Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/243

Rh This is a legitimate aim in making the statutes, to preserve all known moral duty, and diffuse it amongst men; and thereby secure to each man the enjoyment of all his natural rights, so that he may act according to the natural mode of operation of his powers. But it is not legitimate to hinder the attainment of new moral duty, or efforts after that. The creed should aim at truth, all truth, and should be a step towards it. The statutes should aim at justice, all justice, to insure all the rights of each, and should be a step in that direction, not away from it.

Both the creeds and statutes may be made as follows:—

First, they may be made by men who are far before the people, men who get sight of truths and duties in advance of mankind. Then these men set to mankind a hard lesson, but one which is profitable for instruction, for doctrine, for reproof, that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished to every good work. In such cases the creed or statute is educational; it is prepared for the pupil, set by a master.

Or, secondly, these creeds and statutes may be made by men who are just on a level with the average of the people. Then they are simply expressional of the moral character and attainments of the average men. They are educational to the hindmost, expressional to the middlemost, and merely protectional to the foremost,—of no service as helping them forward, only as protecting them from being disturbed, interrupted, and so drawn backwards by those who are behind. Or, thirdly, these creeds and statutes may be made by crafty men who are below the moral average of the people; made not as steps towards truth and justice, but as means for the private personal ambition of such as make the statutes or the creeds; by men who are endowed with force of body, and rule over our flesh by violence, or with force of cunning, and rule over our minds by sophistry and fraud. In this case the creed or statute is a step backwards, aims not at truth and justice, but at falsehood and wrong, and is simply debasing,—debasing to the mind and conscience. Here it is not a teacher giving lessons to the pupil; it is not a pupil undertaking to set a lesson to another who knows as much as he does ; it is a scoundrel setting a lesson of wickedness to the saint and the sinner.