day. My conviction is, that to hear one of Emerson's religious discourses, as delivered by himself, would be more helpful to a young minister than a theological course in any university. Nothing can be more reverently thoughtful and grandly simple than his manner and tone. He quotes frequently from some Oriental Scripture, or great poet, and it is always done with the solemnity of an old Puritan taking his text. I remember well the lowering of his voice, as one might speak on his knees, as he recited the sublime paradoxes of Dante's Apostrophe to the Virgin : stance of all morals is that a man should declared, the one element to which all viradhere to the path which the inner light tues are reducible. It was revealed unto has marked before him. The great waste me,' said the old Quaker, that what other in the world comes of the misapplication of men trample on must be thy food.' It is energy. The great tragedies of the soul the spirit that accepts our trust, and is thus are strung on those threads not spun out of the creator of character and the guide to our own hearts. One records of Michael power. In closing this discourse the speakAngelo that he found him working on his er read at length the story of the proposed statue with a lamp stuck in his cap, and it humiliation, and the victory through humilmight almost symbolise the holier light of ity, of Fra Christophero, in Manzoni's Propatient devotion to his art. No matter messi Sposi. I regret that I cannot give a what your work is, let it be yours; no mat- report verbatim of this extraordinary dister if you are tinker or preacher, blacksmith course, which produced an effect, on those or President, let what you are doing be or- who heard it, beyond any that I have ever ganic, let it be in your bones, and you open witnessed, many being moved at times to the door by which the affluence of Heaven tears. I went with pencil and paper, inand Earth shall stream into you. You shall tending to take down as much as I could, have the hidden joy and shall carry suc- but at the end of the hour occupied by it, cess with you. Look to yourself rather the paper remained blank, and the pencil than to materials: nothing is unmanageable had been forgotten. I can therefore only to a good hand; no place slippery to a good produce the record of my impressions of foot; all things are clear to a good head. it, as they were written down the same The sin of Dogmatism, of creeds and catechisms, is that they destroy mental character. The youth says that he believes when he is only browbeaten; he say he thinks so and so, when that so and so are the denial of any right to think. Simplicity and grandeur are thus lost; and with them the sentiment of obligation to a principle of life and honour. In the legends of the Round Table it is told, that a witch wishing to make her child supremely wise, prepared certain herbs and put them in a pot to boil, intending to bathe the child's eyes with the decoction. She set a shepherd boy to stir the pot whilst she went away. Whilst he stirred it a raven dropped a twig into the pot, which spattered three drops of the liquid into the shepherd's eyes. Immediately all the future became as if passing before his eyes; and seeing that when the witch returned she meant to kill him, he left the pot and fled to the woods. Now if three drops of that all-revealing decoction should suddenly get into the eyes of every human being crowding along Broadway some day, how many of them would still go on with the affair they are pursuing on the street? Probably they would nearly all come to a dead stand! But there would, let us hope, be here and there a happy child of the Most High, who had taken hold of her or his life's thread by sacred appointment. These would move on without even a pause the unveiled future would show the futility of many schemes, the idleness of many labours; but every genuine aim would only be exalted, and shown in their eternal and necessary relations. Finally, Humility was, the speaker 'O Virgin Mother, daughter of thy son, It is impossible to estimate the influence Emerson has had in chastening the style of writing and speaking in America. Were the Websters and Clays to return they would, I believe, find a generation yawning under their finest rhetoric. The spreadeagle's wings are visibly drooping on the stump and in Congress, and a calmer voice proceeds from the pulpit. The conditions under which this change has been wrought have been furnished by the diffusion of education through the free-school systems, but the most potent secondary cause has been this Sower, who, with the beginning of the generation now closing, went forth and scattered through the land pearl seed where rhetorical glass beads had hitherto been admired. And in all this time, so healthy and impersonal had been his influence, Emerson has never had an eminent imitator. His method has from the first been affirmative; and he has thus revolutionized the old habits of thought by building, without the sound of a hammer, the nobler temple. An eminent Comtist has lately expressed the opinion that Europe is far more than America emancipated from the creeds and forms of the past: but where the leading minds are devoting themselves to the creation of the new instead of the destruction of the old, their kingdom comes without observation. I cannot agree with the critic to whom I have referred, but find that much is still treated as religious radicalism in Europe, which in America has already become conservatism. In one of his earlier works Emerson speaks of people going to Europe to become American. Perhaps he spoke from experience in this. He has three times, I believe, travelled in Europe, and since his last return his faith in American tendencies has almost amounted to an enthusiasm. In his early lectures and addresses he speaks of the society around him as hopeless; the only things worth praising were the communities of the Fourierites, the St. Simonians, the Peace Societies, and the like, which were springing up everywhere. He made addresses favourable to negro-emancipation, to the enfranchisement of women, against war, and evidently regarded these as the uncombined elements of a new state which was to supersede American politics, which were hereditary, imported, transient. One of the finest of his productions is one on war, which was published as one of Miss Peabody's collection of Esthetic Papers, of which it may be well to give some account here. He sees that war has been historically essential. The microscope reveals miniature butchery in atomies and infinitely small biters, that swim and fight in an illuminated drop of water; and the little globe is but a too faithful miniature of the large. This strife in the little and large worlds comes of the great and beneficent principle -selp-help. In early days war forwarded the culture of man, as for example, the conquest of the East by Alexander. It also educates the senses, calls into action the will, and perfects the physical constitution. The sympathy with war is, however, a juvenile and temporary state. Trade, Art, Learning, Religion, have shown War to be fratricide. War and Peace have now been resolved into a mercury of the state of civilization. A nation so developed as to be without armaments were a nation that none would attack. With regard to the extreme cases urged against the individual non-resistant, he says, A wise man will never impawn his future being and action, and decide beforehand what he shall do in a given extreme event. Nature and God will instruct him in that hour.' The fact that a band of people have made universal peace an aim worthy of concert and prayer is the signal fact. A thought raised the mighty war-establishments to keep the peace of the globe, and a higher thought shall melt them away. It is to be done by a heroism greater than the heroisms of war; by men who have, by their intellectual insight, or else by their moral elevation, attained such a perception of their own intrinsic worth, that they do not think property or their own body a sufficient good to be saved by such a dereliction of principle as treating a man like a sheep.' I quote the concluding paragraphs of this lecture: If the universal cry for reform of so many inveterate abuses, with which society rings, if the desire of a large class of young men for a faith and hope, intellectual and religious, such as they have not yet found, be an omen to be and in action, on the unexplored riches of the trusted; if the disposition to rely more, in study human constitution, if the search of the sublime laws of morals and the sources of hope and trust in man, and not in books, — in the present and not in the past, proceed; if the rising generation can be provoked to think it unworthy to nestle into every abomination of the past, and shall feel the generous darings of austerity and virtue; then war has a short day, and human blood will cease to flow. - It is of little consequence in what manner, through what organs, this purpose of mercy and holiness is effected. The proposition of the Congress of Nations is undoubtedly that at which the present fabric of our society and the present course of events do point. But the mind, once prepared for the reign of principles, will easily find modes of expressing its will. There is the highest fitness in the place and and time in which this enterprise begun. Not in an obscure corner, not in a feudal Europe, ward step can be taken without rebellion, is the not in an antiquated appanage where no onseed of benevolence laid in the furrow, with tears of hope; but in this broad America of God and man, where the forest is only now falling, or yet to fall, and the green earth open to the inundation of emigrant men from all quarters of oppression and guilt; here, where not a family, not a few men, but mankind, shall say what shall be; here we ask, shall it be War, or shall it be Peace? With all the faith in America uttered in these words, there is an undertone of distrust in political and official America. But from it there is traceable a growing ten- civility of the world'the post-office, dency to identify Utopia with the complete with its educating energy, augmented by development of American institutions, and cheapness, and guarded by a certain religa willingness to work through them. In ious sentiment in mankind, shows the power this, he does but represent the experience of a wafer or a drop of wax or gluten to of all the idealistic movements in that coun- guard a letter, as it flies over sea, over land, try; they sprang up by hundreds, but the and comes to its address as if a battalion social atmosphere refused their isolation, of artillery brought it'— multitudes obeyand they have everywhere been diffused ing law in opposition to their strongest pasinto and become the leaven of the general sions- the higher influence of woman society; so that in America, with a very the diffusion of knowledge so that the few unthrifty exceptions, the only separate coarsest newspaper has scraps of science communities existing are those of ignorant and poetry, which makes us hesitate to fanatics, far nearer to gross and despotic tear one before looking it through — the social forms than the general body of so- ship 'an abridgment and compound of a ciety. In the anti-slavery agitation, Emer- nation's arts the skill that pervades comson especially saw the advance of a trans- plex details; the man that maintains himcendent idea in the public mind. As year self; the chimney taught to burn its own after year the numbers of the votes cast for smoke; the farm made to produce all that is candidates nominated in the interest of consumed on it; the very prison compelled emancipation increased, he seemed to have to maintain itself and yield a revenue, and the sense of the Indian, and to hear in these better than that, made a reform school and softly falling ballots the tread of distant a manufactory of honest men out of rogues. triumphant armies. His lectures dealt more All these are examples of that tendency to and more with the condition of the nation, combine antagonisms and utilise evil, which and finally, when the late civil war broke is the index of high civilisation.' He traced out, no one shared more profoundly the the influence of climate, of proximity to hope of a renovated and nobler America, the sea, and other circumstances on civiliwhich was the pillar of fire that led the sation, but found that everywhere it is debest of his countrymen through those deso- pendent on a true, and not merely so-called late four years of wandering and war. such national importance was his advice Of morality. He said now considered, that he was invited by a Civilisation depends on morality. Everynumber of politicians and statesmen to give thing good in man leans on what is higher. a lecture, in the spring of 1862, in Wash- This rule holds in small as well as great. ington. And many thought that Emerson Thus, all our strength and success in the work lecturing at Washington and consulted by of the elements. You have seen a carpenter on of our hands depend on our borrowing the aid President Lincoln in those days, was a higher sign than the banner of stars and chips and slivers from a beam. How awka ladder with a broad axe chopping upward stripes. It meant infallibly a new order in ward; at what disadvantage he works. But America, and one already outgrowing all see him on the ground, dressing his timber prophecies. I find much difficulty in giving under him. Now, not his feeble muscles, but any adequate report of this lecture, which the force of gravity brings down the axe; that was delivered before a large audience and is to say, the planet itself splits his stick. The in the presence of President Lincoln and farmer had much ill-temper, laziness, and shirkhis Cabinet, whom, however, he did not failing to endure from his hand-sawyers, until one to censure for the hesitation especially in day he bethought him to put his saw-mill on dealing with slavery - which they had not tires of turning his wheel; the river is goodthe edge of a water fall; and the river never yet thrown off. So completely did Emer-natured and never hints an objection. son utilise this singular opportunity, so admire still more the skill which, on the seaheavily did he load every sentence with shore, makes the tides drive the wheels and meaning, that to report partially, as I must, grind the corn, and which thus engages the asseems like mutilating a living form. In this lecture, to which he gave the title * American Civilisation,' Emerson began by tracing the progress of man from his rude condition; the wigwam transformed to a stone house; the savage trail graded and bridged into a road, uniting clans into a society; the hunter become agriculturist. He notes the chief metres of the present เ I sistance of the moon like a hired hand, to grind, that they never go out of their road. We are 'unless above himself he can Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!' saved by our firmness, or to be lost by hesitation. The war is welcome to the Southerner: a chivalrous sport to him, like hunting, and suits his semi-civilised condition. On the climbing scale of progress he is just up to war, and has never appeared to such advantage as in the last twelvemonth. It does not suit us. We are advanced some ages on the war-state to trade, art, and general cultivation. His labourer works for him at home, so that he loses no labour by the war. All our soldiers are labourers, so that the South, with its inferior numbers, is almost on a footing in effective war-population with the North. Again, so long as we fight without any affirmative step But when his will leans on a principle, when taken by the Government, any word intimating he is the vehicle of ideas, he borrows their om- forfeiture in the rebel States of their old privinipotence. Gibraltar may be strong, but ideas leges under the law, they and we fight on the are impregnable, and bestow on the hero their same side-for slavery. Again, if we conquer invincibility. It was a great instruction,' said the enemy, what then? We shall still have to a saint in Cromwell's war, that the best cour- keep him under, and it will cost as much to ages are but beams of the Almighty.' Hitch keep him down, as it did to get him down. your wagon to a star. In this national Then comes the summer, and the fever will crisis, it is not argument that we want, but that drive our soldiers home. Next winter we must rare courage which dares commit itself to a begin at the beginning and conquer him over principle, believing that Nature is its ally, and again. What use, then, to take a fort, or privawill create the instruments it requires and more teer, or get possession of an inlet, or to capture than make good any petty and injurious profit a regiment of rebels? But one weapon we which it may disturb. There never was such a hold which is sure: Congress can, by edict, as combination as this of ours, and the rules to a part of the military defence which it is the meet it are not set down in any history. We duty of Congress to provide, abolish slavery and want men of original perception and original pay for such slaves as we ought to pay for. action, who can open their eyes wider than to a Then the slaves near our armies will come to nationality—namely, to considerations of ben-us; those in the interior will know in a week 6 efit to the human race- can act in the interest tue. It looks as if we held the fate of the fairest possession of mankind in our hands, to be what their rights are, and will, where opportu- There is no doubt that the President and the statesmen who surrounded him on that occasion were deeply impressed by this lecture, and Mr. Emerson was taken by Mr. Seward to see the President, with whom the matter was, I have heard, more fully discussed. Mr. Lincoln, however, still doubted whether he could rely upon the politi "If that fail, The pillared firmament is rottenness, And earth's base built on stubble.' With of the country, the strong arms of the mechan- cians and people of the North to stand by position, and planted ourselves on a law of naa measure which would so seriously affect ture. the commercial conditions of the entire country, as the immediate abolition of slavery, in which Northern firms were almost equally interested partners with Southern The Government has assured itself of the best plantations. Emerson maintained that a constituency in the world; every spark of intelright idea did not disclose its whole lect, every virtuous feeling, every religious heart, commanding force until tried. Soon af- every man of honour, every poet, every philoster the President began to move cautious- opher, the generosity of the cities, the health ly in the direction indicated, and proposed that Congress should offer to co-operate with any State that should enter upon the work of emancipation, and pay such State a large sum of money, and his proposition was at once adopted by Congress. The States, however, generally ridiculed the offer. A paragraph which Emerson wrote concerning this proposition shows how fine an impression President Lincoln had made upon him during their interview. More and better,' he wrote, than the President has spoken shall the effect of this message be; but, we are sure, not more or better than he hoped in his heart when, thoughtful of all the complexities of his position, he penned these cautious words.' The effect of that first plainly anti-slavery message that an American Congress had ever received, was indeed great. It proved to be a plain unanswerable admonition to the people, from one in whom they had confidence, that slavery stood in the path of the national union and had to be dealt with, and it made them ready for the next step. That step soon followed. The President admonished the insurgent States that on the following New Year's Day, to wit, that of 1863, he would proclaim slavery for ever abolished in every State that should be found in arms against the General Government. It was known that the President had a way of sticking to his word, and this proclamation of Sept. 22, 1862, was a signal for a general exasperation of all the pro-slavery elements of the country, and a general joy amongst those who felt that the afflictions through which the nation was passing, could be compensated only by the liberation of the nation from the great wrong which they knew would continue to harry the country whilst it lasted. Emerson was called to address the people of Boston on this occasion, and none who had the happiness to hear him - can ever then as the writer of this did We have recovered ourselves from our false 'Incertainties now crown themselves assured, And Peace proclaims olives of endless age.' (Those who in England shall read these radiant expressions — which did most truly utter the hope and joy of all honourable and earnest Americans may, perhaps, judge how cold and cruel seemed the sneers which the ships that bore the glad tidings over the ocean brought back in response from so many of that constituency,' which Emerson had declared was thenceforth assured to America.) When the proclamation of emancipation came on the 1st of January, 1863, the popular joy rose to its height. Men laughed and "When the Lord wept along the streets. turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with singing.' Bells were rung, cannon fired, the negroes passed the night in their chapels and greeted the day on their knees, and vast public meetings were held in the various cities to welcome and celebrate the event. At that held in the chief hall of Boston, Emerson read a poem, which he called the Boston Hymn,' of which I give a few verses; The word of the Lord by night To the watching Pilgrims came, And filled their hearts with flame. |