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A Discourse Occasioned by the Death of John Quincy Adams; Delivered at the Melodeon in Boston, March 5, 1848
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1848. Excerpt: ... mic ellipses above our heads. It need not be disguised, that Politics are the highest business for men of this class, nor that a great statesman or legislator is the greatest example of constructive skill. It requires some ability to manage the brute forces of Nature, or to combine profitably nine and thirty clerks in a shop: how much more to arrange twenty millions of intelligent, free men, not for a special purpose, but for all the ends of universal life! Such is the second class of great men--the Organizers; men of constructive heads, who form the institutions of the world, the little and the great. The next class consists of men who Administer the institutions after they are founded. To do this effectually and even eminently, it requires no genius for original organization of truths freshly discovered, none for the discovery of truths, outright. It requires only a perception of those truths, and an acquaintance with the institutions wherein they have become incarnate; a knowledge of details, of formulas, and practical methods, united with a strong will and a practised understanding, --what is called a turn for affairs, tact, or address; a knowledge of routine and an acquaintance with men. The success of such men will depend on these qualities; they "know the ropes" and the soundings, the signs of the times; can take advantage of the winds and the tides. In a shop, farm, ship, factory, or army, in a church or a state, such men are valuable; they cannot be dispensed with; they are wheels to the carriage; without them cannot a city be inhabited. They are always more numerous than both the other classes; more such are needed, and therefore born; the American mind, just now, runs eminently in this direction. These are not men of theories, or of new modes of...
42 pages, Paperback
First published May 13, 2010
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About the author
Theodore Parker
711 books16 followersTheodore Parker was an energetic, ambitious man who devoted himself to a life of scholarship, preaching, and social action. Although he remained a minister through his career, he was also perhaps the most theologically and socially active transcendentalist. It was not nature but the nature of man which absorbed his vast energies.
Theodore Parker was born into a large family of a reading farmer, and was an early voracious reader, writing and memorizing poetry. At 17 he taught school for four years, then enrolled at Harvard, finishing his work but not receiving a degree because he had been unable to pay his fees (although he would receive an honorary master's degree later). After a year in Boston, listening to Dr. Lyman Beecher and disagreeing with his Calvinism, he opened his own school in Watertown for two years. There he was introduced to transcendentalist thought through his friend, the Unitarian minister Convers Francis. He married another teacher, Lydia Cabot, and began writing a criticism of the New Testament, hoping someday to become dean of the Harvard Divinity School, which he began attending in 1834.
He was one of the few Divinity School graduates of his time to stay in the ministry, although he was often critical of the Unitarians. He studied languages intensely, aiming to be a first tier scholar, and he edited and contributed to the Scriptural Interpreter, beginning what would be a long series of theological battles. One article, on "How Ought the Bible to be Read," spelled out four necessities: "to read with reason,, "with a consciousness of its antiquity," "with an awareness of the varying authors," and "with a feeling and sympathy for the nature of the work." (Albrecht, p. 26). His first major scholarly project was a translation of Wilhelm M. L. De Wette's Einleitung in Das Alte Testament, written as he preached in small town churches until he was accepted in West Roxbury at the Spring Street Church. He joined the struggle within the Unitarians, trying to move it from its Calvinist roots toward transcendentalism, a battle not won within his relatively short lifetime and one that left him alienated from his fellow ministers and bitter. He would never be an original thinker, but he was an excellent scholar, presenting the ideas of others that he had adopted.
As the other transcendentalists, Parker's writing in The Dial and Brownson's Boston Quarterly Review came directly from other work--his lectures and sermons. A Discourse of Religion was presented first as lectures; as always, he attacked the separation of religion and life, arguing "the principle that religion proceeds from the spiritual wants and needs of man, from his soul which is the religious faculty . . . . The religious element is part of man's nature as are the body, the understanding, the affections, and the moral sense; but it is deeper than these." (Albrecht, p. 53).
In 1843, funded by a friend, Parker went to Europe for a year. During this time his interests moved from from theology to social reform. In 1845 he began to preach regularly in Boston to groups at the Melodeon, but his hope of reforming Unitarians as Dr. William Henry Channing had was not successful. He became minister of the very large Twenty-eight Congregational Society, and lecture often--he delivered 98 lectures in the winter of 1855, and he edited the Massachusetts Quarterly Review. He argued strongly against the Mexican War and for abolition of slavery, and was especially interested in problems of poverty and crime, yet he also attacked the flawed ethics and moral responsibility of the merchant class.
In the 1850s, with the passing of the Fugitive Slave Law, Parker turned much of his energy to the cause of abolition, hiding fugitive slaves in his home and being tried for obstructing the return of the kidnapped slave Anthony Burns. His sermons in the final two years of his life were his best, encapsulating 20 years of thinking, writing, and preaching, though his effor
Theodore Parker was born into a large family of a reading farmer, and was an early voracious reader, writing and memorizing poetry. At 17 he taught school for four years, then enrolled at Harvard, finishing his work but not receiving a degree because he had been unable to pay his fees (although he would receive an honorary master's degree later). After a year in Boston, listening to Dr. Lyman Beecher and disagreeing with his Calvinism, he opened his own school in Watertown for two years. There he was introduced to transcendentalist thought through his friend, the Unitarian minister Convers Francis. He married another teacher, Lydia Cabot, and began writing a criticism of the New Testament, hoping someday to become dean of the Harvard Divinity School, which he began attending in 1834.
He was one of the few Divinity School graduates of his time to stay in the ministry, although he was often critical of the Unitarians. He studied languages intensely, aiming to be a first tier scholar, and he edited and contributed to the Scriptural Interpreter, beginning what would be a long series of theological battles. One article, on "How Ought the Bible to be Read," spelled out four necessities: "to read with reason,, "with a consciousness of its antiquity," "with an awareness of the varying authors," and "with a feeling and sympathy for the nature of the work." (Albrecht, p. 26). His first major scholarly project was a translation of Wilhelm M. L. De Wette's Einleitung in Das Alte Testament, written as he preached in small town churches until he was accepted in West Roxbury at the Spring Street Church. He joined the struggle within the Unitarians, trying to move it from its Calvinist roots toward transcendentalism, a battle not won within his relatively short lifetime and one that left him alienated from his fellow ministers and bitter. He would never be an original thinker, but he was an excellent scholar, presenting the ideas of others that he had adopted.
As the other transcendentalists, Parker's writing in The Dial and Brownson's Boston Quarterly Review came directly from other work--his lectures and sermons. A Discourse of Religion was presented first as lectures; as always, he attacked the separation of religion and life, arguing "the principle that religion proceeds from the spiritual wants and needs of man, from his soul which is the religious faculty . . . . The religious element is part of man's nature as are the body, the understanding, the affections, and the moral sense; but it is deeper than these." (Albrecht, p. 53).
In 1843, funded by a friend, Parker went to Europe for a year. During this time his interests moved from from theology to social reform. In 1845 he began to preach regularly in Boston to groups at the Melodeon, but his hope of reforming Unitarians as Dr. William Henry Channing had was not successful. He became minister of the very large Twenty-eight Congregational Society, and lecture often--he delivered 98 lectures in the winter of 1855, and he edited the Massachusetts Quarterly Review. He argued strongly against the Mexican War and for abolition of slavery, and was especially interested in problems of poverty and crime, yet he also attacked the flawed ethics and moral responsibility of the merchant class.
In the 1850s, with the passing of the Fugitive Slave Law, Parker turned much of his energy to the cause of abolition, hiding fugitive slaves in his home and being tried for obstructing the return of the kidnapped slave Anthony Burns. His sermons in the final two years of his life were his best, encapsulating 20 years of thinking, writing, and preaching, though his effor
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July 8, 2012
Old and awesome. Read it read it read it here - http://books.google.com/books?id=mD8v...
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