Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/154

Rh consciousness, is the first of manly and womanly duties; that kept, all others follow sure.

With such feelings of love to God, such ideas of God, of man, of their relation, of inspiration, of salvation—with such actions, it is easy to see what form a free church will take. It will be ail assembly of men seeking to help each other in their religious growth and development, wakening feelings of piety, attaining ideas of theology, doing deeds of morality, living a great, manly, religious life; attempting, also, to help the religious development of mankind. There must be no fetter on the free spirit of man. Let all men be welcome here — the believer and the unbeliever, the Calvinist with his absurd trinity of imperfect Godheads, the atheist with his absurdity of denial; diverse in creed, we are all brothers in humanity. Of course you will have such sacraments of help as shall prove helpful. To me, the ordinances of religion are piety and morality; others ask bread, and wine, and water; yet others, a hundred other things. Let each walk the human road, and take what crutch of support, what staff of ornament he will.

In these three departments the teacher of religion is to show the ideal of human conduct, derived from the constitution of man, by the help of the past and the present; and then point out the means which lead to such an end, persuading men to keep their nature's law, and to achieve its purpose. Nay, he must go before them with his life, and demonstrate by his character, his fact of life, what he sets forth as theory thereof; he cannot teach what he does not know. He only leads who goes before. A good farm is the best argument for good farming. A mean man can teach nobleness only as the frost makes fire. A low man in a pulpit—ignoble, lazy, bigoted, selfish, vulgar—what a curse he is to any town; an incubus, a nightmare, pressing the slumberous church! A lofty man, large minded, well trained, with a great conscience, a wide, rich heart, and above all things a great pious soul, who instinctively loves God with all his might—what a blessing to any town is a manly and womanly minister like that! Let him preach the absolute religion, the service of God by the normal use, discipline, development,