Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/205

Rh will find that these artificial sacraments are the things relied on as proofs of religion, of Christianity, the signs of acceptableness with God, and of eternal bliss. The others are only "of works,"—these "of faith;" one of "natural religion," the next of "revealed religion;" morality is provisional, and the sacraments a finality.

Accordingly, great pains are taken to bring men to these results. If a minister does this to large numbers, he is called "an eminent servant of the Lord,"—that is, a great circumciser, a great sprinkler or plunger. Francis Xavier "converted" thousands of men to what he called Christianity; they took the sacrament of belief, and of baptism,—in due time the others; and Francis was made a saint. But it does not appear that he made them any better men, better sons, brothers, husbands, fathers, better neighbours and friends. He only brought them to the artificial sacrament. It is often the ambition of a Protestant minister to extend the jurisdiction of his artificial sacraments, to bring men to baptism and communion, not to industry, temperance, and bodily well-being; not to wisdom, justice, friendship, and philanthropy; not to an absolute love of God, a joyous, absolute faith in the Dear Mother of us all.

Let us do no injustice to those poor, leaky vessels of worship which we have borrowed from the Egyptians to whom we were once in bondage. They all have had their use. Man sets up his mythologies and his sacraments to suit his condition of soul at the time. You cannot name a ceremony connected with religion, howsoever absurd or wicked it may appear, but once it came out of the soul of some man who needed it; and it helped him at the time. The tobacco offered to Hobomock at Narragansett, the procession of Hertha in Pannonia, the ritual mutilation in New Holland, in Judea, or, still worse, in Phrygia and Crete, all once had their meaning. Nay, human sacrifice was once the highest act of worship which some dark-minded savage could comprehend, and in good faith the victim was made ready at Mexico or at Moriah. But the best of them are only educational, not final; and the sooner we can outgrow those childish things, the better. Men often mock at such things. What mouths Arnobius