Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/242

Rh zeal, and denounced such as sat in Moses' seat, boasting themselves children of Abraham, when they were children of the Devil, and did his works daily—dutiful children of the father of lies. How he wailed like a child for the mother that bore him: “Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee!” How he prayed like a mother for her desperate son, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Are these the words of one that could hate even the wickedest of the deceitful? Who then can love his fellow-men?

In estimating the character of Jesus it must be remembered that he died at an age when a man has not reached his fullest vigour. The great works of creative intellect; the maturest products of Man; all the deep and settled plans of reforming the world, come from a period, when experience gives a wider field as the basis of hope. Socrates was but an embryo sage till long after the age of Jesus. Poems and Philosophies that live, come at a later date. Now here we see a young man, but little more than thirty years old, with no advantage of position; the son and companion of rude people; born in a town whose inhabitants were wicked to a proverb; of a nation above all others distinguished for their superstition, for national pride, exaltation of themselves and contempt for all others; in an age of singular corruption, when the substance of religion had faded out from the mind of its anointed ministers, and sin had spread wide among a people turbulent, oppressed, and downtrodden; a man ridiculed for his lack of knowledge, in this nation of forms, of hypocritical priests and corrupt people, falls back on simple Morality, simple Religion, unites in himself the sublimest precepts and divinest practices, thus more than realizing the dream of prophets and sages; rises free from so many prejudices of his age, nation, or sect; gives free range to the spirit of God in his breast; sets aside the Law, sacred and time-honoured as it was, its forms, its sacrifice, its temple and its priests; puts away the Doctors of the law, subtle, learned, irrefragable, and pours out doctrines, beautiful as the light, sublime as Heaven, and true as God.