“Fact and Rumor,” 1886

August 31, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur From the Archives

From the Christian Union, June 3, 1886:

Concerning the Unitarian the Rev. William B. Greene, of West Brookfield, this story is told. A man died in the neighborhood, and the reverend Colonel was called upon to officiate at the funeral. Some time afterward, on inquiring why he was summoned to the funeral of a man not of his flock, he was told: “Mr. — did not believe in much of anything, and we thought your belief came the nearest to nothing of anybody’s, so we sent for you!” — [[Worcester Spy

I guess that’s one way of looking at Greene, though sometimes I’m inclined to think very few people believed as fervently as Greene.

Almost daily updates on the WB Greene pages in the Libertarian Labyrinth now…

About Shawn P. Wilbur 2709 Articles
Independent scholar, translator and archivist.

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William Batchelder Greene, “The Blazing Star” (1871)

December 31, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur anarchist mutualism, Blazing Star Library

Some men — not all men — see always before them an ideal, a mental picture if you will, of what they ought to be, and are not. Whoso seeks to follow this ideal revealed to the mental vision, whoso seeks to attain to conformity with it, will find it enlarge itself, and remove from him. He that follows it will improve his own moral character; but the ideal will remain always above him and before him, prompting him to new exertions. What is the natural conscience if it be not a condemnation of ourselves as we are, mean, pitiful, weak, and a comparison of ourselves with what we ought to be, wise, powerful, holy? It is this Ideal of what we ought to be, and are not, that is symbolically pictured in the Blazing Star. […]