American Literary and Religious History in Emerson’s Early Hymn “We Love the Venerable House,” 1833

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pamphlet

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “We Love the Venerable House,” 1833, appears in an ordination pamphlet printed three years before Nature, preserving an early moment in Emerson’s movement from Unitarian ministry toward the literary and philosophical career that later defined him. The hymn’s language of doubt, prayer, and “the mystery of life” belongs to Emerson’s religious writing after the 1831 death of his first wife, Ellen Louisa Tucker, and before his mature Transcendentalist publications. Its appearance here supports research into Emerson’s early authorship, Boston Unitarian culture, antebellum religious print, and the literary formation of a major American thinker.

Ware, Henry Jr.; Emerson, Ralph Waldo. A Sermon Delivered at the Ordination of Rev. Chandler Robbins, over the Second Congregational Church in Boston, December 4, 1833. Boston: James W. Burditt, 1833. First edition. 32 pages. Octavo. Missing original wrappers. The pamphlet contains Emerson’s hymn “We love the venerable house,” identified by bookseller and catalog records as its second appearance after separate broadside publication. The hymn includes the lines, “Anxious hearts have pondered here / The mystery of life,” giving the ordination publication direct literary interest beyond its ecclesiastical function.

Printed during Emerson’s early break with settled ministry, the pamphlet links public Congregational ceremony with the private religious questions that shaped his 1830s development. Ellen Louisa Tucker Emerson died of consumption on February 8, 1831, and Emerson’s grief has long been understood as central to the religious crisis that preceded his departure from the pulpit. Some toning and faint foxing to pages, dampstain to lower margin not affecting text, and original wrappers lacking; good. A compact early Emerson item preserving his pre-Nature religious verse within Boston ordination culture.

Item #17405

Price: $450.00