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Talmage thought he was an independent, but he was independent in nothing but oratorical gymnastics. Talmage spawned a large theological brood who barnstorm the provinces as independent evangelists. These base, bawling, baseball ranters, who have gotten their pulpit manners from the bleachers, do little beyond deepening superstition, pandering to the ignorance of the mob, holding progress back, and securing unto themselves much moneys. They mark the degeneration of a dying religion, that is kept alive by frequent injections of sensationalism. Light awaits them just beyond.

Theodore Parker drew immense audiences, not because he pandered to the many, but because he deferred to none. He challenged the moss-covered beliefs of all denominations, and spoke with an inward self-reliance, up to that time, unknown in a single pulpit of America.

* * * * *

In the year Eighteen Hundred Ten, Lincoln, Darwin, Tennyson, Gladstone, Elizabeth Browning, Mary Cowden Clarke, Felix Mendelssohn, Edgar Allan Poe, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Cyrus McCormick were each and all a year old.

The parents of Theodore Parker had been married twenty-six years, and been blessed with ten children, the eldest, twenty-five years old, and the youngest five, when Theodore persistently forced his presence upon them. Of course, no one suspected at the time that it was Theodore Parker, but “Theodore” was the name they gave him, meaning, “One sent from God.” That this implied no disrespect to the other members of the family can be safely assumed.

The Old-World plan of making the eldest son the heir was based upon the theory that the firstborn possessed more power and vitality than the rest. The fact that all of Theodore Parker’s brothers and sisters occupy reserved seats in oblivion, and he alone of the brood arrived, affords basis for an argument which married couples of discreet years may build upon if they wish.

Theodore Parker was born in the same old farmhouse where his father was born, three miles from the village of Lexington. The house has now disappeared, but the site is marked with a bronze tablet set in a granite slab, and is a place of pilgrimage to many who love their historic New England.

The house was on a hillside overlooking the valley, pleasant for situation. Above and beyond were great jutting boulders, over which the lad early learned to scramble. There he played I-Spy with his sisters, his brothers regarding themselves as in another class, so that he grew up a girl-boy, and picked flowers instead of killing snakes.

The coming of Spring is always a delight to country children, and it was a delight that Theodore Parker never outgrew. In many of his sermons he refers to the slow melting of the snow, and the children’s search for the first Spring flowers that trustingly pushed their way up through the encrusted leaves on the south side of rotting logs. Then a little later came the violets, blue and white, anemones, sweet- william, columbine and saxifrage. In the State House at Boston the visitor may see a musket bearing a card reading thus: “This firearm was used by Captain John Parker in the Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775.” Then just beneath this is another musket and its card reads: “Captured in the War for Independence by Captain John Parker at Lexington. Presented by Theodore Parker.” These two guns were upon the walls of Theodore Parker’s library for over thirty years. And of nothing pertaining to his life was he so proud as that of the war record of his grandfather. When little Theodore was four years of age his sisters would stand him on a chair and ask, “What did grandpa say to the soldiers?” And the chubby cherub in linsey-woolsey dress would repeat in a single mouthful, “Do not fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war let it begin here!”