religion. For him practical religion was character-building by the
individual human being. But character-building in any large group or
mass of human beings means social reform; therefore Channing was a
preacher and active promoter of social regeneration in this world. He
depicted the hideous evils and wrongs of intemperance, slavery, and war.
He advocated and supported every well-directed effort to improve public
education, the administration of charity, and the treatment of
criminals, and to lift up the laboring classes. He denounced the bitter
sectarian and partisan spirit of his day. He refused entire sympathy to
the abolitionists, because of the ferocity and violence of their
habitual language and the injustice of their indiscriminate attacks. He
distrusted money worship, wealth, and luxury.

These sentiments and actions grew straight out of his religious
conceptions, and were their legitimate fruit. All his social aspirations
and hopes were rooted in his fundamental conception of the fatherhood of
God, and its corollary the brotherhood of men. It was his lofty idea of
the infinite worth of human nature and of the inherent greatness of the
human soul, in contrast with the then prevailing doctrines of human
vileness and impotency, which made him resent with such indignation the
wrongs of slavery, intemperance, and war, and urge with such ardor every
effort to deliver men from poverty and ignorance, and to make them
gentler and juster to one another.

In no subject which he discussed does the close connection between
Channing's theology and his philanthropy appear more distinctly than in
education. He says in his remarks on education: ... "There is nothing on
earth so precious as the mind, soul, character of the child.... There
should be no economy in education. Money should never be weighed against
the soul of a child. It should be poured out like water for the child's