Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/125

Rh that you shall rejoice in their joys, and all be mutually blessed with the bliss of each other.

It is also to be faithful to God; to know of Him, to have a realizing sense of his Infinite power, wisdom, justice, goodness, and holiness, and so a perfect love of God, a perfect trust in Him, a delight in the Infinite Being of God; to love him intellectually in the love of truth, morally as justice, affectionally as love, and totally as the Infinite God, Father and Mother too of all this world; so to love God that you have no desire to transcend his law or violate your duty to yourself, your brother, or your God; so to love Him that there shall be no fear of God, none for yourself, none for mankind, but a perfect confidence and an absolute love shall take the place of every fear. In short, it is to serve God by the normal use, development, and enjoyment of every faculty of the spirit, every limb of the body, and every mode of power which we possess.

I think such is the ideal of a religious character; that there is no one who would not confess a desire to be religious in that sense, for it is to be a perfect man; no one who would not make some sacrifice for this end; most men would make a great one, some would leave father and mother, and lay down their own lives, to secure it.

What are some of the means to this end, to this grace, and this glory? There are four great public educational forces, namely, the industrial, political, literary, and ecclesiastical action of the people, represented by the Business, the State, the Press, and the Church. These have a general influence in the formation of the character, and so a special influence in the formation of the religious character; but as they cannot be trusted for the general work of forming the character, no more can they for this special function. They are less reliable in religion than in any other matter whatever. By these forces the whole community is a teacher of religion to all persons born therein; but it can only teach the mode and degree of religion it