Emerson; there was an optimist! Famine, discase, suffering, and the greatest disaster of all, could not shake his serene faith that a benevolent power was behind all evils. Did cholera ravage a city? A cure would be found. Were ships lost at sea? Better ones would be built. Did men fight? A better social order would come out of it.

Stepping stones--that was what Emerson called every bad thing. He had a philosophy that falls strangely on our ears today: there is an Over-Soul, and all Nature and every man are parts of it, one of the millions of facets of a perfect, diamond-like gem. And so all the obstacles and terrors of the world are nothing more than a game, played by the Over-Soul with itself. But it is not a futile, or an un-moral game; its object is to improve and refine mankind in the the heat of the struggle. It's hard, of course, but so is a good boxing match--no fighter likes an opponent that won't stand up to him.

So it was that Emerson could look at the world around him--a world of grasping New England commercialism, and of corrupt barons of industry--and smile quietly, bless it, and retire to his home in the village of Concord. His faith was a pure, white flame, and then and ever since it has had a great appeal to youth. But today, in this world of "Grapes of Wrath," Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Finland, its light is nearly winking out. What is there left to us?

(Tonight at 9:30 WBZ will broadcast the Town Hall of the Air, debating the question, "How Can Philosophy and Religion Meet Today's Needs?" Phi Beta Kappa is cooperating, and has provided the three speakers: Dr. Reinhold Niebubr, Dr. Harry A. Overstreet, and Dr. Irwin Edman.)