d against him. Neither will
there be wanting extravagant eulogiums from personal friends,
fellow-religionists, and zealous reformers. Only the distant view of a
generation yet to be can see him in just relation to the men of this
time. In judging the weight and work of a contemporary, we attach an
over-importance to the number and social position of his nominal
adherents; while, in estimating the utility of an historic leader, we
instinctively feel that these things are almost the last to be
considered. For the greatest influence for good has come from men who
have struggled in feeble minorities,--ever alienating would-be friends
by an invincible honesty, or even by an invincible fanaticism. Not to
the excellences or extravagances of a handful of persons who precisely
agree with his views of Christianity may we look for the influence of
Theodore Parker which to-day works among us. We might find it in greater
power in Brownson's Catholic Review, in the humane magnetism of orthodox
Mr. Beecher, in the Episcopal ministrations of Dr. Tyng. For any
intelligent Christian must allow that those claiming to represent the
Church of Christ have too often sided with the oppressor, fettered human
thought in departments foreign to religion, and inculcated degrading
beliefs, which scholars eminent in orthodoxy declare indeducible from
any Biblical precept. It is not the incredibleness of a metaphysical
belief, but a laxity or cowardice of the practice connected with it,
which can point the reformer's gibe and wing his sarcasm. Theodore
Parker virtually told the Christian minister that he must reprove
profitable and popular sins, or else stand at great disadvantage in the
trial between Rationalism and Supernaturalism which is vexing the age.
In rich and prosperous communities Christianity has been too prone to
degenerate into a mere credence of dogma; it must reassert itself as the
type of ethics. It is also good that the clergy, intrusted with the
defence of the faith delivered to saints, be compelled to place
themselves on a level with the ripest scholarship of the day. For ends
such as these the life of this critic and protester has abundantly
wrought. If he has pulled down a meeting-house here and there, we are
confident that he has been instrumental in building up many more to an
effective Christianity.

_Peculiar. A Tale of the Great Transition_. By EPES SARGENT.
New York: G.W. Carleton. 12mo.

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