LETTER TO THE SECOND CHURCH AND SOCIETY IN BOSTON

MARCH, 1829

I have re

CHRISTIAN BRETHREN AND FRIENDS: ceived the communication transmitted to me by your committee inviting me to the office of junior pastor in your church and society. I accept the invitation. If my own feelings could have been consulted, I should have desired to postpone for at least several months my entrance into this solemn affair. I do not now approach it with any sanguine confidence in my ability nor in my prospects. I come to you in weakness and not in strength. In short, I have not yet had an abundant experience of the uncertainty of human hopes. I have learned the lesson of utter dependency, and it is in a devout reliance upon other strength than my own, in an humble trust in God to sustain me, that I put forth my hands to his great work. But, brethren, while I distrust my powers, I must speak firmly of my purpose. I well know

what are the claims on your part to my best exertions, and I shall meet them, so far as in me lies, by a faithful performance of duty. I shall do all I can in approaching these duties.

I am encouraged by the strong expression of confidence and good-will I have read from you. I am encouraged by the hope of enjoying the counsel and aid of the distinguished servant of the Lord who has so long labored with you. I look to the example of

the Lord in all my hopes of advancing his holy religion, and I implore the blessing of God upon this connection about to be formed between you and myself. I am your friend and servant,

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

LETTER TO THE SECOND CHURCH

AND SOCIETY

BOSTON, 22d December, 1832.

TO THE SECOND CHURCH AND SOCIETY.

CHRISTIAN FRIENDS:- Since the formal resignation of my official relation to you in my communication to the proprietors in September, I had waited anxiously for an opportunity of addressing you once more from the pulpit, though it were only to say, Let us part in peace and in the love of God. The state of my health has prevented and continues to prevent me from so doing. I am now advised to seek the benefit of a sea-voyage. I cannot go away without a brief parting word to friends who have shown me so much kindness, and to whom I have felt myself so dearly bound.

Our connection has been very short. I had only begun my work. It is now brought to a sudden close, and I look back, I own, with a painful sense of weakness, to the little service I have been able to render, after so much expectation on my part, to the chequered space of time, which domestic affliction and personal infirmities have made yet shorter and more unprofitable.

As long as he remains in the same place, every man flatters himself, however keen may be his sense of failures and unworthiness, that he shall yet accomplish much; that the future shall make amends for the past; that his very errors shall prove his instructors, and what limit is there to hope? But a separation from our place, the close of a particular career

of duty, shuts the book, bereaves us of this hope, and leaves us only to lament how little has been done.

Yet, my friends, our faith in the great truths of the New Testament makes the change of places and circumstances, of less account to us, by fixing our attention upon that which is unalterable. I find great consolation in the thought, that the resignation of my present relations makes so little change to myself. I am no longer your minister, but am not the less engaged, I hope, to the love and service of the same eternal cause, the advancement, namely, of the kingdom of God in the hearts of men. The tie that binds each of us to that cause is not created by our connection, and can not be hurt by our separation. To me, as one disciple, is the ministry of truth, as far as I can discern and declare it, committed, and I desire to live nowhere and no longer than that grace of God is imparted to me - the liberty to seek and the liberty to utter it.

And, more than this, I rejoice to believe, my ceasing to exercise the pastoral office among you, does not make any real change in our spiritual relation to each other. Whatever is most desirable and excellent therein, remains to us. For, truly speaking, whoever provokes me to a good act or thought, has given me a pledge of his fidelity to virtue, he has come under bonds to adhere to that cause to which we are jointly attached. And so I say to all you, who have been my counsellors and co-operators in our Christian walk, that I am wont to see in your faces, the seals and certificates of our mutual obligations. If we have conspired from week to week, in the sympathy and expression of devout sentiments; if we have received together the unspeakable gift of God's truth; if we have studied together the sense of any divine word; or striven together in any charity; or conferred to

gether for the relief or instruction of any brother; if together we have laid down the dead in a pious hope; or held up the babe into the baptism of Christianity; above all, if we have shared in any habitual acknowledgment of that benignant God, whose omnipresence raises and glorifies the meanest offices and the lowest ability, and opens heaven in every heart that worships him, then indeed are we united, we are mutually debtors to each other of faith and hope, engaged to persist and confirm each other's hearts in obedience to the Gospel. We shall not feel that the nominal changes and little separations of this world, can release us from the strong cordage of this spiritual bond. And I entreat you to consider how truly blessed will have been our connection, if in this manner, the memory of it shall serve to bind each one of us more strictly to the practice of our several duties. It remains to thank you for the goodness you have uniformly extended toward me, for your forgiveness of many defects, and your patient and even partial acceptance of every endeavor to serve you; for the liberal provision you have ever made for my maintenance; and for a thousand acts of kindness, which have comforted and assisted me.

To the proprietors, I owe a particular acknowledgment, for their recent generous vote for the continuance of my salary, and hereby ask their leave to relinquish the emolument at the end of the present month. And now, brethren and friends, having returned into your hands the trust you have honored me with the charge of public and private instruction in this religious society, I pray God, that whatever seed of virtue we have sown and watered together, may bear fruit unto eternal life.

I commend you to the Divine Providence. May He grant you, in your ancient sanctuary, the service