divinity school address

As I was reading this speech I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to find. I was more interested in seeing if Emerson understood anything about what his audience believed. And surprisingly enough I began seeing certain phrases that are undercover Christian rhetoric. Or references about things that you would have no idea what they were unless you read the Bible. And not just any audience would understand these references.

For example he mentions the Balm of Gilead. The balm of Gilead is used for healing and one of the verses mentioning a balm from Gilead is Jeremiah 8:22:

"Is there no balm in Gilead?

Is there no physician there?

Why then is there no healing

for the wound of my people?"

I'm not sure if he is trying to make a reference to this specific verse. But the verses before this is:

(20)"The harvest is past,

the summer has ended,

and we are not saved."

(21)Since my people are crushed, I am crushed;

I mourn, and horror grips me.

It has the natural imaging that Emerson is so fond of. But through out his speech he makes references to himself as being like God and that we can be just as Christ was. Is it possible to say that verse 21 is actually revealing Emerson's anguish that the people that he is surrounded have theoretically been "crushed" because of their lack of knowledge regarding nature and the universe?

To be honest I have no clue.