V.

LECTURES AND ADDRESSES.

AFTER an absence of nearly a year, Emerson returned to America, late in 1833, with health restored and spirits reinvigorated. The system of popular lectures, somewhat pedantically denominated the "Lyceum,” had begun to develop itself. It gave scope for any one to discourse upon any topic respecting which he had, or thought he had, anything to say. Emerson at once availed himself of the opening. His first lecture, delivered before the Boston Mechanics' Association, was upon "Water"; then followed three others describing his recent visit to Italy, and another upon the "Relations of Man to the Globe." In 1834 he delivered a series of five lectures upon Michel Angelo, Milton, Luther, George Fox, and Edmund Burke, the first two of which were published in the "North American Review," and appear to have been his first appearances in print.

In 1835 he married Lidian Jackson, of Plymouth, and took up his residence in the quiet little village of Concord, twenty miles from Boston, where his home has been ever since. From this period he fairly devoted himself to the new career of a lecturer, delivering from time to time courses in all the principal places from Maine to California. For forty successive years he lectured

before the Lyceum at Salem, Massachusetts. His principal courses are these: In 1835, ten lectures upon "English History"; in 1836, twelve upon "The Philosophy of History"; in 1837, ten upon "Human Culture"; in 1838, ten upon "Human Life"; in 1839, ten upon "The Present Age"; in 1841, seven upon "The Times." Many of these were frequently redelivered. Besides these are several others, the gist of which is embodied in his printed works.

His first book was "Nature," a thin volume which appeared in 1836, of which more will be said hereafter. In the mean while there had been gradually gathering in Boston and its vicinity a small group of thinkers who had come to be dissatisfied with the prevalent material and formal modes of thought, and sought to introduce something fresh. Small as this circle was, it included persons of almost every shade of thought and culture. Some were profoundly mystical; some were full of projects of practical effort; but they were popularly grouped together under the vague name of Transcendentalists. Among these persons were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, William H. Channing, Theodore Parker, Henry D. Thoreau, George Ripley, and Charles A. Dana.

In 1840 these set up a quarterly magazine entitled "The Dial," which was continued for four years, Margaret Fuller being editor during the first two years, and Emerson during the last two.

Upon the whole, "The Dial" deserved to be a failure, although from its pages might be collected a goodly volume of prose and verse worthy of preservation in permanent shape. From the first Emerson contributed largely to "The Dial," both in prose and verse; sometimes anonymously and sometimes over his own signature. Many of these contributions have been brought together by himself in his collected works.

Most of the prose papers had been recently delivered as addresses before college societies and literary associations. They are all quite above the ordinary run of such productions, being thoughtful and marked by the strong individuality of the man. One of them, an "Address to the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge," delivered on Sunday evening, July 15, 1838, is notable in many ways. Of this address, Theodore Parker, then fresh in the ministry, writes to various correspondents. To one he says:

"In this Emerson surpassed himself as much as he surpasses others in a general way. I shall give no abstract, so beautiful, so just, and terribly sublime was his picture of the Church in its present condition. My soul is roused; and this week I shall write the long-meditated sermon on the state of the Church and the status of the times."

To another, Parker writes:

"It was the noblest of all his performances. A little exaggerated, with some philosophical untruths, it seemed

to me; but the noblest, the most inspiring strain, I ever listened to. It caused a great outcry; one shouting, 'The Philistines be upon us!' another, 'We be all dead men!' while the majority called out, 'Atheism!' The Dean said, 'That part of it which was not folly was downright atheism.' Some seem to think that the Christianity which has stood some storms will not be able to weather this gale; and that truth, after all my Lord Bacon has said, will have to give it up now. For my part, I see the sun still shines, the rain rains, and the dogs bark; and I have great doubts whether Emerson will overthrow Christianity this time.”

And again:

"The other day we discussed the question, in the Association, whether Emerson was a Christian. One said he was not; another maintained that he was an atheist; but nobody doubted that he was a virtuous, devout man-one who would enter heaven when they were shut out. Of course, they were in a queer predicament. Either they must acknowledge that a man may be virtuous, and yet no Christian (which most of them thought a great heresy to suppose); and religious, yet an atheist (which is a contradiction-to be without God, and yet united with God); or else affirm that Emerson was not virtuous nor religious-which they could not prove. Others thought he should be called a Christian, if he desired the name."

THE DIVINITY COLLEGE ADDRESS.

The position offered to and accepted by Emerson was, indeed, a peculiar one for a conscientious man to assume. Upon such occasions, it is

taken for granted that the speaker is in the main in accord with his hearers; or, at least, if he differs from them upon any important points, those points shall be kept in abeyance. Here was a

man who had not yet reached middle life, who had deliberately set aside much that was held vital to the exercise of the Christian ministry, and who had yet by formal request to speak upon the duties of that ministry to young men who were on the point of entering upon that career which he could no longer tread. From the very constitution of his nature he must, upon such an occasion, speak from his very heart of hearts. It was for him no time for commonplace generalities. Quite possibly, he thought that the things which he had come to hold as true had come to have lodgment in the minds of these divinity students. At all events, if he had any misgivings, he betrayed no token of their existence. He spoke as though he were a seer and prophet, whose utterances needed no external authority to enforce their validity, but needed only to be heard to be accepted. They were chapters of that Divine Law, not engraved upon tables of stone, or written down upon parchment, in human speech, but inwrought into the very constitution of our nature. For ourselves, we see nothing in this address which looks at all like Atheism or Pantheism. On the contrary, it is full of Theism and Monotheism, expressed in terms far more explicit than he would have been