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Rh residence in the college, meeting his expenses by a small sum amassed by school-keeping and by help from a poor students' fund, and graduating in 1836. At the close of his college career he began his translation (published in 1843) of Wilhelm M. L. De Wette's Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Alte Testament. His journal and letters show that he had made acquaintance with a large number of languages, including Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, Coptic, Ethiopic, as well as the classical and the principal modern European languages. When he entered the divinity school he was an orthodox Unitarian; when he left it, he entertained strong doubts about the infallibility of the Bible, the possibility of miracles, and the exclusive claims of Christianity and the Church. Emerson's transcendentalism greatly influenced him, and Strauss's Leben Jesu left its mark upon his thought. His first ministerial charge was over a small village parish, West Roxbury, a few miles from Boston; here he was ordained as a Unitarian clergyman in June 1837 and here he preached until January 1846. His views were slowly assuming the form which subsequently found such strong expression in his writing; but the progress was slow, and the cautious reserve of his first rationalistic utterances was in striking contrast with his subsequent rashness. But on the 19th of May 1841 he preached at Boston a sermon on &ldquo;the transient and permanent in Christianity,&rdquo; which presented in embryo the main principles and ideas of his final theological position, and the preaching of which determined his subsequent relations to the churches with which he was connected and to the whole ecclesiastical world. The Boston Unitarian clergy denounced the preacher, and declared that the &ldquo;young man must be silenced.&rdquo; No Unitarian publisher could be found for his sermon, and nearly all the pulpits of the city were closed against him. A number of gentlemen in Boston, however, invited him to give a series of lectures there. The result was that he delivered in the Masonic Hall, in the winter of 1841-1842, as lectures, substantially the volume afterwards published as the Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion. The lectures in their published form made his name famous throughout America and Europe, and confirmed the stricter Unitarians in America in their attitude towards him and his supporters. His friends, however, resolved that he should be heard in Boston, and there, beginning with 1845, he preached regularly for fourteen years. Previous to his removal from West Roxbury to Boston Parker spent a year in Europe, calling in Germany upon Paulus, Gervinus, De Wette and Ewald, and preaching in Liverpool in the pulpits of James Martineau and J. H. Thom. After January 1846 he devoted himself exclusively to his work in Boston. In addition to his Sunday labours he lectured throughout the States, and prosecuted his wide studies, collecting particularly the materials for an opus magnum on the development of religion in mankind. Above all he took up the question of the emancipation of the slaves, and fearlessly advocated in Boston and elsewhere, from the platform and through the press, the cause of the negroes. He made his influence felt also by correspondence with political leaders and by able political speeches, one of which, delivered in 1858, contained the sentence, &ldquo;Democracy is direct self-government, over all the people, by all the people, for all the people,&rdquo; which probably suggested Abraham Lincoln's oft-quoted variant. Parker assisted actively in the escape of fugitive slaves, and for trying to prevent the rendition of perhaps the most famous of them, Anthony Burns, was indicted, but the indictment was quashed. He also gave his aid to John Brown (q.v.). By his voice, his pen, and his utterly fearless action in social and political matters he became a great power in Boston and America generally. But his days were numbered. His mother had suffered from phthisis; and he himself now fell a victim to the same disease. In January 1859 he suffered a violent haemorrhage of the lungs, and sought relief by retreating first to the West Indies and afterwards to Europe. He died at Florence on the 10th of May 1860.

The fundamental articles of Parker's religious faith were the three &ldquo;instinctive intuitions&rdquo; of God, of a moral law, and of immortality. His own mind, heart and life were undoubtedly pervaded, sustained and ruled by the feelings, convictions and hopes which he formulated in these three articles; and he rationalized his own religious conceptions in a number of expositions which do credit to his sincerity and courage. But he was a preacher rather than a thinker, a reformer rather than a philosopher.

PARKERSBURG, a city and the county-seat of Wood county, West Virginia, U.S.A., on the Ohio river, at the mouth of the Little Kanawha, about 95 m. below Wheeling. Pop. (1890), 8408; (1900), 11,703, of whom 515 were foreign-born and 783 were negroes; (1910 census), 17,842. Parkersburg is served by the Baltimore &amp; Ohio, the Baltimore &amp; Ohio Southwestern, and the Little Kanawha railways, by electric railway to Marietta, Ohio, and by passenger and freight boats to Pittsburg, Cincinnati, intermediate ports, and ports on the Little Kanawha. Parkersburg is the see of a Protestant Episcopal bishop. Oil, coal, natural gas and fire-clay abound in the neighbouring region, and the city is engaged in the refining of oil and the manufacture of pottery, brick and tile, glass, lumber, furniture, flour, steel, and foundry and machine-shop products. In 1905 the value of the factory products was $3,778,139 (21.9% more than in 1900). Parkersburg was settled in 1789, was incorporated in 1820, and received a new charter in 1903, when its boundaries were enlarged. About 2 m. below the city is the island which was the home of Harman Blennerhassett (q.v.) and bears his name.

PARKES, SIR HARRY SMITH (1828-1885), English diplomatist, son of Harry Parkes, founder of the firm of Parkes, Otway & Co., iron masters, was born at BirchiUs Hall, near Walsall in Staffordshire, in 1828. When but four years old his mother died and in the following year his father was killed in a carriage accident. Being thus left an orphan, he found a home with his uncle, a retired naval officer, at Birmingham. He received his education at King Edward's Grammar School. In 1837 his uncle died, and in 1841 he sailed for Macao in China, to take up his residence at the house of his cousin, Mrs Gutzlaff. At this time what was known as the " Opium War " had broken out, and Parkes eagerly prepared himself to take part in the events which were passing around him by dihgently applying himself to the study of Chinese. In 1842 he received his first appointment in the consular service. Fortunately for him, he was privileged to accompany Sir Henry Pottinger in his expedition up the Yangtsze-kiang to Nanking, and after having taken part in the capture of Chinkiang and the surrender of Nanking, he witnessed the signing of the treaty on board the " Cornwallis " in August 1842. By this treaty the five ports of Canton, Amoy, Fuchow, Ningpo and Shanghai were opened to trade. After short residences at Canton and the newly opened Amoy, Parkes was appointed to the consulate at Fuchow. Here he served under Mr (afterwards Sir) Rutherford Alcock, who was one of the few Englishmen who knew how to manage the Chinese. In 1849 he returned to England on leave, and after visiting the Continent and doing some hard work for the foreign office he returned to China in 1851. After a short stay