Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. RELIGION. ON the eleventh of March, 1829, Emerson, then in his twenty-sixth year, was ordained as the colleague of the Reverend Henry Ware of the Second Church of Boston. He had already substituted for Mr. Ware during the illness of the latter, and a parish familiar with his preaching accorded him seventy-four out of seventy- nine votes. A few weeks later he became the sole incumbent, and in September he was married to Ellen Tucker, a charming frail New England girl to whom for nine months he had been engaged. Thus he was launched upon his profession under the most smiling auspices, and with the promise of a brilliant future. For three years he preached in the "venerable house" his fathers "built to God," and apparently without arousing any doubt of his conformity with the Unitarian thought of his congregation, although orthodox minds were shocked by his " untheological style." Mr. Cabot, having read the one hundred and seventy-one sermons still lying byEmerson's request in manuscript, can report nothing unconventional or revolutionary to be found upon their now ancient pages, but he reminds us that we have travelled far on the liberal road since the time of their writing, and are not perhaps so keen as Emerson's contemporaries to catch the note of change. It may be significant that from the few who have set down their impressions of the young preacher during these first years, we learn more of his gra- ciousness of presence, his benignity of countenance, the sweetness of his voice and the beauty of his elocution, than of his special teachings. No doubt what Lowell said much later was then as true ; that many went not so much to hear what Emerson said as to hear Emerson. One of his hearers has recorded, however, "an infinite charm of simplicity and wisd...