yond the ocean there is an immense country where the works of their industry are bought and paid for liberally. I venture to bring you the greetings of all the Swiss families whose sons and daughters have found in your huge country a sweet home and a sweeter resting-place. As to-morrow I shall have the honor to speak of the liberal thought and work in Switzerland, I wish to tell now in a few words how unexpectedly I came to Boston.

The first that I heard of America was what my dear mother told me. When we children a whole tableful

were eating potatoes and heartily enjoying them, she told us that potatoes came from America, whence they were brought to Europe by a traveller. You may imagine, then, what a good idea of America I already had when but a little potato-eater. And, when we asked where America was, our good mother, being but an unlearned woman, could only inform us that it was "a great way off." And during my recent passage across the ocean I often thought that my mother was right.

In later time, at school, I heard of a great American, Benjamin Franklin, that he was the inventor of the lightning conductor. That, of course, increased my respect for America; for, brought up in a small village in the east of little Switzerland, I was a very naïve and sensitive boy, and terribly afraid of thunder-storms. That was, perhaps, partly my good mother's fault; for, whenever a thunderstorm was coming on, she bolted the shutters of our cottage and told me to take down the Prayer-book from the shelf, and then I read in a trembling voice the prayer during a heavy thunder-storm. In consequence of the lightning conductor, the prayer did not cease, but its character changed. It was a work of fear, and now it is a

Therefore, I was delighted to learn that by means of an iron rod and a wire the lightning could be intercepted and conducted into the earth. That seemed to me much more practical than to be so frightened and to pray, the more so when I heard of instances that a house was struck by lightning, although the people in it were praying. And that it was an American who discovered the lightning rod gave me the idea that the Americans must be extraordinarily clever and practical people.

The third fact I heard about America was again calculated to strengthen my respect for "that very far-off land"; for, as a youth, I heard of young lads going out to America, their fatherland having become too narrow for them. A schoolmate of mine did so; and on his return he not only looked strong and sound, but had some money in his pocket. He declared that, though he was glad to have seen his home again, he had no wish to stay there, everything seeming to him trivial, narrow, and contracted. That gave me the conception that in America there must be room for people desirous of pushing on in the world; that everything in America must be on a broader, grander, freer scale than it is with us,- room in the world for everybody. Now, to my great surprise, I see the land of my early admiration.

Why came I to Boston? Up to my confirmation I was a perfectly artless and devoutly religious child. Then the introduction to natural science caused a painful revolution within me; for, with the knowledge of inflexible, everlasting laws reigning in the heavens above and on the earth beneath, my belief in the miraculous, which had filled my whole soul, was overthrown, and this inexpressibly pained me. As my entire religious life had been based upon the

become an infidel, to be no longer a Christian, nor evermore able to become one. Alas for me! A great and beautiful world, in which I had felt so blessed, was now destroyed forever!

In this frame of mind I arrived at the polytechnical school in Zürich, intending to become a professor. Here I was told that in Zürich there were Unitarian (or, as they are called in Switzerland, liberal, free thinking) clergymen. Curious to know what that might be, I went to hear one of them preach. Now what did he preach? That belief in the miraculous was not the foundation of religion and Christianity. True Christianity was being thrilled with the spirit of God and of his paternal love, and of Christ, in whom his love was made manifest in the flesh. It was love to God and to man, in the imitation of Jesus, believing as he believed, loving as he loved, suffering as he suffered, glorifying God in our mortal life. That was what I heard preached, and I said to myself: If it is like that, then you can believe again! This is the Christianity you would choose! Such a Christian is what you would wish to become!

Though already twenty years old, I turned right about with my studies, left the polytechnical school at once, bought a Latin grammar, and began to conjugate amo, amas,

amat.

A private tutor gave me lessons in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Four years after I was a pastor, three years later I edited a liberal weekly paper, and in 1874 I came to Basel, the town reputed then in Switzerland and elsewhere as the stronghold of orthodoxy. My election as pastor was attended by severe struggles which agitated the whole city; for there were many who branded the Unitarian (liberal) pastor as an infidel, calculated to imperil

the church. Now to-day we are eight Unitarian preachers in the town on the banks of the majestic Rhine. And now we live in peace with the best of the orthodox party.

Why do I relate all this of my insignificant person? Because it is necessary to the explanation of my being in Boston to-day. It was just in the midst of the skirmishes and hard battles which we liberals of Basel had to sustain against the exceptionally firmly rooted orthodoxy, when a friend said to me, "Read Channing!" I read, and the inward light of that eminently pious and broadthinking man, who preached the truth in love, was a real benefit to me, like a sunny autumn day on which the earth in its fruitful attire calls to us, Taste and see how gracious the Lord is! My sentiments were those to which Longfellow (1842) gave utterance in one of his

poems:

"The pages of thy book I read,

And, as I closed each one,
My heart, responding ever, said,

Servant of God, well done!

"Well done, thy words are great and bold :

At times they seem to me

Like Luther's in the days of old,

Half-battles for the free."

And from Channing 1 came to Theodore Parker. He was more like a spring storm and avalanche than a sunny autumn day; but, under the influence of storms and sunshine, the meadows blossom with grass and flowers, the cornfields wave, and sweet fruits ripen. In the attitude of battle, which we were obliged for many years to maintain, Parker was ever more to me than Channing.