y, his common sense, his rich and
abounding humor, his marvelous range of illustration from all things in
earth and heaven. As the public questions of the day came still closer
home to the business and bosoms of men, he dealt with them more freely
in his preaching, though never to the subordination of the personal
religious life as the paramount interest. One scene in his church comes
vividly to mind; after the sermon, he stated the case of a little slave
girl, allowed to come North on the chance of her being ransomed; and
after a few moving words, he set her beside him--a beautiful,
unconscious child--and money rained into the contribution boxes till in
a few minutes the amount was raised, and the great congregation joined
in a triumphant closing hymn.

Of a different type was Theodore Parker. He stood in his pulpit, the
embodiment of courageous attack on every falsehood and abuse as it
appeared to the lofty and luminous mind of the preacher. With his
prophecy there mingled no expediency. He spoke the truth as he saw it,
and let consequences take care of themselves. For a generation, the
Unitarian ministers had denied the doctrine of the Trinity, but they
held the founder of Christianity in such reverence that they would
scarcely define his divine or semi-divine nature. Parker spoke
frankly of Jesus as a man, and a man liable to imperfections and
mistakes, while he honored him as the greatest leader of humanity. The
Unitarians,--their intellectual radicalism kept well in check by the
conservatism natural to their social and ecclesiastical traditions,--had
held to a decided supernaturalism. Parker put religion on a purely
natural basis, and sent home to men's consciousness the ideas of God and
immortal life. His sermons were iconoclastic, but his prayers were full
of reverence, aspiration, and tenderness. He was ostracized by most of
the Unitarian churches, and dreaded by the orthodox, but he was a power
in Boston and in America. He attacked social wrongs as fearlessly as he
discussed theology. Against slavery he struck as with a battle ax. He
was not greatly concerned with constitutions or tolerant of compromises.
When a fugitive slave was seized in Boston, Parker took active part in a
project of rescue. He roused the conscience of New England and the
North. He died at fifty, just before the Civil War, consumed by his own
fire.

The fable of the traveler who clung the closer to his cloak when the
wind tried to strip