Memoir of William Ellery Channing (Volume 2 ); With Extracts from His Correspondence and Manuscripts (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1848. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... intolerant systems of theology. I beg you to think of this letter and make such use of it as you may judge proper." Thus does it appear how truly Dr. Charming said of himself, -- "I desire to escape the narrow walls of a particular church, and to live under the open sky, in tbe broad light, looking far and wide, seeing with my own eyes, hearing with my own ears, and following truth meekly, but resolutely, however arduous or solitary be the path in which she leads."* To him there was " one church, grander than all particular ones, however extensive, -- spread over all lands, and one with the church in heaven, the family of the pure in all worlds, the innumerable multitude of the holy everywhere." With this church he felt bound by " vital, everlas/mg connection," and regarded himself as " a member of a vast spiritual community, as joint heir and fellow-worshipper with the goodly company of Christian heroes who have gone before." The grand " heresy " to iim was the substitution of any thing, " whether creed, or form, or church, for the goodness which is essentiaJ/y, everlastingly, by its own nature, lovely, glorious, divine, which is the sun of the spiritual universe, which is God himself dwelling in the human soul." Growth in goodness was what he longed for throughout Christendom. Let us now briefly describe the work, wherein, as we have seen, Dr. Channing so earnestly hoped to embody, with some degree of organic symmetry, the truths which, through long years, he had been assimilating. It was to Works, Vol. III., p. 211. 1 Works, Vol. VI., pp. 203, 305, 208, 223,224. PERFECTION OF MAN. 403 have borne the title, apparently, of " The Principles of Moral, Religious, and Political Science "; and the following extracts from a 6rst draft of the Introduction will...