Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/21

Rh history, each of great moment to mankind, whereby to learn the absolute right of ethics, — so the philanthropist has the special persons of his acquaintance, each one a joy to him, as the rounds of his Jacob's ladder whereby he goes journeying up to the absolutely lovely, the infinite object of the affections.

The Soul contemplates God as a being who unites all these various modes of action, as manifested in truth, in right, and in love. It apprehends him, not merely as ab- solute truth, absolute right, and absolute love alone, but as all these unified into one complete and perfect Being, the Infinite God. He is the absolute object of the soul, and corresponds thereto, as truth to the mind, as justice to the conscience, as love to the heart. He is to the soul ab- solutely true, just, and lovely, the altogether beautiful. To him the soul turns instinctively at first ; then also, at length, with conscious and distinctive will.

The love of God in this fourfold way is the totality of piety, which comes from the normal use of all the faculties named before. Hence it appears that piety of this character lies at the basis of all manly excellence whatever, and is necessary to a complete and well-proportioned development of the faculties themselves.

There may be an unconscious piety: the man does not know that he loves universal truth, justice, love; loves God. He only thinks of the special truth, justice, and love, which he prizes. He does not reflect upon it ; does not aim to love God in this way, yet does it, nevertheless. Many a philosopher has seemed without religion even to a careful observer; sometimes has passed for an atheist. Some of them have to themselves seemed without any religion, and have denied that there was any God. But all the while their nature was truer than their will ; their instincts kept their personal wholeness better than they were aware. These men loved absolute truth, not for its uses, but for itself; they laid down their lives for it, rather than violate the integrity of their intellect. They had the intellectual love of God, though they knew it not; though they denied it. No man ever has a complete and perfect