eeable person. His thoughts [57] moved in solid battalions,
but they carried keen weapons. It would have been better for him if he
had had more variety, ease, and joyousness in society, and he felt it
himself. He was not genial either in his conversation or letters. I
doubt if one gay or sportive letter can be found among them all. His
habitual style of address, out of his own family, was "My dear Sir,"
never "My dear Tom," or "My dear Phillips," scarcely, "My dear Friend."
Once he says, "Dear Eliza," to Miss Cabot, who married that noble-minded
man, Dr. Follen, and in them both he always felt the strongest interest.
Let any one compare Channing's letters with those of Lord Jeffrey, for
instance. The ease and freedom of Jeffrey's letters, their mingled
sense and playfulness, but especially the hearty grasp of affection and
familiarity in them, make one feel as if he were introduced into some
new and more charming society. Jeffrey begins one of his letters to Tom
Moore thus: "My dear Sir damn Sir My dear Moore." Whether there is not,
among us, a certain democratic reserve in this matter, I do not know;
but I suspect it. Reserve is the natural defence set up against the
claims of universal equality.

In the autumn of 1823, on Dr. Channing's return to his pulpit, I went
to New Bedford to preach in the Congregational Church, formerly Dr.
(commonly called Pater) West's, was invited to be its pastor, and was
ordained to that charge [58] on the 17th of December, Dr. Tuckerman
giving the sermon. An incident occurred at the ordination which showed
me that I had fallen into a new latitude of religious thought and
feeling. After the sermon, and in the silence that followed, suddenly we
heard the voice of prayer from the midst of the congregation. At first
we were not a little disturbed by the irregularity, and the clergymen
who leaned over the pulpit to listen looked as if they would have said,
"This must be put a stop to"; but the prayer, which was short, went on,
so simple, so sincere, so evidently unostentatious and indeed beautiful,
so in hearty sympathy with the occasion, and in desire for a blessing
on it, that when it closed, all said, "Amen! Amen!" It was a pretty
remarkable conquest over prejudice and usage, achieved by simple and
self-forgetting earnestness. Indeed, it seemed to have a certain before
unthought-of fitness, as a response from the congregation, which is not
given in our usual ordination services. The ten yea