Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/330

Rh pious—needed and beautiful in their time—labours of love for the true-hearted; pictures and images to rouse devotion in the man of taste; temples whose aspiring turrets and sombre vaults filled the kneeling crowd with awe; it had doctrines for the wise; rebukes for the wicked; prayers for the reverent; hope for the holy, and blessings for the true. It sanctified the babe, newly-born and welcome; watched over marriage with a jealous eye; fostered good morals; helped men, even by its symbols, to partake the divine nature; smoothed the pillow of disease and death, giving the Soul wings, as it were, to welcome the death-angel, and gently, calmly, pass away. It assured masculine piety of its reward in Heaven; told the weak and wavering, that divine beings would help him, if faithful. In the honours of canonization, it promised the most lasting fame on earth; generations to come should call the good man a blessed saint, and his name never perish while the Christian year went round. Heroism of the Soul took the place of boldness in the Flesh. It did not, like Polytheism, deify warriors and statesmen—Attila, Theodosius, Clovis, their kingdom was of this world; but it canonized martyrs and saints, Polycarp, Justin, Ambrose, Paulinus, Bernard of Clairvaux.

Such were some of the excellences, theoretical or practical, of the Church. This hasty sketch does not allow more particular notice of them.

But the Church had vices, vast and awful to the thought. As its distinctive excellence was to proclaim the continuance of inspiration, so its sacramental sin was in limiting this inspiration to itself, thus setting bounds to the Spirit of God and the Soul of Man. Who shall say to the Infinite God, Hitherto shalt Thou come, but no further; Thou hast inspired Moses and Jesus, the Apostles, and the Church; well done! now rest from thy work, and speak no more, except as we prescribe? The Church did say it.

The wondrous mechanism of the Church and much of