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THE SOUL'S WORSHIP

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October 27.

What we love that shall we seek. ... The heart is the sole world, the universe, and if its wants are satisfied, there is no defect perceived. But how little love is at the bottom of these great religious shows; congregations and temples and sermons, how much sham! Love built them, to be sure. Yea, they were the heart's work; but the fervent generation that built them passed away, things went downward, and the forms remain, but the soul is well nigh gone. Calvinism stands, fear I, by pride and ignorance; and Unitarianism, as a sect, stands by the opposition of Calvinism. It is cold and cheerless, the mere creature of the understanding, until controversy makes it warm with fire I got from below. But is there no difference in the objects which the heart loves? Is there no truth? Yes. And is there no power in truth to commend itself? Yes. It alone can satisfy the heart. Are we asking you to love God as if there was any arbitrary burden from duty imposed, as if we said, Apart from your usual loves come and cultivate this. It is sour, but it must be done, for such is the hard law.-No;

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“ Old North "in Hanover Street, where Emerson was Pastor

1831] THE SOUL'S WORSHIP 425

God forbid; we call you to that which all things call you unto with softest persuasion, to that which your whole Reason enjoins with absolute sovereignty. We call you to that which all the future shall teach far more forcibly and simply than we now. These things are true and real and grand and lovely and good.

Is it not all in us, how strangely! Look at this congregation of men;-the words might be spoken,—though now there be none here to speak them, but the words might be said that would make them stagger and reel like a drunken man. Who doubts it? Were you ever instructed by a wise and eloquent man? Remember then, were not the words that made your blood run cold, that brought the blood to your cheeks, that made you tremble or delighted you,- did they not sound to you as old as yourself? Was it not truth that you knew before, or do you ever expect to be moved from the pulpit or from man by anything but plain truth? Never. It is God in you that responds to God without, or affirms his own words trembling on the lips of another.

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November, 1831.

Have been at the Examination of Derry Academy, and had some sad, some pleasant thoughts.'

Is it not true that every man has before him in his mind room in one direction to which there is no bound, but in every other direction. he runs against a wall in a short time? One course of thought, affection, action is for him - that is his use, as the new men say. Let me embark in political economy, in repartee, in fiction, in verse, in practical counsels (as here in the Derry case) and I am soon run aground; but let my bark head its own way toward the law of laws, toward the compensation or action and reaction of the moral universe, and I sweep serenely over God's depths in an infinite sea.

In an unknown wood the traveller gives the reins to his horse, seeks his safety in the instincts of the animal. Trust something to your instincts far more trustworthy. As there is always a subject for life, so there is always a subject for each hour, if only a man has wit enough.

I The occasion of Mr. Emerson's attending the Examination seems to have been that a young kinswoman of his wife, Elizabeth Tucker, lived there, and was one of the scholars. Next year he wrote her a letter of advice as to her reading.

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