Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-05-11
EMERSON.

emphatically to the Brahman stock oi
new england, being the ninth of 9
me OF ministers counting ancestors on
Doth aides. His mothers maiden name
was Haskins. His father, the Rev
William Emerson, was born at Concord
IN 1869, and died pastor of the First
congregational church at Boston in
1911. He wss an accomplished writer
the author OF the history Of the First
Church, and the editor of a selection
of psalms and hymns. Ralph, like his
father, was a graduate of Harvard
college. He was not among the high
est scholars OF his class, that of 1921,
but his abilities were proved aud re-
cogniZed. He gained Bowdoin prize
for an essay on the character of Soc
rates and next year for an essay on
the Present State of Ethical Philosophy.
His popularity was ~attested by his cleo.
ton to the cffice OF class poet. For
five years after graduation he assisted
his brother William in a school kept
by the latter at Boston. In 1926 he
was licensed to preach as a Unitarian
minister, and in 1929 he was ordained
colleague of the Rev. Henry Ware, jr,
pastor of the Second Unitarian church
of Boston. He held this place only
three years, for he had come to doubt
the propriety OF administering the
LoId's supper, doubling that it was
intended to be a permanent ordinance.
He was getting misty also regarding
other tenets of his denomination. His
people could not see things as he did,
and accepted his resignation, but with
regret.
From this time his clerical career
was ended. He went to Europe for a
year, and on his return delivered his
first lecture. The subject was "Water."
During the same season he delivered
three other lectures, one on "The Rela-
ton of Man to the Globe" the other
two on Italy. A series of biographical
lectures on distinguished men soon fol-
lowed. He was eminently favorite
on the platform, and during the palmy
days of the lyceum no lecturer was in
more constant request. In 1885 he re-
moved to Concord, Mass, which has
since been his home. He was a
hard student, and his labors bore
fruit in numerous contributions to
reviews and in addresses. He had
been the orator of the Phi Beta Kappa
society of Cambridge in 1884, and in
1887 he delivered before this organiza.
ton his famous American Scholar"
1t was enthusiastically received, but
did not create half he stir that his adj
dress before the Divinity school pro.
duced next year. 1t was the first pub
lie declaration OF transcendentalism to
which Unitarian institution had lis
tened. The learned Andrew Norton,
a dry Socinian of the old school, at
tackled it as "the latest form of inhdel-
ity," and a spirited controversy fol-
lowed. Emerson let others fight his
battles. and quietly smiled at his OPP
ponents. He lived to find all but real
ly conservative Unitarians looking to
him with reverence. In 1886 he pub
lish0d little volume called Nature.
1t did not attract much notice at the
time, but as he grew famous attention
was recalled to it. In 1910 he Joined
Margaret Fuller, A. Bronson Alcott.
e Theodore Parker. George Ripley and
others in the publication of the Dial, a
bAohoOCANCllOthA AllC
ties of which seemed moonshine to the
matter Of fact public, but to its admir-
ers 1t appeared the perfection of wis
dom and originality. Looking back at
1t from the brighter light of to-day, we
can better appreciate its real merits
and discriminate between profundity
and its counterfeit than could its con-
temporaries. Every generation has its
fashion, and TRANSFER dentalism was the
fashion OF the En- ersonian era $4,000.
Mans inner light, and the oversoul
which gIasped mysteries al readily as
squirrel does nut, were to light
up the darkntss that had enveloped
mans pathway, and a new period was
begun. Old fashioned beliefs still sur
wive, while hard materialistic science
has usurped the airy theories of trans
0endertalism, and carried the majority
of its disciples along. Yet it included
much that was noble and lofty. 1t
taught men to look behind mere facts
to the principles that occasioned their
manifestation, and served useful pur-
pose. though it did not take humanity
captive.
In 164l-44 werepublished Emerson's
Method of Nature, the clearest express
sion of his principles, and two volumes
of Essays. In 1916 he appeared as
poet, puzzling rather than gratifying
all but the initiated by the quaint ob
security Of his utterances. In 1S47 he
visited England a second time. He
was now famous, was warmly received,
and lectured to general admiration.
His miscellanies, 1649. and Essays on
representative men, 1850, were his
next publ cation. They were both
highly successful. His English Traits,
1856, and his Conduct of Life, 1860,
rank among his best productions. His
poem of Brahma, contributed to an
early number of the Atlantic Monthly,
and beginning:
"lf the Red Slayer thinks he Stays"
100 eha otthfoCt ~ f,nprunarobla v1arO-