The “ever-blessed ONE” of Emerson corresponds to the Father in the doctrine of the Trinity.  The “Over-Soul” of Emerson is that aspect of Deity which is known to theology as the Holy Spirit.  Jesus was for him a divine manifestation, but only as other great human souls have been in all ages and are to-day.  He was willing to be called a Christian just as he was willing to be called a Platonist.

Explanations are apt not to explain much in dealing with subjects like this.  “Canst thou by searching find out God?  Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?” But on certain great points nothing could be clearer than the teaching of Emerson.  He believed in the doctrine of spiritual influx as sincerely as any Calvinist or Swedenborgian.  His views as to fate, or the determining conditions of the character, brought him near enough to the doctrine of predestination to make him afraid of its consequences, and led him to enter a caveat against any denial of the self-governing power of the will.

His creed was a brief one, but he carried it everywhere with him.  In all he did, in all he said, and so far as all outward signs could show, in all his thoughts, the indwelling Spirit was his light and guide; through all nature he looked up to nature’s God; and if he did not worship the “man Christ Jesus” as the churches of Christendom have done, he followed his footsteps so nearly that our good Methodist, Father Taylor, spoke of him as more like Christ than any man he had known.

Emerson was in friendly relations with many clergymen of the church from which he had parted.  Since he left the pulpit, the lesson, not of tolerance, for that word is an insult as applied by one set of well-behaved people to another, not of charity, for that implies an impertinent assumption, but of good feeling on the part of divergent sects and their ministers has been taught and learned as never before.  Their official Confessions of Faith make far less difference in their human sentiments and relations than they did even half a century ago.  These ancient creeds are handed along down, to be kept in their phials with their stoppers fast, as attar of rose is kept in its little bottles; they are not to be opened and exposed to the atmosphere so long as their perfume,—­the odor of sanctity,—­is diffused from the carefully treasured receptacles,—­perhaps even longer than that.

Out of the endless opinions as to the significance and final outcome of Emerson’s religious teachings I will select two as typical.

Dr. William Hague, long the honored minister of a Baptist church in Boston, where I had the pleasure of friendly acquaintance with him, has written a thoughtful, amiable paper on Emerson, which he read before the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.  This Essay closes with the following sentence:—­

“Thus, to-day, while musing, as at the beginning, over the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, we recognize now as ever his imperial genius as one of the greatest of writers; at the same time, his life work, as a whole, tested by its supreme ideal, its method and its fruitage, shows also a great waste of power, verifying the saying of Jesus touching the harvest of human life:  ‘HE THAT GATHERETH NOT WITH ME SCATTERETH ABROAD.’”