A DISCOURSE COMMEMORATIVE OF DR. CHANNING.*

He was a burning and a shining light, and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light.-John v, 35.

THE hour succeeding sunset is most congenial to meditation and reflection. The lingering beams of departing day cast something of their own mellow tinge on its various events and transactions before they recede into the dim twilight of the past. Then, if ever, the heart is softened and subdued. Then, if ever, celestial wisdom descends upon the soul, like the gentle dews of evening, and, like the disciples on the mount of transfiguration, we find it good for us to be there.

Such are our feelings which we experience for the first few days after a great and a good man has left the world. For a while we are oppressed by the consciousness of irreparable loss. His last word is spoken, his last thought is uttered, his last feeling expressed. His eye

* Delivered on the evening of the 16th of October, 1842.

no longer looks on this scene which is passing before us all, to see in it deeper meaning than meets our less penetrating glance; it is no longer busy among the records of the past, to draw from them a more profound significance than has ever been reached by intellects less acute. We feel that a great interpreter is gone, one who by intense and patient study had learned to read in nature and man the most momentous truths where all to us is hidden in illegible hieroglyphics. The hope through him to arrive at deeper knowledge of all that can be known, or a clearer, more quickening expression of what is familiar to all, is now extinct. This thought sends us with a miser's eagerness to ascertain the extent of the treasures he has left. It all becomes more precious than ever, from the mournful certainty that we can have no more. One of the most priceless things of earth has for ever fled, a wise and accomplished mind. A genius of the highest order is an unique. Earth contains no second gem of precisely the same hue and lustre, or presenting the same surfaces to the light. The same combination of endowments may never again occur, and the chance of their existing in connection with the same outward circumstances, does not come back in the revolution of centuries. Well then do we pause when a great mind has passed from among us. We mourn the loss of the only

treasure which can not be replaced. The man of wealth causes a void when he dies. Hundreds have looked to him for their bread. His relations to his fellow men have been multiplied and important. If he was a good man, he has done much for human happiness. His memory is cherished by a wide circle, and the mammon of unrighteousness has procured him an admission into everlasting habitations. But when he is gone, another takes his place, and succeeds to the greatness which is fortuitously reflected upon him from the accident of great possessions. Such greatness requires no rare combination of endowments.

Just so it is with mere official greatness. It occupies, from position alone, a wide space in the regards of mankind. The man is great, merely because he sustains vast relations. The eyes of a nation are turned on him, because they have invested his single will with the power of affecting them deeply for good or ill. In himself he is nothing—often inferior to millions whom he governs. And when the breath departs, his greatness vanishes like smoke, his body goes to the tomb of his ancestors, his picture takes its place in their galleries; and his memory is handed down with as much reverence as the canvas which perpetuates his features, and another reigns in his stead. Far

different is it when a great intellect is withdrawn,

He owes his distinction to nothing artificial or extraneous. He is great in the eyes of mankind, simply because he is great in himself. He has impressed his image upon the world, and it is a likeness of himself. His words have gone forth to the ends of the earth, merely because they were wiser, deeper, truer, and more eloquent than the words of other men. In him other minds have found a teacher, and they instinctively and involuntarily take the position of learners, and thus acknowledge his superiority.

The influence of a great mind is felt, not only in what he achieves and produces, but in what he stimulates others to accomplish. He stirs mightily the slumbering ocean of thought. He brings out, and sets in a more striking light, great essential truths, which inferior intellects embrace, develop and carry into their practical application; or they are seized on by the masses, and made the watchword of social changes, or are borne upon the banners of revolutions. In the possession of great and well defined principles, which it is the prerogative of a great intellect to perceive, and embody, and express, nations become wise, and strong, and prosperous. The writings of such men have a value which it is impossible to estimate. They are indeed the surest pledge of the perpetual advancement of mankind. To them each rising generation is

drawn by an irresistible attraction, as the most worthy their attention of all the productions of the past, and while each year new millions of books are poured from the press, multitudinous as the leaves of summer, and as transient too, a few great productions maintain their places, unsullied by time, and unchanged in value by the lapse of ages.

Such are the reflections which have been suggested to my mind by the news which has impressed with sadness a whole continent, that one of the great lights of American literature, of the church, and of the world, is extinguished. Dr. Channing is no more. He expired at Bennington, Vt., on Sunday, the second of this month. We have come together this evening, to meditate on what he was, and what he has done for the church, for his country, and for mankind.

He was born in Newport, R. I., April 7, 1780, He entered Harvard University at the early age of fifteen, and, young as he was, placed himself among the first, if not at the head of his class. He was distinguished then, as in after life, for his eloquence, though without a single gift of voice or person. Graduating at nineteen, a period when the powers are not sufficiently mature for the duties of professional life, he spent a year in Virginia, in the capacity of teacher. In 1803, five years from his graduation, after pursuing the usual course of profes