The Newtown bee. (Newtown, Conn.) 1877-current, 1906-04-06

lUdtlOuS, ueuec NATURALLY QlS QOCGrl0e
was that the soul knew no persons.
We are not assured. that Emerson
could work out his own logic here. One
may readily, with such hypothesis,
come to deprecatory conclusion con.
corning the personality of Jesus. Yet
Emerson did not have the relation OF
Jesus to God in mind at this point.
He was opposing especially the idea OF
limitation which to him the word EN-.
bodied. So we read in Emerson q
Journal Of March, 1858, II say that !
cannot lind, when I explore my own
consciousness, any truth in saying that
God is a person, but the reverse. /
feel that there is some proclamation in
saying he Is personal. To represent
him as an individual is to shut him
out of my consciousness. He is then
but great man such as the crowd
chapter, II deny personality to God
because 1T is too little, not too much 81
We see at once that Emerson's ideas
of words are at fault, not his cOncep-
tion OF God. Emerson's appreciation
OF athe infinite largenesS of God is q
good definition Of personality. He
thought personality characteristic of
man and hence limited; therefore to
make the contrast he used a term
which was dramatically opposed to
the idea of person.
ence personality in God. He ibid not,
however, recognize the interplay of re-
lationship between God and Christ.
What he defined as personal in Christ
made difficult bis approach to God.
Emerson would have been pleased to
accept the movement of modern phil
OSOphy which defines personality as
completeness, not as Limitation.
Lotze is held by Prof F. G. Peabody
and others to be the best representa-
tive of modern philosophy, hence we
may quote. as confederation of our
point, the closing sentence of his great
work, Personality can be complete
in an infinite being only ~ \. For per-
sonality Of finite beings we have little
right to speak. 1t is an ideal. Like
every ideal it is, in its fitness, his only
who is infinite, and like every perfect
good, it is ours only conditionally and
imperfectly to share"
WITHIN THE LAST GENERATION
men have been giving a prominent
place to intuition in religion. Beech
er was the preacher of the love of God,
hence he placed emphasis upon heart
power, yet Emerson came before and
went beyond him in preaching to the
world the innate likeness which exists
between finite and infinite. To EN-
erson all knowledge is intuitive. Sure
ly here he is true to his doctrine of a
continuous revelations: and as we are
to-day exalting the poet as preacher,
Emerson, indeed, has his place, for not
only is he poet but preacher of pc
etry. Emerson, like all poets, was In.
dependent, and he urged independence
from custom, precedent and from even
theology. Theology is statement OF
our scientific knowledge of God; for
revelation as we have it is historic;
therefore intuition, the realm of the
poet, comes nearer the truth. 1t goes
toward truth. Emerson makes much
of the seeking OF God by the spiritual
element in man. He places above
everything else that innate power in
US which deties analysis, and which
seems to vanish if we try to be assured
"Man is stream whose source is hid
den, for our being is descending into
US from we know not whence" (See
note 3. "We must not tamper with
the organic motives of the soul. -
lSee note ~. And still farther, "If we
live truly we shall see truly"
nave not found his home
in God, his manners, his forms of
speech, the turn of his sentences, the
build, shall 1 say, of all his opinions,
will involuntarily confess it. "(see note
e.. Hence intuition with Emerson lis
according to lofty standards. A man
must be that he may know. Only that
is to pass as intuition which affects
the whole life largely, which makes it
to seek the fulillment of divine ends.
Like all mystics, Emerson urges a
He cannot do so If the Surroundings
detract. Mysticism as such and alone
we feel is not the ultimate, or the per-
feet belief. There must be something
besides the passive listening, in fact
men cannot listen we'll who are not at
the same time making thought their
own by living it. Here Emerson con-
tradictS himself as it were, and if not,
surely the principles of Christianity
do contradict him; for truth as it comes
tobe known is leaven. ''That man
shall be learned who reduceth his
learning to practice" (see note ~
Ours is an age of utilitarian ideal-we
have no time to lose in waiting for
light: we go out for it. Here Emer-
son is we'll our teacher. Be he mystic,
we are constrained to feel that his
master soul had revelations which are
denied those who do not or cannot sit
with God, to think his thoughts aft
er him. ALI truth is not the result
of illumination from above, nor is it
any more so result OF thought or rea-
soning. We need to incorporate into
our Christian ideal some of the Quak-
er's Inner Light and some Of Plotinus'
Ecstasy.
THE GREAT APOSTLE OF sELF-REL1-
ANCE
had not been so confident in man with
out reliance in God. The Greek poet
though cropping in the darkness be-
cause of his theology-sang of a more
tender Hades. In spite of lack of rev.
citation, longing or instructive reach
ing out after the infinite has faced
man toward the light. The
heart throb of all savage races mani
Testing worship of some nature power
or idol is revelation as well as proof of
divinity. Emerson is a first one to
speak of this unseen truth. Nay