I have never read Channing." It is great testimony to the pervasive
quality of a prophet's teachings when they become within fifty years a
component of the intellectual atmosphere of the new times. At a dinner
of Harvard graduates I once complained that, although I heard in the
College Chapel a great variety of preachers connected with many
different denominations, the preaching was, after all, rather
monotonous, because they all preached Channing. Phillips Brooks spoke
after me and said: "The President is right in thinking our present
preaching monotonous, and the reason he gives for this monotony is
correct; we all do preach Channing."

The direct influence of Channing's writings has been vast, for they are
read in English in all parts of the world, and have been translated
into many languages. Thirty years ago I spent a long day in showing Don
Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil, some of the interesting things in the
laboratories and collections of Harvard University. He was the most
assiduous visitor that I ever conducted through the University
buildings, intelligently interested in a great variety of objects and
ideas. Late in the afternoon he suddenly said, with a fresh eagerness:
"Now I will visit the tomb of Channing." We drove to Mount Auburn, and
found the monument erected by the Federal Street Church. The Emperor
copied with his own hand George Ticknor's inscriptions on the stone, and
made me verify his copies. Then, with his great weight and height, he
leaped into the air, and snatched a leaf from the maple which overhung
the tomb. "I am going to put that leaf," he said, "into my best edition
of Channing. I have read all his published works,--some of them many
times over. He was a very great man." The Emperor of Brazil was a Roman
Catholic.

Channing's philanthropy was a legitimate outcome of his view of