ground on which you stand, it is the mother of whom you
were born. Reform converses with possibilities, perchance
with impossibilities ; but here is sacred fact. This also
was true, or it could not be: it had life in it, or it could not
have existed; it has life in it, or it could not continue.
Your schemes may be feasible, or may not be, but this has
the endorsement of nature and a long friendship and cohab-
itation with the powers of nature. This will stand until a
better cast of the dice is made. The contest between the
Future and the Past is one between Divinity entering, and
Divinity departing. You are welcome to try your experi-
ments, and, if you can, to displace the actual order by
that ideal republic you announce, for nothing but God will
expel God. But plainly the burden of proof must lie with
VOL. III. —- NO. II.
24


186
[Oct.
Lectures on the Times.
the projector. We hold to this, until you can demonstrate
something better.
The system of property and law goes back for its origin
to barbarous and sacred times; it is the fruit of the same
mysterious cause as the mineral or animal world. There
is a natural sentiment and prepossession in favor of age, of
ancestors, of barbarous and aboriginal usages, which is a
homage to this element of necessity and divinity which is
in them. The respect for the old names of places, of
mountains, and streams, is universal. The Indian and
barbarous name can never be supplanted without loss.
The ancients tell us that the gods loved the Ethiopians
for their stable customs; and the Egyptians and Chal-
deans, whose origin could not be explored, passed among
the junior tribes of Greece and Italy for sacred nations.
Moreover, so deep is the foundation of the existing so-
cial system, that it leaves no one out of it. We may be
partial, but Fate is not. All men have their root in it.
You who quarrel with the arrangements of society, and are
willing to embroil all, and risk the indisputable good that
exists, for the chance of better, live, move, and have your
being in this, and your deeds contradict your words every
day. For as you cannot jump from the ground without
using the resistance of the ground, nor put out the boat
to sea, without shoving from the shore, nor attain liberty
without rejecting obligation, so you are under the neces-
sity of using the Actual order of things, in order to disuse
it; to live by it, whilst you wish to take away its life. The
past has baked your loaf, and in the strength of its bread
you would break up the oven. But you are betrayed by
your own nature. You also are conservatives. However
men please to style themselves, I see no other than a con-
servative party. You are not only identical with us in your
needs, but also in your methods and aims. You quarrel
with my conservatism, but it is to build up one of your own;
it will have a new beginning, but the same course and end,
the same trials, the same passions; among the lovers of the
new I observe that there is a jealousy of the newest, and
that the seceder from the seceder is as damnable as the
pope himself.
On these and the like grounds of general statement,
conservatism plants itself without danger of being displac-


1842.]
187
The Conservative.
ed. Especially before this personal appeal, the innovator
must confess his weakness, must confess that no man is to
be found good enough to be entitled to stand champion for
the principle. But when this great tendency comes to
practical encounters, and is challenged by young men, to
whom it is no abstraction, but a fact of hunger, distress,
and exclusion from opportunities, it must needs seem inju-
rious. The youth, of course, is an innovator by the fact of
his birth. There he stands, newly born on the planet, a
universal beggar, with all the reason of things, one would
say, on his side. In his first consideration how to feed,
clothe, and warm himself, he is met by warnings on every
hand, that this thing and that thing have owners, and he
must go elsewhere. Then he says; If I am born into the
earth, where is my part? have the goodness, gentlemen of
this world, to show me my wood-lot, where I may fell my
wood, my field where to plant my corn, my pleasant ground
where to build my cabin.
* Touch any wood, or field, or house-lot, on your peril,
cry all the gentlemen of this world ; but you may come
and work in ours, for us, and we will give you a piece of
bread.
And what is that peril ?
Knives and muskets, if we meet you in the act; impris-
onment if we find you afterward.
And by what authority, kind gentlemen ?
By our law.
And your law,- is it just ?
As just for you as it was for us. We wrought for others
under this law, and got our lands so.
I repeat the question, is your law just ?
Not quite just, but necessary. Moreover it is juster now
than it was when we were born; we have made it milder
and more equal.
I will none of your law, returns the youth. It encum-
bers me. I cannot understand, or so much as spare time
to read that needless library of your laws. Nature has
sufficiently provided me with rewards and sharp penalties,
to bind me not to transgress. Like the Persian noble of
old, I ask “ that I may neither command nor obey.” I do
not wish to enter into your complex social system. I shall
serve those whom I can, and they who can will serve me.


188
(Oct.
Lectures on the Times.
I shall seek those whom I love, and shun those whom I
love not, and what more can all your laws render me?
With equal earnestness and good faith, replies to this
plaintiff an upholder of the establishment, a man of many
virtues.
Your opposition is feather-brained and overfine. Young
man, I have no skill to talk with you, but look at me; I
have risen early and sat late, and toiled honestly, and pain-
fully for very many years. I never dreamed about methods;
I laid my bones to, and drudged for the good I possess; it
was not got by fraud, nor by luck, but by work, and you
must show me a warrant like these stubborn facts in your
own fidelity and labor, before I suffer you, on the faith of
a few fine words, to ride into my estate, and claim to scat-
ter it as your own.
Now you touch the heart of the matter, replies the re-
former. To that fidelity and labor, I pay homage. I am
unworthy to arraign your manner of living, until I too have
been tried. But I should be more unworthy, if I did not
tell you why I cannot walk in your steps. I find this vast
network, which you call property, extended over the whole
planet. I cannot occupy the bleakest crag of the White
Hills or the Alleghany Range, but some man or corporation
steps up to me to show me that it is his. Now, though I
am very peaceable, and on my private account could well
enough die, since it appears there was some mistake in my
creation, and that I have been missent to this earth,
where all the seats were already taken, - yet I feel called
upon in behalf of rational nature, which I represent, to de-
clare to you my opinion, that, if the Earth is yours, so also
is it mine. All your aggregate existences are less to me a
fact than is my own; as I am born to the earth, so the
Earth is given to me, what I want of it to till and to plant;
nor could I without pusillanimity, omit to claim so much.
I must not only have a name to live, I must live. My gen-
ius leads me to build a different manner of life from any of
yours. I cannot then spare you the whole world. I love you
better. I must tell you the truth practically; and take that
which you call yours. It is God's world and mine; yours
as much as you want, mine as much as I want. Besides,
I know your ways; I know the symptoms of the disease.
To the end of your power, you will serve this lie which


1842.)
189
The Conservative.
cheats you. Your want is a gulf which the possession of
the broad earth would not fill. Yonder sun in heaven you
would pluck down from shining on the universe, and make
him a property or privacy, if you could ; and the moon
and the north star you would quickly have occasion for in
your closet and bed-chamber. What you do not want for
use, you crave for ornament, and what your convenience
could spare, your pride cannot.
On the other hand, precisely the defence which was set
up for the British Constitution, namely, that with all its ad-
mitted defects, rotten boroughs and monopolies, it worked
well, and substantial justice was somehow done; the wis-
dom and the worth did get into parliament, and every in-
terest did by right, or might, or sleight, get represented ; -
the same defence is set up for the existing institutions.
They are not the best; they are not just; and in respect
to you, personally, 0 brave young man ! they cannot be
justified. They have, it is most true, left you no acre for
your own, and no law but our law, to the ordaining of
which, you were no party. But they do answer the end,
they are really friendly to the good ; unfriendly to the bad;
they second the industrious, and the kind; they foster gen-
ius. They really have so much flexibility as to afford your
talent and character, on the whole, the same chance of
demonstration and success which they might have, if there
was no law and no property.
It is trivial and merely superstitious to say that nothing
is given you, no outfit, no exhibition ; for in this institu-
tion of credit, which is as universal as honesty and pro-
mise in the human countenance, always some neighbor
stands ready to be bread and land and tools and stock to
the young adventurer. And if in any one respect they
have come short, see what ample retribution of good they
have made. They have lost no time and spared no ex-
pense to collect libraries and museums and galleries, col-
leges, palaces, hospitals, observatories, cities. The ages
have not been idle, nor kings slack, nor the rich niggardly.
Have we not atoned for this small offence (which we
could not help) of leaving you no right in the soil, by this
splendid indemnity of ancestral and national wealth ?
Would you have been born like a gipsy in a hedge, and
preferred your freedom on a heath, and the range of a


190
[Oct.
Lectures on the Times.
planet which had no shed or boscage to cover you from
sun and wind, — to this towered and citied world ? to this
world of Rome, and Memphis, and Constantinople, and
Vienna, and Paris, and London, and New York ? For
thee Naples, Florence, and Venice, for thee the fair Medi-
terranean, the sunny Adriatic; for thee both Indies smile;
for thee the hospitable North opens its heated palaces
under the polar circle ; for thee roads have been cut in
every direction across the land, and fleets of floating
palaces with every security for strength, and provision for
this world. Every island for thee has a town; every town
a hotel. Though thou wast born landless, yet to thy in-
dustry and thrift and small condescension to the estab-
lished usage, — scores of servants are swarming in every
strange place with cap and knee to thy command, scores,
nay hundreds and thousands, for thy wardrobe, thy table,
thy chamber, thy library, thy leisure, and every whim is
anticipated and served by the best ability of the whole
population of each country. The king on the throne
governs for thee, and the judge judges; the barrister
pleads, the farmer tills, the joiner hammers, the postman
rides. Is it not exaggerating a trifle to insist on a formal
advantages have been secured to you? Now can your
children be educated, your labor turned to their advantage,
and its fruits secured to them after your death. It is
frivolous to say you have no acre because you have not a
mathematically measured piece of land. Providence takes
care that you shall have a place, that you are waited for
and come accredited; and as soon as you put your gift
to use, you shall have acre or acre's worth according to
your exhibition of desert, - acre, if you need land ;-
acre's worth, if you prefer to draw, or carve, or make
shoes, or wheels, to the tilling of the soil.
Besides, it might temper your indignation at the supposed
wrong which society has done you, to keep the question
before you, how society got into this predicament? Who
put things on this false basis? No single man, but all
men. No man voluntarily and knowingly, but it is the
result of that degree of culture there is in the planet.
The order of things is as good as the character of the


1842.]
191
The Conservative.
population permits. Consider it as the work of a great
and beneficent and progressive necessity, which from the
first pulsation of the first animal life, up to the present
high culture of the best nations, has advanced thus far.
Thank the rude fostermother though she has taught you a
better wisdom than her own, and has set hopes in your
heart which shall be history in the next ages. You are
yourself the result of this manner of living, this foul com-
promise, this vituperated Sodom. It nourished you with
care and love on its breast, as it had nourished many a
lover of the right, and many a poet, and prophet, and
teacher of men. Is it so irremediably bad ? Then again, if
the mitigations are considered, do not all the mischiefs
virtually vanish? The form is bad, but see you not how
every personal character reacts on the form, and makes it
new. A strong person makes the law and custom null be-
fore his own will. Then the principle of love and truth
reappears in the strictest courts of fashion and property.
Under the richest robes, in the darlings of the selectest cir-
cles of European or American aristocracy, the strong heart
will beat with love of mankind, with impatience of acci-
dental distinctions, with the desire to achieve its own fate,
and make every ornament it wears authentic and real.
Moreover, as we have already shown that there is no
pure reformer, so it is to be considered that there is no
pure conservative, no man who from the beginning to the
end of his life maintains the defective institutions ; but he
who sets his face like a flint against every novelty, when
approached in the confidence of conversation, in the pres-
ence of friendly and generous persons, has also his gracious
and relenting motions, and espouses for the time the cause
of man; and even if this be a shortlived emotion, yet
the remembrance of it in private hours mitigates his selfish-
ness and compliance with custom.
The Friar Bernard lamented in his cell on Mount Cenis
the crimes of mankind, and rising one morning before day
from his bed of moss and dry leaves, he gnawed his roots
and berries, drank of the spring, and set forth to go to
Rome to reform the corruption of mankind. On his way
he encountered many travellers who greeted him courte-
ously; and the cabins of the peasants and the castles of
the lords supplied his few wants. When he came at last


192
Lectures on the Times.
to Rome, his piety and good will easily introduced him to
many families of the rich, and on the first day he saw and
talked with gentle mothers with their babes at their breasts,
who told him how much love they bore their children, and
how they were perplexed in their daily walk lest they
should fail in their duty to them. What!' he said, and
this on rich embroidered carpets, on marble floors, with
cunning sculpture, and carved wood, and rich pictures, and
piles of books about you?' -'Look at our pictures and
books, they said, and we will tell you, good Father, how
we spent the last evening. These are stories of godly chil-
dren and holy families and romantic sacrifices made in old
or in recent times by great and not mean persons; and last
evening, our family was collected, and our husbands and
brothers discoursed sadly on what we could save and
give in the hard times.' Then came in the men, and they
said, What cheer, brother? Does thy convent want gifts ?'
Then the friar Bernard went home swiftly with other
thoughts than he brought, saying, “This way of life is
wrong, yet these Romans, whom I prayed God to destroy,
are lovers, they are lovers; what can I do?'
The reformer concedes that these mitigations exist, and,
that, if he proposed comfort, he should take sides with the
establishment. Your words are excellent, but they do not
tell the whole. Conservatism is affluent and openhanded,
they take somewhat for everything they give. I look big-
ger, but am less; I have more clothes, but am not so
warm ; more armor, but less courage ; more books, but
less wit. What you say of your planted and builded and
decorated world, is true enough, and I gladly avail myself
of its convenience; yet I have remarked that what holds in
particular, holds in general, that the plant Man does not
require for his most glorious flowering this pomp of prepa-
ration and convenience, but the thoughts of some beggarly
Homer who strolled, God knows when, in the infancy
and barbarism of the old world; the gravity and sense of
some slave Moses who leads away his fellow slaves from
their masters; the contemplation of some Scythian An-
acharsis; the erect, formidable valor of some Dorian towns-
men in the town of Sparta ; the vigor of Clovis the Frank,
and Alfred the Saxon, and Alaric the Goth, and Mahomet,


1842.]
193
The Conservative.
Ali, and Omar the Arabians, Saladin the Curd, and Othman
the Turk, sufficed to build what you call society, on the
spot and in the instant when the sound mind in a sound
body appeared. Rich and fine is your dress, O conserva-
tism! your horses are of the best blood; your roads are well
cut and well paved ; your pantry is full of meats and your
cellar of wines, and a very good state and condition are you
for gentlemen and ladies to live under ; but every one of
these goods steals away a drop of my blood. I want the
necessity of supplying my own wants. All this costly cul-
ture of yours is not necessary. Greatness does not need
it. Yonder poor man, who sits neglected there in a
corner, carries a whole revolution of man and nature in his
head, which shall be a sacred history to some future ages.
For man is the end of nature ; nothing so easily organizes
itself in every part of the universe as he ; no moss, no lichen
is so easily born; and he takes along with him and puts
out from himself the whole apparatus of society and con-
dition extempore, as an army encamps in a desert, and
where all was just now blowing sand, creates a white city
in an hour, a government, a market, a place for feasting,
for conversation, and for love.
These considerations, urged by those whose characters
and whose fortunes are yet to be formed, must needs com-
mand the sympathy of all reasonable persons. But beside
that charity which should make all adult persons interested
for the youth, and engage them to see that he has a free
field and fair play on his entrance into life, we are bound to
see that the society, of which we compose a part, does not
permit the formation or continuance of views and practices
injurious to the honor and welfare of mankind. The ob-
jection to conservatism, when embodied in a party, is this,
that in its love of acts, it hates principles ; it lives in the
senses, not in truth; that it sacrifices to despair; it goes
for availableness in its candidate, not for worth; and for
expediency in its measures, and not for the right. Under
pretence of allowing for friction, it makes so many additions
and supplements to the machine of society, that it will play
smoothly and softly, but will no longer grind any grist.
The conservative party in the universe concedes that the
radical would talk sufficiently to the purpose, if we were
still in the garden of Eden; he legislates for man as he
VOL. IIJ. — NO. 11.
25


194
[Oct.
Lectures on the Times.
ought to be; his theory is right, but he makes no allow-
ance for friction ; and this omission makes his whole doc-
trine false. The idealist retorts, that the conservative
falls into a far more noxious error in the other extreme.
The conservative assumes sickness as a necessary fact, and
his social frame is a hospital, his total legislation is for the
present distress, a universe in slippers and flannels, with
bib and papspoon, swallowing pills and herb-tea. Sickness
gets organized as well as health, the vice as well as the
virtue. Now that a vicious system of trade has existed so
long, it has stereotyped itself in the human generation, and
misers are born. And now that sickness has got such a
foothold, leprosy has grown cunning, has got into the ballot
box; the lepers outvote the clean ; society has resolved
itself into a Hospital Committee, and all its laws are quar-
antine. If any man resist and set up a foolish hope he has en-
tertained as good against the general despair, society frowns
on him, shuts him out of all her opportunities, her grana-
ries, her refectories, her water and bread, and will serve
him a sexton's turn;
" Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
Here's the hole, and in thou must.”
It takes as low a view of every part of human action
and passion. Its religion is just as bad; a lozenge for the
sick; a dolorous tune to beguile the distemper; mitigations
of pain by pillows and anodynes; always mitigations, never
remedies ; pardons for sin, funeral honors, - never self-
help, renovation, and virtue. Its social and political action
has no better aim; to keep out wind and weather, to bring
the day and year about, and make the world last our day;
not to sit on the world and steer it; not to sink the mem-
ory of the past in the glory of a new and more excellent
creation; a timid cobbler and patcher, it degrades what-
ever it touches. The cause of education is urged in this
country with the utmost earnestness, - on what ground?
why on this, that the people have the power, and if they
are not instructed to sympathize with the intelligent, read-
ing, trading, and governing class, inspired with a taste for
the same competitions and prizes, they will upset the fair
pageant of Judicature, and perhaps lay a hand on the sa-
cred muniments of wealth itself, and new distribute the


1842.]
195
The Conservative.
land. Religion is taught in the same spirit. The con-
tractors who were building a road out of Baltimore, some
years ago, found the Irish laborers quarrelsome and re-
fractory to a degree that embarrassed the agents, and
seriously interrupted the progress of the work. The cor-
poration were advised to call off the police, and build a
Catholic chapel; which they did ; the priest presently
restored order, and the work went on prosperously. Such
hints, be sure, are too valuable to be lost. If you do not
value the Sabbath, or other religious institutions, give
yourself no concern about maintaining them. They have
already acquired a market value as conservators of proper-
ty; and if priest and church member should fail, the
chambers of commerce and the presidents of the Banks,
the very innholders and landlords of the county would
muster with fury to their support.
Of course religion in such hands loses all its essence.
Instead of that profound reliance, which the soul forever
suggests in the eternity of truth and duty, men are misled
into a reliance on rotten institutions, on institutions, which,
the moment they cease to be the instantaneous creations
of the devout sentiment, are worthless. Religion among
the low becomes low. As it loses its truth, it loses credit
with the sagacious. They detect the falsehood of the
preaching, but when they say so, all good citizens cry,
Hush; do not weaken the state, do not take off the strait
jacket from dangerous persons. Every honest man must
keep up the hoax the best he can ; must patronize provi-
dence and piety, and wherever he sees anything that will
keep men amused, schools or churches or poetry or pic-
ture-galleries or music, or what not, he must cry “Hist-a-
boy,” and urge the game on. What a compliment we pay
to the good Spirit with our superserviceable zeal!
But not to balance reasons for and against the estab-
lishment any longer, and if it still be asked in this neces-
sity of partial organization, which party on the whole has
the highest claims on our sympathy, I bring it home to
the private heart where all such questions must have their
final arbitrement. How will every strong and generous
mind choose its ground, - with the defenders of the old ?
or with the seekers of the new? Which is that state
which promises to edify a great, brave, and beneficent man;


196
[Oct.
Lectures on the Times.
to throw him on his resources, and tax the whole strength
of his character ? On which part will each of us find
himself in the hour of strength and of aspiration ?
I understand well the respect of mankind for war, be-
cause that breaks up the Chinese stagnation of society, and
demonstrates the personal merits of all men. A state of
war or anarchy, in which law has little force, is so far valu-
able, that it puts every man on trial. The man of princi-
ple is known as such, and even in the fury of faction is
respected. In the civil wars of France, Montaigne alone,
among all the French gentry, kept his castle gates unbarred,
and made his personal integrity as good at least as a regi-
ment. The man of courage and resources is shown, and
the effeminate and base person. Those who rise above
war, and those who fall below it, it easily discriminates, as
well as those, who, accepting its rude conditions, keep their
own head by their own sword.
But in peace and a commercial state we depend, not as
we ought, on our knowledge and all men's knowledge that
we are honest men, but we cowardly lean on the virtue of
others. For it is always at last the virtue of some men in
the society, which keeps the law in any reverence and
power. Is there not something shameful that I should owe
my peaceful occupancy of my house and field, not to the
knowledge of my countrymen that I am useful, but to
their respect for sundry other reputable persons, I know
not whom, whose joint virtues still keep the law in good
odor?
It will never make any difference to a hero what the
laws are. His greatness will shine and accomplish itself
unto the end, whether they second him or not. If he have
earned his bread by drudgery, and in the narrow and
crooked ways which were all an evil law had left him, he
will make it at least honorable by his expenditure. Of
the past he will take no heed; for its wrongs he will not
hold himself responsible : he will say, all the meanness of
my progenitors shall not bereave me of the power to make
this hour and company fair and fortunate. Whatsoever
streams of power and commodity flow to me, shall of me
acquire healing virtue, and become fountains of safety. Can-
not I too descend a Redeemer into nature? Whosoever
hereafter shall name my name, shall not record a malefac-


1842.]
197
The Conservative.
tor, but a benefactor in the earth. If there be power in
good intention, in fidelity, and in toil, the north wind shall
be purer, the stars in heaven shall glow with a kindlier
beam, that I have lived. I am primarily engaged to myself
to be a public servant of all the gods, to demonstrate to all
men that there is intelligence and good will at the heart of
things, and ever higher and yet higher leadings. These
are my engagements; how can your law further or hinder
me in what I shall do to men? On the other hand, these
dispositions establish their relations to me. Wherever
there is worth, I shall be greeted. Wherever there are
men, are the objects of my study and love. Sooner or
later all men will be my friends, and will testify in all
methods the energy of their regard. I cannot thank your
law for my protection. I protect it. It is not in its power
to protect me. It is my business to make myself revered.
I depend on my honor, my labor, and my dispositions, for
my place in the affections of mankind, and not on any
conventions or parchments of yours.
But if I allow myself in derelictions, and become idle
and dissolute, I quickly come to love the protection of a
strong law, because I feel no title in myself to my advan-
tages. To the intemperate and covetous person no love
flows; to him mankind would pay no rent, no dividend, if
force were once relaxed; nay, if they could give their
verdict, they would say, that his self-indulgence and his
oppression deserved punishment from society, and not that
rich board and lodging he now enjoys. The law acts then
as a screen of his unworthiness, and makes him worse the
longer it protects him.
In conclusion, to return from this alternation of par-
tial views, to the high platform of universal and necessary
history, it is a happiness for mankind that innovation
has got on so far, and has so free a field before it. The
boldness of the hope men entertain transcends all former
experience. It calms and cheers them with the picture of
a simple and equal life of truth and piety. And this hope
flowered on what tree? It was not imported from the
stock of some celestial plant, but grew here on the wild
crab of conservatism. It is much that this old and vitu-
perated system of things has borne so fair a child. It pre-
dicts that amidst a planet peopled with conservatives, one
Reformer may yet be born.


198
[Oct.
The Inward Morning.
THE INWARD MORNING.
PACKED in my mind lie all the clothes
Which outward nature wears,
And in its fashion's hourly change
It all things else repairs.
In vain I look for change abroad,
And can no difference find,
Till some new ray of peace uncalled
Illumes my inmost mind.
What is it gilds the trees and clouds,
And paints the heavens so gay,
But yonder fast abiding light
With its unchanging ray ?
Lo, when the sun streams through the wood
Upon a winter's morn,
Where'er his silent beams intrude
The murky night is gone.
How could the patient pine have known
The morning breeze would come,
Or humble flowers anticipate
The insect's noonday hum?
Till the new light with morning cheer
From far streamed through the aisles,
And nimbly told the forest trees
For many stretching miles.
I've heard within my inmost soul
Such cheerful morning news,
In the horizon of my mind
Have seen such orient hues,
As in the twilight of the dawn,
When the first birds awake,
Are heard within some silent wood,
Where they the small twigs break,


1842.]
199
Free Love.
Or in the eastern skies are seen,
Before the sun appears,
The harbingers of summer heats
Which from afar he bears.
H. D. T.
FREE LOVE.
My love must be as free
As is the eagle's wing,
Hovering o'er land and sea
And every thing.
I must not dim my eye
In thy saloon,
I must not leave my sky
And nightly moon.
Be not the fowler's net
Which stays my flight,
And craftily is set
T'allure the sight,
But be the favoring gale
That bears me on,
And still doth fill my sail.
When thou art gone.
I cannot leave my sky
For thy caprice,
True love would soar as high
As heaven is.
The eagle would not brook
Her mate thus won,
Who trained his eye to look
Beneath the sun.
H. D. T.


200
(Oct.
Rumors from an Æolian Harp.
THE POET'S DELAY.
In vain I see the morning rise, .
In vain observe the western blaze,
Who idly look to other skies,
Expecting life by other ways.
Amidst such boundless wealth without,
I only still am poor within,
The birds have sung their summer out,
But still my spring does not begin.
Shall I then wait the autumn wind,
Compelled to seek a milder day,
And leave no curious nest behind,
No woods still echoing to my lay?
H. D. T.
RUMORS FROM AN ÆOLIAN HARP.
There is a vale which none hath seen,
Where foot of man has never been,
Such as here lives with toil and strife .
An anxious and a sinful life.
There every virtue has its birth,
Ere it descends upon the earth,
And thither every deed returns,
Which in the generous bosom burns.
There love is warm, and youth is young,
And simple truth on every tongue,
For Virtue still adventures there,
And freely breathes her native air.
And ever, if you hearken well,
You still may hear its vesper bell,
And tread of high-souled men go by,
Their thoughts conversing with the sky.
H. D. T.


1842.]
201
Councils of the Church.
HOLLIS STREET COUNCIL.
Proceedings of an Ecclesiastical Council, in the Case of the Proprietors
of Hollis Street Meeting-house, and the Rev. John Pierpont, their Pas-
tor, prepared from the official journal and original documents. By
SAMUEL K. LoTHROP, Scribe of the Council. Boston: from the
press of W. W. Clapp and Son. 1841. 8vo. pp. 384.
The history of “ecclesiastical councils,” special and gen-
eral, from the synod at Jerusalem, in the first century, to
the celebrated tribunal called the “Hollis Street Council,''
in the nineteenth century, affords many instructive hints.
The story of any Science, traced from its beginnings in
ignorance and rude conjectures to the study of facts, the
development of a law, the discovery of first principles and
the opening of a world of Ideas consequent thereon - this
is always curious to the most superficial and instructive
to the wisest minds. There is a gloomy and a bright side
to human nature; and though the ludicrous may strike us
at first, the melancholy features of the case will at last
present themselves to all that think. Democritus and
Heraclitus, – the philosophers who laugh and the philos-
ophers who weep at the tale of human woe will have their
representatives to the end of time. To a pensive mind
the gloomy aspect is the most obvious. A sober wisdom,
with abated fears and chastened hopes, does not come in
the first moment of study, but is the result only of toilsome
thought, or religious faith.
To look at the history of Morals, and trace mankind
from the Cannibal to the Courtier; to see with what ex-
pense of toil and pain and tears and blood each advance
has been purchased, and to consider how little has been
done, even now, for the best interests of man, the sight is
a sad one. To survey the field minutely, and study the
two parties that wage interminable war, the one fighting
the great battle for human souls, the other against them;
to see the let and hindrance which Sloth, Ignorance, and Sel-
fishness cast before the wheels of Reform ; to consider the
occasional blindness and folly of Reformers themselves,
there is something very sad in the thought. We look back,
and a tear must dim our triumph. We look forward,
VOL. III. —NO. II.
26


202
[Oct.
Councils of the Church.
and it must be with a sigh for the future martyrs whom
God raises up to bear the sins of unregenerate man.
But the gloomiest of all the pages of our human tale is
perhaps the story of Religion ; of what is deepest and
highest in man; the cause of his greatest joy, or his most
costly sacrifice. Under that name every imposture has
found a shelter. The foulest rites, the most detestable
doctrines, and hypocrisy the most shameful have here had
a refuge, with none to molest nor fray them away. True
there is progress, from the sacrifice of a Child in the days of
Abraham, to the offerings of a Lamb in the time of Moses,
still more to a DIVINE LIFE in the time of Jesus. But at what
cost was the progress made? What war between the two
parties of the Past and the Future, the Actual and the Ideal ?
If one would read but a brief history of the “ Councils of
the Christian church,” or turn over the folios of some ponder-
ous collection, it would be with a sad heart. Would he
ask for a completer history of human folly and bigotry ?
Would he not find there that each new Idea, as it dawned
on the race from the eternal heaven, was at first regarded
by the Shepherds of men, as disastrous, - a star of ruin ?
What said the household of Terah to the calling of Abra-
ham ; the wise men of Tarik to the mission of Moses;
the Scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem to the glad tidings
that Jesus brought ? Nay, what said the Council of Con-
stance to Jerome and Huss; the Council of Trent to the
words of Martin Luther ? The chronicles of pirates; the
annals of crime ; Newgate calendars; the “last words and
dying confessions” of scoundrels hanged, disclose but a
single phase of the sin that walks or creeps the world. A
rascal armed with a bludgeon ; an assassin with a knife in
his belt, or poison in his pocket, is a dangerous man ; no
doubt of that. But crime in a cassock; villany that is
“ banded,” surpliced, and stoled, and set off with phylac-
teries or a sceptre, this is greatly more dangerous. It was
real heroism, and that the noblest, in him who said, The
Publicans and Harlots go into the Kingdom of God before
you, Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites. The obvious foes
of the race it is cheap to condemn; but to attack and
expel the secret enemies of man was worthy of that great
soul. No doubt “ a saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn;"
at least the World says so. And if so, why may not a
rogue in ruffles be worse than many a rogue in rags ?
theat Jesus berome andher? Ilendars ;


1842.]
203
Hollis Street Council.
One needs but little acquaintance with ecclesiastical
affairs, to see, that the World and the Church differ very
widely in name, and very little in the spirit with which
they are managed. The early ecclesiastical synods, assem-
bled for doctrinal purposes, were often planned and conduct-
ed by a spirit disgraceful to the human race; and an acute
modern writer says well, “ Men of the ecclesiastical pro-
fession, however respectable or venerable in their individual
capacities, have never met in bodies, but they have become
examples of anything but toleration ; and this must ne-
cessarily be the case, without any particular fault of theirs,
from the mere operation of the most established principles
of our common nature." Ecclesiastical courts, to speak of
them as a whole, have been instruments of tyranny.* Is
it a century since men's tongues were cut out, and their
flesh torn off with red-hot pincers, by the command of ec-
clesiastical authority, because they would not bow to the
Host, a God of bread? The fact is notorious. It was
done in the “most enlightened country of Europe ;" done
by pious men, who really thought, no doubt, they did God
service, by thus maltreating his image. We live in a better
age, though in a land where women have been scourged nak-
ed from town to town for their religion; where switches"
and Quakers have been hanged, the one for serving the
fancied devil, the other for worshipping the only God, and
the ecclesiastical power defended both the whip and the
gallows. But leaving what thoughts we have to offer re-
specting “ councils of the church " in other times and under
circumstances, to which we, fortunately, are strangers, we
will address ourselves to the work before us, — the far-
famed Hollis Street Council.
It is a delicate matter to treat of, and we come to it with
reluctance. The subject is full of difficulties; they in-
crease at every step. There may be misunderstanding on
all sides, but there must be BLAME somewhere. It is sel-
dom all on one side. This council is a sore spot to some
men. It should therefore be touched with tenderness and
* See some curious specimens of the tyrannical spirit of the Church
in the middle ages, in Thierry, Histoire de la Conquête de l'Angleterre.
Liv. I.


204
[Oct.
Position of the Christian Ministry.
a practised hand. We have waited long and anxiously in
hopes that some of the experienced and venerable men,
the legitimate guides of public opinion, would open their
mouth, and give justice its due. We have waited in vain.
It is not with pleasure, but under a sense of duty, that we
write. However, the fact of a Unitarian council being
called in this city; its singular aspect; the character of the
men who composed it; its long delays; its protracted
sessions; the fame of the legal advisers retained by the two
parties; the magnitude of the questions believed to be at
issue; the deep interest in the case felt by the public, all
these circumstances make it so significant, that we can in
no wise allow it to pass over in silence.
An ecclesiastical council assembled in our city is a novel
affair in this part of the century; a Unitarian council to try
a minister has rather a singular aspect, considering the
common views of church discipline taken by that sect.
The accused was charged with no error in doctrine, but
simply in practice, as we understand the case, and ecclesi-
astical bodies usually have contended more for the former
than the latter. Some of the charges made against the
Pastor, if we rightly understand them, are of a very unusual
nature. The conduct of the council itself, considering
the high character of some of its members, was very sur-
prising, though no doubt substantial precedents could be
quoted, both from legal and clerical usage, to justify the
course pursued. But we shall not adduce them. Then
again the “ Result in Council ” is curious and instructive; a
matter every way worthy of comment in this Journal.
Now, before we proceed to the merits of this case, and
in order to understand it the better, and come more suc-
cessfully to our end, we must be allowed to say a word
about the POSITION OF A MINISTER IN GENERAL. The real
office of the Christian minister is twofold, abstract and con-
crete, namely, TO TEACH TRUTH and to PROMOTE GOOD-
NESS. Here then is a speculative and a practical work to
be done. Now, in each of these divisions, it is obvious that
there is a positive work to be performed, sowing the seeds
of Truth and Goodness. But as the world is, a negative
work also must be done, that of confuting Falsehood and
exposing Crime. The soil must be ploughed before the


1842.]
205
Position of the Christian Ministry.
seed is sown. He that says " Truth is of God,” though
never so gently, says also, at least by implication, “a Lie
is not of God, but of the Devil.” If he goes seriously to
work, while he says every day, “ Blessed are the pure in
heart for they shall see God,” he must, now and then, say
likewise, “ Woe unto Scribes, and Pharisees, Hypocrites,
or, “ Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness
of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the
Kingdom of God.” Now this negative work is very un-
grateful to the best of men, but it must be done. Who does
not sympathize with that man who said, “ Would I were
as good as Jesus! Then I could call men by their right
names and commit no sin ?" No doubt, men no better
than their brothers are always ready with their “ Woe unto
you." Still we repeat it, falsehood must be called False-
hood, and sin, Sin; wicked men be made to know they
are wicked. This is a thankless task. We are sorry to say
it, but the tellers of Truth and promoters of Goodness
have rarely been popular till after death. " Which of the
prophets have not your fathers persecuted ?” may be
asked in all ages. The Prophets, that are honored in our
day, were murdered in their own, because they told the
truth and exposed lies. Diogenes the cynic, if we remem-
ber rightly, says his father was banished because he marked
bad money ; always an invidious office which is certain to
diminish the revenue.
Now a Christian minister, if he enters seriously into his
calling, -- the greatest of all human vocations, —- must turn
to one or to both of the divisions; to the abstract course
of teaching truth, and combatting falsehood, or to the con-
crete course of promoting goodness and exposing crime, in
what is called a direct and practical way. The specula-
tive man inclines one way, the practical man the other.
The true “ Scribe, well instructed unto the kingdom of
heaven," of course does both.
We know there is a tertium quid sometimes heard of.
A Christian minister who is not serious in his calling; one
of those who “ climb, and intrude, and steal into the fold,"
takes the general average of theological opinion in his dis-
trict as the standard of truth, and the general average of
popular virtue as the standard of goodness, and never goes
beyond either; preaches profound, speculative sermons,


206 Position of the Christian Ministry. [Oct.
(sound in more than one sense, on the antiquities of the
Jewish Church ; the color of the red heifer, it may be, or
the size of the Ark, the manner in which Noah collected
and disposed the animals he preserved; the times when
the High Priest went into the Holy of Holies, and the
typical signification of all these mysteries to the present
age; he preaches also smart practical sermons against ob-
solete vices, the worship of ancient idols; the sins of the
Jewish Sadducees and Pharisees; against doubts that
nobody shares, and extinct or unpopular classes of unbe-
lievers. If he have still hours not occupied, and a mind
that loves work better than the "rack of a too easy chair,"
and sleep after dinner, he busies himself with the trifles of
literature; makes collections” of “ puffs, powders, patches,
Bibles, billet-doux;" dabbles in the history of everything but
Morals and Religion ; plays on the surface of some easy
science; catches butterflies; collects epitaphs and conun-
drums; gathers antiques ;
“He has a fourth o' auld knick-knackets;
Rusty airn caps and jinglin jackets,
Wad haud the Lothians twain in plackets,
A two-mont' gude.”
Such a man “never gets into trouble.” His pulpit is
neutral ground, like some free-port of trade." Truth
and falsehood shake hands; crime and goodness kiss each
other. He is born for his tucker and his bib, and never
sells his birth-right. Good dinners are got ready for him,
and “ wine of a noble mark.” “He is always on the right
side ;" while he lives, has the reputation of a “mild, inof-
fensive man, who hurts nobody," and has not an enemy in
the village; a man who never meddles with exciting
topics and matters too bigh for him. When he dies, it
will be recorded of him as of patriarchs before the flood,
that “he lived and begat sons and daughters.” The great
representative of this class was the famous Vicar of Bray.
Now if a minister pursue either of the two courses
first mentioned, he may “ get into trouble." Yes, though
he is “ wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” If he
turn his attention to the speculative side, and ask, “what
is truth?" then he must differ in some respects from the
theological opinions of the public. He will differ just in
proportion to his ability, activity, and honesty. He must


1842.] Position of the Christian Ministry. 207
our feed on istablished" we merrets into conden
then abandon his early prejudices as mistakes ; expose the-
ological errors; set forth 'truths not commonly accepted,
and depart widely from the doctrines that public opinion
declares sound. Then comes the question, Shall he dis-
close his convictions, or keep them to himself? If he is a
serious man, he will do as Luther and Paul, and not "shun
to declare the whole counsel of God," asking no question,
whether public opinion will tolerate or condemn him. If
the minister does this, he “gets into trouble.” The
Church, — and by this we mean in this place the great
guardian of established opinions, — comes up to him, lays
its hand on its ample conscience, and says, “ Sir, you hurt
our feelings. You don't believe as we do; not even as
your father did before you. We shall not be responsible
for your opinions, for we doubt your faculty for thinking.
You are a dreamy, foolish person at best. Do turn your
hand to some practical work, and leave speculation to us,
whose business it is. It is better for you to give up think-
ing altogether, till you can think and feel as we do. We
are good Christians, and would not disturb freedom of
thought and speech for the world! Nay, we prize that
above all things. But if you preach such opinions as we
dislike, we will burn you alive, if we can, and at all events
will give you a bad name in this life, and the expectancy
of damnation in the next.”
If, on the other hand, the minister takes the practical
division of his work, turns his attention more to the doings
than the doctrines of the public, he “gets into trouble”
none the less. He comes to conclusions respecting the
public virtue, which differ from the opinions commonly
entertained, just in proportion to his ability, activity, and
honesty. He sees the sin of society. Then the question
comes, Shall he be silent; or when the watchman sees the
evil coming, shall he cry aloud and spare not ? He has
great examples in favor of either course ; but that of Paul
and Luther in favor of speaking. If he publish his opin-
ion, he comes in contact with the Selfishness, the Sensu-
ality, and the Sin of society. Then the World, and by
this is meant the great guardian of established usages, -
comes up to him, lays its hand on its conscience, — broad
and conspicuous organ, — and says, “ Sir, you hurt our
feelings. You have spilled our rum, and put out the fires


208
[Oct.
Position of the Christian Ministry.
of our distilleries. You say that we shall not murder the
Indians, nor enslave the Negroes, though we are Christians,
and they but Pagan dogs ; that we shall not tyrannize over
our brother men, nor make them bear our burthens and
earn our bread, though we are richer, stronger, and more
cunning than they. We are good Christians, but we get
our living by what you call sin ; we must get our living,
and our way must be right, for it has always been followed
' from the beginning. We love God, – that is our re-
ligion ; but you ask us to love men, which we can't do.
We have faith, enough of that, but you ask works beside,
and grace into the bargain. You hurt our feelings very
much, and we can't be responsible for you any longer.
We respect you for your learning and piety, but you are a
dreamy, imaginative person, who know little about human
nature. We think you had better turn your hand to doc-
trines and give up practical affairs, leaving them to us,
who understand them perfectly. If you will preach Christ-
ianity, - and we pay you for that, - pray confine your-
self to its doctrines, and preach them with what freedom
you will. We respect your holy calling, and have no
doubt of your 'apostolical succession, and right to bind,
and to loose, and make men believe what you will, but
let us do as we please. We are patient men; but when
you talk about our wrong doings, and sins that we commit,
we can't bear you, and we won't. Are we the only sin-
ners in the world ? If you will continue to tell us our
faults and rebuke our sins, we will give you a bad name,
and starve your wife and babies.”
Now if the minister takes both horns of the dilemma,
exposes the falsehood of the popular doctrines, and the
sin of the popular doings, his case is very hard. “Hungry
ruin has him in the wind.” The “Church” and the
6 World” are out upon him in full pursuit. The “ hue
and cry” is raised. “ Infidel,” “ Atheist,” screams the
Church. “Madman,” “Reformer," roars the World.
“ Away with such a fellow from the earth, crucify him,
crucify him," exclaim both." He hath blasphemed against
Moses,” says the one, “and against Cæsar,” says the other.
“We have a law, and by our law he ought to die."
The speculative or practical reformer has a sad time of
it. Public Opinion sets a bounty on compliance with the


1842.]
209
Mr. Pierpont and the Council.
evening, or tand with imply have ! Daily to seek thy com-
prejudices and sins of the time; invites men to say “ Peace,
peace,” when there is no peace. She looks among the
simple ones, and discerns some young man devoid of un-
derstanding, passing near her corner, in the twilight, or the
evening, or the black and dark night. She catches him,
kisses him, and with impudent face says, “I have peace-
offerings with me; this day have I paid my vows; there-
fore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face,
and I have found thee. I have decked my bed with cov-
erings of tapestry, with fine linen of Egypt. I have per-
fumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon; come in,
let us solace ourselves with lies.” With her much fair
speech she causes him to yield; with the flattery of her
lips she forces him. He goes after her as an ox to the
slaughter; a fool to the stocks ; a bird to the snare, not
knowing it is for his life! She has cast down many
wounded; strong men have been slain by her. Her house
is the way to hell, the descent to the chambers of death.
If a man resists the allurement, “ he loses his useful-
ness," and then comes the doctrinal issue of Truth
versus the Church, or the practical issue of Righteous-
ness versus the World, or it may be the minister litigates
in both suits. The manner in which such cases are tried
by men is very plain ; the sentence passed under the law
of the Almighty he may read that runs, in the three most
notorious instances of the Mosaic, the Christian, and the
Protestant Reformation.
Now the “average " ministers take the average of opin-
ions, and the average of morality for their standard of
truth and duty. Their Ideal is the Ideal of the mass of
men, and of course is but little above the Actual of the
mass of men; at any rate is only a little bigher degree of
the same thing; the Christianity of the majority of pulpits
is only the Christianity of society slightly idealized and el-
evated. Since then there is so little speculative or practi-
cal difference between the pulpit and the pews, quarrels
between a minister and his people in general come from a
want of prudence, rather than from a superabundance of
wisdom or zeal on his part; and in such quarrels we think
the minister is almost always the party to be blamed.
Now into this general and difficult position Mr. Pierpont
VOL. III. —NO. II.
27


210
(Oct.
Mr. Pierpont and the Council.
entered, as he came into the Christian ministry; and what
was a special mischief in the case, he came, as the “Re-
sult in Council ” informs us, into a place where the cir-
cumstances of his parish and the condition of things ...
were peculiar, and such as called for a large measure
and constant exhibition of that wisdom which is from
above.” Of course, then, to do justice in the premises,
the general and essential difficulty of a minister's position is
to be taken into the account, and the special and accidental
stances, as require a large measure of wisdom from above.
The circumstances of the case are unfortunately but too
well known, and require no reiteration in this place. The
public know of the border-war between the Pastor and the
Parish. Letters were circulated through the press ; "the
skirmish was long and the foray was hot.” Then came a
rumor that a “Council” was to be called. The prelimin-
ary measures began to be taken; letters were written;
“letters missive" issued. That rumor was followed by
another, that the council had come to an end. Then came
a third rumor, of another council. Public expectation was
aroused; of whom should the council consist; of men al-
ready implicated, who by their conduct had prejudged the
case against one of the parties; or of men not yet com-
mitted, if such men exist? Will any council do justice in
the premises, to either side ; with what authority will it
speak ? These are questions which Time has answered,
as he will many more.
But “the world was not made in a day.” Men think
the whole will fall through. They reckon without their
host. An ex parte council assembled; the parties appear-
ed; the question of "jurisdiction in the case" came up,
and was settled; the ex parte became a mutual council.
After many grievous delays and hard words, on the first
day of June, in the year of grace, 1841, behold the Coun-
cil on its feet, ready for action, and “preceded by the
Moderator,” passing - into the Supreme Court Room."
The Council was surely a most respectable body. Not
to mention the lay portion thereof, among the clerical
members there were men of talents, of education, of up-


1842.)
211
Mr. Pierpont and the Council.
rightness, and of piety. Of course they had their preju-
dices, (as all men,) which would silently bias their judgment
to the one side or the other. It is not for us to bring a
charge against the Council; they acted as such men under
like circumstances would act. But if the Journal of the
Council is to be trusted, (and its veracity and fairness we
do not question, then we must say, there appears a dispo-
sition almost continual to throw the weight of that body
against the Pastor, whenever it was possible to do so, in
the trial, and to thwart and censure him, while full swing
was given to any that opposed him. To cite but one case
out of several, and perhaps we have not taken the worst,
- though the most obvious it may be, - if any one will
read the record of the meeting, on the 12th of April, 1841,
(pp. 99 to 107 of the Journal,) if he is not reminded of
some proceedings in the English State trials, he will at
least, we think, doubt that a fair hearing is likely to be
had of the case. The facts were these : the twelve
churches that composed the original Council were not all
represented, as one clergyman had left his parish. The
Pastor complained of this, and also that he had not been
consulted as to the day of holding the Council, while the
other party had been consulted. — pp. 100, 101. It sub-
sequently appeared, however, that no partiality was shown
in the arrangement. There is nothing in the reported lan-
guage of the Pastor that strikes us as offensive. But one
member of that body says, “the gentleman (Mr. Pierpont]
has poured out the torrent of his censure upon the Coun-
cil, and was about to pour out the torrent of his sarcasm,''
&c. - p. 101. The Moderator suggests to the Pastor
" that the strain of his remarks must be different." - p. 102.
The Pastor says, that he will take back anything he has
said that is wrong. The Moderator again ; “ No farther
reflection upon motives can be permitted.” — p. 103.
Mr. P. “Wherein have I called in question the motives of
the Council ? " Moderator ; " It will be better to proceed
to the objections," &c. However, Mr. P. was allowed to
explain himself, and at length presented other objections to
the Council proceeding at that time. One member wish-
ed to know if these were all the objections, and whether, if
these were considered, others were not to be presented.” —
p. 106. Another, alluding to a remark of the Scribe, says,


212
[Oct.
Mr. Pierpont and the Council.
“The Scribe says he sees but three points. How many the
Pastor of Hollis Street Church sees I do not know. I saw
but one point this morning where the Scribe sees three,
and if there are three seen by the Scribe, the Pastor may
see twenty.” Another adds,“ Suppose the Pastor should
say he has no other points, he may discover them before
the 1st of June, and he would then have a right to present
them.” – p. 107. There was no rebuke from the Moder-
ator. Facts speak for themselves.
Let us now consider the “charges” brought against the
Pastor. Every body knows, that for a minister to be useful,
he must be free, free to think, speak, and act, and also that
the parish be free to think, speak, and act. But if both are
free, a collision may come between the pews and the pulpit.
The preacher may be over timid, and wise men in the pews
complain of that. For example, if the minister preach a
sermon on temperance, and say at the end of it, “ But, my
beloved brethren, I would not have you think my words
apply to you; no, God forbid that I should suspect sin of
this sober village.” Good men will say, “ He is not the
man for us.” Then again the minister may be unduly
bold, and meddle with matters too high for him. Good
men will have a right to complain. If he is impertinent,
sarcastic, scornful, insolent; if he abuses his pulpit by in-
troducing personal spleen, and vents his ill-humor in ser-
mons on laymen by profane swearing, — and cases of this
kind have happened, — all good men should exclaim
against it. Explanations, or a separation must follow; but
neither party would lose its freedom. “Take heed how
you hear," is a good rule. But in such cases of disagree-
ment the issue that is made ought to be the true one. It
is unfair to contend with a minister for not preaching Anti-
slavery and Temperance, when the fault is, that he has
neither Zeal nor Grace. We should rejoice to see the
time, when a perfect openness might prevail, and when not
only the preacher did the abstract and concrete work above
hinted at, — for the greater part of the clergy, no doubt,
still aim at that, - but when the laity, if they did not find
their minister a spiritual guide, should tell him plainly the
facts of the case, and say, if it were so, “Sir, we can't
bear you; we are hungry, you give us no meat; we are


1842.)
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Mr. Pierpont and the Council.
thirsty, you give us no drink; we are in prison of our pre-
judices, and sick through our sins, you do not come to us,
your words don't visit us, nor comfort us. Why should
we trouble one another? The world is large and wide ;
we wish you may be very useful to others, but you
cannot be a Christian minister to us. You don't speak to
our souls. Let us part in peace and good understanding."
This would be fair to all parties ; both would know what
they were about, and the “ charges,” like the grand juror's
bill, would make a “true presentment” of the case as it
was supposed to be. The active man would not be con-
demned as a drone, nor the drone as one over active.
Now the “grounds of complaint,” alleged against the
Pastor before the Council, are in substance as follows.
1. That he has neglected his professional duties for mere
secular concerns. 2. That he has preached in an unkind
manner on exciting topics, such as ardent spirits, impris-
onment for debt, and slavery. 3. That he has not treat-
ed his opponents well. 4. That he has shown a want of
reverence for the Scriptures. 5. That he has made indel-
icaie statements in the pulpit. 6. That he has not been
honest. 7. That he has not been true. 8. That he has
promoted quarrels. 9. That he has not shown a proper
ministerial decorum in the pulpit and elsewhere.
Now there come up two questions. I. Do these charges
make a true presentment of the real subject on which the
parties are at issue ? II. Are the charges true ?
1. To look at the first question, after a careful study of
the records of the Council, we confess to a general and
very strong impression, that these charges, as a whole, do
Not represent the subject at issue. We must, as impartial
judges, agree with the confession of the Moderator, “I
HAVE NOT A DOUBT THAT TEMPERANCE IS THREE QUARTERS
OF ALL OUR TROUBLE.” — p. 204. We confess that, if
much stress was really laid on the other offences, we should
suppose the complaint would be made at the time the of-
fence was committed. Was such the case? It does not
appear. On the contrary, it does appear, that the offence
in some cases was favored at the time by some of the very
men who brought the present complaints. Mr. Pierpont
has doubtless his faults ; faults as a minister, faults as a
man. They are apparent in this trial. But was he really
X


214
Oct.
Mr. Pierpont and the Council.
on trial for these faults, or were they brought up to serve
another purpose ? To our mind there is no doubt of the
answer which a majority of unprejudiced readers will
make.
II. The next question is, are the "grounds of complaint"
proven against the Pastor ? Here we have not only the
opinion of the Moderator, but the whole Council, in the
negative. However, the decision of the Council is but a
qualified negative. They divide the charges into three
classes :— those affecting the Pastor's moral character, his
ministerial character, and those growing out of the diffi-
culties between him and his parish. They think the first
“ are not sustained."* “ The Council are of opinion that
he cannot be so regarded, [that is, as "wanting in purity,
integrity, and moral truth,'] and ought not to be so pro-
nounced.” — p. 378.
The second class of charges are also dismissed by the
Council as not sustained. “They think that few clergy-
men could have a ministry of more than twenty years so
thoroughly scanned and investigated, and not have more
instances of neglect and evidence of inattention brought
forward against him. Upon this point the Council cannot
but consider the investigation had before them as honora-
ble to the Pastor." - p. 379. This decision, however, is
somewhat qualified. The Council think he has not always
been “ wise, prudent, and discreet.” “ He might have
manifested more of calmness and moderation, and through
them have been more useful." “ The circumstances of his
parish, and the condition of things in that quarter of the
city, where his ministry was chiefly exercised, were peculiar,
and such as called for a large measure and a constant ex-
hibition of that wisdom which is from above," &c.- p. 380.
" In this wisdom the Council consider the Pastor has been
somewhat deficient." “ It is to be considered probable
also, that, if there was sometimes a want of prudence in
the Pastor, there may have been on the part of some of
his hearers, unconsciously, a susceptibility to offence, and
thus the difficulties have arisen from faults and failings in
both parties." — Ibid.
In respect to the third class of charges, the Council find
* See the whole remarks, pp. 375–379.


1842.)
215
Mr. Pierpont and the Council.
in the Pastor's conduct nothing - vindictive," nor any
“intentional irreverence for the Holy Scriptures,” though
he has made a “use of Scripture language painful to the
feelings of this Council.”[!] With these exceptions, howev-
er, the Council think the charges are “in a measure sus-
tained.” — p. 381. See also pp. 382, 383.
“ The Result in Council" is concluded with this resolu-
tion, “That although on such of the charges preferred
against the Rev. John Pierpont, as most directly affect his
moral character, the proof which has been presented has
been altogether insufficient; yet on other charges such
an amount of proof has been brought forward, as requires
this Council to express their disapprobation of Mr. Pier-
pont's conduct on some occasions, and in some respects,
but not sufficient, in their opinion, to furnish ground for
advising a dissolution of the connexion between him and
his parish.” - p. 383.
This is the sum of the whole matter. With this the
Council concluded their long and laborious session. We
have spoken before of the pure and high moral character
of individuals of that body. It is not for us to inquire
what were the motives that weighed with them ; not for
us to ask how far prejudice or spleen choked the course
of justice on the one hand, or how far a deference to
public opinion, and a diplomatic fear of the popular sym-
pathy, setting strongly in the Pastor's favor, prevented a
full expression of the censure which is insinuated rather
than roundly delivered. We know there was a time when
ecclesiastical councils governed public opinion. “We
have changed all that." Does public opinion govern ec-
clesiastical councils ? We know not. At the time the
Council, “ preceded by the Moderator,” first passed into
the Supreme Court Room," we heard grave men, and pious
men say, “A just judgment is not to be looked for from
that body; if they let him off with no censure, they con-
demn themselves, for God knows they have not undertaken
his work. We honor and love the men, but hope no jus-
tice from them in this case.” Another said, “ The Council
is a farce. The Boston ministers, instead of trying Mr. Pier-
pont, ought themselves to be brought before a council for
not having done in a good spirit, what he is accused of


216
(Oct.
Mr. Pierpont and the Council.
doing in a bad one.” To our mind there was no little
truth in both sayings. We question no man's motive in
the matter, but we take it no plain man, who reads the vol-
ume before us, will doubt which way the prejudice of
the Council tended, or what would have been the decision
of at least some of its members, if public opinion, the des-
pot of the vulgar, had not so plainly favored Mr. Pierpont.
In every single case, as we understand it, the weight of
the Council was thrown against him ; offences were sought
committed months after the charges were first brought;
he was rebuked for a trifle at the very least, and his oppo-
nents — members of the Council - allowed to insult him
with no reproof.* Facts tell their own story. It is ad-
mitted by the Council that the wrong is on both sides;
but how daintily is the complaining party rebuked! In the
case of the litigation, was all the 6 vindictive” spirit on
one side ? Let the candid reader decide.
What then? Is the Pastor justifiable in all things ? We
think not. There is something that we must censure, sev-
eral things we cannot understand; sometimes he pursues,
as we think, an oblique course, when a straight one would
better compass the end; he allows himself an indignant
eloquence, which were better let alone ; he gives blow for
blow, and scorn for scorn; he does not speak gently. He
rebukes sin more strongly than beautifully; we would try
him by no vulgar measure, but by the absolute standard of
Ideal goodness. As a minister and as a man he does not
come up to the measure. It may be said, “His provoca-
tion was great." Nothing more true ; but what then?
The courage that will not stand fire is no courage for us ;
the Christian virtue which is not superior to all temptation
is no Christian virtue to our taste. For such departure
from the true spirit and the true method let him be cen-
sured.
But are we speaking of angels ? Let us see how other
men of flesh and blood have done under similar circum-
stances. The Prophet Jeremiah is a man held in some
estimation by the Christian Church; but when men said,
* See p. 99 - 107.


1842.]
217
Mr. Pierpont and the Council.
6 come let us devise devices against Jeremiah," what did
that prophet return for answer ? “Give heed to me, Oh Lord,
and hearken to the voice of them that contend with me.
Deliver up their children to the famine, and pour out their
blood by the force of the sword, and let their wives be
bereaved of their children, and be widows; and let their
men be put to death. ... Forgive not their iniquity, neither
blot out their sin from thy sight, but let them be overthrown
before thee.'* But that Prophet was a Jew ; let us now
hear how a Christian minister, an “inspired ” man, the very
chiefest apostle, speaks in the New Testament. The magis-
trate commands the bystanders to smite Paul on the mouth.
What says the Apostle ? “God shall smite thee, thou whited
wall,” &c.f That was the way flesh and blood treated
its opponents in the days of the Bible.
To take another case. There were peculiar circum-
stances in the early days of the Christian church, and “a lib-
eral measure" of divine wisdom was needed ; but what says
"a servant of God and the Lord Jesus” to men that com-
mitted a sin ? “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl
for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches
are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. Ye have
heaped treasure together for the last days! Behold the hire
of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of
you kept back by fraud, crieth ; and the cries of those
which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord
of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and
been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in the day
of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just,
and he doth not resist you.'| Let the “ Pastor of Hollis
street Church” be condemned, if need is, for foulness of
speech, but let it be remembered, how far the charge goes,
and on what other names it shall rest. We would not ex-
cuse him, because Jewish and Christian Reformers sinned
with their lips in the same way. Let the camp of Reform-
ers be pure as the holy of holies ; letno selfishness, nor
violence, nor vengeance be found in it, “ to make the camp
of Israel a curse." Are Reformers warring on sin ? Then
let their hands be clean ; let there be none of the “accurs-
James v. 1, sqq.
* Jeremiah xviii. 17, sqq.
VOL. III. —NO. II.
+ Acts xxiii. 3.
28


218
[Oct.
Mr. Pierpont and the Council.
ed thing ” found in their tents. Is their cause glorious ?
Then the purer should be their hearts, and the holier their
weapons. In the pirates' battle for gold we look for false
weapons and foul play; not in the saints' battle for the
souls of mankind. We expect dirt on a butcher's frock;
not on the wing of the Angel, who comes down to trouble
the pool of Bethesda, and make its waters healing to the
impotent folk that lie in its gates.
But to speak humanly, there is no little palliation for the
Pastor. Let him be weighed in an even balance; his heroic
virtues be matched with his faults. He has then nothing
to fear. Honor to that man, who in an age of selfishness
and sin lifts up a manly voice, and cries out against the
actual crimes and oppressions of his own time, his own
neighborhood, till the ears of sin tingle. There is a time
when few lift up the hand against vice, because sin is pop-
ular. How warily some “ Temperance men ” came up to
beat the bush, years ago; how fearful were they of hurt-
ing the feelings of men that drank Rum, sold Rum, made
Rum! They were prudent men, and it was then doubtful
how the issue would terminate! Now, when the victory
is won, these men do the chief part of the shouting, and al-
most the whole of the denunciation, and, as we believe, are
driving the temperance party to madness and ruin. Wine
is the only Devil, and wine-drinkers the only demoniacs
with them! Oh the shortness of human memories! The
coward forgets where he was when blows were to be
got.
Mr. Pierpont came forward as a Reformer, a rare charac-
ter in the Pulpit, at a time when there were no honors to
be won, no victory to be rejoiced in. The “ peculiar cir-
cumstances” of his parish were Rum-selling, Rum-making,
Rum-drinking. The head and front of his offending, we
honestly believe, is this, the crime of preaching against the
actual sins of his own parish. An exciting topic, no doubt;
it requires much of the wisdom that cometh from above"
to do the work well. He preached, as Paul at Ephesus,
against the Idolatry of the place he was in ; and with a
similar result. “Moreover ye see and hear," said the op-
ponents of the Apostle, “ that this Paul hath persuaded
and turned away much people, saying that they be no Gods
which are made with hands, so that not only this our craft


1842.]
219
Mr. Pierpont and the Council.
is in danger to be set at nought, but also that the temple
of the great goddess . ... be despised.” We do not place
the opponents of Mr. Pierpont among idolaters. Some
of them are men whose personal character is noble, beauti-
ful, Christian ; can we say more? We would go far to honor
such men, and would repel any assault upon the general
righteousness of their motives. But good men are some-
times deceived, wise men see not all things, it is difficult for
most men to see anything wrong, in a calling which is sanc-
tioned by the laws of the land, and which, more than all,
brings money to their pocket. Certainly, a reasonable allow-
ance is to be made in such instances.
Let the case of the Pastor be examined ever so minutely,
by eyes howsoever partial, and it is only a few details that
can be censured; the main parts of his course, when tried
by the standard of Christianity, must be commended. The
World and the Church have prowled about his parish;
have hunted with hungry maw, through and through a
ministry of twenty years' continuance; nothing was too
little to escape their scrutiny; nothing too great for their
assault; nothing too private for their examination. Yet
after all, what have they started and run down? There
has been a great beating of the bush; baying and shouting
enough, for a Persian hunting in the days of Cyrus; but
they who have made this cry and ado find but little game at
the last. After all the “investigation,” notwithstanding
the Pastor was in fact tried for offences committed after the
indictment was made out and presented; spite of the dili-
gence displayed in searching for sins of omission and com-
mission, the World and the Church have scraped together
but a small amount of filth ; enough to soil their own hands,
not to bespatter the reputation of him at whom it has been
thrown. Well says an ancient, “Gold shall be tried in the
fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of adversity !”
Both come out of the trial purer than before.
But we must bring our desultory remarks to a close,
though we have still much to say. What judgment will an
impartial man pronounce on the " Result in Council ;” what
on the conduct of the clerical portion of that Council, who,
we are told, with but a few honorable exceptions, decline
extending ministerial fellowship to the Pastor, as formerly ?
The thing speaks for itself, and needs no declamation of


220
[Oct.
Mr. Pierpont and the Council.
ours. But there was a time when ecclesiastical councils
ruled public opinion. When giants made the law and ap-
plied it, few dared complain, and they got their bones
broken for their pains. Now the case is different. Pub-
lic opinion, though often an unclean beast, is mightier than
the breath of an ecclesiastical council. Had the state of
things been different, had public opinion lifted up its seven
heads and ten horns against the Pastor, and not in his fa-
vor, we should have expected a very different “Result in
Council.” We cannot but fancy the latent venom of that
most extraordinary paper would have been obvious and not
to be mistaken. As a piece of diplomacy, — designed to
serve many ends, - it strikes us as worthy of a college of
Jesuits. Higher praise in the diplomatic line it were dif-
ficult to win. The whole thing reminds us powerfully of
an old story, which we are sorry to be the first to record.
But the story tells, that it came to pass in the latter days,
when Kilsol was High Priest, and the candlestick of the
Lord flourished in its place, that the sons of the chosen
people waxed valiant, and the children of Levi (to his
name be praise) began to prevail in the land of Bagdat,
where the seed of the dispersion were gathered together. But
iniquity did abound through the pride of heart that was in
the sons of Belial, not fearing the Lord. The Priests were
busy with the sacrifice; the Scribes with the law; the
Pharisees were enlarging the borders of their garments.
These had no time to take heed to the sins of the people.
Then arose Zadok and began to prophecy. The spirit of
the Lord came upon him. He opened his mouth and re-
buked the men of Belial, who eat the wages of iniquity.
He lifted the veil from the Scribes and Pharisees. He
spared not the sellers of purple and fine linen, those that
sold and bought in the temple. Yea, he smote them hip
and thigh. The people said, “ This is Elias come back
from the sky; the chariot of Israel and the horsemen
thereof; blessed be Zadok, a prophet in the latter days;
the God of Abram shall fight for him," for the people heard
him gladly.
Then gathered together the council, even the great
Sanhedrim, to consider what must be done. There were
assembled the Rabbis from the east and the west, from
the isles of the south and the tents of Gog el Rush.
There were
the south com the east andhe;


1842.)
221
Mr. Pierpont and the Council.
They sat in the hall of council which is in the ward of the
Weavers. They brought diverse charges against Zadok.
They said, “He hath a devil, and is mad; he hath spoken
lies against such as buy and sell; he hath stirred up the
elders on the Sabbath days, and exhorted the young men
in the time of the new moons; he hath been wroth in
holy places, and we cannot bear him.” The Scribes swore
by their beard that they would cut him off. But the wit-
nesses, who witnessed against him, agreed not in their
speech, but were confounded. Then the elders were
troubled, and said, “God do so and more unto us, if we do
not overturn him; for if he be suffered to live we be all
dead men.” Four days they sat in silence, with their
beards divided. At last the daugther of the voice came
upon Rabbi Kozeb the Beth Din, and he spake with his
mouth, “ Alas, woe hath come upon the seed of Abra-
ham because of this Zadok. If we condemn him not,
- and God forbid that we let him escape, — then the
people will condemn us, because we prophecy not as Za-
dok, but say, “Peace, when there is no peace,' and we
shall be undone. If we condemn him without witnesses
against him, we fear the people, for they count him a
prophet, and son of God, albeit they repent of his violence.
Go to now, let us speak him fairly with our tongues, but
with our actions let us cut him to the soul. Let us insin-
uate evil in good words; thus shall we overthrow him, and
get favor with the people, and become men of renown.”
Some said, “Nay, for then innocent blood shall be upon our
hands.” But the saying of Rabbi Kozeb pleased the
council, and they said, “It is the voice of a God, not of a
man. Let him live forever, and let his posterity be like
the sons and nephews of Abdon, the son of Hillel." And
they followed his saying until this day.


222
Oct.
To the Maiden in the East.
THE MOON.
Time wears her not ; she doth his chariot guide ;
Mortality below her orb is placed.
EIGA
The full-orbed moon with unchanged ray
Mounts up the eastern sky,
Not doomed to these short nights for aye,
But shining steadily.
She does not wane, but my fortune,
Which her rays do not bless,
My wayward path declineth soon,
But she shines not the less.
And if she faintly glimmers here,
And paled is her light,
Yet alway in her proper sphere
She 's mistress of the night.
TO THE MAIDEN IN THE EAST.
Low in the eastern sky
Is set thy glancing eye;
And though its gracious light
Ne'er riseth to my sight,
Yet every star that climbs
Behind the gnarled limbs
Of yonder hill,
Conveys thy gentle will.
Believe I knew thy thought,
And that the zephyrs brought
Thy kindest wishes through,
As mine they bear to you,
That some attentive cloud
Did pause amid the crowd
Over my head,
While gentle things were said.


1842.)
223
To the Maiden in the East.
Believe the thrushes sung,
And that the flower bells rung,
That herbs exhaled their scent,
And beasts knew what was meant,
The trees a welcome waved,
And lakes their margins laved,
When thy free mind
To my retreat did wind.
It was a summer eve,
The air did gently heave,
While yet a low-hung cloud
Thy eastern skies did shroud;
The lightning's silent gleam
Startling my drowsy dream,
Seemed like the flash
Under thy dark eyelash.
From yonder comes the sun,
But soon his course is run,
Rising to trivial day
Along his dusty way,
But thy noontide completes
Only auroral heats,
Nor ever sets,
To hasten vain regrets.
Direct thy pensive eye
Into the western sky;
And when the evening star
Doth glimmer from afar
Upon the mountain line,
Accept it for a sign
That I am near,
And thinking of thee here.
I'll be thy Mercury,
Thou Cytherea to me,
Distinguished by thy face
The earth shall learn my place;


224
[Oct.
The Summer Rain.
As near beneath thy light
Will I outwear the night,
With mingled ray
Leading the westward way.
Still will I strive to be
As if thou wert with me;
Whatever path I take,
It shall be for thy sake
Of gentle slope and wide,
As thou wert by my side,
Without a root
To trip thy slender foot.
I'll walk with gentle pace,
And choose the smoothest place,
And careful dip the oar,
And shun the winding shore,
And gently steer my boat
Where water lilies float,
And cardinal flowers
Stand in their sylvan bowers.
THE SUMMER RAIN.
My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read,
'Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at large
Down in the meadow, where is richer feed,
And will not mind to hit their proper targe.
Plutarch was good, and so was Homer too,
Our Shakspeare's life was rich to live again,
What Plutarch read that was not good nor true,
Nor Shakspeare's books, unless his books were men.
Here while I lie beneath this walnut bough,
What care I for the Greeks, or for Troy town,
If greater battles are enacted now
Between the ants upon this hummock's crown.


1842.)
225
The Artist.
Bid Homer wait till I the issue learn,
If red or black the gods will favor most,
Or yonder Ajax will the phalanx turn,
Struggling to heave some rock against the host.
Tell Shakspeare to attend some leisure hour,
For now I've business with this drop of dew,
And see you not, the clouds prepare a shower, -
I'll meet him shortly when the sky is blue.
This bed of herdsgrass and wild oats was spread
Last year with nicer skill than monarchs use,
A clover tuft is pillow for my head,
And violets quite overtop my shoes.
And now the cordial clouds have shut all in,
And gently swells the wind to say all’s well,
The scattered drops are falling fast and thin,
Some in the pond, some in the lily bell.
Drip, drip the trees for all the country round,
And richness rare distils from every bough,
The wind alone it is makes every sound,
Shaking down crystals on the leaves below.
For shame the sun will never show himself,
Who could not with his beams e'er melt me so,
My dripping locks — they would become an elf
Who in a beaded coat does gaily go.
THE ARTIST.
He breathed the air of realms enchanted,
He bathed in seas of dreamy light,
And seeds within his soul were planted
That bore us flowers for use too bright,
Unless it were to stay some spirit's viewless flight.
VOL. III. — NO. II.
29


226
[Oct.
The Artist.
With us he lived a common life,
And wore a plain familiar name,
And meekly dared the vulgar strife
That to inferior spirits came,
Yet bore a pulse within, the world could never tame.
A sky more soft than Italy's
A halcyon light around him spread ;
And tones were his, and only his,
So sweetly floating o'er his head,
None knew at what rich feast the favored guest was fed.
They could not guess or reason why
He chose the ways of poverty;
They read no secret in his eye,
But scorned the holy mystery,
That brooded o'er his thoughts and gave him power to see.
But all unveiled the world of sense
An inner meaning had for him;
And Beauty loved in innocence,
Not sought in passion or in whim,
Within a soul so pure could ne'er grow dull or dim.
And in this vision did he toil,
And in this Beauty lived and died;
And think not that he left our soil
By no fruit-offerings sanctified :
In olden times he might have been his country's pride :
And yet may be - though he hath gone;
For spirits of so fine a mould
Lose not the glory they have won;
Their memory turns not pale and cold ;
While Love lives on, the lovely never can grow old.
C. P. C.


1842.)
227
English Reformers.
ENGLISH REFORMERS.
Whilst Mr. Sparks visits England to explore the manu-
scripts of the Colonial Office, and Dr. Waagen on a mission
of Art, Mr. Alcott, whose genius and efforts in the great
art of Education have been more appreciated in England
than in America, has now been spending some months in
that country, with the aim to confer with the most eminent
Educators and philanthropists, in the hope to exchange
intelligence, and import into this country whatever hints
have been struck out there, on the subject of literature
and the First Philosophy. The design was worthy, and its
first results have already reached us. Mr. Alcott was re-
ceived with great cordiality of joy and respect by his
friends in London, and presently found himself domesti-
cated at an institution, managed on his own methods and
called after his name, the School of Mr. Wright at Alcott
House, Ham, Surrey. He was introduced to many men
of literary and philanthropic distinction, and his arrival
was made the occasion of meetings for public conversation
on the great ethical questions of the day.
Mr. Alcott's mission, beside making us acquainted with
the character and labors of some excellent persons, has
loaded our table with a pile of English books, pamphlets,
periodicals, flying prospectuses, and advertisements, pro-
ceeding from a class very little known in this country,
and on many accounts important, the party, namely, who
represent Social Reform. Here are Educational Circulars,
and Communist Apostles ; Alists; Plans for Syncretic As-
sociations, and Pestalozzian Societies, Self-supporting In-
stitutions, Experimental Normal Schools, Hydropathic and
Philosophical Associations, Health Unions and Phalansterian
Gazettes, Paradises within the reach of all men, Appeals
of Man to Woman, and Necessities of Internal Marriage
illustrated by Phrenological Diagrams. These papers have
many sins to answer for. There is an abundance of superficial-
ness, of pedantry, of inflation, and of want of thought. It
seems as if these sanguine schemers rushed to the press
with every notion that danced before their brain, and
clothed it in the most clumsily compounded and terminated
words, for want of time to find the right one. But although


228
[Oct.
English Reformers.
these men sometimes use a swollen and vicious diction, yet
they write to ends which raise them out of the jurisdiction
of ordinary criticism. They speak to the conscience, and
have that superiority over the crowd of their contempora-
ries, which belongs to men who entertain a good hope.
Moreover, these pamphlets may well engage the attention
of the politician, as straws of no mean significance to show
the tendencies of the time.
Mr. Alcott's visit has brought us nearer to a class of
Englishmen, with whom we had already some slight but
friendly correspondence, who possess points of so much
attraction for us, that we shall proceed to give a short ac-
count both of what we already knew, and what we have
lately learned, concerning them. The central figure in
the group is a very remarkable person, who for many years,
though living in great retirement, has made himself felt by
many of the best and ablest men in England and in Eu-
rope, we mean James Pierrepont Greaves, who died at
Alcott-House in the month of March of this year. Mr.
Greaves was formerly a wealthy merchant in the city of
London, but was deprived of his property by French spo-
liations in Napoleon's time. Quitting business, he travel-
led and resided for some time in Germany. His leisure
was given to books of the deepest character; and in Swit-
zerland he found a brother in Pestalozzi. With him he
remained ten years, living abstemiously, almost on biscuit
and water; and though they never learned each the other's
language, their daily intercourse appears to have been of
the deepest and happiest kind. Mr. Greaves there made
himself useful in a variety of ways. Pestalozzi declared
that Mr. Greaves understood his aim and methods better
than any other observer. And he there became acquainted
with some eminent persons. Mr. Greaves on his return
to England introduced as much as he could of the method
and life, whose beautiful and successful operations he had
witnessed ; and although almost all that he did was mis-
understood, or dragged downwards, he has been a chief in-
strument in the regeneration in the British schools. For a
single and unknown individual his influence has been ex-
tensive. He set on foot Infant Schools, and was for many
years Secretary to the Infant School Society, which office
brought him in contact with many parties, and he has con-


1842.]
229
James Pierrepont Greaves.
nected himself with almost every effort for human emanci-
pation. In this work he was engaged up to the time of
his death. His long and active career developed his own
faculties and powers in a wonderful manner. At his house,
No. 49 Burton Street, London, he was surrounded by men
of open and accomplished minds, and his doors were
thrown open weekly for meetings for the discussion of uni-
versal subjects. In the last years he has resided at Chelten-
ham, and visited Stockport for the sake of acquainting him-
self with the Socialists and their methods.
His active and happy career continued nearly to the sev-
entieth year, with heart and head unimpaired and undaunted,
his eyes and other faculties sound, except his lower limbs,
which suffered from his sedentary occupation of writing.
For nearly thirty-six years he abstained from all fermented
drinks, and all animal food. In the last years he dieted
almost wholly on fruit. The private correspondent, from
whose account, written two years ago, we have derived
our sketch, proceeds in these words. “Through evil re-
ports, revilings, seductions, and temptations many and
severe, the Spirit has not let him go, but has strongly and
securely held him, in a manner not often witnessed. New
consciousness opens to him every day. His literary abili-
ties would not be by critics entitled to praise, nor does he
speak with what is called eloquence; but as he is so much
the 'lived word,' I have described, there is found a po-
tency in all he writes and all he says, which belongs not to
beings less devoted to the Spirit. Supplies of money have
come to him as fast, or nearly as fast as required, and at all
events his serenity was never disturbed on this account,
unless when it has happened that, having more than his
expenses required, he has volunteered extraneous expendi-
tures. He has been, I consider, a great apostle of the
Newness to many, even when neither he nor they knew
very clearly what was going forward. Thus inwardly mar-
ried, he has remained outwardly a bachelor.”
Mr. Greaves is described to us by another correspondent
as being “ the soul of his circle, a prophet of whom the
world heard nothing, but who has quickened much of the
thought now current in the most intellectual circles of the
kingdom. He was acquainted with every man of deep
character in England, and many both in Germany and


230
(Oct.
English Reformers.
Switzerland ; and Strauss, the author of the Life of
Christ,' was a pupil of Mr. Greaves, when he held con-
versations in one of the Colleges of Germany, after leaving
Pestalozzi. A most remarkable man; nobody remained the
same after leaving him. He was the prophet of the deep-
est affirmative truths, and no man ever sounded his depths.
The best of the thought in the London Monthly Magazine
was the transcript of his Idea. He read and wrote much,
chiefly in the manner of Coleridge, with pen in hand, in
the form of notes on the text of his author. But, like
Boehmen and Swedenborg, neither his thoughts nor his
writings were for the popular mind. His favorites were
the chosen illuminated minds of all time, and with them he
was familiar. His library is the most select and rare which
I have seen, including most of the books which we have
sought with so ill success on our side of the water. "*
His favorite dogma was the superiority of Being to all
knowing and doing. Association on a high basis was his
ideal for the present conjuncture. “I hear every one cry-
ing out for association,” said he; “I join in the cry; but
then I say, associate first with the Spirit, - educate for this
spirit-association, and far more will follow than we have as
yet any idea of. Nothing good can be done without asso-
ciation ; but then we must associate with goodness; and
this goodness is the spirit-nature, without which all our so-
cietarian efforts will be turned to corruption. Education
has hitherto been all ouiward; it must now be inward.
The educator must keep in view that which elevates man,
and not the visible exterior world.” We have the promise
* The following notice of Mr. Greaves occurs in Mr. Morgan's “ Hamp-
den in the Nineteenth Century." “ The gentleman whom he met at
the school was Mr. J. P. Greaves, at that time Honorary Secretary to
the Infant School Society, and a most active and disinterested promoter
of the system. He had resided for three (?) years with Pestalozzi, who
set greater value upon right feelings and rectitude of conduct, than upon
the acquisition of languages. A collection of highly interesting letters,
addressed to this genileman by Pestalozzi on the subject of education,
has been published. Among the numerous advocates for various im-
provements, there was not one who exceeded him in personal sacrifices
to what he esteemed a duty. At the same time he had some peculiar
opinions, resembling the German mystical and metaphysical speculations,
hard to be understood, and to which few in general are willing to listen,
and still fewer to subscribe ; but his sincerity, and the kindness of his
disposition always secured for him a patient hearing.” – Vol. II. p. 22.


1842.]
231
Mr. Heraud.
of some extracts from the writings of this great man,
which we hope shortly to offer to the readers of this Jour-
nal. His friend, Mr. Lane, is engaged in arranging and
editing his manuscript remains.
Mr. Heraud, a poet and journalist, chiefly known in this
country as the editor for two years of the (London) Month-
ly Magazine, a disciple, in earlier years, of Coleridge, and
by nature and taste contemplative and inclined to a mysti-
cal philosophy, was a friend and associate of Mr. Greaves;
and for the last years has been more conspicuous than any
other writer in that connexion of opinion. The Monthly
Magazine, during his editorship, really was conducted in a
bolder and more creative spirit than any other British Jour-
nal; and though papers on the highest transcendental
themes were found in odd vicinity with the lowest class of
flash and so-called comic tales, yet a necessity, we suppose,
of British taste made these strange bed-fellows acquainted,
and Mr. Heraud had done what he could. His papers
called “Foreign Aids to Self Intelligence,” were of signal
merit, especially the papers on Boehmen and Swedenborg.
The last is, we think, the very first adequate attempt to do
justice to this mystic, by an analysis of his total works; and,
though avowedly imperfect, is, as far as it goes, a faithful piece
of criticism. We hope that Mr. Heraud, who announces a
work in three volumes, called “ Foreign Aids to Self Intel-
ligence, designed for an Historical Introduction to the Study
of Ontological Science, preparatory to a Critique of Pure
Being," as now in preparation for the press, and of which,
we understand, the Essays in the Monthly Magazine were
a part, will be enabled to fulfil his design. Mr. Heraud is
described by his friends as the most amiable of men, and
a fluent and popular lecturer on the affirmative philosophy.
He has recently intimated a wish to cross the Atlantic, and
read in Boston a course of six lectures on the subject of
Christism as distinct from Christianity.
One of the best contributors to Mr. Heraud's Magazine
was Mr. J. Westland Marston. The papers marked with
his initials are the most eloquent in the book. We have
greatly regretted their discontinuance, and have hailed him
again in his new appearance as a dramatic author. Mr.
Marston is a writer of singular purity of taste, with a heart
very open to the moral impulses, and in his settled convic-


232
[Oct.
English Reformers.
tion, like all persons of a high poetic nature, the friend of
a universal reform, beginning in education. His thought
on that subject is, that “it is only by teachers becoming
men of genius, that a nobler position can be secured to
them.” At the same time he seems to share that disgust,
which men of fine taste so quickly entertain in regard to
the language and methods of that class with which their
theory throws them into correspondence, and to be contin-
ually attracted through his taste to the manners and per-
sons of the aristocracy, whose selfishness and frivolity dis-
please and repel him again. Mr. Marston has lately written
a Tragedy, called “ The Patrician's Daughter," which we
have read with great pleasure, barring always the fatal pre-
scription, which in England seems to mislead every fine
poet to attempt the drama. It must be the reading of
tragedies that fills them with this superstition for the bus-
kin and the pall, and not a sympathy with existing nature
and the spirit of the age. The Patrician's Daughter is mod-
ern in its plot and characters; perfectly simple in its style ;
the dialogue is full of spirit, and the story extremely well
told. We confess, as we drew out this bright pamphlet from
amid the heap of crude declamation on Marriage and Edu-
cation, on Dietetics and Hydropathy, on Chartism and So-
cialism, grim tracts on flesh-eating and dram-drinking, we
felt the glad refreshment of its sense and melody, and
thanked the fine office which speaks to the imagination,
and paints with electric pencil a new form, — new forms
on the lurid cloud. Although the vengeance of Mordaunt
strikes us as overstrained, yet his character, and the growth
of his fortunes is very natural, and is familiar to English
experience, in the Thurlows, Burkes, Foxes, and Cannings.
The Lady Mabel is finely drawn. Pity that the catastro-
phe should be wrought by the deliberate lie of Lady
Lydia ; for beside that lovers, as they of all men speak
the most direct speech, easily pierce the cobwebs of fraud,
it is a weak way of making a play, to hinge the crisis on a
lie, instead of letting it grow, as in life, out of the faults
and conditions of the parties, as, for example, in Goethe's
Tasso. On all accounts but one, namely, the lapse of five
years between two acts, the play seems to be eminently fit
for representation. Mr. Marston is also the author of two
tracts on Poetry and Poetic Culture.


1842.)
Francis Barham.
233
Another member of this circle is Francis Barham, the
dramatic poet, author of “ The Death of Socrates," a
tragedy, and other pieces ; also a contributor to the Monthly
Magazine. To this gentleman we are under special obli-
gations, as he has sent us, with other pamphlets, a manu-
script paper “On American Literature," written with such
flowing good will, and with an aim so high, that we must
submit some portion of it to our readers.
Intensely sympathizing, as I have ever done, with the great
community of truth-seekers, I glory in the rapid progress of
that Alistic,* or divine literature, which they develop and culti-
vate. To me this Alistic literature is so catholic and universal,
that it has spread its energies and influences through every age
and nation, in brighter or obscurer manifestations. It forms
the intellectual patrimony of the universe, delivered down from
kindling sire to kindling son, through all nations, peoples, and
languages. Like the God from whom it springs, on whom it
lives, and to whom it returns, this divine literature is ever young,
erer old, ever present, ever remote. Like heaven's own sunshine,
it adorns all it touches, and it touches all. It is a perfect cos-
mopolite in essence and in action ; it has nothing local or limi-
tary in its nature; it participates the character of the soul from
which it emanated. It subsists whole in itself, it is its own
place, its own time, nor seeks abroad the life it grants at home;
aye, it is an eternal now, an eternal present, at once beginning,
middle, and end of every past and every future.
* In explanation of this term, we quote a few sentences from a printed
prospectus issued by Mr. Barham. - The Alist; a Monthly Magazine of
Divinity and Universal Literature. I have adopted the title of the
Alist, or Divine,' for this periodical, because the extension of Divinity
and divine truth is its main object. It appears to me, that by a firm
adherence to the to decor, or divine principle of things, a Magazine may
assume a specific character, far more elevated, catholic, and attractive,
than the majority of periodicals attain. This Magazine is therefore
specially written for those persons who may, without impropriety, be
termed Alists, or Divines; those who endeavor to develop Divinity as
the grand primary essence of all existence, the element which forms
the all in all,- the element in which we live, and move, and have our
being. Such Alists, (deriving their name from Alah — the Hebrew title
of God,) are Divines in the highest sense of the word; for they cultivate
Alism, or the Divinity of Divinities, as exhibited in all Scripture and
nature, and they extend religious and philanthropical influences through
all churches, states, and systems of education. This doctrine of Alism,
or the life of God in the soul of man, affords the only prothetic point of
union, sufficiently intense and authoritative to unite men in absolute
catholicity. In proportion as they cultivate one and the same God in their
minds, will their minds necessarily unite and harmonize ; but without
this is done, permanent harmony is impossible."
VOL. III. NO. II.
30


234
(Oct.
English Reformers.
It is, I conceive, salutary for us to take this enlarged view of
literature. We should seek after literary perfection in this
cosmopolite spirit, and embrace it wherever we find it, as a di-
vine gift ; for, in the words of Pope,
" both precepts and example tell
That nature's masterpiece is writing well.”
So was it with the august and prophetic Milton. To him liter-
ature was a universal presence. He regarded it as the common
delight and glory of gods and men. He felt that its moral
beauty lived and flourished in the large heart of humanity itself,
and could never be monopolized by times or places. Most
deeply do I think and feel with Milton, when he utters the fol-
lowing words. “What God may have determined for me, I
know not; but this I know, that if ever he instilled an intense
love of moral beauty into the breast of any man, he has instilled
it into mine. Hence wherever I find a man despising the false
estimates of the vulgar, and daring to aspire in sentiment and
language and conduct to what the highest wisdom through
every age has taught us, as most excellent, to him I unite my-
self by a kind of necessary attachment. And if I am so influ-
enced by nature, or destiny, that by no exertions or labors of my
own I may exalt myself to this summit of worth and honor, yet
no power in heaven or earth will hinder me from looking with
reverence and affection upon those, who have thoroughly at-
tained this glory, or appeared engaged in the successful pur-
suit of it."
alogous to his own sentiment, in respect to the literatures
of other nations, but specially to that of America.
The unity of language unites the literature of Britain and
America, in an essential and imperishable marriage, which
no Atlantic Ocean can divide. Yes; I as an Englishman say
this, and maintain it. United in language, in literature, in inter-
est, and in blood, I regard the English in England and the
English in America as one and the same people, the same
magnificent brotherhood. The fact is owned in the common
names by which they are noted; John and Jonathan, Angles
and Yankees, all reëcho the fact.
Mr. Barham proceeds to exhibit the manifold reasons
that enjoin union on the two countries, deprecates the
divisions that have sometimes suspended the peace, and
. continues;


1842.]
235
Charles Lane.
Let us rather maintain the generous policy of Milton, and
with full acclamation of concord recite his inspiring words ;
“Go on both hand in hand, 0 nations, never to be disunited.
Be the praise and the heroic song of all posterity. Merit this,
but seek only virtue, not the extension of your limits. For what
needs to win a fading triumphal laurel out of the tears of
wretched men, but to settle the true worship of God and justice
in the commonwealth. Then shall the hardest difficulties
smooth themselves out before you, envy shall sink to hell, and
craft and malice shall be confounded, whether it be homebred
mischief or outlandish cunning. Yea, other nations will then
covet to serve you; for lordship and victory are but the pages
of justice and virtue. Commit securely to true wisdom the
vanquishing and uncaging of craft and subtlety, which are but
her two runagates. Join your invincible might to do worthy
and godlike deeds, and then he that seeks to break your union,
a cleaving curse be his inheritance throughout all genera-
tions."
Mr. Barham then proceeds to express his conviction,
that the specific character, which the literature of these
countries should aim at, is the Alistic or Divine. It is
only by an aim so high, that an author can reach any
excellence.
“ He builds too low who builds beneath the skies."
But our limits forbid any more extracts from this friendly
manuscript at present.
Another eminent member of this circle is Mr. Charles
Lane, for many years manager of the London Mercantile
Price Current; a man of a fine intellectual nature, inspired
and hallowed by a profounder faith. Mr. Lane is the
author of some pieces marked with his initials, in the
Monthly Magazine, and of some remarkable tracts. Those
which we have seen are, “ The Old, the New-Old, and
the New; ' “ Tone in Speech ; " some papers in a Journal
of Health ; and last and best, a piece called “ The Third
Dispensation,” prefixed by way of preface to an English
translation of Mme. Gatti de Gamond's “ Phalansterian,"
a French book of the Fourier School. In this Essay Mr.
Lane considers that History has exhibited two dispensa-
tions, namely, first, the Family Union, or connexion by
tribes, which soon appeared to be a disunion or a dispersive


236
[Oct.
English Reformers.
principle; second, the National Union. Both these, though
better than the barbarism which they displaced, are them-
selves barbarism, in contrast with the third, or Universal
Union.
“As man is the uniter in all arrangements which stand
below him, and in which the objects could not unite them-
selves, so man needs a uniter above him, to whom he sub-
mits, in the certain incapability of self-union. This uniter,
unity, or One, is the premonitor whence exists the premo-
nition Unity, which so recurrently becomes conscious in
man. By a neglect of interior submission, man fails of
this antecedent, Unity ; and as a consequence his attempts
at union by exterior mastery have no success.” Certain
conditions are necessary to this, namely, the external
arrangements indispensable for the evolution of the Unit-
ing Spirit can alone be provided by the Uniting Spirit.
“ We seem to be in an endless circle, of which both halves
have lost their centre connexion ; for it is an operation no less
difficult than the junction of two such discs that is requisite to
unity. These segments also being in motion, each upon a
false centre of its own, the obstacles to union are incalculably
multiplied.
“The spiritual or theoretic world in man revolves upon one
set of principles, and the practical or actual world upon another.
In ideality man recognises the purest truths, the highest notions
of justice ; — in actuality he departs from all these, and his entire
career is confessedly a life of self-falseness and clever injustice.
This barren ideality, and this actuality replete with bitter fruits,
are the two hemispheres to be united for their mutual com-
pletion, and their common central point is the reality antecedent
to them both. This point is not to be discovered by the rub-
bing of these two half globes together, by their curved sides,
nor even as a school boy would attempt to unite his severed
marble by the flat sides. The circle must be drawn anew from
reality as a central point, the new radius embracing equally the
new ideality and the new actuality.
“With this newness of love in men there would resplendently
shine forth in them a newness of light, and a newness of life,
charming the steadiest beholder.” — Introduction, p. 4.
The remedy, which Mr. Lane proposes for the existing
evils, is his “ True Harmonic Association.” But he more just-
ly confides in "ceasing from doing " than in exhausting ef-


1842.]
237
Henry G. Wright.
forts at inadequate remedies." From medicine to medicine is
a change from disease to disease; and man must cease from
self-activity, ere the spirit can fill him with truth in mind
or health in body. The Civilization is become intensely
false, and thrusts the human being into false predicaments.
The antagonism of business to all that is high and good
and generic is hourly declared by the successful, as well as
by the failing. The mercantile system, based on individual
aggrandizement, draws men from unity ; its swelling columns
of figures describe, in pounds, shillings, and pence, the
degrees of man's departure from love, from wisdom, from
power. The idle are as unhappy as the busy. Whether
the dread factory-bell, or the fox-hunter's horn calls to a
pursuit more fatal to man's best interests, is an inquiry which
appears more likely to terminate in the cessation of both,
than in a preference of either."
Mr. Lane does not confound society with sociableness.
- On the contrary, it is when the sympathy with man is
the stronger and the truer, that the sympathy with men
grows weaker, and the sympathy with their actions weak-
est.”
We must content ourselves with these few sentences
from Mr. Lane's book, but we shall shortly hear from him
again. This is no man of letters, but a man of ideas.
Deep opens below deep in his thought, and for the solution
of each new problem he recurs, with new success, to the
highest truth, to that which is most generous, most simple,
and most powerful; to that which cannot be comprehend-
ed, or overseen, or exhausted. His words come to us
like the voices of home out of a far country.
With Mr. Lane is associated in the editorship of a
monthly tract, called “ The Healtbian,” and in other kin-
dred enterprises, Mr. Henry G. Wright, who is the teacher
of the School at Ham Common, near Richmond, and the
author of several tracts on moral and social topics.
This school is founded on a faith in the presence of the
Divine Spirit in man. The teachers say, “ that in their
first experiments they found they had to deal with a high-
er nature than the mere mechanical. They found them-
selves in contact with an essence indefinably delicate.
The great difficulty with relation to the children, with which
they were first called to wrestle, was an unwillingness to


238
[Oct.
English Reformers.
admit access to their spiritual natures. The teachers felt
this keenly. They sought for the cause. They found it
in their own hearts. Pure spirit would not, could not
hold communion with their corrupted modes. These must
be surrendered, and love substituted in lieu of them. The
experience was soon made that the primal duty of the ed-
ucator is entire self-surrender to love. Not partial, not of
the individual, but pure, unlimited, universal. It is impos-
sible to speak to natures deeper than those from which you
speak. Reason cries to Reason, Love to Love. Hence
the personal elevation of the teacher is of supreme impor-
tance.” Mr. Alcott, who may easily be a little partial to
an instructor who has adopted cordially his own methods,
writes thus of his friend.
“Mr. Wright is a younger disciple of the same eternal verity,
which I have loved and served so long. You have never seen
his like, so deep serene, so clear, so true, and so good. His
school is a most refreshing and happy place. The children are
mostly under twelve years of age, of both sexes; and his art
and method of education simple and natural. It seemed like
being again in my own school, save that a wiser wisdom directs,
and a lovelier love presides over its order and teachings. He
is not yet thirty years of age, but he has more genius for edu-
cation than any man I have seen, and not of children alone, but
he possesses the rare art of teaching men and women. What I
have dreamed, and stammered, and preached, and prayed about
so long, is in him clear and definite. It is life, influence, re-
ality. I flatter myself that I shall bring him with me on my re-
turn. He cherishes hopes of making our land the place of his
experiment on human culture, and of proving to others the
worth of the divine idea that now fills and exalts him."
In consequence of Mr. Greaves's persuasion, which
seems to be shared by his friends, that the special remedy
for the evils of society at the present moment is associa-
tion; perhaps from a more universal tendency, which has
drawn in many of the best minds in this country also to
accuse the idealism, which contents itself with the history
of the private mind, and to demand of every thinker the
warmest dedication to the race, this class of which we
speak are obviously inclined to favor the plans of the So-
cialists. They appear to be in active literary and practical
connexion with Mr. Doherty, the intelligent and catholic
editor of the London Phalanx, who is described to us as hav-


1842.)
239
Goodwyn Barmby.
ing been a personal friend of Fourier, and himself a man of
sanguine temper, but a friend of temperate measures, and
willing to carry his points with wise moderation, on one
side; and in friendly relations with Robert Owen, “the
philanthropist, who writes in brick and clay, in gardens
and green fields,' who is a believer in the comforts and
humanities of life, and would give these in abundance to
all men, although they are widely distinguished from this
last in their devout spiritualism. Many of the papers on
our table contain schemes and hints for a better social or-
ganization, especially the plan of what they call “a Con-
cordium, or a Primitive Home, which is about to be com-
menced by united individuals, who are desirous, under
industrial and progressive education, with simplicity in
diet, dress, lodging, &c., to retain the means for the har-
monic development of their physical, intellectual, and
moral natures." The institution is to be in the country,
the inmates are to be of both sexes, they are to labor on
the land, their drink is to be water, and their food chiefly
uncooked by fire, and the habits of the members through-
out of the same simplicity. Their unity is to be based on
their education in a religious love, which subordinates all
persons, and perpetually invokes the presence of the spirit
in every transaction. It is through this tendency that these
gentlemen have been drawn into fellowship with a humbler,
but far larger class of their countrymen, of whom Goodwyn
Barmby may stand for the representative.
Mr. Barmby is the editor of a penny magazine, called
« The Promethean, or Communitarian Apostle," published
monthly, and, as the covers inform us, " the cheapest of all
magazines, and the paper the most devoted of any to the
cause of the people; consecrated to Pantheism in Relig-
ion, and Communism in Politics.” Mr. Barmby is a sort
of Camille Desmoulins of British Revolution, a radical
poet, with too little fear of grammar and rhetoric before
his eyes, with as little fear of the Church or the State,
writing often with as much fire, though not with as much
correctness, as Ebenezer Elliott. He is the author of a
poem called “ The European Pariah,” which will compare
favorably with the Corn-law Rhymes. His paper is of great
interest, as it details the conventions, the counsels, the meas-
ures of Barmby and his friends, for the organization of a


240
(Oct.
English Reformers.
new order of things, totally at war with the establishment.
Its importance arises from the fact, that it comes obviously
from the heart of the people. It is a cry of the miner and
weaver for bread, for daylight, and fresh air, for space to
exist in, and time to catch their breath and rest themselves
in; a demand for political suffrage, and the power to tax
as a counterpart to the liability of being taxed; a demand
for leisure, for learning, for arts and sciences, for the high-
er social enjoyments. It is one of a cloud of pamphlets
in the same temper and from the same quarter, which show
a wholly new state of feeling in the body of the British
people. In a time of distress among the manufacturing
classes, severe beyond any precedent, when, according to
the statements vouched by Lord Brougham in the House
of Peers, and Mr. O'Connell and others in the Commons,
wages are reduced in some of the manufacturing villages
to six pence a week, so that men are forced to sustain
themselves and their families at less than a penny a day;
when the most revolting expedients are resorted to for
food; when families attempt by a recumbent posture to
diminish the pangs of hunger; in the midst of this exas-
peration the voice of the people is temperate and wise be-
yond all former example. They are intent on personal as
well as on national reforms. Jack Cade leaves behind him
his bludgeon and torch, and is grown amiable, literary,
philosophical, and mystical. He reads Fourier, he reads
Shelley, he reads Milton. He goes for temperance, for
non-resistance, for education, and for the love-marriage,
with the two poets above named ; and for association, af-
ter the doctrines either of Owen or of Fourier. One of
the most remarkable of the tracts before us is “ A Plan for
the Education and Improvement of the People, addressed
to the Working Classes of the United Kingdom ; written
in Warwick Gaol, by William Lovett, cabinet-maker, and
John Collins, tool-maker,” which is a calm, intelligent,
and earnest plea for a new organization of the people, for
the highest social and personal benefits, urging the claims
of general education, of the Infant School, the Normal
School, and so forth; announcing rights, but with equal
emphasis admitting duties. And Mr. Barmby, whilst he
attacks with great spirit and great contempt the conven-
tions of society, is a worshipper of love and of beauty, and


1842.]
241
Convention at Alcott-House.
vindicates the arts. “The apostleship of veritable doc-
trine,” he says, " in the fine arts is a really religious Apos-
tolate, as the fine arts in their perfect manifestation tend
to make mankind virtuous and happy."
It will give the reader some precise information of the
views of the most devout and intelligent persons in the
company we have described, if we add an account of a
public conversation which occurred during the last summer.
In the (London) Morning Chronicle, of 5 July, we find the
following advertisement. “Public Invitation. An open
meeting of the friends to human progress will be held to-
morrow, July 6, at Mr. Wright's, Alcott-House School,
Ham Common, near Richmond, Surrey, for the purpose of
considering and adopting means for the promotion of the
great end, when all who are interested in human destiny
are earnestly urged to attend. The chair taken at Three
o'clock and again at Seven, by A. Bronson Alcott, Esq.,
now on a visit from America. Omnibuses travel to and
fro, and the Richmond steam-boat reaches at a convenient
hour."
of this conference a private correspondent has fur-
nished us with the following report.
A very pleasant day to us was Wednesday, the sixth of July.
On that day an open meeting was held at Mr. Wright's, Alcott-
House School, Ham, Surrey, to define the aims and initiate the
means of human culture. There were some sixteen or twenty
of us assembled on the lawn at the back of the house. We
came from many places; one 150 miles; another a hundred ;
others from various distances; and our brother Bronson Alcott
from Concord, North America. We found it not easy to pro-
pose a question sufficiently comprehensive to unfold the whole
of the fact with which our bosoms labored. We aimed at
nothing less than to speak of the instauration of Spirit and its
incarnation in a beautiful form. We had no chairman, and
needed none. We came not to dispute, but to hear and to
speak. And when a word failed in extent of meaning, we loaded
the word with new meaning. The word did not confine our
experience, but from our own being we gave significance to the
word. Into one body we infused many lives, and it shone as
the image of divine or angelic or human thought. For a word
is a Proteus that means to a man what the man is. Three
papers were successively presented.
VOL. III. — NO. II.
31


242
[Oct.
English Reformers.
I. REFORMATION.
“Old things shall pass away.”
That an integral reform will comprise, not only an amend-
ment in our (1) Corn Laws, (2) Monetary Arrangements, (3)
Penal Code, (4) Education, (5) the Church, (6) the Law of
Primogeniture, (7) Divorce; but will extend to questions yet
publicly unmooted, or unfavorably regarded, such as (1) that of
a reliance on Commercial Prosperity, (2) a belief in the value
of the purest conceivable Representative Legislature, (3) the
right of man to inflict Pain on man, (4) the demand for a purer
Generation in preference to a better Education, (5) the reign
of Love in Man instead of human Opinions, (6) the restoration
of all things to their primitive Owner, and hence the abrogation
of Property, either individual or collective, and (7) the Divine
Sanction, instead of the Civil and Ecclesiastical authority, for
Marriage.
That the obstacles encountered, in any endeavor to secure
the smallest proposed public reform, are not to be taken as a
measure for the difficulties in realizing those of a deeper char-
acter, as above enumerated; for as the latter are more vital and
real, so are they less dependent on public concurrence, and
need rather an individual practice than an associative appeal.
That while the benevolent mind perceives and desires the
entire reform which should be accomplished, the practical
reformer will bound his aims by that which is possible at the
moment; for while a twenty years' agitation is insufficient to
procure the slighest modification in the Corn Laws, of little
value when attained, and fifty years' advocacy shall not accom-
plish a reform in parliament, declared worthless and delusive as
soon as it is conceded, the abiding, and real, and happy reforms
are much more within our own power, at the same time that
their value is, under every consideration, undoubted.
That however extensive, grand, or noble may be the ultimate
measures proposed, it is thus the imperative duty of the sincere
reformer at once to commence that course of conduct, which
must not less conduce to his own than to the universal good.
That a reform in the relation of master and servant, in faith
in money, in deference to wealth, in diet, habits of life, modes
of intercourse, and other particulars, almost or entirely under
the control of each individual, is the first series of practical
measures to be adopted, at once the proof of sincerity, and the
earnest of future success.
That a personal reform of this kind, humble as it may ap-


1842.]
243
Convention at Alcott-House.
pear, is obviously the key to every future and wider good. By
reformed individuals only can reformed laws be enacted, or
reformed plans effected. By him alone, who is reformed and
well regulated, can the appeal fairly be made to others, either
privately or publicly, to submit to a superior rule. By such as
have themselves become somewhat purified must the purer life
and measures be indicated. The greatest Apostle of Reform
is the most reformed.
The speaker added as a comment on this paper, Human
institutions and human habits are but the histories of men's
natures, and have in all times disclosed the heaven-wandering
attributes of their projectors: At present, institutions are ex-
tremely complex, and so wreathed together, that one reform
compels a hundred, and of course every attempt to reform in
one part is resisted by the establishment in all parts. But the
divine thought permits us not to remain in quietude. That,
which we are not, rises before us, as that, which we are to be.
Our aspirations are the pledge of their own fulfilment. Hope
drives forward with the speed of wind, and affirms that the un-
allowable of to-day shall be to-morrow within our reach; if that
which is to-day only attainable shall to-morrow be a realized fact.
Beneath the actual which a man is, there is always covered
a possible to tempt him forward, and beneath that an impossible.
Beneath sense lie reason and understanding; beneath them
both, humility; and beneath all, God. To be Godlike, we must
pass through the grades of progress. We may make the expe-
riences of the rational the humane life, and at last the life of
God. But our precessions are not so much of time as of being.
Even now the God-life is enfolded in us, even now the streams
of eternity course freely in our central heart. If impelled by
the spirit to intermingle with the arrangements of polities of
the world in order to improve them, we shall discover the high
point, from which we begin by the God-thought, in our interfer-
ence. Our act must be divine. We seem to do; God does.
God empowers legislators, and ennobles them for their fidelity.
Let them, however, be apostles, not apostles' representatives;
men of God, not men of men. Personal elevation is our cre-
dentials. Personal reform is that which is practicable, and
without it our efforts on behalf of others are dreams only.
After this had been considered and approved, another of our
friends offered the following scripture.


244
(Oct.
English Reformers.
II. TRANSITION.
“Bring no more vain oblations.”
As men sincerely desirous of being that which we have con-
ceived in idea, earnestly longing to assert the transcendency of
divine humanity over all creeds, sayings, and theories, the
question occured to us, “How shall we find bread for the sup-
port of our bodies?” We proposed reducing our wants to
nature's simplest needs; but on due consideration, we per-
ceived that the restrictions on food precluded our obtaining it,
and we learned with dismay that the spirit, which monopolizes
bread and other constituents of life, denounced from the bosom
of society, “ You shall not live a conscientious life.”
Not abashed, however, by this decree, we resolved to press
our investigations, and we asked who had uttered this practical
blasphemy in the face of high heaven? And all voices an-
swered, that “the men trusting in property had done it." We
took up this question of property, and asked, “By what tenure
is it held ?” And society answered, “On the tenure of might
and immemorial custom.” But when we interrogated our own
hearts, and asked, “ Did Divinity ever thus sanction posses-
sion?” our hearts, indeed, answered not; but the God within
spoke plainly, that “Pure Love, which is ever communicative,
never yet conceded to any being the right of appropriation.”
But when society urged further, that government had legitimated
possession, we began to inquire on what authority government it-
self rested. And the government's answer was immediately prof-
fered, “We protect the rights of property, and devise means for
the accumulation of more. We shield the good from adversities,
and we punish the evil-doers.” Is this true ? we thought. ....
No; government had not redeemed its promise to us, and we would
no longer care for its provisions. The first law, too, of Heaven
is Love, and government is founded on force. We were not be-
lievers in force; we believed that moral majesty was far more
protection to man than the shield of a mighty empire; — we
believed that a man encased in his own humanity was more
secure, than he who was protected by a thousand bayonets.
Our faith was in moral uprightness, and not in the prowess of
armies. We would be established in love, and not in fear;
and government is, in all these respects, infidel to the good.
We asked, “Whether domination was of God?" and God
answered, “No."
But we thought that the religious institute would do some-
thing for humanity, that the priest would succor the oppressed,
and loose the burdens of the heavy laden. But the priest told
us, he too loved, above all things, domination and homage.


1842.)
245
Convention at Alcott-House.
.... He laughed at human perfectibility. He declared, that
loyalty to the prince, and pecuniary reverence to the church,
were his only hope of salvation.
We, therefore, ignore human governments, creeds, and insti-
tutions; we deny the right of any man to dictate laws for our
regulation, or duties for our performance; and declare our
allegiance only to Universal Love, the all-embracing Justice.
In addition to this statement of his thought the second speak-
er asked, Why does a man need an outward law ? Simply
because the law of love has been hidden. Men, are they not
bankers and capitalists, whose Bank and Capital is God? Why
should they borrow of men ? Why should the all-wealthy seek
the substitutes of riches? If we assert our manhood, what do
we need of learning, precedent, or government? Let the impor-
erished seek for notes of hand ; let the timid and lawless ask
protection of the arm of power. Let the foolish still dream,
that the vanity of book-miners will be their wisdom for us, we
claim wealth, love, and wisdom, as essential informations of
the Divinity. Besides, human institutions bear no fruit. If
you plant them, they will yield nothing. Prohibitions and com-
mands stand for nothing. “ Thou shalt not kill,” which is a
history recording to sense what the divine law of purity sug-
gests in every unperverted heart, is held binding by none. What
shall I not kill ? asks the butcher, the poulterer, the fishmonger,
and he answers, All things in which I do not trade. And what
shall the soldier not kill ? All men, except his enemies. These
exceptions make the law nugatory. The command is univer-
sal only for the pure soul, that neither stabs nor strangles.
The laws of men inculcate and command slaughter. Nor will
they exculpate rebellion on the ground, that holiness has ren-
dered obedience impossible. But we must ignore laws which
ignore holiness. Our trust is in purity, not in vengeance.
A third person had written down his thought as follows.
III. FORMATION.
“ Behold I make all things new."
That in order to attain the highest excellence of which man
is capable, not only is a searching Reform necessary in the
existing order of men and things, but the Generation of a
new race of persons is demanded, who shall project institutions
and initiate conditions altogether original, and commensurate
with the being and wants of humanity.
That the germs of this new generation are even now dis.


246
[Oct.
English Reformers.
coverable in human beings, but have been hitherto either
choked by ungenial circumstances, or, having borne fruit pre-
maturely or imperfectly, have attained no abiding growth.
That the elements for a superior germination consist in an
innocent fertile mind, and a chaste healthful body, built up
from the purest and most volatile productions of the uncon-
taminated earth; thus removing all hinderances to the immedi-
ate influx of Deity into the spiritual faculties and corporeal
organs. Hence the true Generator's attention will be drawn to
whatsoever pertains to the following constituents of Man and of
Society :-
Primarily, Marriage and the Family Life, including of
course, the Breeding and Education of Children.
Secondly, Housewifery and Husbandry.
Thirdly, The relations of the Neighborhood.
Fourthly, Man's relation to the Creator.
It is obvious, that society, as at present constituted, invades
all and every one of these relations; and it is, therefore, pro-
posed to select a spot whereon the new Eden may be planted,
and man may, untempted by evil, dwell in harmony with his
Creator, with himself, his fellows, and with all external natures.
On a survey of the present civilized world, Providence
seems to have ordained the United States of America, more
especially New England, as the field wherein this idea is to be
realized in actual experience; and, trusting in the faith which
inspires, the hope which ensures, and the power which enacts,
a few persons, both in the new country and the old, are uniting
their efforts to secure, at the earliest possible moment, and by
the simplest possible means, a consummation so sublime, so
humane, so divine.
After reading this paper, he added words to this effect.
Reformation belongs not to us, it is but a chimera. We pro-
pose not to make new combinations of old substances, the ele-
ments themselves shall be new. The great enigma, to solve
which man has ever labored, is answered in the one fact, Birth.
The disciplines, the loves, the wishes, the sorrows, the joys,
the travail of many years, are crowded into conception, gesta-
tion, and Birth. If you ask where evil commences, the answer
is, in Birth. If you ask what is the unpardonable sin, the an-
swer is an unholy birth. The most sacred, the most profane,
the most solemn, the most irreverent, the most godlike, yet pos-
sibly the most brutal of acts. This one stands as a centre to
all extremes, it is the point on which God and Devil wage most
irreconcilable warfare. Let Birth be surrendered to the spirit,
and the results shall be blessed.


1842.]
247
James Pierrepont Greaves.
Together with pure beings will come pure habits. A bet-
ter body shall be built up from the orchard and the garden.
The outward frame shall beam with soul; it shall be a vital fact
in which is typically unfolded the whole of perfectness. As he
who seizes on civil liberty with the hand of violence would act
the tyrant, if power were entrusted to him, so he whose food is
obtained by force or fraud would accomplish other purposes by
similarly ignoble means. Tyranny and domination must be over-
come, when they first take root in the lust of unhallowed things.
From the fountain we will slake our thirst, and our appetite
shall find supply in the delicious abundance that Pomona offers.
Flesh and blood we will reject as “the accursed thing." A
pure mind has no faith in them.
An unvitiated generation and more genial habits shall
restore the Eden on Earth, and men shall again find that para-
dise is not merely a fable of the poets.
Such was the current of our thought; and most of those
who were present felt delight in the conversations that followed.
Said I not well, that it was a happy day? For though talk is
never more than a portraiture of a fact, it may be, and ours
was, the delineation of a fact based in the being of God.
JAMES PIERREPONT GREAVES.
NOTE.
Whilst the foregoing article was preparing for the press, the following
biographical notice of the great man, to whose name and character we
had just called the attention of our readers, was sent us from England.
Timely and welcome! The Memoir comes from a dear friend of Mr.
Greaves, who had long lived under the same roof, and who strictly
sympathized with his thoughts and aspirations. There is a certain grand-
eur about the traits of this distinguished person, which we hardly
know where to parallel in recent biography. At the same time we are
struck with his singular felicity in finding such an observer and reporter
of his life. We rely on our honored correspondent to send us, with the
least possible delay, the papers alluded to in the close of the Memoir.
EDITOR OF THE DIAL.]
PROPHECY is a Nature in Man. It is not merely an ac-
tion either in or on the mind, but an ever present element.
Neither is it a peculiar gift, unknown to all save the few.


248
[Oct.
James Pierrepont Greaves.
For it is by reason of its presence in one, that it is compre-
hended as a possibility in another. It is rather the universal
revelation, varying endlessly in power, in development, in
consciousness. In degrees so endlessly varying, that the less
receiver is apt to venerate the larger receiver, as a heaven-
favored existence. Such largeness of reception belonged
to the late James Pierrepont Greaves. Of those who en-
joyed the advantage of numbering him amongst their hu-
man acquaintances, few will forget the vivacity, the force,
the constancy, with which he was enabled to bring before
the mind a vivid representation of the eternal power at
work within him. Or rather, should it not be said, that
the fervor in and from him was so strong, as to effect a
kindling within the bosom of every auditor of that fuel,
which till then had never been ignited. Somewhat of this
result occurred to all with whom he was brought into con-
tact. Either in anger or love, for animosity or friendship,
deep, sincere, unqualified, was he distinguished in the
category of every one with whom he was held in any
moral relationship whatever. There was no coolness, no
indifference ; for the pungent power, the capacity for
touching another soul in the very point of its being, was so
strong and so universally exercised, that the result at the
moment was sure to be either the vivifying of hopes to an
extent never before experienced, or the stirring up of
gloomy elements which renew the war within. The happy
consequences fell, we need scarcely remark, mostly to the
young, the pure, and such as were free of sectarian hold-
ings; the unhappy ones to the fixed and stiffened doctrinal
mind, the sectarian, the selfish.
In himself was remarked a youthful spirit, which phys-
ical age could not conceal, even from the common observer.
The formality in expression, the framework of antiquated
terminology, the imposition of precedent literature, which
so frequently and so dreadfully stamp the signet of bald
age upon the youthful brow, never weighed down the
juvenile vigor in him. The spirit so living, so loving, and
so potent, acted freely in all modes, like an elastic human
body in flexile garments. Authors, as well as speakers,
found, in reflections from him, a value put upon their words
far greater than they intended, or of which they considered
them susceptible. He thus deepened every thinker to a


1842.]
249
James Pierrepont Greaves.
moral sensibility beyond the ground of mere thought or
contemplation, whence moral improvement has so long
been viewed, but on which it never can be actualized.
To discover a critic, not himself an author, yet far more
authorized than any author ; to encounter a friend, not in-
volved in individual sympathy, yet greatly more loving than
the nearest kin; are incidents so uncommon to the writer,
and to the soul, that they are marked as white days in the
mind's calendar. These are moments, æsthetic moments,
afterwards ever present; for they are not alone pencilled
on the memory by pleasure, but engraven in the heart by
love.
A being favorably organized mentally for this work of
approved education, and of manners and external aspect
more than “passing fair," who shall, either spontaneously
or in some unpremeditated circumstances, be induced to
throw himself inward in the prophetic nature to the ante-
cedent power which breeds and develops it, becomes a real
blessing, or at least a most blissful circumstance to his pro-
gressive fellow beings. With a strong tendency from these
advantages to an indigenous exposition of this moral na-
ture, Mr. Greaves appears to have been detained in little
above a refinement of old notions, until circumstances fa-
vorable to the elimination of the higher were brought
about. There was doubtless always a readiness to flow
forth in this direction; but the nature must be strong indeed
which can burst through every impediment which educa-
tion, and institutions, and living society carefully pile
around it; and in Mr. Greaves it did not resplendently
shine forth, until events took place, usually called adverse,
but which in his case, having been followed by results the
most happy for himself and beneficial for his fellow man,
may truly be termed fortunate, or providential.
Mr. Greaves was born at Merton, in the county of Sur-
rey, a few miles from the great metropolis, on the night of
the first of February, 1777. His parents, who moved in a
thoughtful sphere, had several other children. Two of
the sons were brought into the Church ; but both have sub-
sequently, in a better understanding of that which is to be
revered, ceased to place the term “Reverend” before
their names; and in other particulars have shown that the
manifestations, for which James was remarkable, were not
VOL. III. — NO. II.
32


250
[Oct.
James Pierrepont Greaves.
the result of acquired opinions and doctrines, but con-
sequences flowing naturally from an inborn nature, corre-
spondingly organized, and at length happily emancipated.
Alexander is now in America, where his mind finds a more
free scope, and where he endeavors to work out his meas-
ure of utility.
James P. Greaves was educated to a mercantile life,
which he pursued in partnership with some success; and
the capital which he inherited was, in the ordinary sense of
the term, profitably employed for many years. The estab-
lishment in King's Arms Yard, Coleman Street, London,
was remarkable for its order, its selection of well conduct-
ed assistants, its liberality, and attention to the comforts of
every person engaged, and the wise economy of an abun-
dant yet temperate expenditure..
Under this barren serenity of commercial respectability
so valuable a mind was not to remain buried. The French
nation, then thrown into an actively hostile position to
the old European system, of which England became the
champion, cast itself about for other warlike weapons than
guns and bayonets, and by an attack upon the English
commercial system sought to undermine its political power.
• One consequence of the Berlin and Milan decrees of
1806 was the bankruptcy of our friend's house. He was
certified by consent of his creditors, to whom he conscien-
tiously rendered up every particle of his property, and thus,
having no incumbrance, became a free man.
Frequently it happens that one lesson is not sufficient
for the pupil. Inapt or sullen, he wills to abide by his
error, and does not easily suffer it to be eradicated. James P.
Greaves was not so unwise; he appears to have discovered,
upon this lively intimation, that the commercial was not
his appropriate order amongst men; and he waited not for
the second hint, which the disappointed suitor at the
court of wealth so commonly requires. Nor was he ren-
dered ill at ease by this discovery. He was neither dis-
contented nor disconcerted.
When one, who has been the most fondly caressed of a
numerous circle, whose lips have been regarded as the
channels of affectionate wisdom, whose visits have been
marked by the most spontaneous deference, suddenly finds
all these external signs of respect reversed, the caresses


1842.]
251
James Pierrepont Greaves.
changed to coldness, the reception transformed into doubt,
the deference into contempt, how deeply poignant must be
the sufferings in such a soul! Fortunate is it for the indi-
vidual who in such circumstances thinks not of looking for
a fresh circle of admiring friends, but is in harmonic seri-
ousness driven to the discovery in his own mind of a more
permanent and protective solace.
There are some beings so delicately constructed, that in
the bare possibility of such a contingency shrink, in the
reverse hour, from all outward contact. Even in cases
where no such abatement of friendship would occur, there
is frequently not faith enough for the experiment. When
such minds at the same crisis undergo an inward transmu-
tation from the ordinary routine of mental imitative disci-
pline to that of real original thought, they are not only
saved from the pain which falls on the mere exteriorly
minded, but they come forth again amongst men from a
new ground, regenerated beings, capable of aiding with joy
and happiness the conditions for regeneration in others.
Then does the past appear in its actual vanity or emptiness.
The process, previously called “thought,” is discovered to
be unworthy of that noble title. Thought, primitive, gen-
erative, generic thought, becoming conscious, the imitative,
repetitive, lifeless mode, no longer burdens.
How enriched does man then become, enriching all oth-
ers too! Poverty is at least the signet, if not the test of
virtue. None but the outwardly poor can be truly great ;
the truly great are always outwardly poor. Upon the
breaking down of his worldly fortune, and the total surren-
der of his worldly wealth to its legal claimants, Mr. Greaves
did not noise bis adversity abroad, nor make a wailing as
if overtaken by calamity. Some observing friends, howev-
er, were not wanting, who supplied his urgent necessities,
and with a few pounds in his pocket he went to Germa-
ny. At the same time also some thoughtful friends direct-
ed his attention to that which is in a certain degree, though
faintly, expressed in the deepest written books.
In a mood, then, such as may best be imagined from
these circumstances and facts, he departed for a short sea-
son, as was supposed, to new external scenes. Not a mere
animal man, in search of amusement, was thus liberated
from the city's routine, but a mind went forth in love, duly


252
[Oct.
James Pierrepont Greaves.
accredited by the Spirit, to link the nations together in
the new relation of universal amity.
At that period it was not as it now is in respect to the
feeling of brotherhood amongst nations. Then raged bit-
ter hostility and severe bigotry in men otherwise to be con-
sidered enlightened ; and barriers, since broken down in
peaceful times, were still erect and blood-stained. Tran-
quil years have since given opportunity for the labors of
such ambassadors between man and man, as the subject of
our remarks, to operate freely in almost every department of
mental and moral geography.
Modern public morality has effected a worthy progress,
so far as it has removed its approbation from the warrior's
achievements to those of the scientific discoverer; from
the conquest of pride and anger over human blood, to the
triumphs of mind over passive matter. But a still worthier
progress must be accomplished. A newer morality must
award its highest honors to those, who discover and apply
new practical plans for aiding human regeneration, and con-
serving pure human generation. The law and principle of
these works have long been revealed, but the actual intel-
lectual means, as well as the physical contingencies, yet re-
main to be unfolded. This is man's most sacred social
duty, and until this reality becomes the ruling vitality in
his actions, neither his actual beneficences, nor his intellec-
tual discoveries will have any real value with relation to
true manhood, how much soever they may enrich the com-
munity, or render famous the individual.
All our improvements in machinery, though, when viewed
in relation to sanguinary war and national pride, they are
highly to be extolled, fall into the shade when compared with
the conquest of man's selfish nature. To enable two ears of
corn to grow where only one grew before, may be worthy
of the highest honor which man in society can bestow. If
this be true, how great return should be decreed to him,
who enables thought to spring up in the mind heretofore
barren, or devises means, having for their object the direct
generation of moral vitality in man himself.
Such seems to have been the high and peculiar mission
of Mr. Greaves. In many particulars he was as eminent-
ly qualified to carry it out. No second or selfish object
diverted him from the primary purpose. He was ever


1842.] James Pierrepont Greaves.
253
open to the interruption of inquirers, ever ready to lay his
mind before those who, having better expounding faculties,
were qualified as public interpreters, and had their private
pleasure therein. He was of that nature, of which the
world is happily not without other examples, which, abound-
ing in all the qualities and organism requisite to the
construction of an eminent character, with moral courage
of the purest kind, with intellectual perspicuity far above
the common lot, and energy equal to their popular mani-
festation, yet takes a direction which in its own day, at
least, keeps the name from the public eye. These are the
central minds of their circle, around which minds more cir-
cumferential revolve ; the under mind upon which the su-
perficial minds rest. Were the originality in many books,
speeches, or institutions to be thoroughly traced, it would
often be found necessary to transfer the merit, if any
there be, from the known name to the unknown author,
Greaves. Often was his the suggestive mind which either
corrected the well-meant efforts of others, or started the
original thought. His corrections, like his originations,
were always effected by a faithful endeavor to connect
the expressed idea with the true originator. This he
had the faculty of doing in so many and such varied
forms of expression, that he had an entrance into every
mind, a word for every person. The educated and the
uneducated, male and female, rich and poor, alike confessed
the potency in his words, though their influence not un-
frequently ceased when his pen or voice was stilled. But
let us not too hastily adopt such a conclusion. There are
now scattered over the thoughtful world written records of
his efforts, to recall the mind of the author criticised to the
real being Author, which cannot ultimately fail of bene-
ficial results. There are now embosomed in many hearts
sayings deep and living, which, as quickening conditions,
shall tend to the reanimation of the living Word.
He was thus, in the most eminent sense, a practical
philosopher. His gratification was far less in having the
fame of good works, than in seeing them accomplished.
Nor in other respects was he less actual. He early had a
deep and permanent intuition of the Pythagorean idea. That
everything needless should be given up; that all things,
every action, should be made subservient to the one great
end, was not with him a mere idea to be spoken of, but


254
(Oct.
James Pierrepont Greaves.
actual practices. By an adherence to principle in this
manner, in respect to diet, to behavior, to mental freedom,
moral candor, and divine love, he became, despite of all
tendency to retirement, an eminent example and a frequent
theme of discourse to all who knew him. His presence
made an academic grove in every familiar place; and his
history calls to mind the reports of the celebrated men of
antiquity. London streets have been, though perhaps not
frequently, the scene of a happiness which must be secured
rather in a penny loaf and spring water, than at luxurious
banquets; in singleness of heart, rather than in family en-
joyments.
So deep, so intimate was the interpenetration of the
Spirit in him, that the power to express it affirma-
tively was by no means equal to it; and very generally his
mode was found objectionable, until so far diluted that
there was near danger of altogether losing the spirit. The
fact, however, doubtless is, that it was what he would ex-
press, that was difficult to admit, and not the terms used to
express it. The idea itself being new and unknown, novel
and strange necessarily must the language be in which the
speaker endeavors to expose it. However, this may now
be made an experiment by every candid reader. The
world already so fully abounds in scriptures, that there
will not be much vice in the addition of a few more lines,
especially when on all hands that one popular quality,
novelty, must be conceded them.
Antecedent to the year 1830, Mr. Greaves appears not
to have kept any regular record of his thoughts. His writ-
ten efforts were deposited on the margins of the books he
read, or displayed in private correspondence, or on still
frailer or more portable scraps of paper, too freely, and
now too widely distributed to be gathered.
Amongst his relics there are twelve quarto volumes of
manuscript, in his own hand writing, which, being of a
small character, these papers are really a monument of
constant industry as of pervading love.
Inertia was unknown to him ; and the love in his activi-
ty was as unfailing as itself. When not conversing or lec-
turing, his pen was constantly in motion. If unemployed
publicly, he in private found means to render his presence
on earth essentially useful to his fellow man. The simple
operation of marking passages in books, by his pen, was


1842.]
255
James Pierrepont Greaves.
from his mind a commentary more pointed, more valuable,
than on many occasions the lengthy annotations of the.
profound scholar. This slight, dumb sign that mind has
been busy there ; this proof that some other soul could
touch the deepest ground which the deepest wisdom could
express, that some auditor could be whose ear could catch
the most sacred harmony which the profoundest harper
could attune, is magnetism enough to involve a second
reader, and to render him participant of the joys of the
two predecessors, with the addition of the animating feel-
ings peculiar to himself. To mind the footprints of mind,
in an unmindful world, are doubly cheering
There are occasionally still to be seen on earth giant
a colossus; men of intelligence so living and so penetrat-
ing, that they seem to have the key in their own minds to
every book. Their minds are enabled to transcend the
author's, and to reflect back upon the book a brighter
light, and more valuable similitude, as the human form is
more estimable than the glass in which it is reflected.
Before we proceed to furnish extracts from these which,
we hope not unprofanely, we may call sacred volumes, we
would endeavor to give a few examples of the workings of
his mind in the mode above mentioned, of contrasting the
various authors which from time to time fell under his ob-
servation.
These marginal notices being spread over a course of
from one position. Though the central point is constantly
expressed in them, there must necessarily be some gradua-
tion, during a series of years, in the utterances of a pro-
the importance of a change in terminology. He evidently
had an appreciating perception of the heavy chains, which
oft repeated words and phrases throw around the mind,
which otherwise were free to express spontaneously the
germinations of the births within.
We are the better enabled to do this, as Mr. Greaves
published some of these in the year 1827, in the form of
a periodical essay, under the title of the Contrasting Mag-
azine, having the assistance of Dr. Biber as editor.


256
(Oct.
Dirge.
.
DIRGE.
I.
I saw the pine trees on the shore
Stand solemn in their dark green shroud,
I heard the winds thy loss deplore,
Whose beauty worlds had fleetly bowed.
Thy beauty! God's own hand did press
Thy rich curls round thy Grecian brow,
And wound thee in lithe loveliness; —
I see thee standing by me now.
I hear thy solemn anthem fall
Of richest song upon my ear,
That clothes thee in thy golden pall,
As this wide sun flows on the mere.
Away – 't is autumn in the land,
Though summer decks the green pine's bough,
Its spires are plucked by thy white hand,
I see thee standing by me now.
II.
I dress thee in the withered leaves,
Like forests when their day is done,
I bear thee, as the wain its sheaves,
Which crisply rustle in the sun.
Thou trackest me as blood-hounds scent
The wanderer's feet all down the glen ;
Thy memory is the monument
That dies not out my heart again.
So swift the circling years run round
Their dizzy course, I hope to hide;
But till they lay me 'neath the ground,
My resting day shall be denied.


18 42]
257
Dirge.
Thou, summer sun, wilt pity me,
Thy beams once gladly sought my brow,
My love, I wandered then with thee, –
I see thee standing by me now.
III.
A thousand flowers enchant the gale
With perfume sweet as love's first kiss,
And odours in the landscape sail,
That charm the sense with sudden bliss.
But fate, who metes a different way
To me, since I was falsely sold, -
Hath gray-haired turned the sunny day,
Bent its high form and made it old.
Age freezes me on every side,
Since thy sweet beauty died to me,
And I had better youthful died,
Than broke such loving troth to thee.
I see the hills where heaven stoops
To seize the shadows off their brow,
But there my nature downward droops, -
I see thee standing by me now.
IV.
Come time — come death, and blot my doom
With feller woes, if they be thine,
Clang back thy gates, sepulchral tomb,
And match thy barrenness with mine.
0! moaning wind along the shore,
How faint thy sobbing accents come!
Strike on my heart with maddest roar,
Thou meet'st no discord in this home
VOL. III. — NO. II.
33


258
TOct.
Cromwell.
Sear, blistering sun, these temple veins,
Blind, icy moon, these coldest eyes,
And drench me through, you winter rains,
Swell, if ye can, my miseries.
Those dark, deep orbs are meeting mine,
That white hand presses on my brow,
That soft, sweet smile I know, 't is thine, -
I see thee standing by me now.
CROMWELL.
Though we grant Oliver to have been but a patching
tailor at constitution-mending, we must claim for him a
larger fraction of humanity than the ninth, which tradition
awards to that useful, man-making class of artisans. Man-
hood, — real, soul-inspired manhood must have abounded
more than ordinary under the buff jerkin of that sturdy
yeoman. Else how should he, in times when manliness
was far from rare, have stood out in bold relief beyond all
other figures carved in that pannel of England's history?
That portion too, be it remarked, which is of all the
most soul-stirring in the perusal. Place the record before
the mind of generous youth or aspiring man, and whether
coinciding with the Commonwealth doctrines, or not, he
shall not fail to be touched by the recital of those twenty
years' events.
Great action speaks to all. The universal perception of
heroism in Cromwell's character grants him the stamp of
true greatness. Great was he in the outward, for in political
rank none stood above him ; great must he have been in the
inward, for of exterior advantages to raise him to outward
eminence he had none. His years of education dissipated,
his fortune mean, his dress slovenly, his speech disagreea-
ble, his person coarse, how happened it that to the topmost
round of ambition's ladder he was enabled to climb ?
Never can it be permitted, that we may conclude the
whole English nation at any period to have been so besot-


1842.)
259
Cromwell.
ted, as to be deceived by pretensions for a longer time than
is usually given to a nine-days' wonder. At this era,
moreover, there was too much acuteness, intelligence, and
determination in activity, to allow a hollow usurper to de-
fraud us of our good opinions. If impartiality will not
aid Englishmen to see this, nationality must. The cosmo-
politan asserts it; the patriot admits it.
Destiny is the sternest master, the blandest friend, the
most puzzling guide which men can have. His scholars,
at times the most active, are anon the most inert of the
human race. He accepts neither assistance nor resistance
from his pupils; and when one appears most to be instruct-
ing his fellows, the great teacher is most instructing and
constructing him. Kings and republicans are equally pu-
pils of a power which, now through external circumstan-
ces, now through central life, influences human action to
some great event.
Why do they not suffer the embarkation of that moneyless,
rough, active, zealous puritan to the more congenial shores
of New England ? He stands there on the wharf, the
ship is about to sail, happy society in perspective is beheld
on the other side of the ocean, warm and wealthy friends
will accompany him. He may thus escape from a country
in which it is difficult to earn one's bread, offensive to ex-
press one's thoughts, almost impossible to live a pure life,
to one where the outward burdens are lighter, and the new
conception, if not the new birth of freedom is realized.
He will cease longer to be oppressed by royalty and epis-
copacy in their strongholds. He aims at a land and a
brotherhood where long prayers may consist with long
purses, and he may wait duly on the Lord without neglect-
ing his crops.
But no; the sharp, gray-eyed fanatic, humble as he is,
must be detained. They issue that royal order in council,
sad council for royalism, and he must remain. Thus goes
on the work of Destiny. The ball then passes to the oth-
er side, and Cromwell becomes the player. Earnestness is
a thing not to be annihilated by order in council; and if
you will not allow its activity to be manifested in emigra-
tion, which is its quiet, natural course in this man, it takes
another, and for you more troublesome, form. He is now
member of Parliament for the town of Cambridge. Just


260
[Oct.
Cromwell.
the character to be chosen by a town, which is too near a
neighbor of a protestant Rome to be ignorant of its cor-
ruptions.
Providence has evidently adopted him as an instrument
for its end. That bronze mind is roughly cast, and little
polished; but there is that in him which will not let him
be turned aside from his purpose. Moreover he has a pur-
pose. Reverie is, for the moment, past for him. He has
the revelation, and now he comes forth to action. To
frail argument and long-drawn speech he never descends.
His tactics are not talkative, but active. To place his
cause on the rotten stage of logical precision were to fore-
cast defeat. He gives facts, - huddled, truly, like a basket
of many-colored yarns entangled, but still facts. Evils he
recounts, needless of exaggeration, for they are known to all.
Abuses he exposes, of which all are convinced, for the
proof is in their own suffering. Rights and just wants he
asserts, and the assertion suffices, for they find a sympathy
in every bosom. Zeal, too, he displays; the earnestness,
the sincerity, which cannot be feigned, is seen in him by
the thousands, the millions, who cannot be deceived by
the zeal, the earnestness, the sincerity they are self-con-
scious of.
Here lies the point. We all see, we all feel eternal
rectitude, but we do not all act it. We do not even ver-
bally affirm it. In the dark and troublous hour, when the
flame of liberty is all but extinguished, when it most de-
mands a bold hand to add replenishing oil, then are fewer
spirits found to take the foremost place. When again the
lamp burns highly, multitudes, gladdened by its bright-
ness, can talk of heroism, and applaud the actor, but can
no more.
Action is the assertion of greatness. Nobility is essen-
tially epic. Man himself is the darkened glass through
which he darkly sees. Children and nations, while they
are the most open to fraud, are the last to be deceived.
They know while they are cheated where integrity lies.
They award no honor to the man who says but does not,
who talks largely but acts little, who speculates freely, and
in his being or doing is narrow.
Turned from dissipation to married life by the reforming
spirit; averted from gambling fury to religious zeal ; forced


1842.]
261
Cromwell.
by liberal expenditure to farming; debarred from emigra-
tion by royal ordinance; chosen as the representative of
wronged citizens, he attacks jobbing lords; yet here find-
ing not the exact sphere for action, he suffers not himself
to be clipped of his fair proportions; he is not to be the
victim of circumstances, he will at least select them. At
the age of forty-three years he enters the army. Until
then the idle student, the domestic husband, the struggling
farmer, the religious zealot, the quiet, humble emigrant,
the talking legislator. Employments all distant enough
from that of military leader. Yet this is the chosen path
for his exertions.
How deep must be that feeling, how sincere those con-
victions, how lively that indignation, which permits men,
having the Christian Scriptures in one hand, to take up
the sword with the other. We laugh at the joke, “say
your prayers and keep your gunpowder dry;" but the
union of these two spirits in act is no frivolous matter
to the actor. Mistaken the actor may be, nay, must be,
whether the deeply indignant wealth-producer at the
plough or in the shop, or the flighty spendthrift in the sen-
ate or the church. No vote in form of parliament can
hallow this union; and a blind, depressive man-teaching
only can calm the nervous trembling, which comes over the
Christ-taught mind at the mere suggestion to unite violence
and love.
Sincerity, however, is quite consistent with this unholy
blindness. Sincere are kings, sincere are people. Blind
both. Sincere too is Cromwell. No sophistry can deprive
him of this negative merit. Politicians, who know no oth-
er value in social science than to make a trade of it, will
vainly endeavor to sneer this attribute out of countenance.
If Cromwell throws the ink about at the signing of the
bloody warrant, or urges the bottle at convivial meetings,
there is a deeper purpose in it than a dirty face or a drunk-
en man. In an age of sincerity, activity, and conscious-
ness, he alone is the greatest, who is most sincere, most ac-
tive, most conscious.
Tested by the measure of success, who doubts the mas-
tership in this mind ? Have we not the many discordant
elements in England brought to something like discipline?
Are not, for the first time, Scotland and Ireland subjugated,


262
(Oct.
Cromwell.
like younger brothers by the elder, in order to be compacted
into one family? Look at the foreign relations. Are not
all nations standing respectfully hating or admiring the new
wonder, the alarming precedent? Do we not originate
lasting treaties with Portugal, highly advantageous to our
commerce? Do we not successfully battle with the Dutch,
and fight them into fellowship? Is not Spain a suitor for
England's favor ? Is not mighty France at least civil ; and
rising Sweden on good terms ? Let it be hypocrisy which
controls the puritanical zealot; let it be cleverness only
which guides the state-vessel so pleasantly over the wide
ocean; still he must have the wreath entwined for him
who is greatly clever.
The clever-minded world knows only of cleverness, and
ignorant that the cleverness it so well knows, and so much
enjoys, stands on a much deeper basis. The clever hero
himself is not always aware of this, and consents to be de
frauded of his nobler claim, by accepting renown for the
witty usufruct which should be given to the moral capital.
Not so, rely upon it, is it with Cromwell. Beneath contra-
dictory appearances, confused utterance, and rough man-
ners, there are the noble purpose, the clear conception, the
straightforward action. Originality, creativeness, sincerity,
perhaps ever lack polish.
Unless there be some yet unadmitted pusillanimity in
royal armies, a victory, by 8,000 undisciplined zealots over
20,000 well drilled hirelings, bespeaks some eminence for
the leader, as well as for those he leads. The greater num-
ber, too, make a brave resistance. How much braver the
assailants. Heroism, or sincerity, or some deep quality
must be here at work to produce such results. Spite of
the desire to blot out all remembrance of these facts, or to
distort or to discolor them, they there remain trophies of
what a people can do, when the season ripens their ideal
purpose into seed-bearing action.
But destiny changes the hands, and the other players
now are to have an inning. Providence toys with souls,
when souls would toy with it. Whosoever plays frivolous-
ly is no longer an initiative; he is discharged from again
starting the ball, but has to repel it as best he may. So
long as our hero keeps his heart unviolated, preserves the


1842.]
263
Cromwell.
promises which in the sanctuary of his soul he made to the
eternal spirit, his power is intact. He coquets to his ruin,
and plays false to himself.
Cromwell, with a robust frame, which might have served
him twenty years louger, quits his earthly tenement at
fifty-nine. So soon fails the body, when the soul is derelict
from its high purpose ; as, on the other hand, a lofty aim, an
infinite inspiration, fills out existence and prolongs our
time. At mature age, when calm judgment should mellow
youthful zeal, when domestic opposition is mastered, and
foreign relations are amicably secured, why is not the lead-
er in these events elevated to a Lycurgus height, and in-
duced to excel in brilliant utility all his previous acts, by
the stamp of permanency, as far as holy, unreserved devo-
tion can bestow it? Fatal shortsightedness! He errs not
so much in fighting with the book of peace in his hand, as
in courting his opponents with the words of peace on his
lips. The former might be unconscious zeal, but must
succeed ; the latter is conscious diplomacy, which must
fail. Adherence to principle is the sole security for the at-
tainment of manhood or its preservation. Why, after so
much success, does this action-loving man tamper in his
position, and condescend to parley with the speculative
oppressors whom he has under his feet? The reality for
whose development a whole nation were too small a sphere,
has he narrowed it down to a family name? Is posterity
for him bounded to such a nutshell ?
After the people have shown several years' successful
experience of self-government, is he about to theorize con-
cerning a twofold legislature, and to make concessions to
an enemy, who is at least consistent in implacability, as well
as in the determination not to learn? We dare not be-
lieve it. Mental imbecility could not so soon come over
that energetic soul. Traitor to himself dares he be ?
Fortunately perhaps for man that he has another lesson
not to rely on man, it appears even thus. The high tide
of success is often fatal to souls whom no adversity can
subdue. Cromwell, paltering with a double purpose, hopes
to retain the power and fame built on his spirit-founded
actions, and to superadd the power and fame, which delu-
sive imagination leads men to suppose can be acquired by
calculation and intrigue. Men cannot become great by


264
[Oct.
Cromwell.
courting the title of greatness; greatness itself alone can
make them great.
Oscillating between the substance and the shadow, true
to neither, he is no longer heart-whole. Royalism, -
Popularity? The World, - the Spirit ? Which seems to
bid higher ? The day of unbought enthusiasm is past;
prudence now usurps the throne of love. Fears of the as-
sassin, guilty tremors, shake that iron frame. Alarmed,
he hurries from place to place; restless, the load of public
business augments upon him ; in a few weeks the least
courtly of ambassadors cuts short all argument and doubt.
Rest, therefore, may these two-hundred year old bones
in their antiquated tomb; for neither can the bones build
new men, nor the grave new houses. We need the new
Cromwell. We will rather be the new, than recount the
rights and wrongs of the old. What have we to do with
them? Let us attend to the existing. The wrongs he
temporarily redressed have not yet passed away; the rights
he claimed are not yet conceded. Old England is still
corrupt ; New England is still the land of hope. The
waters still lie between; and if aught is changed, it is per-
haps only that emigration is prevented, not by royal order
in council, but by the decree of want.
THE POET.
No narrow field the poet has,
The world before him spreading,
But he must write his honest thought,
No critic's cold eye dreading.
His range is over everything,
The air, the sea, the earth, the mind,
And with his verses murmurs sing,
And joyous notes float down the wind.


1842.)
265
Lines. — Saadi.
LINES.
The quiet radiance falls upon my spirit,
Like the cool starshine on a fevered brow,
And I from thee a still delight inherit,
As from fresh leaves that round my footsteps grow.
In thy great freedom to commune with me,
As summer clouds stoop down to bathe the hills,
I feel the greatness of my destiny,
A solemn anthem through my being thrills.
In the long summer days I sit by thee,
And gaze upon thy beauty evermore,
A deeper depth of peace those eyes unfold to me,
As I with growing calm their tranquilness explore,
In thee what buds of possibility
Await the wooing air, to tempt them into birth.
O'er thee what heavenly serenity
Shall spread its joy, as blue skies beauty over earth,
Thy life to thee unconsciously shall be,
As fragrance to the flower, or greenness to the leaves,
And then shall pass this earth as noiselessly,
As the fair cloud its fleecy variation weaves,
Fain would I sit by thee, till life grew dim,
Hearing thy beauty chant its wondrous hymn;
False pupil were I, learned I not from thee,
That thou to me one revelation art
Of the great beauty, which eternally
Is the apparel of the central heart.
SAADI.
Trees in groves,
Kine in droves,
In ocean sport the finny herds,
Wedgelike cleave the air the birds,
To northern lakes fly wind-borne ducks,
Browse the mountain sheep in flocks,
Men consort in camp and town,
But the poet dwells alone.
God, who gave to him the lyre,
Of all mortals the desire,
For all men's behoof,
Straitly charged him, Sit aloof;'
Annexed a warning, poets say,
To the bright premium,
When twain together play,
The harp shall be dumb.
VOL. II). —NO. II.
34


266
[Oct.
Saadi.
Many may come,
But one shall sing;
Two touch the string,
The harp is duinb.
Though there come a million,
Wise Saadi dwells alone.
Yet Saadi loved the race of men, -
No churl immured in cave or den, -
In bower and hall
He wants them all,
Nor can dispense
With Persia for his audience,
They must give ear,
Grow red with joy, and white with fear;
Yet he has no companion,
Come ten, or come a million,
Good Saadi dwells alone.
Be thou ware where Saadi dwells,
Wisdom of the gods is he ;
Entertain it reverently.
Gladly round that golden lamp
Sylvan deities encamp,
And simple maids and noble youth
Are welcome to the man of truth.
Most welcome they, who need him most,
They feed the spring which they exhaust :
For greater need
Draws better deed :
But, critic, spare thy vanity,
Nor show thy pompous parts,
To vex with odious subtlety
The cheerer of men's hearts.
Sad-eyed Fakirs swiftly say
Endless dirges to decay,
Who never in the blaze of light
Lose the shudder of midnight,
Who at overflowing noon
Hear wolves barking at the moon,
In the bower of dalliance sweet
Hear the far Avenger's feet,
And shake before those awful Powers,
Who in their pride forgive not ours.
Thus the sad-eyed Fakirs preach;
• Bard, when thee would Allah teach
And lift thee to his holy mount,
He sends thee from his bitter fount
Wormwood; saying, Go thy ways,
Drink not the Malaga of praise,
But do the deed thy fellows hate,
And compromise thy peaceful state.


1842.]
267
Saadi.
Smite the white breasts which thee fed,
Stuff sharp thorns beneath the head
Of them thou shouldst have comforted.
For out of wo and out of crime
Draws the heart a lore sublime.'
And yet it seemeth not to me
That the high gods love tragedy,
For Saadi sat in the sun,
And thanks was his contrition,
For haircloth and for bloody whips
Had active hands and smiling lips,
And yet his runes he rightly read,
And to his folk his message sped.
Sunshine in his heart transferred
Lighted each transparent word.
And well could honoring Persia learn
What Saadi wished to say;
For Saadi's nightly stars did burn
Brighter than Dschami's day.
Whispered the muse in Saadi's cot;
O gentle Saadi, listen not,
Tempted by thy praise of wit,
Or by thirst and appetite,
For the talents not thine own,
To sons of contradiction,
Never, son of eastern morning,
Follow falsehood, follow scorning,
Denounce who will, who will deny,
And pile the hills to scale the sky,
Let theist, atheist, pantheist,
Define and wrangle how they list,
Fierce conserver, fierce destroyer,
Unknowing war, unknowing crinie,
Gentle Saadi, mind thy rhyme,
Heed not what the brawlers say,
Heed thou only Saadi's lay.
Let the great world bustle on
With war and trade, with camp and town;
A thousand men shall dig and eat;
At forge and furnace thousands sweat;
And thousands sail the purple sea;
And give or take the stroke of war;
Or crowd the market and bazaar;
Oft shall war end, and peace return,
And cities rise where cities burn,
Ere one man my hill shall climb,
Who can turn the golden rhyme;
Let them manage how they may,
Heed thou only Saadi's lay.
Seek the living among the dead,
Man in man is imprisoned,


268
(Oct.
Saadi.
Barefooted Dervish is not poor,
If fate unlock his bosom's door,
So that what his eye hath seen,
His tongue can paint as bright, as keen;
And what his tender heart hath felt,
With equal fire thy heart shall melt.
Now his memory is a den,
A sealed tomb from gods and men,
Whose rich secrets not transpire;
Speech should be like air and fire;
But to speak when he assays,
His voice is bestial and base;
Himself he heareth hiss or hoot,
And crimson shame him maketh mute;
But whom the muses smile upon
And touch with soft persuasion,
His words like a storm-wind can bring
Terror and Beauty on their wing,
In his every syllable
Lurketh nature veritable;
And though he speak in midnight dark,
In heaven, no star; on earth, no spark ;
Yet before the listener's eye
Swims the world in ecstasy,
The forest waves, the morning breaks,
The pastures sleep, ripple the lakes,
Leaves twinkle, flowers like persons be,
And life pulsates in rock or tree.
Saadi! so far thy words shall reach;
Suns rise and set in Saadi's speech.
And thus to Saadi said the Muse;
Eat thou the bread which men refuse;
Flee from the goods which from thee flee;
Seek nothing ; Fortune seeketh thee.
Nor mount, nor dive; all good things keep
The midway of the eternal deep.
Wish not to fill the isles with eyes
To fetch thee birds of paradise ;
On thine orchard's edge belong
All the brags of pluine and song;
Wise Ali's sunbright sayings pass
For proverbs in the market-place;
Through mountains bored by regal art,
Toil whistles as he drives his cart.
Nor scour the seas, nor sift mankind,
A poet or a friend to find,
Behold, he watches at the door,
Behold his shadow on the floor.
Open innumerable doors
The heaven where unveiled Allah pours,
The flood of truth, the flood of good,
The Seraph's and the Cherub's food,


1842.]
269
The Gallery.
Those doors are men; the Pariah hind
Admits thee to the perfect Mind.
Seek not beyond thy cottage wall
Redeemers that can yield Thee all.
While thou sittest at thy door
On the desart's yellow floor,
Listening to the gray haired crones,
Foolish gossips, ancient drones,
Saadi! see, they rise in stature
To the height of mighty Nature,
And the secret stands revealed,
Fraudulent Timne in vain concealed,
That blessed gods in servile masks
Plied for thee thy household tasks.
THE GALLERY.
(We had many things to say in this Number concerning art and its
works and its workmen, but an unlooked for amount of matter of foreign
contribution has constrained us, were it only through courtesy, to ex-
clude the home-made. But we will draw one paper out of our folio, at
the risk of depriving it of some of its grace by detachment from its
chapter, that our Journal may not go quite without homage to the laws
of Fine Art; for “ Art," as Dr. Waagen writes, “ is an expression of the
mind, whose peculiar character cannot be supplied by anything else."]
Ho, Amico! Stop a moment, and let me have a word or two
with you. I was in Concord yesterday; and talking about pic-
tures. W—said we must have some account of the Gallery, and
asked me to write it for him. But I knew myself too well to
write with anything but the brush, and so they carried it by
acclaim that you must do it for them.
Amico. Proh Jupiter ! I do it for them! Why, my dear
Pictor, I have been running away from pictures I know not how
long, and they seem destined to be my bane. For my sins once
upon a time I set up for a critic. I had done a great deal bet-
ter to have written a book. Then I did not care whose glass
was broken, and I went about decrying daubers, and preaching
up art. Many were the aggrieved, many the ladies offended
that their soft pictures were pronounced emphatically rather
too soft; - and as to the artists, it is only with the new genera-
tion that I begin to be upon speaking terms. And besides,
what good did I ever do by it ?
Pictor. Yes, but then you were in your youthful extrava-
gance. “Aut hoc aut nihil” was your watchword; — you have
now more patience with mediocrity ?
Amico. My young friend, you call yourself a painter. Nay


270
(Oct.
The Gallery.
more, you delight to be called Artist. Now lay this close to your
heart; If you accept mediocrity, you shall have mediocrity, and
nought else.
Pictor. Here we are at the door of the Gallery ; shall we
go in ?
Amico. As you will.
Pictor. Now look around you, Amico. Here are a hundred
or two of pictures; — not one of them that was painted without
some thought. Each was a striving towards expression ; each
an attempt to embody the ideal. Now is it philosophical to
throw them aside en masse? Nay, if you are a true critic, does
not each demand of you, that you shall divine its law, and judge
it thereby?
Amico. I must confess, not being an artist myself, I am not
sure how far each picture is an attempt, or striving of the kind
you name. But let me ask a few questions of you as to this
process of creation. Here are two pictures of your own now,
the “Neapolitan Girl" and the “old Oak Tree.” Which of
these two is your favorite ?
Pictor. The Girl is the last, and the last conquest is always
the dearest; — but before I had painted that, I loved the Old
Oak better than any of my pictures. But then there is a reason for
that. Two years ago, before I had fully determined to be a
bonâ fide painter, I went into Berkshire with E , who is
now in Europe, to spend the College Vacation. Now besides
being a poet, E— has of all persons I ever saw the most far-
sighted eye into nature, and I may truly say he opened my eyes.
This huge pasture was our favorite resort. As you see in the
picture, there is no fence in sight, so that it is as good as if there
were none in the world. You see these bare hills covered
with warm brown grass, and here and there with stunted bushes,
on which the shadows skip so beautifully, — that bold ridge cor-
ered with pine trees, that stands out far beyond the rest of the
range into the valley, and round whose base the river winds,
and that fortunate old mill, whose position makes it as invalua-
ble as a castle in the landscape. Well, I know not how it hap-
pened, but those were most happy days for us; — each morning
we would start with our sketch-books and our dinner, and make
our way to this old, scathed, and leafless oak; and whatever point
in the horizon attracted us, thither we went; and sometimes
were gone for days, as occurred when we went to that blue
mountain in the distance. I know not if it were the clear moun-
tain air we breathed, or the sympathy and affection that bound us
together, but I have never before or since experienced the se-
rene happiness of those days. I have been ever since struggling
with the world and life, and poor E- , the gentle, the ten-


1842.]
271
The Gallery.
der-hearted, has been cheated of the future upon which, like a
spendthrift, he lived so prodigally. I suppose something of my
sad feeling has crept into the picture.
Amico. Well; — and now about the other picture? I shall be
surprised if it has as long a story.
Pictor. I confess it has not. It was a head sketch from a
sitter, because I thought it graceful,- and finished because I
thought the sketch good. But don't you like it? Do you not
think it a great improvement in my coloring ?
Amico. Friend, I care not for your coloring, at least not
now. When you painted the old oak, you were a man. The
world opened before you in those days, as it should every day.
Feeling as you did then, you could not but paint.
Pictor. But my good Amico! Would you have me walk
upon stilts all the time? Or should I paint any better, because I
live tête eraltée ?
Amico. Were you upon stilts then ?
Pictor. I should be an apostate to all my better feelings to
say I was. But such states are involuntary. They are the gift
of the gods.
Amico. Now, O my friend ! you have touched the root of the
matter. You want faith, without which was no great charac-
ter ever built up, no great work achieved. And, Pictor, you
may paint till you reach threescore and ten, and you may please
yourself with the idea that you are forming a style, or adding to
your knowledge of color, but unless you have faith, you shall
not be saved. And now you may understand why I demur, as
to our being called on to criticise every painting according to
its law.
Pictor. But surely you do not contend that the painters, as a
class, have been of that high and severe character you demand
of us.
Amico. “ The painters as a class” I do not speak of, but
the artists, – the men who created art. Most painters think
they have done enough, when they have acquired all the age can
teach them. To the Artist this is but the Alphabet wherewith
he shall teach the age.
Pictor. But you demand that we should all do that which
Nature permits only to her favorites.
Amico. Tell me now; did you ever notice how rich certain
past eras have been in these “ favorites," as you call them?
Pictor. Certainly; and the race, I often think, has degene-
rated.
Amico. Do you suppose this degeneracy is in the child, or the
man !
Pictor. Doubtless, if the child be the same that he was in the


272
(Oct.
The Gallery.
days of Raphael, his chance of being a painter is infinitely less
from the prosaic tendency of everything around us. Why, Ra-
phael created painters not less than pictures!
Amico. Did he create them by exciting their enthusiasm, or
by giving them some part of himself?
Pictor. Of course, by calling out what was in them.
Amico. Then it was in them. That is all I want. Now if
many men have the power, what we want is to call it out.
Which, think you, is the nobler way, and most likely to lead to
great results, - to wait if perchance some one may come along
sufficient to excite your enthusiasm, or to take the matter in
your own hands and wait for no man? Nay, is not the history
of the great a sufficient answer? They all went alone.
Pictor. This is fine theory, Amico; but you demand the im-
possible. Your great men made painting, and that is their title
to glory. But for us the field is filled. There remain no such
conquests in art for us, as Raphael and Giotto made.
Amico. O man of little faith! Is there nothing for Co-
lumbus to do now, because America has been discovered ? We
stand all upon a Western shore, with a whole unknown world
know it, is given to no man. Where would have been the merit of
the great Cristoval, if some messenger had revealed all to him?
Be a new Ulysses. Do you remember the old Florentine's
verses? Tennyson has hammered them out very skilfully, but
here is the gold itself.
“Nè dolcezza del figlio, nè la pieta
Del vecchio padre, nè 'l debito amore
Lo qual dovea Penelope far lieta,
Vincer potero dentro a me l'ardore
E degli vizi umani e del valore ;
Ma misi me per l'alto mare aperto
Sol con un legno, e con quella compagna
Picciola dalla qual non fui deserto.
O frati, dissi, che per cento milia
Perigli siete giunti all' occidente,
A questa tanto picciola vigilia
De vostri sensi, ch'è di rimanente,
Non vogliate negar l'esperienza,
Considerate la vostra semenza:
Fatti non foste, a viver come bruti,
Ma per seguir virtute e conoscenza."
Inferno, Canto XXVI.


1842.]
273
Record of the Months.
RECORD OF THE MONTHS.
Poems. By ALFRED TENNyson. Two Volumes. Boston: W.
D. Ticknor.
Tennyson is more simply the songster than any poet of our
time. With him the delight of musical expression is first, the
thought second. It was well observed by one of our compan-
ions, that he has described just what we should suppose to be
his method of composition in this verse from “The Miller's
Daughter."
“ A love-song I had somewhere read,
An echo from a measured strain,
Beat time to nothing in my head
Froin some odd corner of the brain.
It haunted me, the morning long,
With weary sameness in the rhymes,
The phantom of a silent song,
That went and came a thousand times."
So large a proportion of even the good poetry of our time is
either over-ethical or over-passionate, and the stock poetry is so
deeply tainted with a sentimental egotism, that this, whose chief
merits lay in its melody and picturesque power, was most re-
freshing. What a relief, after sermonizing and wailing had
dulled the sense with such a weight of cold abstraction, to be
soothed by this ivory lute!
Not that he wanted nobleness and individuality in his thoughts,
or a due sense of the poet's vocation ; but he won us to truths,
not forced them upon us; as we listened, the cope
“Of the self-attained futurity
Was cloven with the million stars which tremble
O'er the deep mind of dauntless infamy.”
And he seemed worthy thus to address his friend,
“ Weak truth a-leaning on her crutch,
Wan, wasted truth in her utmost need,
Thy kingly intellect shall feed,
Until she be an athlete bold.”
Unless thus sustained, the luxurious sweetness of his verse
must have wearied. Yet it was not of aim or meaning we
thought most, but of his exquisite sense for sounds and melo-
dies, as marked by himself in the description of Cleopatra.
“Her warbling voice, a lyre of widest range,
Touched by all passion, did fall down and glance
From tone to tone, and glided through all change
Of liveliest utterance."
VOL. III. — NO. II.
35


274
[Oct.
Record of the Months.
Or in the fine passage in the Vision of Sin, where
“ Then the music touched the gates and died;
Rose again from where it seemed to fail,
Stormed in orbs of song, a growing gale;” &c.
Or where the Talking Oak composes its serenade for the pretty
Alice; — but indeed his descriptions of melody are almost as
abundant as his melodies, though the central music of the
poet's mind is, he says, as that of the
“fountain
Like sheet lightning,
Ever brightening
With a low melodious thunder;
All day and all night it is ever drawn
From the brain of the purple mountain
Which stands in the distance yonder:
It springs on a level of bowery lawn,
And the inountain draws it from heaven above,
And it sings a song of undying love."
Next to his music, his delicate, various, gorgeous music,
stands his power of picturesque representation. And his, un-
like those of most poets, are eye-pictures, not mind-pictures.
And yet there is no hard or tame fidelity, but a simplicity and
ease at representation (which is quite another thing from repro-
duction) rarely to be paralleled. How, in the Palace of Art,
for instance, they are unrolled slowly and gracefully, as if paint-
ed one after another on the same canvass. The touch is calm
and masterly, though the result is looked at with a sweet, self-
pleasing eye. Who can forget such as this, and of such there
are many, painted with as few strokes and with as complete a
success?
" A still salt pool, locked in with bars of sand;
Left on the shore; that hears all night
The plunging seas draw backward from the land
Their moon-led waters white."
Tennyson delights in a garden. Its groups, and walks, and
mingled bloom intoxicate him, and us through him. So high
is his organization, and so powerfully stimulated by color
and perfume, that it heightens all our senses too, and the rose
is glorious, not from detecting its ideal beauty, but from a per-
fection of hue and scent, we never felt before. All the earlier
poems are flower-like, and this tendency is so strong in him, that
a friend observed, he could not keep up the character of the
tree in his Oak of Summer Chase, but made it talk like an
“ enormous flower.” The song,
“A spirit haunts the year's last hours,"
is not to be surpassed for its picture of the autumnal garden.


1842.)
275
Record of the Months.
The new poems, found in the present edition, show us our
friend of ten years since much altered, yet the same. The
light he sheds on the world is mellowed and tempered. If the
charm he threw around us before was somewhat too sensuous, it
is not so now ; he is deeply thoughtful; the dignified and grace-
ful man has displaced the Antinous beauty of the youth. His
melody is less rich, less intoxicating, but deeper; a sweetness
from the soul, sweetness as of the hived honey of fine experi-
ences, replaces the sweetness which captivated the ear only, in
many of his earlier verses. His range of subjects was great
before, and is now such that he would seem too merely the ama-
teur, but for the success in each, which says that the same flu-
ent and apprehensive nature, which threw itself with such ease
into the forms of outward beauty, has now been intent rather
on the secrets of the shaping spirit. In ‘Locksley Hall,' 'St.
Simeon Stylites,''Ulysses,' 'Love and Duty,' 'The Two Voices,'
are deep tones, that bespeak that acquaintance with realities, of
which, in the Palace of Art,' he had expressed his need. The
keen sense of outward beauty, the ready shaping fancy, had
not been suffered to degrade the poet into that basest of beings,
an intellectual voluptuary, and a pensive but serene wisdom
hallows all his song.
His opinions on subjects, that now divide the world, are stated
in two or three of these pieces, with that temperance and can-
dor of thought, now more rare even than usual, and with a
simplicity bordering on homeliness of diction, which is pecul-
iarly pleasing, from the sense of plastic power and refined good
sense it imparts.
A gentle and gradual style of narration, without prolixity or
tameness, is seldom to be found in the degree in which such
pieces as 'Dora' and 'Godiva' display it. The grace of the light
ballad pieces is as remarkable in its way, as was his grasp and
force in Oriana. "The Lord of Burleigh,' • Edward Gray,'
and' Lady Clare,' are distinguished for different shades of this
light grace, tender, and speaking more to the soul than the
sense, like the different hues in the landscape, when the sun is
hid in clouds, so gently shaded that they seem but the echoes
of themselves.
I know not whether most to admire the bursts of passion in
• Locksley Hall,' the playful sweetness of the “ Talking Oak,' or
the mere catching of a cadence in such slight things as
“ Break, break, break
On thy cold gray stones, O sea,” &c.
Nothing is more uncommon than the lightness of touch,
which gives a charm to such little pieces as the 'Skipping
Rope.'


276
Oct.
Record of the Months.
We regret much to miss from this edition The Mystic,'
"The Deserted House,' and ' Elegiacs,' all favorites for years
past, and not to be disparaged in favor of any in the present
collection. England, we believe, has not shown a due sense of
the merits of this poet, and to us is given the honor of render-
ing homage more readily to an accurate and elegant intellect, a
musical reception of nature, a high tendency in thought, and a
talent of singular fineness, flexibility, and scope.
A Letter to Rev. Wm. E. Channing, D. D. By 0. A. BROWN-
son. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown. 1842.
That there is no knowledge of God possible to man but a
subjective knowledge, — no revelation but the development of
the individual within himself, and to himself, — are prevalent
statements, which Mr. Brownson opposes by a single formula,
that life is relative in its very nature. God alone is; all crea-
tures live by virtue of what is not themselves, no less than by
virtue of what is themselves, the prerogative of man being to
do consciously, that is, more or less intelligently. Mr. Brown-
son carefully discriminates between Essence and Life. Essence,
being object to itself, alone has freedom, which is what the old
theologians named sovereignty; – a noble word for the thing
intended, were it not desecrated in our associations, in being
usurped by creatures that are slaves to time and circumstance.
But life implies a causative object, as well as causative subject;
wherefore creatures are only free by Grace of God.
That men should live, with God for predominating object, is
the Ideal of Humanity, or the Law of Holiness, in the highest
sense ; for this object alone can emancipate them from what is
below themselves. But a nice discrimination must be made
here. The Ideal of Humanity, as used by Mr. Brownson, does
not mean the highest idea of himself, which a man can form by
induction on himself as an individual; it means God's idea of
man, which shines into every man from the beginning; “En-
lighteneth every man that cometh into the world,” though his
darkness comprehendeth it not, until it is “made flesh.” It is
by virtue of that freedom which is God's alone, and which is
the issue of absolute love, that is, “because God so loved the
world," he takes up the subject, Jesus, and makes himself ob-
jective to him without measure, thereby rendering his life as di-
vine as it is human, though it remains also as human, — strict-
ly speaking, - as it is divine.
To all men's consciousness it is true that God is objective in a
degree, or they were not distinctively human. His glory is re-
fracted, as it were, to their eyes, through the universe. But


1842.)
277
Record of the Months.
only in a man, to whom he has made himself the imperative ob-
ject, does he approach men, in all points, in such degree as to
make them divine. He is no less free (sovereign) in coming to
each man in Christ, than, in the first instance, in making Jesus
of Nazareth the Christ. Men are only free inasmuch as they
are open to this majestic access, and are able to pray with St.
Augustine,“ What art thou to me, oh Lord ? Have mercy on
me that I may ask. The house of my soul is too strait for thee
to come into; but let it, oh Lord, be enlarged by thee. It is
ruinous, but let it be repaired by thee,” &c.
The Unitarian Church, as Mr. Brownson thinks, indicates
truth, in so far as it insists on the life of Jesus as being that
wherein we find grace; but in so far as it does not perceive
that this life is something more than a series of good actions,
which others may reproduce, it leans on an arm of flesh, and
puts an idol in the place of Christ. The Trinitarian Church,
he thinks, therefore, has come nearer the truth, by its formulas
of doctrine; and especially the Roman Catholic Church, by
the Eucharist. The error of both Churches has been to predi-
cate of the being, Jesus, what is only true of his life. The being,
Jesus, was a man; his life is God. It is the doctrine of John
the Evangelist throughout, that the soul lives by the real pres-
ence of Jesus Christ, as literally as the body lives by bread.
The unchristianized live only partially, by so much of the word
as shines in the darkness which may not hinder it quite. This
partial life repeats in all time the prophecies of antiquity, and
is another witness to Jesus Christ, “the same yesterday, to-day,
and forever.”
Mr. Brownson thinks that he has thus discovered a formula
of “ the faith once delivered to the saints," which goes behind
and annihilates the controversy between Unitarians and Trini-
tarians, and may lead them both to a deeper comprehension and
clearer expression of the secret of life.
Lectures on Modern History, from the Irruption of the Northern
Nations to the close of the American Revolution. By Wm.
Smyth, Professor of Modern History in the University of
Cambridge.
This work is not exactly what it professes to be. It is rath-
er a series of lectures on the method in which modern history
is to be studied. It directs the student to the most important
subjects in the modern history of Europe and America, and
points out to him the sources in the English and French lan-
guages, where he is to seek information. It is, in short, a guide-
book of modern history, and as such of great value. Mr. Smyth


278
[Oct.
Editor's Table.
gives a running commentary on the works also to which he re-
fers. His criticisms are always valuable. He is above the
general cant of criticism, which judges a man and his work by
the hair balance of the critic's own coterie.
The judgment he passes on the three great English writers,
Hume, Gibbon, and Robertson, appears just and impartial.
His estimate of Gibbon is manly and just, and well worthy the
attention of the student of history. — Vol. I. p. 82, sqq. Vol.
II. p. 421, et al. It is a word in season to caution youth against
the dangerous influence of that dazzling genius. Mr. Smyth
refers to the most celebrated sources; appears familiar with
most of the French and English writers; but never mentions
the German laborers in the historical field. The omission of
their rich and beautiful works in this department we regard as
the most serious defect of the “ Lectures."
The sentiments and opinions of the author must commend
him, we think, to every friend of man. It is seldom we have
risen from a book with so high a sense of moral approbation of
its author. He is always on the side of Justice, Freedom, and
Truth. The unobtrusive spirit of Religion gives a charm to
his pages. Among the portions of the work which have struck
us as most ably treated, are the Laws of the Barbarians, Lec-
ture II; The Dark Ages, Lect. IV; Charles the First, and
the Events that followed his Time, Lect. XV - XVII; The
Revolution, Lect. XX; Prussia and Maria Theresa, Lect.
XXIX; and the American War, Lect. XXXI - XXXVI.
We will only add, that the work is furnished with a list of
books on European History, and another, by Mr. Sparks, on
American History. A brief chronological table is conveniently
put at the end of Vol. II.
EDITOR'S TABLE.
In the present Number we have already drawn largely from sources
opened io us by our new correspondents in England, to whom also the
article on Cromwell is to be credited, yet have not found room for all
the papers sent us from London. Especially we acknowledge the
kindness which has sent us a fair manuscript copy of the old English
Translation of four out of the seventeen books of Hermes Trisme-
gistus. We design to inake use of this document as part of our series
of uncanonical scriptures, although the due chapter of that series is
also omitted in this Number. We are indebted to two other English
correspondents; to one for an article on Hennell, which we have at
last decided not to print, and shall return to the author ; to another for
a curious volume entitled " The Naiural Origin and Progress of The-
ology,” with whose contents we are not yet sufficiently acquainted to
enable us to express at present more than our thanks.


1842.)
279
Editor's Table.
From London we learn that John A. Heraud, Esq. contemplates a
visit to Massachusetts, and proposes to deliver in Boston a course of
six Lectures “ on Christism as distinct from Christianity."
Lecture 1.- A difference recognised and justified by accepted Or-
thodox Writers, between the Religion of the New Testament and the
Religion of the Church. As great a difference between Sect and Sect,
and all and each of the sects and the New Testament. Practical and
speculative differences between the lives of Christians and the life of
Jesus the Christ. Substitution of the doctrines of the Scholars for
those of the Master. The former first called Christians at Antioch -
hence Christianity — which, as the word implies, is the Doctrine of
Christians, not of the Christ. Another name wanted for the Truth as
tanght by the Master himself. The name of Christism proposed.
Lecture II. - What is Christism?
Lecture III. - What is Christianity ?
Lecture IV. - The Evils which have attended Christianity not
chargeable on Christism. Infidel objections not applicable to Christ-
ism.
Lecture V. - Origin, Influence, and End of Infidelity. Downfall of
Christianity.
Lecture VI. - Final Triumph of Christism. The Kingdom of Heaven
upon Earth.
Those who are interested in education will learn with satisfaction,
that Mr. Henry G. Wright, the Principal of the Alcott-House School,
with his friend Mr. Lane, will soon visit Boston, and perhaps establish
a s