“La Religione e la Filosofia comandare l’una e l’altra energico volere, e giudizio pacato, e senza queste unite condizioni non esservi nè giustizia, nè dignità, nè principii securi.”
Silvio Pellico.—“Le mie prigioni.”
This being Sabbath, and the last day of my stay in Boston, I went to the “first Unitarian church” to hear Dr. Channing, a gentleman of wide-spread reputation in America, and of late considerably known also in England. He is considered the prophet of Unitarianism in the United States, and I am not disposed to derogate from his reputation. He has undoubtedly contributed much to the popularity of the sect in Boston, and to its spreading in several parts of the Union, where a large portion of the population consists of New-Englanders.
I once heard a clever man assert, that the world stood in expectation of a great man who should unite the three principal creeds, Christianism, Judaism, and Islamism, into one, and thus bring unity and concord among the different believers in one God. Whether such a man would have to clothe his doctrines in pious mysticism, in order to affect the heart as well as the mind, and to embrace all the peculiarities of these creeds, he did not say; but, since I have heard Dr. Channing, I am inclined to think that he is the man, and that he intends to solve the grand problem by philosophical analysis. It is possible, namely, instead of inventing a form which shall contain each of these creeds as a co-ordinate part, to make use of the dissecting-knife in order to cut off all that is not perfectly homogeneous: the remaining trunks, with their “sublime moral,” would then so little differ from one another, that the one might be safely substituted for the other, and vice versâ. How much the world would gain by such a simplification, I leave political economists and female philosophers to judge, who perhaps are best able to appreciate the advantages and beauty of such a system.
The sermon I heard was one of the doctor’s best. It was “on the character of Christ,” and I must do him the justice to say that he handled his subject with great skill. It was a perfect epopee—almost equal to the Henriade, only that it was in prose. The effect on the audience was electric. Instead of the ladies fanning themselves, and the gentlemen sleeping as they are wont to do at this season of the year, they all looked “at the doctor,” and at each other, as if doubting the reality of so extraordinary an effort. I expected at every moment a public manifestation of their feelings, but was disappointed; for hardly had he finished, and a psalm been sung by the choir, before his hearers—who, I was told, were composed of the “genteelest” and “most fashionable part of the community”—left church with that peculiar English propriety and undisturbed countenance, which would have led an European from the Continent to suppose they had never been affected.
It is usual in Boston to make sermons a peculiar branch of literature, and to discuss them in lieu of other literary matter at dinner or tea, especially on Sundays. This practice, by which many an European has undoubtedly been edified, I was to-day doomed to become a victim of, in a very nice family. I took tea at a gentleman’s house, who, though he had seen a good deal of the world, thought it nevertheless prudent to conform to the customs of society; especially as he had grown-up daughters, whose prospects in life might have suffered from an open confession of the liberality of his principles. Having arrived at the conviction that religion is absolutely necessary to the moral and political well-being of the community, and that it is a powerful means of repressing the vices and passions of the multitude, he espoused, on his return to America, that creed which most nearly approached his mode of thinking, and put the least restraint on his habits. His family were inclined towards orthodoxy; but, the father worshipping at an Unitarian church, the daughters followed his example, and listened to the eloquent discourses of Dr. Channing.
Scarcely had I entered the room, and, in the good New England fashion, bowed separately to all the ladies, and shaken each of the gentlemen present by the hand, before the eldest daughter—a beautiful dark-eyed girl, with black hair and ruby lips—addressed me in the most solemn manner in these terms:—
“Well, Mr. ***, whom did you hear to-day?”[13]
“I heard Dr. Channing,” replied I.
“Were you not delighted?”