Perhaps these three lines voice most briefly the central thought in man's
new creed and his changed attitude toward God:--
"For Thou and I are next of kin;
The pulses that are strong within,
From the deep Infinite heart begin."
THE NEW ENGLAND RENAISSANCE.--The stern theology of the Puritans may have
been absolutely necessary to make them work with a singleness and an
inflexibility of purpose to lay the foundations of a mighty republic; but
this very singleness of aim had led to a narrowness of culture which had
starved the emotional and aesthetic nature. Art, music, literature, and the
love of beauty in general had seemed reprehensible because it was thought
that they took away the attention from a matter of far graver import, the
salvation of the immortal soul. Now there gradually developed the
conviction that these agencies not only helped to save the soul, but made
it more worth saving. People began to search for the beautiful and to enjoy
it in both nature and art. Emerson says:--
"... if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being."
The first half of the nineteenth century saw the New Englanders engaged in
a systematic attempt at self-culture, to an extent never before witnessed
in America and rarely elsewhere.
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