James Freeman Clarke | Biography

James Freeman Clarke(4 April 1810-8 June 1888), Unitarian minister, theological writer, and translator of German literature, was born in Hanover. New Hampshire. He was educated in Boston at the Latin School (1821-1825), Harvard College (1825-1829), and Harvard Divinity School (1829-1832). During his seven years at Harvard he met most of the men and women who were to be involved in the intellectual and religious upheavals of the next two decades, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller. Clarke took up the study of German with Fuller, both having been influenced by the "wild-bugle call" of that literature. After his ordination in 1833, Clarke moved to Louisville, Kentucky. There he prospered and in 1836 helped start a liberal Unitarian journal, the Western Messenger, which he edited for the next three years, publishing contributions by the Transcendentalists. In 1839 Clarke married and, feeling isolated from the intellectual climate of Boston, returned there in 1841. He assembled a liberal Unitarian congregation and they founded the Church of the Disciples. Over the next two years, Clarke translated de Witte's Theodore for George Ripley's Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature series, edited the Christian World, and contributed to numerous newspapers and journals. When Theodore Parker was condemned by the Unitarians because of his radical views, Clarke defended his right of free speech and was one of the few ministers still willing to exchange pulpits with him. In 1849 the Church of the Disciples, which had previously met in loaned buildings, built a permanent home, the Freeman Place Chapel, and Emerson soon rented it for his lecture series. Clarke became actively involved in the anti-slavery movement but soon his health failed, causing him to close the Church of the Disciples in 1850, after an unsuccessful rest tour of Europe. He spent the next three years recuperating at his wife's home in Meadville, Pennsylvania, and, when his health improved, returned to Boston. The Church of the Disciples was reorganized and Clarke again became active in public affairs. He was elected secretary of the American Unitarian Association in 1859 and edited their Journal. When the Civil War broke out, he offered the Brook Farm land, which he had bought in 1855, as a troop training facility. After the war ended, Clarke became a fixture of Boston life: he joined many clubs and societies, became a long-term member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard, and published a book, usually based on his sermons, every eighteen months until his death in Boston. Clarke based his liberalism on a conservative foundation, believing that changes should occur within existing institutions and not by destroying them. He was a conciliatory man, pursuing the middle ground on most issues. His works appeared in all journals, from the literary conservative (Atlantic Monthly) to the radical (Dial), and from the religious conservative ( Christian Examiner) to the radical (Western Messenger). His religious writings were solid, if unimaginative; his verse was marred by a studied sentimentality.