Once outside the orthodox church, Theodore Parker gave himself wholly to this idea. He preached the "_Gospel of Humanity_"; and, standing upon a broad platform, preaching a broad doctrine, bound by no ecclesiastical law, his claims to a place in the history of his county, and in the gratitude of his countrymen can be fairly audited when his work for the emancipation of evangelical churches from the thraldom of slavery is considered. He did more in his day to rupture the organic and sympathetic relation existing between the Northern and Southern churches, and, thereby, hasten the struggle between the sections for the extension or extinction of domestic slavery, than any other man in America. The men who found themselves on the outside of the Church gathered about Parker, and applauded his invective and endorsed his arraignment of the churches that had placed their hands upon their mouths, and their mouths in the dust, before the slave power. He touched a chord in the human heart, and it yielded rich music. He educated the pew until an occasional voice broke the long silence respecting the bondman of the land. First, the ministers were not so urgent in their invitations to Southern ministers to occupy their pulpits. This coldness was followed by feeble prayer and moderate speech on behalf of those who were bound. And the churches themselves began to feel that they were "an offence" to the world. Every note of sympathy that fell from the pulpit was amplified into a grand chorus of pity for the slave. And thus the leaven of human sympathy hid in the orthodox church of New England, leavened the whole body until a thousand pulpits were ablaze with a righteous condemnation of the wrongs of the slaves. Even Dr. Channing came to the conclusion that something should be "So done as not to put in jeopardy the peace of the slave-holding States!"[19]