Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/147

100 more brilliant, when set in the light of Religion, Friendship and Love it renders infinite. The man loves God when he but loves his friend. This is the joy Religion gives; its perennial rest; it everlasting life. It comes not by chance. It is the possession of such as ask and toil and toil and ask. It is withheld from none, as other gifts. Nature tells little to the deaf, the blind, the rude. Every man is not a genius, and has not his joy. Few men can find a friend that is the world to them. That triune sympathy is not for every one. But this welfare of Religion, the deepest, truest, the everlasting, the sympathy with God, lies within the reach of all his Sons.