This study, resumed with new sources of information,
has led me to rectify my first production on moro points
than one, at least for what concerns the external frame-
work of the biography. Eor, as to the picture itself, I
have only had to persist in the judgment which I at the
first pronounced touching the American reformer. The
gigantic events of which his country has been the theatre,
that colossal crisis which, at the moment when these lines
are written, is proceeding toward an issue corresponding
to his hopes after having realized all the fears of his en-
lightened patriotism, this is the most eloquent comment-
ary on that life of his suddenly put to an end. I hope
then that this book will in some measure contribute to a
movement replete with promises, which carries the human
race onwards in the way of religious, moral, and social
progress. I do not believe that our age is, as some de-
clare, more irreligious, more immoral, and, in general,
worse, than others. I even think that without much

* life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, by J. Weiss. Lon-
don, 1863.
