Thou ring upon my finger,
My little golden ring,
Against my fond bosom I press thee,
And to thee my fond lips cling.
Translation of Charles Harvey Genung.
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
(1780-1842)
r. Channing, the recognized leader although not the originator of the Unitarian movement in this country, was a man of singular spirituality, sweetness of disposition, purity of life, and nobility of character. He was thought by some to be austere and cold in temperament, and timid in action; but this was rather a misconception of a life given to conscientious study, and an effort to allow due weight to opposing arguments. He was not liable to be swept from his moorings by momentary enthusiasm. As a writer he was clear and direct, admirably perspicuous in style, without great ornament, much addicted to short and simple sentences, though singularly enough an admirer of those which were long and involved. A critic in Fraser's Magazine wrote of him:—"Channing is unquestionably the first writer of the age. From his writings may be extracted some of the richest poetry and richest conceptions, clothed in language—unfortunately for our literature—too little studied in the day in which we live."
William E. Channing
He was of "blue blood,"—the grandson of William Ellery, one of the signers of the Declaration,—and was born at Newport, Rhode Island, April 7th, 1780. He was graduated at Harvard College with high honors in 1798, and first thought of studying medicine, but was inclined to the direction of the ministry. He became a private tutor in Richmond, Virginia, where he learned to detest slavery. Here he laid the seeds of subsequent physical troubles by imprudent indulgence in asceticism, in a desire to avoid effeminacy. He entered upon the study of theology, which he continued in Cambridge; he was ordained in 1803, and soon became pastor of the Federal Street Church in Boston, in charge of which society he passed his ministerial life. In the following year he was associated with Buckminster and others in the liberal Congregational movement, and this led him into a position of controversy with his orthodox brethren,—one he cordially disliked. But he could not refrain from preaching the doctrines of the dignity of human nature, the supremacy of reason, and religious freedom, of whose truth he was profoundly assured.