Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/278

Rh for the truth of any one of these seven monstrous doctrines. You find no devil on the face of the earth today, no footsteps of him in the "Old Red Sandstone," not a track of his step amid all the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation;" no detective police could ever find the faintest scent of this creature. Ask the minister, "How do you know there is such a devil?" and he answers, "It is a doctrine of the divine and miraculous revelation." Ask again, "How do you know the revelation is divine and miraculous, from God?" and if he be an honest man, and understand his profession as well as the street sweepers their business, he will say, "I do not know it, I only find it convenient to assume it. I have not a particle of evidence for it."

Then there is no circumstantial or personal evidence for the total depravity of man. Wise men you find, none wholly wise ; good men, none wholly good ; bad men also, but none totally bad. Take the human race in every age, wisdom prevails over folly, goodness over badness, virtue over vice ; even Lawrence, and Stone, it is thought, made more honest bargains than deceitful ones. South Carolina representatives in Congress are sober all the forenoon. Cruel masters are exceptional, even amongst slaveholders. Murderers are always in the minority; thieves and sturdy beggars likewise, and even liars. History records no fall of man, but rather an ascent, a continual increase in wisdom, justice, philanthropy, piety, and trust in God.

There is no evidence for the wrath of God, and an eternal hell; earthquakes, volcanoes, storm, pestilence, death, indicate no ugliness on God's part, no lack of love. In the world of time and space you cannot find a single fact of observation which indicates the wrath of God. Take any man, the worst or the best, who is not debauched by indulgence in the ecclesiastical theology, not poisoned by these odious doctrines, and in him you cannot find a fact of consciousness which indicates wrath on God's part. Nay, in the clear mirror of the human soul, wiped clean from the breath of that contagion, is God's infinite love reflected; the natural man looks there, and sees the dear Father and Mother of all mankind. Ask the minister how he knows of God's wrath and eternal torment; ask the council of ministers at North Woburn how they know