ts its author to the severest tests
which can be applied to a human mind in this life, and we have risen
from its perusal with a new idea of the humility, sincerity, and
saintliness of Dr. Channing's character. In him self-distrust was
admirably blended with a sublime conception of the capacity of man,
and a sublime confidence in human nature. He was not an egotist, as
passages in his writings may seem to indicate, for he was more severe
upon himself than upon others, and numberless remarks in the present
volumes show how sharp was the scrutiny to which he subjected the most
elusive appearances of pride and vanity. But with his high and living
sense of the source and destiny of every human mind, and his almost
morbid consciousness of the deformity of moral evil, he reverenced in
himself and in others the presence of a spirit which connected
humanity with its Maker, and by unfolding the greatness of the
spiritual capacities of men, he hoped to elevate them above the
degradation of sensuality and sin. He was not a teacher of spiritual
pride, conceit and self-worship, but of those vital principles of love
and reverence which elevate man only by directing his aspirations to
God.

The present volumes give a full length portrait of Dr. Channing in all
the relations of life, and some of the minor details regarding his
opinions and idiosyncrasies are among the most interesting portions of
the book. We are glad to perceive that he early appreciated
Wordsworth. The Excursion he eagerly read on its first appearance, and
while so many of the Pharisees of taste were scoffing at it, he
manfully expressed his sense of its excellence. This poem he recurred
to oftener than to any other, and next to Shakspeare, Wordsworth seems
to have been the poet he read with the most thoughtful delight. When
he went to Europe, in 1822, he had an interview with Wordsworth, and
of the impression he himself made on the poet there can be no more
pertinent illustration, than the fact that, twenty years afterward,
Wordsworth mentioned to an American gentleman that one observation of
Channing, respecting the connection of Christianity with progress, had
stamped itself ineffaceably upon his mind. Coleridge he appears to
have profoundly impressed. In a letter to Washington Allston,
Coleridge says of him--"His affection for the good as the good, and
his earnestness for the true as the true--with that harmonious
subordination of the latter to the former, witho