shall say what shall be; here, we ask, Shall it be war, or shall it be peace ?

This lecture is characterized by a singular clearness of historic insight and by a genuine spirit of humanity. Emerson does rare justice to the importance of war as an element of progress, and he clearly appreciates the causes which are working its abandonment. More than all, his sense of brotherhood comes out, and his faith in the capacities of every soul. His faith in man and his lofty sense of justice were displayed in a protest against the treatment received by the Cherokee Indians during the year 1838. These Indians were compelled to move to the Indian Territory, a treaty having been made to that effect between the United States Government and a number of the Indians. The Cherokee nation did not consent to this treaty, and claimed it was not made by their authority. Nevertheless their removal was ordered. Great indignation was expressed in the Northern States at this act of injustice. A meeting was held in Concord, April 22, to take action against the outrage. Emerson stated the case to the audience, and addresses were made by the leading citizens. A memorial was largely signed, and sent to Congress. The next day Emerson addressed a letter to President Van Buren in behalf of himself and some of his friends. After a statement of the facts, as they had been eagerly discussed in the newspapers, he asks if they can be true, if the public has not been misinformed in regard to them. Then he proceeds to protest against the execution of the outrage as it had been planned and ordered.

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"The piety, the principle that is left in these United States, if only its coarsest form, a regard to the speech of men, forbid us to entertain it as a fact. Such a dereliction of all faith and virtue, such a denial of justice, and such a deafness to screams for mercy, were never heard of in times of peace, and in the dealing of a nation with its own allies and wards, since the earth was made. Sir, does this government think the people of the United States are

1 Printed in the Yeoman's Gazette of Concord, May 19, 1838, and copied into many other papers.

become savage and mad? From their mind are the sentiments of love and of a good nature wiped clear out? The soul of man, the justice, the mercy that is the heart's heart in all men from Maine to Georgia, does abhor this business.

"In speaking thus the sentiments of my neighbors and my own, perhaps I overstep the bounds of decorum. But would it not be a higher indecorum coldly to argue a matter like this? We only state the fact, that a crime is projected that confounds our understandings by its magnitude, a crime that really deprives us, as well as the Cherokees, of a country; for how could we call the conspiracy that should crush these poor Indians, our government, or the land that was cursed by their parting and dying imprecations, our country, any more? You, sir, will bring down that renowned chair in which you sit into infamy if your seal is set to this instrument of perfidy; and the name of this nation, hitherto the sweet omen of religion and liberty, will stink to the world."

When a friend afterwards urged him to print this letter among his miscellanies, he said it was only a "shriek" of indignation. It ought now to be remembered, however, when so much is trying to be done to secure justice to the Indians, who have had so little of it in any of the years since this letter was written.

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In July he lectured before the literary societies of Dartmouth College on Literary Ethics, and asserted that self-trust is the whole value to us of biography and history. He said we must ask the truth of the "enveloping Now," that we must cherish solitude and meditation, and that we should open the breast to all honest inquiry. He said the scholar is of importance in the world in proportion to his confidence in the attributes of the intellect. This is true because man is the measure of the world, because his soul can interpret all things, and because every human sentiment finds somewhere in nature its expression. All history, biography, and nature are of value only as they show forth to the soul what it can be and do. He then declares that all things are new, that every lesson is to be new-learned, that all truth yet awaits adequate utterance. The scholar must not wait on the past, but look into the world of the immediate present, and see what it

1 Miscellanies, p. 149.

declares. He will not live a life of utility, but give himself to know truth and beauty, wed these, and gladly accept the sensual deprivations they impose. Solitude he must accept, also, and every deep and true human experience, if he would learn the best wisdom. The strain of upper music is heard only in action, in bearing the common burdens of life; so that "out of love and hatred, out of earnings and borrowings and lendings and losses, out of sickness and pain, out of wooing and worshiping, out of traveling and voting and watching and caring, out of disgrace and contempt, comes our tuition in the serene and beautiful laws." He rejects the dry and scholastic aim for the student, urges him to be a toiler and a learner amidst all that passes daily in the world, yet living above every lust of praise and frivolity, devoted to the things of the soul. In this address he set forth his own ideal, the purpose which has animated his own life, and which has made it so worthy of attention. Its closing paragraphs are a notable instance of pure and inspiring eloquence. It was listened to with profound attention, and was "greatly admired," said a local journal, "as the production of a rare and highly gifted mind. Seldom, if ever before, has the occasion been distinguished for so rich an intellectual treat.”

His course of lectures in Boston the following winter was on the Resources of the Present Age. There were two on literature; while some of the other subjects were Private Life, Reformers, Religion, Ethics, Education. The winter of 1839-40 brought a course on Human Life. He spoke of the Laws of Love, Home, The School, Genius, The Protest, Tragedy, Comedy, Duty, Demonology.

THE

VI.

STATING THE NEW FAITH.

HE new views had the effect to make men distrustful of the old religious forms and doctrines. Intuition became more important than bibles or great teachers. When God speaks directly to each soul, why look backward to the past revelations? These ideas made Furness regard the life of Jesus as perfectly natural, all his acts the expressions of a truly loyal nature. To Alcott they gave the conviction that the uncorrupt mind of the child has all truth in it, ready to be developed. Brownson was led to see in Christianity the | natural religion of the soul. Like tendencies of thought induced Emerson to severely criticise all institutional religion, and to abandon every religious rite. He came to regard religion as a universal sentiment, which reveals all truth to each individual soul. This sentiment is awakened by perceiving the universal order of nature and by experience of its invariable laws. It leads to a sublime self-trust, and to a repudiation of all commands laid on us from the teachings of other men, unless their thought is verified in our own natures. This sentiment is an intuition, and not to be received at second hand.

When an opportunity offered he gave full expression to his views. In June, 1838, he was invited to deliver the customary address before the graduating class in the Divinity School of Harvard University. It was given on Sunday evening, July 15. Emerson made the prayer of the occasion; and Bartol speaks of it as "the short breathings of the gentle prayer, which had in it no pronouns.' The address stated the new

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1 Radical Problems.

thought in the most explicit words, showing clearly its relations to the doctrines of theology. It came nearer to the "center and core of things," as Alcott has said, than almost any other word which has been uttered on the subject.

It was the first full statement of Emerson's faith in moral power, and in an untrammeled religion of the spirit."Virtue," he says, "is a sentiment and delight in the presence of certain divine laws." Those laws are not external revelations, nor are they conventionalities; they are the ordered pulse-beats of the Living All. Obedience to these laws makes the health and integrity of the soul. What we call good comes of obedience to them; and evil flows out of disobedience. The idea of law is full of power; "it is the beatitude of man." The truth can always be had by those who desire it, but each one must seek it for himself. God acts through all souls, and no one is the measure of his truth. Jesus was a great prophet, but his power has been sadly degraded by adoration of him. Christianity found a man with an intuition, and elevated the man, forgetting the universal power of that truth he taught. The personal has been dwelt on to an obnoxious extent, and the universal capacities of man have consequently been ignored. We need to trust ourselves, to hear the voice within. In the growth of true sentiments is to be found the only genuine conversion, not in any faith in a person. God is in every man, and he should be heard there. The old revelation is loved in lack of faith in the living truth, and the priest is elevated to power thereby. The office of the preacher is a great one, but only the spirit can teach. "Not any profane man, not any sensual, not any liar, not any slave can teach, but only he can give who has; he only can create who is. The man on whom the soul descends, through whom the soul speaks, alone can teach." This office is the first in the world. "It is of that reality, that it can not suffer the deduction of any falsehood. And it is my duty to say to you, that the need was never greater of a new revelation than now." Yet the office of the