Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/128

Rh 'tis said—reckon Buddha as their heavenly Lord. Such great combinations of men have never been produced except by the religious element. Theological ideas override the distinctions of nations, nay of races, and the Mongolian Chinese accept the theologic thought of the Caucasian from Hindostan. History and philosophy alike show that this is the master-element in man—designed for a high place in the administration of his affairs; for as a man is spirit as well as body, immortal not less than meant for time, and has a personal consciousness of his relation to the Cause and Providence of all, so it is obviously needful that this element which deals with eternity and God, should live upon the strongest and deepest root in human nature. The fact is plain; the meaning and the purpose not hard to see: it has only powers proportionate to its work.

But hitherto the religious element has been the tyrant over all the other faculties of man. None has made such great mistakes, run to such excesses, been accompanied with such cruelty, and caused such wide-spread desolation. All human development is accomplished through the help of experiments which fail. What errors do men make in their agriculture and mechanic arts ; how many unsuccessful attempts before they produce a loom, or an axe, simplest of tools! What mistakes in organizing the family! what errors in forming the state ! And even now how much suffering comes from the false political doctrines men adhere to! Look at the countries which are ruined by the bad governments established therein. Asia Minor was once the world's garden, now it is laid waste : what cities have perished there; what kingdoms gone to the ground; for a thousand years its soil has hardly borne a single great man—conspicuous for art, letters, science, commerce, or aught save cruelty in war, and rapacity in peace! In the land whence the ideas which now make green the world once went so gladly forth, camels and asses seem the only undegenerate production. Yet it once teemed with cities, full of wholesome life. But all these mistakes are slight compared with the wanderings of the religious faculty in its historical progress. Consider the human sacrifices, the mutilations of the body, or the spirit, which have been regarded as the highest acts of homage to God.