PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN THE REVEREND JARED SPARKS “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY WALDEN: His only books were an almanac and an arithmetic, in which PEOPLE OF last he was considerably expert. The former was a sort WALDEN of cyclopaedia to him, which he supposed to contain an abstract of human knowledge, as indeed it does to a considerable extent. ALEK THERIEN JARED SPARKS “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The People of Walden HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JARED SPARKS JARED SPARKS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1789 May 10, Sunday: Jared Sparks was born in Wilmington, Connecticut. NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT The People of Walden “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JARED SPARKS JARED SPARKS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1809 Jared Sparks matriculated at Phillips Exeter Academy. LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The People of Walden HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JARED SPARKS JARED SPARKS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1811 Fall: At Harvard College’s divinity school, Dr. Henry Ware, Sr., Hollis Professor, began a course of exercises with the resident Students in Divinity: Messrs. John Emery Abbot (A.B. Bowdoin College 1810) Joseph Allen (A.B. 1811) John Dudley Andrews (A.B. 1810) Lemuel Capen (A.B. 1810) Jonathan Peale Dabney (A.B. 1811) David Damon (A.B. 1811) Charles Eliot (A.B. 1809) George Bethune English (A.B. 1807) Edward Everett (A.B. 1811) Samuel Gilman (A.B. 1811) Joseph Haven (A.B. 1810) Francis Jackson (A.B. 1810) Cyrus Pierce (A.B. 1810) Thomas Prentiss (A.B. 1811) HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JARED SPARKS JARED SPARKS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN Hiram Weston (A.B. 1811) Between this fall and the following fall, additional graduates would be commencing their studies under the direction of Dr. Henry Ware, Sr. and of Mr. Andrews Norton, who in 1813 would be appointed Dexter Lecturer in Biblical Literature. They would also attend Reverend John T. Kirkland in a few exercises in Dogmatic Theology, Professor Willard in Hebrew, and Professor Frisbie (after his appointment in 1817) in Ethics. As there is no record of the time when they entered on theological studies, their names have been arranged in the order of the College Catalogue, except for the final four who were graduates of other colleges: Messrs. Thomas Tracy (A.B. 1806) Henry Ware (A.B. 1812) Charles Folsom (A.B. 1813) Rufus Hurlbut (A.B. 1813) HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JARED SPARKS JARED SPARKS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN Thomas Savage (A.B. 1813) John Allyn (A.B. 1814) Andrew Bigelow (A.B. 1814) Francis William Pitt Greenwood (A.B. 1814) Alvan Lamson (A.B. 1814) Peter Osgood (A.B. 1814) James Walker (A.B. 1814) Charles Briggs (A.B. 1815) Lyman Buckminster (A.B. 1815) Stevens Everett (A.B. 1815) Convers Francis (A.B. 1815) Elisha Fuller (A.B. 1815) Richard Manning Hodges (A.B. 1815) George Goldthwait Ingersoll (A.B. 1815) Levi Washburn Leonard (A.B. 1815) Joseph Orne (A.B. 1815) George Otis (A.B. 1815) John Gorham Palfrey (A.B. 1815) Jared Sparks (A.B. 1815) Charles Brooks (A.B. 1816) Willard Bourn Oliver Peabody (A.B. 1816) William Ware (A.B. 1816) Azariah Wilson (A.B. 1816) William Winthrop Allen (A.B. 1817) George Bancroft (A.B. 1817) Ira Henry Thomas Blanchard (A.B. 1817) Samuel Brimblecom (A.B. 1817) Samuel Atkins Eliot (A.B. 1817) Benjamin Fessenden (A.B. 1817) Francis Jenks (A.B. 1817) Joseph Augustus Edwin Long (A.B. 1817) Samuel Joseph May (A.B. 1817) Robert Folger Wallcutt (A.B. 1817) Francis Willard Winthrop (A.B. 1817 but not from Harvard) J. Barker (A.B. but not from Harvard) -- Bryant (A.B. but not from Harvard) John Pierpont (A.B. Yale College) (In these early years of the Harvard Divinity School, there were no formal class graduations as students would be in the habit of studying there for varying periods until they obtained an appropriate offer to enter a pulpit.) HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JARED SPARKS JARED SPARKS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The People of Walden HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JARED SPARKS JARED SPARKS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1815 April 25, Tuesday: Jared Sparks would graduate in this year from Harvard College. An assignment he submitted on this date, “Orbit of a Comet. Elementary Calculation from physical principles, together with a Graphical Representation of the Orbit of the Comet of MDCCCXL” (21 ½ x 28 ¼ inches), is still on file there: ORBIT OF A COMET CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT The People of Walden “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JARED SPARKS JARED SPARKS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1815 The North American Review was started in Boston under the editorship of William Tudor and would print his “Theology of the Hindoos as Taught by Ram Mohan Roy” as well as Theophilus Parson’s “Manners and Customs of India.” In 1817 it would pass into the control of a club of Boston gentlemen, who would make Jared Sparks chief editor, then Edward Tyrrell Channing, then in 1819 Edward Everett would assume the post. NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW MASTER INDEX THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The People of Walden HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JARED SPARKS JARED SPARKS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1819 May 5, Wednesday: Stanislaw Moniuszko was born at 4PM at Ubiel near Minsk, the son of Czeslaw Moniuszko, a poet and painter, and Elzbieta Madzarska, an amateur pianist. The Decurionato (city council) of Catania, Sicily voted to grant their favorite son, Vincenzo Bellini, a pension enabling him to go to Naples to study. At the ordination of the Reverend Jared Sparks as the Unitarian minister in the 1st Independent Church of Baltimore, the Reverend William Ellery Channing delivered his “Pentecost of American Unitarianism” sermon about reflecting God’s love by following the loving example of Christ, upon the text “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (I Thessalonians, verse 21) — the definitive sermon of the new faith which eventually would appear under the title “Unitarian Christianity.” READ IT AND WEEP HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JARED SPARKS JARED SPARKS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JARED SPARKS JARED SPARKS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN William Ellery Channing. “Unitarian Christianity,” published originally in 1819, reprinted as pages 70-102 of HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JARED SPARKS JARED SPARKS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN Robinson, David, ed. WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING: SELECTED WRITINGS. NY: Paulist Press, 1986: HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND JARED SPARKS JARED SPARKS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN “A Review From Professor Ross’s Seminar” THEOLOGY ”Unitarian Christianity” is William Ellery Channing’s most important theological essay. I wish to call attention to three aspects of Channing’s essay: 1) his hermeneutical strategy with regard to the Bible; 2) the Unitarian and Calvinist doctrines of God and their moral effects; 3) Channing’s abhorrence of “enthusiastic” religion. Channing’s view of the Bible advances so-called “higher criticism.” He regards the Bible, not as the iron standard of truth to which we must submit, but rather the expression of God’s paternal love for his creation, which draws us to him. Its meaning is to be found, he says quite radically, “in the same manner as that of other books” (72). Even more than when interpreting others books, when reading the Bible we must use reason as our guide, Channing insists, to keep us from confusing “what was of temporary and local application” (73) from what is eternally true. The Calvinists complain that Unitarians exalt human reason, Channing avers, only because they feel its sting: “its weapons wound themselves” (75). This emphasis on human reason does not lead Channing to discard the Bible. On the contrary, for Channing, Unitarian views, unlike the Calvinists, are truly Biblical: “Whatever doctrines seem to us to be clearly taught in the Scriptures, we receive without reserve or exception. We do not, however, attach equal importance to all the books in this collection” (72). The hermeneutical key in this system is, of course, what agrees with reason. Hence, the Unitarian disgust with original sin, the election of some to eternal damnation, the Trinity, etc. Of course, the Calvinists always believed that God’s revelation — Calvinistic religion — accorded with reason, but only when seen in the light of the Holy Spirit’s influence. Most problematic for Channing is the doctrine of the Trinity, which he dismisses as “irrational and unscriptural” (79). If Jesus is God’s equal, he asks, why do the New Testament writers fail to mention anything like a doctrine of three persons in one? Channing psychologizes the status accorded to Jesus: “Men want an object of worship like themselves” (81). Perhaps this is ironic, considering Channing’s consistently analogical theology (i.e. because of our reason, we can affirm as good what God esteems good). Nevertheless, Channing’s meaning is clear: we esteem Jesus because he is human as we are. The “Orthodox” are inconsistent at this point; they claim Jesus to be fully human and fully divine. But how is Jesus truly like us, Channing asks, if in his agonies on the cross his “divine half” is blissfully happy, without any doubts of God’s perfect scheme of Redemption? Such a view “robs his death of interest, [and] weakens our sympathy with his sufferings” (86).