the whipping-post were a part of the public furniture of the law, and
occupied a prominent place in the busiest street in town. Some of you
have seen men and women scourged, naked, and bleeding, in State street;
have seen men judicially branded in the forehead with a hot iron, their
ears clipped off by the sheriff, and held up to teach humanity to the
gaping crowd of idle boys and vulgar men. A magistrate was once brought
into odium in Boston, for humanely giving back to his victim a part of
the ear he had officially shorn off, that the mutilated member might be
restored and made whole. How long is it since men sent their servants to
the "Workhouse," to be beaten "for disobedience," at the discretion of
the master? It is not long since the gallows was a public spectacle here
in the midst of us, and a hanging made a holiday for the rabble of this
city and the neighboring towns; even women came to see the
death-struggle of a fellow-creature, and formed the larger part of the
mob; many of you remember the procession of the condemned man sitting on
his coffin, a procession from the jail to the gallows, from one end of
the city to the other. I remember a public execution some fourteen or
fifteen years ago, and some of the students of theology at Cambridge, of
undoubted soundness in the Unitarian faith, came here to see men kill a
fellow-man!
Who can think of these things, and not see that a great progress has
been made in no long time. But if these things be not proof enough, then
consider what has been done here in this century for the reformation of
juvenile offenders; for the discharged convict; for the blind, the deaf,
and the dumb; for the insane, and now even for the idiot. Think of the
numerous Societies for the widows and orphans; for the seamen; the
Temperance Societies; the Peace Societies; the Prison Discipline
Society; the mighty movement against slavery, which, beginning with a
few heroic men who took the roaring lion of public opinion by the beard,
fearless of his roar, has gone on now, till neither the hardest nor the
softest courage in the State dares openly defend the unholy
institution. A philanthropic female physician delivers gratuitous
lectures on physiology to the poor of this city, to enable them to take
better care of their houses and their bodies; an unpretending man, for
years past, responsible to none but God, has devoted all his time and
his toil to the most despised class of men, and has saved hundreds from
the jail, from crime and ruin at the last. Here are many men and women
not known to the public, but known to the poor, who are daily
ministering to the wants of the body and the mind. Consider all these
things, and who can doubt that a great moral progress has been made? It
is not many years since we had white slaves, and a Scotch boy was
invoiced at fourteen pounds lawful money, in the inventory of an estate
in Boston. In 1630, Governor Dudley complains that some of the founders
of New England, in consequence of a famine, were obliged to set free one
hundred and eighty servants, "to our extreme loss," for they had cost
sixteen or twenty pounds apiece. Seventy years since, negro slavery
prevailed in Massachusetts, and men did not blush at the institution.
Think of the treatment which the leaders of the anti-slavery reform met
with but a few years ago, and you see what a progress has been made![43]
I have extenuated nothing of our condition; I have said the morals of
trade are low morals, and the morals of the press are low; that poverty
is a terrible evil to deal with, and we do not deal with it manfully;
that intemperance is a mournful curse, all the more melancholy when rich
men purposely encourage it; that here is an amount of crime which makes
us shudder to think of; that the voice of human blood cries out of the
ground against us. I disguise nothing of all this; let us confess the
fact, and, ugly as it is, look it fairly in the face. Still, our moral
condition is better than ever before. I know there are men who seem born
with their eyes behind, their hopes all running into memory; some who
wish they had been born long ago: they might as well; sure it is no
fault of theirs that they were not. I hear what they have to tell us.
Still, on the whole, the aspect of things is most decidedly encouraging;
for if so much has been done when men understood the matter less than
we, both cause and cure, how much more can be done for the future?
* * * * *
What can we do to make things better?
I have so recently spoken of poverty that I shall say little now. A
great change will doubtless take place before many years in the
relations between capital and labor; a great change in the spirit of
society. I do not believe the disparity now existing between the wealth
of men has its origin in human nature, and therefore is to last for
ever; I do not believe it is just and right that less than one
twentieth of the people in the nation should own more than ten
twentieths of the property of the nation, unless by their own head, or
hands, or heart, they do actually create and earn that amount. I am not
now blaming any class of men; only stating a fact. There is a profound
conviction in the hearts of many good men, rich as well as poor, that
things are wrong; that there is an ideal right for the actual wrong; but
I think no man yet has risen up with ability to point out for us the
remedy of these evils, and deliver us from what has not badly been named
the Feudalism of Capital. Still, without waiting for the great man to
arise, we can do something with our littleness even now; the truant
children may be snatched from vagrancy, beggary, and ruin; tenements can
be built for the poor, and rented at a reasonable rate. It seems to me
that something more can be done in the way of providing employment for
the poor, or helping them to employment.
In regard to intemperance, I will not say we can end it by direct
efforts. So long as there is misery there will be continued provocation
to that vice, if the means thereof are within reach. I do not believe
there will be much more intemperance amongst well-bred men; among the
poor and wretched it will doubtless long continue. But if we cannot end,
we can diminish it, fast as we will. If rich men did not manufacture,
nor import, nor sell; if they would not rent their buildings for the
sale of intoxicating liquor for improper uses; if they did not by their
example favor the improper use thereof, how long do you think your
police would arrest and punish one thousand drunkards in the year? how
long would twelve hundred rum-shops disgrace your town? Boston is far
more sober, at least in appearance, than other large cities of America,
but it is still the headquarters of intemperance for the State of
Massachusetts. In arresting intemperance, two thirds of the poverty,
three fourths of the crime of this city would end at once, and an amount
of misery and sin which I have not the skill to calculate. Do you say we
cannot diminish intemperance, neither by law, nor by righteous efforts
without law? Oh, fie upon such talk. Come, let us be honest, and say we
do not wish to, not that we cannot. It is plain that in sixteen years we
can build seven great railroads radiating out of Boston, three or four
hundred miles long; that we can conquer the Connecticut and the
Merrimack, and all the lesser streams of New England; can build up
Lowell, and Chicopee, and Lawrence; why, in four years Massachusetts can
invest eight and fifty millions of dollars in railroads and
manufactures, and cannot prevent intemperance; cannot diminish it in
Boston! So there are no able men in this town! I am amazed at such talk,
in such a place, full of such men, surrounded by such trophies of their
work! When the churches preach and men believe that Mammon is not the
only God we are practically to serve; that it is more reputable to keep
men sober, temperate, comfortable, intelligent, and thriving, than it is
to make money out of other men's misery; more Christian, than to sell
and manufacture rum, to rent houses for the making of drunkards and
criminals, then we shall set about this business with the energy that
shows we are in earnest, and by a method which will do the work.
In the matter of crime, something can be done to give efficiency to the
laws. No doubt a thorough change must be made in the idea of criminal
legislation; vengeance must give way to justice, policemen become moral
missionaries, and jails moral hospitals, that discharge no criminal
until he is cured. It will take long to get the idea into men's minds.
You must encounter many a doubt, many a sneer, and expect many a
failure, too. Men who think they "know the world," because they know
that most men are selfish, will not believe you. We must wait for new
facts to convince such men. After the idea is established, it will take
long to organize it fittingly.
Much can be done for juvenile offenders, much for discharged convicts,
even now. We can pull down the gallows, and with it that loathsome
theological idea on which it rests,--the idea of a vindictive God. A
remorseless court, and careful police, can do much to hinder crime;[44]
but they cannot remove the causes thereof.
Last year, a good man, to whom the State was deeply indebted before,
suggested that a moral police should be appointed to look after
offenders; to see why they committed their crime; and if only necessity
compelled them, to seek out for them some employment, and so remove the
causes of crime in detail. The thought was worthy of the age, and of the
man. In the hands of a practical man, this thought might lead to good
results. A beginning has already been made in the right direction, by
establishing the State Reform School for Boys. It will be easy to
improve on this experiment, and conduct prisons for men on the same
scheme of correction and cure, not merely of punishment, in the name of
vengeance. But, after all, so long as poverty, misery, intemperance, and
ignorance continue, no civil police, no moral police, can keep such
causes from creating crime. What keeps you from a course of crime? Your
morality, your religion? Is it? Take away your property, your home, your
friends, the respect of respectable men; take away what you have
received from education, intellectual, moral, and religious, and how
much better would the best of us be than the men who will to-morrow be
huddled off to jail, for crimes committed in a dram-shop to-day? The
circumstances which have kept you temperate, industrious, respectable,
would have made nine tenths of the men in jail as good men as you are.
It is not pleasant to think that there are no amusements which lie level
to the poor, in this country. In Paris, Naples, Rome, Vienna, Berlin,
there are cheap pleasures for poor men, which yet are not low pleasures.
Here there are amusements for the comfortable and the rich, not too
numerous, rather too rare, perhaps, but none for the poor, save only the
vice of drunkenness; that is hideously cheap; the inward temptation
powerful; the outward occasion always at hand. Last summer, some
benevolent men treated the poor children of the city to a day of
sunshine, fresh air, and frolic in the fields. Once a year the children,
gathered together by another benevolent man, have a floral procession in
the streets; some of them have charitably been taught to dance. These
things are beautiful to think of; signs of our progress, from "The good
old times," and omens of a brighter day, when Christianity shall bear
more abundantly flowers and fruit even yet more fair.
The morals of the current literature, of the daily press--you can change
when you will. If there is not in us a demand for low morals, there
will be no supply. The morals of trade, and of politics, the handmaid
thereof, we can make better soon as we wish.
* * * * *
It has been my aim to give suggestions, rather than propose distinct
plans of action; I do not know that I am capable of that. But some of
you are rich men, some able men; many of you, I think, are good men. I
appeal to you to do something to raise the moral character of this town.
All that has been done in fifty years, or a hundred and fifty, seems
very little, while so much still remains to do; only a hint and an
encouragement. You cannot do much, nor I much: that is true. But, after
all, every thing must begin with individual men and women. You can at
least give the example of what a good man ought to be and to do, to-day;
to-morrow you will yourself be the better man for it. So far as that
goes, you will have done something to mend the morals of Boston. You can
tell of actual evils, and tell of your remedy for them; can keep clear
from committing the evils yourself: that also is something.
Here are two things that are certain: We are all brothers, rich and
poor, American and foreign; put here by the same God, for the same end,
and journeying towards the same heaven, owing mutual help. Then, too,
the wise men and good men are the natural guardians of society, and God
will not hold them guiltless, if they leave their brothers to perish. I
know our moral condition is a reproach to us; I will not deny that, nor
try to abate the shame and grief we should feel. When I think of the
poverty and misery in the midst of us, and all the consequences thereof,
I hardly dare feel grateful for the princely fortunes some men have
gathered together. Certainly it is not a Christian society, where such
extremes exist; we are only in the process of conversion; proselytes of
the gate, and not much more. There are noble men in this city, who have
been made philanthropic, by the sight of wrong, of intemperance, and
poverty, and crime. Let mankind honor great conquerors, who only rout
armies, and "plant fresh laurels where they kill;" I honor most the men
who contend against misery, against crime and sin; men that are the
soldiers of humanity, and in a low age, amidst the mean and sordid
spirits of a great trading town, lift up their serene foreheads, and
tell us of the right, the true, first good, first perfect, and first
fair. From such men I hear the prophecy of the better time to come. In
their example I see proofs of the final triumph of good over evil.
Angels are they, who keep the tree of life, not with flaming sword,
repelling men, but, with friendly hand, plucking therefrom, and giving
unto all the leaves, the flower, and the fruit of life, for the healing
of the nations. A single good man, kindling his early flame, wakens the
neighbors with his words of cheer; they, at his lamp, shall light their
torch and household fire, anticipating the beamy warmth of day. Soon it
will be morning, warm and light; we shall be up and a-doing, and the
lighted lamp, which seemed at first too much for eyes to bear, will look
ridiculous, and cast no shadow in the noonday sun. A hundred years
hence, men will stand here as I do now, and speak of the evils of these
times as things past and gone, and wonder that able men could ever be
appalled by our difficulties, and think them not to be surpassed. Still,
all depends on the faithfulness of men--your faithfulness and mine.
The last election has shown us what resolute men can do on a trifling
occasion, if they will. You know the efforts of the three parties--what
meetings they held, what money they raised, what talent was employed,
what speeches made, what ideas set forth: not a town was left
unattempted; scarce a man who had wit to throw a vote, but his vote was
solicited. You see the revolution which was wrought by that vigorous
style of work. When such men set about reforming the evils of society,
with such a determined soul, what evil can stand against mankind? We can
leave nothing to the next generation worth so much as ideas of truth,
justice, and religion, organized into fitting institutions; such we can
leave, and, if true men, such we shall.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] Rev. John Pierpont
[37] This statement was made in 1849; subsequent events have shown that
I was mistaken. It is now thought respectable and patriotic not only to
engage in the slave-trade, but to kidnap men and women in Boston. Most
of the prominent newspapers, and several of the most prominent clergy,
defend the kidnapping. Attempts have repeatedly been made to kidnap my
own parishioners. Kidnapping is not even a matter of church discipline
in Boston in 1851.
[38] The conduct of public magistrates who are paid for serving the
people, is not what it should be in respect to temperance. The city
authorities allow the laws touching the sale of the great instrument of
demoralization to be violated continually. There is no serious effort
made to enforce these laws. Nor is this all: the shameless conduct of
conspicuous men at the supper given in this city after the funeral of
John Quincy Adams, and the debauchery on that occasion, are well known
and will long be remembered.
At the next festival (in September, 1851), it is notorious, that the
city authorities, at the expense of the citizens, provided a large
quantity of intoxicating drink for the entertainment of our guests
during the excursion in the harbor. It is also a matter of great
notoriety, that many were drunk on that occasion. I need hardly add,
that on board one of the crowded steamboats, three cheers were given for
the "Fugitive Slave Law," by men who it is hoped will at length become
sober enough to "forget" it. When the magistrates of Boston do such
deeds, and are not even officially friends of temperance, what shall we
expect of the poor and the ignorant and the miserable? "Cain, where is
thy Brother?" may be asked here and now as well as in the Bible story.
[39] The statistics of intemperance are instructive and surprising. Of
the one thousand two hundred houses in Boston where intoxicating drink
is retailed to be drunken on the premises, suppose that two hundred are
too insignificant to be noticed, or else are large hotels to be
considered presently; then there are one thousand common retail
groggeries. Suppose they are in operation three hundred and thirteen
days in the year, twelve hours each day; that they sell one glass in a
little less than ten minutes, or one hundred glasses in the day, and
that five cents is the price of a glass. Then each groggery receives $5
a day, or $1,565 (313 x 5) in a year, and the one thousand groggeries
receive $1,565,000. Let us suppose that each sells drink for really
useful purposes to the amount of $65 per annum, or all to the amount of
$65,000; there still remains the sum of $1,500,000 spent for
intemperance in these one thousand groggeries. This is about twice the
sum raised by taxation for the public education of all the children in
the State of Massachusetts! But this calculation does not equal the cost
of intemperance in these places; the receipts of these retail houses
cannot be less than $2,000 per annum, or in the aggregate, $2,000,000.
This sum in two years would pay for the new Aqueduct. Suppose the amount
paid for the needless, nay, for the injurious use of intoxicating drink
in private families, in boarding houses and hotels, is equal to the
smallest sum above named ($1,500,000), then it appears that the city of
Boston spends ($1,500,000 + $1,500,000 =) $3,000,000 annually for an
article that does no good to any but harm to all, and brings ruin on
thousands each year. But if a school-house or a school costs a little
money, a complaint is soon made.
[40] It must be remembered that this was written, not in 1851, but in
1849.
[41] In 1679, "The Reforming Synod," assembled at Boston, thus
complained of intemperance, amongst other sins of the times: "That
heathenish and idolatrous practice of health-drinking is too frequent.
That shameful iniquity of sinful drinking is become too general a
provocation. Days of training and other public solemnities have been
abused in this respect: and not only English but Indians have been
debauched by those that call themselves Christians.... This is a crying
sin, and the more aggravated in that the first planters of this colony
did ... come into this land with a design to convert the heathen unto
Christ, but if instead of that they be taught wickedness ... the Lord
may well punish by them.... There are more temptations and occasions
unto that sin publicly allowed of, than any necessity doth require. The
proper end of taverns, &c., being for the entertainment of strangers ...
a far less number would suffice," etc.
Cotton Mather says of intemperance in his time: "To see ... a drunken
man become a drowned man, is to see but a most retaliating hand of God.
Why we have seen this very thing more than threescore times in our land.
And I remember the drowning of one drunkard, so oddly circumstanced; it
was in the hold of a vessel that lay full of water near the shore. We
have seen it so often, that I am amazed at you, O ye drunkards of New
England; I am amazed that you can harden your hearts in your sin,
without expecting to be destroyed suddenly and without remedy. Yea, and
we have seen the devil that has possessed the drunkard, throwing him
into fire, and then kept shrieking Fire! Fire! till they have gone down
to the fire that never shall be quenched. Yea, more than one or two
drunken women in this very town, have, while in their drink, fallen into
the fire, and so they have tragically gone roaring out of one fire into
another. O ye daughters of Belial, hear and fear and do wickedly no
more."
The history of the first barrel of rum which was brought to Plymouth has
been carefully traced out to a considerable extent. Nearly forty of the
"Pilgrims" or their descendants were publicly punished for the
drunkenness it occasioned.
[42] Over eight hundred in 1851.
[43] This statement appears somewhat exaggerated in 1851.
[44] In 1847, the amount of goods stolen in Boston, and reported to the
police, beyond what was received, was more than $37,000; in 1848, less
than $11,000. In 1849, the police were twice as numerous as in the
former year, and organized and directed with new and remarkable skill.
APPENDIX
NOTE TO p. 62.
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE INSTALLATION OF MR. PARKER.
LETTER OF THE COMMITTEE TO MR. PARKER.
BOSTON, November 28, 1845.
DEAR SIR:--
Among your friends and congregation at the Melodeon, a Society has been
organized according to law; and we have been instructed, as the Standing
Committee, to invite you to become its Minister.
It gives us great pleasure to be the means to forward, in this small
degree, the end proposed, and we cordially extend you the invitation,
with the sincere hope that it will meet a favorable answer.
We are, truly and respectfully,
Your friends,
MARK HEALEY,
JOHN FLINT,
LEVI B. MERIAM,
AMOS COOLIDGE,
JOHN G. KING,
SIDNEY HOMER,
HENRY SMITH,
GEO. W. ROBINSON,
C. M. ELLIS.
TO THE REV. THEODORE PARKER,
_West Roxbury, Mass_.
MR. PARKER'S REPLY.
TO MARK HEALEY, JOHN FLINT, LEVI B. MERIAM, AMOS COOLIDGE,
JOHN G. KING, SIDNEY HOMER, HENRY SMITH, GEORGE W. ROBINSON,
AND C. M. ELLIS, ESQUIRES.
DEAR FRIENDS:--
When I received your communication of the 28th ult. I did not hesitate
in my decision, but I have delayed giving you a formal reply, in order
that I might confer with my friends in this place, whom it becomes my
painful duty to leave. I accept your invitation; but wish it to be
provided that our connection may at any time be dissolved, by either
party giving notice to the other of a desire to that effect, six months
before such a separation is to take place.
It is now nearly a year since I began to preach at the Melodeon. I came
at the request of some of you; but I did not anticipate the present
result. Far from it. I thought but few would come and listen to what was
so widely denounced. But I took counsel of my hopes and not of my fears.
It seems to me now that, if we are faithful to our duty, we shall in a
few years build up a society which shall be not only a joy to our own
hearts, but a blessing also to others, now strangers and perhaps hostile
to us. I feel that we have begun a good work. With earnest desires for
the success of our common enterprise, and a willingness to labor for the
advancement of real Christianity, I am,
Faithfully, your friend,
THEODORE PARKER.
_West Roxbury, 12th Dec., 1845._
* * * * *
On Sunday, January 4, 1846, REV. THEODORE PARKER was installed as Pastor
of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society in Boston. The exercises on
the occasion were as follows:--
INTRODUCTORY HYMN.
PRAYER.
VOLUNTARY ON THE ORGAN.
The Chairman of the Standing Committee then addressed the Congregation
as follows:--
By the instructions of the Society, the Committee have made an
arrangement with Mr. Parker, by which the services of this Society,
under its new organization, should commence with the new year; and this
being our first meeting, it has been set apart for such introductory
services as may seem fitting for our position and prospects.
The circumstances under which this Society has been formed, and its
progress hitherto, are familiar to most of those present. It first began
from certain influences which seemed hostile to the cause of religious
freedom. It was the opinion of many of those now present, that a
minister of the Gospel, truly worthy of that name, was proscribed on
account of his opinions, branded as a heretic, and shut out from the
pulpits of this city.
At a meeting of gentlemen held January 22, 1845, the following
Resolution was passed:--