Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/174

170 and social position, is always prone to think ill of the times to undervalue the new wine which refuses to be kept in the old bottles, but rends them asunder; hence he bewails the decline of religion, and looks longingly back to the days of his fathers.

But you will ask, Why does not a minister demand piety in its natural form? Blame him not; unconsciously he fulfils his contract, and does what he is taught, ordained, and paid for doing. It is safe for a minister to demand piety of his parish, in tho conventional form; not safe in the form, of philanthropy: it would be an innovation; it would "hurt men's feelings;" it might disturb some branches of business; at the North, it would interfere with the liquor-trade; at the South, with the slave-trade; everywhere it would demand what many men do not like to give. If a man asks piety in the form of bodily attendance at church, on the only idle day in the week, when business and amusement must be refrained from,—in the form of belief in doctrines which are commonly accepted by the denomination and compliance with its forms,—that is customary; it hurts nobody's feelings; it does not disturb the liquor-trade, nor the slave-trade; it interferes, with nothing, not even with respectable sleep in a comfortable pews. A minister, like others, loves to be surrounded by able and respectable men; he seeks, therefore, a congregation of such. If he is himself an able man, it is well; but there are few in any calling whom we designate as able. Our weak man cannot instruct his parishioners; he soon learns this, and ceases to give them counsel on matters of importance. They would not suffer it, for the larger includes the less, not the less the larger. He is not strong by nature; their position overlooks and commands his. He must speak and give some counsel; he wisely limits himself to things of but little practical interest, and his parishioners are not offended: "That is my sentiment exactly," says the most worldly man in the church, "Religion is too pure to be mixed up with the practical business of the street." The original and effectual preaching in such cases, is not from the pulpit down upon the pews, but from the pews np to the pulpit, which only echoes, consciously or otherwise, but does not speak.