Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/219

206 must sometime walk alone, or never be a man. It is by experiment that mankind learns to walk. Let us rejoice in the day when humanity assumes the manly dress! One day these Ecclesiastical Institutions must be left behind us, like so many others long since passed by; and man, through thousand perils, will fare forth to his land of promise, and thence to another yet more fair! In briefest words, this is what we want: To develope the religous faculty with the same freedom as the intellectual in science, literature, and business. This must be done individually—each one by himself seeking inspiration from the soul of the world, the infinite father, infinite mother; and socially not less—men coming together to quicken each other as iron sharpeneth iron—for the genius of one man. one woman, will kindle ten, yea, ten million, and, at last, the world of men, as a single candle will light a thousand if tipped itself with fire. We must avoid the Roman error—not count a church infallible; the German error—not worship a book; the mistake of the whole Christian sect, who take Jesus of Nazareth for a finality—as Master, not Servant, sacrifice the development of the race to reverence one great lofty man, and worship as God what they should love as a brother, and as men should have long since outgrown. Thus only shall we get the good of the Catholic and Protestant churches, of the Hebrew and the Christian Bible; thus only learn the life of Jesus—come to God as he came, face to face, with no mediator, nor need of attorneys and go-betweens. Who shall plead to God for me? doth not he know? Though a prodigal, come back from riotous living, my substance spent, shoved away by swine from their husks which I would fain fill myself withal, shame-faced and sorrow-stained, conscious that I am not worthy to be called a son, asking only a servant's bread, I know that the Infinite Father sees me a great way off, and the Infinite Mother will fall on my neck, enfolding me to the all-bounteous bosom whence I came. Tea, my elder brothers shall take part in the joy over one sinner that repents, because the lost is found again and the dead come home alive!

These are the ideas which will be written on the banner of some future church, and borne as the orifiamme of