Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/273

260 normally, with a whole, sound spirit, normally developed in its intellectual, its moral, its affectional, and its religious part. To a nation, I think there is no one thing which so much hinders its development as a false theology; for that chains the spirit and then drives it to an unnatural and a false church, an unnatural and false state, community, family, and so on ; and there is no one thing which so much helps a nation to a masterly development as a true theology, which sets the spirit free, and then leads it to found a natural and true church, a natural and true state, community, family, and so on. This being so, it is of the utmost importance to you and me that the nation should have this true method in theology, for that is to the general activity of the people what the constitution is to its political activity, what his tools are to the blacksmith, farmer, spinner, or weaver.

As the theology determines the action of the religious faculty, and as that is the strongest faculty, in man, you see at once what wide, deep, and controlling force theological ideas have on the entire concerns of men. Let me give an example. About a hundred and twenty or a hundred and thirty years ago, the Methodist sect began in England. At first it was to the British church what the Protestant Reformation was to the Roman—an awakening to new religious life, and putting that into new practical forms. It began with George Whitfield, the greatest ecclesiastical orator, and John Wesley, the greatest ecclesiastical organizer and statesman, that Christendom had seen for a thousand years. By this power to persuade and this power to organize men, did these two persons give it such a start that now the sect is some twelve millions strong, has wide influence in Great Britain and America, and has done much service in controlling the vices of passion, and in keeping the humblest, poorest, and least cared for part of the population from falling still lower down. But this sect, with its many millions, has never produced a great man, a great discoverer, organizer, administrator, philosopher, poet, or historian. It had one respectable scholar, Adam Clarke, who amassed considerable learning, though he used it without originality or good judgment. He died in 1832, and since then