Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/235

222 Think what it cost our fathers, the Christian martyrs, nay, Jesus of Nazareth, to do their work! Ministers will pray against us—it will hurt nobody but themselves. Hunkers will scold—let them; we can keep our way, and our tempers beside. A few grand lives will bless this whole age, for the nations look up and ask to be guided.

The next day, one of this company, a grocer in his shop, a little covetous—a little ambitious—most men are so—finds an opportunity offering itself for a profitable fraud, and he feels the temptation—all men do. He hesitates for a moment, but he answers, "No I there is an Infinite God, and I am a man, and that God's law is in me. Begone, devil!" The right is victorious.

Not far off, the same day, a poor boy in yonder divinity school writes to a friend: "There are great temptations for a young man to disown himself, and bargain for place. It is the one great lure which, in this age, is constantly before our eyes." But he says, "Get thee behind me!" keeps the integrity of his soul, and becomes" utterly indifferent to the passing criticism that besets a young man who aims at a standard of life of his own." A life of self-denial, of noble manhood, of manly triumph spreads out before him, and girds him for the work of such a life.

See what a difference between these various examples that I have given, yet are they all called religion. Some of them spring from the very highest emotions in man; some of them spring from the meanest, the cowardliest, and the most sneaking of the passions that God has given to human nature. What an odds in the doctrines called religion! I go to the oldest church in Boston—it is called a synagogue. There the doctrine is, " salvation by circumcision and belief in the Old Testament." The worshippers have not grown an inch since the day that somebody forged the book of Daniel. I go to the next oldest church—it is called Roman Catholic. There the doctrine is, "salvation by compliance with all the ritual of the holy Catholic church, and belief in its doctrines." I go to the Trinitarian Protestant church—the next oldest. There the doctrine is, "salvation by baptism,—either the sprinkling of drops, or plunging into a pond or tub,—and belief in an ecclesiastic theology," which, though it certainly contains