66 σε ψευδηγορεῖν γὰρ οὐκ ἐπίσταται στόμα τὸ δῖον, ἀλλὰ πᾶν ἔπος τελεῖ.” ESCHYLUS, Prometheus Bound, 1031. Οὐκ ἂν τάδ' ἔστη τῇδε, μὴ θεῶν μέτα.” SOPHOCLES, Ajax, 950. XII. EMERSON'S VIEWS ON IMMORTALITY. PRELUDE ON CURRENT EVENTS. WHICH city has the greater right to an attitude of intellectual haughtiness, Boston, or Edinburgh? In preparation for all inspired work in poetry and art, and, much more, in religion, it is necessary to make the palms of the hands clean, and to shake off them the glittering, stout vipers,—intellectual pride, vanity, and self-sufficiency. Has Edinburgh shown a greater decision and skill than Boston in dislodging these wreathing reptiles from her fingers, as Paul shook off the serpent on Melitus, feeling no harm? Is Edinburgh really the equal of Boston in culture? Where is there in this city a better metaphysician than Sir William Hamilton or Dugald Stewart? Who here has advanced exact science more than Black, or Playfair, or Sir David Brewster? Is there a better political economist here than Adam Smith, the author of "The Wealth of Nations"? Have we better historians than Hume and Robertson? Is there any rhetorician here likely to be more influential than Hugh Blair? Have we a painter superior to Sir John Leslie, a more delightful essayist than Thomas DeQuincey, a better writer on ethics than Sir James Mackintosh? What literary name have we, on the whole, superior to that of Walter Scott? Can Boston produce the equal of John Knox or Thomas Chalmers? What periodical of the same class have we better than "Blackwood's Magazine," as edited by a Lockhart and a Wilson? What quarterly have we here in Boston more famous than "The Edinburgh Review," with Francis Jeffrey, and Sidney Smith, and Horner, and Macaulay, and Brougham behind it? This Edinburgh, true to the deepest inspirations of conscience in her Scotch heart and intellect, knelt down lately on the shore of the North Sea, and was willing to have her devotions led by an American evangelist; and shall Boston, on this Puritan and Pilgrim shore, stand stupidly stiff when asked to kneel? Dickens wrote in his last years, that he regarded a Boston audience as next to an Edinburgh audience, but that this was a high compliment to Boston; for he regarded an Edinburgh audience as perfect. What if Boston in 1877 should receive, as well as Edinburgh did in 1874, evangelists thrice more emphatically approved by experience now than they were then? What if we should put ourselves as thoroughly as Edinburgh did herself into the attitude of a telescope focused on the sun of religious truth, and ready, therefore, to cause an image of the sun to spring up in the chambers of the instrument? We are proud of our lenses: are we willing to adjust them? Once adjusted, even poor human lenses, by fixed natural law, may draw down a star or a sun into the soul; and, although the light is from above, the adjustment is our own. Are we willing to bring the axis of adjusted, spiritual, telescopic thought in Boston into complete coincidence with the line of the keenest rays of conscience, and of self-surrender to God, and see what the effect will be in the startingup within us of a light otherwise unattainable, and hot enough to burn up our temptations,― hot enough to purge whatever of politics, or commerce, or social life, is held in the focus of the rays, - hot enough to sear the wings of the dolorous and accursed scepticisms which flutter not through the Boston noon, but through the Boston dusk, and endeavor yet to build homes for themselves in last year's birds' nests, like Paine's forgotten books, and Parkerism, and small philosophy, and free religion and materialism? [Applause.] Edinburgh, when Mr. Moody came to that city, avoided a division of her Christian forces. Half a score of churches could not hold the audiences; but there was no lack of trained minds and hearts ready to converse with the religiously irresolute face to face. To bring those who have not surrendered to God face to face with those who have, and to let the two sets of minds act and re-act upon each other in personal hushed conversation, religious study, and prayer, is one of the highest blessings to both, and perhaps the most effective human instrumentality known to man for the diffusion of personal religion. I have seen men and women go into such conversation shiveringly as babes into a bath, and come out with foreheads white, and eyes like stars. Face-toface conversation between the converted and the unconverted is every where the chief measure to be taken for the religious culture of both. The secret of Mr. Moody's great usefulness is in a combination of three things,-his total and immeasurably glad self-surrender to God; his fervid oratory, alive in every part with biblical truth, practical sagacity, and fathomlessly genuine consent to conscience; and his most uncommon good sense in organizing religious effort in those forms which bring the converted and the unconverted face to face in conversation, biblical study, and prayer. A power not of man springs up when the religiously resolute and the religiously irresolute converse and kneel together in the Holy of holies of human experience, a divine aroma breathed upon the two from the open Scriptures between their eager faces. These inquiry-meetings, this organization of lay religious effort, this putting the unrepentant face to face with the converted, this kneeling together of those who are right with God and those who wish to be, is the secret, I think, of the chief religious power in the long course of the evangelists' work. Edinburgh was willing, with all her haughtiness, to enter into that style of religious effort. Professor Blaikie says that the sacred songs which filled the meetings are at this day better known in Scotland than Burns's poems. In a call issued to all Scotland from Edinburgh, nearly all the professors of the University of Edinburgh are represented. There |