Written after Reading Theodore Parker’s* “Treatise on Matters appertaining to Religion.”

Written after Reading Theodore Parker’s*
“Treatise on Matters appertaining to Religion.”

I much regret what was my gross mistake
In wasting precious years in wading through
Much dry theology. I repent it now
As time mis-spent, which never help’d to make
My after-life more holy. One such book 5
As Parker’s Treatise had outweigh’d them all.
Its well-told truths seem on my mind to fall
Like dews on Hermon, refreshing ev’ry nook
Of the parch’d mental landscape. Youth should be
Led gently on by thinkers who can teach 10
All wisdom which has come within their reach,—
Useful for time and for eternity.
Let but Truth’s banner freely be unfurl’d,
And Falsehood will for aye be driven from the world.

George Markham Tweddell

p. 47 [in Miscellaneous Sonnets]
[* U.S. Unitarian minister (1810-1860) whose writings of deprivation, the treatment
of women and slavery influenced contemporary thinkers:
www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/theodoreparker.html]

Read the full text on line or download the pdf of Parker's Treatise on matters pertaining to Religion - here 
http://archive.org/details/worksoftheodorep01park

"John White Chadwick wrote, Parker was involved with almost all of the reform movements of the time: "peace, temperance, education, the condition of women, penal legislation, prison discipline, the moral and mental destitution of the rich, the physical destitution of the poor" though none became "a dominant factor in his experience" with the exception of his antislavery views. He "denounced the Mexican War and called on his fellow Bostonians in 1847 'to protest against this most infamous war.'" Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Parker