sagacity.
Of his mother there are very sweet glimpses. He describes her as
"imaginative, delicate-minded, and poetic, yet a very practical woman."
She appears to have been thoroughly religious, but without taste for the
niceties of dogmatic theology. Piety did not have to be laboriously put
into her, before it could generously come out. "I have known few,"
writes her son, "in whom the religious instincts were so active and
profound, and who seemed to me to enjoy so completely the life of God in
the soul of man." And again he says, "Religion was the inheritance my
mother gave,--gave me in my birth,--gave me in her teachings. Many sons
have been better born than I, few have had so good a mother. I mention
these things to show you how I came to have the views of religion that I
have now. My head is not more natural to my body, has not more grown
with it, than my religion out of my soul and with it. With me religion
was not carpentry, something built up of dry wood, from without; but it
was growth,--growth of a germ in my soul." Thus we see that Parker was
not singular in his sources of goodness and nobility: here also have the
strong and worthy men of all time received their inspiration. The
mother's sphere is never confined to the household, but expands for joy
or bitterness through the world at large. A youth of farm-work, snatches
of study, and school-teaching, seem to be the appointed _curriculum_ for
our trustworthy men. In addition to this, Theodore achieves a slight
connection with Harvard,--insufficient for a degree, yet enough for him,
if not for the College. Then he teaches a private class in Boston, and
presently opens school in Watertown. Here, for the first time, comes a
modest success after the world's measurement. He has soon thirty-five,
and afterwards fifty-four scholars. And now occurs an incident which is
unaccountably degraded to the minion type of a note. It is, however,
just what the reader wants to know, and deserves Italics and
double-leading, if human actions are ever sufficiently noteworthy for
these honors. The Watertown teacher receives a colored girl who has been
sent to him, and then consents to dismiss her in deference to the
prejudices of Caucasian patrons. Simon Peter denied the Saviour for whom
he was afterwards crucified with his head hanging down. One day we shall
find this schoolmaster leaving most cherished work, and braving all
social obloquies, that he may stand closer than a brother t