Divine Library is a free online public library that includes free eBook downloads and free audio books.

We work with New Thought Seekers and Sharers around the world insuring that all New Thought Texts in the Public Domain are available for you to read on the web for free, forever!

"Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit."
~ 2 Corinthians 2:17

Navigate through this book by clicking Next Page or Previous Page below the text of the page & jump directly to chapters using the chapter numbers above the text.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Serving New Thought is pleased to present

Ralph Waldo Emerson's

Nature, Addresses, and Lectures

Book page numbers, along with the number to the left of the .htm extension match the page numbers of the original books to ensure easy use in citations for research papers and books


Introduction - Nature - Commodity - Beauty - Language - Discipline - Idealism - Spirit - Prospects - The American Scholar - Divinity College, Cambridge - Literary Ethics - The Method of Nature - Man the Reformer - Lecture on the Times - The Transcendentalist - The Young American - Contents -


height to which the waters once rose. But this docility is a cheek upon the mischief from the good and devout. In a large portion of the community, the religious service gives rise to quite other thoughts and emotions. We need not chide the negligent servant. We are struck with pity, rather, at the swift retribution of his sloth. Alas for the unhappy man that is called to stand in the pulpit, and not give bread of life. Everything that befalls, accuses him. Would he ask contributions for the missions, foreign or domestic? Instantly his face is suffused with shame, to propose to his parish that they should send money a hundred or a thousand miles, to furnish such poor fare as they have at home and would do well to go the hundred or the thousand miles to escape. Would he urge people to a godly way of living; --- and can he ask a fellow-creature to come to Sabbath meetings, when he and they all know what is the poor uttermost they can hope for therein? Will he invite them privately to the Lord's Supper? He dares not. If no heart warm this rite, the hollow, dry, creaking formality is too plain than that he can face a man of wit and energy and put the invitation without terror. In the street, what has he to say to the bold village blasphemer? The village blasphemer sees fear in the face, form, and gait of the minister.

page scan

138


PREVIOUS PAGE - NEXT PAGE

Support New Thought Library so that we can continue our work 
of putting all public domain New Thought texts at your fingertips for free!