In Paris he saw Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu’s collection of natural specimens arranged in a developmental order that confirmed his belief in man’s spiritual relation to nature. When he left his pulpit he journeyed to Europe. He wanted his own revelation-i.e., a direct and immediate experience of God. When Emerson left the church, he was in search of a more certain conviction of God than that granted by the historical evidences of miracles. Ralph Waldo Emerson National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Unitarianism had little appeal to him by now, and in 1832 he resigned from the ministry. Indeed, his sermons had divested Christianity of all external or historical supports and made its basis one’s private intuition of the universal moral law and its test a life of virtuous accomplishment.
Emerson’s own sermons, from the first, had been unusually free of traditional doctrine and were instead a personal exploration of the uses of spirit, showing an idealistic tendency and announcing his personal doctrine of self-reliance and self-sufficiency. His older brother William, who had gone to Germany, had acquainted him with the new biblical criticism and the doubts that had been cast on the historicity of miracles. But in the previous few years Emerson had already begun to question Christian doctrines. When she died of tuberculosis in 1831, his grief drove him to question his beliefs and his profession. In 1829 he also married Ellen Louisa Tucker. There he began to win fame as a preacher, and his position seemed secure. Though Emerson was licensed to preach in the Unitarian community in 1826, illness slowed the progress of his career, and he was not ordained to the Unitarian ministry at the Second Church, Boston, until 1829. He graduated in 1821 and taught school while preparing for part-time study in the Harvard Divinity School. In 1817 he entered Harvard College (later Harvard University), where he began his journals, which may be the most remarkable record of the “march of Mind” to appear in the United States. In 1812 Emerson entered the Boston Public Latin School, where his juvenile verses were encouraged and his literary gifts recognized. On May 12, 1811, Emerson’s father died, leaving the son largely to the intellectual care of Mary Moody Emerson, his aunt, who took her duties seriously. Love literature? This quiz sorts out the truth about beloved authors and stories, old and new. SpaceNext50 Britannica presents SpaceNext50, From the race to the Moon to space stewardship, we explore a wide range of subjects that feed our curiosity about space!.Learn about the major environmental problems facing our planet and what can be done about them! Saving Earth Britannica Presents Earth’s To-Do List for the 21st Century.Britannica Beyond We’ve created a new place where questions are at the center of learning.100 Women Britannica celebrates the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, highlighting suffragists and history-making politicians.
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