for the few that followed him and the many who never knew, and do not know to-day, what hand it 'was which took down their prison walls. He was a preacher who taught that the religion of humanity included both those of Palestine, nor those alone, and taught it with such consecrated lips that the narrowest bigot was ashamed to pray for him, as from a footstool nearer to the throne. "Hitch your wagon to a star;" this was his version of the divine lesson taught by that holy George Herbert whose words he loved. Give him whatever place belongs to him in our literature, in the literature of our language, of the world, but remember this: the end and aim of his being was to make truth lovely and manhood valorous, and to bring our daily life nearer and nearer to the eternal, immortal, invisible.

After the address of Dr. Holmes, the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, D.D., spoke of his long acquaintance with Mr. Emerson, and read several interesting extracts from letters which he had received from him at an early period of his career. At the close of his remarks, Dr. Clarke presented the following resolution, which was adopted by a rising vote.

Resolved, That this Society unites in the widespread expression of esteem, gratitude, and affectionate reverence paid to the memory of our late

associate, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and recognises the great influence exercised by his character and writings to elevate, purify, and quicken the thought of our time.

WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING ON EMERSON.

In a letter to the editor of the "Modern Review" for October, 1882, Mr. Channing regrets that illhealth has prevented him from bearing his promised testimony to Emerson in the "Review." He had written a voluminous heap of MSS. amidst recurring attacks of illness, but finds that neither strength nor time permit him to re-write or condense it fitly. "This disappointment causes regret, because my hope was to bring into brighter light the rare blending of the Spiritual with the Intellectual in Emerson's life and aims. For, though by common consent scholars of the Anglo-American race acknowledge him as the grandest 'Representative Man' of Genius of the Western Republic, by his embodiment in thought of her purest Ideal— apparently, they fail to see that, by his pre-eminent Virtue in character and life, he stood as a Real Type of that Personal Greatness, towards which he welcomed his compeers everywhere to aspire.

"How unique, in quickening influence and inspiring energy, his Genius and Personal Greatness were, appears in this. As one reads with impartial judgment the tributes of grateful love, which already have been offered up in his honour-[Mr. Channing then briefly refers to the various notices, addresses, discourses, sermons, &c., relating to Emerson]-he is cheered to find that, among these mirrored forms of Emerson, there is scarcely one which has not caught characteristic splendour from his glowing beauty, translucent truthfulness, humane magnanimity, and symmetric manhood.

"Difficult would it be to add words of worth to the manifold testimonials of our friend's transcending excellence, as exemplar, guide, inciter, and illuminator. Indeed, it seems presumptuous to describe Emerson at all! For has he not, throughout his works, imaged himself unconsciously, in each alternate tendency, mood, attainment, aspiration, with such luminous fidelity, that it seems irreverent to copy, with a blunt pencil, portraits exquisitely perfected in characters of light? One feels prompted, rather, to say to new students of the Sage of Concord's writings: Would you know aright this Prophet of the Soul, as he lived, read his Orations, Addresses, Essays, Poems, and especially the earlier ones, such as 'Nature,' 'The American

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Scholar,' 'Literary Ethics,' The Method of Nature,' &c., reading what is inscribed with sympathetic ink between the lines, and yielding to the impressions made on heart and conscience, yet more than on critical intellect, by these Confessions-and you shall behold this beautiful Person as he was in character, as in conduct he irradiated the scenes he moved among, and as he was known inmostly to God and guardian angels. There he stands revealed! For if man ever did, he wrote in hearts' blood, according to Sidney's maxim, 'Look in your heart and write.' The very passage of Autobiography, wherein this maxim is quoted the Essay on 'Spiritual Laws'—is a transcript from his Diary: 'The way to speak and write what shall not go out of fashion is to speak and write sincerely. The argument which has not power to reach my own practice, I may well doubt, will fail to reach yours. He that writes to himself writes to an eternal public.'

"A second difficulty, in attempting to sketch Emerson, is that no two observers saw the same man. Unchangingly faithful to his own spirit, as he was, he yet presented ever new phases to the persons he met, according to their quality. And each onlooker saw that side only which his own. vision was fitted to discern. So must it be with

his works. One is inclined, therefore, to whisper in the ear of his critics: Beware how you judge this whole-souled brother, for you go to judgment yourself in the estimate you are enlightened and just, humble and loving enough to form of one who so earnestly listened to the 'Over Soul.' This man was, in the best sense, a high-bred Christian Gentleman; but no Stoic was ever more nobly proud, no Puritan more sternly upright. He scorned pretension, had shrewd insight into character, and, as he says of Nature, 'knew how, without swell, brag, strain, or shock, to keep firm common sense, “Semper sibi similis.”

"Then a final hindrance to declaring what one's heart prompts him to say of this singularly impersonal person is, that the friends who revered him most highly, most scrupulously withheld the least allusion which might be vitiated by praise, for the reason that they knew how devoutly he referred all goodness and wisdom to the ever-present Inspirer, with whom he sought to dwell in calm communion, unruffled by a breath of self-love. Well does his confidential comrade, Alcott, write of the 'one subtraction from the pleasure of his books, his pains to be impersonal or discrete, as if he feared any the least intrusion of himself were an offence offered to self-respect, the courtesy due to intercourse and