CREDO.

* * * * *

In regard to Transcendentalism again, there was reason to rejoice

in having found a friend, so firm to keep her own ground, while so

liberal to comprehend another's stand-point, as was Margaret. She

knew, not only theoretically, but practically, how endless are the

diversities of human character and of Divine discipline, and she

reverenced fellow-spirits too sincerely ever to wish to warp them to

her will, or to repress their normal development. She was stern but

in one claim, that each should be faithful to apparent leadings of the

Truth; and could avow widest differences of conviction without feeling

that love was thereby chilled, or the hand withheld from cordial

aid. Especially did she render service by enabling one,--through her

blended insight, candor, and clearness of understanding,--to see in

bright reflection his own mental state.

It would be doing injustice to a person like Margaret, always more

enthusiastic than philosophical, to attribute to her anything like a

system of theology; for, hopeful, reverent, aspiring, and free from

scepticism, she felt too profoundly the vastness of the universe and

of destiny ever to presume that with her span rule she could measure

the Infinite. Yet the tendency of her thoughts can readily be traced

in the following passages from note-books and letters:--

'When others say to me, and not without apparent ground, that

"the Outward Church is a folly which keeps men from enjoying

the communion of the Church Invisible, and that in the desire

to be helped by, and to help others, men lose sight of the

only sufficient help, which they might find by faithful

solitary intentness of spirit," I answer it is true, and the

present deadness and emptiness summon us to turn our thoughts

in that direction. Being now without any positive form of

religion, any unattractive symbols, or mysterious rites, we

are in the less danger of stopping at surfaces, of accepting

a mediator instead of the Father, a sacrament instead of the

Holy Ghost. And when I see how little there is to impede

and bewilder us, I cannot but accept,--should it be for many

years,--the forlornness, the want of fit expression, the

darkness as to what is to be expressed, even that characterize

our time.

'But I do not, therefore, as some of our friends do, believe

that it will always be so, and that the church is tottering to

its grave, never to rise again. The church was the growth of

human nature, and it is so still. It is but one result of the

impulse which makes two friends clasp one another's hands,

look into one another's eyes at sight of beauty, or the

utterance of a feeling of piety. So soon as the Spirit has

mourned and sought, and waited long enough to open new depths,

and has found something to express, there will again be

a Cultus, a Church. The very people, who say that none is

needed, make one at once. They talk with, they write to one

another. They listen to music, they sustain themselves with

the poets; they like that one voice should tell the thoughts

of several minds, one gesture proclaim that the same life is

at the same moment in many breasts.

'I am myself most happy in my lonely Sundays, and do not feel

the need of any social worship, as I have not for several

years, which I have passed in the same way. Sunday is to me

priceless as a day of peace and solitary reflection. To all

who will, it may be true, that, as Herbert says:--

"Sundays the pillars are

On which Heaven's palace arched lies;

The other days fill up the space

And hollow room with vanities;"

and yet in no wise "vanities," when filtered by the Sunday

crucible. After much troubling of the waters of my life, a

radiant thought of the meaning and beauty of earthly existence

will descend like a healing angel. The stillness permits me

to hear a pure tone from the One in All. But often I am not

alone. The many now, whose hearts, panting for truth and

love, have been made known to me, whose lives flow in the same

direction as mine, and are enlightened by the same star, are

with me. I am in church, the church invisible, undefiled by

inadequate expression. Our communion is perfect; it is that

of a common aspiration; and where two or three are gathered

together in one region, whether in the flesh or the spirit,

He will grant their request. Other communion would be a

happiness,--to break together the bread of mutual thought, to

drink the wine of loving life,--but it is not necessary.

'Yet I cannot but feel that the crowd of men whose pursuits

are not intellectual, who are not brought by their daily walk

into converse with sages and poets, who win their bread from

an earth whose mysteries are not open to them, whose worldly

intercourse is more likely to stifle than to encourage the

sparks of love and faith in their breasts, need on that

day quickening more than repose. The church is now rather a

lecture-room than a place of worship; it should be a school

for mutual instruction. I must rejoice when any one, who lays

spiritual things to heart, feels the call rather to mingle

with men, than to retire and seek by himself.

'You speak of men going up to worship by "households," &c.

Were the actual family the intellectual family, this might be;

but as social life now is, how can it? Do we not constantly

see the child, born in the flesh to one father, choose in the

spirit another? No doubt this is wrong, since the sign does

not stand for the thing signified, but it is one feature of

the time. How will it end? Can families worship together till

it does end?

* * * * *

'I have let myself be cheated out of my Sunday, by going to

hear Mr. ----. As he began by reading the first chapter

of Isaiah, and the fourth of John's Epistle, I made mental

comments with pure delight. "Bring no more vain oblations."

"Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God." "We

know that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because he hath

given us of the Spirit." Then pealed the organ, full of

solemn assurance. But straightway uprose the preacher to deny

mysteries, to deny the second birth, to deny influx, and to

renounce the sovereign gift of insight, for the sake of what

he deemed a "_rational_" exercise of will. As he spoke I could

not choose but deny him all through, and could scarce refrain

from rising to expound, in the light of my own faith, the

words of those wiser Jews which had been read. Was it not a

sin to exchange friendly greeting as we parted, and yet tell

him no word of what was in my mind?

'Still I saw why he looked at things as he did. The old

religionists did talk about "grace, conversion," and the like,

technically, without striving to enter into the idea, till

they quite lost sight of it. Undervaluing the intellect, they

became slaves of a sect, instead of organs of the Spirit. This

Unitarianism has had its place. There was a time for asserting

"the dignity of human nature," and for explaining total

depravity into temporary inadequacy,--a time to say that the

truths of _essence_, if simplified at all in statement from

their infinite variety of existence, should be spoken of as

One, rather than Three, though that number, if they would only

let it reproduce itself simply, is of highest significance.

Yet the time seems now to have come for reinterpreting the old

dogmas. For one I would now preach the Holy Ghost as zealously

as they have been preaching Man, and faith instead of the

understanding, and mysticism instead &c. But why go on? It

certainly is by no means useless to preach. In my experience

of the divine gifts of solitude, I had forgotten what might

be done in this other way. That crowd of upturned faces,

with their look of unintelligent complacency! Give tears and

groans, rather, if there be a mixture of physical excitement

and bigotry. Mr. ---- is heard because, though he has not

entered into the secret of piety, he wishes to be heard,

and with a good purpose,--can make a forcible statement, and

kindle himself with his own thoughts. How many persons must

there be who cannot worship alone, since they are content with

so little! Can none wake the spark that will melt them, till

they take beautiful forms? Were one to come now, who could

purge us with fire, how would these masses glow and be

clarified!

'Mr. ---- made a good suggestion:--"Such things could not be

said in the open air." Let men preach for the open air, and

speak now thunder and lightning, now dew and rustling leaves.

Yet must the preacher have the thought of his day before he

can be its voice. None have it yet; but some of our friends,

perhaps, are nearer than the religious world at large, because

neither ready to dogmatize, as if they had got it, nor content

to stop short with mere impressions and presumptuous hopes. I

feel that a great truth is coming. Sometimes it seems as if

we should have it among us in a day. Many steps of the Temple

have been ascended, steps of purest alabaster, and of shining

jasper, also of rough-brick, and slippery moss-grown stone. We

shall reach what we long for, since we trust and do not fear,

for our God knows not fear, only reverence, and his plan is

All in All.'

* * * * *

'Who can expect to utter an absolutely pure and clear tone on

these high subjects? Our earthly atmosphere is too gross to

permit it. Yet, a severe statement has rather an undue charm

for me, as I have a nature of great emotion, which loves free

abandonment. I am ready to welcome a descending Moses, come

to turn all men from idolatries. For my priests have been very

generally of the Pagan greatness, revering nature and seeking

excellence, but in the path of progress, not of renunciation.

The lyric inspirations of the poet come very differently on

the ear from the "still, small voice." They are, in fact, all

one revelation; but one must be at the centre to interpret it.

To that centre I have again and again been drawn, but my large

natural life has been, as yet, but partially transfused with

spiritual consciousness. I shun a premature narrowness, and

bide my time. But I am drawn to look at natures who take a

different way, because they seem to complete my being for me.

They, too, tolerate me in my many phases for the same reason,

probably. It pleased me to see, in one of the figures by which

the Gnostics illustrated the progress of man, that Severity

corresponded to Magnificence.'

* * * * *

'In my quiet retreat, I read Xenophon, and became more

acquainted with his Socrates. I had before known only

the Socrates of Plato, one much more to my mind. Socrates

conformed to the Greek Church, and it is evident with a

sincere reverence, because it was the growth of the _national_

mind. He thought best to stand on its platform, and to

illustrate, though with keen truth, by received forms. This

was his right way, as his influence was naturally private, for

individuals who could in some degree respond to the teachings

of his dæmon; he knew the multitude would not understand him.

But it was the other way that Jesus took, preaching in the

fields, and plucking ears of corn on the Sabbath.'

* * * * *

'Is it my defect of spiritual experience, that while that

weight of sagacity, which is the iron to the dart of genius,

is needful to satisfy me, the undertone of another and a

deeper knowledge does not please, does not command me? Even in

Handel's Messiah, I am half incredulous, half impatient,

when the sadness of the second part comes to check, before

it interprets, the promise of the first; and the strain, "Was

ever sorrow like to his sorrow," is not for me, as I have

been, as I am. Yet Handel was worthy to speak of Christ. The

great chorus, "Since by man came death, by man came also the

resurrection of the dead; for as in Adam all die, even so in

Christ shall all be made alive," if understood in the

large sense of every man his own Saviour, and Jesus only

representative of the way all must walk to accomplish our

destiny, is indeed a worthy gospel.'

* * * * *

'Ever since ---- told me how his feelings had changed towards

Jesus, I have wished much to write some sort of a Credo, out

of my present state, but have had no time till last night. I

have not satisfied myself in the least, and have written

very hastily, yet, though not full enough to be true, this

statement is nowhere false to me.

* * * 'Whatever has been permitted by the law of being, must

be for good, and only in time not good. We trust, and are led

forward by experience. Light gives experience of outward life,

faith of inward life, and then we discern, however faintly,

the necessary harmony of the two. The moment we have broken

through an obstruction, not accidentally, but by the aid of

faith, we begin to interpret the Universe, and to apprehend

why evil is permitted. Evil is obstruction; Good is

accomplishment.

'It would seem that the Divine Being designs through man

to express distinctly what the other forms of nature only

intimate, and that wherever man remains imbedded in nature,

whether from sensuality, or because he is not yet awakened to

consciousness, the purpose of the whole remains unfulfilled.

Hence our displeasure when Man is not in a sense above

Nature. Yet, when he is not so closely bound with all other

manifestations, as duly to express their Spirit, we are also

displeased. He must be at once the highest form of Nature, and

conscious of the meaning she has been striving successively to

unfold through those below him. Centuries pass; whole races

of men are expended in the effort to produce one that shall

realize this Ideal, and publish Spirit in the human form. Here

and there is a degree of success. Life enough is lived through

a man, to justify the great difficulties attendant on the

existence of mankind. And then throughout all realms of

thought vibrates the affirmation, "This is my beloved Son, in

whom I am well pleased."

'I do not mean to lay an undue stress upon the position and

office of man merely because I am of his race, and understand

best the scope of his destiny. The history of the earth, the

motions of the heavenly bodies, suggest already modes of being

higher than ours, and which fulfil more deeply the office of

interpretation. But I do suppose man's life to be the rivet in

one series of the great chain, and that all higher existences

are analogous to his. Music suggests their mode of being, and,

when carried up on its strong wings, we foresee how the

next step in the soul's ascension shall interpret man to the

universe, as he now interprets those forms beneath himself. * *

'The law of Spirit is identical, whether displaying itself as

genius, or as piety, but its modes of expression are distinct

dialects. All souls desire to become the fathers of souls, as

citizens, legislators, poets, artists, sages, saints; and,

so far as they are true to the law of their incorruptible

essence, they are all Anointed, all Emanuel, all Messiah; but

they are all brutes and devils so far as subjected to the law

of corruptible existence.

'As wherever there is a tendency a form is gradually evolved,

as its Type,--so is it the law of each class and order of

human thoughts to produce a form which shall be the visible

representation of its aim and strivings, and stand before it

as its King. This effort to produce a kingly type it was, that

clothed itself with power as Brahma or Osiris, that gave laws

as Confucius or Moses, that embodied music and eloquence in

the Apollo. This it was that incarnated itself, at one time as

Plato, at another as Michel Angelo, at another as Luther, &c.

Ever seeking, it has produced Ideal after Ideal of the beauty,

into which mankind is capable of being developed; and one

of the highest, in some respects the very highest, of these

kingly types, was the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

'Few believe more in his history than myself, and it is very

dear to me. I believe, in my own way, in the long preparation

of ages for his coming, and the truth of prophecy that

announced him. I see a necessity, in the character of Jesus,

why Abraham should have been the founder of his nation, Moses

its lawgiver, and David its king and poet. I believe in the

genesis of the patriarchs, as given in the Old Testament. I

believe in the prophets,--that they foreknew not only what

their nation longed for, but what the development of universal

Man requires,--a Redeemer, an Atoner, a Lamb of God, taking

away the sins of the world. I believe that Jesus came when the

time was ripe, and that he was peculiarly a messenger and Son

of God. I have nothing to say in denial of the story of his

birth; whatever the actual circumstances were, he was born of

a Virgin, and the tale expresses a truth of the soul. I have

no objection to the miracles, except where they do not

happen to please one's feelings. Why should not a spirit,

so consecrate and intent, develop new laws, and make matter

plastic? I can imagine him walking the waves, without any

violation of my usual habits of thought. He could not remain

in the tomb, they say; certainly not,--death is impossible to

such a being. He remained upon earth; most true, and all who

have met him since on the way, have felt their hearts burn

within them. He ascended to heaven; surely, how could it be

otherwise?

'Would I could express with some depth what I feel as to

religion in my very soul; it would be a clear note of calm

assurance. But for the present this must suffice with regard

to Christ. I am grateful here, as everywhere, when Spirit

bears fruit in fulness; it attests the justice of aspiration,

it kindles faith, it rebukes sloth, it enlightens resolve.

But so does a beautiful infant. Christ's life is only one

modification of the universal harmony. I will not loathe

sects, persuasions, systems, though I cannot abide in them one

moment, for I see that by most men they are still needed. To

them their banners, their tents; let them be Fire-worshippers,

Platonists, Christians; let them live in the shadow of past

revelations. But, oh, Father of our souls, the One, let me

seek Thee! I would seek Thee in these forms, and in proportion

as they reveal Thee, they teach me to go beyond themselves.

I would learn from them all, looking only to Thee! But let me

set no limits from the past, to my own soul, or to any soul.

'Ages may not produce one worthy to loose the shoes of

the Prophet of Nazareth; yet there will surely be another

manifestation of that Word which was in the beginning. And all

future manifestations will come, like Christianity, "not to

destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil." The very

greatness of this manifestation demands a greater. As an

Abraham called for a Moses, and a Moses for a David, so does

Christ for another Ideal. We want a life more complete and

various than that of Christ. We have had a Messiah to teach

and reconcile; let us now have a Man to live out all the

symbolical forms of human life, with the calm beauty of a

Greek God, with the deep consciousness of a Moses, with the

holy love and purity of Jesus.'