Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/379

Rh Bibles to Africa on the deck of his ship, and Rum and Gunpowder in the hold, knowing that the Church he pays will pray for “the outward bound.” He brings home, most Christian Cupidity, images of himself God has carved in ebony; to enslave and so Christianize and bless the sable son of Ethiopia! Verily we are a Christian people; zealous of good-works; drawing nigh unto God—with our lips! Lives there a savage tribe our sons have visited, that has not cause to curse and hate the name of Christians, who have plundered, polluted, slain, enslaved their children? Not one the wide world round, from the Mandans to the Malays. If there were but half the Religion in all Christendom, that there is talk of it during a “Revival,” in a village; at the baseness, political, commercial, social baseness daily done in the world, such a shout of indignation would go up from the four corners of earth, as should make the ears of Cupidity tingle again, and would hustle the oppressor out of creation.

The Poor, the Ignorant, the Weak, have we always with us; inasmuch as we do good unto them, we serve God; inasmuch as we do it not unto the least of them, we blaspheme God and cumber the ground we tread on. Was there no meaning in that old word, “He that knew his Lord's will and did it not, shall be beaten with many stripes?” They are already laid upon us. Religion meant something with Paul; something with Jesus; what does it mean with us? A divine life from infancy to age; divine all through? Oh, no; a cheaper thing than that; it means talk, creed-making, and creed-believing, and creed-defending. We Christians of the “nineteenth century” have many “inventions to save labour;” among them a process by which “a man is made as good a Christian in five minutes as in fifty years.” Behold Christianity made easy! Do men love Religion and its divine life, as Gain and Trade? Is it the great moving principle with us; something loved for itself; something to live by? Oh, no. Nobody pretends it.

No wonder “ministers cannot bear to hear the truth spoken;” five minutes' talk will not weigh down fifty years' work, save in the Church's balance. The Christianity of the Churches stands at the corner of the street, and