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Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 
 A MEMORIAL ADBRESS, 
 
 Delivered on Sunday Evening, April 30th, 1882, 
 
 BY 
 
 Charles .G. jA^MES, 
 
 MINISTER OF SPRING GARDEN UNITARIAN SOCmTY, 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 " Lowly faithful, banish fear, 
 
 Right onward drive unharmed'; 
 
 The port, well worth the cruise, is near, 
 And every wave is charmed." 
 
 Spahgleb & DAVts, Printers, 529 Oommerobj Strbjet, Philadblfhia. 
 
SENTENCES FROM ECCLESIASTICUS. 
 
 Let us now praise famous men The Lord hath wrought 
 
 great glory by them, .... men renowned for their power, giving 
 counsel by their understanding and declaring pflSphecies, . . . leaders 
 of the people by their counsels, and by their knowledge of learning meet 
 
 for the people, wise and eloquent in their instructions Such as 
 
 found out musical tunes and recited verses in writing All these 
 
 were honored in their generation, and were the glory of their times. , . , 
 These be of them that have left a name behind, that their praises might be 
 
 reported Their bodies are buried in peace^ but their name liveth 
 
 forevermore. 
 
 While I was yet young, or ever I went abroad, I desired wisdom openly 
 in my prayer. I prayed for her before the temple, and will atek her out 
 even to the end. Even from the flower till the grape was ripe, hath my 
 heart delighted in her: my foot went in the right way. ....... I 
 
 bowed down mine ear .... and got much learning. I profited therein: 
 
 therefore will I ascribe glory to Him that givet'h me wisdom. 
 
 I also came out as a dra;in from a river, and as a conduit into a garden. 
 I said, I will water my best garden, and will water abundantly my garden 
 bed ; and lo ! my brook became a river, and my river became a sea. . . 
 I will yet make doctrine to shine as the morning, and will send her light 
 afar olf. I will yet pour out doctrine as prophecy, and loa.vo it to all ages 
 forever. Behold that I have not labored for myself only, but for all them 
 that seek wisdom. , 
 
 The wisdom of a learned man Cometh by opportunity of leisure. . . . 
 He thatgivoth his inind to the law of the Most High, and is occupied in the 
 
 meditation thereof, will seek out the wisdom of the ancient He 
 
 will keep the sayings of renowned men ; and where subtile parables are, he 
 will be there also. He will seek out the secrets of grave sentences. . . . 
 He will travel through strange countries ; for he hath tried the good and 
 the evil among men. ... . When the great Lord will, he shall be iilled 
 with the spirit of understanding, and give thanks unto the Lord in his 
 
 prayer He shall show forth that which h? hath learned. . . . 
 
 Many shall commend his understanding, and so long as the world endureth 
 it shall not be blotted out. 
 
 Let the counsel of thine own heart sta,nd ; for there is no man more 
 faithful to thee than it. For a man's mind is sometimes wont to tell him 
 more than seven watchmen that sit above in a high tower. 
 
 The Lord Almighty is G-od alone He fllleth all things with 
 
 His wisdom He raaketh the doctrine of knowledge appear as the 
 
 light The first man knew her not perfectly ; no more shall the 
 
 last find her out. For her thoughts are more than the sea, and her counsels 
 profounder than the great deep. 
 
 2 
 
Memorial Address. 
 
 To-day, in the bistorio village of Concord, Massa- 
 chusetts, the neighbors of Ralph Waldo Emerson 
 have stood in silent and unspeakable emotion around 
 his open grave. We are all deeply moved by his 
 death, because we have been deeply moved by his 
 life. "They are greatest who do and teach," says 
 Jesus, and this man has both lived and taught the 
 divinest lessons— himself a moral hero and a child of 
 the Uncreated Light. So lately he moved before 
 our eyes in the beauty of wisdom, making the world 
 brighter and sweeter for his presence ; and already 
 he is a memory. I do not say he has passed beyond 
 the reach of our praise or blame ; he always was be- 
 yond ; else he could not so well have shown us how to 
 live, nor how grand a thing it is to have a place in 
 the universe of God. My present motive is not So 
 much to do him honor, as to seek the great secret of 
 his life, and to confirm its impressions. To make 
 Emerson better understood is to make everything 
 better understood. 
 
 Let us look first at his ' physical foundations. 
 That the pure spirit of Jesus might have a fitting 
 tabernacle in the flesh, the Eoman church teaches 
 that both he and his mother were born miraculously 
 immaculate. This may be but a theological exagera- 
 
4 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 tion of the truth hidden in the mysterious law of 
 heredity. The Hindoo scripture says, "Brahma writes 
 every man's destiny on his skull," and we know that 
 each new child is the complex effect of many ancestral 
 causes. Happy and fortunate is that child of God 
 who meets no damage nor obstruction in the processes 
 by which he becomes a child of man. 
 
 Emerson inherited a sound, mind in a sound body. 
 He was the handsome flower of a fine stock. He 
 came honestly by the brain of a scholar, and the 
 spirit of a serious and independent thinker. Clean 
 blood flowed into his veins from the hearts of English 
 Puritans who could not surrender manhood or con- 
 science to king or priest, and from the blood of 
 French Waldenses who kept the free faith of Christ 
 through the darkest, bloodiest days of the papacy. 
 Fifty of his family connections have been Harvard 
 graduates, twenty have been ministers, eight of them 
 in his own direct line. His mother was a strong, 
 sweet character, full of devout and lofty aspirations 
 that her five sons, early left fatherless, might become 
 sons of God and servants of man. ]!f or must we for- 
 get the excellent aunt who helped to bring up the 
 lads; a woman who "could see right through and 
 through you," who knew and loved both books and 
 boys, and had great power for good. 
 
 There was need of carieful economy, and Mr. Cooke 
 (from whose valuable book about Emerson I gather 
 much) tells how little "Waldo repented that he had 
 spent six cents in hiring a novel from the library. 
 Boston was a small city then ; life was simple arid 
 homespun, and driving the cow to pasture was one of 
 the boy's daily chores. In manhood's days, when he 
 
EALPH WALDO BMBESOX. ,5 
 
 came to high honors and was the guest of the :^rst 
 company in the Old "World and New, and was ranked 
 among the few great men of the age, he still kept his 
 respect for humbler toil and toilers, and his faculty of 
 helping himself. A few weeks ago an English gentle- 
 man told me that he had recently visited Concord, 
 hoping to catch sight of the one living American 
 whom he most venerated. Strolling near Emerson's 
 house, he saw the philosopher bringing from the shed 
 aa armful of wood. He could still be his own chore- 
 boy. The cow-path had led into the King's highway, 
 but he never lost sight of his mother's wood-pile ; nor 
 do I think we are eyer to be pained by reading of 
 him such tales as are told of Carlyle, who sat by and 
 smoked while his feeble wife cleared away the mass 
 of soot which had fallen irom the chimney. 
 
 There is not time to dwell on the years which went 
 to School and college ; but it is worth noting that the 
 wakeful and hungry-minded youth soon found that 
 the lesson-books held but a small part of what he 
 must learn ; he craved a richer diet, and took to 
 reading and ruminating over famous authors of all 
 times and lands. Earth and heaven were already 
 opening. 
 
 He made no haste to come. before the public. In 
 January, 1829, when he was nearly 26 years old, the 
 Unitarians ordained him as minister of the Second 
 Church of Boston. It was soon apparent to thought- 
 ful persons that a new man had appeared, with some- 
 what to say ; that he did not exactly represent the 
 smooth and decorous routine of pulpit scholarship; 
 but was bent on leading his hearers into an earnest 
 and real religious life. To prepared souls, his words 
 
6 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 were as the bread of God; but others could make 
 nothing of him, and some felt repelled. His own 
 mind was in motion. In three years, he parted com- 
 pany with the parish over the question of the Lord's 
 Supper. He did not object to giving out the bread 
 and wine as at a festival of commemoration ; but he 
 could not treat it as something commanded or im- 
 portant to religious living. There was no quarrel; 
 the people loved him, but the rite was to them a stand- 
 ard of loyalty which they could not abandon. He 
 freed his mind, and offered his resignation. 
 
 Then he went abroad with health out of repair ; 
 he looked at the great world ; njade the acquaintance 
 of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Carlyle, and Landor, and 
 came home renewed and vigorous. In 1834 he mar- 
 ried and established himself in Concord, where sev- 
 eral generations of his ancestors lie buried. Here, in 
 delicious rural quiet, with winsome surroundings of 
 meadows and orchards, and streams and wooded hills, 
 in a community of self-respecting farmers and vil- 
 lagers of rare intelligence and quality, he has made 
 his home for forty-eight years, devoting himself to 
 study, meditation, writing and public speech, on the 
 most vital and fruitful themes which have ever occu- 
 pied the mind of man. For several years longer he 
 was a frequent preacher in Unitarian pulpits ; but he 
 grew more and more disinclined to public prayer ; and 
 as he was made aware that the leading ministers and 
 laymen were distressed and alarmed by his unsound- 
 ness, he withdrew altogether, and trusted for a hear- 
 ing to platform and press. Boston was but twenty 
 miles away ; other bright cities front the sea, and dot 
 the interior ; railroads were extending through all the 
 
KALPH WALDO EMERSON. 7 
 
 States, and were destined to transport more precious 
 freight than the products of New England cotton- 
 mills or western wheat-fields. 
 
 The country was younger than now, and had only 
 a third of its present population ; but many could 
 read and a few could think. There were many signs 
 of a great intellectual and moral awakening. Theo- 
 dore Parker tells us in part what happened : " The 
 brilliant genius of Emerson rose in the winter nights 
 and hung over Boston, drawing the eyes of ingenu- 
 ous young people to look up at that great new star, a 
 beauty and a mystery, which charmed for the mo- 
 ment while it also gave perennial inspiration, as it 
 led them forward along new paths and toward new 
 hopes." But how few mortals look up to the stars 
 for guidance or cheer ! The multitude ever walk with 
 faces to the earth. ' 
 
 Emerson's hearing was small at first ; it never grew 
 rapidly. Many of his sayings were startling ; of 
 others the meaning was not clear ; people who 
 thought the old paths plain and safe were afraid this 
 strange guide might lead them into the wilderness. 
 Some who set the intellectual fashions, or who were 
 heavy stockholders in goods of the old patterns, could 
 not forgive a man for saying new things, or for saying 
 old things in a new way. Indeed, they could not 
 understand him; some said the young man must be 
 out of his mind. But a few saw and heard in him 
 "an apostle of the Eternal Reason." Horace Mann 
 thought him " a discoverer of richer worlds " than 
 Oolum'bus had found by searching the seas or Her- 
 schel the skies. Margaret Fuller, brightest of women, 
 said that from Emerson she " first learned what is 
 
8 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 meant by an inward life " — -a phrase which may be 
 used as a key to his whole word and work. James 
 Freeman Clarke was one of the young men who found 
 in him " a guide, teacher, master," who helped his 
 hearers in two ways, which are yet one — by teaching 
 " self-reliance and God-reliance." Con vers Francis, 
 a Harvard divinity professor and brother of Mrs. 
 Child, said, "He' is a true, godful man ; though jn 
 his love for the ideal he disregards the actual." Per- 
 haps Emerson- thought men in no danger of forget- 
 ting that they have hands and feet and eyes and ears ; 
 their danger is in never finding the higher meaning 
 of existence. " Isn't it a pity that young Emerson has 
 gone insane ?" said a fine Boston lady to one of the 
 preachers. " I wish I were as insane as he !" was the 
 response. 
 
 Dr. Walter Channing liked to listen ; but it made 
 his head ache. I think Emerson has made many 
 heads ache ; and perhaps Bagehot lias given the e^ 
 planation : " To entertain a new idea is a most pain- 
 ful efltbrt." The new idea disturbs all the old ones ; 
 there must be a readjustment ; or, if the adjustment 
 is impossible, old ones must be tumbled out to make 
 room. This keeps the unpractioed hearer too busy ; 
 and often the doors of a human brain are not wide 
 enough for one thought to enter while another is 
 taking leave. Hence headaches ; hence also many 
 people prefer not to be troubled with " new notions." 
 Is it strange that " a fool hateth instruction ?" 
 
 But what was it all about ? How did the new way 
 of thinking differ from the old one? It diff'ered 
 chiefly in its ideas of God and Man, and their rela- 
 tion to each other and to Nature. The old way said, 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 9 
 
 God is outside of the world. He looks on it as a 
 spectator, and works on it like a mechanic. The 
 new way said, God is inside of all things, and works 
 as an immanent living spirit. The old way said, 
 God is revealed to man in a book, written long ago 
 and sent by special messengers. The new way said, , 
 Eevelation is continuous, and inspiration is universal 
 as gravity. God's word is in all souls, as He is. 
 Bibles are always growing. The old way said, Man 
 is empty of all divinity and God is far. Miracle is 
 the only sign by which we can know when He pays 
 us a visit. The new way said, God is here, and man's 
 soul is His dwelling place and throne. All is miracle. 
 The old way said. Nature is profane or secular, the 
 religious life can get no help from it ; only hindrance. 
 The new way said. Nature is sacred ; it is full of God ; 
 it is itself a revelation. Every true . science is God's 
 Messiah, reconciling the world to its Maker ; beauty 
 is the lure to Him, not a;way from Him. Truth' 
 springs out of the earth, and righteousness looks 
 down from heaven. The old way said, Eeligion is in 
 historic forms of doctrine and institution, and con- 
 formity is the only safety. The new way said, Re- 
 ligion is the law and power of inward life. That life 
 has produced the scriptures, created churches and 
 rituals ; it cannot be produced by them ; it mijst be 
 their judge. The old way said. There is nothing for 
 us till we die and go to heaven ; then we shall see 
 and know and be saved, — unless we are lost. The ' 
 new way said. All things are ours, now and here. 
 There is nowhere any law or power or grace of God 
 that we cannot find right where we are. The spirit- 
 ual laws sweep through all worlds, including this 
 
10 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 one. We make heaven and hell ; the day of j udg- 
 ment is all the time. To every faithful soul the 
 Spirit says, "Well done!" and that soul enters now 
 into the joy of the Lord. To every false soul the 
 Spirit says, " Depart from me !" and that soul already 
 dwells in outer darkness. 
 
 These sentences indicate but faintly the new inter- 
 pretations, which were yet most ancient ; for " that 
 original and Eternal Life out of which all traditions 
 arose" was simply pushing forward new growths like 
 those of these days of Spring. The old leaves were 
 rustling and falling because their time had come. 
 All problems were re-opened. Public and private 
 life, social order, education, most of all the founds^- 
 tion questions of religion and the church, came up 
 for review and re-settlement. 
 
 The air was soon disturbed by a multitude of 
 voices, musical or hoarse, wise or foolish, some crying 
 one thing, and some another. But the calmest man 
 of all was he whose words had given the signal for 
 the commotion. Emerson gave his word, went back 
 to his books and his pine groves, and in due time 
 brought forth more lectures, more essays, more poems, 
 as he has continued to do until his sun drew near its 
 setting. In about forty-five years ten volumes of his 
 writings have appeared, of which two are in verse. 
 
 Emerson understood from the first that this is not 
 a world where spiritual goods and truths are most 
 valued by the multitude. He has never gone a step 
 out of his way tq win praise or to shun blame, nor to 
 reconcile himself to prevailing standards of opinion or 
 practice. To those who did not know him as the 
 self-forgetting and impersonal lover of reality, there 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 11 
 
 has seemed something haughty in his indifference 
 to " popular noises." Father Taylor, his Methodist 
 neighbor, thought him more like Jesus than any 
 other man he knew , and this likeness appears in his 
 simple fidelity to , the Spirit withii;i. Like all pro- 
 phet's since the world was, he coveted a hearing ; but 
 whether men would hear or forbear, he could only 
 report the vision as he saw it. To think long and 
 calmly, and then to speak to men as sincerely as one 
 would speak to God in solitude, is not a common 
 virtue. We have had few men in this America of 
 ours who both desired and dared to live above the 
 world in a separate and independent sphere, searching 
 only for wisdom as for hid treasure ; few students 
 also who were patient enough with the slow growth 
 of their own thought to let its fruit, ripen before 
 gathering it for market or for exhibition. Was ever 
 century before the nineteenth so fed by its public 
 teachers with green apples ? 
 
 Mr. Emerson has been looked on as the assailant of 
 religion ; but it must soon be clear that he has been 
 its truest representative, himself a challenge to coun- 
 terfeits and their test. The sham and cant and rant 
 which defile whole ranks of preachers and churches 
 might be cleansed by one drop of such blood as his. 
 The spirit that pulsates in his writings would uplift 
 and vivify "a whole popedom of forms." We only 
 expose the weakness of our faith and the unreality of 
 our professions when we denounce as an infidel and 
 enemy the man who is brave enough to trust God 
 without a writing, and reverent enough to abstain 
 from a definition of Him. Emerson is an omnivorous 
 believer, though with eyes wide open : rarely a. denier, 
 
12 EAiiPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 because too glad in the light to occupy himself with 
 fighting shadows ; not going about to blow out every 
 candle of doctrine wherewith men try to cheer or 
 guide their lives, but extinguishing them by a flood 
 of sunlight. He criticises error and reconciles ap- 
 parent contradictions by larger affirmations. ' 
 
 Our age has had no other such clear-sighted and 
 faithful critic. His friend Carlisle might have served 
 in this ofiice more nobly if his wrangle with that hor- 
 rible stomach had not pushed him into pessimistic 
 scolding and overstatement. Emerson's thoughts 
 never gush into passion ; he produces no dramatic 
 efiects by lurid lights or sheetriron thunder. He is 
 ever mindful of good, even when he speak of evil : he 
 is confident of the curative powers at work in the 
 human constitution and in society, and inspires us 
 with happy faith that nothing can perish except what 
 ought to perish. God is always bringing Kosmos 
 out of Chaos ; nothing can happen outside the sure, 
 safe law ; the devil and all the devils are sure to be 
 used for benignant ends which they do not mean. 
 This hopefulness grows out of a profound philosophic 
 conviction, — an insight into the realm of spiritual 
 order and causation, a persuasion that the universe is 
 sound at the core, because creation cannot be built or 
 kept up on a lie. 
 
 The quiet student and philosopher could look out 
 as well as in ; and kept his eye on all the movements 
 of the time. Occasionally he has left his retirement 
 and appeared in the public ring, a master among the 
 moral gladiators. His sympathy with justice, liberty 
 and social progress was so ready that be never 
 shirked the odium of being seen in the company of 
 
RALPH WALDO, EMERSON. 13 
 
 the most unpopular radicalSj when he deemed they 
 stood for a true principle. He was among the early 
 abolitionists ; no sterner voice expressed, the !N'orthera 
 indignation when Sumner was assaulted in the Sen- 
 ate chamber; and he shocked orthodox prejudices 
 by mentioning the hanging of John Brown in con- 
 nection , with the crucifixion. His letter to Van 
 33uren, remonstrating against injustice to the Cheror 
 kees, was probably the plainest piece of writing ever 
 addressed to any president. He signed the call for 
 the first Woman Suffrage Convention. He showed 
 himself on the platform of the Free Religious Asso- 
 ciation and let his name stand as its Vice President 
 to the last, not wholly approving its methods, but 
 wholly intent to testify that the human mind should 
 be as free in questions of religion as in all others. 
 And he thought theology needed criticism and day- 
 light. 
 
 But neither his tastes nor his principles led him 
 toward the mission of a public agitator. In some 
 grave crisis, he could deal a practical blow ; but he 
 saw that, as the church often misrepresents religion, 
 so reformers often misrepresent reform. He sharply 
 criticised their noisy methods and told them to their 
 faces that no good could come from foaming at the 
 mouth. As he looked behind good .institutions to find 
 religion and virtue, so he looked behind bad ones to 
 find injustice and vice. " "What we call our root-and- 
 branch reforms of slavery, war, gambling, intemper- 
 ance, is only medicating the symptoms. We must 
 begin higher up, namely in education." He was not 
 so shallow as to depend on books and schooling for 
 regenerating men ; he trusts only and always to the 
 
14 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 developement of moral and Bpiritual qualities. The 
 world will come right when men come right,, not be- 
 fore. There will be drunkenness till the prohibitory, 
 law is written on the hea,rt : sexual disorder till fri- 
 volity is displaced by thought ; slavery till you and I 
 are too unselfish to abuse our power over others. 
 Man can only be helped upward by " new infusions 
 of the spirit," — by the quickened activity of his true 
 life. So he threw himself wholly on spiritual re- 
 sources for the salvation of men, societies, civilizations. 
 In this, as in most else, he really re-affirms what 
 Paul calls " the truth as it is in Jesus, that we put off 
 the old man and put on the new " — that vital doctrine 
 and glory of all great religious, which we are ever 
 forgetting. 
 
 I think this just balance of Emerson's mind was 
 due not only to broad outlooks upon the world, but 
 to clear inlooks upon the soul and her laws of health. 
 But he had also that strong historic sense which, alone 
 corrects our narrow reasoning. He thought it a 
 shame to be tied to the Past, or to imitate in a servile 
 way even its greatest personages ; but a shame, and 
 also a poverty-strickeri pettiness, to treat the Past 
 with contempt. He understood that "it takes all 
 sorts of folks to make a world," — the men of yester- 
 day as well as the men of to-day. The spirit knows 
 no dates: the 19th century, like the first, may have 
 both wise men and fools. We must learn where we 
 can : and he is richest who can gather his treasures 
 from all lands and times. Indeed a man must know 
 other men to know himself: they are his looking-, 
 glass. So he must know the Past to understandithe 
 Present ; each is the key of the other, as each life is of 
 all lives. 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 15 
 
 All this comes to religious use, for by the right 
 knowledge of man we come to the knowledge of God. 
 He, the Soul of All and Father of Eternity, is revealed 
 in the soul of each and in the passing years ; in my 
 soui and in the Now, when I read aright; but more 
 broadly and fairly in all souls and all times. History 
 as a whole is the biography of man : . it puts before 
 us, as in a drama, the workings of all spiritual laws, — 
 laws of development, redemption and retribution. 
 Rightly interpreted it is a Holy Scripture, as all 
 knowledge is, when we take it by the handle. But 
 there is noihing in man, in history — nor in earth or 
 heaven — which is not in you. Everywhere and in 
 all forms, the formless One hides and waits to 
 be discovered. Learn this, and you will have rest, 
 and along with rest new power for work and for 
 growth. Such are the impressions one gathers from 
 reading Emerson. 
 
 Now it will be seen how his writings operate like 
 a declaration of individual independence, and at the 
 same time like a strong social cement. If infinite 
 powers are so close to me— so ever ready to be active 
 in me, like the vital quality hid in the egg or the 
 seed — then my personal history is provided for in my 
 constitution ; my outfit is complete. I need not ask 
 leave to be in the world ; nor go about hunting for 
 a pattern whereby to make myself; nor tremble for 
 fear I shall not find the way of life and salvation, 
 any more than a brook needs to find a map to show 
 it the way to the sea, or a bird needs go to a book on 
 Ornithology to be told how to fly or build its nest. 
 "Am I not also real ?" If Jesus was virtuous, " did 
 he wear out virtue ?" To distrust myself is to distrust 
 
16 EALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 God, who not only made me but ig, still making me ; 
 who not only sent me but came with me. My part is 
 to be true to my own nature, to trust to the still, 
 strong force of that divine life of which, I, if truej 
 shall be a continual receiver. 
 
 Yet I must not separate myself from my fellow-men, 
 nor from history, nor from nature, lest in so doing I 
 should separate myself from God, who is not only in 
 me, but in all that is and all that was. Not to revere 
 the divine manifestations without is to profane the 
 same majesty within. Besides, our conscious being 
 is made to depend on these connections with other 
 beings, — with the All. I shall never wake to con- 
 sciousness, unless I am in orderly relations, first, with 
 humane parentage which arrays me in a line with all 
 the past ; next, in orderly relations with the external 
 world, of which my body is an epitome ; with nature, 
 which arouses and salutes me through the senses,, 
 ofiers itself as an educational apparatus and supplies 
 me with language as a means of self-expression and 
 communication ; in orderly relation with my fellow- 
 man who is revealed to me as my other self, and with 
 the whole world, its past and present, with all its 
 knowledges, experiences,, struggles, sins, virtues ; for 
 at every one of these points of inward or outward 
 contact the Universal Soul operates on the particular^ 
 soul for the nursing and growth of its child. Self- 
 trust must not, therefore, crowd out other trust, nor 
 self-love other love ; I must take my place and bear 
 my part in this harmony of circulating life; I must 
 draw benefit from all and give benefit to all ; in short 
 I must " accept the universe," which will then let me 
 know that it accepts me. . Then shall I be calm, and, 
 strong, and glad, and free. 
 
RALPH WALDO EMBESON. 17 
 
 Emerson's j-eligious philosophy does not therefore 
 appear to let any man off fVom his proper responsi- 
 bility, but rather enforces it. While " there is no 
 god dare harm a worm," there is no god will help the 
 man who declines to help himself. To help him by 
 prostrating his own will would destroy him. 
 
 "For God who works both high and wise, 
 Nor falters in His plan. 
 Will take the sun out of the skies 
 Ere freedom out of man." 
 
 I have hardly given, even in outline, Emerson's 
 large view of the divine method of human develop- 
 ment and culture ; but we may hope to return to 
 some of these fruitful subjects. For thirty-four years 
 he has held on in a career of remarkable consistency. 
 His Cambridge Address of 1838 was a forecast of all 
 that has followed; indeed he has done little else than 
 to reaffirm, amplify and apply that magnificent 
 statement. Those who can read him but little will 
 do well to make themselves familiar with that inspired 
 utterance. , 
 
 His doctrine has been outbuilt from his life. He 
 has lived to learn and teach. He has been question- 
 ing nature, literature, history and his own soul and 
 interpreting to mankind the clearest answers he could 
 draw from these oracles. Shunning the confusing 
 noise and empty rattle of great cities, he has held 
 himself open tO' the influence of skies and seasons, 
 woods and waters, mountains and stars ; he has been 
 willing to learn from flowers and insects ; and in his 
 poems you hear alike the hum of the bee, the anthem 
 of the ocean and the silent music of the spheres. At^ 
 the same time, he has sought familiar converse with 
 
18 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 the foremost minds of all the ages, — with " Plato's 
 brain and Lord Christ's 'heart," with the sages of 
 Persia, India, China, with Plotinus, Shakespeare, 
 Spinoza, Pascal, Swedenborg, Goethe, — never caring 
 to appear original, though incapable of being an 
 echo, — intent only on catching from oldest or newest 
 sources the truest tidings which man has received 
 from the Inner Kingdom. He sings his own creed in 
 the oft-quoted lines : 
 
 " The word unto the prophets spoken, 
 Was writ on tables yet unbroken ; 
 The word to seers and sybils told, , 
 In groves of oak or fanes of gold, 
 Still floats upon the morning wind, 
 Still whispers to the willing mind : 
 One accent of the Holy Ghost 
 The heedless world has never lost." 
 
 Calling no man master, neither has he wished to be 
 
 called master ; but has freely given what he has freely 
 received, and trusted his word to the wind which 
 bloweth where it listeth and to the reason and judg- 
 ment of mankipd. Is there, as he declares, but 
 " one mind in all men ?" Then so far as your mind 
 or mine can see clearly — so far as we escape from the 
 blindness of tradition, prejudice, ignorance and un- 
 spiritual conditions^so far we shall agree in seeing 
 and selecting the true and the good, whoever may 
 announce it. 
 
 The pure in heart shall see : they shall see God ! I 
 think our great ascended friend was one of the purest 
 in heart who ever glorified the earth ; and I think 
 he saw God in the best of all senses. He saw not, 
 and would hardly have cared to see, any overwhelm- 
 ing vision of outward personal state, of splendor and 
 
RALPH WALDO EMBESON. 19 
 
 greatness and sovereignity ; he saw the spiritual re- 
 vealing of that All-Holy Life which " hides in pure 
 transparency," yet is surely made known to the 
 humble and faithful ones who share it. Indeed, I 
 think he would say that to share that Life is the only 
 " evidence " we have or need. 
 
 It would be most unjust to give the impression 
 that this glorious man was simply a dreamer or 
 theorist, or a seer and sayer of matters too subtle or 
 too sacred for human nature's daily food. Emerson 
 is as much a Yankee as he is a philosopher. Next to 
 Franklin, he has been the most practical of all our dis- 
 tinguished Americans. And Franklin, since he never 
 rose so high, could not look so wide nor find half so 
 large a field for the application of his everyday wits. 
 Having settled it that man is here on earth for the 
 development-,of inward or spiritual being, Emerson 
 passed rapidly to the uses of this truth. He was full of 
 hope for the coming of a day when man on earth 
 would come into possession of his present heritage ; 
 a day when all activities of body and mind, all trades, 
 industries, professions, arts, institutions, and all 
 physical and mental resources, would become parts of 
 a beautiful and beneficent ministry to human welfare 
 and completeness. This great hope runs through his 
 pages like an implication. 
 
 His mind was like a mint, continually striking 
 coins of golden wisdom for circulation among those 
 who can aftbrd such riches. It would be easy to 
 compile from his works a body of pithy practical 
 sayings larger than the Book of Proverbs attributed 
 to Solomon, and far better adapted as a whole to our 
 modern needs. Many of these sentencSs — compact. 
 
20 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 neatly cut, crisp and salty — express principles and 
 laws of universal application. Without being hirnT 
 self a man of affairs, he has observed affairs far more 
 shrewdly than most who are immersed in them: 
 without being a man of science he has profoundly 
 stimulated the researches of others. Mr. Tyndall 
 says, " If any one can be said to have given the im- 
 pulse to my mind, it is EmersOn. Whatever I have 
 done, the world owes it to him." 
 
 Let us allow that there is a higher power of prac- 
 tical wisdom than that which teaches us to steer a 
 ship or set a pot boiling. Think what new and large 
 meanings our thinker has put into common words ! 
 Friendship, society, solitude, truth, love, duty, man- 
 ners, behavior, politics, patriotism, reform, culture, 
 nature, beauty, freedom, power ; to use such words in 
 the light of his thought is of itself a liberal educa- 
 tion. He has set them up as handsome door-ways, 
 opening into the magnificent temple of Spiritual 
 Reality. 
 
 His speech had a subtle spell, — a charm like nature's 
 own, so that he affected men like Old Honesty. I 
 think if rocks and trees, brooks and winds, sun- 
 sets and stars, could articulate, they would speak in a 
 voice like Emerson's ; so silvery, cheery, sane, fear- 
 less ! And if high, clear thoughts, stainless of pas- 
 sion or weakness, could select their own voice, lo, 
 here was the spokesman prepared by nature ! There 
 was no false ring, no trick to catch applause or to 
 turn off attention from the message to the messenger ; 
 no show of knowledge or power or art. One might 
 forget it all the next hour, though sheer moral 
 inability to Stay at such an unwonted altitude; but 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 21 
 
 while listeni-ng to that high discourse it certainly did 
 seem as if we belonged up there, — as if a man ought 
 to make the very earth a pedestal of honor for his 
 feet and wear the sky about his brow as an aureole. 
 
 Who dare accuse him of leading a life of literary 
 self-indulgence? He had an honorable sense of the 
 mission of a scholar: — " to cheer, to raise, to guide 
 men, by showing them facts amid appearances." 
 Therefore, he must be calm when they are excited ; 
 wakeful and watchful when they are drinking poppy- 
 juice. He must not be carried off his feet by social 
 or party disturbance, nor blinded by the dust of the^ 
 chariots which bear popular idols aloDg the public 
 ways. He must live above all panics. " Let him not 
 quit his belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the 
 ancient and the honorable of the earth affirm it to be 
 the crack of doom." One such strong, wise man may 
 sometimes give out sanity enough to save a nation 
 from dissolving into a mob. 
 
 It has been good for us all that a man has been 
 among us who declined to share our atheistic anxiety 
 about the safety of the truth. Having spoken his 
 thought, he has no concern how it should be taken ; 
 he can go back to his books, he can sleep or die ; but 
 that truth has come to stay, and is as sure to conquer 
 as God is to keep his throne. For in the long run 
 and the large way all the faculties of man and the 
 forces of the world must work together to expose a 
 a lie. A lie is like a false recipe ; the experiment dis- 
 proves it, it will not work. A traveller or a nation 
 may take a wrong direction and lose a great deal of 
 time ; but it must sooner or later be clear that the 
 wrong road does not lead to the right place. Every 
 
22 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 false theory of governiRent or of society will play it- 
 self out ; then the people who have tried to prosper 
 by fraud, or to be hap^y while living like beasts, will 
 see their mistake and build a monument to the 
 prophet who. was stoned for telling the truth. ' 
 
 If modern times have produced a sage, that sage 
 was Emerson. He had that genius of insight which 
 is sometimes credited to Indian doctors, who know 
 the qualities of wildwood plants, their barks, leaves, 
 roots and juices. His writings might well bear the 
 name given by the ancient Egyptians to the first 
 ^ibrary, — "Medicine for the Diseases of the Soul." 
 There are many who will do well to note this pre- 
 scription. 
 
 There have doubtless been men of more massive 
 and masterly character as actors and leaders ; scholars 
 of broader and more thorough learning or logical con- 
 structiveness ; but certainly no mind has appeared in 
 America so entirely free of all hindrance outside or 
 inside itself; none so gently penetrating or fructifying 
 and seedful; none so self-luminous, or shedding such 
 broad and genial sunshine over the whole realm of 
 life and thought. And I think no man has ever died 
 on this continent whose departure could leave so rich 
 and lasting an after-glow on our sky. 
 
 What more notable sign of our progress can now be 
 pointed out than this ; that so many minds have been 
 growing up to Emerson's thought, the thought which 
 has gradually saturated our best literature ? His first 
 little book on " Nature " is said to have sold only to 
 the extent of five hundred copies in twelve years. 
 The reading public did not quite know what he 
 meant' ; it was surmised that he didn't know. A mad 
 
RALPH WALDO EMEESON. , 2& 
 
 rhapsodist and visionary! "Row, many thousands 
 read, appreciate, enjoy and are nourished. The Emer- 
 sonian coloring matter is in the inkstands of poets, 
 novelists, essayists, sermon-writers. Ilis ideas travels 
 like winged seeds and take root ia minds that never > 
 know whence they came. Dr. Bartol well says, 
 " What a step, or stride, of fifty years, from the day 
 when his own church declined to hear him, to an au- 
 dience which not Boston, nor 'New England 'nor Old 
 England — only the civilized world — can, contain!" 
 An audience still very select, hut so widely spread 
 that through these his word must yet give light and 
 joy to millions more. | 
 
 Do we weep because he is to be heard on earth" no 
 more ? No, that voice which was so wise when 
 others babbled, so reasonable when others were violent, 
 and so cheerful when others croaked, is sure to sound 
 on and on in the ears of thoughtful men and women, 
 for generations to come. It is not likely that his 
 name will often be on human lips, for he is a most im- 
 personal person. He has written no drama or tale or 
 popular song ; he has given us no final philosophy or 
 rounded system of doctrines around which a school 
 can rally. But he and his writings will pass into 
 history as an influence. He has pointed to our in- 
 ward and outward resources ; has shown us the excel- 
 lence and authority of insight itself ; he has taught 
 us how to stand erect and unscared amid mysteries, 
 and not to lose heart or hope because our questions 
 ard not answered. He has shamed us out of our whim- 
 pering ajnd has helped us feel as securely unconcerned 
 about our place and part in the universe as is the 
 linnet hopping in the grass or the archangel dwelling 
 amid the splendors of the innermost heaven. 
 
24 RALPH WAI,DOEMEESON. 
 
 He was never a popular lecturer ; for he had too 
 much to say. But since the public tasted his real 
 quality, he has gained a choice constituency and a 
 welcome hearing in hundreds of places, and his face 
 is likely to be as familiar as that of Longfellow or 
 any of our favorite poets or scholars. A face to look 
 at more than once ! Some one describes it has having 
 the look of" a benevolent old American eagle." Not 
 inaptly ; he combined in his features, as in his char- 
 acter, the eagle and the dove. He could soar and 
 poise aloft in the boundless air, on strong bold wing, 
 with an eye to meet the sun ; he could hover content 
 above the lowliest roofs of men and pour out gentle 
 tones of sympathy for all common creatures. Never 
 was citizen more loved and revered by his towns- 
 people ; and for a thousand years to come he will be 
 known as " The Sage of Concord "as Shakespeare is 
 ^' The Bard of Avon." 
 
 Five weeks ago to-day, he made his last earthly 
 journey to stand by the grave of Longfellow at Mt. 
 Auburn, sixteen miles away. For some years he had 
 been aware that his bodily powers were failing, and 
 especially that his memory tablets were wearing^ 
 smooth. But he had lived too long in a spiritual 
 realm to mistake his body or brain for himself. 
 
 He has written of Immortality, but not to the 
 satisfaction of those who seek for arguments or evi- 
 dences. He was too well content with being, and too 
 much at. rest in the eternal Now to be anxious or 
 •curious about the Future. He thought it childish to 
 ask questions about to-morrow ; and he had great 
 contempt for the rappings, which he called " the rat 
 and mouse revelation." But in a lecture of 1870 he 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 26 
 
 said : " On the borders of the grave, the wise man 
 looks forward with equal elasticity of mind and hope ; 
 and why not after millions of years on the verge of 
 still newer existence ? For it is the nature of intelli- 
 gent beings to be ever new to life." His calm confi- 
 dence that the soullivesin God here seemed warrant 
 that it cannot die anywhere. "I have heard," he 
 says, " that when we pronounce the name man, we 
 pronounce the belief of immortality. * * * * 
 All great natures delight in .stability ; all great men 
 find eternity affirmed in the very promise of their 
 faculties. * * * * The evidence from intellect 
 is as valid as the evidence from love. The being 
 that can share a thought and feeling so sublime as 
 confidence in truth is no mushroom ; our dissatifac- 
 tion with any other solution is the blazing evidence of 
 immortality." 
 
 I cannot speak of a sense of loss in the death of 
 • Emerson. His life appears like something complete. 
 His work was done : we have it ; the world will keep 
 it. In a few weeks he would have entered his 80th 
 year; with increasing infirmities^ he could give nothing 
 more to the world and derive nothing more from it. 
 For himself, to die is gain. As he once said, " There 
 is hope of a world in which we may see things 
 but once and then pass on to something new." And 
 for us, there is the gain of a deeper sense of what he 
 has been to us and done for us. His death affects me 
 like the taking down of that last scaffold from the 
 Cathedral at Cologne : there stands out the architect's 
 idea against the sky of centuries ! 
 
 Yet not without tenderness and tears can we realize 
 that he has vanished and that his venerable form is 
 
26 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 laid away in the du8t; forthe very flesh is d^ar whea 
 it has held such a shining soul, and we instinctively 
 whisper, " Tread lightly, you carry a temple of the 
 Holy Ghost !" 
 
 As this sky of spring-time which bends over the 
 land he loved is summoning fair flowers from every 
 sod of forest and field, so will the growth of all true 
 thoughts, pure feelings and high purposes be 
 quickened by his enduring influence. To have lived 
 in his time and country, and to have shared his life, 
 is an honor and blessing : most of all if we have 
 caught his confidence in our own near relation to the 
 Eternal Powers.