“the main regard of religion. . .”
One of the challenges in a faith that does not profess a specific system of belief is the ultimate question of good and evil. How do we judge moral behavior without a supreme moral authority outside of ourselves? How do we live our values?
The answer is of course multi-layered, and open ended. This excerpt from Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803-April 27, 1882) gives us a place to start in an ongoing dialogue.
Emerson is seen by some as the quintessential Transcendentalist, a true “father” of modern Unitarian Universalism. Although he graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was ordained as a Unitarian minister, he left the official ministry after just three years in the parish due to theological and philosophical differences.
He spent much of the rest of his life lecturing and writing, and much of his writing is now online. This snippet comes from one of his earliest sermons, collected at emersonsermons.com, before he left his parish, probably written in the late summer of 1827. His text is a phrase found in I Timothy 5:4, in the King James: “let them learn first to shew piety at home.” His own records show that he preached this message no fewer than 27 times!
As with any material from this time period, you’ll want to engage your internal translator.
from an 1827 sermon numbered “X” by Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803-April 27, 1882)
It is the duty of but very few of us to command armies or rule or counsel nations. If we therefore keep our virtue in store till it find a field which we shall think worthy of its action it will wait long, or rather it will never exist for virtue exists only in action.
In the next place let it be remembered that no virtue can be properly called small. A great end makes the means great. We read with the utmost interest the most insignificant particulars that relate to the life & actions of a genuine hero because we esteem them, however slight themselves, to be all of them steps to some high national end, which was then uppermost in the actor’s soul. The same thing determines our opinion of all action not the movement itself but its tendency & end. If to pluck a rose or to snap the finger had been made a concerted signal of a man’s resolution to die for a particular cause there would then be grandeur in that frivolous action. If it were possible for us to go back & see the person & actions of our Lord precisely as they were seen in Nazareth & Galilee 1800 years ago, would any trait of his demeanour do you imagine appear to you small & indifferent? Knowing the sublime purpose that glowed within his bosom as he sat in benevolent discourse with his twelve observant friends would a glance of his eye would the lifting of his hand escape our notice? Would not his least motion seem to us fraught with extreme & tender interest? Now the case is precisely the same with whatever conduct is prompted by high principle. It dignifies the act, be it ever so minute. You need not endow a hospital to be very good. You may be greatly virtuous, even though, through the blessing of God, you do not live in times when you must give your body to be burned or to be sawn asunder for your faith. Less imposing duties are great enough & sometimes more than enough for our languid obedience. The narrow confines of Home are a field of preparation large enough for all the glories of Heaven. Our religion teaches us that whatsoever the strict adherence to truth at all risks, the denial of an indulgence at the table, the suppression of a merry or petulent remark likely to wound the feelings of another, even the charity of an encouraging word or smile given to humble worth: the least of these done out of a solemn sense of duty, done in the Eye of God, is great & venerable.Since it is in our houses that we spend the greatest part of life, since we can never be great if we are not reverenced there & nowhere be good if we are vicious at home, I shall need no apology for asking your attention to the duty of domestic piety, for the main regard of religion must be to make us good at home.
It seems to be tho’t as has been intimated that our virtue demands for its strenuous exertion a great occasion, an active life, & something removed from the quiet dulness of home But who made this distinction between times & seasons & occupations. Did God, my friends, limit virtue by rule or line or distinctions? Did he command us to love & fear him only in one place or another, at noon or night, or yield us permission of following our inclinations twice, if we did his bidding once? Do you find any compromise in his word that you may give your winter to sin if you will give your summer to God? or doth he ask or will he accept any thing less than the whole? Must you not love God with your whole heart & mind & strength? No; nothing of all this. The household hours are hours of life. The household hours carry their accusing or approving testimony on high, and they have a weightier evidence than others because they contain in them the sincere expression of the heart; for no man is a hypocrite at home.
Source: Sermon “X” written by Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803-April 27, 1882) in 1827, as archived by emersonsermons.com.
Tags: History, living faith, morality, ralph waldo emerson, religion
