Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 1 (of 3)

BOSTON: HORACE B. FULLER, (Successor to Walker, Fuller, and Company,) 245, WASHINGTON STREET. 1867. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by THEODORE PARKER, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

TO FRANCIS JACKSON, THE FOE 'GAINST EVERY FORM OF WRONG, THE FRIEND OF JUSTICE, WHOSE WIDE HUMANITY CONTENDS FOR WOMAN'S NATURAL AND UNALIENABLE RIGHT; AGAINST HIS NATION'S CRUELTY PROTECTS THE SLAVE; IN THE CRIMINAL BEHOLDS A BROTHER TO BE REFORMED; GOES TO MEN FALLEN AMONG THIEVES,— WHOM PRIESTS AND LEVITES SACRAMENTALLY PASS BY,— AND SEEKS TO SOOTHE AND HEAL AND BLESS THEM THAT ARE READY TO PERISH: WITH ADMIRATION FOR HIS UNSURPASSED INTEGRITY, HIS COURAGE WHICH NOTHING SCARES, AND HIS TRUE RELIGION THAT WOULD BRING PEACE ON EARTH AND GOOD-WILL TO MAN, THESE VOLUMES ARE THANKFULLY DEDICATED BY HIS MINISTER AND FRIEND, THEODORE PARKER.

I have collected in these volumes several Speeches, Addresses and occasional Sermons, which I have delivered at various times during the last seven years. Most of them were prepared for some special emergency: only two papers, that on The Relation of Jesus to his Age and the Ages, and that on Immortal Life, were written without reference to some such emergency. All of them have been printed before, excepting the sermon Of General Taylor, and the address on The American Scholar; some have been several times reprinted. I do not know that they are worthy of republication in this permanent form, but the leading ideas of these volumes are very dear to me, and are sure to live as long as the human race shall continue. So I have published a small edition, hoping that the truths which I know are contained in these pages will do a service long after the writer, and the occasion of their utterance, have passed off and been forgot. I offer them to whom they may concern.
THEODORE PARKER. August 24, 1851.


In all the world there is nothing so remarkable as a great man; nothing so rare; nothing which so well repays study. Human nature is loyal at its heart, and is, always and everywhere, looking for this its true earthly sovereign. We sometimes say that our institutions, here in America, do not require great men; that we get along better without than with such. But let a real, great man light on our quarter of the planet; let us understand him, and straightway these democratic hearts of ours burn with admiration and with love. We wave in his words, like corn in the harvest wind. We should rejoice to obey him, for he would speak what we need to hear. Men are always half expecting such a man. But when he comes, the real, great man that God has been preparing,—men are disappointed; they do not recognize him. He does not enter the city through the gates which expectants had crowded. He is a fresh fact, brand new; not exactly like any former fact. Therefore men do not recognize nor acknowledge him. His language is strange, and his form unusual. He looks revolutionary, and pulls down ancient walls to build his own temple, or, at least, splits old rocks asunder, and quarries anew fresh granite and marble.