Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/375

Rh support of American Slavery. Hell and Slavery are their favourite dogmas! Who does the world's work; he that receives most largely the world's good? It needs not that truisms be repeated. Now it is a high word of Christianity, he that is greatest shall be your servant. What is the corresponding word of society? Everybody knows it. Do we estimate greatness in this way, by the man's achievements for the public welfare? Oh no, we have no such vulgar standard! Men of “superior talents and cultivation,” do we expect them to be great by serving mankind? Nay, by serving themselves!

Religion is love of God and Man. Is that the basis of action with us? A young man setting out in life, and choosing his calling, says this to himself: How can I get the most ease and honours out of the world, returning the least of toil and self-denial? That is the philosophy of many a life; the very end of even what is called the “better class” of society. Who says, This will I do; I will be a man, a whole complete man, as God made me; take care of myself, but serve my brother, counting my strength also, not merely his ; I will take nothing from the world which is not honestly, truly, manfully earned? Who puts his feet forward in such a life? We call such a man a. Yes, Jesus of Nazareth is a fool, tried by the penny-wisdom of this generation. We honour him in our Sunday talk; hearing his words, say solemnly as the parasites of Herod, “It is the voice of a God, not of a man!” and smite a man on both cheeks, who does not cry Amen. But all the week long, we blaspheme that great soul, who speaks though dead, and call his word, a Fool's talk. That is the popular Christianity. We pray as well as the old Pharisee, “Lord, we thank thee we are not as other men, as the Heathen Socrates, who knew nothing, as the ‘Infidel,’ who cannot believe contradictions and absurdities. We say grace before meat; attend to all the church-ordinances; can repeat the creed, and we believe every word of both thy Testaments; O Lord, what wouldst thou more? We have fulfilled all righteousness.”

Alas for us! We have taken the name of Jesus in our Church, and psalm-singing. We can say “Lord, Lord, no man ever spake as thou.” But our Christianity is