“He knew from the first the victory of good over evil; and when he told me, to my childish amazement, that the angel must always be stronger than the demon, he gave utterance to a thought most familiar to him, though at the time new to me.”[L] [219] _Page 488, note 1._ In the essay on Character (_Lectures and Biographical Sketches_), he says, “The establishment of Christianity in the world does not rest on any miracle but the miracle of being the broadest and most humane doctrine.” “The word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is Monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain.”—“Address in Divinity College,” _Nature, Addresses and Lectures_. [220] _Page 490, note 1._ Mr. Emerson’s doctrine was not to attack beliefs, but give better: “True genius will not impoverish, but will liberate.” In a letter to one of his best friends who had joined the Church of Rome he said, perhaps in 1858: “To old eyes how supremely unimportant the form under which we celebrate the justice, love and truth, the attributes of the deity and the soul!” [221] _Page 491, note 1._ Dr. Holmes, in his tribute to his friend, after his death, read before the Massachusetts Historical Society, said:— “What could we do with this unexpected, unprovided for, unclassified, half unwelcome newcomer, who had been for a while potted, as it were, in our Unitarian cold greenhouse, but had taken to growing so fast that he was lifting off its glass roof and letting in the hail-storms? Here was a protest that outflanked the extreme left of liberalism, yet so calm and serene that its radicalism had the accents of the gospel of peace. Here was an iconoclast without a hammer, who took down our idols from their pedestals so tenderly that it seemed like an act of worship.” ADDRESS AT THE OPENING OF THE CONCORD FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY The Town of Concord, in the year 1782, chose a committee of ten leading citizens to give instructions to its selectmen. The third of the seventeen articles proposed by them read thus: “That care be taken of the Books of Marters and other bookes, and that they be kept from abusive usage, and not lent to persons more than one month at one time.” This indicates the root of a town library. A constitution of a Library Company, dated 1784, is extant. In 1806 a Social Library was incorporated, which was merged in the Town Library in 1851. The books were kept in a room in the Town House which was open for borrowers on Saturdays.