Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/155

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See this same strength in another form,—the power to do. Religion not only gives the feminine capacity to suffer, but the masculine capability to do. The religious man can do more than another without religion, who is his equal in other respects; because he masters and concentrates his faculties, making them work in harmony with each other, in concord with mankind, in unity with God; and because he knows there is a God who works with him, and so arranges the forces of the universe, that every wrong shall be righted, and the ultimate well-being of each be made sure of for ever. Besides, he has a higher inspiration and loftier motive, which strengthen, refine, and ennoble him. Adam Clarke tells us how much more of mere intellectual labour he could perform after his conversion than before. Ignatius Loyola makes the same confession. They each attribute it to the technical peculiarity of their sectarianism, to Methodism or Catholicism, to Christianity; but the fact is universal, and applies to religion under all forms. It is easily explained by the greater harmony of the faculties, and by the higher motive which animates the man, the more certain trust which inspires him. An earnest youth in love with an earnest maid,—his love returned,—gets more power of character from the ardour of her affection and the strength of his passion; and when the soul of man rises up in its great act of love to become one with God, you need not marvel if the man is strong. "I can do all things," says Paul, "through