On the whole, then, I should say that _manliness_ was Theodore Parker's crowning quality and supreme claim to distinction. That he had other most remarkable gifts is conceded as a matter of course. Everybody knows that he had. But this was his prime characteristic. The other gifts he had in spite of himself--his thirst for knowledge, his love of books, his all-devouring industry, his unfailing memory, his natural eloquence or power of affluent expression; but character men regard as less a gift than an acquisition,--the fruit of aspiration, resolve, fidelity,--the product of daily, nay, of hourly, endeavor. Hence it is that intellectual greatness does not impress the multitude; even genius has but a limited sway over the masses of mankind. But character goes to the roots of life. In fact, Theodore Parker's eminence as a man of thought and expression in words has concealed from the world at large the intrinsic quality of the person. His reputation as theologian, preacher, controversialist, has concealed the real greatness which comes to light as the dust of controversy subsides. The very causes in which the heroism of his manliness was displayed--as, for example, the anti-slavery cause, to which he devoted so much of his time and vitality--rendered inconspicuous the contribution he made to the treasury of humane feeling. Now that that great conflict is over, now that its agitations have ceased and its heats have cooled, the character of which this conflict revealed but a portion, the career in which this long agony was but an episode, loom up into distinctness. The greatest of all human achievements is a manly character--guileless, sincere, and brave; that he by all admission possessed. He earned it; he prayed for it; meditated for it; worked for it;--how hard, his private journals show. And for this he will not be forgotten. For this he will be remembered as one of the benefactors, one of the emancipators, of his kind.