esteemed
and honored, whose colleague he had been, addressed a letter to him, in
which he expressed the feeling that some of the statements of Emerson's
discourse would tend to overthrow the authority and influence of
Christianity. To this note Emerson returned the following answer:--

"What you say about the discourse at Divinity College is just what I
might expect from your truth and charity, combined with your known
opinions. I am not a stick or a stone, as one said in the old time,
and could not but feel pain in saying some things in that place and
presence which I supposed would meet with dissent, I may say, of
dear friends and benefactors of mine. Yet, as my conviction is
perfect in the substantial truth of the doctrines of this discourse,
and is not very new, you will see at once that it must appear very
important that it be spoken; and I thought I could not pay the
nobleness of my friends so mean a compliment as to suppress my
opposition to their supposed views, out of fear of offence. I would
rather say to them, these things look thus to me, to you otherwise.
Let us say our uttermost word, and let the all-pervading truth, as
it surely will, judge between us. Either of us would, I doubt not,
be willingly apprised of his error. Meantime, I shall be admonished
by this expression of your thought, to revise with greater care the
'address,' before it is printed (for the use of the class): and I
heartily thank you for this expression of your tried toleration and
love."

Dr. Ware followed up his note with a sermon, preached on the 23d of
September, in which he dwells especially on the necessity of adding the
idea of personality to the abstractions of Emerson's philosophy, and
sent it to him with a letter, the kindness and true Christian spirit of
which were only what were inseparable from all the thoughts and feelings
of that most excellent and truly apostolic man.

To this letter Emerson sent the following reply:--

CONCORD, October 8, 1838.

"MY DEAR SIR,--I ought sooner to have acknowledged your kind letter
of last week, and the sermon it accompanied. The letter was right
manly and noble. The sermon, too, I have read with attention. If it
assails any doctrine of mine,--perhaps I am not so quick to see it
as writers generally,--certainly I did not feel any disposition
to depart from my habitual contentment, t