One  other  fact  of  his  youth  had  direct  influence
upon  his  career.  His  father,  a  lawyer  and  public
man,  was  a  graduate  of  Princeton,  and  as  a  loyal
alumnus  intended  to  have  his  son  go  to  the  same
college.  But  the  father's  sudden  death  placed  the
education  of  the  son  largely  under  the  influence  of
his  mother's  family  who  were  all  associated  with
Harvard.  So  Harvard  became  his  Alma  Mater,  and
his  education  strengthened  the  growth  of  liberal  ideas
already  begun.  His  latest  biographer,  Mr.  Chadwick,
can  not  refrain  from  imagining  the  change  in  the
religious  condition  of  New  England  had  young  Chan-
ning  gone  to  Princeton  and  become  subject  to  its  con-
servative influence.
WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING  75


It  is  not  hard  to  trace  the  growth  and  expression
of  Channing's  thought.  The  young  ideaHst  found
kindred  suggestions  in  his  reading  and  in  his  work.
He  read  Hutcheson  under  the  willows  at  Cambridge
and  caught  the  vision  of  the  *'  dignity  of  human
nature,"  henceforth  the  fountain  light  of  all  his  seeing.
He  read  Adam  Ferguson's  Essay  on  Civil  Society
and  caught  the  enthusiasm  for  social  progress  and  the
idea  of  moral  perfection.  His  experience  as  a  teacher
in  Richmond,  Virginia,  his  knowledge  of  the  evils
of  slavery  beneath  the  graces  of  a  slave-holding  so-
ciety, heightened  his  moral  earnestness,  his  passion
for  moral  goodness.
Somewhat  uncertain  in  his  view  at  first,  his  first
sermons  are  evangelical  in  spirit,  with  more  than  one
Puritan  note.  He  was  welcome  in  all  pulpits,  and  no
party  could  say,  *'  He  is  one  of  us.''  And  yet  from
the  early  sermons  one  can  gather  passages  that  are
prophetic  of  his  full  message.
From  the  first  he  dwelt  upon  the  Fatherhood  of
God,  which  afterwards  became  his  mastering  thought.
