Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/133

86 acts which this fancied God demands. He must give up to the deity what is dearest to himself. Hence the savage offers a sacrifice of favourite articles of food; the first-fruits of the chase, or agriculture; weapons of war which have done signal service; the nobler animals; the skins of rare beasts. He conceives the anger of his God may be soothed like a man's excited passion by libations, incense, the smoke of plants, the steam of a sacrifice.

Again, the superstitious man would appease his God by unnatural personal service. He undertakes an enterprise, almost impossible, and succeeds, for the fire of his purpose subdues and softens the rock that opposes him. He submits to painful privation of food, rest, clothing; leads a life of solitude; wears a comfortless dress, that girds and frets the very flesh; stands in a painful position; shuts himself in a dungeon; lives in a cave; stands on a pillar's top; goes unshorn and filthy. He exposes himself to be scorched by the sun and frozen by the frost. He lacerates his flesh; punctures his skin to receive sacred figures of the Gods. He mutilates his body, cutting off the most useful members. He sacrifices his cattle, his enemies, his children; defiles the sacred temple of his body; destroys his mortal life to serve his God. In a state more refined, Superstition demands abstinence from all the sensual goods of life. Its present pleasures are a godless thing. The flesh is damned. To serve God is to mortify the appetites God gave. Then the superstitious man abstains from comfortable food, clothing, and shelter; comes neither eating nor drinking; watches all night absorbed in holy vigils. The man of God must be thin and spare. Bernard has but to show his neck, fleshless and scraggy, to be confessed a mighty saint. Above all, he must abstain from marriage. The Devil lurks under the bridal rose. The vow of the celibate can send him howling back to hell. The smothered volcano is grateful to God. Then comes the assumption of arbitrary vows; the performance of pilgrimages to distant places, thinly clad and barefoot; the repetition of prayers, not as a delight, spontaneously poured out, but as a penance, or work of supererogation. In this state, Superstition builds convents, monasteries, sends Anthony to his dwelling in the desert; it founds orders of Mendicants, Rechabites, Nazarites, Encratites, Pilgrims, Flagel-