William Ellery Channing. By John White Chadwick. (P. Green. 6s.
net.)—This is a highly interesting book to which we would gladly give more space if topics of the present moment did not make such large claims. Channing exemplified a very important movement of thought in the provinces of both theology and sociology. We cannot accept the conclusions at which his religious thought arrived. Possibly they might have been other than they were if the starting-point had been different. The reaction from Calvinism is commonly far-going. But the story is one of quite unusual interest. Channing's personality, though it could hardly be described as attractive—there was too much reserve in his demeanour for that—had something com- manding about it. His eloquence in the pulpit, not ill repre- sented by his published discourses, was, when given by the living voice, of quite unusual power. Its effect was not hindered, it seems, by the fact that he spoke from the written word. But this was the case with Phillips Brooks and Liddon. His pulpit force was purchased at the cost of no small physical suffering. "He had to pay the penalty of physical and cerebral prostration and collapse." (Some readers of the Spectator will think as they read these words of another sufferer from the same cause, T. T. Lynch.) Dr. Chadwick has done his work admirably. He has all the qualities that go to make a good biographer, a sense of humour among them.
Previous page
