CLARKE, JAMES FREEMAN American preacher and author, was born in Hanover (N.H.) on April 4, 181o. He graduated at Harvard college in 5829, and at the Harvard divinity school in 1833. He was then ordained as minister of a Unitarian congregation at Louisville (Ky.), and soon threw himself heart and soul into the national movement for the abo lition of slavery, though he was never a "radical abolitionist." In 5839 he returned to Boston, where he and his friends established (1841) the "Church of the Disciples," which brought together a body of men and women active and eager in applying the Christian religion to the social problems of the day. Of this church he was the minister from 1841-50 and from 1854 until his death. He was also secretary of the Unitarian Association and in 1867-71 pro fessor of natural religion and Christian doctrine at Harvard. From 1836-39 he was editor of the Western Messenger, a magazine which is now of value to collectors because it contains the earliest printed poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was Clarke's per sonal friend. Most of Clarke's earlier published writings were addressed to the immediate need of establishing a larger theory of religion than that espoused by people who were still trying to be Calvinists, people who maintained what a good American phrase calls "hard-shelled churches." But it would be wrong to call his work controversial. In the great moral questions of his time he was a fearless and practical advocate of the broadest statement of human rights. He published but few verses, but at the bottom he was a poet. He was a diligent and accurate scholar, and among the books by which he is best known is one called Ten Great Religions (2 vols., 5875-83). Few Americans have done more than Clarke to give breadth to the published discussion of the subjects of literature, ethics and religious philosophy. Among his books are Orthodoxy (1866) ; Every-Day Religion (r886) and Sermons on the Lord's Prayer (1888) . He died at Jamaica Plain (Mass.) on June 8, 1888.
His Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence edited by Edward Everett Hale, was published in 1891. (E. E. H.)