CHAPTER VI.

Unitarian Preaching.—Doctor Channing.—Character of his Audience.—Religious Party on the Sabbath.—Discussion ofDr.Channing’s Merits.—Moral Cant.—General Characteristic of New England Society.—Women the only Aristocracy.

“Love, and meekness, lord,Become a churchman better than ambition.”

King Henry VIII.Act v. Scene 2.

“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 hearDr.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 heardDr.Channing, I am inclined to think that he is the man, and that he intends to solve the grand problem by philosophicalanalysis. 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, andvice 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 theHenriade, 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 “mostfashionablepart 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, ina very nice family. I took tea at a gentleman’s house, who, though he had seen a good deal of the world, thought it neverthelessprudentto 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 themoral and politicalwell-being of the community, and that it is a powerful means of repressing the vices and passions of themultitude, 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 ofDr.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 heardDr.Channing,” replied I.

“Were you not delighted?”

I somewhat hesitated for an answer.

“It was certainly a great effort,” said the gentleman, observing my embarrassment.

“But is he not a charming preacher?—I mean, is not hisstylebeautiful?” demanded the girl.

“It isglorious, glorious, glorious!” echoed the women.

“And the doctor is not only one of our greatest preachers, but also one of our first literary characters,” resumed the young lady. “He has written an excellent sermon against General Jackson, and a most glorious article against Napoleon in the North American Review.”

“Is he also a politician?” demanded I.

“Yes, sir, and a mostgloriousone; he wrote against the tariff, and of late also against slavery.”

“Why did he not write sooner against it?”

“Because he waited for the proper time, just after the subject had been taken up in England.”

“Are you an abolitionist, Miss ***?”

“I was taught never to speak of it,” said the girl, blushing. “It is a question in whichwe dare not act, as we are told by our minister.”

“For G—d’s sake!” cried the old gentleman; “let us not havebobolition. Those blackguards are already stirring up the country in every direction, and will not be satisfied until they will have produced a separation of the Union. I thinkDr.Channing had better turn his wits to something else.”

“But what induced him to preach against General Jackson?” demanded I.

“Because General Jackson was very nigh involving the country in a war with France, andDr.Channing is opposed to war, on account of its wickedness. It completely obscures ‘moral grandeur,’ and sets a high premium on the lower qualities of the mind, such as courage, patriotism, and the like. He is in general opposed to ‘military greatness,’ and is just as severe on Napoleon, Nelson, Wellington, and Jackson, as Pope was upon women; only he is not quite so satirical,” observed the old gentleman. “He thinks those men will have ‘a very low standing’ in the other world. Isn’t it so, my child?”

“Precisely so, father;Dr.Channing always speaks of Napoleon as of ‘the miscalled great man.’”

“Then the French were right in calling himlePETITcaporal.”

“Why, the doctor calls Napoleon only athird-rate man!”

“Then, I assure you, he has been sinking the bathos in a professional manner. Such a speech might have beenpiquantsome twenty-five or thirty years ago at a nobleman’s table; but no one can venture on it now without betraying the most profound ignorance of history, and the most ridiculous conceit at the same time. None but great men do great things; the saying and writing them is left to inferior minds, and often to mere scribblers. Napoleon tamed the revolution, he changed its corrosive nature; which alone ought to have entitled him to the respect of the Tories.”

“It is the misfortune of our people,” continued the old gentleman, “that they cram everything under the head of morality. Morality is the cant and crack word of the place. If you go to our fashionable churches, you will hear the fashionable clergyman preach ‘morality;’ if you visit a private gentleman’s house, he is sure to entertain you with ‘morality;’ if you attend a public meeting, the ‘moral’ speaker will address his ‘moral’ fellow-citizens on the subject of‘public morals;’ if you listen to the partisan harangues of our professional politicians, they will conjure the people ‘in the name of morality’ to outvote the profligate antagonist faction, &c. Morality seems to be the great lever of society; the difficulty only consists in finding its fulcrum.”

“I believeDr.Channing is very popular in England,” observed one of the visiters.

“Among the Unitarians at least,” replied the master of the house; “but the assertion of some of his friends here, that he is the best English writer now living, is, I can assure you, wholly gratuitous. We are apt to overdo things on this side of the Atlantic, and are either too lavishing in our praise or too severe in our censure. We always deal in superlatives, even in common conversation; which is the surest sign of our imagination being void of images. Everything with us is ‘most beautiful,’ ‘most sublime,’ ‘most glorious,’ from a turnip up to our ministers, lawyers, and statesmen; so that, on occasions when we are really moved, we have no other terms to express our feelings than those whose signification is already worn out by common use.

“As regardsDr.Channing’s merits as anauthor, no one can deny, I believe, that he is a correct and tasteful writer, though by no means a powerful one. There is throughout his productions a visible want of originality and strength, which a skilful rhetoric and a nice selection of terms are incapable of concealing even from ordinary readers. His ideas are less striking than the garb in which they are dressed, and remind one constantly of some pretty little miniature painting, in which the artist is more successful in the drapery than in the face. In addition to this, he is, like all New-Englanders, prone to argument, and in the course of it but too frequently betrays the want of logic and sound scholarship.

“This is most apparent in his little pamphlet on Slavery, and the annexation of Texas. He there ventured on a subject in which the popular feeling was already in his favour, and yet did not set forth a single new idea capable of adding strength to his cause. He merely reiterated, and dressed in new garbs, the general argument against slavery, used by European writers nearly a hundred years ago; and, in so doing, but followed the example of hundreds of his countrymen, who did the same thing at a time when it was dangerous to advance such doctrines in America. Inaturally expected to see the subject treated, not in the English manner, but applied to the condition of the Southern States. I thought he would allude to the forlorn condition of thefreenegroes at the North, and propose some means of elevating their character, in order gradually to prepare them for a rational state of freedom. I thought he would reproach his own fellow-citizens for refusing negro children to be educated at our public schools, for excluding them from our churches, our theatres, our public houses, our stage-coaches, and even our burying-grounds! And yet it is evident that, as long as the feelings of our Northern population do not change with regard to the negroes, emancipation can do them no good; for, while it gives them liberty, it prevents them from becoming respectable,—it takes away the master’s whip in order to transfer the slave to the pillory and the gallows.

“I expectedDr.Channing to propose a scheme for gradually emancipating the negroes, without absolutely ruining the planters; but, instead of all this, he contented himself with declaiming against slavery in the abstract, and in appealing to thepoliticalprejudices of the Northern people.”

“But,” objected one of the gentlemen, “Dr.Channing, in his pamphlet on Slavery, and in his ‘Letter to Henry Clay, on the annexation of Texas,’ says that he is aware that these publications will make him unpopular with a large portion of his readers; but that he is prepared to meet their disapprobation, rather than omit to do his duty.”

“Oh! that’s nothing,” rejoined the master of the house, “but a display of courage in times of peace. Let him preach the same doctrines to the Southerners, or, as I said before, allude to the forlorn condition of the free negroes amongst ourselves, and I will believe in his moral fortitude. Many a clergyman in the United States has exposed himself to being mobbed, and someweremobbed, for daring to preach whatDr.Channing published with the greatest possible security in Boston; and yet those men earned no reputation for their martyrdom.”

“Neither did these men employ the proper means for abolishing slavery; they preached revolt.”

“AndDr.Channing,” resumed the old gentleman, “the doctrine of political equality. He pressed the subject of slavery on his Northern brethren, not with the calm, impressive voiceof an apostle of Christianity,[14]but with the malice of a political demagogue, jealous of the mental superiority of the South. Riches he neither condemns nor despises; but he is inexorable on the subject of leisure, which enables the Southern planters to be gentlemen and professional politicians. Here” (pointing to a little pamphlet lying on the table) “is the best proof of his sincerity and courage. See what he says of the South and North in his Letter to Henry Clay. If the company will allow me, I will read the passage. It is worth perusing, as it contains an illustration of the character of our leading people.

“‘I now proceed,’ saysDr.Channing, ‘to another important argument against the annexation of Texas to our country,—the argument drawn from the bearings of the measure on our national Union. Next to liberty, union is our great political interest; and this cannot but be loosened—it may be dissolved—by the proposed extension of our territory. I will not say thateveryextension must be pernicious; that our government cannot hold together even our present confederacy; that the central heart (?) cannot send its influences to the remote states which are to springup within our present borders. Old theories must be cautiously applied to this country. If the federal government will abstain fromminutelegislation, and rigidly confine itself within constitutional bounds, it may be a bond of union to more extensive communities than were ever comprehended under one sway.’

“Capital logic, this!” exclaimed one of the visiters. “Do not pretend to rule, and you will sway over extensive communities. And what does he mean byminutelegislation? What do the Southerners claim but non-interference with their internal regulations? and yet, whileDr.Channing preaches the same doctrine, he stirs up a question which, sooner or later, must interfere with the sovereignty of the States.”

“This is not all,” replied the old gentleman: “he contradicts himself every third or fourth line, preaching union on one hand, and the dissolution of it on the other. Let me read to you another passage.

“‘Undoubtedly there is peril in extending ourselves; and yet the chief benefit of the Union, which is the preservation of peaceful relations among neighbouring states, is so vast that some risk should be taken to secure it in the greatest possible degree. The objection to the annexation of Texas, drawn from the unwieldiness it would give to the country, though very serious, is not decisive. A far more serious objectionis, that it should be annexed to us for the avowed purpose of multiplying slave-holding States, and thus givingPOLITICAL POWER.Thiscannot, ought not to be borne. It willjustify, it will at lengthDEMANDa separation of the States.’”

“Did I not always tell you,” interrupted the same visitor, “that the doctrine of nullification originated in Massachusetts? This is but a repetition of sentiments expressed here more than twenty years ago. But we change opinions according to circumstances.”

“Hear on!” cried the master of the house. “You interrupted me in the best part of Channing’s letter.

“‘We maintain,’ he says, ‘that this policy is altogether without reason on the part of the South. The South has exerted, and cannot help exerting, a disproportionate share of influence on the confederacy. The slave-holding States have already advantages of co-operation, and for swaying the country, which the others do not possess.The free States have no common interest like slavery to hold them together.They differ in character, feelings, and pursuits. They agree but on one point, and that a negative one,—the absence of slavery; and this distinction, as is well known, makes no lively impression on the consciousness, and in no degree counteracts the influences which divide them from one another. To this may be added the well-known fact, that in the free States the subject ofpolitics is of secondary importance, whilst in the South it is paramount. In the North, every man must toil for subsistence; and, amidst the feverish competitions and anxieties of the eager and universal pursuit of gain, political power is sought with little comparative avidity.In some districts it is hard to find fit representatives for Congress, so backward aresuperior mento forego the emoluments of their vocation,—the prospect of independence,—for the uncertainties of public life.’”

“Under such circumstances,” interrupted I, “and with such an exalted patriotism on the part of yoursuperiormen in the North, the American people ought to be glad to find Southern legislators in Congress; else their senate and house of representatives would contain nothing but men of straw.”

“It is precisely that mental aristocracy of the South which our people dislike the most,” responded the old gentleman. “They cannot pardon elegant manners and superior education. But hear what parallelDr.Channing draws between the South and North.

“‘What contrast does the South form with the divided and slumbering North! There, one strong broad distinction exists, of which all the members of the community have a perfect consciousness; there a peculiar element is found, which spreads its influencethrough the mass, and impresses itself on the whole constitution of society. Nothing decides the character of a people more than the form and determination of labour. Hence we find a unity in the South unknown in the North. In the South, too, the proprietors, released from the necessity of labour, and having little of the machinery of association to engage their attention, devote themselves to politics with a concentration of zeal which a Northerner can only comprehend by being on the spot.Hence the South has professional politicians, a character hardly known in the free States.’

“You hear,” cried the reader, “ourpoliticians are meredilettanti.

“‘The result is plain,’ continuesDr.Channing. ‘The South has generally ruled the country. It must always have an undue power. United, as the North cannot be, it can always link to itself some discontented portion in the North, which it can liberally reward by the patronage which the possession of the government confers.’

“This, gentlemen,” exclaimed the master of the house, “is the manner in which the doctor preaches against slavery! He shows the whole value of it to the South, and then calls upon the South to renounce it, in order to put itself on a level with the North. Anadvocateof slavery could not have selected a better argument forpressing the continuance of the institution on the Southern planters, and yet he expects them to become convinced of its wickedness. He has, indeed, a most peculiar way of exhorting sinners; he shows them all the nice things they may get by offending against the law, and then says, ‘All these you shallnothave by following me.’”

“And what does all his argument come to,” observed one of the visitors, “but this?—Our moneyed men in the North revere nothing more than money; but, because each of us is determined to make money, we are divided into as many different castes as there are ways and means of making money. We, Northerners, have no rallying point; because every one makes money for himself, and not for his neighbour. This, however, is not enough to give us political strength; and for this reason the Southerners, who by their slaves are placed above the necessity of making money, rule over us by superior talent and education. This is a state of things not to be endured; and, since we cannot become clever ourselves, we must at least prevent others from becoming so. With us, politics come after money; in the South, they take the lead in all human pursuits. If, therefore, we want to get the upper hand with those Southerners, we mustabolish slavery, or, in other words, force the planters to make money for themselves; then we shall see who can make money faster, the South or the North. In the North all work for money; and, as politics with us are no very lucrative pursuit, oursuperior(rich?) men will have nothing to do with them. They prefer the prospect of money to that of political distinction, and the actual possession of it to everything else in the world.”

“Capital!” cried the old gentleman; “that’s the pointDr.Channing is going to make. We would like to become like the Southerners, if we could do so without pecuniary sacrifice; but, as this is entirely out of the question, we must reduce those who are above us to our own level. In this manner we shall promote equality and justice, and, in addition, obtain credit with the world for philanthropy and true Christian charity.”

“You may say what you please against the doctor,” said the eldest girl, visibly displeased by the turn the conversation had taken. “I shall always believe hima charming preacher.”

“I am myself very fond of his sermons,” added the old lady; “only I prefer reading them at home to hearing them at church.”

“And I,” observed an elderly gentleman, “do not like his explanation of the Scriptures by their general scope, and the disbelief of their being written by Divine inspiration; though I heard his colleague assert, that,rather than disbelieveTHE WHOLE,he would take every part of themFOR GOSPEL.”

And now I must bid good-b’ye to Boston and its remarkable inhabitants, who, I am afraid, have already occupied my attention more than is agreeable to my readers, and, perhaps, to the Bostonians themselves. “Common sense” is certainly the staple commodity ofNew England; but I cannot say I have always found it in themetropolis. The Bostonians are too much flattered by their own public men and the press, not to be occasionally benefited by the remarks of “a foreigner.” They all call themselves an enthusiastic people,—comparing themselves to the Athenians; but, during my whole stay in the United States, I have not known one of them moved by the tender passion, which, strange to say, never attacks an educated Bostonianmal à propos.

The gentlemen of that city never do anything out of season. Whenever one of them falls inlove, you may be sure he is quite ready to get married, and that the object of his affection is a legitimate one. He does not throw away his sentiment on some unattainable object, for he husbands his feelings as he does his property. No man remembers better than he the words of Bacon: “When it (love) entereth men’s minds, it troubleth men’sbusiness;” and, the latter constituting by far the most important object of his life, it is comparatively a rare case to see himlook out for a wife“before he sees his way clear ahead.” In this manner he avoids a great deal of romance and vice; but all this prudence and calculation, this impossibility of being betrayed into some rash inconsiderate act, lend to his character a degree of hardness and severity, which, though it may admirably qualify him for public life, renders him, nevertheless, the most unamiable creature in society.

I have heard it said that the New-Englanders in general have a quicker perception, and are shrewder, than Europeans or the rest of the Americans. The Bostonians pride themselves on being “sharper” than the Jews, and on preventing them from making a living in their city; but I cannot say that this agrees with my experience. As regards quickness of perception,they are certainly inferior to the Italians, and in part even to the French; but they make up for it by their greater calmness, which renders them less liable to error. They have not, as a certain English writer believes, two heads; their clearness of judgment arises only from the absence of emotions. Where men have butoneaim, and that a definite and finite one, they are seldom deterred from it; so that the vulgar, who merely judge by the success, often ascribe to them great mental powers: but there is a kind of genius which, from its very elevation, and its necessary incommensurability with the common mind, is doomed to unceasing strife; and with this the New-Englanders have in general but little sympathy.

The great difficulty which Europeans, and even Jews, find in acquiring property in New England, is not so much owing to the superior business-talent or cunning of the New-Englanders, as to the practice of “every man’s doing every man’s business;” which reduces the price of all kinds of labour by excessive competition, and leaves no room for interlopers of any description. No species of industry is deemed vulgar or degrading; and, while a European or a Southerner is obliged to do an hundred thingshonoris causâ, the New-Englander undertakes nothing without a prospect of advantage or reward.

Another deficiency in the composition of the New-Englander is the absence of humour. I have, indeed, been shown a number of persons who were said to possess a great deal of what is called “dry wit;” but which, after all, was but an odd way of expressing common-place ideas. Their conversation, generally, wants seasoning,—the spice of imagination and taste. In sarcasm they succeed better; simply because they have more judgment than fancy, and understand dissection better than composition. I shall never forget the definition which a Southern gentleman, a member of Congress, gave of the satirical powers of a distinguished politician of the North. “He has no imagination,” said he, “no humour, no keenness of wit; but his sarcasm resembles a very cold razor, which takes off the skin without requiring an edge.”

These are some of the dark points in the character of the New-Englander. His bright ones are exhibited in his relation to the community as a citizen. Few people have so great a respect for the law, and are so well able to govern themselves. In no other country are thelabouring classes so well instructed, so orderly, and, I may add, so respectable,—in theEuropeansense of the word,—as in New England. Though their State politics have generally been inclined towards Whig, and even Toryism, they are nevertheless the most thorough Radicals in principle, and, perhaps, the only people capable of enjoying so large a portion of liberty without abusing it. In addition to this they are sober, industrious, and, with the exception of a few straggling pedlars, from whom it would be absurd to draw a general conclusion, just and honourable in their dealings. In short, nature has done everything to make them calm sober republicans; but reserved every agreeable and amiable quality exclusively for thewomen. Not only are “the ladies” better educated than “the gentlemen;” but also, owing to their entire separation from trade and traffic, more imaginative, high-minded, and patriotic. If the Bostonians, and the New-Englanders in general, have been remarkable for deeds of public and national charity, I am inclined to believe it was principally owing to

... “th’ balm that draps on wounds of woeFrae woman’s pitying e’e.”

The women, in fact, are the realaristocracyof New England; and I shall go to live in Boston when Miss Martineau’s plan is realized, and the women emancipated from thraldom.

FOOTNOTES:[13]This is the Sunday “How do you do?” of the Bostonians.[14]In his Letter to Henry Clay he avers that he has prepared himself for his task by “self-purification;” but in what manner he does not mention.

[13]This is the Sunday “How do you do?” of the Bostonians.

[14]In his Letter to Henry Clay he avers that he has prepared himself for his task by “self-purification;” but in what manner he does not mention.

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