lecture 'was an event without any former parallel in our literary annals, a scene to be always treasured in the memory for its picturesqueness and its inspiration. What crowded and breathless aisles, what windows clustering with eager heads, what enthusiasm of approval, what silence of foregone dissent!"

It was the last of the above addresses, however, which, like a trumpet-blast, most startled and took by surprise the thoughtful minds of the country. "It was Emerson's first, full, and direct expression of his faith in moral power and self-trust, and his repudiation of all commands laid on us from the teachings of other men, unless their thought is verified in our own nature." He said that the office of the preacher was dying, and the church tottering to its fall! "The real work of the pulpit is not discharged. Preaching is the expression of moral sentiment in application to the duties of life. In how many churches, by how many prophets, tell me, is man made sensible that he is a living soul. The true preacher can be known by this, that he deals out to his people his life-life passed through the fire of thought. Man is not made to feel that he is an infinite soul; the life of to-day is not touched; actual experience brings no lessons. The redemption is to be sought in the Soul.

The present evils of the church are many, and need much to be put away. We need more faith. The old forms are good enough if new life be breathed into them. The remedy for these evils is-first, soul; and second, soul; and evermore soul."

This renowned address was warmly criticised, and as warmly defended, and Mr. Cooke tells us that the agitation caused by it reached such a height that the "Christian Examiner " thought it necessary in behalf of the Unitarians of the Divinity School to make a formal renunciation of the views given forth in it.*

The Rev. Henry Ware, then the most prominent professor in the School, addressed to Emerson at friendly expostulation against the doctrines of this discourse. In reply Emerson said: "What you say about the discourse at Divinity College is just what I might expect from your truth and charity, combined with your known opinions. I am not a stick or a stone, as one said in the old time, and could not feel but pain in saying some things in

*In the letter from Miss Elizabeth Peabody, quoted at p. 21, she says:-"Dr. Channing regarded the address at Divinity Hall as an entirely justifiable and needed criticism on the perfunctory character of service creeping over the Unitarian Churches at the time. He hailed the commotion of thought it stirred up as a sign that 'something did live in the embers' of that spirit which had developed Unitarianism out of the decaying Puritan Churches."

that place and presence which I supposed would

meet with dissent, I

may say, of dear friends and

benefactors of mine.

Yet, as my conviction is per

fect in the substantial truth of the doctrines of this discourse, and is not very new, you will see at once that it must appear very important that it be spoken; and I thought I could not pay the nobleness of my friends so mean a compliment as to suppress my opposition to their supposed views, out of fear of offence. I would rather say to them these things look thus to me, to you otherwise. Let us say our uttermost word, and let the all-pervading truth, as it surely will, judge between

us.

Either of us would, I doubt not, be willingly apprised of his error. Meantime, I shall be admonished, by this expression of your thought, to revise with greater care the 'address' before it is printed (for the use of the class); and I heartily thank you for this expression of your tried toleration and love." This was followed by a sermon against Emerson's views, delivered by Mr. Ware in the Divinity School, a copy of which was sent to the former, with a letter, the concluding sentences being these "I confess that I esteem it particularly unhappy to be thus brought into a sort of public opposition to you, for I have a thousand feelings which draw me toward you; but my situation,

and the circumstances of the times, render it unavoidable; and both you and I understand that we are to act on the maxim, 'Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, sed magis amica Veritas.' (I believe I quote right.) We would gladly agree with all our friends; but that being impossible, and it being also impossible to choose which of them we will differ from, we must submit to the common lot of thinkers, and make up in love of heart what we want in unity of judgment. But I am growing prosy, so I break off.-Yours very truly."

To this letter Emerson returned the following characteristic reply :

"My dear Sir,-I ought sooner to have acknowledged your kind letter of last week, and the sermon it accompanied. The letter was right manly and noble. The sermon, too, I have read with attention. If it assails any doctrine of mine,—perhaps I am not so quick to see it as writers generally,―certainly I did not feel any disposition to depart from my habitual contentment, that you should say your thought, whilst I say mine. I believe I must tell you what I think of my new position. It strikes me very oddly that good and wise men at Cambridge and Boston should think of raising me into an object of criticism. I have always been-from

my very incapacity of methodical writing—a 'chartered libertine,' free to worship and free to rail,— lucky when I could make myself understood, but never esteemed near enough to the institutions and mind of society to deserve the notice of the masters of literature and religion. I have appreciated fully the advantages of my position, for I well know there is no scholar less willing or less able than myself to be a polemic. I could not give an account of myself, if challenged. I could not possibly give you one of the 'arguments' you cruelly hint at, on which any doctrine of mine stands; for I do not know what arguments are in reference to any expression of a thought. I delight in telling what I think; but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of mortal men. I do not even see that either of these questions admits of an answer. So that in the present droll posture of my affairs, when I see myself suddenly raised to the importance of a heretic, I am very uneasy when I advert to the supposed duties of such a personage, who is to make good his thesis against all comers. I certainly shall do no such thing. I shall read what you and other good men write, as I have always done, glad when you speak my thoughts,and skipping the page that has nothing for me. I shall go on just as before, seeing what