Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/220

204 Under these circumstances piety dies away till there is nothing left but the name and the form. There is the ritual, the belief, such as it is, but nothing else. It is the symbol of narrowness and bigotry, often of self-conceit, sometimes of envy and malice and all uncharitableness. It leads to no outward work, it produces no inward satisfaction, no harmony with yourself, no concord with your brother, no unity with God. It leads to no real and natural tranquillity, no income of the Holy Spirit, no access of new being, no rest in God. There is the form of godliness, and nothing of its power. Some earnest-minded men see this, and are disgusted with all that bears the name of religion. Do you wonder at this? Remove the cause, as well as blame the consequence.

If pains be taken to cultivate piety, and, as it grows up, if it be left to its own natural development, it will have its own form of manifestation. The feeling of love to God, the Infinite Object, will not continue a mere feeling. Directed to the Infinite Object, it will be directed also towards men, and become a deed. As you love God the more, you must also love men the more, and so must serve them better. Your prayer will not content you, though beautiful as David's loftiest Psalm; you must put it into a practice more lovely yet. Then your prayer will help you, your piety be a real motive, a perpetual blessing. It will increase continually, rising as prayer to come down again as practice,—will first raise "a mortal to the skies," then draw that angel down. So the water which rises in electric ecstasy to heaven, and gleams in the rising or descending sun, comes down as simple dew and rain, to quiet the dust in the common road, to cool the pavement of the heated town, to wash away the unhealthiness of city lanes, and nurse the common grass which feeds the horses and the kine.

At the beginning of your growth in piety, there is, doubtless, need of forms, of special time and place. There need not be another's form, or there may be, just as you like. The girl learning to write imitates carefully each mark on the copy, thinking of the rules for holding the pen. But as you grow, you think less of the form, of the substance more. So the pen becomes not a mere instru-