There were other complaints. Parker sent forth the
doctrine that the divinity of Christianity reposes entirely
on its moral and religious value, and that the proof drawn
from miracles is radically powerless. On every side tlie
advocates of miracle manifested hostility to those two po-
sitions with a kind of concentrated anger, aware that
miracles, which prove nothing, are useless, and that use-
less miracles are speedily eliminated from consciousness
and history. Parker published an excellent critique on
the famous book of Strauss, The Life of Christ, pointing
out with equal impartiality and penetration its good
qualities and its defects, but hardly any one around liini
understood what the German critic had undertaken or
accomplished, so that Parker obtained no credit for tlio
superiority of his point of view, or the moderation with
which he set it forth. In other articles he had sown
German ideas on philosophy, the immanence of God in
the world and in history, the mythical elements of the
Bible. These ideas caused him to be ranked with Pan-
tlieists and Spinosaists, by persons who had not oven a tinge
of the special studies necessary for an enlightened appre-
ciation of such questions. A number of his brother min-
isters declared that they would not admit him into their
pulpits. American Unitarianism, like so many other



EBLIGIOUB 0EISI8. 37

religious and political parties reduced to impotence,
dared not follow out to tLe end tlie principle of free faith
which constitutes its vitality. After having suffered so
much from the disdain, the ignorance, and the narrowness
of the less enlightened Churches of tradition, now that it
had acquired for itself a large and open field, and had to
some extent extorted respect and consideration from the
other sects, instead of working for the development of its
liberal principles, the Unitarian Church of the United
States condescended to borrow from its rivals the rusty
arms of their intolerance, and aimed not so much at re-
futing Parker as gagging him ; fancying that thus it would
maintain peace, while it saw not that it was only silence
it gained, and that questions once mooted must and will
be debated until they are resolved. Moreover, in the
Protestant Church, especially in America, to desire silence
is not necessarily to secure it. 