Part 26

The question then came back to the pastor, whether he was willing to remain in his place and administer the rite in the usual form.

He went alone to the White Mountains, then seldom visited, to consider the grave question whether he was prepared, rather than to continue the performance of a part of his priestly office from which his instincts and beliefs recoiled, to sacrifice a position of advantage for usefulness to his people to whom he was bound by many ties, and in preparation for which he had spent long years. He wrote, at Conway, New Hampshire: “Here among the mountains the pinions of thought should be strong, and one should see the errors of men from a calmer height of love and wisdom.” His diary at Ethan Allan Crawford’s contains his doubts and questionings, which Mr. Cabot has given in his Memoir. Yet there was but one answer for him, and after a fortnight, he came back clear in his mind to give his decision, embodied in this sermon, to his people. On the same day that it was preached, he formally resigned his pastorate. The church was loth to part with him. It was hoped that some other arrangement might be made. Mr. Cabot learned that “several meetings were held and the proprietors of pews were called in, as having ‘an undoubted right to retain Mr. Emerson as their pastor, without reference to the opposition of the church.’ At length, after two adjournments and much discussion, it was decided by thirty votes against twenty-four to accept his resignation. It was voted at the same time to continue his salary for the present.”

Thus Mr. Emerson and his people parted in all kindness, but, as Mr. Cabot truly said, their difference of views on this rite “was in truth only the symptom of a deeper difference which would in any case sooner or later have made it impossible for him to retain his office; a disagreement not so much about particular doctrines or observances as about their sanction, the authority on which all doctrines and observances rest.”

In the farewell letter which Mr. Emerson wrote to the people of his church, he said:—

“I rejoice to believe that my ceasing to exercise the pastoral office among you does not make any real change in our spiritual relation to each other. Whatever is most desirable and excellent therein remains to us. For, truly speaking, whoever provokes me to a good act or thought has given me a pledge of his fidelity to virtue,—he has come under bonds to adhere to that cause to which we are jointly attached. And so I say to all you who have been my counsellors and coöperators in our Christian walk, that I am wont to see in your faces the seals and certificates of our mutual obligations. If we have conspired from week to week in the sympathy and expression of devout sentiments; if we have received together the unspeakable gift of God’s truth; if we have studied together the sense of any divine word; or striven together in any charity; or conferred together for the relief or instruction of any brother; if together we have laid down the dead in a pious hope; or held up the babe into the baptism of Christianity; above all, if we have shared in any habitual acknowledgment of the benignant God, whose omnipresence raises and glorifies the meanest offices and the lowest ability, and opens heaven in every heart that worships him,—then indeed we are united, we are mutually debtors to each other of faith and hope, engaged to persist and confirm each other’s hearts in obedience to the Gospel. We shall not feel that the nominal changes and little separations of this world can release us from the strong cordage of this spiritual bond. And I entreat you to consider how truly blessed will have been our connection if, in this manner, the memory of it shall serve to bind each one of us more strictly to the practice of our several duties.”

[1] _Page 18, note 1._ The doctrine of the offices of Jesus, even in the Unitarianism of Dr. Channing, was never congenial to Mr. Emerson’s mind. He notes the same with regard to his father, and even to his Aunt Mary, in spite of her Calvinism. Any interposed personality between the Creator and the created was repugnant to him. Even in March, 1831, he is considering in his journal that his hearers will say, “To what purpose is this attempt to explain away so safe and holy a doctrine as that of the Holy Spirit? Why unsettle or disturb a faith which presents to many minds a helpful medium by which they approach the idea of God?” and he answers, “And this question I will meet. It is because I think the popular views of this principle are pernicious, because it does put a medium, because it removes the idea of God from the mind. It leaves some events, some things, some thoughts, out of the power of Him who causes every event, every flower, every thought. The tremendous idea, as I may well call it, of God is screened from the soul.... And least of all can we believe—Reason will not let us—that the presiding Creator commands all matter and never descends into the secret chambers of the Soul. There he is most present. The Soul rules over matter. Matter may pass away like a mote in the sunbeam, may be absorbed into the immensity of God, as a mist is absorbed into the heat of the Sun—but the soul is the kingdom of God, the abode of love, of truth, of virtue.”

[2] _Page 19, note 1._ In the hope of satisfying those of his people who held to the letter of the Scriptural Law, Mr. Emerson made the foregoing clear statement with regard to the authority for the rite, from the professional point of view. It seems quite unlike his usual method, and there is little doubt that in it appears the influence of his elder brother, William, whose honest doubts had led him to abandon even earlier the profession of his fathers. In the introductory note to the chapter on Goethe, in _Representative Men_, is given an account of his unsuccessful pilgrimage to Weimar, in hopes that the great mind of Germany could solve these doubts. There is a letter still preserved, written by William, soon after his return, to his venerable kinsman at Concord, Dr. Ripley, in which he explains with great clearness his own reasons for not believing that the Communion rite was enjoined by Jesus for perpetual observance. The argument on scriptural grounds there clearly stated is substantially the same as that which his younger brother makes use of in the beginning of this sermon. Thus far he has spoken of outward authority; from this point onward he speaks from within—the way native to him.

[3] _Page 25, note 1._ Mr. Emerson left the struggles of the Past behind, and did not care to recall them. Thus, writing of Lucretia Mott, whom he met when giving a course of lectures in Philadelphia, in January, 1843, he said:—

“Me she taxed with living out of the world, and I was not much flattered that her interest in me respected my rejection of an ordinance, sometime, somewhere. Also yesterday—for Philadelphian ideas, like love, do creep where they cannot go—I was challenged on the subject of the Lord’s Supper, and with great slowness and pain was forced to recollect the grounds of my dissent in that particular. You may be sure I was very tardy with my texts.”

Mr. Emerson’s journal during the period of trial and decision, in the mountains, shows that he was reading with great interest the life of George Fox. The simplicity of the Society of Friends, their aversion to forms and trust in the inward light, always appealed to him.

In his essay on The Preacher he says:—

“The supposed embarrassments to young clergymen exist only to feeble wills.... That gray deacon, or respectable matron with Calvinistic antecedents, you can readily see, would not have presented any obstacle to the march of St. Bernard or of George Fox, of Luther or of Theodore Parker.” This hints at the help he had found in the Quaker’s history in his time of need.

HISTORICAL DISCOURSE AT CONCORD

Mr. Emerson’s Discourse was printed soon after its delivery, and with it, in an Appendix, the following notice of the celebration of the second centennial anniversary of the incorporation of the town, sent to him by “a friend who thought it desirable to preserve the remembrance of some particulars of this historical festival.”

“At a meeting of the town of Concord, in April last, it was voted to celebrate the Second Centennial Anniversary of the settlement of the town, on the 12th September following. A committee of fifteen were chosen to make the arrangements. This committee appointed Ralph Waldo Emerson, Orator, and Rev. Dr. Ripley and Rev. Mr. Wilder, Chaplains of the Day. Hon. John Keyes was chosen President of the Day.

“On the morning of the 12th September, at half past 10 o’clock, the children of the town, to the number of about 500, moved in procession to the Common in front of the old church and court-house and there opened to the right and left, awaiting the procession of citizens. At 11 o’clock, the Concord Light Infantry, under Captain Moore, and the Artillery under Captain Buttrick, escorted the civic procession, under the direction of Moses Prichard as Chief Marshal, from Shepherd’s hotel through the lines of children to the Meeting-house. The South gallery had been reserved for ladies, and the North gallery for the children; but (it was a good omen) the children overran the space assigned for their accommodation, and were sprinkled throughout the house, and ranged on seats along the aisles. The old Meeting-house, which was propped to sustain the unwonted weight of the multitude within its walls, was built in 1712, thus having stood for more than half the period to which our history goes back. Prayers were offered and the Scriptures read by the aged minister of the town, Rev. Ezra Ripley, now in the 85th year of his age;—another interesting feature in this scene of reminiscences. A very pleasant and impressive part of the services in the church was the singing of the 107th psalm, from the New England version of the psalms made by Eliot, Mather, and others, in 1639, and used in the church in this town in the days of Peter Bulkeley. The psalm was read a line at a time, after the ancient fashion, from the Deacons’ seat, and so sung to the tune of St. Martin’s by the whole congregation standing.

“Ten of the surviving veterans who were in arms at the Bridge, on the 19th April, 1775, honored the festival with their presence. Their names are Abel Davis, Thaddeus Blood, Tilly Buttrick, John Hosmer, of _Concord_; Thomas Thorp, Solomon Smith, John Oliver, Aaron Jones, of _Acton_; David Lane, of _Bedford_; Amos Baker, of _Lincoln_.

“On leaving the church, the procession again formed, and moved to a large tent nearly opposite Shepherd’s hotel, under which dinner was prepared, and the company sat down to the tables, to the number of four hundred. We were honored with the presence of distinguished guests, among whom were Lieutenant-Governor Armstrong, Judge Davis, Alden Bradford (descended from the 2d governor of Plymouth Colony), Hon. Edward Everett, Hon. Stephen C. Phillips of Salem, Philip Hone, Esq., of New York, General Dearborn, and Lieutenant-Colonel R. C. Winthrop (descended from the 1st governor of Massachusetts). Letters were read from several gentlemen expressing their regret at being deprived of the pleasure of being present on the occasion. The character of the speeches and sentiments at the dinner were manly and affectionate, in keeping with the whole temper of the day.

“On leaving the dinner-table, the invited guests, with many of the citizens, repaired to the court-house to pay their respects to the ladies of Concord, who had there, with their friends, partaken of an elegant collation, and now politely offered coffee to the gentlemen. The hall, in which the collation was spread, had been decorated by fair hands with festoons of flowers, and wreaths of evergreen, and hung with pictures of the Fathers of the Town. Crowded as it was with graceful forms and happy faces, and resounding with the hum of animated conversation, it was itself a beautiful living picture. Compared with the poverty and savageness of the scene which the same spot presented two hundred years ago, it was a brilliant reverse of the medal; and could scarcely fail, like all the parts of the holiday, to lead the reflecting mind to thoughts of that Divine Providence, which, in every generation, has been our tower of defence and horn of blessing.

“At sunset the company separated and retired to their homes; and the evening of this day of excitement was as quiet as a Sabbath throughout the village.”

Within the year, Mr. Emerson had come to make his home for life in the ancestral town, and had become a householder. Two days after the festival, he drove to Plymouth in a chaise, and was there married to Lidian Jackson, and immediately brought his bride to her Concord home.

His aged step-grandfather was the senior chaplain at the Celebration, and his brother Charles, who was to live with him in the new home, was one of the marshals.

In preparation for this address Mr. Emerson made diligent examination of the old town records, and spent a fortnight in Cambridge consulting the works on early New England in the College Library. I reproduce most of his references to his authorities exactly, although there are, no doubt, newer editions of some of the works.

[4] _Page 30, note 1._ This story is from Bede’s _Ecclesiastical History_ (chapter xiii., Bohn’s _Antiquarian Library_). Mr. Emerson used it in full as the exordium of his essay on Immortality, in _Letters and Social Aims_.

[5] _Page 30, note 2._ The poem “Hamatreya,” wherein appear the names of many of these first settlers, might well be read in connection with the opening passages of this address.

Mr. Emerson’s right of descent to speak as representative of Peter Bulkeley, who was the spiritual arm of the settlement, as Simon Willard was its sword-arm, may here be shown: Rev. Joseph Emerson of Mendon (son of Thomas of Ipswich, the first of the name in this country) married Elizabeth, daughter of Rev. Edward Bulkeley, who succeeded his father, the Rev. Peter Bulkeley, as minister of Concord. Edward, the son of Joseph of Mendon and Elizabeth Bulkeley, was father of Rev. Joseph Emerson of Malden, who was father of Rev. William Emerson of Concord, who was father of Rev. William Emerson of Harvard and Boston, the father of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

[6] _Page 31, note 1._ Neal’s _History of New England_, vol. i., p. 132.

[7] _Page 31, note 2._ Neal, vol. i., p. 321.

[8] _Page 31, note 3._ Shattuck’s _History of Concord_, p. 158.

[9] _Page 32, note 1._ On September 2, 1635, the General Court passed this order:—

“It is ordered that there shalbe a plantac̃on att Musketequid & that there shalbe 6 myles of land square to belong to it, & that the inhabitants thereof shall have three yeares im̃unities from all publ[ic] charges except traineings; Further, that when any that plant there shall have occac̃on of carryeing of goods thither, they shall repaire to two of the nexte magistrates where the teames are, whoe shall have the power for a yeare to presse draughts, att reasonable rates, to be payed by the owners of the goods, to transport their goods thither att seasonable tymes: & the name of the place is changed & here after to be called Concord.”

[10] _Page 32, note 2._ Shattuck, p. 5.

[11] _Page 33, note 1._ In his lecture on Boston (published in the volume _Natural History of Intellect_) Mr. Emerson gives an amusing enumeration of some troubles which seemed so great to the newcomers from the Old World: he mentions their fear of lions, the accident to John Smith from “the most poisonous tail of a fish called a sting-ray,” the circumstance of the overpowering effect of the sweet fern upon the Concord party, and the intoxicating effect of wild grapes eaten by the Norse explorers, and adds: “Nature has never again indulged in these exasperations. It seems to have been the last outrage ever committed by the sting-rays, or by the sweet fern, or by the fox-grapes. They have been of peaceable behavior ever since.”

[12] _Page 34, note 1._ Johnson’s _Wonder-Working Providence_, chap. xxxv. Mr. Emerson abridged and slightly altered some sentences.

[13] _Page 35, note 1._ Mourt, _Beginning of Plymouth_, 1621, p. 60.

[14] _Page 35, note 2._ Johnson, p. 56. Josselyn, in his _New England’s Rarities Discovered_, speaks with respect of “Squashes, but more truly squontersquashes; a kind of mellon, or rather gourd; ... some of these are green; some yellow; some longish like a gourd; others round, like an apple: all of them pleasant food, boyled and buttered, and seasoned with spice. But the yellow squash—called an apple-squash (because like an apple) and about the bigness of a pome-water is the best kind.” Wood, in his _New England Prospect_, says: “In summer, when their corn is spent, isquotersquashes is their best bread, a fruit much like a pumpion.”

[15] _Page 36, note 1._ Nashawtuck, a small and shapely hill between the Musketaquid and the Assabet streams, at their point of union, was a pleasant and convenient headquarters for a sagamore of a race whose best roadway for travel and transportation was a deep, quiet stream, the fish of which they ate, and also used for manure for their cornfields along the bluffs. Indian graves have been found on this hill.

[16] _Page 36, note 2._ Josselyn’s _Voyages to New England_, 1638.

[17] _Page 36, note 3._ Hutchinson’s _History of Massachusetts_, vol. i., chap. 6.

[18] _Page 36, note 4._ Thomas Morton, _New England Canaan_, p. 47.

[19] _Page 37, note 1._ Shattuck, p. 6.

The old Middlesex Hotel, which stood during the greater part of the nineteenth century on the southwest side of the Common, opposite the court- and town-houses, had fallen into decay in 1900, and was bought and taken down by the town as an improvement to the public square to commemorate the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of Concord Fight. It is probable that Jethro’s Oak, under which the treaty was made, stood a little nearer the house of Rev. Peter Bulkeley, the site of which, about one hundred paces distant on the Lowell road, is now marked by a stone and bronze tablet.

[20] _Page 38, note 1._ Depositions taken in 1684, and copied in the first volume of the Town Records.

[21] _Page 39, note 1._ Johnson’s _Wonder-Working Providence_.

[22] _Page 39, note 2._ _New England’s Plantation._

[23] _Page 39, note 3._ E. W.’s Letter in Mourt, 1621.

[24] _Page 40, note 1._ Peter Bulkeley’s _Gospel Covenant_; preached at Concord in New England. 2d edition, London, 1651, p. 432.

[25] _Page 41, note 1._ See petition in Shattuck’s _History_, p. 14.

[26] _Page 41, note 2._ Shattuck, p. 14. This was the meadow and upland on the Lowell road, one mile north of Concord, just beyond the river. On the farm stands the unpainted “lean-to” house, now owned by the daughters of the late Edmund Hosmer.

[27] _Page 42, note 1._ Concord Town Records.

[28] _Page 43, note 1._ Bancroft, _History of the United States_, vol. i., p. 389.

[29] _Page 44, note 1._ Savage’s _Winthrop_, vol. i., p. 114.

[30] _Page 44, note 2._ Colony Records, vol. i.

[31] _Page 44, note 3._ See Hutchinson’s _Collection_, p. 287.

[32] _Page 46, note 1._ Winthrop’s _Journal_, vol. i., pp. 128, 129, and the editor’s note.

[33] _Page 46, note 2._ Winthrop’s _Journal_, vol. ii., p. 160.

[34] _Page 48, note 1._ Town Records.

With the exception of the anecdotes in this and the following sentence, almost the whole of this account of the theory and practice of the New England town-meeting was used by Mr. Emerson in his oration, given in December, 1870, before the New England Society in New York. The greater part of the matter used in that address is included in the lecture on Boston, in the volume _Natural History of Intellect_.

The New England Society of New York recently published the Orations delivered before it previous to 1871, including Mr. Emerson’s, as far as it could be recovered from the scattered manuscript, and the newspaper reports of the time.

[35] _Page 50, note 1._ Hutchinson’s _Collection_, p. 27.

[36] _Page 51, note 1._ Shattuck, p. 20. “The Government, 13 Nov., 1644, ordered the county courts to take care of the Indians residing within their several shires, to have them civilized, and to take order, from time to time, to have them instructed in the knowledge of God.”

[37] _Page 52, note 1._ Shepard’s _Clear Sunshine of the Gospel_, London, 1648.

[38] _Page 52, note 2._ These rules are given in Shattuck’s _History_, pp. 22-24, and were called “Conclusions and orders made and agreed upon by divers Sachems and other principal men amongst the Indians at Concord in the end of the eleventh Month (called January) An. 1646.”

The following are interesting specimens of these:—

Rule 2. “That there shall be no more Powwawing amongst the Indians. And if any shall hereafter powwaw, both he that shall powwaw, and he that shall procure him to powwaw, shall pay twenty shillings apiece.”

Rule 4. “They desire they may understand the wiles of Satan, and grow out of love with his suggestions and temtations.”

Rule 5. “That they may fall upon some better course to improve their time than formerly.”

Rule 15. “They will wear their haire comely, as the English do, and whosoever shall offend herein shall pay four shillings.”

Rule 23. “They shall not disguise themselves in their mournings as formerly, nor shall they keep a great noyse by howling.”

Rule 24. “The old ceremony of a maide walking alone and living apart so many days, [fine] twenty shillings.”

[39] _Page 53, note 1._ Shepard, p. 9.

[40] _Page 54, note 1._ Wilson’s _Letter_, 1651.

[41] _Page 54, note 2._ _News from America_, p. 22.

[42] _Page 54, note 3._ Winthrop, vol. ii., p. 2.

[43] _Page 55, note 1._ Hutchinson, vol. i., p. 90.

[44] _Page 55, note 2._ Hutchinson, vol. i., p. 112.

[45] _Page 55, note 3._ Winthrop, vol. ii., p. 21.

[46] _Page 55, note 4._ Hutchinson, vol. i., p. 94.

[47] _Page 55, note 5._ Bulkeley’s _Gospel Covenant_, p. 209.

[48] _Page 55, note 6._ Winthrop, vol. ii., p. 94.

[49] _Page 56, note 1._ _Gospel Covenant_, p. 301.

[50] _Page 57, note 1._ Shattuck, p. 45.

[51] _Page 57, note 2._ Hutchinson, vol. i., p. 172.

[52] _Page 57, note 3._ See his instructions from the Commissioners, his narrative, and the Commissioners’ letter to him, in Hutchinson’s _Collection_, pp. 261-270.

[53] _Page 58, note 1._ Hutchinson’s _History_, vol. i., p. 254.

[54] _Page 58, note 2._ Hubbard’s _Indian Wars_, p. 119, ed. 1801.

Mr. Charles H. Walcott, in his _Concord in the Colonial Period_ (Estes & Lauriat, Boston, 1884), gives a very interesting account of the Brookfield fight.

[55] _Page 58, note 3._ Hubbard, p. 201.

[56] _Page 59, note 1._ Hubbard, p. 185.

[57] _Page 59, note 2._ Hubbard, p. 245.

[58] _Page 60, note 1._ Shattuck, p. 55.

[59] _Page 60, note 2._ Hubbard, p. 260.

[60] _Page 61, note 1._ Neal’s _History of New England_, vol. i., p. 321.

[61] _Page 61, note 2._ Mather, _Magnalia Christi_, vol. i., p. 363.