Clarke, James Freeman

James Freeman (1810-1888), an American Unitarian clergyman and miscellaneous author. He was born at Hanover, New Hampshire. He was educated at Harvard University, and his first pastorate was at Louisville, Kentucky. In 1841 he removed to Boston and founded the Church of the Disciples of which he was pastor until his death. Mr. Clarke was a friend of Channing, Holmes, and Emerson, and sympathised with the views of the Transcendentalists. He was a clear thinker--a leader in literary and educational movements. His best known writings are Ten Great Religions, Every-Day Religion, Orthodoxy, Its Truths and Errors, Christian Doctrine of Forgiveness, Essentials and Non-Essentials in Religion.

Let us thank God for books. When I consider what some books have done for the world, and what they are doing; how they keep up our hope, awaken new courage and faith, soothe pain, give an ideal life to those whose homes are hard and cold, bind together distant ages and foreign lands, create new worlds of beauty, bring down truths from heaven,--I give eternal blessings for the gift, and pray that we may use it aright, and abuse it not.--J. Freeman Clarke.