Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/100

84 It is plain that the religious faculty is the strongest spiritual power in the constitution of man. Accordingly, what is called religion is always one of the mightiest forces in the world of men. It over-rides the body, mutilates every instinct, and hews off every limb; it masters the intellect, the conscience, and the affections. Lightning shows us the power of electricity, shattering that it may reach its end, and shattering what it reaches; the power of the religious faculty hitherto has been chiefly shown in this violent exhibition. A crusade is only a long thunderstorm of the religious forces.

In the greater part of the world, men who speak in the name of God are looked on with more reverence than any other. So every tyrant seeks to get the priesthood on his side. Hard Napoleon got the Pope to assist at the imperial coronation; even the cannons must yield to the Cross. All modern wickedness must be banked up with Christianity. If the State of the Philistines wishes to sow some eminently wicked seed, it ploughs with the heifer of the Church.

A nation always prepares itself for its great works with consecration and prayer; both the English and American revolutions are examples of this. The religious sentiment lies exceeding deep in the heart of mankind. Even to-day the nations look on men who die for their country as a sacrifice offered to God. No government is so lasting as that based on religious sentiments and ideas; with the mass of men the State is part of the Church, and politics a national sacrament. Nothing so holds a nation together as unity of religious conviction. Men love to think their rulers have a religious sanction. "Kings rule by divine right," says the monarchist; "Civil government is of God," quoth the Puritan. The mass of men love to spread acts of religion along their daily life, having the morning sacrament for birth, the evening sacrament for death, and the noonday sacrament of marriage for the mature beauty of maid and man. Thus in all the sects, the morning, the evening, and the noon of life are connected with sentiments and ideas of religion. In New England we open a town-meeting, a banquet, or a court with prayer to God.

You see the strength of the religious instinct in the power of the sacred class, which has existed in all nations,