o the
despised and ignorant of the outcast race. The colored girl was amply
avenged. But the teacher is here, as ever after, a learner, and his
leisure is filled with languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, Spanish,
and French. During his subsequent stay at the Cambridge Divinity School,
there are added studies in Italian, Portuguese, Icelandic, Chaldaic,
Arabic, Persian, and Coptic. Of his proficiency in this Babel of tongues
the evidence is not very conclusive. Professor Willard is said to have
applied to the young divinity-student for advice in some nice matters of
Hebrew and Syriac. Theology there can be no doubt that he thoroughly
mastered. After a brief season of itinerancy through Massachusetts
pulpits, he is settled at West Roxbury. And here begins that agony of
doubt dismal and unprofitable to contemplate, when it is not redeemed by
a manly ardor which searches on for attainable grounds of trust. But in
this young minister the faith of a little child cannot be superseded by
the advents of geology and carnal criticism. Some of the Biblical
conceptions of the Deity may be found inadequate, but Nature and the
human soul are full of His presence and glow with His inspirations.
Within the limits of capacity and obedience, every man and woman may
receive direct nourishment from God. At length the South-Boston sermon
of 1841 separates the position of Theodore Parker from that of his
Unitarian brethren. After this, his life belongs to the public. He is
known of men as an assailant of respectable and sacred things, a bitter
critic of political and social usages. That these manifestations were
but small portions of the total of his life, the public may now discern.

We can recall no published correspondence of the century which combines
more excellent and diverse qualities than this with which Mr. Weiss has
plentifully filled his pages. Occasions for which the completest of
Complete Letter-Writers has failed to provide are met by Mr. Parker with
consummate discretion. His letters are to Senators, Shakers, Professors,
Doctors, Slaveholders, Abolitionists, morbid girls, and heroic women:
they are all equally rich in spontaneity, simplicity, and point. Keen
criticisms of noted men, speculations upon society, homely wisdom of the
household, estimates of the arts, and consolations of religion, all
packed in plain and precise English, seem to have been ever ready for
delivery. If Mr. Parker had not chosen the unpopularity of a