The original lapse, however, abruptly closed the ethical history of our race: the first violence committed by the conscience against itself was an act of felo de se: and thenceforward, the dealings of heaven make no appeal to our sen its futility), place no reliance on our reverence for law, but snatch us out of peril by a method wholly unmoral, devised by arbitrary goodwill. are not oppositely regarded by God, but recognized in man. merely oppositely felt by us, as rendering us happy or miserable. Into this distinction of pleasure and pain, all others affecting the will reduce themselves. This alone remains, irresolvable, to be the object of the Divine sentiments: and his love of giv-timent of right (unless to convince us of ing happiness, or Benevolence, is the single affection which we can ascribe to him. The relations which this scheme establishes between God and man are wholly different from the former. The first volun- Thus, in Channing's view, the whole tary activity of God took place, either for system of God's rule over our world is a the sake of a benevolent end; in which Moral Probation, for the sake of holiness: case, there were already objects of choice in Priestley's of Educational Development, to him, and he stood in the presence of cer- for the sake of happiness: in the scheme tain tendencies to pleasure and pain: or for of Calvinism, of incipient but disastrous no end at all; in which case it was not ra- Law, corrected by autrocratic Love, in simtional, but arbitrary, and itself gave rise to ple assertion of its own Sovereign glory. the distinction and allotment of pleasure The three schemes are at issue as to the and pain. In creating men, God set in mo- place and proportion assignable to two contion an instrument of his own, whose tending principles,-Liberty in man, Absomechanism was complicated by the reflex lutism in God. In the third, the problem action of self-consciousness. They have no of human destiny is set on the principle of range of independent choice: but are de- human Free-will, and solved on that of termined along the line they take as inevit-divine Absolutism. In the second, the ably, as if no other ever entertained their monarchical principle is carried through, to thought. Why their minds should be made the entire exclusion of the other; and the the theatre of this mock competition is an problem of redemption, being never set, is inscrutable mystery: but among the forces never solved: for it is, in its very concepwhich take part in it, none is more impor- tion, a moral problem, and apart from the tant than a knowledge of the consequences conditions of responsibility, cannot exist at of action. By administering more or less all. Hence we may see why these two of this, any given conduct may be obtained schemes were both regarded with unconfrom mankind; and it is quite conceivable querable aversion by so earnest an advocate that, in order to the realization of his pur- of the remaining one as Channing. The poses, God may introduce this element pro- exclusion of all moral conditions by Priestgressively; and at certain times increase itly, and the contradiction of them by the by additional disclosures. In this view, Revelation consists in certain fresh information given respecting the procuring causes of happiness and misery. Whenever imparted, it is not in remedy for any real evils, or in help amid its struggles to any associate will: but in execution of the original scheme, which laid out this agency in the distance, and computed the crisis of its introduction. No sincere probation remains for man; and his aspirations after moral good are but a provision, like hunger, for his sentient well being. The theory of Calvinism is less extreme than this in its exclusion of any moral element from the Divine administration. Its advocates wish to represent the Providential scheme as at least beginning with a probationary experiment; by the very proposal of which, and until its failure, the perception of duty and the capacity for it, are Genevan School, were alike offensive to one who held them to be all-pervading, and who saw, in a constant fidelity to them, the sole ground of reverence and trust. Of the two, we do not wonder that he looked on Calvinism with the milder antipathy: for while it rendered some homage to a Moral Faculty, at the outset of human things, it also promised the re-appearance of such power at their consummation: but the necessarian scheme swept through the eternal universe, relentlessly shutting out, everywhere and always, the least possibility of merit or obligation. It was impossible for one whose whole worship was paid to the Holy Spirit, to sympathize with Priestley's submissive adoration of the Causal God. And this fundamental antithesis, the Porch and the Garden of Christian theology,-necessarily affected the whole form of their evangelical doctrine. In the monarchical Theism of Priestley, all beings are implements in God's hands: the idea of instrumentality prevails: and Christ becomes his Message-bearer, performing a function of transmission. In the moral Theism of Channing, all spiritual beings, of every rank, are of the same kind with God, and partake of his essence in proportion to their perfection: the idea of likeness therefore prevails; and Christ becomes his Image, representing his method of appeal to conscience, and performing the function of awakener to our sleeping perceptions of the highest good. So with respect to the human soul: while in the one view, it is the automaton of God, all whose movements are but definite sequences of physical or quasi-physical law, leaving no room for Divine influence: in the other, it is akin to God, engaged with interests not unworthy of his sympathy, and conscious of affections that may well belong to the secret methods of his help. Priestley, ranking the beings that occupied his attention by the scientific distinction of species, saw no reason for detaching Jesus Christ from the race of mankind, and adopted the humanitarian doctrine. Channing, assuming a classification according to spiritual worth, could not gaze at the meek sublimity of Christ, and suppose him only a man. he favored therefore the Arian scheme. But the angelic essence in the son of Mary was but the permanent and intenser mingling with his mind of that Divine nature which, in the visitings of a holy spirit, has a fainter presence with the human soul. The relationship of minds through goodness is a favorite topic with him, drawing from him often a strain of high and tender thought: too faintly felt by us. We do not with sufficient force conceive the intimate relation which we may Christian virtue constitutes us his children, by sustain to God. We do not heartily believe that making us like him. We do not bring it home to ourselves, that in sinning we are extinguishing a ray of Divinity within ourselves, and that by every step in moral progress we are ascending towards God, the Original and End of all excellence and felicity.”—II. 11. It is not difficult to see, in Channing's modes of thought, why his Unitarianism presented so little that was obnoxious to the feeling of most orthodox persons, not decidedly Calvinistic. Though he rejected the names, he left the functions, of the Trinity. In England the development of Unitarian doctrine was different. The "Association of ideas" was found to account for everything that had previously been referred to Divine influence; and the office being superseded, the third person in the Godhead disappeared from the faith. The law of cause and effect, pushed further and further through Creation, had diffused philosophical notions of the Deity; had rendered incredible and distasteful the ideas of ruin and disaster in the universe, of which the theory of Redemption is but the counterpoise; had reduced the grand human want to that of a better assurance of a futurc life and no work being left which was beyond the compass of a miraculously enlightened man, the Divine nature fell away from the Christ; and the second person also withdrew. There remained the first, to be adored by the Unitarian as his God. How must a religion consisting of such a residue appear to one who retains the whole? It is needless to say, that "the Father" of "There is something most affecting in the the creeds is the most unapproachable and thought of resembling God. It is a reflection awful object of Trinitarian worship; the which ought to fill and almost overwhelm our minds, that we have a nature capable of bearing infinite Creator, and Ruler inexorably just, the image of God's perfections. This single view whose existence alone and without the perof our nature throws round it a lustre infinitely sons" who supply the complement of his surpassing all the honors of the world; and this perfections, would render the life of man a thought of resembling God is not a presumptuous fearful thing. We are far from saying that one. The purity, the virtue, to which we are the Unitarian conception of God ever called in the Gospel, and which men have in a measure attained, is the same in nature with that agreed with this representation. It could which constitutes the glory of God. In particular, not do so; because the same change of bethat disinterested love, that diffusive benevolence, lief which withdrew the work of salvation to which Jesus Christ so emphatically calls us, from "the Son" cancelled the damnatory forms the highest glory of the Divine character. terrors of "the Father." Still, this modiThe language of John on this subject is remark-fication in the element of faith left is less able. God is love, and he that dwells in love conspicuous than the positive disappearance dwells in God. Astonishing thought! By Chris- of the part removed: and it is not wondertian goodness we are made partakers of God's nature, we shine with a ray of his light, we share ful if many an orthodox person imagines his highest perfection, we become temples of the that, were he to become Unitarian, he would Divinity, God dwells in us. This grand reality is be in the condition of a man believing only in the first person of the Trinity. Now tween the Causal and the Moral God. We Channing's theology gives no opening to feel this more forcibly in Channing than in such mistake. He leaves the office of the Priestley: because the latter, by the sacriHoly Spirit undisturbed, and simply adds fice of completeness, has preserved a more it on to the One Infinite Father. He re- thorough consistency, and with logical onetains so profound a sense of the evil of sin, sidedness, has kept out of view the pheregards it so constantly as an abuse by man nomena that are out of character with his of his Free-will, and treats it so much as a structure of belief: while the former, at defiling intrusion on a world capable of the suggestion of sentiment, wanders bebeing fair, that abundant scope remains for yond his own field, joins in the worship of a restorative process; he holds accordingly devout science; and appealing to exby the Mediatorial agency of Christ; as-ternal miracles, relies upon the distinction signs him, for its exercise, a rank more than between Nature and not-Nature for that human; and, by the doctrine that all religious truth, for which elsewhere he seeks spirits are "of one family," makes it of too exclusively in human consciousness. We the less moment what that particular rank do not esteem these tendencies irreconcileamay be. A churchman of the school of ble in themselves: but he had omitted to Bishop Butler might reasonably say, that bring them into systematic harmony. SomeChanning does not remove, but only re- times, as in a most interesting letter to Mr. distribute, the Divine offices of the Trinity. Simmons (II. 438), he appears to make too And Channing, in his turn, ought not to be much of the inner light of the soul: at complained of for declaring, "I have little others, too little, as in his letters to Miss or no interest in Unitarians as a sect. I Peabody on the Parker Controversy. But have hardly anything to do with them. I in both instances it is apparent that he had can endure no sectarian bonds. With Dr. worked out no clear and satisfactory theory Priestley, a good and great man, who had as to the objective conditions of religious most to do in producing the Unitarian truth. He visits the human mind for the movement, I have less sympathy than meditations of philosophy: nature, for the with many of the orthodox." And again: "I am little of a Unitarian,-have little sympathy with the system of Priestley and Belsham, and stand aloof from all but those who strive and pray for clearer light, who look for a purer and more effectual manifestation of Christian truth."-II. 390. In truth, the English and the American divine represent views of religion far as fundamentally opposed as any which can arise within the limits of a common Theism. Of this a striking practical evidence is afforded by the remark of Coleridge, the most scornful enemy of the Hartleian Unitarianism : "I feel convinced that the few differences in opinion between Mr. Channing 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."-II. 222. We are far from thinking either Priestley's scheme or Channing's adequate to the demands of a theory of religion. Neither of them succeeds in reconciling with each other the deductions separately drawn from the objective and from the subjective point of view, and bridging over the chasm be excursions of sentiment: and it is curious to observe, how his thoughts, even when expanding through the sublimest fields of the universe, collapses by natural feeling upon the soul of man, and settles there again with intensest reverence : "I have been reading Nichol's Architecture of the Heavens, which you named to me, and it has filled me with adoration, humility, and hope. It slow, solemn unfolding of his purposes, before reveals a stupendousness in God's works, a silent, which I bow in a kindred silence. I cease to wonder that six thousand years have not done more for the race, when I see so clearly that a thousand years are but a day to the Eternal. The connections of human life stretch before us, and are lost in the endless ages which are needed to accomplish God's designs. And yet I do not feel myself sinking into insignificance under the weight of these thoughts. I am amazed by the grandeur of the human spirit, which out of a few signs detected by the telescope can construct the universe. My joy and reverence assure me that this universe is my school and everlasting home.”—III. 373. During the period which has suggested our remarks on Channing's theology, many changes had taken place in his private relations. The death of his brother Francis, in 1810, and of his sister, Mrs. Allston, in 1815, had deeply affected him, and had left him, apparently the frailest of them all, the way was chosen, we cannot look on his singular union of faithfulness and moderation, of enthusiasm and dignity, without feeling ourselves in a presence truly great. On none of these questions could a mind like his surrender itself to the extreme views of the Societies created for the promotion of the several Reforms. Yet his distaste for their methods gave way before his sympathy with their aims and while he silently held aloof from their organization, he powerfully aided their best tendencies. His name was not in their local lists: but his voice was for their cause all over the world. The wise and gentle words by which he justified his middle course on the subject of war, are applicable to every similar problem : responsible head of the family. His own portion of this Memoir. But, above all, marriage, in 1814, conferred upon him a his attention was more and more turned to happiness worthy to crown the years of self- questions of social reform; and he labored forgetful duty by which it had been post- at the direct application of his own lofty poned. His first child was born only to pass Christianity, to the correction of guilty away: and when, in 1822, he was obliged usages and wrongful institutions. His to leave his three children, and with Mrs. course in relation to all the great moral and Channing seek health in Europe, his stay at philanthropic movements of the age,-in Rome was marked by the tidings of a second favor of Peace, Temperance, Freedom to bereavement; the youngest boy having died, the Slave,-has always awakened our adafter an illness too short for any warning in-miration and now that we review it as a telligence to reach the absent parents. The whole, and see amid what a storm of return home in 1823 begins a new and passions both base and noble his solitary brighter era in Dr. Channing's life, The European journey itself presents in these volumes a strange blank: and we scarcely know which is more mysterious: the absence of nearly all memorials of a year so various in its impressions; or, the sudden transformation it occasioned of the anxious martyr-spirit, somewhat valetudinarian in mind as well as body, into the free, clear, and almost joyous servant of God, and interpreter of human things. The year of absence, invisible in itself, declares itself in its fruits. He throws himself, with greater courage, upon his real feelings, and distinguishes, with greater ease, between the genuine convictions and the conventional judgments, of his conscience. He had for years been reproaching himself, in a way familiar to many an earnest heart, for his "timidity on the subject of religion," in "I know it is objected, that, if any war is allowconversation, and for his inability to sub-ed to be just, all will be found so; that no lines can be drawn between the lawful and unlawful. stitute for mere calls," truly serious So the fanatic says no line can be drawn between and ministerial visits." He now felt that innocent indulgence and luxury, between moderate he had been striving after conformity with and excessive ornament, and therefore all indula mere professional expectation; that it was gence and ornament must be renounced. I do not not possible to make more than a very sub- believe in the wisdom or virtue of escaping the la. ordinate instrument of "what is sometimes bour and responsibility of moral discrimination by called pastoral duty,-the personal inter-flying to an extreme principle. Every moral quescourse, that is, of the minister with his congregation;" that, in such "an out-door age" as this, "the acqusition of exalting truth, and the clear, powerful expression of it, are the minister's chief labors, implying much solitary thought." He acquiesced accordingly in that work of meditation, apart from the disturbances of custom and passion, which enabled him, from time to time, to come down with something of a prophet's power upon a world not often reached so soon by the voice of retired wisdom. His correspondence too, enriched by new connections, became various and interesting and the record it contains of his most characteristic judgments on matters too personal and transient for more formal treatment, is perhaps the most attractive tion is as open to this objection as war. Perhaps Dr. Channing was brought by the earnest rebuke of a young abolitionist, to reproach himself with procrastination in his protest against Slavery. We will not contest the judgment which, in the tenderness and humility of his conscience, he was led to pronounce upon himself. But if, in the delay of two or three years, he was influenced, not merely by ill health, but in part by a fastidiousness too scrupulous, there is another lesson to be learned besides that of censure upon him. It is one of the worst effects of the indiscriminate invective, and exaggerated language indulged in by the | Eagle will whet, not gorge, its appetite on its first leaders of a popular or unpopular agitation, victim; and will snuff a more tempting quarry, that they disgust men of fine and large jus- more alluring blood, in every new region which tice, and alienate those who are best fitted opens southward. To annex Texas is to declare perpetual war with Mexico. That word, Mexico, to aid them, by infusing an element of hu- associated in men's minds with boundless wealth mility into their dogmatism, and blending has already awakened rapacity. Already it has a purer wisdom with their fire. We do not been proclaimed, that the Anglo-Saxon race is deshowever wish to enter into disputes about tined to the sway of this magnificent realm; that the relative chronologies, the originalities the rude form of society, which Spain established a higher or plagiarisms,of a noble philanthropy. there, is to yield and vanish before civilization. Honor be to all who, in their seaon and Without this exposure of plans of rapine and subjugation, the result, as far as our according to their gifts, yield themselves to wills can determine it is plain. Texas is the first work so high! Channing's final determina- step to Mexico. The moment we plant our aution to deal with the question of Slavery thority on Texas, the boundaries of those two was taken up, during his winter residence countries will become nominal, will be little more on a plantation in Santa Cruz, in 1830. than lines on the sand of the sea-shore. In the In the pulpit the declared himself imme- fact, that portions of the Southern and Western diately after his return to Boston; from the States are already threatened with devastation, through the impatience of multitudes to precipitate press, not till 1835, when his work on Slave-themselves into the Texas land of promise, we have ry was published. From that hour, at least, a pledge and earnest of the flood, which will pour the sternest Abolitionist must acknowledge itself still further south, when Texas shall be but that he was always true, and promptly true, partially overrun." to his worthiest impulses on this matter. When mobs threatened to suppress liberty The last effort of his mind was to celeof spech, he threw himself into the defence brate, by some worthy commemorative of the injured andinsulted reformers. When thoughts, the abolition by the British LeLovejoy, editor of an Anti-slavery journal, gislature of Colonial Slavery, -a national was murdered at Alton, he even entered into act of which he always spoke as one of the a civic contest with the authorities of Boston grandest passages in human history. He for the use in public meeting, of Faneuil was at Lenox; surrounded by the friendly Hall, to protest against tumultuary inva- and cultivated family of Sedgwicks, and in sions of the liberty of the Press: and having a country yielding him the full refreshment overcome resistance by his firm appeal to the of beauty and repose. On the 1st August, better feelings of the citizens, he broke he uttered from the desk of the Village through his usual habits of retirement, and Church, the memorable tribute to the rehimself opened the proceedings by a speech pentant justice of England; and, with that designed at once to vindicate the assem- glad and hopeful spirit which seemed to be blage, and to give dignity of tone to the dis- ever growing within him as the physical cussion. And above all, when the encroach-energies of life declined, he closed with an ment of adventurers from the States upon invocation soon to be answered by a counthe territories of Mexico began to indicate ter-call:— their results, and threatened to overrun a free soil with the curse of Slavery, he threw Who can stay them? God's word has gone forth, Mighty powers are at work in the world. off, with the rapidity of indignation, that and it cannot return to him void. A new commasterly state-paper-the Letter to Henry prehension of the Christian spirit, a new reveClay on the Annexation of Texas; a pro-rence for humanity, a new feeling of brotherhood, duction which, for force of exposition, acute- and of all men's relations to the common Fatherness of vaticination, penetration through the guile of party selfishness, and boldness of just expostulation, stands pre-eminent, in our opinion, among the writings of Channing, and alone among essays on political morals. The prophecy it contains of the very war, which is now about to give a military President to the United States, is so remarkable that we must turn aside from Channing's life for a moment to record it: 66 this is among the signs of our times. We see it; do we not feel it? Before this, all oppressions are to fall. Society silently pervaded by this, is to change its aspect of universal warfare for peace. The power of selfishness, all-grasping, and seemingly invincible, is to yield to this diviner energy. The song of angels, On Earth Peace,' will not always sound as fiction. O come, thou kingdom of Heaven, for which we daily pray! Come, friend and Saviour of the race, who didst shed thy blood on the cross, to reconcile man to man, and Earth to Heaven! Come, ye predicted ages of righteousness and love, for which the faithful have so long yearned. Come, Father Almighty, and |