EMERSONIOLATRY by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 17, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 24.

EMERSONIOLATRY.

By Editor

SURELY if Ralph Waldo Emerson were alive and conscious of America's on-going, his soul and "oversoul" would have been filled with mingled emotions during the last few weeks, as men have vied with each other in acknowledging him as but little less than their Creator, and so on down through all degrees of demigodism. Even a coterie of his disciples, numbering among them ministers of evangelical churches, has sent out an appeal that one Sunday be devoted to the memory of Emerson.

We are glad to see one religious paper at least protest against the suggestion. The Christian Advocate declares that the suggestion is enough "to freeze mercury," and well adds:—

To commemorate Emerson as a genius, as a literary star of the first magnitude, as a citizen, as being of considerable value to the symmetrical development of thought by opposing bald materialism, as one who has extended the fame of the United States far and wide by his poems and essays, as a person of unusual sweetness of disposition, and the sympathizer with the elevation of mankind and the removal of inequalities, is as unobjectionable and as praiseworthy as the vote that placed him so high in the hall of fame; but for orthodox Christians to take the hours set apart for religious worship to magnify the life of one who used his powers to dethrone CHRIST as in any special degree the Son of God, and attached no value to His sacrifice for the salvation of men, except as a mere martyr, would be most incongruous except for Jews, Unitarians, and Deists.

One of his worshipers well tells us that it is utterly un-Emersonian to become so enslaved to Emerson, for he taught the freedom of the individual. And he doubtless did by example, but he made a host of slaves.

Another admirer, in writing of his influence, contends that to only strong minds like Emerson's does such philosophy as his belong, and its utter perversion, the degradation of its transcendentalism, is seen in "Christian Science."

And yet every good thing that Emerson ever taught is in the revelation that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, gave to the world in the Bible. O how all this worship of men emphasizes the great need of God's last great threefold message, "Fear God, and give glory to Him; . . . and worship Him that made heaven and earth." Rev. 14:6, 7. There is much need of giving it. There is freedom nowhere else save in His fear, in His worship.