James Freeman Clarke

“ Therefore the Ideal Church is an earthly heaven. There is in it a warm, serene, sunny atmosphere; a sky without clouds; the society of love, the solitude of meditation, the inaccessible mountain tops of prayer; the low-lying, quiet valleys, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. ”

“ From the place where he stood he saw all the grandest works of human art,—the Acropolis rose before him, a lofty precipitous rock, seeming like a stone pedestal erected by nature as an appropriate platform for the perfect marble temples with which man should adorn it. ”

“ There are the ‘chains of darkness,’ thick, heavy, hard, and smothering as the gloom of blank and black despair—chains strong as the cords of omnipotence, hot as the crisping flames of vengeance, indestructible and eternal as justice. With chains like these, every iron link burning into the throbbing heart, is bound each doomed, damned soul, on a bed of burning marl, under an iron roof, riven with tempests, and dripping with torrents of unquenchable fire. ”

“ The Trinity, truly received, would harmonize science, faith, and vital piety. The Trinity, as it now stands in the belief of Christendom, at once confuses the mind, and leaves it empty. It feeds us with chaff, with empty phrases and forms, with no real inflowing convictions. It seems to lie like a vessel on the shore, of no use where it is, yet difficult to remove and get afloat; but when the tide rises, and the vessel floats, it will be able to bear to and fro the knowledge of mankind, and unite various convictions in living harmony. ”

“ The gods of the Scandinavians were always at war. It was a system of dualism, in which sunshine, summer, and growth were waging perpetual battle with storm, snow, winter, ocean, and terrestrial fire. As the gods, so the people. War was their business, courage their duty, fortitude their virtue. The conflict of life with death, of freedom with fate, of choice with necessity, of good with evil, made up their history and destiny. ”

“ You still, whatever robe you ear,
To me are always James.
That name the kind apostle bore
Who shames the sullen creeds,
Not trusting less, but loving more,
And showing faith by deeds.
What blending thoughts our memories share! ”

“ Adam, head master at the High School in Edinburgh, he thought himself once more in the class-room.
Parker (Theodore, Unitarian preacher and writer) , 1810-1869. "It is all one, Phillips and Clarke will come for my sake." He meant that Wendell Phillips and James Freeman Clarke would attend his funeral. He died at Florence, where he had gone for his health. The character of Theodore Parker was above reproach. His tone of morality was high. ”

“ What to the sinner, borne down by the mighty weight of transgression? What to the dying man, who knows not how to prepare to meet his God? We need the Church of Christ—the Church whose great aim it is, and always has been, to renew and regenerate the soul from its foundation, to lay the axe at the root of the tree of evil, and the very sound of whose bell, rolling its waves of music over the sleeping hills on the Sabbath morning, is worth more to the soul than a thousand lyceums and debating societies. ”

“ On the other side there were only a few voices crying in the wilderness, "It is unjust to claim property in man." The object of the work before us is to show how, after the slave power had reached this summit of influence, it lost it all in a single generation; how, less by the zeal of its opponents than by the madness of its defenders, this enormous fabric of oppression was undermined and overthrown; and how, in a few years, the insignificant handful of antislavery people brought to their side the great majority of the nation. ”

“ He taught us to look at realities instead of names, at substance instead of surface,—to see God in the world, in nature, in life, in providence, in man,—to see divine truth and beauty and wonder everywhere around. He taught that the only organ necessary by which to see the divine in all things was sincerity, or inward truth. And so he enabled us to escape from the form into the spirit, he helped us to rise to that plane of freedom from which we could see the divine in the human, the infinite in the finite, God in man, heaven on earth, immortality beginning here, eternity pervading time. ”

“ James Street, let the man it hits be your man. He, if you bend him a little to it, and tie the due official bladders to his ankles, will do as well as another this sublime problem of balancing himself upon the vortexes, with the long loaded pole in his hand, and will, with straddling, painful gestures, float hither and thither, walking the waters in that singular manner for a little183 while, till he also capsize, and be left floating feet uppermost,—after which you choose another. ”

“ O, if the spirit of our profession, of our order, of our body, were the spirit, or anything like the spirit, of the ancient Prophets! If with us truth, charity, justice, fairness to opponents, were a passion, a doctrine, a point of honor, to be upheld with the same energy as that with which we uphold our own position and our own opinions! ”

“ This is what we need for comfort, for no hardship would seem hard while we were thus looking at the things which are eternal, and knowing that every light affliction works out an eternal weight of glory. This is what we need for improvement. For no efforts at improvement can accomplish that which this inward inspiration can do. It is a tide which bears us on. It takes from us the weight of years. It is the sap which rises into every branch, penetrates every twig, swells the buds, expands the leaves, opens the blossoms, ripens the fruit, and causes universal growth. ”

“ Greek architecture—one birth of beauty after another—was born. Athens was crowned with marvellous temples, whose exquisite proportions amaze and charm us to-day—inimitable creations of beauty. Homer came, and then epic poetry was born. ”

“ As a hundred years come to a close, suddenly, in the immense mass of complicated mechanism, a little wheel turns, a pin slides into the appointed place, and in the shadows of the night the bell tolls a requiem over the generations which during a century have lived, and labored, and been buried around it. ”

“ We praise the star Tistrya, the brilliant, majestic, with offerings, with Haŏma bound with flesh, with Maúthra which gives wisdom to the tongue, with word and deed, with offerings with right-spoken speech."
"The star Tistrya, the brilliant, majestic, we praise, who glides so softly to the sea like an arrow, who follows the heavenly will, who is a terrible pliant arrow, a very pliant arrow, worthy of honor among those worthy of honor, who comes from the damp mountain to the shining mountain." ”

“ Eagle-like, gray Esa, clinging to its rocky perch, looks down;
And upon the mountain dim, ruined, shattered, stern, and grim,
Turbia sees us through the ages with its austere Roman frown,—
⁠While we climb, where cooler, rarer
⁠Breezes sweep the Riviera. ”

“ I invoke thee, O Fire, thou son of Ormazd, most rapid of the Immortals! I invoke Mithra, the lofty, the immortal, the pure, the sun, the ruler, the quick Horse, the eye of Ormazd! I invoke the holy Sraosha, gifted with holiness, and Racnçu (spirit of justice) , and Arstat (spirit of truth) ! I invoke the Fravashi of good men, the Fravashi of Ormazd, the Fravashi of my own soul! I praise the good men and women of the whole world of purity! I praise the Haŏma, health-bringing, golden, with moist stalks. ”

“ We know that there is something good in man, something which God loves, some pure aspiration even in the natural heart, some throbs of generosity, some warnings of conscience, some pure love, some courageous virtue, in the humblest, the most depraved, the most abandoned. There are some flowers of sweetest perfume which spring up in the uncultivated soil of the natural heart on which God and his angels smile, for the seeds of those flowers God himself planted. ”

“ Discard Love, and the whole road is passed over. Divorce love from truth, and truth ceases to be open and receptive,—ceases to be a positive function, turns into acrid criticism, bitter disdain, cruel and hollow laughter, empty of all inward peace. Such is the road which Carlyle has passed over, from his earnest, hopeful youth to his bitter old age. ”

“ Heaven penetrates to the bottom of our hearts, like light into a dark chamber. We must conform ourselves to it, till we are like two instruments of music tamed to the same pitch. We must join ourselves with it, like two tablets which appear but one. ”

“ Helmed with snow, the Alpine giants at invaders look defiance,
Gazing over nearer summits, with a fixed, mysterious stare,
Down along the shaded ocean, on whose edge in tremulous motion
Floats an island, half-transparent, woven out of sea and air;—
⁠For such visions, shaped of air, are
⁠Frequent on our Riviera. ”

“ The star Tistrya praise we, the shining, majestic, with pleasant good dwelling, light, shining, conspicuous, going around, healthful, bestowing joy, great, going round about from afar, with shining beams, the pure, and the water which makes broad seas, good, far-famed, the name of the bull created by Mazda, the strong kingly majesty, and the Fravashi of the holy pure, Zarathustra. ”

“ There is nothing obscure in the statement of the fact, that the universe is unbounded. So the way in which a flower grows from its seed is mysterious. We cannot comprehend how the wonderful principle of life can be wrapped up in those little folds, and how it can cause the root to strike downward, and the airy stalk to spring lightly upward, and the leaves to unfold, and, last of all, the bright, consummate flower to open its many-colored eye. But certainly we can understand very well the statement that a flower grows, though we do not comprehend how it grows. ”

“ Edward Daniel Clarke was born on the 5th of June, 1769, at Willingdon, in the county of Sussex. Even when a child he is said to have displayed great narrative powers, which he exercised as frequently as possible for the amusement of his father’s domestics and parishioners. In his boyish studies, however, he was wanting in application; a fault arising from the quickness and vivacity of his mind, actuated by insatiable curiosity, and characterized from the beginning by a decided partiality for natural history. ”

“ Soon after, Clark, taking his gun, went out of the house for the purpose of “scouting the country around” and seeing whether he might get sight of the Indians. Going to the top of a peak near by, where he could overlook the surrounding country without unduly exposing himself, he awaited events, not realizing what an approaching one should mean to himself, and to an old enemy on whom he had vowed vengeance for the death of his old-time partner, and that this event would mark an era in a life ever filled with its dangers, not one of which had ever been shirked, but always bravely met. ”

“ If you judge so, I am ready to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard. I am even willing to put all the Scotch vermin to death, if need should be.--It is timidity alone that ruins great enterprises. If not, the sooner we begin our travels the better, for we shall be much improved by a continental tour."
"I am for flight," cried Watson; "if the matter have gone as far as you think, depend upon it all precautions are already taken at the Court."
"So say I!" exclaimed Clarke; "the case is hopeless."
"I do not know," said Sir Griffin Markham, thoughtfully ”

“ One person only was a perfect stranger to Clarke, but him he scarcely noticed, so intent was he on his errand and the desire he had of speaking to Mr. Earle alone.
“Hurrah! Come! Here’s Clarke Unwin!” shouted a voice from the depths of the smoky pall. “Brought your flute with you? Nobody comes here without some means of entertaining the company.”
“Off with your coat; there’s snow sticking to it! Uh! You’ve robbed the room of all the heat there was in it,” grumbled old Cheeseborough, whose fretfulness nobody minded because of the good nature that underlay it.
“Freedom Hall, this!” ”

“ Clark, however, always treated James with consideration, and James reciprocated the feeling and returned the treatment.
Mr. Clark was giving James his hat when the butler took in that he had come to see Mr. Livingstone.
"Mr. Livingstone begs to be excused this evening, sir," he said.
"Yes." Mr. Clark laid a package on a chair and proceeded to unbutton his overcoat.
"He says he regrets he cannot see any one," explained the servant.
"Yes. That's all right. I know." ”

“ Where or how soon after he may have died, no white man knows, Clark being the last one to see him, as the two shots simultaneously rang out on the silence of that night. Had it been the Kid instead of the squaw, Clark would have earned the large reward that was offered for him dead or alive. Tom Horn, an old scout, who spoke the Apache language like a native, came from Denver subsequently, hoping that by some chance the Kid might still be living somewhere and that he might earn the reward. ”

“ The opportunity that Clark has been waiting all these years is nigh at hand. The Apache Kid’s race is about run. Clark had been away from home, and when returning, on February 4, 1894, passing by the house of Emmerson, a neighbor, about a mile from his own home, he noticed the tracks of three Indians about the house, and going inside, found they had robbed it of its contents. Going on home, he found his partner, Scanlan, whom the Indians had not disturbed, and said to him, “Scanlan, your old friend the Kid has been around again.” ”