Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/281

268 learn the nature of God, of man, and the relation between the two, with the duties, rights, and destination of man, which come therefrom. By this method the inquirer takes the whole universe as the revelation of God. The world of matter presents the phenomena of God which are manifest to the senses of man, while the world of man presents him the other phenomena of God which are manifest to the mind, the conscience, the heart, and the soul. He would learn from all the history of mankind, and gather what previous ages had learned. The human race is many thousand years old ; all civilized nations have their religious books, the Bibles of the nations, writ by men of genius and piety ; none contains all truth, nor only truth, but each has some, for man is always religiously inclined, always looks for the true, the beautiful, the just, the good, and the holy; and God has not made these things hard to find, accessible to great men only, the inheritance of but a single people, a revelation only to learned men. The conscience of the child outtravels oft the conscience of the sire, and the wife intuitively knows more of God and religion than her philosophic husband ever dared to think. Each of the six great world-sects has taught much truth ; I think the Christian most of all; and besides that, it has the transcendant character of Jesus — a man of such noble courage, with such abhorrence of hypocrisy, such tender love for mankind, and piety so inward, blossoming out into the "strong and flame-like flower" of such morality! The Catholic church has much to teach ; every Protestant sect also a great deal. I just spoke of the Methodists, showing the evil which comes from their false method, and ecclesiastical discipline; they have a fervour of religious emotion, a zeal for the spiritual welfare of neglected white people, which makes them exceedingly useful.

The inquirer after religion and theology by the philosophical method will take the good which past ages have to teach. But man's nature is more than his history; so the chief source of theologic truth will be found in man himself, in the instinctive and reflective action of his faculties in their normal use and development. Men talk of inspiration, the contact of the human spirit with the infinite God, the incoming of Deity to our soul. I think it is a fact, not