VIEWS OF THEODORE PARKER.

1. Tributes to Theodore Parker, comprising the Exercises at the Music Hall, on Sunday, June 17, 1860. With the Proceedings of the New England AntiSlavery Convention, at the Melodeon, May 31; and the Resolutions of the Fraternity and the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society. Boston: Published by the Fraternity. 1860.

2. A Look at the Life of Theodore Parker: A Discourse delivered in the Indiana-Place Chapel, June 3, 1860. By James Freeman Clarke. Boston: Walker, Wise & Co.

3. Theodore Parker: A Sermon preached in New York, June 10, 1860. By Rev. O. B. Frothingham. Boston: Walker, Wise & Co.

4. The Christian Minister, the Man of God: A Discourse delivered before the Graduating Class of the Divinity School in Harvard University, July 15, 1860. By Charles T. Brooks. Boston: Walker, Wise & Co.

5. A Discourse, preached in the West Church, on Theodore Parker. By C. A. Bartol. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, Lee & Co.

6. A Discourse, delivered in the Church of the Unity, after the death of Theodore Parker. By Geo. H. Hepworth. Published by request. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, Lee & Co.

7. A Tribute to the Memory and Services of the Rev. Theodore Parker. From a Discourse pronounced in the Bulfinch-Street Church, Boston, June 3, 1860. By W. R. Alger. Walker, Wise & Co.

The presence of Theodore Parker in Boston as a minister necessarily in regular standing, because there was no law under which he could be expelled the Boston Association, his Church regularly catalogued as a Congregational Society, was a fact more eloquent and significant than any of his discourses. Not before did the Christian world come face to face with the ultimatum of Protestantism. Not before did it fully perceive that in the ovum of the right to reject the Pope was the right to reject the authenticity of the Bible, and that both were equally Christian rights under the Law it had inaugurated. The lesson of Parker's life is: Back to Rome and be a spiritual chimpanzee, or on to Reason and be a man! The story runs that Saturn made an oyster and feared to make anything higher, lest under such a precedent a being should come who would be stronger than he was; but at last, over-persuaded, he made a higher, and then from that sprang a higher, until at last Jupiter came, who dethroned Saturn. The only safe motto of that love of Chaos which calls itself Conservatism, is, Obsta principiis. The first step involves all the rest. Nothing is plainer than that at

some time the whole Protestant world is to be Parkerite; nay, it can not end there, but Parkerism will one day become the conservative faith, so called, building fine churches and resisting the heresies which will arise in its borders.

To the above list of discourses we might have added a few more; for the tributes to the dead Parker were almost as numerous as the denunciations of the living Parker. Men have been heard whining over his grave, because they knew that the hearts of the people would be thrilled by one name on that day, whether they uttered it or not, who refused to send one generous word to the dying man, except in the mean, secret way. One is reminded of the story of Esculapius. It will be remembered that this eminent physician cured all diseases; he knew the antidote of every bane that men or gods could inflict. If a man was poisoned, or struck with lightning, Esculapius had only to be sent for and the man was well. Finally Pluto said, "This will never do: Hell will be depopulated." So he, the god of Hades, sent word to Jupiter that unless Esculapius could be stopped, there was no use in a hell at all; adding that already half of Hades consisted of 'apartments to let." Now Jupiter replied that he also disliked this power of the great physician; his thunder was of little use, for no sooner had he killed somebody he didn't like, but Esculapius would go and bring him to life again. So, finally, after consultation, it was agreed that the too knowing physician should be disposed of. Jupiter killed Esculapius with a flash of lightning. But after this it was agreed on all sides that Esculapius should be set as a constellation in the Heavens. But the later mythology tells that the rays of the stars in that constellation mingled with the juices of the Earth and brought up plants that can heal all diseases.

So was the living Parker a troublesome fellow; Parker depopulating the hells of America-social, political, religious-was intolerable. What was the use of a Fugitive Slave Bill if this man managed to get every one who enforced it into Coventry? What was the use of fine churches, if this man took away the warm religious heart of the people, leaving empty pews? So on him fall the anathemas, the wormwood and the gall and now he lies dead upon his cross. But as Parker in the concrete was unbearable, Parker in the abstract is magnificent. So he must be a Constellation, and each narrow little parish priest comes to try and

get some little star of his rhetoric associated with the great dead. But if American Demagogueism, and Mercantile Selfishness, and Religious Bigotry think they have got rid of the potency of this man, by this means, we hasten to warn them that every ray that shines down from that Constellation is a revolutionary ray; that each is in conspiracy with the forces of the moving world; that when they think that his standard must surely fall, a thousand hands will emerge to sustain it as that which in the Western World must be victorious.

Out of the many discourses, we have selected those which seem to us most genuine- although in this regard there is much difference between them—and most representative of various phases in which his life must appear to the various phases of liberal religion which we have.

The first on our list comprises the Tributes of his long-tried, out-spoken friends, his brave companions, partners of his toils and his fames. Such a work is necessarily eulogistic. Criticism is in abeyance but let us see how subtle eulogy may be? Charles M. Ellis, in the course of his remarks, said:

Born on soil sacred to Freedom of stock culled in England, and trained for two centuries in the best physical and moral culture of the world himself reared in schools not the costliest, but the best — taught the love of labor, self-reliance, absolute reverence for God and conscience, he surprised the world by the intellect that embraced the will that moved it. But these only beat with the impulses of his mighty heart. I do not wish to vindicate all. But as the dust of earth shall fall, this element will justify much that is questioned now. He did not believe in calling black white. Let time and truth judge his sayings. What he spoke in love will live. Do you not remember how, in his discourse on Adams when the building shook and his voice was silenced as the ice and snow fell with the shock of an earthquake before the sun of Spring (he wished it so with the character he was discussing) — with what joy he reviewed the glorious labors of the long Indian summer of that life, the rapture with which he hailed its closing act, summed up in that Saxon sentence, "the great loud No of an old man going home to his God"? Is the wail of a true heart over powers perverted - the "woe" of him who speaks in the cause of Humanity and God, to those who smite what they might save- to be condemned?

Wendell Phillips, in his usual high strain, speaks thus :

The very last page those busy fingers ever wrote, tells the child's story, than which, he says, no event in my life has made so deep and lasting an impression on me." "A little boy in petticoats, in my fourth year, my

father sent me from the field home." A spotted tortoise, in shallow water, at the foot of a rhodora, caught his sight, and he lifted his stick to strike it, when "a voice within said, 'It's wrong.' I stood with lifted stick, in wonder at the new emotion, till rhodora and tortoise vanished from my sight. I hastened home, and asked my mother what it was that told me it was wrong. Wiping a tear with her apron, and taking me in her arms, she said, 'Some men call it conscience; but I prefer to call it the voice of God in the soul of man. If you listen to it and obey it, then it will speak clearer and clearer, and always guide you right. But if you turn a deaf ear or disobey, then it will fade out, little by little, and leave you in the dark and without a guide.'" Out of that tearful mother's arms grew your pulpit. Here in words-every day in the streets, by deeds, during a hard life, he repeated and obeyed her counsel.

Mr. Emerson, so chary of praises, gives this earnest word, with which we close our extracts from the "Tributes":

'Tis plain to me that he has achieved a historic immortality here; that he has so woven himself in these few years into the history of Boston, that he can never be left out of your annals. It will not be in the acts of City Councils; nor of obsequious Mayors; nor, in the State House, the proclamations of Governors, with their failing virtue- failing them at critical moments, that the coming generations will study what really befell; but in the plain lessons of Theodore Parker in this Music Hall, in Faneuil Hall, or in Legislative Committee Rooms, the true temper and authentic record of these days will be read. The next generation will care little for the chances of election that govern governors now; it will care little for fine gentlemen who behaved shabbily, but it will read very intelligently in his rough story, fortified with exact anecdotes, precise with names and dates, what part was taken by each actor; who threw himself into the cause of Humanity, and who came to the rescue of Civilization at a hard pinch, and who blocked its course.

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Ah, my brave brother! it seems as if, in a frivolous age, our loss were immense, and your place can not be supplied. But you will already be consoled in the transfer of your genius, knowing well that the nature of the world will affirm to all men, in all times, that which for twenty-five years you valiantly spoke; that the winds of Italy murmur the same truth over your grave, the winds of America over these bereaved streets; that the sea which bore your mourners home affirms it, the stars in their courses, and the inspirations of youth; whilst the polished and pleasant traitors to human rights, with perverted learning and disgraced graces, rot and are forgotten with their double tongue saying all that is sordid for the corruption of man.

Mr. James Freeman Clarke, whose Discourse stands second on our list, whose address before the Anti-Slavery Society is in the "Tributes," has given, with the exception of Mr. Emerson's, the

most discriminating, and without any exception the most impressive and touching views of Theodore Parker's life and character. None knew Parker better than he who had met him as Jehu met Jehonadab and Jehu said, "Is thy heart right as my heart is with thy heart? If it be, give me thy hand; and he gave him

his hand, and got up into the chariot with him! In the chariot they went forth together to battle for those living causes which are the Christs of to-day, because they involve the same sacrifices and devotion which made him of old the life, the truth and the way. Thus deep respondeth unto deep.

The friends whom Parker loved, he loved with his whole heart. He loved them as Jonathan loved David: his love for them was wonderful, passing the love of woman. A word of kindness, an act of good-will, was never forgotten by him. His noble soul opened itself to affection like the blossoming apple-tree to the balmy sunshine in this early June. His sympathy with humanity inspired his flaming and ardent zeal for the oppressed everywhere; and as, in our land, the colored man is the most oppressed of all, therefore he felt most keenly his wrongs, and labored most zealously for him. Cold-hearted and selfish politicians, who think that to get office is the only motive in politics, could not understand this; but they are to be pitied for their forlorn ignorance of the nobilities of the human soul. His whole heart, as well as his whole reason and conscience, were in the cause of suffering and enslaved man; and for this that noble heart throbbed to the end.

This loving heart, which glowed with such devoted and steadfast affection for his friends, which burned with such ardent interest for the sufferers everywhere, could not be, and was not wanting in the highest type of love. It rose through friendship to humanity, through humanity to piety. Having loved his brother whom he had seen, how could he not love also the invisible but ever-present Father of us all? His piety was tender, filial, reverential; devout as that of Pascal, St. Bernard, or Madame Guyon. It was an instinct of adoration for infinite beauty and perfect love. Those who blamed his irreverent speech toward the outside of religion, toward the letter of the Bible, toward the sacraments of worship, little knew how tender and deep was his reverence toward the Great Father; whom he also loved to call the Mother, -Father and Mother of all men.

Mr. Clarke never shows his friendship more than in the simplicity and frankness with which he can speak of a friend's faults. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. We can not think, however, that the following statement of limitations is philosophical or even just :

His fiery indignation at wrong showed itself, in the most terrible in