New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-07-13
OLD TINE SKETCHES.
oCTAvIUs BROOKS FRoTHINGHAsI.

of his contemporaries with whom he has
been brought in closest contact and the volume |
Is deeply interesting series oil sketches Oh 'he
men who were foremost in the ethical and intel
lectual movements which preceded the War, ana
which contributed largely, If not always directly
TO the conditions which prepared the mind OF the
North for that portentous experience. Inc DOCK
opens with a sketch of DR.. rockingham, the a'l-
thor's father and Of his home life and education
He came of old Unitarian stock, and liberal re-
Dcion was in his blood His youth, early man.
hood and maturity may be said to have proceeded
on the same general lines. The controlling ten
dency i'm his character always In the dlrec-
ton of larger liberty and emancipation from Greco
and dogma. His at Harvard was calcu-
lated TO foster and encourage this tempcramentai
predspostion. and manhood passed in associa-
ton with all the leading intellectual revolution
lists of the period could not but deepen and
strengthen his inherited tendencies
Dr. rockingham inevitably more con-
sentative than his son. He was no seer, gazing
on things unseen with the penetrating, inward
eve. no prophet possessed by overwhelming
conviction of the absolute law; regenerator
believing that must be lifted up from the
earth by an interior renewal of soul reformer
bent on changing the circumstances of society
He was natural optimist in fact, Reformers,
of whatever school, were not to his taste, partly
because
partly also because their primary assumption that
the world was out of joint did not command his
sympathy He could not think that the estab-
lshed institutions of the age ought TO be
subverted even though they might be improved
under enlightened teaching" Under the teach
ing and example of such man, young Octavlus
Brooks expanded and developed easily and in
due time went much further than his parent.
This indeed, was inevitable, for he entered lie
when the influence Of the New-England Renaissance
was paramount; when aspiring youth sat at the
feet of Emerson and Charming and Theodore
Parker and John Weiss, and their ccngeners. AT
first the younger rockingham held back. At
the Divinity school," he writes, i was known MS
young man with conservative ideas. l remen-
her now discussions, essays, criticisms, In which
the opinions in vogue among old-fashoned
Unitarans were defended somewhat passionatey
against the more daring convict ons Of my com
panions. In especial, my faith was in direct OPP
position to the spiritual philosophy Straus was a
horror: Parker bugbear FurnesS seemed an
lnnoyatOr; Emerson was a 'Transcendentalist,'
term of Unreasonable reproach All this was soon
to pass away, and 1 was to go great deal be-
yond even Parker"
There follows pleasant chapter upon Salem
at the time of its glory, though its commercial
greatness had largely departed before Mr.. Froth-
imam came on the scene. But it's intellectGG
associations continued for many years TO he full
Of interest and Importance. chiefly because a
band Of distinguished men and made
the town their home. Here the author met such
men as Hawthorne, George w. Curtis, Thomas
Starr King, r. w. Emerson, and many more.
Some were his parishioners, and he adds, "all
were my friends" 1t a beautiful and quiet
life, presiding the North Church." but the
young pastor found 1t too quiet to be tolerated
long, and the anti-slavery movement, then fore
ing its way to the front, furnished OppOr-
tunity for, rather necesstated, a departure.
He took the unpopular SIDE matter of course.
His congregation divided, but pro-slavery
sentiment dominant, and the young minister
brought the dispute to a focus when, burning with
indignation at the execution Of the Fugitive Slave
Law in Boston, and knowing that most of his
parishoners approved the law he declined to adj
minister the communion 10 them, thinking il
would be mockery', Bitter words were ex-
changed upon this action, and invitation to
another church accepted. Mr.. rockingham
went to New-Jersey, where, however, the growth
Of Unitananism seems to have been rather slow and
unsatisfactory, and after brief sOOurn he re-
moved again. this time TO New-YorI, where he
was intimately associated with DR.. Bellows whose
Sanitary Commission work was to bring him last
Ing fame.
In all this semi-narrative far more attention is
given TO the elucidation of individual character
than to the chronicling OF events. 1t is bat
CURLY indicated that the new Untarianism tended
so markedly 10 the discarding of all definitions
and principles as TO render impossible the formu-
laton of any scheme of beliefs in it; that the
liberal intention which avoided dogmas and
limitations had the effect of leaving the whole
matter so much In the air discouraged all but
TIE few who had ceased TO feel the need for clear
and definite grounds of faith. The old orthodoxy
had been completely abandoned, and the most
advanced Unitarian thinkers seemed to be labor
ing TO make any classification impractcahe.
TO believe much or little nothing at all, ap-
peared to be matter Of indifference. All that
was asked faith in what Matthew Arnold
described "a power, not ourselves, that makes
for righteousness. Such a religion could not
in the nature Of things, be popular, it.
few hundreds only attended the scrvices-!f
such they could be called-held in the rooms
hired for the purpose in New-York; and the
growth of the movement was not rapid Then
came the War, with its disorganizng yet stmu-
latng results and after the War bad closed another
effort to found a sort of Church Universal, dis
tinguished from other churches by the careful
elimination of whatever had in the past tended
u invigorate their life and cement their unity.
But Mr.. rockingham does not pretend to be
writing the history of Unitarianism, either past
or present in this volume. In the serene latter
days of a long life he is gathering the threads
of memory and recalling his recolectons of the
colleagues, companions, teachers and friends by
whom his own career has been influenced.
His judgments, given leisurely and at such
length as precudes citation, calm, dispasSiOn-
ate and, rule, kindly and gracious. We have
his impressions of such men MS Emerson, Parker,
Orville Dewey, Bellows. Samuel johnson, John
Weiss Claiming, etc. All these character studies
are interesting and the writer is never chary
L. ,Lo hplrA
In not few instances his remarks also throw
valuable side-lights upon his own character, and
in especial suggest that the Transcendentalism Of
the Emersonian period, though long outgrOwn ac-
cor5ling TO his own belief, has left behind II a
mode Of thought and an intellectual bias which