The Life and Character of Dr. Follen.

From: The Dial, Vol. III, No. III (Jan. 1843)
Author:
Published: E. P. Peabody 1843 Boston

  THERE are two classes of men that have a wide and reformatory influence on the world; who write out their thoughts and sentiments, not in words only, but in things. The one consists of men of great intellectual power, but no special goodness of heart. They see, in the “dry light” of the understanding, what is false, what wrong, what ludicrous in man’s affairs, and expose it to be rejected, to be abhorred, or to be laughed at. Their eye is keen and far-reaching in the actual; but their insight is not the deepest, nor does the sphere of their reason include all things of human concern. Of these men, you do not ask, What was their character? how did they live in their day and their place? but only, What did they think of this thing and of that? Their lives may have been bad, their motives, both for silence and for speech, may have been ignoble and selfish, and their whole life, but a long attempt to build up for themselves a fortune and a name,—but that does not mar their influence, except in the narrow sphere of their personal life. The good they do Jives after them; the evil sleeps with their buried bones. The world looks on them as half-men; expects from them no wholeness of action, but takes their good gift, and first forgives and then forgets their moral obliquity, or defects. It is often painful to contemplate such men. The brightness of their intellect leads us to wish for a corresponding beauty on their moral side. If a man’s wisdom does not show itself in his works; if his Light does not become his Life, making his pathway radiant—why our moral anticipation is disappointed, and we turn away in sadness. Men of a giant’s mind and a pigmy’s heart; men capable of spanning the Heavens, of fathoming the depths of all human science, of mounting with vigorous and untiring pinions above the roar of the crowd and the prejudice of the schools, and continuing their flight before the admiring eyes of lesser men, till distance and loftiness swallows them up; men, who bring back from their adventurous voyagings new discoveries for human wonder, new truths for daily use – men too, that with all this wondrous endowment of intellect are yet capable of vanity, selfish ambition, and the thousand little arts which make up the accomplished worldling,—such men are a sore puzzle to the young and enthusiastic moralist. “What,” he says, “is God unjust? Shall the man, whose eye is ever on himself, keen as the Eagle’s, to look for his own profit, yet dull as the Blindworm’s or the Beetle’s to the shadows of wrong in his own bosom,—shall he be gifted with this faculty to pierce the mystic curtains of nature, and see clearly in his ignoble life, where the saint groped for the wall, and fell, not seeing?” Such is the fact, often as he may attempt to disguise it. The world, past and present, furnishes us with proofs that cannot be winked out of sight. Men capable of noble and reformatory thought, who lack the accomplishment of goodness and a moral life—we need not pause to point out men of this character, both present and departed; that would be an ungrateful work; one not needed to be done.

  The other class is made up of men of moral powers. Their mental ability may be small or great, but their goodness is the most striking, and the fundamental thing. They may not look over a large field, nor be conversant with all the nooks and crevices of this wondrous world, where science each day brings some new miracle to light,—but in the sphere of morals they see as no others. Fast as Thought comes to them it turns into action; what was at first but Light, elementary and cold, is soon transformed into life, which multiplies itself and its blessings. These men look with a single eye to the everlasting Right. To them God’s Law is a Law to be kept, come present weal, or present woe. They ask not, What shall accrue to me—or praise or blame? But contentedly they do the work of Righteousness their hands find to do, and this with all, their might. They live faster than they see—for with a true moral man, the Spontaneous runs before the Reflective, as John outran Peter in seeking the risen Son of Man. When these men have but humble minds, they are worthy of deep homage from all mankind. In solitude and in silence, seen by no eye but the All-seeing, they plant with many and hopeful prayers the seed that is one day to spread wide its branches, laden with all manner of fruit, its very leaves for the healing of the nations. How often has it happened that some woman, uncouth, not well bred, and with but little of mind, has kindled in some boy’s bosom a love of Right, a sense of the sweetness of Charity, of the beauty of Religion, which grew with his growth, and strengthened with his strength, and at last towered forth, strong and flame-like, in the moral heroism of a man whom Heaven employs to stir the world, and help God’s kingdom come! It was only a Raven which the boys, resting at noon-day beside the brook Cherith, saw slowly flying towards the mountain. But he bore in his beak food for the fainting prophet—the last of the faithful.

  When this moral power is found with great intellectual gifts, as it sometimes is, then have we the fairest form of humanity; the mind of a giant, and an angel’s heart. These act, each on each. The quickening sentiment fires the thought; this gives the strength bock again to the feelings. The eye is single; the whole body is full of light. The intellect of such an one attracts admiration; his moral excellence enforces love. He teaches by his words of wisdom; by his works of goodness. Happy is the age that beholds a conjunction so rare and auspicious, as that of eminent genius and moral excellence as eminent. A single man of that stamp gives character to the age; a new epoch is begun. Men are forced to call themselves after his name, and that may be said of him which was said of Elias the Prophet, “After his death, his body prophesied.” But such are the rarest sons of God.

  Dr. Follen belonged to the class of men that act on the world chiefly by their MORAL power. Certainly it was that which was most conspicuous in him; in his countenance; his writings; his life. Some live for Study; their books, both what they read and what they write, are their life; and others for Action. They write their soul out in works—their name may perish; their usefulness remains, and widens, and deepens, till time and the human race shall cease to be. Dr. Follen belonged to the class then, of men of moral ACTION, In saying this, we do not mean to imply, that there was little of intellectual force—only that the moral power cast it into the shade; not that he could not have been eminent in the empire of abstract thought, but only that he chose the broad realm of benevolent action. Others, better fitted for the task, and with more apace and time at command, will doubtless judge his writings from the intellectual point of view, and mankind will pass the irreversible decree on his recorded thoughts, and bid them live or die. We shall confine ourselves to the first volume of his works, containing a biography, written by his wife, and only attempt a delineation of the moral life and works of the man.

  The main points of his history are briefly summed up. Charles Theodore Follen was born on the 4th of September, 1796, at Romrod, in the western part of Germany; became obnoxious to the government at an early age; fled to Switzerland for an asylum in 1820; came to America, as the only civilized land that offered him life and liberty in 1824, and ceased to be mortal in the beginning of 1840.

  There is a rare unity in his life, such as we scarce remember to have noticed in any modern biography. It is a moral-heroic drama, in one Act, though the scene shifts from the college to the camp; from the thundering storm of a meeting of Reformers to the Christian pulpit, and the Sunday school, where children are taught of the Great Reformer of the world. Dr. Follen’s work began in early life; while yet a stripling at college we see the same qualities, working for the same end, as in the very last scenes of his life. His pious love of freedom; his abhorrence of all that had the savor of oppression about it; his disinterested zeal for mankind; his unconcern for himself, so long as God saw him at his post and his work—these began early; they continued till the last. His whole life was a warfare against Sin, that had slain and taken possession of what belongs to mankind. But we must speak of the details of his history more minutely.

  He was the son of a counsellor at Law, and judge in Hesse Darmstadt. When a child he was serious and earnest beyond his years. He received his education at the Seminary and University of Giessen, devoting himself to the study of the Law. His enthusiasm against the French kindled with the uprising of his Father-land, and in 1813, we find him a soldier in the army of Patriots. The return of Peace, the next year, restored him to his studies at the University. At the age of twelve, says his biographer, he had conceived thoughts of a Christian society far different from all that is now actual on the earth, and while at the University, “consecrated himself to the work of a reformer, by a perfect subjection of himself to the law of justice and universal brotherhood, as taught by Jesus.” His attempts to reform his fellow students brought him into trouble, and rendered him an object of suspicion to the government. At the age of twenty he began to lecture, in a private capacity we suppose, on “various parts of Jurisprudence,” at the University of Giessen. At this period doubts respecting Religion came over him. He met the enemy face to face; studied the writings of Skeptics, Pantheists, and Infidels, and found the books written against Christianity, next to the Gospel itself, were the most efficient promoters of his belief in its divine truth. This fearless examination of all that had been said against Religion, showed him that it rested on a rock which neither its foes nor its friends could ever shake. He never afterwards feared that the most valuable of all man’s treasures could be blown away by a few mouthfuls of wind. Did a man, who knew religion by heart, ever fear that it would perish?

  In 1818, some towns in Hesse engaged this youth, in his twenty-second year, to help them in escaping an artful design of their government to oppress them. His noble attempt succeeded. Of course “the influential persons” whose object he defeated, and the government whose illegal designs he exposed, were offended at him. He became the object of a bitter and unrelenting persecution. His hopes blighted in his native kingdom, he accepted an invitation to the University of Jena. Here he commenced a course of lectures on the Pandects, before a respectable audience, though it was thought extraordinary for so young a man to undertake a branch so difficult. Here also his reformatory and liberal principles stood in the way of his promotion. He was tried as an accomplice of George Sand, in the murder of Kotzebue—a tool of despotism—; was acquitted, but forbidden to lecture in Jena. He returned to Giessen; suspected by the government; treated with coolness by some of his “friends,” for they thought his cause without hope, and “left him to strive alone in his hour of trial and suffering.” The excellence of his character was pleaded as proof of his innocence of ill. “So much the worse,” said one opposer, who knew what he was about, “I should like him better if he had a few vices.” The government, thinking him the handle of the axe, which they knew lay, ready and sharpened, at the root of the tree, intended to imprison him. He escaped by flight to Strasburg, thence to Paris, and became acquainted with Lafayette. But all foreigners were soon ordered to quit France, for this was in 1820, and the same spirit ruled in Paris as in Giessen. A lady invited him to Switzerland. Here he was invited to become a professor in the Cantonal School of the Grisons, one of the higher seminaries of education. Here again his liberal spirit raised up enemies. But at this time it was the church, not the state, that took offence at, his freedom. In his lectures on history, he ascribed the Christian revelation to the efficacy of two great principles, namely, the doctrine of one God, and that all men ought to love one another, and strive after godlike perfection. Some were inspired to lead men to this great aim. The clergy were alarmed, and declared that he denied the Godhead of Jesus, total depravity, and original sin. Dr. Follen’s resignation of his office was the result of this clerical alarm. However, he was soon appointed as a public lecturer at the University of Basie, where he taught natural, civil, and ecclesiastical law, and philosophy in its application to religion, morals, legislation, and the fine arts. But even here, “where the free Switzer yet bestrides alone his chainless mountains,” he was not secure, while in the Canton of the Grisons, the Congress of Troppau demanded that he should be given up. While at Basie, in 1824, the government of Basie received three notes from the governments of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, demanding that he should be given up to the tribunal of inquisition. The result of all was, that he fled from Basie—hid under the boot of a chaise—to Paris, and thence to America, where he arrived in December, 1824. His subsequent story may be briefly hinted at. He was successively teacher of Ethics and Ecclesiastical History at the Divinity School, and Teacher of German in the University at Cambridge, a preacher of the Gospel at Boston, New-York, Lexington, and other places; and as a philanthropist, engaging in the benevolent works of the day.

  Dr. Follen was eminently a Christian man. By this we do not mean that he had learned by rote a few traditional doctrines, whose foundation he never dared examine, and condemned all such as could not accept them; not, that he loved to say there was no salvation out of the Procrustes-bed of his own church; not, that he accepted the popular standard of conventional morals, cursing all that fell below, and damning such as were above, that standard. We know this is too often a true description of the sectarian or popular Christian: as man with more Memory than Thought; more Belief than Life; more Fear than Love. With Dr. Follen, Christianity took a turn a little different. To serve God with the whole mind, was not, necessarily, to think as Anselm and Augustine in religious matters, but to think truly and uprightly; to serve Him with the whole heart and soul was to live a life of active goodness and holiness of heart. He was not one of the many who have days to be Christians, and days to be men of the world; but, a Christian once, was a Christian always. We do not mean to say he had no stains of human imperfection, weakness, and evil. Doubtless he had such. The prurient eye may read traces of such on this monument, where conjugal love solaces its bereavement by tracing, with affectionate pen, the tale of his life, his trials, his temptations, and his endurance.

  In a moral character so rich as this of Dr. Follen, it is difficult, perhaps, to select a point of sufficient prominence, by which to distinguish the man, and about which to group the lesser elements of his being. But what strikes us as chief, is his love of FREEDOM. He felt MAN was superior to all the circumstances, prosperous or adverse, which could be gathered around him. Therefore, he saw the weakness of men beneath the trappings of a monarch’s court, and did not fear to lift up his juvenile voice for human rights and everlasting truth; therefore, he saw the greatness of men under the squalid garments of the beggar or the slave, and never despaired of raising them to the estate of a man, but toiled and prayed for this great end. This love of Freedom was conspicuous in his youth, breathing in the “Great Song;” and shone more and more, as years gave him the meditative mind. It appears in all his writings; in all his life. At an early age, he joined the army, to fight for freedom and his Fatherland,” in the tented field; the chief cause he engaged in as a lawyer was the cause of Right against Oppression. For this he was an exile in a strange land, and in that land he but continued in manhood the work begun in youth. This love of freedom appeared in his sermons, where, some think, it does not often appear. So, one day, after preaching, a friend, “who had a kind heart, but an arbitrary character,” took him by the button, and said, “Your sermon, sir, was very sensible; but you spoil your discourses with your views about freedom. We are all wearied with hearing the same thing from you. You always have something about freedom in whatever you say to us. I am sick of hearing about freedom; we have too much freedom. We are all sick of it; don’t let us hear any more such sermons from you.”—Vol. I. p. 250.

  He saw the great stain that defiles the government of the Union—the stain of slavery. With his characteristic zeal, he espoused the cause of the oppressed and downtrodden African. His attention was first called to the subject by accident. As he returned from preaching, one rainy day, he overtook a negro, apparently not well able to bear the storm. He took him into the chaise. The negro talked of Slavery; of Mr. Walker’s “incendiary publication;” of the suspicious death of Mr. Walker. This awakened the attention of Dr. Follen lo the subject. He soon visited Mr. Garrison, whose efforts in the cause of Abolition have been so justly celebrated. “He found him in a little upper chamber, where were his writing-desk, his types, and his printing-press; his parlor by day, his sleeping-room by night; where, known only by a few other faithful spirits, he denied himself all but the bare necessaries of life, that he might give himself up, heart and hand, to the despised cause of the negro slave.”

  Here he did not find many of the more conspicuous men of the land to join him. There is a time when every great cause, that is one day to move the millions, rests on the hands and in the hearts of a few men; noble hearts, and strong hands; heroes of the soul, whom God raises up to go on the forlorn hope of humanity, and shed their life where others shall one day wave the banner of triumph, and, walking dry-shod, sing preans of victory, though often unmindful of those by whom the day was won. In 1833, Dr. Follen writes to Dr. Bowring, and says, he has “been seven years in the land, and found but two eminent men, Dr. Channing and Clement C. Biddle, who will not connive at slavery for any purpose!” Dr. Bowring’s reply is worthy to be pondered: “I am not surprised at the way you speak of the slavery question. It is indeed the opprobrium of the United States. There is no escape from the palpable, the prominent, the pestiferous fact, that human beings are bought and sold by men, who call themselves Republicans and Christians. It is thrown in our teeth, it is slapped in our faces, it is branded on our souls, when we talk of your country, and hold up your institutions to admiration and imitation. You must indeed labor day and night, at sun-rising and sun-setting, at home and abroad, with the influential above, with the influential below you.”—p. 338.

  In the days of peril which came over the anti-slavery cause, Dr. Follen did not shrink from fidelity to his principles. He faced the evil like a man, neither courage nor calmness forsaking him. We would gladly, for our country’s sake, tear out many pages of the book that records his life; for they are pages of shame to the free State we live in; but what is done cannot be undone by silence.^† But there was one as true in this matter as himself. His wife writes thus: “There were some of my friends, who thought that I should feel very badly at seeing my husband one of this little company of insulted men; but, as he stood there, [before a committee of the Legislature,] battling for freedom of speech in this free land, surrounded by the rich, and the powerful, and the favorites of the world, and condemned by them all for it, I would not have had him exchange positions with any one of them. The unruffled calmness of his soul took possession of mine.”—Page 401. This is not the only instance of the same spirit in her. Before this, she had bid him above all things to be true to his convictions. One day, he said to his wife, “I have been thinking of joining the Anti-Slavery Society; what do you think of it?” “That you ought to follow the light of your own mind,” was the reply; “why should you hesitate?” “I know that it will be greatly in the way of my worldly interests.” “Very like,” says the wife. “I feel,” he replied,” as if I ought to join them.” “Then why not do it?” “It is a serious thing to relinquish my worldly prospects altogether. If I join the Anti-Slavery Society, I shall certainly lose all chance of a permanent place in college, or perhaps any where else. If it were only for myself, I should not be troubled about it; but to involve you and Charles in the evils of real poverty,—I shrink from that.” “You have,” replied the same adviser, “sacrificed your country, your home, and all that makes home dear, for the sake of freedom and humanity; do not think that we are not able to make the slight sacrifices, which we may be called on to make in this cause.”

  “He knew,” says the biographer, “that there are evils belonging to all associations; he never vindicated nor approved of abusive language in the Abolitionists, any more than in their opposers; but, when a young friend raised this objection to joining the Anti-Slavery Society, he replied to him, ‘I did not feel at liberty to stand aloof from a Society, whose only object was the abolition of slavery.’”—pp. 340,341.

  Were his fears ill-grounded? To be true, one must always pay the price. “A clergyman made a most vehement attack upon Dr. Follen [though only in words] for his devotion to the cause of Abolition. It was in the street.” One Thanksgiving-day, while preaching at New York, in part of his sermon he spoke of the subject of slavery: “Before he had concluded the first sentence of his remarks, two gentlemen rose and went out of the church, looking very angry. Many others showed signs of displeasure and alarm, and his words evidently excited a strong sensation through the whole society.” Dr. Follen himself writes as follows about the matter: “It is somewhat doubtful now whether they will settle me here permanently. I feel sure that, if I had known the consequences, I should have changed nothing, either in matter or manner. So we feel easy: come what may.” He himself attributed his failure with that society to his expression of the obnoxious opinions about slavery. But we will speak no more of this theme.

  While a minister at New York, he labored to convert men from Infidelity,—to apply religion to daily life. He rejoiced in having that city for the sphere of his action, where misery, vice, and irreligion are supposed to act with a deeper intensity of violence than elsewhere in the land. His heart was in his calling. His biographer speaks of his ministerial character and conduct: “When he saw a crowd of human beings assembled around him, he did not look upon them as rich or poor, weak or powerful, wise or simple, gentlemen or ladies, but literally and simply as immortal spirits, absent from their true home, and seeking the way back to their Fatherland. He thought none so pure that he might not fall; none so degraded that he might not rise; and he always preached with the feeling that the salvation of souls might be the consequence of the truths he should declare. He sought to make the house of the minister common ground for Humanity, where the rich and the poor might meet together, as representatives of the Common Image of Him that is the Maker of them all. So he invited the whole society to meet him Wednesday evenings.”

  “We made no preparation, except to light our rooms, and gave no entertainment, except a glass of w.1cer to those who desired it. It was understood that all should come in their usual dress; that those who were so disposed might wear their bonnets, and that from seven till eleven o’clock in the evening, all should come and go as they pleased.

  “These social parties were eminently successful; in fair weather our room was always full, and, even when it was stormy, there were some who did not fail to come. We had the pleasure of introducing to each other many, who had found the divisions of the pews impassable barriers to a friendly acquaintance, and who have since become true and warm friends. The rich in worldly goods, they who were gifted with the heavenly dowry of genius, the artisan and the artist, the flattered favorites of the world, and its poor forgotten pilgrims, the homebound conservative, the republican stranger, whose home was the world and the exiled philanthropist, the child and his proud grandparent, the learned and the unlearned, the grave and the gay all met at our house, and passed a few free and happy hours in an unrestrained and friendly intercourse, recognising the bond of brotherhood which exists between the members of God’s human family. Few things ever gave Dr. Follen so true a pleasure as these meetings, not merely on account of his own actual enjoyment of them, but as they established the fact, that such social meetings were practicable, and that the vanity, and expense, and precious time, that are lavished upon show parties are not necessary, in order to obtain all the higher purposes of social intercourse; and as a proof, that people have a purer and better taste than they have credit for. It was also a high gratification to his republican heart, to see that it was possible to do away some of those arbitrary distinctions in society, which prevent the highest progress and improvement of all. One of these Wednesday evenings a lady was present, who belonged to a family, that, if such a term could be used without absurdity in this country, might be called patrician, but who had herself a patent of nobility from Him, who is the giver of all things. I said to her, “That gentleman, who has just sung the Scotch song so well, is a hair-dresser; his wife, who, as well as himself, is from Scotland, and who has been talking very intelligently of Mr. Combe’s lectures, which she attended in her own country, is a dress-maker. That highly intelligent woman, who has held a most interesting correspondence with my husband upon some theological questions, is a watch-maker’s wife. That saintly old lady is the wife of a man who makes India-rubber shoes, &c., and that very gentlemanly and agreeable man is a tailor.” “I hope,” she replied, “that the time will come when such things will not be mentioned as extraordinary.” When I repeated this to my husband, after the company were gone, “That is beautiful,” he said, with his face radiant with joy. He never forgot it; and when we last went to New York, he said, “We must go and see that truly republican lady.” Dr. Follen often said that our freedom was a fact, rather than a principle, and that nowhere was opinion so tyrannical, as in this boasted land of liberty. He resolved, in his ministry in New York, to be truly faithful to his own principles. He took his market-basket daily to market, and brought home our dinner himself. He practiced the strictest economy, that he might have something to give to the poor. Mr. Arnold, and Mr. Channing, who had been the ministers to the poor, had both left the city. Provisions were dear, and the sufferings of the poor were severe; Dr. Follen volunteered his services, and devoted all his leisure to this difficult and painful, though ·interesting duty. His labors were very arduous; the poor Germans, when they knew he was their countryman, besieged our door; and, during the inclement part of the season, it was seldom that we took any meal without some poor sufferer waiting till it was finished, that he might tell his sad story, and receive his portion of our frugal repast. Dr. Follen’s labors among the poor would have been a sufficient employment without his duties in his parish, and preaching on Sunday, and he was often so exhausted, that I feared he would lose his health entirely; but he felt such a deep interest, such an inspiring joy, in these occupations, that he never complained of the weariness of his body.”—Vol. I., pp. 459-462.

  His love of freedom, and his practical exhibition of this love in searching for the grounds of religion, gave him an interest in the eyes of Infidels—men whom worldliness or the popular theology had led to despise Religion itself. In the course of Sermons he preached on Infidelity, he did not use scorn and contempt; though these, it is well known, are the consecrated weapons loo often used by .the Pulpit in this warfare.

  “He reviewed, during this course of lectures, all the most celebrated writers and theories of infidelity; the French Encyclopedists, Hobbes, Hume, Tom Paine, and Fanny Wright. He vituperated none, he sneered at none, he treated them all with respect. He took Paine’s ‘Age of Reason’ into the pulpit, and read an eloquent passage from it, proving that he believed in God and in the immortality of the soul, and simply stated, that in the same pages were to be found the grossest indecencies. He pointed out the inconsistencies of unbelievers, the false grounds of their arguments, and showed that, in spite of themselves, they could not get rid of a belief in immortality. He then showed, that fair and free inquiry would lead to faith. Christianity, rightly understood, instead of checking free inquiry, invites it, and opens to it an infinite sphere.

  “Christianity is,” he said, “the most efficient skepticism, when directed against imposition and blind credulity. Christianity is the deepest science, the most sublime philosophy, adapted to the capacity of a little child, yet transcending the wisdom of the wisest.” He dwelt most eloquently upon the importance to the cause of religion, that believers should have a deep and well-grounded faith themselves, before they attempted to convert others. “Those who reject Christianity because of its supposed inconsistency with nature, experience, and reason, can be convinced of their error only by those who have embraced it, because of its perfect agreement with the demands of reason, the teachings of experience, and the deepest wants of human nature. The atheist in his pride is more imperfect than the most rude and confined worshipper of Deity; for the former wants entirely that deepest and greatest effort of the mind, of which the other possessed at least a degree. The principles of man’s immortality being acknowledged in the New Testament ought not to be considered a check to our inquiry, whether this doctrine has any other foundation beside that evidence. God has given us this infinite desire of extending our knowledge as far as possible; and if we have not made this use of our endowments, we do not feel assured that there are no reasons for doubting. Many think that calling in question the truths of the doctrines of the New Testament is a kind of irreverence; but to me it seems, on the contrary, that the true foundation of our abiding belief in its truth is, that its fundamental doctrines may at all times be put to the test of fair reasoning, that its principles are not a mere matter of fact and history, but of free investigation and conviction. The Bible gives us only means of arriving at truth, not truth itself: I believe in the Bible because the Bible believes in me. I find the law and the prophets in my own soul.”—Vol. I., pp. 447-449.

  We know not the result of these lectures. The effect of a sermon no man can tell. He, who preaches as a man to men, casts a seed into the river of human life, and knows not on what shore it shall be cast up, or whether the waters close, cold as ever, over his living word, and quench its fiery life. But can it be that a good word is ever spoken in vain? Who will believe it? The last time Dr. Follen preached at New-York,

  “He spoke affectionately, as a brother would speak to brethren whom his heart yearned to bless, and whom he was to leave for ever. After service he remained in the desk purposely, to avoid meeting any one, for his heart was too full to speak any more. When he came down to meet me, thinking all others were gone, a man and his wife came forward, who had been waiting for him. The man took his hand, and said, “You have, Sir, during your ministry here, changed an unhappy atheist to a happy, believing Christian. I am grieved to think that I shall worship no more with you in this church; but you have given me the hope that I may yet worship with you in a higher, a heavenly temple.” Tears ran fast down his and his wife’s cheeks as he uttered these words, and pressed Dr. Follen’s hand and departed. “That,” said my husband, “is reward enough for all my toils and disappointments.”—Vol. I., p. 484.

  He did not fail or fear to acknowledge goodness and moral purpose in a philanthropist, though lacking the strength and beauty of Religion. The remarks he made on Mr. Darusmond, “the husband of Frances Wright,” full of sadness as they are, may well be pondered by the “rigid righteous.”

  “There is that noble old man spending his thoughts, his time, and his money, for what he considers the highest good of his fellow men, with a youthful devotedness and enthusiasm of benevolence, carrying in his heart the evidences of his immortality, and yet tenacious of the belief, that he and his beautiful child, and all that he loves best in the world, and all his generous and exalted purposes and hopes, are but a part of the dust he treads on. What a lesson does his magnanimous love for his fellow-beings teach to the multitudes of cold, calculating men and women we see, who take the name of him who was the first and greatest of all philanthropists, and who call him an infidel, and are eager to condemn him.”—Vol. I., p. 473.

  There are some things in this book on which we do not feel competent to decide, and therefore shall hold our peace;—many others on which we would gladly dwell, did time and space permit. But there is one trait of his character on which we would dwell; that is, his HOPEFUL RESIGNATION. His disappointments, whatever was their cause, did not sour his temper, nor make him less sanguine for the future, nor less confident of his own conviction of Right. He did not complain in adversity; and when persecuted for righteousness’ sake, took it patiently, and went on his way rejoicing. We do not say that traces of indignation could not be found in the fair chronicle of this biography—indignation that is not Christian, as we think. But let a candid—yes, an uncandid reader search for these traces, and he will marvel that they are so rare. A friend said he was “a Christian up to the arms, the heart Christian, the arms somewhat violent, and the head directed to the outward world.”

  When disappointed,

  “He turned directly to some present duty, or he talked with his friends of the future, which he still trusted had some unlooked-for good in store for him. His near friends were in the habit of rallying him upon his sanguine anticipations, and this, even after their failure, might have produced some sensitiveness upon the subject; but how sweetly did he join in the laugh at his own confiding credulity, that led him to measure the good he expected from others, not by the history of his own experience, but by the overflowing bounty of his own heart. One instance of this I cannot resist relating. One New Year’s day I observed him, in the morning, putting away some books that he usually kept on his study table, and apparently making room for something. I asked him what he was preparing for. ‘I am making room on my table for our New Year’s presents,’ he replied. I smiled. ‘I see,’ he said, ‘that you do not expect any, but I do.’ I was right; we had not a single New Year’s gift, but his unfeigned merriment at his ungrounded hopes, and the many hearty laughs, which the remembrance of his mistake, when like disappointments in more important affairs befel us, proved that he possessed that, which made such things of little importance. No one thought less of the intrinsic value, or rather of the market price, of a gift from a friend, than he; and no one that I ever knew thought more of the active love that prompted such testimonials of affection; he was truly child-like in these things.

  “We practised, necessarily, this winter, the strictest economy. Through mud, and cold, and storms, Dr. Follen walked out seven miles to the church where he was engaged to preach. Far from uttering a complaint at the cold, or fatigue, or inconvenience, which he occasionally had to endure, he always returned home with a smile upon his face, that seemed to say, ‘I have been about my Father’s business.’ Never did he once say, I wish I had a chaise; and when I urged him in bad weather to take one, he always answered, ‘I like walking better; having no horse to take care of, I have my mind free, and I often compose my sermons by the way.’”—Vol. I., pp. 600, 501.

  “Dr. Follen occasionally, at these times, but not often, alluded to the fact, that his whole life, as it regarded worldly success, had been a series of failures, never with any bitterness, seldom with anything like despondency. ‘Had I been willing,’ he has said, ‘to lower my standard of right, the world would have been with me, and I might have obtained its favor. I have been faithful to principle under all circumstances, and I had rather fail so, than succeed in another way; besides, I shall do something yet; I am not discouraged, and we are happy in spite of all things.’ He was, however, very weary of the continual changes we had made, and more especially of a continual change of place; he longed for a more permanent local home.”—Vol. I., p. 541.

  One winter he attempted a course of lectures in Boston, on Switzerland. But few came lo hear it: not enough to defray the expenses.

  “On one day only I saw him stop from his writing, and rest his head between his hands for a long time upon his paper. ‘What is the matter?’ I asked. ‘I find it very hard to write with spirit under such circumstances,’ he replied. We always returned to Lexington on the evening of the lecture. It was a long way, the road was heavy, and the weather has cold; and it was dark and often very late when we got home. Usually he was so full of lively conversation, that it seemed neither long nor duJI; but one night he was very silent. ‘Why,’ I asked, are you so silent tonight?’ ‘I do feel this disappointment,’ he replied; ‘it shows me how little I have to hope from public favor in Boston.’ ‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘you have made a mistake in your subject. People now-a-days prefer speculations to facts; let us consider this merely as a mode, not very expensive, of seeing our friends once a week; it is not, after all, a costly pleasure. Your history of Switzerland will be written, and will be a valuable possession.’ ‘That is right,’ he replied; ‘it shall be so; henceforward we will look at it only as a pleasant visit to our friends; it is a good thing for me to have this course of lectures written, they will yet be of use to me, and it is pleasant to see our friends once a week.’”—Vol. I., p. 552.

  But we must bring our paper to an end. Yet, not without noticing his love of the Beautiful. “Nature was a perpetual joy to him.”

  “His love of the beautiful was intense, in its most humble as well as sublime manifestations. I have seen him gaze at the wings of an insect till, I am sure, he must have committed all its exquisite coloring and curious workmanship to memory. One Sunday, when he had walked far into the country to preach, he was requested to address the children of the Sunday School. He gave them an account of a blue dragon-fly that he had seen on his way. He described it, with the clear blue sky shining through its thin gauzy wings, and its airy form reflected in the still pure water over which it hovered, looking doubtful whether to stay here or return to the heavens from whence it apparently came. He sought, by interesting the children in its beauty, to awaken feelings of admiration and love towards all the creatures that God has created.”—Vol. I. pp., 534,535.

  We must come to the last scenes of his life. He left New York to go to Lexington and preach the dedication sermon in the new church, built there after a plan of his own; the church he hoped should be the scene of his future labors, He bad prepared a part of the discourse to be delivered on the occasion. He read this to his wife, and added:

  “‘I shall explain to the people the meaning and use of symbols in general, and then explain the meaning of those carved on the pulpit.’ These were of his own designing, and were a candlestick, a communion cup, a crown of thorns, a wreath of stars, and, in the centre, a cross. ‘I shall not write this part of my sermon,’ said he, ‘but I will tell you what I shall say, and that will make it easier when I shall speak to the people. I shall tell them, that the candlestick is a symbol of the light which should emanate from the Christian pulpit, and from the life of every individual Christian. The crown of thorns is a representation of the trials and sufferings which the faithful Christian has to endure for conscience’ sake. The cup signifies that spiritual communion, which we should share with all our brethren of mankind, and that readiness to drink the bitter cup of suffering for their sake, and for conscience’ sake, which He manifested, who offered it to his disciples before he was betrayed. The cross is a type of Him who gave his life for us all, and whose example we must stand ready to follow, even though it lead to death. The circle of stars represents the wreath of eternal glory and happiness, which awaits the faithful soul in the presence of God.’”—Vol. I., pp. 578, 579.

  The simple words of his biographer best describe his departure:

  “He arranged his papers against his return. He was going to take his lectures on German literature with him, but I urged him to leave them with me, to be put in my trunk, where they would be kept in better order. He made a little memorandum of what he had to do when he returned. One article was to get the ‘Selections from Fenelon’ reprinted; the next, to inquire about a poor German, who was an exile, and a sufferer for freedom’s sake. The last was to get a New Year’s gift for a poor little girl, whom he had taken to live with us. Just as I left the door at Lexington, I told this child, that if she was a good girl, I would bring her a New Year’s gift from New York. Dr. Follen overheard me; I never spoke of it to him. My illness and anxiety had put it out of my head, but he remembered it. As he put his sermon in his pocket, he said, ‘I shall not go to bed, but devote the night to my sermon; I want to make something of it that is worth hearing.’ He gave Charles some money, and told him to go presently and get some grapes for me at a shop where he had found some very fine ones. ‘They are good for your mother,’ he said, ‘and you must keep her supplied till my return.’ ‘Be of good courage till you see me again,’ he said to me as he took leave of me. ‘Be a good boy, and obey your mother till I come back again,’ were his words to Charles, as he took him in his arms, and kissed him.”—Vol. I., pp. 580, 581.

  The partner of his joys; the prime cheerer of his sorrows, has built up a beautiful monument to his character. How beautifully she has done her work; with what suppression of anguish for shattered hopes, and buds of promise never opening on earth, we have not words to tell. But the calmness, with which the tale is told; the absence of panegyric; the sublime trust in the great principles of Religion, apparent from end to end of this heart-touching record of trials borne and ended,—these show that she likewise drank at that fountain, whence he derived his strength and his joy. We would gladly say more; but delicacy forbids us to dwell on the mortal. Let us pass again to him who has put off this earthly shroud.

  This record of life is to us a most hopeful book. It shows a man true to truth; an upright man, whom Fame and Fortune could not bribe; whom the menace of Monarchs and the oppressions of Poverty could never swerve from the path of Duty. Disappointment attended his steps, but never conquered his Spirit, nor abated his Hope. He had the consolations of Religion; that gave him strength, which neither the Monarchs, nor Poverty, nor Disappointment, nor the neglect of the world, nor the attacks of men narrow-minded and chained down to bigotry, could ever take from him. How beautifully he bears his trials. In the balance of adversity God weighs choice spirits. In their hour of trial he gives them meat to eat, which the world knows not of. But Dr. Follen did not stand alone. Not to name others, there was one brave soul, in a Pulpit, whose counsel and sympathy gave new warmth to his heart, new energy to his resolution; one like himself, whom Fear could not make afraid. They rest from their labors. The good they have done shall live after them; the kind words they spoke, the pure lives they lived, shall go up as a testimonial to Him that liveth for ever; their example kindles the fire in earnest hearts on earth, a light that never dies. Dr. Follen was fortunate in his life. Talents God gave him, and an occasion to use them; Defeat gave him courage, not dismay. Deep, rich blessings fell on him,

“Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere;
Heaven did a recompense as largely send;
He gave to misery all he had,—a tear;
He gained from Heaven,—‘twas all he wished,—a Friend.”

  Some men will look on his life, and say, as the skeptic is the Bible, “How dieth the Wise? as the Fool; one event happeneth to them all; for there is no remembrance of the Wise more than of the Fool forever. Why should I be more wise?” Let a modern poet answer, in his Complaint and Reply.

“COMPLAINT,
“How seldom, friend, a good, great man inherits
Honor or wealth, with all his worth and pains;
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits,
If any man obtain that which he merits,
Or any merit that which he obtains.”

“REPLY,
“For shame, dear friend! renounce this canting strain,
What wouldst thou have a good great man obtain?
Place? titles? salary? or gilded chain?
Or throne of corses which his sword hath slain?
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man? Three treasures, LOVE and LIGHT
And CALM THOUGHTS, regular as infant’s breath!
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,—
HIMSELF, his MAKER, and the Angel DEATH.”

  We cannot but apply the words of Milton, weeping over his “loved Lycidas”:

“Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more,
For Lycidas, your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor:
So sinks the day-star in the ocean’s bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.
So Lycidas, sunk low but mounted high,
Through the dear might of him that walked the waves,
Where other groves and other streams along,—
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
He bears the unexpressive nuptial song.
In the bleat kingdoms meek of joy and love,
There entertain him all the saints above
In solemn troops and sweet societies,
That sing and singing in their gay muse,
And wipe the tears forever from his eyes.”^‡