Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/105

Rh old man looking for the last time upon the sun turns his children's face towards the Sun which never sets. Even in cities men do not pause at a funeral or look on a grave without a thought of the eternal life beyond the tomb, and the dependence of rich and poor on the God who is father of body and soul. The hearse obstructs the omnibus of commerce, and draws the eyes of even the silly and the vain and empty creatures who buzz out their ephemeral phenomena in wealthy towns, the butterflies of this garden of bricks, and forces them to confront one reality of life, and reverence, though only with a shudder, the Author of all. The undertaker is a priest to preach terror, if no more, to the poor flies of metropolitan frivolity, reminding them at least of the worm.

The outward material world forms a temple where all invites us to reverence the Soul which inspires it with life; the spiritual powers within are all instinctively astir with feelings infinite. Thus material nature joins with human nature in natural fellowship; outward occasions and in- ward means of piety are bountifully given, and man is led to develope his religious powers. The soul of man cannot well be still; religion has always had a powerful activity in the world, and a great influence upon the destiny of man- kind. The soul has been as active as the sense, and left its monuments.

An element thus powerful, thus well appointed with out- ward and with inward helps, must have a purpose for the individual and the race commensurate with its natural power. The affections tells me it is not good for man to be alone in the body without a friend; the soul as imperatively informs us that we cannot well be alone in the spirit without a consciousness of God. If the religious faculty has overpowered all others, and often trod them under-foot, its very power shows for what great good to mankind it was invested with this formidable force. It will act jointly or alone; if it have not its proper place in the mass of men, working harmoniously with the intellect, the conscience, and the affections, then it will tyrannize as a brute instinct, lusting after God, and, like a river that bursts its bounds, sweep off the holy joys of men before its desolating flood.