Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/157

 THE RANDALL FAMILY

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��Parker's views to form one congregation in Boston, and one in New York, and no others in the United States ; and I think that his followers were those who mostly love the world, but become sentimentally pious during three weeks after aflfiiction, and then fly back to the world again. I think that Parker might with propriety have called him- self a lecturer, and have spoken at Lyceums as often as invited ; but, had I been a preacher of Christian doctrine, I could not have conscientiously invited him to take my place at preaching. It seems to me that, as far as you state to me a faith, it would be perfectly right for you to gain first an independence by your school, which seems well adapted to give it, and then, as an amateur, to preach what you like. But I know that in our towns the preachers are all the time beset with those who seek explanations of texts and reasons for their faith, and who would never be satisfied with a minister who could give them no other hope than in the personal character whether of Christ or of Socrates. That you would consent to state more than you believed to them, I, of course, cannot for a moment suspect ; but an unsubstantial consolation is no consola- tion at all.

As for lecturers on morals, I believe with Dr. Johnson that all or at least most men are moralists. Nevertheless, so entirely do I believe in the necessity of being governed by conscience, that I assure you that, whether you should believe it your duty to preach as a Unitarian, a Catholic, a Calvinist, or a Mussulman, it will in no way affect my friendship for you, as long as conscience, and not vanity or hypocrisy, is your motive, even if it calls you to some White Mountain town on one hundred dollars a year. But I should wish that, when duty so decided, interest should not call you away again, even to the " King's " own

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