Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/158

142 man and of God, a desire of harmony with yourself, of concord with man and unity with Him, diminishes selfishness, developes your instinctive self-love into conscious self-respect, into faithfulness to yourself, and so enlarges continually the little ring of your character, and makes you strong to bear the crosses and do the duties of daily life. Much of a man's ability consists in his- power to concentrate his energies for a purpose; in power to deny some private selfish lust—of material pleasure or profit—for the sake of public love. I know of naught but religion that can be trusted to promote this power of self-denial, which is indispensable to a manly man. There can be no great general power without this; no strong character that lies deep in the sea, and holds oh its way through sunshine and through storm, and unabashed by tempests, comes safe to port. I suppose you all know men and women, who now are not capable of any large self-denial,—the babies of mere selfish instinct. It is painful to look on such, domineered over by their propensities. Compared to noble-hearted men and women, they are as the mushroom and the toadstool to the oak, under whose shade the fungus springs up in a rainy night to blacken and perish in a day. Self-denial is indispensable to a strong character, and the loftiest kind thereof comes only of a religious stock,—from consciousness of obligation and dependence upon God.

In youth the seductions of passion lead us easily astray; in manhood there are the more dangerous seductions of ambition, when lust of pleasure gives way to lust of profit; and in old age the man is often the victim of the propensities he delicately nursed in earlier life, and dwindles down into the dotage of a hunker or a libertine. It is easy to yield now to this, and then to that, but both mislead us to our partial and general loss, to weakness of power and poverty of achievement, to shipwreck of this great argosy of mortal life. How many do you see slain by lust of pleasure! How many more by lust of power,—pecuniary, social, or political power! Religious self-denial would have kept them strong and beautiful and safe.

Religion gives a man courage. I do not mean the