Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/14

Rh which they have found beyond, we dismiss them with a complacent sigh, even if they bring back from their Canaan the noblest fruits.

There is surely great error in this state of feeling. Though infallible knowledge is not for man, though we have neither faculties to receive it nor language to convey it, yet it is far indeed from established, that our powers fall short of attaining such a share of knowledge of Divine things as may suffice for the primary wants of our souls. We need such knowledge for the higher part of our nature, as much as we need bread and clothing for the lower. It is the greatest want of the greatest creature, and if it indeed have no supply, then is the analogy of the universe broken off. There is a presumption of incalculable force, that these cravings which arise in the profoundest depths of our souls, which we can never put away, and on which all our moral health depends, are not to be for ever denied their natural satisfaction, while the ravens are fed and the grass of the field drinks in the dew. We have, indeed, asked hitherto for too much. We have called for whole systems of theology, dissecting with blasphemous audacity the mysteries of our awful Maker's nature and attributes. We have cried like children for the moon of an unattainable infallibility. But because these things are denied us, are we therefore to despair of knowing those fundamental truths which we must either gain or else morally and spiritually die? It would be to assume the main point in question, to argue that a Father in Heaven must needs make Himself and His righteous law known to His children. But it is a simple induction from the order of the universe, to conclude that the soul of man is not the only thing left without its food, its light, its guide, its sole-sufficing end and aim.

If, then, it be not improbable that a religion is to be found supplying us with such knowledge, but on the contrary, a thing to be predicted from man's nature and the order of the world; then, he who comes forward to tell us he has found this needful knowledge is not to be hastily dismissed as a dreamer. His special faith may be true or false, but some such faith as his is what we have to look for with well-grounded hope of success.

It is in this light, then, as a teacher of those cardinal truths of religion which are needful for our souls' higher life—those truths which we have reason to trust are within our powers to