Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/160

Rh thrice in a session, on the external interests of men, chiefly busying himself about measures of political economy, and seldom thinking it decorous or "statesmanlike" to appeal to principles of right, or address any faculty deeper than the understanding, or appeal to aught nobler than selfishness. The reformer, the philanthropist, finds it difficult to gather an audience; they come reluctantly, at rare intervals of business or pleasure. But every Sunday custom tolls the bell of time. In the ruts of ancient usage men ride to the meeting-house, seat them in venerable pews, while the holiest associations of time and place calm and pacify their spirit, else often careful and troubled about man things, and all are ready for the teacher of religion to address their deepest and their highest powers. Before him lies the Bible—an Old Testament, full of prophets and rich in psalm and history; a New Testament, crowded wit apostles and martyrs, and in the midst thereof stands that great Hebrew peasant, lifting up such a magnificent and manly face. The very hymn the people sing is old and rich with holy memories; the pious breath of father, mother, sister, or perhaps some one more tenderly beloved, is immanent therein; and the tune itself comes like the soft wind of summer which hangs over a pond full of lilies, and then wafts their fragrance to all the little town. Once every week, nay, twice a Sunday, his self-gathered audience come to listen and to learn, expecting to be made ashamed of every meanness, vanity, and sin ; asking for rebuke, and coveting to be lifted up towards the measure of a perfect man. It is of the loftiest themes he is to treat. Beside all this, the most tender confidence is reposed in him—the secrets of business, the joy of moral worth, the grief of wickedness, the privacy of man's and woman's love, and the heart's bitterness which else may no man know, often are made known to him. He joins the hands of maidens and lovers, teaching them how to marry each other; he watches over the little children, and in sickness and in sorrow is asked "to soothe, and heal, and bless." Prophets and apostles sought such avenues to men, for him they are already made. Surely if a man, in such a place, speaking Sunday by Sunday, year out, year in, makes no mark, he must be a fool!

There was never such an opportunity for a great man to