Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/156

140 Christ who strengthened me." Buddhists and Hebrews and Mohammedans say the same of their religion.

Then religion helps a man to two positive things,—first, to a desire of the right; next, to a progressive knowledge and practice of the right. Justice is always power; whoso has that commands the world. A fool in the right way, says the proverb, can beat a wise man in the wrong. The civilized man has an advantage over the savage, in his knowledge of Nature. He can make the forces of the universe toil for him: the wind drives his ship; the water turns his mill, spins, and weaves for him; lightning runs his errands; steam carries the new lord of Nature over land or ocean without rest. He that knows justice, and does it, has the same advantage over all that do it not. He sets his mill on the rock, and the river of God for ever turns his wheels.

The practice of the right in the common affairs of life is called Honesty. An honest man is one who knows, loves, and does right because it is right. Is there anything but this total integrity which I call religion, that can be trusted to keep a man honest in small things and great things, in things private and things public? I know nothing else with this power. True it is said, "Honesty is the best policy;" and as all men love the best policy, they will be honest for that reason. But to follow the best policy is a very different thing from being honest; the love of justice and the love of personal profit or pleasure are quite different. But is honesty the best policy? Policy is means to achieve a special end. If the end you seek be the common object of desire,—if it be material pleasure in your period of passion, or material profit in your period of ambition,—if you seek for money, for ease, honour, power over men, and their approbation,—then honesty is not the best policy; is means from it, not to it. Honesty of thought and speech is the worst policy for a minister's clerical reputation. Charity impairs an estate; unpopular excellence is the ruin of a man's respectability. It is good policy to lie in the popular way; to steal after the respectable fashion. The hard creditor is surest of his debt; the cruel landlord does not lose his rent ; the severe master is uniformly served the