Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/270



your attention to some thoughts on the ecclesiastical and the philosophical methods of studying theology.

The religious is the strongest of all our spiritual faculties. This is shown not only by the wide spread and long duration of particular forms of religion, like Buddhism, Christianity, Mahometanism, embracing different nations, and even races, or by the monuments which these have left in all peopled space and all civilized time ; but also by the ease with which it puts down the great passions of the body, and still more by the power which it has to overmaster the mind, the conscience, and the affections of man, and to subdue the great interests of civilization. If this mighty faculty be directed according to its nature, it works the highest welfare and secures the most rapid progress, the most elevated civilization to the individual, the nation, and to mankind; but if it be misdirected against its nature, it hinders the progressive development of man's faculties, and leads to the most terrible ruin of the individual and the nation. It will help man, or else hinder him, and that with a force proportionate to the vast power of the faculty itself.

We all live by eating and drinking; the normal appetite inclines mankind as a whole to the proper articles of food and drink suited to the climate and the stage of civilization;