Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/48

32 little pause,—the ablest representatives of the truth must get fully conscious of their truth, and of their relation to the world; a process like that in the growing corn of summer, which in hot days spindles, as the farmers say, but in cool nights gets thick, and has a green and stocky growth. The interruptions to a great degree are of corresponding value to its development in a man, or a nation, or the world. Our men baptized with a new idea pause and reflect to be more sure,—perfecting the logic of their thought; pause and devise their mode to set it forth,—perfecting their rhetoric, and seek to organize it in an outward form, for every thought must be a thing. Then they tell their idea more perfectly; in the controversy that follows, errors connected with it get exposed; all that is merely accidental, national, or personal gets shaken off, and the pure truth goes forth to conquer. In this way all the great ideas of religion, of philanthropy, have gone their round. Yet every new truth of morals or religion which blesses the world conflicts with old notions, binds a new burden on the men who first accept it; demands of them to lay aside old comforts, accept a hard name, endure the coldness of their friends, and feel the iron of the world. What a rough wind winnowed the early Christians and the Quakers! They bear all that, and still the truth goes on. Soon it has philosophers to explain it, apologists to defend it, orators to set it forth, institutions to embody its sacred life. It is a new force in the world, and nothing can dislodge or withstand it. It was in this way that the ideas of Christianity got a footing in the world. Between the enthusiasm of Peter and James at the Pentecost, and the cool demonstrations of Clarke and Schleiermacher, what a world of experience there lay! Some four hundred years ago this truth began to be distinctly seen: Man has natural empire over all institutions; they are for him, accidents of his development, not he for them. That is a very simple statement, each of you assents to it. But once it was a great new truth. See what it has led to. Martin Luther dimly saw its application to the Catholic Church, the institution that long had ruled over the souls of men. The Church gave way and recoiled before the tide of truth. That helpless truth,—see what it has done, what millions it has inspired, what