Newton Dillaway—Prophet of America

Hello, Friends,

Here is one of my favorite books; one I have returned to time and again and one that continues to reveal insights each time.

The title of this book is Prophet of America: Emerson and the Problems of To-day. But, for our purposes, we could give the title: Metaphysician of America: Emerson and the Foundation of Metaphysical Christianity. Here is why I think that is so.

Emerson is my favorite author. And Newton Dillaway is my favorite interpreter of Emerson. Emerson has plenty of biographers and interpreters. Newton Dillaway stands out for the same reason that Unity School of Christianity continued to publish Dillaways books–Consent and The Gospel of Emerson and several articles in Unity magazine—because Dillaway saw world in a metaphysical way and he had the ability to convey to us in understandable words what it is that he saw.

You can scroll down for a link to the PDF of this book. As I have time, I will include pages with the text along with my comments on why Dillaway is got it right.

Friday, August 28, 2020

Click Here to Download the Prophet of America: Emerson and the Problems of To-Day in PDF format.

From the inside cover:

Strictly speaking, this is not a biography in the accepted sense, but rather a discussion of Emerson’s teachings in the light of the problems of our time, an attempt to show why Emerson is up-to-date, to seek the real man in his work, and to introduce him to the “man in the street.”

Mr. Dillaway has not endeavored to write an external biography of Emerson; there are no “names and dates and places.” Emerson’s thoughts on Plato might easily be applied to his own life: “Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. They lived in their writings, and so their house and street life was trivial and com­ monplace. Plato especially has no external biography.” The extremists generally make the best subjects for biographies and Emerson studiously avoided extremes. Ele lived in moderation and lived in his writings.

Mr. Dillaway has taken certain aspects of Emerson’s philosophy that are known but little understood, and attempted to apply these principles to the grave problems that confront us to-day in virtually all spheres of endeavor and interest such as economics, politics, science, education and religion. In the author’s opinion, “The man from Concord is coming into his own by leaps and bounds in this Century.” This brilliant volume is the result of ten years’ intensive study of the great philosopher.