Theodore Parker

Theodore Parker: (August 24, 1810 – May 10, 1860) was an American Transcendentalist, abolitionist, and reforming minister of the Unitarian church. Parker's own words and quotes he popularized would later influence Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1850, Parker quoted and made popular the words of John Wycliffe in his prologue to the first English translation of the Bible to use the phrase, "of all the people, by all the people, for all the people" which later influenced Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. In words made famous by Martin Luther King, Jr. a century later, Parker predicted the success of the abolitionist cause: "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one… And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.