"To the passionless, 'Passion Flowers,'" and in the lines that followed
compared her to the Jungfrau with its silvery light. This calmness,
which was not coldness, sometimes enabled her to render a service which
might have been difficult to many. I remember that a young minister, a
fresh convert from Calvinistic doctrine, preached one Sunday a rather
crude sermon, in Mr. Clarke's absence. After the close of the service
Mrs. Clarke went up to the speaker, who was expected to preach that
evening at a well-known church in the city, and said, "Mr. ----, if you
intend to give the sermon we have just heard at the ---- church this
evening, you will do well to omit certain things in it." She proceeded
to mention the changes which appeared to her desirable. Her advice, most
kindly given, was no doubt appreciated.

Let me here record my belief that society rarely attains anywhere a
higher level than that which all must recognize in the Boston of the
last forty years. The religious philosophy of the Unitarian pulpit; the
intercourse with the learned men of Harvard College, more frequent
formerly than at present; the inheritance of solid and earnest
character, most precious of estates; the nobility of thought developed
in Margaret Fuller's pupils; the cordial piety of such leaders as
Phillips Brooks, James Freeman Clarke, and Edward Everett Hale; the
presence of leading authors,--Holmes, Longfellow, Emerson, and
Lowell,--all these circumstances combined have given to Massachusetts a
halo of glory which time should not soon have power to dim.

Massachusetts, as I understand her, asks for no false leadership, for no
illusory and transient notoriety. Where Truth and Justice command, her
sons and daughters will follow; and if she should sometimes be found
first in the ranks, it will not be because her ambition has displaced
others, but because the strength of her convictions has carried her
beyond the ranks of the doubting and deliberate.

The decade preceding the civil war was indeed a period of much
agitation. The anomalous position of a slave system in a democratic
republic was beginning to make itself keenly felt. The political
preponderance of the slaveholding States, fostered and upheld by the
immense money power of the North, had led their inhabitants to believe
that they needed to endure no limits. Recent legislation, devised and
accomplished by their leaders, had succeeded in enforcing upon Northern
communities a tame compli