t aroused the younger Emerson to the possibilities of intuitive
reasoning in spiritual realms? The influence of men like Channing in
his fight for the dignity of human nature, against the arbitrary
revelations that Calvinism had strapped on the church, and for the
belief in the divine in human reason, doubtless encouraged Emerson in
his unshackled search for the infinite, and gave him premises which he
later took for granted instead of carrying them around with him. An
over-interest, not an under-interest in Christian ideal aims, may have
caused him to feel that the definite paths were well established and
doing their share, and that for some to reach the same infinite ends,
more paths might be opened--paths which would in themselves, and in a
more transcendent way, partake of the spiritual nature of the land in
quest,--another expression of God's Kingdom in Man. Would you have the
indefinite paths ALWAYS supplemented by the shadow of the definite one
of a first influence?

A characteristic of rebellion, is that its results are often deepest,
when the rebel breaks not from the worst to the greatest, but from the
great to the greater. The youth of the rebel increases this
characteristic. The innate rebellious spirit in young men is active and
buoyant. They could rebel against and improve the millennium. This
excess of enthusiasm at the inception of a movement, causes loss of
perspective; a natural tendency to undervalue the great in that which
is being taken as a base of departure. A "youthful sedition" of Emerson
was his withdrawal from the communion, perhaps, the most socialistic
doctrine (or rather symbol) of the church--a "commune" above property
or class.

Picking up an essay on religion of a rather remarkable-minded
boy--perhaps with a touch of genius--written when he was still in
college, and so serving as a good illustration in point--we
read--"Every thinking man knows that the church is dead." But every
thinking man knows that the church-part of the church always has been
dead--that part seen by candle-light, not Christ-light. Enthusiasm is
restless and hasn't time to see that if the church holds itself as
nothing but the symbol of the greater light it is life itself--as a
symbol of a symbol it is dead. Many of the sincerest followers of
Christ never heard of Him. It is the better influence of an institution
that arouses in the deep and earnest souls a feeling of rebellion to
make its aims more certain. It is