Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/219

206 reasoning of self-command, righteousness, and God's judgment to come; Festus told the magnificent apostle, "Much learning hath made thee mad;" but the heathen Roman did not venture to say, "Religion makes men mad!" Conscience makes cowards of men who meditate their own destruction; nay, it sometimes holds the murderer's hand. But the moral feeling, the religious feeling, has nothing to do with politics! No higher law! Religion nothing to do With politics!

See what it leads to. Come, Puritan fathers I who, feeding on clams for three months at a time, thanked-God that they "sucked of the abundance of the seas, and of the treasures hid in the sands!" You were mistaken! Religion has nothing to do with politics! Bow to the Eighth Henry, to "Bloody" Mary, and Elizabeth, scarce cleaner in the hand or heart; to James the Stupid, and to Charles, whose head the righteous axe shore off! Come, Protestant martyrs ; whose bodies snapped and crackled in the Catholic fire, but, as the candle decayed, your soul still flaming more ardent up to God I Come and submit! It was all a mistake I The priestly tyrants were right! There is no higher law! Come, glorious company of the apostles! G)me, goodly fellowship of the prophets! Come, noble army of martyrs! Come, Jesus of Nazareth—crowned with thorns, spit upon, scourged, mocked at, and crucified! It was all a mistake! Your cross was not your crown of triumph; it was only your shame! The scribes and Pharisees were right! There is no higher law! Religion has nothing to do with politics!

Come, all ye tyrants of earth—Herods, Pilates, Dominics, and Torquemadas! Your great enemy is slain! There is no law above you! No sentiment in the human heart which has a right to protest against your iniquities! In matter, it is objective atheism; in mind subjective atheism. Beligion has nothing to do with politics! Come, Americans, tear down the monuments you built at Bunker Hill, at West Cambridge and Concord and Lexington and Danvers, commemorating the heroism of a few farmers and mechanics! It was all a mistake! Nay, split to pieces the Bock of Plymouth, and grind it to powder, and tread it under foot of men! There is no heroism! The Puritans were madmen, and the fire-tried Christians fools!