The Election Sermon

The Election Sermon is the culminating public event of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, the annual oration delivered before the installation of a new colonial governor. For Arthur Dimmesdale, it represents the pinnacle of his professional career and the moment of his ultimate, catastrophic self-disclosure. The sermon is not merely a religious address; it is the ceremonial centerpiece of a civic holiday, a day when the Puritan community relaxes its usual severity and gathers to witness the procession of magistrates, ministers, and military officers. The entire town, including Hester Prynne and Pearl, assembles in the market-place to hear the discourse, which is expected to be the finest of Dimmesdale's life.

The Sermon's Composition and Content

Dimmesdale composes the Election Sermon under extraordinary circumstances. After his fateful meeting with Hester in the forest, where they plan to flee together, he returns to his study and, in a state of feverish inspiration, burns the already-written pages of the sermon and begins anew. He writes with an "impulsive flow of thought and emotion" that he fancies is divine inspiration, wondering that Heaven should transmit its oracles through "so foul an organ pipe as he." The sermon's subject is the relation between the Deity and the communities of mankind, with special reference to the New England colony being planted in the wilderness. As he draws toward the close, a spirit of prophecy seems to come upon him, constraining him to foretell a high and glorious destiny for the newly gathered people of the Lord. Throughout the entire discourse, however, there runs a deep, sad undertone of pathos, interpreted by his hearers as the natural regret of one soon to pass away.

The Sermon's Delivery and Effect

Dimmesdale delivers the sermon with an energy and power that astonish the congregation. His voice, a rich endowment in itself, breathes passion and pathos in a tongue native to the human heart. Even Hester, standing outside the church, is swayed by the mere tone and cadence, catching a profound undertone of anguish—"the complaint of a human heart, sorrow-laden, perchance guilty, telling its secret... to the great heart of mankind." The sermon produces an unprecedented effect on the audience. The people are transported into the region of another's mind, and when it ends, they burst forth from the church in a state of rapture. According to their united testimony, never had man spoken in so wise, so high, and so holy a spirit. The shout that greets the procession afterward is described as the mightiest ever to go up from New England soil, and the preacher is hailed as the most honored man ever to stand on that ground.

The Sermon's Climax and Revelation

Yet the triumph of the Election Sermon is immediately followed by its terrible reversal. As the procession moves through the market-place, Dimmesdale's energy drains away, and he appears feeble and pale, with a death-like hue. He pauses at the scaffold where Hester had once stood, and there, in full view of the assembled multitude, he calls Hester and Pearl to him. Rejecting Roger Chillingworth's desperate attempt to stop him, Dimmesdale ascends the scaffold and, with his dying breath, reveals the scarlet letter imprinted on his own breast. He tears away the ministerial band, exposing the stigma that has been hidden for seven years, and declares himself the "one sinner of the world." The sermon, which was to be his professional farewell, becomes instead the platform for his public confession and death. The moral lesson that Hawthorne draws from the entire experience is encapsulated in the final injunction: "Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!"