Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/148

132 tests. It is power to do, or power to bear. One is active, and the other passive, but both are only diverse modes of the same thing. The hard anvil can bear the blows of the hard hammer which smites it, because there is the same solidity in the nether anvil which bears up, as in the upper hammer which bears down. It takes as much solidity to bear the blow as to give it; only one is solidity active, the other merely passive.

Religion increases the general strength and volume of character. The reason is plain: Religion is keeping the natural law of human nature in its threefold mode of action,—in relation to myself, to my brother, and to my God; the coordination of my will with the will of God, with the ideal of my nature. So it is action according to my nature, not against it; it is the agreement of my finite will with the Infinite Will which controls the universe and provides for each portion thereof.

Now, to use a thing against its nature, to abuse it, is ultimately to fail of the natural end thereof, and waste the natural means provided for the attainment of the end. A boat is useful to journey with by sea, a chaise to journey with by land; use each for its purpose, you enjoy the means and achieve the end. But put off to sea in your chaise, or put on to land in your boat, you miss the end you lose also the means. This is true of the natural, as of the artificial instruments of man; of his limbs, as of his land-carriages or sea-carriages. Hands are to work with, feet to walk on; the feet would make a poor figure in working, the hands an ill figure in essaying to walk. The same rule holds good in respect to spiritual faculties as in bodily organs. Passion is not designed to rule conscience, but to serve; conscience not to serve passion, but to rule. If passion rule and conscience serve, the end is not reached, you are in a state of general discord with yourself, your brother, and your God; the means also fail and perish; conscience becomes weak, the passion itself dies from the plethora of its indulgence ; the whole man grows less and less till he becomes the smallest thing he is capable of dwindling into. But if conscience rule and passion serve, all goes well; you reach the end—welfare in general, harmony with yourself, concord with your brother, and unity with your God; you keep the means,—conscience and