awakened in him an habitual reverence for the sacredness of He made reason and every soul. This gave him his power. conscience within each hearer's breast stand at the bar in witness of the truth he taught. He aroused men to do themselves justice, and to learn the wealth of their own experience. But his interest in great convictions and principles did not blind him to the lowly beauties of life. There are sweet touches through his discourses, which show how delicate was his own spiritual sensibility, and how tenderly he could nurture the feeblest flowers of feeling in other hearts. Had he been settled as a pastor, and had an opportunity to attach a people to himself by the invisible threads, fast growing to indissoluble bands of mutual confidences and humble charities, we are sure that he would have been a preacher of the very highest excellence, with a great range of subjects, abundant illustrations drawn from common life, broad good sense, a style of pungent directness, and the unaffected pathos of true affection. Taking even his printed sermons as they are, we think it would not be easy to name many equals and very few superiors to him, as a pulpit orator. In his relation of a religious friend and pastor, it is impossible that he should have been surpassed. Justice has probably been done to Dr. Follen, as a minister of religion. But our community is hardly yet enough advanced to give him the due meed of respect for his prompt, devoted, and uncompromising advocacy of anti-slavery. The time is nigh, however, when this will be done. The stand he took before the Massachusetts Legislature, in the winter of 1836, at a time when the Attorney-General of the State had declared the opinion, that abolitionists were guilty of an offence against the laws of their country, and were liable to prosecution; when the Governor had allowed himself to seem at least the supporter of this charge; when the wealthy and powerful of the city had arrayed themselves against this small band of persecuted men and women; and when only one or two ministers of his own denomination had come forward in support of justice; was perhaps the noblest act of his life. History has woven this picture with bright colors into the tapestry that hangs the walls of our national temple; and the figure of Follen, firm and meek, stands forever among our heroes and sages. Was it not enough to reward him for all his sufferings in the cause of freedom, thus to have the privilege of leading, like a scarred and trusted veteran, this army of martyrs? Few of us probably entered into his feelings, or measured the extent of the trial which he saw himself called to bear. An exile, he had found a home; severed from parents and brothers, he had gained friends dear to him as life and dependent upon his exertions; expelled from stations of honorable usefulness in his native land, he had won, though a foreigner, a commanding position here; he was in a situation that promised support for his family, after hard struggles with narrow circumstances in which he had contracted debts; and was gratifying the fondest wish of his heart in becoming a preacher of heavenly truth, in a denomination with whose principles he could sympathize, when he saw it to be his duty to join the anti-slavery society. He took this step not hastily but deliberately, with the distinct knowledge that he was thus destroying all hopes of a permanent connexion with the college, shutting himself out from the friendship of many whom he honored, preventing probably his settlement as a pastor, and raising up a whirlwind of calumny and insult. But for one whose life had been a contest for freedom there was no alternative. Once more he offered all he held dear as a sacrifice to conscience; and a gentle tolerance that nothing could ruffle was the garland with which he decked it. We have purposely omitted a consideration of Dr. Follen's intellectual and literary character, partly because an adequate criticism and discriminating judgment would require more space than we can rightly occupy; still more, because it might impair the unity of the effect, which his singularly beautiful career, as a teacher by deeds and example, is fitted to produce. His efforts in a literary way were but digressions from the grand moral work, which, under providence and spiritual guidance, he had the honor to accomplish. Neither time nor leisure permitted him to do justice to his intellectual powers among us. And perfect in form, lucid in arrangement, clear in method, graceful and beautiful often in style, instructive from their learning and suggestions as his lectures are, they must be considered but fragmentary, mere indications of the rich veins which he had no opportunity to work. To all his other disappointments was added this sore one for the scholar, that he was forced to fritter away, in constant changes and a routine of multifarious occupations, hours which he longed to consecrate to some grand and worthy composition. But why regret this? He taught a "Moral Philosophy" in the sweet dignity of a gentle, cheerful, loving life, in steady exercise of a great hope and courage to which all sacrifices were easy. He wrote a "Science of the Soul" on the hearts of constant friends, and chance acquaintance, and the communities he passed through, in lines of sympathy which shall brighten forever. It is frankly admitted, that this notice of Charles Follen is written in a tone of panegyric which his modest spirit may disapprove; but though there is a form of virtue, yet larger and more beautiful than that he wore, we yet calmly think he was a man entitled to the heartiest praise for earnestness of moral purpose and purity of life; and it is with feelings of grateful reverence that we lay this funeral wreath upon his monument. W. H. C. LATIN HYMN. "Lux ecce surgit aurea." SEE the golden morning rises, Light like this break in and scatter No dark thoughts within us roll. All day long may truth, presiding When bright Morn with rosy touches And when Eve with dewy fingers Spreads her veil and clouds the light, Still that awful Presence lingers, And that eye looks through the night. L. PREACHING. WE have of late often seen and heard it said, that Ichabod is written upon the pulpit, that the days of its power have gone by, that the preacher is fast losing the influence of a living voice, and becoming a mere item of church furniture. It will be admitted on all hands, that the pulpit has ceased by prescriptive right to awe down opposition and to compel assent, -that stupidity can no longer be made infallible, or arrogance supreme, by gown and bands, that the clergy have lost the power, which they once possessed, of changing by their dictum bitter into sweet, or wrong into right. In the downfall of clerical domination every honest minister, every good Christian must rejoice. It is a happy thing for the Church, that her priestly office can no longer command respect and confidence for those who abuse it, or are unworthy of it. But, in the opinion of many, the pulpit has lost with its factitious importance much of its legitimate efficacy. Many of our most faithful ministers complain that they have not the ear of the people, that negligence and skepticism abound and grow, that a worldly and sensual spirit is fast supplanting Christian faith in the general heart, that the ordinances and institutions of religion are losing their hold upon the strong-minded, the busy, and the active, and retain within their grasp those only, who are too weak to doubt, or too timid to disobey. There seems to exist in many quarters a feeling, that existing forms and modes of administration have done their work, and have become effete, that the age has outgrown preaching and praying, the font, and the holy table. There are those who would substitute the debating club for the church, lay teaching for sermons, tumultuous assemblages, where every man should have his own psalm, and interpretation, and prophecy, for the method and holy beauty of the sanctuary service. We cannot conceal from ourselves the fact, that there is in the community a vague restlessness and agitation, a dissatisfaction with the present, a yearning after novelty, a distaste for the old paths in which the fathers walked. Never was there such a Babel-like confusion of tongues proclaiming, Lo, here is Christ, and, Lo, there. Everywhere are men taking their stand by newly dug cisterns, and crying out, Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the VOL. XXXIII. 3D S. VOL. XV. NO. I. 8 waters. It concerns those who love the institutions of religion to search and see, whether there be indeed anything to authorize or justify this uneasiness; whether there be any serious and tangible deficiencies in our religious institutions, or their administration. But, first, lest we waste our efforts in seeking to apply a remedy where none is needed, it may be well for us to ascertain to our satisfaction where the fault does not lie. The fault does not lie, as we think, with the clerical office in itself considered. So long as men recognise each other as social beings, and meet to strengthen and encourage each other in every good cause and enterprise, they will meet for public worship and religious instruction. So long as the services of religion demand mind as well as heart, they will need more diligent preparation, than one immersed in secular care and business can bestow. He, who on one day in the seven would take of the deep things of God, and show them to his brethren, must, for the remaining six days, be much alone in earnest communion with the divine word and its Author. Moreover, while we admit that Holiness to the Lord ought to be inscribed on the counting-room and the workshop, on men's tools and their merchandise, yea, as saith the prophet, on the very bells of the horses, this state of things does not yet exist in any part of Christendom. In the present mixed and imperfect condition of society, there are some associations cleaving to almost every department of secular business, there are collisions of interest and feeling, jostlings in the market-place and the forum, to which the best of men are liable, which would interfere with general edification, and detract from the calm and solemn dignity of religious services, were they conducted by citizens from the common walks of life. Then, again, an order of men, set apart for religious purposes, enjoy a point of view eminently favorable for the observation of society, and for the moral criticism of life and manners; a position a little remote from the arena of active life is essential to a clear perspective. The clergy indeed have their own weaknesses and faults; but they are not those of the merchant, the mechanic, or the politician. Where these err and are blind, the clergyman, from his peculiar position, will be likely to see clearly, and may thus be able to hold up before them the mirror of gospel truth, and to show them their own moral features. But men from the busy walks of life, by their com |