A Sermon delivered by Request of the Committee in the Unitarian Church in Marblehead, February 11, 1849, the Sabbath after the Funeral of the late Rev. IX. LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JAMES KENNARD Selections from the Writings of James Kennard, Jr., with a Sketch of his Life and Character. NOTE to Article on "The Piscataqua Association of Ministers," in the No. of the Christian Examiner for May, 1848, Wilson's Infant Baptism, . Pray's Christian's Catechism, - - - Scott's Principles of Textual Criticism, — Beard's Peo- Parkman's Sermon on Death of Hon. William Hale, — Religious Intelligence. - Ecclesiastical Record, Unita- rianism, Circulation of Channing's Works, - Be- nevolent Fraternity of Churches, Works in Press, Obituary. Thomas Gray, Edmund Dwight, - Mrs. 513 CONTENTS. 1. Johannis Scoti Erigenæ de Divisione Nature Libri Quinque. Editio recognita et emendata. Accedunt Tredecim Auctoris Hymni ad Calorum Calvum, ex 2. Scot Erigène et la Philosophie Scholastique. Par Speeches of Nathan Hale, Chairman of the Board of Water-Commissioners, and of Mayor Quincy, on Oc- 1. The Earlier Prophecies of Isaiah. By Joseph Addi- 2. The Later Prophecies of Isaiah. By Joseph Addison V. SOMERVILLE'S PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY Physical Geography. By Mary Somerville. The Life of Jesus Christ in its Historical Connection and Historical Development. By Augustus Nean- 1. The National Lyre: a New Collection of Sacred Music, consisting of Psalm and Hymn Tunes, with a Choice Selection of Sentences, Anthems, and Chants, etc. By S. P. Tuckerman, S. A. Bancroft, and H. 2. Taylor's Sacred Minstrel, or American Church Mu- sic Book; a New Collection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes, etc.; together with Anthems, Sentences, the Best Compositions in General Use, and including many by Eminent English and Foreign Musicians, which are now for the First Time published in this Sermons by the late William B. O. Peabody, with a Memoir, by his Brother. American Almanac for 1849,- Unitarian Congregational Register for 1849,- Channing's Treatise on Etheriza- tion, Fable for Critics, The Biglow Papers, Manual of Morals, - Noble's Important Doctrines of the True Christian Religion,-Griswold's Sacred Poets of England and America, - Wordsworth's Poems, Coleridge's Poems, Rose of Sharon, - M'Clintock and Crooks's First Book in Greek, Lamb's Tales from Shakspere, Howitt's Mary Leeson, · course on Church and Reform,- Bacon's Alumni Dis- Religious Intelligence.· Ecclesiastical Record, -Society THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER AND RELIGIOUS MISCELLANY. JANUARY, 1849. ART. 1.- THE CRISIS OF FREEDOM IN THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW. THE stupendous, and, we may say, the awful events, tidings of which have been coming to us during the last few months, like successive claps of thunder, or like earthquakethroes, from the other side of the world, must have moved every mind capable of thought to its deepest thinking. The awfulness of this tremendous crisis in human affairs, to our minds, lies especially in this, that men, civilized men, are now irretrievably committed to the solemn trial of self-government. What this implies, what qualities it demands, — what wisdom and sobriety, what social effort and what social disinterestedness, are necessary to make the experiment safe, -whether it has been well and wisely begun by the rush of multitudes into city streets to break down and to build up, all this, to our view, is matter of momentous inquiry. But whatever shall be thought of it, whatever shall be thought of this great experiment on a scale as vast as Christendom, whether it be regarded as a light thing or as a serious thing, -it is certain that the time has come! Big with unseen and incalculable issues, the birth-time of momentous ages, the beginning of what no mortal eye can see to the end, it is come! The great hour has struck, in the fortunes of men! Looked for, waited for, believed in, expected, but expected to come only after long preparation, expected among the slow results of centuries of changes, the hour has struck suddenly, decisively, with startling distinctness, with a - 4TH S. VOL. XI. NO. I. VOL. XLVI. 1 - stroke like that of doom, which tells us that the hand upon the dial can never go back. Hereditary power had only two reliances, the strength of opinion, and the standing army. Both have fallen. Reverence is gone; the standing army has melted into the mass of the people. The people are now the incontestable sovereigns. All the slighter the demonstration of their power is, all the stronger is the argument that seals the doom of absolute monarchies. And were ever causes so apparently slight followed by consequences so stupendous? The story almost exceeds belief. Really, it is difficult to comprehend it, to credit it, to feel that it is not a dream. A few thousands of people gathered themselves in the streets of Paris, one Thursday morning (it was the twenty-third of February last), a mere populace was there, without plan, without organization, without leaders. The monarch sat secure in his guarded palace; he remembered that "Such divinity doth hedge a king, That treason does but peep to what it would"; he remembered, too, that thirty thousand troops hedged him around, and that a hundred thousand were almost within call; he was secure, he smiled at danger; when suddenly the cry comes, "The people are up!" and on the instant, the Bourbon monarch springs through his palace-gates, like a thief at night, glad to escape on any terms. Times have changed: no hurdle bore the last king of France to the guillotine, but a common street-carriage served to carry him through the gates of the city; and he is gone! "What!" exclaim the people of Europe, "so easy? So easy to be rid of a king?" And in Vienna, and in Munich, and in Berlin, they gather themselves together, they had already done it in Naples, - they gather themselves together without concert, sometimes a crowd of students, sometimes a throng of artisans, they come under the king's windows, and they say, "Give us a constitution; give us the freedom of the press; give us trial by jury; give us liberal and just institutions" and immediately, from all palace-gates and windows, comes the answer, "We will, we will, good people; we will do any thing; we will concede every thing.' Is not the battle fought? Is not the victory won? Can there be any more doubt of the ascendency of the people? |