Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/71

Rh The chiefs of war, of industry, and the Church are joined in a solidarity of contempt; in America, not harlots, so much as politicians, debauch the land. Conscience has been left out of the list of faculties to be intentionally developed in the places of honour. Is it marvellous if men find their own selfishness fall on their own heads? No army of special constables will supply the place of morality in the people. If they do not reverence justice, what shall save the riches of the rich? Ah me! even the dollar flees to the Infinite God for protection, and bows before the Higher Law its worshippers despise.

What moral guidance do the leading classes of men offer the people in either England,—the European or American? Let the labouring men of Great Britain answer; let Ireland, about to perish, groan out her reply; let the three million African slaves bear the report to Heaven. "Ignorance is the mother of devotion," once said some learned fool; monopolists act on the maxim. Ignorance of truth, ignorance of right,—will these be good directors, think you, of the class which has the privilege of numbers and their multitudinous agglomerated power?" Reverence the eternal right," says Conscience, "that is moral piety!" "Reap as you sow," quoth human History. Alas for a Church without righteousness, and a State without right! All history shows their fate ! What is false to justice cannot stand ; what is true to that cannot perish. Nothing can save wrong. A sentence is written against all that is unjust, written by God in the nature of man and the nature of the universe, because it is in the nature of the Infinite God. Fidelity to your faculties, trust in their convictions, that is justice to yourself; a life in obedience thereto, that is justice towards men. Tell me not of successful wrong. The gain of injustice is a loss, its pleasure suffering. Iniquity seems to prosper, but its success is its defeat and shame. The knave deceives himself. The miser, starving his brother's body, starves also his own soul, and at death shall creep out of his great estate of injustice, poor and naked and miserable. Whoso escapes a duty avoids a gain. Outward judgment often fails, inward justice never. Let a man try to love the wrong, and do the wrong, it is eating stones, and not bread; the swift feet of justice are upon