Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1860-07-07

keep these doors open ! Yes, he has left those
to use weapons, and not merely to
aold up his hands, And not ouly among your-
From another city, l received a letter,
full OF deep feeling, and the writer, an orthodox
church member, says
L was a convert to Theodore Parker before l
was a convert to. If there is anything Of val.
ne in the work l am doing o.day, it may, in an
important sense, be said to have had its root in
Parker's beresy. I mean the habit, without which
orthodoxy stands emasculated and good for moth
ing, of independently passing on the empty and
rotten pretensions Of churches and ohurohmen,
which | learned earliest and more than from any
Other, from Theodore Parker. lie has my love,
my respect, my admiration
Yes, his diocese is broaoer than Massachusetts,
His influence extends very far outside these
walls. Every pulpit in Boston is freer and more
real to day because Of the existence Of this. The
fan of bis example scattered the chat Of a hundred
sapless years. Our whole city is fresher to-day
because of him. The most sickly and timid soul
under yonder steeple, hide bound in days and
forms and Seggardly Jewish elements, little
dreams how ten times worse and narrower it was
before this sun warmed the general atmosphere
around. As was said of Burke's unsuccessful i'm
parchment of Warren Hastings, never was the
great object of punishment, the prevention of
crime, more completely obtained. Hastings was
acquitted, but tyranny and injustice cele condemn.
cd wherever English wac spoken So we may
say of Boston and Theodore Parker. Grant that
few adopted HE extreme Theological views-that
not many sympathized in his politics; still, that
Boston in nobler, purer, drawer, more loving,
more Christian to-day, is due more to him than to
all the pulpits that vex her Sabbath air. lie rails
ed the level of sermons intellectually and morally.
Other preachers were com pelled to grow in manly
thought aud Christian morals in very self-defence.
The drouing routine fdead metaphysics or dainty
morals was gone. As Christ preached Of the fall
Of the tower of Sloan the week before, and what
men said Of it in the streets of Jerusalem, SO Par,
ksr rung through our startled city the news OF
some fresh crime against humapity-some slave
hunt, or wicked court, or prostituted oficial-till
frightened audiences actually took bond of their
new clergymen that they should not be tormented
before their time /!
Men say he erred on that great question of oul
age-the place due to the Bible. Perhaps so
But William Crafts, one of the bravest men VIII,
ever fed from our %vulture to Victoria, writes to
friend When the slave-hunters were on our track
and no other minister, except yourself, came t
direct our attention to the God of the oppressed
Mr.. Parker came with his wise counsel, and toll
us where and how to 60; gave us money-but tina
was not all-he gave me a weapon to protect GU
Liberties, and a Bible to guide our souls. l hav'
that Bible nov, and shall ever prize it most high
ly.'
How direct and frank his style-just level tt
the nations earl No man ever needed to reaC
any one of his sentences twice to catch its mean
ing. None suspeeied that he thopght other thai
be said, or more than he confessed. tl9f
Like all such men no grew ~daiiy--never too oil
to learn. Mark how closer to actual LIE, hov
much holder in reform, are all bis later sermons
specially since he came to the city-every year
step
-"forward, petseveringly to the lact,
From well to better, daily selfsurpassed.'
There are men whom we measure by their time
content and expecting to find them subdued t
what they work in. They are the chameleons c
circumstance; they are EOlian harps, toned by th
breeze tnat sweeps over them. There are Others
who serve as guide-posts and land-marks-w
measure their times by them. Such was Thee
Iore Parker. Hereafter the critic will use him q
y m~ete-wand, 70 measure the heart and civiliz'
ton of Boston. Like the Eng%lishman, a year G
two ago, who suspected our great historian coul
not move 10 the best circles Of the city, when
dropped out that he did not know Theodore Pa
ker. distant men guage us by our liberation an
recognition of him. Such men are our Nilometer
the harvest Of the future is according TO the heigt
, that the food of our love rises round them. WI
cares now that Harvard vouchsafed him no honor
But history will save the fact to measure the ca
culating and prudent bigotry of our times.
Sumo speak of him as only a bitter critic 40
harsh prophet. Pulpits and journals shelter the
plain speech in mentioning him under the exam
pie Of what they call his 'unsparing candor.' L
they feel that the strangeness of their free speec
their unusual franknoss, needs apology and exau
pie | But he was far other than a bitter crit
though thank God for every drop of that bitterness
which came like a wholesome rebuke on the deaf
~saltless sea of American life Thank God ft
every indignant protest, for every Christian adm
milton that the Holy Spirit breathed through tho'
manly lips But if he deserved any single wort
II it vas 'generous.' Vr generoSuS is the descriptio
It that leaps to the lip of every scholar. He We
, generous of money. Born on a New Englan
$ farm, in those days when NAL incomings mad
It every dollar a matter Of importance, he no soont
J, had command of wealth than he lived with ope
e hands. Not even the darling ambition of a grei
# library ever tempted him to close his ear to nee,
Go to Venice or Vienna, to Franklord or to Pari
f and ask the refugees who have gone tack-whe
J. here friendless exiles but for him--under who's
It roof they felt most at home! One Of our oldest an
best teachers writes me, that telling him %Once,in Il
}. cars, Of a young lad Of rare mathematical geniu
D who could read Laplace. but whom narrow meal
e debarred from the University--Let him enter
said Theodore Parker; i will pay his bills
q No sect. no special duty, no one idea bound h
sympathy but he was generous in ~judgmen
e where a common man would have found it hard