tic as special
revelation, and sometimes grievously misrepresented the creeds which he
assailed. Strangers might go to the Music Hall to breathe the free air
of a catholic liberality, and find nothing but the old fierceness of
sectarianism broken loose against the sects. Let us make every deduction
which a candid criticism is compelled to claim, and Theodore Parker
stands a noble representative of Republican America. His place is still
among the immortals who are not the creatures of an age, but its
regenerators. For it is not the life of a great skeptic, but the work of
a great believer, which is brought before us in these volumes. This
uncompromising enemy of the creeds was the ally of their highest uses.
His soul never lacked that dear and personal object of worship which is
offered by the Christian Revelation in its common acceptance. He could
have lived in no more jubilant confidence of immortality, had he enjoyed
the tactual satisfactions of Thomas himself. No Catholic nun feels more
delicious assurance of the protection of the Virgin, no Protestant
maiden knows a more blissful consciousness of the Saviour's marital
affection towards her particular church, than felt this Theodore Parker
in the fatherly and motherly tenderness of the Great Cause of All.
Certainly, few doubters have ever doubted to so much purpose as he. Men
who are skeptical through the intellect in the Christian creeds seldom
live so sturdily the Christian life. Yet we cannot think that the
fervent faith with which he wrought came from what was exceptional in
his belief; it was rather a good gift of native and special sort. For it
is a true insight which leads Tennyson to warn him whose faith does not
trust itself to form, that his sister is "quicker unto good" from the
hallowed symbol through which she receives a divine truth. Many who
flatter themselves that they have outgrown the need of a human
embodiment of the Father's love have only induced a plasticity of mind
which prevents the life from taking shape in any positive affirmation.
"It is a strong help to me," writes a Congregational minister, "to find
a man, standing on the extreme verge of liberal theology, holding so
firmly, so tenaciously, to the one true religion, love to God and man."
But may all men stand there, and cling to it as resolutely as he did?

The ancestors of Theodore Parker seem to have been creditable offshoots
from the Puritan stock. They were men and women of thrift and