Frederic Henry Hedge was a highly respected Unitarian clergyman and theologian, German scholar and translator, university professor, editor, critic, and prolific author of essays and books. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Levi and Mary Kneeland Hedge, he was early destined to eminence as a scholar and man of letters by the strong encouragement of his father, a respected professor of logic at Harvard College. Hedge became in his career the foremost German scholar and pioneer in introducing and popularizing German language and literature in America. His achievements as an author, editor, critic, and lecturer won him the highest admiration of his contemporaries. Concurrent with his literary activities, he became the leading spokesman, in the world of liberal Christianity, on ecclesiastical and theological matters.

As a youth Hedge was precocious, mastering much of the classics, especially Homer and Virgil, before his teens. To prepare his thirteen-year-old son for college...