Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/172

Rh to Jerusalem to bear him preach; and the great eyes which saw God so clearly dwelt with pleasure on the lilies of the valley, and said, "Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not"

God made the world of matter exceeding beautiful, and meant it should be rejoiced in by these senses of ours: at these five doors what a world of loveliness comes in and brushes against the sides with its garment, and leaves the sign of God's presence on our doorposts and lintels. Think you God made the world so fair, every flower a sister to a star, and did not mean men's eyes to see, and men's hearts to take a sacrament thereat ? Our daily bread is a delight which begins in babyhood, and only ends when the Infinite Mother folds us to her arms and gives us the bread which does not perish in the using. The humblest senses have their pleasure. The fly feeding on a berry crushed by accident on a bush, lets one a good way into the mystery of God's providence. The sights in nature, the sounds thereof,—they are all means of delight. I am sometimes astonished to see how full of happiness a single day may be made, and that at the very cheapest rate, by the sights which come to the eye, and the sounds to the ear, at no cost but opening and listening. These are sacraments by which man communes with God. It is surely churlish to turn, away from the table which He spreads before every man. It is a painful sight and a sad thought to remember how many men there are in this Christian land of ours, and still more in others* who are debarred from this pleasure. We think it a sad thing, and surely it is, that every man should not have a Bible in his house, and power to read it; and great-hearted Christians make large sacrifices to put the words of Esaias, and Amos, and Paul, and Jesus into the hands of every man. But should we not also be ashamed that the greater, diviner Scriptures of God are not in every Christian's understanding, before his eye, and in his consciousness! That also is a reproach.

Then come those higher delights from the use of the senses and the mind better cultivated; from the beauty of nature and art, and common life. I cannot now dwell at length on our delight in the world of men, only recall to