[115] theologian in this country, but in Europe later as a writer on social questions. His books were published, either wholly or in part, in the German, French, Italian, Hungarian, Icelandic, and Russian tongues. For some reason, never fully explained, there has been some reaction in his popular fame. Probably the absence of any trace of humor in his work was one of the reasons why its hold has been more short-lived than that, for instance, of Emerson, from whom a delicate sense of humor was as inseparable as his shadow. Yet in the purely literary quality, in the power to sum up in words a profound or independent thought, a selection of maxims from Channing would be scarcely inferior to one from Emerson. The little volume, for instance, edited by his granddaughter from his unpublished manuscripts, is a book which bears comparison, in a minor degree, with the work of Rochefoucault or Joubert. Consider such phrases as this:--
Great wisdom of God is seen in limiting parental influence. The hope of the world is that parents can not make their children all they wish.
We are not to conquer with intellect any more than with arms. Conquest is not kindly, not friendly.
