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"The height of virtue and the depth of vice are not suddenly attained."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

About this site

This site has been established by a Unitarian Universalist minister for his colleagues in the ministry, for Emerson scholars, and for other individuals interested in the early days of Ralph Waldo Emerson's public career and his religious background. A long-time admirer of Emerson's essays from afar, I knew nothing of his connection to Unitarianism until my preparation for ordination to the liberal ministry required my reading some of the works written by Conrad Wright, Daniel Walker Howe and David Robinson. It was one of David Robinson's books, Apostle of Culture: Emerson as Preacher and Lecturer, that seriously ignited my interest in the young Emerson. After finishing Dr. Robinson's book, I was soon busily reading Emerson's sermons for myself, and wishing that more of my friends and colleagues were doing the same.

I was surprised to find these old sermons speaking to some of the concerns I have had as a clergyman about American culture today, like excessive partisanship, obsessive consumerism, drifting moral standards, and skewed and/or superficial understandings of Jesus. Reading Emerson's sermons surprised me in another way, too. While I had expected to find hints of Emerson's future greatness there, it was a complete surprise to me to discover that the ideas that later made Emerson famous were the very same ideas that he had started out with in his earliest sermons.

In initially contacting Professor von Frank with a question about genetic texts and Emerson's sermons, I discovered a desire to make these texts more widely available in the hope that more ministers and Emerson scholars would read Emerson's sermons and write about them. Hence this website, for all parts of which I, the Rev. David E. Grimm, am responsible with the notable exception of the genetic texts of Emerson's sermons, which are the work of Albert J. von Frank and his fellow scholars who worked on the sermons project during the 1980s that resulted in the 4-volume set of The Complete Sermons of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Also, it must be said that without the website expertise and keen artistic sense of my wife, Pamela F. Grimm, as well as her patience with computer novices like me, none of this would ever have become a reality in cyberspace--no way, no how. So I tip my hat to her and bow with gratitude for all her considerable assistance.

Should you notice any errors or broken links on this site, or if you have a question or a suggestion, or would just like to say "Hi," please e-mail David Grimm .

Good fortune to you as you make your way through Emerson's early writings. May you find inspiration there, and enrichment too. And, may a divine satisfaction visit your every endeavor.