Page:Margaret Fuller by Howe, Julia Ward, Ed. (1883).djvu/72

Rh ful verses of Christopher P. Cranch, artist and poet. Here are the Channing cousins, nephews of the great man by different brothers, one, William Henry Channing, then, as always, fervid and unrelinquishing in faith; the other, William Ellery, a questioner who, not finding himself answered to his mind, has ceased to ask. Here is, Theodore Parker, a youthful critic of existing methods and traditions, already familiar with the sacred writings of many religions. A. Bronson Alcott appears in various forms, contributing “Days from a Diary," "Orphic Sayings," and so on. Here are, from various authors, papers entitled: “Social Tendencies," “The Interior or Hidden Life," "The Pharisees," "Prophecy, Transcendentalism, and Progress," "Leaves from a Scholar's Journal," "Ethnic Scriptures," "The Preaching of Buddha," World and In-World,"—headings which themselves afford an insight into the direction of the speculative thought and fancy of the time. An article on the Hollis Street Council presents to us the long forgotten controversy between Rev. John Pierpont and his congregation, to settle which a conference of the Unitarian clergy was summoned. 'Another, entitled “Chardon Street and Bible Conventions," records the coming together of a company of "madmen, mad women, men. with beards, Dunkers, Muggletonians, Come-outers, Groaners, Agrarians, Seventh-day Baptists, Quakers, Abolitionists, Calvinists, Unitarians, and Philosophers," to discuss church discipline and the authenticity of the Bible. Among those present were Dr. Channing, Father Taylor, Mr. Alcott, Mr. Garrison, Jones Very, and Mrs. Maria Weston Chapman. The chronicler says that "the assembly was characterised by the predominance of a certain plain,