his labors, and tells in the same connection a story of
Father Taylor too good not to be repeated:--

"Emerson took an active interest in the public affairs of Boston.
He was on its School Board, and was chosen chaplain of the State
Senate. He invited the anti-slavery lecturers into his church, and
helped philanthropists of other denominations in their work. Father
Taylor [the Methodist preacher to the sailors], to whom Dickens gave
an English fame, found in him his most important supporter when
establishing the Seaman's Mission in Boston. This was told me by
Father Taylor himself in his old age. I happened to be in his
company once, when he spoke rather sternly about my leaving the
Methodist Church; but when I spoke of the part Emerson had in it, he
softened at once, and spoke with emotion of his great friend. I have
no doubt that if the good Father of Boston Seamen was proud of any
personal thing, it was of the excellent answer he is said to have
given to some Methodists who objected to his friendship for Emerson.
Being a Unitarian, they insisted that he must go to"--[the place
which a divine of Charles the Second's day said it was not good
manners to mention in church].--"'It does look so,' said Father
Taylor, 'but I am sure of one thing: if Emerson goes to'"--[that
place]--"'he will change the climate there, and emigration will set
that way.'"

In 1830, Emerson took part in the services at the ordination of the
Reverend H.B. Goodwin as Dr. Ripley's colleague. His address on giving
the right hand of fellowship was printed, but is not included among his
collected works.

The fair prospects with which Emerson began his life as a settled
minister were too soon darkened. In February, 1832, the wife of
his youth, who had been for some time in failing health, died of
consumption.

He had become troubled with doubts respecting a portion of his duties,
and it was not in his nature to conceal these doubts from his people. On
the 9th of September, 1832, he preached a sermon on the Lord's Supper,
in which he announced unreservedly his conscientious scruples against
administering that ordinance, and the grounds upon which those scruples
were founded. This discourse, as his only printed sermon, and as one
which heralded a movement in New England theology which has never
stopped from that day to this, deserves some special notice. The sermon
is i