when a slave case made our city a camp? Loving books, he had no jot of a scholar's indolence or timidity, but joined hands with labor everywhere. Erasmus would have found him good company, and Melanchthon got brave help over a Greek manuscript; but the likeliest place to have found him in that age would have been at Zwingle's side, on the battlefield, pierced with a score of fanatic spears. For above all things, he was terribly in earnest. If I sought to paint him in one word, I should say he was always in earnest.

I spoke once of his diligence, and we call him tireless, unflagging, unresting. But they are commonplace words, and poorly describe him. What we usually call diligence in educated men does not outdo, does not equal the day-laborer in ceaselessness of toil. No scholar, not even the busiest, but loiters out from his weary books, and feels shamed by the hodman or the plough-boy. The society and amusements of easy life eat up and beguile one half our time. Those on whose lips and motions hang crowds of busy idlers submit to life-long discipline, almost every hour a lesson. Those on whose tones float the most precious truth disdain an effort. The table you write on is the fruit of more toilsome and thorough discipline than the brain of most who deem themselves scholars ever knew. Let us not cheat ourselves with words. But no poor and greedy mechanic, no farm tenant "on shares," ever distanced this unresting brain. He brought into his study that conscientious, loving industry which six generations had handed down to him on the hard soil of Massachusetts. He loved work, and I doubt if any workman in our empire equalled him in thoroughness of preparation. Before he wrote his review of Prescott, he went conscientiously through all the printed histories of that period in three or four tongues. Before he ventured to

paint for you the portrait of John Quincy Adams, he read every line Adams ever printed, and all the attacks upon him that could be found in public or private collections.

Fortunate man! he lived long enough to see the eyes of the whole nation turned toward him as to a trusted teacher. Fortunate, indeed, in a life so noble, that even what was scorned from the pulpit, will surely become oracular from the tomb! Thrice fortunate, if he loved fame and future influence, that the leaves which bear his thoughts to posterity are not freighted with words penned by sickly ambition or wrung from hunger, but with earnest thoughts on dangers that make the ground tremble under our feet, and the heavens black over our head, the only literature sure to live. Ambition says, "I will write, and be famous." It is only a dainty tournament, a sham fight, forgotten when the smoke clears away. Real books are like Yorktown or Waterloo, whose cannon shook continents at the moment, and echo down the centuries. Through such channels Parker poured his thoughts.

And true hearts leaped to his side. No man's brain ever made him warmer friends; no man's heart ever heid them firmer. He loved to speak of how many hands he had, in every city, in every land, ready to work for him. With royal serenity he levied on all. Vassal hearts multiplied the great chief's powers. And at home the gentlest and deepest love, saintly, unequalled devotion, made every hour sunny, held off every care, and left him double liberty to work. God comfort that widowed heart!

Judge him by his friends. No man suffered anywhere who did not feel sure of his sympathy. In sick chambers, and by the side of suffering humanity, he kept his heart soft and young. No man lifted a hand

anywhere for truth and right who did not look on Theodore Parker as his fellow-laborer. When men hoped for the future, this desk was one stone on which they planted their feet. Where more frequent than around his board would you find men familiar with Europe's dungeons and the mobs of our own streets? Wherever the fugitive slave might worship, here was his Gibraltar. Over his mantel, however scantily furnished, in this city or elsewhere, you were sure to find a picture of Parker.

But he is gone! So certain was he of his death that, in the still watches of the Italian night, he comforted the sickening hopes of those about him by whispering,

"I hear a voice you cannot hear,
Which says I must not stay;

I see a hand you cannot see,
Which beckons me away."

But where shall we stop? This empty desk! You may fill it, but where is he who called it into being? Who shall make it so emphatically the symbol of free thought? To have stood here was, for most men, sufficient credential. Here the young knight earned his spurs. Around it has swelled and tossed the battle of Christian liberty. The debate whether Theodore Parker should speak in one place or preach in another, has been one of God's chief methods of teaching this land the lesson of what bigots style toleration, and freemen better call Christian liberty.

He has passed on; we linger. That other world grows more real to us as friend after friend enters it. Soon more are there than on this side; soon our hearts are more than half there. God tenderly sunders the few ties that still bind us. So live that when called to join that other assembly, we shall feel we are only

passing from an apprenticeship of thought and toil to broader fields and a higher teacher above.

The blessings of the poor are his laurels. Say that his words won doubt and murmur to trust in a loving God, let that be his record! Say that to the hated and friendless, he was shield and buckler, let that be his epitaph! The glory of children is the fathers. When you voted "that Theodore Parker should be heard in Boston," God honored you. Well have you

kept the pledge. In much labor and with many sacrifices he has laid the corner-stone. His work is ended here. God calls you to put on the top-stone. Let fearless lips and Christian lives be his monument!

FRANCIS JACKSON.

At the funeral services at Mr. Jackson's late residence, Hollis Street, Boston, November 18, 1861.

ERE lies the body of one of whom it may be justly

said, he was the best fruit of New England institutions. If we had been set to choose a specimen of what the best New England ideas and training could do, there are few men we should have selected before him. Broad views, long foresight, tireless industry, great force, serene faith in principles, parent of constant effort to reduce them to practice; contempt of mere wealth, that led him in middle life to give up getting, and devote his whole strength to ideas and the welfare of the race; entirely unselfish, perfectly just; thrifty, that he might have to give; fearing not the face of man; tolerant of other men's doubts and fears; tender and loving, are not these the traits that have given us the inheritance we value? None will deny they were eminently his.

My only hesitation in describing him is lest I be thought to flatter. What men have themselves seen, they believe; all further is set down to the blind partiality of friendship. Few have been privileged to know men like Francis Jackson. To such men, in fulness of years, there is no death. There seems no place for tears here. Our friend has only laid down this body, the worn tool God lent him,

and passed on to nearer