with the
thought that God can probably take care of the slavery question
without troubling him; he will stick to his post and look after
more important matters.

What a treat it must have been to those assembled in the Follen
house to hear week after week the very noblest considerations and
suggestions concerning life poured forth in tones so musical, so
penetrating, that to-day they ring in the ears of those who had
the great good fortune to hear. There was probably very little
said about death. Emerson never pretended to a vision beyond the
grave. In his essay on "Immortality" he says, "Sixty years ago,
the books read, the services and prayers heard, the habits of
thought of religious persons, were all directed on death. All were
under the shadow of Calvinism and of the Roman Catholic purgatory,
and death was dreadful. The emphasis of all the good books given
to young people was on death. We were all taught that we were born
to die; and over that, all the terrors that theology could gather
from savage nations were added to increase the gloom, A great
change has occurred. Death is seen as a natural event, and is met
with firmness. A wise man in our time caused to be written on his
tomb, 'Think on Living.' That inscription describes a progress in
opinion. Cease from this antedating of your experience. Sufficient
to to-day are the duties of to-day. Don't waste life in doubts and
fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that
the right performance of the hour's duties will be the best
preparation for the hours or ages that follow it."

Such was the burden of Emerson's message: make the very best of
life; let not the present be palsied by fears for the future. A
healthy, sane message, a loud clear voice in the wilderness of
doubt and fears, the very loudest and clearest voice in matters
spiritual and intellectual which America has yet produced.

It was during the days of his service in East Lexington that he
went to Providence to deliver a course of lectures; while there he
was invited to conduct the services in the Second (Unitarian)
Church. The pastor afterwards said, "He selected from Greenwood's
collection hymns of a purely meditative character, without any
distinctively Christian expression. For the Scripture lesson he
read a fine passage from Ecclesiasticus**, from which he also took
his text. The sermon was precisely like one of his lectures in
style; the prayers, or what took their place, were