn or contempt, for social alienations and 
 caste distinctions ; and the more they are thus 
 used the more men seem to think of the local 
 and temporary qualities or opinions thus desig- 
 nated, and to forget the divine and eternal in 
 human nature, what is inherent in all as human
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 107 
 
 beings, what is essential and common to the 
 whole human family. 
 
 Now, long before our nicknames came into 
 use, I shrunk from being classified under any 
 theological name or designation, not because I 
 could not bear the odium connected with them, 
 but because I was not in several respects in full 
 sympathy with what they represented to the 
 public mind, and because in all denominations, 
 and under all names, I saw so much that seemed 
 to be true, beautiful, and good. I joined the 
 Unitarians when that name represented a men- 
 tal and spiritual status, liberty as a spirit rather 
 than as any set of theological dogmas or secta- 
 rian purposes. I had for many years worked in 
 that spirit for no object but the increase t)f truth 
 and righteousness among men. Hence I could 
 not bear to be called by any narrowing, personal 
 name, however great that name or good the 
 character covered by it ; since no one person- 
 ality could possibly cover all that belongs to 
 humanity. 1 had exchanged pulpit services with 
 Theodore Parker, at the period of his greatest 
 unpopularity, had engaged him to lecture before 
 our lyceum, and he had given me a labor of love
 
 108 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 one Sunday when I was ill. This was the ex- 
 tent of our personal relations. I had a profound 
 regard for his learning, for his philanthropy, for 
 his religious genius, and for his brave, heroic 
 manliness. But for this I never could see why 
 I should be called a Parkerite ; or, from his 
 writings, how any new system of theology could 
 be found rightly to go under the name of "Par- 
 kerism." In all that relates to the infinite and 
 eternal, to God and divine things, how out of 
 place are all limitations and definitions ! We, 
 none of us, do more than approximate the truth. 
 Why should we take names which mean so little, 
 which distract and divide into little antagonistic 
 companies, directing us into so many narrow 
 lanes and alleys, into so many little by-paths, 
 instead of uniting us in one great brotherhood, 
 where we could do so much to help each other 
 in the broad, onward, and upward way. 
 
 The best name ever given to a church is that 
 of "All-Souls." Because this may have all the 
 significance which each individual soul may give 
 it, and none can quarrel with others about any 
 theological definition of that phrase. It may be 
 broad enough to comprehend the soul of the
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 109 
 
 universe, and the soul of humanity, God, and 
 man ; for " all souls are akin." Let churches 
 be founded on religion instead of theology, and 
 they will at once be for " all souls." The dif- 
 ference between the apprehension and compre- 
 hension of the divine nature, character, and 
 government is immense. 
 
 Religion as a sentiment, as a sense of the 
 divine presence, care, and love, of reverence, of 
 duty and obligation, is the same everywhere, 
 through all the ages. All men feel it more or 
 less distinctly, and give spiritual homage and 
 obedience to more or less worthy objects. All 
 souls are thus united in religion. But in theol- 
 ogy all is reversed. This is the intellectual con- 
 ception of the Infinite and Incomprehensible by 
 each individual or sect. This differs, and always 
 must differ, according to the different conditions 
 of their minds, their depth and breadth of cul- 
 ture, their logical or illogical methods of reason- 
 ing, and all that makes or mars their intellectual 
 character. Union on any such basis ever has 
 been, and ever will be, impossible. 
 
 The church of "all souls," then, is the church 
 of all truly religious souls, of whatever theology,
 
 110 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of whatever name, nation, or other ever-varying 
 intellectual conditions. 
 
 Among my most intelligent hearers and warm- 
 est friends at N. were Quakers, Spiritualists, 
 Universalists, and Swedenborgians. And I al- 
 ways felt that I had gone deepest and preached 
 best when my discourses met the highest appro- 
 bation of all these different classes of persons, 
 when each was satisfied to find his special truth 
 fully recognized in the larger or whole truth 
 thus presented. I had been here several years 
 when, coming out of church one Sunday, a good 
 Swedenborgian said to me, " You must at some 
 time of your life have been a diligent student 
 of Swedenborg. In your discourse to-day, and 
 often, I have been reminded of this." To his 
 great astonishment, I told him I had never read 
 Swedenborg at all at any time. I had, doubt- 
 less, come to many of his conclusions in a differ- 
 ent way, from a different stand-point. And 
 what practical difference can it make how we 
 come to them, whose name they take, or where 
 they are found, whether in Vedas, Korans, or 
 Bibles, whether in nature, the human soul, or 
 through personal experiences of life ? The diffi-
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Ill 
 
 culty with all sects is their narrowness, assump- 
 tion, and patronage of religion. Whenever they 
 hear any thing they like from others they imme- 
 diately claim it as their own. They say, " These 
 are our doctrines; this is Spiritualism, this is 
 Universalism, this is Quakerism, or this is 
 Swedenborgianism," when in fact it is neither. 
 It is the truth. It is common to all great, ear- 
 nest, religious souls all the world over in pro- 
 portion to their capacity and purity. All who 
 cast off the fetters of authority and tradition, 
 who think for themselves and think deeply, 
 think alike or come to similar conclusions. It 
 is chaotic, sectarian thought, or rather thought- 
 lessness, that makes the sects so exclusive and 
 aggressive towards one another. It is from the 
 want of a true method of religious inquiry. 
 There are no sects in science. Some persons in 
 each department see more and know more than 
 others, but so far as they do see and know they 
 see and know alike. The new departure of the 
 religious world, the only effective movement it 
 can make, is the introduction of the scientific 
 method of investigation for all subjects of reli- 
 gious interest. It is only shallow, empirical,
 
 112 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 textual thought that here divides and alienates 
 men. 
 
 My position at N. had been, in many ways, 
 favorable to the development of this order of 
 thought. My frequent, almost daily, walk ter- 
 minated on a bluff which commanded the grand- 
 est view of the heaven above and the ocean 
 around me ; and as I rested there above the 
 beautiful beach, watching the motion of the 
 great waves as they broke on the shores with 
 such infinite variety and power, my thoughts 
 would go sounding on and on to the infinite in 
 every direction. There is no influence of nature 
 so enlarging and inspiring as that which comes 
 from the vast, unfathomable ocean. There was 
 nothing to arrest or break my thought between 
 me and the whole Eastern Continent. All the 
 historical places of the old world, so distant, 
 seemed so near. I was daily familiar with that 
 element which alone unites all the islands and 
 continents of the earth ; which alone has re- 
 mained unchanged through all the ages ; the 
 one means of intercourse for all nations and 
 races of men. What wonder that the world 
 should seem larger as we stand by the side of
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 113 
 
 that which unites the whole earth and reflects 
 the whole heavens ! What wonder that in 
 leaving such scenes and influences, and going 
 out into the world of men, with its little ways 
 and purposes, with its narrowing, irritating, and 
 dividing theological contentions, I should find 
 some of my greatest trials, that it should be 
 long before I again found a new home or the 
 old peace ! 
 
 My church was closed the 1st of May, and it 
 was a whole year before I found another parish. 
 Of the summer's experience I have already 
 spoken. November had come without any 
 results, and I must take my family somewhere 
 where I could be nearer or go and come with 
 much less expense. The church was again 
 opened, I preached my farewell sermon, and 
 began to make immediate preparations for a 
 final departure. 
 
 Whither ? was still the question. I had spent 
 here the best part of my life ; had preacl ed 
 year after year, Sunday after Sunday, in the 
 morning to a regular congregation, in the even- 
 ing to free public meetings, both always well 
 attended ; visiting families and schools, attend-
 
 114 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ing teachers' meetings, temperance meetings, 
 debating societies, and all the various public 
 duties of such a position in such a place. I had 
 lived in kindly personal relations with all, no 
 family had ever left my society to go to any 
 other, and yet here was a failure. I must go. 
 Whither ? and what my means ? For all this 
 labor, care, and responsibility I had received 
 one thousand dollars a year, the last six 
 months my uncertain income was two hundred 
 dollars less than the absolute necessities of my 
 family required. And now I must go some- 
 where and do something. Whither? What? 
 At any former period, or in any other circum- 
 stances, this people would not have allowed me 
 to go in this condition with my large family 
 and such an uncertain future. As it was, poor 
 as all felt, and many had become, they presented 
 me with enough to discharge my obligations, 
 and I must go as poor as I came, and, as the 
 sequel will show, even poorer. 
 
 I put all I had in the world (except two or 
 three trunks with change of clothing) into a 
 packet bound for Boston, and started with my 
 family by another conveyance, and rented a small
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 115 
 
 house in one of the suburbs of the city, daily 
 expecting the arrival of my furniture. After a 
 week's disappointment we learned that this 
 packet had struck on a shoal, sprung a leak, and 
 was full of water. Here were my books, bed- 
 ding, furniture, and every thing was ruined. I 
 got some of my best things afterwards, but they 
 were so damaged that they were scarcely worth 
 the freight I paid on them. Here endeth this 
 sketch of my life at N., a fitting close to a 
 series of disasters which could neither have 
 been foreseen nor prevented.
 
 116 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 DECEMBER 1, 1850. Dear old home broken up, 
 furniture wrecked and ruined, irregular and 
 poorly paid employment, house rented, but 
 nothing to put in it except wife and seven chil- 
 dren, no prospect of a merry Christmas or a 
 happy New Year. 
 
 At this darkest period friends and acquaint- 
 ances helped us to the amount of one hundred 
 and fifty dollars, and we got through the win- 
 ter, I scarcely know how. We had come 
 from a mild, genial climate, and this winter was 
 one of uncommon severity. I made long jour- 
 neys over New England, and after deducting 
 travelling expenses returned with less than an 
 average of ten dollars a Sunday; preached a 
 month at A., riding twenty miles in hot cars and 
 eight in a cold open sleigh, and sleeping in an 
 icy cold room. The result of this winter's 
 anxiety and exposure was an inflammatory rheu- 
 matism, which lasted me through nine weeks of
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 117 
 
 the spring. And so on to the end of a whole 
 chapter that might be written of this kind of 
 life. 
 
 Before I had fully recovered my health 1 
 received an invitation to take charge of a society 
 at E., a few miles from the city. The village 
 was only a few years old, but of great prospec- 
 tive importance ; the society was small in num- 
 ber, but large in variety and weight of character. 
 A few of the best families I have ever known 
 had early settled there, and had left their im 
 pression on the whole place. They had started 
 this liberal religious movement at the village 
 hall, with the expectation that they would soon 
 outgrow it and be able to build a church. When 
 I went there these anticipations seemed to be 
 well founded. But suddenly the tide of emi- 
 gration from Boston ceased, or was turned to 
 another part of the town, and I think there was 
 not another house built during the two years of 
 my residence there. In this we were all greatly 
 disappointed. Here I had a free pulpit and a 
 united society, but none of the expected growth 
 on which the whole movement was based. I 
 struggled along for two years, and then re-
 
 118 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 signed. Here again was what is generally 
 called a failure ; but as I now look back upon 
 those years, and see how they affected the cur- 
 rents of my thought and feeling, how they 
 introduced me to the companionship of some 
 of the choicest spirits of New England, I am 
 devoutly thankful even for the whole experi- 
 ence, sadly as it terminated. 
 
 Here my eldest daughter was married, and my 
 second son received into the family of a very 
 dear old friend to prepare for college. Five 
 were left to be provided for, and we were to go 
 out into the world to begin again. Whither ? 
 and to what purpose ? This repeated question 
 grows more appalling as we grow older and 
 increase this kind of experience. Again I am 
 not ready to answer the question, and so will 
 speak more fully of this important period. The 
 outward life of any person is of little account 
 except as an illustration of the public life of his 
 time, or of the public work he is attempting 
 to do. 
 
 In the last two years of the first half and the 
 first two of the present half of this nineteenth 
 century there seemed to be a general culmina-
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 119 
 
 tion of all kinds of institutions, influences, and 
 opinions. Previous to 1848 there had been a 
 long period of restless, aimless agitation in 
 Church and State in Europe and in this country. 
 Society had long been drifting away from its old 
 moorings, many signals had been set for a pilot, 
 but none appeared with credentials to inspire 
 confidence, or with power to take the helm. 
 Some would say, " Lo, here ; " and others, " Lo, 
 there:" and excited companies were seen run- 
 ning in every direction. All was chaotic, and 
 seemed to answer no one great purpose. At 
 last crystallization commenced around the prin- 
 ciples of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. 
 These words meant something at that time. 
 " Liberty," in opposition to all kinds of arbitrary 
 despotic authority. " Equality," equal rights 
 before the law. " Fraternity," recognition of 
 social obligations, brotherhood of races 'and 
 nations, co-operation instead of the reckless 
 competition that was crushing out and destroy- 
 ing such multitudes of men everywhere. All 
 at once these electric words seemed to kindle 
 the hearts of whole nations into a flame. Great 
 standing armies -and fortifications all turned
 
 120 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 against Louis Philippe. He fled from his back 
 door in disguise, a wandering exile. Light 
 broke out from the darkest places ; even the 
 Pope turned reformer. Austria, Prussia, Italy, 
 Naples, Sicily, Bavaria, Switzerland, in fact, all 
 Europe was convulsed by the new spirit. The 
 noblest men in France were placed in the high- 
 est public positions. The great-headed Mazzini, 
 and the great-hearted Garibaldi, and the elo- 
 quent-lipped Kossuth, who devoted both head 
 and heart to the cause of liberty, all such men 
 everywhere came to the front as leaders of the 
 new movement. Never before had there been 
 such a general awakening, such a deep moral 
 enthusiasm for a new condition of society. 
 
 In a short time the same influence began to 
 pervade our American life. We began to feel 
 exceedingly ashamed of being ruled by a little 
 slaveholding oligarchy. We put a new party 
 into possession of our government that prom- 
 ised to resist the aggressions of this faction, and 
 throw our whole influence on the side of our 
 national principles. This new Whig party, now 
 deceased, was composed of the best materials 
 the country afforded, and we had every reason
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 121 
 
 to rejoice in its victory. Thus at home and 
 abroad the closing years of this half century 
 seemed auspicious to liberty, justice, and all the 
 great interests of humanity. 
 
 Soon, however, a reaction commenced both 
 here and in Europe, and was followed by a cor- 
 responding degradation and ruin. Every hope 
 seemed to be blighted in the general moral sub- 
 serviency to political power and material inter- 
 ests. The perjured Louis Napoleon led off in 
 Europe by wholesale slaughter and banishment, 
 the slave power here became triumphant through 
 the very party that was elected to oppose it, the 
 greatest men bowed before it, the humiliating 
 fugitive slave law was passed, and the free States 
 were made hunting-grounds for our Southern 
 masters. The old traitors to liberty in Rome 
 were re-established by French bayonets. Rus- 
 sia and Austria combined to replace the old 
 feudal tyranny in Hungary. The great Hunga- 
 rian, with his whole soul aflame with the spirit 
 of freedom, went to England to plead for sym- 
 pathy and assistance, and found no response 
 from her government. He came here to awaken 
 us to the importance of this trying hour. Con- 
 6
 
 122 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 gress gave him politic and formal compliments, 
 but the nation would do nothing in his behalf 
 that would endanger its ruling interests. Never 
 was there such a sacred eloquence as his, such 
 appeals to all the higher nature of men, as he 
 made to us and the English people. In what 
 was called " The Cradle of American Liberty," 
 Faneuil Hall, he wanted us to leave out the 
 word " American," and say simply "Liberty," 
 liberty as a principle, the same for all nations 
 and races of men. By so many illustrations from 
 history, experience, and all the great principles 
 of political economy, he tried to show us all 
 how narrow and short-sighted was our present 
 policy, how truly the real interests of each were 
 the real interests of all. The grestt leaders in 
 the anti-slavery cause thundered and lightened 
 in the same direction ; but all seemed to be in 
 vain. It was the darkest period that had come 
 upon the world in a whole century. A sys- 
 tematic demoralization had commenced. The 
 
 ( 
 
 pulpit and press had changed their tone to suit 
 the leaders of sects and parties, and the reaction 
 was everywhere complete. France, which for 
 centuries had stood at the head of the civilized
 
 AN AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 123 
 
 world, the central light and glory of Europe, at 
 last bartered away every thing for her material 
 interests and personal pleasures, and settled 
 down into the quiet of a most contemptible 
 despotism. 
 
 England had stood aloof from the struggling 
 nations of Europe, had repressed her instincts 
 of humanity, her generous sympathies for the 
 cause of freedom, and thus allowed the perjured 
 tyrants to gain an ascendancy. She threw away 
 her best opportunity of extending her moral 
 influence over those nations, and binding them 
 to her for ever. She sacrificed every thing that 
 has ever been held sacred on earth for trade and 
 commerce. Our position was as much worse 
 as our pretensions were greater. Our fugitive 
 slave law was published in various nations and 
 languages, and oppressors everywhere saw that 
 a people who, against all their moral and reli- 
 gious convictions, against all the principles on 
 which their own national existence was based, 
 against all the principles for which their fathers 
 lived and died, would make and enforce such a 
 law as that, would submit to any thing which 
 they thought for their present interests, and
 
 124 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 therefore that no interference, no defence of in- 
 ternational laws, were to be expected or feared 
 from this quarter. So general, so appalling was 
 this fanaticism of evil, that many individuals 
 were overwhelmed with humiliation and shame, 
 many others burst out into a rage of indignation 
 that could not be quenched or even suppressed. 
 My own position and feelings in regard to these 
 things may be most clearly seen in the following 
 extract from an address delivered and published 
 in February, 1852 : 
 
 " When the reactionists see that men are almost 
 wholly given to idolatry, to an exclusive mammon 
 worship, that they have lost their faith and moral 
 courage, that the chivalric, self-sacrificing, heroic 
 spirit is dying out of society in the universal pres- 
 ence of the commercial spirit, they have nothing to 
 fear. When they hear men ridiculing all as fools 
 and fanatics who preach obedience to a higher law 
 cftan that of the selfish and profligate politicians, 
 who place the rights of humanity above the rights 
 of property, and see that there is something better 
 than peace and comfort, when they hear this in 
 the most advanced portion of the earth, they may 
 well see that their success is assured, that if they can 
 silence or brand with obloquy the few fanatics of the 
 time their way is all clear before them.
 
 AN AUTOBIOGKAPHY. 125 
 
 " Oh, my friends, when I compare past ages with 
 the present, in this respect, I feel a degree of disap- 
 pointment and humiliation that I cannot express. I 
 feel that I should be willing to give up all that we 
 have gained for that noble, disinterested, heroic 
 spirit we have lost. I feel that we are purchasing 
 peace and comfort at the most terrible sacrifices. I 
 feel that the public mind and heart is paralyzed by 
 this all-pervading selfishness and sensuality. I hear 
 men on all occasions, both in speech and action, im- 
 plying that there is no good so great, nothing so 
 sacred, as property; that moral cowardice is wisdom 
 and prudence ; that there is nothing that they will not 
 sacrifice on the altar of mammon, till I begin to 
 feel as if Satan had already got possession of the 
 world, and we were living under some demoniac 
 spell which we have lost the power to break. 
 
 "When I think what a general absence of all great 
 principles there is in politics and religion, what a 
 tame, servile, sordid, enervating, compromising spirit 
 pervades modern society, I do not see from what 
 quarter any effectual resistance is to be expected. I 
 do not see where the encroachments of any kind of 
 oppression are to be stopped. And this thought 
 oppresses me beyond endurance. I feel that there 
 is such a thing as divine anger, as a holy war ; and 
 that the time has come for it to commence. Oh, that 
 some Peter the Hermit would arise, and preach up 
 a crusade against the moneyed feudalism of this age
 
 12(5 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 that is so rapidly enslaving even the greatest minds 
 and corrupting the noblest hearts, a crusade to 
 take and guard the holy sepulchres of politics and 
 religion from far more dangerous foes than Turks or 
 heathens. 
 
 " A man whom Dr. Johnson once reproved for fol- 
 lowing a useless and demoralizing business, said in 
 excuse, ' You know, doctor, that I must live.' This 
 brave old hater of every thing mean and hateful coolly 
 replied, that ' he did not see the least necessity for 
 that.' And so I would say to those who are now 
 for giving up every thing for peace and life, who are 
 daily sacrificing all their highest convictions and 
 sympathies to their business and interests, there is 
 no necessity at all for your living. The world would 
 be better off without you. If you cannot live with- 
 out smothering all that is noble, generous, and manly 
 within you, you can die. There are many things 
 that are better than life, for which life should be 
 freely sacrificed ; and if you are so corrupted that 
 you cannot see and feel this truth, the sooner you 
 die the better : you will only be corrupting others. 
 There is not the least necessity for your living. 
 Those who think that they must live at any price, that 
 they must have peace and physical comfort and lux- 
 ury, are already dead as men ; and it is the multi- 
 tudes of such persons that give society its present 
 tone and character. Oh ! if there is nothing better 
 than what men are now generally living for; if there
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 127 
 
 is nothing better for men than to eat and drink and 
 enjoy themselves, then ,1, for one, have lived long 
 enough. I am tired of the world and all its con- 
 cerns. But it may be asked what I would have men 
 do ; if I would have them engage in a war against 
 the usurpers and oppressors. And I answer, No: 
 not a war of the common kind, where we cannot face 
 the real tyrants, but only their poor hireling dupes 
 and tools; though I do not regard any war as half 
 so great an evil as that state of society which makes 
 not even life worth contending for. No: we have 
 but to change the purpose and spirit of our life to 
 make war unnecessary, to raise up a power which 
 no tyranny could long withstand. But so long as 
 we occupy our present moral position, so long as we 
 show ourselves ready to give up every thing to our 
 interests, so long as our highest watchwords are 
 peace and union, there will be war, war of the 
 worst kind, war upon all the rights of men, war 
 upon all that renders life worth possessing and de- 
 fending. 
 
 " A single instance is sufficient to show what this 
 power is that we so greatly need, and how it is 
 dreaded by the enemies of freedom. The despots 
 of Europe, hedged around as they are with bayonets, 
 fear one poor helpless exile who truly represents 
 great principles, who has the heart, the faith, the 
 spirit of a man in him, so much that the whole 
 power of their diplomacy and money is used to slan-
 
 128 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 der him, and thus destroy his influence. Now, sup- 
 pose this nation as truly represented and stood by 
 the same principles, suppose we all had the same 
 incorruptible, indomitable, heroic spirit, could we 
 not cause the international laws to be respected 
 without war? Would not war be the last thing 
 thought of? Could we not express our thoughts 
 upon international questions, could we not say our 
 souls were our own, if we had any, without counting 
 the cost ? Tyrants and dastards, knowing their own 
 weakness, never fear dastards. It is true, God-fear- 
 ing men only, men and nations who have great 
 principles to defend, and brave souls to defend them, 
 that they fear. 
 
 " We see, then, why the nations have fallen, what 
 our difficulty and danger is, and why we are so afraid 
 of war. Just in proportion as we become men, and 
 learn to value and respect the rights of men, the 
 causes and probabilities of war will be diminished. 
 We must be something, and feel that we have some- 
 thing worth contending for, before we can have any 
 true and lasting peace at home or abroad." 
 
 This may appear a gloomy and exaggerated 
 view of the spirit of the times ; but the reader 
 must remember that the picture was drawn 
 twenty years ago, and engraved by many cir- 
 cumstances and influences that are inexpressible 
 and almost inconceivable now: when Massa-
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 129 
 
 chusetts troops were used to take Anthony 
 Burns through State Street back into slavery ; 
 when I stood there and saw so many eyes flash 
 with anger, so many weeping with sorrow and 
 shame, and heard so many excited men swear 
 by all that was holy to them and their fathers 
 that these outrages against liberty and human- 
 ity should be resisted even unto death. No, 
 the sacrifices to political and sectarian expedi- 
 ency, the degrading subserviency of our public 
 men ; the worldly, timid, craven spirit of society 
 at this period, could not, by any language, be 
 exaggerated. 
 
 6
 
 130 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 XV. 
 
 IT was at this exciting time my ministry at E. 
 closed ; N and I was to go out again to find an- 
 other parish that might want my services. The 
 society here, before I came to it, had received 
 assistance from a rich city society ; but when it 
 took the liberty to invite me to become its min- 
 ister, this assistance was at once refused. The 
 expenses of living at E. were necessarily large, 
 as they are in all the suburbs of a great city. 
 But my income was only eight hundred per 
 year, less than one hundred each for our 
 family. This, following my loss by shipwreck, 
 transient employment, and long, severe illness 
 of a previous year, left me in the most uncertain 
 and destitute condition. What had I done ? 
 What crime had I committed that the two hun- 
 dred formerly given to my society should be 
 withheld in such a time of need? I did not 
 then inquire or complain, because I perfectly 
 understood the whole matter. The old objec-
 
 AN AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 131 
 
 tions to me at R. were greater than ever. I 
 would in my preaching persist in connecting 
 religion with life, with present circumstances, 
 duties, and obligations ; would not go back to 
 Noah and his old ark ; would not preach against 
 the sins of the Jews, against sin in general, 
 or sin in the abstract, but against the par- 
 ticular sins that did then and there "most 
 easily beset us ; " would explain away some 
 miracle, endanger some popular theological 
 dogma ; would occasionally bring into the pulpit 
 temperance, anti-slavery, or some other topics 
 about which there was great difference of opin- 
 ion : and this the public had decided should not 
 be done. What wonder that the leaders of this 
 old, respectable, conservative society should 
 decide against helping anybody who gave me 
 countenance or support in such a course ? 
 
 One of these representative men said to me at 
 this time that he had no objections to our estab- 
 lishing papers and employing lectures to diffuse 
 our opinions on any of these secular subjects, 
 but that the pulpit was no place and Sunday no 
 time for such kind of influences ; that the 
 church was sacred to the worship of God, and
 
 132 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 whoever attempted to do more would only do 
 more harm, by distracting and dividing our 
 congregations. 
 
 My reply was, " So much the worse for these 
 people if they can be so alienated from each 
 other, if they can tolerate no difference of 
 opinion, if they cannot welcome or treat with 
 hospitality any new or strange thought. They 
 all the more need the agitation it is calculated 
 to produce. Your true position is with the 
 Catholics. Their great cathedrals are built 
 expressly for this one purpose. They are 
 adapted to processions, ceremonies, and shows 
 of all kinds. The priests have their parts all 
 arranged. They are the actors in this solemn 
 dramatic service, and the whole expresses 
 exactly what is there understood by religious 
 worship. I am only surprised, sir, that you 
 should call yourself a Unitarian, or even a 
 Protestant." 
 
 In all our societies there were persons who 
 objected to the discussion of controversial sub- 
 jects on the ground that some minds might be 
 disturbed and unsettled by such means. They 
 regarded agitation as an evil to be studiously
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 133 
 
 avoided. One of our clergymen at the close of 
 a long ministry congratulated his parishioners 
 that they had remained in repose amidst all the 
 controversies and excitements of this period. 
 
 Another, at the close of a twenty-five years' 
 ministry, took great credit to himself for keep- 
 ing, with the help of his parishioners, all the 
 isms out of their town; and he might have 
 added an equal amount of intellectual activity 
 also. He died soon after and his society would 
 have done the same if it had only had life 
 enough. It had candidates for two years only 
 because nobody felt interest enough to get up a 
 parish meeting and call one of this great num- 
 ber. / When this fact was related to me by the 
 chairman of the committee, and I asked him 
 what was the matter with the society, the reply 
 was, " I do not know that it has any particular 
 disease except the dry rot." He did not, how- 
 ever, see the intimate connection between this 
 fact and the other, that their late minister had 
 kept all the isms out of the town,, was never in 
 earnest except in opposing all the new modes of 
 thought and action. I told him I had much 
 experience in different places in regard to this
 
 134 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 matter, and had found in the towns where they 
 had taken the isms when they first came along, 
 in the natural course of things, as children take 
 the measles, mumps, and hooping-cough, the 
 people were intellectually a quarter of a century 
 in advance of other towns like his; that they 
 would have to entertain them sooner or later, 
 and the more out of season the more violent and 
 dangerous they would be ; that I did not have 
 the measles until I was nearly forty years old, 
 and then they almost killed me. Not long after 
 this conversation the peace of that eminently 
 conservative town and parish was disturbed by 
 Spiritualism ; and all the isms rushed in with it. 
 The reaction was in proportion to repression, 
 and unseasonableness. When these Rip Van 
 Winkles were fully awakened they did not 
 know where they were, or what to make of 
 things ; they belonged to a past age, and could 
 not readily fit into this. 
 
 The peace of cowardice, indolence, and in- 
 action, which is the idol of so many Protestant 
 sectarian societies, is the peace of the stagnant 
 pool. It is as bad as the Catholic's peace of 
 mental despotism. Those who do not dare to
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 135 
 
 reason at all, about religious matters, are on 
 the same plane as those who do not dare to 
 accept the results of their reasoning. 
 
 Such a peace was not possible even for the 
 Roman Church when it had kings and emperors, 
 all civil power under its control ; and certainly, 
 since the time of Luther, there has been no ten- 
 dency in this direction. Individuality and con- 
 flict of opinion are always and everywhere the 
 signs of mental activity. If men think at all 
 they must and will think differently. There is 
 and can be no undisputed dogmatical ecclesias- 
 tical or church refuge. The ritualistic, timid, 
 indolent, unthinking multitudes may go on seek- 
 ing such refuge, but it will be with no better 
 success than in the past. 
 
 All mental insurrections and Protestant refor- 
 mations, all divisions and strifes attending the 
 modern increase of individuality, bring wi*h 
 them great evils and dangers ; but these are 
 nothing compared with the mental activity which 
 is thus awakened and increased. Every intelli- 
 gent physician knows how much more hope he 
 has of a fever than of palsy ; of any acute, pain- 
 ful disease than of the dull, insidious " dry rot."
 
 136 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 If we would have neither religious fever nor 
 palsy we must comply with the conditions of 
 life, health, and growth. We must have a living 
 sympathy with our time, with the spirit of our 
 age, must open our minds to its inspirations, 
 check its excesses, and guide to good ends all 
 its highest influences. 
 
 There is nothing so prejudicial to mental and 
 spiritual health as an exclusive sentimental con- 
 servatism, which makes every thing, even truth 
 and duty, subordinate to an indolent, selfish, 
 complacent repose. 
 
 In those days, when these political and re- 
 ligious excitements were at their height, there 
 was no great demand for this plain, outspoken 
 way of presenting the subjects in controversy, 
 in the pulpit, or out of it. Societies chose their 
 ministers as they did their church-bells, for 
 their tone. Under the most harmless discourses, 
 many persons could see some latent heresy or 
 implied reform. The leading men were always 
 watching for something which they could turn 
 to account in some way. Parish committees 
 who had vacant pulpits to supply were exceed- 
 ingly anxious about their candidates. In one
 
 AN AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 137 
 
 society, where I had been invited to preach a 
 few Sundays, there was a great effort made to 
 have me understand that my audience would 
 not expect me to introduce any exciting topic. 
 This committee did every thing but ask me what 
 my subject was to be ; and, to relieve them of 
 their anxiety, I promised to be as dull, stupid, 
 and commonplace as possible. At this time it 
 was very difficult for me to find any employ- 
 ment, except in poor, distant, out-of-the-way 
 places. Not that I was in the habit of saying 
 very shocking things, or discussing secular, to 
 the neglect of strictly religious subjects ; but, 
 from the frankness of my nature, my leanings 
 could always be seen, and in the sensitive state 
 of the public mind my reformatory tone was 
 always too decided. Of the treatment then 
 received I had no complaint to make ; expected 
 nothing better, so was not disappointed or 
 soured by it. But in my circumstances, I was 
 living at great cost, and the reader can easily 
 see that these were times that "tried men's 
 souls " far more than in our country's first 
 revolution. 
 
 In this connection I have reason to remember
 
 138 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 a conversation with a distinguished lawyer who 
 introduced himself as I was coming out of 
 church, and invited me home to dine with him. 
 This was in a State I had never visited before, 
 and we were both strangers to each other. 
 " Where are you settled ? " he inquired. " No- 
 where." " I thought so. The reason I asked 
 was the desire to know where there was a society 
 with whom such discourses as you gave us to- 
 day could be popular. Are you independent 
 in your circumstances?" "No, very poor." 
 " Not married, I hope ? " " Yes, and a large 
 family depending on me." " Well, I know not 
 how it is in other sections of the country, but 
 in this neighborhood you would have to preach 
 differently, or not be allowed to preach at all. 
 I think you have made a mistake, not in your 
 calling, or in your style of preaching, but in 
 marrying. I am an advocate for the celibacy 
 of the clergy. A man has a right to sacrifice 
 himself to any extent he chooses, but he has no 
 right to sacrifice his wife and children. No man 
 who is fit for our ministry, at the present time, 
 ought to marry, unless he is rich, marries a rich 
 wife, or has some commanding intellectual or
 
 AN AUTOBIOGKAPH^. 139 
 
 social position which will secure his indepen- 
 dence. In other denominations, where all is 
 routine, creed, and liturgy, things may go on 
 indefinitely, as they do now ; but with us there 
 must be some great change before pulpits and 
 pews come into right or peaceful relations to 
 each other, or before either party can get the 
 benefits of that individualism on which our 
 whole system of religious thought and action is 
 founded." 
 
 Here was something for me to consider. 
 Here was a wise, liberal, practical layman, 
 who, from the outside, saw the whole mat- 
 ter in its true light. He saw that we had 
 planted ourselves on a new principle, and that 
 in proportion as we were true to it we should 
 come in conflict with the world ; that no prog- 
 ress could be made on the peace of mental 
 ind ; fference, or the peace of spiritual despotism : 
 that those who see clearly and feel deeply the 
 great issues of this conflict must now, as ever, 
 go before, bearing the cross, and wearing the 
 crown of thorns. Personally, I had a right 
 to do, dare, and suffer as I pleased, but I 
 had no right to sacrifice others. This was a
 
 140 AN AUTOBIOGKAPHY. 
 
 long, and to me, extremely interesting conver- 
 sation, from the intimate knowledge which this 
 very intelligent layman seemed to have of the 
 real difficulties of any progressive reform min- 
 istry
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 141 
 
 XVI. 
 
 ABOUT this time an old friend and former 
 parishioner became president of a promising 
 Western college, and offered me what we both 
 thought in many respects a good situation there. 
 It would give me a permanent home, and, what 
 was becoming still more important, the educa- 
 tion of my children without any necessity of 
 leaving my profession. Its acceptance involved 
 the sacrifice of much that was personally near 
 and dear to us all ; but we did not hesitate to 
 go, thinking that now we should have something 
 to depend upon more stable, more independent 
 of all sects and parties. It was a long journey. 
 I had never been in any part of the great West, 
 and like most Eastern people thought of it as a 
 kind of paradise where we were to be free from 
 many of the evils which we experience in New 
 England. 
 
 A greater and more general mistake was 
 never made. Each section has its advantages 
 and disadvantages. But for a poor man, with
 
 142 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 cultivated tastes and studious habits, the pre- 
 ponderance is altogether in favor of the East.* 
 Every thing was so new, unfinished, unsettled, 
 and disorderly, that I was at first much dis- 
 turbed and disappointed. It was very hard for 
 me to get accustomed to duties so much out of 
 the range of my experience, and yet no sooner 
 had I done so and got reconciled to the great 
 change than the college failed, a total change 
 was made in my department, my office was 
 abolished, my friend, the president, died, and I 
 was obliged to come away. Here was my 
 failure number four, the greatest of all. Our 
 travelling and moving expenses were paid ; but 
 what compensation for such a year's life was 
 this? 
 
 In taking this position I had not left my 
 profession ; had started a liberal society at the 
 capital of the State, seventy-five miles distant ; 
 had gone there Saturday nights, returning Mon- 
 day mornings : but the movement, after several 
 months' trial, was not successful enough to 
 warrant my removal there. Hence the old 
 question again, Whither shall we go ? what shall 
 
 * See "Essay on Social or Common-wealth."
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 143 
 
 we do ? more appalling than ever now, as we 
 were so far away and where we were so little 
 known. In these circumstances, at my time of 
 life, this trial seemed to me greater than I could 
 bear. I knew by former experience at R., N., 
 and E. that the public never stopped to inquire 
 or call for the causes of individual failure ; that 
 it recognizes and worships only success. It is 
 always easier to suppose the former lies in some 
 special unfitness or general want of capacity. 
 All my acquaintance and friends were in the 
 East, and back here I came to begin again with 
 the additional burden of another failure. Rented 
 a house in the old neighborhood where we went 
 when we left N., and there spent another awful 
 winter in the same way. The same old war- 
 ories of sect and party were louder and shriller 
 than ever. The period was just preceding one 
 of our presidential elections, when all the worst 
 elements of American society were let loose, and 
 called into active service by the most unscrupu- 
 lous partisans, when everybody seems to get 
 crazy with excitement about things of small 
 consequence and smaller men, on the election of 
 whom they make the salvation of the country
 
 144 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 to depend. This year the old words were used 
 with such bitterness that it seemed to me they 
 must be immediately followed by blows. 
 
 I had been absent from New England eighteen 
 months, had seen much of the Great West, and 
 found that this ocean of land had an effect on 
 my mind similar to the ocean of water as before 
 described at N. Every thing was so free, and 
 on such a large scale, that I found in all a sense 
 of mental repose which kept small things from 
 seeming great. I had in these new scenes been 
 occupied with new cares and duties ; and when 
 I came back here, unaffected by the prevalent 
 insanities, I found myself alone and of no con- 
 sequence. ' In private discussions, in public 
 meetings, everywhere, there was an overwhelm- 
 ing amount of intolerance, of angry, personal 
 feeling, in Church and State. 
 
 This condition of the public mind led me to 
 prepare a discourse on the subject of hospitality 
 in general, and mental hospitality in particular. 
 The first opportunity for delivering it occurred 
 in the neighborhood where the great excitement 
 about witchcraft commenced. 
 
 I spoke of hospitality in Bible times and Ori-
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 145 
 
 ental countries, of that which is still displayed 
 in our new States and sparsely populated regions 
 of the great West, and which was passing away 
 with the multiplication of inhabitants, with the 
 improvements of the arts, with the diffusion of 
 the conveniences of life, with the increased fa- 
 cilities for travelling, and all the public accom- 
 modations which follow in the train of a higher 
 civilization. Next, when invitations are ex- 
 tended to friends, acquaintance, and neighbors 
 to join in social festivities, feasts, or the luxuries 
 of the table ; when those persons are called hos- 
 pitable who frequently entertain in this way. 
 Then it is luxury, variety, and profusion of food. 
 This period is mostly distinguished by its physi- 
 cal life, yet one in which good food is a rarity. 
 But as physical luxuries become common, this 
 form of hospitality passes away like the other. 
 
 When people generally have an abundance of 
 as good food every day as they want, this kind 
 of entertainment takes a very subordinate place. 
 When the physical wants are supplied, it is no 
 longer either a luxury or a necessity, and so 
 no longer real hospitality. This good old word 
 comes to have a far deeper and more sacred 
 7 j
 
 146 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 meaning in these later times. As men improve 
 their mental and spiritual condition, or have 
 these new kinds of wants to be supplied, a 
 mental and spiritual hospitality takes the place 
 of that which we hate noticed. People come 
 together, not for eating and drinking, but for 
 the pleasure and benefit of each other's dis- 
 course and society. They are entertained by 
 wit and wisdom instead of meat and pastry. 
 The hosts share their mental stores with their 
 guests as freely, or with the same hospitable 
 feeling, as the solitary families of the East share 
 their food and lodgings with the hungry and 
 weary stranger. Or they may merely give their 
 guests the means of entertaining each other. 
 Thus the principle is ever the same, and there 
 is ever about the same amount of this kind, 
 humane, free, and generous entertainment of 
 one by another ; but its form is ever changing 
 according to the condition and wants of men. 
 
 The most advanced portions of society here 
 in New England have reached a period in which 
 they feel the want of mental hospitality. They 
 feel the need of something more than the com- 
 monplace frivolities and conventionalities of the
 
 AN AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 147 
 
 fashionable party. The upholsterer anil cook 
 can no longer entertain them. They feel the 
 need of a freer, more elevating and instructive 
 social intercourse ; and those are now the most 
 truly hospitable persons who do the most to 
 supply this want. Hence it is that men of 
 intelligence and high moral cultivation often 
 feel more at home in the humble dwellings of 
 poor mechanics, where there is intellect and 
 heart, than in the splendid mansions of the rich, 
 where there is often only an outward life of 
 feasting, ostentation, and fashion. To this large 
 and increasing class of persons hospitality is 
 mental and spiritual sympathy, and they care 
 not whether they find it at the palace or at the 
 cottage. It has no necessary connection with 
 poverty or wealth. It does not depend on any 
 thing which the host or his guests have, but on 
 what they are. It is the mental and not the 
 physical nature that needs entertainment. 
 
 How unprofitable and unsatisfactory has 
 social life become, and what a means of im- 
 provement and happiness it might be made if 
 we would all exercise that true hospitality 
 towards each other which our age demands, and
 
 148 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 which is within the means of all, that of free, 
 open, liberal minds and hearts ! But before we 
 can do this we must learn to be more hospitable 
 to each other's thoughts or different ideas of 
 things. For why is there so much idle gossip, 
 so much mere chit-chat and nonsense now talked 
 over at social gatherings ? Because people can- 
 not tolerate any variety of opinion on subjects 
 of importance, and so there is a mutual under- 
 standing among them that none shall be intro- 
 duced. Whoever expresses any idea that is not 
 perfectly commonplace, that would lead to any 
 discussion or rational conversation, is regarded 
 as a dangerous person or as wanting in good 
 taste. Any subject about which there is any 
 difference of opinion only leads to division and 
 strife, and so by common consent the time of 
 social intercourse is generally given up to eating 
 and drinking, to frivolity and display. 
 
 What we want then is a mental hospitality 
 that will lead us to welcome and treat kindly 
 and considerately the thoughts as well as the 
 persons of our fellow-men. This sensitiveness 
 about opinions which is common in this region 
 at this time is fearfully oppressive to any person
 
 AN AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 149 
 
 who has been accustomed to a different atmos- 
 phere. The bigotry of our Puritan fathers 
 seems to have become organic in us. We no 
 longer banish and hang Quakers and witches, 
 because we have lost our interest in all theologi- 
 cal controversies ; but in the things we do care 
 about, in matters of sect and party, we seem to 
 be as narrow and bigoted as ever. When I was 
 out on the broad prairies of the West, with 
 nothing to break or limit my vision, with the 
 vast dome of the heavens above me, with the 
 horizon at equal but inconceivable distances 
 around me, I could draw a long breath and feel 
 that life was expansive and glorious. But 
 recently, since my return to this part of the 
 country, I begin to feel as if I were living in a 
 barrel, as if I should be smothered to death in 
 your excited, clamorous, public opinion. If I 
 have any new thought or feeling to express it 
 must be toned down till it loses all its freshness 
 and peculiarity. I must ask how A, B, and 
 C the leading men in certain religious socie- 
 ties or political parties will be likely to be 
 affected by it, what objections can possibly be 
 made to it, to what misinterpretations it is lia-
 
 150 AN AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 
 
 ble. If the thought or feeling is of a religious 
 character, I must hide it in some old phraseology, 
 in some mystical or sentimental expression. If 
 it belongs to any other department of life, it 
 must be put forth with great caution, in ' glit- 
 tering generalities," that can be used for all 
 purposes or none, according as different circum- 
 stances may require, and so no offence be given 
 to anybody. Now what right has anybody to 
 take offence at any honest expression of differ- 
 ences ? The great general principles of life are 
 not local or personal, and none but the narrow- 
 est minds could ever think of giving them any 
 personal character. 
 
 This sensitiveness about opinions deprives 
 us of the chief benefit of society. If we can- 
 not exchange thoughts, to what purpose do 
 we meet ? If we are too timid or intolerant to 
 entertain each other's honest convictions, we 
 had better not attempt to entertain each other's 
 persons. Those who refuse to have our thoughts 
 in their houses, who shut the door of conviction 
 against the truths we may bring with us, are 
 more rude and inhospitable than if they refused 
 us admission. Suppose some of these thoughts
 
 AN AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 151 
 
 which we freely and frankly express are new 
 and strange, unlike those which others cherish, 
 is it not by comparison and conflict of ideas that 
 truths are established and progress made ? Is 
 there any thing better calculated to enlarge our 
 minds, or help us to see every side of subjects, 
 than this variety of views ? May not some of 
 these thoughts be as angelic in their character 
 as some of those strangers whom the early Chris- 
 tians were exhorted to entertain ? How are we 
 to know this if we refuse to receive them, or to 
 give them any attention, if we frown down all 
 individuality and variety of thought ? If we 
 would not refuse to admit a stranger into our 
 houses on the ground that he was a stranger, 
 why should we on the same ground refuse to 
 receive strange ideas ? Why should we not 
 grant them the hospitality which they demand 
 while passing on the lonely by-ways of our life, 
 through the mental wilderness or the moral 
 deserts of society'? Why should we not freely 
 receive them into our minds, to examine their 
 character, and decide upon their merits? These 
 strange thoughts may be the heavenly visitants 
 that we most need. If they are not conveyed
 
 152 AN AUTOBIOGKAPHY. 
 
 by angels they may on this account be no less 
 suggestive or inspiring, may come as directly 
 from the angelic or higher world. Why should 
 we ever be less attentive and respectful to the 
 minds than to the bodies of those whom we 
 entertain ? While we do this we show that we 
 regard the physical wants as paramount to all 
 others. While we do this, the true pleasures and 
 advantages of society are not possible for us. 
 
 We see, then, that this mental hospitality is 
 the condition on which we may have that ra- 
 tional, instructing, and elevating social inter- 
 course which we so much need. Oh, how 
 delightful, how refreshing, this full, free, arid 
 confiding, spontaneous interchange of thoughts 
 and feelings would become ! How directly would 
 it serve to do away all our alienation and dis- 
 trust, and cause us to feel that we are all breth- 
 ren, pursuing similar objects, only by different 
 means, according to our various conditions and 
 culture. It is not well for us to confine our 
 civilities to those who think and feel as we 
 do. We may all give and receive something 
 from each other if we meet on the ground of a 
 true hospitality. We may find angels where
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 153 
 
 we looked only for demons ; we may find truths 
 where we looked only for errors. How are we 
 to know others, or they to know us, if we con- 
 tinue to cherish this inhospitable feeling ? if we 
 continue to meet in body and not in soul ? Oh, 
 we do long for the time when this great virtue 
 shall be based on spiritual rather than on bodily 
 wants, when our new and strange thoughts shall 
 be as kindly welcomed and as freely received 
 into the hearts of men as strangers are into their 
 homes ; when mentally and morally they will no 
 longer turn us away from the door of their minds 
 as if we were thieves or robbers ; when they will 
 feel that sympathy is as great a necessity for the 
 soul as food and shelter to the body ; when they 
 will be as ready to share their mental as their 
 physical food with us. We long for the time 
 when there shall be a brotherhood based on the 
 claims of the spiritual nature in man ; when all 
 shall recognize those claims, shall treat each 
 other with the same kindness and attention as 
 if all were angels, for this spiritual hospitality 
 would surely have the most angelic or elevating 
 tendency. We long for the time when all minds 
 shall be open to conviction on all subjects ; when 
 7
 
 154 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 men shall no longer be afraid to trust truth to 
 itself; when all great ideas shall have free course, 
 and be glorified as the source of all great actions 
 and institutions ; when no earnest, independent 
 thinker shall be made to give place in society to 
 those who merely echo the thoughts of others, 
 shall be turned away by his brethren and treated 
 as a stranger, as an outcast, with suspicion or 
 neglect because he brings new and strange 
 thoughts among them ; when he shall be wel- 
 comed by all as a sincere seeker of truth without 
 regard to the conclusions to which he may have 
 come ; when none shall longer refuse to unbar 
 the door of their mind to him till they have in- 
 quired into the number and character of the 
 articles in his social, political, or religious creed. 
 We long for the time when all this mental timid- 
 ity, this mental suspicion and inhospitality, shall 
 be done away ; when men shall everywhere feel 
 that their fellow-men have more claims upon 
 them than even the angels who may happen to 
 come in their company. 
 
 Let us do all in our power to hasten on this 
 good and happy time that is coming. To this 
 end let us never be forgetful to entertain stran-
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 155 
 
 gers, strange persons, or strange thoughts. 
 Let us treat both with equal hospitality. This 
 is a duty which we owe to the lonely and weary 
 thinker as truly as to the lonely and weary 
 traveller. And in this age it is a duty which, in 
 this its highest form, is constantly coming more 
 and more into requisition as people begin to 
 think for themselves, or to seek that mental and 
 moral independence which has been so long neg- 
 lected. It is a duty which we owe to ourselves, 
 to our own nature and culture ; for here, as in 
 every other department of life, we receive as we 
 give. All minds and hearts must open to those 
 who exercise this free, confiding mental gen- 
 erosity.
 
 156 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 MY last and only settlement after I came from 
 the West, was in an agricultural town, with 
 a small salary and extensive duties ; where 
 all the young people were going away, and 
 no others coming to take their places ; where 
 in two years I had but three weddings, and 
 where two of these brides went immediately 
 after to make their homes beyond the Missis- 
 sippi ; where the people who remained never 
 seemed to know what to make of me, or I of* 
 them. There was never any difficulty between 
 us, nor any sympathy. It was a mistake on both 
 sides, theirs in giving, and mine in accepting 
 the invitation. Our lives had been passed in 
 such different circumstances, our experience had 
 been so different, we had such different views 
 of the great purposes of a religious organization, 
 that I never could see why I should have been 
 selected for such a place. At the time, I sup- 
 posed my views and feelings in regard to the
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 157 
 
 exciting topics of the day were so well known 
 that the invitation was sympathetic on the part 
 of those who gave it. There was never any 
 attempt at coercion or intimidation. The pulpit 
 was free, but the pews were unimpressible. I 
 stayed in this place two years, was obliged to 
 move twice, and finally came away because there 
 was no other house in town into which we 
 could move. 
 
 If permanence of location, continuance in the 
 same field of labor, is any measure of success, 
 then here was the fifth failure. But there are 
 other and larger ways of looking at this matter, 
 other relations, influences, and success than these 
 direct ministerial efforts. This town was lack- 
 ing in public spirit in every direction. Its soil 
 was good, its scenery unsurpassed in variety and 
 beauty. It abounded in graceful hills, charm- 
 ing little ponds, and bold mountain views ; but 
 it was little known, had turned none of its 
 natural advantages to any account, its grave- 
 yard was in the middle of the town on a coarse 
 gravel knoll, where no green thing could ever 
 grow, its village had no sidewalks, its streets no 
 shade trees, it allowed a rich, wilful man year
 
 158 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 after year to turn back, for the sake of increas- 
 ing his grass crop, its only natural drainage, and 
 so every autumn had been greatly afflicted with 
 malarial or typhoid fevers; 
 
 These things had gone on in this way, not 
 because nobody saw, felt, or deplored them, but 
 because in these small towns there is so much 
 personal timidity, so much fear of making 
 enemies of their few neighbors and acquaint- 
 ance, that nobody likes to go forward in any 
 innovation or reform. Those who are termed 
 leading men are too often led by the fear of 
 losing position or popularity. Negative quali- 
 ties only are safe and in demand in such com- 
 munities. I had not been there long before 
 notice was given one Sunday in all the churches 
 that there would be an important public meet- 
 ing in the town hall the next Tuesday evening, 
 when a matter of great interest to all citizens 
 would be presented for discussion and action. 
 No one knew who called the meeting, or for 
 what purpose it was called. But when the 
 evening came the hall was crowded, and I ap- 
 peared on the platform to announce its object. 
 I spoke for half an hour, about local matters and
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 159 
 
 peculiarities, in that good-natured way that 
 could not offend their pride, of the decline of 
 population and its causes, of the strong tenden- 
 cies to concentration in great commercial and 
 manufacturing cities, and showed that if they 
 would not see their beautiful town go to ruin 
 they must adopt at once, and heartily, the only 
 course of action that was left to them. They 
 must turn to account their natural advantages 
 of location and scenery, that they had no 
 water-power to attract manufactures ; that 
 agriculture as a business, a means of wealth and 
 population, was out of the question ; and that 
 the thing for them to do was to make their 
 town attractive to strangers, to the city people 
 who were in the habit of spending their sum- 
 mers in the country, and that increasing class 
 who, as they got rich in cities, were buying the 
 beautiful places in their native towns, and thus 
 doing more for them in this way than they have 
 lost in another. I showed them how little was 
 required to make this one of the most attractive 
 places in New England ; and then pulled out 
 of my pocket a constitution and by-laws for 
 a Rural Improvement Society, explaining this
 
 160 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 indefinite name to cover all the various improve- 
 ments that I had in view. First of all, thorough 
 drainage ; removal of all local nuisance ; plant- 
 ing of shade-trees for the streets ; enclosure of 
 a part of the common for a park ; the purchase 
 of a beautiful location for a rural cemetery ; and 
 such other public purposes as might be deemed 
 expedient. The proposition was at once re- 
 ceived, acted upon, and carried into operation. 
 I do not mean to say that all these improve- 
 ments were at once made by this society, or 
 that they have ever all been made ; but I can 
 say that the fever causes have been removed, 
 that there is now a beautiful rural cemetery, 
 a park with walks and trees, a very efficient 
 farmer's club, and one of the best agricultural 
 libraries that could be selected. I also know/ 
 that summer visitors increase from year to year ; 
 and that a good hotel in the location that com- 
 mands most of the lake and mountain scenery 
 would make it a place of great resort. 
 
 Who can know what is success or failure in 
 any thing ? Who can see all the effects of his 
 efforts in any directions, of his being or doing 
 anywhere at any time ? The individual may get
 
 AN ATTTOBIOGBAPHY. 161 
 
 nothing for himself, he may be misunderstood, 
 persecuted, and banished, but he may make 
 every thing very much easier for those who 
 come after him. Is not all this included in the 
 divine order of things ? And may not such a 
 person gain vastly more in one way than he 
 loses in another-? Is not the world much larger 
 than a parish ? is it not much more to be a real 
 man, than a successful minister ? Are not the 
 interests of religion advanced more by all that 
 is done to promote the general welfare, to refine, 
 cultivate, and correct the public taste, to ele- 
 vate the tone of social life, to diffuse general 
 intelligence, to develop the sense of order, 
 beauty, and harmony, and make people see the 
 divine significance of common things, than by 
 any number of discourses upon a metaphysical, 
 theological scheme of salvation for another 
 world ; or any other direct efforts that are re- 
 garded as specially religious ? The sooner it is 
 seen and felt that true life and true religion are 
 one and inseparable, the better it will be for all 
 life's great concerns in time and eternity. 
 
 No : my life, although full of disappoint- 
 ments, trials, and failures, was not absolutely
 
 162 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of this character. Nearly twenty years have 
 since passed, and, as I now look back upon it, 
 go over it in detail, all that was local and tem- 
 porary, that then so disturbed or annoyed me, 
 seems so distant, shadowy, and insignificant, as 
 scarcely to deserve another thought ; while I 
 remember only the soothing and inspiring influ- 
 ences of nature, amidst the variety and beauty, 
 which there became a part of my daily life, my 
 very bread from heaven. I think of the bright 
 hours spent on the hill- tops, watching the shad- 
 ows of small fleecy clouds passing across the vast 
 landscapes ; of long rambles in the cool, moist, 
 secluded ravines, selecting for my study the most 
 beautiful ferns ; of walking on the shores of the 
 calm glassy lakes, fringed with graceful forest 
 trees ; of standing on the cliff that commanded 
 the whole view of the broad valley, and the dis- 
 tant western mountain, in the long summer af- 
 ternoon, as the sun declined, and the mountain 
 threw its vast shadow across the valley; of 
 staying later still to watch the glorifying effects 
 of light and shade when the sun went down, 
 and threw a purple haze over a long range of 
 more distant south-eastern hills, all this was
 
 AN AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 163 
 
 life, joy, and peace. All these are blessed heav- 
 enly memories that more than offset all human 
 annoyances. All these influences had the same 
 enlarging, liberalizing, soothing power over my 
 mind as those of the ocean at N., and the great 
 prairie scenes of the West. It has long seemed 
 to me that whoever could be brought into inti- 
 mate, familiar relations with things sublime and 
 beautiful, must be continually making small, 
 chaotic, disagreeable things take a more subor- 
 dinate place in his thoughts, efforts, and remem- 
 brances. 
 
 So, again, the increase of spiritual strength 
 overbalancing outward misfortunes, I have come 
 to see a wise and good Providence in all, to re- 
 joice even in these last two years of my settled 
 ministry. I am not sorry that I went there, and 
 am glad that I came away when I did. My life 
 since has been very different, and much richer 
 in experience than it could ever have been in 
 such a small country town. But the breaking 
 up again, when one gets advanced in years, and 
 knows not where to go, or what to do, is some- 
 thing very dreadful. I know it is often said 
 that every thing is comparatively easy to any
 
 164 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 person who gets used to it. But had I not got 
 used to this chaotic moving condition? And 
 did it not now appear attended with more and 
 greater evils than ever ?
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 165 
 
 xvm. 
 
 BROKE up house-keeping, distributed younger 
 children among friends, sold at a sacrifice some of 
 my furniture, stored the remainder, and went out 
 into the world again, to see what would come 
 next. Went to Chicago to take a settled min- 
 ister's place for a month or two, travelled exten- 
 sively in the "West, came back to the East, took 
 the supply of an important pulpit near Boston 
 for six months ; after that, another, for a year, 
 another still for a year and a half ; and so have 
 gone on supplying vacant pulpits, in various 
 places, for different periods, in the most tran- 
 sient, unsettled, unsatisfactory way. But I do 
 not propose to take my readers over all this 
 ground, or describe the peculiar state of these 
 soci 'ties, or the varieties of people I have met 
 in this wide range of experience. The time is 
 too recent. I could not do so without giving 
 personal offence, and exposing myself to the 
 charge of exaggeration. Nor do I intend to
 
 166 AN AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 
 
 say any thing of my locations, homes, or family 
 affairs, in all these later years. I have endeav- 
 ored in these sketches to give a literally true 
 outline of a life lived in the most exciting period 
 of our history, of my ministry up to the great 
 culmination of the mental, moral, and political 
 strife of forty years, in the recent awful civil 
 war. 
 
 The causes of what will generally be regarded 
 as my failure, or want of success, may partly be 
 seen in the common madness, and badness of 
 the time ; but more particularly in the fact that 
 I have kept cool and calm while others around 
 me have been so mad with the various excite- 
 ments, with the political and theological big- 
 otries of the age, that I have never been a 
 sectarian or partisan of any kind, and so have 
 had no sympathy or support from any sect or 
 party. I have stood alone, and shared the fate 
 of such individuals by often feeling very lonely. 
 As an abolitionist and temperance man, I worked 
 in my own way, as I found or made opportuni- 
 ties ; have never been put forward or recognized 
 by any of the associations for these purposes ; 
 have had no platform or newspaper notoriety ;
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 167 
 
 so, of course, am of no account in any respect ; 
 have never joined a Masonic or Odd Fellows 
 lodge, hence have had no patronage from that 
 quarter. And in such a time of special organ- 
 izations and special fellowships, why should I 
 complain of being overlooked or forgotten? 
 I do not. I blame no one. Let no one blame 
 me. I was born an individual. All the circum- 
 stances of my life have fostered my individuali- 
 ties. My historical studies early awakened me 
 to the dangers of all civil, social, and ecclesias- 
 tical tyranny. I saw that old Rome began to 
 decline as the individual became nothing, and 
 the State every thing ; that Christianity became a 
 compound of Judaism and heathenism soon after 
 it came under the influence of its organization ; 
 that this religion which was, and was intended 
 to be an individual, spiritual influence, became a 
 vast, overshadowing, spiritual, public despotism ; 
 that the Protestant reformation gained all its 
 victories in its first half-century, while it was a 
 liberal Protestant spirit ; but since that time has 
 been smothered under its old petrified forms, 
 and lately begins to find that its old battles must 
 all be fought over again. In modern history I
 
 168 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 could not help seeing how many institutions that 
 had been formed for one purpose were used for 
 another, quite opposite in its nature and charac- 
 ter. In this way I easily learned to regard it as 
 an open question whether all good causes were 
 not as much injured as benefited by their organ- 
 izations. Individuality and progress are here at 
 last quite secondary and unimportant matters. 
 These associations are rigid, inflexible, unim- 
 pressible by the spirit ; and, sooner or later, the 
 idea is lost sight of in such forms and machin- 
 ery as are deemed necessary to its advancement. 
 No provision is here made for growth, and out- 
 growth. If any person thinks differently from 
 others, or wants to try some new mode of ac- 
 tivity, he must think and act alone, or get up 
 another new organization to fight the old one on 
 a correspondingly large scale as his only means 
 of success. Now, can this process go on much 
 further in the Protestant world ? Is it not 
 worth while to ask if there is any necessity for 
 this kind of success ? What is the harm in 
 being individuals ? What is the use of trying to 
 get everybody to think or act in the same way, 
 to draw in some particular kind of a harness,
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 169 
 
 or march under some special banner ? These 
 lessons of history and experience have shaped 
 my course, and will explain my isolated position. 
 In the early Channing school of religious thought 
 I learned to prize and guard my spiritual free- 
 dom as the most precious and essential means 
 of individual growth and progress. I also there 
 learned that the chief power of religion in gen- 
 eral, and of Christianity in particular, is to be 
 found in the relation of God and Christ to the 
 individual souls of men. I have believed in 
 these things, and acted upon them, all the way 
 through ; and if I wished any classification I 
 would claim to be an old-fashioned Unitarian. 
 I would make this claim spiritually, without re- 
 gard to any theological positions or definitions, 
 of that period or the present. And yet I have 
 been driven about, from place to place, through 
 all these later years, by the cry of Transcenden- 
 talism, Parkerism, Rationalism, and Radicalism. 
 Who has changed, that this should be so ? I 
 have made progress in the development and 
 application of great original principles, because 
 I was personally free ; and according to those 
 very principles, and the examples of those who
 
 170 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 taught them, was bound to do so ; but such 
 progress does not imply any change. It is all 
 in the same line of thought and duty. Has 
 there not been a reaction somewhere towards 
 spiritual bondage, towards ecclesiastical shib- 
 boleths and sectarian machinery ? It certainly 
 would do no harm if the present generation 
 would read the solemn and oft-repeated warn- 
 ings of the fathers in regard to all these dangers. 
 What is individual or collective success for 
 the minister ? Is it to be distinguished, to be 
 a leading, popular man in his denomination ? Is 
 it to be petted and cosseted in his society ? or 
 to keep its peace and quiet, and secure his own 
 position, by ignoring all subjects on which there 
 is any great difference of opinion ? Several 
 months after I had been turned away from R. 
 I met my successor, who told me he had no 
 trouble with the old society, thought I must 
 have been imprudent ; that no minister ought to 
 risk his general influence for special purposes ; 
 and so on to the end of these commonplace 
 utterances. Soon after this conversation I met 
 my old friend, Samuel J. May (everybody's 
 friend), and asked him how was getting
 
 AX AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 171 
 
 along in my old society. His reply was, " He 
 is very popular. There is no trouble there now. 
 He does well all he undertakes to do, he is 
 admirable for the puttering work of the parish ; " 
 and then added, in his serious and inimitable way, 
 " There are only two kinds of ministers, those 
 born to minister, and those born to be ministered 
 unto" 
 
 Here is a generalization which goes directly 
 to the root of this whole matter. Hence nothing 
 more needs to be added. 
 
 Now what is collective success, or the one 
 great purpose of religious societies ? . Is it to 
 build a great and costly church, that shall rival 
 all others in town? Is it to become more 
 respectable than others in numbers and social 
 position ? Is it to glorify their denomination, or 
 rival the great sects that are already so numer- 
 ous and powerful ? In other words, is that the 
 best religious society, or in the best condition, 
 that subordinates and sacrifices every thing to its 
 own organizations ? 
 
 Or, on the other hand, is it to promote 
 individual growth and culture ; to stimulate, ex- 
 pand, and satisfy inquiring minds ; to strengthen
 
 172 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 and build up personal thought and spiritual 
 life ? and thus to enlarge the views, liberalize 
 and raise the tone of the whole public mind and 
 heart in every direction? In other words, 
 again, is it to raise public character, or denomi- 
 national capital? 
 
 It may here be answered that this question is 
 not fairly put, that I seem not to recognize the 
 advantages of organization and co-operation, 
 that a religious society may have both of these 
 objects, and that they are not at all incompatible 
 with each other. But, suppose, in a period like 
 that of which we have spoken, it became nec- 
 essary to sacrifice one to the other, on which 
 side shall the sacrifice be made ? This is the 
 real practical test question, that comes oftener 
 than we think, in all times and places. 
 
 This question came to me in this distinct form 
 early in my ministry, and I have through these 
 many years had to repeat it much more fre- 
 quently than I have told the reader in these 
 sketches. 
 
 I murmur not at what it has cost me in many 
 ways. I have reaped as I have sown. I have 
 done as I intended ; so my life has not been a
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 173 
 
 failure anywhere. It has done me good ; and 
 only so far has it been a means of good to the 
 many others with whom I have been in intimate 
 public and personal relations. We can give 
 only as we get. Our doing is never more 
 than our being. I make no complaint of other 
 ministers. We are so differently constituted, so 
 differently educated, and placed in such different 
 circumstances, that we can hardly make suffi- 
 cient allowance for our diversities of character. 
 I make no complaint of religious societies, for 
 I have had experience enough among them to 
 know that they are open to the same objection 
 as corporations in general. They are not respon- 
 sible. They have no souls. They will do in 
 their corporate capacity what every individual 
 of them would be ashamed to do as a private 
 citizen. Do I not know what small minorities, 
 what little unscrupulous factions often control 
 them? How many excellent, devoted, long- 
 tried ministers have been sacrificed by nine- 
 tenths of their members to conciliate and 
 retain less than one-tenth, and these often 
 of the most bigoted and overbearing character ! 
 How often have I seen the best people, in those
 
 174 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 societies the most liberal and progressive, giving 
 up every thing to the worst and most illiberal, 
 for the sake of a peace and harmony which they 
 never get! How often have I seen the old 
 national compromises with slavery acted over 
 again here with similar results ! There is and 
 can be no peace with despotism of any kind but 
 that of death on one side or the other. 
 
 Many years ago I prepared a popular lecture 
 on Methods of Study, with the purpose of show- 
 ing how much easier it was to understand the 
 whole of a subject than a part. Since that time 
 I have often had my attention called to the fact 
 that it is easier to get the whole of any great 
 change or reform which is needed in society, 
 than a part ; that the man who goes a little way 
 ahead and then proposes to compromise with 
 one who refuses to go at all, generally ends by 
 returning to his old starting-point, if not farther 
 back in the same line ; that progressives who 
 compromise with conservatives always get the 
 worst of the bargain ; that they lose the mighty 
 power, the inherent principle on which their 
 whole movement is based ; that as any crisis ap- 
 proaches these concessions are more frequently
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 175 
 
 % 
 
 demanded, and at last amount to nothing. Gar- 
 rison stood for liberty. He defended it as a 
 principle. From the first, and all the way 
 through, his motto was, " No compromise with 
 slavery." But our timid, time-serving con- 
 gressmen, who so often passed their " final 
 adjustment measures," soon found that nothing 
 would do but for them to go clear over to the 
 other side, to defend slavery on moral and 
 religious grounds, and help extend it over new 
 States and Territories. In such times a neutral 
 position is no position at all. Those who go 
 half-way where a principle is involved are just 
 as much disliked, and called just as hard names 
 as those who go the whole way ; who at first 
 and always demand all that their movement 
 includes, and will take nothing less. Tem- 
 porary expediency, and partial compromise, 
 have been the two great curses of the world. 
 They are always atheistical in their character, 
 always presenting false issues, always leading 
 men to choose between evils, instead of between 
 good and evil, to trust in their political and 
 ecclesiastical machinery rather than in the great 
 laws or principles of the divine government.
 
 176 AN AUTOBIOGBAPHY. 
 
 The church seems to learn nothing from the 
 experience of the world, from the great lessons 
 of human history. When will it see that there 
 is no real victory, no real strength or security 
 except in principles, no real expediency but in 
 the true and the right, in all things ? 
 
 And now, after all this experience, can the 
 reader of this story wonder that I should so 
 hate every thing which demands the sacrifice of 
 all personal qualities of character ; of indepen- 
 dence of thought ; of moral courage to stand up 
 for individual conviction; of all heroic doing 
 and daring ; of all true bravery and noble man- 
 liness ?
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 177 
 
 XIX. 
 
 
 
 AFTER all the organizations of this time, for all 
 kinds of purposes, we need one more as a pro- 
 tection against the others. There has been 
 recently established in Boston a society for the 
 prevention of cruelty to animals. Its purpose 
 is excellent, and its success all that could be 
 expected in its earliest forms of activity. It 
 calls public attention to its principles and objects 
 through a little paper called " Our Dumb Ani- 
 mals." Now this suggests the question whether 
 the church is not in a condition to require 
 something of a similar character ; whether there 
 is not an absolute necessity for some new means 
 of preventing cruelty to its ministers : also some 
 medium of public communication for such as 
 cannot, dare not, or have no means to speak for 
 themselves. I suggest some such movement in 
 their behalf, without their knowledge, from no 
 personal interest, feeling, or disappointment. 
 I have nothing to hope, or fear, from society, 
 8* L
 
 178 A1ST AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 from any present religious organizations. I feel 
 little personal obligation to this class of persons, 
 have had little sympathy or fellowship from 
 them ; and so my suggestion comes entirely 
 from a sense of justice and mercy. T would 
 prevent greater cruelty in the church, than any 
 I see inflicted upon dumb animals in the streets. 
 I would speak for those who cannot defend 
 themselves without having their ability or tem- 
 per questioned ; without having their troubles 
 imputed to a weak intellect, or a bad spirit. For 
 those who are really thus deficient, or deficient 
 in voice, manner, personality, or sympathy, who 
 have really mistaken their calling, I have noth- 
 ing to say. It is no cruelty to force them out 
 of a false and unnatural position. But who 
 that has any practical knowledge of the real 
 condition of society, can suppose that religious 
 denominations have got all their affairs so natu- 
 rally and beautifully arranged, are so free from 
 the influences of cliques, or official rings, that 
 all their public men find their true natural place 
 in the churches? Who but the most careless 
 and thoughtless observers can suppose that 
 place-hunters and time-servers are extinct?
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 179 
 
 or known only in political circles ? If Jesus 
 himself should come again now, or put himself 
 in the same relations to the same classes of peo- 
 ple as in his own time, would there be any 
 essential difference in results? Does not the 
 world still know, appreciate, and love its own ? 
 Of course I speak only of those who are wor- 
 thy of defence, whether settled or unsettled. 
 
 In the first place, it is cruel to sacrifice so 
 many young men to denominational show and 
 bluster ; to give the public an idea of our 
 growth and expansion, or to fill up our divinity 
 schools. There is really no such want of minis- 
 ters in our societies as they are thus led to sup- 
 pose. There are already more than can find 
 employment, and some of these superior to any 
 the societies will ever be likely to get under 
 present treatment and tendencies. There is a 
 great want of sensational preachers, to draw 
 crowds, and build up sects. The rare, excep- 
 tional men, persons of great religious genius, 
 are wanted and patronized for the same pur- 
 poses. But these sects do not appreciate intel- 
 lect or character while they are thus ever ready 
 to sacrifice both to their sectarian idols. The
 
 180 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 church that lives, moves, and has its being in 
 expediency, or that thinks only of its own 
 expansion and glorification, has no want of great 
 men, any farther than it can use them ; and 
 such men will not be so used. They may, how- 
 ever, remain undisturbed in their positions, 
 when, to others, this would be impossible. 
 They are independent in the ministry, simply 
 because they are independent of it. Let them 
 be poor, obscure, with large families depending 
 on them, and they would soon find that it makes 
 an essential difference who preaches unpopular 
 truths, and to what extent they may identify 
 themselves with unpopular movements. It is 
 very natural that these permanent prosperous 
 ministers, who control the pulpit and press of 
 their denomination, should so often, and in such 
 various ways intimate that the difficulties and 
 disturbances of their less favored brethren came 
 through their own fault through defects of char- 
 acter, or unfitness for their profession. I am 
 not here complaining, but explaining. I say 
 these men have nothing in their own experience 
 by which to judge of the class alluded to here. 
 I speak for the dumb ; for those who, being no-
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 181 
 
 where, are of no account to those who use the 
 present system of intimidation. After their 
 true, brave, devoted lives, it is hard enough 
 to be in their present condition without being 
 called " sour, disappointed men " by those who 
 know nothing of their past or present trials. 
 I speak for those who feel that insult is thus 
 often added to injury, and who from shrinking 
 delicacy dare not say any thing in return. The 
 individual is nothing to the sect any longer than 
 he can be used for its own purposes. It is cruel 
 to bring young men into the ministry under any 
 other impression. No wonder so many fall out 
 of the ranks the first year after leaving the 
 divinity schools into which they have been 
 enticed ; or that ministers and parishes are so 
 generally dissatisfied with each other. I am not 
 here taking the part of either, but explaining a 
 system of things that is victimizing and demoral- 
 izing both. There is something wrong in their 
 relations to each other. Neither party has any 
 wrong intentions ; and it is often difficult to 
 decide which suffers most. The man who criti- 
 cises, examines, and seeks final causes for public 
 evils, finds them in unnatural relations, in false
 
 182 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 principles of thought and action ; so is not and 
 cannot be personal or bitter in his feelings to- 
 wards any who are subject to these trials. Fur- 
 ther along in these papers I intend to say all 
 the good things I can of this calling, and show 
 that I appreciate and love it as well as ever, or 
 as anybody. 
 
 In the second place, it is cruel to emphasize 
 culture, in religion, as we do, without accepting 
 the fruits of it. We stimulate young men to 
 theological studies. We at great expense provide 
 schools and libraries ; and, in various ways, 
 show that we attach the greatest importance 
 to a learned scholarly ministry. These young 
 men are told by the professors in our schools 
 that the object of study is truth, that they 
 must test religious questions as critically as any 
 others, the Bible as they would any other book ; 
 and after studying in this way, for years, the 
 origin and history of religious thought and life, 
 they go out into the churches to teach what they 
 have thus honestly and conscientiously learned. 
 The societies that settle them provide for their 
 wants, that they may have no distracting cares ; 
 and thus, under these most favorable circum-
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 183 
 
 stances, may report to them, from Sunday to 
 Sunday, all they are thus enabled to see and 
 know. Now what a waste of time and means 
 on the part of these people ; what a cruel blight 
 to the lives of these ministers, if they are not 
 allowed to make an honest report, to carry into 
 their pulpits the convictions that all these years 
 of study and preparation have forced upon their 
 minds ; if with all the aids of modern science 
 and knowledge, all the discoveries of modern 
 Biblical critics, all the light that the profound- 
 est scholars of England, France, and Germany 
 have recently thrown upon the whole subject of 
 religion in general, and Christianity in particular, 
 they are to be told that " the pulpit is no place 
 for new ideas ; " and through appeals to their 
 self-respect, or sense of honor, they are to be, 
 by the leaders of their denomination, forced out 
 of a sphere of life they have been so long pre- 
 paring to fill worthily ; even away from a reli- 
 gion they would so gladly serve ! This whole 
 process of stimulation on the one side, and 
 repression on the other, is cruel to the last 
 degree. Let either the Protestant churches 
 cease to foster learning, or accept its natural
 
 184 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 results ; either subordinate the intellectual as 
 the Catholics do, or treat the fruits of its 
 culture and activity at least respectfully, that 
 their theory and practice may in some degree 
 correspond. 
 
 In the third place, it is cruel to reject, or 
 regard as of no account, the minister's matured 
 wisdom or experience ; to accept only the 
 flower of his life and neglect the fruit. It is 
 not so in any other profession. Elderly lawyers 
 and doctors are more sought and honored than 
 in then* youth. Clergymen alone are supposed 
 to be like certain kinds of pears, which horti- 
 culturalists say are good only twenty-four hours, 
 all the long period before, too green, and all the 
 equally long period beyond, too ripe. This 
 would do better if they were paid enough for 
 that brief flowering time, to last them the rest 
 of their lives. But no one ever seems to think 
 of that, or seldom to care what does become of 
 them. Thus culture and character, all for which 
 true men live, and for which societies profess 
 most regard, are sacrificed to sectarian, sensa- 
 tional expediency. Those who fill churches, no 
 matter how, are the idols of the hour. Those
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 185 
 
 who cannot, or have too much self-respect to 
 use the popular means, have to retire to poverty 
 and obscurity ; generally unfitted for any other 
 pursuit. If they do not meekly, or in silence, 
 submit, they are tolcl they should do so for the 
 profession's and denomination's sake. In vari- 
 ous ways the} T are suppressed. Some appear 
 on certain occasions, in seedy apparel, with 
 anxious, careworn faces, objects of pity and 
 charity. Others die of disappointment and 
 neglect, as our brother B,, a scholar and poet, 
 who had well filled some of our highest places, 
 died recently. The contrast between their pub- 
 lic and private life is often greater than they 
 can bear. Not unfrequently are they persons 
 of delicate* sensibilities and of cultivated tastes, 
 who have long been accustomed to the best 
 society, with all its various mental excitements ; 
 and consequently are, in their loneliness, more 
 truly objects of compassion than any class of 
 persons with whom we are acquainted. How 
 many such instances have I seen among my 
 brethren, whose private history would take 
 the public by surprise. And now that ministers 
 of more than fifty years of age are no longer
 
 186 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 wanted, how rapidly these instances appear to 
 be increasing! Thus the piocess goes on from 
 year to year. With those of us who have not 
 wealth, position, or something that the world 
 always worships, this process is only a question 
 of time. Thus, how cruel and wasteful is any 
 system of thought and action that rejects the 
 fruits of such noble lives, fruits of culture and 
 character that have been so long maturing! 
 There is no special complaint to make about 
 these things. Religious societies, as at present 
 organized, cannot do otherwise than sacrifice 
 the individual, for what they regard as the gen- 
 eral good. They have the instinct of self-pres- 
 ervation. They are so numerous, and so poorly 
 sustained, have such a hard struggle' for exist- 
 ence airy way, that if they were responsible per- 
 sonalities, they would be quite as true objects of 
 pity as any of their numerous cast-off ministers. 
 They may have the very best intentions. It 
 is only their policy that is questionable. " If 
 we can hardly keep up with all kinds of con- 
 cessions, to all kinds of people, now, how could 
 we get along without making any ? " is not an 
 exhaustive or convincing logic. Would not
 
 AN AUTOBIOGKAPHY. 187 
 
 simple honesty be a better policy? Do the 
 real interests of religion require all this great 
 number of feeble languishing parishes ? all 
 these great sacrifices of personal power, and 
 moral principle ? are more pertinent ques- 
 tions. 
 
 It has long appeared to me one of the strangest 
 things in the world that Unitarians who see so 
 much, in this direction, do not see more, do not 
 see their way out of these difficulties. They 
 have only to bring their religious life into har- 
 mony with their religious theory, to write 
 plainly on their banner, " No sect, and no com- 
 promise." 
 
 The manner in which vacant pulpits have 
 been supplied, and the conditions of " candida- 
 ting," so called, in a large number of Unitarian 
 societies, especially in the country towns, of late 
 years, have done very much towards demoraliz- 
 ing our parishes and causing unpleasant relations 
 of rivalry and jealousy among our ministers. In 
 view of facts relating to this matter, well known 
 to many concerned in them, but which would 
 not be creditably imparted to the public eye or 
 ear, not a few persons might be led to prefer
 
 188 AN AUTOBIOGKAPHY. 
 
 the Roman Catholic method of administration in 
 the disposal of such affairs in that church. The 
 bishop of the diocese, according to his own 
 best judgment and with a regard to circum- 
 stances, fitnesses, wants, and adaptations, selects, 
 appoints, and sends a parish priest to each par- 
 ticular flock, without consulting the wishes, and 
 still less the whims of the people. 
 
 Substantially the same method was pursued 
 among us some forty or more years ago. A 
 much revered and beloved professor in the 
 Divinity School at Cambridge faithfully dis- 
 charged the functions of a bishop in this matter. 
 He kept himself in intimate relations with many 
 of our parishes, their ministers and leading lay- 
 men. When a minister was desired for a vacant 
 pulpit a direct and personal application was 
 made to him. Neither he nor his colleagues 
 had in view the providing of pulpits for their 
 own transient occupancy so as to give them a 
 personal and private interest in the matter. 
 The professor had informed himself as to the 
 qualities, capacities, and aptitudes of the unem- 
 ployed ministers and candidates who were at 
 the time available. Having in view sincerely and
 
 AN AUTOBIOGKAPHY. 189 
 
 with singleness of aim, the best good of all par- 
 ties concerned, as bearing upon the common, 
 general interests of religion, he would consider, 
 judge, inquire, and recommend. His recom- 
 mendation carried weight with it for the reason- 
 able and responsible representatives of parishes. 
 Neither he nor they thought it well to yield 
 every thing, if any thing, to whims and caprices, 
 where so much higher interests were to be 
 regarded. He had an admirable discernment in 
 selecting men for their fitness for one or another 
 place. The one whom he selected or preferred, 
 when he did not name more than one, was ac- 
 cepted by a committee, and for a period of four or 
 more Sundays was listened to from the pulpit and 
 introduced among some of the homes of the pa- 
 rishioners as a bond fide candidate. This mode 
 of administering what was thus a considerately 
 managed responsibility, resulted in securing to 
 many of our parishes, most acceptable and 
 beloved pastors for long and useful ministries. 
 
 Of late years this excellent method has been 
 neglected, discredited, and left to fall into dis- 
 use. In place of it no other course, that can 
 properly be called a method, has been adopted.
 
 190 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The charge and disposal of the interests which 
 were once thus systematically, conscientiously, 
 and unselfishly dealt with, have been of the 
 very loosest and, occasionally, most discreditable 
 character. The secretary of the American Uni- 
 tarian Association, or one of the employe's of its 
 office, has, from time to time, either assumed, 
 or been supposed to have, certain privileges, 
 prerogatives, or opportunities, as to the supply 
 of pulpits and the selection or patronage of 
 candidates. He has had the ear of parish com- 
 mittees, or of one or more members of them. 
 He has had his own opinions, prejudices, likes, 
 dislikes, and friendships, as to individual candi- 
 dates who have applied to him for information. 
 At one time the person who assumed, or had 
 allowed to him, this very delicate trust, was in 
 the habit of asking and receiving a brokerage 
 for his services. The office of the Association 
 would be besieged near the close of the week, 
 by unemployed ministers seeking temporary 
 supplies, and by candidates who would gladly 
 have found permanent positions. The parishes 
 began to be educated to a preference for variety 
 every Sunday, till some of them, for the sake of
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 191 
 
 economy, or love of change, or from mere indif- 
 ference, gave over all desire to secure a perma- 
 nent and settled minister. Meanwhile, the men 
 who, by their training for and interest in the 
 ministry, had so far unfitted themselves for any 
 other calling, and those of them especially 
 whose straits and sacrifices made them depend- 
 ent wholly for their means of subsistence, 
 upon the scanty fees paid for pulpit services, 
 were often forced, unwillingly and unwittingly, 
 into very painful relations with each other. 
 Those of the brethren who have had easy 
 places, with influential friends, fond parishion- 
 ers, with the securities and amenities of life 
 around them, know but little of the burdens and 
 heart-aches of their less favored associates. 
 
 With the methods and machinery of others 
 we are, and can be nowhere. All imitations 
 are spiritless and ineffective. If we only at- 
 tempt to modify the popular religion or theology, 
 our success will be only to make it still more 
 inconsistent. If we are almost like other de- 
 nominations, there is no reason for our being at 
 all. There is no reason why we should expect 
 to increase in numbers or strength, why any-
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 body should leave the great denominations to 
 come over to one so small and feeble as ours, 
 and this, too, when these petty divisions and 
 universal strifes, and competitions connected 
 with them, have already become the acknowl- 
 edged curse of the Protestant world. 
 
 If, by any possibility, we should succeed in 
 this way, would it be any real success ? Would 
 it not be parallel to that of the early Christians, 
 who, by a similar means for a similar purpose, 
 succeeded in the time of Constantino, when the 
 great historian of the Church says, " About this 
 time it was difficult to decide whether heathen- 
 ism had been most christianized, or Christianity 
 most heathenized." 
 
 Our theory is that man, by nature, is a moral 
 and religious being, has in him the germs of all 
 the divine powers and affections to be unfolded 
 and developed. Consequently we have in hu- 
 man nature, and human society, a sure and 
 permanent basis for our moral and religious 
 movements ; something in which we can trust, 
 and to which we can always confidently appeal. 
 
 In our practice we adopt the methods of 
 those who hold an opposite theory ; who teach
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 193 
 
 that human goodness, religion, is not only su- 
 pernatural, but unnatural ; and consequently 
 have nothing but their worldly expediency, ec- 
 clesiastical machinery, or priestcraft, to fall back 
 upon. No wonder that those who believe in 
 this should trust to it, use it with all their might, 
 and cling to it as their last hope. But that 
 we who believe God and his works are equally 
 good, and that we have everywhere more or less 
 of this universal divine mind and heart to re- 
 spond to our efforts and appeals, to help us in 
 every good word and work, should have a prac- 
 tical distrust that subordinates our soul to our 
 body, our principles to our organizations, is what 
 I never yet have been able to understand. If it 
 is necessary for us to go on in this old way, it 
 shows that our people are only half converted ; 
 or trying to reconcile two systems of thought 
 and life that in their very nature are directly 
 opposed to each other. We have only to feel 
 how little we, and all our efforts are, compared 
 with our principles, that they can help us far 
 more than we can help them, that we are strong 
 only in their strength, wise only in their wisdom, 
 efficient only by doing what they require of us.
 
 194 AN AT7TOBIOGKAPHY. 
 
 Suppose our societies should, by such devoted 
 obedience, by such an absence of worldly secta- 
 rian expediency, crumble to pieces, and leave us 
 only individuals. Would this, in the present 
 state of the public mind, with its growing dis- 
 gust at the way religious organizations ara 
 managed, be any great injury ? Would any real 
 good be lost ? Would not a multitude of noble, 
 emancipated, thoughtful souls, now inside and 
 outside of all sects, be drawn towards us, and 
 thus make up a larger and more real fellow- 
 ship ? Would not spiritual crystallizations soon 
 be larger and stronger than any present secta- 
 rian aggregations ? In thinking over my list of 
 nearest and dearest personal friends I find jnany 
 of them do not believe in my theology at all, 
 nor I in theirs. But they believe in and love 
 me, and I them, in the same way. The basis 
 of our relation is that we are each sincere, and 
 earnest in our desire to serve and bless our fel- 
 low-men, to make society better, purer, wiser, 
 to know the best and truest ways in all things ; 
 that we have a common spiritual instinct for 
 all that is true, beautiful, and good. In other 
 words, that " God has fashioned our hearts
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 195 
 
 alike." Is not this a better and broader fellow- 
 ship than any other ? And are not the division 
 lines and sectarian names, growing out of theo- 
 logical definitions and creeds, almost the only 
 obstacles to its indefinite extension ? I am sure 
 there are many persons in all the churches, and 
 out of them, that I should thus believe in and 
 love if I could have an opportunity, or any 
 means of access to their minds and hearts ; and 
 that this trust and love would be gladly recip- 
 rocated if they could only know how hard I 
 have struggled, and how much I have suffered, 
 for all the high and holy purposes which under 
 various names and doctrines with narrow and 
 imperfect definitions, they have so much at 
 heart. What is it that now keeps us apart, that 
 sows the seeds of distrust, and makes us call 
 each other irritating names? 
 
 With all my antipathy to the causes of the 
 prevailing narrowness and bitterness in religion, 
 I believe, with all my heart, in true religious 
 sympathy, fellowship, and co-operation. I be- 
 lieve in the Church of all religious, truthful, 
 and truth-loving men and women ; and I have 
 written out these confidences mainly in the
 
 196 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 hope that they may find a response in some of 
 these many hearts. 
 
 If we can thus believe in, and love one an- 
 other, with different creeds and modes of wor- 
 ship, with different mental conceptions of God 
 and duty ; and thus change the basis of religious 
 fellowship and co-operation, from theological 
 dogmas to spiritual life, why may we not in the 
 same way settle the controversy in regard to 
 Jesus, that is now threatening so much division 
 and strife? 
 
 Reader, if you and I, with so little knowledge 
 of each other, with such diversities of intellect- 
 ual culture and condition, can feel that all our 
 higher interests and aspirations are in common, 
 that we are animated by the same spirit, and, 
 through different paths, seeking the same goal ; 
 and on this ground trust in, or have the highest 
 regard for each other, why may not others be- 
 lieve in and love Jesus in a similar manner, 
 without believing in all he is reported to have 
 said, or that is imputed to him in the writings 
 of his disciples, without believing in demoniacal 
 possession, or several other ideas that were com- 
 mon to his time and nation ?
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 197 
 
 They can believe that his spirit and purpose 
 were heavenly ; that he gave the strongest proofs 
 of the greatest love of God and man ; that he 
 was ordained, elected, inspired, or specially en- 
 dowed for a special work ; that he had the lofti- 
 est moral and spiritual insight ; that he was the 
 greatest of prophets and seers, one of the truest 
 and noblest of the sons of God ; and yet that, 
 at least, as reported to us, he might have been 
 mistaken in several things, and has been ex- 
 celled by others in some very important depart- 
 ments of life and thought. 
 
 Is there any thing in this disparaging to 
 Jesus, or demoralizing to these believers ? If 
 they are spiritually religious persons will not 
 the letter of their belief be always subordinate 
 to the spirit ? It is through* the faith and affec- 
 tions of the heart, through confidence in the 
 goodness and purity of others, that men are 
 strengthened, elevated, and saved, rather than 
 through intellectual speculations and theologi- 
 cal beliefs. This faith itself is the ground of 
 unity, the one thing needful, rather than any 
 particular forms it may take. Some persons see 
 God, or so ^ much of God, in Christ, that they
 
 198 AN" AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 are content to look no further. Others see him 
 in nature, hear his voice of warning, entreaty, 
 and encouragement, in their souls, find the true, 
 beautiful, and good in human history and human 
 society everywhere around them ; but the great 
 central truth, in all its moral and spiritual in- 
 fluences, is common to both classes of minds. 
 Why, then, should there not be the closest 
 sympathy and fellowship between them ? What 
 but old sectarian watchwords can alienate or 
 keep them from each other ? If Jesus was here 
 now and his professed friends should present 
 their claims for zeal in his behalf, on the ground 
 that they had denounced, undervalued, and tried 
 to suppress all efforts for casting out devils that 
 were not made in his name, would he not rebuke 
 them as sternly as of old ? 
 
 If there are any persons anywhere who can 
 help us cast out the demons of ignorance and 
 superstition, of intolerance and sectarianism, of 
 intemperance, sensualism, or any of the curses 
 and shames of our modern social life, we can 
 heartily bid them God speed in whatever 
 name they may work. Uniting in spirit and 
 purpose, we can all unite in building up the
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 199 
 
 heavenly kingdom on earth, in removing the 
 great mountains of human sin and misery, in 
 introducing the reign of righteousness, truth, 
 and love everywhere among men. We can be 
 ready to go with any class of men, anywhere, or 
 calling themselves by any name, who are going 
 in the same general direction, whether they go 
 in our particular paths or not. But all who are 
 going an opposite way, who think more of the 
 path than the goal, whose tendencies are all 
 towards sentimentalism, formalism, ritualism, or 
 ecclesiasticism, will never rest, if they move at 
 all, till they arrive at Romanism. 
 
 These are really the only two parties that 
 differ in any thing essential in principle. We 
 have chosen our position. It is a very Gib- 
 raltar for strength and security, if we intelli- 
 gently and frankly accept all its conditions. 
 Our power now, as in the beginning, lies in 
 our broad, comprehensive, progressive principles 
 and tendencies. We have got to be liberal, as 
 well as talk liberal, if we are to be the point of 
 crystallization for all the highest thought and 
 effort of our time ; if we are to unite all the dif- 
 ferent parties that we are inviting into our fold.
 
 200 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 It must be a spiritual inclosing, rather than a 
 theological or ecclesiastical inclosure. In any 
 other direction the ground is all occupied ; and 
 will be contested at every point. In the old 
 ways of priestcraft and worldly expediency we 
 ca,n make not even a show of success. Others 
 can immensely outdo us, go as far as we may. 
 " The border-state policy " will accomplish no 
 more for our church than it recently did for our 
 nation. All policy but that of honesty is, ever 
 has been, and ever deserves to be a failure.
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 201 
 
 XX. 
 
 SKETCHES of a life. As I look over what 1 have 
 so far written, and think of these many years, in 
 the details of daily experience, and see that I 
 have put long, anxious, and exciting periods into 
 single paragraphs, I am sure no thoughtful 
 reader will mistake this for a full autobiography. 
 I begin to see how very sketchy it is ; in fact, 
 how little of any really eventful or thoughtful 
 life can be written out in any way. How 
 numerous the hopes and fears, the joys and sor- 
 rows, the anticipations and disappointments of 
 each of the great eras of childhood, youth, and 
 maturity ! Married life, the birth, growth, 
 illness, education, choice of pursuit, separation, 
 and death of children ; home, friends, books, 
 studies, travels, and all the various discipline 
 and conflict to which we are constantly sub- 
 jected, who can describe, or, in any worthy 
 manner, exhibit to others ? And after all why 
 should it be written ? Who cares ? In this 
 9*
 
 202 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 great maelstrom of society, in this great rush- 
 ing, excited, busy, and selfish world, where 
 each one has his own pressing cares, and absorb- 
 ing duties ; where all are ever struggling to get 
 higher, and most have as much as they can do 
 to keep their present position, who cares, or 
 can care much about any other individual's life ? 
 When I think of all this, how presumptuous it 
 seems to me to suppose anybody can care for 
 mine ! Yet several quiet, uneventful, humble 
 lives, written out of other hearts, have always 
 deeply interested me. They have afforded me 
 the most intimate and profitable companionship, 
 in my most solitary and suffering hours. These 
 simple, earnest, overflowing confidences of 
 thoughtful, sympathetic, aspiring souls, meet 
 a want in similar souls that cannot be so 
 well met in any other way. This is spiritual 
 sociality, and all men are more or less dependent 
 upon something of this nature. None are suffi- 
 cient for themselves. How often even Jesus 
 tried to reveal himself to those around him, and 
 sought the spiritual sympathy of his chosen fol- 
 lowers ! Even he, in his most trying hours, in 
 his great agony, could say, " My God, why hast
 
 .AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 203 
 
 thou forsaken me ? " That he at times did feel 
 this great want of appreciation and sympathy, 
 this dreadful loneliness, is evident from the 
 fact that in his last hours, after his communion 
 with God alone, on the mountain, he so directly 
 asked the sympathies of men. In this great 
 crisis of his life, after the great agony in Geth- 
 semane, he returned to his disciples and found 
 them asleep, and expressing surprise, said, 
 "What! could ye not watch with me one 
 hour?" Then recalling to mind that they 
 could not enter into his thought, could not feel 
 the greatness of this occasion to him, he excused 
 them by saying, " The spirit indeed is willing, 
 but the flesh is weak." He went away again the 
 second time and prayed, saying, " O my Father, 
 if it is possible, let this cup pass from me ; never- 
 theless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." And 
 he came and found them asleep again ; and again 
 he went away and prayed the third time, saying 
 the same words. And no wonder, for what else 
 was there to say ? Oh, what an hour was that 
 to this true Son of man, to this lonely, sympa- 
 thetic, suffering soul, going from God to man, 
 and from man to God again and again, for the
 
 204 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 sympathy and assistance which he so much 
 needed ! To close such a self-sacrificing life, 
 with such a cruel and shameful death, was more 
 than he could bear alone. And we are glad of 
 it. For there is nothing that brings this Jesus 
 of Nazareth nearer, or makes him dearer to us 
 than this natural, shrinking, human weakness, 
 than his natural human sympathies and affec- 
 tions. We feel that he is one of us. How 
 such a life enriches ours ! How it cheers and 
 strengthens us through all our hardest expe- 
 riences ! How it lightens our heaviest burdens, 
 soothes our deepest sorrows, and helps us 
 through our greatest trials, to see how bravely 
 and nobly they have been, and still are borne 
 by others ! 
 
 The more such revelations we have out of the 
 deepest consciousness and experience of indi- 
 vidual minds and hearts, the better, every way, 
 for all. They relieve every soul that thus 
 frankly overflows, and carry their quickening 
 words to every soul that is ready to receive 
 them. They establish the strongest bond of 
 sympathy between all kindred spirits. This is 
 my own apology for saying any thing of myself.
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 205 
 
 I wish to do something for others in the way 
 others have done the most for me. I want to 
 say to children, and youth, and all of my own 
 period, you have each your own cares and trials, 
 your disappointments and sorrows, your various 
 burdens and responsibilities ; and the knowledge 
 of mine, now that they are nearly passed, will 
 not retard or depress you. I have had many 
 more of these burdens and trials than I have 
 disclosed or can disclose to you. At the time 
 they seemed greater than I could bear. I have 
 borne them through many a dark and weary 
 day. How, God only knows. In childhood, 
 youth, and maturity, I have known so many 
 times when a kind, sympathetic, encouraging 
 word would have done me so much good, the 
 word I would, through these brief sketches, 
 now give to all who in similar circumstances are 
 coming after me. 
 
 Not long ago, one bright, beautiful, autumnal 
 day, sitting on the deck of a steamer passing 
 down the upper Mississippi, and meditating upon 
 the various special events and distant scenes of 
 my eventful life, my attention was somehow 
 fixed upon a small piece of driftwood. The
 
 206 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 steamer ran over and sank it out of sight. It 
 soon appeared again, driven towards the shore, 
 where it found a little calm, still water under 
 the high protecting bank. It rested there for a 
 few moments until the more distant waves made 
 by our boat again disturbed and drove it out 
 into the main current, to be again and again 
 subjected to such various disturbing influences 
 through its whole course down that mighty river, 
 a thousand miles to the sea. I thought of the 
 distance it had already been on the way ; the 
 side currents into which it had been driven ; 
 the many little eddies and whirlpools where it 
 had been made to revolve ; the many similar 
 pieces of driftwood with which it had been 
 brought into collision, and then the whole 
 great lesson of human life at once began to 
 be seen and felt, as I had never seen or felt it 
 before. It brought to my mind the elevating, 
 inspiring, comforting thought that we are all 
 afloat on the great Mississippi of Providence, 
 hedged in by its banks, propelled by its cur- 
 rents, with power to go on or delay, with powei 
 to paddle our little float on either side, to anchor 
 and wait in each little creek, or push boldly out
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 207 
 
 into the main stream, to advance or recede, to 
 counteract, or avail ourselves of its tremen- 
 dous forces ; but beyond all this impassable bar- 
 riers, ever new and disturbing influences to keep 
 us in an ever restless, excited condition, and so 
 force us forward to the end of our journey. 
 Then I thanked God, as I do now, that the 
 great River of his Providence is banked in, that 
 its beneficent waters are subject to law, are not 
 allowed to flow out of their natural channels, or 
 to be wasted on the arid plains and barren des- 
 erts of human ignorance and folly ; so that the 
 stream is kept full, and strong enough to bear 
 us ever along, in some way, even in spite of our- 
 selves. Then I thanked God, as I have ever 
 since, for the lesson received through this little 
 piece of floating driftwood. I am thankful, not 
 for my ignorance and folly, not for the evil and 
 wilful ways into which I have fallen ; but for 
 the thorny hedges which I have encountered in 
 those ways, and which have kept me from going 
 farther in such directions. I thank God that 
 since I have been so ignorant and wilful, so sin- 
 ful and blind, he has not any more left me to 
 myself ; that he has led me in so many ways
 
 208 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 that I knew not, to do so much that I neither 
 foresaw nor intended; that there is a will as 
 much above our will, and a way as much above 
 our way, as the heavens are above the earth. 
 
 While I am in my present imperfect state, I 
 will joyfully accept all providential limitations 
 and hindrances, the fretting banks that so 
 confine the river and the thorny hedges that so 
 close in the true way of life. I will rejoice in 
 the fact that there is One who takes so much 
 better care of me than I can take of myself. I 
 will rejoice that if I am afloat on unknown 
 waters, drifting I know not whither, subject to 
 all the disturbing influences that attend the 
 voyage of life, I am on the great stream of 
 Providence, that will some way buoy me up, 
 and some time carry me onward, to the broad 
 ocean of eternity. In such an ignorance as is 
 common to the wisest of us, subjected to such a 
 various, all-pervading Providence as we see 
 around us, what is there for any of us but 
 obedience and trust? As we look over the 
 history of human society, the first and most 
 striking lesson is, how little men have ^really 
 had to do with it, how feeble their influence in
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 209 
 
 determining its main courses, or shaping its final 
 results : in other words, of all men have pro- 
 posed, how much God has differently disposed ; 
 how many local and temporary evils have been 
 overruled for wide and permanent good ; how 
 often selfish interests and animal passions have 
 been made to advance the greatest and best of 
 causes ; how often the feeblest and most im- 
 perfect instruments have been used to effect the 
 highest and noblest purposes. 
 
 No lesson of history is more conspicuous. So 
 in private life. How seldom can we see all the 
 consequences of any single step or new position 
 to which we are called ! We may wisely, after 
 great care and deliberation, lay out our plans ; 
 but some unforeseen event entirely changes the 
 results, and perhaps alters the whole course of 
 our existence. How often, in looking back over 
 the experience and discipline of our life, can we 
 see how we have gained by our losses, how much 
 better were the ways to which we were impelled 
 than those we had deliberately chosen ! Where 
 in all that relates to the external life we cannot 
 know what a single day may bring forth, why 
 should we be anxious about what we cannot
 
 210 AN AUTOBIOGKAPHY. 
 
 control ? We should be anxious only to know 
 and do our duty, and leave results with Him who 
 has directed us. 
 
 Obedience and trust are the supplements of 
 our imperfect knowledge the silver linings 
 of the cloud that "darkens o'er our little day," 
 and which will be removed with pur progress 
 towards the source of illumination. Light will 
 come as we can bear it. Hedges will be removed 
 as we cease to need them. The narrow stream 
 of time will widen out into the broad ocean of 
 eternity. 
 
 Of the voyage from shore to shore we have 
 no concern. The future we leave with Him who 
 has so kindly cared for us in the past. In deep 
 thankfulness of heart, and perfect filial trust, we 
 can say, 
 
 " Our Father knows what road is best, 
 And how to lead to peace and rest, 
 To him we cheerful give our all, 
 Go where he leads, and wait his call." 
 
 If such an important lesson as this can be s 
 extended and impressed by a little piece of drift- 
 wood, my life will not be in vain, if it is used 
 only to repeat this lesson to others. Since then
 
 AN AUTOBIOGBAPHY. 211 
 
 I have often thought of the many times T had 
 been run down, and sunk out of sight, by the 
 passions and prejudices of societies, thrown 
 aside into whirlpools, to stay awhile in little 
 creeks, and again driven farther down the 
 stream : but I have been comforted with the 
 thought that I was still on the divine river ; 
 and that all these disturbing influences were 
 only taking me nearer the great sea of wisdom, 
 goodness, and love. 
 
 I have little to regret in my course, little to 
 censure in the course of others towards me. 
 They have doubtless acted according to their 
 light. I have tried to see the best I could by 
 mine. As we all get down towards the mouth 
 of the river and ready to embark for the other 
 shore, we forget our many collisions by the way. 
 When we can know each other better we shall 
 love each other more. 
 
 When I lived at N. where I worked so hard 
 and was so earnest myself, I sometimes thought 
 others were cold and indifferent, that my labors 
 were producing no effect, and that I would 
 resign my position. This feeling, I at last 
 observed, came oftenest on Mondays, and was
 
 212 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the natural reaction, after a whole week's 
 excitement. But all whose labors are mental 
 and spiritual are liable to these seasons of 
 depression and discouragement; because the 
 fruits are so long maturing. More than three 
 years after I left that place, I received a letter 
 post-marked in a distant city, where I knew of 
 no acquaintance. The writer says, " After this 
 long time, I will write, what I wanted to say to 
 you before you left N. You may not remember 
 me. When you came there I was one of your 
 constant hearers, a young girl, with character 
 unformed; and the views of life and character 
 you then impressed on my mind have been of 
 inestimable value to me ever since. You gave 
 me that systematic thought and that definite 
 purpose which I have followed out to the great- 
 est advantage. I am now teacher of the High 
 School in this city, and trying to do for others 
 what you did so well for me." Every such 
 instance as this offsets a great many discourage- 
 ments ; and for one that is thus consciously and 
 gratefully revealed, how many more must there 
 be unconscious and unknown ? How can any 
 minister know much of the good he does, or the
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 213 
 
 evil lie prevents ? How wide and enduring the 
 circle of influences which an humble individual 
 in such a position can put in operation ! The 
 right man in the right place here has his capital 
 always out at compound interest. His spiritual 
 forces are always increasing in a geometrical 
 ratio. Much of the seed he sows may fall on 
 barren or stony ground, but that which does 
 take root yields a hundred fold every season, 
 and its harvests strengthen, animate, and bless 
 directly or indirectly whole ages and generations 
 of men. 
 
 This is why, after all my struggles and disap 
 pointments, I have, in this autumn of my life, 
 advised several young men of requisite qualm- 
 cations to enter the ministry. I have told them 
 my story, with many more trials than are here: 
 recorded, and closed by saying, if I had my life 
 to live over again, I would choose the same 
 work, even at the same pay ; that there were 
 many things infinitely better than what the 
 world calls success; that it was the greatest 
 thing for a young man, in choosing his pursuit, 
 to choose that work which in the doing will make 
 him the most of a man ; that all the efforts and
 
 214 AN ATTTOBIOGEAPHY. 
 
 sacrifices I had made for others had done me 
 still more good ; and that in .this I rejoiced as 
 my true compensation. 
 
 The ministry has come to be just what indi- 
 viduals choose to make it : one of the best things 
 in society, or one of the worst, according as it 
 is used. If it is taken up as one of the respect- 
 able professions by weak sentimentalists, who 
 want to be cosseted and " ministered unto," or 
 who are content to be mere functionaries, to 
 run ecclesiastical or church machinery, it is not 
 even respectable. If it is entered by ambitious, 
 selfish, worldly men, simply as a means of get- 
 ting a living and so pandering to popular pas- 
 sions and sectarian prejudices, it is contemptible. 
 But as a recognized, established means of per- 
 sonal spiritual influence, its power and glory 
 are unbounded. In its letter, or as an institution, 
 it is everywhere on the decline ; but in its spirit 
 and purpose it is beginning to attract some of 
 the greatest and best minds of our time. I have 
 used it as the best means open to me, for com- 
 munication with the public mind and heart, for 
 general elevation, for teaching great principles, 
 for unfolding and illustrating great spiritual
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 215 
 
 laws, rather than for special precepts, or the 
 moral platitudes which are commonly called 
 sermons. 
 
 In this ministry I have enjoyed, as well as 
 suffered, more than I can express. And I can 
 earnestly recommend it to any truthful, truth- 
 loving soul who longs for an opportunity to do 
 a man's bravest and best work, for any pay that 
 God or his fellow-men may please to give him. 
 To those who are ready to labor in this devoted 
 spirit, its compensations are numerous and great. 
 
 It has given me access to so much delightful 
 private life, to so many beautiful homes, to so 
 many warm hearts and sympathetic minds. 
 When I think of the number and variety of 
 families I have visited in all the different and 
 distant parts of the country, the familiar and 
 pleasant relations established in so many, the 
 frankness, cordiality, and real hospitality I have 
 so often enjoyed in these visits, at different 
 times through these many years, I feel exceed- 
 ingly grateful and happy in the remembrance of 
 such extensive and profitable social intercourse 
 as my profession has thus opened to me. How 
 greatly my life has been enriched, all through
 
 216 AX AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 with knowledge and sympathy, gathered by this 
 experience of brotherly kindness, confidence, 
 and affection ; and, in my declining years, how 
 blessed the memories and associations connected 
 with this large circle of personal friends. I wish 
 they could all know how often, and how kindly, 
 I think of them, how well I remember our 
 charming conversations in Sunday evening's 
 latest hours, on all the interesting topics of our 
 time, and on the great problems of human life 
 and destiny. The moments when we reveal our 
 deepest thought, or the secrets of our hearts, to 
 each other, are most sacred. The relations so 
 formed, the friendships so cemented, are most 
 enduring, because most real and spiritual. How 
 many conscientious, cultivated, noble women, 
 how many wise, large-minded, true men, how 
 many interesting, lovely, charming children I 
 have met in these families and societies, with 
 which I have thus been connected in different 
 places and at different periods. 
 
 If I have, in any way, done them as much 
 good as they have done me, I am sure I shall 
 not soon be forgotten. Is not a relation that 
 can thus be made a source of blessings to both
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 217 
 
 parties worth preserving ? Have I not through 
 it received, in all natural confidence and sjonpa- 
 thy, the confessions and burdens of many souls 
 in as sacred and helpful a way as any ever 
 received at the regular priestly confessional ? 
 And is not the true Church of God built up in 
 this simple manner, in individual minds and 
 hearts, as likely to stand as are any of the 
 organizations that so greatly depend on priestly 
 craft and ecclesiastical jugglery? Those who 
 have real spiritual faith, confidence in the soul 
 of things, or in that spiritual nature which 
 underlies all forms of religion, can have no 
 anxiety about any natural fruits of this spirit, 
 can never distrust the permanence of any thing 
 that is, in itself, true, beautiful, and good. They 
 are both radical and conservative, believing that 
 out-growth is ever in proportion to growth, 
 equally parts of the same great renewing process, 
 in man as in nature, in society as in the individual. 
 My warfare has been not at all with this natural 
 conservatism, but with those persons, sects, and 
 parties, who have used conservative prejudices 
 only for their own narrow and selfish purposes. 
 I have learned to respect in several of my 
 
 10
 
 218 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 brethren a constitutional and educational hesi- 
 tation or cautiousness in public affairs, because 
 from intimate personal relations I am sure they 
 are true, noble men, .who have ever been as 
 ready to act according to their highest convic- 
 tions of truth and duty as I have to mine. I 
 can think of several who have passed away, 
 and some who yet remain, dear saints of God, 
 dear friends of man, who, without assenting to my 
 theories of politics or religion, have been more to 
 me in times of greatest need than any professed 
 reformers with whom I have ever been publicly 
 associated. In my long anti-slavery efforts I said 
 not an unkind word, and cherished not an un- 
 kind feeling of the southern people. When the 
 terrible conflict commenced, my first and fre- 
 quently repeated discourse was from the text, 
 " Father, forgive them, for they know not what 
 they do." But this prayer I could not in con- 
 science offer for any of their political or relig- 
 ious allies of the North who had been differently 
 educated, and did know better. The sin against 
 the Holy Spirit of truth and justice is not so 
 readily forgiven. I have ever had an easy, 
 because philosophical way, of accounting for
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 219 
 
 most of the errors, weaknesses, and sins of men, 
 and so have cherished the most cheerful and 
 hopeful views of their general progress and final 
 destiny. I have found nothing in my time so 
 discouraging as a want of faith and fidelity, 
 nothing so deserving of contempt as mental and 
 moral cowardice, nothing to arouse my comba- 
 tiveness but the common sophistries and hypoc- 
 risies of Church and State ; the men who in 
 high public positions have tried so hard to serve 
 both God and Mammon, to demoralize society 
 by obliterating the distinctions between good 
 and evil, or putting present temporary expe- 
 diency in the place of universal and eternal 
 principles. In these I have seen the real devil 
 at whom the brave old Luther threw his ink- 
 stand with all his might. I would throw pen, 
 press, and pulpit at any time-serving compromis- 
 ers who are trying to keep on good terms with 
 him. No forgiveness is asked of them ; no pity 
 sought of anybody ; no martyrdom claimed for 
 any thing. I am devoutly thankful for my life, 
 hard as it has often seemed. I rejoice that 
 through all the disappointments and wrecks of 
 these many years, I have lost so little of any
 
 220 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 thing that I now care for, my self-respect, or the 
 confidence and friendship of those noble men 
 and women for whom I cherish such respect and 
 affection true, devoted souls, who in my 
 darkest and most trying hours, when I had 
 most reason to feel that men were weaker and 
 worse than anybody had ever said or sung, gave 
 me, by their examples, the assurance that they 
 were also stronger and better. In my gratitude 
 and deep sense of joy at their approbation and 
 sympathy, I wish I could tell my readers who 
 they are, and from what doubt and despondency 
 they have often thus saved me. But at this 
 time in this form, these brief sketches must 
 close. 
 
 " Let the thick curtain fall ; 
 I better know than all, 
 How little I have gained, 
 How vast the unattained. 
 
 Not by the page word-painted 
 Let life be banned or sainted : 
 Deeper than any written scroll 
 The colors of the soul. 
 
 The autumn-time has come ; 
 On woods that dream of bloom, 
 And .over purpling vines, 
 The low sun fainter shines.
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 221 
 
 The aster-flower ia failing, 
 The hazel's gold is paling ; 
 Yet overhead more near 
 The eternal stars appear! 
 
 I feel the earth move sunward, 
 I join the great march onward, 
 \nd take, by faith, while living, 
 My freehold of thanksgiving."
 
 ESSAYS.
 
 ESSAYS. 
 
 
 
 I. 
 
 THE PROCESSES OF LIFE. 
 
 "JVTOT long since, one very dark and stormy 
 night, I had occasion to pass the Boston 
 Gas Works, an immense establishment, open at 
 all times, and at all times a most disagreeable 
 place ; but on such a night as this all its aspects 
 seemed of a perfectly infernal character. As the 
 great ovens, where the coal is roasted, were one 
 after another opened, the glowing masses hauled 
 out in the form of red-hot coke, and carried to 
 the rear in iron wheelbarrows to have combus- 
 tion stopped by jets of water, the glare of light 
 on the begrimed and sweating men, the roaring 
 of the fires, the hissing of the water as it was 
 directed upon the lurid coke, the smell of the 
 escaping unconsumed gas, the accompanying 
 dirt and smoke and steam, with the forlorn and 
 10* o
 
 226 ESSAYS. 
 
 every way disagreeable-looking women and chil- 
 dren who had come to bring refreshments to 
 these hideous-looking men, altogether this 
 formed a picture of which neither Dante with 
 his pen, nor Hogarth with his pencil, could giye 
 any adequate description. 
 
 From this scene I passed immediately to 
 another section of the city, and entered an 
 elegant mansion, where a beautiful and highly 
 cultivated family were assembled for the evening 
 around their centre-table. Some were working 
 for charity, some were playing, others were 
 reading, and the brilliant gas-light made the 
 whole apartment so cheerful that the contrast 
 between this happy home, where the means of 
 illumination were so enjoyed, and that scene 
 from which I had just come, where the illumi- 
 nating material is made and supplied, was 
 indeed most striking. This evening, so spent, 
 these two scenes, so contrasted, furnished the 
 real suggestion of the present essay. 
 
 The lesson of that evening, it seems to me, is< 
 the one great lesson of life, the lesson of 
 long, tedious, and disagreeable processes, to the 
 grandest, most important, and most glorious
 
 THE PROCESSES OF LIFE. 227 
 
 results, the lesson that the cycles of things 
 are great in proportion to their worth; that 
 all things are changing their forms, and modes 
 of existence ; that all things are working up- 
 ward ; that the humblest means are used to the 
 noblest ends ; that the highest things are ever 
 coming out of the lowest, and that thus even 
 the greatest evils are only good in the process 
 of making. 
 
 That black, smutty, sulphurous coal, at first 
 hidden away in the bowels of the earth, appar- 
 ently of no use, having no form of beauty or 
 comeliness, appears, at last, in almost all forms 
 of use and beauty. It cooks our food, over- 
 comes the rigors of our climate, propels the 
 machinery of our various manufactories, gives 
 speed and power to our ships, supplies a wax 
 harder and better than the finest spermaceti, and 
 an aerial form of light that brilliantly and cheer- 
 fully illumines our streets and our homes, 
 lengthening out our days, extending our wake- 
 ful, thinking, enjoying life, nearly one-third, and, 
 finally, out of its very dregs, its tar, till recently 
 its most useless and offensive form, comes all 
 the most brilliant and beautiful colors used in
 
 228 ESSAYS. 
 
 the art of dyeing, two of which are known as 
 magenta and solferino. 
 
 Now all these highest forms of power, use, 
 and beauty are in the lower. The dirty coal of 
 the mine, and the cheerful light and heat of the 
 parlor, are the same ; but the latter appears, 
 brought out, only through long, tedious, dis- 
 agreeable processes. 
 
 From the scene to which I first introduced 
 the reader, radiate, under ground, hundreds of 
 miles of pipes, entering every shop and dwelling 
 all over the great city ; and this hard, dark coal 
 that these dreadful-looking men are shovelling 
 into those glowing ovens, blossoms out miles 
 away, every evening, in the purest and most 
 brilliant light. It is the same everywhere, in 
 every department of life. In vegetation the 
 most disgusting substances are transmuted into 
 the most delicate and nourishing food, food not 
 only for man, but for all animated nature. They 
 at last cover the graceful trees with soft green 
 leaves, and most delicious fruits ; the beautiful 
 landscapes and gardens with tender, delicate, 
 brilliant, and fragrant flowers. " These heaps 
 of garbage at the corners, these tumbrels of mire
 
 THE PROCESSES OF LIFE. 229 
 
 jolting through the streets at night, these fetid 
 streams of subterranean slime which the pave- 
 ment hides from you, do you know what all 
 this is ? It is the flowering meadow, it is the 
 green grass, it is marjoram, and thyme and sage, 
 it is game, it is cattle, it is the satisfied low of 
 huge oxen at evening, it is perfumed hay, it is 
 golden corn, it is bread on your table, it is warm 
 blood in your veins, it is health, it is joy, it is 
 life." 
 
 This law is transformation on earth ; when its 
 processes are completed, it may be transfigura- 
 tion in heaven. Thus every thing that ministers 
 most to our senses, to our commonest every-day 
 enjoyments, has its origin, its very root, in 
 something that in itself always seems low, vile, 
 and useless. There is everywhere this analyzing, 
 preserving, transmuting power, which makes 
 dissolution, decay, and death, in one form, only 
 the means of a higher life in another. All 
 things on earth, animate and inanimate, thus 
 constantly tend upward, towards nobler, more 
 delicate, and more ethereal forms of existence. 
 
 Even the earth itself, from the very beginning 
 of its existence, has experienced similar changes
 
 230 ESSAYS. 
 
 and transformation in its whole structure and 
 character. It might originally have been a rude, 
 unorganized, moulten mass, struck off from some 
 other planet ; its surface gradually cooling, and 
 its smothered heat breaking out through the 
 hardening, cooling crust wherever thinnest and 
 weakest, and throwing up, from time to time, in 
 such thin and weak places, one after another of 
 its great mountains or mountain ranges ; these 
 shaping the great valleys, and giving rise to the 
 great rivers ; lifting up one portion of the land 
 out of the sea, depressing and overflowing 
 another ; stretching out its peninsulas, indent- 
 ing its coasts, and in various ways bringing these 
 great continents into a condition to support 
 vegetable and animal life ; separating and stor- 
 ing away the various minerals that were to last 
 its future inhabitants through all time ; disinte- 
 grating the rocks, and through this long and 
 tedious process, preparing the soil : and when, 
 after all these long ages, all this was accom- 
 plished, the earth was in an exceedingly rude, 
 elemental, chaotic state. Its internal heat, and 
 the various gases thereby evolved, made its 
 atmosphere too dense for any highly organized
 
 THE PROCESSES OF LIFE. 231 
 
 form of growth or respiration. Then there 
 appeared such things as could live best in that 
 atmosphere, the coarsest, most colossal forms 
 of vegetation, whole forests of which now com- 
 pose our immense deposits of coal. Following 
 this came a corresponding animal creation, ani- 
 mals so gigantic in size, so monstrous in forms, 
 so terrible in strength and carnivorous power, 
 that nothing but their fossil remains could give 
 us any adequate conception of sufih monsters. 
 All these were successively swept away, were 
 buried in the earth ; and, at last, man and the 
 present more delicate and highly organized races 
 of animals appeared ; but neither appeared in 
 any thing like their present condition. After 
 all these successive creations and develop- 
 ments, man, the flower of all, and for whom all 
 seems to have been but a preparation, had but 
 the germs of the powers and faculties which he 
 has since unfolded. He was the lowest and 
 rudest form of humanity. He had no clothing, 
 no shelter ; no means of defence, of supplying 
 his wants, except his hands ; or of locomotion, 
 except his feet ; no agriculture, manufactures, 
 or commerce; no art, science, or literature,
 
 232 ESSAYS. 
 
 not even a language. And these six thousand 
 years of his imperfect history, which we have, 
 must have been preceded by a still greater 
 number before he was able to leave any endur- 
 ing or intelligible record of himself- From these 
 rudimental races, from these naked, starving, 
 miserable savages, have come all the highest 
 and noblest forms of our great intelligence and 
 humanity. The Homers and Michael Angelos, 
 the Shakespeares and Miltons, the Oberlins and 
 ITe'nelons, the Newtons and Daltons, the Ark- 
 wrights and Fultons, the Stephensons and 
 Ericssons, have blossomed out from the dark 
 masses of ignorance and depravity of succes- 
 sive ages, just as the cheerful light and brilliant 
 colors now blossom out from the dark coal- 
 mines. 
 
 The great art of life is to develop such prod- 
 ucts from such materials. These human ma- 
 terials, too, that we have around Us in such 
 multitudes, though outwardly so unpromising, 
 are all good enough if we would discover the right 
 mode of using them, of turning them to account, 
 or developing their latent greatness and good- 
 ness. Every low passion and animal feeling in
 
 THE PROCESSES OF LIFE. 233 
 
 man, from which now comes so much crime and 
 suffering, is good in itself, was given him by 
 his infinitely wise and good Creator, and is 
 capable of serving the highest and noblest pur- 
 poses. It is a divine element in its first, lowest, 
 crudest state. It is the coal in the mine ; and 
 all this long, disagreeable discipline of life is the 
 refiner's fire, and the chemist's laboratory, from 
 which are to proceed many new and higher 
 forms of life. From this great, seething caul- 
 dron of society, now so black with crime, so 
 crusted over with suffering, from its very 
 refuse, its sediment, its scum, from its appar- 
 ently useless dregs, now as offensive to the soul 
 as the coal tar is to the senses, the Divine 
 Chemist will sometime extract elements of spir- 
 itual brightness and beauty, far surpassing any 
 yet known to us in the material world. 
 
 This cheerful view of human society is illus- 
 trated and supported by all the great analogies 
 of nature. The higher forms of matter and 
 mind are all latent, or hidden, in the lower ; and 
 their development is only a question of time, 
 the highest requiring most; and society, the 
 crown of all, therefore requiring more than all.
 
 234 ESSAYS. 
 
 What long ages between the formation of the 
 coal strata and even its discovery ; and, after 
 this discovery, what immense periods before 
 men learned to see any of the forms of use and 
 beauty in which they now know this black, 
 smoky rock to abound ! And if this is true of 
 this crude, unorganized substance, hidden in the 
 earth, how much larger must be the cycle for 
 man, the most highly organized being on earth ! 
 How much longer it must take man to make 
 society fit to live in, than for the Almighty to 
 make this material planet fit for him to live on ! 
 A thousand of our years are but a day with the 
 Lord ; and in all things pertaining to the devel- 
 opment of the divine nature in man, time is 
 of no account. No elaboration of growth is 
 too great for his futurity. The reason why his 
 progress here seems so slow, and is so slow, 
 is because, being at the head of the creation, he 
 must take all things along, upward, and onward, 
 with him. In bringing out all that is latent in 
 himself, he is to bring out all that is latent 
 in nature. He is to finish and furnish a world, 
 which God purposely left unfinished for him to 
 complete.
 
 THE PEOCESSES OF LIFE. 235 
 
 From this exalted standpoint how easy it is 
 to become reconciled to man's present condition ! 
 His civilization, high as he may think it, and 
 much as he may boast of it, answers only, at 
 least, to the secondary geological formations of 
 the earth. It has yet many monstrous growths 
 of iniquity, gigantic, infinitely various, and 
 horrible forms of moral and social existence ; 
 it has innumerable oppressions and miseries ; 
 it has great sedimentary deposits of ignorance 
 and superstition, even a savagery which can 
 be kept down only by wholesale destructions, 
 by wars more sanguinary than those among the 
 great carnivorous beasts, whose bones we find 
 only in that strata just referred to. And yet 
 there is nothing of which we may be so hope- 
 ful, and prophesy so much good, as of this 
 very civilization. We have only to regard it as 
 yet all elementary in its character, an infinite 
 process in its secondary and rudimental forms ; 
 and thus all its evils as good in the process 
 of making. 
 
 If man can, in the long dark, wintry even- 
 ings, bring the light and heat of his home out 
 of the stones of the earth, he thinks it worth
 
 236 ESSAYS. 
 
 doing, however long and dirty may be the 
 means. If he can extract and transfer in 
 abundance to the fabrics of which his cloth- 
 ing is made, from the offensive refuse of these 
 black stones, colors that rival those of the rain- 
 bow in the heavens or the flowers of the field, 
 he thinks it worth his while to do so, however 
 great and disagreeable the labor may be. So he 
 should receive his life here with all its discipline, 
 as something worth having, as something that 
 has a meaning, and a prophecy, infinitely be- 
 yond all that he can now see and know. It 
 takes up all the past, and reaches forth to all 
 the future. He lives not, as is commonly said, 
 for eternity. He lives now and ever, and now as 
 truly as ever, in eternity. If he now, in his 
 present low condition, in this rudimental state 
 of life, has this power to bring light out of 
 darkness, beauty, out of ashes, peace and pros- 
 perity out of convulsion and war, then surely 
 the infinite Superintendent of all the processes 
 of life can transmute all evil into good. We 
 have only to wait the time of Him who saw 
 the end from the beginning, and who doeth all 
 things well.
 
 THE PROCESSES OF LIFE. 237 
 
 In this great series of ascending movements 
 all things are included. The most advanced 
 nations and races are sometimes stopped in the 
 midst of their high career that they may turn 
 back to pick up and bring along with th:m their 
 poor weary, oppressed, down-trodden brethren, 
 as dear in the sight of the Heavenly Father as 
 any others, to be strengthened, enlightened, and 
 saved with the others. It is all after one plan, 
 and nothing can be left out without disturb- 
 ing and retarding its development. We have 
 emancipated one class of men from chattel 
 slavery, and given them a chance to come 
 up with us. Now if we withhold the rights 
 of any other class we shall have to stop again, 
 and lose as before all we gain by such reckless, 
 selfish competition. 
 
 Rome, in the old days, thought she could not 
 prosper without destroying Carthage, so in the 
 conflict both went down together. There is 
 now no better established principle of political 
 economy than that the true permanent interests 
 of each are the interests of all ; that all classes, 
 all nations and races are bound together in one 
 family ; that the world was made to go on the
 
 238 ESSAYS. 
 
 principle of mutual co-operation, and so can go 
 well on no other. 
 
 The earth, at first so chaotic, gradually gets 
 moulded into this " orb of light and beauty," 
 with its green fields, laughing brooks, and wav- 
 ing forests, its graceful hills, running streams, and 
 various landscapes, affording perpetual means of 
 sustenance and happiness to the millions of sen- 
 tient beings, who live upon its surface. So man, 
 commencing here in his lowest animal state, is 
 going through various transformations prepara- 
 tory to developing into the very angel, the real 
 child of God, the heir of this immortality. The 
 wings that form the butterfly, lie folded in the 
 worm ; and the wings that are to speed man 
 the angel, now lie folded in man the animal. 
 But whether we speak of minerals or animals, 
 of worms, or of angels, we know that every 
 thing God has made is good, and includes in 
 itself all the higher forms of existence which he 
 would bring out of it.* When he finished his 
 creation, we read that he was satisfied with it, 
 and pronounced it good ; and when he has fin- 
 ished more of the developments of his provi- 
 dence, we shall not only be satisfied, but in
 
 THE PEOCESSES OF LIFE. 239 
 
 ecstasy exclaim Good and beautiful, beyond 
 all thought and expression ! Oh, how great the 
 harmony and beauty of all his works and ways ! 
 Our psalm of life will then accord with that of 
 nature, and go up with it in one long, loud 
 acclaim of praise.
 
 240 ESSAYS. 
 
 n. 
 
 MAN AND NATURE. 
 
 r I "O the philosophical student of nature there 
 is no more general or striking fact than its 
 imperfection, or incompleteness. It seems as if 
 the infinite Architect of the universe had every- 
 where given only outlines, sketches, hints, of his 
 great purposes, and left his plans to be finished 
 in details by subordinate artists. All his work 
 is perfect, as far as it goes ; but each picture 
 seems to be purposely left unfinished for others 
 to complete. 
 
 This fact is far more conspicuous in the 
 higher than in the lower works of the Creator. 
 
 Fish, insects, birds, and all animals who were 
 to be guided by their instincts, have those in- 
 stincts in perfection. Each was made perfect 
 of its kind, and has perfectly done its work 
 from the beginning. The first birds built their 
 nests, the first bees their hives, and the first
 
 MAN AND NATURE. 241 
 
 beavers their dams, as well as any that through 
 these long ages have ever been built by any of 
 their successors. All creatures that were to be 
 moved by their instincts have been perfectly 
 guided into all they could do, have, or enjoy. 
 In all these departments there is nothing to be 
 added. There is no room for improvements. 
 All things were here made absolutely perfect in 
 their way, or for their purpose. 
 
 So of all the lower orders of plants. The 
 Creator made them just as he intended to have 
 them. They, through all the past, have re- 
 mained unchanged. We never think of improv- 
 ing them. We all feel that they perfectly fulfil 
 his designs in them. But now, when we come 
 to the earth and man, and all the higher orders 
 of animals and plants, we find this rule com- 
 pletely reversed. Here every thing is rudi- 
 mental, unfinished, imperfect, according to its 
 worth, or the greatness of its purpose ; and de- 
 pends on human care and culture, on human art 
 and ingenuity. 
 
 Look at this scene of our existence. How 
 rough and rude is every aspect of the earth, 
 where the care and labor of man are not seen ! 
 11 p
 
 242 ESSAYS. 
 
 What tangled forests and desert wastes ! What 
 poisonous plants, venomous reptiles, wild beasts, 
 and destructive insects ! What great floods 
 come down to wash away the fertility of the 
 soil ! How prolific the useless, exhausting 
 weeds, which add so much to the labor of its 
 cultivation ! What earthquakes, volcanoes, and 
 tempests, to lay waste and destroy ! The earth 
 is like a cold, distant step-mother, who seems 
 to begrudge us every thing we get from her. 
 Again, there is not a single aspect of nature that 
 is perfectly satisfying, that is not open to criti- 
 cism, that has not some discordant elements; 
 not a single high department to which something 
 could not be added, or from which something 
 could not be taken away, without increasing 
 both its usefulness and beauty. 
 
 Surely this earth is a very imperfect work for 
 a perfect Creator ; and this imperfection itself 
 must therefore have a meaning, a purpose be- 
 yond itself ; it must have reference to something 
 greater, and hence more imperfect still, to 
 man, the greatest and yet the most imperfect 
 being on the earth. 
 
 If we look at him truly, we shall see the best
 
 MAN AND NATURE. 243 
 
 instance of the law which we are endeavoring 
 to unfold and illustrate. 
 
 His infancy is more feeble and protracted 
 than that of any other creature ; and no others 
 furnish themselves so slowly with the knowl- 
 edge necessary to self-subsistence. Man has 
 less given him, or done for him, than any other 
 creature of God. He is unclothed, unsheltered, 
 and, beyond infancy, unfed. He is turned out 
 into such an unfinished and unfurnished world 
 as we have described, and left to himself. He 
 has attained every thing he now possesses 
 through ages of terrible struggles, struggles 
 against soils and climates, struggles against all 
 kinds of external and internal foes. Through 
 what ages of barbarism and blood has he come 
 even to his present condition ! What constant 
 wars, what overwhelming oppressions, what in- 
 describable sufferings have everywhere fallen to 
 his lot ! For every success, what innumerable 
 disappointments and failures ! 
 
 Now what is the meaning of all this ? What 
 is the explanation of this striking anomaly? 
 What is the key to this great mystery of crea- 
 tion and providence ? Why has the infinite
 
 244 ESSAYS. 
 
 Creator finished with such exquisite perfection 
 all the lowest orders of beings and things, and 
 left all his highest works so imperfect, so unfin- 
 ished ? Had he in the conclusion of his efforts 
 exhausted his resources? As we proceed we 
 shall find quite a different explanation. 
 
 The greatest gift that could be bestowed on 
 such a being as man, the greatest help that 
 could possibly be given him, was the means of 
 helping himself, of developing himself, of making 
 his own world as the infinite Father did his, 
 the universe ; the means of obtaining all things 
 for himself, all things necessary to his self-edu- 
 cation and self-elevation. These means he has 
 in his peculiar mental and moral endowments, 
 in that reason and conscience which, in their 
 lowest state, are far more precious gifts than 
 the infallible instincts that preserve and guide 
 other creatures. To such a being, this world, 
 though so imperfect in itself, is perfectly adapted. 
 Both were left in this imperfect state, because 
 it was necessary for each to act upon the other, 
 in order to develop the powers and resources of 
 both. Man and nature belong to each other ; 
 and must be perfected together. God left the
 
 MAN AND NATURE. 245 
 
 earth in the unfinished state in which we every- 
 where find it, purposely, for man to complete ; 
 and in doing this work, man will put into action 
 the same powers from which the universe itself 
 sprung. He will work on the same principle, 
 and in the same spirit, that has moved the divine 
 Artist from the beginning. As yet this is not 
 done anywhere to any extent. A few great 
 artists feel the dignity of their art, its divinity 
 and moral significance. But how generally is 
 labor (which is only another term for art) 
 degraded into the merest drudgery, by being 
 done ignorantly, imperfectly, and with low aims ! 
 Practically, it is regarded as a curse, instead of 
 a blessing, and men try to get rid of it as much 
 as possible. They would have it done by slaves, 
 or think it must be stimulated by the necessities 
 of low and servile classes. 
 
 Now how completely does our present idea 
 change all this, and make the lowest realms of 
 industry the same in purpose and spirit as the 
 highest realms of art ! All that needs to be done 
 here by man for the improvement of nature and 
 society, is just as sacred, just as divine an effort 
 as it was for God to make man and nature. It
 
 246 ESSAYS. 
 
 is all one work. He who takes iron from the 
 mine, lumber from the forest, or even clay from 
 the pit to construct the useful and beautiful 
 habitations of men, is completing a divine plan, 
 and cannot too deeply feel the dignity and im- 
 portance of his labor. Those who make the soft, 
 glossy, delicate, beautiful silk fabrics now so 
 common, are carrying out or completing the 
 designs of the infinite Artist who directly made 
 only the mulberry leaf and the silk-worm. He 
 depends on men for all else, all the variety and 
 beauty of the final products. And though the 
 dust of factories settles upon the laborers' clothes, 
 and the dyes stain their hands, their souls are 
 elevated and purified in proportion as they 
 intelligently and consciously co-operate in this 
 design. The last process is as important as the 
 first. These factory operatives may rejoice in 
 the success of their efforts as truly as when the 
 morning stars sang together, and all the sons of 
 God shouted for joy, at the creation's dawn. 
 As they seize upon his thought, they enter into 
 his creative spirit, they work exactly in the line 
 of Him who so gorgeously lights up the evening 
 sky, and so delicately paints the modest little
 
 MAN AND NATURE. 247 
 
 flower. God clothes the earth with beauty ; 
 they clothe his children with leaves, in colors that 
 rival those of the rainbow in the heavens. Why 
 should they not enjoy their work as he does his ? 
 
 The marble of the quarry is one work. The 
 sculptor takes this cold, hard, silent stone, and 
 makes it express almost every thought, emotion, 
 and passion of the human soul. Which is the 
 greater ? Yet who ever thinks of any drudgery 
 or degradation in the hard and dirty work or 
 processes of the sculptor's art ? 
 
 How differently the humblest working-man 
 would view his occupation if he could see it in 
 this light ! How quickly would he catch the 
 artistic spirit ! How soon would he learn to do 
 his work wisely and well, and find his highest 
 happiness in turning out the most perfect speci- 
 mens of indust ly in his department, whatever it 
 might be ! 
 
 Similar illustrations may be found in many 
 other departments of life, all serving to show 
 that the difference in our work is mainly in 
 ourselves, or in our modes of seeing and 
 doing it. 
 
 Oh ! we do so long for the time when all the
 
 248 ESSAYS. 
 
 earth's work shall be done by persons who are 
 worthy of this divine vocation to which they 
 are called ; when the industrial will be as truly 
 fine arts as any others, as sculpture, painting, 
 music, or poetry ; when work will be done with 
 as much enthusiasm as play ; when the divine 
 nature and unity of all art shall be seen and 
 felt, and the best work everywhere regarded as 
 the best worship. 
 
 As art completes nature, or is a fuller expres- 
 sion of the thought or purpose of God than 
 nature itself, so is the imagination of" man 
 higher and truer to the same purpose than all 
 that he calls facts and realities. Its creations 
 are more stable than the solid earth ; its func- 
 tions are higher than those of the exact sci- 
 ences ; and there is nothing that man can know 
 at all that he cannot know more perfectly 
 through this power. The great German poet 
 made some of the most important scientific dis- 
 coveries by processes purely imaginary, which 
 were afterwards endorsed by the highest scien- 
 tific authorities. The naturalist is as depend- 
 ent on this power as the poet. From the single 
 bone he can reconstruct the whole animal to
 
 MAN AND NATURE. 249 
 
 which it belonged. He can give its size, its 
 form, its food, and all the general habits of its 
 life. This has actually been done where only 
 one bone of the kind was known to exist ; and 
 a living specimen was afterwards found corre- 
 sponding in every respect to this creature of the 
 naturalist's imagination. 
 
 This is the ideal completing power. It sees 
 the fitness of things ; it sees how things should 
 be to correspond one with another, like the dif- 
 ferent bones of the animal; it also puts flesh 
 and blood on to the dry bones. In history it 
 accurately fills out the places of ah 1 missing 
 facts, so that, other things being equal, the 
 historian who has the greatest imagination will 
 write the truest and best account we can get 
 of any period. The great poet and novelist, 
 Scott, has given us more accurate pictures of 
 the times and scenes to which his books relate 
 than we could get from all the facts from which 
 he gathered his materials, or from any other 
 source. As God's plan of the creation is more 
 perfect than its execution, so man's ideal in all 
 things is more true than the real, and hence 
 ever opens to him new and more perfect ways, 
 11*
 
 250 ESSAYS. 
 
 or leads him up to higher standards of thought 
 and life. Imagination is the power by which 
 man enters into, or comprehends, the designs of 
 God in nature and in himself. He thus seizes 
 upon the divine ideal, and, through art and 
 culture, is destined to realize it. He is born a 
 poet and an artist, and will develop and perfect 
 himself only as he develops and perfects the 
 world around him. In the great fact on which 
 we first engaged our attention, that the low- 
 est of the Creator's works are perfect and 
 imperfect, as we go up to nature and man, 
 we find evidence, not of less providence and 
 love, but of more, infinitely more. It is the 
 highest and most glorious prophecy for the 
 future of these highest works. We can set no 
 bounds to the improvements that may be made 
 in all these higher departments of life. See 
 how art and culture have already changed the 
 plants and animals which specially belong to 
 man, and which he has taken under his care. 
 We know not the kind or quality of the fruit 
 that so strongly tempted our Mother Eve in 
 the Garden of Eden ; but, if it was not better 
 than most of the original or native kinds
 
 MAN AND NATUEE. 251 
 
 with which we are acquainted, she must have 
 been very weak in the way of temptation, or 
 very hungry in the way of food. For the natu- 
 ral stocks from which have come all our tender, 
 juicy, delicious, and beautiful apples and pears, 
 once bore fruit too sour, bitter, and crabbed for 
 swine to eat. So of many other kinds of fruits, 
 vegetables, and domestic animals. Their whole 
 character has been changed by human art and 
 culture. 
 
 Similar remarks may be made in regard to 
 flowers. The greatest improvements have been 
 made in their forms, colors, fragrance, and in all 
 that can delight the senses of man. These high- 
 est things of the vegetable world are, under his 
 care, losing their original imperfections. That 
 original defects exist, is seen in the fact that 
 many flowers and leaves, growing on the same 
 plant, do not harmonize with each other, are 
 not the best arrangement that can be made with 
 either. If we put the leaves of one plant 
 with the flowers of another, both seem far more 
 beautiful than before. We have often seen the 
 most wonderful effects produced in this way. 
 It is thus in the power of man to set these pict-
 
 252 ESSAYS. 
 
 ares of God, the flowers, iii better frames than 
 those in which he originally placed them. In 
 this whole matter of changing stocks, blending 
 colors, and adjusting forms, what whole new 
 realms of art there must yet be unexplored and 
 unknown ! In fruits, flowers, domestic animals, 
 and hi every thing made imperfect, and subjected 
 to the control of man, what unlimited scope for 
 art and progress ! 
 
 In regard to the scenery of the earth too, about 
 which so many persons are so enthusiastic in 
 in their admiration ; not a landscape was com- 
 pleted, or its different parts arranged with 
 regard to the greatest artistic effects. There 
 is everywhere something wanting, which man 
 alone can supply. There are wild, picturesque, 
 sublime, and lovely scenes, beautiful pictures, 
 scattered all over the face of the earth. But 
 that person must be in a wild or morbid condi- 
 tion who can be satisfied with the sight, or com- 
 panionship of great rocks or mountains, great 
 forests or rivers ; who cannot see that every 
 landscape is perfect according to the variety of 
 elements combined in it; or according as it 
 addresses the greatest number of his faculties
 
 MAN AND NATUEE. 253 
 
 and feelings. As the ocean is the most beauti- 
 ful where the most ships are coursing over it, 
 so are these wild, picturesque, and mountainous 
 scenes of nature most admirable when we can 
 see the roads, the pathways of man, winding 
 around among them, and his bridges thrown over 
 their rivers, his cottages, schools, churches, and 
 villages peering out of his cultivated shrubbery, 
 or his farm-houses dotted about among the hills 
 surrounded with flocks and herds, with waving 
 fields of grass and of grain. 
 
 Thus man and nature are the complements of 
 each other, and taken together make one perfect 
 whole. Their purpose is to develop each other. 
 God, in nature, gives glimpses, hints of his 
 grand and beautiful artistic thoughts ; and 
 leaves them for men to study and improve. 
 He gives sketches, outlines of pictures, and 
 leaves them for men to fill out or finish. The 
 earth is a school. God is the teacher, man the 
 pupil, and perfection the lesson. Thus human 
 art is the completion of divine art ; and all the 
 labor it involves is of the same high and holy 
 character as the creation itself. O man, adorn er, 
 beautifier, almost re-creator of the world, poet,
 
 254 ESSAYS. 
 
 artist, child of God, partaker of the divine na- 
 ture, see that thou doest all thy work worthily, 
 in the spirit of the poet and artist, and not in 
 that of the hireling !
 
 HUIVTAN CONSCIOUSNESS. 255 
 
 in. 
 
 HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 "\T 7HEN a person awakes from a deep slum- 
 ber, or comes out of a swoon, or from 
 any unconscious to conscious existence, we 
 speak of the act as coming to himself. But the 
 phrase has an infinitely deeper meaning than in 
 its reference to this mere conscious life, or the 
 mere activity of powers or affections. Whoever 
 really comes to himself comes to the very essence 
 of his being, to the great source of all being, to 
 a consciousness of the great all in the midst of 
 which he lives. He comes to the most vital of 
 all questions concerning God and nature and his 
 fellow-beings. He finds that he has the most 
 intimate and vital connections with every thing 
 about him. He at once asks, "What am I? 
 whence came I here ? whither am I tending ? 
 what is all this boundless universe to me ? "
 
 256 ESSAYS. 
 
 There is nothing so astonishing to him as him- 
 self. 
 
 What is this human consciousness, and what 
 does it embrace? This is the great question 
 now before us. What is this something that 
 sees through the eyes, that hears through the 
 ears, that smells through the nostrils, that tastes 
 through the palate, that feels, in every part of 
 this body, every object which comes in contact 
 with it? These senses are mere instruments 
 used by some power behind them mediums 
 of communication between that intangible, 
 invisible something that man calls himself and 
 the outward, visible world. These bodies, that 
 are feeding, toiling, sleeping, and so intimately 
 known in so many forms of activity, are not we, 
 they are ours. They are ours to use, according 
 to our will and pleasure. Just as the uni- 
 verse is not God, as the pantheist asserts ; 
 but it is his, his body. He possesses and 
 lives in and through it as intimately and 
 vitally as we live in and through our bodies. 
 Its forms are expressions of his thoughts, as 
 truly as St. Peter's Church, at Rome, is an 
 expression of Michael Angelo's thought. Its
 
 HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS. 257 
 
 harmonies are his music ; its laws, his will ; 
 and not a movement is originated, or continued, 
 except by mandate of this infinite central 
 power. 
 
 What this vital, central intelligence is we 
 know not, either in ourselves or in the universe. 
 We can know ourselves, we can know God, 
 only through our consciousness. We apprehend 
 both, but can comprehend neither. We are 
 only what we are conscious of being. We 
 know of the outward world only what our 
 minds have used and appropriated. We know 
 of God only what we have felt of his presence 
 in nature and in our own souls. But how 
 immense is the sweep of this spiritual power, 
 this conscious personality in us ! 
 
 All the past is present to us. We go, in our 
 thought, step by step through all the immense 
 geological periods of our globe, over the history 
 of all the nations and races of men that have 
 ever lived upon its surface, over the sun and 
 stars, over the worlds and systems of worlds 
 that lie around us in the infinitude of space, 
 over all our own lives, all the persons we have 
 known, all the scenes we have witnessed, all the
 
 258 ESSAYS. 
 
 events and circumstances of which we have 
 taken cognizance, all are present in us, to 
 be recalled and used at any time we please. 
 Nothing, of all this experience, knowledge, or 
 conscious life, is ever lost. 
 
 Now the great question is, how all these things 
 are present in us. Have they really, through 
 consciousness, entered into our life and become 
 a part of us ? Or are they recorded in a book 
 of remembrance for our mental use and conven- 
 ience ? 
 
 % 
 
 What is this wonderful thing that we call 
 memory ? Is it a special faculty, using a par- 
 ticular part of the brain ? Not at all ; for we 
 know that each faculty takes care of its own, or 
 that there are as many different kinds of memory 
 as there are different faculties. Or, again, is the 
 human mind, at first, as Locke asserted, like a 
 sheet of clean, white paper, on which experi- 
 ence and knowledge are recorded as life pro- 
 ceeds, events making impressions like types in 
 a printing-press, and memory the reading of 
 these impressions ? This gross materialistic 
 theory, if admitted, gives no satisfactory solu- 
 tion to the problem before us. For the ques-
 
 HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS. 259 
 
 tion at once arises, What is that something 
 which reads the impressions thus made, that 
 recalls and lives in all the past as really as in 
 the present ? The book and the reader of the 
 book cannot be the same. If man is a machine, 
 a printing-press, for instance, he is also 
 something more ; and this something more is 
 what we are considering, is what runs the 
 machine, appropriates and uses the results of 
 its operations, is what is peculiar to him as 
 man, his personality; what constitutes him 
 a person and not a thing ; what is too spiritual 
 to be subject to the laws of matter ; what, in 
 fact, is to him his all in all. 
 
 All the scenes and events that he through 
 knowledge or experience or thought lives in 
 consciously, he lives in vitally. They are 
 actually parts of himself, constituent elements 
 of his own being. He does not recall or remem- 
 ber them. He relives them, reanimates them. 
 They are always vital in proportion to the 
 vitality of his spirit. He thus reanimates most 
 readily what he has lived in most truly, and felt 
 most deeply. The events of his early life are 
 freshest in old age, because his life was then
 
 260 ESSAYS. 
 
 every way fresher, stronger, and deeper. He 
 thus lives in all his knowledge, in all his sympa- 
 thies, in all his affections. And out of such life 
 nothing can be utterly lost, in time or eternity. 
 
 Over this all-animating, all-absorbing princi- 
 ple, or personality, death can have no power. 
 It is a divine, fundamental, spiritual element, 
 give it what name we may. It is this that 
 knows no limits of time or space. It is this that 
 ranges over the whole creation of God, taking 
 and keeping possession of all according to its 
 own activities and sympathies ; thus literally, 
 in the same degree, becoming one with God and 
 nature, and all kindred forms of life. 
 
 How all-pervading is this personality in our 
 bodies, directing nerves and muscles, moving 
 the whole complex and delicate machinery to 
 every given purpose ! How wonderful the 
 rapidity of its operations ! You stand with your 
 back towards a heated stove, your hands behind 
 you. Your attention is given to some important 
 absorbing topic, you touch a finger to its heated 
 surface, and instantaneously, quicker than any 
 flash of lightning, it is taken away. But rapidly 
 as this is accomplished the movement is not
 
 HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS. 261 
 
 commenced till a regular telegraphic despatch 
 is taken by the nerves up to the brain, and 
 another despatch returned to the muscles of the 
 hand to contract and remove the burnt finger. 
 A skilful musician seats himself at a piano to 
 play and sing a difficult piece of music. His 
 fingers fly over the keys with the most astonish- 
 ing dexterity, with the most wonderful strength 
 and delicacy of touch ; he pours forth corre- 
 sponding notes in song ; his whole body seems 
 to be charged with electricity, so rapid and 
 varied are all his movements. But not a key is 
 struck, not a note is sounded, not a muscle is 
 relaxed or contracted except as it is directed by 
 telegraphic despatches from the central, con- 
 scious, willing power. The music is of the soul. 
 It lives in, and expresses itself through these 
 harmonies. Nerves and muscles are just as 
 truly its mere instruments, as the piano before 
 him. How much more wonderful is this ma- 
 chinery than any ever seen at our telegraph 
 offices ! Another striking illustration may be 
 found in the common act of walking. It seems 
 perfectly automatic while it continues. But it 
 is not so in the least degree. The same proc-
 
 262 ESSAYS. 
 
 esses of willing and directing are carried on with 
 every single step as at the commencement or 
 close of a walk. I propose to walk from Cam- 
 bridge to Boston, as I frequently do. I start at 
 the usual speed, apparently giving the subject 
 not another thought. I am intently meditating 
 and arranging the subject of this essay. My 
 mind is possessed of this topic to the exclusion 
 of every other ; and apparently my attention is 
 not diverted till my walk is closed. Or, per- 
 haps, soon after starting I come up with a 
 neighbor or friend going the same way, and I 
 carry on with him a conversation requiring 
 much mental effort and attention. I also, while 
 passing over the long bridge, look up the beauti- 
 ful river, to the graceful hills and landscapes of 
 Newton and Brookline, sweeping round to the 
 great city that rises out of the water, appreciat- 
 ing and enjoying all this grand view, at the 
 same time that I am thinking deeply or con- 
 versing freely with my companion. And yet 
 not one step do I really take of all this long 
 walk without a double mental action, inde- 
 pendent of those just described. Every time I 
 lift a foot, or put it down, I will and direct
 
 H CTMAN CONSCIOUSNESS . 263 
 
 the movement. I send, along the whole line of 
 the nerves, despatches, commands to the muscles, 
 what motions to make, when and how much to 
 increase or decrease their tension. 
 
 Now all this is impossible or utterly incon- 
 ceivable on any other supposition than the one 
 before us that the human, like the divine 
 mind, has a power of ubiquity or omnipresence, 
 and actually lives and works in many ways and 
 places at the same time ; in all the past and 
 present, that is in its consciousness ; in all that 
 is subject to its will ; in all that it knows and 
 does. Why should -we not have this power if 
 we are to know and do all the divine will, if 
 we were made to understand and enjoy the 
 works and ways of God, and to co-operate in 
 his great purposes ? How are we ever to do this 
 without this likeness of nature, this power or 
 ability to do as he does, pervade the whole 
 sphere of our activity as he does his? How 
 near this thought brings us to God ! How it 
 helps us to understand his presence in all things 
 around us, the oneness of all real spiritual 
 life ! What an immense scope it opens for 
 future knowledge, aspiration, and activity!
 
 264 ESSAYS. 
 
 I 
 
 What a divine significance it gives to our pres- 
 ent existence, to our commonest thoughts and 
 actions ! How it increases our reverence for 
 this spiritual personality in us, and in our fel- 
 low-men ! What a tender care it inspires for 
 these material bodies as the temples of such 
 divinely gifted souls ! as the powerful and 
 delicate instruments through which the noblest 
 purposes of God are to be wrought out on earth. 
 How sacred the hygienic laws, and all the vari- 
 ous functions of such bodies ! 
 
 Who that reflects deeply upon his wonderful 
 personality, the variety of its scope, and the 
 grandeur of the scene of its operations, the 
 world of time and space as it lies in his all- 
 embracing consciousness, of the lightning ra- 
 pidity of his mental operations, of his thinking, 
 willing, and doing powers, of his likeness to the 
 great All in all the elements of his immor- 
 tality and omnipresence, can fail to see the 
 greatness of his nature, and all the divine sig- 
 nificance of his mortal life ? And when he sees 
 this, and feels burdened and obstructed with 
 error and sin, how can he help being attracted 
 to the Father of such a spirit, the source of such
 
 HUMAN CONSCIOUSlSrESS. 265 
 
 endowments ? How can he help being conscious 
 of all his present unworthiness and debase- 
 ment ? Or how can he help saying, I will arise 
 out of my present sloth, folly, and thoughtless 
 ingratitude , I will arise out of all my present 
 ignorance and defilement, and will go to my 
 Father ; I will take care of the infinite inheri- 
 tance he is ever ready to divide with me ; I will 
 give him myself body and soul a living 
 daily sacrifice ; I will grow in all knowledge 
 and goodness, that I may come as near to him 
 in character as in nature ; I will, through this 
 oneness of nature, attain to oneness of spirit, so 
 that I may understand, appreciate, and enjoy all 
 his works and ways ? Such must be the process 
 of thought in every person as he really " comes 
 to himself." As he comes to himself he comes 
 to this wonderful inner man, to a portion of 
 that divine spirit by which the world was made, 
 and is governed ; by which he comes to self- 
 knowledge, a knowledge of God, and all that is 
 true, beautiful, and good. 
 
 12
 
 266 ESSAYS. 
 
 IV. 
 BEGINNING AND ENDING. 
 
 T TERE is a great subject for a short essay. 
 The beginning and ending of the infinite 
 creation that lies around us, of the infinite phe- 
 nomena of existence, in either direction. How 
 shall we begin it? arxd when begun, how 
 shall we ever think of ending it ? The geology 
 of our globe gives us some good data for its 
 history ; of its formation out of ethereal ele- 
 ments, of its molten and cooling conditions, of 
 its disintegrations and stratifications ; each 
 requiring an inconceivable period of time, 
 before the earth was prepared for even the 
 lowest forms of vegetable or animal life. Then 
 the history of man on this planet, though of 
 comparatively recent date, goes back ages upon 
 ages; and, according to the law of develop- 
 ment or progress, he must have existed here
 
 BEGINNING AND ENDING. 267 
 
 long before he was able to leave any enduring 
 or any intelligible record of himself. 
 
 But when we have thus gone back through 
 all history and geology, we are only at the 
 beginning of our journey. We are just as much 
 in the midst of things there as anywhere. 
 For time stretches out as far one way as the 
 other ; and the same faculties of the human 
 mind which lead us to ask about the beginning, 
 lead us to ask about the ending. 
 
 "But if our life be life, 
 
 And thought and will and love 
 
 Not vague, unconscious airs 
 
 That o'er wild harp-strings move ; 
 
 If consciousness be aught 
 
 Of all it seems to be, 
 
 And souls are something more 
 
 Than lights that gleam and flee ; 
 Though dark the road that leads us thither, 
 The heart must ask its whence and whither." 
 
 When we read to the child, out of the Bible, 
 that " in the beginning God made the heavens 
 and the earth," he audaciously wants to know 
 who jnade God, what there was before this 
 beginning, how God or the universe could 
 come out of nothing. Causality, the sense of 
 logical sequence, is disturbed, and he is no bettei
 
 268 ESSAYS. 
 
 satisfied than before. As we go sounding on in 
 this direction, thought is lost in this eternity of 
 the past. Each answer suggests a new ques- 
 tion ; and all is resolved into the original and 
 ever-recurring one, what was first of all ? What 
 was in the very beginning? At last, stand 
 where we may, we are in the very presence of 
 the infinite. We apprehend, we have a faculty 
 of causality a mental or spiritual instinct, 
 which assures us that there must be a first 
 cause, and guiding power ; that the universe 
 must have been made by somebody, at some 
 time, for some purpose, by some infinite intel- 
 ligence. This the reasoning, logical faculties of 
 our mental constitution demand ; this the com- 
 mon instincts of the human heart feel must be 
 true. But any thing beyond, any comprehen- 
 sion of such an infinite creative intelligence and 
 providence, is utterly impossible for us, in our 
 present condition. The simplest children may 
 ask any number of questions, about this begin- 
 ning of things, which the wisest men cannot 
 answer. And they do but follow a natural 
 instinct in those startling inquiries. It is the 
 feeble, blind groping^ or reaching out of the
 
 BEGINNING AND ENDING. 269 
 
 human soul after its parent the infinite soul 
 of the universe. These endless questionings 
 about the beginning of things, about God, imply 
 no deficiency of humility or reverence. They 
 imply mental and spiritual activity. They are 
 inspired by the nature that has been given 
 for this purpose. The human soul can never 
 be satisfied with any thing short of the infinite 
 in any direction. The more any man really 
 knows, the more he will want to know, the 
 more he will see before him to be known. 
 As he progresses, his vision expands, and his 
 humility and reverence are increased in this 
 presence of the infinite unknown. 
 
 We have thus seen how difficult, how impos- 
 sible it is to get back to the origin of things, to 
 do what the active mind is ever seeking to 
 do, how difficult to conceive, even in thought, 
 of a time when things actually began to be, 
 when something was made out of nothing. 
 Thus the time of creation, and the fact of 
 creation, are alike beyond even the highest 
 flights of the human imagination. 
 
 Now when we turn in the opposite direction, 
 towards the future, we find the same kinds and
 
 270 ESSAYS. 
 
 degrees of difficulties in the progress of our 
 thought. When we can go no farther, even in 
 imagination, we know there is something far- 
 ther ; and something beyond that, and some- 
 thing farther still, and so on, through eternity. 
 When we have reached the limits of our knowl- 
 edge, and even of all human thoughts, in this 
 direction, there is the same craving desire, the 
 same restless longing to see farther, and know 
 more ; and we always feel an assurance that there 
 is something farther to be seen, something more 
 to be known. Here it is that we apprehend so 
 much more than we can comprehend ; that we 
 see all the highest spiritual, truths, as Paul said, 
 are spiritually discerned ; and that we may 
 trust our apprehensions as implicitly as our 
 comprehensions. 
 
 Again, it is just as difficult for us to conceive 
 of a time when these worlds and systems of 
 worlds around us will cease to be, as when they 
 began to be. Annihilation is, to any scientific, 
 logical mind, just as incomprehensible as crea- 
 tion itself. I know the Bible speaks of a time 
 when all this system of things shall be dissolved, 
 when the heavens shall be rolled together as a
 
 BEGINNING AND ENDING. 271 
 
 scroll, and the elements shall melt with fervent 
 heat, and all things shall pass away. This time 
 has been fixed by Bible fanatics annually for 
 many years. 
 
 But all these descriptions of the future of 
 the material universe are based on poetic 
 Oriental imaginations, and do not teach the 
 annihilation of any thing. Melting, dissolving, 
 gathering up, and even passing away, are pro- 
 cesses with which men in all ages have been 
 familiar. Change in the forms of things we 
 see constantly going on everywhere around 
 us ; but the same essential substances remain. 
 There is a perfect providence over even the 
 dust as it floats in the sunbeam, so that abso- 
 lutely nothing is lost. Every chemist, philoso- 
 pher, or person of any scientific knowledge, at 
 once rejects the very idea of any thing ever 
 being annihilated. Cut down a large tree, and 
 burn it in your fireplace. You have left a quart 
 or more of ashes. Extract the alkali to make a 
 cleansing soap, and with the little refuse feed 
 the plants of your garden. And when you 
 have washed your hands, and eaten your vege- 
 tables, what is there left of your tree ? Appar-
 
 272 ESSAYS. 
 
 ently nothing. And yet every scientific mind 
 knows that not a particle can be lost in the 
 processes through which the tree has passed. 
 
 This is true not only of solid things, like 
 wood and coal, but of such imponderable agents 
 as magnetism and electricity. Any one of the 
 great forces of nature may often be converted 
 into another ; but the great law of the correla- 
 tion and conservation of all these most ethereal 
 forms of matter is as firmly established as any 
 other revealed in science. The universe is so 
 made that it could not go on without maintain- 
 ing its equilibriums in every particular. It is 
 necessary to every particle of matter in this 
 globe that no other particle should be lost, 
 that there should be no increase or diminution 
 of any of the essential elements of which it is 
 composed. The highest fact in science, the 
 profoundest religious truth in nature, is this, 
 that there is at the helm of the universe one 
 infinite intelligence who so accurately weighed 
 and measured the materials of this creation, 
 who so perfectly adjusted and balanced all its 
 most delicate and most stupendous forces, that 
 this perfect equilibrium is maintained through
 
 BEGINNING AND ENDING. 273 
 
 all these inconceivable ages of time and eternity. 
 How can we but stand in profoundest reverence 
 and awe before this infinite unknown, when 
 all that is known is thus found to be so perfect ? 
 In such inquiries, then, we soon come to a point 
 where we can see neither beginning nor ending ; 
 where creation and annihilation are equally 
 beyond our comprehension ; where we stand in 
 awe of the bare fact of existence at all, in any 
 form, or for any time. The fact of this great all 
 that lies about us, that the universe is, that 
 we are, the fact of all being, is the mystery of 
 mysteries. 
 
 But why should this surprise or disturb us ? 
 Personally we came here yesterday, and shall 
 depart to-morrow. How should we expect to 
 know more in so short a period ? We ought to 
 be satisfied with the fact of being, for that, in 
 our present view, has a divine significance. It 
 implies infinity and eternity. It implies infinite 
 origin and eternal continuance. Present forms, 
 present phenomena are fleeting, are temporary ; 
 but the substances of things, material and spirit- 
 ual, are permanent. Nothing can be utterly lost 
 out of such substantial realities ; existences which 
 12* B
 
 274 ESSAYS. 
 
 reach backward and forward so far that no con- 
 ception can be formed of their beginning or 
 ending. 
 
 Thus this great fact, this mystery, this incom- 
 prehensibleness of our being, which at first 
 seems so much against us, is really most in our 
 favor. The universe is. Its forms are filled 
 with spirit and life. It everywhere exhibits 
 intelligence, skill, forethought, and providential 
 care. We are, bodies and souls, the highest 
 form of this general existence, out of which 
 nothing is, or ever can be, lost. The long and 
 elaborate preparation which geology teaches was 
 made for us on this globe ; our very slow devel- 
 opment and progress, which all history records ; 
 our imperfect, incomplete, individual lives, 
 which our present state of society everywhere 
 exhibits, all point to a future infinitely more 
 sublime than the past. The eternal past can 
 have no meaning without this eternal future. 
 This whole creation here is a perfect failure if 
 man, its highest form, its very flower, for whom 
 all this immense preparation has been made, 
 is to be annihilated at death ; if his few, short 
 years of such an imperfect life, in such an
 
 BEGINNING AND ENDING. 275 
 
 imperfect condition of being, are all. If there 
 is not infinitely more for individuals and society 
 than what we here see and know, then we have 
 before us what we behold in no other depart- 
 ment of the system, an immense dispropor- 
 tion between cause and effect, a marvellous 
 waste of time and means. 
 
 The death of man, considered as transforma- 
 tion, a form of change or renewal, comes 
 within the laws, and is supported by all the 
 analogies of nature ; but, regarded as annihila- 
 tion, would be the one great miracle of the 
 creation. Think of blotting out of existence 
 the great minds of human history, when the 
 whole infinite system of things has been at the 
 cost of their birth, growth, discipline, and expe- 
 rience. Think of such souls being here only 
 these few, fleeting years, only to carry about 
 these feeble, decaying bodies, and then going out 
 into blank nothingness, when not even a particle 
 of their bodies is ever lost. When the pres- 
 ent Josiah Quincy was in England, some years 
 ago, he made the acquaintance of a celebrated 
 marine architect and engineer, who superin- 
 tended the building of those great marine
 
 276 ESSAYS. 
 
 engines which have since been so astonishing 
 in their operations and results. This distin- 
 guished man afterwards came to this country, 
 and returned Mr. Quincy's visit. He took 
 him in to see his father, then more than ninety 
 years of age, and left him to make his acquaint- 
 ance and return when he pleased. Hour after 
 hour passed away ; the engineer did not return, 
 and his host went in to see what had become 
 of him. He found them there, in the same 
 position, still engaged in the most earnest con- 
 versation ; and his first exclamation, after he got 
 out into the street, was this : " What a pity 
 that such an old engine as that could not be 
 put into a new hull ! " The answer was, "It 
 is going to be, soon." 
 
 Now both the explanation and reply are in 
 the exact line of our present thought. 
 
 Here was one of the grandest old gentlemen 
 of a grand old school, of noble ancestry, tall, 
 erect form, classical features, kindling eye, logi- 
 cal and philosophical understanding, keen wit, 
 excellent practical judgment, great conversa- 
 tional powers, great purity of character, great 
 faculties devoted to the greatest public purposes ;
 
 BEGINNING AND ENDING. 277 
 
 and to crown all, a moral courage which made 
 him a sublime example of resistance to all popu- 
 lar, public iniquities, or moral, social, and polit- 
 ical declensions. Here was such a vigorous 
 soul in a body more than ninety years of age, 
 with a memory so tenacious that he could repeat 
 whole poems like Pope's "Essay on Man," with 
 such an interest in human progress that he 
 could sit up till midnight reading Buckle's 
 " History of Modern Civilization ;" an old man 
 who welcomed all the newest scientific discov- 
 eries, all the largest, freshest, and most liberal 
 thoughts of our modern literature, with the 
 richest and fullest experience of almost all forms 
 of public life, of almost all our remarkable nine- 
 teenth century, an experience that covered 
 almost all our national history. And now, to 
 all but the eye of faith, this grand, noble life 
 was about to close. No wonder the engineer 
 whose study and effort all his life had been to 
 economize, concentrate, and make available the 
 great forces of nature, should wish to put that old 
 engine which still continued to work so well, into 
 a new hull, that the idea of death, as any thing 
 absolute, should seem so like an anomaly to him !
 
 278 ESSAYS. 
 
 With such examples as we have, in every 
 thing around us, of reformation, renewal, re- 
 adaptations to new conditions, why should not 
 absolute death always appear to us in this light, 
 as the greatest of all anomalies ? Why should 
 not this consciousness that retains all our past, 
 that treasures up all our experience and knowl- 
 edge, this personality, this something that we 
 call ourselves, be as vital as any other spiritual 
 existence ? 
 
 Can the vast acquisition and varied experi- 
 ence of the greatest and best minds, among us 
 here, be in no way made available hereafter? 
 Not only to society, but to themselves personally, 
 through all the future, so much of momentum 
 for all further progress ? If not, then this world 
 is so poorly contrived, with such unskilful adap- 
 tation of means to ends, that it loses its last and 
 highest product ; and so is a total failure. 
 
 I say frankly that none of the common argu- 
 ments for the immortality of man are any thing 
 to me compared with the considerations here 
 presented. The sure and steadfast anchor of 
 my soul is this sublimity of being. I have 
 endeavored to show what it implies. I am.
 
 BEGINNING AND ENDING. 279 
 
 Therefore I shall continue to be. Spiritually, 
 personally, I am inherently and constitutionally 
 immortal. I believe I shall live after death, not 
 solely because this is taught in the Scriptures, 
 not because there is testimony that Jesus was 
 raised from the dead, nor any thing of this kind ; 
 but because I see that all other being around 
 me implies it ; that there is thus such a scien- 
 tific and logical necessity for it ; that our indi- 
 vidual and collective life here, with all its 
 discipline and experience, would be so meaning- 
 less, so incomplete, so fragmentary without it ; 
 because I see that the great inequalities and 
 imperfections of our present state all prophesy 
 so much the greater future ; because I see so 
 clearly that eternity is the only solution for the 
 problems of time. 
 
 I do not comprehend it at all ; nor is it neces- 
 sary that I should. I simply, with my best 
 powers, affections, and spiritual instincts, appre- 
 hend it. In all my highest moods I feel that 
 it must be so, and cannot possibly be otherwise. 
 
 I know nothing about beginning or ending, 
 but I do know that this creation which has been 
 in existence through such inconceivably long
 
 280 ESSAYS. 
 
 ages, and has been so slowly, so elaborately, yet 
 so constantly developing into higher forms of 
 being and doing, up to the present, cannot have 
 been at all subject to chance, cannot in the 
 future result in chaos or destruction, is not a 
 soulless machine, made only six thousand years 
 ago, a wound-up clock, left to the operations of 
 its own mechanism ; or with only occasional 
 alterations and repairs, with only occasional 
 messages and inspirations to its inhabitants ; 
 and finally to run down and stop only to transfer 
 the products of its failure to prisons of eternal 
 torment. This common solution of the problems 
 of life is to me infinitely worse than the baldest 
 atheism. It is not only inexpressibly foolish, it 
 is absolutely devilish. I speak thus strongly 
 and positively because I see so clearly, and feel 
 so deeply, the difference between these divine 
 mysteries, and the common theological absurdi- 
 ties ; because the unknown must be ever in the 
 line of the known ; the things apprehended in 
 the line of things comprehended. 
 
 If I do not know how the world ever began 
 to be, or can ever cease to be, it does not follow 
 that I cannot accurately infer from the expe-
 
 BEGINNING AND ENDING. 281 
 
 rience of all the ages of geology and history the 
 principles or laws of its being. If it is a mystery 
 to me how I came to individual conscious exist- 
 ence here sixty years ago, and how I can cease 
 to be a few years hence, there is no reason why 
 I should not search out and obey the highest 
 tendencies of such a life, and try to harmonize 
 all its different parts ; or be fully persuaded of 
 my continuance when I see everywhere the 
 reality and permanence of all other existence. 
 
 I comprehend neither the divine existence 
 nor my own ; but both are equally realities to 
 me ; and both become more and more real ac- 
 cording to the earnestness or intensity in which 
 I now live. As a spiritual being, my being 
 itself becomes my best evidence of all being 
 and all continuing'. 
 
 With the same emphasis that I can say and 
 feel that I am, I can say and feel that I shall 
 live for ever. I do know if I am any thing more 
 than an organization of matter, this something 
 more is spiritual, is not subject to the laws of 
 matter. Over this, death can have no power. 
 I do know my soul is akin to the life and soul of 
 the universe ; and that through this I am to grow
 
 282 ESSAYS. 
 
 for ever into the knowledge and appreciation of 
 the infinite life and soul of all things, am to 
 become a partaker of all the divine power and 
 glory. 
 
 "Alpha and Omega " we shall never see nor 
 understand ; but this is of little consequence, 
 since the explanation and the consolation is that 
 our life is inclosed in the Infinite ; in the All in 
 all who hath neither beginning nor ending ; that 
 it is a part of his life, that, as his children, par- 
 takers of the same spiritual nature, we are inher- 
 itors of the infinite and eternal.
 
 SOCIAL OB COMMON-WEALTH. }J83 
 
 V. 
 
 SOCIAL OR COMMON-WEALTH. 
 
 TN the earliest records of our race we read 
 that God found it was not good for man to 
 be alone, and gave him a companion. This was 
 said of the primitive man, and in relation to the 
 sexes. But we would take the statement in a 
 much larger sense and endeavor to unfold and 
 illustrate the great social laws of our existence. 
 Man has a large, a very large nature, much 
 larger than has generally been supposed. As a 
 child of God he has infinite capacities for prog- 
 ress and enjoyment. At first only his animal 
 nature is developed. He is gregarious, not 
 social. He is attracted to his kind by instinct, 
 and not by sympathy, or affection. He combines 
 with others for mutual protection and defence, 
 to do together what they cannot do separately, 
 Uke the bees, the beavers, or the buffaloes. First 
 there is the single pair, then the family, the tribe,
 
 284 ESSAYS. 
 
 the village, the city, the state, the nation, and 
 last the common-wealth of nations. 
 
 But all this man may do as a selfish, sagacious 
 animal. This is gregariousness, not true soci- 
 ality. All this is but a preparation for his social 
 development as man. What has thus begun as 
 an instinct, will grow into a mental want, with 
 the development of the mental nature, till it 
 embraces all that human souls are capable of 
 being, doing, and becoming to each other. 
 
 What we now call society is not worthy of 
 the name. We are in a state of transition 
 between the two conditions just alluded to. 
 We cannot endure an isolated life ; and yet our 
 higher nature is not sufficiently developed to 
 draw us together in true relations, or give us 
 the social excitement and enjoyment of which 
 we are capable or which we seek from this 
 source. We feel that it is not good for us to be 
 alone, and not much better for us to be in society 
 as it is now constituted. 
 
 One of the greatest evils to individuals of all 
 our small towns or sparsely populated districts 
 is this of loneliness, the want of excitement, 
 of mental and social stimulus. This is felt
 
 SOCIAL OR COMMON-WEALTH. 285 
 
 most by the young whose faculties are awaken- 
 ing and craving their objects. They begin to 
 feel that they were made for something more 
 than to eat and sleep and work. They look 
 around upon friends, neighbors, and acquain- 
 ance and, seeing what a little world of petty 
 cares and gossip they live in, they feel wants 
 which this kind of companionship cannot satisfy. 
 Hence the restlessness which drives them to 
 the cities and large towns. So great is this 
 mental want, so strong is this social tendency, 
 that those who feel it will endure any amount 
 of the physical discomforts of a city life rather 
 than rust out amidst the plenty of the country. 
 We are convinced that this is directly or indi- 
 rectly the reason why so many, against so much 
 advice, and so many warnings of failure, flock 
 into the cities. 
 
 Writers of the highest authority, who are 
 best acquainted with this kind of city life, have 
 for years been publicly exposing its degradations 
 and miseries, have been showing that its 
 prizes of wealth and distinction are bestowed on 
 the smallest fraction of this great multitude of 
 competitors, that the temptations to reckless-
 
 286 ESSAYS. 
 
 ness in business, to extravagance in expenses, 
 to all kinds of vices and crimes are over- 
 whelming. They have been constantly point- 
 ing out to the more exposed and destitute 
 classes the great advantages of the country ; 
 and as constantly entreating the youth of the 
 country not to expose themselves to the dangers 
 and disappointments of city life. 
 
 But the warnings and entreaties have all been 
 in vain. The tendency to concentration in the 
 large towns is increasing rather than diminish- 
 ing. Hence it is easy to see that the causes 
 have not been understood or removed. It is use- 
 less to say that men are indolent, and go to the 
 city to get rid of the hard work of the country ; 
 or that they are tired of slow gains, and resort 
 to it for great and sudden wealth, in a gambling 
 spirit, just as they go to a lottery. For this is 
 true only of special cases, and leaves all unex- 
 plained, the general attractions of a city life. 
 
 The only satisfactory explanation will, we 
 think, be found in the fact that this kind of 
 life is most hi harmony with the spirit of this 
 period. The present is truly called a fast age ; 
 and, where men are brought together in large
 
 SOCIAL OR COMMON-WEALTH. 287 
 
 masses, each acts upon the others to produce 
 this tendency in the highest degree. In cities 
 they walk faster, speak quicker ; do every thing 
 with much, greater rapidity. The finest works 
 of art are constantly before them, to give culti- 
 vation to their tastes and imaginations. Every 
 thing appeals to their sense of order and beauty. 
 By being brought into constant communication 
 with each other, they acquire a degree of defer- 
 ence and a courtesy of manner which is almost 
 impossible in an isolated life. Their sensibili- 
 ties and passions, their minds and hearts, their 
 whole nature, is quickened to an intense 
 activity; and they really live more in one of 
 these exciting years than would be possible in 
 many of opposite circumstances. Now it is a 
 consciousness of this fact which makes town or 
 city residence so fascinating to this excitable 
 generation. There are multitudes who would 
 prefer, if necessary, to work hard and fare 
 hard, to live half starved in the garrets of a 
 populous place, than miss the excitements 
 which such a place affords. This tendency is 
 doubtless carried to an extreme ; and it cannot 
 be denied that these means of excitement are
 
 288 ESSAYS. 
 
 for the lower as well as for the higher nature 
 of man. But all this just as forcibly illustrates 
 the fact before us the necessity of this excite- 
 ment for a varied activity and development. 
 
 We are ready to admit that town or city life 
 does not generally produce the best specimens 
 of humanity. Nearly all the great men, in every 
 department of city life, originated in the more 
 obscure places of the interior, and spent at least 
 their childhood in the rural districts of the coun- 
 try. And it is often said that cities draw all their 
 real life from such sources that men there 
 degenerate, physically, mentally, and morally, 
 and would soon run out if new life was not con- 
 stantly supplied from the small towns. 
 
 Now all this may be perfectly true without 
 affecting our argument in the least ; for we are 
 not attempting to defend city life as it is, or to 
 show that men always get what they seek in it. 
 We are speaking only of the advantages it is 
 calculated to afford, and giving the reason why 
 people are so strongly attracted to it. We 
 know that men here become more servile in 
 spirit, more conservative in their habits of 
 thought, more conventional in their manners,
 
 SOCIAL OR COMMON-WEALTH. 289 
 
 and, as they have so many occasions for the 
 showy qualities, these oftener predominate over 
 the more solid realities of character. But these 
 are incidental defects of this kind of life, and 
 do not effect its general tendencies. We know, 
 also, that there is no civilization or refinement 
 where men are not brought together in frequent 
 social intercourse ; that the history of human 
 progress is the history of all the great centres 
 of population ; that this civilization has followed 
 the valleys of great rivers, or crept around the 
 shores of oceans, where men have congregated 
 for manufacturing and commercial purposes ; 
 and that wherever they have again been sepa- 
 rated, diffused over large territories, or denied 
 the means of easy and frequent communication, 
 they have retrograded to barbarism. You may 
 find abundant illustration of this great histori- 
 cal fact all over the sparsely populated regions 
 of our " Great West." The first settlers of 
 these new countries went out from the bosom 
 of old, civilized communities, and were often 
 a superior class of men. Bat, having no neigh- 
 bors, no mental or social stimulus, no motive 
 for exertion beyond a supply of their physical 
 13 s
 
 290 ESSAYS. 
 
 wants, they became rough in manner, careless 
 of personal appearance, and rapidly degener- 
 ated towards a mere animal life. Their chil- 
 dren, brought up in these circumstances, exhibit 
 these tendencies in a much greater degree ; so 
 that the second generation of such a region is 
 much inferior to the first. And if neither new 
 settlers nor railroads come near, to connect 
 them with the rest of the world, they, at last, 
 lose all life in a mere existence. They speak 
 with a, drawl, walk as if it required great 
 effort, work as little as possible, and, probably, 
 would give up breathing if they had to go any 
 distance for their breath. There is a lethargy 
 of mind and body, which is perfectly mar- 
 vellous to those who do not take into view the 
 facts which we have noticed the absence of 
 all excitement for their higher nature. If these 
 same people had grown up in society, been 
 brought under the influence cif the social rela- 
 tions, into familiar contact with others, all this 
 indolence and roughness would never have 
 been known; all their faculties would have 
 been excited and developed, and, in every 
 respect, they would have been very different
 
 SOCIAL OR COMMON-WEALTH. 291 
 
 persons. It is as easy to account for the char- 
 acter of the boor, as for that of the dandy. 
 They are the opposite extremes of opposite 
 conditions. Change the conditions, and you 
 change the results. In fact, men are educated 
 in society much more than in schools. In the 
 latter they get only the materials, which the 
 former is to work up into character. Social 
 friction is just as necessary to polish men as 
 material friction is to polish metals. It is only 
 in society that men get their rough corners 
 rubbed off, their ideas enlarged, their idiosyn- 
 crasies removed that they acquire the habit 
 of a courteous deference to each other, or can 
 learn to come together without the collisions of 
 personal selfishness. 
 
 All who live much in society do not receive 
 these great blessings. But these are some of its 
 most direct natural tendencies ; and this is the 
 reason why God has given such prominence to 
 the social nature of man, or shows why "he 
 hath set the solitary in families." Even the 
 single family is not enough. This has existed 
 everywhere. It still exists among the most bar- 
 barous tribes of men. It does not afford scope,
 
 292 ESSAYS. 
 
 variety, or excitement enough to employ or 
 even to call into action our various faculties and 
 sympathies. It is only as many families come 
 together in the same town or neighborhood that 
 the means of progress are enjoyed. 
 
 The celebrated Eddystone Light-house is com- 
 mitted to the care of four men. Two of them 
 take charge of it by turns, and are relieved 
 every six weeks. But it often happens, es- 
 pecially in storm)' weather, that boats cannot 
 go to effect this relief for many months, and 
 these two persons are entirely dependent on 
 each other's companionship. Yet instead of 
 being particularly attached to one another they 
 spend most of their time in quarrelling. This is 
 true not alone of any two men thus placed there. 
 It has been found to express a general fact. 
 We are told that instead of suffering the recol- 
 lection of those distresses and dangers in which 
 each is deserted by all but one to endear that 
 one to him, the humors of each are so soured 
 they prey both on themselves and each other. 
 If one sits above, the other is commonly found 
 below. Their meals are solitary; each like a 
 brute growling over his food alone.
 
 SOCIAL OR COMMON-WEALTH. 293 
 
 You see illustrations of this truth everywhere. 
 None of our families, however large or wealthy 
 they may be, or however well provided with 
 all the comforts and luxuries of life, are suffi- 
 cient for themselves. 
 
 Children who at home can never agree among 
 themselves, readily find in other families those 
 to whom they are attracted ; and the larger the 
 range of their choice, the more readily they find 
 companionship that is pleasant and profitable to 
 them. Those of the same family are too much 
 alike to agree as well together as with others. 
 The greater variety of objects we have for all 
 our powers and affections, the wiser and better 
 will be their choice. 
 
 The more channels are opened, into which 
 the streams of individual life can freely flow, the 
 more likely every person is to find that employ- 
 ment and pleasure which is best adapted to his 
 peculiar nature, to do easily and well the pecul,- 
 iar work which Providence has assigned him. 
 
 Those bees make the best honey that have 
 the greatest variety of flowers from which to 
 gather the material. Other things being equal, 
 those persons enjoy the best health who have
 
 294 ESSAYS. 
 
 the greatest .variety of food. The productions 
 of every soil and climate conduce to man's phys- 
 ical well-being ; and this law must apply with 
 still greater force to his mind and heart. He 
 needs for his highest mental, moral, and social 
 development to come in contact with as many 
 other persons as possible. All may get some- 
 thing from, or give something to each other. 
 No individual approaches to wholeness of char- 
 acter except as he becomes the product of all 
 human history and experience ; and this he can 
 acquire mainly through his personal relations 
 and vital sympathies. Society is the result of 
 all that men have done and are doing ; and no 
 one can live in it, even in the humblest capacity, 
 without getting more or less of its spirit, with- 
 out sharing more or less of its blessings. 
 
 We see and feel its many and great defects. 
 "We are ready to admit the truth of almost all 
 that is said against it. As we think of the false- 
 hood and injustice, the wrongs and oppressions, 
 which are countenanced, tolerated, and legalized 
 in it, we often get out of all patience with it ; 
 and are prompted by indignation, and almost 
 with despair, to exclaim with Cowper,
 
 SOCIAL OR COMMON-WEALTH. 295 
 
 " Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness ! " 
 
 But we have only to go out of society for a 
 short time, we have only to go beyond the reach 
 of its influences, to change this state of feeling, 
 and to see how dependent we are upon it for all 
 that we most value in life, for all that relates 
 to the wants and development of our higher 
 nature. 
 
 Society represents the sum total of all human 
 experience ; for nothing has ever been lost from 
 it, any more than from the material creation. 
 
 Every human effort, in whatever direction, 
 is an achievement ; is, in one way or another, 
 directly or indirectly, even as a warning or a 
 failure, the means of a greater success. Every 
 thing that has ever been done in the world has 
 thus been done for us. We are every one of us 
 richer to-day for every day's work that has ever 
 been done in field or forest, on land or sea, in 
 shop or mine, by the mental or physical power 
 of every other human being who has ever lived 
 on this planet. We are freer to-day for every 
 resistance that has ever been made against in- 
 justice and oppression. Every battle that has 
 been fought makes one less for us to fight. We
 
 296 ESSAYS. 
 
 are to-day enjoying the rights, securities, and 
 blessings which have been purchased by the 
 struggles, sufferings, and death of millions of 
 men. 
 
 All the heroes and martyrs, all the wise and 
 good men, who have ever lived, have lived for 
 us. All our laws and institutions, our arts and 
 sciences, cur languages and literatures, our 
 means of physical, mental, and moral advance- 
 ment, represent not us, but those who have 
 gone before us, these are the fruits of their 
 labors, rather than ours ; and civilization, or 
 society, is that in which all human labor of body 
 and of mind culminates. We have been here 
 but a little while, and have done nothing but 
 the work that was put into our hands. We 
 inherit all the past ; we start in life with the 
 accumulations of ages, with innumerable lega- 
 cies, each of inestimable value. What wealth 
 of example and experience, what lessons of 
 warning and encouragement from all human 
 history ! What vast stores of labor are laid 
 up for us in these roads, bridges, houses, 
 ships, factories, these whole towns, villages, 
 and cities of all nations, with the unlimited
 
 SOCIAL OR COMMON-WEALTH. 297 
 
 domain of cultivated farms and vast herds of 
 domesticated animals, in a word, of all that 
 passes under the term of real estate ! All 
 that is worth any thing is the result of human 
 labor. 
 
 No figures can express, no imagination can 
 conceive, of the sum of these riches. And yet 
 all this one generation inherits of the preced- 
 ing ; and in its highest uses it is all common- 
 wealth. 
 
 Then there is all the inheritance of mind and 
 heart, all the wisdom and goodness which have 
 been organized in all illustrious individuals, and 
 all enlightened communities ; in institutions of 
 learning, benevolence, and philanthropy ! Who 
 can calculate the sum of the blessings of which 
 these are the means ; and yet they are all 
 the results of innumerable failures, delays, and 
 partial defeats. What a vast amount of diffi- 
 culty and danger, of toil, trial, and disap- 
 pointment is, embodied in all the achievements 
 of society, imperfect as these may now be ! In 
 fact they are not mere achievements. They 
 are creations all of past efforts, struggles, and 
 sacrifices.
 
 298 ESSAYS. 
 
 Now to go out of society is to give up our 
 share of all this (various accumulations of 
 ages) and begin in the condition of the primeval 
 man. 
 
 This of course cannot now be done perfectly ; 
 but it is done just in proportion as men go from 
 the .great centres of wealth and population ; 
 just in proportion as they scatter over large 
 territories without the means of frequent social 
 and commercial intercourse. 
 
 In all the sparsely populated regions of our 
 great West we find this strikingly illustrated. 
 We find men laboring under nearly the same dis- 
 advantages as those of our Pilgrim Fathers, or 
 as those who first began to settle this continent. 
 They have little or nothing except land ; no 
 variety of food ; no convenience or beauty of 
 shelter ; no roads, or bridges ; no meetings, 
 schools, lyceums, or post-offices. They are 
 beyond the reach of nearly all the influences 
 of science, art,' machinery, and capital. They 
 are benefited by none of these great produc- 
 tive agencies. They share none of the immense 
 common-wealth which has here been increasing 
 for centuries.
 
 SOCIAL OR COMMON-WEALTH. 299 
 
 These are only some of the physical disad- 
 vantages of such a life. It is a condition in 
 which men are always really poor, though liv- 
 ing in the midst of boundless natural resources. 
 But their mental and moral evils are still 
 greater, and such as time cannot so speedily 
 remove. 
 
 The remark is frequently made, that men 
 degenerate in all countries where there is a 
 fertile soil and genial climate ; that they 
 become rough in their manners, idle and care- 
 less in their habits, and that they would soon 
 run out if it were not for the fact that others, 
 from colder and more sterile regions, were con- 
 stantly coming among them to infuse new life 
 and energy. It is said that our New England 
 men, full of force and enterprise, when they 
 go to these South-western States, soon fall 
 down to the level of the people they find there ; 
 soon become as indolent, and indifferent, and 
 unprogressive as others. 
 
 Now this is all undeniably true ; but a wrong 
 cause is always assigned for it. Soil and climate 
 have little to do with it. It nearly all comes from 
 the fact that those States are so sparsely popu-
 
 300 ESSAYS. 
 
 lated, that men there lack all the mental and 
 moral stimulus of society. This physical indo- 
 lence comes from the want of mental ai\d social 
 excitement. Men who work only for the body 
 will work no more than the body requires ; and 
 in fertile States, this labor being comparatively 
 light, the indolence and degeneracy of the 
 people will be correspondingly increased. But 
 let these same States be filled up with inhabi- 
 tants, so that there could be a daily and neigh- 
 borly contact of the people, a daily friction 
 of one mind with another ; let there come the 
 keen competitions of trade and manufactures, 
 the multiplication of articles of convenience, 
 taste, and luxury, and how soon this state of 
 things would be changed, how soon we would 
 cease to hear about these effects of soil and 
 climate ! When men begin to work for the 
 mind, for the things that minister to the wants 
 of their higher nature, they find no bounds for 
 their aspirations or energies. 
 
 The people of New England have attained 
 their superior moral and social state not because 
 their climato is cold and their soil rocky or 
 barren ; but because this^ part of the country
 
 SOCIAL OR COMMON-WEALTH. 301 
 
 has been settled so much longer and more 
 densely, and because, being so poor in soil and 
 climate, its inhabitants have been forced into 
 commerce and manufactures, and so into cities 
 and large towns, where in constant intercourse 
 their minds have been stimulated, refined, and 
 sharpened by all kinds of excitements and com- 
 petitions. With us there is everywhere a social 
 rivalry which taxes to the utmost all our ener- 
 gies of body and mind. We are each trying 
 to have in every department of life something a 
 little better than that of our neighbors. But 
 scatter us on the vast prairies of the West, 
 where we should have no neighbors, and see 
 how long this ambitious energy would last. If 
 we study out the real causes of the difference 
 between the people of the East and those of the 
 West, and give due weight to social influences, 
 we shall cease to echo the common talk about a 
 good soil and climate being unfavorable to the 
 development and progress of men. It must, 
 from the very nature of the case, be all the 
 other way. Other things being equal, especially 
 those to which we have attached so much 
 importance, the most fertile country must be
 
 302 ESSAYS. 
 
 the most favorable to men ; because the more 
 easily their physical wants can be supplied 
 the more time and attention they can give 
 to their mental and spiritual wants. Make 
 the population of the fertile West as great 
 and compact as this of the barren East, and 
 a better state of society will exist there than 
 here. 
 
 If a man has nothing to live for but bread, or 
 to supply his animal wants, and he lives where 
 these can be supplied by very little effort, what 
 wonder that we there so often find him a lazy, 
 loafing, whiskey-drinking animal ! What wonder 
 that he should degenerate that he should seek 
 those low and debasing excitements where there 
 is such a total absence of all others ! His log 
 hut is good enough, if it is as good as others 
 have. What difference does it make where 
 there is nobody to look at it ? So in regard to 
 all the details of his outward condition : with- 
 out the external influences of society to force 
 him upward, he is just as sure to go downward 
 as any other unsupported body. In his isolated 
 state he follows all the impulses he has, but 
 these are few and all in one direction. He has
 
 SOCIAL OK COMMON-WEALTH. 303 
 
 no use for any of his higher faculties, and hence 
 they are never called into exercise. Let the 
 same places become populous, and the same peo- 
 ple will experience more real life in one week 
 than in whole years of this existence. One 
 improvement will lead to another, till there will 
 be no bounds to the mental and social rivalry. 
 Thus every thing above the mere animal condi- 
 tion is, directly or indirectly, the product of the 
 social influences. 
 
 We have so far spoken more particularly, of 
 the physical and mental advantages of society 
 to the individual ; but our remarks are also 
 applicable to manners and morals. 
 
 There are whole classes of persons in intelli- 
 gent, moral, and religious communities who are 
 kept up at a much higher level than they would 
 be by themselves or in society of a different 
 character. Many a man of good habits and 
 good standing here goes to a distant part of the 
 country, into a different mental and moral 
 atmosphere, and soon becomes a very different 
 person, adopts a 'different standard of manners 
 and morals, and, in the change, often goes to 
 the other extreme, and falls even below what
 
 304 ESSAYS. 
 
 public sentiment there requires of him. One of 
 the most intelligent residents of one of these 
 cities, himself an Eastern man, and thoroughly 
 conversant with both Eastern and Western life, 
 fully confirmed this view when, speaking to me 
 of the great numbers of Eastern people in that 
 city, said they were scarcely the same persons 
 as before they came there, ; or they would have 
 given the city more of a New England charac- 
 ter. " I never knew," he said, " till I came to the 
 West, how much we were the creatures of educa- 
 tion and circumstances how much individuals 
 are indebted to the public sentiment or high tone 
 of our New England life." But it may be said 
 if such a large number of persons are kept 
 above their natural level by these public influ- 
 ences, there can be little or no merit in it, 
 since it is the result of outward pressure, aud 
 not of inward principles. We admit all this. 
 We are not deceived in regard to its conven- 
 tional character. But we say that even this is 
 a very great blessing. It is better to have con- 
 ventional manners and morals than to have none 
 at all. It is better to have men forced to 
 observe the courtesies, proprieties, and decen-
 
 SOCIAL OR COMMON-WEALTH. 305 
 
 cies of life than to have them openly and fla- 
 grantly violated as they are in a lower state of 
 society. 
 
 It is a great blessing to live anywhere where 
 you can be secured from such annoyances ; where 
 there is any thing to repress the ebullition of 
 the selfish animal passions, and keep such great 
 numbers of people above the natural level of 
 their characters. If there is no heart in this 
 outward conventional courtesy and morality, 
 there is a vast amount of enjoyment and comfort 
 in it for all refined, intelligent persons, and 
 more than they can ever conceive of till they 
 go where it is not to be found ; where coarse, 
 selfish, animalized men act themselves out 
 without any social restraints. Besides this, if 
 we go into society where we are forced by 
 custom or public opinion to curb our appetites 
 and passions, to restrain and govern our first 
 personal impulses and inclinations, we are very 
 likely at last to do that from principle which we 
 at first did from interest, to pursue from the 
 highest motives a course into which we at first 
 were driven by the external pressure of defer- 
 ence to others.
 
 306 ESSAYS. 
 
 While on the other hand these chances are all 
 against those who refuse this deference or go 
 beyond the reach of these lower and common 
 influences. There is nothing to prevent them 
 from sinking lower and lower till they come to 
 a mere animal existence. 
 
 This is the great lesson from the experience 
 of ages. There has been no civilization any- 
 where except as the solitary have been brought 
 together, and thus made individuals partakers 
 of a common life, a common-wealth of refine- 
 ment, intelligence, and goodness ; and whenever 
 and wherever they have again scattered them- 
 selves abroad over the earth, or gone beyond the 
 influence of this common stock of human attain- 
 ments, they have invariably retrograded towards 
 barbarism. Even the monks and nuns who shut 
 themselves up in monasteries and convents, who 
 went out of society from the highest motives, 
 for a religious purpose, to save their souls, 
 afford an instance of most signal failure. They 
 fell so far below society, they became so indolent, 
 corrupt and .sensual, that society was obliged, in 
 its own defence, to break up their retreats, and 
 send them back into the world again to mend
 
 SOCIAL OR COMMON-WEALTH. 307 
 
 their manners and their morals. So true is it 
 that the best life of each is bound up in the life 
 of all ; and that the highest forms of civilization 
 can come only as this great law of humanity is 
 recognized and obeyed. 
 
 Cambridge : Press of John Wilson and Son.
 
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