Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/143

Rh conceive, and then painstaking to reproduce the idea,—without the act of prayer, the act of industry. The act of prayer,—that is the one great vital means of religious growth; the resolute desire and the unconquerable will to be the image of a perfect man; the comparison of your actual day with your ideal dream; the rising forth, borne up on mighty pens, to fly towards the far heaven of religious joy. Fast as you learn a truth, moral, affectional, or religious, apply the special truth to daily life, and you increase your piety. So the best school for religion is the daily work of common life, with its daily discipline of personal, domestic, and social duties,—the daily work in field or shop, market or house, "the charities that soothe and heal and bless."

Nothing great is ever done without industry. Sloth sinks the idle boy to stupid ignorance, and vain to him are schools, and books, and all the appliances of the instructor's art. It is industry in religion which makes the man a saint. What zeal is there for money,—what diligence in learning to be a lawyer, a fiddler, or a smith! The same industry to be also religious men,—what noble images of God it would make us! ay, what blessed men! Even in the special qualities of fiddler, lawyer, smith, we should be more; for general manhood is the stuff we make into tradesmen of each special craft, and the gold which was fine in the ingot is fine also in the medal and the coin.

You have seen a skilful gardener about his work. He saves the slips of his pear-trees, prunings from his currant-bush; he watches for the sunny hours in spring to air his passion-flower and orange-tree. How nicely he shields his dahlias from the wind, his melons from the frost! Patiently he hoards cuttings from a rose-bush, and the stone of a peach; choice fruit in another's orchard next year is grafted on his crabbed stock, which in three years rejoices in alien flowers and apples not its own. Are we not gardeners, all of us, to fill our time with greener life, with fragrant beauty, and rich, timely fruit ? There are bright, cheery morning hours good for putting in the seed; moments of sunnier delight, when some success not looked for, the finding of a friend, husband, or wife, the