Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/45

32 Carolina, or among savages at New Zealand; nay, in some of the filthy cellars of Boston, and turned friendless into the streets; what might you have become? Surely not what you are; yet, before God, you might, perhaps, be more deserving, and, at death, go to a far higher place. What is so terribly wrong here, must be righted there. It cannot be that God will thrust a man out of heaven, because his mother was a savage, a slave, a pauper, or a criminal. It is man's impiety which does so here, not Heaven's justice there! How the wrong shall be righted I know not, care not now to' know; of the fact I ask no further certainty. Many that are last shall be first. It may be that the pirate, in heaven, having outgrown his earthly sins, shall teach justice to the judge who hanged him here. They who were oppressed and trampled on, kept down, dwarfed, stinted and emaciate in soul, must have justice done them there, and will doubtless stand higher in leaven than we, who, having many talents, used them poorly, or hid them idle in the dirt, knowing our Father's will, yet heeding not. It was Jesus that said, Many shall come from the east and the west, and sit down in the kingdom of God, and men calling themselves saints be thrust out.

Shall we remember the deeds of the former life; this man that he picked rags out of the mud in the streets, and another that he ruled nations? Who can tell; nay, who need care to ask? Such a remembrance seems not needed for retribution's sake. The oak remembers not each leaf it ever bore, though each helped to form the oak, its branch and bole. How much has gone from our bodies! we know not (how it came or went ! How much of our past life is gone from our memory, yet its result lives in our character! The saddler remembers not every stitch he took while an apprentice, yet each stitch helped to form the saddle.

Shall we know our friends again? For my own part I cannot doubt it; least of all when I drop a tear over, their (recent dust. Death does not separate them from us here. Can life in heaven do it f They live in our remembrance; memory rakes in the ashes of the dead, and the virtues of the departed flame up anew, enlightening the dim cold