I found myself becoming increasingly surprised at the way that Emerson describes the ideal relationship between Man and Nature because it seems to reflect Christian ideologies of how a relationship should look between Man and God. This reflection surprised me because in his life, he found himself disillusioned with the Church’s teachings, and yet, it clearly informed the way he viewed and described parts of the world he found beautiful but did not fully understand. I almost wonder if Nature began to fill a vacuum in his life created by his departure from the Church: he still felt the urge to preach on something beyond our reach. Or part of me thinks he spent so long writing in the style of a pastor that he is simply using the vocabulary and knowledge base that he is familiar with. 

Particularly, I think Emerson ascribes a level of distance that is necessary to create reverence from Man of Nature in the same way that I think historically the Church has cultivated a certain level of distance and inaccessibility between Man and God. In particular, Emerson describes that “stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are always inaccessible” (182). This description immediately made me think of God as “always present” and yet “always inaccessible” in a tangible way. He also continues to use religious language to describe nature such as “plantations of God” (183) and “nature, in its ministry to man” (185).

Emerson later argues that a presence of a “spiritual element” (187) is necessary to the beauty of nature which made me wonder if he was experimenting with other lenses of spirituality not specifically attributed to God.