Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/11

xii inquiries, were it not that I believe firmly in a God of righteousness and truth and love. Should all else give way beneath me, I feel that His everlasting arms are still under me. That truth I see with my spirit's eyes, once opened to the light of it, as plainly as I see the sun in the heavens; and that truth, more or less distinctly apprehended, has been the food of living men, the strength of brave souls that yearn for light, and battle for the right and true, the support of struggling and sorrow-stricken hearts, in all ages of the world, in all climes, under all religions.” The lesson for ever repeated by Christian teachers that, save within the shadow of their churches, no prayer can be offered with hope of acceptance on high—that false and fatal lesson must be disproved and for ever discarded. The very opposite teaching must be given,—that in the solemn search for truth, to which every strong soul must sooner or later betake itself, the help of God, regarded as simply the , and not the Patron of this or that theological system, is the one thing needful for our success. When we most of all want God's spirit to guide us, and God's law to keep us in that path of duty wherein alone the mental eye is unclouded, we shall not then be left to lament that we have lost them hopelessly. We shall rather find, on the contrary, with relief indescribable, that the hands from which the fetters have fallen for ever are those which rise the most freely in supplication to heaven. Our teacher must do this for us, he must accomplish the task which Rénan lays down as the especial one of our age, “Transporter la religion par delà le surnaturel, séparer la cause à jamais triomphante de la religion, de la cause perdue du miracle.” In a word, the teacher whom we need must find for us the true foundation of faith, and must build thereon a fortress within, and behind the old tottering walls of tradition, so that whensoever these may crumble and fall the souls of men may dwell secure, viewing the ruin around them without dismay, while their faith in God and in His righteous law remains undisturbed for ever. Thus shall that teacher prove himself a Preserver and Renovator of Faith, a, not a Destroyer. Incidentally, and to make his work secure, he must needs dig deep and clear away much rubbish; but he does it for the purpose of restoration. The destructives are his antagonists, who would fain leave humanity with no faith, save the one which all their efforts can never repair, and