Forty years ago this great worker and thinker was ostracized by the Unitarian denomination. An exchange of pulpits with him was a signal for a pastor to cut loose from his parochial moorings. "It is bad enough," said a liberal friend and physician, to the writer, in those days, "to go astray yourself, but Mr. Parker does worse,—he leads others astray; and a double curse is pronounced on such false teachers."
To-day a noble volume issues from the press, The Religious Views of Theodore Parker. In about 500 pages it presents his ideas about Nature, Atheism, Theism, Inspiration, Bible, Beauty, Immortality. It also contains Parker's tribute to Dr. Channing, preached at the time of his death. This sermon was not in previous collections; but it was remembered by Rev. Joseph Henry Allen, who sees and remembers everything. A precious copy was found in the Harvard College Library, and here it is reproduced.
Who, think you, publishes this book, and at the popular price of a dollar, with Index all complete? Why, the American Unitarian Association. It appears as a representative denominational volume. Indeed, Parker's views are conservative reading now, in comparison with many sermons preached in pulpits formerly conservative. Men called him an Atheist, but never was a stronger believer in God. An Infidel they named him; but he was a stanch defender of Immortality. He goes so far as to say that there would be little temptation to virtue, honesty, patriotism, self-sacrifice, if there were no belief in God and a future life; an opinion which would find little favor in Liberal pulpits in 1886, where it is maintained that we must do right for its own sake, without regard to Deity, heaven, and hell.
