BOSTON, 



195 



naturalist and an excellent shell-artist, with whom he explored 

 the shore, where he felt it curious to find almost everything 

 different from what he had seen in England. 



Boston and its neighbourhood, including the University of 

 Cambridge, are the head-quarters of Unitarianism. Many of 

 the most eminent men and women there had been his father's 

 guests, or were at least familiar with his name : and once Philip 

 would have felt a thrill of delight at going there \ but now the 

 tie that bound him to the Church of his youth seemed broken, 

 and he looked on it as only one of the sections of a pro-slavery 

 formalism. In England the battle against slavery had been 

 won by the religious part of the community; in America, 

 the most earnest Abolitionists were usually " Come-outers," 

 denouncing the U. S. constitution as "a league with hell," and 

 the Churches as responsible for the maintenance of the greatest 

 crime against humanity. The Unitarians had hardly any 

 societies in the South, and in their ranks were to be found 

 some of the foremost friends of freedom. On the other hand, 

 they were, in Massachusetts at least, the representatives of the 

 old State Church,* and many among them were Conservatives. 

 The eminent Daniel Webster (who once had "thundered" 

 against slavery) and President Filmore were Unitarians : and 

 they were chiefly responsible for the Fugitive Slave Law. One 

 of the first places that Philip went to see was the ground 

 round the Court-house that had been enchained at the rendition 

 of Burns to slavery. The site of the Federal Street Church, 

 where Channing had preached the gospel of freedom, was then 

 a mass of rubble and dirty water — a new church had been built 

 in Arlington Street. 



He was in no hurry to meet those who could little enter 

 into his feelings : and spent most of his time as the guest 



* In England, Ireland, and Geneva, the Unitarians are mostly descended 

 from the Presbyterians ; in Massachusetts, the Congregationalists were the 

 Established Church, till compulsory support of religion was abolished in 

 1833 : an d many of the oldest parishes in Plymouth, Boston, Cambridge, 

 etc., embraced Unitarianism. It was, however, first avowed in the old 

 Episcopal Church — "King's Chapel," which the English Governors at- 

 tended before the Revolution. 



