Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/238

226 the lowest deeps of human consciousness; it reaches to the minute details of our daily practice. Religion wraps all our life in its own wide mantle; takes note of the private conduct of the individual man, and the vast public concerns of the greatest nation and the whole race of mankind. So the sun, ninety-six million miles away, comes every morning and folds in its warm embrace each great and every little thing on the round world.

Religion is eminently connected with the creeds and the statutes of the people, wherein the nation comes to the consciousness of itself and of its duty. To comprehend the relation which it bears to these creeds and statutes, let us look at the matter a little more narrowly, going somewhat into detail; and to understand it the more completely, let us go back to the first principles of things.

There is a God of infinite perfection, who acts as perfect cause and perfect providence of all things,—making the universe from a perfect motive, of perfect material, for a perfect purpose, and as a perfect means thereunto. Of course, if the universe be thus made, there must be power and force enough of the right kind in it to accomplish the purposes of God; and this must be true of both parts of the universe,—the world of matter, and the world of man. Else, God is not a perfect cause and providence, and has not made the universe from a perfect motive, of perfect material, for a perfect purpose, and as a perfect means thereto. Now, there are certain natural modes of operation of these forces and powers which God has put in the universe; the natural powers of matter and of man are meant to act in a certain way, and not otherwise. These modes of operation I will call laws, natural laws; they exist in the material world and in the human world. They are a part of the universe. These laws must be observed and kept as means to the end that is proposed. In the world of matter these laws are always kept, for the actual of nature and the ideal of nature are identical; they are just the same. When this leaf which I drop falls from my hand, it moves by the law which the Infinite God meant it should fall by, and keeps that exactly. In nature—the world of matter—this always takes place, and the actual of to-day is the ideal of eternity,—for there every-