Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/223

210 in the land; what if they all preached natural religion —piety, morality,—and natural theology, the philosophy of that religion I What a world it would soon become! There are more than forty thousand congregations in the one-and- thirty States; what if they all were penetrated with the idea of God's infinite perfection—his perfect power, wisdom, justice, holiness, and love; sought normal inspiration from the soul of all, in whom we live, and move, and have our being; who lives, and moves, and has his being in the world of matter and of mind, yet far transcending both—and served Him by aspirations after great, magnanimous, and manly life! One day it will be so—and these great truths will, like the early light, move around the world waking a morning psalm of beauty in the material heaven above and earth beneath; and from all animated things, and chief of all from spiritual man, persuading forth a conscious hymn of adoration, thanks, and trust, and love, wherein, with well-accordant voice, island shall call to island, and continent respond to continent, and mortal with the immortal go quiring on the eternal and aspiring harmony!