Chapter X: Piety

“_We love the venerable house
Our fathers built to God;--
In heaven are kept their grateful vows,
Their dust endears the sod._

“_Here holy thoughts a light have shed
From many a radiant face,
And prayers of humble virtue made
The perfume of the place._

“_And anxious hearts have pondered here
The mystery of life,
And prayed the eternal Light to clear
Their doubts, and aid their strife._

“_From humble tenements around
Came up the pensive train,
And in the church a blessing found
That filled their homes again_;

“_For faith and peace and mighty love
That from the Godhead flow,
Showed them the life of Heaven above
Springs from the life below._

“_They live with God; their homes are dust;
Yet here their children pray,
And in this fleeting lifetime trust
To find the narrow way._

“_On him who by the altar stands,
On him thy blessing fall,
Speak through his lips thy pure commands,
Thou heart that lovest all._”

Among the strange adventures of words, which are continually losing their original meanings and taking up with new associations, there is none stranger than that of the word Piety. To the Romans it was preeminently a manly virtue. There was no suggestion of weakness about it. It represented the behavior of the strong man toward his parents, kinsmen, country or benefactors. It implied a fine courtesy and a sense of the fitness of things. There was a sober affection for all that was permanent in human relations. Antoninus Pius represented the kind of loyalty which the Romans most admired.

It is this piety in the ancient sense which Emerson’s hymn represents. It is the very opposite of conventional pietism. To him the New England meeting-house was venerable, because of its associations with what was most sacred and enduring in the life of his own people. Whittier himself has not expressed more tenderly his appreciation of the personal influences which have bound the generations together in common worship.

The same note is sounded in the hymn sung at the completion of the Concord Monument, April 19, 1836.

“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

“The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

“On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

“Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and Thee.”

In the lines entitled “Grace” there is a recognition of the debt which the individual owes to the society of which he is a part, and by which he is protected.

“How much, preventing God how much I owe
To the defences thou hast round me set;
Example, custom, fear, occasion slow,--
These scorned bondmen were my parapet.
I dare not peep over this parapet
To gauge which glance the roaring gulf below,
The depth of sin to which I had descended
Had not these me against myself defended.”

In considering the individualism of Emerson we have to take account of the fact that he never really broke with the past, nor did he consider it necessary to do so in order to achieve freedom. He acknowledged his indebtedness to those who had gone before him. But his reverence for their example led him not to stand perpetually where they stood; but rather to go on in the same direction in which they were going.

All who heard Emerson in the pulpit bear witness to the atmosphere of reverence which pervaded his utterances. One who listened to him writes:

“One day there came into our pulpit the most gracious of mortals with a face all benignity who gave out the first hymn and made the first prayer as an angel might have read or prayed. Our choir was a pretty good one, but its best was coarse and discordant after Emerson’s voice. I remember the sermon only that it had an indefinite charm of simplicity and wisdom, with occasional illustrations from Nature, which were about the most delicate and dainty things of the kind I had ever heard. I could understand them, if not the fresh philosophical novelties of the discourse.”

Emerson was remarkably incurious in regard to the problems propounded by formal theologians, but he was a profound believer in the religion of experience. Piety, whether manifest toward God or man, was something altogether natural.

“Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act of the soul. The simplest person, who in his integrity worships God, becomes God; yet for ever and ever the influx of this better and universal self is new and unsearchable. It inspires awe and astonishment. How dear, how soothing to man, arises the idea of God, peopling the lonely place, effacing the scars of our mistakes and disappointments! When we have broken our god of tradition, and ceased from our god of rhetoric, then may God fire the heart with His presence. It is the doubling of the heart itself, nay, the infinite enlargement of the heart with a power of growth to a new infinity on every side. It inspires in man an infallible trust. He has not the conviction, but the sight, that the best is the true, and may in that thought easily dismiss all particular uncertainties and fears, and adjourn to the sure revelation of time, the solution of his private riddles. He is sure that his welfare is dear to the heart of being. In the presence of law to his mind, he is overflowed with a reliance so universal that it sweeps away all cherished hopes and the most stable projects of mortal condition in its flood. He believes that he cannot escape from his good. The things that are really for thee gravitate to thee. You are running to seek your friend. Let your feet run, but your mind need not. If you do not find him, will you not acquiesce that it is best that you should not find him? for there is a power, which, as it is in you, is in him also, and could therefore very well bring you together, if it were for the best. You are preparing with eagerness to go and render a service to which your talent and your taste invite you, the love of men and the hope of fame. Has it not occurred to you that you have no right to go unless you are equally willing to be prevented from going? O, believe, as thou livest, that every sound that is spoken over the round world, which thou ought to hear, will vibrate on thine ear! Every proverb, every book, every byword that belongs to thee for aid or comfort, shall surely come home through open or winding passages. Every friend whom not thy fantastic will, but the great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. And this, because the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls uninterruptedly an endless circulation through all men, as the water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one.”