Dean Grodzins, in an excellent essay included in the truly outstanding "Oxford Handbook of Transcendentalism" rightly describes the central difference between traditionalist Unitarians and the Transcendentalists as being centered in "the distinction...between two different kinds of religion, one "natural" and the other "revealed." He relates the following story to illustrate the point...
"In 1840, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller saw the Austrian ballerina Fanny Eissler dance-a performance that proper boston thought hightly risqué. They were very impressed. According to a story that made the rounds, Fuller told Emerson, "This is religion!" A Boston Unitarian lady, hearing the tale, exclaimed with a laugh" 'Both natural and revealed!'
Blessings
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