Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/209

Rh that baptism, the poor, outward act, atones for a life of conscious sin. Imperial Constantine, hypocritical and murderous, mourning that the Church will not twice baptize, is converted, but cunningly postpones his plunge till old age, that he may sin his fill, then dip and die clean and new.

So is it with all artificial forms. When they become antiquated, the attempt to revive them, to put new life therein, is always useless and unnatural ; it is only a show, too often a cheat. At this day the routine of form is valued most by those who care only for the form, and tread the substance underneath their feet. Put the wig of dead men's hair on your bald head, it is only a barber's cap, not nature's graceful covering, and underneath, the hypocritic head lies bald and bare. Put it on your head if you will, but do not insist that little children and fair-haired maids shall shear off the locks of nature, and hide their heads beneath your deceitful handiwork. The boy is grown up to manhood, he rides real horses; nay, owns, tames, and rears them for himself. How idle to ask him to mount again his hobby, or to ride cockhorse on his grandam's crutch once more! You may galvanize the corpse into momentary and convulsive action, not into life. You may baptize men by the thousand, plunging them in the Jordan and Euphrates, Indus, Ganges, and Irrawaddy, if you will, surpassing even Ignatius and Francis Xavier. Nay, such is the perfection of the arts, that, with steam and Cochituate to serve you, you might sprinkle men in battalions, yea, whole regiments at a dash. What boots it all? A drop of piety is worth all the Jordan, Euphrates, Indus, Ganges, Irrawaddy,—worth all the oceans which the good God ever made.

Men love dramatic scenes. Imagine, then, a troop of men—slave-traders, kidnappers, and their crew—come up for judgment at the throne of Christ. "Behold your evil deeds" cries Jesus in their ears. "Dear Lord," say they, "speak not of that; we were all baptized, in manhood or in infancy, gave bodily presence at a church, enrolled our names among the priest's elect, believed the whole creed, and took the sacrament in every form. What wouldst thou more, dear Christ? Dost thou ask provisional morality of us? Are not these things ultimate, the finality of salvation?"