Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by William Henry Channing (American Unitarian Clergyman)

William Henry Channing (1810–84) was an American Unitarian clergyman, writer, reformer, and Transcendentalist philosopher. He was Chaplain of the United States House of Representatives 1863–64.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Channing was educated by his uncle, the foremost Unitarian theologian William Ellery Channing. William Henry graduated from Harvard College in 1829 and Harvard Divinity School in 1833. He was ordained and served in Unitarian churches in Cincinnati, Boston, Rochester-New York, and New York City.

Channing was an early proponent of the Christian socialistic movement. He was editor of the Present, the Spirit of the Age, and the Harbinger. In 1848, he presided over The Religious Union of Associationists in Boston. This socialist group included many members of the Brook Farm commune.

An advocate of the women’s rights movement during his ministry at the First Unitarian Church of Rochester in 1852, Channing influenced Susan B. Anthony. Channing was also a member of the Transcendental Club; he was a close friend of Henry David Thoreau and corresponded with Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Traveling to England, Channing was minister at Renshaw Street Unitarian Chapel in Liverpool, England, 1854–57, and succeeded the British religious philosopher James Martineau as minister of the Hope Street Unitarian Chapel, Liverpool. At the dawn of the American Civil War, he returned to America (1862) to take charge of the Unitarian church in Washington, D.C.

Channing was a prolific writer, contributing to the North American Review, the Dial, the Christian Examiner, and other serials. He wrote the memoirs of his uncle William Ellery Channing (3 vols., 1848.)

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by William Henry Channing

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.
William Henry Channing
Topics: Wealth, Happiness, Wisdom

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