OCTOBER NUMBER. THEODORE PARKER, (THIRD ARTICLE).................... 583 Prof. GEORGE PRENTICE, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. METHODIST QUARTERLY REVIEW. JANUARY, 1873. ART. I.-THEODORE PARKER. Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker. By JOHN WEISS. New York: D. Appleton & Company. 1864. Miss Cobbe's Edition of Parker's Works. THE Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, written and edited by John Weiss, appeared about eight years ago, some four years after Mr. Parker had fallen asleep under the sunny skies of Italy. It is the work of a personal friend of the man whose history it records and whose memory it embalms. It is rumored that Mr. Weiss undertook this biography in accordance with the express desire of the deceased, though he himself professes to derive his authority and opportunity to write only from Mrs. Parker. The author evidently feels a profound enthusiasm for his subject, and displays a courageous devotion to the doctrines and principles to whose exposition and propagation Parker's life was given. He accords the fullest credit to every statement from the lips of his departed friend, and gleans up with filial piety such scraps from his voluminous journal, and such letters from his vast correspondence, as shed any ray of light upon his career and opinions. Studied in connection with his published works, this Life enables us to contemplate and estimate Parker, no longer under the glint of crossing swords and in the blaze of eager controversy, but leisurely, calmly, with patience, and a judgment undisturbed by FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXV.-1 the heats of affection. It is well that the record of the Works and Days of Parker was made by warm friends whose love was frequently too much for their judgment, since in this way we obtain a better opportunity to study and comprehend the man. To accept the showing of these ardent admirers, we should find him one of the noblest specimens of manly and saintly character which has blossomed in the thick and heavy atmosphere of our degenerate day. If such partiality sometimes inflicts too much indiscriminate eulogy on the impatient reader, it has the decided merit of trying to unfold Parker's story as far as possible in his own language. The family from which Theodore Parker sprang traces its history back to certain dwellers in Browsholme, a hamlet of York County in England. The name indicates their social standing and quality as foresters or park-keepers. There were Quakers and Puritans and a brace of Non-Conforming clergymen among those who bore the name in the mother country. Some branch of the family had attained the dignity of a coatof-arms with an ample blazon of leopards' heads, stars, and with a stag pierced by an arrow for a crest. Their motto was Semper aude"-a motto which at least one of their race was to obey in a spirit which might even have provoked the admiration of Danton with his "Audacity, audacity, audacity forever!" Thomas Parker came to America in 1635, in a vessel fitted out by Sir Richard Saltonstall. He settled at Lynn, Massachusetts, and was made a freeman in 1637. As one of the original settlers in the town, forty acres of land were assigned him; this tract is included within the limits of the present town of Saugus. In 1640 he removed to Reading. He was one of seven who formed the first Church gathered in that ancient town, and in 1637 he was chosen one of its deacons. He rejoiced in six sons and four daughters, and died, in 1683, at the advanced age of seventy-four. His descendants grew and multiplied; they were solid and reliable men of the sort that view land, teach school, drill and train militiamen, have the itch for fighting in their very bones, and delight in the titles of lieutenant and captain. They were not remarkably thrifty people, and their one famous son might have said of them in the lump, as Lord Brougham did of his forefathers, that he had not |