Editorial October 18, 1900 Issue

Emerson's Statement of Faith

Editor

Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered the address to the graduating class of the Harvard Divinity School, June 15, 1838, in which he is said to have made an explicit statement of his faith, for the first time.

Much controversy was aroused by it, both the press and the pulpit opened a savage denunciatory fire upon him, and the result was his separation from the Unitarians.

In the light of religious history since that time it seems incredible that any one should have been denounced and persecuted for uttering such plain spiritual truth; yet the fact that Emerson was so denounced and persecuted is evidence that such utterances were then needed

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