Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/50

Rh given—one foolish and one wise. The foolish answer, which may be read in Lucretius and elsewhere, is, that Religion is not a necessity of Man's nature, which comes from the action of eternal demands within him, but is the result of spiritual disease, so to say; the effect of fear, of ignorance, combining with selfishness; that hypocritical Priests and knavish Kings, practising on the ignorance, the credulity, the passions, and the fears of men, invented for their own sake, and got up a religion, in which they put no belief and felt no spiritual concern. But judging from a superficial view, it might as well be said that food and comfort were not necessities of our nature, but only cunning devices of butchers, mechanics, and artists, to gain wealth and power. Besides, it is not given to hypocrites under the mitre, nor over the throne, to lay hold on the world and move it. Honest conviction and living faith are needed for that work. To move the world of men firm footing is needed. The hypocrite deceives few but himself, as the attempts at pious frauds, in ancient and modern times, abundantly prove.

The wise answer is, that this institution of Religion, like Society, Friendship, and Marriage, comes out of a principle deep and permanent in the constitution of man; that as humble, and transient, and partial institutions come out of humble, transient, and partial wants, and are to be traced to the senses and the phenomena of life; so this sublime, permanent, and universal institution came out from sublime, permanent, and universal wants, and must be referred to the Soul, the religious Faculty, and so belongs among the unchanging realities of life. Looking, even superficially, but with earnestness, upon human affairs, we are driven to confess, that there is in us a spiritual nature, which directly and legitimately leads to Religion; that as Man's body is connected with the world of Matter; rooted in it; has bodily wants, bodily senses to minister thereto, and a fund of external materials wherewith to gratify these senses and appease these wants; so Man's soul is connected with the world of Spirit; rooted in God; has spiritual wants, and spiritual senses, and a fund of materials wherewith to gratify these spiritual senses and appease these spiritual wants. If this be so, then do not religious institutions come equally from Man?