Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/210

194 I always look with pain on any effort to put the piety of our times into the artificial sacraments of another and a ruder age. It is often attempted, sometimes with pure and holy feelings, with great self-denial ; but it is always worthless. The new wine of religion must be put into new bottles. See what improvements are yearly made in science, in agriculture, weaving, ship -building, in medicine, in every art. Shall there be none in religion, none in the application of its great sentiments to daily life ? Shall we improve only in our ploughs, not also in the forms of piety? At this day great pains are taken to put religion into artificial sacraments, which, alas! have no connection with a manly life. I do not know of a score of ministers devoting their time and talents solely to the advancement of natural piety and natural morality. I know of hundreds who take continual pains to promote those artificial sacraments,—earnest, devout, and self-denying men. Why is this so? It is because they think the ceremony is religion; not religion's accidental furniture, but religion itself. It is painful to see such an amount of manly and earnest effort, of toil and self-denial and prayer, devoted to an end so little worth. The result is very painful, more so than the process itself. We call ourselves a Christian people, a religious nation. Why? Are we a religious people because the heart of the nation is turned towards God and his holy law? The most prominent churches just now have practically told us, that there is no law of God above the statute politicians write on parchment in the Capitol; that Congress is higher than the Almighty, the President a finality ; and that God must hide his head behind the Compromise! Is it because the highest talent of the nation, its ablest zeal, its stoutest heroism, is religious in its motive, religious in its aim, religious in its means, religious in its end? Nobody pretends that. A respectable man would be thought crazy, and called a "fanatic," who should care much for religion in any of its higher forms. Self-denial for popularity and for money or office, that is common; it abounds in every street. Self-denial for religion,—is that so common? Are we called Christians because we value the character of Jesus of Nazareth, and wish to be like him? Is it the ambition of calculating fathers, that their sons be closely like