weeks I spent at your house, I rejoiced in the promise of her beauty; and have pleased myself with the hope that she was surmounting her early trials, and was destined to be one of those rare women who'exalt society, and who make credible to us a better society than is seen in the earth. I still keep by me one of her drawings which she gave me. I have scarcely seen her face since. But we feel a property in all the accomplishments and graces that we know, which neither distance nor absence destroys. For my part, I grudge the decays of the young and beautiful whom I may never see again. Even in their death, is the reflection that we are for ever enriched by having beheld them, that we can never be quite poor and low, for they have furnished our heart and mind with new elements of beauty and wisdom.

"And now she is gone out of sight, I can only offer to you and to Judge Lyman my respectful and affectionate condolence. I am sure I need not suggest the deep consolations of the spiritual life, for love is the first believer, and all the remembrances of her life will plead with you in behalf of the hope of all souls. How do we go, all of us, to the world of spirits, marshalled and beckoned unto by noble and lovely friends! That event cannot be fearful which made a part of the constitution and career of beings so finely framed and touched, and whose influence on us has been so benign. These sad departures open to us, as other events do not, that ineradicable faith which the secret history of every year strips of its obscurities, that we can and

must exist for evermore."

In her extreme age, the lady to whom these letters

were written was visited by Emerson and one of his daughters. It was a great joy to her, and she wrote:

6

66 Perhaps I shall never see Mr. Emerson any more. Well, I saw his day and was glad."" To lead on this glad day which her so distant daughter beheld, — the triumph of her noble thought and spirit, Anne Hutchinson had lived and died.*

But we must return now to the beginning of Emerson's ministerial career. After preaching at various places, among others for some Sundays at Concord, —and meanwhile writing poetry, he was ordained minister of the Second Church in Boston, March 11, 1829. It was at first as colleague of the Rev. Henry Ware, jun., but shortly after he became sole pastor of the church. Eminent Unitarian ministers participated in the ordination services, and Emerson received a hearty welcome. In September of the same year he was married to Ellen Louisa Tucker. He was at once accorded in Boston the highest position, and was listened to with admiration in the church of Channing. A venerable minister gave me an account of a sermon he heard from Emerson in those days, impressed on his memory by the vitality it infused in an old theme, and the simplicity with which it was delivered. The text was, "What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" The emphasis was on the word "own," and the general theme was that to every man the great end of existence was the preservation and culture of his individual mind and character. Each man must be saved by his own inward redeemer; and the whole world is for each but a plastic material through which the individual spirit is to realise

itself. Aspiration and thought become clear and real only by action and life. If knowledge leads not to action, it passes away, being preserved only on the condition of being used. "The last thing," added my informant, "that any of us who heard him would have predicted of the youth, whose quiet simplicity and piety captivated all, was that he would become the religious revolutionist of America."

I once asked Emerson about his sermons, and he told me he had utilised them in his Essays, these being, however, less ethical in form. In a pulpit address delivered in 1830 at Concord, occur characteristic words of Emerson. It was at the ordination of a new minister there. Having recalled the phrase, “Be of one mind," he said: "Thousands of hearts have heard the commandment, and anon with joy receive it. All men on whose souls the light of God's revelation truly shineth, with whatever apparent differences, are substantially of one mind, work together, whether consciously or not, for one and the same good. Faces that never beheld each other are lighted up by it with the same expression. Hands that were never clasped toil unceasingly at the same work. This it is which makes the omnipotence of truth in the keeping of feeble men, this fellowship in all its servants, this swift consenting acknowledgment with which they hail it when it appears God's truth; it is that electric spark which flies instantaneously through the countless bands that compose the chain. Truth, not like each form of error, depending for its repute on the powers and influence of here and there a solitary mind that espouses it, combines

hosts for its support, and makes them co-operate across mountains, yea, and ages of time."

Emerson took an active interest in the public affairs of Boston. He was on its School Board, and was chosen chaplain of the State Senate. He invited the anti-slavery lecturers into his church, and helped philanthropists of other denominations in their work. Father Taylor, to whom Dickens gave an English fame, found in him his most important supporter when establishing the Seaman's Mission in Boston. This was told me by Father Taylor himself in his old age. I happened to be in his company once when he spoke rather sternly about my leaving the Methodist Church, but when I spoke of the part Emerson had in it, he softened at once, and spoke with emotion of his great friend. I have no doubt that if the good Father of Boston Seamen was proud of any personal thing, it was of the excellent answer he is said to have given to some Methodists who objected to his friendship for Emerson. Being a Unitarian, they insisted that he must go to hell. "It does look so," said Father Taylor; "but I am sure of one thing, if Emerson goes to hell he will change the climate there, and emigration will se that way."

IN

VII.

DISAPPROBATION.

N June, 1832, Emerson invited the most active members of his church to his house, "to receive a communication from him in relation to the views at which he had arrived respecting the ordinance of the Lord's Supper." He there made his statement of objections to the existing form, and proposed to "so far change the manner of administering the rite as to disuse the elements and relinquish the claim of authority." He suggested a modification. After hearing this communication a committee was appointed (Deacons Mackintosh and Patterson, Dr. John Ware, George B. Emerson, George A. Sampson, Gedney King, and Samuel Beal) to consider the subject. They reported and submitted: "(1.) That in the opinion of this church, after a careful consideration of this subject, it is expedient to maintain the celebration of the Lord's Supper in the present form. (2.) That the brethren of this church retain an undiminished regard for their pastor, and entertain the hope that he will find it consistent with his sense of duty to continue the customary administration of the Supper." The minister, however, having given an explanatory sermon on the subject, offered a kindly but firm resignation of his charge.