says, "is the first time; and it marks the turning of the tide which ere long will leave this old theology all high and dry upon the sand, a Tadmor in the desert."

We should have believed it impossible, had not the fact thus thrust itself into our faces, that an intelligent gentleman could have lived for forty years in the city of Boston and its vicinity, busying himself from early youth with questions of religion and public morals, and yet remain so ignorant of facts of public notoriety, upon subjects which most engaged his own attention, as the above extract shows Mr. Parker to have been: of such facts, e. g. as the following: That thirty years before he was born,' the Methodist Episcopal Church had pronounced (in 1780) with unmistakable meaning upon the sinfulness of slavery, and had taken measures to clear itself wholly from connection there

1 The action of the Conference in 1780, "four years before the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church," was as follows: Question. Ought not those travelling preachers who hold slaves, to give promises to set them free? Answer. Yes.

Question. Does this Conference acknowledge that slavery is contrary to the laws of God, man, and nature, and hurtful to society; contrary to the dictates of conscience and pure religion, and doing that which we would not others should do to us and ours? Do we pass our disapprobation on all our friends who keep slaves, and advise their freedom? Answer. Yes.

At the next Conference in 1783, they voted, in regard to their "local preachers who held Slaves," etc., to "try them another year," may then be necessary to suspend them."

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. "It

In 1784. the matter of buying and selling slaves was taken hold of in a similar spirit; the question concerning the local preachers received further attention; and vigorous measures were planned, with much minute detail, as a practical answer to the inquiry: "What methods can we take to extirpate Slavery?" The subject came up before the Conferences of 1785, 1789, 1792, 1796, 1800, 1804, 1808, 1812, 1816, 1820; during all which time the Conference was evidently not forgetful of its duty toward the enslaved, whether it rightly understood it or not. In the year 1787, the Synod of New York and Philadelphia, at that time the highest judicatory in the Presbyterian Church in the United States, — commended the "general principles in favor of universal liberty," and counselled particular measures for the procurement of "the final abolition of Slavery in America." In 1818, the Assembly took more decided action; a part of which was in the following words: "We consider the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human race by another, as a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of human nature, as utterly inconsistent with the law of God"- the paper adopted occupying from three to four pages in the Minutes, and being characterized throughout by great vigor, distinctness, and fulness of expression.

with, and looking toward a general emancipation; which endeavor was vigorously continued for many years, and, indeed, has never been given up; that when he was hardly eight years old (1818), the Presbyterian church had denounced slavery in the most emphatic terms; that before as well as after the revolution, Congregational ministers had preached against it; while two years previous to that "Albany Convention," which protested for "the first time,” —and so, turned that rising tide which in its ebb was soon to leave the Christian theology a "Tadmor in the desert,"the Presbyterian church (N.S.) concluded a series of annual and triennial" protests" against slaveholding, by pronouncing it "an offence," in the proper import of that term as used in the "Book of Discipline," except when justified by circumstances making it, for the time being, an act of necessity or mercy; that the Temperance movement originated with Orthodox ministers, and has ever received its best support from such ministers and their churches; that the same men, in connection with the Quakers, were prominent founders and advocates of the Peace societies; while Orthodox missionaries again were the only men who have suffered imprisonment in behalf of the Indian; and, in general, that the great accusation against the Puritans, clergy and laity alike, has been, from the beginning, is now, and is likely to be, for some time to come, that they insist upon applying the precepts of the Gospel to all details of public and of private life, and obstinately preach the omnipresent force of the "higher law." We cannot think Mr. Parker dishonest in these extraordinary mistakes; but we stand in dumb amazement before the might of that prejudice which could have kept such a man so imperfectly informed.

But Mr. Parker went further yet, and published to the world his opinion, that the two and thirty thousand Christian ministers in the United States " scarce lessen any vice of the State, the press, or the market." That is to say: Governments here would be scarcely more corrupt, good publications would be about as numerous, and about as good, and bad publications but little more numerous and

little worse, and the morals of our trade would be about the same as now, if the American clergy were stricken out of existence. This was Mr. Parker's judgment. So, too, of the missions to "the heathens," he says: "Small good comes of it; but did they teach industry, thrift, letters, honesty, temperance, justice, mercy, with rational ideas of God and man, what a conversion would there be of the Gentiles!"-a passage indicative, again, of imperfect information. Had Mr. Parker known the facts familiar to nearly all intelligent members of Orthodox churches, he would never have penned such a sentence as that. Where can the church member be found, who does not know, that the missionaries are at pains to promote "industry," "honesty," and "thrift;" and that, while laying their hand at the root of the tree, and seeking to get the heart right, whence the issues of life proceed, they are watchful, also, over the whole outgoing of the life, and encourage, with the greatest zeal, those personal habits and those social usages which tend to refine and elevate the character, and such employments as are promotive of comfort and of the triumph of man over nature. The very scholars in the Sunday schools could have taught our author as much as this. Mr. Parker, however, seems to have been as little acquainted with the real condition of the heathen themselves, as with the efforts of his neighbors in their behalf, asking, whether Christian nations have a superiority over the South Asiatics, and the Chinese, in temperance, chastity, honesty, justice and mercy, equal to their mental superiority? and answering, that "it is notorious they have not." A recent traveller,' however, of the most extensive observation and not amenable to the charge of an extreme orthodoxy, expresses himself concerning one of these nations as follows: "It is my deliberate opinion, that the Chinese are, morally, the most debased. people on the face of the earth. Forms of vice which in other countries are barely named, are in China so common that they excite no comment among the natives. They

1 See Bayard Taylor's "India, China and Japan."

constitute the surface level, and below them there are deeps on deeps of depravity so shocking and horrible that their character can not even be hinted!"

We fear that it will be impossible to speak the truth concerning Mr. Parker, without saying what will be very displeasing to his friends. But let not these friends suppose that any contempt is cherished for their leader and champion, or any unkind feeling entertained towards those who agree with him. We understand too well the force of the currents on which he was borne astray, and have too much respect for whatsoever was noble or lovely in his character and life, as well as too much sympathy with the trouble that comes of doubt and denial, to harbor bitterness toward him or his followers.

THEODORE PARKER was a man of remarkable powers. Endowed with a physical constitution of rare energy, which, but for one inherited defect, would probably have borne up, even under his fierce taxation, to a good old age, he was able to do an amount of intellectual and passional work that few men equal. His intellect was capacious and strong, not lacking in powers of analysis, remarkable for imaginative vigor and a faculty of effective expression, insatiate after all sorts of knowledge, but not conscientiously exact, either in research or in statement; voracious rather than veracious; often rude and careless; often false, always unreliable. In denunciative eloquence, sarcasm and scorn and abhorrence, he was certainly among the first of men. Nor was he wanting in that nobler eloquence, which makes the beauties of the natural world its instrument, and stirs the soul with sublime joys; or even in that other, higher yet, which appeals directly to the moral nature, awakens its intuitions and its passions and benevolent desires. But the highest sphere of all seems to have been above his reach; and those tender and solemn views of God and of man and of man's state and destiny, which melt the soul into profound sorrow, love and prayer, which overcome it with awe

unutterable, which fill it and thrill it and empower it with the forces of a new life, in an immutable purpose, earnest as death, strong in God, those views which come through the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, imparted by the Holy Ghost, we do not find in Mr. Parker's writings. His attempts upon purely spiritual themes, so far as we have observed, may be set down as failures; and the reader is made to feel that, in them, his author has overstepped the limits of experience, and is drawing mainly upon imagination and desire.

A pretty careful and extended perusal of Mr. Parker's works has deeply impressed us with the conviction, that the amount of his accurate and reliable knowledge was by no means remarkable. We do not recall a single important topic which he has treated in a manner indicative of thorough scholarship. Haste, incorrectness, confusion, misconception and misrepresentation are well nigh omnipresent. We confess to a profound suspicion respecting even that wonderful facility in the acquisition of languages, of which his admirers tell us. The only important translation from his hand, made from the language with which, among all foreign tongues, he may fairly be presumed to have been most familiar, was so faulty, that its author was pronounced by a prominent British Quarterly,' to be "grossly ignorant of German," and was held up to ridicule as "a conceited and ignorant translator." And it is indeed very difficult to conceive, that a person of such headlong temper, whose mental habit was so obviously loose and void of scholarly conscientiousness, could have been thorough in his mastery of languages.

Mr. Parker cherished many generous and benevolent impulses. He was a lover of liberty and a hater of oppression; and advocated with strong earnestness whatever he believed to be the cause of freedom, justice, or humanity. He pitied the poor and the unfortunate, and sought to comfort and help them; and was, we are most ready to believe, a true friend, faithful and loving. His prejudices were vehement,

North Brit. Rev. VII., pp. 357, 358.