Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/138

Rh reason and create, but the trade to calculate and express. Everything is measured by the money standard. "The protection of property is the great object of government." The politician must suit the pecimiary interest of his constituency, though at the cost of justice; the writer, author, or editor, the pecuniary interest of his readers, though at the sacrifice of truth ; the minister, the pecuniary interest of his audience, though piety and morality both come to the ground. Mammon is a profitable god to worship—he gives dinners! I think it must be confessed in the last eighty years the general moral and religious tone of the people in the free States has improved. This change comes from the natural forward tendency of mankind, the instinct of development quickened by our free institutions. But, at the same time, it is quite plain to me that the moral and religious tone of American politicians, writers, and preachers, has proportionately and absolutely gone down. You see this in the great towns: if Boston were once the "Athens of America," she is now only the "Corinth." Athens has retreated to some inland Salamis. But, in general, this peril from the excessive pursuit of riches comes unavoidably from our position in time and space, and our consequent political institutions. It belongs to the period of transition from the old form of vicarious rule by theocratic, military, and aristocratic governments, to the personal administration of an industrial commonwealth. I do not much fear this peril, nor apprehend lasting evil from it. One of the great things which mankind now most needs is power over the material world as the basis for the higher development of our spiritual faculties. Wealth is indispensable ; it is the material pulp around the spiritual seed. No nation was ever too rich, too well fed, clad, housed, and comforted. The human race still suffers from poverty, the great obstacle to our progress. Doubtless we shall make many errors in our national attempt to organize the productive forces into an industrial State, as our fathers — thousands of years ago—in organizing their destructive powers into a military state. Once, man cut his fingers with iron; he now poisons them with gold. All Christendom shares this peril, though America feels it most. She is now like a