Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/11

Rh minds have been emancipated from the fetters, accepted with most blameworthy acquiescence the sentence of their orthodox antagonists, and submitted to abandon, along with the doctrines of the popular creed, the vivid inner life of prayer and love, whose gate was in truth opened wider than ever for their entrance. It is time that we should recognize that Free Thought should only be the fore-runner of Free Feeling; that having dismissed all dogmas injurious to the Divine Justice and Goodness, we should give to God the undivided loyalty of our consciences ; and that having ceased to pray idle and hopeless prayers for deliverance from His beneficent physical laws, we should approach the Father of Spirits, with those spiritual aspirations we are assured it is His will to bless. To relinquish the popular creed and become a Theist is not to relinquish one single ray of Divine light. It is, on the contrary, to see rolled away from our sky every cloud which hid from us the Sun of Righteousness, henceforth and for. ever to shine down with unshaded glory upon our hearts. Shall we remain cold and senseless under those kindling rays? Shall those men love God and pray to Him continually, before whose minds He appears a dreadful Being, purposing to cast millions into eternal fire ; and shall we, who see in Him the just and merciful Father of all, be for ever cold and dumb?

Let us trust that the work of clearing space for the Church of the future will never again wholly absorb the labourers, but that, like Parker, each one will be not only a Reformer, but a Minister of Religion—a "Great Heart," not only able to demolish the dread Castle of Despair, but also to help all weaker pilgrims towards the Celestial City.

The Sermons contained in this volume appear especially suited to inspire that trustful, loving religious spirit which their author possessed in such full measure, and which is essentially the true spirit of Theism. Few will be able to read these discourses without feeling that they breathe an atmosphere of sunshine and calm, such as rarely, if ever,