Before Creed and Deed

 

Felix Adler

The young Felix Adler spoke at his father's temple (Emanu-el) on October 11, 1873.  This was an occasion of note, and the New York Times duly reported it on October 10 under the caption "City and Subsurban News":  

Rev. Dr. Felix Adler will preach at the Temple Emanuel, Fifth avenue and forty-second street to-morrow, at 10 A.M. (https://nyti.ms/4qUz461)

Adler's lecture, "The Temple of the Future," often referred to as the Temple Address, did not meet with universal acceptance by the Temple congregation (see Howard B. Radest, Toward Common Ground, pp. 13-15).   Indeed, in the aftermath of the lecture, Adler removed himself from consideration as a rabbi for Temple Emanu-El and seemed to be without a career.

The next Times report on Adler suggests, at least, a career as a public speaker.  On Monday, February 9, 1874, Adler spoke at Lyric Hall on Buddhism:  "The Life of Buddha---Lecture by Dr. Felix Adler" (https://nyti.ms/4gYH9C9).  The third and final pre-Ethical Culture lecture reported by the Times was datelined "Ithaca, Tuesday, June 30, 1874" and published the next day (https://nyti.ms/4xaCnHu).  While the lecture on Buddha seems likely to have been open to the public (Lyric Hall was a popular venue for lectures and other public events), the Ithaca lecture was reported as Adler's "inaugural" lecture, being given as a member of Cornell University's faculty, Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Literatue and History, noting that:  "The Professorship was established during the last term on a foundation of $20,000 given by Mr. Seligman, New-York."

The Cornell lecture touched on history, philosophy, psychology, and philology.  Of note for its contemporary relevance is the following passage:

Absorbed in the interests of the present, we forget too often that there was a yesterday, that there will be a to-morrow.  Consciousness of what we owe to the past, or what we hold in trust to the future, will sanctify our national life.  The duty of guarding, preservings, and if need be, correcting the national spirit belongs to the universities. [Emphasis added]

Adler did not come to the attention of the Times again until 1877, in the spring of the first "season" of the new New York Society for Ethical Culture.

Adler Lectures in Series Six

Helen Goldmark Adler

The Sixth Series of Ethical Addresses (1900) includes two platforms by Felix Adler.  The first, "The Spiritual Meaning of Marriage" (pp. 17-36), was originally presented on January 26, 1896, at Carnegie Hall.  As was usual at the time, the New York Times reported the gist of the speech, a lovely paean to the mutual support offered, one to another, by husband and wife, as they live in an Ethical marriage:

Man says to woman, 'Be thou my judge.'  Woman says to man, 'Do thou, by the influence of thy mind and nature upon mine, aid me to ever broader and wiser standards.'

My role here is not to be critical of progressive 19th century standards in the 21st century, but to look at the bibliographic history associated with this text.  In that role, I note that a typescript of this platform exists in the NYSEC-AEU archives and differs slightly from the published text.  I leave it to other scholars to consider the differences as reported and published.

The second Adler lecture, "The Teachings of Jesus in the Modern World" (pp. 105-120), was presented on Easter, April 2, 1899.  This platform fares better in the 21st century as it points to four areas in which the "Modern World" of 1899 also appreciated the teachings of Jesus:  

1. Do not do evil to do good:  " . . . [I]t is wrong in principle and disappointing, so far as the result goes, to fight the devil with fire; to try to defeat the evildoer by using his own weapons; meeting fraud with fraud and violence with violence" (pp. 111-112).
2. All humans have worth:  " . . . [I]n contrast to arguments drawn from so-called Darwinism and aristocratic pride, we shall not forget the moral equality that underlies the diversity of gifts and talents" (p. 116).
3. Love one another:  ". . . [T]he higher and better kind of love, the spiritual love, it is in our power to create in ourselves and ever again to recreate. The desire to help to uplift the other is the indestructible safeguard of that love" (p. 119).
4. In hope is our renewal:  "This is, in effect, what he says: that in the nobler inspirations of man there never is occasion to despair; that in things of the spirit there is no such word as fail; that, however low a human being may sink, it is always within his ability to rise again. There is this invincible power of renewal, of being born again, of beginning at any moment the new and the better life" (p. 120.).

Interestingly, I can find no evidence that the New York Times reported on this platform despite ample coverage of Christian services on the same day.