Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/132

116 ceives men. Straightway men call out: "Iconoclast! Boanerges! John Knox! destroyer!" and the like. Alas me ! men do not know that the same sun gathers the dews which water the forget-me-not, drooping at noonday, and drives through the sky the irresistible storm that shatters the forest in its thunderous march, and piles the ruins of a mountain in an Alpine avalanche. The same soul which thundered its forked lightning on Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, poured out poetic parables from his golden urn, spreading forth the sunshine of the beatitudes upon friend and foe, and, half in heaven, breathed language wholly thence,—"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." It is a great thing once in our days to meet with a man of religious genius largely developed into lovely life. He stirs the feelings infinite within us, and we go off quite other than we came. He has not put his soul into our bosom; he has done better,—has waked our soul in our own bosom. Men may go leagues long to listen to such a man, and come back well paid. He gives us seeds of future life for our little garden. So the husbandman journeys far to get a new root or a new seed, to fill his ground with beauty or his home with bread. After we have listened to the life of such a man, the world does not seem so low, nor man so mean; heaven looks nearer, yet higher too; humanity is more rich; if wrong appear yet more shameful, the wrongdoer is not so hopeless. After that I can endure trouble ; my constant cross is not so heavy; the unwonted is less difficult to bear. Tears are not so scalding to an eye which has looked through them into the serene face of a great-souled man. Men seem friendlier, and God is exceeding dear. The magistrates of Jerusalem marvelled at the conduct of Peter and John, heedful of the higher law of God, spite of bonds and imprisonment and politicians; but they "took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus," and the marvel had its explanation. What a dull, stupid thing is a candle! Touch it with fire, and then look! We are all of us capable of being lit when some Prometheus comes down with the spark of God in his right hand. The word of Jesus touched the dull fishermen of Galilee, and they flamed into martyrs and apostles.