Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/217

170 wise, the holy, help the poor, the foolish, the sinful; that the strong bear the burdens of the weak, not bind them on anew. It tells a man that his excellence and ability are not for himself alone, but for all mankind, of which he is but one, beginning first with the nearest of the needy. It makes the strong the guardians, not the tyrants, of the weak. It said: Go to the publicans and sinners, and call them to repentance; go to men trodden down by the hoof of the oppressor, rebuke him lovingly, but snatch the spoil from his bloody teeth; go to men sick with desolation, covered all over with the leprosy of sin, bowed together and squalid with their inveterate disease, bid them live and sin no more. It despairs of no man; sees the soul of goodness in things evil; knows the soul in its intimate recess never consents to sin, nor loves the Hateful. It would improve men's circumstances to mend their heart; their heart to mend their circumstances. It does not say alone, with piteous whine—God save the wicked and the weak, but puts its own shoulder to the work; divides its raiment and shares its loaf.

To say all, in brief, these two cardinal doctrines demanded a, where every action of the hand, the head, the heart, is in obedience to the Law of the Soul; in harmony with the All-perfect. This was Christ's notion of worship. It asked for nothing ritual, formal; laid no stress on special days, forms, rites, creeds. Its rite, its creed, its substance, and its form, are all contained in that one command,. None can say, or need suppose, that Jesus consciously intended all the consequences which we see resulting from these principles, or that he even foresaw the effects thereof, more than Monk Schwarz expected the results of his invention.

Thus far the application was universal as the doctrine. But he taught something which is ritual. Baptism and the Supper. The first was a common rite at the time, used even by the “heathens.” In a nation dwelling in a warm climate, and so fond of symbols as the Jews, it was a natural expression of the convert's change of life. Sensual men must interpret their Religion to the senses, as the Hollanders have their Bible in Dutch. It seems to have