THEODORE PARKER

Theodore Parker, worn by his great work in defence of liberal religion and in every cause of suffering humanity, had succumbed to disease and died in Florence in May, 1860, not quite fifty years of age. Born in the neighbor town of Lexington when Emerson was seven years old, they had been friends probably from the time when the latter, soon after settling in Concord, preached for the society at East Lexington, from 1836 for two years. Parker was, during this period, studying divinity, and was settled as pastor of the West Roxbury church in 1837. In that year he is mentioned by Mr. Alcott as a member of the Transcendental Club and attending its meetings in Boston. When, in June, 1838, Mr. Emerson fluttered the conservative and the timid by his Divinity School Address, the young Parker went home and wrote, "It was the most inspiring strain I ever listened to. My soul is roused, and this week I shall write the long-meditated sermons on the state of the church and the duties of these times.'

Mr. Parker was one of those who attended the gathering in Boston which gave birth to the Dial, to which he was a strong contributor. Three years after its death, he, with the help of Mr. James Elliot Cabot and Mr. Emerson, founded the Massachusetts Quarterly Review, vigorous though shortlived, of which he was the editor. Parker frequently visited Emerson, and the two, unlike in their method, worked best apart in the same great causes. Rev. William Gannett says, "What Emerson uttered without plot or plan, Theodore

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Parker elaborated to a system. Parker was the Paul of transcendentalism."

Mr. Edwin D. Mead, in his chapter on Emerson and Théodore Parker,' gives the following pleasant anecdote:

“At one of Emerson's lectures in Boston, when the storm against Parker was fiercest, a lecture at which a score of the religious and literary leaders of the city were present, Emerson, as he laid his manuscript upon the desk and looked over the audience, after his wont, observed Parker; and immediately he stepped from the platform to the seat near the front where Parker sat, grasping his hand and standing for a moment's conversation with him. It was not ostentation, and it was not patronage: it was admiring friendship, and that fortification and stimulus Parker in those times never failed to feel. It was Emerson who fed his lamp, he said; and Emerson said that, be the lamp fed as it might, it was Parker whom the time to come would have to thank for finding the light burning."

Parker dedicated to Emerson his Ten Sermons on Religion. In acknowledging this tribute, Mr. Emerson thus paid tribute to Parker's brave service:

"We shall all thank the right soldier whom God gave strength to fight for him the battle of the day."

When Mr. Parker's failing forces made it necessary for him to drop his arduous work and go abroad for rest, Mr. Emerson was frequently called to take his place in the Music Hall on Sundays. I think that this was the only pulpit he went into to conduct Sunday services after 1838.

It is told that Parker, sitting, on Sunday morning, on the deck of the vessel that was bearing him away, never to return,

In the very interesting work The Influence of Emerson, published in Boston in 1903, by the American Unitarian Association.

smiled and said: "Emerson is preaching at Music Hall today."

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Why need I read the Encyclo

Page 286, note 1. Mr. Emerson wrote in his journal: B. The Duc de Brancas said, pédie? Rivarol visits me. I Parker.",

may well say it of Theodore

·Page 290, note 1. Richard H. Dana wrote in his diary, November 3, 1852:

Itrisht now ten days since Webster's death... Strange that the best commendation that has appeared yet, the most touching, elevated, meaning eulogy, with all its censure, should have come from Theodore Parker! Were I Daniel Webster, I would not have that sermon destroyed for all that had been said in my favor as yet.""

Page 293, note 1. I copy from Mr. Emerson's journal at the time of Mr. Parker's death these sentences which precede some of those included in this address:

"Theodore Parker has filled up all his years and days and hours. A son of the energy of New England; restless, eager, manly, brave, early old, contumacious, clever. I can well praise him at a spectator's distance, for our minds and methods were unlike, few people more unlike. All the virtues are solitaires. Each man is related to persons who are not related to each other, and I saw with pleasure that men whom ! could not approach, were drawn through him to the admir tion of that which I admire.".

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On January 31, 1862, Mr. Emerson lectured at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington on American Civilization. Just after the outbreak of war in the April preceding, he had given a lecture, in a course in Boston on Life and Literature, which he called "Civilization at a Pinch," the title suggesting how it had been modified by the crisis which had suddenly come to pass. In the course of the year the flocking of slaves to the Union camps, and the opening vista of a long and bitter struggle, with slavery now acknowledged as its root, had brought the question of Emancipation as a war-measure to the front. Of course Mr. Emerson saw hope in this situation of affairs, and when he went to Washington with the chance of being heard by men in power there, he prepared himself to urge the measure, as well on grounds of policy as of right. So the Boston lecture was much expanded to deal with the need of the hour. There is no evidence that President Lincoln heard it; it is probable that he did not; nor is it true that Mr. Emerson had a long and earnest conversation with him on the subject next day, both of which assertions have been made in print. Mr. Emerson made an unusual record in his journal of the incidents of his stay in Washington, and though he tells of his introduction to Mr. Lincoln and a short chat with him, evidently there was little opportunity for serious conversation. The President's secretaries had, in 1886, no memory of his having attended the lecture, and the Washington papers de not mention his presence there. The following notice of the lecture, however, appeared in one of the local papers: The

audience received it, as they have the other anti-slavery lectures of the course, with unbounded enthusiasm. It was in many respects a wonderful lecture, and those who have often heard Mr. Emerson said that he seemed inspired through nearly the whole of it, especially the part referring to slavery and the

war.

A gentleman in Washington, who took the trouble to look up the question as to whether Mr. Lincoln and other high officials heard it, says that Mr. Lincoln could hardly have attended lectures then:

"He was very busy at the time, Stanton the new war secretary having just come in, and storming like a fury at the business of his department. The great operations of the war for the time overshadowed all the other events. It is worth remarking that Mr. Emerson in this lecture clearly foreshadowed the policy of Emancipation some six or eight months in advance of Mr. Lincoln. He saw the logic of events leading up to a crisis in our affairs; to emancipation as a platform with compensation to the loyal owners' (his words as reported in the Star). The notice states that the lecture was very fully attended."

Very possibly it may be with regard to this address that we have the interesting account given of the effect of Mr. Emerson's speaking on a well-known English author. Dr. Garnett, in his Life of Emerson, says:

"A shrewd judge, Anthony Trollope, was particularly struck with the note of sincerity in Emerson when he heard him address a large meeting during the Civil War. Not only was the speaker terse, perspicuous, and practical to a degree amazing to Mr. Trollope's preconceived notions, but he commanded his hearers' respect by the frankness of his dealing with them. You make much of the American eagle,' he