Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/136

Rh angry Diana. But a Deity kindly interferes in both cases. The Angel of Jehovah rescues Isaac from the remorseless knife; a ram is found for a sacrifice. Diana delivers the daughter of Agamemnon and leaves a hind in her place. No one doubts the latter is a case of superstition most ghastly and terrible. A father murder his own child—a human sacrifice to the Lord of Life! It is rebellion against Conscience, Reason, Affection; treason against God. Though Calchas, the anointed minister, declared it the will of Heaven—there is an older than Calchas who says, It is a Lie. He that defends the former patriarch, counting it a blameless and beautiful act of piety and faith performed at the command of God—what shall be said of him? He proves the worm of Superstition is not yet dead, nor its fire quenched, and leads weak men to ask, Which then has most of Religion, the Christian, who justifies Abraham, or the Pagan Greeks, who condemned Agamemnon? He leads weak men to ask; the strong make no question of so plain a matter.

But why go back to Patriarchs at Aulis or Moriah; do we not live in New England and the nineteenth century? Have the footsteps of Superstition been effaced from our land? Our books of theology are full thereof; our churches and homes, not empty of it. When a man fears God more than he loves him; when he will forsake Reason, Conscience, Love—the still small voice of God in the heart—for any of the legion voices of Authority, Tradition, Expediency, which come of Ignorance, Selfishness, and Sin; whenever he hopes by a poor prayer, or a listless attendance at church, or an austere observance of Sabbaths and Fast-days, a compliance with forms; when he hopes by professing with his tongue the doctrine he cannot believe in his heart, to atone for wicked actions, wrong thoughts, unholy feelings, a six-days' life of meanness, deception, rottenness, and sin,—then is he superstitious. Are there no fires but those of Moloch; no idols of printed paper, and spoken wind? No false worship but bowing the knee to Baal, Adonis, Priapus, Cybele? Superstition changes its forms, not its substance. If he were superstitious who