Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/164



We are all connected with the world of matter, with the world of man, and with the world of God. In each of these spheres we have duties to do, rights to enjoy, which are consequent on the duties done. Our existence first, and next our welfare, depends on doing the duties and enjoying the rights. Thereof we may do much, and enjoy much, or do little and enjoy no more. The quantity of our threefold happiness will depend on the amount of duties done, and of the rights enjoyed; but the quality of the happiness is also largely within our control; and we may derive our habitual delight from any one of these three sources—the material, the human, and the divine; or we may draw from all of these. We may content ourselves with the lowest quality of human delights, or we may reach up and get the highest and dearest quality thereof.
 * —This morning I ask your attention to SOME THOUGHTS ON THE DELIGHTS OF PIETY.

Religion, in its wide sense, includes a man's relation to all three—to the world of matter, the world of man, and the world of God; it regulates a man's duties and rights, and consequent enjoyments, in all these three spheres of human consciousness—for religion, in the large sense of that word, is the service of God with every limb of the