Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/139

126 may demonstrate the nobility of our nature, and show the certainty of our triumph at the last over all the transient evils of our condition.

He may take the body for his text, far more st wonder- fully made" than the Hebrew psalmist could conceive of three thousand years ago, but hopefully more than "fearfully." What masterly workmanship it is which puts these elements together—this "handful of enchanted dust," making an instrument so perfect for a purpose which is so grand! He can unfold and publish the body's laws, the celestial mechanics of this microcosm, as the astronomers disclose the mode of action of the forces in the sky. Every law of the body is a commandment from the most high God, who enacts geology in tables of stone, but in scriptures of flesh has writ the law of flesh. He may take the part of man not material for his theme, and show the unity of spirit in such diversity of faculties—intellectual, moral, affectional, and religious—disclosing the natural function of each, all in their order combining to achieve the destination of mankind.

He can show that human nature, on the whole, is just what God meant it to be, no mistake of his careless hand, not damaged by the "Devil;" that it is God's perfect means for his perfect purpose; that the parts are also adequate to their several functions—the body exactly fitted to the body's work, the intellectual, moral, affectional, and religious faculties exactly suited to the duty they have to do. He can show this by metaphysical analysis, and demonstrate it all by deductions from the infinite perfection of God; or by the synthesis of actual history, show how all these continually work together for good. For the freedom of man—his power of self-rule, direct by his simple will, or mediate through outward helps of circumstance and condition—enlarges like his property and other power, from age to age; and the quantity of human virtue is ever on the increase. Human nature unfolds itself by trial, by experiment, wherein man makes as many mistakes as a child in learning to think, to speak, to walk, to read and write, yet learns by every error, yea, by every sin. The misstep of the individual or nation is but one incident of the universal human desire of perfection as end and progress as the means thereto; and as we prefer health, strength, and