over-criticism which are apt to
effeminate the American scholar, he plunged deep into the current of
hearty national life around him, loved it, trusted it, believed in it;
and the combination of this vital faith with such tremendous criticism
of public and private sins formed an irresistible power. He could
condemn without crushing,--denounce mankind, yet save it from despair.
Thus his pulpit became one of the great forces of the nation, like the
New York "Tribune." His printed volumes had but a limited circulation,
owing to a defective system of publication, which his friends tried in
vain to correct; but the circulation of his pamphlet-discourses was
very great; he issued them faster and faster, latterly often in pairs,
and they instantly spread far and wide. Accordingly he found his
listeners everywhere; he could not go so far West but his abundant
fame had preceded him; his lecture-room in the remotest places was
crowded, and his hotel-chamber also, until late at night. Probably
there was no private man in the nation, except, perhaps, Beecher and
Greeley, whom personal strangers were so eager to see; while from a
transatlantic direction he was sought by visitors to whom the two
other names were utterly unknown. Learned men from the continent of
Europe always found their way, first or last, to Exeter Place; and it
is said that Thackeray, on his voyage to this country, declared that
the thing in America which he most desired was to hear Theodore Parker
talk.

Indeed, his conversational power was so wonderful that no one could go
away from a first interview without astonishment and delight. There
are those among us, it may be, more brilliant in anecdote or repartee,
more eloquent, more profoundly suggestive; but for the outpouring of
vast floods of various and delightful information, I believe that he
could have had no Anglo-Saxon rival, except Macaulay. And in Mr.
Parker's case, at least, there was no alloy of conversational
arrogance or impatience of opposition. He monopolized, not because he
was ever unwilling to hear others, but because they did not care to
hear themselves when he was by. The subject made no difference; he
could talk on anything. I was once with him in the society of an
intelligent Quaker farmer, when the conversation fell on agriculture:
the farmer held his own ably for a time; but long after he was drained
dry, our wonderful companion still flowed on exhaustless, with
accounts of Nova Scotia pl