Emerson’s days as a child, when he was the son of a head of a town church, shaped his religious views. He also formed his way of thinking about spiritual topics from his education at Harvard. These views are present in his philosophy of Transcendentalism, a way of thinking about the connections between man, nature, and the highest being. Church leaders of Emerson’s time focused on religious topics. Emerson instead focused on the everyday lives of people. Even though his father died when he was eight, and his first wife died a few years after marriage, Emerson wrote in a good way about his subjects. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an author who lived during the same time as Emerson, also affected him.