To-day is the festival of our fraternity, sacred to learning, to friendship, and to truth. From many places, remote and near, we have come together beneath the benediction of Alma Mater. We have walked in the grateful shelter of her rich embowering trees. Friend has met friend, classmate has pressed the hand of classmate, while the ruddy memories of youth and early study have risen upon the soul. And now we have come up to this church, a company of brothers, in long, well-ordered procession, commencing with the silver locks of reverend age, and closing with the fresh faces that glow with the golden blood of youth.

With hearts of gratitude, we greet among our number those whose lives are crowned by desert,—especially him who, returning from conspicuous cares in a foreign land, now graces our chief seat of learning,[154]—and not less him who, closing, in the high service of the University, a life-long career of probity and honor, now voluntarily withdraws to a scholar's repose.[155] We salute at once the successor and the predecessor, the rising and the setting sun. And ingenuous youth, in whose bosom are infolded the germs of untold excellence, whose ardent soul sees visions closed to others by the hand of Time, commands our reverence not less than age rich in experience and honor. The Present and the Past, with all their works, we know and measure; but the triumphs of the Future are unknown and immeasurable;—therefore is there in the yet untried powers of youth a vastness of promise to quicken the regard. Welcome, then, not less the young than the old! and may this our holiday brighten with harmony and joy!

As the eye wanders around our circle, Mr. President, in vain it seeks a beloved form, for many years so welcome in the seat you now fill. I might have looked to behold him on this occasion. But death, since we last met together, has borne him away. The love of friends, the devotion of pupils, the prayers of the nation, the concern of the world, could not shield him from the inexorable shaft. Borrowing for him those words of genius and friendship which gushed from Clarendon at the name of Falkland, that he was "a person of prodigious parts of learning and knowledge, of inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of flowing and obliging humanity and goodness to mankind, and of primitive simplicity and integrity of life,"[156] I need not add the name of Story. To dwell on his character, and all that he has done, were a worthy theme. But his is not the only well-loved countenance which returns no answering smile.

This year our Society, according to custom, publishes the catalogue of its members, marking by a star the insatiate archery of Death during the brief space of four years. In no period of its history, equally short, have such shining marks been found.

Scholarship, Jurisprudence, Art, Humanity, each is called to mourn a chosen champion. Pickering the Scholar, Story the Jurist, Allston the Artist, Channing the Philanthropist, are gone. When our last catalogue was published they were all living, each in his field of fame. Our catalogue of this year gathers them with the peaceful dead. Sweet and exalted companionship! They were joined in life, in renown, and in death. They were brethren of our fraternity, sons of Alma Mater. Story and Channing were classmates; Pickering preceded them by two years only, Allston followed them by two years. Casting our eyes upon the closing lustre of the last century, we discern this brilliant group whose mortal light is now obscured. After the toils of his long life, Pickering sleeps serenely in the place of his birth, near the honored dust of his father. Channing, Story, and Allston have been laid to rest in Cambridge, where they first tasted together the tree of life: Allston in the adjoining church-yard, within sound of the voice that now addresses you; Channing and Story in the pleasant, grassy bed of Mount Auburn, under the shadow of beautiful trees, whose falling autumnal leaves are fit emblem of the generations of men.

It was the custom in ancient Rome, on solemn occasions, to bring forward the images of departed friends, arrayed in robes of office, and carefully adorned, while some one recounted what they had done, in the hope of refreshing the memory of their deeds, and of inspiring the living with new impulse to virtue. "For who," says the ancient historian, "can behold without emotion the forms of so many illustrious men, thus living, as it were, and breathing together in his presence? or what spectacle can be conceived more great and striking?"[158] The images of our departed brothers are present here to-day, not in sculptured marble, but graven on our hearts. We behold them again, as in life. They mingle in our festival, and cheer us by their presence. It were well to catch the opportunity of observing together their well-known lineaments, and of dwelling anew, with warmth of living affection, upon the virtues by which they are commended. Devoting the hour to their memory, we may seek also to comprehend and reverence the great interests which they lived to promote. Pickering, Story, Allston, Channing! Their names alone, without addition, awaken a response, which, like the far-famed echo of Dodona, will prolong itself through the live-long day. But, great as they are, we feel their insignificance by the side of those great causes to which their days were consecrated,—Knowledge, Justice, Beauty, Love, the comprehensive attributes of God. Illustrious on earth, they were but lowly and mortal ministers of lofty and immortal truth. It is, then, the Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist, the Philanthropist, whom we celebrate to-day, and whose pursuits will be the theme of my discourse.

Here, on this threshold, let me say, what is implied in the very statement of my subject, that, in offering these tributes, I seek no occasion for personal eulogy or biographical detail. My aim is to commemorate the men, but more to advance the objects which they so successfully served. Reversing the order in which they left us, I shall take the last first.

John Pickering, the Scholar, died in the month of May, 1846, aged sixty-nine, within a short distance of that extreme goal which is the allotted limit of human life. By Scholar I mean a cultivator of liberal studies, a student of knowledge in its largest sense,—not merely classical, not excluding what in our day is exclusively called science, but which was unknown when the title of scholar first prevailed; for though Cicero dealt a sarcasm at Archimedes, he spoke with higher truth when he beautifully recognized the common bond between all departments of knowledge. The brother whom we mourn was a scholar, a student, as long as he lived. His place was not merely among those called by courtesy Educated Men, with most of whom education is past and gone,—men who have studied; he studied always. Life to him was an unbroken lesson, pleasant with the charm of knowledge and the consciousness of improvement.

The world knows and reveres his learning; they only who partook somewhat of his daily life fully know the modesty of his character. His knowledge was such that he seemed to be ignorant of nothing, while, in the perfection of his humility, he might seem to know nothing. By learning conspicuous before the world, his native diffidence withdrew him from its personal observation. Surely, learning so great, which claimed so little, will not be forgotten. The modesty which detained him in retirement during life introduces him now that he is dead. Strange reward! Merit which shrank from the living gaze is now observed of all men. The voice once so soft is returned in echoes from the tomb.

I place in the front his modesty and his learning, two attributes by which he will be always remembered. I might enlarge on his sweetness of temper, his simplicity of life, his kindness to the young, his sympathy with studies of all kinds, his sensibility to beauty, his conscientious character, his passionless mind. Could he speak to us of himself, he might adopt words of self-painting from the candid pen of his eminent predecessor in the cultivation of Grecian literature, leader of its revival in Europe, as Pickering was leader in America,—the urbane and learned Erasmus. "For my own part," says the early scholar to his English friend, John Colet, "I best know my own failings, and therefore shall presume to give a character of myself. You have in me a man of little or no fortune,—a stranger to ambition,—of a strong propensity to loving-kindness and friendship,—without any boast of learning, but a great admirer of it,—one who has a profound veneration for any excellence in others, however he may feel the want of it in himself,—who can readily yield to others in learning, but to none in integrity,—a man sincere, open, and free,—a hater of falsehood and dissimulation,—of a mind lowly and upright,—of few words, and who boasts of nothing but an honest heart."[159]

I have called him Scholar; for it is in this character that he leaves so excellent an example. But the triumphs of his life are enhanced by the variety of his labors, and especially by his long career at the bar. He was a lawyer, whose days were spent in the faithful practice of his profession, busy with clients, careful of their concerns in court and out of court. Each day witnessed his untiring exertion in scenes little attractive to his gentle and studious nature. He was formed to be a seeker of truth rather than a defender of wrong; and he found less satisfaction in the strifes of the bar than in the conversation of books. To him litigation was a sorry feast, and a well-filled docket of cases not unlike the curious and now untasted dish of "nettles," in the first course of a Roman banquet. He knew that the duties of the profession were important, but felt that even their successful performance, when unattended by juridical culture, gave small title to regard, while they were less pleasant and ennobling than the disinterested pursuit of learning. He would have said, at least as regards his own profession, with the Lord Archon of the Oceana, "I will stand no more to the judgment of lawyers and divines than to that of so many other tradesmen."[160]

It was the law as a trade that he pursued reluctantly, while he had true happiness in the science of jurisprudence, to which he devoted many hours rescued from other cares. By example, and contributions of the pen, he elevated the study, and invested it with the charm of liberal pursuits. By marvellous assiduity he was able to lead two lives,—one producing the fruits of earth, the other of immortality. In him was the union, rare as it is grateful, of lawyer and scholar. He has taught how much may be done for jurisprudence and learning even amidst the toils of professional life; while the enduring lustre of his name contrasts with the fugitive reputation which is the lot of the mere lawyer, although clients beat at his gates from cock-crow at the dawn.

To describe his labors of scholarship would be impossible on this occasion. Although important contributions to the sum of knowledge, they were of a character only slightly appreciated by the world at large. They were chiefly directed to two subjects,—classical studies and general philology, if these two may be regarded separately.

His early life was marked by a particular interest in classical studies. At a time when, in our country, accurate and extensive scholarship was rare, he aspired to possess it. By daily and nightly toil he mastered the great exemplars of antiquity, and found delight in their beauties. His example was persuasive. And he added earnest effort to promote their study in the learned seminaries of our country. With unanswerable force he urged among us a standard of education commensurate, in every substantial respect, with that of Europe. He desired for the American youth on his native soil, under the influence of free institutions, a course of instruction rendering foreign aid superfluous. He had a just pride of country, and longed for its good name through accomplished representatives, well knowing that the American scholar, wherever he wanders in foreign lands, is a living recommendation of the institutions under which he was reared.

He knew that scholarship of all kinds would gild the life of its possessor, enlarge the resources of the bar, enrich the voice of the pulpit, and strengthen the learning of medicine. He knew that it would afford a soothing companionship in hours of relaxation from labor, in periods of sadness, and in the evening of life; that, when once embraced, it was more constant than friendship,—attending its votary, as an invisible spirit, in the toils of the day, the watches of the night, the changes of travel, and the alternations of fortune or health.

In commending classical studies it would be difficult to say that he attached to them undue importance. By his own example he showed that he bore them no exclusive love. He regarded them as an essential part of liberal education, opening the way to other realms of knowledge, while they mature the taste and invigorate the understanding. Here probably all will concur. It may be questioned, whether, in our hurried American life, it is possible, with proper regard for other studies, to introduce into ordinary classical education the exquisite skill which is the pride of English scholarship, reminding us of the minute finish in Chinese art,—or the ponderous and elaborate learning which is the wonder of Germany, reminding us of the unnatural perspective in a Chinese picture. But much will be done, if we establish those habits of accuracy, acquired only through early and careful training, which enable us at least to appreciate the severe beauty of antiquity, while they become an invaluable standard and measure of attainment in other things.

The classics possess a peculiar charm, as models, I might say masters, of composition and form. In the contemplation of these august teachers we are filled with conflicting emotions. They are the early voice of the world, better remembered and more cherished than any intermediate voice,—as the language of childhood still haunts us, when the utterances of later years are effaced from the mind. But they show the rudeness of the world's childhood, before passion yielded to the sway of reason and the affections. They want purity, righteousness, and that highest charm which is found in love to God and man. Not in the frigid philosophy of the Porch and the Academy are we to seek these; not in the marvellous teachings of Socrates, as they come mended by the mellifluous words of Plato; not in the resounding line of Homer, on whose inspiring tale of blood Alexander pillowed his head; not in the animated strain of Pindar, where virtue is pictured in the successful strife of an athlete at the Olympian games; not in the torrent of Demosthenes, dark with self-love and the spirit of vengeance; not in the fitful philosophy and boastful eloquence of Tully; not in the genial libertinism of Horace, or the stately atheism of Lucretius. To these we give admiration; but they cannot be our highest teachers. In none of these is the way of life. For eighteen hundred years the spirit of these classics has been in constant contention with the Sermon on the Mount, and with those two sublime commandments on which "hang all the law and the prophets."[161] The strife is still pending, and who shall say when it will end? Heathenism, which possessed itself of such Siren forms, is not yet exorcised. Even now it exerts a powerful sway, imbuing youth, coloring the thought of manhood, and haunting the meditation of age. Widening still in sphere, it embraces nations as well as individuals, until it seems to sit supreme.

Our own productions, though yielding to the ancient in arrangement, method, beauty of form, and freshness of illustration, are superior in truth, delicacy, and elevation of sentiment,—above all, in the recognition of that peculiar revelation, the Brotherhood of Man. Vain are eloquence and poetry, compared with this heaven-descended truth. Put in one scale that simple utterance, and in the other all the lore of antiquity, with its accumulating glosses and commentaries, and the latter will be light in the balance. Greek poetry has been likened to the song of the nightingale, as she sits in the rich, symmetrical crown of the palm-tree, trilling her thick-warbled notes; but these notes will not compare in sweetness with those teachings of charity which belong to our Christian inheritance.

These things cannot be forgotten by the scholar. From the Past he may draw all it can contribute to the great end of life, human progress and happiness,—progress, without which happiness is vain. But he must close his soul to the hardening influence of that spirit, which is more to be dreaded, as it is enshrined in compositions of such commanding authority.

In the department of philology, kindred to that of the classics, our Scholar labored with similar success. Unlike Sir William Jones in genius, he was like this English scholar in the multitude of languages he embraced. Distance of time and space was forgotten, as he explored the far-off primeval Sanscrit,—the hieroglyphics of Egypt, now awakening from the mute repose of centuries,—the polite and learned tongues of ancient and modern Europe,—the languages of Mohammedanism,—the various dialects in the forests of North America, and in the sandal-groves of the Pacific,—only closing with a lingua franca from an unlettered tribe on the coast of Africa, to which his attention was called during the illness which ended in death.

This recital exhibits the variety and extent of his studies in a department which is supposed inaccessible, except to peculiar and Herculean labors. He had a natural and intuitive perception of affinities in language, and of its hidden relations. His researches have thrown important light on the general principles of this science, as also on the history and character of individual languages. In devising an alphabet of the Indian tongues in North America, since adopted in the Polynesian Islands, he rendered a brilliant service to civilization. It is pleasant to contemplate the Scholar sending forth from his seclusion this priceless instrument of improvement. On the distant islands once moistened by the blood of Cook newspapers and books are printed in a native language, which was reduced to a written character by the care and genius of Pickering. The Vocabulary of Americanisms and the Greek and English Lexicon attest still further the variety and value of his philological labors; nor can we sufficiently admire the facility with which, amidst the duties of an arduous profession and the temptations of scholarship, he assumed the appalling task of the lexicographer, which Scaliger compares to the labors of the anvil and the mine.

There are critics, ignorant, hasty, or supercilious, who are too apt to disparage the toils of the philologist, treating them sometimes as curious only, sometimes as trivial, or, when they enter into lexicography, as those of a harmless drudge. It might be sufficient to reply, that all exercise of the intellect promoting forgetfulness of self and the love of science ministers essentially to human improvement. But philology may claim other suffrages. It is its province to aid in determining the character of words, their extraction and signification, and in other ways to guide and explain the use of language; nor is it generous, while enjoying eloquence, poetry, science, and the many charms of literature, to withhold our gratitude from silent and sometimes obscure labors in illustration of that great instrument without which all the rest is nothing.

The science of Comparative Philology, which our Scholar has illustrated, may rank with shining pursuits. It challenges a place by the side of that science which received such development from the genius of Cuvier. The study of Comparative Anatomy has thrown unexpected light on the physical history of the animate creation; but it cannot be less interesting or important to explore the unwritten history of the human race in languages that have been spoken, to trace their pedigree, to detect their affinities,—seeking the prevailing law by which they are governed. As we comprehend these things, confusion and discord retreat, the Fraternity of Man stands confessed, and the philologist becomes a minister at the altar of universal philanthropy. In the study of the Past, he learns to anticipate the Future; and in sublime vision he sees, with Leibnitz, that Unity of the Human Race which, in the succession of ages, will find its expression in an instrument more marvellous than the infinite Calculus,—a universal language, with an alphabet of human thoughts.[163]

As the sun draws moisture from rill, stream, lake, and ocean, to be returned in fertilizing shower upon the earth, so did our Scholar derive knowledge from all sources, to be diffused in beneficent influence upon the world. He sought it not in study only, but in converse with men, and in experience of life. His curious essay on the Pronunciation of the Ancient Greek Language was suggested by listening to Greek sailors, whom the temptations of commerce had conducted to our shores from their historic sea.

Such a character—devoted to works of wide and enduring interest, not restricted to international lines—awakened respect and honor wherever learning was cultivated. His name was associated with illustrious fraternities of science in foreign nations, while scholars who could not know him face to face, by an amiable commerce of letters sought the aid and sympathy of his learning. His death has broken these living links of fellowship; but his name, that cannot die, will continue to bind all who love knowledge and virtue to the land which was blessed by his presence.

From the Scholar I pass to the Jurist. Joseph Story died in the month of September, 1845, aged sixty-six. His countenance, familiar in this presence, was always so beaming with goodness and kindness that its withdrawal seems to lessen sensibly the brightness of the scene. We are assembled near the seat of his favorite pursuits, among the neighbors intimate with his private virtues, close by the home hallowed by his domestic altar. These paths he often trod; and all that our eyes here look upon seems to reflect his genial smile. His twofold official relations with the University, his high judicial station, his higher character as Jurist, invest his name with a peculiar interest, while the unconscious kindness which he showed to all, especially the young, touches the heart, making us rise up and call him blessed. How fondly would the youth nurtured in jurisprudence at his feet—were such an offering, Alcestis-like, within the allotments of Providence—have prolonged their beloved master's days at the expense of their own!

The University, by the voice of his learned associate, has already rendered tribute to his name. The tribunals of justice throughout the country have given utterance to their solemn grief, and the funeral torch has passed across the sea into foreign lands.

He has been heard to confess that literature was his earliest passion, which yielded only to a sterner summons beckoning to professional life; and they who knew him best cannot forget that he continued to the last fond of poetry and polite letters, and would often turn from Themis to the Muses. Nor can it be doubted that this feature, which marks the resemblance to Selden, Somers, Mansfield, and Blackstone, in England, and to L'HÔpital and D'Aguesseau, in France, has added to the brilliancy and perfection of his character as a jurist. In the history of jurisprudence it would not be easy to mention a single person winning its highest palm who was not a scholar also.

The first hardships incident to study of the law, which perplexed the youthful spirit of the learned Spelman, beset our Jurist with disheartening force. Let the young remember his trial and his triumph, and be of good cheer. According to the custom of his day, while yet a student in the town of Marblehead, he undertook to read Coke on Littleton, in the large folio edition, thatched over with those manifold annotations which cause the best-trained lawyer to "gasp and stare." Striving to force his way through the black-letter page, he was filled with despair. It was but a moment. The tears poured from his eyes upon the open book. Those tears were his precious baptism into the learning of the law. From that time forth he persevered, with ardor and confidence, from triumph to triumph.

He was elevated to the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, by the side of Marshall, at the early age of thirty-two. At the same early age Buller—reputed the ablest judge of Westminster Hall, in the list of those who never arrived at the honors of Chief Justice—was induced to renounce an income larger than the salary of a judge, to take a seat by the side of Mansfield. The parallel continues. During the remainder of Mansfield's career on the bench, Buller was the friend and associate upon whom he chiefly leaned; and history records the darling desire of the venerable Chief Justice that his faithful assistant should succeed to his seat and chain of office; but these wishes, the hopes of the profession, and his own continued labors were disregarded by a minister who seldom rewarded any but political services,—I mean Mr. Pitt. Our brother, like Buller, was the friend and associate of a venerable chief justice, by whose side he sat for many years; nor do I state any fact which I should not for the sake of history, when I add, that it was the long-cherished desire of Marshall that Story should be his successor. It was ordered otherwise; and he continued a judge of the Supreme Court for the space of thirty-four years,—a judicial life of almost unexampled length in the history of the Common Law, and of precisely the same duration with the illustrious magistracy of D'Aguesseau in France.

As judge, he was called to administer a most extensive jurisdiction, embracing matters which in England are so variously distributed that they never come before any one court; and in each department he has shown himself second to none other, unless we unite with him in deferring to Marshall as the greatest expounder of a branch peculiar to ourselves, Constitutional Law. Nor will it be easy to mention any other judge who has left behind so large a number of judgments which belong to the first class in the literature of the law. Some excel in a special branch, to which their learning and labor are directed. He excelled in all. At home in the feudal niceties of Real Law, with its dependencies of descents, remainders, and executory devises,—also in the ancient hair-splitting technicalities of Special Pleading,—both creatures of an illiterate age, gloomy with black-letter and verbal subtilties,—he was most skilful in using and expounding the rules of Evidence, the product of a more refined period of juridical history,—was master of the common law of Contracts, and of Commercial Law in its wide expanse, embracing so large a part of those topics which concern the business of our age,—was familiar with Criminal Law, which he administered with the learning of a judge and the tenderness of a parent,—had compassed the whole circle of Chancery in its jurisdiction and its pleadings, touching all the interests of life, and subtilely adapting the Common Law to our own age; and he ascended with ease to those less trodden heights where are extended the rich demesnes of Admiralty, the Law of Prize, and that comprehensive theme, embracing all that history, philosophy, learning, literature, human experience, and Christianity have testified,—the Law of Nations.

It was not as judge only that he served. He sought other means of illustrating the science of the law which he loved so well, and to the cares of judicial life superadded the labors of author and teacher. To this he was moved by passion for the law, by desire to aid its elucidation, and by the irrepressible instinct of his nature, which found in incessant activity the truest repose. His was that constitution of mind where occupation is the normal state. He was possessed by a genius for labor. Others may moil in law as constantly, but without his loving, successful study. What he undertook he always did with heart, soul, and mind,—not with reluctant, vain compliance, but with his entire nature bent to the task. As in social life, so was he in study: his heart embraced labor, as his hand grasped the hand of friend.

As teacher, he should be gratefully remembered here. He was Dane Professor of Law in the University. By the attraction of his name students were drawn from remote parts of the Union, and the Law School, which had been a sickly branch, became the golden mistletoe of our ancient oak.[164] Besides learning unsurpassed in his profession, he brought other qualities not less important in a teacher,—goodness, benevolence, and a willingness to teach. Only a good man can be a teacher, only a benevolent man, only a man willing to teach. He was filled with a desire to teach. He sought to mingle his mind with that of his pupil. To pour into the souls of the young, as into celestial urns, the fruitful waters of knowledge, was to him a blessed office. The kindly enthusiasm of his nature found a response. Law, sometimes supposed to be harsh and crabbed, became inviting under his instructions. Its great principles, drawn from experience and reflection, from the rules of right and wrong, from the unsounded depths of Christian truth, illustrated by the learning of sages and the judgments of courts, he unfolded so as to inspire a love for their study,—well knowing that the knowledge we impart is trivial, compared with that awakening of the soul under the influence of which the pupil himself becomes teacher. All of knowledge we can communicate is finite; a few pages, a few chapters, a few volumes, will embrace it; but such an influence is of incalculable power. It is the breath of a new life; it is another soul. Story taught as priest of the law seeking to consecrate other priests. In him the spirit spake, not with the voice of earthly calling, but with the gentleness and self-forgetful earnestness of one pleading in behalf of justice, knowledge, happiness. His well-loved pupils hung upon his lips, and, as they left his presence, confessed new reverence for virtue, and warmer love of knowledge for its own sake.

The spirit which glowed in his teachings filled his life. He was, in the truest sense, Jurist,—student and expounder of jurisprudence as a science,—not merely lawyer or judge, pursuing it as an art. This distinction, though readily perceived, is not always regarded.

Members of the profession, whether on the bench or at the bar, seldom send their regard beyond the case directly before them. The lawyer is generally content with the applause of the court-house, the approbation of clients, "fat contentions, and flowing fees." Infrequently does he render voluntary service felt beyond the limited circle in which he moves, or helping forward the landmarks of justice. The judge, in the discharge of his duty, applies the law to the case before him. He may do this discreetly, honorably, justly, benignly, in such wise that the community who looked to him for justice shall pronounce his name with gratitude,—

But the function of lawyer or judge, both practising law, is unlike that of the jurist, who, whether judge or lawyer, examines every principle in the light of science, and, while doing justice, seeks to widen and confirm the means of justice hereafter. All ages have abounded in lawyers and judges; there is no church-yard that does not contain their forgotten dust. But the jurist is rare. The judge passes the sentence of the law upon the prisoner at the bar face to face; but the jurist, invisible to mortal sight, yet speaks, as was said of the Roman Law, swaying by the reason, when he has ceased to govern by the living voice. Such a character does not live for the present only, whether in time or place. Ascending above its temptations, yielding neither to the love of gain nor to the seduction of ephemeral praise, he perseveres in those serene labors which help to build the mighty dome of justice, beneath which all men are to seek shelter and peace.

It is not uncommon to hear the complaint of lawyers and judges, as they liken themselves, in short-lived fame, to the well-graced actor, of whom only uncertain traces remain when his voice has ceased to charm. But they labor for the present only. How can they hope to be remembered beyond the present? They are instruments of a temporary and perishable purpose. How can they hope for more than they render? They do nothing for all. How can they think to be remembered beyond the operation of their labors? So far forth, in time or place, as any beneficent influence is felt, so far will its author be gratefully commemorated. Happy may he be, if he has done aught to connect his name with the enduring principles of justice!

In the world's history, lawgivers are among the greatest and most godlike characters. They are reformers of nations. They are builders of human society. They are fit companions of the master poets who fill it with their melody. Man will never forget Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe,—nor those other names of creative force, Minos, Solon, Lycurgus, Numa, Justinian, St. Louis, Napoleon the legislator. Each is too closely linked with human progress not to be always remembered.

In their train follow the company of jurists, whose labors have the value without the form of legislation, and whose recorded opinions, uttered from the chair of a professor, the bench of a judge, or, it may be, from the seclusion of private life, continue to rule the nations. Here are Papinian, Tribonian, Paulus, Gaius, ancient, time-honored masters of the Roman Law,—Cujas, its most illustrious expounder in modern times, of whom D'Aguesseau said, "Cujas has spoken the language of the law better than any modern, and perhaps as well as any ancient," and whose renown during life, in the golden age of jurisprudence, was such that in the public schools of Germany, when his name was mentioned, all took off their hats,—Dumoulin, kinsman of our English Queen Elizabeth, and most illustrious expounder of municipal law, one of whose books was said to have accomplished what thirty thousand soldiers of his monarch failed to do,—Hugo Grotius, filled with all knowledge and loving all truth, author of that marvellous work, at times divine, at other times, alas! too much of this earth, the "Laws of War and Peace,"—John Selden, who against Grotius vindicated for his country the dominion of the sea, supped with Ben Jonson at the Mermaid, and became, according to contemporary judgment, the great dictator of learning to the English nation,—D'Aguesseau, who brought scholarship to jurisprudence throughout a long life elevated by justice and refined by all that character and study could bestow, awakening admiration even at the outset, so that a retiring magistrate declared that he should be glad to end as the young man began,—Pothier, whose professor's chair was kissed in reverence by pilgrims from afar, while from his recluse life he sent forth those treatises which enter so largely into the invaluable codes of France,—Coke, the indefatigable, pedantic, but truly learned author and judge, Mansfield, the Chrysostom of the bench, and Blackstone, the elegant commentator, who are among the few exemplars within the boast of the English Common Law,—and, descending to our own day, Pardessus, of France, to whom commercial and maritime law is under a larger debt, perhaps, than to any single mind,—Thibaut, of Germany, earnest and successful advocate of a just scheme for the reduction of the unwritten law to the certainty of a written text,—Savigny, also of Germany, renowned illustrator of the Roman Law, who is yet spared to his favorite science,—and in our own country one now happily among us to-day by his son,[165] James Kent, the unquestioned living head of American jurisprudence. These are among jurists. Let them not be confounded with the lawyer, bustling with forensic success, although, like Dunning, arbiter of Westminster Hall, or, like Pinkney, acknowledged chief of the American bar. The jurist is higher than the lawyer,—as Watt, who invented the steam-engine, is higher than the journeyman who feeds its fires and pours oil upon its irritated machinery,—as Washington is more exalted than the Swiss, who, indifferent to the cause, barters for money the vigor of his arm and the sharpness of his spear.

The lawyer is the honored artisan of the law. Tokens of worldly success surround him; but his labors are on the things of to-day. His name is written on the sandy margin of the sounding sea, soon to be washed away by the embossed foam of the tyrannous wave. Not so is the name of the jurist. This is inscribed on the immortal tablets of the law. The ceaseless flow of ages does not wear off their indestructible front; the hour-glass of Time refuses to measure the period of their duration.

Into the company of Jurists Story has now passed, taking place, not only in the immediate history of his country, but in the grander history of civilization. It was a saying of his, often uttered in the confidence of friendship, that a man may be measured by the horizon of his mind, whether it embraces the village, town, county, or state in which he lives, or the whole broad country,—ay, the world itself. In this spirit he lived and wrought, elevating himself above the present, and always finding in jurisprudence an absorbing interest. Only a few days before the illness ending in death, it was suggested to him, that, as he was about to retire from the bench, there were many who would be glad to see him President. He replied at once, spontaneously, and without hesitation, "that the office of President of the United States would not tempt him from his professor's chair and from the law." So spoke the Jurist. As lawyer, judge, professor, he was always Jurist. While administering justice between parties, he sought to extract from their cause the elements of future justice, and to advance the science of the law. Thus his judgments have a value stamped upon them which is not restricted to the occasions when they were pronounced. Like the gold coin of the Republic, they bear the image and superscription of sovereignty, which is recognized wherever they go, even in foreign lands.

Many years ago his judgments in matters of Admiralty and Prize arrested the attention of that famous judge and jurist, Lord Stowell; and Sir James Mackintosh, a name emblazoned by literature and jurisprudence, said of them, that they were "justly admired by all cultivators of the Law of Nations."[166] He has often been cited as authority in Westminster Hall,—an English tribute to a foreign jurist almost unprecedented, as all familiar with English law will know; and the Chief Justice of England made the remarkable declaration, with regard to a point on which Story differed from the Queen's Bench, that his opinion would "at least neutralize the effect of the English decision, and induce any of their courts to consider the question as an open one."[167] In the House of Lords, Lord Campbell characterized him as "one of the greatest ornaments of the United States, who had a greater reputation as a legal writer than any author England could boast since the days of Blackstone";[168] and, in a letter to our departed brother, the same distinguished magistrate said: "I survey with increased astonishment your extensive, minute, exact, and familiar knowledge of English legal writers in every department of the law. A similar testimony to your juridical learning, I make no doubt, would be offered by the lawyers of France and Germany, as well as of America, and we should all concur in placing you at the head of the jurists of the present age."[169] His authority was acknowledged in France and Germany, the classic lands of jurisprudence; nor is it too much to say, that at the moment of his death he enjoyed a renown such as had never before been achieved, during life, by any jurist of the Common Law.

In this recital I state simply facts, without intending to assert presumptuously for our brother any precedence in the scale of eminence. The extent of his fame is a fact. It will not be forgotten, as a proper contrast to his fame, which was not confined to his own country or to England, that the cultivators of the Common Law have hitherto enjoyed little more than an insular reputation, and that even its great master received on the Continent no higher designation than quidam Cocus, "one Coke."

In the Common Law was the spirit of liberty; in that of the Continent the spirit of science. The Common Law has given to the world trial by jury, habeas corpus, parliamentary representation, the rules and orders of debate, and that benign principle which pronounces that its air is too pure for a slave to breathe,—perhaps the five most important political establishments of modern times. From the Continent proceeded the important impulse to the systematic study, arrangement, and development of the law,—also the example of Law Schools and of Codes.

Story was bred in the Common Law; but while admiring its vital principles of freedom, he felt how much it would gain from science, and from other systems of jurisprudence. In his later labors he never forgot this object; and under his hands we behold the development of a study until him little known or regarded,—the science of Comparative Jurisprudence, kindred to those other departments of knowledge which exhibit the relations of the human family, and showing that amidst diversity there is unity.

I need not add that he emulated the law schools of the Continent,—as "ever witness for him" this seat of learning.

On more than one occasion, he urged, with conclusive force, the importance of reducing the unwritten law to the certainty of a code, compiling and bringing into one body fragments now scattered in all directions, through the pages of many thousand volumes.[170] His views on this subject, while differing from those of John Locke and Jeremy Bentham,—both of whom supposed themselves able to clothe a people in a new code, as in fresh garments,—are in substantial harmony with the conclusions now adopted by the jurists of Continental Europe, and not unlike those of an earlier age having the authority of Bacon and Leibnitz, the two greatest intellects ever applied to topics of jurisprudence in modern times.[171]

In this catholic spirit he showed true eminence. He loved the law with a lover's fondness, but not with a lover's blindness. He could not join with those devotees of the Common Law by whom it is entitled "the perfection of reason,"—an anachronism great as the assumed infallibility of the Pope: as if perfection or infallibility existed in this world! He was led, in becoming temper, to contemplate its amendment; and here is revealed the Jurist,—not content with the present, but thoughtful of the future. In a letter published since his death, he refers with sorrow to "what is but too common in our profession,—a disposition to resist innovation, even when it is improvement." It is an elevated mind that, having mastered the subtilties of the law, is willing to reform them.

And now farewell to thee, Jurist, Master, Benefactor, Friend! May thy spirit continue to inspire a love for the science of the law! May thy example be ever fresh in the minds of the young, beaming, as in life, with encouragement, kindness, and joy!

From the grave of the Jurist, at Mount Auburn, let us walk to that of the Artist, who sleeps beneath the protecting arms of those trees which cast their shadow into this church. Washington Allston died in the month of July, 1843, aged sixty-three, having reached the grand climacteric, that famous mile-stone on the road of life. It was Saturday night; the cares of the week were over; the pencil and brush were laid in repose; the great canvas, on which for many years he had sought to perpetuate the image of Daniel confronting the soothsayers of Belshazzar, was left, with fresh chalk lines designating the labor to be resumed after the repose of the Sabbath; the evening was passed in the converse of family and friends; words of benediction had fallen from his lips upon a beloved relative; all had retired for the night, leaving him alone, in health, to receive the visitation of Death, sudden, but not unprepared for. Happy lot, thus to be borne away with blessings on the lips,—not through the long valley of disease, amidst the sharpness of pain, and the darkness that clouds the slowly departing spirit, but straight upward, through realms of light, swiftly, yet gently, as on the wings of a dove!

The early shades of evening began to prevail before the body of the Artist reached its last resting-place; and the solemn service of the church was read in the open air, by the flickering flame of a torch,—fit image of life. In the group of mourners who bore a last tribute to what was mortal in him of whom so much was immortal stood our Jurist. Overflowing with tenderness and appreciation of merit in all its forms, his soul was touched by the scene. In vivid words, as he slowly left the church-yard, he poured forth his admiration and his grief. Never was such an Artist mourned by such a Jurist.

Of Allston may we repeat the words in which Burke commemorated his friend Sir Joshua Reynolds, when he says, "He was the first who added the praise of the elegant arts to the other glories of his country."[172] An ingenious English writer, who sees Art with the eye of taste and humanity, and whom I quote with sympathy, if not with entire assent, has said, in a recent publication on our Artist, "It seemed to me that in him America had lost her third great man. What Washington was as a statesman, Channing as a moralist, that was Allston as an artist."[173]

Here again is discerned the inseparable union between character and works. Allston was a good man, with a soul refined by purity, exalted by religion, softened by love. In manner he was simple, yet courtly,—quiet, though anxious to please,—kindly to all alike, the poor and lowly not less than the rich and great. As he spoke, in that voice of gentlest utterance, all were charmed to listen; and the airy-footed hours often tripped on far towards the gates of morning, before his friends could break from his spell. His character is transfigured in his works. The Artist is always inspired by the man.

His life was consecrated to Art. He lived to diffuse Beauty, as writer, poet, painter. As an expounder of principles in his art, he will take a place with Leonardo da Vinci, Albert DÜrer, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Fuseli. His theory of painting, as developed in his still unpublished discourses, and in that tale of beauty, "Monaldi," is an instructive memorial of conscientious study. In the small group of painter-poets—poets by the double title of pencil and pen—he holds an honored place. His ode "America to Great Britain," which is among the choice lyrics of the language, is superior to the satirical verse of Salvator Rosa, and may claim companionship with the remarkable sonnets of Michel Angelo. It was this which made no less a judge than Southey place him among the first poets of the age.

In youth, while yet a pupil at the University, his busy fingers found pleasure in drawing; and a pen-and-ink sketch from his hand at that time is still preserved in the records of a college society. Shortly after leaving Cambridge he repaired to Europe, in the pursuit of Art. At Paris were then collected the masterpieces of painting and sculpture, the spoils of unholy war, robbed from their native galleries and churches to swell the pomp of the Imperial capital. There our Artist devoted his days to diligent study of his profession, particularly to drawing, so important to accurate art. At a later day, alluding to these thorough labors, he said he "worked like a mechanic." To these, perhaps, may be referred his singular excellence in that necessary, but neglected branch, which is to Art what grammar is to language. Grammar and Design are treated by Aristotle on a level.

Turning his back upon Paris and the greatness of the Empire, he directed his steps towards Italy, the enchanted ground of literature, history, and art,—strown with richest memorials of the Past,—filled with scenes memorable in the Progress of Man,—teaching by the pages of philosophers and historians,—vocal with the melody of poets,—ringing with the music which St. Cecilia protects,—glowing with the living marble and canvas,—beneath a sky of heavenly purity and brightness,—with the sunsets which Claude has painted,—parted by the Apennines, early witnesses of the unrecorded Etruscan civilization,—surrounded by the snow-capped Alps, and the blue, classic waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The deluge of war submerging Europe had subsided here, and our Artist took up his peaceful abode in Rome, the modern home of Art. Strange vicissitude of condition! Rome, sole surviving city of Antiquity, once disdaining all that could be wrought by the cunning hand of sculpture,—

who has commanded the world by her arms, her jurisprudence, her church,—now sways it further by her arts. Pilgrims from afar, where her eagles, her prÆtors, her interdicts never reached, become willing subjects of this new empire; and the Vatican, stored with the priceless remains of Antiquity, and the touching creations of modern art, has succeeded to the Vatican whose thunders intermingled with the strifes of modern Europe.

At Rome he was happy in the friendship of Coleridge, and in long walks cheered by his companionship. We can well imagine that the author of "Genevieve" and "The Ancient Mariner" would find sympathy with Allston. It is easy to recall these two natures, tremblingly alive to beauty of all kinds, looking together upon those majestic ruins, upon the manifold accumulations of Time, upon the marble which almost speaks, and upon the warmer canvas,—listening together to the flow of perpetual fountains, fed by ancient aqueducts,—musing together in the Forum on the mighty footprints of History,—and entering together, with sympathetic awe, that grand Christian church whose dome rises a majestic symbol of the comprehensive Christianity which is the promise of the Future. "Never judge a work of art by its defects," was a lesson of Coleridge to his companion, which, when extended, by natural expansion, to the other things of life, is a sentiment of justice and charity, more precious than a statue of Praxiteles or a picture of Raphael.

In England, where our Artist afterwards passed several years, his intercourse with Coleridge was renewed, and he became the friend and companion of Lamb and Wordsworth also. Returning to his own country, he spoke of them with fondness, and often dwelt upon their genius and virtue.

In considering his character as an Artist, we may regard him in three different respects,—drawing, color, and expression or sentiment. It has already been seen that he devoted himself with uncommon zeal to drawing. His works bear witness to this excellence. There are chalk outlines by him, sketched on canvas, which are clear and definite as anything from the classic touch of Flaxman.

His excellence in color was remarkable. This seeming mystery, which is a distinguishing characteristic of artists in different schools, periods, and countries, is not unlike that of language in literature. Color is to the painter what words are to the author; and as the writers of one age or place arrive at a peculiar mastery in language, so do artists excel in color. It would be difficult to account satisfactorily for the rich idiom suddenly assumed by our English tongue in the contemporaneous prose of Sidney, Hooker, and Bacon, and in the unapproached affluence of Shakespeare. It might be as difficult to account for the unequalled tints which shone on the canvas of Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, and Titian, masters of what is called the Venetian School. Ignorance has sometimes referred these glories to concealed or lost artistic rules in combinations of color, not thinking that they can be traced only to a native talent for color, prompted into activity by circumstances difficult at this late period to determine. As some possess a peculiar, untaught felicity and copiousness of words without accurate knowledge of grammar, so there are artists excelling in rich and splendid color, but ignorant of drawing, and, on the other hand, accurate drawing is sometimes coldly clad in unsatisfactory color.

Allston was largely endowed by Nature with the talent for color, which was strongly developed under the influence of Italian art. While in Rome, he was remarked for his excellence in this respect, and received from German painters there the flattering title of "American Titian." Critics of authority have said that the clearness and vigor of his color approached that of the elder masters.[174] Rich and harmonious as the verses of the "FaËry Queen," it was uniformly soft, mellow, and appropriate, without the garish brilliancy of the modern French School, calling to mind the saying of the blind man, that red resembles the notes of a trumpet.

He affected no secret or mystery in the preparation of colors. What he knew he was ready to impart: his genius he could not impart. With simple pigments, accessible to all alike, he reproduced, with glowing brush, the tints of Nature. All that his eyes looked upon furnished a lesson. The flowers of the field, the foliage of the forest, the sunset glories of our western horizon, the transparent azure above, the blackness of the storm, the soft gray of twilight, the haze of an Indian summer, the human countenance animate with thought, and that finest color in Nature, according to the ancient Greek, the blush of ingenuous youth,—these were the sources from which he drew. With a discerning spirit he mixed them on his palette, and with the eye of sympathy saw them again on his canvas.

But richness of color superadded to accuracy of drawing cannot secure the highest place in Art; and here I approach a more harmonious topic. Expression, or, in other words, the sentiment, the thought, the soul, which inspires the work, is not less important than that which animates the printed page or beams from the human countenance. The mere imitation of inanimate Nature belongs to the humbler schools of Art. The skill of Zeuxis, which drew birds to peck at the grapes on his canvas, and the triumph of Parrhasius, who deceived his rival by a painted curtain, cannot compare with those pictures which seem articulate with the voices of humanity. The highest form of Art is that which represents man in the highest scenes and under the influence of the highest sentiments. And that quality or characteristic called expression is the highest element of Art. It is this which gives to Raphael, who yields to Titian in color, such acknowledged eminence. His soul was brimming with sympathies, which his cunning hand kept alive in immortal pictures. Eye, mouth, countenance, the whole composition, has life,—not the life of mere imitation, copied from common Nature, but elevated, softened, refined, idealized. Beholding his works, we forget the colors in which they are robed; we gaze at living forms, and look behind the painted screen of flesh into living souls. A genius so largely endowed with the Promethean fire has been not unaptly called Divine.

It was said by Plato that nothing is beautiful which is not morally good. But this is not a faultless proposition. Beauty is of all kinds and degrees; and it exists everywhere beneath the celestial canopy, in us and about us. It is that completeness or finish which gives pleasure to the mind. It is found in the color of a flower, and the accuracy of geometry,—in an act of self-sacrifice, and the rhythm of a poem,—in the virtues of humanity, and the marvels of the visible world,—in the meditations of a solitary soul, and the stupendous mechanism of civil society. There is beauty where there is neither life nor morality; but the highest form of beauty is in the perfection of the moral nature.

The highest beauty of expression is a grace of Christian art. It flows from sensibilities, affections, and struggles peculiar to the Christian character. It breathes purity, gentleness, meekness, patience, tenderness, peace. It abhors pride, vain-glory, selfishness, intemperance, lust, war. How celestial, compared with that which dwells in perfection of form or color only! The beauty of ancient art found congenial expression in the faultless form of Aphrodite rising from the sea,[175] and in the majestic mien of Juno, with snow-white arms, and royal robes, seated on a throne of gold,[176]—not in the soul-lit countenance of her who watched the infant in his manger-cradle, and throbbed with a mother's heart beneath the agonies of the cross.

Allston was a Christian artist; and the beauty of expression lends uncommon charm to his colors. All that he did shows purity, sensibility, refinement, delicacy, feeling, rather than force. His genius was almost feminine. As he advanced in years, this was more remarked. His pictures became more and more instinct with those sentiments which form the true glory of Art. Early in life he had a partiality for pieces representing banditti; but this taste does not appear in his later works. And when asked if he would undertake to fill the vacant panels in the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington, should Congress determine to order such a work, he is reported to have said, in memorable words, "I will paint only one subject, and choose my own: No battle-piece!"[177] This incident, so honorable to the Artist, is questioned; but it is certain that on more than one occasion he avowed a disinclination to paint battle-pieces. I am not aware if he assigned any reason. Is it too much to suppose that his refined artistic sense, recognizing expression as the highest beauty of Art, unconsciously judged the picture? The ancient Greek epigram, describing the Philoctetes of Parrhasius, an image of hopeless wretchedness and consuming grief, rises to a like sentiment, when it says, with mild rebuke,—

In another tone, and with cold indifference to human suffering, Lucretius sings, in often-quoted verse, that it is pleasant, when beyond the reach of danger, to behold the shock of contending armies:—

"Suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri."[179]

In like heathen spirit, it may be pleasant to behold a battle-piece in Art. But this is wrong. Admitting the calamitous necessity of war, it can never be with pleasure—it cannot be without sadness unspeakable—that we survey its fiendish encounter. The artist of purest aim, sensitive to these emotions, withdraws naturally from the field of blood, confessing that no scene of battle finds a place in the highest Art,—that man, created in the image of God, can never be pictured degrading, profaning, violating that sacred image.

Were this sentiment adopted in literature as in Art, war would be shorn of its false glory. Poet, historian, orator, all should join with the Artist in saying, No battle-piece! Let them cease to dwell, except with pain and reprobation, upon those dismal exhibitions of human passion where the life of friends is devoted to procure the death of enemies. No pen, no tongue, no pencil, by praise or picture, can dignify scenes from which God averts His eye. It is true, man has slain his fellow-man, armies have rushed in deadly shock against armies, the blood of brothers has been spilled. These are tragedies which History enters sorrowfully, tearfully, in her faithful record; but this generous Muse with too attractive colors must not perpetuate the passions from which they sprang or the griefs they caused. Be it her duty to dwell with eulogy and pride on all that is magnanimous, lovely, beneficent; let this be preserved by votive canvas and marble also. But No battle-piece!

In the progress of truth, the animal passions degrading our nature are by degrees checked and subdued. The license of lust and the brutality of intemperance, marking a civilization inferior to our own, are at last driven from public display. Faithful Art reflects the character of the age. To its honor, libertinism and intemperance no longer intrude their obscene faces into its pictures. The time is at hand when religion, humanity, and taste will concur in rejecting any image of human strife. LaÏs and Phryne have fled; Bacchus and Silenus are driven reeling from the scene. Mars will soon follow, howling, as with that wound from the Grecian spear before Troy. The Hall of Battles, at Versailles, where Louis Philippe, the inconsistent conservator of peace, has arrayed, on acres of canvas, the bloody contests in the long history of France, will be shut by a generation appreciating true greatness.

In the mission of teaching to nations and to individuals wherein is true greatness, Art has a noble office. If not herald, she is at least handmaid of Truth. Her lessons may not train the intellect, but they cannot fail to touch the heart. Who can measure the influence from an image of beauty, affection, and truth? The Christus Consolator of Scheffer, without a word, wins the soul. Such a work awakens lasting homage to the artist, and to the spirit from which it proceeds, while it takes its place with things that never die. Other works, springing from the lower passions, are no better than gaudy, perishing flowers of earth; but here is perennial, amaranthine bloom.

Allston loved excellence for its own sake. He looked down upon the common strife for worldly consideration. With impressive beauty of truth and expression, he said, "Fame is the eternal shadow of excellence, from which it can never be separated."[180] Here is a volume, prompting to noble thought and action, not for the sake of glory, but for advance in knowledge, virtue, excellence. Our Artist gives renewed utterance to that sentiment which is the highest grace in the life of the great magistrate, Lord Mansfield, when, confessing the attractions of "popularity," he said it was that which followed, not which was followed after.

As we contemplate the life and works of Allston, we are inexpressibly grateful that he lived. His example is one of our best possessions. And yet, while rejoicing that he has done much, we seem to hear a whisper that he might have done more. His productions suggest a higher genius than they display; and we are disposed sometimes to praise the master rather than the work. Like a beloved character in English literature, Sir James Mackintosh, he finally closed a career of beautiful, but fragmentary labors, leaving much undone which all had hoped he would do. The great painting which haunted so many years of his life, and which his friends and country awaited with anxious interest, remained unfinished at last. His Virgilian sensibility and modesty would doubtless have ordered its destruction, had death arrested him less suddenly. Titian died, leaving incomplete, like Allston, an important picture, on which his hand was busy down to the time of his death. A pious and distinguished pupil, the younger Palma, took up the labor of his master, and, on its completion, placed it in the church for which it was destined, with this inscription: "That which Titian left unfinished Palma reverently completed, and dedicated to God." Where is the Palma who can complete what our Titian has left unfinished?

Let us now devoutly approach the grave of the brother whom, in order of time, we were first called to mourn. William Ellery Channing, the Philanthropist, died in the month of October, 1842, aged sixty-two. By an easy transition we pass from Allston to Channing. They were friends and connections. The monumental stone which marks the last resting-place of the Philanthropist was designed by the Artist. In physical organization they were not unlike, each possessing a fineness of fibre hardly belonging to the Anglo-Saxon stock. In both we observe similar sensibility, delicacy, refinement, and truth, with highest aims; and the color of Allston finds a parallel in the Venetian richness which marks the style of Channing.

I do not speak of him as Theologian, although his labors have earned this title also. It is probable that no single mind, in our age, has exerted a greater influence over theological opinions. But I pass all this by, without presuming to indicate its character. Far better dwell on those labors which should not fail to find favor in all churches, whether at Rome, Geneva, Canterbury, or Boston.

His influence is widely felt and acknowledged. His words have been heard and read by thousands, in all conditions of life, and in various lands, whose hearts now throb with gratitude towards the meek and eloquent upholder of divine truth. An American traveller, at a small village nestling on a terrace of the Tyrolese Alps, encountered a German, who, hearing that his companion was from Boston, inquired earnestly after Channing,—saying that the difficulty of learning the English language was adequately repaid by the charm of his writings. A distinguished stranger, when about to visit our country, was told by a relative not less lovely in character than elevated in condition, that she envied him his journey "for the sake of Niagara and Channing." We have already observed that a critic of Art places him in an American triumvirate with Allston and Washington. More frequently he is associated with Washington and Franklin. Unlike Washington, he was never general or president; unlike Franklin, he never held high office. But it would be difficult to say that since them any American has exerted greater sway over his fellow-men. And yet, if it be asked what single measure he carried to a successful close, I could not answer. It is on character that he has wrought and is still producing incalculable change. So extensive is this influence, that multitudes now feel it, although strangers to his spoken or even his written word. The whole country and age feel it.

I have called him Philanthropist, lover of man,—the title of highest honor on earth. "I take goodness in this sense," says Lord Bacon, in his Essays, "the affecting of the weal of men, which is that the Grecians call Philanthropia.... This of all virtues and dignities of the mind is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing, no better than a kind of vermin." Lord Bacon was right. Confessing the attractions of scholarship, awed by the majesty of the law, fascinated by the beauty of Art, the soul bends with involuntary reverence before the angelic nature that seeks the good of his fellow-man. Through him God speaks. On him has descended in especial measure the Divine Spirit. God is Love; and man, when most active in good works, most nearly resembles Him. In heaven, we are told, the first place or degree is given to the angels of love, who are termed Seraphim,—the second to the angels of light, who are termed Cherubim.

Sorrowfully it must be confessed that the time has not come when even his exalted labors find equal acceptance with all men. And now, as I undertake to speak of them in this presence, I seem to tread on half-buried cinders. I shall tread fearlessly, loyal ever, I hope, to the occasion, to my subject, and to myself. In the language of my own profession, I shall not travel out of the record; but I must be true to the record. It is fit that his name should be commemorated here. He was one of us. He was a son of the University, enrolled also among its teachers, and for many years a Fellow of the Corporation. To him, more, perhaps, than to any other person, is she indebted for her most distinctive opinions. His fame is indissolubly connected with hers:—

I have called him Philanthropist: he may also be called Moralist, for he was the expounder of human duties; but his exposition of duties was another service to humanity. His morality, elevated by Christian love, fortified by Christian righteousness, was frankly applied to the people and affairs of his own country and age. He saw full well, that, in contest with wrong, more was needed than a declaration of simple principles. A general morality is too vague for action. Tamerlane and Napoleon both might join in general praise of peace, and entitle themselves to be enrolled, with Alexander of Russia, as members of a Peace Society. Many satisfy the conscience by such generalities. This was not the case with our Philanthropist. He brought his morality to bear distinctly upon the world. Nor was he disturbed by another suggestion, which the moralist often encounters, that his views were sound in theory, but not practical. He well knew that what is unsound in theory must be vicious in practice. Undisturbed by hostile criticism, he did not hesitate to arraign the wrong he discerned, and fasten upon it the mark of Cain. His philanthropy was morality in action.

As a moralist, he knew that the truest happiness is reached only by following the Right; and as a lover of man, he sought on all occasions to inculcate this supreme duty, which he addressed to nations and individuals alike. In this attempt to open the gates of a new civilization, he encountered prejudice and error. The principles of morality, first possessing the individual, slowly pervade the body politic; and we are often told, in extenuation of war and conquest, that the nation and the individual are governed by separate laws,—that the nation may do what an individual may not do. In combating this pernicious fallacy, Channing was a benefactor. He helped to bring government within the Christian circle, and taught the statesman that there is one comprehensive rule, binding on the conscience in public affairs, as in private affairs. This truth cannot be too often proclaimed. Pulpit, press, school, college, all should render it familiar to the ear, and pour it into the soul. Beneficent Nature joins with the moralist in declaring the universality of God's law; the flowers of the field, the rays of the sun, the morning and evening dews, the descending showers, the waves of the sea, the breezes that fan our cheeks and bear rich argosies from shore to shore, the careering storm, all on this earth,—nay, more, the system of which this earth is a part, and the infinitude of the Universe, in which our system dwindles to a grain of sand, all declare one prevailing law, knowing no distinction of person, number, mass, or extent.

While Channing commended this truth, he fervently recognized the Rights of Man. He saw in our institutions, as established in 1776, the animating idea of Human Rights, distinguishing us from other countries. It was this idea, which, first appearing at our nativity as a nation, shone on the path of our fathers, as the unaccustomed star in the west which twinkled over Bethlehem.

Kindred to the idea of Human Rights was that other, which appears so often in his writings as to inspire his whole philanthropy, the importance of the Individual Man. No human soul so abject in condition as not to find sympathy and reverence from him. He confessed brotherhood with all God's children, although separated from them by rivers, mountains, and seas,—although a torrid sun had left upon them an unchangeable Ethiopian skin. Filled with this thought, he was untiring in effort to promote their elevation and happiness. He yearned to do good, to be a spring of life and light to his fellow-men. "I see nothing worth living for," he said, "but the divine virtue which endures and surrenders all things for truth, duty, and mankind." In this spirit, so long as he lived, he was the constant champion of Humanity.

In the cause of education and of temperance he was earnest. He saw how essential to a people governing themselves was knowledge,—that without it the right of voting would be a dangerous privilege, and that with it the nation would be elevated with new means of happiness and power. His vivid imagination saw the blight of intemperance, and exposed it in glowing colors. In these efforts he was sustained by the kindly sympathy of those among whom he lived.

There were two other causes in which, more than any other, his soul was enlisted, especially toward the close of life, and with which his name will be inseparably associated,—I mean the efforts for the abolition of those two terrible scourges, Slavery and War.

All will see that I cannot pass these by on this occasion; for not to speak of them would be to present a portrait in which the most distinctive features were wanting.

And, first, as to Slavery. To this his attention was particularly drawn by early residence in Virginia, and a season subsequently in one of the West India Islands. His soul was moved by its injustice and inhumanity. He saw in it an infraction of God's great laws of Right and Love, and of the Christian precept, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Regarding it contrary to the law of Nature, the Philanthropist unconsciously adopted the conclusions of the Supreme Court of the United States, speaking by the mouth of Chief Justice Marshall,[182] and of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, at a later day, speaking by the mouth of Chief Justice Shaw. A solemn decision, now belonging to the jurisprudence of this Commonwealth, declares that "slavery is contrary to natural right, to the principles of justice, humanity, and sound policy."[183]

With these convictions, his duty as Moralist and Philanthropist did not admit of question. He saw before him a giant wrong. Almost alone he went forth to the contest. On his return from the West Indies, he first declared himself from the pulpit. At a later day, he published a book entitled "Slavery," the most considerable treatise from his pen. His object, as he testifies, was "to oppose slavery on principles which, if admitted, would inspire resistance to all the wrongs and reverence for all the rights of human nature."[184] Other publications followed down to the close of his life, among which was a prophetic letter, addressed to Henry Clay, against the annexation of Texas, on the ground that it would entail war with Mexico and the extension of slavery. It is interesting to know that this letter, before its publication, was read to his classmate Story, who listened to it with admiration and assent; so that the Jurist and the Philanthropist joined in this cause.

In his defence of African liberty he invoked always the unanswerable considerations of justice and humanity. The argument of economy, deemed by some to contain all that is pertinent, never presented itself to him. The question of profit and loss was absorbed in the question of right and wrong. His maxim was,—Anything but slavery; poverty sooner than slavery. But while exhibiting this institution in blackest colors, as inhuman, unjust, unchristian, unworthy of an enlightened age and of a republic professing freedom, his gentle nature found no word of harshness for those whom birth, education, and custom bred to its support. Implacable towards wrong, he used mild words towards wrong-doers. He looked forward to the day when they too, encompassed by a moral blockade, invisible to the eye, but more potent than navies, and under the influence of increasing light, diffused from all the nations, must acknowledge the wrong, and set the captive free.

He urged the duty—such was his unequivocal language—incumbent on the Northern States to free themselves from all support of slavery. To this conclusion he was driven irresistibly by the ethical principle, that what is wrong for the individual is wrong for the state. No son of the Pilgrims can hold a fellow-man in bondage. Conscience forbids. No son of the Pilgrims can, through Government, hold a fellow-man in bondage. Conscience equally forbids. We have among us to-day a brother who, reducing to practice the teachings of Channing and the suggestions of his own soul, has liberated the slaves which fell to him by inheritance. Our homage to this act attests the obligation upon ourselves. In asking the Free States to disconnect themselves from all support of slavery, Channing called them to do as States what Palfrey has done as man. At the same time he dwelt with affectionate care upon the Union. He sought to reform, not to destroy,—to eradicate, not to overturn; and he cherished the Union as mother of peace, plenteousness, and joy.

Such were some of his labors for liberty. The mind instinctively recalls the parallel exertions of John Milton. He, too, was a defender of liberty. His "Defence of the People of England" drew to him, living, a larger fame than his sublime epic. But Channing's labors were of a higher order, more instinct with Christian sentiment, more truly worthy of renown. Milton's Defensio pro Populo Anglicano was for the political freedom of the English people, supposed at that time to number four and a half millions. It was written after the "bawble" of royalty had been removed, and in the confidence that the good cause was triumphantly established, beneath the protecting genius of Cromwell. Channing's Defensio pro Populo Africano was for the personal freedom of three million fellow-men in abject bondage, none of whom knew that his eloquent pen was pleading their cause. The efforts of Milton produced his blindness; those of Channing exposed him to obloquy and calumny. How justly might the Philanthropist have borrowed the exalted words of the Sonnet to Cyriac Skinner!—

The same spirit of justice and humanity animating him in defence of liberty inspired his exertions for the abolition of the barbarous custom or institution of War. When I call war an institution, I mean international war, sanctioned, explained, and defined by the Law of Nations, as a mode of determining questions of right. I mean war, the arbiter and umpire, the Ordeal by Battle, deliberately continued in an age of civilization, as the means of justice between nations. Slavery is an institution sustained by municipal law. War is an institution sustained by the Law of Nations. Both are relics of the early ages, and are rooted in violence and wrong.

The principle, already considered, that nations and individuals are bound by one and the same rule, applies here with unmistakable force. The Trial by Battle, to which individuals once appealed for justice, is branded by our civilization as monstrous and impious; nor can we recognize honor in the successful combatant. Christianity turns from these scenes, as abhorrent to her best injunctions. And is it right in nations to prolong a usage, monstrous and impious in individuals? There can be but one answer.

This definition leaves undisturbed that question of Christian ethics, whether the right of self-defence is consistent with the example and teaching of Christ. Channing thought it was. It is sufficient that war, when regarded as a judicial combat, sanctioned by the Law of Nations as an institution to determine justice, raises no such question, involves no such right. When, in our age, two nations, parties to existing international law, after mutual preparations, continued perhaps through years, appeal to war and invoke the God of Battles, they voluntarily adopt this unchristian umpirage; nor can either side plead that overruling necessity on which alone the right of self-defence is founded. They are governed at every step by the Laws of War. But self-defence is independent of law; it knows no law, but springs from sudden tempestuous urgency, which brooks neither circumscription nor delay. Define it, give it laws, circumscribe it by a code, invest it with form, refine it by punctilio, and it becomes the Duel. And modern war, with its definitions, laws, limitations, forms, and refinements, is the Duel of Nations.

These nations are communities of Christian brothers. War is, therefore, a duel between brothers; and here its impiety finds apt illustration in the past. Far away in the early period of time, where uncertain hues of Poetry blend with the clearer light of History, our eyes discern the fatal contest between those two brothers, Eteocles and Polynices. No scene stirs deeper aversion; we do not inquire which was right. The soul cries out, in bitterness and sorrow, Both were wrong, and refuses to discriminate between them. A just and enlightened opinion, contemplating the feuds and wars of mankind, will condemn both sides as wrong, pronouncing all war fratricidal, and every battle-field a scene from which to avert the countenance, as from that dismal duel beneath the walls of Grecian Thebes.

To hasten this judgment our Philanthropist labored. "Follow my white plume," said the chivalrous monarch of France. "Follow the Right," more resplendent than plume or oriflamme, was the watchword of Channing. With a soul kindling intensely at every story of magnanimous virtue, at every deed of self-sacrifice in a righteous cause, his clear Christian judgment saw the mockery of what is called military glory, whether in ancient thunderbolts of war or in the career of modern conquest. He saw that the fairest flowers cannot bloom in soil moistened by human blood,—that to overcome evil by bullets and bayonets is less great and glorious than to overcome it by good,—that the courage of the camp is inferior to this Christian fortitude found in patience, resignation, and forgiveness of evil, as the spirit which scourged and crucified the Saviour was less divine than that which murmured, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

With fearless pen he arraigned that giant criminal, Napoleon Bonaparte. Witnesses flocked from all his scenes of blood; and the pyramids of Egypt, the coast of Palestine, the plains of Italy, the snows of Russia, the fields of Austria, Prussia, Spain, all Europe, sent forth uncoffined hosts to bear testimony against the glory of their chief. Never before, in the name of humanity and freedom, was grand offender arraigned by such a voice. The sentence of degradation which Channing has passed, confirmed by coming generations, will darken the name of the warrior more than any defeat of his arms or compelled abdication of his power.

These causes Channing upheld and commended with admirable eloquence, both of tongue and pen. Though abounding in beauty of thought and expression, he will be judged less by single passages, sentences, or phrases, than by the continuous and harmonious treatment of his subject. And yet everywhere the same spirit is discerned. What he said was an effluence rather than a composition. His style was not formal or architectural in shape or proportion, but natural and flowing. Others seem to construct, to build; he bears us forward on an unbroken stream. If we seek a parallel for him as writer, we must turn our backs upon England, and repair to France. Meditating on the glowing thought of Pascal, the persuasive sweetness of FÉnelon, the constant and comprehensive benevolence of the AbbÉ Saint Pierre, we may be reminded of Channing.

With few of the physical attributes belonging to the orator, he was an orator of surpassing grace. His soul tabernacled in a body that was little more than a filament of clay. He was small in stature; but when he spoke, his person seemed to dilate with the majesty of his thoughts,—as the Hercules of Lysippus, a marvel of ancient art, though not more than a foot in height, revived in the mind the superhuman strength which overcame the Nemean lion:—

His voice was soft and musical, not loud or full in tone; and yet, like conscience, it made itself heard in the inmost chambers of the soul. His eloquence was gentleness and persuasion, reasoning for religion, humanity, and justice. He did not thunder or lighten. The rude elemental forces furnish no proper image of his power. Like sunshine, his words descended upon the souls of his hearers, and under their genial influence the hard in heart were softened, while the closely hugged mantle of prejudice and error dropped to the earth.

His eloquence had not the character and fashion of forensic effort or parliamentary debate. It mounted above these, into an atmosphere unattempted by the applauded orators of the world. Whenever he spoke or wrote, it was with loftiest purpose, as his works attest,—not for public display, not to advance himself, not on any question of pecuniary interest, not under any worldly temptation, but to promote the love of God and man. Here are untried founts of truest inspiration. Eloquence has been called action; but it is something more. It is that divine and ceaseless energy which saves and helps mankind. It cannot assume its highest form in personal pursuit of dishonest guardians, or selfish contention for a crown,—not in defence of a murderer, or invective hurled at a conspirator. I would not over-step the proper modesty of this discussion, nor would I disparage the genius of the great masters; but all must join in admitting that no rhetorical skill or oratorical power can elevate these lower, earthly things to the natural heights on which Channing stood, when he pleaded for Freedom and Peace.

Such was our Philanthropist. Advancing in life, his enthusiasm seemed to brighten, his soul put forth fresh blossoms of hope, his mind opened to new truths. Age brings experience; but, except in a few constitutions of rare felicity, it renders the mind indifferent to what is new, particularly in moral truth. His last months were passed amid the heights of Berkshire, with a people to whom may be applied what Bentivoglio said of Switzerland,—"Their mountains become them, and they become their mountains." To them, on the 1st of August, 1842, he volunteered an Anniversary Address, in commemoration of that great English victory,—the peaceful emancipation of eight hundred thousand slaves. These were the last public words from his lips. His final benediction descended on the slave. His spirit, taking flight, seemed to say,—nay, still says, Remember the Slave.

Thus have I attempted, humbly and affectionately, to bring before you the images of our departed brothers, while I dwelt on the great causes in which their lives were revealed. Servants of Knowledge, Justice, Beauty, Love, they have ascended to the great Source of Knowledge, Justice, Beauty, Love. Though dead, they yet speak, informing the understanding, strengthening the sense of justice, refining the tastes, enlarging the sympathies. The body dies; but the page of the Scholar, the interpretation of the Jurist, the creation of the Artist, the beneficence of the Philanthropist cannot die.

I have dwelt upon their lives and characters, less in grief for what we have lost than in gratitude for what we possessed so long, and still retain, in their precious example. Proudly recollecting her departed children, Alma Mater may well exclaim, in those touching words of parental grief, that she would not give her dead sons for any living sons in Christendom. Pickering, Story, Allston, Channing! A grand Quaternion! Each, in his peculiar sphere, was foremost in his country. Each might have said, what the modesty of Demosthenes did not forbid him to boast, that, through him, his country had been crowned abroad. Their labors were wide as Scholarship, Jurisprudence, Art, Humanity, and have found acceptance wherever these are recognized.

Their lives, which overflow with instruction, teach one persuasive lesson to all alike of every calling and pursuit,—not to live for ourselves alone. They lived for Knowledge, Justice, Beauty, Love. Turning from the strifes of the world, the allurements of office, and the rage for gain, they consecrated themselves to the pursuit of excellence, and each, in his own sphere, to beneficent labor. They were all philanthropists; for the labors of all were directed to the welfare and happiness of man.

In their presence, how truly do we feel the insignificance of office and wealth, which men so hotly pursue! What is office? and what is wealth? Expressions and representatives of what is present and fleeting only, investing the possessor with a brief and local regard. Let this not be exaggerated; it must not be confounded with the serene fame which is the reflection of generous labors in great causes. The street lights, within the circle of their nightly glimmer, seem to outshine the distant stars, observed of men in all lands and times; but gas-lamps are not to be mistaken for celestial luminaries. They who live for wealth, and the things of this world, follow shadows, neglecting realities eternal on earth and in heaven. After the perturbations of life, all its accumulated possessions must be resigned, except those only which have been devoted to God and mankind. What we do for ourselves perishes with this mortal dust; what we do for others lives coeval with the benefaction. Worms may destroy the body, but they will not consume such a fame.

Struggles of the selfish crowd, clamors of a false patriotism, suggestions of a sordid ambition, cannot obscure that commanding duty which enjoins perpetual labor for the welfare of the whole human family, without distinction of country, color, or race. In this work, Knowledge, Jurisprudence, Art, Humanity, all are blessed ministers. More puissant than the sword, they will lead mankind from the bondage of error into that service which alone is freedom:—

"HÆ tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem."[186]

The brothers we commemorate join in summons to this gladsome obedience. Their examples have voice. Go forth into the many mansions of the house of life. Scholar! store them with learning. Jurist! strengthen them with justice. Artist! adorn them with beauty. Philanthropist! fill them with love. Be servants of truth, each in his vocation,—sincere, pure, earnest, enthusiastic. A virtuous enthusiasm is self-forgetful and noble. It is the grand inspiration yet vouchsafed to man. Like Pickering, blend humility with learning. Like Story, ascend above the present, in place and time. Like Allston, regard fame only as the eternal shadow of excellence. Like Channing, plead for the good of man. Cultivate alike the wisdom of experience and the wisdom of hope. Mindful of the future, do not neglect the past; awed by the majesty of antiquity, turn not with indifference from the new. True wisdom looks to the ages before, as well as behind. Like the Janus of the Capitol, one front regards the past, rich with experience, with memories, with priceless traditions of virtue; the other is directed to the All Hail Hereafter, richer still with transcendent hopes and unfulfilled prophecies.

We stand on the threshold of a new age, which is preparing to recognize new influences. The ancient divinities of Violence and Wrong are retreating before the light of a better day. The sun is entering a new ecliptic, no longer deformed by those images of animal rage, Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Sagittarius, but beaming with the mild radiance of those heavenly signs, Faith, Hope, and Charity.

The age of Chivalry is gone. An age of Humanity has come. The Horse, whose importance, more than human, gave its name to that early period of gallantry and war, now yields the foremost place to Man. In serving him, in studying his elevation, in helping his welfare, in doing him good, are fields of bloodless triumph, nobler far than any in which Bayard or Du Guesclin conquered. Here are spaces of labor, wide as the world, lofty as heaven. Let me say, then, in the benison once bestowed upon the youthful knight,—Scholar! Jurist! Artist! Philanthropist! hero of a Christian age, companion of a celestial knighthood, "Go forth, be brave, loyal, and successful!"

And may it be our office to light a fresh beacon-fire on the venerable walls of Harvard, sacred to Truth, to Christ, and to the Church,[187]—to Truth Immortal, to Christ the Comforter, to the Holy Church Universal. Let the flame pass from steeple to steeple, from hill to hill, from island to island, from continent to continent, till the long lineage of fires illumine all the nations of the earth, animating them to the holy contests of Knowledge, Justice, Beauty, Love!