corresponds
with the laws of chemistry, of vegetation, of astronomy, as face to
face in a glass; that the basis of duty, the order of society, the
power of character, the wealth of culture, the perfection of taste,
all draw their essence from this moral sentiment; then we have a
religion that exalts, that commands all the social and all the
private action."

Nothing could be more wholesome in a meeting of creed-killers than the
suggestive remark,--

--"What I expected to find here was, some practical suggestions by
which we were to reanimate and reorganize for ourselves the true
Church, the pure worship. Pure doctrine always bears fruit in pure
benefits. It is only by good works, it is only on the basis of
active duty, that worship finds expression.--The interests that grow
out of a meeting like this, should bind us with new strength to the
old eternal duties."

In a later address before the same association, Emerson says:--
"I object, of course, to the claim of miraculous
dispensation,--certainly not to the _doctrine_ of Christianity.--If
you are childish and exhibit your saint as a worker of wonders, a
thaumaturgist, I am repelled. That claim takes his teachings out of
nature, and permits official and arbitrary senses to be grafted on
the teachings."

The "Progress of Culture" was delivered as a Phi Beta Kappa oration just
thirty years after his first address before the same society. It is very
instructive to compare the two orations written at the interval of a
whole generation: one in 1837, at the age of thirty-four; the other in
1867, at the age of sixty-four. Both are hopeful, but the second is more
sanguine than the first. He recounts what he considers the recent gains
of the reforming movement:--

"Observe the marked ethical quality of the innovations urged or
adopted. The new claim of woman to a political status is itself an
honorable testimony to the civilization which has given her a civil
status new in history. Now that by the increased humanity of law she
controls her property, she inevitably takes the next step to her
share in power."

He enumerates many other gains, from the war or from the growth of
intelligence,--"All, one may say, in a high degree revolutionary,
teaching nations the taking of governments into their own hands, and
superseding kings."

He repeats some of his fundamental formu