Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/234

Rh will go together, and hear him at commencement. That will be a day! Here are the twin boys nestling—York and Lancaster; two little hardy roses on one stalk. Here is baby, almost twenty-eight months old—two whole years, three months, and twenty-seven days old to-night. What a dear little blessed baby it is! Papa won't know little blossom when he comes home—no, he won't. Father in heaven! did I ever deserve such joy? Thou who givest me these lives, how shall I make them worthy of thee? How shall I myself be worthy?" And the rest of her prayer—God hears it, not I.

In the next street, hard by, are two young men. "Come," says the elder, finishing his cigar, and flinging it on the pavement, " take a glass in here, and then you will have spunk enough to go with me. What a ailly fool you are ! Who will ever- know it ? You won't be young twice. There is one of the handsomest of them now at the window." Passion burns high in the young man's heart; occasion from without leagues with desire from within:; there is another son of man in his temptation. But conscience, like a sweet rose, blooms over it all, and with its fragrant beauty bids passion be still. The devil steps behind. "No, I shall not go, neither to your groggery nor to your brothel—tempt me no more!" A life is saved, and integrity not stained.

Not far off, a little company of men and women are assembled, to consult upon the welfare of mankind. "We must end slavery; we must abolish drunkenness; we must educate the people; woman must be emancipated, and made equal with man; then prostitution will end, and many another woe. War must pass away, society be constructed anew, so that creative love shall take the place of aggressive lust and repressive fear. The family, the community, the nation, the world, must be organized on justice, not on covetousuess, fraud, and violence, as now; and, above all things, the ecclesiastic idea of religion must be improved. We must have a true theology, with a just idea of God, of man, of religion : and so direct aright the strongest faculty in man. What can we do to promote all this blessed revolution P This must be our service of God, and we must not let this generation pass away, until we have mended all this. No matter what it costs us.