ut encroachment on the
absolute worth of either--present in him a character which in my
heart's heart I believe to be the very rarest on earth. . . . . Mr.
Channing is a philosopher in both the possible renderings of the word.
He has the love of wisdom and the wisdom of love. . . . . I am
confident that the few differences of opinion between him and myself
not only are, but would by him be found to be apparent, not real--the
same truth seen in different relations. Perhaps I have been more
absorbed in the depth of the mystery of the spiritual life, he more
engrossed by the loveliness of its manifestations."

In nothing is Dr. Channing's humility better seen than in his
relations to literature. He became an author almost unconsciously. All
his intellectual convictions were so indissolubly woven into the
texture of his life, so vitalized by his heart and imagination, that
writing with him was never an end but a means. Literary fame followed
him; he did not follow it. When, however, he found that his reputation
not only rung through his own country but was reverberated from
Europe, he appears to have feared that it might corrupt his motives
for composition. He studiously avoided reading all eulogistic notices
of his works or character, though they were interesting to him as
indications of the influence his cherished opinions were exerting. The
article in the Westminster Review, which exceeded all others in
praise, he never read. Dr. Dewey's criticism in the Christian Examiner
he only knew as far as related to its objections, and his only
disappointment was in finding them so few. Brougham's criticism on his
style provoked in him no retort. Hazlitt's coarse attack on him in the
Edinburgh Review he considered as an offset to the undue praise he had
received from other quarters. "The author of the article," he says, in
one of his letters, "is now dead; and as I did not feel a moment's
anger toward him during his life, I have no reproach for him now. He
was a man of fine powers, and wanted nothing but pure and fixed
principles to make him one of the lights of the age."

It would be impossible in our limits to convey an adequate impression
of the beauty, value, or interest of the present volumes. They are
full of matter. The letters are admirable specimens of epistolary
composition, considered as the spontaneous expression of a grave, high
and warm nature, to the friends of his heart and mind. They are
exceedingly original of