Transcendentalism in New England Part 17

In Mr. Ripley's mind the Idea was supreme. In 1844 he, with Mr. Dana and Mr. Channing, lectured and spoke on the principles of a.s.sociation,--the foreign literature on the subject being more familiar to him then,--commended the doctrine of Fourier, and was prepared for a more sympathetic propagandism than he had meditated hitherto. In 1845, the "Harbinger" was started,--a weekly journal, devoted to Social and Political Progress; published by the Brook Farm Phalanx. The Prospectus, written by Mr. Ripley, made this announcement: "The principles of universal unity taught by Charles Fourier in their application to society, we believe are at the foundation of all genuine social progress; and it will ever be our aim to discuss and defend those principles without any sectarian bigotry, and in the catholic and comprehensive spirit of their great discoverer." An introductory notice by the same pen, among other things pertaining to the aims and intentions of the paper, contained this pa.s.sage:

"The interests of Social Reform will be considered as paramount to all others in whatever is admitted into the pages of the "Harbinger." We shall suffer no attachment to literature, no taste for abstract discussion, no love of purely intellectual theories, to seduce us from our devotion to the cause of the oppressed, the down trodden, the insulted and injured ma.s.ses of our fellow men.

Every pulsation of our being vibrates in sympathy with the wrongs of the toiling millions; and every wise effort for their speedy enfranchis.e.m.e.nt will find in us resolute and indomitable advocates.

If any imagine from the literary tone of the preceding remarks that we are indifferent to the radical movement for the benefit of the ma.s.ses which is the crowning glory of the nineteenth century, they will soon discover their egregious mistake. To that movement, consecrated by religious principle, sustained by an awful sense of justice, and cheered by the brightest hopes of future good, all our powers, talents, and attainments are devoted. We look for an audience among the refined and educated circles, to which the character of our paper will win its way; but we shall also be read by the swart and sweaty artisan; the laborer will find in us another champion; and many hearts struggling with the secret hope which no weight of care and toil can entirely suppress, will pour on us their benedictions, as we labor for the equal rights of all."

In the four years of its existence, the paper was faithful to this grand and high sounding promise. A powerful company of writers contributed their labor to help forward the plan. The Journal was affluent and sparkling. The literary criticism was the work of able pens; the musical and art criticism was in the hands of the most competent judges in the country; the aesthetics were not neglected; the verse was excellent; but the social questions were of first consideration. These were never treated slightingly, and the treatment of them never deviated from the high standard proposed by the editors. The list of its contributors contained the names of Stephen Pearl Andrews, Albert Brisbane, W. H.

Channing, W. E. Channing, Walter Channing, James Freeman Clarke, Geo. H.

Calvert, J. J. Cooke, A. J. H. Duganne, C. P. Cranch, Geo. W. Curtis, Charles A. Dana, J. S. Dwight, Horace Greeley, Parke G.o.dwin, F. H.

Hedge, T. W. Higginson, M. E. Lazarus, J. R. Lowell, Osborn Macdaniel, Geo. Ripley, S. D. Robbins, L. W. Ryckman, F. G. Shaw, W. W. Story, Henry James, John G. Whittier, J. J. G. Wilkinson--a most remarkable collection of powerful names.

The departments seem not to have been systematically arranged, but the writers sent what they had, the same writer furnishing articles on a variety of topics. Mr. F. G. Shaw published, in successive numbers, an admirable translation of George Sand's "Consuelo," and wrote against the iniquities of the principle of compet.i.tion in trade. C. A. Dana noticed books, reported movements, criticized men and measures, translated poetry from the German, and sent verses of a mystical and sentimental character of his own. C. P. Cranch contributed poems and criticisms on art and music. J. S. Dwight paid attention to the musical department, but also wrote book reviews and articles on the social problem. W. H.

Channing poured out his burning soul in denunciation of social wrong and painted in glowing colors the promise of the future. G. W. Curtis sent poetry and notes on literature and music in New York. T. W. Higginson printed there his "Hymn of Humanity." Messrs. Brisbane, G.o.dwin and Greeley confined themselves to social problems, doing a large part of the heavy work. Mr. Ripley, the Managing Editor, supervised the whole; wrote much himself on the different aspects of a.s.sociation; reported the progress of the cause at home and abroad; answered the objections that were current in the popular prejudice, and gave to the paper the encouraging tone of his cheery, earnest spirit.

As interpreted by the "Harbinger," the cause of a.s.sociation was hospitable and humane. The technicalities of special systems were avoided; dry discussions of theory and method were put aside; generous sympathy was shown towards philanthropic workers in other fields; the tone of wailing was never heard, and the antic.i.p.ations of the future were steadily bright and bold. When reformers of a p.r.o.nounced type, like the abolitionists, spoke of it slightingly as a "kid glove" journal that was afraid of soiling its fingers with ugly matters like slavery, the a.s.sociationists explained that their plan was the more comprehensive; that they struck at the root of every kind of slavery; and that the worst evils would disappear when their beneficent principle should be recognized. That the "Harbinger" should have lived no longer than it did, with such a corps of writers and so great a cause,--the last number is dated February 10, 1849,--may be accounted for by the feeble hold that Socialism had in this country. In Europe the hearts of the working people were in it. It originated among them, expressed their actual sorrows, answered their living questions, promised satisfaction to their wants, and predicted the only future they could imagine as in any way possible. Here it was an imported speculation; the working people were not driven to it for refuge from their misery; they did not ask the questions it proposed to answer, nor did it hold out prospects that gladdened their eyes. The advocates of it were cultivated men, literary and aesthetical, who represented the best the old world had to give, rather than the worst the New World had experienced; and their words met with no response from the mult.i.tudes in whose behoof they were spoken.

America was exercised then by questions of awful moment. The agitation against slavery had taken hold of the whole country; it was in politics, in journalism, in literature, in the public hall and the parlor. Its issues were immediate and urgent. People had neither heads nor hearts for schemes of comprehensive scope that must be patiently meditated and matured for generations. No talents, no brilliancy, no earnestness even, would engage interest in what seemed visionary, however glorious the vision. The socialistic enterprises in America were all short lived.

Brook Farm was an idyl; and in the days of epics, the idyl is easily forgotten.

The decease of the "Harbinger" was the end of that phase of Transcendentalism. The dream of the kingdom of heaven faded. The apostles were dispersed. Some kept their faith and showed their fidelity in other places and other work. Three or four went into the Roman Church, and found rest on its ancient bosom. Others found a field for their talents in literature, which they beautified with their genius, and enn.o.bled by their ideas. Others devoted themselves to journalism. Of the last was George Ripley. _The New York Tribune_ offered him the post of literary critic on its editorial staff. That position he has occupied for twenty-five years, in a way honorable to himself and to good letters. It has been in his power to aid the development of literature in America, in many ways, by encouraging young writers; by giving direction to ambitious but immature gifts; by erecting a standard of judgment, high, without being unreasonable, and strict, without being austere. A large acquaintance with books, a cultivated taste, a hospitable appreciation, a hearty love of good literary work, a cordial dislike of bad, a just estimation of the rights and duties of literary men, and the office they should fill in a republican community, have marked his administration of the department a.s.signed to him. He has held it to be his duty to make intelligent reports of current literature, with enough of criticism to convey his own opinion of its character, without dictating opinions to others. Worthless books received their due, and worthy books received theirs in full measure. The books in which worth and worthlessness were united were discriminatingly handled, the emphasis being laid on the better qualities. Many of the reviews were essays, full of discernment. All showed that respect for mind which might be expected from one so carefully trained.

Mr. Ripley has been true to the ideas with which he set out in his early life. His period of philosophical propagandism being over; his young enthusiasm having spent itself in experiments which trial proved to be premature, to say the least, if not essentially impracticable; his dreams having faded, when his efforts ended in disappointment, he retired from public view neither dispirited, nor morose. His interest in philosophy continues undiminished; his hope of man, though more subdued, is clear; his faith in the spiritual basis of religion is serene.

Disappointment has not made him bitter, reckless or frivolous. His power of moral indignation at wrong and turpitude is unimpaired, though it no longer breaks out with the former vehemence. A cheerful wisdom gained by thought and experience of sorrow, tempers his judgment of men and measures. His confidence is in culture, in literature, generously interpreted and fostered, in ideas honestly entertained and freely expressed.

The Transcendentalist keeps his essential faith. Generally the Transcendentalists have done this. It was a faith too deeply planted, too n.o.bly ill.u.s.trated, too fervent and beautiful in youth, to be laid aside in age. James Walker died in the ripeness of it; Parker died in the strength of it; others--old and grave men now--live in the joy of it. The few who have relapsed, have done so, some under pressure of worldly seduction--they having no depth of root--and some under the influence of scientific teaching, which has shaken the foundation of their psychology. The original disciples, undismayed by the signs of death, still believe in the Master, and live in the hope of his resurrection.

XIV.

MINOR PROPHETS.

The so-called Minor Prophets of the Old Testament owed that designation to the brevity, rather than to the insignificance of their utterances.

They were among the most glowing and exalted of the Hebrew bards, less sustained in their flight than their great fellows, but with as much of the ancient fire as any of them. It is proper to say as much as this to justify the application of the t.i.tle to the men who claim mention now as prominent in the transcendental movement.

William Henry Channing is not quite fairly ranked among minor prophets, even on this explanation, for he has been copious as well as intense. A nephew of the great Doctor Channing--a favorite nephew, on account of his moral earnestness, and the close sympathy he felt with views that did honor to human nature and glorified the existence of man,--he grew up in the purest atmosphere that New England supplied--the most intellectual, the most quickening. He was born in the same year with Theodore Parker, and but three months earlier, and was native to the same spiritual climate. He was educated at Harvard, and prepared for the ministry at Cambridge Divinity School, where the new ideas were fermenting. He was graduated the year before Parker entered. His name was conspicuous among the agitators of the new faith. He was a contributor to the "Dial." In 1848 he published the Memoirs of his uncle, in three volumes, proving his fitness for the task by the sincerity in which he discharged it. In 1840 he translated Jouffroy's Ethics, in two volumes, for Ripley's "Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature." In 1852 he took part in writing the Memoirs of Margaret Fuller, the second volume being chiefly his work. "The Life and Writings of James H. Perkins," of Cincinnati, a pioneer of rationalism at the West, came more fitly from his pen than from any other. In the "Western Messenger," which he edited for one year; the "Present," and the "Spirit of the Age," short-lived journals, of which he was the soul; in the "Harbinger," to which he was a generous and sympathetic contributor--he exhibited a fine quality of genius. The intensity of his nature, his open-mindedness, frankness, and spiritual sensitiveness, his fervency of aspiration and his outspokenness, made the office of settled pastor and steady routine preacher distasteful to him. He was a prophet who went from place to place, with a message of joy and hope. Meadville, Cincinnati, Nashua, Rochester, Boston, and New York, were scenes of his pastoral service. His preaching was every where attended by the clearest heads and the deepest hearts. In New York his society was composed of free elements altogether, come-outers, reformers, radicals of every description. His command of language, his free delivery, his musical voice, his expressive countenance, his n.o.ble air, his extraordinary power of kindling enthusiasm, his affluence and boldness of thought, his high standard of character, made him in his prime an enchanting speaker.

Very early in his career Mr. Channing committed himself to the transcendental philosophy as interpreted by the French School, for he possessed the swiftness of perception, the felicity of exposition, the sensibility to effects, the pa.s.sion for clean statement and plausible generalization that distinguish the French genius from the German and the English. The introduction to Jouffroy's Ethics contained the principles of the French school of philosophy, which, to judge from his approving tone, he had himself accepted:

That Psychology is the basis of Philosophy.

That the highest problems of Ontology may be solved by inductions from the facts which Psychology ascertains.

That Psychology and the History of Philosophy reciprocally explain each other.

With these ideas firmly fixed in his mind he went forth on a prophetic mission, to which he remained unfalteringly true.

We saw him first at a convention in Boston called by the reformers who demanded the abolition of the gallows. There were several speakers--Edwin H. Chapin, then in the days of his moral enthusiasm, Wendell Phillips, already known as an agitator and an orator--all spoke well from their different grounds, but the image of Channing is the most distinct in mind to-day. His manner, att.i.tude, speech, are all recalled. The arguments he used abide in memory. He wasted words on no incidental points of detail, but at once took his stand on the principle of the idealist that man is a sacred being, and life a sacred gift, and love the rule of the divine law. Chapin thundered; Phillips criticized and stung; Channing burned with a pure enthusiasm that lifted souls into a celestial air and made all possibilities of justice seem practicable.

He did not argue or denounce; he prophesied. There was not a word of scorn or detestation; but there were pa.s.sages of touching power, describing the influence of gentleness and the response that the hardest hearts would give to it, that shamed the listeners out of their vindictiveness. On the anti-slavery platform his att.i.tude was the same.

There was no more persuasive speaker.

In the controversy between the Unitarians of the transcendental and those of the opposite school, Mr. Channing's sympathies were with the former, but he took no very prominent public part in it. He was averse to controversy; questions of sectarian opinion and organization had little interest for him. His mind lived in broad principles and positive ideas; the method he believed in was that of winning minds to the truth by generous appeals, and so planting out error. Against everything like injustice or illiberality, his protest was eager, but he was willing to leave polemics to others; what he said was in the strain of faith in larger and more inclusive beliefs. He had a pa.s.sion for catholicity, which came partly from his temperament, and partly from the eclecticism he professed. His word was reconciling, like his influence, which was never a.s.sociated with partisanship.

Mr. Channing was early attracted to the bearings of the spiritual philosophy on the problems of society, the elevation of the working cla.s.ses, the rescue of humanity from pauperism and crime. As an interpreter of Christian socialism his activity was incessant. He took part in the discussions that led to the experiment of Brook Farm, and was acquainted intimately with the projecting of it, having himself entire faith in the reorganization of society on principles of equity.

Had circ.u.mstances permitted--he was then minister to a church in Cincinnati, and much occupied with professional duties--he would have connected himself with the Brook Farm a.s.sociation. As it was, he visited it whenever he could, spending several days at a time. In 1844, when the union was formed with the New York Socialists and the leaders went out to enlighten and stimulate public sentiment on the subject, Mr. Channing did faithful work as a lecturer. He was president of the Boston Union of a.s.sociationists, and wrote a book on the Christian Church and Moral Reform. From the first, being of a speculative, philosophical and experimental turn of mind, he entertained more systematic views than were common among New England socialists, but the principle of love was always more to him than opinions or schemes. His views coincided with Fourier, but his heart was Christian. On the failure of the a.s.sociated plans of his friends, and the cessation of interest in Socialism on this side of the Atlantic, his thoughts turned towards the Christian Church as the providentially appointed means of obtaining what the Utopians had failed of reaching. He was never a Churchman; never abandoned the views that made him an independent preacher; but he never lost faith in the ministry; his hopes turned toward the inst.i.tutions of religion as having in them the ideal potencies he trusted; he looked for faith and love in the Gospel, and sought to draw out the lessons of charity that were inculcated by Jesus; to deliver these from the hands of the formalists and sectarians; to make peace between parties and churches; to discover common ground for all believers to stand and labor on--was his aim. Had his faith not been inclusive of all forms of the religious sentiment, he might, in England, where he resided so long, have been a broad-churchman. But Christianity, in his view, was but one of many religions, all essentially divine, and he could not belong to any church less wide than the church universal.

During a portion of the civil war, Mr. Channing was in Washington preaching the gospel of liberty and loyalty, and laboring in the hospitals with unflagging devotion, thankful for an opportunity to put into work the enthusiasm of his pa.s.sionate soul. Later, he revisited his native country, and showed his interest in the cause of religious freedom and unity.

The name of Channing is conspicuous in the history of American idealism.

Another nephew of Dr. Channing, William Ellery Channing,--a man of original force of mind and character, a bold adventurer in literature and life, of independent ideas, principles and deeds, an abolitionist, a friend of Garrison and Parker, reformer and philosopher, author of many volumes--wrote poetry and prose for the "Dial" and, in 1873, a life of Henry Th.o.r.eau.

In the list of the Transcendentalists Cyrus Augustus Bartol must not be forgotten, a soaring mind enamored of thoughts on divine things, inextricably caught in the toils of speculation. Acute and brilliant, but wayward; with a quick eye for a.n.a.logies, fanciful and eccentric, of clear intuitions, glimpses, perceptions astonishingly luminous; but without fixed allegiance to system, and therefore difficult to cla.s.sify under any school. In the Unitarian controversy, which was a tryer of spirits, it was not always plain to observers in which camp he belonged; not that his fundamental principle was unsteady, but because his curious and critical mind was detained by considerations that others did not see; and his absolute sincerity gave expression to the moods of feeling as they pa.s.sed over him. Some words in Parker's farewell letter to him seem to imply that at critical junctures they had been on opposite sides, but the difference could scarcely have touched fundamental truths. No man was further from the school of Locke, Paley or Bentham than C. A. Bartol. His Transcendentalism had a cast of its own; it was not made after any pattern; it took its color from an original genius illuminated by various reading of books, and by deep meditation in the privacy of the closet, and the companionship of nature of which he is a child-like worshipper. No wealth of human sympathy prevents his being a solitary. His song is lyrical; his prophecy drops like a voice from the clouds. In the agitations of his time he has had small share; organized and a.s.sociated effort did not attract him. To many he represents the model Transcendentalist, for he seems a man who lives above the clouds,--not always _above_ them, either.

His faith in the soul has never known eclipse. It waxes strong by its wrestling, and becomes jubilant in proportion as nature and life try to stare it out of countenance. Ballast is wings to him.

"Transcendentalism relies on those ideas in the mind which are laws in the life. Pantheism is said to sink man and nature in G.o.d; Materialism to sink G.o.d and man in nature, and Transcendentalism to sink G.o.d and nature in man. But the Transcendentalist at least is belied and put in jail by the definition which is so neat at the expense of truth. He made consciousness, not sense, the ground of truth; and in the present devotion to physical science, and turn of philosophy to build the universe on foundations of matter, we need to vindicate and rea.s.sert his promise. Is the soul reared on the primitive rock? or is no rock primitive, but the deposit of spirit--therefore in its lowest form alive, and ever rising into organism to reach the top of the eternal circle again, as in the well one bucket goes down empty and the other rises full? The mistake is to make the everlasting things subjects of argument instead of sight."

"Our soul is older than our organism. It precedes its clothing. It is the cause, not the consequence, of its material elements; else, as materialists understand, it does not exist."

"What is it that accepts misery from the Most High, defends the Providence that inflicts its woes, espouses its chastiser's cause, purges itself in the pit of its misery of all contempt of His commands, and makes its agonies the beams and rafters of the triumph it builds? It is an immortal principle. It is an indestructible essence. It is part and parcel of the Divinity it adores. It can no more die than he can. It needs no more insurance of life than its author does. Prove its t.i.tle? It is proof itself of all things else. It is substantive, and everything adjective beside. It is the kingdom all things will be added to."

This was published in 1872, and proves that one Transcendentalist has kept his faith.

James Freeman Clarke as little deserves to be ranked among the Minor Prophets as any, for he was one of the earliest Transcendentalists, a contemporary and intimate ally of Parker, a co-worker with Channing, a close friend and correspondent of Miss Fuller, a sympathizer with Alcott in his attempts to spiritualize education, a frequent contributor to the "Dial," the intellectual fellow of the brilliant minds that made the epoch what it was. But his interest was not confined to the school, nor did the technicalities or details of the transcendental movement embarra.s.s him; his catholic mind took in opinions of all shades, and men of all communions. His place is among theologians and divines rather than among philosophers. But, though churchly tastes led him away from the company of thinkers where he intellectually belonged, and an unfailing common sense saved him from the extravagances into which some of them fell, a Transcendentalist he was, and an uncompromising one. The intuitive philosophy was his guide. It gave him his a.s.surance of spiritual truths; it interpreted for him the gospels and Jesus; it inspired his endeavors to reconcile beliefs, to promote unity among the discordant sects, to enlighten and redeem mankind. His mission has been that of a spiritual peace-maker. But while doing this, he has worked faithfully at particular causes; was an avowed and earnest abolitionist in the anti-slavery days; was ever a disbeliever in war, an enemy of vindictive and violent legislation, a hearty friend and laborer in the field of woman's election to the full privileges of culture and citizenship; a man in whom faith, hope and charity abounded and abound; a man of intellectual convictions which made a groundwork for his life.

Mr. Clarke is a conspicuous example of the way in which the intuitive philosophy leavened the whole mind. It a.s.sociated him closely both with radicals and conservatives; with the former, because his principle involved faith in progress; with the latter, because it implied respect for the progress of past times which inst.i.tutions preserved. His conservatism attested the fidelity of his radicalism, and both avouched the loyalty of his idealism. The conservative aspect of Transcendentalism which was exhibited in the case of Mr. Channing, who never left the Christian Church, was yet more strikingly ill.u.s.trated by Mr. Clarke. All his books, but particularly the "Ten Great Religions,"

show the power of the transcendental idea to render justice to all forms of faith, and give positive interpretations to doctrines obscure and revolting. It detects the truth in things erroneous, the good in things evil.

A more remarkable instance of this tendency is Samuel Johnson's volume on the religions of India. None save a Transcendentalist could have succeeded in extracting so much deep spiritual meaning from the symbols and practices of those ancient faiths. The intuitive idea takes its position at the centre, and at once all blazes with glory.

"Man is divinely prescient of his infinity of mind as soon as he begins to meditate and respire."

"That a profound theistic instinct, the intuition of a divine and living whole, is involved in the primitive mental processes we are here studying, I hold to be beyond all question."

"From the first stages of its growth onwards, the spirit weaves its own environment; nature is forever the reflex of its life, and what but an unquenchable aspiration to truth could have made it choose Light as its first and dearest symbol, reaching out a child's hand to touch and clasp it, with the joyous cry, 'Tis mine, mine to create, mine to adore!'"

"Man could not forget that pregnant dawn of revelation, the discovery of his own power to rekindle the life of the universe."

"Man is here dimly aware of the truth that he makes and remakes his own conception of the divine; that the revealing of duty must come in the natural activity of his human powers."

"As far back as we can trace the life of man, we find the river of prayer and praise flowing as naturally as it is flowing now; we cannot find its beginning, because we cannot find the beginning of the soul."

These pa.s.sages give the key to Mr. Johnson's explanation of the oriental religions, and to his little monograph on "The Worship of Jesus," and to the printed lectures, addresses, essays, sermons, in which subjects of religion, philosophy, political and social reform have been profoundly treated.

Mr. Johnson came forward when the excitement of transcendentalism was pa.s.sing by; the "Dial" no longer marked the intellectual hours; the Unitarian controversy had spent its violence. It was in part owing to this, but more to the spiritual character of his genius, that his Transcendentalism was free from polemic and dogmatic elements; but it was none the less positive and definite for that--if anything, it was more so. In the divinity school he was an ardent disciple of the intuitive philosophy. On leaving Cambridge he became an independent minister of the most p.r.o.nounced views, but of most reverent spirit; a "fideist" or faith man, he loved to call himself; his aim and effort was to awaken the spiritual nature, to interpret the spiritual philosophy, and to apply the spiritual laws to all personal, domestic and social concerns. Like all the Transcendentalists, he was a reformer, and an enthusiastic one; interested in liberty and progress, but primarily in intellectual emanc.i.p.ation and the increase of rational ideas. The alteration of the lot was incidental to the regeneration of the person.

So absolute is his faith in the soul that he renders poetic justice to its manifestations, seeing indications of its presence where others see none, and glorifying where others are inclined to pity. The ideal side is never turned away from him. He discerned the angel in the native African, the saint in the slave, the devotee in the idolater. During the civil war, his faith in the triumph of justice and the establishment of a pure republic, converted every defeat into a victory; as in the vision of Ezekiel, the Son of Man was ever visible riding on the monstrous beasts. If at any time his sympathy has seemed withdrawn from any cla.s.s of social reformers, it has been because the phase of reform they presented held forth no promise of intellectual or moral benefit.

Mr. Johnson ill.u.s.trates the individualism of the Transcendentalist.

While Mr. Channing trusted in social combinations, and Mr. Clarke put his faith in organized religion, he had a clear eye to the integrity of the separate soul. He attended no conventions, joined no societies, worked with no a.s.sociations, had confidence in no parties, sects, schemes, or combinations, but nursed his solitary thought, delivered his personal message, bore his private witness, and there rested.