Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/222

Rh law!" "Religion has nothing to do with politics!" "Property is the great object of government!" Some pulpits were silent; a few spoke right out for God and against Atheism; some ministers looked up weeping, others warning, and uttered their words mildly, cautiously, yet with the might which comes from virtue backed by the Eternal. Most of these men had to smart and suffer. Some were driven from their parishes, and the bread taken from their wives' and children's mouths.

The programme of measures met a similar acceptance. Fugitive Slave Bill meetings were held in all the great cities. Faneuil Hall rocked with the giddy genius that screamed and thundered, teaching Atheism to the people; and its walls caught the scoff and scorn and mow of the merchants of Boston and their purchased clerks, hissing at conscience, at God, and the higher law. Ministers in this city affirmed the principle and supported the measures; yea, at Philadelphia, New York, Buffalo, New Haven, Andover,—all over the land. There were exceptional men in all these five classes—I honour them!—but they were very few. Judges, mayors, lawyers, mechanics; truckmen, ministers, merchants, they went for kidnapping. Soldiers were called out in Boston, paid at our cost; volunteers, fifteen hundred strong, agreed to chattelize a man. Twice Boston has endorsed this programme of measures, and twice offered a human sacrifice on this two-homed altar of objective and subjective Atheism. Twice the city of Cotton and Mayhew, the birthplace of Franklin and Samuel Adams, offered a human sacrifice— and. Is that the end? There is a to-morrow after to-day; yea, a for ever! While the nation was in that

it chose a new Administration. Look at them!—the President, the Cabinet, the present Congress, the foreign ministers, the Soules and the Belmonts, and their coadjutors; at the United States judges appointed within four years; the government officers; the marshal's guard, last June! Behold the first fruits of Atheism in politics! Is that