Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/222

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What an admirable opportunity to build up new Ecclesiastical Institutions—with the idea of the infinite perfection of God, and absolute religion, the natural service of the actual God, normal life the sacrament ! Here is complete freedom to think as we will, and build our human fabric never so high : no law of man forbids. How intelligent are the men of all these Northern States; the women the best instructed in the world. What is elsewhere not common, temperance and industry, the body's piety, insures us bread. No foreign foe affrights; at home no tyrant sucks the nation's strength and lies a night-mare on her breast. And how firm are the wide foundations of the democratic commonwealth! How swiftly riches accumulate! What material beauty adorns the affluent land. The wind is not freer than the mind to think, and speak with iron lips, and lightning for its tongue. There are five-and-twenty millions of men, one-fortieth of the world's great family, cradled in a single nest. Oh that there were a church to brood them with not unworthy wings, warm them with sentiments of love and trust in God, feed them with truth, and lead them forth a joyous flock to occupy the land with blessed human life.

What opportunities—and what a waste of them! Has any nation more deserved rebuke? A democracy, and every eighth man a slave! Jesus the God of the church, and not a sect that dares call slavery a sin! The most prominent sects defending it as "patriarchal," even "Christian." Shame on us; the actual Jesus of history we Have forgot, worshipping only the fictitious Christ, not Hebrew Mary's Son! There are thirty thousand ministers