Thoughts, Selected from the Writings of the Rev. William E. Channing, D.D.Walker, Wise,, for the American Unitarian association, 1859 - 160 pages |
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Thoughts: Selected From the Writings of the Rev. William E. Channing, Part 4 William Ellery Channing No preview available - 2023 |
Thoughts: Selected From the Writings of the Rev. William E. Channing, Part 4 William Ellery Channing No preview available - 2018 |
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ages American revolution amidst apostles beautiful belongs benevolent calm Calvinistic church chains character child Chris Christianity civilization common conscience creed deep degradation disinterested divine doctrine duty earth energy error evil excommunication faith fear feel Fenelon ferings fluence free agent genius give God's Greece grow hands harlequin heart heaven higher holy Holy Spirit honor human nature human soul idea imagination imbodied immortal infinite influence intellect Jesus Christ laws living look man's manifested matter meet men's mind minister miracles modes multitude mysteries narrow ness never noble nobler ourselves passion pathy philanthropy poor priest principles progress proportion pure Quakers quickening race religion reverence rites Rome Savior sectarian sects shut society solemn spirit spread strength suffering sympathy taught theology thought tion toils Trinitarian true trust truth universal church virtue voice wants wholly wisdom word worship yoke
Popular passages
Page 9 - God be thanked for books ! They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levellers. They give to all who will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence of the best and greatest of our race.
Page 10 - Shakspeare to open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated man though excluded from what is called the best society in the place where I live.
Page 80 - ... and love, are of more worth and dignity than the rare endowments which give celebrity to a few. Let us not disparage that nature which is common to all men ; for no thought can measure its grandeur. It is the image of God, the image even of his infinity, for no limits can be set to its unfolding. He who possesses the divine powers of the soul is a great being, be his place what it may.
Page 137 - I see the marks of God in the heavens and the earth ; but how much more in a liberal intellect, in magnanimity, in unconquerable rectitude, in a philanthropy which forgives every wrong, and which never despairs of the cause of Christ and human virtue. I do and I must reverence human nature. Neither the sneers of a worldly scepticism, nor the groans of a gloomy theology, disturb my faith in its godlike powers and tendencies.
Page 151 - ... what hearts have bled; what millions have been butchered by their fellow-creatures; what hopes of philanthropy have been blighted ! And at the same time what magnificent enterprises have been achieved ; what new provinces won to science and art; what rights and liberties secured to nations! It is a privilege to have lived in an age so stirring, so pregnant, so eventful. It is an age never to be forgotten.
Page 22 - The best style is not that which puts the reader most easily and in the shortest time in possession of a writer's naked thoughts; but that which is the truest image of a great intellect, which conveys fully and carries farthest into other souls the conceptions and feelings of a profound and lofty spirit. To be universally intelligible is not the highest merit. A great mind cannot, without injurious constraint, shrink itself to the grasp of common passive readers.
Page 117 - So as to clothing : many shiver from want of defences against the cold ; but there is vastly more suffering among the rich from absurd and criminal modes of dress, which fashion has sanctioned, than among the poor from deficiency of raiment.
Page 16 - Christians than that of man's immortality; but it is not so generally underStood, that the germs or principles of his whole future being are now wrapped up in his soul, as the rudiments of the future plant in the seed. As a necessary result of this constitution, the soul, possessed and moved by these mighty though infant energies, is perpetually stretching beyond what is present and visible, struggling against the bounds of its earthly prisonhouse, and seeking relief and joy in imaginings of unseen...
Page 79 - ... enrolled itself in this or another sect ? A pure mind is free of the universe. It belongs to the church, the family of the pure, in all worlds. Virtue is no local thing. It is not honorable because born in this community or that, but for its own independent, everlasting beauty. This is the bond of the universal church. No man can be excommunicated from it but by himself, by the death of goodness in his own breast.
Page 43 - What! in the beauty of childhood and youth, in that open brow, that cheerful smile, do you see the brand of total corruption ? Is it a little fiend who sleeps so sweetly on his mother's breast ? Was it an infant demon which Jesus took in his arms and said, " Of such is the kingdom of heaven...