^ Thoreau's regard for Emerson and Mrs. Emerson was very deep and affectionate, and it was natural that a young man, even when possessed of Thoreau's strength of character, should be last- ingly influenced by so distinctive and commanding a personality as Emerson's. In has been remarked by several of those who knew both men, that Thoreau unconsciously caught certain of the traits of Emerson's voice and expression — that he deliberately imitated Emerson is declared on the best authority to be an " idle and untenable" assertion. The following account of Thoreau's
^ Riiskin, Modern Painters ( Works, v. 259). ^ S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Service, 19.
288 THE VISION OF GOD
receptivity in this respect is given by one of his college class- mates, Kev. D. G. Haskins : —
" I happened to meet Thoreau in Mr. Emerson's study at Concord — the first time we had come together after leaving college. I was quite startled by the transformation that had taken place in him. His short figure and general cast of countenance were of course unchanged ; but in his manners, in the tones of his voice, in his modes of expression, even in the hesita- tions and pauses of his speech, he had become the counterpart of Mr. Emerson. Thoreau's college voice bore no resemblance to Mr. Emerson's, and was so familiar to my ear that I could have readily identified him by it in the dark. I was so much struck by the change that I took the opportunity, as they sat near together talking, of listening with closed eyes, and I was unable to determine with certainty which v/as speaking. I do not know to what subtle influences to ascribe it, but after conversing with Mr. Emerson for even a brief time, I always found myself able and inclined to adopt his voice and manner of speaking."
The change noticed in Thoreau was not due only to the stimulating influence of Emerson's personality, though that doubt- less was the immediate means of effecting his awakening. Underneath the sluggish and torpid demeanour of his life at the University there had been developing, as his schoolmates after- wards recognized, the strong, stern qualities which were destined to make his character remarkable, and these had now been called into full play both by the natural growth of his mind, and by the opportunities afforded in the brilliant circle of which he was a member. " In later years," says John Weiss, who knew him well at Harvard, " his chin and mouth grew firmer, as his resolute and audacious opinions developed, the eyes twinkled with the latent humour of his criticisms of society." It was a veritable trans- formation— an awakening of the dormant intellectual fire — and it has been ingeniously suggested that the " transformation " of Donatello in Hawthorne's novel may have been founded in the first place on this fact in the life of Thoreau.^
2. What does spiritual communion imply ?
(1) It implies spiritual nearness. — To see a face you must be near a person. Very near, to faith's apprehension, is the Divine presence. "He is not far from each one of us." That is the teaching of Scripture. If He seem far, it is not because He is far, but because our perceptions are impaired. Miles do not make distance. Distance is disparity. It is moral discrepancy, and not ^ H. S. Salt, Henry David Thoreau, 56.
PSALM XVII. 15 289
local separation. You may he very near, and feel very near to one from whom oceans sunder you. But where there is no moral sympathy, you may be very close to a person and yet very far apart. Distance is in incapacity rather than in measurement. Incapacity to perceive, and to understand, and to reciprocate. " God is a spirit," and in proportion as our natures are spiritual is the sense of God vivid and near. To the soulless man the whole universe seems destitute of God. But to the man of spiritual sensibilities, His glance is in every sunbeam, His reflexion is in every stream. His face in every flower. To such, the face of Nature is as the face of God.
^ By spiritual insight, protected and cherished, not by dulness and formality, but by continual moral sensitiveness, is man enabled to look at life, and all whereby God reveals Himself, with that discrimination which alone is vision.^
(2) It implies intimacy of fellowship. — But there must be some- thing more than mere vicinity. There must be intimacy of fellowship, familiar interchange of thought and affection. The porter who stands at the gate, the servant who waits in the hall, knows little of the master's mind and purpose. But to the inner circle of friends who " behold his face " he reveals himself. They know him. The sight of the face implies constant and affectionate intercourse.
(3) It implies propitiousness. — The showing of the face in Scripture is always the token of goodwill, favour, and well- pleasedness. To see the face of God is to have the strongest evidence that God loves the soul so privileged. It is to drink in without stint all that is in His heart of grace.
3. The suggestion of the true sight of God coming to us through sympathy with the Divine purpose and nature is emphasized in the expression, " I shall behold thy face in righteousness." This is the medium through which the character and disposition of God become manifest to us. It is only the heart which is one with God that attains the vision of God. A righteous God can be seen only in an atmosphere of righteous- ness. Sin distorts the medium, so that we can have no perfect vision. Moral alienation from God paralyses the optic nerve of