Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/254

242 sachusetts? Every daily newspaper you will read tomorrow morning violates the statutes of Massachusetts today. It would not be possible to enforce them. Of all the sixty millions of bank capital in Massachusetts, within twelve months, every dollar has violated the statute against usury. Nobody enforces these acts. Half the statutes of New England are but sleeping lions to wait for the call of the people; nobody wakes them up every day. Some have been so long fast asleep that they are dead.

When the nation will accept every creed which the priest makes, because it is made for them, then they are tools for the priest, intellectually dead; and they are fit to have Catholic tyrants rule over them in the church. When the nation is willing to accept a statute which violates the nation's conscience, the nation is rotten. If a statute is right, I will ask how I can best obey it. When it is wrong, I will ask how I can best disobey it,—most safely, most effectually, with the least violence. When we make the priest the keeper of our creed, the State the master of our conscience, then it is all over with us.

Sometimes a great deal of sophistry is used to deceive the consciences of men and make them think a wicked law is just and right. There are two modes of procedure for reaching this end.

One is to weaken the man's confidence in his own moral perceptions by debasing human nature, declaring "that conscience is a most uncertain guide for the individual," and showing that all manner of follies and even wickedness have been perpetrated in its name. So all manner of follies have been taught in the name of reason, and foolish undertakings have been set a going by prudent and practical men. But is that sufficient argument for refusing to trust the science of the philosopher and the common sense of practical men?

The other way is to pretend that the obnoxious statute is "consistent with morality and religion." Thus the most wicked acts have been announced in the name of God. The Catholics claimed divine authority for the Inquisition; the Carthaginians alleged the command of God as authority-for sacrificing children to Melkarte. In the Law Library at Cambridge, a copy of the English Bible in folio was once the first book in the collection: a Professor then used often