Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/192

176 for to-day a brother-man is held in a dungeon by the avarice of this city, which seeks to make him a slave, and he out of his jail sends round a petition to the clergymen of Boston, asking their prayers for his unalienable rights,—a prayer which they will refuse, for those "churches of Christ" are this day a "den of thieves," shambles for the sale of human flesh. , Let me look on all these things, still I am not dismayed. I know, I feel, I am sure of this, that the Infinite God has known it all, provided for it all; that as He is all-powerful, all-wise, all-just, all-loving, and all-holy too, no absolute evil shall ever come to any child of his, erring or sinned against. I will do all for the right: then, if I fail, the result abides with God ; it is His to care for and not mine. Thus am I powerful to bear, as powerful to do. I know of no calamity, irresistible, sudden, seemingly total, but religion can abundantly defend the head and heart against its harm. So I can be calm. Defeated and unable to rise I will "lie low in the hand of the Father," smiling with the delight of most triumphant trust.

With this tranquillity of trust there comes a still, a peculiar, and silent joy in God. You feel your delight in Him, and His in you. The man is not beside himself, he is self-possessed and cool. There is no ecstasy, no fancied "being swallowed up in God;" but there is a lasting inward sweetness and abiding joy. It will not come out in raptures; it will not pray all night, making much ado for nothing done; but it will fill the whole man with beatitudes, with delight in the Infinite God. There will be a calm and habitual peace, a light around the mortal brow, but a light which passes from glory to glory till it changes into perfect fulness of delicious joy. God gives to the loving in their sorrow or their sleep. Let us undervalue no partial satisfaction which may be had without the consciousness of God. If it be legitimate and natural to man, let it have its place and its joy. Beli-