character, and he walks erect. Nothing impedes him. in his search for the true, the lovely, and the good; no private hope, no private fear, no love of wife or child, of gold, or ease, or fame. He never seeks his own reputation; he takes care of his being, and leaves his seeming to take care of itself. Fame may seek him; he never goes out of his way a single inch for her.

He has not written a line which is not conceived in the interest of mankind. He never writes in the interest of a section, of a party, of a church, of a man, always in the interest of mankind. Hence comes the ennobling influence of his works. Most of the literary men of America, most of the men of superior education, represent the ideas and interest of some party; in all that concerns the welfare of the human race they are proportionably behind the mass who have only the common culture, so while the thought of the people is democratic, putting man before the accidents of a man, the literature of the nation is aristocratic, and opposed to the welfare of mankind. Emerson belongs to the exceptional literature of the times; and while his culture joins him to the history of man, his ideas and his whole life enable him to represent also the nature of man, and so to write for the future. He is one of the rare exceptions amongst our educated men, and helps redeem American literature from the reproach of imitation, conformity, meanness of aim, and hostility to the progress of mankind. No faithful man is too low for his approval and encouragement; no faithless man too high and popular for his rebuke.

A good test of the comparative value of books is the state they leave you in. Emerson leaves you tranquil, resolved on noble manhood, fearless of the con

In

sequences; he gives men to mankind, and mankind to the laws of God. His position is a striking one. Eminently a child of Christianity and of the American. idea, he is out of the church and out of the state. the midst of Calvinistic and Unitarian superstition, he does not fear God, but loves and trusts him. He does not worship the idols of our time wealth and respectability, the two calves set up by our modern Jeroboam. He fears not the damnation these idols have the power to inflict, neither poverty nor social disgrace. In busy and bustling New England comes out this man serene and beautiful as a star, and shining like "a good deed in a naughty world." Reproached as an idler, he is active as the sun, and pours out his radiant truth on lyccums at Chelmsford, at Waltham, at Lowell, and all over the land. Out of a cold Unitarian church rose this most lovely light. Here is Boston, perhaps the most humane city in America, with its few noble men and women, its beautiful charities, its material vigor, and its hardy enterprise; commercial Boston, where honor is weighed in the public scales, and justice reckoned by the dollars it brings; conservative Boston, the grave of the Revolution, wallowing in its wealth, yet grovelling for more, seeking only money, careless of justice, stuffed with cotton yet hungry for tariffs, sick with the greedy worm of avarice, loving money as the end of life, and bigots as the means of preserving it; Boston, with toryism in its parlors, toryism in its pulpits, toryism in its press, itself a tory town, preferring the accidents of man to man himself, and amidst it all there comes Emerson, graceful as Phoebus-Apollo, fearless and tranquil as the sun he was supposed to guide, and pours down the enchantment of his light, which falls where'er it may,

on dust, on diamonds, on decaying heaps to hasten their rapid rot, on seeds new sown to quicken their ambitious germ, on virgin minds of youths and maids to waken the natural seed of nobleness therein, and make it grow to beauty and to manliness. Such is the beauty of his speech, such the majesty of his ideas, such the power of the moral sentiment in men, and such the impression which his whole character makes on them, that they lend him, everywhere, their ears, and thousands bless his manly thoughts.

III

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING

It is now six years since William Ellery Channing, ceasing to be mortal, passed on to his rest and his reward. We have waited impatiently for the publication of his memoirs, that we might "beg a hair of him for memory." They are now before us three wellprinted volumes, mainly filled up with his own writings, letters, extracts from journals, sermons, and various papers hitherto kept from the press. As a public speaker and a popular writer he was well known before; these volumes show us not merely the minister and the author, but the son, husband, father, and friend. If they reveal nothing new in his character, we have yet in them ample materials for ascertaining whence came his influence and his power. What estimate shall we make of the man, and what lesson draw from his life and works? These are matters worth considering, but before answering the question, let us look a little at the opportunities afforded him by his profession.

The church and state are two conspicuous and important forms of popular action. The state is an institution which represents man in his relations with man; the church, man in his relations with man and God. These institutions, varying in their modifications, have always been and must be, as they represent two modes of action that are constant in the human race, and come from the imperishable nature of man. In each of these modes of action the people have their

servants, politicians, the servants of the state, and clergymen, the servants of the church.

Now the clergymen may be a priest or a minister, the choice depending on his character and ability. The same distinctions are noticeable in the servants of the state, where we have the priest of politics and the minister of politics. We will pass over the priest.

The business of the minister is to become a spiritual guide to men, to instruct by his wisdom, elevate by his goodness, refine and strengthen by his piety, to inspire by his whole soul, to serve and to lead by going before them all his days with all his life, a pillar of cloud by day, of fire by night. The good shepherd giveth his life to his sheep as well as for them. The minister aims to be, to do, and to suffer, in special for his own particular parish, but also and in general for mankind. at large. He proposes for himself this end, the elevation of mankind,— their physical elevation to health, comfort, abundance, skill, and beauty; their intellectual elevation to thought, refinement, and wisdom; their moral and religious elevation to goodness and piety, till they all become sons of God also, and prophets. However, his direct and main business is to promote the spiritual growth of men, helping them to love one another, and to love God.

His means to this end are, in general, the common weapons of the church. To him the Sunday is a high day, for it is the great day of work, when he comes into close relations with men, to instruct the mind, to warn in the name of conscience, gently arousing the affections, kindling the religious emotions, and sc continuing his Father's work; the meeting-house, chapel, or church, is the great place for his work, and so, like the Sunday, it is holy to him, both invested with a cer