Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/90

74 beneath his eye, for his countrymen, has now grown bountiful to all. To love the lovely, to sympathize with the like-minded,—everybody can do that;—all save an ill-born few, whom we may pity, but must not blame, for their congenital deformity and dwarfishness;—but to love the unlovely, to sympathize with the contrary-minded, to give to the uncharitable, to forgive such as never pity, to be just to men who make iniquity a law, to pay their sleepless hate with never-ceasing love,—that is the triumph of the affections, the heroic degree of love; you must be but little lower than the angels to do that. It is one of the noblest attainments of man, and in this he becomes most like God. The intellect acquaints you with truth, the thought of God; conscience informs you with his justice, the moral will of God; and the heart fitly exercised gives you a fellowship with his eternal love, the most intimate feeling of the Infinite Father ; having that, you can love men spite of the imperfections of their conduct and character,—can love the idiot, the criminal, hated or popular,—be towardly to the froward, kind to the unmerciful, and on them bestow the rain and the sunshine of your benevolence, your bounty limited only by your power, not your will, to bless, asking no gratitude, expecting no return.

I do not look for this large philanthropy in all men here, only in a few. All have a talent for loving, though this is as variously distributed as any intellectual gift; few have a genius for benevolence. The sublime of patriotism, the holy charity, and the delicate friendship, are more common. The narrower love between husband and wife, child and parent, has instinct to aid it, and is so common, that, like daily bread and nightly sleep, we forget to be thankful for it, not heeding how much depends thereon. The joys of affection are the commonest of joys; sometimes the sole poetic ornament in the hutch of the poor, they are also the best things in the rich man's palace. They are the Shekinah, the presence of God in the dwellings of men. It is through the affections that most men learn religion. I know they often say, "Fear first taught us God." No! Fear first taught us a devil,—often worshipped as the God,—and with that fear all devils fade away, they and their misanthropic hell. Ghosts cannot