JUBILEE POEMS. At the recent delightful celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Unitarian church in Quincy, Ill., the following hymns, composed for the occasion by two former pastors, were sung: ANNIVERSARY HYMN. O Light, from age to age the same, Here have we felt Thy kindling flame, Here holy thought and hymn and prayer What visions rise above the years, Oh, not in vain their toil who wrought Nor theirs whose love and hope and thought Dear church, for thee our thanks we give; And our One Lord in whom we live, We bless thy prayers, each hymn, each thought, We bless thy healing influence, fraught Blest be thy future as thy past, J. V. BLAKE. Much has been said in the papers of this country, and indeed of the world, regarding the death of our great historian, George Bancroft; and much more will be said. Though his work has been only indirectly connected with religion, yet the fact that in early life he studied with a view to the Liberal Christian ministry, and actually preached a few times, and especially the fact that he has filled so distinguished a place in the literary, political, and social history of the country for so long a period, make it fitting that we should devote a little space to a rehearsal of the leading events of his career. We cannot do better than reproduce some paragraphs from articles that have appeared in the press of Boston and New York. From an extended article in the Boston Advertiser, we cull the following paragraphs: The city of Worcester was the birthplace of George Bancroft, and Oct. 3, 1800, the date of his birth. He was the son of Rev. Aaron Bancroft, D.D., who was a clergyman of some reputation. Young Bancroft pursued his preparatory studies at Phillips Academy, Exeter, N. H., and at the early age of thirteen years he entered Harvard College. In 1817 he graduated with the second honors of his class, and in the following year he sailed for Germany. Here, at Göttingen, he remained two years, applying himself to German, French, and Italian literature, the Oriental languages, and literature of Greece and Rome, besides pursuing a thorough course in Greek philosophy. In 1820 he received at Göttingen the degree of doctor of philosophy, and afterward for a brief period continued his studies at Berlin. During these years he had been a close observer of the methods of Prussian government, and he seized every opportunity of visiting localities of historic interest and of meeting the remarkable men of the time. In a Göttingen vacation he had seen Dresden, and at Jena had made the acquaintance of Goethe. At Heidelberg he studied with the historian Schlosser. In Paris he knew Cousin, Alexander von Humboldt, and Benjamin Constant. In 1821 he passed a month in England, travelled on foot through Switzerland, and spent eight months in Italy, where at Milan he met Manzoni; at Rome, Chevalier Bunsen and Niebuhr. Mr. Bancroft returned to America in 1822, and for a year acted as a tutor of Greek at Harvard. His earlier studies had been conducted with the ministry in view; and, during this year of tutorship at his Alma Mater, it is related that he preached several sermons which were well received. In 1823 he launched the first of his literary ventures, a small volume of poems; and this was followed by a translation of Heeren's "Reflections on the Politics of Ancient Greece." Shortly before this, in conjunction with Dr. Joseph Cogswell, who afterward became noted for his connection with the Astor Library in New York, he had established the Round Hill School at Northampton, the purpose of which was to prepare young men for a collegiate course. It was about this time that Mr. Bancroft first began to take an active part in political life. In 1830 he was elected, without his knowledge, a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, but declined to take his seat; and in a year after he refused a nomination, though certain to be elected, to the Senate of the State. In 1826 Mr. Bancroft had delivered an oration in Northampton, in which he declared himself for universal suffrage and uncompromising democracy. The work on his literary masterpiece, the History of the United States, had already been begun; and the first of the ten volumes appeared in 1834. Volume II. had appeared in 1837, and Volume III. in 1840. The fourth volumethe first of the History of the Revolution -was published in 1852, and the fifth volume in the following year, when the first three volumes had reached their fifteenth edition. In 1855 Mr. Bancroft published a volume of miscellanies, comprising a portion of articles which from time to time had appeared in the North American Review. In the preceding year the sixth volume of his History had made its appearance; and this was followed by the seventh in 1858, the eighth in 1860, the ninth in 1866, and the tenth, completing the work, in 1874. 1876 he published a revised and much condensed edition of his work in six duodecimo volumes, having spent nearly a year in this labor. In 1882 he published volumes eleven In and twelve, under the title of "History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States." The last revised edition of the whole work appeared in 1885. In February, 1866, Mr. Bancroft delivered an oration before Congress in memory of Abraham Lincoln. In May, 1867, he was appointed Minister to Prussia; in 1868 he was accredited to the North German Confederation, and in 1871 to the German Empire. He was recalled at his own request in 1874. During his residence in Germany he concluded several important treaties with various German States, relating especially to the naturalization of Germans in America. At the time of his residence in New York, Mr. Bancroft had become the correspondent of the Royal Academy of Berlin, and also of the French. He made several visits to Paris to study the archives and libraries of that great city, a work in which he received the assistance of Guizot, Lamartine, and De Tocqueville. In August, 1868, he received from the University of Bonn the honorary degree of doctor of laws; and in September, 1870, he celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of receiving his first degree at Göttingen. He was congratulated by many German societies and faculties, as well as by prominent men of many nations. history, which has been translated into many languages, is especially popular in Germany. His Besides the labors mentioned above, Mr. Bancroft delivered at Springfield in 1836 an oration which was printed and ran through several editions. In October, 1855, he made an address on the site of the battle of King's Mountain, South Carolina, and another on Sept. 10, 1860, at the unveiling of the statue of Commodore Perry at Cleveland. In 1850, before the New York Historical Society, of which he was a member, he delivered a eulogium of Prescott, the historian. Mr. Bancroft had been the president of the American Geographical Society, and was a member of the Ethnological Society. recent years the veteran historian and statesman has resided in Washington, frequently passing his summers at Newport, where a short time ago he celebrated in appropriate style his ninetieth birthday. In Mr. Bancroft was Newport's most distinguished summer resident, and a welcome visitor at all the important social gatherings of the season. In Newport, as elsewhere, he attended conscientiously to his literary work, and his stenographer met him every morning at nine o'clock. Before beginning work, it was his custom to carefully examine his famous roses, of which he had over three hundred varieties. It was his delight to send these fragrant flowers to friends, and to present bouquets to strangers who lingered near the cottage, admiring the wealth of flowers. In Washington Mr. Bancroft's was one of the notable houses of the city. All strangers of distinction found their way there, and were sure to meet there at dinner or in the evening the most notable of our own statesmen. The Senate ordered him admission to the floor of the Senate chamber,-a special honor granted to no other private citizen. Senators and representatives often sought his advice in difficult constitutional questions. The last literary work of Mr. Bancroft was a pamphlet on the legal tender decision of the Supreme Court. It was published in January, 1888, and was as bright and vigorous as anything from his earlier pen. It was entitled "A Plea for the Constitution, Wounded in the House of its Guardians." One of the best articles upon Mr. Bancroft and his work that has appeared since his death is that printed in the Nation. We select the following paragraphs dealing with his qualities as an historian: Mr. Bancroft, as an historian, combined some of the greatest merits and some of the profoundest defects ever united in a single author. His merits are obvious enough. He has great enthusiasm for his subject. He is profoundly imbued with that democratic spirit without which the history of the United States cannot be justly written. He has the graphic quality so wanting in Hildreth and the saliency whose absence makes Prescott too smooth. He has a style essentially picturesque, whatever may be its faults. The reader is compelled to admit that his resources in the way of preparation are inexhaustible, and that his command of them is astounding. One must follow him minutely, for instance, through the history of the war for independence, to appreciate in full the consummate grasp of a mind which can deploy military events in a narrative as a general deploys brigades in a field. Add to this the capacity for occasional maxims to the highest degree profound and lucid, in the way of political philosophy, and you certainly combine in one man some of the greatest qualities of the historian. Against this are to be set very grave faults. There is, in the first place, that error so common with the graphic school of historians, the exaggerated estimate of manuscript or fragmentary material, at the expense of what is printed and permanent. A fault far more serious than this is one which Mr. Bancroft shared with his historical contemporaries, but in which he far exceeded any of them,-an utter ignoring of the very meaning and significance of a quotation-mark. When he quotes a contemporary document or letter, it is absolutely impossible to tell, without careful verifying, whether what he gives us between the quotation marks is precisely what should be there, or whether it is a compilation, rearrangement, selection, or even a series of mere paraphrases of his own. A drawback quite as serious is to be found in this,-that Mr. Bancroft's extraordinary labors in old age were not usually devoted to revising the grounds of his own earlier judgments, but to perfecting his own style of expression and to weaving in additional facts at those points which especially interested him. Laboriously revising his whole history in 1876, and almost rewriting it for the edition of 1884, he allowed the labors of younger investigators to go on around him unobserved. The consequence is that much light has been let in upon American history in directions where he has not so much as a window; and there are points where his knowledge, vast as it is, will be found to have been already superseded. THE MONTH'S POEM-SHEAF. EASTER MORNING. A gentle tumult in the earth, And 'tis by tokens faint as these, Of higher faith and holier trust; -John W. Chadwick. A HOPE. My own hope is, a sun will pierce A NEW EASTER. O chime of sweet Saint Charity, -James Russell Lowell. AWAY. I cannot say, and I will not say, And you,-O you, who the wildest yearn For the old-time step and the glad returnThink of him faring on, as dear In the love of There as the love of Here. Think of him still as the same, I say: BECAUSE I LIVE, YE SHALL LIVE ALSO. Say not of thy friend departed, "He is dead He is but grown For his being's full release; And believe the word he saith. -Lucy Larcom. IMPERFECTIONS. I wonder if ever a song was sung But the thought surpassed the metre ! I wonder if ever a rose was found, And there might not be a fairer ! -James Clarence Harvey. EDITORIAL NOTES. February 8 was the twenty-fifth anniversary of Prof. Swing's ministry in Chicago. The great preacher commemorated the day by a sermon on "The Pastorate," from the passage in 2 Timothy, "Preach the word.” It has been given to but few men in the nation to do a quarter-century of so influential and beneficent work as has been done by the pastor of the "Central Church." We well remember Prof. Swing as the minister of the old Westminster Presbyterian Church on the North Side, when he first came to Chicago. The writer of this, then a college student, went to hear him one Sunday out of curiosity, and was so charmed with the poetical beauty of his thought, but especially with his breadth and "sweet reasonableness," that thereafter no other Chicago preacher could win him away from the Westminster church. We were then "orthodox," and had little suspicion of the latent unsoundness of Prof. Swing's teaching; but we now see that in the very breadth and sweet reasonableness that were so attractive to us lurked incipient heresy. Only a few years were allowed to pass before the heresy-hunters were on his track. He was arraigned by his brethren, tried, and formally acquitted. But the trial made it so plain to his own mind that his thoughts were not their thoughts nor his ways their ways that at once he virtually, if not formally, withdrew from the Presbyterian body.. Then a large number of thoughtful and earnest people, of his own and other religious connections, and many from outside all, joined themselves together and formed am independent society for him in the heart of the city, which took the name of the "Central Church," and adopted, as its basis, simple discipleship to Christ. To this society he has ministered ever since, preaching first in McVickar's Theatre and later in Central Music Hall, to the largest congregation in Chicago and one of the largest im the world. Besides the great hearing given to his sermons on Sunday, they have been carried in printed form all over the West, and almost the world. For many years all the large morning papers of the city printed them each week in full. Now the Inter-Ocean prints them entire, and the other papers print abstracts and occasional discourses. In addition to his preaching, he has lectured much, printed several books, and written a good deal for the periodical press. As to his theological views, Prof. Swing has been from the first quietly progressive. With a mind ever open to truth, he could not fail to grow. Now he is distinctly Unitarian,-abreast in his thinking with our broadest and most forward-looking men. The quality and finish of his sermons have always been extraordinary. His sense of the beautiful and the poetic is keen and always alive. Indeed, his mind is half Greek. Combine the lofty and exquisite idealism of Plato with the tender naturalness and simplicity of Jesus, and we have the thought of Prof. Swing. During these twenty-five years he has exerted an influence that has been as powerful as it has been wholesome upon the religious thinking of the West. It has not been the influence of the thunder or lightning or storm, but of the warm sunshine, quietly quickening everything it touched into healthier and more beautiful life. We print elsewhere an extended account of the MacQueary heresy trial. The pitiful side of the affair appears in the fact that it was made explicitly and avowedly not a trial of the accused for offence against the truth, but for offence against the standards of the Episcopal church. The prosecution did not even ask, "Are the defendant's views true?" but only, "Are they in harmony with the ancient creeds?" as if truth were nothing, and mere dead words and forms were everything! The death of Charles Bradlaugh calls to mind the debt that the world owes him. Perhaps nothing in the life of our honored Dr. Channing is more noble than his conduct in the famous Abner Kneeland case. In the year 1838, in the teeth of general public sentiment, Channing headed a petition to the Governor of the State of Massachusetts, asking pardon for Kneeland, when the latter had been sentenced to prison for giving public expression to atheistical sentiments, and taking the ground boldly that no man ought to be punished for opinion's sake, but that the political and civil rights even of the atheist must be guaranteed and protected by the government with the same fidelity as the rights of the theist and the Christian. Naturally, this advanced position maintained by Channing made him many enemies. But the better judgment and conscience of Massachusetts and the world came at last to see that he was right; and his brave action in this important case is now one of the foundation-stones on which rests his enduring fame as a leader in the sacred cause of the world's political and spiritual emancipation. A much harder battle has been raging in England for more than half a generation. involving essentially the same principle as that which Channing fought for in connection with Abner Kneeland. It is to be hoped that the battle there is at last won. At least, it is clear that certain very important ground has been gained. To whom is the victory, or so much of victory as has been achieved, due? There can hardly be more than one answer. It is certainly due primarily to Charles Bradlaugh. He has had many noble helpers. But his has been the stout heart that has dared, as no other has dared, to brave ecclesiastical bigotry and tyranny in high places and low, in church and State, in the heat of popular elections and in Parliament, and demand, with a voice that rang over England, and would never be hushed even by threats of violence and imprisonment, the absolute equality of Englishmen before the law, irrespective of their religious opinions. We need hardly say that Charles Bradlaugh's atheism* we deeply regret; his fierce and often indiscriminating iconoclasm we regret; that he was in many respects a very illiberal liberal we are well aware. But that he saw certain important truths clearly, and battled for them in a very heroic and manly and often a very self-forgetting, spirit, we are glad to remember and confess. In his death the cause of political and religious liberty in England loses a valuable ally, no small part of whose public work may well be remembered with gratitude and honor. We are glad to be able to print in this number of the Unitarian some reminiscences of Bradlaugh from the pen of one who knew him well and stood by his side in some of his best battles. The call of Rev. M. J. Savage to the important pulpit in Chicago (that of the Church of the Messiah) left vacant by the resignation of Rev. David Utter, and his declination of the call on the ground that duty seems to him to demand his stay in Boston, are events of general denominational interest. That his leaving the East would have A writer in the Brooklyn Times of January 30 denies that he was an atheist, and says he was "a Deist of the Paine type, whose fierce assaults on Christian theology won for him, as for Paine, the odium of atheism." We should be glad to know the ground on which this statement is made. |