Ralph Waldo Emerson

Grace

Grace - meaning Summary

Protection Against Sin

The speaker thanks God for the social and moral safeguards that kept them from greater sin. They list example, custom, fear and occasional restraint as a protective parapet around their life. Unable to "peep over" this barrier, they refuse to survey the full extent of the depths they might have fallen into, acknowledging that these external checks, though unspectacular, defended them from self-destruction.

Read Complete Analyses

How much, preventing God! how much I owe To the defenses thou hast round me set: Example, custom, fear, occasional slow, These scorned bondmen were my parapet. I dare not peep over this parapet To gauge with glance the roaring gulf below, The depths of sin to which I had descended, Had not these me against myself defended.

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