Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/157

Rh best; who gives little and with a grudge finds often the most of obvious gratitude. He that destroys the perishing is more honoured in Christendom than he who comes to save the lost. The slave-hunter is a popular Christian in the American Church, and gets his pay in money and ecclesiastical reputation. The honesty of Jesus brought him to the bar of Herod and Pilate; their best policy nailed him to the cross. Was it good policy in Paul to turn Christian? His honesty brought him to weariness and painfulness, to cold and nakedness, to stripes and imprisonment, to a hateful reputation on the earth. Honesty the best policy for personal selfishness! Ask the "Holy Alliance." Honesty is the means to self-respect, to growth in manly qualities, to high human welfare,— a means to the kingdom of heaven. When men claim that honesty is the best policy, is it this which they mean?

I will not say a man cannot be honest without a distinct consciousness of his relation to God ; but I must say, that consciousness of God is a great help to honesty in the business of a shop, or the business of a nation; and without religion, unconscious if no more, it seems to me honesty is not possible.

By reminding me of my relation to the universe, religion helps counteract the tendency to selfishness. Self-love is natural and indispensable; it keeps the man whole,—is the centripetal power, representing the natural cohesion of all the faculties. Without that, the man would drop to pieces, as it were, and be dissolved in the mass of men, as a lump of clay in the ocean. Selfishness is the abnormal excess of this self-love. It takes various forms. In the period of passion, it commonly shows itself as intemperate love of sensual pleasure; in the period of ambition, as intemperate love of money, of power, rank, or renown. There are as many modes of selfishness as there are propensities which may go to excess. Self-love belongs to the natural harmony of the faculties, and is a means of strength. Selfishness comes from the tyranny of some one appetite, which subordinates the other faculties of man, and is a cause of weakness, a disqualification for my duties to myself, to my brother, and my God. Now the effort to become religious, working in you a love of