Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/13

 your attention to a Sermon of War. I have waited some time before treating this subject at length, till the present hostilities should assume a definite form, and the designs of the Government become more apparent. I wished to be able to speak coolly, and with knowledge of the facts, that we might understand the comparative merits of the present war. Besides, I have waited for others in the churches, of more experience to speak, before I ventured to offer my coimsel; but I have thus far waited almost in vain! I did not wish to treat the matter last Sunday, for that was the end of our week of Pentecost, when cloven tongues of flame descend on the city, and some are thought to be full of new wine, and others of the Holy Spirit. The heat of the meetings, good and bad, of that week, could not wholly have passed away from you or me, and we ought to come coolly and consider a subject like this. So the last Sunday I only sketched the background of the picture, to-day intending to paint the horrors of war in front of that "Presence of Beauty in Nature," to which, with its "Meanings" and its "Lessons," I then asked you to attend.

It seems to me that an idea of God as the Infinite is given to us in our nature itself. But men create a more definite conception of God in their own image. Thus a rude savage man, who has learned only the presence of