Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/115

68 known God is present in Matter; spiritual power is the strongest of forces. Its error was to make Matter God. The truth of Polytheism is: God is present, and active, everywhere; in Space, in Spirit; breathes in the wind; speaks in the storm; inspires to acts of virtue; helps the efforts of all true men. Its falsehood was, that it divided God, and gave but a chaos of Deity. When the falsehood was seen and felt to be such, and its truth believed in for itself, on its own authority, then was the time for Fetichism and Polytheism to fall. So they fell, never to hope again, for mankind never apostatizes. One generation takes up the Ark of Religion where another let it fall, and carries forward the hope of the world. The old form never passes away, till all its truth is transferred to the new. These types of religious progress are but the frames on which the artist spreads the canvas, while he paints his piece. The frame may perish when this is done. Fetichism and Polytheism did good, not because they were Fetichism and Polytheism, but because Religion was in them and they were steps in the spiritual progress of mankind—indispensable steps.

Such, then, are the three great forms of manifestation assumed by this religious Element. We cannot understand the mental and religious state of men who saw the Divine in a serpent, a cat, or an enchanted ring; not even that of superstitious Christians, who make earth a demon-land, and the one God but a King of Devils. Yet each religious doctrine has sometimes stood for a truth. It was devised to help pious hearts, and has imperfectly accomplished its purpose. It could not have been but as it was. Looking carelessly at the past, the history of man's religious consciousness appears but a series of revolutions. What is to-day built up with prayers and tears, is to-morrow pulled down with shouting and bloodshed, giving place to a new fabric equally transient. Prophets were mistaken, and saints confounded. Religious history is the tale of confusion. But looking deeper, we see it is a series of developments, all tending towards one great and beautiful end, the harmonious perfection of Man; that in theology as in other science, in morals as in theology, the circle of his vision becomes wider continually; his opinions