William Ellery Channing, minister of religion

Front matter

ACCESSION

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Preface

I HAVE been impelled to write a new life of Channing by several motives, two of which have a somewhat contradictory appearance, one of them being the deeper interest in Channing which has of late been manifested in quarters where there had been imperfect knowledge of his qualities, too little sympathy with his spirit, and the other the disproportion which, I thought, existed between the significance of his thought and message and their limited appreciation. The deeper interest seemed to invite a fresh delineation; the imadequate appreciation to lay on me a clear command. Moreover, even among those who have had the special care of Channing’s name and fame, I had found the younger generations more ignorant of him and more indifferent to him than I thought was right, and I desired to communicate to them something of the enthusiasm and delight which for many years had animated my own breast. I was encouraged to make the attempt by the cordial reception accorded to my “Theodore Parker,”

viil ' PREFACE which was published two years since. I knew without warning that to write Channing’s life was a very different thing from writing Parker’s, — as different as carving a statue from painting a picture, so much warmth and color were there in Parker’s experience and personality, so little in the older and the greater man’s; but I was persuaded that there were aspects of Channing’s life that assured to any faithful presentation of it a peculiar and dramatic interest, and these I have endeavored to make plain. There has been for me additional instigation in my sense that while on certain lines the thought and purpose of our time are approximating Channing’s, and should enjoy a livelier conscious sympathy with him, on other lines they are departing from him to their hurt and shame, and making themselves amenable to his deprecation and rebuke. Simultaneously I have felt that Channing’s best work, his surest prophecy, was more upon the social side than on the theological, and I have thought I could not do the present time a better service than to confront it with his lofty spirit and his serious aims.

In the way of sources, I need hardly say that my principal indebtedness has been to Channing’s “ Works ” (which, as published by the American

Unitarian Association, contain in one volume the

PREFACE ix six originally published and “'The Perfect Life”) and the “ Memoir” of 1848, which, however defective its arrangement, is remarkable for its full disclosure of Channing’s mind in his own words. Two _misfortunes have attended my work: the burning of a car in southern California which contained nearly all of Dr. Channing’s manuscripts and letters, and the death of his son, William Francis Channing, only a little while before I began the collection of my material. His affectionate and reverent memory would have been an inestimable service, and its loss to me I account much greater than that of Channing’s manuscripts, which, I am persuaded, had ample representation in the “ Memoir ” and “ Works.” Some of the most precious escaped the general destruction ; and of these two of the most important, the Baltimore Sermon and that on Self-Denial, I now proudly call my own. T have had a full line of Channing’s publications in their original pamphlet forms, which have seemed to bring me into closer touch with him than the books in which, with few exceptions, they were ultimately incorporated. Much has been written about Channing; little of the best has, I trust, escaped my attention. The hundredth anniversary of his birth was particularly fertile in reminiscences and appreciations. But I have x PREFACE valued quite as much, or more, the side glances of many biographies of his contemporaries, and other books illustrative of his time. It was at one time my purpose to make and print a list of the books and articles which had served me in various degrees, but I found that, while it would contain several hundred titles, to make it complete would be very difficult. My footnotes and other references will, in part, make good the lack of such a list.

One of the happiest fortunes of my life has been an affectionate relation with some of the early leaders who knew Channing well, — Dewey, Furness, Bartol, Bellows, Hedge, — and many things which they told me I have not forgotten. I have had much direct help from others, from so many that I cannot name them all; but some expression of my gratitude there must be to Dr. Channing’s granddaughter, Mrs. Grace Ellery Channing-Stetson, to whom I am much indebted, and to my friend William Channing Gannett, whom little that throws light on Channing has escaped. For the index — a laborious task, which for me would have been harder than to write the book —I am indebted to my wife; also for much help in the proofreading, to say nothing of her good advice at many doubtful points, and her continuous encouragement.

PREFACE xi

It is sixty years to-day since Channing died. So long dead, almost his lifetime, he yet speaks to many minds and hearts. If what I have written extends the sphere of his influence ever so little, I - shall be glad. If this satisfaction is denied me, I shall still have had for two years such discourse with the spirit of this great and good man as has been to me a holy contemplation, to be prized hereafter among the happiest fortunes of my life.

J. W. C.

October 2, 1902.

Contents

PAGE

CHAPTER I CAMBRIDGE AND RicomMonpD. ......+..2.. 28 CHAPTER III

EVOLUTION AND REACTION. . ...- ..+. +. « & CHAPTER V

IERESERS AND POLITICS 2 3 0-y Miss «ne 2 « «(184 CHAPTER VIII

WHat CHANNING PREACHED .......... 215 CHAPTER Ix

BETWEEN Two Fires . ..... =...» « « » « 209 CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XII

As Dyinc AND Brmomp!.°: .°. 2°. 2. « sw s = 6422

The frontispiece portrait of William Ellery Channing is from the original painting (1839) by 8. Gambardella, owned by Miss Elizabeth P. Channing of Milton. .

The portrait at page 212 is from the painting (1811) by Washington Allston, at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

1780. 1780. 1792.

1809. 1810.

. 1812. 1814.

1814. 1815.

1816. 1819. 1820.

1821. 1822.

CHRONOLOGY

April 7. Born in Newport, R. I.

May 28. Baptized by Dr. Ezra Stiles.

Goes to New London, Conn., to study with his uncle, Henry Channing.

September 21. His father dies.

Enters Harvard College.

Is graduated from Harvard.

Goes as tutor to Richmond.

Returns to Newport.

Studies theology in Cambridge.

June 1. Ordained and installed Minister of the Federal Street Society.

New church is built.

His brother Francis dies and (May 25) his nephew,

William Henry Channing, is born.

Preaches anti-war sermon.

Preaches at King’s Chapel on Fall of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Is married to his cousin, Ruth Gibbs.

Liberal Christians assailed, and Channing answers assaults with letters to Thacher and Worcester. Most signal year of “ Unitarian Controversy.”

Sermon upon War before Congregational ministers of Massachusetts.

Preaches “ Baltimore Sermon” at ordination of Jared Sparks.

Founds Berry Street Conference.

Delivers Dudleian Lecture at Harvard College.

Goes to Europe for health in May.

Xvl

1823. 1824.

1825. 1825-30. 1826.

1830. 1831,

1831. 1832. 1834.

1835. 1835. 1836.

1840. 1841.

CHRONOLOGY

Returns from Europe in August.

Ezra Stiles Gannett becomes his colleague, Channing preaching his ordination sermon.

American Unitarian Association organized.

Writes articles on Milton, Fénelon, and Napoleon.

Preaches sermon at dedication Second Unitarian Congregational Church, New York.

Preaches ‘Likeness to God” at ordination of Frederick A. Farley, in Providence, R. I.

May 26. Preaches “Spiritual Freedom”: annual Election Sermon.

Publishes “ Discourses, Reviews, and Miscellanies.”

Goes to West Indies in November.

January 1. First number of Garrison’s “ Liberator ” appears.

Channing returns from West Indies in May.

Publishes second volume : eleven sermons.

May 25. His mother, Lucy Ellery Channing, dies.

Publishes “ Slavery ” soon after pro-slavery mob.

Preaches and publishes sermon upon War.

Publishes “ The Abolitionists,” an open letter to James G. Birney.

Writes open letter to Henry Clay on Annexation of Texas.

Takes leading part in Faneuil Hall meeting, called to consider murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy.

Delivers and publishes “ Lecture upon War.” .

Heads petition for release of Abner Kneeland.

Delivers “ Self-Culture ” lecture. July 15. Emerson’s Divinity School Address. “Remarks on Slavery Question” : an open letter to Jonathan Phillips criticising Henry Clay. Delivers and publishes “ Elevation of the Laboring Classes ” lectures.

Publishes “ Emancipation.”

May 19. Theodore Parker’s South Boston sermon.

1841. 1842.

1842. 1842.

1842,

CHRONOLOGY xvii

May 30. Channing preaches sermon, ‘“ The Church,” in Philadelphia.

Works published in five volumes ; sixth in 1843.

April 7. His sixty-second birthday. Preaches for the last time at Federal Street.

Publishes “Duty of the Free States,” in two parts.

August 1. Delivers “ Lenox Address” on eighth anniversary of West India emancipation.

October 2. Channing dies at Bennington, Vt.

CHAPTER I THE NEWPORT BOY

CHANNING might well thank God, as he did with much fervor, that he was born in Rhode Island. He was speaking of the beautiful island of that name on which Newport is here built compactly together and there loosely spread out, but he had reason to be further grateful for the good fortune of being born in a State consecrated by memories of Roger Williams and Samuel Gorton to those principles of religious liberty which were the most animating principles of his life. Williams’s doctrine of “soul liberty” was a splendid legacy, not only to the particular denomination from which he passed, after brief tarrying, to a more open fellowship, but to “a free church in a free state” in its now continental breadth. Gorton’s service, though less conspicuous, was perhaps more consistent in its entire expression than Williams’s impulsive and erratic course. Even those historians z

1 John Fiske and Charles Francis Adams. But see an excellent monograph by Lewis G. Janes, Samuell Gorton: A Forgotten Founder of our Liberties ; First Settler of Warwick, R. I. Providence: Preston & Rounds, 1896.

Ss who should have done him full justice have done him less than that, but many who have done better than Gorton have fared worse with those who are the arbiters of fame.

The “beautiful island” of Channing’s devout admiration had its peculiar associations with religious liberty, its first settlers having been Anne Hutchinson and the little company who went outside the camp with her, sharing her honorable reproach. During Channing’s boyhood the natural beauty was not so diversified as it has been of late by the lordly pleasure houses of a summer population; and though Newport had even then its social pride, it was humility compared with the lavish ostentation with which wealth and fashion now disport themselves along the brilliant avenues and in the palatial villas which express and flatter the self-importance of the newly rich. The cliffs and beaches are less purely natural than they were when young Channing revelled in their beauty, but man’s control stops with the ocean’s edge. Unchanged in its sublimity of calm or storm, that gleams and glooms to-day as then, yet to few of the gay throng which drifts seaward on the tidal heat of summer does it speak the language which it had for Channing’s youth and for his latest years, In one respect, Newport and the island round about were never less beautiful than at the time of Channing’s birth. The British occupation had made havoe everywhere, and especially it had denuded the landscape of the woods and trees which had been its special pride. Every growing thing that promised firewood the British had cut down, so that in the winter before Channing’s birth a cord of such wood sold for $20; in good money, I suppose, for in the depreciated currency - of the time that would be too little rather than too much.

The light of poetry, adventure, and romance lies warm on the New England seaport towns; on few, if any, quite so pleasantly as on Newport. The town attracted the most fond regards of Curtis in his “ lotus-eating” days, and from the vantage of his Easy Chair his eye took in its Revolutionary episodes, bright with the red English uniforms and the white and gold of our gay French allies; attractive with the tender fortunes of the Robinson sisters, those Quaker beauties whose chariot set a little world on fire, and distinguished by the presence of Washington and Rochambeau walking up the Long Wharf together to their joint reception in the town. In his “«Oldport Days” Colonel Higginson has harvested more intimate associations, the growth of a protracted residence, out of his treasures bringing things new and old of rival worth. Only to the touchstone that he brought to the old streets and wharves and the vessels rotting at the piers would these things have yielded up their mysteries. Many have lived long with them and never guessed what tales they had to tell.

Before the Revolution the town enjoyed commercial prominence, and already was a wateringplace much prized by Southern planters, who, before their pleasure, had, perhaps, first their business on the wharves, where there were slaves from Africa for such as cared to purchase them for rum or cash. One of the cages in which these slaves were huddled was a visible testimony a short time since, if it is not so still. Three hundred Jewish families in the town were proof of the commercial tone. Many of these had been landed in Newport by the Lisbon earthquake, among them Lopez, a Portuguese Jew, who owned eighty-eight square-riggers, sailing in his foreign trade. No wonder the town boasted bigger mail-bags than New York! Its population in 1774 was 9000, but it fell off 4000 the next year, and must have continued falling off as the war for independence dragged its slow length along. If English and French occupation and the annual Southern visitation did not improve the morals of the town, these circumstances touched its manners to a finer grace, while the seafaring and sailor life of the townfolk made swearing, drinking, and licentiousness of speech and manners so abound as to give the town what was esteemed by many its most characteristic note.

Of hardly any period of Newport’s earlier history have we more vivid information than of that which, from our immediate point of view, had for its main incident Dr. Channing’s birth. The information is furnished by the journal of the Baron du Bourg and the letters of Count Rochambeau,} whose impression of the well-to-do Newporters was that they spent all their time at table. Lafayette had left France for America March 6, 1780, with the good news of an intended fleet and army for the support of the overworn and sometimes despairing revolutionists, and, arriving April 27, he was still on the high seas when William Ellery Channing was born April 7, the third of ten children, nine of whom reached maturity and three? attained

1 See also the diary of Ezra Stiles, who, just after Channing’s birth, made a pastoral visit to his Newport flock, which had not yet formally surrendered him to Yale College. The term of his visit included “ the dark day,” which he describes minutely, and with more of scientific than of superstitious inclination. His description of the devastated town and desecrated church is full of interest. He preached two Sundays, and on the afternoon of the second, May 28th, he baptized the infant son of his friends, William and Lucy Channing.

2 William Ellery ; Walter, a much-valued Boston physician of literary and zsthetic tastes, born 1786 ; Edward Tyrrel, Harvard Professor of Rhetoric, who exerted a profound influence on a generation of writers, sometime editor and often contributor to the North American Review, born 1790. An older brother, Francis, who graduated from Harvard in 1794 and died in 1810, was esteemed by his brothers and friends as the most gifted of the family. William Henry Channing, only son of Francis, published in 1848 the biography of Dr. Channing, which is my richest mine. His own biography, written by O. B. Frothingham, was published in 1886. Born in 1810, he died in 1884. His cousin, ‘“‘ Ellery Channing” (William Ellery), of Concord, a poet of some perfect poems, many noble passages, and a few immortal lines, born 1818, died 1901, was son of Dr. Walter Channing. He was Thoreau’s intimate friend and biographer. Dr. W. E. Channing’s son, William Francis, recently dead, was a man of admirable parts, a distinguished inventor and eager social reformer. His daughter Eva is well known in Boston on educational and other lines. His daughter Grace Ellery Channing-Stetson is a distinguished reputation. J have seen the record of William’s birth, made by his father with quick haste in the family Bible,! with no possible prescience that the name he wrote would be

“ Sweeter than honey to the lips of men.”

The child came of good stock on both sides of the house, being allied on the maternal side with the Cabots, Lees, Jacksons, Lowells; on the paternal with the Gibbs, Ellery, Dana, and Allston families, *“‘the glories of whose blood and state” are not to be despised. The father, William Channing, was the son of John Channing, a Newport merchant, whose fortunes, generally prosperous, at last came to grief. John married the widow Robinson, whose maiden name was Mary Chaloner, and she, after his death, kept a little shop for the maintenance of her family, between one customer and another her bright needles knitting up “the ravelled sleave of care,” her old-fashioned dignity and courtesy combining with her cheerful energy to win for her a sincere, if sometimes amused, respect. Her husband’s father was another poet who has written some very beautiful things. Edward Channing, the present historian and Harvard professor, born 1856, is the youngest son of Ellery Channing, the Concord poet, who married a sister of Margaret Fuller. But I must arbitrarily break off the lengthening roll at the name of Elizabeth P. Channing, a thoughtful essayist, daughter of the Rey. George Channing, who was Dr. Channing’s youngest brother except Edward, and outlived the one hundredth anniversary of the doctor’s birth.

1 Some twenty years since, when I saw it, it was in the possession of Professor W. C. Russell, a nephew of Dr. Channing, at the time acting president of Cornell University.

John Channing, the first American Channing known to the genealogists, who came from Dorsetshire, Eng.,in 1711. On the same vessel with him came Mary Antram. Lither they were mutually pledged when they set out, or the long voyage ‘afforded such conditions for a successful courtship as could hardly be escaped. It is certain that they were married soon after their arrival in Boston. William Channing, Dr. Channing’s father, was born in Newport, June 11, 1751, and graduated from Princeton College, N. J.,in 1769. Reading law in Providence, he began its practice in Newport in 1771, and two years later married Lucy Ellery.t. With much professional ability, his inclination to politics may have done something to qualify his success. A large family had the same effect, and, at his death in 1798, he had done little towards amassing a fortune, or even a competency. Yet he was an official pluralist, being at the same time attorney-general of the State and United States district attorney. His son’s recollections of him were among the pleasantest of his early years. He was so much attached to Princeton, that he thought to send William there, and it is interesting to imagine what a difference for him and many others the hyper-orthodox influences would have made. His character was sincerely

1 At the time of William’s birth, the house occupied by his parents was that which is now 24 School Street, and serves the uses of a Home for Friendless Children. There is a good picture of it in Charles T. Brooks’s Channing: A Centennial Memory.

religious, and he was devoted to the interests of the local Congregational church. He was particularly active in restoring its meeting-house, which the British troops had occupied and wantonly defaced, to the uses of public worship. His religious sentiments were marked by a liberality that was in some degree prophetic of his son’s liberal preéminence. His relations with Dr. Ezra Stiles, at one time his minister, contributed to his mental breadth. Newport was much given to profanity, but the father had for this habit a particular abhorrence. “TI recollect with gratitude,” says William, “the impression he made on my own mind. I owed it to him, that, though living in the atmosphere of this vice, no profane word ever passed my lips.” Genial, though dignified and impressive, his style and manner were described as “ mellifluous” by a professional friend. William nevertheless recalled a burst of indignation so vehement as to drive him from the court-house in a spasm of fear. He was a gentle boy, and unused to seeing his father in his “ Ercles’ vein.” A happier experience was his being present, May 29, 1790, at the Rhode Island convention, which adopted the national Constitution of 1787. He never forgot the enthusiasm of the moment, nor his father’s happiness in the event.! The elder

1 Tt should be remembered that Rhode Island was so tardy in her adoption of the Constitution that she came near to losing the distinction of being one of “ the original thirteen.” Vermont was close upon her heels.

Channing was warmly sympathetic with the earlier stages of the French Revolution, but by the execution of Louis XVI. his hopes were overclouded, not to reémerge. The grandfather, following the local habit of his generation, had domestic slaves, and it was a grief to Dr. Channing’s memory that his father had no sensibility to the evil done. These slaves were set free soon after the Revolutionary war, and Dr. Channing had the pleasure of remembering how kind his father was to them in their “bewildering freedom.” One of the scanty pleasures of the boy’s life was admission to his father’s office when the choir gathered there to practise the Sunday hymns in which the father took great interest. He also held the faith of Bacon, that gardening is the purest of all pleasures. Not content with one garden, he had two, and in these he cultivated a great variety of plants and vegetables, the latter doing much to make his table liberal for his family and the friends to whom he extended a hospitality which was perhaps too generous for his means. For all the benignity of his face and voice, he was too observant of the traditional proprieties to have any real comradeship with his children, and his discipline, if less impulsive than the mother’s, was not less severe.

The mother’s father, William Ellery,! was a man of more engaging qualities. Born in 1727, he

1 See Life by Edward Tyrrel Channing in Sparks’s American Biographies.

made an early marriage with Ann Remington, of Cambridge, Mass., a woman who looked well to the ways of her house, and was cheerfully devoted to her husband’s and her children’s happiness. She died in 1764, while the older of the children were still young, and for more than-fifty years her husband kept her memory green in reverent loneliness. In the first years of his married life his habits were convivial, but he at once mended them when he found that his wife had recorded in her almanac her tender gratitude for an evening he had spent at home. There could have been little virulence in a disease that could be cured by a remedy so simple, taken once for all. He wrote a brief autobiography which is remarkable for its blended self-esteem and careful modesty. Looking back over his life, he found that he had been “a dabbler” when he might have been a skilful physician or attorney. He wrote, —

I have been a clerk of a court, a quack lawyer, a member of Congress, one of the lords of the admiralty, a judge, a loan officer, and finally a collector of the customs, and thus, not without many difficulties, but as honestly, thank God, as most men, I have got through the journey of a varied and sometimes anxious life.

His commercial prospects were ruined by the embarrassments growing out of British trade restrictions. In 1770 he began the practice of the law, and simultaneously he became one of the most ardent of the “Sons of Liberty,” and of “those active spirits who were preparing themselves and the people for a separation from the mother country.” So distinguished was the part he played upon this memorable scene, that he was sent, with Stephen Hopkins, of more venerable fame, to represent Rhode Island in the Congress which, on July 2, 1776, resolved upon the independence of the colonies, and two days later gave the reasons for their actions in a declaration, which, after a century and more of good repute, has recently excited the suspicions of our progressive politicians and divines. Eight years in Congress secured him a delightful intimacy with influential men, and his wit and raillery endeared him to them and many others as a companion to be greatly prized. Yet there seems to be a defect of humor in some of the comments that he makes on his own character. For example, —

His very kindness and gentleness had none of the inertness of mere good temper, but were animated by an active cherished principle of love, which discrimi- ‘nated its objects, and was all alive for the happiness of others.

All this may have been well deserved, but it would have come with better grace from some other person. So, too, the testimony to the honesty and fairness of his mind as the great distinction of his character, and its most satisfactory explanation. Yet these qualities were recognized by the grandson who bore his name as unquestionably real, and the correspondence of the two men, continued till past Channing’s middle life, was always valued by Channing as a means of better insight into the deep things of morals and religion. Mr. Ellery lived to be ninety-two years old, a venerated friend and citizen, dying in 1820 in the town where he was born.

His daughter, Lucy, Channing’s mother, was a little woman, destined in this respect to set the seal of her physical character upon her son. Her face, as painted by Allston,! is also much like his, but with a difference, being hard and cold where his was mild and luminous. The engraver may have been unfaithful to the artist, or the artist to his subject. She made the most of her inches by her erect carriage and elastic motion. Her mind was quick and versatile, and her speech had a touch of Saxon simplicity and quaintness which made her formidable to pretenders and to evildoers. The “rough nobleness” ascribed to her by her nephew, William Henry Channing, was, I infer, sometimes conspicuously rough. Hers was not, he says, a tranquil temperament, and to smooth its ruffled waters was an office to which her more placid husband was frequently called. < Don’t trouble yourself, Lucy ; I will make all smooth,” was a familiar household note. Without his help and with the increasing care and worry that his death involved, her temper possibly took on a sharper edge. Whatever the necessary qualifications, she was a woman of the most generous impulses, and the most loving heart. Her son’s trib-

1 See Brooks’s Channing: A Centennial Memory.

ute to her worth was written when he had made full proof of her goodness. She lived to see him past his fiftieth year, and attaining to the full measure of his power, though hardly to the consummation of his fame.

’ The most remarkable trait in my mother’s character was the rectitude and simplicity of her mind. Perhaps I have never known her equal in this respect. She was true in thought, word, and life. She had the firmness to see the truth, to speak it, to act upon it. She was direct in judgment and conversation, and in my long intercourse with her I cannot recall one word or action betraying the slightest insincerity. She had keen insight into character. She was not to be imposed upon by others, and, what is rarer, she practised no imposition upon her own mind. She saw things, persons, events, as they were, and spoke of them by their right names. Her partialities did not blind her, even to her children. Her love was without illusion. She recognized, unerringly and with delight, fairness, honesty, genuine uprightness, and shrunk as by instinct from everything specious, the factitious in character, and plausible in manners.

It was a fortunate circumstance that the child who lived to bear this witness did not in one particular — the body’s health — make good the Wordsworthian doctrine; he was not father of the man. There was no likeness of the chronic invalid of his majority in the glowing health and active motions of the boy, or in the young man’s sprightly vigor and athletic grace. Had it been otherwise, his childhood would have been a greater burden than he could bear. The boon of health was certainly an alleviation of that childhood’s conscious weight. But he looked back upon no happy childhood from the summit of his later years. He said repeatedly that his childhood was the least happy period of his life, and that, as he had grown older, each year had been happier than the last. Possibly, and probably, there was some shadow falling backward here from the experience of his later prime. The sober fact was, however, sufficiently deplorable. He was not a happy boy because his parents, doing their duty by him in the most conscientious manner, were not affable and friendly with him, gave him a stony formalism when he craved spontaneous affection, were of the opinion that he should be seen and not heard, and that he should know his place. Then, too, there was the burden of the inherited theology and the cheerless piety of the New England Puritan early to solemnize his tremulous heart. Wholly believing what his elders only partly believed, how could the child be gay? Besides, his early schooling was of no pleasant kind. But the main fact at this stage of his development was that he was a young idealist, and.“ wanted better bread than could be made of wheat.” He found it hard to meet the requirements of the parental rule, and those, more exigent, of his own sensitive conscience.