friends in print. It is well that the necessity occurs but seldom, for
it is a task which it is nearly impossible to do well. Some persons
think it as dangerous as it is difficult; but I do not feel this. If a
friendship be not founded on a mutual knowledge so extensive as to leave
nothing to be learned by each of the opinions of the other regarding
their relation; and if, moreover, either party, knowing what it is to
speak to the public--the act of all acts most like answering at the bar
of eternal judgment--can yet be injuriously moved by so much of the
character and circumstances being made known as the public has an
interest in, such a friendship is not worthy of the name; and if it can
be thus broken up, it had better be so. In the case of a true friendship
there is no such danger; for it is based upon something very different
from mutual ignorance, and depends upon something much more stable than
the ignorance of the world concerning the parties.
Dr. Channing is, of all the public characters of the United States, the
one in whom the English feel the most interest. After much
consideration, I have decided that to omit, because the discussion is
difficult to myself, the subject most interesting to my readers, and one
on which they have, from Dr. Channing's position, a right to
information, would be wrong. Accounts have already been given of him;
one, at least, to his disadvantage. There is no sufficient reason why a
more friendly one should be withheld, while the account is strictly
limited to those circumstances and appearances which might meet the
observation of a stranger or a common acquaintance. All revelations made
to me through the hospitalities of his family or by virtue of friendship
will be, of course, carefully suppressed.
Dr. Channing spends seven or eight months of the year in Rhode Island,
at Oakland, six miles from Newport. There I first saw him, being invited
by him and Mrs. Channing to spend a week with them. This was in
September, 1835. I afterward stayed a longer time with them in Boston.
The last ten miles of the journey to Dr. Channing's house from Boston is
very pretty in fine weather. The road passes through a watery region,
where the whims of sunshine and cloud are as various and as palpable as
at sea. The road passes over a long bridge to the island, and affords
fine glimpses of small islands in the spreading river, and of the
distant main with its breakers. The stage set me down at the garden-gate
at Oakland, whither my host came out to receive me. I knew it could be
no other than Dr. Channing, but his appearance surprised me. He looked
younger and pleasanter than I had expected. The common engraving of him
is undeniably very like, but it does not altogether do him justice. A
bust of him was modelled by Persico the next winter, which is an
admirable likeness; favourable, but not flattering. Dr. Channing is
short, and very slightly made. His countenance varies more than its
first aspect would lead the stranger to suppose it could. In mirth it is
perfectly changed, and very remarkable. The lower part of other faces is
the most expressive of mirth; not so with Dr. Channing's, whose muscles
keep very composed, while his laughter pours out at his eyes. I have
seen him laugh till it seemed doubtful where the matter would end, and I
could not but wish that the expression of face could be dashed into the
canvass at the moment. His voice is, however, the great charm. I do not
mean in the pulpit: of what it is there I am not qualified to speak, for
I could not hear a tone of his preaching; but in conversation his voice
becomes delightful after one is familiarized with it. At first his tones
partake of the unfortunate dryness of his manner; but, by use, they
grow, or seem to grow, more and more genial, till, at last, the ear
waits and watches for them. Of the "repulsiveness" of his manners on a
first acquaintance he is himself aware; though not, I think, of all the
evil it causes, in compelling mere strangers to carry away a wrong idea
of him, and in deterring even familiar acquaintances from opening their
minds, and letting their speech run on as freely to him as he earnestly
desires that it should.
It might not be difficult to account for this manner, but this is not
the place in which we have to do with any but the facts of the case. The
natural but erroneous conclusion of most strangers is, that the dryness
proceeds from spiritual pride; and all the more from there being an
appearance of this in Dr. Channing's writings--in the shape of rather
formal declarations of ways of thinking as his own, and of accounts of
his own views and states of mind--still as his own. Any stranger thus
impressed will very shortly be struck, be struck speechless, by
evidences of humility, of generous truth, and meek charity, at such
variance with the manner in which other things have been said as to
overthrow all hasty conclusions. It was thus with me, and I know that it
has been so with others. Those superficial observers of Dr. Channing
who, carrying in their own minds the idea of his being a great man,
suppose that the same idea is in his, and even kindly account for his
faults of manner on this ground, do him great injustice, whatever may be
his share of the blame of it. No children consulting about their plays
were ever farther from the idea of speaking like an oracle than Dr.
Channing; and the notion of condescending--of his being in a higher,
while others are in a lower spiritual state--would be dismissed from his
mind, if it ever got in, with the abhorrence with which the good chase
away the shadows of evil from their souls. I say this confidently, the
tone of his writings notwithstanding; and I say it, not as a friend, but
from such being the result of a very few hours' study of him. Whenever
his conversation is not earnest--and it is not always earnest--it is for
the sake of drawing out the person he is talking with, and getting at
his views. The method of conversation is not to be defended--even on the
ground of expediency--for a person's real views are not to be got at in
this way, no one liking to be managed; but Dr. Channing's own part in
this kind of conversation is not played in the spirit of condescension,
but of inquiry. One proof of this is the use he makes of the views of
the persons with whom he converses. Nothing is lost upon him. He lays
up what he obtains for meditation; and it reappears, sooner or later,
amplified, enriched, and made perfectly his own. I believe that he is,
to a singular degree, unconscious of both processes, and unaware of his
part in them, both the drawing out of information and the subsequent
assimilation; but both are very evident to the observation of even
strangers.
One of the most remarkable instances of all this is in the case of Mr.
Abdy's visit to Dr. Channing and its results. Mr. Abdy has thought fit
to publish the conversation he had with Dr. Channing, and had an
undoubted right to do so, as he gave fair warning on the spot that he
visited Dr. Channing as a public character, and should feel himself at
liberty to report the circumstances of his visit. It is not necessary to
repeat the substance of the conversation as it stands in Mr. Abdy's
book; but it is necessary to explain that Mr. Abdy was not aware of his
host's peculiarities of manner and conversation, and that he
misunderstood him; and that, on the other hand, no stranger could be
expected to make allowance for the unconsciousness which Dr. Channing
expressed of the condition of the free coloured population of America.
Some mutual friends of the two gentlemen tried to persuade Mr. Abdy not
to publish the conversation he had with Dr. Channing till he knew him
better; and Mr. Abdy, very reasonably, thought that what was said was
said, and might, honourable warning having been given, be printed.
Immediately after Mr. Abdy's departure, Dr. Channing took measures to
inform himself of the real state of the case of the blacks; and, within
the next month, preached a thorough-going abolition sermon. He laid so
firm a grasp on the fundamental principles of the case as to satisfy the
farsighted and practised abolitionists themselves who were among his
audience. The subject was never again out of his mind; and during my
visit the next autumn, our conversation was more upon that topic than
any other. Early in the winter after he published his book on slavery.
This has since been followed by his Letter to Birney, and by his noble
Letter to Clay on the subject of Texas, of all his works the one by
which his most attached friends and admirers would have him judged and
remembered.
No one out of the United States can have an idea of the merit of taking
the part which Dr. Channing has adopted on this question. Abroad,
whatever may be thought of the merits of the productions, the act of
producing them does not seem great. It appears a simple affair enough
for an influential clergyman to declare his detestation of outrageous
injustice and cruelty, and to point out the duty of his fellow-citizens
to do it away. But it is not a very easy or simple matter on the spot.
Dr. Channing lives surrounded by the aristocracy of Boston, and by the
most eminent of the clergy of his own denomination, whose lips are
rarely opened on the question except to blame or to ridicule the
abolitionists. The whole matter was, at that time, considered "a low
subject," and one not likely, therefore, to reach his ears. He dislikes
associations for moral objects; he dislikes bustle and ostentation; he
dislikes personal notoriety; and, of course, he likes no better than
other people to be the object of censure, of popular dislike. He broke
through all these temptations to silence the moment his convictions were
settled; I mean not his convictions of the guilt and evil of slavery,
but of its being his duty to utter his voice against it. From his
peaceful and honoured retirement he came out into the storm, which
might, and probably would, be fatal to his reputation, his influence,
his repose, and, perhaps, to more blessings than even these. Thus the
case appears to the eye of a passing traveller.
These bad consequences have only partially followed, but he could not
anticipate that. As it has turned out, Dr. Channing's reputation and
influence have risen at home and abroad precisely in proportion to his
own progress on the great question; to the measure of justice which he
learned by degrees to deal out to the abolitionists, till, in his latest
work, he reached the highest point of all. His influence is impaired
only among those to whom it does not seem to have done good; among those
who were vain of him as a pastor and a fellow-citizen, but who have not
strength and light to follow his guidance in a really difficult and
obviously perilous path. He has been wondered at and sighed over in
private houses, rebuked and abused in Congress, and foamed at in the
South; but his reputation and influence are far higher than ever before;
and by his act of self-devotion he has been, on the whole, a great
gainer, though not, of course, holding a position so enviable (though it
may look more so) as that of some who moved earlier, and have risked and
suffered more in the same cause.
Dr. Charming bore admirably the wrath he drew upon himself by breaking
silence on the slavery question. Popular hatred and the censure of men
whom he respected were a totally new experience to one who had lived in
the midst of something like worship; and, though they reached him only
from a distance, they must have made him feel that the new path he had
at his years struck into was a thorny one. He was not careless of
censure, though he took it quietly. He read the remarks made in Congress
on his book, re-examined the grounds of what he had said that was
questioned about the morals of the South, with the intention of
retracting anything which he might have stated too strongly. Finding
that he had, in his assertions, kept within the truth, he appeared
satisfied. But he could feel for others who were exposed in the same
cause. When I was staying in his house at the end of the winter, I was
one morning sealing up my papers in his presence, in order to their
being put in a place of safety, news having reached us the night before
of a design to Lynch me in the West, where I had been about to take a
journey. While I was sealing, Dr. Channing told me that he hoped I
should, on my return to England, boldly expose the fact that I was not
allowed the liberty of going where I would in the United States. I told
him I should not, while there was the far stronger fact that the natives
of the country were not allowed to use this their constitutional
liberty. Dr. Channing could not, at that time, have set his foot within
the boundaries of half the states without danger to his life; but he
appeared more moved at my case than I ever saw him about his own. No
doubt we both felt ashamed to be concerned about ourselves while others
were suffering to the extremity, to the loss of fortune, liberty, and
life. Still, to Dr. Channing, the change in the temper of a large
portion of the nation towards him must have been no light trial.
He loves the country retirement in which I first saw him, for his habit
of mind is not one which renders him indifferent to the objects about
him. He never sits in his study for hours together, occupied with books
and thoughts, but, even when most deeply engaged in composition, walks
out into his garden so frequently, that the wonder to persons who use
different methods is how, amid so many interruptions, he keeps up any
continuity of thought or accomplishes any amount of composition at all.
He rarely has his pen in his hand for more than an hour at a time, and
does not, therefore, enter into the enjoyments of writers who find the
second hour twice as productive and pleasurable as the first, and the
third as the second, and who grudge moving under five or six hours.
Instead of the delight of this continuous labour, Dr. Channing enjoys
the refreshment of a change of objects. In his last publication, as in
some former ones, he affords an indication of this habit of his, which,
to those who know him, serves as a picture of himself in his garden,
sauntering alone in his gray morning-gown, or chatting with any of his
family whom he may meet in the walks. "I have prepared this letter," he
says, "not amid the goadings, irritations, and feverish tumults of a
crowded city, but in the stillness of retirement, amid scenes of peace
and beauty. Hardly an hour has passed in which I have not sought relief
from the exhaustion of writing by walking abroad amid God's works, which
seldom fail to breathe tranquillity, and which, by their harmony and
beneficence, continually cheer me, as emblems and prophecies of a more
harmonious and blessed state of human affairs than has yet been known."
He has frequently referred in conversation, even to strangers, and once
at least in print, to the influence on his mind of having passed his
boyhood on the seashore; and to this shore he lost no time in taking me.
He liked that we should be abroad almost all day. In the morning we met
early in the garden; at noon he drove me, or we went in the carriage, to
some point of the shore; and in the afternoon we walked to the glen,
where, truly, any one might be thankful to go every summer evening and
autumn afternoon. The way was through a field, an orchard, a narrow
glen, shadowy with rocks and trees, down to the shore, where the sea
runs in between the island and the mainland. The little coves of clear
blue water, the boats moving in the sunlight, the long distant bridge on
the left hand, and the main opening and spreading on the right, made up
a delicious scene, the favourite haunt of Dr. Channing's family. To the
more distant shore of the ocean itself he drove me in his gig, even to
Purgatory.[8] By-the-way, he showed me Berkeley's house, of gray stone,
rather sunk among trees, built by the bishop in a rather unpromising
spot, selected on account of the fine view of Newport, the downs, the
beach, and the sea, which is obtained from the ridge of the hill over
which he must pass on his way to and from the town. The only beauty
which the scene lacked when I saw it was a brighter verdure. It was the
end of summer, and the downs were not green. They were sprinkled over
with dwellings and clumps of trees; rocks jutted out for the waves to
break upon, the spray dashing to a great height; on the interval of
smooth sand the silver waves spread noiselessly abroad and retired,
while flocks of running snipes and a solitary seagull were the only
living things visible. This interval of smooth beach is bounded inland
by the pile of rocks which was Berkeley's favourite resort, and where
the conversations in the Minute Philosopher are supposed to have taken
place. They are not a lofty, but a shelvy, shadowy pile, full of
recesses, where the thinker may sit sheltered from the heat, and of
platforms, where he may lie basking in the sun.
Footnote 8: "Purgatories. I know not what fancied resemblances have
applied this whimsical name to several extensive fissures in the rocks
of New-England."
--_Professor_ HITCHCOCK'S _Geology, &c., of Massachusetts_, p. 114.
Purgatory is a deep and narrow fissure in the rock where the sea flows
in; one of those fissures which, as Dr. Channing told me, are a puzzle
to geologists. The surfaces of the severed rocks are as smooth as
marble, though the split has taken place through the middle of very
large stones. These rocks are considered remarkable specimens of
pudding-stone. After fearfully looking down into the dark floods of
Purgatory, we wandered about long among the piles of rocks, the spray
dashing all around us. Birds and spiders have thought fit to make their
homes amid all the noise and commotion of these recesses. Webs were
trembling under the shelves above the breakers, and swallows' nests hung
in the crevices. These are the spots in which Dr. Channing passed his
boyhood, and here were the everlasting voices which revealed to him the
unseen things for which he is living.
The one remarkable thing about him is his spirituality; and this is
shown in a way which must strike the most careless observer, but of
which he is himself unconscious. He is not generally unconscious; his
manner, indeed, betokens a remarkable self-consciousness; but he is not
aware of what is highest in himself, though painfully so of some other
things. Every one who converses with him is struck with his natural,
supreme regard to the true and the right; with the absence of all
suspicion that anything can stand in competition with these. In this
there is an exemption from all professional narrowness, from all
priestly prejudice. He is not a man of the world: anxious as he is to
inform himself of matters of fact and of the present condition of
affairs everywhere, he does not succeed well; and this deficiency, and a
considerable amount of prejudice on philosophical subjects, are the
cause of his being extensively supposed to be more than ordinarily
professional in his views, judgments, and conduct. But in this I do not
agree, nor does any one, I believe, who knows him. No one sees more
clearly than he the necessity of proving and exercising principles by
hourly action in all kinds of worldly business. No one is more free from
attachment to forms, or more practically convinced that rules and
institutions are mere means to an end. He showed this, in one instance
out of a thousand, by proposing to his congregation some time ago that
they should not always depend on their pastors for the guidance of their
worship, but that any members who had anything to say should offer to do
so. As might have been foreseen, every one shrank from being concerned
in so new an administration of religion; but Dr. Channing was
disappointed that the effort was not made. No one, again, is more free
from all pride of virtue. His charity towards frailty is as singular as
his reprobation of spiritual vices is indignant. The genial side of his
nature is turned to the weak, and the sorely tempted and the fallen best
know the real softness and meekness of his character. He is a high
example of the natural union of lofty spirituality with the tenderest
sympathy with those who are the least able to attain it. If the fallen
need the help of one into whose face they would look without fear, Dr.
Channing is that one, even though he may be felt to be "repulsive" by
those who have no particular claim upon his kindness; and as for
spiritual pride, when it has once passed his credulity, and got within
the observation of his shrewdness, it had better be gone out of the
reach of his rebuke.
It may be seen that I feel the prevalent fear of him to be ill-grounded.
There is little gratification to one's self-complacency to be expected
in his presence. He never flatters, and he is more ready to blame than
to praise; but his blame, like every other man's, should go for what it
is worth; should be welcome in as far as it is deserved, and should pass
for nothing where it is not. But there is no assumption and no
bitterness in his blame; it is merely the expression of an opinion, and
it leaves no sting. All intercourse with him proceeds on the supposition
that the parties are not caring about their petty selves, but about
truth and good, and that all are equal while engaged in this pursuit.
There is no room for mutual fear in such a case. He one day asked an
intimate friend, a woman of great simplicity and honesty, some question
about a sermon he had just delivered. She replied that she could not
satisfy him, because she had not been able to attend to the sermon after
the first sentence or two; and he was far better pleased with the answer
than with the flatteries which are sometimes addressed to him about his
preaching. This lady's method is that in which Dr. Channing's intimate
friends speak to him, and not as to a man who is to be feared.
I have mentioned prejudice on philosophical subjects to be a drawback on
his liberality. This might have been the remark of a perfect stranger,
as long as his celebrated note on Priestley remains unretracted in
public, whatever he may say about it in private. His attachment to the
poetry of philosophy--the mysticism prevalent among the divines of
New-England who study philosophy at all--and his having taken no means
to review his early decisions against the philosophers of another
school, are the cause of a prejudice as to the grounds, and an
illiberality as to the tendencies of any other mental philosophy than
his own, the results of which are exhibited in that note. This is not
the only instance in Dr. Channing's life, as in the lives of other
cautious men, where undue caution has led to rashness. His reason for
writing that note was a fear lest, the American Unitarians being already
too cold, they should be made colder by philosophical sympathy with the
Unitarians of England. This fear led to the rashness of concluding the
English Unitarians to be generally disciples of Priestley; of
attributing to Priestley's philosophy the coldness of the English
Unitarians; and of concluding Priestley to be the perfect exponent of
the philosophy which the American divines of Dr. Channing's way of
thinking declare to be opposed to spiritualism.
Disposed as Dr. Channing is to an excess of caution both by constitution
and by education, he appears to be continually outgrowing the tendency.
He has shown what his moral courage is by proofs which will long outlast
his indications of slowness in admitting the full merits of the
abolitionists. Here, again, his caution led him into rashness; into the
rashness of giving his sanction to charges and prejudices against them,
the grounds of which he had the means of investigating. This is all over
now, however; and it was always a trifle in comparison with the great
services he was at the same time rendering to a cause which the
abolitionists cared for far more than for what the whole world, or any
part of it, thought of their characters. He is now completely identified
with them in the view of all who regard them as the vanguard in the
field of human liberties.