Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/218

202 good works,—luxurious, indolent, "born to consume the corn,"—that is bad enough. But when I learn that this hard man is a class leader, and has "the gift of prayer," is a famous hand at a conference, the builder of churches, a great defender of ecclesiastical doctrines and devotional forms, that he cries out upon every heresy, banning men in the name of God; when I hear that this luxurious woman delights in mystic devotion and has a wantonness of prayer,—it makes me far more sad ; and there is then no hope! The kidnapper at his court is a loathly thing; but the same kidnapper at his "communion!"—great God! and has thy Church become so low! Let us turn off our eyes and look away.

Hence it comes to pass that much of all this ecclesiastic pains to produce piety is abortive; it ends in sickness and routine. Men who have the reputation of piety in a vulgar sense are the last men you would look to for any great good work. They will not oppose slavery and war and lust of land,—national sins that are popular; nor intemperance and excessive love of gold,—popular, personal, and social sins. They would not promote the public education of the people, and care not to raise woman to her natural equality with man. "It is no part of piety to do such things,-"say they; "we are not under the covenant of works, but of grace only. What care we for painful personal righteousness, which profiteth little, when only the imputed can save us, and that so swiftly!

Nay, they hinder all these great works. The bitterest opposition to the elevation of all men is made in the name of devotion; so is the defence of slavery and war, and the flat degradation of woman. Here is a church, which at a public meeting solemnly instructs its minister elect not to preach on politics, or on the subjects of reform. They want him to "preach piety," "nothing but piety," "evangelical piety;" not a week-day piety but a Sabbath piety, which is up and at church once in seven days,—keeps her pew of a Sunday, but her bed all the week,—ghastly, lean, dyspeptic, coughing, bowed together, and in nowise able to lift up herself.

Hence "piety" gets a bad reputation amongst philanthropists, as it serves to hinder the development of humanity. Even amongst men of business a reputation for