Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/201

Rh better, and got but small return, not knowing how to make bread out of the ground. His garden was a very little patch in the woods, and looked ridiculous beside the square leagues of wild woodland, a howling wilderness, that reached from the Kennebec to the Mississippi. But it was the first step towards cultivating the whole continent. So is it with the sacred things of the Hottentot and the Hebrew, the Caffre and the Christian. Let us not despise the rude commencement of great things.

To simplify the matter, let us consider only the Actions pronounced religious. Certain deeds are selected and declared sacred, not on account of their natural usefulness or beauty, but by some caprice. These are declared the "ordinances of religion," the "sacraments" thereof,—things which represent and express religion,—which it is pronounced religious to do, and irreligious not to do. If there is a national form of religion, then there is a national sacrament, established by authority; so a social sacrament for society, established, like the "law of honour," by custom, the tacit consent of society. Thus is there a domestic sacrament for the family, and a personal ordinance of religion for the individual man. Accordingly, these conventional actions come to be thought the exclusive expression of religion, and therefore pleasing to God; they are not thought educational, means of growth, but final, the essential substance of religion. Some man is appointed to look after the performance of these actions, and it is thought desirable to get the greatest possible number of persons to participate in them; and he that turns many to these conventional sacraments is thought a great servant of God.

Look at some of these artificial sacraments. The Indians of New England left tobacco or the fat of the deer on the rocks, an offering to the Great Spirit. With them it was an "ordinance of religion," and stood for an act of piety and morality both. The clerical Powwows recommended the action to the people. What a time they had of it, those red savages here in the woods! It was thought impious not to perform the ritual act; but their religion did not forbid its votary to lie, to steal, to torture his foe with all conceivable cruelty.