Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/227

Rh cloister." All the churches in Christendom are built to promote access to Him in various forms. "This is the gate of heaven," says the priest of his church. All the ritual services are for this end,—to draw God down to men, or draw men up to God; or to appease His "wrath." So also are the mosques of the Mahometans, the synagogues of the Jews, and all the temples of the world. The Pyramids of Egypt, the Parthenon at Athens, St Peter's at Rome, the Mormon temple at Nauvoo,—all are but the arms of man artificially lengthened and reached out to grasp the Holy Ghost, enfold it to the human heart, and commune with it soul to soul. The little hymn which a mother teaches her child, cradled on her knee, the solemn litany which England pays her thousand priests to chant each day in every cathedral of the land,—all are for the same end, to promote communion with God. For this the Quaker sits silent in his unadorned meeting-house waiting for the Spirit, lying low in the hand of God to receive His inspiration. For this you and I lift up our hearts in silent or unspoken prayer. The petition for this communion is common to the enlightened of all mankind. It may ascend equally from Catholic or Quaker, from bond and free, from Hebrew, Buddhist, Christian, Mahometan,—from all who have any considerable growth of soul.

I love to look at common life—business and politics—from the stand-point of religion, and hence am thought to be hard upon the sins of the State and the sins of business, trying all things by the higher law of God. But if religion is good for anything, it is as a rule of conduct for daily life, in the business of the individual and the business of the nation. It is poor policy and bad business that cannot bear to be looked at in the light that lighteneth every man, and tried by the divine measure of all things. It is a poor clock that will not keep the time of the universe.

I love to look at philosophy—science and metaphysics—from the stand-point of religion, and see how the conclusions of the intellect square with the natural instincts of the heart and soul. Then I love to change places, and look at religion and all spontaneous instincts of the soul, with the eye of the intellect, from the stand-point of philo-