This came to some extent from what has ruined far
smaller men than the great apostle of Unitarianism,
— a habit of refining, and a fear of anything like in-
elegance. A clergyman who was upon intimate terms
with Dr. Channing, and saw a good many of his
manuscripts, told me that Uiey were remarkable for
interlineations and erasures; and that the writer's
constant effort seemed to be to get rid of adjectives,
which was, of course, laudable. The moral courage
of this great man, exhibited in his essay on slavery,
was the more notable because he was naturally
cautious, and had a great horror of anything like
extremes. He struck the key-note of the whole



MEETING-HOUSES AND MINISTERS. 45

crusade against the " institution/' as wiseacres used
to be fond of calling it, when he exclaimed, " Prop-
erty in man ! You might as well talk of property
in angels !" Beacon Street was wonderfully stirred
by this unexpected evangel; but it encountered
many surprises of the kind before all was over, and
had to bear as best it might the defection of many
of its most respectable denizens from the safe limits
of its frigid and eminently proper conservatism.
Shock followed shock and desertion desertion, until
there was nobody left to hold up the hands of Dan-
iel Webster save a few small cleigymen and smaller
lawyers, with here and there a journalist who so
misused types that some readers regretted their in-
vention.
