APPENDIX, N. From the Fifth Satire of Persius. I had intended to give a long extract in English, but have room only for the following lines of the Original: "Not Prætoris erat stultis dare tenuia rerum Sat. 5, 1. 93-99. APPENDIX P. From the Boston Traveller, as copied into Littell's Living Age, No. 459, page 437. "We refer now to two "Sermons,' as he calls them-one delivered on the 14th November, 1852, when he was about to leave the Melodeon, and the other on the 21st, when he began his meetings in the new Music Hall-both of which have been published together in a pamphlet since this year (1853) came in, by Crosby, Nichols & Co. In these sermons,' he lets us somewhat more into his past history and future purposes, than the public had before been permitted to see; but still, it is quite plain, that the revelation is not complete. "He tells us, that he came to Boston eight years ago, with great reluctance and misgiving, but with an 'idea' that he wished to teach and inculcate. Precisely what that idea then was, he does not here explain; but what his idea in preaching now is, he tells us pretty clearly. Probably it has been but one idea from the beginning. "First, then, he tells us, under the two heads of his 'Ideas' of God and Man, and subsequently under two more heads, of the relations of God to Man, and of Man to God, what are his own notions of religion, and leaves no doubt that he is an unbeliever in Christianity as a divinely revealed religion. In short, he leaves no doubt that he is an infidel, of the class called Deists. But, secondly, lest there should be any mistake in the matter, he tells us what he does not believe. He says (pp. 14–15): "I do not believe there ever was a miracle, or ever will be; everywhere I find law-the constant mode of operation of the infinite God. I do not believe in the miraculous inspiration of the Old Testament or the New Testament. I do not believe that the Old Testament was God's first word, nor the New Testament his last. The Scriptures are no finality to me. Inspiration is a perpetual fact. Prophets and Apostles did not monopolize the Father. He inspires men to-day as much as heretofore. "I do not believe the miraculous origin of the Hebrew Church, or the Buddhist Church, or the Christian Church; nor the miraculous character of Jesus. I take not the Bible for my master, nor yet the Church; nor even Jesus of Nazareth for my master. I feel not at all bound to believe what the Church says is true, nor what any writer in the Old or New Testament declares true; and I am ready to believe that Jesus taught as I think, eternal torment, the existence of a devil, and that he himself should ere long come back in the clouds of heaven. I do not accept these things on his authority. * "He is my best historic ideal of human greatness; not without errors, not without the stain of his times, and I presume, of course, not without sins; for men without sins exist in the dreams of girls, not in real fact; you never saw such a one, nor I, and we never shall.' "Of course, there can hereafter be no misapprehension about Theodore Parker's claims to be called a Christian minister; so that, if we now venture to say that he is not one, we shall, as we presume, no longer be told that we are uncharitable and calumnious; for to be a minister of Jesus Christ, and yet to ridicule Jesus Christ as a man who had the folly to teach that he should ere long come back in the clouds of heaven,' is an absurdity too strong for any reasonable person to accept. It is, however, worth notice that, on the title-page of these very 'sermons,' Mr. Parker is announced as the minister of the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society in Boston, precisely as if he stood on the same footing with Dr. Blagden, or Dr. Adams, or any other of the Christian Congregational ministers of the city. "So far, then, Theodore Parker has openly come out. He ridicules the idea of Christianity as a religion of miraculous authority, and he ridicules Jesus Christ, whom the Scriptures represent to be without sin,' as a character that can only exist in the dreams of girls;-not in real fact.' How much farther he will go in the same direction we cannot tell. Probably he cannot tell himself. "But he gives us a glimpse of future possibilities. He says, p. 12, It may be possible that a man comes to the conviction of atheism, but yet has been faithful to himself.' We may, therefore, according to his own showing, have Theodore Parker preaching atheism among us, out of faithfulness to himself. At any rate, no man will say, that it is more unlikely he will do this fifteen years hence, than it was ten or fifteen years ago-(when as a Christian critic he attacked Dr. Palfrey so fiercely, or when as a Christian minister he received the degree of Master of Arts at our neighboring University,)-that he would, in 1852-3, be uttering in Boston such ribald attacks on Christianity as are contained in these two discourses. "There is, however, another side of his public character and teach ings, that it is important should be understood by the community in which he lives ;-we mean, the morals he inculcates. Of this, from time to time, we have had intimations in a number of printed attacks on the judges of our courts, on our magistrates, on our clergy-in short, on anybody that did not hold opinions agreeable to Theodore Parker himself;-announcing his judgments, sometimes with brutal coarseness, though oftener in a tone that shows he is, after all, rather holding political caucuses on Sunday mornings, than anything else, and that his hearers so understand him by answering his appeals to their passions with clapping of hands and other signs of caucus-like applause. But, on one occasion, he went beyond the character even of a common political demagogue. We refer to his teaching that, in certain cases-which cases are to be judged of by each man for himself-perjury is the duty of a juryman. Mr. B. R. Curtis-now a Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, and as much honored by the country as any man sitting on that bench-exposed this indecent outrage on public morals in a speech delivered at a very crowded meeting in Faneuil Hall, above two years ago. He said, with a plainness and sternness of rebuke, worthy the acknowledged elevation and integrity of his character: "Murder and perjury have been erected into virtues, and, in this city, preached from the sacred desk. I must not be suspected of exaggeration in the least degree. I read, therefore, the following passages from a sermon preached and published in this city- "Let me suppose a case which may happen here, and before long. A woman flies from South Carolina to Massachusetts to escape from bondage. Mr. Greatheart aids her in her escape, harbors and conceals her, and is brought to trial for it. The punishment is a fine of one thousand dollars and imprisonment for six months. I am drawn to serve as a juror, and pass upon this offence. I may refuse to serve, and be punished for that, leaving men with no scruples to take my place; or I may take the juror's oath to give a verdict according to the law and the testimony. The law is plain, let us suppose, and the testimony conclusive. Greatheart himself confesses that he did the deed alleged, saving one ready to perish. The judge charges that if the jurors are satisfied of that fact, then they must return that he is guilty. This is a nice matter. Here are two questions. The one put to me in my official capacity as juror, is this-Did Greatheart aid the woman? The other put to me in my natural character as man, is this—'Will you help to punish Greatheart with fine and imprisonment for helping a woman to obtain her inalienable rights?' If I have extinguished my manhood by my juror's oath, then I shall do my official business and find Greatheart guilty, and I shall seem to be a true man; but if I value my manhood, I shall answer after my natural duty to love a man, and not hate him-to do him justice, not injustice-to allow him the natural rights he has not alienated, and shall say 'not guilty.' Then will men call me forsworn and a liar; but I think human nature will justify the verdict. “The man who attacks me to reduce me to slavery, in that mo ment of attack alienates his right to life, and if I were the fugitive, and could escape in no other way, I would kill him with as little com punction as I would drive a musquito from my face.'-A Sermon of Conscience, by Rev. Theodore Parker. “I should like to ask the Rev. Preacher, (continues Judge Curtis,) when he goes into court, and holds up his hand, and calls on his Maker to attest the sincerity of his vow to render a true verdict according to the law and the evidence, whether he does that as a man, or in some other capacity? And I should also like to ask him, in what capacity he would expect to receive the punishment which would await him here and hereafter, if he were to do what he recommends to others?' This was said by Judge Curtis, on the 26th of November, 1850. On the 18th of June next following, a juryman in Boston undertook to put in practice the precise doctrine here set forth, and was ignominiously struck from the panel of jurors for it, as soon as he was detected, by the Judge of the District Court of the United States. How many other persons-either to gratify their own passions, or the passions of their party-have acted on the same atrocious doctrine, without detection, Theodore Parker will know, when he meets them at the bar of God's judgment." * * * * * * APPENDIX, Q. LEGARE ON SLAVERY. The Charleston Courier publishes the following eloquent remarks of Legare on the subject of Slavery in the United States. They are suggestive: This is a great practical question, and needs to be treated by statesmen, and not by sophisters and fanatics. "It is not res integra, and it is not necessary to discuss the justice or injustice, the fitness or unfitness of the institution in the abstract. "The true question is, what is to be the destiny of this quarter of the world: what race is to inhabit and possess it? Shall it be given up (as to a great part of its surface) to barbarism-its inevitable fate under the dominion of the black race--or shall it continue to be possessed by the most improving, enterprising, active and energetic breed of men that have ever founded empires and peopled waste places-by that English race, whose conquests more extensive, whose power more gigantic, and whose Government more perfect than that of Rome, designate it as the fitting instrument, in the hands of Providence, for the great work of building up a world-that English race, of which the original stock has made itself the wonder of mankind-a people entirely peculiar in combining whatever is most dazzling in opulence and power, with well regulated liberty, and mild and equal administration of law-the most magnificent manifestations of the might and the grandeur of civilized life, that the world, in any age of it, has ever beheld. Look at Hayti, and contrast it with New-Holland! "Does any man, who looks into the political character and effects of the cotton plant, doubt for a moment that slavery in the South has been and is a great instrument of civilization? Would the miracles, which the cotton trade has wrought, and is working, for the amelioration of the condition of mankind in Europe, have ever existed, had the negro of the South been emancipated in the revolution? Would this country have been what it is? "The truth is, that civilization is more advanced by physical causes than by moral ones. I mean, supposing in both cases social order to be well established, and law administered. The steam engine is doing more for it than the pulpit itself. So of cotton. It is raising the standard of comfort, without which, men are doomed forever to be but half savage. "The Roman conquests were attended with dreadful evils-millions of lives, it is said, were sacrificed by Cæsar in his Gallic wars, and so of all the rest. Does any one now doubt that, on the whole, the sword of Rome was a means of improvement to the whole race? that especially the spreading of Christianity was hastened and facilitated by it? Would any philanthropist, who did not assume that name to make it odious, wish the history of the Roman Empire blotted out? "So of Greek art. Without doubt it had never existed-never, at least, in such an extraordinary perfection, without the institution of. slavery. Suppose it were ascertained that, by establishing an English colony at the spot where Carthage once stood, at the end of some centuries, our race and institutions would spread over the whole of that continent, hitherto held to be doomed to everlasting silence and desolation; though the great result spoken of could only be accomplished by exterminating, as the red men of this continent have been, or reducing to bondage, under the white man, the negro, who is now the slave of his brother negro and brother savage-would it be considered inconsistent with humanity to have, yea, and to co-operate in producing a change so full of splendid improvement, so favorable to the dignity of human nature, and even to the beauty and glory of God's creation? Look at the state of South America, and compare it with the northern part of the continent. Therefore, I have always thought that the slave trade, inhuman, infernal as it was, had not been without its compensations; (certainly not enough to justify any one in taking part in continuing it, for so much evident and now known evil ought not to be done that good might come of it;) but that considered as a great evil, it was much more so to this continent than to Africa. "In short, slavery is an evil, except under peculiar circumstances -generally speaking, certainly-and everything shows it here; but not such an evil as calls for violent, and still less destructive measures to arrest it." |