you love : God bless you, my dear Friend, and all those though I perceive, in that case, I am imploring a Blessing upon myself; but there is no Law against it. Am I not vain? Your affectionate Friend, J. BLANCO WHITE. Letter from Dr. Tuckerman. Boston, Oct. 24th, 1837. My dear Sir, Among the incidental pleasures of my daughter's return to us from England, one of the greatest was, that of receiving the note from you which she brought to me. I am aware that I am indebted for that note to her solicita tion, that you would give me a few lines by her. Still I heartily thank you for it. I had hoped, when I was in Ireland, in the spring of 1834, that I should have seen you at Archbishop Whately's. I had long known you through your writings. But you was then absent. I saw, however, a small marble bust of you, the impression of which is still very distinct upon my mind; and I have great pleasure in having even this association with your countenance. Yours has been a life of peculiarly interesting and instructive changes; and your position now,-mentally I mean, seems to me to be one upon which I may most heartily congratulate you. What greater, or even what comparative good, is there, or can there be in this world, than the consciousness at once of true intellectual and moral freedom, of increasing light upon the great subjects of God and of humanity, and of having done something, and desired and sought infinitely more, for our own, and the moral advancement of our race? I hope that you will leave for publication such records of yourself as you have not been willing to give during your life. You express your anxiety for America. I am not surprised at this. Yet, in truth, my dear Sir, there is little or no ground for it. We are acting out here some of the extravagances of freedom. But when I consider through how long a series of generations the human mind has been enslaved, and the world divided between the two classes of the oppressed and the oppressors of our race, and how very partially fitted, from this very circumstance, are more than ninety-nine hundredths of us for either civil or religious freedom, my wonder is, that Society goes on as well as it does. We have occasional outbreaks and excesses, which occasion a loud hue and cry, the echo of which soon reaches you. But you may be assured that intelligence, freedom and virtue, are steadily, though slowly, advancing among us. There is no ground whatever for a fear of a retrograde movement of Society here. The Slave question, from causes well understood here, and but very partially understood in England, has called forth some of the worst expressions of the worst passions of the human heart. But the progress of the question can no more be arrested, than that of time; and the most effective instruments of emancipation will be the Slave-holders, and the most hot-headed advocates of slavery. You will have heard of the determination of this class of our Republicans to obtain the annexation of Texas to the Union; and thus, by making ten or a dozen New States, to secure a decided preponderance of slave-holding power in the country. Texas,—I mean as it stands upon the map,-will be the field of long and most angry battles in our Congress next winter. But fear nothing. Should a vote for this object be obtained, the Union will be dissolved; and, as I believe without a doubt, the emancipation of our slaves will thus be greatly hastened. Or, should the South fail in this project, its desperation will be increased; which will, with equal certainty, though not, I think, so soon, be fatal to their cause. Has human society ever been advanced in great principles, but by some great and terrible shaking of its elements? progress of society has, indeed, been very slow. The moral Yet pro gress has been made. Christianity has done but little for the world compared with what it seems that it might have done. But still it has done much. Slavery, where it has been abolished, can never again be established in Christian Europe, nor in the Free States of America. The poor and ignorant in your country and my own, are more and more recognized as beings of a common nature with the educated and the rich. England has taken some important steps towards the voluntary principle for the support of religious institutions; and America has given a practical demonstration, not only of its sufficiency, but of its immense advantages for this object The evils of legalized monopolies in all their forms, and the rights and claims of free trade and commerce, and of free competition in all the departments of industrial enterprise, are better and better understood; and governments are acting more and more wisely upon these great interests. The education of the people, in the best sense, is advancing. Never let us despair of human nature. My long connection with the poor has filled me not only with hope, but with confidence, in respect to this great class. I have a thousand times more painful feelings in respect to the rich and powerful, than to the humbler classes. Great as is the vice to be found among these classes, far greater is the amount of their virtue. My experience among them has brought me to the conviction, that a degree and extent of moral good yet undreamed of is attainable among them, would but the rich suitably demand the proper instruments for it, and co-operate, as they might, for its attainment. But I must stop. I would that I could be near you, and discuss with you the great interests of our common humanity. My term of active service, or of free intercourse with the poor, has gone by. I no longer have strength for it. But the work of the ministry at large is in a very prosperous state here. I have three efficient young colleagues in the service, one of whom is to be ordained next Sunday evening. The other two were set apart for the work in 1834. May I not hope to hear from you again? My daughter remembers you with reverential affection. I heartily thank you for your kindness to her. We talk of you, and love you as a friend. We have lately been reading, and greatly enjoying, your "Second Travels of an Irish Gentleman, &c." May God crown your closing days with ever-increasing hope, and peace, and joy in believing! So prays your sincere friend, JOSEPH TUCKERMAN. My dear Sir, From Professor Norton. Cambridge, (N. E.) Nov. 8th, 1837. I should have acknowledged before, the favour of your last two letters, but have myself been suffering from severe illness during the greater part of the summer, from which I am now slowly recovering. I earnestly hope that your health is restored, and that you may be able to pass the remainder of your useful and honourable life in ease and satisfaction. I beg you to be assured that no difference of opinion, however important, can affect my belief of your fairness of mind and integrity of purpose; and in making a few remarks to explain my own views, I am sure they will be such as will not give you pain. Opinions I regard as of the greatest importance; for men, when not self-condemned, act as they believe, or endeavour at least to reconcile their actions with their belief, and the whole history of the world is one lesson of the disastrous consequences of different errors of opinion. But a great majority of men, I do not mean of reading and thinking men, but of men, of human beings, are not morally responsible for their opinions. These have been determined for them by circumstances which they could not control. - – Whether they are right or wrong is simply a misfortune or an advantage. Even of reading and thinking men, taking the whole class, there are few indeed whose religious belief has, to the same degree with your own, been the result of personal inquiry and reasoning. Most men are incapacitated both for acquiring a full knowledge of the evidence of important truths, and for estimating that evidence correctly, by the prejudices of education, by the circumstances of life, and by the actual want of the intellectual powers required. They believe on authority through their trust in the good faith, information, and judgment of others; and so we are all of us on many subjects compelled to do. The opinions of the world, so far as they have been determined correctly, have been determined by the gradual progress of information to which many have contributed, by the lessons of experience, and especially by the wisdom and efforts of a very few, the philosophers and guides of others. It is then no argument against any truth, should the fact be admitted, that its evidence is not fully to be apprehended even by the generality of common readers, and that those ignorant of the subject may raise doubts and cavils, proceeding perhaps from their very ignorance. The simple question we are to ask ourselves is, whether the evidence be sufficient to establish the truth, and then to contribute our authority towards its reception by giving testimony that, in our opinion, it has been established. There are no truths, not those most intimately connected with virtue and happiness, the evidence of which, however decisive, is so intuitive and unassailable, that we can say, this is evidence by which all must be convinced. The German Theologian, Schleiermacher, so highly reputed among his countrymen, was a pantheist, an admirer of Spinoza, a disbeliever in the personal immortality of man, and denied any connection between religion and morality. Fichte, at one period, taught Atheism, however he might pretend that he recognized a God, in what an English philosopher |