their minds articulated by his tongue."

In his "Remarks at the Organization of the Free Religious Association,"
Emerson stated his leading thought about religion in a very succinct and
sufficiently "transcendental" way: intelligibly for those who wish to
understand him; mystically to those who do not accept or wish to accept
the doctrine shadowed forth in his poem, "The Sphinx."

--"As soon as every man is apprised of the Divine Presence within
his own mind,--is apprised that the perfect law of duty corresponds
with the laws of chemistry, of vegetation, of astronomy, as face to
face in a glass; that the basis of duty, the order of society, the
power of character, the wealth of culture, the perfection of taste,
all draw their essence from this moral sentiment; then we have a
religion that exalts, that commands all the social and all the
private action."

Nothing could be more wholesome in a meeting of creed-killers than the
suggestive remark,--

--"What I expected to find here was, some practical suggestions by
which we were to reanimate and reorganize for ourselves the true
Church, the pure worship. Pure doctrine always bears fruit in pure
benefits. It is only by good works, it is only on the basis of
active duty, that worship finds expression.--The interests that grow
out of a meeting like this, should bind us with new strength to the
old eternal duties."

In a later address before the same association, Emerson says:--
"I object, of course, to the claim of miraculous
dispensation,--certainly not to the _doctrine_ of Christianity.--If
you are childish and exhibit your saint as a worker of wonders, a
thaumaturgist, I am repelled. That claim takes his teachings out of
nature, and permits official and arbitrary senses to be grafted on
the teachings."

The "Progress of Culture" was delivered as a Phi Beta Kappa oration just
thirty years after his first address before the same society. It is very
instructive to compare the two orations written at the interval of a
whole generation: one in 1837, at the age of thirty-four; the other in
1867, at the age of sixty-four. Both are hopeful, but the second is more
sanguine than the first. He recounts what he considers the recent gains
of the reforming movement:--

"Observe the marked ethical quality of the innovations urged or
adopted. The new claim of woman to a political status