commendation of such a man as Daniel Webster. He has edited magazines and religious newspapers, and to his teachings have been entrusted the sons of some of the first men in our community. Ever anxious to benefit those who require aid, he has always opened his purse and used his influence to assist struggling talent. No one who ever needed his assistance applied in vain for it. Indeed, he has been generous to a fault, or he might now have been among the wealthiest of his class. Anything mean or narrow is utterly foreign to his nature, and none should know this better than the writer. But lest I should be suspected of penning an eulogy, which I am not, I will close by simply remarking, that, as a pastor, a scholar, a man and a minister, very few persons, if any, surpass in geniality, soundness, sincerity, and expansive benevolence John Overton Choules. REMINISCENCE CHAPTER XVI. OF LANT CARPENTER, D. D. VISIT ΤΟ FEDERAL STREET CHURCH. THE LATE DR. CHANNING, DR. EZRA S. GANNETT. "For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; He can't be wrong whose life is in the right," thought I, as I entered the Federal-street church a few Sabbath mornings since, - Pope's well-known couplet chiming in my mind. In my young days I had been taught to shun an Unitarian church as I would a "playhouse," which was about the next worse place to Tophet itself in the estimation of the very good and very orthodox "old folks at home." However, like the young fish, who went to the baited hook just because the maternal trout told it not to, I would sometimes steal away to a certain Lewins Mead meeting-house, whose pulpit was in those days occupied by a very celebrated Unitarian clergyman, or minister, as such is termed in the old country, the distinctive appellation of clergyman being exclusively applied to preachers of the established church. As the English Unitarian minister to whom I allude was one of the most popular of his denomination, in Great Britain, and as he is well known by repute on this side of the Atlantic, I fancy that an incidental sketch of him may be welcome to many by whom his character and genius is held in deep veneration. I allude to the Rev. Dr. Lant Carpenter, for many years the eminent pastor of the Unitarian church in Bristol. During the period when he held that pastorate, some other pulpits of the city I have named were filled by very distinguished divines, chief among whom I may mention Robert Hall, John Ryland, and William Thorpe. These gentlemen fully appreciated, as indeed they could not help doing, the genius and learning of Dr. Carpenter, but his creed was a fatal bar against anything like friendly communion with him. As in most other things, the Bristolians were and are among the most illiberal and bigoted in matters pertaining to religion, and to attend an Unitarian chapel was quite enough to set the seal of perdition on him or her who should be guilty of so heterodox a proceeding. Therefore, Dr. Carpenter found every Sunday an "audience fit though few;" but his hearers prized their pastor not a little, and valued his teachings at a no slight estimate. In the matter of personal appearance, Dr. Carpenter was striking. He was a little man with a remarkably large head, one which instinctively made you think of an encyclopedia. Seldom have I seen a cranium so expansive, yet so well balanced in its proportions as was his. Very slightly covered with hair, its "developments," as some might call them, were quite apparent. The best manner in which I can give the reader some idea of the shape of his head and face combined, is to request him or her to reverse the popular notion of the similarity of the late Louis Phillippe's head and face to a pear. In the case of the monarch the stem of the fruit was uppermost, the narrowest part corresponding to the forehead, and the broadest to the lower portion of the face. In Dr. Carpenter's face, the breadth was above, and a long peaked chin terminated the visage inferiorly. He had, I think, a pair of the clearest, calmest, most contemplative blueish gray eyes that I ever saw, their mild and benevolent expression winning favor for their owner from even the bitterest opponents of his faith, whenever they came into personal association with him; but this was seldom, for Carpenter loved not strife, and the peaceful pursuits of theology or science, (for he was a profound natural philosopher,) had more charms for him than the bickerings of the platform, or the controversies of Christians, indeed, in any shape. Not that he shrank from either avowal or defence of his own peculiar doctrines, as his correspondence with John Foster and Robert Hall sufficiently testifies, but his gentle nature was not fitted to endure the "strife of tongues." Much does it speak in his favor, that in the city of Bristol, where his followers were indeed but "two or three," and where Unitarianism was held in greater abhorrence than infidelity itself; where not the vestige of charity's mantle was thrown over the principles of its followers, that the man himself was regarded with a no common veneration. And when the tidings of his sad and mysterious death arrived from Italy, a thrill went through the entire community, such only as is felt when a great and good man departs. Dr. Carpenter's preaching was of a severely simple order. It might be said of him that he could not build the house of great conclusions on the sands of common report and familiar truths; he could not be content with shows and seemings, even of the clearest and fullest form; he was not to be satisfied with the shells awarded serious thinkers by the moral monkeys of the world. He weighed each portion of merchandise; rang each piece of mental coin; scrutinized each vote tendered for truth. A proposition uttered to him, the first effect was, not belief but inquiry; a fact stated, and he " asked questions." Prevailing opinions, received theories, common customs were fair matters, he thought, for examination; many of them he found, alas, for post mortem examination! And the things that were to be discovered to be true and genuine, were not the goal of his investigations, they could not be received as ultimate realities; they were surfaces, counters, windows, locks, indicating, representing, revealing, opening truth, which to him was always "the great deep," "the true riches," "the inner room," "the hid treasure." The process was, of course, slow, but the results were blessed; and he might well "like his mind for its necessity of seeking the abstraction upon every subject." Such a man's life is to be estimated according to the number, not of his nights and days, his eatings and drinkings, his walkings and restings, but his thoughts and feelings, his ponderings and solicitudes, "the visions of his head," and "the searchings of his heart." - The death of Dr. Carpenter had much about it of the solemn,—as indeed death always has,- and of the mysterious. Too close application had, in all probability, produced that peculiar condition of the brain to which all intensely studious men are liable. Excessive mental toil caused Southey, Scott, Moore, and many other great writers to feel, as Swift felt and expressed it, like a tree dying at the top. And so it was with Lant Carpenter. His friends perceived with sorrow dark shadows often pass across that hitherto bright and unclouded mind, and soon it became evident that the only chance of his ultimate recovery was absence from all labor and change of scene. He went to Italy, and hopes of recovery were entertained; but one night, whilst his bark was gliding through the Mediterranean, he was suddenly missed. Whether, in a moment of aberration, he had precipitated |