The Divinity School Address

Emerson was trying to get these students to think for themselves. Thinking for yourself has nothing to do with religion. Religion is about believing what you are told. If you think for yourself, you probably aren't very religious. Although Emerson was religious he could think for himself, and that's what got him kicked out of Harvard for 30 years. "Then he can worship, and be enlarged by his worship; for he can never go behind this sentiment. This sentiment lies at the foundation of society, and successively creates all forms of worship. Man fallen into superstition." Religious people don't want to hear the word superstition, because it doesn't apply to their vocabulary. "The idioms of his language and figures of his rhetoric, have usurped the place of his truth; and churches are not built on his principles, but on his tropes." Emerson is saying that the morals and values that Jesus was teaching have now been lost and misinterpreted. What was once relevant thousands of years ago is not relevant today. If we follow the teachings of someone from thousands of years ago, it's going to be very hard for society to keep progressing. It wasn't that Emerson wanted to end religion, but he wanted to restore the real purpose for it. He wanted people to be able to find their purpose on their own. Not by listening to the mislead ramblings of the church. "The spirit only can teach. Not any profane man, not any sensual, not any liar, not any slave can teach, but only he can give, who has; he only can create, who is."