Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/69

22 foolishest teaching becomes acceptable; the foulest doctrines, the grossest conduct, crimes that, like the fabled banquet of Thyestes, might make the sun sicken at the sight and turn back affrighted in his course,—these things are counted as beautiful, superior to Reason, acceptable to God. The wicked man may bless his brother in crime; the unrighteous blast the holy with his curse, and devotees shall shout "Amen,” to both the blessing and the ban.

On what other authority have rites so bloody been accepted; or doctrines so false to reason, so libellous of God? For what else has Man achieved such works, and made such sacrifice? In what name but this, will the man of vast and far outstretching mind, the counsellor, the chief, the sage, the native king of men, forego the vastness of his thought, put out his spirit's eyes, and bow him to a drivelling wretch who knows nothing but treacherous mummery and juggling tricks? In Religion this has been done from the first false prophet to the last false priest, and the pride of the Understanding is abashed; the supremacy of Reason degraded; the majesty of Conscience trampled on; the beautifulness of Faith and Love trodden down into the mire of the streets. The hand, the foot, the eye, the ear, the tongue, the most sacred members of the body; judgment, imagination, the overmastering faculties of mind; justice, mercy, and love, the fairest affections of the soul,—all these have been reckoned a poor and paltry sacrifice, and lopped off at the shrine of God as things unholy. This has been done, not only by Pagan polytheists, and savage idolaters, but by Christian devotees, accomplished scholars, the enlightened men of enlightened times.

These melancholy results, which are but aberrations of the religious element, the disease of the baby, not the soundness of mankind, have often been confounded with Religion itself, regarded as the legitimate fruit of the religious faculty. Hence men have said, Such results prove that Religion itself is a popular fury; the foolishness of the people; the madness of mankind. They prove a very different thing. They show the depth, the strength, the awful power of that element which thus can overmaster all the rest of Man—Passion and Conscience, Reason and Love. Tell a man his interest requires a sacrifice, he hesitates; convince him his Religion demands it, and crowds