I
 
 1
 
 OF 
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 
 
 THROUGH THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 SARAH A. RAMSDELL. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 PEESS OF RAND, AVERY, & CO. 
 1876.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE circumstances and conditions under which this book 
 was written render their brief narration important, in jus- 
 tice both to the medium and the inspiring intelligence. 
 
 It is due to the medium, a lady of unimpeachable integ- 
 rity and candor, because, whatever judgment unbiased 
 criticism may render upon the statements and sentiments 
 herein contained, or their form of expression, as corrobora- 
 tive, or otherwise, of their purported authorship, it is quite 
 certain that Miss Ramsdell can not, under the circumstances, 
 be deemed to have originated them. 
 
 It is due to the invisible author, because the limitations 
 imposed upon the utterance of his thoughts by the peculi- 
 arities of the medium's organization, and her limited literary 
 culture, must necessarily have modified his effort. 
 
 Miss Sarah A. E-amsdell, the amanuensis of this volume, 
 was, at the time of her development as a medium, engaged 
 with her sister in the business of dressmaking at Lake 
 City, Minn. Attending by invitation two or three spirit- 
 ual circles, she found herself, at one of these gatherings, 
 thrown into a semi-trance condition, and powerfully im- 
 pelled to write the thoughts that crowded upon her mind. 
 
 3
 
 4 PREFACE. 
 
 This she did; and the result was, at several sittings, the 
 production of short essays upon various subjects, purporting 
 to be dictated by Theodore Parker in spirit-life. 
 
 Miss Kamsdell had no acquaintance whatever with the 
 history, character, or writings of Mr. Parker. She had heard 
 of him, in a general way, but had never had occasion to 
 know or think of him particularly. Some of these essays 
 were published in a spiritual journal, and others read before 
 public assemblies in different places ; being received with 
 decided pleasure and appreciation. In the spring of 1869, 
 the author announced his intention of writing a history of 
 his spirit-life ; but it was not commenced until the autumn 
 of the same year. 
 
 When writing, the medium experiences great exaltation 
 of feeling ; a glow of intense pleasurable activity of the 
 mental faculties, through which, thoughts and language 
 seem to flow as from an inexhaustible fountain, without 
 obstruction, save from the difficulty of writing fast enough 
 to keep the stream of inspiration within the channel of 
 language. Although intensely conscious of her occupation, 
 she is so absorbed in it as to be practically unconscious of 
 what is transpiring around her. The writing continues at 
 each sitting so long as the mental control is retained by 
 the spirit-author, and is resumed whenever a premonition 
 of his desire to communicate is received. 
 
 Having enjoyed no other advantages of education than 
 those afforded by a common school in the country twenty- 
 five years ago, Miss Eamsdell has never been ambitious of 
 literary distinction ; nor had the thought of authorship ever
 
 PREFACE. 5 
 
 crossed her mind. Finding herself thus unexpectedly se- 
 lected for what she believes to be an important and benefi- 
 cent work, she desires, in humility, to prove faithful to her 
 spirit-guide ; and therefore publishes this work at his desire. 
 Having verified many of the facts communicated to her by 
 the spirit, and feeling positive of his identity through the 
 evidence interiorly imparted to her, she proposes still further 
 to co-operate with him in these efforts to enlighten the 
 world upon the great subject of man's spiritual nature and 
 relations. 
 
 This work is one of a large and constantly-accumulating 
 class of volumes purporting to be written or constructed in 
 the spiritual world by authors who were once mortal inhab- 
 itants of the earth. Their intrinsic character alone will be 
 the test by which the critical mind will judge of the proba- 
 ble truthfulness of these claims. It is not, however, at all 
 incompatible with honesty and good faith on the part of the 
 mediums, if the books thus written should not, in all cases, 
 justify their claim of authorship. 
 
 The psychological border-land between the spheres of 
 spiritual and mundane existence has not been yet so thor- 
 oughly explored as to enable any one in the body to dog- 
 matize upon the conditions under which mortals and immor- 
 tals may best meet and hold communion together. They 
 who have passed from earth seem in our day and generation 
 to be experimenting in this direction ; and the crude results 
 of their experiments, in the various forms of manifestation 
 now so common, are properly the subject of patient study 
 by those to whom they are submitted.
 
 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF THEODORE PARKER. 
 
 INT giving my spirit-fife to the world, I have two points 
 at issue. First I desire to show to the world my present 
 existence, outside, untrammeled, and for ever from the flesh ; 
 show my whereabouts, condition, and occupation in my pres- 
 ent locality. Now, in order to do this, I must get entire 
 possession of my medium, through which my light will 
 shine to the world. I must have her confidence, will, sight, 
 and hearing ; must let loose my cable, and draw her to the 
 spirit-world; I must give her a tangible insight to my 
 present sphere of use. This book contains my experience 
 from 1854 until 1869, a period of fifteen years. I have been 
 casting about for some time for the conditions by which I 
 could labor to advantage. I now hope to give a work to the 
 public that will be instructive, and worthy of a wide circu- 
 lation. 
 
 The second point at issue is the development of the lady 
 under my control, a lady of great mediumistic worth, pos- 
 sessing rare powers in the background, to be brought for- 
 ward when the demand calls for them. 
 
 Fraternally yours, 
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 
 
 [Given through the mediumship of Miss Sarah A. Eamsdell when in a 
 semi-trance condition, 1869.]
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. MY SPIRIT HOME 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. THE DUTIES OF SPIRIT-LIFE 14 
 
 CHAPTER IIL . . . 17 
 
 CHAPTER IV 19 
 
 CHAPTER V "... 22 
 
 CHAPTER VI 24 
 
 CHAPTER VH 28 
 
 CHAPTER VUI 30 
 
 CHAPTER IX 32 
 
 CHAPTER X 37 
 
 CHAPTER XI 39 
 
 CHAPTER XII 41 
 
 CHAPTER XIH 44 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 48 
 
 CHAPTER XV 49 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 61 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 63 
 
 CHAPTER XVin 65 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 69 
 
 CHAPTER XX 60 
 
 CHAPTER XXI . . . . .61 
 
 9
 
 10 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 63 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 64 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 66 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 67 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 68 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 70 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIH 71 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 72 
 
 CHAPTER XXX 73 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 74 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. . . 75 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 76 
 
 CHVPTER XXXIV 77 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. AN APPENDIX TO THE FOREGOING WORK . 78 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 79 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 80 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVHI 81 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 82 
 
 CHAPTER XL. . 83
 
 THE SPIKIT-LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MY SPIRIT-HOME. 
 
 HOME is a word we love to linger on ; it brings around 
 our hearts a confiding trust and repose ; it is a word 
 above all others most beautiful ; it touches the heart 
 with new springs of action, lights up our saddest mo- 
 ments, and flings its halo of peace around the troubled 
 waters of life. The word " home " thrills our whole 
 emotional nature ; it gushes through our hearts like the 
 rich cadence of some woodland bird, pouring forth its 
 joy in song. My spirit-home, it spreads around me like 
 an ocean in repose, bathes me with the effulgent rays 
 of a summer's noontide glory ; it fathoms my every wish 
 and thought, finds me wherever in space the line of my 
 research takes me ; it fills my whole being with delight, 
 and wafts me on to higher realms of thought. My spir- 
 it-home ! ever fling your wealth of beauty around me, 
 ever take me to your heart's deepest treasures of wealth 
 and knowledge to the soul, ever bear me on the wings 
 of love to fathom the mysterious courts hung out in 
 
 11
 
 12 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 space, fling out thy starry petals of love to catch the 
 wayfaring children of earth, and bring them to a haven 
 of repose where earth's temptations can not affect the 
 soul. Thy gleaming lights are spread around my feet, 
 are hoisted high above my head, spread far and wide to 
 catch the onward march of mind. My spirit-home ! 
 thy deep-seated attributes of truth and love I would 
 now speak. I would now hold my spirit-life out to the 
 world, to be tested by the hand of science, and fath- 
 omed by God's delving-rod of philosophical merit. I 
 would have the truth of my individualization now and 
 for evermore a settled fact on earth. For me to say 
 here, to declare through my present medium, that I still 
 possess the blessing of life, still possess every attribute 
 of mind, still possess the key-note to endless progres- 
 sion, is not enough for the world to-day. I must bring 
 forth evidence sufficient to substantiate my claim, I 
 must lay aside every barrier, and step back to the world 
 Theodore Parker. When I cast off my worn-out 
 physical nature, I was under sunny skies, tended by 
 earth's ministering angels of love and mercy. Every 
 care that earth could give was freely bestowed ; but 
 the law of Nature required her own, and I was forced 
 to give up my earthly tabernacle, forced to enter on a 
 new mission. I did not do that willingly, I felt I was 
 beinoj defrauded ; felt that the earth from which I was 
 
 O * 
 
 being removed was full of mysteries that I had hoped to 
 fathom. I felt, that, deep within her receptacles, were 
 truths for me to reach. I did not suppose, from the 
 knowledge I then possessed, that the power would still 
 be left me. I supposed that my labors would tend to the 
 future ; that earth would hold nothing in common for me ;
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 13 
 
 that we were wide apart ; that her storehouse of treas- 
 ures would be closed against me ; that far away in space 
 I should find my work. I felt confident there was no 
 power to chain my mind ; but I desired a longer earth- 
 experience ; desired a wider cope with theology ; de- 
 sired to bring Nature to combat, and show wherein the- 
 ology had been weaving a web to get tangled in. I had 
 been reared, or rather I had reared a free platform 
 whereon I could stand, and wait for truths to come to 
 the rescue. I knew that error would surely be washed, 
 and I desired a life of materiality to help do the work. 
 I now thank my God that the wish was denied me, for, 
 in being removed from earth, I was brought nearer to 
 her. I find myself holding more knowledge of God's 
 laws than earth could have given me in the space of 
 time ; I find myself invested with a power to unlock the 
 scientific world, which years of research on earth would 
 have only partially developed. I am brought nearer to 
 earth by my desire to fathom all the mysteries of cause 
 and effect, to uproot every hidden principle in her king- 
 dom, to bring Nature to the platform for a thorough in- 
 vestigation into all her subtle chambers wherein God 
 has placed a key to unlock the passages that lead from 
 " nature up to nature's God." My soul drinks in the 
 beauties of earth with new delight, takes up her pages 
 of worth, and reads God's messages of love spread 
 broadcast and free. O thou God in nature ! to thee 
 we look for truths to lead us up to thy throne eternal ; to 
 thee we look for a basis-ground to rear our tabernacle 
 of trust and repose ; to thee my soul goes back with its 
 divine afflatus of strength to leave no corner unsearched, 
 no background in thy broad arena unculled. I must
 
 14 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OP 
 
 have thy treasured wealth, O earth ! to lead me up the 
 steps of scientific exploration, a field wherein all could 
 gather strength and courage for the battle of life. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PUTIES OF SPIRIT-LIFE. 
 
 IN the foregoing chapter, I alluded to my present 
 ability to visit earth, or, rather, to the fact that earth holds 
 me still by the power of social attraction and available 
 truths, that I must have in order to culminate a pur- 
 pose which God has in store for me. My duty lies in 
 my ability, in my power to see and realize what is re- 
 quired of me. God gave me a mind of research, and 
 also gave me the power back of mind, the impetus of 
 will, to aid me in pulling down theories, and establishing 
 facts. Where God has given much, much is required. 
 My innate power of comprehension throws much re- 
 sponsibility around my soul. I am laboring to establish 
 a free platform, whereon every person can stand and 
 drink from the perennial spring of knowledge, unbiased 
 or untrammeled by creeds. My duties lead in that 
 direction. The sophistry of covering up truths and 
 promulgating error is time-worn and unprofitable ; the 
 hungry mind is becoming fastidious. The sugar-coating 
 of egotism and self-delusion does not disguise the bitter 
 pill of partial destruction. The mind is no longer will- 
 ing to be fed from that source of enjoyment. There
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 15 
 
 is a disposition to break in on a new field, where sympa- 
 thetic emotion can be felt, and the brain not paralyzed for 
 want of the proper digestive nutriment. I may be fool- 
 hardy to advance my system at the present time ; but 
 " nothing venture, nothing have " is a true saying, and 
 one I ever held to. My duty as a free-thinking, indi- 
 vidualized character, surmounts every obstacle of policy, 
 or any undue solicitude of public favor. Justice re- 
 quires of me a full and descriptive detail of my present 
 power to serve God and mammon ; or, in other words, 
 to serve the kingdom of heaven by direct taxation on 
 earth. I propose to divide my spirit-life into two cantos. 
 The first shall embrace a portion of time while I was in 
 the body, a wanderer on earth, with a spirit embodiment 
 distinct in space. The second canto will take in my 
 spiritual state, independent of my earth-form. A few 
 years previous to my leaving earth (as the saying goes), 
 I took up a new phase" of life. I determined to live 
 the religion I taught ; determined to embrace the 
 Christ-principle in all the deeds done in the body ; de- 
 termined to foster no ill-will to any one, to bind on 
 my armor of trust and confidence in my own integrity 
 of purpose to reach the standard to which I aimed. My 
 spiritual existence was just as much a fact to me then as 
 now. I knew the interior being was the true man ; I 
 knew, as soon as dissolution of the body took place, I 
 was winged for flight; I knew that the outstretch of 
 worlds were within the pale of my research ; that eter- 
 nity awaited me with its varied experiences that I must 
 pass through ; and I determined to make my life one of 
 duty, and reap my pleasures from that channel. Life 
 always wore its serious face for me. I never could trifle
 
 16 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 with time : it always seemed precious in my sight. 
 Earth held charms for me I can never forget; and, 
 while I sought in the flesh to advance every Christian 
 principle that came within my scope of experience, I 
 also sought a life to correspond with my teachings. Up 
 to 1854, my biographers would state my harassed con- 
 dition of mind, and my unwavering determination to 
 push my theory through every obstacle that impeded 
 light to my famished soul. Creeds dropped away from 
 me very easily, because they were not consistent with 
 God's plan of salvation, which was to draw all nations 
 unto himself in the fullness of his own time. I could 
 not believe in a partial God that was so far removed 
 from justice and right that I was never crucified in that 
 direction. God ever rose above any impulse or change 
 in my estimate of his characteristics. He was the im- 
 perishable seed, rooted firm and deep in every thing 
 bearing life. The Bible version of God wraps him in 
 mystery. Now, if I am to have a Saviour outside of 
 any power of my own, I desire a full and complete 
 knowledge of that Saviour. Nothing short will satisfy 
 me, because I am so constituted, so organized, that mys- 
 teries contain no charm for me ; and never can I wor- 
 ship a being clothed with attributes that do not reach 
 my soul. Up to the period last stated, the world looked 
 on me as an interloper ; considered me averse to the 
 Christian religion, because I could not subscribe to 
 creeds ; called me fanatic, a chosen one to mete out 
 destruction to a people who received religion second- 
 handed from God, and done up more to suit emergen- 
 cies than as an appeal to reason, or as a guide to our 
 wandering footsteps. Thus, while the outside world
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 17 
 
 condemned me, I sought my convictions of right from 
 nature, and my own innate purity of purpose. 
 
 The year 1854 found me a settled pastor over a peo- 
 -ple living within the confines of Boston. I was chosen 
 there to give light to a few that needed rest from the- 
 ology. Their souls were famishing for the bread of 
 life outside of the written testimony. Allegory was 
 losing its power to succor the mind. Those few souls 
 that needed me found me willing and ready to advance 
 my theory of Unitarian salvation. I made my platform as 
 broad as possible, and still it could not reach my wants. 
 My hearers must have realized the dissatisfaction bear- 
 ing down on me. I wanted to fly away from even that 
 small restraint of creed. I wanted a worship that could 
 take every soul to the altar of truth where no binding 
 cord could lay its unction of claim. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE parish over which I presided could not accept 
 my theory only half-way. Tlie bare outlines held them 
 while I was drinking from the fountain inexhaustible, 
 and trying to purify the outward channels that moved 
 society. My life found its pleasures in the sure knowl- 
 edge I was gaining of the true religion. My labors 
 were not thankless as far as the outward manifestations 
 were displayed. I had many warm and genial friends, 
 who took my counsel and advice as something needed 
 about their souls. They, no doubt, thought me wild 
 
 2
 
 18 THE SPIEIT-LIFE OF 
 
 and radical after my outreach after principles that to 
 them seemed unnecessary to carry on a work of Chris- 
 tian duty ; but the impetus that led me ever bore the 
 stamp of success. I do not know why it is ; but my mind 
 wanders out on the chain of endless progression. I feel 
 that there is truth somewhere for every noble impulse 
 of my mind to grasp. I feel like taking earth on my 
 journey of research, and making her castles of error 
 disburse their flimsy stock of truth. I know my journey 
 leads up many a steep and rugged path ; but my soul 
 puts on its armor of defiance, and I walk gladly on. 
 We too often let our souls lag for want of a purpose to 
 claim our attention, and start us forward to find our end 
 of God's progressive law. I never look back on my 
 earth-experience but to find fault with my gleanings. 
 Her pastures green should have fed me with more mo- 
 tive power for action. I was too inefficient in my own 
 strength. My energies should have been nursed by the 
 thunderbolt of Puritanic discord ; I never should have 
 slumbered over a gulf of uncertainty ; I should have 
 sought my shadowed future for seeds of truth to 
 have planted by the wayside, and made green every 
 field of labor wherein rested a doubt of ultimate suc- 
 cess. But my friends in Boston and vicinity must 
 drink from the fountain of perpetual youth, made clear 
 and plain by the ovations of hope, presented by the 
 lagging energies of Theodore Parker. I shall culmi- 
 nate a purpose in your midst, that, fifteen years ago, 
 seemed likely to terminate in defeat. I shall hoist my 
 flag of truce, and come over to the enemy's quarters 
 with a diligence-express bearing the seeds of promise 
 that must root and grow in your midst.
 
 THEODOEE PARKER. 19 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 IT may be well to state my determination to push my 
 theory in and about every triumphant seat of error in 
 the land. I shall adopt the ways and means that I 
 can best command. I shall send forth my speakers 
 whenever I can harness them with my individuality, 
 whenever I can control the synopsis of their fate with- 
 out injury to any part of their being. This is a work 
 that few in spirit-life undertake, because it is fraught 
 with such uncertain results. There is no power to hold 
 me back from duty. I must use my lever of strength to 
 suit the demand of the times. I must lay my unction 
 of hope on the altar of well doing, and abide by the re- 
 sults of my labors. I must grasp every tree that bears 
 a branch of use to help carry on my work of destruc- 
 tion, to help lay aside the fettered yoke of ignorance 
 and superstition. I would that my friends on the earth- 
 plane could realize how much of my energetic hope is 
 vested in their welfare, how much my spirit clings 
 around the vesper-chimes of bygone days, how much I 
 feel for the welfare of the world that gave me birth, 
 how I cling to those old associations that bridge up the 
 past with the present and future, how I long to break 
 the spell, and let the captive world free to drink from 
 the fountain that never runs dry ! I must await the 
 prestige of time, that ever deals gently and truly with 
 the purposes of eternity. It may be remembered by 
 my biographers, that, late in the fall of 1859, I was at- 
 tacked with hemorrhage of the lungs ; that it was con-
 
 20 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 sidered advisable for me to flee to some warmer clime ; 
 that the terror of earth was bearing down on me with 
 sure success. I witnessed the innovations of the de- 
 stroyer with feelings that bordered on madness. I saw 
 my sustaining props leaving me one by one, saw my in- 
 efficiency t j keep my body before the public, saw the 
 sure destruction of my earthly tabernacle ; and I wa- 
 vered in my idea of a just God. I started on my tour 
 of investigation for ways and means to patch up the 
 outward man, while the inner citadel of strength could 
 pull away the obsolete theories that were traveling 
 through the world without purpose or aim. I visited 
 Santa Cruz, and found in her utmost limits of sunshine 
 and shadow no spiral wreath of hope for me. The mys- 
 tic touches of a funeral-pyre looked me in the face. I 
 tried to think myself submissive ; tried to see my way 
 clear through the drifting events that were crowding 
 around me ; tried to think my duty lay in submission : 
 but the calmness that was presented to the world was 
 all on the fading surface. When I saw my physical 
 power departing from me without regard to any skill 
 of man, I formed a resolution to break away from the 
 bonds of the Church. I thought, on entering on my 
 untried mission, that I would have no binding cord but 
 the one of friendship left on earth and in my heart. I 
 had grown away from every restraint of church creed ; 
 I had no friendship for the tie ; it hung around me like 
 an error that my judgment disapproved of; it had its 
 mountain-weight of infidelity to truth. I could not see 
 my way clear while I had that attachment of inefficient 
 aid ; it bound me outwardly with its influence, while 
 my mind was walking bold and upright away from the
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 21 
 
 restraint. Let me here state, as an axiom of truth, that 
 no individualized mind capable of ferreting out the ways 
 and means to the true salvation should allow the stain 
 of creed to mar the surface of the free torch presented 
 to the world. I do not say there should be no syste- 
 matic course in conducting Christianity on earth ; but I 
 do say, let there be a broad basis of freedom underlying 
 every institution that gathers the seeds of the Christian 
 religion into its fold of worship. I do say, let Christ 
 triumph, let his spirit enter every church-door with 
 every individual entrance, and creed would soon drop 
 from our midst, and we would find our way securely, 
 supported by the props of love and duty to each other. 
 The Christian religion was entered upon in the days 
 when mind was in its infancy of attainment and research, 
 when barbaric ignorance was creeping away from 
 Christ's fold of love and mercy. The Christian religion 
 has worked its way, step by step, into the soul-element 
 of humanity ; has dug its way through every stage of 
 development of mind and matter to the present time in 
 the world's history; and each offshoot from the old 
 Mecca of intolerant despotism has taken a broader plat- 
 form of liberal thought, and every outreach of princi- 
 ple has gathered more love into its stringent receptacles. 
 The world has carried on her work with even-handed 
 justice and mercy ; no serious outgushes of fanatic dis- 
 cord have disturbed the social elements of her quiet 
 ways.
 
 22 THE SPIKIT-LIFE OF 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE law of affinity has worked through every gene- 
 ration ; the mind has affinitized with the element of 
 success through every stage of harmonial design. The 
 law of affinity has never been brought to bear on the 
 conflicting elements that fashion the creed-bound world ; 
 all harmonious feeling has been disregarded ; the mind 
 has been coerced by dogmatic fancies ; literal destruc- 
 tion, partial destruction, and God's sustaining grace, 
 held forth for all to taste that willed, on the condition 
 of church-security from the temptations of Satan, who 
 was laboring to establish an institution that would run 
 parallel with God's seat of glory. I often thought, 
 while traveling my round of earthly duties, that the 
 true and honest piety of heart was found in the by-ways 
 of poverty. I have seen many a true soul struggling 
 away from the Tempter, struggling to maintain the 
 outward respectability to harmonize with the interior 
 integrity of purpose ; and I say, " Of such is the king- 
 dom of heaven." Such have wrought out their seat 
 of honor by the self-sacrificing spirit of Christ ; such are 
 ready to enter on the holy mission -of soul-redemption 
 from the bondage of sin ; and such are ready to lend a 
 sustaining hand of help to those of weaker spiritual pur- 
 poses in life. God's sustaining arm of progressive law 
 hoists a flag of success for every individual. The mean- 
 dering finger of Time works us through the earth-expe- 
 rience with vigilant dexterity, that notes every bar let 
 down that lends a chance of egress to the enemy of
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 23 
 
 success. The last few years of my earth-experience 
 are fraught with sadness. My soul starts back on its 
 retrograde movement to patch up the deformities that 
 stand out apparent and bold, unprotected by earth's 
 sophistries ; that cover up rather than eradicate the er- 
 rors born in her vineyard. My ministerial career in 
 Boston binds me to that locality with unerring precision 
 of movement. I started to do a work there that the 
 hand of Time cut short. My friends tried their utmost 
 skill of purse, advice, counsel, and every free gift of 
 heart-and-mind dictation to keep me with them in form 
 while I promulgated the seeds their hungry souls thirsted 
 for. Their realms of thought were expanding under 
 the homoeopathic doses of liberal food distilled from 
 nature and from humanity at large. They were not 
 contented to sit under their own vine and fig-tree as 
 long as it sprouted errors that reason held unprofitable. 
 I well remember hearing Rufus Choate expound the 
 science of religion. He was an able exponent in finan- 
 cial and political matters ; but Theology stood her ground 
 with him. His basis of salvation was the atoning blood 
 of Christ ; but methinks, when Rufus Choate found him- 
 self winged for his spiritual platform, that the wide dif- 
 fusion of Christ's blood never entered into his compact 
 of salvation. The reason of my introducing Rufus 
 Choate here at this time and in this place is to ex- 
 pound a little on the ideas he put forth in the article 
 above mentioned. The great orator, gifted as few are 
 with eloquence that burned into the soul, left his lever 
 of strength unsheathed and folded away. Rufus Choate, 
 in spirit-realms, is searching deep and wide for the im- 
 perishable grains that he will drop on earth in due time.
 
 24 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 The wily chief that darkens the doorway of faith must 
 soon loose his dexterous skill : he has too long held the 
 reins in governmental power, wherein the inner life of 
 man is concerned. The science of religion, to the mind 
 of Rufus Choate, appeared in tracing the bare outlines 
 of man's historic career set forth in Holy Writ. Had 
 he taken as deep a research in theology as he did in 
 law, he would have culled his science from a broader 
 field. Now, the science laid doAvn in ancient history, 
 and promulgated as the basis-ground for truth, has no 
 more to do with the true religion the religion of 
 Christ's deeds of love than it has in carrying us the 
 overland route to California or Kamtschatka Isle, or any 
 other remote region. It would seem more like a bar 
 put up to impede our progress in the right channel. 
 That book of saving grace is filled with scattered relics 
 of pagan industry, compiled without regard to system, 
 forethought, or knowledge ; and still it answers for a 
 basis-ground of hope for the salvation of the whole hu- 
 man family, or the basis-ground of destruction for as 
 many as do not subscribe to creeds. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SINCE I have been an inhabitant of the spirit-world, 
 I have sought no discussi ve ground in a way that peo- 
 ple fully understood my power and ability to deal with 
 the errors of theology to an extent that earth never 
 gave me. Now I propose to build up a fortress of
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 25 
 
 strength, and pick my way through every department 
 of theology. I propose to keep reason uppermost 
 in the chase after truth. I propose to discuss the 
 science of religion in a^way, that every shade of basis- 
 ground will disappear from ancient history, and take 
 lodgement in the under-current of Christ's teachings. 
 When Herodotus pushed his vigilant war thiough the 
 Egyptian temples of hideous errors, he was only laying 
 waste the bulwarks that sustained the festering rubbish 
 of knight-errantry and the kingly power of ignorant 
 assumption. Herodotus, in bringing the Egyptians to 
 acknowledge his power, opened an avenue for the light 
 of Christianity. Lycurgus was another heathen ex- 
 plorer, that delved deep in fanaticism, picked his way 
 through the cruelties of an Egyptian court, and came 
 forth purified as a brand from the burning. Every 
 age has had its monument of strength in the heart 
 and purity of purpose in some individual, who puts 
 up the bar of progress at every stage of advancement 
 the world takes on. The old heathen philosophers 
 swept their boards clear of any stucco or varnish of 
 liberal sentiment. They believed in the holy wrath of 
 God's imperishable wisdom, manifested in his instru- 
 ments of humanity. Heathen philosophers were averse 
 to any code of liberal teachings. Their intolerance and 
 ignorant superstition barred up all avenues from the 
 light of Christian duty manifested toward each other. 
 Their fire-gods and corrupt fetich of barbaric splendor, 
 served their coarse and uncultured minds. They sup- 
 posed, in serving graven images likened to the God- 
 head, whose superhuman skill at concealment they 
 could not fathom, they were building a power on
 
 26 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 earth that God would recognize with great pleasure. 
 Barbarity, in any form, has no part in the Christian 
 religion. It had its birth-hour when mind was steeped 
 in the gross material of earth ; when the soul was 
 thought to take form in some planet, and the ruling 
 spirit that assumed the greatest range of cruelty and 
 power was expected to come forth from the second 
 birth a representation of the higher constellations ; and 
 thus you see. the basis-ground for salvation to the hea- 
 then world was distinctive merit in cruelty. The starry 
 pillar of truth was too far in the advance for their mud- 
 dled vision to control. Lycurgus made way for the reign 
 of Caesar, the world-renowned conqueror, with the stamp 
 of humanity underlying all his victories. The life of 
 Cffisar is an illustrated boon of strength to the world ; 
 his fortitude, perseverance, and courage to maintain the 
 supremacy of power, and foster in its midst the spirit of 
 Christ. That increeping spirit of the loving Jesus has 
 gathered new sprigs of worth to gladden the heart of 
 every advance stage in knowledge. That is the basis- 
 ground that has reared success, and the basis-ground 
 that will maintain success throughout all time and eter- 
 nity. Let me here enlarge upon that principle in hu- 
 manity, because that is what will constitute our heaven, 
 whether on the earth-plane, or when earth shall have 
 yielded up the true man to the infinite seat of progress. 
 What is there in the whole life of Jesus but love, mani- 
 fested through eveiy channel wherein he had a purpose 
 to aid humanity ? He never stopped for motives. The 
 fervid outgushes of love ever impelled his movements ; 
 his words of chastisement were ever given with a basis 
 of love to further their import. Both Jew and Gentile
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 27 
 
 were served alike from his storehouse of love. He spread 
 his table alike for all that came within his knowledge of 
 research. It was no flimsy coating to disguise a bitter 
 pill, but a free gift from a heart overflowing with kind- 
 ness. His self-abnegating spirit made success over 
 temptation an easy matter. The power of the destroy- 
 ing angel had no charms for him. He was incased in 
 the armor of holy purposes. He meant his life should 
 be an example to the world in which he lived. He in- 
 herited his meek and loving spirit from his mother 
 Mary, and his intrepid daring from his father Joseph. 
 His power to perform miracles was his mediumistic 
 worth. Spirits ever found him accessible. He was so 
 imbued with the attributes of the higher life, that his 
 guardian spirits impressed his whole being with his 
 holy mission to humanity. He lived in the two worlds. 
 Death had no victory over him. The higher life was 
 his home, and death the doorway through which he 
 must pass. That knowledge, taken to the heart and 
 soul as Jesus took it in, would bless humanity with di- 
 vine purposes to each other. We are not so unlike 
 Jesus as we suppose. We have the crustations of self- 
 ishness to contend with which Jesus did not possess ; 
 and we have the illiberal sentiments of ghastly theology 
 that dares to pick places in the vast storehouse of eter- 
 nity, where some must wrestle with destruction, and 
 cry out for the God of Israel to have compassion on 
 their souls, with no answering response from a God who 
 immolates his Son on the shrine of affection for hu- 
 manity. Jesus had no such theology to contend with. 
 His disciples and followers were ignorant of creeds. If 
 Jesus was the true Messiah, they were all willing to ac-
 
 28 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OP 
 
 cept him ; were willing to give up their burnt-offerings 
 and sacrificial altars, and accept Christ as their light. All 
 they asked was assurance of his genuineness to serve 
 them. They had no bottled-up portions of excellence 
 that clamored for upper seats in God's kingdom, with 
 egotistical assurance of superior merit. Those olden 
 times had the merit of simplicity of heart. What they 
 lacked in culture and refinement they showed forth in 
 courage and zeal to maintain some fortress of strength 
 for future use. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IN the crucifixion of Christ, there is a great deal of 
 allegorical matter, a great deal of the spurious mixed 
 with the true. His advent into life was no miraculous 
 interposition of Providence ; it was merely the process 
 of natural law, through which he became manifest to the 
 world : and his exit from earth followed on his failing to 
 meet the demand of the ignorant classes that he had to 
 deal with. His ascension was no physical flight, but a 
 soul-redemption from sin, but portrayed in the figurative 
 language of flesh and blood. It does seem as though 
 the nineteenth century should be above the supposition 
 of crude ^materiality entering the precincts of heaven. 
 There is no law to sustain matter above the confines of 
 earth. Christ died, was buried ; and his redeemed spirit 
 went on its mission to fathom the world that was already 
 familiar to him by his pure and unassuming earth-life. 
 Christ's element of success was recognized more after
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 29 
 
 his departure from earth. That spirit of meek forbear- 
 ance troubled the hearts of his disciples : they began to 
 realize his worth, and miss the charm of his presence ; 
 and would, no doubt, have recalled him, could such have 
 been. But the death of Christ at that time was auspi- 
 cious for the world's improvement : his holy spirit sur- 
 mounts every difficulty that bars the road to progress. 
 Christ is the illuminated page that will ever be read to 
 advantage. The history of Christ is the history of a 
 redeemed spirit on earth, the history of all pure and 
 holy purposes embodied in earth-form. As an example 
 of purity, power, and self-abnegation, Christ has never 
 been excelled; and, though ages may roll along the 
 track of time, there may not be another such combina- 
 tion of holy assurance given to humanity. There is a 
 spell around his name that will ever lend its influence 
 around society. Let Christ be man or angel, it matters 
 not : he has been the sustaining strength in every reform 
 since Calvary reared her ebon cross to stain the charac- 
 ter of her written testimony. The Jewish nation la- 
 bored to establish a broader basis of salvation for the 
 human family. Christ seemed inefficient to them as a 
 Saviour and Redeemer : they sought an embodiment of 
 external power. They could not appreciate the indwell- 
 ing Spirit of saving grace : the external world was all 
 they could fathom to secure support to their upward 
 career of worldly achievements. Power to them was 
 distinctive glory in heaven ; and, as Christ assumed no 
 wordly distinction or honors, they thought him an inter- 
 loper, not capable of serving them : therefore they sought 
 and obtained his overthrow. And, to this day, the 
 Jewish nation remains unreconciled to any plan of sal-
 
 30 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 vation : they are wanderers on the face of the earth, 
 seeking the divine afflatus still, but with something of 
 the old stoicism, that power rules in the kingdom of 
 heaven. The Jews have fought dry their well-springs 
 of success ; their shattered glory is the Rubicon of error 
 over which they have passed. The Jews are merging 
 toward extinction ; their holocaust of strength is nearly 
 expended ; there is no harmonious element to keep 
 peace in their souls ; the dewdrops of the harmonial 
 law has never entered their inner lives. The Jewish 
 nation will one day become but a ripple on the great 
 ocean of time, and eternity will have caught the waif- 
 lings to the utter disregard of human will or power. 
 Eternity lays its fangs of strength on all of earth's pos- 
 sessions, from the tiniest flower to the wide range of 
 
 * O 
 
 upheaved mountain skill. All Nature has its part in 
 the resurrection morn of ethereal grandeur and syste- 
 matic beauty; all Nature drinks from the fountain of the 
 unseen ; her spiral points pierce the elements of success 
 to sustain her unwearied efforts at perfection. Nature 
 goes on in successive routine : it fashions and builds for 
 God's storehouse of eternity. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE widest range of thought is sure to quench its 
 thirst at every passing stream ; gathering new forces and 
 beauty for its detail of encounters from one stage of life 
 to another. Man little realizes on earth the power given
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 31 
 
 the mind for expansion : it doubles its growth at every 
 sweep in the great ocean of eternity. Were I to say 
 here the mind of man possesses the innate seeds, or, in 
 other words, the culminating particles, to rear a world. 
 I should no doubt be deemed insane ; but, nevertheless, 
 the hand of science will yet demonstrate the fact to the 
 world. I ask, what has reared the world to-day from 
 chaotic sameness to its present point of interest and 
 beauty, but the mind of man ? But some will say, 
 man has only brought out and fashioned what was 
 in the beginning. Allowing that to be so, allowing 
 the world to be a crucible where man is experiment- 
 ing, does it not show conclusively that mind will 
 never stop picking in matter until her eveiy recepta- 
 cle that contains a seed to sprout and grow is laid 
 open for investigation ? And who shall say mind can 
 not create when it understands the process of creation ? 
 There is no cheat in God's law of development : it is 
 systematic process from beginning to end. There are 
 no lost keys to any drawer of the material universe, 
 and each mind can and will unlock its own particular 
 drawer. It is not always easy or best to unlock the 
 future before time, or promulgate undue circumstances ; 
 but I must throw out this fact here, that time will clothe 
 with truth, that, in less than a century of time, the mind 
 of man will cope with the external forces to create a 
 world. It is no more than mind in eternity, or mind 
 disembodied from matter, is capable of doing at the 
 present time. My life-history will reveal facts instead 
 of fables. It will be no revelation clothed in mystery 
 for mind to wander around, and become fogged in its 
 attempts to extricate a few grains of truth that reason
 
 32 THE SPIKIT-LIFE OF 
 
 will find, however deep the rubbish. At the present 
 day, spirit-communion is no concealed fact. It is an 
 ushering-in of the New Jerusalem ; the time earnestly 
 looked for in every generation ; the glad tidings of great 
 joy come to bless the world in its spring-time of social 
 and moral elevation. It sprouted in the midst of refine- 
 ment and wealth ; and it will accumulate strength to 
 maintain its support, until every locality in the universe 
 of matter is sprinkled with its divine afflatus of truth 
 and love. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE more I attempt to harness on my earth-life, the 
 more barrenness I discover in fields that should have 
 grown ripe to my advantage ; and, but for that old 
 theological atmosphere of oppression, I would be wan- 
 dering in fields where now I only catch the shadowed 
 light. I will refer to my spiritual growth from 1854 to 
 1859, shadowed as it was by the conflicting elements 
 of time. 1854 found me verging toward a social re- 
 form ; or, in other words, seeking to instill the need 
 of rendering the social element into the folds of the 
 Christian Church. It was like a galvanic battery to the 
 lunatics in an insane asylum. It touched every fiber 
 of the world's holy horror of mixing up any thing with 
 religion but burnt-offerings in the shape of special 
 prayer-meetings, special days of worship, and special 
 demagogues or prelates to keep sacred their fold of 
 contracted sentiment and pent-up selfishness. Those
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 33 
 
 days to me were fraught with bitterness of spirit. I 
 could not brook the many insults offered me, without 
 sinking some of the wormwood and gall into my own 
 secret caverns of thought. I well remember the anathe- 
 mas raised against me ; well remember the sounding 
 clarion of public animosity and hatred that warbled 
 forth its discordant notes throughout my field of action. 
 I could not labor to advantage in the frozen atmosphere 
 of undulating sentiment. It paralyzed the life-blood of 
 hope, and chilled the impetuosity of my movements 
 toward sustaining my platform of truth toward hu- 
 manity. Were I to step back, clothed with the habili- 
 ments of earth, or to step back to that point in my life 
 where I wrestled with, uncertainty in regard to the 
 soul's ultimate success over time and eternity, I could 
 meet the exigencies of doubt from ten thousand worlds, 
 and find myself buoyant in maintaining the platform I 
 started on in 1854. The past can never be bridged 
 over nor walled up : it will ever remain a thread in the 
 great web of life, a reference-mark, keeping our time 
 and place in eternity. My past life is one of the dis- 
 tinctive elements that holds me to the present and 
 future. You can no more get away from the past than 
 you can from the future : they are the two diverging 
 lines in life, the one impelling us forward, the other 
 holding our march by the law of recompense that never 
 fails in its duty toward the children of earth. In start- 
 ing on a tour of investigation, we should have our lamps 
 trimmed and burning. We should delve as far into the 
 future as we can with benefit to our reason ; and, in 
 fact, we can not sink logic deeper than reason will hold 
 
 true. Our reason is our safeguard, our monitor of 
 2
 
 34 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OP 
 
 strength, our impelling force to action. Therefore, 
 when we would have facts instead of fables, let rea- 
 son hold the light to guide the way to knowledge. My 
 early years of earth-experience were fool-hardy with 
 expectations of a successful career through life. That 
 was before I had weighed the public mind by any scales 
 but hope, youth is ever imaginative, ever building airy 
 castles to crumble at the breath of public disfavor. My 
 life was even-handed as far as I could make it by steady 
 application to study, and a determination to overcome 
 the prejudice and fanatic discord which came within the 
 scope of my experience. My whole earth-career was 
 simply a trial adventure, a breaker put forth to battle 
 with the storms and quicksands on the rolling sea of 
 life. That I did not fill my measure to completeness 
 in earth's diluted beverages of wisdom is now fully 
 apparent to me ; and, if that sentence can have any 
 weight to the gleaners in earth's vineyards, it will not 
 have been uttered in vain. When people start out on 
 a platform to evangelize society, they will ever find 
 themselves rowing against the current ; will find life 
 spicy and full of acrimony ; find themselves a disturbing 
 element in the slough-pools of indolent ease, and war- 
 ring with the spirit of rest to the world's discomfort, and 
 to the world's dread of being found wanting in the 
 essential elements to success. I do not regret my earth- 
 experiences : they were all needed for my purposes of 
 action ; all held out their hand of help to aid in the 
 great battle of life. Through trials and tribulations, the 
 soul radiates to glory, and also radiates to the true 
 worth in humanity. I have friends in Boston and 
 vicinity that I visit daily : the cord of love and friend-
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 35 
 
 sliip has never been severed ; its binding influence 
 cheers my onward march. Boston is the acme of 
 earth's soluble friendships : it reared my Christian 
 growth, and supported my lagging energies when public 
 disfavor trampled me with its heel of vengeance. There 
 are many hearts in Boston that throw out their silver 
 linings for me to catch the reflected purity of their 
 souls. In wafting my thoughts backward, I seem to 
 catch the welcome glance of friendship, and the prof- 
 fered hand of love ; I seem to hear the whispered fare- 
 well at my departure for the sunny isle that gave me 
 rest from suffering beneath her cool and sunny skies. 
 When I take up my backward track, there is ever an 
 impetus to cheer the local habitations of earth's children 
 with the effulgent rays of spirit-communion. I can not 
 rest me quiet in my spirit-home. I must seek to dispel 
 illusory customs of earth ; seek an entrance into the 
 fields of theology, and brave again the contumacious 
 doubting of the world. My seed-time and harvest is 
 not completed on earth ; I have only set my stakes, 
 and measured out my ground for the present, and am 
 awaiting the weather-sweep of time to make favorable 
 the conditions for sprouting the seeds which I shall 
 promulgate on earth. When Herodotus warred in 
 the Egyptian temples of fame, he spilled the Cartha- 
 ginian blood of ancestral bigotry and fanaticism. He 
 warred with precepts and principles ; he warred with 
 the illiberal sentiments of ghastly theology ; he warred 
 with the hideous daring of Grecian autocrats, who 
 shuffled all responsibility into the church militant, 
 which was the cesspool through which all found a 
 passage leading to life eternal. Since Herodotus'
 
 36 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 reign, the camp-fires of a more liberal sentiment have 
 lighted up every period in the cycle of time. Hero- 
 dotus was a Grecian king, a stipulator for the am- 
 nesty of power through the channel of the operative 
 law of social reformation. Every age has had its by- 
 play to foster the element of progress ; every age has 
 suited the action to the word of renovation ; every move 
 has been forward march in the line of battalion array. 
 The pickets on duty have warned us of every approach 
 on the enemy's quarters. And those guards on duty 
 clearly discover the lion at bay by the howling demand 
 of the successful monster that ever tramples what it 
 means to destroy. Let me again refer to the science 
 of religion. Let me take up the life-history of religion, 
 its time, place, and culture, its advent into the Avorld, 
 and its exit therefrom, without a thread left in the old 
 loom of ancient mythology. Religion is based on God's 
 law of harmony : its fundamental precepts are love, 
 hope, and trust ; its organized institutions should be an 
 even-handed justice spread broadcast throughout hu- 
 manity, and a friendship made soluble by deeds done in 
 times of need. Earth should hold no religion, only 
 what comports with the highest attributes of man's 
 instinctive nature. All other is froth on the surface of 
 human wants ; all other is a needless expenditure of 
 time and money, as far as fostering the true seeds 
 of worship are concerned ; and all other is the harbin- 
 ger of the coming wind, that will sweep the chaff from 
 its seat of honor. The science of religion is the master- 
 key that will unlock the fountain that has too long been 
 choked by the accumulated rubbish of all ages of time ;
 
 THEODOEE PARKER. 37 
 
 and the clear and purling stream of silvery love and 
 friendship will flow from the old despotic fountain of 
 selfish inhannony and strife. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 RELIGION is a want to the human mind ; it is a neces- 
 sity to the soul, a peace-offering from God to man ; it 
 is a sentiment that needs the fostering hand of love to 
 keep green. Religion sprang up in the dark ages, when 
 the soul craved food to sustain its highest functions of 
 being ; when no power but God's, speaking through the 
 essential element of humanity, could stay around the 
 benighted hearthstone of darkened mythology. God 
 speaking in his thunderbolts of terror was losing its 
 charm. There was a congenial softening of heart grow- 
 ing out of the long-continued rasping and warfare : it 
 flooded its own spirit, and gave birth to a new type of 
 questionable religion, or questionable theology, because 
 religion and theology are two distinctive elements in so- 
 ciety, the one harnesses up a team for show, the other 
 picks its way on foot, if need be, but still intent on find- 
 ing out the needs of humanity. Religion is an under- 
 current that moves along with the tide of fashion ; and 
 when fashion sickens, as is ofttimes the case, religion holds 
 out her panacea of strength to grasp the sickened soul 
 into her haven of rest. Religion is the fundamental 
 earthquake that will upheave and demolish every type 
 of spurious metal the world takes on as a harness of sal-
 
 38 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 vation. The advent of the Christian religion, or what is 
 termed the Christian era, is a marked period in the 
 world's history : it fashioned its growth after the hidden 
 teachings of Christ ; it has run parallel with ancient 
 history since ancient history assumed the power to save 
 mankind. Religion has a sway entirely its own ; it 
 never builds from any particular style ; its principles of 
 structure are firmly rooted, branching ever in the direc- 
 tion of use ; taking up life as best it may, still intent 
 in serving for the highest good, aiming always to 
 .'upplant evil by sowing the good seed of loving-kind- 
 ness that will root where illiberal dealings can find no en- 
 trance. Religion strips herself clear of any outward show 
 or manifestation of egotism ; she never takes more than 
 her clue of credit for favors bestowed ; she asks no high 
 tariff of the world's applause ; she simply asks the priv- 
 ilege of showing her skill at renovation, at tearing down 
 pillars of show, and erecting structures of strength to 
 meet the demand of human wants. Religion is a true 
 financier, delving in the cesspools of political warfare, 
 and toning up the moral functions of the parties in 
 power. Religion is destined to sweep the board of pub- 
 lic welfare of all the rubbish of false pretense and all 
 false stars that shine to no purpose in life. Religious 
 culture is the ebb and flow of the tidal waves of cur- 
 rent events that fashion the world we live in ; religious 
 culture would string our lives with pearls did we but 
 let go of self long enough to grasp the true essence of 
 her mission. She can not feed us with the true light of 
 revelation until we open our hearts to receive the light 
 from her many-hued tapers that are spread broadcast 
 and free. There is no tax to be paid on our gleanings
 
 THEODOEE PAEKEB. 39 
 
 in religious culture : we can take all we can digest with- 
 
 O * 
 
 out fear of its hurting our digestive functions. It is a 
 harmless remedy for all the ills of life ; it clears our 
 pathway of all false rubbish, of all graven images, sprouted 
 for no use to the soul's salvation, but a lumbering car 
 filled with weapons of destruction to slay our peace and 
 comfort. Religion grasps our true life ; it sprouts no 
 other for us to cling to ; it radiates around no false pre- 
 cepts or examples ; it tunes its harp for the great choir 
 of humanity. Religion has set its seal of contempt on 
 all false doctrines that soothe us to slumber over an 
 abyss of doubt and uncertainty. No false coloring suits 
 the majestic grandeur of her quiet ways ; she feels no 
 impulse for a life of double dealing ; she sips the nectar 
 of truth from God's vast arena of nature, and fills every 
 heart that is open to receive the free and proffered gift. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 NOTHING can so suit the heart of humanity, nothing 
 can so delve around all selfishness, nothing so pick its 
 way to the spirit of unrest, as the true and shining 
 light of religion. It garners its stores with always a 
 door left open for the wayfarer who is being pelted by 
 the storms of adversity. Christ was a religious man 
 from intuition. His spirit sought the wants of human 
 nature ; he affinitized with the highest element in hu- 
 manity ; he ever sought the world's vortex of confiding 
 trust, in the highest means to serve the greatest good. 
 Christ left his spirit of religion to bless the world ; he
 
 40 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 left his footprints of princely daring and virtues to guide 
 the stranded ones of earth to their haven of safety. There 
 never has been a light in the world that has shone so 
 radiantly, lighting up all the by-ways, sending its halo 
 of glory into all desolate places, and weaving its web of 
 royal brightness to hang over the earth in her times 
 of moral darkness. The religion of Christ was heart- 
 felt, and realized as his sustaining strength when earth 
 threw her mantle of trouble around him. Religion, in 
 the abstract, signifies harmony of soul with the divinity 
 of purpose ; but the world has mixed the true purpose 
 of religion with the outward show of mock ceremony, 
 until one-half of the minds on earth to-day never dip 
 deeper than the customs of past generations for succor 
 to maintain the soul. What but the light of revelation 
 from God's storehouse of intuitive reasoning could grasp 
 this unseen lever of strength, and apply it for the 
 world's improvement ! God shines forth his luminations 
 of truth in every corner of the world's use. The 
 gradual unfoldment of divine purpose creates no jar in 
 the infinitude of mind and matter. The even hand of 
 a beneficent Creator smooths all the rugged places by 
 some straying ray of truth let loose for the occasion. Di- 
 vinity shapes our course most unflinchingly. It is no ner- 
 vous hand that grasps the rudder of our destiny ; it is 
 no tremulous wave on the great ocean of eternity that 
 moves our course of action. We were not dropped here 
 without a purpose to culminate, without the power 
 given us to locate our destiny, without the pickax of 
 accumulation left within our grasp. God's law of rec- 
 ompense never cheats us a particle, never sifts an error 
 in our path but what Reason could pick to pieces if she
 
 THEODORE PAEKEE. 41 
 
 willed to do so. But when we allow reason to lay dor- 
 mant, and let out the job of thought to the highest 
 bidder after wordly renown, why call God a cheat, 
 and say he has harnessed our team, but left us no driv- 
 er, when it is plainly evident he intends us to be our 
 own teamsters along the road of life ? And he has so 
 fashioned our team, that it has the capacity for expansion 
 or contraction ; the capacity for gaining strength by 
 accumulation, or becoming weakened by disease. God 
 ever stares us in the face with our mission ; ever puts up 
 bars for us to climb over : and, if we fall in the attempt 
 to master the difficulties in our pathway, the right hand 
 of fellowship is extended from the spiritual platform to 
 keep good our efforts at success. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE harmonial law is working in unison with the law 
 of religious culture. There is sympathetic emotion be- 
 tween the two elements of reform ; they are starting 
 out on a tour of investigation, with the determination 
 to assist each other in overcoming the difficulties of 
 priestly triumph. The harmonial law is destined to 
 become the law of success. It has picked its way 
 through numberless difficulties, and still stems the cur- 
 rent of public disfavor. When the dynasties of Europe 
 sought the overthrow of Charles the Second, it was in 
 accordance with the primeval teachings of the ancestral 
 line of successive generations, that no power but kingly
 
 42 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OP 
 
 power, manifested in the gibbet, in racks of torture, and 
 in the guillotine, or scaffold of impious sacrifice, should 
 claim a seat at their national board of honor ; and 
 hence the harmonious outreach of principle at that pe- 
 riod was allowed no footing. But subsequent years 
 have fostered the germ that sprouted when earth could 
 not contain its growth. The Babylonish captivity was 
 a more ancient onslaught on the principle of harmoninl 
 growth. The world was flooded to secure that harmony 
 that after-years sought to overthrow. The Babylonish 
 captivity served as food to maintain the fierce and cruel 
 system through which the world was then passing ; and 
 yet, in this nineteenth century of moral and intellectual 
 growth, there is no work from the pen of any inspired 
 writer, that can push its way up to the hearthstone of 
 every nation as that time-worn book of fabled mythol- 
 ogy and sanctified cruelty. The Bible, proclaimed as 
 the word of God from every pulpit in the world, bear- 
 ing the stamp of legalized Christianity, abounds in 
 atrocities that this age can not enact, even in imagina- 
 tion, without a shudder and a creeping-away of soul 
 from the pictured scenes of ancient history, legalized to 
 the world as God's token of mercy and love. I wonder 
 at the fashion of keeping food that does not serve our 
 purpose ; of passing round a dish that all partake of, but 
 few like or relish : but I find, from my spiritual locality, 
 that earth is creeping away from the trap set so many 
 years ago, and sprung at every footfall of progress, 
 until its springs are becoming old and rusty from decay. 
 I hold no reverence for a system of laws that can not 
 withstand the picking hand of Time, and remain firm in 
 the united effort at success. I hold no reverence for
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 43 
 
 a theologian who climbs the hill of science, and sprouts 
 no new themes for the distilling dews of admixture 
 to lift from the rubbish of the past. I hold no truth 
 sacred, or beyond cavil, that flinches at the hand of in- 
 vestigation. The Old World garners her stores of 
 wealth in accordance with her valuation of monopolized 
 grandeur and kingly assumption. The Old World is 
 beating her bars of iron will against any invasion of 
 democratic power. The master-spirit of ancient chiv- 
 alry finds no response from their fattened cloisters of 
 papal glory. England masters every emotion of sym- 
 pathetic daring brought to her knowledge ; she allows 
 no straying sheep from her fold of domineering great- 
 ness ; she folds her hands with the utmost complacency 
 over her systems of oppression. The serfs that flood 
 her streets are a libel on her escutcheon of power ; she 
 has never'entered into compact with the spirit of Christ ; 
 the herald of mercy has never entered her door of 
 oppression, that is closed to every call but the one 
 of moneyed interest. When England drives a more 
 liberal team in this great world of cause and effect, she 
 will feel the ennobling influences that wrought out free- 
 dom on the American continent. The world is filled 
 with oppressive systems ; and the Anglo-Saxon blood is 
 the master-key that binds the cord of stringent; measures 
 around society. The Anglo-Saxon fibers that consti- 
 tute the underpinning of American society are sprouting 
 their helmet o:~ strength into every channel of arbitra- 
 tion in this great world of commerce and strife. There 
 \s no reason why America should not pick her way into 
 every department of human zeal and courage. America 
 should foster no feeling of supremacy, but should set
 
 44 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 to work with a movement of soul to galvanize the 
 heathen world with the aroma of knowledge and free- 
 dom. The advantage America claims over all other 
 countries is due to her liberal platform of deal ; is ow- 
 ing to her free passports of strength, that slumber a 
 dead weight on all other nationalities in the world. 
 While I maintained my earthly tabernacle, I fought 
 every system of oppression, I warred with every mon- 
 ster that reared a head above the confines of public 
 good. I have never changed one iota in my sentiments 
 with regard to the demon of oppression in any form. I 
 still hold to a legalized surrender of every perch that 
 collects the fauna of society, whether that perch be hid 
 from public view, or flaunted forth in genteel society. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 WHEN the great war proclaims the world's salvation 
 from the law of ignorance, then will the evils that now 
 surround mankind drop apart, and light will shine 
 through the darkened temples of defamation. There is 
 nothing that so hampers the mind as distrust. It is like 
 a darkened veil thrown before our outward vision, im- 
 peding our progress, and making us stumblers on the 
 highway of life. It is a true saying, that "life is a 
 thorny road to travel ; " and many a bramble and thorn 
 will spring up in our path unless we cultivate the soil 
 as we proceed on our journey. Life is one long illus- 
 trated roadway ; and the illustrations are pictures in
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 45 
 
 allegory, descriptive of our inner struggles around temp- 
 tations that beset our pathway. Earth is man's trial 
 course of action. We may beat our prison-doors ever 
 so much ; but, until the hand of Fate springs the lock, 
 we are prisoners on the course of time ; anglers around 
 the great bait of eternity, throwing our hook into ten 
 thousand pools, to find it nibbled by some speculator on 
 our field of action. There is nothing so worthy of in- 
 vestigation as God's plan of salvation. It should claim 
 the attention of every sane mind on earth ; it should be 
 brought to the door of every child's understanding, 
 there to await the light of reason to lay aside every 
 barrier of restraint. The world has too long sought 
 
 O O 
 
 safety from destruction in her Hellenic authors of doubt- 
 ful report. She should have a cataplasm or antidote of 
 a soothing nature after this purging process of fire and 
 brimstone that has lit the target hurled at so many gen- 
 erations, and never swept the board of any of the evils 
 it sought to destroy. I must say here and now that I 
 pity any mind bound to any theology extant in the 
 world, with no loophole of egress to confront the enemy 
 of progress. The Sicilian captive, bound with the fet- 
 tering chains of anarchy, was no more a captive than 
 the stickler to one code of worship, one code of laws, 
 and one code of morals, for this age of reasonable out- 
 growth from dogmatic prejudice and assumption. What 
 Hecletus saw on the Tower of Babel puzzled the Greek 
 philosopher. He wondered at the idiosyncrasies of be- 
 nighted Babylon ; he wondered at the deformities of 
 heathen barbarity. As system after system sweeps 
 along the course of time, the liberal hand of justice 
 points the way to the sunny side of life. Thermopylae
 
 46 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 was destroyed to suit the exigencies of power. The Old 
 World is filled with its sacrificial altars, its crisp and dry 
 rubbish, that makes the Past seem like old age creeping 
 along in its dotage to overtake the gay and happy child, 
 who springs at the touch of the myriads of keys that 
 unlock its bright and buoyant soul. The Past is the 
 stagnant water in the great pool of life, and no drainage 
 from the nineteenth century can bring so much as a 
 silver ripple across its sullen face. Its shores will beat 
 against the Future like a brand of despair hurled at the 
 retreating enemy in advance. The mushroom type of 
 society ignore present and future revelation ; they ac- 
 cept the Bible as a moiety to sustain the even hand of 
 Justice, that never flinches in doing an act of duty. Let 
 our acquirements be what they will in the seeds of old 
 theology, Justice never tampers with the affairs of men. 
 She clothes herself with the habiliments of truth and 
 equity, and warbles forth no strains of discord. Our 
 pillar of strength is our fortitude to branch out in life, 
 and hold on to the rein of just deal with our fellow- 
 beings. I no longer marvel at inconsistencies in human 
 nature. Every individual possesses the distinctive ele- 
 ment to rear a platform of free purposes of action ; but 
 there is always a hinge loose that makes the platform 
 shaky, and beyond our control to manage to advantage. 
 The next course pursued is, instead of seeking a remedy 
 to remove the defect, we give up the ship entirely, and 
 sink to the float-bridge, that is ever ready to catch the 
 unstable and dilatory ones of earth. Human nature 
 lays no plan of escape from the vestments of sin. Sin 
 binds itself, with its armor of truth, to the purpose it 
 serves. There is no sin but what has its concordant
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 47 
 
 element of defeat growing beside the still waters of 
 despair. The word " sin " implies the absence of good ; 
 sin Anglicized implies inharmony in the constituents 
 moving our course of life. Now, the absence of the 
 element which we all condemn, and which we all im- 
 bibe, would leave the world in a state of nude purpose. 
 The element of conflict is as necessary as the element 
 of peace. Both rest quiescent in their orbit of perpetual 
 movement. The gyrating hand of Time can never pick 
 the system of good and evil apart. They are twins 
 in the field of cause and effect ; they are co-workers 
 for the kingdom of heaven ; Siamese in nature and prin- 
 ciple to maintain the binding cord of unity of purpose 
 to serve mankind. Sin has no separate purpose from 
 good. It bears its relative value in the current arti- 
 cles before .the world. Sin never yet mastered the 
 emotion of good. Good is more tranquil in nature than 
 the opposing element, leading us to suppose the ascen- 
 dency has been gained over the more quiet movements 
 of the soul. After Nature has had her fits of howling 
 discord, the golden-crowned monarch lifts his head ex- 
 ultingly, and proclaims the sure defeat over assumptive 
 power. We, in our nature, partake of the great solar 
 systems that encompass our being. The laws that gov- 
 ern our natural orbit on earth run parallel with the laws 
 that govern the universe of matter. Mind is the deific 
 figure, the stamp-mark branded on our ultimate posses- 
 sions over gross materiality.
 
 48 THE SPIEIT-LIFE OP 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE solar systems govern the harmonial law of our 
 interior individualization . The solar key unlocks the 
 prisoned earth, and lets her captives free. The solar 
 nucleus springs our system of nerve-power, unhinges 
 our slothful habits, and awakens us to the grandeur of 
 activity. We are a part and parcel of the great ma- 
 chinery of natural laws, acted upon by every thing in 
 the kingdom of Nature ; acted upon by every ray of 
 light from the great mining-house of God ; prone to do 
 evil because it is a concomitant in Nature ; prone to do 
 good because that balances the wheel of error. Has 
 not every person having a foothold on earth had to 
 acknowledge the ever recurring presence of the smitten 
 angel, that passed from the house of God with visor 
 drawn, and the brand of dishonor hurled at his retreat- 
 ing figure ? The Devil, it would seem, has occupied 
 every seat of honor ; he has had his reign supreme on 
 earth, and broke bread with the angels in Heaven ; and, 
 to this day he rules the affairs of men with systematic 
 precision of movement, coupled with a determination 
 to revenge the insult shown him at the gate of heaven. 
 The Devil rules by force of circumstances : he picks 
 his way with perfect adaptation to the call received and 
 the means to overcome to obey the call. The Devil 
 seldom asks charity : that spirit of meekness does not 
 suit his dignity of purpose. I ever found in my earth- 
 experience that the temptations of Satan ever followed 
 on our letting down the bars at our vineyard of strength,
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 49 
 
 and leaving no watch at the gap. The Devil is perfectly 
 fool-hardy ; fear never enters the vocabulary of his 
 speech ; he trails the flag of truce in the dust, and beats 
 no retreat as long as the word " conquer " stares him in 
 the distance: and another peculiarity his Majesty assumes 
 is his deft and cunning ways, ofttimes leading us with 
 his hand of skill, that assures us of perfect safety, when 
 it is shaking with the palsied effort to maintain the dis- 
 guise until we are anchored on the side of unsafe foot- 
 ing. The Devil masters every emotion of guile, spread- 
 ing his wings with perfect sangfroid ; clasping you by 
 the hand, and showing his face of honest integrity, but 
 with a sly wink that bodes mischief in the future. And 
 so on I might trace the subtle winding of King Evil to 
 obtain a lasting footing with the children of earth ; but 
 as that is not my speciality in this present work, al- 
 though, at some future time, I may show the monstrous 
 bugbear,' bearing the term Devil, to the world, holding a 
 part in all materiality and in all spirituality, showing 
 him to the world as a necessary evil, branded with con- 
 tempt, but bearing the stamp of use. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THERE is one point to be gained over society before 
 the harmonious element can sweep the world's board of 
 error ; and that one point is as defiant as the unsheathed 
 weapon of a daring foe. This braggadocio of defen- 
 sive skill is world-renowned for its activity in picking 
 
 4
 
 50 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 seeds of use from the dry and barren fields of theologic 
 lore. There are, no doubt, morsels of worth interlaced in 
 that mighty fabric composed to suit the emergencies of 
 the heathen world. It never was designed or labeled 
 food for all time : if such had been the case, why has 
 the stamp of discontent found its way to the sideboard 
 of every generation ? why have there been anglers 
 after truth not found in sacred history ? why have our 
 palates refused to discover the secret aroma that has its 
 binding worth above any tinsel or glitter of false pres- 
 entation ? The Bible is filled with its seeds of corrup- 
 tion; its fields of bloody umpire, that the soul revolts 
 and creeps away from. I ask of any mind to-day, lighted 
 by the torch of reason, how the Bible version of the 
 world's formation accords with their faculty of thought ? 
 No sane mind at this age considers the miraculous con- 
 ception of the world's birth, promulgated in history, as 
 an appeal to their credit, unless the statement can be 
 dressed in some figurative style to suit the demand of 
 reason. Man's reason is his highest orbit of sense, his 
 highest faculty of intuition, the lens through which he 
 looks to detect the spurious from the true : reason is 
 not soluble by any scales but the preponderating law 
 of cause and effect. The world is fast losing its start- 
 ing-point. It is no longer assumed by learned minds 
 that it sprang from chaotic ruin, or that it took form in 
 the space of one week, and rolled out into ethereality 
 ready for the redeeming hand of man, not yet fash- 
 ioned. I wonder at the inconsistency of thought. I won- 
 der at the strange idiosyncrasies in human nature as 
 applied to the religious element fostered in society. I 
 wonder at man's faith to obtain succor from dry husks,
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 51 
 
 potted down, and seasoned with the bitter herb of mal- 
 ice prepense. It is a sad thought that human nature 
 possessed the attribute to derive pleasure, hope, or sym- 
 pathetic emotion, from the presentation of mock heroism, 
 and selfish anarchy, protruded at an age when Devils 
 were manufactured in heaven. Why is it that peo- 
 ple go back for messages from God ? Why not receive 
 them daily, and bind them as a truth about their hearts ? 
 Why pick in fields that have been culled so long, to the 
 exclusion of receiving fruit ready to be dropped by the 
 angelic band traveling for the world's restoration to 
 happiness and content ? 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MAN fashions his own life ; that is, he binds the 
 nectar of peace about his heart-strings, or fills his field 
 with patches of barren waste. Youth should be early 
 taught the financiering of life ; should early take up the 
 lesson of self-culture ; should early promise a gift to the 
 soul, and scorn to break the promise. Earth is filled 
 with starry gems that the recording angel is toiling to 
 pick for his crown. The hope that is vested in uncer- 
 tainty has the pinched-up expression of despair. Let 
 the light of a just knowledge expand the well-springs of 
 action, let mankind fill their storehouses with the good 
 seed that ripens to advantage, and soon the world will 
 be rid of the half-formed fruit that now appeals at the 
 doorway of heaven. I have before remarked, that 
 God's laws were a systematic course of activity, work-
 
 52 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 ing round the great central sun of their orbit ; and why 
 should man show a less systematic course ? why should 
 not each circle in his orbit of motion count as a benefit 
 in the great stream of life ? Man needs to be awakened 
 to the great responsibility of his mission in life ; he 
 needs to be galvanized with the lightning-flashes from 
 the great distillery-house of truth ; he needs to have 
 the lighted taper of damnation hurled at the retreating 
 figure of Sin : and its echoing wail will be an anthem of 
 joy to the world. I have nearly completed the first 
 canto of my spiritual state of existence. I have given 
 it as a prelude, or connecting link, in the chain of my 
 drifting life ; I have handed it back to the world simply 
 as a stepping-stone to reach my present locality ; I have 
 made this treaty of peace as connected as the circum- 
 stances and conditions through which I have labored 
 would permit of: it is simply grains of earth-culture 
 given from a spiritual platform, and tied with a string of 
 truth. I must touch one more point of my earth-career ; 
 must pick up my staff of infirmity, and taste again the 
 bitter cup presented by the hand of love. My last 
 earthly journey was fraught with great inharmony of 
 spirit. I was leaving my native shores ; was leaving 
 my dear and time-tried friends ; was leaving the associa- 
 tions of my whole ministerial career, entering upon a 
 new field of adventure, with no strength of nerve or will 
 to struggle in untried paths. My spirit beat its prisoned 
 walls for freedom to lift the clouds that hung over my 
 future. I knew that my friends were being entirely 
 shut out from my future on earth ; I knew the destroy- 
 ing angel was following in my wake, ready to lift me 
 overboard when Earth had duly performed her mission.
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 63 
 
 The angel of death is seldom met with pleasure. We 
 can view his shadow in the distance, and feel no thrill 
 at the danger he represents; but when we see the 
 enemy on our track, with no hope of re-enforcements, 
 the battle-ground of life presents a sad and troubled 
 scene. There is nothing in my whole earth-experience 
 that so touches my memory with the halo of regret as 
 the parting scene beside the ship that gave me passage 
 to the sunny isle that now fosters the remembrance 
 of the lengthened-out struggles of Theodore Parker. 
 When I recall my death-bed scene, and mingle its waters 
 with the tide of grief that assailed me at Boston Har- 
 bor, I can not compare those graphic pictures, delineated 
 on the tablet of memory, with any preponderance of 
 affection shown or tears dropped at my departure. 
 Boston claims my energetic investment of strength; 
 claims my manhood-endeavors to foster the seeds of love 
 and harmony, and carry my weapon of courage to bat- 
 tle the iron door of oppression that is swinging on its 
 hinges for the release of human weakness, and emanci- 
 pation from the errors of the past. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 ONE more word, and then I will pick up my spirit- 
 staff, and point the way my footsteps are now tending. 
 Earth holds her banner of strength in accumulated 
 deeds. The tinsel and glitter of false pretense have no 
 weight in the great scales of human happiness. All in-
 
 54 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 dividuality must touch a vibrating cord in the under- 
 current of human greatness. All mankind seek a 
 culminating point of honor, seek the glory achieved in 
 imaginative moments of worth to the soul. Earth is 
 one vast play-ground, and all seeking to touch the goal 
 of public acceptance. Every play has its reference of 
 approval fixed in the minor scales of the world's judg- 
 ment. Earth holds her banner of trust for all time : 
 she has her despairing moments, and sees no end to the 
 besetting curse of sin. But the illuminated points of 
 God's beneficent purposes shine in on the troubled 
 waters of Old Earth's career ; and she folds again her 
 hands with the full assurance that her rudder of strength 
 is in the grasp of a propelling force anterior, and above 
 her power of ability to control. When the majesty of 
 this theme sweeps across the magnetic fibers of my soul, 
 I feel the inspiration from the dissolving truths wafted 
 through ten thousand channels, and speaking in their 
 ever-varying tongues of hope, peace, and joy over the 
 fruitions of earth. Mankind has only commenced drink- 
 ing at the fountain of life. The waters that quench 
 their thirst to-day are but a drop beside the majestic 
 stream that will irrigate the ice-bound shores of Time. 
 The deluge that shall next sweep the world will be a 
 flood of truth ; and no ark of safety will need to ride its 
 waters, and no dove will be sent forth to proclaim the 
 subsiding of the elements of peace that will follow in 
 the wake of truth. The altar-fires of heaven are 
 glowing with revelations to be given to the world as fast 
 as the hand of Science clears away the rubbish that has 
 so long presided over the affairs of men. The auxiliary 
 steps to be taken to clear the channels leading to the
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 65 
 
 mythical heaven of all superstition, of all allegorical 
 matter, of all the presumption of creeds, and of all false 
 precepts and examples that darken the doorway of faith, 
 and leave us stragglers around a truth we can not 
 fathom, are these ; let Charity preside over the 
 N orld's board of error ; let Love dip her wings in all the 
 stagnant waters beside the stream of life, and let Wisdom 
 lead the way to a correct understanding of the great 
 central sun of our ultimate destiny ; and so let mankind 
 journey, with the true knowledge, not born of hope, 
 but in the science of God's word : and light will spring 
 up in all dark places, and no stumbling-blocks will ap- 
 pear on the roadway of life. 
 
 THE END OF THE FIRST CANTO. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 IT may seem strange for me to state my present abili- 
 ty to preside over the affairs of mankind on earth ; but 
 the statement is nevertheless correct, and I am impressed 
 with the duty to explain spirit-elevation above the crude 
 affinity of earth. This disclosure will test the utmost 
 powers of comprehension, and still I will give it in as 
 clear and lucid a manner as words can express the 
 thoughts I shall utter. Spirit-communion has ever 
 been an established fact ; and, although mankind have 
 preached and prayed from that fountain of living worth, 
 it has, until recent years, been clothed in mystery, and 
 talked about as a world we could not fathom, as a world
 
 56 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 of awe not soluble by any code of faith, or any power of 
 comprehension that mind had attained to, until the gen- 
 tle and low-toned raps were heard at Rochester, and 
 those silvery chimes, so fraught with hope and strength 
 to the world, startled the nineteenth century, and awak- 
 ened them to a sense of putting on a cap of thought, 
 and sending out the spirit of investigation to fathom the 
 significance of those unseen sounds. The world at large 
 dropped the brand of " humbug " on those tiny efforts of 
 spirit-control. The world has ever cried "humbug!" 
 to a theory not understood, has ever assailed a truth with 
 weapons of defense, and sought no advantage over the 
 errors of the past ; but the wheel of Time has dropped 
 truths for mankind to sift, regardless of any hue and cry 
 of public favor. Will mankind please to remember that 
 every advance step over ignorant assumption has dug its 
 way through the fiery furnace of discordant elements, 
 seared, scorched, and blasted by the infernal machinery 
 of human laws ; but Truth ever seats herself with a tri- 
 umphant smile, high and dry above any code of human 
 enactment to frustrate or dishonor. Spirit-communion 
 is the bar let down for the world's redemption and resto- 
 ration from the sin of Adam's fall ; spirit-communion is 
 the harbinger of the coming man that is to lead the way 
 to life everlasting, and flood the world with a new bap- 
 tism and a new birth. Then will the glory of the Lamb 
 appear in a cloud of truth over benighted Christianity, 
 and the veil of mysticism and doubt will no longer hang 
 over the world. I took my departure from earth, or, rather, 
 from my material body, with the full assurance of reten- 
 tive individuality. Up to the last moment of earth's mas- 
 tery, I possessed my power of thought distinct, possessed
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 57 
 
 the power to trace myself through space, possessed the 
 faculty to feel myself in space ; my physical body was 
 losing its charm, days before my spirit took its flight ; 
 my bed of sickness was radiant with hope ; and I had 
 the drifting halo of peace beside me daily. When, at the 
 last hour of my stay with mortality, the death-film shut 
 friends and attendants from my outward vision, my 
 spirit took in the full and complete detail of the dying 
 scene ; and, were I an artist, I could sketch it to the life, 
 for it hangs in my gallery of memory fadeless, and dewy 
 with the inspiration of loving friendship : I hold that scene 
 in sacred keeping. I can not lift the spell that attaches 
 me to earth, because the sympathetic cord is galvanized 
 with the true essence of salvation ; that is, the dew of 
 the harmonial law pervading all space : therefore, when 
 I seek earth, I clothe myself with the ether dew of my 
 habitation, and seek the corresponding element in hu- 
 manity. I seek the cord of sympathy, or sympathetic 
 emotion : that law runs parallel with the law of cause 
 and effect. It may be well for me to explain the sym- 
 pathetic law, or the binding law that runs through 
 all materiality and through all spirituality : it is the 
 force and coercive law that moves the machinery of 
 Nature ; it is the cause of things made, and it be- 
 gets its own formation. Like begets like in every 
 code of order. The formation of worlds is accom- 
 plished by the sympathetic movement of elementary 
 matter. The cohesive strata in earth attach the pri- 
 mates to a focus of strength ; and repeated effort at cen- 
 tralization causes a rounded-out form of matter. Let 
 me give an illustration ; take, for instance, a globule or 
 drop of water ; condense that by freezing ; it may assume
 
 58 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 a variety of shapes : but let a sympathetic sunstroke 
 touch those particles of congealed water, and they in- 
 stantly assume the rounded-out form of mother-earth, 
 showing conclusively that the primates in matter strictly 
 adhere to first principles. Dissolve particles of earth, for 
 instance ; you will find that the minutest portion is in 
 keeping with the great mass from which it was removed. 
 This is a complex study, the law of centralization, the 
 law that sticks to first principles. You can not destroy 
 one particle of earth, you can not fix it or shape it, but 
 what its ultimate will assume its mother-form ; and that 
 same law runs through all substance. The formation 
 system has its birth from a necessity in the financiering 
 of elementary motion. The first driftings of earth's com- 
 motion were crude efforts, not legalized in history, for 
 the very reason that speech was denied our first par- 
 ents. That effort in man was accomplished by elon- 
 gated power over respiratory motion. Man in his first 
 development was only removed from the beast by intui- 
 tive reason, therefore, made capable of improvement, 
 susceptible to external influences, holding a key of 
 strength to unlock the cycles of time, and round out to 
 the full estate of a world in motion. Man is but a coun- 
 terpart of Nature: every element in the storehouse of 
 earth finds its sympathetic monitor in man's outward 
 construction ; and the radiating influences in man dip 
 their beaks in the worlds that motionary earth has 
 etherealized, and sent into space. That thought is glow- 
 ing with grandeur, and finds sympathetic accordance in 
 the world I now inhabit. Man radiates to his true pur- 
 pose through the same law that particles of earth as- 
 sume a standard shape ; but for the law of sympathy
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 59 
 
 tlie world would be motionless, congealed into frozen 
 antipathy, with no sunbeams to illuminate her secret 
 springs of action ; and, but for the law of sympathy in 
 the binding forces of intellectuality, there would be no 
 stamp-mark to insure the meed of approval. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THEREFORE, as I before stated, when I seek earth, I 
 clothe myself with the conditions of earth, clothe my- 
 self in a condition to reach that atmosphere. It is merely 
 a similitude of the changes that are necessary on earth 
 to meet the changes in atmospheric pressure ; or it is 
 simply a change of clothing to suit the locality we are 
 journeying to. What satisfies the body in summer 
 time is in no way suitable for a winter's atmosphere ; 
 and when Earth fails in her atmospheric conditions to 
 supply the part of man that belongs to her, then the 
 higher law steps in to the rescue, and folds an arm of 
 strength and sympathy around the spiritual element ; or 
 that condition in man that needs a change of climate. 
 
 O 
 
 Man possesses the element of change in exact ratio with 
 the changes in Earth. We see the Earth with our vision 
 of Earth ; but we can not with that Earth-vision see her 
 secret springs of motion. Are we, then, to doubt the ex- 
 istence of her ethereal life, her life of silvery harmony, 
 that throws off her crude material, and goes on w Jth her 
 
 ' O 
 
 work of reproduction, but always with reference to the 
 higher law ; always changing her material, throwing off
 
 60 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OP 
 
 the old, and putting on the new ; always clothing her 
 spirit with new beauty and symmetry of design ? Earth 
 has her spiral forces that point heavenward. She holds 
 within her receptacles the monitors that grasp the un- 
 seen cords of sympathy that keep green her fields, and 
 ripen her vineyards of strength, to still further the law 
 of sympathy existing between her outward surface and 
 the component parts of man's organic structure. You 
 can not separate man from earth, because the law of 
 sympathy outlasts time. There will ever be an element 
 in man that will correspond with the intuition in Nature. 
 Nature can not tell why she builds. It is not because 
 she has not the power of expression ; for her face pro- 
 claims her power of speech in ten thousand low and 
 mellow sounds, and speaks in every variety of dialect 
 that human nature can fathom. Still she refuses to 
 utter the whys and wherefores of her existence ; but I 
 ween, at some future day, there will be a revelation from 
 Old Nature that will fix her starting-point, and show 
 the consistency of mind in matter. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE intuitive faculties in Nature correspond precisely 
 with the intuitive law in man and animal. It is simply 
 the capacity to draw productive power when needed, 
 simply the power to collect re-enforcements by the inter- 
 nal element of demand. Man, animal, and Nature 
 reach out the aspiring hand of want to the spiral foun-
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 61 
 
 tain of life, whose springs we can not see with Nature's 
 vision, but whose wealth we may feel in every strata of 
 mind and matter. Heaven has fixed her stamp-mark on 
 every particle of earth's fruition : she holds her claim 
 serene and majestic, with no ripples of doubt to mar her 
 quiet surface of content. Heaven and earth are part- 
 ners for life. You can not divorce their system of ope- 
 ration ; it is co-existent with the deity of purpose, twin 
 in sympathetic emotion and vibratory accordance : and 
 that they are nearing in their ultimate destiny is evident 
 from the non-satisfaction evinced in bygone theories. 
 Man is sure to bring heaven and earth together, because 
 man holds the power to act from reason : all other vi- 
 bratory activity is consequent on the law of cause and 
 effect, or the law of give and take. Man is the focus 
 of strength uniting the two worlds, sure to elevate the 
 earth by taxation on heaven, if need be ; and as that is 
 Lne last demand made for the benefit of humanity, it is 
 evident that the past promulgation of theological bom- 
 bast is losing its power of control, and humanity are 
 seeking those fields of living green, whose fadeless worth 
 will frustrate every ill that sorrowing Earth takes to her 
 platform of use. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 MY present locality, to use a symbolized expression, is 
 a gem found beside the river of the stream of life. It is 
 the pearl expressive of great future worth. I have ar- 
 rived, by constant application, to the third constellation
 
 62 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 of shining luster, the third realm inhabitable in space. 
 It is located in proximate affinity to Taurus or the 
 Pleiades, that nebula of stars situated in the constellation 
 of Andromeda. The atmosphere of my present locality 
 is fragrant with the dew of hope : I am clothed in the 
 vestments of a June morning on earth ; or, rather, I am 
 clad in the white garments of peace. Clothing, in the 
 spirit-world, is emblematical of the conditions of the soul. 
 White signifies peace, a chastened condition gained from 
 culture in every stage of development. My abode lacks 
 nothing to my present growth ; every niche is filled with 
 satisfaction to my soul. Those on the earth-plane who 
 conjecture the soul to be mythical a fleeting, shadowy, 
 ethereal something, not tangible by faith or actual dem- 
 onstration will no doubt be surprised and incredulous 
 when I here declare the soul to be a substantial, living 
 embodiment of growth and consequent power. The soul 
 is the essence of manhood or of childhood ; it is the intellec- 
 tual tissues woven into symmetry of motion, the think- 
 ing apparatus distinct in operation, bearing similitude to 
 its casket of clay. The man of earth-proportions is the 
 husk that protects the kernel through the earth-experi- 
 ence, no more needed when the kernel is ready for the 
 harvesting. Earth takes care of her part with ready 
 skill and consummate art, that hides her secret springs of 
 action. Man was never known to search in earth for 
 any thing belonging to himself: his intuitive reason 
 points above the materialistic plane of life. What is 
 there in Nature that satisfies man above the wants that 
 Nature manifests? Man ever has a star of hope in the 
 ascendant, ever an illuminated pathway leading from 
 the grave, ever a pillar of strength in history, or some
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 63 
 
 by-path of his own finding ; then wherefore is it, when 
 we in spirit-life seek to make conjecture a living reality, 
 seek t6 personify spirit-life, seek the divine afflatus of 
 strength to carry our work on earth, that the opposing 
 elements meet us with their pointed daggers of distrust, 
 and a hang-dog look of shame at being found in the field 
 of investigation for facts to corroborate the sly inklings 
 of truth so often dogged at, but seldom hit. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 I WILL again resume my point of local bearing to the 
 world, and test the credulity of my fellow-beings on 
 earth. I before said, that white was emblematical of 
 peace. My vestments are real to the sphere I inhabit. 
 This ethereality, or spirit-costume, was taken on at what 
 is termed the death-hour. Let me here explain the 
 procedure of spirit-ability to assume the ethereal cos- 
 tume that the vision of earth can not detect. Let us 
 assume that spirit is the breath breathed into man at 
 birth. Can we, with our earth-vision, see that breath ? 
 see the power that ushers life into a structure formed 
 through Nature's laws ? Are we, then, to doubt that 
 power, that unseen capacity in man, that vibrates to the 
 myriads of keys in Nature's wardrobe of use ? If man 
 is to doubt every thing not in keeping with his earth- 
 vision, then may he doubt his earth-existence because he 
 can not see his power of life. His locomotive springs of 
 action are hid from the outward view. It is only the in-
 
 64 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 terior, the spirit, that feels the life-springs of motion ; 
 feels the electric current permeating all space ; feels the 
 power to soar above the outward form ; and, possessing 
 that power, it necessarily reveals itself. Therefore, when 
 I say the soul walks away from its clothing of earth, I 
 state a fact that is soluble to reason. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 WERE mankind to allow reason a freer scope, it would 
 impart new vigor to the life-forces of action. Man has 
 yet to learn that reason is the key that unlocks the 
 scientific world, and brings the treasure of life to a basis 
 of truth where no doubt can disturb its sure foundation. 
 My ethereal life is clothed with vestments of substantial 
 evidence to the society that occupy my sphere in the 
 order of progression. The fabric in which we clothe 
 ourselves is tangible to our sense of touch ; and, when I 
 say it is all woven in the looms of earth, I state another 
 fact that I must prove with the key of reason. The 
 fabric, or illusory material, as earth terms spirit-clothing, 
 is the finesse, or the art in Nature, of the outwrought ma- 
 terials of earth. It is the fancy dictum of the interior 
 design; it is the test-mark of inorganic substance, the 
 nerve-portion underlying the outspoken design. Let 
 me illustrate. In order to bring out a design, whether 
 in substance to clothe a material body, or in the con- 
 ception of some grander scheme, reared for the world's 
 benefit, it is necessary to fashion the fabric or structure
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 65 
 
 on the internal plane of thought ; and the mind that 
 fashions on earth takes that same power of design to the 
 higher sphere of use. The condition of the soul always 
 seeks its affinity in artistic worth and ability. There- 
 fore, when I say spirit-vestments are a condition of the 
 soul, it is no more than saying that my earth-garments 
 were the outwrought fancy or condition of my mind or 
 soul. My fancy, when on earth, led me to the attire 
 of black ; and now, when I near earth, I assume the 
 old condition of mind. And those that see with the 
 light of clairvoyance always see me in my suit of black. 
 Let me give another illustration. Take, for instance, the 
 color of green.- Now, the combination of oxidized gases 
 compose the prismatic shades in that one color. Note, 
 for instance, the shading of a rainbow. Does it ever 
 occur to the public mind that man, on earth, helps to 
 fashion the rainbow ? Let me explain the process by 
 which it is done. Rainbows assume the different shades 
 of coloring. Sometimes we see them span the heavens 
 dressed in the rosy tints of morning ; at other times, they 
 don their blue-tinted robes ; and ofttimes they appear in 
 the shimmering dress of green, showing, conclusively, 
 that the system of change is not confined to earth ; and 
 also showing the disposition in ethereal space to har- 
 monize and blend the true elements of purpose in con- 
 structing the rainbow. As I before remarked, man on 
 earth helps to fashion the rainbow through the law of 
 give and take. Man on earth possesses the power, 
 through chemical process, to embody the electric cur- 
 rents or the prismatic shades that vibrate through the 
 universe of color. Now, as man possesses the ability 
 to embody the primates, or bring out a color from pri- 
 
 5
 
 66 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 mordial confusion, he possesses the power to embody 
 that color in space ; and there it undergoes the process 
 of blending. Those on earth who suppose that labor 
 ceases at the expiration of material existence, will be 
 surprised to know that the truth of labor is accomplished 
 in the spirit- world, that the essence, or ideal, finds shape 
 through the active energies of spirit-life. Color is a con-, 
 dition of the soul. I have my earth-conditioned gar- 
 ments, my spiral-pointed armor, which bears the rosy 
 hue of morning ; and my white robe of peace, that as- 
 similates with my present condition of mind. I might 
 here state that life is a condition of soul, the only 
 condition that remains firm to its trust, because life is 
 soul, the intuitive essence that symbolizes structure, and 
 manifests itself in out wrought design. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 I WILL now take up my present condition in space : 
 and, to the eye of faith, I am doing the Lord's will ; but 
 in reality I am on the direct road of progressive movement, 
 having followed out the dictates of conscience, my mon- 
 itor of strength, in ushering me along the road of salva- 
 tion, until this present time finds me in a condition to 
 master every difficulty that impeded my progress on 
 earth. My condition of soul is in harmony with the 
 system of laws through which I labor. I am in no way 
 constrained. Labor assumes its standard worth : each 
 department has its pointer of use, directing me onward
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 67 
 
 and upward to pick in fields not yet open to earth. My 
 road lies up the steep and rugged hill of duty. I claim 
 no wings of flight aside from those tipped with the 
 ether dew of use. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 I AM at this present time folding the leaves of my 
 past biography. It is written on the fine tissued sheets of 
 vellum manufactured from ethereal ized substance found 
 in the second sphere : it is a species of galvanized rubber- 
 lasting prepared from oxidized gases or fluids ; it is 
 done through chemical process, brought to a higher 
 focus of power than earth claims at present. Galvan- 
 ized rubber forms a part of the basis of etherealized 
 atmosphere : it is the soluble part to the outward sense. 
 The other portions of ether forming the electric currents 
 in atmospheric conditions have their basis in the minu- 
 tiae of earth soluble to that code of reason that acknowl- 
 edges the ether dew or the finesse dictum in all substance, 
 the portions of earth that throw off the strata or inor- 
 ganic particles that compose space ; the portion that 
 contains the sympathetic monitor, or the portion that 
 graduates to intelligence. That may be a new thought 
 to some, that matter contains any intellectual parts ; but 
 there is a strata running through all matter possessing 
 the component element of intellectuality. It was that 
 same element in mother-earth that made man upright, 
 and endowed with reason. Mother-earth has ceased to 
 build from the bygone fashion, because the necessity is
 
 68 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 passed ; and the higher law came to the rescue as soon as 
 reason could exert a sway outside of primordial sub- 
 stance. Then Nature had accomplished her highest 
 effort, and man then possessed a key to unlock old Na- 
 ture, and bring her to the platform of investigation, to 
 find her subtle element or elements that compose the 
 spiral points of reason. In a work that the ensuing 
 spring will bring before the public, the Alpha and Omega 
 of spirit-claim on and over the rudimental shaping of 
 earth will be tested. The work I here advertise will em- 
 brace the primordial confusion of matter, and bring out 
 the strata of mind that wrought structure and shape 
 from confused inharmony of chaotic ruin. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 MY present condition of life is rather picturesque : I 
 have my harbor of refuge, my home of secret pleasure 
 and thought, my fancy-wrought Castle of Ease in the 
 ascending scale of progress. I think every person has 
 a local habitation of ease somewhere in the future ; and 
 that breastwork, thrown up for the soul to reach and 
 mount, keeps green the field of hope, and leads us out 
 to span the unseen shores of time and eternity. My 
 present home winds its sustaining arm of strength around 
 my every wish and purpose. I find gifts for the soul in 
 every corner of my local habitation. Let me here de- 
 scribe my seat of honor, or, in other words, give the ex- 
 act dimensions of my spirit-home. As I before stated, my
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 69 
 
 local resort is situated in the third sphere, near the con- 
 stellation of Andromeda : it bears the tropical clime along 
 its smooth and undulating plots of verdured green. My 
 mansion of rest from active duty is in the suburban style, 
 with broad parterre and sylvan haunts that vibrate to 
 the mystic touches of my white-robed angel friends. But 
 to make my home more definite, more tangible to earth, 
 I will give it in the form of a parable ; I will dress it up 
 in allegory, but with the stamp-mark of truth facing 
 every side of my spirit-edifice. We term spirit the life, 
 the pulp of being, the interior casket, that takes pre- 
 cedence in going a journey, or going to rest, or in any 
 effort that requires movement. The spirit first starts the 
 team of strength that moves the outward edifice. Let us, 
 then, suppose the interior portion of man, the casket of 
 strength, the pulp of being, desires to outstrip time ; de- 
 sires to build from the interior plane of thought ; that is, 
 desires to fashion a structure that time can not control. 
 The very desire is outwrought on the spirit-camera in 
 space ; the desire is the structure. You desire to build 
 a material edifice ; that is, you desire the protection of 
 the material body, and your mind fashions from material 
 substance : but, in every particle of material substance, 
 there is spirit-architecture, there is life wrought out in 
 what seems dead structure. Now, the homes upreared 
 from thought and application on the earth-plane are da- 
 guerreotyped on soluble atmosphere, before the earth- 
 provision is made. We speak of weaving our castles of 
 fancy when those fancy-wrought castles are the real 
 structures of endurance that Time apes at, but only 
 reaches in a bungling manner. We can not build on the 
 earth-basis as finely as spirit can conjecture ; and why is
 
 70 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 that nonconformity to thought apparent in every sym- 
 bolized edifice on the footstool of Time, if thought found 
 in matter its fruition of purpose ? 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 MY spirit-home is an establishment of unpretending 
 merit as far as its local purposes are concerned, or as far 
 as it supplies the attachments that the past can claim. 
 It serves as my restaurant of growth at present, or my 
 refuge from impending storms that threaten every cargo 
 of strength on the boundless sea of Time. Let me here 
 state that eternity is Time, an outreach from the system 
 of days, weeks, months, and years ; but still it is Time on 
 the wing. A higher schedule of purpose, a loftier tone 
 of thought, propelled by the steam-car of progress. My 
 spirit-home has a foundation-site that borders on the 
 stream of Life ; it fronts the chapel of Duty, and has a 
 corner hedge of Doubt to dispel the inglowing ease of 
 conditional circumstances. My home is adorned with 
 pictures of art ; the walls are frescoed with the true art 
 in Nature. I have my study-room, my system of study, 
 or my system of thought, brought to actual use ; I have 
 my reception-room, where I meet my spirit-friends in so- 
 c'ial converse, where we gather strings of pearls, and 
 count them for the benefit of each other. My friend 
 Rufus Choate proposed to me at one of our usual 
 gatherings the utility of constructing a system where 
 the electric band can be used, and spirits en rapport with
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 71 
 
 mortals etherealize the electric current passing round 
 the band, and thereby assimilate space to the under- 
 standing of the medium operator: that would be wor- 
 thy of investigation on earth ; and the construction of 
 the band will test spirit-ability to personify themselves 
 on independent conditions. A word to the wise ntay 
 be productive of beneficial results, and the harbinger of 
 the opening day when the glory of the heavens will ap- 
 pear, not in the burning bush, but in the mellowed tints 
 of pearl-freighted paradise. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 IN constructing the band for spirit-messages or spirit- 
 personations, it will require some skill in management. 
 The band should be made of perforated isinglass ; the 
 punctures should be very fine, and made equidistant from 
 each other. The ones operating in spirit-realms have a 
 basis of rubber, that being more easily procured ; but, for 
 earth -purposes, the isinglass would be more preferable, 
 because atmospheric conditions would have less effect, 
 and isinglass could be brought to a finer state of con- 
 sistency. Let the band be made from one to two inches 
 in width ; let the perforations be accomplished with a 
 very fine pointed instrument. This band can be worn on 
 any portion of the body, only graduate the size. Isin- 
 glass can be brought to a state of elasticity by the chem- 
 ical process of blending oxylized gases, or the nitrate of 
 silver in harmonious parts with the fundaments of gluti-
 
 72 THE SPIKIT-LIFE OF 
 
 nous substance. The band can be made with very little 
 expense, and would be very beneficial in detecting spirit- 
 power. Spirits can only work under conditional cir- 
 cumstances, as man on the earth-sphere has to deal 
 with the conditions requisite to the purpose he serves ; 
 antl let me here state, that conditional spiritualism must 
 take root before the true element will flourish. Man- 
 kind, in seeking spirit-communion, should first seek the 
 conditions whereby spirits can come en rapport with mor- 
 tals. If man on earth seeks a change of destiny or 
 circumstances, seeks a change in his local bearing to the 
 world, every condition requisite for the change is ob- 
 served ; but, when man comes to spirit-conditions in 
 spirit-manifestations, he seems to ignore every system 
 or combination-force in their mode of communication. 
 How is it that man drinks in so little sense when diving 
 for the pearl of great price that has so long been in deep 
 water ? 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 LET me now take up my occupation, and bear my bur- 
 dens back to the world, to be there tested and weighed 
 in the balance with common sense and justice of acknowl- 
 edgment. The majority of people on the earth-plane 
 of existence suppose that spirit-life is divested of all care 
 and labor, that we float in space, or have seats of honor 
 surrounding the throne of God, where praise and thanks- 
 giving is the continual theme of evangelical life. Now, 
 those who accept that life of ease and worship will
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 73 
 
 look upon my life as being too practical for heaven ; 
 but those who knew me on the earth-principle of life 
 would fully understand my incapacity for serving dead- 
 letters. That may seem impious ; but, to a reflective 
 mind, God's throne of worship is the universe of deeds, 
 and God's realms of space are glowing with the active 
 energies of disembodied mortals. All labor must have 
 a systematized footing ; must have aqueducts of use lead- 
 ing from that system, and pillars of strength to sustain 
 the embryotic principle of worth that maintains its posi- 
 tion above any altar of pride, or distilled flummery that 
 mankind manufactured from the idle driftings of polished 
 fastidiousness and corrupt inglory of content. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 MY spirit-home has never frustrated one desire of my 
 earth-ability to perform my duty of purpose in main- 
 taining my system of thought toward the high and holy 
 calling of promulgating the true seeds of the Christian 
 religion. My spirit-life takes form in active works : I 
 see my way through active precision of movement. A 
 friend of mine called at my study a short time since for 
 the purpose of investigating the by-ways of poverty in 
 the Second Ward of Progress. My friend stated the 
 condition of one district or locality where God's pruning- 
 hook of knowledge had scarcely found an entrance. 
 The inhabitants of that locality are steeped in famine 
 and want : they are the offshoots from the lower grades
 
 74 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 of social life on earth. And let me here state, that heav- 
 en's door is open to all life ; but the platform has a 
 signal-gun that fires a bullet of disapproval at every 
 intruder that shows a lack of the current material sur- 
 rounding the gates of Paradise. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 I HAVE many ways for the exercise of energetic effort. 
 I have a school where the sciences are expounded ; 
 where we bring earth up for proofs in her keeping that 
 will expand our altars of thought, and cause earth to 
 appear like the background in some fairy-scene. Earth 
 holds her pent-up treasures with the grasp of despair. 
 The fore-wind of knowledge is sweeping her fettered 
 fields, and laying waste the props that sustain her dy- 
 nasties of ignorant power. Earth has never yet laid 
 open her secret caverns for the world's investigation. 
 The law of ignorance has bound her selfish chains until 
 
 O 
 
 the stroke from the fire-altars of heaven proclaimed the 
 victory over benighted Christendom. My soul cries out 
 for light, for gifts outside of the impending stroke of 
 pen. I would fain call down God's truths from wells 
 overflowing with love, light, and knowledge ; from 
 worlds that span the broad arena above my platform of 
 comparative growth. But the World must be handled 
 with gloved fingers : it will not do to hasten her devel- 
 opment. The ploughshare of Truth cuts deep and wide, 
 and also bears a leveler in front to beat aside the cor- 
 rupt cumbrances of Time.
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 75 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 MY spirit-life bears unction of grandeur and power in 
 thought and purpose to serve mankind as long as ser- 
 vices from my sphere of gleanings are required or needed. 
 I am laboring now to establish free moral government, 
 independent of sex, color, hierarchy, or monarchy ; in- 
 dependent of creed, statue, or the press. That may seem 
 a broad sweep for freedom ; but it is, nevertheless, the 
 true aim of freedom. Individualization is sure to be ac- 
 complished. Each mind must become a world unto it- 
 self; and every star that sets in the ascendent throws 
 out a focus of light that illuminates the channels of earth. 
 My duty lies in the direction of all fettered institutions 
 of reform ; and, while I seek to dispel evil in spirit-life, I 
 seek an open portal to reach earth, and lay my flag of 
 truce beside the quartered enemy of doubt and fear. I 
 have the glowing thought of use ever beside my wan- 
 dering footsteps, ever prompting me to search and find 
 for the storehouse of memory and for the storehouse of 
 humanity. You can not separate the element of pur- 
 pose existing between memory and humanity : they are 
 co-existing in friendship, parallel in purpose to serve each 
 other, and deft in the use of instruments propelling their 
 movements. Memory holds her shield of thought high 
 and dry above the conditions of time, and bears her emi- 
 nent seat back to earth by the overland route, and seeks 
 no other way, only the one left open by cause and effect.
 
 76 THE SPI KIT-LIFE OF 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 SPIRIT-LIFE lias too long hung a dead-weight on the 
 shoulders of Time. The incubus of ease and quiet that 
 has so long surrounded the throne eternal is preparing 
 graduated seats, and for ever closing the passage to that 
 long leap in the dark that has for ages hung a pall of 
 terror around the destiny of man. Wherefore has this 
 change been wrought ? and wherefore are mankind seek- 
 ing the element of purpose in their outreach after 
 heaven ? Is it not because God's favored few fail to 
 procure a hearing at the seat of reason ? and is it not be- 
 cause mythology sickens the soul, and dampens the ener- 
 gies of faith and hope ? The nineteenth century is 
 seeking a new heaven and a new earth. The spirit of 
 energetic movement feels cramped and dwarfed in pur- 
 pose in the confined atmosphere of sectarian by-paths 
 and lodgments for the soul's ease and immolated daring. 
 The spirit of unrest is traveling the earth, seeking the 
 items that the hand of Fate drops in the car of Time ; 
 and the spirit of unrest is ushering in the New Jeru- 
 salem ; is picking up the staff of common sense, and 
 traveling out on the progressive road that leads to ulti- 
 mate success, and also leads to ultimate happiness by the 
 diverging lines drawn by active duty in every vineyard 
 on the course of time.
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 77 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 LET me here say, that my present occupation is just 
 as real, just as much an embodied fact, just as much an 
 effort to cany out a purpose, to culminate a design 
 formed by the will, as was any effort I ever made on 
 earth to further a scheme fostered by my reason. There 
 is no such thing as an illusion : every shadow has its 
 substance ; and every inlaid principle its embodiment in 
 art. Spirit is the reality of a personated being, the 
 life-giving element to design, the spiral point that reaches 
 above matter, the focus of power on earth, and the ul- 
 timate of man. Spiritualization is the heaven of earth, 
 the finale of all matter. The world will never know 
 where it left its material body, never realize the utter 
 baptism of dogmatic prejudice. The World is nearing a 
 great social earthquake : there will not be so much as a 
 pillar left of the old formula and systematic worship, and 
 by-plays of social epologue, that furnishes a whip and 
 driver, but no fitting harness, to travel the road of life 
 in. Society must outgrow its stern decree of rule, its 
 system of slavery, that furnishes a beaten track that in- 
 dividual effort must walk in. I ignore the force of rule ; 
 I ignore any system that carries the lash of coercion, and 
 the hoodwink of public deception to the world's arena 
 of strength. I may not give another combined experi- 
 ence to the world. This work has occupied my leisure 
 moments since the 24th of July last ; and, in giving 
 it to the public, I have labored under great disad- 
 vantages: but I would have it fully and distinctly
 
 78 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 understood, that I have carried the point for which I la- 
 bored. Let me touch one more point of spirit-duty, 
 give one more galvanic shock to the world ; and then I 
 will prepare for publication the work I have before al- 
 luded to, entitled " Marigolds by the Wayside." It will 
 be the prose and poetry of life, the actual and ideal, 
 which is the actual imperfectly understood. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 AN APPENDIX TO THE FOREGOING WORK. 
 
 IN giving an appendix to this work, it will be neces- 
 sary to state my object in so doing. Human nature is 
 prone to doubting ; prone to see what is not, in prefer- 
 ence to what is. I can not divest myself of the idea 
 that 1869 will leave the world flooded with more truth 
 and knowledge than any previous year in the calendar 
 of Time. The reason of my adding an appendix to a 
 work already completed is the faith I have in words 
 coupled with works ; and I never yet finished a subject 
 of thought, but what more could have been said to ad- 
 
 O ' 
 
 vantage. That may seem egotistical ; but egotism, to a 
 certain extent, is necessary. It would be unwise to ig- 
 nore the true art of thinking. The true purpose of 
 thought serves in the world. Thought is the essence 
 of a purpose, the aroma that floats around a design ; 
 thought is the distilling dew to meditation, the secret 
 spring that puts the machinery of the world in motion.
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 79 
 
 Therefore, when thought seeks to gather for the service* 
 of mankind, let the seeds of appreciation sometimes drop 
 by the wayside. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 IN fitting out a ship to cross the ocean, great care is 
 observed in having every part serve the purpose for 
 which it is designed ; and so, when man starts out on 
 the voyage of life, it is well to have his sails set in the 
 right direction ; to have his ship of thought bear anchor 
 at every port where science and philosophy have dropped 
 a cargo to be lifted on board for the world's strength 
 and honor. Mankind, as a general principle, lack in 
 the system of thought ; lack the power of application to 
 delve out a structure whose basis is an inlaid principle 
 of mind. The power of mind is, to a great extent, 
 fashioned from necessity. Man never attains to his full 
 hight when cradled in the lap of luxury. It is the stern 
 winter of adverse circumstances, the stern decree of 
 Fate weaving its web of cunning meshes with the intri- 
 cate finger of Content, to be thrown around the first 
 bidder for honors in the kingdom of heaven. Thought 
 fashions from a necessity in the motionary elements of 
 Time. There is no expansion to thought unless excited 
 from the outside world ; unless the reins of government 
 be thrown at the organ of visual sense, and caught at 
 by the finger of Want: and then Thought steps down 
 from her pedestal of ease, and manufactures skill from
 
 80 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 the conception of use. Thought is only indolent from 
 non-ability of physical movement ; whether it be insuffi- 
 ciency in organized parts or the inactivity of muscular 
 effort, both have the neutralizing effect on the viscera 
 of sense. Indolence is the moth that eats away the 
 time-table of man, and leaves him floating in space, aim- 
 less, purposeless, and almost soulless ; a drug to be fos- 
 tered by the energetic law of recompense. Man on 
 earth is fool-hardy and unwise to tamper with time, to 
 let his well-springs of thought dry up and choke to death 
 .'or the want of a balance-wheel in the outside world to 
 light up the "springs of action to furnish the evidences 
 that he has lived, and lived to a purpose in life. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 THE Carthagenian War spread its devastating influ- 
 ence around the whole Romish empire : the feudal force 
 of arms swept the Roman Senate clear of the pillared 
 wrongs, that, year after year, had convened at the citadel 
 of strength. War ever holds a purifying tone in the 
 background ; ever lights the future with a torch of hope, 
 and feels the victory won as a new start on the road of 
 principle. The true essence of war is purificatioii ; and 
 the next-signal gun will be fired at the national treasury- 
 house of Sin. The Future of earth will burnish her board 
 of deal with a lithographic design, where principles will 
 rear an honest background, and the children of earth 
 can be seen reflected with new aims to fashion their ca-
 
 THEODOKE PAKKER. 81 
 
 reer in life. The tidal wave of Time moves the great 
 ocean of man's eventful career; era after era sweeps 
 along the uneven track of the world's destiny. The 
 harbinger of peace ever walks in the ascending path- 
 way ; the glory of the rising generation will be wafted 
 on high by the trumpeters of truth that will be set over 
 the lost tribes of Israel. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 THE world is nearing the great blending crisis when 
 Jew and Gentile will drink of the wine prepared" as a 
 ritual of saving ordinance, and a breastplate of church 
 desecration. It is time that the blood of Christ be served 
 from the standpoint of principle, instead of the upheaved 
 holocaust of sacrificial altars and synods of heterodox 
 mummery. The Christian era is laboring out of her toils ; 
 is bending the bow of promise to every rational mind, 
 and lifting the salvation-seat above the shoes of men. 
 The Christian era was born of a principle ; the out- 
 wrought structure of Christ mingled its healing in- 
 fluence with the old Jewish assumption of power and 
 idolatrous worship. Christ's first presentation was from 
 a humble standpoint of view. He was the meek and 
 loving Saviour, the one with God in spirit, the one 
 clothed with immortality for the whole race of mankind ; 
 but successive years have changed the whole outward 
 bearing of Christ's mission on earth. Who thinks of 
 worshiping Christ in sackcloth and ashes at the present
 
 82 THE SPIRIT-LIFE OF 
 
 time ? Who, of all that are seated along the broad-aisles 
 of the world's fashionable churches drink in the true 
 spirit of the Christian Godhead ? Christ is the adorning 
 grace in every sanctification-seat reared for the world's 
 benefit ; but it is the outward emblem that precedes the 
 inglowing beauty of the loving Jesus. It is plain to be 
 seen that Christ's spirit of meekness is not the dress 
 worn on the all-important once a week, when the true 
 spirit of the Christian religion is dwarfed, and worn like 
 a plaster of penance, to be removed when the " Amen " 
 drops from the pillared sanctuary: it is plain to be seen 
 that Christ is dressed in effigy ; that his adorning grace 
 is an outside covering, worn for the benefit of public 
 opinion. When Christ becomes the standard-bearer of 
 principles instead of the background to a system of 
 slavery, and the holly-branch to wave for the world's 
 pride and egotistical bearing, then will Gethsemane 
 sprout the true basis of the Christian era. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 MY next work will contemplate the duties of the 
 Christian religion ; show the true meaning of Christ, 
 or, in other words, the prose and poetry of his career. 
 It will be delving some ways for first principles ; but, in 
 order to have a solid foundation, there must be an under- 
 current from which to fashion the living stream. There 
 is nothing so conducive to happiness as a firm trust on 
 an unperverted God. Nothing so expands the mind as
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 83 
 
 searching for the imperishable seed from which our lives 
 took root. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
 still flourishes the wand of peace around the world's 
 board of salvation. The God of Israel speaks in all the 
 modern dialects, and in all modern institutions of reform, 
 and in the whispering winds that proclaim the shattered 
 glory of the olden anarchy of wrongs. Future years 
 will rear a Godhead or Principality of Power that will 
 flourish like the green bay-tree, and throw out a branch 
 of hope to every soul on the highway for the principle 
 of life. Justice demands a change in the Godhead ; and 
 the law of equity and right are clamorous to establish 
 the principle of Infinite Power beyond the reach of a 
 personal God to demolish. The tread- wheel of Time 
 will lay an evacuation-fee on all the incidental whipping- 
 posts and scourging-rods that ignorance has reared by 
 the wayside. God will yet speak to the understanding 
 of mankind. He will yet rear a foundation-seat in the 
 world that the mind can grasp, and see the safety-valve 
 through which the world will pass to its regeneration- 
 seat. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 I MUST give this work to the world from my stand- 
 point of spiritual growth ; and, from a spiritual stand- 
 point, I must dedicate the element of reform. I would 
 have the Alpha and Omega of spiritualism an abiding 
 emblem of contentment and peace. I would have the 
 Rock of Ages cleft to the center, and fashioned to the
 
 84 SPIRIT-LIFE OF THEODORE PARKER. 
 
 understanding of mankind ; I would have the beauty of 
 Christ's life worn as an every-day suit by the world's 
 nationality ; I would have Christ triumph in a world he 
 came to save, and in a world that has so long lighted its 
 taper of knowledge at his fountain-head ; I would have 
 Christ the recognized element along the road of progress ; 
 and, finally, I would have Christ the redeeming quality, 
 in mankind, the star whose splendor is to reflect the 
 kingdom of heaven on earth. 
 
 THE END.
 
 P