Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/216

200 out of place in a sectarian pulpit; and is just as much out of place there, as a Unitarian would be in a Trinitarian pulpit, or a Calvinist in a Unitarian,—as much so as a weaver of broadcloth would be in a mill for making ribbons or gauze.

Hence, too, it comes to pass, that it is not thought fit to attack popular errors in the pulpit, nor speak of widespread public sins; not even to expose the fault of your own denomination to itself. The sins of Unitarians may be aimed at only from Trinitarian pulpits. It is not lawful for a sect to be instructed by a friend. The sins of commerce must not be rebuked in a trading town. In time of war we must not plead for peace. The sins of politics the minister must never touch. Why not ? Be- cause they are "actual sins of the times," and his kingdom "is not of this world." Decorous ministers are ordained and appointed to apologize for respectable iniquity, and to eulogize every wicked, but popular, great man. So long as the public sepulchres may not be cleansed, there must be priestly Pharisees to wash their outside white. The Northern priest is paid to consecrate the tyranny of capital, as the Southern to consecrate the despotism of the master over his negro slave. Men say you must not touch the actual sins of the times in a pulpit,—it would hurt men's feelings ; and they must not be disquieted from their decorous, their solemn, their accustomed sleep. "You must preach the Gospel, young fanatic," quoth the world. And that means preaching the common doctrines so as to convict no man's conscience of any actual sin ; then press out a little pietism, and decant it off into the old leathern bottles of the Church.

The late Mr Polk affords a melancholy example of the effect of this mode of proceeding. On his death-bed, when a man ought to have nothing to do but to die, the poor man remembers that he has "not been baptized," wishes to know if there is any "hope" for him, receives the dispensation of water in the usual form, and is thought to die "a Christian!" What a sad sign of the state of religion amongst us! To him or to his advisers it did not seem to occur, that, if we live right, it is of small consequence how we die; that a life full of duties is the real baptism in the name of man and God, and the sign of the