Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/43

 of our brothers. The bad and the foolish naturally ask, If the name be deserved, what is the use of Religion, as good men and wise men can be good and wise, heavenly and spiritual, without it? The answer is plain—but not to the blind.

Practical Religion implies both a Sentiment and a Life. We honour a phantom which is neither life nor sentiment. Yes, we have two Spectres that often take the place of Religion with us. The one is a Shadow of the Sentiment; that is our creed, belief, theology, by whatever name we call it. The other is the Ghost of Life; this is our ceremonies, forms, devout practices. The two Spectres by turns act the part of Religion, and we are called Christians because we assist at the show. Real Piety is expected of but few. He is called a Christian that bows to the Idol of his Tribe, and sets up also a lesser, but orthodox Idol in his own Den. One word of the Prophet is true of our religion-Its voice is not heard in the streets. Our theology is full of confusion. They who admit Reason to look upon it confound the matter still more, for a great revolution of thought can set affairs right.

Religion is separated from Life; divorced from bed and board. We think to be religious without love for men, and pious with none for God; or, which is the same thing, that we can love our neighbour without helping him, and God without having an idea of Him. The prevailing theology represents God as a being whom a good man must hate; Religion is something alien to our nature, which can only rise as Reason falls. A despair of Man pervades our Theology. Pious men mourn at the famine in our churches; we do not believe in the inspiration of goodness now; only in the tradition of goodness long ago. For all theological purposes, God might have been buried after the ascension of Jesus. We dare not approach the Infinite One face to face; we whine and whimper in our brother's name, as if we could only appear before the Omnipresent by Attorney.

Our reverence for the Past is just in proportion to our ignorance of it. We think God was once everywhere in the World and in the Soul; but has now crept into a corner, as good as dead; that the Bible was his last word. Instead of the Father of All for our God, we have two