In 1837 Emerson gave the Phi Beta Kappa oration in Cambridge, The American Scholar, which increased his growing reputation, but the following year his Address to the Senior Class at the Divinity School brought out, even from the friendly Unitarians, severe strictures and warnings against its dangerous doctrines.  Of this heresy Emerson said:  “I deny personality to God because it is too little, not too much.”  He really strove to elevate the idea of God.  Yet those who were pained or shocked by his teachings respected Emerson.  His lectures were still in demand; he was often asked to speak by literary societies at orthodox colleges.  He preached regularly at East Lexington until 1838, but thereafter withdrew from the ministerial office.  At this time the progressive and spiritually minded young people used to meet for discussion and help in Boston, among them George Ripley, Cyrus Bartol, James Freeman Clarke, Alcott, Dr. Hedge, Margaret Fuller, and Elizabeth Peabody.  Perhaps from this gathering of friends, which Emerson attended, came what is called the Transcendental Movement, two results of which were the Brook Farm Community and the Dial magazine, in which last Emerson took great interest, and was for the time an editor.  Many of these friends were frequent visitors in Concord.  Alcott moved thither after the breaking up of his school.  Hawthorne also came to dwell there.  Henry Thoreau, a Concord youth, greatly interested Emerson; indeed, became for a year or two a valued inmate of his home, and helped and instructed him in the labors of the garden and little farm, which gradually grew to ten acres, the chief interest of which for the owner was his trees, which he loved and tended.  Emerson helped introduce his countrymen to the teachings of Carlyle, and edited his works here, where they found more readers than at home.

In 1847 Emerson was invited to read lectures in England, and remained abroad a year, visiting France also in her troublous times.  English Traits was a result.  Just before this journey he had collected and published his poems.  A later volume, called May Day, followed in 1867.  He had written verses from childhood, and to the purified expression of poetry he, through life, eagerly aspired.  He said, “I like my poems best because it is not I who write them.”  In 1866 the degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred on him by Harvard University, and he was chosen an Overseer.  In 1867 he again gave the Phi Beta Kappa oration, and in 1870 and 1871 gave courses in Philosophy in the University Lectures at Cambridge.

Emerson was not merely a man of letters.  He recognized and did the private and public duties of the hour.  He exercised a wide hospitality to souls as well as bodies.  Eager youths came to him for rules, and went away with light.  Reformers, wise and unwise, came to him, and were kindly received.  They were often disappointed that they could not harness him to their partial and transient scheme.  He said,