Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/191

144 like wine that hath no vent. He is full of the God. While he muses the fire burns; his bosom will scarce hold his heart. He must speak or he dies, though the earth quake at his word. Timid flesh may resist, and Moses say, I am of slow speech. What avails that? The Soul says, Go, and I will be with thy mouth, to quicken thy tardy tongue. Shrinking Jeremiah, effeminate and timid, recoils before the fearful work—“The flesh will quiver when the pincers tear.” He says, I cannot speak. I am a child. But the great Soul of All flows into him and says, Say noť “I am a child!” for I am with thee. Gird up thy loins like a man, and speak all that I command thee. Be not afraid at men's faces, for I will make thee a defenced city, a column of steel, and walls of brass. Speak, then, against the whole land of sinners; against the kings thereof, the princes thereof, its people, and its priests. They may fight against thee, but they shall not prevail; for I am with thee. Devils tempt the man, with the terror of defeat and want, with the hopes of selfish ambition. It avails nothing. A “Get-thee-behind-me, Satan," brings angels to help. Then are the man's lips touched with a live coal from the altar of Truth, brought by a Seraph's hand. He is baptized with the Spirit of fire. His countenance is like lightning. The truth thunders from his tongue—his words eloquent as Persuasion; no terror is terrible; no fear formidable. The peaceful is satisfied to be a man of strife and contention, his hand against every man, to root up and pluck down and destroy, to build with the sword in one hand and the trowel in the other. He came to bring peace, but he must set a fire, and his soul is straitened till his work be done. Elisha must leave his oxen in the furrow; Amos desert his summer fruit and his friend; and Böhme, and Bunyan, and Fox, and a thousand others, stout-hearted and God-inspired, must go forth of their errand, into the faithless world, to accept the prophet's mission, be stoned, hated, scourged, slain. Resistance is nothing to these men. Over them steel loses its power, and public opprobrium its shame; deadly things do not harm them; they count loss gain—shame glory—death triumph. These are the men who move the world. They have an eye to see its follies, a heart to weep and