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would shortly occur; until which time, he tells them that this feast was to be kept up. In this manner we may see clearly enough how this current ordinance got its footing among the early Christians; and this single expectation of the speedy reappearance of a temporal Messiah, which kept its influence even over so spiritual a man as St. Paul, would naturally tend to preserve the use of the rite when once established.

"We arrive, then, at this conclusion: First, that it does not appear, from a careful examination of the account of the Lord's Supper in the Evangelists, that it was designed by Jesus to be perpetual. Secondly, that it does not appear that the opinion of St. Paul, all things considered, ought to alter our opinion derived from the Evangelists."

Having, as he believes, set aside the historical argument for the perpetual observance of the rite of the Lord's Supper, Mr. Emerson proceeds to state at some length his own objections to its observance in its present form, or in any other in which its characteristic features should be essentially maintained. These objections resolve themselves into three, which are here presented, considerably abridged :

EMERSON'S OBJECTIONS TO THE RITE.

"(1.) If the view which I have taken of the history of the institution be correct, then the claim of authority should be dropped in administering it. You say every time that you celebrate the rite that Jesus enjoined it; but, if you read the New Testament as I do, you do not believe he did.

"(2.) It has seemed to me that the use of this ordinance tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation of the soul to God. It is the old objection to the doctrine of the Trinity-that the true worship was transferred from God to Christ, or that such confusion was introduced into the soul that an individual worship was given nowhere. The service does not stand upon the basis of a voluntary act, but is imposed by authority. It is an expression of gratitude to Christ, enjoined by Christ. Here is an endeavor to keep Jesus in mind, whilst yet the prayers are addressed to God. I fear it is the effect of this ordinance to clothe Jesus with an authority which he never claimed, and which distracts the mind of the worshipper. I believe that the human mind can admit but one God, and that every effort to pay religious homage to more than one Being goes to take away all right ideas.

"(3.) The use of the elements, however suitable to the peoples and modes of thought of the East, is foreign and unsuited to us. We are not accustomed to express our thoughts or emotions by symbolical actions. And men find the bread and wine no aid to devotion; and to some it is a painful impediment. To eat bread is one thing; to love the principles of Christ, and resolve to obey them, is quite another."

This last objection is the one most strenuously urged by Mr. Emerson. "I think," he says, "that this difficulty, wherever it is felt, is entitled to the greatest weight. It is alone a sufficient objection to the ordinance. It is my own objection." He adds emphatically:

AN APPROPRIATE COMMEMORATION.

"This mode of commemorating Christ is not suitable to me. That is reason enough why I should abandon it. If I believed that it was enjoined by Jesus on his disciples, and that he even contemplated making permanent this mode of commemoration, every way agreeable to an Eastern mind, and yet if on trial it was disagreeable to me, I should not adopt it. I should choose other ways which, as more effectual upon me, he would approve more. For I choose that my remembrances of him should be pleasing, affecting, religious. I will love him, as a glorified friend, after the free ways of friendship, and not pay him a stiff sign of respect, as men do to those whom they fear. A passage read from his discourses, a moving provocation to works like his, any act or meeting which tends to awaken a pure thought, a flow of love, an original design of virtue, I call a worthy, a true commemation."

Impelled by these and such like considerations, Emerson had proposed to the brethren of his congregation that the use of bread and wine, and all claim by authority, should be dropped from the administration of the ordinance. Not a man would consent to this change-proof sufficient that none of them were conscious of the difficul

ties which pressed upon their pastor. Little weight as any or all of these objections have upon our mind, we cannot fail to honor the conscien- . tious and self-sacrificing spirit in which he carried out his convictions, as thus set forth in the closing passage of this sermon:

THE FINAL RESOLVE.

"It is my desire, in the office of a Christian minister, to do nothing which I cannot do with my whole heart. Having said this, I have said all. I have no hostility to this institution; I am only stating my want of sympathy with it. Neither should I have ever obtruded this opinion upon other people, had I not been called by my office to administer it. That is the end of my opposition, that I am not interested in it. I am content that it should stand to the end of the world, if it pleases men and pleases heaven, and I shall rejoice in all the good that it produces. .

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"As it is the prevailing opinion and feeling in our religious community that it is an indispensable part of the pastoral office to administer this ordinance, I am about to resign into your hands the office which you have confided to me. It has many duties for which I am feebly qualified. It has some which it will always be my delight to discharge, according to my ability, wherever I exist. And whilst the recollection of its claims oppresses me with a sense of my unworthiness, I am consoled by the hope that no time and no change can deprive me of the satisfaction of pursuing and expressing its highest functions."

Thus, for conscience's sake, early in September, 1832, Emerson, at the age of twenty-nine, virtually shut himself out from continuing in that career of life upon which he had so lately entered with such brilliant prospects of success. His resignation of the pastorate was accepted, but the "proprietors" voted that his salary should be con

tinued. Most likely they hoped that the difficulty would somehow be got over, and he would resume his work. But he was broken in health and depressed in spirits, and meditated a trip to Europe. So, near the close of December, he relinquished his emoluments, and addressed a tender farewell letter to his congregation. Some portions of this letter are of special interest as setting forth his own religious status at this period of his life.

THE FAREWELL LETTER.

"Our connection has been very short. It is now to be brought to a sudden close; and I look back, I own, with a painful sense of weakness to the little service I have been able to render after so much expectation on my part, to the checkered space of time which domestic afflictions and personal infirmities have made still shorter and more unprofitable.

"As long as he remains in the same place, a man flatters himself, however keen may be his sense of his failures and unworthiness, that he shall yet accomplish much; that the future shall make amends for the past; that his very errors shall prove his instructors: and what limit is there to hope? But a separation from our place, the close of a particular career of duty, shuts the book, bereaves us of that hope, and leaves us only to lament how little has been done.

"Yet our faith in the great truths of the New Testament makes the change of place and circumstances of less account to us, by fixing our attention upon that which is unalterable. I find great consolation in the thought that the resignation of my present relations makes so little

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