Ralph Waldo Emerson | Page 5

fair complexion, his
cheeks slightly tinted, his motions easy, graceful, and gentlemanlike,
his manners bland and pleasant. He was an honest man, and expressed
himself decidedly and emphatically, but never bluntly or vulgarly.--Mr.
Emerson was a man of good sense. His conversation was edifying and
useful; never foolish or undignified.--In his theological opinions he was,
to say the least, far from having any sympathy with Calvinism. I have
not supposed that he was, like Dr. Freeman, a Humanitarian, though he
may have been so."
There was no honester chronicler than our clerical Pepys, good, hearty,
sweet-souled, fact-loving Dr. John Pierce of Brookline, who knew the
dates of birth and death of the graduates of Harvard, starred and
unstarred, better, one is tempted to say (_Hibernice_), than they did
themselves. There was not a nobler gentleman in charge of any Boston
parish than Dr. Charles Lowell. But after the pulpit has said what it
thinks of the pulpit, it is well to listen to what the pews have to say
about it.
This is what the late Mr. George Ticknor said in an article in the
"Christian Examiner" for September, 1849.
"Mr. Emerson, transplanted to the First Church in Boston six years
before Mr. Buckminster's settlement, possessed, on the contrary, a
graceful and dignified style of speaking, which was by no means

without its attraction, but he lacked the fervor that could rouse the
masses, and the original resources that could command the few."
As to his religious beliefs, Emerson writes to Dr. Sprague as follows: "I
did not find in any manuscript or printed sermons that I looked at, any
very explicit statement of opinion on the question between Calvinists
and Socinians. He inclines obviously to what is ethical and universal in
Christianity; very little to the personal and historical.--I think I observe
in his writings, as in the writings of Unitarians down to a recent date, a
studied reserve on the subject of the nature and offices of Jesus. They
had not made up their own minds on it. It was a mystery to them, and
they let it remain so."
Mr. William Emerson left, published, fifteen Sermons and Discourses,
an Oration pronounced at Boston on the Fourth of July, 1802, a
Collection of Psalms and Hymns, an Historical Sketch of the First
Church in Boston, besides his contributions to the "Monthly
Anthology," of which he was the Editor.
Ruth Haskins, the wife of William and the mother of Ralph Waldo
Emerson, is spoken of by the late Dr. Frothingham, in an article in the
"Christian Examiner," as a woman "of great patience and fortitude, of
the serenest trust in God, of a discerning spirit, and a most courteous
bearing, one who knew how to guide the affairs of her own house, as
long as she was responsible for that, with the sweetest authority, and
knew how to give the least trouble and the greatest happiness after that
authority was resigned. Both her mind and her character were of a
superior order, and they set their stamp upon manners of peculiar
softness and natural grace and quiet dignity. Her sensible and kindly
speech was always as good as the best instruction; her smile, though it
was ever ready, was a reward."
The Reverend Dr. Furness of Philadelphia, who grew up with her son,
says, "Waldo bore a strong resemblance to his father; the other children
resembled their mother."
Such was the descent of Ralph Waldo Emerson. If the ideas of parents
survive as impressions or tendencies in their descendants, no man had a
better right to an inheritance of theological instincts than this
representative of a long line of ministers. The same trains of thought
and feeling might naturally gain in force from another association of
near family relationship, though not of blood. After the death of the

first William Emerson, the Concord minister, his widow, Mr.
Emerson's grandmother, married, as has been mentioned, his successor,
Dr. Ezra Ripley. The grandson spent much time in the family of Dr.
Ripley, whose character he has drawn with exquisite felicity in a sketch
read before The Social Circle of Concord, and published in the
"Atlantic Monthly" for November, 1883. Mr. Emerson says of him:
"He was identified with the ideas and forms of the New England
Church, which expired about the same time with him, so that he and his
coevals seemed the rear guard of the great camp and army of the
Puritans, which, however in its last days declining into formalism, in
the heyday of its strength had planted and liberated America.... The
same faith made what was strong and what was weak in Dr. Ripley." It
would be hard to find a more perfect sketch of character than Mr.
Emerson's living picture of Dr. Ripley. I myself remember him as