Texts : Uncollected Prose : Dial Essays (1842) : CHARDON STREET
Chardon Street
and Bible Conventions
from Uncollected Prose, Dial Essays 1842
In the month of November, 1840, a Convention of Friends of Universal Reform
assembled in the Chardon Street Chapel, in Boston, in
obedience to a call in the newspapers signed by a few individuals, inviting
all persons to a public discussion of the institutions of the Sabbath, the
Church and the Ministry. The Convention organized itself by the choice of Edmund
Quincy, as Moderator, spent three days in the consideration of the Sabbath, and
adjourned to a day in March, of the following year, for the discussion of the
second topic. In March, accordingly, a three-days' session was holden, in the
same place, on the subject of the Church, and a third meeting fixed for the
following November, which was accordingly holden, and the Convention, debated,
for three days again, the remaining subject of the Priesthood. This Convention
never printed any report of its deliberations, nor pretended to arrive at any Result,
by the expression of its sense in formal resolutions, -- the professed object of
those persons who felt the greatest interest in its meetings being simply the
elucidation of truth through free discussion.
The daily newspapers reported, at the time, brief sketches
of the course of proceedings, and the remarks of the principal
speakers. These meetings attracted a good deal of public attention,
and were spoken of in different circles in every note of hope,
of sympathy, of joy, of alarm, of abhorrence, and of merriment. The composition
of the assembly was rich and various. The singularity and latitude of the
summons drew together, from all parts of New England, and also from the Middle
States, men of every shade of opinion, from the straitest orthodoxy to the
wildest heresy, and many persons whose church was a church of one member only. A
great variety of dialect and of costume was noticed; a great deal of confusion,
eccentricity, and freak appeared, as well as of zeal and enthusiasm. If the
assembly was disorderly, it was picturesque. Madmen,
madwomen, men with beards, Dunkers, Muggletonians, Come-outers, Groaners,
Agrarians, Seventh-day-Baptists, Quakers, Abolitionists, Calvinists, Unitarians,
and Philosophers, — all came successively to the top, and seized their moment,
if not their hour, wherein to chide, or pray, or preach, or protest. The
faces were a study. The most daring innovators, and the champions-until-death of
the old cause, sat side by side. The still living
merit of the oldest New England families, glowing yet, after several
generations, encountered the founders of families, fresh merit, emerging, and
expanding the brows to a new breadth, and lighting a clownish face with sacred
fire. The assembly was characterized by the predominance of a certain plain,
sylvan strength and earnestness, whilst many of the most intellectual and
cultivated persons attended its councils. Dr. Channing, Edward Taylor, Bronson
Alcott, Mr. Garrison, Mr. May, Theodore Parker, H. C. Wright, Dr. Osgood,
William Adams, Edward Palmer, Jones Very, Maria W. Chapman, and many other
persons of a mystical, or sectarian, or philanthropic renown, were present, and
some of them participant. And there was no want of female speakers; Mrs. Little
and Mrs. Lucy Sessions took a pleasing and memorable part in the debate, and
that flea of Conventions, Mrs. Abigail Folsom, was but too ready with her
interminable scroll. If there was not parliamentary order, there was life, and
the assurance of that constitutional love for religion and religious
liberty, which, in all periods, characterizes the inhabitants of this part of
America.
There was a great deal of wearisome speaking in each of those three days'
sessions, but relieved by signal passages of pure eloquence, by much vigor of
thought, and especially by the exhibition of character, and by the victories of
character. These men and women were in search of something better and more
satisfying than a vote or a definition, and they found what they sought, or the
pledge of it, in the attitude taken by individuals of their number, of
resistance to the insane routine of parliamentary usage, in the lofty reliance
on principles, and the prophetic dignity and transfiguration which accompanies,
even amidst opposition and ridicule, a man whose mind is made
up to obey the great inward Commander, and who does not anticipate his own
action, but awaits confidently the new emergency for the new counsel. By no
means the least value of this Convention, in our eye, was the scope it gave to
the genius of Mr. Alcott, and not its least instructive lesson was the gradual
but sure ascendency of his spirit, in spite of the incredulity and derision with
which he is at first received, and in spite, we might add, of his own failures.
Moreover, although no decision was had, and no action taken on all the great
points mooted in the discussion, yet the Convention brought together many
remarkable persons, face to face, and gave occasion to memorable interviews and
conversations, in the hall, in the lobbies, or around the doors.
Before this body broke up in November last, a short adjournment was carried,
for the purpose of appointing a Committee to summon a new Convention, to be
styled 'the Bible Convention,' for the discussion of the credibility and
authority of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. A Committee was
agreed upon, and, by their invitation, the new Association met in the Masonic
Temple, in Boston, on the 29th of March, of the present year. This meeting was
less numerously attended, and did not exhibit at its birth the same vigor as its
predecessors. Many persons who had been conspicuous in the former meetings were
either out of the country, or hindered from early attendance. Several who wished
to be present at its deliberations deferred their journey until the second day,
believing that, like the former Convention, it would sit three days. Possibly
from the greater unpopularity of its object, out of doors, some faintness or
coldness surprised the members. At all events, it was hurried
to a conclusion on the first day to the great disappointment of many. Mr.
Brownson, Mr. Alcott, Mr. West, and among others a Mormon preacher took part in
the conversation. But according to the general testimony of those present, as
far as we can collect it, the best speech made on that occasion was that of
Nathaniel H. Whiting, of South Marshfield. Mr. Whiting had already distinguished
himself in the Chardon Street meetings. Himself a plain unlettered man, leaving
for the day a mechanical employment to address his fellows, he possesses eminent
gifts for success in assemblies so constituted. He has fluency, self-command, an
easy, natural method, and very considerable power of statement. No one had more
entirely the ear of this audience, for it is not to be forgotten that, though,
as we have said there were scholars and highly intellectual persons in this
company, the bulk of the assemblage was made up of quite other materials,
namely, of those whom religion and solitary thought have educated, and not books
or society, — young farmers and mechanics from the country, whose best training
has been in the Anti-slavery, and Temperance, and Non-resistance Clubs.
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