His life is heroic as a soldier's; he never runs, nor hides nor stoops, nor stands aside to avoid the shot which hit tall marks: yet is no woman gentler than this unflinching man. He was cradled in the church—it is good for a cradle, not a college, shop, or house. He was bred in the ministry, and sat at famous feet. The little town of Concord is the centre of his sphere; its circumference,—that great circle lies far off, hid underneath the foreign horizon of future centuries.
I honour the Chaunceys, the Mayhews, the Freemans, the Buckminsters, the Channings, who taught great truths, and also lived full of nobleness; I thank God for their words, which come directly, or echoed, to your heart and mine. They have gone to their reward. But no living man has done so much as Emerson to waken this religion in the great Saxon heart of the Americans and Britons. It is not doctrine he teaches—his own creed is not well defined; it is the inspiration of manliness that he imparts. He has never beguiled a man or unsuspecting maid to join a church, to underwrite another's creed, or comply with an alien ritual. But his words and his life charm earnest men with such natural religion as makes them, of their own accord, to trust the Great Soul of all, and refine themselves into noble, normal, individual life. In six hours of so many recent weeks, I think he has done more to promote the revival of piety and morality in Boston, than all the noisy rant of Calvinistic preaching, Calvinistic singing, and Calvinistic prayer in the last six months.
What an opportunity there is for you and me to work in this true revival! No nation offers a field so fair. We can speak and listen, we can print and read, with none to molest or make us afraid. More than all that, we can live as high as we please. There is no government, no church, to lay its iron hands on our heads and say—"Stop there!" Misguiding ministers may believe in the damnation of babies newly born, may pray curses on us all; they cannot light a fagot to burn a man: their spirit is willing, but their flesh is weak! It is a grand age and nation to live in and work for.
The first thing that you and I want is to be religious in this sense—to know the Infinite God, who is perfect power, perfect wisdom, perfect justice, perfect holinoss.
