“pretensions to absolute science quite premature; saw more boastfulness than wisdom in ancient and modern schemes of philosophy; and was not a little amused at the complacent confidence with which quite evidently fallible theorists assumed to stand at the centre, and to scan and depict the panorama of existence.” “The transcendentalists,” he tells James Martineau in 1841, “in identifying themselves a good deal with Cousin’s crude system, have lost the life of an original movement.” In this last sentence Dr. Channing not only anticipated history but also uttered a prophecy. But how about a philosophy whose mission it is to maintain all the great truths for which he so eloquently and manfully fought? How about a conception of Christianity which places itself in evident relations with human nature and the history of the universe?—a religion which finds its sanctuary in man’s soul, and aims at the elevation of his finite reason to its archetype and its transformation into the Infinite Reason?
Unitarianism in New England owes its existence to the supposition that Calvinism is a true and genuine interpretation of Christianity. “Total depravity,” “election,” “reprobation,” “atonement,” etc., followed, it was fancied, each other logically, and there was no denying one without the denial of all. And as it was supposed that these doctrines found their support in the divinity of Christ, and in order to bring to ruin the superstructure they aimed at upsetting its base by the denial of the divinity of Christ. They had grown to detest so heartily the “five points” of Calvinism that they preferred rather to be pagans than suckled in such a creed.
Is it probable, is it reasonable to suppose that our New Englanders, who have a strong vein of earnest religious feeling in their nature, would have gone across the ocean to find a support for the great truths which they were so enthusiastic in affirming among the will-o’-the-wisps of the realms of thought, when at their very doors was “the church which has revealed more completely man to himself, taken possession of his inclinations, of his lasting and universal convictions, laid bare to the light those ancient foundations, has cleansed them from every stain, from every alien mixture, and honored them by recognizing their impress of the Divinity?”
But Mr. Frothingham tells us: “The religion of New England was Protestant and of the most intellectual type. Romanism had no hold on the thinking people of Boston. None besides the Irish laboring and menial classes were Catholics, and their religion was regarded as the lowest form of ceremonial superstition” (p. 107); and almost in the same breath he informs his readers that “the Unitarians of New England were good scholars, accomplished men of letters, humane in sentiment and sincere and moral in intention” (p. 110). Is Octavius Brooks Frothingham acquainted with all “the ceremonial superstitions” upon this earth, and does he honestly believe that the Catholic religion is “the lowest form” of them all? Or—what is the same thing—does he think that the “good scholars and accomplished men of letters” of New England thought so? Perhaps such was his received impression, but that it was common to this class of men we stoutly deny. No one stood higher among them than Dr. Channing, and his estimate of the Catholic religion was certainly
not the same as Mr. Frothingham’s. It would be difficult to find in a non-Catholic writer a higher appreciation of her services to humanity, and more eloquent descriptions of certain aspects of the Catholic Church, than may be found in his writings. Mr. Frothingham ought to know this, and only the limits of our article hinder us from citing several of these. Is he aware that President John Adams headed the subscription-list to build the first Catholic church in Boston. Our author, by his prejudices, his lack of insight, and limited information, does injustice to the New England people, depreciates the intelligence and honesty of the leaders in Unitarianism, and fails to grasp the deep significance of the transcendental movement.
He does injustice to the people of Boston especially, who, when they heard of the death of the saintly Bishop Cheverus, tolled the bells of the churches of their city to show in what veneration they held his memory; and if he was not of the age to have listened, he must have read the eloquent and appreciative eulogium preached by Dr. Channing on this great and good man. And Bishop Cheverus was the guide and teacher of the religion of the Irish people of Boston!
Mr. Frothingham will not attempt to make a distinction between the “Catholic religion” and “the religion of the Irish menial and laboring classes”—a subterfuge of which no man of intelligence and integrity would be guilty. The Irish people—be it said to their glory—have from the beginning of their conversion to Christianity kept the pure light of Catholic faith unsullied by any admixture of heresy, and have remained firm in their obedience to the divine authority of the
holy church, in spite of the tyranny, of the bitterest persecution of its enemies, and all their efforts of bribery or any worldly inducements which they might hold out. When our searchers after true religion shall have exhausted by their long and weary studies Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Svenalis, Plato, Epictetus, Brahma, Buddha, Confucius, Mahomet, and any other notable inventor of philosophy or religion; when they have gathered up all the truths scattered among the different heresies in religion since the Christian era, the end of all their labors will only make this truth the plainer: that the Catholic Church resumes the authority of all religions from the beginning of the world, affirms the traditions and convictions of the whole human race, and unites, co-ordinates, and binds together all the scattered truths contained in every religious system in an absolute, universal, divine synthesis.
[147] Transcendentalism in New England. A History. By Octavius Brooks Frothingham. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1876.