The society which Parker found at West Roxbury was of special value to his culture. His immediate neighbors were a choice circle of cultivated persons used to the refinements of life, accomplished in litera- ture and art, with high tone of sentiment, and "that rich flavor of character which distinguishes people well bred." In his student days at Cambridge, and in his ear- liest days of ministerial life, Theodore Parker had been a most ardent admirer of the Unitarian Channing. But gradually Emerson's influence came to predominate and crowded out Channing. In 1837 Parker and Channing read Strauss's Leben Jesu together, and in the discussion of their own views on this subject it soon developed that Channing was a conservative and Parker a radical theo- logian. By 1839 Emerson's influence was most decided- ly in the ascendency, and fast growing, though silently, to vast power. This is verj' clearly apparent in an ar- ticle which Parker published about this time in the Boston Qu. Rev. on " Palfrey's Lectures on the .Jewish Scriptures and Antiquities," and in the Thursday lecture on " Inspiration,'" preached in January, 1840, in which he talks about the folly of thinking that the divine good- ness had exhausted itself, and the probability that new Christs would be manifested among mankind. He be- gan to hint, too, that we might equal or even transcend Jesus Christ in spiritual insight and moral excellence. In November of this j^ear he gave further proof of his departure from conservative theology by attending the Chardon Street Convention, then held in Boston. This meeting was called to discuss the ministry, the Sabbath, and the Church. Men of all shades of opinion were in- vited, under tlie management of Edmund Quincy, to share in the deliberations. Parker was advised by Channing to keep clear of the affair, but was bent on going. Of course the convention was a motley throng, and the extremists took virtual possession of the meet- ing. No candid and thoughtful believer had much chance of a hearing, and a questionable fame hangs over the convention. Parker seems to have taken no active part in their discussions; but a record in his journal shows that he meant to push his peculiar views : " I have my own doctrines, and shall support them, think the convention as it may." In this mood he resolved to write a sermon on Idolatry, and he minutes the points for discussion. These will help us to detect the drift of his meditations. After a few well-delivered blows at mammon and love of a good name, he uncovers the real objects of the discourse by saying that the Church makes an idol of the Bible ; that it loves Jesus Christ as God, though he is not God; that the Church, ministry, and Sabbath are regarded as divine institutions, though they are merelv human. This sermon he preached on the oc- casion of the Rev. C. C. Shackford's ordination at Howes Place Church, South Boston, iMay 1!», 1841. The dis- course was entitled Tin' Tnutxhid and the Permanent in Chrhlianifi/, and in it he flatly repudiated the theorv of the infallible and miraculous inspiration of the Bible. The general verdict was that the temper of the dis- course was harsh and sarcastic. The more conserv- ative Unitarians were shocked at such sentiments, and a general dissatisfaction arose that a man holding these views should be recognised as a Unitarian clergyman. His connection with them could only be an embar- rassment to them and a discomfort to himself; yet, on the pretext that the rights of free thought and free
speech were involved in the question, he refused to withdraw from them, as they would gladly have seen him do. They, on the other hand, refused to exrju-l him from their association lest he should thus be afforded the position of a martyr. Yet he was punished fur his heresy. For ecclesiastical and civil ostracism social proscription was substituted. People ceased to know liim, ministers refused to exchange with him ; he found the journals shut against him, and the effort was made to reduce him thus to silence. Debarred from the gen- eral privileges he had hitherto enjo3-ed, he withdrew himself altogether to his vicarage at West Roxbury, where, however the storm might rage elsewhere, he always found peace. It speaks well for him that all attempts to alienate the affections of his parishioners failed. They were his firm and constant friends. In this quiet abode he continued to stud}', read, think, and find domestic happiness; yet his eye watched the move- ment of the storm he had raised, and ever and anon he intervened in the conflict. Early in May, 1842, he sent the last sheet of his Discoiase on Matters pertaining to Relif/ion to the printer, and in somewhat more than a twelvemonth later his translation of De Wette's Intro- duction followed. Of the former work, we may say in this place that it was evidently an effort on the part of its author to clear what he conceives to be religion from entangling alliances. It is a vigorous rejection of the authority of the evangelical faith. The peculiar dogma of the book is the sufficiency of human nature for all its functions. "Man's religion is a joint devel- opment from the nature within him and the outward world. God, duty, and immortality are conceptions which arise of themselves in human souls. Out of these fundamental ideas all religious systems have been built up."